June 28 2015 sermon: A Time To Come ... And A Time To Go

There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens: a time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to uproot, a time to kill and a time to heal, a time to tear down and a time to build, a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance, a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them, a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing, a time to search and a time to give up, a time to keep and a time to throw away, a time to tear and a time to mend, a time to be silent and a time to speak, a time to love and a time to hate, a time for war and a time for peace. What do workers gain from their toil? I have seen the burden God has laid on the human race. He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end. I know that there is nothing better for people than to be happy and to do good while they live. That each of them may eat and drink, and find satisfaction in all their toil - this is the gift of God. I know that everything God does will endure forever; nothing can be added to it and nothing taken from it. God does it so that people will fear him. Whatever is has already been, and what will be has been before; and God will call the past to account. 

(Ecclesiastes 3:1-15)

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     A colleague of mine who was leaving her congregation after several years of service posted the following words on Facebook not too long ago: “Where is the good in good bye?” It’s a fair question. It’s one I’ve been struggling with for 105 days now, since I told you all on March 15 that I’d be leaving. At the time it still seemed like a long way off. Now, all of a sudden, here it is. My last service at Central United Church. I feel that I should have something wise and powerful or uplifting and enlightening to share with you today. But ever since I read it, I’ve been burdened with that question: “where is the good in good bye?”

     Well, the more I think about it, the more I realize that there might in fact be nothing good about good bye. Good byes are hard - personally, I hate them! But it’s a little bit like what I was talking about last week - good byes may be hard, but they’re also inevitable. The simple truth is that in one way or another every single relationship we’ll ever have is going to end with some sort of good bye. And usually it’s not good. After all, if it’s someone you’ve taken the time to want to say good bye to, then you’re probably not doing it joyously. There’s an element of grief involved in good byes; an undeniable sadness. I look out at the congregation here today and I see folks here with whom I’ve shared wonderful times of celebration; but I also see folks with whom I’ve shared terrible times of grief. Those experiences create a bond between people - and pastors create more of those bonds than most people just because of the nature of the vocation. And to say good bye to those of you with whom I’ve shared those moments is very hard. So, is there anything good about good bye? Probably not - but if good bye isn’t good, we can still say that good bye involves God. That’s something to reflect on.

     Ecclesiastes 3 is one of my favourite passages of Scripture. It’s a favourite of mine because it doesn’t shirk things. It just gives us a whole list of the sorts of things that people might face in life, usually in contrasts - love and hate; peace and war, birth and death, etc., etc. - and it just tells us that there’s a time for all of them. I don’t think it’s trying to say that God is the cause of all of them. It’s just saying that things happen in life, and it’s reminding us that, really, there’s not much we can do to stop them, and I think it is assuring us that while God isn’t causing these things, God is with us in them all - celebrating with us in times of joy and grieving with us in times of sorrow. Understanding that God is with us but not controlling us means that sometimes we have to do the hard work of discernment. We may not get to decide when we’re going to be born or when we’re going to die, but sometimes we do have to discern when it’s “a time to search and a time to give up, [or] a time to keep and a time to throw away [or] even a time for war or a time for peace.…” And there’s one thing that Solomon forgot to put in his list. We also have to discern when it’s a time to come, and when it’s a time to go. And it’s not easy.

     Over the last 105 days I’ve had people ask me why and how I made the decision to move on - and it isn’t always easy to explain, except that I felt that I had done what I had come here to do - whatever that was, because sometimes we wonder what our impact has been or what our purpose was. Lots of people - ministers as much as anyone - wonder what their purpose in a particular place and at a particular time is, and sometimes we worry about whether we’ve been successful or not. We develop bonds, we put down deep roots, we stand with families in good times and in bad times - but is that it? And if that is it, well - that isn’t a bad thing. Being a pastor is a great privilege that only a few get to experience, and I’m grateful to have been one of only 33 people since 1859 to have worn the title of “Lead Minister” of this congregation - and only Rev. George Knighton (who a few of you remember) was here longer than I’ve been. And to go is hard. But it’s time. It’s not that there isn’t more work to do here. It’s just that I have no more work to do here. I believe that I’ve done the ministry that God brought me here to do. To stay longer than necessary would be to spin my wheels, to drift, to keep on keeping on you might say - and that wouldn’t be healthy for either me or the congregation. So, for me at Central United Church, there was a time to come. Of that I have no doubt. God brought me to this place at a certain time to do a particular ministry. And now is the hard part - the time to go, and I do suspect that on July 26 I’m going to be standing in the pulpit at Pickering Village United Church for the first time, looking out at a sea of unfamiliar faces, and thinking to myself (just a bit anyway): “what have I done?”

     “No one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end,” Solomon wrote. True enough. God is a mystery sometimes. We see dimly, but only as in a mirror was the way Paul described it. We act in faith and in trust and we believe that God has some sort of purpose for us to fulfil, and if, after having discerned God’s call and done the work we feel called to, we can say with Solomon that “I know that there is nothing better for people than to be happy and to do good while they live. That each of them may eat and drink, and find satisfaction in all their toil - this is the gift of God” then we have done well. My time here at Central has been a gift to me. I have learned far more from you than I have ever been able to teach you, and I will carry my memories of Central with me to whatever ministries God calls me to in the future.

     I know that quoting yourself seems a little bit prideful, but - hey - it’s my last Sunday, so just try and fire me for it! On February 6, 2005 - the very first time that I preached from this pulpit, I said that “everyone has a concept of who and what the ideal minister is, and the simple fact is that I cannot and will not meet those ideals.” That was prophetic. I haven’t met those ideals. I confess that. I’ve made my share of mistakes and for those mistakes and for where they may have caused hurt I apologize and I seek your grace and your forgiveness. But none of those mistakes were the result of a lack of caring or a lack of compassion. And we have had some wonderful successes together. I shared with the Needs Assessment Committee that one thing I’m very proud of is that so many of you have become so much more hands on in terms of mission engagement; that when I came here the understanding of mission seemed to be of special collections three times a year with the money being given away to some other organization. And that’s fine and worthwhile - but I wanted people to learn that mission meant sometimes just helping the person you pass on the street every day; that mission meant seeing the needs that touch your life regularly and responding to them. And I have seen so much growth at Central in that respect and I hope that I was a part of bringing that about.

     I suggested at the outset that I felt that I should have something wise and powerful or uplifting and enlightening to share with you today. I don’t know if I succeeded. But I say this - be Christ in all that you do; be Christ to all whom you meet. I want to leave you with these words of Paul - the last words he wrote to the church in Corinth to whom he was so close:

Finally, brothers and sisters, farewell. Put things in order, listen to my appeal, agree with one another, live in peace; and the God of love and peace will be with you. Greet one another with a holy kiss. All the saints greet you. The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with all of you.

June 21 2015 sermon: Everything Changes - Except Jesus!

... be content with what you have, because God has said, "Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you." So we say with confidence, "The Lord is my helper; I will not be afraid. What can mere mortals do to me?" Remember your leaders, who spoke the word of God to you. Consider the outcome of their way of life and imitate their faith. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.

(Hebrews 13:5b-8)

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      Today is the first day of summer. The seasons change. They never stop. In a few unfortunately short weeks, it will be fall, and not too long after that, winter. Then will come spring and summer again. A constant cycle of change from one season to the next. It's the way of the world. Everything changes. I suppose you’d have to say that it’s one of the most obvious axioms of life: everything changes. It’s been put in various ways by various people. Louis L’Amour - a famous American author best known for westerns but who wrote in a variety of genres and was known as "America’s storyteller" - perhaps put it best when he said that "the only thing that never changes is that everything changes." Change is inevitable - and it happens everywhere. The world changes, the church changes, people change. It’s just reality. We may see change for the better - and perhaps sometimes we see the changes in other ways - but we can’t deny the reality of change. It confronts us every day of our lives.

      There’s a lot of change happening right now at Central United Church. I don’t have to tell you that, either. Today, as we celebrate Bob’s 35 years of music ministry and as we wish him well on his retirement, we’re confronted by change - and within a couple of weeks from today Central is going to be a very different place. To what end? I suppose that’s the question isn’t it as the congregation begins a cycle of three weeks in a row marked by change. Bob will retire and Darlene will step in. I’ll move on and Donna Howlett will step in. And in one sense things won’t change too much - I suspect that somehow Central United Church will survive without Bob and I and at 10:00 every Sunday morning there will still be a collection of faithful people who gather together to worship God. But in a way everything will be different, because ultimately church is about people - and as people come and go the church changes. Is that good or bad? It’s probably neither. It’s just inevitable. It’s something we have to adjust to. Today is never exactly the same as yesterday, and tomorrow simply will not be today. There will be change. The only thing that really matters is how we respond to change - do we embrace it, or do we try to flee from it?

      As hard as we might find it to embrace change, change is important. That which is new comes from something that was old; that which will be comes from that which was. Everything we are today is the result of a lifetime of change. We move through the stages of life: infancy, childhood, adulthood, old age - and, yes, eventually death. Those are all changes. But as Christians we believe that even death doesn’t put an end to us; it just changes us. And the way we live our life and manage these transitions represent the impact we have on others - which we all hope is for the better. The Indian author Amit Ray wrote that "in every change, in every falling leaf there is some pain, some beauty. And that's the way new leaves grow." Even the changes that seem to us to be the hardest to accept and the most difficult to get through lead us to something. For some people, I suppose change seems like an enemy - something to be avoided and fought against. We want everything to stay the same, at least in our nice, comfortable little corner of the world. But change shouldn’t be an enemy. Change should be a companion - it should be the thing that leads us into wonder and curiosity, because there will always be something new awaiting us - new adventures, new people, new experiences. As Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians, "if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!" And I’m not convinced that Paul just saw that as a one time thing. He understood that even Christian life was a never ending progression moving us always closer to Christ.

      So it’s right there in the Bible. Change is inevitable. We should be able to embrace it - but, really, we can’t. At least not very often. Change may be inevitable, and it may lead to something good, but we don’t know what the process is going to be for getting us there - and that piece of mystery that’s involved in constant change means that more often than not change is frightening. The reality is that when you’re comfortable and settled, you want things to stay the way they are. Sometimes even if you’re not comfortable and settled, you want things to stay the way they are because you’re afraid they might get worse. "Better the devil you know …" as has been said - although I don’t think I’d want to use that analogy specifically with regard to either Bob or myself! But there is a certain comfort involved in seeing the same faces around you and knowing basically what to expect from them. And when that changes, it can be very unsettling - whether it’s in the church or in life in general. And, while there are many other reasons, maybe that’s at least one reason that God sent Jesus.

      I find myself thinking about an old gospel hymn:

Will your anchor hold in the storms of life,

When the clouds unfold their wings of strife,

When the strong tides lift and the cables strain,

Will your anchor drift or firm remain?

      And then the song goes on: "we have an anchor that keeps the soul steadfast and sure while the billows roll." The anchor is Jesus - the same Jesus who, as we read in Hebrews, "is the same yesterday, today and forever." Sometimes in the midst of all the change swirling around, you need an anchor. Hebrews tells us to "remember [our] leaders" - and I guess Bob and I qualify on that count - but Hebrews emphasizes even more that we need to look to Jesus as our anchor. He’s "the same, yesterday, today and forever." People come and go - music directors and ministers and everybody else quite frankly - but Jesus is always here. He’s the anchor. No matter what other things change, Jesus is always with us.

      It’s been written that "you’ll never be the same person you are now ever again because every day, everything changes." The same thing can be said about the church. It’s never the same week by week. Any congregation on any given Sunday is just a snapshot of that portion of the people of God at that particular moment in time and it can never be perfectly recaptured, because change just keeps coming - and it keeps coming quickly. More quickly as time goes on it seems, and in order to get along, you need something to give you a reference point, a framework, an identity. You can’t know where you’re going or what you’re going to do until you know where you are. Jesus is that for us. He’s the one who is "the same, yesterday, today and forever." He’s the calm in the midst of the storm of change that’s constantly blowing around us. He not only tells us where we are, he tells us whose we are. We are the ever changing children of the unchanging God, who holds us close forever.

June 14 2015 sermon: The Measure Of Success

He also said, "This is what the kingdom of God is like. A man scatters seed on the ground. Night and day, whether he sleeps or gets up, the seed sprouts and grows, though he does not know how. All by itself the soil produces grain - first the stalk, then the head, then the full kernel in the head. As soon as the grain is ripe, he puts the sickle to it, because the harvest has come." Again he said, "What shall we say the kingdom of God is like, or what parable shall we use to describe it? It is like a mustard seed, which is the smallest of all seeds on earth. Yet when planted, it grows and becomes the largest of all garden plants, with such big branches that the birds can perch in its shade." With many similar parables Jesus spoke the word to them, as much as they could understand. He did not say anything to them without using a parable. But when he was alone with his own disciples, he explained everything.

(Mark 4:26-34)

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     I was talking with the children about champions, and how you become a champion. Winning a Stanley Cup helps, I guess. Actually, when you think about sports, winning game in and game out is how you measure success isn’t it. It’s all about the numbers. Whoever scores more goals or more points is the winner. It makes it all pretty simple. It’s all neat and tidy and very, very clear-cut.

     We want it to be that way in the church. We want a worldly and therefore obvious yardstick for measuring the success (and, by extension, the failure) of the church. We want it to be as clear-cut as it is in the world of sports. You win or you lose. You’re a success or you’re a failure. It sounds pretty easy - like something we should be able to do. And yet, if we look at it that way we’re going to get pretty depressed pretty quickly. How do our "numbers" look? Attendance? Finances? Hmmm. And it’s not just us. Pretty much every church has to deal with troubles in attendance or finances. And there’s no magic solution either. If I could give one piece of advice as you look ahead at the next few months - you’re not going to call a new minister and magically solve those problems. It’s an issue with society, and it affects almost all churches. So, what do we do? Do we declare it hopeless, lock the doors, close the church and go about our daily lives? I’d say not. I think we need to figure out a new yardstick for measuring success. After all, this isn’t a hockey game, and there’s no Stanley Cup that’s going to be awarded. Visible signs of success aren’t the real measure of success for a church or a community of faith. In fact, we often wonder what the so-called "mega-churches" are doing right - as if they’re doing something right just because they’re mega-churches, and we seem to easily forget that the measure of success in the church isn’t the number of people in the pews or the amount of dollars in the plate. In fact, Jesus said that the wide gate - the one that most people choose - is not the one that leads to life. That in itself should caution us about looking at numbers as the measure of success. Even in today’s passage, Jesus speaks of the mystery involved in growth: "This is what the kingdom of God is like. A man scatters seed on the ground. Night and day, whether he sleeps or gets up, the seed sprouts and grows, though he does not know how." We don’t really know how success comes about and it isn’t always obvious when it does. A lot of the growth of a plant takes place out of sight, under ground, as roots begin to spread out. We don’t see it, but buried under the soil are the signs of life.

     God works that way. God doesn’t measure things - including people - in worldly terms. There are all sorts of examples of that. Moses said that he couldn’t speak well and couldn’t do God’s work, but God chose him. David was the youngest and smallest of Jesse’s sons, but God chose him. Jeremiah was only a child, but God chose him. Mary was a young, frightened girl, but God chose her. Paul imprisoned, persecuted and murdered Christians, but God chose him. Peter denied Jesus and ran away when the going got tough, but God chose him. God judges people by a different standard than we do, and I suspect that it’s likely that God judges the church by a different standard than we do. And, if we could see things from God’s perspective, I wonder what a difference it would make to the life of the church? Rather than lamenting everything we’ve lost and everything we no longer have and continually looking to the past, I wonder if seeing things from God’s perspective might not allow us to focus on the possibilities and the potential and to look boldly into the future - to reflect not on what was but on what might be; to focus not on what we feel we can’t do but on the things we can do - on the needs around us that we can meet, on the difference we can make in people’s lives. What if we just poured ourselves into ministry and didn’t worry about whether we survived - because, after all, whoever tries to save their life will lose it, Jesus said, but whoever loses their life for his sake will find real life. So perhaps we need to stop fixating on survival - which is going to kill us - and start to think about living - which just might save us.

     I was thinking about this over the last week. Last Wednesday, the United Church of Canada turned 90 years old. We’re pretty young by the standard of many denominations, but we claim a heritage going back to Jesus and the apostles. And we’re struggling. We’re closing a church a week according to the statistics, and most of the churches we do have are declining and aging. We know that. And it would be easy for us to give up in despair - except that I just can’t let go of the thought that just maybe God has a purpose for us - for the United Church of Canada, for Central United Church, for all of us as people of the United Church. God has a purpose for us. It may not be obvious or even visible right now. Plants grow in ways we can’t see. The roots grow underground before we’re aware of any life above ground, and as we all know you can try to get rid of the dandelions, but the chances are they’re going to come back. Life is pretty resilient. Some things go extinct, but life hangs on in surprising places - deep underground, inside volcanoes, at the very bottom of the ocean. If life exists in the strangest of places, then life surely exists in the church, where the risen and living Jesus greets us and guides us. And, surely, that’s the yardstick we use to gauge the success of the church.

     Is Jesus among us? Do we believe he’s here? Do we feel his presence? Do we sense his guidance? Do we listen to his words? Do we follow his example? Do we do his ministry? Do we embrace love and grace and set aside judgment and law? Those are signs of life; those are measures of success. Do we touch the lives of those around us? Do we have an impact on the community around us? Do we do things that would be missed if we weren’t here anymore? Those are signs of life; those are measures of success.

     Basically, do we see the signs of the Holy Spirit among us? That’s the real measure of success. Are we open to the Holy Spirit or have we quenched the Holy Spirit? By that standard, I would say we’re alive and well, even if by worldly standards we’re sometimes struggling. But God doesn’t use worldly standards. God looks at those intangibles I just mentioned and God sees signs of life in them. Eventually, as Jesus said, the seed will sprout and grow, even though we may be able to neither see it nor understand it.

One Rose: A Poem For Lynn

I wrote this out of love for my beautiful wife Lynn on this, our 24th wedding anniversary. It comes from the heart.

ONE ROSE

I saw one rose, and thought:
How perfect!
One rose:
One woman, one partner, one best friend,
One lover, one soulmate.
One rose. There's no need for more.
One rose sums it up:
One life together.
One rose is all I need.
One rose says it all.
One rose.
One love together.
The two become one.
One rose - and all it says about us.

Random Thoughts On The United Church's 90th Birthday

     90 years ago today the United Church of Canada came into being. On June 10, 1925 at the Mutual Street Arena in Toronto, representatives of the Presbyterian Church, the Methodist Church and the Congregational Church joined together to create a new denomination and to act as the First General Council. Much has happened since - much that we can be proud of and much that we should hang our collective head over. But I suppose that makes us no different than any other church. The Church Union was enhanced in 1968 with the addition of the Evangelical United Brethren - and some of the most vibrant United Churches I know today are former EUB churches. I wonder what that says, if anything? Or if it's just a coincidence? And over the years several independent congregations have chosen to enter the denomination. And, of course, we almost merged with the Anglicans back in the 1970's, but the merger proposal fell apart for various reasons. All of that was before my time in the United Church. I came to the church in the late 1980's, entered the ministry in 1994, and 21 years later I'm still serving, and watching, and waiting to see what God will do with this denomination that has served as my spiritual home for closing in on 30 years now.


     We're facing challenging times. Most churches are. There remain a lot of people who claim spirituality, but want nothing to do with what they refer to as "organized religion." I'll withhold comment on that. It's just a sign of the times; a reality of the current era that the church has to find some way to come to terms with. But the impact on the church has been dramatic. Attendance is going down in most places, deficits are rising in most places, membership is aging in most places. And yet, at the same time, the "spiritual but not religious folk" still often turn to the church for things like baptisms and weddings and funerals. We have to be there for them, but there's little commitment offered back. Yes, these are definitely challenging times. The truly challenging thing is that everyone says they want a solution, but they want it now - and there really isn't any way to solve the problems we face "now." There's going to have to be a lot of soul-searching. I guess, though, I wonder where we are now. We usually worry about where we're going - but I'm not sure you can set a direction until you figure out where you are, and I think that's one of the United Church's biggest problems. We're just not sure where we are or what we are right now. We want to be inclusive - but that's largely a myth. Like almost every group out there, we're mostly inclusive of those we like and agree with, meaning those we don't like (let's admit it) and those we don't agree with (who, by coincidence, often become those we don't like) don't really feel included. But we proclaim it - oh yes, and social justice. Or, increasingly, just plain justice. We stand for that, even if we're not quite sure what it means. We do stand for Jesus. Some would question that, but I don't. Even in my time in the church I've noticed a positive change. When I was a student, back in the early 90's, I don't remember there being a lot of "Jesus-talk" in the United Church. There was lots of talk about God, and lots of talk about an amorphous "spirit" (rarely named as the Holy Spirit - a trend I still notice today.) In fact there was so much talk about God and the Spirit that one of my mentors at the time said that the United Church had become a "bi-nitarian" church. It wasn't meant as a compliment. But in recent years, while the "spirit" is still often amorphous, there does seem to be more talk about Jesus - and also a bit of a pushback, I suppose, from those who yearn for the bi-nity of the 80's and 90's. But I do believe we've come out of that funk, and we're wanting to follow Jesus. That's a positive sign to me. I've also noticed a renewed interest in preaching - which is also positive. When I was studying, preaching seemed to be a bit of an afterthought in my schooling. Yes, there was a required course, but overall the emphasis seemed to be anti-preaching, as if preaching had lost its power to reach people. I think that's turned around as well. There's more emphasis on practical ministry skills in my opinion - and preaching is as practical as you get in the ministry. You do it at least every Sunday, and sometimes more often. So more people (especially lay people) seem to be being trained to preach. Now, in my view you can't really be taught to preach. You can either do it or you can't. But you can learn to be better, and I think we've placed more emphasis on that. A positive I think.


     Attendance and finances and age are problems in our congregations; they're also problems in our denomination. I don't think we're handling that challenge particularly well. The so-called "Comprehensive Review" in my opinion has good intentions, but it's happening for the wrong reasons. The proposals, in my view, don't represent any real sense that this is where God is leading us. The whole process, instead, seems motivated by our fears about the future; our fears about running out of money; our fears about not having enough people left to be the church. A church can't run on fear, which is why I don't believe anything coming out of the Comprehensive Review is going to solve the problems or overcome the challenges facing the United Church. It will change the structure, but it won't change much else. It might, though, buy us more time to really listen for direction from THE HOLY SPIRIT.


     I do wonder why we have so many church buildings. It's a problem everywhere I've served - too many United Churches too close to each other - but for now I'm thinking about the situation here in Niagara. I'm moving on soon, so now I can say this openly - at least as openly as this blog allows - without concerning myself with whether the folks from the other two churches in town are bothered by it: why do we need three United Churches within the city limits of Port Colborne? No other Protestant denomination feels the need to have more than one. It's a city of 20000 people - and how many of them actually "pack" the three United Churches on any given Sunday? Having one "Port Colborne United Church" would be a positive in my opinion. I'd love to see it happen. Maybe it could start with some thought of at least sharing ministry among those three congregations in some configuration. Or even a South Niagara Circuit of sorts. There's a bunch of United Churches along the Highway 3 corridor, from Ridgeway to Wainfleet. That's an opportunity that should be looked at. I've even wondered why we couldn't share ministry staff with the local Presbyterian Church. I know each denomination would have all sorts of ropes that a minister would have to untangle before being allowed to serve the other denomination's congregation. But ropes can strangle us - so why couldn't we? Why shouldn't we? Why not have a joint United-Presbyterian congregation in Port Colborne? Why don't members of the two congregations just make it happen and then dare their respective denominations to stop them? And if the denominations did tell the congregations to forget it and stopped such co-operation, well, that would be a sign to me of something not good, and of priorities being out of whack. And, of course, we are in love with our buildings, and they do get in the way of such co-operation. And we like our denominational identities, so feeling them slipping away for the sake of being ecumenical would be uncomfortable. But at least I do see some steps forward in this area. It's a matter of having the courage and the vision to make something happen.

　
      You know - for all the problems I see, I actually have a lot of hope for the future of the United Church. I think we have a place in this society, and a role to play. We may emerge from this troubled time as a smaller denomination, but that doesn't necessarily mean weaker. If we can pool resources and learn to work together, there's a lot of hope. And if we're willing - really willing - to follow Jesus then there are all sorts of possibilities. Following Jesus means taking risks. He told us that whoever tries to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for his sake would gain true life. That applies to churches as much as to people. Trying to survive won't cut it for long. It just puts us on a downward spiral. But being willing to risk all - that's the way to make a positive difference in the world around us: pouring everythig out for the sake of those whom Jesus loved. That's a big risk. It will be tough to convince people to do it. But it's possible.

　
      For now, as I've often said, there's always hope - because there's always God.

     Happy birthday, United Church of Canada!

June 7 2015 sermon: Understanding The Unforgivable Sin

Then Jesus entered a house, and again a crowd gathered, so that he and his disciples were not even able to eat. When his family heard about this, they went to take charge of him, for they said, "He is out of his mind." And the teachers of the law who came down from Jerusalem said, "He is possessed by Beelzebul! By the prince of demons he is driving out demons." So Jesus called them over to him and began to speak to them in parables: "How can Satan drive out Satan? If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. If a house is divided against itself, that house cannot stand. And if Satan opposes himself and is divided, he cannot stand; his end has come. In fact, no one can enter a strong man’s house without first tying him up. Then he can plunder the strong man’s house. Truly I tell you, people can be forgiven all their sins and every slander they utter, but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will never be forgiven; they are guilty of an eternal sin." He said this because they were saying, "He has an impure spirit." Then Jesus’ mother and brothers arrived. Standing outside, they sent someone in to call him. A crowd was sitting around him, and they told him, "Your mother and brothers are outside looking for you." "Who are my mother and my brothers?" he asked. Then he looked at those seated in a circle around him and said, "Here are my mother and my brothers! Whoever does God’s will is my brother and sister and mother."

(Mark 3:20-35)

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     It sounds so un-Christians, and, frankly, so lacking in grace. Really, the very idea of an "unforgivable sin" just doesn’t sound like something Jesus would talk about. He was all about forgiveness, after all. And the Bible actually tells us that Jesus was the grace of God come down to earth. And yet, for all that, he says that "whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will never be forgiven; they are guilty of an eternal sin." Well, that’s heart-warming. Especially on a Sunday when we’ve gathered together here, as God’s children, as followers of Jesus, with the table set before us, ready once again to receive the elements as a sign of the grace of God that’s come down to us. And on this Sunday, we’re confronted by the concept of an unforgivable, eternal sin. It just doesn’t fit. It’s jarring. To the extent that we have a comfort zone to our faith, this definitely pushes us out of that comfort zone. Which may not be a bad thing, actually. A comfortable faith isn’t necessarily what Jesus wanted us to have I’d say. But still, "unforgivable?" That’s harsh. Really harsh. It’s made all the hasher by the fact that Jesus doesn’t really explain in any great detail what this unforgivable sin is. And maybe that’s the origin of legalism - the anti-grace kind of thinking that a lot of Christians fall into and that seems to characterize what many non-Christians think Christianity is about: the fear of sin, to the point at which our faith becomes little more than a moral code presided over by a God and a church that’s always ready to punish us for our sins. Billy Graham, in a book entitled simply The Holy Spirit, described the effect of this way of thinking quite well:

     "When my father was a young man," he wrote,

he attended a revival meeting in North Carolina and became convinced through a sermon on this subject that he had committed the unpardonable sin. And he lived with this awful thought for many years. He agonized over it, was frightened by it,and thought of himself as a doomed man who could never repent of his sin.

     Unforgiveness (even the fear of it) is a horrible thing to live with - especially when we’re convinced that it’s God who is unforgiving!

     And yet, here - before us - we have "the means of grace." That’s what our sacraments are. Baptism is a means of grace - it symbolizes our acceptance by God. Communion is a means of grace - it symbolizes God’s never-ending welcome to come to him and be refreshed by him. God’s grace is extended without condition and without limit. That’s what we proclaim week after week whenever we come together - the unlimited access we have to divine grace, and its unimaginable depths. But now we’re confronted with the possibility of a limit to grace, and what exactly do we make of that?

     As always, it’s the context that matters. In the passage the crowds have surrounded Jesus because they have just witnessed him driving evil spirits out of people and healing them of illnesses - setting them free, in other words, from the things that held them in bondage and restoring them to wholeness and dignity. And in the midst of the crowds that surrounded him were a group of Pharisees who accused him of being in league with the devil. In the passage, even his own family thought something was wrong. Asark wrote, they thought Jesus was "out of his mind." But the Pharisees had gone further and accused him of being satanic. That’s who the comment about the unforgivable sin was addressed to. To blaspheme the Holy Spirit is to have a completely depraved sense of the divine - to see that which is clearly of God and which obviously further God’s purposes and to accuse it of being satanic. Or it could be the reverse - to take that which is clearly evil and declare it to be good, or even of God. It’s unforgivable not because God won’t or can’t forgive it, but because if one knows the truth - as the Pharisees did because they had seen it with their own eyes - and still rejects it, then one has cut oneself off from the truth - and ultimately it’s the truth that sets us free. We don’t have to know the whole truth, but we can’t cut ourselves off from knowing the truth.

     As long as we’re seekers of truth, we’re also able to avail ourselves of God’s grace. If we’re unsettled at the prospect of an unforgivable sin and disturbed by the possibility that we might be guilty of it - that in itself is probably a sign that we aren’t guilty of it. We’re still in touch with the Holy Spirit; still being drawn to the truth we find in Jesus. What we find in this passage is that in Jesus the Spirit of God is at work. That much we knew from the beginning, in the sign of the descent of God’s Spirit upon him at his baptism. God has revealed who Jesus is; God’s promise is that in Jesus’ journey among and with us God will be at work. To question or reject that presence and the signs of God’s kingdom on this journey is to miss out on the good news that God has in store for us. But we see the signs of God’s Kingdom among us. Today, we see it in bread and wine - reminders of God’s grace: a grace that came to us and remains with us in Jesus.