Jenny's Musings

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Quarterly Message
Love God, Love Others

Sermon
February 5, 2012
January 29, 2012
January 22, 2012

Effie, Penelope and Bart (Advent Angels)
Peace, Hope, Love, Joy
Advent 1,
Advent 2,
Advent 3,
Advent 4,
Advent 5,

Announcements
Notice

February 5, 2012

So, last week as I was watching the “Food Network” I learned something other than how to braise a lamb shank. I learned that in New Orleans, when people greet one another, they don’t say “Hi, how are you?” They say, “Where you at?” Now, prior to this week, if someone had come up to me and asked me that, I may have looked at them strangely and replied “Where am I at? I’m right here – in front of you.” But as I thought about this strange new greeting, I discovered that I think this is a far better greeting than “how are you” – to which we normally reply “I’m fine” whether we’re fine or not. In comparison, the saying “where you at?” encourages us to go a little deeper, to maybe even ask ourselves “where am I”? Where am I as a person? Where am I in my life? Where am I at this moment – am I truly here with the people who are around me, or am I distracted by my worries and commitments and only half paying attention to the people and the moment currently in front of me?

In many ways, our reading from Mark is asking us the very same thing. It’s asking us “where are we at” – but it is easy to miss this question. Mostly it’s easy to miss because we want to hear the story as a historical account of the day in the life of Jesus, when actually, this passage is pure theology. To make matters even more difficult, because we divide the Bible up into sections, or passages, that seem more manageable for a Sunday service, we tend to forget that none of these passages exist in isolation – they build one upon the other – each reading from every Sunday is connected to the previous reading from the previous Sunday. I mention this because as I continue making my point you’re going to notice that I mention what happened last week in Mark’s gospel, but even more than that, I mention it because whenever we read or hear something from scripture we have to always put it into a wider context. That is, we need to keep in mind the bigger picture of the bigger truth contained in the stories about Jesus’ life, ministry, death and resurrection.

So, last week Jesus and his disciples were in the synagogue – and as Jesus was teaching a man possessed by an evil spirit interrupted him, to which Jesus responded by casting out the evil demon and returning the man to wholeness, where he could finally be himself. From the synagogue we go to a private home (historically the site of the early Christian communities and churches) where Simon’s mother in law is sick. It is not said that she has an impure spirit, like the man in the synagogue, but simply a fever – a fever that keeps her from working. She seems impotent; nobody helps her. She is simply lying there, all alone. But Jesus goes in, grabs her hand firmly to raise her up – and once up, she begins to serve. It is important to note that the true significance of that “raising up” and “serving” is lost in the translation to English. The Greek word for “raised up” is the same as the one used to describe Jesus’ resurrection – and the Greek word for ‘serve” is the one used to describe the work of ministry. So, it’s not that the mother-in-law got up to serve soup to a bunch of lazy men type people – on the contrary. While she might have fed them, her response was one of ministry. She saw a need and because Jesus’ had returned her to wholeness and health, she sought to meet that need – and that my friends is ministry.

And that my friends, is what this passage is all about. In theological terms, Christ shows his intervention in the field dominated by evil, death, and illness. It is the divine victory over the forces of evil and death – whether or not the “evil” or “death” is physical, political, religious, spiritual, or found in our relationships. The sickness he confronts, the evil he casts out – are often termed as “demonic” forces. But he is not speaking of the demonic forces that we are familiar with thanks to Hollywood movies. He is casting out, or pointing out, or calling to account, all of those ways of living and being that do not serve the purposes of love and justice and kindness and compassion. He is casting out all of the things in the world that keep some people down, while exalting others – whether that is in our churches, our politics, or our homes. Further, once we see the truth of what he is doing, once we are healed, or made whole by this truth, we only have one response to make. We get up, embrace the new and whole life we have been given, and then we get busy looking for, and filling, the needs of those around us.

So back to New Orleans for a minute – “where you at?” What “demons” are you afflicted by? What systems are you caught up in that keep some down and others up? What is your role in that system? What ‘sickness” is keeping you down, feeling all alone and feeling like you’re without any power to change things? Take a look at the spheres of life in which you live: world, nation, community, religion, and home. Where is the system making you sick or less than you could or should be? Where is it making others less than they could be? Those are the demonic places that Christ is intervening in, and has power over. Those are the places that, once we embrace God’s love for us and our own healing, and the wholeness as humans that flows out of that love, we are called to serve in. In other words, just like Jesus showed us, healing and wholeness bring about life renewed and life abundant for all – we are being asked to engage a ministry of love: a ministry that looks for the needs of others and then works to fill those needs.

All this talk of systems can be confusing – but Jesus’ whole life was about calling them to account – so it’s important to think about them. Perhaps an easier way to understand the whole concept is to speak of the world – us included – as having bad habits. The world has a lot of bad habits. The bad habit of treating some people better than others. The bad habit of one nation taking another nation’s stuff. The bad habit of making the poor even more poor, while making others ever richer. In churches we have bad habits. Sometimes we confuse faith with church rules. Sometimes we shy away from the difficult decisions or the difficult people. Then there are the bad habits we have in our relationships with families and friends. What Jesus knew, and I seem to have to learn over and over, is that the best way to break a bad habit is not to simply command them to stop – but to substitute a positive habit for a bad one. That is what Jesus did. He called the bad habits he saw, and he said instead of doing that “bad” thing – do the positive thing – love fully, love well, love even when it seems difficult or impossible.

A final bit of theological wisdom from this story is this: when in doubt about what your loving should look like – go off by yourself and pray. Spend some time alone with God and let God help you decide how it is you will bring love and life to whatever system you’re worried about – whatever bad habit you want to break. In doing that, we are truly following Jesus, and in that following we are embracing the new life he is bringing us.
May it be so in your life and in mine

Amen.

Announcements
Notice

January 22, 2012

There are days when life seems to demand of us things we simply don’t want to do. One of the best things about being a grown up is we have the freedom and the power to simply not do them. I love that! I don’t like to watch sad or gory movies, so I don’t. I don’t like to recycle – you know, the actual taking in of the empty bottles and jugs – so I let my kids do it for me. I’m not sure they like doing it any better than I do, but I’m older and sometimes I get to do stuff just because of my age. I love that too! Yet there are some things that are foisted upon us, and even though we don’t want to do them, we still have to. Maybe we pout a little bit, or whine, or even cry – but we do them because we have to. I am in the middle of redoing my kitchen cabinets – and since I wanted to stain them I had to sand them. Now, I don’t mind the initial sanding – but it’s the repeated sanding with ever finer grit paper that I didn’t want to do. For many days last week, as I would pretend to ignore the collection of cupboard doors standing about my little apartment, they continued to call to me “sand me Jenny, sand me!” And so, even though the novelty of sanding had long since worn off – I heeded their call and sanded them. I also heeded the call to clean out my cupboards – nothing like having no doors to hide stuff make you feel like you should clean stuff. That I don’t love so much! Then there are the really serious things in life that we don’t want to do, but have to do anyway. Things like sit with a loved one while they are sick or dying – it’s really hard to be there, but it would be harder not to be there and we are needed there, and so we do it. Yes, there are things in life we have to do – things we are called to do – and even if they are sad or unpleasant or not what we would choose to do – we do them.

Our reading from Jonah this morning is very much about a man not wanting to do something. While we heard that Jonah did preach a sermon of consequences to the Ninevites – and they repented and so were not destroyed – that isn’t the whole story. To understand this book we need to see what happened before this and what happened after. Before the little bit we heard, comes the first call of Jonah – the first call that God issued to him that said he was to go to Nineveh and ‘cry out against them for their wickedness.” Now, Jonah doesn’t want to do this – the Ninevites are the enemy, and everyone knows they are a bad lot – they’re born bad, live bad, and should die bad. Everyone knows that! If Jonah were God, he would do just that! So, not wanting any part of it, Jonah hops a ship going in the opposite direction. He doesn’t want to do it, so he decides not to. He decides to run away from the hard thing, the distasteful thing, God has asked him to do. Well, they are not long out at sea when a huge storm arises, and the crew figures they are all going to drown. Jonah, being a decent sort at heart, says the only thing that will save them is if they throw him overboard. The sailors don’t want to do it. Yet, as the storm worsens, they decide they have no other options and so they toss that little stubborn prophet overboard. Seems all is lost for Jonah, and not wanting to drown, he prays to God to save him – miraculously a whale swallows him up and safely transports him back to his home port – back to the very beginning of his journey – the place he was before he decided to run away. God is still there. His job in Nineveh still needs doing. So, feeling decidedly angry and put upon, and most likely mumbling bad words under his breath, Jonah goes where God has asked him to go, and does what God has asked him to do. He is not a happy prophet! We heard that the Ninevites heard him, repented, and were saved. What we didn’t hear read is what happened after that. You see, after God saved the Ninevites, Jonah was most displeased. In fact, displeased is too tame a word. Jonah was so angry with God for doing that, he decided to go right out into the desert where he would sit down and die!

Clearly, he was consumed by his anger at God. Yet even in his angry state, God was with him out in the wilderness. Sometimes God does God’s best teaching when we’re angry and in nowheresville, and that’s what happened to Jonah. Now, Jonah was hot, so God caused a plant to grow up and give Jonah shade. Needless to say Jonah was very happy with his little plant. Then God caused the little plant to wither and die, and again Jonah was most displeased. Then God delivered the lesson – how could Jonah be so concerned about the little plant’s short life and not concerned about all of the lives of the people in Niniveh?

This is such a rich story – we could spend months mining it for theological gold. At its very centre is God’s concern for every living person and creature in the universe – and how that concern; that love for all, is shown in the saving grace God always shows – even to those creatures who are doing great wrong. This is what made Jonah run, and what made him so angry. You see, Jonah knew that God would relent in the punishment and decide to save instead. In Jonah’s opinion, the Ninevites should be smited off the face of the earth. The Ninevites weren’t God fearing people – they were bad and godless people. The world would be better off without them.

The reason this story is told is that it serves to remind us that it is very easy for our understanding of the world, and our ideas of the right way to live in that world, to become too small and narrow. It reminds us that if God views all life as important – then how can we not? If the well-being of a group of people who live very differently than the Jewish people – a people who didn’t even know God, let alone try to live good and decent lives – was important to God, then how on earth could Jonah, or us, be so judgmental and quick to condemn?

Now, it’s very clear to me that none of us in this room would even utter the thought that there is a whole group of people in our world that don’t deserve to exist. We come every Sunday and meet a God of grace – a God of love – and we know that God’s love and concern is for all. Yet the question for us is, “what about our love? Is our love and concern for all?” Who is it we have prejudged? Who in this world do we believe is “beyond the pale”? What individual or group do we feel it’s simply not worth our time or trouble to bother acknowledging, work alongside, or endeavoring to share a message of concern with? Who do we shy away from delivering a hard truth to? This powerful little story is asking us those questions. Now we can run away from them if we want to – we’re grown-ups after all – but know that if we do, we will end up like Jonah – not in the belly of a whale, most assuredly, but right back to where we started from. In other words, we will never grow from the people we are to the people we could be if we don’t move beyond our starting place. We have to be willing to move beyond the comfort of what is known and what we believe is the only way to live – if we are to evolve into better humans living in a better world.

As I look back over my own life I can see the times I have been exactly like Jonah. Like everyone, I carry around with me a sense of how to live – and for me that has always meant kindness, love, and gentleness. Yet I have met people who, judging by their actions, do not view any of those things as important. I remember my time working at First United Church Mission, where I worked with all kinds of people in various forms of distress – people living very different lives than I did. For the most part, I think I did what God wanted me to do and I embraced them with a deep concern for their well-being. Except for this one guy. When I first met him I wanted him to disappear – he was, in my opinion, an awful excuse for a human. He was making his living off of a very young girl who he had working in the sex trade. He said she was 18, but she looked more like 13. To make matters worse, she reminded me a lot of my own 13 year old. I couldn’t get beyond my “Jonah moment” – I was so angry I left him sitting in my office as I went and told the Executive Director that she needed to deal with him, I wouldn’t.

If I had that moment to live over I am not sure what I would do – I would hope that my years of living have taught me a little more grace and compassion and that I could have put my feelings aside and done my job – but I am not sure of that. What I am sure of though is that my years of living have taught me to be somewhat reflective about how I view and judge other people. That is, when I sense my own discomfort, or when I think that a behaviour is wrong, I try to view that person as God would view that person – with love and grace. When I do that, most often the exchange between the other person and me results in a pleasant exchange and even positive growth for us both.

The take home message for all of us is to not let our worldview, our beliefs about what is the “right way to be” interfere with working alongside of our friends, family, and world neighbours in such a way that all of our lives, all of our world, might grow into the people and the world and the families of love that they were created to be. To not shy away from the hard tasks, the difficult messages, the sense that we are leaving the known and comfortable behind as we endeavour to establish relationships built on compassion and grace. That we may do what God is calling us to do – and that is love all.
May it be so in your life, and in mine.

Amen.

Announcements
Notice

January 29, 2012

Have you ever been at a loss for words? A situation has so moved you that you simply can’t speak, let alone describe what it is you’re feeling? There have been many times in my life that it has happened to me, and I am sure that it has happened to each one of you too. Just last week I was driving with my daughter and grand-daughter in the car, and it was a perfect sunny winter’s day. The joy of having two of the people I love the most in the world in the car, combined with the play of light off the snowy hills and farmer’s fields, and the sense that all was right in the universe filled me up – and if someone had asked me to describe what I was feeling at that moment I might have had to say “happy” – but that wasn’t quite it. I was happy, but I was more than that – words fail. Then there are the other times – the truly tragic and sad times – where the words not only fail, but any you might find are inadequate. Yet, as limited as words are, they are all we have when trying to explain ourselves enough so that others might understand. Words are all we have to pass on our experiences or our knowledge to those who share our lives in the now, and to those who come behind us. So, the truly wise person will always remember that words are simply an attempt to describe something as “best we can” in the hopes of communicating some approximation of the truth of a situation as we see it. Words fail. Which is unfortunate since I spent a whack of money in minister school trying to learn as many words as I could! Yet, truly, the more words I learn, the more time I spend in ministry, the more I know that words are so limited that they will always fail to do exactly what we want them to do.

This is especially true when we try to describe God. We, the church, have spent thousands of years trying to use our words to describe something that is both immanent (inside us) and transcendent (beyond us). That holy mystery that surrounds us – we can feel it, we can catch glimpses of it, but try as we might, we can never adequately define it – we are limited not only in our words, but we are limited in experience and understanding. Now, we aren’t cast adrift to try and figure everything out on our own. At the foundation of our faith, we have the bible – a collection of stories and literary works from our ancestors in the faith – people from very different times and cultures – and we use their experiences of God, to come up with some words that will help us describe God for ourselves. To me that makes sense – if you’ve never seen the ocean, it is sometimes helpful to ask someone who has before you decide to swim it – so it seems like a good first step to listen to the voices and experiences of faithful people that came before us. That is why, in the reformed tradition that we are a part of – scripture is held as the highest standard when we are trying to get to know God, and how God works. From scripture we have learned that God created, God loved, humans messed up, God saved. Humans messed up again, God saved again, and again, and again. So, whatever we may be experiencing or trying to explain with our words, if we remember the truth of God’s saving love that we have learned in the bible, then we will be on ground that is more solid.

Now, you might well be wondering why I am talking about this. Why am I talking about what it is we believe about God? Why am I making the case for having the bible as the highest standard when we think about God? And why, on God’s green earth, am I reminding all of us that words fail? Well, as a denomination, we in the United Church of Canada are taking a look at our doctrine – those statements we hold to be true about God – those statements that give us the parameters of our faith – and we are asking ourselves if the words that were written almost one hundred years ago still fit for us in the here and now. While it is true that God never changes – we humans do. Our knowledge of the world, our understanding of ourselves, our experiences of others are different in each generation – and so the question is being raised “do the words that form our doctrine fit with what you (as an individual and as a congregation) have learned about God where you live?” In an attempt to answer this question, the General Council of the United Church has initiated what is called a remit – or a vote – whereby people (and when I say “people” I mean you and me, the people in the pews and the ones up front) will look at the doctrine we currently have, as well as three other doctrinal wannabe documents – to see if they ‘fit” – to see if they help us understand God better.

To do that, every congregation is being asked to review and talk about what our current doctrine is, and what the potential additions are, and then have the church Board vote on, whether or not to include the three additional statements to our doctrine. To be clear, the doctrine that was written when our denomination was formed almost 100 years ago will remain as doctrine, what the church wants to do is to add to this section – nothing will be lost, but more will be added. Over the past few months I have made the potential additions available to you – they include: the 1940 Statement of Faith; The New Creed (of which we are all familiar); as well as the “Song of Faith” document that was written about 6 years ago.

I have spent a lot of time reviewing all of these statements. They are all saying essentially the same thing – God created and is continuing to create; Jesus Christ is the saving power of love; the Holy Spirit encourages and challenges us in our daily lives to live lives worthy of God; to turn away from sin and embrace love; and that there is a purpose and a direction for all of creation, and ultimately it all will be healed and made whole and perfect. What is different is the language used. In our current doctrine, the language may have made sense to the people of 100 years ago – but it has less resonance for us in this time. While most of what we said we believed originally is reflected in the later statements, there are a couple of things that are not in them. Now, it is important to remember that our original doctrine was formed by three very different denominations – the Presbyterians, the Methodists, and the Congregationalists – that had to agree on them before church union could happen. So there were some things included that, even at the time, folks did not hold to be true. As early as 1940 many of the reformed and mainline traditions had said that their experience in relationship with God, and scripture itself, did not support the notion that there was a hell where God sent people if they were bad during their lives. So in the latter statements the concept that “all are saved” is included.

Now, a word of warning – doctrine can mess you up! I say that, not because I don’t think it is important, because I certainly do. I say that because we humans tend to think that just because something is in writing, or someone in authority has said something, and fancy words are used, then we have to believe in the words. No. When it comes to faith we are called to believe in God – and words might help us to do that, but words fail. No words can adequately describe God – words are simply our best attempt given the status of our knowledge and our current experience. A better way in to this whole enterprise is to take some time and examine what YOU know about God. What do you feel to be good and right and noble and true? What has your relationship with God taught you about yourself and your world? What is the hope you live by? Maybe even ask the question “who is Jesus for me?” You see, in the faith tradition of which we are a part – doctrine is important, but it is subordinate to the bible and to lived faith. That is why we call doctrine a “subordinate standard” – yes it is a standard for our faith – but it comes after we have examined what the Holy Spirit has worked in our hearts, and left us to discover in scripture. After you have done that, then I strongly encourage you to look at the statements of faith under consideration. Ask yourselves if it fits? Is it relevant? Is it helpful in your understanding of all things divine? Is it something you would want to leave behind for your children and grand-children as they seek a relationship with God? That my friends, is the task before us.

Today after the service we are eating lunch together. This is an excellent time to maybe talk a little bit about God – to share what you believe with others, and have them share with you. If you’ve read the statements of faith under consideration, you may want to talk about that as well. At the Board meeting in March we will be voting on the remit on your behalf – so if you have definite opinions on any of these statements, it would be most helpful if you let a member of the Board, or myself, know of them. And of course, if you want to sit down with me and some others to fully explore these statements I would be thrilled to do that too.

We are being given an opportunity here to help the church we love. We are being asked to share our experiences of God so that our church, our denomination, might remain relevant and God centered, and be of help to not only us, but helpful to those who come after us. This sharing might feel a bit risky, but if we dare to do it, not only will our church benefit, but we ourselves will grow in faith and in life.
May it be so in your life, and in mine.

Amen.

Announcements
Notice

Shrove Tuesday
The supper will be at St. Peter's Anglican Church on February 21, 2012
for more info see Barry Sale

Lenten Speaker Series - Working in Africa
7 pm on Tuesday February 28, 2012
for more info click on link above or see Rev Jenny Carter

Congregation meeting
Sunday, March 4, 2012 - 11:30 am
for more info see Ross McCoubrey

Lenten Speaker Series - Early Years in Williams Lake
7 pm on Tuesday March 6, 2012
for more info click on link above or see Rev Jenny Carter

Remit #6
Board will vote on March 13, 2012
for more info see Rev Jenny Carter

Lenten Speaker Series - The Healing Journey
7 pm on Tuesday March 13, 2012
for more info click on link above or see Rev Jenny Carter

Lenten Speaker Series - Life After Death
7 pm on Tuesday March 20, 2012
for more info click on link above or see Rev Jenny Carter

Lenten Speaker Series - Regaining Democracy
7 pm on Tuesday March 27, 2012
for more info click on link above or see Rev Jenny Carter

Spring Cariboo Presbytery meeting
April 20-22 in McBride
for more info see Janet Whalley

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