May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be pleasing in thy sight, amen.
Good Morning
First, I want to make two points
The first is a word of word of warning to my friends from Fort Massey and St. Andrew’s. This is a traditional warning that St. Mattthew’s members are used to whenever I speak, but I will now repeat for new friends:
St. Matt’s has had a wealth of fine preachers over the years. Often, they have spent years in comparative religious study or examination of the gospels and often the study of rhetoric. The names of these fine preachers are on the tablets behind me. Unfortunately for you My name is not on those tablets.
Secondly: There is hope however for some substance to my efforts as a significant portion of my reflection this morning was unintentionally written by our soon to be officially retired Minister Betsy Hogan. I’ll let you know when we get to it.
So with that disclaimer and teaser out of the way Let’s begin.
The title of today’s sermon is The How and Why of raising not so ancient ruins. When I’m asked to provide the reflection I do look at the lectionary and hope that the muse descends and fortunately this time two of the lectionary selections did strike home for me: the reading from Isiah regarding the raising of ancient ruins that Coleen read for us -and also from Luke the story of the healing of the woman on the sabbath read to us by Janet. And I want to talk about those two passages in the context of our ongoing efforts to draft an amalgamation charter for our three churches and the recent survey we had done: specifically with regard to two particular pieces of information\
The first piece of information from the survey that I found intriguing -Over 60% of all of those responding to the survey were over 65 years of age. In one congregation it was 72% Secondly and perhaps much more disturbing: less than 1.5% of all respondents included a family that had a person less than 5 years of age. Hardly a business model for sustainability. So, what do we do about this how do we raise our not so ancient ruins? Well let’s go back to the passages:
The reading from Isiah takes place after the Israelites have returned from exile and they’re trying to follow the rather rigid requirements of their religion or as they say their Law. They are fasting, they are crying out and they are prostrating themselves all in an attempt to get God’s attention. They think they’re doing all the right things – But it may be more that they are just going through the motions. It’s not that God isn’t paying attention – they don’t need to try to get God’s attention by obeying the Law. Just before the passage that was read the people are urged to redirect their energies. God says rather than fast - instead offer your food to the hungry; And don’t just call out for justice - instead satisfy the needs of the afflicted. In shorthand – if you want to rebuild your “ancient structures” - look to what your community needs and then do something about it. So, let’s hold that thought and move onto the healing of the woman – a well know story from the Bible. And there’s lot going on here. You’ve got a woman who’s been sick from years – not a great position to be in the social structure of in an ancient middle eastern society – who is cured on the Sabbath – a day on when according to the rigidity of their religion no work - even healing - is to be done. But Jesus cures her – on the Sabbath when even healing is not to be done, and then he even fires shots back at the leader of the synagogue when criticized. “You hypocrites! Does not each of you untie his ox or his donkey from the manger and lead it to water? And ought not this woman, a daughter of Abraham whom Satan bound for eighteen long years, be set free from this bondage on this Sabbath day?” So here Jesus is being a bit of disruptor in this. By healing on the sabbath He’s reaching out, he’s doing things differently and it’s not following the law – but living it, proclaiming a faith that is not bound and constrained by tradition. And there is also his very - shall we say energized - response to the synagogue leader. He’s pointedly rejecting a theology that spends a lot of time considering some unclean or not worthy. A theology and practice that just ignores the needs of those just because they happen show up in the wrong way on the wrong day. He’s freeing us from just performing the Law and rather is asking us to live the Law
How can these two passages not speak to us at a time when we are examining the possibility of amalgamation of our three congregations ? it offers us a bit of a path: looking to the needs of the community - the offering of food to the hungry – as we already do at Sunday breakfast at St. Matt’s and the Sunday night suppers at St. Andrew’s And satisfying the needs of the afflicted As Fort Massey does with various AA groups.
Rather than a performative observing of our religion and just going through the motions of the Law – we are required to actually live the law.
If we amalgamate and we want to survive we are going to have to do some things differently. Like Christ we are going to have to be a little disruptive and be little out there . . . maybe do some new and experimental things particularly if we want to address that finding of less than 1% with child under 5. Recently I had a younger person say to me “You know people say how can we get young people in church and then when we say “Well, how about doing this? The answer is “ No” and when we say “well then how about doing that” the answer is still ”No” and then they wonder why there are no young people at church.” So, we can’t be content with doing what we’ve always done.
So, what’s the how of what can we do in if we want to rebuild our not so ancient 19th and 20th century ruins in any amalgamation? Well, there’s two things:
So after spending some time on the “how” of what need to do in any amalgamation, I do want to talk about what I consider the why of any amalgamation. Now perhaps surprisingly to some of you I’m not going to talk about deficits, market value of investments or real estate values or anything associated with finance or accountancy. So, to the central point: why do I think this possible amalgamation is so important ? Why do I feel it’s important for me to devote what would otherwise be either relaxing retirement time or good cottage time to this effort? Well . . .recently in late July along with my wife, two children , 4 grandchildren and a dog, I attended Berwick Church Camp in the Annapolis Valley. It’s always been a special – if not chaotic - time for us and they have two speakers each year. This year one of the speakers was Rev Karen Oliveto. She is a retired Bishop in the United Methodist Church in the United States. She has served in rural and urban churches including one in Los Angeles with – get this - 12,000 members. She has her own Wikipedia page. She proclaims a bible based progressive theology. Unlike me, she is a gifted evangelist. She’s got the cadence down; she works the crowd. She keeps her sermons focused and no more than 15 or 20 minutes – In summary . . . .she is the full package.
So why wouldn’t you want her as a Bishop
Well, she told us, who didn’t want her as Bishop and why. Rev Oliveto lives as an out lesbian. She now lives with her wife Robyn in Pugwash. When she became a bishop, an unnamed group spent millions trying to discredit her because of her orientation. She decided to try and visit congregations in her region, to demonstrate that she didn’t eat children and found she had to hire a bodyguard. What? You heard me . . . a Bishop of the united Methodist church in the US had to hire a bodyguard. Because she was gay. Well, that couldn’t happen here in good old left leaning, charter of rights, peace order and good government Canada and “who’s your father” Nova Scotia now could it. Or could it?
Well hold on . . .what follows is yet another true story. Earlier in July just after Betsy’s retirement party a couple taped a letter to this congregation on the front doors of this church. Perhaps they thought they were channeling Martin Luther. In summary, the rather rambling letter informed us that we as a congregation had lost our way from the true faith and then quoted extensively from the letters of Paul. Now I’m sure many of you have heard these quotes on other occasions previously so I’m not going to repeat their hateful words around sexual orientation except to say the word abomination was used liberally. For the record biblically, an abomination is something that God loathes or hates because it is offensive to God or god’s character. Our church secretary, Jennifer, dutifully took down the letter and passed it along to Betsy Hogan – our soon to be retired Minister. As an aside It’s sort of interesting to note that by the time she had taken it down some passerby had already handwritten some thoughtful focused responses to it. So, the story might have ended there . . .. EXCEPT
Later that week they sent the following e: mail to Jennifer who in turn forwarded it to Betsy :
This is what the e: mail said
Hello Saint Matthew’s, United Church,
I'm not sure how to personally address you as there is no name on the website. My apologies!
We stopped by the church today and attempted to drop off a letter for the congregation. Unfortunately, no one seemed to be there. We were unable to deliver our letter to you directly; however, we did leave it on your door for when you are available to get it.
We hope you receive it well and are able to respond to us whenever you get the chance to! We organised this ministry in order to connect with local churches and spark conversation about biblical literacy and truth.
We hope to hear from you soon. God bless!
In retrospect I think hoping to hear back soon was their big mistake.
And so dear friends as earlier promised I now arrive at the part of the sermon that has been unintentionally written by the soon to be fully retired Rev. Betsy Hogan. Her verbatim response (and she has given her approval to a full reading of it) is as follows:
Again, these are her words . . . verbatim
Good morning, (names withheld):
We've received the information you've shared. I'm sorry our website was too complicated for you. The names of our staff are located under "Church Staff". I'm also sorry that your understanding of biblical literacy and truth are so limited, and that you've not as yet grasped the full import of the grace by which Christ has freed us from slavery to the Law. Of course, I realize that you've probably managed to set aside most of the Biblical endorsements and exhortations from which we've been freed – for example actual slavery, cutting off limbs as punishment -- so I hope this spiritual growth will continue, and eventually free you altogether. Faithful Biblical literacy has always involved attention to the import of context and to the nuance this adds to the Biblical words as they reveal the truth that God still speaks through them into the present day. In this regard, the primary Christian lens through which we receive this truth is neither the letters of Paul nor the books of the Older Testament, but the Gospels. It is Jesus' embodiment of God in his words and actions in the Gospels that crystallize for Christians the essential parameters of his Way. It is these words and actions against which Christian’s test and measure the import of the rest of the Biblical text. And they are remarkably free of any content about homosexuality. Presumably if Jesus had desired us to be more obsessed with suppressing homosexuality and harassing and rejecting gay people than by fomenting a revolution of sacrificial love and justice, he'd at least have mentioned it. Presumably if he'd considered it an abomination, he'd have said so. But he didn't. Apparently, he didn't believe it was. And neither do we. So, any further conversation between us will not be fruitful, and we decline the invitation.
Please do not contact us again.
Sincerely,
(Rev.) Betsy Hogan
Minister, St. Matthew's United Church
she/her
So why do I think that our not so ancient ruins of these three congregations should be amalgamated and that we should raise up the foundation for many generations:
And what might this amalgamated church feel like - well we have perhaps a glimpse of it. It’ll be like what Coleen read to us earlier – and I think its particularly appropriate after the very dry weather and wildfire spell we’ve had and the street construction season we’re all living through.
The Lord will guide you always.
he will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land
and will strengthen your frame.
You will be like a well-watered garden,
like a spring whose waters never fail.
Your people will rebuild the ancient ruins
and will raise up the age-old foundations.
you will be called Repairer of Broken Walls,
and the Restorer of Streets to live in.
Thanks be to God if we can make it happen.
Amen