Doxologies Great and Small

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.

Now to God who is able to strengthen you according to my gospel and the proclamation of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery that was kept secret for long ages but is now disclosed, and through the prophetic writings is made known to all the Gentiles, according to the command of the eternal God, to bring about the obedience of faith-- to the only wise God, through Jesus Christ, to whom be the glory forever! Amen.

These are the last words of Paul’s letter to the Romans. Many believe that someone other than Paul wrote them and added them to the end of the letter, but regardless of who wrote them, they are an important statement by the early church.

Does anyone know what this kind of statement is called?


It is called a doxology. There are a couple of doxologies which you probably know much better. One is an old hymn. Feel free to join me if you know it.

Praise God from whom all blessings flow;
praise him, all creatures here below;
Praise him above, ye heavenly host;
praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.

When I was growing up, we sang this each and every Sunday in church.

Can anyone think of another doxology that we use here in church?


Glory to God,
whose power, working in us,
can do infinitely more
than we can ask or imagine.
Glory to God from generation to generation,
in the Church and in Christ Jesus,
for ever and ever. Amen.

We say these words every time we share the Holy Eucharist according to the Book of Alternative Services.

All three of these doxologies share one key point. All of them direct our praise to God. All of them say that it is God’s glory, not ours.

In some ways, though, they are all quite different. In my opinion, the doxology from Romans is the strongest and the one we say regularly is the weakest. Ours lets us almost entirely off the hook.


That’s right. I said that I believe that the Anglican Church doesn’t always make the right choice. As a denomination we make mistakes. I’m also sure that many Anglicans would not agree with me that this choice of doxology is a mistake.

Would you like to know why I think our doxology is weak?


Of the three doxologies, ours is the only one that is passive on our part. We don’t have to do anything.

Glory to God, whose power, working in us, can do infinitely more than we can ask or imagine.

God’s glory is there. God works in us. We don’t have to do anything. We don’t even have to ask or imagine because we couldn’t ask or imagine anything good enough.

Glory to God from generation to generation, in the Church and in Christ Jesus, for ever and ever. Amen.

God’s glory is still there. It is passed down to us in every generation. We still don’t have to do anything.

This is a recipe for a failing, passive church. This is a plan for stagnation and decline. This is what we, as Anglicans, have been doing for far too long.


Let’s try another one. “Praise God, from whom all creatures flow ….” This doxology fixed one thing. It is active. If we follow this doxology we must actively praise God. This is a good thing, but it is very limited. Praise God and the rest will just happen. This is the doxology that I grew up with in the Presbyterian Church. They haven’t done so well either.

That leaves us with the doxology from Romans. How is this doxology different? Well, first off, it is longer. It isn’t particularly poetic. It is harder to remember. And it isn’t particularly well written.

If we can get past all of that, it is a much stronger statement. I’m going to read you a paraphrase of the doxology from Romans by a theologian from Montreal named Dr. Chris Haslam. He is a retired engineer who turned to a study of theology after retiring.


God has commanded my preaching of the good news, and the proclamation of Jesus Christ in order that the mystery that was long kept secret might be revealed to all people through the Scriptures, and that by this revelation God might streng¬then you in faith and thus in obedience to him. To the only wise God be the glory through Jesus Christ forever. Amen.


It has the same bits as the other doxologies. The glory belongs to God. God is working in us. It doesn’t really talk about worship. Instead it talks about obedience, proclamation and preaching the good news. These are not the duties of God, they are our duties. God does not do them through us. Instead, God strengthens us so that we can do them. There is absolutely nothing passive about this doxology.


Each and every one of us is called to preach the Gospel … not just the priest.

Each and every one of us is called to proclaim the good news of Jesus Christ.

Each and every one of us is called to reveal the mystery of God living as one of us, walking beside us as a brother, sharing our pain as a friend, nursing at the breast as our son, dying a horrible death because of our weaknesses.

Refusing to let death stop him from doing all of the rest over and over again.

This is the good news or Gospel that the doxology from Romans commands us to shout aloud.

This is the ministry that every baptized member of the Christian Church has promised before God that we will do.

Praise and Glory be to God that God has promised to strengthen us for this work.

Why the Pink Candle?

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.


Why is there One Pink Advent Candle?

"In our Advent Wreath, three candles are purple and one is pink. Why the one pink candle?"
Before I answer the specific question, for those who aren't familiar with the church "liturgical" year, let's look at the season of Advent.

Advent is the beginning of the church year. The first Sunday of Advent (and the first Sunday of the church year) is the fourth Sunday preceding Christmas day. This year it was November 27th. The church divides the year into seasons, much like our meteorological year. The seasons are Advent, Christmastide, Epiphany, Lent, Eastertide, and finally Pentecost. Although there has been a move in some denominations to remove the seasons of Epiphany and Pentecost and rename them Ordinary Time, my personal belief is there is no "ordinary time" in the church. All seasons in the church are extraordinary.

In any event, Advent is a four-Sunday season of preparation in the church (and the world) for the arrival of Christ into the world, both at Christmas and in our lives. An Advent wreath is one of the traditional accessories for the season. The wreath is decorated with greenery and laid upon a stand. A large white candle, called the Christ Candle, stands in the middle of the wreath and four candles are placed into the wreath surrounding the central candle. The four candles may be all blue, all purple, or three purple and one pink. These candles are lit on successive Sundays in Advent, one for each week. The pink one is lit on the third week and the Christ Candle is lit on either Christmas Eve or Christmas day, and on each Sunday during Christmastide.

Now, why the pink candle?

In the earliest years of the church the only church season was Lent, the seven weeks prior to Easter. Lent was a season of fasting and prayer as the church commemorated the crucifixion of Jesus. The traditional color of banners in the church during this time was a deep purple, signifying royalty, repentance, and suffering. During Lent the church lit seven candles, one for each week of the solemn season. However solemn the season, the story of Lent also has a twinge of hope and joy since the death of Christ prefigured the resurrection. So, on the third Sunday of Lent, the church was encouraged not to fast, but to feast. In ancient times on this particular Sunday the Pope would honor a citizen with a pink rose, and as time passed the priests wore pink vestments on this day as a reminder of the coming joy.

When the season of Advent was instituted the church viewed it as a mini-Lent, a time for reflection and repentance (thus the purple). In so doing, the church adopted the first four candles of Lent and changed the third candle of Advent to pink in honor of the Lenten tradition. This is why we have a pink candle in our Advent Wreaths.

To further heighten the sense of anticipation of Christ's coming during Advent, the church named each candle in the wreath -- the first being hope, the second peace, the third joy, and the fourth love (there are a number of other traditional names as well, though these are some of the most ancient). It has always seemed fitting to me that the pink candle is the candle of joy, the one that speaks to us with its twinge of color.

Two weeks ago this parish took a good look at our financial standing and started to look with hope for a future where we are still a part of this community.

Last week, we came together with a sense of peace, having done all that we could to start the process of figuring it all out.

This week, parish council and I will be meeting with members of the Parish Relations Committee of the Diocese. It is very important that we look at this as a time of joy. This week we take the next step on our journey into the future.

If we can keep that joy strong in our hearts as we work together, our next step will be easy. We will be able to love one another and ourselves. With joy and love, we can become a strong parish with two churches who work together and help each other to search for and find new meaning in our lives together.

If we can do all of that, we can do anything. We will have a long and vibrant future here. We can become excited again about the work we are called to do in this place. We can truly welcome Christ into our lives.


And so I would like you to look at the end of your bulletins to the Advent Message. Would you please read it with me.


Advent is the beginning of the new church year. It is a time for looking within ourselves and finding a new way forward. It is a time for new beginnings. It is a time to challenge ourselves, to push ourselves, to make demands of ourselves which may not be comfortable or easy. This year we will be doing this together as we search for new and exciting ways to be “church” in our community North of Smokey.


Thanks to http://www.hcna.us/columns/pink_advent_candle.html for the part about the Advent candles.

Advent and Penance

I speak to you in the name of the One, True, and Living God.  Amen.

Does anyone know why the colour of Advent is purple?  - Why does Advent share a colour with Lent?

Advent and Lent are both “penitential” seasons.

So what does it mean to be penitent?

The Latin root for the word means either to regret or to have remorse.

 

I’m sure all of you have pictures in your mind about what it means to be penitent or to do penance.  Some of these pictures will be historically accurate, some will be inspired by movies, and I’m sure some of them are pure folk-lore.

Does anyone know what our church’s current practise is around penance?

I’m going to read a definition of Anglican penance which can be found on Wikipedia.  It is a well written definition.

Confession and absolution, sometimes called the Sacrament of Reconciliation, is the rite or sacrament by which one is restored to God when one's relationship with God has been broken by sin. The form is the words of absolution, which may be accompanied by the sign of the cross. Confession and absolution is normally done corporately (the congregation invited to confess their sins, a moment of silent prayer while the congregation does so, a spoken general confession, and the words of absolution). Individuals, however, can and do also participate in aural confession, privately meeting with a priest to confess his or her sins, during which time the priest can provide both counselling, urge reconciliation with parties that have been sinned against, and suggest certain spiritual disciplines (penance). There is no approved ceremony for a private confession of sins, the event being provided for in the Anglican tradition only in uncommon instances where an individual cannot quiet his conscience or find consolation in the General Confession that is part of the liturgy.

Anglican clergy do not typically require acts of penance after receiving absolution; but such acts, if done, are intended to be healing and preventative. The phrase "all may, some should, none must" is often taken as the Anglican attitude towards the sacrament, though there are provinces and parishes where participation in the sacrament is expected for the forgiveness of post-baptismal sin. The priest is bound by the seal of confession. This binds the priest to never speak of what he or she has heard in the confessional to anyone.

So that is our “practice” around penance, but what is it about?

Here is where being Anglican becomes a problem!  There are as many understandings of penance as there are Anglicans.  Our church is bound together by common liturgy (the way we worship) but we have many different ways of understanding why we do what we do.

The best I can do to tell you what penance means is to give you some possible perspectives.

Once tradition, which comes from the very early church, is often called “original sin.”  The basic idea of original sin is that every descendant of Adam shares in his sin of eating the forbidden fruit.  Because of this we are by nature sinful and must constantly try to fix our relationship with God.  Since it was first talked about in the 2^nd century by Irenaeus, theologians have never stopped fighting about this idea.

 

Another tradition views penance as spiritual healing and growth.  In the Eastern Orthodox Church, confession is not made to the priest.  Confession is made directly to Christ.  The penitent confesses not only their sins, but also their good acts and good things that they are thinking of doing.  Confession not only improves the penitent’s relationship with Christ, it also helps the penitent to understand themselves, leading to better spiritual health.

 

Our Lutheran brothers and sisters have a very concise understanding of penance.  It is divided into two parts: confession and faith.  In their understanding, forgiveness has nothing to do with penance.  Penance is something we do to improve our relationship with God.  Forgiveness is a gift that we have already been given by God.

 

So that’s what it means to be penitent.  So I’m done, right?

Oh yes, I said I was going to explain what penitence has to do with Advent.

 

Just a little bit ago, we sang a song which was probably new to you: “Prepare the Way of the Lord.”  That is what we are doing throughout Advent.  We are preparing our lives for the coming of Jesus Christ.  We are making room for him in our hearts and in our actions.

If you think about any of these understandings of penance, they all work to improve or fix our relationship with God. 

As we move through Advent, we are getting ready.  We are making ourselves pure.  We are healing our spirits.  We are doing all of this to prepare the way for Christ to come more fully into our lives.

This is why we are penitent in Advent.  Not to punish ourselves for every wrong we have ever done, but to be healed spiritually so that we are ready to see how blessed we are by God’s many gifts to us.

Thanks be to God.

The End of the World is Nigh

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.


“Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.”


I had to think long and hard about which reading to preach on today. I seriously considered preaching on grace today. After the past week, I really didn’t feel like tackling the end of the world as we know it.

Well, none of you chose the easy way out, so I guess I don’t get to either. So end of times it is.


THE END OF THE WORLD IS NIGH!!!

Or as Chicken Little put it – “The sky is falling, the sky is falling!”


What happens when the world ends? According to our Gospel today, “the sun will be darkened and the moon will not give its light and the stars will be falling from heaven and the powers in the heavens will be shaken.”

Has your world ever ended? -- Mine has. – When I was young, fresh out of high-school, I asked my high-school girlfriend to marry me. She said yes! My future was set. I knew who I was and where I was going. My fiancé and I were both in university. I was studying engineering and she was studying music. Then something wonderful happened. She got accepted into Julliard School of Music – one of the best music schools in North America. Off she went to New York City while I stayed in Vancouver.

We managed to keep our long distance relationship together for nearly two years before we realized that we didn’t have anything in common anymore.

All the light went out of my world. Saying that I didn’t know what my future would be isn’t quite right. At that time, I wasn’t really sure if I had a future. The sky had fallen so slowly and quietly that I didn’t know it was happening until there wasn’t a star left in my sky. My world ended.
About six months later, with the help of my family and my doctor, I re-entered life. I started building a new future for myself.


If I hadn’t had that experience, I probably would never have met Victoria. I might have kids, but they wouldn’t be Rosa and Paul. I might never have studied music. Unless she’s changed drastically, my former fiancé would never have supported me going into the priesthood. My life is brighter and more fulfilling now than it ever was before the darkness.


I’m sure some of you have your own experiences of the end of the world. I’m sure some of them are more personally devastating than my own story. And not every story has such a bright ending.


Right now this parish is having its own dark times. I believe that our financial issues are just a symptom, not the root cause of our problems. I am not completely sure what true problem is. What I do know, is that as we go forward from today, we’re going to find out.

This past week, we took our first step into the future. It is still too dark to see very far into the future, but we can see the start of it. Any future other than a short one, has us working as a parish – not as two separate churches. Our future includes a major commitment of time to work with our Archdeacon, Gloria, and others from the diocese to understand how our past brought us to this darkness and what we need to do to find new light.


That’s one neat thing about darkness – unless this truly is the end of the world (and if it is, this sermon is pointless) – darkness doesn’t last forever.


After the darkness comes the dawn. A new day. New life.


I see a potential for a bright future here in this parish. Not because of what has happened in the past, but because of the people I see here in God’s house. When I read the words Paul wrote to the Corinthians, I look out at you and hear them echo in my mind. They could just as easily have been written about this parish.

“I give thanks to my God always for you because of the grace of God that has been given you in Christ Jesus, for in every way you have been enriched in him, in speech and knowledge of every kind – just as the testimony of Christ has been strengthened among you – so that you are not lacking in any spiritual gift as you wait for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ. He will also strengthen you to the end, so that you may be blameless on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. God is faithful; by him you were called into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.”


Amongst you all, with both churches put together, you have the gifts to be a strong parish. You have the vision to make a bright future here in this community. You have the will to make that future happen.


After the darkness comes the dawn.


So I say again: THE END OF THE WORLD IS HERE!


Thanks be to God!

Weeping and Gnashing of Teeth

I speak to you in the name of the One True and Living God. Amen.

Our gospel today is one of those that might need a bit of explanation. It may seem straightforward enough on first reading … three slaves, each given some money to take care of by their master. Over the years, I’m sure you’ve been told that a talent was a lot of money. But the most any of them were given was 5 of these talents. How much could that actually be?

If we think about our current money, what is the largest bill any of you have ever had?

What is the largest bill any of you have ever heard of someone having?

$1000?

So the one who got 5 talents would have about $5000. That’s a lot of money, especially for someone who really has no money. But it isn’t even remotely close to what is being talked about in the Bible.

A talent was a measure of weight. It could refer to an amount of silver or of gold. A talent of silver was said to be nine years wages for a skilled labourer. Essentially a tradesman. If we say that a skilled labourer makes, on average, $50,000 a year, which is pretty low for most of the trades, one talent would be worth close to half a million dollars.

If we try to understand the worth of a talent of gold, it helps to know how much a talent weighs. It was just over 34 kilograms. 34 kilograms of gold is quite a weighty bar, not the coin that I usually picture in my mind. A talent of gold is worth close to $1.5 million at today’s prices.

If someone gave me that amount of money to take care of, I would be scared too. I also would have no clue what to do with it.

Today’s wisdom would be to invest it. You could do this through the banks and receive a small return. Or you could risk losing it on the stock market and maybe make a bundle.

What do you think the common wisdom was for taking care of or protecting large sums of money? According to the rabbis, burying your money was a good way to protect it. So our slave with the one talent was doing exactly what his religious leaders said was right.


Well, now we have the background to at least guess at the reaction of Jesus’ audience. The slave who buried the money did what he should have and the other two were at best irresponsible, at worst, reckless or negligent with their master’s money.

Like usual, Jesus turns our world upside down.


First, he is telling us that even the smallest talent that God gives us is worth more than we’ll probably ever see in our bank account, let alone have given to us.

Second, our gifts are not ours to hold on to. Doing nothing with our gifts is the same as stealing from God.

If we stop there, we already have a great lesson. But Jesus doesn’t stop there. He has a little more to say about gifts from God.

What was the promise to the slaves who used their talents? … When we use the gifts that God gives us, it’s not like a piggy bank, slowly drained of its resources. It’s not even like a well, where what is taken out is replaced as fast as you use it.

Instead, try to imagine a pile of gold. Now this isn’t any ordinary pile of gold. It’s a special pile of gold. … Every time you take a coin off the top of the pile, two more get added in to the bottom.

This is what we mean by abundance. It’s not so much that God will give us what we need. No, we are the ones that are responsible for our fate.

God has given each of us enough to get started. God tells us that we need to use what we’ve been given. And if we use that start, for every bit of our gifts that we spend, we will be given again twice as much.

And if we just sit back and try to protect what we have? There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

I think there has been enough weeping and gnashing of teeth.

How about you?

The Price of Sainthood

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.

Today we celebrate both All Saints Day and Remembrance Sunday.

Two years ago I talked about the three different ways that our tradition defines saints: those that the church names as special saints like St. John or St. Andrew; all who have died and gone on to the heavenly banquet; and finally every member, living or dead, of the Christian church.

Last year I talked about the relationship between All Saints and Remembrance. I talked about how we bring these two holy days together into one Sunday. How this combined Sunday brings our past and our future together in the present. This combined Sunday helps us to see how the roots of our tradition can help us to plan a vibrant future.

This year our Gospel is the Beatitudes. It is such a well-known passage that when Monty Python added extra verses – blessed are the Greeks and blessed are the cheese-makers – most people knew that these lines were a joke. And if you haven’t seen The Life of Brian you should. It has a lot to teach us about how Jesus would have been received in his time.

The Beatitudes have become so well known that they no longer surprise us. They should surprise us!

Earlier in Matthew, we have had a long series of stories setting up who Jesus is supposed to be. He is supposed to be the Messiah! In Jesus’ time, there were lots of “messiahs.” These messiahs usually played on the Jewish hatred of the Greek rule. They tried to cause any trouble from little bits of resistance to open rebellion. They were highly political and they worked to get the ear of the most influential Jews, those who held positions of power. So when Matthew is talking about the coming Messiah, this is what the people expect.

Then Jesus goes up on a hill and says “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted. Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.” Are these words supposed to rile up the powerful? “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.” Maybe. “Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy?” “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God?” I don’t see this inciting anything. “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God!” “Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”

And then we have the real kick in the butt to those who want to cause trouble. “Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven!”

These words are not what they were expecting and they shouldn’t be what we expect!

The Old Testament is full of scripture about a powerful God who steps in to make his people victorious. God fights on their side against all adversaries. The Messiah is supposed to be the one who will lead them to victory over their oppressors.

And what does he do? He tells them to suck it up and turn the other cheek. Don’t fight the oppressors. Let them keep their rule over you. It is not what is important.

Well, if fighting the oppressors is not important, what is? And what does it have to do with either All Saints or Remembrance?

We are called today to remember those who came before us. It is not enough to just remember their names. We need to remember their successes and their failures. We need to learn from them.

Jesus told the Jews not to rebel against the Greeks. He told them that being powerful only meant that it is harder to be close to God. For nearly two thousand years the Western world was ruled by Christian empires and governments. Did they get rid of hunger? or poverty? or oppression? -- No.

So if those in power, even if they are Christian, can’t make this kind of difference, who can?

In 1922, there was a poor school-girl in Macedonia named Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu. Does any know what became of her? I’ll give you a hint. In 1948, at the age of 38, she was the principal of a Catholic high school in Calcutta.

…

You might know here better as Mother Teresa of Calcutta.

Our history shows that change doesn’t usually happen from the top. Change happens when people forget about trying to get power and instead try to make the things that they can see better. Change happens when ordinary people look for the needs around them and respond.

Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu was an ordinary girl who grew up to be an ordinary woman who saw people in need and went to work to help them. She did not try to overthrow the governments that allowed poverty to exist. She gathered people around her who saw the same need. She inspired people that never met her. She worked tirelessly until her death in 1997 to help those who had nothing in Calcutta and throughout India, and later in other countries. By the time she died, the order that she founded, The Missionaries of Charity, had 610 missions in 123 countries.

Saints are ordinary people who remember where they came from and refuse to give up just because change is impossible.

Are you ready to be a saint?

Remember the surprise of the beatitudes. Sainthood is not an easy road and the earthly rewards are not so pleasant.

Are you willing to pay the price necessary to make this part of the world a better place?

Where have all our children gone?

May the Word be near you, on my lips and in your heart.  May we all confess and bear witness to the good news of Christ, alive and active in our lives and the lives of those around us.  Amen.

These words of Paul called the early church to examine itself.  Paul asked the congregation to think about who was welcome in their midst.  Their church included Greeks and Jews.  It was mostly made up of city-folk.  They had people from Jerusalem and from Galilee; from Thessalonica and Corinth, and many places farther away.  Most of these groups would not be found together anywhere else.  Even in the church, they mostly kept separate.

When Paul told them that there is no distinction between Jew and Greek, he was telling them that none of them was more deserving of the good news than any other.  No group was closer to the heart of Jesus.  No way of belonging was more valid.  No blood made you more of a child of God.

Paul thought it was important to talk about being equal in God’s eyes because the church of his time was very divided.  Each group believed that Jesus had spoken mostly for them and maybe a little bit for others.  Each group thought that they were “the chosen people” and others were either unwelcome or needed to change their ways if they wanted to be included in Christ’s saving power.

Does any of this sound familiar?

Do we have groups in our church?

We have the obvious groups, like the ACW and the Lay Readers and Eucharistic ministers, but these are not what I’m talking about.  These groups are made up of followers of Christ with similar gifts to offer.  No, the groups I’m speaking of are here in the church, but we are less willing to name them.  They are groups mainly, but not entirely, divided by generation.  We have names for them that we use only when they aren’t here.

The old guard, who hang on the old ways.

The middle generations, who are afraid of change and of disappointing their parents.

The young parents and the youth, who are mostly absent; not because they don’t believe, but because they don’t feel welcome and they don’t see the point of this church.

 

This is the negative way of naming each of these groups.  It isn’t helpful and it isn’t really true.  At least it is not the whole truth.

So let’s look at a different way of naming ourselves.  Taking the same generational groups and looking at them differently.

We have the elders of the church.  They are to be honoured and respected for their experience and accumulated wisdom.  We think of them as stuck in tradition, but in truth, they are the only ones among us who have seen our tradition change and grow to be what it is now.  They are the ones who can help us to understand where we came from and look forward to where we are going.

Our members from the middle generations are the sustainers of the church.  They are the ones who have the time to devote to the operation and vision of the church.

The younger generations are our future.  It is for them that we labour.  Jesus called us to support each other, but that is only the start.  Our mission is not to those within.  Our mission is to reach out to those who are not here.  Our mission is to be a place and a people that proclaim good news to those who have not heard it already.

This is the next part of Paul’s message.  “But how are they to call on one in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in one of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone to proclaim him? And how are they to proclaim him unless they are sent? As it is written, ‘How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!’”

How are the younger people ever supposed to hear about Christ if they are not here?  Our children are not here because they are not truly welcome.  They have not been welcome for a long time.  Their parents are not here because they were not welcome when they were kids.  Our way of being church does not treat this group equally.  Our children do not have the same right to be here as we do, unless they are willing to behave like little adults.  We are willing to put up with a little bit of noise, but not too much.  We are willing to make an effort to include them for special services.  But we are not willing to let them be present as the children that they are!

“And how are they to believe in one of whom they have never heard?”

Many people believe that our church, and I don’t mean this congregation, I mean the Anglican church and other mainline churches, “our church,” is dieing.  This is not true.  There are Anglican churches that are thriving.  There are Anglican churches in this diocese that are growing.  Every one of these churches has embraced their children.  They have not only told the children that they are welcome.  They have included them in all parts of worship.  They have made the children and the youth equals in their congregations.

Our children are not here.

I don’t know what changes we need to make for the children to be truly welcome.

I don’t know what we will need to do to teach them that they are welcome and that they have a place here.

I do know that we need them here.

I do know that, together with God’s help, we can bring the children back.

Together, with God’s help, we have a strong future in this church.

 

Thanks be to God.