Gathered through the power of the Holy Spirit, we worship God with gladness. We encourage you to pray over the words that follow, and follow the links within the liturgy. Prayers in this service are adapted from Celebrate God’s Presence (UCPH). Thanks this week to Dave, Cor, and Heather!

PRELUDE: “It came upon a midnight clear”

LIGHTING THE SECOND ADVENT CANDLE

The light shines in the darkness,
and the darkness shall never overcome it.
We are drawn to mayhem, forgetting we belong
to the Prince of PEACE.
Source of light, shine in our lives,
and in your world with your everlasting peace.
Amen.

O come, O Wisdom from on high,
who orders all things mightily;
to us the path of knowledge show,
and teach us in her ways to go.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
shall come to thee, O Israel.

OPENING PRAYER

Wonderful Counsellor, Mighty God, O Promised One,
we come to this time of Advent awaiting your presence.
Give us the wisdom to see meaning in uncertainty.
Give us the courage to wait in times of pain and trouble.
Give us the compassion to wait for one another.
Give us the faith to wait for the Messiah
when we are threatened by the Herods of this world.
Give us the hope to wait for the Saviour
even when we cannot hear the angels singing.
Give us the love that does not wait
when it meets Christ in our neighbour. Amen.

HYMN OF PRAISE: “There’s a voice in the wilderness crying”

There’s a voice in the wilderness crying,
a call from the ways untrod:
prepare in the desert a highway,
a highway for our God!
The valleys shall be exalted,
the lofty hills brought low;
make straight all the crooked places
where God, our God, may go!

O Zion, that bringest good tidings,
get thee up to the heights and sing!
Proclaim to a desolate people
the coming of their King.
Like the flowers of the field they perish,
like grass our works decay;
the power and pomp of nations
shall pass, like a dream, away.

But the word of our God endureth,
whose arm is ever strong;
God stands in the midst of nations,
and soon will right the wrong.
God shall feed the flock like a shepherd,
the lambs so gently hold;
to pastures of peace will lead them,
and bring them safe to fold.

There’s a voice in the wilderness crying,
a call from the ways untrod:
prepare in the desert a highway,
a highway for our God!
The valleys shall be exalted,
the lofty hills brought low;
make straight all the crooked places
where God, our God, may go!

PRAYER OF CONFESSION

When the Lord comes,
things now hidden will come to light,
and the purposes of the heart
will be revealed to a forgiving God.
Everything done,
and everything undone,
will be met with mercy.
Help us gather in the desert,
and heed the Baptist’s cry,
to learn true repentance,
and the way of new life in Christ.
Amen.

ASSURANCE OF PARDON

The Good News of this Advent season
is forgiveness of sin and new life.
Let us commit our lives
to Christ’s way of hope and peace.

SPECIAL MUSIC: “There’s a Song in the Air” (Holland)

FIRST READING: Isaiah 40.1-11

Comfort, comfort my people,
says your God.
Speak tenderly to Jerusalem,
and proclaim to her
that her hard service has been completed,
that her sin has been paid for,
that she has received from the Lord’s hand
double for all her sins.
A voice of one calling:
“In the wilderness prepare
the way for the Lord[a];
make straight in the desert
a highway for our God.[b]
Every valley shall be raised up,
every mountain and hill made low;
the rough ground shall become level,
the rugged places a plain.
And the glory of the Lord will be revealed,
and all people will see it together.
For the mouth of the Lord has spoken.”
A voice says, “Cry out.”
And I said, “What shall I cry?”
“All people are like grass,
and all their faithfulness is like the flowers of the field.
The grass withers and the flowers fall,
because the breath of the Lord blows on them.
Surely the people are grass.
The grass withers and the flowers fall,
but the word of our God endures forever.”
You who bring good news to Zion,
go up on a high mountain.
You who bring good news to Jerusalem,[c]
lift up your voice with a shout,
lift it up, do not be afraid;
say to the towns of Judah,
“Here is your God!”
See, the Sovereign Lord comes with power,
and he rules with a mighty arm.
See, his reward is with him,
and his recompense accompanies him.
He tends his flock like a shepherd:
He gathers the lambs in his arms
and carries them close to his heart;
he gently leads those that have young.

SECOND READING: Mark 1.1-8

The beginning of the good news about Jesus the Messiah, the Son of God, 2 as it is written in Isaiah the prophet:

“I will send my messenger ahead of you,
who will prepare your way”—
3 “a voice of one calling in the wilderness,
‘Prepare the way for the Lord,
make straight paths for him.’”

4 And so John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness, preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. 5 The whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem went out to him. Confessing their sins, they were baptized by him in the Jordan River. 6 John wore clothing made of camel’s hair, with a leather belt around his waist, and he ate locusts and wild honey. 7 And this was his message: “After me comes the one more powerful than I, the straps of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and untie. 8 I baptize you with[e] water, but he will baptize you with[f] the Holy Spirit.”

HYMN: “O day of God, draw nigh”

O day of God, draw nigh
in beauty and in power,
come with your timeless judgement now
to match our present hour.

Bring to our troubled minds,
uncertain and afraid,
the quiet of a steadfast faith,
calm of a call obeyed.

Bring justice to our land,
that all may dwell secure,
and finely build for days to come
foundations that endure.

Bring to our world of strife
your sovereign word of peace,
that war may haunt the earth no more
and desolation cease.

O day of God, draw nigh
as at creation’s birth;
let there be light again, and set
your judgements in the earth.

REFLECTION

Who is about to be born, and in early middle-age, and about to begin a promising career, and apparently doomed?

If you answered Jesus, you would be correct. If you answered Jesus in the season of Advent, you get a bonus point. My riddle points to the mixed up timeline we’ve entered, and the extent to which the season is trying to accomplish several things at once.

Of course, the Bible is filled with biographies, stories of characters that give us a glimpse of the span of their lives. Most famous, perhaps, is Moses: from the babe in a basket to an aged liberator, gazing upon the promised land. Or David, a mere lad, out tending the sheep while God’s anointed is being chosen. We will see the span of his life too, victories, foundations, and personal defeats. Or Esther, the beautiful young orphan who becomes queen, develops a mastery of court life, and saves the Jewish people from death.

In each case, the story is told straight, a linear description from beginning to end: selected or saved for service, engaged in a crisis or conflict, and triumphant at the last. In each case, of course, it is God that is victorious, and we give thanks. What we don’t do, in the course of telling these stories, is interrupt the order: we wouldn’t tell the story of the burning bush to explain why the baby Moses was set adrift on the Nile.

In Advent, we enter a unique version of time. Future is present, the past predicts the future, and the one for whom we wait is already here. Heroes of the narrative occur in the middle of the story, but they help us prepare for the beginning. The baby John the Baptist may appear in the time of Jesus’ nativity, but now he’s the fully grown John who will help us prepare for Jesus’ birth.

“After me,” says John, “comes the one more powerful than I, the straps of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and untie. I baptize you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.” Again, these words fit the prelude to Jesus’ baptism in the River Jordan, but they also describe our fondest hope, the time for which we wait.

The glue that holds this story together is baptism. John is practicing one aspect of baptism (“a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins”) and Jesus another. John’s work, like Advent, is preparatory, allowing us to make room for Jesus to enter our hearts. We must die to our old selves to welcome him in, to find new life in Christ. St. Paul knew this better than most:

Don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life. (Rom 3)

In Athens, the wise ones would say “tell us more, for you are bringing strange things to our ears.” (Acts 17) It is strange, to conflate baptism and death, but remember that the timelines are not what they seem. When we were baptized we entered the death and resurrection of Jesus, not some distant event, but the same death and resurrection that happens at every baptism, both now and in the future.

This is what John means when he describes our baptism as baptism with the Holy Spirit. It exists outside of time, and it defies time, because new life in Christ never stops happening. Maybe this is why Paul’s Athenian friends were so puzzled. Your life unfolded in a predictable manner: spun, measured, and cut, without any sense that it could be respun or uncut or measured in a different way. Jesus takes away loom and tape and scissors, sets them aside, and says ‘walk with me, and follow in my way.’ Nothing about your life is set when we’re talking about new life in Christ.

Just now the practical people are crying out for something tangible, and for them, I have a confession. Not an actual confession, though I do have a few. My confession is the abiding belief that confession is at the very heart of who we are and what we do. In confession, we ask God to help us set aside the things we regret and the things that are holding us back.

But there is more than just that. In confession we send a signal to others that it’s healthy and appropriate to name the ways we fall short and seek forgiveness. In a world of facades and falsehoods, we can be the voice that says “we all screw up, and we all need God’s help to get by.” We can’t self-pardon. But when we model a way of being that includes humility and a realistic sense-of-self, it can start catching. Maybe others will admit they’ve failed, and fallen short, and that they need something outside themselves to make it right. That is when the Spirit moves, and new life comes.

So John was right all along. People enter the desert places longing for something, anything that can help them. And he appears, practicing a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins—which was always just a fancy way to describe confession. They were busy making room: leaving cluttered lives and unresolved situations to seek the new life that only God in Christ can bring.

May God bless you as our Advent journey continues. May you enter and reenter the story as needed, always aware that it leads to new life. Amen.

PRAYERS OF THE PEOPLE

“A voice cries in the wilderness:
prepare the way of the Lord!”
O God, we pray that in our hearts
your way may be prepared,
that the path among us,
by which your Spirit comes,
may be made straight.
Prepare among us the path of peace.
Grant the peace that comes in following your ways,
in opening our lives to you, and sharing our gifts for your sake.
Prepare among us the path of love.

We pray for all who need to be embraced by love:
all who are cramped and narrowed in spirit;
all who have lost the ability to trust;
all who ache for a signal they are cherished;
all who gather in the desert wastes of this world
beset by longing or great need.
We pray for those in need of hope today:
all who mourn the death of a loved one;
who grieve the end of a relationship;
who are worried for a friend;
all who are anxious for a family member’s health;
people who are overwhelmed by illness or disability;
who live in the midst of social collapse,
warfare or grinding poverty.
Prepare among us the path of joy.
We pray for those whose spirits need to be buoyed up
and who have forgotten childhood’s gift
of taking delight in the simple things of life,
which come from you, O generous God.

Hear our thanks and praise as our spirits turn to you,
and as we remember, in a moment of silence,
the blessings we enjoy…
O God of hope, peace, joy, and love,
we honour you now and always,
through Jesus, your Anointed One,
and in the expectant power of your Holy Spirit.
Amen.

THE LORD’S PRAYER

Our Father who art in heaven,
hallowed be thy name.
Thy kingdom come,
Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread;
and forgive us our trespasses
as we forgive those who trespass against us;
and lead us not into temptation
but deliver us from evil.
For thine is the kingdom,
and the power, and the glory,
for ever and ever. Amen.

HYMN: “On Jordan’s bank, the Baptist’s cry”

On Jordan’s bank, the Baptist’s cry
announces that the Lamb is nigh;
awake and hearken, for he brings
glad tidings of the King of Kings.

Then cleansed be every life from sin;
make straight the way for God within;
and let each heart prepare a home
where such a mighty guest may come.

In you, we find abundant life,
our refuge in the midst of strife;
without your grace we waste away,
like flowers that wither and decay.

Stretch forth your hand, our health restore,
and help us rise to fall no more.
O let your face upon us shine,
and fill the world with love divine.

All praise to you, eternal Son,
whose advent has our freedom won;
and praise to God whom we adore,
with Holy Spirit evermore.

BLESSING

Now may the God of peace make you holy in every way,
and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless
until our Lord Jesus Christ comes again. Amen.
—1 Thessalonians 5:23

God be with you till we meet again;
loving counsels guide, uphold you,
with a shepherd’s care enfold you;
God be with you till we meet again.

Gathered through the power of the Holy Spirit, we worship God with gladness. We encourage you to pray over the words that follow, and follow the links within the liturgy. Prayers in this service are adapted from Celebrate God’s Presence (UCPH). Thanks this week to Jenny, Cor, and Heather!

PRELUDE: “Lo, How a Rose e’er Blooming”

LIGHTING THE FIRST ADVENT CANDLE

The light shines in the darkness,
and the darkness shall never overcome it.
The darkness of doubt and fear has entered our lives
and we turn to God.
Send us HOPE, and light our way,
that we may bring hope to others.
Amen.

O come, O come, Emmanuel,
and ransom captive Israel
that mourns in lowly exile here
until the Son of God appear.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
shall come to thee, O Israel.

OPENING PRAYER

Gracious God,
your vision of peace and wholeness
comes to us in sweeping revelations
and in tiny signs of hope.
Kindle our hearts that we might be a hopeful people.
Keep us from growing weary of waiting,
lest we miss the glory of your appearing.
Even so, come quickly, O God. Amen.

HYMN OF PRAISE: “Come, thou long-expected Jesus”

Come, thou long-expected Jesus,
born to set thy people free:
from our fears and sins release us,
let us find our rest in thee.

Israel’s strength and consolation,
hope of all the earth thou art,
dear desire of every nation,
joy of every longing heart.

Born thy people to deliver;
born a child and yet a king;
born to reign in us for ever;
now thy gracious kingdom bring.

By thine own eternal Spirit
rule in all our hearts alone;
by thine all-sufficient merit
raise us to thy glorious throne.

PRAYER OF CONFESSION

God of unending mercy,
we are a people of abundance.
Your never-ceasing love surrounds us;
your great compassion embraces us;
but we take these gifts for granted.
Open our eyes to the wonders of creation.
Tune our ears to the cries for love in a lonely world.
Fill our hearts with a faith that is revealed in action.
This we pray in the name of the One
who never ceases to come. Amen.

ASSURANCE OF PARDON

The Good News of this Advent season
is forgiveness of sin and new life.
Let us commit our lives
to Christ’s way of hope and peace.

SPECIAL MUSIC: “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel”

FIRST READING: Psalm 80

Shepherd of Israel, hear us,
you who lead Joseph like a flock,
you who are enthroned amidst the cherubim.
Shine forth before Ephraim, Benjamin and Manasseh;
stir up your might, come and save us.

God of hosts,
how long will you be angry with your people’s prayer?
You have fed us with the bread of weeping,
and given us tears in plenty to drink.
You have made a mockery of us to our neighbours,
and our enemies laugh us to scorn.
Let your hand rest on the one at your right hand,
on the one you have made strong for yourself.
Then we will never forsake you;
give us life, and we will call on your name.

SECOND READING: Mark 13.24-37

24 “But in those days, following that distress,

“‘the sun will be darkened,
and the moon will not give its light;
25 the stars will fall from the sky,
and the heavenly bodies will be shaken.’[a]

26 “At that time people will see the Son of Man coming in clouds with great power and glory. 27 And he will send his angels and gather his elect from the four winds, from the ends of the earth to the ends of the heavens.

28 “Now learn this lesson from the fig tree: As soon as its twigs get tender and its leaves come out, you know that summer is near. 29 Even so, when you see these things happening, you know that it[b] is near, right at the door. 30 Truly I tell you, this generation will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened. 31 Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away.

32 “But about that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. 33 Be on guard! Be alert[c]! You do not know when that time will come. 34 It’s like a man going away: He leaves his house and puts his servants in charge, each with their assigned task, and tells the one at the door to keep watch.

35 “Therefore keep watch because you do not know when the owner of the house will come back—whether in the evening, or at midnight, or when the rooster crows, or at dawn. 36 If he comes suddenly, do not let him find you sleeping. 37 What I say to you, I say to everyone: ‘Watch!’”

HYMN: “All earth is waiting”

All earth is waiting to see the Promised One,
and open furrows await the seed of God.
All the world, bound and struggling, seeks true liberty;
it cries out for justice and searches for the truth.

Thus says the prophet to those of Israel,
‘A virgin mother will bear Emmanuel.’
One whose name is ‘God with us’, our Saviour shall be,
through whom hope will blossom once more within our hearts.

Mountains and valleys will have to be made plain,
open new highways, new highways for our God,
who is now coming closer, so come all and see,
and open the doorways as wide as wide can be.

In lowly stable the Promised One appeared.
Yet, feel that presence throughout the earth today,
for Christ lives in all Christians and is with us now;
again, on arriving, Christ brings us liberty.

REFLECTION

Well, you know what they say about the best laid plans…

2020 has been remarkable for a number of reasons, with one of the primary reasons filed under “a change of plans.” If we start with churchworld, you need look no further than the service we’re sharing at this moment. Moving online for much of the year has forced us to find creative ways to celebrate God’s presence without the direct presence of one another.

Likewise, the rhythm of regular plans, from travel to time spent with others was disrupted. The people and places we planned to see, around the corner or around the world, were set aside in the hope that next year will be better. And there were larger life changes, retirements delayed or moves postponed, projects shelved or plans curtained. COVID-19 left few stones unturned, and the turning continues.

Having reminded you of all this dislocation and loss, I should point to a couple of positives. People have been more intentional about making the most of the times they did see others. We learned to treasure what we may have formerly taken for granted. Also, there was a lot of reassessing going on, people asking “why did we always do it that way?” The pandemic gave us the opportunity to step away from old habits and patterns. And then there is the need to be creative. Finding new ways to meet, create, and manage—in all sorts of situations—has forced us to be creative.

For the grammatically inclined, you will see that much of what I have said so far lives between past and present tense. Changes have happened and changes continue, and we think we see the shape of the future—even as it remains uncertain. This past and present tension is not new, and it finds an important parallel to today’s lesson. The season of Advent, more than the others, lives in the past and in the not yet. We are looking backward and forward all at once.

And our reading, the “little apocalypse” from Mark 13, illustrates this point. Christ has come, and Christ will come again. Advent looks forward to the birth of our Saviour, but Advent also reminds us that Christ will return in glory. The form of this return is the subject of our reading, but the details are less important than the lesson to prepare. More on that in a moment.

If we had to create a summary, we might say that we are somewhere between First Advent and Second Advent.* We know that Christ was born in Bethlehem, but we’re not planning a birthday party. Advent rules are that we play it straight, preparing for the birth of Jesus like it has yet to happen. We are called to prepare in our hearts some room for the incarnation of God. First Advent is angels choirs, shepherd voices, and a poor couple looking for room at the inn.

Second Advent takes the real-time preparation we are engaged in and says “now plan for him to come again.” Take everything you know about his life, his message, his decision to reunite us with the Most High, and apply that to your season of preparation. Take everything you know about love and mercy, forgiveness and reconciliation, and make that part of your Advent plan. He will come again, either all at once or in eternity, so prepare.

There are a lot of things going on in our passage: quotes and references, predictions, and a sense of urgency. One thing that is missing is certainty, the day and the hour unknown—even the angels don’t know! Spare a thought for the angels, always visually appealing, always heralding something important, but on the matter of the Second Advent, completely in the dark. So if the son doesn’t know, and the angels don’t know, who can fault us for making plans yet never knowing the hour or the day. Hence the need to keep watch.

I’m going to take a big step back for a moment and talk about crisis and opportunity. It is one of the primary tensions in this and every time. Calamity comes, and some cannot see beyond the events themselves. For them, a crisis is a crisis. For others, every crisis is some sort of opportunity, if you can only see it. Some are adept at making the most of a situation, and others see real opportunity.

Having said all that, consider the reverse as well. In every opportunity lies a potential crisis, things we may not see until we’re in the thick of it. For Advent, consider that the birth of Jesus was always going to be a crisis for someone. The man in Rome who enjoyed the title “Son of God” is one example. Anyone who enjoyed the status quo is another example, anyone who wanted God to remain distant from us, or unattainable. Anyone who seeks to control others by making God vengeful or unyielding will find a crisis in the incarnation, God’s desire to be with us in a new way.

There’s an old Yiddish adage that says, “Man plans, and God laughs” (Mann tracht, un Gott lacht). It’s a wonderful expression that we take to mean that God is busy undoing our plans, or making other plans for us. Instead, I think it fits in the existential file, meaning God finding humour in our earnest desire to control outcomes, organize everything, and set the plan we want. But life doesn’t work that way, doesn’t conform to our agenda, as well-meaning as it may be.

Rather, God is busy creating opportunities for some and crises for others. God gives us ample opportunities to love and serve others, as an example. Meanwhile, God finds humour in those who seek to control the world around them, or those who imagine they are completely self-made. The future God is designing for us, in whatever form it comes, will be a future based on new beginnings, and a new way of being. It will take all that we know and join it to all that we long for, the Advent of hope, peace, joy and love. Amen.

*Beverly Gaventa

PRAYERS OF THE PEOPLE

You keep us waiting.
You, the God of all time,
want us to wait
for the right time in which to discover
who we are, where we must go,
who will be with us, and what we must do.
Thank you…for the waiting time.

You keep us looking.
You, the God of all space,
want us to look in all the right and wrong places
for signs of hope,
for people who are hopeless,
for visions of a better world which will appear
among the disappointments of the world we know.
Thank you…for the looking time.

You keep us loving.
You, the God whose name is love,
want us to be like you—
to love the loveless and the unlovely and the unloveable;
to love without jealousy or design or threat;
and, most difficult of all,
to love ourselves.
Thank you…for the loving time.

And in all this, you keep us.
Through hard questions with no easy answers;
through failing where we hoped to succeed
and making an impact when we felt we were useless;
through the patience and the dreams and the love of others;
and through Jesus Christ and his spirit,
you keep us.
Thank you…for the keeping time,
and for now, and for ever.
Amen.

THE LORD’S PRAYER

Our Father who art in heaven,
hallowed be thy name.
Thy kingdom come,
Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread;
and forgive us our trespasses
as we forgive those who trespass against us;
and lead us not into temptation
but deliver us from evil.
For thine is the kingdom,
and the power, and the glory,
for ever and ever. Amen.

HYMN: “Lo, he comes with clouds descending”

Lo, he comes with clouds descending,
see the Lamb for sinners slain!
Thousand, thousand saints attending
join to sing the glad refrain:
hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah!
God appears on earth to reign.

Every eye shall then behold you,
robed in awesome majesty;
all who jeered, and mocked, and sold you,
pierced, and nailed you to the tree,
deeply grieving, deeply grieving, deeply grieving,
shall the true Messiah see.

Now redemption, long expected
see in solemn pomp appear;
all the saints, by us rejected,
thrill the trumpet sound to hear:
hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah!
See the day of God appear!

Yea! Amen! Let all adore you,
high on your eternal throne;
crowns and empires fall before you,
claim the kingdom for your own:
O come quickly! O come quickly! O come quickly!
Everlasting Christ, come down.

BLESSING

Now may the God of peace make you holy in every way,
and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless
until our Lord Jesus Christ comes again. Amen.
—1 Thessalonians 5:23

God be with you till we meet again;
loving counsels guide, uphold you,
with a shepherd’s care enfold you;
God be with you till we meet again.

Gathered through the power of the Holy Spirit, we worship God with gladness. We encourage you to pray over the words that follow, and follow the links within the liturgy. Prayers in this service are adapted from Celebrate God’s Presence (UCPH). Thanks this week to Dave, Cor, and Heather!

PRELUDE: “Walk in the Spirit of Love” (Seabough/Blankenship)

OPENING PRAYER

May your Reign begin, Lord:
And then all that has divided us will merge
And then compassion will be wedded to power
And then softness will come to a world that is harsh and unkind
And then both men and women will be gentle
And then both women and men will be strong
And then no person will be subject to another’s will
And then all will be rich and free and varied
And then the greed of some will give way to the needs of many
And then all will share equally in the Earth’s abundance
And then all will care for the sick and the weak and the old
And then all will nourish the young
And then all will cherish life’s creatures
And then all will live in harmony with each other and the Earth
And then everywhere will be called Eden once again. Amen.

HYMN OF PRAISE: “Crown him with many crowns”

Crown him with many crowns,
the Lamb upon his throne:
hark, how the heavenly anthem drowns
all music but its own!
Awake, my soul, and sing
of him who died for thee,
and hail him as thy matchless King
through all eternity.

Crown him the Lord of life,
who triumphed o’er the grave,
and rose victorious in the strife
for those he came to save.
His glories now we sing
who died and rose on high,
who died eternal life to bring,
and lives that death may die.

Crown him the Lord of peace,
whose power a sceptre sways
from pole to pole, that wars may cease,
absorbed in prayer and praise.
His reign shall know no end;
and round his pierced feet
fair flowers of Paradise extend
their fragrance ever sweet.

Crown him the Lord of love;
behold his hands and side,
rich wounds yet visible above,
in beauty glorified.
All hail, Redeemer, hail!
for thou hast died for me;
thy praise shall never, never fail
throughout eternity.

PRAYER OF CONFESSION

God of power and love,
you raised Jesus from death to life,
resplendent in glory to rule over all creation.
Free us from sin,
and free the world to rejoice in his peace,
to glory in his mercy,
and to live in his love.
Unite all humankind in Jesus Christ your Son,
who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, forever and ever.
Amen.

ASSURANCE OF PARDON

God will give us what we need:
strength for today,
hope for tomorrow,
and forgiveness
for all that is past.
Amen.

SPECIAL MUSIC: “We meet you, O Christ” (Kaan)

FIRST READING: Psalm 100

Shout to God, all the earth:
worship with gladness and joy.
Come before God with laughter,
our maker to whom we belong.
To the Shepherd who tends us like sheep,
let us raise our voices in song.

Come to God’s gates with thanks;
come to God’s courts with praise.
Praise and bless God’s name.
‘Truly you are good:
you are always gracious,
and faithful age after age.’  

SECOND READING: Ephesians 1.15-23

15 For this reason, ever since I heard about your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all God’s people, 16 I have not stopped giving thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers. 17 I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit[f] of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better. 18 I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in his holy people, 19 and his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is the same as the mighty strength 20 he exerted when he raised Christ from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms, 21 far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every name that is invoked, not only in the present age but also in the one to come. 22 And God placed all things under his feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the church, 23 which is his body, the fullness of him who fills everything in every way.

HYMN: “Jesus shall reign where’er the sun”

Jesus shall reign where’er the sun
does its successive journeys run;
his kingdom stretch from shore to shore,
till moons shall wax and wane no more.

People and realms of every tongue
dwell on his love with sweetest song,
and infant voices shall proclaim
their early blessings on his name.

Blessings abound where’er he reigns;
and prisoners leap to lose their chains;
the weary find eternal rest,
and all who suffer want are blest.

Let every creature rise and bring
peculiar honours to our King,
angels descend with songs again,
and earth repeat the loud Amen!

REFLECTION

If you know me, you know I like a good metaphor.

A good metaphor can change the way we think, it can alter our sense of the world around us, and it can even direct what we do. A good metaphor can reveal hard truths, it can mobilize people into action, and it can sometimes lead us in the wrong direction. In other words, a good metaphor may not be good at all—but it can be extremely effective.

Case in point: In 1964, Lyndon Johnson announced the War on Poverty, a comprehensive response to the poverty rate in the US approaching twenty percent. Now, to our war-weary ears—having lived through “wars” on drugs, cancer, and terror—calling to mind the War on Poverty doesn’t have the same impact as it had in 1964. Back then, just nineteen years after the Second World War, using the war metaphor was highly effective.

You see, the war metaphor creates a mindset. Nations at war must band together, confront a common enemy, and make sacrifices. The appeal is obvious, and in 1964 it led to the creation of numerous social programs as well as a general sense of concern for something that was often hidden. The shadow side, of course, can be seen in the War on Drugs, an effort that took hold in several countries and led to criminalization of addiction, militarization of the police, and the disproportional targeting of racialized communities.

Most recently, we have witnessed the use of the war metaphor in relation to the pandemic. It is perhaps the closest parallel to an actual wartime situation, where the public is urged to make sacrifices for the sake of safety, warned against hoarding, and generally urged to “do our part.” One foolish man in Washington even declared himself a “wartime president,” before losing interest in the whole thing.

Again, there is a shadow side to the use of the war metaphor in the context of disease. There is no “front” in this war, with the virus lurking everywhere. It has led some to cast blame on the people and places the disease began. And it can lead us to celebrate sacrifice, especially among frontline heroes, without always asking what they truly need, like better hours, paid sick leave, or greater access to PPE. And then there is the question about disease generally: is it something you conquer or something you learn to live with? We need to handle our metaphors with great care.

Along with great care, we also need to lend metaphor great respect. In the realm of scripture, we know that when seeking to describe the sublime, we often reach for metaphor. The Good Shepherd, the Lamb of God, the Light of the World, the Bread of Life, the Alpha and Omega. These are things we can see and touch, used to describe that which we struggle to comprehend. We try them on, we adopt a favourite, and it transforms our understanding.

St. Paul, master of words, is also busy giving us figurative language to try on. And he’s pretty transparent about it, famously admitting “I have become all things to all people so that by all possible means I might save some.” (1 Cor 9) Some have cast “all things to all people” in a negative light, but for Paul it points to his concern—bordering on desperation—about the state of our soul. And so we read these words today:

18 I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in his holy people, 19 and his incomparably great power for us who believe.

Again, metaphor. Having eyes on your heart would be awkward—but in the poetic realm, it’s magic. He could have simply said “open your eyes to the hope he has given you” but he chose to add another image instead. And before we really dig into this image, I want to point out one more thing. Metaphor is a literal “rabbit hole” when you consider these two short verses.

You can’t see hope, unless you use imagination.
The riches of this glorious inheritance can’t be taken to the bank, they live inside us.
There is no outward sign that we are holy people, but God can see it.
We are given “incomparably great power,” but it’s not the power that the world would recognize.

The richness of symbolic language only works if you set aside the literal meaning of these words and enter the world that God has made, the “realm of God” where these words have power. And with Paul as our guide, we can truly appreciate what the eyes our heart might see. To do this, he might have us open our Bibles and go back, way back, to see where all this began.

An early version of the “eyes of the heart” might be found in Genesis 6, where God is confounded by the creature God has made, and tries to understand. The author reaches for the word yetser, meaning “thoughts of the heart” (Gen 6.5) or “what is framed in the mind” (BDB, 428a). In a word, this is imagination. And in Genesis it’s generally about the mischief we can get into when we really put our minds to it. Still, it frames this idea of imagination, and it begins in the heart.

Likewise, the Greeks, when pondering imagination (what could be more Greek than pondering imagination?) gave us the word phantasia—literally things that appear. Obviously, we don’t have to go too far out on a limb to see what Paul is conflating for us: thoughts of the heart and things that appear come together to give us the “eyes of the heart.” Here is Paul, all things to all people, bringing together his Jewish self and his Greek thought to help us see God. You need the eyes of our heart to see the glorious inheritance God has given us through Jesus Christ. Full stop.

To conclude, we need a final metaphor, and that would be Christ the King, or the Reign of Christ, whichever you prefer. It takes considerable imagination to make Christ the king of your heart— with all your mind, and all your soul—but once you do, the riches of God dwell in you. Put another way, we can “put on Christ,” (Rom 13) and be transformed. Whatever metaphor you choose, Christ becomes the Lord of your life, and the eyes of your heart will open.

I want to give the last word to Charles Wesley, words from a hymn that first appeared in the wonderfully named collection Hymns for those that Seek, and those that Have Redemption (Bristol, 1747) I think that describes all of us! And I think his words best describe the Christian hope, when the eyes of your heart are open:

Jesus, thou art all compassion,
pure, unbounded love thou art;
visit us with thy salvation,
enter ev’ry trembling heart.

Amen.

PRAYERS OF THE PEOPLE

We thank you, compassionate God,
that you hear the prayers of our hearts:
all who have found new life in Christ,
all who are seeking, dreaming, asking,
all who find comfort in their daily walk with you,
all who are grateful for opportunities to serve,
all who are surrounded by the love of family and friends,
All who find hope in you.

We thank you, compassionate God,
that you hear the prayers of our hearts:
all who are vulnerable,
all who are tired of being tired,
all who are lonely,
all who struggle to get through each day,
all who are ill, or fear they may get ill,
all who grieve the loss of a loved one.

We thank you, compassionate God,
that you hear the prayers of our hearts:
all who seek justice, for a world made new,
all who cry for creation at risk,
all who advocate others, or for themselves,
all who assume risks for the sake of others,
all who wait for your reign to begin.

Thank you, God, for hearing us in every situation of life.
Help us to support one another always:
rejoicing with those who rejoice,
and weeping with those who weep.
We want to be joined together
as members of the body of Christ,
loving one another and serving the world,
seeking your Kingdom.
Like Jesus, we want to respond
to each human being who crosses our path
with sensitivity and compassion.
This we pray in the name of Jesus. Amen.

THE LORD’S PRAYER

Our Father who art in heaven,
hallowed be thy name.
Thy kingdom come,
Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread;
and forgive us our trespasses
as we forgive those who trespass against us;
and lead us not into temptation
but deliver us from evil.
For thine is the kingdom,
and the power, and the glory,
for ever and ever. Amen.

HYMN: “Eternal, Unchanging, we sing to your praise”

Eternal, Unchanging, we sing to your praise:
your mercies are endless, and righteous your ways;
your servants proclaim the renown of your name
who rules over all and is ever the same.

Again we rejoice in the world you have made,
your mighty creation in beauty arrayed,
we thank you for life, and we praise you for joy,
for love and for hope that no power can destroy.

We praise you for Jesus, our Master and Lord,
the might of his Spirit, the truth of his word,
his comfort in sorrow, his patience in pain,
the faith sure and steadfast that Jesus shall reign.

BLESSING

Now may the God of peace make you holy in every way,
and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless
until our Lord Jesus Christ comes again. Amen.
—1 Thessalonians 5:23

God be with you till we meet again;
loving counsels guide, uphold you,
with a shepherd’s care enfold you;
God be with you till we meet again.

Gathered through the power of the Holy Spirit, we worship God with gladness. We encourage you to pray over the words that follow, and follow the links within the liturgy. Prayers in this service are adapted from Celebrate God’s Presence (UCPH). Thanks this week to Jenny, Cor, and Heather!

PRELUDE: “I Will Trust in You, Lord” (Bailey)

OPENING PRAYER

We praise and thank you, O God,
for you are without beginning and without end.
Through Christ, you created the whole world;
and through Christ you preserve it.
You make the day for the works of light
and the night for the refreshment of our minds and bodies.
Keep us now in Christ so that we may truly
worship and adore you. Amen.

HYMN OF PRAISE: “Come and find the quiet centre”

Come and find the quiet centre
in the crowded life we lead,
find the room for hope to enter,
find the frame where we are freed:
clear the chaos and the clutter,
clear our eyes, that we can see 
all the things that really matter,
be at peace, and simply be.

Silence is a friend who claims us,
cools the heat and slows the pace,
God it is who speaks and names us,
knows our being, face to face,
making space within our thinking,
lifting shades to show the sun,
raising courage when we’re shrinking,
finding scope for faith begun.

In the Spirit let us travel,
open to each other’s pain,
let our loves and fears unravel,
celebrate the space we gain:
there’s a place for deepest dreaming,
there’s a time for heart to care,
in the Spirit’s lively scheming
there is always room to spare!

PRAYER OF CONFESSION

Help us, O God,
to open our minds;
even when we are given to easy answers.
to open our hearts;
even when we are inclined to keep them closed.
to open our spirits
even when the world is pressing down.
to open ourselves to the bright potential you give us
in each moment of life. Amen.

ASSURANCE OF PARDON

God will give us what we need:
strength for today,
hope for tomorrow,
and forgiveness
for all that is past.
Amen.

SPECIAL MUSIC: “Oh, sing to our God” (Brazilian folk song)

FIRST READING: Psalm 123

To you I lift up my eyes,
to you who are enthroned in the heavens.
As the eyes of servants look to their master’s hands,
as the eyes of a maid to the hand of her mistress,
so our eyes look to you, O God,
as we wait till you show us your favour.  

We have had more than enough of contempt.
Too long we have suffered the scorn of the wealthy,
and the contempt of the arrogant.  

SECOND READING: Judges 4.1-7

Again the Israelites did evil in the eyes of the Lord, now that Ehud was dead. 2 So the Lord sold them into the hands of Jabin king of Canaan, who reigned in Hazor. Sisera, the commander of his army, was based in Harosheth Haggoyim. 3 Because he had nine hundred chariots fitted with iron and had cruelly oppressed the Israelites for twenty years, they cried to the Lord for help.

4 Now Deborah, a prophet, the wife of Lappidoth, was leading[a] Israel at that time. 5 She held court under the Palm of Deborah between Ramah and Bethel in the hill country of Ephraim, and the Israelites went up to her to have their disputes decided. 6 She sent for Barak son of Abinoam from Kedesh in Naphtali and said to him, “The Lord, the God of Israel, commands you: ‘Go, take with you ten thousand men of Naphtali and Zebulun and lead them up to Mount Tabor. 7 I will lead Sisera, the commander of Jabin’s army, with his chariots and his troops to the Kishon River and give him into your hands.’”

HYMN: “Be still, my soul”

Be still, my soul, for God is on your side;
bear patiently the cross of grief or pain.
Trust in your God, your saviour and your guide,
who through all changes faithful will remain.
Be still, my soul, your best, your heavenly friend
through stormy ways leads to a peaceful end.

Be still, my soul, your God will undertake
to guide the future surely as the past.
Your hope, your confidence let nothing shake;
all now mysterious shall be bright at last.
Be still, my soul, life’s tempests still obey
the voice that once the waves’ wild fury stayed.

Be still, my soul, the hour is hastening on 
when we shall be forever in God’s peace;
when disappointment, grief and fear are gone,
love’s joys restored, our strivings all shall cease.
Be still, my soul, when change and tears are past,
all safe and blessed we shall meet at last.

REFLECTION

Again the people did an evil and wrongheaded thing in the sight of the Lord. So they were placed in the hands of the apprentice king, who reigned first from somewhere on 5th Avenue. Mitch, the commander of the hundred, was based on swampy ground near the Potomac River. Together, they oppressed the people for four long years, and the people cried out for help.

Nancy, a prophet, held court near the same swampy ground as Mitch, in a place that was supposed to settle disputes for the benefit of the people. An election was called, and she sent for Barak, and said, “Go to the tens and the hundreds, socially-distant in their cars, and remind them of the ways of hope and change. And the people were led to the polls, and reversed the wrongheaded thing they did four years earlier.

This is not the New American Standard Bible, though a translation by that name does exist. I’ve given you an attempt at dynamic equivalence (Nida), a contemporary rendering that gives you a sense of the text without the avalanche of impossible-to-pronounce names. It’s also meant to underline the main theme of the Book of Judges: the endless cycle of obedience and disobedience that defines the relationship between Israel and her God.

Any historian will tell that history is a loop rather than a line, and that the seeming progress we experience will soon loop around to the past we thought we had left behind. And the cycle we see in the Book of Judges provides a perfect illustration. Overall it’s obedience and disobedience, but in text we find a more elaborate pattern:

The people do evil in the eyes of the Lord (v. 1)
The people are sold or given into the hands of their enemies (v. 2, 3)
The Lord lifts up a prophet or leader (v. 4, 5)
The Spirit of the Lord rests on the leader (v. 9)
The enemy is defeated (v. 7, 15, 22)
The people live in peace once more (5.31)*

Until the cycle begins again. A quick Bible search of the words “cried out” will reveal all the moments this movement is underway. The people forget the Lord their God. The people turn away, the people are disobedient, the people adopt idols, the people take foreign wives, the people fall in love with Baal once more. They cry out, and the Lord sends them a Moses, or an Elijah, or a Deborah. And the Lord saves them once more.

But Deborah is unique here. Not only is she the only woman named a judge of Israel, but she joins the war party in their battle with the Canaanites. And she goes further: “Certainly I will go with you,” she says. “But because of the course you are taking, the honor will not be yours, for the Lord will deliver Sisera into the hands of a woman.” Like Elizabeth I at Tilbury, Deborah transforms supposed weakness into strength, and underlines God’s desire to save.

And, of course, it’s the end of the story, the part we did not read, that becomes the most memorable. The Canaanite general, Sisera, is defeated, but manages to escape the battlefield. He wanders into the tent of an ally, Heber the Kenite, and finds himself alone with Heber’s wife Jael. He demands water, and Jael gives him some warm milk instead, and a cuddly blanket, and soon Sisera is sound asleep. At this moment Jael takes a hammer, and a tent peg, and…well, you can guess the rest. The Canaanite defeat, at the hands of Deborah and Jael is complete, and peace returns.

Maybe we need a moment, after all that excitement, to ponder Western art in the High Renaissance. There seems to be a bit of debate about the preponderance of religious art: was it some sort of custom or decree, the fact that most of the art is religious, or was it simply that the church was the wealthiest patron of the arts? We’ll let the scholars argue over that one, but we should note that even the preponderance fell into predictable categories. Madonna and child, important saints, and predictably, women bathing, such as Susanna or Bathsheba. And then there is Jael, hammer in one hand, tent peg in the other, and…well, you know the rest. (In most paintings she looks really mad, but in Salomon de Bray’s remarkable painting [top of the page] we see the psychological complexity of this character).

In a Christian framework, we see the very same pattern. John the Baptist cries out “who told you to flee from the wrath to come?’ and then Jesus appears. The lost and the disobedient are found and forgiven, and the daily walk begins. Disciples are called, lives transformed, and moments later they are arguing about which one gets to sit at the right hand in glory. Jesus forgives their foolish ways, and the walk continues, up to a lonely hill where pieces of silver are exchanged and denials are made. Even the soldiers that mock and flog will recognize that this is the Son of the Most High—a day later, but never too late.

Failure and misfortune, faith and forgiveness, and the path continues until it loops around once more. It describes a life of faith, and it describes life on earth—the alternating times of promise and peril, progress and failure. Last Saturday, we celebrated the end of an era, the first major defeat in the battle against extremism and populism. By midweek the celebration was over, with numerous elected officials pointing to some sort of fantasy outcome—the rest of us mistaken. Who knows what the mood will be next week, or what brand of crazy we will endure, but the pattern is familiar.

And while we can’t necessarily end the pattern in our time, we should be able to disrupt it, or diminish it in some way. So this might be the moment to revisit something that we talked about last fall, some research on recent trends, from an article with the uncomfortable title “Populism is growing because more people than you think want chaos.” In the article, we learn that a close study of attitudes and activities across several Western countries highlights the real divide of our time. It’s less the division between left and right, even though those old lines remain clear—and more between those who would maintain the existing order and those who would tear it all down.

And these researchers have made the alarming discovery that nearly 40 percent of the population across these countries fall into the ‘tear it all down’ category. These people have lost faith in the existing order, including governments and the leading voices in society, and are seeking alternatives. They come from both the left and right, they tend to be disadvantaged in some way, or have simply lost faith in the idea that the future will be better than the past. They are particularly open to voices that cast blame or propose simple solutions to complex problems. And they are easy to reach—social media amplifies alternate voices and allows people to find each other—for good or for ill.

And on one level they have a point. Wealth inequality, a changing economy, the environmental crisis—none of these problems have been adequately addressed by the people who lead us. But the alternative—‘tear it all down’—is too frightening to contemplate. So the authors of this study make a simple suggestion: that moderates on both sides of the political divide work together to solve the problems that lead to hopelessness and despair. Begin to address the complex problems we face, and over time fewer and fewer people will be drawn to chaos. It’s the hardest simple solution in the world, or the simplest hard solution, take your pick.**

Whenever It’s time to conclude a sermon like this, there’s usually a quote from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. to help us make sense of the situation we find ourselves in—and he never disappoints. This quote was shared in an address to the Montgomery Improvement Association’s first mass meeting at Holt Street Baptist Church.

I want to tell you this evening that it is not enough for us to talk about love, love is one of the pivotal points of the Christian…faith. There is another side called justice. And justice is really love in calculation. Justice is love correcting that which revolts against love.

When Dr. King shared these words, he was just 26 years old. So he underlines a couple of things. The first is that young people will inevitably lead us forward, since they seek to create the world they will inhabit the longest. And the second is that whenever we ponder love correcting that which revolts against love, we’re talking about God. God is love. And God’s love is always “love in calculation,” seeking ways to lead us home.

Meeting this moment may not require the drama of Deborah or Jael, but it will require the same trust in the power of God to transform lives. In our work, and in our prayer, we turn to God to calculate the love needed to build the kingdom, to make it known, now and always, Amen.

*Guest, 2003
**https://www.thersa.org/blog/matthew-taylor/2019/09/chaos

PRAYERS OF THE PEOPLE

This prayer comes from the worship resource page of the Presbyterian Church in Canada.

We thank you, God of all life and each life,
that you are with us every day, in each challenge and opportunity.
In our weakness, you are strength.
In our darkness, you are light on the journey.
In our questions, you are wisdom for our choices.
Stay with us in these days when so much seems uncertain,
and help us to serve you faithfully, when and as we are able.

God of loving kindness:
we give you thanks for moments of joy and celebration in our lives
even amidst the ongoing pandemic,
for love given and received,
for friendships which bring us meaning and happiness, even at a distance,
and for family members who show us glimpses of unconditional love.
In all our relationships and interactions,
keep us mindful of your call to see you in one another.

God of the nations,
we pray for our country and the countries of this world,
as we all struggle to face the choices COVID-19 sets before us.
Guide those who frame laws and shape policy,
and those who keep the peace and administer justice.
There are so many new challenges to consider
and we pray your wisdom will open our leaders’ minds and hearts
to develop more equitable ways of ordering our communities.

God of peace,
we remember with sadness the dangerous divisions between nations
and the games leaders play to get the better of each other.
By your Holy Spirit, move in places torn by war and violence,
to protect the vulnerable and those who advocate for justice to prevail.
Show us how to be peacemakers in troubled times.

God of healing:
we pray for those who are suffering in these difficult days of pandemic,
for those who mourn the loss of someone or something dear.
Draw close to all who fear the future.
Surround each one with your love
and show us how to bring comfort and support into situations of hurt and pain.

God of life:
you hold all souls in your loving care, the dead as well as the living.
We thank you for your saints of every age who continue to inspire us,
and for all who have meant the world to us and now live with you.
Keep us in communion with them
and, at the last, bring us all to dwell together in your light.

THE LORD’S PRAYER

Our Father who art in heaven,
hallowed be thy name.
Thy kingdom come,
Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread;
and forgive us our trespasses
as we forgive those who trespass against us;
and lead us not into temptation
but deliver us from evil.
For thine is the kingdom,
and the power, and the glory,
for ever and ever. Amen.

HYMN: “God of grace and God of glory”

God of grace and God of glory,
on your people pour your power;
now fulfil your church’s story;
bring its bud to glorious flower.
Grant us wisdom, grant us courage,
for the facing of this hour.

Lo, the hosts of evil round us
scorn your Christ, assail your ways;
fears and doubts too long have bound us;
free our hearts to work and praise.
Grant us wisdom, grant us courage,
for the living of these days.

Cure your children’s warring madness,
bend our pride to your control;
shame our wanton selfish gladness,
rich in goods and poor in soul.
Grant us wisdom, grant us courage,
lest we miss your kingdom’s goal.

Set our feet on lofty places,
gird our lives that they may be
armoured with all Christlike graces,
pledged to set all captives free.
Grant us wisdom, grant us courage,
that we fail not them nor thee.

BLESSING

Now may the God of peace make you holy in every way,
and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless
until our Lord Jesus Christ comes again. Amen.
—1 Thessalonians 5:23

God be with you till we meet again;
loving counsels guide, uphold you,
with a shepherd’s care enfold you;
God be with you till we meet again.

Gathered through the power of the Holy Spirit, we worship God with gladness. We encourage you to pray over the words that follow, and follow the links within the liturgy. Prayers in this service are adapted from Celebrate God’s Presence (UCPH). Thanks this week to Jenny, Cor, and Heather!

PRELUDE: “Where Have all the Flowers Gone” (Seeger)

LAST POST

SILENCE

REVEILLE

WORDS OF REMEMBRANCE

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old: 
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.

HYMN OF PRAISE: “Weep for the dead”

Weep for the dead. Let tears and silence tell
of blood and battle, horror and renown.
The years diminish, but do not dispel
the pain of lives destroyed, and life laid down.

Silent the dead. Remembering we stand
silent as they, for words cannot esteem
causes of war, the love of native land,
all that they were, and all they might have been.

Raising our flag, we stand with muffled drum,
judged by the colours of God’s love and loss,
recalling as we pray, ‘Your kingdom come,’
a purple robe, and blood upon a cross.

Summoned by love that leaves no room for pride,
we pray that every continent and isle,
wounded by war, war’s hate may lay aside,
and find a way to heal and reconcile.

Weep for the dead, from all the ills of earth.
Stand by the cross that bids all hatred cease.
March to the drums of dignity and worth.
Salute the King of Love, the Prince of Peace.

IN MEMORY OF PRIVATE ELI SOUTHORN

Today we pause to remember the service and sacrifice of Private Eli Southorn.

Eli Southorn was born in Mount Dennis on December 9, 1913 to Alfred Southorn and Amelia Smithson. Eli was born at home, at 26 Lambton Avenue. Eli was one of seven children, with siblings Alfred, Alice, Clarence, Frances, Ivy, and Roy.

According to the Occupational History Form completed at the time of his enlistment, Eli left school at age 13 and ended up working at his father’s company, A.G. Southorn. The A.G. Southorn company was engaged in the manufacture and repair of automotive bearings, and Eli’s occupation was listed on the occupational form as a machinist. At the tender age of 20, Eli married Mary Ann Bell, daughter of James Bell and Elizabeth Coburn. They were married at St. Hilda’s Anglican Church, at Vaughan and Dufferin. On the marriage licence, Eli is listed as Anglican and Mary as United Church.

The arrival of three children soon followed: Audrey, Jack and Linda. They were living just up the street from Eli’s parents—at 239 Lambton Avenue—at the time Eli enlisted. From basic training in Brantford, to vocational training in Toronto, Eli was recognized for his technical skill and prepared for the job of “fitter.” In the Commonwealth armies, the role of fitter described someone tasked with repairing vehicles and equipment. His background with bearings, and knowledge of automobile repair would be fine preparation for the role.

Over the next year or so, Eli spent much of his time between Barriefield (outside Kingston) and the army camp at Petawawa. He also trained as an armourer, a job that involved maintaining and repairing weapons, as well as ensuring the safe storage of these weapons. Fully trained, Eli finally departed for England in July of 1944. He went where he was needed: first transferred to the Winnipeg Grenadiers, and finally to the Highland Light Infantry of Canada.

On December 15, 1944, he arrived in Europe to help prepare for the next phase of the Allied effort. The regiment spent the next two months in an area known as the Waal Flats, rotating between dugouts in the damp Dutch earth, and occasional time spent in relative comfort of the town of Nijmegen. Complains from the soldiers of the Highland Brigade were few, however, when they considered the suffering of the Dutch people. In the midst of a blockade on food and fuel—retaliation for Dutch resistance—the brigade did what little they could do to help. Children who made their way into the camp were given any food that could be spared.

On February 8, 1945, Operation VERITABLE began: an Allied effort to breach the westernmost defences, cross the Rhine, and advance into Germany. In the area between Nijmegen and the ancient city of Cleve, the 3rd Canadian Infantry Division fought along the flooded flats near the Rhine, while the British fought in the Reichswald forest and the notorious Sigfried Line. Between February 10 and 11, the Highland Brigade fought through Duffelward and into Wardhausen. Sometime during the fighting on the 11th, Eli was killed in action.

Private Eli Southorn is buried in the Groesbeek Canadian War Cemetery, within perhaps a dozen kilometers of where he fell. The cemetery is the final resting place for 2,338 Canadians who were killed in the Rhineland battles of 1945. Private Southorn is also remembered on page 556 of the Second World War Book of Remembrance in Ottawa.

PRAYER OF CONFESSION

Clouds gather, O God, and we often lose hope.
We give voice to our fears and struggles,
and forget that you are ever near.
Too often we trust in ourselves
before we trust in you.
We ignore your promise to be with us,
and neglect to share the Good News of your love.
Help us, O God, to keep you in our hearts.
Amen.

ASSURANCE OF PARDON

God will give us what we need:
strength for today,
hope for tomorrow,
and forgiveness
for all that is past.
Amen.

SPECIAL MUSIC: “O God our help in ages past”

FIRST READING: Psalm 78

Give heed to my teaching, O my people,
turn your ears to the words of my mouth.
I will open my mouth in a parable;
I will reveal the hidden meaning of things in the past.
What we have heard and known,
what our parents have told us,
we will not hide from their grandchildren,
but declare to the next generation
the testimony that you gave to Jacob
and the law you appointed in Israel,
which you commanded them to teach their children,
that the next generation might know them,
children yet unborn,
and these in turn should arise, and tell their children,
that they should put their trust in you,
and not forget your great deeds,
but keep all your commandments.

SECOND READING: 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18

13 Brothers and sisters, we do not want you to be uninformed about those who sleep in death, so that you do not grieve like the rest of mankind, who have no hope. 14 For we believe that Jesus died and rose again, and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him. 15 According to the Lord’s word, we tell you that we who are still alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will certainly not precede those who have fallen asleep. 16 For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. 17 After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever. 18 Therefore encourage one another with these words.

HYMN: “O Christian, love”

O Christian, love your sister and your brother!
Where pity dwells, the peace of God is there;
to worship rightly is to love each other,
each smile a hymn, each kindly deed a prayer.

Follow with reverent steps the great example:
Jesus whose holy work was doing good;
so shall the wide earth seem a hallowed temple,
each loving life a psalm of gratitude.

Then shall all shackles fall; the stormy clangour
of wild war-music o’er the earth shall cease;
love shall tread out the baleful fire of anger,
and in its ashes plant the tree of peace.

REFLECTION

The idea began by chance.

Padre David Railton, British army chaplain in the First World War, happened upon a recent grave marked by a rough cross. This, in and of itself, was not unusual, but written on the cross, in pencil, were the words “An Unknown British Soldier.” From that moment, and the impression it made, came the idea of gathering the remains of an unknown soldier from a battlefield in France and burying that soldier “amongst the kings” in Westminster Abbey.*

In 1920, the Dean of Westminster and the Prime Minister agreed that this would be an ideal way to honour those lost in the Great War. Remains were exhumed on the 7th of November for transfer to London, resting first within the ancient citadel at Boulogne. On the morning of the 10th, the casket was led in procession to the harbour, accompanied by a thousand schoolchildren and a division of French troops.

At noon, the casket was carried aboard the HMS Verdun, and departed Boulogne with a flotilla of six destroyers. Arriving at Dover, the unknown soldier was transferred by rail to Victoria Station, platform 8, and remained overnight. A small plaque between platforms 8 and 9 continues to mark the spot, and a service is held there each year on the 10th of November.

“Immense and silent crowds” met the procession as the casket moved through London to the Abbey. When entering the Abbey, the casket was flanked by an honour guard of one hundred recipients of the Victoria Cross. The guests of honour for the ceremony were nearly one hundred women, “chosen because they had each lost their husband and all their sons in the war.”

Soil was brought from each of the main battlefields, and covered with a silk pall, with the casket atop. When finally lowered beneath the floor of the Abbey, a large slab of black Belgian marble was laid, with the inscription, “Beneath this stone rests the body of a British warrior, unknown by name or rank, brought from France to lie among the most illustrious of the land.” It remains the only marker on which visitors are forbidden to walk.

The idea that began at Westminster Abbey was mirrored in France and other Commonwealth countries. It signaled that commemoration was no longer for the great and the good alone, but for ordinary citizen soldiers, working men and women who gave the most in war. It was an attempt to honour loss on an unimaginable scale, and it remains the most stirring monument in the great Abbey.

Brothers and sisters, we do not want you to be uninformed about those who sleep in death, so that you do not grieve like the rest of mankind, who have no hope. For we believe that Jesus died and rose again, and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him.

Like those who mourned the missing from France and Belgium, believers in the early church were confronted by uncertainty in the midst of grief. They believed that death would not visit them before Christ returned, leaving them with a vexing problem. The march of mortality returned, and trumpet blast had not sounded. What will happen to the dead, they asked, if Jesus returns for the living? Will the dead be overlooked on that great and glorious day? St. Paul said “no.”

…we tell you that we who are still alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will certainly not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first.

Only then, Paul insists, will the living be “caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air.” We hear these words—remarkable words—yet our modern minds push back. Less than a generation passed from Jesus’ promise to the letter Paul wrote, and two thousand years on, the question only grows. Is it a reasonable hope, this promised return and the consummation of all things? Is it even desirable, when so many believers have used the endtimes as an excuse to ignore problems here on earth?

This last suggestion, a longing for escape, ignores the primary desire found in Jesus’ own words: “thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” We cannot know if this long-imagined terminal point will come to pass, we can only surrender to the mystery—and trust the promise of a new heaven and a new earth. We may or may not be the generation that meets the Lord in the air, but we can rest in the knowledge that “in Christ all will be made alive.” (1 Cor 15)**

Much of what we do in this place becomes a mirror on our lives. We are encouraged to remember our baptism and give thanks. We witness vows that loving couples make and we recommit to our own vows. We listen to the words of the eulogist and wonder what will be said of us, at our own service of thanksgiving. We hear stories of sacrifice in war and we wonder what we would have done—or what we will still do—to safeguard the freedoms we enjoy. The dead in Christ surround us, calling us forward, encouraging us to be agents of mercy and peace. We give thanks for the foundation they laid, the service they rendered, and the love they shared. And we give thanks that those who are unknown, are always known to God. Amen.

*The Unknown Warrior, Wikipedia
**This quote is also inscribed on the Abbey maker

PRAYERS OF THE PEOPLE

This prayer was written by the Rev. Dr. Neil Parker, military chaplain at the 4th Canadian Division Training Centre in Meaford, ON

O God of hosts, God who calls us to be engaged in the world; we pray for those who are serving in our Armed Forces; soldiers, sailors, air personnel, and those who provide support for them. We pray for clerks and gunners, navigators and parachute packers, infanteers and public affairs officers. We pray for those who care for those who fight: for mental health nurses, doctors, and chaplains. We pray for those who put themselves in harm’s way; for Search and Rescue Technicians, for those engaged in mine-clearing, for those in the air or on the high seas. Keep them safe in their tasks; keep them virtuous in their calling; preserve them from danger, and return them to those who love them.

We offer to you, O God, our prayers for those who seek justice and resist evil. We pray for those who need your presence and strength to stand firm; for those who are oppose the use of violence in any form in faithful response to the Prince of Peace. We pray for those are prepared to be firm to protect those in danger. We pray for those who walk with others who need strength. We pray for those who protest, those who organize letter campaigns, those who give sacrificially on behalf of others.

We pray for those who speak the unpopular truth; who protect the unpopular victims; who choose the unpopular path of peace.

We pray for those who do not let their desire for peace hinder the requirements of justice, and for those who do not let their zeal for justice override the call for peace.

O God of every human being, forgive when we identify our kin too easily as enemies. Teach us to seek the good of all, and not only our own. When our cousins are acting unjustly or causing harm, help us to constrain them without hatred or evil thoughts, but to seek their good even as we resist the damage that may be caused.

We pray that those to whom we are opposed may be turned from enemy to friend. We pray that in our cause we may not fall into sin, so convinced of our own righteousness that we are unaware of our own sin. We pray that we are not so distracted by another’s sin that we cannot be convinced of their value as children of God. May we always remember your willingness to forgive, and to bless, and to call the most unlikely of saints.

THE LORD’S PRAYER

Our Father who art in heaven,
hallowed be thy name.
Thy kingdom come,
Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread;
and forgive us our trespasses
as we forgive those who trespass against us;
and lead us not into temptation
but deliver us from evil.
For thine is the kingdom,
and the power, and the glory,
for ever and ever. Amen.

HYMN: “O God beyond all praising”

O God beyond all praising, we worship you today
and sing the love amazing that songs cannot repay;
for we can only wonder at every gift you send,
at blessings without number and mercies without end:
we lift our hearts before you and wait upon your word,
we honour and adore you, our great and mighty Lord.

The flower of earthly splendour in time must surely die,
its fragile bloom surrender to you our God most high;
but hidden from all nature the eternal seed is sown,
though small in mortal stature, to heaven’s garden grown:
for Christ, your gift from heaven, from death has set us free,
and we through him are given the final victory.

Then, hear O gracious Saviour, this song of praise we sing.
May we, who know your favour, our humble service bring;
and whether our tomorrows be filled with good or ill,
we’ll triumph through our sorrows and rise to bless you still:
to marvel at your beauty and glory in your ways,
and make a joyful duty our sacrifice of praise.

BLESSING

Now may the God of peace make you holy in every way,
and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless
until our Lord Jesus Christ comes again. Amen.
—1 Thessalonians 5:23

God be with you till we meet again;
loving counsels guide, uphold you,
with a shepherd’s care enfold you;
God be with you till we meet again.

Gathered through the power of the Holy Spirit, we worship God with gladness. We encourage you to pray over the words that follow, and follow the links within the liturgy. Prayers in this service are adapted from Celebrate God’s Presence (UCPH). Thanks this week to Taye, Cor, and Heather!

PRELUDE: “Flying Free” (Besig)

OPENING PRAYER

For all the saints
who went before us
who have spoken to our hearts
and touched us with your fire,
we praise you, O God.

For all the saints
who live beside us
whose weaknesses and strengths
are woven with our own,
we praise you, O God.

For all the saints
who live beyond us
who challenge us
to change us
to change the world with them,
we praise you, O God.

HYMN OF PRAISE: “Holy, holy, holy! Lord God almighty!”

Holy, holy, holy! Lord God almighty!
Early in the morning our song shall rise to thee;
holy, holy, holy, merciful and mighty,
God in three persons, blessed Trinity!

Holy, holy, holy! All the saints adore thee,
casting down their golden crowns around the glassy sea;
cherubim and seraphim falling down before thee,
which wert, and art, and evermore shalt be.

Holy, holy, holy! Though the darkness hide thee,
though the eye made blind by sin thy glory may not see,
only thou art holy; there is none beside thee,
perfect in power, in love, and purity.

Holy, holy, holy! Lord God almighty!
All thy works shall praise thy name in earth and sky and sea;
holy, holy, holy, merciful and mighty,
God in three persons, blessed Trinity!

PRAYER OF CONFESSION

May Christ,
who makes saints of sinners,
and who has transformed those we remember today,
transform us too, made new in his likeness.
Surround us with your Spirit,
and call us find within ourselves
the heroic virtue that defines the saints.
Help us to see Christ in others,
and serve them, as we are served. Amen.

ASSURANCE OF PARDON

God will give us what we need:
strength for today,
hope for tomorrow,
and forgiveness
for all that is past.
Amen.

SPECIAL MUSIC: “When in Our Music God is glorified” (Green/Stanford)

FIRST READING: Psalm 107

O give thanks, for God is gracious;
God’s steadfast love endures for ever.
Let the redeemed of God say so, those redeemed from trouble,
whom God gathered in from the lands,
from the east and the west,
from the north and the south.

Some lost their way in desert wastes, finding no place to settle;
hungry and thirsty, their soul fainted within them.
Then they cried to you, God, in their trouble;
you rescued them from their distress.
You led them by a straight path,
till they reached a place to settle.
Let them thank you, O God, for your steadfast love,
for the wonders you do for us.
For you satisfy the thirsty,
and fill the hungry with good things.

SECOND READING: 1 Thessalonians 2:9-13:

9 Surely you remember, brothers and sisters, our toil and hardship; we worked night and day in order not to be a burden to anyone while we preached the gospel of God to you. 10 You are witnesses, and so is God, of how holy, righteous and blameless we were among you who believed. 11 For you know that we dealt with each of you as a father deals with his own children, 12 encouraging, comforting and urging you to live lives worthy of God, who calls you into his kingdom and glory.

13 And we also thank God continually because, when you received the word of God, which you heard from us, you accepted it not as a human word, but as it actually is, the word of God, which is indeed at work in you who believe.

HYMN: “Shall we gather at the river”

Shall we gather at the river,
where bright angel feet have trod;
with its crystal tide for ever
flowing by the throne of God?
Yes, we’ll gather at the river,
the beautiful, the beautiful river;
gather with the saints at the river
that flows by the throne of God.

Ere we reach the shining river,
lay we every burden down;
grace our spirits will deliver,
and provide a robe and crown.
Yes, we’ll gather at the river,
the beautiful, the beautiful river;
gather with the saints at the river
that flows by the throne of God.

Soon we’ll reach the shining river,
soon our pilgrimage will cease,
soon our happy hearts will quiver
with the melody of peace.
Yes, we’ll gather at the river,
the beautiful, the beautiful river;
gather with the saints at the river
that flows by the throne of God.

REFLECTION

I suspect my mother was a secret Catholic.

And while my evidence may be vague and and a little flimsy, it remains a question in my mind. My suspicion began with the purchase of a late 70s Corolla, used, brown in colour with a beige vinyl roof. Already you find this story troubling, and that’s before you sit inside. For there, in the middle of the dashboard, was a small ornament, like a small coin on a pedestal.

Me: Mother, what is that?
Mother: That’s St. Christopher, patron saint of travellers.
Me: But you’re not Catholic.
Mother: I know, but he’s the patron saint of travellers.
Me: You’re just gonna leave it there, aren’t you?
Mother: Of course.

It was only later that I learned that St. Christopher had been demoted—maybe reassigned—within the list of Catholic saints. I can’t imagine that this information would have any bearing on the shiny metal object in the middle of the dash, since leaving it there was more about avoiding bad luck. In other words, she was not-so-secretly superstitious rather than secretly Catholic.

If you are currently looking at the St. Christopher medal on your keychain, I do not mean to offend. He’s an interesting case, and represents an important step in the evolution of the idea of sainthood. His story mirrors numerous saints who emerged in the middle ages and became increasingly popular. Christopher, like his colleagues St. Nicholas and St. George, appeared with the kernel of a story that was embellished over the centuries.

The name Christopher means Christ-bearer, and he is said to have carried a young child across a river, only to discover that he was carrying Christ. In this sense, he blesses travellers, as he was blessed. He becomes the embodiment of “entertaining angels unawares” (Heb 13) or serving Christ in the form of the “least of these.” (Mat 25)

This, of course, was not enough to keep him on the formal list of saints. Church reform in the 1960s demanded that saints who were more legend than fact be removed from the primary calendar of commemoration. They were never fully omitted, just placed in a new category. This allowed the church to emphasize saints that were recognized through the highly organized process of canonization.

Over here in the Protestant Church, we’ve taken a different approach. Our Anglican friends continue to commemorate pre-Reformation saints, but have shifted focus to “saints and heroes” of the faith. On the west front of Westminster Abbey you will find statues of Martin Luther King Jr. and Óscar Romero, modern saints and heroes, just two examples. Methodists have taken a similar approach, never praying to saints, but lifting them up as examples to follow.

The phrase “hero of the faith” is helpful, since the common definition of sainthood is to display “heroic virtue.” Beginning in the middle ages, this meant demonstrating the four cardinal virtues (prudence, justice, fortitude and temperance) along with the three theological virtues: faith, hope, and charity. If these three sound familiar, it may relate to the many weddings you have attended. St. Paul commends faith, hope, and charity in 1 Corinthians, though we usually flatter the bride and groom by using the alternate translation, “faith, hope, and love.”

In many ways, Paul’s letter to the Thessalonians is an expanded version of faith, hope, and charity. The letter is less concerned with matters of doctrine, and more about living together as believers. The passage that Joyce shared is like a letter inside the letter, giving us the gist of the matter:

For you know that we dealt with each of you as a father deals with his own children, encouraging, comforting and urging you to live lives worthy of God, who calls you into his kingdom and glory.

Paul is keen to remind them that he was trying to set an example, demonstrating “faith, hope, and charity” at Thessalonica, and urging them to do likewise. In some ways it sounds immodest, reminding them that he and his helpers were “holy, righteous, and blameless” while with them, but it strengthens his point. By living lives worthy of God, we practice the ultimate form of devotion, the greatest gift we can give.

His words are not fully without doctrine, because he shares an important principle in the next section:

And we also thank God continually because, when you received the word of God, which you heard from us, you accepted it not as a human word, but as it actually is, the word of God, which is indeed at work in you who believe.

“You accepted…the word of God, which is indeed at work in you…”

I’m going to be bold and suggest that what Paul is giving us is a summary of sainthood, a summary that includes virtue (in the word of God) and the abiding sense that God is at work in us. Consider it: when we follow the word, we take it on, we embody it—then we take it into the world. Without us, there is risk that the word of God will simply be words in a page. But when we live it, when we personify the word, then God is working in us.

And this, of course, is why we treasure scripture. It provides comfort and hope, inspiration and direction, but it also reminds us of the many ways we can allow God to work in us. Think about some of your favourite passages, and then consider the mandate of allowing God to “work in us and others.” Think of Micah 6, for example: “What does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.” Countless believers have lived these words on their daily walk with the Most High. Likewise, these words from Proverbs 3: “Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding.” (Prov 3)

Perhaps the Proverbs passage is a little less familiar than Micah, but “lean not on your own understanding” is also at the heart of sainthood. We imagine that the great heroes of the faith had all the answers, knew exactly what they were doing, always did the right thing—but this is not the case. Allowing God to work in us, allowing God to anchor our lives, doesn’t make us less human. In fact, allowing God to work in us will make us more aware of our need for redemption, and the power of God’s mercy.

I want to conclude with the list of church names that we have been compiling since last Sunday. As an anniversary project, the list represents all the churches that formed us, and formed Central, making us who we are today. That was last week. This week, we ponder the list and call to mind all the saints represented by the congregations of the list. Consider the service rendered by these congregations: the mercy shown, the comfort given, the instruction shared, the inspiration kindled. Each church on our list represents devoted service—the work of saints—to keep the faith, share hope, and enact the charity that God provides.

We’ll pray over these names in a few moments, but for now we give thanks, thanks for lives lived and love enacted, in Jesus’ name. Amen.

PRAYERS OF THE PEOPLE

O God,
we thank you for the many people throughout the ages
who have followed your way of life joyfully;
for the many saints and martyrs, men and women,
who have offered up their very lives,
so that your life abundant may become manifest.
For your love and faithfulness we praise you.

O God,
we thank you for those who chose the way of Christ.
In the midst of trial, they held out hope;
in the midst of hatred, they kindled love;
in the midst of persecutions, they witnessed to your power;
in the midst of despair, they clung to your promise.
For your love and faithfulness we praise you.

O God,
we thank you for the truth they passed on to us:
that it is by giving that we shall receive;
it is by becoming weak that we shall be strong;
it is by loving others that we shall be loved;
it is by offering ourselves that the kingdom will unfold;
it is by dying that we shall inherit life everlasting.
O God, give us courage to follow your way of life.
For your love and faithfulness we praise you. Amen.

O God,
bless the saints who embodied your Word:
through work and worship,
and the desire to serve others.
We call to mind these congregations,
some active, some gone, but none forgotten.
Bless everyone touched by these
expressions of your love,
and bless us as we read these names:

All Saints Roman Catholic Church, Toronto
Althorpe United Church, Althorpe, ON
Angus United Church, Angus, ON
Applewood United Church, Mississauga
Bethesda-Dixie United Church, Mississauga
Beth Tzedec Synagogue, Toronto
Beverly Hills United Church, North York
Blakey Street Mission, Blackburn, Lancashire, UK
Bloor Street United Church, Toronto
Bolingbroke United Church, Bolingbroke, ON
Bracebridge United Church, Bracebridge, ON
Broadway United Church, Regina, SK
Brookdale United Church, Boileau, QC
Calvary United Church, Calgary, AB
Calvin United Church, DeWitt’s Corners, ON
Canadian Memorial United Church, Vancouver
Canterbury Cathedral, Canterbury, Kent, UK
Central United Church, Weston
Chalmers United Church, Mount Dennis
Chapel on the Hill UCC, Largo, Florida
Christ Church Anglican Church, Ivy, ON
Christ the King Chapel, Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey, CA
Church of the Good Shepherd, Mount Dennis
The Church on the Road to the Dump, Kawartha Lakes
Coppercliff United Church, Sudbury
Davenport Presbyterian Church, Toronto
Deer Park United Church, Toronto
Dublin Street United Church, Guelph
Eastminster United Church, Toronto
Eden United Church, Mississauga
Elizabethville United Church, Elizabeth, ON
Elverston-Trethrewey United Church, Toronto
Etobicoke Salvation Army Church, Etobicoke
Exmouth Street United Church, Saint John, NB
Faith United Church, Toronto
Fenelon Falls United Church, Fenelon Falls, ON
Foothills United Church, Banff, AB
Forest Hill United Church, Toronto
Fort Totten Chapel, Fort Totten, Queens, NY
Fraserburg United Church, Bracebridge, ON
Glen Ayr United Church, Scarborough
Grace United Church, Barrie
Grace United Church, Tavistock, ON
Greenwood United Church, Greenwood, ON
Gilmore Park United Church, Richmond, BC
Heritage United Church, Regina, SK
Hillview Presbyterian Church, Etobicoke
HMCS Cornwallis Chapel, Deep Brook, NS
Holy Trinity Anglican Church, Thornhill
Humber Valley United Church, Etobicoke
Inverary United Church, Inverary, ON
John Calvin Hungarian Presbyterian Church, Hamilton
Knox Presbyterian Church, Toronto
Knox United Church, Dunchurch, ON
Knox United Church, Nippising, ON
Königin Luise Kirche. Königsberg, Ostpreußen (Germany, now Russia)
Lady Margaret Road Wesleyan, Kentish Town, London UK
Maple Presbyterian Church, Maple, ON
Martingrove United Church, Etobicoke
Medical Ministry International
Mount Albert United Church, Mount Albert, ON
Mount Dennis United Church, Mount Dennis
Mount Dennis Baptist Church, Mount Dennis
Nobleton United Church, Nobleton
North Bramalea United Church, Bramalea
Ossington Baptist Church, Toronto
Park Lawn Baptist Church, Toronto
Pasadena Community Church, St. Petersburg, FL
Pearen Memorial United Church, Mount Dennis
The People’s Church, Toronto
Pioneer United Church, Hillside, ON
Rexdale United Church, Rexdale
Runnymede United Church, Toronto
Silverthorn United Church, Toronto
Simcoe Street United Church, Oshawa
South Burnaby United Church, Burnaby, BC
South Wilberforce United, Wilberforce, ON
St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church, Humber Heights
St. Andrew’s United Church, Oshawa
St Andrews-Chalmers Presbyterian Church, Uxbridge, ON
St. Anne’s Church, Highgate, London, UK
St. David’s United Church, Toronto
St. George’s Presbyterian Church, Blackburn, Lancashire, UK
St. Gregory’s Catholic Church, Oshawa
St. James-Bond United Church, Toronto
St. John the Evangelist, Weston
St. John’s United Church, Stratford
St. Margaret’s United Church, Kingston, ON
St. Mark’s Lutheran Church, Kitchener
St. Mark’s United Church, Whitby
St. Matthew’s United Church, Toronto
St. Paul’s United Church, Oakville
St. Paul’s United Church, Waterloo
St. Petersburg United Methodist Church, St. Petersburg, FL
St. Philip Neri Catholic Church, Toronto
St. Stephen’s United Church, Vancouver, BC
St. Stephen’s Church, Lewisham, London, UK
St. Willibrord’s, The Hague
Streetsville United Church, Mississuaga
Sunbury United Church, Sunbury, ON
Swastika United Church, Swastika, ON
Teresia van Avilakerk, The Hague
Teston United Church, Teston, ON
Thistletown United Church, Thistletown
Thornhill United Church, Thornhill
Timothy Eaton Memorial Church, Toronto
Trinity United Church, Huntsville
Trinity United Church, Malton
Tsawwassen United Church in Delta, BC
Unity Church of Truth, Toronto
Wesley Hall Methodist Church, Leicester, UK
Westdale United Church, Hamilton
Westmount Church, Etobicoke
Westminster United Church, Mississauga
Westminster United Church, Orangeville
Westminster United Church, Weston
Weston Park Baptist Church, Toronto
Weston Presbyterian Church, Weston
Westway United Church, Etobicoke
Zion United Church, Moose Jaw

THE LORD’S PRAYER

Our Father who art in heaven,
hallowed be thy name.
Thy kingdom come,
Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread;
and forgive us our trespasses
as we forgive those who trespass against us;
and lead us not into temptation
but deliver us from evil.
For thine is the kingdom,
and the power, and the glory,
for ever and ever. Amen.

HYMN: “For all the saints, who from their labours rest”

For all the saints, who from their labours rest,
all who by faith before the world confessed,
your name, O Jesus, be forever blest.
Hallelujah, hallelujah!

You were their rock, their fortress, and their might:
you were their captain in the well-fought fight;
you, in the darkness drear, their one true light.
Hallelujah, hallelujah!

O blest communion, fellowship divine!
We feebly struggle, they in glory shine;
yet all are one within your great design.
Hallelujah, hallelujah!

The golden evening brightens in the west;
soon, soon to faithful warriors comes their rest;
sweet is the calm of paradise the blest.
Hallelujah, hallelujah!

But lo! there breaks a yet more glorious day
the saints triumphant rise in bright array:
as God to glory calls them all away.
Hallelujah, hallelujah!

From earth’s wide bounds, from ocean’s farthest coast,
through gates of pearl streams in the countless host,
singing to Father, Son, and Holy Ghost:
Hallelujah, hallelujah!

BLESSING

Now may the God of peace make you holy in every way,
and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless
until our Lord Jesus Christ comes again. Amen.
—1 Thessalonians 5:23

God be with you till we meet again;
loving counsels guide, uphold you,
with a shepherd’s care enfold you;
God be with you till we meet again.

Gathered through the power of the Holy Spirit, we worship God with gladness. We encourage you to pray over the words that follow, and follow the links within the liturgy. Prayers in this service are adapted from Celebrate God’s Presence (UCPH). Thanks this week to Jenny, Cor, and Heather!

PRELUDE: “Jesus Has Time” (Roebuck/Fettke)

OPENING PRAYER

Greetings to our brothers and sisters in the faith.
We come to celebrate God’s presence,
and God’s love expressed through Jesus Christ.
We come remembering Christ’s life and ministry,
and the life we are called to live.
We come as a pilgrim people
searching for ways to live out our faith.
We come seeking the strength to carry on our journey.
Let us rejoice in God’s gift to us! Amen.

HYMN OF PRAISE: “Sing praises to God!”

Sing praises to God! Sing praise in the height;
rejoice in God’s word, blest angels of light;
high heavens, recalling by whom you were made,
come, offer your worship in brightness arrayed.

Sing praises to God! Sing praise upon earth,
in tuneful accord, you saints of new birth;
praise God, who has brought you rich grace from above,
and showered your life with abundance of love.

Sing praises to God, all things that give sound;
each jubilant chord re-echo around;
loud organs, your glory tell out in deep tone,
and trumpets, the story of what God has done.

Sing praises to God! Thanksgiving and song
be ever outpoured, all ages along:
for love in creation, for hope spread abroad,
for grace of salvation, sing praises to God.

PRAYER OF CONFESSION

Almighty God,
to whom all hearts are open,
all desires, known,
and from whom no secrets are hid:
cleanse the thoughts of our hearts
by the inspiration of your Holy Spirit,
that we may perfectly love you,
and worthily magnify your holy name;
through Christ our Lord. Amen.

ASSURANCE OF PARDON

God will give us what we need:
strength for today,
hope for tomorrow,
and forgiveness
for all that is past.
Amen.

SPECIAL MUSIC: “Retell what Christ’s great love has done” (Rowthorn/Holmes)

FIRST READING: Psalm 90

God, you have been our refuge in every generation.
Before the mountains were brought forth,
before earth and world were formed,
from age to age everlasting, you are God.
You turn frail humans back to dust, saying:
‘Return, you mortals.’
For a thousand years in your sight are as yesterday,
a day that is past, a watch in the night.
You sweep them away like a dream,
like grass that is fresh in the morning,
like grass which in the morning is green,
but in the evening is dried up and withered.

Turn back, O God! How long?
Have compassion on your servants.
Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love,
that we may rejoice and be glad all our days.
Make us glad as many days as you have afflicted us,
as many years as we have suffered adversity.
Show your servants your work,
and let their children see your glory.
Let the favour of our God be upon us,
and prosper the work of our hands.
Prosper the work of our hands.

SECOND READING: Deuteronomy 34.1-12

Then Moses climbed Mount Nebo from the plains of Moab to the top of Pisgah, across from Jericho. There the Lord showed him the whole land—from Gilead to Dan, 2 all of Naphtali, the territory of Ephraim and Manasseh, all the land of Judah as far as the Mediterranean Sea, 3 the Negev and the whole region from the Valley of Jericho, the City of Palms, as far as Zoar. 4 Then the Lord said to him, “This is the land I promised on oath to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob when I said, ‘I will give it to your descendants.’ I have let you see it with your eyes, but you will not cross over into it.”

5 And Moses the servant of the Lord died there in Moab, as the Lord had said. 6 He buried him[a] in Moab, in the valley opposite Beth Peor, but to this day no one knows where his grave is. 7 Moses was a hundred and twenty years old when he died, yet his eyes were not weak nor his strength gone. 8 The Israelites grieved for Moses in the plains of Moab thirty days, until the time of weeping and mourning was over.

9 Now Joshua son of Nun was filled with the spirit[b] of wisdom because Moses had laid his hands on him. So the Israelites listened to him and did what the Lord had commanded Moses.

10 Since then, no prophet has risen in Israel like Moses, whom the Lord knew face to face, 11 who did all those signs and wonders the Lord sent him to do in Egypt—to Pharaoh and to all his officials and to his whole land. 12 For no one has ever shown the mighty power or performed the awesome deeds that Moses did in the sight of all Israel.

HYMN: “O God, our help in ages past”

O God, our help in ages past,
our hope for years to come,
our shelter from the stormy blast,
and our eternal home:

under the shadow of thy throne
thy saints have dwelt secure,
sufficient is thine arm alone,
and our defence is sure.

Before the hills in order stood,
or earth received its frame,
from everlasting thou art God,
to endless years the same.

A thousand ages in thy sight
are like an evening gone,
short as the watch that ends the night
before the rising sun.

Time like an ever-rolling stream
soon bears us all away;
we fly forgotten, as a dream
dies at the opening day.

O God, our help in ages past,
our hope for years to come,
be thou our guard while troubles last,
and our eternal home.

REFLECTION

He’s the internet pioneer you’ve likely never heard of.

His name is Jacques Gaillot, and his route from rural south-eastern France, to the Algerian desert, and the early days of the World Wide Web begins with a sermon. But that’s the middle of the story.

The story begins as young Jacques completes compulsory military service, enters the seminary, becomes a professor and a priest, and later a bishop. At this point, his story reads like so many of the countless bishops within the Roman Catholic Church. But everything changes with his first Easter service as Bishop of Évreux, when he shares these words: “Christ died outside the walls as he was born outside the walls. If we are to see the light, the sun, of Easter, we ourselves must go outside the walls…Does a bishop remain in his cathedral or does he go into the street?”

His activism was boundless. From the “street” in Évreux he spoke out on disarmament, apartheid, gay rights, French nuclear testing, contraception, clerical celibacy—to name a few. A dozen years after Pope John Paul II appointed him bishop, he removed him, or rather, he relocated him to the Diocese of Parthenia—many times larger than Évreux, but almost completely covered in sand.

You see, Parthenia is a titular see, meaning it was once a thriving part of the church, but no longer exists (except on paper). Within the Catholic Church these former regions are retained as placeholders, or honorifics, or in the case of Jacques Gaillot, as punishment. Along the Mediterranean coast of North Africa there were nearly fifty dioceses with nearly fifty bishops, all of which were gone by the early middle ages.

Having been given a diocese buried under metres of sand, the good bishop moved online, creating the first “virtual” diocese and reaching a worldwide audience. What began as punishment became an opportunity and an early example of the power of the internet to inform and mobilize. 25 years later his work continues.

I share this unlikely story with you because I love stories of people who managed to “make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear,” but also because of the story of Parthenia. We celebrate 199 years of Central today, but we also celebrate all the history that led to this moment. We mark this place, but we also remember the parts of the church that led to the creation of this place: from the recent and well-loved places like Mount Dennis, Westminster, and Elverston-Trethewey—to the places that led to their creation. In the same way that each church was formed by people coming from other churches, each person was (and is) formed by others, all of them with a unique background in the faith. This web of believers, existing over time and space, makes us who we are today, as we mark this moment.

It also reminds us that we exist in the middle of the story—always the middle of the story—and what follows is always unknown. We recall the history of this place, and we celebrate the present of this place, and we anticipate with hope the future. Yet, it remains unwritten. We don’t get to see the promised land, the future church that is the fulfillment of all our hopes, because we belong to the middle of the story. And we’re in good company, of course, with no less a figure than Moses himself.

The remarkable passage from Deuteronomy 34 describes the end of Moses’ life, the middle of the story where God shows him the vastness of the promised land—a land he cannot enter. It is the culmination of the most important story in the Old Testament—along with creation itself. From the baby in the basket, to the Incident at Meribah, to this view of the promised land, the story of Moses is foundational to our understanding of the God Who Saves. And as I share this claim, and as you call to mind the arc of the Exodus, I hope you (like me) wonder at the Incident at Meribah.

It’s hinted at in our passage: God says to Moses “This is the land I promised on oath to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob when I said, ‘I will give it to your descendants.’ I have let you see it with your eyes, but you will not cross over into it.” Walter Bruegemann argues that by the time God reminds Moses, it’s all ancient history—the Incident at Meribah—but our passage turns on this story nonetheless.

It happens like this: The people are complaining once more. Despite the water and the manna and the awkward quail, the people are complaining once more. And in their thirst and frustration they begin to complain to Moses and Aaron and it all sounds rather familiar: ‘Why did you bring us this evil place? At least in Egypt we had places to grow our grain or figs or vines or pomegranates, and here, there isn’t even water to drink.’

So Moses and Aaron retreat to the tent of meeting and seek God’s help. God says (in essence) ‘do what you did before. Take the staff, tell the rock to bring forth water, give to the people.’ So they gather the people once more, and Moses speaks. He forgets his homily about the God Who Saves and the gifts God has given them to sustain them so far. And instead he says “Look you idiots, you want me to get some water from this rock?” (look it up—Numbers 20.10) He struck the rock (twice) and everyone drank.

But God was angry. ‘You didn’t speak to the rock, you struck the rock. You didn’t uphold me by saying ‘look at what God is giving you’—you said ‘look at what I’m giving you’ instead. For this reason, you will get to see the promised land, but you cannot enter it. Again, this may be ancient history for Moses, tired after leading these unruly people for forty years, but it defines his end. Stuck in the middle of the story, never entering the promised land, he must settle for hope.

It seems to me that the lesson of forever dwelling in the middle of the story has even wider application. Almost exactly four years ago I shared an article about St. Augustine, the North African saint that some were calling the “patron saint of the 2016 election.” It turns out it was a little too prescient. The author of the article argues that even as the barbarian hordes were overtaking the city, Augustine never lost hope. Even as the Western Roman empire was crumbling, and with it the certitude of the church in this period, Augustine was working for the well-being of the city, and the people he was trusted to lead. “Christians are not of the world, but we’re most definitely in it,” the Archbishop of Philadelphia said. “Augustine would say that our home is the City of God, but we get there by passing through the City of Man…and while we’re on the road, we have a duty to leave the world better than we found it.”*

Again, the middle of the story. And just because we need hope more than ever, I want to quote President Obama, who shared these words on Wednesday, more-or-less saying what all these others are saying:

And the fact that we don’t get 100% of what we want right away is not a good reason not to vote. It means we’ve got to vote and then get some change and then vote some more and then get some more change, and then keep on voting until we get it right.*

The past might be a mystery to us, or even covered in sand, and the present might look like one crisis after another, but we still have hope. The past might not feel like the past to us, and the present might seem like it never lives up to the past, but we still have hope. The past might seem like a trial in the desert, and the present merely a glimpse of the promised land, but we still have hope.

Our task is to keep wandering, keep moving, keep supporting one another, and keep the faith alive. Our task is to find Christ “outside the walls” of the church, and in the streets, the streets where God lives. And our task is to remember that God will save us from every kind of trial, and that God will always lead us home. Amen.

*http://religionnews.com/2016/11/03/is-augustine-the-patron-saint-of-the-2016-election/
**https://www.cnn.com/2020/10/22/politics/obama-speech-transcript/index.html

PRAYERS OF THE PEOPLE

O God,
where the gift of life is given,
remind us to give thanks;
where your blessings rest upon us,
remind us to share them with others;
where the turning leaves leave us breathless,
remind us they reflect your glory;
where our needs are met each day,
remind us that you are the source;
where the gift of an anniversary is celebrated,
remind us to give thanks.

O God,
where hearts are fearful and confined,
grant freedom and daring;
where anxiety is infectious and widening,
grant peace and reassurance;
where impossibilities close every door and window,
grant imagination and resistance;
where distrust reshapes every understanding,
grant healing and transformation;
where spirits are daunted and dimmed,
grant soaring wings and strengthened dreams.

O God,
where nations descent in chaos,
grant understanding between people;
where communities are divided by station or race,
grant a sense of the sacredness of every life;
where leaders are unable or unwilling to lead,
grant wisdom and courage;
where systems conspire to keep people down,
grant vision and insight;
where people cry out for freedom,
grant them that which we all deserve.

O God,
where the pandemic rages,
grant healing and a common purpose;
where families grieve the loss of a loved one,
grant comfort in the face of loss.
where hopelessness appears, these months on,
grant us hope for the future;
where frontline workers feel overwhelmed,
grant us the means to help;
where the vulnerable suffer the most,
grant us a voice to speak for them.

In Christ, we pray.

THE LORD’S PRAYER

Our Father who art in heaven,
hallowed be thy name.
Thy kingdom come,
Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread;
and forgive us our trespasses
as we forgive those who trespass against us;
and lead us not into temptation
but deliver us from evil.
For thine is the kingdom,
and the power, and the glory,
for ever and ever. Amen.

HYMN: “God of life, in Christ you lead us”

God of life, in Christ you lead us,
guiding us along the way.
In our past, through joys and sorrows,
you have been our strength and stay.
Keep us faithful, true disciples,
in our learning and our praise,
celebrating past and present, consecrating future days.

God of words and Word Incarnate,
words that challenge and embrace,
grant us boldness in our speaking,
while we know your loving grace.
Give us words both clear and winsome,
loving hearts and listening ears,
celebrating past and present, consecrating future years.

God of music, psalms and anthems,
help us sing your faith anew:
melodies expanding worship,
harmonies enriching too.
May our lives be hymns in action,
tuned to Christ in note and rhyme,
celebrating past and present, consecrating future time.

God of days and years and eons,
still you call as in the past.
Work undone demands our labour;
justice yearns for peace at last.
Yours the vision and the challenge;
ours the mission and the praise,
celebrating past and present, consecrating future days.

BLESSING

Now may the God of peace make you holy in every way,
and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless
until our Lord Jesus Christ comes again. Amen.
—1 Thessalonians 5:23

God be with you till we meet again;
loving counsels guide, uphold you,
with a shepherd’s care enfold you;
God be with you till we meet again.

Gathered through the power of the Holy Spirit, we worship God with gladness. We encourage you to pray over the words that follow, and follow the links within the liturgy. Prayers in this service are adapted from Celebrate God’s Presence (UCPH). Thanks this week to Dave, Cor, and Heather!

PRELUDE: “Welcome to Another Day” (Saward/Jones)

OPENING PRAYER

God of life, we rejoice in your love which has filled creation from the beginning and which calls all life into being.  We praise you for Jesus Christ, who reveals most fully your loving purpose for all people.  We bless you for your Spirit who draws all humanity into the circle of your tender love.  Gracious God, bless us with your presence so that our worship and our lives may be a true celebration of your love in Jesus Christ, in whose name we pray.  Amen.

HYMN OF PRAISE: “Where cross the crowded ways of life”

Where cross the crowded ways of life,
where sound the cries of race and clan,
above the noise of selfish strife,
we hear your words of life again.

In haunts of wretchedness and need,
on shadowed thresholds, dark with fears,
from paths where hide the lures of greed,
we catch the vision of your tears.

The cup of water given for you
still holds the freshness of your grace;
yet long these multitudes to view
the strong compassion of your face.

O Jesus, from the mountain side,
make haste to heal these hearts of pain;
among these restless throngs abide,
and tread the city’s streets again,

till all the world shall learn your love
and follow where your feet have trod,
till glorious from your heaven above
shall come the city of our God.

PRAYER OF CONFESSION

Merciful God,
we admit that we get discouraged.
We underestimate your light within us.
Forgive us when we turn away
from the needs of others.
Help us to reach out in faith, and to be generous.
Empower us to be your beacon of light
in a troubled world, through Christ, Amen.

ASSURANCE OF PARDON

God will give us what we need:
strength for today,
hope for tomorrow,
and forgiveness
for all that is past.
Amen.

SPECIAL MUSIC: “Take Time to be Holy” (Longstaff/Stebbins)

FIRST READING: Psalm 146

Praise God, O my soul. As long as I live I will praise God.
Yes, as long as I have life I will sing praises to God.
Put not your trust in princes, nor in any mortal,
for in them there is no help.
When they breathe their last they return to dust;
then their plans come to nothing.
Happy are those whose help is the God of Jacob,
whose hope is the Maker of heaven and earth,
the sea, and all that is in them,
the One who keeps faith for ever,
who gives justice to the oppressed,
who gives food to the hungry.

God sets prisoners free, restores sight to the blind.
God straightens those who are bent;
loves those who are just.
God cares for the stranger in the land,
and sustains the widow and orphan;
but the way of the wicked God turns to ruin.
God shall reign forever, O Zion,
your God for all generations.

SECOND READING: Matthew 11.2-6

When John heard in prison what the Messiah was doing, he sent word by his disciples and said to him, “Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?” Jesus answered them, “Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them. And blessed is anyone who takes no offence at me.”

HYMN: “O Master, let me walk with thee”

O Master, let me walk with thee
in lowly paths of service free;
teach me thy secret, help me bear
the strain of toil, the fret of care.

Help me the slow of heart to move
with some clear, winning word of love;
teach me the wayward feet to stay,
and guide them in the homeward way.

Teach me thy patience; still with thee,
in closer, dearer company,
in work that keeps faith sure and strong,
in trust that triumphs over wrong,

in hope that sends a shining ray
far down the future’s broadening way,
in peace that only thou canst give,
with thee, O Master, let me live.

REFLECTION

Editor’s note: This sermon was first preached at Birchcliff Bluffs United Church on December 16, 2007.

Does anyone have a fifty-dollar bill?

No, this isn’t a last minute appeal for donations. Although it could be. There is something important I want you to see.

While you’re looking, I’ll give some background. Last month I was looking for the words to “In Flander’s Field” on Google when the Bank of Canada website came up. Of course, I remembered, part of the poem appears on the back of the ten-dollar bill. Looking over the site, I was impressed by the way each bill is presented, along with notes explaining the various images.

Near the bottom of the page are the bigger notes that the humble rarely get to see. I’ve always been impressed the $50, with a thoughtful looking Mackenzie King and a picture of the memorial to the Famous Five, the five women who won the Persons Case of 1929.

Then the surprise. There, on the back along with the Famous Five is a quote from part of a text written by John Humphrey: “All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.” My head was spinning. What is this quote? Who is this John Humphrey? I have a minor in Canadian history. Among my professors were Bill Kilbourn and Jack Granatstein. My family fears me at Trivial Pursuit.

It turns out John Humphrey wrote the first draft of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Eleanor Roosevelt called the Declaration “the international Magna Carta of humanity.” Humphrey is the only Canadian to win the UN Human Rights Prize, one of only 37 individuals to win it in the history of the prize. Other recipients include Nelson Mandela and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Alarmed and shocked, I started asking people if they knew John Humphrey. My daughter and son-in-law, both Queen’s grads in Canadian history: never heard of him. People at the pub: never heard of him. What is going on? If there was ever a nominee for “greatest Canadian” it’s John Humphrey. This is the moment when I would normally do my rant about how Canadians hate their own history, and how Americans invent and promote theirs, but I will spare you.

It is enough to say that the late John Humphrey, deserves a bigger place in our collective memory. He may not surpass Tommy Douglas or the Famous Five, but he deserves to be common knowledge. The United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, now nearly sixty years old, remains the best description of our highest aspirations as humans. And this may be the problem.

It may be our collective failure to live up to the declaration—which has the force of international law—that has led to our ignorance. Listen to Article 25 (1):

Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.

Here, Humphrey is sounding like an Old Testament prophet, describing our need to protect widow, orphan and alien like some latter-day Isaiah. The words have a unique ancient-future quality to them: language that begins in a tradition and describes what is yet to be. It is ancient hope and future desire. In this sense, it is Advent.

This season of waiting is more than rehearsing the nativity and looking for signs. The season includes an abiding belief in God’s justice, a vision of the world as it ought to be, as God wishes it to be. Jesus prayed “thy Kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” There is no clearer statement of what it means to live under the promises of a just God. Listen again to the words of the psalmist:

5 Happy are those whose help is the God of Jacob, whose hope is in the LORD their God, 7 who executes justice for the oppressed; who gives food to the hungry. The LORD sets the prisoners free; 8 the LORD opens the eyes of the blind. The LORD lifts up those who are bowed down; the LORD loves the righteous. 9 The LORD watches over the strangers; he upholds the orphan and the widow.

It is the same God, come in Jesus, who said “Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them.” It is the same God, come in Jesus, who points to the new age.

There were some, John included, who wondered about the direction Jesus was taking. They were looking for “a strong hand and an outstretched arm” (Ex 6.6) to free the people, and to overthrow Caesar as God did Pharaoh. But something else was happening. Jesus was speaking in parables, and making disciples, healing the sick and preaching good news to the poor. There were no plagues and there was no blood. Jesus was liberating the human heart.

This also was God’s project. As the words “Go and tell John what you hear and see” leave his lips, we recognize what follows are quotes, words found in Isaiah 29 and Isaiah 35. These are words that point backwards to an age-old challenge: opening the eyes of the blind and unstopping the ears of those who cannot hear. This is not a physical condition, though Jesus can heal that too. This is an ailment of the soul. Perhaps the greatest single summary comes from Isaiah:

11 For you this whole vision is nothing but words sealed in a scroll. And if you give the scroll to someone who can read, and say to him, “Read this, please,” he will answer, “I can’t; it is sealed.” 12 Or if you give the scroll to someone who cannot read, and say, “Read this, please,” he will answer, “I don’t know how to read.” (Is 29)

How ironic that the most famous photo of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is one of Eleanor Roosevelt unrolling it in the form of a scroll. And this whole vision, we know, is nothing but words sealed in a scroll. The words cannot live beyond the page unless we make them live, unless we bring them to life.

This is the hope of Advent: that we break the seal and read the words and open our eyes and tune our ears to the message God would have us receive. That we give to God our greatest hope and deepest desire that a world made new may come, that our longing may be met now and always, Amen.

PRAYERS OF THE PEOPLE

God of hope, we give you thanks for the faithful ones who shape us and encourage us. Enable us to grow in faith and to be the body of Christ in the world. We are grateful for the opportunity to learn about new realities and new challenges.

God of love, shine your light in the world’s troubled places. We pray for all who are too weary to pray; for all who are ill and each one who cares for them; for the sick and anxious; and all who feel alone. We pray for each one who mourns the loss of a loved one, or the end of a dream. Grant strength and comfort in the face of pain.

God of wisdom, guide the ministry of WAES. Strengthen their mission, help them to help others, and further their work as a reflection of your Realm.  Remind us to pray for them and all others who seek to support the vulnerable people you love so dearly.  We pray for everyone experiencing economic hardship today.  We pray for the unemployed, the underemployed, and everyone who has given up.  We pray for hope in these uncertain times, trusting that you, O God, will provide the hope we need.  

Fill us with your love, that it may overflow as we reach out to this community.  Grant us confidence as your children and courage as your servants to learn about people in need.  Be with communities burdened by trouble or turmoil, and those most affected by COVID-19.  

In the silence, we lift up to you those known to us who are in need of your love and comfort. Amen.

THE LORD’S PRAYER

Our Father who art in heaven,
hallowed be thy name.
Thy kingdom come,
Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread;
and forgive us our trespasses
as we forgive those who trespass against us;
and lead us not into temptation
but deliver us from evil.
For thine is the kingdom,
and the power, and the glory,
for ever and ever. Amen.

HYMN: “Today we all are called to be”

Today we all are called to be
disciples of the Lord,
to help to set the captive free,
make ploughshare out of sword,
to feed the hungry, quench their thirst,
make love and peace our fast,
to serve the poor and homeless first,
our ease and comfort last.

God made the world and at its birth
ordained our human race
to live as stewards of the earth,
responding to God’s grace.
But we are vain and sadly proud,
we sow not peace but strife,
our discord spreads a deadly cloud
that threatens all of life.

Pray justice may come rolling down
as in a mighty stream,
with righteousness in field and town
to cleanse us and redeem.
For God is longing to restore
an earth where conflicts cease,
a world that was created for
a harmony of peace.

May we in service to our God
act out the living Word,
and walk the road the saints have trod
till all have seen and heard.
As stewards of the earth may we
give thanks in one accord
to God who calls us all to be
disciples of the Lord.

BLESSING

Now may the God of peace make you holy in every way,
and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless
until our Lord Jesus Christ comes again. Amen.
—1 Thessalonians 5:23

God be with you till we meet again;
loving counsels guide, uphold you,
with a shepherd’s care enfold you;
God be with you till we meet again.

Gathered through the power of the Holy Spirit, we worship God with gladness. We encourage you to pray over the words that follow, and follow the links within the liturgy. Prayers in this service are adapted from Celebrate God’s Presence (UCPH). Thanks this week to Dave, Cor, and Heather!

PRELUDE: “We Praise You for the Sun” (Mahnke)

OPENING PRAYER

God of plenty,
You give us all we need.
The seed that waited in darkness,
beneath the earth you made,
has emerged in its fullness,
and the bounty is ours.
You made the rain fall,
and the sun to shine,
and everywhere we look we see the result.
You bless us,
and encourage us,
to share what you give—
daily bread for all your children.
Hear us, God, as we pray today,
and express our thanksgiving.
Amen

HYMN OF PRAISE: “For the fruit of all creation”

For the fruit of all creation, thanks be to God.
For the gifts to every nation, thanks be to God.
For the ploughing, sowing, reaping,
silent growth while we are sleeping,
future needs in earth’s safekeeping, thanks be to God.

In the just reward of labour, God’s will is done.
In the help we give our neighbour, God’s will is done.
In our worldwide task of caring
for the hungry and despairing,
in the harvests we are sharing, God’s will is done.

For the harvests of the Spirit, thanks be to God.
For the good we all inherit, thanks be to God.
For the wonders that astound us,
for the truths that still confound us,
most of all that love has found us, thanks be to God.

PRAYER OF CONFESSION

Ever patient God:
You send plenty,
And we see scarcity.
You send mercy,
And we see judgment.
You send the rain,
And we long for the sun.
You send the sun,
And we cry out for rain.
Yet you remain patient, God,
In the face of our failing.
You send forgiveness,
Amen.

ASSURANCE OF PARDON

God will give us what we need:
strength for today,
hope for tomorrow,
and forgiveness
for all that is past.
Amen.

SPECIAL MUSIC: “Beautiful City” (Tebelak/Schwartz)

FIRST READING: Psalm 106

O give thanks, for God is good; God’s love endures forever.
Who can recount your mighty acts, O God,
or tell of all your praise?  

Blessed are those who act justly,
and always do what is right.
Remember me, God,
when you show favour to your people,
and come to me with your saving help.
May I see the prosperity of your chosen;
may I share the joy of your nation,
and exult with the people you have made your own.  

We have sinned like our ancestors;
we have erred, and acted wickedly.
They made a young bull at Horeb,
and worshipped that molten image.
They exchanged the glory of God
for the image of a creature that feeds on grass.
They forgot that you were the God who had saved them
by your mighty acts in Egypt,
the wonders you had done in the land of Ham,
awesome deeds at the Red Sea.
You would have destroyed them
had not Moses, your chosen one, stood in the breach.
He turned back your wrath from their destruction.  

SECOND READING: Philippians 4.1-9

Therefore, my brothers and sisters, you whom I love and long for, my joy and crown, stand firm in the Lord in this way, dear friends!

2 I plead with Euodia and I plead with Syntyche to be of the same mind in the Lord. 3 Yes, and I ask you, my true companion, help these women since they have contended at my side in the cause of the gospel, along with Clement and the rest of my co-workers, whose names are in the book of life.

4 Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! 5 Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. 6 Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. 7 And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

8 Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things. 9 Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me—put it into practice. And the God of peace will be with you.

HYMN: “Praise to God, immortal praise”

Praise to God, immortal praise,
for the love that crowns our days;
bounteous source of every joy,
let your praise our tongues employ:

for the blessings of the fields,
for the stores the garden yields,
flocks that whiten all the plain,
yellow sheaves of ripened grain:

all that spring with bounteous hand
scatters o’er the smiling land,
all that liberal autumn pours
from its rich o’erflowing stores.

These to you, O God, we owe,
source from which all blessings flow;
and for these our souls shall raise
grateful vows and solemn praise.

REFLECTION

Sometimes you’re rhetorical, and other times you’re rhetorical.

The first and most common meaning is the rhetorical question. If you looked outside last night and cried, “why is it getting dark so early?” then you were asking a rhetorical question. There’s a scientific answer—something to do with the earth’s axis—but that’s not the purpose of the question. The rhetorical question is meant to make a point, like the surprising pace of seasonal change.

The other rhetorical, the one that St. Paul loves, relates to persuasion and the use of language. There are numerous devices, or techniques, that are commonly used, and have been identified. And since rhetoric is an ancient discipline, it has long been the subject of study. And no one studied rhetoric as thoroughly as the Greeks, who claimed the right to name these devices. Some examples:

When Yoda said “Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering,” he wasn’t just making an excellent point, he was employing anadiplosis. The ‘last word becomes the first word’ pattern is anadiplosis.

When Ben Franklin said “we must all hang together or most assuredly we shall all hang separately,” he was using antanaclasis—two meanings for the word hang to emphasize his point. Lucky for him, they won their little rebellion.

If I said “tens of people attended worship this morning,” it would sound funny—perhaps even clever—and would be an example of antiphrasis. Antiphrasis takes a common phrase (“tens of” is usually followed by thousands”) and applies it to a given situation.

On the more serious side, if someone raises a topic while pretending not to raise the topic (“I don’t know anything about it, but people are talking about it…”) then they are engaged in apophasis. It’s a way for liars and cheats to deny they ever talked about something. Michael, tell is how you truly feel.

My final example is anaphora, the repetition of a word or phrase to underline your point. Lincoln did it at Gettysburg, and most famously Churchill did it on June 4, 1940:

“…we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender.”

The use of “we” is meant to unite the nation, create common cause, and underline the resolve to never surrender. Interestingly, Churchill used only Old English words in this quote—words in use for over a thousand years—except one: surrender, from the French.

And finally to dear Paul, who wrote in Greek and used anaphora to create this remarkable passage:

Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things. 9 Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me—put it into practice. And the God of peace will be with you.

It’s a powerful passage, made more powerful by the use of anaphora. Paul could have said “think about truth, nobility, purity, loveliness…” and it wouldn’t have nearly the same effect. Here Paul is almost pleading, and the repetitive use of “whatever” is an invitation to think of these virtues and whatever else comes to mind. And this, of course, leads to his conclusion—whatever you see in me—try to do this too.

This might be the moment to say more about the context of these words, both the church at Philippi, and people who lived in the city. Philippi was first a Greek city, mostly abandoned by the first century before the common era. After Rome’s civil war (42 BCE) the city was colonized by retired Roman soldiers, a reward for their service to the republic (soon to be empire). There were mines in the area, which meant prosperity, making Philippi a very attractive place to live.

All of these clues (proud, prosperous) may reveal why Paul wrote what he wrote. If you had to summarize the Letter to the Philippians with two words, the two words would be humility and unity. Maybe all that wealth explains the need for humility, or the humility you might need as a proud Roman surrounded by colonized Greeks. Maybe a mixed church of Romans and Greeks, colonizers and the colonized, explains the need for unity. Whatever the reason, Paul wants humility and unity, and he’s willing to use powerful rhetoric to get it.

Still, I think there is more here—more about the Roman world itself—and the ideas that defined the culture. I’m thinking specifically of Roman virtue (weir-tus), which meant something quite different from the virtue we know. We think of goodness when we hear the word virtue, but for Romans virtue was closer to manliness, valour, courage, character, or worth. The Roman god Virtus was the god of bravery in battle, the personification of the Roman virtue.

Later on, the meaning of virtue will begin to resemble what we call virtue, but at the time Paul is writing, virtus is about strength. Everything you did in the public sphere was about gaining and maintaining virtus. You could become famous in the process—there was no shame in glory—but the overall goal was the betterment of Rome. Virtus meant higher standing, higher standing meant more responsibility, and more responsibility meant more opportunities for conquest.

Hold that in your mind and listen to Paul’s plea once more: “…whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable…think about such things.” These are his concluding words, which are really just a coda to his starting point back in verse four: “Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near.”

“Let your gentleness be evident to all.”

It would be easy, then, to suggest that our time period has returned to Roman virtus—manliness and conquest—and somehow left a gentler age behind. We could idealize the recent past and imagine that what we face today is unique or new. Yes, we seem to be sliding into a dangerous new age, but for many people and places (even here in Canada) the danger never went away. The view from relative wealth and privilege makes it harder for us to see that for many—too many—conquest never stopped.

And this just adds urgency to Paul’s message. The goal of seeking these things is as relevant today as the day Paul put pen to parchment. As the people of God, we stand up for “whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable…” What other goals are there? The world needs reminding (and Christians everywhere need reminding) that the Kingdom of God is a kingdom of gentleness, and mercy, and justice. Paul gives us powerful rhetoric for powerful ideas, Godly ideas that may be our only hope. Amen.

PRAYERS OF THE PEOPLE

Holy Love,
Beginning and End,
beyond all Names:
giver of plenty and harvest,
clothing and warmth,
love and hope,
life in all its goodness—
We praise and adore you.

Jesus Christ,
Wisdom and Word:
lover of outcasts,
friend of the poor,
one of us, yet one with God,
crucified and risen,
life in the midst of death—
We praise and adore you.

Holy Spirit,
Storm and Breath:
building bridges,
breaking chains,
waking the oppressed,
making us one,
unseen and unexpected,
untameable energy of life—
We praise and adore you.

Holy Three, forever One,
whose nature is community;
we pray for those we love,
and those we struggle to love,
and everyone you call our neighbour.
You bring healing and hope,
and comfort to those who mourn.
We praise and adore you. Amen.

THE LORD’S PRAYER

Our Father who art in heaven,
hallowed be thy name.
Thy kingdom come,
Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread;
and forgive us our trespasses
as we forgive those who trespass against us;
and lead us not into temptation
but deliver us from evil.
For thine is the kingdom,
and the power, and the glory,
for ever and ever. Amen.

HYMN: “As those of old their first-fruits brought”

As those of old their first-fruits brought
of vineyard, flock, and field
to God, the giver of all good,
the source of bounteous yield;
so we today our first-fruits bring:
the wealth of this good land,
of farm and market, shop and home,
of mind and heart and hand.

A world in need now summons us
to labour, love, and give,
to make our life an offering
to God, that all may live.
The church of Christ is calling us
to make the dream come true:
a world redeemed, by Christ-like love,
all life in Christ made new.

With gratitude and humble trust
we bring our best to you,
not just to serve your cause, but share
your love with neighbours too.
O God, who gave yourself to us
in Jesus Christ, your son,
help us to give ourselves each day
until life’s work is done.

BLESSING

Now may the God of peace make you holy in every way,
and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless
until our Lord Jesus Christ comes again. Amen.
—1 Thessalonians 5:23

God be with you till we meet again;
loving counsels guide, uphold you,
with a shepherd’s care enfold you;
God be with you till we meet again.

Today—World Communion Sunday—left us with a dilemma: we determined that there is no completely safe way to share communion at the church, and we can’t do share it online either. Pondering this, I was reminded that today is also the Feast of Saint Francis. Francis, famous for preaching to the birds, is the inspiration behind “communion” for our avian friends—a liturgy and seed offering. Those worshiping in person will receive a small bag of bird seed (in a compostable plastic bag), while those at home are invited to gather seeds or some other food item that the birds might enjoy. You will find the liturgy near the end of this service. Thanks this week to Jenny, Cor, and Heather!

PRELUDE: “In the Evening” (Hofmann)

OPENING PRAYER

Loving God,
you speak to us in so many ways:
in the song of a bird,
in the babbling of a brook,
in the voices of our friends,
in the warmth of an embrace,
in the songs we sing,
and in the stories of the Bible.
Speak to us as we worship.
Help us to hear your voice
and follow the way of Jesus.
Amen.

HYMN OF PRAISE: “Come, we that love the Lord”

Come, we that love the Lord,
and let our joys be known,
join in a song with sweet accord,
and thus surround the throne.

Let those refuse to sing
who never knew our God;
but children of the heavenly King
may speak their joys abroad.

The hill of Zion yields
a thousand sacred sweets
before we reach the heavenly fields
or walk the golden streets.

Then let our songs abound,
and every tear be dry;
we’re marching through Emmanuel’s ground,
to fairer worlds on high.

PRAYER OF CONFESSION

God of all creation,
we confess our inability to tread lightly on the earth.
Our use of resources,
the lives we live,
have done harm to our earthly home.
Help us, Lord, to repent,
and to find new ways to interact
with the world you gave us.
Lend us your mercy and show us your way:
that we may travel as lightly
as the birds of the air,
and dwell as effortlessly
and the flowers of the field.
Amen.

ASSURANCE OF PARDON

God will give us what we need:
strength for today,
hope for tomorrow,
and forgiveness
for all that is past.
Amen.

SPECIAL MUSIC: “Eternal Christ, you rule” (Damon)

FIRST READING: Psalm 19

The heavens declare the glory of God;
and the vault of the sky reveals God’s handiwork.
One day speaks to another,
and night shares its knowledge with night,
and this without speech or language;
their voices are not heard.
But their sound goes out to all the lands,
their words to the ends of the earth.

In the heavens God has pitched a tent for the sun
which comes out like a bridegroom from under the canopy,
like an athlete eager to run the race.
Its rising is at one end of the sky,
it runs its course to the other,
and there is nothing that is hidden from its heat.

God’s law is perfect, refreshing the soul;
God’s instruction is sure,
giving wisdom to the simple;
God’s precepts are right, rejoicing the heart;
God’s commandment is pure
giving light to the eyes;
God’s fear is clean, enduring forever;
God’s judgements are true,
every one of them righteous;
more desirable than gold, even much fine gold;
sweeter also than honey,
pure honey from the comb.

By them is your servant warned;
for in keeping them there is great reward.
But who can discern unwitting sins?
O cleanse me from my secret faults.
Keep your servant also from presumptuous sins,
lest they get the better of me.
Then shall I be clean and innocent of great offence.

SECOND READING: Philippians 3.4b-14

If someone else thinks they have reasons to put confidence in the flesh, I have more: 5 circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; in regard to the law, a Pharisee; 6 as for zeal, persecuting the church; as for righteousness based on the law, faultless.

7 But whatever were gains to me I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. 8 What is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them garbage, that I may gain Christ 9 and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in[a] Christ—the righteousness that comes from God on the basis of faith. 10 I want to know Christ—yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, 11 and so, somehow, attaining to the resurrection from the dead.

12 Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. 13 Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, 14 I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.

HYMN: “When I survey the wondrous cross”

When I survey the wondrous cross
on which the Prince of glory died,
my richest gain I count but loss,
and pour contempt on all my pride.

Forbid it, Lord, that I should boast
save in the death of Christ, my God:
all the vain things that charm me most,
I sacrifice them to his blood.

See from his head, his hands, his feet,
sorrow and love flow mingled down!
Did e’er such love and sorrow meet,
or thorns compose so rich a crown?

Were the whole realm of nature mine,
that were a present far too small:
love so amazing, so divine,
demands my soul, my life, my all.

REFLECTION

He preached to the birds, he befriended a wolf, and he rebuilt ruined chapels.

Like many saints, he was a reformer, directing the church back to founding principles: repentance, care for the sick, and a call to poverty. His movement, the Friars Minor, grew from the strength of his personality and the compelling example he set. He was no revolutionary, and he never sought to break with the church—something that disappointed his critics. He is perhaps the best known saint after Mary herself, and certainly among the most loved.

Francis began his life with wealth and position. His father was a successful cloth merchant in Assisi, his mother a French noblewoman. And Francis lived into this wealth. He had a reputation as a wild young man, a rogue with deep pockets and easy charm, which made him very popular.

The first change to this life of ease began in war. Enlisting to fight—some say to demonstrate his love for luxurious costumes—he was captured in battle and held for a year. Finally ransomed by his father, he returned a changed person. He began to spend less time at business and more time in prayer, mostly outside Assisi in small chapels. He developed an affinity for the poor, and when he went on pilgrimage to Rome, he spent much of his time around St. Peter’s with local beggars.

Returning to Assisi, he continued to pray in remote chapels. On one occasion, Christ spoke to him and said “Francis, Francis, go and repair My house which, as you can see, is falling into ruins.” He took this direction literally, rebuilding ruined chapels and gathering fellow-minded followers.

His father, you can imagine, was not impressed. Fearing that all this wealth would one day be spent on these projects, his father sued to disinherit Francis. The climax of the case saw Francis renounce his father, and famously disrobe, returning his clothing. As his local fame increased, so did his followers.

And Francis soon understood the command to rebuild the church as metaphor. He directed his followers to care for the poor, tend to lepers, and share a message of repentance, brotherly love, and peace. He and his followers rejected possessions, survived (in the early days) by begging, and saw themselves as standing against the surrounding culture.

Perhaps this is at the heart of his lasting appeal. Like the hippies of the 1960s, Francis and his group defied the dominant culture. They wore simple tunics, and went barefoot—earning them the name pazzo, meaning madmen. Labelled fools, Francis called himself “a new kind of fool.” He spoke about himself and his followers as Jongleurs de Dieu (which means something like “jesters for God”). And together they were also referred to as poverello (little poor ones) for their refusal to accumulate possessions.*

All of this points to a departure, a turn from one life to another life altogether. It defines the life of Francis, and it defines the life of St. Paul. We hear this in our reading from Philippians: Paul’s recitation at the beginning, his former c.v., and then the conversion that follows. Listen once more to the source of his early confidence: “circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; in regard to the law, a Pharisee; as for zeal, persecuting the church; as for righteousness based on the law, faultless.”

But his confident recounting of the past is then transformed into new confidence in the present:

But whatever were gains to me, I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I now consider them garbage…

In both Francis and Paul we see the same pattern: renunciation, redirection, and rededication. They discard comfort (Francis) and confidence (Paul) for the sake of Christ. They redirect their effort to care for the poor (Francis) and the poor at heart (Francis and Paul). And they rededicate themselves to the gospel of Jesus Christ, building a church (Paul) or rebuilding a church (Francis) to reflect God’s glory. Whatever was gain is now considered loss for Christ Jesus.

About now you may be wondering how this tiny temple to Methodism (Central) ended up marking a feast day on the Catholic calendar and engaging in so much hagiography—recalling the lives of the saints. It turns out that Francis is also venerated by Anglicans—our ecclesiastical forebears—and most other traditions too. Oddly, scholars can find no mention of Francis in the writings of John Wesley, strange because they had much in common. They shared the same concern for the poor, the same desire to preach Christ in the open air—directly to the people—and the same desire to rebuild the church. They even shared a love for God’s creatures, Wesley preaching against cruelty to animals.**

What these reformers share is a desire to return to the primitive church. Reading scripture, considering the relationship between Christ and his disciples, and trying to find the heart of the message—these are the hallmarks of the reformer’s project. Time and trouble create a complicated church, and the task of the reformer is to return the church to first principles: forgiveness, care for the vulnerable, and peace—peace between people, and between people and the earth.

And this last point, perhaps, explains Francis’ lasting appeal. Each generation can find in Francis the simple and unifying message they need in troubled times. In the 60s it was an end to war, and the sense of sisterhood and brotherhood of all peoples. Today, it’s the environment, and a saint that can bless our need to care for creation, to guide us back to a peaceful relationship with the one Francis called Sister Mother Earth. To this end, I want to conclude with the story of the Wolf of Gubbio.

Fear of wolves lived in the hearts of many in the middle ages, and none more than rural people. Wolves were a threat to livestock, and a threat to the lone traveller, particularly at night. While Francis was living near Gubbio, the townspeople were contending with one such wolf. The town, in effect, was under siege. Attempts were made to kill the wolf, but to no avail.

Francis, deciding on a new approach, departed the town walls, and found the wolf near its lair. Making the sign of the cross, he spoke to the wolf, offering a simple exchange. Past wrongs would be forgiven, and food shared, if the wolf left the people and their animals alone. The wolf extended a paw and Francis took it. It is said that the people befriended the wolf, and mourned when it died, even (according to tradition) burying the wolf in the churchyard. All of this, of course, was regarded as legend, until 1872, when the skeleton of a large wolf was discovered near the outer wall of the church.

Knowing Christ Jesus, understanding his way, we can live new lives of love and mercy. Knowing Christ Jesus, understanding his way, we can live differently on the earth. And knowing Christ Jesus, understanding his way, we can rebuild the church for each new generation.

May God bless us and the world God made. Amen.

A LITURGY FOR THE FEAST OF SAINT FRANCIS

God be with you.
And also with you.
Lift up your hearts.
We lift them up to God.
Let us give thanks to the God Most High.
It is right to give thanks and praise.

Today we mark the feast of St. Francis,
beloved of God, and worthy of praise.
He followed God’s command to rebuild the church,
to bless the poor, and become poor—
that the riches of God might extend to all.

Holy One, you inspired Francis
to walk in the way of Christ:
to love others,
and to care for the least of your children.
He saw Christ in others,
and he saw divinity in the natural world.

In this way he praised you, as we praise you:

Holy, holy, holy Lord,
God of power and might,
heaven and earth are full of your glory.
Hosanna in the highest.

Embracing heaven and earth,
he named them family,
praising the God he saw all around:
Brother Sun and Sister Moon,
Brother Wind and Sister Water,
Brother Fire and Sister Earth.

Surrounded, as he was, by your glory,
Francis preached to the birds,
befriended the wolf,
and gave voice to earth.
He found you, God, in glade and forest,
on crashing waves, and on the pilgrims’ path.

In time, he developed the wounds of Christ,
a sacred mystery we struggle to comprehend.
Yet in his very being,
Francis proclaimed the Good News:

Dying, Christ destroyed our death,
rising, Christ restored our life:
reassuring, Christ will come again.

Send your Spirit on these seeds, O God,
that like Francis we might preach to the birds,
embrace all creatures, and find in them your kingdom.
Bless our homes and families,
Strengthen our fellowship,
and teach us, like Francis,
to live with love and mercy.
Amen.

THE LORD’S PRAYER

Our Father who art in heaven,
hallowed be thy name.
Thy kingdom come,
Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread;
and forgive us our trespasses
as we forgive those who trespass against us;
and lead us not into temptation
but deliver us from evil.
For thine is the kingdom,
and the power, and the glory,
for ever and ever. Amen.

HYMN: “I feel the winds of God today”

I feel the winds of God today;
today my sail I lift,
though heavy oft with drenching spray
and torn with many a rift;
if hope but light the water’s crest,
and Christ my bark will use,
I’ll seek the seas at his behest,
and brave another cruise.

It is the wind of God that dries
my vain regretful tears,
until with braver thoughts shall rise
the purer, brighter years;
if cast on shores of selfish ease
or pleasure I should be,
O let me feel your freshening breeze,
and I’ll put back to sea.

If ever I forget your love
and how that love was shown,
lift high the blood-red flag above;
it bears your name alone.
Great pilot of my onward way,
you will not let me drift.
I feel the winds of God today;
today my sail I lift.

BLESSING

Now may the God of peace make you holy in every way,
and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless
until our Lord Jesus Christ comes again. Amen.
—1 Thessalonians 5:23

God be with you till we meet again;
loving counsels guide, uphold you,
with a shepherd’s care enfold you;
God be with you till we meet again.