Persistance in Faith -- even 700 metres underground

" Mario Sepulveda spoke of the demons he faced while trapped underground for 69 days. 'I was with God and I was with the Devil, (The demons)… fought me but God... won. He took me by my best hand, the hand of God and I held on to him,' Sepulveda said in an interview just one hour after he was extracted from the mine. 'I never thought for one minute that God wouldn't get me out of there,' he added."

Sermon from Oct. 17, 2010 based on Luke 18:1-8

Tomorrow, it’s election day in our two towns and the Municipal District. We’re facing high residential taxes in our two towns, a plebiscite in Black Diamond on whether to support the library construction, a need in the community for a Community Centre that has room for Beneath the Arch concert where liquor can be served, a need for the Legion to have a new place to reside. And all within what two communities with a population of approximately 3600 can afford.

We’ve seen disagreements over business plans for the Legion’s Centre 78, we’ve seen library supporters disagree with town councillors, we’ve likely been the recipient of a few angry emails between people on different sides of the issues. There’s been wretched name calling that should make uncomfortable Christians of those seeking to follow God’s law of love. We see candidates express a desire for more businesses in Turner Valley and in the Black Diamond industrial park. We all desire more businesses so our towns look vital and so we have a wider tax base and alleviate some of the tax pressure on residents. Yet, we all know we’ve developed a taste for shopping in Okotoks, Calgary and on the Internet, that no new super business on Main Street Turner Valley is likely to break.

I received a facebook message from one election candidate to look at the opinion of one local person on another webpage. I went to the page. I read with interest. I support the person’s views and new insights and information was offered in the commentary. ‘Who is this person who writes so well,’ I wondered. I went to the profile page. No photo, no identifying features. I looked up the given name on Canada 411 and then pulled out the ol’ local telephone directory. I couldn’t see that the person lived in any part of Alberta, let alone our two towns. ‘Is this person real,” I wondered. ‘How can I trust the supposed facts in the letter – even if its an over all opinion I agree with. And what about supporting the candidate who passed on the letter?’

We go to the polls tomorrow and are we expecting justice like the widow received in Luke’s Gospel? No, but we’re certainly hoping on it. And by our voting, our participating in the democratic process, we are perhaps like that persistent widow. We vote in faith that what is for the ultimate good for our community – that what is just -- will happen.

But it’s easy to be discouraged, isn’t it?

That’s why Jesus told this parable. “Jesus told his disciples a parable to teach them that they should always pray and never become discouraged.” It’s easy to be discouraged in life but it is our connection with God that keeps us sane. It keeps us on a steady track. We pray to God.

Jesus said, “ Now will God not judge in favour of his own people who cry to him day and night for help? Will he be slow to help them? I tell you he will judge in their favour and do it quickly. But will the Son of Man find faith on earth when he comes?”

Jesus reminds us that ours is a benevolent God who will hear our prayer, much quicker than a corrupt judge. But then there’s that last line thrown in: “Will the son of man find faith on earth when he comes?

It’s pretty easy to be faithless and have doubts. Did we not have doubts that the 33 Chilean miners would ever see the light of day again? Our photo comes from the rescue of the second miner who came out of the mine shaft. This miner’s words stood out in news reports on the internet:

Mario Sepulveda spoke of the demons he faced while trapped underground for 69 days. "I was with God and I was with the Devil, (The demons)… fought me but God... won. He took me by my best hand, the hand of God and I held on to him," Sepulveda said in an interview just one hour after he was extracted from the mine. "I never thought for one minute that God wouldn't get me out of there," he added.'

Thank God none of us have had to be 700 metres under the ground for 69 days. But we all know about demons that haunt us. Perhaps a better word for those demons are doubts or fears. But ultimately what sustains us is God and the miner underlines that: “I never thought for one minute that God wouldn’t get me out of there,”

Of course, he probably did. But he couldn’t let those fears over take him. Ultimately he knew he had to rely on God.

This continuous prayer – night and day – as Luke writes is a key one for us Christians. Because doubts come upon us – even if we’re Mother Teresa.

Through the years we’ve all seen the photos of Mother Teresa of Calcutta, smiling, doing her work among the poorest of the poor, praying, holding her rosary close to her face. She’s been much admired by millions, held up for her strong faith.

Yet even Mother Teresa knew she needed this Scripture. Two years ago, ten years after her death, a book from the nun’s private writings was published. It’s called Mother Teresa: Come Be My Light. (Brian Kolodiejchuk, ed. DoubleDay, 2007) Yet often Mother Teresa’s writings were about her struggle with darkness and doubts.

"There is so much contradiction in my soul, no faith, no love, no zeal. . . . I find no words to express the depths of the darkness. . . . My heart is so empty. . . . so full of darkness. . . . I don't pray any longer. The work holds no joy, no attraction, no zeal. . . . I have no faith, I don't believe."

These are Mother Teresa’s honest words. The Saint of Calcutta she’s been called. But how often have we not said similar words to ourselves? How often have such thoughts and doubts prevented us from coming to Church on Sunday morning? How often have similar thoughts and doubts caused us to become cynics rather than believers?

Prayer, persistent prayer, sustains us and keeps us with God. It wards away the fears, the doubts. Prayer is easy. Stay away from any writer or teacher who tells you prayer involves a boring routine that wears you out. Prayer is simply an ongoing, delightful, life-giving conversation with God. There are so many ways to pray. If one way bores us, go on to another. Just keep the connection to our life giving and sustaining God. We pray to God, night and day for justice and know that we will be heard.

The persistence of the widow in seeking justice also models for us that as we pray for goodness we are also persistent in seeking justice. Now, this may not involve going and knocking on a judge’s door day and night, thinking you’ll get heard. In this day and age, we’re more likely to get arrested before being heard. Ultimately God wants us to use our common sense, to find the best way to help us get our need for justice to be heard.

Often there are several steps to be taken to be heard. I was watching a movie called Boycott recently about the start of the civil rights movement. Rosa Parkes has been arrested for not giving up her bus seat to a white person. Organizers for a boycott of the buses were failing because of division in the black community. But because of the strength of the church in the black community, they knew that a clergy spokesperson was crucial to unite them. So Martin Luther King, Jr. was approached to be their spokesperson. One step upon many, in using common sense to find justice, while praying along the way. Did they have doubts? Lots. But they persisted.

When we think about the Persistent widow, one real life character comes to mind – Erin Brockovich. Here’s a promotion picture from the movie that starred Julia Roberts. Roberts played the real life Erin Brockovich who helped the residents of Hinkley California. Their drinking water was contaminated by cancer-causing hexavalent chromium. The case was settled in 1996 for $333 US million the largest settlement ever paid in a direct action lawsuit in US history.

Ken McI. and I have been reading the book The Truth Shows Up written by Harvey Cashore. Cashore is now head of Investigative Journalism for CBC and the book chronicles his 15 years tracing the Airbus pay outs to Canadian politicians. It was 15 years of persistence.

We are called to be people of God who’s hearts are shaped by God’s law of love. There will be times that doubt, discouragement plague us. Let those be the times we do as the Chilean minder did. Let God take our hand and we hold on to God.

AMEN.

Grace-filled Community

"Graciousness is a beautiful gift. It’s meant to be cherished. It’s an incredibly strong and powerful gift, more durable than any rock or mountain on earth because it comes from God. Yet it is also very fragile and can easily be shattered by carelessness because it is at the mercy of our humanness."

Sermon from Oct. 3, 2010

2 Timothy 1:1-14

I was remembering back to eight and a half years ago when I received an information package about this congregation before applying to be your minister. I’d never been to Turner Valley or Black Diamond, had only found you on a map. The package came by courier. I laid it out on the kitchen table to read.

My parents came by to visit and my Dad picked up the information. As he read, he started to chuckle. My father is one of those people who laughs out loud. The congregational description was simple but showed an ability of a spirit-filled people to laugh at themselves.

Within this delightful package was the annual report from 2001. We had not yet closed the Black Diamond Church so there was this catchy ministry phrase:

“One Church: Two worship sights (sic).”

Did you catch the grammar problem here? Site vs. Sight. Yes, but this wasn’t a big issue. We’re only human. We make mistakes. It’s God who is perfect. There is much grace in this Community of Faith.

Grace-filled community was re-enforced for me upon my arrival. My furniture arrived around 10 in the evening, a day ahead of schedule and I’m just driving into town. Folks stayed with me while the furniture was unloaded – long past midnight -- and found me a bed to sleep in – even though they had to get up early for work the next day.

In our worship together – mistakes would happen. Sometimes it was the minister, sometimes it was someone else. No one was bothered. People just shrugged their shoulders. These things happen. We’re here to worship God, to praise God together. That’s what really matters.

I remember one woman who was with us for a few years until moving back to the Maritimes. She was a great cook, used to working in church kitchens. What amazed her was that people here gave her full reign of the kitchen as a new person. There are no locked cupboards of dishes or pans that couldn’t be touched, no lengthy rules of what NOT to do. She was welcomed into that kitchen as if it was hers. It was grace-filled Church. The church belongs to everyone.

Important values here of a Grace-filled Christian community: Acceptance, welcoming, love, grace. Mistakes happen, glitches in the system happen. We’re only human. Shrug it off -- It’s God’s who’s perfect. Let’s get on with being the people of God. Graciousness.

Paul’s words about Timothy come to mind as I think of this gracious community: “I thank God as I remember you always in my prayers night and day…I remember the sincere faith you have, the kind of faith that your grandmother…. and your mother …..also had. I am sure that you have it also. For this reason I remind you to keep alive the gift that God gave you …For the Spirit that God has given us does not make us timid; instead, his Spirit fills us with power, love and self-control. Do not be ashamed, then of witnessing for our Lord.”

Faithful, gracious servants. That’s who you are.

One of many of you who comes to mind is Mearle. Mearle died this past spring in Winnipeg, where she’d moved in 2008 to be closer to family when she got sick. This was a photo taken in the November 2008 when she was back for a short visit, probably the last time many of us saw her.

When our youngest was born, Merle gave Joel and I this poem that she had her daughter-in-law put onto leather. I love that Merle took the time to do this. Merle had umpteen verses and sayings memorized in her head that she could spout out at any given time, always the most appropriate time.

“No Child of Mine”

I used to say, before the Stork had fluttered by,

Will ever throw a temper fit,

Or bite or scrach (sic) or whine or hit.

Or keep his bottle till he’s three –

Or worship cowboys on TV

Or act in short, like other kids

Who make their parents flip thier (sic) lids”….

“Heaven’s No!”

But along with the patter of little feet,

Go a couple of million words to eat.

What I cherish the most are the spelling mistakes in it. Those spelling mistakes are why I continue to cherish this wall hanging. We’re only human, we make mistakes but that doesn’t diminish our capacity to offer love and to be God’s Church.

At times, Mearle could find a humorous way to disagree. I once preached a sermon on euthanasia. I was passionately against euthanasia after a former parishioner in a previous church took her life by assisted suicide and the person who assisted her was acquitted.

Later, Mearle took great delight in telling me about a conversation that transpired during quilting the week following. In the spirit of open communication, she used names. Mearle said: “So and so said: ‘What a morbid topic for a sermon’. I (Mearle) told her I thought it was an important topic for a sermon but I disagree with Shelley."

In other words, Merle disagreed with my anti-euthanasia opinion.

It was many, many months later, that Mearle’s husband, Jim, took his own life after years of suffering from depression. The family had tried to prevent it. He left the house in the early hours while others were sleeping.

One Sunday in the time after Jim’s death, Mearle left church quickly and only stopping to grumble at me at the door. We had used a little ditty from the Sunday School curriculum and Mearle said the grammar in the song was atrocious. Then she stomped out the door.

As minister, I knew Mearle must be at a particularly difficult time of grieving and to go see her.

I wasn’t used to Merle grumping at me about little, piddly things – and the badly written three-line song was certainly small. I went to see Mearle.

You need to expect as minister that pastoral conversations are respected in confidence. So I will just say two things I think Mearle would be OK with me sharing.

Merle said she wished there had been legal guidelines around assisted-suicide in our country at the time of Jim’s death, as there are in other countries. At least then, Jim, the man she loved, wouldn’t have died alone. Mearle had known she could respectfully disagree with me months earlier and be heard and she knew I would hear her again. And I couldn’t help but agree with her.

Secondly, the three-line song….we did talk about it. Not at great length. It didn’t warrant it. But I did refer to the wall hanging she’d given me, the spelling mistakes within it and how much I cherish it and why.

AND…we’ve never used that piddly song with bad grammar in worship again.

I remember one of Mearle’s last Sunday’s in Church. As she was getting sick, she had good weeks and bad weeks. I’d preached a sermon being a character from the Bible and had worn bare feet. Afterwards, Merle came up to me with a twinkle in her eye and said: “I never knew your toes wiggle as you preach!”

Now, in another church someone might have complained that the minister WAS in bare feet. Or they might have complained that the minister didn’t preaching properly because her body wasn’t entirely still and those wiggling toes were distracting.

Instead, Mearle was so connected with her God that she picked up the joy in my toes. Because, the truth is, there are times that I am so happy that we are worshipping God here together, that I would like to dance. But only my toes can wiggle.

Gracious community, faith-filled community. Loving and accepting community.

This graciousness is an important, intrinsic value of our congregation. It’s a beautiful gift. It’s meant to be cherished. It’s an incredibly strong and powerful gift, more durable than any rock or mountain on earth because it comes from God. Yet it is also very fragile and can easily be shattered by carelessness because it is at the mercy of our humanness.

This is what Paul refers to in 2^nd Timothy as “self control”. We have the ability to be aware of our behaviour and how it affects others.

When our youngest was a baby and our eldest was 13 or 14, he observed that when the baby cried for a long time, soon everyone in the family was grumpy. He was right. And it was up to the adults in the situation to try to act with self control and sometimes we missed the mark.

Churches are like families. The mood of one or a few can affect the many.

Sometimes people have good reason for their grumpiness. Sometimes they do not – we just happen to be the proverbial cat they’ve chosen to kick that day. Whether we have good reason for our grumpiness or not, in neither case are we justified in taking it out on someone else.

But as Christians we think we are supposed to be nice so we simply listen to the grumpiness or try to fix it for them. Again and then again. But you see, Jesus wasn’t nice. He was kind. There’s a difference. Being nice can lead to being a door mat. Being kind is what Jesus did. He reminded people that they were on a spiritual path following God that intrinsically involved being gracious and grace-filled, forgiving and loving.

Now to just use a concrete example. Over the last few years we’ve moved to using Power point. It means most people don’t need to have a printed order of service in front of them. We’re reducing our use of paper. Now, some people want a piece of paper in their hand – that’s OK. Gracious community. Before I went on sabbatical, we made four copies at the back that people could ask for. Most often there was one or two copies still at the back after the service. During the summer, some people feared that there wouldn’t be someone to run the computer so orders of service were made for everyone. But it’s Fall, there will be someone here to run the Power point. Karen returned to making four copies but there was confusion so she now makes eight copies.

So…let’s say for instance – you come one Sunday and you’re the ninth person in the door. The greeter has merrily been handing out orders of service to the first eight people, none of whom said, ‘I don’t need this.’ You’re number nine and you don’t get an order. You are ticked. You had a legitimate right to one of those eight bulletins. So how are you going to respond?

May I suggest that God is not calling you to respond by glaring across the sanctuary at the minister like she is the root of all evil.

Rather, I think God is saying here’s an opportunity to ask ourselves: “How might I be gracious in this situation?” Perhaps I can look around the room and see who has a printed order of service and go sit by them. We’re a church. They’ll share. Or….I can ask to borrow it and make a copy in the office. Someone might help me use that simple copier.

Paul writes: “I remind you to keep alive the gift that God gave you …For the Spirit that God has given us does not make us timid; instead, his Spirit fills us with power, love and self-control. Do not be ashamed, then of witnessing for our Lord.”

This graciousness of our church is a beautiful gift to be cherished because it is powerfully from God’s Spirit. Yet it’s fragile because it is at the mercy of our humanness.

We witness to our faith by being a Grace-filled Christian community: Acceptance, welcoming, love, grace. Mistakes happen. Glitches in the system happen. We’re only human. Shrug it off – It’s God who’s perfect. Let’s get on with being the people of God. God’s graciousness is something so many people in our wider community need.