2016 - Page 4 of 15 - St. Andrews Hespeler

Gird your loins

Posted by Scott McAndless on Monday, October 17th, 2016 in Minister

Hespeler, 16 October, 2016 © Scott McAndless – The Jeff-a-thon

1 Kings 18:41-46, Isaiah 40:27-31, 1 Corinthians 9:24-27

n Saturday, May 28 at 7:56 am, I did something that I had never imagined that I would do in all my life of my own free will. I stepped out of my front door and started to run and didn’t stop running until I had travelled about four kilometers. I ran through the arena parking lot down the streets, down the long path through woods to Queen St, I ran along Queen St. right in front of the church here, on through Forbes Park and up the trails that run through Woodland Park. And there, after about 4 kilometers as I said, and half way up what has to be one of the steepest hills in all Hespeler (that I foolishly took at a run), I stopped. My breath was ragged, I was carrying a great weight upon my chest and my legs and even (much to my surprise) my arms felt like lead. The muscles in my limbs would continue to be sore for a couple of days.

Why did I put myself through that? When I describe it like that, it really doesn’t sound like a very fun way to spend your Saturday morning. Well, I probably don’t need to tell most of you why I did it because you have already heard me say that I had made a decision that I wanted to run in the Jeff-a-thon and had set as a goal to run the full 10 km distance and do it in an hour. I’m not going to go over the reasons here today for why I felt that the Jeff-a-thon was a good enough reason for me to change what had been, up until that point, a very successful strict no running policy. You’ll have lots of chances to hear about that when you come out to Crieff Hills this afternoon.

But the process of getting from that morning back at the end of May to the place where I am now – ready and confident that I can do what I set out to do this very afternoon – has been an interesting journey to say the least and I believe that there are some spiritual lessons in that journey for all of us today.

I don’t pretend to be an amazing athlete. I don’t pretend to have a better grasp of training to run than lots of other people who could probably give you much better advice than me. But I can say that, over the last few months, I have learned how to run. I would even say that I have changed my identity from being a non-runner to being a runner because I know that this afternoon will not be my last run. I don’t know how I am going to do it through the coming winter, but I do know that I am going to continue running, that it is now a necessary part of my life. And it is something that actually gives me a new way of looking at parts of the New Testament.

As you may have noticed, there is a long tradition in Christian preaching of preachers and teachers seeking to bring out spiritual truths with analogies and metaphors related to sports. In fact, you are Canadians, I’ll bet that you have heard hundreds – maybe thousands – of sermons that are built around hockey metaphors. So many, in fact, that it might surprise you to learn that the Bible doesn’t actually say anything about hockey at all. I mean, it’s incredible – almost as if no one had ever heard of Canada’s favourite sport when the Bible was being written. So no hockey at all, but would it surprise you to learn that there is one sport that is used as an analogy of the Christian life in the New Testament not once but four times?

That sport is running. It is a metaphor used once in the Letter to Hebrews and three separate times in the writings of the Apostle Paul. I find it quite amazing that on three different occasions, Paul was looking for some image that would illustrate the kind of life that he was calling his disciples to live and each time Paul chose to write about running. It actually makes me suspect that either Paul was a runner himself or that he was a big fan of what actually was the most popular sport in the ancient Greek-speaking world.

So I thought that maybe it was about time that someone preached a sermon on the sport of running and what might have to teach us about the Christian life. I would like to think that, over the past few months, I have learned a little bit about running. What lessons are there in what I have learned that we could all apply to how we live out our lives as Christians in the modern world?

Of all the things that the Apostle Paul says about running, the one idea that he keeps coming back to is the idea of having a goal or aim in your running. In his letter to the Galatians, Paul writes, “Then I laid before them… the gospel… in order to make sure that I was not running, or had not run, in vain.” To the Philippians he writes, “I can boast on the day of Christ that I did not run in vain.” And finally, in the passage we read this morning, he says, “I do not run aimlessly.”

Now, I think that it is very fair to say that, if you are running in a race and you do not have the slightest idea of where the finish line is, you are not going to win that race. That much is obvious when you are running. But Paul is not talking about winning a foot race in this passage but about how to conduct your life as a Christian. So what, about that, can we apply to the life of Christian faith? I think it is true that many of us (and I will readily include myself in this) do often seek to live out our Christian life without thinking too much about our aims and goals in it. It is so easy to just develop certain habits of prayer and devotion, church attendance and activities and think that to do these things is what it means to be a Christian. And it is not that these are bad activities. These are very good habits to be in, but it can be so easy for us to lose sight of why we do these things. And when that happens, we begin to make the activities themselves the goal.

Have you ever heard people in church, when challenged to explain why they do certain things in certain ways, respond like this: “Well, that’s how we have always done it”? No, I’ve never heard that in a church either! Well, if, by chance, you ever do hear it, it might just be a sign that you are not as aware of the purpose of being a church as you need to be. The purpose of the Christian life is clear (even if the question of how we achieve that purpose may adapt and change). We are here to build up the kingdom of God. We are here to proclaim good news to the world in word and in deed. Paul uses the image of the runner to remind us that we must ever keep that aim in view in everything that we do.

The second thing that Paul talks about in the sport of running is dedication. “Athletes exercise self-control in all things,” he says. After that he lays out in practical terms exactly what that sort of self-control looks like: “I punish my body and enslave it,”he says.

Again, this is not something that I can really say that I understood until I seriously started to train to run 10 kilometres. I have learned that it is one thing to run 3, 4 and even 5 kilometers, but that it is quite another to run 7, 8, 9 and 10. At some point you are going to hit that place where your body is going to be crying out that it can go no further and do no more and you are only going to get more out of yourself if you push beyond what your body wants, effectively making your body a slave to your will.

That level of dedication seems to be difficult for many people to find these days. One of the reasons why we find it so hard, I believe, is because of the way we turn everything into an opportunity to shop. Do you realize that there is an unprecedented interest in fitness in our society and much of it is driven by the growth of activity trackers like Fitbits, Apple Watches and other similar devices? People are collectively spending millions of dollars these days on these sorts of devices.

And the growth in the use of these devices has gotten to a point where researchers are able to study the impact that they are having on our overall health and fitness. And do you know what they are finding? They are finding that there really isn’t much correlation between the sales of fitbits and health and weight loss. It is not helping very much.

And you know why that is? It because we have fallen into this habit of thinking that the way we solve all of our problems is by buying things. And so when you want to lose weight or get healthier, you just go out and buy a gym membership or a fitbit and you’re done and everything has been taken care of. Oh it is not as if I have to actually go to the gym or walk more than a few feet is it? Haven’t I already done enough by spending my money to get healthier? Shouldn’t what I bought do all the rest?

Can you see the problem with this approach? These devices are terrific and they certainly can help you in your quest for better health, but the device itself doesn’t solve anything for you. Without some commitment and dedication, it is actually totally useless.

And we actually have the same problem with the Christian life as well. We are often tempted to replace dedication with consumerism. Here’s an example for you: did you realize that the Bible has long been one of the best selling books in the world and Bible sales have remained strong despite many other changes in society. The book sells like hotcakes. But here is another statistic: while the Bible still sells like crazy, knowledge of what the Bible actually says and contains continues to drop like a stone. It turns out that the world’s best selling book just happens to be one of the world’s least read books.

What is going on? Isn’t it obvious? People are treating Bibles like fitbits and gym memberships. When they want to get a little bit of spirituality or religion, what do they do? They go out and buy a Bible – a nice one, a special version that promises to make all kinds of applications to their life for them. They buy the Bible, bring it home and throw it on the shelf and they are done. Read it? Why would I bother reading it? Isn’t it enough that I spent so much money to get it? Once again, the Bible is a terrific tool and a great help, but without a bit of commitment and dedication it really cannot ever amount to anything.

There is one other connection that Paul makes between the sport of running and the Christian life: the reward. Runners do it, he says, “to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable one.” He is referring, of course, to the kinds of prizes that were commonly handed out to winners of races in the ancient world which were wreathes woven out of various kinds of foliage. The wreathes themselves had little value and were only prized because they represented the glory that came to the victor. Paul seizes on the perishability of these wreathes in order to contrast them to the prize that comes with the Christian life that we do receive here and now but that also is able to endure far beyond the confines of this world.

The rewards of physical running (even if you never win an important race like at the Olympics) are real. They can change your life in so many positive ways. How much more the rewards of a Christian life well lived, especially when those rewards endure long after an Olympic gold medal has turned to dust.

So, yes, think of your Christian life as a race. Keep the goals of that life – the finish line – ever in view. Let commitment and dedication to those goals ever keep you moving towards them. Remember the prize that is yours today but that will endure for you forever. Run the race with endurance.

#140CharacterSermon Christian life is like a race: keep goals ever clear b4 you, practice discipline and commitment, claim an eternal prize.

Sermon Video:

St Andrews meat pie, soup and tapa 2016 Fund-raiser

Posted by Nonsequitor on Saturday, October 15th, 2016 in Clerk of Session

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Fruit pies are available as follows: apple, cherry, raspberry and pumpkin Click to enlarge

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In all circumstances

Posted by Scott McAndless on Monday, October 10th, 2016 in Minister

Hespeler, October 9, 2016 © Scott McAndless – Thanksgiving

Ephesians 5:15-20, 1 Thessalonians 5:12-25, Psalm 92

was at the store the other day and there was, up in the checkout line ahead of me, one of those customers. You know the type I’m talking about. He was complaining about everything. The cashier was moving too slow. He was pretty sure that the item he was buying had been advertised at a lower price. The stock was old, the people who worked there used to be nicer and the lines moved too slow because people spent too much time talking to the cashiers. This went on for a while until he finally they arrived at his real issue. The store didn’t have his favourite brand of something. Here he was being forced – forced, I tell you! – to purchase an inferior brand and, adding insult to injury, to pay full price for it.

“Oh how retail service has declined in Canada,” he exclaimed, “that I cannot get exactly what I want. If you people were at all a decent enterprise, you wouldn’t charge me for this item at all.” So he spoke and continued on in much the same vein while we, who stood behind him, waited with varying degrees of patience. The poor cashier who, I would note, had absolutely nothing to do with the things that had displeased him, dealt with him as much grace as any human could muster, but there was nothing that was in her power to please him. His demands were eventually escalated to a manager.

The manager, when she came, knew very well that the man was being unreasonable. You could see it in her face. But she also had little time and no appetite for conflict. So in short order, and much to the chagrin of everyone who stood behind him, the man had been given pretty much what he had wanted and, at the very least, he finally left us in peace.

But that is how it works, doesn’t it? The squeaky wheel is always the one that gets the grease. The person who raises their voice to complain is the most likely to get what they want. Many have concluded, therefore, that, if you do get a chance to complain about something, you better just go ahead and do it and get as much out of the situation as you possibly can.

After all, isn’t that what we are all here for – we’re supposed to get whatever we can out of this life. Money, possessions, satisfaction, enjoyment, affection – it’s only what I deserve. And if I’m not getting enough of that, well, it must be somebody’s fault and it is only natural that I should point that out and get them straightened out.

In such a world is there a place for thanksgiving? Well of course there is. We’ll all get together sometime later today (or maybe tomorrow) with the people that we are closest to us and we’ll probably eat too much food but it will be delicious. And then, as we sit around the table afterwards, in a turkey-induced semi-coma, we will talk about the things that we have purchased, the films and television shows we have watched and the experiences that we have collected since we last met. We may even recount those times where things didn’t quite go our way and how we complained and got satisfaction for our pains. (And, of course, if we didn’t get everything we wanted, it can also be satisfying to complain about that and get some sympathy.)

And yes, somewhere in the midst of all this we may remember to bow our heads for a few moments and saw some words of thanks for all this bounty. That’s what thanksgiving is, isn’t it?

Well, apparently not if you listen to the Apostle Paul and the people of the early church. In our two readings this morning, from the letters to the Ephesians and to the Thessalonians, we find the apostle closing his correspondence by giving a little bit of last minute advice. Think of these words as Christian life hacks – little things that you can do that make your Christian life better and easier to live out. These are not intended to be deep theological reflections so much as practical tips. So we have advice like do not get drunk on wine and instead to be filled with the Spirit, and to be patient with people especially if they are idlers, fainthearted or weak.

But there is one piece of advice that is common to both of these texts that particularly interests me today and it concerns, of course, thanksgiving. “Give thanks,”believers are admonished in Thessalonians while the Christians in Ephesus are told that it is all about “giving thanks to God the Father.” And I think that we would all agree that that is pretty good advice.

It reminds me of the lesson that were all taught by our mothers and our fathers. I think I can almost still hear my mother’s voice to this very day every time somebody offers me something that I would really like to receive. “Now, what do we say?” she would say as she held out the piece of candy and I would not get it until I managed to mumble a few words of thanks.

I know, I know, and I remember thinking it too at the time. “How can I be thankful for the candy if I haven’t actually received it yet – and won’t actually receive it at all unless I say thank you.” Is that a lesson about being truly thankful or actually a lesson in how to obtain candy? But I get why parents teach the lesson in that way and you probably could have caught me doing it with my own kids too.

The lesson, as our parents tried to teach it to us as kids at least, seemed to be that you actually will get more from people as you make your way through this world by being polite with them than you will by being rude and demanding. And that is a pretty good lesson for people to learn. If more people learned it (rather than the lesson of the checkout line which is that the best way to get what you want in this world is to complain and be insufferable until someone gives it to you) it seems to me that the world would be a nicer place to live in. But do note that it is still a lesson about getting things for yourself – really just another strategy for getting what you want. As life tips go, it is a good one but it still seems to be focussed on meeting your own individualistic needs at the heart just as so many things in our society are.

But is that the same lesson that we encounter in the advice that is offered at the end of these New Testament letters? Is Paul suggesting that these Christians ought to be thankful in order to get good stuff from God or from other people? I’m not so sure because, in both cases, he doesn’t just say, “give thanks.” In Ephesians it is, “giving thanks to God the Father at all times and for everything.” In Thessalonians it is, “give thanks in all circumstances.”

That, my friends, is a whole different kind of thanksgiving than most of us practice most of the time – a very different kind from the kind that your parents taught you. It is, in fact, a kind of thanksgiving that makes no sense at all in the world that is so focussed on individualistic needs that we live in.

What does it mean? It means being thankful when you get what you need but also when you don’t get it. It means showing appreciation to people who have pleased you but also going out of your way to find things that you appreciate about people who don’t please you. Above all it means an attitude with which you approach the whole of life – an attitude which is the very opposite of this present world’s spirit which makes people focus on getting what they desire for themselves.

In fact, according to this world’s way of thinking, it is absolutely impossible to be thankful in all circumstances. I mean, sure, we can do it when all is going well or when we get at least some of what we want or need, but there is a long list of circumstances when thanks is definitely not in order. If you were a Syrian in Aleppo, would you be thankful for terrorists and bombs? If you were an abused person in a bad relationship, would you be thankful for the blows and bruises? If you were a Jew in Auschwitz, would you be thankful for Nazi propaganda and gas chambers? Of course not! There are some things in this world that we don’t just need to refuse to be thankful for but that we must reject and rage against and complain of!

So how are we supposed to apply this good advice to be thankful in all circumstances to circumstances like bombs, blows and gas chambers? Whatever we mean by being thankful in those kinds of circumstances it cannot mean that we let the terrorists or the abusers or the Nazis off the hook for the evil that they do. They must face the consequences of their crimes and we must do whatever we can to make sure that people are safe from the evil that they do.

But thanksgiving – biblical thanksgiving – isn’t about other people so much as it is about ourselves and about how we approach the world. Think about it. When we give thanks to God, for example, do we do it because God needs to hear our thanks in order to build up his own confidence and feel good about Godself? Of course not! I’m sure that God always appreciates the thanks that we offer, but God doesn’t need it and certainly doesn’t need it to know that he has done good; God is good. We offer thanks to God because we need it more than God does. We offer it because it changes us and how we interact with the world and with each other.

So, yes, when you encounter actual evil in this world, you must resist it and you are entirely permitted to complain about it because there is nothing wrong with expressing how you feel and if you don’t say anything, nothing may ever change. But being thankful in every circumstance means that you don’t need to get stuck there in the moment of the evil and you don’t need to let any resentment burn. You may have been victimized but learning to be thankful means that your identity is not limited to being a victim as can so often happen.

When, through these scriptures, God instructs you to be thankful in all circumstances, you should not think of it as another commandment to be obeyed. It is not a burden that is intended to weigh you down with responsibility. It doesn’t mean that you have to pretend to be thankful when you really don’t feel that way.

Take a good look at the people who cross your path who are the complainers – who look at everything that happens to them as another reason to complain and to demand that someone do something to satisfy them. Look at those who will take any excuse to cast themselves as the victim and who make that victimhood a part of their identity. Oh, I’ll admit it, they may sometimes get the things that they are looking for when they complain, but, over time, they also become entrapped within that identity. Victimhood becomes part of who they are. The experience of satisfaction becomes limited to them getting the things that they desire and so they become robbed of true satisfaction.

By teaching you to be thankful in all circumstances, what your God and Father wants to do for you is to set you free from that. God wants you to experience joy and a spirit of gratefulness that is not limited by the circumstances that you might encounter in life. By choosing to be thankful in all circumstances, you no longer need to be controlled by those circumstances. You are free.

I invite you, on this Thanksgiving Sunday, to experiment with this very powerful thing called thanksgiving. It may not happen today, but it will probably happen soon enough that something will not work out as you may have hoped. There will be some hiccup, some problem in your well laid plans. You will have two choices, you can seek to get whatever you can out of the situation by complaining or being miserable enough to other people to make them do what you want, or you can choose to practice a kind of thanksgiving you can make in any circumstance – the kind that sets you free from the circumstances of life by saying that they have no control over you. On this Thanksgiving Sunday, I encourage you to choose thanksgiving.

#140CharacterSermon Being thankful in all circumstances sets us free from the power of our circumstances 2 control us & define us as victims

Posted by Nonsequitor on Thursday, October 6th, 2016 in Clerk of Session

"The meat pie fundraiser that will knock your socks off"

I have received the go-ahead from Session on the plan, for at least 1,200 meat pies for pickup November 26 to 28, 2016.
Our sales marketing scheme will start on October 23rd and run until November 13th. Last time we sold pies we completed orders for 1,440 (2014). Order forms will be available @ Fellowship on the 23rd of October.

The sweet pie tasting scheduled for October 30th is now officially a savory pie tasting of our sale products. Please, sample selections available from the menu at Fellowship on the 30th or the Family Supper on the 19th.
Here what's taking place:
Assorted pies served @ Wednesday Family supper October 19th.
Invite as many people as possible to experience the quality @ fellowship on the October 30th.
Access the results and comments
Move to the sales marketing strategy as outlined.

This fundraiser is one of the four Session designated events planned to achieve sustainability of our finances.

Many of you will remember the price point from St Andrews last foray into meat pie sales in 2014. Most everyone knows that prices have increased significantly on groceries since then. Beef alone has increased at least 14% in the last year alone. As you might expect beef is the largest expense in a fundraiser like this. Every single item used has increased to some degree or other. Prices will be higher - we simply cannot match the older prices due to the new economic realities. BUT...the prices are cheaper than retail and we will raise monies to pay down the debt. The good news here is we can run this fundraiser every; month, 6 months or semi-annual and still offer you below retail costs!

Menu

· The Roasted Beef and Roasted Turkey are swimming in delicious gravy with potatoes, peas, corn and carrots.

· The Lean ground beef with mushroom and onion is encased in delectable gravy.

· The Shepherd’s Pie (no pastry) made with lean ground beef & vegetables, is blanketed with creamy seasoned potatoes.

· Crustless Quiche- delightful and filling with a choice of ham or veggie, both include -onions, broccoli, cheese.

· Turkey Tapa- 10” wood oven thin crust topped with a hearty mixture of caramelized onion, roasted turkey and tangy sauce - delicious on its own or top it with you favorite additions

· Our Fruit Pies are made the old fashioned way- with the freshest fruits and delicately sweetened to perfection all 9”

· Our selection of Home-style Soups will warm the soul with the choice of six varieties. (no details just yet)

· Meat pies are available @ 9” size

The details on how the magic happens will be a secret until you sample the menu at one of the tastings. You could be surprised!

This is the before picture.

I am very excited to announce…

Posted by Scott McAndless on Thursday, October 6th, 2016 in Minister

I am very excited to announce that this summer I took a fair bit of my vacation time to finish the second draft of a book that God laid on my heart a couple of years ago.

The book is called, "The Seven Demons of Miryam of Magdala," and it is a work of historical fiction, set in Galilee in the opening decades of the common era. It is a short book (54,000 words, 164 pages) but it is one that I hope will help people see the story of Jesus of Nazareth from some very interesting new angles.

All 164 pages, if you can make them out.

The Table of Contents

I am, at this point, looking for some colleagues to look at what I have written and give me some critical feedback. I would especially appreciate some feedback from my female colleagues (when you read the book, you'll understand why).

I am sure that, after this second draft, the text still contains some spelling, grammar and stylistic errors as well as typos but I am not necessarily looking for proofreading at this point. That will come after.

So if you would be willing to help me at this critical point, please message me privately. I will be happy to send you a copy in pdf format or any other digital format you ask for. The copy I send you is DRM free and yours to keep, but I will ask you to commit to the following:

To give me your feedback.
Not to give it to anyone else without my permission.
Not to accuse me of being a heretic yet. (Please just point out any heresy that you see and give me a chance to address it or correct it.)

This book is a labour of love and I would love to be able to share it with you and, perhaps, with the world.

Gathered into One Loaf

Posted by Scott McAndless on Monday, October 3rd, 2016 in Minister

Hespeler, 2 October, 2016 © Scott McAndless – World Communion

1 Corinthians 10:14-22, Luke 14:15-24, Psalm 104:1-15

ou are all familiar enough with the gospels and the letters and other writings that make up what we call the New Testament. This little collection of books is the most important source that we have for understanding the early Christians and how they worked out their life and faith together. This morning I would like to introduce you to one other document that you really ought to know about. It is called the Teaching of the Twelve and also goes by the name of The Didache, which is the Greek word for teaching.

The Didache is a very old document – some scholars think that parts of it may well be older than parts of the New Testament. It is also a very important document for a few reasons. It may well contain genuine traditions that go all the way back to the very words of Jesus – traditions that are independent of the gospels. It contains, for example, a version of the Lord’s Prayer that is slightly different from the one that is found in the Gospel of Matthew and from the one that is in the Gospel of Luke. It seems likely that the writers of the Didache did not get their version of The Lord’s Prayer from the Gospels but from an independent tradition passed down to them from some other source – ultimately from Jesus himself.

But the book actually gives us more than just insights into the original wording of Jesus’ prayer. It also gives us a glance into the worship practices of the early church. In fact, a great deal of the book is clearly focussed directly on the worship and other customs of a certain group of churches in a certain area. Most of the scholars I have read seem to believe that they were made up of second or third generation Christians in Galilee or in nearby Syria.

I find this fascinating because it gives us what is perhaps the very first glimpse we have (outside of the Bible and not influenced by any of the Biblical writings) of how the first church actually lived and worshipped. In other words, if you want to know what the earliest Christians actually thought they were accomplishing when they ate communion or performed a baptism, the Didache may be one of the very best sources that we have.

The Didache has, for example, a prayer of thanksgiving that was to be prayed whenever the community gathered to eat what we would call the Lord’s Supper or Communion or the Eucharist, but which they seemed to call simply the Thanksgiving Meal. As these prayers are probably the oldest communion prayers in existence (and they are nice and brief) I have decided to use them as our communion prayers this morning. I think they can teach us a lot about what they thought about communion that might challenge how we think about it today.

You see, when we gather to celebrate communion, there are certain things that we say about what we are doing and there are certain images that we use. We usually say, for example, that this meal is about the death of Jesus. In particular, we associate the bread with the broken body of Jesus and the wine with the spilt blood of Jesus. The imagery we often use is the imagery of a sacrifice or an atoning death. And we also look forward to the return, someday of Christ.

I don’t know how much you pay attention to the prayers that you have heard ministers like me praying before communion services but, if you do, those are the kinds of images that we you’ll hear us use over and over again because that is what we believe that communion is about – remembering and re-enacting those things.

But if you listen to the prayers that I use today from the Didache, you will not hear any of that imagery. The prayers of those ancient Galilean or Syrian Christians speak of Jesus Christ and talk about how he reveals God to us, of course, but they do not make any reference to his death at all. There is absolutely no talk of sacrifice or atonement nor even any reference to the return of Christ.

Now, I am not suggesting that the Christian churches of the Didache community did not believe these things about Jesus and his death. Of course they did and there are references in other parts of the book to these truths. And they may well even have believed that the Thanksgiving Feasts that they shared had important connections to the meaning of the death of Jesus (though there is some evidence to suggest that this particular connection may have first been made by the Apostle Paul). You certainly cannot prove that they didn’t believe something just because they didn’t mention it in this very important prayer.

But it does suggest something. It does suggest that, when they gathered to eat this meal, they did put the emphasis in some rather different places than where we put it when we gather. And maybe we can learn something from the imagery that they used when they ate this meal.

There were two prayers that they prayed. The first one was over the cup and they prayed, “We thank You, our Father, For the Holy Vine of David Your servant, Whom You made known to us through Your Servant Jesus; May the glory be Yours forever.” That was it. The prayer is based on the image of the making of wine itself which begins with the vine and the grapes that grow upon it. For the Didache Christians the wine (and the vine that it grew on) was a symbol of their connection with their hope. It connected them with the promises made to King David of a kingdom that would last forever – promises that they believed had been fulfilled in Jesus the Messiah and the son of David. That symbolism of the connecting vine is not one that we generally use when we take the cup but it is one that I think we might learn from.

But I am particularly interested today (on this World Communion Sunday) in the prayer that they prayed over the loaf: “We thank You, our Father, For the life and knowledge Which You made known to us through Your Servant Jesus; May the glory be Yours forever. As this broken bread was scattered over the mountains, And was gathered together to become one, So let Your Church be gathered together From the ends of the earth into Your kingdom; for the glory and power are Yours through Jesus Christ forever.”

For them, the bread seemed to point to two things. First of all, it spoke to them of everything that they had learned and seen in the life and teachings of Jesus. There is no direct reference to his death (which is where we put the emphasis) but rather the focus seems to be on his life.

The second focus of their prayer, however, is on an image – the image of the creation of the loaf itself. They notice that the loaf began its life spread over the mountains. This is actually one of the things that indicates to us that the Didache may have had its origins in Galilee. The best place to grow grain in Galilee was in the hill country and many of the hills were called mountains. So this prayer evokes the image of the grain growing on the mountaintops, being harvested and ground and then baked together into one loaf.

Why is this important? Because it suggests to us what it actually meant to these earliest Christians when they gathered and shared this kind of meal together. It was not primarily, for them, a feast of the dead and resurrected Christ. I mean, yes, they believed in the importance of the death of Jesus and the truth of his resurrection, but when they ate this meal that was not the first thing that came to mind. The image of the grain harvested from many hilltops and then baked into one loaf was, for them, what it all came down to.

It was a feast, first and foremost, of the unity of the church. I believe that that was at the very foundation of the feast. Even the Apostle Paul – who may have been the first one to make the connection between communion and the death of Christ – tells us that, before anything else, it is about our unity with one another. Since the authentic letters of Paul are actually the first written books of the New Testament (they were almost certainly written before any of the gospels), Paul was the first person to give us a written account of the Last Supper and to say what it meant. Yes, he said that he received that account from others who had told it to him, but he was the first one to set it down in a form that endured. So he was the one who first told us, in the eleventh chapter of the first letter to the Corinthians, that Jesus said that the meaning of the bread was, “This is my body that is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.”

But before Paul ever told us that, he told us in the tenth chapter of the same letter, “Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread.”So even before Paul proclaimed that the bread was the body of Christ, he also declared that the loaf was the body of the church and that eating it together was a sign of our unity. He knew that the unity came first. The experience of the resurrection was the centrepiece of Christian faith, but Paul knew that he believers would never experience the power of the resurrection until they had found unity with one another.

What that means, my sisters and my brothers, is this: this feast is the feast of the resurrected Christ. When we eat this bread and drink this cup we do proclaim the death of Christ until he comes. It is also true that, when we eat and drink this sacred meal, the risen Jesus has promised to be present with us in it – truly present. But here is the problem: none of us can know that and none of us can experience that until we are united in one body as a church. Unity comes first.

So before this bread is broken like this body of Jesus was broken on the cross, you need to understand something about it. Before this bread becomes, for us, the body of Christ, it has to become the body of the church. You are the church – all of you. You make the church not because you are all the same but precisely because you are all so different.

We are those grains who start out spread far and wide over the mountaintops. We all sprouted where we were. We all grew into faith in our own way because of our unique circumstances and experiences. Some of you brought wounds and hurts into the life of the church. Some of you brought strengths and wonderful gifts. Most of us brought a mixture of both the positives and negatives. We came as we were and we remain as we are.

But though we started out in life spread far and wide over the hills and dales, we are all ground together into one bag of flour and then we have all been baked into one loaf. All of us come from different backgrounds and life experiences and here we have come together to be one. As you can imagine, that naturally leads to problems and clashes. We sometimes fail to understand one another because we are speaking out of our very different backgrounds and experiences and hurts. We sometime fail to appreciate one another because we are all so different. But we are only the church when we become that one loaf – when we finally realize that our differences make us stronger and tastier. The diversity among us makes this loaf delicious and full of good nutrients.

When we finally realize that and embrace one another despite being all so different, we are finally ready to experience the fullness of Christ among us. That kind of unity doesn’t come naturally to us. We often have to work at valuing people for who they are rather than for the things about them that are convenient to us. We often have to work at listening and truly hearing one another. The promise is that, when we do that, the presence of the risen Jesus will always be made clear.

That is what it means as we take this loaf, that was once spread far and wide over the mountaintops but has now come together as one loaf and is become the church. Only when we become that church, can the bread become the body of Christ who is present with us when we break it.

#140CharacterSermon When we take #communion, we become united, despite our differences, in 1 loaf so that 1 loaf can become Christ among us.

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October 2, World Communion Sunday at St. Andrew’s Hespeler

Posted by StAndrewsHespeler on Friday, September 30th, 2016 in News

As usual, there are lots of good reasons to be at St. Andrew's Hespeler on a Sunday morning. October 2 will be no exception. Here are some highlights:

We will be celebrating World Communion Sunday with a very special celebration of the Sacrament based on one of the most ancient written Christian liturgies ever found -- from a book called The Didache or The Teaching of the Twelve. We will learn a few things about what the very first Christians believed happened when they celebrated the Lord's Supper together.
The Youth Band will be playing for the first time this fall: Remembrance (The Communion Song) (Matt Maher and Matt Redman)
Special music of the day will include: Menuet en Rondeau & Air pour Zéphire (Jean-Phillipe Rameau), Thy Table I Approach (Jan Bender), Let Us Break Bread Together (Arr. Carol Tornquist) and Christ is Made the Sure Foundation (Henry Purcell, Arr. Cindy Berry)
We will have a chance to speed our runners and walkers who are preparing for the "Jeff-a-thon" on their way.
We'll update the standings on the "Pie in the Face" race for Anniversary Sunday.
Our sermon will explore some alternative and additional meanings hiding in our celebration of Communion.
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Pop Can Challenge

Posted by StAndrewsHespeler on Wednesday, September 28th, 2016 in News

We Need Your Help!

This Sunday, October 2nd, the Sunday School children and Christian Education Committee are challenging you to bring us all of your empty pop cans. There will be a trailer parked outside of the church where you can place your bagged pop cans (please only pop cans). Help us fill the trailer on Sunday.

All proceeds from the pop cans will be given to the Jeff-a-thon, a fundraising event in memory of our friend, the Rev. Jeff Veenstra. The Jeff-a-thon will support Presbyterian World Service & Development's Child & Maternal Health in Malawi and Afghanistan initiative.

( click here for more info: Child & Maternal Health in Malawi and Afghanistan)

A couple of years ago the Christian Education Committee produced this video and today we are once again reminded of it!

More Craft Sale items are coming in!

Posted by StAndrewsHespeler on Wednesday, September 21st, 2016 in News

Our craft sale is this Saturday, September 24th, 8:00 am - noon

at 58 Hammet St., Cambridge

All proceeds will help support Hope Clothing.

Lisa's Cookies: fresh baked Chocolate Chip Cookies

Hand crafted scarves

Hand Knit dishcloths

Homegrown (by a little boy) and waxed mini pumpkins.

Come and See

Posted by Scott McAndless on Sunday, September 18th, 2016 in Minister

Psalm 40:1-11, 1 Corinthians 9:16-23, John 4:16-42

ast Sunday I took a rather critical look at how we often assume that the church is supposed to grow. I noted that we usually seem to operate under an “If you build it, they will come,” philosophy. We think that we just need to build a church – not just put up a building, of course, but also create worship services and programs and ministries – but we just seem to assume that if we do all that, people will just come.

Because we assume (probably without thinking too much) that that is how it supposed to work, when things don’t work out that way – when people don’t come or don’t show up in the ways that they maybe once did, we also assume that we know what the problem is: there must be something wrong with what we have built. We easily fall into criticism of how things are in the church and often our reflex is to try and turn back the clock. We think that if we can restore the building or the worship or the programs to what they used to be when more people came, they will just show up again.

But I suspect that there is something wrong with our reasoning. Oh, I’m not suggesting that there is anything wrong with loving and taking reasonable care of our church buildings. And of course we need to bring the best that we can to our worship services and most everything else that we do in the church. I’m just wondering why we think that anyone would come just because we do that, especially when we are living in an age when people seem to be naturally suspicious of institutions in general and especially of religious institutions – in a time when “polished” and “professional” are often seen as synonyms for “phony” and “hypocritical.”

Jesus didn’t do it that way. We see his approach to ministry very clearly in our reading from the Gospel of John this morning. He had apparently decided that some Samaritans, people from the region that lay in between Judea and Galilee and was populated with people who were generally scorned by Jews, needed to hear about what he was doing. His disciples probably wouldn’t have agreed that Samaritans deserved a place in this kingdom of God that Jesus was building, but Jesus had apparently decided to include them.

So what does Jesus do? We’ll he certainly doesn’t employ our usual “If you build it” strategy. He doesn’t come into town and set up a preaching point or a ministry. He certainly doesn’t put up a building or set up an administrative structure and wait for Samaritans to come to him. What had does do is wander into town and sit down by the well.

Why does he sit down there? We might not quite realize the important role that a well played in an ancient town because that we live in a day of municipal water systems and indoor plumbing. Water, for us, is mostly a private and individual matter. But in the ancient world, a visit to the well was a necessary part of everyone’s day and it also tended to be the centre of the social life of the community.

So what would be the modern equivalent of sitting down by the town well? It was the place that everyone visited several times a day, where everyone, especially the common folks had to come and fill their vessels. It would have also naturally been the place where conversation, debate and common gossip were shared.

Where is Jesus sitting down? He’s sitting in the local pub, the corner coffee shop, the arena, the mall. Think of any spot in modern cities where people tend to gather and interact: that is where Jesus just sat down. He did the very opposite of setting up a special place for religious gatherings and waiting for people to come and join you there.

I have thought about that in terms of the expectations that are often put upon people in my position in the church. People seem to expect that I should spend a substantial amount of my time sitting in an office or standing around in other places in the church building waiting for people to come to me with their problems, needs or questions. If I were really following Jesus’ example, shouldn’t I be sitting at the well – wherever the people are. Aren’t the most important hours of my weeks the ones that I spend in the café or the park or, dare I say it, in the bar?

I may do other work or even meet with church folks while I’m there – I’m not suggesting that need to neglect my duties. Nor am I suggesting that I chase people around asking them if they have heard about Jesus. Jesus himself didn’t do that. He only spoke to the woman he met there at first to ask her for some water. No, it is more a question of being there and being open and ready to talk with people about anything – whether it be about the problems they have been having with their plumbing, the weather or the eternal state of their or my soul.

And, even more important than that, it is not about what I or other people in myposition do, as much as it is about how we all live out our Christian lives. It is easy for us to embrace our Christian identity in a place like this where we’ve built a special institution outside of the general culture. We can easily talk Christian and act Christian when we are gathered together with our own kind. But how often do we think about what it means to wear our Christian identity and our allegiance to Christ at the town well? That is where it actually matters.

But Jesus is actually only one example for us in this particular story; there is another – the woman at the well. She is, in fact, the model of what it is to be a Christian in a time like the one in which we live. This is clear because it is only through her that all of the other people who live there come to know Jesus. Before the story is over, she has brought huge numbers of her friends and neighbours to meet Jesus.

Now, when I call her a model for us, please note what that doesn’t mean. She is obviously a thoughtful and intelligent woman, but she is not really a woman who has got her life all sorted out. In fact, Jesus tells her (and she doesn’t disagree) that she has had five husbands and is living, unmarried with a sixth man. This would have been seen as a disastrous and quite immoral life situation in such a time and place. And, while Jesus doesn’t condemn her for this (he merely points it out to her), she and the others around her obviously look upon this with a certain amount of shame. For whatever reason (and it need not be her own fault) she just hasn’t managed to get her life together very well.

But obviously whatever has gone wrong in her life up until that point, none of it prevents her from very effectively brings all kinds of people to Jesus and to be part of what he is doing. “Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done!” She eagerly says to anyone who will listen. And if you want to know the truth about how the church grows, that is it right there. It grows when people don’t hesitate to say, “Come and see.”

This is one clear result that you will find in all studies that are done on churches that are growing. The churches may differ greatly in a number of ways, but they generally have one thing in common: the people of the church are actively involved in inviting other people into the church. New people hardly ever just show up on their own at the church; the vast majority of new visitors and new members come in as guests of somebody who has been there a while. I’m not talking about people doing hard-sell evangelism, by the way. It is not that people are out there preaching at people or condemning them for not coming or for who they are. I’m just talking about people naturally sharing a key concern of their life with the people that they know and care for. That is how churches grow.

And I know that we hesitate to do that. And I even understand some of the reasons why we hesitate to it – after all, I find myself hesitating sometimes too. We see the reason in the story of this Samaritan woman. As she goes out, she does say, “Come and see,” but she can’t stop there. The full quote is, “Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done!” and that really is saying a whole lot more, isn’t it? Because, in the case of this woman, “everything I have ever done!” includes a lot of things that reflect poorly on her in the community. By saying such a thing, she is actually opening herself up for her neighbours to insult her, abuse her and mock her.

What I am saying is that inviting people to come and see what we have received from Jesus means becoming vulnerable with people. It means that they might mock you or judge you. It especially means being willing to share what Jesus has done for you to heal you or give you forgiveness. That is what this woman does with her neighbours. But, to do that means that you are admitting where you need or have needed healing and that means admitting your weakness or grief or sickness. And it also means being willing to admit that you have sinned or failed. That is not easy. Many of us spend our lives desperately trying to hide such things.

So I do understand where the hesitation comes from. It just seems so much safer to us if we just hide all of that personal stuff from the people we meet throughout the week. So it doesn’t come easy but sometimes the things that don’t come easy are the things that we find most worthwhile in the long run.

That is certainly what Jesus discovers. You see, all this time that Jesus has been talking with this woman by the well, the disciples have been off to the local famers’ market to pick up something for Jesus and themselves to eat. Just after the woman leaves Jesus to go and invite her neighbours to come and see, the disciples finally return bearing the food they have found. But Jesus doesn’t want it. He’s not hungry, he says, even though he hasn’t had a decent meal in a few days. Of course they wonder why and Jesus explains it to them by speaking about what he has just been doing in these terms: “My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to complete his work.”

Jesus is not talking about physical food here, of course. He hasn’t had any of that. What he is saying is that, even though it can be difficult to be that vulnerable with people, it is also remarkably rewarding. There are many blessings to be had by being willing to open yourself up to other people – blessings that rebound back onto you regardless of whether the people you are talking to find their way towards the church or not.

That is the freeing thing in all of this. It is not as if it is up to you to bring people into the church. That is the work of the Holy Spirit. But if you do practice that kind of truth telling with yourselves and others that Jesus and the woman do in this story, you give people an opportunity to decide for themselves where they want to be.

That’s what the people of Samaria do at the end of the story. They say, “It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is truly the Saviour of the world.” Everyone must decide for themselves where they want to give their allegiance. It is not your job to persuade anybody. What you can do, however, is invite them to come and see for themselves.

So will you do that this week? Would you be willing to reveal a little bit of yourself to one person this week and admit what you have gained from your ties to Jesus and his church? You might find that such openness nourishes you in some surprising ways.

#140CharacterSermon It’s risky to invite people to come & see Jesus. It makes us vulnerable. But it’s an activity that brings many blessings

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