Author: Scott McAndless

Hespeler, 29 March, 2020 © Scott McAndless
Ezekiel 37:1-14, Psalm 130, Romans 8:6-11, John 11:1-45

https://youtu.be/4-4mtq-WxOM

The Book of Ezekiel in the Bible is a strange book – I mean really strange. It is full of all of these fantastic elements. In one memorable episode, for example, Ezekiel is standing by a river when he sees these strange beings flying through the air that have made some modern readers think of UFO’s – unidentified flying objects carrying aliens. Of course, they are not that, but what are they exactly? At other points Ezekiel claims that God’s spirit literally picks him up and carries him through the air over huge distances.

This has led many scholars to wonder how, exactly, we are supposed to read this book. Clearly Ezekiel is having visions – not everything he reports is happening in the real world – but how are we to know what is real and what isn’t. Where does the vision end and the physical world begin?

For example, our reading this morning starts like this: “The hand of the Lord came upon me, and he brought me out by the spirit of the Lord and set me down in the middle of a valley; it was full of bones.” It makes you wonder; what kind of spiritual mode of transportation is Ezekiel describing here and does it have any applications for modern mass public transit? But is Ezekiel really saying that the spirit of the Lord physically transported him? Couldn’t he just as easily be saying that he was taken in a vision to the valley – that there was not actually a real valley full of bones?

Or here is another possibility: maybe he was just out wandering one day, and he wandered into a real valley and noticed that it was full of bones. He realized that there was something that God wanted him to see here in this valley and so he said, “It must not have been random that I walked into this place. God must have wanted to show me something here; the spirit of the Lord must have brought me here.”

I think it must have been the latter and I’ll tell you why. It is not just because it was quite possible to go wandering around the countryside in the ancient world and stumble into a valley filled with bones. It certainly happened, after some battles, that battlefields could be left littered with dead bodies. Nobody buried them and it wouldn’t take long for scavengers and decay to turn those bodies into so many old dry bones.

So yeah, Ezekiel could well have wandered into such a valley and if it really was an old battlefield (perhaps even a battlefield where his own people had been defeated by the invading Babylonians) he certainly would have seen it as a deeply meaningful place – a place where God might well have something to show him or tell him. Believing that the spirit of the Lord had brought him there would have certainly put him in the right frame of mind to receive whatever message that might be.

But that’s not the main reason why I think that that was how it happened. I think that that is how it happened because that is kind of what has happened to us. Here we were actually just a little more than a couple of weeks ago (though it seems hard to believe that it has been so little time) – we were blissfully rambling through the countryside as if we had no cares in the world. And then what? We suddenly looked up and realized that we had wandered into a valley and this valley is rather disturbing because it is filled with bones. And these are the bones of death and the threat and fear of death. This is a serious valley where we find ourselves my friends.

And, just as there were no doubt people back in Ezekiel’s day who wandered into that very same valley and noticed the bones but didn’t find any meaning or have any visions because they didn’t have any sense that the spirit of the Lord had sent them there to give them an important message, there seem to be lots of people today who are looking at our particular valley of bones called Covid-19 and they’re not detecting any messages or visions. They are just thinking of themselves and their own needs and not thinking at all about how everything that is happening ought to be making us rethink everything about how things should happen.

But there are some who are like Ezekiel. There are some who will decide that, if we are passing through, this particular valley of bones, maybe God has some lessons for us to learn here – maybe the spirit of the Lord brought us here. (Not, by the way, because God wants terrible tragedies like pandemics to occur, but because terrible things sometimes happen for reasons we may never understand and yet God has this way of bringing something good even out of the worst situations).

Now, that may seem like a hard thing to believe when you are faced with a tragedy as bad as something that leaves a valley full of bones. But that despair was something that Ezekiel felt too. As he wandered around that valley, he particularly noted how dry all those bones were – how they were completely polished clean of life. That, in itself, must have been extraordinarily discouraging. And then he is confronted with a question – a question that he says comes from God, which is to say that it is an inspired question. “Mortal,” God asks, “can these bones live?” And of course the answer to that question is obvious. Of course they can’t live – they’re bones. They’re dead. To quote a wise man, “They’ve kicked the bucket, shuffled off the mortal coil, run down the curtain and joined the bleedin’ choir invisible!!” These bones are ex-living beings!

But, of course, that is not what Ezekiel says. He very wisely, and perhaps diplomatically, says, “O Lord God, you know.” In other words, “I’m not going to stick my neck out too far on answering this one. Things look pretty bleak, Lord, but maybe you’ve got an answer on this one.”

And I don’t know about you, but I’m going to confess that there are moments when I feel a bit like Ezekiel. I look around this valley filled with dead, dry bones and all I can see is death and decay. The fact of the matter is that it often seems as if there is little reason to trust in human nature at times like this. I can’t make dead bones live, can you? I don’t know where the hope lies but I will hold on to this: maybe, Lord God, you know.

And here is where we get to the real meaning of the vision that Ezekiel had in that valley full of bones. The fact of the matter was that in that situation, as well as in much of the situation that the nation of Judah was facing at that time, there was no hope in human terms. There is no human means to make your way out of a valley of bones. Death is a dead end for human beings. That’s the reality that Ezekiel didn’t want to admit. But a lack of human hope is not the same thing as a lack of hope. “O Lord God, you know. I may not know, but you know.”

And where is the hope that Ezekiel finally finds in the depths of that valley? Is it found in the discovery of a new vaccine? Is it found in the practice of social distancing or even in quarantine? Will these things bring our salvation? Well, no question, they are good things. God bless the researchers who are working on vaccines and treatments. God bless everyone who is listening to directions of the medical leaders and isolating and maintaining social distance. But these things, as good as they are, the best that they can do is get us back to where we were before all of this began. But I’m not sure there is any going back there. This crisis has just exposed too many of the flaws and weaknesses that were there in our society before all of this started. I suspect that the way out of this valley, if we’re going to do it right, is going to lead to a different place.

“Prophesy to these bones, and say to them: O dry bones, hear the word of the Lord.” That is what Ezekiel is told to do. And the word of the Lord never simply takes us back to the way that things were – it always take us to something new. The vision that Ezekiel receives when he prophesies is something quite fantastic. The dry bones come together, are covered over in muscle and sinew and then with skin.

But even this is not enough because a body is nothing if there is no life to animate it, so a final step is needed. For the ancient Hebrews, the life of a living being was always to be found in the breath. And breath was the same thing as the wind and it was the same word as spirit. So it was not enough for Ezekiel to prophecy to the bones; he had to prophesy to the wind as well: “Prophesy to the breath, prophesy, mortal, and say to the breath: Thus says the Lord God: Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain, that they may live.” And it is only at this point that the defeated and decayed host in the valley full of bones can come alive.

Note that this is a reenactment of the creation of Adam in the second chapter of Genesis: “The Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and the man became a living being.” This makes a very important point. What God is offering here is not a little bit of help or a healing or a cure. God is offering a whole new creation; we are starting all over again from the very beginning.

Now, Ezekiel is quite clear. All of this was a vision. If he had it because he had wandered into a valley full of bones, then the bones were still there when he left. But the vision was a metaphor for what the hope of his people was in that time of hopelessness. This was where they were: “Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost; we are cut off completely.” When you are in that situation, you don’t need a cure. You don’t need a vaccine, you need resurrection, which is like a whole new creation and a starting all over again from the very beginning.

I am beginning to feel as if that is what we need in our present situation. I know we all may long for things to go back to how they used to be – to how everything was just a few weeks ago – but I really do not think that that is what actually needs to happen. We can’t just go back to the old guard, the old elite who sought to control everything and manipulated it all their own profit. If we get through all of this only to find that the rich have gotten richer, the poor have gotten poorer and that thousands more have fallen through the cracks of our society, then we will have failed. We need a resurrection, a whole new beginning.

I don’t know exactly what that will look like – not any more than Ezekiel knew what vision he was about to have when he obeyed the Lord and prophesied the word of the Lord, but I know how we will get there. We will get there by doing what Ezekiel did, by not being afraid to prophesy and to speak the word of the Lord. I believe that that is our task. It is, first of all, to believe that God can create a resurrection in these circumstances – that God can even make living beings out of dead, dry bones.  Secondly, we need to not be afraid to prophesy in the name of the Lord, to declare, especially at times like this, that God does not tolerate profiteering, that God demands justice and not just a return to business as usual.

Prophesying has always been a dangerous occupation because those are things that this world will always resist, but do not forget what Ezekiel discovered, that that word of the Lord is a powerful thing – so powerful that it is able to bring new life even to valleys filled with dead, dry bones.

https://youtu.be/09074fJzy2c

Suddenly a man came up to Jesus. Keeping a safe two meter social distance he asked, “Teacher what good thing must I do in order to be safe in this time of corona virus?”

“Why come to me with the questions about what to do?” Jesus retorted, “You know what the authorities are saying, do that.”

“What are they saying?” he asked.

“You know,” Jesus answered, “wash your hands for twenty seconds, cancel all gatherings, keep a safe social distance of two meters. Self isolate if there’s any chance you have been exposed. Do these things and you will live.”

“But I’m doing all of these things,” the man answered. “I have even stored up a great supply of surgical masks and gloves and essentials in my basement, but still I do not feel safe.”

“There is one thing more,” Jesus answered, “you must give away all of those masks and gloves and essentials to the people who actually need them. Even more important you need to let go of the notion that the things that you have are what will keep you safe. It is only by making sure that everyone has what they need that we can all be safe.”

“When the young man heard him say that, he went away very sad. He had a lot of stuff stored in his basement.”

Jesus said to his disciples, “I’m telling you the truth: it’s very hard for a rich person to get into the kingdom of heaven. Let me say it again: it’s easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter God’s Kingdom.”

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This paraphrase was inspired by N.T. Wright's translation of Matthew 19:16-26 in Lent for Everyone Matthew, Year A (Westminster John Knox Press, 2013). A few of the phrases are lifted verbatim.

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For commentary on this paraphrase, see the video devotional at the top of this page.

https://youtu.be/Gvxl_Kx48co

Hespeler, 22 March 2020 © Scott McAndless – 4^th Sunday in Lent
1 Samuel 16:1-13, Psalm 23, Ephesians 5:8-14, John 9:1-41

The Prophet Samuel was just feeling so depressed. He wasn’t sleeping, he hardly ate and he could hardly even work up the passion to punish any sinners or slaughter any foreigners. He had it in a bad way. And what was it that was depressing Samuel so much? Well, it was Saul. He just felt let down. He had invested so much in Saul. When Saul was just a young man, Samuel had found him and anointed him and made him king over Israel – the first king the nation had ever had. Saul had been so tall and so handsome – a good head taller than any other man in his tribe. He just really stood out from the crowd.

And what a king he had made! Saul had rescued the city of Jabesh and attacked the outpost of Geba. He had won at Gibeah and beaten the Moabites and the Amonites and the Edomites and the kings of Zobah and the Amalakites. There had been so much blood, so much death and mayhem. Ah, good times… good times.

But, all good things must come to an end sooner or later. Saul had messed up big-time. Samuel had told him that he had to do it – that he must kill all of the Amalekites and not leave one alive, but had Saul listened? No. He had gone and left one of them alive. So, Samuel really had no choice. He had to tell Saul that he was finished, that God had rejected him as king over Israel.

But Samuel just couldn’t get over it. If he couldn’t have Saul – could never enjoy the thrill of battle and the smell of blood at the side of that beautiful, tall man again – well then, what was the point of anything? What was the point of living!?

Those are the kind of dark thoughts that Samuel is dealing with in the opening of our reading this morning from the book that bears his name. That can be the only reason why God would come to him and say,“How long will you grieve over Saul?” Samuel was stuck. He couldn’t get over what he had lost in Saul, something that had given meaning to his whole life. And he didn’t know how to get past it.

And I’ve got to say that I’ve got all the sympathy in the world for Samuel here because we’ve all been there, haven’t we? Every single one of us has lost something that mattered to us. I realize that there are some who have lost loved ones who have passed away and that loss can be tremendous. But even if you haven’t suffered that, you no doubt know the meaning of losing, in some sense, someone or something that meant the world to you. We’re probably also all struggling today with the loss of things like social contact and even just good old-fashioned physical contact. It is really hard to get over any loss and, honestly, often the last thing you need to hear is someone saying to you, “How long will you grieve?”

There is an important place for grief – we should always allow the space and the time for the processing of it – but it can become a problem if we are failing to work through our grief and allow it cut off our own health and growth. I suspect that was what was happening to Samuel. And God called him on it. God called him on it because, as much as God does respect your grief, God is always interested in helping you to embrace a larger vision for your life.

God’s intervention with Samuel in this moment has a great deal to say to us as we deal with the challenges of life these days. I see a lot of grief in our world today – not just with people who have lost loved ones but also those who have lost in other ways. People are grieving the many changes in our world. Every time you hear somebody say, “Remember when…” or “Back in my day…” they are probably about to express their grief over a loss. It is especially something that we do in the church a lot. We love to talk about the church that used to be – the good old days when there were hundreds of kids in Sunday schools and the pews were packed. We have come to believe that that was the real church (even though, in many cases it was only a blip that lasted for a few decades) and that what we have in the church today just doesn’t measure up in comparison.

But what if God is saying to us in the church today, and sometimes in society today, “How long will you grieve?” How long will you grieve the loss of the church that used to be? How long will you grieve the changes of the modern world? How long will you grieve the loss of the power and influence that you once enjoyed? This is not because grief in itself is bad, but because God has some things for us to do: “Fill your horn with oil and set out.” God wants us to set out for new horizons and new beginnings but, so long as all we can do is grieve the loss of the way things used to be, it will prevent us from doing that.

Samuel was stuck. That much is clear, not only from what God says to him but also from what he does. Samuel does, perhaps reluctantly, do as God says. He takes a hollowed-out ram’s horn and he fills it up with oil and sets out. The meaning of this act is clear. They didn’t crown kings back then, what they did was anoint them with oil and the oil is to go on the head of a new king.

But even as, in outer form, Samuel obeys, it is clear enough that he is still mourning for the past. How do I know that? I know that because when he arrives at the home of Jesse, the family to which he has been directed, his eye immediately falls on Jesse’s eldest son, Eliab. And what is it that attracts Samuel’s attention to Eliab? Well, this is what God says when he notices Samuel looking at the boy, “Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature.”

Clearly, Samuel had noticed two things about the boy: he was really, really good looking and he was tall. That’s what made him think that Eliab would make a good king. Hmm, can you remember anybody else who’s most distinguishing feature that he was really tall and good-looking? Oh yeah, that was Saul, wasn’t it? Clearly, Samuel maybe looking for another king, but he’s looking for a king just like the one that just got away. He might say he’s over Saul, but he’s not over Saul because clearly the only new king that he can imagine looks a whole lot like the old king.

That is the danger when we do not process our grief or loss in the ways that we ought to. It is alright to feel the ache of loss, it is alright to miss what you miss and it is alright to remember with sadness, but if you can only manage to imagine a successful future as basically a rerun of the past, then you have a problem.

I know that this is a problem that we run into in the life of the church all the time. I don’t know how many times I have walked into a different church and had somebody tell me, almost within the first minute, everything about how things used to be in that church. “Well you know,” they’ll say, “fifty years ago, they used to have to bring in extra chairs and have people sit in the aisle because there were so many people here for some services!” “Forty years ago, our youth group was so big that we had twenty weddings in the space of two years.” “And thirty years ago, there were so many kids in that Sunday school that we used to have to hold a class in the Men’s room!”

Oh, you give me ten minutes with most church people and I’ll be able to tell you everything about their church several decades ago, but almost nothing about how it is now. (And, by the way, I have learned that, if you say to them, “Wow, you had that many kids in Sunday school thirty years ago you must have so many people in their thirty and forties now, they tend to get really quiet.) They just aren’t as excited about talking about what is going on now.

And it is not even because there aren’t exciting things about their church now. There are often some pretty wonderful things going on now but, because they still define success in terms of that past and the exciting things that are happening there now don’t really fit with that definition of success, they don’t quite know how to talk about that. “Oh church, how long will you grieve over Saul? Fill your horn with oil and set out.” God has a new adventure for you.

Samuel doesn’t anoint Eliab, the new Saul; he ends up anointing David who is kind of the opposite of Saul. Where Saul was the tallest, David is the smallest of Jesse’s children. Where Saul had a noble bearing that immediately made the people hail him as kinglike, David was ruddy which probably meant that he looked kind of rustic and common. The future was going to look very different from the past but that didn’t mean that there would not be success in that future, it just might look very different from the success that they had known in the past. So it will be for the church. God is giving the church success and will give it, I believe, even more abundantly in the future. But if we don’t stop grieving for Saul, for the church that used to be, we will probably miss it.

All of this seems very relevant today, doesn’t it? There is a lot of change in the air. This virus has so disrupted everything that, not only is it going to take a long time for things to go back to normal, I’m beginning to suspect that “back to normal” is not really going to be possible. At the very least, today I am probably as far as I ever have been from being able to say that I have the faintest idea of what the future might look like. That is a scary thought. It is a scary thought for the church, and it is a scary thought in a lot of other ways. But should we be scared? No, the future is in the best place that it could possibly be – in the hands of God. Just because the future is different, doesn’t mean that God can’t be in it. In fact, as many of the illusions of this world and how it worked fall away, it might even be possible that the kingdom of God is closer now than it has ever been before.

But do you know what might make us miss out on whatever new thing God is doing among us? We might miss it if all we can do is imagine the future in terms of the past. We might miss it if we define the success of the future in terms of what seemed like success in the past and we will especially miss it if we are looking for a new Saul and God is putting a David in front of us.

Grief has its place and you may well find yourself in the coming times looking back and missing things that you loved and that you liked and that made your life easier. That is fine and don’t be afraid to express that grief. But when God comes to you and says “fill your horn with oil and set out,” you had better get ready to believe that the future success that he wants you to anoint will be something different from what it might have looked in the past – not Saul but David – and that is a good thing.

My second "Devotion for People at a Social Distance." This one is inspired by the famous words written 400 years ago by John Donne, a British priest desperately ill in epidemic stricken London.

What can Donne's "Devotions upon Emergent Occasions," say to us today? Lots!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NYjiaV6CaZY

I have committed to do what I'm calling a series of "Devotions for People at a Social Distance." Every day, I will be speaking to and praying with people who are isolated and maybe afraid and worried about the future. Where is the hope and comfort. This devotion is based on the story of the disciples afraid in a boat on the lake.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pHDiX69ylyA

First of all, here are four videos of the morning worship:

Part 1: Prelude to Life and Work of the Church

https://youtu.be/nFuZsZWNFMg

Part 2: Scripture Readings and Hymn

https://youtu.be/TXOYtPDIOdM

The Readings of the day were Exodus 17:1-7, Psalm 95:1-11, Romans 5:1-11 and John 4:5-40

Part 3: Sermon -- When there is no water on the journey

https://youtu.be/YD0TWaaXvKc

You may read the full text of the sermon below.

Part 4: Offering, a lovely offertory by Margaret MacKenzie-Leighton, and the end of the service.

https://youtu.be/eME08q6_X1k

As I say in the invitation to the offering, this is something very important for everyone to be involved in now. Here are some links that you can use to give.

• You can click here to make an online donation to St. Andrews Hespeler (and support Hope Clothing, Food Bank and other outreaches
• You can click here to make an online donation to Cambridge Self-Help Food Bank.
• Here is a link to donate to the UNHCR Fund for the global pandemic response.

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Full text of the sermon

Hespeler, 15 March, 2020 © Scott McAndless
Exodus 17:1-7, Psalm 95:1-11, Romans 5:1-11, John 4:5-40

The children of Israel were tired of their journey and, you know what, I don’t blame them. It is a hard thing to pass through a desolate territory. Resources are scarce. You don’t know where your next meal is coming from, where you are going to be able to set up your tent or whether some wild animals might decide to invade the camp. I’ve gone camping before – been out in the wild and away from all of the conveniences of modern life. I’ve really enjoyed it – for about four days. At least for me, that was when a real weariness kicked in.

So, when the people arrived at a place called Rephidim – a green oasis in the midst of the desert – it would have immediately raised their expectations. This was just the kind of place where they could finally relax a bit – where water would be plentiful for a change and they might not have to worry for a few days. So, you can imagine how they reacted when they discovered that the spring in that place had ceased to flow. The promise of the oasis turned out to be nothing but a great boulder that loomed in the place where the spring ought to be. Now, that’s got to be frustrating – to have water so near and yet so out of reach!

Now, make no mistake, that was a big problem. Access to water supplies when you are travelling in the desert is not a matter of luxury; it is a matter of survival. They had a legitimate reason to be concerned. So why did Moses get so upset with them? I think it might have something to do with how they phrased their complaint: “Why did you bring us out of Egypt, to kill us and our children and livestock with thirst?” they asked. The problem with that is that it is what we always do. Whenever God is leading us though some new and unfamiliar situation, and the going gets rough, we always default to what is old and familiar. It doesn’t even matter whether the old thing was a good thing. In this case, they are pining for a situation where they were literal slaves!

God calls us to move forward. God calls us to take risks for the sake of the kingdom of God. Obviously, when that is the kind of thing that you are involved in, there are going to be problems. There are going to be bumps along the road and difficulties to deal with. The problem comes when our response to those difficulties is merely to look back and complain about the loss of what we were once used to. The real problem comes when our attachment to the past traps us and keeps us from embracing the opportunities that God places before us and that was what the children of Israel seem to have been doing. So I cannot help but feel that, if the church is going to find its way through whatever challenges God may be placing in front of us today, we’re going to need a better example and model than the children of Israel passing through the desert place. Fortunately, we have one.

Jesus was tired of his journey and, you know what, I don’t blame him. For one thing, he was heading for Jerusalem which was the place that was so dangerous and so stressful to him that it would actually be the death of him eventually. He was also passing through a very stressful region if you happened to be a good Jew like he was. You might even say it was a cultural desert to him. He was in Samaria and Jews hated Samaritans; the feeling was mutual. So, though he was surrounded by people, he really had nothing in common with them. They might as well have spoken in a different language. But that was not the worst part. The worst part was when Jesus arrived at a place called Jacob’s well, a place famous for its pure, clear water, and he couldn’t drink any. The problem was not that a great boulder was blocking access to the well, but it was almost as hard to overcome: Jesus had nothing to draw water with. Now, that’s got to be frustrating – to have water so near and yet so out of reach!

Now, if Jesus had just followed the example of his ancient ancestors in the wilderness at this point, what would he do? He would whine and complain about how God had brought him to this cultural wasteland so that he might die of thirst. He would talk about how this kind of thing never happened when he was back in Galilee among “civilized” people. But Jesus marked a sharp departure from that whole way of thinking. Instead, he looked around and asked himself the question, what possibilities has God placed in front of me in this place?

And that is why, when a woman came along carrying a water jar, Jesus didn’t react as his ancestors would have done. He didn’t say, “Well I can’t talk to her because that would give her the impression that she’s a human being instead of a filthy Samaritan. And I certainly mustn’t give her the impression, as a woman, that she’s worthy of being addressed in public by a man!” He should not have even acknowledged her existence. Is that what Jesus did? Did he define his actions in the moment by what had worked for him in the past or by the traditions that he had received? If he had done so, he would have remained thirsty and frustrated.

Now, what Jesus did say: “Give me a drink,” makes it sound as if Jesus is only concerned with his own needs in the moment. But think, for a moment, about how extraordinary that is. He genuinely has a need that only she can meet in that moment. How should we interpret that? Here we have the only begotten Son of the heavenly Father, the living Word of God who was a participant in the creation of the universe vulnerably acknowledging his need to this foreign woman.

That is an important part of the example Jesus gives us here because, out of his vulnerability and need, arises a whole new way of relating to a group of people who had been, up until that point, cut off from the good news that Jesus had brought. Out of that begins an entire ministry among the people of Samaria.

When the children of Israel were in the desert place and had no water, all they could think of to do was grumble and complain about how things used to be. They did, in the end, get some water, but that was it. They merely survived. When Jesus was in a cultural desert without water he took a different course and ended up not only with the water he needed to survive but some pretty amazing new opportunities for the gospel.

Which brings us, of course, to the particular desert where we find ourselves today. We are not in a literal desert, nor are we in the kind of cultural desert that Jesus found himself in that afternoon in Samaria, but we are in a desert, my friends. Let’s call it a church desert.

There was a time when churches like ours – I’m talking about Presbyterian, Anglican, United, Lutheran, Catholic churches and the like – were known as mainline churches. It is a word that is still sometimes used to talk about such churches, but the word no longer means what it once did. What that used to mean was that those churches were plugged into the main line of the culture and society. The church had power and influence.

When, for example, the government of Canada was looking around for someone to run Indian residential schools, it was some mainline churches who stepped up, and took on those contracts in what was seen as a win-win type situation for both the church and for the government. Of course, it was anything but a win for Canada’s indigenous people, but obviously that was not a really big concern at the time. So, for good and for ill, and there was a lot of ill in some circumstances like the one I just mentioned, churches had their finger on the pulse of Canadian society. We were in the main line.

But we’re not really in that position anymore. For good or for ill, we find ourselves pretty much on the sidelines of culture today. And the thing is this, when you are used to being in the mainline, when you’ve been used to having a certain voice and a certain position that people automatically respect, when you start to lose that, it doesn’t just feel like a loss of privilege. It can feel as if you’re suddenly dumped out in a desert place.

When you are used to being the people who set the tone for the whole culture and you suddenly find yourself in a place where the culture doesn’t much seem to care what you think, it can feel like you are in a cultural desert. And what happens then? Well, when you have depended upon your position and clout in society to get everything that you need, it can feel like you have arrived at a freshwater oasis only to discover that there is no water and you begin to worry that maybe you’re not going to make it.

We all end up in that sort of situation sooner or later. The question is how will you react? Will you react like the children of Israel? Will you whine and complain about the loss and talk about how good we used to have things while we say, “Couldn’t we all just go back to Egypt?” If you do that, yes, God might give you what you need to survive and muddle through. He might make the water flow from the rock, but I suspect that you will have missed out on an incredible opportunity that God is offering you when he brings you to this desert place.

I would much rather see you do what Jesus did when he came to that well in Samaria. I think it might be more appropriate where we find ourselves today as well as more successful. What might that look like? Well, first of all I think it might mean recognizing that we are, to a certain extent, on foreign territory here. Yes, maybe at one time we were the ones who established the cultural norms in this place, that’s no longer the case. We are like Jews who have wandered into Samaritan territory and it is a strange country to us. Secondly, and even more importantly, we, like Jesus, need to not be afraid to be vulnerable and ask for help in this place. When we go around pretending like we have all the answers and that nobody can tell us anything, it creates an impossible distance between us and the people who live in this place.

Jesus knew that a little bit of vulnerability can actually go a long way to create connection. In the story of Jesus and the woman by the well, it certainly creates a connection and an opportunity for deeper conversation and honestly that is what we need to have with the society around us. And it is in the midst of that conversation, after he has confessed his own need, that Jesus is able to offer to the woman what he and he alone can give and that is the living water that will quench a thirst that she maybe doesn’t even know that she has.

We still have that water to offer. We have it in the words of the gospel that we can share. We have it in the faith and trust in Christ that we can model. And we have it in the supportive model of Christian community that we are called to live out. And you better believe that that living water can make a difference in people’s lives that is much needed. But no one will ever get that living water from us if we are unable to have the kinds of conversations that Jesus has with that woman by the well and never forget that that conversation begins with Jesus being very tired and weary from his journey and frustrated that is not able to get the basic thing that he needs to survive and it begins with him being vulnerable to that woman and choosing to treat her, contrary to everything that he’s been taught as a good Galilean Jew, as a person who has value and importance.

Friends, we are tired and thirsty wandering through some sort of desert these days. Lots of things make us feel that way. And of course it is frustrating to come to the spring and find that there is no water. But consider that perhaps God has led us to this place, that God is calling on us to engage with the strangers who live in this strange land. Will you engage with those people? Will you let your guard down, even show your vulnerability? If you do, God has some opportunities for genuine ministry that might blow your mind.

The service video from this morning is mostly edited but uploading the video files is taking much longer than expect. They will not be available one the web page until (probably) tomorrow morning. We are sorry for the delay, but hope you will watch then.

Scott

A message from Rev. Scott McAndless

Dear people of St. Andrew’s Hespeler,

We at St. Andrew’s, like everyone else, have had considerable difficulties navigating the ever evolving COVID-19 crisis. If we were simply to rely on the directives that are being given to us, we would go on with our service more or less as usual. The Presbyterian Church in Canada has called on congregations to continue with Sunday services unless the local health authorities indicate otherwise. And, since the local authorities are only asking for gatherings of more than 250 to be cancelled, we are clear to proceed.

Nevertheless, official directives do not seem to be quite sufficient at the moment. Therefore, out of an abundance of caution and care for our people, let me state that there will not be a regular morning worship service tomorrow, March 15th, but here is what will happen.

I will  go to the church on Sunday morning for 10 am. I will be there and lead in worship and there will be a few people to assist me. There will be no Sunday School this week.There will be prayers and other elements of worship and I will preach a sermon.  All of this will be videotaped and posted here on the webpage by 2:00 pm at the latest. I encourage you all to participate in worship by watching. While our worship and especially our prayers will touch on the present crisis, I will, in the sermon, encourage us to lift our eyes beyond the crisis to look at where God may be calling on us to go as a church in our ministry to the community. The sermon title is: When there is no water on the journey.

During this time on Sunday morning, the church will be open. If you are not sick and have no symptoms, you may come in and join us in the sanctuary.  However, we will require that everyone who enters must lovingly practice social distance. We will remain two meters apart from each other (unless we come from the same household).

Finally, please remember the church in your prayers and in practical ways. Even if many of our activities are shut down for a while, the financial needs of the congregation will actually not lessen. We appreciate all those who have made their commitment to the church through Pre-Authorized giving. We probably could not weather this without your commitment. If you are able to help us, please consider online giving. There are links on the web page.

We will be assessing the situation throughout this week and the next. Please know that St. Andrew’s is still in operation and will respond to your needs even if we may have to limit face-to-face interactions. For now, Bible study will continue, and the Food Bank is expected to still take place on Thursday. I will begin to post daily prayers and meditations for you on the web page. Please continue to check in.

Be in prayer for the people in the front lines battling the virus and treating its victims. Respond to the needs of your brothers and sisters here at St. Andrew’s, as well as those of your family, friends and neighbourhood. Be loving and full of care as you treat all people with respect even if (in these strange times) you may need to keep at a physical distance. Together we will rise above these unprecedented times. (please pass this message along to people whom you know are not online)

“So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God.  I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.” -- Isaiah 41:10

With love and care in Christ’s name,

Rev. Scott McAndless

I have written a lot of Annual Reports over many years of ministry. They are not as easy to write as you may think. How do you sum up an entire year of ministry on one sheet of paper, after all? You can’t say everything, of course, but what can you do that will at least give a flavour of what the year was like? I’m always open to finding a fresh approach.

So, here is what I’m going to do this year. You know those lists of questions that sometimes circulate on social media – questions that you are supposed to post on your page and answer while you challenge your friends to answer as well. Well, I borrowed one of those lists and adapted it to make it:

20 Questions about Scott’s 2019

(Do this without fibbing.)

1. Where are you answering these questions?

I am typing this as I sit in the car riding home (I’m not driving!) from a quick visit and a supper with our daughter at college in London.

2. What is your favourite church picture you took during the year?

Session selfie!

3. Where was that picture taken?

At our Session retreat at Duff’s Presbyterian Church (February 2, 2019)

4. What was the hardest thing you had to do during the year?

Visit one of our church members in hospital. He was in a great deal of pain, confusion and so weak and there was so little I could do for him.

5. What was the greatest privilege?

Visit that same church member in the hospital and be able to be a part of that awful and yet meaningful and ultimately hopeful moment.

6. What moment in the year will you always cherish?

It was a moment that I cannot share with you. It was a moment of personal counselling that I cannot tell, but the grace of God was a powerful and healing presence. I will never forget it.

7. Best musical memory?

Most every time I got to sing with Joyful Sound!

8. What went terribly wrong and yet God turned it into something wonderful?

On Sunday, February 3, 2019, I was awakened to the news that the furnaces in the sanctuary were not working and it was cold in there, really cold! Oh no! What will we do?! What we did was set up and hold worship downstairs in the Fellowship Hall and we all had a great time and it gave us the impetus to start thinking differently about what we really required to be a church together.

9. What was the latest you stayed up on a Saturday night getting ready for a Sunday?

About 11:30 pm. I’ve gotten to the point that I’m really no good for much of anything after that. I have also gotten to the point, however, when I just wake up at 5:30 am Sunday morning and start getting ready.

10. Coolest surprise?

Carol Johnston knit Rudolph mittens for all the kids on the Santa Claus Parade float. (Somehow, I ended up with a pair, too.)

11. Best New Development?

Our youth grew in number and decided to organize themselves and elect their own leadership.

12. Best sign of hope?

We have a very meaningful moment when our session came together to create a covenant with the help of Rev. Greg Smith..

13. People you couldn’t have made it though the year without?

Our amazing staff. Joni is constantly challenging me (in a really good way) to be my best and bring out the best in others. Paula is so supportive and uplifting. Corey consistently blows me away with her talent and her leadership abilities. I feel I can always count on Glen to get it done. Karen is an amazingly caring presence, pulls people together and makes a meaningful community ministry possible.

14. Best church meal?

There were so many and they were so good but I’m going to have to go with the Thursday Night Supper and Social Christmas feast!

15. Your earliest workday?

December 9, I got to work at 5:20 a.m. It was to open up the church and turn off the alarm for a film crew.

16. Does pineapple belong on pizza?

Umm, maybe, under certain circumstances. Who am I kidding – it’s pizza. Of course, I’ll eat it!

17. Most fun at a new event?

Open Mic. What an incredible cavalcade of the talents of this congregation.

18. Who do you think will read this report?

Everyone, of course! They will pour over it like it’s a newly discovered gospel.

19. Who will comment to you on the silliness of that previous answer?

Joni, Paula, Dominique, Ray and Allison.

20. Who will be upset that you mentioned their name in the previous answer?

Joni, Dominique, Ray and Allison!

Hespeler, 8 March, 2020 © Scott McAndless
Genesis 12:1-4, Psalm 121, Romans 4:1-5, 13-18, John 3:1-17

Now the Lord said to Ashurbanipal, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse; and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”

So Ashurbanipal went, “What, are you crazy, Lord? You want me to leave behind everything that is familiar and comfortable, the land that I’m supposed to inherit from my father and all of the family supports that are supposed to protect me from all the unpredictability of life. That’s okay, Lord, you can keep your blessing.

But the Lord was not discouraged and he went and said to Utnapishtim, “Utnapishtim, same command. Leave your country and everything and you can have all these blessings.” But Utnapishtim said, “Lord, I am very flattered and everything, but I am totally swamped this month, can I get back to you later on your plan.”

So, the Lord went on to others – to Nahshon, Ammishaddai and Zuriel – but nowhere could he find someone to take on the challenge of what he commanded them – until he found Abram. And Abram, to everyone’s surprise, he just got up and went.

That is the kind of amazing thing about the story of the call of Abram in the Bible, isn’t it? There really was nothing special about Abram before that. He hadn’t done anything, hadn’t proven his value in any way. When we first meet him in the Book of Genesis, there is only one thing that sets him apart, one thing that indicates that he is different: when God says go, he goes. He doesn’t talk back. He doesn’t ask questions or hesitate. He goes.

That is what made me wonder how we’re supposed to read this story. Was Abram the only one that God spoke to, or where others given the same offer? Do we not hear about those others – are they entirely lost to history – simply because they turned God down?

And if the only thing that Abram did to set himself apart, at least at first, was respond to this command, what is the significance of that? What did Abram do right? You might think that it was his instant obedience that impressed God, which would mean that God is really only interested in what you might call “yes men” (for lack of a more inclusive term). What God wants more than anything else is someone who, when God says jump, only says, “How high sir?”

But no, that cannot be it. If God were looking for nothing more and nothing less than unquestioning obedience, he could have chosen to adopt unthinking beasts instead of a human family. No, what set Abram apart was not the instant obedience itself but the thing that made him react that way, and that thing was faith.

In our reading this morning from his letter to the Romans, the Apostle Paul is referring to a later event in Abram’s life when he writes, “Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness,” but what he says there certainly applies to this earlier event. What set Abram apart right from the very beginning was his willingness to believe the promises that God made to him. Paul goes on from there to explain what belief in God means in that kind of situation, “But to one who without works trusts him who justifies the ungodly, such faith is reckoned as righteousness.” Paul says that the faith that God is looking for is a willingness to trust God.

As I thought about the season of Lent this year, I noticed that there was a certain theme that kept coming up in our readings for Sunday mornings – a theme that is most clear in this Genesis reading this morning. The readings are full of stories of people who step out and embrace new things, new concepts and ideas, who leave things behind because they feel called to something new. We see that theme, for example, in our gospel reading from this morning. We see it as Nicodemus engages with Jesus of Nazareth who pushes him to rethink just about every aspect of the Judaism that he has held onto as a teacher of Israel. If Nicodemus is going to embrace what Jesus is saying to him (which apparently according to this gospel he eventually does) he is going to have to let go of many of the ideas and ways of thinking that have told him who he has been up until this point in his life.

So, looking at that, my question was why are these the stories that seem to be coming up during Lent? Lent has always been a very important season in the life of the church. It is a time of reflection, of repentance and of rededication. In the early church, it was also a time for focusing on the basics of the faith. Throughout the season new members of the churches would be taught what it meant to be followers of Jesus in preparation to be baptized on Easter Sunday. So I think that we should also think of it as a season when we focus on the absolute essentials of what makes us followers of Christ.

With all of that in mind, how should we think of this theme that seems to be introduced by this decision of Abram to just get up and go, leaving everything that is familiar, just because God says so? I believe that this is meant to teach us something absolutely essential about faith and what it means for us as followers of Jesus Christ in the world today.

Let me ask you, how is faith generally perceived in our society today? I would suggest that a very big stereotype of people of faith is that they are people who cling to the past. That perception is not always true about Christians, of course, but it is persistent, and it is not based on nothing. There are many Christians today, for example, who cling to beliefs and ways of seeing the world that are outmoded and largely discredited – those who insist, for example, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, that the world was all created about 6,000 years ago, and that it was all created in a span of six 24-hour days. There are those who would claim that believing that, in the face of all that contrary evidence, is a perfect example of what faith is.

But it’s not just in matters of what people believe that Christians can be particularly stuck to the past. It is also in matters of practice and ways of doing things. We cling to old songs and old forms of prayers and old traditions. Have you ever heard that favourite old hymn that goes, “give me that old time religion, it was good enough for my father; it’s good enough for me.”

And I am not saying that that is a horrible thing in and of itself. Just because something is old doesn’t mean that it can’t be good. Old traditions can obviously still be meaningful and comforting. Old truths can still be true, and we should never abandon the truth. There is no problem if we simply value these things and hold on to them appropriately. The problem comes when we confuse blindly clinging to these things with faith; the problem comes when we start to see stubbornness in itself as a virtue. And I’m afraid that we often think in exactly that way.

If faith really were what we often assume it is, then Abram would not be the ideal example of faith. He would be a negative example. If faith was just about stubbornly clinging to the familiar and comfortable, then the example that we would be celebrating today on this second Sunday of Lent would be Ashurbanipal or Utnapishtim or whoever else turned God down flat before Abram said yes. But there is a good reason why nobody knows who they were.

The season of Lent is often compared to a journey. We talk about how it is the path we have to travel in order to arrive at the sad but beautiful truth of what happened on Good Friday when God’s love for us was demonstrated so powerfully. It is a journey towards the incredible victory of Christ’s resurrection on Easter Sunday. But every journey towards something is also a journey away from something else; that is the truth that Abram demonstrates to us so clearly. When he left on God’s orders, what he was journeying towards was very nebulous. God hadn’t even actually told him where he was going yet – had only promised to let him know when he got there.

But if Abram destination was unclear, what he was leaving was anything but. He knew exactly what he was giving up and what it was costing him. And that is often how it works and that is why change is hard, why it is so much easier to cling to what you know than to embrace what you have not yet seen.

And so, if we are going to think of our passage through Lent this year as a journey, I’m going to propose that, instead of focussing just on where we are going, we think about what God might be calling us to let go of in order to get there. As you may know, it is a tradition in certain churches to give up something during the season of Lent. People might make a vow to stop eating chocolate or desserts or to stop doing some favourite activity during the forty days of the season. That is may be close to what I’m talking about here, but I think we may need to look for something a little bit more serious than that.

I’m not talking about giving up something you like for just a short period of time. I’m talking about giving up permanently the things that are keeping you from grasping the full truth of what God did for you on Easter and on Good Friday.

Let me ask you, what might you be clinging to, not because it a good thing or a healthy thing, but simply because it is what is familiar or comfortable. Perhaps it is an old grudge – something that you have been holding against somebody for so long that you may have even forgotten why it was that you were mad at them in the first place. Holding on to something like that might make you feel good – there is a comfort to it – but it is not doing anyone any good, least of all you. I would suggest to you that part of the Lenten journey that God is calling you to is a journey away from that grudge.

Or maybe you’ve been resisting something – some change in your personal life or something that you are involved in – even though you know deep down inside that the change is inevitable. Change is hard and God understands why we resist it, but your Lenten journey this year might well involve you walking away from the resistance. That will mean that you will walk into something new and unfamiliar and probably disturbing because of it, but the walk forward is a walk of faith for you as much as it was for Abram.

I just think that you need to be reminded that, if your faith is merely something that makes you hold onto what you’ve always known, resist change and complain about any disturbance to what you are used to, it is not the faith of Abram. It is not the faith that prompted God to bless Abram and make him a nation that would bring blessing to the whole world. Walking away from some of that will be hard, of course, but the same promise of blessing that God gave Abram is the promise he is offering to you this Lenten season. So let’s embark on the journey together.