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Resolutions: 1) To leave space to grieve

Posted by on Sunday, January 1st, 2017 in Minister

Hespeler, 1 January, 2017 © Scott McAndless
Lamentations 1:1-7, Matthew 2:16-16, Psalm 44
I
t is a good thing, I suppose, that God made sure that Jesus, Mary and Joseph got out of Bethlehem before King Herod’s murderous men arrived. Three innocent lives were saved and, even more important, everything that the Messiah had been sent to accomplish was saved. But most people who read this part of the story (which, of course, we often don’t read at Christmas time because who wants to dwell on such things!) – those who do read it can’t help but ask: “Excuse me, but what about all of those other children two years old and under? Couldn’t they have been saved too?”
      We modern people are not the first to be scandalized at these events. From ancient times, this little episode has been called by the name, “The Slaughter of the Innocents,” and considered to be one of the more scandalous events told in the Bible. In thousands of years, nobody has been able to come up with any good reason why innocent children should have been left to be slaughtered apparently just to cover the escape of the Christ child.
      But, as awful as this story is, the Bible simply does not stop to explain it. God apparently knows that it’s coming – is able to send Joseph a very explicit warning in a dream – but doesn’t do anything to save any other children, and yet the Bible offers not a single word of explanation.
      But that is, unfortunately, how the world generally works. Tragedies do happen. Crimes against humanity are committed. Terrible disasters take place and as much as we grasp for an answer to the question of why, we often just don’t get it. That doesn’t necessarily mean that there isn’t an answer, of course, just that it isn’t coming our way.

      And we hardly have to go travelling back in time two thousand years to find such a reason to be scandalized. I know that we are standing here on the very threshold of a new year, 2017, and that all kinds of people have been looking back at the year that just passed with a real spirit of “good riddance.” I know that lots of people have wonderful things that happened for them or for the people they loved in 2016, but the overwhelming story that seems to have been told on the year was pretty negative. We lost huge numbers of beloved cele­brities and some of them in pretty shocking ways. The story of Aleppo and most of Syria went from bad to much, much worse. Many people are incredibly disturbed by the global turn in politics to what seems to be a particularly dangerous brand of right wing populism. So, while we’re not talking about events as egregious as the slaughter of the innocents here, we can understand the idea of not looking back on the recent past with a great deal of nostalgia.
      So what are we to think of the idea that the Bible lets the slaughter of the innocents go by without a commentary? It would be a big problem, I think, if it did. But, the fact of the matter is that it doesn’t. Yes, it is true that the Gospel of Matthew doesn’t pause to explain the slaughter, but it does do, I think, something much more important: it pauses to lament. This is the commentary on the events that it does make: “Then was fulfilled what had been spoken through the prophet Jeremiah: ‘A voice was heard in Ramah, wailing and loud lamentation, Rachel weeping for her children; she refused to be consoled, because they are no more.’”
      This is actually a remarkably significant response to a tragedy, but we might not recognize it as such because we live in a society that does not really acknowledge the importance of the activity known as grieving.
      Oh, we do recognize that it is necessary, from time to time, to give some people a certain amount of time and space to grieve a significant loss. People are allowed, for example, to take some carefully restricted time off of work when someone they love has died. We tolerate a certain number of tears, a limited amount of time when a grieving person may indulge in a reasonable amount of melancholy. But we don’t really have a whole lot of patience for that kind of thing. If people let it go on for what we consider to be “too long,” we don’t have any trouble telling them so.
      Even as we engage in pop psychology which talks about the various stages of grief that people have been observed to go through, we tend to turn that into a prescription for where people are supposed to be in their process of grief – telling people, “Don’t you think that you have spent enough time engaging in ‘anger’ and ‘bargaining’; isn’t it time that you moved on to ‘acceptance”?”
      Underneath all of our thinking on the subject seems to be the assumption that grief is actually a sign of weakness and that we really ought to put it aside as quickly as possible so that we can get back to being productive contributors to the economy. And this is probably especially true when it comes to our response to negative events and horrible crimes such as the slaughter of the innocents. The time spent mourning the disaster is considered to be wasted time and the assumption is that it really only gets in the way of the work of retaliation which usually includes declaring some sort of war upon the people or ideas that are held responsible for the disaster. (Think, for example, of how western nations dealt with the terrorist act on September 11, 2001. That was the pattern.)
      And, frankly, the people who wrote the Bible (such as the writer of the Gospel of Matthew) would look at our attitudes and find us extremely foolish. They recognized that grief was extremely important work; work that (if it wasn’t done) would definitely get in the way of the kinds of solutions and responses that were actually helpful. You see, they understood some things about the human condition that we seem to have forgotten.
      It works this way. We human beings have been designed by God in some pretty ingenious ways. I happen to believe that the particular mechanism that God used to design us was the process that modern science has come to call evolution and because of that, science has given us some wonderful new tools to understand that design. One thing that has become clear, for example, is that we have been designed to prioritize survival. What that means is that, when you are faced with a dangerous or traumatic situation or when people or things that are important to you are taken away, there is a process that takes over your brain in order to help you to survive that.
      The part of your brain that takes care of this is actually a fairly primitive part – a part that you can also find in far less sophisticated animals than humans. But that is fine because higher brain power is not what is needed immediately in that kind of situation.
      When you are threatened, your brain knows that what you actually need is not to waste a lot of brain power analyzing what is happening to you or even making sense of it all. Instead your brain concentrates on two key things. First, its priority is to make sure that you simply survive. This primitive part of your brain takes over and leads you through your initial response. In a situation of threat, that may mean helping you to fight back or, if that is not the best solution, run away from the situation. In a situation of loss, that means doing whatever you need to do to get through the loss.
      The other job that is very important at such moments is memory storage. Very clear and precise memories of the traumatic situation are stored in a part of your brain called the amygdala. These memories are not analyzed or interpreted, they are just stored there as episodes in living colour. This is also a matter of survival, of course, because once you have survived a dangerous situation, the important thing to do is to remember precisely how you did it because you may face such a situation again. This is why the memories of traumatic events are often so clear and vibrant even though you don’t really want to remember them at all. This is how we have been marvellously and beautifully designed for survival by a loving God.
      But there is one problem with this design. It means that, after you have gone through a certain amount of loss, danger or trauma (things that are an inevitable part of life) you end up with these powerful and clear memories stored up in your amygdala. But, as they are not particularly pleasant memories, the tendency is to avoid them, keep them locked up and pretend that they are not there. But they are so powerful that they do not stay locked up forever and they don’t just go away. So the more you try to repress them, the more they manage to sneak out. They are often triggered in unexpected ways and that means that you can continue to react to the trauma or loss that you have suffered long after the original events in ways that can be destructive to yourself or others.
      There is only one known solution to this problem and it is in a process that has also been graciously provided to us by God. That process is called grief. Going through grief is something that human beings have been doing since the dawn of civilization and probably long before. It is an activity that was very well known and seen as an essential part of life throughout Biblical times and, in fact, every scripture passage that we read this morning was an example of someone working through their grief by putting it into words.
      We read from the Book of Lamentations which is an entire book that was devoted to someone (traditionally identified as the Prophet Jeremiah) expressing his grief over the destruction of the City of Jerusalem by the Babylonians. Our psalm reading this morning is an example of an ancient communal exercise of grief as all the people come together before God to mourn something that they had all lost: a national defeat or setback. And then, of course, we have Rachel weeping for her children in the Gospel of Matthew: the ancient matriarch of the nation of Israel mourning for her lost children down through the ages.
      Grief work is so important because what it does is takes those memories of trauma and loss that you have stored up in your brain – in your amygdala – and actually allows you to move them into a different part of your brain where they can actually be analyzed and given meaning. This is how you were designed to deal with these memories – to wait until the crisis is over and then take the time to take out those memories that you stored up in the time of loss or danger and figure out how they fit into the overall story of your life. This is exactly the kind of process we see people going through – with God’s understanding and help – in these biblical passages and similar ones to those we read this morning.
      So when we see the writer of the Gospel of Matthew, and Rachel the ancient Matriarch and God himself joining together to mourn the terrible events of the slaughter of the innocents, this is not a failure to respond. It is a very important response. It is about processing such terrible events, finding their meaning and taking serious steps to destroy the power of such terror (which is, of course, what the entire rest of the gospel story is all about).
      It is the first day of January, a day, traditionally, to make resolutions – to decide what changes you would like to make in your life in this New Year. That is why I have decided to spend several sermons this January talking about some resolutions we could make for 2017 that could really make a difference for good.
      I would suggest that the first and maybe most important resolution you could make for this New Year is to practice some good grief. After all, how can you possibly do better at anything in this year that is coming until you first put aside the negative things, the losses and the disappointments of 2016 and, as I say, people seem to be saying that there have been a lot of them. Don’t be afraid to deal with what you have lost or feared in this past year. Don’t be afraid to grieve and mourn in whatever ways are necessary to you despite what anyone may have to say about it. Most of all don’t be afraid to ask for help as you go through such processes if you need it. May 2017 be a time of great blessing, especially, maybe, as you learn to grieve whatever there was in 2016 that needs to be grieved.
     

140CharacterSermon Resolution for 2017 #1: God wants you to take whatever time you need to grieve the losses and disappointments of 2016.      
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Beyond the Worship Wars; Building Vital and Faithful Worship

Posted by on Saturday, December 31st, 2016 in Clerk of Session

Session received a book review from Family Ministries Co-ordinator, Joni Smith in December.  Joni is working towards completing another course from Knox College entitled “Reformed Worship.”  Part of this study included a required book called

"Beyond the Worship Wars; Building Vital and Faithful Worship” by Thomas G. Long. A very interesting read that explores the nature and best practices of churches that are growing in vitality right now. This book addresses a lot of issues that we have been hearing about. 

 “In brief there are 9 Characteristics of Vital Congregations listed with explanations.  They are:
              o   Vital Congregations make room, somewhere in worship,  for the experience of worship.
o   Vital and Faith Congregations make planned and concerted efforts to show hospitality to the stranger.
o   Vital and Faithful Congregations have recovered and made visible the sense of drama inherent in Christian worship.
o   Vital and Faithful Congregations emphasize congregation music that is both excellent and eclectic in style and genre.
o   Vital and Faithful Congregations creatively adapt the space and environment of worship.
o   Vital and Faithful Congregations have a strong connection between worship and local mission, and this connection is expressed in every aspect of the worship service.
o   Vital and Faithful Congregations have a relatively stable order of service and a significant repertoire of worship elements and responses that the congregation knows by heart.
o   Vital and Faithful Congregations move to a joyous festival experience toward the end of their worship services.
o   Vital and Faithful Congregations all have strong, charismatic pastors as worship leaders.

“I would recommend that you read this book.  It is easy to read and not terribly long, but will make you think about why we do, or should do, some things and the theology behind the reasons.” Says Joni.

Session Elders have committed to read this book in 2017 and invite you to join us in exploration of real Vital and Faithful Congregations in the world today.  Session is actively exploring how we can make the book available to the entire congregation.  Imagine a book study open to everyone focused on intentionally making St. Andrews Hespeler a Vital and Faithful Congregation for future generations.

To quote an Elder at Session in December 2016 –“We know that the Presbyterian Church of Canada is struggling to keep members, just as most organized churches in North America are.  This does not mean St. Andrews’ Hespeler has to follow this pattern. We have choices.”   The quote above is a recount of the discussion and may not be 100% verbatim (Rob).



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The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come

Posted by on Monday, December 19th, 2016 in Minister

Hespeler, 18 November, 2016 © Scott McAndless
Luke 1:46-55, Luke 12:13-21
      “Ghost of the Future! I fear you more than any spectre I have seen.” It is with those words that Ebenezer Scrooge greets the arrival of the Ghost who is called, “The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come.”Scrooge is not alone in this. Nothing frightens us more than the dark unknown of the future.
      Nevert heless, though his trembling legs can barely hold him up, Scrooge promises to brave the Ghost’s company and to pay heed to whatever it may show him. In this he lies, as we all probably would in his situation.
      The ghost doesn’t speak but it shows him people reacting in various ways to the death of some wealthy person. There are some men of business for whom the death barely registers. Then Scrooge goes to see two women and a man who have pilfered various objects from the dead man’s rooms and his body and are seeking to sell them to a pawnbroker. Finally, he is shown a poor couple who are in debt to this man and who rejoice that his passing has given them a little more time to settle their debts.
      Scrooge observes all of this but does not see any of it – at least, he does not see the central truth of it all – though it is obvious enough to us, the readers. The dead man is, of course, Ebenezer Scrooge himself. We all guess it within a few paragraphs, but Ebenezer misses it. He doesn’t even recognize his own laundress when she takes his bedclothes to the pawnbroker. For that matter, he doesn’t recognize his own blankets and sheets and the curtains that have hung about his bed for these many years. He neither recognizes his own buttons nor pins nor the debtors who owe him money.

      How are we to explain this? Whatever else he is, Ebenezer is not a stupid man. But he is like us in this one thing: he has wilfully blinded himself to the inevitability of his own death. He just can’t see it. We hear him grasping at other explanations as unlikely as they may be: there just happens to be someone else standing in his habitual spot in town and the dead man is remarkably like him in every imaginable way but that is (Scrooge explains to himself) simply because the ghost has chosen for him the best possible morality lesson. The most obvious conclusion, that he, himself, Ebenezer Scrooge, has died, this he cannot see.
      And I cannot blame him because I think that this is something I do – and you do it too. We will admit, of course, to the logical inevitab­ly that we shall die some day. We know the statistics, the medical limits of the human body, the realities of life. We just don’t wantto see it. But, in the end Scrooge is put in a place where he cannot help but see it and it is a moment that changes his entire life. Such a reality, when we face it, can only do the same for us.
     
      Jesus understood the power of seeing the reality of mortality. He told a story of a man who had done well for himself. He had a great deal of land and it produced a huge abundance of crops. He had everything that he could dream of and the only problem he had left was trying to figure out where to store all his wealth. The conclusion seemed obvious. If he had all of this, he must have deserved it. He must have done everything right and was being rewarded by God for it. But Jesus called him a fool because he had failed to take one thing into account: the reality of his own death – a reality that proved that all of his priorities were wrong and that he really was a fool.
      Now, most often in the life of the church when we talk about the reality of death changing things, what we are actually talking about is what happens after death. It usually boils down to the idea that you should be motivated to do good out of a healthy fear of eternal punisment or (perhaps better) by the promise of an eternal reward in heaven. But actually that is not what Charles Dickens is talking about in A Christmas Carol (and I don’t think that it is what Jesus was talking about in his parable).
      Dickens probably believed in heaven and hell, but he was not actually interested in motivating people by means of eternal reward or punishment (Nor, do I think, was Jesus). Heaven and hell actually have no place in Dickens’ story of Ebenezer Scrooge. The only punishment he sees is to be found in this world. We see that in the suffering of Scrooge’s very first ghostly visitor: Jacob Marley. Marley, Scrooge’s dead old business partner, is in agony, but it is not the agony of hell. His agony is discovered in this exchange:
      Scrooge sees the suffering of his old friend and seeks to comfort him by telling him that he was always a good man of business. To this Marley cries out in deep pain: “Business! Mankind was my business. The common welfare was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance, and benevolence, were, all, my business. The dealings of my trade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business!”
      Marley’s agony is simply this. His life was the only opportunity he had to do good, to help the weak, to comfort the afflicted, to assist those in need and he didn’t use that opportunity. Now that life is gone and he has no more power to do any of it. His agony is now to see the starving people and have no power to give them food, to see the grieving and to be totally unable to offer comfort, to not even be able to weep with the one who weeps. His powerlessness to help, to respond with human decency, is what makes him suffer now.
      Friends, life on this earth is a precious gift. And one of the things that makes it most precious is the fact that it is limited. Realizing that is a hard thing, no one can easily see the reality their own death, but it is something worth seeing because it allows you to learn what Scrooge learned and what Jesus was trying to teach in his parable: to invest however much time you have on this earth doing what really matters.

      
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Christmas Basket Night

Posted by on Saturday, December 17th, 2016 in News

Last week we had our annual Christmas Basket night for our Thursday Night Supper & Social guests.  Many people from our congregation donated items to make up these baskets.  The contents of the baskets included practical and fun items for the adults.  Many thanks to all who provided the items for the baskets, they were wonderful and very much appreciated.  Lots of fun was had by all!




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God is with us: Special reflections on the Christmas story and a baptism

Posted by on Monday, December 12th, 2016 in Minister

Hespeler, 11 December, 2016 © Scott McAndless
Isaiah 7:1-4, 10-16, Matthew 1:18-25

Sunday, December 11, 2016 was a very special day at St. Andrew’s Hespeler. We celebrated a baptism (that had, as you will see, an interesting back-story) and had our children present to us their version of the Christmas story. This all came together in an unusual message that offered a unique perspective on ancient Biblical passages. As this message was integrated throughout the service, I present more of the service, particularly the Baptism, than I usually would.

Note that the names of the parents and child have been change to preserve their privacy on the internet.

Reflections on Isaiah 7:1-4, 10-16
K
ing Ahaz of Jerusalem was in a bit of a bad spot. Two powerful kingdoms, the kingdom of Israel and the kingdom of Aram had entered into an alliance against him and they were coming to attack. Things looked bad. The heart of Ahaz and the heart of all his people were shaking like the trees of the forest shake before the wind.
            But that was a long time ago in a very different world. How are we supposed to understand what it was like for them to be frightened of kings and armies that we have never even heard of? Well, think of it this way: what if the presidents of Russia and the United States made an alliance together and decided to invade Canada in order to gain control of our water supply? How would you feel? Are the leaves of your forest shaking in the wind? That what what King Ahaz and his people were feeling.

            And God wanted to help the king and comfort him and so he sent his prophet, Isaiah, to the king while he was out inspecting the defenses of the city. And Isaiah’s message was pretty simple. Don’t worry, don’t shake like a leaf, he said. The enemy nations that you are worried about, they are about to be destroyed.
            But maybe that all sounded too good to be true for King Ahaz and his buddies. And maybe Isaiah could see that he didn’t believe it. So Isaiah said that the king could ask for a sign. It could be anything in the whole world from the deepest depths of the earth (which they called Sheol) to the highest point in the heavens. But Ahaz wouldn’t do it. He wouldn’t ask. And so Isaiah said, “Okay, then God will choose the sign.” And guess what the sign was:

Leader: People of God, Robert and Susan have some very good news for us.
People: What’s the good news?
Parents: We have a son!
L: Praise the Lord! There is new life among us. Let all God’s people say, “Amen.”
P: Amen!
L: What is his name?
Parents: He is called Ryan ______ ______.
L: And why do you bring him here?
Parents: That he may take his place among God’s people.
People: Do you know that he needs to pass through the waters of baptism?
Parent: Yes we do, may we proceed?
L: May they?
People: Yes! We rejoice with you in the gift of your child, Ryan, and we promise to provide you with a circle of belonging in which he will have a place. As friends, we will offer a home to worship God and learn the Sacred Story.

Hymn #138 While Shepherds watched

Affirmations:
L: Please join me as we welcome this new life among us using the words printed in the bulletin.
P: Little child, welcome to this world, this amazing and scary world. Welcome to light and dark, hot and cold, good and evil. Welcome to love and hate, truth and lies, good times and bad. Welcome to the long human pilgrimage from birth to death. Anything can happen here; everything is possible. Some things must be chosen; others left behind. Welcome to the real world and this circle of friends. Here we turn to God for help in making the choices that lead to life.
L: Ryan, for you Jesus Christ came into the world; for you he passed through the waters of baptism; for you he broke bread with sinners and outcasts; for you he endured the agony of the cross; for you he triumphed over death. You, little child, know nothing of this. How will you ever know? Who will ever tell you?
Parents: We will!
L: Ryan, this is too big a job for your parents alone. Who is going to help them?
People: We will!
Witnesses: And so will we!

L: Ryan, who will protect and nourish you until that day when you turn to God and say yes to God’s life of compassion, justice and peace?
Parents: We will!
L: Who is going to help them?
P: We will!
Witnesses: And so will we!

Prayer of Approach
God, sometimes we look around at the world where you have placed us and we are dismayed. We see leaders and events that make us shake like the leaves of the forest shake before the wind. We worry for the future. Thank you that you understand our fears and that you meet us with the assurance that you are with us – that you even sent your Son, Jesus Christ, into the world that we might know you in him.
Thank you for the gift of this child, Ryan, who teaches that truth to us again: God is with us. May we all experience the renewing power of that truth here today. Amen.
L: The peace of the Lord be with you always.
P: And also with you.

Act of Baptism:
Minister: Ryan, the God who created you has made this promise; Don’t be afraid; I have rescued you. I have called you by name; now you belong to me. When you cross deep rivers, I will be with you; the waters will not overwhelm you... I am your God, the One who saves you. (Isaiah 43:1,2)
Ryan ______ ______, I baptize you in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, one God, Mother of all.
Ryan, know that you are now in the care of all who surround you. Know that you belong to God and to this household.
As I cup my hand around your head little one, may God hold you and keep you.
As I rock you in my arms little one, may Christ shield you and encompass you.
As I bend to kiss your cheek little one, may the Spirit bless you and encourage you.

Welcome:
L: Friends, this is Ryan, a son of God!
P: Welcome, Ryan!

Y
ou see, that was the sign that Isaiah offered to King Ahaz as he trembled like a leaf. He turned around and pointed to a woman just like Susan – a woman who was pregnant (or who maybe soon would become pregnant – the Hebrew is not quite clear) and he said that when she had her baby, Ahaz would have his sign. The sign would be the child himself. For the child would be called Immanuel and Immanuel means “God Is With Us.”
            And he explained that, by the time that child had grown up enough to know the difference between right and wrong (maybe by the age of thirteen), the world would have changed and the kingdoms that were threatening King Ahaz would have been destroyed. Isaiah was absolutely right. Within a few years, the world did change. Aram and Israel where destroyed and there was a whole new political landscape.
            But you know what? That wasn’t just a prophecy for that particular time and place. This was a Word from the Lord and the Word of the Lord has this way of remaining alive and active long after it is first spoken. That was why centuries later a man named Matthew would pull out the ancient words of the Prophet Isaiah – words spoken to King Ahaz when he and all his people were shaking like leaves in the wind – and speak them to people in this own time who were shaking like leaves in the wind.

Video Presentation of Matthew 1:18-25

            When Matthew told the story of how Jesus was born, the ancient words of the prophet would suddenly mean a whole lot more than they had ever meant before. In particular, that name, “Immanuel,” was important to Matthew because he knew that he (and all Christians like him) had experienced something special in the person they knew as Jesus. Somehow, in Jesus, they had experienced God like they had never experienced God before. Somehow, in this flesh and blood man, God had been present. For Matthew and the people of his church, Matthew’s story of how Jesus came to be conceived and born explained that: it was a new fulfillment of an ancient sign given by the prophet Isaiah to King Ahaz.

At the end of the service, Robert, Susan and Ryan return to the front and take Ryan to the manger.

Final reflections on Ryan
I
 am going to tell you the amazing story of how Ryan came to be here today. Seven months ago, Robert and Susan were living in a city in Alberta that you may have heard of: a place called Fort McMurray. They had gone there after school here because there was lots of work there and the pay was good. Many others from across Canada had done the same as Alberta had one of the few booming economies in the country.
            But, seven months ago, things were maybe not so bright. The petro-powers of the world (especially Saudi Arabia) had made an alliance together against Alberta. The price of oil had dropped like a stone taking much of Alberta’s economy with it. The future of Fort McMurray was not looking so bright as it once had. And that was before seven months ago when a massive, nearly unprecidented fire came sweeping through the city.
            We can’t blame one fire on global climate change, of course. Climate doesn’t create individual events, but it is true that that fire is part of an overall trend towards bigger and more destructive fires around the world. A dangerous sign for the future!
            We all saw the pictures and the video footage. It was positively apocalyptic. It was like the end of the world. And people were shaking like the leaves of a forest shake before the hot, burning wind. And, of course, people were asking where God was in the midst of that crisis.
            And I believe that God has sent us an answer: The young woman conceived and bore a son and called him Ryan. And, no, Susan didn’t conceive Ryan at that very moment when Fort McMurray looked like hell on earth. Ryan had actually been conceived about four months earlier. But does that matter? No, because the message is still the same. The world may change but this child, like the one born in Isaiah’s time and even like Jesus, is a sign to us from God – a sign that means that God is with us.
            How do I know that? I know it because that is how God works. I know it because, by the time this child grows up and is old enough to know the difference between good and evil, the world will have changed. I don’t even know how. Trump will not be president of the United States. Trudeau will likely not be our Prime Minister. The economy will have changed and I wouldn’t mind if oil isn’t such a big part of it. We don’t know. But the key thing is that the things we are worried about now, the things we are afraid of, may not matter by then. Yes, maybe we’ll have new things to worry about, but even that may not matter because of one key truth that God has sent Ryan to remind us of: God is with us.

            And so it is Ryan who will lead us out into the world today. As you follow this child into the world, May God make safe for you each step; may Christ make open to you each pass; may the Spirit make clear to you each road; And may you travel hand in hand with your God.
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The Ghost of Christmas Present — Seeing the Heart of the Matter

Posted by on Sunday, December 4th, 2016 in Minister

Hespeler, 4 December, 2016 © Scott McAndless – Communion
Luke 6:37-45, Psalm 72:1-7, 18,19, Deuteronomy 15:7-11
W
hat was the best Christmas dinner that you ever had? How would you describe it to me? I bet that if we were to put that question out as a general survey, we would get a great variety of answers. Some would speak of dinners from long ago, even from when they were small. Others would speak of one from recent memory. You would hear of menus and guest lists and decorations.
      But if you really pressed people to say what made it truly special, they would go beyond speaking of those things. They would start to speak of something very hard to describe: a warmth, a sparkle, a glow that somehow made the gathering that special – the kind of thing that is hard to pin down but that makes all the difference.
      It would be much the same thing if I were to ask you to describe to me your very best memory of a Christmas morning. There would be some who would focus on the presents that you received or perhaps that you gave. Others would focus on the people who were there, but most would talk about something that gave a special shine to everything that happened.

      That thing – that undefinable quality – is what is sometimes called the Christmas Spirit or even the magic of Christmas. It is a shared attitude that somehow has the ability to take fairly ordinary things – food, interactions, words – and make them truly exceptional. I am sure that every single one of us has felt that Christmas spirit at least one time or another, but we would be hard pressed to describe it exactly or to force it to appear when we wanted it to.
      There have been various attempts to portray this Christmas Spirit down through the years. Sometimes I think that, more than anything, that is what Santa Claus is – an attempt to draw a picture of Christmas Spirit. But, as much as I love Santa and what he represents, I think that someone else actually succeeded better in portraying what it is all about: Charles Dickens.
      In his classic tale, A Christmas Carol, the secon d ghost that visits Scrooge after midnight is called the Ghost of Christmas Present. But I would suggest to you that, more than anything else, he is a representation of the Christmas Spirit itself – a Christmas spirit that is reborn every twenty-fifth of December.
      The ghost wears a simple green robe, bordered with white fur that hangs loosely about its bare chest. Its feet are also bare and on its head is no other covering than a holly wreath. Its face is clear and joyful and girded round its middle is an antique rust-eaten scabbard that contains no sword.
      Most interestingly, however, as the ghost conveys Scrooge upon his nocturnal journey, he bears with him a flaming torch. The purpose of this torch is not merely to cast light upon the things that they are seeing but to produce a special incense. We discover the power of this incense as Scrooge and the Ghost visit a shop where the poor folk of the city have brought their Christmas dinners. These people are so poor that they do not have the means within their dwellings to cook and so they bring their dishes to a “Baker’s Shop.” I’m guessing, that these meals are pretty poor and simple fare.
      But, as Scrooge watches, the ghost (who is invisible to everyone but him) delights himself by lifting the cover off of each dish and sprinkling it liberally with the ash from his torch. It is an odd vision, but the meaning of it seems clear. The ash represents the power of the spirit of Christmas to transform. As the story continues, it becomes clear that the ghosts cannot just transform simple meals into Christmas feasts, it can also transform ordinary interactions into signs of peace on earth and goodwill to all and ordinary gatherings into joyous signs of the kingdom of God. And Christmas does have this power. I know that we have all experienced it at some point or another in our journey through Christmas past and present.
      I think that there is a spiritual truth to be found in this. Our tendency as human beings is to judge the value of the people and things that we see. When we do this, we tend to look at the surface of things. We’ll focus, for example, on the actual contents of the Christmas meal and how it was cooked, to judge how good it is. The torch of the Christmas Ghost reminds us that we must look deeper than the surface.
      Jesus would remind us of the same thing. “The good person out of the good treasure of the heart produces good,” he taught “and the evil person out of evil treasure produces evil; for it is out of the abundance of the heart that the mouth speaks.” His point is that you really cannot judge anything unless you can see the heart and not merely the surface of things.
      This is, of course, why Jesus taught that we should not judge at all. We are so inclined to look at the surface of things that we are blind to what really matters. Jesus suggested, wisely, that it is better to leave the judging up to God who can see the heart in all matters.
      But the lessons that Ebenezer Scrooge learns from the Ghost of Christmas Present are not limited to finding that warmth and joy of Christmas by looking to the heart of things. There is also a very dark and negative side to what he learns. Scrooge hasn’t just missed the joy of Christmas, he has also actively participated in judgement against the people of his city.
      Near the beginning of A Christmas Carol, two men enter Scrooge’s offices asking for his support in their charitable efforts on behalf of the poor. Scrooge’s answer is quite memorable. “Are there no prisons?” he wants to know. And he inquires likewise of the Union workhouses, the Treadmill and the Poor Law. These were the means by which England, in that era, dealt with poor – basically by punishing them for their poverty.
      The assumption you see (and this is an assumption that Scrooge himself clearly makes) is that the poor are responsible for their own misfortune – that they are poor because they have chosen to be idle. Thus Scrooge dismisses them by saying, “I don’t make merry myself at Christmas and I can’t afford to make idle people merry. I help to support the establishments I have mentioned – they cost enough; and those who are badly off must go there.” When the kind-hearted gentlemen inform Scrooge that some people would rather die than go to such places, Scrooge replies, “If they would rather die, they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population.”
      I wish I could say that Scrooge was the only one to take such a cold-hearted attitude towards the poor, but I think that you know that such an attitude has far from disappeared since his days. In some ways, I would say, it is an attitude that is only on the rise in our times. And, what’s more, such an attitude does make a certain amount of sense. If you only look at the appearance of things – if you see someone not working (or not able to get a well enough paying job) it is easy to come to the conclusion that it must be because of some deficiency on their part – they haven’t tried hard enough or lack a work ethic. It is also the easiest conclusion to come to because it means that their problems don’t really have anything to do with you.
      But, as I say, it is only possible to think that when you look at the surface of things. Once you begin to see the heart of the people involved, you begin to realize that the causes of poverty are much more complicated than that and, what’s more, our own fates are much more intertwined with the fates of the poor than we ever suspected.
      It is Scrooge’s visit to the family of his clerk, Bob Cratchit, that makes it impossible for him to only look at the surface of that family’s poverty and troubles. In particular, his heart becomes drawn to the Cratchits’ young son, Tiny Tim, whose health is so poor that Scrooge asks the ghost whether he will live for long. The answer is far from encouraging which leads Ebenezer to beg for a different outcome. The ghost turns the old miser’s cold words back on him: “What then? If he be like to die, he had better do it, and decrease the surplus population.” When you begin to see the heart instead of the surface of things, you realize how cruel our normal manner of thinking is. Scrooge is appalled at himself as we should be too.
      Scrooge’s final exchange with the Ghost of Christmas Present is the most disturbing. He detects two figures that are hiding underneath the skirts of the ghost. They are two children: a boy whose name is Ignorance and a girl whose name is Want and they are in an abominable state. They are, the ghost informs him, the children of all humanity and their terrible state isn’t just a threat to themselves but, if they are not saved, they will bring destruction on all humankind.
      “Have they no refuge or resource?”Scrooge cries out and in reply, the Ghost simply turns his own words back on him again: “Are there no prisons? Are there no workhouses?” Scrooge falls into despair, not only because the ghost forced him to look at the heart of matters but, by looking to the heart, he has come to realize that the plight of the poor is not just their problem but that it is a problem that affects all of us and threatens to doom us all. Want leads to ignorance and ignorance is deadly. If you let enough of the people fall into ignorance, they become a force in society. They will support tyrants and demagogues. Ignorance breeds more ignorance and it all spirals out of control. Scrooge has realized that the plight of the poor and forgotten ishis own plight as well.
      Dickens didn’t invent this idea, of course. The Bible recognized first that the plight of the whole of society is connected to the plight of its poorest members. That is why, in the Book of Deuteronomy, Moses instructs the entire nation by saying, “Give liberally and be ungrudging when you do so.” This is not merely for the sake of those who are poor but for the blessing of all: “for on this account the Lord your God will bless you in all your work and in all that you undertake.” There will always be poor among us, Moses warns us, the problem of poverty will never entirely go away, but God actually brings good out of it by creating an opening to blessing for all of us.
      Jesus echoes this idea when he teaches his followers and says, “give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap; for the measure you give will be the measure you get back.”
      The Ghost of Christmas Present teaches Scrooge a vital lesson. It teaches him that, by looking only at the surface of things, he has effectively blinded himself to the truth that surrounds him – the truth about what lies in the heart, especially in the hearts of the poor and forgotten, and the truth about how connected we really are.
      Christmas is a time when this habitual blindness is set aside. I have been amazed, for example, at the generosity that has been on display in this congregation and community over the last couple of weeks. You may have heard the story of a refugee family that showed up here about two weeks ago. It was the first real cold day of winter and they had sent their children to school that morning without any winter clothes because they just didn’t have any. We took them down to Hope Clothing and gave them as much as we could immediately and when there were a number of things still needed an urgent message was put out on Facebook.
      Do you realize that that message was shared 18 times that we know of and quickly seen by over 3000 people? And the response that we saw to that need was overwhelming both to our volunteers and to the family. People want to be generous. They want a way to look past the surface of the Syrian Refugee Crisis (which is a complex mess) and look to the heart of the people involved. Christmas is one good reason why they were willing to do that and the transforming power comes when we learn to see like that all year long. Dickens understood that. More importantly, so did Jesus.
      Will you allow the spirit of Christmas to transform you, not just during this Christmas Present but through the whole year that God places before you?
     

140CharacterSermon From Ghost of Christmas Present, Scrooge learns to see the heart & not to judge by appearance. This is a gospel lesson.
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December 4: Communion Sunday and More!

Posted by on Thursday, December 1st, 2016 in News


The first Sunday in December is always Communion Sunday at St. Andrew's. This year there are a number of other things happening on this Sunday that will make it even more special and meaningful.


  • Everyone is invited to bring in their family Nativity Sets for the worship service. We are already beginning to see the incredible variety of sets and hear some of the meaningful stories that people tell about the origins or history of their set. We will be dedicating our family nativity sets and praying for the link between church and family at Christmastime. Make sure you bring your set and put it out in the sanctuary for the beginning of worship.

  • There has been a wonderful and generous response to our "Angel Tree" initiative and the contributions are being piled up under the Christmas Tree in the sanctuary. One Sunday we will dedicate these gifts which will be distributed to families in the community through our Thursday Night Supper and Social. You won't believe all that is under that tree until you see it!
  • We will have the opportunity, if we choose, to contribute a special gift towards our Benevolent Fund which is used to support families in the community who are facing unexpected or emergency situations.
  • Special Musical treats! Anthem: Come My Light (with a special guest on the organ). Original music by local guitarist, Robert Dwyer.
  • The minister will continue his Advent series of sermons based on Charles Dickens' Christmas Carol by looking at the meanings found in the description of the Ghost of Christmas Present.
We hope to see you here!
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