Palm Sunday Hosanna experiment

 I’d like to invite you to a time of imagination and experimentation.  You might want to read this first then close your eyes and imagine it with me. Take a moment to settle in your chair or pew or wherever you are at this moment.  Feel the floor beneath your feet, let your hands relax.  Take a deep breath and relax your shoulders.  Take another deep breath and relax your jaw.  Feel the chair holding up your body.  Let it support you so you can relax. 

Breath gently.  Notice the air going in and out of your body. The word Breath in the ancient Hebrew was the same word for life and Spirit.  Imagine the breath of life going into your throat, your lungs, your belly, gently rising and falling.  Find yourself becoming still as you feel your breath going up and down…

Imagine you are standing in a marketplace where vendors have tables out up and down a road.  People are selling fish and vegetables, wine and cloth, sheep and chickens.  As you wander past the many tables, you feel the warmth of the sun on your face.  You see soldiers marching by. Some are watching the shoppers.  The shoppers look nervous, complaining about the cost of things but not too loudly near the soldiers.  As you walk, you hear a noise from a loud crowd ahead of you.  You walk faster until you see the crowd.  They have palm branches in their hands and are crying out “Save us!”  Some are taking their coats off and scattering them on the ground.  You look up the road where others are looking and see a figure in the distance, slowly coming down towards you.  He is sitting on a young donkey, and there are people following behind him.  As he comes closer, you are surprised to see him looking solemn rather than happy.  His disciples look happy and wave excitedly to the crowd.

The donkey starts to bray and lays its ears back.  You reach out and pet him, joining the parade.  As you walk along, calming the donkey, you find yourself wondering who this person is that everyone is cheering and asking for help from.  You wonder if he has an answer to the questions you have.

You reach a large stone building in the centre of town, the temple.  You hold the donkey for the man to get off.  He looks at you and thanks you.  He asks you to tell him what is on your mind.  This is your time to share…

 He offers to give you something.  What does he give you?  Thank him for his wise words and gift.  Prepare to leave him and walk back to the marketplace. Notice any changes.  How does it feel? How does it look now?  Gently and gradually come back to awareness of your body.  Notice your breath going in and out of your body.  Notice the chair or pew supporting you.  Wiggle your toes and fingers. Move your shoulders. Return to this space.  When you are ready, open your eyes.

Take some time to explore these questions.  You might want to doodle or journal or share with someone.  You can even leave a comment below.  

What did you ask?  What did Jesus say? What did Jesus give you?

Warts and All

 Dry bones lie scattered around in a vivid dream God sends Ezekiel one despairing day.  Dry bones in a dead valley. The world is in turmoil, the people have seen their capital city destroyed and their lives disrupted.  They have gone from city dwellers to refugees and slaves overnight.  The whole nation is grief-stricken and devastated.  Hope is dead. 

That is the magnitude of what faced Ezekiel some twenty-six hundred years ago.  This was a time of anxiety, fear and apathy as the people struggled to make sense of what had happened to them.  Not unlike what we are dealing with today. Severna and I struggled to find photos of 2022, and there weren’t a lot.  It’s hard to remember but this time last year we were still wearing masks, still recording who came to church in case of an outbreak, still struggling with health measures and precautions.  Palm Sunday I preached from the Manse as Tim had tested positive.  We didn’t have coffee time after church at all and served communion in the pews with tongs.  Some United Church congregations are still serving communion that way and still enforce masks every Sunday and are not having coffee time yet.  So there weren’t a lot of events to take pictures of.

We still worshiped. We still prayed.  We still had book study and we still met for council and committee meetings. We had an amazing donation of $14,000 gifted to us because of our affirming work.  We still started a youth group and gradually added coffee time.

All these things happened because we worked together.  A church is not one Ezekiel doing everything.  A church is a valley of people coming together, remembering when they were dry bones and rejoicing that they can stand up again, they can move again, they can breathe again.  Why?  Because they heard and felt God’s breath blowing in and through them, God’s spirit clothing their dry bones and reenergizing them, helping them, helping us to remember to thank God for our lives.

These past few years have been hard and have taken their tole on us.  We wonder when the stress of all the change will be done with.  When will things go back to normal?  And the answer is we really don’t know.  How do we adjust to that reality, that uncertainty?

Two images come to mind.  One is from the Pirates of the Caribbean, where Johnny Depp’s pirate ship is being chased down by faster boats and his capture is likely.  Depp takes a huge risk – he throws out his anchor and snags it on a rock. The boat pivots around the anchor, like a yoyo someone spins around their head, and the other ships sail right past him.  But it puts a tremendous strain on the ship, puts it in range of the pursuing ships and almost pulls the bottom off his boat!  The chasing ships can’t turn around in time and he escapes once again.  We could try something drastic like that to adjust to the times we are in.

The other image that comes to mind is when two years ago, I had a bad wart on my foot that wouldn’t go away.  I tried everything I could, even went to the doctor to get it burnt off, which the nurse was not impressed with.  She didn’t want to be burning a wart on a toe when people were struggling with Covid.  So I bit the bullet, and became obsessively diligent on using the Dr. Scholl’s wart freezing stuff to the point where it hurt more than I liked, but that was what the nurse had done.  I never thought I would get to the bottom of that wart, but persistence, consistence and patience made the difference.

What does God call us to do now?  What will breathe new life into our dry bones?  Do we need to resort to drastic methods like a risky toss of an anchor that stresses everything, or smaller methods like a can of freezing wart solution?  I remember when we first went into lockdown three years ago this very month, my motto became “5% better”.  It helped us remember to take small steps every week to improve how we worshipped and how we did church together.  It kept us calm and hopeful.  Now we can ask it again, what would help us as a church to be 5% more faithful, 5% more prayerful, 5% more generous, 5% more courageous?  Now is a time for deep faithful courage and deep love of God and our neighbors.  May we find the courage to work towards a healthier future.  Amen.

Puzzling predicaments

Have you ever done a jigsaw puzzle?  Remember the wooden ones or cardboard ones where a circle went in the circle hole or the cow in the cow silhouette?  We graduated to 10-piece puzzles and then 50 pieces.  Some folks got so into it that they do 500- or 1000-piece puzzles.

Life has felt like a jigsaw puzzle where we only have some of the pieces and there’s no picture on the box.  For some of us, this has led to a sense of anxiety, anger or apathy.

On this the third anniversary of going into shut-down, how do we put the puzzle back into a coherent picture?  How do we see what the picture is, feel like we are shaping it rather than falling into despair?  Especially when we are dealing with a massive deficit as a congregation?  It would be easy to panic or to give up.  But as followers of Jesus, we are reminded that Jesus points to a different way of seeing, a different way of acting in the world.

The story of the man born blind is worthy of a movie or epic novel.  What must it be like to have grown up without sight, only to have some interfering busybody come along. Did he sign a consent form?  Did Jesus explain the possible side effects such as being pulled into an interrogation by the religious authorities?  Did the man want to see?  Or was he happy with his life?

And who really couldn’t see in this story?  The disciples were struggling with the age-old question of why do bad things happen and assuming that it must be punishment for something the man did or his family did.  As if God sent blindness to punish the individual!  We still often think that when we hear about tragedies, asking what the person did to deserve the situation they find themselves in.  Why did Dad get cancer?  Why did Grandma have a heart attack?  Why were two police officers gunned down in Edmonton? Why are libraries in Winnipeg installing metal detectors in all the entrances? Why? 

I don’t particularly like Jesus’ answer.  So that God can be seen in action in their life, so that God’s healing love can be witnessed.  Not great.  What about the 20 or 30 years the man lived with a difficult disability, the ostracization he and his parents faced?

I don’t believe a God of Love would deliberately inflict suffering on anyone for the sake of winning a debate.  I do believe that Jesus was intentionally and publicly including people that didn’t fit.  He wanted people to have an indisputable and unforgettable experience of God’s presence in the world.  He wanted to shake people’s expectations and assumptions of who God was, what God’s community looks like, and who is worthy of God’s grace.

He wanted people to shake up the puzzle pieces.  To rethink about who fits in and who is out.  To reimagine community and reimagine where God is in the world.

What are the puzzle pieces that we have that aren’t fitting together the way they used to?  First piece is that we have gone through the valley of the shadow of death as a whole world these last few years.  Three years ago, I went to a St. Patrick’s Day birthday party.  It was usually a crowded, happy, raunchy event but that night there was barely a dozen adults in the room, and we were all wondering if it was even safe to be together.  A few days later, we were in lock down.  I was half-planning my funeral because I have asthma and allergies and didn’t think I would survive the virus.  We changed on a dime because we had to.  We learned how to work from home, how to stay away from our neighbors, how to do everything from church to banking online.  Sales of jigsaw puzzles went through the roof when people weren’t hording toilet paper or making sourdough bread or trying to keep their sanity and their marriages and families together.  It was hard.

Many community clubs like Toastmasters, WeightWatchers and Tops closed, churches too of all kinds of denominations.  Girl guides and brownies haven’t come back, schools opened and shut faster than a fridge door, with devastating impacts on children’s mental health and education.  Senior’s homes weren’t much better. People got angry and targeted each other, the health profession, the politicians that listened to scientists.  Dr. Henshaw’s appearance on television saw a surge in dress sales for her outfits and yet also a surge in death threats. And people died.  We were in the valley of more than just a shadow of death.  This has been world-shaking.

But. But.  Even though we are in the valley of the shadow of death, even though we have been blind since birth, even though we have come through many dangers, toils, and snares, the grace of Jesus has brought us safe so far, and that grace will lead us home.

Our book study this Lent had a story of a refugee living in a homeless shelter.  His name was Saleh and as a paraplegic, Saleh had crossed both desert and ocean to get to Canada.  He wanted to raise money for gift cards for his shelter friends. The goal was to raise $5,000 in 36 hours and get the cards to people before Christmas Eve. Impossible? No! He said “In Arabic we have a saying: ‘it is God who guides the hand.’ People told me I couldn’t cross the desert in a wheelchair. With God, I knew I could.” They did indeed meet their goal. Imagine the faith that helped him cross the desert in a wheelchair! We need that faith now!

It takes Saleh’s deep, courageous spirituality to meet challenges like what we have faced these last three years.  It will take deep courage, daring conversations and bold testimony to our neighbors to get through these next years.  But I have no doubt in my mind that whatever jigsaw pieces we have, God’s big picture will come together when we work as a team to puzzle it out together.  In life, in death, in life beyond death, God is with us, we are not alone.  Thanks be to God!

Hate or Love?

Have you heard the joke about the new arrivals in Heaven?  St. Peter takes them on a tour of the place, shows them the shining tall cathedral full of popes, the Anglican church with exquisite choirs, the Pentecostal glass building with the rock blaring full blast, the synagogues and mosques and so on.  Finally, they get to one building and Peter says “take off your shoes and don’t say a peep until we get past this place” and they go tiptoeing by as quietly as possible.  When they are out of range, someone asks, “why did we have to be so quiet?”  St. Peter said, “Oh, that’s the United Church, they think they’re all alone here!”

Now I have to admit that when I heard that joke, it was another denomination, but the point is that sometimes we get a little bit of an ego, we get a little puffed up thinking that our church is the best and only we really are getting it right.  Luckily, I think we know that we’re not perfect.  I hope.

Why am I sharing this? Because our gospel lesson today has been historically used in toxic ways to judge, condemn and ostracize, to determine who doesn’t belong, who is not good enough, who is out and who is in.  John 3:16 gets put on flags and posters waved at football games and on t-shirts, shouted on street corners and pounded on pulpits.

I think the United Church’s Song of Faith is spot on when it says, “The Spirit judges us critically when we abuse scripture by interpreting it narrow-mindedly, using it as a tool of oppression, exclusion, or hatred.  Or is that me thinking we’re the only ones in Heaven again?

It’s also why we Christians have such a bad reputation in North America right now.  When most folks think of church, they remember when scripture was used in destructive, hate-filled ways. 

So it’s rather fascinating to hear of the revival meetings happening in some universities down in the states.  These are going on for days in Kentucky and other places, where thousands of young millennials heard stories of testimonials, sang and prayed in large groups and spread it to other campuses across the states.  Interestingly this had happened before in 1970 at the very same school.  That also was a time of great anxiety, where young people who had grown up with drills on how to hide under desks to protect themselves from atomic bombs, who were being sent to fight in Vietnam, who heard about earthquakes in China killing 15,000 people, who had seen their popular president assassinated, and who had rioted after Martin Luther King’s death; suddenly they joined together for days of prayer and vigil and testimony.

No wonder revivals are hitting the news with so many people suffering from anxiety, stress, fear, grief and anger.  I watched a United Church workshop called United Against Hate.  It had a panel of four people including a United Church minister, a drag performer and several members of the 2sLGTBQ community.  They talked about the level of hate in public spaces and how incidents against Drag performers have escalated in the last 6 months.  There are a lot of people who were seen at anti-mask rallies and convoy protests who now are turning their attention and anger to a small group of people who like to, as one person put it, “get sparkly and have fun”.  Words like perverted, sinful and degenerate are being thrown around, and the hate is seen as protecting families and so-called ‘normal people’ from aberrant individuals in our society.  Now I must confess I have never gone to a drag show and the Vagina Monologues was a stretch for me, but hating drag queens?  There was one speaker at this event who was so scared that they didn’t use their real name or their video.    They didn’t feel safe in front of a hundred United Church people and congregations.  So many people wanting to make a stand against hatred, but this person was terrified of a hate backlash!

We have an opportunity to hear this scripture through a lens of love and tolerance instead of hate, and I think we must take this opportunity.  God loved the world so much that God sent Jesus, not to hate the world, but to love us so we can have everlasting life. John says what everlasting life in John 17: 3 - Now this is eternal life: that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.

So eternal life is not about who’s in or who’s out, but who is in relationship with God and Jesus.  That relationship is to be based only and solely on Love.  Hate has no place in everlasting life.  If St. Peter does take tours around Heaven, there won’t be all these churches segregating and separating people, no buildings we have to tiptoe by because they think they are alone.  Just one big community united in love of God.  We don’t need to wait until we’re dead to have everlasting life, we can have it here and now! The invitation is clear and open to us all.

Let us pray: "God of deepest desires, we live better when we are possessed by your Spirit, devoting our hearts to you amidst our community. We confess our devotion has been in things and not on You. We have replaced the care for our communities to care only for ourselves. Help us learn again how to devote our hearts to you so that we can discover time and again how to pray, how to serve, how to love your people, our communities, the land around us and all its living beings." Prayer written by Claudio Carvalhaes pg 3 from “Good Courage: Daily Reflections on hope” c 2022, United Church Publishing House, Toronto.

Deep Spirituality. Bold Discipleship. Daring Justice

Today’s sermon has been adapted from a message written by David Sparks that the United Church of Canada is sharing with all congregations that are part of our denomination:

“The church, our church, The United Church of Canada, has deliberated, the church has wrestled with some different concepts, the church has come to a conclusion, and now we have a Call and Vision, endorsed by the 43rd General Council.

Here it is: “Deep Spirituality. Bold Discipleship. Daring Justice.”

These six words are our call as a United Church. And they go with a vision:

Called by God, as disciples of Jesus, The United Church of Canada seeks to be a bold, connected, evolving church of diverse, courageous, hope-filled communities united in deep spirituality, inspiring worship, and daring justice.

Sounds great, sounds challenging, but whatever has it to do with Transfiguration Sunday, the mountaintop experience of Jesus and the disciples?

Well, we celebrate the last Sunday of Epiphany, which is the season of ‘a -ha’ or eureka moments, the season of light coming into the chaos of this world and giving new insights, new visions of what it means to be a Christ follower. Today we reflect on what it means to be a disciple.  The mountain top encounter was a hugely important experience in the lives of Peter, James and John, almost as important as the easter resurrection.

Wait a minute, “hugely important,” but was this a historical incident, were there historical incidents where God actually spoke on mountaintops, or has another story about how Moses talked to God been modified by the gospel writer Matthew?

Wrong question!

This is not just a story of some guys going on a hike. It became supremely important to them, to get to understand who Jesus was, what he was about, and what his mission was.  It was so breathtaking that Peter, James and John didn’t know how to respond, they were filled with questions, excitement and adrenalin with their new experience.

To go back to the new United Church Call and Vision, the story is reminding us that it isn’t the state of the economy that matters most, or our financial or workplace success, it is what we have going for us in the realm of spirituality, deep spirituality. The followers found Jesus to be unlike anyone they had ever met, and he became central to their quest for spiritual learning.  They became inspirations for our own spirituality. And more than that, we are united in our spirituality. We find it, we are silent with it, we pray it from the bottom of our hearts, and we share it in the faith community. The spiritual is a hopeful faith-shared sphere of our existence, and it matters hugely.  There are times we talk about it, like in our first reading today, and there are times we have to process it, waiting for the right time to share it, just as the disciples were told by Jesus not to share just yet.

This may be a deep spiritual experience, but how did they move from spirituality into boldness?

Okay, remember you are not dealing with history. This is likely a very good story, and we only have read 1 Peter to see that he went from confused tent raiser to ardent writer and speaker.

Throughout Matthew’s gospel the training and work of the disciples has a prominent place. Not far into the gospel of Matthew (Matt. 10:9‒15) there is an account of the training program for the disciples, and it even includes a section on what to do when rejection comes your way.  That’s great training!

The Call and Vision talks about bold discipleship. Bold―not perfect!―and that is what is made clear in the gospel record. As the early church finds its feet, disciples emerge and grow, sometimes not very expertly in their committed following of Jesus.

But what about now?

If ever there was a time for developing a bold program for local evangelization, using Facebook and other social media, it is today (or maybe yesterday!). If ever there was a time to go out in twos and knock on doors and tell people, “The church is alive; this is what the church is really about, not what the media often says it is about,” it is now! You could try it!

Fair enough! But what about “Daring justice”? Do we have some daring justice stories that tell what the church has been up to recently? Our local church or the national church with Mission and Service stories?

Actually, we have. We help raise money for Lee Thunder’s headstone, and we are building safe space for youth in our community who are isolated and alone. We have talked about and advocated for homeless initiatives in Athabasca, and started a youth group for kids who need a safe space to be kids. We helped kickstart food programs for kids at the high school and are a part of Athabasca PRAAC.  We talk about racism, sexism, homophobia and other forms of discrimination.  We partnered with the Library to bring back the Blanket Exercise to Athabasca.

So to sum it all up, what emerges from the ancient story of transfiguration as it relates to the Call and Vision statement?

What we have in this story in the Epiphany season, what we as church people have in the mountaintop experience, is of huge fundamental importance.

It calls on us to take the Call and Vision statement seriously.

It calls us to deepen our spirituality. It calls us to be emboldened as disciples. It calls us to be daring as we strive for justice.

Are you up to the challenge? Am I? Amen

© 2022 The United Church of Canada/L’Église Unie du Canada. Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial Share Alike Licence. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.5/ca. Any copy must include this notice.

Dealing with Dinosaurs

This week many of us had an incredible shock when we opened up our utility bills.  Heating costs, electricity, even our town services were up.  Then CBC had a news article that World's five biggest oil majors likely took in $200B in profit last year, and followed it up with a story that the Alberta Government wants to give up to give oil and gas companies up to $100M in credits for meeting their legal obligations to clean up old well sites.  While these companies may not be the same big five that had the big profits, and may be subcontractors as far as I know, it seems confusing to me that they need assistance when their profits are so big.  Maybe some economist can explain things to me.  I just don’t get it.

Bills, politics, war, earthquakes, busses crashing into daycares, there are days when the news feels overwhelming and it would be tempting to stay in bed with a pillow over my head pretending the world doesn’t exist.  And folks are struggling with their fears and challenges, it’s not just me.  Someone I care deeply about is having a rough time of it and I have certainly needed my fair share of hugs this week too.  I’ll probably be taking a box of valentine chocolates up to the RCMP detachment.

The way the world is these days, it would be very easy for me to slip into a state of anger and fear, and it’s tempting to send that anger to the wrong folks.  We humans can do that very easily.  We get angry with a spouse or child when we really are angry at the boss.  Or the next door neighbor or even ourselves, especially after a fender bender. Sometimes our anger can be positive especially if it fuels work for justice.

Sometimes our anger is triggered not by injustice but by fear.  An aged friend or parent breaks a hip.  An adult child crashes their motorcycle not once but twice.  A toddler gets lost or wanders off.  We react with our dinosaur brains, acting like we are crashing through the jungle, looking for something to roar at so we feel better and help us release all those fight or flight hormones that go surging when we feel threatened.  That’s normal, that’s what humans do, that’s in our DNA.

Except Jesus wants us to be more than dinosaurs.  Our scripture reading this morning in the gospel of Matthew was part of his big Sermon on the Mountain, his “I have a Dream” speech where he outlined his vision for what he hoped to build, a community of caring compassionate human beings who would be more than just dinosaurs, they would be bold, daring and deep disciples.

That meant that they would have to find ways to cope with their anger and fear.  That their relationship with each other would be taken as seriously as their relationship with God.  That when it came to the offerings and the rituals they did in their worship, they would do so after taking responsibility for the conflicts and miscommunications they were having.  And that they would do their best to be as honest, transparent, truthful and trustworthy as they could possibly be.

That is not easy.  Especially when we live in a culture that celebrates competition, that honors star athletes, that envies the rich, that strives to emulate the self-made man, that worships independence and craves the security that they think possessions will give them.  It’s like everyone wants to be the mighty T-rex or Albertosaurus and no one wants to be a duck-billed Edmontosaurus.

Not that much different from the time of Paul and Jesus.  Jesus didn’t pull any punches.  This part of his sermon counteracts the assumption that Jesus was meek and mild and trying to be nicer than the Old Testament teachings.  I often hear people say that the Hebrew scriptures are full of angry judgement and Jesus just taught love.  Here it’s the other way around, the scriptures Jesus quotes put a limit on human behavior, but Jesus wants to go deeper and put a limit on our thoughts.  Well, maybe not a limit on them, but a request to be accountable for them. Accountable to our community of faith.  Easier said than done.

Being accountable takes reflection.  It also takes dedication and commitment.  It’s not something we can speed up, and it’s not something that is easy or fast.  Goodness knows, I wish I could stand here and tell you I’ve got this nailed down pat.  There have been times when I wouldn’t or couldn’t put my burden down and run from the altar to go fix a broken relationship.  Sometimes the relationship was mended by time, sometimes it was so unhealthy that for my own mental health, I had to have good firm boundaries in place.  Sometimes I was able to figure it out, sometimes I went for counselling to get help figuring it out.  Sometimes I wished for the milk for infants Paul talked about, rather than the adult solid food that I was expected to eat.  Sometimes I wanted to find a Paul or Apollos I could follow instead of this challenging Jesus guy.  So it’s comforting to read Paul’s two thousand year old words that while he may have planted the seeds of faith and Apollos watered them, only God grows those seeds.  Whether it’s seeds of our individual ability to recognize when we are slipping into dinosaur mode, or the water of self-knowledge, it’s hard to recognize the times we are acting like a T-Rex.

The good news is that Jesus is an amazing archaeologist, so good he makes Phil Currie look like an amateur.  When we come together to sing and think and reflect on his teachings, it’s like he takes another layer away from our tough dinosaur hides to reveal the fragile fossils beneath the surface that aremaking us roar and stomp as we try to protect them.  Good news for us T Rex folks:  the more we come together in community, the more human we can grow to be.  Thanks be to God for the seeds Paul planted, the stories Jesus taught, the watering by people like Apollos and the many other leaders down the ages that have guided and nurtured us so we too can guide and nurture those who also choose to follow Jesus.

Be generous with your lives!

One of the things I start doing at this time of year is dreaming of going to Naramata Centre for the summer.  I love the workshops and the fellowship with the big grand family that is the Wider United Church, running into other ministers or lay folks who are involved with the church, sunrise worship on the dock, sandcastles on the beach, great music and potlucks in the campground.  The amazing conversations around a campfire or over a good bottle of wine with intelligent, caring, spiritual folks are unforgettable.  The chance to walk a labyrinth, pick cherries, learn new drum or ukulele techniques, make new friends, share stories and deepen my faith are all things that happen at Naramata.  I can’t wait to look at the catalogue of classes!

Tim likes the crops in the neighborhood.  The first time he learned the art of wine tasting was on a bus tour of the area’s many vineyards.  Whether it’s Township 1775, Therapy, Blasted Church, or some new start-up, he’s sure to come home with a bottle of Gewurztraminer or two.  I prefer the ice wines or something sweet from Elephant Island.  Whatever we bring home, we more importantly bring home renewed faith, courage, enthusiasm and hope for our journey.

I feel my light shining more brightly after time there, like I’ve got my saltiness back.  Even when I was writing this and reminiscing about our many visits, it helped me feel more encouraged and excited about God, faith, and our mission.

One thing grapes are is generous.  There’s not one lowly little fruit like a cherry where it takes quite a bit of time to fill a bucket.  Picking a bunch of grapes instantly gives a big handful of fruit that lends itself easily to sharing.  And grapes are so versatile.  They can be made into grape juice or wine, they can be eaten fresh, they can be pickled, thrown in Waldorf salad, cooked into jelly, and I even found a recipe for pizza on line that the cook raved about.  Raisins go great in cookies, pies, muffins, cereal, you name it.  I won’t wade into the great cinnamon bun debate and whether or not raisins belong in that particular treat, but you get the picture.  It’s a versatile and flexible fruit that can serve many purposes and give great delight.

But!  Many a time I picked up what I thought was a chocolate chip cookie and found it was raisin.  Some even joke that’s why they have trust issues.  More seriously, too much wine can cause all kinds of troubles. We have folks who meet in our building every Thursday evening because they struggle with wine.  That’s why our communion service uses grape juice, to have a safe place that won’t trigger cravings for people recovering from addictions.  Too many grapes when I was a nursing mother could cause agony for my babies, which I didn’t expect.  And raisins have a surprising amount of sugar.  Moderation with grapes is important.

Jesus wanted us to be generous and flavorful and enthusiastic, but was also aware of the need for balance.  Too much salt on food can make it unpalatable, bad for our blood pressure and kidneys.  Too much salt on the land can leave it barren, unable to grow anything.  Too little salt and the wildlife lick highway road salt which causes all kinds of havoc.  Finding the right balance is complicated.

Another analogy of generosity of spirit was seen in the movie many of us watched last Sunday, “Guitar Lessons”.  The main character started out being stingy of his time, his talents and certainly his heart.  He was living the dream many Albertans crave.  Beautiful home, amazing toys but no people in his life.  No community.  He was the ultimate rugged individualist, the successful person who could do what he want when he wanted it.  But he was lonely.  He didn’t know how to connect with others.  It wasn’t until a stubborn, bratty kid walked into his life at a Tim Hortons and refused to leave, that the main character was able to shift to a spirit of generosity.

Generosity is a fruit of the spirit that takes wisdom and discernment to do wisely.  Our mission statement says, “We are called to be an Inclusive Christian Community empowering spiritual growth through meaningful outreach and dynamic, inspiring worship.”  It used to say ‘enabling spiritual growth’ but there’s a world of difference between enabling and empowering.  They are both supportive, generous words where we give people time and encouragement to deal with the issues they struggle with.  But when we enable people, we can actually keep them stuck in their troubles, bailing them out from all their troubles.  When we empower people, we help them come up with their own solutions.  Generosity that enables others can bankrupt us.  Generosity that empowers others can make a huge difference.  There was a scene in “Guitar Lessons” that showed an example of empowering generosity, when the elder gave his nephew a wooden box and careful instructions what to do with it.

When Jesus said, “You are Light, You are Salt”, he used the Hebrew word for the plural of you, like “Vous” instead of “Tu” in French. He was preaching to the whole community, not individuals.  When we grow the gift of generosity together, our little lights gleam together and make a real difference in the world.  May it be so for us all. Amen.