February’s focus is Saint Columba House. We are collecting packages of Pasta and cans of Pasta Sauce for Saint Columba House throughout the month.

Returning the Call
(Isaiah 40:21-31)

by Rev. Elisabeth R. Jones
 

For the past three weeks the Scripture texts have taken us
deep into a rich Biblical tradition concerning God’s
profligate propensity for calling anyone and everyone
into participation in Kingdom building, Dream weaving,
responding to the world’s great needs with our deepest joys and passions.
 
We’ve discovered that God’s call comes to all of us,
that we were made to be called into partnership with this world-mending God,
we’ve discovered that God’s Dream is often bigger than ours,
that call sometimes takes us places we would never have chosen by ourselves,
that God’s call into world-mending partnership outlives us
because it’s an eternal call which invites us individually and collectively
into a multi-generational, global community of response to
and partnership with God’s Love for the world.
 
To a large degree we’ve focussed our attention these past weeks on God as the caller.
God has your number and mine,
but the question I want to explore today is “Do we have God’s number?”
Is this calling plan of God’s one way only?
Or is God’s relationship with us
one which enables us to return the call, or even to initiate the call,
and to call forth from God precisely that which God calls forth from us
– namely to call upon God to exercise God’s deep gladness and passion
in response to the world’s great needs?
 
While today’s reading is not a ‘call narrative’ per se,
it serves us well enough as a text through which to explore the question.
In fact it takes us quite deeply into it.
 
Let’s remind ourselves again of the context of this passage from second Isaiah.
The once proud, independent, powerful united Israel of David has fractured in two,
and the northern Kingdom, Israel,
has completely been obliterated by the Assyrian invaders,
and now the remnant Judah,
with its bastion fortress city of Jerusalem
has been pounded to dust by a new power, Babylon.
“By the waters of Babylon we sat and wept when we remembered Jerusalem”
is a song of lament composed by these same people carted off ,
exiled and enslaved by this empire.
 
Now, I know the facts of that history,
but I have no clue what that must feel like, to be in exile.
- to have my home burned to the ground, my babies slaughtered, my daughters raped, my sons chained to carts like oxen until they die in the dust.
I don’t know what happens to the soul when
my language, my religion, my hopes and dreams are forcibly forbidden.
But this text gives us a glimpse, refracted window into the desolate soul of a slave people.
Notions of a mighty, beneficent Deity must now seem cruelly ridiculous.
“If such a God exists, why are we in chains?” they say.
“If such a God exists, why are we suffering relentlessly?
Better to give up on God altogether, to “curse God and die” ( to quote Job’s wife),
because our God, Yahweh, if he ever existed, is left behind miles away.
He cannot hear.
There’s no point in calling.
 
This people of Second Isaiah had given up on God, on hope.
Into this despair and abandoned faith
this poet weaves words of such exuberant eloquence, doxology we call it,
that I have to wonder if they laughed at them.
“Who is this romantic idealist, and what God is he speaking of?
Pretty poetry, young Isaiah, but it doesn’t feed an aching belly,
much less a starving soul.”
 
Not surprising that he repeats himself at least four times in the opening stanza:
“Have you not known, have you not heard?
Has it not been told you from the beginning,
have you not understood from the foundations of the earth?
(Well, patently not. And for good reason they have indeed forgotten).
We would too.
Surrounded on all sides with evidence to the contrary, then and now,
the message of a God capable of mending the world seems
outrageous, far out, far-fetched, outmoded.
If you want to survive the world, keep quiet, and work hard,
depend on no-one but yourself.
Give up on God, throw away the number.
God has disregarded our plight. There’s no point in calling.
 
But, there’s something God-made about the human heart, the soul, the mind, the spirit,
that is “restless until it finds its home in God” (Augustine).
Even more restless is the soul of one who is looking to find
a way through chaos to some sort of redemption
– the parent or child longing for healing for a sick family member,
- the social activist searching for a path through to justice.
 
This restless soul is what Isaiah is appealing to in his original hearers and in us.
 
That no matter what we deal with in this life,
plenty or poverty,
strength or weakness,
even if we are subject to the tyrannies of our modern-day Babylons,
we are part of something vast, and everlasting.
 
We need someone periodically to smack us up the side of the head and say
Have you not remembered? Look up, look around? Can’t you see?
There is something bigger than Babylon, or Rome, or the British or the American empires,
bigger than capitalism, democracy, fascism, communism,
stronger than pain, more lovely than love, more constant than hate,
defiant to all despair.
Whatever name you call this Divine Creative Being,
this Great Thou, this Infinite Heart,
says our poet, call upon it, him, her, God.
Call.
 
Because, says our poet,
God, more lasting than the oceans,
infinitely more vast than the universe,
“gives power to the faint..
strengthens the powerless.”
There are times when we count ourselves in that number,
but there are also times when we find ourselves calling on God
for the sake of others who are flailing, weak, powerless.
 
If you ever fear that God has forgotten you, or this world,
or that you or we are somehow not worthy,
or that God doesn’t hear, or is powerless to respond,
please remember this poet’s soaring promise:
 
When you call on God,
then God reaches into the muck, the mess,
the pains, the troubles, the exiles of body and soul,
and yes, even into the muscle-bound power broking politics of our world,
to lift up the faint, the weary, the powerless,
and to cast them like soaring eagles onto the breath of dawn.

© Rev. Elisabeth R. Jones Feb 2012.

Throughout the month of February, Cedar Park United Church will be focusing on one of its Montreal city missions, Saint Columba House. 

There are at least two ways in which YOU can help:

• by bringing boxes of pasta and jars of pasta sauce to the church on Sunday morning, or during the week.
• by contacting Saint Columba House to see how you might share of your time and talent with those who need it most.

We thank you!

An evening of fun and smiles was enjoyed on Friday night, February 3, 2012, when upwards of 45 people attended the monthly F4 event (Food, Fun and a Film with your Family). Moms, dads, grandparents and children enjoyed a homemade meal of macaroni and cheese with applesauce and cookies for dessert. At 6:45, the Dr. Seuss entertainment began, with the showing of the short films Horton Hears a Who and Daisy-Head Maizy and popcorn for all.

The next F4 will be on March 2 with a menu of breakfast for supper and a showing of The Land Before Time. Don’t miss it!

Call Forwarding or Call Waiting

(Deuteronomy 31:1-3,6-8;  Mark 1:21-28)

By Rev. Elisabeth R. Jones

This is the third in our Epiphany series of sermons

which explore the Biblical stories of God’s Call to individuals and to communities.

There’s a two-fold presupposition about God and creation

at work in all these texts

which is worth us pondering for a moment.

Specifically, all these passages take it as self-evident

a) that God  is. There is an identifiable Deity, Divinity, Divine Energy

b) that this God has a relationship with Creation.

On a Sunday morning, we walk through these doors,

into the nave (a wee ship, a little world, afloat on the ocean of life)

in which  this presupposition is accepted;

it’s okay to talk about God here.

In fact, it’s not just okay, but expected.

Half of our conversation for the morning is addressed to God,

assuming that God is here to listen,

and is interested in what we have to sing, say, and pray.

Moreover, the other part of our conversation here on a Sunday morning

has to do with us listening for God, and what God might have to say to us,

individually or collectively.

But this a presupposition that is contested in the great ‘out there.’

It’s far less ‘normal’ to go around talking about, or to, God,

much less listening for God.

Now, I have it relatively easy.

In the circles in which I move I’m supposed to talk with and about God.

Among clergy colleagues, here in the Church,

and even when I visit members  at home, in hospital, or nursing homes,

I turn up with my ‘clergy identity,’  expected and expecting

that this presupposition about God will be okay.

But for you?

How many times in a week do you get to talk freely

about God’s role in your life?

With co-workers, friends at the gym, among family?

In some work places it’s even forbidden,

considered intrusive or awkward,

or counter to the mandate of the workplace.

Now, if you do the work, or the volunteering, that you do

because it’s your ‘vocation’ – something you feel deeply called to,

you may be able to talk your work or talent as ‘a calling’

but saying that it is God who gifts and calls you to it,

well, how easy is that to say in all the corners of your life?

And perhaps more to the point,

how easy is it for –even us – to truly believe

that these talents, passions, joys  and life-giving moments

are God’s call to us?

On the Blog this week,(www.cpuc.edublogs/org)

I lamented the historical legacy of a Christian tradition

that has tended to reserve the language of

‘vocation’ or ‘call’ to the religious professional elite.

(Nowadays that’s not so much an elite, as an odd-ball group of religious leftovers!)

The result is that many, many people assume that God may call

“a minister” or a “missionary”,

but  God isn’t wasting vocational energy on them.

How false that is! How unbiblical!

This Bible is full of stories of young boys,

teenage girls, old women, even older men,

murderers, thieves, agricultural workers, fishermen,

housewives, slaves, kings,

shepherds, servants,

sick people, soldiers,

groups of people, even whole nations,

and….even donkeys (!) hearing God call to them personally often by name,

to do something of value on God’s behalf in the world of creation. [1]

Writer, Preacher, Frederick Buechner speaks of vocation – the call of God -

as  “the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.”[2]

Vocation – the call of God – is not just about making the world a better place,

nor is it just about a sense of personal happiness or fulfilment.

To illustrate: Despots may have the latter in abundance, without any of the former!

When God is involved in vocation – there is always a convergence of the two.

One’s deep gladness, passion, joy  and gift,  and the world’s deepest needs.

Put another way, God’s yet-to-be-fulfilled Dream, or a reconciled and reconciling world,

and God’s Dream that we each have life in abundant fullness.

Which brings me to the two texts for today.

In the passage from Deuteronomy

we the readers are to be found among the rag-tag newborn nation,

huddled on the edge of promise.

They’ve eaten desert dust for a generation,

as their call to inherit the land and become a nation of blessing

was put on hold while they learned who and whose they were.

Now they are looking from the desert plain of Suph

onto the Jordan river valley.

I’ve stood there. It’s a stunning sight even today.

Behind you, everything is harsh pale blue sky,

the wind at your back hot and salty,

the ground a never -ending expanse of cracked yellow sun -bleached rock.

In front you there are trees,

and  sheep -filled green pastures

dissected by the lazy, pleasant river.

No longer on hold, no longer waiting,

the call is now forwarded to a new generation.

For Moses, his vocation, his call from God

to lead his own people

from the slave pens of the Egyptian Delta,

as pilgrims through the barren land to the verge of Jordan

is fulfilled.

It is time to forward the call

to the one whom God has uniquely gifted to lead them

into the land of hope and promise.

To Joshua.

In the interests of honesty, I need  to tell you that the next phase is not bucolic,

but our focus today rests more narrowly upon

this notion that a call to participate in God’s Dream,

often means we become involved in a call that will outlive us.

I am, inheritor of a call to serve this congregation

a call that has been forwarded on from Otto Lilly 120 years ago,

to the likes of Victor Rose, Paul Evans, and so on down to me,

and I’ve no doubt it will pass from me to others for as long as God

wants us to be an open faith community serving this neighbourhood.

We all are inheritors of the call of God to love wholly,

to share generously,

to live justly.

But we are also recipients of calls that are unique to us,

reflections of  the way each of us is gifted.

In this way, God meets us where we are,

where our needs are greatest,

and our talents most in need of fulfilment.

When Jesus walked into the synagogue in Galilee,

and expelled the noisy, ‘unclean spirit,’

the man  was freed from those barriers, those obsessions,

which blocked the capacity to live fully, vocationally,

freely and willingly into the call of God.

(I’ve ‘blogged’ about this text in more detail

for those who are interested, or bothered by it).

But again, the kernel of Gospel for us today

is that we are called by God to participate

in a dream bigger and older than any of us.

All called, we are also equipped, freed, liberated

if necessary by God to respond to that call.

And the truly good news for today

is that the vocation of God to you, uniquely,

is one which calls forth the ability to

meet the world’s deepest needs

with our own skills, passions, convictions,

and deep God-given gladness.

You’ve got to be kidding!
(Mark 1:16-20, Jonah 3:1-5,10)

by Rev. Elisabeth R. Jones

Last week we began our exploration of the Biblical call stories
with the night-time encounter of Samuel with God.
I’m grateful for the comments about last week’s sermon
and how it took you ‘right there’ to into the darkened temple
with its night shift of vacuuming mice!
Tempting though it was to try my hand at
‘taking you right there into the belly of Jonah’s whale’
I have resisted, forborne, it could get a little gooey and smelly!

But we are going to dig deeper into this notion of God calling.
We ended last week’s sermon suggesting that
we should all ‘expect a call’ from God
wherever and whenever we find ourselves in a place
of longing for justice, or healing, or wholeness,
for ourselves, or for loved ones or for our world,
because God has that same longing.

At Cedar Park, for the past number of weeks,
we have been exploring and using the language
South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu
uses to describe God’s plan for creation, and for our role within it.
Where Scripture traditionally uses the term “the Kingdom of God”
Tutu talks of “God’s Dream.” ¹

A dream for the universe born in the heart of God’s desire and love
a dream for relationships that are wholesome,
holy, healing and loving.

It’s this dream that provoked prophets to speech and action;
this dream that gave birth to the missional life of Jesus,
preaching, teaching, and living the God Dream
in a tiny corner of the Roman Empire to such effect
that for 2000 years humans the world over
have tried to follow his example.
This dream coming true is what we pray for each week in
the Jesus prayer – “thy kingdom come on earth”.

Most of the time, we say “Amen to that!”
For, being made in God’s image,
we too have a spark of the God Dream within us,
we too long for a healed, just, forgiven and forgiving world.

We too know how badly this world needs God’s Dream.
Wars and sabre rattling on every continent,
religious, ethnic, class, political cat-fighting,
the global inequitable distribution of wealth, health,
education, opportunity, and resources….
….the list could go depressingly on.

As it is now in our world, so it was back in Biblical times.
It was ever thus.
Some would say that the “peoples of this Book,” ²
Jews and Christians, are on a fool’s errand,
a mission impossible,
that God’s Dream is utopian,
unattainable this side of heaven.

Jonah thought so.
Jonah, as far as we can tell, was a faithful man,
who knew the Voice of God,
presumably knew the sorts of things God said –
like “My dream is for healing wholeness, for justice,
for people to turn away – to repent -from behaviours that destroy,
my dream is about starting over, forgiving and being reconciled
with one another.”
And Jonah would have said “Amen to that!”
Except when God’s Dream leaked out of the small container Jonah had it in,
and it overflowed beyond Israel to include the Assyrians.

Now, think McCarthy and the Communists,
or Nazis and the Allies,
Republicans and Democrats in an election year,
sworn enemies,
and you’re on the right track.
Assyria was known in the ancient Near East as a rather brutal,
pugnacious empire,
prone to obliterating those whom they conquered.
When God said to Jonah,
“Take my Dream and share it with the capital city of Assyria”
Jonah said “You’ve got to be kidding!”
(or words to that effect).
“You cannot possibly mean to forgive the unforgivable Assyrians,
to love … them…?
I won’t. Nope. Hang up, God, I’m not going.”

It took a whale of a trip to change his mind…
which he did. Partially.
Today’s portion from Jonah’s book shows us he did what God wanted,
but if we were to read further we’d see that his heart was most certainly
not in it.
He stayed mad at God, right to the end of this fabled tale,
incredulous at the apparent –actually the real- limitlessness of
God’s Dream.

This fable, this once upon a time story
that contains universal truths.
The truth that God loves those we can’t and won’t,
and that God Dreams big.
Big enough to turn the world back to its true course,
every blessed time it goes awry.

Which brings us back to the Gospel reading again,
to see the God Dream taking flesh in the mission of Jesus.
Mark doesn’t waste words.
Reading Mark is like reading the life of Jesus written as a check list.
Baptized by John.
40 days in wilderness.
Start preaching.
Get disciples.
Heal people.
Leave town.
Repeat as necessary.
“Immediately.”

Mark, likes that word. He uses it a lot.
He uses it here, did you notice it?
Jesus calls out to four fishermen busy at their livelihood,
asks them if they want to drop their nets and live the God Dream instead.
And Mark says they did so. “Immediately”.

Now, you’ve got to be kidding!
Would you?
Immediately drop the paycheque, leave the wife and kids,
walk out on the family business
to follow this Dream-weaver rabbi from Nazareth?

At first blush, no we wouldn’t.
Of course we wouldn’t.
But then again….

None of those men by the Sea of Galilee,
none of us need Jesus to tell us that God’s Dream
and this world don’t look too much like each other.
Most of them, and us, were, are, longing for justice,
for healing, wholeness, for forgiveness, for courage.

So when they, we, discover that there might be a way,
a small way perhaps, to make the Dream come a little
closer to the harsh realities of life – the kingdom come –
maybe we, they,
would do whatever it takes to make that happen.

I don’t think Mark’s brevity plays in Jesus’ favour in this story.
I suspect Jesus said a lot more than “y’all come.”
He painted kingdom pictures, Dream pictures with words,
and with the way he lived,
to show the people of Galilee and of Cedar Park,
that they, we, can be part of the God Dream,
can bring the kingdom a little closer.

When I started work on this sermon,
my brain was ‘stuck’ on
“you’ve got to be kidding” foolishness of both these texts.

Then I got to watching, praying, and listening.
Friday and yesterday I heard 70 Voices for Hope
singing to two full houses.
Audience and Choir for a couple of hours
believed enough in the difference made by
an organization that offers dignity, health care,
and bereavement support,
that they left whatever they could have done on a cold weekend,
to sing the kingdom a little closer.

Earlier in the week I watched people cooking food for shut ins,
and I met with people who visit the sick,
drive people to appointments,
take time to listen,
you know, kingdom, God Dream stuff.

I met with yet others who care deeply enough
that this place provide opportunities to get to know God’s Dream better
through Christian development programming for all ages.
I’ve spent time on the phone and praying with others
in this church community who live this Dream through volunteer efforts
for social justice, outreach, and mission support.

This week,
while I was battling the craziness of
‘you’ve got to be kidding’ calls to Jonah and the fishermen,
you, the people of Cedar Park were busy walking the talk,
and sharing the Dream.

Because when you hear, or see the God Dream,
and are given the choice
to sit back in the belly of a whale,
or in your living room with unreality TV numbing the senses,
so many of you have already said, in deed if not in word,
“You’ve got to be kidding!”
And you’ve left that stuff behind
to live God’s crazy, limitless Dream,
and to bring the Kingdom of God a little nearer.

Let it always be so. Amen

¹God Has a Dream. (Doubleday, 2004), and used as the basis for our Advent Study. See also God’s Dream (Candlewick, 2008) a children’s book by Tutu on the same them, illustrated by Le Yuen Pham.

² A common term used to refer to adherents to the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures known as the Bible. Recently used as the title of a novel by Geraldine Brooks (2008).

Eyesight and Insight
(1 Samuel 3: 1-20)

by Elisabeth R. Jones

The preaching text for today is from the Hebrew Bible, from the first book of Samuel.
The books of Samuel tell the story of the transition of Israel, from a confederation of tribes fighting for survival against common enemies, into a unified kingdom under Saul and then David. But as with any book of the Bible this is not just a story of people, but a narrative of God’s involvement with the people.  Today’s text tells the story of the call of Samuel,
who was to become prophet or God’s mouthpiece, to Saul and to David.

This has to be one of my favourite stories  in the Bible.
It’s a shame it’s in the Bible, really,
because its mixture of almost pantomime humour
and dramatic tensions get   squashed down
like errant bangs with a lick of gramma’s tongue!
Read from a lectern it is too easily tamed, flattened.
So let’s not.

Let me tell you the story instead.
Today I’m going to weave the sermon with the text,
to get under its skin, and into its innards,
so that we can find its heartbeat, and our own, within it.

(I’ll need your help part way through, and ask you to take MV and turn to 161 now, so we’re ready when we need it.)

Let’s begin.

Once upon a time, long, long ago,
in the land of Israel, in the town of Shiloh
An old priest, age decaying his eyesight to near blindness,
- probably with lentils in his beard,
and meat juice down his chest,
and the elbows worn through on his linen coat,
lies down for the night in his toasty little room beside the ovens in the Temple of Yahweh, the temple of God.

A young boy,  eight or nine maybe,
exhausted from lighting, and relighting and
filling oil lamps and tallow candles
all day, every day (not just Xmas eve, Bob),
scraping ox fat off the altar,
and shovelling ash and … other stuff from the floor,
crawls onto his mat, tucked in beside
the golden seraphim guarding the ark of God’s covenant,
and curls for sleep.

It’s almost silent;
only the sound of settling stones,
and scurrying of mice working the night  shift,
vacuuming the floor of leftovers,
gathering scraps of straw for their nests in the crevices.

It’s almost dark, just the one single lamp still glows,
the lamp of the Lord, symbolizing the eternal presence of the
Almighty  God.
Not that people really took that much notice,
being an era when the word of God was rare,
and visions almost unheard of.
The temple was still, dark, silent.
pause…. long…. pause…

Then…  (VOICE) “Samuel….. Samuel…..”
Hum part of the tune…. “I have called you”

He bangs his head on one of the seraph’s wings,
as he jumps to his feet.
The old man must have lost something again.
He runs across the gloom to Eli
“Here I am, here I am.. you called me?”

“Huh? Whuua?
I didn’t call you! Go back to sleep!”
Talk about grumpy!
Both of them harrumph a little as they settle back
into the dark silence of the night.
Sleep comes.

pause…
Hmm “I have called you by…”
VOICE:  “Samuel…. Samuel…”

He stubs his toe on the steps this time
as he scurries in to Eli,
“I am here, you called me “ (again).
Eli sits up on his bed and stares blindly towards Samuel’s young voice.
“Son, I didn’t. I truly didn’t call you.
You must be dreaming,  (I wish I was.)
Now, go back to sleep, please.”

Samuel trots back and lays himself down,
eyes clamping shut onto the sleep of the innocent.
Eli lies down, but sleep doesn’t come.
Dreams do,
echoes of a Voice almost forgotten,
tempt the corners of his mind,
and stir visions, memories, unfocussed, nebulous.
Gradually, even the mice fall silent in that deep dark
before the edge of dawn, and Eli sleeps.

Hum “I have called you”
VOICE.  “ Samuel… Samuel!”

This time even Eli heard something.
Bolt upright now, he waits for Samuel to come.
Samuel is wary this time.
He heard the voice, but he has no clue….if not Eli, who?
Even though  he had been a temple boy
for half his short life,
watching the sacrifices, singing the psalms,
polishing the brass on the ark,
catching stray pigeons,
and herding the crowds out at the end of the day,
he ‘did not know the Lord’.
He had no idea that God was actually… you know… present.
Sure that wee light was always lit…. but….

Anyway this tousle headed boy
scrubs the sleep from his eyes,
and tiptoes quietly this time to Eli’s room,
“Here I am…. did you call?”

“No.”  Eli’s voice isn’t gruff, or angry, or even tired.
Eli speaks with the strength of … what?
conviction? hope? insight?….
“It wasn’t me, Samuel.  But I heard it too.
Go back and lie down, and if you hear the Voice again, say
“Here I am, speak, great God, for your servant is listening.”

Samuel’s eyes…. well what do you think?
They would have been as big as saucers.
His heartbeat….
I don’t know whether it would have skipped a beat, or raced like a train.
Hands clammy, knees knocking, in a daze,
he goes back to his corner.
His hand strokes the seraph’s beak, flutters its brass wings.
“Really,….? The Voice is God’s…calling me?”
He crouches down.
Does he sleep?
Or are his eyes peeled back against the dark,
watching for a Voice?
Dreading and hoping, dreading and hoping.

Hum… I have called you.
VOICE  “Samuel….. Samuel…!”

“Yes!!  It’s me!  I mean.  Erm, ohhh!!
Speak… speak… erm. yes.  I’m listening!
Your servant… me that is… I’m listening!  G-god.”

And the Voice started to sing.
An ancient language we don’t know, but the words were these.

Sing v. 1 MV 161. (Everyone)

Well, actually that was just the beginning
of what the Voice said to Samuel that night.
The scriptures say that the words God spoke next
were enough to make one’s ears tingle to hear them.

You see, when God calls,
something is up!
God always calls for a reason, not just to chat.

Lots of people would be quite happy
never to be woken in the night by the strange call of God,
especially if it makes your ears tingle.
But others crave it, long for it.
Not because they want to be some ‘holy prophet’
or to be simply holier than thou.
In fact few people of sound soul and mind would want that call
(and I’m not being facetious)
Those who crave for the call of God in the night,
are those who are longing
for God to tear open the heavens
and come into a benighted world
with salvation,
saving the world from the worst of itself,
from global warming, or too many wars,
or too much poverty, or too much graft, corruption.
Those who crave the call of God in the night,
are those who long for  God to turn a loved one
back from the road to perdition,
to quit drinking, or gambling, or self-harm.
Those who crave the call of God in the night,
are begging for God to bring healing.

But a lot of us, most of the time,
are like Samuel or Eli,
We live in a world, where the word of God is rare,
and visions, unusual to say the least.
A lot of us, like Samuel,
haven’t heard that voice before,
others are like Eli, we heard it once,
or long ago, but barely remember,

Now, those words that make your ears tingle? what were they?
(there’s a whole other sermon to preach with those words,
but in a nutshell, the kernel is this.)
God’s words indicted Eli’s world
for becoming satisfied with going through the motions
of a functionally agnostic religiosity.
For not listening,
and for losing sight of God’s Dream,
and for forgetting their own God-given role to make it happen.

Remember God’s Dream?
You know, of a world of rainbow people,
working together with God
to share the abundance of creation’s gifts with
all God’s people, all God’s creatures.
God’s Dream that we be God’s partners in peace with justice,
God’s workers of mercy, God’s lovers of all.

So, God calls.
Whenever and wherever
the sight is failing, the visions rare,
the words of God’s Dream are almost forgotten,
Whenever, and wherever the longing and craving
for saving, healing, renewing, is acute,
God calls.
Because God is never going to quit on her Dream,
nor is God ever going to quit on us.

That being the case, expect a call.
It goes something like this…..
“I have called you, by your name, you are mine.
I have gifted you, and ask you, now, to shine.”

Let’s sing it together.. verses 1, 3, 4.

MV161 v. 1, 3, 4.  (seated)

Douglas Knight and the community choir of 70 singers presented “Beyond Broadway” at Cedar Park United on Friday and Saturday, January 20 and 21. At least 400 people attended the two concerts, and the response was incredibly positive. Wondering what was sung?  Have a look at the Voices for Hope song list.

The proceeds of over $6,000  will go to assist NOVA West Island.

A not-for-profit, volunteer-driven, community-based healthcare organization with a century-old history of providing comprehensive, compassionate, quality care to vulnerable individuals in the community, NOVA West Island’s primary mandate is to provide specialized care and support in the home to cancer and ALS clients during the course of the illness and particularly in the palliative stage.

The Montreal Diet Dispensary assists 2,000 women each year with prenatal and postnatal nutrition and moral support. Their motto is: Every baby deserves a healthy start. A huge thank you for your support!