On Epiphany

On Thursday, I led Bible Study in the Cathedral Library,  focusing on the lessons that we would hear on Sunday morning.  Bishop George had chosen to preach on the readings for Epiphany, and so I had those excellent readings to work with as I began to work with our Bible Study group.
Rather than jump right in to the arrival of the Magi at Matthew 2: 1-11,  I challenged the group to look back before that reading to the first words of Matthew's Gospel. Lots of us have been known to skip that chapter as we find it difficult to read through that Hebrew telephone Book of difficult names in the genealogy of Jesus.  It doesn't seem like it is very theologically important anyway.  My theory is, that it actually sets the stage for Matthew's most challenging message of all.
You see, as you go through that long list of names,  you will come across 5 women in the list,  and in the patriarchal society in which the Gospels took on their life,  women were seldom thought of as important enough for mention.  When you see women mentioned,  take notice!! Something important is happening.
The five women that are mentioned, are Mary (of course), the wife of Uriah the Hittite, Ruth, Rahab, and Tamar, and every one of them has an important tale to tell.  Mary of course, is the mother of our Lord. She came from Galilee, which in that day was known as Galilee of the Gentiles.  Being from Galilee, the purity of her line as truly Jewish was suspect.  She had a baby (Jesus) before she was married to Joseph, and she was a woman,  which was always a problem for the men of that age.  How could she possibly be the instrument of God with all three of these strikes against her.
The other four women are there to teach the lesson.  The wife of Uriah (we know her as Bathsheba) was a foreigner (she was a Hittite).  She became pregnant from David while her husband Uriah was off fighting David's war.  and like Mary,  she was a woman.  And yet,  God had given her the job of being the mother of the great King Solomon.
Ruth, if you remember the story of she and her mother-in-law Naomi, was a woman of the land of Moab.  In desperation, she had laid with Boaz, so that she and Naomi would not starve.  This woman was the instrument through which God sent her Grandson David, to reign over the people of Israel.
Rahab, shows up only in a short story in the book of Joshua.  The people of Israel have come through their 40 years in the wilderness, and are ready to enter into the Land of Canaan.  Joshua needs to send spies ahead to find out about the land.  It is only through the prostitute Rahab that the spies gain entry into the land,  and the people of Israel ultimately win the promised land. Once again,  a foreign woman, with a questionable sexual story is the hero that brings God's plan into life.
Tamar, is the wife of Er, who is the son of Judah.  Judah, of course, is the patriarch of the house of Judah.  Er dies childless, and so following the Jewish law,  Judah has Er's brother Onan go to raise up children for his brother.  But Onan also dies childless.  Judah tells Tamar to live as a widow in his house,  but the upshot of that is that the line of Judah will die.  And so while Judah is out of town, Tamar throws off her widow's gown and dresses as a prostitute, and Judah comes home, sees her in the gate,  and sleeps with her.  She get's pregnant,  and the line of Judah is saved.  Clearly,  she fits into the list that Matthew is setting up.  She is a foreigner,  she is a woman,  and there is a questionable pregnancy.
Matthew begins his Gospel by telling a community that is very concerned about how God could be working out a plan involving Mary,  that at all the key moments of Israel's past,  God has used foreigners, women, and those that others might be tempted to judge as the instruments of his purpose.   Matthew reminds his audience that God works in and through all things,  and is not limited by our biases.  These were the three biggest biases of Matthew's day,  but God knows that we have plenty of biases in our own day.  Does God work in those people that we would judge to be on the outside of God's grace?
And then Matthew skips over having any sort of birth narrative, but begins with the arrival of the magi.
The child has been born,  and who has God called to be the witnesses of this great news,  but a group of foreigners.  It isn't the folks at the temple or at the palace that know about what God is doing,  but a bunch of foreigners.  Matthew opens his gospel with a message to the church then, and now.  He says,  tear down the walls you keep building,  because this good news is for ALL.
Matthew is not the only one that gives us that message.  Luke tells that wonderful nativity story that we celebrated 13 days ago.  We can still hear the Gospellor reading out, "In that country there were shepherds..."  What we modern folks don't know is that shepherds were seen as such a crooked lot,  that they were forbidden from being witnesses in the courts in the days when Jesus was born.  In Luke's story, God chooses as his witnesses, those whom society had thrown aside as unfit to be witnesses.  God choose those that were unacceptable.  And God continues to do so.
As I write this,  it is late in the evening, on Saturday night (the day after Epiphany).  Upstairs in the Great Hall,  a new ministry is being born as a cooperative mission between St. George's Cathedral and Club Church Ministries.  It is called the Embassy.  It costs $2 to come in,  (although 120 tickets were given out to the folks that come to Lunch by George for free) and the ticket entitles you to an evening of live music,  pizza and coffee.  I've been upstairs to look around a few times, and have met the people that are there. They are a mix of students from Queens, and the folks that usually come to Lunch by George.  The doors of the cathedral are open, and the folks are coming in.  It is a drop in program,  but it has been full all night.
Once again this Epiphany, God is speaking loudly in the voice of Matthew. "Tear down those walls you are so fond of building.  This good news is for EVERYONE!"

On Maintenance and Mission

Twelve years ago,  I had just moved to a new parish,  and so both my former parish and my new one were involved in the Lay side of the Fresh Start program.  The question was asked of the laity, "If something happened and your parish ceased to exist tomorrow morning, would anyone miss it,  and if so, who?"  The parish to which I was moving answered among themselves, "Well, apart from the fact that the people who come to worship wouldn't have a place to go,  likely no one would really notice,  and the worshippers would find someplace else."  The place I had just left answered very differently.  They said, "Oh My God,  of course we would be missed!  Who would run the breakfast program in the Southwood Community centre before school?  Who would do the Christmas dinner for the poor?  Who would send the neighbourhood children to Huron Church Camp and Who would cover the support that we have always give to Primate's World Relief and Council of the North?"  The two parishes were neighbouring. They were both a part of the same Deanery.  The difference was that one had an attitude of Maintenance, and the other had their focus set on Mission. One put their time and energy into "keeping the doors open and the bills paid."  The other one put their time and energy into serving the world that God so loves, and somehow, as they did that, the doors stayed open, and the bills got paid.
This morning, I, like many others across the Diocese of Ontario, got an e-mail from the Bishop outlining the Strategic Plan for the Diocese that we will be fleshing out at Synod next week.  It also spoke of the need for the church here in the Diocese to move our faith from maintenance to mission.  It isn't an easy transition to make,  but it is the key to having a living, exciting and enlivening church. The truth though,  is that it cannot be something that we talk about at Diocesan Synod, and then all nod our heads and say that yes, we believe that it is a good thing, and then sit back and wait for the Diocese to do it.  Moving from maintenance to mission cannot begin from the Diocesan level.  It is a transformation in the attitudes of every baptized individual that makes up our church.  Every one of us must individually adjust our focus to considering first, "how does my ministry in the church help others to believe? How do I help to spread the gospel?"  Only then can the parish begin to adjust its focus,  and only when the parishes of this Diocese have changed focus,  can this move from maintenance to mission be accomplished across the Diocese.
I remember Bishop Morse Robinson speaking at my first parish, and challenging them that everything that we do as a parish should have some aspect of helping others to believe attached to it.  Those faithful people,  already convinced of the need to be a mission focused church began to take that question seriously.  Soon,  things started to change.  At the parish bazaar,  food and baked goods that were for sale, came with a little card attached with the words of a grace at meal time.  Knitting and children's clothing were sold with another little card that held a prayer for the child that would wear it.  Soon every little bit of the parish life had some way of declaring that it was from a Christian church, except one.  The parish council made a significant amount of its budget from outside users who came in and used the excellent parish hall facility.  How could that be made to declare the Good News as well.  Eventually,  the parish council hired a local artist to come and paint one of the walls of the hall with a huge mural of the Resurrection, so that every time an outside group came within the walls,  they were reminded that they had come in to a church, and they were faced with the Good News of the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. That little parish never had more than it needed,  and in fact,  I often would quip that they were "going broke for all the right reasons,"  but there was always enough.
And as years in that parish went by,  we were constantly having to stop and look at ourselves,  and challenge ourselves with the question, "How is this activity going to help others believe."  We had to be pushing ourselves to look beyond the walls and see the needs of the community outside our lovely comfortable gathering.
Loren Meade, in the book The Once and Future Church,  points out that in the Apostolic Church,  the mission field was a reality that the church met the moment that they left their worship gatherings. The mission field was ambivalent to them, and at times even openly violent to them.  But they were a church focused on spreading the Good news.
And then Constantine won the battle of Milvan bridge,  and the world changed.  The Emperor converted to Christianity, and suddenly everyone in the Empire was a Christian, and the Mission field moved to far off shores. Mission became the work of Missionaries,  and the average Christian and the average Christian parish had no need to really proclaim the Gospel.
Let's face it though,  The world has changed once again,  and we no longer live in an age of Christendom.  The mission field is once again there when we step out of our worship spaces,  and like our ancient predecessors, that mission field is often ambivalent or openly violent to the message that we bear.  If the church is to live and grow in such a world,  we must stop focusing on "how are we going to pay the bills?" We must stop fixating on bricks and mortar.  We must change our focus, and in so doing, change the world.
Twelve years after that meeting of Fresh start where my former parish felt that they would not be missed,  I have to tell you,  if they closed today,  the entire city of Kitchener would be devastated.  They left behind their Maintenance mindset.  They moved out in mission, and they are so involved in their community that they are indispensable. They are alive and they are growing.
One interesting observation I would make about their transformation though, is this.  One year,  it was decided that we would build a house with Habitat for Humanity.  That project was going to add an additional $70,000 to the parish outreach budget.  When we first began to discuss it, many people sat wringing their hands, and asking if we could really raise that much extra money without negatively effecting our operating budget. Well,  not only did we raise the needed money and still meet our budget,  but I will add that we had higher attendance in that church that year than there had been in over ten years,  and at the end of the year we had a surplus in givings to the operating budget.
I hold that when the Church operates out of a sense of mission, rather than out of fear and a focus on maintenance,  the people are energized, the community is inspired,  and the church experiences growth.
So I'm with Bishop Michael!  It's time to step out of Maintenance, and get serious about our Mission to go and change that world that God so dearly loves.

After I first posted this blog this morning,  I came upon this article called, "3 common sentences you hear at dying churches."  It is speaking of the opposite side of the Maintenance and Mission discussion,  and does it very well.  It is well worth a read.

http://ministrytodaymag.com/leadership/adversity/23194-3-common-sentences-you-hear-at-dying-churches

Celebration!

It will come as a surprise to no one, that I am very much involved in preparing for a huge celebration.  This Sunday afternoon, the Installation service will go forward according to weeks and weeks of planning, and will celebrate the beginning of something new in terms of my ministry, the ministry of the Cathedral, and the ministry of the Diocese.  Friends and family from all over will be present to join in this celebration.  Former parishioners will arrive by the bus load on Sunday afternoon.  Others will be staying in local hotels and enjoying a week on the waterfront as part of the celebration.  It is a celebration that I will remember for the rest of my life, I am sure.  (I remember my inductions at St. Thomas the Apostle and St. David's in Cambridge and St. George's of Forest Hill in Kitchener with great joy to this day.)

Glorious hymns will raise the roof on the Cathedral and beautiful anthems of praise will inspire the congregation.  (The numbers of the cathedral choir will be swelled for the celebration, and all my friends and family tend to really love to sing).  A dear friend will challenge me, and the entire congregation with the message of the Gospel. Symbolic gifts of the ministry to which this Cathedral has been called will be given, and we will renew the vows of our baptism.

As the last couple days have ticked down,  I also have stopped to think about several other celebrations.  I remember birthdays, and graduations; Ordinations and family days.  I remember the honour of celebrating my parents' 40th anniversary by renewing their wedding vows, and of performing my sister's wedding. Celebrations are designed to help us to create and sustain memories. They are days that draw us together in community, and remind us of what connects us.

Which has brought me to contemplate a different sort of Celebration.  Each time that we as a community gather at the Altar, it is a celebration.  It is so much so,  that the person that leads it is called the celebrant.  Each time the family of God comes to the table, it is to celebrate.  And the celebration is a celebration of anamnesis (Greek: remembering). The gathering is precisely about creating and sustaining memories.  And it is a Eucharistic (Greek: Thanksgiving) celebration. It is an opportunity to remember with THANKSGIVING.

So what is it that we remember.  Well,  the primary anamnesis, is of the death of our Lord.  We gather and remember through bread and wine, the sacrifice of Jesus' own body and blood; an act of incredible love; an act of self-sacrifice.  It is not a joyful memory on the face,  and yet the love that it so clearly communicates to us is an occasion for great joy.  And so as we gather, it is Eucharistic; it is an act of great Thanksgiving.

But the anamnesis of our liturgy is more than simply a bare memorial.  We gather at the table to do much more than to simply remember.  We believe in the real presence of our Lord in the sacrament.  We believe that as we remember, Jesus comes and is present in our community.  In our remembering,  we make that sacrifice real once again.  We make it real in that we receive Christ and his loving sacrifice for ourselves, but also we make it real because in that meal, and in the cross,  Jesus is modelling for us how we must live if we are to change this world into a place where God can reign,  and each time we gather in that meal, we are called to get out into the world and live the self-sacrifice and love that we have experienced in our interactions with the world we meet at the door.

I look forward to the huge celebration that comes with the beginning of this new ministry.  Ultimately, that celebration will build to its ultimate point when we gather at the table with our bishop in that great meal.  But every bit as much as I look forward to that celebration,  I am also called forward by it.  The memories that will be created that day are the memories that sustain me in a calling to get out there and make it so.

I hope I will see you there. I hope I will see you in the Cathedral this Sunday,  and I hope I will see you out in the community following the call of your baptism renewed in that meal, and challenging and changing this world as our Lord has modelled and continues to model for us.

To view the celebration, click here.

On Giving Thanks

In my former parish,  there was a Thanksgiving Newsletter that was mailed out to the entire parish mailing list.  The parish newsletter was a very slick publication that required first that submissions go to the editor.  Once the editor was finished with it,  the parish Communication Director, a professional graphic artist,  would format it and make an extremely eye-catching presentation.  It then made its way to the printer, and from there went to the DC class at Forest Heights Collegiate,  who would fold it,  place it in envelopes, and attach the mailing labels, and finally Canada Post would deliver the newsletter to every household in the parish.   The number of steps in the process, and the number of hands it needed to pass through, meant that submissions for the Thanksgiving Newsletter needed to be completed by mid-August.

I remember well one August when my mind was rebelling against this idea of getting my mind wrapped around Thanksgiving in the middle of my summer vacation.  There were so many things that seemed more appropriate for me to think about on a warm August day. Why Thanksgiving?

On that particular day,  I had visited the farmers' market at St. Jacobs, and come home with a car loaded with all the necessary ingredients to make the old family recipe for Chili Sauce. It isn't a terribly involved recipe, apart from preparing all the vegetables,  but it is one that needs to simmer and be stirred all day long.  And so I found myself fairly tied to the house.  At the same time, next door at the church,  our regular Summer Day Camp was running in week 5, and I would regularly drop in and talk to the children.   All the while, my rebellious mind kept asking,  "What am I to say about Thanksgiving in the middle of August?  It isn't time for Thanksgiving yet."

And so it was that I left the chili sauce simmering in the kitchen and went next door to the church to enjoy some play time with the children at the camp.  I had no sooner walked through the door,  than a little girl named Stephanie ran up and gave me a big hug.  I was overjoyed to see her,  as she had been registered for camp all summer,  but had missed many days as she went to Chemotherapy.  On this day,  her colour was good,  and her energy was high,  and her smile just radiated joy.  I joined in the planned games of the camp, and then walked home to my house, where the simmering food had filled the entire space with glorious smells.

Suddenly, from out of nowhere,  Thanksgiving dawned on me.  Little Stephanie was at camp today.  She was well enough today to participate in the whole day's activities.  Thank God!  I was blessed with a wonderful parish that worked very hard to operate that Summer Day camp for eight weeks each summer so that 30 children each week could come and learn about faith, and experience the love of God in our space.  Thank God!  I had been to one of the greatest farmers Markets in the country,  and had been able to come home with my car laden with all manner of food.  Thank God!  I was a part of a family filled with traditions like the making of that "secret" chill sauce recipe,  passed on one generation to another, a family that had loved and formed me into the person I am.  Thank God! Once those flood gates had opened,  at every turn, I saw things there in an August Day, that were every bit as important to thank God for as the harvest that, as a farm boy, was usually the focus of our Thanksgiving.

Thanksgiving is not a day that we mark on the calendar, although we have a day to draw it into focus.  Thanksgiving is way of looking at all of life; it is an attitude that can change our entire perspective on the day to day experiences of life.  When we approach all of life with Thanksgiving,  we can find incredible joy in the things that are easy to take for granted.

Several years ago, just after my sister and her husband adopted Alice and Owen,  I found myself walking on he trail in the woods on their property with these two small children in tow.  At first, I found myself getting frustrated that the kids were going so incredibly slowly.  They stopped practically at every step.  "Uncle Don,  look at this bug." "Uncle Don, see this rock."  Suddenly, I realized that through Alice and Owen,  I was getting a chance to see the world for the first time, all over again.  Their little eyes were doing precisely that.  They were seeing things for the first time,  that I had seen so many times,  that I had sadly ceased to be filled with wonder about them.  This was a "God moment" for me.  I slowed my usual break-neck pace through life,  and took time with those two small children to explore the path I walked very regularly.  The walk I took so regularly became an adventure. In walking along with two small children,  I got the opportunity to once again experience a walk around Orrs Lake as a magical walk in a world filled with beauty.

My prayer for all of you as we come to the day that we have set aside to focus on giving thanks for all the goodness in our lives,  is that first of all,  we might be given that opportunity to see the world "for the first time all over again."  I pray that we might all see and truly understand some of the blessings that fill our lives, that we so often walk past without a thought.  And I pray that we might come to Thanksgiving,  and to every day with an attitude of Thanksgiving.  I pray that we could all take the time on that day that we set aside to focus on giving thanks, to really take stock of all that we truly have to give thanks for,  and that we might carry that thankfulness into the other 364 days of the year.

I won't close this by saying "May God richly bless you all" because my sense is that if we truly use Thanksgiving as an opportunity to take stock,  we will realize that God already has blessed us all.

On Holy Hospitality

One of the things that is really great about a new ministry, is that since you are not used to "the way things are done" here,  you spend an awful lot of time observing.  You see things in ways that the people who have been there for a long time might not have noticed as they developed over the long arch of God's leading of that congregation.  I find myself doing just that sort of observation.

This past Sunday,  from the vantage point of the presider's chair,  I was offered the opportunity to look out across the Cathedral congregation and observe a bit of the life of the congregation.  First, because I make a point of being at the entrance to greet God's people as they arrive for worship, (A lesson I learned in Youth ministry: you need to greet youth as they arrive so that they feel welcomed, appreciated and loved) i have the chance to find out a little about the people who come to worship, and to hear a little of their story.  St. George's has a great variety of people who form the worship community, and because of it's age, its beauty, and its status as a Cathedral,  it almost never fails to have visitors arrive for worship.  St. George's has a strong contingent of University faculty and teachers as one would expect from a major church in a University town,  but owing to its position in the core of the city,  it also has people coming in off the streets, who have connected through programs like Lunch by George.  I am impressed and pleased to say that All get a warm welcome.

The thing that surprised me in my observation this week though,  has more to do with the constant run of tourists who come to the Cathedral.  Our Cathedral tour guides at most times are there answering questions,  filling in information, and giving the gift of hospitality,  but what I saw were tourists that wandered in in the midst of worship.  Seemingly unaware of the fact that the Christian church might be busy at worship at 10:30 in the morning on a Sunday,  they came in they wandered, they looked around,  and often they left only a few moments later.  In one case,  even as I preached the sermon,  one group came down the side aisle, to a spot right beside the pulpit, and proceeded to light candles there.

It would be easy to simply term this group that come through the doors as "nuisance visitors."  It would be easy to get annoyed at their intrusion into our holy time with God, but that is not what I observed from my seat in the presider's chair.  What I saw was that every person who entered through the doors,  whether they came in before, during, or after worship; whether they stayed and prayed, or just looked around and left again, each one was treated with respect and hospitality.  Every person through those doors was seen as someone worthy of respect; worthy of a welcome.

It very much put me in mind of words from the letter to the Hebrews.  "Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it."  I would have to say that my first impression of the ministry of Holy Hospitality at St. George's is very positive.  We are not called to judge those that come through the doors.  None of us knows for what reason God has brought them to this place today.  It is only our call to do the best we can to offer them a chance to encounter our risen Lord in whatever time they manage to spend with us.  May God continue to challenge us with the gift of visitors, and may we not neglect to show hospitality, that perhaps we might entertain angels without knowing it.

On Healing

Throughout my life in ministry, the sacrament of unction and prayers for healing has been a very important part of parish ministry.  At St. David's and St. Thomas the Apostle in Cambridge,  there was a very small mid-week gathering for anointing that grew up early in my ministry.  It was very small and often struggled just to keep going. At times, I would begin to feel disheartened, but someone suddenly came to Parish Council, having just heard of this service, and asked why it was not being carried on at the regular Sunday worship.  We soon began to include anointing in the Sunday liturgy at least once each month. I was amazed to find that almost all the congregation came forward to be anointed.

Upon arriving at St. George's of Forest Hill,  I began to work on a Wednesday morning,  which meant that my first responsibility was to celebrate the Eucharist for a very small gathering that come out to Eucharist in the Chapel of the Transfiguration there.  That first Wednesday,  it was me and two of the faithful. One was a retired executive administrative assistant for the Waterloo Region District School Board, and Directress of the Altar Guild,  and the other a Nigerian woman named Bisi who lived in the neighbourhood and called the Wednesday Eucharist her worshipping community.  When the service was ended,  Bisi came to me.  She was a woman who always came to worship dressed in her traditional Nigerian dress, and I came to realize over the years, she had a faith larger than life.  We came to call he Bishop Bisi,  because like most Nigerians that I have known in life,  she was almost always late,  and yet we always held up the service until she was there,  because "you can't begin without the Bishop."

On that very first day of my incumbency,  Bisi said to me, "I have a sense that you have the gift of healing, and this parish really needs healing.  Do you suppose that we could change this service into a healing service.  The very next Wednesday,  the ministry of healing began.  Twelve years later we had a regular congregation of 25 on Wednesday morning., and at times that 25 would go up as high as 35.   Bisi had long since returned to her Lord,  but the ministry of healing that she so wanted to see happening in her congregation continued and thrived.

Again, in that place, when we would offer anointing at a side chapel on a Sunday morning on occasion,  it was overwhelming to see how many people would come forward to be anointed,  and how very important the sacrament of unction was to the life of that community.A year ago,  the congregation that gathered for healing in the chapel of the Transfiguration had a special aumbry for the oils commissioned and installed in the chapel as a gift from that entire community back to the parish in thanksgiving for this ministry

It was interesting just how right Bisi was about the needs of that parish though.  The church itself was recovering from a difficult chapter with a former incumbent, and at the same time,  several parishioners were moving into health challenges, either for themselves or for parents,  and this ministry of healing was incredibly important for them. At each of these weekly gatherings, we would pray for the needs for healing among those who had gathered,  we would pray for the healing needs of those whom we loved.  We would pray for the healing of our parish,  and we would pray for those who worked for healing in the world around us,  for Doctors and nurses, care-givers and other professions that supported our healthcare system.

Speaking personally, I vividly remember when my mom suffered the major stroke that took away her ability to speak, how that little congregation on Wednesday morning gathered around me and around my family,  and prayed for her.  Again, when my dad suffered the stroke that ended up with both mom and dad moving to the Village of Winston Park,  not only did we lean on God's healing power,  but that small congregation that was committed to the work of healing, supported and upheld my parents and myself. As a community,  they ministered healing, even as we gathered to call for God's healing for the situations for which we were concerned.

Now as I transition into the ministry of St. George's Cathedral,  I am overjoyed to find that there is a regular Healing Eucharist that forms a part of the regular pattern of weekly worship in this place also.  I am happy that I am able to celebrate at that worship whenever I like, but I am far happier to find that Archdeacon Michael Caswell is happy to continue on to lead this worship. It is certainly not an accident that I have set the celebration of the new relationship of ministry that we are entering into here at St. George's for the Feast of St. Luke the Physician and Evangelist.  The ministry of anointing and prayers for healing has grown to be an incredibly important part of priestly ministry for me.  I cannot imagine not taking time in each week to consider the need for healing,  and praying for God to take action in those needs.

On Taking Stock of the stuff...

It would seem that major changes in my life never really go quite according to plan.  I have had months to plan the move from Kitchener to Kingston,  but still there have been all manner of bumps along the way.  Perhaps the biggest has been trying to arrange for my stuff to join me here in Kingston.

I had booked the move to happen on September 7th, so that my things would arrive here about a week behind me,  but I figured that I had enough things here with me that I could "camp out" for a week without much difficulty.  What I hadn't seen was that to secure that date with the movers I needed to sign back the estimate.  I had sent numerous emails to them stating that date,  but when I contacted them to work out logistics,  they told me that since I had not signed the estimate,  they gave my time and date to another customer.

So now,  my "stuff" will not join me until September 14th.    My first thought was that this was going to be terrible. Yesterday,  my sister and I, David and Kathy, and Becky had worked very hard getting everything ready for the truck to arrive.  It seemed like it would all go ahead according to plan.  Now, how would I live without all that stuff?

I hadn't sat fuming about this for very long before I realized that I have been very happy there in the house with just the bare bones of necessities.  The "Camping" experience has been really quite enjoyable.  Without all the stuff, I have been able to spend lots of time working on projects around the house, and have accomplished lots of things.

It put me back in mind of the message that I had preached on Sunday, (full audio of the sermon is available here. https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/258986237/20160904%200800%20Sermon%20Don%20Davidson.mp3 ) on the Gospel in Luke where Jesus tells the crowds that are following him that they cannot be his disciples unless they can leave behind father and mother, sister and brother, wives and children,  and where he cautions them that they cannot be his disciples unless they can renounce all their possessions.  He never calls any of those "Things" or people bad,  he simply tells them that Discipleship cannot be an add-on to life.  It must always be the very core.  All other things must take a back seat to our discipleship.

All my stuff -- and believe me,  when it was all piled up in one place,  it truly was a frightening pile -- (or even the lack of it) has not really impacted on the joy of this new ministry.  With or without "stuff" I have been called, and I have answered that call,  and it has led me down an exciting path.  The Gospel is right, in that we can at times get so focused on our "Stuff" that we lose sight of what is truly important.  What a joy to be reminded that no matter where I may be, or whether or not things move along smoothly, I have everything I need right here with me.