Mid-Week Message - October 21

May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be always with you!

The sky today is an October blue, the leaves are falling from the trees, and anyone involved with the school system in any way knows that the school year is well underway!

As many of you know, I started my Doctor of Ministry (DMin) program earlier this year; and in this fall semester, I'm taking an online course called "Theology and Power:  Method in Political Theology." Just like the course I took in the spring, my experience of this course is that they give us all sorts of interesting things to read, then we come together in class every Tuesday morning to discuss the interesting readings!

Our topic this week was "Power in Communitarian / Post-Liberal Theology / Radical Orthodoxy" and one of the readings we had was from a book titled Theopolitical Imagination by William T. Cavanaugh.  In the introduction to the book, he explains that he is working from the premise that politics are really just "theology in disguise."  Both politics and religion have, as their primary focus, something outside of or bigger than the self; and both politics and religion depend on being able to imagine a different way of being.

He also argues that Christians should tap into a deeper imagination than any political system can give us, a deeper imagination that can give us "more radical imaginings of time and space."

This book was published in 2003, and those of you who can remember back that far might remember that globalization was the "hot button" political topic of the day.  He paints a picture of a world that is becoming more bland, where you can buy McDonald's in any corner of the world, where Taco Bell serves a pale imitation of actual Mexican food, where fewer and fewer corporations control more and more of the global market.

As I was reading the book, I was also thinking about what is happening in the world right now. We still have those global consumerist forces that are driving the world, but at the same time, in the past decade or so, we've seen a rise of hyper-nationalism in response. (Make America Great Again is one outcropping of what I see as a more general movement around the world.)  Possibly in response to globalization forces at work, countries are trying to lock down their borders and create some sort of uniform national identity.

Cavanaugh then points to the church and says that we are in a unique position to be able to offer a middle way - a way of being in the world that can avoid both globalization and subsequent watering down and forces of nationalism that will always exclude some.  In the reading that we did, he uses the example of the Eucharist, or communion.

I invite you to think back a couple of weeks to Worldwide Communion Sunday that we celebrated on the first Sunday in October. It is true every time we gather for communion, but we are especially aware of it on Worldwide Communion Sunday - when we gather at the communion table, we are gathering at the table with Christians in every corner of the world, and we are gathering with Christians from every time in the past 2000 years (the great cloud of witnesses).

Communion gives us this amazing opportunity to be part of something that is so much bigger than ourselves, something that transcends time and space, something that brings us all together in the breaking of bread.  There can be no nationalism at the communion table.

But at the same time, we are gathered in our particular place to share the bread and the cup. Even back in 2020 when we were all gathering virtually for communion, we were a specific, particular expression of church.  There is no such thing as generic church! Which means that the homogeneous blandness of globalization forces can't shape us. (In fact, in the story for all ages that Sunday, we talked about how different churches around the world might be using all sorts of different types of bread for communion that day.)

Church helps us to practice a different way of being in the world.  We are both hyper-local as we gather in the church in Summerville or Long Reach or Westfield or virtually from our homes; but we are also part of something that spans time and space.  And because we aren't bound to either nationalism or globalizing economics, we are freed to live our lives in a way that is generous and loving and hope-full.

And I think that it comes back to that word that I used up in the 3rd paragraph - imagination.  How big can we let our imagination dream?  Do we dare to let ourselves dream of a church that isn't bound by economics or demographics or the things that political imaginations dream of?  Do we dare to let ourselves dream of a church that, while existing in this time and place, isn't bound by concerns of this world, but is free to love our neighbours with generosity and love God with abundance?  How big of a dream do we dare to dream for the church?  And then what steps do we need to take to turn that dream into a reality?

Moving on to announcements for this week:

• Worship on Sunday will be at 9:15 at Long Reach (where the service will include a baptism, and Sunday School will be offered) and 11:15 at Westfield (where we will be receiving a new member). Lots of exciting things happening, and the scripture will be one of my favourites:  Matthew 22:34-40 (a passage that you might recognize from the bottom of all of my emails, as well as the back of my business card). We'll also read the Old Testament texts that Jesus is quoting:  Leviticus 19:1-2, 15-18 and Deuteronomy 6:1-5.

• Cinnamon Roll Social - thank you, once again, to Joanne Luck who is going to be offering her homemade cinnamon rolls for a social after worship at Westfield this Sunday. (I missed the one she had in August, but heard so many reports of how good they were that I'm glad that I will get to try one this time around!) Plan to stick around for a bit after worship for some delicious baked goods and a cup of tea/coffee, and to welcome Shelagh (Joanne's sister, who is becoming a member of the church)!

• The Four of Us Plus One is doing a concert at Long Reach United Church on Saturday afternoon at 3pm. (This is one of the groups that Shirley Cochran sings with.) Admission is by freewill offering, with all proceeds going to support the work of the church. They will be singing music from the 50s, 60s, and beyond; and singing along is encouraged! You can view the poster by clicking here; and if you haven't seen it already, the Facebook post about the concert is here - if you are Facebook user, please share the post to help spread the word!

• Westfield Remembrance Day Turkey Dinner - tickets are now available at the Grand Bay Home Hardware! This year, the dinner is going to be drive-through only with pick-up times of 4:30, 5, and 5:30. Be sure to get your tickets early before they sell out - only $20 per person for a turkey dinner with all the trimmings!

• Two Opportunities to Help:

  Facebook Live Ministry - if you have ever joined one of our livestreamed service, you will have seen someone copy-and-pasting the words to the prayers and the songs into the comments section. This makes it easier for people to follow along and participate in the service. The copy-and-paste-r can either be in the church building (just bring your laptop or other device) or can be someone who is already worshipping from home. If you are interested in trying this out, you can contact Josie Pike or the church office.

  Bulletin Copying and Folding in December - Daniel is going to be out of the country for 3 weeks in December (a vacation he booked long before he thought about working for the church), so we're looking for a couple of volunteers to copy and fold the Sunday bulletins for those three weeks. Don't worry, Daniel will orient you to the copier before he goes away! Please contact the church office if you are willing to take this on for a couple of weeks.

• Sock it To Me - in the past couple of years, we have collected gloves/mittens for Romero House in October, but this year we weren't able to find two back-to-back Sundays that aren't too close to Advent. We are still going to be collecting mittens and gloves, but we have deferred the collection to the end of January. So you are still going to have a chance to toss them "into the box" that I am holding! As you are out and about, doing your errands, if you see mittens or gloves on sale, please do pick them up and hold on to them until January! (We are also going to have our wish lists for our White Gift Sundays available by mid-November.)
  

Thank You Corner - This week, I have to say a thank you to everyone who made sandwiches last week for Romero House! Between our three churches, we made 678 sandwiches, which is 678 fewer sandwiches that the Romero House folks had to make last weekend. On weekends, they serve soup and sandwiches - last Saturday they served 470 people including 26 children, and on Sunday they served 491 people including 30 children. Your generosity makes a difference! A special thank you goes out to Debbie Touchie and Cathy Howlett who picked up the sandwiches from our three churches and delivered them to Romero House on Friday.

For a closing thought this week, I'm going to point you towards something that we did last night at our Asking the Big Questions gathering. This month's big question was "What is our purpose?" and at our gatherings, I always have one activity that isn't just words, an activity that has us engaging the questions more creatively. Someone said to me recently, "Sometimes I think that it would be better if we were just robots instead." What does it mean to be human? What do we mean by "better"? What are robots? As we wrestled with these questions, each of us made an art project. (We raided the Sunday School closet!) You can see some of our creations by clicking here.

Blessings to you and yours, today and always! Kate.

Rev. Kate Jones Two Rivers Pastoral Charge (506) 757-2201 (office) (506) 343-1307 (mobile) www.tworiverspastoralcharge.com Pronouns:  she/her/hers

"Teacher, what is the greatest commandment in the law?" Jesus replied, "You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your being, and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment.  And the second is like it: "You must love your neighbour as you love yourself. (Matthew 22:36-39)