Mid-Week Message - September 24

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

(If this mid-week message looks a bit different than usual, it is because I am sending it from my gmail account rather than through Mailchimp. My Mailchimp account allows me to send 4 group emails per month, and a couple of times a year there are 5 Wednesdays between the 25th of each month!)

I suspect that the Facebook algorithm shows me different things on my feed than yours does, as social media likes to try and figure out what each person wants to see, in order to maximize the time that we spend on their site. So I don't know if you were aware that yesterday was a predicted date for the "Rapture" - it has certainly been all over my social media feeds this week!

(If you don't know what the Rapture is, it is a mis-interpretation of a single passage of scripture in 1 Thessalonians. This mis-interpretation says that before Jesus returns to earth, all of the "good" people are going to be raptured, or carried off to heaven, while everyone else will be left on earth for a period of tribulation lasting 1000 years. This interpretation was "discovered" in the late 1800, and became popular in the 1990s with the Left Behind novels and movies.)

People have always been trying to predict when the Rapture is going to happen, or when the world is going to end, or when Jesus is going to return to earth.  (Even though the bible is clear on this - "But nobody knows when that day or hour will come, not the heavenly angels and not the Son. Only the Father knows." Matthew 24:36.) And somebody somewhere decided that September 23, 2025 was going to be the date!

Rapture theology is interesting to consider, especially in this season of creation.  If you were to believe that some day you were going to be airlifted into heaven leaving this world behind, then what you do to the world doesn't matter.  You can exploit all of the resources of this earth, you can contribute to climate change, all without caring about the consequences because some day you or your descendants are going to escape all of it.

My understanding of end-times theology is more transformative - that some day God is going to transform this world that we are living in, transforming it into perfection.  "Look, I will tell you a mystery! We will not all die, but we will all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed." (1 Cor. 15:51-52) My understanding of end-times theology doesn't involve us being lifted out of this world to live somewhere else with God, but instead God will come here to live with us in a transformed world.  "And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, 'See, the home of God is among mortals. He will dwell with them; they will be his peoples, and God himself will be with them.'" (Rev. 21:3)

In terms of creation theology, how we understand the end-times matters.  If God is going to transform the world into perfection some day, then through our actions we can participate in God's work. When we care for the vulnerable parts of creation, when we focus on harmony within the community of creation, when we love with God's heart - then we are starting to live as if the "end-times" were already here!

(I don't know if anyone else needed to hear this, or if I was writing for my own benefit. Maybe you had no idea that the end of the world was predicted to have happened yesterday!)

Moving on to announcements for this week:

• Worship on Sunday will be at 9:15 at Long Reach and 11:15 at Westfield and on Facebook Live. Sunday School will be offered at both churches. This week, worship will be all about hope - hope that is deeper than simple wishful thinking, hope that gives us confidence that God is in charge and some day things are going to be better. We'll be reading a story about the time Jeremiah the prophet bought a piece of land while the city was under a siege - something that makes absolutely no sense from a business perspective, but he was trying to make the point that even though things seemed bleak in the moment, they weren't always going to be that way. If you want to read ahead, it is Jeremiah 32:1-3a, 6-15 (with apologies to our scripture readers at both churches this coming Sunday for the tongue-twister names!).

• Bulletin Cover Pictures - a reminder that Elaine is always happy to receive pictures that you might have taken to use for our bulletin covers. We have had some lovely pictures recently, and I love hearing the buzz before the service as people are talking about the picture that she has used that week. We are coming up to a couple of bigger dates on the church calendar, so she is especially interested if you have something that might be appropriate for Thanksgiving, Remembrance Day, Advent, or Christmas! You can email your pictures to the office: wuc@nb.sympatico.ca

• Bible Study is back next Wednesday at its usual time - 10am on Wednesdays in the parlour at Westfield United Church. Everyone is welcome!

• Thanksgiving at Westfield - Brenda is going to be putting a couple of empty baskets at the front of the church and they will be there this Sunday. She thought that maybe we could use our imaginations to picture them overflowing with harvest produce, but I suggested that maybe we could fill them with things for River Valley Food Bank. So over the next 3 Sundays (Sept. 28, Oct. 5, Oct. 12), please feel free to bring foodbank donations and place them in the baskets that will be up front - and then instead of imagining them overflowing with the harvest, we will have a literal harvest to share with our neighbours in need!

• National Day for Truth and Reconciliation - Tuesday September 30 is the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation (formerly known as Orange Shirt Day). This Sunday, you are invited to wear your orange shirt to worship in remembrance of all of the children who were stolen from their families; and on Tuesday, we will be amplifying Indigenous voices on the Two Rivers Pastoral Charge Facebook Page - you will want to check it out throughout the day to hear from Indigenous artists and writers and musicians. I will also mention that the Town of Grand Bay-Westfield has invited Dave Smith from First Nations Storytellers to an event on Monday evening (Sept. 29) from 6:30-8pm at Brundage Point - for more details, you can click here.

• Westfield Choir Concert Series - a reminder that you can purchase your concert subscription from any choir member any time up until the first concert (and subscriptions will also be available at the door at the first concert). A $100 dollar subscription will get you in to all 4 concerts, and individual concerts will be $30 at the door. Concert dates are:  Oct. 9 ("My Grateful Spirit Sings"), Dec. 18 ("What Did the Star See?"), March 19 ("The Best of the Best"), and June 4 ("Hold Me, Rock Me").

• Confirmation Classes - we will be starting confirmation classes in October. These will be inter-generational and open to all ages. If you have a teen in your life who is maybe ready to confirm the promises that were made on their behalf at their baptism; if you are an adult who would like to become a member of the United Church of Canada; if you were confirmed at an earlier stage in life and would like to explore questions of your faith from your current perspective - give me a shout!

• Additional Dates for your Calendar:

  Sat. Oct. 4, 12-4 - Harvest Garden Market

  Wed. Oct. 15, 7pm - Session meeting

  Tues. Oct. 21, 4:30-6 - Asking the Big Questions
  

Thank You Corner - this week's "thank you" goes out to the Westfield Choir! Thank you for your dedication to attending rehearsals every Thursday evening; thank you for sharing your gift of music in worship week after week; thank you for your extra dedication in committing to 4 concerts this year in support of the work of the church! You are all awesome, and it was great to have all of your voices back last Sunday.

For a closing thought this week, last night I started a 6-week continuing education program through AST on St. Paul and Leonard Cohen. Last night was a public lecture, and it will be followed by 5 classroom sessions (on Zoom) exploring the theological connections between the writings of these two Jewish men, separated by almost 2000 years. If you are on my FB, you may have seen a couple of pictures I took last night - one of my cats joined me in the middle of the lecture, possibly because she is interested in the writings of St. Paul, or possibly because she loves it when I sing, and of course I was singing along with all of the songs that the speaker was using to illustrate what he was talking about.

So today I want to share with you one of the songs that was played last night, "Come Healing."  This song also played a significant role in my life as I was discerning my call to ministry, especially a couple of lines in it (that is a story for another day) - as you listen to it, can you guess which lines spoke to my heart that April morning in 2013? You can listen to the song 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)