.jpg)
Northwood United Church – Sunday, January 29, 2023
Reflection on Deep Spirituality, Bold Discipleship, Daring Justice
By Deborah Richards
Will you pray with me?
Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of our hearts be pleasing in your Sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer (Psalm 19:14 – variation)
Opening
Deep Spirituality
Bold Discipleship
Daring Justice
These are three statements, totalling six words:
What do these word mean for us as followers of Christ, for ‘such a time as this’ (Esther 4:14)?
The United Church has new vision and purpose statements.
These three phrases reflect the core of what The United Church of Canada seeks to be in this time, this age.
As noted by the project team who developed these statements:
“While the six words and three phrases stand alone, they also reflect a process through which a deep and grounded faith compels a life of bold discipleship, lived in worship, service, and community, and expressed in the church and world in daring acts of justice.”
These words are foundational to a Vision that reads:
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.
I was a member of the General Council Executive which started the process of discerning what the church aspires to be over a 5 – 10-year span and was involved in the early phases of the discussion.
It is great to see this call and vision lived out, in our hearts and actions, as communities of faith.
Don’t panic, I am not taking you on a journey through strategic planning in the church this morning!
My hope is that we can explore each of these statements, phrases, and insights, and that we can consider what these might offer for our individual faith journeys, to guide our footsteps as followers/disciples of Christ in our communities of faith.
DEEP SPIRITUALITY
I grew up in the Moravian Church in the West Indies. Going to Church each Sunday and then going to Sunday School after the Service, was THE event of a Sunday morning – no question asked. Part of my Sunday School experience was memorizing Bible verses each Sunday, from the lesson of the week before, and receiving prizes at the end of the year for getting the verses ‘right’! If you were like me, and conveniently forgot to memorize the verse, or missed the Sunday before, you could get your ‘checkmark’ or star by reciting another Bible verse that you recalled. The prayer that we prayed together –
“Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of our hearts be pleasing in your Sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer” (Psalm 19:14 – variation), was my ‘go to’ verse in the bible…..I know the King James version by heart!! If all else failed…and if you didn’t have your mother as your Sunday School teacher, you tried to get away with simply reciting ”Jesus wept” – the shortest verse in the Bible, if I recall! Please don’t ask me after the service what book of the Bible that is in….!
We would go to church with our personal copies of the Bible and read scriptures together during the Service in responsive verses. Did that recitation of bible verses bring me closer to God spiritually? No. Many years later, as an adult, I realized that I didn’t necessarily know the Bible that well or connect its use to my spiritual growth, even though I could quickly find chapters in the Bible without going to the index. This made me begin to wonder about my spiritual connection to God through His word – Those
‘ancient words’ of the Bible that the choir just sang about, which represent the firm foundations for our faith. I discovered that I wasn’t interested, as some suggest, in having a Bible reading plan to ‘get through’ the Bible cover to cover in a year. Such an activity was no more meaningful to me than reciting Bible verses. I was, however, interested in making the connection between the wisdom of the Bible to my life and the connection of this wisdom to the Holy.
While I laugh now at the rote nature of my connection to the wisdom of the bible in my childhood, what I have found over time is that I connect to and seek the wisdom of the bible when I am seeking guidance to a question or seeking comfort for a particular situation. I have several devotional books and also an app, which have a bible verse plus a reflection for the day or for a particular situation. I was once very upset about a work situation which was totally unexpected and which blindsided me. I was quite distraught about it. I turned to my devotional reading that particular night and the verse and reflection touched and supported me in that moment. I recall roughly the date and the month when this happened and I have looked again and again to find the verse and the reflection. I can’t. Probably because that was the particular word of wisdom and particular reflection that I needed for that day and for that time. It was my connection with the Creator.
This is what spirituality is: Drawing closer to God. In worship, we do this— as a community of faith. But what tools do we have to do so privately? We can draw closer to God with words from the bible, use daily devotions or use bible apps which have specific reflections. Prayer is certainly one method, whether you write the prayers yourself or connect to prayers which others offer. Prayer is opening our lives to God. For me, music is another way of drawing close to God. I love to sing and I often listen to church – over other forms of music, when I am in my car. For some people, drawing closer to God is
through solitude in nature. For others, it is quieting and settling themselves with tools like meditation or mandalas. For still yet others, it is writing in a journal. Choose the methods which support your connection to God.
Some people struggle with making that connection on their own and, as a church, we can offer persons opportunities to make connections, not only through Sunday morning worship, but other methods that we offer, as spiritual practice alternatives, such as yoga, meditation, bible study, and centring prayer, for example.
Deep Spirituality, as an experience of intimacy with God, is the starting point for each of us, grounded in worship, prayer, study, and scripture. Deep spirituality can be the joy of knowing we are loved and held by God in His embrace. Deep spirituality is the cornerstone of our identity, not just as a church, but also as individuals.
BOLD DISCIPLESHIP
There is a movie, with the actor Laurence Fishburne, entitled Akeelah and the Bee. Fishburne, a teacher, commits to work with an 11-year-old called Akeelah, to prepare her for competition in the National Spelling Bee.
Akeelah is keen to pursue this, but loses focus partway through the preparations. Fishburne set her the task to memorize whole boxes filled with individual index cards with words. She becomes bored with the activity. This leads her teacher into a discussion of discipline, which forever changed my understanding of discipleship.
Fishburne explains that discipline is what gives life to learning. The word discipline - like the word disciple, comes from the Latin discipulus, meaning pupil. Like discipline, discipleship is also, therefore, the act of giving life to learning.
If spirituality is intimacy with God, then discipleship is how that intimacy shapes us. Discipleship is where our understanding of God connects with our lives. Jesus’ disciples, provide examples of discipleship – of the different ways in which we can be disciples, of
our flaws and certitude, of how we can live our lives, to the best of our ability, to become the type of disciples who are connected to God. As we are now in the Season after Epiphany in the church year - that period after Jesus’ birth and baptism, in which we remember Jesus’ public ministry and the public and private ministry of those who followed him, the stories of those closest to him dominate the scripture readings for this period. It is a time focused on call.
We often speak about call, as though it is a dramatic moment where life changes completely. As such we often associate call with persons who answer the call to ministry as ordained or diaconal ministry. That understanding of ‘call’ misses inclusion of many among our churches who are connected to His work in our churches and are called to ministry in different ways. They are the humble folks who minister to us in different ways, which fit with their gifts and strengths and how they wish to live out their call to the church community.
Take my father for example. I suspect that if I had had the foresight earlier in my life to ask him what his faith meant to him, and how he connected to God, that it might have been a moment of reflection for both of us. I don’t know that he would have been able to answer that question in eloquent ‘churchy’ language. However, his gift to the church was his skill as a professional accountant and certified Board Secretary. Once he was married and started going to church regularly….and there is a family story about ‘who’ led him into going to church regularly…..he was helping his immediate church community as
treasurer, and then that grew to serving the Provincial Elders conference (similar to our region) of the Moravian Church in the Eastern West Indies and then, in Jamaica, as Treasurer of the Jamaican Province. He served his God faithfully that way……up to the time that he became too ill to do that work. This was his faithful witness in the church. This was his calling.
Not everyone feels called to serve in the church or their community in the extensive way my father did, or even the way in which I have served in the church. Or in the way, many participating in the service today, serve with their particular gifts which they have been given: hospitality - greeters, planning and hosting gatherings where we share meals, musicians, helping in the Thrift Shop in that particular ministry of outreach to our community, or in actively participating in food ministry initiatives.
Essentially, discipleship is seeing how our lives are a sacred calling and, out of our faith, connecting our gifts with the world’s needs. Discipleship is how our lives become avenues of God’s love and presence in the world. Let us not be hesitant in understanding or embracing this but rather bold in claiming every moment, of every day and every activity, as an expression of how God is caring for the world through us.
DARING JUSTICE
Justice is the bond between God and God’s people that shapes the world around us. Justice is what transforms faith from an individual’s experience of “me in my small corner” to all of us, as the church together in the world. Through the discipleship which shapes our individual lives, we manifest justice which then shapes the world around us.
We are then, manifestations of the potential for sharing God’s justice with the world around us. Justice is, then, when each of us brings the light of Christ to our contributions to the life of the community and church, as different gifts, which create this incredible manifestation of God’s justice. Justice is living as the body of Christ as described in 1 Corinthians 12.
Today’s reading ends with this list of gifts I’d like to remind us of that notable passage where Paul likens the church to a body. He notes that a body needs many parts, just as the body of Christ needs many gifts.
Justice is when the gifts of God’s people come together to seek the transformation of the world.
• Justice is when we speak out about all injustices that are around us.
• Justice is when United Church people and congregations admit our painful role in residential schools and commit to reconciliation. The Truth of the United Church’s participation in operating those residential schools is painful, yet if we do not learn about it and from it, act to change systems that continue to marginalize our Indigenous siblings, there will be no Reconciliation.
• Justice is when we provide refuge and ongoing support for persons fleeing persecution or sectarian violence in their home countries. We have done that at Northwood through refugee sponsorships for families over the years, including the Hamoud family, and when we provided our space for a benefit concert for the Ukranian People last year at the start of the open war of terror on the Ukarians and on their homeland.
• Justice is when we advocate for, and create space within our hearts, within our church spaces, and within our communities, for marginalized minorities and persons shunned because of their sexual orientation and gender identity. Justice is when we are public, intentional and explicit (PIE) in our support for, and denunciation of violence suffered by the Two-Spirit and LGBTQQIA+ community.
• Justice is when our response is collective and transformative. Justice is bringing our different gifts together to move the world closer to God’s intention for fullness of life for all, or what Martin Luther King referred to as the ‘beloved community’. Daring justice is when we respond to the world through faith, and not respond out of fear. As we move forward to make our vision for this community of faith a reality and as a vibrant part of the Fleetwood and Surrey communities, as we build our new ministry plans, let us do so with a response that is rooted in faith about what we have to offer to our community.
We started that journey 12 years ago when we began to look at opportunities to redevelop this property, when water started coming through light soffits one rainy Sunday morning. I admit….it was fear that likely got us talking about and imagining a new building and the sustainability of this congregation moving forward. I remember one of our wise members – Jim Karpoff – saying at the time, “Thank God for leaking rooves” - I am not sure that any of us agreed with him at the time or even now. What I took from that statement was an ‘invitation’ to see, what looked like a disaster, as an ‘opportunity’ to step forward and re-imagine our building and spaces for the work of God.
In the same way, we can be bold and daring in re-imagining our future through the lens of faith – what is God calling us to do and be in this place in 5 - 10 years? How are we faithfully preparing to respond to that call in faith?
Daring justice is the call to be together in faith and to respond together in faith—not fear.
Let us be daring as we glimpse God’s vision for a Northwood community that is transformed to serve -well into the future, and to be part of a world transformed.
What does the Lord require of us?
We are required to trust that the God we know so well, whose ways we seek to follow, will not forsake,or forget us, but will dare us to leave our fears behind, to be in the world as people of deep spirituality, bold discipleship, and daring justice.
Amen