SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 10 - FAMILY GATHERING
Carolyn Smith
Family Gathering
As you all have trickled back from vacation and summer time, we’re enjoying \
that with pizza and ice cream today! Will you stay?? And I’m grateful we have
awesome Tracy Mitchell & Linden kicking off Sunday school, and the children’s
choir and youth plans coming together, ... and we had Matt & Kate and their
mom Jenn present the story.
Can you sense how much all this matters for you maybe? but how it matters to
them, these younger generations - even when they really have no idea? Why it
matters to frazzled grown ups who could have slept in or gone to brunch but
show up here anyway.
Being Together, the ceremony of church but also the communal time - it’s part
of our Faith story - we know - maybe lament - or maybe give thanks that it’s
different than how it used to be, but we make a meaningful community by our
prayer and intention and sleeves rolled up - by the miracle in this day and age of
showing up - we create this church. Today it’s created by kids and pizza and a
gigantic Candy-gram newsletter of goings-on... and week after week, we
strengthen and adjust this family that is St. Paul’s Oakville - a little bit of pizza,
rainbow flags, some pubs & pews, some donations and caring phone calls. We
show up and make Church happen.
This story of teenager Jesus is fun- we roll our eyes at him, laugh knowingly as
Mary & Joseph rush frantically back to the city searching. Roll our eyes and
wish our kid was like him, hanging out with his teachers. Even all these years
later, Jesus’ family isn’t so far from ours. Our church has a tradition of families
kinda like this.
I really want us to take this a bit deeper though. I really want our Family Story -
this scripture we hold up week after week, to mean something. A little more.
And I want - more than a safe & fun place, let’s make this a place where we can
be sad together and determined and grow together.
Because we’re in a big year, rebuilding St. Paul’s as church together, so how we
are as a family and what we do together intentionally - it matters a whole lot.
Our teenager Jesus Story begins on the way home from a big family gathering -
Mix together your image of a family reunion and an Easter Dinner - You know
food will be eaten, old stories will be told, details will be remembered.
“Remember when’s", and remembering the loved ones who aren’t with you
anymore. So the story begins - that they were headed home from Jerusalem
celebrating Passover - it’s a Jewish festival we happens near our Easter time -
only it isn’t the joyous Easter rising celebration story.
Our Jewish friends every year share again their history of fleeing Egypt, the
exodus fleeing brutal enslavement, and Moses arranges with God some special
signs. The plagues rain down on Egypt pressuring Pharaoh to free the Hebrews
- the Jewish people; Plagues of frogs, rivers of blood, locusts, sores, ... but
nothing makes a difference, and finally with Pharaoh’s heart still hardened
against them, the Angel of Death swept through the land, only sparing the
Hebrews by passing them over. How mighty was God to overcome such evil
and for God’s covenant people. It’s a terrible legend of oppression and a
pivotal memory of liberation so Jewish communities forever after have honoured
this chapter in their Family story.
Their families have special foods and they have a tradition - the children ask four
questions - and the old ones answer - they learn together this difficult story, they
share together little traditions that ground their culture, and then they celebrate
what freedom means together. It makes me think of how we Christians figure
out, or struggle maybe how to share the Bad story of Good Friday with our kids.
Meanwhile... Jesus’ extended family had gathered from all over into Jerusalem
for that special festival -and the children asked the four special questions, and
the older ones answered, passing on their sense of Covenant with God, how
they know WHO they are. They didn’t skip the dark parts of the story. They
gently shared, they remembered, they taught the kids about honouring memory,
and they watch as year after year the kids grow into understanding. This
particular story tells of the year Jesus turns 12, from child to “adult,” his Bar
Mitzvah - now it was his turn to help teach, to help answer. Of course he ends
up in the temple foreshadowing his wisdom and groundedness in Covenant.
Recalling that Covenant with God pops up here and there all through scripture
like this one from Deuteronomy 9 - Know therefore that the Lord your God is
God, the faithful God who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who
love and keep the commandments, to a thousand generations.
Repeated stories of covenant shared - the hard stories sweetened and
deepening the sense of what it means, why it matters. And as generations they
do it bravely together.
Of course this looks different 2000, 5000 years later. I hope so! How about this
understanding: this faith family story - not detailed transcripts, or historical
registers or newspapers, but more the family retelling down through the ages -
our family album of “how we come to know God” -I like to picture Grandma
God with fresh baked cookies overjoyed that you showed up- you don’t
remember all the details, all the stories, but you feel the love & then you share it.
And one of the learnings of faith that we this St. Paul’s family have embraced is
how to recognize God, how to find & grow goodness in a multicultural, scientific,
planet-connected, pluralistic society - that Goodness, that the rich spirit of Love
and Life flourishes widely when we create and nurture connection. That
reconciliation to creation and each other heals people and disconnection breaks
them. That biodiversity is the essence of creation, in the natural world and in our
rainbow of self expression.
Because the happy fun stories carry us through and hold our vision when all is
going well. When your real family has fun together, and you’ve got all you need,
or your kids are the ones excelling in the temple impressing the teachers. When
your rosy circle of friends and community is healthy, strong, flourishing... Fun -
great.
It’s when the hard stories need to be shared, when life isn’t picture perfect -
anyone?
When the fears in our lives must be faced, and illness and worry,
when relationship breakdown must be honoured and cried through,
and when climate collapse, greenbelt stealing, impossible housing and
economic situations, war and tyrants demand our voices, and leave us with few
options than to pray unceasing - then the rubber hits the road, what we have
celebrated as our Covenant blessing has to speak about the hard stuff. Then
we get to what matters.
Last year, we spoke up to support safe space for LGBTQ kids in all schools in
our town. We had great fun up at Halton Pride Fest! We didn’t used to think this
was such an uphill battle. I have a frightened friend who sent his son bravely to
the school where last year he was bullied by adults and kids alike for having 2
dads (awesome wonderful ones) Thankfully he had a good day. A couple of
weeks ago, our Anglican neighbours at St. Aidans suffered some nasty anti-gay
graffiti and we reached out! This week a minister at a United Church in
Georgetown was violently and physically assaulted for the churches LGBT
stance. IF that’s what’s happening out loud, what is going on for a kid with no
loving support at home and none at school? Our Public Intentional and Explicit
care is vital. This is one way where St. Paul’s can face the hard stuff.
10 of us joined the Full Moon ceremony last week hosted by Indigenous
neighbours of ours here at the church... about 45 people - it was welcoming, it
was eye-opening and I had a sense of how possible!! And how far we have to go
on the path of reconciliation. But this is one expression of GOODNESS where
St. Pauls’ can lean into what matters.
We filled grocery shelves and grew veggies for Kerr Street Mission this summer-
what more can we do? We’ve ministered and grieved with one another as we’ve
lost friends and family in these past years. We have been brave in telling the
good stories even while we face the hard ones in our budgets and annual
reports. And time and again, St. Paul’s upholds an affirming message that all are
beloved and we flourish when none are left behind.
This is covenant faith that even in the face of fear, what we do matters when we
do it in the light of Goodness, in the blessing of God.
At the end of the Jesus story, his mother Mary - Pondered these things in her
heart. - she did that from time to time. Take a moment to ponder everyone here
- all who showed up to create this family of St. Paul’s --, oldtimers, newcomers,
families, singles, tired people, people with sleeves rolled up. As we’ve
pondered our future, I have heard you say “We are family. We are affirming. We
are justice-seeking and we are proud to be leaders in Oakville. So this is rubber-
hitting-the-road time. This is where the hard stories count. Our kids-
generations - are watching to see if this matters. The ones on the margins and
in the shadows are desperately hoping it matters. Our community world and our
political world need these important things to matter.
So as we trundle along together down to our pizza and ice cream, and then
back home again, this St. Paul’s family festival gathering today - of maybe not a
thousand generations, but a bunch, with our kids & neighbours asking
questions, watching us to see what matters: Lets show them our care and
interest in each other, show them our sleeves are rolled up, we’re ready for the
important stuff, even while we’re singing.
Down through all the generations, Bless us Lord our God.
May it be so. Amen.