November 3

Throughout this week’s texts we see various models of leadership. Through engagement with these texts, we may begin to see that servant leadership applies to our lives as well. When it comes to the love of Christ, we are each leaders and learners.

Prayer of Approach

All: God, you know everyone’s name and you love us and care for us and help us all. Each of us is very special to you; you know not just our name, but our hearts as well. And you have asked us to be your special people: followers, disciples, saints. So when you call our names, help us follow you like the people in the past and change the world with you. Help us to be ready to hear your voice calling out our names.

We Remain in God’s Presence Through Confession

One: For the God we have re-created in our own image, dressed up and set apart from the world, untouched, sanitized, fenced off from humanity;

One: For the world we have destroyed because of our creeds and doctrine; for ancient cultures ruined by our arrogant religion evangelizing First Nations through domination and fear making Christianity a crutch, a policy, a weapon;

One For the church we have built, based on power rather than people, constructing an institution rather than a body of love, making the community safely ineffective rather than dangerously relevant;

God knows what we have done with our religion, takes all of our past, and caresses it into possibility; takes our confession, and moulds it into a new beginning. We are forgiven, renewed, loved. Thanks be to God. Amen.

Prayer of Illumination

Joshua 3:7-17 From the Hebrew Scriptures Pg. 210

Anthem “How Shall I Sing to God?” by Wren & Larson

Matthew 23:1-12 From the Christian Scriptures Pg. 34

All: Thanks be to God

Sermon: “Heavy Burdens”

Mission Moment Dawn Knowles

It's easy to find St. Matthew's and St. Paul's in Hearst, Ontario. Turn north on Yonge Street in Toronto and drive for 1,000 kilometers. When you come to the traffic light, turn left, go two blocks and there it is.

Hearst is a town of 6,000 people involved mainly in forestry, support services and tourism. Many of the jobs here are seasonal. The majority of the residents are French-speaking Roman Catholics, while six percent of the population speak English and Cree. St. Matthew's and St. Paul's is a shared Anglican/United ministry. The nearest United Church is 100 kilometers away in Kapuskasing, and the nearest resident United Church minister is 135 kilometers in the opposite direction.

The members of St. Matthew's and St. Paul's work at a number of outreach projects-a Samaritan Cupboard in the manse which provides emergency food for residents and non-residents alike, and the Ladies Friendship Circle which provides the clergy with a small fund for helping transients who pass by regularly.

St. Matthew's and St. Paul's receives support from the Mission and Service Fund of the United Church and the Anglican Diocese of Moosonee. Your gift to M&S today helps make possible the survival of this unique ministry in the North where distances are a major factor.

We Respond In Giving And Gratitude

Our Church Tithes and Offerings

Dedication #603 “In Loving Partnership We Come”

In loving partnership we come, seeking, O God, your will to do.

Our prayers and actions now receive, we freely offer them to you.

Prayer of Dedication

God of all peoples and God of all places, we present these offerings, that they may be used to extend your liberating reign. With them, we offer our varied ministries, that each of us may be part of your answer to the cries of the world. Amen.

Prayer of Thanksgiving, Intercession & Lord’s Prayer

May Christ, who makes saints of us all, who has transformed those we remember today, raise and strengthen you, that you may transform the world.

The Life And Work Of The Congregation

Thought For Today

I have never been hurt

by anything I didn’t say.

by Calvin Coolidge

Life is full of heavy burdens. It seems, things happen in our lives that weigh us down from the time we enter kindergarten until the time we die.

We are burdened by disappointments, we are burdened by the carelessly spoken words of others, we are burdened by our own guilt and by the circumstances in life that catch us unaware…the change in health that strips from us some of the independence that we take for granted…in fact our burdens can seem limitless because they touch us physically, mentally, and emotionally all along and throughout our life.

How we learn to integrate those burdens into our lives is God’s gift to us as a gift of development and growth…it is, in part, what it means for us to be human. And as unwelcome as some of these burdens are to us they move us from a place of self-centredness to a place of compassion…at least they have the potential to do so.

People who have lost children, for example, often have the ability to minister to ‘others in similar situations’ in ways that only they can. They can be a service to others simply because their unique place in life allows them to be.

War brides share a unique experience that bonds their hearts together in special ways...

Refugee camp detainees and hostages are bound together in ways that no one would covet but which only they can fully appreciate...

At this time of year we strive to remember the often selfless contribution of these folks and those whose lives were lost to conflict.

There are other burdens however that don’t and often cannot lead to life. Jesus identified some of these in his rant toward the scribes and the Pharisees—the teachers of the law. It would not have been a popular conversation. But it would have been a conversation that drew attention to a real problem in the life of the people who were “religiously burdened.”

Can you think of conversations that take place in our culture that are equally unappreciated by those in power?

On occasion a question surfaces that few are willing to ask: “What are the things that have transpired to encourage terrorism as a viable expression of disapproval in some minds?”

“To what degree are we willing to alter our life-styles to aid the sustainability of the world’s resources?”

Good questions. But compared to what Jesus was saying, they are “out there” corporate questions. What Jesus was identifying were issues that struck at the centre of the psyche of most every common person and even some of the scribes and Pharisees.

Religious leaders in the time of Christ had a thousand years of development behind them…the rules of Judaism were well known among the clerics of the day. More than 600 life laws are identified within the Torah so it was pretty easy to tie people up with burdens that did nothing to foster life.

Keith Wright speaks to the same sort of thing that Jesus was speaking about when he says, “If a particular branch of the faith can convince its members that it knows what must be done in order to be saved and that its path to salvation is the only way, that group will hold great power over its followers.

To have the keys to the kingdom of God is to have awesome power, and the ability to control and abuse almost at will. The same could be said of any charismatic leader who claims the same kind of special revelation from God, or the unique ability to interpret scripture.”

Wright goes on to say, “The truth of the matter… is that all religious groups use fear or manipulation to some extent. There is no such thing as a non-abusive religion, but there are faith communities that have become aware of the danger of their own abuse and that strive to minimize that abuse. The key to turning away from abuse, as much as possible, is found in a new understanding of power, both God's power and human power.

The power of God, as depicted in the long view of biblical history, is not the power to condemn and destroy. Instead, that power is demonstrated in the patient love of God, which works with all of creation to bring forth the best that is possible in humanity and creation. It is the power of weakness, the power of long-suffering love and concern for all life on this planet and throughout the universe.

God's power is a positive force that enables human beings to rise to their full potential. It is concerned not with punishment, but with rehabilitation and rebirth.

God's power works its change in individuals and society not through fear, but through modeling what is possible, and then challenging us to aspire to be like that model. It teaches us not by demanding perfection or by negative criticism, but by positive reinforcement that praises our accomplishments and sets our sights on the next level of achievement, which becomes our goal.

The greatest power is not the power to force one's will upon another, but the power to bring forth the best that is in another person - the power of love which enables us to trust God and ourselves and others once again.

Keith Wright in Religious Abuse: A Pastor Explores the Many Ways Religion Can Hurt as well as Heal (Northstone, 2001)

We need to hear stories of understanding that echo Wright’s words because they offer pointers to a faith that is timeless.

A little girl at a country fair was carrying a great big fluff of cotton candy on a stick, almost as large as her! A man stopped and asked her, “How can a little girl like you eat all that cotton candy?”

“Well,” she said to him, “I’m really much bigger on the inside than I am on the outside!”

On the outside you may, from time to time, feel like nothing, but on the inside you’re as big as the kingdom and the power and the glory of your God! Everyone can make a difference!

When we honour the immensity of spirit that dwells within each of us, the possibilities for life are amazing.

Some time ago I read an editorial piece in the Medicine Hat News … I refer to it here because I believe that the writer managed to capture the kind of life abundant that Jesus strived to share with people… and the kind of religious appreciation of which Keith Wright speaks. Religion is not a trap or snare or weapon, but as Jesus exemplified: religious life as a gift of life.

“I like my religion warm. Its warm glow should cast a gentle light on those around me so that I can see others’ pains and puzzles, doubts and fears, and reach out ever so gently to lend a helping hand.

I like my religion warm so that my doubts can be fearlessly displayed and shared, so that my frailties as a human can, be soothed, bathed in forgiveness and understanding.

I like my religion warm so that the harsh realities of everyday life, the sharp edges of disappointment, of failure and self-deceit can be wrapped, bandaged, and may be healed.

I don't like my religion too hot, so that I have to spit it out and onto other people's faces, searing them with the scalding brew of judgement and condemnation.

I don't like my religion too hot, so that compassion and empathy wither and wilt and turn into the dust of self-righteousness.

I don't like my religion too hot so that, like an angry fire, it is not quenched until all minds are melted into one mind, the right mind, my mind, so that all truths are consumed and only my truth remains.

I don't like my religion too cold, so that the freezing fingers of conviction cast icicles of hate into the world, so that religious robots shoot doctors to save lives, so that people who happen to love differently' are impaled by the crystallized venom of my own fear and unwillingness to understand.

I don't like religion too cold…. It turns hearts to stones which crush the weak, the lonely, the desperate, the needy, the confused… under an avalanche of vindictiveness and petty victories.”

The article concludes with these words: “By their fruits will you know them. Many of the letters written to this newspaper by the defenders of a very narrow piety smell of spoiled fruit indeed. The divisiveness, the vindictiveness, the self-righteousness, the thoughtless, mindless discipleship… emit a rather unholy stench.

What are the burdens that we are content to leave upon our own shoulders …burdens that prevent us from engaging life abundant…from seeing how huge we really are on the inside?

What are the burdens that we heap on the shoulders of others? Burdens that seek to deny the presence of God in another?

In Jesus we meet the one who seeks to carry all of those burdens and to embrace us in ways that make our burdens bearable and that offer us life & Hope.

And yes, life is full of heavy burdens…and, to be sure, our religion shouldn’t be one of them. Amen.

We Gather To Worship God

Prayer of Approach

We Listen For God’s Word

Prayer of Illumination

Joshua 3:7-17 From the Hebrew Scriptures Pg. 210

Anthem “How Shall I Sing to God?” by Wren & Larson

Matthew 23:1-12 From the Christian Scriptures Pg. 34

All: Thanks be to God

Sermon: “Heavy Burdens”

Mission Moment Dawn Knowles

Our Church Tithes and Offerings

Dedication #603 “In Loving Partnership We Come”

In loving partnership we come, seeking, O God, your will to do.

Our prayers and actions now receive, we freely offer them to you.

Prayer of Dedication

Prayer of Thanksgiving, Intercession & Lord’s Prayer