Saturday March 28 over 40 people got together to talk about where we would go over the next few years. Lots of good ideas about making people want to be part of us. Also discussion about the role of the new staff position – what should their role be and what impact will it have on our being church.
Archive for March, 2009
A Day Apart
Monday, March 30th, 2009Oscar Sermon Series
Monday, March 30th, 2009Over 400 people listened to Gary’s sermon on Slumdog Millionaire. This concluded the Oscar Sermon Series for this year. Let us know what you think of the series and whether we should do it again next year.
Slumdog Millionaire
Friday, March 27th, 2009Hello Friends,
And welcome to the 5th Sunday of Lent, where we will be talking about “Slumdog Millionaire, the final film in our Oscar Sermon Series. Because the DVD doesn’t come out until March 31st, we will be showing the film AFTER the sermon, on Friday, April 3rd, 7 pm.
We will be joined this Sunday by a Celtic band that Darryl has put together, and we’ll be starting off worship singing “Morning Has Broken.” We’ll also have a chance, during Time with the Children, to learn Hymn #252, one that comes to us from India. It’s called “Jaya Ho”, which is translated as “Victory Hymn.” Interestingly enough, “Jai Ho” is the name of the Oscar Best Song, which came from “Slumdog Millionaire.”
Remember that this is “Bring a Friend” Sunday,” so why not ask someone to come with you to worship this Sunday; find out if they’ve seen “Slumdog Millionaire”… could be an “easy ask”!!
Russell and Emily are going to give us a brief update on our Lenten Project, “Children Helping Children”.
Also… a reminder that this coming Saturday is our “Day Apart”, where we gather together (10 to 3 in the Salons) to do some dreaming about where we are headed in the coming year, where we discern that God is calling us. It looks like about 50 or so folk are planning to come… it will be a good day. There’s always room for more!! (But if you haven’t already signed up, please email Jim and Gwen Maclean-Cruickshank (bayview@bayview-bb.com) ’cause they’re planning lunch!)
And, we are sorry to say that Reta Chase passed away early in the week. There will be a graveside service at the family plot in her hometown in Saskatchewan; we will be having a small Memorial Service for Reta on Thursday, April 2nd, at 3pm.
GLEANINGS
It can sometimes be difficult for us to get beyond our own Euro-centric blinkers when we think about Christianity. We forget that it began as an “Asian” faith, and the subsequent centers of learning were in northern Africa. As we take a look at Slumdog Millionaire, perhaps it is important to remember that, according to tradition, St. Thomas, one of Jesus’ disciples, supposedly travelled to India in 52 AD, to Kerala, the southern most state on the Arabian Sea. He ministered there for nearly twenty years, until he was martyred — his tomb is still venerated today. Which means that Indian Christians have a longer history than many Europeans… Peter didn’t arrive in Rome until 68 AD!!
Today there are something like 25 million Christians in India, 2.3% of the population, which makes it the third largest faith group in India. The majority are Roman Catholic (17 million) but most Protestant denominations can also be found in India, as a result of the missionary efforts of colonial powers. Unfortunately, overly aggressive missionaries, particularly in the 19th century, offended many Hindus and Muslims, who experienced this as an attack on their faith and culture.
Some Indian Christians have been able to join together their faith while still maintaining their Hindu culture; they have found meaningful and faithful ways to celebrate, for instance, the Hindu festival of Diwalhi. And yet approx. 70% of Christians come from the Dalit caste (one of the lowest), and for them Christianity has been a way to challenge oppressive cultural structures. Today Christians are found all across India and in all walks of life, with major populations in parts of South India, Konkan Coast and North-East India, and sparse populations in Central India. Christian presence in India is most visible in the form of thousands of educational institutions, social services, and hospitals run by Christian organizations
We have much to learn from Christians on the other side of the globe; listen to these words from Chandran Devanesen:
Are you a stranger to my country, Lord?
My land of black roots and thick jungles…
where the monkeys chatter in the trees,
and the peacock’s shrill note
echoes through the mist-clad hills;
my land of brown, caked river mud
where the elephant and the leopard come to drink…
my land with its friezes of palmyra palms
etched sharply against the blue mountains;
my land of low-lying plains
with its miles of murmuring paddy fields
that stretch in undulating waves of green
to the distant horizon;
my land of sapphire skies and flaming sunset,
my land of leaden grey skies piled high
with banks of monsoon clouds;
my land of stinging rain, of burning heat,
of dark nights, of enchanting moons
that dance behind the coconut fronds;
my land of tanks and pools
where the lazy buffalo wallows
and the red lotuses lies asleep?
No, you are no stranger, Lord,
for the wind whispers of you
and the waters chant your name.
The whole land is hushed in trembling expectancy,
awaiting your touch of creative love.
Blessings,
Rev. Gary Paterson
March 19, 2009
Thursday, March 19th, 2009Greetings,
The fourth Sunday of Lent is coming up, and the film we will be exploring this week is “Milk”. Remember that it will be shown in the Salons (1016 Nelson) on Friday at 7 pm. Dianna Waggoner, a writer for People Magazine, was in San Francisco in Harvey Milk’s era, and covered the story of his assassination. She will be speaking on Friday evening… “background and colour.”
The article on the Oscar Sermon Series in last Monday’s Vancouver Sun, has sparked further media interest, and Global TV is planning to be present on Sunday morning to film a bit of the worship service, and to offer a two minute clip on the evening news about what we are doing. So don’t be surprised if you see a TV camera … we’ve asked them to be discrete and not disrupt worship.
We will be joined this Sunday by a guest musician, Stefan Hintersteininger, a Cellist.
And remember that after worship, everyone is invited to the Annual General Meeting (child care offered), where we will “do the business” over a light lunch.
GLEANINGS
Ted Loder is a fine writer of prayers. They’re long, and so often don’t make it into worship services. But here’s one on freedom, that in some ways touches upon themes from the film “Milk.” It comes from Loder’s book, My Heart in My Mouth: Prayers for Our Lives (Philadelphia: Innisfree Press, 2000) It’s long… but worth reading to the end.
Is This What It Means to Be Free?
Elusive yet attending God,
here we are, as if you didn’t know,
bold to bother you again,
since from the beginning you made us this way
and insisted on bothering us ever since.
Why do you bother us with all these questions,
those counter claims, contingencies, and confusion,
with the mystery in everything obvious
and the hiddenness in everything plain?
Why all these whys, these ifs, hows, and whethers,
all these half answers that multiply
into more mind-wrinkling questions,
all these nagging moral dilemmas
instead of definite right and wrong solutions?
Why isn’t the purpose of the universe evident, not obscured,
by theories of relativity,
principles of uncertainty
and probability structures,
by chaos dynamics,
hints of a strange attractor,
by antics of electrons in atoms
and light that behaves like particles or waves,
depending on who’s watching?
Why is the marvel of a molecule of DNA its capacity
to blunder into something new
when we would have made it perfect,
according to our Eden complex;
except the molecules blundered
their way into us first –
or was that your “sort of” plan all the time,
the blundering being a nudge
toward an intentional choosing
through the whole twisting way?
Why does the interaction of things and creatures
constantly change things and creatures,
which somehow makes us key players
in your process of creating this corner
of the universe, doesn’t it?
Or maybe of the whole thing?
Why is our compelling impulse to love
so confusing and sometimes painful?
What makes our nagging need
to do what’s right and just
so difficult and complicated?
Why is beauty so haunting and inviting,
words so powerful and compelling,
feelings the bridge to neighbours and to stars,
thought so deep and yet confounding,
music a universal language
no one can quite explain or silence,
unless the universe itself ceases to hum?
Why do you bother us in so many ways
with so many mysteries?
Why suffering, why accidents and birth defects,
why violence and hate, why disease and cruelty?
Why did you do it this way?
Why throw us out of Eden for one mistake?
Or are we in exile because we keep making it?
Is this what it means to be free?
Is freedom the foremost of your lover’s gifts
to this whole megillah, from galaxies to microbes,
to human hearts and minds and wills?
Quite honestly, it is a bothersome gift, God,
a burden equal to its blessing,
in spite of our passionate desire for it,
for from the Garden on, we seem hell bent
on misunderstanding and misusing it,
shirking its responsibilities,
as well as its just possibilities,
wanting more order and security,
more privilege, comfort and control
than freedom allows,
or love can give, or even faith can grasp,
if the mysteries of this living universe
reveal any of truth at all,
or human history does.
So, Lord, we pray we’re worth your bother
and that you continue to be up to it.
and we up to it as well,
to what the gifts of love and freedom are about.
Bother us, then into the wisdom
of accepted limitation,
of knowing that all we do not know
is not a matter of “not yet,”
but of what we will never know,
are not meant to know,
the not of not being you –
putting all our pretense
at least momentarily aside.
Bother us out of pride
into the humility of wisdom
and into gentleness with each other
and ourselves, and with you.
Bother us out of fear
into the courage to take
the leap of faith we’ve feared to take,
falling not being our primal inclination,
except, perhaps (where else at last)
into your arms.
Lord, we know not why
you bother us with freedom and with grace,
with beauty and with awe,
with children’s trusting
past our little answers,
with their bothering us to follow them
into the unknown, unknowable lands
of their insistent curiosity
and on to kingdoms of dreams
and ever after.
Bothered as we are, we do not pray
to be delivered from any save the fear of it.
but rather to be bothered on and on
by our freedom, and by yours,
into even deeper water,
so we will keep bothering you as well.
Our truest hope is that, in that interaction
and the faith that it requires,
things will change,
we will change,
the world will change,
and there will be more cures,
more symphonies and laughter,
more peace and community,
more honesty and trust,
more justice, more mercy,
more reconciliation and rejoicing
more reveling in the mystery
of your unaccountable grace,
more of gratitude,
of life,
of you.
Amen.
Blessings,
Rev. Gary Paterson