Pastoral Reflections

PLANT YOUR GARDEN

⁸ Then the Lord God planted a garden …, Gen 2:8a

Most of us plant a garden each spring and look forward eagerly to seeing the plants and vegetables grow. Grow into things that nourish our bodies and help keep us healthy. This growing and being ready to provide nourishment is a process; it doesn’t happen overnight. We need to care for the soil and provide water, sun and the nutrients required for healthy growth. This also applies for growing the spring garden in the picture. Without the Lord God planting in our souls, and without His Son working in our lives, and without our tears to water and rinse and cleanse, then these rows of peas and squash and lettuce will not grow…and flourish…and nourish…

Jesus said: “Love each other just as much as I love you” …John 13: 34

Only with Jesus help can we tend our gardens, remove the weeds of wrong thoughts and cultivate the love to share with everyone no matter what colour, or creed or differences they might have. With God’s love, we can embrace our brothers and sisters everywhere!

The above reflection and picture, written and shared by our Parish Nurse Jean MacDonald speaks so powerfully into this moment as we grieve the senseless killing of the Afzaal family this week in London; a killing motivated by anti-Muslim hate.  By God’s grace may we, empowered by the Spirit, love as God loved, praying as Jesus taught us, “Your kingdom come. Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven…

Grace to you and peace!

I live beside a cemetery. It’s moving to see visitors taking care of headstones, planting flowers, or simply spending quiet moments in reflection or prayer.  It is a place grieving families leave tributes, and remember. They can find ‘closure’.

The peace and tranquility of these memorial scenes stand in stark contrast to the discovery in British Columbia just last week, where the remains of 215 children were recently found at the site of a former residential school. We are profoundly moved and grieved by the loss of life under the residential school system. As a nation, we have all been forced to revisit sins of the past, as though they happened just yesterday. The feelings are raw, emotions run deep, and there are no quick and easy answers.

Words do not come easy, (nor should they) and profound proclamations are not needed … but the Spirit’s presence is. And so, in His Spirit, we desire to stand with the Indigenous community in this time of horrific tragedy. And we hurt because humanity hurts.

Approximately 150,000 indigenous children were taken away from their homes and sent to over 130 schools between the 1870s and 1996. It is a painful part of this country’s history. The discovery of these human remains in an unmarked grave is so painful on so many levels. According to the Truth and Reconciliation Committee, at least 4,100 children died while attending residential schools. At its height around 1930, the residential school system totaled 80 institutions.

If you want a great story of a survivor of the school in Kamloops, Outreach Canada produced his story in 2014. It’s on Vimeo. It’s called ‘Yummo Comes Home’.  You can access the story here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2msHfey-8u0

And with saddened and troubled spirits at such tragedy, we pray for the Indigenous community. And we pray for our nation of Canada during this time of reckoning. The Old Testament Prophets had plenty to say about God’s expectation for social justice. (Is.1:17, Is 10:1-3, Mal 3:5, Jer. 5:27-28, Amos 2:6-7) Full healing and reconciliation can only come when we are first reconciled to God in Christ. As we are reconciled with God, we are able to demonstrate love for God and love for our Indigenous neighbours through the tangible steps of action our Creator leads us to take.

May His peace and comfort reign in our lives and in the lives that have suffered such a great loss.

Sincerely,

Pastor Lloyd

Greetings in the name of God whose Spirit dwells within us!

Last Sunday we celebrated Pentecost and remembered the pouring out of God’s Spirit. The Spirit gave birth to the church and empowered the church for ministry. Almost 20 years after the resurrection of Jesus and the pouring out of the Spirit on the day of Pentecost the Apostle Paul wrote 1 Corinthians. In that letter he reminds the church that the Spirit of God is still active and activating gifts with us to be used for the common good of the church and the world around us.

⁴ Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; ⁵ and there are varieties of services, but the same Lord; ⁶ and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who activates all of them in everyone. ⁷ To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. ⁸ To one is given through the Spirit the utterance of wisdom, and to another the utterance of knowledge according to the same Spirit, ⁹ to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by the one Spirit, ¹⁰ to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another the discernment of spirits, to another various kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues. ¹¹ All these are activated by one and the same Spirit, who allots to each one individually just as the Spirit chooses. (1 Corinthians 12)

What ministry of the church is the Spirit placing on your heart? What passion and gift is the Spirit of God stirring up and activating within you? What gifts are God inviting you to set free for service in this moment of church life?

The list of gifts in the passage above is not an exhaustive list. Along with those gifts we need gifts of administration and leadership; gifts of relationship building and ministry with our youth and children; gifts of visioning and planning; gifts of music and worship leadership; gifts of maintenance and upkeep of our property and building; gifts of prayer and encouragement; gifts of hospitality and welcome; gifts of design and tech; and more…

As we emerge from this pandemic time in the months ahead we need to offer who we are and what we can “for the common good” of the church. As we grow, adapt, and are revitalized we need each other and all our gifts to stay Rooted in Christ, Growing together in faith and Extending God’s love!

The Gift Discernment Committee may reach out to you in the weeks ahead, but don’t wait for them to call. Reach out to them and let them know what God is activating within you; let them know where you are ready to serve! Marv Yantzi, Katie Wagler, Wayne Yantzi or me would love to hear from you! To reach out and offer yourself is not self-promotion but rather response to and following the lead of the Spirit!

I invite us to all pray, and partner together, as we work to fill our ministry positions and continue to be the church in this moment of time! 

Pastor Ray

Greetings in the name of our God of Justice and Peace!

Then justice will dwell in the wilderness, and righteousness abide in the fruitful field.
¹⁷ The effect of righteousness will be peace, and the result of righteousness, quietness and trust forever. ¹⁸ My people will abide in a peaceful habitation, in secure dwellings, and in quiet resting places. Isaiah 32:16-17

The prophet Isaiah speaks of a time when justice, righteousness and peace will fill the land. As human beings we all long for justice and righteousness and for a home and secure dwelling place where we can live in peace. The sad truth is that this is not the reality for our sisters and brothers in so many places in the world, most notably right now in Gaza and Jerusalem.

In 2017 Esther Epp-Tiessen wrote a prayer for Mennonite Central Committee’s Peace Packet. This prayer (with a few same adaptations) continues to be so needed today.

O God of life and love and peace, we witness the violence and injustice in your Holy Land

And our hearts break.

Our hearts break for all Palestinians— for the victims of violent attacks from Israelis;

For those who have endured decades of occupation and oppression

For those whose homes, streets and neighbourhoods have been destroyed.

For those without nearly enough water and electricity and medical care.

For those who are refugees, long displaced from their homes.

For those who fear that they will soon be refugees.

Our hearts break for the Jewish people of Israel—

For the victims of violent attacks from Palestinians.

For those who live with fear and insecurity.

For those who re-live the trauma of the Holocaust over and over.

Our hearts break for the wider world—

For those who are indifferent to the pain, suffering and injustice in your Holy Land.

For those who distort or turn their eyes from truth.

For those who fail to see the humanity of all your children.

Heal us all, O God. Heal the broken and comfort the sorrowful.

Give hope to the hopeless and courage to the fearful.

Strengthen the peacemakers and reconcilers.

Confront those who practice injustice and commit violence.

We especially pray— that weapons of war be laid down.

That walls of separation and the machinery of occupation be dismantled.

That prisoners be released.

That demonizing of “the other” will cease.

That political leaders would seek the good of all people in Palestine and Israel.

We pray also for ourselves—

That our eyes will be opened to the ways in which our beliefs and actions have contributed to injustice and to violence.

That we will commit to prophetic actions that will lead to a just peace for those oppressed.

O God, whose heart breaks for the world, may your justice dwell in the land, may your righteousness abide in fruitful fields, may the effect of righteousness be quietness and trust forever, may all abide in a peaceful habitation, in secure dwellings, and in quiet resting places. May the effect of justice be peace – enduring peace.

Amen

Pastor Ray

JEAN’S TIDBIT   MAY 2021

This is National Nursing Week May 10 – 16, 2021 and the theme this year is:

#We Answer The Call.

This is your opportunity to express your gratitude to the nurse or nurses you know for all that they do. Send a note or make a call expressing your thanks, flowers, chocolates, a meal, a gift card, – you choose! Showing our support means so much!

National Nursing Week is a time to acknowledge the great care we receive from trained professionals who don’t just ‘do their job’, which in itself deserves recognition, but also ‘go beyond’, in caring for their charges.

This special week coincides with Florence Nightingale’s birthday.  Florence Nightingale is honoured because she revolutionized modern nursing. Her family was horrified when Florence started helping people as they thought she should live life as a gentlewoman. Though she did not think herself deeply religious and never thought she became so, on February 7, 1837, when she was scarcely 17 years old, she felt that God spoke to her, calling her to future “service.” From that time on her life was changed.

No one else can be Florence Nightingale. Not everyone will become trained medical people. Yet, I believe God does ‘call’ all of us to service.   The Apostle Paul says, So then, while we have opportunity, let us do good to all men, and especially to those who are of the household of the faith.  Even the Old Testament says ‘You shall open wide your hand to your brother, to the needy and to the poor, in your land.’  I am reminded today of St. Francis of Assisi’s famous prayer:

Lord make Me an instrument of Your peace
Where there is hatred let me sow love.
Where there is injury, pardon.
Where there is doubt, faith.
Where there is despair, hope.
Where there is darkness, light.
Where there is sadness joy.
O Divine master grant that I may
Not so much seek to be consoled as to console
To be understood, as to understand.
To be loved. as to love
For it’s in giving that we receive
And it’s in pardoning that we are pardoned
And it’s in dying that we are born…
To eternal life

May God show you how you can be an ‘instrument of His peace’, and may we not ‘grow weary with well doing’.

Jean MacDonald, Parish Nurse