Pastoral Reflections

Grace and peace to you!

This week we entered into Lent, the 40 days, not counting Sundays, when we think about Jesus’ journey to the cross. Our Lent worship resource for this year reminds us that, “Confession is a central practice in the season of Lent. Confession is telling the truth. We confess what we have done, what we believe, what we feel, and what we fear. We confess our need for restoration. True confession is a deep dive, sometimes into truths we haven’t yet expressed or have a hard time bringing to the surface.”

This description of confession is so helpful. At times we so quickly move to thinking confession is just about naming the bad things, the sin, in our lives. And while it certainly includes that it is so much more. Confession, as it is described above, reminds us it’s about being honest about all that is happening within us. It’s about honestly naming our feelings and fears, our hopes and our dreams, the struggles and the truth of who we really are. It’s about uncovering all the things that when hidden within us and kept to ourselves sap life and energy from us. When we keep so much of who we are buried within it works on us and keeps us from living in the freedom of who we are and who God created us to be.

Psalm 32 speaks to the confession of sin but I believe the freedom and blessing it speaks of applies to any confession we make.

Psalm 32

¹ Blessed is the one whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered.
² Blessed is the one whose sin the Lord does not count against them and in whose spirit is no deceit.

³ When I kept silent, my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long.
⁴ For day and night your hand was heavy on me; my strength was sapped
    as in the heat of summer.

⁵ Then I acknowledged my sin to you and did not cover up my iniquity.
I said, “I will confess my transgressions to the Lord.”
And you forgave the guilt of my sin.

Too many things we carry within and keep to ourselves to the detriment of our health and the wellbeing of our soul. God invites us into relationships of trust where we can acknowledge and confess to him and to each other our truth. When confessed and named, our truth whatever it is, can be addressed in whatever way it needs to be so we can live in the new freedom of God’s love and grace.

Truly confession, in all its forms, is good for the soul!

Fasting is another central practice of Lent. Do you want to fast this Lent? Consider the words of Pope Francis and the prophet Isaiah.

In the words of Pope Francis:

• Fast from hurting words and say kind words.

• Fast from sadness and be filled with gratitude.

• Fast from anger and be filled with patience.

• Fast from pessimism and be filled with hope.

• Fast from worries and have trust in God.

• Fast from complaints and contemplate simplicity.

• Fast from pressures and be prayerful.

• Fast from bitterness and fill your hearts with joy.

• Fast from selfishness and be compassionate to others.

• Fast from grudges and be reconciled.

• Fast from words and be silent so you can listen.

In the words of the prophet Isaiah:

Is not this the fast that I choose:
    to loose the bonds of injustice, to undo the thongs of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free,
    and to break every yoke?
⁷ Is it not to share your bread with the hungry, and bring the homeless poor into your house;
when you see the naked, to cover them, and not to hide yourself from your own kin?
⁸ Then your light shall break forth like the dawn, and your healing shall spring up quickly;

(Isaiah 58)

Blessings to you on your journey with Jesus through Lent!

Pastor Ray and Pastor Tanya

Grace to you and peace!

This Sunday we will gather for our Annual Meeting. As we gather we will spend time in worship, celebrating and remembering God’s presence and provision through 2020. We will recall the challenges, gifts, grief and joy that were part of all the happenings of this past year. We will pray together, discern together and hope together as we anticipate how God will lead us and provide for us in 2021. In my pastoral report I remind us that Jesus is the builder of the church and is invested in its life and ministry.  As I work my way through the report booklet that was sent to us last week I marvel at the reminders that we have continued to be the church even through a difficult year. If you have not had a chance to read through the report booklet and additional materials we invite you to do that before Sunday.

In Tanya’s report she ponders 8 powerful questions as she reflects on this pandemic year in the life of the church. Tanya’s concluding words in her report respond to two of her questions.

“What is the most important lesson you learned this year?

The most important lesson that we have learned is that our building is not the church. We, the people are the church. Church was never canceled. We changed our format but we have never been more committed to love, worship, care, serve, give, pray and commit to God’s mission to help bring the Kingdom of God, here on earth. So what words would I chose to sum up 2020? Surrendering. Caring. Reimagining. Hope.”

I say something similar as I near the end of my report. “The church that Jesus said he would build was never primarily about worship gatherings and programs in a building. It was always about ministry to and with people for the purpose of building God’s kingdom and living God’s way of love, light, hope, joy, justice and peace for the sake of the whole world.”

The church that Jesus builds is for the sake of building and advancing the mission of God’s kingdom in the world. Over the last few years we have discerned together our purpose statement: To be Rooted in Christ, Growing Together in Faith and Extending God’s love. As we the church live into this purpose we join God’s mission and we partner with God in building the kingdom of God.

The song, “Build your Kingdom Here” by the band Rend Collective speaks so powerfully to this calling for the church as it offer this prayer:

Build your kingdom here, Let the darkness fear, Show your mighty hand, Heal our streets and land. Set your church on fire, Win this nation back, Change the atmosphere, Build Your kingdom here, We pray.

Come set Your rule and reign, In our hearts again, Increase in us we pray, Unveil why we’re made, Come set our hearts ablaze with hope, Like wildfire in our very souls, Holy Spirit, come invade us now. We are Your Church, And we need Your power, In us…

As the apostle Paul writes to the church at Ephesus he reminds them that God’s power is available! 

¹⁸ I pray that your hearts will be flooded with light so that you can understand the confident hope he has given to those he called—his holy people who are his rich and glorious inheritance. ¹⁹ I also pray that you will understand the incredible greatness of God’s power for us who believe. (Ephesians 1)

Sunday is not only annual meeting day, it’s Valentine’s Day!

Why do we celebrate this day? 

In an article I read this week I was reminded that Valentine’s Day was initially a Christian feast day honoring a martyr named St. Valentine, a 3rd-century Roman saint. One of the most famous legends of St. Valentine is that he was a priest who agreed to officiate marriages for young soldiers even though these marriage were illegal. Emperor Claudius II forbid young soldiers from marrying in fear it would distract them from battle. St. Valentine went against the emperor’s order and married couples in secret. I guess the secret got out because the emperor had St. Valentine imprisoned and eventually executed on February 14. 

Another legend suggests St. Valentine helped Christians escape the harsh Roman prisons. On one of these escape missions, or when we has confined in prison himself, he ended up healing a prison guard’s daughter from blindness. Some legends suggests he not only healed this woman but also fell in love with her! He then wrote her a letter and signed it before his execution, “from your Valentine.”

The early legends of St. Valentine’s Day are intriguing. And the love we celebrate on this day is a varied as the people who celebrate it. We may have mixed feelings about this day that celebrates human love. God reminds us that our worth is not determined by the cards or gifts we receive or don’t receive on this day. Our worth is anchored in God who is love, and in our identity as God’s beloved child. We ultimately receive love because Jesus chose us and claimed us as holy and beloved!

See what love God has given us that we should be called children of God; and that is what we are. 1 John 3.1

Blessings as you receive and extend God’s love!

Pastor Ray 

Grace to you and peace!

One of my favourite passages from the prophet Isaiah speaks some amazing truths about God that are important for us to cling too. But before Isaiah gets to those “God truths” we are confronted with some “human truth.”  Isaiah names our human tendency to complain and to fall into despair believing that God is ignoring us and no longer cares about our life challenges and crises. Isaiah asks God’s people, “Why do you complain?”

²⁷ Why do you complain, Jacob? Why do you say, Israel, “My way is hidden from the Lord; my cause is disregarded by my God”? (Isaiah 40)

The last 11 months of our lives have created opportunity for moments (or days) of “complaining”. It feels like this 2020-21 pandemic has dragged on for too long and has taken too much away.  Maybe along the way you have asked, “Has God forgotten that we are in a pandemic?” “Is God disregarding our need to get back to a normal routine?”

Perhaps we can find some comfort in knowing that complaining and questioning God is not a new and recent human trait. It seems to be part of the human DNA through all of history. Isaiah names the complaining but moves quickly to the truths about God that we are invited to remember and hold onto.

²⁸ Do you not know? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He will not grow tired or weary, and his understanding no one can fathom.
²⁹ He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak.

I think our human “complaining” grows out of another human tendency and reality; the reality of tiredness, weariness and human frailty. Stressful and difficult times can wear us down. Lots is happening in the world and in our lives, even beyond a pandemic. Sickness and disease attacks our bodies and impacts our mental health; the earth is groaning under the weight of destructive human actions; civil unrest, political wrangling, name calling and blaming goes on and on; poverty and other injustices continue; and so much more. It all wears us down. And yet, “Do you not know? Have you not heard?” We worship a God who does not grow tired or weary, with the world, with the church, or even with us and our times of complaining!

And God’s capacity to understand it all, move in and through it all, work miracles and bring new life in spite of it all is amazing and beyond our comprehension! And the truth that God chooses to strengthen and renew us, while continuing to work in partnership with us, even though we are prone to complaining and growing weary, is an incredible gift of grace! It’s a wonderful truth we need to embrace. We don’t understand the world, and the ways of God within the world, but God always understands! God is forever invested in our world and in our lives! God is ready and waiting to strengthen and empower us for the ongoing journey! God has not forgotten us!

³⁰ Even youths grow tired and weary, and young people stumble and fall;
³¹ but those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles;
    they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint. (Isaiah 40)

When we hope or trust in God, when we wait upon and look expectantly to God, believing that God’s promises will be fulfilled, our strength is renewed and our hope revived. We may be tired and weary now, longing to get back to “normal” but God wants more that “back to normal” for us. God is ready to empower us to walk, to run, even to soar and fly forward into the future God is preparing for us! A future that will be bring more than any “normal” ever could.

Lord, help us to hope, trust and wait upon you! Help us to walk, run and even soar into the future you have for us!

Pastor Ray

Grace to you and peace!

As I write this reflection this week mental health awareness is being promoted by Bell Let’s Talk Day in an effort help dismantle stigma and promote conversation. We applaud this effort.

In a Thursday morning article on CTVNews.ca the writer reminds us that “this year, more than ever Canadians are reporting anxiety and depression as the second wave of COVID-19 upends normal life. According to a recent survey by Mental Health Research Canada, 22 per cent of surveyed Canadians reported that they had been diagnosed with depression, with another 20 per cent saying they had received an anxiety disorder diagnosis, representing an all-time high.”

80% of us may not currently be diagnosed with a mental illness but I believe all of us have times and seasons when the struggle to maintain mental health becomes really hard. I know that has been my personal experience over the years.

Psalm 42 speaks so powerfully to the struggle to maintain mental health. The psalm names the downcast soul. It highlights the desire, when feeling disconnected, to feel connected to God and community. It highlights the fight to hold onto hope. It names tears, troubling questions, waves and billows crashing over and pushing down on us. It describes mournful walking, adversaries, oppression and restlessness within. The language it uses describes depression and inner pain so well. The psalm also names God, thanksgiving, steadfast love, prayer and hope. It names these hopeful things while implying how hard they are to cling to when the soul is cast down within.

The profound truth that Psalm 42 and other psalms reveal is that people of faith struggle with depression, anxiety, suicidal thoughts and actions, and other forms of mental illness. It affirms that people of faith need to wrestle at times, as so many do, to maintain mental health and hold onto life and hope. And that truth is not a truth we need to feel shame about or feel judged for. It is a truth we need to name along with the psalmist and so many of God’s people through the ages. It is something we need to talk about!

This week as I was preparing these thoughts I noticed that Sarah Ropp had shared a post on Facebook naming her struggle. Thank you Sarah for “talking” and sharing part of your story and mental health journey. Thank you for allowing us to share it again in this reflection.

“This year marks 6 years since the year that mental health became a daily conversation…

6 years since I had those pills pealed out of my trembling hands…

6 years since I dropped out of university and moved back home…

6 years since I hit rock bottom and was taken to the hospital by my grandparents and admitted to the RVH psych ward for severe anxiety, depression and suicide watch…

6 years since the start of my 2.5 year search for a correct diagnosis… The start of dozens of medications, tests, therapists, psychiatrists, psychotherapists, social workers…

My mental health journey was long and painful. It wasn’t until 3.5 years ago that I finally had my correct diagnosis, after being diagnosed with basically every mental health disorder including bi-polar disorder and ‘medication induced bi-polar disorder’ (what even is that?!) which made me realise something wasn’t right. I quit all my medications cold turkey, without telling Nathan or my doctors… (I definitely do not suggest anyone EVER do that…it was horrible…)

It wasn’t until I was off all medications that we recognized a trend with my menstrual cycle… 2 weeks of every month I was 100% fine… Then 2 weeks of every month I was bi-polar, depressed and suicidal…

After my first meeting with Dr. Manuzzi at the Women’s health concerns clinic at St. Joe’s in Hamilton, I knew I was going to be ok. After dozens of different medications and diagnosis’ I was finally diagnosed with PMDD… And the treatment…. Birth control… That was it. For the past almost 4 years that one little pill has allowed me to live, love and be loved and I am forever grateful

Talking about mental health has always been important to me and on #bellletstalkday, I share my story once again to remind people that, though it is tough, it is a worthwhile journey! You are loved, you are important and you need to be on this earth to see the beauty that your life can and will be ”

As you reflect on Sarah’s story, and you your own mental health journey, I invite you to read the words of Psalm 42.

1 As a deer longs for flowing streams, so my soul longs for you, O God.

2 My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.

When shall I come and behold the face of God?

3 My tears have been my food day and night, while people say to me continually, “Where is your God?”

4 These things I remember, as I pour out my soul: how I went with the throng, and led them in procession to the house of God, with glad shouts and songs of thanksgiving, a multitude keeping festival.

5 Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you disquieted within me?

Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, my help 6 and my God.

My soul is cast down within me; therefore I remember you from the land of Jordan and of Hermon, from Mount Mizar.

7 Deep calls to deep at the thunder of your cataracts; all your waves and your billows have gone over me.

8 By day the Lord commands his steadfast love, and at night his song is with me, a prayer to the God of my life.

9 I say to God, my rock, “Why have you forgotten me?

Why must I walk about mournfully because the enemy oppresses me?”

10 As with a deadly wound in my body, my adversaries taunt me, while they say to me continually, “Where is your God?”

11 Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you disquieted within me?

Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, my help and my God.

“Talking” about our story can be so important for our own mental health and for the mental health of those around us. If you would like to share part of your story and mental health journey in a future letter, or in our Sunday morning worship gathering, please reach out to us. EZMC, Let’s Talk and share our stories!

One of the new songs in our “Voices Together” Hymnal is “Still my Soul.”

May these words become your prayer and may God still your soul.

Still my soul, calm my roaming mind, Give me peace; may my heart unwind. Let me stay, your beloved guest. Take my fear, make my worry rest. What I hold, let me give to you. Aid my strength when my storms drive through. When my thoughts won’t let me go, I’ll sing to you: oh, still my soul.  By Katie Garber

Pastor Ray 

Grace to you and peace!

In my morning Bible reading this week I was drawn to an amazing truth from the early chapters of Exodus. God hears our cries!

The Israelites groaned under their slavery, and cried out. Out of the slavery their cry for help rose up to God. ²⁴ God heard their groaning, and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. ²⁵ God looked upon the Israelites, and God took notice of them. (Exodus 2)

God heard the cries of the Israelites, look upon them and took notice of them!

Through all of history God has heard the cries of his people. God heard the cry of Hagar and her boy (Genesis 21.15-19). God heard the cry of Hannah (1 Samuel 1). God heard the cry of Mary weeping outside the tomb of Jesus (John 20.11ff). Jesus heard the cry of Martha, Mary and the friends of Lazarus, and Jesus wept with them (John 11). God hears the cries of his people and God responds!

The Psalmist David gave testimony to this truth in his personal song of praise,

¹⁷ The Lord hears his people when they cry to him for help. God rescues them from all their troubles. ¹⁸ The Lord is close to the broken-hearted; the Lord rescues those whose spirits are crushed. (Psalm 34)

The last year has brought various occasions for tears, crying and crushed spirits. We have grieved the death of friends and loved ones, felt the loss of in person connections with family and friends, experienced times of feeling so alone; we have longed to be with those who are hurting, aging, experiencing personal crisis, living through significant life transition, but this pandemic has keep us apart; we have watched the struggle and heard the cries of our children as they work at on line learning when in person learning at school is what they long for and need; we have faced our own daily challenges in the midst of this pandemic, at times we have thrived and at other times barely survived; we have felt the multiple losses over the last 10 months and we have grieved, and we have cried. And we still do!

The story of God’s people reminds us that when we cry God hears!

And when we weep God takes notice and God cares! Psalm 56.8 tells us that God keeps track of all our sorrows. Collects all our tears in a bottle, recording each one in God’s book.

Each time we cry, each tear we shed is remembered and is held by God.

And through a text, phone call, note or card; through an act of kindness by a neighbour or a friend; through a word of grace from a fellow traveller on this journey; through the hug from your child or grandchild; through a word of scripture; through the work of the Spirit in ways we may never fully understand; God acts to honour our tears, to restore our souls and to bring us to new freedom, life and joy!

⁴ Restore our fortunes, Lord, as streams renew the desert.
⁵ Those who plant in tears will harvest with shouts of joy. ⁶ Those who go out weeping, bearing the seed for sowing, shall come home with shouts of joy, carrying their sheaves. (Psalm 126)

Pastor Ray