Neighbours - Our Extended Family - May 22, 2022
Carolyn Smith. Neighbours - Our Extended Family
Remember the fun Sunday school rhyme with our hands and fingers entwined? Here is the Church - Here is the Steeple - Open the doors, Here’s all the People!
But when I was five, I might entwine my fingers and get it all wrong and then ... Open the doors andWhere’s all the people? !!!
We know that not everyone is AT church these days - some of you are AT church, even if you’re at Home, and even if it’s Tuesday and you’re watching this with your coffee. I’m thinking about folks who aren’t at our church ever, or the neighbours church, or any place of worship. And we’re friends, because church or not, we’re coworkers neighbours and family. Heck, some days we don’t want to get up for church too!
Like this weekend - If I take a poll - Who is at the cottage or off visiting this weekend? “Crickets” - because they’re not in this space with us.... It’s the first long weekend of summer, it’s the first long weekend of outdoor greening up forests and sparkling lake weather. It’s gardening weather. And who is a picnic with family, and I remember many Victoria Days catching up with piles of friends at the fireworks!!! Maybe not everyone is at church, but community life with community friends is not half bad right?
Don’t you love the story that Margaret told? I laughed when I first heard it - I can tell she raised boys!! Jesus, of all kids, getting scolded in the temple because he disappeared on his parents and is found hanging out at church, and then looks at them with the 12 year old eye-roll - “where where else did you think I’d be????” Is it A nightmare that he’s missing, or a dream that he’s nerding out with Rabbis at church? And how could they miss him??
This month,We’ve been celebrating our St. Paul’s Family Reunion - with the freedom to be in person and catch up with each other in all our generations, and see how the kids have grown. There is a familiarity and enjoyment of a congregational family that feels
good. Mary & Joseph joined in with their travelling companions with some post-festival joy and fatigue and camaraderie. Passover was a big deal! Everyone travelled from towns all around to the big city for some religious activities but also some fun, feasting, and reconnecting with far-flung family and friends. Jesus with his parents made the trek from Nazareth with a whole pile of grandmas and gramps and aunties and uncles and friends and cousins all jostling about , shifting from conversation with one relative to laughing with another, kids tumbling along and laughing, racing each other, or whining, tired of carrying stuff, and finding mom for a hug. Babies passed from tired shoulders to fresh ones. It was a couple of days back and forth - not particularly quick, but busy and noisy and it’s community at its best.What community is perfect? But essentially, this was happy Familiarity mixed with a comfortable sense of belonging for the travellers .
No wonder a random 12 year old might not be on everyone’s radar all the time. I’m guessing Jesus mentioned something in Passing to his cousin Zach -" hey, I’ll be back in a bit. Tell mom not to worry. If they ask, tell them I went to the temple.“ And Zach probably laughed and said “The temple? Yeah right” and then promptly forgot anything while he chased down cousin Miriam who was doing cartwheels with the other kids. Community at its best... what is that made of? Whether its church, with singing and traditions and shared values; or a High School Graduation ceremony full of kids and parents and teachers and hope and pride and that sense of coming of age, or the neighbourhood Fireworks with food booths with perogies from the Ukrainian Catholics or Samosas from the Sikh Gurdwarda; and Pride Rainbows and a shady spot to sit for aging ones. And a shared delight in laughter and treats and thriving community - we look for a sense of belonging, shared values and hope. When we feel that way, we can look past some differences, and appreciate some common ground. We might find some sense of safety and wondering and learning and creativity together.We might even soften our edges a little bit. There is a lot of learning and a whole lot of Spirit going on in the tumble of community like that.
Something I’ve learned about the community that is the Church of St. Paul’s United is that we are people embedded in the community - as coaches of the baseball teams and forwards in hockey and robotics competitions, making music, hosting Cadets and AA and bands and renters.We go to the schools and to work, and support the charities. We arefriendswithpeoplewhogotootherchurches,othertemples,othermosques. We cherish our friends, our sense of belonging and we want others to feel that sense of flourishing too. It’s part of what you read about last week in the special letter from the Board about severing the Manse and seeking more input for our Mission. When I held up my fingers earlier - here’s the empty church - it’s not so much that we’re worried about being *gone,* but being alive and present here AND out and about beyond our walls and befriending others who come in.
It all sounds like fun with fireworks and happy safe kids and shared values.You know though, We aren’t hopeful like this because we’re shallow. We are hopeful because we’ve felt the impact of a community that serves, one that worships love and care for thelowestandleast. WearepeopleoflovingNeighbours,affirmingthosemarginalized, even loving enemies as ourselves.
We say that, but it isn’t necessarily easy.
Welcome to Election time... oooh- did you feel the energy just deflate? So much for happy fireworks. This is the rough and tumble of real family where the journey isn’t so carefree, it’s where we are sometimes stuck at crossroads with different maps. Some of us have eye-rolling kids to think about. Others are focused on health needs or struggling for housing. The planet doesn’t get a vote unless you vote for the planet. Urgent problems vs important ones. Some are about comfort and thriving issues in a province we love for lots of reasons. Some are life-saving, or life-threatening ones. Because isn’t politics about people? From poli- in greek meaning ‘of the people,’ and economy from ekos - in greek - about the household - or rather more specifically - Oikos - (like the yogurt) Oikos is of the family, of the home, ecology/economics....
There is a bit of learning tossed into our family reunion today - like young Jesus saying to cousin Zach - tell my mom I went to the temple to talk with the rabbis!
We’re here as the extended Family of God, closer related family of Jesus and his folks as Christians, but connected to all people. And that is where so much of our ingrained, family-heritage understanding lies of how we earthlings are to live life together. We come from that God family - wide and problematic as that is. We come from the Judaeo-Christian family- our faithful neighbours at the synagogue facing terrible anti- semitismbutwrestlingwithmodernsituations. WecomefromtheAbrahamtradition- connecting us to our Muslim cousins - Children of Abraham just like us.
Cousins. Skin colours, orientation, socio-economic status, colonizer or indigenous, faithful or not really,... young eye-rolling optimistic teens or venerable Grandparents. Sometimesit’seasy,sometimesit’sreallyreallyhard. Andyet,thatJesuskidwhoditched his family and caused panic in the hearts of Mary and Joseph, and who landed of all
places - not at the arcade or skate-park but at God’s house - what would he say today, ...
Probably just what we all need to hear. He might just sit and listen for a bit... I bet the kids would gravitate to him, and he’d listen to them. He would comfort the sick ones and revive the lonely ones. He’d gently humble the powerful and bless and lift the lowly. He’dtakeusoutsidewherewecouldmixandminglewithothers. Andwhenthesnacks got eaten, and the wine ran out at the party, he would find some more...
Let’s be people like that...We’re invited to join the family reunion where we feel familiar, and the wider extended caravan every day mingling and connecting with all the others.... As HARD as that seems. And of course, do sneak back to the temple, or church for some thinking and rejuvenation sometimes! As we celebrate this reunion and these friends and remake ourselves for the future, as we reconnect in community and creation with all our extended family and neighbours, as we vote, we are beloved! And so is everyone else. We are all God’s family. Thanks be to God.