November 20, 2022 - 2nd Anniversary as an Affirming Ministry
Sermon Affirm Sunday - Carolyn Smith
I was trying to sing along with that anthem -that blessing - - who else?
Lots of you say you come because it refreshes you, and reconnects you to good people and to a way that feels right, and a Spirit that feels divine and sacred..
That’s what is behind the Paperclip today - a handy and tangible connector to everyone else here today... does everyone have one? Big colourful paperclips especially are great as visual tactile reminders, and I’m sure some of us in a fidgety state have sat and made long strings of them all connected to each other... So when you go home today, your St. Paul’s paperclips connect us to each other and to some important reasons we showed up today.
Mainstream headlines shout about churches being judgemental, hypocritical, and blind to the pain that has been caused, and yet here we are.At our table talks last month, we agreed there is a sense of blessing here and purpose in our connectedness. We’ve had a story of aging and declining, but somehow these past couple of years even in a pandemic, we see this congregation becoming more family filled and multigenerational and more colourful. When our gathering is important and inviting AND touches our spirits, we can call that holy. How many came because their soul needed to be part of something sacred and holy?
Right now, after 2 years of lockdown, this is a miracle - and we all have a part in making that happen. The stats of Canadian church membership show steep decline and the critical deciding factor was that for many, church didn’t feel worthwhile anymore. For many, it’s a surprise that a church is still meaningful, and even more, especially for people condemned in their church experiences, like the LGBTQIA community, it’s a shock when a church really truly does have room for all, for real belonging in a just and affirming rainbow kind of way. How sad that for someone so often left on the margins, longing for something meaningful and sacred, they don’t know it exists.
Here, we talk a lot about justice and making a difference, about spreading hope in our community and let’s think of that as a promise we make. The rainbow flag we fly now pronounces a life-saving promise that we are an Affirming Church for 2Spirit and LGBTQIA folxs. It’s been 2 years now since our vote. We were in the throws of the pandemic, scrambling
online, trying to stay connected- but we threw our energy into our Affirming process anyway! We included it every chance we could, we made new friends_ - Remember Rev. Junia Joplin - a trans minister from down the road at a Mississauga Baptist church where she was fired after coming out? And she preached here powerfully. Over these couple of years, we heard from friends in our congregation and around Oakville at the Positive Space network, and a program coordinator, and PFLAG Halton- that’s Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays. My friend Ally shared his experiences about the gift of a public, intentional and explicit clear affirming church. Sign guy put the welcome on our Sign out front and people have sent us messages saying Wow, thanks! When it was time for our Vote 2 years ago, we pulled together more than 90 people from our scattered pandemic online church who voted clearly in favour this radical surprising faithful affirmation. This journey - this promise - has been holy and precious and directive for our path together. And the sacred, important message here is this is always a journey. Because every single day, someone wonders if they are worthwhile alive on this earth, they wonder if they are welcome and safe and affirmed.And each chance we get to explicitly and loudly show off our colours and live a real welcome - to colour our events and activities with affirmation as begin to plan again, and we keep our promise and our purpose alive and strong.
Or is it something we did 2 years ago, something we said back then, that we can’t quite put into words today....Time rolls on after all
...and today we get a chance to reconnect and reaffirm a deep truth- universal and standing the test of time.
Today, Marcia and Rodrigo read our story from 2700 years ago about the Assyrian Army who has overtaken several Hebrew tribes, and Hebrew King Hezekiah is at a loss - ... the tribes had spread out and ‘multiplied’ as people of God.. but what happens when you spread out and get busy with life and distant from each other.... Hezekiah knows the tribes are disconnected - they’ve lost their sense of purpose and it has made them weak. He begs them “Follow the Lord your God” but the violent Assyrian King scoffs at that - and promises or rather tempts the Hebrew people with an easy life if they submit, forsaking their existence as God’s people- for really, how powerful is Yahweh anyway? And is it worth dying for?
Hezekiah knows he’s in trouble - he rushes to the Prophet Isaiah - someone well known for hard truths and the deeper hopeful truth.
The book of Isaiah is 66 chapters long. It’s said he outlasted 4 kings, it’s hard to know how accurate the details are, but the prophetic voice in these chapters rings universally true. That humans struggle in dark times and get waylaid by petty things, and it costs us with war, and brokenness and disconnection. That’s the hard truth. But few give the whole truth better than Prophet Isaiah!
In the shadows of suffering, still The mountain of God will be exalted, let us go, even after all this mess, let’s go to where we find God, and be welcomed and learn the ways of peace! Divine judgement and understanding will settle disagreements, we won’t need weapons -we shall beat our swords into plowshares, purposeful tools that give abundance. For our God, and our way, says Isaiah, of these tribes and our little church is a way of (remember Micah last week?) shalom justice, loving kindness and lighting the path forward - ... oh yeah!! And when people are reconnected, walking with God and one another in peace and abundance, we can get behind that. We can help bring that to life now for others... .. No Assyrian King with his temptations and mighty swords can build a world without crumbling into hate and conflict again.
Isaiah’s vision of a kingdom of peace and abundance always rings true, and always looks to a future time which is also NOW, in all hard times, the light will come, the hope is everlasting... Right here, right now, some of us have some hard times. If you’re doing ok, there are likely people whose names are on your mind right now... there are circumstances that worry you... We’ve watched this world tumultuously swing from progress to rights taken away and turmoil. And we’ve heard voices like Assyrian kings tempt us with a message that church is pointless, hurtful, and has no place for people in real need.
And we as a church - as St. Paul’s - have committed together to care and share with and elevate people who for no good reasons at all, who in their diversity have been shunned. Part of that is about seeking daring God-sized justice - not vengeance, but seeing hurtful injustice and sensing the pain it causes,. People joke about OLD Testament fire and brimstone, but that misses the good ending - humans discover each time that God is steadfast and redeeming, God’s justice is reconciling - reconnecting us one to another!
Humans are lousy at this... geez we make a sport out of picking sides! Football teams, pizza toppings, celebrity, colour, size, age, gender; and humans get prideful - not rainbow pride, but stubbornly prideful and established systems that entrenched us into painful polarities. So in seeking justice - in the call we at St. Paul’s take up week after week - it’s facing and undoing that mess. 2 years ago this call welled up (against all odds and a pandemic that tried to disconnect us!) It welled up strong and hopeful in our vote to be an Affirming church.
I’ll tell you... there are still people killed for this every day.There was a bomb threat on Thursday at an Oakville high school because they have a teacher who is trans. No faith tradition can possibly legitimately support bomb threats.There are kids and people eaten up inside, hurt by loved ones and church teachings, contemplating suicide, and for what? For who they are in the diversity of God’s rainbow creation? For who they love, when so much in the world divides us? For how they express their divinely given spirit and spark and gift?
And we can learn together about creating a world of belonging, at no cost to ourselves. At great benefit to our hearts. How are you connected to this call, to this affirmation today that we offer room for all? My family who I love, my friends who I champion... our community needs to thrive and face deep troubles like inflation and homelessness, rather than held back by something pointless like love and gender-spectrums. - that’s how I am connected newly fresh today.... My little handy purposeful paperclip is my reminder to reaffirm today, to keep humble and curious- to grab some library books on the way out, or ask some tricky questions and keep learning, and continue this daring, life-saving Affirming journey as long as God calls us forward. Assyrian Kings and comfort zones and divisive corruption and power ... these threaten equality, racial justice, environmental hope, and they threaten our Purpose as God’s people. We remember though... light shines in the shadows, swords make much better plowshares as we nurture abundance, and love wins. Love always wins. Thanks be to God!