October 16 - Renewing Our Covenant (Bold Discipleship)
Joshua 24:1-14, 16-18, 25
Deborah Laforet
Renewing Our Covenant
Let us pray. May the words from my lips and the meditations of my heart be guided by your Spirit and be words of wisdom for this day. Amen.
Every year, we have days of remembrance. Just a few weeks ago, we remembered the indigenous children abused and sometimes lost in the residential school systems run by churches and the Canadian government. In three weeks, we’ll remember those who have died in military conflicts. Good Friday is a day when we remember the sacrifice of Jesus. We hold memorial services to remember loved ones who have died and at every annual meeting, we hold time to remember all those who have died in the past year. And every April, this congregation remembers its anniversary and honours those who have gone before and the many years of mission and service and times of joy and struggle through which this congregation has lived.
At those times, we sometimes acknowledge what comes next. We might talk about reconciliation; we might talk about peacekeeping; we might talk about the healing that takes place after we say goodbye. At our anniversary services, we sometimes look forward and wonder what the next 66 years will look like. We honour our past and we plan for the future.
A lot of places are in a time of transition. We are going through a big cultural change, and many long time institutions are feeling left out, irrelevant, and lost, not just our churches. The United Church of Canada is attempting to rebrand itself with a new mission statement: Deep Spirituality, Bold Discipleship, and Daring Justice. They are exploring what’s happening in the world and in our congregations, and wondering how to live out the gospel in this changing world. As a congregation, we are exploring our own relevance in this community and with this generation. We don’t want to just survive through the changes or to limp our way through them, holding fast to a past vision. We want to realize our mission - to connect, to engage, to transform, within our faith community, and with those who need our presence outside of this community. We want to be relevant, we want to thrive, and we want to live out our mission and our faith in a way that feels authentic and genuine.
The passage Terry read for us is a renewal of covenant between the people of Israel and Yahweh. Joshua comes before them, and reminds them of the previous covenant between God and their ancestors. If you’ve been around for the past month and a half, you’ll notice that we’ve been exploring some of these stories. He reminds them of Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebekah and their sons Jacob and Esau. He reminds them of Moses, Aaron, and Miriam who helped bring the Israelites out of slavery in Egypt. Joshua reminds them of God’s presence through it all, God’s guiding hand, miraculous wonders, and promises of land and descendants that outnumber the stars and grains of sands in the desert.
Remembering our ancestors, remembering their trials and their triumphs, helps us to remember that we are where we are because of them, whether for good or for bad. We stand on the shoulders of those who have come before us. They left a legacy for us to either continue or to challenge. They are still with us in so many different ways, their learnings, their mistakes, their stories, their impact on us and our world. It’s important not to dismiss that and to carry on that history and the gifts that they left.
We also have to move forward. Standing on the shoulders of our ancestors means we have been given the gift of seeing far away, balancing our past with what lies ahead. Joshua had the Israelites renew their covenant because they were not the same people who initially entered into the covenant. They needed to remember the covenant and make their own promises to honour and keep to this sacred covenant with God.
66 years ago, this church was commissioned to do God’s work in this community. Before that, some of the people who started this new congregation were coming from St. John’s United Church, where they had covenanted as a new congregation in 1925, bringing together Methodists and Presbyterians, 97 years ago. Before that, 190 years ago, in 1832, what was then St. John’s Methodist made promises. And I have no idea where those Methodists came from, whether someone else in this country or from Europe, but the point is that over and over, people have had to make changes and they have had to renew their promises, renew their covenant with God.
What does this look like for us today? We stand on the shoulders of our ancestors, for good and for bad. They have left us a legacy, again, one for which we can be proud, and one that needs some reconciliation work. Our ancestors, from Abraham to Paul, to Augustine to Martin Luther, to the folks at St. John’s in 1832 and to the folks who began this congregation in 1955, had a vision of living out the gospel and being of service to the their community. I think that vision lives on in us, even though it will not look the same.
What does it look like for us to renew our covenant today? What promises do we make, to God, to ourselves, and to those who follow? I read a quote this week, and I didn’t write it down, but it was something about not focusing on making your parents proud of you but on making your children proud of you. When they stand on our shoulders, what will they see? What legacy to do we leave on which our children can build? What are the stories we leave for them to tell their children?
Right now. there are a lot more questions than answers. But that’s OK. Not only do we have our ancestors and their legacy; we have each other. The people of Israel had each other. When Moses died before entering the promised land, they weren’t left on their own. God appointed Joshua their leader. People step away and people step up. The reason we’ve organized these table talks to talk about our future is because the board cannot do this alone. None of us can. We can have leaders that help lead the way, but we need to more forward together, in solidarity, as family, as a people of God.
Two weeks ago, I focused on the first part of the new United Church Mission Statement: Deep Spirituality. Today I’m talking about Bold Discipleship. As we transition, as we adjust to the changes in our world, as we face challenging decisions, as we envision a new future, we will need to be bold. What does it look like to follow in the footsteps of Jesus today? What does the apostle Paul’s call to be one in Christ mean for us today?
As we step forward, not knowing where our feet will land, may God be our guide, may Christ be our light, and may the Spirit be there to pick us up when we fall. Because we will fall, but, together and with the support of the Holy, we will rise again, living out the good news and ways of compassion and justice. Thanks be to God. Amen.