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15 Coryell St., Seagrave, ON L0C 1G0
905-985-2429
seagrave.church01@gmail.com
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Rev. Nancy Knox's Message - 100th Anniversary Seagrave United Church September 10, 2006
 
 
Seagrave Anniversary                                    Sept. 10, 2006
 
James 2: 1-17
Mark 7:24-37
Challenged to Change
 
Let me begin by bringing greetings to you from Bay of Quinte Conference on this your 100" Anniversary. I want to thank you for your constant witness in this community for this last century. I also want to take this opportunity to thank you for your support of the broader work of the United Church through your support of the Mission and Service Fund. And of course we are most appreciative to Ross for his ministry here and his work in both Presbytery and Conference. He contributes generously and for that we are grateful.
 
What a tremendous celebration you have had this weekend. Let me offer my congratulations to the planning committee for all your hard work that has certainly been well appreciated by the many participating in the festivities. I was able to attend your bar-b-q last evening and see the great pleasure that was being experienced by the 300 or so people who gathered for that event. I was relieved to be greeted warmly. As I drove up and parked the car I was reminded of a story I read just recently. A renowned preacher in the States had been asked to be a guest preacher at the special service. He arrived the night before and was looking forward to a nice, warm bath and a relaxed evening but his hostess immediately informed him that he was going with her to the church pot-luck supper. Not sure he was up to it but not sure how to get out of it he decided to make the best of it. At the table he struck up a conversation with the woman sitting next to him and asked if she would be coming to the service in the morning. She leaned over and whispered "No, I hear we are going to have some guest preacher so I am going to give it a pass." Thankfully, no one said that to me! I had a very pleasant evening and I thank you for your welcome and hospitality.
 
Let Us Pray:
Holy God this is a day for great celebration. We open up your word and hear readings for us. The story of Jesus moving through the crowd and being challenged by an outsider stops us in our tracks and we see ourselves in the story. We hear of the healing of the man who was deaf and we are moved to compassion. Open up these stories for us this day. Make them real and new to us. May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts be acceptable in your sight, our rock and our redeemer. Amen
 
What a rich and wonderful passages we have to consider this morning. Jesus is amazing, this comes through in the person of Jesus but also in the stories that reveal what Jesus was like. This story today reveals that Jesus was not above a "teaching moment". He actually allowed his opinion to be changed. And what's more, God allows a lowly, foreign woman to be the agent of his "divine intervention".
 
When I first thought about the gospel lesson I did as I usually do. It tried to put us, you, me, in the story. Who would I be in this story? Who would you be in this story? At first I found us being the disciples and the crowd, looking at the Syrophoenician woman as an outcast, an outsider. In Jesus' day a woman, someone outside the Jewish community, someone who had an illness in the family would be well outside the realm of acceptability. We would be on the inside circle looking at her, this outsider wanting to know Jesus better so Jesus could heal her daughter. But the more I thought about the story the more drawn I felt to the character of the woman. More and more it felt that we were her.
 
I don't believe that there is one in this room who has not at some time felt themselves outside the circle of God's love. We each have secrets, times of shame, experiences of anger, depths of grief and despair. We wish we could erase these aspects of ourselves as they distance us from our good feelings, they distance us from one we love, and they distance us from God. We stand beside that woman saying, "Please Jesus, even the dogs have crumbs from the table." Please Jesus love me, accept me, heal me, bless me.
 
Jesus understands us, he understands our struggle. He began to deny the woman the opportunity but he moved from rejection to blessing and acceptance. Jesus changed to allow equal opportunity for all. It was truly a gospel moment.
 
Forgiveness, acceptance, healing, God's love and our life, our gifts from God. Gifts we cannot earn by right birth, right behaviour, or right attitude. Jesus doesn't teach the disciples or us to teach score cards or a point system for entrance into the Kingdom, Jesus speaks instead of faith, trust, belief, those traits which the Syrophoenician woman exhibits. Who knows whether she ever set foot inside a synagogue after her daughter was healed? Who knows what sort of morals she had or what sort of offerings she made on behalf of the poor? Who knows whether she prayed each night before eating her supper? It really doesn't seem to matter to Jesus at that moment of her need. What matters to Jesus is that this woman recognized that he can give her what she cannot give herself. No bargains are made, no promises to attend every Sermon on the Mount. Raw human need has been voiced without shame or sheepishness, more as a fact and that need is met with the love of God. What this story tells us is that there is no distinction in God's love. There is no "in" and "out". We are all in. There is no prioritizing, we are all equal in the sight of God.
 
Our scripture gives us some insight into the human search for identity. Through the pages, across the centuries, Jesus reveals the deepest need of people and calls us to do the same. What did people want from Jesus ... a tender touch, a word of healing, a sign of God? What do people want today ... a tender touch, a word of healing, a sign of God?
 
These are hard days for the church. We seem to have fallen out of favour in the minds of a lot of people. I think that generally, people think that a community like Seagrave should have a church, they just don't see the need for them to be here. It can be discouraging for the ones who come faithfully and feel that the church is vital to their life and yet that value is not shared by others. I visit a lot of churches as part of my work in the Conference and I know that the feeling of discouragement is common, I also think that we are being challenged to change who we are and how we are the church.
 
Scripture reminds us again and again that it will be those who are most vulnerable in this world who will be the first to recognize the coming of the reign of God - children will enter it, the poor will inherit it, the blind shall see it, the deaf will truly hear it and the mute will sing praise. This is not only the paradox of God but also the paradox of us. None of us should be surprised that when we are most blind to our good fortune and are most likely to take the credit, that we are then entertaining ourselves with God-like illusions.
 
What does it mean to have your future open before you? Do you remember the movie the Wizard of Oz? Do you remember the directions given to Dorothy? She landed in Oz and all she wanted to do was to go home to Kansas. The munchkins told her: "At the East ...there is a desert and none could live to cross it." "It is the same in the south ...The south is the country of the Quadlings." "I am told," said the third munchkin, "That it is the same in the West " "The north is my home," said the old lady, "and at its edge is the same great desert that surrounds this Land of Oz" It seemed that there was no way out: all was hopeless. Dorothy was lost.
 
And so she begins her journey to the boundary of what is known, so that eyes may be opened and cars unstopped and tongues loosened. You'll remember that at the end of Dorothy's journey she finds that the Wizard was nothing but a big humbug who could not take her to Kansas. She despairs over ever seeing her home again when the good witch of the North tells her: "You know it has always been within your power to go home, you need only to click your ruby shoes together and say, "There's no place like home... and you will find yourself there."
 
That which seemed impossible had been within her grasp the whole time. So, too, the heartless tin man whose tears were sufficient evidence that a heart was already in his possession; the brainless scare-crow man whose perception also had to be healed so that he could affirm that it was he who figure things out for others, and, of course the lion, who all along was full of courage but required the rigors of the journey to claim it.
 
The message of our gospel is almost that simple - it is a message for you Seagrave United Church on this your 100th anniversary. The Messiah has already come, the restoration has already begun the healing love of Christ has touched you, and the kingdom is already in your midst. Open your eyes and you will see that the challenges that surround you are opportunities to be witnesses to the love of Christ in your life. We are challenged to change. Of course we are challenged to change, so was Jesus, but the gospel is something we cannot give ourselves. All need a healer; none are outside the circle of God's love; the future is open as we recognize our need for the giving goodness of God.

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