Where the Waters Meet
1
Where the Waters Meet
BC Synod Convention Opening Worship
Prince George, BC
May 29, 2014
by Bishop Greg Mohr
The following has been adapted for congregational use for Sunday, June 1st.
Primary text:Acts 1:1-11, although Sunday’s designated text of Acts 1:6-14 may be used instead.
This past Thursday evening our BC Synod Convention began in Prince George.
Delegates from across our Synod have gathered to discuss, discern, share stories, conduct business, elect,worship and visit.
The theme for this year’s convention is “Where the Waters Meet.”
On the one hand, this theme speaks to the history of Prince George, where First Nations peoples have gathered for thousands of years, and whose very name means “people of the confluence of the two rivers.”
The Fraser and the Nechako rivers meet here at this place.
And so we have gathered for our BC Synod Convention as guests on these unceded, traditional lands.
“Where the waters meet.”
Within this theme we also hear intertwining images of the water of birth and the water of rebirth.
These are images of life and new life, of being claimed and adopted as sons and daughters.
These are images of identity and of origin.
“Where the waters meet.”
Ponder as well the metaphors of journey and exploration.
Our lives are sometimes described as being like a river, sometimes meandering and sometimes raging; there are moments of placid waters and times where we encounter rapids and whirlpools.
There also are eddies and backwaters on our journey.
Those are places to rest a moment, to circle, wait and watch.
They are times when we are reminded that we journey in the presence of the one in whom we live and move and have our being.
But we cannot stay in the calm eddies of the river.
The river calls us, compels us to continue our journey.
Surely such images serve as metaphors for our lives and for our church.
We live in an age of tremendous change, of shifting culture, religious practices, and spiritualities.
We have experienced a change in volunteerism patterns and the demographic and cultural changes that deeply affect all religious institutions as well as service clubs, community agencies, and the like.
We feel as if we are caught in raging waters, being swept along powerless, unsure of what lies around the next bend, uncertain of what the river shall do and of where it shall take us.
The Book of Acts tells us about another journeythat took place nearly two millennia ago:
a journey into the unknown;
a journey into uncharted waters.
It tells us of how the disciples faced rapids and whirlpools,
rocky shoals and dangerous waves following Jesus’ ascension.
It has often been said that the book of Acts should be known by a different name.
Instead of “The Acts of the Apostles,” it really should be “The Acts of the Spirit,”
for everywhere we look in the Book of Acts we see how the Spirit is calling, nudging, and pushing the disciples into new ways of being church and into new situations –
breaking down barriers, challenging old assumptions, showing new opportunities for ministry, and creating new relationships.
The church would still be stuck, huddled together in the upper room, if it weren’t for the acts of the Spirit.
The writer of this two-volume work of Luke and Acts differs from the other gospels in telling the Resurrection and Pentecost stories.
In Luke and Acts, the writer stretches things out for us so we truly can pay attention a little bit more,so we can enter into the story with eyes wide open.
The writer employs a theological lens in order to stretch the time, allowing us to take note of each of these aspects of God at work in our world and in our lives.
Today’s reading from the Book of Acts finds the disciples gathered around Jesus,
pondering when it would be that he would finally and fully restore the kingdom.
“Sorry, guys,” says Jesus. “It’s not going to work that way. There’s a different kind of kingdom going on and guess what? You’re going to be front and centre in that.”
And just so they don’t become paralyzed by that prospect, Jesus adds: “But don’t worry. You’ll receive the wind-breath-spirit of God.”
And as they watched, he was lifted up and a cloud took him out of their sight.
The disciples now experience that “time between the times.”
They are to wait; and oh, we know how hard it is to wait for something to happen, to wait for something to come.
Unsure of what tomorrow will bring,
there can be doubt and fear, worry and hesitation.
And so the disciples stay together and wait.
They probably asked very similar questions to what we might ask: “How will God be present among us? What are we supposed to do now that he is gone?”
Yet the writer of Luke and Acts points us beyond those questions.
He is telling us that the mission of the church can only be based upon the activity of the spirit.
In the book of Acts, nothing really happens unless it is spirit-led.
All the major initiatives, the new difficult decisions, the breaking down of barriers, and the proclaiming of God’s love and acceptance, are accomplished only because they are spirit-led.
When Jesus ascends into heaven, all the disciples’ eyes are focused upward.
The one whom they have followed for three years is vanishing before their very eyes.
As they stand there, two heavenly messengers suddenly appear,
just like the two men who stood at the entrance to the tomb that first Easter morning.
They ask an obvious – yet challenging – question:
“Why do you stand looking uptoward heaven?”
When I read that text, I hear a certain emphasis in their words – something like, “Why are you still looking up?”
It is as if these messengers are saying, “You’re not going to see him anymore; at least not in the way you have before.”
“And besides, you’re going to get awfully sore necks if you keep that up, because you’re not going to find him there.
He is out there:
out there in your midst;
out there where the people are;
out there in the world.
That is where you will find the Christ.”
The disciples stood gazing heavenward.
In many ways, it seems to me that this is often the posture of the church in our time.
Dis-spirited. Worried. Anxious.
We look up, wondering about God’s activity in this world,
wondering how and when God will do something new among us.
Yet God calls us to take on a different posture.
God’s wind-breath-spirit calls forth a re-orienting of our posture and our attitudes, moving us from casting our eyes heavenward
to casting our gaze to the world around us.
This same Spirit calls us, urges us, compels us, and leads us into our neighbourhoods and communities, into the world.
I truly believe that God’s presence is alive and active among us,
that God’s wind-breath-spirit is being stirred up among us,
and that we are being transformed as the church.
It might be a bit of a difficult journey, just like it was difficult for the disciples.
But it doesn’t matter if the way is dark,
it doesn’t matter if we’re afraid,
it doesn’t matter if we’re unsure,
it does not matter if we’re doubting,
because it is Christ who leads the way.
God is at work in this world of ours.
God is at work in this church of ours.
God is at work in your life and in mine.
One of the theme verses for our Synod Convention comes from Isaiah 35: “For waters shall break forth in the wilderness, and streams in the desert.”
Perhaps a desert imagedoesn’t resonate very much with those living in the Pacific Northwest.
Aside from the dryness experienced for a few short summer months, there is no lack of rain; there are no dry riverbeds.
But ask those living in the Okanagan, the Kootenays, Prince George or Dawson Creek about drought, about tinder-dry forests and grasslands.
They know what happens when drought takes hold of the land.
Isaiah brings a word of promise to the people.
Yes, there will be streams in the desert.
Yes, there will be waters in the wilderness.
But how can that be?
The landscape is barren and bleak.
Can anything grow?
Is new life possible?
What wonderfully reassuring words these are for us.
Beset by challenges,
uncertain of our ministry and our place in our society,
struggling with what it means to be the church in this 21st century,
worried about our communities of faith getting smaller and smaller,
we live with parched mouths and perhaps parched lives.
But take Isaiah’s words to heart.
God is at work among us.
God is at work in the world around us.
That is the NATURE of God
God’s very nature is that of activity:
calling, gathering, enlightening, redeeming, loving, reconciling, and bestowing peace.
Streams in the desert.
Waters in the wilderness.
Words of promise.
Words of hope,
for we are an Easter people.
Christ is risen.
Present tense.
Ongoing.
In my life and yours.
Oh, sure, the chocolate eggs and Easter bunnies have long since been consumed, but we are still celebrating our way through these 50 days of Easter,
and if there is one thing these Easter texts tell us it is that Christ is alive, then and now and always.
And if there is another thing these Easter texts tell us it is that Christ is not found in the empty tomb but has gone before us –
gone back to Galilee, as the Gospels phrase it;
gone back to our homes,
our places of work,
our communities;
gone back there to begin anew
and to lead us out into our neighbourhoods and communities,
caring for all creation,
and being God’s people for the love of the world.
Yes, church will look different in the decades ahead than it has these past ones.
Yes, we’re being called from our comfortable pews to go on a journey with Christ.
He calls us to follow him.
And as we follow, we keep before us two questions:
“What is God up to in this world?” and,
“To what is God calling us?”