May 24, 2026
Pentecost
They heard in their own languages as the Spirit gave them utterance.
Please be seated.
In a few minutes, after the sermon and the Creed, you will hear a Call to Prayer which began to appear at the beginning of Lent. When the work of the Renew 2026 task group was heralded at Vestry, on the last Sunday in February and the First Sunday in Lent, Preston asked that we remember the work of the Task Group in our prayers. One of the ways we’ve done this is to mention the Renew 2026 effort in Taking Worship Home. It’s there on page 2. Another way we’ve done this, is to preface the Prayers of the People with a Call to Prayer which framed our prayers for the Seasons of Lent and Easter. The Call to Prayer changed over time as Lent gave way to Holy Week, and the Great Three days yielded to the 50 Days of Easter.
On Lent 2, the Call to Prayer read as follows: “As we continue our Lenten journey, we pray for the renewal of the church, the world and all creation. We pray especially for our participation in God’s mission, for the ministry of St John’s in downtown Kitchener, and for our discernment of potential and possibilities.” That discernment was our discernment led, principally, by the Renew 2026 Task Group. The Call to Prayer evolved but the sense of it all remained the same over time.
This morning, we will hear: “On this Feast of Pentecost, we pray for the renewal of the church, the world and all creation. We pray for the Spirit’s leading, as we seek to honour God’s mission, through our ministry in downtown Kitchener.” The writing is a little tighter, but it echoes the reference to “God’s mission and our ministry.” That’s been a recurring motif in our Prayers over the last 3 months. Preston used those words in the run-up to the journey of Lent, Holy Week and Easter.
In Christian experience, we often use the words “mission and ministry” side-by-side, almost reflexively – like law and order – but not with a whole lot of regard for what each of those words implies or contributes. Why put those words together for reasons other than they happen to begin with the same syllable? Of course, they sound well together and we often talk of “our mission and ministry” as if it were all of a kind. But, for some time, our Call to Prayer has been signalling some language to make us a little more thoughtful about what our Christian project is all about.
One way to think about mission and ministry is this: We can think of “mission” as what attaches to God. It’s God’s mission. God’s mission, in the main, doesn’t shift with the times. There isn’t a different version for this or that people. It’s the same whether proposed in Galilee, honoured in England of given expression in downtown Kitchener. Healing is a big part of God’s mission. God seeks to redeem the bruised and broken places of God’s world. Redemption is a big part of God’s mission. Both healing and redemption are aspects of “salvation”. So, mission might be thought of as what attaches to God.
Ministry is what attaches to God’s people. Ministry is about how we participate in God’s mission. Healing in Downtown Kitchener may not mean the same sort of ministry as might be thought of when Scott brings the church into the day-to-day interactions of the community at Renison College and the University of Waterloo. The ministry of Saint John’s in the orbit of the Victoria Street encampment is not what the church is about in the trenches of the shifting front line between Ukraine and Russia. Our ministries – our day-to-day hands-on efforts – are not the same as those of pastors tending the very sick in regions of northern Congo and in Uganda.
Mission has breadth. Ministry has depth and context and is specific. Different contexts invite the Christian Community to provide incarnate healing, incarnate love and incarnate grace in differently incarnate, embodied ways. Ministry is our contextual response to God’s love; ministry is our participation in God mission, locally adapted. On the Feast of Pentecost, the church gets its marching orders and we get to interpret those marching orders in our context. For the people of St. John’s, our context is downtown Kitchener and environs or however we think of ourselves as a parish or community. St. John’s DTK works for me.
And it’s not that we don’t cast our gaze outwards and think of ministries in other contexts. We applaud and support the efforts of the Waterloo Deanery to effect some good for a family in a refugee camp on the other side of the planet and to afford Mapenzi, Bukuru, Utinyele, and Tumain – a family where the kids have likely known no life other than that of a refugee camp – a shot at a better life. Of course, we support the work of Alongside Hope to participate in God’s mission and to redeem the bruised and broken places of God’s world throughout the world where context, and an appreciation for context, are critically important. But we do so with a primary regard for our own potential and possibilities here in downtown Kitchener. We do so by figuring out how best to deploy our resources to participate in God’s mission in our context and in reflection of our time and generation.
In today’s reading from Luke’s Acts of the Apostles, we learn of people hearing the disciples’ message each in their own language. Now the point of the reading is not that God could do simultaneous translation before the invention of Google earbuds. The point is that people heard the Gospel truth and would, explore God’s mission, in their own context; for their own people. Exploring God’s mission in context is the business of trying to figure out how best to minister in God’s name, with the resources placed at our disposal, for the people who prevail upon us for ministry. And part of that is learning to speak their language. What is the language of our siblings in the tent community? It’s not English or French or something else per se. It’s about the needs those languages convey! … a sermon for another day!
Beyond geography, in the day of the first disciples, language was the most significant conveyor of varied context and of the notion that not everyone’s experience of God’s world was the same. News of other parts of God’s world, for the people of Jerusalem, was not carried in the Jerusalem Post. There was no such things. Pilgrims, soldiers, merchants and tourists carried the news of other potential expressions of ministry in their very beings; in their own native languages.
Now, I haven’t said anything about what our ministry is in our context and how it might be unique to St. John’s or how it might be the same or different from that of our neighbours up the road or on the university campus. I have ideas. But my ideas largely have to do with the intersection of my ministry with the received ministries of this parish. As to what might be? That work of discernment is work that we’ve commended, in part, to the Renew 2026 team, to our Parish Council, and to all the people who have received a share in God’s Spirit, at St. John’s, a share distributed by God among God’s people. That’s how it works, according to today’s First Reading.
This is a pregnant moment for us in our history at St. John’s. The generations are turning over. Our complexion is changing. And we must seize the current when it serves. Or something like that. I look forward to inklings of what God’s future holds for us as, together, we yield and shape ourselves for ministry, and as we participate in God’s mission, here, as Anglican Christians in downtown Kitchener.
May the words of my lips and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to the Holy One, blessèd be. And may the church say “Amen”. Amen.
André Lavergne CWA (Pastor)
Honourary Assistant,
Church of St. John the Evangelist, Kitchener.
Angus Sinclair was appointed Director of Music of St. John the Evangelist on February 1, 2023. Having graduated in 1981 (Honours B.Mus.) in organ performance from Wilfrid Laurier University, he went on to distinguish himself as a church musician, recitalist and accompanist touring in both Canada and the UK. For over 40 years Angus has served parishes and congregations throughout Southwestern Ontario as director of music. He experiences his present appointment to St. John’s as a welcome homecoming, both spiritually and musically.
As our parish musician, he provides both support and leadership so that a variety of parish programs can find musical expression and attract participation. When our handbell choir is in season, he is one of our ringers. At parish dinners, he provides popular piano music for the guests to dine by. For both worship services and concerts, he will rehearse and accompany vocal and instrumental soloists from our congregation on piano, organ, or even accordion.
Angus Sinclair was appointed Director of Music of St. John the Evangelist on February 1, 2023. Having graduated in 1981 (Honours B.Mus.) in organ performance from Wilfrid Laurier University, he went on to distinguish himself as a church musician, recitalist and accompanist touring in both Canada and the UK. For over 40 years Angus has served parishes and congregations throughout Southwestern Ontario as director of music. He experiences his present appointment to St. John’s as a welcome homecoming, both spiritually and musically.