Eighteenth Sunday after Pentecost [Proper 28], rcl yr c
JEREMIAH 29:1, 4-7; PSALM 66:1-11; 2 TIMOTHY 2:8-15; LUKE 17:11-19
if we are faithless, he remains faithful
I wonder how many of you recognize the passage from Jeremiah? It’s not really a fair question. Because what I’m asking really is “how many of you remember the pastor’s preaching from four years ago?” And I don’t remember always what I preached about last week ….
But this passage does stand out, because it has helped us in the relatively recent past articulate some of what we are up to at St. John’s, helping to bring some clarity to our vision for ministry: “But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare.”
St. John’s, as long as I’ve been here, and long before, has been a church that seeks the welfare of the city in which we find ourselves. From our support for harm reduction
amongst those suffering from addiction, to our connections with St. John’s Kitchen—
just this week we provided deserts for the Kitchen’s thanksgiving meal—and our support of other feeding programs and food security initiatives: these are all ways
that we are living out the Word of the Lord spoken through the prophet Jeremiah:
“seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile.”
And there are stories to tell, too, about the ways in which our seeking the welfare of the city has contributed to our welfare: giving shelter to St. John’s Kitchen, and hosting the Social Development Centre has helped with our budget; there is no shame in this. It seems to me that Jeremiah may well be pointing towards this sort of dynamic when he says “seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile […] for in its welfare you will find your welfare.” That in fact, we benefit, too, when we look out for the well-being of our neighbours.
We don’t look out for our neighbours in order to benefit—we look our for our neighbours because it is part of God’s call to ministry, for the sake of the healing of the world—but if we do benefit, it is no bad thing; in fact it is much like the beatitude: “Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy,” because in God’s economy,
good begets good, mercy begets mercy, welfare begets welfare.
This was only one of the passages from Scripture that has helped us understand our ministry at St. John’s. “Worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness” has helped us see that holiness is a sort of beauty, and that this beauty is something to seek in worship.
But God surprises us, and that’s been the story of the last number of years, too. St. John’s has had a Black community for quite some time—but how wonderful it is
to see that Black community grow the way it’s recently grown. Sunday School had already died a quiet death in my time at St. John’s. I wasn’t sure that we’d ever have Sunday School again. But God surprises us. And now we now we have a Sunday School, and children playing with one another during coffee hour. For all the articulation
of what we were already up to, God plants seeds of renewal and growth in ways that surprise us—and gives these sprouts of growth into our hands for our care.
I’ve been giving a lot of thought and engaging in a lot of conversation about mission and ministry at St. John’s of late. And it’s been helpful to start bringing some clarity to these things: what is mission? And what is ministry?
I’ve found it helpful to imagine things this way: that mission is God’s work, God’s work of healing in the world. It’s a story of healing that reaches back to creation, to the calling of Abraham and Sarah, it comes to us through the prophets, and above all God’s mission of healing is seen in the death and resurrection of Jesus, and the Holy Spirit that God sends to us; it is a mission of healing that will find its end on the last day when all things are made new, when we will dwell with God and God will dwell with his people.
That’s God’s mission: mighty acts of healing for the sake of the whole world.
And ministry is related to God’s mission: ministry is the way we take part in this healing work. It means taking care of one another in the church; it means taking care of the city in which we find ourselves. At St. John’s that ministry takes place in all the ways I’ve described above, and more: it takes place when Parish Visitors make a phone call or a visit, it takes place when the intercessors pray for someone who needs prayer, it happens around food on a weekday, it happens around coffee and acts of hospitality and greeting on a Sunday. It takes place in the sacristy as Altar Guild prepares for worship. It takes place in the gallery on tech, it takes place when we fix a leak in the building. It takes place when the phone is answered in the office, and when the choir rehearses. It happens in the liturgy, and in acts of kindness to our neighbours.
And in so many other ways—as acts of ministry, these are the ways in which we bring God’s mission of healing to bear in the church and in the world.
What I find particularly helpful about this relationship between God’s mission and our ministry is in recognising their difference. God’s mission is universal, because God is without bounds, and his work is for the sake of all; the thankful and the thankless, in our gospel today. Even more, God’s mission is for the healing of all humanity, the living and the dead; God’s mission is for the healing of the whole world, seen and unseen; God’s mission of healing extends from the foundation of all things to the end of all things.
This is what we are invited into—God’s mission of healing—but not as gods. As creatures. As creatures with limits, creatures that are sometimes fragile, creatures with boundaries, creatures that are vulnerable. While God can say yes, and yes, and yes again, because God is without limit—when we say yes, it comes with maybes and even nos—because we are limited, we are fragile, we are vulnerable. We are entirely contingent and reliant on God’s power, not our own.
I find this a helpful thing to say because the needs of the world, and even the needs of the church, often feel endless. There’s always more we could do, it feels, and sure, perhaps we could find some efficiencies in the system or set people free who are tentative about what they have to offer—but even this doesn’t change the fact that we are fallible creatures.
And that this is how God made us—not as the God whose mission is the healing of all people, and all the world; but as human creatures who minister to others in our own unique ways, in our small patch of earth, sometimes tired, sometimes energized, but always dependent on God.
This is a wonderful mystery, and one that the second letter to Timothy points to
when we hear that even “if we are faithless, he remains faithful.” Even in the darkest moments of doubt, even in the depths of weakness, even in the brokenness of our own fragility, contingent as we are, this places no limit on God and God’s work, and God’s own faithfulness.
God remains faithful.
It’s the mystery of our own finitude—that even when we recognise that we are finite creatures, and that this sometimes makes for difficult decisions about what we can,
and cannot do—God surprises us, because his power is infinite. Every day we are confronted with needs that cannot be met—and while that can sometimes be painful,
it is ok: we are creatures.
And yet none of this changes God’s own faithfulness, a God who is and will remain faithful in ways we can hardly imagine. None of our successes, none of our failures,
none of our limited creatureliness, can ever be a hindrance to the one whose work is for the sake of all people, and all the world: the one in whom we place our trust, “Jesus Christ, raised from the dead.”
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.