SERMON: Abundant Rain (Earth Days 5/6)

 10:30 am, Sun, May 21, 2023 - JGWhite/FBCA

(Psalm 68:3-10; 32-35; Acts 1:6-14)

It’s raining.

Ain’t it grand? We could use some, I think. It has been a dry spring. Not only here: across Canada, in places, as we well know. The fires, and their smoke, cover a huge area.

Water is ‘an element’ for our attention today. Our bodies are made up of about 60% water – more if you are a child – and every other living thing has its portion.

Coming out of a drier land than Nova Scotia, our holy scriptures treat H2O a bit more preciously than we usually do. Their wildernesses were deserts, their community wells were very important meeting places, their food and livelihood were truly at the mercy of the elements.

Ours too, though we often can go on without noticing. Hot and cold running water – even at our cottages – is a luxury every single one of us may well have.

We turned back to the first stories of Luke’s second volume today, the book of Acts. Jesus, alive and well again, is giving final instructions to his closest followers, before He disappears for good. One of His promises is that God will arrive in a new way, to make the Spirit of Jesus present for all. “John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.” (A 1:5)

It is no wonder that cultures around the world have used water in their rituals. Judaism has had washings of hands and so forth. And baptisms. Jesus followed the example, and as with Jewish Passover, He gave baptism a new impact.  

Just think about baptism – full immersion, as we call it – and how it takes quite a bit of water. No challenge for Nova Scotians, but more significant in the Middle East. There was no taking for granted of water in scripture.

Whenever we read of the promise of ‘abundant rain’ in the Bible, it is part of a beautiful picture. It means a lot! Our modern translation of Psalm 68 celebrates with such imagery. God rides upon the clouds and sends showers upon a thirsty land.  Rain poured down.  

Let your people be happy & celebrate because of you!

God is a God of abundance. Perhaps this is the lesson of the rains today. Our Creator and Saviour is not a God of scarcity, but of abundance. God is more abundant than the massive enemies that threaten, whatever they may be. Evil, injustice, apathy, disease, hunger, thirst.

The Biblical way often starts with help for the faithful.

There shall be showers of blessing –

Precious reviving again;

Over the hills and the valleys,

Sound of abundance of rain.

                 Mercy drops ‘round us are falling,

                 But for the showers we plead.

Sometimes, sometimes we plead as if ours is a sorry lot. As if we need so much help and encouragement from our Dear God. We forget how good we’ve got it.

This past week Sharon and I took in the Integrate church leaders conference in Saint Andrews. One theme that came from Dr. Amy Sherman, and others, was the abundance of God. Dr. Amy recommended we embrace an asset-based perspective. In other words, in our churches, we set out sights on all the human resources we have, not what we lack. Not to mention all the valuable things we have at hand. Here, we have a great location, an amazing building, incredible finances, some great ways of doing things, and on and on. We church people can too easily fall into thinking about what is scarce, instead of what is plentiful.

I remember talking once to a colleague, a minister from another church in my town, who had quit coming to the monthly ministerial meetings. He had two reasons, he said, one being the negative conversations every meeting. The other pastors were always bemoaning the non participation of younger people, the competing events people took part in, and so on. This pastor wanted to get together with other ministers who would talk about possibilities, and work together on good things: Outreach and successes.

Is the Spirit of Jesus in our midst like a fountain of living water, or not? Has God dried up? I realize I have been hearing for years about what Amy Sherman called an Asset-based perspective: not a scarcity mindset, an abundance attitude. One way of thinking about it has been spiritual gift focus. We each learn what we are here for in life, and what we can do well, thanks to our Maker.

A big part of how God and Church make the most of us, the people, came to light at last week’s leader’s conference. It was all about integrating people’s faith and their work. What any person does for their work is a place for serving the world in Jesus’ name. Your workplace is a key place to be a disciple of Christ. One of a teacher’s main places to be with God in their life is when they are doing a teacher’s work. So too with a truck driver, or a store clerk, or a lawyer. So too with a retired person, or a work-at-home person. So too in all our volunteer work, in the fire department, the Lions club, the curling club, or the 50+ Club. So too in our time off, our relaxing, our sports, our reading, our relaxing, our cottaging, our travels.

These are the places and the activities we Christians get to do with the Spirit of God. In all our vocations and our vacations we get to make a difference in the world. We are each giving. We are creating. We are cooperating. We are blessing.

Our abundant God can pour out the Spirit upon all the things we do. The flow never dries up. God bless our business deals, buying and selling. Our taking care of grandchildren. Our gardening. Our bass fishing and picking fiddleheads. Our kite flying and our golfing. Our shopping and throwing parties. Our studying and learning, our time around the campfire with loved ones, or attending a Mooseheads game in Halifax or Moncton.

So, what is going on, from a Church, is abundant, even when it is not abundantly clear. Remember, where is First Baptist on Monday afternoon? Where are you going to be? Not here. You and I will be all over the place. And wherever our places, we are the Church there.

God is an abundant God. Each one of us a little raindrop, in the refreshing, deep showers, that water this earthly society. At our better moments, we remember the difference we are making. And when we do do projects together, they are us cooperating to make a difference, to give blessing.

Like our warming centre project. With other churches in town, we met the other day to review the whole thing, which was blessed and is still blessing us by teaching us things. Ashley Legere, of Cumberland Homelessness and Housing Support Association, met with us the other day. Amid a bit of laryngitis she had, she energetically and enthusiastically commended us for the work we did, and how we did it so well together, as a big team. She praised our volunteer teams Big Time! [By the way, CHHSA has just now been able to open the shelter back up during the day, for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, seven days a week, now until mid-August.]

The next new things of First Baptist do not need to be inventing new programs that we have to find workers for. It can be finding what we are already doing, and bank on that. Pay attention to God blessing that. Count those human resources, our assets. Showers of blessing are already coming down.

What the Spirit of God will do next with us, together, is an abundant thing. There are quite a few of us. And our other resources are plentiful, as we’ve noticed.

Together… we can even make a difference to the actual, real water of our world. How we use paper makes a difference. Right? How much water gets used in the manufacture of paper? Can be up to five litres for one sheet of paper! So much water becomes wastewater, it is rather nasty, a terrible problem. We can care; we can learn to do some things differently.

And when a congregation learns to do things differently in the organization, that sends a message to all of us. We get prompted to try learning new things at home. And we become a good influence in the wider community.

Jesus sent the fire of the Holy Spirit to His people to make a difference to hungry people. To make a difference to the lakes and rivers. To make a difference to the way people do their jobs, or lack thereof. Can you see it?

It’s raining.

Ain’t it grand?

SERMON: Life & Breath & All Things (Earth Days 4/6)

 10:30 am, Sun, May 14, 2023 - JGWhite/FBCA   (Acts 17:22-31; John 14:15-21)

For the prayer before the preaching, let us quiet ourselves for a breath prayer…

About twenty-five years ago, one of my faithful few people of the Port Greville Baptist Church was in hospital, here in Amherst. Dear Jessie was a delightful woman, with energy and a sense of fun, in the midst of the quiet life she led, of a widowed senior in a quiet village. I remember some fun little stories she told me. She had a lung problem – I forget now if it was emphysema, or COPD, or what – and so she landed in hospital, periodically. I never shall forget, as she paced herself, talking to me, in her hospital bed, with oxygen from a tube, as she said, “When you can’t breathe, nothing else matters.”

You can’t deny that!

Today, another ‘earth day’ Sunday for us, this time with the theme of AIR. It is said of fish they don’t know what water is; but they must. We know what air is. We know it when we need to breathe deeply, or hold our breath. We know it when it blows strongly in north Cumberland County. We know it when we smell smoke, or mayflowers, or a skunk, or supper burning in the kitchen, or any other common stink. I recently gave a staff member a birthday gift, a book titled: Jesus Farted and Other Uncomfortable Thoughts.

On the other hand, do we know when the wind of God the Holy Spirit is blowing in the midst?

Breathe on me, Breath of God,

Fill me with life anew,

That I may love as Thou dost love

And do as Thou wouldst do.

I am, in these earth day weeks, treading a fine line. The line between preaching a Bible study about religious ideas, using the images of earth, air, water, and so forth. Or, preaching about creation, the environment, and things like the climate crisis or the big extinction that is happening now.

Today, from the four scriptures for this Sunday of the year, I took two: Acts 17 and John 14. Sometimes I feel that I am performing eisegesis, which is not a swear word. E I S E G E S I S, eisegesis, is taking Bible verses and putting your meaning into them, instead of being influenced by the holy text itself. (That’s called exegesis – the meaning coming out of it.)

 The words of Paul, preaching one day in Athens, Greece, sound wonderful for a sermon about the air we breathe. God “gives to all mortals life and breath and all things.” This was common ground for Paul and his audience, in general: there is a Creator, and our life, including our breathing, is a gift. But the points of Paul’s sermon were about God, who God is, how to worship and relate to this God. And it happens through a Human who was raised back to life: started breathing again.

At the basis of Christian thinking and living are facts like: physical life is a gift, including the oxygen we breathe in, and the carbon dioxide we breathe out, along with a lot of nitrogen, other gasses, and material of all sorts. ‘Life and breath and all things’ does pretty much cover everything. With everything we have, getting along well with the Source is a great thing to have going for us.

So much of our talk – and music – in Church just uses things like ‘breath’ as a metaphor for spiritual stuff. This is a biblical thing to do. It can be poignant and beautiful.

                 Spirit, Spirit of gentleness,

                 Blow through the wilderness

                 Calling and free…

But if we have no breath in our lungs, our living here is done, & we won’t have the Breath of the Spirit in us here either.

On Mother’s Day quite a few people (of course not all) think with fondness of the good things they got from their mothers. Air, breath, is one of them. Most of us spent about nine months on the inside, and where did the oxygen we needed come from then? The body that was our home, our mother.

All together, we realize for earth the lungs are the plants (mainly) on land and in the waters. They take in CO2, and turn that gas into two things: wood and other solid material, as well as O2 gas, which they release in great amounts. These plants are solar powered: there’s the energy they use to do this. ‘Mother Earth,’ or ‘Gaia,’ the whole environment, is something we are part of, and don’t live without. Remember that canticle Francis of Assisi composed, saying to God:

Praised be You, my Lord, through Sister Mother Earth.

who sustains us and governs us and who produces

varied fruits with coloured flowers and herbs.

These days, eight hundred years after St. Francis, we see a climate crisis. Praise be God through brother wind, and through the air, cloudy and serene, which warns us of many things. All that surrounds us sustains and governs us. This is part of how God sustains and governs us. We know it is not just the supernatural that proves God or intervenes in our lives. It is the natural, every day, that keeps us living and shows us the way.

So, the Spirit of God points us toward creation care. You may well know that in the Hebrew Bible and the Greek Bible the words for ‘spirit’ are the same words for ‘wind’ and for ‘breath.’ Both the immaterial Spirit of God and the physical atmosphere govern us.

I think climate change is to bring about a spiritual change in Christianity. And physical changes. (Such as how we use paper, perhaps?) Change is beginning. Like several other important challenges of our age, the environment is calling for it’s own health and salvation. Practical projects are popping up.

An old friend in Annapolis County was telling me about things in her congregation, including little crocheted animals they are making and selling. Lots going on in our church, wrote Janet. We are working on a project to raise funds for our solar panels that are going on the church roof.  It involves making 480 "Worry Worms" that we are calling "Earth Worms" to tie the sale of the worms to our efforts to improve the environment.  We are aiming to sell 480 because the panels cost $480 each and we want to symbolically sell enough to cover the cost of one solar panel.  A couple other women have agreed to learn how to make them, and they went to my friend’s house for a crochet lesson.

Let us be grateful for the messages we are hearing from the air we breathe, from fellow humans: our siblings in Christ, and the inner voice we call the Breath of God. A worship song says:

This is the air I breathe,

This is the air I breathe,

Your holy presence living in me.

May we be aware of the presence of God, who can turn the page of a new chapter for us. A chapter of touching the earth lightly, using the earth gently. We do this for everyone’s breath.

“When you can’t breathe, nothing else matters.” This is true for the atmosphere going in and out of our lungs, and the leaves of each plant; and it is true for the values and the spirituality we share – for our spirit. So, we do not take for granted the life, and breath, and all things we and our world have been given. Thanks be to the Breath of God!

Spring Ephemerals

It is the season for wandering the woods and wild places, watching not only birds, but botany. The 'spring ephemerals' are coming into bloom, those plants that flower and leaf out quickly, and then dry up and disappear by the heat of summer. On a couple of hikes in Cumberland County lately I found some of these plants. The yellow trout lilies, aka dogtooth violets, above are one example. I also found a bit of Carolina spring-beauty, and a big patch of bloodroot.

Bloodroot was a wonderful find, along a shaded riverbank. I admit, some of these species do keep their leave most of the summer, but the flowers are short lived. Below is Dutchman's breeches, another rarer treasure around here. It completely disappears in the heat of summer. 

I sought out one certain location because I knew blue cohosh had been found there, and where it grows, other nice things do. Indeed. It led me to the bloodroot and other special plants. The cohosh is called 'blue' because of the vibrant berries, and here they are, ones that lasted all winter and were still lying upon the forest floor. The new plants are just unfolding, yet to leaf out and bloom with subtle, green flowers.

 A real surprise to me at one site was wild leek, or 'wide leek,' as it is named on iNaturalist. Not found in many locations in Nova Scotia, here was one large patch by a river, and extending into the woods of big sugar maples. 

This 'onion' - it is an Allium - leafs out now. Later, once the leaves have shriveled and disappeared, the greenish blooms arise, midsummer. 

In other regions, where it is not so rare, it is harvested as food - both the leaves, and the little bulbs. Usually called 'ramps,' each year I usually take one oniony leaf and eat it raw, in the woods. I saw them every year in the Digby County location. 

Not rare, but a definite joy of spring is the familiar mayflower. I found a thick patch of them today in the woods, still in full bloom, in a variety of pinks and whites. 

And my last photo is this prolific white violet I came upon in a wet area. There are quite a few violet species in NS, the blues and the whites always a bit confusing to me. No matter what I name them, they are lovely. 

SERMON: Rock of Ages (Earth Days 3/6)

 10:30 am, Sun, May 7, 2023 - JGWhite/FBCA

(Psalm 31:1-5, 15-16; 1 Peter 2:2-10)

 Welcome, welcome again, to this room walled in by sandstone quarried near here, almost 130 years ago. The stone itself we say is about 300 million years old. Perhaps you took note of its beauty as you arrived today, even though you may have come in many times before, and become used to the walls and turrets of red rock. Like any stone, it is ancient; we could call it ‘rock of ages.’

We will sing that hymn later.

Rock of ages, cleft for me; let me hide myself in Thee.

We know our whole planet is made of stone, so to speak, and we all live merely upon the surface of it. We live upon rock; no wonder it has always been an image and a metaphor for the divine Source of creation: God. God is our Rock, the ancient Hebrews declared, and we say the same to this day. Apostle Paul went so far as to speak of Christ as the spiritual rock that followed the children of Israel in the desert, with Moses.

And why do we see the unseen God as rock? Because of the safety and security of stone. A solid and firm foundation. A hiding place in times of threat.

With a newer English rewording we spoke these words of Psalm 31: Your granite cave a hiding place, your high cliff nest a place of safety. You’re my cave to hide in, my cliff to climb. Such Bible imagery lives on in hymns old and new, sung by the Church. On Christ the solid Rock I stand; all other ground is sinking sand.

We know there are many moments when a hiding place is needed, a safe refuge from the storms of life and the enemies that threaten. In that amazing prayer by a Serbian Bishop, a prayer for enemies, it declares: Just as a hunted animal finds safer shelter than an un-hunted animal does, so have I, persecuted by enemies, found the safest sanctuary, having ensconced myself beneath your tabernacle, where neither friends nor enemies can slay my soul.

Yet, more than this, more than God as our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble, The Rock is also our Foundation for building. Ed took our attention to the great imagery of Peter’s first letter, about Jesus the Cornerstone, and we the living stones of a spiritual temple, built together, built beautifully, built with purpose. 

So, a stone building is a fitting temple, when it does not become more important than the living, human stones who meet inside it. Deacon Cindy brought to my attention at a recent meeting this brick, with a label on it, kept in a cabinet in our Parlour. Many of you know what this is. In part, it says:

This brick is from the wall of the house built by Samuel Freeman Sr. in or about 1800 and torn down by Samuel Freeman 3^rd in 1890. In this house the Amherst Baptist Church was organized and met frequently. That was in 1809.

It is always good for a congregation who has a spectacular building to remember that this was not the first edifice wherein our Church met. This is at least the fourth; perhaps it is not the last. From this base of operations, this meeting house, we are sent out every week to serve and have our impact in the wide community. Can it still be said, of us, that we are chosen? A royal priesthood? Holy? God’s own?

Without divulging details, I am excited about the work and conversations of our Search Committee for Assistant Minister. Thank you – 57 of you – for your responses to the survey. They are inspiring some creative thinking about the whole work of First Baptist. How we meet, what we do, who we want to touch. We look to the next chapter of how we shall proclaim the mighty acts of God who called us out of darkness into marvelous light. We, the living stones, may be a more impressive reflection of Christ than 90 East Victoria Street.

I have been speaking, already, of the beauty of stone, be it physical rock, or metaphorical spiritual fellowship, that is built well together to achieve its purpose. In our Biblical imagery we have stone as a source of beautiful perspective. Think of the many ‘mountaintop experiences’ in the stories: Moses on Sinai, Elijah on Horeb, Jesus on the mount of transfiguration. The Jews had this understanding of hilltops as places where earth and the heavens meet. No wonder. As I’ve asked before, why do they put all the beautiful views up on a hill?

It so often is a matter of perspective. You get to see the big picture when you are up there. And what it is about a craggy rock, or the view of a landscape that is gorgeous? Did we all just learn that a view is beautiful, or a pinnacle of rock by the ocean, or an amethyst sparkling in our hand? Or are these all truly beautiful, enjoyable, impressive, in and of themselves?

Someone said, ‘beauty is truth, and truth beauty.’ We know the glorious things of life inspire us. We find creative ideas, answers to questions, hope and emotional energy when we enjoy something. From the beautiful stone on a beach to the giant rock pinnacles upon a mountain, many natural places can become sacred to us. We find ourselves on holy ground.

This rock upon which we do all our living, is our home. Thanks be to God we have this world as it is, and in just the right orbit around the sun, for life: our lives and everything’s life. In fellowship with everything upon earth, we find our purpose and our joy.

The latter part of our worship, now, points to Jesus, the Rock of ages, cleft for you and me. Like us, Jesus of Nazareth was a carbon and water organism. He breathed out carbon dioxide that plants took in and made into wood, which is now buried in the earth today. He breathed out water molecules that we are still enjoying today, and still flows down mountainsides, through rivers, into the oceans. He bled real blood, with iron in those cells, that was a sign of the life God was giving to people, and all creation.

With every digging in the ground you do, remember Jesus, also made of clay. With every stone you pick up on a beach, consider how Jesus is putting you into the building called His body today. With every little mountaintop experience you have, pray for the ways you can be a blessing to people, to all living things, and to the ground itself. You and I are here to be a blessing, not a curse. Our spiritual sacrifices will be practical and physical. X will be your Safe Leader & Mountain Guide.