June 14, 2015
90th Anniversary of the United Church of Canada
SCRIPTURE: Psalm 16:11
Psalm 100 sung – Make a Joyful Noise
Gospel: John 20: 19-21
MEDITATION: Joy, Joy, Joy
Could the psalmist have ever dreamed what we would interpret joy as?
Just try “goggling” Joy and you will get an overwhelming directory of what joy means, illustrations of joy,
and as the web is meant to do, a thousand ways to FIND joy. I doubt if Jesus had this solution in mind
when he appeared to the disciples who were huddled together, hiding from the unknown and overcome
with fear – no JOY in sight! BUT when Jesus appeared to them they were overcome with JOY, relief and
a sense that all would now be OK, because Jesus was back in their midst.
That I can understand. When we are beyond our own capacity, frightened and feeling alone, to have the
person we have always depended upon, appear miraculously, would bring any of us to a sense of joy.
And also a sense of relief that we no longer needed to be afraid. Now, we were indeed, not alone, after
all. That is what I imagine the disciples must have felt.
I am imagining that something like this happened on that day 90 years ago when the United Church was
born. Something new was happening in Christianity in Canada. Most human beings, when they have
decided on a new path, a new way, maybe even a new life, are at first filled with possibility and even
that illusive sense of JOY. There must have been joy in that arena that morning as thousands of people
gathered to see and experience this new Church coming to life. .
The sermon that morning was preached by a Methodist minister, Rev. S. P. Rose from Wesleyan
Theological College in Montreal. Just before he rose to speak, the denominations – three of them,
Congregationalists, Presbyterian, and Methodist had symbolically bequeathed a prized feature of each
tradition to the United Church as an “inheritance” to the new Church. Each denomination was
committed to something new that would bring a life-giving presence to communities across Canada.
Rev. George Pidgeon, soon to be elected as the moderator was listening as Rev. Rose preached on John
12: 24-32 – focusing on one particular verse, “except a kernel of wheat fall into the ground and die, it
abideth alone; but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit.” Rev. Rose was challenging his listeners to
embrace a willingness to die in order to “enter into a larger life.” Rose pressed the point that the grain
of wheat that does not die will perish. Later Rev. Pidgeon remarked, “I think of the church I love, as
ready to sink its identity into a “church that is yet to be.”
Phyliss Airhart, a professor of history of Christianity at Emmanuel College, Victoria University in the
University of Toronto, has written a wonderful article in the United Church Observer this month that
speaks of the history from that historical day to today. I highly recommend it to your reading but I will
share just a little of what she has said.
The United Church was full of JOY in the 1950’s. It was a time of building, sanctuaries filled on Sunday
mornings and church schools bursting at the seams with children. It was easy to forget that at the
beginning the survival of the United Church was not at all assured. The moderator of 1934-1936, Very
Rev. Richard Roberts had warned that a church organized like a department store, “was under sentence
of death.” He saw preoccupation with statistics as a worrisome sign, and is quoted as saying,“as though
it mattered very much how many of us there are, when the real matter is what kind of people we are.”
Airhart raises for us the reality that the world has changed, “that the connections between church and
community that the founding generation took for granted are not so obvious now” and that the digital
age may lead to “gathering in a building for worship at the same hour may someday seem as quaint to
future generations as the notion of “Christendom” now seems to us.”
She speaks about the new model of The United Church that is to be debated at General Council in
August this year, which the report called United in God’s Work reminds us that “We would have to let go
of things we have always done and things we cherish. We would have to live within our means and
accept that we will be smaller.”
She goes on to ask the question “do we still believe, as did those who gathered for the inaugural service
90 years ago, that something vital is in the making, even though we cannot yet see what that is or how it
will turn out?” Do we still believe that ultimately our hope is not in denominational structures or
ourselves, but in God’s help?”
Airhart concludes by asking us “Are we not like those first followers of Jesus – uncertain, not always
quite sure who Jesus is, but occasionally finding the grace of our Lord’s presence in the midst of ordinary
living? She concludes with a quote by G. K. Chesterton, who wrote, “Christianity has died many times
and risen again; for it had a god who knew the way out of the grave.”
Is that where are JOY is? The JOY breathed into us at birth. Our joy to the world. Tidings of wonder and
joy. Wise men were overwhelmed by joy, disciples were overwhelmed by joy. Can we be overwhelmed
by JOY?
What does joy look like? Feel like? Sound like? Have you ever tasted that joy? It is a gift from God. Know
that your God has made you. Know it is to God we belong. We are not the ones who create this joy; it is
a gift from God. It is constantly renewed by the love and trust with which God regards our life. Things
that take away our joy can be labelled “joy suckers.” We all have joy suckers in our life, or perhaps-s we
find that we ourselves are joy suckers. Jesus said, “I have come so that you should have life and have it
abundantly.” That means saying NO to things that take our joy away. That means being faithful even
when the road ahead is full of uncertainty.
Airhart says that means holding to the heritage that we celebrate and hope to pass on – sharing the
faith in word and in how we live that out, being willing to be candid about our failings but not
immobilized by them and working together in and for God’s world.
That’s the JOY that the disciples felt on that long ago day, despite all the unknown that lay before them.
That’s the JOY that Jesus gave in the HOLY SPIRIT to sustain and strengthen and it is also ours as much as
it was for the disciples.
That has GOT to be enough. That IS enough for our unknown future as well.
Thanks be to God.
AMEN