Water is a sacred gift that connects all life. Access to clean water is a basic human right. The value of the Earth's fresh water to the common good takes priority over commercial value. Fresh water is a shared legacy, a public trust, and a collective responsibility...If you are interested in taking part in this study let Gord know. There is also a Lenten devotional book along the same themes for personal daily use.
Five sessions explore the following themes:
- water as a matter of faith
- water in the Canadian context
- Aboriginal peoples' water rights
- water in the global context
- what can we do—strategies for action
The hymns will be:
Imagine it. To be so convinced of the importance of getting your friend to meet Jesus that you are willing to dig a hole in someone's roof. What passion, what depth of feeling that must take.
I think the church needs to recover that sort of passion for Jesus. I think that we need to reclaim evangelism. That's right I said evangelism. Evangelism is a word we don't use much (or enough) in the United Church. It is one of those words we have left to other Christians to define and since we don't like they way they do it, we say that we aren't into evangelism. I think we need to claim a definition and style of evangelism that works for us.
Last week we heard about a leper who was so moved by his healing encounter with Jesus that he couldn't help but tell everybody. This week we hear about a group of people who are so convinced that Jesus has an answer that they will do whatever it takes to get their friend in that room. What keeps us from shouting out what God has done for us? What keeps us from saying to a friend "you might find an answer here"?
Unless we in the church can learn to share our faith and invite others in we risk becoming a meaningless sub-culture. We have to reclaim evangelism as something that we do in our own way--not just something that those other people do. The only challenge (especially for those Introverts among us) is "how?".
--Gord
The hymns will be:
In honour of the beginning of the 2006 Olympics in Turin, Italy the Children's story will be Olympic Peace.
The Sermon title is The Cost of Healing. Some early thoughts:
I am thinking that one of the most important parts of the Gospel story is the end, the part where we are told that Jesus couldn't go into towns anymore because the leper didn't keep his healing a secret. I have heard many people explain this as being due to the crowds that then surrounded Jesus wherever he went. But I have always read it differently.
Ritual purity plays a major role in Biblical Judaism (see Leviticus and all the laws that make up the purity code) Within that tradition, to touch something or someone who was unclean/impure would then render you ritually unclean. Mark tells us that in healing the leper Jesus touches him (which is a common part of most healing stories) this would mean that Jesus is now unclean. By choosing to restore the outcast to community he has become outcast.
If we as Christians are called to restore the outcasts to community, to bring healing into troubled relationships and societies, then we have to be willing to pay the cost. We have to risk being seen as unclean. When we think about those who are untouchable, where do we put ourselves?
--Gord
