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By Michael Wilson Pastoral Letters June 30, 2023

 

 

 

Watch this week’s service on YouTube by clicking:

July 2 Worship Service Video

 

 

Join us for worship on Sundays at 10:00

 

 

  • Please join us after the service in the Van Roon Community Hall for HeBrews Café, refreshments and fellowship after worship.

 

  • For news and events please have a look at Life & Work on our website: Life and Work

 

  • Did you know you can support this ministry by e-transfer, automatic withdrawal (PAR), and gifted securities, in addition to weekly or monthly cheques? For Offering Information please visit: https://charleswoodunited.org/support/  Thank you for your generous support.

 

 

A Congregational Meeting has been called to address needed replacement of the roof of the church.

Please join us:
Wednesday, July 19, 2023 at 7:00 PM on Zoom
https://us06web.zoom.us/j/84335371136?pwd=K3pzeWJ5Qi9EUGM2eGN4K203eFJCdz09

Meeting ID: 843 3537 1136
Passcode: 011403

For Further information: Letter Announcing Roofing Project and Meeting

 

 

 Dear Friends

Welcome to worship for Sunday, July 2, 2023.

The lectionary is the catalogue of readings that we generally follow along with most mainstream Christian denominations. It is on a three-year cycle and each week there is a suggestion for a lesson from the Old Testament, the Psalms, an Epistle, and a Gospel reading. Some churches will do all four every week though at Charleswood we usually chose two of the four.

There is a logic to the lectionary in that it always works in coordination with the church calendar. That is why the birth of Jesus in Luke 2 is always recommended for Christmas and never for the third Sunday in September!! In each year there is a concentration on either the Gospel of Matthew, or Mark, or Luke. We are in year A – Matthew right now.

Another interesting thing in the lectionary is that it reserves some of the sweeping stories or sagas of the Old Testament to be read after the seasonal readings of Lent-Easter-Pentecost and tells them in sequence. So, it is that one year there will be a focus on the epic tales of Abraham and Sarah, through Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph, and leading us to Moses and the Exodus. In the next year the sequence begins with Samuel and Saul and introduces David, tracing his dynasty through Solomon. The third year begins with Elijah and then leads the reader on a tour of the prophets. Over the course of three years the faith community is exposed to all the great narratives of Israel (not everything but a lot). The value of this is that the respective meaning of these sagas is found more in the sequence of the longer story and less in an excerpt the length of which we could read on a Sunday morning at church.

All of this partly explains why we have been reading episodes from the life of Abraham and Sarah for several weeks now. The lectionary not only guides us to major themes in scripture but it also, kind of, makes you confront stories of scripture we might otherwise avoid. Such in the case in the appointed lesson for this week.

This week’s reading is the story sometimes called the sacrifice of Isaac. Modern interpreters prefer the term ‘binding of Isaac’. By either name, if one was unfamiliar with the overall aim of the Abraham and Sarah narrative, one would rightfully say this story is horrifying. Even with that knowledge it is unsettling. Who can believe or trust in a God who uses a child, and the presumptive death of that child, as a text of faith. The story requires much of us and even when put into a proper context, is a difficult one to find redeeming.

Perhaps a clue lies in the idea that it is an early story, an ancient story, maybe even a mythic story. The way God is depicted in this story may not reflect a God who changes and evolves and becomes the God who is love and embodied in Jesus. If God is love then God always has been and always will be love. But how wonderful if we look into this story and see how God’s people change and evolve. How Israel came to know more and more about God as their life with God unfolded generation after generation, century after century.

Israel’s history may be read as one of a growing understanding of who God is and as such, they become a model for the spiritual journey of our own life. It is only by living with faith that we grow in spirit and deepen in understanding.

The story of Abraham and Isaac is troubling and complicated and challenging. I would be delighted if you would join me in wrestling with it.

 

Grace and peace,

Michael

 

 

  • Michael Wilson’s book “A Pastoral Pandemic: Remaining Connected in a Time of Disconnection” is available in store and online through CommonWord Bookstore (Canadian Mennonite University). For more information visit: https://www.commonword.ca/go/3408. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Michael Wilson / About Author
Michael’s involvement in the wider church has included ministry with children and youth, membership on the National Division of World Outreach, supervision of campus ministry, and the Ten Days for Global Justice National Committee. He has been blessed by the opportunity to represent the United Church of Canada in the Bahamas, Cuba, and Africa on different occasions. Michael has taught at the University of Winnipeg – Faculty of Theology and is past President of the Conference of Manitoba and North Western Ontario.
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