Watch this week’s service on YouTube by clicking:
Join us for Worship Sunday at 10:00 AM followed by fellowship and refreshments in the He/SheBrews Café
- Our 100th Anniversary Picture Directory has arrived. If you don’t know the odyssey of this project, we had so many problems with the publisher and printer that it has come months and months after it was expected. In any case, it is here and it looks great. If you sat for a picture in the directory then we have one for you. Please pick it up at the office the during the week.
- ADVANCE NOTICE – The Urban Retreats Garden Tour is going to be held on Saturday, June 22. This is the largest fundraiser of the year for 1JustCIty and the United Church of Canada Community Ministries. Each year gardens in a particular neighbourhood are opened to receive visitors while a tea, craft, and plant sale is held in a central location. This year the Garden Tour is in Charleswood and the tea, craft, and plant sale will be right here at Charleswood United Church! Tickets are not on sale yet but now is the time for those who would like to volunteer. For more information, please visit: https://www.1justcity.ca/garden-tour or to volunteer email gardentourvolunteers@1justcity.ca
- For news and events, please have a look at Life & Work on our website: Life and Work
Dear Friends
Welcome to worship for Sunday, May 12, 2024.
Happy Mother’s Day!
If you understand that ‘gospel’ is a particular and unique literary genre, then a blessing that comes with that understanding is freedom from being bogged down with details and numbers and even contradictions in the text. The larger purpose of ‘gospel’ is to share good news…that we might believe. It is not to provide an accurate history or biography (two other excellent genres).
BUT… (why is there always a but) the church has always used the details and numbers of scripture to build a framework of understanding. Case in point, Ascension and Pentecost. On the church calendar, the Day of Ascension comes 40 days after Easter. The reason for this is found in Acts 1:3 “he (Jesus) was seen by them over a period of forty days and spoke to them about the realm of God.” That is why Ascension was technically this past Thursday and why we are reading it this Sunday, three days after the fact. It also means that Pentecost, from pente the Greek word for five (as in pentagram or pentagon) will be next Sunday. It was so named because the story in Acts 2 is set on the Jewish observance of Pentecost, literally 50 days after Passover.
Forty days to Ascension or fifty days to Pentecost is not the point. It may have been that length of time or it may have been (in all likelihood) a greater length of time, but the testimony of Acts is that there was life for the followers of Jesus after the Easter moment. And that it was simultaneously a continuation of their life with Jesus as well as something new. The early Christians found that they were not bereft and aimless without Jesus but rather that they were transformed and empowered. Faith moves us forward in the direction of greater love, even after our hearts have been broken.
There isn’t an obvious or historical connection between Ascension and Mother’s Day but theologically it may be just this, greater love. Mothers try to give their children a sense of a greater love that we are able to generate on our own. Through care, nurture, instruction, and even discipline, mothers direct us towards a greater love, a love that we have the opportunity to discover for ourselves in faith. Through forgiveness, mercy, and affection, mothers are able to provide us with more than life might ordinarily afford. Our experience has been that when this opportunity is denied (as when a mother dies young) or taken away (as in the Residential School System), or not seized upon (for whatever reason), the results can be catastrophic.
The Spirit moves within and among us to lead us in the direction of a greater love. 40, 50, or 3,728 days, it doesn’t matter how long. What matters is that a greater love is God’s will for our lives. And thus it is the future to which we are being led.
Grace and peace,
Michael
- 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/ We have begun to receive donations for this summer’s Roofing Project which will be held separate from Operations and Mission & Service. Thank you for your generous support.
- Through the United Church of Canada’s membership in the Canadian Foodgrains Bank, an appeal for donations has been issued for the Humanitarian Crisis in the Middle East. For more information and to donate please visit: Humanitarian Crisis in the Middle East Appeal
- Share the service with friends by forwarding this email or using this link: https://youtu.be/mx3Y746G-7A
- Read this week’s scripture lesson here: Acts 1:1-11
