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By Michael Wilson Pastoral Letters February 14, 2025

Watch this week’s service on YouTube by clicking:

February 16 Worship Service Video

 

Join us for Worship Sunday at 10:00 AM followed by fellowship and refreshments in the He/SheBrews Café

 

  • Mardi Gras Celebration This Sunday – Our winter is going to be warmed up with our annual Mardi Gras Sunday this week. We will worship in the company of a brass band playing Dixieland standards. The service will be followed by the return of our Pancake Breakfast in the Van Roon Community Hall at 11:00. Please plan on joining us and bringing a friend!!

 

  • 2024 Income Tax Receipts – Receipts for donations in 2024 are now printed and available. They will be set out in the Entrance Hall of the church for one more Sunday. Following that any remaining ones will be mailed. Postage, of course, has become quite expensive so please help us ease that cost by picking up yours on Sundays or during weekday office hours.

 

  • Annual Meeting – Sunday, March 9 – our annual general meeting is approaching. Annual Reports and Financial Statements will be available in the next two weeks and we will notify you as they are.

 

 

Dear Friends

Welcome to worship for Sunday, February 16, 2025.

It was my pleasure to attend a pastor’s conference at Canadian Mennonite University for a little while this past week. It is an annual event and I have been to several over the years. I admit it is a bit of a homecoming for former students from that institution but they are a very hospitable group and are very welcoming of a wayward liberal Protestant in the midst of their Anabaptist reunion.

One of the early sessions was a Bible study led by a retired professor of Hebrew Scriptures, Dr. Dan Epp-Thiessen who opened by speaking of a paradox that exists in much of scripture and thus is a paradox that is part of Christian faith today. He began with the profound yet perplexing statement that God is God. Can I get an Amen! God is God and God’s plan will move ahead no matter what. God promised future and God’s action to bring about that future does not change, is not altered by what we do. What a relief!!

The paradox is that God chooses to work through human beings. Flawed, distracted, sinful human beings are the agents to bring about God’s plan (or more precisely God’s promised future). Which may go a long way to explaining why it doesn’t happen very quickly.

Here are a few examples. God is determined that Israel will be freed from their slavery in Egypt. On Sinai God tells Moses that this will happen (“I have heard the cries of my people and have come to deliver them” – Exodus 3). That is God’s plan and it will happen. But it takes Moses and his human agency.

Moses is to go to Pharaoh and tell him to let my people go. It is not Moses who delivers the people nor Moses who performs the signs/plagues. God’s plan. Brought about through faithful people acting according to that plan.

In a similar vein Dr. Epp-Thiessen names God’s plan to create a chosen people and be in covenant with them but there is a key role to play for Abraham and Sarah. Or the example of the Word made flesh, Jesus is part of God’s plan but Mary’s faithful response and willingness to be an agent of that plan is part of the biblical story. God’s plan does not change and will come to pass but when and how depends on human agency and our willingness to participate in God’s plan. Or, as we sometimes speak of in the church, there is a promised future revealed in Jesus Christ. We can choose to participate in it or not, but the Kingdom will come. That much is certain.

The scripture lesson this week was not part of Monday’s Bible study but it follows in the same theme. It is Luke’s version of the teachings of Jesus that are found in the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew. For Luke the location is changed and the audience is larger but the message remains the same. Jesus frames it as a series of blessings and curses which are in fact opposing pairs of the same dynamic. If you wish you can read it as the paradox of God’s plan and human agency. Blessed are the poor and cursed are the rich. Blessed are the hungry and cursed are the well fed. Blessed are those who weep and cursed are those who laugh. Blessed are the persecuted and cursed are those who are well regarded. It all sounds counter intuitive but we are meant to ‘get’ the irony.

God’s plan is that there will be no poor, hungry, sorrowful, or persecuted. That is God’s plan and it will not be altered. The way of love of neighbour is the way of the promise. Nothing else will do. But given that the poor, hungry, sorrowful, and persecuted still exist (and ought to be the object of mission and ministry) the problem would seem to lie with human agency or participation in God’s plan. That is the paradox with which we still live.

When I hear people claim that anxiety, distress, or sorrow are part of God’s plan I must counter. That is not God’s plan. We know what God’s plan is and it is not that. The problem, and the paradox, is that God continues to call on us to participate in the future God is leading us towards. Dr. Epp-Thiessen said we may be too hesitant (neglectful of our role) or too forceful (abusive in our role) and thus the plan is not enacted. But God is God and the plan does not change.

At least we know what the plan is, what blessing is, what joy is, what love is. And we are free to live and work for it.

That is the essence of Christian hope.

 

Grace and peace,

Michael

 

  • 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/  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.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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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