Our Beautiful Church

It is amazing how much work it takes to care for our building and property and we are continually grateful to our Property Committee who faithfully dedicate so much time and effort to keep our church and grounds looking so lovely. 

The everyday maintenance is challenging enough and still these amazing folks step up to take on capital projects  ---

In recent years -- a new roof, a new boiler, painting of the outside of church, development of the front of the church, including a new playground for the Preschool.    And… this past month, installation of new carpeting.

Check out the picture of our beautiful church with gorgeous new carpet.

With grateful thanks to the St. Faith’s Property Committee and everyone who worked to make this happen.

Wednesday's Word: Endurance (27 August 2014)

            One of my favourite passages from the writings of Saint Paul comes from the Letter to the Romans:  “And not only that, but we also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.” (Romans 5.3-4)  Of the many Christians whose lives are captured in these two verses Monnica, the mother of Augustine of Hippo, certainly tops the list.

            Born around 331 in North Africa, probably of Berber origin, Monnica married a Roman citizen of some status and bore three children, one of whom, Augustine, became one of the most significant Christian thinkers of all time.  However, Augustine had what can only be called a misspent youth and only came to be baptized and mature faith as an adult.  Before his conversion Augustine wandered the Mediterranean world with his mother close behind him.  Monnica prayed for Augustine, cajoled him and lived to see him baptized and living the life she believed he was called to lead.  She died in 387, a year after Augustine’s baptism.

            Now, it’s easy to see Monnica as a Christian version of the ‘stage mother’ who will not let go of her prodigy.  Perhaps there is some truth in this.  But what cannot be denied is Monnica’s endurance.  She suffered her son’s youthful indiscretions, learned endurance, strengthened her own character and lived in the hope that the Spirit would lead Augustine into the embrace of God and his vocation as a teacher. 

            Throughout the history of the Christian movement we have experienced our ups and our downs, our conspicuous successes and our dismal failures, but we are still here.  We have suffered and, to be honest, we have contributed to the sufferings of others.  But we have endured.  Our endurance has forged a character rooted in justice, covenantal love and humility.  Our suffering, our endurance, our character have instilled in us a hope in a world in which all of God’s children are free.  Because of our endurance, because of our hope, some may find us annoying, but the hope in which we live is worth being a nuisance to those who are satisfied in the status quo.  I think that Monnica would be proud of us.

Wednesday's Word: Abide (20 August 2014)

             On the 20^th of August the Anglican Church of Canada remembers Bernard of Clairvaux, a monastic reformer, writer, preacher and ‘warrior for God’ whose preaching launched the Second Crusade.  Notwithstanding contemporary ambivalence towards the Crusades and their aftermath of distrust and animosity between Christians, Jews and Muslims, Bernard is worth remembering in the life of the Christian community.  Among his many writings is a lengthy commentary on the Song of Solomon, the only canonical biblical text which does not mention God at all.

            It is perhaps for this reason as well as Bernard’s letters regarding friendship that the gospel reading for this feast is John 15.7-11, a portion of Jesus’ ‘Farewell Discourse’ to his disciples.  Within this lengthy section of John’s gospel is the memorable verse where Jesus says to the disciples, “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.  No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friend.  You are my friends if you do what I command you.  I do not call you servants any longer, because the servant does not know what the master is doing; but I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my Father.” (John 15.12-15).

           In John 15.7-11 an important phrase emerges:  “As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love.” (John 15.9)  ‘Abide’ (in Greek menō) is a strong verb; it means more than just ‘hang around’ or ‘stay for a well’; it means ‘to remain firm’ or ‘to be constant’.  And where are we to abide?  In ‘love’.  What kind of love?  Agapē (Greek for ‘self-giving love; love that counts others first’).

            What Jesus is asking us is no passive approach to love, but an active, searching love that gives of oneself in order to bring about true good for the object of our love.  To abide in Christ’s love is a life-long commitment to work for the common good of all God’s creation and to be an agent of God in the renewal of creation.

            In a world such as ours where conflicts rage and millions live in fear, abiding in Christ’s love will be a costly affair.  But it is the only game in town worth playing.

Wednesday's Word: Godliness (13 August 2014)

            On this day in 1667 Jeremy Taylor, Bishop of Down and Connor in Ireland, died of a fever.  Taylor had buried one of his sons on the 2^nd of August, but this sorrow did not prevent him from visiting a sick person and catching that person’s disease.  Eleven days after burying his son, Taylor followed him into death.

            Bishop Taylor lived during the tumultuous times of the English Civil War.  He was a known royalist and was imprisoned several times after the defeat and execution of Charles I.  Taylor was allowed to take a private post as a chaplain to an aristocratic family in Wales where he continued to exercise his gift of writing.  His writing is poetic and, for the time in which he lived, quite clear.  Some have even called him the ‘Shakespeare of English theologians’.

            Although his written works cover a multitude of subject, both spiritual, theological and historical, there is one aspect of Taylor’s writings that I particularly appreciate.  Taylor is concerned with ‘godliness’, an old-fashioned word that seems to have gone out of favour these days.  Unfortunately, most contemporary folk have confused ‘godliness’ with ‘self-righteousness’ and, by doing so, have alienated religious seekers.

            ‘Godliness’ means ‘becoming more like God’.  Every human being is made in the image of God, that is to say, every human being has the ability to create or to destroy, to love or not to love, to reconcile or to divide.  Our challenge, as we live our lives, is to grow into God’s likeness, in other words, we are called to learn how to act consistently like God in all the dimensions of our lives.

            Becoming like God is never easy.  Borrowing an idea from Diana Butler Bass, the American sociologist of religion, I can describe becoming like God as belonging, behaving, believing.  To become like God one must belong to a community that is committed to just this sort of life’s pilgrimage.  Belonging to a community is vital, because we cannot undertake this journey alone.  We need companions, people with whom we can ‘break bread’.

            When we belong to a community, we find ourselves behaving in particular ways.  Every community has practices which strengthen its communal life and identity:  eating together, playing together, working together, worshipping together.  Life-giving communities do not assume that their way of ‘behaving’ makes them better than other people; it’s simply the way that they do things and these practices shape an identity.  Having an identity provides a foundation necessary to becoming more like God.

            Belonging and behaving eventually lead into ‘believing’.  ‘Believing’ is akin to the German word, ‘belieben’, which means ‘to love, to be beloved’.  Believing is not some arid and abstract intellectual process; believing is falling in love with the God who is known in community and whose presence finds expression in the actions of that community.  Falling in love with God is perhaps the most necessary step in becoming more like God.

            In John 1 we are told that all who choose to live in community with God and who choose to act in God-like ways are given the power to fall in love with God (John 1.12-13).  This is what ‘godliness’ is:  falling in love with the Lover who brought all things into being, who came among us in the person of the Beloved and who binds us together in Love.

Wednesday's Word: Transfiguration (6 August 2014)

            When David, our oldest, was about two and a half years old, we attended a party at the home of one of our clergy colleagues.  There were children of various ages and David was soon swept away by the ebb and flow of these energetic young ones.  At one point I looked over to a small table where David was playing with some of the older children and I was suddenly aware of God's presence.

            What I saw was a brief revelation of David as an older and more mature person.  It was a clear to me as the words I am typing now.  My vision only lasted a very brief moment, perhaps two or three seconds, and then the two and a half year-old David returned.  I have held on to this vision through all the years because I liked what I saw and because I hope for its eventual fulfillment as David continues to make his own way in life.

            What I had experienced was a 'transfiguration' or, as the Gospel according to Luke calls it, a 'metamorphosis'.  When the word is examined more closely, it can be loosely translated as 'beyond the form that is seen or touched'.  Metaphysics, for example, is the study of those things that are beyond the physical or understood by the laws of physics.

            On the mountain top the Jesus that the disciples knew at the bottom of the mountain was revealed as someone more than the teacher whom they had followed from Galilee.  For a brief moment Peter, James and John saw beyond the form of their beloved teacher and they beheld Jesus as the agent of God's redeeming purpose for them and for the whole of humanity.  They beheld the fullness of Jesus as the Word made flesh and they were changed.

            Note what I have written:  Peter, James and John were changed, not Jesus.  The Jesus with whom they climbed the mountain, whom they experienced as transfigured on the summit and whom they accompanied down the mountain was God's Beloved, the One who shows us the way, the truth and the life.  But now that they had had this vision, this revelation, the three disciples were no longer the same.

            This is what transfiguration means; it means the revelation of the fullness of a person, whether Jesus or you or me.  All the disciplines of the Christian life --- prayer, study, worship, working for justice, peace and the integrity of creation --- are meant to enable us to become who we truly are as God intends each one of us to be.  Transfiguration is not meant to be a one-time event on a mountain far away from us in time and space; transfiguration, the movement from the restraints of our present into the freedom of our future, is God's intention for all the beloved.

            The transfiguration that God wishes for each one of us is not achieved in a moment but in a lifetime.  There are moments when the clouds of our lives obscure our full selves and moments when our fullness shines brightly.  It is those moments of brightness that give us the hope to persevere through the shadows.

            The vision of David that I beheld more than twenty years ago awaits its time --- but then the fullness that God has placed in me still awaits its time.  But there are moments, glorious, joyous moments, when the light of Christ shines forth and hope is renewed.  Thanks be to God.

Richard Leggett

6 August 2014