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Tuesday, August 22, 2017

Basics of Faith 8 - Why Church?

Why Church?

Basics of Faith 8 – August 20, 2017
 A Sermon by Rev. M. Gayle MacDonald

Texts read on August 20:  Deuteronomy 31:12-23; The Universal Pilgrimage ~Paraphrase of Psalm 122 by James Taylor (printed below); Acts 2:42-47; Luke 6:1-12

The Universal Pilgrimage
Paraphrase of Psalm 122 by James Taylor

God calls people everywhere to a pilgrimage. 
From all over the world,
many feet beat a path to God’s holy places. 
They struggle over high mountain passes;
they shuffle across dusty deserts;
they crawl along the walls of river canyons. 
Straggling lines of searchers
converge in a fertile valley;
a great shout of joy goes up to the heavens. 
Muslims, Christians, Jews, Hindus
—in common cause
the great religions rise above
doctrinal differences.
Pray for their unity;
pray for their commitment
May they not threaten each other;
may they generate peace among their peoples. 
God, watching over them, says,
“They do not all call themselves my followers.
Yet because they are brothers and sisters,
meeting in harmony, I will treat them as my own.” 
Because they do God’s will, God welcomes them.

This morning’s topic is “Why Church?”  I have been re-thinking this topic in light of the events of the past two week:  the gathering of a white supremacist in Charlottesville, Virginia and the terrorist bombings in Spain.  I have heard some liken the white supremacist and neo-Nazi groups who claim to be Christian as not much different from members of Isis who claim to be Muslim. 
The events of this week highlight the need to really understand why we gather and what we are about?  My understanding of church and its place in the world is no different now than it was some four years ago when I last preached on this topic.  At that time it was Mother's Day and the news that dominated the television reporting was that Boko Haram had just kidnapped some 376 school girls.   Most of the world was outraged then, as most of the world is outraged now by the White Supremacists and neo-Nazi's and wonder how they can still consider their cause legitimate in light of the holocaust of World War II. 
          Arnold Schwarzenegger posted an excellent talk on the Internet calling out white supremacist groups, and calling out President Trump for not speaking out against them more decisively.  He spoke in light having been born in 1947 in Austria.  Growing up, he saw and felt the guilt and remorse and shame of the generation before him who blindly followed Hitler; who returned home defeated and, in their defeat, came to a realization of just exactly what they had done.  Schwarzenegger admonished people to speak out loudly and quickly; that it is important not to be silent in the face of such groups.
Considering all that has been happening and in the news, I went back and began re-reading a classic:  Dietrich Bonhoeffer's "Life Together".  Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a German Lutheran Pastor who taught at seminary.  He was in the United States teaching when the World War II broke out.  His colleagues wanted him to stay in the U.S. where he was safe, but he insisted on returning to Germany.  His twin sister was married to a Jew. 
Bonhoeffer and his brother-in-law were part of a German resistance.  He was arrested and continued his ministry while in prison.  His "Letters from Prison" is another well-known book of his.  Bonhoeffer was hanged by the Nazi's for treason just before the end of the war.
In his book "Life Together", Bonhoeffer talks of the Christian community, what it is and what it isn't.  He warns that if one comes into the Christian community with a dream or a vision of what it should look like, the best thing that can happen is that that dream be shattered quickly.  The Christian community is not an ideal we can think of and create; it is simply a gathering of people under the grace of the Christ.  This is what the community has in common.  That one who is lonely, sick, or in prison and is visited by a fellow Christian, or those who are denied the opportunity to gather understand the joy of such a fellowship; whereas those who gather regularly may not realize such a gift and forget to be thankful for the small things and start complaining about the community or about one another.  If this is the case, Bonhoeffer suggests that they do not yet understand the nature of the fellowship, but maybe are still expecting some ideal that doesn't exist.
He warns Pastors who desire to create a community to fit some ideal or vision that they have that the vision will soon be shattered and they will become disillusioned.  And as far as Bonhoeffer is concerned, the sooner this happens the betters.  A Christian community is not an ideal but a reality, it is not a psychic (i.e., not of the mind) community, but a spiritual community.  It is faith and love that bonds its members. 
We are all on a journey through life and we have chosen to travel that journey as a spiritual path.  We have chosen, as our teacher and spiritual guide, Jesus of Nazareth.  I agree with Bonhoeffer in that Jesus is what binds us together in community.  This does not make our community superior to other faith communities, but it is our centre and it is our faith and it is our identity. 
We are on a human journey and ours is a human community as is the journey and community of other faiths who seek to grown in love and compassion.  Our scriptures teach us that God is love; and perhaps that, in the end, will be what binds us as humans – love that transcends boundaries, race, colour, gender, creed or belief systems – but we learn that love by gathering in community;  gathering with the humility to know that without each other our understanding in partial; gathering knowing that each one of us learns from the othe, that none of us is perfect.  As a Christian church,  we gather in the name of Jesus whose love knew no boundaries.   
There is hope for us in the events in Charlottesville in that people, prominent people and everyday ordinary folk are speaking out against racism and violence.  One of the photographs shown frequently is of a long line of clergy marching together in protest to what the white supremacists stand for – clergy of all faiths walking arm in arm against exclusion and violence.  At least we have come this far, far enough to agree that discrimination based on the colour of one's skin should not exist in the civilized world. 
These things cannot be separated: the outrage of the world against violence, against discrimination, against kidnapping, against acts of terrorism and the need to gather and reflect as a people of faith living in such a world.   The common thread in all of this is the radical and incessant demand for justice; the respect and value for of all life; and the need to support one another in these pursuits as we struggle with issues of morality, and the place of faith and of God in the midst of the reality of living.
So, in the light of all that is happening, in the world in this time and in this place, I ask the question:  "Why Church?"  Why do we continue to gather?  What is the Christian church, and is it relevant today? 
Whether or not the church is relevant depends on what you consider the church to be.  If we are not “being the church” in the world then we are irrelevant. And you get to decide, as the gathered people what the church in your time and your place will be.  Can you live together as brothers and sisters with one love – sometimes broken and in need of healing, sometimes in disagreement and in need of reconciliation, but always bound together with the one love that calls us to live with compassion, respect and humility in our life together.
For too many years, the church was too comfortable.  It had a dominant place in society.  If you wanted to get ahead, if you wanted respect, that came with attending your local Christian Church.  The church was the norm and, while it was a good place to be, it was also, at times easy to forget it roots in radical transformation; too easy to forget that at its root the church was never envisioned as a middle or upper-class institution where the comfortable feel comfortable.  Rather the gathered community of the followers of "the Christ" was a place that turned the world on its ear; because it was the opposite of groups like the white supremacists.  I don’t want to lead you astray; because the early church did have arguments about “inclusion” rules – i.e., certain foods, circumscion, etc. – but in the end these were cast aside as unnecessary for inclusion in the community.  The Christian community was and is intended to be a place where everyone should feel welcomed and accepted and cared for – especially those who normally aren’t: a place where none are hungry and all are valued.
If the church is living true to its roots, then church is not just a place to belong, but a place to question the very act of belonging; and a lens through which to look at the world.
            Listen to this description of the earliest of gatherings of the community of the followers of the teachings of Jesus from the book of Acts (NRSV). 
Acts 2:42-47
They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. . . .   All who believed were together and had all things in common; they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need.  Day by day, as they spent much time together in the temple, they broke bread at home and ate their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having the goodwill of all the people.

One sentence in there caught my attention as I read it this week:
“Day by day, as they spent much time together in the temple, they broke bread at home and ate their food with glad and generous hearts,”
It is their gathering together which seems to have provided them the ability to break bread at home and eat with glad and generous hearts.  Gathering and remembering are acts of the community – along with feeding and supporting.  Breaking bread is reminiscent of the command of Jesus to remember him at the table; and that memory, that assurance that telling of the stories in community and the prayers they shared in community, was spiritual sustenance to carry them into their lives.
The first century gatherings were places of hope, places to be fed and cared for, places of learning or re-learning what it meant to be followers of the one called Christ.  They were places of fellowship, and places that provided the strength, the courage, and the insight to live what they experienced and learned when they returned to their homes.
Though their lives could, at times, be a life of unjust suffering; they were people of God; they were followers of the one they saw as the Christ; they belonged to a community who cared; they were loved and treated as worthy; they could choose to feed one another and share with generous hearts and know in their hearts that their suffering was unjust – that God did not cause their suffering, but humans. 
        When they gathered they learned that they, together, created and made real the vision of God’s way of living here is this life, despite, maybe even because of, their own circumstances.  In the gathered community, there was hope and love and freedom. 
This gathered community is as important now as it was then, perhaps more so when there are so many opportunities for gathering, but few opportunities to recall that your life is lived within a greater whole and has importance and meaning beyond our own likes and dislikes.  We call our gathered community ‘church’.
It is true that church as we imagined it was/is changing, but maybe that is a good thing.  The church is not about what we imagine, but what God imagines.  It is not there to make us feel good, but to support us be a microcosm of the Kin-dom of God. 
We, the gathered community are still the church, and we will be quite alright if we remember that church is wherever people gather to hear the story of God’s people; to study and live what it means to be part of an invisible country where all are equal, where love is the motivating principle for seeking justice and for action; it is the place where we seek together a way to express the ineffable experience of faith; it is the place that provides us with a framework for the rest of our living.
 Here we share our concerns in this life and struggle together to understand our deeper life in the spirit.  Yet even as the people, the church, gather and draw closer to God, we are challenged to bring love and hope into the world.  We gather and then we scatter, bringing a kingdom or kin-dom sensibility of love and justice to the world; for what is the church if not a microcosm of the kin-dom of God?  And how could we do all this if we don’t  first meet to learn, to challenge, to grow, to do?
It is not an easy task to be the church in the world.  And so, we gather regularly:  for a refresher course in Christian spirituality, or simply to absorb the nurturing and strengthening gift of being in fellowship with one another – because, after all, we are the church.
            So Why Church?  Because the church is people; because the church is not a building but is everywhere that we live our radical, life-altering, transformative faith; because the church is who we are everyday; and we gather as a church community so that we can be the church together in the world. 


United Church of Canada Statements and Creeds on Communion
1925 – Basis of Union 
Article XV. Of the Church. We acknowledge one Holy Catholic Church, the innumerable company of saints of every age and nation, who being united by the Holy Spirit to Christ their Head are one body in Him and have communion with their Lord and with one another. Further, we receive it as the will of Christ that His Church on earth should exist as a visible and sacred brotherhood, consisting of those who profess faith in Jesus Christ and obedience to Him, together with their children and other baptized children, and organized for the confession of His name, for the public worship of God, for the administration of the sacraments, for the upbuilding of the saints, and for the universal propagation of the Gospel; and we acknowledge as a part, more or less pure, of this universal brotherhood, every particular church throughout the world which professes this faith in Jesus Christ and obedience to Him as divine Lord and Saviour.

1940 – Statement of Faith
VII. The Church We believe that the Church, the society of the redeemed, was brought into existence by God Himself through the work and risen power of Christ, Who in calling men into fellowship with Himself calls them by the same act into fellowship with one another in Him.

We believe that the Church is the organ of Christ’s mind and redemptive will, the body of which He is the Head. Under Him the Church is called to the proclamation of the everlasting Gospel with its offer of salvation, to the worship of God, Creator and Redeemer, to the loving service of mankind, and to the care and nurture of the flock.
We believe that all members of the Church are one in Him, and that the life of the Church in every age is continuous with that of the first apostolic company. The groups commonly known as “churches” are called to share in the life of the whole Church, of all ages and of all lands, entering freely into the full heritage of thought, worship, and discipline, and living together in mutual confidence.

We believe that for the fulfillment of her mission in the world God has given to the Church the Ministry, the Scriptures and the Sacraments. So we acknowledge one holy, catholic, apostolic Church, the Body of Christ, the household and family of God.

1968 (Rev. 1980, 1995) - A New Creed
We are called to be the Church:
    to celebrate God’s presence,
    to live with respect in Creation,
    to love and serve others,
    to seek justice and resist evil,
    to proclaim Jesus, crucified and risen,
       our judge and our hope.

2006 – A Song of Faith
We sing of a church
   seeking to continue the story of Jesus
   by embodying Christ’s presence in the world.
We are called together by Christ
   as a community of broken but hopeful believers,
   loving what he loved,
   living what he taught,
   striving to be faithful servants of God
   in our time and place.
Our ancestors in faith
   bequeath to us experiences of their faithful living;
   upon their lives our lives are built.
Our living of the gospel makes us a part of this communion of saints,
   experiencing the fulfilment of God’s reign
   even as we actively anticipate a new heaven and a new earth.

The church has not always lived up to its vision.
It requires the Spirit to reorient it,
   helping it to live an emerging faith while honouring tradition,
   challenging it to live by grace rather than entitlement,
for we are called to be a blessing to the earth.

We sing of God’s good news lived out,
a church with purpose:
   faith nurtured and hearts comforted,
   gifts shared for the good of all,
   resistance to the forces that exploit and marginalize,
   fierce love in the face of violence,
   human dignity defended,
   members of a community held and inspired by God,
      corrected and comforted,
   instrument of the loving Spirit of Christ,
   creation’s mending.
We sing of God’s mission.

We are each given particular gifts of the Spirit.
For the sake of the world,
   God calls all followers of Jesus to Christian ministry.
In the church,
   some are called to specific ministries of leadership,
   both lay and ordered;
   some witness to the good news;
   some uphold the art of worship;
   some comfort the grieving and guide the wandering;
   some build up the community of wisdom;
   some stand with the oppressed and work for justice.
To embody God’s love in the world,
   the work of the church requires the ministry and discipleship
   of all believers.

In grateful response to God’s abundant love,
   we bear in mind our integral connection
   to the earth and one another;
we participate in God’s work of healing and mending creation.
To point to the presence of the holy in the world,
   the church receives, consecrates, and shares
   visible signs of the grace of God.
In company with the churches
   of the Reformed and Methodist traditions,
we celebrate two sacraments as gifts of Christ:
  baptism and holy communion.
In these sacraments the ordinary things of life
—water, bread, wine—
point beyond themselves to God and God’s love,
   teaching us to be alert
   to the sacred in the midst of life.



Tuesday, August 15, 2017

Basics of Faith 7 - Sin, Evil and All That Stuff

Sin, Evil and All That Stuff

Basics of Faith 7 – August 1, 2017
 A Sermon by Rev. M. Gayle MacDonald

Texts read on August 13An Unfair World ~Paraphrase of Psalm 85 by James Taylor (printed below); Luke 15:11-32

An Unfair World
Paraphrase of Psalm 85 by James Taylor
(from  “Everyday Psalms(Kindle Locations 2075-2089). Wood Lake Publishing. Kindle Edition)

Pious voices utter platitudes:
          "Trust in the Lord.  It's God's will. 
          God knows best."
People way with certainty:
          "The Lord gives, and the Lord taken away."
          "With faith, all things are possible."
"Silence!" I want to shout.  "Take your frozen formulas and
          leave me alone!  Let me listen for what God has to say."
          For God will not let a broken heart bleed by itself
                   in the night.
When wounds but to the bone, only God can sew together
          the torn edges of a shattered life.
          Only God can soothe such throbbing pain"
Surely goodness and mercy will grow again,
          and sunshine return to the sky.
Sorrow is holy ground;
          Walk on it only with feet bared to the pain
                   of every pebble.
Through the storm, the Lord of life come walking
          on the salt sea of tears





When I was planning this series, I called this topic sin and evil and all that stuff – not to be dismissive – but because we moderns can be somewhat dismissive of the topic of sin and evil – preferring not to raise them in the context of worship.
It isn’t that the subject of sin and evil doesn’t interest, but my sense is that these words as they relate to us in a Christian context have become somewhat confusing – a bit muddy around the edges.  It is my belief, that as we progress both as a species and as a culture, our definition of what lies in the realm of sin or evil changes.  It isn’t that I believe sin or evil as concepts change – but what actions or ideas we would put in those categories clearly changes.  And I will explain that a little further in a moment
The other thing that I want to say about the topic of sin and evil, is that we cannot talk about sin and evil without talking about grace, forgiveness, and redemption.   So, the “all that stuff” part of this topic just got very big. 
How is it that the things we would consider to be sins or evil change?  In any culture, people who grew up in with the same value system would probably be very close in naming what things are “taboo” and what is “evil”; but are they always right?  And, if the line keeps shifting, how do we find a definition that helps us to come to grips with the very real dilemma of wanting to live morally and ethically if the line keeps shifting?
Consider this, for example.  There was a time in some places in North America when inter-racial marriage was considered a sin?  Was it or could it ever have been a sin?  We would say, “no” because what was a cultural taboo specific to a certain segment of society at a certain time in history, we don’t consider a problem at all.  Here, in this place and in this time, we think such an attitude ridiculous and that a policy of racial segregation is, in itself, a sin.  As humans and as a society, in the places where racial segregation was the social norm, we needed to learn more about what it meant to be human and about the problems created by systemic evil or sin – i.e., created by systems which perpetuate injustice, and the ignorance which allows injustice to flourish?   Sorting out sin and cultural taboo’s is complicated and has everything to do with where and how we were raised. 
Right now, in 2017 there are still cultures that engage in honour killing – i.e., if a female has sex before marriage (and it matters little whether it is because she has fallen in love, or been raped, because her non-virginity brings shame on her family), that female has to be killed in order to preserves the family honour.  Such an idea is reprehensible to me, going beyond, in my mind, being a sin – bordering perhaps on evil.  And it is not that I think that the people are evil, but that people can be consumed by systems and ideas which are destructive and non-life-giving.  As far as I am concerned, the notion that falling in love with the wrong person, or crossing certain sexual boundaries should bring the death penalty is just not right. 
          The definition of sin and evil becomes very fuzzy when we cross cultural boundaries – or does it?  The most important concept of our faith which I believe directs and re-directs our thoughts about sin and evil – about judgment and punishment - is “grace”.  The unasked for but always offered gifts of forgiveness, redemption, and love.  When we consider Grace, Forgiveness, Redemption and Love, we run smack up against Christian understandings of sin and evil, which are always trumped by grace, by love, by understanding and forgiveness.
We don’t talk much in the United Church about sin; and the reason we don’t do it, isn’t because we don’t think it is real – but because we probably are cognizant of the burden of judgment and guilt.   We tend more to think in terms of growing and learning, of making mistakes and recovering from our mistakes, in terms of becoming increasingly the people God wants us to be.  And yet by avoiding the talk of sin, we miss the opportunity to allow others to unburden themselves of the guilt they may already be feeling and of accessing the transforming gifts of repentance and redemption – of knowing their own worth, of the opportunity to become their best selves. 
          I want to talk about one of the most problematic of Christian concepts with regard to sin – that is original sin.  Paradoxically, while we, in this modern age, might reject the idea of original sin because, we ask, “how can an innocent child be born in sin?”; in its most basic understanding the theological understanding of original sin probably applies to most, if not all of us.  The idea of original sin has little to do with the innocence of children, and more to do with the decision of Adam and Eve to turn away from God –and thus, alienate themselves and humankind from the Garden of Eden – from God’s garden. 
The story is not literal, but symbolic of the human condition – for what one of us at some point in our journey through life hasn’t turned away from what we knew was right?  It is part of our journey – to question the rights and wrongs laid before us and to come to conclusions that don’t always line up with what we were taught.  But is this original sin, or is it original blessing?  This is a question which has caused much flux and consternation in the church.  Is the gift of free will and the inevitable outcome of having free will – i.e., sometimes making wrong choices, all bad  or is it a necessary part of our learning and growing?  Is God more pleased if we love God because we have no choice, or if we love God, because we have free will and, having free will, to love God is our choice?  Which would please you more to have someone love you because you gave them no choice, or to have someone freely choose to love you?  Which is a blessing for you? 
          Moving beyond the concept of original sin and free will; Christian theologians often make a distinction between venial (or less serious) sins and mortal (or deadly) sins.   In committing venial sin, the transgressions are committed without full awareness of wrongdoing; whereas in committing mortal sin, the perpetrator deliberately turns away from God and chooses to “sin”, to do wrong.  This is a rather simple explanation, but it will do for today.
But it raises some questions for me in terms of some of our Gospel stories – in particular, the parable of the prodigal son – the younger son asks for and receives his part of the inheritance while still alive; then take this inheritance and runs off, squandering it on what basically amounts to wild living.  Later, destitute he comes back, aware that he is not worthy of being called son and intends to ask if he can work as a servant for his Father.  His father welcomes him with open arms, forgives him and treats him like a son – which is what he has always been to the father.
          So, has the youngest son committed mortal sin or venial sin?  He was, not doubt aware, that he was rejecting his father and he knew his father would not like the way he was living.  Was he aware of the anguish he was causing in his parents?  Could he help himself?  Was he bad, or just foolish, or naïve?  He was definitely, at least in my opinion, rebellious – which leaves me concerned – for I too have been rebellious in my own way.  Were his sins mortal (i.e., deadly) because he rejected what he knew was right, or were they venial because he did not believe his father was right at that time, but had to learn the truth for himself?  Who knows what was in his heart and head at that time in that story? 
The important thing is he made a bad choice and he learned – and because of love and because of grace – his father’s love, the undeserved gift of being accepted fully back, he was forgiven and he was restored to his family.  How things went at home after that the initial celebration of his return is not part of this story.  But a new beginning in his family relationship is.
If we are honest, none of us escapes sin.  Why I feel we hesitate, in our particular culture to apply the word ,sin, in the traditional sense of moral wrong-doing  is because of the awareness and self-awareness portion in the committing of sins;  because, among those who are still learning and growing (and particularly among children) to say one has sinned is to lay a heavy burden to carry and should not be laid, I believe, by one person upon another because it is for God, not for us, to judge for another what is sin, and what is the weight of that sin – what was the intention, the circumstance, the awareness the leaning of the heart.  Our task is to know ourselves and to try to know God.  And yet redemption, being restored to a state of grace requires our acknowledgement of what we are doing or have done and our desire to make things good. 
Of all the definitions of sin and evil, the one that speaks to me the most is still that of Scott Peck – a psychologist who came to his faith when he was around 40.  His definition goes something like this:  If God is Love; then to sin is to be apathetic towards, ignorant of or indifferent towards love or doing the loving thing.  Evil, on the other hand is the willful and intentional destruction of love.   Time and time again, I have found the definition useful – especially since I find evil such a difficult thing to get a handle on.
I don’t think people are in and of themselves “evil”, but I do think that there can be a negative or destructive will or force which can subsume people and even societies, gaining energy and wreaking havoc and destruction – policies and belief systems that divide people from one another, that create inequalities and allow judgment – that make it possible for one human being to destroy another because they fail to see the other human for who they truly are.  I know, we all know, that there seem to be a handful of people so immune to love that the evil they commit is unspeakable.  And these leave us bewildered and at a loss, because that is not where we are and not where we ever want to be.
For many of us, our battle with evil is with corporate of societal evil -  in resisting the policies, the systems, the ideas which are destructive to life – and seeing them and naming them isn’t always easy, and the choices aren’t always plain and we make mistakes – so we learn and grow and support one another in our life together. 
In the midst of all our definitions and our struggle to come to terms with sin and evil is our faith.  When speaking of sin, our Christian faith specifically refers to God – speaks of sin as alienating ourselves from God.  And our faith, in understanding the redemptive and forgiving nature of God, leans heavily on the person and life of Jesus.  Paul refers to Jesus as the new “Adam” – i.e., a new prototype for humanity. 
The history of humanity in sacred scripture starts off pretty shakily.  All is good for a short while and then humanity (i.e., Adam and Eve) decides to want to know what God knows and so they disobey God – eating off the forbidden tree of the knowledge of Good and Evil.  This is the beginning of deliberate turning away from God; i.e., original sin.  But it is more than that, it is the pattern of humanity to want to know more, to be more –a necessary part of being human and of becoming.
In Jesus, Paul sees something remarkable:  Jesus is born like all of us into the human world, but he is different.  He lives fully out of love and grace – he heals, he restores, he forgives and even in the moments of greatest doubt and despair on the cross, he forgives.  He acts always in the direction of love.  This, for Paul, makes Jesus the new Adam, i.e., the new prototype of the human being created in the image of God.  This now is our model:  this is what it means to be human and created in the image of God.
We are, each of us born into a world of flesh and blood.  We start out innocent, we grow, we stumble, we fall, we make mistakes, we learn, we make wrong choices, we make right choices – but always we are within reach of the grace, the free gift of love and forgiveness -  of the love that encourages us and challenges us to be the whole and love-filled creatures we were meant to be.
And so, because we are loved, because grace is always held before us, because we desire to be whole and healed, let us bring all of who we are to God in prayer.


United Church of Canada Statements and Creeds on Communion
1925 – Basis of Union 
Article V. Of the Sin of Man. We believe that our first parents, being tempted, chose evil, and so fell away from God and came under the power of sin, the penalty of which is eternal death; and that, by reason of this disobedience, all men are born with a sinful nature, that we have broken God’s law, and that no man can be saved but by His grace.
Article VI. Of the Grace of God. We believe that God, out of His great love for the world, has given His only begotten Son to be the Saviour of sinners, and in the Gospel freely offers His all-sufficient salvation to all men. We believe also that God, in His own good pleasure, gave to his son a people, an innumerable multitude, chosen in Christ unto holiness, service, and salvation.
 Article X. Of Faith and Repentance. We believe that faith in Christ is a saving grace whereby we receive Him, trust in Him, and rest upon Him alone for salvation as He is offered to us in the Gospel, and that this saving faith is always accompanied by repentance, wherein we confess and forsake our sins with full purpose of and endeavour after a new obedience to God.
Article XI. Of Justification and Sonship. We believe that God, on the sole ground of the perfect obedience and sacrifice of Christ, pardons those who by faith receive Him as their Saviour and Lord, accepts them as righteous, and bestows upon them the adoption of sons, with a right to all privileges therein implied, including a conscious assurance of their sonship.
Article XII. Of Sanctification. We believe that those who are regenerated and justified grow in the likeness of Christ through fellowship with Him, the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, and obedience to the truth; that a holy life is the fruit and evidence of saving faith; and that the believer’s hope of continuance in such a life is in the preserving grace of God. And we believe that in this growth in grace Christians may attain that maturity and full assurance of faith whereby the love of God is made perfect in us.

1940 – Statement of Faith
V. Man and Man’s Sin We believe that God gave to man, as He did not to the lower creatures, capacity to share His thought and purpose, and freedom to choose whether he would or would not love and serve Him. We believe that man has used his freedom of choice for low and selfish ends, thus estranging himself from God and his brother man, and bringing upon himself the judgment and wrath of God, so that he lives in a world of confusion and distress, and is unable of himself to fulfill God’s high purpose for him. So we acknowledge man’s sin, God’s righteous judgment, and man’s helplessness and need.

VI. Redemption We believe that in the greatness of His love for man God has in Christ opened up a way of deliverance from the guilt and power of sin. We believe that Christ, by living our life without sin, by dying at the hands of sinful men with faith unshaken and unfaltering love, has done for man what man could not do for himself. On the Cross He bore the burden of sin, and He broke its power; and what He did there moves men to repentance, conveys forgiveness, undoes the estrangement, and binds them to Himself in a new loyalty. We believe that by His resurrection and exaltation Christ stands victorious over death and all evil, and that He fills those who commit themselves to Him with such grace and strength that in Him they, too, are conquerors. His redemption of man is at once an awful mystery and a glorious fact; it is the Lord’s doing and marvelous in our eyes. So we acknowledge the unmerited love and the mercy of our God in giving His only-begotten Son that we might not perish but have everlasting life.



1968 (Rev. 1980, 1995) - A New Creed
We are called to be the Church:
    to celebrate God’s presence,
    to live with respect in Creation,
    to love and serve others,
    to seek justice and resist evil,
    to proclaim Jesus, crucified and risen,
       our judge and our hope.


2006 – A Song of Faith
Made in the image of God,
we yearn for the fulfillment that is life in God.
Yet we choose to turn away from God.
We surrender ourselves to sin,
   a disposition revealed in selfishness, cowardice, or apathy.
Becoming bound and complacent
   in a web of false desires and wrong choices,
   we bring harm to ourselves and others.
This brokenness in human life and community
   is an outcome of sin.
Sin is not only personal
   but accumulates
   to become habitual and systemic forms
   of injustice, violence, and hatred.

We are all touched by this brokenness:
   the rise of selfish individualism
      that erodes human solidarity;
   the concentration of wealth and power
      without regard for the needs of all;
   the toxins of religious and ethnic bigotry;
   the degradation of the blessedness of human bodies
      and human passions through sexual exploitation;
   the delusion of unchecked progress and limitless growth
   that threatens our home, the earth;
   the covert despair that lulls many into numb complicity
   with empires and systems of domination.
We sing lament and repentance.

Yet evil does not—cannot—
   undermine or overcome the love of God.
God forgives,
   and calls all of us to confess our fears and failings
   with honesty and humility.
God reconciles,
   and calls us to repent the part we have played
   in damaging our world, ourselves, and each other.
God transforms,
   and calls us to protect the vulnerable,
   to pray for deliverance from evil,
   to work with God for the healing of the world,
   that all might have abundant life.

We sing of grace.

Basics of Faith 9 - Live Love

Live Love Basics of Faith 9 – August 27, 2017  A Sermon by Rev. M. Gayle MacDonald Texts read on August 27 :  The Tough Love ~ Pa...