Sermon by the Rev. Glynis Williams on the occasion of the

Induction of the Rev Lynne Donovan

St Andrew’s Presbyterian Church

Picton, Ontario /January 28, 2007

1 Corinthians 13: 1-13

Many years ago, a group of friends headed off to build a small fishing cabin on the famous salmon river known as the Miramichi in New Brunswick. The group was a tad top-heavy with clergy, all convinced they had enough skill to pull off this challenge in 2 short weeks! The wife of the property owner asked me to join this group. Wisely, we took off on a trip around the Cabot Trail, returning in time to hammer the cedar shakes on the outside walls of the cabin.  When we drove up the isolated drive, what we found resembled less a construction site, than a movie set for a comic tragedy! 

Picture this! One friend is lying flat on his back with someone pouring water on his face, moaning because of the acidic creosote that has splashed into his eyes.  Three other guys are groaning as they supported one of the three enormous plate glass windows that just would not fit into the gaping hole across the front of the cabin. Off in the corner, swinging his hammer, was the most experienced builder of the crew. And he was saying:

That’s it. There’s no hope, push it over the cliff.  Time to pack it in.  It’s all over!

That person is present here today. And to those who know him well, we anticipate this reaction to all catastrophes. It is his signature statement. But this is also the guy whom we know rarely gives up. And so as far as I know that cabin is still standing high up on a hill over the beautiful Mirimachi.

Our good friend felt that life was pretty hopeless.  It was time to pack it in.  The mess we are in makes life pointless.  And he has lots of company.  If you listens to the news, read the paper,  even the Presbyterian Record;  it doesn’t take long to feel some frustration, even despair.  Soldiers and civilians dying in Afghanistan, Iraq burning, AIDS orphans looking after each other and burying their parents. Church scandals and diminished numbers worshiping on Sunday. 

Our world can seem to be pretty hopeless.

Have you hung around Tim Horton’s or the other coffee shop – the Bean Counter lately, and heard these subjects talked about in gloomy terms?  More importantly, do you ever hear mention that such and such church is doing something interesting to respond? 

Sadly, the world outside the church doesn’t often think of the church as the harbour of hope.  And why not?  Is it because we feel defeated before we start; we think we are too small, unimportant, ill-equipped?  Do we doubt that God is present in our world?

How often is it that the folk with the least power are nearer to the heart of things?  Remember when Jesus was preaching on the mountainside - there were no Roman centurions, no King Herods, no Pharisees.  Not a CEO nor a social worker to be seen. No, they were ordinary folk, likely as not the kind that begged Moses to lead them back into slavery in Egypt.  Yet Jesus said to them: “you are the salt of the earth; you are the light of the world”.  Go figure. That could be us.

Maybe we are not seen as a harbour of hope because we don’t quite know where to start.  St Augustine observed that “hope has two beautiful daughters.  Their names are anger and courage: anger at the ways things are, and courage to see that they do not remain the way they are”.

Hope has two beautiful daughters: anger and courage.

Anger we can usually figure out.  I know what gets me going - kids.  This week I was reading the website for the United Nations Refugee organization and they have a new campaign called ninemillion.org.  That’s because there are 9 million kids on our planet with no place to call home, no country which cares for them. They are refugees.  Many are born in refugee camps, with no education past primary school, no health care, no playground. They carry hunger, and increasingly malaria and tuberculosis in their small bodies. No future.  Frankly, that makes me mad.   More so because it doesn’t have to be.  We could do so much more.

But this is where we need to be careful.  The late American theologian William Sloane Coffin said this: “we have to hate evil or else we’re sentimental.  But if we hate evil, more than we love the good, we become good haters, and of those the world already has too many.  However deep, our anger must always and only, measure our love”.

Just as the Apostle Paul said to that divided, argumentative church in Corinth: Love rejoices in the truth, it bears all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends. Of faith, hope and love, love is the greatest. Paul then adds in 1 Corinthians 14:1-- make love your aim!

Now we need to think about Saint Augustine’s observation that hope requires courage. Why courage?  Is it because when we start directing that love Jesus has given us, in directions that are not socially acceptable, we might prefer to stay quiet, do nothing?  That it might take courage to speak out and act.

It took courage for Mother Teresa to convince her superior to let her leave the safety of her convent and make her first visits into the Calcutta slums.   She wanted to bathe bodies with open sores and to feed those who were literally called “the untouchables”.  She wanted to share this immense gift of Jesus’ love which she had for those whom she knew God also loved. Today she is recognized as a saint and a Nobel laureate. But it was not always so. Who would we consider to be untouchable?

During the first gulf war, a suburban church in Montreal hung a small cardboard sign below their beautiful carved wooden one.  On the wooden sign, it clearly states everyone is welcome to come to worship; the same words that appear on most church signs in Picton and across Canada.  On the simple cardboard sign, in black felt marker, were written the words: praying for peace in Iraq.  The following Sunday, a woman from this fairly affluent neighbourhood, attended that congregation. Ruth later told me that she had driven along that stretch of road by the congregation hundreds of times and never entered; until she saw the cardboard sign announcing their prayers for peace in Iraq. For Ruth, that sign demonstrated their courage and their convictions.  It was not so much that particular issue although it is still relevant. But it was a way of pointing to the God who loves all, those who live in the suburbs of Montreal, or in Picton, or in Baghdad, Iraq.

Courage grows when we are angry at something. Courage also grows when we are most connected to God.  Someone once said they really didn’t think they could know the mind of God, but they did believe they knew the heart of God.  And that heart is immeasurably big.

There is a Celtic thread weaving its wonder through our worship today. The early Celtic Christians of Ireland, Scotland and Wales talked of the “thin places” a metaphor that saw God as right here, involved in the nitty-gritty of our everyday lives.  The places where we weep with each other and laugh with each other. God’s Spirit is all encompassing.  Paul speaks of this when he describes God as the One in whom we live and move and have our being.  As the ancient Celts would say: God is above us, below us, around us and within us.  

Celtic spirituality believes that anytime our heart is opened, is a thin place.

Worship is a thin place. Worship is about praising God but not because God needs praise, making God sound like a being with a huge ego!  Worship is directed toward God but it is in a very real sense for us.  In our liturgy of sacred words, sacraments and rituals, we are creating that sense of that world of God, which is here.

Music is a thin place.  Protestants report that hymn singing moves them more than any other element of the service (preachers take note)!  When we sing to God, our hearts are opened and we enter a thin place.  The kind of music does not matter.  Hymns that are traditional or contemporary can become the thin place. Gospel, spiritual, classical, rock, blues and jazz can reveal the thin places. We all know that music can stir the soul.

I was delighted to be invited to this induction service as the preacher. As a good friend of the Rev Karen Hincke, your former interim Minister, I visited often and gradually fell under the spell of the town and the countryside.  I have enjoyed the beauty, the diversity of characters living here, the warmth and hospitality of the county. You are a work in progress, accommodating native born county folk and those from away who have left big cities for the tremendous advantages to be found here. 

To be able to celebrate with you a new beginning in the life of St Andrew’s Church is an honour. Inductions are rather like marriages, after a short whirlwind romance!  You really do not know each other that well, yet.  The excitement of it all is energizing.  But in time the clay feet and divergences of theological views are less easy to ignore.

For you, the members of St Andrew’s, I urge you to take the time to know your Minister. Lynne Donovan has passion.  A passion for new knowledge, for discovering gifts in others that should be shared, she has a passion for music which her kids are now absorbing.  Lynne also has a passion for justice. The former Moderator of the Presbyterian Church in Canada, the Rev Jean Morris, said that Lynne has had righteous indignation as long as she has known Lynne. When they were at summer camp in Saskatchewan in grade five, even then Lynne stood up for the native kids who had a rough time. This was not about political correctness, it came straight from the heart.  For her heart has been plugged into God’s great heart, from the day she first drew breath. And she continues to seek to be a faithful follower, a lover of Jesus, our entry into the heart of God.  Of that you can be sure.

Now Lynne can also drive you crazy with her creative ideas that tumble out faster than many of us can absorb.  Her clergy friends know that she rarely takes no for an answer if she is convinced that something is the right thing to do.  Obstacles are to be overcome,  rather than brakes to be applied. However, she does listen and people of action can often change direction on the proverbial dime.

Lynne brought me to the thin place during the short illness and death of my Father just over five years ago. We had become very close since the death of my Mother even though he lived in London. It was the season of advent and the journey of the three weeks to his death felt like the waiting, the expectancy, that is the mark of advent.  On the morning of his death I sat on his bed at home watching my dad walk to the other side of the thin place. There was great sadness but also peace.  While waiting for the Doctor to arrive, a parcel arrived at the door from Lynne.  Homemade dried lentil soup mix, kid’s candy, an advent candle (probably partially burnt) and words of love and faith on a card with Phil’s moving photography.   An encounter of the thin place.  Lynne held my body and spirit together that day.

Trust her faith. Trust her anger because it is the source of righteous passion. Trust her genuine concern for you. Under her spiritual leadership, you will be taken to the thin place; the place of encounter with Jesus, the Christ. And that my friends, is a gift not to be wasted.

Now it’s your turn Lynne. For marriages involve two partners! The word for you is patience. Each one of us walks our path with Christ at a different pace. And the people of St Andrew’s are just like you, you are the same kind of people. Nourish their walk, help them discover their anger and their courage, and be patient.  Together you will discover God’s heart.

You have been called here to St Andrew’s Church in Picton. That call has been affirmed by this community of faith. Your call has been approved by the Presbytery’s of Kingston and Montreal. Trust that Call.  Most importantly, God will be with you all as you journey forward together.

You the members of St Andrews can be a harbour of hope in a world that suffers. You can, no, you must go to the thin places in Picton and encounter Christ. Your ministry together will take you to the places of suffering and joy. Both happen in the thin place.   Anger does not have to mean ranting and raving, although there is nothing wrong with that.  Have you ever noticed a mother who is seething with anger at an injustice against her child? She lowers her voice to a whisper so that you have to strain to hear her.  But there is no mistaking her anger. Courage is what happens next and it is what we are called to be.  Courageous in our proclamation that God’s love demands change.  Lynne Donovan is not afraid to walk with you into the thin place for she knows that the heart of God lives there. And God is our hope.

There is a new song that is about to be sung here…

There is a new song about to be sung here and I am going to ask you to stand and sing a new song unto the Lord which is printed in your bulletin….