Wednesday Wondering - December 6, 2023

Scripture

Psalm 46: 5

“God is in the midst of her; she shall not be moved; God will help her when morning dawns."

1Corinthians 15: 10

“But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me."

Reflection

I have been very reflective today, thinking about our world and wondering about how there continues to be so much inequality in society. Today marks the 34th anniversary of the day that misogyny rocked Canada. It was a day when 14 women were murdered and 10 others wounded in a mass shooting at Ecole Polytechnique in Montreal. I will not name the one who committed this atrocity, but I invite you each now to take a moment and say aloud the names of those who were murdered simply because they were women;

Genevieve Bergeron

Helene Colgan

Nathalie Croteau

Barbara Daigneault

Anne-Marie Edward

Maud Haviernick

Maryse Laganiere

Maryse Leclair

Anne-Marie Lemay

Sonia Pelletier

Michele Ricard

Annie St-Arneault

Annie Turcotte

Barbara Klucznik-Widejewicz

The murders of these fourteen women spurred on the federal government to make December 6th The National Day of Remembrance and Action on Violence Against Women. So today we remember these fourteen. But we must do more than just remember.

We continue to live in a world where girls, women, and the members of the LGBTQ and two-spirit communities face unacceptable violence and discrimination. In Winnipeg we know this all too well with the number of missing and murdered indigenous women and girls. We continue to live in a world where women and girls face violence solely because they are women and girls. Gender-based violence continues to be an issue and the pandemic that we have just lived through, and continue to feel that after affects, has magnified this issue. Reports from police agencies, shelters, and local organizations have shown an increase in gender-based violence during this pandemic and following the pandemic. It is a day to remember, a day for us to remember all those who have been lost to gender-based violence, but it is also a day for us to consider action. It is a day for us to commit to educating ourselves about gender-based violence, it is a day when we commit to bringing to the forefront the voices of survivors, and it is a day when we ourselves commit to speaking out against gender-based violence in our communities and in our world.

I invite you to join me as I begin my own journey as I join with the World Council of Churches in honouring “Thursdays in Black.” This is a day when individuals around the globe either wear black or a black pin to stand in solidarity against gender-based violence around the world. This is a global movement that is resisting attitudes and practices the continue to perpetuate gender-based violence around the world. Many times black can be seen to have negative racial connotations, in this campaign black is used as a colour of resistance and resilience. As we commit to wearing black on Thursday we commit to showing our respect and solidarity for women who are resilient in the face of injustice and violence. We have all been created in God’s image, each and every one of us. We are all created with the spark of the divine within us, each and every one of us. It is time for us to end gender-based violence seeing all persons as unique and wonderful creations of Love. Join me as we fight together the attitudes that led the violence and took the lives of those fourteen women 34 years ago and countless more before that time and since. It is up to us to stop this, so that women and girls everywhere can live safely, living into all that they were created to be.

Prayer (adapted from the Taize service on Decemeber 3, 2023, written by Rev. Dr. Loraine MacKenzie Shepherd)

God of peace, who grants us the Advent light of hope, our hearts are heavy with the tremendous toll that violence, and gender based violence, has taken on our world. We grieve for all who have been lost. We pray for the courage to stand up against violence in all of its forms. Teach us how to be in solidarity with those who are attacked simply because of their identity. Ease the anger that drives some to acts of hate and violence. Help us to identify the fears that underlie our own anger and allow compassion for the Other to dissipate our anger. God have mercy on us, that we may have mercy for each other. Amen.

Advent Reflections - Week 1 - Hope - Rev. Patrick Woodbeck

Wednesday Wondering - November 29, 2023

Scripture

James 2: 14 – 17

14What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if you say you have faith but do not have works? Can faith save you? 15If a brother or sister is naked and lacks daily food, 16and one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and eat your fill,” and yet you do not supply their bodily needs, what is the good of that? 17So faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead.

Reflection

I have been wondering, as we enter this time of Advent about this thing that we call faith. Quite often as Christians we speak a lot about faith. We speak about holding fast to those things that we can’t measure, see, or quantify in the world and in particular our beliefs. We hold fast to our faith. We pray. We come together to worship in community. There are many of us who do such good work within our communities, doing the work of building up the community in faith.  Then there are those who move beyond the community and bring their faith to the world. The scripture from James speaks directly to this but I think that it goes beyond that as well. It speaks of our faith, which is something that we believe deeply in, as that which only lives when we allow it to impact our actions in the world. Our faith is not something that we only think about, contemplate, or exists only in our churches, rather it is something that we embody in all that we do in the world.

I received an email from someone this week with a poignant quote from Muhammad Ali, the famous boxer, who said, “I don't trust someone who is nice to me, but rude to the waiter, because they would treat me the same way if I were in that position." More often then I care to acknowledge I have seen people who call themselves Christian be nasty to others around them. I myself have been the brunt of this more times than I care to remember. We have seen those videos of so many people in customer service being berated for doing their jobs. This email went on to speak of two very important points that I will paraphrase in my own way here. The thing is that as a Christian, as a human being, we are not defined by what we say that we believe, not at all. We are defined by what we do. We are defined by the way that we treat people. I wonder if that is one of the challenges that Christianity faces these days, the perception that we talk the good talk, but beyond that there is very little, we don’t walk the walk.

As the reading from James says, “faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead.” As Christians we are called to live into our faith, to embody or faith, in all that we do, from the way that we treat the person who serves us in the drive through, to the driver who is impatient behind us (yes I am speaking to myself here), to the person sitting in the next pew, to those who are doing their best to steer our communities of faith through these times. To all of these and more our faith should be shining through, if it is not we need to rethink how we engage with the world. The second point that was made is that the world truly needs more kindness. We are living in a time when so many are struggling and let’s be honest here, most of us don’t have a clue as to the struggles faced by other around us, so let’s make a decision to be kinder and in that way fill this world, which can be so hard, with kindness. It is important that our faith brings us to action and that action can be challenging for us as individuals.

The scripture from James goes beyond just being kind, it speaks to an action of transformation. It speaks to action that can change lives. We oftentimes in our churches offer prayers for those less fortunate but how many times does it stop at offering our thoughts and prayers. We are called to action, to feed the hungry, to clothe the naked, to visit the lonely, to offer our gifts and blessings to the world. It is a challenge and yet it is so important. It is another way to bring a deeper kindness to this world. Our faith, that which we believe is important, some might even say it’s foundational, in how we understand ourselves in the world. So, then let us embody that faith for all to see and in doing so bring kindness to the world.

Prayer

God who challenges us to action, help us to see our faith, not as something that we say we believe, but rather as something that we do each and every day in our lives. Help us to hear you call to action, to an action of love, kindness, acceptance, and forgiveness in the world today. Give us eyes to see that so many are trying to do their best under difficult circumstances, some are so very tired, and let us lift them up rather than tear them down. Let us be conduits for kindness in the world today and bring or faith to action so that we might truly change lives. Give us the wisdom to know that we don’t know that others are struggling with in their lives and so let us gentle with ourselves and others, not demanding and callous. We ask all of this in the name of the gentle shepherd who came to guide, your son Jesus. Amen.