Rev. Susan Lukey

Passage: Matthew 6:5-13    

  Description: Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name…. On Easter Sunday each year, there are an estimated 2 billion people who pray the Lord’s Prayer, rolling out across the time zones, through churches of every Christian denomination and in hundreds of languages. Every Sunday, time zone by time zone, the Lord’s Prayer is said over and over again, enfolding the whole earth in the words of hope and love expressed in this prayer. Through the course of Christian history, as Christianity has spread around the world, typically the first text to be translated into the language of the region has been be the Lord’s Prayer, long before the whole Bible was translated. When we pray together the Lord’s Prayer in this sanctuary each Sunday, I hear far more voices than can be accounted for by the people present. I believe that it is the communion of saints who join us, all the past generations who have gathered on this spot, their voices echoing with us the words taught by Jesus and repeated so many times in this place, as well as around the world. The Lord’s Prayer it is called, shared by Jesus in response to the disciples’ query, “Lord, teach us to pray….” It is very Jewish in many ways, reflecting the Jewishness of Jesus, his upbringing, his faith tradition. Various of the prayer’s lines are found scattered through Jewish prayers. An evening prayer said in some Jewish communities shares the familiar lines: “Our God in heaven, hallow thy name, and establish thy kingdom forever, and rule over us for ever and ever. Amen.” At the same time, it is very much the prayer of the Christian community. Prayed daily by many, by some countless times daily. Shared across denominations, continents & centuries. Meditated upon.Preached upon. Prayed by rote, day by day. Prayed by rote – by memory. And sometimes we say it so automatically that we don’t always think of the words. Is that bad? Not really. I think that the act of praying together, of letting ourselves be lost in the prayer, also serves a purpose of filling our souls and connecting us with God and with the Christian community. Yet there are times when we need to stop and think about what we’re praying. That’s what we’re going to do today.

Passage: Psalms 119:97-105    

  Description: It’s an old book. An old, old book – the Bible! The oldest stories were first being told about 6,000 years ago, while the content of the stories describe happenings back to the beginning of time. So why bother reading a book that is so old and has stories about people who lived 2,000 to 6,000 or more years ago? What can anything in the Bible have to say to us today? The Bible was written in pre-pre-industrial times, maybe not cave-dwelling times, but almost. So what can it say to us who live in the midst of a technological boom? Isn’t the Bible obsolete, with a few nice phrases? Yet the truth is that you can pick up this old, old, old book and be moved by what it says, be changed by what is recorded in these pages. People’s lives, not only in past generations but in our present generation as well, have been transformed by this book. That is the power of the Bible. I love reading the Bible, even the stories that at first are difficult or hard to understand. There is something wonderfully mysterious about coming back to a story I’ve read hundreds of times before, and suddenly seeing something new – a word or a turn of phrase or a nuance that I hadn’t noticed on previous readings. Suddenly the story takes on new meaning and new power in my life. I don’t always try to make sense of what I read – sometimes I just can’t. I may not get what the words mean, but I read them and let them float around me. I trust that sometime, when the time is right, I will understand what they mean for me and my life, and for our congregation. There is peace for me in reading scripture.

Passage: Acts 2:43-47    

  Description: The first thing that Jesus did in his ministry was to form a community. Twelve disciples, and many, many more who learned from him, lived with him, supported him and followed him. The first thing the disciples did after Jesus’ crucifixion was gather as a community. The first thing those same disciples did after Jesus’ resurrection and then again after the coming of the Spirit on Pentecost was gather as a community. And the first thing that happened as the disciples began to preach the Good News was that people started gathering as communities. That’s what we read about in Acts: “All who believed were together and had all things in common; they`d sell their possessions and distribute the proceeds to all who had need. They spent much time together worshipping and breaking bread, eating with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having the goodwill of all people.” This is what faith looks like: Community. Community is at the centre of being Christian. To be a follower of the Way of Jesus is to be part of a community.

Passage: Romans 8:18-28 & John 16:16-24    

  Description: Through the ages, fear has been used to control both adults and children. Fear of torture, fear of execution, fear of shunning or banishment, fear of eternal punishment and, yes, fear of God – all have been used to force people into submission to the will of whoever is in power whether in the government, the church or the family. Fear has been used through much of church history to drive people to believe in God, or maybe rather to drive people to obey God`s will – which really was the will of whoever held religious power at the time. Don`t obey what I say and you will go to hell and suffer for eternity in the fires of punishment awaiting you there. Only by following what I say (and sometimes by paying me money) will you have a chance to enjoy the eternal happiness of heaven in the afterlife. It is a perversion of the gospel, a misuse of the good news shared by Jesus. Bits and pieces of the Bible have been used to serve human greed and desire for power. Hellfire and brimstone preaching does not serve God.

Passage: Matthew 5:1-16 & Revelation 21:3-6    

  Description: There are days when I would rather not admit that I am a Christian. One of those days was last week when a group of “Christian” protesters showed up at a funeral for one of those killed in the Orlando shooting, protesters who were shouting anti-gay slogans and waving anti-gay signs, as the family of this man mourned the death of their beloved son. I don’t believe that Jesus would have supported such protests, a rude interruption of the raw grief of those mourning. Jesus, who welcomed those outcast by society & ate with those others considered to be sinners, wouldn’t have agreed with those who waved anti-gay signs in his name. That’s why I would rather refer to myself as a follower of the Way of Jesus, for I believe too many things, that are done and proclaimed in the name of Jesus, do not reflect what Jesus taught, but rather reflect our culture and society. All too often faith is used to justify personal beliefs, prejudice & values that really have nothing to do with the gospel of Jesus Christ.