HELLO!

I will see some of you on Saturday at 11 am in our sanctuary for Norm Shannon’s funeral. Please keep Gwen and her family in your prayers.

This Sunday some of you will join our choir at Cole Harbour United for a United Churches for Dartmouth joint service (the third since Bethe and I arrived) at 10 am, and some of you (a smaller gathering than usual) will join me at Woodlawn UC at 10 am. Bethe meets with the UCC clergy who serve the other five churches in Dartmouth and schedules joint services. On each occasion one of these churches has chosen to offer their own service as well, this time it is us. Bethe felt, given our weekly attendance is sometimes that of the others combined, it would not work to be in a space where our 150-175 people pushed the limits of seating capacity. Also, we typically have 10-20 new people per week. If they arrived on Sunday, and there was no service, we would miss the opportunity to engage them. Most would not then venture to our neighbour church.

At our 10 am service the focus will be Matthew 9:9-13, and 18-26. The first passage is representative of the calling of the disciples, and the second is a beautiful commentary on the power of faith. In the calling of Matthew, the tax collector gets up and follows Jesus. The Pharisees critically ask Jesus’ disciples why Jesus would eat and socialize with such “other” people. The second passage features a leader of the synagogue, with both an immediate need and a faith in Jesus’ capacity to overcome the insurmountable. The man’s daughter has died, yet he is certain if Jesus will lay his hand on her, the girl will live. With a faith in Jesus’ ability to heal her, she reaches to touch the fringe of his cloak. Jesus tells her what has made her well is her faith. In these passages, Jesus comes to those in need, who recognize they are in need. Often, the righteous are full of hubris and fail to understand how deeply they are in need. Faith is a restorative agent, grace-filled, an unmerited gift from God.

Jesus says the healthy do not need a physician while the sick do (9:13). Jesus’ presence appears to be companionship, not treatment in our narrow western definition of healing. We mainline churches wonder how to draw people in rather than how to engage human beings where they live. Rather than wait for people to come in, perhaps the church should follow our neighbours out into the world, responding to their needs as they emerge. Knowing God is always about the work of healing, we may be attentive to God's constant desire for healing, and the many acts of restoration which surround us - if we but have the grace to notice. No community touched by Jesus is without healing. These passages may be an opportunity to notice the healings in our midst. If this looks like, sounds like, feels like healing - it is healing. When we touch the hem of God's garment of wholeness, we find healing, all of us. Peace, Kevin