HELLO!

I hope you have made plans not only to join us for worship on Sunday, but to wear orange in recognition of Truth and Reconciliation Day and to make time to remain at the church as we transition downstairs for our second annual SHINE event. Bethe, Lori and Emily (three wise women) have organized a ministry fair consisting of 35 tables, each one representing an expression of Woodlawn United Church’s mission “We share our lives and grow in God’s love to be a light”. Our prayer is one or more of these shining lights will inspire to join the work the Spirit has begun. We can all be part of something bigger than ourselves.

Bethe sent me a document from The United Church of Canada titled Affirming Other Spiritual Pathways. It reminded me of the Apostle Paul’s letter to the Philippians, “If there is any comfort in Christ, any consolation from love, any partnership in the Spirit, any tender affection and sympathy, make my joy complete in love. Do nothing from selfish ambition, but in humility let each of you look not to your own interests but to the interests of others”. The Chair of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, Justice Murray Sinclair, invited churches who are Parties to the Indian Residential School Settlement Agreement, to address their history of devaluing and discrediting traditional Aboriginal spiritual practice by making statements of confession and affirmation. And so this Sunday we at Woodlawn United Church will do so, reading two apologies written by two Moderators, on behalf of our United Church.

The seeds of our apology, where God’s wisdom pierced our conceit, can be found in the 1966 Report of the Commission on World Mission, where it is stated, God is at work in the religious life of all humanity. In 2007,in a later Report, That We May Know Each Other, we went further with this understanding: “We believe the church can continue to affirm its own distinctive self-identity while affirming other faiths and traditions have their own self-understanding. The Bible teaches the Word and Wisdom of God are not limited to Christians, and the Spirit of God is free and faithful. We therefore affirm and cherish the differences between traditions as gifts of God, which can be life-giving and transformative”.

The document ends with this assertion: “We know we have a long journey ahead of us. We are committed to make that journey in humility and partnership, engaging in the healing work of making whole our own spirituality, and acknowledging that holding both your spirituality and ours is possible through listening and learning with open hearts”.

Amen to that. Peace, Kevin