This Reflection was offered during the closing worship and graduation Learning Circle of the Designated Lay Ministry Programme on March 17th, 2022. This is three-year intensive learning programme of The United Church of Canada and is offered by St. Andrew’s College in Saskatoon, SK, CAN.

Rainbow's Promise

Rainbow’s Promise

Friends, as we gather in this time of celebration, marking the accomplishments in this room, including Nancy’s graduation, let us acknowledge that we are a conflicted church. This is not easy to acknowledge, but it is imperative.

To be compassion’s hands and justice’s feet, we must wrestle as an institution complicit in colonisation, of perpetuating patterns of power and dogma that have caused hurt and trauma. We must deconstruct the paradoxes we have inherited to move from being conflicted to being convicted as Christ’s Disciples.

Each of you, in your ministries, live out your Call in this conflicted state. You minister to the inheritors of the settler church for whom such challenge and disruption is not easy. You are called to offer compassion in this paradox, to walk with humility with those who awaken to our past, whether that is by journeying with others through processes of reconciliation, such as KAIROS’ blanket exercise, or endeavouring to be an ally through the Affirming process. Not easy stuff, and you must be present in this, all along ensuring that you care for yourselves with gentleness and practices of self-knowing.

We must find a way to help one another shift from being conflicted to being convicted. Let us name a truth that pervades this time of hoped-for-ending of the pandemic: the world is burning. Whether that is through methane being released from the tundra or missiles flying into and violating apartments, theatres that house bomb shelters, and maternity hospitals, we are experiencing a level of aggression not seen in Europe since WW II. We are witnessing civilians targeted, swords no longer just rattling but being unsheathed, as nuclear weapons are casually and frighteningly invoked in a way that has forced more than one Christian to return to the Book of Revelation for comfort and insight.

Nancy, as you complete your time in the Circle, and for those who will continue into the next DLM Circle, I do not share these words to dissuade or detract from your Call: quite the contrary.

Disciple's Discern

Disciple’s Discern

You are answering the summons to be Light Bearers in a time in which shadows swirl, children cry, and hatred festers. You are brave to don a mantle of faith that turns compassion outward even when confronted by the weapons of war. You are each amazing sparks of the Divine who offer witness when cruelty threatens to overwhelm. Ultimately, I pray you are convicted in these things.

There is never an easy time to pastor a hurting world when prophetic imagination must rise to the challenge that the least continue to be marginalised. It is only further complicated by a time when being conflicted is exacerbated by Creation hurting and wars unfolding. But your time in this Circle has prepared you to be a grounded presence in the face of our hurting humanity. You are each blessed beings, and I celebrate what all of you have done, currently do, and shall do. Thank you for your faithfulness and your conviction that Love overcomes, even amidst doubt and questions.

So, friends, as the community of Isaiah, in 40:31, was reminded in the midst of war and exile, that such conviction emboldens

“… those who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength,
they shall mount up with wings like eagles,
they shall run and not be weary,
they shall walk and not faint.”

May It Be So

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