October 19th ~ Persist in Prayer and be Open to God's Answer

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Exodus 17:8-13

Psalm 121

2 Timothy 3:14—4:5

Luke 18:1-8

Sermon by Pastor Nelson

In our psalm today we said, “our help comes from the Lord,” and then at the end we said, “the Lord will watch over our going out and our coming in, for evermore.”  What do we mean by that?  The framers of the lectionary we used today, paired today’s selection from Exodus with Jesus’ parable of the widow and the unjust judge.

As always, the Hebrew scripture selected to accompany the gospel functions like an editorial comment.  In the Exodus story, Moses’ people succeeded in battle when they could see Moses holding up the staff of God, whether by his own strength or with a ‘little help from his friends.’  For me, I am again amazed how the texts from thousands of years ago speak to us today. Quite simply, “there is nothing new under the sun.”  When we meet the judge in today’s parable, we are quickly informed that the widow cannot appeal to the judge’s good side.  Why?  Because he does not have a good side!  [if that is not an explanation of Trump and his gang, I do not know what is.]

A letter to the editor of the globe and mail published on September 1, 2025, said this: “I am an American married to a Canadian, living in Canada.  I had trouble choosing sides- until now.  I was surprised and disappointed when my fellow Americans voted Donald Trump into office the first time.  I was shocked and angry when they voted him in again.  Now I only feel embarrassed and ashamed.  I am no longer ambivalent.  I am not troubled about choosing sides.  I choose Canada.”  That was actually written by a woman living in Victoria, BC.  I say, amen.

Just imagine our leaders facing Trump and then look at our biblical stories today.  The woman in our story faced “a judge who neither feared God nor had any respect for any human being.”  She became the water that dripped incessantly until something is worn away.  To understand this parable, we should pay careful attention to Luke’s editorial comment. This is a parable about praying always and about never giving up. It is important to recognize that those are two interrelated ideas. We must be constantly mindful of our relationship with God, and to persist in faith.  The woman is like a “squeaky wheel.”  The song I now mention was referring to love and marriage when it was written, it might be out of date, but I still like the words; “you cannot have one without the other.”  Yes, we need God and we need faith. The widow in this story represents the praying disciple, while the judge presides over injustice.  What is the widow to pray for?  For whom does Jesus tell us to pray for?  It is interesting but I do not think the gospel of Luke has Jesus saying, “pray for one another.”  Instead, Jesus says, “pray for those who mistreat you.” [Luke 6:28] Think about that!  Yes, Jesus did pray for peter but what he said was, “I have prayed that your faith may not fail.” [Luke 22:32] The implication seems to be that in a situation of seemingly interminable injustice, especially when we have no power to change it, we are called to pray for those who have the power, as well as for the perpetrators.

Now I have to be honest, praying for Trump and his gang of thugs, just goes against my very being.  But in this gospel story we have this woman who keeps praying.  No magic wand, she just kept pestering the judge who finally ruled on her behalf, not for any good reason, but because his discomfort at her persistence overpowered his laziness and prejudice that had allowed him to ignore her in the first place. She does not do it in private.  The widow’s persistence is obvious to the judge.  Someone said, she is like the energizer bunny.  She just keeps coming and coming with her demand for justice.  Her circumstances were such that she would probably die if she did not get her demands met.  The judge would not move for love of God or human respect, so what did the widow get?  Yes, this is a story of salvation, but not as it appears at first glance.  Yes, the widow finally got her due, but in the process, you see, she also saved the judge.  In the end the widow made it easier for the judge to do the right thing.  Is this what Carney is doing with Trump?  In spite of what everyone knew and said about the judge, the widow would not stop believing that God can transform hearts.  Even the judge in the story.  She refused to give in to the idea that the judge would never change. Like Moses, holding up his staff, she refused to give up.

There was no earthly reason to expect success in either case, but if there had been, she would not have had to pray and Moses would not have had to hold up his staff.  You see, if we can get beyond our own sophistication we can laugh at both stories.  Jesus’ last remark in our story was designed to bring the disciples up short.  Jesus’ last remark in our story should bring us up short.  “When the son of man comes, will he find faith on earth?”  Are either of these stories factual?  Who knows and probably more importantly who cares?  What is then the question being addressed to us by these stories?  Do we really believe God’s kingdom is germinating among us, even now in 2025?  Then secondly, how far are we willing to cultivate the story.  Are we faithful enough to pray for those who mistreat us and even more importantly, to pray for someone like a Trump who mistreats the world and promotes injustice?  Do we have or desire to have the kind of faith that leads us to persist as II Timothy suggests, whether it is convenient or inconvenient?

Timothy is told to be persistent whether it is favourable or unfavourable.  Timothy was told to convince, rebuke, and encourage, with the utmost patience in teaching.  The writer of the second lesson wants Timothy, wants us, to do everything possible to encourage ourselves and others to live the gospel.  The widow at the judge’s door got what she needed because she would not stop.  She shook the judge out of his apathy.  She did not quit until, in desperation, the judge did something righteous.  The judge may have not changed himself deeply, but it did bring him to do at least one thing.  As we look at our political situation, at the injustice and violence that plagues our countries and the world, is there any earthly reason to believe that people and countries can change?  Well, that is precisely why our widow friend is held up to us as an example.  Prayer will awaken our memory of God and remind us that God’s reign does not operate on the rules of the world.  Prayer opens us to the grace to overcome the inevitable disillusionments we meet in life.  Yes, prayer can open us to the inspirations that will keep us going just like the energizer bunny, until justice reigns.

Do we find answers in asking God to transform cruel and dictatorial people into good, loving individuals?  If so, just how do we expect God to do it?  If God could intervene like that, why do we see all the suffering we see?  Let us consider the idea that Jesus was talking from his experience of trying to convince the dubious and to hearten people who thought his message would cost them too much.  Jesus’ most basic prayer was, “Your will be done.”  That followed what his mother had taught him in her prayer, “let it happen to/through me according to Your will.”  We do not look for magic in our prayers.  When we long for the right outcomes in our world, sincere prayer needs to spring from a longing for God’s will, combined with our readiness to carry it out.  Our story today from Exodus backs up the gospel for today.  The people had escaped pharaoh, and God had provided them with manna and water.  But now they were being attacked again.  Moses orders Joshua to pick out a group who could meet the Amalekites on their own terms.  While Joshua and company were on the battlefield, Moses would be standing in the place of God watching it all happen.  The staff would be symbolizing God’s saving power.  This is similar to the earlier Exodus story.  Again, how factual are these stories?  Probably not at all, but what the message is, that their future, our future, was/is unpredictable in every detail except that the struggle to get their/our will shall always needs God’s help.  The story of Israel’s triumphs over their enemies is never a case of getting God to do our will.  Scripture never says, “God helps those who help themselves.”

This story and many similar ones is about the struggle we enter into in collaborating with God to bring God’s plans to fruition.  We use these scriptures to help us see that we, like the Israelites, can be certain that God’s grace and strength is with us as long as our hearts are set on the mission to which we have been called.  We often say and hear, “hang in there.”  Today’s readings remind us that the call to be persistent in prayer is not new. The Israelites needed to hear it, and the disciples were told by Jesus to “pray always.”  We do not need endless harangues, or sophisticated words or lofty arguments.  The God of mercy does hear us.  Our challenge is to be open to God’s answer.  When we long for the right outcomes in our world, sincere prayer needs to spring from a longing for God’s will, combined with our readiness to carry it out.  Now let us be clear, persistence in generous prayer will cost us our lives.  The good news is?  There is no better way to spend one’s life.  “semper fi”, “always faithful.”  God is persistent in planting good desires in us. 

Let us be ever more persistent in offering ourselves to carry out God’s loving will. 

Ask the complicated questions.

Do not fear to be found out,

For our God makes strong our weakness,

Forging faith in fires of doubt.

Seek the disconcerting answers,

Follow where the spirit blows,

Test competing truths for wisdom,

For in tension new life grows.

Knock on doors of new ideas,

Test assumptions long grown stale,

For Christ calls from shores of wonder,

Daring us to try and fail.

For in struggle we discover

Truth both simple and profound,

In the knocking, asking, seeking,

We are opened, answered, found.

[ACS 1005]

Merciful God, we are grateful that You have always heard the prayers of your people.  Show us how to trust in you when we grow impatient, and grant us the gift of persistence.  We humbly “pray” as you say, “always.” Amen

October 12th ~ Giving Thanks:Shallow Ritual, or Call To Action?

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2 Kings 5:1-3, 7-15c

Psalm 111

2 Timothy 2:8-15

Luke 17:11-19

Sermon by Pastor Joel

How many times a day do we say thank you? To the barista, the driver who lets us merge, the friend who passes the salt. We say it automatically, as a kind of social oil to keep things running smoothly. But how often do we really think about those words — their meaning, their power to connect, to heal, to change us?

In the Gospel story today, ten people with leprosy are healed by Jesus. They are outcasts — physically ill, socially excluded, spiritually branded as unclean. Jesus sends them off to show themselves to the priests, and as they go, they are made clean. But only one comes back — a Samaritan — to give thanks. He falls at Jesus’ feet, praising God with a loud voice. And Jesus asks, “Were not ten made clean? But the other nine — where are they?” Then to the one, he says: “Get up and go on your way; your faith has made you well.”

Notice that word — well. Not just healed, not just clean — well. It’s as if Jesus is saying that gratitude completes the healing. The returning leper doesn’t just receive the gift; he enters into relationship with the giver. His gratitude turns his healing into community, his restoration into connection.

The Gospel points us beyond individual healing toward mutual aid — the web of care that binds people together. Mutual aid is not charity; it’s a shared recognition that my wellbeing is tied to yours. It’s what happens when we feed the hungry and they, in turn, remind us of our abundance. It’s what happens when we check on a neighbour, when we offer help and receive help in return, when we realize we are not whole until all are made whole.

The ten lepers in this story form a small community of the suffering. But once they are healed, nine go off — perhaps back to their lives, their families, their plans. Only one returns, crossing the boundary again, not because he owes a debt, but because he recognizes something deeper: gratitude is not complete until it moves outward, until it becomes an act of relationship and solidarity.

In this way, thanksgiving becomes an act of mutual aid. To give thanks is to recognize that we belong to one another — that the gift of life is shared, not purchased. Gratitude makes us part of something larger than ourselves.

The Globe and Mail had a piece this weekend on the importance of Mutual Aid—this idea that community is better than isolation. Modern research has consistently confirmed that the single most scientifically supported secret to happiness is social ties. The article suggested that real change doesn’t need to be a massive project. The Bible says where 2 or 3 are gathered God will be there. It can start with making sandwiches, or cleaning a park, or welding a railing.

When we treat thanksgiving as a holiday rather than a habit, it becomes empty. When gratitude has no movement toward action and social connection, it loses its strength. The one leper who returned didn’t just say thank you; he moved his body toward relationship. His thanksgiving was mutual — it restored connection between himself and God, between the healed and the healer.

True thanksgiving always spills over. It changes how we live. When we give thanks in word and deed, we build up the kind of community where everyone can flourish — where mutual aid becomes a natural expression of gratitude.

Think of the mutual aid we are a part of as a church: the volunteers at the food bank who share their time and compassion, the neighbour who quietly brings soup to someone who’s unwell, the friend who offers a listening ear. In every act of shared care, thanksgiving is made visible. It’s no longer a polite word but a living practice.

The people who are most generous — in spirit and in resources — are often those who see gratitude not as a feeling but as a way of life. They know what it is to depend on others and to be depended upon. They live out mutual aid not as a duty but as a joy.

Let’s be honest: gratitude can feel impossible when life is painful — when the diagnosis comes, when the job is lost, when grief is raw. But even then, thanksgiving has power. It reminds us that we are not alone, that we are still part of a network of care. Mutual aid — the simple acts of being there for one another — keeps the light from going out. And sometimes, that’s enough.

I’ve sat with people in their more painful moments, and I’ve seen this truth over and over: those who manage to find something, even a small thing, to be thankful for — a kind word, a shared meal, a memory of love — are often the ones who are the most resilient. They are the ones who, like the Samaritan, return again and again to the source of hope.

So this Thanksgiving, let’s not only count our blessings; let’s share them. Let’s see gratitude not as a ritual, but as a movement toward one another — a kind of sacred mutual aid. Let’s give thanks not just with words, but with acts of kindness that ripple out into a world hungry for connection.

The one who returned shows us that gratitude is not a moment, but a way of being. It heals us by turning us outward. It builds community where there was isolation. It makes us — all of us — well.

And so, let us rise, as Jesus said, and go on our way — thankful, generous, connected — our faith making us whole.

Amen

October 5th ~ Have The Faith To Say "Hello"

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Habakkuk 1:1-4; 2:1-4

Psalm 37:1-9

2 Timothy 1:1-14

Luke 17:5-10 

Sermon by Pastor Joel

The thing about coming back to the city from the country is you notice right away how little people talk to one another. When you live in a small town, you rarely pass anyone by without saying hello. Even if you don’t know them, someone you know knows them. Drivers around Lunenburg, where I am from, have perfected the wave where your hand never leaves the steering wheel but the driver coming from the other direction still knows you waved. I know it's often said like a joke, but I can tell you it’s true: you simply cannot rush through the grocery line because someone in front of you is going to have news for the cashier. 

The sad thing is that when I go down from Ontario and the rush of city life, this is all kind of annoying. You just want to get where you are going. You just want to grab the milk and exit. It takes a few weeks, and then you start to remember how nice it is that the guy at the gas station asks how your day is going and waits to hear the answer. Or the clerk at the grocery story calls you dear, as if she’s an aunt you didn’t know you had. Don’t get me wrong: my corner in Nova Scotia is nice but not perfect. It can be insular and intolerant and resistant to change. But anyone from a small town can take a win in this way: we have all perfected what researchers call the micro-conversation.

There’s been a lot written about these lately. In case you haven’t heard, micro-conversations are good for our mental health and build social capital in our community. You might not think chatting with your mechanic about his kid matters, but it does. The time you chatted with the older stranger on the bus about the colour of the leaves in fall might have seemed like a five-minute blip, but you were both smiling when you got off the bus. Let’s not overstate things: these small-dose interactions are not, on their own, going to remedy the big problems of our time. But how will we ever remedy them if we never put down our phones and see our neighbor beside us, and, hopefully, say hi often enough that we come to realize they’re decent people. Small acts of faith. That’s not a bad place to start.

Apparently, according to our gospel, Jesus agrees. As we hear, the apostles are apparently stewing about not being faithful enough. And instead of taking care of this themselves – or asking how they are measuring what is “faithful enough” in the first place -  they go to Jesus and demand, “Increase our faith!” This all seems pretty brash on the face of it. What exactly do they think Jesus has been trying to do? But, of course, Jesus uses their foolishness to teach a lesson. 

“If you had faith the size of a mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it would obey you.”

The mustard seed is a tiny seed, so I imagine the apostles were even more confused. But it’s clear that Jesus was making a point, one a lot like that micro-conversation research. Faith is not measured by the length of the prayer, or by the volume of the singing, or even by the worth of the faithful. Faith is by definition strong enough to withstand the storm and the wind; it has the power to change cultures and repair institutions and heal humanity. You  need only a little of it, properly nourished, to have influence in the world. 

But before the disciples go away feeling puffed up at the thought of bossing around a mulberry bush, Jesus puts them in their place. Because ultimately, if the disciples are worrying about the size of their faith, Jesus knows, they are not thinking about the value of their service, or their mission to others. Their very question is based on comparison: “Isn’t our faith worth more than that of the other guy?” Maybe they even meant it as a trick question: “Increase our faith!” they’d say to Jesus. And Jesus was supposed to say back: “Your faith is already as great as it can be.” (Although this was, of course, what he did say, if they were paying attention.)

Instead, Jesus offered a metaphor about the servant who comes in after plowing or tending the sheep. Do you say, “Come and sit at my table?” (One imagines much nodding, yes, from the disciples, realizing that they are the servant in this tale.) No, Jesus says, you do not. Instead, you would say, “Go and fix dinner for me.” And then do you thank the slave? No, you do not. For they have done only what is expected of them.

You have to feel a little bad for the disciples. But they are helpful as a lesson for us.  Jesus reminds us, yet again, that we are not in competition with one another.  And we are reminded yet again, that we do good because it is the right thing to do and not to curry favour. We have, by desiring to be people of faith, already received the job description; we know what is expected of us. We are to be that mustard seed of faith in the world. 

Jesus could not have given us better advice for this time, when I know many of you are feeling overwhelmed by bad news, by a sense of instability, by these massive challenges we face. 

But we don’t need a big plan to begin. We don’t need to face down the mulberry tree. If we want to build a society willing to move in a better direction, it is clear that we can begin today. On your way home, say hello to the cashier who serves you and really see her. On the bus, put down your phone and speak to the other human being beside you. Never pass by someone on the street without saying hello. We cannot work together if we don’t first see ourselves as part of the same community, the same species, residents of the same planet. 

Be that tiny mustard seed of faith, strong enough to order the mulberry tree to stand down, yet compassionate enough to reach out to a lonely person, and brave and curious enough to be the first one to say hello in a world that has gotten out of practice. This way, at the end of the day, we won’t look for praise. We will rest easy, knowing we have done, to the best of our ability, what we ought to have done.

Amen