Sermon for July 8th 2007

This week at Church, there were visitors from Australia, New Zealand, India and Southern Ontario. They were visiting delegates from the IRCA Conference that was held in Brandon at Brandon University.

One of the interesting coincidences that arose from the Conference was the realization that Prasad, the delegate from the South of India, had spent time in Southern Ontario. While based in Woodstock, he visited a hog farm outside of Shakespeare Ontario ... Later he and I visited over coffee and he shared his experiences of visiting the farm that is directly across the road from my family's home farm ... on the corner of the farm he visited stands the Building for Lingelbach United Church - my family's home church ...

Relationships and networks and connections run deep in the rural areas of our world !!!

I would like to begin with some statistics and facts …

Did you know that Samaritan House Ministries in Brandon distribute 500 food hampers every two weeks?

Did you know that Samaritan House Ministries’ soup kitchen Helping Hands offer over 41 000 lunches every year?

Did you know that the three emergency homeless shelter suites (that are not much bigger than a small storage shed) for families run by the YWCA in Brandon are seldom empty?

Did you know that this week in Brandon 85 delegates from 12 countries have gathered to talk about the experience of being rural church?

Did you know that repeatedly, throughout the week in session, over meals and in conversation we’ve talked about food justice, economic justice, rural depopulation, and the many many many challenges faced by modern rural farming families whether they be in Manitoba, Southern Ontario, New Zealand, Australia, England or on an island in the South Pacific?

So this week it was a pleasant surprise to find our two scripture readings in the lectionary cycle as I began the process of reflecting on the experience of being at the International Rural Church Association Conference I have been privileged to attend this past week …

The story of the great General Naaman, could well be a story about rural ministry … He comes to the prophet Elisha while suffering from leprosy. He seeks the gift of healing …

The prophet doesn’t even step outside to see the great man – but instead just sends a message … The prophet is busy is the message – don’t bother him, even if you are a great and powerful leader …

Naaman is outraged … not only by the prophet’s refusal to see him, but also by the message the prophet offers – Go bath in the River Jordan …

It would be like some saying – “go to that slough over there and soak for awhile …”

Naaman responds – “there are much greater rivers, surely I could bath in one of them ??” – “Instead of the slough, what about the Lake? Or Lake Manitoba? Or Lake of the Woods? Or Lake Superior? There are better places to bath than that stinky old slough … I know what those cows over there have been doing in there …”

But the answer is firm – that ONE …

What a profound lesson for the Rural Communities … That little stream – a crick really, is the source of God’s gift of healing. Trust in God enough to experience the healing from where it comes …

Today we live in a time and a place where something is broken … our values are skewed, our economic system is simply not working, the problem of poverty and homelessness is growing in ALL urban centres – even Brandon.

One Friday as I drove in to Brandon to take part in a walking tour of the work and ministry that Samaritan House enacts, I was listening on the radio to a conversation about the 7/7/7 weddings … One of the speakers talked about how popular a particular tour package has become in Brandon. It is a week long all inclusive stay at a luxury resort, where you have a private beach, a private villa, a private pool, a private chef, a butler and you are waited on hand and foot … and the cost is a mere 30 000 US dollars for a week … And the travel agent indicated that it is popular in Brandon …

As she spoke those words I was crossing the train bridge on 18th St and I couldn’t help but think – “what would the folks who live UNDER this bridge do with THAT kind of money?”

There’s something amiss in a society where 30 000 a week vacations are becoming increasingly popular while 41 000 meals are handed out through a soup kitchen and people live under a bridge …

But then a whisper breaks through – a whisper of hope – a whisper that says: change will come … And today, I am beginning to believe that that change WILL come from the rural areas. That despite our depopulation, despite the dearth of young people, and IN SPITE of all the challenges that rural areas around the world face, it will be from the rural areas of this world that this new thing we await will come …

We are poised in a place where something new is coming. The dust up over the WonderCafe ads shows this clearly – the church and our society is in a time of change – the old way of doing and being are no longer working, and all around us (unfortunately many of those voices are OUTSIDE the church) are voices saying – “it’s broken and it needs fixing …”

The issues are many – the environment, the economy, poverty, food justice, equality, … the list goes on and on and on. And the Church – you and I as people of faith are called not to ignore these things, but to embrace them and to become people of transformation and change …

None of us really know what will come as this transformation takes hold, but our challenge and I would dare to say our faith demands of us the willingness to let that transformation come and happen … That was Jesus’ message to the 70 he sent out into the country side …

Go and preach the Gospel … enter the villages and towns, share with them, but if they reject you – walk away and keep doing what I have called you to do … These are bold and difficult words. Not everyone is prepared to hear what the disciples have to say. Not everyone is ready to embrace the vision that is before them. But they are to persevere and trust in God when they are given a rocky welcome.

This is the experience of the Rural Church … this is the experience of the rural areas of our world … We are becoming increasingly marginalized and overlooked. In the modern Global economy we are a place to extract commodities and wealth, and nothing more.

But in that moment of recognition comes the whisper of Hope that says – “there is more to come …”

Think of the Fair Trade Movement … in a little over 20 years is has grown from a marginal movement confined to churches and a handful of NGOs into a global movement that is being embraced by huge Multi-nationals who now offer fair trade coffee, tea, cotton, sugar, bananas and soccer balls … Every month the movement grows and claims a bigger and bigger market share … it hasn’t transformed the world YET, but give it time …

Imagine for a moment the power that can come when the farmers of New Zealand and the farms in Canada and the farmers of the plains of Ukraine begin to talk to one another and say – “there’s something wrong here …” And instead of racing to the bottom of the economic ladder, people around the world begin to insist that farmers have earned a LIVING wage for their work … Such things are possible when people like Prasad come from half a world away and visit a family pig farm and everyone involved goes away from that moment changed … such things are possible when we, as people of faith stop saying to ourselves – “the role of the Church is to gather to worship and nothing more …”

Our task as people of faith – as people of faith who live and work in a rural area – our task as a people of faith is to live the Gospel in ALL things, not just in some … We are called to be midwives to something wondrous and something radically different … we are called to be present to something new …

Elisha ordered the great and powerful general Naaman to bath in a mucky back water trickle … Jesus sent 70 disciples out into the vast Galilean countryside to proclaim the Gospel … Our world is rife with problems and challenges … In each case it is the saving Grace of God that will break through and bring into reality the transformative change the comes from the power of the Risen Christ …

There is an old adage that says – “all evil needs to triumph is for people of faith to do nothing …”

Today in our rural areas – in our world, inaction is NO LONGER and option …

We are called as people of the resurrection to go into the world and embrace the ministry Jesus showed US … we need to challenge the way things are and be present as something new is birthed into being … We are in a yeasty time – something new is happening … and it begins when across the globe connections are made and friendships are formed and that whisper of hope that promised wholeness and healing becomes more than a faint whisper …

This week in Brandon, for a brief moment that whisper has become a shout of hallelujah … but in the face of what is out there it would be too easy to throw up our hands and say – “it’s only 85 people from 12 countries …” But like one of our speakers said this week – “look what Jesus did with 12 folks from a backwater province of the Roman empire called Galilea ??”

In the church we say over and over – “if God is with us, who then can be against us?”

Today, in our midst are what will one day be looked upon as the first stirring of an astounding wave of revival and transformation that will alter the Church and change the world … and all of it will come from the rural areas of the world …

There may have been mightier and cleaner rivers, but God chose a tiny muddy crick … There may have been easier places to witness to the Gospel, more hospitable and welcoming places, but God chose the hard-headed region of Galilea … There are many problems and challenges in our world … 41 000 lunches served in Brandon is only a beginning … but God has chosen us – you and I – to be the people who will embody, share and live that change …

And the bottom line becomes a realization when we meet someone from half a world away that they are NOT the enemy like we might believe – they are not strangers – they are like us, and they too face the same issues and the same challenges, and together, we will be able to address those issues and in faith we WILL BE the change we seek …

May it be so …
Let us pray