Monthly Archives: May 2021

covid-19, Sermon, Theology & Culture

Needing Pentecost more than ever

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GOSPEL: John 15:26-27; 16:4b-15
[Jesus said,] 26“When the Advocate comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who comes from the Father, he will testify on my behalf. 27You also are to testify because you have been with me from the beginning….


After seven weeks of celebrating Easter, we have now moved from the great joy of the Season of the Resurrection to the Day of Pentecost. For much of Christian history, Pentecost has been the third great festival of the Church alongside Christmas and Easter. Pentecost tells the story of the Holy Spirit coming to the disciples and equipping them to proclaim the Gospel. This day is also known as the Birth of the Church. The day that the community of believers called the Body of Christ was established with its mission to proclaim the Gospel to all nations and peoples. Pentecost was a confusing day, with many being uncertain of exactly what was going on. 

In the two thousand years since, Christians haven’t done much better to figure out exactly what is going on with the Church. But this past year, making sense of what the Church is all about has been especially difficult and confusing. Pentecost comes to us at time when we may be struggling more than ever to know to what and to where God is calling us. 

In the fifty days following the Resurrection, the disciples were left in a confusing and uncertain place. The first experiences of the Resurrection seemingly didn’t offer them much help in figuring out what to do and who to be as a community. The women’s report from the empty tomb had caused much disruption. The disciples who walked with Jesus to Emmaus did not recognize him until the end. Thomas could not bring himself to accept that Jesus had been raised until he was forced to. And when Peter met Jesus on the beach and was asked if he would lay down his life for Jesus, he could only respond by saying that Jesus was his friend. 

The Resurrection experiences hadn’t provided a clear path forward and the disciples were still trying to figure out how they had gone from following Jesus around Galilee to being locked away, hiding from Herod’s soldiers and the Roman soldiers. 

The disciples’ world since Easter had become dangerous and threatening, while also raising questions of who they were now were and what they were supposed to do. They were not yet the Early Church community; they had not yet been given a mission or purpose. They were an aimless, frightened and fearful bunch of former followers of Jesus. 

The Church today is also full of uncertainty and confusion. We had been living on a mostly predictable path before now. One that, even though it wasn’t exactly working great, was a way of being what we thought we knew and understood. 

Many congregations were small enclaves and communities gathered around a common identity, often around families, neighbourhoods, or cultural backgrounds. We had histories and traditions. Before 2020, most churches knew very well what most Sunday mornings or council meetings or Christmas Eve services or potluck meetings or Bible studies and more would look like for them. 

Sure, a lot of folks tended to be aging and resources for ministry tended to be declining, but this was very much in consort with  a nation, province or city also facing declining resources for every other institution. 

Maybe we aren’t quite as intensely confused and uncertain as the disciples were during their fifty days of wondering between Easter and Pentecost, but with 2,000 two thousand years of history behind us, with generations of established traditions and practices, and a lot of ministry to stand on… our Easter-to-Pentecost wondering is rooted in deep questions about what the Church is still called to be, and how the Church, our community of faith, is supposed to fit into our rapidly-changing world. 
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On that first day of Pentecost, as the disciples remained confused and uncertain as ever still fifty days on from the Resurrection: Jesus had risen from the dead, Jesus had appeared to them in locked rooms, along roads and then finally on mountain tops. And now Jesus had left them… but not alone. Jesus had left them a promised advocate… a Spirit. But who among them knew what that really meant?

And then in the midst of all that confusion and uncertainty, there was rushing wind blowing through the group. And then, tongues of fire resting on them. And then, they were compelled to go out into the streets to tell the story of Jesus. They were sent, speaking many languages so that all could understand. They were sent to preach to all the nations. The Holy Spirit gave them what they needed to preach the Gospel.

The wind and fire, the miraculous ability to speak in other languages mark the story of this day. They reveal and point to the Spirit of God working a new thing among God’s people. But they aren’t the most significant part of the story. Instead, these signs and miracles from God serve to orient us back to the main point of the story.

This band of Jesus’ followers, uncertain about who or what they are as a community, what are they are supposed to do without Jesus’ literally holding their hands and showing them the way… The band of Jesus’ followers, confused about all that has happened to them since Jesus called them from their boats, from under the fig trees, from their jobs as tax collectors, carting them around Galilee and then asking them to bear witness to his arrest, trial, crucifixion, and death… only to be surprised by his Resurrection three days later. 
This band of Jesus’ followers is suddenly thrust into Pentecost from their post-Easter hiatus, thrust back into the world. The Spirit pushes the disciples out of hiding with a reminder of the mission that Jesus left in their hands. They are to share the good news with all peoples. 

That is the point of Pentecost — the sending of God’s people into the world for the sake of the mission of the Kingdom. 

And just the same, the Holy Spirit is swirling around and among us, too. Long before the pandemic, we gathered and huddled away in our churches for too long, waiting for people to just start coming to church. People like us, people who already knew who we are were. Waiting for the world around us to figure out that going to church is what good, decent people are were supposed to do. But they weren’t just showing up, no matter how hard we hoped. 

Now, after we have been huddled away from each other, the Spirit is pushing the Church again. Pushing us to quit waiting and to go out. Tongues of fire have been sent to us, like Facebook, YouTube, Zoom and other online platforms that connect us to the entire world. Christianity and local churches have gained interest  more interest from the news media (both good and bad) in the past year then in the previous decade. The Spirit is making us known again to the world. Our Pentecost moment is upon us. 

Like the disciples who went out to preach the Gospel, the Spirit is calling us to adapt our message to our hearers, to meet people were they are, to preach to all nations. The Spirit is reminding us that God speaks in many voices, in our voices, allowing all to hear.

And the Spirit is telling us not to expect everyone to become like us, not to wait for the world to come to us. But to go out with the story of the Jesus whom we have experienced. To announce the crucified and risen Christ, to announce God’s plan to save all people and all creation. To tell of God’s grace given for all. 

The Holy Spirit is working here and now, among us. The Holy Spirit is with us preparing us to be a new Church, yet still the Body of Christ, the same that we have always been. 

The Spirit is blowing and swirling the Pentecost wind in and through us right now.

So this year, when we find ourselves in a state not terribly different from that of those disciples  locked-away disciples who were about to be thrust into the World… we hear again that the wind of the Spirit is blowing all around us. Pentecost is here and now. The Gospel is being preached with our many voices and God is speaking God’s creation. God is announcing God’s plan to save all of creation, to forgive sinners, to heal the suffering, and to bring the dead to life. 

 God is telling the World that the crucified and risen Christ has come to save.

Amen. Come, Holy Spirit.

Theology & Culture

ANOTHER Open Letter to Springs Church Re: Maskless Indoor Grad Parties

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To the leadership of Springs Church,  

On Friday May 21st,  Springs Church has [AGAIN] garnered a lot of social media attention and sparked [outrage] in our city and province regarding [BLATANT VIOLATIONS] of COVID-19 pandemic restrictions implemented by public health authorities.

Much of the rhetoric coming from Springs church centres on the right of Christians to worship under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. You have [PREVIOUSLY] claimed that your drive-in services are safe and your right to gather in-person to worship outweighs the Province of Manitoba’s right to restrict gatherings for the sake of public health. 

But the photos of the recent indoor, maskless graduation celebration from Springs College reveal a complete disregard of public health orders and the incredibly serious situation in our province’s ICUs. 

Your actions during the past days of disobeying public health orders in the name of freedom are not an example of following Christ. 

Your insistence on the right to [GATHER] is not in keeping with Christ’s command to love our neighbour. 

Your actions disregard the dangers of COVID-19 in our community and that they only serve to create [EVEN MORE] potential harm for our healthcare system and healthcare workers already pushed beyond capacity. 

Your insistence on individual freedoms over collective responsibility are an affront to the many individuals, families, friends, community groups and other faith communities who are refraining from gathering for the sake of our neighbours. 

Your focus on your own perceived loss (of not being able to gather for a short time) to be offensive to the MORE THAN 1000 Manitobans who have died and their families who have lost loved ones as a result of this pandemic. 

Therefore you are called upon to take the following actions:

That you repent of your actions and publicly apologize for putting your individual right to [GATHER] ahead of the good of our community. 

That you publicly encourage your church members to remain at home while public health restrictions remain in place. 

If and when these actions are undertaken, it would be our hope that they be a first step towards reconciliation between Springs and your sibling communities of faith in Manitoba. 

Finally, knowing that we are not the first people of faith to live through a pandemic, we offer you [AGAIN] the following quote from Martin Luther, written in 1527, about how Christians ought to respond to the Black Death:

Therefore I shall ask God mercifully to protect us. Then I shall fumigate, help purify the air, administer medicine, and take it. I shall avoid persons and places where my presence is not needed in order not to become contaminated and thus perchance infect and pollute others, and so cause their death as a result of my negligence. If God should wish to take me, he will surely find me, and I have done what he has expected of me and so I am not responsible for either my own death or the death of others.

*This letter also applies to any congregation refusing to follow public health orders under the guise of religious persecution *

Yours in Christ

The Rev. Erik Parker

A previous letter to springs church can be found here. 

Note: The previous letter invited signatories to add their names, whereas with this letter I did not specifically invite other clergy to add names. Many have indicated a desire to sign this letter as well, but certainly not all.

covid-19, Sermon, Theology & Culture

Easter that has not felt like Easter

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John 17:6-19
Looking up to heaven, Jesus prayed, “I have made your name known to those whom you gave me from the world. They were yours, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word. Now they know that everything you have given me is from you; for the words that you gave to me I have given to them, and they have received them and know in truth that I came from you; and they have believed that you sent me. I am asking on their behalf; I am not asking on behalf of the world, but on behalf of those whom you gave me, because they are yours. All mine are yours, and yours are mine; and I have been glorified in them. And now I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, protect them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one, as we are one. While I was with them, I protected them in your name that you have given me. I guarded them, and not one of them was lost except the one destined to be lost, so that the scripture might be fulfilled. But now I am coming to you, and I speak these things in the world so that they may have my joy made complete in themselves. I have given them your word, and the world has hated them because they do not belong to the world, just as I do not belong to the world. I am not asking you to take them out of the world, but I ask you to protect them from the evil one. They do not belong to the world, just as I do not belong to the world. Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth. As you have sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world. And for their sakes I sanctify myself, so that they also may be sanctified in truth.”

It is the last Sunday in the season of Easter, for 7 weeks have been moving through the great season of celebrating the resurrection. 50 days of rejoicing. Yet for the second year now, Easter has not felt like Easter. Paused have been the normal spring activities. Yard sales and graduations, flower planting at the church and congregational picnics. Drive around most neighbourhoods these days, and you might see friends and neighbours skirting public health orders by visiting on the city sidewalk just off of private property, or families having mother’s day visits in lawn chairs in city parks. 

Certainly, celebration, feeling joy, living that Easter life hasn’t been front and centre this year. Just a few days ago we passed a grim milestone in Manitoba. 1000 deaths from COVID-19. A number that is hard to fathom for our province. 

As we land on this 7th Sunday in Easter, and for 3 weeks now, we have been making the transition from being witnesses to the resurrection of Christ to becoming Easter people. From Jesus’ image of the vine and branches, to the reminder that God chose us and not the other way around, God has been making us ready to become new community of disciples.

Today, Jesus implores God the Father that his followers be protected and cared for, remembered and given a place. And even if the prayer is just as much for Jesus’ followers to hear as it is for God the Father’s ears, it maybe doesn’t exactly feel like God has been remembering us these days. In fact, it is pretty easy to wonder what exactly is going on in the world and to ask what God is doing with us?

The disciples know this feeling we are having. They know exactly what it is like to be living in a world fraught with danger. Jesus is praying this prayer in the garden of gethsemane, just moments before he is about to be arrested. The disciples know that Jesus is in trouble with the crowds, religious authorities and police. They also know that he has been talking about dying lately. 

As Jesus prays to the father, he prays out of concern for his friends. While it sounds like he wants his father to care for them, to make sure they are okay, his prayer is rooted in the knowledge of what they are about endure. The hardest 3 days of his life and theirs is about occur, Judas and the soldiers are already on the way to arrest him. 

Yet, here we are on the 7th week of Easter, and we know the story. We know what is going to happen, we know the path that Jesus will walk, we know what the disciples will do and how they will indeed fall apart in the midst of it all. We know that Peter will deny Jesus, we know that the women will run away from the empty tomb afraid, that the disciples will not recognize Jesus on the road to Emmaus, that Thomas will not believe, that Peter again will not be able to express out loud his love for Jesus.  

And yet, this group of disciples that falls apart and fails at every turn in a scary world is the group of people that is entrusted with the message, they are made to be the church, the first community, the first group of believers that will embody, that will become the very Body of Christ still in the world, even after the Ascension. 

So Jesus prays for them knowing both what they will endure but also who and what they will become. 

Still, here were are disciples who know the story and yet are still in danger of falling apart. Our gatherings have not been what are are used to or what we need them to be for over a year, and though it feels like there might be an end in sight, we don’t know exactly when. 

And we also know that the group, the community we were 14 months ago is not the community we are not, and nor will it be the community who finally gathers back together again. Some of us will not and cannot return, And some of us will be new and unknown. And all of us will be made different by this experience. 

And then of course, all the problems we faced before the pandemic of perceived decline, transition to the 21st century along with a healthy dose of uncertainty will still be there for us to contend with, and now without knowing yet what the effects of the pandemic will have on us. 

As much as the disciples with Jesus in the garden need to hear Jesus pray on their behalf, we also need to hear again Jesus’ intercession on behalf, we need to hear that reminder that Jesus has walked with us this far and that we will not be abandoned in the chaotic events and swirling winds of change to come. 

50 days after Easter Sunday after Pentecost, the story which we will hear next week when the Holy Spirit descends on the disciples in tongues of fire, the disciples remained small scared group of followers. 

And yet, yet, somehow in the mist of all that they experienced, they were changed. They were changed by the Christ who forgave their fear and denial, the Christ who met them at the empty tomb and said their name, the Christ who revealed himself in the breaking of the bread, the Christ who reached out his hands to a doubting disciple, Jesus who still made these flailing, uncertain, fearful disciples the ones entrusted to be the church, to be his body and to proclaim the good news. 

This prayer that Jesus prays to the Father just before his arrest, does not turn out the way the disciples or we might expect. Things were still dangerous and scary and difficult. 

Yet, that small band of followers still managed to become the early church community, the followers of Jesus that spread across the Roman Empire, and then eventually across the world. And though the church has not been perfect and made many mistakes, though the world has still been a dangerous and scary place at times, the Gospel promise is still proclaimed. The body of Christ has continued to gather and continued to tell Christ’s story, to tell God’s story, to tell of God’s story become our story. And generations have heard it. 

And this Easter community of fearful failing disciples has become a global community of Jesus’ followers enduring for 2000 years. 

Now, as we consider again what it means to be followers of Jesus, as we hope for good news and promise that God is caring for us in the midst of trying times… we know that God has been transforming God’s people, God has been transforming us since the beginning. From the manger to the cross, from the empty tomb to tongues of fire, from the ACTS of the Apostles to the Early church councils to the reformation to now. God has been making us ready to be God’s easter community. 

In the small acts of mercy and new life of this past year, in neighbours looking out for each, in phone calls, text messages and emails sent to friends on our minds, in gifts left on doorsteps, drive-by birthdays for young and old, mother’s day park visits, in staying home and visiting family over zoom instead of gathering for the holidays, in booking vaccine appointments and encouraging our hesitant family members to do the same.  In a myriad of unexpected ways God has been opening us to our neighbours, God has been placing signs of new life in our midsts, God has been making us Easter people, even as feel like a scared failing group of disciples.

So even in in the midst of an Easter that has not felt like Easter for the second year, even when the world feels fraught with danger all around, with a pandemic that seems to want to push us to crumble as a community, God is Christ is walking with us, Jesus is interceding on our behalf, and God the Father has been transforming us, in the most unexpected of ways. 

Like those first disciples who seemed the unlikeliest group to be entrusted with the mission of God’s Church, God is calling us into the same mission. God is turning us, even separated and apart, into the bearers of the good news for the sake the world, the ones called to proclaim in whatever way we can to the risen the christ. 

This Easter season we are again transformed into Easter people, even when it seems hard to believe. God is preparing us to be a new people, a new community of faith, to be the Body of Christ for the sake world. 

Theology & Culture

Ep 11 Transitions in and out of Pandemic

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https://www.podbean.com/media/share/pb-xaq22-10320a1

With vaccines rolling out, summer on the way, and the hope and dreams of pandemic measures finally no longer being needed, the church and all of society is entering into a period of Transition. As quickly as this pandemic started, transitioning out might not so be easy. 

Join Pastor Courtenay and Pastor Erik for a conversation about pandemic transitions.

Check out The Millennial Pastor blog.

This podcast is sponsored by the Manitoba Northwestern Ontario Synodof the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada (ELCIC).

Music by Audionautix.com

Theme Song – “Jesus Loves Me” by Lutheran Outdoor Ministries in Alberta and the North (LOMAN)

covid-19, Sermon, Theology & Culture

You did not choose me but I chose you

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John 15:9-17
…You did not choose me but I chose you. And I appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last, so that the Father will give you whatever you ask him in my name. I am giving you these commands so that you may love one another.”

As we push into this back half of the Easter season, we continue to be prepared by the risen Christ to be an Easter community. Now that we have lived through the Three Days, come to empty tomb, and been met by the risen Christ, God shaping and transforming us into a new creation, into a new family of faith, a community tasked with being Christ’s Body given for the the sake of the world. 

We continue hearing Jesus speak to his disciples from the moment of the last supper, words that began with the image of the vine and the branches last week. Today, Jesus is giving final instructions. Preparations for leaving. Jesus is giving his disciples and friends some last words to live by as a community. 

As the disciples eat their last meal with Jesus, and as he leaves this commandment to love one other, their whole world was changing. 

3 years prior, they had been called to this ministry by the wandering teacher and rabbi. They had followed him around Galilee as he preached, performed miracles, exercised demons and met with the crowds. But lately Jesus was clashing more and more with the religious authorities, he was talking about dying, he was describing a new future for his community of followers… one where they took on more responsibility. 

And now, now in Jerusalem, Jesus has come riding in like a king. He had been met by the cheering crowds but tensions were high. And the sentiment of the city was changing. The authorities seemed to be planing something.

This was a world of danger. This was a world of risk. And this community of Jesus’ followers was under threat. Their little community was in danger of crumbling. It would be easy to just abandon ship. It would be easy to run and hide. It would be easy to just look for themselves and run. 

This frightened and scared group of followers was who Jesus was talking to. All the talk of a command to love, the reminder that they were his friends, that they were chosen by God. Jesus was worried that his followers might crumble and fall apart under the tense pressure of Holy Week. And he was right. Judas betrayed him. The rest fell asleep in the garden, Peter denied him in the courtyard and the rest fled.

Certainly, we know what it is to live in a world surrounded by threats and danger. We know what it is to run the risk fo crumbling. 

With our communities trying to do what is best for our community and for our neighbours, we have been running the risk of crumbling. We have been in danger by forces outside of us and beyond our control. The reality of our own fragility,  the possibility that our gathering might cause sickness and death has been held up to us nearly daily for year. 

Still, long before the pandemic, churches have been facing the threat of decline, the loss of social pressures that helped folks just show up at our doors and become members. 

And we haven’t been very good at dealing with this squeeze and this pressure. We have often taken the same routes the disciples have. We have hidden ourselves away at times, we have pulled back from community when things were hard, we have even denied knowing Jesus when it become uncomfortable to admit that we did. 

And like Jesus’ disciples, we have started to crumble and fall apart. The church in our time has not always been a shining example of love for each other and the world that Jesus describes today. 

So with his disciples frightened and afraid, with the church of 2021 frightened and afraid, Jesus reminds all of his disciples what this community is about and what it means to belong to one another and to belong to God. 

As Jesus leaves these final instructions with the disciples, he isn’t scolding them for their fears and struggles of the present. Jesus is speaking about what is to come. Jesus is preparing them for a new future and a new reality. Abide in me as I have abided in you. Love each other as I have loved you. Bear good fruit, just as I have born fruit in you. Treat one another as friends, just as you are now my friends. 

And then Jesus speaks one brief and short sentence. Perhaps the most important of all the instructions:

You did not choose me, but I chose you.

Hear the words of Jesus again:

You did not choose me, but I chose you.  

Jesus reminds the disciples of this key and important truth of God’s mission in the world. God is the one doing the choosing. All along the way, as Peter tries to choose a different less dangerous path for Jesus. And Judas tries to get Jesus to show his true power by having Jesus arrested, hoping the Messiah will fight back and topple the Roman rule. As the temple authorities, Romans and the crowds try to gain power and control by putting Jesus, and therefore God, to death on the cross. Jesus chooses a different path. God chooses to face sin and death head on. And God chooses life. God chooses now. 

Just like the disciples, we are tempted to crumble apart in the face of adversity. We are temped  look out only for ourselves, to pull back from our sibling in Christ to protect ourselves.

Yet, in the midst of the dangers around us, in the midst of the struggles we face, the uncertainty we face, Jesus is calling us to remember who are. To remember who God has named us to be. 

Jesus is reminding us that God has chosen us, we did not choose God. God has chosen us to be an Easter people. People claimed and gathered from the foot of the cross and taken to the empty tomb. People who might want to hide away, but to whom Jesus has appeared and given us peace. 

Jesus has chosen us even in locked away homes, even when we cannot see one another face to face, Jesus has binds us together even with online worship, zoom gatherings, text messages and phone calls. Jesus makes us one body, though scattered through the shared word of Good News that we hear together week after week. 

It might feel like it is all we can do but crumble in face of a third wave, more lockdowns and a promises end of the pandemic that just doesn’t seem to be getting closer. But Jesus’ disciples have been here before, they have faced all but certain ends to their community….

And the risen Christ has carried them through. The risen Christ has called them from their hiding places, locked doors and graves. This God of New Life that knows and claims us, binds back together in love. Not a commandment to follow, but a naming of the thing that holds us together. God’s love for us, and our love for each other. 

Today, God reminds us again, when we most need to hear it: You did not choose me, but I chose you.