60 Years!: Sermon, November 18, 2018

In 1957 Ontario's electrical utility began constructing two New Towns to house people whose homes would be flooded by the creation of the St. Lawrence Seaway. Those towns became Ingleside and Long Sault, and both had United Church buildings: Trinity United Church, Ingleside (now Ingleside-Newington United Church), to which the congregations of United Churches in Aultsville, Wales, Gallingertown and Osnabruck Centre moved; and St. Andrew's United Church, Long Sault (now St. Andrew's-St. Mark's United Church), which became the home of congregations from Moulinette and Mille Roches.

The towns and churches all turned 60 years old in 2018. Trinity held its first worship service in the sanctuary on Easter Sunday, April 6, 1958, and its dedication service on May 25. The St. Andrew's dedication service was November 16, 1958. Both 60th anniversaries were marked in worship on November 18, 2018, just two days off 60 years since the St. Andrew's dedication and a week away from 61st anniversary of the November 10, 1957, laying of the Trinity cornerstone.

Every Jewish priest performs his services every day and offers the same sacrifices many times; but these sacrifices can never take away sins. Christ, however, offered one sacrifice for sins, an offering that is effective forever, and then he sat down at the right side of God. There he now waits until God puts his enemies as a footstool under his feet. 14 With one sacrifice, then, he has made perfect forever those who are purified from sin.

We have, then, my friends, complete freedom to go into the Most Holy Place by means of the death of Jesus. He opened for us a new way, a living way, through the curtain—that is, through his own body. We have a great priest in charge of the house of God. So let us come near to God with a sincere heart and a sure faith, with hearts that have been purified from a guilty conscience and with bodies washed with clean water. Let us hold on firmly to the hope we profess, because we can trust God to keep his promise. Let us be concerned for one another, to help one another to show love and to do good. Let us not give up the habit of meeting together, as some are doing. Instead, let us encourage one another all the more, since you see that the Day of the Lord is coming nearer.
- Hebrews 10:11-14, 19-25, Good News Bible

As Jesus was leaving the Temple, one of his disciples said, “Look, Teacher! What wonderful stones and buildings!”

Jesus answered, “You see these great buildings? Not a single stone here will be left in its place; every one of them will be thrown down.”

Jesus was sitting on the Mount of Olives, across from the Temple, when Peter, James, John, and Andrew came to him in private. “Tell us when this will be,” they said, “and tell us what will happen to show that the time has come for all these things to take place.”

Jesus said to them, “Watch out, and don't let anyone fool you. Many men, claiming to speak for me, will come and say, ‘I am he!’ and they will fool many people. And don't be troubled when you hear the noise of battles close by and news of battles far away. Such things must happen, but they do not mean that the end has come. Countries will fight each other; kingdoms will attack one another. There will be earthquakes everywhere, and there will be famines. These things are like the first pains of childbirth.”
- Mark 13:1-8, Good News Bible

So many stories over 60 years.

Someone told me once that before the St. Andrew’s building was finished, the United Church congregation in Long Sault met in the liquor store. Well, it wasn’t the liquor store at the time, but it’s still a great story. So I have the bulletin here for the dedication service of St. Andrew’s United Church, November 16th, 1958, 3 PM. The minister then was Rev. Wilfong and the guest preacher was Rev. Gordon Porter, superintendent of missions for Montreal and Ottawa Conference. Officiating was Rev. Lewis, president of the Conference. The bulletin tells me that the hymns were all from the 1930 Hymn Book: Ye gates, lift up your heads on high; I joyed when to the house of God go up, they said to me; Christ is made the sure foundation, which we sang today; and Rise up, O men of God. And the bulletin lists who donated the sign board, hymn books, hymn board, offering plates and guest book. We are going to give this bulletin, which is one of the few left from 1958, to the Lost Villages Museum.

Another booklet, A History of Trinity United Church, was published for the 25th anniversary in 1983. It tells me that before the manse was ready in 1957 the minister, Rev. Profitt, and his wife, lived on Pine Street, which was also the home of the Sunday school and youth groups. The booklet describes the Session, Stewards, Official Board and so on, so many groups. I learned that the original black choir gowns were replaced with red ones with white and yellow collars in 1980. Canadian Girls in There was Canadian Girls in Training, boys’ groups too, and Hi-C, a Mission Band, a Baby Band, Sunday school, a Women’s Federation with 90 members, which became the United Church Women in 1962, and the 50/50 or Couples Club. The booklet goes on to describe the 20th anniversary of Trinity church in 1978 and the 25th in 1983. I’m sure that these few sentences I’ve used to sum all this up have brought up a lot of memories for long-time members of both congregations.

And since then 60 years of worship, baptisms, Communions, weddings, funerals, Sunday school classes, meetings and more meetings, suppers, bazaars, soup and sandwiches, quilting and food bank collections and cards going out and more than I can mention.

So much has changed over six decades, but so much has stayed the same. The book of Ecclesiastes in the Bible says, “There is nothing new under the sun. Is there a thing of which it is said, ‘See, this is new?’ It has already been, in the ages before us.” There isn’t a lot that can happen in the life of the church that hasn’t already happened in the two thousand years the church has been around or even the 93 years of our denomination. I was reading Phyllis Airhart's great history of The United Church of Canada, A Church With the Soul of a Nation, and there is a story of a United church deeply in debt that was saved by the women fundraising to cover the payments, and another congregation whose finances were straightened out by the women’s group, in, the story says, a mysterious way known only to the ladies. The book says that when money was needed to install new lighting, improve the sanctuary, or purchase new hymn books, collection plates, or Communion sets, the ladies were there. And this sounds like the last few years, but this was the 1930s. So much has changed, but so much has stayed the same, and all of us know that the Trinity and St. Andrew’s buildings would not have made it to 60 years without, in particular, women organizing and working, and we are grateful.

So much has changed. I want to talk about something that would have been unthinkable 60 years ago, and still seems strange to many of us now. You may have heard that in the United Church there is a minister who is an atheist. Well, her beliefs are more nuanced than that (this is her congregation), but that’s what it boils down to. Her ministry was being reviewed by Toronto Conference in a formal hearing, but she has good lawyers, and last week it was announced that Conference had settled her case. So she is back in ministry. The details of this settlement are confidential, but it is based on process, not theology, and it doesn’t apply to any other minister in any other conference. This hasn’t stopped her supporters, and she has lots, claiming victory, and many, many other United Church people being very upset. It just doesn’t make sense to most folks that an atheist could be, would even want to be, a minister in Christ’s church. It just doesn’t add up. It’s my impression that she wants to stay in the church because she genuinely sees herself as evangelizing the church, converting us to her way of believing, or not believing. This brings to mind for me what Jesus says in our reading today, “Watch out, and don’t let anyone fool you. Many claiming to speak for me will come and say, ‘I am he,’ and they will fool many people.”

I would add here that we are a church that doesn’t believe in what is called creedal subscription – we don’t make members sign off on a specific faith statement. People in the pews, over the last 90 and 60 years and today, have believed lots of things – they have been at different points on their journey of faith, and that is expected, and encouraged. But those who are called to paid, accountable ministry are set apart, and to be ordained or commissioned or admitted they must be found to be in essential agreement with the doctrine of the church.

Both the national church and the Moderator responded to this development. The statement from the national church office says that this settlement with one minister does not alter in any way the belief of The United Church of Canada in a God most fully revealed to us as Christians in and through Jesus Christ. The church’s statements of faith over the years have all been grounded in this understanding. The most recent statement, A Song of Faith, begins with the words “God is Holy Mystery,” recognizing that as humans we will never fully understand the nature of this mystery.

The Moderator, the Right Rev. Richard Bott, adds that as a Christian church, we continue to expect that ministers in The United Church of Canada will continue to offer their leadership in accordance with our shared and agreed upon statements of faith and celebrating the sacraments. He says, I believe that God continues to call us to be people who love, and in that love, to be communities of faith where all are welcome, whatever you believe or don’t believe.

And that, I think, is what we have tried to be here, for 60 years. We have tried our best to do what the letter to the Hebrews tells us to do: to come near to God with a sincere heart and a sure faith, purified from guilt and washed clean in baptism, to hold on firmly to the hope we profess, because we can trust in God’s promises, to be concerned for one another, to help one another to show love and to good, to meet together in worship, to encourage one another on our journeys of faith, today and for another six decades, and for six more and more until all things are made new.