Sermon for 24 Oct 2021

Sermon Demonstrating your Faith

I start with a story of a minister who went to preach as a guest at a church. While he was preaching a woman kept holding up a selection of 3X5 cards with some writing on them. The minister couldn’t read them because they were too far away. After the service he approached the woman and asked what they said. She explained that she had been raised in a church where people responded audibly to the preacher. She said she knew that this was not usually done in the United Church so this was her solution. She showed the cards to the minister. They said Hallelujah, Amen, and Praise the Lord.

She was right in that people in the United Church do not usually shout out during the service.

A little while ago I was conducting a funeral, where a woman said she knew I was United Church so she would like to warn me that she often called out “Thankyou Jesus” when the pastor moved her. Having warned me, she never said a word during the funeral. You can come to your own conclusions about that.

Again another story: I was visiting a church where the minister was about one quarter way through the sermon. Someone called out “Amen, at which point the preacher said “Due to this interruption I will start over” No wonder we don’t like to shout out.

We prefer the scripture that says “Be still and know I am God. There is no right or wrong way to express our faith so long as we do it.

The scripture today is about the wall of Jericho coming down. We can relate to part where Joshua tell the people to keep quiet until the trumpets sound, but I am not sure if we would have shouted loud enough to have any effect.

Jericho is believed to be the oldest surviving city in the world. It is approximately 11,000 years old as far as they can determine. It is about 18 kilometers from Jerusalem. It is 857 feet below sea level and is supplied with a spring well that produced 1000 gallons of water a minute. It is sometimes referred to as the city of palms Therefore it was a highly prized location and it was constantly under attack. The excavations have shown that it continuously had walls and at some point in time the walls came down.

In the time of Jesus Jericho was the resort of Herod. He had to lease it from Cleopatra who had received it as a gift from Mark Anthony. It was also the resort town of some twelve thousand priest who worked at the temple. (I am not complaining, the manse is nice – but swaying palm trees and warm weather as a benefit?)

In today’s story, Moses has just died. He was forbidden by God to enter the Promised Land. Joshua as the new ruler of the Israelites has crossed over the Jordan and is preparing to occupy the new territory.
Jericho is the prized possession of this new land.

Joshua organizes the priests who instruct the people to circle the town. They are to walk around it for six days and on the seventh day when the priest blows the ram’s horn they are all to shout and the wall will come down.

They followed the instruction and it worked. The walls came down and Joshua became the ruler of Jericho.

As an aside, there are parts of this story that are difficult to accept. The utter destruction of the town is horrific and disgusting. I honestly do not believe that God would instruct anyone to partake in such destruction.

Having said that, the point of the story is to demonstrate the power of expressing your faith. We often come up against walls that prevent us from living in a perfect world. Right now I think that one of the greatest walls we have is fear. How can we talk about love to people who are living in fear.

The pandemic has accentuated but not initiated the idea that you don’t acknowledge people who are unknown.

We resort more and more to law suits to resolve disagreements. Other humans are seen as adversaries rather than members of the family of God.
There are many lonesome people in our society and in our world,
How can we know what is helpful to another person if we can’t speak to them
It’s time for us to share our faith

Religion has had its negative aspects. The horrible part in the story reminds us not to push our faith on others to the point of destruction but we are also reminded to speak up in order to change our world.

There is a story of a woman whose daughter had been killed by a drunk driver. She went into her house and declared that she never wanted to see anyone again. After a while one of the neighbours went over to the house and knocked on the door. The woman refused to answer. The neighbour called in that they would come over every day at 2 in case she wanted to talk. It took many weeks, even months but finally the woman slowly opened the door and eventually sat on the doorstep with the neighbour. At one point she looked at the neighbour and said “Your patience and love has brought me out into the sunshine”

If we speak out about our faith, we may be able to break down some walls and let some sunshine into someone else’s life.

PRAYER
God, we know that into everyone’s life there creeps some moments of darkness fear. We know that we all build up walls to protect ourselves but walls that isolate. We know that many in our world are afraid of venturing beyond their limitations. We know that many are afraid to raise their voice to improve the quality of their lives.
Give us the wisdom to know how; give us the knowledge to kn ow when; give us the love to know
We pray in silence for those who especially need your strength this day….

Now we pray in the way Jesus taught us.
Our Father who art in heaven, Hallowed by thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. lead us not into temptation. but deliver us from evil. for thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory. forever and ever Amen

SERVICE October 24, 2021
Announcements
Next Sunday
Etransfer info at bottom of page

Opening Prayer God as we gather today. Help us sense the Spirit that
strengthens us and guides us. Help us to respond in faith to the moving of that Spirit in each of us>
Hymn – G – 395
C – 395 Come In
Baptism at Churchill
Scripture Joshua 6: 1-5
Reflection Demonstrating Faith
Prayer
Lord’s Prayer
Hymn G – 509 I the Lord
C – 509
Benediction

Go now in Peace
Go now in peace, Never be afraid
God will go with you, each hour of every day
Go now in faith, steadfast strong and true
Know God will guide you in all you do,
Go now in love and show you believe
Reach out to others so all the world can see
God will be there, watching from above
Go now in peace, in faith and in love
Amen, Amen, Amen

Info about contributing

The traditional way is to send a cheque via mail to one of the treasurers.
Make the cheque out to:
Churchill United Church
send to Agnes Cole at 226 Valleyview Dr. Churchill, Ont L0L1K0
or Gilford United Church
send to Doris Coborn at 1468 Gilford Rd, Gilford. L0L1R0

An Alternative (and better) way is Etransfer
(This method is faster, cheaper and cleaner. If you don’t know how to do it, the bank or some young kid has instructions)

Send the Etransfer to
churchillchurch2020@gmail.com
The security question is – What is the name of your church
Answer – Churchill

or panddcoborn@gmail.com
No security question

Another option is contact us and we will pick it up from your porch. Thanks