Peter Fitch wrestles with the meaning and practice of prayer. Is it something we do for ourselves or does it help to change the world? He draws upon a Victorian poet, several Medieval saints, a Buddhist master, a couple of Jewish thinkers, and several portions of Scripture as he tries to make room for past experiences in the thinking that makes the most sense to him today. He finds himself longing for a synthesis where prayer as both “attention” and “intention” meet.
Peter Fitch shares ideas about Jesus as well as ideas from Jesus in this talk on the meaning of His life and challenge. What does it mean for us to go “home.” What was He asking us to do? Drawing on this song, “The Rebel Jesus”, by Jackson Browne, and upon writings by Marcus Borg and Thich Nhat Hanh, Jesus is portrayed as a social revolutionary in the stream of the Hebrew prophets, and also as something more. He is able to work in participation with the Holy Spirit to bring healing, and after His death the early church experienced the Spirit in a very rich way. This gave the inspiration and courage to build a new community where everyone was welcome, everyone had a place, everyone was equal. We finished the time by listening to “Nina Cried Power” by Hozier and Mavis Staples.
Mark Groleau brought an incredible message today (don’t miss the powerpoint) …
You know that story Jesus told? Commonly called The Parable of the Talents? The one where the “good and faithful servants” bring the king his money with interest, but one lazy servant returns it “as-is” and gets excommunicated in shame?
And the “king” is God and the “lazy servant” could be you and you better not eff up like that guy did or else your ass is grass on Judgment Day and “to everyone who has, more will be given, but from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away” and that’s the way God made it… or something?
Yeah… no. In the words of Inigo Montoya: I do not think it means what you think it means.
Christianity has done it again with this one: made Jesus’ villain the hero and his hero the villain. And of course it would! Because the searing indictment Jesus intended from this story is far too threatening to the established order and to the power-brokers who establish that order.
So… do you wanna be on Team King – or Team Servant? Careful! It’s a trick question posed by the master of trick questions.
Matt Balcarrass spoke today about living unencumbered by fear. He thinks that the first step is facing fear with honesty and he calls for the courage that is necessary to go beyond simplistic answers that promise more than they can deliver. Zoe Fitch and Dave Warne (Colourful Language) finished the service with a song of Dave’s that Matt referred to in his message.
The Circle Comes Round: with all the people and stories within its boundaries / December 2, 2019
In 1991 me (Kathy Moorhead Thiessen) and family had to leave New Brunswick for economic reasons. I was very angry at God for this move, having believed that God had led us to Moores Mills. Twenty-eight years later we have returned to this area. It was as if it were an enormous circle- leaving one point and twenty- eight years later returning to the same point. In retrospect, this was the best move for my life- maybe God knew what God was doing? The circle moved around to end up in the same point but within that circle are hundreds of people who shared with me their stories and helped me to blossom, grow and change in good ways. God used these people to show me that the world is very different than I thought. ***Unfortunately, today’s talk didn’t get recorded! You can read Kathy’s transcript here and also important to follow along with her powerpoint here (the last slide is a video, be sure to click on it).
Peter Fitch begins by talking about the death this past week of Mary Ellen’s Aunt Shirley. This leads him to speak about the concept of flourishing and he then compares ideas from various philosophers in the western tradition. Finally, he gives some foundational ideas from Jesus and looks at some contemporary restatements by Brent Brown. After this, people share some of their own ideas about what flourishing might look like.
Walter Thiessen suggests that an emphasis on Jesus has to include Jesus’ message that we all have the same access that he did to the Presence of God inside of us, teaching, guiding, and enabling us to live a life of healing, compassion and justice. Asking helps. And he ended by challenge everyone to hum for a week!
Peter Fitch gives a talk that is based on the entire letter of St. Paul to the Philippians. He starts by asking what an appropriate life goal might be. Then he continues by highlighting eight attitudinal principles found in the letter that would make the journey toward the goal more likely to be successful. Comments from the crowd are particularly rich in this talk.
Peter Fitch gives a “state of the union” talk concerning some of the important issues facing SCV these days: our relationship to our parent denomination and our current financial picture. At SCV, we don’t take regular offerings and Peter explains why in this talk. He also tries to synthesize principles about giving from the New Testament and he shares his own strategy for responsible community building. There is some great interaction from the crowd near the end of this recording.
