Pray that all of us are keeping healthy and safe even as we go through the heightened red alert.

Last Sunday was the first occasion when we had our livestreaming without the assembly.  It was indeed different, maybe even strange, to preach to and read to empty pews.  It helped that we at least had 4 others in the nave besides Mary, Richard and myself leading, somebody to make eye contact with!!

We observed Christ the King Sunday which marked the end of a church year last Sunday and next Sunday it is Advent 1.  As I mentioned last week, it will be a very different Advent and Christmas this year with the restrictions and closures to prevent the spread of Covid19.

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Advent is that time of the year when we expectantly wait for and prepare ourselves to celebrate the coming of the long expected one little over 2000 years ago and also to prepare ourselves for the return of Christ.  Our lectionary readings during Advent reflect this.  Many of us may think as to what the apocalyptic readings on Advent 1 is doing where it is. Advent is not only looking to the past but also looking forward to what is to come, not just at the end of time but also how God comes, in time, to transform the world, as Mary sang!

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The last three days, at vespers, we studied together an essay by one Herb Montgomery titled The Social Location of Your Christianity Matters, in three segments.  It made for some very interesting discussions even as Montgomery invited us to take a hard look at where we would place ourselves as people of faith within the social realities that we are part of.  Even as Christianity moved from the margins and being the oppressed community to the center of power in the early 4th century the community seems to have taken on the trappings of the oppressor and a change of identity!  Montgomery points out that “overnight Jesus of the gospels became Jesus of the oppressors.” This was very different from the Jesus we know of from the gospels, very different from the anticipated one who did not have any room even in the inn and was born in a stable.

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The Jesus we read of in the gospels is not the all-powerful hegemonic one who seeks to bring all under his control at the expense of justice and peace and goodwill.  But Montgomery’s readings does not end on a negative or depressing and hopeless note.  He points out that a new dawn that is different is possible if we came together and reclaimed this character of the earliest Christian communities and strived for change, by being there for the oppressed, the underprivileged and the violated; by being in the margins than the center and joining in the struggle for justice and fairness.

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One thing that came up in our discussions yesterday was section 6 of Bill 229 and as to how it would negatively affect the watersheds in the province and would tie the hands of conservation authorities.  Mary Thompson sent the link that could be used to write to the authorities against this.

Go to https://environmentaldefence.ca/take-action/  and click on “Don’t gut our Conservation Authorities”.  The right-hand panel is headed “TAKE ACTION” . If you click on Show/Hide below “Phone” you see the text of a letter, and can put additional comments in the box below.  Fill in the contact information boxes and click SEND A LETTER.

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