Rev. David Boyd

Peter Busby is back. from BC Conference, which was held the weekend of May 22^nd – a couple of weeks ago. I have to say that I didn't miss going one bit except for three reasons: firstly, it is always good to connect with friends and colleagues around the Conference, around the province, and I missed that this year; secondly, it would have been wonderful to be at the Ministry Celebration worship Sunday morning if, for no other reason, than to be present in support of Keith Simmonds who was commissioned — Keith's partner, laurel, was our secretary for a number of years; and lastly, it would have been good to hear our former moderator, Peter Short, offer his reflections about the church and where we are going. With the wonder of technology, I've had a chance, at least, to listen to Peter Short's 3 reflections and I thought they tied in nicely to this wind-up to our stewardship campaign and our thinking about what it means to be church.

The theme of Be Conference was "holding the centre" and Peter Short offered some thoughts about what that meant for us. As he began his reflections, he used a phrase from Annie Dillard; Annie Dillard is a poet and writer who is brutally honest in her writings and uses colourful language. The phrase that she coined used by Peter Short was "the grip of letting go." Peter said thai if you want to hold the centre, you have to let it go.

It could be said thai religion is about honouring paradox. A paradox literally means "conflicting with expectation" as answers.com puts it. I like that definition, conflicting with expectation. So, how do you get a grip on letting go? Well, as Peter Short suggests you do so by holding the centre which can't be held. So, we have two paradoxes, gelling a grip on letting go and holding the centre which can't be held.

So, I should just stop now and we can take the next few minutes and ponder what these two paradoxes might mean for us as a church or for stewardship.

The idea of letting isn't a new one in the church or in our lives. A good deal of living is learning to let go. A good deal of what it means to be part of a Christian community is letting go. We let go of expectations. We let go of hardened concepts. We let go of petty jealousies. We let go of our wants. We let go of some elements of tradition that have been hardened into "we've always done it that way." We let go of our emotional attachments to things or dogmas Of laws. Letting go is never easy. but it is best done in community where we learn together to let go and discover in the letting go a new freedom and new opportunities. We discover new life in the letting go. That's why we need to get a grip on letting; it allows the light through the cracks. It allows the light into our lives; it enables new life to take root and grow.

And so we let go of holding the centre which can't be held anyway. Peter Short pointed to the fact that we need to let go of our illusion that we can control the Holy Spirit or even God. We can't, so we let go of that illusion. If the centre is all about freedom, the freedom of the Spirit, if it is about the dance of life in all its wonder and excitement. .. if the centre is where we find our authentic selves and meet the God free of trappings, illusions, dogma and doctrines, then it is something we can't hold on to. Although maybe we meet God and the Spirit more appropriately not in the centre but out on the fringes. Wherever this freedom of God and Spirit and Christ takes place, we can't hold on to it. We can't control it. We can't harness it. We can not hold onto what we can not grasp. But, if we are open, if we grasped hold of the notion of letting go, what we can't grasp grasps us! The God of love and freedom grabs hold of us in a wondrous embrace of love!

Isn't that our dilemma in today's church? We want so much to hold onto the centre because we see things changing around us and we grasp even tighter. We grab a hold so tight to traditions and ideas, concepts and illusions, that we forget how to let go. But more to the point, we might be grasping hold of something to which God long ago let go. We might be hanging on to something so lightly that we can't be grasped by love or new life. We won't let it happen because we have such a tight grasp of what we think is Iife-giving and hope-filled.

We are holding on to things like committees and structures that served us well in the 20^th Century but that aren't serving us as well of late. We are holding on to power because the church during Christendom's reign had enormous power and that's good, isn't it? The Roman Catholic Church is experiencing this most dramatically as many bishops in different parts of the world are advocating the use of condoms even though the Pope has forbidden it. We hold onto rigid orthodoxy about what we should believe or how things should be done. But underneath all of this, we know deep in our hearts, in the core of our being that God calls us to let go. let go and be grasped by the power of love. let go be held by the wonder of compassion. let go and grab a hold of the people next to you, grab hold of this life and paradise. let go and grab onto the power of life that has us in its grasp.

Do I know what this letting go church looks like? Alas, I do not. I do know, as Nicodemus found out, that it means looking at life differently. It means living the radical gift of love more fully. It means throwing off the darkness of night and living fully in the day. It means being dislocated or dislodged from our places of comfort. It means rediscovering the presence of the freedom of the Spirit and the surprising gift of new life.

Keith Howard. at the Emerging Spirit workshop a month ago, told the story of a congregation that re-visioned itself, that let go of its old way of being and of its dying. This congregation came up with the vision statement, "You belong!" "Are you strung out on crack cocaine and need a place of refuge?"... You belong. "Are you a millionaire needing a fresh new perspective on life?"... You belong. "Have you lost your partner to AIDs?"... You belong. "Have you faced Cancer and survived?"... You belong. "Are you looking to make peace in the world?"... You belong. "Are you concerned about how we've abused the environment?"... You belong.

We belong together. Are you named Nicodemus and are you certain about where God is? You belong too. Are you wondering if there is a God and maybe there's a Spirit or maybe there's just life? You belong.

Isn't that what Jesus told Nicodemus — You belong? The Spirit, which can't be held any more than we can hold the wind or the air, holds us and breathes in us the gift of life. The Spirit holds us together in belonging. II is this power of life, this power of belonging, this freedom of the Spirit and Compassion that is what it means to be Church. This is what we're building for the future. This is the centre to which we can't hold but which can grasp hold of us. This is what we're struggling to let go into ... this freedom ... this love ... this compassion ... this gift of life ... this belonging ... this life in God.

We let go together because that what's stewardship is: belonging, in freedom, together.

Amen.