Luke 1:26-56 Pregnant Pauses Dec 16, 2007
Does Nutana Park realize that it is pregnant? I am serious. This old shirt of a sanctuary barely contains the swelling inside. By the way people around here are always eating I am guessing the congregation suffers cravings brought on by the pregnancy. We can’t get through a week without some group or another wanting to sit down to eat! And then there is the expectation in the air that is practically palatable. People are awaiting something significant to be born, we just aren’t sure what it will look like. I know the signs of pregnancy because I feel a little bit pregnant myself. My clothes are fitting more snugly these days, and it isn’t just all the grava and butter tarts I have been packing away. I find myself craving interactions with people and prayer time even though I seem to get plenty of both. I feel there is something significant happening to both of us. I sense God’s presence on the cusp of doing important things through this congregation. There are good reasons why Nutana Park was ready for a pastor when we were ready for a move. I feel like Elizabeth whose offspring will prepare the way of the Lord. I guess that makes Nutana Park Mennonite Church Mary, Mother of God who has been chosen to bring the Christ into our world. I have observed enough to emphatically say, “Blessed are you among congregations, and blessed is the fruit of your womb”. It is apparent to me that the Christ child is growing both in the congregation as a whole and in specific lives. Here is good news for you: the Christ within you will lead to the salvation of your families and community and world. The Christ within you will bring down the powerful and fill the hungry with good things. I implore you Mary, be a good mother to the Christ within you. Let me tell you, Mary, what I have seen these last six weeks.
I see and hear a church full of children, and I see your desire for them to know the faith of their ancestors. I was at the church the Tuesday night of the venture club Christmas party. This was the evening of wagon rides, table games, and yes, food. Maybe it was the sugar coursing through the children’s veins, but there was a buzz about the fellowship hall. My voice nearly went kaput conversing with various parents above the din. I finally called it quits at 9:00 pm when the collective energy had sapped my introverted spirit, and still the party raged on. I am guessing there will be a similar buzz tonight. The care of the Venture Club leaders, the ministry of Pastor Wendy Harder, the contributions of Sunday School teachers, the commitment of parents to bring their children to Sunday School and Venture Club, and the congregation’s willingness to support these ministries financially testify to your desire for your children to own your faith. So many children are growing up without a religious anchor in North America, your commitment is no small feat. You know, of course, that just bringing them to wagon rides at the church will not result in the acceptance of faith. It is a good start, but it is not necessarily the key. Venture Club, Sunday School, and youth group are all supplements to the most effective way to pass on your faith: the example of family life. And here now is your challenge in bringing to fruition that which God wishes to work through you. It is not enough to drop off you children or grandchildren at the church and expect them to absorb the faith. It is not enough for the Sunday School teachers and Venture Club leaders to talk about God and Jesus to your children. You will need to model for your children, grandchildren, nephews and nieces. What does this mean? Well, it will mean you will need to tell these children how you came to recognize God and Jesus. It will mean we will need to tell them the family and bible stories that have kept alive hope in dark times. It will mean we will need to model the habits of a devotional life and church attendance which allow God’s spirit to leaven us over time. It will mean that all of us (parents, non-parents, grandparents and uncles) are needed as Sunday School teachers, youth leaders, sponsors and mentors. Oh, Nutana Park Mennonite Church-- God has blessed you with children! There are many many congregations which desire to have a fraction of the children you have. They want the chores that come with children, and yet it is you who has been graced with the divine task of training your children in the awe of the Lord. Your labours to rear children in your faith might be patterned in other Churches and it might be a refuge for parents unconnected to church. This work of salvation will bless your own soul as well as many others. Mary said, “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word”, may you too embrace this divine calling. Let me offer you a second reflection of your pregnancy.
Dear Mary, in these six weeks we have been together the collective size of your influence in Saskatoon and beyond stuns me. And as I visit with more of the congregation the influence seems to keep growing. There does not seem to be a maternity dress large enough to cover the bulge around your waist. You are professors at universities, members on camp boards, leaders in charitable organizations, teachers in schools, administrators in businesses, overseers in industry, champions of the arts, athletes par excellence and so on. You, the youth, and the children are all extremely gifted. Given your talents the difficulty you have is limiting your participation in events, not getting involved. I can imagine the weight of fragmentation sometimes makes your feet swell. I can imagine the girth of responsibility makes you at times long for bed rest. Dear Mary, I must caution you about over doing it. Too much rushing around may bring on a pre-mature birth of the Christ which is within you. We don’t need baby Jesus consigned to the neo-natal unit just on account of your frenetic pace. In your most full and graced condition you will need to prioritize which activities are necessary and which are extra. You can’t keep doing it all without adverse affects to the Christ growing within you. Your family must get the best of you. Your church needs some of you. You share the Christ child most effectively in the world when these primary relationships receive attention. You are busy, but you must make time for the sources of your divine grace. Treasure these words and ponder them in your heart. I wish to comment on one additional way in which your pregnancy is showing.
Nutana Park Mennonite Church is a refugee congregation. Nutana has become a surrogate parent for many who have left their home church. Sure there are a good number of people who were raised in this congregation, but a substantial number of regular attendees at Nutana Park come from other congregations, traditions, and communities. You allow people to bring their traditions when they begin attending here. You allow people to bring their questions as they return to faith. You allow doubt and conversation to be part of the faith journey. These are traits not always found in other congregations. They are traits that are attractive to many who are un-churched or are recovering from bad church experiences. It is no wonder there has been growth of your Sunday morning attendance. People will continue to come to find a spiritual home among you. The swelling of your numbers does, I believe, raise several issues you about which you previously did not concern yourself.
How do new people get emotionally and spiritually connected to others in the congregation? I have been here six weeks and I am still not sure how a person moves from being a refugee to becoming part of the Nutana family. During fellowship times I see the established ones among you sharing joys and concerns with each other; I also see the people who are new and those not connected by family ties standing on the margins. If church is just about nurturing the old friendships I think we are not living up to the high calling of being the bearer of Christ. I am a firm believer that a refugee must want to enter into church program, but are we giving a personal invitation to someone new to join the existing structures? Are we willing to sit next to the new person at potluck? Are we taking the time to visit the person we do not know? I understand that with so many people present on a Sunday morning it is difficult to know who belongs and does not belong, but that only means we need to be more courageous and more intentional in reaching out.
A second issue related to this groundswell of attendance centers on inviting people to deeper commitment-- deeper trust in Jesus the Christ, deeper commitment to the body of Christ, deeper empathy with the world. Currently there are at least 80 people who regularly attend Nutana Park Mennonite Church who are not members. It would seem that we have been slow to invite people to baptism or church membership. There are good reasons for baptism: to affirm God’s desire for wholeness in our lives; to symbolize freedom of guilt of past mistakes; to symbolize God’s ability to make right that which has been broken; to symbolize our desire to place God above all else in this world. A transfer of membership is important in that the covenant between person and congregation is spoken, and we still believe the spoken vow carries power. The sharing of a testimony, as is done in this congregation, strengthens a person’s faith-- when we share our faith story we are reminded of God’s grace to us through the years. In like fashion the sharing of a faith journey allows the spirit of the congregation to be strengthened—we are encouraged when we hear how God has worked in the lives of people. The life, practice, and theology of Nutana Park has brought many people to our doors. We are truly graced with people God has brought through our doors. Let us be faithful to the Christ within us as we welcome the stranger and invite people into deeper life in Christ.
This makes three observations about your pregnancy, dear cousin Mary, and it is probably best to leave these reflections in a Trinitarian format. I want you to know that you are not left alone in the nurture and rearing of the Christ child God has entrusted to you. We are relatives, you and I, and we will see this through together. In these last six months God has also graced me with new life. I have this sense that the growing child within me is intractably linked with the child in you. We are linked for the unforeseeable future. I will seek to prepare the way of the Lord in the place.
There are many stories that could be shared about the way God’s spirit is creating new life in the individuals at Nutana Park. I have focused my reflections on the presence of God with the congregation and the opportunities this creates. I could have as easily spoken about Christ’s growth in individual lives. Mary’s pregnancy and Elizabeth’s pregnancy are stories about God salvation coming into our world. Let us be faithful to the salvation God wants to work in and through us. May we have the wisdom to see Christ growing around us and blessing us as a congregation and as individuals. May we, like Mary and Elizabeth of long ago, nurture this blessing into a power that changes lives and challenges injustice.
Amen.