Yesterday, I jumped ahead in the lectionary to the story of Jesus' encounter with the Sadducees in Luke 20. I started with some reflection on the United Church Observer's October cover story on ghosts and belief in them, cited some of the stats that they mentioned and pointed out that as challenging as this is from a Christian perspective, it does point out that those around us are not Sadducees. There's a big number of people who believe in life after death - we just have to learn how to connect with them. But then I pivoted to asking whether there's life before death, using a quote from Bob Dylan - "if you're not busy being born, you're busy dying." Christian life isn't just about resurrection to the next life, it's about continually being reborn in this life; constantly being changed from what we are to what God wants us to be. I eventually moved that to the church - that churches like people are in a constant state of change with constant rebirths - and that if we become satisfied with ourselves as we are or begin to believe that nothing will ever change then we're simply busy dying. All that led to a move toward introducing next Sunday, on which we'll mark 27 years in the new church building (a huge change at the time in response to huge changes that led up to it) and suggested that we can't use the anniversary to get stuck in the past, but to push us into the future as a living church touching the lives of the people around us.
Otherwise, attendance was good, a few more children than usual, and a great choir anthem ("Ride The Chariot.") I left feeling pretty good.
not in order)
