April 23, 2006
God always will provide what we need in order to have faith. Christ welcomes our questions and our searching. In Christ’s hands, our longing to know God’s presence becomes a path of blessing. Christ gives us God’s good gifts without hesitation. However, these are not simply gifts; they are also responsibilities. How do we, as Easter people, honour Christ in our living?
Prelude “Devotion’s Hour” by R. Nolte
A time of silent preparation—Lighting the Christ Candle
Call to Worship (One)
Come, let us gather together as we have come to hear the Word of God. Come, let us celebrate together as we have come to lift our voices in song to our God. Come, let us worship together as we have come to pray in God’s name.
One: Restoring God,
All: in this season of rebirth-when the signs of your love for us are as close as the sunburst yellow of a backyard bush in bloom, we come this day to praise you and to give thanks for the new life that stirs within. Open our eyes to the miracles happening every day, and restore to us a child’s sense of wonder. Amen.
Hymn #605 “Jesus, Teacher, Brave and Bold”
Conversation Time
The Sunday School & Youth leave for their classes.
Prayer of Transformation & Assurance of Pardon
Sometimes, God, we hide behind locked doors. It can be scary to venture outside of ourselves, outside of our traditions, our ideas. Often we prefer to stay in familiar places. Many times, we do not dare to dance with our questions, or allow others the freedom of their questions. So we hide. Forgive us, God. Set us free…(Silent Confession)
Assurance of Pardon (One)
Biblical Notes
Acts 4:32-35 From the Epistle Pg. 155
The Believers Share Their Possessions
Other lessons for your personal consideration from today’s lections are: From the Epistle - 1 John 1:1 – 2:2;
From the Psalms – Psalm 13
Jesus and Thomas (Read from the New Revised Standard Version)
One: This is the Good News of Jesus Christ
Hymn #359 “He Came Singing Love”
We Respond In Giving And Gratitude
Offertory “Meditation” by C. Bohm
For the gift of creation, the gift of your love,
and the gift of the Spirit by which we live,
we thank you and give you the fruit of our hands.
May your grace be proclaimed by the gifts that we give.
Hymn #187 “The Spring Has Come”
Commissioning (One)
Listen to God’s breath within: it is the stirring of belief. Voice those questions and doubts: it is the making of faith. Touch those scars and feel those wounds: it is the place of resurrection. Let the breath of God sustain you this day and forever.
Choral Amen
#884 “You Shall Go Out With Joy” (x2)
You shall go out with joy and be led forth with peace;
the mountains and the hills will break forth before you;
there'll be shouts of joy, and all the trees of the field
will clap, will clap their hands!
And all the trees of the field will clap their hands, (clap, clap)
the trees of the field will clap their hands, (clap, clap)
the trees of the field will clap their hands (clap, clap)
while you go out with joy.
Postlude “Marziale” by C. Rinck
The Life And Work Of The Congregation
This Week at Westminster (April 23 - 29)
Sun. Christian Development 9:00 a.m. Lounge
Worship 10:25 a.m. Sanctuary
Tues – Sat – Photos being taken Nursery
Tues. Staff Meeting 9:00 a.m. Lounge
Ministry & Personnel 5:00 p.m. Lounge
Meditation Group 7:00 p.m. Shalom
Council of Canadians 7:00 p.m. Sanctuary
Wed. Bible Study 9:30 a.m. Shalom
Thurs. Senior Choir Practise 7:00 p.m. Sanctuary
Next Week at Westminster (April 30 – May 6)
Sun. Worship 10:25 a.m. Sanctuary
Camping Sunday
Mon. Property 7:00 p.m. Nursery
Tues. Meditation Group 7:00 p.m. Nursery
Wed. Bible Study 9:30 a.m. Nursery
Square Circle UCW 7:30 p.m. Lounge
Thurs. Mission & Outreach 9:30 a.m. Lounge
Senior Choir Practise 7:00 p.m. Sanctuary
Friendship Rosters: Please sign the Friendship Roster this morning. It is a helpful record of your worship presence and a way to share special concerns (ie. prayer requests, name tag requests, etc.).
Westminster Photo Directory – April 25 – 28 (2:30 – 8:30), 29 (9:30 – 3:00). Remember to check the appointment time for your family photo sitting.
Council of Canadians forum on Water – this Tues., Apr. 25th @ 7:00 p.m. in the Sanctuary. This is an opportunity to share your views, ask some questions and to be informed.
Commune-I-Care call out will take place next week. These calls provide each family with regular opportunities to receive information and notices of coming activities or events and to allow families to give information regarding celebrations in their lives and provide information regarding possible needs they may have.
South Alberta Presbyterial Spring Enrichment Day – May 6 with registration from 9:30-10:00 a.m. @ Fifth Avenue Memorial. Free parking at city bus terminal parkade, only a short walk up the hill. All women invited. Lunch $6.00. A fun day planned. Please RSVP by April 28 to 526-2237 days 527-4727 evenings.
Fifth Avenue Memorial presents the Gospel Girls in concert – Sat. May 6 @ 7:00 p.m. Featuring a mix of gospel favourites and new Christian music by this women’s ensemble. Freewill offering. Information: 526-2237.
Westminster U.C.W. Blossom Time Tea & Bake Sale –Saturday, May 13th from 2 - 4 p.m. Tickets: $3.50/person, available at the door.
Westminster’s Spring Brunch will be held Sun., May 14th. Tickets will available next Sunday following worship. Adults $5, Children $3, Families $15. There will be sign up sheets on the bulletin board closer to the date.
Westminster Plant & Garage Sale – Saturday May 27th. Please select items to donate to the sale. All income goes to Mission & Outreach programs. Let’s make this the biggest sale yet. It’s the time to start seeding plants and remember, we will not be selling consignment items, but that we will be grateful for articles donated. Also, if persons wish they may rent a table for $15.00 to “staff” themselves, and that the tables will be on a “first come – first serve” basis. These are not consignment tables.
Donated items can be brought to the church on Friday, May 26 from 9 – 4:00 p.m. (no clothing or perishables. Plants welcome). Contact Linda Carney 527-7005.
Attention Canyon Camp Resource staff – positions available are: Camp mom or dad, camp medic, nature leader, chaplain, craft leader and lifeguard. Paid staff – positions available are: custodian, head cook, assistant head cook. Campers – applications are on the bulletin board for camps dated:
Jun 9-11: Women’s retreat
Jun 16-18: Family Camp Aug 25-27: Adult retreat
Jul 2-4: 6-12 yr old (intro I) Jul 5-7: 6-12 yr old (intro II)
Jul 9-14: 7-9 yr old (junior I) Jul 16-21: 9-11 yr old (junior II)
Jul 23-28: 10-13 yr old (junior III) Aug 6-11: 13-15 yr old (intermed I)
Aug 13-18: 14-16 yr old (inter II) Aug 20-25: 14-18 yr old (inter III)
We will need a Sunday School Coordinator for September (a job description is available). We also need teachers for the Fall, if you are interested in any of these positions, please contact Jane or Lesley Berg.
AJ’s Loan Cupboard is a private charitable society that loans out various types of medical equipment as well as additional items (free of charge, with no time limitations and no questions asked). To donate items (or financial donations), or to access items, call 580-5580. Brochures are on the ramp.
Celebration This Week
Birthdays: Kennedy Blatz, Evan Gunn, Hugh Harrison, Judy Herring, Joan Kajewski, Kenny Sanders, Vi Schneider,
Al Smith, Lyle Smith, Gail Thompson, Dorothy Wilkinson
Anniversaries: Darcy & Jaci Fox, Ron & Yvonne Hole, Ralph & Grace Roth
Our thoughts and prayers are with Dianne & Gordon Schneider following the passing of Dianne’s aunt, Alice Romeike.
Flowers are placed in the Sanctuary this morning
in loving memory of
my husband, Ed
by
Alice Felesky
South Alberta Presbytery
Your prayers this week are requested for Revelations Book Store and its staff.
Next Week’s Readings from: Acts 3:12-19; 1 John 3:1-7; Psalm 4; Luke 24:36b-48
Spirit Connection
Spirit Connection - Renew your faith in television…
Tonight @ 6:30 p.m. on Vision TV
Stewardship Thought For Today
Money decisions are related to identity issues,
showing who and whose we are.
The Message: Living in an Age of Doubt
by Rev. James Farrell
Thanks, in advance for the comments of Jim Taylor shared within this message and sourced from his Sharp Edges column of April 16, 2006.
Every year at this time we
tell the story of Doubting Thomas… for some it is a time to thank God that they
are not like the poor, unsure, Apostle: Thomas. For others it is a breath of
fresh air to know that from the beginning there were those who were willing to
say that they didn’t have it all hammered down.
We live in an age of doubt
so, for modern minds it can be refreshing to know that people can toy with their
understanding of history and even the history of faith formation.
So, the doubting in our
society fosters interest in things like the Da Vinci Code, conspiracy theories,
alternate histories…it is in fact, the stuff that can encourage someone like me
to evaluate these themes a little bit in a Lenten study.
Some of you, no doubt, may
have caught the The Gospel of Judas on TV. Was it coincidence, or smart
marketing, that the National Geographic Society should announce the release of
The Gospel of Judas on April 6, 2006, just ten days before Easter?
Again, was it coincidence or
smart marketing that the plagiarism court case against Dan Brown, author of The
Da Vinci Code, should be settled the next day, April 7, 2006, one month before
the movie is to hit theatres? (May 9th).
Justice Peter Smith of the
British High Court ruled that while Brown had apparently lifted whole chunks out
of Holy Blood, Holy Grail by authors Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh --
he had even named his arch-villain using a composite of their names -- this did
not constitute infringement of copyright.
Well, I lean towards the
marketing ploy, myself. Baigent and Leigh may have lost their case (and about $4
million in court costs) but they have also gained enormous publicity. Far more
world-wide publicity than a mere 4 million dollars could ever buy.
Baigent’s most recent book,
The Jesus Papers, had a first print run of 150,000 copies; Holy Blood,
Holy Grail leaped from sales of a few hundred copies a week to 7,000 a week.
What author wouldn’t be
happy with that? Baigent himself re-appeared
almost immediately on television, promoting his theories about a 20-century-long
conspiracy of silence within the Christian church. He claims it has only
recently become acceptable to challenge the rigid doctrines that organized
religions tend to place on history.
Both Baigent (and Brown, in
part) argue in their books that Jesus did not die on the cross on Good Friday.
Therefore his Resurrection on Easter morning must be a hoax. Escaping, he
married Mary Magdalene and established a blood line that persists to this day.
The Gospel of Judas doesn’t
suggest that the Crucifixion and Resurrection were fakes. Rather, it asserts
that far from betraying Jesus, Judas Iscariot was the most trusted disciple, the
one chosen by Jesus to carry out the task of making the Resurrection possible.
At any other time of the
year, these news items would merit little more than an inside page mention. But
just before Easter, they become big news. Because Easter is the crucial
Christian festival. Without the Resurrection, the Crucifixion is just another
example of oppression and injustice. Without the Resurrection, Jesus is just
another inspired teacher and mentor. Without the Resurrection, the Virgin Birth
loses its necessity. Attacking the core of
Christian faith is good for book sales.
But in fact, these are
hardly new ideas. Nikos Kazantzakis exploited them for his 1960 novel The
Last Temptation of Christ. Canadian Charles Templeton built his 1977 novel
Act of God around the church’s efforts to cover-up the discovery of the
bones of Jesus. Tom Harpur’s Pagan Christ
(2004) claims that most of the stories about Jesus were fabricated from
pre-existing folklore and legend—mainly borrowed from Egypt, but also from other
Middle Eastern cultures. The newly released Gospel
of Judas itself is but one of at least 22 accounts of Jesus’ life that
circulated in the early Christian church—several of which make far more radical
claims than this text. Only four of those gospels made it into the Bible. There
are also at least 25 texts eulogizing the Acts of various disciples.
I suggest they are all
interesting speculation, but irrelevant. Because the reality of the Resurrection
doesn’t depend on historic fact. It depends on personal experience.
To use Templeton’s plot,
suppose an archaeologist did find the bones of Jesus. That might prove that
Jesus’ physical body did not rise from the dead. But would that invalidate his
life? His teaching? Or the effect that he had on his immediate disciples, and
through them the effect he had on 20 centuries of western civilization?
Would anyone who had known a
personal closeness to Jesus instantly quit believing everything that had
previously given meaning and purpose to life?
Faith that can be dispelled
that easily was not very strong to start with.
Because most North Americans
were raised on the factual accuracy of the gospel accounts, we tend to forget
that this interpretation is less than 400 years old. For most of the Christian
church’s existence, faith meant trust in God, loyalty to Jesus.
Only with the Enlightenment
and the Renaissance—the rediscovery of ancient wisdom and texts, the flowering
of science and technology, the rise of education—only then did Christianity turn
into a formal system of beliefs. With geology, zoology, and
archaeology offering alternative understandings of truth, parts of the church
hunkered down behind fortresses of unchallengeable assertions.
For them, the Da Vinci
Code, the Gospel of Judas, and the Pagan Christ are an
abomination. If these books are, in any way right, they would maintain that true
believers have nothing left to believe in.
At the same time, others
find no irreconcilable conflicts between science and faith. Each illuminates the
other. What matters is the depth of
one’s relationship with the continuing Christ. Whether he triumphed over death
with or without his bones is beside the point. Whoever he was, whether the
stories about him are fact or fable, he had an enormous effect on a group of
people, and still does. Despite the passing of 20 centuries, he still inspires
more people than any other religious leader.
How that happened doesn’t
matter—his impact does. Did Thomas start the cycle
of doubt that still lives with us today? Perhaps he did, at least in the sense
of having a Christian perspective on his doubt. But nearly 2000 years before
Thomas, Pharaoh doubted too…and so did countless of God’s followers moving
through the desert. I think it is part of the human condition to doubt, and I
think that faith and doubt are so linked that thinking persons can’t help but
have the two themes running on the same track from time to time...even at the
same time. And I don’t think that is a
problem…question faith, celebrate faith and life, question again and take heart
in the joy and miracle of family and church and the surprise of little miracles
that let your heart know that you are alive and blessed and coddled in the hands
of God. Yes we live in an age of
doubt…people are looking to get rich or famous through their acts and intentions
to discredit the risen Christ. It is part of the time that we live in and I am
thankful that the freedom to do that exists in our culture.
I am also thankful for the
spiritual legacy that is ours, the spiritual journey that each of us takes…a
journey that allows us to engage the struggle for shalom that we all seek.
Like Thomas, our faith is at
its most real, its most honest, when we wrestle with our doubt. Embrace the
struggle, don’t be afraid of those with an agenda to package their doubts and
reshape their mysteries, but whatever you do, don’t forget to embrace the risen
Christ who is the reason for the struggle. And then, give thanks! Amen.