Listening to our Neighbourhood

A couple of years ago, I did a course in which we practiced lectio divina: praying, by reading a piece of scripture repetitively, like you’re chewing your cud. We used this passage, again and again and again, until its taste has grown quite familiar.

We were supposed to read the Matthew version this week, but I feel like I’ve got a connection with the Luke.

Here, Luke tells the story of Jesus sending out his disciples – seventy-two of them, not just the inner circle – to supplement his ministry in the world, a model for discipleship used by the larger Christian community for generations to come.

In my course, as leaders, we were invited to honestly recognize the extent to which our congregations were disconnected from their neighbourhood. At best, we hoped that the community will come to us for growth and meaning, or maybe we’d go out to try to fix it. How, we were asked, could we be organically present in community, while still connecting with a God who longs for a transformed and flourishing world?

We were invited to go into our neighbourhood like the seventy-two disciples were sent.

We are invited to go empty handed – without resources or prejudgment, and to assume that God is already in our communities and focus on what God is already doing.

We are invited to go out as lambs among wolves – to recognize that there is danger and brokenness and evil, not to be naïve, but to go out into that danger bravely.

We are invited to go out in pairs – to practice our faith that we aren’t alone, to have another person’s perspective, to share the experience, to talk it through together.

We are invited to receive the food of those who offer hospitality – to recognize the labour of being the people of God in the world, and that it can be easy to focus on meeting the needs of others to the detriment of our own. In permaculture, we talk about the importance of ‘obtaining a yield.’ There are places where hospitality will be offered. It is good to receive that blessing.

We are invited to greet those we meet with peace, in all its significations – the peace that passes all understanding, the peace that is opposed to the military threat of the pax romana, the peace of the hug and the handshake, to assume that those we meet are people of goodness and to respond accordingly, knowing that ‘if our peace isn’t received, it will be returned to us.’ 

We were invited to invited to listen, and to experience.

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I am grateful for those of you have let me know how you are doing in this time. It means a lot. I am grateful for the opportunity to be able to hear you.

Here’s where I’m at, in the midsummer of 2020: A lot has happened and is happening. I remember a piece of graffiti I saw when I was young – ‘these halcyon days, may they never end’ – which feels like it was an era ago. My heart is feeling ragged, I worry, I feel fragile, I’m trying to go easy and practice gentleness, I find myself tearing up easily, finding beauty and kindness gets to me, noticing poignancy. I am feeling worn.

What I have heard from each of you is similar. Pope Francis has called the church a ‘field hospital for the sick,’ which feels appropriate to me.

For those of you who might be feeling isolated in your emotion, know that you are not alone. As a community, right now, we are collectively carrying a lot.

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In the last few weeks, I have invited us to experience a spirit-filled world.

I have invited us to sit with plants as they offer theologies through taste and smell, and to gaze at birds as the otherworldly subjects of God’s ungraspable kingdom, to honour the dead, our ancestors, present always around us with the wisdom and care we need, those stuck and those properly put to rest.

We struggle to name it, but I believe that, at least, that perspective is already present in how we immediately encounter our world.

How does it feel to walk down the Danforth? How do the people, their body language, the businesses, parks, and community hubs come together in a spirit greater than any emergent property of those collected parts? How does it differ from walking down Gerard? Walking down Queen? Cosburn? How do they differ from Taylor-Massey, or walking along the lake?

How do those spirits interact with our own?

Our relationship with our community, I believe, is generated by the relationship between our soul and each of the spirits of its streets – just as our relationship with the congregation arises from the relationship between our soul and the souls of each of our friends and relations, and the forest is mediated by the spirits of each plant and animal.

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As we go into our sabbath time, I would invite you to be present to those spirits because I believe they are going to need your care.

My guess is that September is going to bring tough times.

I believe that there is a chance we will experience a second wave. I am praying hard for Catherine and Shelley, and for children, teenagers and young adults as the school system reopens. I am praying for civic leaders – here and abroad.

I am praying for all of those who experience racist acts and systems, and I am praying for those deconstructing them.

I believe that the economy is going to continue to be bad. I wonder if those businesses and community hubs are going to make it. Of the people who contribute to the soul of their surroundings, I don’t know how many are going to be able to keep on bringing it at the same level.

As we go into our sabbath time, I would invite us to receive the invitation that Jesus offers the disciples – to go out into our community, empty-handed and courageous, and listen. How is the spirit of your city? How is the spirit of your street?

As we go into our sabbath time, I would invite you to take the time that you need to rest and to recalibrate. I would invite you to spend time cooking and gardening – to listen to the wisdom of the plant teachers there, and perhaps to go out into the wilderness and to be surprised by the otherworldliness of God’s kingdom. I would invite you to spend some time with your ancestors – to remember those who have passed, honour them, to recognize their legacy in its fullness, both in you and in the world.

As September comes, I hope we that we will experience the support that we need to spend time on our streets. Among the spirits there, I believe that we will encounter the Spirit of God, tending and healing, nurturing and holding.

With support, perhaps we will have the courage and humility to walk alongside.

Finally, I would like to offer my own gratitude.

As a congregation, you are good, caring, creative, smart, fun people. I see God’s Spirit among your spirits as well. It’s a pleasure and an honour to be able to walk alongside you and spend time with you.

Thank you. God bless you. Amen.