Having the Heart to care for our own

Long ago, there was a king who placed on one of his highways, a boulder. Then he hid himself nearby to wait and see if anyone would come along and remove the boulder from the roadway. Some of the wealthiest among his subjects, merchants and courtiers came to the boulder and simply walked around it. Many people loudly blamed the kings for not minding the condition of the roadway and keeping it clear, but did nothing to remove it themselves. Then late in the day a peasant, pulling his load of vegetables comes and stops at the large stone. After struggle and toil the farmer finally moves the boulder out of the highway so that he could pass with his cart and load of vegetables. After he picks up his load to continue on his way, he notices a purse on the side of the road with a note attached to it. Again he puts down his load and goes to the bag, retrieves the note and reads it. The note tells the peasant that this bag contains many pieces of gold which the king himself gives to him, because he took the time to remove the stone from the road. The peasant discovered that day what many of us need to learn: every obstacle presents an opportunity to improve his condition.

Perhaps by now many in the diocese will have heard that the amounts of money coming to the diocese from beyond our church walls and borders is going to be reduced yet again and will be reduced further  incrementally over at least the next four years. I think many of you would look at that kind of news as a kind of boulder that is in our road. I know that it has been a challenge that the leadership of the Diocese has had to grapple with for a while now. It has been hard and a struggle. Now we are faced with the reality that we are going to have to look at how we do ministry in this diocese and how we can do it differently. In the short term at least the reality is that we are going to have to consider personnel cuts as a measure to be able to keep doing what we are already doing. Perhaps that is another stone that we encounter.

We need to consider carefully how we are going to work together to remove the stones that are in our paths to building our ministry across the diocese. One of the things I deeply appreciated about the recently held Clericus was the opportunity to actually pray with my brother and sister clergy in this diocese for the life of this diocese. We were able to talk with one another and be with one another and agree in prayer with one another. The time sent us away from the Cathedral filled with hope and joy and a real sense of belonging to each other. And most of all in prayer, we began to see that God was moving stones out of our road.

At the most recent gathering of the Diocesan Executive Committee in March, each of the members talked a little bit about what was going on in their parishes in terms of ministry and what we as parishes were doing and how we were and are reaching out to people in the parish and beyond. In one parish there is a running group looking to promote health amongst the members of the community while another parish is having a meal and raising monies to help Camp Caledonia. A third parish is running a soup kitchen and helping needy families in the community in which they minister.

Perhaps where we have lacked in our common life as a diocese is in the financial support from within, of the frontline people who lead and administer all the great things that the parishes can do when they have leadership. We have become dependent on the grace and gifts of others to make our own ministry happen. This is the biggest stone in the road. This Diocese has benefited greatly from the generosity of givers from Great Britain in the beginning and from our fellow Canadians even now. There are farmers in Saskatchewan, professional people in Ontario and fishermen in Newfoundland, who every time they put money in the plate to support their own churches, are helping us to do what we do as well.

The hard work that we have ahead of us is to learn how to make the ministry of our Diocese and our parishes truly ours. We need to work to learn how to support the ministry of our parishes and our Diocese so that we can be effective in sharing the good news of God in Christ were we are: from Masset to Fort St. John, from Pouce Coupe to Kitkatla  and all the points in between. And there is one thing more that we need to keep in mind: God is in all this! God is enabling us to be his people, in his way with his blessing. May we take the risk of faith and move forward in the strength of our risen and ascended Lord and Saviour as the early apostles did, making it known that  Jesus lives and he reigns!