Three Toasts

As a part of our 125th Anniversary Thanksgiving Sunday Service we tried something a little different.  In lieu of a sermon we had three toasts to St. John's.  One to the past, one to the present, and one to the future.  Donna, Patrick and Christine did them in that order.

In case you missed it or would like to read them again, please find them below.  Thanks to the toasters and to those who helped out pouring and service our sparkling apple juice in our fancy dixi cups.

Donna

In 1910, my great grandfather, Colin Jackson, proposed to the Church Council that parishioners should be involved in the conduct of Sunday services. Here I am, 114 years later, celebrating St. John’s glorious past. 

Our history is rich with innovation, bringing lay-people into Sunday services long before it was considered normal; lobbying for women to be able to vote in vestry and be part of Church Council decades before the diocese permitted it; launching satellite parishes - St. Clements, St Agnes, St. Martins, St Catherines. St. Richards - to make it easier for people to get to church and worship God with their neighbours; taking action to help our community in wartime and in peace; offering sanctuary to refugees fleeing violence in their homeland; taking services online and starting a phone ministry when the pandemic shut down the world; creating a fundraiser for the local shelter that has raised over $125,000 to fight homelessness.

As an Anglican Church, we have made mistakes, tragic mistakes with long-term ramifications. But we have learned and continue to learn from those mistakes, and honour them as a place from which to grow and better ourselves. The St. John’s I have known in the last 40 years has been a place of inclusivity - age, gender, national origins, appearance, and who you choose to love have never been as important to us as a person’s character and faith… and we loved them even more if they were willing to help serve coffee on Sundays or clean up after the Sugar Plum Fair!

So please, let’s raise our glasses and toast to the past.

TO THE PAST!

Patrick

I have told you all before that when I travel, I like to wonder into churches particularly on a weekday because I like to get the feel of the Sanctuary when there isn’t a crowd there.  To be more accurate I particularly like it when I am all alone.  In that present moment the sacred space silently speaks to me about its passion for worship, about its triumphs and it’s growing pains, about its saints that are no longer with us and the saints who will march it into the future.  I have spent many hours alone in this sanctuary and it speaks to me silently in the same way, with one important addition.  It says to me rather emphatically, “Where is everybody”?  St. John’s yearns for its faithful because it is in the present moments of worship that this old and new sacred space sings and truly becomes a House of God. 

            It is in the present moment here at St. John’s where our individual journeys become one voice of praise to our creator, our sustainer and our friend.  The Gospel reading for this Thanksgiving Sunday could not be a better fit to give thanks for the present.  In it Jesus says don’t spend time worrying about your life, God will take care of all that you need.  Jesus says, strive first for the love of God in the here and now, in the present moment for that is where we find fulfillment, joy and peace.

            It is in the present where we also experience the essence and the core of our worship and fellowship.  It is in the warm welcome of the moment where we know our story will be heard and valued.  It is in the singing of the hymns where our aspirations take flight and become a part of God’s plan.  It is in the present prayer we pray together that binds our love of God and of neighbour.  And it is in the present moment of communion where we physically and spiritually accept the gifts of God for the people of God and therefore become the instruments of God for the good of our community and the world.

            Finally let us be thankful for the present because in reality that is exactly where we live, and that is where God abides with us and loves us.

            With that said, let us raise our glasses and toast to the present.  TO THE PRESENT!    

Christine

I so vividly recall the first time I visited St.John’s. I had been without a church home for quite a while, and the first time I came by, someone smiled at me.  I remember thinking, I want to be like these people when I grow up.  The kindness, love, and adherence to our calling “do God’s love” has sustained me personally through a fair bit of inner hardship.  I can’t express how important each and every person in this congregation, and those at home, are to my mental and spiritual health.

Donna has reminded us that the umbrella at St. John’s is wide: different generations, different backgrounds, different spiritual beliefs and genders and orientations and opinions and musical styles . . . we are all Doing God’s love here.

In Future, I’d like to see us “do God’s love” in places we haven’t always reached effectively, including Most notably: I think we have a long way to go in addressing the centuries of pain that the Christian church passively and actively facilitated onAncestral peoples of this land. The generational wounds are deep and we need to be an active instrument of God’s healing, even or especially when it feels uncomfortable or inconvenient.  I think the time has also come for a thoughtful appreciation for ancestral peoples’ stewardship of this environment, keeping it  lush and healthy for millennia before the Christian Church came to these shores.  I think we could learn alot from that.

I also think of, our non-human neighbors, truly “the least of these”, for whom we seem to so conveniently forget our compassion. If Jesus could be born in a stable, surrounded by animals, I think we could manage to Do God’s Love with kindness for their lives and their experiences, and not just our own.  I have hope that with God’s help, we’ll be able to continue on to do God’s love in our community and in our world.  For now, let us raise our glasses and toast to the Future.  TO THE FUTURE!