3rd Sunday of the Season of Trinity
2021-06-13
Services in church continue to be cancelled for Covid protection
THE GATHERING OF THE CHURCH
3rd Sunday of Pentecost
13th June 2021
St. Andrew by-the-Lake
Toronto Islands
www.standrewbythelake.com
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Priest- David Howells 416-890-4578
Church Office – 416-203-0873
Warden - Bella Beazer 416-203-4142
Warden – Jane Davidson-Neville 416-203- 8564
Deputy Warden & Synod Rep – Julia Weldon Tait
Deputy Warden - Nancy Kendrew
Outreach Chair – Graham Mudge 416-203-3556
Treasurer/Bookings – Joyce Rogers 416-203-0987
Musicians--
Roger Sharp, Julia Weldon Tait,
& Jane Davidson-Neville
Music selected by Jane Davidson-Neville
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THE GATHERING OF THE CHURCH
We give thanks to our Creator for the earth we share with all creatures, and we acknowledge that here we are on the traditional lands of the Mississaugas of the Anishinaabe, the Haudenosaunee Confederacy and the Wendat.
We also recognize the enduring presence of all First Nations,
Metis and Inuit peoples, and we seek to live respectfully with
them and with the earth.
We pray for healing between our cultures and forgiveness for settler arrogance.
We believe that black lives matter.
We welcome all, who like us, are the children of immigrants
We know that love is love,
and we welcome everybody
who desires to join us in worship.
You are a beloved creation of God, and you are most welcome.
A REMINDER
Topic: SABTL Coffee Hour
Time: Sunday, 13 June at 10:30 a.m.
Join the Zoom Meeting by computer, tablet or smartphone with this link:
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82885085875
Join the Zoom meeting with regular, landline phone by dialing:
647-374-4685
Meeting ID: 828 8508 5875
One tap mobile
Questions, contact me. Jane
The Collect.
Creating God,
your reign of love makes all things new.
Plant seeds of confidence and gladness in our hearts,
so that, trusting your word,
we may live no longer for ourselves
but for him who died and was raised for us,
Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Opening Hymn #259: ‘For the Fruit of All Creation’
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hfXziMbZyCI
For the fruit of all creation, t hanks be to God.
For the gifts to ev’ry nation, thanks be to God.
For the plowing, sowing, reaping, silent growth while we are sleeping,
future needs in earth’s safekeeping, thanks be to God.
In the just reward of labour, God’s will is done.
In the help we give our neighbor, God’s will is done.
In our worldwide task of caring for the hungry and despairing,
in the harvests we are sharing, God’s will is done.
For the harvest of the Spirit, thanks be to God.
For the good we all inherit, thanks be to God.
For the wonders that astound us, for the truths that still confound us,
most of all, that love has found us, thanks be to God.
Sung virtually by the St. John the Divine Choir, New York City. Lyrics by Fred Pratt Green with traditional Welch hymn tune ‘Ar Hyd Y Nos’
1st Reading Ezekiel 17:22-24
Thus says the Lord GOD: I myself will take a sprig from the lofty top of a cedar; I will set it out. I will break off a tender one from the topmost of its young twigs; I myself will plant it on a high and lofty mountain.
On the mountain height of Israel I will plant it, in order that it may produce boughs and bear fruit, and become a noble cedar. Under it every kind of bird will live; in the shade of its branches will nest winged creatures of every kind.
All the trees of the field shall know that I am the LORD. I bring low the high tree, I make high the low tree; I dry up the green tree and make the dry tree flourish. I the LORD have spoken; I will accomplish it.
Psalm 92:’Lord, It is Good’
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tKGWeAL9yV0
Refrain: Lord, it is good to give thanks to you.
v.1: It is good to give thanks to the Lord, to sing praise to your name, most High. To proclaim your kindness at dawn and your faithfulness throughout the night. Refrain
2. The just one shall flourish like a palm tree, like a cedar of Lebanon shall he grow. They that are planted in the house of the Lord, shall flourish in the courts of our God. Refrain
3. They shall bear fruit even in old age, vigorous and sturdy shall they be. Declaring: ‘How just is the Lord, my rock in whom there is no wrong.’ Refrain
Sung by Chris Brunelle, music by Owen Allstot
THE PROCLAMATION OF THE GOSPEL
The Lord be with you. And also with you.
The Holy Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ according to Mark Mark 4:26-34
Jesus said, "The kingdom of God is as if someone would scatter seed on the ground,
and would sleep and rise night and day, and the seed would sprout and grow, he does not know how.
The earth produces of itself, first the stalk, then the head, then the full grain in the head.
But when the grain is ripe, at once he goes in with his sickle, because the harvest has come."
He also said, "With what can we compare the kingdom of God, or what parable will we use for it?
It is like a mustard seed, which, when sown upon the ground, is the smallest of all the seeds on earth;
yet when it is sown it grows up and becomes the greatest of all shrubs, and puts forth large branches, so that the birds of the air can make nests in its shade."
With many such parables he spoke the word to them, as they were able to hear it;
he did not speak to them except in parables, but he explained everything in private to his disciples.
The Gospel of Christ
Praise to you Lord Jesus Christ
Reflections on the readings of the Sunday Click on the blue to get the video
“Small is beautiful”
“From the tiny acorn comes the mighty oak”
“Every great enterprise began with a small idea”
Last week the discovery of 215 graves, small graves, of small people, of children of indigenous parents, small enough not to count, called up a wave of anger, grief and commitment to bring Justice back to Canada’s shameful disrespect of those Nations who greeted and cared for the first settlers.
First Nations people and communities will probably never be big in the way that industrialist companies are, like Suncor, Canadian Natural Resources Limited, Imperial Oil, Husky and Cenovus, who are responsible for over half of crude oil production in Canada.
But First Nations, in their small way live with God’s Creation, respectfully, thankfully and carefully.
By 2030, I am told, we will have come to the tipping point on climate change. That is only 8 years. Can these small communities teach the city culture how to live with God’s Creation? Can we learn from people we count unimportant, how to treat God’s creation as if the Creator actually mattered?
Can the relationship we Settlers have with our Indigenous hosts be the small twig, taken from the tip of the highest branch of a great tree, that grows into a forest of justice in place of power, of compassion in place of management, of cross-cultural blindness becoming the wonder of finding the wisdom and dignity of those we have dismissed or ignored?
In the Ezekiel passage God wants to get one good tree. A really good tree. A tree of excellence that can be the first and best of all trees. It is going to be up on the highest, most visible point, and from it will come cuttings to upgrade the forests all over the place.
God has a project! God wants to bring change.
Ezekiel was writing about 6 centuries BC. That’s along time ago and yet the passage still speaks to us across a divide of centuries and cultures.
This is not really about an Arborist’s vision, it is a metaphor about setting a model, a standard for how a life of excellence could be lived.
Ezekiel understood God as asking people to live up to a standard of faith, honesty, kindness and courage, in which no one is discounted. Not even you! Especially NOT you!
It is a life lived with generosity to the poor, a life lived with fruitfulness and beauty.
It is a challenge and an invitation to the hearer to join God on a project.
There is an acknowledgement that not everyone is the same. Tall and short trees, healthy and stunted. But all matter in God’s forest. It is about whether they can support all the bird life and the “more” that explodes into the vibrancy of a woodland. We need to rejoice in all the colour chart of human skins and language and ways of being Christlike.
Jesus tells the parable of the Mustard Seed. It is similar, but I see here the contrast between the mustard seed, so small that if you drop one, it rolls across the kitchen floor and, if you lose eye contact, it is gone for ever! But, if you get down and find it, plant it, that one among a thousand seeds, it can grow into a bushy tree in which birds can build nests.
How odd that Ezekiel and Jesus both rate a tree by it’s ability to shelter nesting birds with chicks! It is the quiet miracle of something so unimpressive as a twig or a tiny yellow ball of mustard seed, and of something so wonderful as a bird in flight. Without the trees and bushes there would be so few birds.
There is a teaching in here about the small and unimpressive, the unimportant and easily overlooked.
The un-marked graves of disposable “indian” children. The cutting from a tree. The one dropped mustard seed.
Now turning this around from the backward glance to the present and future, to the particular and the personal, where are the seeds and twigs and moments of wakefulness (Can I say “wokefullness”?) that God is still, because God is unchanging, placing before you?
St Andrew’s by the Lake Church is in an interesting part of the journey. You are about to go through a change of ministers. David Howells and Alison Hari Singh are really quite different. Just as Douglas Graydon and I were quite different. All clergy are called and trained to minister to whoever they find themselves with. But the differences are there. The knack is to look for the small seed, the little branch.
Look past the obvious differences, look for the same Holy Spirit using your clergy, not at the clergy themselves.
But here I want to suggest it is not about looking at the change, but looking at the change within you in the transition.
Really, Ezekiel was no forester and Jesus no arborist. Nor were they talking about trees. They were using these images to invite people to look for the small thing within. The small change that, like the heat of one mustard seed melting on your tongue, causes you to pay attention. The small change like the newly planted sapling in the corner by the fence, the one you hardly noticed, but somehow your eye fell upon.
Here, I believe, is the finger of God nudging you, saying, “Look at this!” and you look and say, “I see a tree.” And God says “What does this tree make you feel or think?” And you might say, “It looks in need of some care. It needs to be in the light if it is to survive.” And God might say, in the movement of your imagination and faith, “What have I planted in you that needs more light, more space, more attention in the garden of your soul?” And then you ponder..... “Is that Mr Bojingly, that man I dislike and fear, who lives around the corner, who maybe cannot walk?” Or is it that reaction in you that was so strong about the dead children, or the truth that you have never read the Gospel of Matthew all the way through, and allowed those stories to sink in and touch your heart?
What is that small tree for you in your inner life? What is that grain of mustard in the palm of your hand, held to be pondered over, or just quickly thrown away?
God spends so much time trying to call us to notice the whispers of the Spirt of Holiness. You are the mustard seed. You are the cutting from the tree. Will you let yourself do something unexpected and grow the sapling of faith that is in you? Will you let the seed roll into the soft moist places of your soul, and there take root and grow, and shelter the dove’s nest of the Spirit?
Reflection Music
‘Bonum est confidere’ (‘It is Good to Trust in the Lord’)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifGFT79Kwyk
Bonum est confidere in Domino, bonum sperare in Domino.
(It is good to trust in the Lord our God, trust and hope in the Lord our God.)
Taize chant, sung by session singers in a 2008 recording. Solo voice singing in English.
THE PRAYERS OF THE PEOPLE
Let us pray for ourselves and each other, and for those that we do not know, but who you know, God.
In this month remember those who find the doors of our society locked against them, those who feel they are not equal because of the colour of their skin or the form of their body or any other gift of God. Pray for those who have privileged lives without knowing who pays. Pray for those who simmer hatred for the “other”. Pray to be shown how to bring justice, even if only by a first trickle.
Pray for indigenous families through-out Canada who’s pain over the loss of children in residential schools is re-awakened again. Pray for the souls of the children, that they may be healed and in peace. Pray for Justice and Action from those in power.
We continue to pray for those whose lives have been changed by Covid.
We pray for those who face anxiety and stress working in “essential” jobs with greater exposure to infection. We pray for an end of lock downs and restrictions.
We remember those we know who are sick in body mind or spirit, especially Donna, Michael, Penny, Enid, Freda, Anne & family, Charlotte, Rose, Gail, Peter, Bob, Douglas, Marian
We pray for those who are close to death or who have passed through death, remembering Ron, Joey, Mick, Paulette, Bev, Fred, Cathy, June, Barbara, Craig, Les
We pray for the Muslim community in Canada following the murder of a whole family, save on child, by a white man in a pick-up truck in London Ontario (click for info)
In the diocesan cycle of prayer,
Pray for St. John the Divine, Scarborough, its support of St. Ninian's food bank, Juliette's Place women's shelter, and international initiatives;
for St. John the Evangelist, Peterborough, its garden club and outreach to children and families in social housing, its support of the St. John Centre housing for seniors, its advocacy for social justice, and its operation of One Roof Community Centre (drop-in, daily lunch and supper, and access to social services);
and for St. John the Evangelist, Port Hope, its Treasure Trove second-hand shop, and its support of the Fairshare food bank, Green Wood Coalition, Community Care, and Neighbour Link.
Here take a few moments to hold before our God all who you are carrying in love and care.....
All of our longings and our fears, our hopes and our desires we bring to you. Hear our prayers, gracious God. We ask this through Christ our Lord. Amen.
Closing Hymn: ‘Let All the World in Every Corner Sing’
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v7qh9ZMhj-o
Let all the world in every corner sing, my God and king! The heavens are not too high, His praise may thither fly, The earth is not too low, His praises there may grow. Let all the world in every corner sing, my God and king!
Let all the world in every corner sing, my God and king! The church with psalms must shout, no door can keep them out; But, above all, the heart must bear the longest part. Let all the world in every corner sing, my God and king!
Antiphon from the ‘Five Mystical Songs’ by Ralph Vaughn Williams, sung by Kings College Choir
May the blessings of the Risen Lord be upon you
May the loss of the ascended Christ shake you awake
May the Spirit of Christ come again and again to fill you
And may you have joy in your life.
The Warden’s Announcement of the New Priest at St Andrew's, beginning in August
We are delighted to announce that Bp. Kevin Robertson has appointed The Rev. Alison Hari-Singh as Priest-in-Charge (half-time) of St. Andrew’s by-the-Lake, beginning August 1, 2021.
Since her ordination in 2018, Alison served as chaplain at The Bishop Strachan School before moving to St. Martin in-the-Fields to complete her curacy. Alison is married to The Rev. Jeff Nowers, Associate Priest at St. Aidan’s in-the-Beach; they have one daughter (Ava).
Alison is completing a PhD in systematic theology at the Toronto School of Theology and teaches sessionally at Trinity College. Alison is looking forward to meeting the island community joining in ministry with St. Andrew’s as we re-emerge from “covidtide.” We look forward to welcoming her in August!
(David’s final Sunday will be on the 25th of July, in Church.)
Here are several ways you can support your church:
The Collection Plate (when we are back in Church)
PAR - Pre-Authorized Remittance. You direct your bank to deposit your donation into the church account on the 20th of each month. To apply contact Joyce Rogers at standrewbookings@gmail.com
E-Transfer - Use email: standrewbookings@gmail.com
Canada Helps – Visit the church website www.standrewbythelake.com, go to the Home Page and click on the Donate button.
To read some key points of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission Report, and find the report itself go to
https://www.kamloopsthisweek.com/news/read-the-truth-and-reconciliation-commission-of-canada-s-final-report-1.24325681
A Letter from Bishop Andrew
Dear Friends in Christ,
For the second year in a row, the COVID-19 pandemic has rained on the Pride parade. Most of the public Pride celebrations have been moved online again this year, and that has meant grief and sadness for many within the LGBTQ2S+ community who look forward to being together for mutual support and solidarity each year. The pandemic has been hard on many queer youth, especially those in the closet or separated from loving and supportive community.
As a Church, we stand with our gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, two-spirited, queer and questioning siblings. While we cannot be marching together as Proud Anglicans this year, parishes large and small, in small villages and large cities, are finding creative ways to be proud! I know of one parish that has painted a rainbow flag on its front steps for the month of June, another has built funds into its annual budget for a transgender ministry, others are having online services and celebrations in the joyful spirit of Pride.
As we rejoice in the beautiful diversity of God’s creation, the College of Bishops invites you to celebrate, support and stand with our LGBTQ2S+ siblings and their allies in whatever ways you can. And we look forward to being back out on the street next year!
Happy Pride!
Yours in Christ,
The Rt. Rev. Andrew Asbil
Bishop of Toronto
PRIDE WEEK BEGINS TODAY
Below is a letter forwarded to us from
Erin Dale. Senior Policy Analyst. Regulatory Transformation Team. Health Protection Branch
BC Ministry of Health
Pronouns: she/her
I would like to start today's briefing by pausing to acknowledge and to remember and mourn the children whose remains were found at the former Kamloops Indian Residential School. I struggled to find words to express my horror and grief at the discovery of these remains of 215 First Nations children. I realize it's because there are no words that can do justice to those children and the countless others who died alone and scared, far from home, far from the families who loved them.
There are no words that can make right a deliberate and intentional system that was designed to assimilate and extinguish Indigenous peoples. So today I don't offer words, but rather my renewed commitment to actions that arrest and disrupt our deeply rooted ideologies of settler supremacy.
We must make no mistake that while these deaths happened in the past, our systems and laws continue to perpetuate racism and discrimination that hurts Indigenous peoples in countless ways.
I've stood at this podium many times as an expert in public health, and today I'm here again as a humble learner in reconciliation and decolonization. I am so, so grateful to the First Nations and Metis leaders who continue to share their wisdom with me as I personally work to deepen my understanding of reconciliation and the ways in which I can work to advance it.
This is hard work that requires us as leaders and settlers in our systems to find the courage to accept that this is our history of colonization. It's not something that happened to First Nations children and families. This is something we did to First Nations children and families. We are all implicated in this tragedy.
In order to honour the strength and resilience of survivors and descendants of Indian residential schools and the memories of all those who never returned home, each and every one of us needs to ask ourselves what meaningful actions can we take to uphold the rights of Indigenous peoples.
I'm very grateful that I have a team that is committed to this, and we will be coming together once again, reflecting on the many paths that we have forward -- the Truth and Reconciliation Commission calls to action, the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls calls for justice, the In Plain Sight recommendations that we received earlier this year and the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act
We will hold ourselves accountable to an ongoing process of reconciliation that we've tried to mirror through this pandemic. We cannot get stuck in our shame and grief, but rather commit to ourselves, to one another and to First Nations, Metis and Inuit peoples that we will deliberately and intentionally take actions that will serve to heal rather than harm from this day forward.
https://www.orangeshirtday.org/shirts--gifts.html
Erin Dale
Senior Policy Analyst
Regulatory Transformation Team
Health Protection Branch
BC Ministry of Health
Pronouns: she/her
I live and work on lək̓ʷəŋən Peoples’ lands, where the Songhees and Esquimalt First Nations' historical relationships with this land continue to this day.