Let us pray: O God, may these words lead us to a sense of your presence in our lives, guiding and directing us. Amen.

    The Membership and Pastoral Care Committee of East Side United Church didn’t really want to put any limits on who they invited to their annual church picnic, it’s just that they didn’t expect the invitation to go out in quite the way it turned out.

    They wanted it to be more like a Pentecost party than a picnic, and the planning committee had gone to great lengths to create the party atmosphere. A local party store was throwing in use of the helium container as long as East Side purchased all their balloons and prizes from them. This generous contribution had put the planning group into a good mood, so they decided to double the number of balloons, and bump the prizes up a level or two. They were very excited about the atmosphere they were hoping to create with all the festive colours and decorations. True to their mandate as a committee of the Membership and Pastoral Care Committee, they saw this as the perfect opportunity to strengthen relationships among members of their congregation. Their hope was to connect some of the senior members with the young children. Discussion at previous committee meetings had raised this as one of their goals in the coming year. They saw the church as one of the few places where people from several generations were regularly in attendance. They knew the strength of community and they saw it as one of their objectives to foster good relationships among the people. After all the seniors had a lot of wisdom to share with the kids and the kids had a lot of energy to bring life to tired bones and lonely hearts.

    It had been one of those hard-to-repeat insights which had offered the coup-de-grace for their multi-coloured invitation. They had met at the church to go over the final details when one of the planning committee members came up with the idea of putting B. Y. O. V. on the poster. Everything else was provided - donated salads and burgers, wieners and buns, coffee, tea, iced tea crystals and lemonade. That was clear on the poster - no one would go hungry. They were trying to figure out how to make it sound like a party when someone said, “well pretty much every party invitation I get has BYOB on it.” “Yeah, but we’re providing everything already” someone else piped up. “Yes, but those letters make it sound like a party”. Just then someone said, “Bring Your Own Vision - BYOV that’s what it could say. After all, that’s what this party is all about. We want people to come and have fun, but we also want them to demonstrate what a church congregation is all about. We want to live out a vision of what church means to us - an intergenerational group of people having fun together, caring for each other and strengthening relationships.”  Everybody thought it was a good idea - and besides, they thought that not too many people would be able to figure out what BYOV meant anyway, and it just might spark enough extra interest that people would either ask what it meant or come anyway to find out. Nothing wrong with creating a little extra interest to increase attendance, they thought. They briefly discussed whether BYOV might turn some people away - since no one would be able to figure out what the “V” stood for and not wanting to be embarrassed would opt instead to stay home. Since the poster said that practically anything a picnicer would need was going to be provided, they decided to go with the idea anyway. Besides, you don’t really need to do any extra work to bring your own vision - so they reasoned that they were not really asking anyone to do or bring anything extra.

    They spent the rest of their planning meeting putting together the poster, with the enigmatic invitation BYOV on the bottom of the page. It was photocopied on multi-coloured party paper with all the details of time and location on it, the list of provided food items and a brief description of the games and activities that had been planned. Just above BYOV were the words “Everyone Welcome” . They made enough copies for everyone on their mailing list and a few extra for posting around the church. They printed off a set of labels and one of the members of the committee took the whole sheaf with her as she left the church building. She had some spare time and old envelopes to donate, so she was going to fold, stuff, label and mail from her home.

    She did not expect the wind to be so strong as she left the church building. She stepped out into the very brisk wind and before she knew it, a gust had grabbed her pile of invitations. She watched in horror as they flew up in the air in a pretty multi-coloured cloud and then meeting the low flying jet stream quickly bypassed the fold, stuff and label steps and entered the distribution phase more widely than anyone on the committee ever imagined.

    There was nothing they could do. The invitations were distributed to the community at large. Their open invitation was suddenly more open than they could have dreamed. They quickly formed a phone out list to all the food donors and asked them to double the quantity. They did the very best they could to make ready for who knew how many people.

    One of the invitations landed at the door of a local group home, and the staff members were excited to think the staff and residents had been included in a party. They could hardly wait. A bike gang member had one of the invitations cover his face for a moment as it blew down the street. Fortunately he grabbed it before a disaster happened, stuffed it in his pocket and then studied it for a moment when he arrived at the gang headquarters. He had the BYOV all figured out - V is beside the B on the keyboard he mused, so it was obviously a typo. This sounds like quite the party - I think I’ll tell my friends. The rector of the local Anglican church found a poster on the walkway to his church. He put it up and silently admired the friendship and openness of the congregation down the street. He sent out an email to the other ministerial members to tell them of the event. Several street people found invitations and the party was all the buzz at that evening’s soup kitchen. Free meals and parties were not to be sneezed at. The Senior’s society, the Elks and Legion, a variety of ethnic, fraternal and women’s organisations all received their wind delivered invitations, as did a few of the local schools and even a few businesses.

    Picnic day arrived. The bikers showed up with their cases of beer. A diplomatic committee member talked them into staying, without opening up their contributions - everything you need is provided she said. For some reason they stayed anyway and pretty soon were in earnest conversation with a few congregation members and a couple of people from the group home. Other residents of the group home were busily talking with some people from the senior’s society, while a plumber talked with a couple of kids who kept asking when the three-legged race was going to begin. A well known man who lived on the street held a burger in one hand as he talked with the chair of the Roman Catholic parish council. Meanwhile, members of the East Side United Church Membership and Pastoral Care Committee were busy running around trying to make sure that everyone had enough to eat, and trying to corral the kids - who were everywhere - so that the three legged race could begin. Some of them had a look of panic on their faces, but more of them had just the hint of a smile. As they looked around and saw Elks members talking with people from the women’s shelter, bikers talking with legion members, congregation members chatting with people from the Filipino Association, kids talking excitedly to seniors about the bugs they had just captured, and most of their church board having a picnic with some people from the Native Women’s Association they knew that a miracle was taking place. Bring Your Own Vision they had said and Everyone Welcome. God had accepted the invitation and she had indeed Brought Her Own Vision. What’s yours? Amen.