Let us pray: O God of all creation, be our strength and hope. Give us courage to pick up the mantle of discipleship. Embolden us to speak truth, confront evil, and work to bring about your reign on earth. Amen.

              As you likely know, I've been given the opportunity over the past year, in the first year of my term as President of Alberta and Northwest Conference, to travel across the vast expanse of our conference. One of the main ways that this travel is defined is by visits to the presbyteries which make up our conference. There are nine presbyteries in Alberta and Northwest Conference, and I've so far been able to visit five of them. This leaves four more to visit in the second year of my time as President.

              Over this first year and a bit of my time as President I've come to recognise a difficult tension that exists within our church. I don't think it is a new tension – it's been around for as long as I can remember, but it does seem to me that the stark realities described by the tension are stronger and more worrisome than I've experienced before.

              The tension can be harshly described in terms of life and death. There are many places/groups/ministries and congregations in our conference that are very worried about death. They look at the trends described by membership numbers, attendance and finances and cannot see a positive future. I've mentioned this in connection with the annual meeting of the Conference United Church Women which I attended at the end of April, but the concern has certainly been apparent in many other places. On the other hand, there are other signs  in a number of places in the conference that are showing clear signs of life. There are congregations that are embracing change in very clear ways – using the changing face of communication, social networking and an open and inclusive approach to worship and community building to grow in numbers and more importantly in faith.

              One of the roles that I feel called to in my time as President and particularly at Presbytery meetings is to bring a word of hope to the church. This has been increasingly difficult as I recognise the concerns that arise in many places in the church with respect to the future – as I described a moment ago. Despite the angst I've been witness to, I still feel that people need to hear a positive message. After all that is one of the clear messages that the Christian faith provides – a message of hope in the face of trouble, turmoil and seemingly unexpected hardship. And so as a person called to a leadership role in this conference, it is important for me to be a bringer of hope. I do so, trying to acknowledge the lament that people also want to express. Lament is an importat element of the faithful life. Many psalms have lament as a key theme – although they usually end with the word of hope which is a keystone of our faithful journey and our understanding of the kind of relationship that God wants to have with us.

             Well, this sense of life and death tension has been growing over the past year, and has therefore shaped the message that I have tried to bring to the lay people and members of the order of ministry that make up the presbyteries of our conference. A couple of meetings ago I chose to use a catch-phrase from the book of Deuteronomy as one which would encapsulate the message I want to bring to the church. It is a simple, but in my mind, very meaningful message – Choose Life!

              As we heard in the reading from the gospel passage this morning – this is a kind of summation of the message that Jesus gave to his followers as they travelled the road to Jerusalem. When there is a decision to be made on the journey – choose the one that is life giving, the one that is life affirming.

              Of course it is simply said, but not as simply done. Often the choices are not clearly between life and death and it is hard to discern which of two paths is the most life affirming, the one that should be nurtured and tended like a gardener would treat a carefully seeded plot of land. That being said, the decision to choose life at least offers a framework for the journey of faith – a way of drawing the line in the decision making process.

              One of the biggest challenges in today's world – in all ways, but especially in the world of church, religion and spirituality is how quickly change is occurring. I shared with the church board a couple of months ago, a video titled “Shift Happens” that lays out in very stark ways the magnitude and speed in which change is confronting us in this day and age. In the face of the urgency created by this desire and capacity for change, we are severely challenged as a faith community which values the journey over time. In a world which changes so rapidly that we can barely recognise the world as we knew it not only in our life time, but in each decade of our existence, it is increasingly difficult to determine the faith journey that is described not only in the span of our individual lives, but in the passing of the mantle of faith and leadership from one generation to another.

              I must admit that there are times when I wonder whether change is happening so fast that there is no possibility of describing the continuum of faith over time because things change too quickly. And yet I also read the biblical story as a story which is timeless. As much as it is important to understand the context behind each story and incident described in the Hebrew and Christian scriptures I also see the troubles, dilemmas, adventures and affirmations encountered by the people in those stories as ones that are still echoed in our lives today. One of the important discoveries in my understanding of the bible is that it is not just about them – it is also about us.

              Is not the story of the passing of the mantle of leadership from Elijah to Elisha one that is important for us in our time too? How do we understand the call of God to be ones who pass on the important tenets of our faith to those who follow us? When we stand as a congregation at baptism and state our intention as a community to be people who share the faithful life with young ones like Laura are we not placing ourselves in the same path as the one that Elijah and Elisha followed?

              I've already mentioned the speed at which change is occurring in today's world, but some of the same urgency is found in our reading from the gospel this morning. We can't be worried about things that don't take us forward, is effectively what Jesus is saying to his followers. Time is of the essence at this moment, and we have to be focussed on the goal. As was mentioned, it might be something we wish Jesus had not said, but in the context of the moment, it is the urgency which is most important. We know that Jesus also valued times of quiet and contemplation, but in this case the life giving, life affirming option was the one that called them to carry on without worrying about accommodation, public perceptions or even family responsibilities.

              I think we all might imagine other occasions when the choice would be quite different. The choice for life is not always the one that advances the speed of change, or creates an urgency to get on with it. I think there are many ways in which God is calling us to slow down as well – that the choice for life is one which invites us to deeper relationship with the holy in our lives and into deeper connection with ourselves as holy beings.

              I also believe that in the face of rapid change, that one of the spiritual gifts that can be offered by the community of faith is to look at the big picture. Which among all the changes is the one that advances God's plan for creation? Among all that is happening around us, what long range themes or messages are the ones that need to be tended and nurtured? Is there something to be discovered in a span of more than four thousand years to give insight to a world which seems to measure progress or at least change in iterations of nanosecond spans of time? Choose Life – God calls! Choose Life! Amen.