September 21, 2025 Reflection

Bob and I have made two significant moves in the last ten years. The first was to Squamish from our home of 30 years in North Vancouver, and the second was within Squamish. During those moves we made every attempt to purge what we didn’t need anymore. Those of you who have been in your home for some time know very well what accumulates. But even with two moves there are some boxes that have followed us around. Boxes and boxes of family photos, spanning generations. There is one old brown envelope into which my mom had put a collection of memorabilia; memorabilia of me. There were stories written in elementary school, gift coupons given to my dad on Fathers’ Day promising to do any number of tasks, and there were pictures. Tiny, 2 ½” x 2 ½ ” black and white photos of me. Me, perched in what looks like an enormous Adirondack chair in my grandparents’ back yard. Me, standing beside a doll carriage. Me, held by my mom, held by my dad, held by an uncle, an aunt, a grandmother, a grandfather. In each photo, whether I was by myself or cradled by one of my family, I was obviously the much-adored object of these pictures.

If I was by myself, I was at the center of the picture, clearly the only object of interest. If someone held me, they were looking towards me, so that again, I was the focus of the attention. It is obvious that the child in these pictures wa precious in the eyes of the beholders; she was honoured and beloved.

And God said to Israel (which we as Christians understand to mean more broadly the ‘people of God’ not specifically the nation), “…you are precious in my sight, and honoured, and I love you.” And God says to Jesus, at the moment of his baptism, “You are my child, my beloved; with you I am well pleased.” And in Christ we hear God say to each one of us – ‘You are my child, my beloved. You are the centre of my gaze, and I am well pleased.’

When the prophet Isaiah wrote the passage that Barb read this morning he was trying to encourage the people of Israel who had suffered long and suffered greatly. Their land had been conquered, their homes razed to the ground, their Temple destroyed and many of them had been carried off to Babylon where they lived in exile for generations.

They understood their exile to be the result of their unfaithfulness. They had failed God, they had failed to bear witness to God’s call for justice and righteousness, and they believed the bitter fruits of their unfaithfulness were defeat, destruction and despair.

Sometimes that’s how we try to make sense of things isn’t it. I must have done something wrong; I must have failed God somehow, I must not have trusted in Jesus enough. Otherwise, why would God do this to me? Why would God let this happen? Throughout the Bible we hear people grappling with the same questions and often they land on, ‘We must have done something wrong.’ But I believe, as do many others, that God doesn’t work that way. God doesn’t punish us or withhold love. Sometimes we do experience the consequences of poor decisions, and sometimes life just doesn’t work out the way we want it to, and sometimes terrible things happen. Randomly. Inexplicably. But those events are not the hand of God, but the capricious nature of life. What we do know is that God is with us throughout it all.

“But now,” says God to Israel, “But now, says the One who created you, the One who formed you, do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine.” In this poetry, this oracle of salvation, we hear the nature of the relationship between the Creator and the creation. I have created you, I have formed you, I have called you by name.

This kinship means that God has obligations, God cannot continue to be angry at Israel, cannot abandon Israel, for Israel is the creation of God.

In the Hebrew testament, and in some modern philosophical thought, to name something is to give it identity. Remember in Genesis God named the light Day, and the darkness God called Night….and God called the dome Sky, and called the dry land Earth. With each act of creation and naming God gave it identity and made it real and made it God’s own.

Just so, God named Israel and God named Jesus, and in Christ we know that each of us is named. You are Precious. You are Beloved. In the very act of creating and naming us God takes us on in relationship and God can never let us go. No matter what our failings, no matter how often we turn away, we are eternally connected through our creation and our naming.

So, “Do not fear,” says God, for I have redeemed you, you are mine, I will be with you.” In those simple words, we hear God’s promise to us through all time. In the past: “do not fear, for I created you, I called you by name, I redeemed you.” In the present: “do not fear, for you are mine” and in the future: “do not fear, for I will be with you.”

And then we hear this claim, this eternal and intimate relationship echoed at the baptism of Jesus.

“You are my child, my beloved, in you I am well pleased.”

And Jesus, the Word of God in flesh brought the good news that we are all claimed by God. We are all recipients of the eternal love of God, the claim of God, the redemption of God. We are all the object of God’s belovedness.

Each of us, every one of you, are the object, the focus and the recipient of God’s love. Each of us is beloved, precious, called by name and honoured by God.

This is not a sentimental love. It is not love spelt LUV. This is the love of God, a love that will see us through the greatest trials of our lives. And there will be trials.

Remember God said: “When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and when you walk through fire you shall not be burned, the flame shall not consume you.” Not if, not, in the hypothetical possibility that you might pass through the waters or walk through the fire, but when – I shall.

I know when I visit people who are in those moments of feeling overwhelmed, when their marriage appears to be dissolving, when the doctor’s prognosis is terminal, when the child is estranged and addicted, when these situations are encountered all I have to say, all that I can offer with certainty is: you may feel overwhelmed, you may be scorched, but you will not be consumed.

God will be with you, near you, present to you. For God’s love is not sentimental, nor is it distant, ephemeral, only to be experienced in heaven. God’s love comes to us in an embodied Spirit and rests on us like the dove descended upon Jesus. Like the potter’s hand mixes in the clay, so our Creator’s love is mixed into our very being, our very breathing. And even when, maybe especially when that clay is cracked open, we only need to allow ourselves to feel that love, to notice it, to breathe deeply of its healing power.

Friends, this has been a hard year for many of you. And even as you grieve personal losses and transition from the 20-year leadership that Nancy offered, the coming year will also offer some challenges. It is a hard time for anyone who reads the newspaper – it can appear that ‘Things are [falling] apart, the centre cannot hold”. And it might be a challenging year for many of your personally; some of us are feeling the impact of aging, some of economic pinches, some the weight of caring for children.

But in the midst of it all I can say to you from this pulpit that I have “a word from the Lord.” Today I say to you with every confidence, on God’s behalf: “…you are precious in God’s sight, and honoured, and God loves you. You are God’s child, God’s beloved; with you God is well pleased.”

May the Spirit open our hearts so that we may receive this good news, may God open our minds so we can imagine the magnitude of it, and may we be transformed and made whole by this good news of Jesus Christ.

Amen.