Hockey Night in Canada!
Peter Fitch, St. Croix Vineyard
Sunday, October 9, 2016
Thanksgiving Message
• Such a volatile world and yet so much to be thankful for
• Reflection at end of module:
• Deep sense of being loved
• Fresh sense of emptiness in prayer (lots to pray for; not
feeling as though my prayers are making much of a
difference)
• Yet, thankful for this package, too (when we are weak, then
we are strong; I do believe that my emptiness can make
room for God’s fullness)
Struggles in Sermon Prep . . .
• Woke at 6 with ideas about hockey
• Wrote them down
• Went back to bed
• Let’s see whether or not they make sense!
Life is like hockey!
• Sometimes you get a breakaway and go it alone; more often
you move forward as a team
• Sometimes you sail forward with the wind in your face;
sometimes you get crushed into the boards by something
you didn’t see coming
• Sometimes you try really hard and win; sometimes you try
really hard and lose
• No matter, nothing feels as good as having a beer or a coffee
afterwards with your mates
But it’s all about skating . . .
• You can’t stand still
• You need to keep up with the flow of the game
• Most of us learn how as children
• There comes a time, for many of us, when we stop and the
game goes on without us
• It’s the same in life . . . We can stop trying, stop lacing up the
skates, wonder where the magic went
Why do we stop?
• Tiredness
• Pain
• Not feeling as though we fit it
• Not wanting to play on a particular team
• Also, perhaps, because we had the wrong goal in mind . . .
Make it to the next level (if not the NHL!), win all the time,
find our identity in how people see our game-face
Jesus said . . .
Matthew 16:24 Then Jesus said to His disciples, “If anyone
wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up
his cross and follow Me. 25 For whoever wishes to save his life
will lose it; but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it.
26 For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world
and forfeits his soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for
his soul? 27 For the Son of Man is going to come in the glory
of His Father with His angels, and will then repay every man
according to his deeds.
How do we get stuck in life in general?
• Perhaps we do have the wrong goal in mind
• We are trying to gain the whole world in some distinct way
and we haven’t realized that we have lost our soul in the
effort
How do we get stuck in religious life?
• I think it’s most often because of a bad view of God that has
involuntarily become part of our worldview
• We see God as critical, distant, more harsh than kind
• Even though many of us know better, we revert to this kind
of thinking
• We feel guilty, losers at life, unworthy, as though we have
very little to offer
• Finally, we hang up our skates . . .
Richard Rohr has a new book
From Bono . . .
Humanity, says Richard Rohr, is a perfect rhyme for what
Christianity, trying to express the inexpressible, calls the holy
trinity. This human dance we’re all in reflects a mysterious
divine dance, one that we notice on our best days. Finding the
sweet spot where contemporary science meets ancient
mysticism, and theology meets poetry, The Divine Dance
sketches a beautiful choreography for a life well-lived. In our
joy or our pain, true life is always relational, a flow, a dance.
(And was always meant to be.)
We participate with God
• Who flows in and through all of us and all things
• Who welcomes us at His table whenever we come, in
whatever condition
• Who brings life through us to those around us
• Even seniors play hockey—it may be time to lace up the
skates