The Kitchen Sink
An occasional piece of paper
June 6, 2010
Vol. 13 no. 22
I have never been able to buy that a cookie can be called a biscuit. A biscuit is an entirely different kind of bread, and I have never spread butter over a hot cookie.
This is the day we are celebrating the 85th Anniversary of the establishment of the United Church of Canada on June 10, 1925, in Toronto. All right, we are early, but after all - it is D-Day. On that original day, the Methodists, Congregationalists, and most Presbyterians united by an act of Parliament to become the United Church of Canada, one of the first mergers of denominations in world religious history. It took a while before members shed their Presbyterian or Methodist or Congregationalist overcoats and put on a real United coat, but that always takes time.
As many of you know - and some remember clearly - our church is the merger of two United Churches on Lorne Street, Knox (Presbyterian) and Metropolitan (Methodist), in November 1951. That will be 60 years about 18 months from now. Along with a few other members in our congregation, I come out of a Congregational background, so we do embody here the United Church “triangle” - or is it a Trinity?
Today, it’s a biscuit. Each congregation received a starter mix for bannock from a single source originating at Wilmot United Church, Fredericton, New Brunswick. Well, maybe they won’t be exactly biscuits, but even less will they be cookies.
Biscuits are how Eugene Peterson translated in The Message the request of Elijah from the starving widow of Zarephath. Her starter mix never stopped producing biscuits for she and her son and Elijah. Bread is life. Biscuits come by the dozens and feed the multitudes.
Preached by Robert Kitchen
Knox-Metropolitan United Church
Regina, Saskatchewan