The Kitchen Sink
An occasional piece of paper
September 7, 2008
Vol. 11 no. 35

Everything But...
           There are all sorts of name for it, but today is our Gathering Sunday. Labour Day is behind us, school has commenced, the weather is acquiring a nip, and the Riders have half the season ahead of them. Fitting, therefore, that both Exodus and Matthew talk about how we gather together in the midst of times of conflict.
           Time begins when God’s justice is measured out. The events of Passover mark the beginning of time for the Hebrews. As important as the events were long ago way down in Egypt land is the obligation to remember and rehearse them each year. Remembering that once we were slaves, but now are free.
           So each year at Passover, time begins again - a new year, new possibilities, a new world to be re-created. We begin anew with pretty much the same agenda. Remembering that even in the midst of conflict where two or three are gathered together, there Christ is in the midst of our company making our gathering richer than our togetherness.
           However, the key word is a passive participle, “gathered.” We don’t do the gathering, we don’t gather together to ask the Lord’s blessing, as the familiar hymn sing. We are gathered by something and someone other than ourselves. Who could that be?
           The easy and pious answer would be the Holy Spirit and there is nothing wrong with that. But sometimes religious language is, well, too religious, obscuring more than revealing. We are gathered, two or three or two hundred, by God who intends to bring us up out of slavery to other gods into freedom with the One God. We don’t always understand, that’s why we are gathered.