Welcome to St. Andrew's Lutheran Church, Kamloops

A few weeks ago, we decided to take a drive to Kelowna to celebrate our wedding anniversary. I don’t think we have made the scenic drive to Kelowna since the pandemic limited travelling about two years ago. And although, as I get older and driving long distances is becoming more tiresome, I still enjoy long distance driving. When we lived in rural Saskatchewan, we would often make the 5 ½-6 hours round trip into the city.


But, you know, when I was young and still considering what I was going to do when I grew up, I considered driving long distance transport trucks and seeing the world. That was the time when Hollywood made truck driving and fast-cars appealing to young people with movies like “Smokey and the Bandit.” Well, I’ve never had a fast car or driven a transport truck. But there are two things I would never be without when I am driving a long distance in a car - a cup of warm coffee and cruise control. Almost every highway in Saskatchewan is a long stretch of straight road. In most parts of Canada, if you fall asleep while driving with cruise control you’ll end up in a ditch. If you fall asleep in Saskatchewan with cruise control you will likely find yourself still on the road – because you have run out of gas.


Travelling on cruise control can be dangerous. Using cruise control allows the driver of a vehicle to stop worrying about maintaining a constant speed especially with the increased emphasis on safety. And really, when the car is travelling under cruise control, the driver can concentrate on looking at the scenery. But there is always a downside to technology. With automation also comes a certain level of danger as a driver might forget how fast the car is actually going, especially when encountering a sharp curve along the journey. Once, we were travelling home on cruise control, from visiting my mother in Ottawa, when we found ourselves in blinding snow and suddenly at the crest of a long slippery hill. We know God’s angels were with us that day as we avoided sliding off the road, or into the lake, or colliding with anything as the car finally stopped sliding sideways when we reached the bottom of the hill. The same thing can happen to us on our faith journey or when we are reading God’s Word on cruise control as we might find ourselves in peril.


When we put too much emphasis on one area of life and not the others, we might find our lives moving along on cruise control. This often happens in our relationships with our family, our worship and prayer life, and especially in our engaging the Word of God in the secular world in which we live. Ever since the Reformation, the Renaissance, the age of discovery and the Enlightenment, the Church has been moving forward on cruise control while slowly disengaging itself from anything found in God’s Word that is otherworldly.


It's easier for rational and logical church people to accept things that can be explained and discard things that cannot. Since we can’t see angels or demons or the devil it's easier to say they are the product of an imaginative mind. The virgin birth and the resurrection, which we affirm in our creeds, are doubtful according to some, and many scholars don’t believe that anything prior to the Babylonian exile of the Jews, (e.g., miracles, prophets, Egypt or the Exodus) actually happened. Accordingly, nothing supernatural, or unexplainable from Genesis to Joshua and the destruction of Jericho can be believed.


God said to Noah. “I will bring a flood of waters upon the earth to destroy all flesh in which is the breath of life under heaven. Everything that is on the earth shall die. But I will establish my covenant with you, and you shall come into the ark, you, your sons, your wife, and your sons' wives with you” (Genesis 6:17-18). Today, the story of Noah and the great flood are often trapped in disputes and debates on whether or not a world-wide flood could have actually happened and a great deal of our understanding of the original story is coloured by our different views. To Jesus and his disciples, the great flood was an accepted part of the Hebrew Bible, and a critical part of the story of the creation of our world. The first eight chapters of the book of Genesis comprise of what is called the pre-history of human civilization, beginning with God’s good creation, followed by sin, murder, and finally total immorality. “The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually” (Genesis 6:5-6). We don’t really know what this monstrous evil is, but it brought about God’s judgment and the end of that world by the waters of the flood.


“They went into the ark with Noah, two and two of all flesh in which there was the breath of life. And those that entered, male and female of all flesh, went in as God had commanded him. (Now, notice what happens next as) the Lord shut him in” (Genesis 7:15-16). On that day the fountains of the deep burst forth and there was no turning back. The countdown for the 120 years before the floods begins is pronounced in Genesis 6:3. Most estimate that it took 50-75 years to build the Ark. Jewish scholars explain the story of the building of the ark, as an attempt to offer salvation to Noah’s neighbours who see him at his labour and might be moved to repent from their wickedness. But, instead, the people paid no attention to Noah until it was too late as the deep burst forth and the windows of heaven were opened, and “the Lord shut him in” (Genesis 7:16) closing the door to the Ark.


What makes the story of Noah’s Ark so interesting to us today is the fact that Jesus makes reference to it when he is speaking about his second coming and the end of the world in the gospel appointed for today. “Concerning that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only. For as were the days of Noah, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day when Noah entered the ark, and they were unaware until the flood came and swept them all away, so will be the coming of the Son of Man” (Matthew 24:36-39). Jesus describes how the people in Noah’s day were going along with their lives, eating and drinking, doing daily things, living on cruise control, until the waters of the flood came along and swept them away.


Jesus’s message is obvious to those who hold to the Word of God. For those of us who are watching and still waiting for our Lord’s return in glory his comparison to the great flood couldn’t be any clearer. But the message is nonsense to those who don’t know the Lord. “What will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?” (Matthew 24:3) ask the disciples. “From the fig tree learn its lesson: as soon as its branch becomes tender and puts out its leaves, you know that summer is near. So also, when you see all these things, you know that he is near, at the very gates” (Matthew 24:32-33). When the day of the Lord comes, we will not have any prior indications that something is about to happen and those who neither trust God’s Word or the teachings of the church will simply go on with their lives on cruise control. But sadly, even within the church, some get stuck on the how or the when or the where of Jesus’s appearing. But Jesus makes one thing abundantly clear. “The master of that servant will come on a day when he does not expect him and at an hour he does not know” (Matthew 24:50). The promised return will happen without warning and most people will continue on cruise control, doing exactly what they are doing, eating, drinking, working or playing, going along with their everyday lives like the people at the time of Noah. They will not be paying much attention to what is happening around them – described as “the beginning of the birth pains” (Matthew 24:8).


What makes a faithful Christian different from the rest of the world, even different from those who attend church, is that they do pay attention. These are the believers who are watchful and ready for when the Son of Man returns. The true indication of faithfulness is remaining engaged and connected with God, while those who have put the spiritual matters of their lives on cruise control - will be left behind. For you see, being prepared and ready and watching is not a matter of living in a way that is all that much different from other people around you. Everybody is capable of helping the poor and homeless! A truly connected lifestyle means being watchful and awake to the presence of God in the world all around us. When Christ returns and appears, however and whenever, the faithful will recognise him and they be taken with him to eternal life. “I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, ‘Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God” (Revelation 21:3). The promise is fulfilled by God and our new home is possible, because the faithful do not live their lives on cruise control. “The righteous shall live by faith” (Galatians 3:11). They seek God in the Word, in the prayers and in the worship of the community. These are the redeemed of God who seek God and God’s grace in confession and absolution; in the waters of baptism and in the Lord’s supper. By being active participants in the community of the faithful, and not simply observers, they will become more aware and they will be ready for when the Son of Man comes, even though they don’t know the day or the hour.



In the community of the faithful, God calls us out of the world, gathers us, sets us apart from the world before sending us back into the world. The Greek word for church, ekklesia, literally means “called out from” describing us as a kind of unique separation of people who gather because of our commitment and because of our identification through faith in Christ – in whom we become church as Christ stands at the centre of our community and as the head over our community. The community of the church represents a glimpse into a different kind of world, as the life of the church community gathered together reflects our separation and inclusion in the world because of the God who has claimed us as his own through our Baptism in Christ.


As individuals, we can pray to God anywhere and anytime we want. The Lutheran church offers private confessions to those who need to confess specific sins. While the celebration of Holy Communion can be celebrated in private with shut-inns and hospital patients it is always an extension of the Sunday morning worshipping community while Baptism can be celebrated in private in the case of an emergency, in baptism we don’t become individuals but rather children of God’s family - members of a community. The only thing that cannot be done in private is Christian worship. David Ray in his book, Wonderful Worship for Smaller Churches, writes that “Historically, the church has believed that worship is a communal action that is offered in gratitude as a gift to God, is a receiving of the Word of God and the sacramental gifts of God, and is a responding to the gifts of God with our own gifts. Anything less is not what worship meant to be.” And taking worship one step further, Dietrich Bonhoeffer declares that Christianity is identical with community. “Christianity,” writes Bonhoeffer, “means community through Jesus Christ and in Jesus Christ. No Christian community is more or less than this.” As such, if Christianity means community - then one person alone cannot be or remain Christian if they are by themselves. Christian worship, communion and baptism always occurs where a community of two or three are gathered in my name, declares Jesus.


Although a congregation is a people set apart by God, the church is also called to stay intimately connected and in relationship with the world and we must take this context seriously. We are not of the world, declares St Paul in his second letter to the Corinthians, but we are in the world. And, even more than that, God purposely sends us out into the world, “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations” (Matthew 28:19) and teach them declares Jesus. These are all the signs of a healthy and vibrant church – the body of Christ, who take seriously their biblical mandate and their identity as a community of saints.


As we begin this new season of Advent, we need to make sure that we are not recklessly speeding through the season of Advent to Christmas on cruise control. The first Advent reminds us to prepare for the incarnation and the coming of Christ in Bethlehem. As we slowly light the four candles of our Advent wreath, we are reminded of our need to slow down and look out ahead of us for directions and potential danger as the second Advent calls us to prepare ourselves for the coming of Christ into our hearts. This is reflected in our daily routines and every time we gather as a Christian worshipping community and repeat the annual religious rituals in the church, carefully listening to the scripture lessons of the season, singing our advent songs of preparation and partaking in Holy Communion - the meal that is only a foretaste and a sampling of Christ’s third Advent, when he appears in glory and we are gathered around that great heavenly banquet that has been prepared for us on that unknown day and unknown hour when Christ returns in order to escorts us back to our heavenly home.


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