FIRST READING (Ecclesiastes 3:1-14) Reader: Stephanie Donaldson
Reader A reading from the Book of Ecclesiastes.
For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven:
a time to be born, and a time to die;
a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted;
a time to kill, and a time to heal;
a time to break down, and a time to build up;
a time to weep, and a time to laugh;
a time to mourn, and a time to dance;
a time to throw away stones, and a time to gather stones together;
a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;
a time to seek, and a time to lose;
a time to keep, and a time to throw away;
a time to tear, and a time to sew;
a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
a time to love, and a time to hate;
a time for war, and a time for peace.
What gain have the workers from their toil? I have seen the business that God has given to everyone to be busy with. He has made everything suitable for its time; moreover, he has put a sense of past and future into their minds, yet they cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end. I know that there is nothing better for them than to be happy and enjoy themselves as long as they live; moreover, it is God’s gift that all should eat and drink and take pleasure in all their toil. I know that whatever God does endures for ever; nothing can be added to it, nor anything taken from it; God has done this, so that all should stand in awe before him.
Stephanie The Word of the Lord.
All Thanks be to God
Psalm 121 Reader: Gale Carter
Gale I lift up my eyes to the hills;
All from where is my help to come?
Gale My help comes from the Lord,
All the maker of heaven and earth.
Gale He will not let your foot be moved
All and he who watches over you will not fall asleep.
Gale Behold, he who keeps watch over Israel
All shall neither slumber nor sleep;
Gale The Lord himself watches over you;
All the Lord is your shade at your right hand,
Gale So that the sun shall not strike you by day,
All nor the moon by night.
Gale The Lord shall preserve you from all evil;
All it is he who shall keep you safe.
Gale The Lord shall watch over your going out and your coming in,
All from this time forth for evermore.
Gale Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit,
All as it was in the beginning, is now, and will be for ever. Amen.
SECOND READING Reader Bruce Tucker
Reader A reading from the Revelation to St. John.
After this I looked, and there was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, robed in white, with palm branches in their hands.
They cried out in a loud voice, saying,
‘Salvation belongs to our God who is seated on the throne, and to the Lamb!’
And all the angels stood around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures, and they fell on their faces before the throne and worshipped God, singing,
‘Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom
and thanksgiving and honour
and power and might
be to our God for ever and ever! Amen.’
Then one of the elders addressed me, saying,
‘Who are these, robed in white, and where have they come from?’
I said to him,
‘Sir, you are the one that knows.’
Then he said to me,
‘These are they who have come out of the great ordeal; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.
For this reason they are before the throne of God, and worship him day and night within his temple, and the one who is seated on the throne will shelter them. They will hunger no more, and thirst no more; the sun will not strike them, nor any scorching heat; for the Lamb at the centre of the throne will be their shepherd, and he will guide them to springs of the water of life, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.’
Bruce The Word of the Lord.
All Thanks be to God
The Prayers of the People Leader Betty McIntosh
Betty
Let us pray. [PAUSE BRIEFLY] Almighty God, you have knit your chosen people together in one communion, in the mystical body of your Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. Give to your whole Church in heaven and on earth your light and your peace.
People
Hear us, Lord.
Betty
May all who have been baptized into Christ’s death and resurrection die to sin and rise to newness of life, and may we with him pass through the grave and gate of death to our joyful resurrection.
People
Hear us, Lord.
Betty
Grant to us who are still in our pilgrimage, and who walk as yet by faith, that your Holy Spirit may lead us in holiness and righteousness all our days.
People
Hear us, Lord.
Betty
Grant to your faithful people pardon and peace, that we may be cleansed from all our sins and serve you with a quiet mind.
People
Hear us, Lord.
Betty
Grant to all who mourn a sure confidence in your loving care that casting all their sorrow on you, they may know the consolation of your love.
People
Hear us, Lord.
Betty
Give courage and faith to those who are bereaved, that they may have strength to meet the days ahead in the comfort of a holy and certain hope, and in the joyful expectation of eternal life with those they love.
People
Hear us, Lord.
Betty
Grant us grace to entrust Joe to your never-failing love which sustained him in this life. Receive him into the arms of your mercy, and remember him according to the favour you bear for your people.
People
Hear us, Lord.
SERMON ~ The Rev’d Quenton Little, Rector of All Saints’ (London, ON)
“Tool Box” (Essay by The Rev’d Joe Ponic)
Read Joe’s Tool Box.
For 20 years Joe was a mentor, friend and colleague who saw in me the potential to become a great work much like Michelangelo saw in a block of carcara marble. Joe knew me better than I knew myself, and he challenged me to grow in ways that I never thought I could. Joe’s tool box was as varied and as multi tooled as the people he used it for. His home was in itself the tomb for the history of the entire universe.
Nowhere else in the entire world would you be able to find a copy of the tv guide from 1978, it was retained because it had the title of a show that Joe liked that he had probably tapped from turner classic movies at least twice on vhs. Keeping in mind he had probably bartered the vhs tapes the week before at a flee market, 40 of them for 2 dollars. I probably drove him there after we had gorged ourselves on MSG ridden food at the Great Buffett of China over conversations of faith, art, culture and travel, where I was reveled in Joe’s gift for storytelling. Joe bought lunch and I drove.
A Louve calendar that he bought while he was there in 1992, because it featured great works of El Greco and probably a finger from John the Baptist that he found while on a trek somewhere in the world at a unesco world heritage site. And they would all be on the same end table.
To find JOE at a world cultural site or museum was not unusual as I would soon learn……Tell story of MET MUSEUM.
Joe’s tool box like his home and the people he kept as his tribe were in every way imaginable the most accurate grouping of tools that described Joe. Accountants, musicians, clergy, artists, business people, Doctors, Academics, ordinary day to day folk and even German Princes. And Joe could never tell the difference, the caretaker was as instrumental as the CEO. And with his tool box he passionately cared for the people of God for over 40 years. Being a pastor was Joe’s passion. Caring for the people of God was tantamount.
The hymn “Here I am Lord, is it I Lord? Charaterizes best Joe’s vocation. Joe was always discerning his next calling. Weather doing interim in St. Georges British Columbia or St. Andrews Tangier Moracco. Teaching in Vancouver or Cairo. Joe was where he was supposed to be. Why else would he have been an educator, a Norbertine monastic, an RC priest and at last finding his niche in the Anglican fold? Joe’s faith was not only marked by discernment but also his joy for the sacraments, all 7 of them. They were the outward visible signs of the inward and invisible spiritual grace that nourished him. The Eucharist being the pinnacle of the Nourishment that Joe needed. With these tools he sought out and served the people of Christ, loving them more than he loved himself. Joes Love for people was rooted in justice. A theology that Joe followed from his former professor at seminary John Dominc Crossen. Love empowers justice, and justice embodies love. Keep both, or get neither.
Knowing that people loved him was a hard pill to swallow. It was that he did not like himself, in fact, Joe was probably the most comfortable person in his own skin that I knew, he had his faults, but he was humble about them. They were faults that built him to be who he was. And he was great because of them.
I must confess that when I sat down to write today’s homily I struggled, not because I know Joe as closely as I do, but because I struggled in having words and thoughts that flowed coherently. But then again, Joe never flowed coherently. Here today and 24 hours later he was on a cruise headed to the Mediterranean. And now he has departed on the greatest cruise of all. Thank you my friend for allowing me to be a part of your journey, and I am truly a better person for being the block of Carcara marble that was and is the recipient of your tools.