Regardless of whether we find ourselves in the 1st Century like Jesus or Saint Paul, or in the 21st Century like we do today, communication has always been the linchpin for the Gospel to be successfully shared. The letters of the New Testament tell us that Saint Paul would travel from town to town and city to city to share his witness of Jesus Christ with the wider world. Upon his departure he would promise to continue to stay in contact with each community by letter, so that their commitment to one another in Christ would continue long after he had gone. For both the early Church and for our Church today, communication is key! In the 21st Century, we have far more communications tools at our fingertips than we ever might have imagined we would have, but too often the multitude of options means we do not use any of them very well. Throughout 2011, I made it a major priority to continue to find new and different ways to reach out to the emerging generation by means of Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and other forms of social media, while continuing to develop avenues for our parish family to find closer connections with one another through the Transcript Newsletter, our new and improving website, and often through the good old-fashioned means of letter writing. It has become abundantly clear to me that we must continue to utilize every means available to us to share the message of the Gospel with each other and with the world, so that we make it widely known that this community is a place where new people can come to know Jesus, and all people can come to call home.

The conversion of Saint Paul – or the conversion of any other person for that matter – is not so much about a conversion from one religion (or from no religion) to the Christian religion.  Nor is it even so much about the conversion from being a persecutor of Christians to an apostle of Christ, or a ridiculer of the faithful to a believer in something more.

Conversion to following Jesus, was, is and must be something far more radical than that. 

Conversion to following Jesus is accepting a call from God to invite all people, from every nation, to participate in the coming of the Kingdom.  It is a call from God for each one of us to faithfully and actively build up the kingdom that Christ proclaimed; a kingdom where peace, justice, love and redemption will come to encompass all of God’s creation.

My brothers and sisters, our conversion is our acceptance of the forgiveness which God offers, our conversion is living our life in God’s abundant love – and so we actively participate in the conversion of others, so that they too will know such forgiveness and such love.

This past week, while perusing different Facebook pages, I came across a newspaper article about a very provocative advertisement upon a billboard in Auckland, New Zealand.  In what appears to be a teenage actor in an after school special, the picture upon the billboard displays a young woman with her hand covering her mouth and a stunned, scared look in her eyes.  She holds in her other hand a positive pregnancy test, and is reacting astonished, yet terrified.  

The reason I took so much notice of this billboard is because the picture upon it is not a warning for teenage pregnancy, as one might think at first glance, but it is a modern depiction of the Virgin Mary, sponsored by a church in their community taking a serious risk.

The advertisement has caught the attention of the world wide press and has been condemned by all the usual suspects.  Many Evangelical leaders have called it a “disgraceful display” and some Roman Catholics have condemned it as a “perversion of the Blessed Virgin.”  But although the billboard caught me off guard at first, the more I have prayed and thought about it, I actually think it pushes us in a very helpful direction.

We know that Mary was poor.  We know that she was yet to be married.  We know that women in her culture were mostly invisible, unless they were about to be condemned.  The central figure of today’s gospel had every right to be terrified.  She had every right to stand up and ask God why he would ask this of her.  This would not have been an exciting moment in her life – just as the billboard portrays – for this unexpected pregnancy would have been an impending nightmare, just as it can be for many today.

So when we hear the gospel of the calling for Christ’s birth, when we hear the story of Mary’s call to birth and mother him, it is important not to romanticize what is actually happening in this scene – to acknowledge that she does not immediately jump for joy, or answer God with an automatic or overwhelming “yes.”

Advent is a season that I have always had mixed feelings about.

When I was a kid, an incredibly impatient kid for that matter, I didn’t like Advent because it took too long.  I didn’t like Advent because I preferred Christmas, and Advent just never seemed to be finished soon enough.

As an adult, and as a preacher to boot, I often find myself struggling with Advent again, but for different reasons now.  I find this time of year difficult, as the weather is getting colder and the light dims to darkness earlier in the day, and it seems as though outdoor activities seem to happen less and less.  It feels like it will be forever, before the warmth will emerge and the light will beat back the darkness, so that we can go outside again.

The season of Advent arrives, and I am reminded that there is some serious waiting to do.  Perhaps, I am still that impatient kid.

Advent calls us to a period of expectant waiting – a time of anticipating God’s fulfilling his promises again.  It is a time of knowing that something is coming, but it is a time when we are forced to live in a period of ‘almost’ but ‘not yet.’  It is a very different thing than waiting for something you aren’t sure is going to happen – like waiting for the Maple Leafs to win the Stanley Cup – because waiting in Advent is waiting expectantly for something you know is on its way, but with absolutely no control over the fact that it hasn’t come yet.

This past week, the Globe and Mail released an article, which asked the question of Canadians as to whether or not they were truly aware of what they were giving up in exchange for lower taxes.  The article begs some very serious consideration by all non profit organisations, and especially by those who provide social services. While serving at St Paul’s Cathedral in London ON, where social services are an integral part of the ministry at the church, the congregation watched a very steep incline of guests at the Fellowship Center lunch programme and the Daily Bread food bank over the last decade and a half. Many of the services which at one time had strong governmental support, were steadily relied on more heavily by the charitable organisations in the city, as taxes fell and funding was reduced. The Cathedral bore much of the city’s needs. There were many times when the Board of Social Services at St Paul’s was forced to ask ourselves if we could really continue to provide for the needs of so many, as the numbers went up much faster than fundraising could often match. Matthew 25 tells us that in the end we will not be judged by our sins vs. good deeds, or by our purity vs. our rebelliousness, but by the times when we encountered Christ in our midst as the naked, the hungry or the afflicted and gave him clothes, food, or comfort – or not.

Liberal or Conservative, we as Christians are called to care for the least of these as a united body and not just with a personal cheque.