September 27, 2026

Pentecost 18A, Lectionary 26

Philippians 2:1-13, with a nod to John 7:37-39

Epiphany, Winnipeg

We heard about water coming from a rock to quench the thirst of a nation of people who are free but lost. God brings refreshment from an impossible place to give life and strength to people who are thirsty and quite understandably afraid and even angry.

Then we heard Jesus standing in the temple and calling out to anyone who will hear, “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me, and let the one who believes in me drink. Out of the believer’s heart will flow streams of living water.” And we see our thirsting and longing selves drinking fresh clean water, bathed in fresh clean water; and just imagine life-giving and refreshing and healing water pouring out into the world from our mouths and from our life together.

It’s been a hard week for one of our churches and its pastor, way off in Calgary. The church is Lutheran Church of the Cross, a sixty-five-year-old congregation in the southwest of the city. The pastor at Church of the Cross is Lindsey Jorgensen-Skakum, and together the pastor and the church are very clear and open in their efforts to be an inclusive and welcoming and affirming place. They make it very clear that there is room for all in their faith community, and all people includes gay and straight and bisexual and transgender and two-spirit and all the other initials and groupings you might have heard of, and maybe understand, or maybe don’t, so feel free to ask someone… All also includes races and cultures and economic brackets, and places in life….you get the point.

Pastor Lindsey identifies as being non-binary, which simply means that they don’t consider themselves to be either male or female. So, for instance, pastor Lindsey’s pronouns are not he or him or his, like mine, or she or her or hers, like some of yours. Lindsey’s pronouns, maybe like some of us, are they and them.

In the last week or two a very conservative Christian group on Facebook has started to come after Pastor Lindsey and Church of the Cross. They posted a picture of Pastor Lindsey along with some short and snarky criticism about their pronouns, and about Church of the Cross and their efforts to be welcoming and inclusive. Over the course of a week hundreds and hundreds of voices on Facebook have joined in on the criticism. Some of them were the kind that were judgy but not surprising: Things like, “Well they might think they’re Christians but they need to repent,” or the more direct “They might think they’re Christian but they’re not.” Some of the comments were more personal, attacking Pastor Lindsey’s character and attacking their faith. Some were just plain mocking and making fun of the pastor and the church, and there were others that were more sinister and threatening.

It’s hard to find any streams of living water there….

You won’t be surprised to know that I support the kind of faith and ministry that Pastor Lindsey and Church of the Cross share. So as I read through a lot of the negative comments about Lindsey and Cross, I didn’t ever find myself thinking, “Gee, maybe they have a point.”

But I’ll also admit that my own thoughts about all those ones who posted all that negative stuff were not exactly kind thoughts.

I thought about all this earlier this week while I read that reading from Philippians that we heard a few minutes ago..

Now the Apostle Paul, who wrote this letter to the church in Philippi, didn’t know anything about Facebook posts. He hadn’t been to a workshop to learn about gender identity. He knew nothing about things that occupy us, like AI or democracy or smartphones or tariffs or pensions or term papers or online sports betting. But he had spent a lot of time over a lot of years back in the first century visiting with young churches all over what we now call the Middle East, and Turkey, and Greece. These churches were trying to figure out what their life and faith might look like, and how their new Christian community might live. Along the way Paul has seen people in churches disagree with each other about all that. He’s had people disagree with him, and he has certainly some snarky disagreement with a lot of people in a lot of churches. He has seen how this can split churches down the middle. Paul knows firsthand that it takes work to sort out disagreements, and to figure out what our faith should look like in a world that is always changing and in our life together that is always changing, in the first century or in the twenty-first century.

One thing Paul has learned over those years and those travels, is that it never helps when people start to think of themselves as better than others. So his word is really simple: Don’t think of yourselves as better than anyone else. Disagree, but don’t think of yourselves as better. Argue, but don’t think of yourselves as better. Do the hard work of trying to figure out what’s right and how to live in the world together, but don’t think of yourselves as better than another. Instead, have the same way of living in the world that Christ has: Treat one another with love rather than hate, with humility rather than arrogance, with gentleness rather than power; with speaking and listening, rather than gossip and attack.

So I imagine Paul, sitting at his desk and reading through a bunch of nasty Facebook posts from some Christians about other Christians. He breathes a heavy sigh and takes a deep breath and he starts to write: “If there is any encouragement in Christ, any consolation from love, any sharing of the Spirit, any compassion and sympathy – if any of this stuff matters to you - make my joy complete.

“Be of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves….Look to the interests of others.”

There’s actually something quite simple about it all. For about two thousand years, we’ve asked ourselves what our life as the church should be all about. Paul calls it “working out our salvation,” which really just means figuring out how we live as the church in the world. When we have to consider questions we’ve never had to ask before, or when we disagree, we’re always called, through all of that, to have the same mind as Christ. We’re always called to live with one thing at the centre, and that’s the love of Christ, who did not try to use his own power to get his own way or to get something for himself, but who humbled himself, walked into the muddle and difficulty and wonder of human life, and who gave himself for others, even when it cost him his own life.

It’s a simple and gentle and strong way for us to work out our own life together. What does it look like for us to have this mind of Christ, as we live together in the muddle and difficulty and wonder of our life with one another and with the whole church? What does it look like when we live like that here – none of us better than another, none of us looking only for something for ourselves, but all of us looking out for each other?

What does that look like as we live our life as a church with these neighbours all around us, in Fort Richmond or Winnipeg or the world? We’re not better than the world around us, and we’re not looking for something for ourselves from our neighbours, but we share the mind of Christ, which means that we look out for the well-being of our neighbours, whoever our neighbours might be.

What does that look like as we live our lives in this creation that we belong to and where we live? How do we live with the land and the water, the air and the living things all around us, when we’re not thinking of ourselves as better or more important than that natural world? What does our life look like when we humans are not just looking to get something for ourselves from the land and the water and the air, but instead we are looking out for the interests of this creation, which is our neighbour, and which is our home?

Paul points to a strong and gentle way of being in this thirsty and so-troubled world: Bearing the same mind as Christ, who lived and died for the life and well-being of all. Jesus stands and announces to a crowd; to disciples and friends, to skeptics and enemies, to all who were there to hear, “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me…” For a thirsty world, longing for thirst to be quenched, Jesus gives fresh clean clear water. “And let the one who believes in me drink, for out of the believer’s heart shall flow rivers of living water.” So we return to baptismal water, water that refreshes us and fills us with the life of the one who is the water of life given for us, water of life given for us to share, water of life given for all.