"Body Building"

(Eph 1:11-23; Lk 6:20-31) JG White

10:30 am, Sun, Nov 2, 2025, FBC Amherst

Welcome, Body, to the building, on this Sunday, the day after All Saints Day. As Baptists, we say we believe in the priesthood of all believers - so you don’t call me your priest, you all have priestly ministry, under Christ. I think we can also say we believe in the sainthood of all believers: every one of us in Christ is a saint, not just some super-special folks who have worked miracles. So, when the saints go marching in, we want to be in that number! 

This month, I want us to celebrate our Church, and to study what is the Church? We use that word a few ways. First off, it is the people… who happen to have a building that gets called a ‘church.’ And when we meet on a Sunday, this event gets called ‘church’ too. 

I’ve been out of town, for the sake of some quality time with other Christians. In particular, some Baptist Christians. More specifically, some of the more open and progressive Baptist Christians in Canada. I experienced some very interesting things. 

Praise the Lord! Sing to the Lord a new song, his praise in the assembly of the faithful. Here we are together: an assembly of the faithful. Last Sunday morning I was free to go to worship with Kitsilano Christian Community Church; the service is at 9:20 am on Sundays. I got to the building, and the sign said: Fairview Baptist Church. But the second line on the sign does say: Kitsilano Christian Community Church. Then a folding sign on the lawn says, in Korean and English: Streams of Grace Church. These three congregations each meet every Sunday in the same building. And there is no sign there for a fourth Church, whose name I don’t know, that meets Sunday evenings. Not to mention West Point Grey Daycare, which uses the basement hall five days a week, where we had after service fellowship and refreshments.

What a reminder that a Church is a people, who may or may not have their own building. To build up the body of Christ - the Church - is not primarily to do construction or financing. It is to include people in the worshipping fellowship and help one another be disciples - students and followers - of Jesus. 

Our All Saints Day scripture reading from the old letter to the Ephesian Christians tells us, [God] has put all things under [Jesus’] feet and has made him the head over all things for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all. We get to be the Body, now, and Christ is still the Head. 

The actual meetings of the Canadian Association for Baptist Freedoms were at the Grandview [Baptist] Church. They had their service at 4 pm on Sunday, combined with the folks of the Southpoint [Baptist] Church (which does not own a building). And combined with we who travelled from across Canada to be there. Then a tremendous pot-luck supper that followed.

Later in the week, some of us took a little ministry tour, just a couple blocks down the street. We went to a rather new apartment building called Co:Here. It is a cohousing project of Grandview Church in partnership with others. You see, Grandview Church had a parking lot, down the street and around the corner from their building, that was not really getting much use, not doing much good. So, with planning and prayer, volunteers and several million dollars, it became this 26 unit cohousing building. It is an intentional mixed- income building, designed for community. On our brief tour we saw shared spaces: kitchen, dining hall, library, garden, meditation room. We visited a woman in her studio apartment who shared the blessings & challenges of life there, surrounded by true neighbours. 

So, alongside what I said earlier, the Church sometimes is about buildings and finances. In this case, it is about making housing that works and helps and becomes a community in the neighbourhood. This can be a saintly thing to do. It builds community as a body of many different part who all belong.

Our Jesus words today came from Luke’s Gospel, and what is sometimes called the Sermon on the Plain, because Luke tells us about the Master speaking this in a big flat area, a plain. We hear His blessings and woes: blessed are the poor, woe to the rich; blessed are the hungry, woe to those who are full; and so forth. Then the famous bit about turning your cheek to the one who hits you, and giving your coat to one who needs it. 

While in Vancouver I connected with a friend I met in the summer, walking the Nova Scotia Camino. Catherine happens to be a travel writer, and I had read her online article “Safe Neighbourhoods and Areas in Vancouver” She warns of a few not so safe places. From her article: One area in the city to avoid is the Downtown Eastside... It is plagued with homelessness and drug addiction. It also has the highest crime rate in the city.     

On Tuesday, at the CABF conference, there was an opportunity to visit… the infamous Downtown Eastside. Just five of us went there, to walk through some streets, and visit a ministry called The Listening Post. 

The Listening Post is a drop in centre during the week days that is simply a quieter place to come into, and have someone listen to you. Not to get counselling. Not to get advice. Not to get religion. Not to get food. Just to have a listening ear. They do have a meditation time each day. We got there just before closing time, 4 pm. One visitor was there, a man named Bob, and two volunteers (who were two retired women) who were starting to clean up. 

Bob brightened up when the five of us entered, and said he had a sermon for us. He did. A message about Matthew chapter 1, a list of ancestors. He also shared a chant, a song he had written. 

Anyway, after Bob left, we who were visiting remained with our guide, Joy, to meditate upon our brief walk along Main Street, and share if we wanted to. In my meditation, I thought about the people I’d seen on the street who, literally, had stuff laid on on the sidewalk for sale. Well organized, laid out for people to see as we walked by. But I admitted, in my meditation I got in touch with my own fears and caution. I could not tell you what one street vendor was selling: perhaps I was so on edge and didn’t want to make eye contact, or stop and look. So I didn’t even know what I’d seen. 

One blessing to the poor on the streets of the Downtown Eastside is the Listening Post: the space, and the people who simply listen. As one of the volunteers said, who is new at this: it is hard not to be doing, doing something. She’d spent her whole life doing. Now she learns just to be, to be there, to be there for people, quietly.

It is a ministry of presence, we could say. 

I know this has not been a sermon about forgiveness. Sorry. Two weeks ago I almost promised more about forgiveness in November. Perhaps we can ponder what forgiveness there is for people in a place of retreat and faithful listening on the Downtown Eastside of Vancouver. What forgiveness there is in affordable housing in that diverse, on-purpose cohousing apartment building built where once there was only pavement. What forgiveness must go on in a church building that is shared by four congregations and a daycare. There is forgiveness in the Body, the Body of Christ, whatever building we use or don’t use. Now, let’s let Jesus have the last word. Do to others as you would have them do to you. Isn’t that pure gold? Isn’t that saintly? Isn’t that Body building?