As some of you know, because you're around the church and you hear me talking about it, Chris and I bought our first house this week. One of you is even friends with the quite lovely family that we're buying from. We had been living in a one-bedroom apartment in Toronto - a rather horrible little apartment that I'd gotten when I went back to Emmanuel after I came back from the West Bank, of which the best thing that could be said was that the price was right. In any event, this new house has a good size living room with a dining room off of it, and a great kitchen with loads of cupboards and four bedrooms which is kind of three and an office for me. And from the first time we were in it, we were thinking that well the kitchen is kind of a deep blue, and that doesn't seem like a kitchen colour to me in particular - but that's okay, maybe a nice sage green sort of colour would be nice in there. Or a kind of gray with a tint or red in it could be good/ And there is the matter of the stucco on the kitchen ceiling - I'm not a fan of stucco on surfaces that you're going to want to clean and so I was staring at it wondering if you could sand it off or if we'd take the ceiling down to fix it. And upstairs, there are three bedrooms - but only a bath, as the main bathroom is on the main floor. Well, we'd like to have a full bathroom upstairs, so we're thinking that maybe we would expand the bath that is there, cutting into the master bedroom - but that would cut into the walk-in closet. Or we could put a bathroom in part of one of the other bedrooms instead, and so we're measuring up that now, and as soon as we can find clean underwear and things like sugar bowls, we'll have time to get off to places like RONA and price out bathroom accessories, I guess.

Any of this sound familiar to when you've bought houses or your kids? It got me thinking, did we buy the house that we walked into, or did we buy the house that we wanted it to be - the one with hardwood floors upstairs and our colours and the bathrooms all sorted out - did we buy the house we walked into, or the one we imagined when we saw the house that was there.

And that isn't the only house I've been excited about. There is this House of God we're in this morning. I don't know if you folks know this, but when ministers are settled to a church, as I was, upon ordination, there is this interview that takes place and you read this document called a Joint Needs Assessment Report - JNAC for short to use a little United Church-ese. So, I met some of you one evening after work and read over your JNAC and we both went home to discern for the evening. When I told Chris about the church, which we'd both already read about on the internet, he asked, as have several of my friends since, when I had the horseshoe surgically implanted inside me. He may have used different words….but you get the point. The folks at the interview - wonderful folks - were lively and intelligent and seemed, quite honestly to be looking for me, and I for them. And after the meeting, I came up into this amazing sanctuary. Most exciting, I read a report that talked about “how we move from charity to social justice”, that spoke about a church that has wanted to be Christ's hands and feet in downtown Kitchener - responding to the growth in the depth of poverty. There was talk about rethinking ourselves, to be open to the entry of a new generation. And coming here, you people, and the people of Zion and Highland Road have been wonderful and kind and good and offered all kinds of helpful advice. I found myself walking around this house of God and thinking about programs for equipping us to be a more welcoming congregation. I've been talking to our partners - the Growing Healthy Two-Gether and Busy Babies who use our space on Thursdays about ways we can connect their mission in the community to our ministry. I've been talking with some of you about us offering critical leadership in discerning how we can come up with real solutions to the problems that our Out of the Cold Program seek to address. I've been imagining ways that we could think about how we really form disciples - committed disciples of Jesus Christ, not just people who visit or stop by on Sunday morning. In other words, I've been thinking about this and that that I could do, or we could do together and really start to lift off good outreach programs which means getting this congregation, perhaps in cooperation with other congregations including Zion and Highland Road to start thinking about ourselves differently - to stop the talk about what we can't do and start the talk about what we can do. If you haven't noticed yet, I'm basically a pretty enthusiastic sort and it's easy for me to go to these kinds of gymnastics in my head.

And when I paused for breath…you might be able to see by now, I'm kind of an excitable person…who usually has loads of energy…I began to think did I begin in ministry at the House of God I walked into, or the one I wanted it to be.

Chris and I just moved in on Thursday and while the movers were moving us in - the front door fell off the hinges. We had the house inspected, and there are a couple of little issues that we know about, but if you own a house you surely know, there is always much more that can and does go wrong that you didn't expect. Furnaces go, or roofs leak, pipes back up or seals break on windows, mould forms in patches mysteriously in basement corners or appliances pucker out. Stuff happens. And life gets in the way of some renovation projects. Chris and I want to adopt children, and it occurs to me that fifteen or twenty thousand in legal fees and what not might well put a crimp in our plans to do particular renovations. Our house and our lives need Tender loving care that is more than just renovations or the plans that we first had, though we probably will do a lot of those things - change a couple of colours…and who know what else.

And so it is with Houses of God. It's easy to come to a church and to hear what you want to hear, and imagine, for both the congregation and the minister, that the other is going to be everything that you want them to be. And mostly they're not. I've just landed here, and really everything isn't absolutely perfect. There are in this congregation and in all congregations little bits of trouble or fatigue…we'll work hard to recruit enough volunteers to plan a dynamic Sunday School program but I'll bet we'll have troubles. And already, my “outreach” work is being dominated by trying to help the people who are landing on our doorsteps find their way to the services they need from the government and various agencies which takes a lot of time. And as much as we all might be enthused about the idea of doing different and new things together as different congregations in the way of outreach, we do have the particular problem of our different ideas of what church is supposed to be, who is supposed to be in it, and how we do things…ideas that take a century or several centuries to form are not likely to be fixed or cured by one new inexperienced minister, no matter how enthusiastic, in one year are they? Just like the door falling off, stuff has and stuff will happen that gets in the way of what we had in mind.

So it was for Lot and Abraham and God. The story of Sodom and Gomorrah is a wonderful story which has unfortunately been cast as being about only one thing - sex…which if it is, surely is not all that is being said. Lot and Abraham got to the promised land, and Abraham said, I'll take the hill country and you take the plain and that way we won't get in each other's way. Lot settled with his family in the city in the plane and angels came to visit. The men of the town attempted an act of violence on the angels…God delivered the angels and lot to safety from the men of the town, but then God set his heart against Sodom and Gomorrah. And in this part of the story, after God has said it was going to be one way, Abraham says surely God, if I can find 50, you will spare them. God says, yes, if you find fifty. …45…yes…30…yes…20…yes - what about 10? Yes, for the sake of 10 I will spare the city. For the sake of a small amount of good, the city can have my blessing, can have life. For the sake of 10 righteous, it will be well.

If there is a miracle greater than the saving of Sodom and Gomorrah would have been, and Chris and I are still living in our new house in Kitchener when we are old, it is true we may have enjoyed or wanted certain renovations…or colours changed that will likely be changed several times over. But if we are blessed with children, and grandchildren, the reality is that our house will be remembered not for colours or bathrooms but for whether it was kind to those who entered. Was the food willingly offered? Were all who entered made welcome? Was there more laughter than tears? I hope so, that's the kind of house I was really looking for…even with blue walls that we don't really like and stucco on the kitchen ceiling…I think part of the reason we like it there is it feels good - the family who is there definitely love each other a lot and that's the nicest part of their decorating - the real warmth…I hope we get to keep or recreate that. We might not get the full 50 things or all the things, but the 10 things will not just be good enough, they will be of God.

And whether we do a specific program or not during my tenure here at Trinity, that I do hope goes on for some years…what I really hope is that this House of God is a place where we meet Jesus in our living faithfully in the community…what I really hope is that we can keep focused across our troubles that the God we follow isn't one that keeps jacking up the expectations, but keeps loving, even ten righteous. Here's the Good news about this House of God that was advertised as House of God: Needs TLC…which is the same Good news for Zion and Highland Road, and our Lutheran and Roman neighbours, and all the churches….No, it's not going to be everything we want all the time…it's not going to be a perfect place, or have all the good things…but like god, we are called to what I would call a seeking of the 10 righteous…yes, for the sake of 10 righteous I will spare the city God said…even 10.

Everything you hope about my ministry or Jack's or Alan's or our new administrator's or about the ministries of Katherine at Highland Road or of Douglas at Zion is probably not all going to come out. Some of the colours are going to stay the way they are and you might not get that bathroom reno you were hoping for. And you know what, the same is true for us about you. Sometimes you don't buy the house you think you're buying - the one you imagine, you buy the house you get. And that is good, for like a God who is game to change her mind, we are set out to find the good…even if its small and scarce…yes, even for 10 righteous I will save an entire city, I will bless it. So then, if God would make that offer to Sodom and Gomorrah, how much more then will he offer Zion, Highland Road and Trinity if we can find 10 righteous things about our ministry…if we can look to the good in our midst and make that the thing we build on to find the Spirits work in our midst. And if I can truly make myself believe that, and live that, maybe I'll look back at my time in this House and think - did I make them love themselves as God loves them? Did I help them to see the work of the Spirit in their midst that they were a part of? Did I point to the 10 righteous things? And if its yes, it'll soften the blow about not getting all my ideas done. We have good news friends, even for 10 righteous…

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