Author Archives: The Rev. Paul Lampman

St. James/Wechetowin Gospel Jamboree Coffee House

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St. James/Wechetowin Gospel Jamboree Coffee House

Date: Saturday, September 22, 2012

Time: Doors open at 7 pm

Place: Parish Hall of St. James Anglican Church, 195 Collegiate St., Winnipeg.

Cost: Free admission – free will offering or non-perishable food donation accepted for Winnipeg Harvest

The Rev. Canon Dr. Murray Still and The Rev. Deacon Vincent Solomon will lead an evening of music, gospel, and fellowship. Bannock, Tea, and Coffee will be served. All are invited to share their musical gifts.

From the Dean’s Desk…

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Today, Sunday, 9 September, at 10 a.m. the Anglican Cathedral Church of St. John the Evangelist hosts an ecumenical Service of Thanksgiving, as we gather together, Anglicans, Presbyterians, United, and others, to give thanks for two hundred years of God’s faithfulness since the first Selkirk Settlers arrived in Red River, put down roots next door, and buried their dead in the churchyard around us, beginning 200 years ago this year.  It is wonderfully fitting that we have this opportunity; for many years before it became an Anglican Cathedral this parish was called the Red River Protestant Church, and was home to Anglican and Presbyterian alike, and anyone else who wanted to worship, an ecumenical shared ministry in the first part of the 19th Century!

We are grateful also that Lord Selkirk, The Right Honourable James Alexander Douglas-Hamilton, Baron Selkirk of Douglas, P.C., Q.C., is with us for this worship service, as he has been with us in Winnipeg the entire week past, to remember, celebrate, and give thanks for the vision, courage, and commitment to justice of his ancestor, the Fifth Lord Selkirk, Thomas Douglas.  We regret that his wife Susie, the Hon. Priscilla Susan Buchan Douglas-Hamilton, was unable to accompany him.  We uphold her in our prayers.

We give thanks also for the hospitality, indeed, the lifesaving welcome, of Chief Peguis and his Ojibwe (Saulteaux) people so long ago.  “[Peguis] welcomed the first settlers brought to the Red River area by Lord Selkirk in 1812 and is given credit for aiding and defending them during their difficult years. When the main group of settlers arrived in 1814 to find none of the promised gardens planted or houses built, Peguis guided them to Fort Daer (Pembina, N.D.) to hunt buffalo. The children, weak from the journey, were carried on ponies provided by the Indians. The Saulteaux showed the settlers how to hunt and brought them along on their annual trek to buffalo country.”  See the Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online.

Most especially, we give thanks to God, and so it is more than fitting that we worship together at the end, the culmination, the climax of the week of festivities called Red River 200.   “When you have eaten your fill and have built fine houses and live in them, and when your herds and flocks have multiplied, and your silver and gold is multiplied, and all that you have is multiplied, then do not exalt yourself, forgetting the LORD your God…”  (Dt. 8:12-14a)

All the Hebrew prophets would almost certainly add, do not exalt yourself, forgetting your Aboriginal sisters and brothers, who were here first, the First Nations of this great land we now call Canada.  “Do not say to yourself, ‘My power and the might of my own hand have gotten me this wealth.’  But remember the LORD your God…”  (Dt. 8:17-18a)

Remember, give thanks, and celebrate.  It’s been that kind of week in Winnipeg, in Manitoba, and giving thanks to God we continue today in this joyous procession of thanksgiving, raising our voices in hymns of praise, hearing the Word proclaimed, sharing in the meal of Holy Thanksgiving, the Eucharist, rejoicing in God’s faithfulness and in the gift of human community at its best, whether the lifesaving hospitality of Chief Peguis and the Saulteaux people, or the best of Winnipeg and Manitoba in celebrations hale and hearty, of human community, happy and healthy in shared thanksgiving.  Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!  (Rm. 7:25a)

From the Dean’s Desk…

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It’s Labour Day Weekend.  Wow!  Tempus fugit, and all that (Time flies!).  That means many things to many people, but here at the Cathedral it means (more) interesting and exciting days are coming soon.

Next Sunday, 9 September we will have ONE SERVICE ONLY AT 10 A.M., a service of thanksgiving on the Bicentenary of the Selkirk Settlement.  In attendance at this ecumenical worship will be The Right Honourable James Alexander Douglas-Hamilton , Baron Selkirk of Douglas, informally known as Lord Selkirk.  He is a descendant of the Fifth Lord Selkirk, Thomas Douglas, who established the settlement 200 years ago.  This Eucharistic service of thanksgiving will be the final event, the culmination, of a week’s festivities.  Bishop Don will preside at the Eucharist, but a number of descendants will also be involved, including both United and Presbyterian ministers.

I pray that the Cathedral will be well represented.  After all, this parish was for many years, with the arrival of David Jones from Wales, called ‘The Red River Protestant Church’ and the liturgy was edited so as to make the many Presbyterians in Red River feel welcome.  The Church of England Priest was also expected to function as Chaplain for the Hudson’s Bay Company, as well as for the Settlers themselves, and most of these were Presbyterian.  When John Black arrived from Minnesota in 1851, as the first Presbyterian Minister in Red River, about 300 people left St. John’s, which had also just become a Cathedral, with the arrival of the first Anglican Bishop of the new Diocese of Rupert’s Land, David Anderson.

Well, you get the idea… For more information on the week of 2 through 9 September, please go to the website of Red River 200.   Please tell everyone you know from the Cathedral community about this, especially the reminder of one service only at 10:00.  Thanks!

The other BIG THING I want to share with you is something new at the Cathedral which will last until next spring, a time slot on Sunday morning which I’m calling The Dean’s Forum.  This will be a time of Christian education for adults, part of the lifelong learning into which we are all invited, indeed, called, as part of our baptismal vocation.  This year I’m going to do an express survey of the whole biblical story, called Dusting Off the Bible.  I can’t claim it as an original title, but I like it.  Please come and help me with the dusting.

By conversation and consensus at the early service, we will no longer say together The Great Litany before the early, Said Eucharist.  Instead, the Said Eucharist will move from 08:30 to 08:00.  At 09:15 we’ll begin The Dean’s Forum, which will conclude – religiously, if I can get away with saying that – at 10:05.  The Sung Eucharist, with choir, will begin as usual at 10:30.

Some of the titles for our upcoming ‘dusting’ on Sunday mornings until Christmas:

You want me to do what?  (Abraham)

God’s technicolour dream  (Joseph)

Journey to the Inner Limits  (Ecclesiastes, Job… Struggling with the painful questions)

A dragon slouching toward Bethlehem (Hope for the future)

Hope to see you soon at the Cathedral.  Have a great Labour Day Weekend.  God bless.

The Rev. Gladys Spurll died on August 27th, 2012.

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The Rev. Gladys Spurll (formerly of Rupert’s Land) died on August 27th, 2012.   She would have been 92 in October.

Gladys was ordained in Rupert’s Land in 1980 and served  in the Pembina Hills Parishes as Priest Assistant and then Rector before retiring in 1985.  She serves as Priest in Charge is two parishes in her retirement and as Hon. Asst. In St. Stephen’s and St. George, Trans.

She moved to Montreal several years ago, and it was there that she died.

We are unsure about funeral plans, but she will be interred at St. John’s Cathedral at a later date.

From the Dean’s Desk…

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On Saturday, 11 August, I had the rare privilege of spending the whole day at the Anglican Church of Canada’s National Sacred Circle in Pinawa, Manitoba. The Circle is usually held every three years or so, in different places across the country, and there were well over two hundred indigenous Anglicans in attendance from all over Canada, and special guests from New Zealand Aotearoa, the USA, inluding Hawaii, and Cuba.

It was a joy to be invited, and an even greater joy to be there for that last day of the week-long event. Local Anglicans were involved, of course, including the Rev. Barbara Shoomski, the Rev. Canon Murray Still, the Rev. Deacon Vincent Solomon, the Rev. Barry Bear and his wife and partner in ministry, Freda Bear, the inimitable and indomitable Sylvia James, as well as a number of others. I also got to meet and get at least a little acquainted with aboriginal Anglicans from all across this great land of Canada, from Quebec and Ontario to BC and the northern Territories. There were Cree, naturally, but also Inuit and Mohawk and Blackfoot and Ojibwe and many others, some of whom could not speak English, but they are all Canadians, all Anglicans, and, most importantly, all Christian.

My overall experience was of a deeply caring, beautifully committed gathering of Christian sisters and brothers. Oh, yes, they have their differences too, even their energetic differences on matters of policy and practice, but the strength and joy of real Christian community shone through. I can’t go into detail here, but, suffice it to say, I’m glad I was able to go and be an involved observer; I give thanks to God for another opportunity to experience this part of the church we call Anglican.

If you have the capability, I encourage you to go to YouTube and see the many good, short videos available there. Anglican Video did a wonderful job of capturing the essence of the week. If you check out the one on Canon 22 you might even see your Dean singing and clapping, and greeting both the Primate, our ++Fred, and the ELCIC National Bishop, Susan Johnson.

See the videos here:  Anglican Church of Canada National Sacred Circle.

From the Dean’s Desk

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The idea of regular time off finds its roots in the bible, and is offered by God not as a suggestion, but as a commandment.

Summer is fully upon us.  We’ve had one long hot spell, and are now smack in the middle of another one.  If we are blessed with meaningful and rewarding work, hopefully we are also blessed with vacation time.  Many of us are also blessed with weekends or other days off.  All of this is a fairly recent development in the history of human civilization and labour.  Much of the credit must go to the churches and also to unions.  Ultimately, though, credit and thanks must go to our Jewish sisters and brothers and most especially to the one God, loving Creator, who is the object of our worship and adoration, and, hopefully, the focus of our lives and our life together.

The idea of regular time off from work finds its roots in the biblical books of Exodus (20.8-11) and Deuteronomy (5.12-15), and is offered by God not as a suggestion, but as a command(ment):  Shabbat, or sabbath rest.  Ancient, and not-so-ancient, societies had no such customs, including European society; it was only in the modern age that first part of a day, then a whole day, and finally a ‘weekend’, became reality for most working people.  Of course, in other parts of the world, and more and more again in our own, where people can’t make enough on one job, regular time off is only a dream.

It is God’s desire that we get enough rest and relaxation. 
Part of God’s desire is also that we use some of that time for worship in community.

It is God’s desire, for all, including animals in service to people, that we get enough rest and relaxation.  Part of God’s desire is also that we use some of that time for worship in community, but as Christians in society we have to recognize also, always, that people deserve fair return for their labour (cf. Deut. 24.14-15; Jer. 22.13; Mal. 3.5; Rom. 4.4), which, in the eyes of God includes regular time off work.  Those of us who have it, including the retired who have enough to live with dignity, if not in luxury, give thanks to God for yet another expression of that amazing grace which is revealed so clearly in Jesus Christ, crucified and risen.

Enjoy your holidays, those weekends at the lake, regular days off, relaxing evenings, however your sabbath comes and however you take it, but give thanks always to God for every good and perfect gift, for gift it is, one our ancestors dared not dream about and did not have.  Oh, and one other thing, which our ancestors did know:  Church is still on, every Sunday, all summer long, here at the Cathedral, but also in other churches, Anglican or Lutheran or whatever, pretty much everywhere your summer travels may take you.  “Worship the Lord with gladness; come into God’s presence with singing!”  (Ps. 100.2)

From the Dean’s Desk…

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Happy Canada Day to one and all!

As Christians we gather on Sunday, every Sunday, to celebrate the Resurrection of Our Lord, of course, but, on this day of national thanksgiving, it is right to give thanks to God for the blessings we have as citizens of this amazing nation called Canada.  We are richly, wonderfully blessed, and like every blessing it is not for us to claim the blessing as ours alone and try to exclude all others, however we may do that.  Cf. Genesis 12.2

After we thank God, we need to be aware of what our First Nations sisters and brothers have contributed to making this country what it is today:  Everything they had and pretty much everything they were.  There are not Two Founding Nations of Canada; there were scores, if not hundreds, plus the two latecomers.  I hope when we all say, je me souviens, that we remember a greater truth than the betrayal and sacrifice of New France (Quebec) by Imperial France in favour of Martinique; may we always remember what all the native peoples of this Turtle Island upon which we live have sacrificed to make Canada and the USA and Mexico possible, and give thanks with very humble hearts.

Here are couple of Bible readings for Canada Day, and for every day.  How are we doing in the sight of God?  Especially when we consider the poor, the homeless, the prisons full of Aboriginal people, and far too many others in dire straits right here in Winnipeg and across the land? 

Isaiah 10.1-2:  “Woe to those who decree iniquitous decrees, and the writers who keep writing oppression, to turn aside the needy from justice and to rob the poor of my people of their right, that widows may be their spoil, and that they may make the fatherless their prey!”

Celebrate today and tomorrow, give thanks, absolutely!  But, again, think about this verse from Micah, 6.8:  “[God] has told you, O mortal, what is good; and what does the LORD require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?”   Canada is still an experiment, no guarantees.  Let’s work together to make sure that it succeeds in the long run.

I am honoured, delighted, and very grateful that I have the privilege of being Canadian.
Happy Canada Day to one and all!  Thanks be to God!

From the Dean’s Desk…

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What is a Sacred Circle anyhow?

And a Diocesan Sacred Circle at that?
On Saturday, a week ago, it was my privilege and my joy to participate in this year’s Diocesan Sacred Circle at the Old Stone Church of St. Peter, north of Selkirk, on the east side of the Red River, where Chief Peguis and his people originally lived.

Our emcee for the day was Tina Keeper (Yes, that Tina Keeper), daughter of the Rev. Canon Dr. Phyllis Keeper, who was our preacher for the afternoon Eucharist.  Phyllis glows with the presence of Christ.

The Rt. Rev. Mark MacDonald, National Indigenous Anglican Bishop, was our preacher for morning worship, and participated in several ways throughout the day.  He honoured us with a big part of his personal journey of faith; he is a leader of great integrity who lives his discipleship with great clarity.

Honoured that day were a number of residential school survivors, including the Rev. Canon Barry Bear and his wife and partner in ministry, Freda, who is also an Elder.  The theme of the day was reconciliation, and Christ the Reconciler was evident throughout.  At the end of the day’s holy business we shared in the Feast of Reconciliation, at the Table of the Lord Jesus, with Bishop Don presiding.

Then, to end our amazing day together, we shared in a feast feast, in Christian parlance, the Love Feast.  I have never eaten so much pickerel (Walleye to our American friends…) in my life.  What joy, what bliss!  Thanks be to God!  And thanks very much to the Rev. Canon Dr. Murray Still, and everyone who made the Sacred Circle a reality.

Kinanâskomitinawaw.  Miigwech.  Mahsi’ choo.  Ahéhee’.

From the Dean’s Desk… Sunday, June 17

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It’s been a wonderful week on the Winnipeg River.

Actually, it’s only been a couple of days so far, and we come home on Friday, but it’s been and is a real blessing.  All the clerics — priests and deacons — of Rupert’s Land are here at Pinawa for the annual Residential Study Conference, this year along with all the professional leaders — pastors, diaconal ministers, youth ministers — of the ELCIC Manitoba Northwestern Ontario Synod, and we are having a splendid week together, living out the reality of our Waterloo relationship, Full Communion.

The presenter, who has now shared six of his seven sessions with us, the Rev. Dr David Lose of Luther Seminary in St. Paul, has been lively, engaging, and challenging, has blessed us with hearty grist for the conversational mills, in one way or another talking about the importance of story in our life of faith, especially THE story which brings us all together in Christ.

We have enjoyed morning and evening prayer in both the Anglican and the Lutheran traditions, great conversation around meals together, and even times in a canoe, celebrating the beauty of God’s good creation in the garden entrusted to us, this spectacular garden we call Earth.

Despite our occcasional frustrations, our real questions, and our sometimes weariness, it’s good to realize againt that the church is the body of Christ, and, as such, belongs to Christ, not to us. Our communion is real, and this week, as Anglicans and Lutherans together in a new way, we are living it up, giving thanks to God for yet another gift.  I am so grateful to Christ and his calling, to me, for sure, but to all of us, a baptismal vocation, or calling, which transcends our petty labels.  Amazing grace.

Thanks be to God!

From the Dean’s Desk…

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I enjoyed some good time off and I give thanks to God for that, as well as to you, members of the Cathedral parish, and also to the Ven. David Pate.

There’s a busy week ahead. First, I’m off to the Annual Residential Conference which runs Tuesday dinner through Friday lunch at Pinawa. This year, a first, the clergy of Rupert’s Land meet together with the professional leaders of the Manitoba Northwestern Ontario Synod of the ELCIC. I’m looking forward to it, although a little worried about an identity crisis, but only a little.

The featured speaker, is the Rev. Dr. David Lose, who holds The Marbury E. Anderson Chair in Biblical Preaching at Luther Seminary in St. Paul, Minnesota, where he also serves as the Director of the Center for Biblical Preaching. I did my theology at Luther, graduating there in 1987.

David Lose is the author of:
Making Sense of the Christian Faith (2010),
Making Sense of Scripture (2009), and
Confessing Jesus Christ: Preaching in a Postmodern World (2003)

He speaks widely in the United States and abroad on preaching, Christian faith in a postmodern world, and biblical interpretation. I am looking forward to the seven sessions he will lead at our conference.

There is also plenty of worship, conversation, good food, and time for rest and relaxation as well. Also for working on next Sunday’s sermon!

Sacred Circle Reminder

But before next Sunday comes a great opportunity for all of us. I’m planning on attending, and you are welcome also at, the Rupert’s Land Sacred Circle, which begins Friday evening and continues all day this coming Saturday, June 16th, at St, Peter’s Dynevor. Our National Indigenous Anglican Bishop, the Rt. Rev. Mark MacDonald will be the featured speaker, but you are invited to be a featured guest. This Sacred Circle is for all of us, not only First Nations. There’s no charge for registration, but please call Cathy Mondor at the Synod Office (992,4200) by Thursday noon and get your name on the list, so enough meals can be prepared. if you are going, please bring a gift worth about $10. That’s it! Hope to see you there.