Mountains flattened, elements melted, and a giveaway

Loving my new Common English Bible - I've been using the New Testament for a year or so for the lectionary readings in Sunday worship, but now this translation is out with both testaments and I use it for both personal and public reading.

I'm preparing for Sunday, December 4, and am looking at the lectionary texts in the CEB.

The Call to Worship at the beginning of Sunday's service will come from Isaiah 40:1-11, specifically verses 3 to 5:

A voice is crying out, 'Clear the Lord's way in the desert! Make a level highway in the wilderness for our God! Every valley will be raised up, and every mountain and hill will be flattened. Uneven ground will become level, and rough terrain a valley plain. The Lord's glory will appear, and all humanity will see it together; The Lord's mouth has commanded it.

I will be preaching on 2 Peter 3:10-13:

But the day of the Lord will come like a thief. On that day the heavens will pass away with a dreadful noise, the elements will be consumed by fire, and the earth and all the works done on it will be exposed.
Since everything will be destroyed in this way, what sort of people ought you to be? You must live holy and godly lives, waiting for and hastening the coming day of God. Because of that day, the heavens will be destroyed by fire and the elements will melt away in the flames. But according to his promise we are waiting for a new heaven and a new earth, where righteousness is at home.

I think the CEB translators have made some good choices here in dealing with the Greek text and English equivalents: compare "the earth and all the works done on it will be exposed" with the less clear "the earth and everything that is done on it will be disclosed" in the New Revised Standard Version. I prefer the CEB's plain "since everything will be destroyed in this way" to the NRSV's murky "since all these things are to be dissolved in this way." The NRSV's verb "dissolved" may be closer to the original Greek luomenon, which means "loosened," but the CEB and New International Version translation of "destroyed" better expresses the ancient writer's meaning.

As a participant in the Common English Bible Blog Tour, I am able to give away copies of this new translation - a Bible which I am using every day. I'll be selecting someone who comments on this, or any, blog post here at Daniel in the Lions' Den to receive a CEB, for your Advent journey.

Tear open the heavens...

I've been cramming what is usually a week of preparation for Advent services into one day, for various reasons, the chief one being Advent seems to have sneaked up on me! I'm now thinking about the Scriptures we're reading this coming Sunday, November 27, and what to say about them. I cobbled together a Call to Worship for our Sunday liturgy, based on the lectionary passages for the First Sunday of Advent: Isaiah 64:1-9 and Mark 13:24-37.

O that God would rip open the heavens and come down, and make the mountains shudder.
But isn’t this season about tinsel decorations and Santa?
The sun will become dark, the moon won’t give its light, the stars will fall from the sky, and the planets will be shaken.
But isn’t this season about lights twinkling in the streets?
Then you will see the Christ coming in the clouds, with great power and splendour.
That sounds more like it – the hope we’re looking for, the promise of something better to come. We can’t wait!
But now we must wait. Keep watch! Stay alert! You don’t know when the time is coming.
Come, Lord Jesus!
Come, Lord Jesus. We wait for this hope to arrive, we long for Jesus to return, we look for the signs of God coming among us. Let us wait and worship together.

In writing, I picked up on Isaiah 64:1-2: "If only you would tear open the heavens and come down! Mountains would quake before you like fire igniting brushwood or making water boil" (Common English Bible) - but went with the language used by The Message translation, "rip open" and "shudder" - and Mark 13:24-26: "In those days, after the suffering of that time, the sun will become dark, and the moon won't give its light. The stars will fall from the sky, and the planets and other heavenly bodies will be shaken. Then they will see the Human One coming in the clouds with great power and splendour"(Common English Bible). I kept much of the CEB wording for the Mark passage. I was trying to incorporate the eschatology in the readings for Advent 1, the waiting that is so countercultural for us in Advent when Christmas seems to start the day after Hallowe'en, and the consumerist trappings of the secular Christmas.

A version of this Call to Worship has now been posted by LiturgyLink, so it's available for other time-pressed pastors this coming Sunday!

For the Bible Tells Me So

Since childhood you have known the holy scriptures that help you to be wise in a way that leads to salvation through faith that is in Christ Jesus. Every scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, for showing mistakes, for correcting, and for training character, so that the person who belongs to God can be equipped to do everything that is good.
2 Timothy 3:15-17, Common English Bible

The Bible is the story for us of God's revelation to humanity, in the story of Israel and in Jesus Christ. As Marcus Borg says in The Heart of Christianity, to be a Christian is to be centred in the God of the Bible.

I believe what this early Christian document, the Second Letter to Timothy, says: Scripture is inspired by God. However, this does not mean, for me, that the Bible is infallible and inerrant. Much of what ancient communities wrote was inspired, but is not meant to be historically factual; this does not mean it is false, as it is true in the sense of metaphor, and witnesses to truths about God.

There are commentators who state that if any part of the Bible is held not to be literally true, then the entire edifice of faith collapses. I think this does a disservice to both the Bible and Christianity, and devalues metaphorical language. It also does not serve the Bible well to state that one translation only is valid. We do not have one definitive version of the original texts - the Common English Bible lists five different manuscripts of the Greek Septuagint for the books of Samuel alone. The 1611 Authorized Version, called the King James Bible, is now celebrating the 400th anniversary of its beautiful language which has made such an impact on English literature and speech. Yet we now have better Hebrew and Greek manuscripts than were available to the King James translators. All translators have to make choices in rendering ancient words and their underlying concepts into today's speech.

In the season of Advent we will be reading from two translations in worship at Ingleside and Newington: the King James, to end the 400th anniversary year, and the new Common English Bible. This should provide some great, and thought-provoking, contrasts between a venerable translation and a fresh version. I think we can learn from how the translators have rendered, for instance, the Isaiah 64 reading for next Sunday:

But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags.
Isaiah 64:6a, King James Bible

We have all become like the unclean; all our righteous deeds are like a menstrual rag.
Isaiah 64:6a, Common English Bible

What do these words tell us about ourselves? About the translators? About the attitudes and taboos of the time? Does the way the CEB translates the Hebrew speak to us in a way that the King James does not (or the New Revised Standard's "filthy cloth" or The Message's "grease-stained rags")? Lots more to come.

Blog Tour is Coming!

I'm participating in the three-month Common English Bible “Thank You – Come Again – I Promise” blog tour. It starts tomorrow, Sunday, November 20, the start of National Bible Week, and ends January 31. I have been using the Common English Bible in Sunday worship for the New Testament readings in the Revised Common Lectionary for the last year. In the season of Advent I'll be marking the 400th anniversary of the King James Bible by mixing the KJV and the Common English Bible - should be an interesting and thought-provoking contrast between the English of the beginning of the 17th century and today. And if you like the Facebook page http://facebook.com/LiveTheBible, you'll be able to print calligraphy Bible verses!

I got nothin'

I certainly got nothin' on the blog lately. It's not like there hasn't been anything happening! I had great experiences at the Outlaw Preachers (re)Union in Nashville in September and Future of Ministry Symposium at Queen's School of Religion in Kingston in October. I welcomed a delegation from the United Church of Christ, Black River-St. Lawrence Association in New York State to our United Church of Canada Presbytery meeting, and participated in a series of gatherings of congregations in our Presbytery leading up to votes this month on whether congregations want to enter into discussions with their neighbours about sharing ministry (and possibly buildings). And my churches and the Presbytery decided to move me from three-quarter time ministry to full-time. So there's lots going on. I just got nothin' here on Daniel in the Lions' Den.

"It's Not Fair!": Sermon, September 18, 2011

I'm a little hesitant about posting this sermon. Part of it comes from adapting a sermon I preached in 2008, the last time these readings came up in our lectionary cycle, and in the rush of student ministry at that time (and changing computers in the pre-Dropbox era) I didn't keep good notes on any sources I may have cited in the original. So I apologize if parts of the sermon seem too close to someone else's work.

Exodus 16:2-15
Philippians 1:21-30
Matthew 20:1-16

It’s not fair! When you hear this expression, you can almost see a child stamping a foot and reacting to some perceived injustice.

My sister thought it was very unfair that she and I had to share the back seat of the car – even though, of course, as this was the 1970s, car back seats were much wider than they are now. Since we didn’t wear seat belts, we could roam around, though.

So my parents got to hear “it’s not fair!” quite often, along with “he’s looking at me! Tell him to stop looking at me!” And my parents had all the usual parental responses: “If you don’t stop that, your face will stay that way” and “so help me, I’ll turn this car around.”

And when we hear today’s reading from the good news according to Matthew, most of us say, “it’s not fair!” Jesus tells a story about a farm estate, a vineyard, where the landowner pays all the workers the same wage, although some had been working since dawn and others had only started at five o’clock that afternoon.

Now this sounds pretty good if you place yourself in the position of the workers hired last. A full day’s pay for doing the least amount of work! But from the perspective of the workers who had laboured all day, it seems like an injustice, one that prompts cries of “It’s not fair!”

We have been raised in a society that is always ranking people and rewarding those who come out ahead, or punishing those who fail to meet a certain standard. And we buy into it. We see life as a contest for wealth, power, approval, fame. We’re always competing. Even when we’re relaxing we watch shows about other people competing and being ranked, on Survivor and The Apprentice and America’s Got Talent. It’s so much a part of our normal way of thinking and doing things that we take it for granted and don’t give it a second thought. Much of our image of ourselves involves how we compare ourselves to others.

And that is true of all of us, even though we pray the prayer of Jesus, “your kingdom come.” We’re in good company; James and John, the followers of Jesus, were competing to sit at the right and left hand side of Jesus in heaven.

We are used to the world treating and rewarding us based on our ranking. Those who work the hardest – or who work the hardest at getting the credit – receive the promotions, the plaques, and the paycheques. When the world does not function that way, we say “It’s not fair!” We’re always on the alert for unfair situations.

And sometimes we do have a point, when we say that it’s not fair that women are not paid the same as men.
We have a point when we say that it’s not fair that people are not hired or promoted for reasons based on gender or race or faith or age or ability or sexual orientation.
We have a point when we recognize that the international economic system plays a role in keeping countries and people poor in Latin America and Asia and Africa.

But Jesus was not talking about a real landowner he knew. The story isn’t really about workers and bosses. He was telling one of his stories about what the kingdom of God is like. The owner of the vineyard is God, and the workers shouting that their pay is unfair are, well, us.

Jesus tells the story to show explain that the rule of God is not like the world of rewards and punishments and rankings. God practices economics in this story that we, using the world’s standards, see as unfair.

And it was just as surprising and challenging to those listening to Jesus. Jesus contradicted contemporary thinking and action. He shocked people. In his time this story, told to peasants exploited by absentee landlords, was downright dangerous and subversive.

In this story God doesn’t seem to be committed to equality, as some are getting more than others. But God, as the landowner, says in the story, “I choose to give to this last the same as I give to you. Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or are you envious because I am generous?” And Jesus concludes, “So the last will be first, and the first will be last.”

God doesn’t share our ideas about treating people based on rankings. God isn’t bound by systems of merit and awards. God isn’t interested in our status and privileges. God may not even be a big fan of The Apprentice.

We want the people we see as less dedicated and conscientious than us to receive less than us; but that’s not the way it is in God’s kingdom. Everyone in the realm of God will be welcomed with open arms and will be equally rewarded. In the rule of love it doesn’t matter at what hour you begin or who produces most. All will be treated as God’s children, as children of equal worth. We can’t earn God’s favour. The faithful churchgoer will be equal to the prostitute and to the drug addict and to the convict.

And we think, that’s not fair! When the landowner asks, “Are you envious because I am generous?” our answer is yes, that’s exactly why we’re envious. We’re like the people Jesus talked about, who prized their rank in society and its rewards so highly. We ask, How can this be? What is up with that? What kind of God would treat everyone as being of equal value? Where’s the justice? Where’s the good news we keep talking about?

This is not the only reading today about complaints of unfairness; in the story from the book of Exodus the people of Israel, who in last week’s reading escaped from slavery in Egypt, say, “It’s not fair!” They grumble and whine that they were better off as slaves than wandering hungry in the desert, forgetting how unfair they found their old lives. Yet God sends bread and flocks of quails to feed them. Despite their ingratitude, despite their complaints – and ours – our loving God provides what they need for life. Fortunately for them, and us, God does not wait for us to earn it.

And if we stop for a moment and think about it, the story Jesus tells is good news, great news. If we can get out of our life-long habit of needing to be recognized as more worthy than others, then this is unbelievably good news.

For I know – and I think you know, too – that on any scale of worthiness, I’m not at the top. None of us are. As Paul writes to the Romans, all of us have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.

What Jesus offers is not a system of scales and measurements, but the opportunity of a new start.
What Jesus is telling us is that we are going to be treated far better than we should.
He is telling us that we don’t get what we deserve: we get what God is so generously willing to give us.
He is telling us that there is no hierarchy in the rule of God. He is telling us that the rule of God is not a zero sum game; all of God’s infinite love and mercy is poured out on everyone, and all of it is available to everyone.

He is telling us that, no matter whether we are one hour or two or four or full day workers, we will be received by our gracious and loving God with all the blessings of the kingdom. Think of the most saintly, the most deserving person you know – God will treat you the same way. There is no contest in the rule of God, “fair” isn’t even a word in the vocabulary, because each and every one of us is treated as God’s beloved child.

All of us as followers of Christ are equal in God’s eyes.
All of us are counted as God’s people.
All of us are dependent on God’s grace and mercy, just as the people of Israel in the desert were dependent on God for food.
All of us are loved equally.
It doesn’t matter how or when we came to faith; what matters is God’s call to us, and our response with the gifts God gives to us. That is good news. It’s wonderful news.

And, if this is the kind of kingdom we pray for, when we pray “your kingdom come,” then it is up to us to let God work in us and make it happen, right here, right now.
What would happen if we stopped worrying about whether we are getting our fair share, and instead recognized each of our neighbours as a child of God?
What would happen if we stopped worrying about whether or not our brothers and sisters deserve God’s love, and instead made ourselves instruments of that love to them, loving them like God loves us?
What would happen if we really forgave others, knowing how God forgives us?
What would happen if we acted in the way Paul describes to the Philippians, living lives worthy of the good news, following his words that to live is Christ and while we are alive there is good work to do?
What would happen if we prayed that God would show us how God wants to use us, and would listen, and would act? You know what?
That is what the kingdom of God is like.

Not One of Them Remained: Sermon, September 11, 2011

Exodus 14:19-31, 15:1-13

Giving all glory and honour to God.

Our story today is the one that is the climax of the movies about this book of the Bible, Exodus. The book goes on for 26 more chapters, but this is the big moment in The Ten Commandments with Charlton Heston, and Prince of Egypt and others: the people of Israel are fleeing slavery in Egypt, and come to the sea, where it seems the Egyptian army chasing after them has them trapped. But the power of God is with them. Moses stretches out his hand over the sea – this is the big scene in the movies – and a wind divides the waters, and the Israelites cross the sea on the dry land between the two walls of water.

This is a good news story: God intervenes on behalf of powerless people. God makes a way out of no way. This story has been tremendously meaningful for oppressed people everywhere who have taken it as their story. And it is our story; God comes in Jesus Christ to liberate us from the oppression of sin in all forms. In our baptisms we re-enact this story, salvation through the water.

Good news. Except for the Egyptians. They are still coming in their chariots after the Israelites, and they too start crossing the sea on the dry land. But the cloud of God’s power frightens them, the chariot wheels get stuck, and the Egyptians panic and start to turn back. Then Moses stretches out his hand again over the sea, and the water covers the Egyptian army, drowning the chariot drivers and the horses. The Exodus story says, ‘Not one of them remained. Thus the Lord saved Israel that day from the Egyptians; and Israel saw the Egyptians dead on the seashore.’

Dead on the shore. This morning I can’t help but think of another story. Ten years ago today I went to work in an office building in downtown Ottawa. The woman in the cubicle next to mine heard on her radio that a plane had hit the World Trade Centre in New York City. We assumed that it was an accident, but we went and turned on the TV in the office kitchen, and then we saw another object streak across the screen and explode in the second World Trade Centre tower. It wasn’t an accident. We watched as the towers burned, and word came of a third plane hitting the Pentagon, and then another one apparently crashed in Pennsylvania, and then the towers collapsed, a shocking sight as clouds of dust and ash billowed over lower Manhattan. Later we were told by a friend that her cousin was late for work in the World Trade Centre that morning, and lived because she missed the plane’s impact. And someone else - a consultant at work - told me how he cancelled his meeting in one of the towers that day; everyone on that floor was killed.

Our reading for September 11th: Israel saw the Egyptians dead on the seashore. Our memory of September 11th: we saw thousands of people die as we watched the explosions and fires and the towers fall. Now, there seems to be a big difference between these two stories. In our 9/11 story, the people who died are innocent, victims of a terrible act of terror carried out by fanatics, and the firefighters and police officers who rushed bravely into the burning buildings, many of whom died, are the good guys. In Exodus the Egyptians who die are the bad guys, and the Israelites are the good guys. The Egyptian bad guys being drowned is a good thing. Isn’t it? Moses and the Israelites sing that it is, the song we read together, the Song of the Sea, celebrating that God has triumphed gloriously: Horse and rider are thrown into the sea, they went down into the depths like a stone, they sank like lead in the mighty waters.

There’s another story, a Jewish one that explains and expands the Exodus story, called a midrash. In this midrash the angels sing a hymn to God as the water covers the Egyptian army. And God tells the angels to stop celebrating, saying, “While my creatures are drowning in the sea you would sing a hymn?”

But, we could say, wasn’t it necessary that the Egyptians die so that the Israelites could survive? Isn’t the destruction of the enemy part of God’s plan for God’s people? Well, maybe. But this summer, during our vacation, I stood on the battlefield at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. During three days in July 1863 9800 men were killed there, the bloodiest battle of the American Civil War. I stood at the grove of trees called the High Water Mark of the Confederacy, the furthest point reached by the Confederate attack on the third day of the battle, Pickett’s Charge, when 12,500 Southern troops marched out of the woods to assault the Northern line, and only half came back. After that the Southern states were never able to take the initiative again. And a lot of people said that all this death was the price to pay to end slavery and preserve the United States. Northerners were sure that God was on their side. They were like the Israelites and the slaveholding Confederates like the Egyptians. The Union sang, “Glory, glory, hallelujah, his truth is marching on.” But Abraham Lincoln, who was President during that war, pointed out that both sides, North and South, read the same Bible and prayed to the same God, and each called on God for help against the other.

Sisters and brothers, we can’t always understand God’s reasons. Lincoln said the Almighty has his own purposes. Neither North nor South could know if the Civil War was necessary to abolish slavery. It seems that in our imperfect world, where human efforts always fall short of true peace, we cannot get away from violence no matter how hard we try; nations will turn to war as the way to make peace. We can’t agree on whether this is God’s will, or how we should respond as God’s people. But while we cannot know God’s purpose in each event in our world, we do know the themes revealed to us in the stories of Israel and the life and resurrection of Jesus – that God is loving and wise and just, that life will triumph over death, that, as the prophet Ezekiel says, God does not delight in the death of the wicked. As God tells the angels in that old Jewish story, don’t celebrate while my creatures, no matter what side they’re on, are dying.

We only read the Exodus story this morning. But, as on every other Sunday, in our cycle of readings there are two more. The Apostle Paul writes to the Romans, "Why do you judge your brother or sister? Why do you look down on your brother or sister? We will all be judged by God." And in Matthew’s Gospel, Peter asks Jesus, "How many times should I forgive? As many as seven times?" And Jesus tells him, "Not just seven times, but as many as seventy-seven times."

Don’t delight in the death of the wicked. Don’t judge. Forgive as many times as it takes. Love your enemy. All this sounds nice in the abstract, or applied to conflicts safely in the past, in the Exodus 1500 years ago or the Civil War 150 years ago. But when we think of September 11, 10 years ago, it’s hard. For some of us it will be impossible. Don’t judge the hijackers? Don’t assume that our side is in the right, when Canadians died in New York City, when innocent people were slaughtered? Forgive, when the trauma is still with us after 10 years, when we still feel vulnerable? Love our enemy when terrorists are still threatening us?

God knows that this is difficult. We are not asked to forget what was done. We are not asked to stop remembering the 3,000 people who died on 9/11. We are not asked to ignore ongoing suffering, of families who lost loved ones, of people who still have physical and mental wounds from that day, of firefighters and others who are now ill from breathing the toxic air, of the hundreds of thousands who have been killed and wounded and uprooted in wars and terror attacks since.

But we are called to recognize that terrorism attacks us not just physically, but psychologically. Terrorism doesn’t just create fear; it infects us with the same poison as the terrorists, leading us astray to embrace hate and violence as they do. Since 9/11 we have struggled against the emotions the attacks stirred up in us. One church leader has said that too often we have reached for the flag rather than the cross. During this long, sad decade people of faith have turned from God’s way to seek revenge, justify torture, demonize Muslims, and restrict religious freedom, in the name of national security and even in the name of Jesus.

Brothers and sisters, we have been called, in that moment of crisis 10 Septembers ago and in the years since, to stand and be God’s instruments of love and justice, to follow the God of love and forgiveness, the God who does not delight in death, the God who came to us in Jesus Christ who forgave his enemies from the cross. And we have tried, hard as it is, to live that call: to pray and work for peace, to create dialogue and partnerships with our sisters and brothers of other faiths, to turn away from fear and hatred, to overcome evil with good. And that does not stop after 10 years; it continues. It must continue. The Prime Minister has designated September 11 as a national day of service, so that a legacy of acts of compassion will be part of this day.

Where is God in these stories of destruction and death? As I said, we cannot know God’s purposes. But we do know this: God was with the people of Israel, struggling to freedom across the sea, and God was weeping with the mothers and wives of the Egyptians who lay dead on the shore. God was crying, looking over the Gettysburg battlefield and the thousands of dead and wounded from both sides lying there. And God’s tears flowed on September 11th, for the dead and suffering, for the twisted beliefs of the hijackers that led them to this mass murder. God was with the people who comforted and healed wounds and welcomed strangers. God was with people of faith who responded in faith. And God is with us, in the valley of the shadow of death, with us to strengthen us to move forward from this anniversary in love, trusting in God, seeking peace and justice and resisting evil, and always holding to the hope that is ours in Jesus Christ rising from death, that terror and violence can never have the victory over life and love. That is our God, the God of all people.

Man in Black

I wear brighter colours during the summer, but the rest of the year I tend to rely on a black and blue wardrobe (black is supposed to be slimming, and it's easier for men who can't colour coordinate their outfits!). Hearing a bit of Johnny Cash's Man in Black today reminded me of other reasons to wear black:

Well, you wonder why I always dress in black,
Why you never see bright colors on my back,
And why does my appearance seem to have a somber tone.
Well, there's a reason for the things that I have on.

I wear the black for the poor and the beaten down,
Livin' in the hopeless, hungry side of town,
I wear it for the prisoner who has long paid for his crime,
But is there because he's a victim of the times.

I wear the black for those who never read,
Or listened to the words that Jesus said,
About the road to happiness through love and charity,
Why, you'd think He's talking straight to you and me.

Well, we're doin' mighty fine, I do suppose,
In our streak of lightnin' cars and fancy clothes,
But just so we're reminded of the ones who are held back,
Up front there ought 'a be a Man In Black.

I wear it for the sick and lonely old,
For the reckless ones whose bad trip left them cold,
I wear the black in mournin' for the lives that could have been,
Each week we lose a hundred fine young men.

And, I wear it for the thousands who have died,
Believen' that the Lord was on their side,
I wear it for another hundred thousand who have died,
Believen' that we all were on their side.

Well, there's things that never will be right I know,
And things need changin' everywhere you go,
But 'til we start to make a move to make a few things right,
You'll never see me wear a suit of white.

Ah, I'd love to wear a rainbow every day,
And tell the world that everything's OK,
But I'll try to carry off a little darkness on my back,
'Till things are brighter, I'm the Man In Black.

John Brown's Body

We've been on a bit of a John Brown tour during our holidays, visiting Charles Town WV (then Charlestown VA, where he was tried and hanged - we saw the courthouse, still in use) and Harpers Ferry, where he tried to seize a federal arsenal to arm slaves in 1859. Today we visited his farm, and the graves of John Brown and his sons, near Lake Placid NY - Brown settled there to be near a colony of freed slaves and free African Americans, although the settlement eventually folded due to the poor farming conditions and harsh weather of New York's North Country. Today the ski jump towers from the 1980 Winter Olympics overlook the simple house and barn of Brown's family.

So we have seen the last resting place of 'John Brown's Body' - lying underneath the gravestone that was originally his father's, a veteran of the American Revolution.

Had I interfered in the manner which I admit, and which I admit has been fairly proved (for I admire the truthfulness and candor of the greater portion of the witnesses who have testified in this case), had I so interfered in behalf of the rich, the powerful, the intelligent, the so-called great, or in behalf of any of their friends, either father, mother, brother, sister, wife, or children, or any of that class, and suffered and sacrificed what I have in this interference, it would have been all right; and every man in this court would have deemed it an act worthy of reward rather than punishment.
This court acknowledges, as I suppose, the validity of the law of God. I see a book kissed here which I suppose to be the Bible, or at least the New Testament. That teaches me that all things whatsoever I would that men should do to me, I should do even so to them. It teaches me, further, to "remember them that are in bonds, as bound with them." I endeavored to act up to that instruction. I say, I am yet too young to understand that God is any respecter of persons. I believe that to have interfered as I have done as I have always freely admitted I have done in behalf of His despised poor, was not wrong, but right. Now, if it is deemed necessary that I should forfeit my life for the furtherance of the ends of justice, and mingle my blood further with the blood of my children and with the blood of millions in this slave country whose rights are disregarded by wicked, cruel, and unjust enactments, I submit; so let it be done!
- John Brown's last speech in court, November 2, 1859

Horn of Africa Appeal

What Are We Going to Say About Labels, Supermodels, Seeds, and Pearls?: Sermon, July 24, 2011

Genesis 29:15-28
Romans 8:26-39
Matthew 13:31-33, 44-52

Giving all glory and honour to God.

So what are we going to say about these things? That’s the Apostle Paul, in his letter to the Roman church that is one of our readings today, but he could be talking about our three selections from the Bible. What are we going to say?

Paul continues, if God is for us, who is against us? Who will condemn us? In Paul’s letter these words are meant to be reassuring, comforting, because he answers these questions. But in our lives, when we ask, who is against us, who will condemn us, we don’t always get these calming, soothing responses. Sometimes we know who it is who is against us, and we can name them, or we know that it’s a whole society. And we feel condemned.

In our first reading, we’re continuing last week’s story of Jacob, on the run from his brother. Jacob finds his uncle, Laban, and falls in love with his cousin Rachel, and works for Laban seven years so he can marry her. But Jacob, who is on the run in the first place because he fooled his father into giving him his brother’s inheritance, is fooled himself – tricked by Laban into marrying Rachel’s older sister Leah. And he works another seven years so he can marry Rachel too. Men could have more than one wife back then.

The writer of this book of the Bible states that Rachel was graceful and beautiful. Rachel is the hot one Jacob and all the other guys fall for when they see her. Leah is pawned off by her father because she isn’t pretty; the writer says that she has lovely eyes – which sounds like the words of someone trying to be kind. The only way for her to get a husband is to trick a man into marriage. Jacob marries her because he has to, but the story makes it plain that he doesn’t love her.

Who is against Leah? Who will condemn her? The people around her who judged her by the beauty standards of her society, in a story that is set nearly 40 centuries in the past, and things haven’t changed much since then. Magazines and movies and TV shows and websites still favour the Rachels over the Leahs. And we want to be Rachels, because who wants to be a Leah, unloved and unwanted? So we go beyond just using makeup and hair styling, and turn to cosmetic surgery and even extreme dieting or steroids as we try to look like supermodels and beauty queens and muscle men. There is an epidemic of unhealthy weight loss and anorexia among teenage girls because society gives them the message that they will be unattractive unless they are thin.

I’m interested in this as I have a disability. When our society looks at disability, it focuses on what one can’t do; the idea is that the body or mind aren’t working properly. This thinking leads to labels being given to people with disabilities, descriptions like cripple, handicapped, retarded. And these labels convey with them the idea that people with disabilities are worth less than able-bodied people. It’s only a short step from saying that people with disabilities have a problem, to saying that they are a problem. Advocates for people with disabilities call this thinking ableism, a set of stereotypes like racism and sexism.

And I need to add ageism here, as beauty in our culture means youth. Just as people with disabilities are given the message that they are worth less and are a problem, society gives the same idea to seniors, that the hair and skin and ability and health of elderly people are less than ideal.

It’s hard to be labeled crip, loser, geek, ugly. We may hope that these labels stop after high school, but they last as we go through life, particularly in this Internet age when anonymous people comment viciously on anything they find online. We may be saddled with the names and insults heaped onto anyone who has a disability or whose face or hair or body type or clothing, or speech or mannerisms or sexuality, isn’t what our culture considers fashionable and good-looking and normal.

Our world judges by superficial standards just as much as, and probably more than, the world of Leah, Rachel and Jacob. Our culture may pay lip service to everyone being equal no matter what they look like, but it tends to put down authenticity and and degrade anyone who doesn’t look like the ideal. The singer Pink has a song on the radio, called Perfect, and sings about how her critics don’t like her jeans and don’t get her hair, yet she does it too to other people, all the time. We know how we make snap judgments based on appearance.

Yet, in fact, sisters and brothers, we are all Leahs. It is impossible for us to meet the criteria of our fashion and beauty-obsessed culture 100 percent of the time. We can’t all be celebrities, and they can’t measure up to their media images continually either. The perfect people we are compared to, forever young, athletic, beautiful, sexualized, exist only in the imaginations of the media and advertisers. All of us - no matter how young or old we are or what we look like - all of us know at some point in our lives, maybe most of our lives, what it is like to be labeled, criticized, degraded, unwanted, to feel that we are worth less.

Paul writes to another church, the one in Corinth, and tells them, brothers and sisters, by ordinary human standards not many of you were wise, not many were powerful, not many were from the upper class. He could have said, not many of you were Rachels. Most of you, maybe all of you, were Leahs. And Paul continues, but God chose what the world considers foolish to shame the wise. God chose what the world considers weak to shame the strong. God chose what the world considers unattractive to shame the beautiful. God chose what the world considers to be nothing to reduce what is considered to be something, to nothing.

Into this world of superficiality and unachievable standards comes Jesus with his good news. In five little stories this morning he talks about the realm of God, where God’s love and justice and peace break into our world of shallowness and selfishness. Yet God’s realm is like something that is considered like nothing, worthless: a mustard seed. Yeast. So common in the time of Jesus they weren’t worth thinking about. Or so the society of the time, and our society today, would think. But God chooses what seems insignificant, and ordinary, to shame what the world considers famous and beautiful.

Jesus talks about the mustard seed, thought in his time to be the tiniest of seeds. Yet from that miniscule seed come mustard plants that become shrubs eight to ten feet tall. The contrast would have been obvious to his listeners. Tiny seed, huge plant.

Jesus is saying that the greatest things have the least auspicious beginnings. What is ordinary, looked down upon, dismissed by society, brings God’s realm.
A little seed becomes a tree. A few grains of yeast cause a whole loaf of bread to rise. God comes in human form as a crying baby, Jesus, born in an unimportant place in a backwater of the Roman Empire. Jesus, who always identified with anyone suffering and shut out by society, is telling us that small things count, as we sang in our hymn; small things count as big things in God’s mind.

God does not judge as we and the world judge. God has different ways to measure beauty. God sees potential where we write off ugliness and disability and old age. Jesus says that the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls. When he found one very precious pearl, one pearl of great price, he went and sold all that he owned and bought it.

Brothers and sisters, God sees each one of us as unique treasures. To God we are pearls, pearls of great price. It doesn’t matter to God what we look like, whether we are graceful like Rachel or the best anyone can say of us is that we have lovely eyes like Leah. It doesn’t matter to God what labels people attach to us. We are pearls, and God will search for us, and find us, and sell everything to buy us. And God has done that, as Paul tells the Romans: God gave up Jesus, God’s Son, for us all. Pink sings in her song, if you ever, ever feel like you’re nothing, you are perfect to me, and that could be what God is whispering to us.

If God is for us, who is against us? Who will condemn us? Well, lots of people may try condemning us for our looks or our ability or our background or our beliefs. But Jesus helps us discover our value as unique creations of God. When we feel beaten down by criticism, when we feel small, then we can remember that small things count. We count in God’s mind. We may feel as Paul describes, quoting Scripture, as if we are being put to death all day long, treated like animals for slaughter. Yet Paul continues to tell the Roman church, and us: But in all these things we win a sweeping victory through the one who loved us. I’m convinced that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor present things nor future things, nor powers nor height nor depth, nor any other thing that is created, can separate us from God’s love in Christ Jesus our Lord. This is the good news. Thanks be to God.

Church for the 21st century: Family structures

Carol Howard Merritt has a great, and challenging, post about family structures in the 21st century church. Looking at her questions, I admit that my congregations are falling short - most of our singles are elderly widows and widowers, and we don't have many younger singles and families (and we still won't have many unless we become more hospitable). I am trying to place a priority on broadening our programming for children, teens, and young families. The Ingleside church building is full of young parents and children when we have special family events at Christmas and Easter.

Carol asks, 'If a young couple is living together (this is often a financial necessity), do our churches welcome them?' This reminds me of a conversation we had at one of the local ministerial meetings, which brings together clergy from various denominations. We were discussing preparation for marriage, and one of the evangelical pastors stated that when he finds out that a couple is living together, he tells them that they must live separately until their wedding or he will refuse to marry them. I responded that if I didn't marry people who are living together, we would have no weddings at all. When I look at our marriage registers, the bride and groom's addresses are the same in nearly every case. And if some Christians see living together as a sin, wouldn't they want the wedding to go ahead so this state of wrongdoing can cease?

Biblical Outlaws: Sermon, July 17, 2011

Genesis 28:10-19a

Giving all glory and honour to God.

Our reading this morning is from Genesis, the first book of the Bible. Long story short, twin brothers Jacob and Esau have a big falling out, and Jacob runs away, and he sleeps with a stone under his head, which sounds very uncomfortable. And Jacob dreams that he sees a ladder, or stairway, or ramp, reaching to heaven, and angels going up and down on it.

We ‘re going to sing the old spiritual “We are Climbing Jacob’s Ladder” later. I’ve sung it before in ministry, and the older folks tend to get nostalgic for their days at camp. My generation would get nostalgic thinking of another song, Stairway to Heaven by Led Zeppelin, which was always the last song at dances in high school.

There’s lots to think and talk about in this story, but one thing that stands out for me is that Jacob is on the run. His brother wants to kill him. The story takes place when there isn’t really any government or legal system, just families enforcing their own codes of honour, but Jacob is an outlaw.

Now, we have kind of a conflicted relationship with outlaws. When my mother was growing up in Aylmer, Quebec, the entertainment for teenagers was going to the movies, and for a dime or whatever it was 70 years ago you got a newsreel, a cartoon, a Western, and the movie. My mother saw all the Westerns. And in that era of Roy Rodgers and Gene Autry and Hopalong Cassidy, the outlaws were the bad guys. They wore the black hats, so you could tell who they were. The white hat guys might be falsely accused and be outlaws for a while, but they always came back to the side of law and order.

But by the time I was a kid the movies had changed. I just bought a set of spaghetti westerns on DVD, on sale for $5, Westerns that were made in the 1960s and 70s. And in this era, Clint Eastwood and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and The Wild Bunch, the movies were about the outlaws.

After all, the outlaws tend to be the most interesting characters, and not just in Westerns. The Pirates of the Caribbean movies are about the pirates, not about the Navy enforcing the law. We love these colourful eighteenth-century pirates, but not the 21st century ones who are capturing ships off Somalia.

I just watched a movie about Jesse James and his gang, called American Outlaws, and the viewer is intended to root for the James boys against the army and the railroad. The movie glosses over unpleasant aspects like their support for slavery in the Civil War. If you watched The Brady Bunch, you may remember the episode where the parents are very concerned that Bobby has written a school essay about his hero, and he has chosen Jesse James. So they let him stay up late and watch a movie about Jesse James, hoping that he will see his hero robbing banks and murdering people and get turned off. But the movie is edited so that Bobby sees none of this. Our outlaw stories can be like that too. We like the bad boys and the bad girls, at least in fiction, but they’re romantic and thrilling only if they’re not too bad.

Jesse James is certainly far from a perfect character, but at least a part of us still roots for him, especially when he’s played by Colin Farrell or Brad Pitt. In this story we root for Jacob, the outlaw. And he is far from perfect, too. He may not murder anyone – although later his sons kill everyone in a city - but Jacob is on the run in the first place because he fooled his father into giving him the blessing that was the right of his brother Esau. He’s a tricky guy, and his mother eggs him on.

Yet even though Jacob is a trickster and lies to his father, even though he’s an outlaw on the run, God speaks to him in this dream of the stairway to heaven, and makes a promise to protect him. And later Jacob gets a new name – Israel. And in turn the new nation of God’s people is named Israel after Jacob, for the tribes of Israel are descended from Jacob’s children. God is known in the Bible as the God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob. Pretty good for an outlaw.

Look at the characters of the Bible. There are more than a couple of bad boys and girls in there. Moses killed a man in Egypt and was an outlaw in the desert. Rahab was a prostitute who helps the Israelites. David was an outlaw fleeing the king. Elijah fled another king and hid out. Jesus himself, although he never did anything wrong, had to escape from angry rulers and live on the run, saying 'foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.' He was put to death as a criminal. And he predicted that his followers would be dragged before rulers and courts, and they were frequently on the run too, run out of town.

I think the point here for us is what Jacob says when he wakes up from his dream, and looks around at the desolate, rocky place where he had been sleeping in his escape. He remembers how in the dream God has promised to stick by him, and he says, “Surely God is here in this place, and I didn’t know it.” God is in this place, even among outlaws. God knows that none of us is perfect. God promises to stick with us no matter what, even in our wanderings, even when we are outside the acceptable boundaries of society.

And God’s people aren’t necessarily respectable, well behaved people. The Bible tells us over and over that to follow God, as God is shown to us in Jesus, means that we have to do what Jesus did and break the rules of society from time to time. Proclaiming the good news of Jesus in our lives results in us offending comfortable people. We have to love people whom society doesn’t want us to love. We have to work for love and justice and peace at times when society prefers fear and injustice and violence. God’s people in every time and place have found that there are times when the law violates God’s justice and our faith requires us to disobey the law. And so Christians in the southern United States in the 1960s broke the laws that discriminated against black people. They were outlaws. That American Outlaws movie said sometimes the wrong side of the law is the right place to be, and that's true.

It’s not something we do lightly, it’s not something we do without a lot of prayer and questioning, but sometimes we must be outlaws too, whether pushing against the boundaries of society or going beyond them and breaking an unjust law. We won’t all agree on when God is calling us to be an outlaw. There are consequences for disobeying the law. And that’s scary.

But God is in this place and all places, even if we don’t know it. And we have God’s Spirit for guidance and strength, and we have Jesus, who knew what it was like to live on the run, and is different in one crucial way from all the outlaws of movies and books – he would rather die for us all than draw a gun on any one of us. Thanks be to God.

Fasting for Change

This will be one of our activities this fall in the Ingleside and Newington United Churches. Fast for Change is an initiative of the Canadian Foodgrains Bank, supported by 15 churches and church agencies, to respond in a Christian way to global hunger. We are invited to fast and pray, fast and give, and fast and advocate.

Thinking About Methodists

Our denomination, The United Church of Canada, was formed through a merger of the Methodist, Presbyterian and Congregationalist churches in Canada in 1925 (the Evangelical United Brethren came in later). We live near the living history museum at Upper Canada Village; many of the houses in the Village, moved there to escape the flooding of the St. Lawrence Seaway, were known to people in my congregations in their original locations.

Providence Chapel in the Village is meant to recreate the rough log Methodist chapels of the 19th century. I wonder about the faith and courage of those Methodist circuit riders, traveling through all weather conditions to lead worship in these simple buildings. And their simplicity reminds me that we don't need PowerPoint, photocopiers, and Twitter to worship.

A Heaping Helping of Our Hospitality: Sermon, June 26, 2011 (at Knox-St. Paul's United Church, Cornwall ON)

Matthew 10:40-42

Giving all glory and honour to God.

I hadn’t thought of a title for the sermon or reflection time today when I sent in the slides for the worship service, but it’s called ‘A Heaping Helping of Our Hospitality.’ If that sounds familiar, it’s because it’s from The Beverly Hillbillies – you may remember the closing song, ‘you’re all invited back next week to this locality, to have a heaping helping of our hospitality.’

The Bible has a lot to say about hospitality, and welcoming, because it was written in a culture that placed a great value on hospitality, and a lot of honour came from how you welcomed visitors. In the book of Genesis, Abraham and Sarah receive a visit from three strangers. Abraham and Sarah don’t know that at first, but they offer their hospitality. And it turns out that the three strangers are divine visitors, for the Bible says that God appeared to Abraham in the visit. In the New Testament the Letter to the Hebrews says, do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing so some have entertained angels without knowing it. Another word for ‘angel’ is ‘messenger’, so this could say that some have welcomed God’s messengers without recognizing them.

Jesus is talking about this hospitality in our reading from the Good News According to Matthew. This is part of a talk as he sends out his followers and instructs them on where to go and what to do. And he tells them, his followers who are going out as his messengers, those who welcome you are also welcoming me, and those who welcome me are welcoming the one who sent me.

So let’s think about that: When we welcome someone, a stranger, a messenger, we are also welcoming Jesus, and when we welcome Jesus we are welcoming God. This reminds me of an old Gaelic poem, which goes:
I saw a stranger yesterday;
I put food in the eating place,
Drink in the drinking place,
Music in the listening place,
And, in the sacred name of the Trinity,
He blessed myself and my house,
My cattle and my dear ones.
And the lark sang in her song,
Often, often, often,
Goes the Christ in the stranger’s guise,
Often, often, often,
Goes the Christ in the stranger’s guise.

There’s a story about hospitality, and it’s also a Celtic one, from the Iona Community in Scotland.

The guests were starting to arrive for the church’s big anniversary celebration, and the minister was standing at the door waiting to greet the new mayor. She wondered how she would recognize him.

When a chauffeur-driven car arrived at the specially cordoned-off area, she came forward and greeted the impressive-looking gentleman who emerged, and led him into the building. But after being introduced to one or two people, he tactfully informed her that he was not the new mayor! She apologized profusely, only grateful that she had not already ushered him to a VIP seat.

Meanwhile, however, she had missed the real mayor. He had passed her in the corridor, but how could she have known? Not only did he not have his chain of office around his neck, he looked so ordinary! Furthermore, he had walked to the church, and come in at the back door.

Jesus was speaking 20 centuries ago to his followers, but he is speaking to us today: in welcoming someone, we are welcoming Jesus, and in welcoming Jesus we are welcoming God. We have to believe that, just as Jesus sent his messengers out then, he is sending messengers to us now, so we can welcome him in them. The people we welcome may not look like how we think Jesus would look. Like the mayor in the story, they may be ordinary, they may come in the back way. They may be tall or short, old or young, well-dressed or casual, male or female, single or with a family, able-bodied or with a disability, white or black or Asian or aboriginal, speaking any language. They may have ideas about church that are different from ours. Often, often, often, goes the Christ in the stranger’s guise.

You know, I go to conferences on the missional church, the emergent church, the renewed church, and clergy say how much they wish their church was cooler, more hip, was in an old brick warehouse and a twenty-something congregation dressed casually with black-rimmed glasses and drinking fair trade cappuccinos and an awesome worship experience with praise and worship music performed by a band with guitars and a drum set. Rachel Held Evans, who is a blogger I follow pretty avidly, wrote about this longing for a ‘cool church.’

But there’s a story, which was in the news, about a church in North Carolina that promises that worship will be an explosive, phenomenal movement of God. That sounds like a pretty cool church. I don’t know if they have cappuccinos, but I do know that on Easter Sunday a family went to the service with their 12 year-old son, who has cerebral palsy, and when he tried to say ‘amen’ after the opening prayer a church volunteer abruptly escorted him and his mother out of the sanctuary. The church later said that their goal is to provide an environment free of distractions for their guests. The mother offered to start a ministry for special needs children, but the church staff say they offer worship, not ministries.

As Rachel points out, this cool congregation got so wrapped up in the performance part of worship that they forgot to actually be the church. They were looking for a phenomenal movement of God – and got so distracted that they failed to notice God at work - they failed to welcome God’s messenger – they failed to welcome Jesus, who was sitting there among them. In fact, they ushered him out. Jesus is a big distraction when you want a church free of distractions.

This church in North Carolina says it offers worship and not ministries. On Tuesday I was at a meeting of the executive of Montreal and Ottawa Conference of our United Church. There we talked about how, in the old days, 50 years ago, when the church had more power and influence, when attendance was higher, when you could assume that most people were Christians, we thought to a considerable extent of coming to church, being in the church, as us doing something for God. We came to worship and give God praise and honour. And that’s still important today, it’s how we express gratitude to God for all the blessings showered on us. But thinking about church has shifted quite a bit. Many people come now, come for the first time or return after a long time, not to do something for God, but to join what God is doing.

Here at Knox-St. Paul’s, brothers and sisters, and across the Seaway Valley, we are not about offering worship and not ministries. That cannot be us as the United Church. We worship and we do ministry – and in both we seek to join what God is doing. We are participants; we aren’t guests. And part of what God is doing is welcoming and accepting, showing wonderfully generous hospitality to all of God’s children. And if we try to do that, if we try to welcome as Jesus says we should, welcome extravagantly, welcome unconditionally, welcome radically and inclusively, welcome in big ways and little ways as Jesus says, if we set aside our judgments and our knee-jerk reactions and make people feel genuinely at home and delight in the new ideas brought by these folks, whether they are brand new or attend once in a while or have come back after years away from the church or have been here their whole lives – if we welcome like that, well, then I have bad news and good news.

The bad news is, we won’t have a cool church. And we won’t have a comfortable church. Everyone here won’t dress alike and like the same music and talk about the same things. Church will be messy. There will be chaos. There will be distractions. People will disagree on issues. When a diverse group of people come together, there will be preferences expressed for music I don’t listen to and TV shows I don’t watch and political parties I wouldn’t vote for and clothing I wouldn’t be caught dead wearing. But that’s what happens in God’s hospitality for everyone.

And the good news is, if we welcome as Jesus tells us to, if we live out hospitality that fosters this kind of untidy, unpredictable diversity, then we are indeed welcoming God’s messengers, we are welcoming Jesus. And Jesus will show up, unexpectedly, surprisingly.

You know, there will be a lot of disagreements in this congregation, and in this Presbytery, in the coming year. But we need to remember the words of the Letter to the Hebrews, in practicing hospitality some have been unaware that they are entertaining God’s messengers. When someone says something that we think is wrong, it may just be God’s message to us. Are we listening? Are we welcoming? Are we extending our hospitality to all of God’s children? For in doing so, we are receiving Jesus, and in receiving him, we are receiving God. And, sisters and brothers, all will be invited back next week to this locality, to have a heaping helping of our hospitality.

Love is All Around; or, God and Tim Hortons: Sermon, June 19, 2011

This is my sermon for Trinity Sunday, June 19, 2011. I drew on 2006 and 2008 sermons for the Tim Hortons analogy.

Psalm 8; 2 Corinthians 13:11-13; Matthew 28:16-20

In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Many ministers try to avoid preaching today, Trinity Sunday. For whatever reason preachers seem to find it difficult to explain the idea of the Trinity, God being one God yet three persons. One minister online commented that the Trinity Sunday sermon is like delivering an academic paper rather than a message or a reflection.

There’s a famous quote from Winston Churchill, about the Soviet Union being ‘a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma.’ Many people think of God as Trinity as being like that; a riddle, a mystery, an enigma, a code we try to break but often can’t. Someone called the Trinity the Rubik’s Cube of theology.

Well, it is a mystery, how God can be one yet three, three yet one. We sang, God in three persons, blessed Trinity. The Trinity is the concept that there is indeed one God with three distinct yet equal persons: Father or Creator, Son or Saviour in Jesus Christ, and Holy Spirit. The Trinity is our way of summing up the richness and depth of our experience of God, and maybe this richness and this mystery can be best expressed as an image rather than a dry description. Preachers over the centuries have come up with different ones.

I wrote my thesis on Gregory of Nyssa, who lived in the fourth century when there was a great church council that settled the disputes among Christians over the Trinity. Gregory said that the persons of the Trinity are like three gold coins; the coins are many, but are one in sharing the same substance. The Celtic Church said that the Trinity is like one finger with its three joints. St. Patrick of Ireland used another image, holding up a shamrock and saying that just as the shamrock is one plant, so God is one; and just as the shamrock has three leaves, so God has three distinct and equal persons. And the shamrock became the symbol of Ireland. Water as ice and steam and liquid is another example of the Trinity, three with the same substance.

The Roman Catholic writer John Aurelio points out that we are each a trinity. I am a trinity. My father is in me. My nose, and much of the rest of my appearance come from his side. My mother is in me. Her height became mine. The way I blend all these together, like mixing cream and sugar and coffee together, are the unique me. I am three in one. This is just one way I am made, and each of us is made, in the image of the Trinitarian God.

Preaching on Trinity Sunday a few years ago, I used another example. The Trinity is like Tim Hortons coffee. What more Canadian idea could there be?

If you order a Tim Hortons double-double, in the cup there is coffee, cream, and sugar. Each is distinct. Each is equal, for if any one is absent the taste is completely different. Yet all are one, and cannot be separated from each other in the cup. They are in relationship. Three in One, and One in Three.

Coffee, cream, and sugar. Each is unique, yet each is present in every sip. Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Each is unique, yet each is present in everything God is. In Zen Buddhism there is a saying: seed and grain and flour are not three things, but three aspects of one thing. That’s the Trinity, too.

In a while we will say the creed that came out of that great church council in the fourth century, held at Nicea in Turkey, where the church stated that we believe in one God, the Father, the Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, of all that is, seen and unseen. That’s one person of the Trinity, the Father or Creator. And we believe in on Lord, Jesus Christ, the only Son of God. That’s another person of the Trinity, the Son, the Saviour, the Word. And we believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life. That’s another person of the Trinity, the Spirit, the Sustainer.

That was the fourth century. In 2006 the United Church of Canada produced A Song of Faith, which expresses the same belief in the Trinity, but in poetry, and we will be taking a closer look at this faith statement in an upcoming service. And the Song of Faith says that with the church through the ages, we speak of God as one and triune: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. We also speak of God as Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer; God, Christ, and Spirit; Mother, Friend, and Comforter; Source of Life, Living Word, and Bond of Love; and in other ways that speak faithfully of the One on whom our hearts rely.

Now, this Tim Hortons example of the Trinity isn’t a perfect one, because in a double-double the three parts aren’t in equal proportions. There’s more coffee than there is cream and sugar. I don’t think I could drink equal parts coffee, cream, and sugar. But maybe that’s the way a lot of us see God – we tend to emphasize on person over the others. When we say ‘God’ we often mean the Creator, the Father – we’re not thinking of Christ or the Spirit. We’re seeing the three persons of the Trinity as distinct, but not equal. But Gregory of Nyssa said that it is impossible to think of one of the three members of the Trinity without thinking of the others; they are like a chain of three links, pulling each other along.

So that’s the Trinity, summed up in a few minutes when we could spend our entire lives exploring this mystery. The church has had great debates between Christians who believed that the three persons of the Trinity are equal, and those who believed that the Creator is superior to the Son. Yet what do these really matter? How can this enigma of the Trinity have any relevance for our daily lives and our spirituality, as we try our best to love God and each other, feed the hungry, and work for God’s realm of love and justice and peace?

Well, there’s a clue for us in the Song of Faith, which in its first lines acknowledges that dealing with the idea of the Trinity is a challenge. The Song of Faith says, God is holy mystery, beyond complete knowledge, above perfect description. Yet, in love, the one eternal God seeks relationship.

And that’s why, sisters and brothers, the Trinity is relevant to us as believers. As the Trinity is in relationship, and seeks relationship with us, so we seek relationship with each other. The Trinity is the model of relationship for us.

When we discuss the Trinity, God as Trinity seems static, unmoving, abstract. Even when we think about images of the Trinity like a shamrock or three coins or a Tim Hortons double double, these can’t capture all of the mystery of the Trinity, because they seem too static and unfeeling. For the Trinity is all about movement. The Trinity is all about relationship. The Trinity is all about love. God is love, Scripture tells us. The Father loves the Son with all that God is. The Son loves the Creator in exactly the same way. The Holy Spirit is the love that moves between the two of them. There are three persons of God, but they aren’t solo, they’re made one in a perpetual state of giving and receiving. Love is always moving, always flowing, among the three persons of God.

You know, as some of us buy gifts for Father’s Day, the Father gave Christ an infinite gift to express infinite love, the gift of the universe. Billions of galaxies. Uncounted numbers of stars and planets. All created by the Father in Christ and for Christ, for all things in heaven and on earth were created through him and for him.

And the Spirit is there at the creation, as we read at the beginning of the Bible, moving over the waters. The Spirit is there, bringing Jesus into the world so that he can show us how much God loves us. And it is the power of the Spirit that raises him from the dead. All this shows that the Trinity is not an abstraction. The Trinity is action. The Trinity is events – creation; incarnation; resurrection.

Creation is not a one-time thing but is ongoing. God has created and is creating. God is the source of everything that is in every moment of time - and all because of the love that moves constantly among the Maker and the Saviour and the Spirit.

It is in God that we live and move and have our being. God is the medium in which we exist, like the air, and as God in Trinity is love, it is like we are breathing in love. All creation exists in God’s love. All creation depends on God’s love. We know God’s love because we breathe it in.

But it can’t stop there. To breathe in air and hold onto it would kill us. We have to exhale. And so we must breathe out the love we breathe in. We can’t hold onto God’s love. We have to give it away.

We love because God first loved us. We love because we have no choice; love is all around us. We can’t stop breathing - and we can’t stop loving. That’s the Trinity. And that’s why the Trinity for us is not some irrelevant and abstract doctrine. The Trinity shows us how to love like the three persons of God: continuously, without limit, bound to each other in love, always seeking relationship.

And so Jesus, who is God in human form, love made known, calls us to live in love, to serve in love, to act in love:
“Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to do everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

Statements of Faith

When I was growing up we said the Apostles' Creed every Sunday in worship. Then, in adult life, we said the United Church of Canada's A New Creed pretty regularly. At Ingleside and Newington we say A New Creed about once every two months on average - partially a consequence of having two services, and the Newington service MUST end on time so I can get to Ingleside! I suppose this says something about the importance of confessions of faith in modern spirituality.

But during June and July I plan to ask everyone to say a different statement of faith each week, including A New Creed and the tried-and-true Apostles' and Nicene Creeds, but also Eric Liddell's creed (which he wrote in a Japanese prison camp in China during the Second World War), our United Church of Canada's recent Song of Faith, and this statement of faith just written by my friend Connie Waters, the 'Mama Outlaw' of Outlaw Preachers. I hope this will allow us to reflect on what Christians have believed over the centuries, how these ancient words can have meaning for us today, and how we can retell the Jesus story in our own words. Maybe we'll be inspired to write our own statement!?

It's Pentecost!

Can't improve on this video:

Unco11 fallout...or blowback...or whatever.

A key takeaway for me from the Unco11 conference was the teaching (articulated by Brian Merritt and others) that we don't need to wait for permission from the institutional church - we just need to risk, and go for it. I've been trying to do that in small ways since May 18, and thinking about larger ways.

So, for instance, prior to Unco I got the big idea to work on a partnership between our United Church of Canada Presbytery and the United Church of Christ Association on the other side of the US border, involving a joint witness for peace during the upcoming War of 1812 Bicentennial. I've now set up a discussion of training for ministry and ordination standards between our Presbytery and the UCC Association. I'm sure our two denominations do talk at the national level, but I haven't heard much, and believe that there's much learning to be done as we both deal with putting national decisions into practice and cut denominational standards to fit our own cloth.

As another example, our Montreal and Ottawa Conference has no official Twitter presence, and last year at our annual meeting the table stewards told me not to tweet. This year I didn't wait for the Conference to get around to using Twitter - I went with my tablet and live tweeted the entire meeting, and produced a volume of tweets (and retweets) that enabled me to lobby the new president-elect (who was ordained with me in 2009) to have official tweeting next year.

And our Presbytery, of which I have the honour to be chair this year, is undertaking a major revisioning and restructuring initiative which breaks the traditional 'one minister = one pastoral charge' mould. We began this with little consultation with other levels of the denomination, and I plan to continue to do so - in fact, I am setting up consultations with other Presbyteries interested in our bottom-up process.

None of this is because I'm hostile towards, or suspicious of, The United Church of Canada I love dearly. I'm just an open source church kind of person. I'm thankful that our United Church of Canada is working within a planning framework that recognizes that much of the energy and innovation in the church comes from trying new things at the local level. However, I'm under no illusions that such thinking has support at all levels of our institution. Sometimes, if not most of the time, you have to follow the words of Barry Manilow: "You get what you get when you go for it."