The Athanasian Creed - an oldie but a goodie for Trinity Sunday

I'm feeling inspired as I prepare Trinity Sunday worship for June 3 to go far back into the past, when the doctrine of the Trinity was much debated, and into the present. So our service on Sunday will include the Korean Methodist Creed, a prayer from the Church of South India, the United Church of Canada's 2006 A Song of Faith, and the Creed of St. Athanasius. This ancient creed dates from the late fifth or sixth century, and is an attempt to set down the orthodox Trinitarian faith as it developed at and after the time of the Council of Nicaea. It was probably not written by Athanasius, as it is more Augustinian in its theology. It was included in the Church of England's Book of Common Prayer as a replacement for the Apostles' Creed at Morning Prayer "upon any day in the year."

Quicumque Vult.

Whosoever would be saved needs before all things to hold fast the Catholic faith.
Which faith except a person keep whole and undefiled, without doubt they will perish eternally.

Now the Catholic faith is this, that we worship one God in Trinity, and the Trinity in Unity;
Neither confusing the Persons, nor dividing the Substance.
For there is one Person of the Father, another of the Son, another of the Holy Spirit;
But the Godhead of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit is all one, the glory equal, the majesty co-eternal.
Such as the Father is, such is the Son, and such is the Holy Spirit;
The Father uncreated, the Son uncreated, the Holy Spirit uncreated;
The Father infinite, the Son infinite, the Holy Spirit infinite;
The Father eternal, the Son eternal, the Holy Spirit eternal;
And yet there are not three eternals, but one eternal;
As also there are not three uncreated, nor three infinites, but one infinite, and one uncreated.
So likewise the Father is almighty, the Son almighty, the Holy Spirit almighty;
And yet there are not three almighties, but one almighty.
So the Father is God, the Son God, the Holy Spirit God;
And yet there are not three Gods, but one God.
So the Father is Lord, the Son Lord, the Holy Spirit Lord;
And yet there are not three Lords, but one Lord.
For like as we are compelled by the Christian truth to confess each Person by himself to be both God and Lord;
So we are forbidden by the Catholic religion to speak of three Gods or three Lords.
The Father is made of none, nor created, nor begotten.
The Son is of the Father alone; not made, nor created, but begotten.
The Holy Spirit is of the Father and the Son; not made, nor created, nor begotten, but proceeding.
There is therefore one Father, not three Fathers; one Son, not three Sons; one Holy Spirit, not three Holy Spirits.
And in this Trinity there is no before or after, no greater or less;
But all three Persons are co-eternal together, and co-equal.
So that in all ways, as has been said, both the Trinity is to be worshipped in Unity, and the Unity in Trinity.
Those therefore that would be saved, let them thus think of the Trinity.

Furthermore, it is necessary to eternal salvation, that they also faithfully believe the Incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Now the right faith is that we believe and confess that our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is both God and man.
He is God, of the Substance of the Father, begotten before the worlds; and he is man, of the Substance of his mother, born in the world;
Perfect God; perfect man, of reasoning soul and human flesh subsisting;
Equal to the Father as touching his Godhead; less than the Father as touching his manhood.
Who although he be God and man, yet he is not two, but is one Christ;
One, however, not by conversion of Godhead into flesh, but by taking of manhood into God;
One altogether; not by confusion of Substance, but by unity of Person.
For as reasoning soul and flesh is one human, so God and man is one Christ;
Who suffered for our salvation, descended into hell, rose again from the dead;
Ascended into heaven, sat down at the right hand of the Father, from whence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead.
At whose coming all people must rise again with their bodies, and shall give account for their own deeds.
And they that have done good will go into life eternal; they that have done evil into eternal fire.

This is the Catholic faith, which except a person do faithfully and steadfastly believe, they cannot be saved.

Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit;
as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.

Praying Through the War of 1812 Bicentennial

It may be making little impact outside our little part of Canada, but around here the Bicentennial of the War of 1812 is a big deal. The St. Lawrence River as the border between Canada and the United States saw cross-border skirmishes, and the crucial Battle of Crysler's Farm in 1813 that turned back a large American invasion force headed for Montreal. The American vanguard would have gone right past the site of our town on their way down the river bank to Cornwall and a fight with Canadian militia at Hoople's Creek.

Before becoming chair of Seaway Valley Presbytery last year, I tried to discern how to mark the Bicentennial as The United Church of Canada in this border region. As our denomination was formed through a merger of Methodists, Presbyterians, and Congregationalists, I sought out our sisters and brothers across the river in New York State in denominations linked to our founders: United Methodists, Presbyterian Church (USA), and United Church of Christ. It was the United Church of Christ that leaped at the chance to honour our history and to witness to peace, and now we have a close relationship between our Presbytery and the UCC's Black River-St. Lawrence Association. We have attended each other's meetings and are preparing liturgy to be used in both denominations to mark significant anniversaries during the Bicentennial.

The first joint liturgy in our International Ecumenical Witness to Peace project commemorates the outbreak of the conflict on June 18, 1812, as the declaration of war on Great Britain passed by the US Congress was signed by President James Madison. I composed a prayer which will be used in worship by participating Seaway Valley Presbytery (United Church of Canada) and Black River-St. Lawrence Association (United Church of Christ) congregations on Sunday, June 17. I love the thought of people whose ancestors were divided by war praying the same words together at the same time. It has also been sent to United Church of Canada chaplains in the Canadian Forces.

God of peace,
We remember the violence, fear and pain that came to the St. Lawrence River Valley 200 years ago as war began between the United States and Great Britain, sending armies and navies into battle and neighbours against each other.
We thank you that Canada and the United States have been at peace since that war, and now enjoy friendship.
We pray that peace may continue to prevail between our countries.
We remember the impact of that war on the Native peoples of North America, and how the conflict led to the First Nations losing much of their territories. We pray for reconciliation with indigenous nations.
In your Spirit, help us to remember and honour all who died two centuries ago, as we work for peace in our homes, our communities, our church, and our world.
We pray in the name of the Prince of Peace, Jesus Christ. Amen.

What Does Missional Mean?

What Does Missional Mean? See Steve Knight's discussion at Missional Shift.

Loving Each Other in an Age of Social Media and Culture War: Sermon, Christian Family Sunday, May 13, 2012

“As the Father loved me, I too have loved you. Remain in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will remain in my love, just as I kept my Father’s commandments and remain in his love. I have said these things to you so that my joy will be in you and your joy will be complete. This is my commandment: love each other just as I have loved you. No one has greater love than to give up one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you. I don’t call you servants any longer, because servants don’t know what their master is doing. Instead, I call you friends, because everything I heard from my Father I have made known to you. You didn’t choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you could go and produce fruit and so that your fruit could last. As a result, whatever you ask the Father in my name, he will give you. I give you these commandments so that you can love each other.
John 15:9-17, Common English Bible

Jesus says, love one another as I have loved you. What a great verse on this Sunday to celebrate families. I’ve been thinking a lot about love in families this week, as I led two funeral services and I watched as families expressed their love for their deceased member and for each other, and I listened to stories about love in families. I had been with both families as their loved one was dying, and saw hands held and foreheads wiped and comforting words spoken as life drained away. And this week Kirsty and I were speaking with a mother whose two year old daughter had been diagnosed with an extremely rare childhood cancer, and we heard about that family’s love persisting through the treatments and operation and recovery.

"Love never ends." That’s what the Apostle Paul says in the First Letter to the Corinthians, in a chapter on love that we often read at weddings and could easily be about a mother’s love:

Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

Love never ends. We know this because of Easter, when Jesus died and it seemed that his love for us died with him, but he was raised from death. In the letter to the Romans the Apostle Paul writes about this, in a passage we read at a funeral on Thursday:

I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Love never ends. But sometimes in families, love sure can seem to be on its deathbed. I’ve had other funeral services. One was for a mother who had two daughters, with whom she had not spoken in years; there was some incident in the past and she had destroyed all of the pictures with her daughters in them and never spoke of them again. I was told that this woman’s children were not to be mentioned during the funeral. One of her daughters saw the obituary in the Standard Freeholder and came to the funeral service. Another time a woman had children by birth and by adoption, and again there had been a falling out and the two sets of children put separate obituaries in the paper that left out the names of the other children. I’ve spoken to members of families where parents and children are estranged and have not spoken for years.

Now, in a family it usually takes a lot, a lot of provocation and a lot of time, to damage a relationship so badly that such a severe estrangement takes place. It takes a lot less in our church family, in which we are all children of God and all sisters and brothers in Christ, but we don’t always act as if Jesus gives us this commandment to love one another. Just as everything in the 21st century takes place at a faster pace, relationships end faster. When we choose not to love, we do it more quickly these days. That’s true within the church, and in our society.

This week on CFRA Radio the host of one of the talk shows was complaining that younger people and women were no longer calling in. He said this is because young people and women aren’t interested in issues, but I disagree; I think that people are tired of trying to express their opinion and being told that it’s worth less because it’s not the opinion the host has, or having their motives questioned. They’re probably also tired of the wild exaggerations and insults that are typical on these shows.

The host did say that people are increasingly turning to social media like Facebook and Twitter to express themselves, which is probably true. At the United Church’s Montreal and Ottawa Conference annual meeting next week I have been assigned to tweet the proceedings for people to follow online. People can find the relationships they have with online friends to be very supportive, even if they have never met in person. Perhaps it’s a new way to love one another. But it’s not always loving. If you follow Twitter, or read posts on Facebook or Google+ or the comments on news stories and blog posts online, or get those chain emails that people are always forwarding, you know that, just like talk radio, there’s lots of wild exaggeration, and name-calling, and indignation, and hatred. It’s getting especially bad now, with hyperpartisan attitudes about Canadian and American and Ontario politics, and divisive issues like same sex marriage and abortion and bilingualism all in the news, so proponents and opponents advance their own agendas by tearing apart the other side. Often they do it in the name of Jesus, speaking as Christians. There are even hateful exchanges, saying the most mean-spirited, hurtful things, in online groups devoted to church and the Christian life.

I’m reminded of the verses from the Letter of James:

A small flame can set a whole forest on fire. The tongue is a small flame of fire, a world of evil at work in us. It contaminates our entire lives. People can tame and already have tamed every kind of animal, bird, reptile, and fish. No one can tame the tongue, though. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison. With it we both bless the Lord and curse human beings made in God’s likeness. Blessing and cursing come from the same mouth.

If this letter was written today, it might add the fingers that type emails and Facebook posts. The same fingers can write an email to comfort a sick relative far away, and type a post that is full of toxic language and threats.

I have political and theological opinions, and sometimes when I listen to talk radio or read postings online or listen to the debate within the church I find myself agreeing with what’s expressed, and other times, many times, I’m appalled at how little obedience there is to the command of Jesus to love one another. Although my friends online may be friends only in social media, and many of them are ministers, often they rely on labels and stereotypes that prevent them from seeing anything valid in their opponents’ points. I do that too - too often. When Jesus tells us to love one another as he loved us, we need to ask, how do we love in today’s culture war environment of constant outrage and crisis, when every issue is seen as a battle to the finish between good and evil?

Well, we can think about families. People in families may have different opinions about issues, hold different political allegiances, attend different churches, even support different hockey teams. There may even be cases when mothers and their children have different views. I have probably mentioned before that my cousin Richard was the Conservative candidate for a seat in the New Brunswick Legislature, and his brother in law Gerald was running for the Liberal Party. Richard’s sister Reta, married to Gerald. never revealed who she voted for in that election, but the family’s love wasn’t threatened by this political competition. They laughed about it.

I remember back in the 1990s when the Meech Lake Accord was a big deal. No one even mentions Meech Lake or the Charlottetown Accord now, but they completely dominated politics at the time. And there were loud, passionate family debates about it. But everyone kept loving each other. Families don’t collapse because members express differing opinions. Even if a member goes beyond reasoned debate into outrageous ranting, they will likely be forgiven – well, maybe not right away, but eventually. Love never ends.

And so, if we are able to debate the issues of the day and put across our views in our families while staying in right relationship, we should be able to do so in our church family, and in our human family, without insulting and attacking each other. This doesn’t mean that we don’t feel passion or even anger when we see injustice. This doesn’t mean that we avoid speaking the truth. This doesn’t mean that love requires us to keep our deeply held beliefs hidden. But we can be passionate and powerful without speaking malice and slander. As we express what we believe with conviction and intensity, we are to stay away from personal attacks, and we are to treat those who disagree with us as sisters and brothers and their opinions and beliefs with respect. That is how we should act in a family. That is how we should act as children of God. That is how we should act, this is how we must act, as followers of Jesus Christ, who tells us: "This is my commandment: love each other just as I have loved you...You didn’t choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you could go and produce fruit and so that your fruit could last."

Go and produce fruit, Jesus says. If we love each other, love by listening, love with honesty and respect, then we will produce a harvest that builds up God’s realm of peace and love.

Noah Gets Personalized Weather - From God

The US-based Weather Channel has an ad campaign promoting personalized weather forecasts. As I'm always a big fan of Noah, here he is in this ad in which God delivers Noah's personal forecast of 40 days and 40 nights of rain.

We Will Dance Upon Our Graves: Easter Sunday Sermon, April 8, 2012

I was inspired by "Mary Magdalene's Story" by Heather Johnston, in Geoffrey Duncan, compiler, Let Justice Roll Down: A Worship Resource for Lent, Holy Week and Easter (Cleveland: The Pilgrim Press, 2003), pp. 231-233.

Christ is risen indeed! Alleluia!

Brothers and sisters, I want to call your attention to the good news that I preached to you, which you also received and in which you stand. You are being saved through it if you hold on to the message I preached to you, unless somehow you believed it for nothing.

I passed on to you as most important what I also received: Christ died for our sins in line with the scriptures, he was buried, and he rose on the third day in line with the scriptures. He appeared to Cephas, then to the Twelve, and then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers and sisters at once—most of them are still alive to this day, though some have died. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles, and last of all he appeared to me, as if I were born at the wrong time. I’m the least important of the apostles. I don’t deserve to be called an apostle, because I harassed God’s church. I am what I am by God’s grace, and God’s grace hasn’t been for nothing. In fact, I have worked harder than all the others—that is, it wasn’t me but the grace of God that is with me. So then, whether you heard the message from me or them, this is what we preach and this is what you have believed.
- 1 Corinthians 15:1-11, Common English Bible

Early in the morning of the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and saw that the stone had been taken away from the tomb. She ran to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved, and said, “They have taken the Lord from the tomb, and we don’t know where they’ve put him.”

Peter and the other disciple left to go to the tomb. They were running together, but the other disciple ran faster than Peter and was the first to arrive at the tomb. Bending down to take a look, he saw the linen cloths lying there, but he didn’t go in. Following him, Simon Peter entered the tomb and saw the linen cloths lying there. He also saw the face cloth that had been on Jesus’ head. It wasn’t with the other clothes but was folded up in its own place. Then the other disciple, the one who arrived at the tomb first, also went inside. He saw and believed. They didn’t yet understand the scripture that Jesus must rise from the dead. Then the disciples returned to the place where they were staying.

Mary stood outside near the tomb, crying. As she cried, she bent down to look into the tomb. She saw two angels dressed in white, seated where the body of Jesus had been, one at the head and one at the foot. The angels asked her, “Woman, why are you crying?”

She replied, “They have taken away my Lord, and I don’t know where they’ve put him.” As soon as she had said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she didn’t know it was Jesus. Jesus said to her, “Woman, why are you crying? Who are you looking for?”

Thinking he was the gardener, she replied, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have put him and I will get him.”

Jesus said to her, “Mary.”

She turned and said to him in Aramaic, “Rabbouni” (which means Teacher).

Jesus said to her, “Don’t hold on to me, for I haven’t yet gone up to my Father. Go to my brothers and sisters and tell them, ‘I’m going up to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’”

Mary Magdalene left and announced to the disciples, “I’ve seen the Lord.” Then she told them what he said to her.
- John 20:1-18, Common English Bible

Mary Magdalene, Mary from the town of Magdala in Galilee. She rises very early on that Sunday morning, while it is still dark, and as she wakes the terrible memories come back and she knows that the last few days have not just been a bad dream. Jesus - the man who had healed her of a mental illness; the man she had looked to for compassion and understanding - is dead. She and the other women had watched in horror as he carried his cross outside the city, then they had wept for him as the Roman soldiers hung him on it and left him to his agony. The women had watched by themselves, because the male friends of Jesus had all deserted him and were in hiding. Then she seemed to move in a daze with the little group of his supporters who took his body to the tomb.

Now she gets up and carries a jar of ointment so that she can do some of the burial preparations neglected in the rush on Friday. There are faint light streaks in the sky as she heads out. She meets up with other women who had followed Jesus and watched him die. They ask each other how they can enter the tomb when there is a heavy stone sealing its entrance.

It is still quite dark in the garden where the tomb is located, but is getting just light enough to see that the stone has been rolled away to expose the entrance. The body of Jesus must be gone! They have been denied even this one last thing they were going to do for him. The shocked women back into the city, to the house where the followers of Jesus are holed up, and they whisper urgently through the locked door that it is them, let them in. Mary breathlessly tells them, “They’ve taken our Lord from the tomb, and we don’t know where they’ve put him.”

And then Mary is gasping for breath again as she runs behind two of the men, Peter and another friend of Jesus, as they race to the tomb. The other friend is the fastest, and arrives first. The sun is coming up now, so as he stoops down he can make out the linen burial cloths inside the tomb, but he hesitates to go further. Then Peter runs up, enters and sees that the cloths are folded neatly. His friend goes in after him, sees and believes, but what? How is the body gone? The two men look around, then head back into the city before someone comes along and reports that they have taken the corpse.

Mary Magdalene stays there, left alone near the tomb, trying to make sense of all of this, tears streaming down her face, probably out of breath from her run. She realizes that someone is standing behind her, a man who asks, “Why are you crying? Who are you looking for?” She still has her gaze set on the tomb, and without turning replies, “Are you the gardener? If you have carried him away, tell me where you have put him and I will get him.”

And then the man speaks again. And her heart jumps as she recognizes the voice, the voice she thought she would never hear again. “Mary,” Jesus says.

She turns, hardly daring to believe what she is hearing. “Teacher,” she says, and reaches out her hands to him, but Jesus says, “Don’t hold on to me. I haven’t yet gone up to my Father. Go to my brothers and sisters and tell them that you have seen me.” And when she wipes away her tears, he is gone. And she is off running again, into the city with the news, wondering if anyone will believe her when the words explode from her, “I have seen the Lord.”

What a story. Of all of the friends of Jesus, of all the people in the world, Mary Magdalene is the first witness to the resurrection, the only one who knows that Jesus is alive. And she is sent to tell everyone.

You know, these last few weeks have been tough for folks here - as hard for some people as the last days before Easter were for the friends of Jesus. I lost track of the number of funerals in Ingleside, Finch, and Morrisburg. At one point the funeral director and I realized that we had seen each other every day for four days straight. Some of us seemed constantly to be going to a funeral visitation or service.

So we can know something of the emotions of that group following Jesus. Any of us who have experienced the death of a loved one know how grief overwhelms us and it feels as if we’re just going through the motions of life. We want to be like those friends of Jesus, in hiding and not coming out. Last Easter my mother died on the Saturday morning, and I felt as if I was one of those in Jerusalem on that long ago weekend, devastated by death, emotionally raw, and wondering what comes next.

This last month it’s been as if we’re surrounded by death. And we are. We have been coping with the deaths of people we know. And around us is a culture of death which celebrates death in video games and TV shows and movies, a Good Friday world in which nations kill to preserve peace and security, just as an empire killed Jesus to keep order.

And so we can understand, and relate to, the characters in the story: Peter - who sees but returns home; the unnamed other friend, who sees and believes, but isn't sure what; and Mary, who goes from grief to joy. You know, many of us have heard the Easter story our whole lives. Yet we still wonder about it. We still struggle with it. We’re still unsure what it means for us as we cope with death. We hear the story, and we want to believe it, but we’re still hesitant. Facing the death of loved ones and friends, we’re like Mary Magdalene, crying in sorrow.

We had another reading this morning, from the first letter to the Corinthians. Paul, who wrote this letter, joined the Jesus movement long after that first Easter, but he tells the Corinthian church about what he was told: Jesus died for us as the Scriptures said, he was buried, and he rose from the dead, again in line with the Scriptures. Then he appeared to his followers.

We stopped reading at that point. But this chapter was also read at my mother’s funeral, and it continues: "If Christ hasn’t been raised, then our faith is useless. If we have hope in Christ only in this life, then we deserve to be pitied more than anyone else." But, Paul says, "in fact Christ has been raised from the dead. He’s the first crop of the harvest of those who have died." Paul means here that Jesus being raised from death at Easter is the first of many resurrections to come, as all the dead will be raised. Paul says, "each event will happen in the right order: Christ, the first crop of the harvest, then those who belong to Christ at his coming, and then the end," when he brings every authority and power to an end, including death. And Paul concludes this chapter with stirring words: "we will all be changed, in an instant, at the blink of an eye, at the final trumpet. The trumpet will blast, and the dead will be raised with bodies that won’t decay, and we will all be changed. Death has been swallowed up by a victory. Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?"

Paul also writes to another group of believers, the Thessalonians, telling them, "brothers and sisters, we want you to know about people who have died so that you won’t grieve like others who don’t have any hope. Since we believe that Jesus died and rose, so we also believe that God will bring with him those who have died in Jesus."

Brothers and sisters, because of Easter, death may still be with us, but it has no sting. All of the dead will be raised.

I was in Nashville, Tennessee, last fall, and got into a lot of new country and gospel music there. I was listening to two women from Texas, who call themselves The Reliques, and they have a song called The Love of God. They sing, “I will dance upon my grave, when you’re calling out my name.”

It’s been difficult this last while to think about dancing on graves. But Jesus was raised to show that nothing, not even death, can separate us from God’s love. Jesus was raised to free us from death’s hold on us. Jesus was raised to break the power of all death: physical death, the death of relationships and dreams and hopes, the death inherent in human systems based on violence. Death will come to an end

Right now it’s hard to feel like this is an Easter world. It’s still a Good Friday world much of the time. But Easter is the first day of the week, the first day of a world changed forever, because of that moment when Mary Magdalene in her grief hears a familiar voice say her name. The Lord of heaven and earth, through whom and for whom everything was created, who did not exploit equality with the Creator but emptied himself to become human, to suffer with us, and go to death on a cross – Christ speaks her name with love. We may not recognize him through our tears, but he is there, speaking our names so that we will not grieve as people do who have no hope, speaking our names so that hope can set us free from sorrow to share the new life of Easter with others.

Weeping may last for a night, but joy comes with the dawn. We will dance upon our graves, when Christ is calling out our names. Thanks be to God who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

Easter Sunday slides

I was late with the Good Friday slides, and most worship planners are probably done at least their lectionary presentations for Easter Sunday - that is, if they have a projector, which we don't at either Newington or Trinity Ingleside (but we're looking at it). Here are the beautifully done PowerPoint slides with the Revised Common Lectionary readings for Easter Sunday from the Common English Bible.

It's the story that we can never tire of: "Don’t be alarmed! You are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has been raised. He isn’t here."

09_Easter_4-8-2012

Good Friday (at the last minute)

I'm very late posting these, but I'm probably not the only worship leader rushing to get things ready with a day left! Here are the PowerPoint slides for Good Friday worship, with the Revised Common Lectionary readings from the Common English Bible.

08_GoodFriday_4-6-2012

Another concept video: Project Glass

A while ago I posted Microsoft concept videos set in the near future. This one is from Google's Project Glass, and shows interaction with the cloud through augmented reality glasses. Temperature, calendar events, location-based checkins, sharing with Google+ circles, voice calls - all come through the spectacles.

Faithgirlz! and Boys Bibles

I was pleased to receive copies of the NIV Faithgirlz! and NIV Boys Bibles for review. These have been developed for children 9 to 12 years old, adding a number of features to the New International Version text of the Scriptures. Both Bibles have topical indexes of Bible verses, blank pages for journaling, and introductions to each book that state clearly who wrote it, why they wrote it, for whom they wrote it, when it was written, and what are some of the book's important teachings.

Faithgirlz! has material designed to let tween girls imagine themselves in the story as "Dream Girls," "Treasure This" words to live by for memorization, and "Oh I Get It" answers to Bible questions. The Boys Bible has highlighted verses for memorizing, fun facts about Bible times and characters, "Makin' It Real" help for applying Bible stories to tween lives, and - what I am sure will be a much-read section by boys - "Grossology," gross and gory stuff boys never knew was in the Scriptures ("If it oozes, bleeds, smells, or make your spine tingle, it's in the Bible"). These features are interspersed with the Scriptural text in both Bibles.

I outsourced the Faithgirlz! review to a 10 year old girl. She was very pleased with this Bible. She found the features very interesting, and liked the "Bring It On!" bubbles in particular - these are short quizzes about life issues that lead to applicable Bible verses. For example:

I have trouble being patient when:
A. Other people act stupid.
B. Someone does something to me and just expects me to forgive them.
C. I try to be good but things get in the way.

If you answered:
A. Go to Romans 15:1-6.
B. Go to Colossians 3:12-13.
C. Go to Hebrews 12:1-3.

She also appreciated the two indexes: Promises From the Bible lists God's promises when you are...sick, confused, impatient, and so on, and helpful Bible verses for each; and Perspectives From the Bible, what the Bible says about anxiety, compassion, love, revenge, etc. The same indexes are in the Boys Bible. Her mother looked at the Faithgirlz! website and was very impressed at the range of material, not just the Bible but fiction, devotionals, and other non-fiction, all intended for tween girls discovering "the beauty of believing."

She did comment that the font is quite small and it's easy for a tween reader to lose focus on the page. With all of the extra material, the publisher, Zondervan, likely found it difficult to use a larger font size in a 1480-page volume.

So thanks to my reviewer! Overall, these are great resources for pre-teens in the target age group. As a minister in a liberal Protestant denomination, I can critique the exclusive use of masculine pronouns for God and the literal approach to Biblical authorship (for instance, scholars are pretty certain that Paul did not write the letters to Timothy or Titus). But I realize that parents are searching for Biblical resources that will engage their tweens, and these pre-teens are looking to be engaged with a Biblical text that has features added to appeal to them. My generation had to make do with the unadorned King James Bible; when we were teens the Good News Translation ("Good News For Modern Man") came along. Perhaps we would have read more closely if our Bibles had Grossology or Dream Girls features.

Riding On a Donkey: Sermon, Palm Sunday, April 1, 2012

When Jesus and his followers approached Jerusalem, they came to Bethphage and Bethany at the Mount of Olives. Jesus gave two disciples a task, saying to them, “Go into the village over there. As soon as you enter it, you will find tied up there a colt that no one has ridden. Untie it and bring it here. If anyone says to you, ‘Why are you doing this?’ say, ‘Its master needs it, and he will send it back right away.’”

They went and found a colt tied to a gate outside on the street, and they untied it. Some people standing around said to them, “What are you doing, untying the colt?” They told them just what Jesus said, and they left them alone. They brought the colt to Jesus and threw their clothes upon it, and he sat on it. Many people spread out their clothes on the road while others spread branches cut from the fields. Those in front of him and those following were shouting, “Hosanna! Blessings on the one who comes in the name of the Lord! Blessings on the coming kingdom of our ancestor David! Hosanna in the highest!” Jesus entered Jerusalem and went into the temple. After he looked around at everything, because it was already late in the evening, he returned to Bethany with the Twelve.
- Mark 11:1-11, Common English Bible

We’ve heard from all the characters in the Palm Sunday story: Jesus, riding into the city; his followers, sent to make the arrangements for his entrance; the onlookers, who ask what these people are up to; the crowds who shout Hosanna and lay branches and clothes on the road in front of Jesus. Well, we haven’t heard from one, the character no one wanted to play when we looked at the story in confirmation class: the donkey. But how much of a story would there be without the donkey?

The donkey is the character that doesn’t get any respect. Donkeys get overlooked, or are seen as stupid, or ugly, or pitiful like Eeyore in Winnie the Pooh, or amusing like Donkey in the Shrek movies. Remember the first Shrek movie, how when Donkey is brought to the roundup of the fairy tale creatures the soldiers laugh at him and mock him, which sounds like what happens to Jesus when he is arrested. But this Donkey can speak – when Princess Fiona says, he can talk, Shrek says “yeah, it’s getting him to shut up that’s the trick.” And he can fly when he is sprinkled with pixie dust, calling out to the guards, “Now I’m a flying talking donkey! You might have seen a housefly, maybe even a superfly, but you ain’t never seen a donkeyfly!” As great as this Palm Sunday story is, imagine what it would be like if Jesus had come into the city on a flying donkey. That would be awesome.

There is actually a talking donkey in the Bible, back near the beginning in the book of Numbers. Whenever I read that story, I think of the donkey speaking in Eddie Murphy’s voice from Shrek. But a talking donkey still doesn’t get respect. Even his friend Shrek calls Donkey useless, pathetic and annoying. And Donkey says to Shrek, “You don’t know what it’s like to be treated as a freak! Well, maybe you do.”

So there’s a point here for any of us who ever feel left out, useless, looked down upon, laughed at, freakish, because of our appearance or disability or other circumstances – the Palm Sunday story doesn’t work without the donkey. G.K. Chesterton, who was an English writer, wrote a poem about this, told from the donkey’s point of view, and part of the poem goes:

With monstrous head and sickening cry
And ears like errant wings
The devil’s walking parody
Of all four-footed things.

The tatter’d outlaw of the earth
Of ancient crooked will;
Starve, scourge, deride me, I am dumb,
I keep my secret still.

Fools! For I also had my hour,
One far fierce hour and sweet;
There was a shout about my ears,
And palms before my feet.

Today the donkey is the object of contempt. But in the time of Jesus it was the beast of kings. In the first Shrek movie Donkey gets excited when the princess calls him a noble steed, but 20 centuries ago the donkey was noble. A king rode to war on a horse, but when he came in peace he rode on a donkey. The prophet Zechariah says in the Bible, “Your king comes to you, riding on a donkey.”

Jesus is acting out this prophecy, and he needs the donkey to do it. He doesn’t walk into the city like the other pilgrims coming for the festival. The story really doesn’t work without the donkey, to show that Jesus is the king who comes in peace. And he is greeted as a king, with the crowd laying branches and cloaks on the road, and shouting Hosanna, save us.

Jesus is not claiming to be the kind of ruler people expected, who would smash the Roman legions and free Palestine from foreign occupation, then go on to shatter all of the world’s empires. He is indeed a king, but not one who relies on political and military power. He is not a ruler like the Roman governor, who is having his own parade as he leads his troops on his horse, marching into the city to beef up the garrison and keep order.

No, Jesus is a king who comes in peace, on a donkey. He is a king who reaches out to all who are despised and put down and rejected. He is a king who is despised and put down and rejected himself: betrayed by one of his friends, abandoned by the rest of his friends, convicted at his trial through false testimony, mocked by his guards and then by the crowd, beaten then executed in the most painful and shameful way the empire knew, and buried instead of his corpse being tossed into the city dump only through the intervention of one of his supporters. He is a king who is humble, who does not use his power to save himself, who asks forgiveness for those who are torturing him. He is a king wearing a crown of thorns, and with a sign on his cross, Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews, put up by the authorities intending to make fun of him, not knowing how true these words are.

Jesus is a king, a different kind of king because of all this. And at Easter he will be raised from death, putting the world’s empires on notice that their might is no match for a king who comes humbly, riding on a donkey.

Igor, Richard III and Jesus

I'm grateful to Two Friars and a Fool (three awesome children of God) for posting my personal reflection on disability and faith, Displaying God's Mighty Works, and to the kind folks who have commented on it and shared it through social networks. Please let me know what you think!

Fifth Sunday in Lent

The season of Lent, and the "Change Your Heart and Life" blogtour, are nearing their completion. Here are the Common English Bible slides with the Revised Common Lectionary readings for the Fifth Sunday in Lent, March 25. I've appreciated having such well-done slides available for worship this season.

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Fourth Sunday in Lent

The "Change Your Heart and Life" blogtour continues! Here are the Common English Bible slides with the Revised Common Lectionary readings for the Fourth Sunday in Lent, March 18. I'm now preparing sermon ideas, starting with comparing the wording of the John passage in the CEB with the familiar King James and New Revised Standard Version translations that people are used to hearing.

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Madame Tutli-Putli

Last night's leisure time included watching Chivas USA vs. Houston Dynamo soccer action on MLS Live, the ABC/CTV series GCB, and this: the exquisitely animated National Film Board of Canada short Madame Tutli-Putli. Easily outshone the rest of the night's online and broadcast viewing.

Balance: Sermon, March 11, 2012

All of these Revised Common Lectionary readings come from the Common English Bible.

Then God spoke all these words:

I am the LORD your God who brought you out of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.
You must have no other gods before me.
Do not make an idol for yourself—no form whatsoever—of anything in the sky above or on the earth below or in the waters under the earth. Do not bow down to them or worship them, because I, the LORD your God, am a passionate God. I punish children for their parents’ sins even to the third and fourth generations of those who hate me. But I am loyal and gracious to the thousandth generationj of those who love me and keep my commandments.
Do not use the LORD your God’s name as if it were of no significance; the LORD won’t forgive anyone who uses his name that way.
Remember the Sabbath day and treat it as holy. Six days you may work and do all your tasks, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God. Do not do any work on it—not you, your sons or daughters, your male or female servants, your animals, or the immigrant who is living with you. Because the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and everything that is in them in six days, but rested on the seventh day. That is why the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.
Honor your father and your mother so that your life will be long on the fertile land that the LORD your God is giving you.
Do not kill.
Do not commit adultery.
Do not steal.
Do not testify falsely against your neighbor.
Do not desire your neighbor’s house. Do not desire and try to take your neighbor’s wife, male or female servant, ox, donkey, or anything else that belongs to your neighbor.
- Exodus 20:1-17

The message of the cross is foolishness to those who are being destroyed. But it is the power of God for those of us who are being saved. It is written in scripture: I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and I will reject the intelligence of the intelligent. Where are the wise? Where are the legal experts? Where are today’s debaters? Hasn’t God made the wisdom of the world foolish? In God’s wisdom, he determined that the world wouldn’t come to know him through its wisdom. Instead, God was pleased to save those who believe through the foolishness of preaching. Jews ask for signs, and Greeks look for wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, which is a scandal to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles. But to those who are called — both Jews and Greeks — Christ is God’s power and God’s wisdom. This is because the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength.
- 1 Corinthians 1:18-25

It was nearly time for the Jewish Passover, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. He found in the temple those who were selling cattle, sheep, and doves, as well as those involved in exchanging currency sitting there. He made a whip from ropes and chased them all out of the temple, including the cattle and the sheep. He scattered the coins and overturned the tables of those who exchanged currency. He said to the dove sellers, “Get these things out of here! Don’t make my Father’s house a place of business.” His disciples remembered that it is written, Passion for your house consumes me.

Then the Jewish leaders asked him, “By what authority are you doing these things? What miraculous sign will you show us?”

Jesus answered, “Destroy this temple and in three days I’ll raise it up.”

The Jewish leaders replied, “It took forty-six years to build this temple, and you will raise it up in three days?” But the temple Jesus was talking about was his body. After he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered what he had said, and they believed the scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken.
- John 2:13-22

Last week we talked about covenant, the covenants God makes with Noah and then with Abraham and Sarah. And in the Bible story, 400 years after covenanting with Sarah and Abraham, God makes a covenant with Moses and Israel. God brings the people of Israel out of slavery in Egypt and guides them toward the promised land, and in return the people will keep the law God gives, beginning with the Ten Commandments.

We didn’t read through the chapter in the book of Exodus that comes before the Ten Commandments are listed, but a lot of us know what it looks like, either through pictures in our Bibles or the movie with Charlton Heston, in which this is the big final scene. There is thunder and lightning and a cloud on Mount Sinai, and the people of Israel stand at the foot of the mountain and Moses goes up it, into smoke and fire, where God speaks to Moses in thunder and gives the commandments.

We recited the Ten Commandments today. Our Methodist ancestors did this every time they celebrated Communion, way back when. It used to be quite common to see pictures or sculptures of the tablets with the commandments listed, in homes and churches and even in public buildings, but they’re rare today. Now a lot of us have trouble remembering which commandment is which, whether the sixth commandment is thou shalt not murder or thou shalt not commit adultery. Number six is not murdering, by the way. Although I should mention that the numbering of the commandments differs among Jews, Catholics and Protestants –number six is not murdering for us, but it’s number five for Roman Catholics and Lutherans.

Another thing worth mentioning is that the commandments are arranged in two groups. The first five commandments make up the first group, each containing the phrase “the Lord your God” and spelling out a duty to God. This group begins with prohibiting acts of disrespect for God: have no other gods, don’t make or worship idols, don’t misuse God’s name. Then there are two duties to God which honour God: remember the Sabbath and honour your parents, which is seen as a counterpart to honouring God.

The second group of commandments contains duties to other people, and these duties are shown as being of just as much concern to God as the duties to God in the first group: don’t murder, don’t commit adultery, don’t steal, don’t lie, don’t covet, or desire, your neighbour’s property. The things listed here that you might covet are from a society different than ours: we don’t consider our spouses our possessions, or have slaves, and only a few of us have oxen or donkeys. But the point is not to lust after anything that is your neighbour’s. The original Hebrew word we translate as “covet” can mean “scheme to get your hands on.” So we would say, don’t plot how to acquire your neighbour’s house, or pets, or LCD TV, or snowmobile, or ATV, or anything else that’s your neighbour’s.

The Ten Commandments is only one of today’s readings. We also had Psalm 19, in our call to worship, about God’s commandments being pure, right, true, perfect. And we heard from the New Testament, about God’s foolishness being wiser than the world’s wisdom, and the story of Jesus clearing the money changers and other merchants out of the Temple. So what do all these have in common? What could the theme be here?

All of this language and drama seems very foreign to us. A society where people are either Jews or Greeks. Cattle and sheep and doves for sale in a place of worship. And it seems even more long ago and far away if we study the Bible, and discover that the meanings of some of these commandments in the ancient Middle East are not the ways we see them today. And we find that the moneychangers whose tables Jesus flips over in the Temple are there because using coins with the Roman Emperor’s picture would violate the second commandment against idols, as the Emperor was worshiped as a god. So these had to be exchanged for Temple coins for the offering. We just don’t see our money the same way. We have a picture of the Queen on every coin.

But these ancient words from the Bible do have something to say to us and something to do with us. Speaking of coins, I remember when we did experiments in physics class in high school, and we had to put round metal weights on a balance and try to bring the weight on the two sides into alignment. It seems to me that our passages from the Bible today are about bringing things, bringing life, back into balance.

I picked up on a little sermon starter in Gathering, our United Church of Canada worship resource, about balance. The Ten Commandments are about balance: between communal responsibility and personal behaviour. We talk about that a lot after we read and listen to the news, because there is always tension between the freedom we have as individuals and the obligations we have to the community. You know, there’s a balance between our freedom to use our property and allowing our neighbours to enjoy their property. The Ten Commandments are a 35 century-old model of how to balance what we do individually with what we need to do in common. And they stand up pretty well.

The reading from the First Letter to the Corinthians is about balance between God’s foolishness and the world’s wisdom. We need the world’s wisdom to function in our individual lives and in our lives together – our society would break down without law enforcement, and computer networks, and health care, and weather forecasting. But the Apostle Paul, who wrote this letter, reminds us that everything the world considers wise is nothing compared to God. After all, God created the planet, and the weather, and the electrons computers are based upon, and gave us the abilities that led to language and mathematics and everything else that our civilization is based upon. Yet even after God gave humans all that we have, our society just pays lip service to the message of Christ put to death on the cross and then risen from death. It doesn’t truly listen to this message or recognize its implications. So there needs to be a balance, between human wisdom – which really comes from God in the first place – and God’s wisdom which seems so foolish by the world’s standards.

Jesus comes into the religious centre of his people, and drives out the moneychangers and the sellers of animals, saying that God’s house can’t be a place of business. And this story is all about balance. Things in the Temple were out of balance. Sacrifices of animals were supposed to bring people into right relationship with God, as commanded in the laws that follow the Ten Commandments in the Bible. But the whole system of sacrifice was being distorted. There was corruption in the exchange of money. The act of worshipping God had become a commercial transaction, with all the emphasis on buying animals and changing coins. The Temple priests were more concerned about power and privilege and profit than the relationship with God the original covenant had been about. So Jesus comes to restore balance. With his whip he upsets this scheme of buying and selling which is throwing worship out of balance, throwing over tables and chasing the sellers and their animals out. He speaks of his body as a temple, for his body brings God and humanity into relationship, into covenant, bringing back balance: not through animal sacrifice, but through his own sacrifice on the cross.

That is why, the Corinthians are told in our reading, we preach Christ crucified. It may be scandalous to many, and foolish to others, but to those of us who are called, Christ is God’s power and God’s wisdom – and God’s balance.

We need balance. We know that our lives, our society are out of balance. I realized that I need to restore some balance when I was running around at the end of each evening plugging in all these electronic devices to charge – I spend too much time charging iPod and tablet and cell phone, and keeping batteries charged in TV and DVD and Wii remotes. We need balance between work and leisure. We need balance at home. We need balance in our politics, our government, business, in God’s creation.

In the Bible, after Moses receives the Ten Commandments he hands down hundreds of other laws, governing everything from hair length to eating. Orthodox Jews still observe these laws today to keep their side of the covenant with God. Jesus sets us, who are not Jewish, free from keeping all these laws, for he brings us into covenant and we are saved by faith. But there is a whole chunk of the New Testament about this, telling us that, even though we do not need to obey the laws and we may not even remember all of these hundreds of requirements, we still follow the spirit of the laws through faith, as if by instinct. There is something deep within us that echoes the truth of God’s laws, with their emphasis on justice and the common good.

So as Christians we don’t need to worry over obeying the law about not wearing clothes that mix wool and linen together, or the rules on buying back family property. But we do observe the gist of the laws, summed up in the Ten Commandments, 3500 years old but still a model for balance. We don’t adhere to the commandments out of fear. In the Ten Commandments, there are no punishments spelled out. Following them isn’t motivated by being afraid of punishment, but by wanting to live according to God’s will. This isn’t primarily about behaviour – it’s about relationship, and living in relationship with God. And this seeking relationship, seeking balance, can’t help but affect how we live in every way. As we live in relationship with God, in balance, then we will live in the spirit of the law, our lives echoing the truth of the Ten Commandments: truth for us, truth for the church, truth for our community and our country and our world. May God write all these laws on our hearts. Amen.

Building an International Bridge

There's a piece by Lorna Grant in the March 2012 issue of The Clarion/Le Clairon on my initiative to link our Seaway Valley Presbytery of The United Church of Canada with the United Church of Christ's Black River-St. Lawrence Association in New York State. It's on page six of The Clarion, which is published three times a year as an insert in The United Church Observer.

As the article describes, we have now established a good working relationship between the two churches, on joint projects marking the bicentennial of the War of 1812 (and the subsequent 200 years of peace between our two countries) and on cooperation in sharing best practices in mission and church life. We have been truly blessed by this partnership - thanks to the Holy Spirit for prodding us!

Third Sunday in Lent

The "Change Your Heart and Life" blogtour continues! Here are the Common English Bible slides with the Revised Common Lectionary readings for the Third Sunday in Lent, March 11. I'm quite interested in how the CEB translates the Ten Commandments from Exodus 20:1-17.

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Gospel Story Bible

I was very pleased to receive a review copy of The Gospel Story Bible: Discovering Jesus in the Old and New Testaments by Marty Machowski (New Growth Press, Greensboro NC, 2011).

The author is a Family Life Pastor at Covenant Fellowship Church in Glen Mills PA, and is a long-time staff member at that church. He has compiled 156 stories, based on the English Standard Version (ESV) Bible, into an illustrated Bible storybook aimed at families.

I have a number of these storybooks, and The Gospel Story Bible covers the hit parade of Biblical stories I would expect, with the major characters of the Old Testament and the key stories of Jesus and the apostles from the New. Two things set this volume apart. My other storybook Bibles have nice pictures on white pages; The Gospel Story Bible has richly coloured pages and vibrant illustrations by A.E. Macha, in a style somewhat like Gustav Klimt paintings. The pictures are not in a realistic style, but are recognizable: I showed the book to 10 year olds and they quickly identified the subject of illustrations of events in the life of Jesus, while admiring the colours and the artist's approach.

The other unique aspect of this storybook is its theme. Machowski writes a conclusion to each story that connects each one to the overall narrative of God's redemption of humanity through Jesus Christ. This is typical of the early church which saw such Old Testament stories as Noah's ark, Abraham's near-sacrifice of Isaac, and Israel's flight through the Red Sea as types pointing to Christ. However, there is more emphasis now on the Old Testament narrative of Israel as deserving treatment in its Jewish context and understanding, not just as a series of types. This is not to say that Machowski's perspective, with the whole Bible as one story with one hero in Jesus Christ, is problematic in itself, and it has a long historical pedigree in Christianity.

The Gospel Story Bible is written for children from preschool to high school, although I would expose high schoolers to other treatments of the Old Testament as well as this view of Israel's salvation history as a sign of Christ. There are discussion questions with each story, suitable for family conversations as the book is read, although these are aimed more at younger children.

When it seems that many children (and adults) do not know the characters and events of either Testament, The Gospel Story Bible is a good supplement to the Biblical text as families seek to learn the Biblical stories and discern what they mean for their lives.

As a minister, I need to add that, with its short stories, lovely illustrations, and discussion questions, this is a great resource for pastors and Sunday school teachers - it's ideal for children's time in worship.

Second Sunday in Lent

Here are the Common English Bible slides with the Revised Common Lectionary readings for the Second Sunday in Lent, March 4. The "Change Your Heart and Life" blogtour is now underway!

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