Monday, May 10, 2021
An Update
Thursday, March 25, 2021
A Lament for the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination
One of my contributions to this worship service was composing a Lament. The Anglican and Evangelical Lutheran churches in Canada and the United States issued a statement together for this day, with a prayer which begins “God of holy ground, move us to lament and repent.” And so we are moved to lament during the day and the season of Lent. This lament is mine, as a white person, and is written from my perspective.
The book of Lamentations says, “See, O Lord, how distressed I am; my stomach churns, my heart is wrung within me.”
That is how I feel today, O Lord, as I reflect on this day to eliminate racial discrimination.
I lament.
I lament all the times I have thought of the accusation of racism as being worse than racism itself, when I have bristled at phrases like “white privilege,” when I have thought or even said the time-worn excuses, “I don’t have a racist bone in my body” and “some of my friends are Black, or Indigenous, or Asian.”
I lament when I thought or said, “I don’t see colour,” thinking that absolved me of racism when I was really diminishing the identity of BIPOC people. I lament when my mind turned first to the motives and history of a BIPOC person caught up or killed in an altercation with police– and I lament that I even think of these as “altercations” when there aren’t two sides.
But reflecting on today, what I really lament is what I have missed, with my unconscious and conscious prejudices and attitudes and socializations.
I missed so much by regarding a white Canada as “normal.”
I missed so much by building up and contributing to myths that rely on white people, white institutions, and by feeling threatened if stories are told of a Canada with BIPOC people.
When our churches are predominantly white, I have considered them to be, well, churches, and if they are largely BIPOC people, I have put them into a category of “ethnic ministries.”
I have missed so much by viewing whiteness as so much a part of the natural order that I barely notice it.
The United Church made an apology to Indigenous peoples in 1986 and I lament that its wording still rings true today: We confused Western ways and culture with the depth and breadth and length and height of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Western ways. White ways.
How much have I missed, Lord, how much have we missed, by not hearing BIPOC voices, how much have we missed being closed to BIPOC spirituality and ways of worship and interpretations of the good news of Jesus, how much have we missed displaying the omnipresent portrait of white Jesus and not representing him as other than white.
How much have I, we, missed by seeing BIPOC people and spirituality and culture and conditions as alien, or only in terms of white culture and spirituality and conditions?
How much have I, we, missed by only reading and listening to and watching stories of BIPOC people if they are minor characters in a narrative with a white saviour who rescues people who can’t help themselves?
How have I, we, missed by thinking of Christianity as European when its first followers were brown, when one of the first “Christian” nations was Ethiopia? How have I, we, missed with mental pictures of non-white peoples as latecomers to Christian faith when there have been Christians in India for 20 centuries, in China for 14 centuries – when the first Protestant missionaries arrived in China at the same time as much of Canada?
I lament that I, and we, are poorer for this, that conscious and unconscious prejudice has blurred the image of God in me and us, I and we are not what God meant me and us to be.
I lament too, God, that I have been taught to see racism as only individual acts,done by bad people. “Uncle so and so is racist but I’m not,” I can then say. I lament that this protects the whole system behind these actions as I and we think of racism as a personal choice, not a web of systems and principalities and powers that ensnares us and yet we benefit from it. I lament that when I only see the systemic racism, I am letting the systems to be racist for me, protecting myself as a white person from my own personal prejudices, assumptions, biases and benefits from a racist society and structures.
I lament, God. May my lament produce in me personal transformation and become action, as an individual, as a community, as a church, that lament can inspire me and us to make the name of this day real, concrete, life-changing, life-giving. But, God, don’t let us stop lamenting, as if we have reached the end of the journey.
Thursday, March 04, 2021
Foundation and Empire
This is from Isaac Asimov's Foundation series of novels - not Foundation and Empire, as my blog post's title would suggest, but Second Foundation, published in 1953. This passage is set on Rossem, a chilly but inhabited planet on the periphery of the Galaxy, visited only by trading ships.
And then one day not unlike other days a ship arrived again. The old men of each village nodded wisely and lifted their old eyelids to whisper that thus it had been in their father's time - but it wasn't, quite... The men within called themselves soldiers of Tazenda.The peasants were confused. They had not heard of Tazenda, but they greeted the soldiers nonetheless in the traditional fashion of hospitality. The newcomers inquired closely as to the nature of the planet, the number of its inhabitants, the number of its cities - a word mistaken by the peasants to mean "villages" to the confusion of all concerned - its type of economy and so on.
Other ships came and proclamations were issued all over the world that Tazenda was now the ruling world, that tax-collecting stations would be established girding the equator - the inhabited region - that percentages of grain and furs according to certain numerical formulae would be collected annually.
The Rossemites had blinked solemnly, uncertain of the word "taxes."
I don't know if this was Asimov's intent, but how dissimilar is the Rossemites' experience from that of the original peoples of the Americas, Africa, or the Pacific when Tazenda/European powers asserted sovereignty based on a decree made by a far-away ruler?
Isaac Asimov, Second Foundation, © 1953 by Isaac Asimov (New York: Ballantine Books, 1983, 12th ed. 1987), p. 43.
Tuesday, February 02, 2021
Unclean Spirits, Mental Health and Safe Space: Sermon, January 31, 2021
Jesus and his followers went into Capernaum. Immediately on the Sabbath Jesus entered the synagogue and started teaching. The people were amazed by his teaching, for he was teaching them with authority, not like the legal experts. Suddenly, there in the synagogue, a person with an evil spirit screamed, “What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are. You are the holy one from God.”We are in the beginning of Mark’s Gospel and Jesus is beginning his ministry by preaching in Galilee that the kingdom of God is near, calling his first disciples, and arriving in the town of Capernaum, teaching in the synagogue, and healing a man with a spirit. The Greek word used to describe this spirit can be translated as unclean, impure, evil. And the spirit cries out, “What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth?” These words can be translated as “leave us alone” or “mind your own business!” And Jesus tells the spirit to come out, and the people are amazed, that he teaches with authority, not like one of their religious leaders; he even commands evil spirits and they obey him.“Silence!” Jesus said, speaking harshly to the demon. “Come out of him!” The unclean spirit shook him and screamed, then it came out.
Everyone was shaken and questioned among themselves, “What’s this? A new teaching with authority! He even commands unclean spirits and they obey him!” Right away the news about him spread throughout the entire region of Galilee.
- Mark 1:21-28, Common English Bible
This is one of the healing stories in the Gospels, which are really meant to be stories about who Jesus is – the writer wants us to concentrate on Jesus and the authority he demonstrates rather than the person being healed. But modern people miss this point and get embarrassed by these stories, because who these days believes in a person being possessed by a spirit that the Greek word describes as "unclean," "impure," "evil"? Evil spirits, demons, are only in movies now. A lot of preachers are grappling with this, and their own embarrassment, this morning.
But in the ancient world people didn’t have any other way to think of what we call mental illness. We don’t depict mental illness in terms of evil spirits these days, but you can see how this would make sense. We are going to sing a hymn in a few minutes, Silence, Frenzied, Unclean Spirit, that puts this story in modern terms, saying that demons are still thriving in the gray cells of the mind, tyrant voices, twisted thoughts, doubts that stir panic, fears distorting reason, guilt, frightening visions. I was reading a story by a woman who had attempted suicide, how for years loud voices in her head told her that she was a bad person, a failure, better off dead. She cut herself in secret and didn’t tell anyone about her thoughts.
We heard a lot about mental illness on Thursday, January 28, which was Bell Let’s Talk Day, and you couldn’t miss it if you watch a TV channel like CTV or TSN or listen to a radio station Bell owns. And this is important, to raise awareness of how vital it is for our mental health for us to talk to others and be available to talk, to listen, to be kind. It would be nice if media covered this other than on one day, but on Let’s Talk Day well-known people from sports and entertainment came forward to admit that they themselves have days when they are not OK, and they need someone to listen, and we all have to get away from stereotypes and stigmas about “crazy people” so that the courage to talk can be found and diagnosis and treatment sought out. This is even more important these days. The Globe and Mail yesterday spoke of a “surge in mental distress during the pandemic.” Isolation and loneliness are damaging. They affect mental health and the ability to seek out that listening ear and can make depression, anxiety, addiction, suicide more prevalent. Did you know that suicide is one of the leading causes of death in Canada, particularly among men? Or that Canada has one of the highest rates of youth suicide in the world? And yet we have this idea that if we never mention suicide, no one will think about it.
But talking, and listening, and fighting stigma, as essential as they are, aren’t enough. Mental health care needs to be accessible – in financial terms, in logistical terms – just getting there – in cultural terms. We need mental health care to be compassionate, and effective, because for too many Canadians, it’s not. The wait time for intensive mental health management in Eastern Ontario is three years. And almost half of people who have suffered from depression or anxiety have never seen a doctor about it. Only one in five children who need mental health services are able to get them. We also need to admit that housing is a mental health issue, ending poverty is a mental health issue, access to food, sick leave for workers, harm reduction programs for addiction are all mental health issues.
The way we react to persons with a mental illness is part of the way we react to disabled people in general. Jesus shows us in these healing stories that disability, illness, are not due to a lack of faith or some shortcoming on the part of the person with the disability. We need to stop thinking in these terms and pushing people with diagnosed mental illnesses onto the margins of society. As today’s scripture makes clear, as Jesus shows, it is the mental illness that seems demonic, not the person.
These healing stories focus not just on the elimination of mental or physical illness, not only on returning people to what society considers to be “normal,” but on the personal and social transformation that takes place in the presence of Jesus. Healing, driving out the impure spirits, in the Gospels restores community, removes barriers to belonging, embodies the radical hospitality of Jesus who has already recognized the man with the unclean spirit and other disabled people as part of God’s people, even though society excludes them and treats them as problems. This is how these stories reveal Jesus to be the Christ, the Anointed One of God, the one with authority. The way he heals and overcomes isolation and builds community reveals the kingdom of God he proclaims.
All of us are on a spectrum of mental health. It isn’t that there are mentally ill people who are way over at one end and the majority of us are way over at the opposite end. Here are some numbers from the Mental Health Commission of Canada:
- In any given year, 1 in 5 Canadians will personally experience a mental health issue of illness.
- About half of Canada’s population will have or have had a mental illness by the time they reach 40 years of age.
- 10 to 20 percent of Canadian youth are affected by a mental illness or disorder.
- 8 percent of adults will experience major depression at some time in their lives.
Friday, November 20, 2020
Apology for Adoption Practices
After a researcher reported on the history of United Church-run maternity facilities and the experiences of women who stayed there, the church's Theology and Inter-Church Inter-Faith Committee (which I chair) produced a report on Theologies of Adoption in 2018, which looked at this issue as well as the "Sixties Scoop" of Indigenous children from their communities to be adopted by non-Indigenous families, international adoptions, and the secrecy that restricts adoptees from finding out their history. I testified on the church's behalf to a committee of the Canadian Senate examining forced adoptions during this period (which produced an excellent report) and met some of the mothers who have been working for years to have their pain acknowledged. I then wrote the draft of an apology for the church's past adoption practices, which was extensively reworked and refined by a group from the Theology and Inter-Church Inter-Faith Committee. I was pleased to present that apology today to our denomination's General Council Executive, the national decision-making body which is in place between the General Councils which are held at three-year intervals. The Executive adopted the apology and is communicating it to mothers and adoptees, media, other denominations and the United Church.
Here is the news release summarizing the apology:
English
French
Wednesday, September 09, 2020
Review: Word for Word Bible Comic - The Gospel of Matthew
This is the genealogy of Jesus the Messiah the son of David, the son of Abraham...
This is how the Gospel of Matthew starts in the New International Version of the Bible, and so begins the new graphic novel of this Gospel in the Word for Word Bible series. I have been following the Word for Word Bible and its author Simon Pillario on social media for some time, so I was excited to be able to review the newest of the currently six-volume series (the others are the books of Joshua, Judges, Ruth, Esther, and the Gospel of Mark). I appreciate Simon sending me a download of the digital version of Matthew's Gospel. Both of us participate in the Bible Gateway Bloggers Grid (his blog is here.
This is a 240-page graphic novel, intended for adults and teens and having an advisory age of 12+, with all of the Gospel presented in comic format but word for word from the New International Version. The word for word presentation inherent in the Word for Word Bible title can be challenging with Biblical books; I came into the theatre to see the 2003 movie Gospel of John wondering how the filmmakers would depict the lengthy discourses of Jesus in the text, and I had the same question about this graphic novel of Matthew's Gospel (I have not seen the 2014 film of the Gospel of Matthew, which is supposed to be word for word, but it is in my lengthy queue of videos to watch). How would this comic deal with the family tree of Jesus, which takes up the first 17 verses of the book? The Sermon on the Mount is a key part of the gospel, but can a graphic novel sustain the reader's interest over three chapters?
I thought the Word for Word Bible Comic did an excellent job with Matthew, one of the wordier gospels (other than John). The Sermon on the Mount, for instance, is indeed word for word, but throughout this version imagery and metaphors in the spoken discourse are illustrated in panels coloured in a pink-purple hue. So the preaching of Jesus in the sermon, with its many instructions and examples ("You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden." "If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also." "When you fast, do not look somber as the hypocrites do." and others), is illustrated throughout, and is not just text. I liked that that these word pictures may relate to other scriptures - for example, the brothers Cain and Abel appear in the panel for Matthew 5:21-24 ("anyone who is angry with a brother or sister will be subject to judgment"), and David and Bathsheba illustrate Matthew 5:27-30 ("anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart"). They may also use modern imagery, for instance in Matthew 10:18-22 as Jesus speaks about the coming persecutions of those who believe in him, with the panel depicting not just the stoning of Stephen and a Christian threatened by a wild leopard in the Roman arena but the burning of a modern church, Christians being crucified in 16th century Japan, authorities arresting African Christians, and Chinese authorities using technology to track a Christian on the street.
The Word for Word Bible books are claimed to be accurate to the historical, ethnic and cultural setting in order to represent the story as truthfully and faithfully as possible. This is apparent in the earlier volumes from the Hebrew Scriptures, as this graphic shows, and in the Gospel of Matthew - unlike most comic book depictions of the life of Jesus, and Western art until recently - the characters here do not have pale skin!
Angels are also drawn as mysterious and frightening, not as the winged, robed white people of Renaissance art - there's a reason that angels in scripture frequently have to tell humans not to be afraid, after all. There is also an effort to distinguish languages different from the Aramaic that Matthew's characters would be speaking throughout, by using a different font - at least, that seems to be the case in the story of the Canaanite woman in Matthew 15:21-28, where the font would indicate that she is speaking in Greek.
Finally, I enjoyed little details that fill out Matthew's words - when Jesus and his disciples in their boat leave the region of the Gadarenes in Matthew 9:1, they sail through the floating carcasses of the pigs who died by drowning in the lake when an evil spirit was sent into them in 8:32. It was also helpful to have the chapter and verse inked on each page, page breaks to begin each chapter, and footnotes for quotes from the Hebrew Scriptures. I would, however, have liked a footnote or explanatory note for Matthew 27:25 (the crowd calling out for Jesus to be crucified, shouting "“His blood is on us and on our children!”), given how often this verse has been used as part of anti-Semitic arguments for the Jewish people's guilt.
This graphic novel may appeal to readers who don't find text-only Bibles helpful or easy to read, those who enjoy comics, and readers who would gain insight and pleasure from a comic-format supplement to the biblical text. If you would like to read this faithful adaptation of the New International Version translation of the Gospel text, the Gospel of Matthew can be ordered here. There are hardcopy and digital versions available of all of the Word for Word Bible Comic books, and links to Kindle and Comixology versions.
Tuesday, May 19, 2020
The Faith, Hope and Love of Noah: Sermon, May 17, 2020
Who will harm you if you are zealous for good? But happy are you even if you suffer because of righteousness! Don’t be terrified or upset by them. Instead, regard Christ as holy in your hearts. Whenever anyone asks you to speak of your hope, be ready to defend it. Yet do this with respectful humility, maintaining a good conscience. Act in this way so that those who malign your good lifestyle in Christ may be ashamed when they slander you. It is better to suffer for doing good (if this could possibly be God’s will) than for doing evil.Christ himself suffered on account of sins, once for all, the righteous one on behalf of the unrighteous. He did this in order to bring you into the presence of God. Christ was put to death as a human, but made alive by the Spirit. And it was by the Spirit that he went to preach to the spirits in prison. In the past, these spirits were disobedient – when God patiently waited during the time of Noah. Noah built an ark in which a few (that is, eight) lives were rescued through water. Baptism is like that. It saves you now – not because it removes dirt from your body but because it is the mark of a good conscience toward God. Your salvation comes through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who is at God’s right side. Now that he has gone into heaven, he rules over all angels, authorities, and powers.
1 Peter 3:13-22, Common English Bible
So we haven’t read a lot from the First Letter of Peter. It’s one of those books tucked in at the end of the New Testament, with Hebrews, James, Jude and so on, and we just don’t seem to get to it that often. But it does have some very meaningful things to say. The writer speaks about the story of Noah. We read two books about Noah and the ark during our children’s storytime, and went over the story of God telling Noah to build a big boat, two of every kind of animal, the flood and the rainbow. The First Letter of Peter talks about how God patiently waited during the time of Noah, and how Noah built an ark in which eight lives were rescued through water. It’s referring to the human family on board, Noah and Mrs. Noah – we never learn her name – their three sons and their daughters in law.
The letter uses the Noah story to make a point about baptism. But I think it can speak to us baptized people in this time. Look at this story – there is a disaster, a family is in isolation for a long period, they look for signs that they can come out, finally they do, they give thanks to God in worship. It’s all there in the Noah story, and it’s the story of our recent past, our present, and, we hope, our future.
This would be a good time to talk about what has been the theme of government news conferences the last week: reopening. People ask me, when will we be back in our church building. And the short answer is, I don’t know. Ontario just began the first phase of the three-phase reopening plan for the entire province. The United Church of Canada also has three phases in its guidance for governing boards as they decide when to reopen, in consultation with the province, local health unit, and United Church regional council. Phase one is reopening the building so small groups may meet in person, with physical distancing and wearing masks. Worship would continue to be online, or possibly outdoors. The second phase is resuming in-person worship, with appropriate health measures. Phase three would be full return, but still subject to health and safety regulations.
The guiding principle in these three phases of reopening is the safety of all who enter the church building. Let me say some more about this. You may have seen Facebook posts or heard people say something like, “how come 500 people are allowed in Home Depot but we can’t worship in church?” Well, let me respond. Churches are not businesses. We need revenue coming in because we have expenditures going out, but the similarities end there. We are not like Home Depot, or the health unit, or a charity, even if we have a charitable registration number. We are here, as the First Letter of Peter says, to proclaim that “your salvation comes through the resurrection of Jesus Christ.” We are here to celebrate God’s presence, to live with respect in creation, to love and serve others, to seek justice and resist evil, to proclaim Jesus, crucified and risen, our judge and our hope. We are tell each other and tell others that in life, in death, in life beyond death, we are not alone. God is with us. No one else does this. Home Depot isn’t doing this. Our message includes but goes far beyond just saying “stay home and wash your hands.”
Church buildings will be among the last to reopen, because worship services, like other indoor gatherings, are what are called superspreader events. They are high risk activities involving a high risk population, because there are a lot of older people. And it is difficult to reduce these risks. There was a United church in Calgary that had its last worship service in the sanctuary the same day as us, March 15. There was a social time after church for a member’s birthday. They took all the precautions. There were fewer than 50 people there, so it was allowed. They stood six feet apart in the church hall. Those serving food used gloves and tongs. They did everything right. And yet of the 41 people there, 24 got the coronavirus and two have died.
To resume worship in the church building, the final phase of reopening, we would have to make significant changes to the way we gather. We probably won’t have greeters. There may not be a printed bulletin. We will have to sit six feet or more apart, and, yes, this means you may not be able to sit in your usual seat. We will probably have to wear masks. We may have to limit the number of people in the building. We won’t have any contact with each other. The entire space – pews, hymn books, floors, doors, everything – will have to be sanitized after every service. If you go to the washroom, that will have to be cleaned immediately before the next person can use it. And this is an even bigger issue, there will be no singing. Singing expels a cloud of droplets into the air, and if you have the virus, even if you don’t have symptoms and don’t know you have it, those droplets contain the virus. Someone could walk 10 feet from where you sat, 20 minutes after the final hymn, and become infected from the virus remaining in the air.
We have a responsibility that businesses don’t have. We can’t love and serve others, we can’t proclaim Jesus our judge and our hope, without obeying his commandment to love one another. If we are to worship again in the church building, we can’t just adhere to the letter of the health regulations. We have to act in the spirit of love. We need to learn the lesson of our siblings in that church in Calgary, who did everything correctly but are still desperate to relive that day and do it differently so no one became ill and no one died. The Board and the Session may decide that even with all this in place to let us worship in person, there is still too much of a risk of infecting people we love. Many of us may make that decision for ourselves and stay away. We would continue to have worship online to serve those who can’t come, and have to figure out how to serve those who currently can’t access worship online and would probably not be able to attend in person either.
It is perfectly understandable that we want to get back into the buildings that mean so much to us, and we want to see each other in person. We want to be back to normal. But what is “normal” will change. Think about Noah and his family. When they got off the ark, got back to normal, the normal was completely different from before. We know something about this here along the St. Lawrence Seaway, starting over after a flood.
And, you know, the Noah story shows that not reopening the building until we are good and ready isn’t about a lack of faith. Noah and his family didn’t get off the ark early. We need the faith of Noah and his family, who stayed on that ark for over a year, the Bible story says. And we need the hope they had, that their time on the ark would indeed end. First Peter says, “Whenever anyone asks you to speak of your hope, be ready to defend it.” We do have hope. We can defend our hope, telling anyone who asks that God is with us now in this time and will still be with us in the new normal, whatever that is like. And we need love. We can say that we are not living in fear now – we are obeying Jesus, who told us to love our neighbours. Scripture says, faith, hope and love abide, these three. Noah had all three despite a great disaster, the Christians First Peter was written for had all three despite persecution, and we have all three despite a pandemic. Noah and his family, the first Christians, neither had buildings to worship in, yet they worshipped, in faith, hope and love. And so do we, together with each other right now, no matter how long it takes to reopen fully.
Sunday, April 05, 2020
Two Parades (Pandemic Edition): Sermon for Palm Sunday, April 5, 2020
When they had come near Jerusalem and had reached Bethphage, at the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent two disciples, saying to them, “Go into the village ahead of you, and immediately you will find a donkey tied, and a colt with her; untie them and bring them to me. If anyone says anything to you, just say this, ‘The Lord needs them.’ And he will send them immediately.” This took place to fulfill what had been spoken through the prophet, saying,
“Tell the daughter of Zion, look, your king is coming to you, humble, and mounted on a donkey, and on a colt, the foal of a donkey.”The disciples went and did as Jesus had directed them; they brought the donkey and the colt, and put their cloaks on them, and he sat on them. A very large crowd spread their cloaks on the road, and others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road. The crowds that went ahead of him and that followed were shouting,
“Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest heaven!”When he entered Jerusalem, the whole city was in turmoil, asking, “Who is this?” The crowds were saying, “This is the prophet Jesus from Nazareth in Galilee.”
Matthew 21:1-11, New Revised Standard Version
I have said on other Palm Sundays that the story of this entire Holy Week is one of contrasts. The happy crowd of Palm Sunday, shouting Hosanna, and the angry crowd of Good Friday, yelling Crucify him. Celebration, and rejection. Joy, and abuse.
And another contrast is that there is more than one parade into the city. There is the one we just heard about, Jesus on a donkey in a crowd of excited pilgrims coming for the religious festival. That is one parade. The other is the Roman governor, Pontius Pilate, who travels to Jerusalem each year to take personal charge during the festival. One parade has happy shouts; the other has the tramp of Roman boots. One parade has waving palm branches; the other has imperial shields and spears and helmets. One parade has a poor Jewish man on a donkey; the other has the Roman Emperor’s representative on a war horse wearing full armour.
It seems to me on this very unusual Palm Sunday of 2020 that these contrasts are still with us. Churches all over the world are breaking bread and drinking the cup in the simple meal to remember Jesus – but online, to keep each other safe, to flatten the curve, as we say now. And the contrast is with the empire, just as it was in the time of Jesus, the empire of political and business power that is ramping up its calls to get rid of these measures to flatten the curve, to get everyone back to work, to let the virus run unchecked while – so they say – protecting seniors and disabled people. Of course, in reality seniors and disabled people, and people of all ages, would die in great numbers, but that’s a cost billionaires are prepared to pay. And just as in the time of Jesus there were religious leaders who disapproved of his parade, in our day there are pastors who want exemptions so they can keep their church buildings open and services full, when this will bring sickness and death to the people they are called to safeguard.
Two parades. Two visions of how to love, or not, our neighbours, of commitment, or not, to the common good. You know, in this time we can live without church buildings. What we can’t live without is the church, without love, without loving, without being God’s people, followers of Jesus Christ, called to be the church and love and serve others here and now in the circumstances we are in. Easter is coming, when love can’t be kept in the grave, when life bursts forth, when Jesus is raised from death to triumph over the culture of death too many of the world’s political and business leaders want to entrench. The Lord and Son of God isn’t the Emperor in Rome, who had those titles. The real king comes riding on a donkey. Thanks be to God.
Thursday, December 26, 2019
The Christmas Message We Need to Hear: Sermon, Christmas Eve, December 24, 2019
And it came to pass in those days that a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered. The census first took place while Quirinius was governing Syria. So all went to be registered, everyone to his own city.And Joseph also went up from Galilee, out of the city of Nazareth, into Judea, to the city of David, which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and lineage of David, to be registered with Mary, his betrothed wife, who was with child. So it was that, while they were there, the days were completed for her to be delivered. And she brought forth her firstborn Son, and wrapped Him in swaddling cloths, and laid Him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn.
Now there were in the same country shepherds living out in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by night.And behold, an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were greatly afraid. Then the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid, for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy which will be to all people. “For there is born to you this day in the city of David a Saviour, who is Christ the Lord. And this will be the sign to you: You will find the Babe wrapped in swaddling cloths, lying in a manger.”
And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying:
“Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, goodwill toward men!”So it was, when the angels had gone away from them into heaven, that the shepherds said to one another, “Let us now go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has come to pass, which the Lord has made known to us.” And they came with haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the Babe lying in a manger. Now when they had seen Him, they made widely known the saying which was told them concerning this Child. And all those who heard it marveled at these things which were told them by the shepherds. But Mary kept all these things, and pondered them in her heart. Then the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things that they had heard and seen, as it was told them.
- Luke 2:1-20, New King James Version
If you visit our house at this time of year, you will notice that we have a few – as in a couple of dozen – nativity scenes, with the characters from the Christmas story. We have one from Honduras made out of corn husks, one I bought in Nicaragua moulded in clay, painted on wood from El Salvador, a couple from Ecuador with the characters dressed in Inca peasant clothing, more from the Cayman Islands and Indonesia and Bethlehem itself, and my parents’ nativity set in the original box with the tag telling me they paid $2.97 at Kmart. Our latest one is a gift from the Ingleside congregation and is a Canadian nativity, with a moose and beaver as the animals, Mary and Joseph in Mountie uniforms, and the baby lying on a maple leaf. Someone said it looks like the police are apprehending the baby. That’s a different the Christmas story!
And not all these scenes have all the characters, other than, of course, Mary and Joseph and the baby Jesus. Some don’t have wise men. Some don’t have shepherds. Some don’t have the animals. But nearly all of them have an angel. Because, perhaps, angels have the main speaking part in the story we just read, telling the shepherds about the baby and what his world-changing birth means, and proclaiming God’s glory and peace on earth. This is important – and the most important line in the story is the very first thing the angel says.
Do not be afraid. These are words the shepherds need to hear; they are out, minding their own business, earning a living such as it was, and as the story says, this angel appears and God’s glory shines around them, and they are greatly afraid. Terrified. Scared out of their wits. And the angel says, “Don’t be afraid.”
And this isn’t the first time an angel says this in the Christmas story. These are words Mary needed to hear. An angel comes to her and tells her that she, a young unmarried woman, will become pregnant and will give birth to a child who she will name Jesus and who will be called the Son of God. And Mary, the story says, is confused. As you would be. And the angel says, “Don’t be afraid.”
Now, the news that his fiancé is pregnant causes Joseph just a bit of concern, and he decides to call off their engagement. But an angel appears to him in a dream, and says the words Joseph needed to hear. The angel says, “Don’t be afraid.”
What the shepherds needed to hear. What Mary needed to hear. What Joseph needed to hear. And, tonight, at Christmas of 2019, what we need to hear. Don’t be afraid. Because we spend a lot of time and effort being afraid – of what’s in the news, of changes in our culture, of what the future holds, of loss of a loved one or a relationship or a job or our health or even the Christmas we used to know. And the angel says, “Don’t be afraid… Look! I bring good news to you – wonderful, joyous news for all people. Your saviour is born today. He is Christ the Lord. You will find a newborn baby wrapped snugly and lying in a manger” – and the angel’s words are true, and we will find our Saviour, God come to live among us, born as we were, in Bethlehem 20 centuries ago, and right here, right now, born in the hearts of everyone who makes room for him so they can sing with the angels, “glory to God in heaven, and on earth peace.”
Saturday, August 31, 2019
Book Review: Church Reformed
I was intrigued by the news release, which says:
In the newly released Church Reformed, (published July 2019, Warhorn Media) Pastor Tim Bayly draws on over 35 years of ministry to address the failures of the American evangelical church. As he exposes the lies Christians have believed, he shows how the Church is at the heart of what it means to be a Christian.Evangelical publishing has had a field day presenting solutions to the modern crises in our churches. As church attendance falters, books multiply—books on growth, strategies for reaching millennials, new models of doing church to appeal to youth, and on and on ad nauseam.
Too many of these models take their cue from the very trends and ideas that have caused the problems. But what if there was a way to climb out of the hole we’ve dug? What if the church found the power to attract people we thought we’d lost—just by returning to a humble, biblical pattern of church life?
Church Reformed is a call to embrace what we see modeled for us in the Bible and by our fathers in the faith across church history. It's a call to be committed to the Church that Jesus Christ bought with his own precious blood. As Tim says,
"Jesus loves the Church, and we should too."
I certainly agree that there is a veritable publishing industry built up around books, strategies and models for church growth and "getting the young people back in." I'm also of the firm belief that decline in church attendance and influence in North America is the result of demographic and cultural changes that no one model or strategy is going to reverse. So I was interested to read what Tim Bayly, who is senior pastor at Trinity Reformed Church in Bloomington, Indiana, has to say.
Bayly begins by stating that "one of the legacies Evangelicalism has bequeathed to Christians today is growing separation between becoming a Christian and becoming a member of the Church of Jesus Christ." I wholeheartedly agree, although with the caveat that I also encounter lots of people who claim membership in the Church while not having been active in the Church for years. But as Bayly says, the Church is no longer viewed as essential to Christian growth as, for instance, conferences, Facebook groups, music, podcasts, Christian books, and so on. The age-old temptation of believers - one we find reflected even in patristic writings, 15 centuries old, not to mention C.S. Lewis' Screwtape Letters and many other works - is to think that people will come to faith more easily if they can avoid all the drama of the Church: infighting, hypocrisy, abuse of authority.
Church Reformed is, in Bayly's words, a call to return to our Mother the Church and love her - to put it another way, to commit ourselves as disciples of Jesus to involvement in a local community of faith and to the authority, accountability, deep relationship and, yes, even discipline that comes with it. "Jesus loves his sheep. He expects His servants to love them also. How can we claim to love Jesus while turning our noses up at the smell of His flock?"
Bayly goes on to look at who is the Church, grounding his own writing in the words of scripture and the Reformers, specifically Martin Luther and the Westminster and Belgic Confessions (coming from a Reformed tradition myself, I appreciated this). He follows this with one of two very helpful chapters on sacramental theology, this section dealing with baptism, how we enter the Church. The book then moves into its second part, what does the Church do, with four devotions (found in Acts 2:44-47) that were the priorities of the apostolic church: the teaching of the apostles, fellowship, the breaking of bread, and prayer. Each has its own chapter, with that on the breaking of bread, the Lord's Supper, being the second in the book on sacramental theology. Bayly proceeds in the book's third part to examine threats to the Church: naiveté, hypocrisy and "gathering goats." This last chapter critiques the modern Christian emphasis, at least in North America, on money and numbers as measures of church growth and "success"; "what we're really saying," Bayly comments, "is that we want to do whatever we can to add people without having to discipline, feed, rebuke, clothe or love them."
So I appreciated Church Reformed, with its grounding in scripture and the Christian, specifically Reformed, tradition, and its call to commitment to the local faith community with all its blemishes and joys. But at a few points Bayly's writing irked me. One of his main points is his preaching against schism; the local church may have many defects and sins, but the believer must remember that while the Church has never been perfect, Jesus owns her, and He is the one who says He came for sinners. Bayly says in one moving passage about the experience he and his wife had one local church, "that church was beautiful, and it was as weak and needy and sinful as we were. (It) loved us despite how weak and needy and sinful we were, and we loved her back."
But a few pages prior to this story, he writes in criticism of readers who say that "no church should ever be given up on and that's the reason you're still in your pro-abortion, pro-feminist, pro-gay church of Satan." So what is the dividing line? When is a church too "weak and needy and sinful," in his view, for followers of Jesus to continue to be members? Bayly himself admits that he and his spouse attended a church that had women elders, even though he is a strong complementarian, writing in the chapter on apostolic teaching about the issue of women elders and staff in congregations, and stating that "the real test of our devotion to the teaching of the apostles is whether we use the pulpit to call the women of the congregation to submit to their husbands."
His disdain for mainline Protestant churches is evident throughout, even for denominations that come from the same Reformed tradition. He was in the Presbyterian Church (USA) at one time, which he describes as having "deeply wicked" pastors and elders who endorse "the slaughter of the unborn" and "fornication, adultery, sodomy, and every other form of sexual perversion." Elsewhere he claims that "it is true that mainline churches have abandoned all pretense of fidelity to Scripture," and introduces his writing on prayer during worship by saying that "I'm not talking about liberal churches, but conservative congregations who would see themselves as committed to the Bible and to the Lordship of Jesus Christ."
Being ordained in what he calls a "church of Satan," a denomination with a Reformed heritage which has had women and LGBTQ people in leadership for decades and at one time saw itself as "liberal evangelical," I have to push back. Bayly may not think that mainline churches have any commitment to the Bible and the Lordship of Jesus, but I am surrounded by clergy and lay colleagues with a deep love for the Trinitarian God, who proclaim that Jesus is Saviour and Lord, and who invest many hours in studying, pondering and praying about the Biblical text so they can preach in a way faithful to the Reformers who made the sermon the centrepiece of worship. I utterly reject that mainline Protestants have abandoned fidelity to scripture - in fact, I am so tired of hearing this that whenever I come across it on social media I ask for details. Did the person making this criticism hear this directly in a sermon or read it in a publication? If so, how is it unfaithful? Are they simply repeating something they believe, or do they have evidence for this claim?
And I was struck that Bayly devotes six pages of his chapter on prayer to the elements of Reformed Lord's Day worship from the 16th century: call to worship, prayer of confession, assurance of pardon, the Ten Commandments, psalm or hymn, prayer for illumination, scripture reading, sermon and closing prayer, pastoral prayer and Lord's prayer, psalm, Lord's Supper, and blessing. He calls on modern evangelical pastors and elders to study the order and wording in worship during the Reformation and how the Reformers returned practices to those of the early Church. But who uses this liturgy today? Mainline Protestants. The service outline he presents is basically the one I use every Sunday, and very similar to that set out in The United Church of Canada's worship resource Celebrating God's Presence as a pattern of worship common to all Christians. Bayly would find that "churches of Satan" like ours, the United Church of Christ, Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) and other mainline churches are the most faithful to Reformed liturgical practice.
Bearing this in mind, any Christian, whether or not they are in church leadership, can benefit from reading Church Reformed in order to orient themselves to loving and participating in Christ's Body through the local church - remembering that in some instances the author assumes that his own interpretation of scripture and tradition is the correct, and only, one.
Monday, June 10, 2019
94th Anniversary of Church Union
A rousing worship service in Toronto on the morning of Wednesday, June 10, 1925, formally inaugurated The United Church of Canada. In a flash, nearly all the Methodists and Congregationalists of Canada, as well as most Presbyterians and many independents, blended into one vast new nationwide body. The heat wave of previous days broke during the night of the ninth, just in time to help make the event 'an hour of palpitating joy.' Eight thousand people filed inside The Arena, a wrestling palace and professional ice hockey venue, transformed for the occasion into sacred space. Thousands of others in Toronto and across the country attended parallel services, and thousands more listened to the proceedings broadcasted live on the radio. Still more saw exhaustive reports in the newspapers the next day. The venue and the numbers spoke volumes. The United Church of Canada aspired to be Canada's church, a church of the people.And from Phyllis Airhart's A Church with the Soul of a Nation: Making and Remaking the United Church of Canada:
The church that was ceremonially born in Canada on 10 June 1925 is usually cast as a new and youthful player on the international religious stage. Critics often panned it as modernist and depicted its founders as innovators who had been captivated by the novelty of church union. There was within the uniting traditions a strong progressive element, to be sure. Canadian churches were not the first to propose 'organic union' between rival confessional families, but such a proposition had never actually been consummated elsewhere on such a large scale.
Personally, I can't think of anything more fitting for a Canadian church than being founded in a hockey rink.
Sunday, April 28, 2019
The Body of Christ: Sermon, April 28, 2019
Then, the same day at evening, being the first day of the week, when the doors were shut where the disciples were assembled, for fear of the religious authorities, Jesus came and stood in the midst, and said to them, “Peace be with you.” When He had said this, He showed them His hands and His side. Then the disciples were glad when they saw the Lord.We have read every word of the story in John’s Gospel of the death and resurrection of Jesus, beginning on Good Friday with his trial, execution and burial, through his grave being found empty on Easter morning and his appearance to Mary Magdalene. And today we pick up right where we left off in the Easter Sunday service, and we are now at the evening of Easter day. Remember that morning two of the male disciples had seen that the tomb was empty, the body of Jesus was not there, and then Mary Magdalene had come and announced to all of them that she had seen Jesus.So Jesus said to them again, “Peace to you! As the Father has sent Me, I also send you.” And when He had said this, He breathed on them, and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.”
Now Thomas, called the Twin, one of the twelve, was not with them when Jesus came. The other disciples therefore said to him, “We have seen the Lord.”
So he said to them, “Unless I see in His hands the print of the nails, and put my finger into the print of the nails, and put my hand into His side, I will not believe.”
And after eight days His disciples were again inside, and Thomas with them. Jesus came, the doors being shut, and stood in the midst, and said, “Peace to you!” Then He said to Thomas, “Reach your finger here, and look at My hands; and reach your hand here, and put it into My side. Do not be unbelieving, but believing.”
And Thomas answered and said to Him, “My Lord and my God!”
Jesus said to him, “Thomas, because you have seen Me, you have believed. Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”
And truly Jesus did many other signs in the presence of His disciples, which are not written in this book; but these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in His name.
John 20:19-31, New King James Version
Now, here they are, still in hiding, for fear of the authorities who might be coming for them next. They must have been anxiously debating what this empty tomb and Mary seeing Jesus could mean. And Jesus himself comes and stands among them, even though the doors are locked, and greets them: “Peace be with you.”
So much of this Easter story deals with Jesus appearing in his resurrected body that I want to talk about this. On Easter morning his body isn’t in the grave. The cloths in which his corpse were wrapped are lying there as if the body just vanished. John is making the point that the risen Christ encountered by the disciples is the same as Jesus of Nazareth who they followed until his death. He shows them his body. He speaks. He can be touched. In other stories he holds things, he starts a fire, he cooks, he eats. He isn’t a ghost, or a reanimated corpse like a zombie. These were common in stories told at that time, and the Gospel writers want to rule this out. He is the same person as before.
But he is also mysteriously different; he can appear and disappear, he can go through or around locked doors, he isn’t always easily recognizable to friends who have known him for a long time. So Jesus is alive, but changed somehow.
On this evening of the first Easter, Jesus shows his disciples his hands and side, still bearing the wounds of his crucifixion. He does the same a week later, when Thomas is there. This means more than just proving that he is indeed the same man who was crucified. The body of Jesus is important in Christian thought, because we believe that, as we say in A New Creed, Jesus is the Word made flesh. John expands on this at the beginning of his Gospel: the Word, the divine, became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth. The Word became flesh. The divine became human, in the body of Jesus – the body that is raised from death by God’s power.
And that resurrected body continues to carry the wounds of the nails and the spear, suffered for us. This is a powerful image for all of us. But it is tremendously meaningful for disabled people that the Word made flesh, the divine incarnated as human, has physical impairments. The Christ is disabled. His resurrected body, which presumably could have been without blemish, remains broken. For disabled people, who bear the marks of disability in their own bodies, this is truly liberating.
When we talk about the body of Jesus, we may not be speaking literally. We may be following the Apostle Paul, who calls the churches to which he is writing “the body of Christ.” The church is the continuation of the risen body of Jesus. In Scripture the church is born when the Holy Spirit is sent upon the followers of Jesus, as Jesus promised. In another story, in the Acts of the Apostles, the Spirit comes at Pentecost, after the final appearance of Jesus following Easter. Here, in John, it is on this Easter evening, as Jesus breathes on his disciples, an act of creating, just as when the world was formed, God breathed life into the first human. Jesus says, “receive the Holy Spirit.” He gives them the authority to forgive sins. The church has begun. This is an in between time, after the resurrection but before Jesus ceases to appear to his followers in his risen body. This is a transition period, from being able to see and touch and hear Jesus physically, to Jesus being present in the Holy Spirit. The church is to continue as his body.
We have been hearing a lot about churches lately. Church is guaranteed to get on the TV news twice a year, Christmas Eve and the Good Friday and Easter weekend. But there were also the terrible attacks on Easter worship services in churches in Sri Lanka. And the week before, the fire at Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris.
There was much emotional reaction to that fire, from people who have been to Paris and visited the cathedral, and from those who have never been there. Crowds of Parisians stood watching the fire and singing hymns. I think the response to the fire tells us something about the church as the body of Christ. We know, in our minds, that the words of the song are true: "the church is not a building, the church is not a steeple, the church is not a resting place, the church is a people." Church can be anywhere, for God can be anywhere. The psalm says, if I could fly on the wings of the dawn, to the farthest side of the ocean, even there God would be with me. Church can be outside. It can be in a house. That’s where the first churches were. Before our ancestors could build churches on the Canadian frontier, they worshipped in houses and outdoors. I have a drawing of Presbyterians in Upper Canada celebrating communion outside. In Beijing, China, I was told that there are 100,000 worshippers on Sunday, but only 21 Protestant church buildings, so many people attend at 500 affiliated meeting points in houses or offices or warehouses.
And yet, although we don’t need dedicated church buildings, we want sacred spaces. Every major religion has some kind of building for worship: a church, a synagogue, a mosque, a temple, a gurdwara. We can trace this progression through the Bible: God was worshipped at rough open-air altars, then at dedicated holy sites outdoors, and in a tent traveling with the people of Israel. King Solomon built a small temple; it was destroyed by invaders. The temple was rebuilt; it was destroyed. And the Jewish people continued to worship in synagogues.
Sacred buildings speak to us. They can be beautiful in their simplicity, like the Methodist chapel at Upper Canada Village. They can be lovely in their ornate art and exquisite architecture, like Notre Dame. They embody the body of Christ, with memories of generations who have gone before, and artifacts of the long-dead but remembered faithful. We are devastated when we lose them. Also last week, the United Church at Pacquet, Newfoundland, burned, and the members of that community were as much in grief as the people of Paris. In both places the heart, the centre, with all of its memories and associations, is gone.
And yet there is resurrection. The body of Jesus, which was broken and died on the cross, was raised from the grave. The body of Christ, the church, burned and blasted and broken in fires, in bombings, in floods, in scandals and decline and doubt, will rise again, as sure as springtime returns to bring new life to the barren land. The body retains the wounds it has suffered, but it still brings peace, forgives sins – and celebrates God’s presence, lives with respect in creation, loves and serves others, seeks justice and resists evil – and proclaims Jesus, crucified and risen, our judge and our hope. For in life, in death, in life beyond death, God is with us. We are not alone. Thanks be to God.
Friday, April 26, 2019
Essential Agreement
From its beginning, The United Church of Canada has required persons entering ministry to be in “essential agreement” with the denomination’s Statement of Doctrine and to see that Statement of Doctrine as in substance agreeable to the teachings of Scripture.The Statement of Doctrine currently consists of the Preamble and Twenty Articles that formed the original Doctrine section of the Basis of Union (albeit as that section has been amended on a few occasions since 1925), plus three other United Church faith statements adopted by various General Councils: the 1940 Statement of Faith, the New Creed (also known as the United Church Creed) in 1968, and A Song of Faith in 2006. Each of these documents expresses the substance of the Christian faith, as understood by the United Church, in the spirit and context of the time in which it was written.
Two common misconceptions exist about essential agreement. Some persons think that essential agreement means that a candidate must believe and accept each and every word of the United Church’s Statement of Doctrine. Others have concluded that because the denomination does not require “literal subscription” (i.e., literal agreement) to its Statement of Doctrine, a candidate for ministry, and ministry personnel themselves, can believe whatever they like and still claim to be in essential agreement. Neither understanding is accurate.
Essential agreement means that the examining committee must be able to find that a candidate they are interviewing stands sufficiently within the Christian tradition, as expressed in the United Church’s Statement of Doctrine, to be able to carry out ministry in the United Church faithfully, intelligibly, and with integrity. The examining committee must be able to reach this conclusion because those whom it agrees to recommend for authorized ministry must be able to teach, preach, do pastoral care, and provide outreach and service to the wider community in continuity with the Christian faith as expressed in the doctrine of the United Church. In carrying out the ministerial office, ministers re-present the Christian tradition and the United Church to those with whom they interact, both inside and outside the particular communities they serve. They need to be able to carry out those functions of ministry faithfully and with integrity.
Monday, January 07, 2019
Wise Men and Holy Innocents: Sermon for The Epiphany, January 6, 2019
Now after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, behold, wise men from the East came to Jerusalem, saying, “Where is He who has been born King of the Jews? For we have seen His star in the East and have come to worship Him.”When Herod the king heard this, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him. And when he had gathered all the chief priests and scribes of the people together, he inquired of them where the Christ was to be born.
So they said to him, “In Bethlehem of Judea, for thus it is written by the prophet:
‘But you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah,
Are not the least among the rulers of Judah;
For out of you shall come a Ruler
Who will shepherd My people Israel.’ ”Then Herod, when he had secretly called the wise men, determined from them what time the star appeared. And he sent them to Bethlehem and said, “Go and search carefully for the young Child, and when you have found Him, bring back word to me, that I may come and worship Him also.”
When they heard the king, they departed; and behold, the star which they had seen in the East went before them, till it came and stood over where the young Child was. When they saw the star, they rejoiced with exceedingly great joy. And when they had come into the house, they saw the young Child with Mary His mother, and fell down and worshiped Him. And when they had opened their treasures, they presented gifts to Him: gold, frankincense, and myrrh.
Then, being divinely warned in a dream that they should not return to Herod, they departed for their own country another way.
Matthew 2:1-12, New King James Version
But we stopped reading at verse 12, as the wise men decide not to tell King Herod where the child is. And after that the story takes a much more sinister turn. There are already hints of this, as Herod and his court are troubled that the wise men claim that a new king has been born. Herod tells them to go and find the child and bring back word, so that he may also go and worship him, and it seems that he may not be entirely sincere. Here is how the story continues in Matthew’s Gospel:
Now when they had departed, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream, saying, “Arise, take the young Child and His mother, flee to Egypt, and stay there until I bring you word; for Herod will seek the young Child to destroy Him.”This is a much more disturbing story than the wise men’s visit. We would rather not sing about it, although there is an old Christmas song, the Coventry Carol, with the lyrics:When he arose, he took the young Child and His mother by night and departed for Egypt, and was there until the death of Herod, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the Lord through the prophet, saying, “Out of Egypt I called My Son.”
Then Herod, when he saw that he was deceived by the wise men, was exceedingly angry; and he sent forth and put to death all the male children who were in Bethlehem and in all its districts, from two years old and under, according to the time which he had determined from the wise men. Then was fulfilled what was spoken by Jeremiah the prophet, saying:
“A voice was heard in Ramah,
Lamentation, weeping, and great mourning,
Rachel weeping for her children,
Refusing to be comforted,
Because they are no more.”
Herod the King, in his raging,The Church, though, continues to tell this story, called the Massacre of the Innocents. These holy innocents, the boys of Bethlehem killed by Herod, are often considered to be the first Christian martyrs.
charged he hath this day,
his men of might, in his own sight,
all children young, to slay.
This seems very long ago and far away. So exotic and so upsetting. Or is it so long ago? Is it so far away? Who are the Holy Innocents of today? Are they the children of Yemen, victims of the ongoing war launched by Saudi Arabia and its allies? In Yemen 394,000 children under the age of five are suffering from severe acute malnutrition. Millions more barely have enough to eat, while the war has resulted in a lack of safe water, the spread of disease, and the destruction of hospitals. Are the holy innocents the 15 percent of Canadian children, one in seven, who live in poverty? Are they the Indigenous children who account for nearly half of all children in foster care in Canada? What are the causes of such a disproportionate number of Indigenous kids being removed from their homes? Are the holy innocents the children taken from their parents at the American border with Mexico, in many cases never to be reunited with their families again? Families from Central America have been arrested by the American authorities, the children taken away, placed in cages and then in tents in camps in the desert, and often put up for adoption after their parents have been deported. We don’t know what happens in these camps as journalists and even elected representatives aren’t allowed in. We do know that here you can’t work with children in hockey or Sunday school or any other setting without a police check, but there is no screening for the private contractors who operate these detention facilities. There are stories of babies taken from their mothers who are just given to teenage girls in the camps to look after, without diapers or formula. We do know that two children have died in detention.
Now, people try to explain all this away. Don’t try to sneak into the country illegally, they say, if you don’t want your kids taken away. But these families are usually applying at a border crossing for asylum as refugees, which is perfectly legal under American law. And having your children ripped away and placed for adoption is a disproportionate and cruel punishment, although the cruelty is probably the point to deter refugees and immigrants from coming.
This Epiphany story shows that Mary, Joseph and Jesus were refugees. Now, people deny this too. Calling Jesus a refugee is very controversial. Refugees may have left everything behind to escape persecution and violence, but people see them as fakers, as undeserving, as potential terrorists, so there’s no way Jesus could have been one. But it’s right in the story. Verse 13, “Arise, take the young Child and His mother, flee to Egypt” – in Matthew’s Gospel the Greek word translated as “flee” is pheuge, which is the root of the word “refugee.” Jesus and his parents were fleeing political violence. They were refugees. My Loyalist ancestors who fled the American Revolution, like the ancestors of a lot of us here, were refugees. People still quibble, saying the Holy Family was traveling within the Roman Empire, not across an international border, so they weren’t refugees, but of course borders as we understand them today are a recent development. This kind of nitpicking can’t change the story, or the broad story of the Bible, which tells a long story, several books long, of the people of Israel fleeing oppression, and then emphasizes again and again how God’s people are to welcome refugees and immigrants, for they were foreigners themselves in Egypt.
This story of the massacre of the innocents and a family’s narrow escape is still fresh, still unnerving. It is being acted out all over the world right now. Someone tweeted - and I agree - that Herod was a paranoid, narcissistic, authoritarian ruler who did not hesitate to destroy children when his power was threatened. Any resemblance to any political leaders today isn’t a coincidence. And the reaction to the refugee crisis shows how, as someone else said, some Christians may worship the name of King Jesus but they follow the policies of King Herod.
If The Epiphany is about Jesus being revealed to the world, then his being a refugee is as much a part of who he is as his being the saviour worshipped by the wise men. Jesus being a refugee tells the world that God coming among us in Jesus shares the experiences, the suffering, of the most marginalized and oppressed people. Jesus being a refugee underlines for us, who follow him today, God’s instructions in Scripture, to show love for foreigners, for God’s people were once foreigners in the land of Egypt. And may we ever see the splendour of Jesus, who so thoroughly identified with humanity that he was, indeed, a refugee in Egypt.
Wednesday, November 21, 2018
Letter to the Editor of the Cornwall Seaway News
In Toronto, a United Church minister who says the Bible is a fairy tale and God doesn't exist, will continue to deliver her non-Christian message from the pulpit with the blessing of the folks who call the shots in Canada's second largest Christian denomination, the United Church of Canada. Instead of giving her the heave-ho, the United Church moderator (aka big cheese) has asked members to pray for the atheistic pastor and her congregation. Sounds like we should be praying for the United Church...
So I responded:
November 16, 2018
To the editor:
I always enjoy reading Claude McIntosh’s column, and he fits a lot of material onto the page. His November 14 discussion of a United Church of Canada minister did not include important parts of the context which are necessary for readers to understand what is happening in this case.
People who attend United churches are at many different points on their faith journey, but clergy are held to a standard of being found to be in essential agreement with the Church’s statements of faith before they can be ordained or commissioned. As Claude noted, a minister in Toronto who professes to be an atheist was placed under review. He says that she will continue to serve “with the blessing of the folks who call the shots,” but this is not the case. In the United Church, discipline of ministers is the responsibility of local jurisdictions, just as in Canada the federal government and the provinces have different areas of responsibility. Toronto Conference of the United Church was conducting the formal hearing into her ministry and then settled the case with her and her congregation, which does allow her to continue in ministry. Legal actions often end in settlement, so this hardly represents a “blessing” by any part of the Church; this resolution was not made by the national Church, does not affect any other minister or any other jurisdiction in the Church, and does not imply any acceptance of atheist beliefs as being in agreement with what the Church believes. Claude mentions that the Moderator of the United Church (as he puts it, “the big cheese,” which is a good way to explain this position) asked for prayer for this minister and her congregation, which I believe is entirely appropriate. Claude omits that this call for prayer came at the end of the Moderator’s letter which states explicitly that as a Christian church, we continue to expect that our ministers will offer their leadership in accordance with our statements of faith. This follows a statement by The United Church of Canada that the resolution of this case does not alter in any way the Church’s belief in a God must fully revealed to us as Christians in and through Jesus Christ. The Church’s statements of faith have all been grounded in this understanding.
Claude says that we should be praying for the United Church, which I appreciate. Please pray for us as we try to be faithful and loving followers of Jesus, and for all of the churches and faith traditions ministering to the people of the Seaway Valley.
Sincerely yours,
Rev. Daniel Hayward UE
Minister, South Stormont Pastoral Charge
(Ingleside-Newington United Church and St. Andrew’s-St. Mark’s United Church, Long Sault)
The United Church of Canada
Sunday, November 18, 2018
60 Years!: Sermon, November 18, 2018
The towns and churches all turned 60 years old in 2018. Trinity held its first worship service in the sanctuary on Easter Sunday, April 6, 1958, and its dedication service on May 25. The St. Andrew's dedication service was November 16, 1958. Both 60th anniversaries were marked in worship on November 18, 2018, just two days off 60 years since the St. Andrew's dedication and a week away from 61st anniversary of the November 10, 1957, laying of the Trinity cornerstone.
Every Jewish priest performs his services every day and offers the same sacrifices many times; but these sacrifices can never take away sins. Christ, however, offered one sacrifice for sins, an offering that is effective forever, and then he sat down at the right side of God. There he now waits until God puts his enemies as a footstool under his feet. 14 With one sacrifice, then, he has made perfect forever those who are purified from sin.So many stories over 60 years.We have, then, my friends, complete freedom to go into the Most Holy Place by means of the death of Jesus. He opened for us a new way, a living way, through the curtain—that is, through his own body. We have a great priest in charge of the house of God. So let us come near to God with a sincere heart and a sure faith, with hearts that have been purified from a guilty conscience and with bodies washed with clean water. Let us hold on firmly to the hope we profess, because we can trust God to keep his promise. Let us be concerned for one another, to help one another to show love and to do good. Let us not give up the habit of meeting together, as some are doing. Instead, let us encourage one another all the more, since you see that the Day of the Lord is coming nearer.
- Hebrews 10:11-14, 19-25, Good News BibleAs Jesus was leaving the Temple, one of his disciples said, “Look, Teacher! What wonderful stones and buildings!”
Jesus answered, “You see these great buildings? Not a single stone here will be left in its place; every one of them will be thrown down.”
Jesus was sitting on the Mount of Olives, across from the Temple, when Peter, James, John, and Andrew came to him in private. “Tell us when this will be,” they said, “and tell us what will happen to show that the time has come for all these things to take place.”
Jesus said to them, “Watch out, and don't let anyone fool you. Many men, claiming to speak for me, will come and say, ‘I am he!’ and they will fool many people. And don't be troubled when you hear the noise of battles close by and news of battles far away. Such things must happen, but they do not mean that the end has come. Countries will fight each other; kingdoms will attack one another. There will be earthquakes everywhere, and there will be famines. These things are like the first pains of childbirth.”
- Mark 13:1-8, Good News Bible
Someone told me once that before the St. Andrew’s building was finished, the United Church congregation in Long Sault met in the liquor store. Well, it wasn’t the liquor store at the time, but it’s still a great story. So I have the bulletin here for the dedication service of St. Andrew’s United Church, November 16th, 1958, 3 PM. The minister then was Rev. Wilfong and the guest preacher was Rev. Gordon Porter, superintendent of missions for Montreal and Ottawa Conference. Officiating was Rev. Lewis, president of the Conference. The bulletin tells me that the hymns were all from the 1930 Hymn Book: Ye gates, lift up your heads on high; I joyed when to the house of God go up, they said to me; Christ is made the sure foundation, which we sang today; and Rise up, O men of God. And the bulletin lists who donated the sign board, hymn books, hymn board, offering plates and guest book. We are going to give this bulletin, which is one of the few left from 1958, to the Lost Villages Museum.
Another booklet, A History of Trinity United Church, was published for the 25th anniversary in 1983. It tells me that before the manse was ready in 1957 the minister, Rev. Profitt, and his wife, lived on Pine Street, which was also the home of the Sunday school and youth groups. The booklet describes the Session, Stewards, Official Board and so on, so many groups. I learned that the original black choir gowns were replaced with red ones with white and yellow collars in 1980. Canadian Girls in There was Canadian Girls in Training, boys’ groups too, and Hi-C, a Mission Band, a Baby Band, Sunday school, a Women’s Federation with 90 members, which became the United Church Women in 1962, and the 50/50 or Couples Club. The booklet goes on to describe the 20th anniversary of Trinity church in 1978 and the 25th in 1983. I’m sure that these few sentences I’ve used to sum all this up have brought up a lot of memories for long-time members of both congregations.
And since then 60 years of worship, baptisms, Communions, weddings, funerals, Sunday school classes, meetings and more meetings, suppers, bazaars, soup and sandwiches, quilting and food bank collections and cards going out and more than I can mention.
So much has changed over six decades, but so much has stayed the same. The book of Ecclesiastes in the Bible says, “There is nothing new under the sun. Is there a thing of which it is said, ‘See, this is new?’ It has already been, in the ages before us.” There isn’t a lot that can happen in the life of the church that hasn’t already happened in the two thousand years the church has been around or even the 93 years of our denomination. I was reading Phyllis Airhart's great history of The United Church of Canada, A Church With the Soul of a Nation, and there is a story of a United church deeply in debt that was saved by the women fundraising to cover the payments, and another congregation whose finances were straightened out by the women’s group, in, the story says, a mysterious way known only to the ladies. The book says that when money was needed to install new lighting, improve the sanctuary, or purchase new hymn books, collection plates, or Communion sets, the ladies were there. And this sounds like the last few years, but this was the 1930s. So much has changed, but so much has stayed the same, and all of us know that the Trinity and St. Andrew’s buildings would not have made it to 60 years without, in particular, women organizing and working, and we are grateful.
So much has changed. I want to talk about something that would have been unthinkable 60 years ago, and still seems strange to many of us now. You may have heard that in the United Church there is a minister who is an atheist. Well, her beliefs are more nuanced than that (this is her congregation), but that’s what it boils down to. Her ministry was being reviewed by Toronto Conference in a formal hearing, but she has good lawyers, and last week it was announced that Conference had settled her case. So she is back in ministry. The details of this settlement are confidential, but it is based on process, not theology, and it doesn’t apply to any other minister in any other conference. This hasn’t stopped her supporters, and she has lots, claiming victory, and many, many other United Church people being very upset. It just doesn’t make sense to most folks that an atheist could be, would even want to be, a minister in Christ’s church. It just doesn’t add up. It’s my impression that she wants to stay in the church because she genuinely sees herself as evangelizing the church, converting us to her way of believing, or not believing. This brings to mind for me what Jesus says in our reading today, “Watch out, and don’t let anyone fool you. Many claiming to speak for me will come and say, ‘I am he,’ and they will fool many people.”
I would add here that we are a church that doesn’t believe in what is called creedal subscription – we don’t make members sign off on a specific faith statement. People in the pews, over the last 90 and 60 years and today, have believed lots of things – they have been at different points on their journey of faith, and that is expected, and encouraged. But those who are called to paid, accountable ministry are set apart, and to be ordained or commissioned or admitted they must be found to be in essential agreement with the doctrine of the church.
Both the national church and the Moderator responded to this development. The statement from the national church office says that this settlement with one minister does not alter in any way the belief of The United Church of Canada in a God most fully revealed to us as Christians in and through Jesus Christ. The church’s statements of faith over the years have all been grounded in this understanding. The most recent statement, A Song of Faith, begins with the words “God is Holy Mystery,” recognizing that as humans we will never fully understand the nature of this mystery.
The Moderator, the Right Rev. Richard Bott, adds that as a Christian church, we continue to expect that ministers in The United Church of Canada will continue to offer their leadership in accordance with our shared and agreed upon statements of faith and celebrating the sacraments. He says, I believe that God continues to call us to be people who love, and in that love, to be communities of faith where all are welcome, whatever you believe or don’t believe.
And that, I think, is what we have tried to be here, for 60 years. We have tried our best to do what the letter to the Hebrews tells us to do: to come near to God with a sincere heart and a sure faith, purified from guilt and washed clean in baptism, to hold on firmly to the hope we profess, because we can trust in God’s promises, to be concerned for one another, to help one another to show love and to good, to meet together in worship, to encourage one another on our journeys of faith, today and for another six decades, and for six more and more until all things are made new.
Sunday, July 22, 2018
Full Communion
Interview with Lauren Hodgson in English
Entrevue avec Stéphane Vermette en français
Saturday, May 19, 2018
That Royal Wedding Sermon...
The wedding had great liturgy, great music (including a gospel choir!), and great preaching, in a beautiful setting (although St. George's Chapel is much more High Church than I am). The sermon by the Most Rev. Michael B. Curry, Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church of the United States, has taken off on social media and online. Whenever else have we seen the full text, or video, of a sermon posted on Buzzfeed, Fast Company, Town and Country and Vanity Fair? It is heartening to see the Church covered by the major media for speaking of love, sacrifice and justice, instead of for attacking gay people, abusing children, and defending Trump.
I like Slate's take on the sermon's "subtly radical theology." I would quibble that the Queen, who is the head of a 53-country Commonwealth that includes a number of nations populated largely by the descendants of slaves (Jamaica, Barbados, Grenada and St. Lucia come to mind first), has probably heard slavery mentioned in a sermon before. But as someone who was excited to see the cathedral and university in Beijing associated with Teilhard de Chardin, I loved that Bishop Curry mentioned this theologian (and paleontologist). And here is the article's conclusion:
...Curry’s sermon('s)... central argument was the world-transforming power of love. On the surface, this is pretty standard fodder for a wedding homily, of course. But Curry explicitly defined “love” as something much larger than romantic attachment. “Imagine our governments and countries when love is the way,” he told the crowd, as he approached the sermon’s climax. “No child would go to bed hungry in such a world as that. Poverty would become history in such a world as that. The Earth would be as a sanctuary in such a world as that.” This is a core tenet of the kind of robust mainline Christianity that many people will have been introduced to for the first time on Saturday: both a call to faith and a call to action. Seeing that message delivered so forthrightly to millions of people enjoying the silly pomp and extravagance of a royal wedding was bracing. If it left you hungry for more, go to church.
Sunday, March 04, 2018
"Untimely, Unwise, Unnecessary:" Sermon, March 4, 2018
For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written,Our text from the Good News According to John is known as the Cleansing of the Temple. Jesus becomes angry when he enters the Temple in Jerusalem, the centre of Jewish religious life, and finds animals being sold for sacrifice and money being changed within the Temple precincts. He drives the moneychangers and sellers out with a whip, along with the sheep and oxen they were selling, flips over the tables and scatters the coins of the moneychangers, saying “don’t make my Father’s house a place of business.” In Matthew’s Gospel he cries out, “It’s written, my house will be called a house of prayer. But you’ve made it a hideout for crooks.”
“I will destroy the wisdom of the wise,
and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart.”Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe. For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.
1 Corinthians 1:18-25, English Standard VersionThe Passover of the Jews was at hand, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. In the temple he found those who were selling oxen and sheep and pigeons, and the money-changers sitting there. And making a whip of cords, he drove them all out of the temple, with the sheep and oxen. And he poured out the coins of the money-changers and overturned their tables. And he told those who sold the pigeons, “Take these things away; do not make my Father's house a house of trade.” His disciples remembered that it was written, “Zeal for your house will consume me.”
So the Jews said to him, “What sign do you show us for doing these things?” Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” The Jews then said, “It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and will you raise it up in three days?” But he was speaking about the temple of his body. When therefore he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this, and they believed the Scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken.
John 2:13-22, English Standard Version
Now, I could go through how this buying and selling going on in a sacred space offended Jesus, and how his driving out the sellers and moneychangers fulfilled Old Testament prophecy. But I think what strikes me most about this reading is that, coming as it does in the season of Lent when we are preparing for Holy Week and Easter when Jesus is arrested, tried, executed, and then is raised from death, it offers us an opportunity to consider Jesus in his fullness. Because here, wielding his whip, overturning tables, Jesus is showing a, shall we say, definitely less placid side. And I’m sure that a lot of us find this disconcerting. We’re not comfortable with it. So many of our hymns and our imagery about Jesus comes from a time in the mid-19th century when Jesus was depicted as pure, meek, and humble. The “little Lord Jesus, no crying he makes” of Away in a Manger grew up to become the “gentle Jesus, meek and mild,” of another hymn. There’s nothing wrong with showing Jesus as merciful and modest, but emphasizing one part of the personality of Jesus means we miss out on the picture of him as a fully rounded person – and of course a person who is more than a person, who is both human and divine.
So we may in fact disapprove of anyone acting in the way Jesus does, even if they are trying to correct an injustice or push back against corruption. People disapproved at the time. The religious elite thoroughly disapproved of what Jesus did, which they saw as an attack on religious ritual and the proper worship of God. Mark and Luke both say that after this, the chief priests, legal experts and other religious leaders were so worked up that they were seeking to kill Jesus.
And, reflecting on this, things haven’t changed much. Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and the civil rights movement weren’t just up against the power of American states, they encountered the disapproval of the majority of white Americans at the time. The movement for rights for Black people wasn’t popular, even with religious leaders. Clergy called Black leaders “outside agitators,” they said that civil rights marches were untimely and unwise, that sit-ins and demonstrations were unnecessary as negotiations were a better path.
Today, many people disapprove of Black people protesting the shootings of unarmed Black men by police. Again, a Black people’s campaign is called untimely, unwise, unnecessary, even racist for saying that Black lives matter. Black people demonstrate in the streets, and many people disapprove. So Black athletes silently kneel during the national anthem, and many people disapprove, criticizing them as unpatriotic, as insulting the flag and the military, as being ungrateful that they are paid to play sports. Many people disapprove of Indigenous protests for justice in the deaths of Colten Boushie and Tina Fontaine, and to pressure Canada to meet the obligations of treaties with Indigenous peoples. On Valentine’s Day a mass shooting at a high school in Pakarkland, Florida, killed 17 students and staff. Since then, students who survived have spoken out, demanding actions to stop these massacres taking place. And many people disapprove. These teenagers have been accused of being actors in a conspiracy, or paid agents of opponents of the Administration. Their families have received death threats. They are called publicity seekers who have inserted themselves into a national debate when they are too young to understand the issues. Their requests to feel safer at school are said to be unhelpful, counter-productive, missing the point. These teens are told to respect their elders, although it is their elders who did nothing when 20 six and seven year old children were gunned down in Sandy Hook, who did nothing when 26 worshippers were slaughtered in the First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs, Texas, who did nothing when 58 country music fans were killed in Las Vegas.
Martin Luther King was in jail in Birmingham, Alabama, in 1963 when he responded to such criticisms from other religious leaders in a letter. He told his fellow clergy that Black people had not made a single gain in civil rights without determined pressure, that painful experience had shown that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor – it must be demanded by the oppressed, and that Black people being told “wait” almost always means “never.” And when other clergy called civil rights actions “extreme,” King asked, wasn’t Jesus an extremist for love? So, King said, the question is not whether we will be extremists, but what kind of extremists we will be. Will we be extremists for hate or for love? Will we be extremists for the preservation of injustice or the extension of justice? He reminded other religious leaders that three men were crucified on Good Friday, all three for the same crime – extremism. Two were extremists for immorality. The other, Jesus Christ, was an extremist for love, truth and goodness.
Untimely, unwise, unnecessary, extreme. People said that about Jesus, about Martin Luther King, about Black Lives Matter and Indigenous activists and the Parkland students when they were extremists for justice and came up against the powers that be. Their actions were, are, seen as a stumbling block, as foolish, just as the cross of Jesus was. But God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God’s weakness is stronger than human strength. Jesus says that the real temple of God isn’t the building that he cleared out, but his body. His flesh is where God dwells. God the Father is in him, and he is in God the Father. And when his witness to love and justice becomes so threatening that the authorities try to silence Jesus by killing him, his body is raised from death after three days. When we become one with him, God the Father is in us and we are in God the Father, and we become part of his body, the church. Here in the church - as we say in A Song of Faith of The United Church of Canada - we seek to continue the story of Jesus by embodying his presence in the world, seeking justice and resisting evil – however untimely, unwise, and unnecessary disapproving people may think that is. For we follow Jesus Christ, an extremist for love, truth and goodness.