The Mormonizing of America?

Review:
The Mormonizing of America: How the Mormon Religion Became a Dominant Force in Politics, Entertainment, and Pop Culture
By Stephen Mansfield
Worthy Publishing, Brentwood TN, 2012
265 pages

I read this book while watching the Republican National Convention broadcast from Tampa, including the speech by Governor Mitt Romney accepting the GOP nomination for President. There had been much talk online about Romney's Mormon faith and whether or not he would downplay his religion in his speech.

Romney is one of the prominent Mormons mentioned in this book, along with business author the late Stephen Covey, entertainers Donny and Marie Osmond, former ambassador John Huntsman (who had contended with Romney for the Republican nomination), right-wing activist Glenn Beck, and others. Stephen Mansfield, who has written two books on the faith of Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama, sets out to look at the "Mormon Moment" as seven million Latter-Day Saints, two percent of the US population, seem to have a disproportionate influence in politics, business and entertainment.

Mansfield does this partially through a series of vignettes with Mormon characters - a student athlete, a boy preparing for priesthood and his grandfather, a couple wanting to add to their already large family - often interacting with "gentiles." I found these to a bit stilted, with dialogue that did not ring true, but they did make their points about Latter-Day Saints (LDS) beliefs and actions.

He argues that the success of Mormons in the US and the present "Mormon Moment" are the result of the Mormon religion creating "what can benevolently be called a Mormon Machine - a system of individual empowerment, family investment, local church (ward and stake level) leadership, priesthood government, prophetic enduement, Temple sacraments, and sacrificial financial endowment of the Mormon cause." In fact, Manfield claims, "plant Mormonism in any country on earth, and pretty much the same results will occur." Canadian Mormons do not yet have their "moment," but they make up only half a percent of our country's population, much less than in the US.

Mansfield makes the case that Mormon values and behaviours are also the hallmarks of successful people, and further that these values and behaviours grow naturally from Mormon doctrine. He then sets out an overview of the genesis and growth of the faith of the Latter-Day Saints. The history of the Mormons is laid out from the visions of the Prophet Joseph Smith, his translation of the Book of Mormon, persecution by mobs and governments, and the eventual trek west to Utah. Mansfield does not hesitate to depict Smith, and other early Mormon leaders, harshly when he feels it is warranted. At the end of the book he articulates a view, which he does not say if he believes personally, that Smith "completely imagined the religion he said he received by revelation" and that Smith can be understood as "a manipulative deceiver." Despite this, these "invented religious doctrines...have nevertheless fashioned a capable, ambitious people over time."

The historical and doctrine sections of the book are the most useful for me. The core Mormon beliefs are set out, and contrasted with those held by orthodox Christianity: that God the Heavenly Father has a physical body, and is married to the Heavenly Mother; that families exist prior to the earthly existence; that after his resurrection Christ appeared to Hebrews who had settled in North America; that the churches which were formed after Christ's life were corrupt; that the priesthood authority given to Mormon men is the power of the Holy Spirit to bless, heal, and have revelations; that the Book of Mormon is considered Scriptural on a level with Smith's own reworking of the Bible. Mansfield states that, given the depth of the doctrinal divide between Latter-Day Saints and orthodox Christian churches as well as Mormons' fervent devotion to Jesus, it may be time to move beyond debates over whether or not Mormons are Christians and classify the LDS Church as the fourth Abrahamic religion alongside Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.

Interestingly, the first version of this book was subtitled "How a Fringe Cult Emerged as a Dominant Force in American Politics, Entertainment, and Pop Culture." Presumably, there was an adverse reaction to "fringe cult" and the publisher changed it to "How the Mormon Religion Emerged." But Mansfield, who is not a Mormon, is sympathetic to the hard-working, faithful ordinary Mormons, despite the shadows of their religion's past of manipulation, polygamy, and racism. Mormons have both the advantage and disadvantage of belonging to a young faith tradition; the first Christian churches are 2,000 years in the past, while the Book of Mormon was published in 1830.

The political and cultural references in this book may become dated soon - if Governor Romney does not win the Presidency in November, his prominence as a Mormon may soon be forgotten. But Mansfield's analysis of the ascension of Mormons in US society, while not deep, will stand as an introduction to the LDS Church and its members in America. It will certainly be of interest to anyone who wonders about the beliefs and practices of their Mormon neighbours, or what is in the mind of Governor Romney as he seeks to be President of the country in which the Latter-Day Saints originated.

Comment vivre dans un pays étrange de l'exil

Le mercredi août 15, le jour nationale des Acadiens, j'ai préparé une réflexion pour le culte d'ouverture de ce jour au 41e Conseil général de l'Église Unie du Canada. Les plans ont changés. Voici donc la réflexion que je n'ai pas donné.

Vous, les chefs et le peuple, vous ne valez pas mieux que les chefs corrompus et la population de Sodom et Gomorrhe. Écoutez donc la parole du Seigneur, ouvrez vos oreilles à l'enseignement de notre Dieu!

Le Seigneur dit: À quoi me servent vos nombreux sacrifices? Vous brûlez entièrement des moutons pour moi, vous m'offrez la graisse des veaux. J'en ai assez de tout cela. Le sang des taureaux, des agneaux et des boucs, je n'en veux plus. Quand vous venez vous présenter devant moi, vous occupez inutilement des cours de mon temple. Est-ce que je vous ai demandé cela? Arrêtez de m'apporter des offrandes qui ne servent à rien! La fumée, je l'ai en horreur. Vous fêtez la nouvelle lune et le sabbat, vous organisez de grands rassemblements, et en même temps, vous commettez le mal. Je ne peux pas supporter cela.

Je déteste vos fêtes de nouvelle lune et vos cérémonies. Elles sont un poids pour moi, et je suis fatigué de les supporter. Quand vous étendez les mains pour prier, je détourne mon regard. Même si vous faites beaucoup de prières, je n'écoute pas. Vos mains sont couvertes de sang.

Lavez-vous, rendez-vous purs. Éloignez de mes yeux vos actions mauvaises, arrêtez de faire le mal. Apprenez à faire le bien. Cherchez à respecter le droit. Ramenez dans le bon chemin celui qui écrase les autres par l'injustice. Défendez les droits des orphelins, prenez en main la cause des veuves.

Le Seigneur dit: Venez, nous allons discuter. Même si vos péchés ont la couleur du sang, ils prendront la couleur du lait. S'ils ont rouges comme le feu, ils deviendront aussi blancs que la neige. Si vous acceptez d'obéir, vous pourrez manger les bonnes choses du pays.

Mais si vous refusez, si vous continuez à vous révolter contre moi, l'épée vous dévorera.

Voilà ce que le Seigneur affirme.
Ésaïe 1:10-20 (Bible Parole de Vie)

L’exil. Les Acadiens connaissaient l'exil de tout ce qu'ils aimaient - leurs fermes, leurs arbres, leurs eaux. Le peuple d'Israël savait l'exil. Et nous, peuple de Dieu, nous le connaissons aussi. Nous connaissons l'exil, à partir des anciennes façons de faire les choses, depuis les jours anciens où l'église était puissant et les églises étaient pleines et il n'y avait pas de pénurie d'argent.

Et maintenant nous sommes en exil à partir de ces jours. Nous nous asseyons par nos fleuves de Babylone. Nous sommes dans notre Louisiane. Et nous sommes nostalgiques. Nous voulons revenir aux vieux jours. Et si nous avions seulement la musique et le pasteur et le culte d'aujourd'hui, puis les vieux jours pourraient revenir.

Mais il y a plus d'un type d'exil. C’est vrai, nous sommes en exil de vieilles manières d'être de l'église. Mais, le prophète Isaïe nous dit, et Jésus nous dit, nous pouvons aussi être en exil de bonnes façons d'être l'église. Si vous êtes contraire à l'éthique, si vous êtes injuste, vos offrandes et votre culte sont en vain. Le prophète a dit, et Jésus l'a cite, la parole de Dieu: Ce peuple m'honore des lèvres, mais son coeur est bien éloigné de moi. C’est en vain qu’ils me rendent un culte, enseignant des précepts qui ne sont que des commandements des humains. Vous savez que nous pouvons être en amour avec amour de Dieu, plutôt que d'aimer Dieu. Nous pouvons faire notre culte et nos structures en idoles.

Nous luttons avec l'exil et la perte. Mais, dans notre exil, nos exils, Dieu fait quelque chose de nouveau. Et Dieu nous dit quoi faire - la façon d'être le peuple de Dieu dans un pays étranger - un appel renouvelé à la mission.

Dieu dit, votre culte n'est pas seulement à l'église. Dieu dit, cessez de m’apporter des offrandes; elles sont inutiles si elles ne sont pas accompagnés par l'action éthique. Cessez vos celebrations; elles sont inutiles si elles ne sont pas accompagnés par l'action éthique. Cessez de mal faire.

Apprenez à bien faire, préoccupez-vous du droit des gens, tirez d’affaire l’opprimé, rendez justice à l’orphelin, défendez la cause de la veuve. Pratiquez l'hospitalité à l'étranger. L'étranger aujourd'hui est peut être le réfugié, l'immigrant, ou la personne qui n'a jamais été à l'église, la personne qui ne connaît pas Dieu ou Jésus.

La lettre de Jacques dit la même chose: Mettez en pratique la parole, et ne vous bornez pas à l’écouter.

Oui, vous êtes sauvés par la foi seule. Mais à son tour votre foi se manifestera dans tout ce que vous faites, dans le domaine social et politique que dans celui des relations personnelles.

Et, je vous dis ce que Dieu vous dit: ne vous découragez pas! N'ayez pas peur! Vous êtes des enfants de Dieu, par Jésus Christ et remplis de l'Esprit Saint. Dieu est avec vous toujours. Vous pouvez avoir confiance dans les promesses de Dieu: Si vos péchés ont la teinte du sang, ils deviendront blancs comme la neige.

Voici la parole de Dieu. Voici comment vivre dans ce pays étrange de l'exil.

The Last Hunger Season

Review:
The Last Hunger Season: A Year in an African Farm Community on the Brink of Change
By Roger Thurow
PUBLICAFFAIRS, New York, 2012
304 pages

In western Kenya, the Luhya people often name their children for the time of year in which they were born: Boys, for instance, may have as one of their names Wafula (rain), Wanyonyi (weeding), Wekesa (harvest), or the most common, Wanjala (hunger). The hunger season lasts from the time the food from the previous harvest runs out to the time when the new harvest begins. As the harvest in this part of Kenya is in August and September, May and June are the high point of the Wanjala, the hunger season.

Here in our part of rural eastern Canada, this summer's dry conditions are putting our corn and soybean crops in jeopardy, but while farm families will suffer financially they are unlikely to starve. However, a crop failure in Kenya, and in many other places, will cause widespread starvation, and in fact that was occurring elsewhere in Kenya during the time frame covered by this book.

I was fortunate to receive a review copy of The Last Hunger Season by Roger Thurow, senior fellow for Global Agriculture and Food Policy at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs and a former reporter for the Wall Street Journal. He tells the story of four smallholder farmers in western Kenya - Leonida, Francis, Zipporah and Rosoa - and their experiences with the One Acre Fund, founded by American social entrepreneur Andrew Youn after he saw the effects of the hunger season in Kenya.

In Africa the yields of corn, wheat, rice and beans lag as much as 90 percent behind those of farmers elsewhere. The smallholder farmers of western Kenya work in what is essentially a time warp, farming without machinery in the same way as 50 years ago, prior to Kenyan independence, or 80 years ago - just with cell phones as one of their tools. One Acre is one attempt to increase yields for Africa's smallholder farmers by providing groups of such farmers with hybrid seeds and fertilizer on time for planting, and following up with advice on planting, tending, and harvesting, on a credit of about 4,500 Kenyan shillings (US $50) per half-acre of corn. I know that the Canadian Foodgrains Bank - in which our United Church of Canada, and local congregations and farmers here in eastern Ontario, are participants - has been involved with a partner organization in Zimbabwe in a program that sounds similar.

Thurow's book reads like a thriller as he follows these four farmers through the year, receiving their seeds and fertilizer from One Acre, struggling to keep families fed and pay school and medical bills and the One Acre debt, and dealing with weevils and mould ruining the stored corn and catastrophes like drought and then heavy rain washing away a food storage hut. Will the rains come in time to save the corn crop? Can the money be found to keep a child in school so that he can take the all-important exams for further study? How to juggle sales of stored corn, cattle, and milk to pay the bills? Will One Acre manage to get a hybrid bean seed approved by the layers of bureaucracy so the farmers can plant it this year? Will families survive the hunger season, getting by on just a cup of tea a day while tending their crops and keeping hungry children in school? Will enough corn be grown on the One Acre plots to keep families fed throughout the year and make this the last hunger season? Meanwhile, decisions are being made far away that will affect the livelihoods of these farmers, as the US Congress debates cutting the Obama Administration's Feed the Future initiative that funds global programs focused on smallholder farmers and in turn assists One Acre and other organizations.

The reader gets a feel for life on these small farms and the impact initiatives like One Acre can have on global food security and the lives of farm families. It is also apparent how important a role faith plays for these farmers: the One Acre groups meet in the churches that are found throughout rural Kenya (Baptist and Assemblies of God congregations are mentioned), farm houses are decorated with Biblical sayings, and as they work the farmers and their children quote the Bible. For example, Leonida's son Gideon repeats Philippians 4:4 as he works on the house: "Rejoice in the Lord always, and again I say rejoice."

The world needs to double food production by 2050 to keep up with a growing and more prosperous global population. Improved food storage, higher crop yields, and more efficient markets for smallholder farmers in Africa are crucial if this goal is to be met. The Last Hunger Season provides a great insight into the farmers and organizations that are vital to the future of agriculture in Africa and the world.

Liturgical Colours, Liturgical Dancing: Sermon, July 15, 2012

Once again David assembled the select warriors of Israel, thirty thousand strong. David and all the troops who were with him set out for Baalah, which is Kiriath-jearim of Judah, to bring God’s chest up from there—the chest that is called by the namen of the LORD of heavenly forces, who sits enthroned on the winged creatures. They loaded God’s chest on a new cart and carried it from Abinadab’s house, which was on the hill. Uzzah and Ahio, Abinadab’s sons, were driving the new cart. Uzzah was beside God’s chest while Ahio was walking in front of it. Meanwhile, David and the entire house of Israel celebrated in the LORD ’s presence with all their strength, with songs, zithers, harps, tambourines, rattles, and cymbals.

So David went and brought God’s chest up from Obed-edom’s house to David’s City with celebration. Whenever those bearing the chest advanced six steps, David sacrificed an ox and a fatling calf. David, dressed in a linen priestly vest, danced with all his strength before the LORD. This is how David and the entire house of Israel brought up the LORD ’s chest with shouts and trumpet blasts.

As the LORD ’s chest entered David’s City, Saul’s daughter Michal was watching from a window. She saw King David jumping and dancing before the LORD, and she lost all respect for him.

The LORD ’s chest was brought in and put in its place inside the tent that David had pitched for it. Then David offered entirely burned offerings in the LORD ’s presence in addition to well-being sacrifices. When David finished offering the entirely burned offerings and the well-being sacrifices, he blessed the people in the name of the LORD of heavenly forces. He distributed food among all the people of Israel — to the whole crowd, male and female—each receiving a loaf of bread, a date cake, and a raisin cake. Then all the people went back to their homes.
2 Samuel 6:1-5, 12b-19, from the Common English Bible

Bless the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! He has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing that comes from heaven. God chose us in Christ to be holy and blameless in God’s presence before the creation of the world. God destined us to be his adopted children through Jesus Christ because of his love. This was according to his goodwill and plan and to honor his glorious grace that he has given to us freely through the Son whom he loves. We have been ransomed through his Son’s blood, and we have forgiveness for our failures based on his overflowing grace, which he poured over us with wisdom and understanding. God revealed his hidden design to us, which is according to his goodwill and the plan that he intended to accomplish through his Son. This is what God planned for the climax of all times:c to bring all things together in Christ, the things in heaven along with the things on earth. We have also received an inheritance in Christ. We were destined by the plan of God, who accomplishes everything according to his design. We are called to be an honor to God’s glory because we were the first to hope in Christ. You too heard the word of truth in Christ, which is the good news of your salvation. You were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit because you believed in Christ. The Holy Spirit is the down payment on our inheritance, which is applied toward our redemption as God’s own people, resulting in the honor of God’s glory.
Ephesians 1:3-14, from the Common English Bible

In the story we have been following for the last several weeks, the shepherd boy David who defeated Goliath is now king of Israel, and he brings the ark - not Noah’s ark but the ark in Raiders of the Lost Ark, the chest containing the stone tablets of the Ten Commandments - to his city of Jerusalem. And there is worship, with a procession and animal sacrifices and a blessing and music. The Bible says that David and all of Israel celebrated in God’s presence with songs, zithers, harps, tambourines, rattles, and cymbals. We may be able to find a tambourine and a rattle, and maybe a cymbal, downstairs but I don’t think we have any zithers or harps around. Since David’s time we have invented the piano and the organ.

And David dances with all his strength before God. His wife Michal watches him, and she doesn’t approve of him worshipping through this jumping and dancing. Things haven’t changed a lot over the 3000 years since then. If we had dance as part of worship today, as some churches do, some of us would probably think it added a lot to the service, and some of us would be like Michal and think that it didn’t belong.

That’s been the case with anything new in worship. And worship has evolved a lot since David’s time, and since Christians began meeting together. Christians started out worshipping in houses and eventually moved to church buildings, and that was probably controversial. Service times have changed. Our morning worship time in North America was originally to accommodate milking. Evening services have largely disappeared. Eastern Orthodox Christian services are two to three hours long, but ours are about an hour, a length that was entrenched when radio programs lasted an hour. Sermons used to be much longer – Puritan ministers in the 17th century preached about 50 minutes, which is still the case in the West Indies and Africa but not here. And folks here are probably thankful. Protestant ministers tended to wear black robes called Geneva gowns, or in some denominations no specific clerical dress at all, until the 1960s. That’s changed. And music – the zithers, harps, tambourines, rattles and cymbals of the Bible were replaced by just the human voice for most Protestants, who sang just the Psalms alone and unaccompanied. When the pipe organ was introduced into churches many people saw it as the Devil’s instrument, and disapproved as thoroughly as Michal disapproved of David’s dancing.

One thing that hasn’t changed so much in our tradition is that our worship is liturgical. Liturgy comes from a Greek word meaning an act of public service; in the time of Jesus and the early church, your liturgical act might be working on building one of the Roman roads. The early Christians applied the word to worship, as an act of service to God rather than the empire, and eventually liturgy came to mean the rituals of worship. A ritual is a structured human activity with patterns and repetitions that enact the stories of the community. And that’s what liturgy is – in worship our liturgy provides structure through repeated actions that convey the story of God’s relationship with humanity in Jesus Christ.

Within our Christian faith we can live our faith in several ways, in private devotion, in acts of service to our neighbours in our community, in working for justice here and around the world, and through participation in the rituals of our church community. Through the rituals of Sunday worship and weddings and funerals and special services, we learn the Christian story and the meanings attached by the church to events. Liturgy is a way for us to enter the presence of the holy. Liturgy gives a recognizable order to worship so that we can enter into this experience.

So as the ark is brought to Jerusalem, there is liturgy in music, which the Israelites must know in order to sing and play along, and blessing. The Psalms in the Bible were originally written for the liturgy of the Jewish Temple, and they are still used in our liturgy today, as we just said Psalm 24 together. We know that the early church had liturgy, as we have these prayers and hymns in the Bible from the first Christians, and we said one of them together as our call to worship, written probably about 20 years after Jesus.

So in our United Church, and in other mainline Protestant denominations and the Roman Catholic and Orthodox Churches, we come from a liturgical tradition. There are churches which are non-liturgical, although even their worship services are not complete free for alls lacking any structure.

There are lots of folks who see liturgy in the same way as Michal saw David’s dancing. They wonder what any of this structure has to do with modern life, and particularly how liturgy with its formality and references to ancient stories and repetition of very old prayers can possibly appeal to young people today. But surveys show that whether or not a church’s worship is liturgical or non liturgical isn’t actually a big concern to younger folks. And it may not be true that younger generations lack appreciation for formal signs and symbols and rituals. If you think about it, two of the primary experiences for young people are education and sports. There is ritual in education, particularly in graduation ceremonies. Sports are full of ritual and traditions. The Olympic games will begin later this month, and we will see an opening ceremony, and an Olympic flag raising and Olympic anthem and Olympic oath, and rituals and ceremonies during the games. All of this means that our liturgy need not be excessively formal and wordy, but it need not be overly casual either.

We have a liturgical tradition, but it hasn’t remained stationary. All the changes I mentioned in service time and length and sermon length and music met with as much disapproval from some worshippers as David worshipping God by dancing in front of the ark. One big change was during the Protestant Reformation when worship in Latin was replaced by worship in the language of the people. The version of the Bible read in worship and the hymn books we use have changed, during our lifetimes. Since the United Church was formed we have had the 1930 Hymnal, the Songs of the Gospel supplement, the 1971 red hymn book, the green Songs For a Gospel People supplement, Voices United, and the More Voices supplement. And all of these have been criticized as much as Michal dissed David.

One way that our liturgical tradition has been changing came in the 1970s. There was a liturgical movement after the Roman Catholic Church had made its shift away from worshipping in Latin, and the main Protestant denominations and the Catholic Church began looking at bringing our different liturgical ways back to their roots in the early church. This was all part of a push for ecumenism, unity among the various strands of Christianity. It produced the red hymn book, a joint production of the Anglican and United churches that were looking to merge at that time. It gave us our lectionary, the common cycle of readings that major Protestant and Catholic churches share each Sunday. If you look at the 1969 Service Book of the United Church of Canada, there’s a lectionary in there, but it’s unique to the United Church and used by no one else. And if you read through that lectionary, you see that seasons we now mark in the church, like Advent, Epiphany, and Lent, aren’t mentioned at all. Many of us can probably remember that.

I want to talk about this a little today. Part of liturgy as the rituals of worship is teaching the symbols of our faith and the meanings the church attaches to what is happening. At one time we learned this through Sunday school and liturgy just provided a refresher course throughout our adult lives. But it’s no longer true that people are exposed to church rituals from childhood onwards. When I lead wedding or funeral services there are often – no, there are always – people who have no idea what to do or what the rituals involve or what they mean. So starting in September we are going to look more closely at one part of the liturgy during each worship service and refresh ourselves or learn together about it, so it is our shared ritual.

And today I want to look briefly at how, as part of this liturgical movement, Protestant and Catholic churches began sharing a common liturgical calendar with the major seasons. The church calendar that these major churches now share begins in Advent, at the end of November or beginning of December, with the stories of the future return of Christ and of the events leading up to his first coming in his birth at Christmas. And Christmas is the next season, lasting just 12 days. Epiphany means to make known, and this season is about how Christ is made known, beginning with the visit of the wise men. Lent is the season of repentance and searching ourselves to get ready for Holy Week. In that week, starting on Palm Sunday, we relive the story of the last week of Christ’s life and his death on Good Friday. Easter is the joyous celebration of Christ’s resurrection, and lasts long after Easter Sunday, for another 50 days until Ascension and the birthday of the church in the story of the Holy Spirit coming upon the followers of Jesus at Pentecost. And the season after Pentecost is the longest, going until Advent comes up again.

Again, if you look in the 1969 service book there is a season of Creation, and there’s an effort to bring this back into the church calendar in September as a season looking at God’s act of creating the world. The season after Pentecost ends on Reign of Christ Sunday, which is November 25 this year.

This cycle of the seasons reminds us that the church’s time, God’s time, is not the world’s time, and it enables us to retell the story of God as Creator, Jesus Christ, and Holy Spirit each year. And each season has a colour. As I said, at one time all United Church ministers wore black gowns and tabs like lawyers. The clerical shirts I wear with the collars were originally designed to be more casual versions of that dress. In the 1960s ministers began wearing different vestments, and some no vestments at all, and with the liturgical movement liturgical colours came in for the vestments ministers wear and the furnishings in the sanctuary.

Roman Catholics and the major Protestant churches share a similar colour scheme. These colours are symbols, helping to remind us of the tone being set in a particular season. Advent and Lent are blue or purple, colours of preparation and repentance. Christmas, Epiphany Sunday, and Trinity Sunday are white, representing joy and happiness. Palm Sunday, Good Friday, Reformation Sunday, and All Saints are red, the colour of blood and martyrdom. Pentecost Sunday and church anniversaries are red too, for the fire of the Holy Spirit. What is called ordinary time, the season of Epiphany after Epiphany Sunday and the season after Pentecost, is green, standing for nature and representing the whole world.

None of this is carved in stone or made into law, so there are churches that use gold on Christmas Day and no one gets arrested. A symbol has to be meaningful to the people interpreting it, so white is used for funerals in churches that have Asian worshippers as the colour associated with grief in Asia is white, not black.

In worship we are gathered in together to encounter God, to proclaim the good news of Jesus Christ, to learn about our faith, and to be sent out changed. Liturgy is how we in our tradition do this in worship. So let’s look forward to learning more about what we do and why we do it. And thanks be to God for the ways we have been given to worship, as God’s children adopted through Jesus Christ.

Wondering...

There's a very sad story in Ottawa as police charge a well-known (and much-loved) Roman Catholic priest with stealing $240,000 in cheques and $160,000 in cash from his parish to feed a gambling addiction. The local CTV station ran a poll on its website asking if people would still give donations to their church in light of these charges - 66% responded no, although I have no idea what this means as there are no numbers on how many respondents gave to "their" church before the charges were laid, nor is there a breakdown of how many are Roman Catholic.

Yet in another story, the co-founder of Ottawa's Escapade electronic dance music festival has gone missing with $600,000 in funds from the event. I'm wondering why CTV is not asking if people will still attend festivals in light of this development.

A Tale of Two Conquests: Sermon, June 24, 2012

June 21 is National Aboriginal Day in Canada, so churches have been marking First Nations Sunday on June 17 or 24.

The Philistines assembled their troops for war at Socoh of Judah. A champion named Goliath from Gath came out from the Philistine camp. He was more than nine feet tall. He had a bronze helmet on his head and wore bronze scale-armor weighing one hundred twenty-five pounds. He had bronze plates on his shins, and a bronze scimitar hung on his back. His spear shaft was as strong as the bar on a weaver’s loom, and its iron head weighed fifteen pounds. His shield-bearer walked in front of him.

He stopped and shouted to the Israelite troops, “Why have you come and taken up battle formations? I am the Philistine champion, and you are Saul’s servants. Isn’t that right? Select one of your men, and let him come down against me. If he is able to fight me and kill me, then we will become your slaves, but if I overcome him and kill him, then you will become our slaves and you will serve us. I insult Israel’s troops today!” the Philistine continued, “Give me an opponent, and we’ll fight!” When Saul and all Israel heard what the Philistine said, they were distressed and terrified.

So David got up early in the morning, left someone in charge of the flock, and loaded up and left, just as his father Jesse had instructed him. He reached the camp right when the army was taking up their battle formations and shouting the war cry. Israel and the Philistines took up their battle formations opposite each other. David left his things with an attendant and ran to the front line. When he arrived, he asked how his brothers were doing. Right when David was speaking with them, Goliath, the Philistine champion from Gath, came forward from the Philistine ranks and said the same things he had said before. David listened.

“Don’t let anyone lose courage because of this Philistine!” David told Saul. “I, your servant, will go out and fight him!”

“You can’t go out and fight this Philistine,” Saul answered David. “You are still a boy. But he’s been a warrior since he was a boy!”

“Your servant has kept his father’s sheep,” David replied to Saul, “and if ever a lion or a bear came and carried off one of the flock, I would go after it, strike it, and rescue the animal from its mouth. If it turned on me, I would grab it at its jaw, strike it, and kill it. Your servant has fought both lions and bears. This uncircumcised Philistine will be just like one of them because he has insulted the army of the living God.

“The LORD,” David added, “who rescued me from the power of both lions and bears, will rescue me from the power of this Philistine.”

“Go!” Saul replied to David. “And may the LORD be with you!”

Then Saul dressed David in his own gear, putting a coat of armor on him and a bronze helmet on his head. David strapped his sword on over the armor, but he couldn’t walk around well because he’d never tried it before. “I can’t walk in this,” David told Saul, “because I’ve never tried it before.” So he took them off. He then grabbed his staff and chose five smooth stones from the streambed. He put them in the pocket of his shepherd’s bag and with sling in hand went out to the Philistine.

The Philistine got closer and closer to David, and his shield-bearer was in front of him. When the Philistine looked David over, he sneered at David because he was just a boy; reddish brown and good-looking.

The Philistine asked David, “Am I some sort of dog that you come at me with sticks?” And he cursed David by his gods. “Come here,” he said to David, “and I’ll feed your flesh to the wild birds and the wild animals!”

But David told the Philistine, “You are coming against me with sword, spear, and scimitar, but I come against you in the name of the LORD of heavenly forces, the God of Israel’s army, the one you’ve insulted. Today the LORD will hand you over to me. I will strike you down and cut off your head! Today I will feed your dead body and the dead bodies of the entire Philistine camp to the wild birds and the wild animals. Then the whole world will know that there is a God on Israel’s side. And all those gathered here will know that the LORD doesn’t save by means of sword and spear. The LORD owns this war, and he will hand all of you over to us.”

The Philistine got up and moved closer to attack David, and David ran quickly to the front line to face him. David put his hand in his bag and took out a stone. He slung it, and it hit the Philistine on his forehead. The stone penetrated his forehead, and he fell facedown on the ground.
1 Samuel 17:1a, 4-11, 20-23, 32-49, Common English Bible

Later that day, when evening came, Jesus said to them, “Let’s cross over to the other side of the lake.” They left the crowd and took him in the boat just as he was. Other boats followed along.

Gale-force winds arose, and waves crashed against the boat so that the boat was swamped. But Jesus was in the rear of the boat, sleeping on a pillow. They woke him up and said, “Teacher, don’t you care that we’re drowning?”

He got up and gave orders to the wind, and he said to the lake, “Silence! Be still!” The wind settled down and there was a great calm. Jesus asked them, “Why are you frightened? Don’t you have faith yet?”

Overcome with awe, they said to each other, “Who then is this? Even the wind and the sea obey him!” Mark 4:35-41, Common English Bible

Two stories today of battling against what seems to be certain defeat – David goes up against the armoured giant Goliath, with just a slingshot and stones, and Jesus and his friends are in a small boat caught in a storm on the lake. Many of us who have been out on the river or on a lake in a boat can identify with this story about Jesus. It’s pretty scary when the wind comes up and the waves get higher and you’re out, far from the shore. One time we were fishing on Black Donald Lake, near Calabogie, and went way down the lake to find a walleye hole we’d been told about, and it started getting dark and windy and choppy so we decided to head back. And the boat’s motor wouldn’t start. So we had to row all the way back to the camp, as it got darker and windier and rougher.

The early church understood this story as not just about a storm on the lake. For them a storm and great waves were images of the evil forces in the world, and the story showed that Jesus had divine power to save us from with these forces, no matter how powerful they seem to be.

And the story of David and Goliath is also a story about dealing with powerful forces. It’s an underdog story, so much so that we compare any situation in which a small, feisty entity opposes a large, strong one to David and Goliath. And David’s victory gives us hope when we’re confronted with a situation that seems impossible to overcome. It’s often seen as the story of standing up to a bully. Goliath has all the trash talk, taunting the Israelites, he has the height and weight and armour and can take anyone. The Israelites run away from him in fear. Goliath makes fun of David. But David knocks him down with the simplest of weapons, a stone, and then takes Goliath’s own sword and cuts off his head.

David cuts off the head of Goliath. That’s actually left out of the part of the story to be read in churches today. It makes us recoil. It has uncomfortable associations for us. Terrible crimes we read about seem that much more horrific when there is a beheading, as in the murder on a Greyhound bus in Manitoba, the videotaped killing in Montreal, terrorist executions of hostages overseas.

And then the Israelite army chases the Philistines, and the Bible says that “the dead Philistines were littered along the Shaarim road all the way to Gath and Ekron.” Goliath’s head cut off. The corpses of the enemy left along the road. This story is part of a very violent part of the Bible, the books of Joshua, Judges, and First Samuel, the story of the Israelites taking the Promised Land by force from the people who were living there and then fighting to keep it. Look at some of the things that happen in these books:
When the walls of Jericho fall, Joshua leads the Israelites into the city, where they kill all the men and women, young and old, oxen, sheep and donkeys.
The Israelites burn the city of Ai, and slaughter its people, 12,000 of them, so that no one survives. Joshua executes the king of Ai by hanging.
And it goes on for pages, the cities of Canaan besieged and destroyed, the kings executed, the population killed.
God commands King Saul of Israel to kill every Amalekite, man, woman, and child, and their livestock, but Saul spares the Amalekite King Agag and the best of the cattle and sheep. Samuel cuts Agag into pieces himself.

We can say, that’s how things worked at the time, which is true. It was the way things worked when it happened to Israel itself in a few hundred years, when the Assyrians and Babylonians came and killed and burned and sent people into exile as refugees. It has been common throughout history, this kind of Game of Thrones world of constant violence. I’m sure that my ancestors in England and France suffered, and maybe participated in, raids and invasions and wars. These are the stories we tell, in the Bible and in our literature and songs and movies. In July Kirsty and I are going to see Shakespeare in the park, and the play is Henry V, with lots of stylized violence as Shakespeare tells the story of a war between France and England, and King Henry stirs up his troops and the audience with speeches like “Once more into the breach, dear friends” and:

We few, we happy few, we band of brothers, for he today that sheds his blood with me shall be my brother, be he ne’er so vile this day shall gentle his condition. And gentlemen in England now abed shall think themselves accursed they were not here, and hold their manhood cheap whilst any speaks that fought with me upon St. Crispin’s Day.

But violence is not a play. There is real blood, and real death, and real families left in grief.

The Israelites have God’s command and protection as they conquer these people who worship other gods. David tells Goliath, “I come against you in the name of the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel’s army.” When we read in the Bible about the conquest of the Promised Land, we naturally identify with the Israelites who wrote this story from their perspective, and we cheer them on. But today this should remind us of another story about a people who had been living in a land for a long time, for millennia, and a foreign people came. And the invaders said that God had given them this Promised Land and the people already there had no right to it as they were uncivilized and did not worship God. So they killed many of the people who were already there and drove them out and took the land for themselves. This isn’t the story of the Canaanites and the Israelites. This is the story of the First Nations of the Americas, and the Christian Europeans who conquered them in God’s name, just as the Israelites took over Canaan.

The United Church of Canada’s General Council will vote this summer on disowning the Doctrine of Discovery. This is the basis of the claims of European empires to owning parts of the New World, so for instance Portugal took Brazil and Spain got the rest of South America. All without asking the people living there already, who were seen either as a resource to enslave and exploit or as just being in the way. And missionaries came with the slavers and the soldiers to justify this and to tell the native peoples that their traditional beliefs were meaningless. All this sounds a lot like the Israelites in Canaan. And it lasted well into the last century in Indian residential schools, operated for the government of Canada by our church and others, where aboriginal students were forbidden to speak their own languages.

You know, when I was a kid and watching Westerns, I always thought it was unfair that the Indians were depicted as so menacing. I could sympathize both with the terrified settlers on the wagon train under attack and the native warriors who were protecting their land and way of life. And, you know, we learn about the European conquest and the deaths of millions of indigenous people from disease and violence, and we can sympathize with the aboriginal peoples as victims of injustice. Yet our ancestors came here as immigrants, and settled on land that was taken from First Nations either by force or by treaty. Our ancestors made sacrifices and worked hard to make this country what it is today, and we can be proud of that. Most of them had nothing to do with how the land they settled was obtained by the Crown. But if we are not aboriginal, we have benefited from injustice. I said that we identify with the Israelites of the Bible, and we are indeed like the Israelites, living in a land conquered in God’s name.

Goliath the Philistine is a bully. But who is the bully in this overall story of violence in this part of the Bible? Canada’s aboriginal peoples may come up with their own answer when they hear the Bible’s story of conquest.

The United Church of Canada apologized in 1986 for the times in which the church believed that we must link sharing our faith in the good news of Jesus to accepting European culture and suppressing First Nations values. We apologized in 1998 for our role in the suffering caused by Indian residential schools. Some have said that we can now put this behind us, but there is a long way to go. The church has acknowledged our wrongdoing, but now we have to act in a manner that shows that our apologies are not one-time gestures but living acts that we must honour and sustain. We can’t turn back the clock to the 15th century before the Europeans came. We can’t uproot everyone whose ancestors came since then and send them back to the old countries. We can’t abandon our own roots. But we can live in a way that demonstrates that we are committed to right relationships with First Nations as we live together on this continent.

In the Biblical books like Joshua and Judges and First Samuel, the Israelites look to God to kill off their enemies. Their descendants a thousand years later assumed this too, that God would send a warrior king to defeat the Roman Empire and re-establish Israel. The crowds following Jesus and even his friends think that he will be this kind of ruler. It wasn’t until after all the events of the life and death and resurrection of Jesus that his friends finally get it. Jesus is the Christ, the anointed one sent by God, but their expectations of him are all wrong. He tells the Roman governor, “If my kingdom were like those you see around you, my followers would fight to keep me from being handed over. But I’m not the world’s kind of king.”

Jesus is put to death in a horrible act of violence. But he doesn’t retaliate. He doesn’t call up an army to rescue him and kill his enemies. He asks for forgiveness for them. And he is raised from death. Just as in that boat tossed in a storm on the lake, Jesus stands against all the powers of evil and he prevails.

The resurrection of Jesus after his violent death shows that if conquest ever was God’s will, it isn’t any more. What conquest means is transformed. What death means is transformed. The military and political and economic and social power of empires may still seem mighty, but can never be absolute against Jesus Christ, who cannot be defeated by evil.

Jesus is not about slaughtering the inhabitants of a conquered city. Jesus is not about hanging captured kings. Jesus is not about genocide. What Jesus is about is shown in the story of his arrest, when one of his friends strikes with a sword and wounds one of the men in the group coming to take Jesus. And Jesus heals the wounded man. What Jesus is about is shown on the cross, when he forgives those putting him to death. What Jesus is about is shown in his death, hung on a tree as Joshua and Samuel hung the indigenous leaders they had taken prisoner.

Jesus is about right relationships between neighbours. So we are called to follow him and his example, learning the long, heartbreaking history of First Nations in Canada, and doing the hard work of justice and reconciliation today so that in the future this land can be healed and all of God’s children, aboriginal and non-aboriginal, can have the fullness of life Jesus promises. There will be storms and bullies and difficulties on the way, but Jesus will bring us peace and courage and hope so that we can live in right relations. Non kwe shon ha. Amen.

Slot car racing!

One Christmas, probably in the late 1960s, my brother got a slot car racing set. There was a track with two slots, two cars, and a controller, which added up to hours of fun. That set was in our basement until we moved from Nova Scotia in 1977 - it disappeared then (to my knowledge).

But, after coming across this on Wired.com today, I would love to have that set again - even though it would, technically, belong to my brother! Lots of great memories here, although our track was pretty bare-bones compared to this one by slot car enthusiast David Beattie, which is much like a model railway layout. This isn't the usual subject matter for this blog, but it definitely inspired feelings of nostalgia.

Another "Smart City of the Future" Video

I found this one on The Atlantic Cities. The author of the article comments that "It's nice to actually see in a realistic city setting how some of these technologies could become part of the way we operate with and within information-enriched urban environments."

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

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

Quicumque Vult.

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

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

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

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

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

Praying Through the War of 1812 Bicentennial

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

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

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

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

What Does Missional Mean?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Noah Gets Personalized Weather - From God

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

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

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

Christ is risen indeed! Alleluia!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Jesus said to her, “Mary.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Easter Sunday slides

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

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

09_Easter_4-8-2012

Good Friday (at the last minute)

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

08_GoodFriday_4-6-2012

Another concept video: Project Glass

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

Faithgirlz! and Boys Bibles

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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