Take risks….and talk about why

 We are looking at hallmarks and spiritual attributes of churches which are “thriving”.  In the book Thriving Churches  by Rev. Dr. Loraine MacKenzie Shepherd’s book, with additional research and reporting by Tammy Allen, they describe thriving as growing numerically (which for us might be having people involved who have been involved in the past), whose presence matters to the community, and whose faith is growing deeper.  They note that these thriving churches share certain spiritual attributes and conclude that thriving is as much about how we are as a church, as much as what we do. (Book available digitally from Amazon and Indigo and in print or digital forms at UCRD ) 

Last week we spoke about how to be intentional in our welcoming – radically welcoming even. This week the spiritual attribute we explore is of risk-tasking in, and for, their faith.  In other words they have discerned their path forward based on their faith in Christ’s Way, and they live that out with public witness.

What images come to mind when you think of “risk-taking”.

Personally, I find the idea of taking risks nauseating. I like being in control too much. Yet, I also feel an exhilarating rush of energy. Not to take reckless risks, but to challenge the status quo.

 Risk-taking is a hallmark of the Church, and has always been so.  In that time, and to a large extent today, there was a very strict social hierarchy which valued some people over others.  So, for example, Romans over everybody, landowners over merchants, merchants over slaves, men over women, wealthy over poor, people with lighter skin darker skin. Clearly some things haven’t changed.). 

The Church was taking huge risks when, within that social hierarchy, it said (and lived):  there is no difference in value between women and men, between masters and slaves, between rich and poor.  (Remember how we noticed last week they held all things in common?)   Within its own fledging movement, which was rooted in Jewish faith, the Church debated whether Jewish followers were better than Gentile followers; eventually they decreed that within the Church there is no difference between Jew and Gentile.  

I learned from Diana Butler-Bass, that the Roman Empire ran on a system of being indebted¹; if you wanted a lucrative job (like being a tax collector) the local governor who be “owed” some of your take and favours. (“I owe you one.”)  If you were an agricultural worker, a sharecropper, and wanted a better position, more power, or a larger field you would “owe” your landowner more money which you would raise from the other sharecroppers.  A primary piece of how the economy worked, and not coincidentally that the wealthy got wealthier, was through this system of owing and indebtedness.

So it was a risk for the Church to pray a very strange prayer together. In the Prayer of Jesus, the original languages says  “Forgive us our debts as we forgive those who are indebted to us”.  (The words we usually says as “trespasses”, or “sin”, actually means debt.)  So what would become of the world if we forgave debts?

The early church took risks to stand against the social hierarchy, and “the way of the world” of its day.  They confronted “the way it’s done” and offered an alternative way, a way that would bring justice and equity and mercy and compassion.  They took a huge risk, and were bearing witness to this new order publically. Everybody knew how the Christians behaved… and thought they were crazy!   Scholars of the era tell us many lost friends, family, businesses; but what they believed in was worth whatever they lost.²

Our story today is set in a particular situation in which Peter and John are taking a huge public risk. During the Second Temple period (when Jesus was alive) people who “were not whole” (people who were amputees, paralyzed, physically disabled, or with skin diseases) were not permitted to enter the Temple. That meant they were prohibited from offering prayers and sacrifices of thanksgiving, or of penitence. They were deemed to be “outside” the community. So people would pass by them. Some might throw a coin, others would pass without even seeing them. That’s just “the way it was”. So when Peter and John had the audacity to stop and speak with the beggar at the gate of the Temple — like he was real person, worthy of their time and attention, they are busting through that social taboo, disintegrating the social hierarchy. Scandalous! (and perhaps that is how he was made whole – by being seen?)

What are some of the social hierarchies or “ways of the world” in our time? Who (and how) does our society value some people over others. making the world inequitable and unjust?

(If it we can’t think of any then we aren’t looking.³)  

What might we be risking if we were to stand in solidarity with them?

And there is a risk: either we risk being looked down upon, or we risk not living with faithful integrity.

Jesus took risks all the time. He turned tables in the Temple in protest of how people were excluded from the community life of the religious community.  As a United Church, we have taken huge risks by confronting “the way it is” and saying “that’s not the way we think Jesus would have it”.  It has cost us…and it has healed us…and it has brought others to us…

What tables of our religious community might the Spirit be leading us to dismantle, or turn over?

I found it interesting that both Loraine and Tammy write that it is not a coincidence that all of the churches are explicitly welcoming of 2SLGBT people. (I add, too, that there are other groups of people who are ‘left out’; this one is only one.) These thriving churches have discerned that this is one of the “tables” of Christianity that need to be overturned, especially when others vilify 2SLGBT people in the name of Christianity.  These churches knew that they had to risk being ostracized or shunned by other churches, because their faith is that in the grace of Christ everybody is of value. (For those who aren’t familiar with that acronym, it stands for 2-Spirited, lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people.)

How we each stand in solidarity is different; but they all involve taking risks of standing against the current. Some of the churches went through the full process of studying, writing Mission or Vision Statements, adapting current policies and creating an Equity Committee to help them stay true to those statements of radical welcoming and received their designation as an Affirming Ministry.  Others have discussed and written equal marriage policies – which in the ‘bible belt’ of Alberta was enough of a risk for now. Some put Pride gear outside where it could be seen, and others use sidewalk chalk to paint rainbow flags only on Pride Sunday. (Knox United in Terrace BC made a bold statement.)

Other churches stand in solidarity with Jewish and/or Muslim kin publically displaying support on signs, sharing space, or escorting children to school. Others stand with refugees by offering supportive settlement committees. Others stand with kids with learning challenges and offer after school support and positive social interaction. Others stand ecumenically bearing witness, through the WCC’s Thursdays In Black campaign, for the hope of a world free of gender-based violence.  And, even now in 2024, some churches who stand in solidarity with these groups (esp. it seems with gender- and sexual- minorities) – even in cities like Brandon, Calgary and Winnipeg — receive hate mail and threats for living their Christian faith by being publically supportive. These churches take risks, they bear public witness… and walk forward faith-fully.

Jesus told us we are like a lamp, which can shed no light in the world unless it is put up on a lampstand. We are like a city on a hill, a beacon of hope and refuge to the weary. If we aren’t shining our light of faith, are we being faithful?

So our story, of Peter and John stopping and talking with the beggar, is about taking a risk of public shaming and possibly imprisonment, and then being bold enough to talk about it. They bear public witness to the faith that in the reign of God, in the kin-dom of heaven, every body matters.  How will we do likewise?

A Song to reflect with: Christ has no body now but yours by Steve C. Warner, adapted from Ste. Theresa of Avila, or We are a rainbow by David Kai

Some notes:

Just as an aside, I hold the position (alongside other progressive and modern scholars) that Peter and John were not blaming the Jewish people for Christ’s crucifixion. They were holding the Temple leadership accountable for not listening to a prophet of God. When they say “Salvation is found in no one else”, they were not despising other religions; rather they were saying, as Jews, that the way to the Jewish vision of a world made whole, or the reign of God, was by the path of unconditional love and forgiveness.

¹ Dr. Butler Bass offered teaching based on the work of scholars of the Greco-Roman world.  Her interpretation of “forgive our debts” is also supported by the work of many contemporary biblical scholars and theologians as being in line with Jesus’ alternative economy.  

² This is pretty widely known and shared by historians, biblical scholars, anthropologists, and sociologists – from F.F. Bruce and Geza Vermeš, to J.D. Crossan and N.T. Wright to Mary Douglas and many more besides.

³ Some people choose to be offput by the word “privilege”. When one has worked hard to get what they have, I understand how they may not feel “privileged”; but the thing is there are many (in our province and country) who have not had the opportunity to work hard, for a variety of reasons.  The playing field has never been level.  However, if that word is a problem, let’s say some people are provided with more advantages and opportunities to live well, make choices, save money, or buy houses (Like: people with white skin have more advantages and opportunities in our country than people with black skin or brown skin.  Like: people who live in cities have more advantages and opportunities than people who live rurally.   Like: People who are especially wealthy -net worth over $2 million or the über-wealthy with net worth in the tens of millions of dollars — have advantages and opportunities that people with an income of under $100,000 or under $50,000 or under $24,000 have.  And still men have advantages than women don’t have. Just to name a few.  And then there’s human advantages, over every other species of animal, as well as plants, over land, water and air.)

Give and take

Here’s yet another story about Eating. The theme that runs through Jesus stories is that he is always eating with someone. Why is that? Because something changes between us when we eat together.

Think of all the occasions we throw a feast for – weddings, funerals, homecoming & reunions. We celebrate and mourn over food.

Sidebar: There’s an advertisement for Montana’s (restaurant) that shows a young straight couple. The girl has BBQ sauce smeared on her face, and as the boy is pointing it out (with a smile) she starts to smile. The caption is: “Montana’s for getting through that  first date awkwardness”.  Maybe the deepening happens because we are more vulnerable when we eat (esp if we’re sloppy eaters) at?

It certainly is a primary component of becoming community – to eat together. Seniors gather for Congregate Meals to get some social activity into them; it helps them thrive. I’ve seen church communities under serious strain begin to build bridges as they are passing the salt and sharing serving utensils.  The family that eats together stays together – whether that is family of blood, or family of choice, or family of faith.

I’m convinced that’s why Jesus gave us a meal to remember him by. Draw closer to me; draw closer to each other.

The early church – long before the gospel of Luke was written – was sharing meals together.  They shared everything –from food to money. The story in Acts 4 says the disciples and those who were joining them shared all things in common. Everyone brought what they had to offer, whether that was large pots of cooked meat or legumes brought by the wealthy couple Annanias and Sapphira, or a loaf of bread brought by the widows. There’s a line (did you notice?): “and Gods grace was so powerfully at work in them all that there were needy persons among them.” They were living in the reign of heaven, walking the path of Jesus, putting it into practice. (I know, they are like everyone else and don’t do it well or consistently, they tell us 2 chapters later…) But it’s still miraculous that they were at least trying.

So this story of talking on the road to Emmaus (which I learned means ‘nowhere’) they are sharing their innermost thoughts. Clopas and Mary Clopas open their heart in grief and the stranger rewards them with new insights.  The stranger is invited in, and the Clopases give what they have. They make room for him at their table, and intended to make room for the stranger to sleep. In the sharing of their hearts, their bread and their space, he is no longer a stranger, but an incarnation of Christ Risen. His spirit is not dead, even if his body was; the god-flame he carried was still being carried.

The story says and when they recognized him, he disappeared before them. I wonder if when they broke bread and recognized Christ’s Presence, they also realized that the person they invited in wasn’t Jesus at all but truly a stranger who was now kin. Sharing with the stranger brings Christ’s Presence. Didn’t our hearts burn within us? They said in astonishment.  Wasn’t only when we shared our hearts – we and the stranger – that we felt that fire?  That is being radically hospitable.

I think hospitality is about making space, not only in our physical space or sharing of tangible goods but also to make space within ourselves. The stranger needs to know it’s ok to take what is being offered. And the one offering hospitality needs to know it’s ok to be changed by the stranger. Radical Hospitality is not a one-way street: it’s in the sharing that makes the Presence real.

It isn’t a coincidence that radical hospitality is one of the hallmarks of churches that thrive and flourish. They share, they welcome the stranger, they make space for the stranger. It is the intentional making space for the stranger-among-us that makes us hospitable.  Sure everyone is welcome, but do they know we have a place for them? How do we welcome the stranger among us? We don’t serve meals, but is that something we could do?  Like a once a month potluck and ‘fellowship’? 

What else could being radically hospitable look like? Offering coffee and ‘something’ at church -before, during, after?  Stopping to visit and share more than the news of the day, but sharing how the news is making you feel? Maybe pondering together ‘what does Love ask me to do in response to this’? 

Affirming ministries are another way to be radically hospitable – making space for people to come in and helping them offer their perspective, insights and gifts to the community. Their lives and ‘fabulousness’ becomes another dish for the potluck! We have a stylized ‘progress flag’ that says ‘Everyone is welcome here’, a great first step. But it’s on the inside of a locked church; how would someone who understands themselves as LGBT, non-binary, or questioning know they are welcome among us before they get in the door? (Seriously, when you feel somehow different from others, when hate is spewed towards you in the name of Jesus or Christianity, and it seems to be socially tolerated, the assumption is that no church would let us Be Ourselves. )

And I think that could be said of anyone who feels they “don’t fit the mould” they have been told they should. Can any of us believe a church would say Come and Be Free to Be Yourself.  Really?  How do you know that before you go?

That’s why being intentionally welcoming is a radical act. It is why being explicit in our welcoming is an act of hospitality. It is why we need to be public about being intentional and explicitly welcoming of every person who comes through the door.

 Sidebar: There’s a dog Rescue Group video showing how abused and neglected animals change when someone sits in the cage with them. The dogs are everything from aggressive to passive.  The people simply go in the cages with them, an act of radical solidarity. Often the person does nothing at first, then once the dog knows this stranger will not hurt them, they see the person offering food or a treat.  Maybe the person says “good dog”.  Slowly the dog’s behaviour changes, allowing more interaction. The power of knowing you are seen and you belong the way you are…. is transformative. Sometimes that transition is quick – 20-60 mins. Other times it happens over days or weeks, a few minutes more with each visit.  But it happens.  It is a great example of the transformational power of loving through radical hospitality and welcome.  

In other words, the point of the video is to show how someone (or something) learning and feeling like they belong has intrinsic value. Radical hospitality can help them become their best self. 

Isn’t that what we all want – to be our best self? To have the pieces broken within us healed and to live from a full heart into a full life?   These stories, of Clopas and Mary, and of the early church, encourage and invite us to ask ourselves: how do we show people that they belong here in this community of faith for a world made whole? It doesn’t matter if that genuine welcome is to the ‘every week-ers” , the “occasional” attendees, or the never-been-here-before-ers.

 How could we use hospitality to build this beloved community?

A Song to reflect with: Blest be the tie that binds (new version)

And then came Friday…

“Passion week is about the passion of Jesus, not just his torture and death by crucifixion, but the thing that he was passionate about: the reign of God on Earth.” So begins The Last Week  by contemporary scholars Marcus Borg and John Dominic Crossan.

Our stories of faith tell us that we are made in God’s image.  Like Jesus we are made to be passionate about Love being the law, about living with compassion and mercy so that those who have will share and those who have not will benefit from it.  We are made to love with all of our heart, and mind, and strength and will.   We are made to love our neighbour as ourself.

In our time and place, as we see injustice happening in our province, and yearn for the kingdom of heaven of Jesus’ vision. But do we yearn, are we desperate enough to take the concrete steps needed to mend the world, to bring healing and make peace?

That is why I begin services with acknowledging the indigenous people in whose territory we reside. It is a small act of recognizing the injustices down by colonization, and one step towards balancing power, encouraging shared access to natural resources, and stepping back from assuming I have a right to certain privileges simply because I am white, European-descended, educated and fully employed.

The rest of this blog is a read and reflect blog. Take your time. Write or draw out your reactions to the stories. Perhaps the questions may provide your thoughts a springboard; perhaps you won’t need them.

Before the Roman Governor, Pontius Pilate: Very early in the morning, the chief priests, with the elders, the teachers of the law and the whole Sanhedrin, made their plans. So they bound Jesus, led him away and handed him over to Pilate.  “Are you the king of the Jews?” asked Pilate. “You have said so,” Jesus replied. The chief priests accused him of many things.  So again Pilate asked him, “Aren’t you going to answer? See how many things they are accusing you of.”  But Jesus still made no reply, and Pilate was amazed

Reflection Question: when have you refused to acknowledge an authority who was questioning your worthiness, or validity? Who benefitted from your silence?  When has your silence been prompted by the idea “you’ve got to go along to get along”?

Mocked by the soldiers: (Mark 15:16-20)  The soldiers led Jesus away into the palace (that is, the Praetorium) and called together the whole company of soldiers. ¹⁷ They put a purple robe on him, then twisted together a crown of thorns and set it on him. ¹⁸ And they began to call out to him, “Hail, king of the Jews!” ¹⁹ Again and again they struck him on the head with a staff and spit on him. Falling on their knees, they paid homage to him. ²⁰ And when they had mocked him, they took off the purple robe and put his own clothes on him. Then they led him out to crucify him.

Reflection question: when have you mocked someone without giving them a full hearing? Has that ever then rebounded by showing you your own blind spots?

Jesus is Crucified: (Mark 15: 21-24)  They brought Jesus to the place called Golgotha (which means “the place of the skull”). Then they offered him wine mixed with myrrh, but he did not take it. And they crucified him. Dividing up his clothes, they cast lots to see what each would get.

It was nine in the morning when they crucified him.  The written notice of the charge against him read: the king of the Jews.  They crucified two rebels with him, one on his right and one on his left. Those who passed by hurled insults at him, shaking their heads and saying, “So! You who are going to destroy the temple and build it in three days, come down from the cross and save yourself!” In the same way the chief priests and the teachers of the law mocked him among themselves. “He saved others,” they said, “but he can’t save himself! ³² Let this Messiah, this king of Israel, come down now from the cross, that we may see and believe.” Those crucified with him also heaped insults on him.

Reflection question: When have you assumed someone on trial is guilty before you’ve heard the evidence?

At noon, darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon. And at three in the afternoon Jesus cried out in a loud voice, “Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?” (which means “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”).  When some of those standing near heard this, they said, “Listen, he’s calling Elijah.” Someone ran, filled a sponge with wine vinegar, put it on a staff, and offered it to Jesus to drink. “Now leave him alone. Let’s see if Elijah comes to take him down,” he said. With a loud cry, Jesus breathed his last.

Reflecting question: When Jesus cries out “why have you forsaken me” some those who heard him might wonder if he is despairing. How do you cry out when your heart is breaking and you are despairing?

Jesus is actually quoting the first line of Psalm 22, which begins with “a lament from the depths” and increasing concludes that despair is a trick of the Deceiver and the God of Life will have the last say. Have you ever found yourself despairing, and as you give voice to your lament discover within you a place of strength and resilience you didn’t know was there? How would you describe that experience to another person?

The curtain of the temple (which separated the Holy of Holies — God’s “residence” on Earth — from the rest of the Temple precinct) was torn in two from top to bottom. And when the centurion, who stood there in front of Jesus, saw how he died, he said, “Surely this man was the Son of God!

Reflecting Question: When have you drawn a curtain between yourself and the world around you as a form of self-protection? What were you protecting yourself from? When has that curtain been ripped apart, forcing you to see that which you feared? How were you affected by that forced awakening?

Jesus is entombed:  It was Preparation Day (that is, the day before the Sabbath). So as evening approached, Joseph of Arimathea, a prominent member of the Council, who was himself waiting for the kingdom of God, went boldly to Pilate and asked for Jesus’ body. Pilate was surprised to hear that he was already dead. Summoning the centurion, he asked him if Jesus had already died. When he learned from the centurion that it was so, he gave the body to Joseph. So Joseph bought some linen cloth, took down the body, wrapped it in the linen, and placed it in a tomb cut out of rock. Then he rolled a stone against the entrance of the tomb. Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of Joseph saw where he was laid.

For reflection: This scene has been the source of inspiration for some beautiful artwork – La Pieta of Michangelo being among them. How does this scene show a piety towards Jesus?

But on the other hand….

There are scholars who suggest if such a burial took place, it was not an act of kindness. Chad Myers, in his book Binding the Strong Man, suggests that Joseph of Arimathea was as anxious as the Empire to see Jesus dead and buried. To add insult to injury, Jesus the itinerent preacher is buried among “the wicked”, the uber-wealthy who could afford not only their own tomb/mauseleum but to own it before it was needed. Like surplus property. Crossan and Borg in The Last Week, make a similar argument that the burial might not carry the love we’ve often seen depicted in Great Art. They argue that Empire’s idea of crucifixion was not only to kill those who wanted to see Rome overturned, but it was also a humiliation and thus a big step towards the eradication of the movement. “Cut off the head and the body dies”, they say. To see Jesus buried, and in fact sealed away in a tomb, may have been an effort to bury the revolution once and for all.

Which of those explanations – that this was an act of devotion and kindness, or it was a way to ensure this Jesus would disappear — resonates with you? How does it lead you understand, and respond to, this “Passion” of Jesus?

In three days…we unfold the next chapter: “What do you mean ‘He isn’t there’?!?”

We are called to be the Church….to proclaim Jesus – crucified and risen – our judge and our hope.

I have heard, more than once, from people don’t identify as Christian anymore that “other religions are about a lifestyle and Christianity is just a boring, unintelligible bunch of beliefs”.  My usual response is to say that we haven’t shared our religion very well then, because Christianity is a lifestyle – and a hard one . It is a Way of Life which is rooted in a philosophy of radical love, respect, and inclusion.  They look at me strangely.

I think they do that because Christianity has often been experienced as a “bunch of beliefs”, certain statements to which we are expected to give cognitive assent. Tick off the boxes and you’re good to go.

But that is not the Faith that Jesus taught.

In fact that was the kind of faith that Jesus was always confronting. Like the prophets before him Jesus would say “When you pray, and give your sacrifices, don’t think that’s what God is satisfied by. God wants your heart and your will and your strength.” (The prophet Micah is more poetic: Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams,
    with tens of thousands of rivers of oil?
Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression,
    the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?’
God has told you, O mortal, what is good;
    and what does the Lord require of you
but to do justice, and to love kindness,
    and to walk humbly with your God? (Micah 6, verses 6-8)

And those who walk this Way are inevitably going to come in conflict with the so-called “powers that be”, the ruling class, the systems of domination. (Just an fyi, what follows in not my own ideas or opinions. See notes below for more info.) That is the message of this Holy Week – from the palm parade of Sunday through to Friday when Jesus is executed by the State.

Yes, executed by the State. The crux of the Christian message is that we follow the Way of someone who was executed because he was a danger to the Empire, and who challenged the status quo. And who challenged the religious authorities who collaborated with them.

Crucifixion was the way the Roman Empire kept the fires of revolt down. It was reserved for traitors and what we might call ‘gangsters’, the ‘bandits’ of Jesus’ time. So to follow — and claim as Lord — someone crucified was scandalous! 

Crucifixion was designed to provide maximum pain and humiliation to the person (and anyone who thought similar thoughts as they). They would crucify the leaders of sedition before it could blossom into full-scale revolt. And it was highly effective in quelling opposition. In other words, cut off the head and the body will die.

But these Christians wouldn’t let Jesus, or his ideas, go away. What hope did he offer?

In how Jesus lived, in how he embodied the teachings of his heritage, Jesus walked the path — lived the lifestyle — which would bring a real and lasting peace to the world, a peace rooted in the justice we encounter in the Hebrew prophets, rather than from military crackdowns. The Pax Romana came through swords; the Pax Christi comes through love. The Way of Jesus runs against the Way of “empire”.

In other words, to truly be Christian is to choose this way, and embrace in it in how you live. A life-style. And one that clashes with the dominant culture in North America (at least).

Today’s story dramatically illustrates this impending clash. From the west comes Pontius Pilate, sitting on a well-bred stallion, in armor and followed by highly trained and armed soldiers.  From the east comes a landless itinerant teacher, sitting on a donkey, followed by a rag-tag group whose ability to live fully and flourish is dependent on the way things are being different.    And among that group are women, and people who have been healed of very hurt..

The two are heading for the same physical space: the Temple in Jerusalem, the place where, according to Jews, that God resides on earth.  It is also the residence of the head of state.  Pilate is going to settle in to the residence of the High Priest at one end of the complex, and Jesus is going to make a scene that says the only head of government of the People of God is God, whose residence is at the other end of the Temple complex, in the Holy of Holies.

They are going to clash.

It is a sacred story because it offers us an eternal Truth. This one says: there are two paths of life, two lifestyles, and you must choose between them. You can’t have both because they are rooted in opposite worldviews. And the story invites us to ponder which Way are you going to choose?

And so we proclaim Jesus crucified…and that he is our hope.

When we wave our palm branches, we are declaring that in Jesus’ Way, we find hope for a world that is better than the one we live in. We trust this Way to bring us to a time of lasting peace, of right relationship between people. A time when there is enough for everybody; there is no one who is ‘needy’ because there is no one who is greedy.

But what about the rest of that proclamation – that we declare him not dead but risen, and that he is our judge?

What is the primary function of a king? (back in those days it was clearer) To judge the people well. Prophetically inspired kings rule, and make decisions and judgements, in righteousness. Their decisions are to balance power between people, and to make it right.

In our United Church we often focus on God as loving unconditionally so much that we forget that we are also judged by this same Power. I am convinced, though, that we are not judged by the standards of Empire (where those with power, prestige and prosperity are the ones judged “good”) but by the standards of loving that Jesus has modeled, and that we set for ourselves.

How closely am I, are you, following that path which leads to the fulfillment of those hopes? Not well, in my case. But I am grateful for Grace. I am grateful that every time I realize I could have been more loving, I am forgiven my missteps, falling away from that path, and I am lifted up, dusted off and put back on that Way.

This way of Jesus will bring a world that is radically different from the way it is now. And that is good news – especially for those of us who are trampled on or “pushed to the side” by this world. Imagine a world where every person is in right relationship with every other. Imagine a world where there is no predator or prey, where everyone has enough, and no one is afraid.  What a hope that is!

Do I think it’s possible?  Absolutely.  Is it easy? Absolutely not.

This hope comes with a cost. It cost Jesus his life.  For us, the cost is letting go of whatever it is that inhibits Love filling us up, and whatever is stopping that Love from overflowing into the world around us. 

The scandal of the cross for us might not be about criminality, or even losing our life; but it is a challenge to be vulnerable and honest in a world, a culture, where that is seen as foolish. What is it you might have to let go of?

But I confess it is really hard to live that way.  We learn quickly that it is even harder – if not impossible – to live that way without being surrounded by a community that supports, encourages us, challenges us and helps correct us in love to live the lifestyle of Jesus. To love the way he loved. To love who, and what, he loved.

The Romans thought they’d cut off the head to this “foolish” movement that threatens to disrupt the status quo. They though it was dead. But to us, Christ is not dead. His ideas and way of living was not buried with him. We take on his lifestyle and he is resurrected in us and through us as we make the choices we do as we go about our day-to-day life. He is our hope…and our judge.

Our perhaps it is WE who judge between those two pathways.

Christianity is very much lifestyle whose promise is one of deep hope, but it is not well suited for those who want life to be easy.  We embrace the Cross and our reward is that we  experience that Spirit of Christ is alive and well and flourishing.

 The truth of this sacred story is it asking of which parade we will join?  Which set of values and virtues, which lifestyle, are we are willing to embrace?  They both come with a cost; which hope or goal is worth the cost you are willing to pay?

We proclaim Jesus crucified. And risen. We call him our judge, and the place of our hope. It is a very bold thing to say. But these are our ‘marching orders’, as they say.

Let us take up our palms and join the parade.

A song for reflection: Three Things I Promise by Brian Wren and Dan Damon

Called to be the Church…to seek justice and resist evil

In our Lenten series on A New Creed (1968 rev), we are looking at the final section which says we are called to be the Church, and how we are to act in order to Be The Church.

For me, this is a LOADED sentence! I seems so Don Quixote – finding something as elusive as justice, and jousting with ghosts and ideas. So is this even possible to do? Or more determinably, is it something it is possible to ignore?

First we must ask what do we mean by ‘justice’ and what do we mean by ‘evil’. Secondly we must ask are they related, and if so, how?  Finally, but by no means leastly, we must ask how will we seek, and how will we resist?

This is also a key component of our denominational identity and faith – to seek justice – so what does it mean to our spiritual well-being if we do not “seek justice and resist evil”?

Let’s begin with what do we mean by “justice”?

Often in the past few years, we’ve heard the phrase “Justice for…” and then the name of the person or group for whom someone/some group is “seeking justice”. In Manitoba we’ve heard it used in demonstrations against the use of lethal force by the police – esp in instances where such a response is ethically (and strategically) questionable.  Justice for Afolabi Stephen Opaso ,for  Eisha Hudson, for  John Barrion, for  Errol Greene for Tanya Nepinak, and the other hundred, maybe thousands, of missing and murdered indigenous women, girls and 2-Spirited people. It is the rallying cry in the Black & Indigenous Lives Matter movement(s). It is the rallying cry of a number of victim-advocate groups.

But what is it that is being called for?    When you think of ‘justice’, what images come to mind?

Is ‘justice’ different from ‘revenge’ or vengeance?

          In my experience of working as an advocate (on ‘both sides of the street’ with victims and offenders), relating to the Canadian court and penal system, I have learned that many people don’t want justice when someone is arrested; they want vengeance, some version of 39 lashes. “Lock ’em up! Throw away the key!” “They should go to jail and never come out” are heard in the public square. Understandable. When someone has hurt us, it’s okay to be hot-ripping mad about it. So I have learned two important lessons. I have learned court systems are not based on justice; they are based on punishment. And I have learned that inflicting punishment equivalent to our being mad doesn’t actually help anyone – not us to feel better, and not the offender to reduce the risk of reoffending.

For example, often someone abused by their domestic partner has wanted justice – a way to restore a balance of power in the family, a way for the abuser to get help; what they usually get is a copy of a probation order which include provisions of no-contact.  It was seldom helpful to the victim, the offender, or the situation. Imagine someone whose home has been burgled.  What they often want is for their things to be replaced, their sense of safety restored, and for the convicted person to offer a true apology.  Instead, the convicted person goes to jail for a period of time.  The person burgled person receives none of what they want or need. Those situations do not make justice.

What about in other situations?  We hear calls for Justice for Gaza, mostly from Arabic, Muslim and increasingly other voices – including Jewish and Jewish Israeli voices – condemning the group retributive violence by the Israeli military.   There are others, mostly Jewish voices but also tohers, who are calling for Justice for Israel, and supporting expansion of settlements and military presence in the (occupied) Palestinian territories in light of the rising anti-Jewish rhetoric and violence. And both sides claim their acts of violence are based in a desire for justice and peace.

The truth is there can be no peace unless there is justice. Or conversely, no justice, no peace. And the heart of the biblical prophetic tradition affirms that. Poetically, the biblical prophet Amos cries: “There are those who turn justice into bitterness, and cast righteousness to the ground.…Seek good, not evil, that you may live. Then the Lord God Almighty will be with you….[You say you worship the LORD, your God but] though you bring choice fellowship offerings, I will have no regard for them. Away with the noise of your songs!  I will not listen to the music of your harps.  But let justice roll on like a river, and righteousness like a never-failing stream!” (5:7-24 abridged).   And in the Book of Leviticus 19 (and repeated in Deuteronomy) it is very clear: ‘Do not pervert justice; do not show partiality to the poor or favoritism to the great, but judge your neighbor fairly.”

Justice – the treating of the poor equally with the wealthy, not stacking the deck in favour of the powerful against those who struggled, not giving preferential treatment because of what you will get in return – this kind of justice is a force, a mighty force that can change the land.  A cursory search for the word “justice” (especially in the Hebrew testament) will bring you to dozens of passages that say similar things.

It isn’t by accident that when we reflected on what it means “to love and serve others” I shared a quote by Professor Dr. Cornel West: Never forget that justice is what love looks like in public.  You can’t lead the people if you don’t love the people. You can’t save the people if you don’t serve the people. (And Dom Helder Camara, bishop of Brazil, is quoted as: When I give food to the poor they call me a saint. When I ask why the poor have no food they call me a communist.”

What is also of great interest to me is that in the Hebrew testament the word for justice and the word for righteousness are often coupled or interchangeable.   One of my spiritual teachers and mentors, Rabbi Joel Wittstein of blessed memory, once preached this:

“In Hebrew the torah passage reads: ‘tzedek, tzedek tirdof” –justice, justice shall you pursue. The word for justice and the word for righteousness are synonymous.  So practicing justice / living the way of torah righteousness are the same.  And tirdof has the send of urgency.  So God is telling us: Pursue justice  like you’re late for work and running after the last train, pursue it like it’s the last call for boarding call for the plane – run like hell after it.  Seek it out, look for it like you’d look for a long-lost lover and don’t stop until you find it!”   

Tzedekah, righteousness — or right-us-ness – is what biblical justice is all about. Justice and loving are intertwined. Both promise fulfillment.

          And Jesus says the same, not surprisingly as he is rooted and nourished by the same prophetic tradition. In Matthew’s gospel (23:23)  Jesus says: “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You give a tenth of your spices—mint, dill and cumin. But you have neglected the more important matters of the law—justice, mercy and faithfulness. You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former.”

So if biblical prophetic justice is about balancing power and dignity, we have to ask where do we see the need for justice in our community? In our province? country? What relationships are skewed?

          It may be helpful to bring in the other part of the sentence: we are called to resist evil.  Is evil the opposite of justice?  Is the evil we are to resist our human propensity to protect our own (family, property, way of life) regardless of how it will affect others?

          And why do we need to do that because we are ‘the Church’? 

          In the 4^th century of the common era, a community of ascetics who lived in the desert, implied it is our human brokenness that directs us to break away from living in right relationship with others.  We are born being self-centered, and to try to get what we need when we need it. That isn’t a bad thing; it is evolutionarily dictated for our survival. But when we stay in that mindset, in that brokenness, we turn our backs on the invitation of Christ to be reconciled to one another, to different parts of ourselves, to God. Conversely, if we say we are disciples and followers of the Jesus Way, we bury that part of life.

In other words, to pursue justice, to make our relationships rightly balanced, is what it means to imitate Christ. “But if according to Christ we resist not evil, though they that are evil be not amended, yet they that are good remain good.” And it is work, because the pull to being selfish (what they call ‘evil’) is deeply ingrained in us (again, perhaps it was evolutionary survival). (They also make the comment that people who have been hurt hurt other people¹.)

          In other words, if we are seeking justice, we are also resisting the evil that tries to upset that right relationship.  Which is perhaps why part of the Prayer of Jesus says “may we not be led into temptation and deliver us from evil.”  Or as Rev. Jim Cotter’s paraphrase states it, we pray “from the grip of all that is evil free us”.

But justice is not static.  It is about balancing our relationship, living equitably. That can sometimes be like shifting sand (as in the Palestine-Israel relationship). To seek justice, thereby resist evil, is about navigating the shifts.

Then there is the question of could resisting evil require us to do something that is also wrong?  As in “two wrongs do make a right”?  This is the core of the theory of just war (which Augustine introduced in the 4^th century), and which was built on by some who resisted the evil they saw in the Nazi regime in 193’s Germany. In his essay “On Responsible Action” Professor Rev. Dr. Dietrich Bonhoeffer say sometimes we have to do something we otherwise think of as evil² (in his case it was the plot to assassinate Der Führer).

          So, clearly there can be diversity of opinion in how we resist evil. But the seeking of justice and resisting of evil is inherent to the work of living Christian faith.

          In our newest statement of faith A Song of Faith³, this work of seeking justice and resisting evil are seen as Dr. West said, as what it means to live with Christ’s love at work within us.

To use more theological language, perhaps to see justice and resist evil is our embodiment, our mirroring, of the grace we experience – the unconditional love of God we come to know through Jesus. We are called to be the Church — Christ’s body in our world — if we do not seek justice and resist evil, we are turning our back on the one we call Lord of our lives.

There is no shortage of opportunity to seek justice and resist evil.  Do we set aside pre-conceived notions and listen to those who are calling “Justice For…” rather than dismissing them? Where we see evil, or the absence of justice, perhaps we can center ourselves, join with others in community, and listen to the Spirit of God at work within us to seek where, and how, love is asking us to respond. Because to sit back and do nothing in the face of evil and injustice is not an option.  

Notes:

¹ “For without this command, the commands of the Law could not stand. For if according to the Law we begin all of us to render evil for evil, we shall all become evil, since they that do hurt abound. (This was found in a commentary on Matthew 5:39 ‘do not repay those who do evil’; but this was the only source I could find today.

² From David Bivin JerusalemPerspective.com 2699 (accessed Feb 24/24): On justice:

Referencing Psalms 37:1, 8, Proverbs 24:19 and Matt 5:39 (do not render evil for evil).

“….Likewise, the Good News Bible is apparently the only translation of the New Testament that uses “revenge,” or anything similar, to render Matthew 5:38-39: “You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth.’ But now I tell you: do not take revenge on someone who does you wrong. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, let him slap your left cheek too.” It is surprising there are not other versions that translate in the same way. Following “But I tell you,” the context demands “Do not take revenge,” since the first part of verse 39 speaks of “an eye for an eye,” in other words, punishment that is a response in kind.

“In idiomatic English, Matthew 5:39a might read simply, “Don’t try to get even with evildoers.”[9]  Not “competing” with evildoers is very different from not resisting evildoers. Jesus was not teaching that one should submit to evil, but that one should not seek revenge. As Proverbs 24:29 says, “Do not say, ‘I will do to him as he has done to me. I will pay the man back for what he has done.’” Jesus’ statement has nothing to do with confronting a murderer or facing an enemy on the field of battle….. Resist Evil  Our response to evil does have to be resistance—it is morally wrong to tolerate evil. However, we also must continue to show love for the evildoer.

It should be noted that loving and praying for one’s enemies in no way precludes defending oneself when one’s life is in danger. One is morally obligated to preserve life, including one’s own. Jesus never taught that it is wrong to defend oneself against life-threatening attack. However, he consistently taught his disciples to forgive and not to seek revenge against those who had attacked them. As Proverbs 20:22 counsels, “Do not say, ‘I will repay the evil deed in kind.’ Trust in the LORD. He will take care of it.”

Later on in the same article:  “The Jewish position on this issue is summed up in the rabbinic dictum,

“If someone comes to murder you, anticipate him and kill him first.”[10]  The sages taught that if one is in danger of being murdered, he should defend himself, even if there is a measure of doubt about the intention of the attacker. Furthermore, if another person’s life is threatened, one is obligated to prevent that murder, if necessary by killing the attacker. The sages ruled that a person who is pursuing someone else with intent to murder may be killed.[11]  In light of this, it is very unlikely that Jesus, a Jew of the first century, would have espoused pacifism.

When we examine Jesus’ words from a Hebraic-Jewish perspective, we can see what has been obscured by mistranslation and lack of familiarity with Judaism. The passages construed to support pacifism actually condemn revenge rather than self-defense. It is not surprising that this interpretation is consistent with Jesus’ other teachings and the rest of biblical instruction.

³  From A Song of Faith , adopted in 2012 as one of the statements of doctrine of the United Church of Canada:

….. We are all touched by this brokenness:

          the rise of selfish individualism

          that erodes human solidarity;

          the concentration of wealth and power

          without regard for the needs of all;

          the toxins of religious and ethnic bigotry;

          the degradation of the blessedness of human bodies

          and human passions through sexual exploitation;

          the delusion of unchecked progress and limitless growth

          that threatens our home, the earth;

          the covert despair that lulls many into numb complicity

          with empires and systems of domination.

We sing lament and repentance.

Yet evil does not—cannot—

          undermine or overcome the love of God.

God forgives,

          and calls all of us to confess our fears and failings

          with honesty and humility.

God reconciles,

          and calls us to repent the part we have played

          in damaging our world, ourselves, and each other.

God transforms,

          and calls us to protect the vulnerable,

          to pray for deliverance from evil,

          to work with God for the healing of the world,

          that all might have abundant life.

We sing of grace.

Called to be the Church: living with respect IN creation

The United Church of Canada adopted this statement of faith originally in 1968; it was revised in 1984 using gender-inclusive language (Man →We, He/Him to refer to God became simply God).  In 1992 – after 6 year, significant discussion and debate (and 3 General Councils) we added the words “to live with respect in Creation”.  The debate wasn’t so much about respecting creation as it was to ask: do we live respectfully with creation or with respect in Creation?

What do you think those word differences were about?

 As I understand it, the final wording was influenced by the Indigenous voices and wisdom within the church community. The idea of living IN creation is rooted in the acknowledgment that human beings are only one aspect of creation, one species among many. Creation is not an object for us to use as we wish but that we are, in fact, intrinsic to it. We are not simply connected to it, we are part of it.  What we do to other parts of creation, we do to ourselves.

For example: Water is allowed to be polluted (tracked since the ‘40s) and in areas where the pollution is highest, there are higher levels of life-altering illness (Witness the poisoning by mercury of the Wnglish River water system and the effects on Asubpeeschoseewagong Netum Anishinabek – a.k.a. Grassy Narrows First Nation).   Our cultures in Western Europe and North America have chosen not to address the causes of increasing air pollution (tracked since late ‘60s); the results are seen in dramatic rises in childhood asthma and cancer rates, and the expansion of a “hole in the ozone” allowing more direct rays of sunlight to filter through, thereby warming the air and the waters of the planet which have changed climate patterns.  The result is chaotic weather patterns, increasingly severe weather events, expanding droughts and coastal flooding (even in Port-aux-Basque NL).  

          When we see ourselves as part of Creation, not something standing apart from it, it enhances our ability to ‘live with respect in [it]. We realize that what we do to Creation we do to ourselves. We are related. We are related to the natural world and we are related to others who share it. North America is not separate from the islands of the South Pacific ocean.

How do you live with respect in creation?  What attitudes might you need to shift to live more respectfully?

Sometimes rituals help us keep things at the forefront of our minds. When prayers finish with the phrase “thank you; all my relations” we are reminded that what we ask for and the choices we make as a result cannot be made for our benefit only because we are not alone on this planet. We are one family because we share one Creator and we have others to consider.

A simple ritual might be pausing before eating, maybe say a blessing. It could be a simple as pausing pausing before a meal to give thanks – naming the groups of people who make this food on our table possible.¹  It can be as elaborate as saying a written or historical blessing or prayer of thanks. We might do something similar before we do any of our morning habits: who is involved in bringing water to your house, who made your clothes, who made your shoes, your transportation and so on.  Just being aware matters.

The idea of doing something ritual-based to help (me) live with respect in creation was introduced to me by Pat McCabe , a spiritual elder of the Diné people of New Mexico (and a spiritual director). She was the ceremony leader (liturgist) for an online conference and rather than lighting a candle, she poured water into a glass. “Water is life. It is the first medicine from the Creator. It is the single thing that everything needs for sustenance.  It is the one thing that we all share – fish don’t need land and sometimes don’t need air but they need water; things that grow need land and air and water; people can go days and weeks without food but even in normal conditions we can go only about 72 hours without water.  Everything needs water.”²

 “Water is life .” (comments on prayer being at 2.20). So Pat, rather than lighting a candle to represent the Light to our Path, or in our churches a Christ Candle, encouraged us to begin our day by giving thanks for water, setting us up to see ourselves as connected to everyone and everything on the planet. Our spiritual well-being is affected by how deeply we feel connected to the Web of All life. Or “akwe nia’ tetawa:neren” – all my relatives.

In our Baptismal liturgy we say: “We all begin in water in the womb, we come through water at birth, our spiritual ancestors walked through the water of the Reed Sea as they passed from slavery into freedom to be a holy community; we drink water for sustenance, and without it we cannot live.” 

How might  our spiritual life be coloured when we begin our day and our daily rituals with water?

Many of us experience a Holy Mystery -literally in the middle of nature.  A forest walk, sitting beside a river, walking a prairie trail, watching a sunrise and feeling the hope of living in a new day, smelling cut grass.  We sense we are not alone. Perhaps that’s what Father Abraham and Mother Sarah felt as they looked at the stars in the sky? (Not to mention the science research about how our body responds in positive ways when, intentionally, we are in a natural environment). A

By recognizing that we are IN creation, rather than simply with it, we recognize we are in relationship with it. If we add the experience of having a sense of the Sacred that is Beyond us and beyond the Beyond in and through nature, how might we relate to it?

We are called to be the Church, to live with respect, to incarnate God’s love, in creation. How can we do that as a church institution?

Here’s some music to consider reflecting with: Called by Earth and Sky by Pat Mayberry

Notes: ¹ Giving thanks before a meal is not a ‘religious’ duty, but it might be a human one. Through it we recognize how many humans, and non-humans, we are dependent on for this particular meal in front of us.  A blessing for the food changes our relationship to is (and some scientists say actually changes the food at a sub-atomic level).   A blessing or a prayer of thanks can be everything from “G-d who causes grain to grow from the land”, to the farmers, those who harvest, those who package, those who deliver goods to warehouses, warehouse workers, truckers who bring to the store, those who manage and work in the store, those who make the appliances we cook and cool with and those whose work helps make electricity and petrol to make this food system work.  And if we are eating meat we can acknowledge the animal’s life.

     ² Pat McCabe was the morning liturgist at a conference of Spiritual Directors International in 2021. She invited the online community to have water on our desk/table during the day, and to show our respect we were asked to “return it to the land in a good way” (e.g. pouring it on plants rather than down a drain).  Here’s another interesting interview.

We are called to be the Church, Part 1

This week begins a 6-part series of reflections on A Statement of Faith that shares the heart of the United Church of Canada. (See Notes below). The final phrases of that Statement begin with: We are called to be the Church…. I thought that in this Lenten time, we might take the opportunity to examine those phrases as part of our journey of walking with Christ.

The story we tell this week – not really a story, just 3 sentences, actually — is the start of three journeys. The first is the start of Jesus’ journey into the wilderness. Perhaps he went to understand what it means to be ‘child of God, beloved’? Perhaps to  find his purpose, like a Vision Quest?  We know that in this experience he will deepen his roots in his mission  so he has the power to stay the course he knows will bring him in conflict with the religious and political authorities.

The second journey we observe in Lent is that Jesus, and his followers, ‘turn their face towards Jerusalem’.  They know this is the point of no return. To proclaim the ‘kingdom of heaven’ is to say that the kingdoms of this world  are not the ultimate authority. They know as they go danger and life-changing choices lie ahead.

The third journey of Lent is our personal one, the one on which we make a decision about which path forward we will take – the one towards individual happiness and comfort, or one towards one a way of living which will bring forth a community of right relationship and lasting peace. How do we make that journey?

Rev Bev Brazier, a master storyteller, reminded me at a gathering of the Network of Biblical Storytellers that we always think of Jesus going into the wilderness alone. But there is nothing in the text that says he went there alone. In fact, he isn’t alone because the Spirit drove him there. And how might we experience the Eternal Truth of the Story if we opened ourselves to the possibility that the Spirit drove him into a community in the desert? What if the Spirit was inviting him to find his answers and his strength among others who were with him, soul-friends who had the same thirst and drank from the same well as he?

Is it possible that when we proclaim our faith including being called to “be the Church”, that we are committing not only to the way of life we find in the good news of Christ as individuals, but also committing to being in community with each other? To become soul-friends, drinking from the same well?

So what does it mean to be called to be the church?
We start with: we are to celebrate God’s presence. 

What does that mean?

I have to ask: and which God’s presence do we seek?  Where do we look for it? How do we know we’ve found it? And when we find it how do we celebrate it?

It is my experience, from which I derive strength and hope, that “in God’s Presence” I am gifted with the bone-deep, soul-deep knowledge that I do not have to justify my existence. That, like a birch tree, I have the right to be here, to grow towards the light, to root myself in the earth, to be nourished by the water and the air.

This Presence for me is the experience of being enveloped in a love that is not earned – a Grace, if you will. That I am loved for no reason except that I exist. It can sometimes be overwhelming, beyond comprehension of my mere mortal’s thoughts. But it is worthy of being celebrated.

How do I celebrate it?    I sit with it, sometimes in silence, sometimes walking with the song of bird and wind and dog, and allow that truth that the great I AM is in who I am.  Sometimes I celebrate exuberantly with song and chant and dance. But I have come to recognize that when I am by myself is not enough because I the fullest way that I experience that presence of Deep Love is when it flows between us when we visit and talk heart-to-heart, when we pray together. I need to celebrate that Presence in community.

We can only love with that love when we are loved with that love. And it is worthy of celebration – sometimes exuberantly and sometimes gently.

I want to tell you a story that explains how I got into this work.  When I was doing social work with women who were abused by an intimate partner, there was a young woman in her 20s who became what I called a ‘frequent flyer’.  Ever 2 or 3 months she would call the police because she had been beaten again.   It was heartbreaking for me because she really believed that if she loved the current ‘him’ just a little more maybe he wouldn’t hurt her.  She couldn’t see that it wasn’t love that held her there; it was the hope of being loved that tied her there. And I realized that she didn’t need more self-esteem programs or learning about the cycles and styles of abuse. What she needed was a community that could tell her – in ways she could feel in her flesh, in her bones – that she was not only loveable, she was beloved.

Love happens in many ways, but it always happens in relationship – whether with an unseeable G*d, or a person, other sentient being or a beloved piece of nature. However it happens, when you feel the amazing power and energy that is both stimulating and healing, you know you have been touched by the holiness of love. And it is worthy of being celebrated.

So I began to think of this phrase that “we are called to be the Church, to celebrate God’s presence” as being a call to drink deeply of the love we experience that brings to light, or into focus, the sacredness of all life, and then to celebrate that by sharing it. Sometimes exuberantly, sometimes gently. And to share it not only with those in our family (and some of those test our ability to share that love) but also with others outside of our own circle, and especially those who need to hear, over and over, you are beloved, you are love.

That’s where I am at this point.  What images or thoughts come to you when you hear you are called to celebrate God’s presence?

Perhaps in this first week of Lent you can ponder that question.

A Song for Pondering: Love is the touch by John L. Bell & Wild Goose Worship Group (this version is from Siskin Green)

A STATEMENT OF FAITH _{(c) General Council of the United Church of Canada rev. 1994}

We are not alone. We live in God’s world.

We believe in God, who has created and is creating

who has come in Jesus, the Word made flesh,

to reconcile and make new,

who works in us and others by the Spirit.

We trust in God.

We are called to be the Church:

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.

In life, in death, and in life beyond death, God is with us.

We are not alone. Thanks be [to God].

(sometimes people leave off the last “to God”.)

Influencers: whom do we choose?

I have to confess I’m getting pretty tired about hearing about “Influencers” on social media.  These hold up their life for the world to see, and others think it’s something special, important.    “Influencers”, literally persuade their followers about what to think, how to think, what you need to buy; they can be manipulators of the mind and behaviour.  Who we choose as our influencers will trip the social media algorithms and direct a person to more of the same. (I’ve taken headline ‘click-bait’ and found myself being directed for weeks to sites about Ireland, Donald Trump, Jordan Petersen,  and certain entertainment – most of these I would NOT choose for myself.)

And I’m always stunned by who gets called “an influencer”.  Seriously who are the Kardashians to tell me what’s the best thing to eat, where or how to decorate my house? Why does Kaitlyn Jenner get to speak for all transpeople when her experience isn’t representative of most experiences of transgendered people?  Why not the late(s) and great(s) Martha P. Johnson, or Leslie Fineberg (of blessed memory) as influencers? 

But that said, I am influenced by some people who aren’t upheld in mainstream media but are by social media (bloggers like the late Rachel Held Evans (of blessed memory), Nadia Boltz-Weber, ProgressiveChristianity.org, 972mag.org, the Moonshine Jesus Show).  So being an influencer isn’t – in and of itself – a bad thing.   

I’m a blogger myself.  I am named ‘preacher’, which I think means I have been chosen to be an an influencer on people’s spiritual life (the questions, not the outcome).  So I’m not against the whole idea.  In fact, a book by Christian writer Michael Youssef I read on sabbatical,  pointed out the obvious: a Leader has followers.   Those we deem as leaders are people whose influence we allow to guide our actions in some way. If I think I am leading, but no one is joining me on the trip am I a leader?

Influences, and influencers, are simply people to whom we give authority to have an effect on the shape of our life and our thoughts, that isn’t a bad thing, in and of itself.  But whether, and if so how much, they influence the entertainment I choose, the clothes I wear, the foods I eat, or how I see myself in relationship to others,  is subject to criteria questions:

By what authority are they entitled to be an “influencer”?  (In other words, who said they have something worth listening to?)

What is compelling me to allow their influence? 

Why are they putting themselves out there; who profits from their influence?  

How do they/I honour the privilege of influencing?

Questioning is an essential part of what it means to live in the post-modern milieu.  Some people and institutions have been given a great deal of influence (sometimes too much), and as a result that influence and authority has been used, sometimes, to do harm. Government, Teachers, The Church, Doctors, Marriage, those whose wealth came from a class system of an earlier time, the system which privileges men over women, the systems which endorsed Indian Residential Schools. These influencers have lost some, if not all, of our trust, and rightly so.  They need to earn it back. We need to question who influences us because unquestioned influence authority has been used to hurt, damage and manipulate those with less power.

(Relatedly, though, it’s important to realize which institutions we don’t question on the whole: advertisers, the “new money” Uber-wealthy, sports leaders, media moguls, systems which give privilege to some people over, or at the expense of, others)

 As spiritual people, and specifically as people who follow the Way of Jesus, we have inherited the right to question who has authority over us, who influences us.  Jesus was all about who has the right to authority over us, who or what influences our inner and interpersonal  choices. 

Our story today is, in part, about Jesus’ origin of authority, and the disciples witnessing that.  Jesus is reaffirming the authority of Moses and Elijah, or “The Law and The Prophets” , the two Primary Influencers of Judaism and of our spiritual and religious life as well.   Moses and Elijah are affirming Jesus’ authority to lead people into the Heart of the Holy. (In the other versions, Matt 17:1ff or Luke 9:28ff, it’s more explicit that the disciples claim  claiming him as their Christ.) And the disciples are afraid; of what? Was Peter’s comment an attempt to corral their influence on him, so he could have control of determining how much it would influence him?

            All sacred stories tell an Eternal Truth or a Perennial Wisdom.  I think this story teaches that who we allow to influence us shapes and changes us. Whose ‘blinding light’ has caught you?  In other words, who has influenced your life’s journey, or helped shape you to be the person that you are?

 How do you determine whose influence you will follow? 

Is it the same criteria as it was 10, 30, 50 years ago? What has changed?

 I could tell you to whom I give authority and what influences me, and how they have changed (dramatically) over the years, but you actually witness that every time I speak. Though I am named as a spiritual leader, and it is precisely those I have determined as authorities which influence how I choose, read and interpret our religious and spiritual texts and songs², what happens if you have a completely different set of authorized influencers?

It’s important to be aware of who we choose to influence us.  Much of the social discord and clashes around us, what is increasingly characterized as unresolvable polarization, is the disagreement about to whom and what we give authority to influence us.¹ As people of Christian faith, though, we need to look at this story of Jesus being transfigured before the disciples and ask ourselves: what meaning do we give to this Light that radiates through Jesus of Nazareth?  Is he our Christ, one who ushers in the kingdom that is heaven? Is he some supernatural, other-worldly character whom we worship without being changed by his life and teaching?

I repeat: all sacred stories tell an Eternal Truth or a Perennial Wisdom…but only if we give them authority and listen for it.  This story teaches that who we allow to influence us shapes and changes us.  Completely. Moses and Elijah represent intertwined influences of loving God, the Holy Mystery, and loving all that God loves; it was these two (and I’d add the Voice calling him Beloved Child) which influenced Jesus.  They changed him completely, transformed and transfigured him.    

Influencers are the light to which we are drawn, like mothers.  Like Peter , James and John, we are witnesses to the Light of Christ’s life.  And, like them, we need to decide if and how much being a disciple, a student and follower, of Jesus’ Way will change us.  Will we try to box it in, or let it shape us in profound ways, animating us, until we glow. (

Choose your influencers wisely.

~ ~ ~ Some notes:     

¹ I think, for example, of the clash in religious outlooks.  It tends to be about how we see our sacred writings and texts as authoritative over our life.  Some hold the words as “literal Truth” , and therefore the words as written are “fundamental” to the World’s Well-being; the opposite pole to that are those who take their sacred writings and texts “seriously but not literally”.  And I notice it’s the same sense of polarity of literalist (or fundamentalist) vs progressive whether it’s the Christian Bible, the Qu’ran, the Hebrew parts of the Bible (the Tanach), or the Bhagavad-Gita.     For me, though, the biggest irony is that, beyond our communities of faith, very few care. They see our in-fighting, and wonder why we can’t agree. They see the increasing influence of the fundamentalists on social issues and say No Thanks to that. Because they are outside the walls of our Holy Places, they are more likely to make the poles “Religious” and be narrow of mind and heart’ and “Secular” which says there is nothing beyond the world which can be seen, touched or measured’.  If those outside of our walls see only fundamentalism as a path to Sacredness, I don’t blame them for turning their back. They are not able to see the beauty and depth through all the fog and haze.       Another set of polarities I see at work these days is between ‘working for the collective good’ or ‘working for individual happiness’. But that’s for another day!

² My major influences are the stories of Jesus, Peter, Mary Jesus’ mother, the writings of James and Paul. And the many people who have lived it out either quietly (like Sister Arlene of Sisters of St. Margaret, the DUCC community, lay members of congregations I’ve served), or those with a wider or higher platforms like Bishop Ted Scott, Archbishop Oscar Romero, Bishop Jack Spong and former UCCan Moderators the Very Revs. Lois Wilson and Bill Phipps, and writers like Kathleen Norris, Ed P. Sanders, Marcus Borg, John Dominic Crossan, and recently Parker Palmer,  Matthew Fox and Steve Bell.  What they all  share is a perspective of religious belief that is both very matter-of-fact, and held with humility; they are willing to let the beauty of a faith that challenges to transform them and allow their ideas to evolve.

Paul, fruit – bearer and pursuer of justice

One of the books I read while on leave was called The First Paul: Reclaiming the Radical Visionary behind the Church’s Conservative Icon.  

I was intrigued by the title. Paul’s writings have been used by many conservative fundamentalists and biblical literalists to shore up doctrine, dogma and practices that enforce systems and hierarchies where one identifiable group is named as the dominant force, and the rest ‘fall in line’.  His work has been used to subordinate women to men, to dictate women’s apparel, deciding who can teach what parts of religion to whom. His letters have been used to underscore slave-owning, antisemitism, anti-homosexuals and homosexuality, to deny rights to sexual and gender minorities, and as “proof” of an exclusionary form of Christianity.  Paul’s reputation makes him seem so un-Christ-like sometimes, it feels like the Church is based on Paul’s teachings and not Jesus.¹ What could be radical about him?

I was skeptical, but, trusting of Marcus Borg and John Dominic Crossan’s academic expertise and progressive perspective, I thought I’d work to be open-minded and read it, and allow the possibility of my mind to be changed.

        Even though I understood Paul’s work less narrowly than most literalists and fundamentalists², Borg & Crossan certainly opened my eyes to words I’d read many times; I had never seen the depth of radical inclusion that Paul pursued. Without going into all the scholarly techniques they apply to his texts, I would say that the picture of the man they find in his authentic writings³ is, indeed, very radical. 

Paul, they contend, dares to live the radical equity, inclusion and egalitarian vision he finds in the gospel of Christ.  If we are to follow the man who welcomed to his table everyone from Pharisees to tax-collectors then Christ’s church, as his Body, needs to act likewise. 

Here’s a small sampling of how Paul pushed to celebrate the egalitarian, justice-seeking Wisdom of Christ:

*as tradesperson (an awning maker, apparently mistranslated as ‘tentmaker’) Paul saw the value of the gospel for urban dwellers in a religion that up to now had been aimed at rural people and he sought to apply the idea of God’s sovereignty to that context

*in a movement that was populated, almost exclusively, by birthright Jews and Jews by Choice, Paul sought to share the gospel among the non-Jewish population (notwithstanding Jesus’ several admonitions to preach only within the House of Israel)

*in a movement that was Palestine-oriented and focused on the messianic renewal of Eretz Israel and those who lived there, Paul sought to give equal footing to those who lived outside of Palestine

*in a culture in which women were overlooked, denigrated, dismissed, or seen as husbands’ chattel, Paul saw women as being his apostolic peers, colleagues in proclaiming this new faith and even as his teachers (Acts 18, and Rom 16:3)

*in a culture known for its strict classification and social strata, Paul, famously in his letter to the Church of Galatia, arguably his earliest letter, sweeps all those human-created divisions away: There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. (Galatians 3:28)

For Paul, the ways in which we are different are not barriers to being followers of this radical way of Christ; rather they are a gift of God, as each of us is endowed with particular gifts that we bring to the Work of the Way (1 Cor 12).  Paul doesn’t insist on uniformity of behaviour, but he is clear we should be of the same mind as Christ, working for the same purpose that Jesus did. And that includes living out the precepts of biblical justice.

What makes this both radical and justice-seeking is that it calls us to question everything that is “common sense” in the world and, where necessary, working to dismantle the systems which uphold some as important and others as not important.

For Paul it was class and social stratification – Jews and Greeks, male/female, slave/freeman.  In our world it might be gay/straight, wealthy/struggling, being independent/living as  interdependent and other-oriented,  using the Earth’s resources however we want/caring for the environment, and there are a host of others.

Pursuing justice isn’t a private matter; it is inherently, as Affirm United/S’affirmer ensemble puts it,  public, intentional and explicit (or PIE for short). As Dr. Cornel West puts it “Never forget that Justice is what love looks like in public.”

For Paul becoming a follower of Christ means we die to our old life and are raised into a new life and way of being.  In our new life what drives us isn’t our ego but the Spirit of God. As disciples we are growing into the person through whom the Spirit can be most manifest.  He calls this new way of living producing “the fruits of the Spirit”. 

Justice is like a seesaw, and pursuing justice is like balancing the seesaw. 

Seldom is a situation cut-and-dry, one side being 100% right or wrong. So, in each situation we need to discern through prayerful discussion where our Christian discipleship tells us we need to stand at this time.

With every situation in which we find inequity we need to learn and be willing to explain why, though our gospel and biblical lenses, why we put our weight where we do in order to achieve that equitable balance. In other words, we name and confront all the systems that give some groups dominance and name others as less valuable, and PIE’ing them in the face. 

And how we do it is with, and through, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, gentleness, faithful perseverance and self-regulation.

Interestingly, sometimes the word for “generosity” is translated as “goodness”. By our living empowered by the Spirit, and so bearing its fruit, we are manifesting goodness or “God-ness”; we are being God’s love, in our individual worlds.  

The rest of the quote from Dr. West is: “You can’t lead the people if you don’t love the people. You can’t save the people if you don’t serve the people.” Justice means loving the people on both sides of the equation so the lowly are lifted up and the mighty are brought down with love so they, too, can experience life in its fullest joy.

Through his letters Paul reminds us that the work of the Church, the Body of Christ, is to be grounded in our relationship with God (in our spirituality), to become disciples who are bearing  the fruit of Christ’s spirit at work within us into the world. The work of the church is, without fear and with great love, to pursue a radical justice. No more inequity between Jew or Greek, Gay or Straight but be in unity with the mind of Christ.

For fun reflecting: Fruit of the Spirit by Uncle Charlie Or more seriously: In Christ there is no east or west

Notes: ¹ This is partly due to how people have used the work of Reformation thinkers like Martin Luther, and those who created Free Church in England who then brought their brand of strict Calvinism to the United States and Canada.

²Thanks to the late Ed P. Sanders (z’’l), my former teacher, who was a leading mainstream/secular Pauline scholar, I knew that Paul was a man shaped by his time and cultural context. Further that while he seems to be contradictory in many places, in his authentic letters it was a case of churches asking different questions, and Paul providing specific answers to them (Paul, the Law & the Jewish People, Fortress Press, 1983)   

3. Borg & Crossan point out that the letters written in Paul’s name, but not by him, (Ephesians, Colossians, 2Thessalonians, 1 & 2 Timothy, Titus). increasingly become more aligned with Imperial values  They provide persuasive arguments that as time went on pseudo-Pauline writers were more interested in reducing persecution of the Church than in sharing Paul’s original teachings about Jesus and the radical vision of inclusion they shared.

Once we hear our name…what do we do?

This story, of Jesus calling his first followers, has different versions, although some of the elements are the same. And I wanted us to hear the story in a new light, so I decided to share some of the questions I posed to the text; please feel free to leave comments on them questions of your own.

I wonder what the disciples were talking about in the boat?

If Jesus called them by name, did he know them personally? How did they meet?

We do know that Andrew was a follower of John the Baptizer, and we know Jesus joined the Baptizer’s movement (when he went to be baptized). I wonder what it was they found in common in that movement? 

John was a prophet in the best of the Jewish Prophetic tradition. He spoke of the time of G*d’s reign, how one entered into its citizenship. But was this “kingdom of heaven” a vision of “where” or one of “when”?

In Isaiah this new world, when God reigns, is one when predator and prey would lay down together, when swords would become ploughs and spears transform to pruning hooks, a world in which everyone would have what they need, live in peace and be unafraid. Amos’ vision was of a world where justice would flow like a mighty river and right-living like an ever flowing stream. 

We know, from later texts in the gospel, that Jesus had that vision in mind as he gathered his community together, welcoming both religious Pharisees and religious outcasts like tax-collectors and prostitutes.*

If they knew Jesus before, had these visions of the kingdom of heaven come on earth been part of the conversations between John and his followers?

When Jesus comes and calls them by name, were those memories part of what compelled them to drop everything and immediately follow?  What was it about Jesus that the four fishers leave immediately, go without a trace of looking back?

What would happen to their fishing business?  What would happen to their families who rely on them?

When Jesus begins his preaching about now being the time for the kingdom of heaven to begin, did he have ideas about this can be done? Did the disciples have ideas on how to live in it?

Did they know what this following would cost? 

They might have.  John the Baptizer had preached: turn your life around for the time of God’s reign is close at hand, or is coming – still future tense.  He got into trouble with the local Jewish governor (likely Herod Antipas), a Jewish puppet-king whom the Roman Empire could exploit. John was arrested; later in the gospel we will learn he was executed.  Nevertheless, he is in prison at this point. And that’s when Jesus picks up John’s mantle and starts his public ministry, teaching, preaching, healing, encouraging people to open up and let God change their life. Only after John is arrested.   So I’m sure Jesus knew there would be a cost.

Jesus’ ministry theme shifted timelines from John’s. Rather than anticipating the reign of God, Jesus said “the time is now”, it’s happening already.  How did he see that happening around him? His world was one of military occupation and oppression, his religious community was fractured into those who wanted to keep Israelites pure and distinct, others who felt their Greco-Roman cultural context could help interpret some of the torah and prophets, and others yet who felt the religious rulers were keeping regular everyday “doing the best we can” out of the community.  (Not to mention the tax-collectors, Jewish men who collaborated with Rome’s rule; where do they fit?)

Not unlike 20th century leaders like Mohandas Gandhi, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King Jr., Stephen Biko, Anwar Sadat, Yitzak Rabin, Yasser Arafat are examples of modern martyrs to the cause of peace. They all spoke truth to power. All of them were arrested, sometimes multiple times. All were executed because their message was “stirring up the rabble”, causing social upheaval and beginning to chip away at The Authorities and the Ideologues who did not want peace to break in. They knew there was a cost, but they spoke their truth anyway. I think they are cut from the same cloth as John and Jesus.

If the rulers were disconcerted by John talking about a time in the future when they would no longer have power, how would they take Jesus’ teaching that it’s already begun.  (Spoiler alert: crucifixion). So why would people follow a leader who knows, or likely anticipates, the road ahead being more rocky than flat?

It was true then, and it is true now. There is a cost to following Jesus. Being a disciple isn’t about singing nice songs, and praying prayers we’ve learned by heart, or even about “being a nice person”.  Being a follower of Jesus -if we are authentic to his message – will bring us into conflict with the powers of this world.  Standing up for what we believe is the best way to bring peace to our world will not be popular.  It is a political movement, whose roots are firmly in the spiritual tradition of creating equity and living in right-us-ness.

In our day there are lots of conflicts, and where is the church…or where is our church, with its ethos of welcoming all persons into the family? Though I completely disagree with their perspective and their “point”, I have to give full credit to the Christian Fundamentalists who are standing up for what they believe is right. Though I think they are warping the gospel, I admire their willingness to stand up in faith, speak their version of truth to power, and face being called some pretty nasty names.  So where are we, who have a different faith perspective, speaking and supporting those who are marginalized and vulnerable in our communities, provinces and country?

Are we prepared to pay a cost for discipleship?

Before WW2 the German Lutheran Church was supported by and upheld the State government. During the rise of the National Socialist regime, and during the war, that Church continued to support and be upheld by the State (so also did the Roman Catholics, but that’s a different rabiit hole).  There was a (very) small group of German Lutheran pastors, teachers and theologians, who stood up and spoke vehemently against the agenda and program of the National Socialist party and its (twice democratically elected) regime; they signed a document in which they agreed that Christianity was incompatible with this regime (called the Barman Declaration) and that “something had to be done”.  Some of this group were exiled to their home country, two escaped as refugees to the USA, and one was imprisoned and eventually shot. ¹

Sacred truth in the story of the calling of the first disciples is that for those who answer the call there will be decisions. What values we will follow, what are we willing to live out even when it is difficult? and most crucially, what are we prepared to let go of? When they say “take up your cross”, that letting go of something that is important to our current life which is inconsistent with the Gospel is the “cross” that one has to bear. There is a cost to being a follower of this Jesus of Nazareth.

This story invites us to ask ourselves the same questions as the disciples.  Will we hear our name being called?  Will we accept being called to discipleship? What cost are we willing to absorb? Is it worth it? and Would we answer immediately?  

~ ~ ~ ~ Notes: ¹ One killed was Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Before being imprisoned he wrote The Cost of Discipleship, recognizing that being a Jesus follower requires that we question the assumptions of “the world” around us. In his Letters and Papers from Prison he shares his reflections on the cost of discipleship, and also how to share the good news of Christ in his own changing context.  (Sidebar, but perhaps not coincidentally, he also began to articulate a post-theist theology, seeing the advance of science and philosophy as human maturation, when God can’t be relegated “to the margins”, or trooped out as the answer to “the unexplainable questions”.  He saw there was no interest in a “God out there”, and his understanding of Jesus was “God is not out there but living among [humankind].” He started to wonder what a “religionless Christianity”  might be like, and if it would be, in actuality, more faithful than the superstitions he found the church peddling. But that’s for another day….)

Another signatory to the Barman Declaration was Martin Niemoeller, who wrote “First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a socialist.  Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a trade unionist.  Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew.  Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.” (Caveat: there is significant controversy around where Niemoeller drew his ‘line in the sand’ vis-a-vis the Nazi regime.)

Another one of the group who signed the Barman Declaration was Reinhold Niebuhr. Wrote a prayer that begins: God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, Courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.” That prayer is often stifled there, but it’s ending is profoundly powerful in declaring its spiritual roots: “Living one day at a time; Enjoying one moment at a time; Accepting hardship as the pathway to peace. Taking, as He did, this sinful world as it is, not as I would have it. Trusting that He will make all things right if I surrender to His Will; ….”