Take the kernel, leave the husk

We are looking at the role of innovation in thriving churches. It’s one of the words that makes me roll my eyes….kinda like the word ‘pivot’.  New…again??

And yes too much new, too much new at once, can be traumatizing. Trauma specialist Diana Strickland explained that’s what’s happened to (literally?) everyone during Covid shutdowns. Too much new all at once.

But for the church, we knew this time would come. Not just in the 21^st century but at the very beginning. Jesus said “you can’t put new wine into old wineskins or the wineskin will burst and both the skin and the wine will be lost.”  If we are not innovative, we risk becoming stale and sour, which is not good for the church that is nor for the church which is yet to be.

Charles Darwin made a similar observation.  In all manner of birds, fish and animals, when the environment or the context of where they lived changed, those that could adapt to new situations flourished. Those which did not adapt floundered, and eventually died out. (Which is also a warning about too much change too quickly.)

Innovation – doing things in a new way.  Taking the gift of our faith – if we know what that is – and offering it a way that will make sense to where we live now.  Not in a window-dressing way, like “let’s use a guitar and they will flock here”, or “bring in a praise band to liven it up” (although both of those are not bad ideas…)  Instead innovation is to be cultural interpreters of what is life-giving, what is saving, about the Way of Life that Jesus shows us.

Loraine MacKenzie Shepherd uses the story of Paul’s speech on Mars Hill to explain.

”In a brilliant approach to Athenians, Paul began a speech by commending them in their religious dedication. They were so meticulous in their devotion that they even built a statue to an unknown god in case they had missed something! Paul connected this unknown God ot eh God he knew through Jesus the Christ. Paul had been looking for signs of God’s presence within the Athenian culture and honoured what he found.  He didn’t’ bring God to them but acknowledged how God was already present in their midst.  He simply introduced them to another way to access God through Jesus.

          Paul didn’t condemn them but built their culture and foundation of faith.  He spent time learning about their philosophies and culture so that he could connect with them in a creative way….

Thriving rural and urban churches excel at out-of-the-box, innovative visioning. They look carefully at the needs of their congregations and communities, while connecting with their cultural contexts.  The leadership of thriving churches is aware of concerns and needs that capture their communities’ attention, and they pray for creative ways to meet these needs….

When unexpected challenges arise, it is this creative ability to discern, be flexible and adapt that carries thriving churches through the crisis.  Instead of shutting down, they welcome the challenge as an opportunity to explore new forms of ministry. Some of these emerging ministries continue after the crisis has passed and become new strengths of the congregations. Instead of being paralyzed by difficult situations, thriving churches are able to quickly discern how their ministry needs to adapt to the situations….” (from Thriving Churches: urban and rural success stories, UCRD 2021, p. 45f., used with permission).

Adaptation and innovation are not new concepts to the church.  Nor to the People of Israel. 

When the People of Israel were taken captive to Babylon, far from their land and all that they knew, they couldn’t uphold their traditions the way they wanted to, or the way they used to do them. Their roots were ripped out of the land. They were heart-broken. The Psalmist captures this when writing “By the waters of Babylon, we lay down and wept, and wept…How can we sing the Lord’s song in strange land?”  They were handed a choice: not being able to what they new they could forget who they were and assimilate into the new situation (and die out as a people) or learn to tell the old stories in new songs, be resilient and live.

They trusted that God was still with them, so they chose to live — even though they had to do things differently. (Like Red Green used to say “I’m a man. I can change, if I have to, I guess.”) Loraine’s comments were that in his speech Paul takes what is life-giving about this new life in Christ and makes it make sense to the people of Athens.  Peter is confronted by his worst nightmare – having to eat food he has known all his life as inedible and prohibited, so that he could meet with and mingle with Gentiles, people he had always shunned.  New situation for him, so the Spirit nudged him to be innovative. . 

For the Israelites, for Paul, and Peter, living out the good news of their faith, what is life-giving about it, is stronger than their fear of change.  For Peter and Paul, being loving towards those who were seeking a new way was stronger than their love of tradition.  Not that tradition is bad – not at all; but if it no longer serves the greater purpose and mission, of helping people to become more compassionate and loving to one another, it is an obstacle to following that new way of life in Christ,  then we have to be prepared let it go.   (True story: Mrs. McCracken always sat in the back pew. The new minister was trying to group people up so they’d sing more boldly.  Mrs. McCracken refused to move.  So pastorally the minister asked why won’t you move?  She replied that she sat where she had always sat, in honour of her family who sat there and her neighbours who sat in the pews around her.  The pastor said “But Mrs. McCracken they’ve all died. So which will honour them more – for you to stay put where you are, or to move forward and help build a strong congregation through song that will sustain us?”  She moved. Reluctantly. But stayed in her new seat…and became a greeter for new people inviting them to come sit with her.)

What about your faith is life-giving for you?  What is the kernel of your faith that you would want to bring forward as we move into a new era?  What husks need to be shucked off?

If we trust that love holds us, we can discern what new things we could try to make faith make sense in our new context.  We don’t need to change everything all at once. But let us not hold on to our old ways which no longer serve to share the good news we find in Christ.  If Peter can eat pork, surely we can try some ways to share our faith. If we know what that faith is. Innovation is about taking what is good and offering it in a new way….not knowing exactly where the road will take us but trusting that faith that God’s love is leading us..

Song for reflecting: Sing a new song unto the Lord (by Dan Schutte -ironically not so new anymore…)

(Note the featured image of kernels and husks is from phys.org)

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

We have been looking at the Statement of Faith used in services of the United Church and examining our intentions when we say we are “Called to be the Church…”

We have reflected on what it means to celebrate God’s presence, to live with respect in Creation rather than with Creation, what it means to love and serve others, seek justice and resist evil.  This past week we have reflected –through all the days from the excitement of the palm parade (or coronation parade) right through Jesus’s death and entombment – what it might mean to each of us to proclaim Jesus crucified and risen, our judge and our hope.  Today we contemplate what it might mean to proclaim that in life, in death and in life beyond death, God is with us.

Today is not a story that stands alone.  So we need to go back a step.  During what is sometimes called “Passion Week”, or “Holy Week”, we tell the stories of Jesus’ confrontation with the Jewish leaders involved in the Temple system, and how he called them out for their collusion with the Roman Empire so they could hold up the duties and rituals of the Temple instead of standing in solidarity with the people of Israel.  We have told how Jesus taught about “the kingdom of heaven” and then lived it out intentionally, being in community with and welcoming of those who often are not welcomed elsewhere. We have heard how this kingdom of heaven challenged the authority of the Roman Empire, and its system of domination.

On Friday we retold the story of how Jesus was executed by the State, by the Roman Empire, because they thought him a leader of a seditious movement.  We know this from history: the Empire crucified traitors to Rome, who claimed an authority other than Caesar.  Crucifixion isn’t just a death, it is a humiliation; it is intended to eradicate groups with an alternative to the imperial system of domination.  John Dominic Crossan puts it quite succinctly: Cut off the head and the body will die.*  Kill the leader and the movement will fade away.

By this humiliation of death by crucifixion, this person hailed as God’s anointed prince, the Messiah, the Christ, the head of this crazy movement declaring the kingdom of heaven would become like dust of the earth, and the movement gone.

I often say at funerals that what is important is that our loved one lived, not that they died. 
And that the Truth of Resurrection happens when we remember and live out the good that our loved one valued.   I know that is true as I remember my dad (who died around this time of year; perhaps you have that experience also.  As long as we remember them, they are not abandoned to the dust of the earth.  And our love of them makes alive again, even though their body is dead.

These stories of the resurrection of Jesus, at their heart, are proclamations that Jesus, as our teacher and leader, in short our Christ, is not dead and gone.  He is not abandoned to the dust of the earth as the Romans had hoped.   Rather because his followers love him he is very much alive and among us, whenever we gather in two or threes, remembering his teachings, his way of life and commit ourselves to them. Because love can’t be stopped by death nor contained in a tomb.

For me, the miracle of Easter has nothing to do with whether or not the corpse of Jesus of Nazareth started to breath again; it has everything to do with Life in Christ.  Resurrection is the affirmation that love doesn’t stop with death.  It isn’t contained by a tomb.  And that everytime we choose to live from a place of love and compassion, seeking justice, resisting the evil of devaluing another, we experience  God – the very source of love – is with us.

These women we read about – Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of James and Salome,  love their Jesus enough to come to the tomb. They don’t know what they will do, after all there is a giant rock blocking the entrance to the cave.  But they go anyway,  to lovingly anoint a violently executed body with oil and spice, a ritual of grieving that had been denied to them on Friday.

Now they come… Did they talk about him as they were preparing their jars and cloths?  Did they share memories as they walked through the early dawn, even as they wondered how they would get in to anoint his body?  Is it that as they tell stories to heal from grief that they realize that what matters most isn’t that Jesus died, but that he lived?  Is that why at the tomb they encounter an angel who tells them  “He isn’t here, in a repository for bones; he is risen… and he will meet you back home, in Galilee”?  Is it possible that what they eventually tell the other disciples that every time we choose to live the Way Jesus lived, we experience Jesus, God-in-flesh, alive and among us, wherever we are?

If we want Jesus’ death to have any saving grace, we must not confine him to a particular time in history. We must ask ourselves, like those three women at the tomb,  what are we going to do with this experience? Are we going to tell our story?

If we have caught Jesus’ dream of a time of peace and justice, where love and compassion rules the day,  we can turn back to the Romans of the 1^st century and say “you lost. You may have cut off the head but body is still alive!”  And to those who perpetuate and benefit from any of the systems of domination at work in the 21^st century, who tell us that it is a fantasy to trust and have faith in this kingdom of heaven, that it’s all fiction, we can dare to say: Jesus was crucified, but he is also risen. By us, through love and faithfulness to his vision.

Love turns our weeping into gladness, our tears of sorrow into tears of joy. Love makes sure we are not headless.

In life, in death, in life beyond death we are not alone. God is with us. Thanks be to God.

Note: * much of this is influenced by John Dominic Crossan and the late Marcus Borg, and is shared widely in their individual and collaborative books and videos (available on Youtube).

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’?!?”

Thursday: a day of reckoning

 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.  When we remember, and enact, the stories of this week, we are being asked if we will share his passion …both his vision of a time of justice and peace, where compassion and love are the primary law, and the sacrifice of letting go of what he had and give it to God, his life.

We gather tonight to remember a story that is sad, because we love our Teacher, Jesus of Nazareth. We gather to hear a story from long ago that confronts us even today because we love our Lord. We gather to remember his mandate to us: love one another even as I have loved you, and I lay my life down for you.

It is a disturbing story. It’s supposed to be disturbing. It makes us face how humans can refuse to see anothers’ humanity. It makes us face how cruel we can be – whether actively or passively by looking away. Together we need not fear what this story raises in us, for God is with us. We are not alone, in life, and in death, God is with us.

It’s a long story, so I have broken it into pieces. And I offer some reflection questions. You may want to sing between the verses a song from The Iona Community “We Will Take What You Offer”.

Part One: All year we have told stories about how Jesus shared good news with his people: the reign of God – the time of lasting justice and peace, when everyone would have what they need – this kin’dom of heaven has arrived.

This is good news for some: the poor and marginalized, those who struggle to get through the day, those who have been told they don’t count, those who fear that is true.  It is good news that the Source of all Love, a Fountain of Blessing, is with us, within us.

But this news that the reign of God has begun is not good news for everyone.  Particularly not for those who are content with how the world is, those who make policy decisions without caring how those decisions affect others, those who have enough to satisfy their needs and yet want more, those who think they and “their kind” are better and more worthy than others, those who want to keep for themselves and their families whatever it is that they have. 

On Palm Sunday we remembered Jesus coming to Jerusalem, how the throng was excited for him to reclaim the throne of David and set God’s reign into motion.  We carried such hope in our palm branches. But those hopes come with a cost. Tonight we remember Jesus Great Commandment – love one another as I have loved you. 

What inhibits you from letting Love infuse you?

We will take what you offer….

Part Two: Mark 11: 12-22, When Religion Withers   

  When most people say “I’m spiritual but not religious” they are doing what Jesus did: they are cursing the fig tree. They are saying religious rites and rituals have become withered, the fruit is dry inside.  That can be so. We can pray a certain way because we’ve always prayed that way, without the hope and the faith carried in those prayers making a difference to our lives. The seeds in the fig have no power anymore.

It isn’t the religion is bad, it’s because its power to move and change us has shrivelled up.

It is said that we do not pray because God needs our prayers, but because we do. “Prayer invites God’s Presence to suffuse our spirits, for God’s will to prevail in our lives.   Prayer may not bring water to parched fields, nor mend a broken bridge, nor rebuild a ruined city. Bur prayer can water an arid soul, mend a broken heart, rebuild a weakened will.” (AJ Heschel cited in Mishkan T’filah p. 65)

A major advantage to participating in established rites and rituals which have been practiced by others for centuries, we discover that the hope for the world is a hope that others have carried before us.  We realize that our thoughts are not ours alone; we are but one link in the chain of faith. Knowing others have prayed for the same things as we actually enlivens the hope within us, and gives us patience to remember others have hoped this for centuries and we are not there yet.

But the words we say in our prayers and rituals are only words; do we say them or do we pray them? There is a difference.

When have you felt your spirituality has become dried up like the fig tree?

Part Three: Mark 12: 12-17 the temple and Caesar

Most of the history of human civilizations is marked by a clear pecking-order. We build villages and countries on a pyramid built on the backs and lives of those below where we are. Those at the top get most of the wealth, hold most of the land, have the power to make decisions that affect others.  Prosperity, prestige and power, the triumvirate of all systems based on domination.  

The world of the Roman Empire’s pyramid put Caesar at the very top of that system.  Caesar was called “Saviour of the World” because it was his rule, his word of law, which allowed trade and commerce to thrive (even though it was at the expense of those at the lower levels of the pyramid).  He was “Caesar the Great” and called “the son of God”.  So everything was geared to getting Caesar whatever Caesar wanted, and everyone was expected to work together to that end.

One way they did that was to pay a tribute, or tax, to Caesar.  For Jewish leaders this caused several difficulties. First, as a people under occupation they were essentially paying for the army that enforced that occupation and the oppression it brought. And secondly, paying the tax was a way of agreeing with the things said about Caesar – that his Word was law, that he was the saviour of the world and that he was the son of God. And yet, it was only because Caesar allowed it, that the Temple rituals were allowed to continue so they had to go along with some of the laws which were opposed to what the Temple was to stand for. 

So it was quite reasonable for Jewish leaders and scholars to ask: “According to the law that God gave to Moses, is it lawful to pay the tribute to Caesar, or not?”   In other words do we pay Caesar thereby acknowledging Caesar’s authority – in which case Jews who saw Caesar and his system as just another form of slavery would be angered and turn against Jesus.  Or do we not pay Caesar’s tribute – thereby denying Caesar’s authority over them as Jews and therefore angering the  Roman Empire and its supporters who benefitted from it. 

Jesus’ reply is to ask “whose image is imprinted on the coin you pay with?” When they say “Caesar’s”, he responds by saying then “give to Caesar that which has his imprint on it, and give to God that which has God’s imprint on it.”

  As a Jew, Jesus believes that all of creation has God’s fingerprints all over it, including us who are “made in the image and likeness of God”. 

So this story – both the question posed to Jesus, and the answer Jesus gives – gives us a conundrum.  Whose “coin” will we use? And what shall we support with it?

The domination system (the Way of Caesar),

or the way of Righteousness or Right-us-ness (the Way Jesus models)?

Part Four: Time for a Song Break… (based on Mark 14: 1-11) Said Judas to Mary (image from saltandlight.com)

Part 5: Mark 14: 12-26 The Last Supper

Jesus was always eating with people. Sometimes they were the outsiders of the town, or of “Who Is Proper”. Sometimes he ate with devoutly religious teachers, like Simon the Pharisee (in that previous story). Eating with people is part of how we deepen our relationship with them. And when we share what is available we enact the primary law of the kin-dom of heaven: when we share what is available, there is enough for everybody…. and more than enough. (Remember 2 small fish and 5 biscuits feeding a multitude?)

This meal isn’t small. It is a meal which is supposed to be extravagaant because it is the symbol of no longer being slaves but free. There is ample bread and wine. Several cups of wine, in fact. So imagine the reaction when Jesus picks up one 10-inch round piece of unleavened bread, passes it around and says “take this, all of you and eat it”. There’s at least 12 men, so likely another 12-20 people associated with that family – wives, parents, children and grandchildren. They would all have been there because one purpose of the Passover Meal ritual is to tell the story to the next generation, to raise them up to understand how this story is part of their story. Telling the story imbues it with its meaning: we only tell those stories that tell us who we are.

What part of this story of the last supper of Jesus’ mortal life is part of your story?

and what difference does it make to you?

We will take what you offer

Part Six: Mark 14: 66-73  Jesus is arrested… and his closest follow denies knowing him

   There are two kinds of silence in this part of the story. The first is Jesus’ silence before the Sanhedrin, the Jewish Court of Elders. The second is Peter’s silence about his faith.

The first silence, much like Eamonn deValera’s silence in English courtrooms, is Jesus’ silence which denies the court’s authority of him.

The second instance is more of “being silent”. Peter denies Jesus because he thinks it might save his skin from being arrested too. Fair enough. But there was the cost to him – a shame and despair so deep he wept when he realized he couldn’t stand up to his own values and principles. Perhaps Peter’s silence is a foreshadowing of the silence of other Christians over the centuries – when Silence = Death.

Question for reflection: when have you chosen to hide your Christian faith? What was going on that you did that? Was your silence prompted by fortitude, like Jesus’, or fear, like Peter? Who benefitted from your silence? 

For some of us, participating in Holy Communion (or Eucharist) gives us strength from the remembrance of the relative costs and rewards of following this Way of Christ.

What gives you strength in times when your faithfulness is tested?

Here’s a different take: We will take what you offer

Tomorrow we look at the next chapters of this disturbing story.  It should disturb us because it tells of horror and the inhumanity that we are capable of.  It should disturb us enough to hold fast to the hope that another world is possible.  Perhaps it can even disturb us into taking one more step along a road that is muddy and rough…that leads to our heaven.

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

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; ….”

Pick your treasure

We continue our walk through Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount (6:19-34) his teaching on the how-to’s of living in the kingdom of heaven.  Jesus, throughout his life, was very clear that we don’t have to die to live in G*d’s Presence; G*d is present in all of life and what we need to do is to become aware of it.  That’s what these 3 chapters (Matthew 5-7) are about: how do we live in such a way that we are aware of G*d’s presence with us in our life, and at work within us as we live our life?

Quick recap: the first section focuses on Jesus’ hope for this new community of wholeness and shalom: it will be a beacon of light in a time when greed and oppression are all around us, how we will be blessed (in abundance!) when we allow ourselves to be vulnerable and open to being loved (Jesus’ singles out the bereaved, the meek, the merciful/those willing to forgive misdeeds against them), how those who hunger and thirst for right relationship with others are the real peacemakers.  He goes on to share that we can be better people than we have been taught we are, we can learn to live with radical honesty (let your yes be yes and your no, no), without reducing anyone to just an object for us to use for our benefit; how do we do that? Love your enemy, pray for those who persecute you.   Jesus knows we cannot do this on our steam, by our own power but by relying on divine power, and divine love.  Further we need to nourish, nurture and attend to our relationship with the divine power of Love. We reach out beyond ourselves, to the Source of Life and Love, the Holy Mystery “beyond the beyond” even as we build connection with those around us. When we see ourselves as one strand in this Holy Mysterious Web of Life.

And we do this for one purpose: to protect that which we value, our heart’s treasure.

What is your heart’s treasure?  Is it in things which moths and rust can consume, or thieves can steal?  Is it in loving connection?   Is it in the things that protect our physical security – houses, investments, clothing, food, financial security?  Or is it building relationships, trusting that as we love others we share with them, they share with us (and sharing with them even when they can’t share back in the same manner or to the same degree)?   And sometimes we have to choose between those things: will we put our time, energy, and resources into advancing the purpose of the Holy, the G*D who told Moses that the cries of the oppressed are heard? or will we put those things into the purpose of increasing our material security?  In Jesus’ words “you cannot serve G*d and mammon”.

I have a pantry full of food, and 2 ½ freezers, multiples of cans of fruit and beans and boxes of cereal; clearly I am among those who are truly afraid that if I store it all up I will run out; there won’t be enough for me.  I am sure I am not alone.  So the next section of this how-to guide of Jesus is to say: stop worrying. There will always be enough.  Look at the birds who neither work nor gather food into barns and they have enough.  Look at the wildflowers who do not spin and weave and knit and yet they are beautifully clothed. There is enough.  We don’t need to hoard, or take from others.  This could be a manifesto for simple living, or as American Catholic Sister Joan Puls said: “live simply so that others can simply live”.¹

It isn’t (pun intended) simply a case of not accumulating things; it is an orientation in the world.  It is a style of living, a lifestyle in which the compass points to our experiencing G*d in our life, at work in our life.  “Seek first G*d’s [kin-dom] and [this] righteousness, and all these things [which you need] shall be yours as well.  So don’t be anxious about tomorrow…” (6:33-34a).

I’m sure I was told this quote was from Latin American priest and [liberation] theologian Ernesto Cardinal, but brainyquotes.com attributes it to [American evangelist] Billy Graham: “Give me five minutes with a [person’s] cheque book and I’ll tell you where [their] heart is.” 

What do you value?

What orientation does your values serve?

Because sometimes we have to choose.

¹ Sr. Joan Puls, an American Sister of St. Francis, used this phrase in a speech made in 1974, though it is often attributed to St. Elizabeth Seton (of Baltimore), St. Marguerite d’Youville (of Montreal), and Mohandas K. Gandhi.   Sr. Joan may have been succinct yet she is not the only person to have this thought.  It is foundational to monastic vows and the Quaker lifestyle.   It might go back to Jesus’ command that his disciples not take money, extra clothes or a staff on their journeys to spread the word about this new vision (Luke 9: 1-5, 10:1-11).  Why the focus on simplicity?   From a website exploring Gandhi’s lifestyle: “Why live simply?… So others may simply live! If we use up our natural resources, trash the earth with our waste, and end up destroying ecosystems around the world, what kind of life are our grand kids going to inherit? ….Paramahansa Yogananda said, “Be as simple as you can be; you will be astonished to see how uncomplicated and happy your life can become.”

Be called, be changed

Generous and loving God, who provides water in the desert, wine at a wedding, fish when there are no bites, bread when we are hungry, and answers when we are confused, be with us today, as you are always. Blow through us, that we might sense your presence. Wrestle with us, that we might discern your path. Love us, that we might become who you call us to be. Amen.

—Rev. Bronwyn Corlett (YGM 2023)

VU 563 Jesus you have come to the lakeshore

The gospel story for today is one about being changed – profoundly. It’s sometimes called The Transfiguration. The short version is that Jesus takes his three special disciples, Peter, James and John, up a mountain to pray and share together. He’s inviting them into his inner world. And what a world it is! As they are praying, the disciples notice that Jesus is standing in front of them but is glowing from the inside out. I’ve always imagined that looking much the way people do when they are deeply in love. And in love he is. Jesus has on his one hand Moses – the great Lawgiver, the one who gathered together the slaves and outcasts to go into the desert to become a Holy People. And on Jesus’ other hand is Elijah – the Father of the Prophets, the one who chides the Children of Israel into actually being that Holy People. Jesus is changed before the disciples’ eyes.

A light comes on. All of a sudden all that Jesus has taught them up to now makes sense in a whole new light. Things like: ‘You are the light of the world. A city built on a hill cannot be hid. People do not light a lamp and put it under the bushel basket; rather, they put it on the lampstand, and it gives light to all.” And after his death, Jesus appears to the disciples (again on a mountain-top) and says “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,  and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.

That story, and the one we share today from Your Generosity Matters (2023) dovetail together well.

In YGM Rev. Dr. Jennifer Janzen-Ball speaks of her ministry in helping to shape church leadership for tomorrow. Making leaders takes effort…and it takes money. The first students generally have lots of, the second not so much.

When we support Mission & Service we develop leadership in our local church, from supporting youth and recruiting new ministers to funding theological schools, and even the resources needed to have good services…. like the hymn books we sing from!

Mission & Service provides some academic bursaries for students studying to become ministers and theological leaders.  “The church has a lot to offer in terms of witness to the community and supporting people who are struggling,” explains the Rev. Dr. Jennifer Janzen-Ball, the United Church’s Executive Minister for Theological Leadership. Jennifer knows there’s more to a bursary than just the financial gift. “The money is really helpful,” she says, “but the other thing that is so important to students is realizing that people throughout the church cared enough to donate to Mission & Service.”

One recipient of a bursury during her ministry studies explains: “I was a single parent, and I knew I couldn’t get through without support. I felt blessed by God through people who donated and who, by giving, encouraged me on my journey. I have tremendous gratitude for that important role the church played in my life at that time.” 

These gifts do matter. “The care of people who are strangers to one another—the  importance and impact of that can’t be overstated.”

“The church has a lot to offer in terms of witness to the community and supporting people who are struggling, ” says Janzen-Ball and the people of our communities who are struggling just may be the best leaders we have.

The story of transfiguration is the story of being called and being changed by that call. The work of theological education helps form that call, and equips us to live it out.

The questions for reflection on this were: What does it mean to shine your light? What does it mean to make disciples” Whose leadership inspires you? and

What does it mean to shine your light? I am usually pretty expressive, “a bright light”, but we know what it’s like when we get headlights in our eyes.  I have come to realize that a small light – even off a luminated watch – can help us see the obstacles we find ourselves nearly stumbling on in the dark.

In my discipleship, I find that sometimes I need to shine really brightly – being bold in sharing the faith I have come to through experience and academic learning.  I explain how this faith helps me make choices in my everyday life, and sometimes that’s a pretty bright light.

At other times that same faith guides me to be quiet and centred, able to sit with people in times of great pain.  It might mean making a place to hold silence, or letting an image speak its spiritual truth for itself.

 Either way, shining my light is a way for me is to express that “Great Commission”  – to make disciples, not make believers. Shining my light is my way to share how I have been changed by following Jesus’ Way, and to invite and encourage others to take steps on that Way as well.

• What does it mean to make disciples?

For me a disciple is who listens to the Teacher, learns from them,  questions them, grows through practicing what the Teacher does.  A disciple is learning to be the way the Teacher is.  Being a disciple is asking in any given situation “What would Jesus do?” and then try to do it. (See Charles Sheldon’s masterpiece classic In His Steps.)  But it’s hard to be a disciple of Jesus because I find it usually means denying what my comfort-seeking creature wants.

For me to “make disciples” is very different from what it is to “make believers” – requiring people to ascribe to particular interpretations of Jesus’ life, death and resurrection.   

Ironically a disciple is also a believer. someone who believes that by following this Teacher’s Way, we will experience heaven on earth, an eternal depth of peace and tranquility in our lifetime. And so I am a believer, too.

Discipleship is a way of walking the road, or as Brian McLaren wrote “We make the road by walking” the Way.  Always simple, never easy, and seldom laid out so that we can walk without thinking about it.

It’s sad to say the institutional Church has often made believers rather than disciples. In times it has done more harm than good. But I still believe in the Way of Jesus.  

• Whose leadership inspires you

The Big Name answers are: Jesus, Peter, Mary Sister Arlene, Gwyn Griffiths, Bishop Ted Scott, Archbishop Oscar Romero, Marcus Borg, Bishop Jack Spong and former UCCan Moderator the Very Rev. Lois Wilson. There are many more people, few people of whom are members of congregations I have served, whose names no one would know.  

What all of these people share is a very clear-focused faith, who easily say how they have  been touched and changed by their faith, and how their faith has evolved over their lifetime. They have all left behind the stories of their childhood friend Jesus and have embraced a more mature and compelling Christ.

These people are strong leaders.  They knew what they knew in their bones, and they offered that faith perspective both very matter-of-factly, and with humility.

The story of the transfiguration inspires me. Jesus goes with Peter, James and John to the mountaintop for prayer and sharing. As they encounter Moses the Lawgiver, and Elijah the great prophet and forerunner of G-d’s reign, they change. Jesus begins to glow but all four of them are changed. This is the moment at which Peter realizes that his buddy Jesus of Nazareth is, in fact, the Christ, the one who will begin G-d’s reign in the world.  This transfiguration moment is when all 4 of them realize what Jesus is really all about, what his ministry is and where it’s going to lead them.

A quick note on Sr. Arlene (a member of the Congregation of the Sisters of St. Margaret) and Gwyn Griffiths (former principle at the Centre for Christian Studies). These women set aside what could have been lucrative careers, and followed a ministry that took them into the community and were disciples of Jesus’ Way of love and compassion; they were ministers whether they were paid by the Church or just as regular people.  And they taught me that I don’t have to have all the answers, I can (as they stay in 12-step programs) “simply speak with humility from my experience, strength and hope”.

But have no doubt that we are subject to transformation, even transfiguration where we glow from the inside, when we are following Jesus’ Way.  The diploma from the CCS on my wall says “Diploma in Diaconal Ministries: studies in transformation.”  I learned I may not be the one to make great transformations but I will accompany those who find themselves in times of transition and change. Because I have gone through my own major transitions, and have truly been transformed by the experiences, because I have experienced little deaths only to be resurrected into a Light I could never have imagined, my faith has evolved.

Today’s story about ministry formation – both for clergy and lay people –  is about what happens after we hear that call to specific ministry we feel called to, or after we receive our vocation.  The purpose of educational programs, from bible studies to the variety of formation programs,  is to help us hear to what we are called to and to provide us with the  additional skills we need to do it.  Jennifer talks about “Transformative education”, which is far more about being open to being changed by G-d’s Spirit at work within us then about simply absorbing information. Transformative education doesn’t get rid of who we are, rather it walks us deeper into the river, into a clearer, more distilled sense of who we are- as people of faith, who are asked to join the work of making disciples.   

Both Lay people and clergy have a vocation – we have vocation as follower of Jesus’ Way.  We each are called to live that out through specific kinds of ministry. But this I know: when G-d calls, it means being willing to let go of what is, to be transformed and transfigured, into a new creation.

Song for Reflection: Jesus, you have come to the Lakeshore (by Cesareo Gabarain),

interpreted very creatively by Dan Van Widen of Avondale United Church, SK.

Image: “Contemporary Transfiguation”, sourced from ccmbs.ca (Conference of Cdn Mennonite Bretheren Churches)

Peace is a product of our Hope

Advent is our time of waiting, looking forward and eagerly anticipating a New Day Dawning, when the way the world is now will be different, when there is a new way for the peoples of the world to live.  In Christianity we call it ‘the kin-dom of G*d”, “the kin-dom of heaven”, the “reign of G*d”. Sometimes we borrow the Jewish term “the Messianic Age”. 

There are specific hallmarks according to the biblical prophets, especially Isaiah and Micah: it begins with Israel being redeemed – set free – from the tyrannies of marauding Empires, not left to languish in exile in Babylon and Assyria but that they will return to “the land” (the sign that G*d is with them). When that return happens, a king will arise from among them – a king from the same family as the “great” King David – whose reign will lead Israel back to live according to torah; they will rule with righteousness.** This law, given to Israel at Sinai, is a law of compassion, when the whole people of G*d are living equitably. In right relationship, like the scales of justice. Or the image of the valleys being lifted and the mountains brought low until there is a straight path, one which will allow our G*d right into the middle of our camp.

There will not be people living in destitute poverty nor people with overwhelming wealth. Every 7 years (staggered apparently) people who have been indebted will have their debts erased, and those who have lost their land will have it returned to them; they will be ‘set back to Square One’ to be able to make their own way with dignity and independence. Those who have no family to protect them will find themselves cared for (usually referred to in the Bible as ‘the widow, the orphan and the lame’). Even those who live in the land who are not “of the People of Israel” will have a measure of protection. It is a time of great joy and relief, and peace.

With the king reigning and people living by torah there will be such prosperity and peace that all the other nations around them will want to know “how they do that?”. (Such was the hope of Isaiah and the Psalmist).  So the nations will see how Israel does this, and will flock to learn their way and share that joy.  In such a time, implements of war won’t be needed – they’ll be turned into ploughs and pruning hooks.  This vision of hope is peaceful..

So why do we have a separate Advent theme called PEACE? This is what I found in my reflections this week.

FIrst, I asked ‘what does peace look like’?

For many of us, peace is the absence of conflict and tension, everything just moving along nicely in a wide, lazy river. The watchword for that kind of peace is “don’t rock the boat” or “go along to get along”. But that only works if there’s only 1 person involved, because whenever there are two or more people together there are edges – which will bump up against each other, and so there will be conflict.

I’m taking a course in Mediation & Conflict Resolution. I am learning that peace is not about ending conflict, or stopping arguments; peace comes by learning through them.  Learning about our self as well as about the other.

Conflict happens when two people, or two sides, each of whom have a particular perspective, think that the way things are isn’t satisfying to them. Seldom do the two sides at the table have equal power, influence or strength. There needs to be equanimity, llike the balance point of scales, for conflict to be resolved, truly.

Sometimes those who live in the valley understand that to be in right relationship, ‘right-us-ness’**, those who are on the mountain need to share the sand and rock so the valley can be filled in enough that there is a straight road. Sometimes those who live on the mountain want more, and they are quite willing to carve from the valley to make their mountain larger and those in the valley start to say “NO”. To bring real peace, a just peace where the scales are balanced, both sides needs to understand the root of the conflict: who wants more and why.

If peace is only about ‘don’t rock the boat’ or ‘get along to get along’, or stop arguing, it may not bring peace; it may perpetuate injustice.  And we’ve heard the phrase: no justice, no peace.

Biblical peace, the kind that the prophets and Jesus imagined was different. Biblical peace, just peace, is the what theologian Walter Wink calls ‘God’s domination-free order‘, or the end to all systems based on domination of one by the other.

In our time we hear that chant when it comes to the Black Lives Matter and Idle no More movements (which in Canada tend to be put together into Black & Indigenous Lives Matter or BILM). I can’t help but see this picture of balanced scales when I listen to the reports coming out of the so-called ‘Emergency Measures Inquiry’: who had power, who did not and why these measures were/shouldn’t have been called up.

One of my theological mentors is Martin Luther King Jr – a deep student of biblical peace. He said: ”Peace is not the absence of tension; it is the presence of justice for all people”.  MLK Jr, along with other leaders of the movement to create justice in his country, knew that until Black people were seen as being of equal value, with the same level of financial, social and legal influence that White people have, there would be a system of tyranny, of injustice. To not rock the boat, to not disrupt that system would be to perpetuate that injustice.

Before MLK Jr, Mohandas Gandhi rallied a diverse group of people living in India to end the rule of the British Empire. His hope was that the people of India could build a society in which every person counts -from the dalit (‘untouchables’) to the rulers of the land (maharajahs). And only by living that way would post-colonial India be prosperous; otherwise the imperial way of colonization would simply substitute one class for another, one ethnic dominator for another dominator.

Oscar Romero, Roman Catholic bishop saw the goverment (and foreign-backed) forces in his country of El Salvador try to quell the voices of those who needed the valleys to be filled in. He said: “Peace is not the product of terror or fear, the silence of cemeteries, the silent result of violent repression.  Peace is the generous, tranquil contribution of all to the good of all.  Peace is dynamism [dynamic energy].   Peace is generosity.  It is our right and it is our duty.”

So in our country – or province, or Westman – who populate the valleys and the mountains?

Valley-dwellers raise their voices with the hope that those on the mountain will hear them, and respond with what is needed to fill in that valley. They benefit from that, absolutely: materially, financially, emotionally, and spiritually. But – perhaps more telling – is that the mountain-dwellers also benefit: they live into ‘right-us-ness’. Together – those who begin in valley and those who begin on the mountain – become Just Peace-Makers. Together, they end the conflict, and help to make everyone prosper; they experience being in the kin-dom of heaven through their actions.

As rural folks we often feel like we’re in the valley. We have little influence on government policy-makers, we feel overlooked and as if we are of no consequence. It is our right to be heard; it is our duty to speak up.

And as White People living in this part of the globe, we are also on those mountains. We need to listen to those whose voices are coming from the valleys, and take some of the mountain on which we find ourselves down into the valley to help fill it up. That is the work sometimes called ‘solidarity’ or ‘being an ally’. And there are lots of voices coming up from the valley. And it is hard work to relinquish our place on the mountain, or to shift part of those rocks and sand to help fill up that valley until there is a straight road for our G*d to be able to be in the middle of our camp.

But I think that is what John the Baptizer was pointing to when he said “you brood of vipers!…Produce fruit in keeping with repentance.”

As followers of Jesus, who say we want to love our neighbour as ourselves, we need to repent. We need to repent of our silence – for those times when we are in the valley and for times when we are on the mountain hearing the voices of those in the valley.

What does peace look like to you?

There is conflict in this community. Who needs to be heard?  Who needs to make space for those voices?

Who needs more…dignity, acceptance?  who needs to relinquish something in order to support that burgeoning dignity?

How do you live into peace-full-ness in your family? in your community?

And if we do as much as we can locally, then we can spread out to work for that vision of peace within our province, country, even beyond our country

In Advent we hold this hope of a New Day, a New World, a New Way of being in the world, together. And so in Advent we ask the question becomes how do we get there?

In a Christian context we would say “follow the way that Jesus walked”.  What’s that?

Paul, in his letter to the fledging church of Rome (which had a great deal of places where people rubbed up against each other and there was conflict) says walking this Way of Christ means accepting one another as being of equal value, as siblings from one Creator.   This is the ‘fruit’ of our turning away from what is and towards what could be (repentance) that John was calling for. Living into right-us-ness is a difficult walk, but our hope is that it is worth the effort and hard work.

My Nana used to say “take care of the pennies and the dollars take care of themselves”.  I think peace is the same: let us be aware of how we are behaving in our family, our schools and workplaces; are we behaving in a way that builds peace first in the circles of family and community,and beyond.

That Hope of Advent, draws us towards Peace. But we need to be willing to be drawn there.

Let us be able to pray, with all those who share this hope, the words of St. Oscar Romero:

LORD G-d, Creator of all, Give me eye to see injustice, ears to hear the poor, wisdom to know compassionand the courage to bring about change.   Amen.

A Song to Reflect With: Like a healing stream (by Bruce Harding, (C) evensong music inc.)*

NOTES & ACKNOWLEGEMENTS:

*Music: Red Deer United Church, Youtube sharing. Words projected under OneLicense A721869, my employer’s subscription (Cornerstone Pastoral Charge).

**’right-us-ness’: I learned this term from my colleague gretta vosper. It is her rendition of the biblical term ‘righteousness’.

Photos: ‘Dawn’ by James Jordan, licenced under CreativeCommons/By-NC 2.0; Feature Image: sciencedirect.com “Valley reshaping and damming induce water table rise and soil salinization on the Chinese Loess Plateau” in Geoderma Volume 339, 1 April 2019, Pages 115-125. Accessed from images.google.com. Used under Fair Use license.;