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Shawn:
The Hebrew people offered the word shalom as greeting and farewell just as we use hello and goodbye. To that end the word shalom was an offering of peace. But, we also find that the word shalom goes beyond just an offering of peace. The word shalom is not only an offering of peace, but also a bestowal of well-being, completeness, and all-around welfare and wholeness upon the recipient. This is, as far as I'm concerned, one of the most common themes of the Bible - being able to observe and witness to the shalom that God is offering humankind.
For the longest time I had trouble believing in the idea of original sin, but I often have moments of reflection where I can see how naiive I have been about the concept. In order to reflect on this idea of original sin I have to somewhat disassociate my train of thought from the hatemongers, sado-masochists, and Calvinists who just love to talk about the "total depravity" of humankind, and rather look at how good intentions go awry in our particular hope of making the world a better place.
When I look at the stories of Indian Residential Schools and the mainline denominations involved it is easy to reflect and denigrate the efforts of those involved in attempting to do what they thought was right at the time - to make aboriginal (or First Nations or indigenous) people more white (in black communities if you act too white they call you whitewashed) so that they would be able to successfully integrate into mainstream Canadian society and, in the process, pull their communities out of poverty (because their whiteness would be more acceptable to white people) - I often wonder how our society could not consider all of the possible outcomes of such a process. In many ways I look at the stories - and I have heard many from aboriginal leaders - and have noted that our propensity toward liberal (or more broadly, left-wing) political ideal is really the place our naiivety begins because of our inability to realize the power that identity forms over individuals and cultures. We let our (left-wing or right-wing) ideology overshadow Christian responsibility - responsibility that is shaped by Jesus Christ.
Our church and government thought that the Indian Residential School system was the best way forward for a western liberal democracy, and we were dead wrong. What causes us to make erroneous decisions that repress our neighbours rather than liberates them?
Things weren't much different for other ethnic groups in North America. In the Chatham-Kent area during the late 19th century we had groups petitioning their municipal governments for there to be separate residential areas and schools for blacks and whites. We had similar petitions across other parts of southern Ontario. But this system of segregation was most notable in the southern United States where literally every part of life could be segregated into black and white fragments. I recall doing a history course while studying at the University of Waterloo on race and ethnicity in Canada and hearing the stories of blacks, Chinese, Japanese, and East Indian peoples and reading a piece on how having these minority ethnic groups in white school systems (in southern Ontario) would make white kids "dumber". So the school system's bureaucrats created some standardized tests and sadly the black kids' test scores were the worst; but, with great joy, the Chinese kids' tests were higher than those of the white folks. I never found out what exactly was on those tests, but they found out those days in the 1870s that things weren't exactly what they seemed. But I go back looking at these stories and realize that the world of history is just as complex and unbelievable as life today. Just as there were people who got themselves into troubling circumstances yesterday, and just as there are people who will get themselves into troubling circumstances today, there will be people who will get themselves into trouble tomorrow. This is the mystery of humankind, and is an observation on what original sin is - it is a mystery. I don't think that it connotes that we are devoid of good; but rather that our curiosity and our naiivety coupled together actually keep us blind from the consequences of our actions.
The best we can do in response to our brokenness is lift up the name of the God who offers opportunity - opportunity for joy and thanksgiving; opportunity for new life; opportunity for hope; opportunity for restored relationships; opportunity for new ways to live in satisfaction; opportunity for an offering of shalom. What this means to us today is the opportunity for an offering of completeness or wholeness.
I'm always surprised at what I see in worship when people hear the word shalom because it often is characterized by self-identified liberals as a way of reflecting the great Eastern traditions of religion by imitating their style of meditation, rather than focusing on building up the body of believers and the bodies of believers to surrender their lives to the Great Shalom - the very one who offers wholeness to us and dies as the intervention of shalom (wholeness and completeness) in the world.
Colossians 1:20 is a reminder that God was pleased that his fullness was alive in Jesus Christ that he might shalom (bring completeness and wholeness) the whole world unto himself by making shalom (completeness and wholeness) through his blood shed on a cross.
The purpose of the God of opportunity and generosity is to wake us up to the fact that the God who created us was joyous at our making, and therefore, is attempting to get back everything that belongs to God - which, I think, is the opposite of the God of hellfire - which, I believe, is not the same God. Amen.
Shawn:
The Hebrew people offered the word shalom as greeting and farewell just as we use hello and goodbye. To that end the word shalom was an offering of peace. But, we also find that the word shalom goes beyond just an offering of peace. The word shalom is not only an offering of peace, but also a bestowal of well-being, completeness, and all-around welfare and wholeness upon the recipient. This is, as far as I'm concerned, one of the most common themes of the Bible - being able to observe and witness to the shalom that God is offering humankind.
For the longest time I had trouble believing in the idea of original sin, but I often have moments of reflection where I can see how naiive I have been about the concept. In order to reflect on this idea of original sin I have to somewhat disassociate my train of thought from the hatemongers, sado-masochists, and Calvinists who just love to talk about the "total depravity" of humankind, and rather look at how good intentions go awry in our particular hope of making the world a better place.
When I look at the stories of Indian Residential Schools and the mainline denominations involved it is easy to reflect and denigrate the efforts of those involved in attempting to do what they thought was right at the time - to make aboriginal (or First Nations or indigenous) people more white (in black communities if you act too white they call you whitewashed) so that they would be able to successfully integrate into mainstream Canadian society and, in the process, pull their communities out of poverty (because their whiteness would be more acceptable to white people) - I often wonder how our society could not consider all of the possible outcomes of such a process. In many ways I look at the stories - and I have heard many from aboriginal leaders - and have noted that our propensity toward liberal (or more broadly, left-wing) political ideal is really the place our naiivety begins because of our inability to realize the power that identity forms over individuals and cultures. We let our (left-wing or right-wing) ideology overshadow Christian responsibility - responsibility that is shaped by Jesus Christ.
Our church and government thought that the Indian Residential School system was the best way forward for a western liberal democracy, and we were dead wrong. What causes us to make erroneous decisions that repress our neighbours rather than liberates them?
Things weren't much different for other ethnic groups in North America. In the Chatham-Kent area during the late 19th century we had groups petitioning their municipal governments for there to be separate residential areas and schools for blacks and whites. We had similar petitions across other parts of southern Ontario. But this system of segregation was most notable in the southern United States where literally every part of life could be segregated into black and white fragments. I recall doing a history course while studying at the University of Waterloo on race and ethnicity in Canada and hearing the stories of blacks, Chinese, Japanese, and East Indian peoples and reading a piece on how having these minority ethnic groups in white school systems (in southern Ontario) would make white kids "dumber". So the school system's bureaucrats created some standardized tests and sadly the black kids' test scores were the worst; but, with great joy, the Chinese kids' tests were higher than those of the white folks. I never found out what exactly was on those tests, but they found out those days in the 1870s that things weren't exactly what they seemed. But I go back looking at these stories and realize that the world of history is just as complex and unbelievable as life today. Just as there were people who got themselves into troubling circumstances yesterday, and just as there are people who will get themselves into troubling circumstances today, there will be people who will get themselves into trouble tomorrow. This is the mystery of humankind, and is an observation on what original sin is - it is a mystery. I don't think that it connotes that we are devoid of good; but rather that our curiosity and our naiivety coupled together actually keep us blind from the consequences of our actions.
The best we can do in response to our brokenness is lift up the name of the God who offers opportunity - opportunity for joy and thanksgiving; opportunity for new life; opportunity for hope; opportunity for restored relationships; opportunity for new ways to live in satisfaction; opportunity for an offering of shalom. What this means to us today is the opportunity for an offering of completeness or wholeness.
I'm always surprised at what I see in worship when people hear the word shalom because it often is characterized by self-identified liberals as a way of reflecting the great Eastern traditions of religion by imitating their style of meditation, rather than focusing on building up the body of believers and the bodies of believers to surrender their lives to the Great Shalom - the very one who offers wholeness to us and dies as the intervention of shalom (wholeness and completeness) in the world.
Colossians 1:20 is a reminder that God was pleased that his fullness was alive in Jesus Christ that he might shalom (bring completeness and wholeness) the whole world unto himself by making shalom (completeness and wholeness) through his blood shed on a cross.
The purpose of the God of opportunity and generosity is to wake us up to the fact that the God who created us was joyous at our making, and therefore, is attempting to get back everything that belongs to God - which, I think, is the opposite of the God of hellfire - which, I believe, is not the same God. Amen.
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