Adam Kilner

Give You

2012-02-15T01:07:00.002-05:00

Written by Adam Kilner

I'll give you praise
I'll give you praise
I'll give you praise
I'll give you praise
For the sun, for the moon
For all creation

Mmmm...la la la
Mmmm...la la la
Mmmm...la la la
Mmmm...la la la
Oh, oh, oh

Deliver us
Deliver us
Deliver us
Deliver us
From the chains
From the bondage
Of slavery

Send healing rain
Send healing rain
Send healing rain
Sending healing rain
Let it pour
Let it soak
Through all your people

Mmmm...la la la
Mmmm...la la la
Mmmm...la la la
Mmmm...la la la
Oh, oh, oh

I'll give you praise
I'll give you praise
I'll give you praise
I'll give you praise
For the sun, for the moon
For all creation

A Smile Relieves...

2012-02-09T21:38:00.001-05:00

Orchestral banjos fill the room
A pulse of kick drum, feel the groove
Diversity across the floor
You reconcile the rich and poor

You think I sing a bluegrass song
Freedom's a genre for us all
We gather close to make amends
Red, Black, and White, we can be friends

Do you hear the sound that's rising from us all?
Do you see all of God's children, big and small?
A light that shines so brightly onto all
Onto all

We clap our hands in unity
All of the slave and all the free
We come from all the continents
A smile relieves our hesitance

Waiting for the Sunrise (Earth Day)

2012-01-17T00:22:00.003-05:00

Words by Michael Khashmanian; Lyrics by Adam Kilner

Some days are good, some not so much
Seems like we've all been jaded by the golden touch
We have a chance to start anew
Deep down inside we all know what we have to do

We may have started down that slope
The word of God is there for all who have to hope
We have to learn to do what's right
Or else we'll turn our world into eternal night

That's why I'm waitin' for the sunrise everyday
Not goin' to let the dark night add to my dismay
Take a moment now and then to pray
Goin' let God's hand show me the way

Blowing dirty things into the air
Sometimes it seems like no one really gives a care
Oil pipelines gouge the countryside
We have to find a balance if we're ever to survive

Let's keep our water fresh and clean
The signs are everywhere just waiting to be seen
Things may look grim for planet earth
It's not too late for us to start with her rebirth

That's why I'm waitin' for the sunrise everyday
Not goin' to let the dark night add to my dismay
Take a moment now and then to pray
Goin' let God's hand show me the way

The hail may be pelting
The ice caps are melting
The climate is changing
Do we know what to do?

The factories belting
The iron we're smelting
The world's rearranging
Do we know what to do?

Some days are good, some not so much
Seems like we've all been jaded by the golden touch
We have a chance to start anew

Come On Oceans

2012-01-16T03:25:00.002-05:00

Written by Adam Kilner

O mountains arise
And eagles take flight
We're on an adventure
To see all the sights

O rivers rush through
Stars twinkle the night
The Creator's renewing your minds

Come on oceans and roar with delight
Come on creatures and sing with your might
A new day is coming, just open your eyes
And all of creation, and all of creation...arise!

O people join in
Breaking the chains of sin
The chasm of chaos
Has us falling in

Bring your shouts to your God
And renew your old songs
And all of creation will know they belong

Come on oceans and roar with delight
Come on creatures and sing with your might
A new day is coming, just open your eyes
And all of creation, and all of creation...arise!

There is a world
There is a land
A great invitation
Where we're held in God's hand

The mountains bow down
As Lord Jesus ascends
Divine, human amends

Come on oceans and roar with delight
Come on creatures and sing with your might
A new day is coming, just open your eyes
And all of creation, and all of creation...arise!

Preaching: The Act of Creation!

2011-10-15T01:18:00.001-04:00

To preach and proclaim the Gospel of Jesus Christ is to align oneself with the God of creation. Preaching and proclamation are acts of creation. To utter, to vocalize, to speak is to reveal; it is to show a world that we don't think could exist and to speak of its possibility!

When God creates the world in Genesis 1, all God has to do is speak! Time and time again we are told, "And God said..." and it was.

Jesus comes into his ministry by preaching. In Matthew he announces, "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near!" (Matthew 4:17) In essence, he is telling his people who are burdened, over-taxed, lame, blind, turning away from God, that God is actually closer than any of us ever thought. We all thought that God lived up above in the heavens - that world that constantly eludes us, just beyond the clouds. But heaven (which is often a code-word for God in the Gospel of Matthew) is falling out of the sky and landing among people like you and I. In fact, after Jesus declares the closeness of God, he goes out searching for disciples (students), and he says, "Follow me!" and then he goes throughout the countryside preaching and teaching and healing - evidence that what he is saying is true - that God is really setting up shop among people like us.

As Jesus heals the lame and the blind they see a new world. As onlookers watch Jesus heal they see a new world. As Jesus preaches about the kingdom new possibility arises; people see the world like they've never seen it before. It's a whole new world.

It's interesting that Jesus is called "the Word made flesh" at the beginning of the Gospel of John. It's like God has uttered and that utterance has become wrapped in human skin and we just see a human being with the exceptional gift of disrupting our world and drawing people to himself. He draws people to himself who admire him as "God's Son" and others who are happy that he hangs from a cross dying. Little did those who killed Jesus know that the world he was recreating didn't involve them.

Will Willimon often reminds his listeners that after his resurrection we'd expect Jesus to go on a witch-hunt looking for Pilate and his henchmen. But no! Jesus doesn't search for Pilate, he searches for the lower class fishermen who abandoned him as soon as the thugs came to arrest him in that garden they call Gethsemane. he searches them out and the first words to spill from his mouth are, "Peace be with you!"

You see, it has to be a brand new day when the teacher and best friend you abandoned returns to you with best wishes. It has to be a brand new day when people like you and me aren't condemned, but rather co-opted into a peaceful revolution that, for 2000 years, has continued to sweep across the globe like a raging forest fire.

In Genesis 2 God is characterized as a seedsman who plants a garden. In the Gospel of John's account of Jesus' resurrection he is presented as a gardener. The God who plants the seed also causes the growth. Life began in a garden. Life returns to a garden. Life is restored in a garden.

Gardens are places of possibility; they are places of hope; they are places where the impossible becomes possible; they are places where we see the dead matter nourishing the living.

Gardeners are people of possibility; they are people who make a way out of no way. They are people who are gifted at sowing new life and planting seeds of hope when the rest of us are insistent that there is no way out of our problems.

In the thick of all of this economic meltdown in the United States and around the world we see people like the citizens of Detroit, and people in other cities like Toronto and Vancouver developing community gardens and raising crops to localize our eating habits, to localize our economies, to simplify our lifestyles, and to generate an atmosphere of hope that you don't have to be a farming conglomerate or some corporate multinational to make it in the world.

When we see signs of hope; when we see signs of a renewed world emerging - a world that we didn't imagine was possible - all that we who trust in Jesus can do is to preach! To remind people that in all of this hope that "the kingdom of God (really) has come near!"

Hallelujah!

Are You My President Too?

2011-10-14T11:56:00.001-04:00

As protests are being staged around the world Michael Khashmanian and Adam Kilner offer this song about equality, corporate greed, politics and politicians...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FYwYo2W2ykA

Are YouMy President Too?

Hey there inWashington,

Are you myPresident too?

I’ve got nomoney

And myprospects few

Tomorrow’slooking grim

I don’tknow what I’m going to do

Are thereopportunities

So that I canstart anew?

Are you myPresident too?

Hey there inOttawa

Are you myPrime Minister?

I ain’t nocorporate giant

And my goalsaren’t sinister

I may be asingle mother

Or a bum out in thestreet

Or maybe aworking stiff

Just tryingto make ends meet

Are you myPrime Minister too?

I don’tsit on no councils

I ain’tin no lobby groups

But I’mthe first one on the line

Whenyou’re sending out the troops

Are you myPresident too?

You’reeverybody’s friend

Leading toElection Day

But when thevotes are counted

Do you carewhat I say?

Got nofriends in high places

I don’twear no shirt and tie

Would youtake a look my way

If I tried tocatch your eye?

Are you myPresident too?

Are you myPrime Minister too?

I don’t sit on no councils

I ain’t in no lobby groups

But I’m the first one on the line

When you’re sending out the troops

Are you my President too?

You must bethe voice of justice

Standinghonest, firm and sure

In the landof the wealthy citizen

And the landof the desperate poor

You mustbalance on the line

Set a coursethat’s straight true

And the scentof corporate money

Can’tdecide what you should do

Are you myPresident too?

Are myPrime Minister too?

I don’tsit on no councils

I ain’tin no lobby groups

But I’mthe first one on the line

Whenyou’re sending out the troops

Are you myPresident too?

Are youcleaning up the world?

So thatI can take a breath

Or doesthe army get my tax dough?

In caseyou have to spread some death

Are youmy Prime Minister too?

MichaelKhashmanian and Adam Kilner 2006

Canadian Universities with Content on iTunesU

2010-12-23T20:34:00.000-05:00

The following Canadian Universities have course content available for free on iTunesU. Check it out.

Brock University, St. Catharines, ON
McGill University, Montreal, PQ
McMaster University, Hamilton, ON
Queen's University, Kingston, ON
University of British Columbia
University of Prince Edward Island
University of Western Ontario, London, ON
Universite de Montreal

Notably absent are the University of Toronto, tech-savvy University of Waterloo, and all of the universities in western Canada other than UBC - like University of Alberta and University of Calgary. If I have missed any, please let me know.

Sermon 14 - Bugging God and the Powers-that-Be

2010-10-20T13:46:00.001-04:00

Dear friends:

Today we gather as a people awaiting the coming of our God, Jesus Christ, by the power of the Holy Spirit. We believe that our Savior Jesus Christ is the embodiment of love – and not just some vague principle, but rather of sacrifice. We give our lives to Jesus, because in him we discover what love should look like in this world of pain and suffering. If you haven't discovered yet, you'll note that theologically, the way I choose to speak about God is rarely reflective of current trends in the church around language and propriety – the way I speak about God is often directly related to suffering people – I tend to often emphasize the God who comes into the world to save the wicked and to bring renewal to the children of God who are caught in the eye of the storm. You may notice that I often refer to the violent torture and 6-hour-long crucifixion of Jesus Christ. Today, as we hear the Scripture and watch today's sermon, preached by Fort Worth City Councilman Joel Burns, you may understand why I emphasize the violent nature of God's death – for if God did not suffer, then God has nothing to say to suffering people. If Jesus Christ was not lynched, and hung on a tree, then Jesus Christ has nothing to say to all of those Negroes who were hung on trees as White folks held barbecues around their dead bodies. If you take away all of the bloodiness of the cross and deodorize the Gospel so that it is comfortable for your White, middle class sensibilities, then you have already declared a Gospel that is unable to extend into a multicultural context. Colored people, women, First Nations folk, gay brothers, lesbian sisters, and transgendered sisters and brothers have all suffered in the same, violent way that Jesus Christ did – you take away the blood of the cross, then you take away the God who knows their experience, because this God suffered the same way they have. The central theological question we are always wrestling with as the church – all of the people and creatures and objects (animate and inanimate) that Jesus Christ has called to follow him – is this one:

How is my soul made right with God?

Or worded a different way:

How can I live harmoniously with God and with my neighbor?

Because, as I've mentioned before, the archaic word atonement literally means harmony or reconciliation – bringing back together a people who have been torn apart relationally.

Let us, together, here the proclamation of a 1^st-century physician. Our reading today comes from Luke 18:1-8. I invite our reader to come forward at this time. Please stand for the reading of the Gospel.

Then Jesus told them a parable about their need to pray always and not to lose heart. He said, “In a certain city there was a judge who neither feared God nor had respect for people. In that city there was a widow who kept coming to him and saying, 'Grant me justice against my opponent.' For a while he refused; but later he said to himself, 'Though I have no fear of God and no respect for anyone, yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will grant her justice, so that she may not wear me out by continually coming.'” And the Lord said, “Listen to what the unjust judge says. And will not God grant justice to his chosen ones who cry to him day and night? Will he delay long in helping them? I tell you, he will quickly grant justice to them. And yet, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?”

May God add a blessing to the reading, hearing, and understanding of the Word. Amen!

Today, I don't have much to say, except to show you a video that puts forward an important message related to our Gospel. Let's watch:

We Watch ~ “Joel Burns Tells Gay Teens “It Gets Better”

Dear friends:

I want you to know today, that we are a community of faith whose flourishing is grounded in the violent and unjust torture, suffering, and execution of God – the God who took on human weakness.

Though you might say that our video this morning is “just an American problem” we have seen a handful of teen suicides in Canada as well. If you have some time this week, please go over to youtube.com and type in the words “it gets better” and see the moving stories and reflections about gay teens who have committed suicide because of bullying, and some of the inspiring proclamations created for those who are in the midst of the storm. The video speaks loudly, because we know that bullying has often been used by the strong against those who are gay and lesbian, but also against those who are perceived to be gay and lesbian. We also know that kids are bullied for other reasons as well. If you are different, in any way, it is probable that you will be bullied – if you're the Black person in a white community; if you have a cleft palate, people will make fun of you; if you have any form of disability – learning or physical – you will become the butt of really bad and hurtful jokes.

We used to say, even when I was growing up, “sticks and stones may break my bones, but names will never hurt me.” We know right now that that cliché is a DAMNED lie!!! We know that name-calling literally kills our young people. We, as the church, are called by God to evangelize the world and to edify the church, which means that we are to, as evangelists, “become bearers of Good News in a troubled world” and as ones called to edify the church, “to build up our fellow disciples” regardless of any social demographic that we may or may not agree or disagree with. It is not our job to condone or condemn sisters and brothers, it is our job to equip them to serve the Lord Jesus Christ.

When I served in youth ministry in London, Ontario my young people, at one youth group, were overcome with grief over the suicide of a boy in the area who had committed suicide because he was perceived as being gay. I want to share some of his story.

“I had to cut my son down from the tree” said John Melo, father of 15-year-old Joshua Melo, who died by suicide after being relentlessly bullied because some students thought the he was gay. “I told the kids at the funeral that if you don't get together and confront the bullies, it will be your parents cutting you down. You guys have to stick together, stand up to the bullies, take away their power and they will back down. If you guys don't do it, the system won't.”

He had to cut his son down from a tree. A cold, hard, and lifeless body. The body of the one he loved.

The meaning of our parable today, folks, is that as the church, we are commanded to keep bugging God and the powers-that-be in our world for justice. To keep earnestly praying for justice. For, as Martin Luther King Jr. said:

No, no, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until “justice rolls down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

Amen.

The Future of the Church

2010-09-29T02:26:00.000-04:00

I, like many before me, and probably like many who will come after me, often wonder whether the church has a future. Everywhere we look, especially in the United Church, are signs of institutional decline, deepening apathy to the rugged message of the cross, fierce opposition to "religion" in general, and young folks keeping away from religion because it might make them appear "close-minded" to peers.

There are a lot of people who have much more to say on process as it pertains to the revitalization of the church, but I have been meditating on the joys of being a disciple, and on whether the church must really do anything to find revitalization.

I am deeply convinced today that as mainline Protestants, which means our proclivities tend to understand faith from a more liberal perspective, that much of our considerations with regard to faith often have to do with technical skills - using the right words (sometimes political correctness), worrying about the correct set-up of the worship space, making sure hymns use inclusive language, etc.

I would submit that I consider, in ministry anyway, relationship to be of paramount importance, and this is often why pastors spend probably too much time on the technical stuff, and not enough time on transformational stuff. When we talk about relationship, we're not talking about something vague - we' talking about how I as an individual relate to you, or how I as an individual relate to God, or how we as a faith community relate to God, etc. We are always looking at our lives in the midst of atonement - the human being in relationship to potential harmony with God, others, and the whole of creation. This is the central motif of Christ, Cross, and Church - atonement - how am I made to be one with God?

Thus, I submit, that because the church only exists as Christ calls disciples to become the church, the community in response to Christ seeks out reconciliation - that is, harmonious relationships that only come into existence when uncomfortable questions are asked, when the proper arguments are had, and when folks realize that even in the midst of all this Christ has called every single person who is present to be reformed into his image, little Christs.

Our dearly beloved Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, and other Oriental churches refer to the passion narrative of Christ as the Paschal Mystery, in which we remember YHWH passing over the homes of Israelites as they prepared for escape to the Promised Land under Moses' leadership. But we also consider the term "mystery" in which we know the narrative, but struggle to fully comprehend the meaning of that narrative. Thus, we get that there is something redemptive for the entire universe with regard to Christ's death, but we also submit that there is hidden meaning there too.

My point in all of this ranting is to suggest that our reconsideration of mystery in the faith and furthermore, our commitment to relationship-building among disciples, is part of a process called edification - in which the church is built up - it is raised. Furthermore, when we address the deep mysteries of the faith, we allow God's redemptive action to take place as we share bread and cup and remind sisters and brothers in the faith that they are forgiven, and they are blessed as they receive the bounteous harvest of our Creator.

We must allow the Holy Spirit's conciliatory nature to restore wholeness to disciples as they receive the elements of the Eucharist - that is a fancy way of saying that we need to allow the Holy Spirit to transform people, and we need to be able to promise people that when they come to worship, they will not only receive intellectual stimuli, but also possible stirrings from the Spirit of Life, who seeks only the conversion of the inner-workings of the soul.

Amen.

Get Your Soul Right!

2010-06-20T21:18:00.002-04:00

My sisters and brothers of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, it is an honour to be standing before you as an ordained minister of the United Church of Canada, and as a servant of our God, the Trinity, for the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic church. In the tradition of our Protestant ancestors in faith, let us stand as we are able to hear read the Gospel of our Lord:

_________________________________________________________________________________

A reading from Luke 8:26-39

They sailed to a region of the Gerasenes, which is across the lake from Galilee. When Jesus stepped ashore, he was met by a demon-possessed man from the town. For a long time this man had not worn clothes or lived in a house, but had lived in the tombs. When he saw Jesus, he cried out and fell at his feet, shouting at the top of his voice, "What do you want with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I beg you, don't torture me!" For Jesus had commanded the evil spirit to come out of the man. Many times it had seized him, and though he was chained hand and foot and kept under guard, he had broken his chains and had been driven by the demon into solitary places.

Jesus asked him, "What is your name?"

"Legion," he replied, because many demons had gone into him. And they begged him repeatedly not to order them to go into the Abyss.

A large herd of pigs was feeding there on the hillside. The demons begged Jesus to let them go into them, and he gave them permission. When the demons came out of the man, they went into the pigs, and the herd rushed down the steep bank into the lake and was drowned.

When those tending the pigs saw what had happened, they ran off and reported this in the town and countryside, and the people went out to see what had happened. When they came to Jesus, they found the man from whom demons had gone out, sitting at Jesus' feet, dressed and in his right mind; and they were afraid. Those who had seen it told the people how the demon-possessed man had been cured. Then all the people of the region of the Gerasenes asked Jesus to leave them, because they were overcome with fear. So he go into the boat and left.

The man from whom the demons had gone out begged to go with him, but Jesus sent him away, saying, "Return home and tell how much God has done for you." So the man went away and told all over town how much Jesus had done for him.

This is the Gospel of our Lord

Thanks be to God.

You may be seated.

_________________________________________________________________________________

Let's pray together to our God, the Trinity, the words of the Psalmist:

O Blessed Trinity:

May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be pleasing in your sight, O YHWH, my Rock and my Redeemer. Amen.

_________________________________________________________________________________

To be the church in this time and in this place is to be people enslaved to speaking and acting and living by Truth. We are a people, and a creation, being actively reconciled to the Way, the Truth, and the Life - our Strength, the Lord Jesus Christ who proclaimed to a crowd of people,

"But I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself." (John 12:32)

The heartbeat of our Way of Life is to be drawn towards Jesus, our Master, who gives Life and makes it abundant. And so, dear people of the Way - Christ's Way - we gather on this beautiful Father's Day to be the ecclesia of our Lord - a people summoned to this citizenry, the church, by the power of the Holy Spirit - to proclaim again and again and again the brutal torture, horrendous six-hour-long crucifixion, death, and glorious resurrection of Jesus, and to gather continuously in expectation of his miraculous reappearance for that which is to come.

It is with great privilege that I stand before you on this day. I honestly never expected to see this day come, and I offer you thanks from the bottom of my heart, for being prayer warriors who have struggled through this process, in the Spirit, with me. I also thank you for the invitation and honour to lead today's worship service and the Eucharist. For you to give honour to me is to give honour to those who raised me and put wind at my back as I struggled through 8 years of post-secondary education. To give honour to me is to give honour to the One who sent me to preach and proclaim the Gospel. To give honour to me is to lift up my Mother, my Father, my sisters and brothers, my church, my friends, my mentors, my aunties and uncles, my grandparents, my pastors, my everything. And so I offer you in this time, my deepest thanks for sharing in the vision of a mentor of mine who offered his gifts to the church as he spoke into us that which God was passionate about in this context, and stated this way:

To raise up leaders for the church.

Today, as we celebrate the 85th anniversary of our United Church of Canada, giving honour to our founding denominations and to those who have joined with us since, I give you thanks, and I give God thanks and praise, for without the life-giving and liberating Jesus Christ, I don't know that we'd be here for such an exhilarating moment in time.

Jesus had just shocked the hell out of his disciples as they crossed a lake. He had fallen asleep and not long after a squall had come out of nowhere, rocking their tiny boat this way and that. Jesus just kept on sleeping. In terror they shook him awake crying, "We're going to drown!" But Jesus got up and rebuked the wind and the raging waters and the storm subsided. In typical Jesus-fashion, he casually asks them, "Where is your faith?" And the disciples, of course amazed and terrified by this feat, asked each other, "Who is this? He commands even the winds and the water, and they obey him."

Well, it seems that after they got to the other side of the lake they were in the region of the Gerasenes, and in particular, they were near a cemetery where a man with some sort of ailment had been hanging out. When he saw Jesus he cried out, "I beg you, don't torture me!" Jesus isn't typically known for his waterboarding techniques, so we read the demon-possessed man's bellowing with some intrigue. The demons that possessed this man were so strong that "though he was chained hand and foot and kept under guard, he had broken his chains and had been driven by the demon into solitary places," like the cemetery where we now are.

We hardly ever want to admit how close the nearest cemetery is to where we live our daily lives. You see, cemeteries are places where we remember how close we are to death and all his friends. Cemeteries are the visible sign of a certain existential reality - that one day you will die, and that they will toss you in a hole in the ground, cover your face in dirt, and head back to the church to eat potato salad. There is a certainty in today's narrative account of Jesus and a demon-possessed man, and that certainty is found where Jesus and this man engage his demonic symptoms in the middle of a cemetery - death is all around; death is certain. Someday, you will die!

Those of you who love language will note that the roots of the word human come from the Latin humanus, which is related to both homo as in man and humus as pertaining to earthly beings. The Book of Genesis begins with two differing accounts of the creation of the world. The first account seems to be very cosmically-oriented, telling about the grand and sweeping development of God's universe. The second account, however, is more deeply human in perspective. God makes the heavens and the earth and then we find out that there was no human to till the ground. So, we find out in the narrative that "YHWH God formed the human from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being" (Gen. 2:7). If we take the Hebrew into account we will notice a powerful interplay going on.

YHWH God formed the adam from the dust of the adamah and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being. (Gen. 2:7)

Adam means man and adamah is the ground. Isn't it funky how our humanity is so closely connected to the earth. More broadly, in our human language there is often a connection between our humanity and our closeness to the earth. After the man and the woman eat of the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil YHWH offers a curse to Adam. He says:

Cursed is the ground because of you;

through painful toil you will eat of it all of the days of your life.

It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field.

By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground,

since from it you were taken;

for dust you are and to dust you will return. (Gen. 3:17-19)

We are always so close to death. It's just that nobody wants to admit it. Especially in modern Western culture, the deaths of our loved ones tend to be hidden from us behind the funeral industry. But as the church, our collective vision for God's world is built upon death - the death of God. That is why we proclaim the crucified Christ. As people of the cross we target "the catastrophic and the monstrous, the scandalous, the traumatic that are often hidden and concealed in the deodorized and manicured discourses of the mainstream" as brother Cornel West says. That is why we proclaim Jesus Christ tortured and crucified. This is why we meet Jesus and the demon-possessed man in a graveyard.

So, Jesus got off the boat that he and his disciples had journeyed across the lake on and they found themselves in the middle of a cemetery. And Jesus, looking to control the demon in our possessed man, asks, "What is your name?" When we name our demons we can control them so that they do not control us. Then, in reply, we hear, "Legion," because there was a multitude of demons in the man. Once the demons had made the fatal mistake of telling Jesus their collective name they begged him not to cast them into the Abyss - which in the 1st-century Mediterranean world is a reference to the Greek underworld and place of the dead, Hades. It can also be understood as Hell.

As the face-off between Jesus and the demons comes to its most critical point, they both see a herd of pigs feeding on a hillside. Luke the Physician tells us that it is "a large herd of pigs," while Mark's Gospel says that the herd was, "about two thousand in number" (Mark 5:13). So we know that we're not dealing with some hobby-farmer's pastime, but rather somebody's entire livelihood - a serious economic situation. Anyway, Jesus gives permission for the demons to enter the swineherd after being driven from the man, and the pigs then collectively head for a cliff overlooking the Sea of Galilee and plunge to their common death as a herd. Jesus fixes one problem and causes an economic catastrophe at the same time - you can see why the people ask him to get out of town. He had just caused the mass extinction of some farmer's livestock - and I don't imagine that there was such thing as insurance back in the day - this farmer was now SOL - surprisingly out of luck.

Those who had been tending the pigs had witnessed the whole event and told everybody from the nearby town. Of course when odd events happen a crowd automatically forms - this isn't Ripley's Believe it or Not, but it is about as close to it as you can get for 1st-century Palestine. The crowd saw the man who had formerly been possessed by demons now "in his right mind" and "they were afraid." There is nothing like the miraculous to terrorize good and sensible, liberally-minded modern people to their very bones. There is no one like Jesus who can intimidate and menace a crowd with his signs and wonders. Man, those people were upset. And you can imagine why they would be.

In previous stories in the Gospel of Luke, such as when Jesus raised the son of the widow at Nain and when Jesus quieted the storm, the people who witnessed those events were afraid, but, unlike this story their fear and trembling in those stories ultimately "calls forth wonder and praise". In our story today, the fear and trembling of the people only calls forth "dismay and aversion" and ultimately the request for Jesus to get the heck out of there.

But you also have to remember that Jesus is a Jew - part of the tradition he comes from views swine as unclean animals. But, as you know, we're not in Kansas any more. We're across the lake from Israel in the region of the Gerasenes, who didn't keep the same customs as the Jews, and so we can assume that the reason there were pig-farmers there was that they did not view pigs as "unclean". Regardless of the cultural differences between the Jews and the Gerasenes, Jesus was asked to leave, "so he got into the boat and left." Before Jesus left, the formerly demon-possessed man begged him to go with him, but Jesus told him, "Return home and tell how much God has done for you." As the church it is our high calling to name Jesus Christ into the world.

While on staff at Pelham Community Church down near Welland I had the pleasure of being involved in all sorts of ministries. We have 4 ministry staff - a lead minister, a minister of pastoral care, a children's ministry co-ordinator, and me (I was the staff member that floated between all of the ministries). I had the wonderful opportunity to be with people in the final stages of life and I remember one day as I was searching for a man in his mid-90s who had been on his death-bed for years. He had been in and out of the hospital and so I spent 3 or 4 hours trying to locate him. When I went to his house he was at the hospital and when I was at the hospital he had just been sent home. Finally I got back to his house and Dick's best friend Ivor was at his best friend's house, like he is on every Wednesday, and when I opened the door to Dick's house I will never forget Ivor's reaction. Ivor will be 95 this year. Anyway, I opened the door and said, "Hello," to him and he turned to me with tears in his eyes and said, "I just know that God has sent you!" I'm standing in the doorway looking up and down and over my shoulders trying to figure out who this old man is talking to - surely he can't be referring to the skinny Negro standing in the doorway of his best friend's house. The same skinny Black man who mooned the Sunday school way back in Gr. 3.

While at the ordination service almost a month ago now I was deeply moved by those who stood with me on stage physically, and by those whose hearts were up on that stage with me. I would have really loved to have invited you all to be up on that stage. Two people stood out to me that night - Shirley Willis and Gord Walkling. You could tell by their eyes that they had just witnessed a miracle. Gord really knew because he had been my Sunday school teacher for many years - he knew all the trouble I could stir up. You could tell from his eyes that he knew the day before that it was a possibility that I would be ordained the next day, but that it was a miracle nonetheless when it happened.

Friends, we are people of the cross. Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ calls us to take up our own cross. Like today’s story, the cross for us is a miracle in which the Trinity is named into the world. But the cross is also, for us, a front row seat to our past, our present, and our future as the church. It is our glimpse into God’s world - as Pat Morrison would say, our window into the sacred. New ministries and new ministers are miracles - they are signs and wonders that God continues to be actively engaged in the world of the one who was, who is, and who is to come. God does not leave humankind to its own devices - rather, God, in Jesus Christ chooses to claim the world for God. Consider our earliest hymn in the church from the first chapter of Colossians:

Christ is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation; for in him all things in heaven and on earth were created, things visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers - all things have been created through him and for him...for in Christ all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of his cross.

By the cross God calls the demon-possessed man, by the cross God calls the A.D.D.-filled child, by the cross God transforms them that they might be vessels of hope for the world. Will you join to become vessels of hope? Amen!

O to Believe!!!

2010-05-25T01:24:00.001-04:00

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. (John 3:16)

John 3:16 falls off the loose lips of "Christians" looking to bolster their own campaigns for a seating capacity in heaven that their own God seems to have mistakenly evaluated. Usually this verse is used to "evangelize" by argument those who are skeptical of the Jesus the church seems to protect itself from by domestication. What the church has oftentimes failed to realize, however, is that its own "Christians" do not really spend enough time reading the Bible other than to pick out favorite scriptures to endear themselves to God and to condemn the world that God so loved, into the fiery furnace. But God loved the world so much that he sent Jesus into it.

Our real concern in today's lesson is to consider what it means to believe as a person connected with the church. Douglas Harper makes mention that the 14th century really brought forth a change in how the terms believe and faith had been historically used in the world and the church, and how emerging trends from that period have, in many ways, flipped the way we understand the terms, and thus have, to a very large extent, kept our comprehension of biblical texts such as this one elementary at best. Here is what Harper says of the term belief:

Belief used to mean "trust in God," while faith meant "loyalty to a person based on promise or duty" (a sense preserved in keep one's faith, in good (or bad) faith in common usage of faithful, faithless, which contain no notion of divinity). But faith, as cognate of L. fides, took on the religious sense beginning in 14c. translations, and belief had by 16c. become limited to "mental acceptance of something as true," from the religious use in the sense of "things held to be true as a matter of religious doctrine" (early 13c.)

The modern world has really pulled the wool over the eyes of the church. The point being made here is that belief and believe, thus are probably best understood as relational terms in our English translations of the Bible. To believe in God is to have trust in God - to build a relationship with the Divine. To have faith, at least in that transitionally medieval outlook is to be solidly connected to a family unit, friendship, household, guild, or something else involving person-to-person relationship building. To that end, for the Christian to believe something is caught in a difficult world because of the ways in which the definitions of these words have adapted and changed and evolved. But, it seems definitely more appealing to read John 3:16 through the lens of those believing in God (growing in relationship with God) inheriting eternal life, rather than developing a theology about people's academic or philosophical pursuits in relation to whether they offer their mental acceptance or not to the possibility of God in their own life. I say this because, as Genesis says,

Abram believed YHWH, and he credited it to him as righteousness. (Gen. 15:6)

The relationship between Abram (who would become Abraham) and YHWH (the name of God) came to a point where Abram's loyalty to YHWH was tested and when the bonds between the two were deemed strong enough by YHWH, it was credited to Abram as righteousness. That means these two brothas was tight, yo! It wasn't that Abram was perfect, but that Abram was good to YHWH, and YHWH appreciated the love.

Mission and Service Fund - The United Church of Canada

2010-04-28T16:53:00.000-04:00

The Mission and Service (M&S) Fund is a fund bankrolled by voluntary donations so that the mission of the United Church of Canada and its partners around the world can be sustained and empowered for further ministry.

Below I have completed three lists. The first list is a chart listing the M&S dollars raised/United Church of Canada member by conference. The second list is a list of all of those presbyteries in the United Church who have raised $70/United Church member or more for the M&S Fund. The final list is one that shows the presbyteries that have raised more than $1 million from within the presbytery and those approaching that amount.

A Breakdown of the Conferences

(Conference - $ raised/UCC member)

Newfoundland & Labrador - $31.24
Maritime - $38.06
Montreal and Ottawa - $41.81
Bay of Quinte - $56.46
Toronto - $78.53
Hamilton - $58.09
London - $39.43
Manitou - $47.01
Manitoba and Northwestern Ontario - $44.16
Saskatchewan - $32.16
Alberta and Northwest - $60.83
British Columbia - $79.95
All Native Circle - $1.68

So, the most notable thing to mention is that Toronto Conference is not proportionally the highest giving conference. They do give the most in terms of actual raised dollars; but it is BC Conference that raises the most money proportionally at $79.95, just a smidgen higher than Toronto's $78.53. Also, I would also make mention that the status of All Native Circle is significantly different than the rest of the conferences. Every conference in the UCC is geographically based, except All Native Circle, which includes aboriginal and First Nations UCC people from locations within most of these other conferences regions, except BC Conference where First Nations, aboriginal, and Native peoples are part of BC Conference.

Presbyteries Raising $70/UCC Member and More

Bermuda - $187.95
Toronto South - $135.46
Toronto Don Valley - $98.80
Toronto Scarborough - $98.74
Vancouver-Burrard - $91.17
Vancouver-South - $86.86
Victoria - $86.39
Fraser - $84.78
Comox-Nanaimo - $84.44
Toronto West - $84.15
Calgary - $80.74
Westminster - $79.54
Halton - $77.41
Red Deer - $74.14
Kootenay - $73.20
Kamloops-Okanagan - $72.66
Waterloo - $71.14
Muskoka - $70.95

Presbyteries Raising $1 million or more

Toronto South - $1,038,420
Ottawa - $1,014,235

Presbyteries Close to Raising $1 million

Waterloo - $979,292
Halton - $970,498

Should It Be Called Christianity? Isn't "The Church" more appropriate?

2010-04-16T00:17:00.000-04:00

I have been wondering why Protestants continue to allow the Church to be known collectively as "Christianity". I know that we have just gotten used to the term, but I wonder about the validity of the term from a biblical perspective - which is the best perspective us Protestants can muster.

To begin with, in the Book of Acts 11:26 we find out that "the disciples were called Christians first at Antioch" and in 26:28 we read Agrippa asking Paul, "Do you think that in such a short time you can persuade me to be a Christian?" The only other place where the term "Christian" is used in the biblical text is in 1 Peter where it is written:

If you suffer, it should not be as a murderer or thief or any other kind of criminal, or even as a meddler. However, if you suffer as a Christian, do not be ashamed, but praise God that you bear that name. (1 Peter 4:15-16)

So, the Bible uses the term "Christian" 3 times (twice in Acts and once in 1 Peter).

We find that in the Book of Acts the term "the Way" to describe the movement happens 6 times (as opposed to the two times in Acts when "Christian" is used - and in Acts you should note that the term "Christian" is not used by people who are part of the movement - which is a significant point).

Finally, the term church, to describe the movement that can be equated with "the Way" appears in the Book of Acts 20 times and in the Gospel of Matthew 3 times - other places the term appears in the New Testament are:

Romans (5)

1 Corinthians (23)

2 Corinthians (9)

Galatians (3)

Ephesians (9)

Philippians (1)

Colossians (4)

1 Thessalonians (3)

2 Thessalonians (2)

1 Timothy (5)

Philemon (1)

Hebrews (1)

James (1)

3 John (3)

Revelation (20)

This means that the term "church" or "churches" (other than titles for subplots within the larger narrative) appears 113 times, whereas "the Way" appears 6 times and "Christian" appears 3 times. The term "Christianity" you'll also note, does not appear in the Bible.

I am just saying that, at least from a biblical perspective, the normative understanding of the life of the disciple of Jesus Christ is understood as "the church" a collection of people summoned by Jesus Christ into his ecclesia - his political gathering. Thus, it would seem to me that the modern world's way of trying to understand "Christianity" is out-of-sync with the way the biblical witness seems to self-identify the movement. Furthermore, the contemporary church does not seem to understand discipleship and community in the same way that the biblical writers understood, for they seem to favor "the church" (a community gathered in the name of Jesus Christ) whereas we tend to favour "Christianity" (a group of individuals with their own agendas gathered in the name of Jesus Christ).

Perhaps I'm a bit blunt, but I wonder if you see any of my logic? Would your train of thought lead you down the same road as me or would it lead you down a different pathway?

Largest United Church Worshiping Congregations

2010-04-03T19:11:00.000-04:00

Below is a list of the 11 United Church of Canada congregations who reported average Sunday worship attendance of 400 or more. In order of reported size (figures come from Year Book & Directory: Volume I Statistics, 2008, published by the United Church of Canada/L'Eglise Unie Du Canada) are the congregations:

Timothy Eaton Memorial, Toronto (ON) - 575 people/Sunday
Metropolitan, London (ON) - 525
Kingsview, Oshawa (ON) - 500
Trinity, Summerside (PEI) - 470
Wellington Square, Burlington (ON) - 450
Collier Street, Barrie (ON) - 445
McClure, Saskatoon (SASK) - 430
First Metropolitan, Victoria (BC) - 422
Park Royal, Charlottetown (PEI) - 415
Islington, Toronto (ON) - 401
Eglinton St. George's, Toronto (ON) - 400

You will note that of the 11 claiming more than 400 worshipers in attendance on average throughout the year, 7 of 11 come from Ontario; 2 come from PEI; 1 from Saskatchewan; 1 from British Columbia.

Though Timothy Eaton Memorial claims the highest average Sunday worship attendance Metropolitan, which is second on the list features a slightly higher membership (1,767 for Metropolitan to 1,676 for Timothy Eaton).

General Council Sermon

2010-02-21T08:18:00.002-05:00

Dear sisters and brothers of such a blessed congregation, please pray with me.

O Wonderful Trinity, made known to us as,

Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, and as

Lover, Beloved, and Love, and as

God our Father, Jesus our Mother, and the Spirit our Lord

You are the beginning and ending of our existential philosophy of life; you are the visionary held captive within us as burning hope; you are the fire of imagination that reaches out beyond us to other brothers and sisters in the Spirit and by the power of the cross; you are limitless compassion and unequivocal freedom; you are the inspiration welling up in brother Moses and the daring operatic prophecy of sister Miriam empowering a slave-people to follow the God of freedom out of the hands of the dead gods of empire; you are raging fire and stormy sea; you are expansive prosperity that crosses class-structured society; you are prescient creativity expounding from the spirits of oppressed peoples everywhere.

Today we just come together, summoned by brother Jesus, to witness to the unarmed truth of love; a love made known to us in the self-giving of leaders and lovers who came before us to blaze a trail toward expansive and explosive peacemaking and well-being. We have come to hear a word from you, O Lord of Life, to testify to that love that not only delivered sister Harriet and brother Josiah from slavery, but also steeps us in the prophetic tradition that we might become captive, not to political oppression and trigger-happy policing, but enslaved to, and held captive by the vision of the cross; a vision that enslaves us to hopefulness and generosity of spirit; a concept that inspires the oracle of understanding in us as we seek to fortify within us a passion for justice and respect that reaches beyond ourselves and our own races and our own ethnic groups and our own worldviews and our own classes and our own genders and our own interests and our own orientations to touch and share in bearing faithful witness with the further brood of Adam and Eve living in the struggle across this planet, this people, and this creation that brother Jesus so truly loved.

We pray all of this in the name of the Trinity – our Lover, and our Beloved, and our Love – Amen!!!

SILENCE

I like to think of my own Black liberation theology as eclectic – conservative, liberal, Black, Aboriginal, mystical, spiritual, political, affirmative, substantial, ecological, liberating, captivating, sensible, rational, material, perennial, original.

I like to think that where my own Black liberation theology connects and intertwines with the faith of others is in a space of generosity, verbosity, philosophy, eschatology, shared mythology, soteriology, peace, hope, laughter, joy, play, concern, return.

But as Black peoples – as peoples in the struggle – we are forced to come to terms with our existential reality. We call upon our friends of encounter around the world, who know what it’s like to live as niggers in your own house, for solidarity and support. We look to our indigenous sisters and brothers held as hostages on the very land the Maker graced them with and we cry out!!! We look to our brothers and sisters from Mexico and the Caribbean lands who travel to the breadbaskets of this land to give a good life to family back home. We think about and dream with our sisters all across the world shackled by male-domination and extreme material poverty. We say many prayers for our overlooked sisters and brothers who have yet to mature as human beings, but have already been forced to wield powerful weaponry in government and rebel armies around the world; we also have nightmares for our sisters, particularly in southeast Asia who have become sex objects primarily for rich Westerners who go to visit their countries for sickening pleasure.

You see, folks, you may not know it, but this is the story of the Black humanity. There are Negroes on every part of the planet. It just happens that though the empire fashions itself to contain prophetic imagination, the Negro people of the world cry out in lament. We cry out to the God of freedom frustrated by the way the world is. The offerings of this God are such that our prophets in the Black world have been formed and informed by the words of Holy Scripture:

Don’t tear your clothing in your grief; instead, tear your hearts.

We have let our hearts be broken and we are wailing now. The outpouring of grief becomes our opportunity to consider a better way of looking at the world and partnering with the Maker that we might be people of audacity and conspiracy. As we capitulate a desire for power, we rear our community to envision a rise to greatness that seeks to blossom expansively upon not just oppressed peoples, but upon all peoples. For our lament, and the laments of our other struggling communities – like our indigenous peoples and immigrants – have often come at the hands of the vanilla majority, but we seek not the humiliation of that people, but rather the symbiosis of the spirit of the White and the Black; the yin and the yang; the oppressor and the oppressed. We seek shalom; we seek harmony; we seek generosity, and as the Scripture says:

Spare your people, YHWH! They belong to you, so don’t let them become an object of mockery. Don’t let their name become a proverb of unbelieving foreigners who say, “Where is the God of Israel? He must be helpless!

But Black peoples know that this God of freedom is not helpless, for there was a time when our ancestors were visited by this very God to enact an exodus from Pharaoh’s land into the Promised Land. And the name of these hurting people was no longer “Negro”, but rather “Israel” for as one people together we have acknowledged that, “I struggled with God” just as brother Jacob did as he wrestled that angel in the middle of the night demanding a blessing; a word of hope from the Liberator.

My own Black heritage is rooted and centred in the slave trade, and because of that I have never had difficulty identififying with African Americans – their struggle is my struggle. To that end, I want to invite you into the current context of the chocolate Canada as we hear Gospel and resurrection proclaimed on this beautiful Wednesday morning.

Our people are suffering even generations after the long journey to freedom in Canada. People of African descent, according to Statistics Canada are:

overrepresented among those with post-graduate degrees. In 2001, 7.3% of people aged 15 and over who reported having African origins had either a Master’s Degree or an earned doctorate, versus 4.8% of all Canadians in this age range.

The same report says that people in “the African community in Canada are slightly less likely to be employed than the rest of the population” and this has had a devastating effect on my people and on your people. I was born to a 17 year-old in Windsor, Ontario who had no job, no education, and no vision for her life. But in these days I have begun to realize that the words of the Psalmist are, in fact, true:

You made all the delicate, inner parts of my body and knit me together in my mother’s womb. (Psalm 139:13)

The hands of YHWH must have been knitting something spectacular for within my first year of life I was placed in the gentle hands of a loud, obnoxious preacher’s wife to be fostered in the prophetic tradition of love. To her I was Jimmy Co-Co Pot, the last infant she would foster, but not the very last of over 175 children she fostered in the Windsor-Detroit area. Erma Vinson, the pride of Black folks in Canada, the wife of a Methodist preacher, and then, after his untimely death, the wife of a Baptist preacher, knew the God of freedom personally, and so she cradled me in blankets of liberation.

When I was 20 months old I was adopted by an Anglo family, the Kilners, who, by the late 1980s would have a large, multiracial family – and by large I mean 13 children. At adoption I lost my name, James Michael Vyncent Warren, and was given a new identity, named after Erma’s Baptist-preacher-husband, Rev. Adam Vinson. Of the over 175 children Grandma Vinson fostered, she tells me I am the only to have gone into the ministry. I became Adam James Kilner. I now look back at the story and realize that there are too many coincidences for my proclivities to accept as simple coincidence. Rather, I believe in my heart and soul that the love-cross of Jesus had oriented me toward true north as I began forming in my mother’s womb. I then was raised in the beautiful small city of Sarnia, on the southern shore of Lake Huron that flows into the mighty St. Clair River on its way through the Great Lakes water system. Our family comprised of 3 biological children and 10 adopted children who were First Nations, East Indian, Irish, Scottish, French-Canadian, British, African American, Jamaican, and Vietnamese, and we thrived even in the midst of the city’s vanilla homogeneity. Our family contributed to our city’s move from a vanilla town, to a neopolitan city.

When I was in high school I would often walk through the yard of a Catholic elementary school in order to have lunch at my older brother’s house. As I walked through that yard, the year I was in grade 12, I would have a young White brother and his hooligans gather round me every day mocking me by saying things like, “Well hey there; you look like a Hershey’s chocolate bar!” and, “Hi Michael Jackson!” Knowing they were just kids I would normally smile as I passed by them and wave. By the end of that year the derision continued, and in my frustration I walked over to that little boy as he told me which chocolate bar I resembled on that day and replied, “You’re right, son, I’m just that sweet and rich and mmmmmm...mmmmm...I’m just that good.” And as he moved into the Michael Jackson comment I couldn’t help reminding this dear child of how much, in his later years, Michael Jackson looked more like him than like this Black brother. The satisfaction that went with that experience was, to me, on par with Edmund Hilary on the day he became the first human being to climb to the top of the world on Mount Everest – it was a dazzling moment in history.

But I too have experiences that would make you cringe. In one time and place in ministry I received a forwarded email entitled, “Proud to be White” from a vanilla brother in my congregation, and I would like you to hear some of the content of that email as I work to wrap up this Gospel message for you. The following quoted material will not only offend some, but I expect will offend all, so I invite you into my life as a Black man in this White church during this Black History Month in which we become intentional about remembering our heritage as Canadians connected to Black peoples who were once our slaves along with some of our First Nations peoples as well. If you’ve ever wondered why Black folks and First Nations folks get along so well together, it’s because we was slaves together. Now listen to the first section of this forwarded email:

There are African Americans, Mexican Americans, Asian Americans, Arab Americans, etc. And then there are just Americans. You pass me on the street and sneer in my direction. You call me 'White boy,' 'Cracker,' 'Honkey,' 'Whitey,' 'Caveman'... and that's OK...But if I call you, Nigger, Kike, Towel head, Sand-nigger, Camel Jockey, Beaner, Gook, or Chink .. You call me a racist. You say that whites commit a lot of violence against you... so why are the ghettos the most dangerous places to live? You have the United Negro College Fund. You have Martin Luther King Day. You have Black History Month. You have Cesar Chavez Day. You have Yom Hashoah. You have Ma'uled Al-Nabi. You have the NAACP. You have BET.... If we had WET (White Entertainment Television), we'd be racists. If we had a White Pride Day, you would call us racists. If we had White History Month, we'd be racists.

To begin with, I always thought that Martin Luther King Day was for everybody. Second of all, I don’t even know what half of these derogatory racial slurs mean. Thirdly, in my household the cross is lifted so high above all other things that all I can think of is that there is some White brother somewhere in the United States of America who needs some love because he’s so filled with hate. You see, as Black folks our tradition, coming out of slavery, has never been to fight terror with terror; it has never been to fight lynchings with lynchings; but rather to seek freedom for everybody regardless of race, creed, orientation, generation, class, or colour. This is why, as the Scripture says, we have gathered together for a “solemn assembly”. We have gathered to lament that even in 2010, after in the United States a Black man has been elected to the highest office, and even in our United Church of Canada a Black man has been elected to the highest office, there continues to be a systemic force of domination at work in our churches. Cornel West says that “just because you elect a Black president doesn’t mean you’re post-racial; it just means you’re less racist. Just because you’re less racist doesn’t mean they should start handing out prizes.”

Somebody told me, after hearing such hate-filled content, that Jesus would be rollin’ over in his grave. Well let me tell you folks something; Jesus rolled over once in his grave already; they called it the resurrection! He won’t be rollin’ over anymore. He’s through with that!

But we continue in our hope and in our witness as Christians serving the God who uses that wicked execution device, the cross, to make wise and powerful people foolish. We keep our eyes fixated on such a deplorable image, for just as it bears the stains of Jesus’ humiliating defeat, it bears the many defeats that we have endured, even those of being kicked while we’re down. But though I lament, though I complain to God because change isn’t happening, I know that God hears my sobs of despair; I know that God wants to turn my whimpering into laughter, and I live prepared, for I know that God has done it before for my people.

When Harriet Tubman walked all those miles on her first journey across the Mason-Dixon Line from southern Maryland into Pennsylvania – from slavery to freedom – I just know that she said these words that keep our faith, as Black peoples, pointed toward possibility:

“When I found I had crossed that line, I looked at my hands to see if I was the same person. There was such a glory over everything; the sun came like gold through the trees, and over the fields, and I felt like I was in Heaven.”

Amen!

A Brief Overview of the Life of Wilbur Kenneth Howard

2010-02-17T17:12:00.000-05:00

NOTE:

For a more extensive article on Wilbur Howard's life please see my article "Wilbur Howard: A Ministry of Eloquent Silence" as published in the Touchstone Journal (edited by Rev. Dr. Peter Wyatt) - the article can be found by clicking on the following link - http://touchstonejournal.ca/Jan_2011_flipbook/index.html
_________________________________________________________________________________

I am just so thankful for the existence of the United Church Observer who has spent considerable resources in the past in retaining the key to unlocking a bigger story about Black History in the United Church of Canada – namely, the ministry of the church’s first Black Moderator, the Reverend Doctor Wilbur Kenneth Howard.

Wilbur Howard was born Thursday, February 29, 1912 in Toronto, Ontario as, what the Observer calls, “a third or fourth generation Canadian.” Howard received education in his childhood and adolescence at Brock Public School and then Bloor Collegiate in the Davenport Riding of Toronto, and subsequently completed a bachelor of arts degree, and finally ended up at Emmanuel College, a theological college affiliated with the United Church of Canada.

Sandra Martin of the Globe and Mail wrote that “Dr. Howard’s brother and father were railway porters” and Rev. Douglas Lapp added that “that was what was open for blacks in the 1930s.” And so, by the grace of God, Howard was led into a different vocation than his family members; one that required great support from both friends he made in the United Church of Canada and his family. In one article Howard describes being invited to church by a white family, and eventually being taken to church with them every Sunday, and the result was his calling into the ministry of a segregated church, at a segregated time, even in polite Canada.

In 1941 Howard was ordained by Toronto Conference of the United Church of Canada, and the provinciality of people across this country prevented him from being placed in a local congregation – a system known as “settlement” – in which the Transfer Committee decides which of the United Church of Canada’s 13 Conferences across the country to send a newly ordained minister. In fact, the situation was so atrocious that the General Council Office – the national office of the church – had to create a position for Howard so that he could be ordained.

From 1941 to 1949 Howard worked for the Boys Work Board of Toronto and from 1949 to 1953 he worked for the Boys Work Board of Manitoba. Then in 1954 he became the editor for Sunday School Publications in Toronto.

From 1965 to 1970 Rev. Howard was part of the ministry team at Dominion Chalmers United Church, and a Globe and Mail article offers these words:

“He didn’t find a congregation until he was hired to join the pastoral team at Dominion Chalmers United Church in Ottawa in 1963, more than 20 years after he was ordained.”

The “parochialness of Ontario” prevented Dr. Howard from having his own church ministry, Mr. Lapp said. “Ottawa was supposed to be an international city, but it was really a small town.”[1]

Finally, in 1971, Howard received a call to Emmanuel United Church in Ottawa as the sole pastor and he would remain there until his retirement in 1980. In an article dated October 1974, the United Church Observer describes Howard’s routine during those years:

Dr. Howard lives simply. He gets up at six, takes a three – or four-mile walk, then comes home for orange juice, whole wheat toast and coffee. He doesn’t have to cook many evening meals for himself, for he is often invited to dinner in the homes of his flock. When he does have a free evening, he likes to write, listen to music, read or see a play or movie.

During his ministry at Emmanuel United Church, Howard wound up heading to the United Church of Canada’s 1974 General Council meeting as a candidate for Moderator – the spiritual leader of the United Church – and, to the world’s surprise, was elected. Leslie Scrivener describes the occasion in her 2001 article on Howard for the Toronto Star:

When his victory was announced at the General Council of the United Church, the members who elected him, not only clapped, they cheered.

And Howard’s response to such raucous church behaviour was to say, “This is a high moment of acceptance.” Anne Squire, who was moderator from 1986 to 1988, said of the experience:

“Everyone knew he meant acceptance not just as a moderator, but as a black moderator.”

Howard would later tell the Montreal Gazette about his election as moderator:

“It gives you a great deal of confidence in the church. You feel the support of people. You fell that, well, people are able to look for someone who may have a contribution, and they match the job with the man they want.”

He also told the Montreal Gazette, with regard to the United Church of Canada that,

“It’s a great church. I think a lot of exciting things are happening.”

And further, he said,

Sometimes we haven’t been too good at telling our story and one of the things I hope to do is to tell the story of the church. I have some gifts in the spoken and written words.”

And, finally, as moderator, some of the stories of Howard’s past in the church began to leak out. The story from the Gazette was:

He told of an incident early in his ministry when, on a visit to a Canadian city, he was refused service in a restaurant and an official of the United Church group he was visiting wrote United Church headquarters to say he was not acceptable. “Now,” he said, “I have been accepted.”

After the election of Howard as moderator members of the General Council sat in their table groups and talked about what they had done. After a few minutes Howard, “in one of the simple, forceful prayers that had meant so much in their deliberating sent them back to their congregations” with these words:

“God help us to grab this moment.

God help us if we don’t.

God help us if we do.

Let’s go.”

That would be a great place to end the story, however, Howard’s legacy is extremely vast. Howard had to deal with not only racial prejudice and parochialism everywhere he went, but also he had a job to do as spiritual leader of the United Church.

When asked about the problem of declining church membership – it was 2 million during his tenure from 1974 to 1977 – he replied, “Membership is down statistically, but up spiritually.”

In 1975 it appears that the Right Reverend Wilbur Howard was heading to South Africa to represent the United Church of Canada there and the Observer recounts it this way:

A funny thing happened to United Church Moderator Wilbur Howard. He went to a worship service in Africa, and everyone expected him to be white.

And they further recall that, “in white South Africa, his color created problems” and Howard remembers,

“I think the immigration authorities in Johannesburg read every word on my papers...But I had a little document from their embassy in Ottawa facilitating my entry, so that made it easier.”

He apparently stayed in “a new Holiday Inn” while he was in South Africa.

One thing to also consider is that Howard continued to serve his local congregation two Sundays of every month while serving as moderator, which includes extensive travel across the country and around the world.

The Very Reverend Dr. Wilbur Kenneth Howard retired from the pastorate in 1980 and,

In the early 1990s, he was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease and moved to Chester Village, a retirement home, where he became unofficial chaplain.

1991 would see Howard accept the Order of Ontario, the most prestigious honour for a citizen of Ontario to receive.

Howard died on Tuesday, April 17, 2001 at Grace Hospital on Church St. in Toronto of Parkinson’s Disease at age 89. He left behind him an untouchable legacy that even the white supremacy that existed en masse in the United Church of Canada could not break down. Howard was often described as private, and so he is a difficult man to understand, especially in contrast to the preachers and civilians south of the border publically demanding civil rights for non-white people – of course we think of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X and the many others who stood in the face of white supremacy. But here in Canada we had our own prophet for our own unique context – his name was Wilbur Howard, a man who knows my heart and soul as a Black man. Thank you Dr. Howard. Thank you for being an inspiration.

After Dr. Howard’s death, then-Acting City Clerk of Toronto, Jeffrey A. Abrams, wrote to then-General Secretary of the United Church of Canada, Virginia Coleman:

Council rose and observed a moment of silence in memory of the late Rt. Rev. Wilbur Howard.

Our beloved prophet had paved a way for non-white peoples to be themselves unapologetically as he blazed a trail as the first black person to graduate from Emmanuel College and the first black person to be ordained in the United Church of Canada, and the first black person to be elected moderator. He definitely deserves one of those massive portraits that they only give Emmanuel College Principals.

This is written in honour of the late Wilbur Howard, B.A., B.D., D.D., L.L.D.

Sources contributing to this brief narrative

The Globe and Mail

The Toronto Star

The United Church Observer

Letter from the City Clerk of Toronto to the General Secretary of the United Church of Canada

[1] Globe and Mail. Saturday 21 April, 2001

Christmas Memory

2009-12-23T14:25:00.000-05:00

This year Mom and Dad changed the location of the Christmas tree. During the late-fall they had some construction done on the south side of the house where sliding doors were replaced by a bay-window and sliding door combo. It looks really good. They also got rid of the nest of wasps living in the wall of the room right below where the construction happened where I always sleep when I come home for any occasion. The tree is nice where it is because we can now walk across the family room without tripping over the mountain of presents spilling out from the base of the tree.

I remember when the tree used to sit at the other end of the family room - almost right in the middle of it. I have a lot of great memories from when the tree was there. Like the year that I went to bed in my Super Mario pajamas and dreamt late into the night that my mother was yelling at me, "Adam, Adam, wake up there's a fire!" I awoke to my mother throwing her hands up in frustration and leaving the room saying, "You'll have to drag him out of bed Earle, he's not waking up." Then I realized that what had been happening in my dream was stuff that I was actually hearing. I got out of bed, with the rest of my siblings - it must've been 3 in the morning - and we sat outside in our propane-fuelled twelve passenger van - it would later become known as "The Beast" - and we sat there for what seemed hours, and finally all of us younger kids went over to have hot chocolate with the Sterlings. That year we knew what the Sterlings got for Christmas before they came over to show us; and we let them know it. All of the older kids had gone next door to the Wrights' house..

I don't know how long it was until we got home. But the firetrucks and police had all been there with their ridiculous flashing lights, and they came out with a pile of smoldering ashes. We learned later that there never was a fire, just billowing smoke in the basement. One of my brothers had accidently placed his Tae Kwon Do uniform in his closet on a shelf right against a light bulb. He had forgotten to turn off the light. He fell asleep reading an Archie comic and my oldest sister, when she noticed all the smoke billowing out of his room, pulled him outta there and alerted the rest of the house. When we saw the Sterling's stockings, and noticed oranges in them, we knew what we did not want to find in our stockings. We all thought it was going to be the worst Christmas ever, but it turned out to be pretty good. Everybody was alive and the Christmas tree and all the gifts were in place. Our oldest sister Heather made sure to sleep in the family room so that we couldn't sneak into the room and begin opening presents like maniacs before Mom and Dad woke up.

Every Christmas Eve growing up we had a routine. We would gather for supper - which was tortiere pie - which I hated (but now that I'm getting old, I enjoy) and then we would go to church for the Christmas Eve service. After that we would come home and everybody would bring friends and spouses and we would have a party for the rest of the evening. We used to have a giant Christmas colouring book that most people would attempt to colour in, and then as it got close to the time for kids to go to bed we would read the popular Clement Clarke Moore poem originally entitled "A Visit from St. Nicholas" but commonly known as "The Night Before Christmas" and then we would gather at my mother's really old nativity set and one of the kids would get to place the baby Jesus into the stable, where the angels, the shepherds, and the magi had gathered around Mary and Joseph. Then we would go to bed. Some years we would even get a Christmas Eve visit from a Santa Claus driving a rickety jalopy-of-a-car.

There are many, many memories of Christmas' I have, and I'm sure that you have your own Christmas memories. As you remember your past Christmases, also look forward to this and the many future Christmases you will have. Christmas is the time our hearts are reshaped by the hand of God to be directed toward hope. Many of us have suffered great losses during this time of year, and often feel that there is no reason to believe that the gentle hand of God might lift us up beyond inspiration and into the majestic heights of impossible daring and dreaming. But that is what Christmas is all about; that the invisible God might appear in flesh, in material object to you and all the world this Christmas. As the Scripture says, "The people living in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of the shadow of death a light has dawned" (Matt. 4:16), and it is Christ the Lord!

This Christmas may you remember the good and the bad of all your past Christmases, and may God show up in your memories lighting a way for your feet along the path toward the future that leads to "tidings of comfort and joy."

Dr. Mackenzie

2009-11-19T22:54:00.000-05:00

I have to thank my good friend Daniel Anthony "the Kosmo" Leaver for passing me on the news article of the death of Dr. James "Jim" Mackenzie, a descendant of Canada's 2nd Prime Minister Alexander Mackenzie.

On this day, Thursday, November 19, 2009 at approximately 5am Jim, who I came to know as Dr. Mackenzie, died at age 79. Nobody will ever know the depth of gratitude I have for that man and his wonderfully loving family, which includes Liz Mackenzie who is a United Church of Canada minister and gold star student from Emmanuel College at the University of Toronto.

In my years as a troubled teen, trying to figure out why I hated the world, I spent my Saturdays working for Dr. Mackenzie doing all sorts of things from mowing his lake-front property lawn to tearing down his old shed and spending 10 years to build a combined workshop and summer house/loft for his grandchildren to sleep in. We'd work in the heat and in the rain and even into the cold of winter trying to teach ourselves how to become Canada's version of Bob Vila.

Though Jim was a surgeon, he and I were probably the world's worst carpenters. You should have seen us attempt to build a level base for the new workshop - we later found out when we were trying to build the second level that the beams we had cemented into the ground weren't as straight as we had thought when they had first gone in the week or two before. But we continued to tinker away at things. I think Jim enjoyed my company because I just blabbered on and on trying to figure out the world. He was the one trying to loosen me up; helping me to figure out that you should take the world seriously - but not too seriously - because everything isn't as black and white as it appears.

In the summer we would try to work every single day for 8 or more hours and we'd come in at lunch and Jim's Icelandic wife Alda would have just the most wonderfully made ham sandwiches made for us along with a refreshing glass of lemonade. We would continue to chat as we ate lunch together and sometime before dinner time I would go home and I'd come back the next day and we'd do it over again.

Over the years I would become part of the household and share in different anniversaries of Jim and Alda and share dinner with them when their own children and grandchildren came to visit. The hospitality was as generous as I'd ever seen.

I think the best part about Jim and Alda was their house on the lake. At some point in the past the house had been the Watford train station - you know, when the train stopped at every little junction between Sarnia and London - and it was eventually sold and moved to Jim and Alda's property with a basement added on. So the house actually was funny because it sat right next door to a monster house on the east side. You know those little old train stations - they weren't that big.

The biggest project Jim and I were involved in was the tear-down of his old shed - it meant de-shingling the roof and systematically tearing the wooden frame apart and cleaning up the property around that and then attempting to build a workshop and loft in its place. We began all of that in the summer of 1999 and last time I checked, the electrical was just getting put in - so it only took 10 years to get us to that point. I was really involved from 1999 until my second or third year of undergraduate studies at the University of Waterloo and then the teenage boys who lived next-door to Jim began helping out and when I would arrive back in Sarnia and visit him he would take me through everything that they had done since the last time I had been there.

I don't really know how to express my deep, deep sorrow for Dr. Mackenzie's death and that's why I write. I called his house today to hear the news firsthand and realized that I had no words to describe the depth of love I have for Dr. Mackenzie. There are no words that could describe how troubled my soul is on this day. All I can do now is look back on the day and say, "Thank God it rained" for there exist not enough tears in my body to weep for this blessed man who is now counted with the Communion of Saints.

Through Christ, with Christ, and in Christ

In the unity of the Holy Spirit

And by the vision of the Master

Who was, who is, and who is to come

I commend this witness into the world

Just beyond the grasp of finitude...Amen

Thoughts

2009-11-15T01:31:00.000-05:00

This is a poem I wrote somewhere between 1995-1997 - between grade six and grade 8. I had transferred it onto my first Dell Desktop when I went off to university with one of those old floppy disks from our family's first PC - an IBM PS/1. And yes, the poem is entitled "Thoughts". Hopefully it doesn't disappoint you too much - maybe just a litte ;).

Sometimes I often sit and think of why we're here today

I sit here and I think of every word I'm 'bout to say

I don't know if I understand why Jesus died for me

Except the fact He died and set the Holy Spirit free

Because the Lord has died for me I guess I will be sad

I know He rose again some day and that's why I'll be glad

I know that Jesus loves my life some old songs tell me so

If you get a chance, I'd prefer some rock and roll

Now worship and community are things I understand

So let me get a group of folks to raise their gentle hands

I know the Spirit is really true because He talks to me

I am so alive and filled with immortality

And if you touch the living God please tell me how to reach

Because I want to let Him know, of Him I want to preach

Well anyway, I've got to go because it's late at night

But I hope your search for God is very touching, tonight

Pentecostalism

2009-11-12T18:16:00.002-05:00

The Asuza Street revival is, perhaps, the most important religious event in modern North American history. I say this because the revival was led by an African American; gave Jim Crow America a glimpse of what the kingdom of God looks like; was, perhaps, the first form of organized Christianity in North America to ordain and/or credential women for religious leadership (this could mean that they were allowed to become members of the clergy and/or that women could apply for ministry positions such as bishop and/or senior pastor); and finally this revival became the catalyst for what is known today as the Pentecostal movement, which the BBC suggests consists of around 250 million adherents (source) and the Pew Foundation says, with closely-related charismatics included, this family of faith represents "at least a quarter of the world's 2 billion Christians" (source) - which means roughly 500 million people around the world can be identified with the Pentecostal, Charismatic, and Holiness traditions.

The Azusa Street revival began in Los Angeles on April 14, 1906 at the African Methodist Episcopal Church and lasted till around 1915. The meetings were led by African American preacher William J. Seymour and they could be characterized as exceedingly raucous gatherings that included speaking in tongues and the mixing of the races. The mixing of the races is one of the most bizarre parts, particularly because of the deep, and politically sanctioned segregation of the races in the American South. White preacher and prolific writer Frank Bartleman offered a glowing reflection on what happened at Azusa when he said:

The 'color line' was washed away in the blood

- Frank Bartleman, preacher

It can be a fascinating discovery to place Bartleman's statement next to one from the Apocalypse to John at Patmos (commonly referred to as the Book of Revelation). In chapter 7 of this book, John finds himself in a vision in which he looks and sees the throne of "the Lamb" - which any Christian ought to know represents Jesus - and sees gathered around the Lamb a multitude of people that could not be counted "from every nation, tribe, people and language." These people were all wearing white and were singing and shouting like hooligans and then some guy gets up and asks, "These in white robes - who are they, and where did they come from?" John answers, "Sir, you know." And then the other guy says back, "These are they who have come out of the great tribulation; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb" (v. 14). Isn't that an interesting observation? These people's robes become white (pure?) when washed in "the Lamb's" blood. Blood is supposed to be red, isn't it? So does blood mean blood? Or does blood mean something else?

The most bizarre part of the the coming of the Pentecostal movement was that 49 years before the rise of Martin Luther King Jr. a gathering of poverty-stricken Hispanics, Blacks, and even white folks would gather to hear a word from the Lord, speak the love language of God (glossalalia) and receive faith healings. The faith healing is of particular importance to Hispanic and Black populations unable to purchase health care in a nation where "all men are created equal" (from the United States Declaration of Independence).

An Inclusive Theology Exposed

2009-10-12T16:58:00.001-04:00

In an interview with theotherjournal.com Stanley Hauerwas (perhaps most widely known for his co-authorship with William Willimon for the book Resident Aliens) says:

Inclusivity is a way of forgetfulness. I often suggest that egalitarianism is the opium of the masses. This is simply because inclusivity is often nothing other than the direct attempt to eradicate difference. Therefore, I think that the presumption of inclusivity is exactly a way of preventing the conflicts we need to have in order to have healthy communities. I know that sounds counterintuitive, but I just think that's the way it works. (http://www.theotherjournal.com/article.php?id=426)

In response the interviewer says, "In a sense, it is a way of excluding the type of people who don't fit into the type of inclusivity we're looking for." Hauerwas responds saying,

Right. Exactly. I mean tolerance and inclusivity are always strategies of the powerful!

In terms of Christian Scripture, it is significant to understand that the Old Testament (or Hebrew Scriptures) are, to some extent, the story of the unfolding narrative of a weak nation - an underdog - and the God of creation exacting a favoritism for that weak nation at the crossroads of the world. Furthermore, the context of the New Testament finds Kingdom of Israel a slave to Rome and her military might. And so, because I would suggest that the unfolding narrative of the Bible is about weak people whose contributions to God and neighbour are beyond measure I would also suggest, in response to Hauerwas' comments on the words tolerance and inclusivity that the Bible uses the word reconciliation.

Reconciliation is a word for the weak. It is a word that loudly reminds us that God is well aware that more of our human history has been about barrier-building than bridge-building. Reconciliation is about being drawn back into harmony; it is also about repairing.

Thus, it should not be surprising to us that Paul interprets the meaning of Jesus Christ as such:

For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross. (Colossians 1:19-20)

We also shouldn't be shocked to read that Jesus passage from the Gospel of John in which Jesus says,

And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself. (John 12:32)

Another way of saying that is, "When I am raised, I will reconcile all peoples to myself."

The problem with the word include is that it is not an expansive word, but rather a very closed-oriented word. The Latin includere means "to shut in" rather than to expand. To that end, inclusion is much rather like the American melting pot whose dream it is to have everybody speaking English and foreign culture's grip on new immigrants replaced by American culture.

Reconciliation, on the other hand, is about recognizing the walls that already exist between each of us, and realizing that to get to harmony we have to talk to each other, and realize that our conversation might lead us toward conflict; but that conflict is necessary for us, in the end, to be repaired and restored to harmony; or what the Hebrew texts call shalom.

Children's Story - The Request of James and John

2009-10-05T19:50:00.000-04:00

For the next few months our emphasis on the Scriptures will be to not only hear the Word, but to also see the Word and bring it to life by presenting it to and through children. To that end we have decided to present the Holy Scriptures visually. Sunday's Scripture came from the Gospel of Mark and is entitled "The Request of James and John."

Preparation:

Get a small, plastic wading pool - not much more than ankle-deep
Prepare a small glass of juice - preferably red
Fill a pitcher full of water
Invite 2 children to participate - you should make sure to have 10-20 minutes to rehearse before worship

Characters:

Jesus – played by me

James – played by an older boy

John – played by a younger boy

Here's the transcript of Sunday's worship service.

(As worship music ends I throw the EMPTY wading pool onto the centre of the stage)

I would like to invite all of the children to come forward to see and hear today's Scripture reading. (at this point 30 children gather around the Table of God that has been prepared for Worldwide Communion...)

A reading from the Gospel of Mark, chapter 10, verses 35 to 40. (At this point I stand in the centre of the pool and my helpers - who just happen to be James and John - begin their stroll up to either side of me)

Jesus: What do you want me to do for you?

James: Let one of us sit at your right and the other at your left in your glory.

Jesus: You don't know what you are asking. (Jesus raises the cup) Can you drink (Jesus raises the pitcher) or be baptized with the baptism I am baptized with?

James and John: We can

Jesus: You will drink the cup I drink (takes a sip from the cup) and be baptized with the baptism I am baptized with (James and John dump the pitcher on Jesus - of course the congregation laughs...), but to sit at my right or left is not for me to grant. These places belong to those for whom they have been prepared.

Narrator: The Word of the Lord

Congregation: Thanks be to God

Narrator: Amen!

Children's Story - Feeding a Multitude of People

2009-09-27T22:57:00.001-04:00

I would love to extend the opportunity to you to use this idea for your next Children's Story that deals with Jesus Feeding a Multitude of People (Feeding of the Five Thousand).

Preparation Required:

Buy a fresh loaf of bread - preferably one that is circular (or spherical)
Cut a small hole in the top of the loaf of bread and use two fingers to pull out as much of the insides of the bread as possible
Stuff the inside of the loaf with candy through the small circular slot you first cut.
Replace the circular cover of the bread

The most familiar telling comes from all four Gospels - Matthew 14:31-21, Mark 6:31-44, Luke 9:10-17, and John 6:5-15 but there is also a lesser known story from Mark 8:1-13 (Jesus Feeds Four Thousand) and Matthew 15:29-39.

Today our text was Mark's version of the story and so here's what I said.

I would like to invite all of our children to gather around the Table.

Today I want to tell you a story some of you are already familiar with about Jesus. Jesus was in the middle of a crowd and he just felt that there were too many people around. Have any of you kids ever been in the middle of a mosh pit? (congregation laughs)

Well, Jesus was in the middle of a crowd and just wanted to get away from the thousands of people gathered around. So they all got into a boat and began rowing to the other side of the lake. The problem was that the crowds seemed to know where they were going. The crowd met the disciples and Jesus on the other side of the lake.

And it was late into the day when people should've gone home for supper, but they were far from town so the disciples told Jesus to send the crowd away. Jesus told those disciples to give them food themselves.

The disciples get upset saying, "That would take eight month's wages! Are we going to spend that much on bread and give it to them to eat?"

(At this point I pull out my wallet and hand it to a child in the crowd and ask him, "How much is in there?" The kid fumbles so I tell him, "Ah...there's not much in there...you won't find anything...This is what they do to you when you're in ministry!" Of course the congregation laughs)

The disciples realize that among the crowds they can find bread like this (the one that has been prepared) - how many loaves do you think there were? (The kids eventually say "5!") and they also had some fish. How many? ("2!")

Then Jesus takes one of the loaves and gives thanks to God for it. That means he says grace. And here's how he broke it...(At this point I hold up the bread so that everybody can see and I begin to break the bread, and as it tears apart candy explodes out of the loaf and the children go nuts at that point. Let them scramble till the candy is gone and make sure that every child is able to get their hands on a few pieces)

When Jesus broke the bread and gave thanks they realized that there was enough for everybody. And the Bible ends the story this way:

They all ate and were satisfied, and the disciples picked up twelve basketfuls of broken pieces of bread and fish. The number of the men who had eaten was five thousand.

This is the Word of the Lord!

Thanks be to God!

Amen!

Smart Cookie

2009-09-25T02:25:00.000-04:00

I want to lift up an intriguing comtemplation from Rev. John Maich, an ordained minister of the United Church of Canada from Brantford, Ontario.

Hi Aquaman,

Aquaman wrote:

Good answer.

Thank you.

Aquaman wrote:

Oh yes. I've never before encountered a Christ-follower who believes (and please correct me if I'm mistaken) that one need not actually believe in Christ to be a believer.

That is a mistaken interpretation of what I advance.

I have said that to be a Christian one need not necessarily believe in Christ. In the same way I can play baseball in a style similar to Pete Rose without ever having heard of Pete Rose or I can play hockey in a style similar to Mark Howe without ever having heard of Mark Howe.

All that would be necessary for the similarities to be noted and validated would be an observer who was familiar with my style of hockey or baseball and a familiarity with Mark Howe or Pete Rose respectively.

The term Christian means similar to Christ. Can I be similar to Christ and not believe in Christ? Sure I can. Jesus was compassionate. I don't have to believe in the existence of Jesus to be compassionate do I? I don't think so and neither, I gather, does Jesus. Why else would he, when talking about being good, use the phrase "even the tax-collectors do that?"

I have also said that one need not believe in Christ to be saved. Salvation belongs to God and if Salvation is a gift of grace then it is given to those who need it whether they have earned it or not according to God's pleasure.

Jews are not Christians and Paul is pretty adamant that God has not abandoned the Jews and that God never will abandon them. They believe in God even if they doubt Jesus is who the Church believes him to be.

I have never said that to be a believer one doesn't need to believe. That would be, all things considered, a hugely obvious contradiction.

Being a believer means one believes. It doesn't mean you are automatically similar to Christ nor does it mean that you have automatically been saved.

On that day many will cry out "Remember me LORD!?" And the Lord will say, "I never knew you."

Making one's calling and election sure (which we are commended to do) is not simply being able to recite an approved creed and point to a respected liturgy. It runs far deeper than that and is entirely in the hands of God.

Grace and peace to you.

John

Imagine A Church...

2009-09-24T23:00:00.001-04:00

Imagine a Church where people actually lived the teachings of Jesus Christ...

Imagine a Church where following Jesus is more about proclaiming Good News and not condemning people to hell...

Imagine a Church where God actually cares about everybody the Church hates - minorities, queers of all variety, the poor, the politically oppressed, the hungry, the sick, the weary, the broken, the victims of rape, victims of suicide, and more...

Imagine a Church where those who are minorities, queers, poor, oppressed, hungry, sick, tired, victims of rape, victims of suicide and more actually had names like Jimmy or Susan or Tyun or Sasha...

Imagine a Church where those who follow Jesus can actually speak to and with people inspired and guided by the teachings of Islam, Siddartha Gautama, the Bhagavad Gita, and more, and imagine them even living respectfully with those whose understanding of faith is different than theirs...

Imagine a Church where those who follow Jesus don't assume everybody who doesn't follow Jesus is stupid...

Imagine a Church driven by Jesus Christ who takes his disciples onto uncharted territory to offer peace (shalom - wholeness, serenity, fulfillment) to a world that is often too busy and too scared of sloth to rest...

Imagine a Church unbounded by a drive for creativity and imagination that leads believers to find news ways to show their abounding generosity.

Imagine a Church where the Cross of Jesus Christ is a reminder of the world in which we live, a violent world, but also a reminder that in our tumultuous times, that Resurrection's coming...

Imagine a Church where agreeing with each other's theology is less important than living in community with each other...

Imagine a Church where mystery binds the hearts of a people deeply in love with each other...

Imagine a Church where eating bread is really ingesting Christ into our very being, and drinking wine (sorry United Church folks, you only get grape juice) is a sealed contract that says we will find intimacy together.

Imagine a Church where killing the enemy is completely unacceptable because Christ commands all people of faith to throw down the sword and to no longer live by it...

Imagine a Church where evil is assaulted by our very ability to creatively serve Jesus accepting that conflict can only be resolved by non-violent means...

Imagine a Church that actually believed the teachings of Jesus Christ...

Now Imagine somebody in your congregation not just agreeing with the teachings of Jesus Christ, but actually living into them...

Amen.

But I Worry About You Shawn

2009-09-16T23:23:00.000-04:00

Shawn:

As much as I hear the things you say about the United Church, I also just worry about your soul. It seems that the spirit of death is ministering to you. It seems like you are being fed Christ's death, but not his Resurrection. Shawn, I worry about your soul. Because I worry about your soul, I also worry about the soul of the Church, because the Church is an organism with many parts. If one part of the body isn't doing so good, the rest of the body also suffers.

It is inevitable that we will all die. And, as Tony Campolo says, "Someday you will die, and after the funeral everybody will go back to the church and eat potato salad." That is inevitable. But my question is, "What will you die into?"

I think Paul made an acute observation, vital for Christian faith and witness in today's world. He says:

"Folks, we don't want you to be ignorant about those who fall asleep, or grieve like the rest of the hopeless world. We believe that Jesus died and rose again and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him." (My paraphrase of 1 Thess. 4:13)

And in Romans Paul says this about death and Christian witness.

"What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? By no means! We died to sin; how can we live in it any longer? Or don't you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were therefore buried in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life. (Romans 6:1-4)

What will you die into? Will you die into "the world" which Paul argues is a generation that has no hope, or will you die into Christ? I think that is really important for us in the Church. And I think, as people seeking to live in the Way of Shalom who are part of the same body we ought to seek to die with you. So my question for you is this?

Can we die together into Christ? Can we die together bound to Christ that in Christ we might be raised to Communion with each other?

Thinking About Shawn

2009-09-14T02:31:00.002-04:00

View Shawn's post here.

Hi Shawn:

One thing that I lament as one searching for Truth is an article such as this one published in the Toronto Star on July 20, 2008. It is by Rev. Dorinda Vollmer and my problem with the article is that it views Christian faith and narrative through the same eyes that Mel Gibson created The Passion of the Christ - that the Church exists to suit ME and ME alone - this is, of course, the way we would articulate a deep trouble in the way that the world might understand what we're getting at.

Western liberal democracy is built upon ideas that can, in some way, be traced back to the work of Titus Livius, whose History of Rome from Its Foundation, is a telling of plebeians who are found in the midst of a struggle for freedom from the burdensome patricians. It is this ideal for which the Western world has striven - that ideal of personal sovereignty within the midst of a self-governing political structure. I don't know about you, but I just find that whole ideal to be unnerving since I can see the United States of America as the product - or, perhaps, the epitome - of such aggrandizement.

This is the very same nation whose coinal creed is "In God we Trust" and yet I can't figure out which God they mean? Surely they cannot be referring to the same God that Christians know because that God was known to say through the Prophet Isaiah and later in Jesus (in fact Jesus' first sermon)

The Spirit of ADONAI is upon me; therefore he has anointed me to announce Good News to the poor; he has sent me to proclaim freedom for the imprisoned and renewed sight for the blind, to release those who have been crushed,to proclaim a year of the favor of ADONAI. (Luke 4:18-19)

The United States of America we know has an absolute poverty rate of like 21% and when we introduce race and immigrants to the mix we realize that the nation isn't only divided by a massive chasm between the impoverished and the wealthy, but also by its status as a slave nation and genocidal nation. This western liberal democracy builds its wealth on the backs of the poor, after slavery "officially ended" forgot about it and, to this day, cannot get enough blood. It loves violent video games, it loves killing Iraqis and Afghan citizens, and all those who don't fit Dick Cheney's mold of American patriotism. I rather think that this nation's God isn't just one God, but about 307 million gods shopping (aligning or consuming) for any idea that reflects their wants - be it the Democratic Party, the Republican Party, the Green Party or perhaps a social activist gospel, or a prosperity gospel, or a worship service that is either traditional or contemporary.

I really enjoyed The Passion of the Christ because I just absolutely love bloody and gory movies. That isn't what the problem with the movie is. The problem with the movie is that narcissistic theology that seems to intrude in churches of every denominational (or non-denominational) affiliation that builds the worship of God around ME and the way I want to understand and come into relationship with the very God whom the Bible says created me. I mean, I think that there's a deep tension in that place in which we're reminded, by people like Michael Coren that the Church is the Church and "the world" is "the world." I just think that "the world" has no narration to live by and that Christians only have life in a certain narrative - one that has us making usually simple decisions, but also deeply uncomfortable decisions (uncomfortable by the world's standards of course).

I just think, when I converse with you about your story in the Church I hear how the Church tries to respond to you in the same way "the world" does. What it means to the Church is that we seek to do pastoral care (or shalom) without giving a damn about pastors or shalom. It means that we're more interested in death than resurrection. It means that we're not that intrigued by the apocalyptic glimpse of what's on the other side of the fence - because with Jesus it's usually a reminder that, you know, somehow despite the world going to hell in a handbasket all around us we've still got a lot more future than past - you know, maybe we need to just lean into the wind and let the Divine Breath blow us into apocalypse (meaning - "we've got more future than past" - or "unveiling"). But what does that mean in terms of your world? I think Michael Coren got it right - we somehow think that buying into short-lived fads will start bringing people back into the Church seeking Jesus when, after reading the column I began realizing that it was the Spirit who took Jesus into the desert to face off with Satan - it wasn't Satan who took Jesus out to the desert. It was the Spirit's desire for Jesus to be tested and tempted. For us, the Church, we go out into the desert because it's what everybody's doing - not because the Holy Spirit, the Divine Breath has blown us out to be there. Does this say that the way we do discipline in the Church is more a popularity contest than an actual understanding of how organic health works? I mean Christian Scripture sees the Church as an organism - the body is the summation of all the parts and the Holy Spirit's presence brings the corpse to life. I just wonder what that means in terms of your situation.

These are just a bunch of random thoughts that came to my mind as I read your latest post.

Peace,

Adam

Remembering 9/11

2009-09-11T16:02:00.004-04:00

In my first class of the day - which began at 8:10am - we were in a history class where our teacher would play old records - one that we all liked was Elton John's Goodbye Yellow Brick Road because as we were coming into class and going we would hear the classic "Bennie and the Jets" but on that morning just before 9am we were invited to another class to experience a breaking news item on that bitter morning. It was September 11, 2001.

We had no idea what to expect as we moved from our classroom to another where students were intently focused on a small TV upon which we witnessed the upper-third of a building smoldering with a journalist upset telling the TV audience that a small plane has crashed into the North Tower of the World Trade Center. I don't remember what time we entered that classroom, but I do recall that we weren't watching long when we saw, right before our eyes on live news TV, a second plane take on the South Tower. It was, perhaps, the most shocking live footage I had ever seen.

As I watched the second plane collide with the might of the South Tower I felt like the enlivening presence of the Living God had vanished, and that what was left was a void of darkness; the pain of hollow existence. Despair was creeping through my soul and I honestly believed that on that day, September 11, 2001 World War III was about to become reality.

At that time most of us little people had no idea what was going on. All we knew was the carnage that we saw right in front of us on live TV. We saw two once-majestic towers that spoke of the majesty of Western culture and American prestige swaying between two realities - one was the shattered visage of American security and the other was the world out there beyond the blue. The twin towers were the place of struggle and tension between that which we see in ourselves and that which the world sees in us, and amid such tension I could see people on the ground running for their lives and people in the towers so desperate for solid ground, for a strong foundation, that they hurled themselves out of the buildings.

It was almost an hour later when the South Tower fell - reports tell us that it was 9:59am when this happened, but in my memory it was merely minutes after we witnessed the South Tower being slammed by a small passenger plane.

They say that about 1/3rd of the Old Testament is written in light of the ancient Israelites watching their own country destroyed by foreign empires and laid to waste politically and economically. The people of Israel find the void of nothingness as they complain to their God:

Our bones are dried up and our hope is gone; we are cut off [from our land]. Ezekiel 37:11

You see, after they were exiled into Babylon, after these people were stripped of their property and sent to the capital city of the very people who had laid waste to their New York (whose name is Jerusalem) the people realized that something extremely valuable was missing - it was something that had been unapologetically a part of who they were. It was the fact that they had had land; a place to call home; a place to build "one nation under God" as it was said in previous days that the land they occupied was for the glory of God and was thus deemed the "Promised Land" - the land where you go after you've spent generations serving a slave master; the place you go to escape the shackles of a burdensome Pharaoh; the place you go when God says he sees something valuable in you. That place was ripped out from under them - it was like when, in the Book of Ezekiel, God just picks up and gets the hell out of there - the sheer void of the presence of Life has just packed up and left. That was the midnight of September 11 - it seemed that God had packed up all his possessions and moved on to something better.

But in the middle of Sheol - that place where the dead is seen to be at rest - it was time for the Church to take up the Cross rather than the flag. We took up the flag to console people because at such a time as this the Cross is just too controversial. It stares us in the face and reminds us how much we just love violence and love death and love to tell ourselves lies so that we don't have to come to grips with the Truth.

They say that in the midst of such brokenness as the loss of cultural and generations upon generations old family land a story about God was being told - a story that we often think is about the Creation of the Universe, but is really about September 11. In a raging sea of political and socio-economic despair when a nation has been torn apart and physically moved from its own cultural base to one of the largest cities of a massive empire called Babylon we are reminded:

Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. (Genesis 1:2)

The Spirit hovers over the waters of chaos and in the midst of that the voice of God speaks out, "LIGHT" and all of a sudden Ezekiel has a vision in which he is taken to New York City where he finds a nation buckling at its seems as it watches its worst nightmare unfold on live TV. He's taken to that place of death littered by the bones of anger and desperation and God calls out to him and asks, "Ezekiel, can these bones live?"

And Ezekiel responds calling out, "O Sovereign [God], you alone know."

Then God says to Ezekiel, "Prophesy to these bones and say to them, 'Dry bones, hear the word of [THE NAME]! I say upon these bones: I will make breath enter you, and you will come to life. I will attach tendons to you and make flesh come upon you and cover you with skin; I will put breath in you, and you will come to life. Then you will know that I am [THE NAME]."

So Ezekiel does what he's told and the bones get tendons and ligaments and veins and skin and hair, but they remain inanimate - they are full bodies, but they have no life in them - they are corpses littering the city.

So God cries out to Ezekiel, "PROPHESY TO THE BREATH; PROPHESY, EZEKIEL, AND SAY TO IT THIS: God says these words: Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe into these slain, that they may live."

Ezekiel does exactly what he is told to do and those corpses come to life and stand on their feet and they become a heartened and revived city of immigrants - a vast army.

But we continue saying, "Our bones are dried up and our hope is gone; we are cut off." But God says to us:

O my people, I am going to open your graves and bring you up from them; I will bring you back to the land of Israel. Then you, my people, will know that I am [THE NAME], when I open your graves and bring you up from them. I will put my [Breath] in you and you will live, and I will settle you in your own land. Then you will know that I [THE NAME] have spoken, and I have done it.

I just reflect today on the fact that today we remember one of the most tragic days America has ever faced, and the pain of loved ones gone, and the anger at those who did this runs through our veins. But we, the Church, just love to be kicked while we're down because we know that God chose us because we're so peculiar; it's so unnatural for lowly people like us to be chosen to save the world; but we're the misfits whom the world just loves to kill and that our God (whose name is Jesus Christ) just loves to resurrect.

And so, in the name of the God of the Universe - Father, Son, and Holy Spirit - on this day remember those whose lives were lost (who died, whose loved ones died, who lost their joy of living, who lost their mental health, who lost their whole livelihood) and pray that the Holy Spirit might be prophesied upon these that God might choose to not only resurrect New York City from her slumber, but the whole world from her worldliness. Amen.

Life in the Trenches...

2009-08-30T14:18:00.001-04:00

Life in the Trenches...

Sunday, August 30, 2009

By Adam Kilner

Reflections on Ephesians 6:10-20 "The Armour of God"

Let's pray together:

Have mercy upon me, O God, according to thy lovingkindness: according unto the multitude of thy tender mercies blot out my transgressions. Wash me throughly from mine iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin. For I acknowledge my transgressions: and my sin is ever before me.

Truly, O Lord of Hosts, may the Word of Truth be spoken, and may the Word of Truth be heard.

In Jesus' sweet name we pray. Amen.

_________________________________________________________________________________

Many of us heard in our high school history classes about the trench warfare used in World War I and World War II, but were not told that it actually came to the forefront of war strategy during the American Civil War when 11 southern slave states made a declaration of secession from the United States of America. This resulted in two American nations - the United States of America (commonly called the Union) and the Confederate States of America - with the north led by newly-elected President Abraham Lincoln and the south led by the first, and only, President of the Confederate States Jefferson Davis. With the eight years of George W. Bush behind us I should mention to you that good ol' Abe, commonly called America's greatest President, was actually a Republican - so there you have it.

Anyway, during the American Civil War years - which were 1861-1865 - came the emergence of the modern machine gun in 1861. It was the Gatling Gun and was adopted by the United States Navy in 1862. The development of the machine gun from that time on has been relatively quick, and on the battlefield this invention completely altered, in one fell swoop, the way that wars would be waged for the next century. What we saw in the Civil War was massive casualties in a relatively short period of time, and we saw next to the casualties the building of deep trenches to protect soldiers from their numbers being swept away by a tide of machine gun bullets. In the American Civil War the most notable large-scale use of trenches was in the Siege of Vicksburg in Mississippi in which the forces of Maj. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant and the Army of Tennessee crossed the Mississippi River and dogged Lt. Gen. John C. Pemberton's troops into defensive lines surrounding the city.

As the Union forces closed in on Vicksburg Lt. Gen. Pemberton could only find 18,500 troops whereas Maj. Gen. Grant had over 35,000 and was expecting supplemental troops as well in the near future. The problem for the Union was that Pemberton and his Confederates had the advantages of higher ground and trenches to block any Union advances. And, with the advancement of the gun we had mentioned before in the opening day we saw 157 Union forces killed , 777 wounded, and 8 missing, whereas the Confederates only suffered 8 deaths and 62 wounded. The Union Army was not prepared for better guns and the building of trenches and also found that attempting to build subterranean mines was futile in breaking the stalemate and drawn-out war that fatigues both soldier and citizen alike.

Today I speak to you as a Christian sitting in the trenches. A war rages throughout our plane of reality and the thing we don't realize is that for us Christians it is more important than Iraq, Afghanistan, Darfur, and the stalemate in the Koreas. The reason that it is more important than these is that our response to it will dictate our response to the atrocities happening around the world.

Before we dig into the today's text I want to remind you folks that there is something going on here for us as the people of God looking to grow into the image of Jesus Christ. We are called to be a peculiar people shaped by a narrative that is different than the world's narrative. Our Scripture for today is quite alarming to those whose foundation is not the Lord Jesus Christ who was executed on a cross because we wouldn't allow his ministry of reconciliation to continue because it meant inviting questionable people into a relationship with the Living God.

I think one of the things we ought to do as we read today's Scripture is to consider it as a response to the Incarnation of God in Jesus Christ, as a response to the Ministry of Jesus Christ, as a response to the humiliating torture and death of Jesus Christ on a Cross, as a response to the unexpected Resurrection of Jesus Christ, as a response to the Ascension of Jesus Christ, as a response to the Coming of the Holy Spirit upon the originally Jewish Christian Church in Jerusalem, as a response to the Coming of the Holy Spirit upon the Gentile Christian Church in Caesarea, and finally, as a response to the Coming of the Holy Spirit on the world abroad.

But before we even begin to think about and dream about the meaning of putting "on the armour of God" I am reminded of how today's words from Ephesians can be interpreted. There are Christians out there who won't reflect upon the text today as we are about to. There are Christians out there who read about the "armour of God" and think that it means that Christians ought to go out and kill Muslims because the "principalities and powers" in the lesson are about YHWH versus Allah - both who make claims about being True God.

If you know anything about the Iraq War that has been raging since March of 2003 you'll have probably come across a company called Blackwater. The corporation was founded in 1997 as Blackwater USA, later, in 2007, became known as Blackwater Worldwide, and is currently, after much controversy over their contract work in Iraq, been renamed Xe Services LLC. In the last few years, especially since Xe Services has been a major US government contractor for security services (aka in my opinion mercenary work) in Iraq, government officials in the Middle East have offered their concerns about leaders of Xe Services. Jamal Muhammad Abidat, a Member of Parliament from Jordan, wrote in Abu Dhabi, a daily newspaper from the United Arab Emirates, that:

The painful saga of modern Arab-Muslim history evokes the battles fought in the Crusades of the 11th century, when the Knights of Malta began their operations as a Christian militia whose mission it was to defend the land conquered by the Crusaders.

The reason why Abidat made such a remark is that Joseph Schmitz, the Chief Operating Officer of the Prince Group, the corporate structure that owns Xe Services, is an honorary member of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta - an organization started in Jerusalem in 1050 to provide care for pilgrims to the Holy Land who were poor and sick. After Jerusalem was captured from Muslim hands in 1099 the Order of Malta became a Catholic military order - aka an order of Christian knighthood for the purpose of crusading or propagating and defending faith, usually at the expense of the lives of Muslim human beings.

Those of you who keep an eye on the news for columns such as Abidat's will know that among Muslim extremists there was a call to launch an attack on the Order of Malta's embassy in Cairo, Egypt in response. Thankfully no attack ultimately materialized.

Another accusation made against Blackwater was a quote from a sworn affidavit lodged in a Virginia courtroom against the founder of Blackwater, Erik Prince. The sworn statement alleged that Mr. Prince:

“views himself as a Christian crusader tasked with eliminating Muslims and the Islamic faith from the globe...To that end, Mr. Prince intentionally deployed to Iraq certain men who shared his vision of Christian supremacy, knowing and wanting these men to take every available opportunity to murder Iraqis. Many of these men used call signs based on the Knights of the Templar, the warriors who fought the Crusades”.

Since June 2004 an article from Time Magazine asserted that Blackwater had been paid more than $320 million out of a $1 billion , five year State Department budget for the Worldwide Personal Protective Service (so almost a third of the 5-year budget). Worldwide Personal Protective Service's job is to keep American officials and some foreign officials safe from harm, particularly in conflict zones.

When I hear such accusations being made about people who are supposedly "Christian" I end up deeply disturbed and concerned. I don't know whether Mr. Prince is actually anti-Muslim - it appears that much of this is hearsay, but in light of the anti-Muslim overtures concerning Xe Services and those who support this kind of ideology I suspect you aren't Christian. There are a number of reasons why I think hatemongering by Christians, and propagating crusades against Muslims is actually anti-Christ or opposed to the Truth that Jesus Christ is.

First, what happened to the Jesus of Scripture? The Gospel of Matthew, a peculiar Gospel of the Lord indeed, observes Christ the Lord saying these words in one of his most popular and difficult sermons,

You have heard that it was said, 'Love your neighbour and hate your enemy.' But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be sons and daughters of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the wicked. If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even tax collectors doing that? And if you greet only your brothers, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect. (Matt. 5:48)

And just when we thought that Jesus could talk a good game, but wondered whether he could actually practice that which he preached we see him praying intensely in a garden and Judas arrives with "a large crowd armed with swords and clubs, sent from the chief priests and the elders of the people" (Matt. 26:47) and they are a boisterous crowd who have stolen the silence of a meditative night in which Jesus prays to his heavenly Father, "If it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will" (v. 39). Judas had, at some point, prepared a signal for the throng in order that they might know which of the people gathered in the garden was Jesus the rebellious teacher from Nazareth and the sign was a kiss. He then glares at the meager rabbi who is supposed to be the human embodiment of all that is God and says, "Greetings, Rabbi!" and he kissed him.

As Judas stepped away Jesus says back to him, "Friend, do what you came for." And then a few from the mob stepped forward, grabbed Jesus by the collar, and arrested him. One of the disciples quickly dashed for his sword, pulled it out of its sheath, and cut off the ear of the high priest's servant. And Jesus said to that disciple, "Put your sword back in its place for all who draw the sword will die by the sword!" (v. 52)

What happened to this Jesus in light of the one some American Evangelicals use to denigrate human beings in far off places of the world?

A general in the British army asked Tony Campolo on a visit to Iraq, "When will you Americans learn that your security is more dependent on the friends you make than in the armies that you deploy?" I also came across a bumper sticker that reads:

"When Jesus said, 'Love your enemies,' He probably meant we shouldn't kill them."

I'm also reminded of one of those legacy stories that follows behind Dr. Campolo - nobody really knows whether its true or not. But here's how it goes. Campolo, apparently would begin speeches by saying:

"I have three things I'd like to say today. First, while you were sleeping last night, 30,000 kids died of starvation or diseases related to malnutrition. Second, most of you don't give a shit. What's worse is that you're more upset with the fact that I said shit than the fact that 30,000 kids died last night."

In light of the ideologies of a bankrupt society Christians have the opportunity to cash the cheque that is the salvation of our Lord Jesus Christ by living into his lifeblood which are his words. Words that proclaim, "You are the salt of the earth" and words that exclaim, "You are the light of the world."

I recall a few summers ago when I was studying at the University of Waterloo I spent one weekend marshaling and directing traffic for a cycling championship in the sweltering heat of late-July. I was there on the back roads north of Kitchener-Waterloo standing all day with a Waterloo Region police officer who, in 30+ degree weather was, in my opinion, inappropriately dressed in Kevlar. I guess if you consider his line of work and the fact that it is impossible to predict when a violent crime will take place, or when you will come up against unpredictable people you wear a police officer's only armour - Kevlar. I just thought that for a perfectly sunny day with no shade or trees for miles and the temperature feeling like 40 degrees he should've been wearing shorts and a t-shirt. But this cop was wearing long pants, a Kevlar vest, and his hat - he must've been boiling.

But we were there north of Waterloo directing cyclists and managing cars so that the two wouldn't collide during the course of the 6 events being held and we came across a bunch of Mennonites who were, too, dressed unsuitably for the raging heat of midsummer. The shirts they wore were long-sleaved and blue and with them they wore blue jeans with suspenders; it was quite bizarre to me. They sat out near us on their bikes and watched the events as they happened.

I could see why the police officer was dressed the way he was; it was part of his uniform and part of that was his armour to protect him from unknown circumstances that might happen. As for the Mennonites; I could not figure out why they spent hours outside in the blistering sun, sweating like pigs.

Somebody this week told me how their son, a police officer here in the Niagara Region, late one night was driving from St. David's toward Niagara Falls in order to respond to some emergency and as he traveled along St. Paul Ave., which becomes Drummond Rd in Niagara Falls., he hit a deer and flipped his car and landed upside down with the shards of glass of one of the windows cutting through the Kevlar protecting his chest. The car slid a few hundred meters and came to rest in the ditch on the side of the road. The doors were sealed shut, but the passenger-side windows had shattered to pieces so when he came to he crawled through and called for help. The officer ended up fine as the emergency crews arrived to the scene quickly and his Kevlar had absorbed the thrashes of broken glass that, had he not been wearing it, would have torn his flesh. He was lucky to be wearing armour such as this.

"Put on the full armour of God so that you can take your stand against the devil's schemes" is the centerpiece for today's text. Apparently today Christian vendors have taken this image literally so that they can sell sets of replica Roman armour, though many scholars will tell you that Paul's image here is metaphorical - meaning that "the armour of God" is really alluding to something other than armour.

What the text is getting at is that there is a war going on in the world - a war between the platitudes and Hallmark cliches that lead us down the road of apathy and nihilism and, the other being the living God whose reign is revealed in a peculiar frontal assault that the world did not expect - the birth of a baby Jewish boy whose parents found themselves on the verge of personal bankruptcy as he was born. We get the picture of God's war upon us when the scene is painted - a baby born in a cave and laid to sleep, as babies do, not in a cradle, but a cow's feeding trough. This is God's way of declaring war. This is the armour that God provides.

The world out there provides a certain kind of armour; metals that rust in the rain and Kevlar vests, while our God whose name is Jesus Christ, provides a completely different set of guidelines for what armour is. When everybody in the world stops believing in Jesus Christ you ought to be wearing the armour of God so that their world - one focused on individual empire-building and each pretending he was God; one built upon me being able to get mine; one operating to fulfill my needs and greeds and to hell with everyone else; one built on turning Christian faith into some sort of commodity that you purchase by setting your butt on a nice and comfortable wooden pew. When that world starts closing in on you, make sure you've got your armour on. Make sure you've built a nice, big trench. And if that's not attractive enough fill it with water and call it a moat. After you've got the suit of armour on you'll need wrap truth around your waist like a belt. It will keep your pants from falling down so that your underwear won't show. We can't have the enemy seeing your underpants. Next, righteousness is like a breastplate - you know how ancient Israelites and even later Jews believed that comprehension came from the heart - the centre of human emotion and thought and also the centre of the body - righteousness begins in the centre of your being and slowly makes its way into the far reaches of your body. After you've got your breastplate in place fit your feet with readiness - readiness that comes from the Gospel of Peace. Then, put on your shield. Now your shield is interesting because it is the shield of faith that keeps you alive when your doubts have drowned you. When you can't come up with a good reason why God allows startling things to happen to your children, to your parents, to your grandparents. When you just want to throw up your hands and tell God, "YOU ARE A LIE!!!" the shield of faith will sit there protecting you from the very things the world outside tries to seduce us with in our times of trial - easy answers to the deaths of loved ones; great logical arguments that attempt to prove that God doesn't exist and that's why I am suffering and many more. Then, when you finally pick yourself back up throw on your helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit and preach. Let the whole world know that there's just something about Jesus that takes your breath away. And even be a little naughty about it; let it be known that ain't nobody gonna take this joy away. Which joy is that? The joy you found in living for Jesus.

_________________________________________________________________________________

Let us pray together:

O Holy Trinity, bestow upon us the serenity to know that we are sheep among a world of wolves and that if we don't outsmart the wolves we'll get eaten alive. We live in a world that is slowly committing itself to death by ignoring the environment that you have called upon us to joyfully rule over the same way you rule over us. God, let us seek to be merciful and brimming with creativity in a world that has lost its way. We are so uncreative that we fail to forget how to be Christian in a world where the first option in political discourse is the threat of war in an age when one nuclear blast can kill not only hundreds of millions, but billions. Let us, as Christians, become a little bit more creative and cutting edge than the world by staying close to the faith of the Communion of Saints, but finding ways to live it out as people who seek to lure other people into the call of the joyful Jesus Christ whose message is to a world more interested in themselves than in the wonderful works that have come into being by your marvelous hand. Let us continue to be amazed by you, God, and may we continue to nurture each other and your world back into spiritual renewal. Amen.

And You Thought that the United Church of Canada was Dead...

2009-08-28T23:43:00.002-04:00

Jesus came to the disciples and said to them:

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. (Matt. 28:18-20)

This summer in Niagara, the United Church of Canada is thriving in its work with children. This summer, as with 5 other summers, the body of leaders engaged in driving the mission of Jesus Christ across the Niagara peninsula - officially known as Niagara Presbytery of the United Church of Canada - was able to continue the dream of one Norma Weller by committing significant funds to put together one of the most experimental programs I have seen in this Church - a travelling VBS (VBS stands for Vacation Bible School).

The program hired two co-ordinators (I was one of them) and then went on to hire 12 teenage and young adult staff to work with the children each day of the summer. At the beginning of the summer two teams were formed and each team consisted of 1 co-ordinator and 6 staff.

In May my counterpart (Anne) and I spent a great deal of time meeting and greeting both churches and our fellow staff and putting together and painting skit sets and other items. All the while I was offered the gift of preaching each week of the summer (which was tiring by the way) and working with children each weekday.

Attendance at our churches ranged from like 10 children at one or two churches all the way up to over 90 at a couple of other churches and it was such a gift to the communities we ended up in. Many congregations we met had an average age of 70+ years and VBS was an opportunity for these churches to meet young families (parents 25-45 years old) and young children they never knew existed within a stone's throw of their worship centres. There were also grandparents in congregations who brought their grandchildren.

I guess what I'm getting at is that over the past year I have been thinking about the Great Commission (which is the Scripture that is quoted at the top of the post) and I think that there are a couple of things that the cluster of United Churches in Niagara (called Niagara Presbytery) did well this summer in response to the summons of Jesus Christ.

The first thing that the cluster did well was to respond to God's calling in a peculiar way.

There was a kid named Samuel in the Old Testament who lived in the temple with an old priest named Eli. One night he heard his name called out, "Samuel, Samuel!" So Samuel went and woke up Eli thinking that it was Eli who called him. Eli just told him, "Go back to bed." I t happened again and Samuel heard his name called. He went back to Eli and woke him up and presented himself. Again Eli told him to go back to bed and that it wasn't him who called Samuel. Finally after Samuel had been called a third time Eli realized that it had been God calling Samuel and so he said to Samuel, "If someone speaks to you again, answer, 'I'm listening YHWH (YAHWEH). What do you want me to do?'"

So Samuel went back to his room and as he lay he heard the voice of God call out, "Samuel, Samuel!" and Samuel replied, "What do you want me to do?" (Check out 1 Samuel 3:1-18, my paraphrase)

In Niagara the Church accepted that God was calling them and, therefore, ended up responding to the generosity of God by investing almost $40,000 each year in this free, travelling VBS. Because of the Church responded to God's generosity in such a way it was found that more doors were waiting to be opened. Let's look a little closer at what else was going on.

Here are major benefits of the program.

Employed 14 students, 1o high school-aged youth and 3 post-secondary students
Invited local congregations to begin conversation (evangelion - good news) with local young families
Offered young families the opportunity to see and live in the afterglow of the impact of a joyful community - mostly seen in their children's responses
Gave 14 students the opportunity to check out the state of local United Church congregations on the Niagara Peninsula
Gave 14 students the opportunity to build community with each other
Gave 14 students the opportunity to be leaders in building community in the name of Jesus Christ with children ranging in age from about 3 to 13 years of age
Invited children into the counter-cultural Jesus narrative
Built the foundations of Christian community on songs they don't play on MTV - songs that are illegal to play on MTV
Paid 14 staff more than United Church camps pay summer staff
The staff teams were supported by "older" adult members of the Presbytery's Christian Education/Development Committee

This year we connected with approximately 500 children, which is up 16.3% over last year's approximately 430 children. The numerical success of this program defies the common belief that the United Church of Canada is dying and/or is dead. Rather, in seeing so many children this summer I end up recalling that story about Peter and a guy named Cornelius.

Peter ended up at Cornelius' house and they have a chat about all things kosher and Peter's revelation that among the peoples of the world God shows no partiality because God, in light of the resurrection of Jesus Christ, was, in an over-the-top way, attempting to get back everything that belongs to God and so Peter ends up saying to Cornelius:

Now I am certain that God treats all people alike. God is pleased with everyone who worships him and does right, no matter what nation they come from. This is the same message that God gave to the people of Israel, when he sent Jesus Christ, the Lord of all, to offer peace to them.

Then Peter told those gathered around all that had happened to Jesus and what it means. He talked about the ministry years, but clearly articulated this:

Jesus was put to death on a cross. But three days later, God raised him to life and let him be seen. Not everyone saw him. He was seen only by us, who ate and drank with him after he was raised from death. We were the ones God chose to tell others about him. (Acts 10:39-41)

Peter goes on and on about the meaning of Jesus to this small crowd and all of a sudden the floor began to shake, the windows began rattling, and the cutlery danced. Some of the Jewish Christian folks present were surprised because the Gentiles (non-Jewish people) had received the Holy Spirit.

So Peter says to the people:

These Gentiles have been given the Holy Spirit, just as we [Jews] have! I am certain that no one would dare stop us from baptizing them.

Peter then had those Gentiles gathered baptized in the name of Jesus Christ (you'll note that they weren't baptized in the name of "The Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit" but rather in the NAME of JESUS CHRIST!)

This is how we received VBS 2009 - with surprise and shock about how far-flung God's generosity actually is. God wasn't looking to make us all his friends this summer; but was rather redeeming and reconciling all of humankind in our travelling VBS program this summer in an obscure part of North America. Amen.

Inclusion means Resurrection

2009-08-28T00:08:00.003-04:00

One thing that Christians ought not to do is use a particular term excessively without articulating what they mean by it. Perhaps the most overused word I hear as I travel through United Church circles is the word INCLUSIVE...The word drives me up the wall because all the stereotypes I have about liberals end up circling through my brain. At the very sound of the first syllable of the word inclusive my eyes already begin to start rolling. Mainly because everybody in the United Church of Canada knows what being "inclusive" means. Everybody, of course, except me. I have never actually heard anybody articulate what it means to be inclusive or heard any United Church theologians actually communicate the Gospel directive about welcome and generosity and inclusion in God's reign. I have, however, recently heard some killer sermons from mainline denominations in the United States that are unapologetically grounded in Christian Scripture, yet deeply generous about who the good news of Jesus Christ is for.

To that end I must remind myself daily that Jesus Christ (and maybe I'll give his Scripture this status too) is norma normans nons normata (or the norm by which there is no higher or deeper norm - or the norm by which all norms are normed). That to be inclusive is not to just create liberal-minded programs and initiatives as a socialist bureacracy that we call Church, but rather inclusion happens at the grassroots level as part of the walk from Nazareth to Jerusalem.

Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ had a choice to make as a Samaritan village refused to receive him and his disciples. He could have gotten angry and asked God to smite the village, but he chose his other option, to keep his eyes on the prize - Jerusalem. He knew that the real test for his ministry of reconciliation and repentance would happen when the spirit of generosity came face-to-face with the spirits of fear and control in downtown Jerusalem where unforgiving Mammon served as god. Jesus could have smote that unnamed Samaritan village; but instead Jesus was up to the challenge of reaching out to a hostile world - a world that, even today, doesn't like a God who seeks to transform the Church by his power and not by ours; a world that, even today, hides from the Living God and chooses the dead gods of liberal or conservative politics and runs in fear from the God who resurrects the dead and forces enemies to sit down and drink beer together; a world that, even today, cannot break its addiction to oil in favour of the God who made humankind - both female and male - in his image and called out to humankind to "rule over" creation as the image of God (the real question is, if we are the image of God - the imago dei - how does God rule us, for that is how we shall rule God's creation); a world that, even today, cannot disconnect itself from handguns, machine guns, shotguns, rifles, and homemade bombs in favour of a God who scares the hell out of a bunch of fishermen three days after death and returns to them - the ones who denied him - rather than to Pilate, the guy who executed him.

And so "Jesus resolutely set out for Jerusalem" (Luke 9:51).

Is being inclusive about putting up walls against the Trinity that God might not assault us, invade us, and attack our very character to be formed into who Jesus demands we be? Or is being inclusive about answering a call from a very threatening God who challenges us to stop being so uncreative like the world and to actually get on changing the world into a people and a creation who expect generosity rather than who expect political infighting, suicide bombings, African pirating, fear of terrorist groups like Al Qaeda, financial insecurity, social unacceptance, etc. I don't know why people continue to accept the dead world that humankind has laid waste to when Christians worship a rabbi who says to the disheartened, lonely, and deathly:

Awake, O sleeper,

rise from the dead,

and Christ will shine on you. (Eph. 5:14)

Inclusion means resurrection.

Changes - Reflecting on Sir Ted "the Lionheart" Kennedy's Impact

2009-08-26T12:38:00.003-04:00

Do you remember 2Pac's song Changes? The song is, perhaps, one of rap music's most memorable gifts to humanity. With the passing of Sen. Ted Kennedy I am reminded of the line that has always stood out in my mind:

Though it seems heaven-sent, we ain't ready to see a black president

If only 2Pac had known before his demise (in 1996) that in 2008 his country would be finally ready to see a black president; largely because he [Barack Obama] was given legitimacy [within the establishment] by the endorsement of two very powerful players in American politics - Sen. Edward Kennedy, brother of JFK, and JFK's politically reclusive daughter Caroline.

Sen. Kennedy's accomplishments are many and his impact on American politics is beyond significance. It would be nice for us in the United Church of Canada to have a theologian as captivating as Kennedy was a politician. God bless you Sen. Kennedy. May the best parts of your life in American politics live on in people like President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton. Amen.

The Adam-Shawn Dialogue - Shalom

2009-08-24T23:39:00.002-04:00

To see Shawn's responses please visit his blog

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.

The Adam-Shawn Dialogue - The Eye is the Lamp of the Body

2009-08-24T11:26:00.002-04:00

For Shawn's responses please see his blog

Hi Shawn:

I heard, perhaps, the best sermon I have ever listened to yesterday by Bill Britt of Peachtree Road United Methodist Church in Atlanta, Georgia. In the sermon he reminds us of the peculiar nature of the Gospel of Matthew in which a major theme is "the God you believe in is the God you get" - which is to say that the parables are particularly construed and told in such a way as for there to be an opportunity for the reader or hearer of the parable to discern who God is.

His example is the Parable of the Talents in which a rich man puts his slaves in charge of his estate as he goes away on a business trip. Rev. Britt mentions some scholarly work that would place the worth of a talent at about $500,000 and so surmises that the first slave is given $2.5 million to invest; the second slave is given $1 million to invest; while the last slave is given half a million bucks to invest while the rich man is away.

When the master returns from his trip he calls in his slaves to see what they had done to invest his money. The first slave had doubled the $2.5 million; the second slaved had doubled the $1 million and to each of these slaves the master exlaimed, "Wonderful, you are a good and faithful servant. I left you in charge of only a little, but now I will put you in charge of much more. Come and share in my happiness!"

Finally ther third slave comes in and says, "Sir, I know that you are hard to get along with. You harvest what you don't plant and gather crops where you haven't scattered seed. I was frightened and went out and hid your money in the ground. Here is every single coin."

This upset the master. He looked at the slave and said, "You are lazy and good-for-nothing! You know that I harvest what I don't plant and gather crops where I haven't scattered seed. You could have at least put my money in the bank, so that I could have at least earned interest on it."

"Now your money will be taken away and give to the slave who has the $5 million.! Everyone who has something will be given more, and they will have more than enough. But everything will be taken away from those who don't have anything. You are a worthless slave, and you will be thrown out into the dark where people will cry and grit their teeth in pain."

I find the parable so intriguing because some of the study notes one will find in some Bibles refer the reader back to Gandhi's particular intrigue of Christian Scripture - the Sermon on the Mount where Jesus claims,

"Your eyes are like a window for your body. When they are good, you have all the light you need. But when your eyes are bad, everything is dark. If the light inside you is dark, you surely are in the dark."

What the preacher is getting at is that if we look at the Parable of the Talents through the eyes of the 3rd slave we will only see a Master who is wrathful and vengeful, even though the parable does not seem to show any evidence of the Master doing anything evil. The Master gives over a portion of his riches and blesses those who use them properly; whereas he angers when one of the slaves only sees the Master as a tyrant because he has no idea what to do with the blessing of opportunity that the Master has offered the slave. The Master had given opportunity to each of his slaves according to what he had seen in them and to those who were able to use the opportunity for good he bestowed gracious and lavish compliments upon them, and entrusted them with more. The one who saw the Master as vengeful, on the other hand, did nothing with the opportunity, and therefore, the Master calls his slave, in some translations, "WICKED" and "lazy!"

You have to see that in this parable everything in it actually means something else. Jesus begins telling by saying that "God's kingdom is also like what happened when a man went away and put his three slaves in charge of all he owned." This parable is about how we use the resources of God's reign to bestow blessings upon God and God's created world. Do we see God as a tyrant or as the provoker of Apocalyptic Welcome?

I've heard Dr. Tony Campolo mention how young people will often come to him and say, "I don't believe in Jesus anymore." He responds to the young people saying, "Well, tell me about this Jesus you don't believe in."

"Well," says the young person, "I don't believe in a Jesus who hates gays; I don't believe in a Jesus who looks to bestow hatred; I don't believe in a Jesus that sleeps with right-wing politicians; I don't believe in a Jesus of justice, but no mercy; I don't believe in a Jesus of hellfire, etc..."

Dr. Campolo responds saying, "I'm glad to hear that. I don't believe in that Jesus either."

What I'm getting at is that, as preachers who have been called first, and foremost, by Jesus Christ himself, we have the opportunity to create opportunities for people to fall in love with the God of opportunity. We cannot force people to see the world through the lens by which we view it; but we can spend time attempting to provoke them into being convinced that God is not blood-thirsty and looking for new recruits for the what the Book of Revelation calls "the lake of burning sulphur." But, rather, that this God is "out to get them." This God is looking for an opportunity to transform the worldview of young people like your son. This God is looking for an opportunity to be a fundamental visage of Truth for your son. This God is looking for ways to fall even more deeply in love with your Son. This God is looking to share opportunity with your son.

Opportunities to walk boldly along that road from Nazareth to Jerusalem to offer SHALOM to each city and household that is passed by while carrying a cross upon which you may die for believing that God's provoking vision of hope for a restored humanity and revived creation is actually a bigger and better dream than my own vision of unity.

"The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are good, your whole body will be full of light." (Matt. 6:22)

Living in the Light

2009-08-17T15:26:00.001-04:00

Today's Scripture is Ephesians 5:1-21

Let us offer our souls to the Living God – Jesus Christ:

O Lord Jesus,

Drown our sin in your living water and let us emerge from the womb of the Living God as a New Creation so that we might see the promise that you have for us. We pray this in the name of the One True God; Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen

=====================================================================

The British sitcom Outnumbered is a television series about life with small children that gets at the nuances in our messy personal lives and reveals them to the world. 8 year-old Karen (played by Ramona Marquez), in our video clip today has a picture of Jesus on the edge of a cliff with Satan trying to persuade him to jump off. The theological conversation that ensues is absolutely brilliant and, according to the producers of the show, most of what the children in the series say is unscripted. This is the very thing that amazes me about the program, because we get the real meat and potatoes of real life questioning that curious children inspire.

I also love the fact that Karen’s teachings about Jesus, and specifically Satan, are traced back to a Miss Braebrook who has claimed to see Satan and, further, that Satan is everywhere. When Karen’s mother says, “I think we’ll find Satan’s not real” her response is “but then if he wasn’t alive, how would people know how to draw him?” And mother says, “Nobody’s ever seen Satan...” and the kid replies, “Miss Braebrook has” and goes on to tell her mother how Mrs. Braebrook saw Satan looking down on her from her wardrobe. And mother does what mother does best, looks out for the safety of her child saying, “Do you think you could point out Miss Braebrook to me on the playground tomorrow?”

The picture is somewhat of a reminder of the temptation of Jesus when he is led by the Spirit out to the desert to be tempted by the devil. In Matthew’s Gospel the second temptation is when Satan takes Jesus to the highest part of the temple and says, “If you are the Son of God throw yourself down. For it is written:

“He will command his angels concerning you, and they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.” (Matt. 4:6)

Jesus replied, “It is also written: ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’”

I’m also reminded of the story from Luke’s Gospel where Jesus goes to synagogue on the Sabbath in his hometown of Nazareth and takes the scroll of Isaiah and reads from it and says “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.” They loved the first part of his sermon, and then the people asked, “Isn’t this guy the son of Joseph?” The connotations obviously being about Jesus’ bastardly birth – you know, he was born to unwed parents and, further he was the son of a lowly carpenter.

Jesus then tells the people:

“No prophet is accepted in his home town. I assure you that there were many widows in Israel in Elijah’s time, when the sky was shut for three and a half years and there was a severe famine throughout the land. Yet Elijah was not sent to any of them, but to a widow in Zarephath in the region of Sidon. And there were many in Israel with leprosy in the time of Elisha the prophet, yet not one of them was cleansed – only Naaman the Syrian.”

Do you get where this is going? Jesus is directly challenging those in the crowd who mock him for his upbringing. The second half of his first sermon angers the crowd and the Bible says,

They got up, drove him out of town, and took him to the brow of the hill on which the town was built, in order to throw him down the cliff. But he walked right through the crowd and went on his way.

Twice Jesus comes face to face with the cliff that Satan wants him thrown off of and twice Jesus narrowly escapes with his life. Of course these are both sensationalized accounts of Jesus. We know, at least from the second account that there is no sheer-faced cliff in or near what remains of Nazareth. But what do we do with these stories as people living on the edge of faith? What do we do with these stories as people sitting on a fence, almost ready to make a declaration in favour of Jesus Christ?

There are a couple of problems we face. First, the problem of Satan; how do we, as rational people respond to the Satan personification in the Bible? What do we make of Satan? Is Satan real? How do we find the clues that would lead to understanding who Satan is?

When we read the Bible it is important for us to consider where words come from. Though many of you do not have advanced degrees I think Jesus loves you enough for me to tell you that our New Testament word Satan actually originates in the Hebrew ha-satan which we translate into English as The Adversary or The Obstacle or, most notably, The Prosecutor or the Accuser. With the role of accuser or prosecutor in mind we read in the Book of Job the story of a man who is viewed by YHWH as blameless; “a man who fears God and shuns evil.” (Job 1:8)

Well, that day the angels had gathered before YHWH and Satan was among the group and he is the one that says, “Wait a minute. Job is the way you say he is because you, YHWH, have protected him. You have given him nothing but flourishing.” And Satan, attempting to reveal that Job isn’t blameless says to YHWH, “Stretch out your hand and strike everything he has, and he will surely curse you to your face.” So YHWH allows Satan to wreak havoc on Job’s life by having all his herds and flocks killed by jealous neighbours, and having Job’s beautiful mansion collapse in on his children killing all of them – daughters and sons. But Job doesn’t respond the way Satan expects him to. Job falls to his knees in worship and says:

Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked I will depart.

YHWH gave and YHWH has taken away; may the name of YHWH be praised. (Job 1:21)

The angelic being ha-satan’s role in the court of YHWH is to test YHWH’s subjects for their loyalty to the king. We should know a little bit about this living in a country whose governance style is a parliamentary democracy with constitutional monarchy. Whom do Canadians pledge allegiance to? When Canadians are charged for crimes who is it that charges them? Who is it that signs legislation into Canadian Law? The Crown of Canada. Everything is about allegiance, and the Old Testament role of Satan is to test the allegiance of YHWH’s subjects. I think, to a certain extent, this is the role of Satan in the New Testament as well. Jesus’ loyalty is tested. When we get to the temptation of Jesus in the wilderness it is all about testing Jesus’ human needs – his need for bread, his need for power, his need for greed. Will Jesus remain faithful to the high calling of God?

I’m gonna go out on a limb here and suggest that many of us may believe Satan to be the personification of evil, but that this is not foundational to Jewish belief nor does it seem to be the point of the texts we have just read. The point of the character in the text from Job and the other from Luke reveals some sort of being who continually attempts to goad us into turning away from God. The question here for us is what do we name those things that attempt to turn us away from God?

[Silence]

But, today, we are dealing with one of the least inspiring texts of the Bible – one that outlines everything that a Christian ought not to do. I, particularly find this stuff interesting because the Church has traditionally said that Paul is the writer of Ephesians, when the evidence seems pretty clear to me that this was a circular letter that could have been written by Paul, but the theology within the book does not sound anything like the theology of the different epistles that we know Paul wrote like Romans and 1 Corinthians and 1 Thessalonians and Galatians. When we read Ephesians we get into content that doesn’t sound like the Paul who is living and believing that the return of Jesus Christ is imminent. He doesn’t care who gets to preach – whether it’s a man or a woman, a slave or a free person – as long as somebody preaches in the places he has established churches. He is attempting to form and reform a Church within an empire that looks like the post-apocalyptic heaven that the return of Jesus Christ is to reveal. But today’s Scripture is a like a Rick Warren sermon on “How to...” do Christianity a certain way. I just find that kind of Christianity rather boring and unchallenging. When God is a technique rather than one who just loves to resurrect the dead and bond with a bunch of smelly fishermen to build the kingdom of God I just sit back and think, Hell, joining the local chamber of commerce ought to be more fulfilling; and I don’t know a thing about business.

Paul says in the 2^nd letter to the Church at Corinth this:

If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! (2 Corinth. 5:17)

Our problem in today’s Church is that we don’t deal with the struggle that inherently goes along with Paul’s words. Rather, we do Church the nonchalant way by sprinkling water on people’s heads rather than believing that joining Jesus Christ changes our whole view of reality. Our old foundations for what is true are rent apart and a new foundation with a new Truth is firmly planted over the old ruins of shattered visage. If following Jesus was so important, and if we actually believed that generosity comes to us on its way to someone else we would see the same rapid change that Bishop Will Willimon longs for he says:

When one joins Rotary, or the League of Women Voters, they give you a membership card and lapel pin. When one joins the Body of Christ, we throw you under, half drown you, strip you naked and wash you all over, pull you forth sticky and fresh like a newborn. One might think people would get the message. (Willimon, Christ Means Change)

The point that Paul makes is that when Jesus comes to you and says, “Follow me” and somehow you can’t wrest yourself from Jesus you realize that with Jesus Christ it’s a whole new world; a whole new ball game. For us all of the decisions of life get re-arranged by Jesus to be a city on a hill and a dancing flame flickering upon the wick of a candle whereby we do politics differently than the world does, we do morality differently, and we do economics differently.

This past week the United Church of Canada met in Kelowna, B.C. for its 40^th General Council where around 400 clergy and lay members of the church met to figure out where we’re being led by God and the one highlight that dominated the meeting was a bunch of proposals arising out of Toronto Conference and Montreal and Ottawa Conference regarding the Israel/Palestine conflict that has gone on for decades. The proposals, for the most part, seemed to be pro-Palestine and anti-Israel and one of the four proposals compared the Israeli oppression of Palestinians to Apartheid in South Africa, and the proposal that got my attention the most was one that proposed boycotting cultural institutions that support the Government of Israel. The proposed boycott named a bunch of well-known corporations as complicit in the ills that have arisen in the polemical culture of the Middle East and some of those corporations are Time Warner Inc., whose subsidiaries include the issuer of Time Magazine, the operator of television station TBS, and film company Warner Brother Entertainment – whose library of well-known films include financial giants such as 1939’s Gone With the Wind, 2008’s The Dark Knight, the Harry Potter series of films, and 1973’s mega-hit horror film The Exorcist. The list also includes clothing maker The Gap and its subsidiary Banana Republic, cable news giant CNN, soft-drink manufacturer Coca-Cola and its subsidiary Fruitopia, General Electric – whose assets include American cable giant NBC, and The Home Depot. Other highly recognizable brands and corporations included on the list are the makers of Huggies diapers, book publisher HarperCollins, underwear maker Hanes, ICQ, IBM, computer chip manufacturer Intel, J. Crew, JC Penney, Johnson & Johnson, the makers of Kleenex, Starbucks, and the list goes on and on and on.

Beyond boycotting such corporations, the document also mentions that Israeli cultural boycott would include:

Israeli film festivals, Israel public venues, and Israeli institutions supported by the government, to end all cooperation with these cultural and artistic institutions that to date have refused to take a stand against the Occupation.

And a sporting boycott would include:

Aims to end sporting collaboration with Apartheid Israel until it complies with international humanitarian law. This was a particularly important tool against South African Apartheid. The boycott movement will aim to take action whenever Israeli teams play outside Israel and pressure sporting bodies to end those links.

Furthermore, one proposal attempts to indict Canadian MPs who have taken trips to Israel on the Government of Israel’s tab and compared it to accepting “bribes”.

Obviously the content of these proposals initiated backlash from both the Canadian news media and the Canadian Jewish Congress, which is one of the major lobby groups for Jewish thought in Canada. In fact, Past President of the CJC Rabbi Reuven Bulka said:

Today, should motions pass to boycott Israel "in any way, shape or form," relations between the CJC and the United Church will likely dissolve.

The proposed motions were, in common language, rejected which caused a sigh of relief inside the United Church of Canada and beyond, but it made me wonder about what it means to be “a new creation” if I am in Christ or if our church is “in Christ”. Why do we, as a Church do politics the way that sovereign states do politics? As far as I am concerned when the Church plays politics the way the world does we end up living inside the vitriolic mess that always ends up playing like a scratched CD – repeating and repeating and repeating and repeating and repeating the same wars and exploitation. Jesus, I think, has a better way of doing politics than the sovereign states of the world. Rather than boycott Time Warner and Fruitopia, Jesus has dinner with the employees of such disdainful companies and when the United Church of Canada comes along and says, “Why are you eating with such sinners?” he replies saying,

It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. But go learn what this means: “I desire mercy, not sacrifice.” For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.

And then they finish eating dinner, and then later on, because the religious establishment doesn’t like the fact that Jesus doesn’t join the boycott and, rather, proclaims that both Palestinians and Israelis are human beings, they call him a blasphemer, beat the hell out of him as they drag him in chains to declare his teachings heresy, and then they put him in front of the closest Supreme Court that will be able to torture and execute him, and they put him on the electric chair to watch him fry for 6 hours. All because he chose to go to the roast beef supper supported by the God who created both Palestinian and Israeli – that was also able to raise over $10,000 that night.

Let me finish with a parable that might disturb you and cause you many nightmares. Here’s what the kingdom of God is like.

George W. Bush was ushered into his armoured limousine by his personal Secret Service agents. He rested on the rear seat of the car surrounded by his security personnel, advisors, and attendants and the presidential motorcade began its journey from the White House to New York City.

As the president’s motorcade began its journey on interstate 95 suddenly, ahead of the president’s limo, there was a blast; the lead vehicle, an armoured Chevy Yukon, had been hammered by a rocket. The president’s limo pulled out and passed the wrecked vehicle. The president peered out the window to see his personnel bloody and mangled by the savage act. More rockets came as vehicle after vehicle in the president’s procession was pounded – finally Bush’s own vehicle was hit and the car spun out of control, flipped and lay on the shoulder of the interstate. George W. Bush was laying in his armoured limousine half-dead.

Now, by chance, a Christian pastor was driving along that interstate and saw the devastation, but went on through. Likewise, a Democrat of the U.S. Senate was driving along that interstate and, he too, saw the terrorist act, but drove on through.

But a man from the Middle East – a man named Osama bin Laden – was driving along that interstate and pulled up to George W. Bush’s limo, and when he saw him he was overcome with pity. Bin Laden gathered the president and bandaged up his wounds and took him to the nearest hospital. The next day bin Laden returned to the hospital and handed over some cash and said, “Please take care of this man and when I come back I will repay you whatever more you spend.”

Tell me, who was the neighbour to George W. Bush in this story?

Once you figure out who the neighbour of George W. Bush is, “Go and do likewise!”

If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! (2 Corinth. 5:17)

Amen!

=====================================================================

Let’s pray together.

O Holy Spirit:

Call out to us; call out to our broken hearts; call out to our broken relationships with our neighbours and within our families. Call out to us these prophetic words:

Wake up, O sleeper, rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you!

Let Christ shine on us; let Christ illumine our worldviews; let Christ inform our reality and truth. Amen.

The Adam-Shawn Dialogue - The Unspoken Word...

2009-08-16T20:46:00.002-04:00

To view Shawn's contributions check out his blog

Shawn:

You used the dirty word:

EVANGELISM

The word evangelism should mean to the Church that "generosity comes to us on its way to someone else" because the Gk. form of the word literally means "good news" and we have been talking about Apocalyptic Welcome - the Jesus command that has Christians sent out into the villages and towns to offer signs of peace upon homes, villages, and towns, and to say these words, "God's reign is at hand."

Every time I preach I make sure to listen to Will Willimon's podcast because I find in his sermons and speaking engagements deep encouragement to not pacify the Church, but rather to engage congregations in the words of the Living Word Jesus Christ. It struck me a few months ago that we preachers worry too much about people not liking our sermons and being outraged by what we have to say, but I look at Jesus' first sermon at the synagogue in Nazareth (according to Luke) and see that they just about tossed Jesus off a cliff for his sermon. Is it that provocative type of preaching that Jesus is calling out of us? Does the Welcome of God (the Apocalyptic Welcome) continue to inflame the status quo of today's society and culture the way it did in Jesus' day? I think so...

I mean, that's why I continue to swim against the current in the our United Church circles that de-emphasize the cross. I know that many United Church folks will probably think of my theological understanding of the cross to be quite shallow, but I just think that the cross, in its simplest and most day-to-day understanding is one that illumines and reveals our response to those attempting to reach across enemy lines. We brutally torture, mock, and spit on anyone who would attempt to share the generosity of God beyond the walls of our own denomination. I read Tom Bandy's material and he formerly worked at Church House and I think that it was this very thing that frustrated him about the United Church of Canada.

In Jesus' day the cross was a symbol of government repression of anyone getting too creative or too popular. It was a sign of shame and defeat. It was so in the Gospels as well...well, at least until Mary of Magdala (the Church's first preacher) went back to the unbelieving disciples and proclaimed, "He's alive!!!" That's when the cross became a sign of human unity. That though we walk through the valley of the shadow of death, when God shows up the foundations of hell (Gehenna - that pile of burning rubbish outside of Jerusalem) shall not overcome the city itself. When God shows up somehow, even though the night seems to have lasted forever, we can be assured that the sun will rise within hours. That's why in Ephesians it is written:

Sleeper, awake!
Rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you! (Eph. 5:14)

The cross is so simple, yet so mysterious. That's why together, as a fellowship of believers in communion with a Great Cloud of Witnesses we have proclaimed for the last 2000 years the deep mystery of faith:

Christ has died. Christ is risen. Christ will come again.

Amen!

The Adam-Shawn Dialogue - A Voice at the Table?

2009-08-13T15:39:00.002-04:00

For Shawn's reflections please visit http://westmanpreacher.blogspot.com/

Shawn:

You said,

" if the United Church of Canada is the INCLUSIVE entity it believes itself to be, if the United Church of Canada is EVEN close to living an apocalyptic welcome, why then I am I left standing OUTSIDE staring in ????? IF we are truly inclusive there should be a place to make me feel welcome, and after the last three years of journeying in the United Church, I feel ANYTHING (and everything) BUT welcomed ..."

Over the past few years I have grown accustomed to living on the margins of this United Church of ours. For the most part, the establishment of the seminary doesn't like me; the old guard that has control of Presbytery, Conference, and the General Council don't like me; the young people this old guard are rearing to take control of their church when they die don't like me; but, at the same time, I do have a plethora of people within this Church whom I can reveal my soul to. The Church is a dangerous place - a war in fact. I believe, however, that the war we are fighting just happens to be the wrong one. We have been fighting over theological ideologies for decades and never has that born much fruit. We have been using this war to put forward different candidates for ministry with like-minded ideals and ideologies; we have been attempting to use what white liberals call "minorities" and/or "racialized" peoples as leverage for why Side A's ideology is better than Side B's and vice versa; I'm sure that money gets doled out disproportionately to groups associated with whatever special interest groups currently control the Church. The politicking that goes on leaves many of us baffled. But I have realized over the course of time that I seek not a voice at the table on the national stage of the United Church of Canada. I have been called to pastoral ministry at the local level - to fortify and flourish the Church of Jesus Christ.

Before the United Church of Canada at the national level knew who I was I was invited to sit at table by a bunch of former Moderators at 2005's Arnprior Assembly.

I was elected by London Conference in 2006 as a Commissioner to the 39th General Council in Thunder Bay, Ontario.

After General Council that year I was invited by just-elected Moderator Rt. Rev. David Giuliano to sit on his Advisory Committee.

I realized that it was powerful to be part of such groups in the Church, and was a way of stroking my own ego; however, this has led to major dissatisfaction on the deep, spiritual level of what it means to be Christian. I have learned over time that in the pastoral charge (parish or local congregation) there is opportunity to speak and listen to people who are more like me than I could ever admit, and more people unlike me than I could ever admit. We get to talk about every-day issues and how it relates to being Christian that the national church could ever know.

At the end of June while I was training my travelling VBS staff (we criss-cross the Niagara region running VBS's for a different church each week) I had a teenage staff member, who is also a member of Pelham Community Church, where I am serving currently, say to me, "You know that guy who drove by the church during the Sr. Youth sleepover at the end of May?" I was like, "Ya!" "Well," he says, "he came back and yelled, 'WHITE POWER!' again." I turned to him and said, "Steve, next time he comes back invite him to church; we'll see if he likes the preacher."

Even though I have had many opportunities to serve the national church, I have also been rejected by our national church many times, and been rejected by some of our congregations - I think that much of that has to do with me somehow refusing to submit to the blasphemy of being labelled a liberal or conservative Christian. I don't like my worldview being formed and informed by Jesus Christ (mainly because I don't want to carry a cross anymore than anybody else does); but I think the alternatives are much, much worse because they offer no creative choices beyond war, bigotry, and hate-mongering, and death without resurrection.

I think that whether we have a voice at the Conference or the General Council or within United Church associated institutions and corporations is truly irrelevant to our integration within the Church. The real question is whether we have a voice at the table of the Lord Jesus Christ.

We determine that when we realize that we have left everything to follow Jesus - even our own lives. Amen.

The Adam-Shawn Dialogue - Becoming an Intercultural Church

2009-08-11T01:53:00.002-04:00

To read Shawn's part of the dialogue please visit http://westmanpreacher.blogspot.com/

This article is inspired by http://gc40.united-church.ca/en/node/598 an article entitled "Becoming Intercultural Requires a Vision."

Shawn:

I have found Bill Easum's book Dancing with Dinosaurs: Ministry in a Hostile & Hurting World to be such a fantastic read illumining the depth and complexity of sin that we, the Church, live in. Adelle Haliday, of the United Church of Canada's General Council Office offered this statement about intercultural ministry being a

broad inclusion of groups who have felt excluded. It is about impacting power imbalances. It is about challenging cultural empire.

My concerns about the Church making sweeping statements and initiating centralized policies around race and ethnicity are that 1) there is absolutely no evidence to suggest that black people put into leadership positions in the Church actually inspire more black people to become involved in the Church, 2) I hate socialism because it deals with how to administer Caesar's Empire when Caesar doesn't know a damned thing about what's going on in MY life or within the congregation that is the home base for doing the ministry that I and my (laity) friends have been called to do with those in the surrounding community who have had nothing but bad experiences in the mainline Church, and 3) I have no interest in amusing Church people who are tied to the old liberal and conservative political agendas in the Church - I find them (those particular agendas) to be idolatrous and of no use to Jesus or his Church.

One of the things I realized from Easum is that when we take a look at how worship happens in the local congregation, and this isn't a new concept, but we actually do get out of worship that which we put into worship. One reason why the United Church of Canada is a predominantly white, liberal, middle class, and aging church is because about 99.8% of local congregations invest into worship that precise culture. Most worship I have seen is geared toward the generation before the Baby Boomers and because of that we have organs dominating worship, long-winded liturgies, mechanical prayers, and sermons more informed by Greek philosophy than by the living Jesus Christ. To a certain extent I would argue in favour of the idea that the style of worship can either be an open door to non-Christians or the door can remain closed and sealed to these non-Christians who will just remain what they already are - consumers in a market economy. Sometimes these people are searching for more to life than agents of consumption.

One thing that shocks me about United Churches in Toronto are that many of them are near death; even ones engaged in social justice and action. It is because the United Church is programmed to only engage a certain demographic of the population - the white, liberal, middle class, elderly person. If local congregations began considering who lived in the neighbourhoods surrounding them they might find that their churches would become packed by a younger demographic (and probably more interracial) if pastors and lay leaders were a bit more creative in their marketing of the Gospel of Jesus Christ (same message, different couching). Bill Easum and Tom Bandy have hundreds, if not thousands, of stories of congregations whom they have consulted with about the new paradigms in 21st century ministry that link the style of music and the amount of music in a worship service determining who shows up to Church. It shouldn't be surprising that it isn't uncommon for churches with the majority of their congregations under the age of 40 to have up to 40% of their worship in the form of music - children, teens, and young adults today grow up with iPods and cell phones attached to their ears continually pounding out rap and hip hop, R&B, hard rock, etc. The disturbing thing about churches in Toronto is that almost half of the population of Canada's most populous city and surrounding region is foreign-born, and, by far, a clear majority coming from non-white regions of the world, and we cannot even attempt to offer the Apocalyptic Welcome to these people by attracting them to Jesus through music that welcomes them because it sounds like music they listen to. Rather, it is more important to appreciate Western European civilization's achievements in music that go so far beyond any other culture's musical achievements when only about 4% of albums sold in North America are actually classical - most people don't give a damn about much of the music we play in the Church. And to further my disenfranchisement with this stuff, I look to Luther and Charles Wesley who were in the know about how to package the Gospel and couch it as a soundtrack for the lives of the people where they lived - they took common bar songs and put Christian words to them, and built churches around that. It is just too bad that we don't have the audacity to live inside of that type of Welcome; but rather we are busy doing what you say, Shawn - we're busy rearranging the deck of the Titanic and nobody can see the gaping hole where it smashed into the iceburgh.

I don't know if any of this makes sense - it's 20 to 3 in the morning.

Peace,

Adam

Apocalyptic Welcome

2009-08-09T22:02:00.006-04:00

Visit Shawn's blog at westmanpreacher.blogspot.com/

====================================================================

Hi Shawn:

That term we are appreciating Apocalyptic Welcome just came to me during my first response to you. But the reason I love it is that it suggests that, like our Scriptures, that our ability to mimic Christian Scriptural intent is not only formative for discipleship, but momentous. When we talk about Jesus Christ and his cross as Christians we believe that there is something one-of-a-kind about it, and I say that the same thing is true about Christian generosity because it illumines the Jesus who attempts to reconcile all of humankind and all of the cosmos by resisting the temptation to immerse himself in the various political systems of exploitation and weasling.

In his book Mission Mover Tom Bandy gets right to the point when he talks about how the Church bureaucracy gets excited when a new candidate shows up to join the ministry because it's another resource for them to harvest for their own purposes. Here's what he says:

One worries about the credibility of judges: all these denominational officials, professors, and personnel committees, chosen by popular election and political appointment, and preserved in office by political maneuvering and academic tenure. They all have perspectives they hold dear and agendas to protect or pursue. They are all "servants of the system," but they also see themselves as "reformers of the system," and they all know you are a potential voting member of the denomination and future alumnus of the seminary. They will more likely understand and accept your calling if it fits their agenda and leverages their vision of reform. (Bandy 70)

I don't know about you, but I call this one of the most dangerous elements in the politics of the Church. This is one reason our mainline denominations cannot grow numerically. I actually should go further and say that this is a reason why it is completely impossible for our denomination to grow. Truth is relative. In Greek philosophical logic we would say that relative Truth would be the opposite of absolute Truth, however, for Christians relative Truth is the opposite of Jesus Christ, who is "the way, the truth, and the life." We don't have to debate whether Truth is relative or absolute because for us it's none of those. For us, Truth is Jesus Christ.

What I'm getting at here is, perhaps, a nuance that is, I think, very important for us as Christians, as those sitting on the sidelines of the Church. As the United Church of Canada it is impossible for us to attempt anything other than being a "welcoming and inclusive Church" because we have no vision of Scripture and a very shallow Christology, which I think causes us to respond to the world with no substance. We cannot go deeper into our call to justice other than making political statements about war and free trade because we don't know the heart of Jesus Christ. We have been led astray. We spend all of our time teaching ourselves techniques to make our congregations grow like "Living the Welcome" and really I see a lot of that stuff as attempting to scratch a concrete surface.

On the other hand, I would say that the Apocalyptic Welcome is the generosity that knows that the whole world is depending on our ability to not buy into what the world calls politics and what the world calls welcome. We aren't about attempting to include people because we want to grow our congregations and increase the offering receipts. We are about including as many people as possible because Jesus Christ is deeply in love with all that has been created by his hand. We aren't about developing relationships with blacks, indigenous North Americans, Chinese and Korean Christians, and deepening our dialogue with Jews and Muslims because we want to show the world that we are open-minded and sophisticated. We are about doing that stuff because Truth (Jesus Christ) commands us to be generous people looking to build fulfilling, peaceful, and loving relationships with each other that God's reign might be fulfilled here on this obscure planet in the Milky Way.

Apocalyptic Welcome says that the cosmos groans and God is moved by our audacity to actually reach out with our ears and be formed by the teachings of Jesus Christ. Apocalyptic Welcome says that the entire universe (or all of creation) is at stake in our generosity.

Peace,

Adam

The Adam-Shawn Dialogue - second response

2009-08-08T21:51:00.003-04:00

To read Shawn's replies please visit http://westmanpreacher.blogspot.com/

Shawn:

One thing that saddens me in the Church today is that we continue to believe the LIE that democratic vote is the answer to determining morality, justice, and most importantly, Truth. If democracy were responsible for determining any of these black folks would still be picking cotton, marching in cities across America, boycotting city buses, and joining groups like the Nation of Islam and the Black Panther Party in record numbers.

David Friedman wrote in his work The Machinery of Freedom these words:

"Democratic" decision making is a means for finding and implementing the will of the majority; it has no other function. It serves, not to encourage diversity, but to prevent it.

This is the fundamental problem in the United Church of Canada. We seek to govern our Church and our congregations by allowing the majority to decide on direction. This means that whichever special interest group is the biggest will determine how the Church and the God of the entire universe must be made in their image; the complete opposite of what Genesis says:

So God created humankind in his image,
in the image of God he created them;
male and female he created them.

In the work Demokratie und Republik Proudhon writes:

Democracy is nothing but the Tyranny of Majorities, the most abominable tyranny of all, for it is not based on the authority of a religion, not upon the nobility of a race, not on the merits of talents and of riches. It merely rests upon numbers and hides behind the name of the people.

I think this is where our Christology in the Church is tested, because our Scriptures quote Jesus Christ as saying:

I am the way, and the truth, and the life.

For Christians, truth might be revealed in democracy or even in dictatorship; however, we the Church have been commanded by Jesus to obey his teachings, and this teaching from John says that our understanding of truth isn't a vague philosophical proposition (like from the Greek philosophy that I so despise), but rather truth is a person - a person that the Church proclaimed to be both fully human and fully divine. This rabbi, the son of a Jewish carpenter was a wandering beggar who had no place to lay his head, but he lived and proclaimed some bold things that the Church ought to consider to be the meat and potatoes worth living and dying for - they are the foundation for our Christology. Jesus' mission statement according to Luke the Physician is this:

The breath of YHWH has come upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, and to proclaim that this is God's year to ACT!!! (paraphrase from Luke 4:18-19)

If the democratic governance structures in our Church and within our congregations refrain from living out this witness, then I strongly doubt that we are the Church. This mission statement from the Gospel According to Dr. Luke is true because Church culture ought to be defined by "the way, the truth, and the life" - namely Jesus Christ. If Jesus is about preaching good news and proclaiming release and proclaiming recovery of sight and opening prison doors, and proclaiming that God is alive today and we are spending time worrying about whether the majority agrees with this proposition we ought to be asking ourselves who is the Truth? Is it Jesus or the Majority?

This is Shawn...

2009-08-07T22:23:00.004-04:00

This is Shawn Ankenmann a friend, member, and loyalist of the United Church of Canada. From his online presence, I doubt you could find anybody who more embodies the United Church of Canada than this experienced pastor.

Shawn is a graduate of Queen's Theological College - but I won't let that get between us (I'm an Emmanuel student). Shawn is a lifelong student, passionate about discovering the world of our imaginative Creator.

Shawn's perspective by what he calls "an older and curmudgeonly preacher" is also vital to the lifeblood of the Church. We often get ourselves into this dead end idea that white people = bad and everybody else = good. Or that young = good and old = bad. But that's absolute nonsense, and I think that's why these conversations ought to be happening more.

To put it simply, we each draw upon our experiences in this life - be they solitary or in community - and we respond.

When Shawn and I speak of inclusion and welcome in the Church we will be mostly making reference to the experiences that shaped us in the United Church of Canada and from the communities we grew up in, studied in, and lived in. We come from very different backgrounds - but we come from very similar backgrounds. And, perhaps, you might understand where we're coming from because our particular experiences are ones that you have known.

As Shawn said on his earlier post:

Let the games begin

Adam

P.S. you can find Shawn's material at: http://westmanpreacher.blogspot.com/

The Adam-Shawn Dialogue - first response

2009-08-07T19:50:00.002-04:00

Shawn:

Enclosed is my opening statement. This statement begins where I begin when I hear your concerns in our Church.

I have recently been reading Bill Easum’s Dancing with Dinosaurs: Ministry in a Hostile & Hurting World and Easum contends in that book that “the shape of the future is always on the fringe of normality during times of paradigm shifts” and so he begs the question about the current plane of reality that is our United Church by asking,

Who, then, do we turn to when looking for clues about ministry in the twenty-first century? We certainly cannot turn to those who insist on clinging to the status quo. We turn to the people on the fringe of normalcy.

He further mentions that these people who live on the fringes are mostly seen as mavericks, “but they point the way to the future.” These are the people who end up being crucified by the religious and political establishment. “They are the prophets of tomorrow, and we must listen to what they are saying even if they make us uncomfortable.” (Easum pg. 34-35)

Over the past three years I have served on the Moderator’s Advisory Committee for currently the Rt. Rev. Dr. David Giuliano. On the committee I have been known as the “wild card” for a number of reasons:

· I think differently than everybody else on the committee does

· I see Christian faith and discipleship through a different lens

· My personal background is non-white

Because of these things I have been called the “wild card” a name I have grown to adore. It’s a name that describes who I am called to be. The problem in our United Church of Canada is that I don’t think that the bureaucracy and many of the ministers actually see the “wild card” as a breath of fresh air and an opportunity for God to use these prophets to preach to the dry and scattered bones within the institution. But in some Christian congregations the voice in the wilderness that commands us to welcome and calls us to join God’s family (by doing God’s will) there is hope.

I recall the story of a preacher from the southern United States who had a church of several thousand members; it was a racially integrated church and a visitor comes up to the preacher and says, “I’m shocked; why is your church like this?” And the preacher responds saying, “Well, what do you mean? Like what?”

“Well, I didn’t expect to see a whole array of people – black folks, white folks, Native Americans, Hispanics – all in one congregation. How did you ever grow a congregation like this?”

“Well,” says the preacher, “Our last pastor left us and we couldn’t find anybody to preach for us so I volunteered to lead the congregation and the first piece of Scripture we faced was from Acts:

‘I truly understand that God shows no partiality, but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him.’ (Acts 10:34-35)

Immediately following that service the deacons met with me and said, ‘We never want to hear this type of preaching again. It is dangerous to our congregation.’”

“So what did you do?” asked the young man who was visiting.

“I fired all the deacons and I preached that congregation down to four members and just as we began to worry about closing shop the Holy Spirit showed up and membership exploded. Sometimes in order to serve the Gospel you have to kick out all of the people who don’t like Jesus so that the ones searching for him can find a place in the kingdom.”

William McKinney says it another way:

The old denominations have no hope of reaching out to the new populations of America [or Canada] – to people of colour, to those drawn to the TV preachers, to those who struggle to make ends meet – if they remain bound to the notion that it is either possible or desirable to restore our churches to their earlier position of dominance. It is only when we accept the fact that our own new off-centeredness that we will have a chance to partnership with peoples whose current experience is also not of the center but of the margins.

This is the crucible for the Church today; this is the severe trial of the Church today. Are we willing to be refined not into a Church of conformity, but rather into the Church of apocalyptic welcome.

One of the most surprising texts in the Gospel of Matthew is this one:

Whoever welcomes you welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me. Whoever welcomes a prophet in the name of a prophet will receive a prophet’s reward; and whoever welcomes a righteous person in the name of a righteous person will receive the reward of the righteous; and whoever gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones in the name of a disciple – truly I tell you, none of these will lose their reward. (Matt. 10:40-42)

Bart D. Ehrman, an atheist thinker, calls Jesus of Nazareth an apocalyptic prophet, and I think the biblical scholarship supports that – as opposed to the Jesus Seminar. Anyway, I like to think of this text as an Apocalyptic Welcome; I like to think of this passage as one that reveals that which God is calling out of us. But we need to get our words straight about apocalypse, which is a Greek word that means “to reveal” or “to disclose” or “to unveil.” The word welcome, on the other hand, is about the positive greeting on the arrival of a person – be they a friend or a stranger. The God that Christians worship in Jesus Christ discloses generosity through us – the Church – to those we love and to those we hate. The Apocalyptic Welcome is deeply rooted in the cross and our most ancient Christian hymn found in the book of Colossians:

[Christ] is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy. For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross. (Col. 1:15-20)

It is the purpose of Jesus Christ to reconcile all of the created world to himself – this means all people, all creaturely life, all single-celled organisms, all protein molecules, all hydrogen atoms, all inanimate objects, all dark matter, all galaxies, all black holes, and all quasars and pulsars in the universe. This hymn is saying that Jesus Christ is seeking to reach out and cradle all warring factions of humanity in his arms. This is Apocalyptic Welcome – the grand unveiling of God’s generosity to us in Jesus Christ. Part of Christ’s open-handedness to us is that he doesn’t give a damn whether we like each other or not; he will, however, have us together, and not killing each other.

The grand discovery for me over the past few months has been the emphatic assertion throughout the Gospels and the Epistles that God’s gonna get all that God has created and that includes the conflicting camps and warring factions who hate each other – even the Church!

That’s my more theological groundwork before we begin to get into more particularities.

Thanks,

Adam