Ch-ch-changes

In chapter 8 of  For The Love of Cities (see previous post) Peter Kageyama talks about the importance of co-creators in creating lovable cities.  For much of the chapter he discusses two cities (New Orleans and Detroit) that have been decimated in recent years, almost to the point that one could honestly wonder if a come back was possible.  {and in the case of NOLA it seems reasonable to ask if making a comeback in that particular location is a truly good idea anyway--history aside}.  NOLA was of course devastated by a single day.  But there are signs of people making a big difference in that city.  Detroit was the victim of "death by a thousand cuts" rather than one event.  But after the crash of 2008 and the bottom falling out of the auto industry ithe city's decline became most evident.  And there too people are making a difference.

Kageyama points out that in cities like NOLA and Detroit it is alomost easier for co-creators to make a real difference--simply because they are fish in a smaller pond.  But he also points out that there is a big difference.  People in NOLA know that a total rebuild is needed.  People in Detroit maybe not so much.  On page 184 he writes:

If you talk to people in New Orleans. there is a sense that they are on a mission.  And that perception is reflected in public awareness.  The small group of co-creators I have met in Detroit are also on a mission, but that mission has yet to be understood across the city.
Dan Gilmartin, Executive Director of the Michigan Municipal League said to me, "Many of our leaders are trying to recreate the economy we had here in the 1950's and 1960's.  They still believe that is possible.  And until we break from that thinking, we cannot move fully forward."  Gilmartin is representative of many up and coming leaders who are battling with decades of tradition and industrial era thinking.

While I already thought that there was much in this book that applied as much to the church as to cities, this sunk it for me.  HOw many of us who are leaders in the church have run into what I once heard someone call "Golden Era Syndrome", that belief that we can return to what once was [note that it is my belief that GES also involves a whole lot of false or selective memory which blinds us to the flaws of that time].  There is a belief that if we just do something, or some set of things we can recreate the church, or the economy, or the community that we had once.

Of course it is not that simple.  Things have changed.  Detroit will never be what it once was.  It may avoid becoming a Robo-Cop world.  It may rebuild itself.  But it won't be that anymore.

I lived for 9 years in a community that suffered from the same problem.  There was a recurring desire to bring in the next big project that would employ hundreds (at high paying jobs) and bring the town back to what it was when the mines were running {currently that community is banking on a proposed gold mine, although it has a lot of work to do if it hopes to fully benefit from that project as this editorial points out}.  There was little appetite to hear those voices that pointed out that such mega-projects were more and more unlikely, that the town needed to find something other than rocks or trees as an economic base.

Currently that discussion is happening, to a large extent, throughout the province of Ontario.  That province was Canada's manufacturing heartland.  ANd as such it was, for many years, one of the two major economic engines of the country (the other being the oil industry, mainly centered in Alberta).  Now, due to a combination of factors, this is no longer the truth.  And yet the politics of the province tend to revolve around which party is going to bring those days back (the answer is none given that provincial/state or federal governments have much much less control over the economy than people like to believe).  There is less of an interest in figuring out what the next economic engine for the province might be and more in restarting the engine that has stalled.  A government which pledges to (and actually does) invest in new, risky, endeavours is called out for taking too many risks and spending money foolishly (especially when those risks don't pay off within the election cycle) when what they "should" be doing is investing in old-style mills/plants/factories. {Of course if they don't invest in new ideas they are then lambasted for that too -- sometimes government is a no-win propostition.}  And to a degree I understand.  THe new economy doesn't bring jobs that pay at the same level or the same number of jobs.  ANd we have led ourselves to believe that we can only survive with what we know.  After all change is always a challenge.

In our churches, the same thing happens.  New-style programming is looked on, all too often, with askance.  And that assumes that there are people with the vision of a new-style program.  Many of us are not naturally co-creators.  Many of us are not naturally people who can envision a whole new way of being the church.  But we need to give those co-creators room.  In our churches, in our community groups, in our cities, in our provinces/states, in our nations we need to give room (and possibly $$$$) to theose people who see a new way forward.  We can't go back.  The table has turned.  Which way are we going now?

I Miss Boulevards

In the community where I grew up (and the community where I lived from 2001 to 2010) residential streets all had boulevards.  Your front yard would go down to a sidewalk and then between the sidewalk and the street would be a strip of grass with trees planted at intervals between the driveways.  This community does not have these.  And I miss them.

Boulevards are a blessing. In the winter they make snow shoveling easier (both by allowing one to pile snow on both sides of the sidewalk and by providing a buufer to keep people from driving on the sidewalk and packing the snow down before one can clear it).  They make street cleaning more effective because plowed snow can be piled on the boulevard without blocking foot traffic or needing to be hauled away.  Year round they make it safer for pedestrian traffic, particularly children, by keeping them farther awayfrom (and less like to stray onto) the street.

But more than that boulevards, in my opinion anyway, have a civilizing effect on a neighbourhood.  THere is a far different feeling to walk down a street with grass on both sides of you and trees shading the path than there is to walk down a street where cement and asphalt just run together.  In a mature neighbourhood, where the trees have grown tall (and in my experience boulevard trees are generally deciduous so you have the canopy effect rather than evergreens with branches reaching out all the way up the trunk) it almost gives a park sensation in a way.  A community which mandates boulevards is making a statement about green space, about priorities.

It is my belief that developers don't like boulevards.  They take up space, even that 4 ft width adds up over a few blocks.  ANd that means fewer lots can be fit into the same area.  Knowing how much prime farmland has been lost to urban sprawl I can have some sympathy for making best use of urban space.  Some residents grow resentful over boulevards.  They feel that it is unfair to be responsible for the maintenance of the grass on city property.

But on the whole I miss boulevards.  They make a city more livable somehow.

Family Day

Today was Family Day.  Alberta was the first province to have this February holiday, although many have followed the lead (Manitoba actually calls the day Louis Riel Day to honour their Father of Confederation but it still follows the logic of "we need a holiday weekend in February").  In Alberta the third Monday of February has been a "sort-of stat" [in that workplaces had the choice of taking this holiday or the civic holiday at the beginning of August so it was not automatically adding in another day off to the year--largely to appease the business lobby] since 1990.  For example, we had mail delivery today.

Mind you in Alberta all stores are allowed to remain open on a stat holiday, and most choose to do so.  Is that a Family Day activity?  OTOH, I hear about more organized Family Day activities now then I remember when I last lived in the province 13 years ago.  So maybe the idea of a holiday to get families together (unless one or more of them is required to work of course) is catching on.

LAst week I read this article.  It speaks to the mixed message of family day in an economy that so often pushes people into workaholism.  It also questions how family friendly Alberta really is--without even getting into the question of why the richest province in Canada has such an abominably high rate of child poverty.

So is Family Day all hype about the importance of family with little to back that up in the rest of the year?  After 22 years I am still not sure.  ALthough I do remember a degree of suspicion that Don Getty was using the holiday as something of a distraction from other issues when he first announced it.

But I did avoid working today.  And even when I went to the church to do a bit of stuff the girls went with me to "help".

The Spirituality of Money -- A Newspaper Column

Several years ago the Bare Naked Ladies mused about what they would do “If I had $1 000 000”. AS I sit down to write this column the Western Canada Lottery Corporation website is advertising possible jackpots of $25 million or $30 million. Their commercials invite you to dream what would be possible if you won the “big money”. Over the next few weeks both the Federal and Provincial budgets will be unveiled. But did you know that all this money talk is a spiritual issue?

In many ways there are few documents more spiritual than a budget. After all, a budget talks about what we think is important, and shows that importance with money and resources rather than just words. And so we have to ask ourselves what our financial decisions say. Do tax cuts show an attempt to favour the rich or an attempt to provide for the poor? Is increased spending a waste of money or an active provision of needed service and support? Do our personal finances focus on our own wants or what is best for the society as a whole? Do we, in fact, put our money where our mouths are?

Note that the answers to these questions are rarely straightforward. There is nothing wrong with watching out for our own needs and wants. There is nothing inherently wrong with being rich. Scripture suggests that wealth can get in the way of following God's Way but Scripture is at best ambivalent on whether it is a sin to be wealthy. At the same time, the Law, the Prophets and the Gospel are clear that being wealthy while your neighbours starve (especially if you become wealthy by taking basic necessities from your neighbours) is a moral problem. Money is morally neutral. It is the choices we make that have moral or ethical value. Scripture always calls us to use what we have for the betterment of God’s whole Creation.

So I took time to think about the question asked in the lottery advertising. (Of course in my case the question is purely rhetorical since you can’t win when you never buy lottery tickets.) What would be the thing to after winning the jackpot?

Some things are obvious. Provide for the girls now and in the future, create education savings for them. Replace both vehicles, pay down the mortgage, take care of some of those “if only” projects around the house and yard, help out our families. But that doesn’t take nearly the amount of money we are talking about here. So what else?

For me some of the “what else” would be to support ministry in various places and ways (inside and outside of the church). Give to worthy causes, nationally and internationally. Do those things that allow people of all sorts of backgrounds find the abundant life that is the hope of us all. Find ways to help pick each other up out of whatever hole we find ourselves in.

But I would also set aside money to support other parts of creation. I would take time to set up a fund for building ultra-high eco-efficient, LEED certified, houses and buildings. I see a fund for a wide range of public and private and public/private projects to improve our ecological quality of life.

And yes, I would happily pay taxes on my taxable income and investments, I would avoid the temptation to find ways to hide that income in tax shelters. Because that is part of how we support each other, part of how we build a better society.

That, in part, is what I would do. What would you do?

Oh and lets be honest. In all our minds part of the answer is given in the end of the song:

If I Had $1 000 000, If I Had $1 000 000

If I Had $1 000 000, If I Had $1 000 000

I'd be rich.

(http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/barenakedladies/ifihada1000000.html)

Troubling....

In today's local paper there was space for congregations to list special happenings over the Christmas season.  One congregation's list included the following:

Dec 30 7pm Passover Meal with communion
Dec 31 9pm to midnight Passover night.

PArdon me?  Passover?

It seems to me that adopting (to use a gentle verb for what I see happening) the name of THE key observance of another religious tradition for your New Year's commemoration (as I assume it really is) is a little bit less that respectful.

I have little problem with Christian congregations choosing to hold a Seder meal during the appropriate season (as long as it is done respectfully).  But a PAssover meal that includes communion is at best confusing to me.  And why would we mark PAssover at the totally wrong time of year anyway?

In the end it reeks of supercessionism.  And I find it troubling.

Be Not Afraid: A New World is Coming -- an Advent sermon

The Scripture readings for this week are:

• Isaiah 65:17-23
• Revelation 21:1-4 (Responsive Reading)
• Mark 13:24-37

Sung response (VU #23 Joy Shall Come Even to the Wilderness)

When I was on my internship I was scheduled to preach the last Sunday of each month. And so I preached the first Sunday of Advent. That week I phoned the lay reader to tell her the readings for Sunday. And she said “they better not be depressing”. What do you think she would have said after reading them?

Actually on that Sunday I did point out that we had the less depressing part of Mark 13 (feel free to check it out). But many people wonder at these readings for the First of Advent. Why do we begin the lead up to Christmas with passages about the end of the world? It isn't joyful is it?

Well no. But then have you watched the news recently?

The original hearers of Mark's Gospel lived in a time when the world was either being shattered or had already been shattered. Mark writes either during or right after the Roman-Jewish war which included that destruction of Jerusalem (one of many times in history that the streets of that city so many call Holy ran with the blood of the slaughtered) and the siege –and eventual mass suicide– at Masada. For residents of Judea/Palestine this was the end of the world. Earlier in this chapter Mark refers to the desolating sacrilege being set up in the Temple. It has happened. For Christians Mark is writing just after the persecutions of the Roman Emperor Nero who, it is said, had Christians burned alive as torches for his garden parties. There must have been many saying that the time was nigh, that the Messiah would come imminently.

And where are we today? Are we in a time of mass disruption and chaos? Are we living in a period of mass dislocation, social upheaval and injustice. Is it reasonable to say that the time is nigh? On one of the Just for Laughs specials Drew Carey talks about reading Revelation and going through it as a checklist: got it got it need it got it. Twice this year Harold Camping has announced that the end is nigh—with a date and a time even! And truly, can we say we don't understand why people would say that the end is nigh?

What world do we find this Advent and Christmas season? Well this week's news included OCCUPY protesters being evicted from their camps, protesters being shot in Egypt, the news that child poverty rates continue to go up in Alberta, and the news that a Attawapiskat, a Canadian community, has been living in an official state of emergency for 2 weeks because people are living in tents (and other very sub-standard housing) and neither the Federal nor the Provincial government have acted yet. The rest of the year has included continuing unrest and violence in Syria and a civil war in Libya and economic turmoil (if not outright collapse) in Greece and Italy. I'll be honest, I had to stop looking for examples to use here – there were way too many.

In a world where the richest few have more than the poorest half have (in the US it is the top 400 who have more cumulatively than the bottom 156 million), in a world where violence seems to be the default so much of the time, in a world where human rights are routinely trampled; can we truly sing and believe...
Sung Response

And so what do we do? How do we respond to a world that is not what it should or could be? Where is there hope this Advent?

Well what have other people done when they have realized that the world around them did not live up to their vision? Well the last chapters of Isaiah were written after the people had returned from exile. The exiles had returned with excitement. Now the Temple would be restored, now the nation would return to its former glory. But of course life is rarely that easy is it. The rebuilding of Jerusalem simply wasn't happening. What to do?

The passage we just heard is full of hope and promise isn't it? It speaks of God's reign coming in full force. It tells of the new heaven and new earth where all is made right. But that is not the whole story. A chapter earlier we read:

O that you would tear open the heavens and come down, so that the mountains would quake at your presence— as when fire kindles brushwood and the fire causes water to boil— to make your name known to your adversaries, so that the nations might tremble at your presence! When you did awesome deeds that we did not expect, you came down, the mountains quaked at your presence. From ages past no one has heard, no ear has perceived, no eye has seen any God besides you, who works for those who wait for him. You meet those who gladly do right, those who remember you in your ways. But you were angry, and we sinned; because you hid yourself we transgressed.
We have all become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous deeds are like a filthy cloth. We all fade like a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, take us away. There is no one who calls on your name, or attempts to take hold of you; for you have hidden your face from us, and have delivered us into the hand of our iniquity. Yet, O Lord, you are our Father; we are the clay, and you are our potter; we are all the work of your hand. Do not be exceedingly angry, O Lord, and do not remember iniquity forever. Now consider, we are all your people. (Isaiah 64:1-9)

This Advent do we really want the heavens torn open, is that what it will take to change the world ? And will that create the way to the place where we can sing and believe?
Sung Response

I have a question for you. What is our Advent Hope? What do we hope for this year as Christmas approaches?

In some ways it is the same as every other year. We hope that the world will be changed. Earlier I raised the question of why we start Advent every year with passages that talk about the Second Coming, or the End of Days, or the coming of the Reign of God. Every year clergy ask themselves how to deal with these most un-Christmassy passages. We start there because they are the hope we share in Advent. We share the hope that God will, somehow, probably in ways we don't really expect, break into the world again this year. We share the hope that God coming into our lives in a real and experiential way will move the world toward a better place. We hope that a new world is being born in our midst.

That new world is what our Isaiah passage today spoke about. That new world is how our Scripture story ends. This morning we read a piece from the final chapters of Revelation. Before we get to this vision we have seen a whole lot of death and destruction. But in the end, says John of Patmos, God will have the victory. God said through Isaiah “I am about to create new heavens and a new earth” but John had a vision of it coming to reality.

And what confidence do we have that this is really happening? It is great to have a vision, to have a promise, to have hope. But it is even better to see some sign that our hope is not in vain, that the promise is being kept, that the vision is coming into focus. Where are the signs that a new world is being born?

The movement that began in North Africa as the Arab Spring and then emerged in North America as the OCCUPY movement is one sign of hope for me. In Tunisia, in Cairo, in New York people saw a world that was destructive to human rights and dignity and chose to take a stand. They saw the promise of a different way of being in community together and refused to be moved until they were heard, until change was made. It is my belief that the OCCUPY movement may well be the first labour pains of a new world being born. Of course there is a long way (and a lot of work) to go between the first contraction and the actual birth. But the Arab Spring and the OCCUPY movement (which I believe has made more of an impact than it is given credit for) are signs of hope that the new world is coming.

IN one of my favourite Advent songs we find this line “the world is full of darkness, again there is no room/ the symbols of existence are stable cross and tomb”. It is easy to see the signs that the world is falling to pieces around us. It would be easy to lose hope that things can get better. It is tempting to call on God to shatter the heavens with her might and make the mountains tremble with his power. Is it possible that the world is only changed when God breaks in to it?

Well here is the Advent secret. God is breaking into the world. Again. God is coming to be among us. And that means that the Reign of God is coming closer to reality. The symbols of existence are stable – the birth of hope, cross – the world's attempt to crush the promise, and tomb – God's final word that vanquishes death itself. Christ has come, and Christ will come again. The darkness will be lifted, even if only one spark of light at a time. Deserts will burst into flower, enemies will learn to be friends, and all God's children will live in justice and peace. Deep in my heart, I do believe, God SHALL overcome some day. And so, as a people of hope, we truly can sing and believe...
Sung Response

We Are Not Alone...

Many years ago (Grade 10 or 11) in Youth Group we were talking about faith statements.  As a part of the discussion we were asked what we remembered from things such as the 10 Commandments, the Apostle's Creed and the UCCan New Creed.  From what I remember, it is good we were not being graded on what we remembered.

However, I know what I remebered most clearly.  It was that the line "We are not alone" was at the beginning and the end of the UCCan Creed.  I think that tells me something.

As a teen (and well into my twenties) I often felt alone.  PArt of it was a feeling of not really fitting in. Part of it was, in retrospect, a feeling of not being comfortable in my own skin.  But I often felt alone {remember that feeling alone/isolated often has nothing to do with how many people are around}.

Now at one point in my teens I thought this was a good thing.  In Grade 9 Language Arts we used Simon & Garfunkel's I am a Rock as one of our poetry pieces.  ANd I, who was going through the worst year of my school-bullying life, decided that it would make a good model for life--try to be the rock, the island.  It was safer.  I'd be happier.  But looking back I see that I was trying to convince myself.  And that I was not really successful.

And the point of all this?  Well we are drawn to faith because there is something in our faith that speaks to our deepest hopes or fears or anxieties or wounds (or all of the above).  25 years later I think that "we are not alone" stuck with me because it is what I deeply needed to hear.  And I think I still need to hear it.  For me, the reminder of the God who is always with us "in life, in death, in life beyond death" is not just pop theology.  It is a theological at-one-ment statement.

So maybe the key to faith is finding what we most need to hear at that point in our lives.  Ask what our deepest fear/anxiety/woundedness/empty space is and then ask how we find GOd responding.  It isn't as simple and esy as claiming that there is one answer that works for all people, one way we are made at one with God.  But to me it is more realistic and a whole lot less arrogant.

Or maybe I am chasing the wind....

COmmunal Grieving

We see them all over the place.  Crosses stuck in the ground by the roadside, flowers taped to a lightpost, piles of stuffed animals intermixed with votive candles.  Ways to mark places that people have been killed in traffic accidents.

And whenever I see them I have to ask myself what they say about how we as a society deal with grief.

They are, after all, a fairly new phenomenon.  How did we as a society deal with grief before?

SOme would suggest that the movement away from a strong faith presence in people's lives, a presence that gave us more tools to deal with death and dying, has left us less able to deal with these tragic events.  But I think that is, at best, only partly true.

I think that another, larger, part is that we as a society simply have, to a large part, our skills and knowledge at dealing with death in general.  In our societal attempt (often subconscious) to deny the reality of death we have robbed ourselves of the ability to talk about grief and death openly.  ANd so it comes out in these ways where once it would have been limited to rituals such as worship services or wakes and the memorial site tied to a cemetery plot.  BUt in a society that denies death, who wants to go to a cemetery?

Last weekend 4 young men in this community lost their lives in a traffic accident.  And now the community is trying to find the best way to honour their memory, name and express their grief, and try to find a way forward.  I am sure that the church has a role to play, somehow.  WE have the tools that help find meaning when life makes no sense (maybe not right away but over time). 

And in the end, the path to healing and meaning and light aren't found in a cross or flowers by the roadside.

But first we have to give ourselves permission to grieve publicly and heathily,.  Which of course means we have to get back to acknowledging openly and realistically the reality that death happens.  Death happens sometimes after a long life, and sometimes suddenly and too young.  Life is not fair, at least not all of the time.  When we can do these things we will be healthier for it.

Waste Reduction Letter to the Editor

So this is National Waste Reduction Week!

Great, but I have to ask if we are doing all we can to promote actual waste reduction. In particular I am wondering about these massive garbage cans we were all issued last year.

We spent over half of August in another community this summer. They also revised their garbage collection this past year. And they did it better. Residents their had a chance to choose how big a garbage can they wanted: the size we have, half that size, and a quarter of the full one. And if you chose a smaller can then you paid less for garbage collection.

And yet here we were all given a garbage can that many people find way bigger than they need. We have four children. In a normal week our can is less than half full. Even if our 1 year old was in disposable diapers instead of cloth we would not come close to filling that massive can. We would jump at the idea to have a smaller can, or to do the other thing I noted done elsewhere (arguably for cost savings as much as waste reduction)--garbage collection every second week.

I applaud this community for moving to curbside recycling. I celebrate that we can put yard waste at the curb for pick up (although it would make more sense to have bins for that instead of all those plastic bags) instead of mixing it in with the garbage. I just wonder if we, as a community, could do more to push waste reduction. Great big garbage cans don't encourage waste reduction, but smaller ones definitely would. Especially if we got to pay less if we produced less waste.

Gord Waldie

Newspaper piece -- What is the Church?

The dedication service of McQueen Presbyterian Church was held on October 8, 1911, with capacity attendance. Its name honored the Rev D.G. McQueen, who had played an important part in the creation of this mission. It was a proud moment for the Rev. And Mrs. Forbes – their first church in their new mission field... (And We Come After page 19)

McQueen Presbyterian would, in due time, become St. Paul's United Church. And our current building is on the same parcel of land as that original log church. 100 years of continual ministry on the same corner where Alexander Forbes originally drove a stake labelled “Presbyterian Church” in 1909!

On that corner have now stood a variety of buildings. First was the log building which now stands in the Museum. Then, 14 years after that first dedication, the congregation built a new building to house a growing community. In the early 1950's a Christian Education building was built. Then the current sanctuary was built in 1956. Finally the Christian Education building was demolished and the “new” wing was built in 1986-87. But none of these buildings have been the church.

That is right none of these buildings, nor any of the other buildings around Grande Prairie that bear the name “Church” are the church. They are merely structures where the church meets. So what is the church?

When I was first in Junior Choir we learned a song whose first verse went:

The church is not a building the church is not a steeple
the church is not a resting place the church is a people

That is where the church is. The church is in the people who gather in buildings large and small, sharing stories of faith, singing songs, and then going back out into the world. The church is not in what happens on Sunday morning it is in what happens 7 days a week. As St. Paul's celebrates its centennial this Thanksgiving weekend we remember how it has lived out being the church. We remember that as long as Alcoholics Anonymous has been in this area, there has been a connection with St. Paul's. We remember that folks from this congregation helped get the Community Dorm started, and the Native Friendship Center. We remember that folks from this congregation have served the community in many ways, sometimes under the name of the congregation but more often simply because they were moved to serve. And many other congregations in this community could tell similar stories. This is the church.

The church is present in the world to help God transform the world. We aren't called to be an insular members-only place. We are called to welcome all, to recognize the gifts that all have to offer. The church is called to have an impact on the world, on individuals and on communities.

After he had won the civil war and wrested the kingship of Israel from Saul, David promised God that he would build a grand temple in which God could live. God told him NO. God asked why God would need such a dwelling now when God had never needed it before. God continues to remind us that our buildings are not the church. They are tools that help us BE the church.

At this point in time, as the people with whom I try to be the church celebrate the centennial of our buildings, I have one question for all of us. How is God calling us to be in the world today? Who is God calling us to be today and in the years to come? Here is a hint, taken from the Gospel of Matthew:

Then the king will say to those at his right hand, ‘Come, you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.’ ...Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.’

At the time of this anniversary we have stories of thanksgiving to tell about how those who came before us have been the church in this place. What stories will those who come after us tell about the impact we made on the world?

The Word of God? A Newspaper Submission

Each week, Christians around the world hear passages from Scripture read. Often the reading closes with the statement “this is the word of God”. But what does that mean? 

Does ‘Word of God’ mean that every word, every story is to be seen as factual, as having happened just that way? Does it mean that we need to take the whole of Scripture as having been uttered by God? Or does ‘Word of God’ mean that in the very human words and stories we find some lasting truths that point towards God? For many people the first option is a source of comfort and forms the bedrock of their faith. At the same time many people, both in and out of the church, find the second possibility to be much more realistic.

It is my opinion that taking the Bible literally does injustice to the intent of the original writers. Modern Western culture is one of the few cultures that equates truth with fact. The cultures that wrote the books of the Bible were much more comfortable with metaphor and parable. They had an understanding that the truth told by the story was often more important than the actual events. When we, with our scientific mindset, try to literalize the story, it then becomes ridiculous and we lose the truth that is being told. For me the question of literalism is best summed up by retired Episcopal Bishop John Spong who said: “I take the Bible far too seriously to ever take it literally.”

Mind you this raises another question about the ‘Word of God’. How do we determine what parts are more important or have more weight? If we say that God literally spoke every word, then all the words are equally important. Unfortunately, many of those words contradict each other. But if we see the Bible as a collection of books where humans are trying to explain how God is active in their lives then we can see that sometimes the biases and prejudices of the writer have slanted the vision of God. In the past, taking those biases literally have led the church to condone and encourage slavery, racism, sexism, homophobia, and many other forms of oppression.

The alternative is to remember that humans wrote the Scripture. Therefore it does not perfectly express the will of God. One principle often helpful is to work out the core messages that run through all of Scripture and judge individual passages by that. One of those core messages is shown by the Rabbi [named differently, if at all, in different versions of the story, generally linked to one of the great Talmudic scholars such as Rabbi Akiba] who was asked to explain the Law and the prophets while standing on one foot. His answer? “Love God, love your neighbor - everything else is commentary.”

The Bible is part of the foundation of Christian faith. As those who were forming the United Church of Canada said a century ago:

We receive the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments, given by inspiration of God, as containing the only infallible rule of faith and life, a faithful record of God's gracious revelations, and as the sure witness of Christ. (The Basis of Union of the United Church of Canada)

and as the same denomination said a few years ago:

Scripture is our song for the journey, the living word

passed on from generation to generation

to guide and inspire,

that we might wrestle a holy revelation for our time and place

from the human experiences

and cultural assumptions of another era....

The Spirit breathes revelatory power into scripture,

bestowing upon it a unique and normative place

in the life of the community. (A Song of Faith, United Church of Canada, 2006)

Scripture is vital to our faith. Engaging and interpreting Scripture is not optional. This means we all have to deal with it. Engaging Scripture challenges us to work out what God is saying to us through these ancient words. We are challenged to see beyond what we want it to say to what it really does say. When we can all do that and live the life that God wants us to live then we can truly say that the Reign of God is being made real. May God help us in our quest. Amen.

This Is A Good Idea

I finally got down to looking at this month's Observer.  And so I read this story:

Classroom discussions and activities like these form the backbone of a course called Ethics and Religious Culture. It is mandatory at all grade levels in all of Quebec’s schools — public and private alike — making Quebec the only province in Canada that requires all students to study religion. The ERC program has powerful opponents but just as many advocates. As Quebec tries it on for size, other provinces will be able to see whether it turns out to be a failed experiment or a possible model for the rest of the country.

This is the sort of course I have long thought needed to  be a mandatory part of our education system.  I am glad to see it is at least being tried somewhere.

Now to have some province include a mandatory, fully-funded trip by land from coast to coast, with stops in all provinces, as a part of their curriculum....

A STudy Idea

LAst week whilst channel surfing I came across (on PBS) a 25th Anniversary Concert of Les Miserables.  It was over half over but as I watched it I was struck by a thought.

Watching the video and discussing the themes we find (which include justice and forgiveness and changing the world) would make an excellent study group opportunity.  And so I ordered the DVD.  Maybe May?  I am thinking three sessions to do the whole show.

ANd today I found this link that has the whole libretto so we could have the words in front of us too!

An Old Column

The last keynote of the ConEd event I attended this week was The Bible, Eros, and Sexuality.  It reminded me of a sermon I gave in Lent a few years back (2004 or 2005) and this column that I wrote after preaching it:

Let’s Talk About SEX…

I hold the church partly responsible for the pornography industry. Now that I have your attention, let’s talk about sex a little bit.

For centuries people in the church have talked about sex as something that is sinful, or dirty, or a necessary evil (after all without sex there wouldn’t be new church members). To my eyes it appears that they have tried to de-sexualize humanity. I find many problems with this type of theology but the biggest problem I see is that it opened a door for a de-humanized sexuality. This is where the church holds some responsibility for the pornography industry.

To be as clear as possible, sex is not evil or sinful in and of itself. Certainly sexuality can be lived out in ways that break down relationships or is not life-affirming (and is therefore sinful) but that is true for any part of human activity. The first commandment God gives to humanity is “Be fruitful and multiply”. This is right after God looks at Creation and says, “it is good”. Therefore sex is also good.

There is an alternative. As people of faith we can teach our children a healthy view of sexuality. We can teach them to be appropriately modest but not ashamed of the fact that they are sexual beings. Sex education is a difficult topic. It is sometimes hard for children and parents to talk about sex openly. But we have to. Schools are really good at teaching the nuts and bolts of sex. Schools are less well equipped to teach about the values and decision-making side of sex.

A faith-based discussion about sex goes far beyond the “just say no” rhetoric we often hear connected to the church. Not that there is anything wrong with raising up abstinence as a value but if all we say is “don’t do it” we are often speaking into a vacuum. A faith-based sex discussion means talking about our self-image and how sexuality is a gift from God. It means talking seriously about relationships and commitment. It means talking from an early age about values and making choices. It means acknowledging the reality of sexual feelings and impulses. It means taking seriously the fact that we are created as sexual beings but that when we mis-use the gift of sexuality we can damage our relationships with ourselves and our friends and family. Such a discussion starts early in life and grows in complexity as our children develop.

We are sexual beings, that is a gift from God. We are called to live out our sexuality in ways that build strong relationships, in ways that affirm life. This means that we deal with sex differently at different times in our lives. It means that we have to think seriously about the ramifications of becoming sexually involved with someone. It means that sex is far more serious than a fun night in the sack. May God help us as we struggle to understand what it means to be sexual beings.

Remembering....

This Place is on my mind today.  It is the day of their annual Radiothon fundraiser.

I worked at the Kottage from November 1996 (started just before the Christmas PArty) until August 1999.  It was a gift.  It was a blessing.  ANd yes at times it was heartbreaking. ANd I still carry them in my heart (although most of the staff has undoubtedly changed by now and all the families I met there have children who have aged out of the program).

Why did folks call us? You name it: no food, housing issues, parental or sibling illness, death in the family, parental stress... And they were people who often had, or felt they had, no other place to turn. In my childhood we had close friends (in our case through the church) who could watch my sister and I on short notice if needed. In other people's stories this is what neighbours did.

But what if you are new to town and don't know anybody? What if you have no family close (or no family you trust/ are speaking too)? What if you live in an area that doesn't lead you to trust your neighbour's? Who do you call?

ANd here is a video (not the one I wanted, I wanted the whole song this one ends with) about their ministry.

So here is the question for you, fellow questers.  How do we, as people who believe in children and their parents, provide support when life falls apart?  How do we support the people who have nobody?

A Christmas Challenge

Fellow Residents of Grande Prairie:

In just over a month Christmas will be here. And so we are in the midst of the annual advertising blitz encouraging us to buy buy buy. On our TV screens, through our radio speakers, in pop-up windows on-line, and in the mountain of flyers within the folds of this paper each day we get told of the great deals just waiting for us to make our choice and put our money (or likely our plastic) down.

There is, of course, nothing really wrong with wanting to buy gifts for family and friends. But the Christmas commercialism blitz has gone over the edge. In the US the Friday after Thanksgiving is called Black Friday. Originally this was in reference to the fact that the holiday season is what puts many retailers in the black for the year. But for some of us it has a darker meaning.

What does it mean to buy so much stuff that we really do not need? Is it good stewardship of the world's resources to amass more stuff when so many people both near and far struggle to have life's basic necessities? Is that really the best way to celebrate the season?

Several years ago we determined that it wasn't. And so I am sharing with you a challenge I made to myself. For the last 4 years I have committed to donating at least half as much (often closer to 100%) as we spend on Christmas gifts for our daughters to charity. I challenge all of you to make the same commitment. Imagine the benefit to our favourite charities if every family in Grande Prairie gave a Christmas gift this way each year!

On Bullying and Shame

I didn't wear purple on Wednesday (primarily because the only purple garment I own is short-sleeved and the weather on Wednesday precluded such a wardrobe choice) but I understood the sentiment behind Spirit Day.

Bullying is a blight upon many of our lives.  Many of us live daily with the scars of it.  Some do better than others, some have healed, some still have raw open wounds in their souls.

I was a bullied child and teen.  My Junior High years were horrid.  And I bore those wounds (now healed-ish scars) well into my adult years.  The voices that told me I wasn't worth much at all kept me from growing until a counselor finally helped me put them to rest.

This morning I preached on the balance between pride and shame (I describe the balance point as realistic, honest humility).  Bullying is about lack of that balance.  The bullied victim is pushed to a place of shame.  And shame cripples, shame weighs us down, shame gutters the light of God that is within us.  In point of fact, shame can kill.  That is what Spirit Day was all about.  It was about standing shoulder to shoulder to those who have been told to be ashamed of themselves, in particular because of their orientation on this occasion.

But what do we do about bullying?  I really don't know.  The reality is that I was a good victim (and got to be a better one as the bullying continued and I became more pressed down and less sure of myself).  My counselor, as he pushed me to stop taking responsibility for what happened kept asking "where were the adults?".  This ties in well to the belief of school systems that they can enforce a bully-free environment in the school.  They can't.  All my bullying was school and schoolyard based and really there is only so much that can be done.  Most bullies aren't idiots after all, they know how not to get caught through a combination of timing and threats.

What we do is that we as children of God ensure that the people in our lives all know that they too are children of God.  We ensure that they know this makes them special and worthwhile and that they have no reason to be ashamed of being who they are.  In the end this is more important than the necessary disciplinary actions we take towards bullies.  We break the cycle of victimhood.  That is the only way to fight the bully.

And sometimes it means we hold a different mirror up.  When I took CPE my supervisor had been minister in my childhood church when I was 11.  Often during that unit she would say "this is not the person I knew, this is not who you are".  No I didn't believe her at the time.  But it was what needed to be said.  When we see people bearing the wounds of bullying we all have to say those things.  We all have to remind people who they really are.

May God help us to do so.
Amen

PS> as a lead in for this sermon I read You Are Special for children's time, and re-read the climax of it during the sermon.  The prize line is that "the stickers only stick if you let them".  As a bullied child I never would have believed or understood the wisdom in that sentence.  But now I do.

Being Reshaped (sermon precis/notes)

Well how does the clay feel about being reshaped?  What is the response of the nation to hearing Jeremiah calling them to be smashed down and reformed?  And since we are the clay how do we respond?

These passages tell us that God has shaped and is reshaping us.  DO we really believe that?  One of the myths of North American life is that if the self-made man.  THere is this image of the person who is his or her own creation.  To say the least this is misguided, in fact it goes directly against Scripture, as these passages point out.  The life of faith requires us to remember that we are creations of the Creator -- which is both a scary and a revitalizing thought.

This reading from Jeremiah can be terrifying.  It describes a God who, when the nation (or the church?) is not being shaped as God hopes, smashes them down.  But at the same time it tells of a God who doesn't give up, who keeps trying to reshape and reform us.  We'll come back to that.

--Priestly vs. Deuteronomic theology of the land
--potter image
           --reusing clay, even when dried can be soaked and made pliable, sometimes the reworked clay makes the best pot, clay can be reworked multiple times
          --no such thing as a "perfect pot", no two pieces of real pottery are the same, all have small "imperfections"
          --pottery is a messy business
          --potter as "co-creator" with the clay
           --sometimes the reworked clay can look nothing like the first try
--reshaping the nation
          --needs some soaking, softening for preparation
          --also a messy business
          --are we willing to allow it?
          --Potter adn clay as co-Creators

God is at work reforming and reshaping us for a new age.  That is a sign of hope.  It may be painful.  It may be hard to allow.  So how are we being reshaped?  Will we recognize the reshaped clay?  ANd really, how does the clay feel about it???

Hospitality

This week I have found myself pondering what hospitality, real hospitality, Jesus-style hospitality, might be. For some of my thoughts from early this week you can check here.

I have come to think that while Hospitality has become a (perhaps the) watch-word in church circles these days.  If we just get the hospitality piece down pat then people will feel happy and comfortable and come more often.  If we are friendly and welcoming and say the right things then we will be seen as worth coming back to.  And that may be true.  But if we stop there we are missing the point of Jesus-style hospitality.  We are missing what Jesus and God are calling us to practise.

You see, Jesus in this Luke passage reminds us that hospitality is about "the others".  It is about how well we welcome the least and the outcast.  And this, unfortunately, is where the church tends to fall down.

LAst summer there was a motion at General Council that if it had passed as written, would have required all UCCan congregations to be accessible regardless of physical ability or gender or orientation or marital status or race or....

NOw that is a call to radical, JEsus-style hospitality.  So now the question is, how do I issue the challenge?  |In a downtown church where there are often signs of homeless in the area how do we welcome them?  In a denomination that 22 years ago decided that sexual orientation was irrelevant in terms of being called to ministry how are we doing?  In a world where church congregations are notoriously homogenous in terms of ethinc origin and socio-economic class how do we claim to be truly welcoming?  In a time when churches talk constantly about ministering to families do we appear welcoming to those whose family is scattered or different?

HOw can we practise this radical Jesus-style hospitality?  There are 2 stories I will likely include on Sunday.  One is of a person who is clearly "different" coming in to sit on the carpet at the front of the sanctuary and the elderly elder who joins him there.  The other is of a rabbi teaching the class how to know day has come--when you can look into the face of a stranger and see a friend.  It is just the question of how challenging to be one month into a new pastoral relationship that is haunting me.

PS> in my reflections yesterday it struck me that my entire working life has been spent in one form or another of the hospitality industry.  I have worked in restaurants and a golf course clubhouse--things that are traditionally considered part of the hospitality industry.  But I have also worked and volunteered at church camps---moving a bit out of the traditional definitions but still fairly obviously about welcoming, and moving closer to the radical hospitality taught by Jesus.  Then for the last decade in Ordained ministry--a bit further fromt he traditional "restaurant and motel" definition but most certainly hospitality.  ANd the other one is 3 years at a crisis nursery.  Would we have described ourselves as a hospitality industry?  nope.  But without a doubt the whole nature of a crisis nursery is JEsus-style hospitality put into practice.  It was a ministry setting that was all about hospitality.  ANd so that is another thing that will make it into the sermon on Sunday (a little piece of self-disclosure to continue introducing myself to the congregation).

Communication

In preparation for moving I have been working on getting utilities lined up (thinking it would be nice to have heat, power, water, phone, internet and TV).  And what has struck me each time is how remarkably difficult it is to find contact info on the relevant websites.

In the easiest case it was still a matter of at least 5 links to get the contact info I thought would be right.  (although to give them credit the water and the gas/power folks got back to me promptly and once I made contact it was very straightforward.)

What is most remarkable is that the telecommmunication folks are impossible to get to.  The cable website gives little detailed information about packages or pricing.  ANd the first time I used their web-contact form asking about information that wasn't on the website the response directed me to the website which would answer the question (I asked about stand alone TV and the response directed me to look at bundle pricing)

THe phone company (which may also be internet and TV, depending what answers I finally get) was spectacularly bad.  The website kept giving me a phone number that was only accessible in-province (I guess they have no new customers moving in from out-of-province???) and it took 30 minutes of exploring the website and using the chat function to get a number I could call since the website was not giving me the information I needed -- and even then I had to ask teh chat tech at least twice for a number that was going to work out-of-province.  THen tonight I called that number.  AFter 5 minutes of voice mail round-abouting I got to a live person.  A live person who started by asking if I knew the current phone number at that address (just after I said I was buying a house and moving to town) and then procedded to tell me, not what was available but what was currently hooked up there.

In the end the phone company contact needed to do more research to answer one of my queries nas the info at his terminal was indeterminate, whihc is fine.  But it shouldnt have taken so much effort to get to that point.  Isn't a better service model to make it easy for prospective customers to find out how to get hold of you?  All the more so if you are a communication company??

But then I started to wonder.  Are we in the church that much better?  How do we make communication difficult?  Where do we make information about who we are hard to find?  What assumptions do we make about who might want to learn about us?  Do we do a great job of communicating all the time?

What rants are written about our churches style of communicating?