Watch sermon video here:

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Hespeler June 29, 2025 © Scott McAndless – Third Sunday after Pentecost
1 Kings 19:15-21, Psalm 16, Galatians 5:1, 13-25, Luke 9:51-62

Of all the time management tools that I have ever tried, the one that I can never quite get a handle on is the to-do list. The time management gurus will tell you that this is the great tool, the tool that will set you free. You just create a list of all the things that you have to get done, breaking them up into the smallest steps, and you put one of those infernal check boxes to the side of each one.

It’s motivational, they say. Every time you finish one small task you get to check off the box and you feel this little endorphin boost and it makes you feel like you have the energy you need to tackle the next one.

Don’t Work for Me

It doesn’t really work for me. When I make the list, I am much more likely to feel overwhelmed than motivated. It reminds me more of what I haven’t done than it makes me think of what I could do. And making and maintaining the list itself just feels to me as if I am adding another task to the ones that I already have too many of.

But that is just me. Maybe they do work better for you; in fact, I hope that they do. But as one of the to-do list challenged people of this world, I am just glad to know, in our reading from 1 Kings this morning, that I am not alone.

Elijah’s Crisis

Last week we read the story of how the Prophet Elijah went through a major crisis. In a moment of great emergency and danger he performed one of the most amazing feats of running away in the history of running away. He ran away from Queen Jezebel who had threatened his life and he ran all the way from Samaria to Mount Horeb. That is an incredible distance of over 600 km. It would normally take someone walking at a reasonable pace about 18 days.

He was running because he didn’t know how to respond to the crisis. He went to Mount Horeb, that place where God had appeared to Moses, because he clearly wanted God to tell him what to do. And, in our reading this morning, God actually does that. God appears to Elijah in the midst of the sound of sheer silence and gives him a to-do list.

Short List

The list is mercifully short. There are only three check boxes. He is to anoint Hazael as king over Aram, anoint Jehu as king over Israel and anoint Elisha as prophet in his own place. And that really seems like a wonderful thing that God does for Elijah, doesn’t it? Wouldn’t you love to receive a clear and concise list like that directly from God? Wouldn’t you love to know with absolute clarity what you needed to do in order to obey God?

But here is the thing that has always puzzled me about this story. Of those three simple tasks, the Bible tells us that Elijah only ticked off one to-do box. We read the story this morning of how he called Elisha to be his disciple. He didn’t literally anoint him with oil, but he definitely called him. So the final item is checked off the list.

The Other Two Items

But what about the other two? Well, that is quite the story. You see in both of those cases, the person to be anointed was someone serving a ruling king as a subordinate. They were not the heirs. They hadn’t been chosen to succeed the previous king. In both cases they killed the ruling monarch. So, what God is telling Elijah to do is engineer a coup by telling these men that they can become kings of their countries.

God is telling Elijah to meddle in the politics of two nations – his own and its biggest neighbour. What’s more, he is being told to do it in the most disruptive and destructive way imaginable. This will lead to endless death and violence, as God admits by summing up, “Whoever escapes from the sword of Hazael, Jehu shall kill, and whoever escapes from the sword of Jehu, Elisha shall kill.”

Engineering Coups

Can you imagine such a thing today? Can you imagine one country deciding to bomb another in order to bring about regime change? Even worse, can you imagine a Canadian Christian clergy person going to Federal Cabinet Minister Chrystia Freeland and telling her that, if she were to mount a violent coup to take out Prime Minister Carney, that God would be with her and she would succeed? Can you imagine that preacher then going to US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and telling him to do the same thing to Trump?

Of course not! That would be madness! That would be seen as an unacceptable intrusion of religion into politics. And it is a disturbing reflection of the deeply troubling times that we are living in that I actually wouldn’t be surprised if we did see something like that happen (at least in the U.S) before the end of this year?

Disturbing Idea

But that is the disturbing idea that is raised in this story – this idea of people of faith intervening in the world of politics and not even to try to make things better. God is not asking Elijah to advocate for laws and politicians that he supports – that would be one thing and not necessarily a bad thing if done appropriately.

No, this is about people of faith intervening in order to stir things up and cause violence and chaos. This is about disrupting the entire system in the hope that maybe, once the dust settles, there might be a chance of building a better system from the ground up.

Modern Like-Minded People

And yet, even as I say that, I realize that there are at least some Christians in our world today who are rooting for exactly that. They are hoping that the latest troubles in the Middle East or Iran or on the streets of Los Angeles blow up into World War III so that the world comes to an end and Jesus can return. And, once again, it is a symptom of the times that we are living in that that seems somewhat possible these days.

In any case, that is what is at stake in the to-do list that God gives to Elijah. And if Elijah were to have followed through on two of those bullet points, I think I would be troubled by that. I would wonder how we are supposed to apply that to our modern Christian lives and particularly what it would say about how we are to live as people of faith in such troubling political times.

He Didn’t Do It

But, as I say, Elijah didn’t do it. We know that he didn’t do it because we are told, later on in the Second Book of Kings, that other people engineered those coups, and they did so after Elijah was gone. Jehu was anointed by an unnamed prophet sent by Elisha in the ninth chapter of 2 Kings. (9:1-13) And Elisha himself provoked Hazael to rebel against his master in the eighth chapter. (2 Kings 8:7-15)

And you may say, “Big deal. So what if Elijah didn’t do the anointing himself and it didn’t happen for a while. It still happened, which means that God is still in control. Who cares if there is a little glitch in the text and that Elijah doesn’t complete his to-do list?”

A Message for Us

Well, I care. As I have said many times, I don’t believe in glitches in the text. Sure, sometimes there may be contradictions and plot holes and historical errors, but I have accepted that this is a book inspired by God, which means that I have to struggle with all of those things and try to find the message in those things for us.

And I think there is a message for us in Elijah’s to-do list failure, and it is a message that is particularly helpful for these tumultuous times in which we find ourselves.

For one thing, anyway, I’ve got to admit that I really appreciate Elijah’s hesitancy to wade into such disruptive political acts. There is a long history of the Christian faith that has demonstrated again and again that some very terrible things can result when that line between politics and religion is breached.

Many of the worst abuses of power, the massacres and the atrocities that nations have carried out in their history have occurred when political leaders took their cue from religious leaders. I think we should definitely hesitate to open the door to such possibilities again. And yet, there is always the question of how to balance that hesitancy against the demands of living faithfully.

Declaration of Faith Concerning Church and Nation

It was 76 years ago that the Presbyterian Church in Canada wrestled with this problem. At that time, the church produced a document called the Declaration of Faith Concerning Church and Nation. (Click to download)

This was produced at a time when our denomination still had a fair bit of political influence in this country. At that very moment, we were enthusiastically participating in the government program of Residential Schools for indigenous children – something that the church saw as greatly benefiting itself at the expense, as we have since been made abundantly aware, of the welfare of the indigenous nations and people.

Wise Counsel

And yet, this document wisely counselled that the church must approach such things with care. “Christians must always do their utmost to honour the civil laws, and to fulfil all statutory obligations whether financial or personal, as unto Christ the Head. Nevertheless, no citizen is thereby relieved of his constant responsibility to work for the remedy of any unjust statute, or iniquitous assessment, or violation of conscience.”

That statement is still considered to be so important that, when ministers and elders are ordained, we accept this document as one of our standards. And I do not think we should forget it because it can be so hard to sort out that tension between supporting the state and advocating for what is right and just within the state.

And so, yes, let us continue to hesitate to jump on in, let us always be ready to give sober and careful thought as this document shows us. I have actually printed a few copies of the document. It isn’t long and you should read it if you haven’t.

Disruption

So, I do appreciate Elijah’s hesitance. Of course, none of that ultimately stops the kind of disruption that God seems to be calling for from occurring. The men did eventually get anointed with all of the negative and violent consequences that came with that. I see a message in that as well.

The reality of this world seems to be that these kinds of disruptions do occur. We may do everything that we can to make sure that we set up good and just systems. But no political system is perfect.

Cracks will begin to form sooner or later, especially when there are big disparities in wealth and power in a society. Those who have a lot tend to create rules that will get them even more while those who have not increasingly feel that they can no longer succeed without breaking the rules.

Tumultuous Times

One way or another, whatever order is created in this world will break down sooner or later. And I don’t necessarily want to be the one making predictions here, but it does seem that we are moving into such a time. And I think that God giving these disruptive to-dos to Elijah, even if Elijah himself does not follow through on them, is a way of saying that we cannot completely avoid this kind of turmoil in life.

Yes, let’s do whatever we can to find other ways to bring about positive change. But also take comfort from knowing that, even in the major disruptions that sometimes erupt in this world, God can be at work.

In the end, Elijah is put in a difficult spot when he encounters God at Mount Horeb. God seems to be saying that they are coming to a moment when the only way of acting is in this disruptive political way. I am glad that Elijah hesitates to do that. I hesitate too.

But let us also take some wisdom from the to-do that Elijah actually follows through on. He calls Elisha as his disciple. He chooses, in other words, to enter into partnership and community. He finds someone who he can support and who can support him. That creation of solidarity is always the right thing to do. And if we can build our coalitions of those who are committed to God’s justice in this often-unjust world, we will be well placed, no matter what difficult times may come.

Watch sermon video here:

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Hespeler, June 22, 2025 © Scott McAndless – Second Sunday after Pentecost
1 Kings 19:1-15, Psalm 42, Galatians 3:23-29, Luke 8:26-39

How would you react in an emergency situation? Would you know what to do when the alarms went off? For some strange reason, one that I can’t quite put my finger on, that was a question that was very much on my mind as I prepared for this morning’s service. It is an important question. Emergencies are situations that naturally provoke confusion, panic and fear. When those sorts of emotions are in play, it can be very easy to react in the wrong way.

And that can be a big problem because emergencies, by definition, happen when you don’t expect them. Why, one could even break out amid a Sunday morning worship service. And that is, of course, why we sometimes carry out drills so that people can work out how they will react before the emergency occurs. But the reality is that we may never know how we will react until we find ourselves in the actual situation.

Elijah’s Emergency

The prophet Elijah had been feeling pretty good about his accomplishments lately. He had engineered a confrontation with the prophets of the god Baal, and he had beaten them at their own game. He had pressed his advantage and led the people as they attacked and slaughtered the priests of the foreign god.

But his good mood was suddenly destroyed when a messenger arrived from Queen Jezebel, who was a patron of the god. It was short and to the point. “So may the gods do to me and more also, if I do not make your life like the life of one of them by this time tomorrow.”

As you can imagine, that set off immediate alarm bells in Elijah’s head. Honestly, he shouldn’t have been surprised. He had been the first to resort to violence. It shouldn’t have been unexpected that violence might be turned back against him. But there is a great difference between thinking that there might be some consequence and having that consequence suddenly spelled out for you in such stark terms. This was not a drill!

Elijah Chooses Flight

And how did Elijah react? Not particularly well. He was filled with confusion, fear and panic. These emotions immediately triggered that part of his brain that makes us react to danger with either fight or flight. And which option did Elijah take? “Then he was afraid; he got up and fled for his life and came to Beer-sheba, which belongs to Judah; he left his servant there.” And let’s recognize that reaction for what it is. Not only did Elijah run away, he fled the country. Beer-sheba is about as far as you can go from the Kingdom of Israel without leaving civilization altogether. And, of course, he was not yet finished running.

Now, let’s be clear here. Flight is absolutely an appropriate response to a dangerous situation. It is often the best thing to do. When the building is on fire, yes, you should get out. But how you do that is also important. Unhelpful reactions like panic and disorderliness can make the whole situation worse. The worst outcomes often take place because people do not flee the scene in an orderly and calm manner.

So, let us not judge Elijah for running away. But let’s take a critical look at how he ran because we might well learn something that will help us to deal with the crises and emergencies that we encounter in our lives.

Isolation

Here is the first thing I notice about how he responded that is often problematic for us as well. “But he himself went a day’s journey into the wilderness and came and sat down under a solitary broom tree.” Here we see Elijah isolating himself, and how many times have you seen people respond like that when things go wrong?

For many people, their automatic response when anything happens that makes them feel vulnerable is to cut themselves off from anyone who might give them support or help. They are afraid, perhaps, that other people might see them struggling, that they might appear to be something other than self-sufficient. The very idea that they might need help from somebody else seems even more intolerable than anything else in the situation.

Depression

I understand where the temptation comes from, of course, but it only makes a bad situation worse. We human beings were made to live together in community. We were made to need each other. And you only make things worse when you isolate yourself because things have gone wrong.

Not surprisingly, therefore, when Elijah isolated himself, things immediately began to spiral for him. He fell into a deep depression. “He asked that he might die, ‘It is enough; now, O Lord, take away my life, for I am no better than my ancestors.’”

And, yes, depression is always a danger when we go through difficult times. But I think that there is also a lesson for us in how he handles his situational depression. Sometimes we may be tempted to bottle up all of those negative feelings inside – to hide them from others, from God or even from ourselves. We think that not expressing it all is a way of being strong and faithful. But that is a big mistake.

Learning to Lament

Holding it in can make it rot and fester, and that is what makes those feelings toxic. That is what can turn situational depression into endless cycles of inescapable depression. And so, take note of how Elijah let his feelings out. He didn’t hesitate to express them to God.

And I know some who struggle with that. They think that expressing their gripes to God means that they have lost all faith.

If you ever think that, remember the example of Elijah. Remember the example of the psalmist who wrote that incredible psalm of lament that we read together this morning. Do not be afraid to express your negative emotions to God. God will always appreciate your honesty. What’s more, God’s feelings are far from fragile enough that you could hurt them with a genuine display of your emotions.

Where is God?

Now, we finally come to the biggest question of all that people face when things go wrong in this world. Where is God in the middle of the disaster? I constantly talk with people who ask why God allowed this disaster to happen or that disaster to take place. They seem to think that, if they can only find some divine meaning or purpose in it, everything will be all right.

But, as Elijah’s story of emergency preparedness continues, I think we might get a different perspective on that obsession. He continued his journey of escape and finally came to a mountain called Horeb. This is a very significant location, of course, because it is the very place where Moses met with God and received the Law. It is also known, in some of the accounts, as Mount Sinai.

So, the prophet had come to the ideal place to answer the question of where God is in the midst of all the terrible events and disasters of life. But let us see how God answered his question. God told Elijah that he was about to pass by him, that he was to stand out on this mountain of God, and he would finally understand.

Three Disasters

And what happened next is crazy. While Elijah stood there, three of the worst disasters that you can imagine passed by. First, he was assailed by a gale-force wind – the kind of wind that destroys whole cities in tornadoes and hurricanes. Next, there was an earthquake, which can be even more destructive. Finally, there was a fire, an emergency so devastating that we actually run drills to prepare for one, all while we fervently hope that we never have to actually deal with one.

So we have the three most stereotypical disasters that you could imagine. Surely we will now get the answer to the question, where is God when disaster strikes? Except that’s not quite the answer that we get, is it? Was God in the wind? No. Was God in the earthquake? No. Was God in the Fire? No! In each case, we are told that God was not.

Now, there are some things that we shouldn’t read into that. That does not mean that God is absent when we are going through trials. For one thing, we believe in an omnipresent God – that there is no place in this world where God is not. It also doesn’t mean that God is not there with us when we go through difficult times. On the contrary, people of faith often find that it is at such times that God actually joins us in our suffering, comforting and sustaining us when things are at their worst.

No Answers

No, what I think this story is saying is that we may not always find an answer to that perplexing question of why from God in the midst of the wind, the earthquake or the fire. In fact, we may never get that answer that we often crave. That doesn’t mean there is no answer or that God doesn’t have a plan; it just means that such an answer may not be given to us.

And I think that God is telling Elijah and us that that is okay. Not knowing the answer is okay. The wind, the earthquake and the fire may not give you any sort of answer when you are in the midst of them. After all, disasters often overwhelm us so completely that all we can do is react. There may not even be time to think, much less come to a deeper understanding of why bad things happen.

You may not find God amidst the disaster. That doesn’t mean God isn’t there, and the story of Elijah shows us how we can become aware of that presence.

In the Silence

Where, then, did Elijah encounter God if not in the wind, earthquake or fire? “And after the fire [there came] a sound of sheer silence. When Elijah heard it, he wrapped his face in his mantle and went out and stood at the entrance of the cave.” And it quickly becomes clear that it is in that silence that God met with Elijah.

And there is certainly a message for you in that – a lesson on how to navigate the disasters of life: you will find God in the silence. And that doesn’t just mean that, after the storm has passed, you will be able to look back on it and discover what lessons you were meant to learn from it or what new strength you have gained by surviving it, though that certainly does happen sometimes.

But silence, you see, isn’t just something that sometimes happens to you. It is a practice that you can cultivate in yourself and that you can bring with you into any circumstance – even into the wind, earthquake and fire. By cultivating silence, through practices like prayer, meditation and contemplation, you can make it possible for the voice of God – which is always present, which is always seeking to lift you up and walk with you through the wind, earthquake and fire – to break through to you and you will know he is there.

Learning From All of This

As a result of our little drill here today, I do hope you will leave with a better understanding of what you ought to do should an emergency ever arise in a setting such as this. That is some pretty good, useful information to take away with you.

But perhaps the story of Elijah and how he came to terms with his “not-a-drill” situation can do even more to set your heart at ease. This story teaches us how our ongoing relationship with God equips us with resilience to face the ups and downs and challenges that do unexpectedly come into our lives from time to time.

And may you also resolve – each one of you – to build silence into your lives. It is something that everyone can do. Learn about mediation techniques, which are indeed ancient Christian practices. Make a point of finding times to turn off the noise in your life and your brain, which never stops. You might be surprised to discover just how near God has been all along.

Watch Sermon Video Here:

https://youtu.be/I5FcdNdoM3U

Hespeler, June 15, 2025 © Scott McAndless – Trinity Sunday
Proverbs 8:1-4, 22-31, Psalm 8, Romans 5:1-5, John 16:12-15

Jesus had a very particular way of talking about God. His favourite way to refer to God was to call God Father. He was hardly the first person to speak of God that way, but there was something special about the way he used the word. It was central to his teaching about God. Why else would he so specifically teach his disciples to pray saying, “Our Father,” you know, the one who “art in heaven”?

The word should not be taken literally. Like all language about God, it is a metaphor. Everybody understood that Jesus wasn’t literally saying that God was the biological father of every human being. Nor was he saying anything about God’s gender or genitalia. He was saying that the experience of God can be like the experience you might have with a human father.

Humanity of Jesus

Christian doctrine teaches many things about Jesus. One of the things that it teaches is that he was fully divine. It also teaches that he was fully human and leaves us to sort out the mystery of how both of those things could be true.

Father is an utterly human metaphor. Most every human being who has lived has had an experience of father. And yes, in some cases those may have been bad experiences or simply the experience of the absence of a father, but it is one common experience that we all share. The word means something to all of us.

Deeply Personal

But it is a deeply personal meaning. When I use the word father, it is associated all kinds of memories, emotions and experiences that I had of my own father. When you say it, it may be based on a whole different set of experiences. Since no human father is perfect, those experiences tend to be a mix of both positive and negative.

When I call God Father, I know that I have an image of God that has been affected by my experience of my father. And I do have an overall positive view of God, which I know has a lot to do with the fact that I had a good dad. In many ways, that experience has influenced my view of God more than any theological concepts or scriptural interpretations I may believe in.

Jesus Had a Father

And that made me think. If the metaphor of Father was so central to Jesus’ view of God, what were the very human experiences that gave meaning to that human metaphor for him? Jesus had a father. And I know that the nativity stories insist that Joseph wasn’t his biological father, but that doesn’t matter. Anyone who has had a beloved stepfather or someone else who has stepped into that key role in their life knows very well that biology is not always what makes someone a father.

And so, how could Jesus, fully human as he was, not give a thought to Joseph and what Joseph had done for him every time he spoke of God as Father? More than theology, Jesus’ thoughts about his heavenly Father had to be deeply connected to his human experience of Joseph.

And so, I was thinking. What was it about Joseph and his relationship to his extraordinary son that contributed to Jesus’ understanding of his God? What attributes of Joseph did Jesus associate with his God? And what was he trying to communicate to his followers with that word?

The Little We Know

We are told very little about Jesus’ relationship with Joseph. In fact, Joseph is nowhere present in the gospels apart from the nativity stories. He is not even named in the Gospel of Mark.

Here is what we do know. We are told that Joseph was a carpenter, that he lived in Nazareth of Galilee, and that he had a heritage down in Bethlehem in Judea.

And we should probably not think of that word carpenter like we might think of a professional craftsperson. If Joseph was a refugee from Judea living in a tiny place like Nazareth, he wouldn’t have had a carpenter’s shop. Chances are that he was working as a day labourer on construction sites and he probably had to travel to get that work. So, we really don’t know much. But I think there is a story there.

First Memories

Jesus' very first memory of his father was him leaving. Joseph would go far away for work. He would often leave at first light on Sunday mornings and Jesus’ mother would get him up and dressed so that he could say goodbye. He would always hold his father so tight, almost as if he was hoping that if he could hold him tight enough, he wouldn’t have to go.

And when he was old enough, Jesus remembered putting his feelings into words and asking Joseph why he had to go. And Joseph got right down on his knees in front of his son and spoke to him as an equal.

“Your Abba has important work to do,” he said.

“You mean,” Jesus wanted to know, “you have to build important palaces and walls for the king in the big city?”

“Well, not really,” Joseph smiled. “I mean, sure, I do get some work on some of the king’s worksites, but his plans for his big, beautiful city are not what are important to me. I go because it is the only way that I know how to earn enough money to make sure that you and your mother and your little brothers and sisters have what you need to live. You are my important work.”

A Greatly Anticipated Return

Joseph would go, often for four or five days at a time, and Jesus would wait impatiently for his return. As the days went by, he would stare more frequently towards the distant city, hoping to see Joseph trudging towards home.

When he would spy him coming, he would immediately drop whatever he was doing and run towards him shrieking with delight. He would never forget the smell of his weary father coming home – a mixture of sweat and sawdust and several layers of dirt and grime on his skin. It was the most beautiful smell in all the world.

And, though Joseph always came home exhausted, he would still take the time to sit with Jesus and tell him stories of everything that had happened while he was gone. Jesus would listen in rapt attention. From his childhood, he always loved stories.

Jesus Joins in the Work

As Jesus grew, the day came when he was finally old enough to join his father in the work. He was still young – no hair had yet sprouted on his chin – but he knew that anything he could do to contribute to the household would make a big difference for the growing family.

He had heard his father’s stories so many times that nothing that happened on his first trip to the city really surprised him. But it was still quite different to experience it himself. They arrived early in the morning and went to the marketplace to sit and wait for someone to come and hire workers for the day.

They would come in dressed in their good robes – architects and master builders, masons and quartermasters – and they would call out how many people they were looking for to work on their sites for that day. The men would line up to be inspected with a critical eye.

At first, as you can imagine, they hesitated to hire Jesus. Too young, too small. Joseph had to insist at first that he would not go to any worksite without his son. And that usually persuaded them, for everyone knew that Joseph was a good worker.

Jesus spent many days working alongside his father. They were always golden days when he remembered them, even though the work was exhausting and the hours long. His father taught him everything from the use of simple tools to the most efficient ways of shifting heavy boulders and piles of wood.

When Work was Scarce

That was how their life went for years. Always on the move, going wherever the work was to be found. Sometimes, for several days at a time, there was no work to be had. Those were hard times and Jesus, a young and growing boy, might have grumbled at being hungry, but his father encouraged him, “Ask, and it will be given to you;” son, “search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you.” (Matthew 7:7)

And he meant it literally. They would pray and ask God for what they needed. They would also not hesitate to ask for hospitality or to knock on a door they were passing. Jesus was constantly amazed how kind and generous people could be, even when they did not have much themselves.

And, of course, Joseph also demonstrated an equal willingness to share. Whenever he had anything to spare, he would give to anyone who asked of him and do it joyfully. Of all the lessons that Jesus learned from his father, that was the one that drove deepest into his soul.

The Dynamic Changes

As time went by, the dynamic changed between the two of them. Jesus grew bigger and stronger and was more likely to be picked first when people were hiring. Meanwhile, Joseph grew slower. He was not old, at least not by our standards, but he had been wounded so many times in the work by falling stones and bad hammer blows that he bore many scars. The knuckles on his fingers had swollen and were slow to move and often caused him much pain.

But he was still a valued worker. His years of experience outweighed the limitations to his strength. The master masons who supervised the work never would have admitted it, but they often deferred to him when it came to judging whether a foundation was well laid or a structure stable enough. And so, Jesus continued to learn from his father about the importance of solid foundations and building well.

Work Shifts to Tiberias

As the years went by, King Herod Antipas stopped his building projects in Sepphoris to build a new city called Tiberias on the shores of the Sea of Galilee. That meant that the labourers who lived in Nazareth, much closer to Sepphoris, had to travel further and be away longer than ever.

Joseph and his son didn’t have any choice – to Tiberias they went. Once they stayed there for ten straight days, pausing only from their work on the Sabbath. Towards the end, everyone had been working so hard for so many days, that they were all getting reckless and cutting corners.

The Disaster

Joseph noticed the flaw in the wall before anyone else did. And when Jesus heard his warning, he knew well enough not to hesitate. He dropped his tools and stepped back immediately, calling on the others around him to do likewise.

One young man was new to the work. He did not recognize the urgency or the wisdom in the old man’s voice. He continued with the task he had been given, fearful, perhaps, that he might not be paid for the day if he didn’t finish it.

It had been many years since Jesus had seen his father move so fast. He grasped the straggler and, with a strength that he had almost forgotten he once had, he bodily flung the young man out of the danger zone.

Unfortunately, having accomplished such a thing, Joseph had no reserves of strength or speed left to get himself to safety.

A Father’s Final Words

When they finally dug him out of the debris, Joseph was still breathing, but everyone understood that it would not be for long. As his son took his hand, Joseph used his final breaths to set Jesus on a course that would change history. He made him promise that he would not spend the rest of his life travelling from job to job, only to earn enough to get by.

“There is something special about you,” he gasped between ragged breaths. “I have always known it. You have been sent to announce a different kind of kingdom than the one that Herod is trying to build up. You must turn your heart fully to that work now.”

The Beginning

Jesus returned his father’s body to Nazareth. There he mourned him together with his mother and his brothers. But once the time of mourning was over, he headed out to the far side of the Jordan where he had heard a man named John was baptizing people.

But he never forgot his father. When, sometime later, he heard of a tower that collapsed in Siloam, killing eighteen (Luke 13:4-5), he remembered holding his dying father in his arms as if it had only just happened. Surely when he taught his followers that you should never blame the victims of such disasters for what happened to them – that they were no more worthy of destruction than anyone else – a few tears must have formed in his eyes.

A Loaded Term

When Jesus taught us to pray and say “Father,” he knew he was using a loaded term – that it came with all of the baggage that came with the role and expectations that were put upon a father in early first century Galilee. But surely it also carried a lot of personal baggage and many happy memories of a man who had played a role in making Jesus the man he became, at least in human terms.

I am very thankful for the positive view of God that I gained from my dealings with my father. I am sure that Jesus, whose essential humanity is central to Christian doctrine, would have said the same.

I know that word “father” is an emotionally loaded term for each one of us. I would encourage all of you to consider all of the ways in which all of that emotional baggage – good, bad or indifferent – has influenced your idea of God. But do not forget, our human experience of human fathers can never define or limit who God is.

https://youtu.be/L9gpAZ3RGdM

Achsah & Othniel: Springs for the Negeb

Hespeler, June 8, 2025 © Scott McAndless – Day of Pentecost
Joshua 15:13-19, Acts 2:1-21, Psalm 104:24-34, 35b, John 14:8-17, 25-27

Two weeks ago, we began our discussions about our new identity, and you were introduced to two people that I call Ancient Israel’s first power couple, Achsah and Othniel. I told you that we needed to know about them because we are like them.

We are like them in our amalgamation, I said, because we too have come together in a somewhat rushed arranged marriage. But we are also like them in that God used them as a power couple to lead the people of God into a new era in a strange new land. That is absolutely what God is calling us to do right now.

Not So Obscure

And admit it, some of you wondered why I came up with these two biblical characters. Out of all the amazing characters in the Bible that everyone has heard of before, and people actually even know how to pronounce their names, why did I have to talk about this obscure couple?

But guess what, they are really not as obscure as you think. Two weeks ago, we read two passages about these people from the Book of Judges. This morning, we read an entirely different passage of scripture from a different book. And yet right there, once again, we were told the story of this same power couple.

And do you think that it is just a coincidence or an editing error that this story is told twice in two different biblical books? No, I don’t think so. I don’t believe in coincidences when I’m reading the scriptures. There is a message in this repetition, and it is a message for us and it is for us where we are today.

There is something else that God is calling to our attention. It is the secret of the success that this couple enjoyed in leading the people of Israel, and it is a secret that we need to reveal as we embrace the next phase in our life together.

A Problematic Conquest

But there is something you need to understand first though. In the Book of Joshua, the Bible tells the story of the emergence of the tribes in the land of Israel in a particular way. It is told as a conquest – something that I know people may find to be rather troubling. In fact, the invading tribes who are led by Joshua often engage in what would absolutely be called genocide today, wiping out entire tribes and peoples at once.

That is troubling – and it should be troubling! And it is doubly troubling when you realize that the story of Joshua’s conquest has also used to justify modern atrocities such as apartheid in South Africa, the treatment of indigenous people in Canada and all over the world, and the ongoing targeting of children, civilians and health infrastructure in Gaza. Again and again, people acting in the name of God have said, if Joshua did it, why can’t we do it too?

Hebrew Origins

But here is the simple historical truth. The conquest, as told in the Book of Joshua, didn’t happen. The archaeological evidence is quite clear. The Israelites did not enter the land of Israel as a large group of outside invaders.

As far as we can tell, the Hebrew tribes had their origins in the hill country of what later came to be known as Israel. It was there that they learned to cooperate together and developed a common identity built around worshiping their common God. But they were not culturally very different from the Canaanite people who surrounded them.

Now there are some reasons, and very good reasons based on their experience with God, for why they came to see themselves as a former slave people who had escaped from Egypt. This was actually a very important part of their identity, and the stories pointed to the truth of that. But the stories of genocidal conquest were much more about understanding how they felt their God was calling them to live in relationship to the land than it was about what actually happened.

Recognized in Scripture

And it seems that they knew, as is often recognized in the scriptures, that they were not in the land as outside conquerors. There is regular acknowledgement that the tribes of Israel were living alongside “the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites,” and were intermarried with them and even joined them in worship. (See Judges 3:5-6)

And the story of Achsah and Othniel, told as it is in both the Book of Joshua (which is about a conquest), and in the Book of Judges (which is an alternate history of the people living alongside their Canaanite neighbours), offers us a unique way to look at the meaning of these alternate views of history.

Moving Out from the Hill Country

Achsah and Othniel start out living in the tribe of Judah up in the hills of Judah and they then move out beyond that traditional territory. They represent the tribe spreading out their influence from the lands where they have been established for generations.

They move out to this place called Kiriath-sepher. Settling there is, in fact, what brings them together. And Kiriath-sepher is in a region called the Negeb. And the Negeb is, kind of famously, a very harsh desert.

If this power couple extended the tribe of Judah’s territory into such a forbidding place, they likely did not do so as violent conquerors. They came as partners working together with the people already settled there. They offered them the protection of being associated with the tribe of Judah and its mutual defence pact with the other Israelite tribes.

Living in the Hill Country

Now, I realize that ancient politics and military alliances don’t mean a lot to us today, so let me put this in terms that we can relate to. The Presbyterian Church in this area, has been established for a very long time. We celebrated our 150^th anniversary as a national church just last week!

But it has become pretty clear in recent times that the church has become more isolated from the mainstream of society. We are like the tribes of Israel, isolated up in the hill country while the society around us has changed and diversified and grown.

And so God (who I guess is Caleb in this metaphor) is coming along and saying to the church, “Who will go out from the hill country where you have been comfortable and familiar? Who will take this message of good news and go out into the Negeb, where it is dry, and resources are scarce, and people are not feeling so secure?”

A Partnership for the Negeb

What’s more, God is saying specifically to us folk who were part of St. Andrew’s and Knox that, if we take on the challenge of living out the kingdom of God in the Negeb, God will give us a partner – a spouse if you wish – to go with us, so that together we will be stronger and more able to meet the needs of the people of the Negeb.

And the wonderful thing is that we have already responded to this challenge from God. I hope you recognize that, when we signed up for this amalgamation – this marriage – together, we accepted God’s challenge to go to the Negeb, to go outside of what is comfortable and familiar, to actually show the love of Christ to people who have lost contact with the churches in the hill country and who are struggling.

So that has all already been taken care of. The marriage of Achsah and Othniel has already taken place. So, you may well be asking why we have not yet left their story behind. Well, it is because these two people do something very important before they head off to take up their mission in the Negeb. They have a very important conversation.

Achsah’s Ask

“When [Achsah] came to [Othniel], she urged him to ask her father for a field.” What is she saying here? This is about resources. She is saying to her new husband that, if they are going to meet this challenge, they are going to need to know that they have what they need to make a success of it.

And the field she is thinking of is a very particular resource that is particularly fitting for where they are going. In fact, having spoken to her husband, Achsah doesn’t wait. She doesn’t hold endless congregational meetings and strategy sessions; she goes straight to the source, her father.

“As she dismounted from her donkey, Caleb said to her, ‘What do you wish?’” What a perfect picture of our God, who can’t even wait for us to get off our donkey, who is so eager to provide us with what we need to thrive that he can’t even wait for us to come inside and sit down to tea!

Springs in the Desert

And Achsah knows exactly what she is going to ask for. “She said to him, ‘Give me a present; since you have set me in the land of the Negeb, give me springs of water as well.’” And so, we discover what sort of field she has in mind.

And, of course, what better resource to have access to if you want to take care of the needs of people in the desert than a steady and reliable supply of water. Caleb clearly approves of her request and immediately gives her not one field but two fields – both the upper springs and the lower springs.

How has God Gifted Us?

Today we turn in our discussions to something that is absolutely key to the new identity that God is giving us as an amalgamated congregation – the question of how God has gifted us with what we need to minister in the Negeb. We take it for granted that God has called us together, that God is requiring us to step out of the familiar hill country and into the unfamiliar desert territory around us.

But if we are going to understand exactly what it is that God is calling us to do in the Negeb, we need to understand how God has uniquely gifted us for that ministry. God has provided, and will always provide for us, streams of living water. But God loves to use our unique gifts and talents in highly personalized ways.

So today, we are dismounting from our donkey and asking God, “If you have sent us to be the church in this challenging place and time, what particular springs of water have you given us and how can we employ them to bring life to a dry and desolate land?”

Abundant Springs

I do not mean to prejudice our discussions afterwards, so I won’t tell you what I think our particular springs of water are. I’ll just say that I know that they are abundant – that God has given us both the upper and the lower springs and a few others on the side. What’s more, I’m going to encourage us to think of those springs in the most open way possible.

For example, we have two key assets as a congregation. Those assets are real estate. We have a field in Hespeler and we have another field in Preston. I’m not sure which one is the upper spring and which one is the lower spring, but it hardly matters. And of course, we live in a world where real estate is seen as a very important asset. In the heart of two of the villages of Cambridge, these are valuable fields, right?

Now, I know that we could just put a dollar figure on those two pieces of property and say that we are finished calculating the value of our assets. But that is not what we’re supposed to do. We are called to see them as springs of water, sources of blessing upon all those who live in this Negeb. That is the challenge we are dealing with.

Assets in Many Forms

And we are not just talking about assets that are valued in the larger economic world. We have assets that are human skills and talents and abilities. We have assets in terms of our reputation in the community. And we have assets in terms of our connection and our partnership with other groups in the community, like the food bank.

These are all springs of water that our Father has given to us and is calling us to use them to minister and to serve in this dry, desert land where we find ourselves. That is the challenge. I am excited to be able to explore all of these possibilities with you.

Watch Sermon Video Here:

https://youtu.be/7NIE0SOcL6U

Hespeler, June 1, 2025 © Scott McAndless – Seventh Sunday of Easter
Acts 16:16-34, Psalm 97, Revelation 22:12-14, 16-17, 20-21, John 17:20-26

She had always been a very odd child. She never behaved like the other children. She didn’t play with them, often preferring to sit, staring at insignificant things for hours. She was almost two years old before she spoke a word.

And yet, she was not lacking in intelligence. In many ways, she was too smart for her own good. She often saw things about people that they didn’t quite realize about themselves. And when she spoke, people didn’t quite know how to handle it. She wouldn’t look people in the eye and spoke as if they weren’t quite there. It made everyone feel so uncomfortable. Her parents didn’t know what to do with her. They doubted that they would ever be able to marry her off. And what was a daughter for if not that?

Neurodivergent

They didn’t have the words to describe someone who was neurodivergent – whose mind didn’t work quite like everyone else’s. In fact, the only way that they had to describe someone like her was to say that she had a demon or a spirit in her.

It was a relief to her parents when the slave masters came around and offered to take her off their hands. Her mother and father agreed to sell her and told themselves that there was nothing else that they could have done.

Her new masters knew exactly what to do with her though. Though she was strange, she had abilities they knew could be valuable. It was just a matter of packaging those abilities in the right way.

A Python Spirit

And so, they put out the word that she indeed had a spirit. It was, they said, a Python spirit – the spirit of the Pythia. That was a key marketing term. The Pythia was the name of the famous oracle at Delphi. Traditionally a young girl like this one, the Pythia would breathe in the noxious fumes that seeped up from a chasm in the ground below the sanctuary at Delphi. She would then make strange and enigmatic statements about the future.

It didn’t really matter if her words predicted the actual future. She just had to say something that sounded perceptive enough. The reputation of the Pythia was enough for people to take it from there and turn the enigmatic words into a certain prediction of the future.

The Trick

For example, when King Croesus of Lydia enquired of the Pythia at Delphi, asking whether he ought to attack the Persians, the oracle answered back that, if he did, he would certainly destroy a great empire. And so, Croesus confidently attacked, assured that there would be victory. As predicted, the ensuing war did destroy an empire. It just happened to be Croesus’ own empire.

You see, that was the trick of the Pythia; she had a way of couching her predictions so that it seemed that she had predicted the future no matter what happened. And that is why the slave masters told everyone that this girl had the same spirit. With her ability to observe all kinds of details that no one else noticed, she picked up the trick very quickly and soon people everywhere were clamoring for her predictions.

Ergasia

Her owners were ecstatic. They could soon charge anything they wanted for her services. Nobody remembered what she had been called before she was sold, but her masters gave her a new name. They called her “Ergasia,” the word for profit and gain because they loved the profits she brought them.

But if Ergasia brought great gain to her owners, her life anything but comfortable. The work that she did was taxing. The large crowds she often drew frightened her, and working closely with people created a deep and uncontrollable anxiety within her. But, of course, she had no control over any of those circumstances. She was a slave, and she had to do whatever her owners desired. They had no care for her well-being.

Paul and Silas

When Ergasia first spotted Paul and Silas in the marketplace of Philippi, she could immediately see that there was something different about them. Everyone that she had ever known in her entire short life had been the same. Everyone had only ever been interested in anybody else in terms of what they could get out of them. Her masters were only interested in the profits she produced, and her clients were only interested in the promises for the future she could offer them. And she had never been given any reason to think that anyone was any different.

But, as she watched Paul and Silas talk with people, she could see none of that attitude in them. They freely offered to people whatever they needed most: hope, encouragement and even the promise of new life. She kept watching them, kept expecting to discover what their game was and what they were trying to get out of people. But all she saw was how they offered nothing but good news to people in the name of this man they called Jesus.

How She Reacted

And you might think that she would have seen this in a positive way, but she didn’t. It troubled her deeply because, as far as she was concerned, that was not how the world was supposed to work. The world was divided into two sorts of people, those who were exploited and those who exploited them. These two men did not fit into her worldview. They seemed to see people as having value apart from what could be extracted from them. That was deeply disturbing to her.

The situation became unbearable. She had to make it make sense. And so she pointed to them and cried out, “These men are slaves of the Most High God, who proclaim to you the way of salvation.” Like with all of her special prophecies, she knew that she was speaking a truth, that she had observed something true in these men, even if she herself didn’t understand it.

And, like often happened with her, once she had become fixated on something, she just couldn’t let go of it. She began to follow them around everywhere they went and calling out her prophecy for anyone to hear.

Paul’s Reluctance

In his recent travels, Paul’s companions had been admonishing him. He had just been too disruptive in too many places, and it had become exhausting. That was why, when they crossed over into Europe, he had turned over a new leaf. He had promised his companions that he would be good and that he would stop provoking opposition.

And he had been doing so well ever since they had arrived in Philippi. He had kept things very low-key. He had found a group of women who worshipped in a place down by the river and had quietly started making disciples among them. Everyone had been relieved to see him staying under the radar.

That is why, when Ergasia started to cause disruptions wherever they went, Paul tried to ignore it. He understood that she was a slave and that anything he did that made her question that status would be seen as a real provocation. To threaten any master’s hold over a piece of property was to attack the very foundation of society. He knew that it was wiser for him not to respond to her.

Paul Snaps

But before long it began to really bother him. Here she was, a child of God, and one who had been given a certain insight into God’s truth, and yet no one had ever stood up for her. No one had ever seen her as anything other than something to use for their own profit. Eventually he could not bear it anymore and he realized that he had to do something, even though it might be costly to him and his companions. And so Paul finally snapped one day. He turned and he said, “I order you in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her.”

He was speaking, of course, to the Python spirit that he and everyone else understood was the source of both her torment and her abilities. I realize that we would understand it differently. We would see, perhaps, someone who was strange – whose mind worked differently – who had been exploited because of it for the profit of others. But they, of course, didn’t have that kind of language to help them understand it. They could only speak in terms of spiritual forces. And so, Paul had to address the problem in those same terms.

But by speaking to her in those terms, he did get a message across to her. He had just told her, in the name of Jesus, that she was more than just a condition that someone could profit from. He had told her that she herself had value. That is a powerful message for anyone who has never heard it before.

What This Did for Ergasia

It did not change her status as a slave. But it did affect her abilities. The way she had looked at people and their stories, she had only been able to do that because of how she could look at them in a totally disconnected way. But now, she had seen the possibility of connection. And she continued to connect with Paul and Silas and some of the others in ways that made her feel as if she had some value apart from the profit she generated for her masters.

 And so, while her masters had not lost their property, they had lost the ability to continue to exploit their property by using her. They may have owned her body, but they no longer owned Ergasia, her extraordinary spirit that generated extraordinary profits. Many of those who earn great profits in our world without actually doing any of the labour themselves do so by taking everything from those whom they exploit. They no longer had access to everything, and that enraged them.

“These men, these Jews,” they shouted out to all who would listen, “are disturbing our city and are advocating customs that are not lawful for us, being Romans, to adopt or observe.” And what were the customs that they were overturning? The custom of counting profits as more important than people.

Slavery and the Early Church

Paul’s interaction with the slave girl in Philippi is fascinating. He doesn’t do for her what we, as modern people, might like him to do. He does not denounce the institution of slavery and set her free from her masters.

Of course, the reality is that he had no way of doing any such thing. If he had attempted to challenge the most central institution of that society, he would have changed nothing for her, and he would have immediately ended up in a much worse position than the local jail.

Slavery, at that moment in history, was absolutely foundational to the entire society. That is why we do not see the earliest church challenging its existence. No one could conceive of a society functioning without it.

Challenging Dehumanization

But, though they did not challenge the institution, they seem to have been willing to challenge the essential dehumanization that went with it. In one of his letters, Paul cited an early creed of the church that said, “As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is no longer Jew or Greek; there is no longer slave or free; there is no longer male and female, for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.” (Galatians 3:27-28)

This was a radical statement. The earliest church recognized that the divisions between Jew and Greek, slave and free, male and female existed in the world around them and that that was not going to change. But they also embraced the truth that the new identity that was given in Christ did allow people to overcome the limits put upon them by such categories. And that meant that slaves were not defined by the profits they produced for their masters.

A Different World

We live in a different world. But we do still live in a world where various divisions matter – racial and ethnic differences, gender, rich and poor. And just because we no longer accept institutional slavery doesn’t mean that we don’t tend to reduce the value of someone to the profits that they can produce. In fact, we do it all the time.

Paul disrupted the way in which people profited from someone’s spirit. By doing so, he disturbed the city, threatening the very foundations of the way that it worked. We still live in a world where there are people willing to break the spirit of some to feed their own profits. I only hope that we could be as bold as Paul in setting people free from any hold that such ways of doing things places upon people.

Watch sermon video here:

https://youtu.be/e7WJNaRxIZo

Hespeler, May 25, 2025 © Scott McAndless – Sixth Sunday of Easter
Judges 1:12-15, 3:5-11, Psalm 67, John 14:23-29, John 5:1-9

In the opening chapter of the Book of Judges, the children of Israel are facing an enormous crisis. Joshua, who has been giving leadership to the whole nation during their entrance into the Promised Land is dead.

But the problem is not just that they have lost one visionary leader. Joshua had also been the last link to the glorious story of how they came to be there. As the former lieutenant of Moses, he had been there for it all – the confrontations with Pharaoh, the plagues, the Battle of the Sea of Reeds.

The Vision of Joshua

He had been present – and right up there on the mountain at a distance – when the Law had been given in moment of clarity and revelation. Things had since become somewhat muddled as they attempted to live out that vision in a practical world surrounded by strangers and enemies, but, having been there, Joshua had been able to keep that original vision alive.

But now, with Joshua gone, it was truly the end of an era. Lacking that consistent central leadership, it felt as if the whole project might fall apart completely. Rather than looking out for what was good for the entire nation, the people would simply dissolve into tribalism, with each clan or tribe only looking out for what was good for themselves.

A Difficult Transition

It was, to put it in terms that we can relate to, a difficult time of transition. And I think that, in many ways, it is similar to the transition that the church has been dealing with in our own times.

Surely you recognize many of the feelings that the Israelites were having. Once we knew how to make churches work in our world. Success for the church was mostly a matter of ringing a bell at the appropriate time and people – who really didn’t have anything else to do during those hours – would just show up. We knew what programs would attract people and we could count on a large volunteer base to do all of the work that was needed.

But today the church finds itself a strange new land where the old approaches don’t work like they once did. And we haven’t quite figured out what the new approaches should be.

Our Loss of Joshua

What’s more, many congregations are struggling with the loss of a “Joshua.” Clergy, who have long been the keepers of the tradition and who know how things ought to be done, have been getting scarce. Like what happened in Knox Preston, churches have had to figure out how to thrive without that consistent clergy presence.

And I was thinking that, if we are facing some of the same challenges, maybe we can learn something from how they navigated the situation. In particular, how did they find the leadership and vision to enter into the next phase in their life?

Caleb’s Plan

“Then Caleb said, ‘Whoever attacks Kiriath-sepher and takes it, I will give him my daughter Achsah as wife.’ And Othniel son of Kenaz, Caleb’s younger brother, took it, and he gave him his daughter Achsah as wife.” That is apparently what they did.

And I know that that doesn’t really sound like much of a visioning or leadership development process, but apparently it turned out to be quite successful. That is why we kept reading into the third chapter of Judges this morning.

Othniel’s Leadership

In the third chapter we discover that Othniel was not just a one-hit wonder who attacked a place to win a bride. He went on to unify and lead the tribes that were falling apart for a period of forty years. He was the guy who laid the foundation for any success that they experienced in the next entire phase of their existence. That is success in leadership development by any measure.

And it all began, apparently, with Caleb offering up his daughter in marriage as a prize to whomever would lead a successful raid against a place called Kiriath-sepher. And I realize that that might seem like an odd way to start something that is going to lead you into a new future but stay with me for a minute here.

Presbytery’s Plan

What if you understand it this way. Caleb, one of the last leftovers of the old authority system, is like the Presbytery in our system. And imagine that the Presbytery says to one of its congregations – one of its children – the following, “I don’t think that you should go it alone anymore.” In fact, it says that if that congregation doesn’t get married off soon, it is not going to be sustained.

Now, does that sound a little bit harsh? Well, when you put it that way, it certainly does to us. But parents did do that kind of thing back then and it wasn’t seen as problematic. As readers, I think we are supposed to give Caleb the benefit of the doubt and assume that he has his daughter Achsah’s interests at heart – that he wants this to lead to good things for her.

Achsah and Othniel Become a Team

At least, let’s give Caleb’s plan a chance. Achsah is put on notice that she is going to get married to someone who can take the settlement of Kiriath-sepher – that is to say, someone who is courageous enough to take on this great challenge that lies before the people of God.

That is where Othniel comes into the story. He is the one who steps forward. And we need to understand that he doesn’t do it because he wants the settlement. He does it because he wants Achsah. He has seen something in her and knows that there is great value in her. He knows that they will make a great team together.

Our Marriage Metaphor

As you all know, throughout our amalgamation process, the one big metaphor that we used to talk about it was marriage. These two congregations coming together to become one. We said it again and again: it was like a marriage. And we have already used the marriages of some biblical heroes to talk about our amalgamation.

But today I want to tell you that our amalgamation is specifically like the marriage of a biblical couple that you have probably never heard of before: Achsah and Othniel.

Part of that is that their marriage may not seem ideal by our modern standards. It is arranged by other people and is very rushed. And, yes, our amalgamation kind of went like that.

The Guarantee of a Good Marriage

But here is the thing. I have never encountered a marriage that had a perfect start. We sometimes think that if we get the start of a marriage right – if the couple meets in the perfect way, if they wait the perfect amount of time before marrying and if they have a perfect wedding – they are virtually guaranteed to have a perfect marriage together.

But it really doesn’t work that way. The only guarantee of a good marriage is not how it starts but how it functions in the long-term. And if the couple can learn to respect and value and lift each other up in a relationship of mutual support, that is the primary predictor of a successful marriage.

An Incredible Team

So, it had a strange beginning, but I think it is clear that Achsah and Othniel’s marriage was extraordinarily successful. If Othniel went on to be the first great leader of the people of Israel in a new era, he didn’t do that alone. He did it because she was at his side.

Othniel is obviously a strong person at the beginning of this story – leading a successful raid – but there is clear strength in Achsah as well. We see her boldly stepping forth and demanding from the Presby… from her father the resources that they are going to need to thrive in their marriage.

That is why I suggest to you today that the secret of their extraordinary success was that they recognized the strength in each other and they worked together to build each other up. They discovered that they were stronger, wiser and better equipped together, than either of these very strong people could ever have been separately.

Two Becoming One

The congregations of Knox Preston and St. Andrew’s Hespeler came together very quickly and in what seemed like a bit of an arranged marriage kind of way. Nevertheless, we seem to have had a good beginning. But the ultimate test of a good amalgamation is not how it begins; it is how we work together as one in the long term.

We were two separate things; we were two independent congregations. But we have now become one new thing together. And if we are going to be as successful at shaping a new future for the church in this region as Othniel and Achsah were in shaping the future of the people of Israel in a new era, I think we need to follow their example. We begin by learning to appreciate the incredible strengths that we find in each other and combine them in new ways because we embrace a new identity.

Our New Identity

Today we are beginning that intentional process of finding that new identity. Of course, we have already begun in many ways. We have started to get to know one another. But truly embracing a new identity is a process of letting go of what used to be in order to fully embrace something new. And that doesn’t just happen all on its own.

Change is always a difficult process of letting go of old things and old ways of doing things. Even if you are going through that transition for the best of reasons and are excited about moving into the future, it is always hard to say goodbye to what was.

The Uncertainty of Transition

And it is made all the harder because, if you really embracing change, you do not know what that future is going to look like. So, transitions bring with them a great deal of uncertainty. You fumble around for a while not quite sure of how things are going to work or what you are supposed to do. It is exciting, because you are heading for a new future, but it can also be a bit daunting.

Well, that is where we are right now. We have all left behind the two separate congregations we used to be. They are, and always will be, a part of our revered and valued past. But they are not actually who we are anymore.

Because we are in this murky transition period, we will sometimes slip into old ways of thinking and old ways of seeing ourselves. That is only natural. But never forget that God is calling us to be something new together and is encouraging us to think of ourselves in those new terms. That is exciting, but it is not going to happen without us working at it.

A Power Couple

Who are we now? I can’t answer that for you. We can only find the answer to that question together over time. But let me let offer this identity to you.

We are Achsah and Othniel, not two individuals, no, but Ancient Israel’s first power couple. We are two congregations who came together to become. It happened quickly and in unexpected ways, but I have no doubt that this was a marriage that was arranged, not by Caleb, not by Presbytery, but by God because God wants us to play a key role in laying out new approaches to living and thriving as a church in this strange new landscape where we find ourselves.

Power Couple Names

You know, sometimes they give nicknames to power couples. You know like when, for a while, they called Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie Brangelina, and when people referred to Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez as Bennifer. I’m not going to suggest that our new identity should be “Achsothniel, and not just because nobody would ever be able to spell it.

A name – a new name – can be a helpful way to cement a new identity – at least if everyone can spell and pronounce it – but the point is not actually to find a name. It is about discovering our identity – learning who God is calling us to be and what story God is telling to us. That is our task and we are starting it today.

And whatever identity we fully embrace, I hope you will carry this sense of calling with you into it. We are not just a random couple of congregations thrown together by circumstance and maybe desperation. God arranged this marriage because God has a plan for the future of the church around here and this particular power couple is essential to that plan. Carry that truth with you as you move forward.

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Hespeler, May 18, 2025 © Scott McAndless – Fifth Sunday of Easter
Acts 11:1-18, Psalm 148, Revelation 21:1-6, John 13:31-35

There is one question that the Christian church has stumbled over again and again throughout its entire life. That question is this: what can God do and what can’t God do. I know that may sound like a foolish question to ask. It might even seem like the answer is so obvious that no one would even bother to ask it. But they did. And people continue to ask that question. And it is a question that often leads us to very difficult and conflicted places.

This was a question that arose very early on in the life of the church related to one particular thing. People wondered whether Gentiles could possibly be saved and whether they could have a place in the Christian church.

God Couldn’t Accept Them

And the answer to that question seemed obvious to just about everybody. No surely not, most everyone else objected. God couldn’t do that – God couldn’t save non-Jews. At least God couldn’t do that unless those Gentiles became completely Jewish by following the law, eating kosher and by becoming circumcised. Maybe – just maybe – if Gentiles did that, God might be able to save them. But otherwise clearly no!

And by the way, that is how we usually discuss such matters. But what was really at stake in that whole discussion? I mean, down at the brutally honest human level, what was motivating these early Christians to ask that question? I’m pretty sure there was you might call a yuck factor. Somewhere, deep down inside, they were thinking, “Eww, you know what those Gentiles are like, don’t you? They eat disgusting things like ham and bacon, and they don’t even circumcise their men. Yuck!”

And, yes, I know that none of those things sound particularly yucky to us, but that’s because we’re Gentiles and they’re fairly normal for us. But they really struggled with things like that.

Tribalism

It is something that is built into our humanity. We tend feel more comfortable with those who are like us and to want to exclude those who are unlike us. It probably goes back to the days when we lived in tribal societies, and it was safest to stick with the people of your own tribe.

But, if this was really about them just feeling uncomfortable around Gentiles because they were so strange, they didn’t talk about it that way. They didn’t say, “I struggle with accepting Gentiles.” They said, “God can’t accept Gentiles, or at least God can’t accept them as they are.”

Our Prejudice Becomes Our Theology

That is what we do. We take an issue that is essentially an issue of personal bias or maybe prejudice or maybe even racism and turn it into a theological statement about what God can and cannot do. We push our own prejudices onto God. This is not to suggest, of course, that they didn’t have all kinds of scriptures and interpretations to back up what they were saying. But, on a very personal level, it came back to the question of what they felt about Gentiles.

But then something happened. The Apostle Paul came along and he said look, here’s this amazing thing that God has done by raising Jesus from the dead. And Paul asked, what if, because of this amazing thing that God has done, maybe God can accept Gentiles just as they are.

And so, the church had a full-blown theological crisis on its hands. Most of the people in the church said one thing about what God could do, and Paul said something else. Who was going to solve this?

Luke Solves the Problem

And that is where the author of the Book of Acts (who we traditionally call Luke, because it is the same guy who wrote the Gospel of Luke) comes in. Luke was writing his Book of Acts, and he figured that he knew who the best person was to solve this conundrum. He figured that the Apostle Peter should know the answer better than anyone else.

Peter was someone who knew Jesus personally and was probably the first highly respected leader the church had. What’s more and even better, Luke remembered that he had heard a story about how Peter had personally worked his way through this very issue of including Gentiles. And so, Luke made the decision to include the story that we read this morning about Peter and a Gentile named Cornelius.

And that is what we often do with these sticky questions. When we disagree over what God can and cannot do, we look for some authoritative person – a Peter – to settle the thing. So, I am sure that when the early Christians first received a copy of this book, they were leaning forward eagerly. The were sitting on the edges of their seats waiting for the final answer to this thorny question.

Peter’s Journey

And that is what makes this story so interesting and so challenging. Because Peter, this authoritative and wise leader, doesn’t respond to this challenge in the way they might have expected.

Peter starts off thinking that he knows the answer. When he is offered, in a vision that has been fueled by his hungry stomach, a menu that includes the meat of all kinds of animals that a good Jew would never even touch, Peter replies vehemently, “By no means, Lord, for nothing profane or unclean has ever entered my mouth.”

This is a response that is entirely based on everything that Peter knows about his tradition and the clear teaching of the scriptures. And it is not just a response to the question of what he can eat. The food laws made it impossible to associate with Gentiles during meals. So, this answer also meant that the Gentiles could not be acceptable to God.

That is where Peter starts out in this story. He is absolutely certain that he knows what God can and can’t do based on his understanding of the scriptures and of the tradition. And that is what makes where he ends this story so interesting.

Who Was I?

So, what does he say at the end? Once he goes and actually meets Cornelius and his household, once he shares the message about Jesus with them and sees how they respond with enthusiasm and excitement, Peter says something very different. “If then God gave them the same gift that he gave us when we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I could hinder God?”

I want you to listen to those words. What did Peter say? He was an apostle, and yet he said, “Who am I that I could hinder God?” He was someone who knew Jesus personally, and yet he said, “Who am I?” He was a good Jew who knew his tradition and his scriptures well and yet he said, “Who am I?” He recognized that, no matter what biblical, personal or theological understanding that he had, he was not in a position to tell God what God could or could not do.

That is why I think that we are in great need of more Peters in the life of the church today. We don’t need more people who think that they know God better than Godself. We need more people who realize that, however much they have studied the scriptures, they don’t actually have all the answers.

The Ongoing Struggle

This is important, of course, as we continue to struggle over questions of who is in and who is out in the church. There will always be issues that arise. We will encounter people whose lifestyles seem to be incompatible with Christian teaching as we have experienced it. We will run into people whose opinions threaten to divide us. We may even meet people who repel us for some rational or irrational reason.

I understand that the presence of such people might cause some issues that we have to manage and that it might cause us to re-evaluate some things in ways that are uncomfortable. Of course it will. But let’s not just fall back on the easy assumption that, because people may cause us some problems, God can’t accept them. Let us not put our prejudices onto God. Let us have the wisdom and the humility to say, “Who am I?”

Scriptural Inspiration

Peter’s humility doesn’t just apply to questions of who is out and who is in, though. It applies to all areas of theology and doctrine. One very important application for me is to the doctrine of scriptural inspiration.

The Bible says in 2 Timothy, “All scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, so that the person of God may be proficient, equipped for every good work.” (3:16-17) We might discuss, I know, what inspiration means and how it functions, but I will say that I believe absolutely that that verse is true. God inspired scripture.

But I am often annoyed in my discussions with some people who insist that they know exactly what God can and cannot do while inspiring scripture. How many times have I had people say to me, “Well, if God inspired it, therefore it must be one hundred percent literally true and historically accurate because God cannot inspire a lie.”

Can God Inspire Something Not Literally True?

There you go again, right? You’re telling us what God can’t do. Peter wants a word with you. Who are you to tell God what God can’t do? First of all, there is a literal story in the Bible of God sending a “lying spirit” to inspire his prophets. (1 Kings 22:22) So there are stories in the Bible of God inspiring lies.

But much more importantly, while I would agree that the scriptures have been inspired by God to communicate God’s truth to us, I do not agree that that means that God can only communicate in literal truth. Passing on data, facts and completely accurate information is indeed one way to communicate truth. But is it always the most effective way?

It isn’t for me. I realize that a wall of completely accurate data, a spreadsheet of numbers that reflect the true state of the universe or a list of who did what and when, may really turn some people on, but it is much more likely to bore me. It is certainly not going to inspire me.

Truth in Many Literary Genres

Much of the truth that I have learned about this world and how to navigate it came to me not by reading textbooks but from reading things like fiction, science fiction, poetry, mythology, legend and folk tale.

I learned perseverance and dedication by reading the Lord of the Rings. I learned tolerance and the power of friendship by reading Harry Potter. I certainly learned more about the real-world politics we are dealing with today by reading 1984 and The Handmaid’s Tale than I did in civics class.

Fiction and myth and legend are all excellent ways of passing on important truths that may not be literal truths. And are you going to tell me that God is not allowed to use them to communicate truth to us?

By all means, study the various types of literature that are there in the Bible and do your best to judge how they are seeking to communicate truth, but if you are going to try to tell me that God is not allowed to use certain kinds of literature, I’m going to ask you who are you to tell God what God can do!

Atonement

There is one other area of theology where I see people doing the same thing: the theology of atonement. That is concerning the question of how God saves and forgives us. I have often had people explain the importance of Jesus’ death to our salvation by saying that God is so righteous and just, that God simply cannot forgive us without a price being paid.

They then explain that I must therefore understand the death of Jesus as a transaction – that God sent Jesus to buy off God’s wrath against me because otherwise God couldn’t forgive me.

The Meaning of Jesus’ Death

Now, I do believe that the death of Jesus is powerful and effective. It does bring me into communion with God. It is atonement which refers a process used by the ancient Hebrews to manage their relationship with their God. But I do not see it in terms of buying off an angry God who is unable to forgive me otherwise.

God’s forgiveness, as depicted throughout the scriptures, is a powerful force. It is an action that bursts forth from God’s steadfast lovingkindness which is deeper than the sea, higher than the heavens and wider than all the horizons. I believe that anyone who thinks that they can tell God who and how God can forgive has to ask the question, “Who am I?”

Learning from Simon Peter

So maybe we all need to take a lesson from Simon Peter and the humility that he learned in the home of Cornelius. Whenever you run up against something that seems like a limit on love, on compassion and forgiveness, on inclusion and on potential, you need to ask where those limits are coming from. And if they are portrayed as limits on what God can and cannot do, you need to reject such thinking. You need to ask who am I to tell God what God can and cannot do.

Margaret McKenzie-Leighton

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Hespeler, April 27, 2025 © Scott McAndless – Second Sunday of Easter
Acts 5:27-32, Psalm 150, Revelation 1:4-8, John 20:19-31

At the end of the twentieth chapter of the Gospel of John, there are a couple of verses that are easy to skip over. “Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples that are not written in this book,” it says. “But these are written so that you may continue to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.”

It sounds like a conclusion, but it isn’t. The book is not over yet and the next chapter will also end with what sounds like a conclusion. It seems to just be an explanation for why this Gospel doesn’t include some of the well-loved stories in the other Gospels, but it is so much more than that.

The Purpose of the Book

For, in these verses, the writer lays out the whole purpose behind the book. He has written “so that you may continue to believe.” Or other ancient manuscripts have it, “so that you may come to believe.”

Both ultimately mean the same thing. He is writing so that you, the reader, might believe in the messiahship of Jesus and that your life might be transformed – that by trusting in him, you might have life.

And you might say, sure, that makes sense. Isn’t that why anybody wrote any gospel? But wait a minute. When John says that, he is not referring to the whole gospel. He is saying something very specific. He is saying that Jesus performed many signs. He is referring to the miracles and wonders that Jesus performed, of course, but he uses the word signs. A sign is something (anything) that conveys meaning.

The Seven Signs

And what the author is saying is that he has carefully chosen not to tell the stories about all the signs, that he has specifically chosen only certain signs because they are the ones that will make you believe. So, he is not talking about the whole gospel, but rather his collection of sign stories.

And once you look back through the whole gospel, you realize exactly what he is talking about. John, in the course of his Gospel, has told us exactly seven stories of seven signs that Jesus performed, carefully labelling each one as they come as a sign.

The seven signs in the Gospel of John are:

• Turning Water into Wine (John 2:1-11)
• Healing the Official’s Son (John 4:46-54)
• Healing the Lame Man (John 5:1-15)
• Feeding the Five Thousand (John 6:1-14)
• Walking on Water (John 6:15-21)
• Healing the Blind Man (John 9:1-41)
• Raising Lazarus from the Dead (John 11:1-44)

So, what John is saying is that, if you will just reflect on these seven stories, you will believe.

Why the Disciples Believed

In our reading today, we have just gone through the whole problem with making people believe. Jesus has appeared to the disciples on Easter Sunday, convincing them that he is truly risen. They believe because they have seen it.

But then Thomas comes into the story. He wasn’t there that first Sunday. He didn’t see, so he doesn’t believe and he insists that he cannot take anyone else’s word for it. He has to see and touch and feel for himself.

This all gets resolved for Thomas, of course, when Jesus puts in a second appearance. But the question still remains. That’s great for Thomas, but what about the rest of us? The story ends with Jesus saying, “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.” But that doesn’t address the real problem. How do you come to believe without seeing? Do you just have to take those who did see at their word? Because I know that doesn’t seem good enough for many people.

How to Believe Without Seeing

Well, John answers that question in the verses that follow immediately after this story. He tells you how you may come to believe without seeing. And the answer, interestingly enough, is not that we have to take anybody else’s word for it. I mean, sure, the testimony of the disciples is important, but that is not the answer he points to.

No, he says that what you particularly need is to hear the stories of the seven signs. If that doesn’t do it for you, nothing will.

If you are feeling a little bit puzzled by that, I’ll admit that so am I. Let me suggest what I think we should do. Let us decide to look at those stories, not simply as stories of miracles and wonders, but as stories that are signs. Read them as stories that are intended to convey meaning directly to you, the reader.

Of course, doing that with all of the stories is a bit much for us to do right now. Perhaps you could consider it your homework to spend the time living with those seven stories. Maybe it’ll make a great seven-part sermon series some day.

But what we can do in this time we have today is give us a sense of what we need to look for in those stories – how to read the signs.

The Marriage in Cana

Let’s look at the first sign. This is set in the town of Cana in Galilee where Jesus is at a wedding with his disciples and his mother. During the festivities, the wine runs out – a social disaster. Jesus’ mother comes to him with the problem and he says, “Woman, what concern is that to me and to you? My hour has not yet come.” (2:4)

So, Jesus is clearly reluctant to do anything, not because he doesn’t care about the problem, but just because he’s concerned about the timing. Nevertheless, his mother seems to know him better than he knows himself. She knows that he cares and so she says, “Do whatever he tells you,” to the servants. (2:5)

And so Jesus goes ahead and famously turns the water into wine. In fact, he creates wine that is so excellent and potent that the man in charge of the wedding (who doesn’t know where it came from) marvels at it.

And then the whole story gets summed up like this. “Jesus did this, the first of his signs, in Cana of Galilee and revealed his glory, and his disciples believed in him.” (2:11)

How Does this Help You Believe?

So, apparently, this story has been included in this gospel “so that you may come to believe.” But how does this story make you believe? You weren’t there at the wedding in Cana. You didn’t get to taste the wine. So how are you supposed to be convinced just by hearing this and stories like it?

Well, the odd thing about the story is that, even though Jesus does something miraculous, he doesn’t actually seem to be doing it to impress people with his miraculous powers. He doesn’t really want to attract attention by doing something splashy, and so he hesitates.

Even more important, he does it in a way that means that most people don’t know what he has done. The wine steward doesn’t know where the wine came from. The important guests don’t know either. All they know is that excellent wine is suddenly flowing.

It is only a select group that knows that Jesus has performed a wonder. The only people who it says know about it are the servants, the very people that everyone else would dismiss and look down upon. So, this is clearly not all about performing a wonder so that every notices and believes. It is much more subtle than that.

How Jesus Acts in These Stories

And, once you realize that, the observation applies to many of the other sign stories as well. Jesus never seems to seek the limelight. He is no publicity hound. Most of all, he usually acts in response to the suffering that he sees – the hunger of the crowds, the sorrow of the sisters, the unfair blaming of the blind man for his illness. These stories emphasize the sympathy and compassion of Jesus, not his showmanship.

All of that leads me to think that John is not pointing us to these sign stories in order that we might be convinced by them because there is something miraculous. If you struggle to believe because you did not see the risen body of Jesus, why would you be convinced by a story about wine that you didn’t get to taste? There has to be something else going on in these stories that is meant to break through your fog of hesitation and doubt.

About Jesus’ Identity

That is why I would insist that these stories are not about what Jesus does. They are about who Jesus is. They are signs that point to his identity, not his ability. And this is something that is made clear in a number of stories in which Jesus declares the meaning of what he is doing with an “I am…” statement. When we heals the blind man, he declares “I am the light of the world.” When he raises Lazarus, he says, “I am the resurrection and the life.” And he follows up the feeding of the five thousand by saying, “I am the bread that came down from heaven.” (6:41)

So, what does John mean when he says, “But these are written so that you may continue to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God”? He is challenging you to reflect upon these stories so that you may discover the character of Jesus. He wants you to meditate upon them until you have a picture of a Jesus who is reaching out in love and compassion and care, who understands the suffering of the people and who can dissolve into tears when he sees Mary, the sister of Lazarus, weeping before him. John is convinced that, once you have found that picture, you will inevitably take the next step.

The Next Step

 The next step is “to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God.” Once you know what Jesus is like, you will recognize that there is something in that character that goes beyond the ordinary. There is something in Jesus that allows you to encounter the divine.

I do believe that the foundation of faith is experience. That much is clear in the Easter stories – especially the story of Thomas. After Jesus had been taken from them and crucified and buried, the early Christians experienced his living presence with them. All of the stories of his appearances are a reflection of those amazing experiences.

None of it constitutes scientific proof that Jesus really did rise from the dead. It could not be reproduced in a laboratory. None of the documentation can be independently verified especially because the texts that we have received contain inconsistencies, which is not unusual when you are talking about intensely personal experiences.

Experiencing God in Christ

But it had happened. They knew that it had happened because they had experienced it. These closing words of this chapter in the Gospel of John raise the issue of how we, who did not have those intense initial experiences, can come to know that truth as well as they did.

And so John points us to the signs stories in his Gospel. He says, “Reflect on these stories and you will discover the true nature of this Jesus. You will understand that he came to show us the face and the love of God.

But I think that there is one more step that is implied in this. For surely it is not enough to accept on an intellectual level that Jesus must have been the Messiah and the Son of God. In order to know the truth of that deep down in your soul, you have to experience it for yourself, just as the disciples experienced it in their own way.

Taking These Stories Seriously

John teaches you to experience that by challenging you to take these sign stories seriously in your life. You need to be willing to live in such a way that you expect to encounter the Jesus you meet in these stories.

When you have run out of wine – which I take as meaning when you come to a place where your life seems to have lost its meaning and purpose – take that to Jesus with the expectation that he will take your water and turn it into wine. You might be amazed by what you experience if you trust him.

And when you struggle with fear and anxiety in the midst of the storm, when you find that your basic needs are not being met like when the 5000 were starving, when you struggle with weakness or blindness or grief in the face of death, and all of the other things that people were struggling with in those seven stories, the promise is there that if you turn to Jesus in trust and expectation, you will encounter the same Jesus that they met. And you will know, as they knew, that he is the Messiah and the Son of God.