Category: Minister

I

 hope you all know by now that, after the Gala Dinner this evening, I will be starting a ten week period that is called an intermission in the Presbyterian Church in Canada. I will be away from the ministry of this congregation and of the larger church for that entire period. I decided to request this for a number of personal reasons – because I felt a great need to res t and refresh and to renew the passion that had nourished me over the past twenty-five years of ministry. So I certainly have a few personal goals that I want to work on, but, that is not necessarily what I wanted to focus on today.

      I have been thinking a lot about what I wanted to preach about today, and I don’t really want to focus on me, but rather on the church. In particular, I want to ask how the church can grow and develop during a short season without a regular minister. I know what the natural tendency is, of course. I know that during a vacancy, for example, it is not uncommon for people to drift away from regular church attendance or for various activities of the church to pause or even languish. The problem seems to be that people assume that ministry is something that only the minister does and that if there is no minister for a period of time then there is no ministry. And I hope we can all prove over the next little while that that is a damnable lie from the devil.

      It is maybe not too surprising that people think that way when you consider passages of scripture like the one that we read in the Gospel of Matthew this morning. In this passage, Jesus brings up the whole matter of building the church. He is not talking about setting up a church building, mind you, but is talking about establishing the church as a force in society – something that can have a real impact for good in changing times. In many ways, I believe he is talking about how you build a church for times such as the ones that we live in.

      And Jesus seems to have some pretty clear ideas about how you build such a church. You build it on a rock, but not just any rock. Jesus wants to build his church on a very specific rock. This is what Jesus says, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father in heaven. And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church.”

      Now of course, it makes good sense, if you are going to build anything, that you should build upon a good foundation and building on a rock sounds like a good way to do that. But Christians, down through the ages, have disagreed about just what metaphorical rock Jesus is talking about in this passage. You have probably heard, for example, about the traditional Roman Catholic interpretation of this passage. It is based upon the nickname that Jesus gives to Simon. Jesus was apparently quite fond of giving people nicknames. We’re told that he called the disciple Thomas by the name Didymas which means “the twin,” no doubt because Thomas was the spitting image of someone. He called Mary Magdalene, which means “tower” and I sometimes like to think that he did it because he saw her as a strong protector who would watch over the movement that he had started.

      Simon he called “Peter” which means rock – just plain rock. This nickname is not explained anywhere in the gospels (not even in this passage we read this morning, I would suggest) but you just have to think of the modern celebrity who also goes by the name of “The Rock” to get an idea of  what the nickname might have been referring to. When you think of Dwayne Johnston what traits come to mind? Strong, certainly, stubborn, not someone you would want to get in a fight with and, how do I put this, not necessarily the smartest guy in the room, though you would never tell him that to his face! I like to think that it was those traits that led Jesus to call Simon by the name of Rock which was Keppa in Aramaic, the language Jesus spoke, or Petros in the Greek of the New Testament. We get the name Peter from the Greek.

      But Roman Catholic theology has taken that nickname and made it the basis of its understanding of the church. They interpret this passage to mean that Jesus was promising to build the entire structure and the very being of the church on Simon Peter himself – that this one man alone would be the foundational rock of the church. Of course, Catholic tradition teaches that Simon Peter went on to become the Bishop of Rome and that is why they believe that Peter’s successor in that office, known today as the Pope, is the one man around whom their entire church is still structured to this very day.

      Now, I don’t mean to offer any specific criticism of the Roman Catholic Church or its structures here. I may not agree with all of their teachings but I certainly respect the institution and many of the good works that the church does. My question is rather about what Jesus actually intended, not when you think about the structure but rather when you think about the day-to-day life of the church. We in the Protestant Church may not agree that the entire church should be structured around one man in Rome, but on a local level, I’ve got to ask, isn’t that exactly how we build our churches. In so many churches that I have seen, the weight of the church and its life and its work tends to fall on just a few individuals – they are the rocks upon which we build our churches.

      Now I am not saying this as a way of complaining that all of that weight get loaded exclusively on the minister. That’s not what I mean. I know (and greatly appreciate the fact) that I am far from alone in doing the work of this church. But it is true in this congregation, as it is true in so many, that that weight does fall on relatively few. Our staff does carry a great deal of weight as do key volunteers. And I have to wonder, is that really how Jesus envisioned that it would be in the church. When we build the church on the foundation of a few rocks (if those rocks are people as one interpretation of this saying of Jesus would suggest) it is undeniably hard on those rocks and some of them crack and strain under the pressure. Some of those rocks break down, some of them step down before they really want to, some withdraw altogether. We’ve all seen it happen.

      And one thing I particularly note is this, it is not necessarily the work of the church itself that tends to wear those rocks down. Most of the work of the church is actually a great joy. To teach the gospel message to children, that is a joy and honour. To visit the sick or struggling, that can be difficult but it is also very rewarding as is feeding the hungry, clothing the naked and preaching the word of life. Most people who contribute to the work of the church in a way that utilizes their own personal skills and strengths find that, in general, the work itself builds them up. No, the things that tend to make those rocks crumble are the other things: criticism of themselves or others, being taken for granted or not being appreciated for who they are, griping, complaining and general negativity. These things, from what I have seen, are what are most likely to wear down the rocks upon whom we build our church.

      And I think that the reason why we do that – why we so easily turn the joy of ministry into the burden of dealing with all the negativity of the church is precisely because of this idea that we have that the church is built on the foundation of a few rocks that are people. When we think that they are the ones who are supposed to hold up the church, it becomes easy to focus any negative energy that arises upon them. (And negative energy always arises simply because we are human and things will never go perfectly).

      And, no, I don’t think that that is how Jesus wanted to see any church that came out of the movement he had started behave. And it is that, more than any historical differences in interpretation between Protestants and Catholics, that makes me think that it is not correct to suggest that Jesus, in this passage, is trying to say that the entire church should be built in such as way as to depend on one person – even such an extraordinary person as Simon Peter. I believe that Jesus meant something else.

      Now, I could try to make my point here by delving into the original language and grammar of the passage. I have read many a commentary on this passage arguing over the connection between the name Peter (which is Petros in Greek) and the Greek word for rock (which is petra). Some people argue that it is obvious that both words refer to the same thing while others argue that it is obvious that they do not. Of course, as you find in so many debates these days, the only thing that is truly obvious is that everyone can only see whatever supports what they have already decided to believe. I don’t think we can count on grammar to solve this one for us.

      And so, instead of focussing on that one word, rock, let us look at what Jesus has to say about the purpose of the entire project. This is what Jesus has to say about the church that he wants to build: “the gates of Hades will not prevail against it.” That is a pretty audacious promise and it is one that is often misunderstood. You see, it is often understood to be a promise about the defense of the church. People assume that Jesus is talking about the church being under siege – that the powers of Hades (or Hell or evil or however exactly you want to understand that) are attacking us and the promise is that they will not prevail, they won’t win.

      And I think that this is a very important point because so much of what we do in the church seems to be defensive. We are fearful of the loss of status of the church, we are fearful of change. We feel as if the church is under attack in society and that is the source of a lot of the negativity that we feel. We are always trying to keep up appearances, to pretend that nothing has changed and when we do that we tend to pile more and more on the people who do the work of the church. But right here, right in this passage, Jesus has revealed to us that the church is not made to be on the defensive. We have been made the storm the gates of Hades – to take the evil of this world head on – and not to cower in fear. If we really believed that, how different would our attitude be and how much weight would it take off of the foundation rocks of our church?

      In the end, I don’t believe that the church depends on any one person – not on Peter, not on me, not on you. If the church does not find its foundation in Christ himself and in the confession of Christ that Peter made, it will not succeed. (And, by the way, I think that was what Jesus was saying when he spoke about building his church on a rock.)

      I realize that the next several weeks will create somewhat of a shakeup in the human leadership of this congregation. It may not all go smoothly; there may be some disruption. But I honestly believe that it can be a good thing because if that can show us where the true foundations are, maybe we can stop being defensive or afraid and get on with the work that Christ has given all of us to do.

John 15:12-17, Ephesians 2:4-10, Psalm 139:1-16, 23-24

incoln Alexander ______, it is such a wonderful privilege for all of us to be able to celebrate your baptism today. It is wonderful because it means that your parents and your brother have been willing to share you – their joy in you, their hopes and dreams for you – with all of us and with Christ in this very meaningful way.

      I remember when we first heard from your parents that you were coming and how exciting that was. When I heard what they had named you Lincoln Alexander, I wondered (the way that you do) what significance there was in such a name. One thing that occurred to me, for example, was that you might have been named after one of the most famous presidents of United States. You could certainly do worse than to be named after a man of such vision, the great emancipator who changed the world for good. We certainly still need people who will stand up and stand in integrity for what is right, no matter what the cost may be. But no, your parents tell me that you weren’t exactly named after Abraham Lincoln.

      Next I wondered whether you might be named after Lincoln Alexander. That is also not too shabby for a namesake. Lincoln Alexander is a very important barrier breaking leader as every Canadian knows (or at least as every Canadian should know and it is a tragedy if they don’t). Alexander was Canada’s first Black member of parliament and first Black cabinet minister as well as Ontario’s 24^th Lieutenant Governor. He blazed the trail for so many minority voices and leaders who have followed in his wake. But it appears that you were not named after him and the “Alexander” in your name is, not surprisingly, a gift to you from your father.

      My next guess was that you were named after history’s third most famous Linc, the star character of the “Legend of Zelda” video game series. In fact, that is not really my guess at all but is actually who your father told me that you were named for. That too, is a great legacy – the hero of thousands of quests, the saviour of the beautiful princess Zelda – you could do worse! But alas, while your father does say that you were named after that Linc, I am not entirely sure that your mother agrees.

      So we are left with what I am pretty sure is the ultimate truth. Lincoln, you weren’t named after anyone, not really. You are Lincoln, and your parents want you to be your own person and for you to grow up and set your own course and find your own destiny in life. That is what your parents hope and expect for you and for your brother overall and that, along with their love, is the greatest gift that they will ever give you.

      The very concept of a God has long led human beings to struggle with strange concepts. We describe God as this being who is far beyond our limited human understanding. God is all-knowing and there is nothing in the entire universe that can ever escape God’s sight. We also believe that God is not limited by time and is able to view the past and the future just as easily as the present. Above all, we confess, God is powerful and nothing can resist the imposition of God’s will.

      Now this understanding of God has created many problems in our philosophies and theologies. It makes us struggle with the problem of evil – if God is good and all-powerful like that, how is it possible that God would permit evil to occur? That is a great question and people of faith have been struggling with it for a very long time. Unfortunately, it is not a question we are going to be able to answer here today.

      There is another question, connected to this idea of the nature of God, that I think we ought to deal with. If God is indeed all knowing and all-powerful, what does that mean about our own free will? Is the entire path of Lincoln’s life all laid out for him? Has it already determined what he will be and do – that he will be a great emancipator, or a breaker of barriers or a rescuer of princesses or some other thing? Is the whole future path of his life written for him? Is it written for you and for me? And if it is, what is the point of all the human plans, hopes and dreams that we cherish?

      A quick reading of our responsive psalm this morning would certainly seem to indicate that we have very little control over our own paths through this life: “O Lord, you have searched me and known me. You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from far away. You search out my path and my lying down, and are acquainted with all my ways. Even before a word is on my tongue, O Lord, you know it completely. You hem me in, behind and before, and lay your hand upon me.” That certainly seems to be saying that all of our paths are completely determined – that God has literally hemmed us in and so limited our choices that we simply must move in the directions that God has given to us.

      And, by the way, we don’t even need to appeal to an all-knowing God to run up against this whole question. The whole scientific approach to reality – where every effect has a cause – has led us to the idea that everything in a human’s life is pre-determined. For example, if the decisions that I make are determined by such things as the levels of certain chemicals in my brain, previous life experience and the circumstances that surround me, can I really say that I have free will to determine the course of my own life?

      So what is it? Are we truly free beings who have an ability to set our own course in life, or is everything determined ahead of time and are we merely puppets who must follow a course that has been already set for us? To put it another way, who is Lincoln? Is everything that he is destined to be or to do already written? Is his destiny already decided by science? By his parents? By God? “In your book were written all the days that were formed for me, when none of them as yet existed.” Is that what that means?

      It certainly is possible to read the Psalm from this morning and conclude that that is what it is saying. But I don’t necessarily agree that it is the way that we were intended to read it. The Psalm, you see, isn’t really about the freedom of human will, it is about how well God knows us and relates to us. The psalmist talks about how God is everywhere with him and how he could not escape God even if he tried no matter where he might go in the entire universe. “If I ascend to heaven, you are there;” he declares, “if I make my bed in Sheol, you are there. If I take the wings of the morning and settle at the farthest limits of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me fast.”

      This is not a matter of God chasing us everywhere we go or anticipating our every move with all-knowingness. It is rather the case that, wherever we go, God is already there, has always been there because there is no place in the universe where God cannot be. The psalmist is able to set his own path as he travels through the universe and through time, it is just that wherever he goes, he will discover that he has been able to do nothing outside of the grace and benevolence of God.

      It is in that spirit that I understand the words, “you discern my thoughts” in this psalm. It is not that God is somehow reading your thoughts from someplace on the outside. It is more that God is already present in your brain just as God’s presence is everywhere else in the universe. The God who gave us the ability to think, reason and choose can hardly fail to completely understand the processes by which we make our choices – processes, by the way, that modern neurologists have only begun to understand.

      That is why I do not feel as if believing in God means that you lose your free will. Your course through life is not all set. Even when you are acting in obedience to God, it is not the type of obedience you might expect from a soldier drilling on the parade square where every moment is programmed out. There is not just one path for your life that is God’s correct and sanctioned path for you. Rather than acting like your drill sergeant, God is your constant companion on the journey. When you are open to God’s presence, God becomes so intimately involved in the decisions you make that it’s hard to know where your thoughts end and God’s begin.

      Lincoln’s baptism today is a wonderful reminder of the entire basis of our Christian faith. We have today welcomed Lincoln fully and completely into everything that the Christian faith can offer to anyone. We have offered him hope, forgiveness, salvation and life eternal. We have welcomed him into full membership in the church of Christ, though, of course, we will wait until he is older before we ask him to choose for himself whether he will take on all of the commitments and responsibilities that come with being an active member of this congregation. These are all wonderful, divine and valuable gifts – gifts that many in this world have not found.

      But what has Lincoln done to gain these things? Basically nothing. He just showed up – that is it. He didn’t even have to demonstrate any faith or understanding and it was his parents and us who confessed faith today. So how is it possible that we could offer so much to Lincoln today when he has done little to nothing to deserve it? This makes no sense according to the logic of our world, but it is the greatest mystery of the Christian faith, perhaps best expressed in a couple of the verses that we read this morning, “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God – not the result of works, so that no one may boast.” It is only by the grace of God, a gift freely given, that we can claim so much for Lincoln and it is because of the grace of God that none of us can claim anything more than what this child has been given.

      But there is one other gift that we have claimed today that doesn’t always get the same attention. The apostle continues on from there to talk about the purpose behind it all. “For we are what he has made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life.” What this is saying is that God has loved you, me and Lincoln so much that God not only gives us salvation and hope, God has also given us the great gift of meaning – that your life will mean something. God has something for you to do. Again, this is not just a matter of God having one specific thing for you to do and if you fail to do this one thing you will have failed. It is more like what we have been talking about that God will be there with you as you make your choices and develop what is actually important to you and that, if you are open to God’s presence, God will enable you to carry out the good works that have been prepared for you as you follow your path.

Hespeler, 25 March, 2018 © Scott McAndless

John 12:12-19, 1 Corinthians 2:1-5, Psalm 118:1,2 19-29

H

ave you heard the word? They say that that man from Nazareth has come to town. He’s here for the festival. You’ve heard about the stir that he has been causing up in Galilee. He’s a storyteller, they say, loves to tell these stories about farming and seeds. Obviously he’s coming down here to support the lo cal farmers and it is about time! Farmers don’t get the respect that they deserve. They feed us all! So what do you say, shall we grab a few of these palm branches, symbols of the fruitful earth, and be part of it? Hosanna! Jesus comes in the name of the Lord to save us from disrespecting farmers!

      Hey, what are you sitting around wasting your time here for? Haven’t you heard that Jesus has come to town? He is the one who has made his name up north for being such a good exorcist. He’s been casting demons out right and left. And you know that those Galileans up there are all yokels – not sophisticated like us Jerusalemites. They are likely to blame all sorts of things on evil demons including mental health issues like depression or bipolar disorder. So you know what that means, don’t you? It means that he will be leading a campaign against mental illness. Grab a palm branch, we need to be part of this.

      Jesus is coming to town – you know, Jesus – the one who when he was asking his disciples who people were saying he was and one of them said he was the Christ, the Son of the living God, he didn’t deny it – that Jesus! Well, if he is the Christ, that surely means that he has come to gather the people, form and army and drive the Romans out of this country for good. That is a campaign that I can support. Who is with me? Arm yourselves with palm branches and let’s go kick out the bloody Romans!

      Jesus? Jesus? Oh yeah, I’ve heard of him. Isn’t he the one who said, “The poor will always be with you”? In fact, I’m pretty sure that’s the only thing I’ve ever heard about him. Hey do you suppose that means that he’s all about helping rich folks get richer? Maybe he’s got some good stock tips or investment advice and I’m all in on that kind of thing. See this palm branch? It is green, a symbol for money! Wave it around and lets all get rich!

      And so it went. I like the way that the Gospel of John tells the story of Palm Sunday – it’s just a little bit different from what you find in the other Gospels. John puts it like this, “The next day the great crowd that had come to the festival heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem. So they took branches of palm trees and went out to meet him.” The way John tells it, it seems like more of a spontaneous thing with people turning out for their own reasons and Jesus and others, like the Pharisees, responding to what was happening. I like that. I think it must have happened pretty much like that. But it also puts particular emphasis on the problem that people have always had with this story.

      People have always wondered how it could have happened like that – how there could have been this huge crowd of people welcoming and shouting the praises of Jesus one day and then, just a little bit later (less than a week) the same crowd was screaming for his death. And the traditional answer to that question – the answer that I heard from the pulpit as I was growing up – was that it was all a big misunderstanding.

      You see, I was taught that the people of Jerusalem were welcoming Jesus because they had some very specific expectations of what kind of messiah he was going to be. They thought that Jesus was coming, as the messiah was often pictured in certain passages of the Old Testament, to lead some kind of armed revolt against the Romans and set the land free from the people who occupied it. They got all excited about that, but when Jesus didn’t turn out to be exactly what they were expecting (they were mad when Jesus didn’t take on the entire Roman Empire at once) they turned against him and, kind of ironically, delivered him up to the representative of the Roman Empire to be killed.

      Now, I am not saying that that is entirely wrong, but I will tell you one key thing that I learned in my New Testament studies courses at seminary that causes a problem with that interpretation. This is actually a pretty well-kept secret and I was kind of shocked when I learned it so I am a little worried that I might just blow your minds here but this is what I learned: we actually don’t know what Jews were thinking in the time of Jesus. Shocking, I know! But this is a very important point.

      And this is not just a matter of not being able to read the minds of people who lived 2000 years ago. The fact of the matter is that we actually do not know very much about the state of Judaism in the time of Jesus because Judaism, as we know it, actually didn’t exist back then. Judaism, what we know as the various sects of Rabbinic Judaism that are followed in the world today, only started to come into being a few years after the time of Jesus. In Jesus’ time, the Jews still had the temple, the sacrificial system and the priesthood; things that together defined their religion. But that was all taken away from them at once, about forty years after the crucifixion of Jesus when the Romans destroyed the temple. In 70 AD, the Jews lost everything that had once told them what it meant to be a Jew and so they basically had to reinvent their entire faith from scratch.

      Most of the things that we associate with Judaism, including their devotion to the scriptures, many of their worship and their rituals really only came into being after the time of Jesus. And I tell you that mostly so that you will understand that nobody has a really clear idea what anybody was thinking when they went out to greet Jesus waving their palm branches. Their thoughts are almost completely alien to us.

      Where they expecting something from Jesus? That seems clear. They were shouting “Hosanna!” and hosanna means “save” or “help.” They clearly wanted Jesus to do something for them and were hailing him as someone who had come “in the name of the Lord” to save them. But saving and helping can mean a lot of different things to a lot of different people. Save me from what? Help me how?

      At least some of them also seem to have been greeting him as messiah, but, again, what did that mean? We don’t know what Jews in Jesus’ time were looking for in a messiah. In fact, the only indications that we have are that there was a great variety of expectations. Sure some may have been looking for a leader of an armed revolt, but there are also indications that some were looking for someone who would lead a religious reform or for someone who would lead the people to submit to Rome. The fact of the matter is that there were probably as many different expectations of what Jesus would do for them as there were people in the crowd. In fact, isn’t that exactly how things often go?

      I don’t know if you have noticed this, but we seem to be living in a golden age of populist leadership. It is a time when the people who seem to have the greatest success as leaders are not necessarily those who are able to communicate the best policies but rather those who are best at presenting an image that people can connect to. People seem to vote for or follow such leaders not for what they specifically plan to do but because of how people feel about them. The best of such populist leaders don’t get very specific at all about what they are going to do, they somehow present themselves in such a way that people just believe that they are going to be for whatever they want them to be for.

      Donald Trump is an excellent example. He seems to be a master at getting a lot of people to project the things that they hope for or the fears that they want to be protected from onto him. For example, it seems that a whole lot of white Evangelical Christians came to believe that he was one of them and would save them, despite a large amount of evidence to the contrary. It is all about image, getting lots of attention and allowing people to project their desires onto you. And Trump is hardly the only example we could look at. It seems to me that Justin Trudeau employed a populist approach in his own way – at least to the extent that his success was more based on his personal image than it was on his policies. His popular image certainly allowed some people to project their hopes onto him. Now that it seems that that image is tarnishing somewhat, we may see if he is able to adapt to a new kind of leadership. The early indications of the new PC leader, Doug Ford, also seem to be that he is taking a very populist approach to the upcoming provincial election campaign.

      What am I saying, that these leaders are all the same? No. Nor am I saying that there is no place for populism in leadership. Populist leaders can do a lot of good (though there is no question that they can also do a lot of evil – there are historical examples). No, I think that the real danger is not the leaders as much as how all of us deal with the image of the leaders. There is a problem when we are more interested in image than we are in substance. There is a problem when we turn off our critical thinking and just react to image. Lots of people have gotten in trouble by doing exactly that.

      I do not believe that Jesus set out to make a populist entry into Jerusalem. He did apparently set out to project a particular image on that day. It says that “Jesus found a young donkey and sat on it; as it is written: ‘Do not be afraid, daughter of Zion. Look, your king is coming, sitting on a donkey’s colt!’” But the image he was projecting was one that, at the very least, should have made people stop and think critically about the expectations that they were projecting into him.

      Jesus was a good leader – we would even say a perfect leader – who had truly come “in the name of the Lord.” He did his best to communicate what he had really come to do both in word (as in, for example, his many parables of the kingdom of God) and in public relations actions (like, say, riding into Jerusalem on the back of a donkey). But none of this prevented people from projecting their own expectations, prejudices and fears onto him.

      It is easy for us to do that with Jesus too – to make Jesus stand for and represent what we want him to represent. It didn’t just happen on Palm Sunday, it has happened throughout Christian history. Jesus has been used to promote slavery and to lead the charge against it. Jesus has been used to keep women in their traditional subservient place and to break them out of it. Racists and white supremacists had only been too happy to claim to have Jesus on their side but so have civil rights leaders and campaigners for equality.

      Here’s what I would challenge all those people with – the truth that Jesus didn’t come to be on your side or on anybody’s side. Yes, people went out to him waving their palm branches and putting their expectations on him, but Jesus met them on the back of a donkey. He wasn’t coming to promote your idea or your way of fixing what you see as wrong in the world. He was coming to call you to change, to repentance and to be part of a new world. If there is one lesson that you can take away from Palm Sunday, it is to lay down your own ideologies and ideas about how to fix the world and just be open to allowing Jesus to change your mind and your heart.

      So, by all means, let us join the throngs and wave our palms; let us shout “Hosanna,” which means save. But let us not assume that we can do it without allowing Jesus to challenge all of the ways in which we live in this world. He will challenge us on how we treat others. He will challenge on us on questions of fairness and justice. Palm Sunday isn’t just a party; it has to be the beginning of a redeemed world.

ast week we talked about something unique in the nature of the God that we meet in the Bible. The people of Israel, unlike their neighbours around them, came to understand that their God was a God who made covenants. He entered into a relationship with his people where he required certain things of them and promised, in return, that he would remain faithful to them by continually s howing them steadfast lovingkindness.

      And that kind of covenant relationship is a good and beautiful thing. To be in a covenant relationship – any kind of covenant relationship – is a great blessing. I know that many of you have been blessed by such a relationship in your life, as have I. A good marriage, where each party in the marriage promises to support the other and to remain faithful and loving in the good times and in the bad, when everything is easy and when it hard, is such a covenant relationship. Many people are also deeply blessed by a similar dynamic in other relationships – enduring friendships and family ties, certain working situations and so on. Being in that kind of a relationship does more to form us, give us confidence and hope and help us to be our very best than just about anything else in life.

      But there is a potential downside to being in a covenant relationship. Anytime you enter into something with that level of commitment, there is a danger. When you only trust someone a little and they let you down, it may hurt a bit, but you will probably be alright. But when you are in a covenant relationship and somebody lets somebody down, it can be absolutely devastating and can bring some real long-term effects. And the thing is that disappointment and betrayal are almost inescapable in some ways. None of us are going to be perfect covenant partners. We will all likely fall short in some way or another sooner or later. And when we do, and when it is a serious betrayal, that hurts and wounds us in ways that often stay with us for the rest of our lives.

      That is what makes this idea that the God of Israel is a God who makes covenants so surprising. It means that, by choosing frail humans like us as covenant partners, God is exposing Godself to disappointment, pain and heartbreak that we can hardly even fathom. If God makes a covenant with people, they will let him down. That is about the only thing that can be guaranteed.

      And that is indeed the history of the covenant that God made with the people of Israel. There are countless examples of how the people of Israel disappointed God in the Bible. Even as Moses was standing in the presence of God and receiving the terms of the covenant on top of Mount Sinai, we are told that the people at the foot of the mountain were busy casting their own alternate god out of gold. Think of it – a people flagrantly violating the terms of their covenant with their God even while the covenant is being set up. That would be comparable to a bride or a groom cheating with somebody else even while the wedding ceremony is going on! Can you even fathom the feeling of betrayal that God, as a covenant partner, would feel at that moment!

      And that is, of course, not the only instance. As you read through the scriptures, the story is repeated again and again as the children of Israel repeatedly turn away from the God who has chosen them, forget the ways in which he has asked them to live and run after other gods and strange practices. Again and again in the Bible, God is portrayed as a jilted lover, a cuckold. Sometimes he speaks of his anger at the betrayal, sometimes he is just so indescribably sad, but the theme of God’s disappointment is a theme that runs through the whole Bible.

      But despite it all, God doesn’t give up and doesn’t forget the promises that he made. No matter what, God reminds them, they will be his people and he will be their God. God responds to the people in various ways. He gives them the law through Moses – not as a way of making their lives miserable by piling on rules and regulations, but in order to offer them some real and helpful guidance on how they should live out their lives. More than anything, and especially if you read the Book of Deuteronomy, the law seems to be about helping them to create a just and fair society where everyone is given the resources they need to live a decent life.

      But law seems to fail to accomplish its true intention. Rather than live up to the spirit of the law, the leaders prefer to put the emphasis on the form of the law with festivals, sacrifices and rituals becoming the focus. So God sends in the prophets to correct and challenge the people – especially the leaders. “I hate, I despise your festivals, and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies” the prophets say on God’s behalf. “Even though you offer me your burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them; and the offerings of well-being of your fatted animals I will not look upon. Take away from me the noise of your songs; I will not listen to the melody of your harps. But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever–flowing stream.” (Amos 5:21-24)

      So God attempts to call the people back to the keeping of the covenant through the prophets but the prophets are rejected, persecuted and even killed. They are too much of a threat to the established order and the people who are in charge and so, despite their enduring, beautiful and poetic words, the work of the prophets cannot persuade the people to keep to their side of the covenant.

      But still God does not give up, does not walk away from what only looks like a bad deal from his side. Ultimately, the Book of Deuteronomy and the Books of the Kings conclude, God decides that he must send the people out of the land altogether. They are invaded and taken away to captivity by the Babylonians so that the land itself might have a chance to rest and recover from the lack of justice. But even there, God does not forget his promises. After a generation has passed, he relents and allows his people to return from their exile and start over again in the land that he had given to their ancestors.

      And that is the story, if you want to put it in a nutshell, of the entire Old Testament. God is the faithful covenant partner who is disappointed again and again by the partners that he has chosen. Like a longsuffering wife who just refuses to give up on her violent or abusive husband, he just keeps coming back for more. That is how it is portrayed.

      And how do you fix a relationship like that? I mean that sincerely – how do you fix it? Because Lord knows that we have all seen more than our share of relationships like that. Some partners are abusive, some neglectful, some more than a bit cruel. Don’t get me wrong, there are all kinds of wonderful relationships out there where you see a couple constantly building each other up and offering encouragement, but what about the other kind where they only seem to manage to tear each other down?

      Sometimes, of course, the sad reality is that a relationship becomes so destructive that the best possible way forward is to separate and go on and build your lives apart from each other. The only alternative is that there be real substantial change, but how do you go about doing that? Sometimes people will try making vows and promises – “I promise you, baby, this time it is going to be different, this time it is going to be better” – but in my experience those kinds of promises, often made in desperation are bound to fail sooner or later. That was what God found with the people of Israel and sometimes finds with us. We make promises and vows but too often our resolve is simply not enough to keep us faithful.

      Sometimes, in an effort to save the relationship, people will try setting up rules and boundaries. This is what God did through the Law of Moses. But, as we have seen in that case, rules can quickly lose their meaning, in any relationship, what you really need is not outward obedience to rules but inward and genuine devotion and commitment. Sometimes an outside voice is found to help the participants in the relationship to learn to see the relationship in new ways. I guess you could say that prophets coming in to speak for God carried out this function in the Old Testament.

      So basically, in the Bible, God tries the very things that we try to repair a wounded relationship. There is repentance and forgiveness and ups and downs, but everything seems to fall short at one point or another. What is a deity to do when he just doesn’t want to give up – when God absolutely refuses to walk away from the covenant he has made? God is desperate to make this work. What would you do?

      Well, what God does is opt for one dramatic act that is intended to change the entire dynamic of the relationship. His plan is to make a dramatic demonstration of just how much he cares for his people hoping that this will finally convince them of his love. You will see something like that, sometimes, in ailing relationship. I’ve heard of a person, for example, who walked away from a high paying but super high pressure job that had been slowly been killing him as well as his relationship with his family. It was a radical choice that left the whole family much poorer off financially but so much more healthy in other ways. It was a hard thing to do, but it totally changed the dynamics of a once-failing relationship. That was the kind of dramatic move God needed.

      God made that move, we believe, in the person of Jesus. God chose to enter into the fullness of all that it means to be us in Jesus Christ. That changes the dynamic of the covenant so dramatically because it means that, for the first time, God can understand the struggles of the covenant from our point of view – can understand the weaknesses we struggle with, the temptations that we face. In understanding the limitations that we face, God can deal with us with a new and powerful compassion.

      But, more than that, in Christ, God gives us the supreme demonstration of what God’s love looks like and it looks like Christ who is willing to put up with all of the pain and rejection and shame of the cross for our sake. It looks like a man who is innocent and has done nothing but stand up for what is true and right being struck down for it in all injustice. It looks like a friend who is willing to give up his life for the sake of his friends. And you could talk about the love of God and how deep it is and how wide it is forever and you will never be able to equal what was shown to us when Jesus was nailed up on that wood.

      That is what God does for us in Christ Jesus. That is the story that we will be rehearsing yet again over the next couple of weeks. And I know that none of that makes all of our problems go away. We are still weak. We still fall short of our best intentions. We still do not live up to everything that God expects of us. But the relationship has changed because of Christ. The covenant has moved beyond the mere matter of obedience to an affair of the heart.

      It has moved towards what Jeremiah was promising when he said, “This is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. No longer shall they teach one another, or say to each other, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says the Lord; for I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more.”

      God took it there for us in Christ and in our hearts we will live out that covenant with hope and power. That is what is different because of Jesus.

     

Genesis 9:8-17, Hebrews 8:6-11, Psalm 136:1-16

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he ancient Babylonians had a myth about a great universal flood sent by their gods to destroy the life of all the humans on the face of the earth that they had made. Only one man and his family made it through – survived by building a great ship and riding it out. And if that story sounds a bit familiar it should. It is a basic plot that I am sure all of us would recognize if we know anything about the Bible.

      The ancient Babylonian story was not exactly the same, of course. The hero of the story was named Utnapishtim instead of Noah – a fact that I share with you mostly because I just like to say “Utnapishtim.” And, of course, the deity involved in the Babylonian story was not the God of Israel but rather a collection of ancient Babylonian gods. But the story corresponds so closely that most scholars would say that the biblical story is dependant on the much older Utnapishtim story.

      This is, in itself, not all that surprising. The ancient Hebrews were a part of the ancient world in which they lived and they knew the stories of their neighbours. They quite naturally developed their own versions of those stories which they told for various reasons. Some of these stories they told to work out their understanding of ancient events – and there may well be ancient events behind this one – the memories of some ancient flood that was likely not universal but that devastated an entire region. But these stories weren’t just about things that had happened a long time ago. They were mostly told as a way to process the things that they were coming to know about the God that they worshipped.

      For example, one of the big differences between the Babylonian story and the biblical story is the reason for the flood in the first place. In the older story, the Babylonian gods basically decide to wipe out the humans because they are too noisy. Like grouchy neighbours on the upper floor of an apartment building, the gods are upset about all the noise downstairs and the flood is just their way of turning on all the taps until they overflow to “persuade” the noisy neighbours to move out. And, for the Babylonian gods, the only regret that they have for doing this is that when the human race is wiped out, there is nobody left to feed them with burnt offerings and so they do come to regret it, but for rather selfish reasons.

      The ancient Hebrews heard that story and they knew that it didn’t sound quite right. At least it didn’t seem to be how the God that they were coming to know – the God who had made the people of Israel his own people – would behave. So the story they told mostly differed in how it reflected the relationship between God and the people of the earth. So, for example, instead of being annoyed that the humans are too noisy, God, in the biblical story has a legitimate beef with the people of the earth. They are evil, given to violence and murder, and God decides he is not going to stand for it any more. So there is the first difference from the gods of Babylon. The God of Israel is motivated by justice.

      The second difference in the biblical story is God’s response after the disaster. God, like the Babylonian gods, does regret the slaughter of the flood. But the God of the Bible doesn’t merely miss the sacrifices of the people. Yes, it does say in Genesis that “the Lord smelled the pleasing odour” of Noah’s sacrifice after the flood, but rather than inspiring God’s hunger, the Bible says that the sacrifice reminds God of his love for the people he created. He realizes that to seek to destroy them was wrong, that it didn’t really solve anything but only made things worse. So here is the second wonder about the God of the Noah story – he is able to learn and grow.

      It is a bit surprising, perhaps, if you have always believed that God never changes, to read that God changed his mind after the flood. But I honestly believe that that passage is more about the changing and growing realization of the people who were telling this story as they learned more about the God that they worshiped than it is about Godself changing. The more they came to know this God who they were exploring by telling these stories, the more they discovered, especially about God’s devotion to justice and what was right.

      But there is another aspect to the story of the flood that sets it apart from so many other similar stories that come to us from the ancient world. God doesn't just repent of what he has done, he makes a covenant. And here is the most amazing thing of all in this story about what the ancient people of Israel learned about the God that they worshipped. He was a God who made covenants. From what we can tell from the history of the ancient Near East, this was something that was unique. No other ancient peoples had a covenant making God. This was probably the first thing that set the Hebrews apart from their neighbours.

      Now covenant is not necessarily an everyday word for most of us, so I do want to make sure we all understand exactly what one is. A covenant is an ancient word for what we might call today a contract or a deal or an agreement. In ancient times covenants were originally made between larger groups of people like tribes or nations, so you might also say that a good word for it might be treaty.

      When ancient people made a covenant, they would come together and decide on the terms of their accord – what each party owed the other. There was usually some kind of document that laid out all of the blessings that the participants in the covenant would receive if they kept the terms and (since you can’t have the one without the other) there would also be a list of the curses that would be visited upon them if they broke the covenant. In addition, there would be some sort of monument set up that would remind the parties of the commitment that they had made so they would not break the terms of the covenant.

      These covenants were extremely important in the ancient world. They created peace and prosperity for those tribes and nations that entered into them. But, generally speaking, in the ancient Near East, covenants were only agreements made between tribes and nations or between individuals. But the ancient people of Israel came to understand something quite different – that they had a God who made covenants.

      We see that covenant-making God being introduced, in a sense, in our story this morning from Genesis. He, unlike that ancient gods of Babylon who are only interested in greedily eating up the meat of the sacrifices after the devastation of a flood, instead God wants to make a covenant with the people who have just come off of the ark and all of his creatures. God asks very little of them but he makes a huge promise in return. “I establish my covenant with you, that never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of a flood, and never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth.”

hey had grasped her by the arms and by the legs and then dragged her through the streets little caring that her clothes were being ripped and torn away from her. Frankly a number of them took advantage of the situation by ogling the exposed portions of her body that would normally never be seen in public. A few of them were even so bold as to take advantage of her vulnerability by reaching out to touch what should have been off limits.

      It was fine. They were sure that it was fine because they were on a holy mission. They had taken her in a flagrant act of sin. They were protecting the community from her filth. Surely, if they took advantage just a little bit, it was only in a good cause.

      They were looking for the popular preacher who had been seen around town recently – gathering large crowds and preaching all sorts of nonsense. He had been getting certain people in the community all worked up – treating them like they mattered or something and it had been causing trouble. They had decided to take the man’s popularity down a peg or two by forcing him to take a position on this clear matter of sin.

      A cry went up from the men at the front of the mob. They had spotted the preacher. They soon had him cornered and forced the woman to stand on her feet in front of him. Their leader, a big ruffian, spoke for the group. “Teacher,” he said, “this woman was caught in the very act of committing adultery. Now in the law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?”

      It didn’t mean exactly that to them, which is kind of obvious when you think about it. For us, there are always two (or maybe more) people involved in adultery. It takes two to tango, as they say. But these men have brought only one “sinner” to be judged in this case. A lot of modern people react to this story by asking, “If she was taken in adultery, why did this gang just bring her for judgement to Jesus. Where is the guy? Why didn’t he get brought along too?

      But the fact of the matter is that adultery wasn’t just a matter of infidelity between two persons to them. Marriage, for them, was not just something between two people. Marriage was about the larger family and, to a certain extent, the entire community. It was also very much about property with marriage being the prime method of transferring property between families. For that matter, the woman in a marriage was herself considered to be a piece of property.

      You are all familiar, I imagine with the commandment that goes, “You shall not covet your neighbour’s house; you shall not covet your neighbour’s wife, or male or female slave, or ox, or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbour.” Well, you realize that that commandment is all about not trying to take your neighbour’s property away from him. And note that, in this context, a neighbour can only be a “him” because your neighbour’s wife is not your neighbour but obviously a piece of property that belongs to your neighbour. So a marriage, for them, was a property deal with the wife being just another piece of property.

      And if that is the case, then adultery, for them, was as much a crime of theft as it was a matter of the breaking of any marriage vows. And what’s more, anything that a woman did to devalue herself as a piece of property could have been seen as an act of adultery.

      What do I mean by that? Well, for example, before she became a piece of her husband’s property a woman was considered to be a piece of her father’s property and so he could give her, in marriage to whomever he chose. But what if she didn’t like her father’s choice? What if she rejected his choice and, horror of horrors, pledged herself in some way (and, yes, perhaps in some carnal way) to someone else. Well, that would have been to devalue herself as a piece of her father’s property. And it would have been to break the sanctity of the marriage vow because she, as a woman, was not considered competent to make any marriage vows by herself. So actually it was not all that uncommon for a woman to be accused of committing adultery all by herself.

      All of this goes to illustrate, I hope, that questions of sin did not mean exactly the same to them as they do to us. For them, how you dealt with sin had much more to do with protecting the whole of society than with the concerns of the individual. That is why, of course, the response to sin that is proposed in this case – stoning someone to death – is a communal punishment. It is something that the entire community has to participate in because what she has done is seen as a threat to the entire community. She has threatened the very foundations of that community.

      And so I have lots of problems with how this woman is being treated and judged in this passage. Basically she is being offered up as a kind of scapegoat for all of the problems, lacks and failures of her entire society. All of the failures of marriages in her society, all of the misery that powerless women are put through in their relationships, all of the men who act out their anger at their lot in life against weaker people than them (like women) – all of these failures and miseries produced by the society, these are being laid upon this woman. She must die to save the community because she has dared to challenge the rules of her society in some way. It is not right and I, like you, like all “civilized” modern people, bristle at what is being described in this passage.

      Jesus, I am glad to say, bristles at it too. He agrees with you and me that this is not right. But you shouldn’t assume that his objection comes because he is looking at this issue as you would. Jesus, whatever else he was (and he was a whole lot else) was a man of his time.

      You see, we, as modern people, would likely suggest a very modern resolution to this situation. We would likely say that this woman’s offence (if we saw it as an offense at all) was a personal matter – something to be worked out between her and her husband or whoever else she might have offended. We would likely not see any role for anyone else except, perhaps, some sort of mediator. We would certainly not see the rocks and stones of the entire community as a necessary remedy.

      Jesus would agree that the stones are not going to solve anything, but his reasoning is quite different from what ours would be. Jesus does recognize that her sin is not just her own personal matter. It is something that affects and is a part of the community. In that he agrees with the people of his own time and with the overall view of the Bible regarding sin. But his response is that the traditional solution, which is collective punishment of the perceived offender, is not going to work. Why? Because we all participate in the sin.

      That is what Jesus is referring to when he confronts the men in the mob by saying, “Let anyone among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” He is not accusing them of any particular sin here. He is not saying that they have committed any particular offense much less the specific sin of adultery. Some of them may have, of course, and may feel some shame on a personal level, but Jesus is not seeking to shame them in that way. He is saying something significantly different. He is taking sin seriously and is not denying that it is a threat to the community, but he is rejecting the traditional response to sin which has been to say that we can just find someone to shame and punish to expiate the sin and be done with it. Jesus challenges us to look at the problem differently, to see how we are all participants in it.

Hespeler, 25 February, 2018 © Scott McAndless – Annual Meeting

Mark 8:31-33, Romans 8:18-30, Psalm 10:1-18

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leven days ago, a young man walked into a school in Florida with an AR-15 rifle near the end of the school day. He pulled a fire alarm and started firing on students and teachers indiscriminately for about six minutes. By the time he dropped hi s pack and gun and left, 17 people were dead and 15 more wounded. It was an afternoon of bravery and terrible suffering on the school grounds with one teacher even putting his own body in front of his students. It was an afternoon of a million tears. And yet we as Christians proclaim, “The Lord is king forever and ever.” I have to ask: what kind of king stands by and watches something like that?

      So, the question is, why is there so much evil in this world? I appreciate the response to this question in the Catechism because it acknowledges right away that there are no simple or easy answers to that question. “Evil and suffering are a mystery and fill us with anguish.” Now, calling evil a mystery might seem like a cop-out, but compared to a lot of the other “answers” to the question of evil I have heard, it is actually not a bad answer at all.

      Because, if you ask people – especially people of faith – that question, some of the answers you get are not as helpful as they seem at first. One of the answers you might get, for example, when you ask “Why do bad things happen,” is that some people will say, “Everything happens for a purpose.” That sounds good, of course, because it is always nice to think, even in a tragedy, that at least there is some purpose to it all. But the problem is that the purposes that people come up with often lead us to twist our view of God.

      You see, the Bible doesn’t really solve for us the mystery of the evil that is found in this world, but it does affirm something that is very important. The Catechism puts it this way: “In such a world – a world filled with too much evil – only a God who has entered into our sufferings can help.”

      And I believe that that is what Paul is affirming in this passage. He doesn’t necessarily promise God will solve everything for you, but he does say that, “the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words.” He is saying that, in very significant ways and even if we are feeling so lost that we don’t even know what to pray for, God will actually join us in our pain and anguish. God will not leave us alone and that makes all the difference.

      Of course, for Christians, the moment when God most decisively entered into our suffering is the Jesus event. “As we ponder our Saviour upon the cross, we know that God is with us in our pain.” This is the central mystery of the Christian faith, that God would not stay safely at a distance and far removed from this world and its suffering and evil but would actually choose to enter into the muck and mire of this world. God didn’t need to, but God chose to experience everything that it means to be human by somehow becoming one of us in the person of Jesus Christ.

      That is what the incarnation – the Christmas story and really the whole story of the life of Jesus is actually about. The wonder of it is not, as some suggest, that Jesus was somehow God. The true wonder is that God was somehow human – not just seeming human or pretend human but real human with everything that goes with that.

      God does not promise that there will be no evil or suffering in this world. Neither does God offer to explain why the suffering and evil are even permitted. Maybe that is something that you will understand someday when you can look at this life from a completely different perspective, but, here and now, God doesn’t always answer the why question.

      But God does promise one thing: he will not leave you alone in the suffering. He is with you in it – and not just in a handholding but insincere way (you know, like you sometimes get from people who listen to your tale of woe and say, “I know exactly how you feel,” when you know very well that they don’t). God is with you in it in the sense that he feels what you feel, knows the depths of your pain and loss. And that is only possible because of Jesus.

      You know, it is ironic in some ways. We tend to look at the suffering of the innocent as the greatest evil that you can find in this world. A gunman walks into a school and guns down children who have never done anything to deserve such treatment. A hurricane strikes the countryside, destroying young and old, good and evil in its path. These things are taken by many people to be the greatest indication that God is not there or, if he is, God is not worth worshipping.

      And, yes, those things are evils and great injustices. But, for Christians, the greatest proof that God exists and that God cares is in fact, a case of an innocent man who suffered unjustly. His name was Jesus, he didn’t deserve anything that happened to him. There was no redeeming good in the terrible violence that was committed against him on the Friday just before Passover. But there was love – the supreme demonstration of God’s love seen in God entering into our suffering and into the suffering of the innocent. And love changes things. Love brings hope and life and new beginnings.

      I don’t have an explanation for why there is so much that is so wrong in this world. If I tried to offer you one, it would fall flat. It is a mystery. But so is hope, and love and life itself. And I will continue to worship a God who doesn’t answer all of the why questions but who isn’t afraid of entering into them with us either.

month ago, as you will remember, I had Andy Cann tell me what to preach about. He was given that privilege because he had the top bid in the auction last fall when I put up the right to name a sermon topic. There was also a second highest bid in that same auction and Jean Godin agreed to match Andy’s bid and be able to name a topic for this month.

      And I like Jean, I really do. In fact, I know many people who would only too happily attest to what a wonderful person she is. But I am going to confess to you that there were a few times as I prepared for this morning’s sermon when I wondered whether or not she liked me. (Just kidding, Jean.) The topic that Jean chose was this: How do we live out the Great Commission today? On the surface it is a wonderful question, of course, something that gets to the heart of what the church is supposed to be. It’s just that when you really take the question seriously (as we should all such questions) it seems to raise some issues that make many fine upstanding Presbyterians (and other Christians) uncomfortable.

      The Great Commission is a popular name for the passage that we read this morning from the Gospel of Matthew – in particular, the part where Jesus says, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you.” For generations, Christians have taken those words as the clearest statement of the task that Jesus gives us. It is our commission – our assignment. And the traditional understanding of this assignment is that that we are to announce the basic message of the Christian gospel to people in every nation of the world, convert them to our faith and baptize them into the church. Since this is such a big job, it is called the Great Commission.

      And, not all that long ago, Christians would have probably felt quite fine with the idea that our main job as Christians was simply to go out there and preach the gospel to everyone in the whole world, make them Christians and bring them into the fold of the church. But many Christians are not quite so comfortable with that whole line of thinking these days. Part of the reason for that is that, in former times, Christians only had to deal with other Christians for the most part. Western Society, by and large, was Christian Society. Yes, there were a few Jews here and there, but that was about it. Non-Christians or pagans were usually people who lived in far-off countries on the other side of the world. So it was fairly easy to think that we had it all right and they were all wrong.

      We live in a very different world today where followers of other religions or of no religions at all are not across the ocean, they are across the street. They are our neighbours and coworkers and friends and, what’s more, as we get to know them, we recognize that they are decent people who, like us, are mostly just trying to get by in this world and do the right things. So, while we still may hold to our scriptures and our doctrines, we have to recognize that it is not just people who believe exactly like us who are good people. To think otherwise is just to be petty and maybe racist.

      So we find ourselves in this situation where it doesn’t seem right to tell people what they ought to believe – not in any forceful way. But that is only just part of the problem. Not only have we begun to suspect that non-Christians might be good people all on their own, we have also seen things that make us suspect that at least some of those who are enthusiastic for the task of sharing the gospel with everyone might not be the best people.

      The group of people that today are most associated with the idea of preaching the gospel to the whole world are Christian evangelicals. Evangelicals have long worked hard at preaching the gospel to any who would hear it. But, in recent years, some of the choices that many representatives of this group have made have seemed a little bit suspect. They have entered into alliances with particular political groups, most significantly in the United States with the Republican Party. And some of the ways in which they have been acting in recent years have left people with the impression that they are far more interested in gaining power and influence for themselves and their policy goals than they are truly dedicated to living out the gospel.

      One example stands out in the last couple of months. Recently the report came out that the American president had had an affair with a porn star and had paid her off to keep silent just before the election. And I don’t really know (or much care) if the accusation is true. That’s not why I bring it up. The disturbing thing about it is that some key evangelical leaders apparently assumed that it was true and they didn’t care at all. Take Tony Perkins, president of the very prominent evangelical activist group, the Family Research Council, for example. He apparently believed it but his response (and this is what he actually said) was that he figured that evangelicals should give the president “a mulligan.”

      A mulligan? A consequence-free do over offered to a man who he accepted had probably had an affair just after his wife had given birth to his son? It seemed to be a prime indication that people who were supposed to be only interested in telling some good news were much more interested in power and influence and were willing to abandon some of their core convictions in order to get it from powerful people like presidents.

      I realize it is very unfair to tar all evangelical Christians with the brush of a few leaders like Perkins or Jerry Falwell Jr, (who has also said similar things recently). Of course, not all Christians who are keen to preach the gospel are seduced by the lure of power – far from it! But fair or not, I am afraid that it has entered into the common perception that the people who push the Christian gospel message these days have not the purest motivations.

      So, for all of these reasons, the very idea of evangelism – of sharing the Christian message with people who aren’t already Christians – has fallen into some disrepute these days even among Christians. All of this certainly makes Jean’s question a very timely one indeed. We do feel a certain discomfort with the very notion of living out the Great Commission. But, of course, none of this changes the fact that the Great Commission is there and if we have been commissioned to preach the gospel to everyone, then shouldn’t we just get over whatever we are feeling and get on with it?

      Perhaps, but maybe, before we get too far, we should look closer at what Jesus actually says and what he really expects of us. First, let us look at the context of the Great Commission. It comes at the very end of the Gospel of Matthew and definitely picks up some up the major themes of the whole gospel. For example, the very last words that Jesus says are “And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

      Nevertheless, there is a commandment in what Jesus says, and we want to take that command seriously, so let us focus on that. Jesus says, “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you.” Now, that is a long and somewhat complex sentence in the Greek original. There are four verbs: Go, make disciples, baptize and teach but actually only one of those verbs is in the form of a command and that is the verb that is translated as make disciples. So basically the order that Jesus is giving is make disciples and he is saying that the way to do that is by going, baptizing and teaching.

      Now here again is something that picks up on the entire theme of the Gospel of Matthew which has been all about how Jesus chose these people that he is talking to and made them his disciples by teaching and training them. He is telling them to go and do for others what he has done for them.

      And I think that is a key point that we must keep in mind as we consider what it means for us to follow the Great Commission in the world today. The goal, Jesus makes absolutely clear, is to make disciples. The goal is not to go out there and preach the gospel message at people everywhere. Yes, it is true that making disciples will likely include some preaching, but if you think that you could fulfil this commission just by preaching to everyone in every nation, you have another think coming.

      What Jesus is looking for is not converts or church members, he is looking for disciples – for people who are willing to do what he had done and put their lives on the line for the sake of what is right. It is not about making people believe certain things or join an organization, it is about changing people’s lives for the better.

      And I don’t necessarily see that there is a huge problem with that. Think of it this way: what if each one of us here made a decision over the next couple of years to invest ourselves into someone’s life – someone, maybe, in need of finding a better path. What if you decided to do the kinds of things that Jesus did for his disciples, if you shared your time and wisdom with that person and showed you really cared for them. Can you see how something like that could transform a person’s life? What if you really built that person up? And in the process, shared your own beliefs and priorities with them – not as a way of saying, “here, this is what you have to believe,” but more by saying, “This is what has worked for me, maybe it will help you too.”

      If you could do that, you would be responding to Jesus’ commandment because you would be making disciples or at least giving someone the chance to be best disciple that they can be. That is what the Great Commission is about. It is not about preaching a specific message to people everywhere, though it could include some of that. It is certainly not about building up the power and influence of particular institutions. It is also not about making everyone believe exactly the same things. It is about being involved in people’s lives for transformation – just like Jesus was involved in his disciple’s lives.

      I think that if the church could put its energy into that – and not into protecting its own interest and complaining about the power that it has lost, the idea of being a church that takes the Great Commission seriously would not be something to be embarrassed about. It is not about an obsession with numbers; it is about finding the time to build up those who do come along so that they can change the world. 

Hespeler, February 11, 2018 © Scott McAndless

Genesis 1:1-8, John 1:1-14, Psalm 148:1-14

I

 am sure that many of you are familiar with Dan Brown, author of bestselling books such as The DaVinci Code. His books and the movies that have been made of them have been incredibly popular in recent years. In an interview that took place to promote one of his books someone asked Brown the question, “Are you religious?” this is what Brown said:

      “I was raised Episcopalian, and I was very religious as a kid. Then, in eighth or ninth grade, I studied astronomy, cosmology and the origins of the universe. I remember saying to a minister, ‘I don’t get it. I read a book that said there was an explosion known as the Big Bang, but here it says God created heaven and earth and the animals in seven days. Which is right?’ Unfortunately the response I got was, ‘Nice boys don’t ask that question.’ A light went off, and I said, ‘The Bible doesn’t make sense. Science makes much more sense to me.’ And I just gravitated away from religion.”

      And I must say that I find it rather appalling that Dan Brown, a man who is clearly smart and very interested in spiritual and religious matters (many of his books explore deeply spiritual and religious questions even if some of the history is not overly accurate) – that Dan Brown should have been turned off from the church like that.

      Christians do proclaim and praise God as the Creator. It is an essential part of our belief system but it is not, I think it is important to say, just an explanation. This isn’t something that believers came up with simply because they didn’t have a better explanation for how everything came to be. The idea that this God, who we have come to know through Jesus, is the author of everything that exists is absolutely central to our relationship with this God and to the hope that we find in knowing him.

      I think that that was the first mistake that that Episcopalian minister made when talking to that intelligent young Dan Brown. To him, there was something scary about Brown’s question. The young man came in with an understanding of how the world and all that is in it came into being, a powerful story backed up by science and evidence and supported by a consistent theory. And that poor minister knew that, while he also had a good story of creation, his story did not have those kinds of theoretical or practical supports behind it. He felt that he had to defend his story but he knew that he didn’t really have the ammunition to put up any sort of reasonable defence. So he resorted to what the Christian faith has resorted to far too often down through the years: he shut down the questioner.

      Even worse he suggested that there was something wrong with Brown simply because he had asked the question – insinuating that he wasn’t “nice.” I don’t blame Brown for being turned off, but I am afraid that, in overt and subtle ways, we continue to turn all sorts of people off who bring in their questions and their reasoning to challenge our idea of a creator God.

      But that minister didn’t need to be intimidated by that question. The mere fact that other people – physicists, cosmologists, biologists – can find excellent ways to explain how everything came to be, is not a direct challenge to our concept of a divine Creator. That is because the Creator we meet in the Bible is not about the how of creation, the Biblical Creator is about the why.

      That is why, for one thing, there is not just one account of creation in the Bible. There are several stories that give very different spins on what happened and especially how it happened. There is the best-known story from Genesis 1 that we read from this morning – the famous seven-day story. That story is about the who of Creation – identifying over and over the Creator as Elohim, the God of Israel. We miss that, of course, because the name Elohim is translated throughout simply as God. But the naming of the creator in this saga would have been deeply significant to the people who first heard it because what this story was teaching them was that the God, Elohim, that they had come to know through their worship and in their prayers was the same God who had called the universe into being.

      This story is also about the why of creation. It was saying – and this also is something that it repeats over and over again – that God created the world because it was good and that there was a goodness in how God had organized the whole thing – separating light from darkness, water from water and organizing everything from times and seasons to the various groups of animals according to their kind.

      The why of the story was also about teaching the people of Israel about their own time – specifically that they were to organize their time into groups of seven days and that every seven days they were to observe a Sabbath just as God had done by resting after six days of labour in creation. That is why the creation story all takes place in six days – it wasn’t really about how long it took for God to create the world, it was about how the people were to live out their lives in the world in weeklong cycles.

      What this creation story is not particularly concerned about is how it all came about, at least not as we would see it from a modern scientific point of view. We should hardly expect it to because that was not a concern of the people for whom this story was written. That is a modern, post-enlightenment way of answering the question of why everything exists. This story was concerned, from the point of view of the people it was written for, with much more important matters.

      One thing that makes this very clear is the fact that the Bible didn’t limit itself to one account of creation. After the first story – the seven-day story – there is another story of creation that is told in the second chapter of Genesis – a story of a man named Adam and woman named Eve in a garden. This is no less a creation story than the first one. This is sometimes smoothed over in translation, but the original text very clearly recounts the creation of the world and the plants, animals and people all over again.

      This, again, didn’t really bother the people for whom it was written. They understood that the story was being told in different terms because it was finding a different meaning in the creation and in the Creator. Here the focus was on relationship – the relationship of the humans to the natural world, the relationships between men and women and above all the relationship between God and humans. So, once again, it wasn’t about the mechanism of creation so much as about the meaning of creation.

      So, unlike that Episcopalian minister who spoke to that young Dan Brown, I don’t see any need to be fearful or defensive about the apparent contradictions between scientific explanations of how the universe came to be and how the Bible talks about the topic. I feel that all of these accounts are valuable if you understand what they were written to convey and use them accordingly.

      But there is another Biblical creation account that I would like to focus on for a few minutes – one that might help us to bridge the divide between Biblical and modern approaches to understanding the existence of everything. When the Gospel of John was written (and most scholars think that it likely wasn’t written until maybe a century after the death of Jesus) the author probably thought long and hard about how he would begin his account of the life and ministry of Jesus of Nazareth. Other gospel writers (Matthew and Luke) had started with stories of Jesus’ birth. Mark had started with Jesus getting baptised. But the writer of John felt that he needed to go much farther back to get to the real start of his story. He started with a new account of creation.

      This new creation story starts out with a nod towards one of the old ones. The first words, “In the beginning,” are lifted directly from Genesis 1:1. But from there it takes a strange turn. Instead of “In the beginning God,” we get, “In the beginning was the Word.” Now even there we can see a connection with the Genesis story because, of course, in Genesis God creates by means of the spoken word, by saying things like, “Let there be light” and “Let there be a dome.”

      But the gospel writer is saying more than just that God created by speaking – a whole lot more. The word that he uses there – the word that is translated word is a Greek word: logos. And logos is not just another Greek word that means word. It is a word that takes us to the heart of the ways in which Greek thinkers at that time thought and understood their world. For the Greek philosophers, the logos was the organizing principle for everything that existed. If you grasped the logos, you could understand and explain everything. That is why, to this very day, many of the words that we use to talk about how we think and understand the world – words like logic, biology, archaeology and cosmology all contain within them the root logos.