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Tabitha’s Tunics — and what they teach us about the purpose and the resurrection of the church in our times

Posted by on Sunday, April 10th, 2016 in Minister

Stories of Hope Clothing, Episode 3:



Hespeler, 3 April 2016 © Scott McAndless
Isaiah 58:1-10, Acts 9:36-43, Matthew 25:31-40
D
id you notice that nobody asked Peter to do anything? Peter was in Lydda when a highly respected and well-loved woman named Tabitha died in the nearby town of Joppa. And people had obviously heard something about Peter. He had a certain reputation for healing and for miracles, so they sent for him with an urgent request that he come, but that was the whole content of the message. They didn’t tell him that he was supposed to heal her (it was kind of too late for that anyways). They didn’t ask him to come and doanything – just come, please, as soon as you can.
      And when he came, even then, they didn’t actually ask anything of him. They just took him to an upper room where they had laid out Tabitha’s body but they don’t even seem to have pointed her out to him. No, what Peter actually saw and noticed was not her body but a room full of weeping widows. They didn’t say anything, they just wept and showed him their clothes. And that is why they didn’t need to ask him to do anything. The clothes actually spoke much louder than any words ever could have.
      The story of Tabitha in the Book of Acts, makes me ask, first of all, one immediate and very important question. If you were Tabitha, what would the widows show to Peter?
      I am often called upon, as you would expect, to speak at the funerals of people who have passed away. I have always found it to be true that every person’s life has something profound and beautiful to say to us at such times and I do see it as a great honour and a privilege to be the one who gets to point out some of those profound and beautiful things.
      But I have also noticed that there are often things that are deeper and stronger than words at times like that. They are objects or actions that hold special symbolic meaning and they often will prove far more enduring than the words we say about someone who has died. People will cling to something that the deceased gave to them or did for them and find great comfort in that. That was what those widows were doing when Peter arrived.
      Widows are, in the Bible, kind of the stereotypical poor person. They were seen as the most helpless and needy people in all of society. Of course, there are problems with that stereotype. I would never be so foolish as to think of a widow (or any woman unattached to a man) in such terms today! In fact, some of the strongest and most capable people I have ever known have been widows or other women who, by choice or by circumstance, navigate this world without a husband.
      And even the ancient perception that widows were helpless actually had nothing to do with the capabilities of individual women. It was just that, in that society, women were not permitted to make their way in the world without a dominant male controlling them. They were not allowed to participate in the economy in any honourable way and so they were forced to be utterly dependant on charity.
      So these women in Joppa may have been very strong and confident women. They may have even been practicing the freedom of the Christian gospel by choosing not to be married. But they lived in a society that did not allow them to make their own way apart from a dominant man. These women, because they broke the conventions of society, became dependent on the community of the church.
      And Tabitha, had been particularly generous to them. But it obviously wasn’t just the fact that she was generous that had moved them. She had made these clothes with her own hands. Her generosity to them had been personal, caring and individual. That’s what made the common, everyday tunics and dresses and robes they were showing to Peter absolutely priceless in their minds. These tunics represent to them everything that summed up Tabitha’s kindness, goodness and love shown to them.
      And I don’t know about you, but if that were me and I had died or moved on in some other way, I just think it would be really nice if, after I was gone, someone could just hold up something and point to it and say, “This is something that tells me that Scott was here and that his presence in this place mattered.” So it is a really good question to ask, “what tunics would people show to Peter after you were gone?”
      But actually, I have a much more urgent question to ask here today. The story of Peter and Tabitha is a terrific story to read just after Easter because it is a story of resurrection. Maybe I should have said, “spoiler alert,” before bringing that up, but we did actually read the story and you heard how it ended. Tabitha didn’t stay dead. So it would be very easy to take this story and apply it to our post-resurrection hope as followers of Christ.
      Certainly one of the reasons why the early Christians remembered and repeated this story was because it reminded them of their Easter hope in a life after death. The life after death that we hope for is not exactly what happens to Tabitha. We don’t expect Jesus to restore us to thislife again after we die, but rather to a different kind of life in a new place that we can scarcely even imagine. But what Peter does for Tabitha is a symbolic reminder of that hope for life after death.
      But there is, I think, another way to read this story as a story of resurrection. After all, it is not just people who die. Groups and organizations and institutions, they can die too. And, as a matter of fact, we are living in an age when institutions are passing away more quickly than ever before. Churches and congregations, in particular are affected by this and they are passing away (or amalgamating or changing to such a degree that they are unrecognizable) at an unprecedented rate today. So would it not be a good question to ask, as believers in the power of resurrection, what is the hope for resurrection for our churches and Christian institutions?
      If your church were to die (or go through a radical change that might feel like death) what would you like to leave behind from its life right now that would tell the world that it was worth being here? Now, I know that when we think of our churches and the things that make them special to us, we tend to focus on the things that have been meaningful to us personally. We talk about our beautiful buildings and sanctuaries. We talk about memorable moments in worship services and about the things we have done there with our friends. We also have a certain tendency to go on and on about past glories and to celebrate the way that things used to be.
      Of course, there is nothing wrong with loving these things about our churches. But the story of Tabitha makes me wonder, when our congregations are dead (or when they are transformed in coming years) what will make people remember them as they were and believe that they were important? This story makes me think that it may not be the buildings or the activities or the musical moments. What if, in the end, what really matters are the pieces of clothing.
      I can think of this quite literally because we have, in this congregation, a clothing ministry called Hope Clothing where we are regularly handing out really good quality used clothing to people simply because they need it and can make good use of it. So I do know just how meaningful such a simple act can be. I am in the church often enough when people come in and bring their donations of clothing. Just knowing that it is our intention to give it all away according to need means a great deal to people in the world today – a world where used clothing has become a big business that creates large profits for some.
      I also get to hear the stories that they tell me as they bring the clothes in. Not too long ago, I had a woman come in bearing the clothes of her mother who had passed away recently. She joyfully and sorrowfully (it’s amazing how the two of them can go together sometimes) told me very sacred and holy things about her mother and her sense of style and how she dressed and some of the things she had struggled with over recent years. I know without a doubt that it was a healing moment for her to be able to share her mother’s clothes and her stories in that way. And providing that opportunity is absolutely something that will last long beyond the present state of this congregation.
      Of course, I also get to be part of it when people come to take the clothes that they need. We could tell you so many stories of people finding just the right piece of clothing at the right time in order to go to a job interview or a wedding or some other really important event. We could tell you stories of the right piece of clothing showing up as a donation only minutes before someone comes looking for that very thing. It is a little shop where minor miracles happen every week. Sometimes you know you’re participating in a miracle when you are just there and ready to respond when someone comes up against an emergency – a house fire, a situation of abuse or whatever it might be.
      And let me tell you, if someday our congregation should cease to exist and the Apostle Peter were to drop by and ask me what really mattered about St. Andrew’s Hespeler, I think we could do a lot worse than to show him those pieces of clothing that were shared and the impacts they had on people’s lives. I know he would be moved by that. And of course, it is not always literally clothing but it is the acts of kindness that manifest themselves in concrete things that are shared with others.
      For example, last week I preached this sermon at St. Andrew’s Church in Guelph and they don’t have a clothing ministry. They are, however working diligently towards welcoming a refugee family into Canada. I promised them that the concrete things that they do for that family will be of eternal value and will indeed endure beyond the present life of their congregation.
      So I hope that this story of Tabitha might make us re-evaluate the things that we feel are really important about our churches and ask ourselves what we really need to spend our time and energy investing in as congregation. Maybe it is time for some of those priorities to change.
      But remember that I said that this is a post Easter story. It is a story of the power of Christ’s resurrection and what it can do for us in our churches today. And I do see us living in an age where death is a real possibility for our congregations. Please understand, however, that I am not, in any way, predicting the death of St. Andrew’s Guelph or St. Andrew’s Hespeler. In neither case do I see that as a likely possibility and I am not here as a prophet of doom today.
      But I will tell you this: we are living in days of great change for the church. We have a Lord who will not abandon his church in these days. Christ will be with his church through whatever change may come. That’s the good news. The somewhat more troubling news is this: Christ has a particular strategy for renewal in his church and in his people’s lives. And it is not a strategy of incremental change that never makes us feel uncomfortable. Christ’s favourite strategy for change is death and resurrection.
      For me that means that maybe even many of our strongest and liveliest churches may be heading for a Tabitha moment – for a time when it may just feel like we have been washed and laid out in a room upstairs and that we are done. I fully expect many of our congregations to deal with moments like that in coming years.
      Why would God allow us to go through such painful moments of loss? Not because he has abandoned us. He will send for Peter to come and raise us up again to new life and new beginnings. Christ will not abandon his church. So why would he put us through that?
      Well maybe, just maybe, it’s because he wants us – like those widows in Joppa – to realize what really matters about who we are and what we do as a church together.
       
      #TodaysTweetableTruth The widows showed Peter Tabitha’s tunics proving she had mattered. What would they show him after yr church was gone?
     

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“Preparing the Spices” — “Some Women of our Group Astounded us”

Posted by on Monday, March 28th, 2016 in Minister

Note: I have created the backstories of Mary and Joanna that are featured in this sermon. My speculation on these two characters began with the introduction of these disciples of Jesus in Luke 8:2-3 and has spun off in some interesting directions as I have been working on a future book that may be titled something like “The Seven Demons of Miryam of Magdala.”

Hespeler, 27 March, 2016 © Scott McAndless – Easter
Luke 23:50-24:3, Luke 24:13-32, Psalm 118:1, 2, 14-24

M
ary Magdalene opened the package of spices and ointments that Joanna had brought back from the market and inhaled deeply. She was suddenly overwhelmed by the scents: cinnamon, cassia, balsam and resin. She could even smell the small amounts of frankincense and myrrh that her dear friend, Joanna, had only been able to afford by selling the very last pieces of jewellery that she had plundered from her abusive husband, Chuza, when she had fled his household to follow Jesus.
      It smelled beautiful, but it was also emotionally dangerous for her. Smell is a powerful trigger for the memory. The part of your brain that processes olfactory information is only separated by a few synapses from your amygdala which is the part of your brain where your most powerful and emotionally charged memories are stored. That is why sometimes just getting a whiff of some scent that is connected to your past can transport you back to events that you may have thought you had completely forgotten.
      And there was no question that the smells of these spices and resins were connected to many traumatic memories in the lives of all the women who were there in that room. Mary herself was instantly transported back to the day when her intended husband was drowned while fishing on the Sea of Galilee. She remembered the deep grief and confusion that she felt as they carried the body of her promised husband to his family tomb outside the town of Magdala. At that moment it had seemed as if her entire life had been over and, in a very real sense it was.
      Beside her, Joanna was reeling from the fact that the same smells had taken her back to the day, so many years ago, when she and her servants had laid to rest the tiny, stillborn body of her only child. She was suddenly filled with a grief that was so raw that it was as if no time had passed at all. And the same was true for every woman who was present as each one of them felt as if a scab had been ripped off the poorly healed wound in her life that had formed when she lost someone whom she loved: a parent, a child, her sibling or cousin or best friend. Life in Galilee could be very brutal indeed. Their new grief at the loss of their teacher, Lord and friend mixed and mingled with so many old griefs.
      There was a reason why they all reacted so similarly. Women in that culture had very well defined roles and duties around death. When someone died, everyone always automatically looked to the women to do what needed to be done. They sang the laments and songs of grief. They told the story of the person’s life and death. They led the procession to the tomb. Most especially they washed and prepared the body with the traditional mixtures of ointments and spices and wrapped it in the linen cloths.
      Everyone (even the men) agreed that men just weren’t any good at that kind of thing. So heavy were the expectations of so-called “manly” behaviour placed upon them that men could not express emotions like grief or sorrow in any sort of helpful way. So it was always left to the women – one of the few places in public life where they were actually allowed to take a leadership role. So they had all done it so many times before.
      It was somewhat distressing to the women that they had not been permitted to prepare the body of Jesus for burial – that a man named Joseph, a secret ally on the council – had taken care of it by quickly wrapping the body in linen cloths and stowing it in some tomb that had no connection with Jesus’ family. But there was no helping that. Not only had there been no time to do things properly as the sun was setting and the sabbath was about to begin, the situation was also far too dangerous for any open displays of grief on the day when he was crucified.
      But the women were determined that they would do whatever they could to make it right. A lot of people have wondered why the women would have returned to the tomb where Jesus had been laid on the third day and why they would bring with them the spices and ointments that were commonly used to prepare a body before burial when he had already been buried, even if hastily so. It is not as if they could have unburied him in order to do it all over again. Even if it had not been for the large stone covering the tomb and forming an impossible barrier, such an act would have unacceptably disturbed the dead.
      But we do know that there was a custom in many ancient Mediterranean societies – and in ancient Palestine as well – of a special visit to the grave that took place on the third day following a death. It was a celebration that was led, like all other activities around death, by women. The mourners would go out to the tomb where a beloved friend or family member had been laid and they would take with them a simple meal: bread, wine, maybe some fish and olive oil. These things would be taken as a special gift to the dead, so it wouldn’t be all that surprising if women were to take as well such things as burial spices and ointments.
      But the point of the third day gathering by the tombs was not merely to honour the memory of the dead with gifts. There was a belief, common among many cultures and, the evidence suggests, also among first century Jews, that when they gathered to share this simple kind of meal by the tomb of a beloved friend or family member, the dead would join with them in that meal. This was something that all of the women who followed Jesus from Galilee would have experienced before. They had gone with other women to tombs and experienced the presence of the dead on the third day.
      What exactly had they experienced previously, I suspect, would have been something like the kinds of experiences that people still sometimes report to this very day. I have often had people tell me about the ways that they were comforted after losing a loved one – how they just felt the presence of that person watching over them or saw something that confirmed to them that their beloved was still with them in some very important way. These are not unusual experiences. Many have had them following a death. People doubt such experiences, of course, because it is notoriously hard to prove any very personal experience, but many have been greatly comforted by these things that reassured them that their loved ones were still with them.
      So it wouldn’t really be that surprising if these women were preparing to go out to the tomb and minister to their dead Lord and friend with an expectation of finding some kind of reassurance of his presence. They packed up the spices and ointments, some bread and wine and the other elements of a simple meal and they waited for the dawning of the third day. But it seems that they were about to get more than they had bargained for.



     The women who went out to visit Jesus’ tomb at the dawning of the third day had all experienced grief and loss before. Everyone in that society agreed that grief was women’s work. So it was all so very familiar to them – the feelings, the smells, the songs that they sang and the atmosphere. And, given that human life was cheap in Galilee, they had all doubtlessly lost people that they loved. It had been very personal before.
      But this was different. Jesus hadn’t just been a friend or a teacher to them. He had been a reason for them to start to live again. He had given them hope that things could actually be different. And so, as they headed out to the tomb to share a meal there and bring offerings for the dead, they may have expected to experience the presence of their now-dead Lord in the same way that they had experienced it before for their other loved ones, but surely they were hoping for something… more.
      Christians believe that they did experience something more than the commonly experienced reassurance of the presence of the dead. What exactly happened to them would be impossible to describe precisely because even the Bible has a hard time pinning it down. There are four different accounts of what those women experienced at the tomb in the Bible and not one of them agrees in all the details with the others. But I don’t necessarily think that that is a problem because what these passages are describing are deeply personal experiences that changed the lives of the women who had them irrevocably. It wasn’t just about what they saw and felt and heard and touched, it was about what all of that meant on a very personal level.
      I imagine, though, that they arrived at the tomb and they told, one more time, the story of how he had died and what his death meant, just as it would continue to be told whenever the church gathered in the years to come. And then, as was traditional at these sorts of third day gatherings, they took some bread and they broke it. And how could that not have made them think of him – not only because of the last meal he shared with this disciples but also because of how he loved to gather and eat with all sorts of people and especially with outcasts and sinners and all the other people that everyone else rejected. That act alone must have made it seem as if Jesus was very near.
      But there was more to it than that. As they took the bread and shared it, as they drank wine from a common cup, they knew that he was there – not just in their memory (though, of course, he would always be there), not just in spirit as they may have experienced it with others they had lost, he was there in body, in whole person. Most of all, he was there in reality. It was like the realest thing that any of them had ever experienced.
      And that experience, my friends, is the basis of our Christian hope. I believe that those women experienced it there outside his tomb on the third day after his death. That was when it all started. That is not to say that they immediately understood everything that they had experienced. I wouldn’t be surprised, in fact, if it took them years to really put it all into words that could even make sense to people. And, of course, it wasn’t just that one time outside his tomb either. None of it would have probably amounted to anything if people had not continued to consistently experience the reality that he was alive.
      Each experience of the risen Christ was unique, but clearly one of the ways that people continued to experience him was when they shared these same kinds of simple meals of bread and wine and common foods when they gathered. They were often surprised that he was present in those meals with them just as the women had experienced.
      That kind of process is described to us in the story from the Gospel of Luke. It takes place on Easter day when two disciples are walking to Emmaus. They have heard about what the women experienced at the tomb: “Moreover, some women of our group astounded us,” they say. “They were at the tomb early this morning, and when they did not find his body there, they came back and told us that they had indeed seen a vision of angels who said that he was alive.” They know about what the women experienced, but they don’t seem convinced – not until they experience it for themselves as the stranger with them breaks the bread and shares some wine and they are suddenly part of the same feast that the women shared outside the tomb.
      And that is what Easter is really about. It is not just about what they experienced, as real as that was. It is an invitation to all of us to share in that experience together. It is an invitation to share a bit of bread and some wine and to know that this is an event that is not limited to this particular place and time. If you are open to it, it is a meal that can transport you back to the moment when those women gathered on the third day outside his tomb. I pray, and I hope that you join me in this prayer, that at least some of us here today might find some small taste of that in this simple shared meal. That is why we do it.
     

#TodaysTweetableTruth #Easter isn’t about their experience at the tomb. It is an invitation to experience an event unlimited by time & space


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No Shortcuts to Easter

Posted by on Sunday, March 20th, 2016 in Minister

Hespeler, 20 March, 2016 © Scott McAndless – Palm Sunday
Isaiah 50:4-9a, Mark 11:1-10, Psalm 18:1-19
I
n the Gospel of Mark we are told that, as Jesus was approaching the city of Jerusalem, he stopped and he pointed at two of his disciples and asked them to do something for him. He told them to go into the village just ahead of them, find a donkey, and untie it and bring it right back. He said he needed it in order to make his big entry into Jerusalem. It doesn’t say which two disciples he sent in the gospel. I’ve always wondered about that. Who were they? Surely, if it were two of the famous twelve, they would have been identified. If it had been Peter, James, John, or even Bartholomew, wouldn’t Mark have wanted to tell us?
      So do you know what I think might have happened? I think that Jesus went to the second string. He didn’t send any of these big name disciples or top talent. He sent a couple of the other guys, the ones who didn’t quite make the cut. They were the sort that history doesn’t quite remember, of course, but I’ve heard that their names were Donald and Ted.
      And, in fact, I have some good news. It seems that an amazing new archeological discovery has been made in the Holy Land. Apparently, Donald and Ted kept a record of the conversation they had as they made their way to pick up the donkey. And eventually this conversation was written down as the Gospel of Donald and Ted which was, unfortunately lost to history when one of them left it behind one day in the back room of the Jerusalem Tim Hortins. Well, that long lost gospel has finally been found and I am pleased to announce that I have it here today.
      So here’s what this long lost gospel says: “And lo, it came to pass that as the two disciples made their way even unto the village where the donkey lay, Donald did say unto Ted, “Hey, Ted, I am just so excited about this assignment. This is finally it. We’re going to Jerusalem and the teacher has obviously decided to make an entrance. And we get the job of making sure that it’s spectacular. It’s going to be huge.”
      “Yeah,” replied Ted, “it’s all finally happening. Jesus is going to restore the kingdom of David. It’s going to be the glory days of the past all over again. Jesus is finally going to deport all of those Romans from the country, he’s going to make sure they never come back again. In fact, you know what I heard some of the other guys talking about? I heard them say that he’s going to build a wall around the whole country so that they can never come back here again.”

      “I heard that too,” said Donald. “But that’s not all. I heard that he’s going to get the Romans to pay for the wall. And if they give him any trouble, he just said that the wall got ten feet higher.”
      “Yeah, I heard that too. But I was wondering, everyone seems so sure that this is what it is all about, but nobody seems to have heard Jesus say exactly that. How can we be sure that that is what he’s going to Jerusalem to do? I mean, maybe he’s expecting something different to happen there.”
       Donald thought about this for a few moments. “Well, I do remember a few months ago he said something about going to Jerusalem and then being arrested and put on trial and something about dying, but I think that Peter told him off about that – said that he shouldn’t talk like that – and I’m sure that must have straightened him out. After all, he’s been going on and on about establishing a kingdom. And everybody knows how kingdoms work. A kingdom is only established through strength.
      “And now he’s sent us to fetch him a ride for the grand procession that will start his great revolt. What an honour! When people look back on this day, they’ll remember that it was us who started the whole thing, you mark my words!”
      “Yeah,” said Ted, “but there’s one thing that’s been bothering me. Why did he send us to get a donkey? Why not a beautiful white horse or, I don’t know, an elephant or a tank to ride on? Wouldn’t a conquering king ride something like that? A donkey is, well, just not so impressive.”
      Donald smiled, “Don’t you worry, I’m sure it’s going to be the biggest, most impressive donkey you have ever seen. It is going to be huge! Did you hear him tell us what we’re supposed to say when people yell at us for stealing the animal? We’re supposed to say, ‘The Lord needs it.’ Get it, we have to call him ‘the Lord.’ and everybody knows that being a lord is all about being big and impressive and strong and huge.”
      And so it came to pass that Ted found that his fears were assuaged and, greatly comforted, he and Donald pursued their road to find the donkey. And lo, as they walked they began to make up the cheers that they would get the people to shout as they entered the city. They decided that they would get everyone to chant “HO SAN NA” They liked that one because it meant “save” and they figured they knew exactly how he would save the nation from all their enemies. And then Ted came up with on that went, “Blessed is the coming kingdom of our ancestor David!” which Donald thought was good, but maybe not everyone would get it because some people weren’t that great with history.
      “Why don’t we just yell, “Make Judea great again”? That’s what bringing back the times of King David means, isn’t it? Oh, and wouldn’t it be great if we made up some hats and put that slogan on them. Man, Jesus is going to be so happy that he sent us to do this job, won’t he?
      Here endeth the lesson from the Gospel according to Ted and Donald. And I know that you of have figured out by now that there is not and never has been a Gospel according to Ted and Donald. But the creation of this gospel seemed to me to be the best way to make a little bit of sense of a pretty amazing phenomenon that we see taking place in the United States these days.
      I don’t know how many people I’ve had express to me their dismay at what they see happening in American politics right now. People just don’t understand the rise of Donald Trump and the likelihood that he will be the Republican nominee for president. They also express even more dismay at the thought that he could actually becomepresident. And, of course, a lot of it really is very hard to understand. But, as I was reading again the story of Palm Sunday this year, it seemed to me to be a story that might help us to understand some of what is going on.
      It seemed to me that the crowds that were shouting out to Jesus that day, many of them at least, had a lot in common with those who cry the name of Donald Trump these days. Now, I know that the two men, Trump and Jesus, don’t really have a lot in common. In fact, I think that they would disagree profoundly on a number of topics such as money, how to treat strangers and outsiders and poor people just to name a few. But Jesus, at least for a certain time around that day that we call Palm Sunday, seems to have attracted a crowd who at least thought that Jesus was promising to give them very similar things to what Donald Trump seems to make his followers today expect, despite the fact that Jesus made his very best effort to tell his followers that he was heading for something quite different.
      What were they expecting? We cannot know exactly, of course, but they seem to have been looking for some sort of shortcut to glory and the solution of all their problems. The word most associated with Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem that day is the word “Hosanna,” a Hebrew word that means “save” or “help.” It is a phrase that is sometimes used as a prayer for help or salvation in the Bible, but in the stories of Palm Sunday, it is used in a different way because the people shout it as a sort of a cheer. It is a hurrah as much as it is a call for help. This makes it clear that the kind of salvation that they are looking for is an immediate triumphant victory. They are looking for their enemies to be swept away before them, for everything to be immediately made right as they understand it.
      The other phrase that they are shouting, according to the Gospel of Mark is, “Blessed is the coming kingdom of our ancestor David!” I find this one particularly telling. It is not even immediately clear what this means. How could people be welcoming the arrival of the ancient kingdom of a long dead ancestor? But the recent rise of Donald Trump in the United States has helped me to understand what this actually means. It means the same thing as the Trump slogan, “Make America Great Again.”
      That slogan also doesn’t make a lot of logical sense. People have just been accepting it at face value and without asking critical questions like, “When exactly was America great before and at what moment did it stop being great.” It really works best if people don’t think about it very much at all because it works in the same way as that slogan shouted out by the crowd on Palm Sunday: “Blessed is the coming kingdom of our ancestor David!” Basically they are holding up a past idilic time that nobody actually remembers and saying, if we just go back to that time, everything will be alright and it will happen with no trouble or pain or difficulty. That’s what I mean when I call it taking a shortcut. It’s the idea that all you have to do is set the clock back to an earlier time that no one actually remembers and every problem is just solved.
      And I get why people want that and I certainly don’t blame them for that. There are lots of good reasons why people are upset at what has gone wrong in their society, the lost opportunities, the corruption of a political system and a party system that doesn’t really listen to what people want. There is a lot that is right about that impulse to tear apart the whole system so you can rebuild it all from the ground up. But the thing that people miss is that are no shortcuts to the kind of change that is really needed. You can’t just get there by marching into Jerusalem or by building a wall and making Mexico pay for it or slapping on a hat that says, “Make America Great Again.
      The thing that sets Jesus apart from Trump and others like him is that Jesus kept repeating over and over that there were no shortcuts to glorious victory. He chose to ride a donkey into Jerusalem and that was no traditional mount for a great victor according to the rules of this world. He had told his disciples at least three times that he was going to be arrested and killed when he went to Jerusalem. He knew what was in store for himself and he had decided that he couldn’t avoid that route. There really were no shortcuts to the victory that Jesus was heading towards.
      Jesus has a plan for bringing redemption, hope and new beginnings to this world in spite of all its troubles. He probably would have had the power, had he called on it, to sweep into Jerusalem and take over and drive out his enemies and impose his idea of the kingdom of God by force. Does anybody believe that would have ended well? Jesus knew that it wouldn’t. People still try and take that shortcut, though. Some are pushing for it right now. That is why I will put my faith in someone who chose to ride into town on a donkey and who knew that rejection, suffering and death were what waited for him. He may not be the saviour that people are shouting for in the streets, but he is the kind of saviour we need.
     
#TodaysTweetableTruth As Jesus comes to Jerusalem, they cry #MakeJudeaGreatAgain Jesus knows there’s no shortcut to change the world needs.

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Mistakes and what they teach us about God’s grace 5) John and the Game

Posted by on Sunday, March 13th, 2016 in Minister

St. Andrew's Stars Episode:



Hespeler, 13 March, 2016 © Scott McAndless – Lent 5
Isaiah 53, Luke 23:13-25, Psalm 22:14-24
E
very year the National Hockey League, the NHL, pauses in middle of its season to celebrate its very best players. The All-Star game has always been a big fan favorite – a chance to celebrate the players that the fans love most. And, in January of this year, the league really needed a successful All-Star game as it found itself in the midst of a season that many fans seem to find rather uninspiring. Instead what it got was a bunch of really bad mistakes. And I know that you may not think that the story of an All-Star game has much to teach us about the Biblical truths, but I hope you’ll stay with me for a little bit here because I think that it can.
      The first mistake that the NHL made was to include the fans in the selection process of the All-Star team. Now, that was not a new mistake this year. Fans have been helping to choose team members since 1985, but a lot has changed since way back then. Today fans are connected to each other through social media in ways that could never have been dreamed of back in 1985. And this year someone somewhere on the internet decided to disturb the NHL’s plans for a nice little, brand-boosting All-Star game.
      A social media campaign was started to get people to vote John Scott onto the team under the hashtag, #VoteJohnScott. I’m not sure why someone started this campaign but it seems that people lashed onto it as a way to get back at the league for all kinds of reasons. Scott was a player who really had no business being on the team according to any regular measures. Some people have suggested that he had no business being in the NHL at all. Playing for the Arizona Coyotes this season, he has spent as much time in the minor AHL league as he has in the NHL. He had only played 11 major league games, scored no goals, had only one assist and spent about a half hour in the penalty box. An enforcer and big brawler on the ice, he seemed anything but a good representative of what is good in the game.
      But the campaign really took off and before long Scott had not only got on the team but came in ahead of all the other top players. The fans made him captain of the Pacific Team. Clearly the NHL had made a mistake in letting the fans have the kind of power that they could use to sabotage the league’s plans. But it probably would have been alright if they had just left well enough alone. They did not.
      The league (and I think that most people have blamed everyone’s favourite commis­sioner, Gary Bettman) decided that it would be too embarras­sing to allow Scott to play. None of this is proven, mind you, but it seems that they tried any and all means to get him off the roster. They tried to bribe him to decline. They even went so far as to tell him that his children would be ashamed of him. When that didn’t work, they got mean. He was suddenly traded from Phoenix to Montreal and no sooner had he arrived that the Canadiens immediately sent him down to their minor league farm team in Newfoundland. The argument was that since he could no longer represent either the Coyotes or even the NHL because he no longer played for either.
      So all of a sudden, in the middle of winter, Scott and his family are moved from hot and sunny Arizona and into exile in deepest darkest Newfoundland. But, I have to ask, what did John Scott do to deserve such treatment? He is, by all accounts, a really nice guy who loves hockey and loves his kids and is only dangerous if you meet him on the ice. He also didn’t make any mistakes. If anyone did, the league did. But it looked as if he and his family were going to be the only ones to pay the price.
      But isn’t that the way it always goes. It is a story as old a human society. It is certainly as old as the Book of Isaiah. There are a series of passages in the Book of Isaiah that are sometimes called the Songs of the Suffering Servant. These songs are found in Isaiah 42, 49, 50 and 53. We read the final song of the Suffering Servant this morning.
      All of these poems tell the story of an unnamed figure who is simply called the Servant of the Lord. This is a man, called to serve God in the world and to do much good and no wrong, who is nevertheless terribly abused over and over again. As it says in our reading this morning, “He was despised and rejected by others; a man of suffering and acquainted with infirmity; and as one from whom others hide their faces he was despised, and we held him of no account.”
      In all likelihood, when the prophet talks about this figure, he is thinking about somebody he knows personally – someone in his nation whom he has seen God use to do good but who has been terribly mistreated. He may even be talking about himself, in a roundabout way, and how he has been abused despite being a prophet of God. But whoever the prophet was initially thinking about, there is something universal about his description of the Servant of the Lord. He is describing something that seems to have happened over and over again in the history of the world when a good person is unjustly punished for doing good.
      Christians have taken these passages, for example, and applied them to the story of Jesus and his death upon the cross – and rightfully so – for there is no question that Jesus’ story is absolutely a working out of the same theme that is found in the Book of Isaiah. In fact, I would go so far as to say that the suffering and death of Jesus is the definitiveexample of somebody living out this pattern. Jesus lived out the universal story of the suffering servant more perfectly than anyone else in history both before and since. And, since the death of Jesus is an eternal event – an event whose impact far exceeds the moment in time when it happened – it is even possible to say that the Songs of the Suffering Servant in the Book of Isaiah are based on the story of Christ even though they were written long before his time. That is one of the things that it means when we call them prophecy.
      But, as I say, the story of Jesus is just the most perfect example. It is far from the only one. And I told you the story of John Scott this morning because I also see it as an echo – perhaps a dim echo, but an echo nonetheless – of the same universal story. Of course, I would never suggest that Scott’s abuse was anywhere near what was suffered by Jesus or even what was suffered by Isaiah’s Suffering Servant. To suggest any sort of parity would be ridiculous. But Scott’s story is a reminder that nothing really changes in the world – the pattern remains the same. The powers of this world, whether they be kings or priests or commissioners or sports franchises, have their plans. And a key part of their plan is that they don’t really have to suffer for their own mistakes – they’ll always find a way to get someone else to pay the price. That’s what the John Scotts and the Suffering Servants and the Jesuses of Nazareth are for.
      To give another rather egregious example from recent events, when Michigan State officials made the very serious mistake of choosing to save some money by drawing the City of Flint’s water from the terribly contaminated Flint River, who paid the price? Not the officials but the ordinary people of Flint who, for generations, are going to be dealing with the effects of lead poisoning.
      But the best part of the universal story of the Suffering Servant is that it doesn’t end there. It doesn’t just end with John Scott finishing his career playing for the St. John’s IceCaps in the AHL. It doesn’t end with Jesus on the cross. If it did, we might get mad and enraged, but we would in no way see our need for justice satisfied.
      Let me just quickly tell you how John Scott’s story ended. The fans didn’t buy the excuse that he couldn’t play in the All-Star Game because he was no longer in the NHL. They said, “We don’t care, let him play.” On twitter, the hashtag was #FreeJohnScott. The fans said it so loud and so insistently that the league really had no choice. And Scott went and he played as beautiful a game as he had ever played in his whole career. Everyone could see that he had made the game. Yet, despite that, the league wouldn’t put his name in on the ballots for Most Valuable Player. Do you think the fans cared about that?
      No they did not. At the game they started chanting, “John Scott” and “MVP” and before you knew it, John Scott, despite not even being on the ballot at all, had taken the whole thing as a write-in candidate. All of this led to the most beautiful moment when Gary Bettman, commissioner of the NHL and the guy that most people blamed for the whole debacle, had to stand at centre ice and smile and pretend that he was happy as he handed John Scott a check for one million dollars.
      I have heard people predict, in the midst of a rather unimpressive NHL season, that perhaps the one thing that people will look back on and see as the high point of 2015-16 season will be the All-Star game and it is all because of John Scott. We will see, of course, once we get into the post season, but I think that it might be true. John Scott, the guy that they tried to get rid of, may end up redeeming the entire season.
      But, once again, I think that story is most interesting because it contains the merest echo of a story that matters on an eternal scale. Jesus was the ultimate victim of this world’s systems of power, privilege and domination. And they thought that they had beaten him – that they had put him exactly where they wanted him, upon a cross. But it was in the very moment of his defeat that, we believe, Jesus actually defeated the dark powers of this world. The truth of what Jesus accomplished for us is perfectly spelled out for us in the Book of Isaiah: “The righteous one, my servant, shall make many righteous, and he shall bear their iniquities. Therefore I will allot him a portion with the great, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong; because he poured out himself to death, and was numbered with the transgressors; yet he bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.”
      For that is how our God operates. Yes, the powers and authorities of this world will lay their plans. They will decide that they do not need to pay for their own mistakes, their own sins and their own errors. That is what the “little people” for. And they may even get away with it for a season. They may seem to thrive and get richer and stronger and feel ever more secure. But we have a God of justice. He will not let that stand forever.
      But God has a particular way of making his justice work out in this world. He doesn’t necessarily go for that straightforward confrontation with the powers of this world. That kind of clash often doesn’t make things better and can often make things worse. God’s plan is to stand with the victims, the lost and neglected, those who are not allowed to prosper in this world. And God has a sense of humour – I’m sure of that, because he loves to use those very downtrodden and abused people and win the victory through them. Jesus showed us the absolute power of the seemingly powerless victim and he is the model for all the rest.
      When this world has got you down. When you start to be discouraged and to believe that the weak will just continue to be used and robbed, hold one picture in your mind: John Scott holding that check at centre ice. Sure, but maybe even a better picture – one that gives the model to all the others – Jesus, taking on the powers of this dark world, doing it by dying before their very eyes. He wins, not just the battle, but the entire war.
      This is the message of Easter – the message we get to celebrate in a couple of weeks. And it is a message that brings us hope by exposing the weakness and emptiness of this present world’s power system.
     
#TodaysTweetableTruth The powerful tried to make #Jesus pay for their #mistakes. Jesus, as #victim, exposes how empty this world’s power is.

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Mistakes and what they teach us about God’s grace. 4) Peter being Peter

Posted by on Monday, March 7th, 2016 in Minister

St. Andrew's Stars Episode




Hespeler, 6 March, 2016 © Scott McAndless Lent 4, Communion
John 18:15-18, 25-27, John 21:15-19, Psalm 85
H
ave you ever made one of those mistakes that just kind of haunts you, the kind of mistake that lurks there in your memory waiting to pounce on you? You can just go along with your life and engage in ordinary activities and, when you get absorbed in what you are doing, you can even forget about that one big mistake that you made for a while. But then you come to a moment when the activity stops and you are alone with your thoughts and the memory is just waiting there for you. You wince, you may physically shudder and think to yourself, “I just cannot believe that I did that thing. How could I have been so dumb?”
      I’m sure that just abou t every single one of us has a few mistakes like that in our personal histories. We’ve all made them and, like it or not we carry them around with us. In one sense, it is probably good that we remember them and even feel bad about them because, of course, remembering your mistakes is one way of making sure that you don’t repeat them. But in another sense, the mere fact that we carry these things around with us can be very destructive to us. As we brood upon them, they can begin to define us and to limit us and what we think we can do or be.
      I am certain that that was exactly how Simon Peter felt about the matter. For days he had been unable to think of anything else. He just kept replaying the scenarios in his head. When his Lord had been arrested, Peter had wanted to run and to hide like the others, but as he saw them taking Jesus away, he had found a small reserve of courage in himself and he had followed, staying at what seemed to be a safe distance.
      When Jesus was taken into the high priest’s house, where the Sanhedrin often met, for an initial questioning before taking him before the Procurator, Peter found himself unable to follow – stopped by the slave who tended the door. He dared not seek admittance for fear that someone might ask him to identify himself, and so he just lurked by the door. Eventually one of the other disciples, who had some connections in the household, came over to try and get him in. All was going well until the woman on the door held out her hand to stop him. “You look familiar,” she said as Simon Peter felt himself break out in a cold sweat. “Weren’t you one of those who came down from Galilee with this man they have put on trial?”
      And, in the moment, it had just seemed so easy to justify what he said. Surely Jesus would not have wanted him to just throw away his life like that. Surely Jesus would understand just how terrified he felt in the moment. So when he said, “Sorry, you must be thinking about somebody else,” it had just seemed like the right thing to say.
      It got easier. The next time he was challenged it almost slipped out without him having to even think about it. The third time, to deny even knowing Jesus seemed like an obvious thing to say – it almost felt true. But then the cock had crowed and everything that Jesus had said at the supper came flooding back to him. Jesus had told him that he would do this even while Peter had protested and said never, not in a thousand years. And now, just a few hours later, it had happened just as Jesus had promised.
      And the words had been said. There was no taking them back. Maybe the actual sound of them would dissipate and fade away, but Peter had the sense that the words themselves would echo on throughout eternity. It certainly felt like they would echo in his own skull for at least that long. There is no coming back from something like this.
      And surely that was why, after he was crucified and after the reports came out of people seeing him alive again, Peter found that he had no desire to see Jesus again. He still loved him, still believed in everything he’d stood for. But if he really was back – and how could he believe that he could be back? – then it was better that Peter stay far away. The mistake stood between them. Never again could there be any kind of positive relationship between the two of them. And so he went away – went back to the old, simple life of a fisherman he had once known. He tried to act like the last three years with Jesus had never even happened.
      I know that we’ve all been there. We have all made mistakes that made us feel that embarrassed. And you’ve probably all known at least one person who has made that kind of mortifying mistake that they feel that there is no coming back from. All of us can feel sympathetic to Simon Peter. But my question today is this: how would you help him? What do you think would be most helpful for someone in that kind of situation to help them get through it and move on with their lives?
      I know what my first impulse would be, and that would be to seek to comfort him by minimizing the mistake. “That’s okay, Peter, it was just a momentary lapse. You didn’t mean it. And it’s not like Jesus probably even knows that you said it. I mean, he was kind of distracted with other things. Your denial was hardly the worst thing that happened to him that day, after all. I’m sure it will be fine – just go up to him and act like nothing ever happened he probably won’t even mention it.
      At least that’s how I’d be tempted to react after a serious mistake like that. And I don’t think I’m alone. Most of us don’t like conflict. We don’t like that awkward feeling that you have disappointed someone. Our most common reaction is just to wish the whole thing forgotten as soon as possible. But, though that is a common impulse, it often only has the effect of making things worse.
      The wonderful thing is that in the Gospel of John we have an example, from Jesus himself, of a much better way of dealing with it when you have a big mistake ruining your life. Jesus, first of all, doesn’t let Peter get away with running from his mistake. When Peter runs back to his old life of fishing on the Sea of Galilee, Jesus follows him – chooses that his next appearance will not be in Jerusalem where he has been previously seen but in Galilee where Peter has fled. What that tells me, first of all, is that running and hiding from your mistakes is not going to work – not in the long run anyways. You may succeed, for a time, in putting it out of your mind, it might seem like it has been forgotten, but a wise person learns that that you can’t just hide from your mistakes. So long as they are not, in some helpful way, dealt with, they will follow you wherever you go.
      So Jesus shows up by the shores of the lake where Peter has fled. And it is there that he helps Peter to deal with his mistake. What Jesus does for Peter there is clearly connected to his mistake – his denial. Three times Peter has denied even knowing Jesus and three times Jesus asks him the same question. It is obvious to everybody that this is no coincidence.
      And none of this is particularly comfortable – in fact it’s downright awkward. By the third time that Jesus asks the question, we are told that Peter is feeling hurt and his response is clearly one of exasperation: “Lord, you know everything,” – in other words, why are you torturing me with this uncomfortable line of questioning? But Jesus continues on because he knows that there are things that are more important than avoiding awkwardness – his friend, and helping his friend to get over his remorse for his mistake is more important than avoiding awkwardness.
      And then there’s the question that Jesus focuses on. You know what we tend to do when somebody makes a mistake or when somebody gets something wrong: we tend to focus on the mechanics of the thing. We focus on procedure. In fact, we do that an awful lot, particularly in the church. I don’t know how many times I’ve seen it in a congregation or a meeting of a presbytery or some other church court. You see some people get into a disagreement over something – for example, say that you have one group of people over here who want to bring in a refugee family and another group over there who have a problem with that. You know, there is a substantial difference of opinion that is, at the very least, well worth discussing. But I’ve noticed that, in the church, we don’t discuss the difference of opinion.
      What we tend to do instead is argue over procedure – the opponents to welcoming refugees might complain, for example, that the people who want to bring them in failed to seek the proper approvals or something like that. And we spend all of our time arguing over that rather than about the substantial, and I would say very important, issues about welcoming refugees. I don’t know if you realize this, but we do that kind of thing all the time.
      Did you notice the Jesus doesn’t do that with Peter? In fact, he doesn’t even bring up the specific action that Peter got wrong. Jesus doesn’t ask him, “Peter, um, have you ever met me? Do you know me?” That is what we would likely focus on. But Jesus knows that that is not the issue and goes directly to the heart of the issue. We could learn a lot from Jesus at this point. Deal with the real issues rather than getting hung up over procedure.
      The real issue, apparently as far as Jesus is concerned, is love: “Simon son of John, do you love me?” Jesus doesn’t care about the particular things that you’ve gotten wrong or the particular mistakes that you have made near as much as he cares about where your heart is. That is always where he will direct the question and that is always where the healing that he wants to perform in your life will begin.
      So, basically, Jesus communicates to Peter that he understands what Peter has done, that he cares and that he’s not going to beat Peter up over what he got wrong – that he cares more about what Peter’s underlying motives are than he does about the particular things he got wrong.
      But then, Jesus does something truly amazing. He gives Peter an assignment: “feed my sheep.” It is at this point that God’s grace shines through for Peter. For Jesus, with eyes wide open and knowing completely what Peter has done wrong and why, is calling Peter to be a leader. And he is not calling Peter to be a leader in spite of his mistake. He seems to be calling Peter to be a leader becauseof his mistake.
      This is how God operates. He knows that you’ve made mistakes. He knows that you’ve gotten things wrong. But he also knows if you love him and if you desire to serve him. Jesus chooses not to hold your mistakes against you and he chooses to entrust you with leadership in his church. And here is the secret: there is no leader anywhere in the church for whom that is not true. It was true right from the very beginning – right from Peter. It was true for some of those giant figures of church history. They all got things wrong. They all fell short in one way or another. They were no different from you and Jesus would love to use you too.
      Mistakes mess us up. They hurt our relationships, make us feel bad about ourselves and make us feel like we are disqualified from doing anything that really matters. Basically, what Jesus told Simon Peter by the side of the lake that day was that he had come back to tell him and all of us that that is no longer true. Jesus rose from the dead to set us free from the tyranny of our mistakes. All you need to do is claim the freedom that Jesus’ resurrection gives you.
     

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Mistakes and what they teach us about God’s grace. 3) Eleazer and the Elephant

Posted by on Monday, February 29th, 2016 in Minister

The St. Andrew's Stars tell the story of Eleazer and the Elephant:





Hespeler, 28 February, 2016 © Scott McAndless
Mark 8:31-36, Philippians 3:4b-11, Psalm 49:5-15, (1 Maccabees 6:32-47)
O
ver a century and a half before Jesus was born, the land of Judea was invaded and occupied by the Greek speaking king of the Seleucid Empire. But the Jews did not like being ruled over by Greeks who were, they felt, destroying their culture and faith, so they rebelled. The Jewish revolt was led by one particular Jewish family, the most famous member of which was a general called Judas Maccabaeus.
      The tales of the Maccabean Revolt are amazing, but they did not, unfortunately, make it into our Bibles. You can read the stories in the Books of the Maccabees which are found in a collection of books called the Apocrypha. These books are included in some of the Bibles of some Christian denominations and they are well worth reading even if we don’t quite consider them to be Scripture. It is in the First Book of the Maccabees that you will find the story of Eleazar and the elephant.
      It happened like this: the Jews were in a great battle against the Greeks. The Greeks had come with far superior numbers of infantry and cavalry. Even more frightening, the Greeks had brought mighty war elephants from India with them. These elephants were terrifying to the Jews who had never fought them before. The elephants advanced on the Jews with great towers built upon their backs – towers were filled with spearmen. The beasts were surrounded by huge phalanxes of infantrymen. The Jews were terribly outnumbered and overawed by their enemy. They were fighting for their very lives.

      In the midst of this battle Eleazar, a younger brother of Judas Maccabaeus, noticed that one of the elephants carried, on its back, a tower that was larger and more magnificent than all the others. He concluded that this must be the king’s elephant and so in a great feat of bravery, he grabbed his spear and single-handedly fought his way through the phalanx of men that surrounded that particular elephant. He killed, it is told, a thousand men or more, and finally arrived at the beast. He knew there was no point in attacking the armored sides of the elephant, so he threw himself underneath its belly. He stabbed upwards, slaughtering the animal with a single blow.
      It was a mistake, of course – actually a number of mistakes on a number of levels. I could find nowhere in the histories whether Eleazer was correct in his conclusions. I don’t know whether it was the king’s elephant or not, but, even if it was, Eleazer had made a significant miscalculation. You see, killing the king’s elephant is not the same thing as killing the king. The elephant died but there is no record of the king being injured in any way in that particular battle.
      The second mistake was that, though Eleazer did indeed perform a reckless deed of bravery, you might well question what it actually accomplished. The Jews were terribly outnumbered on that battlefield, they really had no hope, no matter how brave anyone was, and they soon had to retreat and leave the field in Greek hands.
      But the third mistake was the biggest. It is a simple matter of gravity. If you kill an elephant while you are underneath that elephant, you are going to die too. And so it was that Eleazer, while accomplishing nothing at all, failed and, some might say, did so rather stupidly.
      We have some very particular ideas about how things are supposed to go in this world. We worship success. And success means continuing to live and to grow and it means that things just keep getting better and better. We expect that things should continually get stronger and more prosperous and that anything else is failure. That is the model of renewal that the world offers us and it means that any form of death is to be considered a defeat and a failure. So many of us would not have any trouble recognizing Eleazer as a failure.
      But is that the only way to think about renewal and success? Jesus certainly had a different model. He came to establish this thing that he called the kingdom of God. He started preaching and gathering followers and created quite a movement. I’m sure that his followers, like Simon Peter, were expecting that things would just take off and grow from there – success, success and more success.
      And that is probably why Peter was so shocked one day when Jesus, out of the blue, just started to say, that he had to “undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed.” Peter was very nice about it and everything, but he felt that he really needed to straighten Jesus out. As soon as he got a chance, he pulled Jesus over for a little private conversation. “Jesus,” he said, “you can’t say things like that. You can’t talk about dying. You have to talk about winning, not losing.” But Jesus had a very different definition of success, a definition that included dying and (though Peter seems to have missed it when he said it) then rising from the dead. Jesus said, “you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.” His meaning was clear: if Peter really understood “divine things,” he would have seen how necessary it was that Jesus should die. But, of course, succeeding by dying makes absolutely no sense according to the world’s way of seeing such things.
      Many years ago, when I first began my ordained ministry, I was working in a church on the West Island of Montreal. It was a church that had been in decline for many years before I ever arrived. The reasons for decline were many but had a lot to do with the declining Anglophone population and an oversupply of protestant churches in an area that never grew as much as had been expected.
      When I arrived at the church, we started looking intently at our situation. And before long we came to the conclusion that, unless this church changed in some pretty radical ways, it would not survive long-term. So we set to work trying to find the radical change that would work for us. And we came up with some bold plans. We worked hard to turn those plans into reality, but, one by one, they all kind of fell apart, mostly because of things that were beyond our control.
      The Session and the congregation had decided that if we weren’t able to make one of our plans for radical change work, our other option was to shut down as a congregation and to do it in the best way possible – to do it before we ran out of the energy and enthusiasm that would be necessary for people to go somewhere else and continue to contribute to building up the kingdom of God in this world.
      Now, a congregation, in our Presbyterian system can’t do that. It can’t just shut down. What it has to do is ask the Presbytery to dissolve the congregation. So I found myself in the interesting position of having to go to the Presbytery of Montreal and, on behalf of the congregation and session, ask them to shut us down. And it was at that point that I was accused of being a bad Christian.
      I was told, in front of all my fellow ministers, that the church is supposed to always be successful and victorious. In particular, it is always supposed to be getting bigger and stronger no matter what the circumstances are. To give into institutional death, therefore (to shut down a congregation) was the epitome of unfaithfulness. I was a bad Christian for even allowing my congregation to think of such a thing. Now that I think of it, it was the very same kind of rebuke that Simon Peter made to Jesus.
      The primary path to renewal and new life that God offers us in the Bible is not continual success without having to give up anything. The primary path to renewal that God offers us is resurrection and you can’t get to resurrection without going through death. I saw that firsthand in my first congregation. That congregation did shut down and it was just as painful and difficult as you might imagine it to be. But that painful death also led to a wonderful new beginning – a resurrection. The majority of the members of that church chose, of their own free will, to go and join together with the people of another Presbyterian congregation about ten minutes away. And that congregation went from just surviving to become one of the most exciting and dynamic ministries on the West Island. It was a marvelous new birth for everyone – the kind of resurrection that God specializes in.
      And I’ve seen that same pattern in a number of other situations in the church over the years. I knew a church in Windsor that, for years, struggled to survive. They were right downtown, on the very edge of the university campus, and yet they had consistently failed to attract any students or people from their community into the church. They were too busy just surviving to have any kind of significant ministry.
      And eventually, the people of that congregation came to a decision. They actually had some significant financial assets but what they didn’t have left was any real life. So the people of that congregation let it die. They walked away from the congregation and from the assets that they had. It was a death and it was very hard. But they did a brave thing. They gave their considerable assets to the Presbytery and they asked the Presbytery to build a new ministry to serve the people that they were unable to. And that is what the Presbytery did. They took the assets and created an entirely new ministry called the University Community Church that has since gone on to have some very meaningful ministry to the students and faculty on that campus. It was a marvelous new birth, but it was only possible after a painful death had occurred. That is how God often works.
      In fact, I would go so far as to say that the main way in which God wants to do his work in the church today is by means of death and resurrection. Now, I do not mean by that all of our congregations nor that this congregation needs to shut down. There are cases, no doubt where that will happen, but I don’t mean that it will happen everywhere.
      But what I do think it means is this: that “those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for [Jesus’] sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it.” It means that if we cling to life to the point where all we are doing is channeling energy into survival, then we will die for sure. I’ve seen that happen in many, many churches.
      And it also means that, for many churches to find the power of God that they need, they will have to die – they will have to die to something. They will have to be willing to give up something that has been precious and meaningful to them in order to embrace the resurrection that God is offering them. God specializes in offering his people resurrection, the only problem is that you have to pass through death, in some sense, first. Apart from that it’s wonderful.
      Think of it this way: no matter what, Eleazer, brother of Judas Maccabaeus, would be dead by now. He understood that too – that he would die someday. And it seems to me that he decided that, if he was going to die anyway, he might as well die doing something that mattered to him – taking down the king’s elephant. He didn’t fear such a death as it was for the sake of his people.
      And we can learn so much from Eleazer’s so-called mistake. We have all the more reason to be willing to die to the things that God asks us to die to in the pursuit of the kingdom, for we have the promise of resurrection – the promise of a God who gives new life and new possibilities to those who have learned (because Jesus taught them) not to be afraid of death and not to value survival over significance.
      Now, what exactly, do we in this congregation need to die to in order to experience the resurrection that God wants to give us? I’m not sure I can answer that question right now. I have a few suspicions for there are no doubt some things that we have here that we value more than meaningful ministry. But better than for me give my thoughts is for all of us to earnestly seek God in prayer asking him, what do I need to die to in order to experience resurrection – what do we need to die to in order that there be new life. Let’s take some time in silent prayer on that very question.

      
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Mistakes and what they teach us about God’s Grace – 2) Alfred and the Cakes

Posted by on Sunday, February 21st, 2016 in Minister

Hespeler, 21 March 2016 © Scott McAndless
Matthew 11:25-30, 2 Corinthians 12:1-10, Psalm 6
   K
ing Alfred, the ancestor (35 generations ago) of our present monarch Elizabeth II, is famous for many things. He is the only ruler of England ever to be called “the Great.” Indeed, most would say, if it weren’t for Alfred, there would never have been an England at all. But for all the “great” things that Alfred ever did, he is probably most famous for one little mistake.
      Alfred became the king of Wessex, one of the seven ancient Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, at the young age of 22. It was not a good time to become a king. These were the days when the Vikings were invading England and things were not going well. When Alfred came to power all of the other Anglo-Saxon kingdoms had already fallen under Viking rule. Only Wessex, in what is now southwestern England, was left as an independent English kingdom. And the Vikings were coming for Wessex.
      Alfred and his lords held them off for a while, but eventually the Vikings just got too strong and the king and his lords had to flee abandoning most of the kingdom into the hands of the invaders. They hid out in some low, marshy land in the region of Somerset where they were relatively safe because the land was almost impassable unless you were very familiar with the marshes.
      At one point, during those dark times, the king was taking shelter in a house on the Island of Athelney in the m arshes. He was staying with an old woman who, I suspect, didn’t even know who she was sheltering. One day when she was alone with the king, she made some cakes and put them on the fire to bake. She told Alfred that she was going out and asked him to watch the cakes and take them off the fire before they burned. He agreed and she left.
      But Alfred, as you can imagine, had a lot on his mind. He was thinking about his problems and his challenges. He was wondering, perhaps, whether he had completely failed as a king. He was also desperately trying to come up with a strategy to get out of his dead-end. So, for all kinds of reasons, Alfred was rather preoccupied with his troubles. Can you guess what happened? That’s right, Alfred let the cakes burn and, when the old woman returned, boy, did she let him have it! And Alfred, according to the account, accepted her criticism with grace and humility, though I suppose he could have had her put to death.
      It is a famous story because, of course, it is the only time in all the history of the world that a leader ever made a mistake, right? No? You don’t think that is why people remembered it? Then why?
      I think this story stuck because it is a reminder that, no matter who you are – no matter how “great” you are – we all have our weaknesses. Alfred actually had a lot of them. For one thing, he was often very sick. A lot of historians think that he suffered from Crohn’s disease – a particularly nasty chronic condition. Put that together with his Viking troubles, it is maybe not too surprising that he was rather distracted from his duty to watch cakes.
      There are, I think, two ways of dealing with our weaknesses. Most often, we tried to hide them and pretend like they are not there. In fact, a lot of people assume that that is what leadership is: not showing weakness. That is why people in leadership positions are often so obsessed with avoiding mistakes and with covering them up when they do happen. “Sure, I can watch the cakes. I’m totally in control here. I don’t have any problems.” But that often doesn’t work.  We end up in the same mess that Alfred did. We pretend that we’ve got it all under control when we really don’t and that is when cakes get burned.
      But there is another way to think about our weaknesses. The Apostle Paul tells us about something that was clearly a weakness for him. He doesn’t say exactly what it was. He simply refers to it as a thorn in his flesh, but it was clearly distressing to him – so much so that he says, “Three times I appealed to the Lord about this, that it would leave me.”
      So, like any of us would, Paul didn’t like his weakness and he wanted to get rid of it. If his weakness caused him to make any mistakes, I’m sure he would have liked to cover them up. But Paul received a surprising and powerful answer that made him think about his weaknesses and his mistakes in a whole new way. “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness.” And that answer, that he obviously received from Christ in some unmistakable way, led him to a stunning new way to think of his own weaknesses and to say, “whenever I am weak, then I am strong.”
      I know that such a statement doesn’t really make any sense in the way that our world understands such things. How could somebody’s weaknesses actually become a foundation of strength for them? The short answer is that it is only possible because of God’s grace.
      This was obviously a lesson that Paul only learned through hard experience and by earnestly seeking God in prayer. But other wise people have also found certain echoes of this same truth down through history. One person who comes to mind is Carl Jung, one of the great fathers of modern Psychology. Jung was a man who felt a real vocation to be a healer in the life of people by developing his methods and approaches to psychotherapy.
      One of the key insights that Jung had had to do with his own weaknesses and woundedness. He had had a very difficult early life particularly because his mother had suffered from mental illness and it left deep scars in him. As a result Carl’s natural impulse may have been to hide or ignore his weaknesses and his scars but, as he began to help other people, he discovered something amazing. The more he ignored or downplayed his faults, the less help he was to his patients. But the more he got in touch with his own weaknesses and woundedness – the more he understood these things about himself – he was able to help his patients in ways that he could never have thought possible.
      I happen to believe that, even if Jung was only using a scientific approach, his vulnerability and courage in dealing with his own woundedness was actually opening the door to God’s grace and healing power.
      Thus it was that Carl Jung introduced to the world the idea of the wounded healer, which he based on a number of ancient myths that featured a figure who was a powerful healer and yet also carried a grievous wound. But, while this figure of the wounded healer was indeed to be found in many ancient belief systems, the main reason for that, I think, is that there is a universal truth behind it. And that truth that is to be found in the Bible as well – like in this morning’s reading from Paul’s letter to the Corinthians.
      The truth of the matter is, my friends, that we are all like King Alfred. We all make mistakes. We all get things wrong. Even worse, we are all like Carl Jung. We have all been wounded and shaped by the bad things that have happened to us. We may not have suffered, like he did because of a parent who is mentally ill, but we have all had to deal with disappointment or insult or loss. And how often have I had people tell me that they are not eligible for any kind of leadership role because of their faults or wounds or their fear of making mistakes?
      I am not saying that God intentionally gives us flaws or that God wants bad things to happen to us. To tell the truth, I don’t really have a great explanation for why the bad things happen in this world. Maybe it’s something that we will understand someday; I don’t pretend to know now. But I do know this: God has this incredible way of taking all of the bad, all of the flaws and all of the weaknesses that we carry around with us and of turning them into blessing. That power is called grace.
      We see that in the story of Alfred and his cakes. Yes, Alfred had his faults and one of those faults was apparently that he had some trouble focussing on minor details like how long the cakes had been in the oven. But that weakness of Alfred was actually one of the things that made him great. His mind was always focusing on the big picture, and that focus on the big picture was actually the thing that got him out of the marshes and on the offensive against the Vikings. It was what allowed him to come up with an overall strategy to build his kingdom in such a way that it could weather the storm that was created by the Vikings. As a result, we have Alfred to thank for the fact that England survived at all. We have Alfred to thank for the fact that we speak English and not a Scandinavian language today.
      Alfred’s weaknesses and his strengths were unbreakably tied to each other. And I think that is probably true of all of us. When we flee from our weaknesses or hide from our mistakes, we may be cutting ourselves off from our greatest strengths as well.
      But even more important than that, when we’re not afraid to face our weaknesses and mistakes, when we can acknowledge them and even embrace them, God is able to take them and use them to bring about extraordinary healing and blessing. That is what Paul was saying to the church in Corinth. One of the reasons for that is that when we are weak or when we fall short, it is like we’re getting out of the way. And when we get out of the way – especially when we get our egos out of the way – that allows God the opening that he needs to let his grace shine through.
      But here is the really amazing part. We assume that God will use us and bring blessing to us in spite of our weaknesses and our mistakes. But that is not how God likes to do it at all. No, God loves to use us and bless through us because of our weaknesses and errors. That was what Carl Jung discovered in his therapeutic work and theories – though, of course, he would not have spoken about it as something that God did.
      That is why, for example, people who struggle with alcoholism or other addictions can often only find a way to break free of the cycles of using with the help of people who struggle with the same issues. The real secret of the success of groups like Alcoholics Anonymous is that they create a community of people who understand each other’s struggles because they are part of their own weakness and brokenness. They are able to come to terms with their own addiction by getting to know others who share the weakness. They are able to bring about healing for themselves and others by directly helping other people who share their brokenness. That’s not just how it works with addiction, that is how it works with almost every form of healing and renewal.
       Many of us have been called to be leaders in this church in various capacities. The temptation, when you are put into that kind of position in the church or anywhere is to run away from your weaknesses, to hide from them. I mean, we think of all the great leaders that were there in the past – gigantic figures who seemed to have no flaws – and we think that we have to be like them. But you know what? Those famous leaders of the past had their flaws too. It is just that we have largely forgotten them over time as we forget the things that went wrong and just recall the things that we loved about them.
      And consider this: God is calling you to be a leader in his kingdom – wherever and however that might be – God is calling you to be a leader and he’s not doing it in spite of your weaknesses, your faults or your mistakes. He is doing it becauseof them – because of everything that makes you who you are. Think about what that does to your excuses.
      I think that our challenge as leaders is to be who we are – to be strong enough to be vulnerable about our weaknesses and our failures – to share those things in the appropriate situations. God promises that, when we do that, it allows his grace to shine through. Alfred was a flawed person who made mistakes. None of that prevented him from being hailed by all as “the great.” Your greatness – and many of you have much greatness – will only be enhanced by you coming to terms with your own faults and weaknesses. Stop running away from them. Stop hiding them. Let God’s power be made perfect in your weakness.

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The Problem with Substitutionary Attonement or How the Vikings Muddled us up

Posted by on Thursday, February 18th, 2016 in Minister

W
hy did Jesus have to die? That is, you might say, one of the most central questions of the Christian faith. And if you ask that question of most practicing Christians you will likely get an answer along the lines of this: “Jesus had to die for my sins,” or “Jesus had to die to save us” or “so that we could go to heaven.”
      And some people will be happy enough with that answer. But every so often you’re going to come across a really annoying person like me who isn’t satisfied with that simple answer and starts to ask really some tough questions. “Well,” the annoying person says, “I thought that you said that this God of yours was all powerful – that he could do whatever he wanted. And I also thought you said that God was full of mercy and lovingkindness. If God wanted to forgive you and let you go to heaven, couldn’t he just do that? I mean, sure, you may have sinned but God doesn’t have to let something like that stand in his way if he wants to forgive you, does he? Why would the bloody and painful death of Jesus be needed for that?”
      And if you ask questions like that long enough, you’ll eventually find someone who’ll give you a fuller explanation. And the standard Christian explanation these days goes like this: Yes, God is loving and merciful and wants very much to be forgiving to us but there is just one thing: God is also just. In fact, God is so just that he cannot simply let any injustice or sin slide without there being some sort of payment made. God’s justice has to be satisfied with due punishment.
      And that’s where Jesus comes in. God looked around to find someone who could pay the price and take the punishment in our place so that he could forgive us and it turned out that only one person would do. Only someone who was perfectly innocent (and so didn’t need be punished for their own sins) would be able to play that role. So God turned to his only begotten son, Jesus, and chose to send him down, live a perfect life and die as an innocent man. Jesus’ suffering and death would be enough to satisfy God’s need for justice and therefore allow God to forgive us for our sins.
     That, as I say, is the standard explanation these days. The name for it, in case you want to know, is the substitutionary theory of atonement. It is called that because the key element is that Jesus substitutes for us – takes our place and suffers the penalty that we deserve. It is a good theory, really. It makes good logical sense and is a compelling story. It is so compelling that many now think that it is the only way to understand the meaning of the death of Jesus and that it has always been how Christians thought. But that is not true.
      The substitutionary theory of atonement has only been around for about 1000 years – only half the length of time that Christian faith has been around. Where did the theory come from a thousand years ago? Well, it happened like this:
      The year 1066 ad is the only date that all English school girls and boys know off by heart – the most significant date in their country’s history. That was the year that England was invaded and conquered by the Normans who took over the entire government and local administration of the country. The Normans came from France and they spoke a unique dialect of French but they weren’t actually French. They were Norsemen – Viking raiders who had merely settled in France for a little while. And as Vikings, they had their own unique ideas about good government. Every Norman lord was master and judge of all within his domain. He settled all disputes, judged all crimes and punished every offender.
      And it was not an easy thing to appear as someone accused before a Viking lord because they were particularly prickly when it came to judging people. Vikings were famous for many things, but I am afraid that mercy was not one of them. And so mercy was not something that was easily found in a Norman court. Viking lords were very protective of what they saw as justice. They felt that no offence – not even the smallest – could be pardoned without due payment being made in some form or another. Their judicial motto was, “justice must be satisfied.”
      Now what, you might ask, could the Norman conquest of England possibly have to do with the Substitutionary Theory of Atonement? As it turns out, everything. About thirty years after the conquest, the second Norman king of England appointed a man named Anselm to be the Archbishop of Canterbury.  And, a few years after that, Anselm of Canterbury wrote a book. He wrote it, he said, to defend the Christian faith against all those who would scoff at it – in particular the Jews and the Muslims. He called his book Cur Deus Homo in Latin. In English that translates as “Why did God become a human being.” In other words, he was trying to answer the question why did Jesus have to live as a man and why did he have to die.
      The book is important because in that book Anselm gave for the very first time in history the answer that we’ve been talking about – that Jesus had to die in our place to satisfy God’s unyielding justice so that God could forgive us. Anselm invented the substitutionary theory of atonement. It is very interesting to note that, although Christianity had been around for about 1000 years before that, nobody had managed to come up with that theory until Anselm came along.
      And there is a reason why only Anselm could have come up with that theory. As I said, the theory requires a very particular image of God – a God whose sense of justice is so inflexible that he can only forgive when he has been completely satisfied (even if he has to will the death of his only son to be satisfied). How is it that for the first thousand years of Christianity it never occurred to anybody that God would be that inflexible? And then Anselm came along and (as Archbishop of Canterbury) spent a lot of time in the courts of Viking lords watching them make their judgements. It’s not that hard to guess where his strange new view of God came from.
      That’s why it seems to me that the Vikings have muddled up our understanding of the meaning of Jesus’ death. If we buy into Anselm’s explanation of why Jesus had to come, we end up with a God who resembles a Viking lord. And I realize that almost all of the images that we use to talk about God are based on one human model or another and that we can’t really even talk about God without saying, “Well, he’s kind of like this” or “kind of like that.” But I just think that there are some better models for talking about God without imagining him as a Viking lord. The Bible uses many images when it talks about God: a father, a near eastern king, a kind master, a loving mother (yes, that image is used of God in the Bible) and all of those sorts of people were much more ready to exercise mercy in their relationships than your average Viking lord. And it goes without saying that the Bible never describes God as a Viking lord. But somehow, with the substitutionary theory of atonement, that is the idea of God we end up with.
      And so I suggest to you that it is time for us to get past our obsession with Anselm’s substitutionary theory of atonement. There are other ways of understanding what Jesus has truly accomplished for us without starting to imagine God as a Norman lord. The Bible does indeed talk about Jesus dying for us and about him dealing with the problem of sin for us but such talk has little to do with satisfying some Norman sense of justice.
      Instead, the Bible most often talks about the death of Christ as a sacrifice. And sacrifice had nothing to do with substitution in the ancient world. When a family in the ancient world took its year-old calf up to the altar for a sacrifice, there was no sense in which they understood that that calf was somehow taking the place of a family member. Nor did they see the death of the animal as some sort of punishment taken in their place. That is why I wanted to take the time during this season of Lent to understand how sacrifice functioned in the ancient world.
      On a practical level, it was all about providing a means for the people to safely eat meat once in a while. The sacrificial system provided a humane means of slaughtering animals and a professional, well-trained guild for safely butchering them. These people were called priests. And, most important, the system also provided a safe means of disposing of those parts of the animal that they would not or could not eat by burning them up on the altar.
      But sacrifice was not just about meeting those practical needs. It also had a very important spiritual function. The sacrifice brought the worshippers together with one another and with their God. The shared sacrificial meal where the family ate the good cuts of the meat while God shared in the meal by means of the fat, bones, blood and other inedible parts that burned up on the altar was the basis of their relationship with their God. In the sacrifice they came to know their God in ways that would not have been possible otherwise.
      And that is how I have come to see the death of Jesus – as a sacrifice. In his death Jesus does tackle the problem of our sin which is, at its foundation, a problem of separation between us and God. We had wandered far from God and didn’t know how to find our way back but Jesus’ death brought us back into relationship with God just like an ancient sacrifice renewed the ancient worshipper’s relationship with their God.
      We shouldn’t think of Jesus’ death as a mere substitution – Jesus taking our place and suffering our punishment – because Jesus didn’t speak of it as substitution. He spoke of it as participation: “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.” That is not Jesus’ responsibility in your place that is your responsibility in imitation of Jesus. If you want to be a follower of Jesus, you have to realize that that means following in the path that he has led.  That is where the real transformation begins.
      And, to attempt to answer Anselm’s question, “Why the God-Man,” why did Jesus have to become flesh and dwell among us, I think that the key answer is this: Jesus came to show us the grace and compassion and love of God. He knew that words weren’t going to be enough and so he had to show us what those things looked like. But the world cannot tolerate such love. The world cannot stand to be shown how wrong it is about everything. And so the response to Jesus was predictable. He was bound to end up on a cross sooner or later.
      But Jesus took that terrible and tragic death and, with God’s help, transformed his death into something much more meaningful – a sacrifice – the kind of sacrifice that can renew any and all relationships. In particular, he transformed his terrible death into a sacrifice that is able to renew our relationship with the living God – a sacrifice that is effective for all times and for any person who participates in it by taking up their cross and following him.

      
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Response to the Study, Body, Mind and Soul, from St. Andrew’s Hespeler Presbyterian Church (Presbytery of Waterloo-Wellington

Posted by on Wednesday, February 17th, 2016 in Minister

After leading a Study of "Body, Mind and Soul" within my congregation, I asked the participants what sort of feedback they wanted to give to the Justice and Church Doctrine Committees They asked me to send a summary of our discussions and observations into those committees. I have done that. Since we did not hold an additional meeting to share the report together, I just want to post it here so that the members of the group can read it. 

A group of members of St. Andrew’s Hespeler Presbyterian Church met together in five sessions from January 13th to February 3rd to discuss the study produced by the Justice and Church Doctrines committees. The committee has authorized me to summarize our reflections and thoughts and send them back to the committees to include in their deliberations.

The first thing that I would note is that our discussions were very interesting and engaging. The discussions were held in an atmosphere of mutual respect.

We did not agree about what course the church ought to take in regards to the place of LGBT people among us. There were people who strongly felt that we should not change our present positions in any significant way. There were people who strongly felt that it was time to make a change. Those positions did not change in the course of our discussions; that was not what this process was about as we understood it. Nevertheless I think most of us would say that we’ve learned things through the process and came to appreciate a great deal more about the positions that people take and what they are based on.

We want to let the committee’s know that we will be praying for them as they attend to prepare reports for the coming General Assembly and continue to guide the church in other ways. We recognize that they have a very difficult task in front of them.

As we can hardly say that we agree on what the best course of action might be, it is hard for us to give the committees any concrete advice or direction, but we would say the following:

  • We hope that the church can find a way to continue moving forward together despite the diversity of opinion on this and some other issues. There is a richness in such diversity and we would hate to lose that.
  • We would encourage the committees to take their time and do the best job that they can in this process. We recognize that there is a sense of urgency for many people to settle this one way or the other and get on with things, but we, in our little group anyways, felt okay for now living in a dialog.
  • Despite having some strong disagreements on what course the church ought to take, here are a few things that we, perhaps surprisingly, found ourselves agreeing on:
o   The present positions of the Presbyterian Church in Canada are not necessarily coherent. The various decisions that the church has made don’t necessarily follow a consistent logic. This is certainly not very helpful.
o   We agree that none of us has any desire to simply conform to what society and culture around us believe. We all agree that the church needs to take important stands and not simply fall into line with what the culture is saying. The fact that we all agree about this, however, certainly doesn’t mean that we agree about what the place of LGBT people should be in the church.
o   We agree that leaders in the church should be excellent examples morally and ethically. For some that is the main reason why they would exclude practicing LGBT people from such positions. Others don’t have a problem with that. It is a little bit difficult for some of us to understand the positions that the others take on this one.
o   We all agree that sexual morality is very important and that the church has very important things to say to society on the subject.
o   We all agree that we would like to channel of the energy of the church and helping people to develop and maintain mutually helpful and nourishing relationships that are marked by respect.
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Mistakes and what they teach us about God’s Grace. 1) Cecilia and the Art Restoration

Posted by on Sunday, February 14th, 2016 in Minister

St. Andrew's Stars Video:




Hespeler, 14 February, 2016 © Scott McAndless
1 Corinthians 1:18-31, James 3:1-12, Matthew 7:1-11
I
n the summer and fall of 2012, the attention of the whole world was suddenly captivated by the events that had taken place in a small town in Spain with a population of less than 5000. In this town of Borja, it seemed, somebody had made a mistake. It wasn’t just your everyday, run of the mill kind of mistake either. It was a mistake that was so big that it was like nobody could look away.
In that town there was an ancient Roman Catholic Church and in that church there were various pieces of artwork such as you might find in such churches. One of them was a fresco that had been painted in the early 1930’s by a visiting artist.
The painting was a traditional piece of very common Roman Catholic art called the “Ecce Homo,”which is Latin for “Behold the Man.”It is a depiction of Jesus, crowned with thorns as he appeared before Pontius Pilate just before being sent off to be crucified.
The fresco was quite beautiful (in the traditional manner of such pieces) when it was first painted, but by 2012 it was not in good shape at all. Due to dampness in the walls the paint was fading and flaking away and it no longer looked at all as it once did. The poor state of the painting particularly saddened one of the members of the parish – a very devoted woman over the age of eighty named Cecilia Giménez. She knew that the parish did not have a lot of money to take on an expensive restoration and she was an amateur artist. She decided that she would take on a restoration of the artwork all by herself.
It was the results of Cecilia’s work that got everyone so interested. Armed only with her faith, her best intentions and limited talent, she pretty much botched the job. People criticised her and blamed her for what was clearly a terrible mistake. Cecilia took the criticism that was leveled at her so hard that she went and hid herself in her house – cutting herself off from community and church alike. She was deeply hurt, though, some would say, not without some good reason because, well, look at what she had done.
I think, therefore, that the story of Cecilia Giménez is an excellent place to start our journey during the season of Lent thi
s year because I want to focus on the idea of mistakes. Cecilia made a mistake. All evidence seems to indicate that it was a well-intentioned mistake and that it wasn’t malicious in any way. But none of that prevented all kinds of wrath and recriminations from raining down upon her.
I find the contrast between the work of the original artist and the work of Cecilia to be interesting. Both of them described the work that they did as an act of devotion. The original artist, in his own words, said that Ecce Homo was “the result of two hours of devotion to the Virgin of Mercy.” I take that to mean that the man was visiting the church – a church that was devoted to the mother of Jesus and to her mercy – and decided to donate a couple of hours of his time for the creation of a piece of art.
Cecilia, for her part actually made a very similar devotion. She saw a piece of art in a very bad state of repair and, in an act of devotion that she saw as dedicated to the Virgin Mary, she set out to repair it. And she put in the time in the effort – actually more time and effort that the original artist had done. There was no fault in her effort or in her desire – only in its execution. She simply did not have the level of training and experience that the original artist had had. But which one’s devotion was more acceptable in the eyes of the Lord? Did the artist’s devotion have more value because of his skill and training? Or did Cecilia’s pure heart count in the eyes of the Lord?
So this story gives us an excellent example of the problems that are created by our focus on mistakes. Mistakes cause a lot of damage, but I’m not talking about the damage caused by those well-intentioned souls who sometimes make mistakes. I’m talking about the damage that comes out of our reaction to them. Think of Cecilia. She was absolutely devastated by the reaction. She withdrew from the church. She hid in her home refusing to come out of it. She became a virtual hermit in her own town. It was personally devastating to her.
She said that she did not understand. She had only been well-intentioned. She had acted openly and not hidden her work in any way. She felt targeted and deeply hurt. I’m not saying, of course, that the people who were criticizing her didn’t have any justification. She had effectively destroyed an irreplaceable piece of art. What’s more, it would be almost impossible to calculate the monetary value of what could be called her act of vandalism.
So I’m hardly trying to suggest that her critics were wrong to say what they did. But, just because you can justifiably say something, does not always mean that you should say it? And does it mean that you need to say it in a way that hurts a person? That is an important question in any context, but I would suggest it is extremely important in the context of the church. The church is supposed to be, after all, a place of grace.
I’m not sure how grace-filled the people in that church were. But I do know one person whose grace never fails. And that is the most interesting part of Cecilia’s story. Cecilia’s mistake and the reaction that her neighbours had is not the end of the story. Today there are very few people in Borja who are angry at Cecilia. You see, there’s a reason why we know the story of Cecilia even though it just happened in a small town in Spain. We are living, after all, in the age of the internet and, thanks to the internet, a small event that takes place in a small town can sometimes come to the attention of the entire world. And that is what happened with Cecilia’s painting. Suddenly her picture was everywhere. At first, it is true, everyone was just laughing at her and her story. What a fool they all said.
But then something else started to happen. I’m sure that, at first, it was just a lark. People said, “Why don’t we go to Borja and see Cecilia’s artwork for ourselves? Why don’t we go and have a laugh and take selfies there and post them on the internet?” But then, before you knew it, it became a thing. Everyone started doing it.
And soon, this minor town that had been teetering on the brink of economic collapse had an amazing tourist industry on its hands. The town’s economy was saved and it wasn’t the only thing to revive. The little church also started to charge a little fee for people to see it and take their selfies. It seemed as if Cecilia had saved both her town and her church from possible extinction.
And then there was the work of art itself. No, the art critics never learn to love it or anything like that. But at least some of the observers noted that the piece of art made them think and feel in ways that the traditional art of the Catholic Church had never done. Some noted, for example, that, while the original artwork depicted Jesus lifting his eyes towards heaven, in Cecilia’s work, the Saviour turns his eyes towards you. Perhaps Cecilia had managed to make at least some people think a little bit differently about their Saviour and hers. Art, after all, doesn’t always have to be beautiful in order to help us to see something meaningful that we never saw before.
In his First Letter to the Corinthians, the Apostle Paul explains what I think is the great principle that is at work in the story of Cecilia and her art restoration: “God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, things that are not, to reduce to nothing things that are, so that no one might boast in the presence of God.”
You see, we all think we are so smart. We have our plans and our strategies and they can often be very successful. Someone could have come up with a plan, for example, to revive the economy of the town of Borja. In fact, there actually were some such plans in place. And some highly paid consultant also could have been brought in to revitalize Cecilia’s parish church. Such well laid plans could have brought about many good things. And, of course, God does sometimes bless such plans because God wants towns and churches and people to do well.
But if the town was saved by some plan that was brought forward like that, who would get the glory? I’ll tell you who: the planners, the designers and maybe the politicians who paid for the project. That is, according to the letter to the Corinthians, why God likes to step in and shower with blessings the Cecilias of this world – the people who may try to get it right but often get it wrong. That way, not only is the blessing bigger and better than what anyone else could have planned for, it is also abundantly clear who the glory really belongs to.
It just seems to be God’s favourite way of acting. That is probably why no matter what we plan for in the life of the church, it never quite goes exactly as planned. At least, I’ve never seen it. We may make our plans and bring in our consultants and get to work and yet you can be sure that, at some point, some little thing will just go wrong and threaten to blow the whole thing out of the water. But here’s the crazy part: later, when you look back on it, you will realize that it was that moment when it all went wrong that led to some of the most helpful outcomes. It is another case of the foolishness of this world being more effective than all the wisdom and the planning of the wise.
We have a kind of a mistake-o-phobia in the church, it seems to me. We are too afraid of making mistakes and so sometimes avoid even trying something that might be a little bit different. Recognizing that God does bless and even prosper the mistake-makers is something that can set you free to try new things without any fear of what you might get wrong because that is how God wants you to live.
The other way our fear of mistakes comes out is in the criticism we heap upon those who do make mistakes – the Cecilias of the world. And you know how devastating that was to Cecilia. It almost destroyed the woman. And, since we all do make mistakes, that leaves us all vulnerable to such criticism. It can do so much harm. And it can so easily change the environment of the church from a place where we build each other up to a place where we tear each other to pieces. That, I know, God doesn’t bless.
So God sends mistakes into our lives and into our churches and into our towns and he loves to use them to challenge our assumptions about what really matters. Next time you make a mistake – or the next time you see someone else making a mistake – take it as a challenge. God is asking you to imagine what great thing he might have in store for you, or for the church or for some other worthwhile project, in what you or somebody else just got plain wrong.

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