Category: Minister

Watch the sermon video here:

https://youtu.be/vWA9j10OLh8

Hespeler, 13 March 2022 © Scott McAndless – Lent 2
Genesis 15:1-12, 17-18, Psalm 27, Philippians 3:17-4:1, Luke 13:31-35 (click to read)

First of all, let me make one thing perfectly clear. There was absolutely nothing wrong with Eliezer of Damascus. He was a very nice young man. And Abram had felt very close to him ever since he was born to one of the slave girls in his household. He was reliable, trustworthy and had risen until he became the steward of all of his master’s possessions. So long as Eliezer was managing things, Abram rarely had to worry. He knew that, no matter what, the man would do well in life.

So, Abram certainly knew that he could do a whole lot worse than to pass down all of his possessions to such a fine young man. There was only one problem, despite the rumours that unfortunately did still persist in the household, Eliezer was not his son. He did not carry his blood and would never be able to carry his name. And Abram had held onto the hope that someday he would be able to have a child of his own body who would be able to carry on his true legacy. He had thought that it was something that God had promised him that he could have and he had clung to that promise beyond all reason. But maybe it was time to re-evaluate that.

Past the Point of Hope

Abram was seventy-five years old now. Sarai, his wife, was closing in on sixty-five. It was now way past the point where you could call Abram hopeful or optimistic. We were now talking in terms of him being downright delusional. So, he had finally made the decision. He was going to call in some of the local elders as his witnesses and make the formal declaration that Eliezer would inherit everything when he was gone. He kept telling himself that this was just wisdom and prudence. He wasn’t settling, he was embracing a new and realistic possibility. It was the right thing to do. It was a good thing to do. But, no matter how often he told himself that, he just couldn’t quite bring himself to believe it.

An Eliezer in your Life

And I can’t help but wonder today whether you might have an Eliezer of Damascus in your life. And please understand me that I’m not talking about a person in your life, or at least not necessarily a person. I am more wondering whether there’s not a situation in your life which is an Eliezer situation. Is there something that you are settling for? Now, remember that in this story Eliezer is not a bad option. In fact, he seems to be a pretty good option. He is someone who would do a pretty good job as an heir of all of Abram’s goods. He’s just not the best option. He is not what Abram has always dreamed of, and he’s not the fulfillment of what God has called Abram to be.

So, what is the good thing in your life that you have settled for instead of doing what, somewhere deep down inside, you know is really the best thing? Obviously, this is a very personal question. It is also not something that anyone else can decide for you. But perhaps you know of something in your own life that just doesn’t quite measure up to what you know it could be. Have you opted for some job or for some activity not because it’s what you know you should be doing but just because it seemed like the safest option to go for? Or maybe you have settled for a certain level of knowledge or a certain proficiency even though you know that you are capable of more.

Why it’s Sometimes Necessary

Now, there are all kinds of reasons why we make these sorts of decisions. And they may be very good reasons. There may be a real need to embrace the safe option for a time because you need to give your family some stability, for example. That is perfectly legitimate. But it also doesn’t mean that you need to stay with the safe option forever.

Or perhaps think of it in these terms. We have been living through some very difficult times for the last two years almost to this very date. And as a result of that, we have all made some choices. And those have been very good choices. It is good to stay home and not socialize in certain ways when there’s a great danger that you will spread a dangerous illness if you do so. It was a good choice for people not to come to church in person. And there are all kinds of other good choices that people have made. I don’t really need to go on and make a list here because I know that you have all been making these kinds of choices again and again over the last couple of years.

If you are like most people, you have likely also fallen into certain patterns to manage the stress of these unusual times. Perhaps you have indulged yourself in ways that would not have been normal for you before such times. I certainly know that there are people who have imbibed more or eaten more or been less active than is ideal. There are also other habits that people have embraced that might be addictive – gambling, social media doom scrolling and even, dare I say it, Wordle. (Okay, I am totally joking about that last one. And I was actually able to solve yesterday’s puzzle in two lines!)

Survival is Good

If any of that reminds you of the things that you have settled into over the last couple of years, then perhaps you should consider that to be an Eliezer response. Because you did something good: you survived. You managed to make your way through a very difficult time. That is not just good; that is fantastic. But what if we are getting to the place where you don’t need to settle for Eliezer of Damascus anymore? What if it is time to get back to embracing a little bit more of who you are really meant to be?

Well, if any of what I have said speaks to you and where you feel you are in your life right now, then please do pay heed to what happened to Abram next. Abram had resolved to settle for the good thing that was Eliezer, but then he apparently took a step outside of his tent. Now, Abram was in the middle of a desolate place. There was clearly nobody around. There were no streetlights or big city lights, there were not even any campfires or lamps burning.

The Night Sky

And so, Abram was immediately confronted with a sight that folks like us who live in cities rarely see. For there, blazing over his head was the most breathtaking display of stars imaginable. And if you have ever been out in the wilderness and looked up and seen that sight, you know that it can greatly affect you. It’s not just a beautiful sight, it is a sight that can overwhelm you with the sheer size of it. There is this sense that you are looking on something that is truly infinite. It is no accident that since ancient times, people have looked up at nighttime and found themselves confronted with powers and beings far beyond their understanding.

And so, when Abram looked up that night, just after making that fateful decision about the disposition of his assets, he was reminded that he was dealing with a God of infinite possibility. When such a God is involved, anything can happen. He realized that it was not only possible that he might have one child, there could be as many as there were stars overhead.

Abram Believed God

And in that moment, Abram did a very simple thing. It was small, but it changed everything. He believed God. He didn’t believe in his own body’s ability to produce an heir. He didn’t believe in Sarai’s ability to carry a child at her age. Maybe that had been the problem up until now. He had been trying to believe in those things. But somehow the sight of that infinite heaven, of the stars far beyond all counting, that made it possible to believe in a God of infinite possibility.

And there is a message in that for you as you ponder that question of whether you should settle for your Eliezer of Damascus or if it is time to aspire for what you were really made to do and be. I am not suggesting, and no one should suggest, that you have been lacking in faith before this point. I am sure that your faith has brought you this far. But perhaps a vision of a God of infinite possibility might persuade you to approach the question of where you go from here from a new perspective.

What if I don’t Deserve it?

Ah yes, you might say, but there is a problem. Maybe Abram was an extraordinary man. Maybe he just deserved to have the deepest desire of his heart realized. But what if that doesn’t apply to me? After all, I’ve made too many mistakes in my life. I’ve let too many opportunities go by, I’ve been weak or indecisive or foolish in my choices. That’s why I don’t really deserve to have my deepest desires, hopes and dreams fulfilled. In short, what if I’m just not good enough to have it? I don’t feel like I deserve it.

I know that that is how we often feel. I honestly feel that, for many of us, that is the real reason why we don’t reach for the things that we are meant to do. It is not because we are lazy or timid. It is because, somewhere deep down inside, we are just terribly afraid that we just don’t deserve to succeed. Maybe Abram felt that too and that was the real reason why he had decided to settle for Eliezer. But that is why what happened next is so important.

When Abram had been swept away by the sight of those stars and decided that he was going to trust God to fulfill God’s promises instead, this is what happened. “And [Abram] believed the Lord;” it says, “and the Lord reckoned it to him as righteousness.”

The Theme of Grace

What does that mean? It means that right there and then, God decided that Abram was good, that he was worthy of all sorts of good things to happen to him. And on what basis did God decide that? It was not because Abram had done anything special. It was not because he had worked hard for it or because he had made all the right decisions. God simply took Abram’s willingness to believe and trust as enough to declare him righteousness and worthy.

This is, in case I need to say it, a key theme that runs through the whole Bible (not just the New Testament like some people think). It is the simple truth that God loves, accepts and approves of us, not because we have done all the right things, but just because we are willing to trust and believe in God. It is when we forget that truth that we are most likely to stop believing in ourselves, which sometimes means we usually end up settling for Eliezer.

Two Reasons not to Settle for Eliezer

 So, there you are. There are two reasons why you can ask for and expect something better for your life than just settling for Eliezer – for the thing that is just good enough. The first reason is that you have a God whose potential is as vast as all the stars in the sky. If you have been limiting your expectations because the God you think you serve is too small, let me suggest that you do like Abram and spend some time contemplating the vastness of the heavens that your God created.

The second reason why you have settled for Eliezer may be because you don’t think that you deserve any better. That is a lie. You deserve it all and more. But not because of anything you have done, not because you made all of the right decisions or worked the hardest. You deserve it because of what Christ has done for you. All God is looking for is that you trust him. God will count that as righteousness and will declare you worthy. So don’t settle for Eliezer. Dream of what God is truly calling for you to be.                                                                        

https://youtu.be/OuKqIXmTiLs

Hespeler, March 6 2022 © Scott McAndless – Lent 1
Deuteronomy 26:1-11, Psalm 91:1-2, 9-16, Romans 10:8b-13, Luke 4:1-13

Lemon meringue pie is my father’s favourite dessert. You give him a choice of pies and he will go for the lemon meringue every time. My mother, who is the baker of the family, makes some of the most wonderful and tasty pies I’ve ever eaten. But she doesn’t particularly make lemon meringue. I think it’s because she doesn’t think that her lemon meringue is as good as what her mother used to make. But anyways, when we were growing up, we had some wonderful pies but not often lemon meringue. When we did, it was always an occasion.

The Story

And whenever such an occasion came along, there was a story that got repeated in our family. We all knew the story, but we never tired of hearing it. The story went like this. When my parents first met and started dating, the day came when my father got an invitation to my mother’s parents’ house for supper.

My mom is the eldest child of her family, and you can imagine that her younger siblings were very excited to have their sister’s beau come to dinner for the first time. And, as the time to dine approached and my mother was helping out in the kitchen, they were entertaining my dad by telling him that my mother had prepared the entire meal including, they promised him, a very special dessert prepared in his honour. This was, of course, a lie. My mother had helped, but she had hardly prepared it all and she had not made the dessert. But perhaps we can forgive those younger siblings for their exuberance in talking up their elder.

The Surprise

Finally, the moment came, and the meal was served. It was all excellent, of course. And then the dessert – my grandmother’s inimitable lemon meringue pie. My father was served up a great big piece of pie and everyone present, especially those younger siblings, looked on as he took that first delicious bite from the tip. It was indeed delightful. But at that very moment, he looked down to see that, nestled between the lemon and the meringue, in the next bite he was about to take, there was a huge, dead beetle.

At this point in the story, we would all lean forward expectantly until someone would ask the necessary question. “What did dad do then?” “Oh,” came the ritual answer, “he just took out the beetle, put it by the side of his plate and kept on eating.”

What the Story Means to us

That was just one of the stories that was told in my house as I was growing up. I’m sure you have stories from your background as well. And the reason why some stories in particular get remembered and repeated is because they are more than just the memories of unusual events. They are remembered because these stories give meaning and even a sense of identity to the people who tell them. I mean, if you know my mother and father, you will quickly realize that that story conveys a great deal about their positive character traits and the loving relationship that they’ve shared for so long.

Stories and Memories

The other thing about such stories is that they are not exactly the same thing as memories of the actual event. Even though that story was told and passed on by people who were there, that doesn’t mean that it all happened exactly as the story is told. Quite possibly, some of the other people present would have seen the events of that night quite differently. The beetle probably didn’t look like I imagine that it looked when I tell the story. I imagine that it was huge! All of this is because memory doesn’t actually work the way that we think it does.

Human beings are actually not all that great at remembering events unless they do something. In order to store an important event in our long-term memory, we actually need to find some way to turn it into a story. It can be a story we tell ourselves or, even better, the story that we tell out loud to others, but unless we turn it into a story, it can very easily be lost to us.

How Stories Create Memories (and Not the Other Way Around)

But the simple act of turning the memory into a story modifies our recollection of the events. We change the memory to fit a narrative. And once we create a story, we remember the story rather than the original events. After that, every time we tell the story, we are constantly making our memory of those events fit what we need the story to tell us at this particular moment in time.

If, for example, the pie story were told at a celebration of my parents’ anniversary, we would probably hear it as a very romantic kind of tale. But, if it was told when someone was passing on the recipe for lemon meringue pie, it might be heard as something a little less romantic and a little more of a food safety warning. What’s more, researchers have demonstrated, when we remember that story, what we are actually remembering is not the original events, but rather the last time we heard or told the story.

A Sacrifice

All of this is basically because the way that we make sense of our world is by telling stories about it. And this is something that our reading this morning from the Book of Deuteronomy seems to understand and appreciate. The passage that we read this morning is an instruction for a particular kind of sacrifice.

It is the sacrifice of the first fruits, where the worshipers are to bring the first produce of their land and present it to the priest, who, by the way doesn’t burn it on the altar or anything like that, it is basically a gift to support the priestly family. But what is really different about this sacrifice is the requirement for every worshiper to tell a story.

And a Story

The story goes like this: “A wandering Aramean was my ancestor; he went down into Egypt and lived there as an alien, few in number, and there he became a great nation, mighty and populous. When the Egyptians treated us harshly and afflicted us, by imposing hard labour on us, we cried to the Lord, the God of our ancestors; the Lord heard our voice and saw our affliction, our toil, and our oppression. The Lord brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, with a terrifying display of power, and with signs and wonders; and he brought us into this place and gave us this land, a land flowing with milk and honey. So now I bring the first of the fruit of the ground that you, O Lord, have given me.”

And I find it fascinating that there would be this requirement in order to bring the sacrifice. Each worshiper is required to recite, not a prayer, not some liturgy, but a full story. One question I’ve got to ask is how tired did the priests get having to listen to that same story over and over again? But surely this was required for a reason. The writers of this law in Deuteronomy understood something important about human nature. They understood what I’ve been saying, just how important stories are to human beings. As I said, the stories that we tell are able to form and shape our memories. That is particularly important when you want to help your people form a common identity. They need to have a shared story.

How Stories Help us Process Memories

But stories are also really important for helping us to process our memories. Do take note of what this story in the Book of Deuteronomy tells. It’s actually a horrible story of mistreatment, abuse and trauma. It is a story of a whole nation that lost its homeland, that was subjected to slavery, oppression and abandonment by their God. And I’m sure you are aware of the extreme damage that those kinds of memories can do. You have heard, I imagine, of post-traumatic stress disorder or PTSD. When people have gone through traumatic events, the memories that they carry in their mind and even in their body can be extremely destructive to their lives and their relationships. The more traumatic the events, the more potential for damage there is, but even mild trauma, if you carry it around with you, can have a very damaging effect.

How We Deal with Trauma

And here is one reason why that happens. When you’ve lived through something difficult, you tend not to want to think about it or dwell on it. This is understandable, of course. Remembering it stirs up painful feelings and so you’d rather just put it out of your mind. But remember what I said about us being storytelling creatures. In order to helpfully integrate a memory into our lives so that we can deal with it in a constructive way, we need to turn it into a story.

But if you don’t want to think about something traumatic that happened to you, you’re not going to be able to turn it into a story. That is precisely how a memory of a negative event can become dangerous. Because when you have not turned it into a story because you don’t want to think about it, the memory of the traumatic event doesn’t just disappear. Your brain holds on to those sorts of memories as a kind of survival instinct. They are, after all, memories of things that were or seemed to be dangerous. Your brain wants to keep those memories because they seem like vital information that will help you to survive future dangerous events.

When We Fail to Process Traumatic Memories

But, if you don’t examine those memories and turn them into stories, they cannot be stored in the productive part of your brain that can use them constructively. Instead, they get stored in a much more primitive part of your brain, you might think of it as your animal brain, called the amygdala. And when a traumatic memory is stored in your animal brain, you cannot deal with it rationally. Instead what happens is that you tend to get triggered by things that remind you of the original traumatic events. You may react irrationally with fear or by lashing out at the people you love with anger. As you can imagine, this can lead to some very difficult problems in your life.

So, what you actually need to do is to have the courage to examine the memories of the traumatic things that you have lived through. This can be extremely hard, and people often need help to do that. At the very least, they need friends who understand them and who they can trust to talk through these memories. Some people need trained professionals to help them to do this and there is absolutely nothing wrong with needing that kind of help.

But the process itself is relatively simple, even though it can be extremely painful and hard. The process is to turn it all into a story, a story about your life, about who you are. It is about telling a story in which the suffering is not the end of the story but rather a point on the way to the end. It is also about telling a story in which you discover something about who you are on the way through the struggle.

What the Story did for Ancient Israelites

That why I find that the story that the worshiper tells in the Book of Deuteronomy is so powerful. It is indeed a story about trauma, about slavery and oppression that an entire nation went through. The point of telling the story is indeed to face that dark history. But it is also very clearly the story of a people who do not allow their trauma to define or limit them. It is a story about people whose God heard them and who saved them “with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, with a terrifying display of power, and with signs and wonders.” That certainly makes it seem as if they are indeed a very special people to have such a God.

The Stories You Tell

So here is the challenge I would like to leave you with today. Take some time to consider the stories that you tell about yourself or about your family – the stories that you tell to others and the stories that you tell to yourself. Consider how they shape not only your identity and your self-esteem but also the memories of the things that have happened to you. Are there ways that you could tell those stories differently so that they are more uplifting and affirming?

And if you do have some events in your life that you find particularly hard to remember for some very good reasons, I have an even greater challenge for you. In a safe context, preferably with someone you truly trust, tell those stories and find some way to tell them that don’t just make the trauma the end of the story. Consider how they can be stories of survival, hope and maybe even victory. Above all, find a way to tell those stories that makes it clear that there was a God who cared about you in the midst of what you struggled with. If you’re able to find that story, I suspect you might discover the truth that God really was there and has been with you ever since.

https://youtu.be/V0wLD04rrxQ

Hespeler, 27 February 2022 © Scott McAndless
Exodus 34:29-35, Psalm 99, 2 Corinthians 3:12-4:2, Luke 9:28-43a

Moses sighed. He knew that this time of quiet and reflection would soon be over. Every moment he spent outside of this tent seemed to be a moment filled with requests, frustrations and endless demands. People were constantly looking to him to solve their disputes and fix their problems, tell them what to do and say the words that would bring them all together to face the daily challenges of a wandering life.

They would ask him to make decisions that would affect the lives of men, women and children. If they turned this direction, would they meet a dangerous enemy? If they turned that way, would they find themselves in a wasteland in which there was no water and no fodder for the animals to eat? The latest complex question they’d come up with had been about a matter of the inheritance of a family that had had no sons.

Escaping into the Tent

And this tent was the only place that he could go to escape all of that. He knew that no one would ever follow him into this place because they were all too afraid. They knew that he met with God in here – with Yahweh who had first been revealed to him at the burning bush – and they much preferred to let Moses wrestle with their demanding God on their behalf alone.

Moses knew that it was true, that he did indeed meet his God in this sacred space. But it didn’t happen in the ways that they all imagined that it did. It wasn’t really about spectacular lights and resounding voices. Most of the time, what happened in here was that Moses was able to quiet all of the thoughts that were in his mind. As he eased into a quiet state, pushing aside all of the worries and fears that he struggled with out there, it sometimes happened – by no means always, but sometimes. A word or a phrase or a thought would come into his mind that he knew did not originate from himself. He knew that it was a word from Yahweh.

Uncertainty

But even then, he still struggled with the messages that he received. He was not always sure that he understood them. He was not always certain that he had the interpretation or the application right. And, when God is involved, it seems really important that you should be able to get it right. People think that having some kind of divine experience makes things easier, but Moses knew from long experience now that it usually makes things harder.

And one of the hardest things about it was that people outside of the tent didn’t understand that. When he came out of the tent, when he spoke to them of the will of God, they expected him to speak in absolutes. There was no room for doubt or questions out there. There was no room for shades of gray; they wanted it all laid out in black and white. Moses couldn’t show himself as a fallible human, but rather as a spokesperson for the divine. And so, when he went out, it helped that he put on the veil.

How it All Started

There was a bit of a story behind the veil. It went back to the time when Moses had gone up to the top of the holy mountain all alone. There, on top of Mount Sinai, he had had the most extraordinary experience of his life. The encounter he had had with Yahweh up there was unlike anything that had happened to him before or since. Everything had been so clear up there and there had been no room for doubt. He had been given a keen insight into what measures were needed so that this people, who had so recently been freed of a life where everything had been controlled for them, could live together in peace and prosperity. He had been able to distill it all down to a series of laws that he knew would guide the people for generations to come.

It had been so exciting and exhilarating and, in those first few days afterwards, everything had seemed so very clear. But, when he came down and met the people, all of it was frightening to them. It was so clear to them that he had been in the very presence of God that they said that it was as if the skin on his face was putting off this strange radiance. They were afraid that they would die if they came too close to him. And so, Moses realized that he needed to tone it down a bit. He covered his face to put a little distance between himself and the people. It helped them to manage the fear and it helped him to moderate the way he was speaking to them. And so, they had been able to communicate in those heady days.

After the Mountain Top

But in the time since, the veil had come to be deployed differently. The kind of clear experience of the presence of God that Moses had had on that mountain was not repeated. Honestly, Moses was glad of that because it had left him drained and weary. People don’t actually manage that well with absolute certainty over the long term. It was replaced now with this seemingly endless struggle in the tent as he sought out the brief flashes of clarity in the midst of all the questions and the doubts.

But the harder the struggle in the tent became, the more important it seemed to hide that struggle from the people outside. If they were expecting him to come out of the tent every time with the same certitude that he had brought down the mountain, that was not going to happen. If they were looking for that same sense of radiance coming from him, they were likely going to be disappointed. But by pre-emptively donning the veil before he went out, he managed to maintain both the illusion of certainty and the inspiration of fear. Both of these things simply made it a whole lot easier for Moses to lead these stubborn people.

Back to Reality

And so, with yet another deep sigh, Moses opened his eyes. The time of quiet meditation was over. He felt as if he had been able to sort out some of the problems and challenges that were facing the people. Somewhere in there, he was pretty sure that he had heard a genuine word from Yahweh. He uttered a prayer of thanks, acknowledging the God who had allowed him to lead these people thus far. As he turned, he plucked the veil from the hook by the door and carefully covered his face. He could see very little through it, mostly just shadows and shapes. He knew that the people would see almost nothing of his own features. That was as it needed to be.

He stepped outside and all over the camp he saw the people turn towards him. All noise and conversation fell away as they waited to hear a word from Yahweh. And so Moses began to speak through the veil regarding the difficult question that had been posed to him. “This is what Yahweh commands concerning the daughters of Zelophehad,” he cried. “‘Let them marry whom they think best; only it must be into a clan of their father’s tribe that they are married, so that no inheritance of the Israelites shall be transferred from one tribe to another; for all Israelites shall retain the inheritance of their ancestral tribes.’” (Number 36:6-7)

An Ancient Religious Practice

The story of Moses and the veil in the Book of Exodus is one that has always struck people for its strangeness. It has long been thought that, somewhere behind this story, are ancient religious practices that may stretch back to prehistoric times. The idea was that the ancient priest or shaman would put on some kind of mask or face covering and, in so doing, be able to impersonate and speak for the god.

Such an ancient practice may indeed lie somewhere behind this story in the Bible, but I’m a little less interested with how it may have contributed to the creation of this story than I am in what such a practice tells us about it what it means to be human beings trying to relate to the divine. I see two key forces at play. On the one hand, we have the experience of the divine and on the other we have the practice of religion.

Religious Experience

There is a simple reality and it that is that people have been experiencing God for a long time. There are varying experiences, of course. And the God that people experience can be wildly different. But the reality that people have such experiences cannot be denied. I know we often are tempted to dismiss such things because personal experiences, almost by definition, cannot be independently verified. You cannot scientifically prove that somebody experienced God. Nor can you really disprove it.

But people have been having such experiences for centuries and they have sometimes had huge impacts on historical events. I have also had such experiences in my life, and I know a number of other people who have as well.

Fear and Authority

And there are two big problems that arise because people have such supernatural experiences. One is fear. People have a very natural reaction to be very afraid of such experiences and the people who have them. The other problem is the question of authority. How do we tell if someone’s experience of God is something that we should trust and listen to?

We see both of these problems being addressed in this story of Moses and the veil. We are told, first of all, that the veil is placed there to create a kind of distance between Moses’ powerful experience and the people because they are afraid. And we are also told that when Moses speaks through the veil, it becomes a sign that he is speaking for God and that, therefore, everything he says is authoritative.

The Function of Religion

In many ways, I would say, this veil is a symbol of the function of religion. Human religion is there in order to accomplish two things: to manage our human fear in the face of the experience of God and to sort out which pronouncements have authority. We don’t use symbols like a mask or a veil anymore to manage these things, but that does not mean that they are no longer important aspects of our religion.

Because here is what is at stake. No matter what happens to religion and the state of religion (and I realize that religion has been going through some rough times lately) these are issues that are not going to go away. People are going to continue to have experiences of God along with all of the fear and the difficult questions of authority that come with such experiences. It seems to be something that is built into our human nature.

Why we Need Religious Tools

And religion in all its various forms has been something that we have developed to help us manage those very problems. And I know that the history of religion has had its horrible moments. All kinds of terrible things have been justified by religious belief down through history. But I honestly do not think that just getting rid of all religious structure is the solution.

I believe that religion, done well, can give us the tools to manage and interpret these very frightening and powerful experiences in helpful ways. I believe that that is what Moses and other figures like him managed to do, not perfectly, but they at least tried to direct these powerful impulses in more productive ways.

What Paul has to Add

There is one other aspect to this story that is added in the New Testament. In his Second Letter to the Corinthians, the Apostle Paul makes reference to this story of Moses and the veil and he says that in Christ, the veil is set aside. The point he seems to be making is that because Christ revealed to us the very nature of God in human form, the old constraints of fear, authority and religion are no longer necessary.

I do have some reason to wonder whether Paul got that completely right. There is no question that Christianity has never stopped setting up religious systems to manage those very things throughout its long history. But Paul’s point is still rather helpful. So long as we are ruled in our religious practices by our need to manage fear and our desire to project authority, I don’t think we will fulfill our fullest potential as human beings seeking to relate to the divine.

The Problem with Religious Authority

In particular, that desire to project absolute authority from our religious experience has been particularly problematic throughout our history. The fact of the matter is that our experiences of God are rarely absolute. Oh yes, very occasionally, someone will have that top of Mount Sinai experience when everything is absolutely made crystal clear. But most of our experiences of God come when we are in the midst of our doubts and questions. That need to put on a veil and project absolute certainty means that we often hide the true nature of our encounters with God. And that is a problem.

I think that if we were truly honest, we would admit that much of our struggle to work out our relationship with the divine is in there, with Moses as I have imagined him, in the tent. We are often consumed with more questions and doubts than we would like to admit. But I do think it’s time to lay aside that temptation to hide that struggle behind a veil in order to project absolute certainty about our beliefs to the world. That doesn’t serve us, and it doesn’t serve the world. And it actually serves to obscure the real power of religious experience that I believe is our heritage as the children on God.

Watch the sermon video here:

Hespeler, 20 February 2022 © Scott McAndless
Genesis 45:3-11, 15, Psalm 37:1-11, 39-40, 1 Corinthians 15:35-38, 42-50, Luke 6:27-38 (click to read)

On Saturday, January 30^th, as we are all very aware at this point, a huge protest descended upon the city of Ottawa. As a nation’s capital, Ottawa is hardly a stranger to protest, and many citizens have gotten used to taking them in their stride. But this one was different. It quickly turned into a long-term occupation as tractor trailers were positioned to lock down the streets of the core, filling them with diesel fumes and the incessant blaring of truck horns.

Now, I am quite aware that those who went to Ottawa to protest had their reasons. There were policies that they opposed and that they felt were infringing upon their freedom. I don’t personally agree with their specific concerns nor, apparently, do a majority of Canadians, but I don’t intend to debate their concerns or their demands. I do believe that people, even people that I do not agree with, have the perfect right to air their grievances and seek to have them addressed. But I do have some concerns with how those grievances have been expressed and I also have concerns about the response and what it has been. I do not think that I am alone.

Who are the Enemies?

In our reading this morning from the Gospel of Luke, Jesus speaks about what it means to have enemies and how we are to deal with our enemies. And I think that that gives us a helpful way to approach these events. “Enemies” is a good way to describe many of the people who have engaged in the drama in our nation’s capital. I know that they are not all one monolithic group, but one thing the convoy people share is apparently their enemies. They would name as their enemies certain political leaders, certain public officials including public health officers. Many would name certain political parties and the policies of those parties. And they have certainly sought to target their enemies with their rhetoric and their actions.

Most would probably not name the citizens of Ottawa as their enemies, but these are the people, especially those that live near Parliament Hill, who have probably suffered the most as a result of their actions. They have seen their freedom of movement and their ability to work curtailed, they have been assailed with non-stop high decibel noise pollution, often so loud that it would be considered torture if prisoners of war were subjected to it. There have been many allegations of harassment and even of attempted arson. As a result of this, it is perhaps not surprising that many of the people of Ottawa have come to see these occupiers very clearly as their enemies, leading to a very strong desire to retaliate against them.

Jesus’ Teaching Looks Different Today

All of this means that we have been given a very clear illustration of the kind of situation that Jesus was apparently trying to address in his teaching this morning from the Gospel of Luke. The question, quite simply, is what do you do when you have an enemy?

And it is kind of interesting. I have been reading and preaching on this passage of scripture (and other parallel passages) for a very long time. I have preached on this passage when our country has been at war in places like Afghanistan and also when we have been engaged in some very dangerous peace-keeping missions. But I’ll tell you something. I don’t remember a time when I opened this passage and could be sure that everyone would have as clear an understanding of who was their enemy than at this particular moment in time.

And the enemies that we think of are not particularly people who live on other continents. They are a whole lot closer to home. Go up to just about anyone in Ottawa over the past couple of weeks and ask them, who are your enemies, and chances are that they can point one out to you.

We All Think We Know How to Deal with Enemies

So, in many ways, that question of how we deal with our enemies is much more urgent today than I can ever remember. But I would also notice one other thing. There really isn’t any discussion about how to deal with them. We’re all pretty sure that we know what needs to be done. You can see that, once again, on the streets of Ottawa. We have seen people directing a lot of anger against their perceived enemies, of course. But, beyond that, we also seem to see a whole lot of anger being directed against those who are dealing with enemies in what we see as the wrong ways.

And so, for example, people have been heavily criticizing the police for what is seen as appeasement or for failing to come down hard on the enemies. Others have expressed their anger at the media for failing to represent “our side” with sympathy or for failing to demonize the other side. These sorts of attitudes make it clear that everyone understands that the only way to deal with an enemy is basically to fight fire with fire, to defeat them with strength and power.

Objectionable Advice

That seems to be the context where we find ourselves today, not just in relation to this one occupation, of course, but in many of the events that have taken place in the last couple of years. So, it seems that the topic Jesus is dealing with in our gospel reading has never been more relevant to us than it is right now. And yet, at the same time, the actual advice that Jesus gives for dealing with our enemies has never been more objectionable.

Jesus says, “But I say to you that listen, love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you.” And, really, can you imagine somebody getting up and making such a request to any group facing off against any other on the streets of Ottawa? They would be laughed out of the city. It just seems to be absolute foolishness, at least when the enemies we are talking about are not hypothetical but are actually standing right in front of us.

No Way Out of Hate

But I really do think that we need to give some consideration to what Jesus is saying here because here is the real problem. Once we get into that kind of battle where no one is willing to give even basic humanity to their enemies, we very quickly get into a situation where there simply is no way out. When all we can do is hate our enemies, we only end up constantly raising the stakes on each other.

At some point, it actually doesn’t matter who is right or who is wrong. It doesn’t matter who started it. At the end of the day, we actually need to be able to live with each other once this is all over because otherwise, it’s never going to be over, and no one wants to live in a world surrounded by enemies forever. So, even though what Jesus says seems like the wrong thing to do, we really ought to listen to him.

What Jesus isn’t Saying

And I would also note that, when he teaches us to love our enemies, he is not simply saying that we should let them have their way with us. For example, Jesus doesn’t just say that when someone strikes you on the cheek, you should just let them keep on striking you. No, what Jesus says is, “If anyone strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also.” And I know that that might sound like the same thing, but it isn’t. What Jesus is saying is that you need to insist that, if someone’s going to strike you, you set the terms for what is happening to you.

The Other Cheek

In that world, the kind of people that Jesus was talking to were used to being struck in certain ways. Most of them were poor and many of them were slaves. And do you know how abusers struck people like that in the ancient world? They struck them with a backhanded blow of the right hand which meant that they were striking you on the right cheek. It was the kind of blow that told you that you were nobody in their sight. So that meant that poor folk and slaves were constantly being struck with backhanded blows on the right cheek. They all knew it. They had all felt it often enough. And, what’s more, if you look at some of the other variations of this saying of Jesus, Jesus actually specifies that the first blow is on the right cheek.

But it is very significant that Jesus does not say that you should just let your enemies continue to strike you as they have been. No, Jesus says, you are to invite them to strike you on the other cheek. And that is significantly different in that culture. For them to strike you on the left cheek would mean them striking you with the front of their right hand (because, for reasons I’m not going to go into, you do not touch somebody else with your left hand in that culture).

So essentially what you’re inviting them to do is to strike you, and perhaps to strike you harder, with the front of their hand or their fist, but you are insisting that they do so not as a social superior but as an equal. And, in that culture, that was actually something that did more dishonour to them than it did to you. You had essentially shamed them by forcing them to declare that you were their equal.

About the Clothing

Jesus’ other advice is very similar. He tells them that if someone takes away your coat, you should give them your tunic as well. Well, in that society people only wore two pieces of clothing, a coat and a tunic. So essentially you are stripping naked in front of your enemy and, once again, in that society that did more damage to their honour than it did to yours.

Now, of course, the specific advice that Jesus is giving here is very much dependent on that culture and how it worked. Obviously, to do the exact same actions today would not have the same results. So, we would accomplish absolutely nothing by going around today inviting our enemies to hit us on our left cheek or take away our tunics. That would have nothing like the impact that Jesus is looking for. It’s not the specifics that we should follow but the principles behind them.

The Principles

So, what are the principles, and how might they apply in the kind of situations we are seeing today? I think it does mean that we should not counter our enemies’ misbehaviour, abuse or even violence by returning the same back to them. If they force us to become like them by adopting their tactics, then they have won, and we have no victory. But, at the same time, that doesn’t mean that we must just let them have their way. If they are going to continue to be abusive or hateful, we are going to have to force them to do that in ways that demonstrate to everyone exactly how dishonourable they are being.

In some cases, that can be pretty straightforward. If someone is being abused in a domestic situation, for example, the course of action is pretty clear in my mind. The abused person first of all needs to get safe and to get anyone else at risk to safety. And secondly, they need to take the steps necessary that expose to the authorities what their abuser has been doing. To simply continue to be abused in the same way, is actually something very different from what Jesus was talking about when he said to turn the other cheek. And I certainly wouldn’t pretend taking such matters to the authorities is not a very difficult and painful thing for an abused person to do. But it is a painful thing that you do for a purpose, and it is so much better than just continuing to be abused.

Making it Apply in Ottawa’s Streets

Now, a complex situation like the occupation of your city is obviously going to be more complex than that. I realize how difficult it is to apply Jesus’ advice to that kind of situation. But we still shouldn’t forget the overall principle. You cannot defeat your enemies by becoming like them. You need to give them the space to show who they really are.

None of this is easy. In fact, I believe Jesus made it very clear that loving your enemies is about the hardest thing you will ever be asked to do. It is actually a whole lot easier just to enter into a never-ending cycle of retribution and returning violence for violence and hatred for hatred. But that is really not a way to move forward when we actually have to live in the same country and continue to be neighbours and find a way to build a better country for everyone.

So, I would like to end this morning by posing the question and even suggesting that you take some time to discuss it. My question is this, however you define the enemies you see in our society today, how would you apply Jesus’ teaching to situations like what we’re seeing in Ottawa?

https://youtu.be/5TQcOyUrDso

Hespeler, 13 February 2022 © Scott McAndless
Jeremiah 17:5-10, Psalm 1, 1 Corinthians 15:12-20, Luke 6:17-26

If you are like most Christian readers, something probably feels a little bit off when you get to the sixth chapter of the Gospel of Luke. Jesus turns towards his disciples, opens his mouth and he says, “Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you will be filled. Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh.” And you say to yourself, “Hey, that’s not quite right.” Because you know those words, you’re pretty sure you’ve heard them before, but they weren’t exactly like that. Maybe you even grumble a bit about modern translations and how they seem to rob the words of their poetic power.

You’re Thinking of Another Passage

But actually, there is nothing wrong with the translation and yet you are still absolutely right. You have heard those words before and they weren’t quite like that. The words of Jesus that you are thinking of, that you are much more familiar with, are found in another gospel. In the fifth chapter of the Gospel of Matthew Jesus turns to his disciples and he says, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted... Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.” And those are the words of Jesus that people remember and memorize and repeat to comfort themselves.

And there is a good reason why people are so attached to the words that come from Matthew’s Gospel. They seem to be deeply spiritual as they challenge us to elevate our soul and to aspire for the deeper mysteries of the kingdom of God. We may not be entirely sure what it means to be “poor in spirit,” but it certainly sounds like something we should want to be. We may not be entirely sure that we actually hunger and thirst for righteousness’ sake, but we’d like to.

A Different Reaction

But when we turn over to those sayings in Luke’s gospel, we just don’t have the same emotional reaction to those words. I mean, yes, they are very nice sentiments. We would certainly like people who are poor to be blessed, for hungry people to get some food and for people who are weeping to be able to laugh. Everyone needs a good laugh from time to time. But those blessings seem so mundane and down to earth. They don’t stir our hearts in quite the same way.

As you can imagine, people have long wondered how it happened that we should, in these two gospels, have such different versions of what seem to be the same sayings of Jesus. It’s hard to imagine that this could just be a case of two people hearing the same words and mistakenly writing them down so differently. No, I think it’s pretty clear that the writers of these gospels have gone out of their way to present these words of Jesus in the way that they have.

Gospels aren’t Just Historical Accounts

Here is something you need to understand about the Gospels. They were never intended to be straightforward historical accounts. The job of the gospel writer is not simply to tell you the things that happened to and around Jesus exactly as those events took place. It is pretty clear, when you look closely at these books, that they had a much more important goal in mind. Their job was to communicate to you as best as they could their understanding of who Jesus was and what he stood for. They were each working, as the Holy Spirit inspired them, to present the unique understanding and angle that had been given to them. When you study these books closely, it’s pretty easy to see how they have done things like moved events around, reworded some of the sayings and done other similar things in order to accomplish that goal.

So, on the one hand, I would definitely argue that both Matthew and Luke were doing their very best to represent what it was that Jesus was teaching his disciples. But, on the other hand, they are far less concerned with getting the wording exactly correct than we may be expecting. But, even more than that, I believe that they are doing it all very transparently, that they are openly signaling their intentions.

Matthew’s Context and Setting

The famous, more familiar words of Jesus in Matthew’s Gospel are presented in a very specific context. Matthew tells us at the end of chapter 4 that Jesus was traveling all over Galilee and that he was attracting huge crowds, especially crowds of those who were “sick, those who were afflicted with various diseases and pains, demoniacs, epileptics, and paralytics.”

So, Jesus has been constantly surrounded by people who are in deep need, and he’s been trying to do his best to respond to them where they are. But then, as chapter 5 begins, he climbs to the top of a high mountain and there he turns and begins to speak to his disciples. That is why, of course, the discourse that follows over the next three chapters is called the Sermon on the Mount.

A Symbolic Mountain Top

The symbolism of such a setting should not be underestimated. The entire point of it is to make sure that we understand that everything Jesus is saying is meant to elevate us to think on heaven and its realities. He is raising our eyes and our minds above the drudgery of everyday life to proclaim to us eternal and spiritual truths.

He wants us to strive towards spiritual health rather than being concerned with the health of the body. He wants us to lay aside the earthly hunger we suffer from when we have no food and to hunger and thirst instead for what is right. He promises, yes, that the meek will inherit the earth. But if they are that meek, it’s hard to imagine them ruthlessly exploiting what they have inherited like we often do today. And the peacemakers, they may be making their peace on earth, but they are apparently shining far above this present realm as children of God.

Different Perspectives

And all of this, I need to stress, is absolutely true to who Jesus was and what he stood for. And this aspect of Jesus’ character is both eloquently captured and presented in these beatitudes, the opening passage of the Sermon on the Mount. But, at the same time, we mustn’t forget that this captured a certain aspect of Jesus’ person and message.

It is true of any individual that they are more than what a certain person might experience of them. For example, I might have a good friend whom I have always experienced as a lighthearted and humorous sort of person, you know the kind of guy who’s always telling a joke or finding something to laugh at. But somebody else might know that same person in a very different context, perhaps in the workplace where they hold down a very demanding and difficult job. Their workplace associate might know them as a very different, much more serious type of person.

Both I and that work associate could give our own description of this person and they would be radically different descriptions. And yet, at the same time, we can both be absolutely correct because no one single person’s point of view of somebody can possibly encompass the whole of that person. And if that is true of just any person, how much more is it true when we are talking about somebody as extraordinary as Jesus?

Luke’s Different Setting

So, we really should not expect that Matthew would have entirely captured everything that Jesus taught even in this most extraordinary passage of the Sermon on the Mount. And that is why, by God’s grace, we also have the Gospel of Luke. I think there is no question that Luke is, in this passage, attempting to present to us the very same teaching of Jesus that we have received from the Gospel of Matthew. How exactly this teaching has been preserved and handed down is another question that we don’t necessarily have the time to dig into. But I have no doubt that this is indeed a teaching from Jesus.

But the writer of the Gospel of Luke also wanted to do his best to present his own understanding of what Jesus was trying to teach. And I believe that he also goes out of his way to signal to us what perspective he is taking on this teaching. Matthew told us that Jesus went up the mountain to teach his disciples, well Luke kind of says the opposite. “He came down with them and stood on a level place, with a great crowd of his disciples and a great multitude of people from all Judea, Jerusalem, and the coast of Tyre and Sidon.”

So, where Matthew told us that Jesus went up the mountain to deliver this lesson, Luke tells us that he came down from the mountain and into the midst of the people. I would like to suggest, therefore, that what Luke is saying to us is that he’s going to tell us how the great and spiritual teachings of Jesus that might seem so far above the mundane concerns of this world take on new meaning when you bring them down to earth.

How the Setting Changes the Meaning

And, in that context, the words are greatly transformed. Instead of speaking in exalted terms about the poor in spirit, we are told that Jesus turned and spoke directly to the poorest and most destitute people in the crowd saying, “Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God.” And, yes, Jesus may have been very concerned to bless those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, but when he got down onto the flat place and he looked at the people who were nearly starving to death, of course he knew that that also meant saying to those people, “Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you will be filled.”

I realize, of course, that the words in Luke's gospel might come across as a little less poetic, a little less inclined to make one think of heavenly truths, but they are the truths that demand our attention when we actually pay attention to the misery that people are often living in in this world.

And, even more important, Luke is not afraid to do what I suspect Matthew might have been a little afraid of and look at the other side of the story. He understood that you cannot allow the poor and the meek to inherit the earth, not really, without it having a detrimental effect on the rich, the well-fed and those who laugh at the adversity of others. So, yes, Luke was not afraid to explain that this teaching also brought woe and even curses to those very people. For the kingdom could never come into its power without the first becoming last so that the last could become first.

Why So Many Gospels?

People often wonder why it is that we have four different gospels when they all tell the story of one life and death and resurrection. They especially wonder that when they realize just how similar the first three, Matthew, Mark and Luke, are. In several passages, those three gospels repeat the sayings of Jesus or tell the stories about him using exactly the same words verbatim. Wouldn’t it make more sense, people wonder, to just have one gospel to tell the whole story? But I am extremely grateful for what we have been given. You can’t think that one writer’s take on the teachings of Jesus could possibly capture everything that he stood for. We need Matthew to take us up to the mountaintop with his beatitudes and we need Luke to bring us back down to earth.

And perhaps we need to take a key lesson from the specific passage in Luke today. Any spiritual teaching that we may embrace may indeed lift our thoughts up to the heavenly places, but do not fail to bring those teachings back down from the mountain and onto the plain because any faith that does not also demand that we take thought for what we are doing to practically help the poor, the hungry and those whose lives are nothing but tears is not a faith that is seeking to live according to the whole teaching of Jesus.

Here is the devotional reading on Psalm 138 that was prepared for this morning's worship service. Please let us know if you find this to be a helpful way to approach the psalm.

https://youtu.be/WN44SvmLb3s

Watch the sermon video here:

https://youtu.be/Js0BtTa4UgU

Hespeler, 30 January 2022 © Scott McAndless
Jeremiah 1:4-10, Psalm 71:1-6, 1 Corinthians 13:1-13, Luke 4:21-30

Do you remember the good old days? You know, those days that were almost two years ago? I’m talking about the very early days of the pandemic and the crisis. Ah, those were the days, weren’t they? I remember walking around back then. Everything was all shut down. No one was going anywhere. And, yes, I know that people were worried, and they were scared but there was still something uplifting about the moment. You would see the messages everywhere you went. “We’re all in this together,” they would proclaim. “Let’s all do everything that we can to help each other.”

And I know that sometimes you still do see messages like that. But I’m not so sure when I see them today that people still believe them. Back then they really seemed to. There was this strong sense that we would be there for each other and that everyone would pitch in. People were forgiving of errors and lapses among others. They even pulled together behind political leaders if you could imagine that!

A Change in Attitude

And the reason that feels so nostalgic is because I don’t often get that sense these days. Today, it often feels as if we have never been so divided. We are seeing sharper and sharper partisan political divides as right wingers identify left wingers as examples of pure evil and the rhetoric on the other side is pretty much the same. We see the enmity between the vaccinated and the unvaccinated and a general breakdown of civility. And I cannot help but wonder how we went so quickly from “We’re all in this together,” to “Hey, get them. It’s all their fault.”

Why this Change?

And, yes, I do understand that a big part of this is just pure exhaustion. We are so tired of this whole thing and so it is not really surprising that people have gotten cranky. But I am not sure that that is the whole story. So, I would like to explore the bigger question of how that kind of thing can happen. How, all of a sudden and seemingly out of nowhere, can you get people to turn on each other? And it seems to me that we have a terrific opportunity to study that phenomenon in our gospel reading this morning.

We actually started reading this story last week from the Gospel of Luke where Jesus returned to his hometown at the beginning of his ministry. There, in the meeting of the synagogue, he read some scripture from the prophet Isaiah and declared that it had been fulfilled. That’s where the reading ended last week, but we pick it up this week in order to focus on the reaction to what Jesus had done. And the reaction, I’ve got to say, is kind of bananas. It ends in a cliff-hanger.

Initial Positive Reaction turns Negative

Now, first of all, what Jesus has just said is the kind of statement that you might expect to inspire an extreme reaction. He has said that the ancient scripture had been fulfilled. He has strongly implied that it is his own presence at this moment that has brought about such fulfillment. And we have long been told that this is the very kind of thing that people got upset with Jesus about, for claiming too much about himself. So, you might well expect people to get upset at him for saying that this scripture is actually about him. But we are told quite the opposite. We are assured that “all spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his mouth.”

And yet we are also told that, minutes later, they were ready to throw Jesus off of a cliff. So, if it wasn’t the fulfillment of scripture, what was it that got them to turn so very quickly. Well, let’s take a look at what Jesus says next. “Doubtless you will quote to me this proverb, ‘Doctor, cure yourself!’” he says. “And you will say, ‘Do here also in your hometown the things that we have heard you did at Capernaum.’” And then, “Truly I tell you, no prophet is accepted in the prophet’s hometown.”

And you can sort of understand why this might have riled them up. Here he is the famous boy from Nazareth and yet he is performing all of his wonders someplace else. That is a blow to hometown pride and might have even stirred up some jealousy in them. But it is hard to see why him saying this could have gotten them into a homicidal rage.

No, it seems pretty clear that what he said next was what pushed them over the edge – which is to say that it made them want to push him over the edge. But all he did was give them two examples from their own history. He told them about how the Prophet Elijah was sent to help a widow at Zarephath and about how the prophet Elisha healed Naaman the Syrian. It is only when they hear him say that that they are suddenly ready to kill him.

A Key Story for the Gospel

I think it is probably important for me to point out that this is not just an ordinary story in the Gospel of Luke. This is a very important story. The story of Jesus’ return to his hometown of Nazareth and the poor reception he received there is told in the other gospels. But Luke tells it very differently. He moves it, for one thing, to the very beginning of his story of Jesus’ ministry while the others tell it much later. And it is actually quite clear that the story is out of sequence inside Luke’s Gospel because Jesus refers to his having performed wonders in Capernaum already. But Luke has reported no such wonders yet. Luke is also the only one who adds this fuller story of what it was that Jesus did to make the people in Nazareth get upset with him.

So, it seems pretty clear here that Luke is doing more than just telling a straightforward story of what happened when Jesus went to Nazareth. This story is his big dramatic introduction of the entire work of Jesus. The reading that Jesus does in the synagogue is the perfect summary of what his ministry will look like. And this part of the story that we read this morning is a perfect explanation for why it is that there was so much opposition to everything that Jesus did and everything that he stood for.

The Basis of Opposition to Jesus

So, with that in mind, the issue cannot be that Jesus just said the wrong thing at the wrong time and that that was what set them off. Luke is trying to demonstrate to us in this passage what it was in general that caused so much opposition to what Jesus was doing. He’s giving us examples of the kind of thing that created that opposition.

And that is why these two Old Testament stories that Jesus mentions are so important. Basically, Jesus brings up for these people two stories, that come from their own history and from their own scriptures, of times when God sent prophets to help people who weren’t Jews. The only thing that the widow at Zarephath and Naaman the Syrian have in common is that they aren’t Jews. So, Jesus told these people about how God had sent his prophets out of their way to help Gentiles and that is what enraged them.

Think about that. The thing that made them turn on a dime from admiring Jesus and what he was saying to wanting to throw him off of a cliff was simply that he reminded them that God had wanted to help and save people who were not like them. The very idea that God would make good things happen to the wrong sorts of people, that was enough to turn them into a murderous mob.

The Problem with Grace

Jesus, you see, is the perfect demonstration and the personification of the grace of God. And what we often fail to realize is how offensive the very notion of grace really is. Oh yes, it is all very wonderful to consider how we might receive grace. But when we think of the idea of the “wrong kinds of people” being the recipients of grace and love, we often experience that very negatively.

I mean, think of how we talk and think during this present pandemic crisis. What are the things we really argue about? We argue about who is worthy to have good things happen to them. The vast majority of the people who have tried to do everything right by social distancing and wearing masks and getting their vaccinations are getting outraged at the people who are not doing the right things. They are enraged when they see them getting away with this. And they kind of want to see bad things happen to them. I’m not saying that anyone wants to see anyone getting horribly sick or dying, surely no one would wish that on anyone else, but there is a bit of an attitude that maybe it is fitting when it does happen.

At the same time, those who have refused to follow pandemic restrictions have gotten extremely upset as they see the privileges given to those who have. In many cases, this is just a matter of not wanting to see the people who aren’t like us getting good things. Nothing can enrage people as quickly as that. That’s what we see happening in this story of Jesus in Nazareth.

Facing up to who we are

And the reason why this story is given such prominence in the Gospel of Luke is because Luke is telling us that this is the very thing that created such opposition to Jesus. It was not just that he was the demonstration of the grace of God, it was also that he showed people who they really were and how unwilling they were to see God’s grace being made available to those who were considered unacceptable. It is kind of disturbing to us when we learn these things about ourselves.

I was kind of struck this morning by one of the verses in our reading from First Corinthians. The thirteenth chapter of that letter is a justly famous passage about love – an encouragement for us to have the same kind of love for one another that God has for us. But there’s one verse that seems to underline how hard this is for us. “For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face.” Paul writes. “Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known.”

That image of a person staring at themselves in a mirror and yet only being able to see their reflection dimly stands out for me. The Greek word that is used in that verse for dimly is actually the word enigma. So, you could also translate that, as I stare into the mirror, all I really see is a puzzle or an enigma instead of myself. It is this sense that we don’t truly know who we are. And the idea is that God is the only one who truly knows our proper nature.

Jesus Removed the Enigma

And, you see, that was precisely the reason why Jesus caused such a strong reaction. Jesus removed the enigma. By so clearly showing and demonstrating the love and grace of God, he showed up that lack of love and grace in everyone else. He showed them that they were unwilling to see good things happen to people who were not like them. And they didn’t like what they saw. And they tried to throw him off a cliff, though he just passed through the crowd and went on his way.

So, what is it that, more than anything else, makes us inclined to turn against one another, to be consumed with rage? What is it that prevents us from being all in this together? It is what happens when we get a glimpse of who we really are, when we look in the mirror for a moment and we don’t just see dimly; the problem is that we don’t like what we see. We don’t like it when our failure to be loving and gracious towards those who are not like us is shown up.

And I suspect that that is what has happened to us as we’ve gone through this difficult time for the last couple of years. We have become strained and fatigued by an ongoing crisis and our defenses are broken down. We’ve been shown who we really are, and we don’t necessarily like what we see. So, yes, we have become much more likely to turn to rage against each other.

Grace is the Beginning of Hope

But it is my hope and prayer that this is not the end of the story. Yes, it is true that this time of crisis has revealed to us a little bit more about who we are. And, yes, our initial reaction to that revelation has not necessarily been good. But here is the truth: it is only once we begin to come to terms with who we are that we can start to be different. Jesus came to reveal to us who we are, but he did not just do it in order that we should feel bad about ourselves. He did it in order that we might have the opportunity to experience redemption, new hope and new beginnings.

That is what the grace is for, not to make us feel bad because we don’t have it, but to renew us with its possibilities. And this is a message we have as the Christian church, one that we can share in ways that no one else can. That is why I believe that the church can have a unique role in healing some of the division that has been created in our society over the last couple of years. We have a message that gives people the strength to see themselves for who they truly are, even with all their faults, and still have hope for change. There are few messages that our society needs more than that at this particular moment in time.

Watch sermon video here:

https://youtu.be/6C1pIOMfRwo

Hespeler, 23 January 2022 © Scott McAndless
Nehemiah 8:1-3, 5-6, 8-10, Psalm 19, 1 Corinthians 12:12-31a, Luke 4:14-21

The passage we read this morning from the Gospel of Luke is an important story that I often return to. But every time I come back to it, there is one part of it that really strikes me because I’m not entirely sure what it means.

We are told that, when Jesus went to a synagogue meeting in his hometown of Nazareth, he read out a short portion of scripture. The passage he read is taken from the Book of Isaiah chapter 61. What strikes me, however, is how Jesus ends his reading. “And he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. The eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. Then he began to say to them, ‘Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.’”

What I want to know is what on earth does that mean? Jesus seems to be saying that this particular piece of scripture that had been written maybe five hundred years previously, had just been accomplished right there while these people were listening. How do we make sense of that? In particular, I would like to know what the people who were listening to Jesus say such things were thinking because they appear to understand him. “All spoke well of him,” Luke tells us, “and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his mouth.” So it all seemed to make sense to them and they had no problem with it. But what did they think that Jesus was saying?

The Jubilee Law

It is hugely significant that Jesus should have said this about this particular passage of scripture because there is a whole lot of meaning packed into those three verses. You cannot understand that passage without understanding some of the older passages of scripture that stood behind it. In the Book of Leviticus, there is an ancient law which is called the Law of Jubilee. It was a law that was designed to basically reset the ancient Israelite society and economy every fifty years.

Apparently, it was God’s intention that ancient Israel should be a society where everybody had the same chance to prosper. God didn’t want there to be huge differences between the rich and the poor. But, of course, what happened in that society was the same thing that naturally happens in most societies. Over time, some people fell into debt and hardship and lost the land that had been in their families down through the generations. Some even ended up in such dire straits that they were sold into slavery in order to pay their debts.

Meanwhile, there were others who profited from the misfortune that happened to their neighbours. They collected their debts, took their lands when they defaulted and even ended up owning their neighbours as slaves. This is just the kind of thing that has always happened in this world. There have always been and always will be those who enrich themselves because of the misfortune that befalls others.

A Reset Every Fifty Years

But in ancient Israel, the idea was that this sort of situation would not be tolerated forever and so, every fifty years, the year of Jubilee was proclaimed. During this year, all debts were to be forgiven, all slaves were to be released and all property had to be returned to its original owners. Basically, society was to be reset so that everyone could start again on a level playing field.

Now, I know what you’re all thinking. It might sound like a nice idea to redistribute all the wealth and set things back as they were so that everyone could be even in theory, but your minds are reeling with the thought of all of the chaos and disaster such a law would cause in our modern society. Can you imagine if we tried to do something like that? Why, it would likely lead to the collapse of our entire economy. This might sound nice but it does not seem like a very practical law.

It May Not be Practical Today

And I certainly agree with that. It is possible that these kinds of measures might have worked in an ancient Israelite agricultural society, but they would almost certainly bring ruin to our modern capitalistic society. But even if it is not practical today, I don’t think that means that we should just dismiss the intentions behind it.

I believe that this ancient law does say a lot about God’s intentions for society. As far as God is concerned, a situation where you have wild differences in terms of wealth and poverty is not something that should simply be maintained. It is something that you need to do something about. And if that is what is on God’s heart, then that should be a very serious consideration in our modern practice of the Christian faith.

Wealth Disparity

Because, guess what, we are living at a moment in North American history where disparity in terms of wealth is hitting a new extreme every year. The number of people who are extremely wealthy and who own a huge majority of the wealth of this nation get smaller every year. And everybody else ends up trying to get by with less. This disparity has been very much on display in the last couple of years as we have billionaires who have so much money that they have literally entered into a space race with each other because, I guess, they can’t figure out what else to do with all their wealth.

A Prophet Calls for a Jubilee

Okay, but I do hear you asking, what does this ancient Israelite law have to do with what Jesus said to the synagogue in Nazareth? Well, it has to do with that passage of scripture that he read out because he would have understood, and everyone present would have understood, what that passage was about. It was an announcement made by a prophet about the need for a Jubilee. That is what is meant by bringing good news to the poor, release to the captives or slaves and letting the oppressed go free. The year of the Lord’s favour is the year of Jubilee.

The prophet who spoke this oracle was living in a time when his society was teetering on the brink of collapse because of extreme inequality. Basically, a few people were getting very rich and a whole bunch of people were being pushed into extreme poverty and slavery and the whole thing was a mess. So the prophet saw the need for a reset, a Jubilee. But here was the problem, there was nobody who had the kind of authority needed, no king or priest or other leader, who was willing to declare that reset. And so, basically, the prophet said, “Hey, the spirit of the Lord God is upon me, so I am going to go ahead and proclaim a year of God’s favour myself.

How did Jesus Fulfill it?

So, my question is this. What did Jesus mean when he said that that ancient scripture, spoken by that prophet, was fulfilled right there in synagogue in Nazareth? He pulled out the words of an ancient prophet who was calling for a reset of his society based on an even more ancient law that laid out how you were supposed to reset the society when things got out of balance. And then he said that all of that had just come true because, I guess, Jesus was there.

I think there’s no question that that is what he means. He was announcing (and this is something that becomes a theme for the entire Gospel of Luke) that because Jesus was there, the Jubilee year had come.

Now, Luke obviously doesn’t mean that literally. He is not saying that, because of Jesus, all debts were forgiven, all slaves were released and all land returned to people who had lost it. Pretty clearly that didn’t happen. And yet, at the same time, everywhere that Jesus goes he is talking about “forgiving our debts as we forgive our debtors.” Jesus doesn’t free any slaves, but he certainly preaches to them a message of freedom and release. What’s more we are told again and again throughout this gospel that Jesus brought good news specifically to poor people. He may not have brought about a literal year of Jubilee, but he certainly did what he could to make Jubilee as real as possible in the lives of people that he met.

How Can we do that too?

And all of that leads me to a question today. I know that Jesus is not just an ordinary person. He is the Son of God. Jesus has done so much for us especially in and through his death and his resurrection. Yes, Jesus uniquely offers us forgiveness and hope and new life. But when I see Jesus in this passage declaring that the scripture from the Book of Isaiah has just been fulfilled, I don’t get the impression that he’s referring to any of that. No, he is referring mostly to the message that he was proclaiming throughout his life – especially his message of hope to those who were indebted, enslaved in some way and dispossessed. I think that Jesus is saying that this is a kind of fulfillment that needs to be in reach for any of us when it is called for.

And that makes the answer to the question of how Isaiah’s prophecy can be fulfilled a really urgent question for me right now. It seems to me that we are living at a particular moment in time when we are in need of a bit of a reset. No, I’m not suggesting that we need to cancel all debts or undo all sales of property or anything like that. I am not naïve about the kind of havoc that would cause. But, at the same time, I’m really not sure that we can just keep on going as we have been.

The Need for a Change

We have seen the wealth of this nation and many other nations become heavily concentrated into the hands of fewer and fewer extremely wealthy people. There are people alive today who have so much wealth that they could literally never spend it all. Meanwhile, more and more people have been falling further into poverty. And, yes, I know that there will always be rich and poor, there is no escaping that, but the balance between those two extremes has been thrown way off.

I was kind of hopeful, a year and a half ago, that we would actually see some movement on that front. Remember when we used to talk about how much we depended on low wage frontline workers? How they were the true heroes that would save us? I really thought that maybe we were going to start treating them that way, but apparently that hasn’t happened and it has actually been those who were already wealthy who have been the only ones to see their wealth increase during this crisis. It seems to me that we need some kind of reset when it comes to those matters.

I am also concerned to see that we’re getting into a situation where a younger generation that is coming up is simply being priced out of housing. If current trends on housing prices continue, the great majority of people just starting out right now will simply never be able to afford to buy a house. They may not even be able to make rent in any sustainable way? How can a society persist when that many people simply can’t afford a place to live? I think we need a reset.

We Need a Reset

I just don’t see how we can simply carry on with how things have been going in terms of wealth disparity, wages, debt and housing. Some kind of reset is needed. I also don’t think that we can just carry on with our relationship with the natural environment where we have been taking and taking without thinking about what the long-term cost might be. We need a reset.

And, in case I haven’t said it enough, I do understand that the reset envisioned by the ancient Jubilee law in Israel would not work for us. It may have worked once in a very different society, but the specific measures became deeply problematical over time.

But that did not mean that Jesus couldn’t get up centuries after the original law was written and declare for all to hear that this ancient law and a prophecy about it had been fulfilled right there. He did not mean that all of the specific Jubilee measures were being taken. But what he was declaring was that God, through his ministry, was bringing about the fulfillment of the intention of the original Law.

And I honestly believe that if Jesus could do that, then we could too. A reset is possible. And it can begin with even only a few people believing that things can be different. It can begin with us praying for that reset – a rethinking of the priorities of our society. It can begin with us demanding change from our leaders. This is the powerful fulfillment that we need and, as Jesus showed us, it can just begin with somebody saying that it is being fulfilled.

Watch the sermon here:

https://youtu.be/_EgorU6QoSA

Hespeler, 16 January 2022 © Scott McAndless
Malachi 3:1-5, Psalm 36:5-10, James 5:1-6, John 2:1-11

The servants had known for some time that this wedding was going to be a disaster. They knew better than anybody how much wine your average Galilean crowd could consume at a wedding feast. And they knew that the people who planned this affair had simply not bought enough. And they wanted the wedding to be a success just as much as anybody else. So, they had gone to the chief steward and explained the whole problem to him.

A Condescending Steward

But he just patted their hands and said, “Oh, you poor ignorant servants wouldn’t understand all the intricacies of planning a wedding. Just leave all the planning to professional stewards like me. Don’t you worry, I have it all in hand and I’m certainly not going to let anything go wrong at this wedding. If you all just work hard and do what you’re told and don’t bother me with any details like where the wine is going to come from, I am sure everything will be fine.”

But still, they couldn’t help but worry. They knew very well who would get blamed and yelled at and maybe even struck when the wine did inevitably run out. So, a couple of the servants, in desperation, even went to the bridegroom to raise the issue with him. But he just told them that, if they had any issues, they should raise them with the chief steward and not trouble him with little things like this.

When the bridegroom and the chief steward met up to discuss it a bit later, you can bet that they griped and complained to each other about how hard it is to get good and competent help. “You know,” the steward intoned, “these unskilled labourers just seem to think that they know everything when they really just should be deferring to the smart people like us. They’re really lucky that we even give them work to do and actually feed them.”

The Servants do their Best

When the party finally started, the servants worked so hard to make it a success in whatever ways were in their power. They made sure that the guests were as contented as they could be without necessarily constantly filling up their wine cups. They tried to distract them with sweet figs and dates. They directed their attention towards the various entertainments that had been arranged. And, yes, they watered down the wine as much as they dared. They did this not only to stretch it out as far as possible, but also in order to be sure that no one was too drunk when the inevitable eventually happened and people learned that there was no more wine. These were the kinds of tricks that servants had been using for generations just to survive a somewhat cruel way of life.

Then the moment came. One of them would have to go and tell the steward there was no more wine. They knew from long experience what would ensue – how the steward would blame the servants for stealing the wine or perhaps drinking it behind his back. He would demand to know why no one had warned him about this problem. What’s more, he would be sure to ask the question loudly and in front of all the guests so that they would know exactly who to blame for this debacle.

A New Plan

But just as the servant was steeling himself to go, one of the others tapped him on the shoulder and pointed to a woman on the other side of the room.

“I know her,” she said, “she comes from the next town over – a little place called Nazareth. She is known as a kind person. I think she must be related to the bride in some way, because she’s not really the kind of prestigious guest who would normally be invited to an affair like this. I think she was married to a carpenter or a builder or something and that he died a few years ago. But maybe, as a lowly carpenter’s wife, she might have a little more understanding for our situation. Let me go talk to her and see if she has any ideas.”

Many have heard the next part of the story – how the servant went to the woman to explain the problem and she called over her son. The son seemed to be a little bit annoyed with his mother then, perhaps displeased because she was pushing him to act before his time. But, after that hesitation, he seemed to be all in. He pulled the servants into a little conspiratorial huddle and explained what they were going to do.

A Little Respect Shown

The servants were honestly kind of thrilled at the way that the man spoke to them. He seemed to understand better than anyone else they’d met all day how hard they had been working and how they felt as if the success or failure of this whole affair was squarely upon their shoulders, despite how little support they’d been given. Most of all, he acknowledged that they knew what was needed better than anyone else. But they were still kind of shocked (though in an amused way) at the plan he came up with.

He directed them towards the six huge stone water jars that had been left in the servants’ kitchen and told them to fill them with water. They were certainly puzzled by this. These jars were generally used by the big important guests who liked to make a show of observing the rites of purification. Imagine their amusement therefore when he told them to fill the wine bottles from them and take them to the chief steward to taste.

And you can bet that they laughed and laughed as they peeked around the door and watched the look on that man’s face as some of the best wine that had ever tasted hit his educated palate and he had no clue where it had all come from. But they knew!

Andy’s Assignment

Today’s sermon is different. It is the result of what happened when I put the right to order a sermon on a specific topic into the auction last fall. The winning bid was made by Andy Cann and so he told me what I needed to preach about today. And Andy seems to have a special gift for putting his finger on some of the hottest topics of the day. Andy told me to write a sermon based on a picture of a help wanted sign. He thought that I should preach about what is perhaps the most visible symbol of the employment crisis we are dealing with at this very moment in our society.

The Great Resignation

You have probably heard the alarming reports. Many employers in many sectors are having a very hard time getting workers. The fast-food industry seems to be particularly hard hit and many establishments are running short shifts for shortened hours. Employers are complaining that nobody wants to work anymore.

At the same time, we seem to have a huge groundswell of workers who are beginning to express how tired they are of working full-time and yet are not being able to afford to live in the cities where they work. They are complaining about mistreatment by management, and many seem to be deciding but they’re just not going to put up with it anymore.

So, we are living through what is being called the Great Resignation which may be a good thing for some workers who are leaving for better jobs and better-balanced lives, but at the same time it seems like it might lead to a general collapse of industries that rely on low wage workers. And, yes, there is certain threat of inflation bound up in all of that.

And, in many ways all of that is perfectly symbolized in our days by the help wanted sign. So, thank you, Andy, for giving me an opportunity to preach about one of the hottest and most controversial social topics of our time. I’m sure it’ll all go fine, and I won’t get into any trouble.

Is there a Biblical Perspective?

So, I guess the question is, what does the Bible say about these thorny employment issues of our time. Now, I know what some people would say about the Bible’s position on these things. There are lots of people who just take it for granted that the Bible comes down hard on the side of extreme unbridled capitalism. You may be able to find a few specific verses that, when you pull them out of context, seem to imply that, but I do believe that the overall concern of the Bible points to another perspective.

What the Wedding Story Suggests

That is why I wanted to try and retell for you the story of the wedding in Cana from the point of view of the servants. The odd thing about that story in the Gospel of John is that you are actually able to read it from the point of view of the servers.

The gospel writer specifically underlines that perspective at one point when he says, “But, of course, the servants who had drawn out the water knew.” He goes out of his way to highlight the fact that they, and they alone, were the ones who were in on what it was that Jesus was doing. And once you realize that the gospel writer is interested in their perspective, you see that they are actually the key to the whole story. They must have been the ones who went to Jesus’ mother in the first place because she sent Jesus to them. They are the ones who are ultimately behind the divine solution to everything that went wrong at that wedding feast.

The Bible’s Concern for Workers

But this is not a perspective that you find only in this gospel story. Again and again, as you go through the Bible, you see a very real concern for the welfare and care of the people who actually do the work that keeps the economy and the society going because they matter. There is a Biblical concern that they be paid fair wages. The prophet Malachi, for example, says this about God’s concern: “I will be swift to bear witness against… those who oppress the hired workers in their wage.”

The message that is consistently presented in the Bible is that, if you mistreat workers and if they cannot afford to live on what you pay them, there will be dire consequences and judgment. I would argue that this is exactly the kind of thing we are seeing happen in our society with various sectors of the economy actually teetering on the brink of collapse because there are not enough people doing the work.

We Need to be Concerned

This is particularly ominous, of course, in the healthcare sector where the front-line workers, who we called heroes not so long ago, have been struggling to maintain staffing levels because of years of poor treatment, underpayment and lack of support for the people who do that work. That is actually pretty good representation of what the Bible would call judgment for poor treatment. And we are all dealing with those consequences right now. So, yes, the Bible does care about the workers and how they are treated, and we would do well to pay attention to that concern.

At the same time, some might ask, what about the needs of the job creators and those whose investments also make society and the economy go. It is true that these people also have a role. I do not think that the Bible misses the value that such people bring to society. And yet, at the same time, when these people become so enamored with their wealth that they forget the needs of the people, the Bible certainly doesn’t hesitate to criticize them.

Criticizing the Wealthy

I often think of a passage from the Letter of James these days. I honestly feel that if I were to post these words and direct them at people like Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos on Twitter, I would find myself the target of their abuse and might even end up being banned from Twitter altogether.

But this is what is what James writes: “Come now, you rich people, weep and wail for the miseries that are coming to you. Your riches have rotted, and your clothes are moth-eaten. Your gold and silver have rusted, and their rust will be evidence against you, and it will eat your flesh like fire. You have laid up treasure for the last days. Listen! The wages of the labourers who mowed your fields, which you kept back by fraud, cry out, and the cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord of hosts. You have lived on the earth in luxury and in pleasure; you have fattened your hearts on a day of slaughter.”

Finding a Better Balance

Now, again I do not feel as if the point of that passage is to abuse the rich or to suggest that they have nothing to bring to our society. Of course they do. But it certainly is saying that when things get severely out of balance, when we get ourselves in a situation where, as a result of a major crisis such as a pandemic, the richest people in the world somehow managed to see their wealth grow at an enormous pace while the people who are actually working on the front lines of the crisis see themselves falling further and further behind, that is something that needs to be called out. That is what I see James doing.

There is a crisis in employment today. Balances are shifting and I do hope and pray that, even if there is a difficult time of adjustment, this will lead us all to a place in society where we can find a better balance between taking care of the investors and owners and giving real respect for those who do the work.

I believe Jesus had that respect and he showed it at that wedding in Cana. I do hope and pray that we lead the way in showing that same kind of respect for all the workers that we meet. You probably have no idea how much good you can do just by being kind and appreciative and respectful to the workers that you encounter. They deserve it. We can be a part of the change that needs to happen.

Epilogue

The wedding party turned out to be very memorable indeed. The servants had been run off of their feet for the rest of the time, but there was such a spirit of fun and wonder that they didn’t really mind. They were glad to be part of it. There was so much wine to go around that everyone got as much as they desired and more. And it was so good (and so potent) that everyone was in the best of moods.

But the best part, as far as the servants were concerned, was that they were the only ones that knew where the wine was coming from. Only they could go back again and again to those massive

stone jars to continue to serve the people.

So, anyways, the people had a great time and the servants had fun too. But at the end of the night the servants gathered back into the kitchen and took stock of things. Now there had been six stone jars each one able to contain up to 120 litres or, if you prefer, 30 gallons. And they had filled them all to the brim.

Three Pots Left

The people at the party had certainly done their very best, but even they could not drain over 720 litres of the best quality wine. So, at the end of the night, the servants still had three full pots of the best wine anyone had ever tasted. The question was, what would they do with it? What would they do with this finest quality wine that only they knew where it was?

They debated telling the chief steward about it, for, like, ten whole seconds. Then they turned to a debate on how much they could get on the open market. After all, they said to one another, the steward did instruct them not to bother him with little details like where the wine came from.

https://youtu.be/0beG27B-DLg

Hespeler, 9 January 2021 © Scott McAndless
Isaiah 43:1-7, Psalm 29, Acts 8:14-17, Luke 3:15-17, 21-22 (Click to Read)

The church is facing an unprecedented crisis, one that absolutely threatens its very existence. And the leaders have all come together to figure out how they are going to deal with it. You see, there was a time not all that long ago when the church and its message was considered to be socially acceptable. I mean, maybe not everybody agreed with everything that the church was doing but, at least they saw the people in a good light.

But now, all of a sudden, that seems to be changing. Why, just recently there was a church leader that a bunch of people tried to cancel because they found his views to be offensive. And, as a result, a lot of the believers have been spooked. They are not so sure anymore that they can really trust the institution of the church and they have set out to try and establish and live out their Christian faith on their own terms.

Deconstructing Faith

They are, to use a word that has become popular lately, deconstructing their faith. They are kind of tearing it apart and examining every part of it to try and decide what they can do without and what, if anything, is worth keeping. They are then reassembling their faith in a new way and in a new place. Some of them have figured out how to live out that faith in innovative ways, without all of the structures that had traditionally been there. Some are calling this an emergent way of being the church

But the really odd thing is that this strange, jury-rigged faith actually seems to be connecting to the people that they have encountered. Somehow, despite the lack of traditional structures and different ways of doing things, the message about Christ and his love and amazing grace is still getting through to people. So, this emergent church has been seeing some growth

The Leaders are Concerned

But the traditional leaders of the church are concerned. They have remained where they have been and so all of this innovation and growth has taken place without their leadership and sanction. They are justifiably concerned that it will lead to the faith going way off track. So, they have gotten together to talk about what they should do. For a while, they do give a lot of consideration to how they might be able to shut all of this down. Maybe they should be putting out statements that deconstruction is going to get people condemned to hell or that these emergent type churches aren’t real churches. Maybe one of them, one who commands true respect, should go out and rebuke these people for their free thinking and innovation.

There is so much at stake that the arguments rage late into the afternoon. But then, tired of arguing, they decide to take a different approach. They pause for prayer and open their hearts to the guidance of the Holy Spirit. And that is how they ultimately come up with a very different kind of plan. They decide that two of the most important leaders in the entire church, Peter and John, will go out and they will lay their hands on the believers in Samaria so that the Holy Spirit may clearly be seen as part of the work that they are doing out there.

Acts and the Growth of the Church

At the very beginning of the Book of Acts, the author who, by the way, is the same person who wrote the Gospel of Luke, tells us exactly how the story he’s going to tell is going to unfold. He puts his summary of the plot of the book on the lips of Jesus just before he ascends into heaven. “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you;” Jesus says, “and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”

So, in the writer’s mind, these steps in the growth of the church and the expansion of its impact from Jerusalem to Judea to Samaria and beyond were inevitable. It was bound to be a story of continual triumph and success. But it is kind of easy to look on such events in hindsight and see them that way. It was likely a little different to actually live through them. In fact, if you read between the lines, it is pretty clear that the early church actually experienced these transitions as crises and problems to solve.

We certainly see that clearly when the church makes the jump to “the ends of the earth,” especially through the ministry and preaching of the Apostle Paul. In fact, the church nearly tore itself apart as it dealt with the very difficult questions that Paul’s ministry raised – questions about the keeping of the law, circumcision and the eating of blood and animals sacrificed to other gods.

The Samaritan Problem

And there is no doubt that the early church saw the transition into Samaria as similarly problematic. You can understand why. Jews and Samaritans generally did not agree about anything, especially when it came to religious matters. They had different scriptures and different ways of worshiping even if the Jews grudgingly admitted that they actually worshipped the same God.

So, there is no question that the leadership in Jerusalem, who, according to Luke, was left behind in Jerusalem following the “cancellation” of Stephen the martyr, was very concerned about what the Samaritans might do if they were allowed to co-opt the Christian faith. It is certainly very likely that the apostles in Jerusalem debated excluding the Samaritans from the young church or putting some severe restrictions on them. They certainly would have hesitated to allow them to just live out the faith in the way that suited them most.

Receiving the Holy Spirit

That is why what the apostles actually did is so important. We are told that they sent Peter and John, two of the most important leaders in the church, to Samaria so that the Samaritans might receive the Holy Spirit. Now, the giving of the Holy Spirit is a very important matter in the Book of Acts. The author of this book makes a great deal about the various manifestations of the Holy Spirit throughout his story.

The gift of the Holy Spirit, often accompanied by signs and marvels such as speaking in strange tongues, always accompanies any important transition in the life of the church. It is there on the day of Pentecost when the apostles are given their leadership and authority. It is there when Peter first takes the gospel to a Gentile family.

The gift of the Holy Spirit obviously means many things.  It is about power and ecstasy and about bringing the entire community of the church together. It is a sign of the power of the gospel to change people’s lives. But above all, it is what gives the believers the power and authority to work out the faith in their context. Because they have the Spirit, Christians can confidently interpret the scriptures and the sayings of Jesus and they have the power to determine for themselves how they are going to live out these truths.

Troublesome Transitions

So, in many ways, the Samaritan problem was one of the first really big challenges that the apostolic leadership of the church had to face. The question was whether they were going to hold onto that power to define and control the way the faith was lived out or if they were going to allow others to share in that power. They had all kinds of reasons not to do what they did. I’m sure it would have seemed much safer to them at the time. But, because they did the right thing and decided that the gift of the Holy Spirit could be shared even with Samaritans, the church was able to enter into a brand-new phase of growth that was beginning of truly changing the world.

Now, as I say, because the writer of the Book of Acts sees all of this with hindsight, he just assumes that it was all inevitable. Of course, that was what the church was going to do. But my experience with the church is that we rarely have that much ease in dealing with these kinds of transitions as we live through them. Oh no, we gripe and we complain and we blame people when they start approaching the life of faith in new or innovative ways. We try to do whatever we can to shut it down. Above all, we do not want to give it our blessing.

Examples from our History

Even a light summary of the history of the church will show you that. How many Christian groups down through the centuries have been persecuted and criminalized just for wanting to live out their faith in different ways? The Lutherans were rejected and persecuted by the Catholics for insisting on salvation by faith alone. The Mennonites believed that their faith would not allow them to fight in wars and they were killed or sent into exile because of it. The Anabaptists wanted to celebrate baptisms a little bit differently from other Christians, and so the Presbyterians decided that they should be punished by being drowned. The list goes on and on. But it is really significant that, in the Book of Acts when faced with the Samaritan problem, we are told that the apostles did otherwise.

The Present Crisis

All of this is extremely relevant to the church at this moment in time. I think that the church may be facing yet another Samaritan problem. There are all kinds of reasons why people are no longer approaching the Christian faith as they once did. I’m sure you are aware of many of these trends.

For one thing, we find ourselves living in an age where people are just not very trustful of institutions in general. And so respect for the church as an institution in society has definitely been on the decline. Of course, many have simply abandoned the church entirely, while others have sought to develop their own non-institutional or even anti-institutional Christian practice. The church certainly often experiences this as a threat.

Abuse and Intolerance

There is also no question that the church has been fundamentally damaged by endless stories of abuse. We have come to understand that incidences of abuse of power and authority, of sexual and physical assault are all too common in the church. People have suffered as a result and experienced a great deal of trauma. All of this has certainly made them call into question the very organization of a church, and the theology and teaching that supports it, that seem to allow these kinds of things to continue to happen.

Others have come to the place where the traditional answers the churches have given to the tough questions of life no longer work for them. They are tired of the rejection by some Christians of scientific truths, of the mistreatment of people who do not fit into strict gender or sexuality roles. They have grown tired of the thinly veiled racism that they have encountered. These kinds of things are behind what might be called the deconstruction movement which ends with some rejecting the faith entirely, while others attempt to hold onto certain parts of it as they reconstruct a faith that works for them.

Accelerated by the Pandemic

These are forces that have been at work for some time now. But many of the effects have been accelerated by the strange situation we have been living through for the past two years. The world has just changed too much too quickly. It has changed politically, socially and economically and so people cannot just be content with how we’ve always done things. It is not that people have given up on faith in general. Yes, some have, but that is not the biggest issue. It is that they have learned to work out their faith in new ways and without needing to rely on institutional supports (like buildings and authority systems and schedules) that were once considered so essential.

What will be our Response?

And so, it seems, the church today is dealing with yet another Samaritan problem. Are we going to fight against this, rail against innovation and different ways of being Christians in the world? Are we going to insist that, in order to be considered good Christians, that they conform to our ideas of how it has to be done? If so, it is quite possible that the church might get left behind in Jerusalem while the real growth is taking place out there in Samaria.

But what if we were to do what those early Apostles did and acknowledge that the Christian faith that is emerging actually does have the Holy Spirit working within it? What if we were to lay our hands upon what God has frankly already been doing out there in Samaria and actually seek to support it, even at the risk of it costing in terms of what we once considered to be our essential institutional supports for the church? I believe that this might be the most important question the church is facing in our time, and I pray that we are open to the leadership of the Holy Spirit as we seek to answer it.