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Is this what Jesus wanted?
Hespeler, November 24, 2024 © Scott McAndless – Reign of Christ
Daniel 7:9-10, 13-14, Psalm 93, Revelation 1:4-8, John 18:33-37
The Gospel of Mark summarizes the entire message of Jesus like this: “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.” (Mark 1:15) And that is indeed an excellent summary because the announcement of God’s kingdom was central to just about everything that Jesus ever said. But do you know what is really annoying about that? He talked about this kingdom all the time, but he never said what it was.
He told stories about it. He said that the kingdom was like this or like that. But when it came to giving a good dictionary definition, he just didn’t do it. And that has left us with a bit of a problem. It is left to us to speculate about what this kingdom is, where it may be found and what it means that it has come.
The Seven Mountain Mandate
And I would like to inform you about a particular movement that has been spreading rapidly recently and that suddenly received a huge boost in terms of power and influence just a couple of weeks ago. This movement has a very specific answer to that question. And it is an answer that, if I can be frank, scares me.
The movement is called “The Seven Mountains Mandate.” It is not tied to any particular church or denomination. It has spread through a number of churches, but most particularly through Evangelical, Pentecostal, Charismatic and increasingly Roman Catholic churches.
Domination Over Key Aspects

The central idea of the movement is that there are seven “mountains” in society – seven key aspects that are centres of influence and power. They are family, religion, education, media, arts and entertainment, business, and government. The idea is that Christians have a mandate to dominate in all seven of those areas – that that is what Jesus is calling us to do.
And they are seeking to fulfill that mandate in very practical terms by training and getting Christians who think like them into leadership positions in all of those areas of society.
That is a very clear answer to the question of what Jesus meant by “the kingdom of God.” It is saying that the kingdom is what will happen once the followers of Jesus occupy and control every key aspect of the culture. And I appreciate clear answers to difficult questions as much as anybody, but I am not sure that I am comfortable with this one. Nor am I sure that that is what Jesus intended.
A Restrictive Idea
For one thing, it offers a very restrictive idea of the kingdom of God. It understands it exclusively in terms of Christians taking over society. It says that the only way that we can influence society is by controlling it. It rules out the possibility of working in cooperation with other groups to accomplish anything good. It rejects the notion that our role is to serve and substitutes the idea that we are here to dominate. It embraces a kingdom that is all about power.
And when I look at everything that Jesus said about the kingdom, he seems to have been at odds with all of that. The Jesus who said, “Whoever wishes to be great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be your slave,” (Matthew 20:26-28) was probably not thinking of his followers orchestrating a hostile takeover of the seven mountains of society. The Beatitudes of Jesus mean many things, but when they are focused on the “poor in spirit,” the “meek” and the “merciful,” I just have a hard time reading them as a manifesto calling for his followers to take charge of everything.
But, as I say, the Seven Mountains Mandate is an interpretation of the message of Jesus that is growing. It also played a very big role in the outcome of the recent American election. Its devotees would claim that election as a key victory in terms of them taking over the “mountain” of government and a stepping stone towards taking over the other six as well.
Pilate and Jesus
We are told in the Gospel of John that, when the Roman Governor, Pontius Pilate, had a chance to interview Jesus, he had heard that Jesus had come to announce a kingdom. “Pilate asked him, ‘So you are a king?’”
Jesus, rather typically, didn’t give a simple yes or no answer. What he gave instead was an idea of what he was expecting of those who recognized him as a king. “My kingdom does not belong to this world. If my kingdom belonged to this world, my followers would be fighting to keep me from being handed over to the Jews. But as it is, my kingdom is not from here.”
The Location of His Kingdom
What does that mean? I know that sometimes people assume that what Jesus is saying is that the kingdom he has been talking about it not located in this world – that his entire goal in all that he has done and said in his ministry has had nothing to do with affecting this world at all, apart from getting people out of it after they die so that they can be part of a kingdom somewhere else – in heaven.
But I am not so sure. Remember the parables of Jesus, the stories that he told about the kingdom of God? They were almost never about describing some reality beyond this world. They were always grounded in the experience of here and now – of seeds growing in the ground, of somebody searching for something that was lost, and of people dining at a table. He was pretty clearly saying that the kingdom was something that you could encounter in this world.
When he announced it, he didn’t say you could get there someday or that it was waiting for you after you died. He said that it had already come near, that it was at hand and already within you.
Where it Belongs
And so Jesus in his answer to Pilate does not say “My kingdom is not in this world.” He has been pretty clear that it can be found in this world. Instead, he says, “My kingdom does not belong to this world.” This is a statement of his kingdom’s foundation and allegiance, not its location.
The explanation that he gives for that is telling. “If my kingdom belonged to this world, my followers would be fighting to keep me from being handed over to the Jews. But as it is, my kingdom is not from here.” What it all comes down to is a question of how the kingdom is created in this world.
Not by Violence or Power
Jesus rules out the very idea that the kingdom might be established through violence or the exercise of power. Why? Because that is this world’s way of establishing kingdoms and dominions. They are established, often enough, through conquest and war. They are established by certain groups, be they aristocrats or oligarchs or others, who take over the dominant institutions of society, like, for example, those listed in the Seven Mountains Mandate.
Jesus insists that the kingdom of God cannot be established in that way, according to this world’s methods. That is why I do not believe that the Seven Mountains approach will ultimately be successful.
Oh, it probably will be successful in the short term according to how our world measures success. I have little doubt that the coming years will see more and more takeovers of certain “mountains” of our society by people who profess a certain kind of Dominionist Christianity. They have planned and organized for this using this world’s methods which are very effective in this world.
Failure in this Approach
But whatever success they find, will they actually build the kingdom of God on earth? I believe that Jesus was clear that you cannot build the kingdom of God with such methods.
I also suspect that they will find the achievements they seek to be very elusive. They will not create a society and culture that conforms to their notion of morality. Whatever forms of identity or expression or activity they seek to ban, might be pushed underground, but will not disappear. People just don’t take well to having their thoughts or identity imposed upon them from atop one of the Seven Mountains of culture.
The Lure of Power
But worse than that, I am quite certain that the very power that they seek will be their downfall. Once you begin to chase worldly power, it will seduce you. Having achieved power, you will desire more of it. You will give up anything to hold onto it. Power itself will become your goal and you will begin to confuse the idea of you holding power with the existence of the kingdom.
I know that this is what is going to happen because it is exactly what has happened so many times before.
How is it Established?
So once again we are left with the fundamental problem. Jesus came to announce the kingdom, but he didn’t say what it was. He told stories about it. And, in this passage, he tells us what it isn’t – that it isn’t something that comes through worldly power and the ways in which earthy kingdoms are built.
But how then is the kingdom of God established? The fundamental answer to that question is that it is something God builds. God is the one who is at work establishing it in this world. But that does not mean that there is nothing for us to do.
Our Participation
We are called to participate in the work that God is doing. That was what Jesus was inviting us to do in all of his parables. But in all of those parables, he never used images of us acting in power of taking things over. Instead, he spoke, for example, of us being like salt: “You are the salt of the earth, but if salt has lost its taste, how can its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything but is thrown out and trampled under foot.”
Have you ever had a meal in which the dominant taste was salt? I have. I have unfortunately done that a few too many times – I added way too much salt to something, or I didn’t manage to properly get the salt out of some salted meat. Do you want to know what the result of that was? The meal was awful; it was near inedible.
A meal that just tastes of salt is a very bad meal. But, at the same time, a meal that completely lacks salt can be quite tasteless. When Jesus called us salt, he was giving us a challenge. And it was to have influence in our society. But we are not to have that influence by taking over and taking control and turning it all into salt. We are called to season this world, to have influence by calling forth deeper and better flavours, and by speaking for what is just and what is right.
Testimony
Jesus himself offers the alternative to fighting and taking everything over to establish his kingdom. “You say that I am a king. For this I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth.” The kingdom is established through testimony. And that is what we are called to do. To testify, in the midst of a sometimes hostile world, to what we know is true. And since, as Jesus says, “Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice,” as the truth spreads, so does the kingdom.
It is not by power and not by domination that the kingdom of God spreads in this world. It is by our testimony to what is true, the truth that we have experienced in Christ. So consider when and how you can testify to that truth as you pass through life in this world.
Worship
At the Table in Shiloh
November 17, 2024 © Twenty-Sixth Sunday after Pentecost
1 Samuel 1:4-20, 1 Samuel 2:1-10, Hebrews 10:11-25, Mark 13:1-8
I would like to invite you into the opening scene of our reading this morning from the First Book of Samuel. A family has come down to the Temple at Shiloh. They have come to sacrifice.
The whole family comes. The father of the family is Elkanah. And he brings with him both of his wives Peninnah and Hannah. He has two because that is just how things are done in this world. And he also brings with him his sons and his daughters, all of whom are the children of his wife Peninnah because, it seems, Hannah cannot have children.
These, together with household servants and extended family make a very large company that goes down to Shiloh. And they bring with them the young ram that they have raised all year on their little farm. This animal has been part of their family ever since its birth. They have nurtured it, taken it out to graze and kept it safe from any predators.
Rambo
They have loved this animal. The children even gave him a name. Rambo, they called him. But, at the same time, they have never forgotten that they raised this sheep for one purpose only: for this sacrifice.
It is a holy thing when this happens when a living being gives its life so that a family can eat and be strong. That is why they do it so rarely – often no more than once a year. That’s also why the animal must come to the temple. It is something to be done in a holy setting.
The Sacrifice
And so, they take the ram to the old priest, Eli, who inspects it and declares that it is healthy and fit for a sacrifice. The whole family approaches and lays their hands on the head of Rambo, giving thanks to God for this bounty and to the animal itself, as the priest draws the blade across its throat.
Later, after the priest has taken the animal and butchered it properly, the family gathers around the altar. Those parts that the family will not eat – the fat, the blood, a number of the organs and other bits – are burnt in the fire. That is how Yahweh, the God of Israel, joins the family in their feast. It creates a precious fellowship with God, making everything all the more holy.
Giving out the Portions
But then what happens? Elkanah, the patriarch of the family, is given the rest of the meat, all perfectly cut and arranged on a slab. And they take it and put it in one of the great cauldrons that are provided for the worshippers at Shiloh. They boil up the meat with various herbs and vegetables that they have brought with them to create a hearty stew.
Ah, but then comes that awkward moment. Elkanah, as patriarch, has the right to distribute the stew. After the priest has come to claim his portion as payment for safely slaughtering and butchering the meat, Elkanah takes the rest and carefully doles out the portions.
Into the bowl of his wife Peninnah, he carefully ladles one big scoop. Then he goes on down the line to his sons and his daughters and for each he measures out the same amount. Then he gives the same amount to each of the servants and workers and some extended family that have come along for the sacrifice.
Finally, he comes to Hannah. He smiles at her for a moment, but it is kind of a sad smile. There seems to be some pity in it. And then he takes out the big bowl, much larger than any of the others and places it before her. He fills it up with scoop after scoop of rich stew before finally filling up his own bowl with a similar serving.
An Emotional Table
Now, how do you feel sitting at that table? You smell the savoury broth and you long to dig in and scoop up the meat that you have been craving for months. You can hardly control yourself.
But hunger is not the only powerful feeling at the table, is it? You can practically feel the resentment seething from every person present as they cast baleful glances towards Hannah where she sits at her end of the table.
And Hannah, she is, if anything, more upset than anyone else. Large tears roll down her face as she stares at the stew before her as if it were poison. She knows she should eat it – that she needs the meat as much as anyone. It should make her stronger, healthier. Who knows, it might even make her fertile. But she doesn’t feel as if she can stomach it.
How could she when she knows that it causes Peninnah, who could be like a sister to her, to hate her? How could she when she knows that it puts a distance between her and the children whom she could love and care for in other circumstances?
And worst of all is her husband sitting right beside her who, by the look on his face, thinks that he has done a wonderful thing. “Eat up, honey, he says as he shovels the food into his mouth. It’s delicious!” She knows what he is going to say next because he says it all the time. It always makes her cringe.
“Hannah, why do you weep? Why do you not eat? Why is your heart sad? Am I not more to you than ten sons?”
A Dysfunctional Family
I know that the opening chapter of 1 Samuel is all about the birth of the Prophet Samuel and about how God brought it about and saved his mother Hannah from the shame and scorn of being an infertile woman. It is an amazing story full of hope and possibility.
But I don’t think you can really appreciate the good news in that story without understanding just how messed up that opening scene really is. It shows us just how dysfunctional that particular family was. But it is also a reflection of how the human family often deals badly with the challenges and problems that come with life in this world.
Peninnah
I think that many of us, for example, are like Peninnah. She is a woman who is able to do the one thing that women were valued for in that society – she can have children. And she is valued for what she can produce.
There are many people just like that. In this society, where everything seems to be measured through productivity, there are many who seem to have decided that their entire self-worth is measured by how much they earn, their place on the corporate ladder or their relative wealth.
But there are perils that come with such a way of thinking, aren’t there? Peninnah may have fulfilled her purpose as seen in that society, but she doesn’t seem particularly happy.
Indeed, we are told that she torments her husband’s other wife, Hannah. She “used to provoke her severely, to irritate her,” it says, “because the Lord had closed her womb.” Is that kind of aggression indicative of someone who has a happy, well-balanced life? Of course not.
Putting Others Down
And haven’t we all met people like that – people who seem to have achieved success as this world defines success, but they love to rub other people’s noses in it? Why? Because they are trying to make themselves feel good by putting somebody else down.
Here is a life tip for everybody. If you need to put somebody else down to feel good about yourself, there is something wrong. There is something deep inside that is making you feel inadequate.
And we know what is making Peninnah feel inadequate. What she produces may be valued, but she is not valued for who she is. She is not loved.
And how many people in the world today are caught up in that mad scramble to earn love through what they produce? And no matter what you do, no matter how good your work is, it will never be enough. Peninnah, sitting at that table, is symbolic of the flaws of a society that values productivity over everything else.
Hannah
But then there is Hannah at the table too, isn’t there? And she hardly seems better off. She has the love. Her husband claims to be devoted to her. So, what is missing for her?
She lives in a society in which women are really only given one way to contribute. And she is not able to contribute in that way. And so, though she is loved, she has been robbed of a sense of being significant.
The two women in this story are miserable because some of their most essential needs are not being met – the need for love and the need for significance. And the really odd thing about that is that they each have the one thing that the other wants most.
Looking at What Others Have
It is so easy, isn’t it, when you are struggling in yourself to look at something that somebody else has and to be jealous – to think that, if only you had what they have, your life would be okay. But the mere fact that neither of these women is okay puts a lie to that way of thinking.
The solution is rather to work on yourself – to aspire towards what is truly meaningful to you, to be sure. But it is also to recognize that the reason why you feel inadequate is not because you are inadequate but rather because the expectations that have been placed upon you are baloney. How much happier would both Peninnah and Hannah have been if they had just realized that.
Elkanah
And let us now turn to the third so-called adult at the table – Elkanah, the patriarch of the family. I’ve got to say that I am not particularly impressed with his efforts to improve anything about the whole situation. His favouritism to Hannah only sets her apart from everyone else who might give her support.
And when he says, “Am I not more to you than ten sons?” it makes me cringe so I’m sure it did Hannah too. He essentially dismisses her needs and self-centredly thinks that he can fulfill her on his own. That, let me tell you, never helps somebody who is struggling.
Dealing with the Real Issues
So what is wrong with Elkanah? Why is he such an abysmal failure at bringing peace and functionality to his family? It is because he does not deal with the real issues at the table. He does nothing to address Peninnah’s bitterness and anger – apparently thinking that, if he ignores it, it will just go away.
And when he sees Hannah’s deep sadness, he does not help her to address the unrealistic expectations that society has put upon her. He does not even bother to assure her that her worth and value are not dependent on meeting these expectations. All he does is essentially try to make her put on a smiley face by bribing her with extra portions of meat and professions of affection.
Healing the Malfunction
May I suggest that if you ever find yourself giving some leadership to a family or other group that is malfunctioning in any way, do not follow the example of Elkanah. Don’t make it all about yourself. Don’t just try to deal with the surface issues – with the appearance of things. Don’t assume that serious issues will just go away if you don’t talk about them. Dig in. Get to the heart of the matter and the real hurts and wounds that people are carrying.
I’m not saying that it will be easy. It might well feel much more uncomfortable before it starts to feel better. But it is worth the effort and the discomfort.

And so, we have three people feasting at Shiloh. None of them are happy; none of them are fulfilled. And I will bet that each one of us can find ways in which we, at some point in our lives, would have identified with at least one of them, if not all. They are a reflection of the dysfunction of this world and its ways.
Where is Hope?
And where, you should be asking me, where is the hope? The hope is found in getting past our habit of ignoring problems and hoping they’ll go away, in a willingness to get to the heart of what is really dragging people down. It is found in honest communication. And it is found in God.
When Hannah goes to God and God finally gives her the thing that she desires: a son, it is not just the end of her infertility that heals her life. It is also her encounter with a God who hears her and is willing to overturn the entire system that had subjugated her. God saves her by turning the world upside down:
“The barren has borne seven, but she who has many children is forlorn. The Lord kills and brings to life; he brings down to Sheol and raises up. The Lord makes poor and makes rich; he brings low; he also exalts. He raises up the poor from the dust; he lifts the needy from the ash heap to make them sit with princes and inherit a seat of honour.”
And that is where the real hope is found. That is what we celebrate in the season that is to come.
Thank you
