Caesar’s Census, God’s Jubilee, A Christmas Pageant

Posted by Scott McAndless on Thursday, October 15th, 2015 in Minister

A couple of years ago, I wrote a Christmas pageant for my congregation and I wanted to make this pageant available to churches who are looking for a fresh and unique approach to the Christmas story. This pageant is based on the book I published in 2013 and I would refer you to that book for further information.

Click here for more information on the book.

I am releasing this pageant under a Creative Common "Share and Share Alike" license which means you are allowed to use it and to adapt it freely and the only stipulation is that the original author is to be acknowledged. You must also be open to sharing any adaptions of the pageant you make available freely.

The script follows. If you would like to view, download and print a PDF file, please click here.

Caesar’s Census, God’s Jubilee. A Christmas Pageant
by Scott McAndless

Caesar’s Census, God’s Jubilee. A Christmas Pageant by W. Scott McAndless is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Based on a work at http://revstandrewshespeler.blogspot.ca/.
Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at http://revstandrewshespeler.blogspot.ca/.

Note: This Christmas Pageant is based only on the nativity story as told Luke 1:1-2:20 with reference to Acts 5:37. No effort has been made to harmonize the nativity story from the Gospel of Luke with the one found in the Gospel of Matthew. The reasoning for such an approach may be found in my book, “Caesar’s Census, God’s Jubilee” (available on Amazon in paperback and in ebook format from most ebook retailers).

Scene 1: A Hill in Galilee

Judas stands looking out over the landscape. He seems troubled and lost in thought.

Narrator: In the days when Quirinius was the Governor of Syria, the Roman Emperor, Caesar Augustus, took direct control of the land of Judea. He ordered a census of the population and imposed heavy new taxes. These actions greatly disturbed a Galilean named Judas and his friend Zadok.

Enter Zadok.

Zadok: Peace be with you, Judas.

Judas:Hello, Zadok, I don’t think I can wish you peace. How can there be peace when the Romans are doing such things?

Zadok: Yes, I’ve heard – the census, the new taxes. They’ll end up turning people out of their homes and make us all into slaves!

Judas: You are a Pharisee, what do you think God would say about it?

Zadok: What would God say? God would say that he wants his people to be free. He wants them to live on their own land and serve God alone.

Judas: And how does God make that happen?

Zadok: How? A year of Jubilee! Everyone should return to the place where their ancestors lived and claim their freedom and their land. (Laughs) But there’s no way that’s going to happen!

Judas: Why not?

Zadok: Well, the Romans certainly aren’t going to call for a jubilee. They’re the ones taking our land and making us slaves. Especially right now – if everyone started traveling for a jubilee now, it would totally mess up their precious census that they’re taking.

Judas: (Thoughtfully) Yes it would, wouldn’t it.?

Zadok: (realizing what his friend is thinking) Oh no, Judas, you wouldn’t! We’d get in so much trouble!

Judas: Come with me, my friend. Let’s talk to the others.

Narrator:Judas had a plan – a bold plan and a fiendish plan. A plan that would have greater consequences than even he could imagine.

Scene 2 – The village of Nazareth

Narrator: In the little village of Nazareth nothing much ever happened so people often spent their time gossiping about other people’s lives.

Villager 1: Hey, have you heard the latest news?

Villager 2:What is it?

Villager 1:Young Mary is engaged to be married.

Village 2:Oh, that is big news, who is she going to marry?

Villager 1:Joseph, the son of Heli, that’s who!

Villager:No! Way!

Villager:But Joseph is just a carpenter. He has no land. He isn’t even from around here. His family comes from someplace in Judea.

Villager:From Bethlehem, I know. What can he offer to Mary? What were her parents’ thinking?

Villager: (Pointing to Mary and Joseph who are about to enter) Oh, that might have something to do with it!

Mary and Joseph enter. Mary is clearly pregnant.

Villager:Congratulations, Mary. We heard the news.

They gather around congratulating her.

Narrator:But, in the year of the census, there were suddenly big developments to talk about:

Enter a rebel blowing a horn.

Rebel:Jubilee! Jubilee! It is the year of Jubilee!

The crowd gathers around him.

Crowd: (All speaking at once) Jubilee? How can that be? etc.

Rebel: Yes, it is the jubilee. You must all return to the place your family came from. You must claim your land and your freedom!!

Villager:Wait a second, who says it is Jubilee? Who called for this?

Rebel: It is God’s will. Judas the Galilean is the one who declared this in God’s name.

Villagers discuss together.

Narrator:Some of the people of Nazareth didn’t like the sound of that. Judas was a rebel. Anyone who helped him in any way was likely to be killed. How they could anyone celebrate a jubilee that Judas called for?

Joseph steps forward.

Joseph: I will honour this call to Jubilee. I will return to Bethlehem, to the land that my people once owned and I will claim it as mine because that is God’s will.

Mary: I… I am going with him. I am God’s servant and if jubilee is God’s will, I must obey the call too.

The rebel runs off shouting “Jubilee” and blowing the horn. The villagers discuss together.

Narrator: There was a great deal for the people of Nazareth to talk about that year! Some tried to talk Mary and Joseph out of going. Others vowed that they would make a jubilee journey too.

Mary and Joseph travel pick up some luggage and head off.

Narrator: In the end Mary and Joseph did set out for Bethlehem in Judea. Many others also set out for their ancestral homes. They weren’t exactly disobeying Caesar’s order regarding the census. But in their hearts they knew that what they were really doing was obeying God’s call to jubilee.

Scene 3 – In front of a house in Bethlehem

Mary and Joseph approach the front door of the house.

Joseph:Well, Mary, here we are. It’s been a long hard trip but we have finally arrived at the land that once belonged to my family.

Mary: What happened? How did your family lose it?

Joseph: The usual way. They couldn’t pay their bills, the family was starving, they borrowed money that they knew they’d never pay back...

Mary: ...and you lost everything – ended up as landless carpenters in Nazareth far from home.

Joseph: But now I’m back. We’ll see what happens now.

Joseph knocks. The landlord opens the door

Landlord:Who are you? What do you want?

Joseph: I am Joseph, son of Heli. My family owned this property ever since God gave this land to his people.

Landlord:Yeah? So?

Mary: It is the year of jubilee. You must return the land to its rightful owners. It is God’s law.

Landlord: (Laughing) Oh yeah? And who’s going to make me? You? Go on, get out of here!

(Landlord starts to close the door.)

Joseph:Okay, okay. I did not really expect you to follow God’s will. But there is one thing... it’s my wife, Mary,

Mary: My child is coming very soon. I feel it.

Joseph:Maybe you won’t give me the house that should be mine. But surely you will offer us hospitality – especially in our time of need.

Landlord:Hospitality eh? Sure, I’ll give you hospitality. I think that there’s an old manger out in the back field. Why don’t you lay your brat in there?

Landlord laughs and slams the door as Mary and Joseph head off.

Narrator:And so it came to pass that, when the child was born, he did not have a home or even a decent place to stay. He was laid in a manger in a field. Yet it was a beginning that promised great things.

Scene 4 – A field behind the house

A child lies in the manger. Mary lies on the ground by a little fire that is slowly glowing. She is asleep, wrapped in a blanket. Joseph sits contemplating the child in the manger.

Narrator: It is dark, well past midnight, and in the middle of the field where they found the manger, the small family is huddled near a little fire. Joseph sits and watches the infant sleeping in the manger. It is a boy, just like Mary had assured him it would be—a tiny little boy who sleeps contentedly for the moment, his stomach full of milk.

Narrator: The boy’s mother also sleeps, rolled in a blanket nearby, taking advantage of the brief respite from the babe’s demands. Joseph, though he has every reason to be exhausted, finds that he is wide awake.

Narrator: It is a beautiful night, the stars blaze down from a moonless, cloudless sky and he is content to simply marvel at the sight of the child sleeping and watch his little chest rising and falling underneath the swaddling clothes.

Narrator: Suddenly the babe stirs. He grimaces and for a moment Joseph fears that he is about to wake. And he knows that if the child cries, it will wake Mary and she really needs her rest.

Joseph picks up the baby and paces with him, trying to calm him.

Joseph: (To the child) Shhhhhhalom. Shhhhhalom.

Narrator:“Shalom,” Joseph says to the child. The word means “peace,” which gets him thinking about peace.

Narrator:There were some local shepherds who came by earlier this night telling wild stories:

Shepherds appear.

Shepherd:We were just minding our own business, taking care of our sheep.

Shepherd:All of a sudden there were angels everywhere!

Shepherd:They sang about peace on earth and people of good will.

Shepherds:(All together) It was totally awesome!

Narrator:The Romans always talk about peace. They say that that is what their empire is all about. But when they talk about peace, what they really mean is that, once they have defeated all of their enemies, no one will be left who is strong enough to resist whatever they want to do. Who needs that kind of peace?

Narrator:But now, sitting here, watching the child sleep and thinking of the strange words of the shepherds, he wonders if there couldn’t be another kind of peace—one that doesn’t come at the point of a sword—a peace from heaven.

Narrator: Joseph has always been taught that the land is a gift of God to all the families of Israel. The gift came, in the ancient days, by means of God’s servant Joshua. It came through conquest and battle and violence. That is why Joseph has always assumed that, if the land is ever to be reclaimed for the families of Israel, it will have to be through more violence.

Narrator: But the words of the shepherds and the sight of this child of promise sleeping so peacefully have made Joseph think differently about such things. Perhaps what they really need now is not for the old Joshua and his ways to return. Perhaps the need is for a new Joshua and a new way.

Narrator: That is why Joseph has decided that the boy will be named Joshua. He knows it’s the right name for this child. In Aramaic (the common speech of the people), it will be…

Joseph:Yeshua!

Narrator: Joseph doesn’t know this, but in Greek—the language spoken throughout the Eastern Empire, the language of Caesar and all his minions—the child’s name will mean the same thing but it will sound different for in Greek, someday, they will call him Jesus.

This video version of the pageant was made in 2013:

Script Out Texts: Fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion

Posted by Scott McAndless on Sunday, October 11th, 2015 in Minister

Hespeler, 11 October, 2015 © Scott McAndless

Genesis 1:26-2:3, Mark 10:35-45, Psalm 24
There is so much that is so right about the Harvest Festival of Thanksgiving. It is a day to be thankful, but thankful in very particular ways. We especially focus on the good things that are provided to us by the earth itself – the fruits and vegetables, the bountiful harvest, the grain, the meat and the wonderful foods that we can create when we put them all together.

It is good to be thankful for these things because they are good things provided for our blessing. And, yes, one of the ways in which we connect to our thankfulness for these things can be by overindulging in them. I don’t know about you, but I fully intend to express my thankfulness specifically for turkey, mashed potatoes and gravy in some very concrete ways when I gather with my family at my sister’s place tomorrow. These things are not just given for our sustenance but also so that we might rejoice in abundance.

So it is all good, but is there not also a potential dark side to the notion of these things having been provided for us. God’s gift of all these things for our benefit is described to us in that famous passage in Genesis that we read this morning. God has been busy creating the world and on the sixth day he comes to what humans call the great climax of his work of creation – the creation of humanity. (Of course, if you asked the fish, for example, what they thought was the most important day of creation, they might have a different answer!)

Anyway, on the sixth day, God creates people: “So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them” And to these newly made people God gives a very interesting command: “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.”

Now, people have been reading that particular verse of scripture for a long time. And, for most of that time, they have seen that verse as being very positive. After all, for most of human history, the world has been a pretty scary and dangerous place. The world seemed to be out to get us. We were hunted by terrible beasts. There was constant danger of starvation and disease. The earth itself seemed to be an enemy that had to be defeated and subdued.

And so that is what we set out to do – to tame the world, to dominate it and to reshape it to suit our own needs and desires. And, folks, we’ve been hugely successful at it. We’ve gotten very efficient at finding the earth’s resources, extracting them and using them to make life comfortable and productive and profitable to suit ourselves.

But there’s a problem. As we have grown and developed as a human race, we have grown more and more efficient at dominating the earth until today we are without any doubt and question the most dominant species on the planet. Just about everything that lives on this planet is directly impacted by human activity in one way or another. You might even say that that command given by God in the first chapter of Genesis, “fill the earth and subdue it,” has finally been fulfilled in our own time.

But, just when we’re finally dominating the earth so much, we suddenly begin to realize that this might not really be such a good thing as we once thought. Sure we can extract the many riches from the earth, but such mining can take a terrible toll. Huge territories are devastated and the wildlife they support are killed. We show our mastery and ingenuity by doing such things as extracting the crude oil from Alberta’s tar sands, clear-cutting old growth forests, damming mighty rivers and even harnessing the energy found in an atom. Pretty powerful stuff, but a lot of it has negative impacts on the natural environment – entire lakes poisoned by tailings from the mines, species pushed into extinction by the loss of habitat and so much carbon dioxide being pumped into the air that it is actually changing the climate of an entire planet.

And when we raise objections to all this devastation, what is the response? The Christian answer seems to be, “Well, what are you going to do? We’re only doing what we were told to do – we are subduing the earth and exercising our dominion. This is war, us against the earth – that is the language that is used in Genesis, after all – and in a war there are always casualties and collateral damage.”

That is why a lot of people aren’t so happy with this particular verse from Genesis. And I must confess that there are times when I am one of those unhappy people. It seems to be a part of the problem. And the ironic thing is that this verse, that once gave humanity the attitude and approach that allowed us to survive on this planet, may end up destroying us. What if we end up dominating the earth to such an extent that it becomes no longer able to sustain human life? That is what Stephen Hawking warned about a few years ago. He said that, unless human beings are able to colonize other planets (which may well be impossible) we may find ourselves trapped on an unliveable planet. And I’ve heard that Stephen Hawking is a pretty smart guy. So maybe it would be better for all of us if this verse wasn’t in the Bible at all.

But wait, before we just get rid of it, maybe we had better ask if we’ve really understood it and applied it like we should. Let’s look at the verse in its context. This command to subdue is but one small part of a much longer tale of creation. In the seven-day narrative, God’s work is portrayed not so much as creating things out of nothing – although he does do that too – but God’s more important task seems to be to impose an order on all that exists.

On day one God creates light and then very carefully separates it from the darkness. God then spends the next two days sorting out the water – separating the water above from the water below, the water on this side from the water on that. Then God creates the sun, stars and planets. And these, we are told, he puts there to regulate the flow of the times and the seasons. Then it’s onto the creation of the animals. But the animals too are very carefully sorted out as they are created. As it is repeated again and again that each animal is made, “according to its kind.”

So, basically, the picture we get of the Creator in these opening pages of the Bible is of a God who is imposing order on a chaotic universe – putting everything in its proper place, carefully balancing opposites of light and dark, water and land. It is as much an act of subjugation and dominion as it is of creation as God’s divine order is imposed on all that is made. And it is in this context that we must understand God’s command to the newly minted humans to subdue the earth. Basically, God is telling them to continue the work that God has begun. They are to rule in order to keep things sorted and balanced out.

But, if that is the real intention of this command, then it means something quite different from, “Go out and rape the earth and make sure that you rip all of the wealth that you can out of it, no matter how much destruction you may cause.” It is a call to exercise leadership, certainly, but not the kind of leadership that we usually seem to find at the head of some corporation where they are willing to do whatever it takes to create more shareholder value. God seems, indeed, to be talking about the same kind of leadership that Jesus called his disciples to exercise: “whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all.” If God gave us dominion over the earth, the intention was not that we would simply exploit it for our own ends but rather that we would serve all creation and protect it from harm as much as we can.

So I think that we have failed to understand this passage because we have failed to understand exactly what kind of dominion and subjugation God is talking about. God is talking about servant leadership and we have been thinking about exploitative leadership. No wonder we are having so many troubles.

But there is something else – something deeper – about this story that we have also failed to understand. I have said already that most people who read this story conclude that the great climax of the story comes on the sixth day with the creation of humanity. But that is just a plain wrong conclusion. The climax of this story doesn’t come on the sixth day, it comes on the seventh. That is what this whole story of creation is about – that is why it is set up as a seven-day story in the first place. The whole point is to get you to the seventh day when you can experience rest and Sabbath.

You don’t understand the point of creation when you get to day six and humanity is handed dominion over the earth. That’s just a step on the path. You only understand it when you get to day seven and you discover in the rest what God’s plans for the universe really are. The whole idea of the Sabbath is that you can at last have a day when you experience life as it should be.

In other words, what I’m trying so say is that “fill the earth and subdue it” is not the Bible’s final word on our relationship with the environment. Sabbath is the final word. Yes, we as human beings are likely never going to stop exploiting this earth for our own profits in some ways. But we must never forget that we are called, I would suggest even more forcefully, to let the earth rest and regenerate. This was always part of God’s creation plan. And maybe if we learned this, the world would just be so much more sustainable over the long haul.

So, I don’t know. I’m not quite ready to script out this passage. It may just have some real wisdom for us if we look in the right places. I also rather like reading it on Thanksgiving Sunday because I think that the distinction between exploiting the earth to get all of the profit out of it that we can stands out in sharp contrast to an attitude of thankfulness for all that we may receive. On this Sabbath Sunday and on the day of rest that I hope most of us also get tomorrow, let us remember the power of a thankful attitude as we offer both to the world and to ourselves some genuine rest in gratitude.

This week’s look back!

Posted by StAndrewsHespeler on Wednesday, October 7th, 2015 in News

Here's some more photos to look back on, maybe not so far this time!

Can you guess who any of the people are in the 2 photos?

160th Anniversary Weekend, Sunday, October 25th

Posted by StAndrewsHespeler on Wednesday, October 7th, 2015 in News

Please join us as we celebrate our 160th Anniversary on Sunday, October 25th at 10:00 am.

We welcome The Rev. Karen Horst, Moderator of the 141st General Assembly as our guest preacher!

Following the service we will enjoy a potluck lunch

(please bring a food item to share, no peanuts, tree nuts or shellfish)

and a special Anniversary Cake.

Rev. Karen Horst will join us for lunch.

"St. Andrew's Welcomes You Home …. Celebrating 160 years in Hespeler"

160th Anniversary Weekend, October 24th

Posted by StAndrewsHespeler on Wednesday, October 7th, 2015 in News

We are delighted to welcome the
Moderator of the 141st General Assembly,
The Rev. Karen Horst
to our 160th Anniversary Weekend Celebrations!

Meet & Greet the Moderator!

On Saturday, October 24th; 6:30 pm we will have a chance to talk personally with Karen in the church hall. Goodies and refreshments will be available at that time. At 7:30 pm we will meet in the sanctuary to listen to Karen tell us about her passion for mission and her time, so far, as Moderator of General Assembly

A Lovely Harvest Sunday!

Posted by StAndrewsHespeler on Monday, October 5th, 2015 in News

On Sunday, October 4th we celebrated Worldwide Communion Day

and Harvest Sunday.

Harvest Sunday was a celebration for all of the vegetables that were lovingly grown throughout the summer, mostly by our Sunday School children. After worship we got to view all of the vegetables while enjoying a delicious bowl of home made soup. The Grand Gardeners were drawn from a basket of names this year, because the offerings were all so wonderful. The Grand Gardeners were: Sarah & Adria; with 3rd prize going to Nigel & Alice!

All vegetables and donations were given to

Thursday Night Supper & Social (which will begin again on October 15th.

Script Out Passages: “If your hand causes you to sin, cut it off.”

Posted by Scott McAndless on Sunday, October 4th, 2015 in Minister

Mark 9:42-49, Romans 16:17-20, 1 Corinthians 12:12-26

Since the beginning of September, as most of you will know, I have been talking about what I call the Script Out^â passages of the Bible – the verses that we love to hate for all kinds of reasons. What I haven’t told you is that I have done something like this before. I did a somewhat similar series of sermons at my last church where I chose to preach on the worst Bible passages I could find. I am a bit of a bear for punishment.

That time, however, I did make one mistake. We had a prominent sign in front of the church and I had one man who would put my various sermon titles on the sign each week. Well, during this series, this guy came to me and asked me what he should put on the sign. I, foolishly, just wrote out the actual texts of the Bible verses I was preaching on and nothing more. I mean, who could object if we just put the actual words of the Bible in front of a church? And anyways, I had never had complaints about what appeared on the church sign!

I got complaints about what appeared on the church sign. It was bad enough the week when I preached on the verse that says, “Women should be silent in the churches.” (1 Corinthian 14:3) In hindsight, I probably should have seen that one coming. But that was not the worst phone call I got. That one came on the week that I preached on this morning’s Script Out^â passage: “If your hand causes you to sin, cut it off.” I had someone call me up and tell me off for saying such a horrible thing. Of course, I didn’t say it. Apparently Jesus did.

But I certainly had a lot of sympathy for the person who called me up. I too have a great many issues with that little saying of Jesus. I wouldn’t have too much trouble with it, perhaps, if I didn’t know how at least some people had read it down through the centuries. There have been too many Christians who have been far too quick to take this verse quite literally and start actually chopping off body parts in an effort to free themselves from sin. In ancient times, there was a saint named Origen who, in his youth, read this passage and decided that it was God’s instruction to him that he should mutilate himself and so he castrated himself.

Many people think that Origen did come to regret what he had done in his youth – regretted it so much that he went onto develop an entire way of approaching the Scriptures in order to avoid literal interpretations. He had come to see how dangerous that could be. But the damage had clearly already been done for him. And Origen wasn’t the only one. There was a Christian sect in Russia, known as the Skoptsy, that also practiced self-mutilation in a quest for perfection and freedom from sin. It is scary to think that we have in our Bibles a text that really could drive people to such extreme and dangerous acts.

So, absolutely, the first thing that I feel I must say about this passage is that it is not to be taken literally. To that end, I have made sure that there are absolutely no knives, axes or saws anywhere in the church this morning. (Okay, there are probably a few knives down in the kitchen but I don’t want anybody touching them, okay?) But, as much as I want that to be perfectly clear, how am I supposed

to know that for sure? I mean, is there anything in the passage that marks it – that makes it clear to the reader that you’re not supposed to take it literally? Surely it is not a good enough reason to say that we don’t take it literally because we don’t like where the literal meaning would lead us.

One thing I see is that it is almost impossible to read it literally because a literal reading leads to absurd results. Look at this line: “And if your foot causes you to stumble, cut it off.” How could that possibly make any logical sense? In what possible reality can you imagine a person stumbling while walking with two feet finding a solution to that problem by choosing, instead, to try and walk only with one? That doesn’t make any sense.

Nor do the other examples really make much sense. I mean, would anyone ever accept the excuse from someone who was arrested for shoplifting that it wasn’t their fault because their hand made them do it. Would anyone pardon someone who was charged with treason because they made the excuse that it was their eye’s fault, and so not theirs, that they looked at state secrets? Of course not! Though we might be tempted sometimes to blame our body and its desires for some of the things that we do that we later regret (Why did I let my stomach talk me into that extra piece of cake!), we all know that such excuses really don’t hold any water.

So I really think that we can clearly reject the errors that people have made by reading this passage literally. But that alone is not good enough. It is not good enough just to avoid the worst possible abuses of a certain passage of Scripture because this is Scripture and, as such, something that has been given to us in order to be a blessing to us and not just something that we need to avoid the negative implications of.

How can we then approach this passage so that it can be a real blessing to us? One thing that might help is not to take it too personally. The tendency is to assume that it is all about me as an individual – about my own personal righteousness and goodness and about getting me into heaven (or at least getting me out of hell).

You see that particularly among those communities who did take this passage literally. The Russian Skoptsy, for example, congratulated themselves that, because of their physical sacrifices, they were obviously better, more pure and righteous than everyone else. When people start thinking that way, even if they don’t go in for self-harming, it usually does not end up in a good place.

But what if Jesus never intended for this to be taken as a lesson on personal righteousness and purity? What if it wasn’t just about getting the individual right and pure with God? According to the Gospel of Mark, these sayings came up, not in the midst of discussions about personal righteousness but about how the community of disciples lived together – about who led and how they treated the “little ones.” What’s more, Jesus was talking about who belongs in the kingdom of God, which for him was always about community and how people treated one another.

And what if the consequences of the “sin” he was talking about weren’t just about what we traditionally think of as heaven and hell. Jesus talks about entering the “kingdom of God,” which we often take to mean entering heaven after death. But I am convinced that most of the time, when Jesus was talking about the kingdom he was talking about a present reality – about experiencing the presence of God in this life. So maybe when he talks about avoiding “hell” and the “unquenchable fire,” he is also talking about avoiding a present reality as well – the particular hell that we build for ourselves when we hurt and wound and fight each other.

That makes me think that maybe, a good application of what Jesus was really talking about in this passage might be found in the reading we had from the Letter to the Romans this morning. Paul addresses the Christians in Rome and says, “I urge you, brothers and sisters, to keep an eye on those who cause dissensions and offenses, in opposition to the teaching that you have learned; avoid them. For such people do not serve our Lord Christ, but their own appetites.” You see, the sin that affects us all the most is the sin that occurs in community and particularly when people in a community get so caught up in their own appetites – taking care of what they see as their own needs and building their own little power centres – that they stop caring about how they might hurt others.

You hate to think that such things can happen in the life of a church, a place that is supposed to be dedicated to peace and reconciliation, but they do. And the effects can be so destructive that the kind of response that Jesus was talking about may sometimes be necessary. Sometimes there are people who need to be cut off from the community of the church.

That is not something that we generally practice in our church today. There was a time when it was very common. Today we will be celebrating communion and Presbyterians used to practice something called “fencing” the communion table. Prior to communion, instead of just inviting people to come to the table and share in communion, the minister would build an imaginary fence around it by telling the congregation who was not welcome to come to the table sometimes by saying which personal offenses disqualified them from coming and sometime by specifically naming the people who were not permitted to take communion.

It was not a nice practice, especially because it was most often used as a way to control people’s personal lives and to impose a personal righteousness and purity that may not have been helpful. It was more about judging people than helping people. I’m not really all that interested in returning to that kind of practice. But I can’t help but think that there might be some times when people who are causing hurt to others need to be cut off from the community of the church.

Yet, even there, actually telling someone that they can no longer be a part of the church is surely something that we ought not to have to resort to except in very extreme cases. For surely, when people do that, when they become so caught up in pursuing their own power or desires, that doesn’t come from nowhere. Often they will do it because, somewhere deep inside, they are struggling maybe with their own insecurities or because they are carrying around the wounds that other people have inflicted on their spirit.

And, let me ask you, when someone is hurting other people in the church because they themselves were hurt by someone they trusted in the past or because they feel like they have to get everyone to do things their way because they never got the approval they needed when they were growing up (I only use these cases as made up examples but when there’s something like that going on), what needs to be cut off? In the vast majority of cases what is needed is not to cut that person off from the church. Maybe what is needed is for the church to help them to cut off the things that they carry that cause them to behave in such ways?

You see, the reality is that your hand isn’t what causes you to sin, neither does your foot or your eye. These things are just the tools that you sometimes use to do bad things. My dream and my hope for the church is that it could be a place where we help people to deal with the things that actually do cause them to hurt others – where we are able to bring the things that we carry around inside us that have hurt us or have made us afraid and help each other to cut them off from our lives. Now, that is not something that is going to happen easily. It is going to have to take some trust and honesty. It is going to take being willing to open up with each other in ways that might even be uncomfortable. It is certainly nothing that is going to happen overnight. But I think that it can happen.

The communion that we will celebrate in a little while will be open to all. I won’t build any fences around the table. But I hope you don’t come carelessly. We need a community that is mutually supportive, where we deal with the things that may make us sometimes hurt and wound one another if we are not careful, where we are a blessing upon one another. The communion, that mutual sharing, is supposed to be a symbol of that. It is supposed to be that moment where our unity and harmony is on display.

I hope, as we approach this table, we can all examine ourselves and find that our inner lives are in accord with this outer symbol. I hope that if there is anything that is keeping us from doing that, that with God’s help and the help of our sisters and brothers, we can cut it off.

Why we need to tell the stories of Hope Clothing

Posted by StAndrewsHespeler on Friday, October 2nd, 2015 in News

The other day we posted the first in what we expect will be the stories of Hope Clothing. The story, told by Karen Kincaid, our volunteer coordinator is just a typical example of many stories we could tell and are planning to tell.

It is the kind of story we need more of -- the kind of story that captures what being part of this community is all about. And we really need to tell that kind of story to as many people as possible.

There are too many stories of bad news. There are too many stories about people putting people down, hating them or mistreating them. We need to hear this kind of story.

There are too many stories of hopelessness. We need to hear stories of hope. We need to hear about what God is doing.

So will you help us spread this story and the ones that will follow it?

Follow this link: Stories of Hope Clothing #1 and then click on "Share" to find all kinds of sharing options. You can post to twitter, facebook, send out emails or use any number of other social media links. Let's share the good news story.

The vegetables are being harvested!

Posted by StAndrewsHespeler on Tuesday, September 29th, 2015 in News

My wonderful, little friend Alice came to visit me today. She and her brother, Nigel, are unable to attend Harvest Sunday, but wanted to bring in the vegetables they had lovingly tended to all summer!

We ended up making words with the veggies. Alice was especially thrilled with a certain, two-ey!