A Low Blow

Only a week after Pentecost this hits the Inboxes. For Immediate Release, another sexual misconduct by a significant church leader deceased some thirty years ago! Oh yay, another one of these! Our faith community still in quiet thoughtful recovery from the last unnerving misconduct carefully and professionally and legally reported. This time the Press Release goes on for nine paragraphs, probably even more carefully constructed based on legal counsel and responses from the previous. It bristles with legalese (likely proofread by lawyers to ensure present day church executives are not implicating themselves in reporting this allegation of long ago). It is a carefully written document heavy on legalese and devoid of biblical reference.

This still in the season of Pentecost. Dammit where is our sense of the sacred? Yes, trucker language occasionally shows up even in my sermons! If you find this offensive please read my blog post “Sacred and the Profane” (Dec 7, 2020). Back to the topic at hand, did we possibly gain some perspective (sic) from our Pentecost services last Sunday? My previous post was a rather glowing appreciation of a sermon presented by a young lady to her congregation. This Press Release intrudes on that spirit-filled presentation – and by the way she was a lawyer.😉

Is this now the unveiling of the real (?) life going on? Real? Do I now need to feel badly about these allegations against someone who has been "resting in peace" for many years? Perhaps I should, and perhaps I will, but I am not convinced this is the best use of our creative (spiritual?) energy right now at this time. I’m wringing my hands along with Pilate that Roman ruler trying to make sense of the religious idiocy going on before him on the Friday of the crucifixion of Jesus, “What is truth?” (John 18:38).

On the day of Pentecost the gathered faithful were suddenly surprised – blown away even – by window rattling tongues as of fire descending upon them and helping them to fully understand each other even from vantage of varying mother tongues. On that occasion ordinary religion received a new shot; proposals and traditions and business as usual probably out the window as they encountered the ruach - the breath of God. I’m wondering if that surprising inspiration was considered a possibility in any of our virtual corona-type gatherings. Did any of our pastors preach culture shattering Holy Spirit empowered sermons last Sunday? Did any windows rattle anywhere? My hunch is not. Of course that could not have been planned in. Pentecost is a surprise! I would, however, love to read or hear some testimony of same in one of today's churches. It would be so much more life-giving than this carefully worded press release.

We are busy playing church while looking over our shoulders to make sure we don’t do anything illegal.  I have no idea about the professional misconduct back there years ago, but I do have a number of books on my bookshelf, not yet in the recycle bin and containing very insightful and authoritative analyses of ongoing history of my particular Christian denomination, written by that man. I hope nobody will tell me that they are rubbish. I hope we are not on another smear campaign to assure fellow citizens of our noble professionalism.

I suppose somebody will chide me for not having spiritual sensitivity for the certain person who was violated (willingly or unwillingly we do not know). Was her life ruined? Or was it an affair with some lingering or unresolved guilt? Whatever it was, I am certain the children and the grandchildren of the accused are now deeply distressed. Perhaps I might add to Pilate's lament, "What is important?"

My indignation rests with the professionalism image apparently required of current leaders in the church. Looking around at some other faith communities I find myself wondering how issues like this are dealt with there. Muslims, Latter day Saints, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Old Colony Mennonites and probably others do not pay their clergy. Imams and Bishops do their work for free. Leadership is so much more than a job. I remember a certain deacon speaking up in the first church I was called to in rural Saskatchewan, quoting nicely in favor of a wage for their young pastor (me), 1 Timothy 5:17-18, The elders who direct the affairs of the church well are worthy of double honor, especially those whose work is preaching and teaching. ¹⁸ For Scripture says, “Do not muzzle an ox while it is treading out the grain,” and “The worker deserves his wages.” Nice little lesson about both modesty and/or entitlement! My wage was very very modest, 😅 but I still have good memories of the sentiment in that onerous Bible reading. It was the place of my calling to lifelong ministry. 

The current version of North American Christianity has fallen into the trap of the good life, including high salaries on par with secular business models. I do not hear much reference to that scripture these days, mostly declarations of ‘the going rate’ meaning that churches and leaders are now in employer-employee relationship. Within this evolution, when the church falls on hard times we appreciate the government bailing us out and so we are enabled to pay the salaries of the ones making sure at least we are compliant. And of course when scandalous behavior shows up that becomes the focus. We are obedient citizens. Are we also faith-filled citizens?

How about that Holy Spirit sermon? Hope it is not being forgotten while we look after our butts and our pocketbooks.

 

New Pentecostalism

Tis the season. Pentecost Sunday brings it out in me. I notice looking over my recent blog posts that some topics get pursued (repeated?) if not in systematic orderly coverage, then in themes that will not quit, Pentecost definitely one of them. In the Bible it's that worship service that got blown about by a window rattling wind from heaven and what seemed like tongues of fire (Acts 2:3) touching each participant. It's a theme I have lusted after my whole lifetime. It never was lost on me during my twenty plus years of pastoring, and always on my mind when that season came around during my subsequent two decades of long haul trucking, and now in my thinker (yes that thinker still) even in these retirement years. So, perhaps understandably it rears its head once again this year.

Tis the season. After Christmas and its commercialized celebration there is the Epiphany, soon thereafter followed by Lent's forty days plus Sundays of self reflective discipline, followed by Jesus' Palm Sunday riding into Jerusalem on a donkey, and that by the intensified agonizing week of the Passion culminating in the gory Crucifixion and then the glorious Resurrection on Easter Sunday. After a late winter - early springtime church season I am attuned and ready for that burst of heavenly wind and fire. To me it's a natural - exactly what I would expect to light the fire for anyone who might have even a smidgeon of interest in the faith, or church, or religion, those distance terms sometimes used by a casual populace.

Now from my retired vantage Pentecost demands my attention (See Pentecost Still, June 3, 2020) not because it works its way around year after year in cycled calendars (read Julien, Gregorian, or Lunar etc.), but because Pentecost is the fresh burst that absolutely WILL get our attention. I recall from my years of pastoring a number of baptisms on that day, not necessarily because it was the baptism day but because it was a good day for baptism, a most appropriate day to celebrate the willingness of candidates to commit to a faith journey which is - a faith journey - the journey that needs all available help. Why not in context of the faith community and indescribable Holy Spirit outpouring?

I am therefore a fan of the church year as per lectionary scriptures (It will show up Revised Common Lectionary in Google). On many occasions in sermons or in writing, I have declared my open bias that a preacher's leadership is best exemplified by attention to subscribed scriptures rather than 'sermon series' or hobby horses. It is a way of being in community with other churches - neighborly. Preaching needs to be focused on God, not on the preacher. After all, the Bible gives no hint of who had been preaching prior to the fiery outpouring.

This morning I was in Zoom gallery listening to a young lady speaking to her fellow church members in her church. Very eloquent and springtime appropriate, she began with a garden image, planting tomatoes and other vegetables; some will come up, some will not. When the harvest comes we will be grateful and enjoy the delicious fruit and also fully aware some did not even germinate. In this early season we do not quite know which will be the winners or the dead in the ground. She went on to address rather pointedly the circumstance in their church, at present in the search for 'the right pastor.' She told her elders 😊 they may not find the exact perfect fit. She also told her church that this does not at all mean they are doomed. The sermon became an amazing proclamation to keep on trusting the wonder working power of the Holy Spirit. The search may take longer than earlier anticipated and in the meantime some new and unexpected things may also be revealed! Needless to say, my heart burned within me listening to this young lady. She has it right.

Westernized Christianity has spent this last century learning the good life. We came into this North America with our theology figured out - several different doctrinal lineages fought and persecuted into obedience and streamed into a few Catholic and Protestant denominations, and then we pushed the Indigenous and the African Americans into their corners, and then built our churches. It seems to me a new Pentecost is again poised above us. Our North American history needs review, as does South American history. North American Protestantism, especially evangelicalism, is becoming cult like, increasingly dependent on the perfect CEO preachers. South American Catholicism, because of its accommodation of extractive developers in the Amazon rainforests, now has the whole planet in a climate crisis (see Beloved Amazonia:The Apostolic Exhortation and Other Documents from the Pan-Amazon Synod. Orbis, 2019). The Church, either Catholic or Protestant, as per present organizational parameters does not have the full answers required for this world's physical and spiritual survival.

In and among some of this self incrimination I cannot but note the well known and oft quoted O.T. scripture spoken by the prophet Micah,  

He has shown you, O mortal, what is good.
    And what does the Lord require of you?
To act justly and to love mercy
    and to walk humbly^[a] with your God (6:8).

And also another, this one from the N.T. “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven (Matthew 7:21).  

Looking at today's churches, whether as participant or observer (many former participants now observers in this corona season), it is obvious that the preaching and the pastoral care within churches is absolutely essential. In and among these times-a-changing do we even know what else we need? More than smoothly delivered sermons the Church needs help with its eternal and temporal role. God's Word will be most clearly understood if coming from a Holy Spirit enabled fellowship of believers. I am thinking that group gathered in Acts 2 and also thinking of my tradition, the Anabaptists, claiming simply ²⁰ For where two or three gather in my name, there am I with them.”(Matthew 18:20). 

Pentecost enabled that Jewish fellowship to be able to understand each other (whether Parthians or Medes or ..). Coming from various places and in habit of religion (Feast of Weeks) the ordinary habit erupted into thunderous insight, suddenly understanding each other's accents and lingos - like e-translate plus the willing Spirit (?). Only a few chapters later (Ch 10), one of them, Cornelius suddenly experienced in further measure the inclusiveness of this gospel he had just learned and there in Caesarea a revival moved through the community including both Jews and Gentiles. 

Maybe it's a little more than us 'two or three' Mennonites at least baptizing our young people when the time is right or speaking in tongues like the Pentecostals. Maybe it's us and the Pentecostals considering 'those others' who do not know Jesus as savior, but sincerely desire his teachings as one of God's prophets among us. Pentecostalism for 2021 is probably more than inter church. It is probably interfaith. As of yet we have not seen all God has in store for us.

Ascending Thoughts

This past week Thursday I happened upon the holiday that was never forgotten on my growing up farm back in Saskatchewan. Although Ascension Day was a prescribed church holiday I recall even then it was kind of optional as far as actual church attendance was concerned.  My dad may have attended, but not my mom. Mom in her quiet way had more important things than going to an optional church service on a Thursday. She was busy managing all of us kids with our endless activities and questions. Ironically, even though she was not in church she did not question significance of that day. In fact I also recall the most vivid theological explanation on said subject coming from her! She told us plain and simple while scrubbing away in the kitchen that this was the day Jesus ascended to heaven. I for one listened with intrigue as she told us about it. Fascinating!

That’s many years ago. In these threescore and ten plus years I have encountered a whole variety of ways of observing or not observing that holiday. In my Christian tradition, the Mennonites, there is a dirth of celebration and still a considerable pattern of traditionalism! Also, because of our free church polity, no head office would tell us what to do, and so varieties of folkways are the standard-bearers. Our traditions and practices therefore have accommodated a considerable array from horse and buggies to fundamentalists to hippies to new agers among today's many Mennonite denominations! Common threads? I can think of a few. We do not celebrate the mass every Sunday as the Catholics do, nor speak in tongues as the Pentecostals (although some of us do in private), nor dance as the Charismatics! Neither do we drink alcohol as the Uniteds and Anglicans (except, like most of our evangelical brothers and sisters, when nobody is watching 😏)! Among the modernizing adaptations over time, my observation is that Ascension is being observed a bit more in recent years as our ecumenizing worship life (read lectionary) cannot ignore that biblical event which the traditionalists have never ignored. It's been there all the time. I'm glad we're noticing.

I am pleased, therefore, those Ascension scriptures showed up fair and square in the Daily Prayers. These are the scriptures for this season in the church year. It’s a present blessed gift come from our Mennonite Church Alberta, as I have affirmed in previous posts. This particular evening the scriptures were Acts 1:1-11, the story exactly as my mom told it to us, while Jesus was giving some final instructions he “got lifted up and disappeared into the clouds.” My adult nesheah mind quickly needed to check out the morning scripture, and there it was also to my delight, Luke 24, while blessing them he withdrew from them and was carried up into heaven (:51).  The scriptures are there, available still to guide our prayers!

Then this Sunday an interesting twist.  Because we can Zoom around like the church shoppers used to do in pre-corona days, I had opportunity to visit two churches this morning!  One of the churches had a fully focused Ascension Sunday worship including sermon presented by a guest preacher. Nary a mention in the other church. Two churches, same denomination; vastly differing practice. 

Now my thinker – yes again!  One point - theological point I think - became quite clear listening to the sermon. Ascension, said the preacher, is a recognition of both the absence and the presence of Jesus. And he easily made the point with very familiar scriptures. While watching Jesus ascend, two angels appeared to the disciples, “This same Jesus, who has been taken from you into heaven, will come back in the same way you have seen him go into heaven.”  On ascension day, said the preacher, Jesus departed. He actually physically departed and that followed by God's angels' promise that he will return again. That is both absence AND presence. Then speaking candidly about us Mennonites and our inclination to good works (eg our favorite passage Matthew 5-7 Sermon on the Mount) he pointed out a missing ingredient when we so rigorously seek to follow his teachings. When do we do enough work projects? How about the grace of God? Nothing new here except for the obvious.  As Mennonites we emphasize social-services, peacemaking; good works often ignoring an invitation coming from the teacher also the savior. The invitation is to be emptied of self and receive Jesus as per invitation in John 3:3, to be born again, and then spelled out even more clearly for the self-conscious Nicodemus in :5 “Very truly I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are born of water and the Spirit.  Mark 1:10 also at the baptism of Jesus, Just as Jesus was coming up out of the water, he saw heaven being torn open and the Spirit descending on him like a dove. Clear, isn't it? Jesus, the one anointed from above is now the Son of God ascending.  Christian Jesus followers are more than students of a good teacher. They are connected to that Christ, indeed born anew, born of water and the Spirit. 

 

In these my retirement years I am privileged to keep learning from some of my Muslim friends. I am intrigued at their intrigue at my belief that Jesus really IS the son of God. And regarding at least these friends it seems to me they would be disappointed if I did not continue to believe it. Fascinating! 

 

New life in Jesus. It’s not just an instructional series with many samples and teachings from lectures and how-to sermons. New life in Jesus is more. It is also his invitation for any of us no matter how nice or sinful, how educated or uneducated, how pretty or ugly, to enter the heavenly realm. We are invited to eternal everlasting faith in the One who went before, died, rose again, ascended and will come in his time to claim us as his own, regardless of the garden we have been growing or messing around in. 

 

Ascension Day is important. I’m allowing my thoughts to ascend above and beyond what I must yet do today. Good way to prepare for Pentecost next Sunday. 

 

Good-Lifers

I am not planning for this to be a rant. After all I prefer conversations rather than adrenaline fueled firestorms (cf. April 22 post). Also I am not planning for this to be a feel good encouragement for all my nice friends everywhere – apparently that’s not my thing either! It is however a post that qualifies for the oh oh category. It’s been wanting to get written for about a week and I did not want to do it.  But it has to be done; something about personal integrity. Acts 4:20 is one Bible verse I cannot ignore, ²⁰ for we cannot keep from speaking about what we have seen and heard.”   

It goes something like this. Of late I have encountered some good education experiences, including a new discovery and appreciation of prayer, new intercultural and neighborly learnings right here in my city of Calgary, new interfaith learnings, new ecumenical learnings, some new family learnings, and also new learnings and inspiration among fellow evangelical Christians.  For this chronic nesheah life is indeed quite fascinating even in these corona days!

My discomfort is with the “so what.” What do we do with ourselves, with our lives in between the learnings, the sidewalk conversations and the Zoom meetings. What do with heads full of ideas and new learnings after you click that “Leave Meeting” button? I begin with the first example. I just completed an online book study along with about 50 others, mostly North American Christians,  Beloved Amazonia: The Apostolic Exhortation and Other Documents from the Pan-Amazon Synod (Orbis, 2020). It documents the recent synodal consultation undertaken by the Roman Catholic Church. Pope Francis acknowledges deep environmental and sociocultural problems brought on by extractive corporate business intrusion into South American rainforests which are in fact “the lungs of the world.” Not only has this created a global climate crisis, but now poses a grave pastoral challenge for the people who live there and the Church that has been there since Europeans appeared on that continent.

We read designated chapters and then discussed in breakout rooms. Perhaps because of Corona loneliness, perhaps because of unrealistic expectations of the study leaders, these breakout rooms did not accomplish quite as much as organizers might have hoped. Why? My sense is that we spent considerable time ‘hearing one another’ (visiting😊). Even with the sheer intrigue of the very interesting topic about what is being attempted ‘down there’ our Zoom appearances with one another still carried the energy. Consequently, our final meeting #5 seemed more like a good-bye than a covenanting ceremony. Even as we understood the dire consequences if we do not make some lifestyle adjustments, my hunch is that we, along with a large portion of the Catholic church, have become inoculated by information overload, and life will continue as per habits to date. Not good news for our common habitat, namely the planet we live on.

Another example.  I am a volunteer on one of the committees in our Provincial Area Church, Missions and Service to be exact. As I have already written in a number of previous posts, world missions has a considerably different face than years ago when we heard reports and donated dollars to support missionaries in ‘foreign fields’. We now live in a repopulating world. Populations are shifting as political and economic and religious circumstances change all over the world. The great opportunity for today’s churches is to open doors for newcomers among us. The great challenge is to learn about and welcome those from other cultural backgrounds, even if fellow Christians. I find the church appetite or interest very similar to the Amazonia book study – interesting information, but we are careful to assure ourselves that our lifestyles are not too impacted by all these newcomers. And to make it a little extra confusing, while we look askance at immigrants coming at taxpayers’ expense, we 'exercise reservation' about those Indigenous who a short while ago accommodated most of us colonialists who have now settled on their land, some of it unceded to this day. I always find it interesting that at our church and conference AGMs our budgets are presented in environments of middle to upper middle-class prosperity with assumptions of par lifestyle with fellow settler communities around us, and little reflection on lifestyle adjustment even as we desire to be messengers of good news “in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”(Acts 1:8).  In a repopulating world and in wake of this pandemic might it be appropriate to consider lifestyle adjustments as part of budgeting?  It’s on my mind lots as I do the committee work these days.

Another example, similar to the above but less formalistic, perhaps just a bit more in-your-face. At a recent men’s breakfast meeting (Not Breakfast Meetings we call them, yes on Zoom) the discussions get around to many things – life giving and very invigorating actually. Usually included is at least one or two poor-me whimpers of no trips to the sun destinations winter getaways, snowbirds parked at home, etc.  My occasional sarcasm or suggestion of lifestyle adjustment is always received awkwardly –  kind of endure and change subject asap.😕 Thus far they have not yet kicked me out of the group.

Further examples could now follow, and it’s a bit like priming the pump – once you get started there are many more that come to mind. From my previous descriptions of walks and sidewalks and local incidents you may already know my wife and I and one adult daughter live in what we label as a great location in our wonderful modest home. The fascinating thing about this is that now in retirement we finally notice that fellow church members our age are all downsizing into condos that have square footage similar to or slightly larger (yes) than this bungalow we have proudly lived in, eventually paid for, hosted Christmas parties, meetings and get-togethers in, never really aware that this was a starter home - poor people’s housing! Yes, next door is a revenue property - new renters about once a year! This is what we could afford given the salary I was being paid! Now, in hindsight I also realize our kids never attended the private Christian schools many of them sent their kids to. Did we feel short-changed? No! Did our children ever feel short-changed? No! In our home this was thought of as the way we live with choices made by mom and dad. Thanks kids; much appreciated! I’m glad we did not think about these lifestyle inequities during those years. I was busy being the pastor!

Now back to the Amazonia book study.  Amid the intrigue about the Catholic Church’s attention to dire circumstances, our personal lifestyle implications were kind of slow to catch on. Compelling information does not necessarily lead to personal changes.  I submit this is a larger and a deeper work of God which even us change agents need to be aware of. In two months that group met again (didnt really need breakout rooms because many were already busy doing - maybe learning - other things! As of this time I have not sold all that I have and given to the poor (Mark 10:21), perhaps because I am slightly over-preoccupied how I will manage my small retirement portfolio (fixed income of a senior citizen). I have and I continue to speak positively about efforts made by the biggest church in the world to right some wrongs, and applaud them in their commitment to a more just and ecologically balanced life in the rainforests, but not quite ready to ‘take up their cross’. Undeniably we all are beneficiaries of the extractive multinational infused economies which have caused the problem. My hunch is that this is illustration of your average church participant. Christian faith notwithstanding, we live in a society with survival inclinations. And sometimes our bent toward survival is a front for selfishness and sin (Acts 5 Ananias and Sapphira comes to mind. They died pretending they were giving all).

Once upon a time during my years serving as a pastor in Edmonton, I regularly visited inmates at Edmonton Institution, a maximum security facility just north of the city. I always marveled at the inmates participating in the chapel program. Most of them were lifers, not so much those who were there for a year or two. The lifers seemed more peaceful, not necessarily groveling or growling about ill-fortune that got them in jail, etc. The lifers were quite open about their crimes and now living out long sentences and seemingly committed to making the best of it. Bible studies and worship life were from the vantage of ‘us’ - all of us chaplains, inmates, and volunteers - assembled by the grace of God, and why pretend anything else. Imagine my enjoyment in singing and worshiping and praying with a congregation of lifers! 

Seems to me that many of us in our communities – almost all of us – still have a hankering for the good life. Good Living is our preferred way - with some spiritual salt and pepper. So we are the good-lifers, Christian good-lifers, Muslim good-lifers, conservative or liberal good-lifers, old fashioned or new age good-lifers. Perhaps it would be okay, a healthy move even, to line up with the lifers, those inmates who have nothing to lose, not even their social status or self-images. Lifers, fully at the mercy and grace of God! We could use some of that honesty in our churches.

Once upon an even longer time ago 😅 I was a Bible School student. In one of the classes we were required to memorize - yes memorize - Bible verses.  This one passage still gives me pause and I shall never forget even as I learn many things. Thank you Mr. Zacharias. Rest in Peace.

Ephesians 2:8-10 (RSV)

⁸ For by grace you have been saved through faith; and this is not your own doing, it is the gift of God— ⁹ not because of works, lest any should boast. ¹⁰ For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.