My thinker has been quite active the last couple of weeks. Surprise? Probably not. Those who have read previous posts know that this was the bane of my father and perhaps of other family members to this very day – this eldest son, the nescheah always asking questions and then offering perspective about everything. Also, this is the season of Lent: lots of lent-type things. I decided this year it would not be a mere resolve to ‘give up something’, but to actually focus my thoughts and my very being on what’s going on around us these days. So what’s new, you may be thinking,😕 everybody else thinking about that too! True, therefore good season to think about those many things! Here we go.
I just finished reading a book. This type of book is not in my regular diet, but read because I am a fan of this author and my daughter brought it home for me from Value Village. John Grisham is good. His books are thick, and I read them at three times the speed of my other reads. It’s a page turner. Every chapter ends with a trigger which ‘must be resolved’ hopefully in first paragraph of next chapter! Himself being a lawyer, Grisham describes high stakes courtroom dramas, providing the reader with intrigue and moral quandaries well demonstrated by accused and plaintiffs, by researchers, jury selection, colorful feisty lawyers, lots of community gossip and often quite likeable judges. This book, A Time for Mercy (New York: Random House, 2020), features the protagonist lawyer reluctantly taking on the case of a sixteen year old boy who shot his mother’s boyfriend dead, and needless to say our lawyer friend ‘gets very involved’ in all that follows. Excellent read.
Also I am presently engaged in very interesting Sunday School lessons. In our church this Lenten season we have a series entitled “Imitating Jesus” (www.mennomedia.org/SL). Without going into much detail, this is a quick overview of a never ending theme in churches. Who is Jesus? How do you recognize him? recognize other followers? misunderstand him even like his disciples? and Jesus’ death and resurrection quite timely for this season in the year of our Lord 2022. In my mind this is essential material even for those of us who think we already know it all. 😐
My thinker? It’s about this novel just read and the Sunday School class. It’s also about the sacred and the profane. It’s about life these days. Within both there are some commonalities. Whether in church or in courtroom or watching National News, some things are playing out in similar tune. This year I am inspired and also troubled by those of us in faith communities. Even as we have yet another dose of holy seasons – Muslims’ Ramadan and Christians’ Lent and Easter, I am kind of troubled by things wanting to get back to business as usual after two years of covid, yet not quite sure what is usual in the worldwide unfolding of things. Russia kowtows to a ruthless demented leader, member of Russian Orthodox, pommels a neighboring country composed of relatives and friends in a horrible and inhumane display of brokenness. Other European countries and NATO negotiate with the rest of the world, including the still superpower United States, to provided necessary bombs and artillery to keep economies going even while providing necessary sanctions to isolate Russia. The world mixture of church and state is not getting on well! Seems somewhat consistent with the news reports I have listened to my whole lifetime (yes I’m a post WW2 baby boomer). Politically, environmentally, socioeconomically and religiously our world is not getting on well.
Given this sociopolitical reality with a little religion thrown in, it begs a question. How might faith communities actually intervene? Russian Orthodox and Ukrainian Orthodox; part of the solution or the problem? Militaristic God and country American regimes, part of the solution or problem? Muslim countries watching to see who might lose? It would be so good if faith communities could discover (rediscover?) who they are, rather than cower in old orthodoxies and old rhetoric. There have been many ‘corrective’ wars and schisms within church history, and the results of those schisms cannot be equated to a present arrival at ‘true’ church. It does not follow that by now, after 2020 years or so, the church is getting close to correct understandings. No, there are too many denominations to lend credence to that idea.
This is why I affirm my denomination of the Christian community - Anabaptist Mennonites, historic peace church, neither Catholic nor Protestant, with Sunday School lessons about the teachings and the passion, the death and resurrection of Jesus, and implications for ALL. Although I often wax somewhat critical of my people slipping into new orthodoxies, some leaning toward ecumenism and others towards the evangelicals all the while lusting after Pierre Burton’s Comfortable Pew (McCLelland and Stewart, 1965), at present I posit ‘us’ as something the world is looking for. I remind us that we are in excellent position to address the human condition.
14 The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came … full of grace and truth. (John 1:14).
10 I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full. (John 10:10).
What is believable for me, and what still keeps me solid in the evangelical camp, is a strong conviction that God still allows us to learn of God and also learn from one another. It’s there in the Old Testament. In Exodus 3 God is identified to a nervous Moses “I am who I am” (:14), and “This is my name forever, the name you shall call me from generation to generation (:15). Even in this call for Moses to lead the Israelites out of trouble in Egypt, God is identified as the One. Accordingly, this God, this I AM is not culturally bound. And then in the New Testament this becomes totally clear (at a terrible price - it's Holy Week! 😓). After the new community founded by Jesus is underway, we read in Galatians chapter 3, There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus (:28). Huge reason for hospitality. No longer is it enough to merely acknowledge ‘those others’, but rather a full-scale invitation to become acquainted with them. This is an especial challenge and an opportunity in today's multicultural neighborhoods. In Calgary, for example, we have Muslims yes, but actually we have Ismaili, Sunni, and Shia, and also several groups kind of sectarian, followers of Fethullah Gulin and the Ahmaddaya. Also we have Sikhs, Buddhists, Indigenous Traditionalists and Christians, South Sudanese Christians of Nuerr and Dikkha tribes, and of course representatives of most Christian denominations.
Recently in conversation with a Muslim friend, he quietly agreed that their Ummahs must grow in grace and hospitality with one another. Needless to say I assured him of that same self-assignment looking at our many Christian denominations. The learning goes on; Sikhs persecuted by Hindus, and of course us Christians can no longer deny our privileged colonialist history.
So there is more – actually now I could keep rolling. There are the artists, the novelists, those who would have us think and often entertain even while stirring our comfort levels (afflict the comfortable 😏). I just watched a Prayercast about artists struggling to find acceptance within Islam (yes often within the Church too!) <prayercast@owm.org>. Without presuming a political statement here or sounding off like a woke liberal, I do assert that there is no one sanctified church or tradition that fully and adequately represents God. Similarly, all Christians, Muslims, and all religious groups need to examine beginnings and perhaps rediscover truths in our respective traditions.
I recently watched a YouTube of an Amish worship service (filmed by a former Amish!) reminding me that those old-fashioned traditions apparently outgrown, perhaps need to be revisited. Me of the Russian Mennonite lineage, also could use an educational visit to an Old Colony Mennonite Church perhaps in LaCrete, AB one of these days. Thanks to some recent learning, I now know that my forbears’ Sunday morning worship finds them seated in almost same format as Muslims at Friday service, although Mennonites would not go so far as to remove shoes! Hmm.
That’s it for now. Back to the Future anyone?
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