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.

Sleeping in Fresno

Tonight I met a new friend. He is a young man recently returned from a little adventure "pursuing dreams in California," as he put it. "And Corona brought him back," says his mother lovingly. "We're so glad he's here with us." There's a story there I can tell; later. Strange encounter, these people I met recently on one of my many walks in our community.  Yes, by now I know a fair number of people, most of us on the common topic of the things we do with ourselves while Corona does its thing. We seem to be a neighborhood in the making.

Anyway, about tonight's new friend, along with parents and siblings all out for an evening walk. And his father is a preacher! Later sitting at my computer there is something about that conversation which still has me thinking (Yes the thinker again 😏). I am reminded of another friend. This guy went to Fresno, CA to get some education. The locals in our church of course thinking that must be a good and a desirable place to get educated. Little did they know that in that California town interesting other things also have been happening, like an economy that was tanking! I am reminded of a pleasant summer evening in that very town, and even then (2010), this trucker already observed the big cities (eg L.A. and San Fran) coming to small towns. The face of the good life, the face of adventures, of education seemed to be changing even then.

September 28, 2010               

HE SLEEPS

There he slouches on a bench right beside front door of the restaurant.  Head tilted at a strange angle and mouth agape, this guy is gone to the world. He sleeps. Middle class customers walk by as they enter and exit, children make the giggly comments, hookers walk by on the street, waitresses take the occasional look at the ‘guy outside’.

It’s a fine autumn evening; the weather allows for activity like this.  Inside the restaurant my waiter’s comment, however, adds a bit of extra perspective. “Welcome to Fresno’s recession, up close and personal”, he says somewhat cheerfully as he brings my coffee.  His words are probably an accurate description of what’s going on in many places these days.  It seems as though the world of the unfortunates is coming closer.  Hookers are more daring and no longer stay in the dark back alleys, offering their wares almost at the front door of trendy even-if fast food restaurants. Even among the busy renovating restaurants and businesses there is also evidence of others standing empty or closed down. I’m straying.

This guy sleeping; what’s his story?  Is he married, divorced, or widowed?  Does he have children?  Do those children wonder where their daddy is?  Or I shudder at another possibility; do they maybe not care? Has he had a good life and lost it all? Or has ill health or addiction and lack of discipline caught him up in this compromised position? He is weary and beyond caring what he looks like tonight. Still, he does not appear to be a down and out tough guy.

This seems to be a new scene, beginning of a new trend? Undeniably it happened right before my eyes tonight. On the other hand, this is nothing new.  Martin Luther, a 16^th Century reformer, once saw a similar situation, and noting a tramp, said to the person beside him, “There but for the grace of God, go I”.  1 Cor 10:12 also comes to mind, and at the very least I confess it totally applies to me, “So if you think you are standing, watch out that you do not fall”.  

Hmm, now that I think about it some more I realize I need some info, maybe even some fellowship, with that tramp.  Maybe he is also middle-class fallen on hard times. Stranger things than that have happened. Maybe he and I are/were almost in the same boat.  If he’s still hanging around there tomorrow morning, I shall strike up a conversation!  

Hmm, and now ten years later, from deep within a Corona crisis I realize I would still enjoy conversation with that front entrance sleeper. How you doing man? Is that one of your daughters out there? Or what's up? Me, I was a preacher and I needed some open road. And from thereon conversation would have been high quality. 😀 Last week even in this year 2021 I heard the perspective of a homeless guy in this my 'big city'. He is part of my life even as that California guy back there was part of my life. I find their stories usually a bit more interesting than the common menu of sports, politics or other bs coming from the paying customers. It's the other side of life.

And now back to my new young friend recently returned from his 'vision quest'. Next time our paths cross I shall yet ask him what he found in California.  And soon also I shall ask the studying one, my pastor, if he found anything else interesting in that California college town in transition.