So What's New?

I used the phrase in a recent post; "so what" ("Good-Lifers," May 10, 2021). It was my slightly plaintive way of asking the question about things possibly learned by all of us thanks to our recent pandemic lifestyle. In other words, what are we doing with new knowledge gained after digital worship services or webinars or Zoom meetings or chat sessions? I'm afraid the answer is "not much."

I attended in person worship this last Sunday. It was a hybrid, with both in-person and on-line options available. Worship leader was one of our techno-savvies, live streaming provided by one of our techno-experts, and sermon by our techno pastor. The 'in-persons' gathered? You guessed it; it was us oldies who prefer sitting in church as we have done for decades, a habit not yet broken even after last year and a half of staring at screens. A few children and one young person - offspring of the hard workers. After church the senior citizens drove off in pursuit of the other pre-corona habit, lunch at a nearby restaurant. Nothing new here. Lunch to the tune of $20 - $25 per person no problem! Church budget may be struggling but as yet old patterns still in place.

So what's new? Nothing much also in my other diversion - the hockey world.  We still pay the gladiators to kill each other while hockey fans spill beer over each other. It's NHL Stanley Cup Playoffs! In a couple weeks one team will hoist the Cup for all the world to see. In the American cities - to whit Vegas or New York or Tampa Bay - it's almost 'back to normal' again. Hockey has returned to the delirium of in-person fans instead of tarpaulin covered empty seats. 

Playoffs round three, semi-finals. My expectation (hope?) for a kinder-gentler series seems already nixed. Tampa Bay Lightning and New York Islanders game two ended in a brawl even though the coaches are best of friends. Back to hockey I guess! And playoffs are always rougher tougher, like a new season with only the best allowed. Players worth their ilk need playoff experience; so say the talking heads - Kevin Bieksa, Kelly Hrudy et al. Now it's back to plexiglass rattling front seat fans announcing their in-person presence like kids in their playpen. One fight featured a full grown middle aged inebriated spectator yelling and making faces at the player (can't remember whom) getting pommeled. Wow, what maturity! It's as though the old devil of previous lifestyle is back. We're still the idiots who entered into corona season a couple eaons ago. I smile at a couple of my idealistic positive thinking blogposts about a year ago, hinting at possibilities of civility thanks to this sobering pandemic (Eg."The Civilizing of Hockey," September 19, 2020). 

So is it just me? Although occasionally affected by moodiness, I think this observation stands. It's not just my moodiness. [Okay you can beg to differ if you wish]. I am in midst of a true-blue disappointment about my fellow human beings. Indeed I had positively, optimistically, humanely (naively?) predicted a nicer gentler perspective possibly in the political, the community and familial environments after this pandemic got done with us. Read some of those heartfelts (Eg. "Corona Community," April 3, 2020 or "The Stretch," June 28, 2020). 😞 Apparently Real Estate markets are a good indicator of what drives local economies. Modest houses like mine are going like crazy I'm told because people who can't afford a house will try to bite into ownership because prices and interest rates look affordable. Ah, familiar old fashioned values. Real estate agents probably lining their pockets just like they have done in previous years.

Bottom line here, I am back to the opening question, "so what?" As life returns to some degree of normalcy; as many have complied and many defied protocol, along with the bleating of opinions in beginning, middle and post-pandemic, who had it right? As churches and sport coliseums reopen doors my bet is firmly on at least one thing, and I find that in the Bible, "Not everyone who says to me Lord Lord will enter the Kingdom of heaven" (Matthew 7:21). We still have things to learn. We also still have things to unlearn. 

God is not done with us yet. Fortunately for us, that also is nothing new.

Blessed Belateds

It is now five days after my birthday. I have never been one to put great emphasis on birthday parties. In fact my anxiety level usually goes up the several days before, just hoping that my wife or kids not be fraught with undo efforts in that direction. In my mind birthdays are but another day, the one day a complete number can be calculated/claimed in the passage of time! Even from this rather simplistic perspective I do, however, appreciate one practice way back in my family of origin - simple Mennonite farm family with many kids. Lord have mercy on any one of us who thought we might have a birthday party for only that one! But, and I say this with deep sentiment and appreciation, the birthday kid got to sit on a pillow! And somewhere in course of the meal (can't even remember whether it was breakfast, dinner, or supper) we might sing a raucous version of happy birthday. There you go. That was it. On with life and the next pillow birthday for the next sibling in a few weeks or a month or...

So now social media provides a little tweak of familiarity for me. I appreciate the Facebook initiated greetings which come my way - each a window on a relationship which is a reassurance of connectedness with people who have been there and still consider it worth their time to "pass the peace" even if it was only the computer which provided the reminder. It's so easy, and so special - a bit like a momentary sit on the pillow! 

It is this ordinariness, this valuing of simple almost non-celebration which leads me to a new insight - and it could well be a spiritual discovery in this new modernity. 😀 I admit I am even slightly extra touched by the handful of greetings beginning with "Happy Belated" or "Sorry this is late but ..."  These have been the occasion of quite the tender exchanges. My inner being immediately gets it. Somebody is before me in genuine transparent desire, actually facing themselves or facing me with the greeting even though 'the big day' just slipped by. Special prize to my youngest son, totally in character, on the day after, on my cell while I'm driving, "Sorry a day late dad, but happy birthday." Very readily this dad will pull into nearest available parking lot and receive full dose of that blessing. 😚

Hey, my latest birthday was only the day that made it a complete number of years since my birth, and now we're moving along. And thanks for moving along with me even in the 365 minus 2 or 3 until it comes again - if I'm still around.

I think it is thanks to my large family's simple beginnings that now in the twilight the simple greeting here or there is a blessing beyond compare. Thank you all for the birthday wishes. They mean the world to me!

Learning to Lose

I thought I became a considerable gentleman last year about this time. I posted my gratitude for NHL Stanley Cup playoffs, sufficient coronavirus adjustments made to provide abbreviated playoff format so the fan-base could be at least partially accommodated. I now recall congratulating coach Travis Green and the Vancouver Canucks being the only Canadian team to even qualify for playoffs. In my mind they did us proud, but lost to those millionaire upstarts, Vegas Golden Knights from that Sin City down there in Nevada! Then the VGK (chuckle) lost next round to the Dallas Stars who then lost to the likeable Jon Cooper and the Tampa Bay Lightning to win Lord Stanley’s mug. All was somewhat well in my mind. I got to watch playoff hockey during Coronavirus which would be over soon.

That was last year. Here we are at end of first round playoffs 2021. Coronavirus still doing its thing and one whole slightly abbreviated season played in front of tarpaulin covered empty seats with fans all over U.S. and Canada relegated to family rooms and dens in front of televisions. [What a loss of revenue. I marvel at the reserve funds available somewhere to even attempt this. Money not being my specialty nor favorite topic, I cannot even visualize the billions $$ professional sport industry. It's big]. Evenso, some things still the same! Toronto last night exits first round, losing game seven to arch rivals Montreal Canadiens who almost didn’t make playoffs. And, Edmonton already golfing, got ushered out four straight by Winnipeg, Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl notwithstanding. Round two, here we go. This ‘true North strong and free’ Canadian division renamed Scotia North by the business tycoons still trying to make money in Corona time. I guess that’s also still the same. Another thing the same? It’s still our game even with a new division title sounding like a bank. And I am assured there will be at least one Canadian team, Winnipeg or Montreal, going to next round!😔

At this point this year my thinker (yes!) into heavy further reflection about the great courtesy I exuded last year. I am of similar attitude this year. Yes I am. I confessed a bit on Facebook that I was a poor loser when Oilers were busy doing exactly that, but now it is becoming obvious I’m actually pretty good at it. Take Toronto for instance. I’m learning from the fans.  They are more experienced on said subject than the current coaches and players. They’ve been doing it for years. There is even a funeral joke where it was said family of the deceased should have asked for pallbearers from the Maple Leafs. They could have let him down one more time. 😏 As I watched the sad faces of longtime pros like Joe Thornton, Mitch Marner and wannabe superstar Austin Matthews, I realize I have something to say to them. “It’s only a game, boys.” Thornton can tell stories about “almost” to his grandkids, and Matthews can go with his millions of dollars and start training for next season together with his Edmonton buddy Connor McDavid. It’s as old as ---- snow, this hockey! 

My brothers and sisters and I, we all cheered for Gordie Howe and the Detroit Red Wings; dad for the Toronto Maple Leafs. Yup, Leafs already in existence way back there, dad’s team would win an occasional Stanley Cup – last one 1967 (Wikipedia gets credit for that detail). We’d listen to Foster Hewitt Saturday night during bath time, alongside dad describing the moves he made when he was a young guy playing for the Embury Beavers. We believed him. He was probably just as good as his favorite Leaf, Frank Mahovlich. Then we got TV, 19” black and white.  By now we watched only when we weren’t playing the game ourselves, either on our homemade farmyard outdoors rink, or in nearby small-town arenas, occasionally even with NHL scouts in attendance – not to watch me, but one of my younger brothers and a couple others. Hockey was good back there!

Exciting, all this hockey. In fact I cannot easily remember whether my team was a winning or losing team. As far as I knew we were winning because we had a heck of a good time playing the game. So, looking ahead to this 2021 remainder of playoff bracket I’m rooting for Winnipeg – all the way to Stanley Cup. After all, their General Manager Kevin Cheveldayoff, comes from Blaine Lake, SK, just up the road from where I grew up, and maybe as a kid (yup I’m even older than him) he or his dad saw us playing hockey on that rink on that farm beside the highway. It’s just a game, boys. And boy, is it ever! 

Maybe, just maybe (I doubt it) the Jets will win the Stanley Cup this year. And us Canadians, or Scotia North fans will be ever so proud.

 

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.