The Itch

Recently I signed up for a daily reading of the writings of C.S. Lewis.  I have never read any of the works of Lewis, except for "The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe," but I know many people who love his writing, so I decided that I needed to experience some of it.  Although his theology doesn't always match mine, he has a beautiful way of writing, making complex ideas simple.

Recently I read the following passage, which is from "Perelandra," which is the second book of a space trilogy that Lewis wrote.

"He had always disliked the people who encored a favourite air in the opera - "That just spoils it" had been his comment.  But this now appeared to him as a principle of far wider application and deeper moment.  This itch to have things over again, as if life were a film that could be unrolled twice or even made to work backwards...was it possibly the root of all evil?  No: of course the love of money was called that.  But money itself-perhaps one valued it chiefly as a defence against chance, a security for being able to have things over again, a means of arresting the unrolling of the film."

We are creatures of habit.  We like security and stability.  We like to know we have a regular paycheque, a home to land, three meals a day, and family and friends to be our companions on the way.  I think C.S. Lewis goes one step further in this story though, to say that many like to repeat the best parts of their lives.  They want things to be the same and they are afraid to risk new ideas, as it will take away that security of knowing, knowing what's coming, knowing how it's always been done and what has always worked, even if maybe it's not working so well or maybe not working for as many.

If we could "encore" the best moments of our life, go back and repeat those times, would we "spoil" them?  Would we appreciate those moments as much the second time?  Maybe our memories of those moments have become more perfect than what they really were.  Our experiences change us.  We are never the same person.  As we change, and the world changes around us, it doesn't make sense to go backwards expecting the same.  It will all be different.

When I experience at itch to have things over again, I hesitate.  Why am I longing for a moment in the past?  Is there something missing in my present?  Am I grieving a change in my current circumstances?  Am I unhappy with how things are moving forward?  Am I able to embrace what's coming or do I need to bow out gracefully?  I don't believe in change for the sake of change or always throwing out the old in favour of the new, but I also don't think we can go back or live in the past.  I guess I'm advocating for living in the present.

May you appreciate your past experiences without wanting to relive them.  May you have the strength and courage to move forward into the unknown future.  May you live for today and live in the moment.  Amen.

Wherever You May Go

Veronica McDonald - Writer/Artist

            I love the way the biblical book of Ruth begins:  “In the days when the judges ruled…”  It’s like the start of a fairy tale.  Ruth's words in the first chapter of this book are probably some of the most well known from scripture.   “ Where you go, I will go; where you lodge, I will lodge.” They are used in songs and at weddings, and, in general, those places where we talk of friendship and loyalty, companionship and lifelong vows. 

            When was that time when the judges ruled?  If you know some of the sequence of the stories in the bible, it occurs after Moses led his people out of slavery in Egypt, after their journey through the desert, and after Joshua’s conquest into Canaan.  It was during a time when Israelite people were settling into a new land.  There were a number of people who rose up among the Israelites to be leaders and guides, such people as Gideon, Deborah, Jephthah, and Samson.  They were called judges.  It was before the time of monarchs and kings.  These were the days when the judges ruled. 

            The passage tells us of a famine in the land and about a man who lived in Bethlehem whose family was struggling to live, which, if you know Hebrew, would sound ironic, as Bethlehem literally means “house of bread.”  This man, Elimelech, decides to move his wife and two sons to the country of Moab.  Recorded in the biblical book of Joshua and Judges, are many battles between the Israelites and their neighbours and in other passages in the bible there are many slights against  Moabites.  Moab was one of the many neighbours with whom the Israelites constantly fought.  The people of Moab had different customs, they worshipped other gods, they were the enemy, but in order to survive, this family moves to Moab to find food and work. 

            What I imagine is that they weren’t the only ones and these refugees probably found each other, lived close to one another, and learned to survive in a hostile environment.  Similar, to refugees today who find their homes in Canada or the U.S.  Unfortunately, while there, Elimelech dies.  His wife, Naomi, as a widow in a foreign land would have been left in a very vulnerable position.  This was a time when women did not live on their own, and always had a man as head of the household.  It seems that Naomi’s two sons were old enough to be married, and maybe they weren’t yet because it had been hoped that they would return home and find appropriate women to wed, in other words, not Moabite women.  At this point though there was no choice but to find them brides, women who would support the household and birth sons to carry on the family name.  But where do you find families in a hostile land that would even think about marrying off their daughters to foreigners?  

            Enter Orpah and Ruth.  The reading doesn’t say how these marriages came to be, but, later there is a reference made to them returning to their mother’s house.  It’s possible that Orpah and Naomi lived in homes with no fathers or other men to support them, and therefore, were also desperate to secure a marriage in order to survive.

            Orpah and Ruth married Naomi’s sons, moved in with them and their mother and lived in this household and possibly this small community of Israelite people and would have learned new customs and taken on the traditions of their husband.

            Orpah and Ruth lived this way for ten years.  We get no hint of what it would have been like for them, so we take an educated guess.  We imagine these two Moabite women living among Israelite people, who saw them as foreign, and as their enemy.  We imagine their husbands may have had to defend their wives from the insults and injuries of neighbours.  We imagine that Orpah and Ruth may have even found hostility around people who used to be their friends, because they were now associated with people they disliked.

            After ten years though, the unthinkable happens again to Naomi.  Both of Naomi’s sons die.  Orpah and Ruth are left as widows.  They are now three women, with no men to support them.  Naomi, whose name means, “pleasant”, must have felt very bitter towards a God she felt had forgotten or betrayed her. 

            Naomi then gets word that things have improved in her homeland.  The famine is over.  She decides to return home.  The plan is that she, Orpah, and Ruth would travel together, but then Naomi reconsiders.  Naomi is going back home, destitute.  She has no husband, no sons, no grandsons.  A woman on her own, a woman who has had everything taken from her, is no company for these two young women.  She probably imagined life for these two Moabite women  would be similar to her own experience as a foreigner in a hostile land.  Although she may have loved them like they were her own daughters, she knew it was unfair to bring them with her.  She tells them both, “Go back each of you to your mother’s house.  May the Lord deal kindly with you, as you have dealt with the dead and with me.  The Lord grant that you may find security, each of you in the house of your husband.”  In other words, go, start a new life, and find a new husband.

            Of course, they both refuse.  This is not the custom.  They would not allow Naomi to carry on by herself.  Naomi was probably travelling with other Israelite people who were also returning to their home, so she would not have been travelling alone, but she literally had no one left in her family, except for these two foreign daughters-in-law.  But Naomi would have none of this.  She knows that people must look at her as a pariah, as someone cursed, maybe even someone being punished by God for her sins, whatever they might be.  She again encourages them to return home.

            This time Orpah does.  And no one can blame her.  It will not be easy for her.  She will go back to the same situation she was in ten years ago, living with her mother, desperate for a husband, but she might hope to return to old relationships, to her own traditions, and to a life she missed.  Going with Naomi, to a foreign land, with no husband to protect her, could have meant certain misery and even death.  She kisses her mother-in-law and returns home.

            Imagine Naomi’s surprise when Ruth refuses.  This young Moabite woman with many child-bearing years left to her clings to her mother-in-law and refuses to go.  With beautiful, poetic words, she says,

“Do not press me to leave you

    or to turn back from following you!

Where you go, I will go;

    where you lodge, I will lodge;

your people shall be my people,

    and your God my God.

Where you die, I will die—

    there will I be buried.

May the Lord do thus and so to me,

    and more as well,

if even death parts me from you!”

            Ruth has lived ten years with these Israelites.  She has taken on their customs.  She has learned their ways.  For her, going back was not an option.  She loved her mother-in-law and would not abandon her, even if it meant leaving all that was familiar and safe to go to a land where she would be hated.  She risked it all to be with Naomi, to be with Naomi’s people, and to follow Naomi’s God.  

            Rob Bell, a preacher from the states, said in a recent podcast that the Spirit often takes us to new places and new spaces, when you’re listening, when you’re growing, when you’re up for it, when you’re open and these places might be geographical, spiritual, social, psychic, cultural. Sometimes life events have caused us to see things in a new way, or sometimes we are just at a time in our lives when we are open and ready to go to a new place and space,.  Sometimes you just have this sense that there is this journey to go on.

            The Spirit was taking Ruth into a new place and a new space and she was ready.  Yes, Ruth was loyal to Naomi, but Ruth, unlike Orpah, was ready to enter into a journey, a new direction.  Whatever it was that brought her to this point, she was ready to let the Spirit take her into a foreign land, without any kind of protection from the hate and hostility she might experience when she got there or from the meagre existence her and her mother-in-law would have to live as they depended upon charity and the goodwill of others.  She was willing to risk going where this new God of her husband’s was taking her.

            I find this to be one of the most courageous stories in our bible.  Ruth’s ability to risk and be courageous continues throughout the story and I commend it to your reading.  She’s an amazing example of resilience and having the courage to begin anew.

            It’s a story that needs to be shared in our society, a story to help us realize that foreigners are not so different from us, that an immigrant from a country we distrust might actually be the hero, that even poor widows, with different customs and habits can bring much goodness, as we see Ruth marrying Boaz, kindred of Naomi, and becoming the great-grand daughter of the beloved great king of Hebrew Scriptures, King David, the descendant of our saviour Jesus. 

            It’s a story that can inspire us as individuals.  We all encounter times when, because of hardship, we might become bitter like Naomi or we might turn back like Orpah.  We might wonder if God has it out for us or if God even exists based on the absence of all things good.  Ruth though clings to what she has left, Naomi, and decides to trust the Spirit to take her where she needs to go. 

            It’s also a story for our church.  Where is the Spirit leading us?  Is it time to leave what we’ve been used to and go into the unknown?  Are we ready and willing to trust the Spirit to take us to a new place, a new space?

            Change is painful.  Naomi, Ruth, and Orpah all experienced the pain of leaving home, of being hated for where they were born, the loss of loved ones, the act of leaving behind all they knew and loved.  They would have grieved.  They each said goodbye too many times. 

            It’s so difficult to make such life changes when you’re in the midst of such suffering, but that’s usually when it happens, isn’t it?  When all things are well and going smoothy, we don’t have any impetus to make changes.  It’s those times of loss and disruption when we have to make major life decisions, on a personal level, but sometimes at a corporate level, for instance, when a church says goodbye to their well-loved minister. 

            During those times, when big decisions have to be made, find what you need to cling to.  For Ruth, it was Naomi.  You might have a loved like that, you might cling to your faith and to God.  You might cling to a favourite book or song.  Whatever it is, find what brings you comfort and assurance and just hang on, because the ride will be a bumpy one.

            May God be with you as you journey onto new paths.  May Christ be your guide as you learn to risk and as you practice courage.  May the Spirit bring you comfort as you leave behind your grief and enter into those new places and spaces.  May it be so.  Amen

Imagine

The following is adapted from a sermon I preached at Delhi United Church for Erie Presbytery on October 21 and again on October 28 at Appleby United Church in Burlington.  It is based on two pieces of scripture: Luke 24:13-31 and a Letter to the Hebrews 11:32-12:3.

Imagine you and a friend walking to church one day and you come across someone who is also on the way to the to church.  The three of you chat about the weather, the results of yesterday’s game, the price of gas, and then you say, “Can you believe what’s happening with these remits and how everything is going to change on January 1?!”  Your friend totally agrees with you and you also talk about how the church is changing so fast and that people aren’t coming to church and how much churches are struggling.   The person you met along the way looks at you both blankly.  “The church is changing? We’re struggling?  What’s a remit?"

For those who are active participants in the United Church, for three years we have lived with words like remits, three courts, national assessments, and for many more years, words like stewardship, amalgamation, ecumenism.  These words have been a part of the United church as it determines its future, as it strives to continue being the gospel, the good news, of Christ in today’s world.  Some will say that what we’ve been doing has absolutely nothing to do with the gospel, but others have hope that it’s actually making room for it.  

So to this person you’ve met on the road, who has no idea what you’re talking about, you ask, “Are you the only one in the United Church who does not know the things that have taken place there in these days?”  (By now, you may have noticed the similarities to the resurrection story from the gospel of Luke of the disciples on the way to Emmaus: Luke 24:13-31) You then you proceed to tell this person about the remits, about churches closing, about hockey on Sunday mornings, about the aging of the church, fewer people in the pews, scarcity of money and volunteers and ministers, and the fear that permeates the church.  And you tell this with an urgency in your voice and a gripping of your heart because you share in that fear.This person then looks at you and your friend with sympathy and proceeds to tell you the good news of scripture that you are missing: loving your neighbour, loving the stranger, liberation, abundance, the questions and the struggle, inclusion and acceptance, healing, forgiveness, mercy, justice, reminding both of you that through every season, through times of trouble and fear, in times of grief and loss, this good news is always with us, waiting to enter into our lives, waiting for us to open up and let go, surrender.  

This is a lot for you and your friend to absorb.  You’re very silent for the remainder of the walk.  As you all arrive at the church, you notice that there’s a breakfast and that people are sitting and sharing a meal together, so you invite this stranger to sit with you.  I think you can guess what happens next.  Bread is broken.  Pancakes are served.  Coffee is drunk in abundance.  Children finish quickly and run around the tables.  There is conversation and laughter and stories shared.  

Then, suddenly, your eyes are opened.  You’re able to see past the remits, the motions, beyond the reports and budgets.  Here it is.  God’s kingdom.  In the breaking of bread, you experience the good news, you’re able to let go and open up to Christ.  Just as quickly, that feeling is gone, but you know it was there, you know what you felt, and you know you will find it again.  

If we want to make room for the new, we need to do some letting go, which I think is one of the most difficult tasks we do.  Our grasps are tight when it comes to what we are used to.  We like consistency, stability, continuity.  It makes us feel safe and secure, but we know that the only consistency in life is change.  We are constantly grieving losses: friends move away, jobs change, children grow up, people become ill and sometimes die, and for goodness sake, people introduce new hymns in church, young people are always on their phones, people blog and tweet, and Canada has legalized cannabis!  What is the world coming to?  

How can we expect to let go of so much, and so fast?  People didn’t used to have to give up so much at once, and so quickly.  I read recently that if you take all the information that human beings had up until the year 1900 and called it one unit, that unit now doubles every ten years!  No wonder there’s so much anxiety and confusion.  

But before we can let go, before we can loosen that grasp, we need rituals of coming together and celebrating what has gone before, remembering the good and the bad, sharing those moments that have meant so much to us.  We remember our roots, we share our history through stories of laughter and hardship.  We celebrate what has gone before while at the same time celebrating our present and anticipating our future.

In Marcus Borg’s book, Evolution of the Word, he describes the "Letter to the Hebrews" as a letter written to second generation Christians who had been experiencing suffering and persecution.  Some had been considering abandoning this new faith and maybe some had.  It was probably a community of Jewish Christians as the author includes many references to the Hebrew Scriptures.  

First of all, I need to say, that this audience is not like us.  These were first century people under the rule of the Roman Empire.  They were a people persecuted for their faith.  They did not have the privilege that we live with today.  So we need to hear these words, knowing the context, but we can still learn from the wisdom in these words.  It doesn’t mean that we can’t connect, in some ways, with a people who, like us, experienced suffering, pain and grief.  

The author of this letter names people from their faith tradition, those that had accomplished so much by faith, starting with Abel and continuing with Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, and even mentioning one woman, the prostitute Rahab.  He writes that there are many more he could name but he doesn’t have the time.  I’m going to read one of my favourite parts of this passage, because its so descriptive and colourful.  He tells of people:

33 who through faith conquered kingdoms, administered justice, obtained promises, shut the mouths of lions, 34 quenched raging fire, escaped the edge of the sword, won strength out of weakness, became mighty in war, put foreign armies to flight. 35 Women received their dead by resurrection. Others were tortured, refusing to accept release, in order to obtain a better resurrection. 36 Others suffered mocking and flogging, and even chains and imprisonment. 37 They were stoned to death, they were sawn in two, they were killed by the sword; they went about in skins of sheep and goats, destitute, persecuted, tormented— 38 of whom the world was not worthy. They wandered in deserts and mountains, and in caves and holes in the ground.

And that faithful cloud of witnesses continued and continues to this day.  I could mention many, like Joan of Arc or Joan of Norwich, Dorothy Day, or Martin Luther King Jr. or Mother Teresa, all people who lived their faith.  I know there are names that could be named from within your own community, names that will not be remembered in our history books but names that are imprinted in our hearts of those who lived their faith.  Take a moment to remember those faces of people who served their church, who fed those who were hungry, who spoke out against injustice, who humbly, with very little fuss, served the needs of their community.  This is your cloud of witnesses.

Remember the stranger you imagined earlier, the one with whom you walked and shared a meal?  Do you remember the message that stranger shared with you from scripture about loving your neighbour, loving the stranger, liberation, abundance, the questions and the struggle, inclusion and acceptance, healing, forgiveness, mercy, justice, reminding you that through every season, through times of trouble and fear, in times of grief and loss, this good news is always with us, waiting to enter into our lives, waiting for us to open up and let go?  In these words, I hear hope.  I hear hope for a church that is not about creeds and beliefs but about love and compassion, mercy and justice.  I see hope in the people of our church, those Jesus followers who want to be out in the world healing, being an ally, walking with, actively listening, and offering unconditional love to a broken world.  I feel hope when we gather to sing, when we share and listen to our stories, and when we break bread together.  Do you feel it?  Are you ready to let go?  Are you ready to open up your heart, mind, body, and soul to wherever it is God is leading?  It’s going to take patience.  It’s going to take times of prayer and contemplation.  It’s going to take some courage.  If you’re ready, I’m ready to join you.  

May God be our guide.  May Christ be our companion on the way.  May the Spirit push when we need a push.  Thanks be to God. 

Let Anyone With Ears to Hear, Listen

When I was a student minister, my children were very small. My oldest was only three when I started and there were times when he didn’t want to leave my side. One time, a person from the congregation told me that having my son at my side while I was leading worship was distracting for people and that it would be better if I didn't allow it to happen.

Let anyone with ears to hear, listen.

In Saskatchewan, November 11th is a holiday. In most communities, a worship service is held at the local Legion. In the community I served as minister, the leaders of the four local churches were invited to plan and lead worship together. This particular year, I was not preaching. I was doing a prayer. It was the year a very bad virus was going around, and unfortunately, both of my sons came down with it at the same time. I don’t remember where my husband was, but he was away somewhere, and, with no family in the area, I needed to stay home and care for my children. I let one of the other minsters know, sent him the prayer I had written, and he announced, at the service, the reason for my absence. Later I found out that people in the community, especially those in the church I served, had not approved of my absence from the Remembrance Day service, for whatever the reason.

Let anyone with ears to hear, listen.

I have seen children criticized for being too noisy in church, people given dirty looks

for not “being appropriate” in church, strangers criticized for not coming to church, and new volunteers admonished for not doing something the way it’s always been done. All of this in a church where we are taught to be compassionate and merciful, forgiving, and to love our neighbour. Are church communities more judgmental than most? Is there some truth around the Christian stereotype of self-righteousness, condemnation, and judgment?

Let anyone with ears to hear, listen.

I was at a church this August while I was on vacation where the preacher talked on judgment and how easy it is to do. He talked about the many judgments he made just on his way there (he was a visitor to Oakville). He judged a business and its purpose, he judged other drivers, and he judged people and their cars in the church parking lot. To be clear, he wasn’t saying that all those judgments were bad. We all make judgments on a daily basis. We compare people to our own expectations, our own standards, our own ethical compass. It becomes bad when we aren’t self aware of those judgments we’re making and when we choose to use these judgments in harmful ways, hurting people with our words, or our body language, gossiping about others, making people feel small and ashamed for something they did or for even who they are.

Let anyone with ears to hear, listen.

Cary Nieuwhof is a blogger, known for the lists he creates and I happened to find one on judgment: “Five Ways JudgmentalChristians are Killing Your Church.” He writes about how some Christians will justify the judgments they make as truth telling. Who else is going to stand up and tell the truth?

Nieuwhof writes, “Yet in Jesus, grace and truth are perfectly fused. Remove grace from the truth and you don’t actually have truth at all, but a cold, steely imitation…The opposite is also true, of course. Remove truth from grace and you don’t have grace, but a spineless imitation….But when you see grace and truth fused, it takes your breath away. Why did people travel for days on foot in extreme conditions to meet Jesus? Grace fused to truth is what our hearts most deeply long for.”

So the five wonderful things, he listed, with which judgment is incompatible are:

·      Love: The presence of judgment almost always guarantees an absence of love.

·      Help: Ever notice that people who judge almost never help and people who help almost never judge?

·      Humility: Judgment is grounded in arrogance.

·      Prayer: It’s impossible to judge someone and truly pray for them at the same time.

·      Evangelism: If you want to kill evangelism at your church, fill your church with judgmental Christians. In fact, people will run from you.

Let anyone with ears to hear, listen.

In the seventh chapter of the gospel of Mark, Pharisees and scribes are gathered around Jesus, and guess what? They want to know why his disciples don’t wash their hands before they handle the food they eat. They don’t ask Jesus about his healing ministry. They don’t ask him what his disciples are learning from him. They don’t ask him to share his wisdom with them. No. They ask Jesus why he lets his disciples get away with breaking the rules, their tradition.

I can imagine Jesus shaking his head. His disciples and he are on the road, every day, announcing the arrival of God’s kingdom, healing people, teaching people, and these church leaders ask why his disciples don’t wash their hands. He tells these people who are very knowledgeable about their scripture, that the prophet Isaiah was right when he spoke for God, saying, “This people honours me with their lips but their hearts are far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching human precepts as doctrine.” Where are the hearts of these Pharisees and scribes? Are they really concerned with God’s kingdom and with the people of Israel or are they more concerned that people are following the rules.

Let anyone with ears to hear, listen.

I find it fascinating that this passage is immediately followed by the story of the Syrophoenician woman. You may know it. A woman, a foreigner, approaches Jesus to heal her daughter. Jesus basically tells her that he is there to serve his own people and that it’s not right to give away his gifts before his own people are served. In fact, he says to her that the children need to be served before the dogs. This does not sound like the Jesus we know. Some believe he may have been testing this woman. But maybe Jesus also held some judgment. As a Jewish man, he may have balked at the idea of this foreign woman approaching him and asking for help. But he is also an enlightened man and is open to critique of his actions when the woman says that that even the dogs under the table get the crumbs of the children. Her daughter is healed.

Let anyone with ears to hear, listen.

Let anyone with ears to hear, listen. If you were to look in your bibles right now, at this passage from Mark, you might find a missing verse. If you look closely, it jumps from verse 15 to verse 17. Why? Sometimes ancient manuscripts don’t match up. So there are different versions of Mark’s gospel that have been discovered and sometimes this verse is present and sometimes its not. Some have deduced that it was added later. Remember, copies of scripture would have all been hand written until the 1600’s. Sometimes scribes made mistakes and sometimes scribes took initiative. Verse 16, “Let anyone with ears to hear, listen,” was a common phrase of the time and some think it’s possible that a scribe added it later.

But when I hear this verse, I hear the voice of Jesus. It’s reminds me of a word we use today, “Woke,” which describes people who might be waking up to the way the world works.  Jesus often talked metaphorically about one’s eyes and ears being opened.

General Council is the national body of the United Church and they meet every three years to make major decisions for the church. They met this summer in Oshawa. If you are involved with the wider church or read The Observer, I’m sure you will hear soon about the afternoon of the last day of that meeting. On this afternoon, the issue of racism in the church came up. This was followed by an invitation by the moderator, Jordan Cantwell, for people to share their stories of racism, and she asked that all white people not come to the microphone, to sit and to listen. They all sat, and for almost two hours listened to people who are a minority in our church, those who are not white. It was a powerful moment in this church and you will be hearing more about it.

Let anyone with ears to hear, listen.

In a letter from James, in our bibles, from the first chapter, you will read, “You must understand this, my beloved, let everyone be quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to anger; for your anger does not produce God’s righteousness…Be doers of the word, and not merely hearers who deceive themselves….If any think they are religious, and do not bridle their tongues but deceive their hearts, their religion is worthless.”

That last line feels harsh, but it’s true. If we cannot learn to be quick to listen and bridle our tongues, if we cannot open our eyes and our ears and be slow to speak, if we cannot bring truth and grace together, our religion is worthless. As a part of our religion, we, as Christians need to share love, help, humility, and prayer so that others will know that we are truly followers of Christ and will feel the love of Christ. People may not be so quick to run from us, may actually find this fusion of truth and grace, and might actually find for what their hearts are longing. May it be so. Amen.