Seven years ago in an editorial for this magazine, I quoted the following passage from Prof. Reg Bibby’s then latest book, Restless Churches. “I am convinced,” he wrote, “that the resources and the will exist for ministry to take place that touches people who are not actively involved in the nation’s churches. … What is required, however, is a clear-cut strategy that is informed by sound research and sound congregational input.”
Dear Lord,
this bread you break and offer
to my greedy body
Serves only to swell already bursting cells,
Excite demand for after-worship brunch:
“all you can eat.”
Religion began both East and West long before the Hebrews appeared. Before their covenant and law, myth-and-ritual emerged around the globe with evolving humanity. In Mediterranean lands the great mysteries arose, with liturgy and sacraments and union with the god (the books of Ephesians and Colossians have them in mind: Christianity is the true Mystery). Then came a different sort of faith, a response to certain traumatic events in the life of the patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. The call of Abraham to leave home and journey to the promised land becomes a metaphor for three religions: Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Abraham’s sons Ishmael and Isaac feature in the drama in which God made covenant promises that both should beget many faithful children, and father great nations. (You can read all about it in Genesis 15-18).
May 10, Fifth Sunday of Easter
John 15:1-8
Let every one of us stay in his own parish, where he will discover more useful work than in all the making of pilgrimages, even if they were all combined into one. Here, at home, you will find baptism, sacrament, preaching, and your neighbour; these are more important to you than all the saints in heaven. — Martin Luther
When Jesus talks about a vineyard, what do we see? Acres of neatly tended vines in the Okanagan? Compact and tidy plantings in the Annapolis Valley? Jesus knew tiny and densely planted vineyards, bounded by high stone walls. Vines growing low, spreading out, tangled.
Living Faith declares the mission of the Presbyterian Church is to recognize and act on the truth: “As God sent Christ to us, so Christ sends us into the world. We are here to proclaim Christ in word and deed.” It goes on to say that mission is evangelism, the offer of salvation to all people in the power of the Holy Spirit, to be received through faith in Christ.
The question we all need to ask as Presbyterians is: How are we doing? According to the statistics printed in the Acts and Proceedings of the General Assembly, every year there are fewer people being baptised and fewer new members. These are the signs of people making a faith commitment. The stats can be interpreted to mean that we are doing a poor job of fulfilling our mission of getting the word out. I know there are those, even amongst ministers, who in spite of what the Bible and our confessions teach, feel that people don’t need to actually confess their need for salvation in Christ. They think that Jesus will save everyone.
For those of you who live in milder climes, the news of spring may not be so special. But for most of us real Canadians, it is glad tidings as good as the safe delivery of a newborn child. You suddenly feel the energy to clean the mess left in the middle of your garden conveniently covered by snow. You continue planning the gardening, cleaning up inside and outside the house, changing a few appliances, repairing leaky taps and pipes, and maybe putting a new floor (oh, but, you have to wait till there is new paint on the walls). As the list gets longer, your house gets more life in it. Why not a new kitchen and new bathrooms? Maybe you should renovate the whole house. Oh well, you should move to another house this year. You have waited long enough and you deserve it. So you grab the newspaper. Alas! Headlines remind you of what you have forgotten. We are in the midst of the worst recession in decades.
When I graduated from seminary, my first pastoral assignment included chaplaincy service on the children's ward of a local hospital. There, on a weekly basis, I encountered the pain and sorrow of families struggling with seriously ill, sometimes dying, children. Often I sat with parents whose questions were poignant and painful: “Why?” “How could God allow this to happen to us?”
As a young minister, I soon realized that the usual theological answers were anemic. The mystery of evil, the reality of suffering, and for many, the absence of God, can be overwhelming.
Icebergs are about 90 per cent underwater. Among other things, this means it takes considerable effort to change their course. Because these facts are commonly known, people who help organizations change direction sometimes describe the resistance and other pressures an organization may expect as the “change management iceberg.”
The change management iceberg identifies the “underwater” promoters and opponents of change, and describes other pressures that will be applied beneath the surface of the organization, so to speak, to the visible, articulated vision of the leadership.
April 12, Easter Day: First read John 20:1-10
Before the break of another day without Jesus, Mary went to the tomb. Darkness gave cover for a woman alone, and a known associate of an executed criminal. Why did she go?
She probably didn't even know, herself. Why would you go? Why do we go to the funeral home, and stand by the casket? Why do we go back to the cemetery, after the grave has been filled in, before it's all neat and level and green? Because we need to know it's really true. That big, round stone, rolled over the opening of the tomb and sealed with wax, would prove to Mary that Jesus was really dead and gone.
Pyramid, Great Wall, Roman Colosseum, Machu Picchu, Angkor Wat of Cambodia, Petra of Jordan, Chichen Itza, Teotihuacan of Mexico, and more. Do any of these names sound familiar to you? These ancient structures are amongst those listed by the BBC as the 50 places you must visit before you die. They are truly incredible. It is hard to even imagine how these structures were built without any modern equipment.
It's all about relationships.
March 1, 2009 (Lent 1): Genesis 9:8-17
Christians have wasted a lot of time arguing over supposed scientific proofs that stories like Noah's really happened. Whether or not they are factual by our measure, such stories are true. They communicate greater truth than anything we can prove.
Noah's story echoes other ancient stories. So, maybe, something happened thousands of years ago that wiped out the only world some people knew, in what is now Iraq and Syria. Maybe Noah's story answers the how and the why of a rainy-season flood of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers. Sudden climatic changes and extremes are nothing new. Noah's story, from the first time it was told, has invited people to look up from their everyday lives and see something of the mystery of God's ways with the world.
It tells us that, a long time ago, God voluntarily disarmed. No truce. Absolute surrender. Noah's story tells us that the violence humanity made on earth broke God's heart. In agony, God said, “I'm sorry I created any of them. I wish I hadn't made this world!” (Genesis 6:5-13) God chose the way of violence, to end human violence. And when God saw the results, God repented. God told Noah, “I've hung up my bow, and I'll never take it down again. Whenever I see it, I'll remember my promise.”
“So, what do you do during weekdays?” He looked at me with a mix of curiosity and sympathy as he threw this question. He was new in town, opening a retail business and I was on my visitation – a kind of welcoming visit as the pastor. Obviously he was not a Christian.
Both religion and science begin with a kind of faith: the scientist's belief in an orderly universe is like religious trust. Einstein made this clear: “I assert that the cosmic religious experience is the strongest and the noblest driving force behind scientific research. … The basis of all scientific work is the conviction that the world is an ordered and comprehensive entity, which is a religious sentiment.” This relates to the “intuition” Einstein credits with being a formative influence on his development of the relativity theories. So: science must assume order but cannot explain where it came from. If a scientist tries, he becomes a philosopher – or theologian!
I wish there were more liberals in the church and in the world! I don't mean that I wish there were more left-wing fundamentalists, who sometimes call themselves liberals, but true liberals. Liberals are those who are generous in spirit towards others. Originally it came from the Latin word liberalis which inferred that it was something suitable for a freeman. In other words there is a sense in which not only does the person exercise his freedom, but also respects the right of others to choose or to act freely according to their conscience within certain limits of civility. Each organization needs to determine the limits of its liberality. The amount of latitude given will depend on how the organization defines its identity. Presbyterians, for example, have decided to be identified as a people under the authority of God's word as given to us in holy scripture and as defined by the creeds and reformed statements of faith called 'confessions'. There are some who resent us for this, but this is our heritage, and we believe that it has ongoing value for us in guiding us to fullness of living.
When Henri Nouwen's book The Wounded Healer was published in 1979, it was met with a resounding “Yes!” from many clergy and candidates for ordination because it spoke to their conviction that they were not meant to be authorities dispensing doctrine and dogma but spiritual guides with deep empathy for their fellow wanderers in the faith journey.
February 15: Sixth Sunday after Epiphany
1 Corinthians 9:24-27
Every year, people gather in Halifax to run the Bluenose Marathon. Each runner receives an attractive shirt of that wonderful fabric that makes perspiration disappear into the ether. I'd love to have one of those shirts. And I can. A couple of weeks after the race I can go to the thrift shop and buy a Bluenose Marathon shirt. It might be last year's, but it's still real. I could put one on and look like a marathon runner! Who would know I wasn't? (I couldn't have run, anyway. I was in church during the race.)
It's easy to look like you're running the race. I have a (plain) shirt, shorts, and shoes. But not the legs or the lungs. Paul isn't sure the Corinthians have the legs or the lungs for the marathon of discipleship. Paul tries to tempt the fickle, competitive Corinthians to imagine the Christian run is a one-race-one-winner affair.
As soon as we finished our Christmas celebration, we were, once again, bombarded with the news of wars – towns ruined, innocent civilians killed and children injured. Although peace has been on our most wanted list since the beginning of humanity, it seems almost impossible to have it come true in our own generation. War once again steps into our reality with such force that it mocks us and totally defies our efforts for peace. It is so frustrating to witness tragedy sweeping the region with such horrifying brutality and insensitivity that it angers us.
For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we shall see face to face.- 1 Corinthians 13:12
The doctrine of the Trinity is, of course, notoriously difficult. But it's also central to Christian faith. One theologian puts it this way: “Those who deny the Trinity may lose their souls, but those who try to explain it may lose their minds.”
According to the late Scottish Reformed theologian T.F. Torrance, the doctrine of the Trinity “is the innermost heart of the Christian faith, the central dogma of classical theology, the fundamental grammar of our knowledge of God.”
Welcome to the 133rd year of publication of the Presbyterian Record. It's still fall as I write this – despite the snow – but we already have a full line-up of stories and features for 2009 – not to mention covering the news as it happens.