The Joy of Global Christians

We are focussing today on what we might call international or global Christians – those of our number who come from various countries around the world. In truth, all of us can be global or international Christians, if we draw on each other and learn from each other as sisters and brothers in the church around the world.

What is the benefit of being a global Christian? Let me note several very quickly.

1. Start with the obvious. Being part of the global church is just more fun! We sing with Africans and celebrate with Asians and dance with South Americans (actually, we dance with all of them). Who wouldn’t want to be part of the multi-cultural community that we call “the global church”?

I remember the first time I came to Winnipeg. It was in February 1990 in a planning committee for Mennonite World Conference. I lived in Zimbabwe, where it was the middle of the summer, and we met in Winnipeg, where it wasn’t! It was cold. But by the time we met for World Conference it was June, lovely Manitoba summer weather. I remember watching a choir from the Mennonite Church in the Congo – constant movement and wonderful singing. They were followed by a Mennonite choir from the Ukraine – ramrod straight with no movement, and also with wonderful singing.

My wife teaches English, and she tells me that her class full of Russians becomes more like a party when you add a few Colombians. We have often entertained students in our house for meals. In fact, they are the ones who have entertained us. I remember watching a Cuban student teach a young man from Manitoba how to dance. Being in a church that includes Congolese and Ukrainians and Cubans and Manitobans is just more fun than being with only one group!

2. Being a global Christian is also a wonderful growing experience. When we begin to see what people from other countries see, when we begin to understand the lives of people from around the world, we grow. Our minds get bigger. We begin to understand more about life. I have a friend who lives in the same house near Steinbach in which he grew up. He would have a small life, except that he ahs also travelled to South America and to India. Contact with Christian brothers and sisters from around the world has stretched him and made him also a global Christian, even though he has only lived in one house all his life.

I grew up in Zimbabwe when it was a White-run English colony. I had the mind and heart of a White Rhodesian. We moved to the States when I was 15, and I began to see my home country with new eyes. I became close friends with a Black Zimbabwean, who helped me to see what I couldn’t see about my own upbringing. The more broadly we experience the world, the more fully we can understand life.

3. These bring me to the basic reason I love being global Christian. You begin to see God’s love and grace, the fullness of God’s very being, more clearly when you begin to grasp the way that people from different cultures see God.

North Americans see God, who is our friend. A favourite hymn when I was young was, “What a friend we have in Jesus.” Listen to our worship music today and they sound (to me) like a succession of love songs. I love these love songs! I like knowing that Jesus cares for me and provides for me. I am a good North American!

Africans also sing about God’s love. One of my best friends in Zimbabwe loved to sing, “Uphi umhlobo onjengo Jesu; kakho qha! Kakho qha!” There’s not a friend like [the lowly] Jesus; no not one, no not one. But I remember many more songs about power. Africans sing about the power of God and especially the power of the blood of Jesus because they know that we live in a dangerous world – and we need the power of God to survive.

I wonder what Asians like to sing about? We could ask our Korean and Burmese and Indian friends: What hymns do you like the best? What about South Americans? You can ask your friends from Brazil if they like the same hymns as Paraguayans or Bolivians.

The point behind these examples is that our view of God – what we call “theology” – is too limited if we see only with the eyes of our culture. We value friendships; Africans value spiritual power; Asians value the ancestors; South Americans value power and justice. I am oversimplifying, but if you want a better breakdown, get to know your international friends because I’ll tell you something. God meets all of these needs. The gospel of Jesus Christ meets all of our needs in every culture represented here. When you begin to see how God works in Arab countries, you learn a bit more about the gospel. When you discover how God works in Asia, you discover more about the grace and love and power of God.

If you want to see the fullness of God’s glory, you look to what God is doing in every country and culture around the world. John the Revelator describes what we see in a wonderful passage in Revelation 7: 9 to 12:

9 After this I looked, and there was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, robed in white, with palm branches in their hands. 10 They cried out in a loud voice, saying,

“Salvation belongs to our God who is seated on the throne, and to the Lamb!”

11 And all the angels stood around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures, and they fell on their faces before the throne and worshiped God, 12 singing,

“Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our God forever and ever! Amen.”

This morning in our international chapel we get the smallest glimpse of the scene that awaits us in Heaven, when God’s Reign comes in power and glory. All of the blemishes and faults that we experience here will be gone, and we will see each other as those who reflect the glory of God’s salvation. More, we will see the direct glory of God in each other, and we will join the “great multitude that no one could count”, singing God’s praise forever.

Being a global Christian is good! Celebrate the glory of God as we sing together each in our own way.

International Chapel
7 November 2018
Revelation 7: 9 to 12

Culture and the Bible

What is Culture?

Basic Definition: A set of ideas [thoughts, feelings, values] that people in a society carry around in their heads, and which result in social organization and material artifacts. Some images:

• Culture as an iceberg (from Darrell Whiteman's material).
• Culture as a spider web (from Chuck Kraft).
• Culture as an onion (from David Shenk).
• Culture as a map (from Paul Hiebert).

The map image is especially helpful. Maps show us what we need to see in the varied and overwhelming amount of data that we perceive with our senses. A map of Manitoba’s snowmobile trails is similar to, but also quite different from, a road map of Manitoba. Both approximate reality, but they have different concerns. So also with our various cultures.

Stan Nussbaum has described the central set of ideas of American culture in a booklet, The ABCs of American Culture. Here are what he calls the ten commandments of American culture, derived by sifting through a hundred common sayings (proverbs and expressions) in the USA.

• You can’t argue with success (Be a success).
• Live and let live.
• Time flies when you’re having fun (Have lots of fun).
• Shop till you drop.
• Just do it.
• No pain, no gain (Get tough. Don’t whine).
• Enough is enough (Stand up for your rights).
• Time is money (Don’t waste time).
• Rules are made to be broken (Think for yourself).
• God helps those who help themselves (Work hard).

Nussbaum suggests that the first three of these – Be a success; Live and let live [tolerance]; Have fun – act as the core of our cultural mindset, worldview assumptions that guide what we see in the world.

[Paul Hiebert gives a similar, but different, set of worldview assumptions in TransformingWorldviews. My point is not to establish a North American worldview with certainty, but to give a rough idea. It is a truism in cultural studies to observe that we cannot see our own worldview, because we’re using it to see, but when we move to another culture and are faced with the way other people see the world, we begin to be aware of our own assumptions.]

Reading the Bible

We are (I think) well aware that we need to know the cultures of the Bible in order to read the text accurately. The use of Semitic overstatement in Joshua is one of many examples of what we might miss: Not everyone was killed in occupying the land. We need to know their [the Jews’] cultures in order to read their texts. So we have appreciated studies such as Kenneth Bailey’s Poet and Peasant and Through Peasant’s Eyes.

My point here is that we have a similar need to know our own culture in order to read the Bible. As my mentor in my mission studies used to say, “We need to exegete our own cultural context, as well as we exegete the Scriptures.” He meant this especially in terms of application, but I suggest it applies also to hearing the text in the first place.

We need to become aware of our own eyes, our own worldview assumptions, in reading Scripture. Our cultural assumptions act as “confirmation bias” when we read Scripture. We find what we expect to find. The more self-aware we become, the more we are able to hear the Scripture in its own terms.

An Example

I have heard often that in the Letter to the Romans, Paul thinks especially in terms of guilt and innocence as he looks at God’s gift of salvation. For example:

Romans 5: Therefore, since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand; and we boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God. And not only that, but we also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.

We see the beginning statement, “we are justified by faith”, and we automatically read it using a model of the atonement that views the penalty for sin as something paid by God in Jesus on the cross (what we might call a courtroom model). Our culture deals with “guilt” using a courtroom model, but the Jews of Paul’s day – and Paul himself – dealt with guilt often in terms of shame and honour. We see that model clearly in Paul’s language here: “we boast in our hope of sharing the glory … we also boast in our sufferings …”

My point is not to set aside our Western map for reading these verses, but rather 1) to note Paul’s own mental map and 2) to note how this passage speaks to shame and honour cultures.

Paul continues:

For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. Indeed, rarely will anyone die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person someone might actually dare to die. But God proves his love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us. Much more surely then, now that we have been justified by his blood, will we be saved through him from the wrath of God. For if while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son, much more surely, having been reconciled, will we be saved by his life. But more than that, we even boast in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.

Again, we see the language of justification and of being saved from [the penalty] of death. People in Africa reading these verses might notice something else: The idea of sacrifice is not simply paying a penalty, but also of delivering someone from the power of evil. Many cultures operate on the basis of fear-power. [The three basic orientations around the world are guilt-innocence,shame-honour, and fear-power.] These verses suggest that people (especially Gentiles) in Paul’s day understood that fear, and they could rejoice that God’s power demonstrated on the cross set them free from the power of sin.

We could keep going, but perhaps this is enough to illustrate one aspect of what I am saying. The further part, which I have not worked out here, is to ask: “How do the controlling ideas in our society (mentioned by Nussbaum above) skew the way that I read Scripture in general?”

Indigenous Relations: The Land

A Biblical Perspective on Land

Scriptural perspectives on the land usually have to do with the Land of Promise, Canaan, given to the Children of Israel (Exodus-Deuteronomy; Joshua). The prophets used reminders of the promise of the land as part of their call to faithfulness on the part of God’s People: Jeremiah, for example, makes it clear that the people have used God’s promises in an illegitimate way to allow unfaithfulness and idolatry to flourish. Consider Jeremiah 22, in which the prophet equates the people with the land, while warning them that they will lose the land.

The passage we read from Deuteronomy 26 contains the profound statement: “My father was a wandering Aramean.” The “father” referred to was Jacob, renamed Israel, who went to Egypt during a famine as a small family (Israel and his twelve sons and their families) and came out of Egypt in the Exodus “a great nation, numerous and powerful”. Deeper than their identity as the “people of the land” was their identity as “God’s people”.

This fact helps us to understand the way that the New Testament refers to God’s people, using the idea that we have a Sabbath Rest (Promised Land) beyond the bounds of this world (for example, Hebrews 3 and 4). A post-biblical writer put the basic idea of our citizenship in Heaven eloquently in the Letter to Diognetus (written by Mathetes – “a disciple” – sometime in the second century):

Christians are indistinguishable from other men either by nationality, language or customs. … And yet there is something extraordinary about their lives. They live in their own countries as though they were only passing through. They play their full role as citizens, but labor under all the disabilities of aliens. Any country can be their homeland, but for them their homeland, wherever it may be, is a foreign country. … They live in the flesh, but they are not governed by the desires of the flesh. They pass their days upon earth, but they are citizens of heaven. Obedient to the laws, they yet live on a level that transcends the law. …

The people’s relationship to the Promised Land is seen clearly in the Jubilee Laws of Leviticus 25. You remember the basic idea of the Jubilee Year: Every 50 years, all land returns to its original owners and all Jewish slaves are set free and return to their families. We can think of it like this using the founding of Steinbach as a model. In 1874 eighteen families laid out their plots to form what is now the city of Steinbach. Their properties were laid out in narrow strips crossing the creek that ran parallel to what is now Main Street. If Steinbachers had practised the Jubilee, in 1924 all properties would have been restored to the original 18 families. The same restoration would have taken place in 1974, and we would be expecting the next Jubilee in 2024.

The Jubilee year, then, teaches us the principle of radical restoration. Wealthy people gave up their excess wealth, and those who had become poor had their lands and their dignity restored. The simple movement of property in the Jubilee may be impractical (we have many more people in Steinbach today than the original 18 families), but the principle of radical restoration remains.

Concealed beneath this clear truth lies another equally powerful truth. Hear verses 23 and 24: “The land must not be sold permanently, because the land is mine and you reside in my land as foreigners and strangers. Throughout the land that you hold as a possession, you must provide for the redemption of the land.”

One reason for the Jubilee Year was that the land (which they appeared to own) was God’s, not theirs. So in verses 14-16 we read: “If you sell land to any of your own people or buy land from them, do not take advantage of each other. You are to buy from your own people on the basis of the number of years since the Jubilee. And they are to sell to you on the basis of the number of years left for harvesting crops. When the years are many, you are to increase the price, and when the years are few, you are to decrease the price, because what is really being sold to you is the number of crops.”

This understanding is basic to a scriptural understanding of the land. Genesis 1 and 2 makes the human pair God created stewards or caretakers of God’s creation. Creation itself still belongs to God, but we care for it. Psalm 24 rings out clearly: “The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof; the world and they that dwell therein.” Jesus tells parables about masters who go away and leave their belongings in trust with stewards or caretakers. When the master returns, he demands an accounting for what he has left in trust. When Jesus will return at the end of time, he will also call us to account for what we hold in trust –not just for our deeds, but for the earth itself.

Mennonites and Land

Two weeks ago, Gerald Gerbrandt reminded us of our history. We are a people who have moved many times – in the case of Russian Mennonites, from Holland to Prussia to Russia to Canada and several countries in the Americas. In many of these places we established colonies, implying our ownership of the land around us. Certainly, here in the East Reserve we have taken possession of our homes and farms and fields; we live here and we are at home here.

At the same time, we retain an awareness that we are citizens of Heaven before we are citizens of Canada. Our membership in Mennonite World Conference reminds us that we belong to a great host of people, so that Mathetes (in the Letter to Diognetus) might say of us:

[Mennonites] are indistinguishable from other men either by nationality, language or customs … yet … [t]hey live in their own countries as though they were only passing through. They play their full role as citizens, but labor under all the disabilities of aliens. Any country can be their homeland, but for them their homeland, wherever it may be, is a foreign country.

If we take this insight seriously, we do not own the land to which we hold title. It belongs to God. We are stewards, and the title we hold is the title to care for our home and our lands as servants of God.

Indigenous Realities

At this point, we face a problem. You know that our government (and therefore we ourselves) made treaties with the indigenous peoples of Canada (which we have failed to honour). One of the basic aspects of those treaties is the possession of the land.

This piece of land where we worship this morning was a part of Anishinabe territory. On August 3, 1871, the Anishinabe people signed Treaty 1, giving the settlers encroaching on their lands permission to live here. I do not know enough to describe in depth how the Anishinabe understood the treaty, or how the government understood the treaty, but I can see the basic outline of what happened.

Within three years the first Mennonite settlers came to Steinbach and laid out the village according to the line pattern they brought with them from Russia. Others can explain the history that followed with more authority than I can. Rather, I make two basic points.

·         One: The indigenous understanding of the land closely parallels the biblical understanding we noted earlier. They knew that the Creator God owns the land. They knew that they had permission to use the land, but that it was not their possession.

·         Two: We can conclude readily that the indigenous peoples of Canada did not intend to give ownership of the land to the settlers who were moving in, if only because they did not see such ownership as theirs to give. As stewards of the land, they could give visitors permission to use the land – but that is a far cry from simply giving the land itself.

I suspect that the Mennonite land-owners understood little of this indigenous perspective. Once we have title to land, we assume the land is ours. Lois and I have paid properly for our house and property; we see it as our property. Yet, properly understood, God owns our house and the land, and we live here because the Anishinabe people welcomed us and shared the land with us.

What Should We Do?

What should we do with these realities? It does not mean that those of us who come from outside North America should simply leave. Arthur Manuel writes in Unsettling Canada:

When we speak about reclaiming a measure of control over our lands, we obviously do not mean throwing Canadians off it and sending them back to the countries they came from—that is the kind of reduction ad absurdum that some of those who refuse to acknowledge our title try to use against us. We know that for centuries Canadians have been here building their society, which, despite its failings, has become the envy of many in the world. All Canadians have acquired a basic right to be here. … At present, we are asking for the right to protect our Aboriginal title land, to have a say on any development on our lands, and when we find the land can be safely and sustainably developed, to be compensated for the wealth it generates. [End of chapter one.]

Finding a way forward means that we find a path that embraces the rights of Canada’s First Peoples, as well as of those of us who have come to Canada over the last several hundred years. We are here together, and we must live together. I suggest a few basic thoughts as we do so.

1. The earth – Canada – belongs first to God. We do not own anything, even when we hold title to it. “The earth is the Lord’s”, and we are trustees who care for the earth until Jesus returns.

2. Just as God gave the land in the OT to the Children of Israel, God gives a place for all people to live. God gave the land first to the First Nations of Canada. When our Anabaptist ancestors came to Canada, both First Nations and the Canadian government gave them – and therefore also us – a place to live.

3. This means also that we give up what is sometimes called “the doctrine of discovery”. This doctrine is the legal basis that the government of Canada has used to claim sovereignty over the land of Canada. It suggests that much of the land around us was essentially empty when the first Europeans came to Canada, and they simply occupied the land that they found. This is the old idea of “finders keepers, losers weepers”. The fact that we live on Treaty One land is sufficient indication that someone was here, and that the land belonged to them as much as any human beings could be said to own it.

4. In some sense, all of us are settlers – God has given us a place to settle down and live on this earth. Therefore, in an ultimate sense God owns the land on which we live. First Nations in Canada got here first and received land from God. We followed. Therefore, we must live in justice and peace with each other as stewards of the piece of land God gives us.

5. As long as the first inhabitants of this land are dispossessed and struggling, we cannot live at peace in God’s land. When our Indigenous friends tell us of the hardships of life on the reserves, we know that their pain is our pain and their loss is our loss. Our lives are bound together, and we must find a way forward together.

Conclusion

I come back to the Scriptures. In Deuteronomy 26, it is clear that God has given the people all that they need to live well. They were wandering nomads, with no place of their own, and God gave them what they needed. God does the same for us and for Canada’s Indigenous People, and God wants us to participate in bringing into reality the fullness of life God has for all of us.

In Hebrews, it is clear that a Sabbath Rest remains – something beyond this world. We are still wandering nomads, never fully at home here, whether as Mennonites or as Indigenous People. The truth is that we are all Indigenous people – but our true home is in Heaven, and we are all Settlers – in the places here on earth that God has given us. I have no answers as to how we live justly with each other; I can only say here that we do so in relationship with each other.

The promise of the New Jerusalem is not a reason to ignore the struggle for justice here – as though it will all be alright in Heaven, so we can ignore injustice on earth. Rather, the promise of the New Jerusalem lights the fire for us to work for and with each other, because we know that God will prevail, no matter how deep and painful our failures are on earth. We are going to Heaven together, First Nations and later arrivals alike, and we belong together there and here.

Steinbach Mennonite Church, 28 October 2018

Deuteronomy 26: 1 to 11; Hebrews 4: 1 to 11

Who is the Lawyer in the Ditch?

When we were choosing our passages for the summer in the parables, I chose “The parable of the Sheep and the Goats”. As I worked through the passage, however, I kept coming back to the parable of the Good Samaritan. This morning, I want to begin with Luke 10, and then supplement it with Matthew 25. In both cases, we have normally read the parable in a way that is almost opposite from what Jesus actually said.

The Good Samaritan

These parables are connected in ways that may surprise us. They are both favourites within the Mennonite Church – part of our “canon within the canon”, those Scriptures that we turn to almost automatically. Curiously, they both also begin with an emphasis that we don’t often talk about.

Consider Luke 10. The passage begins with a question from “an expert in the law”: “Teacher,” he asked, ‘what must I do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus responds by asking him how he himself reads the law. The lawyer (so I will call him) responds by quoting the same summary Jesus had also given on occasion: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind”; and, “Love your neighbour as yourself.”

Notice where this exchange begins: What do I need to do to inherit eternal life? How can I be saved? We have read this passage as a parable about helping people in need, but it is in fact a parable about salvation. “How can I be saved?” Remember that basic fact as we examine it this morning.

Jesus begins with the Law: Keep the Law, he says. The lawyer tries to limit his liability. “Who is my neighbour?” Then, Jesus tells the story. We remember the story so well that we forget it answers the question “How can I be saved?” We remember the story so well that we don’t notice what Jesus does with it. Hear the story again.

A man is on his way to Jericho. [We might have said that he is travelling from Steinbach to Winkler.] Robbers caught him on the way, beat him up and stripped him of his clothes, and left him for dead. Various people see him, but none of his own people – the Jews – stops to help him. A Samaritan of all people stops and takes care of him. [In our case, he might have been lying there yon seid, hoping for some dear Mennonite brother to stop and whisper comforting words in his ear; but it’s one of those despised English who stop and pick him up! Reeking of beer and smoke, this unshaven English guy takes care of him.]

Here again we often miss what Jesus does. The lawyer asks, “Who is my neighbour?” Jesus responds, “In this situation, who was [this man’s] neighbour?” The lawyer gives the answer, but he doesn’t like it. The Samaritan was. Two things happen here: 1) Jesus identifies the lawyer with the beaten-up guy left for dead, and 2) Jesus tells him to be like “the neighbour”. Instead of, “he is your neighbour – help him”, he says, “he is your neighbour – he helps you.”

This double twist throws the lawyer. I admit I am not sure what to do with it. That’s the way the parables work – Jesus tells a simple story that leaves a time bomb in our hearts and minds, and we wait for it to explode.

The Sheep and the Goats

We turn to Matthew 25 and see what it tells us. I chose this passage partly to follow on from last week, when Karen used the parable that comes just before it. As we look at it, we discover that it presents us with similar problems as Luke 10 does. We turn regularly to this passage to “provoke each other to good deeds.” We read it and say, “See, you need to feed the hungry and clothe the naked.” That’s a good lesson, but the parable has more than that going on.

First, we note that, like the parable of the Good Samaritan, this is a parable of salvation. Jesus begins by setting the scene in the judgment: “All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats.” The story then describes the basis on which people are saved or not: “Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.”

Second, we see a point peculiar to Matthew. Matthew has a theme throughout his gospel of the way that Gentiles are first kept out of the disciples and then brought into the church. In chapter 1, Gentiles are among the ancestors of the Messiah. In chapter 2, the magi come to honour Jesus as king – specifically magi from the East: Gentiles. In chapters 10 and 15, Jesus specifically limits his mission to “the lost sheep of Israel.” Finally, in chapter 28, he gives the disciples the commission to make disciples of “all nations” (the same phrase as we find in this passage – all nations). “Nations” in Matthew’s language means “Gentiles”. The Gentiles also are included in the mission of God, and here in this parable, Jesus reminds the disciples that the judgment is not just for Jews, but for Gentiles also.

Third, this emphasis on the Gentiles ties in with the phrase in the parable we know best: “the least of these, my brothers and sisters”. Jesus refers to one group of people only as “my brothers and sisters”. These are his disciples (see Mark 3:34 and Matthew 12: 46-50). “Brothers and “Sisters” is one of the most regular ways for NT writers to describe the church.

What does it mean, if we read this parable to mean that the marginalized people who need help are “my brothers and sisters”, that is, the church? What does it mean if we are the people who need help, not the people who can give help?

Being the People of God

This question is the time bomb in the parables that has gone off in my mind and heart as I worked on this sermon. Jesus identifies the lawyer as a wounded beaten-up man who needs help. Then he identifies the church as marginalized imprisoned people who need food and water from whoever will feed them. That in fact is who the first century church was – a group of people who lived on the margins of society and depended for their survival on whoever would help them. It is clearly not who we are! We are well off, living relatively comfortable lives. We are ready to help others in need, but we do not think of ourselves as the people who are really in need ourselves.

Two weeks ago, Eric Rempel spoke on the parable of the Pharisee and the Sinner. He also had a passage of Scripture read from Revelation 3, which made me think he was going to preach my sermon! Since he took a different direction, I can say what I meant to say, but I also bring our attention back to Revelation 3 and the letter to the church of Laodicea. Hear especially verses 17 and 18:

You say, “I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing.” But you do not realise that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked. I counsel you to buy from me gold refined in the fire, so that you can become rich; and white clothes to wear, so that you can cover your shameful nakedness; and salve to put on your eyes, so that you can see.

John could almost be speaking to us! We also have acquired wealth, which can lead us to think that we do not need anything. Because we are grateful for God’s material blessings in our lives, we respond by using our wealth to help others. We are “the good Samaritan”; we are “the sheep who help the least of these.”

As we have seen, then, we are the man lying in the ditch; we are the marginalized least of these who need help. What does this reality mean for us today? How do we live as God’s needy people?

A Hospital for Sick People

You have heard the analogy before – the church is a hospital for sick people, not a museum for saints. But we conceal our hurts from each other. It may be more blessed to give than to receive; it is also a lot easier. The fact that we are grateful and seek to use our material blessings to help others is good. Keep doing it! Support MCC. Volunteer for places in Steinbach that help those who need help. God loves such responses, and we act out our love for God and for our neighbour when we do such things.

But God wants us to go deeper. God offers us something greater and harder and more blessed than just the opportunity to help others out of our abundance. The first step to discovering that blessing is admit that we are “wretched, pitiful, poor, blind, and naked”. The first step is to admit that we are the person lying in the ditch and we are the least of these, Jesus’ brothers and sisters.

A friend of mine is a pastor in the States. He has worked at implementing this understanding within his own congregation. Here is part of his story.

Not far from my elementary school, my friend unfolded the pages of a magazine. For the first time, my eyes gazed at Playboy. Shortly afterward, the internet gained popularity. And before I even understood the concept of addiction, I developed an addiction to pornography. Years later this struggle would help transform our church into a place where honest confession, accountability, and repentance could take place.

Honest about my struggles with porn and other sins, I sought accountability and forgiveness. Since then, our church has multiplied five times over. It has become filled with open, honest people who are begging to be held accountable by each other. Forgiveness is triumphantly sweeping through our attendees’ lives, and maturity is skyrocketing. How can you create a culture where individuals desire accountability? I suggest four crucial elements:

Hate Fake Church.

Many churches talk about being authentic. For most, it’s more of a catchphrase than a lifestyle. Ministries where I used to work had people who sinned, of course. But until the sin was blatantly obvious, it wasn’t really shared or dealt with. Because, most times, the consequences for confessing sin were too costly.

… If you desire to lead an open and honest church, begin by developing a hatred for fake church.

Be Honest with Your Struggles, and Teach Mercy, Publicly and Often.

It’s risky. Dangerous. Scandalous, even. But, if you want to become a mature church that regularly eradicates sin — those sins have to be exposed to the light. And, bringing sin to light begins with leadership. …

Sermons

During my sermons — in front of everyone — I will frequently mention that I have an app on my phone that reports every website I visit to my wife and accountability partner. Why? “So I don’t look at porn.” If saying that from the stage would surprise your church, chances are you haven’t been very open about your own struggles in front of your church.

…

New Guest Class

In our welcome class for new guests, I tell them plainly, “You’ve done some pretty terrible stuff. You’ve got awful things in your past that you are ashamed of. … In fact, I know you’ve thought things you haven’t even told anyone about, because it’s so bad!” At this point their eyes are wide.

I follow up, “I know this because I’m the same way. We believe in untamed mercy here — mercy and love that is wild and passionate. I can’t wait to find out what you’ve done, so we can say, ‘We forgive you!’” “If you come to this church, don’t expect perfect pastors. Expect humans who God has put in leadership. We sin. I’ve got terrible sin in my past. And, if you ever find out what it is, you’ve gotta forgive me too.”

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Train Others to Share Their Struggles, Often.

It’s not merely the pastor who has to share, however. It’s every leader, at every level — especially small group leaders.

Small Group Training

Small group training is one of the best places to reiterate, again and again, that leaders must be authentic. Teach this truth. Drive it home with stories of people who confess and have repented.

Catchphrases Reinforce Culture

Make acronyms and rhymes about it.

…

And, eventually — after repeating such phrases until you’re sick of them — others will internalize the concepts.

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Make Confessors Heroes

When people share their sin and repent, make them heroes. When you lead trainings, tell their stories. Preach sermons, and make videos celebrating God’s work in them! And, remember, heroes are those who admit struggle, as much as those who overcome it.

A few quick caveats if you plan on sharing people’s stories publicly: You must obtain permission. … Never put someone on the spot. …  And, as best as you can, choose believers who are standing on solid ground. Don’t cause collateral damage. … While it really is a beautiful story, often the battle is fresh and embarrassing for others. Be careful with the how, when, and if you should share these stories.

Practice Untamed Mercy Habitually.

If you’re going to admit your struggles — and encourage other leaders to do the same — the culture in your church must be able to support such a system. Lead your church to love “untamed mercy” (which is looking forward to offering the same radical forgiveness that God gives us).

Don’t Remove Leaders for Sin

The default in most churches is to fire or let go of people when they confess. Even volunteer leaders. But, with a few exceptions, if someone is repentant why would we remove them from their position of leadership? …

Don’t believe the lie that leadership requires perfection. Rather promote the truth that leadership requires regular confession and repentance.

Habitual Healing

James 5 tells us that healing comes from confessing our sin. Promote a philosophy within your church that inspires habitual healing, rather than following the tendency to punish those who reveal too much.

Conclusion

If you are willing to create a culture of confession, accountability, and repentance, holiness can rise up in any church. The only alternative is a fake church where people hide their sins. But, it begins with leaders. It starts with you — and your willingness to be honest.

Closing Thoughts

I have three closing thoughts as we reflect on these parables with the church example above in mind. One, we are needy people, but God delights in meeting our needs – and then helping others around us as they see God at work in us. What I have been saying does not contradict the way that we usually read these passages; rather, it deepens them. We do indeed reach out to the marginalized and hurting of our world, but we do so because we are part of them.

Two, my pastor friend in the States focussed on personal and private sins – such as sexual sin. The fact is that we live in structures that also bind us to sin. We can explore our neediness with respect to the environment or the patterns of warfare so common in our world.

Three, it is not only sin that reveals our brokenness and weakness. As we experience physical ailments and limitations, we discover repeatedly our inability to deal with life. Like Paul with his “thorn in the flesh”, we find that our human weakness is the way God’s strength is released in us.

As we do express and accept our brokenness and vulnerability, God brings to us those who can help us find healing, and together we grow and mature in our faith. Who is the real Good Samaritan? My neighbour – my friend – even, in the end, you and me. Together we learn to love God with all our hearts. Together we receive God’s salvation and inherit eternal life.

Steinbach Mennonite Church

2 September 2018

Text

Luke 10: 25-37

The parable of the good Samaritan

²⁵ On one occasion an expert in the law stood up to test Jesus. ‘Teacher,’ he asked, ‘what must I do to inherit eternal life?’ ²⁶ ‘What is written in the Law?’ he replied. ‘How do you read it?’ ²⁷ He answered, ‘“Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind”; and, “Love your neighbour as yourself.”’ ²⁸ ‘You have answered correctly,’ Jesus replied. ‘Do this and you will live.’

²⁹ But he wanted to justify himself, so he asked Jesus, ‘And who is my neighbour?’

³⁰ In reply Jesus said: ‘A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, when he was attacked by robbers. They stripped him of his clothes, beat him and went away, leaving him half-dead. ³¹ A priest happened to be going down the same road, and when he saw the man, he passed by on the other side. ³² So too, a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. ³³ But a Samaritan, as he travelled, came where the man was; and when he saw him, he took pity on him.³⁴ He went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he put the man on his own donkey, brought him to an inn and took care of him. ³⁵ The next day he took out two denarii and gave them to the innkeeper. “Look after him,” he said, “and when I return, I will reimburse you for any extra expense you may have.”

³⁶ ‘Which of these three do you think was a neighbour to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?’ ³⁷ The expert in the law replied, ‘The one who had mercy on him.’ Jesus told him, ‘Go and do likewise.’

Matthew 25: 31-46

The sheep and the goats

³¹ ‘When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his glorious throne. ³² All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. ³³ He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.

³⁴ ‘Then the King will say to those on his right, “Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. ³⁵ For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, ³⁶ I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was ill and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.”

³⁷ ‘Then the righteous will answer him, “Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink?³⁸ When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? ³⁹ When did we see you ill or in prison and go to visit you?” ⁴⁰ ‘The King will reply, “Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.”

⁴¹ ‘Then he will say to those on his left, “Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. ⁴² For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, ⁴³ I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was ill and in prison and you did not look after me.” ⁴⁴ ‘They also will answer, “Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or ill or in prison, and did not help you?”

⁴⁵ ‘He will reply, “Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.” ⁴⁶ ‘Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.’

Invitational Living

Do you remember bull sessions? At least that’s what we used to call them when I was in college. We were around 18 to 22 years old. We used to sit and talk late into the night, figuring out what we believed about the meaning of life. We were laying the foundation for the rest of our lives, whether we knew it or not.

“Well, my friend, we’re older, but no wiser.” We don’t talk much about the meaning of reality; we’re too busy surviving – working, preparing for retirement, or retired and crossing off items on our bucket list. We don’t have much time for deep discussions about life, but of course our questions remain. We still wonder what it all means, and as we get older, we wonder even more.

One Option

There is a dominant answer in our society – that is, life is meaningless. Many people assume that there is no real meaning to life, so they live for the moment and enjoy what we can do today.

Some of you may have read a delightful and funny exposition of this point of view: The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Douglas Adams wrote the first part of this multi-volume series in 1978, and now it has expanded to six books, retelling the same story in various contradictory versions. The first book of this fantasy series presents the idea that a supreme race of philosophers built a gigantic super-computer (named “Deep Thought”) to answer the question of “life, the universe, and everything”. After several million years, the computer spits out the answer: 42. The philosophers are upset, but the computer reminds them, “You only asked for the answer. You didn’t ask for the question.”

Deep Thought then builds them an even greater organic supercomputer (“whose merest operational parameters I am not worthy to calculate” – sound familiar?), which turns out to be the earth. Finally, we find out the question: “What do you get if you multiply six by nine?” Of course, the answer is not 42. Life does not add up. Reality has no meaning.

A side note: A quick exploration of Wikipedia gives a variety of other explanations for this juxtaposition of question and answer. What I have said here is my own view, which is consistent, I believe, with the larger work of The Hitchhiker’s Guide.

Douglas Adams is often extremely funny (depending on your sense of humour), and his books are fun to read, but the basic message – life is meaningless – can paralyze us.

Another Option

Jesus tells his parables to describe the kingdom of God. When Jesus describes “God’s Reign”, he is letting us know what the fabric of the universe we live in looks like. In our parable this morning, and in the parables surrounding it, Jesus describes the way that God relates to humankind, whom God made, and indeed to the whole of creation.

This parable appears in a section of Luke sometimes called, “The Road to Jerusalem”.  From Luke 9:51 (As the time approached for him to be taken up to heaven, Jesus resolutely set out for Jerusalem) until the “triumphal entry” described in Luke 19, Jesus is walking to Jerusalem with his disciples. As they walk together, Jesus teaches them the central message of the gospel.

The parables, with their description of God’s Reign, contain the central message of the gospel. The good news is that Jesus has come as God’s Chosen Messiah, and that all who repent (turn away from their own path to walk in God’s path) become part of God’s Reign.

What does God’s Reign look like? Or, to put it another way, what does the God who reigns look like? From our parable, and from the parables surrounding this passage, I note three basic characteristics of God, and of God’s Reign.

1. God is Joyful God

This image of a banquet or feast at the end of time comes from Isaiah 25: 6 to 8 and is repeated in various places, including Revelation 19: 6 to 9. The image of a banquet or feast conveys joy, and indeed joy is a fundamental quality both of God as God and of our life in God.

The old hymns say it well:

It is joy unspeakable and full of glory, Full of glory, full of glory;

It is joy unspeakable and full of glory, Oh, the half has never yet been told.

Or, if you prefer Keith Green: “I’ve got a river life flowing out of me …” Pure joy!

Paul says it clearly, writing from prison in Philippians 4: “⁴ Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: rejoice! ⁵ Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. ⁶ Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. ⁷ And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”

It follows that God’s people live lives of joy. We live often in difficult circumstances full of loss and hardship. But the underlying current of our lives is “joy unspeakable, and full of glory.” Too many people think that Christians are sober, with no laughter or fun. You remember the old children’s game: “Quaker Meeting has begun, no more talking, no more fun. No more chewing chewing gum. Starting now...” Then everyone keeps completely quiet; the first person to smile or laugh or talk loses the game.

That jingle makes a neat children’s game, but it does not describe life in Christ. We are people of joy. You know how joy works. When a loved one dies, if the relationship was good and the deceased person deeply loved, laughter rises as the family gathers and grieves. Joy bubbles along beneath the surface of tears. Joy does not remove our grief, but rather joy allows us to grieve more fully; joy heals us.

An implication of living with joy is that we work against anything in this world that strips people of joy. The exercise of power against marginalized people robs them of their joy; therefore, such abuse works against God’s Reign. As people of joy, we walk with the marginalized and dispossessed because they are also part of God’s banquet. That thought is clearly echoed in the parable as the master sends his servants out to gather the marginalized from the highways around his house.

A Side Note: I add that when we identify with the marginalized, we often find that they know the joy of the Lord better than we do. They teach us to know the God of Joy!

2. God is a Seeking God

Jesus pictures God as one who seeks the lost. That note comes through more clearly in the parables that follow in Luke 15, but it is present here also in our parable. The servants go out into the roads around the master’s house seeking guests for the banquet.

If we examine ourselves carefully, we could tell stories of how God sought us and brought us into God’s family. My grandfather used to remember how he gave his life to Christ as the congregation sang the parable found in Luke 15: “There were ninety and nine that safely lay in the shelter of the fold, but one was out on the hills away, far off in the distant cold.” He knew that he was that lost sheep, and he knew that Jesus had sought him and found him.

God wants us also to be a seeking people. We keep our eyes and hearts open to the needs of people around us. As God sought for us, we seek also for others who are in need. Our parable reminds us to live with open hearts and open hands, ready to help whoever needs our help.

3. God is an Invitational God

We come to the third characteristic I note this morning. This is the one you see in our title. I suggest that this quality builds on and expresses more fully the first two we have seen. God invites us to life. God invites us to eternity with God. God invites all people to the Great Wedding Feast of the Lamb and to build our lives on God’s constant presence active within.

God’s invitation goes with God’s seeking. God seeks the lost sheep in Luke 15 and carries it home. The invitation of Luke 14 reminds us that the lost sheep can in fact refuse the invitation. The first guests in the parable say “No” to the master’s invitation. In Matthew 22, Jesus tells another parable about the Messianic Feast at the end of time. Here also the master sends the servants in the streets to bring in the marginalized people of the world; this time one of these people comes, but he does not prepare for the feast. He is in turn thrown out of the banquet.

This act of judgment reminds us that the invited person can refuse the invitation. It doesn’t matter if the refusal gives plausible excuses or bad excuses; any refusal on our part excludes us. However the guest says no, refusing the invitation excludes the invited guest. This is a sobering and difficult truth, but it is true.

A side note: The excuses of Luke 14 are a mixture of plausible and implausible. The first excuse (I bought a field) may suggest the world of business – but it would be a bad buyer who had not checked the field before buying it! The new team of oxen suggests farming, but again, what kind of farmer would buy a piece of equipment before checking it out? The third excuse – I just got married – has the weight of Scripture behind it. Deuteronomy 24: 5 states: “If a man has recently married, he must not be sent to war or have any other duty laid on him. For one year he is to be free to stay at home and bring happiness to the wife he has married.” But if his marriage was so close, why was he accepting an invitation to someone else’s wedding banquet? In any case, the way that the excuses are set aside makes it clear: Neither the claims of business, nor of farming, nor of family are acceptable when used to refuse God’s invitation to join God’s reign. God’s Reign comes first, before anything else in life.

All of this stands against interpreting the last command – “compel them to come in” – to mean that we have no choice when God invites us. We have a choice: The most important choice in our lives.

When we combine God’s invitation with God’s seeking, we realize that God holds out the invitation relentlessly. I think of a close friend who refused God’s invitation in her life until she lay dying of kidney failure. She told her daughter, “I’ve wrestled with the devil, and I’ve lost.” Her daughter told me then of my friend’s last words before dying: “I’m going to Jehovah’s Land.” I believe that when she admitted her failure, God renewed the invitation to life, and she is now at God’s eternal Wedding feast. God’s invitation remains open until we leave this life.

God is an invitational God, and God wants us also to live invitationally. God wants us to invite people into our lives and to invite them to join us at the Wedding Feast of the Lamb.

This kind of living is hard. Living this way means that we keep ourselves open to others – even to other people who can hurt us. I remember a close friend who thought that I had betrayed him. Lois and I used to get together often with him and his wife, but, feeling that I had betrayed them, they closed the door to further contact. Living invitationally with my friends means remaining open to the hurt they can bring to us. Our natural response is to close the door against them as well. I believe that God wants us to keep the door open to a return, even if that return opens old wounds.

Jesus of course is the example, remaining open to his enemies even on the cross. His example is expressed well in a prayer from the Anglican Prayer Book:

Lord Jesus Christ, you stretched out your arms of love on the hard wood of the cross that everyone might come within the reach of your saving embrace: So clothe us in your Spirit that we, reaching forth our hands in love, may bring those who do not know you to the knowledge and love of you; for the honour of your Name. Amen

Some people don’t like this prayer because of its “transactional nature”. I see in it rather God’s eternal openness to us, accepting our rebellion into his arms of love and welcoming us to the Wedding Feast of the Lamb – if we will say yes to his invitation.

Some Closing Thoughts

God, then, is God who celebrates, God who seeks, and God who invites. God wants us also to be a people of joy, who seek those separated from God and invite them to join the party.

The parable makes it clear that this invitation is for everyone. The religious professionals in his audience recognized themselves among the first guests. The “people of the land”, the marginalized people of Israel, recognized themselves among the guests brought in at the end. The truth is that everyone is invited.

Two basic points emerge from what we have said. One is that we can accept or refuse the invitation. Refusal appears unthinkable, but many people do refuse God. We then continue to seek them, trusting that God’s relentless love will reach them. Two is that God wants us to imitate God and remain open to everyone, even those who can hurt us most. Such openness requires God’s Spirit in us. None of us can live this way if God’s Spirit does not energize us. But if God’s Spirit is flowing within us, we will live this way naturally. When you get into the best party for eternity, you want everyone else to join you!

Steinbach Mennonite Church

5 August 2018

Text

Luke 14: 15-24

The parable of the great banquet

¹⁵ When one of those at the table with him heard this, he said to Jesus, “Blessed is the one who will eat at the feast in the kingdom of God.”

¹⁶ Jesus replied: “A certain man was preparing a great banquet and invited many guests. ¹⁷ At the time of the banquet he sent his servant to tell those who had been invited, ‘Come, for everything is now ready.’ ¹⁸ But they all alike began to make excuses. The first said, ‘I have just bought a field, and I must go and see it. Please excuse me.’ ¹⁹ Another said, ‘I have just bought five yoke of oxen, and I’m on my way to try them out. Please excuse me.’ ²⁰ Still another said, ‘I have just got married, so I can’t come.’

²¹ “The servant came back and reported this to his master. Then the owner of the house became angry and ordered his servant, ‘Go out quickly into the streets and alleys of the town and bring in the poor, the crippled, the blind and the lame.’ ^22 ‘Sir,’ the servant said, ‘what you ordered has been done, but there is still room.’ ²³ Then the master told his servant, ‘Go out to the roads and country lanes and compel them to come in, so that my house will be full. ²⁴ I tell you, not one of those who were invited will get a taste of my banquet.’”

More Immigrant Thoughts

I wrote recently putting down in writing some of my thoughts about immigration. North America faces significant immigration, due especially to the pressure of immigrants from Central America. Refugees from Syria and other conflict regions are also knocking on the door, but the largest number comes from Central America.

In this blog, I want to continue thinking aloud, taking special note of the objections that many of my friends make to my basic ideas. I counsel a fundamental openness to other people, including those in need who come to our borders. Canada is more open to immigrants and refugees than the USA is; but there is a significant fear in both countries that refugees will flood our country, to our detriment. I want to address some of these concerns.

First, I observe that, although I disagree with my friends, I do not assume that they are being unreasonable or are otherwise bad people. Too much of our political discourse assumes that people who disagree with us are motivated by evil intent. In the USA, some conservative figures (often radio or TV figures) have beaten a drum for many years, saying that Democrats are trying to destroy the country. Now, during the Trump presidency, I hear many liberals beating the same drum – about conservatives.

For any fruitful conversation to take place, I assume that many of the people who disagree with me have good reasons for their position. We may still disagree, but I seek to address the issues, not attack the people who hold them.

Second, here are a series of possible concerns with brief responses:

1. Legal Immigrants are good. Undocumented workers are bad.

There is truth to this viewpoint. I advocate following the rules. When we immigrated to Canada, we followed required procedures. There are at least two qualifications I think of: 1) When an immigration system breaks down, people are more likely to go around the rules. So, fix the system; don’t demonize the people! This point applies especially in the USA. 2) When conditions are so bad that people can no longer live in them, they will go around the rules. Again, don’t demonize the people; work at dealing with the conditions that push them out of their homes.

2. Immigrants are good. Refugees are bad.

I disagree with this idea more fully than with the first idea. Beyond our citizenship in any one country, we are part of the human family. When someone in our extended human family is in distress, we respond – just as we would like someone else to respond if we were in distress.

A further reason I disagree with this idea is that refugees of all people know what it is to go hungry and experience destructive poverty. Immigrants in general tend to be hard workers, and refugees are often the hardest workers of all. Helping them get on their feet costs us something up front, but they will give more back to the country that takes them in than it costs us in the first place.

3. Immigrants in general are a danger because they use our resources and take our jobs.

As the reader may guess from #2, I disagree. The USA and Canada both have low birthrates. Our economies require more children than we are having for our various social programs (such as Social Security in the USA and Social Insurance in Canada) to work. Immigration provides the necessary people for our economies to thrive. I note that, if this reasoning were valid, the economies of the USA and Canada should be in crisis, but they are not. They are healthy and growing. I see immigration as a positive good.

4. Immigrants and Refugees from Central America are infiltrated with gangsters and criminals. Even if many of the refugees are telling the truth, we cannot take the risk of allowing the bad people in with the good.

I get this fear. I understand why we want to keep criminal elements out of our country (in the USA or in Canada). A full response goes beyond this brief blog, but here are a few thoughts: 1) Such gangs are a real problem. In Winnipeg, Asian and African gangs recruit young people in the park, whose families have just arrived and are staying in the Welcome Centre beside the park. This is a problem! 2) Gangs flourish for a variety of reasons, such as high unemployment especially among young people and high drug use in North America (so that the gangs run drugs to us). 3) One of the best ways to combat gangs is to allow faith-based groups access to immigrant families to work with them and help them integrate into the community. Canada (and to a lesser extent, the USA) have a counter-productive fear of allowing faith-based groups to work freely. This idea requires a lot more thought on my part before I say anything more about it. 4) It is more effective to work at eradicating the financial and political problems in the countries immigrants come from than it is to try and stop them coming. If there is a gang problem in Guatemala, help the government of Guatemala to develop its economy and to eradicate political corruption. Most people would rather stay home. They tend not to leave home unless home becomes unlivable.

My own personal view is that we overstate the danger from immigrants many times over. Most Arabs and North Africans are not members of ISIS. Most Central Americans or Asians are not gang members. Most immigrants and refugees are ready to work hard and make a new home here – a good home that benefits us as well as them.

I welcome pushback on any of these thoughts. I am an ordinary citizen (dual: Canada and the USA) with ordinary experiences, trying to think through one of the challenges that we face today.