Christmas 2023

You have heard the first eight lessons read – one remains: the wonderful passage from John’s gospel. We could go through the lessons. Sketching the whole story of Creation, Fall, and Redemption; but this morning I give only two brief thoughts.

 

One, Christmas and these readings upend the world’s obsession with power and wealth and tells us the story of God – the Ultimate Reality – is on the side of the powerless. An old carol says it:

All poor men and humble,/ All lame men who stumble,/ Come haste ye, nor feel ye afraid.

For Jesus our treasure,/ With love past all measure,/ In lowly poor manger was laid.

 

Though wise men who found him/ Laid rich gifts around him,/ Yet oxen they gave him their hay;

And Jesus in beauty/ Accepted their duty;/ Contented in manger he lay.

 

Then haste we to show him/ The praises we owe him;/ Our service he ne'er can despise:

Whose love still is able/ To show us that stable/ Where softly in manger he lies.

 

I heard last week that my old office mate from when I began teaching has just been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. He is a man of deep wisdom and compassion who has helped so many in their times of darkness. This year, he is stumbling towards the manger, and there he finds God’s love and light.

 

Two, John 1 tells us of the Word made flesh. In Greek: the Logos – the principle of reality – became a human. In Chinese: the Dao – the way that undergirds the world – became a child, a baby boy. John tells us that in the Word, the Logos, the Dao made flesh, we see God’s glory revealed.

 

The early church father Athanasius said it this way: “For the Son of God became man so that we might become God.” This idea of divination pushes the boundaries of my understanding. A startling statement! It makes it clear that God has destined us for a glory we cannot imagine, and that the birth of Jesus is the essential key to this indescribable process.

 

My father died five and a half years ago. The day before he died, my sister was reading to him from this passage in John 1. When she reached the words, “the Word became flesh and dwelled among us”, Dad exclaimed, “Isn’t that wonderful! Isn’t that amazing!” He was looking into eternity at something beyond our comprehension. The miracle of Christmas.

Advent Two: How Will We Know?

I listen to more news than is good for me. I pay special attention to American politics because I come from an American family. A basic theme in political conversation is the way that candidates try to convince you that their opponent is out to destroy everything you hold dear.

I think of a close friend who is a democrat. She is convinced that a vote for Trump is a step closer to the end of the republic. She may be right; I find Trump’s words and actions deeply troubling. I am reminded of an evangelical leader who said that he could only support a candidate of good character – “someone my daughter could bring home to meet her parents.” I get my friend’s concern.

I think of another friend during the last election who was terrified of the possibility that the democratic candidate would win the race for governor. She was convinced that he would deliberately tank the economy so as to create the conditions in which he could bring in a communist government. I don’t believe she was right, but I get the fear. I can see how economic policies that might sound good can lead to major problems and undesired consequences.

How can we know which candidate we should support? I won’t answer that question exactly, but it leads us to a more important question: How can we know who will save us? How can we know who to turn to in the uncertainties of life? Which means also, what do we do now? We face economic dangers in our world today. We face political dangers, with war in various parts of the globe. We look for a Saviour. How do we know who to trust? What do we do now?

Isaiah 40

The people of Israel heard the words of Isaiah 40 as a promise of peace and restoration when it seems they had lost everything. Listen to the flow of the passage we read:

Comfort my people, says your God. Speak tenderly to them and let them know that they have been punished enough and the penalty is paid.

A voice announces the building of a highway for God to come to his people. All obstacles shall be removed, and God will come!

A voice tells me to announce the frailty of human existence and to remind us of the eternal power of God.

Announce the good news to God’s people: God is here! God comes and rules the earth. His rule will be gentle and nurturing and life-giving.

The promises sound a lot like many politicians. They will end our suffering. They will end the carbon tax and we will be suddenly wealthy. They will increase the carbon tax and we will be environmentally healthy. They will fix the health care system, or they will declare war on poverty, or they will secure our borders, or … the promises are endless.

But we know that really, when one party succeeds another, there will be changes, but they won’t be the promised utopia. We know that life will continue much has it has been. We also know that one of the first items on the agenda will be a paying of political scores. My sister was one of the under secretaries to the surgeon general in her state many years ago. When a new governor was elected, she knew she would lose her job – so she jumped before she was pushed. Such scenarios are common; we expect them.

Isaiah announces a different kind of ruler, one who is not concerned to settle scores, but who will “feed his flock like a shepherd and … gently lead those who are with young.” A gentle, nurturing, and life-giving ruler.

This was all good news to Israel-Judah. They had been carried off into exile, and now their time of exile from the land God had promised them was ending. We know from our vantage point that the restoration was never really complete, and we can assume that some part of that restoration waits for the final consummation in the second coming of Christ. But these were the first steps home, as God came across the desert on this great highway to take them home.

Mark 1

As we turn to the time of Christ, Mark 1 quotes these verses from Isaiah to describe John the Baptist’s ministry. The quotation suggests that, just as Judah was waiting for political freedom in Isaiah’s day, the people were still waiting in Jesus’ day. They had a period of freedom when the Persians allowed them to go back to their land in the time of Ezra and Nehemiah, then they were taken over by the successors of Alexander the Great, known as the Seleucids. Jews today are celebrating Hannukah, in which they remember the Maccabees, who brought them freedom from Antiochus Epiphanes.

Then the Romans came, and Judah was now a Roman Province. Again the people looked for release from their oppression, and again the words from Isaiah 40 rang in their ears. John the Baptist preached a familiar message, the message of the prophets: “Repent, God is here! Turn from your sins and embrace God’s ways.”

John pointed to Jesus, who would bring God’s Spirit to the people. As Acts 2 and Pentecost show us, the people would have interpreted the presence of the Spirit of God as a sign that God was restoring the kingdom of David to them, making them politically free. As you know, Jesus spent much of his ministry setting that misunderstanding aside and preparing his disciples for his kingdom of peace and justice.

What Do We Do Now?

So, what do we do now? We’re still waiting, and we hear voices on every side, clamoring for our vote, begging for our money, trying to get us to buy into their claim to be the new Messiah. How do we know who to listen to? What should we do?

I have been reading the books of the Old Testament that describe their occupation of what we call “the Promised Land”. It is difficult reading, because in it, God accommodates to a system of tribal conflict reminiscent of Afghanistan. God appears to participate in the conflict rather than bringing it to an end. The narrative leaves the impression that God approves of fighting against your enemy, fighting to the bitter end.

Isaiah 40 and Mark 1 point us in a different direction. They promise a ruler who is gentle and nurturing, and they suggest that the obstacles to this ruler are dealt with by admitting our weakness and helplessness in the face of violence – in short, by repenting of our pride and desire to rule ourselves. How we reconcile these two contrasting visions is a topic for another time, but we know that Jesus calls us to the peaceable vision. To the peaceable kingdom. Which brings us back to the question, how do we know who to trust?

A consistent theme throughout the prophets is the call to justice and peace based on a primary allegiance to God alone. As voices around us promise salvation in all its different forms, we listen for the voice of justice and peace, and we listen for the place given to Jesus Christ.

The Relationship Factor

This piece of guidance has potential danger. We know that the “anti-Christ” (as John likes to call) will appear as an “angel of light”, as one claiming to have the power of God. I am deeply suspicious when public figures use their platform to speak as though God is speaking; it seems to me like using political or social power to force people against their will.

God speaking to us comes as an invitation, not as a forced agreement in which we have no choice. Both Isaiah and Mark announce the good news that God is here and invite their hearers to join in the parade. The last verse of our passage in Isaiah sounds the note of gentleness and peace, in sharp contrast to the way that secular voices speak in our society.

Justice and Peace

So, I am suspicious when I hear someone use a public platform to try to force people into the kingdom, and at the same time I base salvation precisely on being part of God’s kingdom. What do we do with this tension?

We listen for a gentle, nurturing, and life-giving voice. We listen for the invitation to justice and peace. We listen for God’s presence, not for overwhelming power. God is all-powerful, but God comes to us in a baby. God is the Creator of all, but God comes to us in the creation of life in a first-time mother. It is the presence of justice and peace in the voices we hear that marks the presence of God, not the note of strength seeking to destroy those we think are our enemies.

If you hear someone threatening to destroy your enemies, be suspicious. It may be the voice of one who is against Christ, rather than the voice of Christ. God calls us to repentance – yes! God judges rebellion – yes! In the end, God will destroy all that is evil – yes! But this is the Advent Season, a time of waiting during which God invites us to embrace God’s justice and God’s peace.

Conclusion

As we reach the end of our sermon and the service this morning, I return to the scenarios I began with – political disagreements filled with fear, which in our world often turn to violence. I think of war in Ukraine and in Israel-Palestine at this time.

Focus for a moment on the latter, but what I have to say applies to war in general. If you approach the conflict from the perspective of Israelis, they have everything to fear. Hitler’s effort to eradicate them is still within living memory – six million people killed in what we call “the holocaust”. When a group of people, Hamas, who say that Israel should not exist, attacks them, one understands why they fight back.

But if you approach the conflict from the perspective of the Palestinians, their anger and violence is equally understandable. I have a college friend whose Palestinian Christian family left their homes in 1948 when Israeli soldiers told them to. They were assured they could return when the soldiers were done, but they never did return. They lost their homes and belongings to the new Israeli state. Alongside the daily humiliations Palestinians experience, the memory of lost homes and land humiliates them. One understands why they wish to fight.

There is no end to such conflict. Each fresh attack brings only further reprisals. Even the efforts of those outside to bring an end to the conflict rely on political and economic pressure. Supporters of Palestine seem deaf to the stories of sexual violence used by Hamas in their attack on October 7, and supporters of Israel seem deaf to the pain the residents of Gaza are experiencing as we meet this morning.

Both Isaiah and Mark remind us of the need for us all to repent of our addiction to violence and power. They remind us that God is already here, coming in weakness, absorbing our pain and anger into himself on the cross, refusing to return violence for violence, continuing to love and nurture even when spurned and crucified.

How shall we know who to listen to? What shall we do? The path ahead is dark, and I cannot tell you what you should do. I ask you to listen with me to the voices that speak for justice and for peace, to those who are willing to receive the bitterness and pain of the world into themselves without fighting back, to the Prince of Peace born in a stable, dying on a cross, reigning forever in glory. I am reminded of the words of an old Christmas Carol:

Sing lullaby, Lullaby baby, now reclining, Sing lullaby 

Hush, do not wake the Infant King

Angels are watching, stars are shining Over the place where he is lying. Sing lullaby.

Sing lullaby, Lullaby baby, now a-sleeping, Sing lullaby

Hush, do not wake the Infant King

Soon will come sorrow with the morning, Soon will come bitter grief and weeping. Sing lullaby.

Sing lullaby, Lullaby baby, now a-dozing, Sing lullaby

Hush, do not wake the Infant King. Soon comes the cross, the nails, the piercing

Then in the grave at last reposing. Sing lullaby.

Sing lullaby, Lullaby, is the babe a-waking? Sing lullaby

Hush, do not stir the Infant King, Dreaming of Easter, gladsome morning

Conquering Death, its bondage breaking. Sing lullaby.

 

Focus

How will we know when God is truly with us? We see many signs of trouble and feel many fears for the future. In our trouble and fear, we wait for God to come and make things right. And we wonder how we will know when he comes.

Thinking Ahead

What are you most afraid of in the future? How will we recognize God when he comes?

Going Deeper

1) Politicians promise us they will fix what’s wrong. What can they actually fix?

2) What other sources of salvation clamour for our attention in today’s world?

3) What can they actually do?

4) How will we know Jesus when he speaks in the clamour of our present age?

5) We are waiting for Jesus. How do we wait? What do we do?

Steinbach Mennonite Church

10 December 2023

Second Advent

Scriptures: Isaiah 40:1–11 and Mark 1:1–8

God Tends the Garden

Summer has lingered longer than usual this year, so that we are nearing the end of October, and only now we expect temperatures below freezing! It is appropriate, then, that our summer series on peace lingers a little longer as well. We spent time on peace with God, peace in the community, and peace with our neighbours throughout the summer Sundays. The conference material has one more section: Peace with creation; and we will take three more Sundays before we leave this building to consider this final aspect of our lives of peace.

 

Peace with Creation

The physical world around us in crisis: We know that. It is not just the social-political scene that threatens to boil over, but the earth itself is groaning with the fruits of human abuse. Bad fruit indeed. How are we to relate to the created world? What is our responsibility regarding creation?

 

Genesis 2: 4-23

Genesis one to three give us a comprehensive picture of how we are to relate to God, to each other, and to the physical world around us. We could have done the whole summer series from these chapters! In chapter three, set in the garden, God walks regularly in the garden, communing with the man and the woman. We were made to be at peace with God, in communion with God, regularly receiving strength to live by our interaction with God.

 

In chapter two, it is made clear that the man and the woman are co-equals in the garden. God identifies the need that the man has for relationship with a “helper as his partner”. The animal world is important in human life, but animals do not constitute a full partner. So, God makes the woman who is the full partner-helper. Chapter one makes the same point by telling us that God made the human creature in God’s own image as male and female: We need each other as fully equal partners who together live as God’s images.

 

These two points – that God made us for relationship with God and God made us for relationship with each other – undergirded the sermons throughout the summer. Now we come to how we relate to the world God made.

 

Listen to the text. Verses 7, 9, and 19 suggest an important reality. God forms the man from the dust of the earth; God causes the plants to grow from the ground; God forms the animals out of the ground. That is to say, humankind, animal kind, and plant kind all come from the earth. God made us all from the same substance. The natural world includes all of life: We are one with the physical world.

 

Note further. The man names the animals: This is a task of bringing order into the world. Just as God orders the world in chapter one, the man orders the garden in chapter two. Although we are one with the natural world, we are also responsible for the natural world. Chapter one uses the language of dominion, by which it indicates that we are stewards of creation, acting on behalf of God. That relationship continues in chapter two.

 

So, we are one with the natural world, and we have a responsibility to bring order to the world around us. These two points come together in the image of God’s work in the story: In chapter two, God makes a garden. God is a gardener, and we – acting as God’s representatives in this world – can use the same role to describe our relationship with nature. We are gardeners in God’s garden, the creation God has given us.

 

What Does this Mean?

At this point, wisdom would suggest that I step down and invite Lois to take the pulpit and answer the question: What does a gardener do? I won’t; I am no gardener, but I have watched her garden. Several thoughts occur to me.

 

God is Creator and gardener. We are created and gardeners. This reality places limits on our actions. We do not create the garden out of nothing; we do not speak a word and the garden springs into being. We work with what is already here, given to us by God.

 

Some people think that the physical problems of our planet are not our responsibility. Some say that the action of the sun is responsible, or some other factor has caused “global warming”. We think that our actions cannot be that important. Genesis one and two both make the point that we are just that important. We are part of creation, and God has given us the task of managing creation. We cannot escape our responsibility.

 

Romans 8 connects us with the troubles of this world in a remarkably direct fashion: “For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God; for the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and will obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God.” (Romans 8: 19 to 21) Paul’s primary point in that passage is to observe the glory that waits for God’s suffering people, but his language speaks directly to what I have been saying. The whole of creation is bound up in our rebellion against God, and the whole of creation anticipates its own redemption along with ours. We cannot escape our responsibility for creation. We are God’s gardeners in this world.

 

Sometimes I see Lois staring out of the window. When I ask what she’s doing, I find out she is planning next steps in her garden. Which plant might be better in a new spot; whether to water this evening or wait until tomorrow; which plant needs to be cut back. The planning and the work never end. The work of caring for our planet also never ends. We have been shaping the planet for thousands of years, and in the past two hundred years that shaping process has accelerated. Instead of shaping God’s garden in positive ways, we have engaged in destructive processes that damage creation.

 

Whether we think of the proliferation of plastics that permeate both land and sea, or the damage of pollution in our waterways, or the rise of what we call greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, we live with the destructive results of human activity. Some scientists call the age that we live in “the Anthropocene epoch” – that is, the geologic age shaped primarily by the activity of human beings, you and me.

 

But we are gardeners in God’s garden. We are to be pulling out weeds, not sowing them. God wants us to shape positively and increase the beauty around us. Of course, there will be times when piles of dirt litter the garden. I see that often enough at our own house. But the mess is generally a step in pursuit of greater beauty.

 

John 20

The gospel reading from John 20 reinforces what I have been saying – that we are God’s representatives on earth, doing what God would do. At the beginning of the gospel, Jesus is described as the Word who is one with God, sent into the world for humankind. John 3:16 – so well-known – says it clearly, “God loved the world so much that God sent his only begotten Son.” John makes the point repeatedly: Jesus was sent into the world to save the world.

 

At the end of his gospel account, then, John extends this sending through the words of Jesus: “As the Father sent me, so I send you.” That sending of the disciples applies to us as well. We also are sent into the world to do what Jesus did, which includes caring for creation.

 

Twenty some years ago, I heard George Verwer speak at Providence. Verwer founded an organization called “Operation Mobilization.” He had a passion for telling people about Jesus and how Jesus can meet the needs of the world. When he came to Providence, he spoke from the parable of the Good Samaritan and asked, “Who would we find lying beside the road today, of we walk down the roads of our world?”

 

He named 1) Children at risk; 2) Abused women; 3) The extreme poor; 4) People with HIV/AIDS; 5) People without clean water; 6) The unborn; and 7) The environment (see Verwer’s blog in an updated version from 2015, “Seven Global Scourges”: http://authenticmission.blogspot.com/2015/05/seven-global-scourges-by-george-verwer.html?m=1) I don’t know that these same seven remain at the top of the list of needs today, but hear what he was saying about creation. Caring for the creation is a basic part of the Christian’s mission in the world today.

 

Sometimes we think that Christian mission meets inviting people to faith. Certainly it does, but it also means acting as God’s representatives in all of the needs of life. And the crisis of creation that we face is a basic point at which Christ’s representatives have the responsibility to act.

 

We are God’s gardeners in God’s garden. I invite you to listen as George Klassen helps us hear more of what we can do. I invite you to join us in the adult Sunday School class and take some time to consider practical steps we can take as we care for God’s good creation.

 

 

Steinbach Mennonite Church

 22 October 2023

 Focus Statement: Peacemakers join God in caring for the earth.

Texts: Genesis 2: 4 to 23; John 20: 19 to 23.

SMC's Thanksgiving Sunday: Resting in God’s Love

I will be a bit briefer this morning than usual. We have time during our congregational sharing for whoever wishes to say something about giving thanks. This is my moment, during which I give my own perspective on thanksgiving.

 

Psalm 136 

Were you at all uncomfortable as we read the psalm responsively? If you were paying attention, you might have been. I certainly was.

 

Give thanks because God created us. That’s good!

Give thanks because God delivered us from slavery. That’s good!

Give thanks because God killed the Egyptians. Wait a minute! Is that good?

Give thanks because God provided for us in the wilderness. That’s good!

Give thanks because God has given us a home. That’s good!

Give thanks because God killed famous kings. Wait a minute! Is that good? Do we want God to kill “Sihon, king of the Amorites and Og, king of Bashan”? I’m uncomfortable.

 

Our discomfort increases when we remember that yesterday was Truth and Reconciliation Day in Canada. We remember those whom we dispossessed as God gave us a home here in Manitoba. I have nothing to say this morning about that issue, except to remind us that truth-telling precedes reconciliation. We must tell the stories of relationships between the indigenous people of Canada and those who came later, and we must tell and hear the truth.

 

I am almost certain that some of the early settlers of Canada assumed that God gave them this land to take from First Nations just as God gave Israel the land taken from the Canaanites. We should be uncomfortable with that fact; and we dare not dodge it and assume it means nothing. It requires another round table setting where we dig into it and try to work out what was and is going on.

 

Give Thanks for What? 

You may notice that I took liberties with the text. The psalm does not say, “Give thanks because God killed Pharaoh.” It lists the historical events, which include the death of Egypt’s firstborn and the deaths of kings who opposed God, but it doesn’t say, thank God for those deaths. Instead, the psalm says, “Give thanks to the Lord for he is good; his steadfast love endures forever.”

 

It is true that the psalmist intentionally lifts up God’s actions in defeating Israel’s enemies as evidence of God’s steadfast love. That still leaves us with a problem. In light of the teachings and example of Jesus, we are to love our enemies, not wish or act for their demise. But my point still stands. The psalmist thanks God for God’s goodness and steadfast love. He may not yet know the teaching, “Love your enemy”, but he does know to thank God for his love and mercy.

 

That’s the key: Thank God for God’s love, God’s mercy, God’s faithfulness. In the New Testament reading, Paul said, “Give thanks in everything.” In Ephesians 5, he says “Give thanks for everything.” I think both passages come to the same thing: Thank God for God’s faithful love in every situation of our lives. Life can be good: Thank God for his faithful love. Life can sometimes be hard and painful: Thank God for his faithful love.

 

This reading makes sense of the repeated refrain: “His steadfast love endures forever.” Just a brief excursion into the word for “steadfast love”. The old KJV said, “He mercy endures forever.” Mercy – love – lovingkindness – steadfast love: The Hebrew word behind them all is Hesed. None of our words gets at the whole, but the basic idea is of an enduring persistent love and mercy flowing from God over all God’s people, indeed, over the whole world.

 

If that is the case, if indeed God loves us all so much, faithfully and persistently, why do we experience so much trouble and heartache in this life? The psalmist does not ask or answer this question, but he does give us an important insight. He references a series of difficult times between the Israelites’ enslavement in Egypt and their occupation of the Promised Land.

 

This is not a series of triumphs and joys without any problems. The record of their wilderness wanderings in Exodus through Deuteronomy makes it clear that the people often struggled to make sense of what was happening to them. They grumbled and complained because life in the desert was hard. The psalmist does not give them an easy out and tell them it was really lots of fun. Instead, he says, “Thank God for God’s Hesed throughout every turmoil and trial. Thank God for God’s love and mercy, which was there when people attacked you and when God carried you through. Thank God for God’s steadfast love. God’s love never fails.”

 

Reading the Psalm Today 

We also struggle with life. Sometimes life moves along smoothly, and we are grateful for the blessings of family and home and food and many other good things. But often enough we experience problems. Lois and I carry a concern for our younger son at the moment. He faces a significant challenge this Thanksgiving season: His employer is restructuring their organization such that a month from now he may not have a job. Since he and his wife live in Australia, this danger feels even heavier, due to the distance away they are.

 

What does it mean to say, “Give thanks to the Lord for he is good”, when you face the possibility of being unemployed. We have people in this church who have lived that question. In the same way, we can ask what it means to give thanks when grieving the death of a parent or spouse or child. We can wonder how to give thanks when we lose our home to a fire, or when our pastor resigns. Even positive changes are hard, so that we find ourselves feeling the stress of moving from one church building to another even as we thank God for providing the building.

 

I observed earlier that yesterday was Truth and Reconciliation Day. How do we give thanks when we remember the tragedies and abuse of residential schools? How do we give thanks when we remember being forced out of homes in the Soviet Union and migrating across the ocean with only a suitcase and some family members? Life is full of joy and pain, and we need a faith that can embrace the full complexity and ambiguity of life. That’s what the Children of Israel had.

 

Give Thanks Today 

Think of the Psalm as we might write it today:

Give thanks to the Lord for God is good: His mercy and love endure forever.

God was with us when we came to Canada as refugees: His mercy and love endure forever.

God gave us homes in a new place: His mercy and love endure forever.

Our mother died when we were far from home: His mercy and love endure forever.

Our child died and left us behind: His mercy and love endure forever.

God built us a church to worship in: His mercy and love endure forever.

We struggled to find work and God provided: His mercy and love endure forever.

We are separated from family members: His mercy and love endure forever.

God saved us from the terrors of this world: His mercy and love endure forever.

 

We can each write our own version, but you get the point: We give thanks for God’s goodness and mercy and care as we navigate the troubled waters of this life. I remember a speaker at Providence describing us about his own journey following the loss of his son. He told us that his only relief from the darkness of grief came when actively engaged in praise to God. Grief and thanksgiving came to a climax one winter’s day as he cleared the snow from his driveway. A voice inside asked, “Can you thank me for your son’s death?” As he shovelled and cried and wrestled inside himself, he thought of the closeness with God that had come with his grief. Finally, he prayed a response to the voice, “Thank you for my son’s death.” He told us that the darkness lifted, never to return. The pain of loss remained: That never goes away; but the paralyzing darkness was gone.

 

This is not a prescription for everyone, but it illustrates the power of gratitude and the enduring nature of God’s love. A song from South Africa runs like this: “Even though we travel through evil and trouble in this world, we are on our way to Heaven.” God’s goodness and faithfulness is the bedrock of our lives. That is why we give thanks, now and always.

 

Amen.

 

 

Steinbach Mennonite Church

1 October 2023

Texts: Psalm 136 and 1 Thessalonians 5: 12 to 24

 

Focus: God’s faithful love is the one constant in a troubled and difficult world.

Looking Ahead Question: It’s “Thanksgiving”, and life is really hard. What can we give thanks for?

Isaac and his Neighbours

I want to start this morning with a story about a Swedish missionary couple in the Eastern Congo, in a village named N’dolera.

Synopsis: Swedish missionaries move to Congo with young son in 1921. Mother gives birth to daughter in 1923, but dies following childbirth. Father is broken and bitter, gives up the baby girl to American missionary couple and returns to Sweden. Baby girl (Aina, renamed Aggie Berg) grows up in South Dakota. Her parents left no converts, except for a young boy who brought them chickens. That young boy grew up and eventually brought the village of Ndolera to faith in Christ. Forty years later, Aggie learns of this church and visits her now-alcoholic birth father in Sweden. She shares the story of the boy with the broken and bitter old man, and he discovers that God was with them all along.

          The story feels like hagiography, but it is taken from the daughter’s own story: Aggie Hurst, A Girl Without a Country. You can read from the story taken from the website: https://acsirevivals.wordpress.com/articles/a-sad-defeated-story-david-and-svea-flood/. I have not seen the book, which is out of print, but use the story here for the point made at the end of the sermon.

Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob: the patriarchs or founding fathers of the Jewish people. There are a number of stories in Genesis about Abraham and a number about Jacob; Isaac has basically chapters 24 and 26. We think of Isaac mostly as the child offered as a sacrifice in Genesis 22. Abraham agreed to sacrifice his son, his only son Isaac, whom he loved; and God then showed approval for Abraham’s faithfulness by providing a substitute. A strange and difficult story. One wonders what Isaac thought of the whole thing!

 

Chapter 24 is the story of Isaac and Rebekah – very romantic, with Rebekah described as “very fair to look upon.” It is also a story of an arranged marriage in which Rebekah and Isaac had little say about the whole matter. Chapter 26 contains four stories about Isaac. We heard three of them in the reading, but we will look at all four.

 

Genesis 26

 The first story was not in our Readers’ Theatre presentation. It’s a strange scene in which Isaac and Rebekah find themselves near what today is called Gaza. There was a famine, and Isaac moved his family into a region under the authority of Abimelech, a Philistine ruler. Isaac is worried that the men around them will be attracted to Rebekah – remember, she was “very fair to look upon” – so he decided to pass her off as his sister. Abimelech eventually found out that she was really his wife and rebuked Isaac for his lie, and then he told his people to make sure they did not “touch this man or his wife”.

 

A strange story, all the stranger because it parallels Abraham’s actions on two other occasions. In Genesis 12, Abraham went to Egypt looking for food and pulled the same trick with Sarah (Genesis 12), and in Genesis 20, he went to the same area as Isaac in our passage and again passed Sarah off as his sister. I won’t take any time to sort out the various interpretations of this story, but we’ll come back to it and consider what makes the most sense to me.

 

In the second story, Isaac prospers in the land of Gerar, so that his neighbours become jealous of his success. Abimelech now appears afraid of Isaac and asks him to leave his territory. Isaac agrees and leaves.

 

He settles nearby in the third story and starts digging wells, looking for water. The first two wells in which he found water led to more problems. The people who lived there said, “That’s our water! Leave it alone!” So Isaac did. He moved further away and dug a third well. This time there was no quarrel. His neighbours left him alone and he named the well “Room Enough” in honour of the occasion.

 

This story concludes with Isaac seeing God in a vision at a place called Beer-Sheba. God reaffirmed the covenant he had made with Isaac’s father, Abraham, and he stayed there for a while and dug another well. (All these wells remind us that water is life!)

 

Finally, Abimelech reappears on the scene. He has his military commander and his chief advisor with him, so Isaac is naturally concerned that Abimelech may be announcing trouble. Instead, the two men make a covenant to live at peace with each other. As our story might say, “They all lived happily ever after.”

 

Patriarchal Narratives

What do we do with these stories? Well, we don’t say that they show us what we should do in life, that’s for sure. I’m not about to suggest that anyone should pretend that their wives are really their sister. I can’t imagine a scenario in which that would be good advice!

 

In the same way, I can’t just say, “Look how peaceable Isaac was! He avoided a fight and look how God blessed him!” I don’t know if he was really a peacemaker. He may just have tended to avoid conflict. So, what do we do with these stories? If they’re not in the text to tell us what to do, what are they there for?

 

One thing they do is remind us how different the world of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob was from our day. Consider his statement, “She’s my sister.” In our culture, we know what that would mean. But different cultures reckon kindship in different ways. For example, I grew up in Zimbabwe. In Ndebele culture, my father is David, and Arthur, and Joel – and for that matter, my father’s first cousins on his father’s side could also say they are my father. We call this “the extended family.” It’s a lot more complicated than we’re used to.

 

Further, in our culture, the acceptable marriage partner never includes our biological sister. Again in Zimbabwe, I once asked my students if a man could marry his mother’s brother’s daughter. They all agreed strongly that they could not. Except for two students in the back who said, “In our clan, your mother’s brother’s daughter is the preferred marriage partner.” Okay. I don’t understand it, but I heard what they said.

 

So let these stories remind you that the world of the patriarchs was different from ours, then remember that God came to these people – however strange they seem to us, and God made his covenant with them. In the same way, God comes to us today – to everyone, whether we like the way they live or not, and God is ready to make them part of his family also.

 

But that is a side issue. More significantly, Isaac’s actions make sense if you remember something important about the patriarchs. They were immigrants, and in this chapter, Isaac was moving because of a famine (and probably a drought). That would make him both an immigrant and a refugee in our world. Refugees make choices that we may not approve of. They do whatever it takes to keep out of trouble and feed their family. If they are afraid their women might be taken, they might lie about them. If they are afraid that they might be attacked, they move to the next place. They don’t act like the people who have power in the land, because they know that their status is uncertain. They keep their eyes open, checking for any threats to their existence.

 

Consider the stories in Genesis 26. Isaac and his family move, looking for food. They live in tents, moving from one place to another, always on the alert for threats. When the people in their new home start asking questions about their family, they conceal their true relationships until the local people figure it out for themselves.

 

These are the actions of a family leader who does not trust anyone outside of his immediate family. I think he makes a bad choice here, but it’s an understandable choice. It reminds me of the refugee family we know, living in Cape Town. The husband made a bad choice and moved to Germany, hoping to find asylum for his family. Instead, he is stuck in Germany. He made a bad choice, but refugees live with pressures we don’t know. I can understand that he heard of a possible open door and took it.

 

The stories about Isaac digging wells also fit the pattern. He and his men dig a well and find water. The local people say, “That’s ours!” So Isaac moves away and tries again. Same thing happens. So he moves and tries again. This time no one chases him from the good well he dug. Why didn’t he stand up for himself and for his family? Well, migrants often have little power. If you decide to fight for yourself, you can get in worse trouble quickly. At one level, Isaac just acted prudently.

 

So, these stories fit a pattern that marks them as migrants without a lot of power. The Children of Israel always remembered their origin as a migrant powerless people. At the feast of the first fruits, recorded in Deuteronomy 26, the priest recited the following words: “A wandering Aramean was my ancestor; he went down into Egypt and lived there as an alien, few in number, and there he became a great nation, mighty and populous.” They became populous, but they started out as wandering nomads, living in tents, moving from place to place like the people we sometimes call gypsies.

 

What do We do with This?

So, what do we do with these stories? They do have lessons for us, even if we realise that we don’t simply do what Isaac did. I suggest two simple observations that may help us as we move forward in our lives together.

 

The first is that Isaac faced difficult choices, and he may have felt that he had no choice. But, in fact, he always had a choice of what to do. Sometimes he chose wrongly – I think his choice to present Rebekah as his sister was wrong. Sometimes he chose wisely – I think he did well to avoid fighting over the wells he had dug. But each time he found that he did have a way forward.

 

We also sometimes feel like we have no choice. We are facing some hard decisions over the next few months – looking for a pastor; looking for a building; figuring out who we are and who God wants us to be. At times in the past month, I have felt as though we were trapped, with no way out of the situations we were facing. But, in fact, we had choices and we have found a way to move forward. We’ll get some of our choices right, and we’ll get some wrong; but remember that we have possibilities ahead. In fact, we have a lot more ability to choose than Isaac the migrant refugee did! We’re not stuck, and God will make a way for us.

 

The second lesson is that God is the only one who can actually give us success. We make our choices, and we do our best, but only God can bring success. Isaac kept on refusing to fight. He kept on digging new wells, and God honoured his efforts by giving him water for his immediate needs and a covenant with Abimelech for his long-term needs.

 

As we make our choices, we trust in God for their success. Trusting God in the process means that whether we grow or decrease, we are in God’s hands. We pray the Lord’s Prayer, “Give us what we need for today, physically and spiritually.” Then we make our choices, knowing that we are in God’s hands.

 

A Concluding Thought

 I know that we sometimes feel trapped, as though there is no way to move forward. That feeling can lead us to make more bad choices, like Isaac saying that Rebekah was his sister and not his wife. My word to you this morning is that God can make a way where we see no way. That is why I began with the story of David and Svea Flood. David Flood saw no hope, but God used even their pathetic failure to plant a church in Ndolera.

 

While I was writing this sermon, we received news of Julie’s application for refugee status in Canada. The Canadian High Commission in South Africa has denied her application. We are grieving, and I acknowledge that I feel trapped and don’t see how we can help her. So we turn to God, and we ask God for a way forward.

 

We will make our choices as we stand with Julie and her family. Our choices may work, and they may not. Far more important, we commit Julie and ourselves into God’s care. Only God can make a way for us in this world and in the next. We do not despair. We do not give up. We continue to live as people of peace, digging new wells, looking for the next step God wants us to take. And we trust God to build our house. We trust God to give us what we need for today and for tomorrow.

 

Think again of David and Svea Flood. Their experience illustrates our human inability to overcome the situations we face, and it reminds us of God’s great ability to bring life through our efforts, however weak we feel.

 

People in the world around us turn to violence and force to get their way. We trust God instead. As the Psalmist puts it, “Some trust in men; some trust in horses; but we trust in the Lord.”

 

 

13 August 2023

Steinbach Mennonite Church

Genesis 26: 12-33

 

Belief: The Heart of Peace

We continue our summer series on peace with the familiar story of Nicodemus and Jesus. Last Sunday, Michelle reminded us of the importance of prayer as a path to peace with God. The Lord’s Prayer provides us with a model for all of us to use as we seek a clear relationship with God.

Today, we have the example of Nicodemus, who sought out Jesus with his questions. Jesus pointed him towards the necessity of a spiritual birth as the start of a spiritual life that will last forever with God. You and I have been born physically, and we live our natural lives here on earth until we die. Jesus tells us – as he told Nicodemus – that we must also be born spiritually if we want to live spiritually with God.

John summarizes all of this with what are perhaps the best loved verses in all of Scripture: “God loved the world so much that he gave his only begotten son, and whoever believes in him [Jesus] will not die (spiritually) but can live forever (spiritually). God did not send his son into the world to condemn us, but that everyone might be saved through him.”

Excursus: A brief rabbit trail about that phrase “only begotten Son”. In chapter 1, John tells us that the creative Word of God came into the world, but the people he had prepared for his coming rejected him. Then he writes, “But to as many as did receive him he gave the right to become children [sons and daughters] of God, even to those who believe in his name.” Many translations leave out “begotten”, because it is an unfamiliar word (in Greek: monogenetes). But John 3:16 paired with John 1:12 shows us both how we are like Jesus and how Jesus is unique. We are like Jesus because we also are adopted into God’s family as God’s children, with Jesus as our elder brother. But Jesus is unique in that he alone is monogenetes. “Begotten” means that the child shares the DNA of the parents. Jesus shares the DNA of God – uncreated, eternal, pure Spirit (as well as fully human), all-knowing and all-powerful, and so on. Whatever we can say about God, we say about Jesus, because Jesus – the eternal uncreated Word – is God made flesh.

Believe in Jesus

I have two simple thoughts on this verse this morning. Here’s the first one. “Believe in Jesus”: What does it mean to believe in Jesus?

Suppose I asked you if you believe in Santa Claus. Most of us would respond by saying no. We mean that we do not believe that Santa Claus exists, although we know the stories about him. We may even use those stories in our own family’s celebration of Christmas. When our sons were young, I wrote several letters from Father Christmas about that year’s work of life at the North Pole. (I borrowed the idea from J.R.R. Tolkien, who wrote a letter a year for many years, enlisting the mail carrier to bring it to the house with his own hand made stamps from the North Pole on them!)

When we say we don’t believe in Santa Claus (even while we use the idea of this strange man with a white beard), we mean that we don’t believe he really exists. What do we mean when we say we do believe in Jesus?

First, we mean that we believe that the stories about him in the New Testament are true, but the way John uses the words here goes deeper than simple belief that Jesus exists.

Consider a different example. Charles Blondin was a tightrope walker who lived in the 1800s. In 1859, he crossed the Niagara Gorge on a tightrope, a feat that he repeated many times after that. One thousand one hundred feet across the river and 160 feet above the water. Blondin demonstrated a remarkable belief in his own abilities, pushing a wheelbarrow across the rope, stopping part way to cook an egg and eat it, and even carrying a man (his manager) across on his back.

It's that last one that really gets me. Harry Colcord was the man who agreed to go on Blondin’s back. You could say that Colcord believed in Blondin. He trusted Blondin with his life. What happens if Blondin has to sneeze? I know that I would not have trusted Blondin with my life like that! You hear that phrase: “trust him with his life.” That’s what it means to believe in Jesus. It’s not enough to believe that Jesus lived. It’s not even enough to believe that Jesus is the Word made flesh, the incarnate Son of God. The verse goes deeper: “Whoever believes in him shall have everlasting life”: “Whoever trusts him with their life shall have everlasting life.” “Believe in Jesus” means to trust him with your life, just as deeply as Colcord trusted Blondin with his life crossing the Niagara Gorge.

Our theme for the summer is peace with God, with the people around us, and with the whole of creation. Last Sunday we heard of the path to peace: a life of prayer modelled on the Lord’s Prayer. Believing in Jesus walks on that path to find the heart of peace with God. As we trust Jesus with our lives, we fall in love with Jesus and experience God’s love poured over us. That love brings us peace with God.

An Integrated Life

This brings us to my second point: This peace operates at every level. Believing in Jesus leads to peace with God; and believing in Jesus leads to peace with our brothers and sisters in faith; and believing in Jesus leads to peace with the world around us, including the whole of creation.

When we find ourselves with a ruptured relationship, John brings us back to this verse: God loved the world so much that God gave us Jesus to believe in and receive life and peace. This point is easy to see and remarkably difficult for us to see and do in practise. Let me spell it out a bit and try to move beyond a simplistic answer to life’s problems.

Suppose you are married, and you have a conflict with your spouse. A common occurrence, which many of us have experienced. The integration of peace at every level of our lives means that the conflict ripples through every part of our lives, so that our relationship with God also suffers.

Similarly, if our relationship with God is weak, our relationships with others also suffer. If we participate in the abuse of the environment, that abuse causes conflict with others and with God. Conflict at any one level of our lives affects every other area as well, like plucking a spider web and watching the whole web vibrate. Like someone who kicks the dog at home because their boss (metaphorically) kicked them at work,

We have to be careful with this understanding of an integrated life. Sometimes people think that if I just pray hard enough – nurturing peace with God – then the conflict with my spouse will just go away. It doesn’t work like that. Remembering the various levels of conflict in our lives means that we work on reconciliation with our spouse, and we pray more, deepening our relationship with Jesus. We seek the renewed health of the environment, and we pray more, seeking God’s face. We pursue peace at every level of our relationships together.

This pursuit flows from our commitment to trust Jesus with our very lives. We believe in Jesus means that we commit ourselves to him and his ways every day and every moment of our lives. As we do so, we bring God into the centre of the conflicts and disruptions of our lives, seeking God’s peace at every level of our lives.

Contrast to the World around Us

This pursuit of peace stands in sharp contrast to the world around us. Conventional wisdom tells us that when we find ourselves in a conflict, we should end the conflict as soon as possible and cut ties with the person with whom we are in conflict. People don’t change, we are told, and the only recourse to conflict is to get out.

There is real wisdom in conventional wisdom. If you are in an abusive relationship with your spouse, I do not counsel you to stay there, seeking peace: Sometimes you do indeed need to leave and not return. But our society has taken this truth much further.

The underlying belief for many in our society is that people don’t change; in fact, we would say, people cannot change. We hear voices that sway any conflict makes it clear that the person you are in conflict with is unsafe. Reconciliation is impossible. We hear them say they are bad people, and you must avoid them forever. This is the spirit behind what we sometimes call “cancel culture”, and it works to perpetuate conflicts rather than to bring peace.

In contrast to this stance, John reminds us that God gave Jesus for us. Jesus lived for us, and Jesus died for us. He took our rebellion against God into himself and rose from death to reconcile us with God. His victory over death is also victory over the power of evil in our world. Therefore, we can change. Therefore, we can reconcile – both with God and with other people. Therefore, we can live at peace with God and experience peace with others and with the whole of creation.

Conclusion

I remember a dramatic example of this pursuit of peace, with God’s love for us and our love for God at its heart. Fifteen or 20 years ago, Reaksa Himm spoke at Providence. He graduated from the seminary the year before I came, and he visited us again ten years later in 2006. He told us his story, which you can read in his book, The Tears of My Soul.

Reaksa was a survivor of the killing fields in Cambodia. He was shot by the Khmer, along with the rest of the people in his village. Somehow, he survived in the open grave where they were dumped and escaped into the jungle. In 1989, he left Cambodia as a refugee and came to Canada. He expected never to return, but God had other plans for him.

In his journey as a refugee, he left Buddhism and became a Christian. His conversion brought him peace with God, but his heart was tormented by the memories of his bitter experiences at the hands of the Khmer Rouge, including the death of his family. In 1998, he was invited to return to Cambodia as a Bible teacher to help train leaders in the young church growing there. He resisted, with the hurt and pain of the past strong in his life, but God would not let him rest. Finally, in 1999, he agreed and returned to Cambodia. In the years that followed, he started a school in his home village among the people who had helped to kill his family. Here is his description of returning to his home village:

Then on 6^th June 2003, I went back to the village where my family was killed. I discovered that four of the six men involved had been killed and one had moved to a different village. I met the remaining one. He was fearful of meeting me but I spoke to him of God’s love and forgiveness. By God’s grace I was able to forgive him and set him free in my heart.

        I thank God for sparing my life so that I can bring the message of salvation and forgiveness to my broken people. I also thank God for the healing of my hurt and pain that I had endured for more than 25 years. Now, I can see the glory and experience the joy of serving him in my hometown. (Sokreaksa Himm, 156)

Reaksa’s story illustrates the way that God’s love brings peace to every area of our lives – even if it takes our whole life to do so. Peace with God leads to peace with others and peace with the whole of creation. For God loved us so much that he gave his only begotten son, and when we believe in Jesus we receive everlasting life, the life of God’s Spirit that lasts forever.

Steinbach Mennonite Church

2 July 2023

Text -- John 3: 1 to 21

Fixing What’s Broken (The New Creation)

Last Sunday was Pentecost Sunday. Today is Trinity Sunday. It makes sense to move from the day when we remember the giving of the Holy Spirit to a day when we remember the nature of God – three persons; one essence. God is one in essence, a perfect unity, but experience God as three persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

I don’t plan to explain the trinity today – that kind of exploration is useful, but it is best done in another setting, with people who can see more deeply into such mysteries than I can. Instead, I want to reflect on the Scriptures that the lectionary gives us to think of Trinity.

Genesis 1 tells of creation, the action of God at the beginning of everything. “The Spirit of God moved upon the face of the deep.” “And God said, ‘Let there be …, and there was ….’” God: Creator, Spirit, and Word. John 1 picks up on this creation account and makes clear what this creative word is: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. … Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.”

Genesis 1: God – Creative Power, Word, and Spirit – present in the beginning, an eternal three persons, one essence. Matthew 28 refers then to the same trinity as part of what we call the Great Commission: “Baptizing in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.” Last Sunday, we performed a baptism as part of our service. You may remember that Pastor Lee used these words as they poured the water over Katie’s head: “We baptize you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.”

A natural question follows. Why does the lectionary tie the Great Commission to the creation narrative like this? What’s going on? There are various possible answers, I suppose, and I want to consider first Genesis 1 and then Matthew 28 to get at least one of them.

Creation

Genesis 1 one has several important themes. One of them is the way that God brings order into chaos. The first statement about creation is that the earth was formless and empty, and darkness was over the surface of the deep. Formless – Empty – Deep: in the Hebrew, tohu va vohu … tehom. These are words that mean chaos and trouble. The deep is where bad things come from. Formless emptiness is dangerous. The first readers of Genesis would have expected trouble.

Then the narrative shifts: “The Spirit of God hovered over the waters, and God said, ‘Let there be light’, and there was light.” So begins an ordering of chaos, so that by the end of the chapter all is well ordered and made ready for the human pair.

A second theme is how good this ordering is. The next sentence after “there was light” is “God saw that the light was good.” Throughout the six creative days, this theme repeats: in verse 10, God calls the sea and dry land good; in verse 13, God calls vegetation in all its forms good; in verse 18, God calls the sun, moon, and stars good; in verse 21, God calls all living creatures good; and finally in verse 31, God calls the whole of creation, ruled over by the man and the woman made in his image, very good. God’s creation is good – when God orders it and blesses it and rules over it.

A third theme is the place that the man and the woman occupy in creation. As we saw, God calls creation ruled over by the human couple “very good”. They are made “in the image and likeness of God.” So, the human pair were made “like God”. Why does the text add “in the image”. We can see what the word “image” means here by listening to the Ten Commandments, “You shall not make for yourself an image in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. You shall not bow down to them or worship them.” Why not? Because the man and the woman were the image. The Israelites were not to bow down to any other creature as God’s image, because they were God’s image.

In short, the human couple in creation represent God, ruling over the earth in God’s place. What does that mean? Remember what God did in creating the world. God took a place of chaos and disorder and made it ordered and good. God brought shalom – wholeness and peace and good – into creation and then gave the human couple the task of continuing to bring order and peace.

Fast forward to the present. How have we done? How well have we brought order and peace into chaos and disorder? Not very well! Which sets the stage for Matthew 28.

The Great Commission

As with the Creation account, there are many themes we could consider. The little statement, “but some doubted”, is worth exploring. In the presence of the risen Lord, some were not sure what this meant or how they should respond. We can take courage from their confusion. When we feel doubts and uncertainty, we know we’re in good company, and we know that Jesus does not abandon us, any more than he abandoned his first followers.

We could also explore the precise nature of the commission – going; baptizing; teaching. These three words take us deep into the life of the first church, but they belong in another sermon, not today.

I want instead to note the way that Jesus begins the commission: “All authority in heaven and on earth is given to me.” Jesus is the Word, the creative word of God present at the creation of the heavens and the earth. He holds the authority of the ruler of the universe because he made all that is. His commission for the disciples, then, is the action of the ruler telling his representatives what they are to do. Just as God left the human pair at the beginning of the world as his images to rule over the earth, Jesus leaves the church as his representatives to bring the good news of the gospel to all people. That is, we are restoring creation – fixing what’s broken.

Why?

Why would Jesus give the church this task? Why do we need a new creation? Simply because the old creation has failed. The human race had the task of ordering creation and bringing about peace and justice throughout the world. We failed. We continue to fail. Therefore, the church has the task of bringing all people into the new creation where God reigns in perfect justice and peace.

This task is not a political task. We are not trying to create a Christian nation, which would mirror the Old Testament people of God. When Jesus went to his death, his disciples were ready to fight to protect him. Jesus stopped them with these words: “My kingdom is not of this world. If it were, then my servants could fight for me.” (John 18:36) As it is, God’s reign is not a political realm. Again, in Luke 17, Jesus says, “The kingdom of God is within you.” This is not a personal abstract spirituality, but rather it affirms that God’s reign is made visible in the church.

God’s reign is much bigger than the church; it includes the whole of creation. But we are given the task of making God’s reign visible. We show what a community of people who have been baptized into the death of Christ look like. We show what a community of people who “obey everything that Jesus commands” looks like. We make visible the new creation in which God’s Spirit is present and active. In short, we are the ones who complete the mandate given to the first man and woman in Genesis 1 to work at the task of bringing order and peace and wholeness and goodness into the world. That’s our job. That’s who we are.

An Objection

Some people think that the world is actually okay and that we don’t really need this gospel of the kingdom. I have news for you. It’s not okay. It’s bad. There are places here and there where God’s Spirit is active, bringing goodness and life, but the truth is we live in a world that is on the brink of destruction. Chaos and disorder threaten us all around. I don’t need to go into details; just listen to the news for a week and you will be sufficiently depressed.

Someone might reply, “The world’s bad, but I’m okay. I don’t need any help. I can handle what faces me and my family.” Maybe you can. I admit that I’m doubtful. Life has a way of throwing a curve ball at us. Just when we think we know what’s happening, it drops out of the strike zone and we miss the ball completely. Life’s like that.

But even if you can handle what happens to you personally, can you take care of the climate crisis? Can you end the war in Ukraine? My daughter-in-law used to work in a school in a deprived neighbourhood; she saw poverty and its effects up close. Can you fix the poverty that destroys families and fuels addictive behaviour?

The only way you can really think you’re okay is by drawing a circle around yourself and keeping all the problems outside. But it doesn’t work. Sooner or later someone you know, someone you care about, gets caught up in chaos and pain. Then you remember that it’s our job in the church to bring order into chaos, to bring peace into conflict, to bring light into darkness.

How Do We Do This?

How do we do this? That’s the question. Some people reduce the answer to handing out tracts or going door to door with a gospel presentation. The first church did it another way. They told about the resurrection over and over again, and they lived out the Great Commission: Teaching them to obey everything that Jesus commands.

That action – living it out – was critical. Stephen Neill was a missionary scholar. Here is his description of Christians in the first three hundred years of the church’s life:

In those days to be a Christian meant something. Doubtless among the pagans there were many who lived upright and even noble lives. Yet all our evidence goes to show that in that decaying world sexual laxity had gone almost to the limits of the possible, and that slavery had brought with it the inevitable accompaniments of cruelty and the cheapening of the value of human life. Christians were taught to regard their bodies as temples of the Holy Spirit. The Church did not attempt to forbid or abolish slavery; it drew the sting of it by reminding masters and slaves alike that they had a common Master...and that they were brothers in the faith. (Stephen Neill, A History of Christian Missions, 1964: 41)

I like that line: “In those days to be a Christian meant something.” Christians were different – in a good way! I’ve used this example before, and it’s worth repeating again. A hundred years ago, my ancestors in Ontario were part of the Brethren in Christ (Tunkers). Morris Sider (I think) tells how they used to have Love Feasts each year, and before they could take part in feetwashing and communion, they had to make sure there was no sin in their lives. Some of them were farmers who had crossed the border and bought farm equipment in the state of New York. Occasionally, a farmer would realize he had not paid duty on what he bought, so he went down to the border to declare the item and pay duty on it. The border guards declared that they never worried about the plain people (as they called us), because they knew that we would always come back and pay.

I think that’s really cool! Integrity was baked into their lives so that the border guards knew they were telling the truth. What would it look like if the way that God wants the world to be were baked into our lives? It would take another sermon to explore what that would look like, but I  can summarize it by using the terms we heard in the Creation account: We would be people who bring order into chaos, peace into conflict, God’s presence into every arena of life.

Drew Strait (NT prof at AMBS) tells a story of defusing conflict and seeking peace, even in the vitriol that passes for virtual conversations online. He had written an article on 9/11 and Christian nationalism, which appeared online. One of the commenters attacked him quite viciously, and Strait describes his peaceable response – leading to the commenter deleting his attack from the conversation. Even in the polarization of contemporary politics, it is possible to build for peace.

Conclusion

Part of the trouble is that we want quick results. We want to know what we can do so that things are better right away. Remember Neill’s description of the first church? They made their mark and conquered the Roman Empire with God’s love, but it took them three hundred years. They were small groups of people scattered throughout the cities of the Roman Empire. They really did not look like representatives of the king of the universe, but they were!

We also may not feel like a place filled with God’s power. Eighty to a hundred or so people, so many of us over 70 years old – and you think that this is where God reveals God’s reign to the people of the earth? You bet it is! It’s a long slow process, working night and day. That’s why Jesus says in the Great Commission, “I am with you always, to the very end of the age!”

We play our part: maybe actively; maybe quietly; living out the resurrection of Jesus every day. We pray and we live Saint Francis’ prayer, bringing about the new creation, the world as God meant it to be:

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace: where there is hatred, let me sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; where there is sadness, joy. O divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console, to be understood as to understand, to be loved as to love. For it is in giving that we receive, it is in pardoning that we are pardoned, and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life. Amen.

Steinbach Mennonite Church

4 June 2023

Sermon Texts:

Genesis 1:1 to 2:4a

Matthew 28:16 to 20

Focus Statement:

God gives us the commission to "make disciples" -- that is, to represent God recreating the world the way that God wants it to be. We are God's people inviting everyone around us to join in the new creation.

Thinking Ahead Question: What is broken in our world, and how can we fix it?

Digging Deeper:

1. What is wrong with our world?

2. What can we do about it?

3. How do you feel about the idea that fixing the world may take 300 years?

4. What examples do you know about of God’s kingdom breaking into our lives? How can we participate in bringing in the new creation?