What’s Your Story?

The passage we read from Psalm 78 is one that Mennonites have lived by. The Psalmist says that he will tell “the glorious deeds of the Lord and the wonders that he has done”. He tells the story of “God’s mighty saving acts” (to use the phrase coined by George Ernest Wright) so that the next generation will know what God has done and will place their trust in God.

 

Wright called this recital “salvation history” – the story of God’s mighty saving acts which created Israel’s identity. If their descendants forget this story, they will become rebellious and lose God’s favour and blessings. If they remember what God has done, they can choose to be God’s people fully and receive God’s blessings here and hereafter.

 

We have also told the story of how God preserved our people through danger, especially as Mennonites were restricted and persecuted in the former Soviet Union. The way that different families were able to escape in the 1940s inspires us to trust God and follow God faithfully. I have been blessed hearing these stories, and they continue to shape us and give us hope today.

 

That’s what stories do. They shape our identity and give us a way to live in the world today. You know the story of Dirk Willems, the Dutch Mennonite who turned back on an ice-covered river to save his pursuer. He saved the man’s life and lost his own, expressing his commitment to love and peace. His story nourishes our own commitment to peace, even at great personal cost.

 

The Story of Canada 

Many of you studied the history of Canada in school. I didn’t, but I know enough about the way history is told to know that a lot depends on who is telling the story. I learned about the second world war when I was a schoolboy in Zimbabwe. My English teachers told me that the English won the war with the help of the Americans and others. Then we moved to Pennsylvania, and I heard the same story, but this time from an American perspective. I learned that the Americans won the war, with the help of the English and others. It matters who is telling the story!

 

The history of Canada as taught in our schools today seeks to include an indigenous perspective, but I suspect most of us learned the story from an immigrant perspective. We learned how immigrants from Europe found a new place to live and carved out homes in the wilderness. The beginning of Steinbach is part of that larger story. We know the story of Steinbach: 18 families from Russia carved their homes out of the empty lands on the east edge of the prairie.

 

Of course, people did live here before it was Steinbach. There were Assiniboine and Cree nations. When they moved on, Anishinaabe took their place. When the first Mennonite settlers came, the Metis nation lived in the general area. That is why we sometimes recognize that the church is located on the traditional lands of the Anishinaabe, Cree, Oji-Cree, Dakota, and Dene peoples, and on the homeland of the Métis Nation. The point of this recognition is not to make anyone feel guilty. It simply notes that there is more than one perspective in our history. When we learn our story, we should also learn the story of the people around us. This may make us uncomfortable, but that’s okay.

 

This is part of what is happening this weekend, as a group from SMC joins the Metis community in Manigotagan at their annual family camp. When we no longer could send a youth team there, representatives from SMC started going up and visiting with the community. We have listened to their stories and told them some of our stories. This process means that the community in Manigotagan and our community are becoming partners in life.

 

Israel and Palestine 

But what happens when two people are in critical conflict with each other? What happens when their stories are so radically different that they cannot agree on what happened? This is the situation we see in Israel-Palestine. In the June issue of Anabaptist World, Lisa Schirch has an article in which she compares the story that Israelis tell with the story that Palestinians tell. She sets these competing narratives out in a useful table (see link) that helps us see how they work.

 

You see the Palestinian story: From their historic tie to the land to the nakba in which 700,000 Palestinians lost their homes to European Jews fleeing European persecution. From the military occupation of Palestine by Jews backed by Europe to the continued occupation of Palestinian land and the daily humiliation of Palestinians who remain in their home. From the military might of Israel supported by the West to the destruction of Gaza by Israeli troops. The only possible solution is for Israel to stop their aggression and withdraw from all Palestinian territory.

 

It’s a compelling story. Three of my college friends were Palestinian Christians. C’s family lost their home in the nakba. J and D have dedicated their lives to serving Palestinians in Israel through their occupations as a lawyer and a journalist. J married a woman from the church I pastored in Pennsylvania, and I remember the visit of his family to our church when they held the wedding feast in his bride’s home. I hear this story and my heart aches for my friends. Their story resonates in my heart and in my soul.

 

But hear the Israeli story. From their historic tie to the land to the holocaust in which six million Jews died to the dispossession of 700,000 Jews who lived in Arab lands. From the reality that half of all Jews were “brown, Arab Jews” and half were Ashkenazi European Jews to the way that Arabs and Palestinians have worked to destroy them – even colluding with the Nazis to the reality that there is only one small Jewish state where they can live in safety compared to the 50 or so Muslim states who support Palestine. From the experience of constant attacks from Palestinian extremists to the horrific invasion of Israel last October.

It’s a compelling story, if we have the ability to hear it. I have taken several groups from Providence to visit the mosque on Waverley Avenue in Winnipeg for Friday prayers and to Sha’arey Zedek across from the legislature for the Sabbath service. I have been there often enough that Bill Weissman, our guide when I take a class, has told me that they will have to make me a member.

 

One Sabbath, the synagogue service was what they call a Yizkor – a remembrance. The rabbi said, “Now we remember those whose mothers have died”, and he called us to stand. I stood with the others whose mothers had died while he prayed, “Remember, God, the soul of my mother, my teacher, who went to her world, because I will give charity for her. Let her soul be bound up in the bond of life, with the soul of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, Sarah, Rivkah, Rachel and Leah, and with the other righteous men and women in the Garden of Eden. And let us say, Amen.”

 

We said prayers for those whose fathers had died and prayers for those whose children had died. Each group stood in turn while we prayed, and you could hear quite weeping in one family or another as they remembered their loved ones – a lot like our Eternity Sunday. Then finally the rabbi said, “Now we remember the six million”, and everyone stood. I realized with a start who they meant. Six million Jews killed in the Holocaust. Twenty percent of all Jews worldwide died in that terrible time, only 80 years ago.

 

This is our problem: The Israeli story is a deeply compelling and tragic story, and the Palestinian story is a deeply compelling and tragic story. How do we come together when the stories that we want to tell, as the Psalmist reminds us to do – what do we do when those stories are in such bitter conflict?

 

Towards a Resolution 

I don’t have the wisdom to answer this question, but I can point us towards an answer. The steps we have taken with the community at Manigotagan are part of the answer. Start by hearing the others’ story and telling our own. Start by embracing the full humanness of the other and by baring our own souls in return. Our stories shape us and make our identities: We share ourselves when we share our stories.

 

Paul gives us a clue about a further step we can take. As Christians, we have a new and deeper story. You see it in 1 Corinthians 15, one of the earliest Christian confessions. It is the story of the cross: “Christ died ... Christ was buried ... Christ was raised ... Christ appeared to us ...” It is the story of God’s grace given to people whose rebellion has cut them off from God. It is the story of God’s response to the ugliness and hatred and violence that permeate all of our human stories. It is the story of God’s redeeming love.

 

When we come together at the foot of the cross, our own personal stories are transformed. Our story as immigrant settlers from Europe comes together with the indigenous story of those who helped us make a new home in the East Reserve, when we come together in the presence of the crucified and risen Jesus. Our mistakes and failures don’t disappear, but they lose their power, and we can embrace our sisters and brothers at Manigotagan. This has already happened, as their elder, Norman Meade, has opened the word of life to us on several occasions here.

 

Israel and Palestine present a much harder case, but the way to new life in the Middle East still passes through the cross. I cannot see how Israelis and Palestinians can walk that road, but I know that it runs through the cross. The Friday prayer in the Anglican church says it well: “Almighty God, whose most dear Son went not up to joy but first he suffered pain, and entered not into glory before he was crucified: Mercifully grant that we, walking in the way of the cross, may find it none other than the way of life and peace; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord. Amen.”

 

It would be arrogant of us to try to tell Jews and Palestinians how to walk this path. Our part is to listen to both sides, to seek to hear their stories, and to act as carefully and prayerfully for peace. What that means is for discussion in our Sunday School time. A couple from the Mennonite Church who have significant experience in Israel-Palestine will join us in November, and we can talk more about it then.

 

Until then, embrace God’s story. Embrace the “mighty saving acts of God”. The story of the cross embraces all our stories and transforms them into “the way of life and peace.” Join me in a closing prayer: “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.”

 

 

8 September 2024, Manigotagan Sunday 

Steinbach Mennonite Church

Texts: Psalm 78:1-8; 1 Corinthians 15:1-11

 

Focus Statement: Our lives can be told as a story. We all have different stories, and so do our families. Our individual and communal stories are sometimes in conflict with each other, but they all come together in the story of the cross (heilsgeschichte – salvation history).

 

Going Deeper Questions: What can we do with the different stories of Palestinians and Israelis in the Middle East? What about Canada's indigenous people and our own Mennonite ancestors? How can we come together as one people when our histories are in conflict?

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

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