Easter 2013

Early in the morning on the first day of the week
He hurried out on hazy snow-covered path
A careful scrambled haste to see what is
Rumour of new impossible hope.

Death he had seen, darkness he knew

But something more, somewhere
Hidden under new-fallen snow
Winter concealing Spring

Hurried and careful against the bitter chill

Cold north wind growing harder.
Had anyone else heard?

No one was about

Quick short steps trying not to fall
His footsteps first on the light covering of snow.

Now others hurried on in the same direction

Towards doors ahead hiding warmth and rumour
Slip inside and see something beginning
Rumour swelling into truth.

A voice cried out: Christ is Risen!

A hundred voices shouted back
A thousand thousand voices crying around the world
He cried out with them: Christ is Risen Indeed!

31 March 2013

The Week Before Easter

Life is complicated. A few weeks ago our son called us to tell us that he had just gotten engaged! Within five minutes of that joyful phone call we had a call from a close friend whose parents are planning to get a divorce. Celebration and grieving flowed together.
 
Most of us have experienced something like this: We celebrate with one friend who just had a baby while we grieve with another whose sister just died. Often grief and joy flow together in the same event: We remember with laughter and tears when a parent dies. Life is complicated.

I have noticed that some people try to reduce the complexity by turning a funeral into a “celebration of life”. Not a bad idea—there is much to celebrate, especially if the death is not too premature and if the loved one was someone we genuinely do celebrate. But I feel some discomfort. Grief and joy flow together, and we can’t—indeed should not—try to remove either one. Life is too complicated for that.

So we are celebrating a summer wedding. The time for planning is short, and the level of frustration grows as plans are made quickly and at a distance; but with the frustration runs a current of joy and celebration. At the same time we walk with the couple whose relationship is ending, not made less bitter because of a new relationship starting somewhere else. Life is complicated.

Good Friday is around the corner: “Sorrow and love flow mingled down”. Both joy and grief flow together as the shadows grow deeper, only to be dispelled by the light breaking in through the great resurrection of Jesus. Life is complicated; but a simple truth remains—that joy is stronger than grief, and love is stronger than hate, and life is greater than death. Always. (Even though death comes first.)

Waiting (Lenten 2)

Preached at Steinbach Mennonite Church
Sunday, 24 February, 2013
Text
Genesis 15: 1-12, 17-18
God’s Covenant with Abram
15 After this, the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision: “Do not be afraid, Abram. I am your shield, your very great reward.”

² But Abram said, “Sovereign Lord, what can you give me since I remain childless and the one who will inherit my estate is Eliezer of Damascus?” ³ And Abram said, “You have given me no children; so a servant in my household will be my heir.”

⁴ Then the word of the Lord came to him: “This man will not be your heir, but a son coming from your own body will be your heir.” ⁵ He took him outside and said, “Look up at the heavens and count the stars—if indeed you can count them.” Then he said to him, “So shall your offspring be.” ⁶ Abram believed the Lord, and he credited it to him as righteousness.

⁷ He also said to him, “I am the Lord, who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land to take possession of it.” ⁸ But Abram said, “Sovereign Lord, how can I know that I will gain possession of it?” ⁹ So the Lord said to him, “Bring me a heifer, a goat and a ram, each three years old, along with a dove and a young pigeon.”

¹⁰ Abram brought all these to him, cut them in two and arranged the halves opposite each other; the birds, however, he did not cut in half. ¹¹ Then birds of prey came down on the carcasses, but Abram drove them away. ¹² As the sun was setting, Abram fell into a deep sleep, and a thick and dreadful darkness came over him. …..

¹⁷ When the sun had set and darkness had fallen, a smoking firepot with a blazing torch appeared and passed between the pieces. ¹⁸ On that day the Lord made a covenant with Abram and said, “To your descendants I give this land, from the Wadi of Egypt to the great river, the Euphrates— ¹⁹ the land of the Kenites, Kenizzites, Kadmonites, ²⁰ Hittites, Perizzites, Rephaites, ²¹ Amorites, Canaanites, Girgashites and Jebusites.”

Introduction

The theme for Lent is: Ashamed No More—an awareness of the way in which God gives us new life that moves beyond the shame that we feel in our lives. Shame can be a powerful tool for social control in various societies. But in our culture shame is most often a negative thing that can paralyze us with a sense of unworthiness in spite of anything good that God has done in us. Our theme presses us to move beyond the shame that we feel into our identity as God’s children.
 
The theme for today within the larger theme is: We will take courage and wait on the Lord. The conference material suggests the theme of waiting:

Wait on the Lord? The childless couple waits in pain and shamed loneliness. Wait on the Lord? The abused spouse waits in fear for liberation. Wait on the Lord? The angry young man waits for justice to be done. Barrenness, adversity, patience, and trust dominate these readings.

Waiting

I want to think of waiting in a different way before thinking of the most difficult situations. I suspect that all of us share a particular experience of waiting. Let me describe it through the testimony that one of our members gave on joining the church here. (I don’t know if you will recognize your words here, or if my memory has reshaped it too much!) He said something like this: “I remember one service after we started attending here when I could tell that the Holy Spirit was here. There was a kind of tingling in the air, and I looked around to see if anyone else felt it.” My own experience of such moments is that they are followed by a time of waiting—God comes to us so clearly, and then we live in a time of waiting for another such experience.

One of my colleagues told us recently about his own experience. He said that when he started teaching at Providence many years ago, God went away. He doesn’t know why. Then after several years of what we might call spiritual dryness (that time in which we pray, but the words bounce off the ceiling) God came back. He recalled the moment when he was sitting in our chapel. He doesn’t know what the chapel was about, but he recalled how a clear sense of God’s presence filled the room, whether or not anyone else noticed it.

We may spend years in such times, waiting for God to show up. We can call this waiting “spiritual dryness”, and we may think it is a bad thing. I want to look at the Scripture this morning and try to see what part waiting plays in our lives.

Genesis 15 and Context

In Genesis 11, Terah and his son Abram go from what today is Iraq-Iran to what today is Syria. In chapter 12 God called Abram and Sarai to leave Syria and trek across country to the Promised Land (“the land that I will show you”). In chapters 12 and 13 they move around some more, down to Egypt and back. Chapter 14 pictures some of the struggles the family had as it tried to establish itself in the Promised Land.

Then in our passage, which we will return to shortly, God renews the promise of becoming a great nation, first made in chapter 12. In the next chapter Abram has his first child, to Sarai’s servant, Hagar. Ishmael is born. In chapter 17, God renews his promise and changes Abram and Sarai’s names to Abraham and Sarah (the names we usually remember them by). As a sign of the promise God institutes the covenant of circumcision.

Chapters 18 and 19 show the renewal of the promise (again!), and the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, with the saving of Lot (Abraham’s nephew) and his family. Chapter 20 has further wanderings around the desert—remember, they were a nomadic people, and finally in chapter 21 Isaac, the son of the promise, is born.

Note the time frame: It appears that about 11 years passed between chapters 12 and 15, so there were 11 years of waiting until Ishmael was born, and Ishmael did not fulfill the promise! Finally 14 years later Isaac, the son of the promise, was born. And even then the full promise took several generations more to come true. No wonder the writer of Hebrews describes Abraham and Sarah’s experience with these words (Hebews 11): “¹³ [They] were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance, admitting that they were foreigners and strangers on earth.” They were still waiting for the full promise when they died. Abraham’s experience was one of waiting—11 years for one son, and 14 more until the other, and still waiting when he died. In between the long wait there were these ecstatic experiences of God’s presence, profound and powerful.

Let’s look at this particular experience, with dead animals and a smoking firepot. Strange stuff, the sort of thing to make us wonder why we read the OT! Look again at verses 7 to 12 and 17 and 18. This scene was not nearly as strange to Abraham as it is to us. The creatures used (heifer, goat, ram, dove, and pigeon) are the same animals used in the various sacrifices described in Leviticus 1 to 7: Sacrificing these creatures was understood in that culture as part of the most solemn ceremonies. This particular way of sacrificing them—cutting them in half and laying the halves apart on the ground—was also well understood. Jeremiah 34 pictures a similar ceremony:

¹⁷ Therefore, this is what the Lord says: You have not obeyed me; you have not proclaimed freedom to your own people. So I now proclaim ‘freedom’ for you, declares the Lord—‘freedom’ to fall by the sword, plague and famine. I will make you abhorrent to all the kingdoms of the earth. ¹⁸ Those who have violated my covenant and have not fulfilled the terms of the covenant they made before me, I will treat like the calf they cut in two and then walked between its pieces. ¹⁹ The leaders of Judah and Jerusalem, the court officials, the priests and all the people of the land who walked between the pieces of the calf, ²⁰ I will deliver into the hands of their enemies who seek their lives. Their dead bodies will become food for the birds and the wild animals.

You see the idea. This was a form of covenant ceremony known throughout the region. Two kings would cut these animals apart, recite the covenant they were making with each other as they walked between the severed halves lying on the ground, and then say: “May God do to me as we have done to these animals if I ever break this covenant!” But look again at Genesis 15. God knew well that Abraham could not keep this covenant, and that if God and Abraham both passed between the severed halves, Abraham would be signing his death warrant. So God cast Abraham into a deep sleep and passed between the pieces alone, signifying that when Abraham or his descendants broke the covenant, the punishment of death would fall on God alone. Do you see what this points to? Here in Genesis 15 God points Abraham to something beyond his knowledge, to the cross!

What About Us?

This brings us back to the present, to our time of waiting—often we lead (in Henry David Thoreau’s words) “lives of quiet desperation”. About a month ago we had our day of prayer at Providence. I joined the seminary community for the morning, which was structured around restoring our first love, that is: what do we do when we are “spiritually dry”? How do we recover a sense of God’s presence overwhelming and delighting us? I mentioned my colleague’s experience earlier. He told us that morning that he believes God gives us spiritual dryness, the waiting of our lives, for our benefit. The early church fathers saw spiritual ecstasy as dangerous, and they saw spiritual dryness as the cure. What St. John of the Cross called “the dark night of the soul” was not bad, in their view, but was a good gift from God to help us grow.

You get the idea from an analogy my brother-in-law gave me some years ago. He was a grain farmer in Indiana, and I had asked him if the lack of rain that summer worried him. He said, “Actually, it’s good. Once the corn has really taken root, we like it to get pretty dry so that the roots go down deep looking for water. Regular rains mean that the roots stay close to the surface, and then a windstorm comes along and knocks the whole crop flat and you lose everything. We like it to get pretty dry so that the roots go deep!” That describes Abraham’s life. He had occasional experiences of God’s presence, powerful and profound; but he spent most of his life waiting and wondering if the promise would ever be fulfilled, if he would ever have a son. That’s what we do too. Waiting is good. Waiting gives us strength as we follow Christ faithfully. Waiting nourishes our growth, like a young child learning to walk as her parents take their hands away, even if that means that she falls over.

One Thing More

We started with these questions from the conference materials: “Wait on the Lord? The childless couple waits in pain and shamed loneliness. Wait on the Lord? The abused spouse waits in fear for liberation. Wait on the Lord? The angry young man waits for justice to be done. Barrenness, adversity, patience, and trust dominate these readings.”

I have argued that the waiting we do in our daily lives is good for us. Is waiting for justice and release also good? An African American poet wrote:

What happens to a dream deferred?

Does it dry up

like a raisin in the sun?

Or fester like a sore—

And then run?

Does it stink like rotten meat?

Or crust and sugar over—

like a syrupy sweet?

Maybe it just sags

like a heavy load.

Or does it explode?

Is waiting for justice, waiting in hope, a “dream deferred”, a case of “justice delayed, justice denied”? It can be. We work to do what is right and to help those trapped by the evils of our world. You see, the waiting that Abraham was doing was waiting for God to show up, like my colleague. While we wait, we work to deal with injustice and to make peace in our world. We make sure as far as it depends on us that peace and justice rule in our lives and in the places where we live. And we wait.

As we wait, we know that God will show up; but he comes on his schedule, not ours. Notice that Abraham does experience God’s presence, powerful and profound. So I make one last point. Seek God while you wait. You and I need God’s presence as much as Abraham did. We may have to wait years. I waited for 34 years between two such experiences—from age 24 in Zimbabwe to age 58 here in Steinbach. Neither time could I have predicted that God would show up as he did; but God comes to you and to me when he knows the time is right.

Meanwhile we wait. We wait, and as we wait, we do what God wants us to do. We pray and we read the Scriptures and we serve and we live faithfully with each other. And as we wait, we grow, sending our roots down deeper and deeper, searching for the living water of God’s presence. And God comes. God always comes!

Remembering Henry Schellenberg

The Providence family received word this morning that our friend and colleague, Henry Schellenberg, died last night. His wife sent the message with the words: "My Sweet Husband has pain no more! 
Dear Family, Friends and Colleagues, 
At 11:35 this morning, Feb 20th, Henry went to be with the Lord. Andrew, Matthew, Maddy, and I were there together for his last breath which was a gentle sigh."

Henry died from the cancer that he first learned about three years ago, I think. (My memory for dates is hazy.) After a respite in which he was able to present a recital of celebration for the apparent success of his treatment, the cancer returned, and now Henry has left us.

There are many memories: conversations at the lunch table at Prov, Festival of Christmas Praise in the first week of December for just short of 30 years (I attended that last 15), fundraising efforts to take the choir on tour. The list is a long one, but I remember one event more than the rest.

In my first year at Providence I was asked to speak on "The Wrath of God" in our community chapel. I blame David Smith and Gus Konkel for asking this peace-loving Mennonite to speak on God's wrath! (David, the Baptist preacher, was assigned "The Mercy of God".)

I used Psalm 2 as the text, and then cast about for appropriate music to introduce the talk. There is little Christian hymnody, and little contemporary Christian music, on God's wrath. "The wrath of God is greater far than tongue or pen can ever tell ..." -- no, we sing of God's love and sing little of God's wrath.

But Psalm 2 appears in Handel's Messiah, so Henry Scehllenberg (bass) and James Fast (tenor) agreed to sing the relevant arias: "Why do the nations rage" and "Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron". Henry stood up to sing. He was due a hip replacement, and sitting behind him I could see his struggle to retain his balance as his voice soared out in joyful challenge to the nations. He clutched the podium or he would have fallen, but his voice soared on.

Now his body has fallen, but his voice remains in my mind and heart. If you know Handel's Messiah, you know what follows these two powerful arias: The Hallelujah Chorus. Why do the nations rage so furiously together? The kings of the earth rise up and the rulers take counsel together ... and then the response, with joyful finality: "Hallelujah! The Lord God omnipotent reigneth! He is King of kings and Lord of lords!"

Henry has passed through the raging cancer in his body into God's presence. We miss him, and we will miss him. It is hard to type through tears. But Henry is singing the great chorus that answers the Psalmist: "Hallelujah! Our Lord God omnipotent reigns King of kings and Lord of lords!" Forever.

Mementoes

Some months ago my mother-in-law followed my parents into a retirement centre in Pennsylvania. One consequence of their moves was the sudden acquisition of mementoes from their cottages. Without the space to keep them, their children took what they wanted. In general with remarkably little disagreement over who would get what.

We got a copper tray from my folks, a reminder of 20 years of service in Zambia and Zimbabwe; and (for my Dad) of another nine years growing up in Zimbabwe. A beautiful copper tray, but the memories of people and service carried on the tray outweighs the copper considerably.


A lamp with a driftwood base and a lovely (but fragile) top made its way to our house as well. Alison carried it on her lap from Greenville to South Bend, packed into a car carrying more than it was designed to. We packed it carefully (so as not to damage it) when I drove it north across the border to our home. Memories for Lois of her love for the Southwest, and memories of her home for so many years in New Madison.






Then the water pitcher. A beautiful antique water pitcher that had belonged to M. G. Engle. There's history for you! The pitcher reminds me of a curious coincidence (providing I have my facts right). Lois' great-grandfather, M. G. Engle, was a prominent bishop and leader among the Kansas Brethren. After his first wife died, he married again -- to an evangelist among the Brethren whose knowledge of the Word and ability to expound from the pulpit was equal to his own. My grandfather performed the wedding ceremony in which they were united.


I love these memories. Carrying them up from the States was hard work. Our little Corolla was filled to window height inside, with a packed trunk, when I arrived at the border. The Customs official looked inside the car. "Are you bringing anything back with you that you did not take down?" he asked, somewhat incredulously. I motioned at the pile of stuff. "My parents and my wife's mother moved into a retirement centre. This is the stuff they told us to take home with us." Several moments of silence while he digested the news. "Any alcohol or tobacco?" "No." "Welcome home." He was not about to tamper with that pile of stuff, calculating correctly that there was no money there, just lots of dusty memories.

And I love them. Reminders of where I come from, my ancestors living on in my blood and thoughts and house, as long as I can remember them. And Lois and me living on in our sons and whoever comes after, as long as they remember. Memories.

In Praise of Hypocrisy (sort of)

Red Green has a nice piece (in The Green Red Green, p.185): “I was driving in the middle of a pack of cares on the highway this week. We were all speeding. No problem. Suddenly, a police car pulled out onto the highway and we all hit the brakes, trying to ease our way down to the speed limit. Luckily, the cop didn’t notice. He just thought his car must have tremendous power to be able to catch up on all of us that quickly. So we all moved at the same speed in a huge mass joined together by guilt. Thankfully, the cop got off a couple of exits later and we could all get back to breaking the law. But we’re not criminals. We just think there are a couple of laws that you obey only when a policeman is present. So when officers are around we pretend we always drive at a safe speed. And they pretend to believe us. It’s kind of an unspoken agreement between the two sides—like not swearing in front of your kids and vice versa.”

I like this! Sometimes we think of hypocrisy as the worst vice one can have. But surely this kind of hypocrisy has a good side.

When parents and children agree tacitly not to swear in front of each other, they restate and embrace the ideal, even if they fail to live up to it. When drivers (and police) play the game RG describes, they restate and embrace the ideal of following rules designed to help us live with each other safely. We break the rules too, but we admit that others are important.

Sometimes people respond by saying: I’m going to be transparent and live the way I really feel. Transparency and authenticity are good traits; but the unspoken assumption behind this attitude may be destructive. There is the idea that we can cure hypocrisy by throwing out rules for living. How about if we embrace RG’s version of hypocrisy above, and then cure the more serious forms of hypocrisy by embracing the ideals they reflect?

One fact behind hypocrisy is precisely that we do know what is right and wrong, and whatever we say, we want to be good. So the good in hypocrisy is that it reminds us that right is right, and wrong is wrong. Debates about the precise shape of right and wrong should continue, but please don’t throw out the quest to become good in order to get rid of the vice of hypocrisy!

New Year 2013

This New Year arrived with the anxiety that Americans feel over what they are calling “the fiscal cliff”, alongside visiting with family and friends in Indiana and Pennsylvania.

The visits were good, although tiring. There is nothing quite like home after a long trip; but we enjoyed playing games (Lois and I each won a game of “Ticket to Ride” for the first time) and talking and singing (not nearly enough) and simply being with people we love.

Politics, on the other hand, were simply a source of anxiety. I have two primary concerns, recorded here once more.

First Concern: The American political system cannot work until Americans—and their representatives in politics—stop simply blaming their opponents for their problems. A simple example: Democrats blame Republicans for pursuing policies that will hurt the middle class and so destroy programs such as Social Security and Medicare. Republicans blame Democrats for pursuing policies that will hurt wealthy employers and so destroy programs such as Social Security and Medicare.

Both sides set up the blame game in such a way that whatever happens they can blame the other side. But with the baby boom generation reaching the age that they draw Social Security and use Medicare in unprecedented numbers—with fewer taxpayers in the younger age brackets than before—the system will come under great strain regardless of who is in power, and regardless of what policies they pursue. There is no painless path into the future, given the demographic and economic realities we face.

A corollary of this is that the worldwide economic system is more responsible for the cycles of the American economy than we admit. Clinton should not receive all the credit for the good economic cycle of the 1990s, nor should Reagan for the same in the 1980s. Domestic policies make a difference, but larger forces are even more important. Therefore neither the Democratic nor Republican party can claim to fix the American economy without regard to what is happening around the world.

So first thought: Stop blaming each other and start looking together for policies and practices that will help us negotiate an uncertain policy.

Second: The two parties have adopted a strategy of seeking the total destruction of the other party. One sees this in the way that Tea Party advocates sometimes talk about Democrats as though they are not also Americans—“We need to take back our country!” From whom? The USA belongs to all Americans, not simply to those of the right or the left.

I fear this policy of total destruction. Republicans have adopted a hard line on immigration, giving voters who are recent immigrants the impression that the Republican Party does not want them. As a result, I think the Republicans will lose the long term battle. I don’t want to lose the Republicans and what they represent from our national conversation on policy. The conservative belief in individual responsibility, along with its willingness to listen to the lessons of history and tradition, are valuable traits we dare not lose.

And if the battle goes the other way we would lose just as badly. The Liberal desire to find equity and freedom for all people must remain in our national consciousness. The truth is that Liberal and Conservative, Democrat and Republican, share more than they realize. But either perspective becomes hegemonic and tyrannical if it is not held in constant conversation and tension with the other.

We need each other. The challenges of the future are too great for either party or ideology to confront alone. We will make mistakes, but we should make them together. Then we can correct them more quickly and productively.

My wish for 2013? Stop blaming; start working together; embrace each other all across the political spectrum; continue to work for what you believe is right, recognizing that sometimes you are wrong and your opponent is right. Happy New Year!

After Christmas

On the night before Christmas Eve we went to see “The Hobbit”—the first of the three new movies set in Middle Earth. The movie was enjoyable, quite different from the book (even when following the book’s plot); but it the previews strike a different note.

I wrote in the last blog that God, the fundamental principle creating reality as we know it, is personal and loving. In the Christmas Eve Mass I saw again the true nature of our world—good, loving, greater than any weakness or failure within myself.

The previews to “The Hobbit” pictured another Reality than this. I don’t know movies well enough to remember what was previewed, but there was at least one common theme. In several of them, the world in some way or other was about to change or had changed—apocalyptically. The underlying nature of reality was revealed, and it was evil, chaotic, dangerous. The only hope for the protagonists lay deep within themselves, to somehow combat the chaos around them and forge a precarious existence.

It is an old theme—as old as the slaying of Tiamat by Marduk in the Ancient Near Eastern story from Babylon. Chaos is the fundamental reality, and life is always under threat.

We see the theme radically contradicted in Genesis, as the Spirit of God moves upon the face of the Deep. The Creator who is deeper than chaotic reality speaks into Chaos and brings order and peace and life.

So what? Do such things matter? I think so.

We have just endured unspeakable tragedy during the Christmas Season, senseless shootings in a school and at a burning house. Some might want to draw connections between the perceived moral decay of our country and the events of the past month. Such connections may or may not exist. Those who deny them “protest too much” (in Shakespeare’s well-known phrase). Those who espouse them seem to think they can see deeper into reality than anyone can see.

No such connection can be demonstrated; but the cultural milieu in which events occur is one source for those events. No, we do not find the significance of the themes of hope and despair in such perceived connections.

Rather I look at the way that I—or anyone else—might act based on my view of reality. If I believe that the fundamental nature of reality is chaotic and dangerous, and if I believe that the only real hope lies in my own ingenuity and effort, then I will not do many other things that are constructive in building society. I will not trust government, for example: I can trust only myself. I will assume that anyone who not representing me directly is working against me. Conspiracy theories and mistrust of others are natural responses. These responses are destructive of life in any healthy society.

If, on the other hand, I believe that the fundamental nature of reality is good and loving, then I will live in a quite different way. I will treat others as though they may be good, reserving suspicion and mistrust for those who earn it. I will act on the basis that good will always triumph in the long run. Evil never wins; Good always wins. Therefore I can dare to be good.

Further, if the fundamental nature of reality is good and loving, then I choose to be good and loving. Pessimistic and suspicious though I am by my own nature, I choose to live by the deeper reality that broke through with the trumpets and organ and timpani on Christmas Eve.

The difference between these two fundamental outlooks on reality matters a great deal. I invite others to join me in hope, whatever the surface of your reality looks like.

Christmas

Midnight Christmas Eve, Christmas morning. The pipe organ resounds, with brass and timpani and choir and congregation: “O Come, All Ye Faithful, joyful and triumphant.” I cannot capture the moment in weak words, but remember the awe and relief of seeing and hearing Light and Truth incarnate.

One small piece of the moment: The priest sounds out the rhythm of history. “In the year … from the birth of Abraham, two thousand and fifteen;  from Moses and the coming of the Israelites out of Egypt, one thousand, five hundred and ten; from the anointing of King David, one thousand and thirty-two; in the sixty-fifth week, according to the prophecy of Daniel; in the one hundred and ninety-fourth Olympiad; in the year seven hundred and fifty-two from the founding of the city of Rome; in the forty-second year of the empire of Octavian Augustus, when the whole earth was at peace, in the sixth age of the world, Jesus Christ, eternal God, and Son of the eternal Father, desirous to sanctify the world by His most merciful coming, having been conceived of the Holy Ghost, and nine months having elapsed since his conception, is born in Bethlehem of Juda, having become man of the Virgin Mary.”

The birth of Jesus. God, the One absolutely beyond, the absolutely Other, enters our existence.

We sit in the basilica surrounded by light and shadows. I know and feel my infirmities too well, physical and mental, the essential weakness of my being. Then the music and words ring out. The foundational organizing principle of reality shows itself. We see the universe, the very Creator of all that is, revealed in brief blinding flashes. Rather than overwhelming us, the revelation comforts.

Why a baby? The processional winds past us, children carrying a doll baby to place in the crèche. Why does Reality show itself as a baby? Someone who was born, lived, and died. Someone who cried and nursed, who grew into an adult, who lived and taught and died. Someone who rose from death itself.

I don’t know why. I do know that Reality shows itself as personal and relational. The creative principle that brings us into existence shows itself not to be “It”, but “He/She/They”—a Palestinian Jewish man who lived 20 centuries ago. Not to lift up maleness, but to establish in our hearts and minds that God is Person and personal, that God relates and desires relationship, that God is love and loves us beyond human understanding.

My essential weakness and problems with life feel big, then Reality himself breaks in and I see light and truth, I sense in some way God, “True God of True God, Light of Light Eternal.” What does my weakness matter? It doesn’t. My sense of failure melts in the awareness of God’s love and strength and glory.

One of the first readings, a sermon from Pope St. Leo the Great, stated: “For there is no proper place for sadness, when we keep the birthday of the Life, which destroys the fear of mortality and brings to us the joy of promised eternity.”

At one level we rebel against these words. What of those who are lonely, hurting, in despair? Do these words dismiss them too easily? No. Rather these words set our pain and weakness and the despair that nips at our heels in their proper context. Reality himself enters, and Light and Truth break in. The truth that God is Love, and that God draws each one of us into relationship with the baby born this day, and thus into proper relationship with each other.

We may be weak and hurting; but we are not trapped. Life is here!

Christmas Eve

Today is Christmas Eve. The rest of the family is taking the dogs for a walk over at the university campus. Good for the dogs, and good for the family. I am sitting here listening to Morning Edition on NPR and thinking about Christmas.

I read half of 1 Thessalonians this morning. Not a Christmas text, but the New Testament as a whole grows out of Christmas and Easter, so that’s enough justification. (Morning Edition just ended, and now I’m listening to the Nine Lessons and Carols from King’s College, Cambridge—definitely Christmas enough for whatever I’m thinking.)

What struck me in Paul’s writing was a fairly simple truth: He keeps referring to how what happens to the Thessalonians affects him, and how what happens to him affects them. They are bound together in a way that defies the individual orientation of contemporary North America and Europe.

This basic thought—that we are bound together and that none of us decides for himself or herself without reference to others—has been abused often in our history. Social pressures to enforce conformity are common in every society. Sometimes those pressures are used abusively; sometimes they are redemptive. In either case, we Americans and Canadians rebel against the idea that anyone’s right to full individual freedom should be restricted in any way.

We acknowledge that such freedom does not include the right to cry “Fire!” in a crowded movie theatre, but that’s about as far as we’ll go. Our contemporary conviction is that I, and only I, can decide what is right and wrong.

But we remain bound together, regardless of that conviction; the choices that we make and that which we experience affects not only the individual, but everyone of us. We are bound together. We are not autonomous individuals.

The desire for unfettered autonomy shows its weakness in the recent shooting of school children in Connecticut, and in the resulting discussion about restricting access to guns. The problem is not that two opposing sides have strong views and cannot find common ground. The problem rather is the way that we carry on the conversation.

Those who favour gun control in some form (a view that makes sense to me) think that those who oppose any regulations are Neanderthals, almost lunatic in their devotion to gun rights. Those who oppose gun control (a view that I don’t fully understand) think that those who favour regulation want to enslave them—that they are radical activists who care nothing for individual freedom or the Constitution of the United States of America. Such name-calling does no good on either side.

It seems to me that both sides are driven by the sense that “I am the only one who is able to say what is true”—radical individualism in the pursuit of truth. One has only to peruse the comments following any story on CBC or CNN or FoxNews or NPR to see how convinced each writer is that he/she has the truth and that those who disagree are perverse, even evil.

We need a different model. We are bound together in all that we think and do. If that is so, then it is unlikely that any individual is simply right, and those who disagree are simply wrong. Advocates of gun control have a point. Advocates of Second Amendment Rights have a point. Each person in the conversation can only benefit by understanding those with whom they disagree.

One can make the same point about our national conversations about abortion, and about same sex unions, and about the fiscal cliff, and about all the other elements of national issues. What we have now is a practical libertarian commitment on all sides, combined with a willingness to use the power of the federal government on all sides.

That last thought is tentative in my mind: I am trying to figure out how to express the commitment to individualism that I see in our country combined with a winner take all attitude in the political arena. That combination forces us into a situation in which “might makes right”, and in which the way we are bound together is ultimately mutually destructive. The gingham dog and the calico cat on a national stage.

In place of such mutual destruction, at least Christians can model the way that we are bound together in a positive life-affirming way. We can seek to hear those with whom disagree, based on a conviction that they also have truth we need to hear. We can continue to speak the truth we have respectfully, refusing to be simply cowed or over-awed, knowing that the other also needs our truth. Together we can invite all those around us to discover the reality of the baby who bore several names, including prominently, “Prince of Peace”.

Advent 3--Renewal

Steinbach Mennonite Church

Sunday, Dec 16, 2012—Advent 3: Renew

Renewal: Being and Doing

Introduction

We are waiting for the coming Messiah. What do we do as we wait? How do we wait? I remember in seminary we were told periodically about being and doing. We were instructed: Mennonites like to do things; but it is more important to be! Be in Christ. Be present with God. Be fully present in this moment. Stop trying to do what needs to be done, and be. Those who spoke to us were right of course. Endless activity without a real identity rooted in Christ is wasted, a sure path to frustration and failure.

But our desire to do something is rooted in more than just a Mennonite background that emphasizes the value of hard work. Once we find ourselves in God, once we come to Christ and are cleansed and ready for his coming into our world, we live on the basis of that new identity in Christ. So, what do we do?

We heard the theme in Zephaniah: God has removed the punishment of Zion—which means that Israel and Judah have suffered in Exile long enough and will be set free. Cf Isaiah 40: Comfort, comfort my people, says your God. Speak tenderly to Jerusalem and tell her that her punishment is ended, because she has received from the Lord’s hand double for all her sins (that is, full payment, covering all that she owes because of her disobedience) [my free paraphrase].

We heard the theme in Philippians: Live God’s life with God’s peace alive in your hearts in all situations. The shooting in Connecticut reminds us that we live in a world filled with pain and distress. Paul reminds us that God lives within each one of us, even now.

And so to Luke’s gospel, where we hear John the Baptist preaching repentance and renewal.

Read Luke 3: 7 to 18.

In this third Sunday of Advent we lit the third candle, a candle of Renewal. The second candle last week was for Cleansing (the cleansing we receive when we prepare to stand in God’s presence). The first candle two weeks ago was for Reflection. You see the progression. Reflection leads to an awareness of ourselves standing in God’s presence, aware of our need for Cleansing; Cleansing leads to new lives filled with God’s Holy Spirit, which brings renewal. Next Sunday culminates with the candle of commitment. But today we ask what it means to be renewed. What does God do in our lives? What does renewal look like?

The Gospel

At the beginning of chapter 3, John the Baptist appears in the wilderness outside of Jerusalem, “preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.” That is the cleansing of last week’s theme—echoed profoundly in Malachi; “For he is like a refiner’s fire … and he shall purify the Levites that they may offer offerings of righteousness.”

The people kept coming out from the city centre to see and hear John. His response? “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath? ⁸ Produce fruit in keeping with repentance.” Produce fruit—Randy may deal with that idea more next week in “Commit”; but it comes in here as essential to renewal. We may want to focus on “being” to the exclusion of “doing”, or vice versa; but they go together. We do what we are, so being renewed requires action: Produce the right fruit!

Then the people coming start asking questions: How do we do this? The crowd (ordinary people—Am ha’aretz—the people of the land) ask, “What should we do?” John answers: Share anything extra you have! Sounds a bit like Irene wondering what people might give to Community outreach at Christmas.

Tax collectors ask, “What should we do?” This may seem like a harder question. The people of the land are outside the community of righteous people in Judah—that space is reserved for Pharisees and Scribes and the religious elite. But tax collectors are really outside! John could say to ordinary people, be generous; but what can he say to tax collectors? Perhaps he should tell them to leave their profession and find something better to do with their lives than participating in the evil Empire of Rome and cheating hardworking people in their own homeland.

John’s answer is much simpler: Don’t cheat! You can keep on doing your work, but don’t cheat the people. Collect only what you are supposed to collect for taxes. Stop taking extra to augment your own income.

Then come the soldiers. I wonder if this means that even non-Jews were attracted to his teaching. It could mean Jews who have signed up with Rome for military service, or it could mean Roman soldiers serving in a foreign land. In either case they ask, “What should we do?” John replies: Don’t extort money from people, and don’t accuse them falsely. The two actions may be connected: A soldier stops someone with a false accusation, and then offers to make the charge go away for a small fee. John tells them to do their job properly and fairly.

Being and Doing again

Do you remember how this section begins? “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath?” Wow! Can you imagine if someone would say that to the congregation from this pulpit? Why do you think John spoke that way? He knew why many of them came out to the Jordan River to hear him and seek his baptism. They believed that God would indeed punish his people—was actually punishing them at the time by allowing Roman Occupation to continue. So they thought they could avoid further trouble by taking a sort of magic bath, “the baptism of repentance”. John says, “Not so fast. If all you want is protection against trouble, you are worse than I thought. If you want this baptism, show it by changing the way you live.”

This idea echoes what we heard last week in Malachi. Malachi says: ‘The Lord whom you seek shall suddenly come to his temple, even the Messenger of the Covenant whom you delight in. But who may abide the day of his coming, and who shall stand when he appears?” Now this sounds like a rhetorical question to us. We may think that he means simply: Nobody can stand before God. But he means something else.

Compare Psalm 24: “Who may ascend into the Lord’s Mountain (that is, Zion), and who may stand in his holy place (that is, the Temple)? Those who have clean hands and pure hearts, those who have not lifted up their souls to empty idols or sworn by those idols.” Malachi means the same thing. Who can endure or “abide” when God appears? Who can stand in God’s presence? Those who have clean hands and a pure heart. That is why Malachi says that God will purify them—so that they can offer righteous offerings to him and experience his presence with joy.

But being cleansed—purified—is not a magic process. It is rather a process in which the central organizing principle of our lives changes. Someone (I have no idea who) posted on Facebook some time ago that cleaning with children around is like “brushing your teeth while eating Oreo cookies.” The comparison works here: Repenting without changing (being without doing) is like brushing your teeth while eating Oreo cookies. And John tells the people what changing, the fruit of repentance, looks like.

The Fruit of Repentance

So what do the fruit look like? What does renewal look like? Soldiers do their jobs properly. Tax collectors do their jobs properly. Ordinary people share what they have with those who don’t have. If we think of it in today’s terms, you and I have job descriptions. We go to work and are expected to do something there. John says, “Do it. Don’t cheat. Don’t take shortcuts. Do your job. Do it right. Do it well.”

I was talking recently with a friend about what God’s call in our lives means. I said that sometimes God calls us to go into full-time Christian service. He said that he understands God’s call to mean: Do your job—whatever it is—well.” I think that we are both right (and on another occasion I can talk about God’s call to different specific vocations—Christian and secular). But Luke 3 could be my friend’s text, because that is exactly what John says here: Do your job and do it right.

When you do that you may find over a period of time that you can’t stay in the job you have. Perhaps your boss will fire you if you won’t cut corners. Well, stay honest, don’t cut corners, do it right and do it for the Lord. If you have to change jobs, that’s not nice, but that’s part of renewed living.

You may find something else too. People get into the habit of accepting what is not right because no one protests, no one swims against the current. When you do right, you may find that others join you and the whole organization changes. John doesn’t promise anything like that—he just tells you to get on with it.

I thank God that I had a boss many years ago who treated me as if John the Baptist was watching. It was my first summer job in college, the summer of 1968.  I worked for a tree trimming and lawn care service in York, Pennsylvania. I remember my first chance to climb a tree and cut off a branch—handsaws in those days! I cut off the wrong branch, and the foreman spent the next five minutes explaining to the owner that the big hole in the top of her tree would disappear when we got the whole branch out. It did, but I wasn’t allowed into any more trees!

After about three weeks my foreman came to me and said that the boss was unhappy with my work generally and was ready to lay me off. Then he put me on the lawn mowing crew with his brother, a good friend of mine. We were out early, mowing lawns by 7 am and stopping only when it got dark. I worked 60 to 70 hour weeks pushing a lawn mower, and at the end of the summer the owner of the business gave me a good reference for my next employer. The fact is, he could have made my life much harder by losing his temper and blasting me; instead he had my foreman talk with me straight, but gently, and I had a good summer. There is more power than you know in simply doing what is right.

Some Closing Words

John the Baptist says one more thing that is vitally important. When the people ask if he is the Messiah, he replies: “I baptize you with water. But one who is more powerful than I will come, the thongs of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.”

He knew well that he could not give the people what they needed to produce the fruit of repentance. He could call them to God, but he was not himself God. He could tell them how to live, but he could not give them the ability to live that way. He knew also that the Messiah, God’s Anointed One, was coming. I doubt that he understood all that meant. We talk about Jesus as Son of God, and One with God, indeed as God himself in human form. John the Baptist just knew that the Messiah was coming.

He may have already learned that this Messiah was his cousin—a hard concept to grasp! But he knew the most important thing: The Messiah would cleanse people and empower them; he would baptize them “with the Holy Spirit and with fire.”

So we close the circle of being and doing. You can’t talk about being (repentance and renewal) without doing (the fruit of repentance), and you can’t talk about doing (the fruit of repentance) without being (filled with God’s Holy Spirit). This Advent we wait for the Messiah, just as John was waiting for him. And when he comes? Well, that’s next week’s message. For now, we wait, and get ready for the birth of the baby.

Or as Paul puts it in Colossians 3: “Let the power of Christ rule in your hearts …. Let the message of Christ dwell among you richly …. And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.”

 

Texts

Old Testament: Zephaniah 3: 14 – 20
¹⁴ Sing, Daughter Zion; shout aloud, Israel! Be glad and rejoice with all your heart, Daughter Jerusalem! ¹⁵ The Lord has taken away your punishment, he has turned back your enemy. The Lord, the King of Israel, is with you; never again will you fear any harm. ¹⁶ On that day they will say to Jerusalem, “Do not fear, Zion; do not let your hands hang limp. ¹⁷ The Lord your God is with you, the Mighty Warrior who saves. He will take great delight in you; in his love he will no longer rebuke you, but will rejoice over you with singing.”

¹⁸ “I will remove from you all who mourn over the loss of your appointed festivals, which is a burden and reproach for you. ¹⁹ At that time I will deal with all who oppressed you. I will rescue the lame; I will gather the exiles. I will give them praise and honor in every land where they have suffered shame.

²⁰ At that time I will gather you; at that time I will bring you home. I will give you honor and praise among all the peoples of the earth when I restore your fortunes before your very eyes,” says the Lord.

Epistle: Philippians 4: 4 – 7

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

Gospel: Luke 3: 7 – 18

 John said to the crowds coming out to be baptized by him, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath? ⁸ Produce fruit in keeping with repentance. And do not begin to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’ For I tell you that out of these stones God can raise up children for Abraham. ⁹ The ax is already at the root of the trees, and every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire.”

¹⁰ “What should we do then?” the crowd asked. ¹¹ John answered, “Anyone who has two shirts should share with the one who has none, and anyone who has food should do the same.”

¹² Even tax collectors came to be baptized. “Teacher,” they asked, “what should we do?” ¹³ “Don’t collect any more than you are required to,” he told them.

¹⁴ Then some soldiers asked him, “And what should we do?” He replied, “Don’t extort money and don’t accuse people falsely—be content with your pay.”

¹⁵ The people were waiting expectantly and were all wondering in their hearts if John might possibly be the Messiah. ¹⁶ John answered them all, “I baptize you with water. But one who is more powerful than I will come, the thongs of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. ¹⁷ His winnowing fork is in his hand to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his barn, but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.” ¹⁸ And with many other words John exhorted the people and proclaimed the good news to them.