Nagging

Good morning, I am so honored to be here!  Of course, it’s been quite a few years, so I will introduce myself anew to you! I am Mrs. Nellie Letitia McClung, but you can call me Nellie. I see that some of you have my books, and I will be quite willing to autograph them after the service.

The last time I was here was back in 1917.  I said at the time that “the conference made a wise choice of a minister when they sent Rev. H. Bosomworth to take charge of Athabasca, for he has the sane optimism which is so badly needed in a town which has been through the hard experiences of this one. He knows how to face difficulties and he has a saving sense of humour which will see him through many trying situations He carries on a splendid work with the boys club, which meets every Wednesday evening in the basement and makes good use of the well-equipped gymnasium. Mr. Bosomworth can do many things. He can put up hay, cut his own wood, plant his own garden, mend the lights when they go out of order, or do a carpenters job if necessary. But he is, above all things, a preacher, a philosopher, and a lover of humanity. (Source: Athabasca Archives, -Nellie McClung, speaking on the qualities of Rev. Η. Bosomworth of the Methodist church following her lecture there in 1917)

What a delightful scripture you have chosen for this morning’s homily!  Some of you will remember that my four friends and I were often accused of nagging like the widow to the unjust judge when it came to getting the vote for all women.  My dear friends Emily Murphy, Henrietta Muir Edwards, Louise McKinney, and Irene Parlby nagged politicians into giving us what was our natural dues, the right to be considered persons, to be senators or even judges like my dear friend Emily, God rest her soul.  There are times when we women, and men too, have nagged and cajoled and written and protested.  We did this because “in Canada we are developing a pattern of life, and I know something about one block of that pattern.  I know it for I helped to make it, and I can say that without any pretense of modesty, or danger of arrogance, for I know that we who make the patterns are not important but the pattern is.” [1]  But although we now have the vote as God intended us to, we come to another grave challenge, my brothers and sisters in Christ.  You may think of the crushing despair farmers in your area are struggling with after so many years of poor crops and dust bowl conditions.  Or you may be worrrying about the rise of fascism and the rumors circulating that our new premier, William Aberhart, is entertaining Nazis in order to learn how to make Alberta prosperous again.  These are indeed worrying.  Bible Bill might promise to take over the banks, and make Alberta only money, and promise everyone $25 a month to stimulate the economy, but his own constituency is gathering signatures to recall him, including farmers and oil workers and I don’t think he will last much longer in politics.  I digress.

No, I am here to remind you that we need to work hard on one outstanding problem that exists right in the midst of this new United Church of Canada we all worked so hard to create 10 years ago.  No, I am not referring to poor Mrs. Dorothea Palmer being arrested last month for distributing birth control pamphlets to people in the poorer districts of Ottawa.  I am going to help with that, as you can well imagine.  Again, I digress.

Sadly, we need to continue to nag our own church leaders about clergy!  Our clergy have been poorly paid because of the dire circumstances, and there were more churches closed than opened since the stock market crash of 1929.  If it were not for the generous maritime churches  and their shipments of food and clothing, I dare say some of you would be showing up in rags or staying home for having nothing to wear or eat.  Someone quipped recently, “the bootleggers have gone, the movies have gone, credit is gone, social life is gone, but thank God the Church remains.”[2] This shows that while we are too poor to entertain ourselves as we did in the 1920’s, we have kept the important priorities.  Our survival as a national church despite all odds proves that Union is a calling from God himself!  And while there is still much to do to help the young people who are not able to find work and the farmers unable to sell their crops, there is also the need to think about leadership in our Church.

We have a shortage of young men who can afford to go to theology school because of this great depression.  And if rumors are to be believed, they may once again be needed in Europe to stem the tides of growing communism and fascism.  Now that women have joined men in becoming doctors and lawyers and politicians, and proven skilled in doing so, it is time for us to ordain women, the likes of my dear friend and confidant, Miss Lydia Gruchy.  Thank you all for your hard work in passing last year’s remit on ordaining women with 79 presbyteries in favor, 26 against, and nine abstaining.[3]

It is time, ladies and gentlemen, to raise our voices again.  Our General Council is meeting next year, and there are no more excuses to bar women from the pulpit.  One man said women are too fragile for the horse and buggy trips around the countryside, but dear Miss Gruchy has been doing that since union, and is none the worse for wear.  One preacher said that “women would have to be very attractive before they could qualify”.  To which I respond, It’s a good thing looks were not a qualification for men in the past.  If you don’t believe me look around you at the picked delegates [we are sending to General Council]. I’ll grant you they are all intelligent men, excellent men, but you would never mistake it for a beauty show!” [4]

Saskatchewan Conference is convinced that Miss Gruchy, modest as she is, is worthy of being ordained.  She has been preaching quite admirably for several years.  It is time for our leaders to recognize that women are equal to men in all aspects, including the God given right to proclaim the Gospel.

So, my dear friends, be like the nagging widow with the corrupt judge.  But I would be sadly remiss if I did not remind you that this is not only about bold justice, it is also about faith.  Miss Gruchy has been serving God and the church modestly and quietly working in the vineyard of the Lord for 13 years with deep spirituality and shows through her life that prayers, offered humbly and sincerely, are answered in God’s good time.  Let us pray and nag even God himself for justice and equality across this great land of ours.

[1] Patricia Wotton, “With Love, Lydia”  2012, Pg 120

[2] Don Schweitzer The United Church a History, 2012 P 47

[3] Wotton, p 139

[4] Wotton p 132

Prove it!

How many of us want a sign so that we know our faith is right?  It’s tempting to join the crowd asking for a big spectacle.  We want the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical experience with smoke bombs, strobe lights, falling chandeliers, amazing opera singers and a happy ending.  We want to experience thrills and chills and the greatest show on earth! Give us that old Razzle Dazzle.

That’s what happened in today’s reading from John.  The crowd had just experienced the feeding of the five thousand, where Jesus turned a few loaves and fish into enough to feed the whole crowd.  He took a day off and the crowd searched for him until they found him, not to say thank you but to demand more bread, more fish, more healings, more miracles.  “Gimmee what I want, what I really really want”.

Their hands were out, and they were demanding, not asking.  They were not happy that Jesus disappeared on them in the first place, and now they were going to keep him busy doing what they had decided he should do.  Jesus had left because he knew that they wanted to make him the king and he didn’t want that.  It’s like that scene in the Andrew Lloyd Weber musical, Jesus Christ Superstar, when Herod demands that Jesus prove his identity:

So you are the Christ, You're the great Jesus Christ
Prove to me that you're divine - Change my water into wine
That's all you need do, then I'll know it's all true
C'mon King of the Jews!

Facing the crowds again, instead of tap-dancing to their tune, Jesus decided to address them directly.  And instead of fixing their physical needs, he talked instead about their spiritual needs.  He wasn’t there just to be their grocery store and hospital.  He was there to feed their souls, as well as their bodies.

There’s a real tension here between physical and spiritual needs of the people.  This still happens today.  Folks are struggling, they are working hard on minimum wage and don’t know what they will do to pay the bills and feed the kids.  Jesus wanted to provide a spiritual solution that moved from enabling to empowering.

“I am the Bread of Life”, he said, and for people focused on the concrete needs of life, this must have seemed like nonsense.  Poetry, fancy philosophy, obscure theological game playing, call it what you will, the metaphor of Jesus as food must have been sorely confusing to them, just like it’s confusing to us.  The reality is that survival can be hard, and we need all the help we can get.  Jesse Zink, in the book we are reading called Faithful, Creative, Hopeful, talks about the growing gap between the richest people on the planet and those who are working for them.  The wealthiest people own such huge yachts that they can land helicopters on the deck beside the swimming pool, while many people must work two or even three jobs to keep a roof over their heads.  The economic system that has built this inequality is called Neoliberalism, which is the idea that the state should stay out of the market and individuals can do what they like to make money.  The problem is that not all humans are alike, and what some people like to do to earn money is treat others like slaves.  When government decides that the free market is best, and privatizing schools and healthcare is the only way to operate, it avoids taking care of those who can’t afford the dentist or the doctor or the mental health professional.

Jesus challenges Neoliberalism.  By calling himself the Bread of Life, he used a metaphor to describe how his teaching and example would inspire more than day to day survival.  It’s more than risk management, too; risk management invites us to imagine the worst and plan how to deal with it.  And more than risk management is sustainability, where we trust we have enough to get us through. Jesus calls us to more than sustainability, Jesus calls us to abundance through deep spirituality. Deep Spirituality is one of the three cornerstones of the United Church’s Strategic Plan, along with Bold Discipleship and Daring Justice. The United Church defines it as intentionally drawing closer to God. We do that together in worship as a congregation. But how do we do it the rest of the week? Prayer is one way. Prayer is opening our lives to God. It can be with words or through music or art. For some people, it is solitude in nature. For others, it is quieting and settling themselves with tools like meditation or mandalas, writing in a journal, reading a daily devotional or a bible passage, or practicing gratitude.  It is focusing on thanksgiving, or as Paul wrote, “think deeply about things that are true and noble, upright and pure, full of beauty and worthy of respect.”  This is one of many spiritual practices.

The United Church says that Deep Spirituality is “an experience of intimacy with God, and it is the starting point for each of us. It is grounded in worship and prayer, study and scripture. Deep spirituality is the joy of those who know they are loved and held by God and who long to run into God’s embrace. Deep spirituality is the cornerstone of our identity, not just as a church but also as individuals.”

Deep spirituality, feasting on the Bread of Life, calls us beyond survival, beyond stability, beyond risk management, beyond resilience to deep, lasting flourishing.  This is something the Herods of the world, and the crowd demanding quick fixes, do not understand, but it is deeply transforming. It breaks the monstrous hold of neoliberalism’s focus on individual survival. It invites us into deep relationship to God, ourselves, our congregation and our neighbors, a relationship based on love and compassion that brings us life abundant.  God, help us to practice deep spirituality with Jesus, our bread of life.  Amen.

Tiny Faith

Who doesn’t want more faith?  Especially in these difficult times?  I’m with the disciples; I want more!  Measure out a cup or two of faith, please, so I can throw around mulberry trees like they were baseballs!  Sounds like the kind of magical powers that we only see in novels and movies.  Who wouldn’t want that?  And many people are looking for the kind of faith that makes magical things happen.

So how is faith different than magical thinking?  Are prayers different than hocus pocus or getting your tea leaves read. Pray that the airplane ride will go smoothly, that your sports team will win, the list is endless.  And while we are to turn every concern over to God, that’s not what Jesus was thinking when he challenged his disciples.

It's not the amount of faith we have.  It’s not the amount of logical, rational thought we bring to our relationship with God.  Even the saints of old had their doubts, their dark nights of the soul.  It’s not the power of our emotions either.  When people measure their faith solely by the strength of their feelings, that can be where faith gets mixed up with certainty.  Think of how some people have gotten emotionally committed to a cause to the point that they believe all kinds of dangerous things.

Jesse Zink wrote in our study book Faithful, Creative, Hopeful that faith is quote: “A kind of groundedness in our tradition. Faithful means that we need to be able to draw from the wealth of resources provided by our Christian Forebears… we need to be grounded in Christian practices of prayer, service, and worship.” (page xv, 2024).  Sounds like Paul’s letter to Timothy, reminding him of his mother’s and grandmother’s faith.

Jesus saw faith as something that helped us to trust God.  And just like his metaphor, that when we have a boss, we don’t expect to order the boss around, we serve the boss by doing the job that’s expected of us, so too, faith gets us doing one of the core components of the Christian life.  Service.  Service to God because we choose to trust God.  Not lip service, not logical brain gymnastics or emotional responses, but a gift that helps us to act in alliance to what God is calling us to.  Faith is one of the gifts of the spirit, like love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, gentleness and self-control.

A story that recently hit the news was the anniversary of a gift of faith that led to action which seemed insignificant at the time.  41 years ago, some young people working in a grocery store in Ireland, making minimum wage, were told by their union to boycott selling products from South Africa.  There were 11 of them, some as young as 17, some were 21.  One girl, Mary, checked the produce aisle and discovered that the store was selling grapefruit from South Africa.  She was at the cash register when a customer tried to buy two grapefruits.  She refused.  The store manager told her to leave.  She and her 10 friends left the store and started a picket line.  The Union paid them £21 a week, and that was not enough to pay the rent.  They didn’t know what apartheid was, they didn’t know anyone of African descent, but they trusted they were being asked to do this for a good reason.  For a year they picketed but it didn’t have any effect.  Then a man came and joined them, the first person of color any of them had ever seen.  His name was Nimrod Sejake and he had been imprisoned in South Africa then went into exile until he ended up in Ireland.  He joined the picket line and helped encourage the young people.  Then Archbishop Desmond Tutu was traveling to receive the Nobel Peace Prize but detoured to meet the young activists.  More and more people stopped buying grapefruits and other products.  They were invited to visit Tutu in South Africa, but the government deported them; that caused a backlash so big that the Irish Government banned all goods from South Africa!  That meant that after three years, the strike was finally over.  Then Nelson Mandala was freed, Apartheid ended and the 11 strikers were invited to meet Mandela.  How did Mandela find out about them?  Turns out Sejake had shared a jail cell with him!  Mandela told the young people that their faithful commitment to show up day after day had encouraged him to have faith while he was in jail.  Their refusal to sell grapefruits because of their faithful commitment made a corrupt and undemocratic government fall.

We are not living in a country where half of the adult population can’t vote because of their skin color.  We’re not needing to boycott our workplaces because of grapefruits.  But we are living in a country that eradicated measles 27 years ago.  And we’re living in a province where a baby died this week because its mom was not vaccinated, and six other babies also in Alberta got measles before they were born.  We’re living in a province where people think that vaccines cause autism.  We are living in the only province to expect people to pay for their covid booster shots, and we are living in and working with people that are putting their faith in conspiracy theories, homophobia and racism.

What does faith the size of a mustard seed look like today?  Or maybe faith the size of a grapefruit?  Maybe it’s as simple as rolling up your sleeve for a vaccination or telling young people your measles story.  Maybe it’s boycotting goods from Israel and calling for a cease fire in Gaza.  Maybe it’s praying for a neighbor struggling with addiction or family violence or bullying.  Wherever God calls us to serve our neighbors, through prayer or action, that’s faith.  And it doesn’t take much for our faith to change the world.  May we work for peace and justice that all may one day know God’s abiding love for each and everyone of us. Amen

The Problem of Hell

Did you know that there are 18 references to Hell in the Bible and 16 of them are in the New Testament?  Heaven, on the other hand, is mentioned 787 times, and is about equally split between the Hebrew and Christian scriptures.  Yet many people today spend far more time thinking about hell than heaven.

In fact, for many people, Christianity has been completely rejected because they have only heard that it’s scary.  God is going to consign them to a fiery eternity of pain and suffering.  Comic books about this punishment for non-believers are available for free and try to convert people to faith.  Fear is preached, the end of the world is predicted as it was this week with another rapture date, and woe to anyone who ignores this message.

The parable Jesus told about Lazarus and the rich man was meant not to scare people away from hell.  The stark contrast between Lazarus and the unnamed rich man and the role reversal it implied was a call to compassion.  That call is a core part of what it means to be the United Church.

Photo: Inaugural Service, 10 June 1925, Mutual Street Arena |Flickr

In 1925, Methodists, Presbyterians, Congregationalists and Union churches came together to build a national faith of justice and compassion, not fear of Hell.  They developed a document of beliefs they could agree on.  It was called the Basis of Union.  Of the twenty statements, the only reference to Hell was Article 19, “Of the Resurrection, the Last Judgement, and the Future Life” where it said that ‘the finally impenitent shall go away into eternal punishment and the righteous into life eternal.” It doesn’t even mention Hell by name, or purgatory or even Satan.  The last statement, Article 20, says that “God will have all men to be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth.  We confidently believe that by His power and grace all His enemies shall finally be overcome, and the kingdoms of this world be made the Kingdom of our God and of His Christ.”

So while tent revivals were happening and people were told about God’s wrath that would punish them with Hell, the United Church was grounding faith in a loving God.  God was seen as compassionate, caring and welcoming all people.  Not a vengeful, angry punisher, rapturing up some while the left behind got punished.  In the book, “The Hell Jesus Never Intended”, Keith Wright says the idea that God condemns us and sentences us to hell, is troubling.  He writes quote:

It’s frightening for many because love that must be bought at the price of a violent death on the Cross hardly sounds like love…the nonviolent God of Jesus becomes a God of unequaled violence, since God not only allegedly demands the blood of the victim who is most precious to him, but holds humanity accountable for a death that God both anticipates and requires… is to paint an awful picture of God, to make God an arbitrary and capricious tyrant.

Given that Jesus taught his disciples to pray using the word ‘Abba’, the Aramaic word for daddy, the idea that God, our loving parent is also fixated on punishing us, stands directly in contrast to God who is the shepherd frantically looking for the lost lamb, the woman seeking high and low for her one missing coin, the mother hen calling her chicks to her, or the Prodigal father, so grateful for his son’s return that he throws his best coat on his son even though the boy is probably coated in pigsty slime!

Since the beginning of the United Church, leaders like our first Moderator George Pigeon, or Louise McKinney from Claresholm Alberta, heard the call not to preach a terrifying God but a reconciling God.  George was the Moderator of the Presbyterian Church in 1924, and a professor who worked hard for union.  He tried to persuade all the Presbyterians to join, but 17% of Presbyterians and 10% of Presbyterian clergy voted against union.  George was voted unanimously to be the head of the new denomination and did his best in the two tumultuous years of his term, to settle the many disagreements, hurt feelings, power struggles and turf wars that resulted.  It was complex and heated, but moments of Grace abounded too.  Presbyterian and Methodist seminaries came together peacefully at most theological colleges, and much to many people’s surprise, Newfoundland, who wasn’t even a part of Canada, had all of its methodist churches originally reject Union, but in 1925 they all joined anyways.  Louise McKinney, one of Alberta’s Famous Five women, who had helped women get the vote in 1918, was one of only 5 ladies out of the 350 delegates at the first worship service.  She and other United Church women addressed the struggles of the poor like Lazarus through the Temperance Movement.  They hoped that prohibition would lower family violence and child poverty.  It was both Pigeon and McKinney’s way of addressing the social injustices they saw in their communities, not realizing that causes of poverty and addiction were far more complex than they originally thought. 

That was also the driving force behind residential schools.  Just as Temperance was a simplistic solution to a complex problem, Residential schools also turned out to be simplistic.  One culture assumed it had the God-given right to impose itself onto another singular culture but what was in fact a broad diversity of cultures, languages and spiritual practices.  One General Council Commissioner in Calgary this summer talked about being sent to the most convenient school rather than the closest one; he spoke Haida Gwaii and ended up in Alberta surrounded by Cree children.

When we assume we know best, when we think we have a guaranteed spot in Heaven, we may end up surprised like the rich man.  When we use fear to teach people about God, we may find history judging us harshly.  When we use this parable to inspire us to act justly, we can find the healing that Jesus wanted for us. When we love God like Abba Daddy the way Jesus taught, we can live bold and courageously like George Pigeon and Louise McKinney.  Like them, we may not be perfect, but we are growing in our love of our neighbors and God.  May it be so for us all.

Who wants to cheat a Millionaire?

If I saw you in a bank one day, paying your rent or your utilities or whatever, and asked you, “How would you like to cheat a millionaire out of their money?”, how many of you would say, “thanks but no thanks, cheating is not according to my Christian values.”  Which, for the most part is very true.  On the other hand, movies like “Oceans 11” and “Now You See Me”, that glorify cheating millionaires, are very popular.  So in some ways, we really do like going after millionaires.

In today’s passage from the prophet Amos, God is going after millionaires who have cheated the system.  People did not have access to coins in those days, and so everything was bartered using weights like shekels and ephahs.  How did they figure out how to swap a lamb for sandals or grain for their families?  Weigh it out.  Except some people threw in the poorer quality wheat and hay in with the good wheat, or made false weights.  Millionaires, according to Amos, complained about the holidays they had to give their workers, saying, “When will the new moon be over, when will the Sabbath be over so we can get back to what really matters?  Money, money, money!”

God takes a dim view of such greed.  And Jesus did too, we think, until we hear the parable of the sneaky steward.  When we think of people stealing from the rich, we think of good guys, the Robin Hoods figuring out convoluted plots to grab the loot and give to the poor.  But the manager in this scripture is not a nice guy, nor is he a fair dealer.  He cheats at cards, he cooks the books, he knows how to play games to put people into emotional debt to him while lowering their financial debt to their boss.  And when the millionaire shows up, he doesn’t say, “You’re fired!” he says, “you clever shyster, you!  Well played!”  What?  Wait!  Jesus, how does cheering a loan shark who cheats his employer Good News for the people?

Jesus pointed out that the manager did the right things for the wrong reason.  The manager wanted to make sure that he would be taken care of.  Then he figured out the easiest way to make people want to take care of him was to do them a good turn when the boss wasn’t looking.  And since he was getting fired anyways, it was all about securing his comfort.

In many ways, Jesus was describing a person acting with narcissist behaviors, someone who was most concerned by what people thought of him.  He wanted to be in somebody’s good books, building an audience of people who would think he was a decent person.  Just like the rich profiteers in Amos’ time only thought about building up their own personal wealth and didn’t care who they hurt or how they abused the land by harvesting every last piece of grain off it, this narcissistic thinking didn’t care about anyone or anything except as a tool to get ahead of other.  Compassionate farmers would leave ‘sweepings of the wheat,’ the extras behind for the wildlife or the widows like in the story of Ruth.  Like AISH or a unified guaranteed income, those sweepings of wheat were vital to taking care of people before there was healthcare or employment insurance.  The greedy owners wanted everything down to the last stalk.  Nothing left over to build community, to take care of neighbours.  Nothing left over for compassion.

Today we have food banks and pantry programs.  We have social services.  We have AISH for people whose bodies and brains are different from what we think of as normal.  It’s easy to take these programs for granted.  Just as we take for granted the price of bread, or the labelling of grocery store products.  Jesus warned us humans that if we put money before God, we can do much harm in our narcissistic greed, harm to neighbors, harm to the environment, harm to our social services. We need to be as smart and diligent as the dishonest steward.

We still have dishonest stewards today. Loblaw’s recently was ordered to pay money back to consumers because of price fixing on bread.  Grocery stores across the country are mislabeling products as being from Canada when they are from the US.  Together we Canadians, with our elbows up, are making a real difference.  Airlines have had to drop flights to Los Vegas and add flights to Europe and the Caribbean.  Here at home, many people are signing petitions and talking about the changes to AISH that are worrying their friends and family.  One social worker explained that the paperwork needed to apply for AISH is so complex that the level of fraud is almost non-existent.  The amount of fear and worry that people are experiencing at the government’s plan to make everyone reapply, is real.  Things we took for granted like fair wages and fair access to healthcare are coming into question.  The narcissistic, greedy managers and land owners seem to be everywhere. 

Jesus wanted us to be as smart and as clever as the dishonest manager to prevent the widespread abuse of power we see. He taught us to focus on God’s priorities not our own obsessions with accumulating wealth at other’s expense. 

What are our priorities? Do we worship God or wealth?  Do we speak out when we recognize narcissistic, greedy people?  It’s comforting to see many people calling out greed and evil in this province, in this country, and this world, and that is what God calls us to do through the words of Amos and Jesus.  We can work together like we are in a heist movie challenging millionaires.  May we find the wisdom and courage to work peacefully and cleverly for a more just world.  Amen

What's in your wallet?

Anyone got a membership card to a pottery club?  Or a loyalty card?  Tim Hortons?  There are loyalty cards for grocery stores, fast food shops and more.  All promising extra freebies if only we stay loyal to them.  Loyal to the brand, but not necessarily their loyalty back to us.  It can earn companies lots of profit.

Loyalty is something they research too.  What is the best level of reward that won’t eat into the bottom line?  When is the reward too little, too late, too infrequent to retain customers?

Our scripture this morning has described what happens when a community forgets what they think deserves the most loyalty.  Like shopping at Shopper’s Drug Mart for back to school clothes, or looking for groceries at Staples, Jeremiah pointed out the problem with misplaced loyalty.  He shared a metaphor of God, working away on the clay to make a useful pot.  Like any good potter will, God finds that the clay is a little too wet to hold its form, or maybe it’s a little too dry.  Time to start over, kneed the old clay again, center it on the wheel, and give it another try.  God is loyal to the image of a healthy community, a healthy country, even when the country is not.  God isn’t afraid to get involved in politics, in Jeremiah’s mind.  This metaphor challenges people’s egos, pushes them to realize that God cares when politics shapes an arrogant attitude of superiority.  God is not challenging one person or another, God is challenging the political culture of the day.

Jesus, too, questioned people’s loyalties.  Challenged them to think carefully of what they prioritized.  And the top priority that superseded all others was to be the loving community of God.  Jesus didn’t promise frequent flyer points, he didn’t say that the people who sold enough Jesus merchandise would earn a pink camel like a Mary Kay Cadillac.  His loyalty program didn’t promise perks, but would cost people time, influence, even their possessions.

Our society is addicted to perks.  We like earning free things, not recognizing that the price for those things are included in our purchases.  When I went to Tim Hortons to get coffee, I would flash my loyalty card to earn points.  Then I discovered that to redeem those points, I had to download an app, and I had to pre-order the free item before I came to the store.  This gave them information on where I was, what I liked, and how much money I spent.  Not only that, but my points expired regularly, and you have to buy a lot of double double to earn a free cookie or donut.  We give away a lot of marketing information to multinational corporations who then use it to design even more addicting loyalty programs.  It has become a vicious circle.

Jeremiah saw that the loyalty that people had to power was destroying their relationship with God.  And when that was destroyed, it led to cultural and political chaos.  Babylon was looking at Israel with lustful, hungry lips.  They saw Israel as a potential 51^st state in their empire.  Sound familiar?  Political chaos is dangerous.

Jeremiah could have been writing for us, describing the destruction of societies that are having hospitals and schools bombed or children starving in war-torn countries while dictators paraded massive armies.  He could have been reading the newspaper about cities under military occupation by their own armed forces.  He could have been hearing about massive forest fires, floods and heat waves, or listening to farmers struggling with drought.  He could have been learning about girls, librarians and teachers caught in political upheaval that they never asked for.  And his words are still as pertinent today as they were back then. 

“At any moment I may announce that a nation or a dominion is to be uprooted, pulled down or destroyed. But if the nation I threatened abandons its depraved ways, I will change my mind and not inflict on it the disaster I planned.”

We don’t want God’s disaster to come.  It’s time to turn our loyalty cards in, and remind ourselves that when we are loyal to God, great things happen. We can trust that God is the good potter who shapes our future.  We can turn to God to help us persevere in difficult times like these.

There are many successes we can see along the way, where God is shifting our perspective on creation.  The Thames River in London had developed a large island of diaper wipes and garbage.  Thanks to a persistent grass roots organization, the City of London is removing the island, and the government is looking into banning baby wipes with plastic content.  The bays around New York City are becoming cleaner by the day, thanks to installing artificial clam reefs that purify the water and are restoring the fishery industry.  Even here at home, the upsurge in people shopping Canadian, travelling in Canada and signing the forever Canada petition has made an impact.  Our government is pausing their book ban.  Rather than coming out and saying they want four specific graphic novels removed from the high school libraries, they came up with such vague guidelines that schools would have no ability to teach biology, for example.  And they made it sound like teachers were pushing obscene materials on kids starting in kindergarten.  They are pausing because we are speaking up, taking risks to tell them when they have crossed the line.

Our culture is at a crossroads, our world is asking us to choose our loyalty.  Do we believe in living with respect in creation, and compassion for our neighbors? Or do we continue to choose apathy and safety?  Jesus asked us to think about loyalty to God.  It’s not easy, it’s not safe, but in the long run, when we choose love, we choose a better world for all.  Let us continue to speak up for justice and compassion, knowing that God is with us, we are not alone, thanks be to God. Amen.

Clique bait

There is a photo going around on the internet that is generating clicks for the United Church.  It’s a recreation of Leonardo Da Vinci’s famous painting “The Last Supper”. This new picture is designed to stir some controversy, and that’s what it’s done.  First of all, instead of a bunch of male disciples with pale skin, unlike people from the Middle East, and Jesus looking sadly pensive, the photo is of people who are anything but ethnically uniform.  There is a minister who lives with disabilities, there are several immigrants, a francophone, a retired clergy, a drag king wearing white face paint, and way more ladies than the original.  Everyone is part of the United Church of Canada.  And there are only 12 people in it.  Who’s missing?  Jesus!  As the Rev. Doctor Catherine Faith Maclean explained, “Jesus is not there in an individual person.  That’s essential. Because we believe that post resurrection… Jesus is everywhere.”

The picture sends a message to the world that everyone has a place at the table.  That we are a vibrant, inclusive and inspiring denomination. At first, this isn’t surprising.  I doubt there’s any church anywhere that posts a list of who’s not welcome.  But again and again, we hear of people who said they thought they were welcome until.  Until they realized that they were the only person who had a disability or the only one with noisy toddlers or no suit to wear, or nothing to put in the offering plate.

Jesus wanted better than that. He wanted us to practice generous hospitality like Abraham and Sarah, welcoming and feeding strangers without expecting anything in return.  We are to show hospitality to all, for as the scripture says, “by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it.” (Hebrews 13:1–8, 15–16).

Of course, that’s easier said than done.  It is so easy to form a clique, a group of insiders who roll their eyes at newcomers.  It’s easy to get possessive of a pew and glare daggers at a stranger who takes our spot.  As far as I can tell, no visitor has telepathy to read minds and figure out what is okay.  It’s like the church is littered with traps to navigate.  Don’t know which hymn book is which? Snap! Don’t know what to wear? Trap! Don’t know when to stand or sit?  Gotcha! No wonder so many people are nervous about coming to church.  There are a lot of obstacles in their way, the unspoken rules, the unconscious regulations.  True, we do want to have some obstacles.  There are some very angry hurting people out there, and the latest tragedies like the Minneapolis church shooting or the Gaza church bombing do remind us that we need to be discerning.  But most people we’d like to have come to our congregations are not like that.  And they don’t know that they are welcome.

Someone might say, “Shouldn’t they know?” How?  Who has told them?  Unless we make it easy to ask, they may never know.  That takes gentleness, humbleness and openness on our part.  And enthusiasm, too.  Are we like the fans of K-Pop Demon Hunters or the latest Hollywood blockbuster meeting, talking about our church with a fan’s kind of joy and authenticity? Are we inviting people to come to church like we invite people to a new restaurant we’ve discovered or a new book we like?

Jesus challenged the wealthy to give invitations not to their friends or the people they wanted to impress, but to invite those most unable to give back.  Dinner parties shouldn’t be about keeping score of who was in and who was out, who was socially and financially skilled and who was not able to make a brisket to feed a fancy dinner for 12.  Invite the ones who can’t cook, who don’t have dining rooms, who can’t afford a fancy steak or a caterer.  I’m sure a lot of us squirm at the idea of having a dinner where we invite street people, but that’s in the bible.

Someone once asked, “how do we get rich people interested in coming to our church so that they will donate money and keep us financially stable?”  I wonder what Jesus would say to that!  Who would he tell us to invite?  And how would he want us to invite?  The Right Reverend Jordan Cantwell, former moderator of the United Church of Canada and also our Northern Spirit Regional Growth Director, led a workshop last May.  She said, “Bums in pews is honest but not healthy. It's not good news for our neighbors; it's based on our scarcity not God's abundance. It's exploiting the newcomers' naivety.”

Cantwell suggests four steps:

1. Gentle openness -wait for curiosity, no agenda

2. When asked why, talk about the transformation in your life with integrity and honesty

3. Pray for openness, courage, and for our neighbors that you might learn what they need.

4. Be open to the divine in others, with them not at them, it transforms our faith as we share with them.

How do you hope God will transform the lives of those you invite and help transform our own spiritual lives?  When we ask these questions in honesty and humbleness, we will be inviting all to the table where they will be fed with God’s abundance and grace.  As much as it’s great having a photo that shows our diversity, posters don’t bring in people, Facebook messages or cute sayings don’t bring in people, events don’t bring in people.  People bring in people.  Humble people who have been transformed by God’s love, and who know the power of hospitality to make a real difference when we break cliques and practice radical, humble hospitality.  God, fill us with humble authenticity and enthusiasm for sharing the good news of how you have filled our lives with abundance, hope, faith and love.  Help us practice that love with everyone we meet, and live into your teaching to welcome our neighbors. Amen.