Curiosity over Criticism

This past week people have been going through a rollercoaster of emotions as we process what happened in a different country.  This is probably the only time where someone else’s politics have led me to the brink of preaching a sermon that is peppered with F- bombs!  For those people who believe that women deserve to be treated with respect and equality, for those who believe that no ethnic group deserves to be called garbage or accused of stealing and eating pets, for those who believe that joking about putting women in front of a firing squad because of a difference of opinion, for those who believe that immigrants are humans not problems to be returned en-masse to countries that may abuse them, for those who know that 2sLGTBQIA+ people are not choosing an alternative lifestyle, Tuesday was a day of fear for many.  It felt that all our work towards a society based on human rights for all, for respect and dignity, had been wasted.  And many people worry that the same political tactics that worked in the states will work here in Canada as it already has in Alberta.  Tactics of focusing on fear and scarcity and how things aren’t the way we think they should be.  Tactics of talking about how hard done by we are, how the future is uncertain, inflation is scary, jobs are threatened, and let’s target the most vulnerable people for our fear and wrath.  Those unnamed and unknown others, you know, ‘those people’, them, they, that we tell stories about to prove that the world is in danger and they are the ones at fault.

It deflects people’s attention away from harder conversations that some politicians are uncomfortable with.  Harder conversations because they are complex and address issues that have no clear solutions. Why talk about the war in Ukraine or climate change when I worry about paying my rent?  Why talk about gender equality or racism when it’s easier to talk about how dangerous the homeless are?  Why talk about the state of education when I can’t go buy a bag of groceries for under $100 the way I used to?

And then there’s healthcare. Last week we had 591 cases of Covid reported in Alberta, 313 of them taking up valuable hospital beds and doctor and nurse time. 15 patients are in ICU, and 4 people died last week from Covid.  Since August we have had 4,462 covid cases, and 119 people died. Athabasca Hospital declared a Covid outbreak on one unit on Oct. 17, 2024.  Four days later, Northern Lights Regional Hospital in Fort McMurray also had an outbreak.  On the bright side, both outbreaks have cleared, and about 20% of Albertans have gotten their Covid booster shots this month.  But it was hard to find these stats.  It was hard to find out how many hospital beds were being used for Covid patients when they could have been used for other medical situations. The statistics were buried in the Alberta HealthCare website.  Shouldn’t this be something we know about and hear in the news?

We talk about politics the day before Remembrance Day because it was fear and scarcity and inflation that Hitler used to get elected in Germany.  It was that kind of rhetoric of “Us vs Them” that he used to set up his internment camps where millions of Jews, thousands of LGBTQ individuals, the physically and mentally disabled, Roma (gypsies), Poles and other Slavic peoples, Jehovah’s Witnesses, priests, clergy and members of political opposition groups were experimented on and murdered.  Nazis first practiced involuntary euthanasia on hospital patients with mental and physical disabilities, people that they decided did not make a valuable contribution to society.  This was ‘us vs them’ rhetoric and justified for a variety of reasons.  When we say, “Lest we forget” tomorrow, let us not say it glibly.  Let us remember why Canadians and allies went overseas to kill other human beings.  They went to fight totalitarian governments.  They went to fight racists.  They went to fight people who believed in dehumanizing those who didn’t have the same ethnic roots as they did.  They went to stop a power-hungry megalomaniac who thought his ideas of racial purity could justify brainwashing and euthanasia.  They went to stop this kind of thinking and this kind of politics.  This “us vs them” thinking.

Jesus rejected “us vs them” thinking.  Jesus rejected racism and assumptions of superiority.  Jesus rejected snobbish attitudes that suggested some people should have the privilege of power over other people.  But Jesus didn’t just point his fingers at the religious and political elites of his day. Jesus was preaching to us!  We think “Us vs them” too!  Them republicans, them Americans, them racists, them homophobes.  Jesus rejected it all.  Jesus challenged our tendency to think that we are right and people who think differently than us are wrong.  Jesus rejected our own addiction to power and control. Jesus rejected our tendency to shame, blame and judge others.  We find it easy to go about fixing, saving, advising and correcting others.  Jesus rejected that too.

“You have heard it said, 'Love your neighbor-but hate your enemy.'  But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for your persecutors.  This will prove that you are children of God.  If you remember that your sister or brother has a grudge against you, leave church at once and go to reconciled with them.”

How do we love our enemies?  How do we reconcile with people we have a grudge against? By being humble!  We have got to stop thinking “we” know all the answers, and “they” are wrong, stupid or evil.  That’s hard, I know.  Building trust starts by being curious first and foremost.  By wondering why they have the opinions they do.  By learning how to not overreact to their anger, which for many of us takes time, practice and counselling from professionals.  By listening to them without judgement, which I know is hard.  By taking care of yourself when it’s too hard and do your own humble healing.

Tomorrow we will hear lots of speeches about “Lest we forget”, a reminder that people died so we can live in peace.  But Peace doesn’t come easily.  And it doesn’t come if we instinctively react with fear and anger.  Curiosity and humbleness will help us understand why the politics of our time seem so ugly.  Curiosity and compassion and empathy are the tools to help us prevent future totalitarian states in our country.  Some of us are able to roll up our sleeves and listen deeply to those who have opinions different than our own.  Some of us need to take care of ourselves and heal our own deep wounds.  Some of us can step up and speak up.  But first and foremost, let us never forget that Jesus, the prince of peace, calls us to choose the way of curious compassion above fear.  Every day!    Amen.

Yes and?

Today we hear the story of people coming up with creative ideas that surprise them.  Ironic to hear these scriptures the same week that Broadview hosted a discussion on bullying in the church and Diane Strickland did a presentation for our Fab Collab churches on trauma.

Our story of Naomi was written in a time when the Israelites had returned from exile in Babylon to rebuild Jerusalem.  Naomi had been an economic exile, not a political exile, but she and her husband, the story goes, fled their homeland to raise their family in a foreign land.  Maybe the author had in mind a personal experience where it was difficult to grow crops after the Babylonian army had carted off most of the inhabitants.  And just like the historic exiles, enslaved in a foreign land, Naomi hung onto her culture and her faith.  “Love God” was her motto.

Then tragedy struck repeatedly, like Job’s story.  Literature on grief and trauma suggests that the loss of a child, no matter what the age, is hard.  And back then, with primitive health care and ignorance of what caused illness, children had a high mortality rate and many babies didn’t survive.  Naomi lost two adult sons.  With her husband also gone, sons were not just her children, they were also her insurance plan, her pension and her retirement home.  Now all that was taken away from her.  She was poorer than when she first arrived.  Except there was a “Yes and” for her in her daughter-in-law Ruth.

The story of Jesus was also a “Yes and”.  He was talking with a scribe who asked questions.  He and the disciples were used to being interrogated, challenged, and argued with by the temple authorities.  Along came this scribe with yet another tough question, but rather than using that question as a weapon, it was also a “yes and” conversation.  The scribe liked the answer Jesus gave, and Jesus liked the scribe’s answer.  They discovered each other had similar interests and similar thoughts about the bible and about God.  

Naomi had a lot of No’s she was saying.  “No, you can’t go with me”, “No, I have no future”, “No, I will not have more babies”, “No, I don’t want you to ruin your lives by asking you to come with me.”  No, no, no! How many times do we say no?  How many times do we look at our lives with negativity, judgement, and cynicism?  Interestingly, one of the symptoms of trauma can be getting mired in cynicism, saying no to anything that might ask for a risk or a change.  Saying no to community, to compassion, to hope, to risk.  

What does that look like in our world?  Do we know anyone who is good at saying yes, who has experienced the difficulties and challenges of living in today’s world where many people are still struggling with trauma and cynicism?  

One person connected to the United Church is very practiced at saying “Yes and”.  This simple attitude that Ruth used and that changed Naomi as we’ll see in future weeks, and that led to Jesus having a scribe on his side, is an attitude that this person has used for his entire career.  In fact, it has been a hallmark of what he does for a living.  This United Church connection said yes to a lot of fascinating things.  In high school, he knew he wanted to become a marine biologist until he said yes to a friend and auditioned for the high school play, which sounds exactly like the plot of High School Musical. Then he said yes to acting school in Vancouver.  He said yes to improv standup comedy where Yes and is key to having a successful show.  He refused to take No for an answer, trying out for a British comedy show 3 times before they hired him.  When that show ended after 8 years, he went to the United States and did the same show in the United States.  It was called “Whose Line is it Anyway?” and the US version was run by comedian Drew Carey.  He played a grumpy hotel detective on Murdock Mysteries, and performed on This Hour has 22 Minutes and Red Green.  He raised $100,000 for Welcome Friend Association's Rainbow Camp, a camp in northern Ontario for 2sLGTBQ+ teens by participating in a comedy contest in 2022. His daughter Kinley is transgender, and “Yes And” was the core value that helped him support her.  He has won Canadian Comedy Person of the year, ACTRA Award of Excellence, and awards for his writing Like the scribe who agreed with Jesus, he agreed with his wife Debra McGrath, the mayor of Little Mosque on the Prairie, when she asked him to be the MC of a benefit concert during Covid which raised money for three United Churches in Ontario.

His name is Colin Mochrie, and he often is the modest quiet one whose humble Canadian persona can still get big laughs. In a Broadview magazine interview, he said “I’ve been recruited many times for United Church events. I played the star of Bethlehem more times than I can remember,” he says. “For me, it’s always a good cause.”

In this world where we see so much war, anger, and ugly politics, maybe the attitude of “yes and” that Ruth showed her mother in law, and that the scribed showed Jesus, is what we need.  It’s easy to say no, it’s natural to greet new ideas with a “but”.  Christ calls us to be the church that says “Yes And”.  Yes people are traumatized and yes people are sick and tired of being sick and tired, and Christ calls us to say yes with the bravery and love of Ruth, and the insight of the scribe and the clever creativity of Colin Mochrie and Debra McGrath. May we say Yes and to the great commandment to Love God and to love our neighbors as we love ourselves. 

What do You Want?

What do you want? And when do you want it?  We want a win, and we want it now.  We want quick fixes and easy solutions.  We want the shiny new gadget that will take us to the moon and back in the blink of an eye.  We want the big red easy button that we can push whenever we want.  And most of life is like the poster on the wall at a photocopy store.  “If you want it fast and cheap, it won’t be good.  If you want it good and cheap it won’t be fast.  If you want it good and fast, it won’t be cheap.”  You choose!

Job and Bartimaeus knew that life wasn’t easy.  They knew what it meant to feel like they were blamed for the situations they found themselves in.  They knew that people disrespected them for the problems that they had, and they knew that there were no easy answers to the challenges that they faced.

Bartimaeus had people tell him to be quiet, to shut up, to stop bothering them.  They didn’t believe he had the right to bother other people, and certainly had no right to pester someone as important as Jesus.

Job had people tell him he deserved the tragedies and illnesses he experienced, he had earned all his troubles and trials.  He should just be quiet and accept his fate quietly, confess to God what he had done wrong, or even curse God so God would put him out of his misery.

Both these men were targeted with bad, arrogant theology that assumed that other people knew what was best for them more than they did themselves.  Other people knew what they should or should not be allowed to do.  Other people put controls on what they should think and how they should act.

Except those other people were wrong!  And not just a little bit wrong either, but spectacularly, arrogantly wrong.  So wrong that Job and Bart ended up with personal encounters with the holy that would forever change their lives.  Wow.

Too often we are the crowd who are focused on what we can get for ourselves, and we ignore the outsiders who also need to hear good news, or see signs of hope for their lives.  Too often we are like Job’s comforters, telling people how to think, what to think and what to do.  We assume we know the answers that will solve everyone else’s lives.  We get focussed on fixing, saving, advising and correcting other people.  We act like we know what they need to make their lives perfect, and we are blind to what they might really want and need.

And sometimes we are Job and Bartimaeus, wrestling with life experiences that hurt, that challenge, that feel like they will never end.  We face tragedy after tragedy and when we turn to the people we think will help, we are left high and dry.  We find ourselves wrestling with depression and mental illness and assume that there is nothing we can do to change it.  We struggle with the temptation to make life into a giant pity party, and to sit in our woes inviting sympathy.  We assume that somehow life is terrible and things never change.  If we are not careful, we can become a permanent victim, cynically seeing the world through pessimistic eyes that allow us to stay stuck in our apathy.  When we are caught in that broken record of negative thinking, it is hard to imagine a different future that might be better than the present.

The holy shows up and disrupts things.  The sacred experiences happen to Bartimaeus and Job despite the bad behavior of their friends and community.  Bartimaeus and Job are the ones who experience first-hand the healing that they so desperately wanted.  Job, after 42 chapters of complaining about how unfair life is and how mean God has been, changes his tune and says to everyone who will listen, “I have had a personal experience with the Holy that is so profound, so amazing and so immense that I am in wonder, and I am humbled.”  He’s like this one you tube video that tried to describe the number of galaxies in the universe. It used the metaphor of filling a swimming pool with cheerios to show how many galaxies there are - you’d need over 300 swimming pools and that’s just for the ones that the Hubble Telescope can see.  There’s even more that we can’t see.  That’s the kind of God experience Job had and of course it was humbling.

Experiences of the holy, whether it is Jesus helping us see the world in new ways, or Job discovering joy after tragedy, are rare and special.  Not everyone experiences them, but when they happen they have a way of showing up unexpectedly, even when we’ve given up hope.  One thing that helps us have that kind of experience is thinking of ourselves as disciples and learners, being humble and asking for God to be in our lives.  Job was a faithful man who regularly studied scripture, listened to the priests, went to temple and prayed to God unceasingly.  Bartimaeus was a Hebrew.  He knew scripture, and he called Jesus the Son of David, recognizing Jesus as a royal person, full of authority and power, with a unique connection of God.  His faith was deep.

Faith is more than a logical experience of the divine, or an easy answer button. We need both a logical and an emotional connection to the holy. On this Reformation Sunday, we remember Martin Luther’s inspired list of problems nailed to the church doors, John Knox’s reforming of the Scottish church, John Wesley’s logical Anglican faith turned upside down by the experience of his “strangely warmed heart”.  We remember liberation theologians challenging power systems, feminist theologians and queer theologians pushing our understanding of God.  And we pray to see our world with fresh new eyes as disciples of Christ.

Thinking Outside the Box

“All Around the Mulberry Bush, the monkey chased the weasel… Pop goes the weasel!” Remember having one of these when you were a kid?  Or maybe giving one of these to a kid?  Out comes the Jack in the box and it always seemed surprising even though we knew what would happen. 

The big draw of this toy was that surprise of the jack in the box jumping out and looking bigger than the box it jumped out of.  How did such a tall clown come out of such a small box? 

The scriptures today talk about God and Jesus as being bigger than we could imagine.  The reading from Job is a classic Jack in the box story, and also reminds me of the cliched advice, “Be careful what you ask for, you might get it!”  Job has been building up a case against God; Job felt like God was a business partner to be bargained with, and his friends didn’t help much.  They believed firmly in karma, that if you do something wrong, you would reap the consequences and if a disaster falls on you, it must be your own fault.

That’s still a common belief in today’s world too.  It’s a nasty form of blaming the victim, and it’s meant to comfort ourselves.  “That won’t happen to me because I do things properly” which can mean anything from vitamins to crystals.  Job was written to challenge that assumption.  It is the original “Why bad things happen to Good People” story, designed to wrestle with that hard question.  Job put together a legal argument as if he was a well-trained lawyer.  God had treated him with injustice by letting Job experience some heart-breaking disasters, a business failure and lastly a devastating physical illness.  And Job set out his case that he did not deserve any of it.  If this was karma, karma got the wrong guy and he could prove it!

He turned the crank on his complaints to God until pop!  Unexpectedly, God came to give Job an answer.  Not a particularly comforting answer, mind you.  God says, “Are you as big as me? As powerful as me?  As creative as me? As smart as me?  Nope!” Not much of an answer, and certainly not a comfort either.

Except that it is a reminder to Job that however Job imagined God, God was bigger than that imagination.  God could not be stuffed into a box until Job turned the crank. 

James and John also thought they had Jesus pegged.  They thought they had figured out what box he belonged in.  The box of political leader and reformer who would start a revolution to depose the Herods and the Pilates of their world. Except that Jesus wouldn’t stay in that box either.  He wasn’t going to become a stereotypical rebel who takes down the local tyrant, only to become the next tyrant.

That’s a real pattern in history.  It happened in France when Louis 16 was deposed and four years later, Napoleon Bonapart was the head of France, living like a King.  The many Roman emperors that killed their predecessor then were assassinated by the next.  Russia was the same, and anyone who read Animal Farm in school will remember that. Even Israel at the time of Jesus would have remembered Herod the Great becoming king by attacking the current king with the help of the Roman army.  Leaders rose and fell, and politics was a dangerous game.  James and John figured that Jesus was going to end up with power and influence, maybe even a throne.  But Jesus wanted something bigger.

Not political leadership but moral, ethical, spiritual and religious leadership.  Leadership that inspires and encourages us to think bigger.  Leadership that thinks outside the box about the big picture, not our big pictures, but God’s big picture.  Leadership that inspires, empowers and includes us in God’s picture.

We humans like to feel we are in control of our small little universes.  Or if we aren’t in control, there’s something wrong and we turn to blame.  We blame ourselves, we blame others, we blame God.  We label others and ourselves as a way of feeling like we control the world, we know how things should be going.  And when, like Job, bad news comes, or someone refuses to stay in their box, we don’t know how to respond. We ask Jesus to be seated in a power position next to him.  We ask God for certainty and control.  We get instead, a command to serve one another and a vision of the universe as vast and diverse.  A command to think outside the box. A command to think beyond our small universes into a vision of community.

Jesus wanted his disciples to be community, not hierarchy.  To be servants to each other.  One of the Moderator’s books we read says, “We thank God for giving us community who live by God’s call, by God’s forgiveness and God’s promise.  We do not complain of what God does not give us, but thank God for God has given us enough, a community of flawed Christians journeying through struggles and need and disillusionement together.”[1]  Like Job, James and John, we struggle in life.  Unlike Job and like James and John, we have community.  And unlike James and John, we know the commitment Jesus made to this new way of thinking about God and community that was so amazingly outside the box.  Together as servants of one another, and supported by God’s amazing power and grace, we can build a vision of community that is heaven on earth, that is outside the box and that keeps surprising us in amazing ways.  God’s vision of our community, our church, is far bigger than we can imagine, so let us be open to the surprise of seeing that vision pop out in unexpected ways.  May it be so. Amen. Vintage Matty Mattel Clown Jack in the Box -1950's - Working! - YouTube

“All Around the Mulberry Bush, the monkey chased the weasel… Pop goes the weasel!” Remember having one of these when you were a kid?  Or maybe giving one of these to a kid?  Out comes the Jack in the box and it always seemed surprising even though we knew what would happen. 

The big draw of this toy was that surprise of the jack in the box jumping out and looking bigger than the box it jumped out of.  How did such a tall clown come out of such a small box? 

The scriptures today talk about God and Jesus as being bigger than we could imagine.  The reading from Job is a classic Jack in the box story, and also reminds me of the cliched advice, “Be careful what you ask for, you might get it!”  Job has been building up a case against God; Job felt like God was a business partner to be bargained with, and his friends didn’t help much.  They believed firmly in karma, that if you do something wrong, you would reap the consequences and if a disaster falls on you, it must be your own fault.

That’s still a common belief in today’s world too.  It’s a nasty form of blaming the victim, and it’s meant to comfort ourselves.  “That won’t happen to me because I do things properly” which can mean anything from vitamins to crystals.  Job was written to challenge that assumption.  It is the original “Why bad things happen to Good People” story, designed to wrestle with that hard question.  Job put together a legal argument as if he was a well-trained lawyer.  God had treated him with injustice by letting Job experience some heart-breaking disasters, a business failure and lastly a devastating physical illness.  And Job set out his case that he did not deserve any of it.  If this was karma, karma got the wrong guy and he could prove it!

He turned the crank on his complaints to God until pop!  Unexpectedly, God came to give Job an answer.  Not a particularly comforting answer, mind you.  God says, “Are you as big as me? As powerful as me?  As creative as me? As smart as me?  Nope!” Not much of an answer, and certainly not a comfort either.

Except that it is a reminder to Job that however Job imagined God, God was bigger than that imagination.  God could not be stuffed into a box until Job turned the crank. 

James and John also thought they had Jesus pegged.  They thought they had figured out what box he belonged in.  The box of political leader and reformer who would start a revolution to depose the Herods and the Pilates of their world. Except that Jesus wouldn’t stay in that box either.  He wasn’t going to become a stereotypical rebel who takes down the local tyrant, only to become the next tyrant.

That’s a real pattern in history.  It happened in France when Louis 16 was deposed and four years later, Napoleon Bonapart was the head of France, living like a King.  The many Roman emperors that killed their predecessor then were assassinated by the next.  Russia was the same, and anyone who read Animal Farm in school will remember that. Even Israel at the time of Jesus would have remembered Herod the Great becoming king by attacking the current king with the help of the Roman army.  Leaders rose and fell, and politics was a dangerous game.  James and John figured that Jesus was going to end up with power and influence, maybe even a throne.  But Jesus wanted something bigger.

Not political leadership but moral, ethical, spiritual and religious leadership.  Leadership that inspires and encourages us to think bigger.  Leadership that thinks outside the box about the big picture, not our big pictures, but God’s big picture.  Leadership that inspires, empowers and includes us in God’s picture.

We humans like to feel we are in control of our small little universes.  Or if we aren’t in control, there’s something wrong and we turn to blame.  We blame ourselves, we blame others, we blame God.  We label others and ourselves as a way of feeling like we control the world, we know how things should be going.  And when, like Job, bad news comes, or someone refuses to stay in their box, we don’t know how to respond. We ask Jesus to be seated in a power position next to him.  We ask God for certainty and control.  We get instead, a command to serve one another and a vision of the universe as vast and diverse.  A command to think outside the box. A command to think beyond our small universes into a vision of community.

Jesus wanted his disciples to be community, not hierarchy.  To be servants to each other.  One of the Moderator’s books we read says, “We thank God for giving us community who live by God’s call, by God’s forgiveness and God’s promise.  We do not complain of what God does not give us, but thank God for God has given us enough, a community of flawed Christians journeying through struggles and need and disillusionment together.”[1]  Like Job, James and John, we struggle in life.  Unlike Job and like James and John, we have community.  And unlike James and John, we know the commitment Jesus made to this new way of thinking about God and community that was so amazingly outside the box.  Together as servants of one another, and supported by God’s amazing power and grace, we can build a vision of community that is heaven on earth, that is outside the box and that keeps surprising us in amazing ways.  God’s vision of our community, our church, is far bigger than we can imagine, so let us be open to the surprise of seeing that vision pop out in unexpected ways.  May it be so. Amen.

---

[1] Paraphrase from p 28, Dietrich Bonhoeffer Life Together: the Classic Exploration of Christian Community Harper & Row, 1954

Pardoning the Turkeys

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone! Today there is much to be thankful for. I am so glad to be back home with family and getting my health back slowly and surely.  And I’m sure each of you have something to be thankful for too.  Life can be challenging from time to time, and it is good to remember the positive things in life, the simple things like a warm bed and a working fridge.  Many folks are not as blessed as we are, and struggle to find something to be grateful for.

Our scripture today is about the reason for being thankful.  The Israelites had gone through a lot of trials and tribulations on their way to becoming farmers and towns folk.  They wandered through the wilderness until they found land that they could settle, grow crops, and be free from slavery.  Their sacred story was about coming to a land of peace and prosperity, a land of milk and honey.  Scripture wanted to remind them to be intentional about thanking God for not just the harvest, but the homes and the lifestyles they were able to enjoy in ways that their ancestors only dreamed of.

It's easy to get into a state of grumbling about what we don’t have.  It’s hard work to recognize what we do have and celebrate that.  And it’s easy for someone like me, who has a roof over her head and a fridge that works, to talk about counting our blessings when so many people in Canada and around the world are not so lucky.  When we are warm and dry and do not need to worry about bombs or hurricanes. 

This week I had the very good fortune of spending four days with our moderator and 30 other incredible leaders from across the United Church of Canada.  I also had the very bad luck to waste a day of that struggling with the flu bug.  My community came together in amazing ways to support those of us who got sick.  There were quick trips to the drug store for Imodium, someone had ginger chews, another had electrolyte tablets, and someone had a bunch of cute little Jesus figurines that showed up on top of hand sanitizers, dressers, thermostats and other unexpected places.  Even though we were struggling, we struggled together, to learn, to worship, to sing, and to pray. 

We learned a lot.  We talked about how the brain works and how community works, we talked about boundaries and racism, truth and reconciliation, the stressful times and the joyful times.  We learned how to listen to each other’s stories with compassion and curiosity.  We learned about trust. And we learned about pardoning turkeys.

The US has an odd tradition that the president pardons a turkey on Thanksgiving.  What a job!  Turkeys are not what I would call handsome.  They are just big, awkward, and delicious.  Pardoning a turkey wasn’t official until George Bush Senior did it in 1989, sending a turkey to a nearby petting zoo, and setting the precedent that has continued to today.

This tradition has even made it into television shows, with one particular comic session where a press secretary discovered two turkeys in her office that she had to choose between for the pardon.  It wasn’t as easy as she thought.  They became personalities, and the idea that she had to send one of them to the kitchen and one to the zoo became harder as she got to know them.

It’s not easy to pardon turkeys unless you are a vegetarian I suppose, but we like sorting things out into safe and risky.  We humans have brains wired for recognizing danger in order to survive a wilderness.  Which is fine when it comes to turkeys, but often our brains sort people into safe and dangerous too.  And once we have put a human being into the dangerous category, chances are good that they will stay in that category and everything they do will be seen as reinforcing that decision.  Our brains like to make one decision and stick to it.  Eat turkeys, don’t pardon them.  Judge people, don’t be curious about them.

Except that life and people are even more complex than turkeys.  On our last day, we gathered in circle and were asked for feedback.  One person said, “We should ban cell phones from the classroom.  I hate seeing people scrolling on their phones when they should be paying attention!”  The story their brain had made up was that people only use their phones as disrespect.  Until the four clergy who spoke English as a second language explained that they used their phones to look up words so as not to disrupt the class.  And another said they were texting their parent undergoing their first chemo, and so on.  Pardoning the phone users became easy after those kinds of conversations.

Who are the turkeys in our lives that need pardoning?  What are the stories we are telling about them that might be too simple?  How can we let go of those stories that hurt others?  And especially how can we let go of those stories when they keep us focused on danger instead of thanksgiving?  The Israelis were told to spend more time being grateful to God than they were to spend time being angry at the Egyptians who had enslaved them.  Time and time again, we are called to let the angry stories go, and pardon the turkeys.  Even when sometimes the angry stories are ones we tell about ourselves, and we are the turkeys we need to pardon.  This thanksgiving, let us remember to count our blessings, have compassion on those who are struggling, and to thank God that we are living in a country that values human life, that recognizes that all people of any age, race, ethnicity, ability, sexual orientation, gender identity, family structure or any other factors are to be included in community.  Thanks be to God for the many blessings we have in this beautiful land. Amen.

Millstones and Memories

There is an historical village in Cape Breton that tells of the importance of millstones to Scottish crofters in the 1770's.  Millstones for grinding wheat into flour were as common as refrigerators.  The highlanders were being encouraged to get rid of their mill stones and use the bigger mills in towns that were often owned by rich landlords or clan heads. Of course, the lords would charge a penny or two to grind the wheat for their tenants to cover the cost of building the mills. And many of the crofters resented being expected to pay when they had perfectly good mill stones in their homes. So the lords sent soldiers out to the little stone huts where they would confiscate the mill stones. The stones were then smashed against other rocks until they cracked. Sometimes they were even tossed off cliffs or into the ocean. Can you imagine if the mayor of your town or city told you to use a fancy central fridge that the whole town would use as being more efficient, charging a fee for you to use it, and if you didn't, the mayor sending the RCMP in to take your fridge to the dump? This injustice was the last straw for many families who packed up their families and possessions and sail off to Cape Breton where no one would throw their mill stones away.

The Scots left oppression behind for a new start. Anyone who oppressed families and especially children, were to be resisted or shunned. Much like this scripture reading from Mark where people were warned not to harm little ones. The picture of being tossed in the ocean with a mill stone would have been vivid, relatable and more than a little shocking. In fact this whole passage is more than a little shocking. Cutting off hands or feet or plucking out eyes? Did Jesus think we were all like starfish and able to regrow new body parts? This emphasizes how important it is to take care of the most vulnerable people in our society, children. When we forget that, we can cause great atrocities.

Right now, we have to wonder how children are doing. With large class sizes, overcrowded schools and reports that 300 new schools need to be built in Alberta, and with the US surgeon general declaring parenting being a health hazard due to high levels of stress, and with a teacher shortage looming as Baby Boomers retire, are children being treated as liabilities or luxuries? Are the world's countries working together to find solutions to the climate crisis we're facing that will impact today's children? Are we protecting our youngest citizens by providing them the nutrition and the education they need to thrive? Special needs children have to buy their own speech therapy tablets, classes don’t have enough teachers aides, and single moms find that there are unexpected school fees for junior high options in some schools.  So much for public schools and free education.

Then there’s the impact of colonialism on some of our children.  There were over 130 residential schools operated in Canada between 1831 and 1996.  In 1931, there were 80 residential schools operating in Canada. This was the most at any one time. The United Church operated 14 of them. The residential school system impacted 150,000 First Nation, Inuit, and Métis children. An estimated 6000 children died while at the schools, about a 4% mortality rate.  The survivors had children, grandchildren and great grandchildren.  The trauma of being taken away from their parents and grandparents, their language and culture and often forcibly put into schools without the proper resources and care that was needed, in drafty overcrowded conditions with inadequate food, are all a matter of public record, thanks to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission report.

Unfortunately, the legacy of emotional trauma continues today.  From 2011 to 2021, there was a 6.5% increase in the number of indigenous children in care.  Indigenous children accounted for 7.7% of all children under age 15 in the general population, but 53.8% of children in foster care (Statistics Canada, 2022).  A third of the children are living in foster homes that fall below Canada’s poverty line.  The National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation (2021) has said this too is a legacy of the residential school system.  There is a greater effort to place children in homes with at least one indigenous parent, but a little over a half of children are placed in homes with at least one indigenous parent.  And to top it all off, there are more Indigenous children in the child welfare system now than there were in the residential school system at its height.  This information comes from Statistics Canada. 

The legacy of residential schools is a mill stone around the necks of governments, churches and the average Canadian, whether we are aware of it or not.  It will be a millstone around our necks for a long time.  Hearing that public money in Alberta will be given to private schools does not help.  It’s frustrating to realize how the system is still struggling to know how to work with indigenous people to break the chain of suffering many children face.  There are break throughs, however.  Foster parents do their best to make sure indigenous kids have ample exposure to their cultures.  Indigenous communities are taking over finding foster parents in their communities so that the kids can stay close to home.

There’s still work to do.  But just as it took great courage for Queen Esther to stand up for her people, indigenous people are finding great courage to stand up for their children.  Just as Jesus told his followers to be very accountable for their behavior, especially toward children, we need to call people to be very accountable for the decisions they make that impacts our children.

Tomorrow is Orange Shirt Day and this is an opportunity for us as followers of Christ to do what we can to stand in solidarity like Esther for children.  Consider joining the honor walk at noon at the Native Friendship Center in Athabasca.  Consider phoning the Education Minister.  The ATA has an online petition that people can sign.  Be kind to struggling parents, and loving towards little ones.  Together with God, let’s make a difference in children’s lives! Amen.

Radical Welcome

 

Jesus had a way with words.  He knew how to get at the heart of a dispute and was a master of conflict resolution.  And he wasn’t afraid to wade right in and bring his wisdom into an emotionally laden situation.  In our scripture reading today, he charged in and took the bull by the horns.  None of this whispering behind his back for his followers was going to be tolerated! 

Now, the disciples might have had some excuses for getting all emotional.  Jesus had in the previous chapter, gone to a high mountain, picked Peter, James and John to come up with him where they experienced the transfiguration of Jesus.  They came back down glowing with excitement, full of enthusiasm and energy to spare.  And as much as Jesus tried to caution them not to get too excited about what they had seen, they still were higher than a kite.  So this argument, was it them lording it over the other 9? Or were the nine trying to take them down a peg?  It certainly doesn’t sound like they wanted Jesus to know what they were quarrelling about behind his back.  He bluntly asked them, wanting to have the conversation out in the open.

Then he gave them a concrete visual reminder of what power was supposed to mean for his followers.  Not about dominance, who’s the smartest, the strongest, the most powerful, the richest, the favorite.  But about caring and serving and helping others.  Practicing a different mindset than something fueled by toxic masculinity.  Something fueled by wisdom instead.  Wisdom from God, not wisdom from impulses, hormones, resentments or jealousies.  Jealousy and ambition may have been at the root of the disciples’ argument that day in Capernaum.  Jealous of the ones who seemed to have an inside track with Jesus, jealous of the fact that he could heal people that they still could not, jealous of the influence Jesus had over the crowds.

Easier said than done.  We live in a world where jealousy and ambition fill the air.  Where jealousy and ambition spread racist rumors about immigrants from Haiti that empower people to send bomb threats to children’s schools, or plant explosives in walkie talkies and pagers.  Where wars are justified on the basis of ridiculous rumors or the desire to control lands that are already inhabited by people different than the invaders.  Where people of color or women politicians get threats because of their gender or their shade of skin, and when many of these actions are done anonymously, hidden away where no one can see.  Hidden hypocrisies, talking about valuing lives of the innocents one moment then blowing up children at a funeral the next.  Jesus exposed the hypocrisies of his disciples and reminded them that no hypocrisy will stay hidden forever.  And that radical welcoming of children is a signpost that we are getting this whole servant practice right.

One person who apparently was a member of the United Church, embodied this radical welcoming well.  He was an American carpenter who loved making sets and building backdrops for theatre productions. He also liked doing puppetry jobs and in 1964 came up to Canada with a buddy of his to come to work at the CBC. They worked together there for three years before his buddy moved back to the States.  Of course, puppetry led to children’s entertainment, and he spent many happy years developing his style of communication that was based on gentleness, respect and creativity.  Children of all ages were entranced, so much so that when he addressed university audiences, they would respond warmly and enthusiastically to him as if they were still kids.  One university crowd was given this piece of advice: “Keep your crayons sharp, your sticky tape untangled, and always put the top back on your markers”.

His message of radical hospitality impacted Canadians of many ages, and they recognized his influence on them and children by giving him the Order of Canada and a star on the Canadian Walk of Fame with other famous Canadians like Anne Murray, Alex Colville and Bobbie Orr.  He and his wife even opened a daycare called Butternut Square after the first job he ever had in Canada, a show on CBC.  He went on to work for the CBC for 33 years before retiring in 1996, four years after his wife died in a tragic car accident, and two years after finally becoming a Canadian citizen.  He also became the Canadian spokesperson for the Save the Children Canada; a responsibility he took very seriously.  Although he was never interested in politics, he did often have people tell him they would vote for him if he ever wanted to become the Prime Minister of Canada.  He travelled across Canada doing live shows after he retired, singing, dancing and telling stories.  He even received an honourary Doctorate of Laws by Trent University. His show still has set pieces on display at the CBC studio museum in Toronto, a treehouse and a colorful trunk that would have all kinds of things inside it.

Many people didn’t know him by his name, Ernie Coombs, but almost everyone in Canada who had been a kid between 1964 and 2006 knew Mr. Dress Up.  His show in Edmonton’s Jubilee Auditorium was packed with fans of all ages.  His simplicity and his genuine welcome warmed everyone who met him.  That kind of hospitality of children was meeting them with respect and treating them as equals.

Jesus called us to servanthood and to radical hospitality.  James reminded us to be wise in the ways of peace.  Ernie Coombs showed that it is indeed possible to do so even in today’s angry, divisive society.   Maybe especially in an angry and divisive society.  When we face the temptations of jealousy and ambition, let us remember that it is possible to choose wisdom, peace and kindness instead. May God strengthen us to follow in the footsteps of James, John, Peter and Jesus to do the same.  Amen!