Saints – Some Assembly Required

Today is All Saints Day, where we remember the family and friends we have lost, and who we never really stop grieving.  It reminds us that love, real love, never ends.  We honor and miss our parents, grandparents, siblings and children, our community members and our friends.  We miss roll models like Dolly Parton, Bob Ross whose birthday was last Thursday, and now Patrick Stewart.

We also today honor the 20^th anniversary of a document that has become very loved by the United Church, so loved that it was put in every copy of our Manual.  This is, for those of you who may be new to our denomination, our regulations for how we make decisions, how we are connected to the wider church, and how we understand our role as a Christian community in an increasingly diverse world.  It is at the front of the Manual, in the first section called the Basis of Union which includes the 1925 statement between the Presbyterians, the Congregationalists and the Methodists.  They found 20 ideas of faith that they could agree on, like the amazing God we trust in who, the importance of scripture, the need for humans to be accountable for their decisions.  Yes, those 1925 saints used sexist language to describe God, the world and humanity, but they instilled a passion for faith and fair play – the forerunner for, you guessed it, deep spirituality, bold discipleship and daring justice.  These men were the survivors of Vimy Ridge and Passiondale.  They were survivors of trench warfare and mustard gas.  These were the folks who lived through the rise of fascism before the second World War, something that they hoped and prayed would never happen again.

There’s one other anniversary that I want to honor today, and that is the 90^th anniversary of ordaining women, starting with Rev. Lydia Gruchy.  She was working as a minister in 1925, and her presbytery wanted to officially recognize her calling, but it waited for 11 years before the church finally decided to take that controversial step.  She was an exemplary role model for many women that followed.  90 years later we can still apply for a grant in her name for education.  90 years later, there are still people walking into church buildings asking for the priest and stunned to see a woman Reverend.

People like these helped us become who we are today, through their example, their encouragement and their inspiration, even if we never met them.  They helped us become who we are despite their flaws and their imperfections.  And everyone who has been a positive influence in our lives, whether we knew them personally or not, would never describe themselves as saints. 

Saints in the Protestant Church are not just the ones who have their names on a book in the New Testament, nor are they just people like Oscar Romero or Mother Theresa.  Saints are all Christian people of every time and space, which is how it’s used in the New Testament.  Saints are people in communities grounded and centered in Christ. Everyone, those who went before and we who are saints in training now, are not perfect.  Only God is perfect.  But Saints are aware of their imperfections, not as an invitation to self- abuse, but as a reminder that they still have much learning to do.  God is the one who perfects us, who loves us unconditionally since we were, as the psalmist says, knitted in our mothers’ wombs.  And it is God who turns us from sinners into saints, through grace alone.  All the work we do is in gratitude for that gift, not an attempt to earn that gift.  When we turn our lives to God, we count ourselves as blessed.

But what does it mean to be blessed?  Certainly, Jesus turned it upside down in his sermon to the crowds.  There are two words for blessing in Hebrew, “ashar” and “barak”.  “Barak” means to bow down before God, or God reaching down to you.  “Ashar”, the more common one, means “on the right road”.  You are on the right road when you are grieving now, you will be comforted later.  You are on the right road when you are gentle now, you will inherit the land later. You are on the right road when you hunger and thirst for justice now, you will be satisfied later. You are on the right road when you work for peace now.  You are on the right road when people persecute you now for following Jesus.  Quite the shopping list, and quite the promise.  Right now, if you follow, you may struggle and feel hurt, but you are doing it for holy purposes, spiritual purposes.

When we chose our paths the way that Jesus taught, the principles of humbleness, patience, compassion and justice in the now, the path will lead us to outcomes that we can’t see.  Who knew that the Stonewall Riots would lead to a Gender Affirming Care Centre in Saddle Lake, administered under treaty rights?  Who knew that 65 years ago, the Freedom Riders who tried to bus across America in what were supposed to be desegregated bus lines would inspire the Unity Bus that travelled across Alberta?  Who knows what our votes for Canada might bring to the whole world in the future?

Jesus knew it wouldn’t be easy to chose spiritual principles.  He said, ‘you’re on the right path when you are being bullied and intimidated for sticking to Christian Values, because it shows your values have an impact on the people around you.  Your light is shining in the chaos, and your light is making a difference.  So happy All Saints Day.  Just by being here, by showing up, you are a saint, and your light shines forth a message of hope for all.  Be blessed and be a blessing as so many have been a blessing to us in the past. That’s something God stoops down to see and honor!

The Truth Will Set You Free

Today is Reformation Sunday.  It’s actually been 509 years since Martin Luther started to publish his ideas for church reform.  He didn’t intend to start a big split in the Catholic Church.  He only wanted to talk about decisions that the Church leader was making, especially about how the church addressed guilty consciences.  All very well and good to examine ourselves and admit where we have gone wrong, but if that doesn’t lead to changes, and we keep doing the same thing over and over again, we are still enslaved to our hurtful and sometimes habitual bad behaviours.  Luther became convinced that penance after a confession, in the way of buying indulgences, was not the way to a full relationship with God.  Indulgences were Pope Leo’s way of raising money and relieving 15^th century minds of the fear that they were going to Hell.  The practice was wildly popular, and Luther had people tell him they no longer had to obey laws for they had purchased their freedom and could do whatever they liked.

Luther saw this as a spiritual question; can you buy your way to freedom?  Of course, some people do, they buy a ticket from Russia or Somalia and hop on a plane to Canada, and they find they have more freedom, including the freedom to vote in elections and referendums once they’ve become Canadian citizens.  Which is not easy by the way.  Even back in the days of Jesus, if a slave managed to save money, they could buy their freedom, but not all slave owners were willing to let their slaves go.  Jesus didn’t put barriers or price tags on freedom; he saw freedom as a side effect of a relationship with God.  Not something to buy or earn, something that came as an afterthought.  That when we learn to love God first, practice praying to God ourselves like God is a loving parent, freedom follows naturally, something that Luther noticed in Paul’s writings on Grace.  Grace comes not with a price tag but as a gift when we do our best to be honest with ourselves and with God.  When we see God not as a judge and a punisher but as someone who is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble, and start to relate to God in that way, we experience freedom from all kinds of woes or anxieties that enslave us now.

We still are enslaved to things like anxiety, gambling, and conspiracy theories. We crave being successful, we think that being tough is better than being vulnerable and that asking for help is a sign of weakness.  Nothing could be farther than the truth.  In an RCMP chaplain training session this week, chaplains were reminded that good mental health for RCMP officers is when they accept that vulnerability is actually a strength, and asking for help is a sign of leadership.  Police officers who embrace those truths are more resilient, more emotionally stable, more successful in their careers and able to have better relationships with their partners and their children.  Vulnerability and truth sets even the toughest, most cynical people free from their prisons.

Luther didn’t only want individuals to experience freedom from fear or unethical acts; he wanted the Church to also reflect on its doctrines and practices.  To look at the theology behind things such as indulgences, measure them against the biblical teachings, and ask if the institution needed to repent and change.  And the Catholic Church did eventually rethink the theology of indulgences.  Just as it and the United Church and the Anglican Church rethought the theology around residential schools, and a host of other issues from time to time.

In the United Church, we recognize that the world has changed in the 100 years since we were established as an act of the Canadian Parliament.  We no longer ride horse-drawn wagons to church; we no longer take the gender of leaders in consideration for ordination.  But the culture of many Canadians is vastly different from when we were founded, and it is impacting us.  In 1992, we had 767,055 members, in 2023 we had 321,054. In 2035, if nothing changes, we’ll have 111,000.  The average attendance in 1992 was 324,222, 2023 was 110,877, and in 2035, it’s 8,174.  And in 1992 the number of congregations operating with a deficit was 11%, in 2023 it was 44%, and in 2035 it may be 61%. Interestingly in 1992 there were 2423 charges, in 2023 there were 1976 charges and 2035 is predicted to have 1633.  So we have a big drop in people but not in the number of congregations. 

It may seem a gloom and doom scenario except that when we tell the truth, the truth will set us free.  By admitting that we have a problem, we are taking the first step towards a new reformation.  We are prayerfully and intentionally looking at ways to hear what God is calling us to.  The National Church is planning and invites us to plan too.  We are remembering that asking for help is a sign of wise leadership, and we have growth animators like the Right Rev. Dr. Jordan Cantwell to turn to for advice.  We are asked to shift away from focusing on maintenance into a deep exploration of our mission, our big why.  And to look at ways that we can engage and invite our neighbors into freedom.  Whether its through supporting food pantries or our affirming love and support of people feeling imprisoned by society’s expectations and beliefs or coming up with creative ways to use our picnic tables to engage people in hospitality and outreach, the United Church is asking us to enter into a time of reflection, prayer and listening.

It dreams that “in 2035, resilient, inspired, diverse, contextual United Church communities of disciples, coast to coast to coast, urban and rural, continue the story of Jesus by embodying Christ’s presence in the world.

“In diverse expressions across the country, contextual to their neighbourhoods, inspired communities embody all aspects of the denominational Call—Deep Spirituality, Bold Discipleship, Daring Justice. Resilient communities have sufficient stability and sustainability to prevent them from being just one or two crises away from closure. There is a sense of having and being “enough.” “Being The United Church of Canada means better reflecting the increasing diversity of Canada. “The church has a distinct Indigenous and francophone presence, and includes the presence of all generations, notably children, youth, and young adults.”^[1]

It all starts with prayer, part of that call to deep spirituality that the National Church has been inviting us to.  Because when we commit to the truth that without God, we are slaves to the temptations of the world, we will find ourselves freed by God to build a resilient future, not for this week, this month but even this decade and beyond.  Join me in the prayer the National church has written for us all:

Gracious and loving God You called into being This United Church of Canada, one expression of Jesus’ Beloved community, here in the particularities of our place and our time. For the past 100 years You have guided and sustained and called us back when we have erred. Now, as we look back, we also look forward, daring to believe that even among us, even in this very place, You are doing a new thing. We long to perceive it like a way through a wilderness for the sake of our neighbours for the sake of this world of beautiful and broken things Yearning to be made whole, yearning to be made new, may we perceive and live into it. And may this new Reformation set us free to be your people, and set us free to share the good news to our neighbors that all can know true freedom and grace. Amen.

[1] Toward 2035_congregational conversation

How to get away with Insurrection

Have you been watching the news lately?  It’s hard to escape the constant stream of debate on the referendum in Alberta.  Whether you are for or against separation, you are probably thinking that there is a lot at stake in tomorrow’s vote.  Many have already voted in the advanced polls or with mail in ballots.  It is good to see so much engagement in the political system that has been plagued in the past by low voter turnout.

This is a delicate topic that has ethical impacts for Alberta residents.  Catholic and Anglican Bishops have weighed in, as well as the Moderator of the United Church of Canada.  But surely churches should stay out of politics, right?  Religious leaders shouldn’t have opinions on the referendum?

This idea of the separation of church and state is important.  And that is the question that the scribes and Pharisees are asking Jesus.  It’s a clever philosophical trap; would he side with the Roman Empire and enrage the folks who were struggling with high food prices, low wages, poor jobs and physical abuse from Roman soldiers?  Or would he speak treason against the Emperor, a crime punished by execution?  The temple leaders must have smiled at the clever problem they had dumped in his lap.

Jesus, as usual, turned the question back at them.  What did they have in their pockets? Temple coins or Roman coins? A Roman coin, with a graven image of a man, in the most holy of holies, threw into question the real loyalties of the leaders.  Let’s not forget that both they and Jesus wanted to be freed of the occupying army and having to worship the Emperor, who had declared that he was a God. They wanted to be able to worship YHWH as commanded in the first of the 10 commandments.  “You shall have no other God before me”.

So, the question of paying taxes had political implications.  But Jesus turned it on its head.  “Pay to Caesar that which is Caesar’s and pay to God that which is God’s.”  In other words, pay your taxes.  But also remember your first loyalty is always to God.  This is not about taxes; it’s about dealing with oppressive government. Which is at the heart of the referendum question.  Some see the Federal Government as the heart of all oppression, others see the Provincial Government as the source of all problems.  Chances are that we will never fully agree.  But Jesus reminds us of our core loyalty.  That we are to focus on loving God, loving neighbor and loving self.  Or as the United Church says, live with deep spirituality, bold discipleship and daring justice.

The Roman Empire was not toppled by withholding taxes.  Nor was it stopped by violence.  In fact, about 40 years after Jesus was executed, Roman forces ransacked Jerusalem, killed citizens and destroyed the Temple for the last time.  Much of the New Testament was written after that event. Christ followers and Jewish faithful alike were thrown into confusion and conflict in the aftermath.

Wait a second, if it was so strong and resilient, why don’t we speak Roman or even Italian around the world?  Was there a successful tax revolt?

Taxes have often triggered revolutions.  Robin Hood is a story of oppressive taxation.  The start of the Protestant split from the Catholic Church was over indulgences, a form of excessive taxation.  Taxes are at the heart of the referendum too.  The government of Canada transfers equalization payments to help provinces provide, and I quote, “reasonably comparable levels of public services at reasonably comparable levels of taxation” end quote so that people of Canada from sea to sea to sea have similar services.  The provinces do not give the federal government transfer payments; the federal budget comes from taxation based on income.  So, people making $40,000 in Newfoundland pay the same level of federal income tax as their Alberta counterparts.

Boycotting taxes seems like an easy way to take power, but Jesus knew it wouldn’t work.  What would work was to focus on what they did have power over, their relationship with God and each other.  Our reading from 1 Thessalonians shows the result of ‘giving to God what is God’s’.  Staying focused on God grew the church of Thessalonica to the point that it was getting talked about in the rest of the country.  It was the first church outside of the Middle East, and the first church in Europe.  It was small, no more than one or two dozen people.  Yet its reputation was spreading, and the letter Paul wrote is the oldest one in the New Testament, the first to be written.  It even predated the gospels by 20 years, because there was no need to write about Jesus when they could learn from eyewitnesses like Peter and the disciples.

Growing their reputation and influence by living out the teachings of Jesus, to care for the weak, the hungry, the sick and the lonely, was why the Thessalonians were lifted up as shining examples of a Christian community.  They put into practice the command to love God, love neighbor, love self.  Deep spirituality, bold discipleship and daring justice.  How might we, like the Thessalonians, be so filled with these three things that our reputation also goes out through the land as people of God filled with the hunger to be the Message?  To be an example to an angry world that feels like there’s not enough?  To send a counter message that God’s love overwhelms and undermines all oppressive systems?  I invite you today and in the days ahead, to dive deeply into prayer for our neighbors, our province and our country, regardless of how you voted, that our witness to love and compassion be inspiring to all who know us.  And may we know the love God had for all creation, the courage Jesus showed in the temple, and the encouragement of the Holy Spirit to give us hope in these contentious times.

Invite, Invite, Invite!

Ever plan a big event, and send off the invitations in the mail in hopes that everyone you had invited would come?  Planning a wedding is like that, and even setting a number was full of negotiations.  My mom wanted a small wedding with about 8 guests including the wedding party.  Our wedding was much bigger, Tim had 4 brothers and they had partners, children, a grandparent, and that made 11, never mind my brothers and assorted aunts, uncles, and cousins and there were friends we wanted to invite.  One thing that the wedding books said was that it was okay to invite more than what you wanted.  The decline rate is about 10%, and if you want a group of 50, you can invite up to.  Of course invitation lists tend to grow and grow and grow.  That’s why wedding invitations include rsvp details, even in this modern day and age.

But there’s nothing to beat a personal invitation.  It’s one thing to get a pretty letter in the mail, but it’s another to get that letter hand-delivered by a living, breathing human being.

And back then, an invitation from a rich land owner would be like getting the Order of Canada, a once in a lifetime event.  The hospitality code of the day would be very clear; this showed the person that they had been noticed and seen as worthy of respect.

People with Jesus at this dinner party would know that the invited guests would have dropped everything in their eagerness to attend.  Dinner invitations were serious business.  They had to be reciprocated, they had to pander to the rich man in return.

It was a complex back and forth, calculating and measuring who had been honored by whom, who owed who a dinner and favors, and back and forth.  So the shock of this story would have had everyone listening to Jesus scratching their heads in surprise.

First, he’s telling about a dinner while being at a dinner.  He was invited by the top Pharisee to a special supper, which showed that the Pharisee was interested in hearing him, and showing Jesus he could gain some status.  But Jesus turned around and gave him a lecture on how to run a dinner, how to invite guests.  That’s some nerve!  It would be like being invited to the Mayor’s breakfast and then telling the Mayor that he had done it all wrong.  And Jesus had, in the part of this chapter we didn’t read, lectured the guests to not assume they deserved a seat close to the host, but to take a lower seat until the host told them otherwise.  Because even the seating arrangement showed a pecking order.

The twist in this parable is that first there’s the shocking rejection of the invitation.  That it happened once might be understandable, but when none of the guests rsvp, that would have been seen as a dreadful insult.  If someone offers you the Order of Canada or the Nobel Peace Prize, there must be a pretty strong reason to turn it down.  It would have been a real slap in the face, a dishonor to the host that said much about how the people saw him.  Here’s a man that we disrespect so much that we refuse his invitation.  We don’t care if we lose status by attending, we’d rather lose than come for a free meal.

So Jesus describes the landowner inviting the riff-raff instead, the people without status, the people without wealth, the people who will not kiss his ring, the people who cannot invite him back, the people who are sick and desperate and lonely and poor.  They come.  The servant brings them until the banquet hall is full and everyone is fed.  The other people, the high status people who are wealthy enough to be able to marry or buy work animals or land, they are left out in the cold.

Don’t invite people like ourselves, Jesus taught.  Invite everyone who is hungry for something that maybe they don’t even know they are hungry.  We have a very hungry world right now.  People are hungry for their fair share, people are hungry to get ahead, people are hungry for more.  Some of the rhetoric we are hearing around the referendum is around entitlement, like how there are a lot of people talking about how much immigrants are taking from regular Albertans.  Or how there’s a blanket assumption that people on AISH are defrauding the system.  The actual statistics are very different than what people fear.  The number of fraud cases is small, the amount of money spent on immigrant healthcare is small too. Yet people are hungry for someone to blame for how they feel they are not getting ahead as fast as they should.

But they are also hungry for hope.  And hope has been in short supply these past few years.  They are hungry for equality, justice and kindness.  Those things are worthy of hungering for.  But there are better ways than working for justice for only me and my household, but to work for justice for everyone.  This is what the United Church, the Anglican and Catholic bishops are asking us all to think about what is the common good not just for myself but also for my neighbor.  The Common Good is making decisions that show kindness and empathy for people whose stories we haven’t heard yet. That is what Jesus was inviting the Pharisees and dinner guests to consider.  Not who had the highest status, but need to be fed with enough.  The Common Good is here we practice gratitude and generosity and love.  Where we remember to practice gratitude for our needs being filled.  Where we include everyone, even the sick and the lame and the poor.  Where we invite everyone, regardless of their status, to be fed with God’s abundant grace.  May we keep inviting, inviting and inviting our neighbors to feast and know that God is good.  Amen.

It ain’t Christian to Hate

Dolly Parton once famously said, “It ain’t Christian to hate” and sometimes it seems like
Christians challenge that assumption.  Some preachers get excited about people in minority groups who they see taking away rights and freedoms and resources from those who feel entitled to privalege, without examining the actual facts, and before you know it, they’re saying things that don’t connect to today’s scripture, especially when Paul said that we are bound to love our neighbor as ourselves.  What a lofty goal.  Therefore, Christians have perfect communities that are havens for healing and caring and serving our neighbors.  Right? Well, hopefully.

Jesus wanted everyone to get along but knew it would not be easy.  Human beings have a hard time communicating their wants and needs or even knowing what their wants and needs are.  One image that is often used is the iceberg.  Our conscious selves are like the part of the iceberg that float above the water.  But that part of the iceberg is not what sank the Titanic.  It’s the part under the water, the subconscious, that causes strife and pain.    And when two big icebergs collide, it can affect things for miles.  This year, one iceberg threatened a group of islands at the south pole as it was 3500 square kilometres across!  A polar research centre had to be evacuated, and the iceberg was watched by satellite for months.  Icebergs crashing are serious things.

Jesus didn’t want us to avoid calling out iceberg crashes and conflict.  He didn’t want us to pretend that we were all sweetly cooperative.  He wanted us to protect our sacred community from oppression and manipulation.  Presbyterians have a saying that they are to “take away all occasion for tyranny”.  Church must not empower bad behavior that, like a massive iceberg, crash into everyone.

We crash together over differing values, differing opinions, differing needs, differing politics.  We crash together over control and power.  And if that power is power over, that control is control over, not power with or control with, we forget to be disciples practicing love and healing.  We crash our subconscius icebergs into one another.  We go below the line, where we make decisions based on fear and scarcity.  Fear is everywhere.  Fear is fueling our political anxieties.  Fear is being used to feed conflict leading up to the Referendum.  Fear of immigrants, fear of indigenous rights, fear of judges, fear of losing our human rights to someone far away that we don’t trust.  Fear that is subconscious, uncontrolled, and undisciplined, is a cancer that can kill communities of faith or even societies. Reverend Henri Nouwen put it this way:

Hardly a day [happens] without our experience of inner or outer fears, anxieties, apprehensions, and preoccupations. These...powers have pervaded every part of our world to such a degree that we can never fully escape them. Still it is possible not to belong to these powers, not to build our dwelling place among them, but to choose the house of love as our home. This choice is made not just once and for all but by living a spiritual life, praying at all times and thus breathing God's breath. Through the spiritual life we gradually move from the house of fear to the house of love. –(Henri J. M. Nouwen, p 24, creating change)

Fear is not Christian.  Jesus taught us to move from the house of crashing icebergs to a house of love, a way that protected the dignity of every individual in the conflict.  Talk it out, one on one, first.  If that doesn’t work, take a witness who also saw the situation.  And if that isn’t enough, encourage that individual who is frozen into patterns of fear and anger, to move on to a place where they can melt their underwater ice without hurting the Christian community.  Of course, if there is violence or sexual abuse, one on one isn’t safe, and isn’t what Jesus intended.  These guidelines are for situations where nothing illegal, immoral or life-threatening is happening.  In those situations, Jesus wanted clear consequences for people living in the house of fear, people frozen into habits of anger. If the whole community agrees, they are out.  End of story?

Not quite.

Jesus wanted folks to treat the now outsider not as someone to be shunned permanently, but someone who needed to be treated as a potential new member.  The outsider still needed to be loved and prayed over.  Because when he said, “declare these people to be like gentiles and tax collectors,” he was talking to people who had seen him preaching to gentiles, who were rubbing elbows with tax collectors, who had watched outsiders become insiders, who had seen the excluded become excited to become included.  He was talking to his disciples who had eaten with little Zacchius, and walking beside Matthew, both of which had been tax collectors.  In other words, treat them like folks that need to learn the good news.  To remind them that they no longer need to live in a frozen house of fear, they no longer need to be unconsciously crashing into anyone they feel like.  They no longer need to be addicted to anger and scarcity. That is not the Christian way of love.  It impacts conversations outside the church too.

Last Wednesday evening, we gathered as Northern Spirit Region to learn about the upcoming Referendum.  We heard that the questions are written at a university or higher reading level.  They paint a picture of scarcity, where immigrants threaten jobs, healthcare and education.  They promote distrust of voters, they tease us with having more power and less accountability.  As one United Church staff person said, “The separatist [rhetoric] is an insult to Treaty covenants. And the whole thing is a distraction from and addition to the malicious targeting of transgender and disabled Albertans, education professionals, healthcare professionals and the whole system.”

If we are to love our neighbors as ourselves, we need to love refugees and immigrants.  We need to advocate for human rights for all, including for education and healthcare.  We need to advocate for treaty rights, and trans rights andrefuse to spread racist comments about first nations and 2sLGTBQIA+.  We need to help people think these questions through, and not just vote as others tell them, don’t vote like an iceberg, frozen into an easy answer.  We need to advocate for people to take the time to read and vote, whatever their position on the referendum and separation is.  Because the loving, brave thing to do is to remind everyone that we are not alone, we live in God’s world and we trust in God’s loving abundance. Fear is not the answer to the challenges of 2026.  Compassion and love and courage and truth is.  Loving our neighbours is the answer.  It is the eternal answer.  Let us commit to being a house of love that puts compassion and equality and respect at the heart of what it means to follow Christ.  Because, as Dolly said, “It ain’t Christian to hate.”  It is Christian to love!

Flip Flop Followers

Summertime and the footwear is easy.  Flip flops are standard issue for beach days and city sidewalks alike.  They are everywhere.

In our gospel reading today (Matthew 16:21–28 for those of you reading my blog), Peter is again front and centre.  Three weeks ago, he sank like a stone in front of Jesus and all his friends.  Last week he became the foundational rock for building a new community of love.  This week he becomes a boulder attempting to trip Jesus up.  What a major flip flop Peter does.  Will the real Peter stand up?  Is he a leader in training, or is he a theological disaster?  Is he a great follower or a great temptation? Is he a good guy or a serious threat to the mission Jesus is on? 

What gives, Peter?  What’s with all the flip flopping?

Just like flip flops allow sand to irritate our feet, Peter’s comment seems to irritate Jesus to the point of name-calling.  Just like flip flops are not good for Alberta winters, Peter’s comments leave Jesus cold.  Just like flip flops are not great for ballerinas trying to swirl like tops, Peter has put his foot in his mouth and doesn’t know which way to turn.

The response, “Get behind me, Satan!” has often been interpreted as a shaming in front of the rest of the disciples.  What if it was different?  What if it is not ‘get out of my way’?  What if it is, “fall in line behind me and listen.”  That puts a completely different spin on what Jesus says, less heated annoyance and more reflection, more thoughtfulness, more invitation to self-examination and self-reflection.  Maybe even a touch of ‘mind your own business’.

The teachings that follow challenge self-centeredness and replaces it with mission.  The world is full of people who know they are right, who are the rule police for a community, a faith group, a family, a town, a culture, a whole country.  We are good at knowing who is wrong and it’s never us.  We fixate on scarcity and hoarding.  We fixate on me first.  Leadership gurus call this “Below the Line” attitudes.  Below the line thinking can be inflexible, certain, and often about controlling others.  It can a form of bullying, where one person wants to have power over others.  It can unconsciously look for ways to be the smartest person in the room.  It is natural, it’s how we survived saber-toothed tigers and stampeding bison.  In the long run, it can leave people cynical, selfish and lonely.  It is an addiction that is just as destructive in its way as illegal drugs.

All addictions are harmful, whether it’s a craving to be the leader like Peter, or gambling or drugs or shopping apps, or food or the determination to be right, or to save for a rainy day that will never come.  I think the addiction to below the line attitudes and thoughts is what Jesus is calling out.  People who put themselves first rather than God get into all kinds of troubles.  That’s why the beginning of 12 step recovery programs is to admit that we are powerless.

Would it surprise you to learn that admitting powerlessness is also the starting point for finding solutions to the world drug problem?  Drug addiction rates are terrible right now, and vary from half a percent of the population in countries like Slovakia and Portugal to 4% of the United States, the worst in the world.  Canada is sitting at about 2%.

The United Nations decided to look at the situation in ways that are above the line.  It researches constantly, does not assume it has the perfect answer for every country, and looks for tangible, measurable results that are showing repeatable significant reduction.  In other words, it keeps an open mind and asks questions.  Some of the things the UN has found is that countries like Portugal who have low addiction rates, focus on harm reduction.  Cold turkey does not work.  Abstinence, while a great goal, is not the starting point, harm reduction is.  The UN found that every individual has had a different path into addiction and will have a different path out.  It recognizes that countries that are most successful look at drug addiction as a healthcare problem.  Countries that start prevention programs in schools around the age of 12, which is when most users start, show significant impact on the number of kids staying clean, succeeding in school and having positive mental health. Family supports are crucial.  Countries that decriminalize the use of drugs and provide healthier, cheaper supplies, disrupt the profit level of organized crime and also noticeably reduce the rate of petty crimes.  That’s why countries like Portugal have had such a drop in addiction rates. The expensive constant medical emergencies and policing actions and court caseloads also drop dramatically with harm reduction programs.

The Un says that the illicit drug trade generates hundreds of billions of dollars per year, though estimates vary.  Drug cultivation, trafficking, and use also impact the environment through deforestation and other land-use change as well as air, land and water pollution.  The cost of failing to tackle drug use disorders is steep – over half a million deaths and 28 million healthy years of life lost due to disability and premature deaths in 2021. Just one in 12 people with drug use disorders received any treatment in 2023.  Our provincial government’s push to have involuntary treatment centres goes directly against the UN’s research because the number one factor for success is for the addict to choose it voluntarily and honestly.  One person told me that treatment only works if it focuses on physical, mental, spiritual and emotional recovery.  Another person said that even after 10 years of sobriety, there isn’t an hour or a day where they do not feel the temptation of escaping the hardships of their life through a needle.

Jesus points to another way.  An above-the-line way.  A way that takes seriously that we can’t escape our painful crosses in life, but neither do we have to bear them alone. Paul‘s words, don’t repay evil with evil, don’t be condescending, don’t seek revenge, are also calls to live above the line.  Feed and love our enemies. Tall order.

How does that look in real life?  I am reminded of a certain 80 year old millionaire who told her neighborhood 12-year-olds that she would give them $500 each if they and their teammate graduated from Grade 12 together.  In that school, the drop-out rate went from 33% to 6%! She gave millions of dollars of books to preschoolers.  She donated money to fund research into the Moderna Covid vaccine.  She spoke out against hatred of the 2sLGTBQIA+ community, saying “it ain’t Christian to hate, we all gotta start loving more instead of all this judging.”  Unlike some millionaire 80 year olds, she didn’t flip flop between love and hate, she didn’t pretend to be a Christian one moment while locking up children the next.  You know who I’m talking about.  She lived a very humble and loving Christian life, above the line, brave and committed and curious, open to learning what she could to help build a more resilient world.  She lived out these values that we read in our scriptures, and she did her best to live one day at a time, caring for her neighbors, and following Jesus.  We can’t have a much better role model for leaving the world a better place than Dolly. May we remember and honor her by doing the same. May we learn to follow Jesus rather than ourselves.  May we remember to ask questions, and may we learn not to flip flop over who is in control.  But to consistently remember the God of Love is the bedrock of our faith.

Rule #6

 

Boy did Jesus ask hard questions!  Who am I?  And he had a new answer for who Simon was, who just two chapters ago, was caught sinking like a stone during a storm.  I suspect that after that event, there may have been some teasing by the other disciples, “Simon, oh he’s great, but whenever he gets in a tight spot, he sinks like a stone!”  Maybe Jesus decided to flip that teasing on its head and give Simon the nickname of The Rock, the cornerstone of the new community of love that Jesus hoped to build.  The new name stuck, and Simon made it a big part of who he was.  As Christians, we too are called to define and redefine who we are, and who Jesus is for us.  We are called to continually renew and explore our faith and our commitment to the teachings of Jesus.  We are to be like the ancient Christ followers who called themselves the People of the Way.  People on a journey.  People learning more and more about their relationship with God and their relationship with their neighbor, which are to be rooted and grounded in love.

One of the first workshops we did as part of the FAB Collab with Fort McMurray, Athabasca, and  Barrhead was where we explored who Jesus was for us.  We looked at a variety of artist’s images of Jesus, traditional ones, new ones, outrageous ones and comforting ones.  We reminded ourselves and each other of what our favorite Jesus story was, that had influenced our lives the most. Just like Jesus prodding his disciples, we were prodded to remember and share how Jesus and his teachings had influenced us.  And we made art to connect us in ever deepening ways to the story of Jesus.  Art about Jesus keeps us getting into ruts.  Humans like ruts.  We like them so much, sometimes I think we decorate them.  But when we get into ruts of who we are, or who we think Jesus is, we can get bogged down into narrow and inflexible ways of thinking.  Our Christianity goes from being a journey of exploration and growth to an institution where the status quo is focusing on maintenance rather than mission.  One person described it this way:

Institutions are driven by sustainability and survivability- neither of which should be a major focus of the church. Churches should not be led by institutional viability but rather inspirational viability. Inspiration means- to be filled with the spirit, always changing, moving, evolving and transforming. Christians are also called to be transforming and renewing constantly discerning what is good, acceptable and perfect.[1]

In other words, we are to keep learning and trying new ways of living our mission to love God and love others.  Easier said than done.  That’s where Rule 6 comes in.  It’s simple, straightforward, and helps us choose intentional love in times of conflict.  What is Rule 6, you might ask?  Benjamin Zander, conductor of the Boston Philharmonic Orchestra, described Rule 6 this way:

Two prime ministers are sitting in a room discussing affairs of state. Suddenly a man bursts in, apoplectic with fury, shouting and stamping and banging his fist on the desk. The resident prime minister admonishes him: "Peter," he says, "kindly remember Rule Number 6," whereupon Peter is instantly restored to complete calm, apologizes, and withdraws. The politicians return to their conversation, only to be interrupted yet again twenty minutes later by a hysterical woman gesticulating wildly, her hair flying. Again the intruder is greeted with the words: "Marie, please remember Rule Number 6." Complete calm descends once more, and she too withdraws with a bow and an apology. When the scene is repeated for a third time, the visiting prime minister addresses his colleague: "My dear friend, I've seen many things in my life, but never anything as remarkable as this. Would you be willing to share with me the secret of Rule Number 6?" "Very simple," replies the resident prime minister. "Rule Number 6 is 'Don't take yourself so g-damn seriously." "Ah," says his visitor, "that is a fine rule." After a moment of pondering, he inquires, "And what, may I ask, are the other rules?"

"There aren't any."[2]

Of course, as Christians, our first rule is to love God and love our neighbors as ourselves.  But Rule 6 reminds us of Paul’s scripture that asks us to stop measuring ourselves against others:  “not to think of yourself more highly than you ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned.” That sounds like Rule 6 in theological language.

What happens when we do that? Great things! Naramata Centre [where Monica was until August 1] found neighbors knocking on their doorstep at midnight August 6.  They suddenly had evacuees, 15 of them, from just across the Okanagan Lake.  The evacuees were from Peachland and Summerland.  The staff didn’t hesitate despite knowing that they would lose all the revenue from the next two weeks, they cancelled all the reservations and became a residence for Evacuee families, finding food, shelter and even activities for kids.  They chose Christian hospitality over budget, no questions.  Naramata Center is one of many United Church Communities which when faced with challenges, have remembered to put love as their main priority.  We do that here too when we provide food for the hungry and comfort for the grieving.  We do that when we open our doors to strangers and feed the hungry.  We do that when we act courageously and renew and explore our faith.  We define and redefine who we are, and who Jesus is for us.  By remembering Rule 6, and following the teachings of Jesus and Paul, we can learn humbly to live lives of action, faith and spirituality.  And Jesus will give us new names too, names like “Beloved, friend, and disciple.  May it be so for us all.

Please check out Naramata Centre's video of their pivot to support evacuees here: (2) Facebook

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[1] Pulpit Fiction, accessed August 19, 2026

[2] Zander, Benjamin and Rosamund, The Art of Possibility, Penguin Books, 2000, p 79