Great Fear to Great Joy?

"How is everyone doing?"   So often when we are home for the holidays, that’s the question we want to ask and sometimes that’s the question we dread answering.  Sometimes our answer is great, we have lots to celebrate, new job, new home, new friends, new opportunities.  Sometimes the answer is “busy,” lots of tasks and plans and events to check off our schedules.  And sometimes the answer is “doing okay”, and sometimes the answer is “I’m fine”.  Which can often be  shorthand for, “If I didn’t need to be polite and if you were a friend of mine, I’d tell you the real truth which is that I’m freaked out, insecure, neurotic and exhausted.” 

No one likes to admit that they are freaked out, insecure, neurotic and exhausted, and who could blame them?  We live in a society that looks down on people who don’t have their act together.  Obviously, they haven’t worked hard enough, had their priorities straight, or taken responsibility for their mistakes.  And some folks for sure are the makers of their own drama, the creators of their own chaos.

Others, however, find themselves dealing with things they didn’t plan for, or ask for or anticipate.  They never expected the twists and turns life would throw at them, and for many in Canada and around the world, they are one paycheck from bankruptcy, one visit to the foodbank away from starving at Christmas, one pair of socks away from frostbitten toes that will end them up, if they are lucky, in hospital. 

Palestinian Christians, the ones whose ancestors were the first to follow Jesus, are asking for the support of fellow Christians to pressure governments of Middle East countries to put the needs of children first.  Especially the children in Gaza who are being targeted by military from both sides.

It’s not just children in Gaza that we are worried about. At the end of 2023, the United Nations estimated that there were 117 million forcibly displaced people in the world and that 47 million of them—40 percent—were children! In Canada, 1.8 million children go to school hungry because their families can’t make ends meet. Moreover, StatsCan reports that seven in ten children reported being bullied in the past year because of who they are or what they believe.

Far from Canada, a, tradition of the Masai people of Africa. They don’t ask, “how are you” like we do, they ask “Kasserian Ingera,” which means, “And how are the children?” 

The reply is “All the children are well.” Even those without children of their own answer with this assurance, because the well-being of the children is understood as a collective responsibility. If the children are safe, nourished, and thriving, it means that the community is healthy.”

Children don’t care where they are born, what has been planned, what is expected, whether it is an opportune time or not.  Mary and Joseph probably would have wished that the baby would have come in a time and place of their own choosing, but they lived in an occupied country with an army that patrolled the streets looking for troublemakers.  Mary and Joseph may not have had to fear drones overhead or contrails or conspiracy theories or antivaxxers, but they had their own worries.  They had no say in where they had to go for the census, they had no way of knowing if their journey would be interrupted by bandits, and they certainly couldn’t phone ahead to make a reservation.  The extended family in Bethlehem was supposed to take care of them, according to tradition, but for whatever reason, the in-laws and second cousins and great aunts couldn’t make space for a pregnant young mom. How could they neglect her so?

Neglect is easy when we are struggling with bills and taxes.  There’s a lot happening and things get forgotten.  Maybe the letter Joseph sent to his relatives got lost.  Maybe It was his great grandfather’s home, and he hadn’t been there before. Suddenly a baby comes into the world and the only place for it is in the feeding trough.  Poor Mary must have been beside herself in fear and Joseph may have felt embarrassed that this was the best his family could provide.

And yet, despite feeling freaked out, insecure, neurotic and exhausted, there was something special that night.  Maybe it was that first precious meeting between parent and baby. Maybe it was the unexpected visitors, shift workers doing the grubby jobs that were so essential that they were exempt from the census, those smelly shepherds who came to see what the neighbors and family missed.  Maybe it was the sense that there would be a time when corrupt politicians would no longer be able to hide their greed and selfishness from the world.  Maybe it was the idea that even though the worst could happen, a refugee couple with no hope of finding a roof over their heads could still have a warm place to be in their time of trial.

When we are feeling exhausted or lonely or run off our feet, when we feel hopeless or helpless, when we are worried about the children, it’s easy to lose sight of the good news that came to us so many years ago in Bethlehem.  Every year, we remember that what we do matters, how we act matters, and especially how we care for children matters.  Jesus reminds us that all children are gifts, and to be taken care of.  And that even when things seem dark and hopeless, hope comes in the midst of chaos, hope comes when we least expect it, hope comes even when we are freaked out and fearful. The good news is that however we greet each other, whatever language we speak, whether we are fine or good, whether the children are well, God is with us, and keeps gifting us peace, hope joy and love when we least expect it.  Thanks be to God for this wonderful gift!

Rebel Mary full of?

Louise Penny writes of a portrait that one of her fictional characters paints.  It is of an old woman who looks out, bitterly, cynically and tired.  It is a painting of the foul-mouthed, rude and irrepressible Ruth Zardo, a main character in the Three Pines books, and she is painted to be Mary, mother of Jesus, a more unlikely portrait of Mary to ever be made.

It makes sense to see Mary as a woman who will know the harshness of life.  Anyone who has gone through Good Friday knows how incredibly hard life can be.  It’s one thing to have the hopes and joys that new moms have, it’s quite another thing to sustain that confidence for the long haul.  The flush of innocent hope, the excitement of justice restored and equality being proclaimed to all, would have been heady.  No wonder Luke wrote her singing of the world being turned upside down.  And no wonder this is the only speech Luke reported from Mary.  She doesn’t make a speech at the foot of the cross, she doesn’t make a speech on Easter Sunday or Pentecost Sunday.  No, she kicks off the birth narrative, and we never hear of her again.  

Which is sad, when you think about it, because Mary understood Jesus better than his disciples, from this reading.  Jesus wasn’t meant to be a candy-coated, sugary sweet elf on a shelf kind of figurehead.  He was meant to be a real rebel, someone who would turn the power structures of his day upside down with his calls for justice in the name of a loving God who wants widows and orphans to be taken care of and treated with dignity and respect.  Mary understood that.  She understood God’s plan would mean afflicting the comfortable and comforting the afflicted.  She knew that love of those who are weak and powerless is not easy.  It’s more than collecting jellycats to fill an emotional vacuum, it’s more than trying to prove you love your family through expensive presents, it’s more than trying to decorate the house better than Martha Stewart or pack amazing activities into the winter holidays guaranteed to make the kids misty-eyed when they remember it in years to come.  We often get love wrong despite our best efforts.

One United Church person had a habit of writing songs about getting love wrong.  He was an active member of the same United Church all his life.  In fact the first time he ever sang in public was when he was 5, and the Sunday School class performed “I’m a Little Teapot” for the church.  That same church was where his funeral was held, far from the pomp and circumstance of many other famous Canadian musicians.  In fact, if he wasn’t touring or playing in Massey Hall, he was usually found singing in their church choir on a Sunday morning.  His songs of love were memorable, intense, poignant and often full of pain.  He had numerous marriages and relationships, and several children by different womeMan, and sometimes those complex relationships ended up inspiring his music.  Songs of heartbreak, anger, betrayal and also humbleness; one of his most famous songs talked about him being the hero but heroes often fail.  He sings, “I don’t know where we went wrong but the feeling’s gone and I just can’t get it back.”  Love was a complex mystery to him, relationships were hard and family dynamics were not straightforward. He was married three times altogether, but the last time seemed to work out finally.  In fairness, he did a much better job loving Canada.  When other Canadians moved to the United States to become famous, he moved back to Canada after only a few years in California.  That didn’t stop his songwriting, nor his growing fame.  His music was covered by all kinds of people: Neil Young, Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis, Barbra Streisand, and Johnny Cash to name a few.  Even in his 80’s he performed across Canada. People remember him as being kind and humble and compassionate; he was so loved that there is a sculpture of him in his home in Orillia Ontario.  He even was the celebrity captain of the Toronto Maple Leafs in 1991–1992.  He was a member of the Canadian Music Hall of Fame and the Canadian Country Music Hall of fame, and even had a Canadian stamp!  CBC thinks he is the fifth best Canadian Song Writer, better than Bruce Cockburn but not quite as good as Leonard Cohen.  He inspired countless young people to make music and keep loving our country.  Some people said he was the first person that ever got them excited about Canadian history when he wrote songs about trains or shipwrecks.  And when Gordon Lightfoot died, the legacy he left was one of love and respect. 

Interesting that Lightfoot who knew first hand the challenges of love, never gave up on being a caring and kind person despite his personal heartbreak.  Through all the ups and downs of grief and health issues, premature reports of his death, a stroke that had him having to learn to play guitar all over again, Gordon persisted in being humble and compassionate to the end.

I can imagine that Mary also persisted.  Her vision of what the world needed was so crystal clear and compelling that it must have survived all the challenges of losing her beloved and gifted son.  Maybe when Mary heard Luke ask her about her son, her soul again cried out with joy. The painting Louise Penny imagined of the old, embittered woman?  She wrote that there’s a dot of white in Ruth’s eyes, the moment when her bitterness is transformed into hope. When she is reminded once again of her powerful vision and conviction and how they are turning the world towards justice.  God is still at work, bringing change and love into the world. May we too feel our spirits sing as we remember God’s promise of justice to all!

Snakes Alive!

John is at it again.  Lecturing, name calling, telling people off.  Calling them snakes!  He doesn’t pull any punches.  He lets them know in no uncertain terms that God is not happy with the way humans are living their lives.  They need to make some changes, he demands.  They are not living up to God’s expectations and are letting down their part of the Covenant between the people of Israel that came into being when Moses first showed up, that was behind the story of why there are rainbows in the world.  God makes covenants, enters into partnership, wants to be in relationship with troublesome humans who keep breaking their side of the bargain.  Then God connects with Isaiah and sends a message that these broken covenants are not what God wants!

Today’s passage of Isaiah about "the wrath of God" which results from these broken covenants, is pointing to what all the scriptures have in common this Sunday. That many people believe in the wrath of God. And while there are some folks who probably should take this more seriously, like certain politicians, leaders of organized crime syndicates, murderers, billionaires with their mega yachts who complain of rising wages, people who start wars, scammers that phone at 6 in the morning claiming that you need to pay a speeding ticket and the like, who could do with a taste of God's wrath, most people are doing the best they can to get by. The postal workers, the teachers and nurses, the cleaners and the cooks, the typists and the professors, the car washers, the truck drivers and the grocery clerks. How does the wrath of God help them when they are more afraid of the wrath of their bosses? It's stunning to learn that those bosses are earning in a single year what their average employee will earn in their lifetime. The CEO of Tim Hortons earned $151.8 million dollars in 2022, including benefits and other compensation. That's quite the gap between him and the donut server earning $15.64 an hour, according to CBC reporting. So much so that when you crunch the numbers, he is earning the same salary as about 5000 of his employees combined. A poisonous snake who exploits humans as resources. Still feel like having a double-double? What would John say about it? Probably what he said to the tax collectors; stop with the greedy exploitation!

Believing in the wrath of God is surprisingly common.  Many people grew up with the story that God has so much wrath towards us that God killed Jesus, torturing his innocent son to death.  The idea of original sin or looking at images of Jesus bleeding on the cross, just emphasizes this image of a wrathful God. 

Too much anger though, and people shrivel inside.  Too much negativity leads to stunted growth.  Too many put downs, accusations and guilt trips leave people stuck in apathy and anxiety.  Many hurting souls give up hope.  They turn to selfish ways, caring only about themselves and their families. Or they turn to addictions to numb the pain of never being good enough. People who are trapped in this kind of self-hatred live in constant fear of God’s wrath.  They turn to gurus, psychics, televangelists and charlatans but they do not find comfort.

If only someone would read the words of Isaiah to them.  Isaiah, who heard God saying, “Comfort, oh comfort my people, speak tenderly to them, and tell them that their day of pardon has come.”  This is not an angry God.  And in today’s reading, God is the one to turn away from wrath.  God is the one that provides comfort.  God is the one that saves the people, God is the one that protects and strengthens.  God is the one who helps refugees sing a new song in a strange land, and God is the one who brings joy.

Joy comes in surprising ways.  The amazing and prolific writer, C. S. Lewis, talked about this surprising nature of God’s comfort and joy.  In his book, “Surprised by Joy”, he wrote about being a dyed in the wool atheist happy to focus on only the things he could touch or taste or smell or hear or see.  And yet, when he heard music, when he recited a poem, when he saw a sunset on a walk, when he read a fairy tale, when he saw a work of art, he would get a joyful emotion that he couldn’t explain away.  The surprises slowly and surely baptized his imagination and seduced him into rejoining the faith of his childhood. He abandoned religion because of the hypocrites and snakes he met in the church.  Joy brought him back. And little did he know as he was writing it, that his friend and proof reader, Joy Davidman, would a few years later become his wife, adding to even more surprising Joy.

John knew that same surprising joy, and he wanted his followers to know it too. And he told them simple concrete things that we can do to live in right relationship with God and each other.  He tied it into our livelihoods.  Don’t hurt others, share what you have and don’t get greedy.  Sounds simple, doesn’t it?  And he told them that he was not the messiah, that one was coming who makes him look like an amateur in comparison.  He was right in that, for a very simple reason.

John was mired in the wrath of God. Isaiah and Jesus were not; both saw God differently, acting in love, God doing the comforting.  God doing the surprising.  God bringing Joy.  Even to people like you and me, struggling with our own moments of snake-like anger, even when we too know we are hypocrites, preaching love one moment and raging the next, God is with us, we are not alone.  Thanks be to God for this gift of good news of salvation and surprising joy for all of us!  Amen. 

Drop Your Burdens!

There’s an interesting book that came out in 2021.  It’s called “First Nations Version - an Indigenous Translation of the New Testament".  It uses cultural metaphors and language for the old biblical story that we know very well.  Jesus is called “Creator Sets Free” and John is known as “Gift of Goodwill”.  Their version of Luke 3 says, after all the historical stuff about who was in power:

“It was during this time that Creator’s message came down from above like a burden basket and rested on John.  His message was for all to return to Creator’s right ways of thinking and come to the river to perform the purification ceremony to be released from their bad hearts and broken ways.  John was like a voice howling in the desert, ‘clear the pathways! Make a straight path for the coming of the honored one.  Then all people will clearly see the good road that sets them free.”

Wow, what different images these bring up.  Being released from bad hearts and broken ways to follow a good road sounds pretty enticing.  All too often the old language that we are used to, “Repent and turn away from your sins” sounds like an invitation to browbeat ourselves with guilt, shame and blame, tell ourselves how awful we are, and come to God groveling and embarrassed.  Not at all appealing.  That might have worked at one time, but most people today recognize that guilt and shame do not grow healthy souls.  Psychologists and counsellors do not spend time insulting and bullying their clients into better behavior.  It just doesn’t work!  But being released from broken ways, who wouldn’t like to be set free to walk along a better path?  Sign me up for that!

How do we do that?  Now, this is not the time to go down to the river to pray and wander into it up to your waist for a baptism.  Too cold these days for sure.  But it was curious that John’s message of repentance and redemption was described as a burden basket.  What is a burden basket?  Why is it mentioned as part of this scripture on the second Sunday of Advent when we focus on peace?

Turns out the burden basket is known as a tool for building peace.  It was traditionally used by women to gather firewood for their homes, and it was worn on their backs like a backpack.  When a woman got home, she would hang it by her entranceway.  The women were only supposed to put as much wood in it that they could carry, so as not to hurt themselves or burden themselves more than was healthy for them.

They hung their baskets outside their homes as a reminder that their homes were sacred and they were to leave their burdens at the door and not bring them inside.  This was also a metaphor for how they were to behave when they went to someone else’s home.  Visitors would touch the baskets and remember not to bring their burdens into someone else’s living space.  They were not to add their burdens to their hosts.  If they were visiting with anger or hurt, jealousy or fear, those feelings were to be set aside.  One does not add one’s burdens and problems to someone else without permission.  One deals with their own issues outside the sacred space first, and does what they can to recognize and be responsible for dealing with their own loads. It’s called accountability.

What a kind and peaceful way of living!  What a way of to be responsible for and then released from the things that weigh us down.  There is a time, of course, for asking for help, but knowing when that time is, and who the appropriate person is to ask for help is also a way of building peace.  Laying down our emotional burdens is a way of reminding us to purify our intentions and our words and our actions.  And be accountable for our own burdens so they won’t hurt someone else.

What burdens would you put down if you had the chance?  There’s so much to choose from.  The world right now feels like it isn’t very peaceful.  South Korea is under martial law one moment and then not the next.  I’m unsure if the ceasefire in the Middle East is a thing or is it off again, Ukraine is still at war and North Korean soldiers are fighting for Russia, and what’s happening in Syria? I don’t understand the Tariff thing with Mexico and the States, and the whole situation in the world seems anything but peaceful.  We teeter between anxiety and apathy, neither of which are healthy alternatives for us as humans or as a society.  Where is peace found in all this fear?

People are lonely, people are anxious, people are struggling, people are hurting.  They don’t know where to turn to and they don’t know that peace is possible.  And maybe we don’t have control of what happens in the bigger world, but we can choose to commit to being bearers of peace.  And only carry as much as we can manage.  The rest gets left.  Drop that burden.  Right here, right now.  In this burden basket we call Christ’s good news.  Release our broken ways, our hurting hearts and our wounded path for the good path that purifies us so we can all walk the good road that leads to peace.  Amen

Belonging to truth, freed from sin

Jesus is amazing in John 18.  He knew his disciples wouldn’t fight to put him in power.  And he didn’t want that either.  What a contrast to what was happening in the states a month ago when their national guard was preparing for riots and insurrections if Kamala Harris had won.  There was to be no civil war enacted by the followers of Jesus, and Jesus never asked for that kind of revolution. 

Jesus asked for a revolution of the heart and mind, but not a revolution of force and violence.  He was asking for a revolution of attitude and intention.  He was asking for a revolution where we think about truth and compassion and empathy.  He was asking for a rebellion against fear, anger and entitlement.  Where decisions are made based on what is best for the wider community and not what is best for my ego or power.

We spend much of our time being stuck in anger, resentments, fears and worries.  It’s easy to lash out at others instead of recognizing our own hurts that need healing.  In our Christian tradition, it is known as sin, and it produces much suffering and unhappiness.  Jesus came to free us from that suffering, to free us from sin.  But that takes teamwork, that needs our support and co-operation. 

When we live from a place of sin, we pretend we are doing better than we really are.  We pretend to others and ourselves that we have it all together, that we are perfectly happy, or perfectly in control.  Some of us pretend that we are completely helpless to deal with a terrible world that hates us, and we can never do anything to improve our lives.  Some of us pretend that we have all the answers and people who don’t listen to us deserve our righteous wrath.  Some of us spend all our time judging others so that we can ignore the fact that we are judging ourselves mercilessly.  All these kinds of sins arise from us being unwilling or unable to see ourselves as God sees us, imperfect creations that are loved and that are invited to a radical revolution where fear is rejected, and love is accepted.

This brokenness, this sinfulness is why we have a place for confession in our worship.  It is a time to tell ourselves and God the truth of our imperfections.  Telling and admitting that kind of truth is hard.  We don’t like to admit that we aren’t perfect.  We fear that we will be targeted for bullying and abuse if we are honest about our shortcomings.  The very thing we fear is the very thing that sets us free!

Every time we confess, it brings us a step closer to the realm of Jesus.  Every time we say that we aren’t perfect, we witness to the truth.  Every time we ask for help, we are hearing the voice of Jesus speaking truth to our hearts and minds.  When we belong to truth, we are set free from sin.  This truth is so powerful, it is a major focus of recovery programs like AA and Al Anon, who have it as Steps 4 and 5 in their path to recovery.

What a contrast it is from what the world focusses on.  There are many people like Pilate who are in power and who are determined to stay in power.  That is not easy at the best of times, but people in power are often afraid of losing that power.  Pilate knew what it took to get to power, lots of manipulation, political scheming, spreading rumors, and using force to claw his way to the top.  He didn’t say, “You’re fired”, he said, “You’re dead”. And had the power to enforce it too.  Quite often. Pilate was known as a brutal commander, sent in to Jerusalem to keep the Pax Romana, by using a sword if necessary.  He had the power of life and death over a whole city. Usually, he wasn’t afraid to use it either.

Jesus stumped him.  Jesus confused him.  Here was a man, a leader who influenced people by speaking truth to them. By treating them with respect.  By respecting them.  By caring about them.  Everything he did to be a leader, an influencer, was the exact opposite of what Pilate did.  He invited respect, he did not command it or demand it.  He did not bully others into treating him with respect.  He did not use shame or blame or guilt to manipulate them into giving him authority to be the leader.  He was a leader by attraction, not enforcement.

Pilate recognized Jesus to be so far outside his experience that he didn’t know how to react.  He was used to people who took power by force.  Jesus was confusing.  His answers put the onus on Pilate to think about what he was doing in a different way than what he was comfortable doing.  He didn’t want to think about truth the way Jesus talked about truth.  He had lied and manipulated people to get where he was, and truth was something he had long before abandoned in his lust for power.  He didn’t want to think about truth.  Truth was something that he was afraid of.  If this Jesus could become an influencer of others, a leader of others, what did that say about Pilate’s leadership?  That it was cruel and murderous.  The truth was something to be ignored, feared and dismissed.

It takes courage to tell the truth and listen to the truth.  It takes courage follow Jesus.  But the great joy is this is why Jesus came into the world, to build a community of truth and compassion that frees us from the pain of our sins large and small.  May we work together to build that community of Jesus who has created and is creating, our judge and our hope.  God is with us, we are not alone, thanks be to God!

Biblical Marriage?

Next time someone tells you that they believe in biblical marriage, ask them if they've read the first chapter of the first book of Samuel. Don't you just love this description of biblical marriage? Elkanah has two wives, Peninnah and Hannah. How's that working for him? Not at all well. His first wife was very fertile and brought Elkanah many children. It helps if we remember that in this time of surviving in a desert region, children were a man's labor force to generate wealth and a sustainable lifestyle. They were his pension plan, his RSP, his property insurance and his senior's citizen lodge. No pressure! Elkanah had enough children. by his first wife Peninnah that he felt secure financially for the future. And maybe that's why he had two wives. I assume that Hannah was the younger, prettier one, but it doesn't go into that much detail. Certainly it's similar to the Bookseller of Kabul, where he guts established as a successful businessman with his wife's help then gets another one.

Then the bullying begins, Peninnah nags and  ridicules and intimidates Hannah until Hannah's self-esteem is in tatters. Elkanah tries to comfort Hannah but he never tells Peninnah to stop it. He might even add to Peninnah's fury by showing. Hannah's favoritism with meals. Her fridge is full of T-bone steaks while Peninnah gets ground beef. No wonder she bullied Hannah!

There were a whole bunch of terrible assumptions also impacting this story. Hannah's mental health centred around Hannah believing that her self-worth was tied to her fertility. Today many people still struggle with that, but Hannah's culture taught that women's duty was to the survival of the tribe. Her faith taught that God chose when to make women fertile and if she couldn't get pregnant with a male baby in that patriarchal society, God didn't love her. Bad assumption there. Eli, the priest, assumed that Hannah was drank when she prayed. This might seem like an odd assumption but St. Augustine thought that St. Ambrose was odd because he read silently, and in the 18th Century, the new fad of reading silently in bed at night was seen as scandalous and immoral! So Hannah, praying silently, was a real oddity in Eli's experience.

She had poured out her deep pain and anguish to God. Interestingly, her pain and anguish was not about the bullying, it was about her core wound, her sense of her own flaws, and her belief that God had judged her as "wicked" in this translation. How many of us take our deep insecurities, our personal flaws, our insecurities and fears to God? Roger and I recently took a workshop about trauma. It's so important to understand trauma because trauma is widespread in our world. And trauma often leads people to bully other people, they explode in rage, they yell or they look for ways to find control. Trauma can be any experience we've had that finds us out of control. It can be bullying, it can be natural disasters, it can be a car crash and so on, People who have a sense of being loved, or who have a safe Community, or who have a sense of connection to God through prayers and spiritual practices, are much more resilient to the trials we all face in our lives.

Hannah takes her deep pain to the temple. She prays. She talks to both God and her priest. She goes deep. This is no "how about them Oilers" conversation between her and God. And despite Eli scolding her and judging her, Hannah is able to talk to him and explain herself. She has the courage to speak her truth to Eli, and her prayers are answered.

Many of us live with trauma or fear or guilt in a way that causes problems in how we relate to others and to God. And while it may seem better to keep our trauma to ourselves, it's not how God heals, God works through us and others by the Spirit and when we bring our deep pain to God, healing begins.

Yesterday, we had a workshop to heal some of our fears and concerns around church. We talked about why we do church. This is a tough question and we practiced going deep. We did that by asking why. Just as Elkanah asked Hannah, "Why are you crying, why won't you eat, why are you so upset," we asked each other "why are you here, why do you keep coming back?" Just like Hannah, we didn't waste time blaming others, we dug deep into our personal stories and the difference the United Church has made in our lives. This is what we found at Barrhead United together:

Church helps us with our emotional stability, it’s a place where we are accepted and included.  It gives us a focus for the week, it gives a save inclusive space where we find respect for diversity, where we find a community of love that focusses on the spiritual in thoughtful ways.

That’s what Hannah found when she went to her temple too, and it empowered her to name her deepest pain and find healing and comfort for her life.  May we continue to have Hannah's courage, tenacity & spirituality to grow our faith and our church. Amen.

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.