The Problem of Hell

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Who wants to cheat a Millionaire?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What's in your wallet?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Clique bait

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Cantwell suggests four steps:

1. Gentle openness -wait for curiosity, no agenda

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

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

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

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

Worship Wars

Jeremiah 1:4–10 The call of Jeremiah: “But I’m only a boy!”, Luke 13:10–17 Jesus heals the bent-over woman.

Can you imagine over 300 people crammed into a space a bit larger than a gymnasium for 5 days, some of which went from 9 am to 9 pm, to talk about all kinds of contentious and complex issues, and which managed to stay respectful and peaceful despite many differences?  That was what happened a couple of weeks ago in Calgary, Alberta.  The topics ranged from unionizing clergy to developing a statement on Palestine.  They heard from international observers, including citizens of Gaza and citizens of Israel.  They heard multiple languages, from multiple ethnic groups.  They listened to elders and to youth delegates, environmentalists and social justice activists.  They talked in small groups and also to the whole council.  They heard from people who predicted that by 2035 there would be only 100 churches left across Canada and people whose churches were thriving and growing and filled with contagious hope.

 It could have been five days of conflict, bickering and rants.  There were people who came with anger in their hearts, and there were people who came with agendas.  There were people who came sure that they knew what was right for everyone, and they were determined to make sure that it was the most important part of the agenda.  It could have been all these, and yet, for the most part, it wasn’t.  There was a lot of consensus built and a lot of respect cultivated.  Halleluia!

 Worship was a big part of the consensus and respect.  Prayers, scripture and hymns were given in many languages with translations instantly available.  English alternated with French, scripture was read in Blackfoot, Korean, Tagalog from the Philippines, Japanese, Chinese, Spanish, Swahili and more.  When the Lord’s Prayer was said together, people were invited to speak it in the language that most spoke to their hearts, and it was heard in a multitude of tongues.

 Worship was first thing in the morning, and the last thing at night.  It deliberately focused on what God was calling the church to do. It was intentional, brave, bold and daring.

 Worship is at the core of what Jesus was about in today’s scripture.  He, like Jeremiah was called to speak challenging words to the people of God.  He, like Jeremiah, was called to speak healing words too.  Did he know, when he he chose to heal the bent over woman in the temple, that he would stir controversy?  Did he do it during the offering hymn? Or the Prayers of the People? Or in the middle of the sermon?  We don’t know.  We do know, for the scripture tells us this, that there was an immediate and loud backlash.  Worship wars had begun.

 What is worship for?  Why do we worship?  How do we worship?  Is worship like a restaurant menu where we should only get to enjoy the part of worship we like?  Or is it more like a potluck where hopefully there’s something for everyone to enjoy?  Jesus was clear what worship was for.  It was for honoring God and helping people connect to God’s healing love.  It wasn’t about standards of propriety or keeping prim and proper.  It was about setting people free from the pain and oppression they were experiencing.

 That challenged the people in charge of making sure the rules were followed.  Rules of what a meaningful worship was.  Now, we have no idea what worship was like, that was 2000 years ago, and if you think of how much our world has changed in those 2000 years, our ways of eating and cooking, for instance, well, there’s probably just as much change in worship.  Worship, ever evolving, ever the same, is a gift of space and time to reflect together and learn together, to practice loving God, loving ourselves, loving our neighbors.  Practice, not rules and laws, love, not certainty.

 Jeremiah preached from uncertainty.  He didn’t know if he was old enough, mature enough, wise enough, and brave enough.  God told him to preach anyway, to speak truth to power in love.  Jesus preached anyway too, about healing and love.  He had the bravery to stand up to negative, controlling, critical and judgmental voices.  The religious leaders expected conformity and compliance.  They spoke out of anger and resentment and who knows, maybe even jealousy of Jesus who had the power and the compassion to reach out to a woman who could not stand straight in her place of worship.

 Today, we are asked to speak out even in our uncertainty, to ask for healing and compassion.  Someone wrote this week, “We are watching a kind of moral erosion unfold in real time. What’s even more disturbing is how numb we’ve become to it. The lies no longer shock us. The cruelty no longer surprises us. The exploitation of people and planet is so normalized that we scroll past it. What allows these leaders to get away with so much is not just the concentration of power—it’s the slow collapse of our collective moral imagination. It’s the voice in each of us that whispers, “It’s just how the world works now.” And so we stop expecting better. We stop holding lines. We start cutting corners.

 To which I would add, we stop speaking up in love, we stop working for compassion, we stop listening to the pain of the bent over woman and we stop asking how we can help with the healing.

 That’s why integrity matters more now than ever, not as a rigid moral code, but as a living commitment.  At General Council, people, inspired by worship, energized by prayer and scripture and song, practiced listening to all voices with respect.  That’s not easy, it takes practice to hear everyone, especially the quiet voices.  Now more than ever, we need the quiet voices to speak against the angry voices in love.  To hear Jeremiah’s reluctance to get involved but know like Jeremiah, the quiet voices are called to share good news of healing, second chances, of being able to straighten up and stand tall.  We can do that at the food banks, the soup kitchens, the picket lines and the election polls.  We can do that by signing petitions and writing politicians.  We are all called to make our quiet voices heard in deep, bold, daring ways that love and serve God who is our strength and our redeemer, the holy one who helps us stand straight and tall in love and hope and joy.  May it be so for us all, Amen.

Who’s Right, Who’s Wrong?

Isn’t it great that we have United Church neighbors? And good ones at that.  Not the kind of neighbors where we have to build good fences in order to have respect.  But good neighbors, the kind that care and support each other. When we gathered to worship with the Moderator in May, it was wonderful to see representatives from First United, and to hear that some of you had started driving in the wee hours of the morning to get to church for 10:00 am.  I think poor Isabelle left at 6!  Talk about a caring neighbour, joining in on a joyous occasion.  It was wonderful to see so many come to hear The Right Reverend Doctor Carmen Lansdowne speak about the state of the church and the challenges we face.  She, like Paul, wanted to encourage us to continue to live in faith, hope and love.

That’s at the heart of the good Samaritan teaching too.  Jesus was being tested by a scholar who thought he knew everything about the Bible.  The scholar figured he had all the answers and he was right on everything he wanted to talk about.  He could quote scripture at the drop of a hat and might have sounded a little smug as he did so.  Maybe he figured he would put this country bumpkin from Nazareth in his place.  He knew how to play the debate game to win.

Jesus didn’t want to play the game of “who’s right, and who’s wrong”.  Instead of saying, “I’m a smart person too, and I know the answers better than you, here’s the answer,”, he switched to asking questions.  “What does the Bible say?”  Of course that was something that the lawyer was good at.  Without hesitation, he replied immediately with the Sunday School lesson he had been taught.  Just as one of the first prayers we teach children is often The Lord’s Prayer, the lawyer and Jesus both grew up learning the Shema to start and end every day, “Hear o Israel: The Lord is our God, the Lord alone.  You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your might” from Deuteronomy 6 vs 4 and 5.  For good measure, the Lawyer also threw in a verse from Leviticus about loving one’s neighbor.  Maybe he heard Jesus preach about it before.   Or maybe he agreed with Jesus that loving one’s neighbor was also important. But like a good lawyer, he wanted a dictionary definition, a list of who was in, who was out?  Who was right and who was wrong?

Jesus didn’t want to give a list.  And so, as he often did, he decided to shock the lawyer out of his complacency.  He started with a tale that could have come out of the local newspaper if they had ones back then.  Innocent traveler mugged and robbed and left for dead.  Probably not unusual enough to even make the front page.  Even the people walking by the victim and ignoring him would not have been the story.  The lawyer, and anyone else listening in, would have understood that the priest had more important priorities than to stop for what appeared to be a dead body.  The same went for the Levite, who might have been a scholar of scriptures, like the lawyer.  Priests and Levites knew very well what would make them unclean.  They knew what their priority was, preserving their relationship with God through maintaining the rituals and purity codes that allowed them to go into the Temple, the holy of holies, with obedience to the Law as the way to show obedience to God.  Just like the lawyer, they knew what was right and what was good.  Nothing shocking here, nothing to see, move along.

Then Jesus did it, knocked the socks off, okay the sandals off of everyone listening.  Enter the hero.  Like most fairy tales, it’s the third time that’s the charm, the third little pig that builds a house that resists the wolf, the third brother whom everyone thinks is a fool that kills the giant, saves the day and rescues the princess from the dragon.  Who is this hero we expect, the Arnold Schwarzenegger or the Tom Cruise or the Harrison Ford who wanders in at the nick of time to save our poor fellow lying in the ditch?

I wish I had been there to see the look on the lawyer’s face, or the rest of the followers faces when Jesus named the hero as a Samaritan!  Nowadays whenever we hear the word Samaritan, we immediately add “Good” in front of it and gloss over the Samaritan.  The lawyer would never have thought that.  Samaritans were a break away group of Hebrew people.  For complicated reasons, they worshipped the same God, and read the same scriptures.  The main difference is that they only read the first five books, Genesis to Deuteronomy, and they didn’t go down to the Temple in.  The lawyer would have thought of Samaritans as wrong!  Wrong in how they worshiped, where they lived, and how they talked about God.

It must have been really frustrating for the lawyer to answer that last question, “Who acted neighborly?” because he didn’t say, “The Samaritan”, and he certainly didn’t say, “The Good Samaritan.”  “The one who was kind.”  The one who showed love.  The one who acted not from a rule book but from compassion.

We are living in a world where compassion is seen as silly, where kindness to the ‘wrong people’ is seen as sinful, where being loving is labeled as soft, or woke.  We are seeing outbreaks of childhood diseases like Measles that are easily preventable, or people banning books for children, sure that they are right about censorship and vaccinations.  As one minister in the states wrote this week, “To remain tender in a world like this is an act of spiritual resistance. This is how we will survive this time: not by toughening up, but by staying soft enough to care. By becoming the kind of people who others can turn to. The kind of people who, even in fear, choose to become refuge.”  In other words, we need to double down on being kind to our neighbors, especially when we think we are right and they are wrong.  We are called to choose not being right but being loving.  Love over hate is not easy and it is not weak.  It takes real courage and determination, and it takes faith, hope and love in God who is with us even in the tough times.  We are never alone when we love God with all our heart and soul and strength and mind and love our neighbor as ourselves.  May God give us the courage to stay true to God’s call for compassion.  Amen.

(Re)Generate: Visions and Dreams

 Disclaimer:  This is from the transcript of the video of my fellow participants from Moderator Carmen Lansdowne's (Re)Generate program found on YouTube - just google (Re)Generate : Visions and Dreams or copy and paste this into your browser: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=byz5dEHDBnk

Rev. Frances Kitson, Minister at Whitehorse United Church: I want so badly for  this church to have hope not because I'm a PollyAnna and not because it's like a pie in the sky possibility. But I want this church to have hope because that is our God-given gift, that is what God offers us. You know so many people give what they can and have raised their children in the church and are watching the church, the specific congregation they've been in for decades dwindle. They remember the people who used to be in those pews, they have children who live in town who are not in those pews, and they ask themselves "What have they done wrong?" And the truth is they have done nothing wrong, they have been good and faithful servants in a world that has changed around them and the fundamental story of our faith is that death is not the end, that impossible ridiculous and scandalous new life arises from the ruins and the rubble of broken hearts and dreams and futures and if I can make a magic wand and give us all the sense like in our viscera in our blood and in our bones that the God who raised Jesus Christ from the grave is not done with us. That is what I want, that is my vision, that is my hope, that is my passion, that is my dream and that is my prayer for the church.Rev. Wonder Chimvinga, Pine River United Church, Ripley, Ontario: my vision is to create a vibrant inclusive and spiritually enriching community where individuals everyone from diverse backgrounds feel welcomed supported and inspired to grow in their faith and I dream of leading with innovation, empowering new leaders in my church in the wider community and addressing unique needs of my congregation and the community at large.

Rev. Katie Aven, Minister of Bedford United Church: My bold vision is that the United Church of Canada will have this incredible invitation to anyone who is seeking, that we will have the warmest of welcomes, that people who come to our churches will feel transformed whether it's a Sunday worship, a community meal, a youth group, a pickup badminton game, a spaghetti dinner, whatever it is, that experience in the community will be transformative and we know that the transformation of the human heart is the most important change that can happen in the world and so I think that's what my bold vision is, that the United Church of Canada is going to be this agent of change for the human heart.

Rev. Catherine Stuart, Minister of Children, Youth and Young Adults for the Atlantic Regions: I think one of one of the dreams that I have for the church is that we would come to understand that just because things aren't the way they have been that we're not dying, that part of it might need to change but that there's something good that's going to come from all of this.  I think a lot about what happened in 1925 and the excitement that was in that arena the excitement and yet the nerves of “ will this thing work?” but they had vision and they had dreams. You know our history hasn't been perfect, it's caused some harm, it's done some hard things but I think I want for the church that same excitement, that same sense of “we're in this together and God's going to do something through us”. We might not always know what that is .

Rev. Hoeun Lee, Minister of First United Church, Waterloo, Ontario: when I just started taking Regenerate program with the moderator and I drafted the capstone project, and one congregant responded to that with “this is just a dream” and after one year, there is real progress like turning things around. We witness the change, the progress that we are making and so now the dream is not just a dream, it's a vision to guide us to move forward. Out of bold dreaming, there can be a clear vision.

Rev. Tori Mullen, Growth Animator of Eastern Ontario: I really hope that for my that when she's at a place in her life where she wants to dig deeply into spiritual questions and find community and find an affirmation of her gifts, that there is a church that might not look like the churches we have today, but that there is a presence of spiritual community committed to deep spirituality, bold discipleship, and daring justice that she gets to call her spiritual home.

Rev. Lindsay Mohn, Youth and Young Adult Minister, Living Skies Regional Council: my vision and dream for the future of the United Church is that when someone feels like life is hard and they're lonely and they need to feel an experience of being loved by God and by God's people, that they would know they could find that at any United Church across Canada. This life can just be so hard at times and we need each other and we need God and I hope that my dream and my vision would be that people would just know they could find that here.

Rev. Rick Gunn, Minister of St. Luke’s United Church, Upper Tantalion, Nova Scotia: my vision and dream for the future of the church involves becoming really confident in being Christian. I think we are in this postChristendom world but I'm almost getting tired of saying and thinking that because I do sense the Spirit through people coming through my church's doors and conversations out in the community that Christians who are inclusive and welcoming and affirming and really embracing mutuality and diversity.  We’ve got to get stronger at being that voice in the world.

Rev. Sarah Chapman, Minister of Eglinton St George’s United Church, Toronto, Ontario: my vision and dream for the United Church of Canada is to be at the tables of spirituality, to be a an option for people to engage with a deep faith, with community where they can find belonging and then also play within their spirituality, opportunities for people to engage their spiritual health or wellness are on the rise.  People are longing for those spaces and they're looking everywhere and so I long for the United Church of Canada to be really bold in showing up to the tables where people are looking for that type of care to their spirituality and then being a potential option or fit for them.

Rev. Mitchell Anderson, Lead Minister at St. Paul’s United Church, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan: my dream for the future of the United Church is that we would be a church that is a place for all Canadians from every walk of life, of every background and especially as we see the future of what Canada is, becoming a younger and more diverse country enriched by people coming from all over the world, drawn in by a country that is welcoming and inclusive of all, where different types of people can live well together, where we speak different languages, where we eat different foods, practice different cultures and are all one.  That is what God is calling the United Church to be, a church that is younger and more diverse, a church that practices that inclusion and a church that speaks to the hopes of Canadians of future generations in the way we have for the generations past.

Rev. Anna Constantin, Senior Minister, St. Paul’s United Church, Edmonton, Alberta: my call, my passion for church is the multigenerational aspect of the church where everybody is welcome at the table. I really hope and pray and I believe this is God's dream of how do we have abundance at this beautiful table because everybody is there and if they're not there, let's talk about why, let's figure out how we're inviting them, let's listen to their prophetic voices to see what is happening there, because I guarantee that there God's voice is working there too and that we'll all be transformed.

Rev. Erin McIntyre, Minister of Knox St. Paul’s United Church, Cornwall Ontario: my vision and dream for the future of this United Church is to have a vibrant denomination that meets folks where they're at and inspires them to be bold disciples with deep spirituality and who are not afraid to stand up on matters of justice. I envision a denomination that seeks to serve the communities of faith and the regions to ensure that they are healthy and growing and doing the work that they love to do that meets the needs of their communities, that helps to grow disciples and grow faith and inspire folks and just be a presence in the world.

What is your Vision and Dream for the United Church?

Called to Freedom

Galatians 5:1, 13–25 When Christ freed us, we were meant to remain free. Stand firm, therefore, and don't submit to the yoke of slavery a second time! (Photo credit: M. Rosborough, (Re)Generate workshop at 5 Oaks Retreat Centre in Ontario, June 2025)

What a stirring scripture!  We are called to freedom when we take seriously today’s scripture.  Freedom from fear, freedom from jealousy, freedom from greed and scarcity and power struggles.  It sounds so idyllic and maybe a tad idealistic in a world where bombs drop on children and fires fill the skies with toxic smoke.  It could be dismissed as pie in the sky except that these stories are so deeply honest and real.

Paul and Jesus were not imagining out of thin air a philosophy of faith that would never work.  They were real people dealing with real issues in real ways.  They knew what it was like to be in community with humans that could be messy and complicated and hurting and scared.  They also knew how to describe what they saw in realistic ways and offer alternatives.  They acknowledged the challenges of being a God-centered community.

God-centered communities are not easy.  As Paul said, it’s easy to get caught up in biting and devouring each other, struggling against each other instead of working together as a team. It’s easy to get caught up in negative emotions, and to nurse our senses of outrage and injustice. We all want to be filled with love, joy, peace, and self-control.  We all want good times for ourselves.  We want Heaven on Earth, and we want it right now. We hear the call to freedom; but often slip into the dangers Paul diagnosed as self-indulgence.

There are many examples of healthy, God-centered, intentional communities. Last week was the final gathering of the (Re)Generate program of United Church clergy from across Canada.  33 people lived in community under blistering 34 C heat with such a high humidity index that there were weather warnings put out.  There was no air conditioning in the dormitories, so fans were being used in every little bedroom.  It was too hot to even sit outside during mealtimes.  The main gathering room was air conditioned and became a haven.  It was hard to sleep, staying hydrated became important, and people were tired and missing their families.  Some had come from as far away as Whitehorse or British Columbia which had a time difference of three hours.  That meant that they were waking up at 3 a.m., eating breakfast at 4 a.m. and in class at 5 a.m.  Not easy to do.

And yet they managed to work together, to share joys and sorrows, and to learn new ways of being in Christian community.  They heard about the epidemic of burn-out with clergy, the warning signs and what clergy and congregations can do together to prevent it.  Some individual factors are holding unrealistically high expectations, worrying about what other people think, struggling to say no, and being competitive or controlling.  And some of the community factors could have come straight from Paul’s scripture today, unresolved conflict, lack of support, poor communication, cynicism and hostility sound very much like “biting and devouring each other.”  Could the Galatians have been struggling with burn out? Were they forgetting the good news that they were no longer slaves to fear and hurt?  Were they struggling with what it meant to live out the teachings of Jesus?  Paul’s letter was to remind everyone that even though we call ourselves Christian, that doesn’t give us permission to let loose our feelings in ways that hurt others.  We are to remember that we are called to abundance: abundant love, abundant compassion, abundant life.

Abundant life can be lived in many ways.  Jesus showed his disciples that abundant life isn’t dependent on having a roof over one’s head, or food in the fridge.  When an enthusiastic listener declared that he would follow Jesus anywhere, Jesus pushed back and said that his life was a nomadic one, and if the follower was more interested in three square meals a day and a dry bed every night, all pleasure and no self-discipline, it was not going to work out.  Jesus invited others to join him, and they told stories of why they couldn’t come.  “I have to follow the customs of my people and take care of family responsibilities”, said one.  Another wanted to go back home first.  They had more important things to do than to follow Jesus and learn his ways of love, peace and joy.

Both Jesus and Paul wanted us to be more intentional about how we do community.  They wanted us to focus on loving our neighbors and ourselves.  Jesus challenged our stories of fear and scarcity.  “Come and follow,” he said. Skeptics will grumble  that it’s impossible, that humans can’t live in community and love.

The (Re)Generate program showed that it is possible.  We can remember to let go of the slavery attitudes that so fill our world.  A frequent remark is how the participants felt like everyone left their egos back home.  They were at 5 Oaks to learn and to share and to be inspired.  They were there to fill up on joy, love, faith, hope, kindness, generosity and self-control, even in the midst of a heat wave.  They had a leader they could trust, and that listened to them and inspired them to go deeper.  Together, they were more than the sum of their parts, and many felt healed and held in love.

They put Paul’s command into practice: “Serve one another in works of love, since the whole of the Law is summarized in a single command: "Love your neighbor as yourself."”  Paul and Jesus both agreed on the vital importance of this one commandment, and Moderator Carmen Lansdowne did too.  The number one antidote to burn out, whether you ask Carmen, Paul, Jesus, or a good therapist, is to prioritize self-care.  We cannot love one another until we love ourselves.  Until we love ourselves, and chose to follow Jesus away from a lifetime of thinking and acting like a slave to expectation, a slave to fear, a slave to scarcity, we will be in risk of burn out.  God doesn’t want that, the church doesn’t want that, and our families and friends don’t want that either.  The world needs healthy Christians full of the fruit of the spirit.  The world needs more love.  Love of self starts by hearing Jesus challenging the stories we tell ourselves.  Do we really need to check with others, do we really need to keep doing what we’ve always done, do we really need to see others as enemies, or can we learn to tell loving stories to ourselves and others as we seek the deeper spirituality that leads to God’s fruit of love, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness and self control?  May we have the courage and the support of our community to one day be truly free as God intends.  Amen.

Suffering and Endurance, Ew Ick!

“We know that affliction produces perseverance; and perseverance, proven character; and character, hope. And such a hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.” - Romans 5:1–5 

Ew yuck! Who wants to suffer for any reason?  Who wants to have to endure anything? In our quick fix world, pain, physical, emotional or mental pain, is to be avoided at all costs.  Pain should be drowned or denied or ignored or ended.  Endurance? Give me a break!

One man knew how affliction led to hope, not just for himself, but for many.  Despite our society saying otherwise to him, he was determined endure for the sake of his faith, and even the United Church of Canada. The Very Rev. Dr. Wilbur Howard is a name you might not be familiar with, but to many who knew him, he was unforgettable and inspired great hope! Dr. Howard was born on February 29, 1912, in Toronto, a leap year baby. Like many African Canadians, his father and brothers worked as porters on the railroad, for low wages and long hours.  They were often called “George” instead of their real names, and were banned from the union until they founded their own. As a child, Howard was invited to go to the United Church by a neighboring white family and went faithfully for the rest of his life.  He discovered that he was called to be a minister but racism was rampant.  The Canadian Armed Forces were just starting to accept people of African origin as soldiers.  While the rest of his classmates went off to preach in churches during the summer, Howard was sent to a church camp as a counsellor, even though there was a dire shortage of ministers due to conscription. In 1941, when Howard was 29, he became the first Black person to be ordained in The United Church, but for the next 24 years, no one would take him. Instead, he was administrator for a Boy’s organization similar to the YMCA, and edited Sunday school resources, including the controversial New Curriculum of the 1960s. Then, in 1965, at the age of 53, he finally got the call — to team ministry at Ottawa’s Dominion-Chalmers United.

Howard worked hard for the church and for Canada, often focusing on children and youth ministries.  He was also a member of the Refugee Status Committee for the Federal Government. He was President of the John Milton Society for the Blind in Canada, and Chairman of the Ontario Advisory Council on Alcohol and Drug Concerns. In 1974, Howard became the first, and to date only, Black Moderator of The United Church of Canada. In 1991 he was received into the Order of Ontario and in 2001, he  passed away.

The Broadview Magazine article written in 2018 said:

“He … exhibit[ed] a renowned wit. When elected moderator, for example, Howard quipped, “They had to decide when the commissioners vote ‘Black’ on the ballot whether they meant John Black [a fellow nominee] or me.” Some say this sense of humour is what helped Howard cross racial boundaries.

“He had a respected place in the life of the United Church. And if there were some congregations that didn’t choose to give him a chance, he didn’t dwell on that,” says Very Rev. Bruce McLeod, 89, who served as moderator before Howard and knew him well. “He was a private person. He certainly wasn’t a crybaby. He wouldn’t appreciate his story being used to say, ‘Oh, wasn’t that awful about Wilbur Howard.’ He wouldn’t appreciate that because he didn’t think it was that awful.”

But this isn’t the only opinion that exists on Howard’s silence. “I can see that he had been bruised in terms of racial prejudice and that there was a vulnerability there,” Douglas Lapp told the Globe and Mail after Howard’s death. “Maybe that was why he was so private.””

Talk about affliction producing perseverance! It must have been hard to be both a respected leader of a large denomination and also a person who faced racism on a daily basis.  And while Howard didn’t dwell on it, other ministers have been speaking out about how it is still difficult to this day.  That same article said “Rev. Marlene Britton … moved to Canada from Barbados in 2013 and first settled in Alberta. During her search for a ministry position, she sat before a church’s three-member hiring committee and took part in an interview that she felt was normal. She was later told she did not get the job because the committee thought the congregation was not ready for a woman. But a few months later, she learned the same congregation had hired a woman — and the new hire was white”  Rev. Paul Walfall, also from Barbados, who has preached in this very church when he was president of Alberta North West Conference, spoke out at the last General Council three years ago about the racism that he and other ministers were experiencing not just from Canadians but from the United Church.  For this year’s meeting in Calgary, all commissioners had to take rigorous training on equality, diversity and equity, with six facets: Challenge Assumptions, Question Biases, Notice who’s missing, Value All Voices, Aim for Equity, Live Out Our Commitments.  Each of these is thought-provoking and not something we can find quick fixes or easy answers for.  They may even produce some affliction while we wrestle with how to nurture hope for everyone in our communities of faith in the future.

Rev. Walfall also has spearheaded an ambitious project, “Here from the Beginning”, a travelling exhibition that quote “showcases the contributions and experiences of Black people within the United Church, amplifying voices that have long been overshadowed by the dominant narrative. This is a celebration of faith, history, community and The United Church of Canada.” End Quote.  It will be unveiled in Edmonton from July 27 - August 2 at Pilgrim United Church before travelling across Canada as part of the United Church’s commitment to becoming an intercultural church. If you are in Edmonton, please check it out.

The many stories of people like Walfall, Britton and Howard can inspire us and help us also live into a deeper commitment to being intercultural, to being more aware of our assumptions and more curious about those who are missing in our pews. They show us the spirit of Truth and how it really does lead to great change.  Howard did not father any children, but in some ways he fathered a deeper understanding of what it means to persevere in the face of great injustice, and his example can inspire hope for us all in these dark times.  “And such a hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.” May this be so for us all!