Courage and Innocence

Have you ever been arrested for doing what is right?  Have you ever had to go to court to prove your innocence?  Or gotten a call from a loan shark looking for someone who shares your name but not your credit rating?  If you are truly innocent, you probably took it calmly and cheerfully.  Hopefully it didn’t end up in court, where a judge had to make a difficult decision of who is telling the truth.

Both scriptures sound like somebody is going to court.  John’s gospel even had Jesus describing the Holy Spirit in legal language.  “The Advocate” in the original Greek, was the term used for lawyers in charge of protecting a defendant. When we pair these two scriptures up, we hear the call to live lives of truth and honesty.

Our world needs innocent and good people now more than ever.  But how do we be brave and trustworthy?

When we face challenging times like these, some people try to ignore everything bad.  Just do your job, keep your head down, and mind your own business, they might council.  

Some people might rage and join in the conflict, going below the line in anger to prove that they are the smartest person in the room.  They blame, judge, complain, even lie or exaggerate.  They don’t like it when they get a letter telling them to cease and desist or when a judge rules against them.  

Then there’s the third group of people.  They are taking the command to be innocent and courageous to heart.  Even when they know that bad actors might have their personal addresses, they still make the tough calls in the courts or tell how they really feel about current events.  Not everyone who is brave and honest gets their five minutes of airtime, but some folks might just surprise you with their courage.  One such courageous action that recently took place was an organized letter against an event in Red Deer.  This event wanted to connect politics with right wing Christianity, excluding all other faiths.

By the time the Alberta Christian Leadership Summit with Danielle Smith took place on May 4 in Red Deer, 205 faith leaders had signed the Statement of Conviction. It started with 50 signatories on April 20. I was part of the original 50.

The statement read in part: 

We are faith leaders from across Alberta - from many traditions, many communities, and many ways of understanding the sacred. What we share is a conviction that faith, at its best, moves us toward one another - toward the neighbour who looks like you and the one who doesn't. It calls us to lead with humility, to welcome the stranger, and to stand with those the powerful would rather ignore.

We also believe in pluralism - not as a compromise, but as a gift. Alberta is home to people of many backgrounds, many faiths, and many ways of living a good life. That diversity is not a problem to be managed. It is what makes our communities more honest and more compassionate. A public life that only makes room for some voices is diminished for everyone.

The Premier's Annual Christian Summit… claims to bring faith into public life... But the event's structure - its cost, its curated guest list, its exclusive framing - means that many voices will simply not be in the room. Smaller congregations, racialized communities, younger leaders, and those without means or connections will be absent. That is not a gathering shaped by the values of welcome and humility. It is a gathering shaped by access and privilege.

We are also concerned by what this event represents more broadly. When any government aligns itself with one religious identity, it diminishes the independence of every other faith community - regardless of tradition or theology. No single tradition, congregation, or political movement speaks for all people of faith. And the faith we know - across our many traditions - has never been most itself when it is closest to power. Rather, it has been most itself when it is closest to the people that power overlooks.

This letter was drafted by Affirm United, which is an organization that includes churches that publicly choose to welcome and include people that are not always welcome in other churches.  They reported that 

“Those 205 people didn't just push back against one event. They stood for something: a vision of faith and public life in Alberta and across Canada that is expansive, pluralistic, and unwilling to let one narrow interpretation of one religion set the terms for everyone. That's the opposite of what was being promoted in that room in Red Deer, and it needed to be said out loud, by name, on the record.

"It also appears to have had some effect. Since the statement was released, the summit made three changes without explanation: the lowest ticket price dropped from $349 to $199, the application-and-approval system was replaced with direct public purchase, and the event's name changed from the Premier's Annual Christian Summit to the Alberta Christian Leadership Summit. We're not claiming sole credit... But 205 faith leaders speaking clearly and publicly has a way of making things harder to ignore."

Another minister, who also leads an affirming church in Northern Spirit Region, The Reverend Blaine Gregg, attended in his rainbow shirt.  To put this into context, there were some 700 attendees, and mainstream reporters from the CBC, the Edmonton Journal, CTV and the like were not allowed in.  Talk about brave and innocent! Blaine wrote an article for Broadview Magazine, and said, 

"I noted four areas of concern: banning abortion; restricting or eliminating medical assistance in dying; promoting anti-transgender views; and opposing changes to federal legislation, including Bill C-9’s religious exemption in anti-hate laws…There was a clear sense… that ‘real’ Christians shared the same… opinions on societal issues and ethical values, and that aligning with the provincial government would translate those beliefs into policy.

"This… included a palpable shared fear and worry that… Christianity was losing the battle for the soul of the nation. "

Blaine went even though he knew he might not be welcomed.  He went even though the other people were potentially hostile.  He took Peter’s words to heart, “Who is going to harm you if your goal is to do what is right?"  But even if you do suffer for what is right, count it a blessing. Don't fear what they fear.  Don't be afraid, and don't worry.”

When we play small, or if we lash out in anger, we act as the world expects us to act.  But when we intentionally do our best to live out values of compassion and justice, our witness threatens those who would bully the vulnerable, attack the rights of minorities and intimidate those who are isolated.  When we speak out, we discover we are not alone, and the bullies are silenced, the powerful are challenged and the selfish face justice.  Christianity is not a private club for comfortable people, it is a call to stand up for those who have no voice.  When we are brave and innocent, we will find that God is our judge who will dismiss the case against us.  God is with us, we are not alone, thanks be to God!

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.