Nagging

Good morning, I am so honored to be here!  Of course, it’s been quite a few years, so I will introduce myself anew to you! I am Mrs. Nellie Letitia McClung, but you can call me Nellie. I see that some of you have my books, and I will be quite willing to autograph them after the service.

The last time I was here was back in 1917.  I said at the time that “the conference made a wise choice of a minister when they sent Rev. H. Bosomworth to take charge of Athabasca, for he has the sane optimism which is so badly needed in a town which has been through the hard experiences of this one. He knows how to face difficulties and he has a saving sense of humour which will see him through many trying situations He carries on a splendid work with the boys club, which meets every Wednesday evening in the basement and makes good use of the well-equipped gymnasium. Mr. Bosomworth can do many things. He can put up hay, cut his own wood, plant his own garden, mend the lights when they go out of order, or do a carpenters job if necessary. But he is, above all things, a preacher, a philosopher, and a lover of humanity. (Source: Athabasca Archives, -Nellie McClung, speaking on the qualities of Rev. Η. Bosomworth of the Methodist church following her lecture there in 1917)

What a delightful scripture you have chosen for this morning’s homily!  Some of you will remember that my four friends and I were often accused of nagging like the widow to the unjust judge when it came to getting the vote for all women.  My dear friends Emily Murphy, Henrietta Muir Edwards, Louise McKinney, and Irene Parlby nagged politicians into giving us what was our natural dues, the right to be considered persons, to be senators or even judges like my dear friend Emily, God rest her soul.  There are times when we women, and men too, have nagged and cajoled and written and protested.  We did this because “in Canada we are developing a pattern of life, and I know something about one block of that pattern.  I know it for I helped to make it, and I can say that without any pretense of modesty, or danger of arrogance, for I know that we who make the patterns are not important but the pattern is.” [1]  But although we now have the vote as God intended us to, we come to another grave challenge, my brothers and sisters in Christ.  You may think of the crushing despair farmers in your area are struggling with after so many years of poor crops and dust bowl conditions.  Or you may be worrrying about the rise of fascism and the rumors circulating that our new premier, William Aberhart, is entertaining Nazis in order to learn how to make Alberta prosperous again.  These are indeed worrying.  Bible Bill might promise to take over the banks, and make Alberta only money, and promise everyone $25 a month to stimulate the economy, but his own constituency is gathering signatures to recall him, including farmers and oil workers and I don’t think he will last much longer in politics.  I digress.

No, I am here to remind you that we need to work hard on one outstanding problem that exists right in the midst of this new United Church of Canada we all worked so hard to create 10 years ago.  No, I am not referring to poor Mrs. Dorothea Palmer being arrested last month for distributing birth control pamphlets to people in the poorer districts of Ottawa.  I am going to help with that, as you can well imagine.  Again, I digress.

Sadly, we need to continue to nag our own church leaders about clergy!  Our clergy have been poorly paid because of the dire circumstances, and there were more churches closed than opened since the stock market crash of 1929.  If it were not for the generous maritime churches  and their shipments of food and clothing, I dare say some of you would be showing up in rags or staying home for having nothing to wear or eat.  Someone quipped recently, “the bootleggers have gone, the movies have gone, credit is gone, social life is gone, but thank God the Church remains.”[2] This shows that while we are too poor to entertain ourselves as we did in the 1920’s, we have kept the important priorities.  Our survival as a national church despite all odds proves that Union is a calling from God himself!  And while there is still much to do to help the young people who are not able to find work and the farmers unable to sell their crops, there is also the need to think about leadership in our Church.

We have a shortage of young men who can afford to go to theology school because of this great depression.  And if rumors are to be believed, they may once again be needed in Europe to stem the tides of growing communism and fascism.  Now that women have joined men in becoming doctors and lawyers and politicians, and proven skilled in doing so, it is time for us to ordain women, the likes of my dear friend and confidant, Miss Lydia Gruchy.  Thank you all for your hard work in passing last year’s remit on ordaining women with 79 presbyteries in favor, 26 against, and nine abstaining.[3]

It is time, ladies and gentlemen, to raise our voices again.  Our General Council is meeting next year, and there are no more excuses to bar women from the pulpit.  One man said women are too fragile for the horse and buggy trips around the countryside, but dear Miss Gruchy has been doing that since union, and is none the worse for wear.  One preacher said that “women would have to be very attractive before they could qualify”.  To which I respond, It’s a good thing looks were not a qualification for men in the past.  If you don’t believe me look around you at the picked delegates [we are sending to General Council]. I’ll grant you they are all intelligent men, excellent men, but you would never mistake it for a beauty show!” [4]

Saskatchewan Conference is convinced that Miss Gruchy, modest as she is, is worthy of being ordained.  She has been preaching quite admirably for several years.  It is time for our leaders to recognize that women are equal to men in all aspects, including the God given right to proclaim the Gospel.

So, my dear friends, be like the nagging widow with the corrupt judge.  But I would be sadly remiss if I did not remind you that this is not only about bold justice, it is also about faith.  Miss Gruchy has been serving God and the church modestly and quietly working in the vineyard of the Lord for 13 years with deep spirituality and shows through her life that prayers, offered humbly and sincerely, are answered in God’s good time.  Let us pray and nag even God himself for justice and equality across this great land of ours.

[1] Patricia Wotton, “With Love, Lydia”  2012, Pg 120

[2] Don Schweitzer The United Church a History, 2012 P 47

[3] Wotton, p 139

[4] Wotton p 132

Over, Under

 When I was a kid, the ultimate test of friendship was the teeter totter on the playground.  Unlike a swing that one person could power all by themselves, a teetertotter needed cooperation to make it work.  If you picked the right partner.

Too big and you would end up suspended up in the air, looking a little silly, and not able to pull your weight in the game of up and down.  Too small and you would end up on the ground and the other person would be the one looking silly. Then there were the extra long teetertotters that could accommodate more than one rider.  We didn’t know we were learning physics or even math in trying to end up with balanced sides.  And wasn’t it wonderful to have a kind teen or adult that would be at one end who could bring us up and down single-handedly?  Teamwork, co-operation, equality and trust were all required.  I remember feeling sad when I got to be too big for my dad to single-handedly lift me on the teetertotter, but by then he was introducing me to the mysteries of catching a ball in a big leather glove.

Teetertotters are often how we view our relationships with others.  Are we on top?  Are we higher than everyone else?  Who has got the power? Anti-bullying educators talk a lot about power and how there are a lot of people striving to have power over other people.  And there are a lot of people who are in situations where they feel like they have no power and feel bullied and depressed.  We know of children who die by suicide because the only power they feel they have left is the power to take their own lives.  Anorexia can be an attempt to find power and talking to addicts and alcoholics I hear the same kind of language, “no one is going to tell me what to do!”  There was a story this week of a Calgary Heart Surgeon who is retiring and has filed a complaint against Alberta Health Services. Why the complaint and why only once retirement is happening? Well, she is the only female heart surgeon in Alberta, and has faced microaggressions, gender bias and outright discrimination throughout her career simply because of her sexuality.  No wonder other female doctors are avoiding becoming heart surgeons!

It's easy to blame toxic masculinity for the competition over power that some say has been with us since the overthrow of mother goddess worship in ancient Europe.  Jean M. Auel, author of the Clan of the Cave Bear series, hypothesized that once men realized that they had something to do with the babies being born by women of the tribes, they became possessive and controlling over who had access to the women.  But I think it’s even more universal than that.  Women can be just as invested in the battle for power, and the worst bullies I had as a child were the girls who made some pretty cruel comments, or even worse, jumped off the bottom of the teetertotter when I was up high in the air.  I came crashing down, bruising my ego and my trust as well as my tailbone.

Toxic lust for power can be seen everywhere we look.  It’s at the heart of the invasion of Ukraine and the January 6 insurrection at the White House, and the Ottawa Convoy where protestors made noise and garbage for over three weeks.  It’s at the heart of the current run for party leadership of the United Conservatives in Alberta.  It’s at the heart of family violence, abusive relationships, racism and homophobia.  It is even at the heart of how we talk about the homeless in our community in Athabasca.

We want power over because we want to feel safe, to feel in control, to feel competent or important.  And we have historically done whatever we could to feel that power.  We put people like my great-grandmother in Bedlam under horrific conditions or locked them in chains in a graveyard to deal with their chaotic mental illness.  Is there a better, more humane way in which to address this toxic culture we live in?

Some folks have traditionally thought all that was needed would be to give power to the powerless, to give guns to victims or karate lessons to scrawny children.  Give a radioactive spider bite to a weak teenager, or a magic wand to a boy forced to live in a closet under the stairs.  From Spiderman to Karate Kid, the theory has been to give power to victims and that will fix society.  However, studies of bullying in classrooms show that when a bully and a victim are separated without any other interventions, the bully quickly finds another victim, but surprisingly the victim will often find another kid to become a bully!  Or the victim becomes a bully themselves, taking a turn on the teetertotter.

Jesus sidestepped the power over-power under teetertotter completely and frequently.  It’s seen very clearly in his approach to the Gerasene. He didn’t respond by bullying, putting more chains on the man, or responding like a victim, reacting with fear.  He connected with engagement and respect.  With questions to learn more.  And with authority and confidence.  But not with intimidating, controlling, blaming or shaming.  And he rid the man of the power that was bullying him, driving him to drastic behaviors. 

When people say that the world does not change, they are wrong.  I drove around Athabasca looking for a teetertotter in a playground and couldn’t find a single one at WHIPS, LTIS or the riverfront.  The world changes.  We can change too.  We may not send demons out of people as dramatically as Jesus did.  But we can face our own inner demons, the urges that demand we grab power over, or even the fears of being dominated by others power, and claim our identity as children of God who called to be freed from the tyranny of our own bullying and victim urges.  We can become sensitive to power dynamics at the root of sexism, toxic masculinity, racism and homophobia.  We can be healed and healer, committed to balancing the teetertotter of power with everyone we meet.  We do this with God’s grace and love; knowing that healing is real, change is possible and new life in Christ will make the world a better place for all!

Show me God!

Show me God!

How many of us can relate to that question?  If only I could see God, maybe I would understand why this happened in my life, or that happened in my life.  If only I could know that God was real, maybe I wouldn’t worry so much about what the future holds.  If only I could talk to God, maybe I could convince God that my life should become easier than it is.  If only I could show God how unfair my life has been, maybe God would fix it for me.  And so on.  The questions are never-ending and is a natural a part of being human.  We all have questions.

The Bible is full of stories of humans asking questions, from Eve saying ‘why shouldn’t I have a taste of an apple’ to the builders of the tower of Babel asking ‘why can’t we build all the way to where God lives so we can see for ourselves.  And the story of God creating ever more diversity.  Diversity of shapes, diversity of creatures, diversity of languages.

God could have just made a world full of butterflies and flowers.  Evolution could have stopped there.  We could have all had an easy life as a caterpillar.  Eat and eat and eat until we sleep, spin our cocoons, have a deep sleep of about a week or so and turn into something beautiful that can fly through the skies.  But the diversity was somehow an important part of the plan.

Peter and the disciples were unsure of whether there was a plan anymore.  They had lost their beloved leader and kept meeting in the same room time after time where they gathered to remember the night before he died.  They were stuck in that ‘remember when’ and ‘back in the good old days’ thinking. They were caught in a rut, only talking to each other and sharing the stories that were no longer new.  They felt tied up, constrained by the oppressive government and the religious system that Jesus had challenged and loved so much.  They were not expecting anything different.  They were in a cocoon time of their lives, wrestling with the old but not knowing what the new would bring.  They were no longer caterpillars, but they were certainly not butterflies yet.

Enter the Spirit!  It doesn’t want anyone to live their life in a rut of egotism or shame or guilt or arrogance.  It blows newness into the dustiest soul and shines light in the darkest corners of our minds and hearts. It calls out for us to take Jesus’ words seriously.

Jesus knew that his message of equality, justice and love was not easy for people to learn or hear or put into practise.  He knew that it would take a great deal of courage, commitment and honesty on the part of his followers to make his teachings more than just a conversation on a summer morning.  He knew that they thought of themselves as lowly caterpillars.  He could see that their grief would spin tight cocoons of fear and sadness and inadequacy around them.  He knew that they would need something more if they were ever going to fly.  They would be stuck in the past, afraid of the present and with no hope for the future.

Not unlike many of us who have tried new things again and again only to crash or see our hopes dashed or find our plans going awry until we too feel like we are in tight cocoons.  Someone said to me this week that the thought “I can do it myself” is a great predictor of failure.

We see that happening over and over.  In AA, the first step of recovery is to recognize when we can’t do it all by ourselves.  We hear stories of folks living with severe shame or guilt or depression or mental illness who are sure that reaching out for help is impossible for them to do.  They will go to the doctor if they have a broken leg, the dentist if they have a broken tooth, but they won’t do a thing if they have a broken heart or ill mind, obsessing on unhealthy thoughts, beating themselves up with negative thoughts of blame or resentment.  Some folks, and I have been there, treat themselves in downright bullying ways, yelling at themselves in ways that they would be ashamed to be caught doing to a child.  Why do we persist in treating ourselves in ways that we would never treat others?  And we get caught up in a tight web of our own making.

The spirit comes into our lives, sometimes like a flame, like a windstorm or like a gentle breeze.  We have the dramatic story in our scriptures, but John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, talked about his heart being strangely warmed one night in a small worship service.  And the spirit does not come into our lives just to release our cocoons or rescue us from our ruts, although that is great when it happens, but to transform our lives into joyful experiences that reach out to others.

If the Spirit had wanted Peter and the others to take over the Temple in Jerusalem, there would be no need for the different languages.  But the Spirit wanted them to reach out to the whole world.  The Spirit gave gifts that would break them out of their self-centered pity parties, and become ambassadors to a more beautiful vision of what the world could be like for everyone.

A world where all are treated with dignity and respect, a world where people living lives of pain could see hope for healing, where they wouldn’t feel ashamed for asking for help, and would get the help they needed.  A world where bullying was non-existant, where racism had come to and end, a world where we respect the beautiful diversity of God’s creation.  A world where we have all been transformed from lowly worms to beautiful flying butterflies able to ride the winds of change to co-create God’s heaven here on Earth.  May it be so for us all one day.