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

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.

Rooted in the Divine, Not in the Carpet

 

When Tim and I first got together, it was quite apparent that our families were similar.  My grandma was so shaped by the Famous Five and the Temperance Union Movement that she soaked her Christmas cake in Welch’s Grape Juice.  Tim’s grandma would offer great hospitality with shortbread and scotch mints but never had any liquor in the house.  Both our grandmothers were active in Edmonton United Churches, mine at St. Paul’s near the university, and Tim’s at Strathearn United near Bonny Doon.  So when he signed up for a wine-tasting tour one summer while I and the kids were taking camp programs at Naramata Centre, I felt a little nervous.  I never expected it to become a life-long interest for him the way it did.  He graduated from Baby Duck to Gewurztraminer, while I stuck to the occasional chocolate ice wine, not a common vintage.

It made our families nervous, but not enough to denounce us or disinherit us.  Then Naramata Centre had a a course on wine and spirituality.  Tim enjoyed visiting Blasted Church, Elephant Island and Township 7, developing a taste for merlots and other reds.  I discovered a passion for chai tea lattes.  Preferably with a subtle dusting of cinnamon.  It could have led to conflict, but we agreed that we still loved each other despite our different tastes in beverages.

Some people were so offended by the course that was offered that letters were written to Naramata and the Observer Magazine that threatened and blustered.  No more donations were going to go their way for supporting such outrageous attitudes and promoting alcoholism.  I didn’t pay much attention to it at the time, being very busy with raising two active children.  But I know it hurt some people to the point that they pruned themselves away from their church.

Congregations can lose people so easily that way.  And if it’s not about attitudes around alcohol, it’s the color of the paint for the office, or the removal of a banner or something else.  One of my classmates found out that their big split was over carpet color and 20 years later, people were still not speaking to each other.  That’s nasty in a small town, and I’m pretty sure that’s not what Jesus had in mind.  But it may have been exactly what John had in mind when he wrote, “If you say you love God but hate your sister or brother, you are a liar.”

Strong words, John!  How do we love our siblings in Christ especially when they are so not what we expect?  And of course, we’re supposed to practice loving the members of our faith community so we will be able to love our neighbors too.  Love is the fruit of the Spirit that we are supposed to be able to grow. 

This is easier said than done.  We can get caught up in feelings of frustration and concern, even fear when we don’t get the results we hope for.  And we can bend over backwards to be nice Canadians.  But we are not called to be nice!  We are called to be loving.  Sometimes that looks the same, but it is rooted in a different soil.  Being nice can lead to an artificial harmony where everyone talks and acts like we’re a loving family.  We don’t want to say how we feel because it might hurt someone’s feelings, or even worse because we don’t know how to say it in ways that will be kind.  So people turn a blind eye, or pretend they are happy or do their best to ignore the behaviors that are hurtful.  We ignore comments like “people always” or “people never”.  We leave conversations unsettled and unsure why we are feeling uncomfortable.  We say nothing at work when a racist or sexist joke is made. We don’t talk about the family member struggling with mental health issues that is phoning us at all times of night and day that have us feeling overwhelmed or sleep deprived.  Then all of the sudden, the carpet color comes up and boom!

Artificial harmony is like a pot on a stove that has a lid tightly attached and nowhere for the steam to go.  Eventually it explodes and people wonder how it got so hot.  Then we end up with two, three, five, even eight churches where once there was one.  There are towns in Ontario where there are three United Churches in the same block, one that started out Methodist, one that was Presbyterian, a Congregationalist and so on and these happened before 1925.  It happens in modern times too, Southern Baptists are losing prominent leaders, especially women, and the United Methodist Church is splitting for many reasons.

How do we avoid getting caught up in carpet issues and stay rooted and grounded in Christ?  How do we hear the call to bear fruit?  Loving fruit, full-bodied and richly flavored fruit?

We stay connected not to carpet conflicts but to the vine that nourishes us.  We stay connected to God, our Higher Power, Great Architect, Great Spirit, however you want to label the Good Orderly Direction.  We stay connected by being curious about our own emotional reactions when we feel triggered and ask God to care for these tender trigger spots.  We stay connected by confessing to ourselves and to God the times we haven’t stayed connected or even wanted to be connected to the True Vine. We stay connected by caring deeply about the challenges our neighbors are facing and not assuming that they are being deliberately hurtful.  We stay connected by getting coached in that connection.  Coached by this congregation as we practise together how to pray, how to connect to God through song and through ritual, how to be open to hearing God’s word through our scriptures.  When we commit to curiosity, confession, coaching and caring communication with God and one another, the fruits of the spirit are abundant, and we prove ourselves loving disciples of Christ, rooted in the divine.  May it be so for us all!