Prove it!

 

Sounds like Jesus was having a bad day.  First, he was tested by the Pharisees, then by the lack of foresight by his disciples.  He was speaking about faith and using a metaphor to do so, and his disciples completely missed the point and took his words literally.  Not only that, but they were coming from a very defensive position, assuming that he was blaming them for their lack of preparation.

Nobody was getting it.  The Pharisees wanted signs, the king wanted absolutes, the disciples wanted their bellies full and no one wanted to think about God or mission or higher purpose.  Here they were in the presence of Jesus, and had seen and experienced marvelous things, but all they could do was stay fixated on their own perceived needs and their own sense of what was proper.

Like a mobile, the three groups were used to a certain way of living.  Herod was used to having uncontested power over the country and influence with the Roman Empire.  He was a figurehead and knew it.  He was also plagued with guilt over the death of John the Baptist and wondered if Jesus was John reincarnated.  He had been manipulated by his wife and stepdaughter into executing John, from which we get the phrase, “serve his head on a platter”.  He was a dangerous and volatile man, easily swayed, and a wily politician.  He was not afraid to kill people to keep his power.

The Pharisees were, as Robbie the Dragon said, the ‘status quo’.  The religious people who ran the temple.  They were used to being upper managers in the institution of religion, which was a big thing in Jerusalem.  They liked their systems, their debates, their logic and their many rules. 

They liked the superiority they had in knowing that they had the truth all wrapped up and that they were better than the rest of the people they saw.  They were sure they were right.  They ‘knew’ they were in God’s good books.

Then there were the disciples.  Fishermen, farmers, day laborers.  They knew their place in the society’s hierarchy.  It was at the bottom.  They knew the constant struggle to find enough food to eat every day.  They knew grinding poverty, and they knew that they were not good enough to deserve the best seat in the temple.  Like Tevye in Fiddler on the Roof, they only dreamed of one day having a seat of honor in their most sacred institution.  Survival was the best they could hope for.

Imagine that this society was like a mobile with the strings and sticks balancing the different people at each level.  You remember the kinds we made with our kids as school projects, or maybe hung a store-bought one over a baby’s crib.  I had one festooned with plastic butterflies that entertained my children, especially when they realized the butterflies moved when they kicked their feet on the crib mattress.

The mobile that was the society of the people was committed to being still, calm and static.  It hadn’t been that long ago that there had been two nasty sieges of Jerusalem that had led to wholesale massacres of people hiding in the Temple, less than 100 years earlier.  Power imbalances had led to civil wars and thousands of people dead. So status quo and peace was very precious to all.  It was a matter of life and death.  People didn’t want more war, more death, and more disaster.  They wanted stability.  They wanted safety.  They wanted security.

Jesus wanted equality.  He wanted people to share their abundance with people who didn’t have abundance.  He wanted fair play and justice, so that poor people wouldn’t be the oppressed and the marginalized.  He wanted healthy community, where all, young and old, were treated with compassion and respect.  Where status was not based on what one owned or who one controlled, but on how well one served, and loved the people who could least repay a kindness.

He wanted a community that laughed together, played together, worked together and experienced God together. A community freed from the fear of not having enough or being enough.  A community of love and joy.

To get there would take much change.  The mobile would have to move and bounce and whirl to get that change.  Herod and the Pharisees were not having it.  They wanted the mobile to stay still and peaceful for them.  They were prepared to sacrifice the people under them to maintain that peace.  They certainly weren’t going to let some upstart Galilean preach to them how to practice their faith and upset the peaceful mobile.

So they demanded signs, not because they wanted signs, but because they wanted to keep the mobile from moving.  And Jesus realized the game they were playing.  Jesus realized they kept moving the goal post and would keep moving the goal post as a way to discredit him in front of his followers.

When he tried to communicate this to the disciples, once again, they didn’t have a clue what he was talking about.  They were fixated on their assumptions that there wasn’t enough food around because they could only believe in that which they could touch or taste.  They didn’t trust in this new community, they only trusted in what they knew.  They needed bread, not just once in a while but daily, like the rich folk could afford.  And that need was enough to erase their memories of the loaves and fishes that were in abundance whenever they met in community in the presence of Jesus.

Where do you find yourself in this story?  Are you worried about your daily bread? Are you worried about upsetting the status quo?  Are you stressed out about what other people might think if you do something different than everyone else?  Have you forgotten the special moments in your lives when you had a sense of community, of support, of the divine awe that inspired you and connected you to something bigger than yourself?

I hope amidst the challenges and the shifts of our world, that we remember to hold to the vision of a community and a society where all are valued, where all have found a bigger purpose to hope in, where all are committed to spinning the mobile until all know the joy and the glory of being beloved children of God.

Who’s got the power?

When I read Paul’s story, I immediately thought of that commercial with the pink energizer bunny, and the jingle, “I’ve got the Power”, resonating with the drum beating.  And on days like we’ve had, with the heat beating down on us like an everlasting drum, well, it’s hard to feel energized.  I remember a few years ago hearing that it was so hot in Italy, people were burning their hands when they went to touch their doorknobs.  Not so hard to imagine after this week.  The energy to work in such temperatures is hard to muster.  Even construction crews are working shorter shifts on the rigs and ending their days early to prevent heat exhaustion.  The power has gone out of us as we wait and pray for rain and a break from the sun.

Power is one of those things we don’t like to talk about much.  We are fine with talking about power in terms of electricity, and about power of politicians way over some place far away.  We’re much less comfortable with the power we might have.  Or might need.  Or might be abusing or might have abused in the past. Psychologists talk about three needs that every person has, competence, connection and autonomy.  Autonomy is the power to make decisions and choices for oneself.  But sometimes that power can step towards making decisions and choices for others.  Which is a good thing.  I don’t want to make decisions on where to build a generating station in the neighborhood, and I’m quite glad to delegate that to provincial and municipal leaders.  Where the danger lies is when the folks we delegate the power to make choices forget that they are to make choices for all and think only about the best choices for themselves.

We saw that in our previous town council.  I fear we are seeing that in our provincial leadership that ignores the call to have residential school history in our curriculum, public parks for people who can’t afford resorts, protected areas like our Rockies to stay safe from coal mining, accessible health care, fair dealings for health professionals and teachers and more.

But what does that have to do with us?  And more importantly, the scriptures?  Jesus had power to heal those who needed healing and yet when he was back home where he had grown up, in the midst of all the negative, critical, verbal attacks, his power was lessened.  The home crowd had power over him.  With their nitpicking, they exerted their power over Jesus.  They wanted to put him in his place.  They wanted him to remember he was nothing special, just a small-town boy with delusions of grandeur that he didn’t deserve and certainly shouldn’t inflict on them.

Can you imagine telling someone that they shouldn’t make the world a better place, or even worse, that they can’t and will never make the world a better place?  We would never do that, especially not to a loved one.  And yet, we often do.  I find something wrong in the way this person waters their plants or how that person drives their car.  I easily slip into judgement and when that judgement is spoken without any loving intentions, it robs the power from the person hearing it.

Judgement is addictive and judgement is easy.  It leaves me feeling more powerful than the person I am judging.  I meet my need for autonomy but in a way that competes with my neighbor and erodes my love for my neighbor.  Judgement is why the residential schools were so toxic for so many, and why the conversation about them is so hard today.

Paul talked about another way.  Instead of competing for power, he recognized that it was a competition he could never win.  And he would know.  As Saul, the persecutor of the Christians, he had a fierce reputation for being so judgmental and disparaging that the Temple authorities gave him a letter empowering him to go out and not just judge, but condemn any who were corrupting their faith with the teachings of Jesus.  They saw their faith as competing for power over people’s souls and sent Saul to stop it.  To say he was knocked off his high horse is putting it mildly.  Saul went blind and had to humbly ask for healing from the very people he had been sent to judge.  The people he thought he had power over, were the ones with the power over him.

He learned firsthand that it wasn’t his power, or the power of Ananias, his healer, that made him able to see again.  And it wasn’t a competition between him and Ananias over who had more power or more holiness.  It was God’s power that healed him.  This was the key.  

God used Paul more when Paul was weak, than when Paul tried to do it all himself.  God’s power flowed through Paul, transforming his weakness into a testimony for this different way of living that continues to inspire and transform.

There are days when I feel as weak and judgmental as Paul, and I wonder if I am making a difference.  There are days when I hear stories about the abuse of power that break my heart.  And then there are the stories that encourage and empower me.  The fellow who drove all the way from Edmonton and ended up coming back for seconds, buying 11 strawberry shortcakes!  The angel in our congregation who shared 8 shortcakes with her apartment complex, the neighbor who bought three to say thank you to friends despite being uncomfortable with this different way of doing our tea, the folks who paid so others could eat and the many saints who worked hard not just to serve up 80 desserts, but also to stay patient and calm despite the hustle and bustle and dreadful heat.  Especially them who worked hard to be nice to each other, apologize when necessary, and keep focused on loving and serving.

Jesus didn’t want power over his family and hometown.  He didn’t want power over his disciples.  He didn’t give up his power to the naysayers and complainers, and he didn’t punish them for their insolence.  He gave his power to all in the form of stories and healings.  He gave his power to his disciples, telling them to go out and share the power of love with everyone they met.  He told them that nothing could take that power of love from them, not even the dust of a judgmental community.  If you want to read a great article on the power of that love, and how it continues today, check out Wilma Derksen’s interview in this month’s Broadview Magazine.

And ask yourself, where do you get your power?  How are you doing with the struggle to not be competitive?  And who will you empower to go out and make a difference in the world?  God has sent you to the people, just as Jesus sent the 12, and just as Paul in his weakness was sent to empower all who heard or read his story.  May we find many opportunities to do just that.  Amen.

Grabbing for the Holy

 https://www.magdala.org/duc-in-altum/ 

There is a piece of art in the church at Magdala in the Holy Land that shows the hemorrhaging woman reaching through a crowd to touch Jesus’ hem.  What a surprising image!  We don’t often think about how she managed to make her way through a crowd of people and how she was able to touch his hem.  I have often imagined it being more like touching the back of a suit jacket, and an easy reach that could be surreptitiously done in passing.  But down at the ankle level is a whole other challenge.  Did she get stepped on?  Did she get kicked?  Why didn’t anyone notice her?  How could you not see someone crawling on the ground, squirming through people, past their stinky toes and walking sticks, getting your hands and knees grimy from the dust in the road, wondering if she would manage to make her goal before someone noticed?  Knowing that being in public risked her very life for breaking the taboo laws around women’s blood.

And there’s the desperation of an important man who, when he isn’t busy being an official and leader of the town religious institution, finds himself simply a heartbroken father throwing himself down on the ground, begging for help. 

What kind of desperation does it take before someone is prepared to lower themselves to such a level?  Losing a child is supposed to be the greatest pain a parent can face, and it doesn’t matter whether that child is a miscarriage, a 12-year-old or a 70-year-old.  When my son fell off his motorcycle last year and I got a call from his friend telling me that he was okay but that something had happened, the world stopped for a moment, and I forgot to breathe.

How many parents have gone through this desperation and not had the good fortune to have Jesus come to their rescue?  How many women crawling in their pain to get to Jesus’ sandals didn’t find the healing they prayed for?  The numbers are legion.  This congregation has lost two beautiful people in 2021 already that we prayed hard for.  Sometimes the cure doesn’t come.  Sometimes the healing comes when the cure does not.  Sometimes the community is humbled, silenced in the face of this great mystery.  Jairus came home to chaos, grief, and noise.  He heard mocking, cynicism, and disbelief.  His friends and family told him to turn away from Jesus.  He chose not to.

Just like the storm that Jesus stilled in last week’s reading, the storm of anguish and anger stilled in this story about Jairus.  The storm of isolation that the unnamed woman had endured for years also stilled.  The storm of anger, denial and cynicism stilled.  The pain of the world was not cured, but it was healed.

What is the difference between being cured and being healed? Cured is in my mind more of a physical thing, a relief from symptoms and diseases.  It may be done through scalpels or medication; it may be temporary or permanent. 

Healing can be physical, emotional, spiritual, mental, or psychological.  It is not something that the doctor can do for the patient, or the parent for the child.  Certainly we can help support healing, and encourage healing, but doctors will be the first to say that they are facing a profound mystery when they see their patients regain health.  They will say that they don’t know why one person recovers while another one doesn’t, and that they can’t even predict which person will be which.  I have seen people thrive while very sick, building community and loving family even while failing steadily in health.  And I have seen people who are very healthy tear down their relationships without even being aware of it.

These stories are similar and yet different.  Both feature unnamed females, yet one is on the cusp of womanhood while the other is mature and married.  One female is passive, needing a male to initiate healing on her behalf, her father.  The other is actively searching in many places.  One has Jesus come to her publicly, the other goes to Jesus sneakily.  In both these stories, Jesus did not just heal the individual, he healed the community.  Jairus and his family and friends were healed from their grief and fear.  They were healed from the ridicule of the cynical crowd.  The woman was cured from her illness, but she wasn’t healed until Jesus called her sister and made it safe for her to re-enter society free from stigma, judgement and ostracization.

Where do we see ourselves?  What are we needing healing for?  How can we connect with that healing?  How do we find the courage to ask for that healing?  For those of us who relate more with the crowds, how do we make space for the folks that are traumatized, the ones who need this healing?  Who do we need to support in their search for healing?  What cynicism do we need to let go of to help their healing happen?

We might not be at the kind of desperation that throws us at Jesus’ feet.  But you and I know there are many who are.  People who burn churches down or pull out guns during a backyard birthday party for a child.  People who donate tiny shoes on display.  People who have yet to plan memorial services for loved ones.  People who are wondering just how many graves there are at residential schools.  People who are running over Muslims or stabbing women wearing hijabs. Regardless of where we find ourselves in the story, isn’t it comforting to know that Jesus reaches out to the humble, the desperate, the grieving and the proud and wants to heal us all?  Whether we crawl for it, kneel for it, or don’t even know it is available, healing is with us, we are not alone, thanks be to God.

The Children Remembered - trigger warning for residential school survivors

 

White Whale Indians visiting their children at the school

White Whale people visiting their children at Red Deer Institute: "These people travelled over a hundred miles..." Red Deer, Alberta, 1914 UCCA, 1993.049P/861N

It’s interesting the different responses people have to stormy weather.  One person loves to stand on the porch during a thunderstorm, oohing and aahing over every streak of lightening, as long as it’s not too close.  Other people find the loud booms and crashes too much for their ears and nervous systems.  Today’s scripture sounds the same; Jesus sleeps in the boat while the disciples search desperately for bailers and life jackets.

And Jesus seems arrogant when they wake him up.  He knows he can still a storm, but how were they supposed to know this?  He knows that death is not something to be afraid of, but how were they supposed to know that they should face death with faith instead of fear? 

I have been feeling rather stormy myself since the news of the residential school unmarked graves.  Mostly I feel the same kind of rage I felt three summers ago near Grand Prairie, standing by the grave of my uncle, an unnamed baby. That in itself was sad, but the enraging part was that he and another baby were hidden under a bush while at the other end of the field were tall crosses, angels and other monuments to pioneers and homesteaders.  Why were these two little babies treated like pariahs in a graveyard, excluded so starkly from the community?  They died before they were baptised, and that meant they were not allowed to be in consecrated ground; this practise continued until the mid 1950’s.

The news this month from Kamloops reminded me of that, only worse.  Those graves were not just isolated, they were undocumented.  We don’t know who they were, when they died, what their names were, and that level of neglect is stomach churning.  But it’s not a surprise.  There are thousands of children across this land who died while at residential schools, and we’ve known this for years.

Back in the 1980’s when I was studying to become a teacher, we watched a movie about residential schools.  It was from the point of view of a young, idealistic schoolteacher like us, coming to a residential school.  She had great intentions to love and care for the children, rescue them from ignorance and poverty, and assumed that she was doing God’s work.  One scene had her picking at her thanksgiving dinner of roast turkey with all the trimmings while she knew the children would be eating porridge for supper again.  The systemic underfunding, racist attitudes and hopeless anger of the children burned her out.  She left with a broken heart.  I don’t think there was a dry eye in the room when that movie finished.  In the 80’s.  We knew.

In the 90’s I took a course in Indigenous History from the U of A.  The first nations classmates couldn’t use their credit cards in stores without producing proof of identity as the clerks assumed they the cards were stolen.  They didn’t get served in restaurants.  They said we whites were uptight about being punctual, and all we thought about was time and money.  They told how horrendous the legacy of residential schools was, because their parents and grandparents had experienced abuse and cruelty.  My mother-in-law did a video project pairing music from Les Misérables with the story of an indigenous young woman coming to the city to get away from family violence back home.  The girls would arrive at the Greyhound bus station where church volunteers and pimps would wait for them.  They were easy targets for the pimps, and the children ended up often in foster homes.  In the 90’s that video was made.  We knew.

We heard the call for a national inquiry into the schools, and learned from the TRC.  I took our very first batch of prayer shawls down to Edmonton in 2013 where they joined thousands more donated by churches.  I handed out shawls all day, listened to the body language, the anger, the stoicism, the quiet hope.  That day was full of stories and pictures of children who didn’t come home, and the anguish of parents who never heard what happened to their little ones.  In 2013. We knew.

Today we can’t pretend that we don’t know any more.  We can’t deny what happened in the name of Jesus, in the name of civilization, in the name of progress.  On the United Church website, Red Deer Industrial Institute – The Children Remembered they wrote: 

When medical officer Peter Bryce penned his 1907 report on the poor health and high death rates of children who attended Indian residential schools, Red Deer IRS had the dubious distinction of reporting the most deaths during the year of his investigation… These numbers do not reflect the full extent of fatalities… because [sick] children were routinely discharged from school... Bryce estimated that the death rate at the schools was about 25 percent but rose to 40 percent when the children who were sent home were taken into account.

In 1907. We knew.

So what do we do now?  We are being tossed in a tumultuous storm in a boat built on assumptions of British superiority.  We are hearing the thunder of generations of grieving human beings who were crushed in our attempts to assimilate.  We are seeing the lightening flashes of pain and outrage of people who are learning their history for the first time. We listen, remembering Jesus who said “If any of you put a stumbling block before one of these little ones, it would be better if a great millstone were hung around your neck and you were thrown into the sea.”

Generations of Christian missionaries and teachers put more than a stumbling block before children.  Our ancestors in the faith.  Founders of our church. 

The storm they started then is hitting us now.  How do we respond? Maybe it is time to turn inward and reflect on what we have known, should have known and need to know.  It is time to turn outward in humbleness and listen to what others know.  It is time to act in love, speaking what we have known all along, testifying to the truth that the system was made by people like us and it can be dismantled by people like us.  It is time to act.  In 2008, an archaeological survey at the Red Deer Industrial School, located the remains of 18 individuals and a number of wooden headstones.  In 2005, members of Sunnybrook United Church identified 12 of them, including 13-year-old David Laroque, and 14-year-old Irene Stoney, who both died of tuberculosis.  That was a good start.  And right now, we can write our MLAs and insist that the current curriculum for children in K-6, which talks about residential schools in age-appropriate ways, is protected and strengthened, not ignored and diminished.

Jesus calls us to stop having faith in ourselves and start having faith in him.  That when we are humble, we can work with those others who are in the same boat with us to build truthful, trustworthy relationships that calm the storms and heal us all.  May we have the courage to do so.

Red Deer, Alberta, 1914 or 1916

Students at the blackboard practising penmanship, Red Deer Institute.

UCCA, 1993.049P/850N

A Step nearer to Harmony

 

It is an amazing thing to be a part of a group that makes music together.  Making harmony and melody means working as a team with a specific focus.  It takes time and practice and skill development to hone both physical and mental activities in ways that work into a beautiful partnership.  Music can be the greatest gift we can give other people, a gift of joy that is not dissimilar to the joy that Jesus hoped his followers would have.  That has been one of the hardest parts of the pandemic, losing our ability to make music together.  Singing is a high-risk activity, and choirs, even handbell choirs are not safe when our infection rates are so high.  Masks are needed for any activity that requires breath; even trombones and tubas need masks on them.  This has caused pain for many people.  The loss of harmony is hard to endure.

Our gospel lesson today is about joy and harmony.  The harmony between Jesus and God, the harmony between Jesus and the disciples.  The more harmony there was between them, the more joy there was too.  But Jesus was also acutely aware that when the disciples committed to following Jesus, they committed to being out of harmony with the world.  They they would look at the world through their faith and that would leave a separation that would lead to potential ostracization and disharmony.  They would be feared and hated for their loyalty, and it would not be easy for them.

Such is the world at it’s most disharmonious.  It has led to wars and discrimination, racism, sexism and bullying.  Racism that has increasingly targeted Asian people since Trump started calling Covid by its country of origin.  And that nickname for Covid gave some people permission to act violently in numbers that I don’t remember hearing before.  It is disheartening to see racist flags being flown in our county and know that hatred is here.

Store clerks and health care workers are also being targeted for bullying and abuse.  People are loudly proclaiming that they are doing this because they are Christian and anything that limits their ability to preach the Gospel is an attack on their faith.  The world hates them, they claim, and maybe they are reading this same passage today as a justification for their behavior.

I can’t imagine what it must be like to be the target of bullying because of my ethnic background.  To constantly wonder what kind of behavior I will get when I wander into a store.  Will I be snubbed by store employees or by customers?  Will it be because of my gender or my skin tone?  Will people complain that I talk funny or be shocked to hear how Canadian my English sounds when I look like I have come from away?  Such is the daily lived experience of many people.  It’s not something they can turn off or avoid.

I’ll never forget gathering in Edmonton three years ago and hearing the stories of racism that United Church ministers were facing.  Some of them spoke bravely and boldly about the discrimination and bullying they experienced.  Others were more quiet and reluctant to speak out.  One of the participants was MiYeon Kim, the minister who wrote the prayers we are using today.  I first met her when we were student ministers in Alberta North West Conference, and we attended many workshops together with her fiancé Taylor Croissant.  In a sermon she wrote to go along with these prayers, she said that when she moved to Canada, she had to struggle with her own racist assumptions.  Growing up in Korea, she heard many stories about the atrocities her people experienced during the second world war, especially young girls who were forced into becoming ‘comfort women’ for Japanese soldiers.  She tells us:

I recognize that I also have prejudice and hostility toward the Japanese people in my innermost heart. In Korea I had very little exposure to Japanese people, so my prejudices were not challenged. However, my life and ministry in Canada have allowed me to meet and work with Japanese people in the United Church: Dr. Kathy Yamashita and the Rev. Kyoko Miura.

I met Kathy Yamashita at the final meeting of Alberta & Northwest Conference in May 2018. As President of the Conference, she led the meeting with outstanding leadership and wonderful humour. I was so impressed by her.

When Kathy visited our presbytery in her capacity as Conference President, she shared with us her own family’s story during the meeting. I learned that Japanese-Canadians suffered persecution during World War II; they were placed in internment camps and had their property taken from them. It was a story I had never heard before.

I became acquainted with the Rev. Kyoko in a class I took for my continuing education. In the class, she and I were the only Asians among 15 other students. Whether she knew my buried prejudice toward Japanese people or not, she visited with me every breaktime and lunchtime. Ironically, she was the only one who showed me that much kindness. I slowly opened my heart from politeness to friendship…  it became a new challenge for me to overcome my own prejudice... To open my mind and make harmony with Japanese people today, despite the wrong actions of people in the past… and to live out Christ’s commandment to become reconciled with our neighbours. It is not easy. I may need to fight hard against the stereotypes that I grew up with all around me in South Korea.

For someone as sweet and friendly and kind as MiYeon to admit she needs to fight hard against stereotypes is a real surprise.  But that is part of what Jesus wanted when he prayed that God strengthen and protect the disciples.  To help them resist the teachings of the world that says bullying is a part of life and help them instead find much joy as they follow the way that Jesus taught them.  May we too find much joy as we work to build harmony in our lives with our neighbors through remembering and following the teachings of Jesus, teachings of love, compassion, courage and forgiveness.  And may that building of harmony transform even our inmost hearts until we know abundant joy in all our relations!

Pointing to Love

 My in-laws have a sturdy little sundial on the deck made out of black wrought iron.  It’s supposed to tell the time by the way the shadow falls. But it doesn’t work unless it is pointing North.  Last summer when I was staying there, I decided to rearrange the deck chairs and the sundial got shifted around.  Since it no longer pointed north, it no longer told the time.

Some days I feel like a sundial that is not pointed in the right direction.  Maybe something unexpected happens, I sprain my ankle, there’s bad news on the radio, a friend’s house burns down, or a photo of a flag with a swastika is spotted in Boyle.  Instead of feeling like a calm grown-up Christian, I feel like a grumpy grouch that doesn’t know how to love her neighbor, especially one with a penchant for flags that are so horrific.

Enter the scriptures.  Jesus has a penchant for fixating not on the north pole, like a sun dial, but on Love.  Love is the true north that Jesus constantly points to.  Jesus is no sundial, but more like a compass that swings to point to the right direction.  Unlike humans and sundials, Jesus is unwavering in his commitment to be loving.  And not just any kind of loving, but one that is willing to take risks that seem irrational and dangerous.

This is no cheap or over-sentimentalized card or poem, this is a robust, muscular love.  In our society, we use love to describe anything from our enjoyment of flowers and chocolate to our sense of profound deep astonishment when we look into the eyes of a newborn baby.  Talk about sentimentalization!

Sentimentalization is not love.  We think that love is just sweet emotions or gentleness.  But real love leads to action and change.  I heard the story recently of a church who had a new person join it for worship.  One Sunday morning the newcomer had a panic attack because someone wore a red shirt.  It triggered memories of a trauma experience she had at the hands of a bully.  The congregation was concerned.  Should they ban red shirts?  Should they say to the newcomer, “I’m sorry but you don’t belong here if you can’t handle a red shirt or two from time to time”?  How would that help her in her day to day life ?

We have had a similar debate for years that flared up online this week with United Church ministers.  Do we call this service “Mother’s Day Service”, “Christian Family Day Service” or just “Sunday Service”?  For some folks the word ‘Mother’ triggers memories worse than any seen in movies like “Mommy Dearest”.  Others struggle because of fertility issues or because of life circumstances.  Or tragedy strikes when they least expect it, and motherhood becomes a memory rather than a lived reality.

When I was growing up as a child, we didn’t know much about grief.  We didn’t have funeral resources for stillborns, miscarriages and infants.  And we thought that the most loving thing we could do for a person in grief was not to talk about it for fear of upsetting someone.  We pretended the tragedy didn’t happen, or that a pregnancy that didn’t end happily was no big deal as one could always try again.  We didn’t treat single women or couples who didn’t procreate with a lot of respect.  We didn’t make space for the many tiny moments of grief that came into everyone’s life. And we didn’t talk about the ways in which people coped with those stresses, the addictions to cocktails, the risky behaviors, the mental illness, the depression, the abuse or family violence and the anxiety attacks that resulted from trying to live as if pain and grief did not exist.

That was not love.  That was supposed to be love, protecting each other from pain and hurt, but it was not love.  It enabled people to keep stuck, keep the grief suppressed, keep the emotions bottled up, keep the pain at home where it belonged, in private.  It kept people feeling isolated and alone.

Real love says, “I am here with you.  I hear you.  You are not alone.  Your pain may be unique, but others have gotten through what you are going through.”  Real love says, “this is going to hurt but I will hold your hand”.  Real love says, “these are birth pangs and I can’t take them away from you, but I can breathe with you”.  Real love says, “let us weep together a while.  We will one day rejoice together too.”  Real love says, “let us have a memorial service for that stillborn” even if it happened 40 years ago.

Dr. Katharina Manassis, a member of St. Mark’s United Church in Scarborough and both a Child Psychiatrist and University of Toronto Professor Emerita said this about such real love by her congregation:

My introduction to a community of faith didn’t come until middle age, after a traumatic bereavement. The minister on call to the local funeral home listened intently to my distraught, guilt-ridden tale of loss and validated my experience. I was reassured that… my emotional response was not unique… I … became a member of his church. I came to understand that in some circumstances compassionate pastoral care is even more helpful than counseling by a mental health professional, because rather than singling out the person as having a psychological problem, it recognizes suffering as part of the human experience.  Within my faith community, I found supportive friends, inspiring role models, and people who were just good fun. Coffee time, whether in person or over Zoom, is a valuable mental wellness activity for many of us. Knowing there are like-minded people struggling with similar challenges can make a huge difference in well-being, especially when we are feeling alone. 

When we love deeply, compassionately and bravely like this, we transform our world.  Whether it’s getting an ugly flag pulled down in our county, letters written to MLAs about racism in the proposed curriculum, or donating to the Mother’s Day Mission and Service appeal this year, together, when we remember that like sundials we must orient ourselves by the true north of love that Jesus taught, we make a real difference in the world.  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!