Thinking Outside the Box

“All Around the Mulberry Bush, the monkey chased the weasel… Pop goes the weasel!” Remember having one of these when you were a kid?  Or maybe giving one of these to a kid?  Out comes the Jack in the box and it always seemed surprising even though we knew what would happen. 

The big draw of this toy was that surprise of the jack in the box jumping out and looking bigger than the box it jumped out of.  How did such a tall clown come out of such a small box? 

The scriptures today talk about God and Jesus as being bigger than we could imagine.  The reading from Job is a classic Jack in the box story, and also reminds me of the cliched advice, “Be careful what you ask for, you might get it!”  Job has been building up a case against God; Job felt like God was a business partner to be bargained with, and his friends didn’t help much.  They believed firmly in karma, that if you do something wrong, you would reap the consequences and if a disaster falls on you, it must be your own fault.

That’s still a common belief in today’s world too.  It’s a nasty form of blaming the victim, and it’s meant to comfort ourselves.  “That won’t happen to me because I do things properly” which can mean anything from vitamins to crystals.  Job was written to challenge that assumption.  It is the original “Why bad things happen to Good People” story, designed to wrestle with that hard question.  Job put together a legal argument as if he was a well-trained lawyer.  God had treated him with injustice by letting Job experience some heart-breaking disasters, a business failure and lastly a devastating physical illness.  And Job set out his case that he did not deserve any of it.  If this was karma, karma got the wrong guy and he could prove it!

He turned the crank on his complaints to God until pop!  Unexpectedly, God came to give Job an answer.  Not a particularly comforting answer, mind you.  God says, “Are you as big as me? As powerful as me?  As creative as me? As smart as me?  Nope!” Not much of an answer, and certainly not a comfort either.

Except that it is a reminder to Job that however Job imagined God, God was bigger than that imagination.  God could not be stuffed into a box until Job turned the crank. 

James and John also thought they had Jesus pegged.  They thought they had figured out what box he belonged in.  The box of political leader and reformer who would start a revolution to depose the Herods and the Pilates of their world. Except that Jesus wouldn’t stay in that box either.  He wasn’t going to become a stereotypical rebel who takes down the local tyrant, only to become the next tyrant.

That’s a real pattern in history.  It happened in France when Louis 16 was deposed and four years later, Napoleon Bonapart was the head of France, living like a King.  The many Roman emperors that killed their predecessor then were assassinated by the next.  Russia was the same, and anyone who read Animal Farm in school will remember that. Even Israel at the time of Jesus would have remembered Herod the Great becoming king by attacking the current king with the help of the Roman army.  Leaders rose and fell, and politics was a dangerous game.  James and John figured that Jesus was going to end up with power and influence, maybe even a throne.  But Jesus wanted something bigger.

Not political leadership but moral, ethical, spiritual and religious leadership.  Leadership that inspires and encourages us to think bigger.  Leadership that thinks outside the box about the big picture, not our big pictures, but God’s big picture.  Leadership that inspires, empowers and includes us in God’s picture.

We humans like to feel we are in control of our small little universes.  Or if we aren’t in control, there’s something wrong and we turn to blame.  We blame ourselves, we blame others, we blame God.  We label others and ourselves as a way of feeling like we control the world, we know how things should be going.  And when, like Job, bad news comes, or someone refuses to stay in their box, we don’t know how to respond. We ask Jesus to be seated in a power position next to him.  We ask God for certainty and control.  We get instead, a command to serve one another and a vision of the universe as vast and diverse.  A command to think outside the box. A command to think beyond our small universes into a vision of community.

Jesus wanted his disciples to be community, not hierarchy.  To be servants to each other.  One of the Moderator’s books we read says, “We thank God for giving us community who live by God’s call, by God’s forgiveness and God’s promise.  We do not complain of what God does not give us, but thank God for God has given us enough, a community of flawed Christians journeying through struggles and need and disillusionement together.”[1]  Like Job, James and John, we struggle in life.  Unlike Job and like James and John, we have community.  And unlike James and John, we know the commitment Jesus made to this new way of thinking about God and community that was so amazingly outside the box.  Together as servants of one another, and supported by God’s amazing power and grace, we can build a vision of community that is heaven on earth, that is outside the box and that keeps surprising us in amazing ways.  God’s vision of our community, our church, is far bigger than we can imagine, so let us be open to the surprise of seeing that vision pop out in unexpected ways.  May it be so. Amen. Vintage Matty Mattel Clown Jack in the Box -1950's - Working! - YouTube

“All Around the Mulberry Bush, the monkey chased the weasel… Pop goes the weasel!” Remember having one of these when you were a kid?  Or maybe giving one of these to a kid?  Out comes the Jack in the box and it always seemed surprising even though we knew what would happen. 

The big draw of this toy was that surprise of the jack in the box jumping out and looking bigger than the box it jumped out of.  How did such a tall clown come out of such a small box? 

The scriptures today talk about God and Jesus as being bigger than we could imagine.  The reading from Job is a classic Jack in the box story, and also reminds me of the cliched advice, “Be careful what you ask for, you might get it!”  Job has been building up a case against God; Job felt like God was a business partner to be bargained with, and his friends didn’t help much.  They believed firmly in karma, that if you do something wrong, you would reap the consequences and if a disaster falls on you, it must be your own fault.

That’s still a common belief in today’s world too.  It’s a nasty form of blaming the victim, and it’s meant to comfort ourselves.  “That won’t happen to me because I do things properly” which can mean anything from vitamins to crystals.  Job was written to challenge that assumption.  It is the original “Why bad things happen to Good People” story, designed to wrestle with that hard question.  Job put together a legal argument as if he was a well-trained lawyer.  God had treated him with injustice by letting Job experience some heart-breaking disasters, a business failure and lastly a devastating physical illness.  And Job set out his case that he did not deserve any of it.  If this was karma, karma got the wrong guy and he could prove it!

He turned the crank on his complaints to God until pop!  Unexpectedly, God came to give Job an answer.  Not a particularly comforting answer, mind you.  God says, “Are you as big as me? As powerful as me?  As creative as me? As smart as me?  Nope!” Not much of an answer, and certainly not a comfort either.

Except that it is a reminder to Job that however Job imagined God, God was bigger than that imagination.  God could not be stuffed into a box until Job turned the crank. 

James and John also thought they had Jesus pegged.  They thought they had figured out what box he belonged in.  The box of political leader and reformer who would start a revolution to depose the Herods and the Pilates of their world. Except that Jesus wouldn’t stay in that box either.  He wasn’t going to become a stereotypical rebel who takes down the local tyrant, only to become the next tyrant.

That’s a real pattern in history.  It happened in France when Louis 16 was deposed and four years later, Napoleon Bonapart was the head of France, living like a King.  The many Roman emperors that killed their predecessor then were assassinated by the next.  Russia was the same, and anyone who read Animal Farm in school will remember that. Even Israel at the time of Jesus would have remembered Herod the Great becoming king by attacking the current king with the help of the Roman army.  Leaders rose and fell, and politics was a dangerous game.  James and John figured that Jesus was going to end up with power and influence, maybe even a throne.  But Jesus wanted something bigger.

Not political leadership but moral, ethical, spiritual and religious leadership.  Leadership that inspires and encourages us to think bigger.  Leadership that thinks outside the box about the big picture, not our big pictures, but God’s big picture.  Leadership that inspires, empowers and includes us in God’s picture.

We humans like to feel we are in control of our small little universes.  Or if we aren’t in control, there’s something wrong and we turn to blame.  We blame ourselves, we blame others, we blame God.  We label others and ourselves as a way of feeling like we control the world, we know how things should be going.  And when, like Job, bad news comes, or someone refuses to stay in their box, we don’t know how to respond. We ask Jesus to be seated in a power position next to him.  We ask God for certainty and control.  We get instead, a command to serve one another and a vision of the universe as vast and diverse.  A command to think outside the box. A command to think beyond our small universes into a vision of community.

Jesus wanted his disciples to be community, not hierarchy.  To be servants to each other.  One of the Moderator’s books we read says, “We thank God for giving us community who live by God’s call, by God’s forgiveness and God’s promise.  We do not complain of what God does not give us, but thank God for God has given us enough, a community of flawed Christians journeying through struggles and need and disillusionment together.”[1]  Like Job, James and John, we struggle in life.  Unlike Job and like James and John, we have community.  And unlike James and John, we know the commitment Jesus made to this new way of thinking about God and community that was so amazingly outside the box.  Together as servants of one another, and supported by God’s amazing power and grace, we can build a vision of community that is heaven on earth, that is outside the box and that keeps surprising us in amazing ways.  God’s vision of our community, our church, is far bigger than we can imagine, so let us be open to the surprise of seeing that vision pop out in unexpected ways.  May it be so. Amen.

---

[1] Paraphrase from p 28, Dietrich Bonhoeffer Life Together: the Classic Exploration of Christian Community Harper & Row, 1954

Pardoning the Turkeys

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone! Today there is much to be thankful for. I am so glad to be back home with family and getting my health back slowly and surely.  And I’m sure each of you have something to be thankful for too.  Life can be challenging from time to time, and it is good to remember the positive things in life, the simple things like a warm bed and a working fridge.  Many folks are not as blessed as we are, and struggle to find something to be grateful for.

Our scripture today is about the reason for being thankful.  The Israelites had gone through a lot of trials and tribulations on their way to becoming farmers and towns folk.  They wandered through the wilderness until they found land that they could settle, grow crops, and be free from slavery.  Their sacred story was about coming to a land of peace and prosperity, a land of milk and honey.  Scripture wanted to remind them to be intentional about thanking God for not just the harvest, but the homes and the lifestyles they were able to enjoy in ways that their ancestors only dreamed of.

It's easy to get into a state of grumbling about what we don’t have.  It’s hard work to recognize what we do have and celebrate that.  And it’s easy for someone like me, who has a roof over her head and a fridge that works, to talk about counting our blessings when so many people in Canada and around the world are not so lucky.  When we are warm and dry and do not need to worry about bombs or hurricanes. 

This week I had the very good fortune of spending four days with our moderator and 30 other incredible leaders from across the United Church of Canada.  I also had the very bad luck to waste a day of that struggling with the flu bug.  My community came together in amazing ways to support those of us who got sick.  There were quick trips to the drug store for Imodium, someone had ginger chews, another had electrolyte tablets, and someone had a bunch of cute little Jesus figurines that showed up on top of hand sanitizers, dressers, thermostats and other unexpected places.  Even though we were struggling, we struggled together, to learn, to worship, to sing, and to pray. 

We learned a lot.  We talked about how the brain works and how community works, we talked about boundaries and racism, truth and reconciliation, the stressful times and the joyful times.  We learned how to listen to each other’s stories with compassion and curiosity.  We learned about trust. And we learned about pardoning turkeys.

The US has an odd tradition that the president pardons a turkey on Thanksgiving.  What a job!  Turkeys are not what I would call handsome.  They are just big, awkward, and delicious.  Pardoning a turkey wasn’t official until George Bush Senior did it in 1989, sending a turkey to a nearby petting zoo, and setting the precedent that has continued to today.

This tradition has even made it into television shows, with one particular comic session where a press secretary discovered two turkeys in her office that she had to choose between for the pardon.  It wasn’t as easy as she thought.  They became personalities, and the idea that she had to send one of them to the kitchen and one to the zoo became harder as she got to know them.

It’s not easy to pardon turkeys unless you are a vegetarian I suppose, but we like sorting things out into safe and risky.  We humans have brains wired for recognizing danger in order to survive a wilderness.  Which is fine when it comes to turkeys, but often our brains sort people into safe and dangerous too.  And once we have put a human being into the dangerous category, chances are good that they will stay in that category and everything they do will be seen as reinforcing that decision.  Our brains like to make one decision and stick to it.  Eat turkeys, don’t pardon them.  Judge people, don’t be curious about them.

Except that life and people are even more complex than turkeys.  On our last day, we gathered in circle and were asked for feedback.  One person said, “We should ban cell phones from the classroom.  I hate seeing people scrolling on their phones when they should be paying attention!”  The story their brain had made up was that people only use their phones as disrespect.  Until the four clergy who spoke English as a second language explained that they used their phones to look up words so as not to disrupt the class.  And another said they were texting their parent undergoing their first chemo, and so on.  Pardoning the phone users became easy after those kinds of conversations.

Who are the turkeys in our lives that need pardoning?  What are the stories we are telling about them that might be too simple?  How can we let go of those stories that hurt others?  And especially how can we let go of those stories when they keep us focused on danger instead of thanksgiving?  The Israelis were told to spend more time being grateful to God than they were to spend time being angry at the Egyptians who had enslaved them.  Time and time again, we are called to let the angry stories go, and pardon the turkeys.  Even when sometimes the angry stories are ones we tell about ourselves, and we are the turkeys we need to pardon.  This thanksgiving, let us remember to count our blessings, have compassion on those who are struggling, and to thank God that we are living in a country that values human life, that recognizes that all people of any age, race, ethnicity, ability, sexual orientation, gender identity, family structure or any other factors are to be included in community.  Thanks be to God for the many blessings we have in this beautiful land. Amen.

Millstones and Memories

There is an historical village in Cape Breton that tells of the importance of millstones to Scottish crofters in the 1770's.  Millstones for grinding wheat into flour were as common as refrigerators.  The highlanders were being encouraged to get rid of their mill stones and use the bigger mills in towns that were often owned by rich landlords or clan heads. Of course, the lords would charge a penny or two to grind the wheat for their tenants to cover the cost of building the mills. And many of the crofters resented being expected to pay when they had perfectly good mill stones in their homes. So the lords sent soldiers out to the little stone huts where they would confiscate the mill stones. The stones were then smashed against other rocks until they cracked. Sometimes they were even tossed off cliffs or into the ocean. Can you imagine if the mayor of your town or city told you to use a fancy central fridge that the whole town would use as being more efficient, charging a fee for you to use it, and if you didn't, the mayor sending the RCMP in to take your fridge to the dump? This injustice was the last straw for many families who packed up their families and possessions and sail off to Cape Breton where no one would throw their mill stones away.

The Scots left oppression behind for a new start. Anyone who oppressed families and especially children, were to be resisted or shunned. Much like this scripture reading from Mark where people were warned not to harm little ones. The picture of being tossed in the ocean with a mill stone would have been vivid, relatable and more than a little shocking. In fact this whole passage is more than a little shocking. Cutting off hands or feet or plucking out eyes? Did Jesus think we were all like starfish and able to regrow new body parts? This emphasizes how important it is to take care of the most vulnerable people in our society, children. When we forget that, we can cause great atrocities.

Right now, we have to wonder how children are doing. With large class sizes, overcrowded schools and reports that 300 new schools need to be built in Alberta, and with the US surgeon general declaring parenting being a health hazard due to high levels of stress, and with a teacher shortage looming as Baby Boomers retire, are children being treated as liabilities or luxuries? Are the world's countries working together to find solutions to the climate crisis we're facing that will impact today's children? Are we protecting our youngest citizens by providing them the nutrition and the education they need to thrive? Special needs children have to buy their own speech therapy tablets, classes don’t have enough teachers aides, and single moms find that there are unexpected school fees for junior high options in some schools.  So much for public schools and free education.

Then there’s the impact of colonialism on some of our children.  There were over 130 residential schools operated in Canada between 1831 and 1996.  In 1931, there were 80 residential schools operating in Canada. This was the most at any one time. The United Church operated 14 of them. The residential school system impacted 150,000 First Nation, Inuit, and Métis children. An estimated 6000 children died while at the schools, about a 4% mortality rate.  The survivors had children, grandchildren and great grandchildren.  The trauma of being taken away from their parents and grandparents, their language and culture and often forcibly put into schools without the proper resources and care that was needed, in drafty overcrowded conditions with inadequate food, are all a matter of public record, thanks to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission report.

Unfortunately, the legacy of emotional trauma continues today.  From 2011 to 2021, there was a 6.5% increase in the number of indigenous children in care.  Indigenous children accounted for 7.7% of all children under age 15 in the general population, but 53.8% of children in foster care (Statistics Canada, 2022).  A third of the children are living in foster homes that fall below Canada’s poverty line.  The National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation (2021) has said this too is a legacy of the residential school system.  There is a greater effort to place children in homes with at least one indigenous parent, but a little over a half of children are placed in homes with at least one indigenous parent.  And to top it all off, there are more Indigenous children in the child welfare system now than there were in the residential school system at its height.  This information comes from Statistics Canada. 

The legacy of residential schools is a mill stone around the necks of governments, churches and the average Canadian, whether we are aware of it or not.  It will be a millstone around our necks for a long time.  Hearing that public money in Alberta will be given to private schools does not help.  It’s frustrating to realize how the system is still struggling to know how to work with indigenous people to break the chain of suffering many children face.  There are break throughs, however.  Foster parents do their best to make sure indigenous kids have ample exposure to their cultures.  Indigenous communities are taking over finding foster parents in their communities so that the kids can stay close to home.

There’s still work to do.  But just as it took great courage for Queen Esther to stand up for her people, indigenous people are finding great courage to stand up for their children.  Just as Jesus told his followers to be very accountable for their behavior, especially toward children, we need to call people to be very accountable for the decisions they make that impacts our children.

Tomorrow is Orange Shirt Day and this is an opportunity for us as followers of Christ to do what we can to stand in solidarity like Esther for children.  Consider joining the honor walk at noon at the Native Friendship Center in Athabasca.  Consider phoning the Education Minister.  The ATA has an online petition that people can sign.  Be kind to struggling parents, and loving towards little ones.  Together with God, let’s make a difference in children’s lives! Amen.

Radical Welcome

 

Jesus had a way with words.  He knew how to get at the heart of a dispute and was a master of conflict resolution.  And he wasn’t afraid to wade right in and bring his wisdom into an emotionally laden situation.  In our scripture reading today, he charged in and took the bull by the horns.  None of this whispering behind his back for his followers was going to be tolerated! 

Now, the disciples might have had some excuses for getting all emotional.  Jesus had in the previous chapter, gone to a high mountain, picked Peter, James and John to come up with him where they experienced the transfiguration of Jesus.  They came back down glowing with excitement, full of enthusiasm and energy to spare.  And as much as Jesus tried to caution them not to get too excited about what they had seen, they still were higher than a kite.  So this argument, was it them lording it over the other 9? Or were the nine trying to take them down a peg?  It certainly doesn’t sound like they wanted Jesus to know what they were quarrelling about behind his back.  He bluntly asked them, wanting to have the conversation out in the open.

Then he gave them a concrete visual reminder of what power was supposed to mean for his followers.  Not about dominance, who’s the smartest, the strongest, the most powerful, the richest, the favorite.  But about caring and serving and helping others.  Practicing a different mindset than something fueled by toxic masculinity.  Something fueled by wisdom instead.  Wisdom from God, not wisdom from impulses, hormones, resentments or jealousies.  Jealousy and ambition may have been at the root of the disciples’ argument that day in Capernaum.  Jealous of the ones who seemed to have an inside track with Jesus, jealous of the fact that he could heal people that they still could not, jealous of the influence Jesus had over the crowds.

Easier said than done.  We live in a world where jealousy and ambition fill the air.  Where jealousy and ambition spread racist rumors about immigrants from Haiti that empower people to send bomb threats to children’s schools, or plant explosives in walkie talkies and pagers.  Where wars are justified on the basis of ridiculous rumors or the desire to control lands that are already inhabited by people different than the invaders.  Where people of color or women politicians get threats because of their gender or their shade of skin, and when many of these actions are done anonymously, hidden away where no one can see.  Hidden hypocrisies, talking about valuing lives of the innocents one moment then blowing up children at a funeral the next.  Jesus exposed the hypocrisies of his disciples and reminded them that no hypocrisy will stay hidden forever.  And that radical welcoming of children is a signpost that we are getting this whole servant practice right.

One person who apparently was a member of the United Church, embodied this radical welcoming well.  He was an American carpenter who loved making sets and building backdrops for theatre productions. He also liked doing puppetry jobs and in 1964 came up to Canada with a buddy of his to come to work at the CBC. They worked together there for three years before his buddy moved back to the States.  Of course, puppetry led to children’s entertainment, and he spent many happy years developing his style of communication that was based on gentleness, respect and creativity.  Children of all ages were entranced, so much so that when he addressed university audiences, they would respond warmly and enthusiastically to him as if they were still kids.  One university crowd was given this piece of advice: “Keep your crayons sharp, your sticky tape untangled, and always put the top back on your markers”.

His message of radical hospitality impacted Canadians of many ages, and they recognized his influence on them and children by giving him the Order of Canada and a star on the Canadian Walk of Fame with other famous Canadians like Anne Murray, Alex Colville and Bobbie Orr.  He and his wife even opened a daycare called Butternut Square after the first job he ever had in Canada, a show on CBC.  He went on to work for the CBC for 33 years before retiring in 1996, four years after his wife died in a tragic car accident, and two years after finally becoming a Canadian citizen.  He also became the Canadian spokesperson for the Save the Children Canada; a responsibility he took very seriously.  Although he was never interested in politics, he did often have people tell him they would vote for him if he ever wanted to become the Prime Minister of Canada.  He travelled across Canada doing live shows after he retired, singing, dancing and telling stories.  He even received an honourary Doctorate of Laws by Trent University. His show still has set pieces on display at the CBC studio museum in Toronto, a treehouse and a colorful trunk that would have all kinds of things inside it.

Many people didn’t know him by his name, Ernie Coombs, but almost everyone in Canada who had been a kid between 1964 and 2006 knew Mr. Dress Up.  His show in Edmonton’s Jubilee Auditorium was packed with fans of all ages.  His simplicity and his genuine welcome warmed everyone who met him.  That kind of hospitality of children was meeting them with respect and treating them as equals.

Jesus called us to servanthood and to radical hospitality.  James reminded us to be wise in the ways of peace.  Ernie Coombs showed that it is indeed possible to do so even in today’s angry, divisive society.   Maybe especially in an angry and divisive society.  When we face the temptations of jealousy and ambition, let us remember that it is possible to choose wisdom, peace and kindness instead. May God strengthen us to follow in the footsteps of James, John, Peter and Jesus to do the same.  Amen!

Checking the Polling Numbers

Doesn't today's scripture sound like Jesus was doing a post-debate poll of how his message was going down?  He was trying to find out what the crowds at his rallies thought of him.  Let's check out the undecided listener, let's do some number crunching, let's do a survey and see how our messaging is landing, and if it's making any impact on the folks who are sitting on the fence.

Not too much different than an episode of the West Wing where everyone is wondering about approval ratings and spin doctoring. Is the message getting heard?

For Jesus, the core question he wanted his consultants to ask was 'Who do people say that I am?" He wanted to know if people thought he was the equivalent of a demented cat lady or racist convicted felon. The disciples didn't know those terms of course, but responded with what they heard, prophet, famous teacher, reincarnated baptizer and so forth. Even when Peter came up with the answer Jesus was looking for, Jesus challenged his interpretation of that title. It would be like Jesus saying to us, "it's all well and good to call me your Premier or Prime Minister but I'm going to be living under a bridge, picking bottles so I can buy food, and I'll get arrested on a picket line and stabbed to death in a homeless encampment riot. Wait! What kind of Prime Minister does that?

No wonder Peter challenged him.  What is the point of public opinion declaring that Jesus was an influential person, a political and theological expert, if he was going to use such a ridiculous campaign strategy. It was ridiculous! In fact, in some ways the whole claim he made sounded ridiculous.  Die and rise again on the third day.  What kind of politician would center their campaign on that? Even Paul said that this message sounded foolish.

C. S. Lewis once wrote, "A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said wouldn't be a great moral teacher. He'd be either a lunatic on a level with a man who says he's a poached egg or else he'd be the devil of hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse."

I don't know about you, but I'm not keen on believing in someone who is delusional. I want to follow someone who shows clear leadership, deep compassion, and determination to consider the welfare of all people, not just his cronies or wealthy friends.

People today are looking for leaders they can trust and don't know where to find such leaders. Some are so cynical that they don't believe that anyone cares at all about them. They have given up on humanity. They've been hurt too much, failed too often or seen their dreams crushed too much. One person claims that 'apatheism’ is the biggest challenge facing Christianity today. Not atheism, not believing in any God, or agnostics who are not sure, but apatheists who are apathetic to the question of whether there is a God or not. Why bother to care? They might be assuming that Christianity is all about saving yourself from Hell and that they know they're going there so what's the point in trying or caring?

Jesus wanted to turn that apathetic attitude upside down. He said that those who tried to save their lives would lose them, and those who lost their lives would find them.  People who only think of themselves, "me, me, me" instead of "you, you, you" or even "us, us, us" would find that they did not have a life of significance or impact. People who go beyond their egotistical attitudes and opinions, who love and serve others, who work towards the common good, they're the ones who will make an impact bigger than they could foresee.

The question Jesus asked his disciples so many centuries ago is still important today. Again, Lewis wrote, "You must make your choice: either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon; or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about his being a great human teacher."

This world has a lot of people promising all kinds of nonsense.  No wonder so many are experiencing apathy, depression, and anxiety.  Teachers talk about a mental health crisis.  Estimates are that 1 in four adults are wrestling with depression, one in five have thought about suicide, and 32% of people are addicted to some kind of substance.  Apathy is a way of letting ourselves off the hook, a way of telling ourselves that there’s nothing we can do to change the world.  We are stuck and life sucks, end of discussion.

Jesus taught a different way.  Those who are trying to be safe, trying to control their world, will spiral down into despair and apathy.  Those who try the way of Jesus, will let go of their own lives, and look at what they can do to help others.  People have found when they start looking for opportunities to help, it makes a world of difference.  Ask any grateful member of AA or Al Anon, and they will tell you the importance of service in their recovery.  Jesus calls us to consider who he is for us too.  Maybe we too have struggled to find hope, maybe we too have struggled to find someone to trust, who cares about us, and who helps inspire us to do better and be better.  Maybe when we answer that big question, “Who do you say that I am?”, our stories will inspire us anew.  May we find the strength to share our stories with those who need to hear them.  Amen.

Asking Questions

One of the hardest things a woman can do is ask questions when she doesn’t like the answers she’s hearing.  It’s even harder if she is from a different ethnic background than who she is talking too.  If she’s poor or desperate, or not fashionable or not pretty, it’s even worse.  Women are not supposed to be uppity, they are not supposed to be loud, and they are definitely not supposed to be demanding or insistent on their rights. 

The Syrophoenician woman was everything she was not supposed to be.  Wrong race, wrong gender.  Brazenly talking to a man without her husband present, which meant that she probably didn’t have one.  Advocating for a child who also was female.  Bold enough to not take Jesus’ refusal personally, and to keep asking for what she wanted. 

This is a hard scripture, and it is one that many people struggle with.  Why did Jesus sound so sexist and racist?  We don’t need that in our fragmented world.  We don’t need women’s voices being shut down, we don’t need women’s opinions being treated with disrespect, we don’t need women’s requests for health care being dismissed or disregarded.

Right now, in this world, women who are working in politics or who are environmental scientists, or who are elite athletes that don’t look stereotypically female are getting attacked through comments, social media posts, and even murdered as seen in the case of the doctor in India, the Olympic marathoner in Uganda or the Turkish-American woman shot by Israeli soldiers. Indigenous women are still disappearing in Canada. Teenagers are at risk of losing their access to sex education in Alberta while cases of sexually transmitted diseases are growing, not to mention what might happen if Covenant Health takes over all hospitals.

We could go on and on with examples, but where is the Good News for us in this scripture?  It does not appear to be supportive of a woman’s right to ask for help without getting push back.  Except that the Syrophoenician did, and she got results.  She challenged the status quo and got what she needed for herself and her daughter.  She got the attention that made for real change. 

Her story was unusual and no wonder it was recorded.  And maybe just maybe she knew Jesus’ story.  Somehow, despite not having an instagram account or a snap chat or facebook or tictoc, she knew about Jesus and even though he was hiding out in a city outside his home country, she reacted the same as some folks here might react if they found out Taylor Swift was visiting next door.  She barged in without permission.  Not to get an autograph, but to get a healing.  Maybe she knew the same scriptures that Jesus did.  His bible had many stories of the importance of taking care of widows and orphans and even foreign women.  Maybe she knew the stories about Elijah healing a foreign widow’s child, or Elisha who saved a widow’s children from being sold into slavery because of debts.  Maybe she had read the teachings of Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Malachi and others about how the God of Israel taught that children and widows were to be protected and treated with respect and hospitality.

Jesus pushed back.  Why, we don’t know.  Was Jesus grumpy?  Was he tired and here was someone interrupting him on his holiday? Was he racist?  We don’t know his thinking.  Or maybe this was an opportunity to show his disciples how to go beyond racism.  This event became a lesson of radical inclusion that stuck, and the disciples changed and got over their stereotypical assumptions and chauvinist attitudes.  God was not just for the Jewish people, and God certainly was not just for men or priests or scholars.  God was for everyone!  Everyone deserved to hear the good news that God was ready to change the world for the better.

Our bible states right in the first book that God created all humankind, male and female both in God’s own image.  All humans are.  And there is a thread of women empowered by God to make a difference.  Eve chose knowledge over ignorance, Miriam lead worship with her brother Moses, Deborah was a Judge of the Israelites before there were kings.  There’s Ruth and Ester and Mary who were leaders that spoke out against the status quo.  Women have been speaking out ever since.

Who are the voices we are not hearing from?  Who are the people wanting to be included in God’s community?  There are many who feel isolated or depressed.  News articles abound about the epidemic of mental illness.  One of the prescriptions given is to find a community, but people are reluctant to look for one.  One woman said, “I’d come to church if I knew there was a church that wouldn’t mind me asking questions.  Another person said they didn’t dare come to a church because they knew they would be judged.  Someone else said they were badly hurt by a congregation’s power struggle, or a priest’s cruel remark.  They expect a church will judge them because they have had that experience in the past.  They have been hurt badly.

Our job, like Jesus with the Syrophoenician woman, is to listen and encourage.  When we understand where people are coming from, we can be an agent of healing for them.  It makes a difference.  It made a difference for the Syrophoenician woman.  Tyre developed a congregation that was strong and proud to associate with Paul and the other disciples, and in Acts was mentioned as one of the earliest churches founded by Jesus.

When we, like Jesus, listen with curiosity and let go of our prejudices, amazing acts of healing occur.  God is still healing the ones that are hurting, God is still loving those who are full of despair and God is still speaking to those who are questioning.  Thanks be for a God who loves questioners! Amen.

Armor up!

Did you know that the average slap shot today whizzes at about 160 kilometers per hour?  That’s enough to cause bruises, concussions and broken bones.  It’s a brave person who will step into the crease and be a goalie for a professional hockey team.  There’s a reason they wear so much padding; it can be a lifesaver.  Goalies are brave!

Christians are also called to be brave.  In Paul’s letter to Ephesians, he talked about the many risks he took as a Christian in a Roman world.  Christians were seen as atheists because the idea of believing in only one God was bizarre and novel to the Roman Empire, and the fact that they were encouraging people outside their faith to join them meant that the number of people worshiping the Emperor was slowly diminishing.  Your average citizen would almost certainly be shocked that Christians and also the Jews of course, did not worship the emperor with the same respect that Jupiter, Venus, Zeus, Athena, Osiris or Isis, or any of the other gods received.  Romans were very clever that way.  When they invaded, they didn’t subtract Gods and Goddesses, they just added to them.  So Christians, by taking away gods and refusing to pray to Caesar, were considered dangerously delusional.

No wonder Paul used such vivid imagery, then to talk about protecting yourself with the daily outfit of people he saw often, who lived dangerous lives of violence.  He used soldiers’ uniforms to teach his listeners how to cope with life’s challenges. When the Ephesians were feeling the pressure conform to the culture of the day, they were to visualize strapping on armor to keep them safe from the pressures that challenged them. 

But what ridiculous armor!  Truth doesn’t really stop arrows, peace is not something that will protect a foot from a hard rock, God’s salvation is not a hard hat, and the only weapon suggested is scripture.  Really?  The armor undermines the idea that we are dressing for war, when it is so, well, woke!  Talking about scripture isn’t going to stab anyone.  Any more than if we glued pages of a bible together to stop a slap shot from a hockey player. Ridiculous!

This isn’t meant for an offensive attack on other people.  It’s meant to remind us, ground us and centre us in what is truly important.

I was listening to an interview of a Canadian who talked about remembering what is truly important in our lives.  He and his brother are well-known fellows in certain circles, and he’s had a very diverse work history.  He graduated in 1969 from Cornell University with a B.A. degree in History.  His first job he wore a lot of protective padding, and interestingly enough, his brother also had the same job but in a different city.  That job took him to Russia in 1972 where he helped make history for Canada.  His next job was as a radio broadcaster, then the manager of a sports team. He became an author who wrote 7 books!  He and his brother went into federal politics and he even ran for the leadership of a National political party.  He served as the Minister of Social Development, cared about youth employment and social justice issues.

On a Sunday morning, he is regularly found in a United Church pew.  Maybe he’s even in church today.  Maybe he’s having communion and thinking about how his faith has strengthened his passion to work for daring justice.  Maybe he’s reflecting on Ephesians and how armor is very similar to hockey equipment.  Maybe he’s remembering the time his helmet protected his head from a stinging slapshot.  Maybe he’s imagining how skates could be like sandals of peace, and if he was 20 years younger, it would be fun to try out figure skates for the Battle of the Blades where burly hockey players team up with figure skaters to compete on CBC for charity.  Maybe he’s remembering when he was on Team Canada and went to Moscow in 1972 full of smug expectations, only to be shocked at how well Russians played.  He said in an interview 50 years later that it changed the way Canadians thought about hockey, and the assumption that there’s only one way to become a great hockey team. The Russians proved that wrong.  And maybe he’s thinking about the 3000 cheering Canadian fans that came to Moscow with them even though going behind the Iron Curtain was a dangerous and unheard of thing, and how those fans showed the power of teamwork, of focusing on the goal of representing Canada and democracy with honor. Maybe Ken Dryden is thinking about his children and grandchildren and how he hopes to build a better world for them, and that may be why he’s sitting in a pew in a United Church in Ontario.

Paul didn’t write about the power of teamwork like Dryden did, but it’s there, between the lines.  A sole Roman soldier was an easy target for an enemy.  The power of the Roman empire was in the discipline, training and focus that enabled soldiers to work and fight together as a team for a common cause.

We are not to be warriors and fighters with actual swords and shields.  We are to be goalies, protecting our team from the pucks and players that swirl around us hoping to score.  What’s in your goal that God calls you to protect?  Children from bullies? The environment from further damage? Towns and buildings from fires?  Civilians from wars that target them unfairly?  Workers and bosses from exploitive or selfish negotiations?  Voters from lies and scams?  Whatever God is calling you to, know that God gives you the team and the equipment you need to build peace and justice for all, and like Dryden and Paul, when you, when we put on the whole equipment of God, we will stand firm and strong against all evil.  Together, we can and do make a difference in this beautiful world. Thanks be to God, Amen!