The Presbytery of Hamilton is hosting a day long forum entitled"Speaking Truth in Love: A Forum on Human Sexuality" on January 30th., 2016.
The event will be held in Chedoke Presbyterian Church, 865 Mohawk Rd. W., Hamilton, from 8:30 am until 4:00 pm.
Registration is now full and closed, so attending the event will not be a possibility for most now. Nevertheless, the Presbytery of Hamilton will be broadcasting the event live on the internet and you can watch the entire thing by clicking on the link below.
Note that the event will only be streamed live so the link you will find below will only work during the event. Here is a full schedule of the meeting:
The Presbytery of Hamilton will also provide a video that will be posted afterwards. We will also share that link in the future, but it may take several days to a week.
Many thanks to all of you who are looking at the blog. When Session vetted the conception of this blog we were unsure of the effectiveness of a web based communication. We obviously were mistaken - Saint Andrews Hespeler is computer savvy and looking for information. Our goal now is not to disappoint you. Please stay tuned for more exciting posts in the near future. And again thank you. Wow I'm blown away!
Rob H.
Now that I have your attention I'd like you to look below and see the comments line? By all means use this space - start a dialogue. I'm looking forward to publish what you want to see. This is your site and I encourage you to share your amazing talents. Your humble scribe.
ccording to the Gospel of Mark, Jesus really only had one sermon – one message that summed up all of the others. “Jesus came to Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God, and saying,‘The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.’” That is how Mark introduced the entire preaching ministry of Jesus – essentially a three point sermon: 1) The kingdom of God is here. 2) repent and 3) accept that this is good news.
And all evidence seems to indicate that his message found an audience. People appreciated it and received it as the good news that he said that it was. Think about that for a moment: the centrepiece of the message is repent. When was the last time you heard somebody telling people to repent and it sounded like good news to you?
If you were walking down the street one day and a little bit ahead of you at the street corner you saw a man preaching and every other word that he shouted was “repent,” how would you react? Would you say to yourself, “Wow, that sounds like he’s got a happy good news message,” and eagerly run forward to hear what he had to say? Or would you cross the street and pass him on the other side, staying as far away from him as possible? I know what I’d do! So I find it actually quite amazing that Jesus expected and received such a positive response. It makes me wonder, are we actually using the word repent in the way that Jesus used it?
What does repentance mean to you? I would imagine that most of us would say that repentance has to do, most of all, with feelings. Repentance, to most of us, means feeling sorry for something that you have done or in some cases that you have failed to do. And feeling sorry is not a very pleasant feeling. It is one that most of us do our very best to avoid feeling. So, ifrepentance is primarily a feeling, Jesus would be telling everyone, “The kingdom of God is here everyone, you should all feel really bad.” That does not sound like very good news. But what if, when Jesus was talking about repentance, he wasn’t talking about a feeling?
The other problem with the notion of repentance that is a bit of a stumbling block is its connection with guilt and forgiveness. The assumption is that repentance is something that comes out of our feelings of guilt and that is a requirement before forgiveness is possible. This leads into all kinds of calculations and insecurities.
For example, say that I have a friend who hurts me in some significant way. Maybe they say something that I perceive as very insulting. But, as hurt as I may be, that person is a friend nevertheless so I want to forgive them be there is this requirement (or at least this expectation) that, in order for there to be forgiveness there must be repentance. So I’m waiting for their repentance.
So my friend comes up to me and says, “Gee, I guess that you totally got all upset at what I said and you think I owe you an apology. Well, I guess, sorry.” And then, you see, I have a problem because what we normally do at that point is that we judge that act of repentance, don’t we? In particular, we ask if it was sincere – did the person really mean it or were they just saying sorry because they were forced to do it. And the assumption is that, if it is not sincere or heartfelt, that it is not real repentance and so I shouldn’t forgive.
This idea can particularly mess us up our relationship with God where we make the same assumptions. In the practice of the church, we are regularly called upon to confess our sins and repent of them and so many of us have fallen into the practice of listing out all of the things that we have done wrong and telling God how sorry we are for them.
But then some of us fall into this cycle where we start to question our confession and repentance. Was it sincere? Did I really feel as sorry as I said I did? And there are Christians who fall into this pattern of being afraid that they are not forgiven and can’t be forgiven because their feelings of remorse just are not strong enough.
So again, if that was what Jesus was actually saying, how eagerly would people have heard that? Basically, he would be inviting people into endless and fruitless speculations about whether they felt bad enough about themselves (or their friends who had wronged them felt bad enough about themselves) for forgiveness to happen. That doesn’t really sound like good news to me. But what if, when Jesus was talking about repentance, he wasn’t talking about it as a necessary prerequisite for forgiveness?
The word repent came into English from Latin and has always had the sense of feeling sorry for or making amends for some mistake or error. But the gospels weren’t written in English or in Latin. They were written in Greek. And the Greek word that is translated as repentis metanoia. And here’s the thing: metanoia never had the sense of feeling sorry.
Metanoia is made up of two Greek roots. Meta means after or beyond and often has the sense of change. We find it in English words like metamorphosis which means a change of form. Noia means mind or way of thinking. We also find that Greek root in words like paranoia. So the Greek word metanoia really doesn’t have any direct connection with feelings. Rather than a feeling of remorse or being sorry, metanoia has to do with a change of mind. It literally means to go beyond the mind or the way of thinking that you had before.
You see, we are all raised into certain ways of thinking about and seeing the world. We are also formed by the things that happen to us (both the good and the bad things) that condition us to think in certain ways about ourselves and about the world and about God. This way of thinking and being is the “mind” that the word metanoia is referring to.
In our reading this morning from the Letter to the Ephesians, we have a really good description of how those early followers of Jesus lived through that experience of going beyond the mind that you have been given: “You were taught to put away your former way of life, your old self, corrupt and deluded by its lusts,” the apostle writes “and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to clothe yourselves with the new self, created according to the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.”That was the kind of experience that Jesus was inviting people into. He was asking them to put aside the falsehoods they had been taught to believe, the delusions that they clung to and the ways of their life that were no longer nourishing them and to embrace renewal in the spirit of their minds. And I can definitely imagine people hearing that as good news – a chance at a pretty exciting new beginning.
Now, does going beyond the mind that you had involve feeling sorry for and having regret for the mind that you had before and what you did with it? Absolutely, it certainly can and often does. But feeling sorry is not central and not always necessary to the experience of metanoia. So you do not have to waste any more energy judging whether your own or somebody else’s feelings of remorse are sufficiently sincere for there to be forgiveness.
And what is the connection between metanoia and forgiveness anyways? Well, there is a connection. An experience of going beyond the mind that they previously had can certainly help to put someone in a position where they can really experience forgiveness. But I would not say that metanoia is a necessary prerequisite for forgiveness. Please listen to this carefully: God doesn’t forgive you because you repent. God forgives you because of Jesus and what he has done for you. God forgives you because he loves you. God rejoices when you go beyond the mind that you had, but he doesn’t wait on that to offer you forgiveness when that is what you need.
Now, one thing that metanoia certainly does include is a change in action. When you change your ways of perceiving and thinking about the world, changes in behaviour will naturally flow from that. But sometimes people do miss that first step and attempt to practice repentance by merely reforming their behaviour. And so we make resolutions. We tell ourselves that we need to try harder to be better and it doesn’t work. You have to change your mind before you can change the behaviour that springs from that mind.
People also have trouble when they go through a metanoia experience and they decide that they need to make some changes in behaviour but then those changes don’t come as easily as you might think. The ways of thinking may have changed but they find that old habits and patterns ofbehaviour are pretty deeply ingrained even though you don’t see those things in the same way anymore. This can be discouraging, but it is no reason to despair. It is a common experience, connected to the very nature of our humanity, but you will find that if you hold fast to your renewed mind and trust in God, the change that you truly desire will come.
I know that we sometimes avoid dwelling on the notion of repentance in the church these days. Of course, it is not all that surprising that we wouldn’t want to talk about repentance if we’ve been assuming that repentance is all about feeling sorry and guilty all the time. But I think it is time that we realize that repentance, at least repentance correctly understood, is exactly what we need most.
But the really big question is, if it’s not going to be us wallowing around in feelings of regret, what does genuine metanoia mean for us today. Do we all have some repentance to do? Absolutely. But what mind do we have to change or go beyond? I would suggest that a true exercise of metanoia really begins with an examination of your thought patterns (and not your actions). Nevertheless, your actions might still be a good indicator of where your mind is leading you astray.
So I am going to suggest an exercise in metanoia that I want you to try this week. I’ll bet that at some point this week, you will do something that you are not entirely happy with. (I mean, it happens to most of us often enough.) You might do something that disappoints you. Say you act in a way that puts down or belittles someone else. Maybe you act in a way that is prejudiced or mean. Or it could be that you fail to do something – fail to speak up for yourself or someone else who really needs it, fail to help someone when you could have.
Just keep your eyes open, I’m sure something (small or large) will come up at some point this week. And, like you have probably done before, you will be inclined to condemn yourself for your failure and perhaps make a resolution to do better next time. Well, this is what I want you to do differently this week: don’t do that. Don’t focus on your actions (apart from making any amends for them if you need to).
Instead, I challenge you to engage in metanoia. Ask yourself, prayerfully and with God’s help, not what you did wrong but what were the thought patterns that led you to act in the way you didn’t like. Did you put someone else down because you struggle with your own self esteem? Is there some event in your past that makes you fearful of a certain group of people? Were you looking for validation? Acting out of fear? Were you afraid to care, to risk, to share?
Prayerfully seek to understand the mind that made you act as you did and then prayerfully seek a new mind that goes beyond the one that you have. Immerse yourself in the truths that will overcome the lies that we all tell ourselves. That is what true metanoia means. If you begin there and your patterns of thinking change, you may find that your actions change too slowly and that you keep disappointing yourself, but don’t give up. When you practice metanoia, real and enduring change is possible. And that is good news for anybody.
The following details are in chronological order (February – December omitting July & August summer hiatus).
Rev. Scott brought Session up-to-date in the 2015 General Assembly in Vancouver - he has been confirmed as the Representative Minister for the Presbytery of Kitchener-Waterloo; June 1st to 7th, 2015. Rev. McCandless and David Krueger would be traveling to the general assembly.
Great Hespeler Reunion slated for July 8th, 9th and 10th of 2016. Elders heard how this would be a significant event with Saint Andrews as a central participant in the festivities. Outlined how Rev. Richard Warne has been contacted and approved as guest speaker at worship service on Sunday, July 10. Rev. Warren is a homegrown Hespeler boy with significant contacts within Cambridge. A variety of events will be hosted during 2016.
In support of the Great Hespeler Reunion 2016 and in recognition that St. Andrew’s approaching its 160th anniversarySession discussed envisioning a yearlong celebration inclusive of: homecoming, worship service homilies, multiple planned evens throughout 2015-2016 and culminating in the Great Hespeler Reunion July 8-10, 2016. This celebration slated to run June 7th, 2015 until the church picnic to July 10th 2016.
The 2015 target for Presbyterian Sharing was set at the actual amount from 2014 which was $18,210. The budget 2015 was passed at the AGM shortly after this.
Session approved the Music and Worship committee recommendation to re-direct $25,000 interest free loan offered by the Presbytery for heating/reno (unspent – not required) to the audio/visual install. A request to Presbytery on re-directing the loan elicited a favorable response with no reservations. The loan is interest free and the payback terms are 10 years. There is a possibility that this loan may be a forgivable debt although no information is currently available. Session will schedule a Congregational meeting to approve up to $25,000 spent on A/V project at an appropriate time.
Approved by Session - the Human Resources Committee recommends that a revised User Fee/Charges Schedule for 2015; use of St. Andrews Church facilities be approved. This revision is based on a task group noting that many years have transpired since fees have been increased.
A workshop was facilitated at the Joint Deacon/Elder spring meeting. Rev Scott led us through a process of establishing key traits of Saint Andrews. The rotating and changing groups were directed to eliminate lesser strengths while submitting group consensus on what were key before them. The process went through five iterations that reduced the 60 some key traits to five indicators of significant values are at Saint Andrews. The results were: Honesty/Integrity, Trust, Respect, Spirituality, and Service (not in any specific order).
Session implemented an open-ended schedule of joint Deacon/Elder meetings and workshops to develop:
1.Share experiences and get to know each other.
2.A better understanding between the two group’s duties and co-duties.
3.Implement “best-practices” leading to new or better practices.
4.Discover how to best communicate to the Districts of faith and congregation.
5.Review accomplishments the have been discovered along the way (feedback). The next meeting is February 8, 2016.
Jane Neath has led the re-branding of the Hespeler Clothing Closet for 2015 by: outlining the history, detailing the evolution and endorsement of a strategic mission upon the insolvency of the former financer. Jane has been invaluable in creating a structural support inclusive of fund raising to make it all happen. Details are as follows: Elders agreed to rename the mission formerly known as the Clothing Closet to Hespeler Place of New Hope (HPNH). From this conception to established program two instrumental forces has shaped the success so far. Jane Neath has leveraged her time and talents to provide a business plan and financial framework that, although still early in the development seems to be off to a running start. The other instrumental force has been Karen Kincaid. Her talents at facilitating the day-to-day-operations, bootstrapping the launch of HPNH as well as an enthusiastic go-to-gal of the highest order are unequaled. People skills and work ethic are no stranger to her either. Her team building skills are equally well developed. These two ladies have created an enduring mission at St. Andrews. Possibly one of the greatest happenings in recent times – due to the greater need now, compared to The Great Depression of the 1920’s.
As initiated by the 2014 AGM a task group to explore how to replace the church Auditors has been selected and met a number of times. Led by Donald Paddock and assisted by, Ray Godin and Glen Nixon have researched the best course of action. This Stewardship’s sub-committee recommends that appointing independent auditor(s), beginning in January 2016 to review the financial books for 2015 is the best solution. It is estimated that the ½ day review of the books and statements by independent auditor(s) will enable a surety report on the books. This new paradigm is necessitated by the need for oversight by qualified professionals.
In the summer of 2015 Session implemented the following ideas for deficit reductions from the Brainstorming Workshop recently held:
a.Target deficit elimination communications to families to support St Andrews with hoped for $150 step increase.
b.Hold an auction (walk-a-thon) and one other signature event for 2015/2016.
c.Implement Fundscript Gift Card program – ongoing incremental income.
d.Invite as many people as possible who have had an affiliation with Saint Andrews in the last 160 years to visit in 2016 and possibly make a donation towards eliminating our debt.
Early winter a task group was struck to explore the: Audio/Visual Project, roof repairs on the new addition side of the structure and any high priority projects for Session. The listing of projects and priorities for completion would be presented at a Congregational Meeting for review. In the interim Session postponed most significant expenditures in light of the recurring year end deficit.
Rev. Jeff Veenstra memorial walk-a-thon has been OK’d by both the Veenstra family and Session for 2016. This event was conceived by KW Presbytery but will be held in association with St Andrews – at a to-be-named site in or near Cambridge. In adjunct a tree planting service to be designated in memorial will be planned.
The General Assembly 2015 of the Presbyterian Church of Canada has embarked on defining how the LGBT community will play a role in the church in the near future. A support document Body, Mind and Soul – Study Guide on Human Sexuality has been produced by the church as announced at worship by Rev. Karen R. Horst on Anniversary Sunday. The church is interested in ideas on the topic. Various avenues to express your thoughts will be made available. Individual churches may, and can respond in a formal way before March 2016. St Andrews can meet to explore local thoughts on this transitional change. If support is found a group discussion and documentation recorded thoughts forwarded for incorporation into the final results.
The 2016 Budget process was discussed in light of the ongoing deficit contained within the Stewardship Report. Elders agreed that the budget controls that served for a number of years are no longer representative of changing economies. Elders agreed that help in defining a new working model, which takes into account: the congregation’s outlook; that annual shortfalls need to be rectified, Human Resources projections of 2015 and 2016, capital expenses both scheduled and some unexpected requirements (roof replacement on new section, AV Project currently on hiatus and uncertainty of utility increases) need analyzing. Expenses need to be optimized in addition to commencement of significant fund raising 4 or 5 times a year to offset these recurring negative balance sheets. By consent Session created a task group to deliberate what needs to happen.
Due to some “glitches” in executing meaningful communication directly from Session to the Congregation a revised communication channel was discussed. Session approved the launch of a Clerk of Session blog that would be available on-line and mirrored on the Saint Andrew’s web site. Further, it was proposed that the Clerk of Session deliver to the congregation at worship an announcement of the blog on December 6, 2015. http://standrewsnews.blogspot.ca/ link
As part of the 160th anniversary discussions Session sponsored of two ¼ page advertisements in the Hespeler Reunion 2016 official guide. The first ad in recognition of Saint Andrews Presbyterian Church and the second ad to support/communicate the ongoing efforts of Hespeler Place of New Hope were approved. Cost $250 each.
I do not make it a habit to review or recommend books, but reading this book by Rachel Held Evans has made me think that it might well be time to think of changing that policy.
Searching for Sunday is the story of one woman's journey from her beginnings in the American Evangelical Church tradition through doubt, crises of faith, rejection, despair and hope. It is a very contemporary story of Christian life that has many parallels in the lives of various people I have known. The subtitle of the book is, "Loving, leaving and finding the church," and I just find that there are so many of us who are living in the very difficult and challenging space between those three verbs.
While Evan's book ventures into a number of areas of doctrine, theology and especially sacramental practice, it is at it's heart the story of a personal journey of disruption of what was once taken for granted, the loss and despair that come with that, and an unrelenting faith that prompts her to hold onto what the church can be and not fall into despair. Evan's very personal journey will definitely find many parallels in the lives of Christians everywhere.
So here is my recommendation: You need to read this book if...
You are someone who is completely committed to the church as it is.
Perhaps you are completely happy with the church as it is. If that is who you are, you need to understand what many people in the church and on the margins of the church are struggling with these days. I'm not sure that there is anyone out there who can show it to you in as compelling and as interesting way as Rachel Held Evans does.
You are someone who is wavering
Maybe you are struggling with the church. Reading Searching for Sunday will reassure you that you are not alone. Evans may even help you to find words for some of the dissatisfaction that you are feeling. It is very helpful to follow in the path of someone who is struggling with the things that you are struggling with.
You are giving up
Maybe you've had it with the church. Maybe you just find that it is easier to stay away than it is to deal with the things that cause you frustration, pain or annoyance. I think that you will find this book especially meaningful. Evans can be brutally honest about the flaws of the church, but here is the amazing thing about her writing: the grace of God just continues to shine through. Even when the church had let her down completely, she just can't stop finding evidence of God's grace and love. She continues the conversation with the church despite disappointment. I find this very inspiring.
She may be brutally honest, but I've got to say that this is one book that gives me more hope for the future of the church than any that I have read in a while. That alone makes it worth the read.
o you remember the first time you read this morning’s passage from the Gospel of Matthew? I sure do. I don’t know how old I was, but I must have been fairly young when I came across it because I remember finding it pretty darn exciting.
When I read that Jesus said, “Truly I tell you, if you have faith and do not doubt… if you say to this mountain, ‘Be lifted up and thrown into the sea,’ it will be done,” I was all ready to go. Jesus’ instructions couldn’t have been more clear. All I had to do was believe – I mean be really certain without even doubting a little tiny bit that I could do it – and I would have fig trees and mountains and pieces of chalk and blackboard erasers flying through the air in no time. Ha, ha! People couldn’t help but notice me then! (I was a bit of a shy and retiring child.)
Did I try? You bet I did! Come on, admit it, you tried it too, didn’t you? I remember sitting there and
staring at some random object and trying to convince myself that if I only really believed that I could do it and especially banished all doubt that I couldn’t, it would happen.
It never did. And, at the time, I just figured that it was because somewhere deep inside I had some little tiny grain of doubt and that is why I never succeeded. It was only in later years that I began to consider that maybe my problem was that I never really understood what Jesus was trying to say at all.
I have done a lot more reflection on what Jesus had to say on the topic of faith since those days and I have learned a few things. What we often don’t realize is that the meanings of the words, “believe” and “faith” have actually changed a great deal over the years.
Our modern English word, believe, comes to us from an Old English word “geleafa” which means to hold something or someone dear. The second syllable, “leafa” actually comes from the same Germanic root as the word love. So, in its origins, belief was much more about giving your heart to something than it was about being certain about it. It didn’t have anything to do with evidence or intellectual choice. It was about your heart’s commitment.
That is a far cry from how people use the word today. In fact, people often use “I believe” to explain the opinions that they hold or the facts that they hold to be true. It is primarily an intellectual activity, not really an action of the heart.
The other word that we use to talk about belief (and especially religious belief) in English is faith. That word didn’t come into English from German but rather from Latin via French. The original Latin word was fides thesame Latin root that we find in words like fidelity and fiduciary. So faith, at least the original word for it, doesn’t mean the act of accepting certain opinions or ideas, it refers to the choice to trust in someone or in something like a bank or an institution.
So both the word believe and the word faith came to English with the sense of giving your heart to or placing your trust in someone. And in the language that Jesus spoke and the language of the New Testament, the same concept was in mind. But somehow today both words mean something quite different. Today we mostly use them to talk about intellectual opinions or convictions.
Even when we talk about religious faith, we generally talk about it in terms of the things that we believe about God, about Jesus, the Bible or other spiritual matters. But this kind of intellectual assent or conviction was not really what Jesus was talking about. For him, believing was about giving your heart and not merely your assent or opinion to God.
I have often spoken to people who are concerned that they can’t be Christians or that they aren’t good Christians because they can’t bring themselves to be completely certain about at least some of the things that people in churches believe. I mean, there are lots of reasons to doubt some of these teachings of the church. It is not as if anyone can offer you conclusive proof that Jesus was born to a virgin or rose bodily from the dead or stilled a mighty storm with a few words. So, yes, it is not uncommon for people to struggle with specific beliefs.
But someone who struggles with or even rejects some specific thing that the church has traditionally believed is not necessarily someone who does not or cannot have faith. Faith as Jesus understood it and proclaimed it was not a matter of believing or accepting certain things on an intellectual level. It was about giving your heart to someone – the old sense of believing in Old English. It was about being willing to trust someone as the origin of the word faith means.
So, while it may matter to a certain extent what you believe about God or about Jesus or about various points of doctrine, none of that matters anywhere near so much as the question of where you put your heart and in whom you place your trust. And, you know what? It is possible to love God even though you are not entirely sure of some of the things you believe about God. It is possible to trust Jesus without having everything that you believe about Jesus sorted out in your mind. Thank God it is. Otherwise, I’m convinced, a lot of us wouldn’t be here.
But don’t just take my word for it. Take the word of the Letter of James. James writes this to the church, “You believe that God is one; you do well. Even the demons believe—and shudder.” Do you realize what James is saying here? He is taking what is for us, one of the key tests of faith, the question, “Do you believe that God exists,” or “Do you believe that there is one God,” and he is saying: “Big deal! Who cares if you believe that God exists? I can show you demons who believe that.”
So Jesus isn’t looking for you to hold certain opinions or to accept certain propositions. What is he looking for? He wants you to trust him. But that also implies one more thing. James writes this in his letter, “But someone will say, ‘You have faith and I have works.’ Show me your faith apart from your works, and I by my works will show you my faith.” You see, trusting someone, really trusting someone implies that you will do something about your trust.
Let me give a simple example. Say that I have this chair here. It is a good chair, a solid chair. I can tell you all kinds of wonderful things about this chair. But here’s the thing: if I stand here saying wonderful things about this chair, even talking about how sure I am that it is sturdy and able to hold me up, does that mean that I have faith in the chair. Not really. The one thing that would demonstrate that I have faith in the chair would be that I actually do something about what I profess to believe about the chair. I need to actually sit in it.
Well, that is basically what James is saying about having faith in God. It doesn’t really matter what you say you believe about God. Professing to be certain of all kinds of things about God doesn’t prove you have faith. The only thing that would prove that would be if you took what you profess to believe about God and did something with it – if you chose to put the things that you profess to believe about God into practice by putting your trust in God and doing some good in the world. That is what James means when he says that faith without works is dead and amounts to nothing.
In the church we have actually reduced and impoverished the meaning of the word faith. We have made it to mean only that you must accept certain propositions or ideas about God, Jesus and other things. What’s more, you are not really expected to do anything about those propositions – just believe them. That was never what Jesus was looking for when he was looking for faith in the people that he met.
So let’s return to that saying of Jesus that I started with this morning. What did Jesus mean when he said, “Truly I tell you, if you have faith and do not doubt… if you say to this mountain, ‘Be lifted up and thrown into the sea,’ it will be done”? He was saying that you need to have faith. But faith, as we have been saying, is not a matter of being certain about things as I thought in my youth. It is a matter of trust.
And it is not even a matter of how much you trust. This same saying of Jesus comes to us in the Gospel of Luke in a slightly different form. In Luke, Jesus says, “If you had faith the size of a mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it would obey you.” That is kind of the lite version of the saying because it doesn’t just go from moving a mountain to a mulberry tree but also talks about the faith that does the moving as a very small thing – as a little, tiny mustard seed. So clearly the amount of faith that you have doesn’t matter.
So what does matter in faith? Only one thing really: where you choose to place your trust in action. I mean, you can see that in my example with the chair. If I find another chair that is all old and rickety and falling apart, that only has three legs left and I tell you that I have all kinds of faith in that chair – tons of faith – and so I plunk myself down on it, will that chair hold me up? Probably not. I end up sprawled on the floor.
But then I find another good and sturdy chair. I look at it and see that it is well-made but because, you know, last time I trusted a chair it let me down, I don’t have near as much faith in this chair. In fact, I am so lacking in faith that I am unwilling to sit on it. Will it hold me up? No, because I am not sitting on it. But if I have a little tiny bit of faith – faith, say, as small as a mustard seed – but enough trust to persuade me to actually do something and sit on the chair, will the chair hold me up? Of course it will, because it is a good chair! So we see what matters is not how much faith you have but that you actually choose to place your trust in a trustworthy thing.
That is the kind of faith that Jesus talked about all the time. And it is a kind of faith that can move mountains, but not by me being certain and sure and having lots of it. The only way that faith can move mountains is when it persuades you to place your trust in the one who made the mountains in the first place.
So that is faith as we must begin to understand it and as we must practice it. Your assignment this week is to actually use faith. I want you to move a mountain in your life. I’ll bet you’ve got one. I’ll bet you’ve got some great big problem or barrier in your life or in the life of someone that you love that you have been trying to move. Can you picture that mountain? You know what it is.
I’ll bet you have been trying to move it with your own strength or determination. But it hasn’t worked and it won’t move that way. Here’s what I want you to do this week: give up on moving that mountain in your life by your own determination, and chose instead to see it moved by faith.
How do you do that? By telling God that you don’t have it in you to move it but that you will trust God to move it instead. Now that can be a scary thing to say because you are leaving the biggest problem in your life in someone else’s hand. What if he doesn’t move it in the way that you think he should? What if he moves it to a place you don’t want it to go?
Well, that it how you know we’re talking about real faith because it means that you have to trust God for all of that – give up control of it and trust God. It means giving your heart to God not just your understanding. And I’m not saying that God will move your mountain in the way that you think it needs to be moved. You may be surprised at what he does with your mountain.
But I promise you this, if you choose to trust God for one of the biggest mountains in your life, you won’t regret it because you will be choosing to place your confidence in the one who will never let you down.
Last night we held our first session at St. Andrew's Hespeler to start to work through the document, "Body, Mind and Soul: Thinking together about human sexuality and sexual orientation in The Presbyterian Church in Canada." I must say that I found the session a little bit hard to prepare for and that I didn't know what to expect going in.
The discussions that we held together were held in an intentional atmosphere of openness and confidentiality so that people could be able to speak freely and not fear that their words or views would be shared. So I am not at liberty to share any particular words or views expressed. But I know that a lot of people who are leading these discussions are having a hard time figuring out how to do them well. So I would like to at least share a few observations and insights that might be helpful to others who are planning or preparing.
1) Questions of why we are doing this
I thought that I had a pretty good understanding going in of why we were going through this exercise. The General Assembly is going through a process of discerning where the Holy Spirit might be leading us to change (or not change) our approach to issues around human sexuality and needs congregations like our own to participate in that discernment. In order to help we need to go through a process like this. But a discussion of that sense of purpose was important. Perceptions of what we were doing were not necessarily shared.
There was suspicion expressed by some. There were feelings that the study had been written with a bias towards certain conclusions. There were feelings expressed that the decision had already been made and that this process was simply designed to get us to that foregone conclusion. These views did come out of one particular perspective on the issues, but I can well imagine that, in some other context, people coming from the opposite point of view might well feel the same thing.
A discussion of bias and expectations was therefore necessary. I appreciate all of the work that went into this document and how well it is done given the time constraints on it. I also don't think that it is possible to create such a document without some bias seeping through from time to time. Given that there are multiple authors, I expect that different biases will come through at different points. I think we can acknowledge that without getting hung up on it.
As to being able to come up with something coherent to feed back to the national church committees, I must say that I cannot see at this time how we may come up with a consensus response. Pray for us!
2) People prepared and engaged!
I planned to start by dealing with the section on Scripture. I made pages 14 to 37 available to people on the previous Sunday to read in preparation and also directed them to the downloadable document. I also had pages 89 - 97 printed up for our first session as a handout.
I had my doubts and questions about whether people would read that pages in preparation. None of it was necessarily very easy reading, but they all did it. Some acknowledged that they had to read it in small bites but they were all committed enough to do it. Always a good sign.
I started by going through the listening circles group guidelines (pp. 87,88). A very good place to start. In retrospect, I likely should have printed that up too, or put it up in a poster format.
It took some time to get people engaged, but once we got going, engagement was good, respectful, truthful and positive. Some did not speak up. I may need to check in with a few to see if they are looking for someone to help them to find those openings to speak or if they just need us to respect their silence.
3) My role as a leader
I struggled and expect I will continue to struggle in my role as a leader. My issue is that I do have opinions and, even more important, convictions around these issue. I also feel that I have a right and a duty to share those convictions that have come out of thoughtful reflection and scriptural study. But I am also aware that, whenever I speak, there is this danger that it will be received as the authoritative and definitive answer or opinion which may cause others to feel that their opinions or approaches are being squelched. Because of that, I felt that I maintained a light touch on moderation and leadership. I do not regret that and feel that it was the most helpful approach at least this time.
4) Our progress
We specifically discussed Leviticus 18:22 and Genesis 19:4-8. We discussed related issues like the Holiness Code, cultural assumptions around homosexual activity in the ancient Mediterranean world, the dimensions of hospitality and the larger Biblical context of the Sodom story.
We branched off (necessarily, I think) into discussions about the assumptions that people were bringing to the table. There was certainly diversity in the approaches.
I used only one of the supplied discussion questions. Other prompts to continuing discussion were not a big problem.
We ended after about and hour and a half (but before running out of steam) by deciding that next week we would try to deal with the passages from the New Testament Letters and the whole Normal vs. Normative discussion. (p. 92). I feel that I have a bit of a better handle on how to prepare for that.
5) This will not change anyone's mind.
I went into this saying that I don't expect that, ultimately, we will all agree about what to do and that it is okay that we don't agree. This was certainly confirmed. Even more important, I think that this idea was embraced by everyone. There were attempts, of course, to get other people to appreciate someone's point of view. There were critical discussions about where certain approaches would lead us and what the consequences might be. But everyone could respect where people were coming from.
One thing that is clear coming out of this discussion is how very segmented everyone is around these issues. Everyone -- conservatives, traditionalists, progressives or whatever you want to call people -- tends to read and follow only those sources of thought and learning that confirm the point of view that they already have. This can lead to one person stating something that is, in their mind, an established fact while someone also cites a totally contradictory datum as an established fact. This is a big issue in all kinds of ways for the church -- perhaps an inescapable effect of our segmented information age.
Nevertheless, none of that means that this exercise is fruitless. The dialog is important, engaging and worthwhile. It was also uplifting and I am very thankful for that.
