Author: Scott McAndless

Choosing Life: Make Foolish Investments (according to this world)

Posted by on Sunday, September 29th, 2019 in Minister


Hespeler, 29 September, 2019 © Scott McAndless
Jeremiah 32:1-3a, 6-15, Psalm 91:1-6, 14-16, 1 Timothy 6:6-19, Luke 16:19-31
O
kay, let me see if I’ve got this straight. You, my little nephew, Hanamel, are coming to me with what you call an offer I can’t refuse. “Buy my field,” you say, “it’s a lovely little field at Anathoth. And it is just perfect, uncle,” you say. “The land is good, the birds sing in the bushes and the flowers bloom. It’ll be a wonderful place for you. Maybe you could even build a little house to retire in there. You’ll love it, so why not buy it?”
      Hanamel, I thank you for your offer. It is so nice of you. And just think, you came all the way here to see me and make your offer. All the way here to the court of the guard where I am sitting in chains being watched day after day because the king has decided that I am public enemy number one because I dare to challenge him and say to him that maybe he is not so smart to take on the greatest army on the face of the earth.
      But let’s not just talk about my present good fortunes. Let’s talk about that greatest army on the face of the earth that I mentioned a moment ago. Did you notice them on the way here, Hanamel, the armies of Nebuchadnezzar King of Babylon – the ones that totally surround the entire city? Yes, the ones with the great big swords and the chariots and archers who have locked up this entire city tighter than a drum. You’ve heard of them, I suppose? They’ve got a bit of a reputation for vanquishing enemies, laying waste to cities and perhaps, most of all, destroying nice little fields with good soil and bushes and tweeting birds in places like Anathoth!

      So, you see all of that and you very kindly think of poor old me, your uncle Jeremiah, rotting away here in the court of the guard and you say, Good ole uncle Jeremiah, he would surely love to buy this lovely little field. Well, I’ve got to say that it’s a tempting offer. In fact, I’m quite sure that my financial advisors would tell me that this is just the kind of investment I need to be making at this particular moment in history. I mean, who wouldn’t want to put everything on the line when absolutely no one has any clue what the future might hold. Well, Hanamel, I guess I really only have one question for you at this point: where do I sign.
      In my lifetime, I have seen a few ups and downs in the real estate market. I lived in the West Island of Montreal for a while, around the time of the second referendum. There were lots of English-speaking people who were suddenly very keen on finding employment elsewhere and that meant relocating and that meant selling houses. Everywhere you looked, there were “for sale” signs (or “à vendre” signs, because they had to be in French) and no one was buying. It was the perfect illustration of the fact that no one wants to make any significant investments when the future is uncertain. That’s about the closest time in my own personal experience to what Jeremiah was dealing with in our reading this morning but really a little bit of political uncertainty is almost nothing in comparison to a foreign invasion on top of the personal crisis of being thrown in prison by the king – now that’s uncertainty!
      Now, I know that we are presently living in what is often called a very hot real estate market. Housing profits are high and only seem to go higher and yet people are still very eager to buy. You might think that we have nothing in common with the kind of situation that Jeremiah was dealing with. You might think, therefore, that this ancient passage of scripture has nothing to say to us today, but let us look beyond the mere question of real estate prices for a minute and I think we may discover that Jeremiah’s choice is actually one that we are all struggling with these days.
      Today, more than ever, we are living in a time of uncertain futures. On some level, almost all of us are dealing with severe anxieties about the future. What will happen to the global economy? Sure, it has been on an unprecedented rise in recent years with employment soaring and huge amounts of money being made by some, but experts are pointing at worrying signs and everyone acknowledges that no economy can soar forever? What happens if the economy crashes hard? Uncertainty!
      We live in times of great political uncertainty. I’m not saying that all of the governments in the past were always good and just, but they have been at least kind of predictable ever since World War II. Everyone at least had a sense of what the boundaries were and respected the often unspoken rules of reasonable government. But we now find ourselves in an era where rules and precedents are made to be broken. Who could have predicted the Brexit mess in the United Kingdom? Who could have imagined a situation in the United States where constitutional norms are challenged on a weekly, sometimes daily, basis? And as for Canada, I was told that our present federal election was going to be boring with nothing to talk about – what happened there? What strange government might result. Unpredictable seems to be the rule of the day in global politics.
      And what about the environment? How are any of us supposed to plan for the future when we have huge numbers of scientists assuring us that, even if we make the enormous changes they are calling for, the earth itself may change beyond recognition in the coming decades. The promise of a climate catastrophe is likely the number one cause of insecurity about the future, especially among younger generations who are resisting having children and making major purchases (like property) because of it. Environmental unpredictability has become the most influential concern of our time.
      So, we may not have the Babylonian army at our gates, but we are dealing with massive insecurity about the future in our times. I believe that Jeremiah’s actions do speak to us. And what do they say? They say that people of faith are people who make what seem to be foolish investments when the future is uncertain.
      Now, I have often heard it said that Christians are people who believe in hope even when things seem hopeless and that is true and it is kind of what I am saying, but I am saying more than just that. When we speak of our hope in uncertain times, we generally only speak on an emotional level. We talk about how our faith comforts us and makes us feel better about our anxieties. And that is all good, we all need that, but I would notice that Jeremiah’s sense of hope goes far beyond just emotion. Jeremiah’s hope spurs him to action – foolish action, it seems, but decisive and meaningful action nonetheless.
      I sometimes think that my job, as a preacher of the gospel, is to persuade people to be like Jeremiah. I get up, week after week, and I declare to you, folks, that I don’t know what the future is going to hold, that things may go seriously wrong with the economy, with the political system, that things will probably go seriously wrong in the environment and climate. In addition, I don’t really know what the future of the church is going to be. Some of the economic, demographic and societal pressures that the church in Canada is dealing with, experts will say, could well spell the demise of the church as we have known it.
      I get up here, with all of that going on, and tell you, not merely that you should have hope for the future, but that you should invest in a future that I can’t quite show you. I ask you to put your time, your energy, your enthusiasm and, yes, your money on the line to build for a future that we can’t quite see. That is what it is to be a Christian preacher these days. That is what it is to be a Christian.
      And why do I do that? Is it because I am a fool? It is because I think you are fools? People may have thought that of Jeremiah and may think it of people of faith today, but it was not true for him and it is not true of us either. Why do we invest when the future is uncertain? Not because it makes sense according to the logic of this world. We do it because we are willing to place our trust in God.
      Can I stand here today and promise you that I know exactly what is going to happen to the economy or to property values? I cannot. But I can put my trust in the God who owns the earth and all that is in it, who owns the cattle on a thousand hills and claims all people as his own. I can tell you that the economy is in God’s hands and God promises to work for economic justice, sometimes in very unforeseen ways.
      I cannot stand here today and tell you that I know who is going to win the federal election. For that matter, I wouldn’t even dare to say that I think I know who ought to win that election. Honestly, I can’t even say at this moment that I know who I’m going to vote for. Sometimes I do look at the political situation in our country and in others and throw up my hands and say that I don’t have a clue what is going on. But I will put in the work that I need to in order to know how I will vote, and I will participate and speak when I have the chance. I will invest in the political process but I will not do it because it always all makes sense to me. I will do it because I know one who is the King of all kings and the Lord of all lords and who has a reign that will endure for ever and ever.
      I do not know what the future holds for the climate, but I am sure that the road ahead will not be easy. I’m not a climate scientist but I do take very seriously the warnings that climate scientists are sounding. I believe that radical change is needed and I will admit that I don’t have a lot of confidence in humanity or human leadership to make those changes. If anything, the climate crisis makes the human problem of sin – especially the sin of not being able to see beyond our own passions and passing desires – appear all the more clearly. I don’t know what the future of this planet looks like, but I do believe in the Creator, the one who laid the foundations of this earth and who has a plan for its future. (That is the promise of the Bible, by the way, not merely heaven but a new heaven and a new earth.) That is the only reason why I have hope for the future of this planet but, more importantly, it is what gives me the ability to invest in a future that I cannot imagine. That is why I can make the efforts to reduce my energy use and my waste. That is why I am bold to ask more from my leaders. Christians are people who make investments in a future that they do not see.
      And I cannot stand here today and tell you what the future of this church or any church will hold. I see great forces of change at work – demographic, societal, technological and much more. I can promise you that things will change but I don’t really know how – nobody does. But I have decided and will continue to decide to invest my life, my time and energy and my money in a future of the church that I don’t yet see. Why? Because it makes sense according to the understandings of this world? Not really. I do it because I know that somebody loved the church, somebody who died for it and who gave everything for it. If Christ could give it all for the sake of the church, I can know that whatever I make, it is not a foolish investment.
      I am your nephew, Hanamel, and I come to you today with an offer that you cannot refuse. I invite you to purchase a future – a future that you cannot see, but that is held in the hand of God. And honestly there is no better place for the future to be held than in those hands. What will you invest in that future?
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Choosing life: Write down what’s right

Posted by on Monday, September 23rd, 2019 in Minister


Hespeler, 22 September 2019 © Scott McAndless
            Amos 8:4-7, Psalm 113, 1 Timothy 2:1-7, Luke 16:1-13
      Here is some very good, very wise advice from the First Letter of Timothy. “First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for everyone, for kings and all who are in high positions, so that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and dignity.” Yes, that seems very sensible. There are powerful people in this world, politicians, corporations, power brokers, and if you are smart, if you want to choose to have a good and quiet and peaceable life you are better off not challenging them, but rather seeking their blessing and, above all, letting them have their way.
      We have had a perfect illustration of this principle on display for us in Hong Kong for many weeks now. The greatest political power in Hong Kong is the government of the People’s Republic of China. So, what do you do if you want to have a quiet and peaceable life in Hong Kong? Well, I’ll tell you what you don’t do. The very last thing you do is poke China with a great big stick which is basically what the people of Hong Kong have been doing for weeks now. And the results have been exactly what 1stTimothy warned against and life in Hong Kong has been anything but peaceable.
      So it is true what it says, but at the same time, I think there must be more we need to take into account because, of course, there are some good reasons for why the people of Hong Kong have done what they’ve been doing. They are concerned and fearful for what China might do. They see injustice that needs to be resisted now, and really don’t feel as if they have much choice.

      And that is the problem. As a general practice, not resisting and just praying for the people who have power seems like a good policy that will lead to life, but there are times and circumstances where a different approach definitely needs to be taken. Sure, it is great when powerful people are good or, at least competent. But what do you do when they are openly evil or criminally incompetent? Without naming any names of any particular politicians (because I know that you are all thinking of particular names yourselves), this seems to have become a very pressing issue of our times. Even in Canada with its long tradition of stable government, there are many things that are making people very nervous about leadership in the midst of a hyper partisan election season.
      Fortunately, the First Letter to Timothy is not the only biblical advice that we have to go on when faced with such dire situations. We read a passage from the Book of Amos this morning where the prophet is bold to take on the rich and powerful people of his day for the ways in which they make themselves rich at the expense of the poorest people in society. He doesn’t just pray for them, he criticizes them. You might even say he gives them hell. So clearly there is more to what the Bible has to say about dealing with powerful people.
      These two competing passages in the Bible kind of leave us in a difficult position. Often the Bible seems to be telling us that we should just support and pray for the people who are in charge, and at other times it encourages us to challenge them, particularly when they go wrong or do evil. So which message should we listen to? How do we figure out how we should act to live a truly abundant life?
      Well, as usual, Jesus comes to our rescue, and he does it in one of the most surprising ways possible with the rather bizarre parable that we read from the Gospel of Luke this morning. Now, if you are like most people, you will read this parable of Jesus and you will just say, “huh?” what on earth is going on in this story.
      We have a manager, somebody who works for and takes care of the financial affairs of his boss or master. Except, he is not a good worker. He is a bad manager who does a bad job and he is about to get fired because of it. This is the hero of Jesus’ story. And, when he finds out that he’s about to be fired, this bad employee comes up with a completely self-centered plot. He doesn’t steal from his boss, not exactly. But he calls in his boss’s clients and tells them that they can write down the debts that they owe him. That, in case you’re not clear on the point, is a felony. It is a criminal act and, once again, this guy is the hero of Jesus’ story? Jesus praises the guy, and indeed the guy’s own boss praises him as well. “And his master commended the dishonest manager because he had acted shrewdly,” Jesus says.
      So, what are we supposed to do with this strange parable of Jesus? How can we take it and apply it to our lives today, because I am telling you that none of you better take the fact that I am preaching on this parable today and say that I told you that it is okay for anybody to commit financial fraud. That is exactly the danger that comes with interpreting a passage like this outside of its historical context. We have to read it in its context, so what is the context?
      Well, there is something in this parable that we don’t even notice but that would have really bothered the people who first heard Jesus tell it. It says that the master in the story had many debtors. We read that and think, “No big deal,” because debt is a normal part of life and business for us. You need to understand that when Jesus said that word, debtor, it would have set off alarm bells in the crowd. Lending anything at interest at that time was illegal. It was contrary to the law of Moses and anyone who ran a business where he had multiple debtors would have immediately been regarded with suspicion for breaking that law.
      Now, I understand that that makes absolutely no sense to us. Our modern economy is actually structured around debt and the paying of interest. Banks and most businesses could not function without it and our modern economy would likely collapse if we followed that Old Testament law and outlawed the charging of interest. But the people in Old Testament times and even in the time of Jesus lived under a very different economic system. In their world, people didn’t borrow to do things like start businesses or purchase property. Those weren’t even options. The only reason why you would borrow in that world was because you were starving and in dire straits and it was considered to be extremely unethical to charge interest in that kind of situation.
      So that was the state of the law: lending at interest was illegal. But, as you can imagine, there were people, like the master in Jesus’ story, who still sought to profit by lending. So, what do powerful and wealthy people do when they see an opportunity to make money but the law gets in the way? Do they just shrug their shoulders and say, oh well, I guess I just can’t do it? Some do, but you know that there are always some who find a way. And usually the way that you find has to do with record-keeping.
      If it is illegal to charge somebody interest, and somebody borrows from you, are you going to get your client to write down in your ledger book, “I, Samuel son of Bartholomew owe Scott son of William 80 containers of wheat plus 25% annual interest”? Of course not. You’re not going to write that because you will have now created a record of your illegal activity. Rich people don’t get rich by being stupid so they didn’t do that.
      But, of course, you still need records of what people owe you. So what do you do? You simply get your debtor to write down, “I, Samuel son of Bartholomew owe Scott son of William 100 containers of wheat in one year,” but you only give them 80 containers of wheat.
      And that is what happened in Jesus’ world. Everyone knew that it happened and everyone understood how it worked. But the wealthy people who were in charge got away with it because there was no proof. Now, I know that it might sound a bit like I’m saying that powerful and wealthy people are all criminals or that they are naturally unethical. Of course, that is not true. I honestly don’t think that they are anymore or any less ethical than any other segment of the population. But one thing has always been true and it’s still true today. Rich and powerful people who are unethical get away with it way more often than anyone else.
      So, if you understand all of that, this parable of Jesus suddenly sounds very different. Everybody understood what Jesus was saying. When the unscrupulous manager called in the debtors and told them to change the amount that they owed on the record, he was actually deducting the interest. He is actually making right what was contrary to the law. And it’s kind of interesting if you do the math. In the case of the wheat, he removed 25% interest, which is certainly bad enough. I mean, that is in the area of what you would get from a payday loan company these days. Don’t ever go to a payday loan company! But in the case of the olive oil, the interest rate is actually 100%! That is so clearly wrong that I imagine the people in the crowd gasped when Jesus said it.
      And that is why the crooked manager got away with it. His master could hardly report him for what he did because that would mean admitting that he had broken the law in the first place. In fact, as Jesus says, he had to praise him. I can just imagine the press conference: “I’d like to thank my manager for drawing my attention to the errors made in my accounts where the amounts that people owed were inflated for some unexplained reason. The people responsible for this mistake will be found and fired.” He didn’t want to say that, he had to say it.
      It also explains, of course, how Jesus can portray this manager as a kind of hero. It’s not because his actions are all right but because his self-centered actions nevertheless resulted in some justice. What he had the people write down was what was right according to Jesus and corrected the injustice committed by the master.
      Now, the application of this parable can be a little bit tricky. As I said, I don’t want anyone to take this parable as saying that it’s okay for anyone to commit financial fraud. I don’t think that was ever the intention. At the same time, I don’t think that a direct application of the morality of Jesus’ time to today is very helpful either. Just because the charging of interest was immoral in the economy of Jesus’ world, doesn’t mean that there is not a legitimate place for it today.
      No, I think that you need to be a little more subtle when applying this one. The specific actions taken by the crooked steward are not really something to be followed literally. I think it’s more of a case of Jesus speaking to the people and saying, “Look, things are pretty messed up in our world. I mean, when you have people being charged 100% interest on olive oil, you’ve got problems. But look here,” he’s saying, “here’s some justice that got done maybe despite the intentions of everyone involved. Isn’t God amazing?” That’s what Jesus was saying.
      But even more important than that, Jesus is saying that there are ways to write down what’s right. Maybe the rich and powerful people hold all the cards. Maybe you can’t challenge them directly. Maybe the wise thing to do is to show that outward support and pray for them. But maybe God will also send you opportunities to act for justice, to write down what’s right, and you should take them when they come. I mean, look what a crooked, conniving and self-centered steward was able to accomplish. Now, what do you think might happen when the children of light find their ways to work behind the scenes to write down what’s right.
      Choose life; choose justice. The two don’t have to be at odds with each other.
   
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Hello… 911?

Posted by on Sunday, September 15th, 2019 in Minister


Hespeler, 15 September, 2019 © Scott McAndless
Exodus 32:7-14, Psalm 51:1-10, 1 Timothy 1:12-17, Luke 15:1-10
H
ello, 911 emergency? Yes, I need assistance right away. No, there’s nothing happening right here, but it’s my neighbour. He has all kinds of people over at his house. They are noisy. They are dancing and singing and having a great time. It’s just not right! No, I know it’s not too late and the noise isn’t really disturbing anyone, it’s not that.
      No, it’s not that I wasn’t invited either. In fact, my neighbour came over here and practically begged me to come to the party. It was so embarrassing. “I lost my little lamb” he said. “It wandered far over hill and dale and made some pretty bad decisions – hanging out with wolves and lions and the like. It was a very foolish little lamb and it made me worry no end. I had to abandon the whole rest of the flock, just leave it out there in the wilderness, and search high and low, but I finally found it. I brought it home and now it’s safe. So I’m getting together with a few of my friends and neighbours and we’re just going to celebrate. I mean, I’m so happy to have my lamb back. So, will you come and join us in our revelries?”
      Yes, that’s right. He wanted me to join in a celebration of what, as far as I’m concerned, is a wayward black sheep. Oh, I’ve heard the rumours about that lamb. They say that it got hooked on oxycontin and ended up shooting up in alleyways. There are also rumours that it got involved in some strange sex cult and did unspeakable things. In fact, the more my friends and I talk about it on Facebook, the more stories I hear about the terrible things that it did.
      And it’s just not right. Back in my day, we didn’t celebrate the wandering sheep. We didn’t throw parties for the sheep that went off and got involved in bad things, who got hooked on drugs and video games and easy sex. We discouraged that kind of thing! We made sure that we never let anybody forget how guilty they were for what they did wrong. We reminded them that they should be ashamed. And yet here they are celebrating bad behaviour.
      Has that lamb shown any evidence that it recognizes what it did wrong or that it can see the pain that it put other people through? Does it even recognize how much it has cost the public security system that I help pay for? Worst of all, have we any reason whatsoever to expect that, now that it has been returned home safe and sound, it won’t go off wandering once again tomorrow or maybe the next day. And with all this understood, my foolish neighbour and his stupid friends are whooping it up and having a grand old time celebrating that returned lamb.
      What do I want you to do? I want you to send the police over here and straighten them all out. I want the cops to scare that lamb straight – maybe throw him in prison for a couple of nights so that he sees where his foolish behaviour might land him in the long run. But, however they manage it, I want them to shut down that very inappropriate party and make sure that people think very soberly and critically about what I think they have done wrong…
      What do you mean you don’t do that kind of thing? I don’t care if nobody is technicallybreaking the law, I pay your salary and somebody needs to fix this for me. (Hangs up.)
     
            H
ello, 911, yes, I will state the nature of my emergency. The nature of my emergency is that the last time I called, nobody came! Why yes, I’m flattered that you remember me. I am the person who called about the sheep party yesterday and you were honestly no help whatsoever. But I’ve decided to give you a chance to redeem yourself today. No, I’m not calling about my neighbour with the sheep. His house is all quiet; I guess that maybe the wandering sheep did learn a lesson. No, it’s the neighbour on the other side who’s causing all the trouble today.
      Why yes, it is a party and it’s even noisier and more rambunctious than the one that was going on yesterday. What are they celebrating? Well, you’re not going to believe this one. It’s about a coin. Yes, you heard me right, a coin. I know, right? Who throws a party over a coin? But that is the craziness that’s going on in my neighbourhood tonight and I blame you guys. Maybe if there had been a reasonable response to the sheep party yesterday, somebody would have thought twice about throwing a party over something as frivolous as a coin.
      Okay, since you don’t really seem to have anything to do (which is actually a bit surprising) I’ll tell you the whole story. My neighbour on the other side, you see, is very poor. She is so poor that in an entire year of working hard and scrimping and saving she was only able to put aside ten coins. That’s it, only ten. Now I don’t mean to look down on people who have to work for a living but, come on, if you are that poor, there’s got to be something wrong with you. You must be making some bad choices and have bad priorities.
      Let me tell you some of the rumours that are going around about her. I’ve heard that she has spent her welfare money buying lobster and filet mignon! What’s worse, she smokes. Now, do you know how much it costs for cigarettes these days? Just think of how much money she would save if she quit!
      Now, I know what she tells me. She says that she’s working three different jobs because no one will hire her full-time and two of them pay her under the table so they don’t even have to meet minimum wage. She claims that she’s so exhausted after working at her first two jobs and heading for her third that the only thing that gives her the energy to get through it is a quick hit of nicotine. Now, to me, that sounds like a serious lack of character. She should have gotten her priorities straight long before this. That’s why I figure it must be her own fault that she’s so poor.
      So, anyway, like I said, she managed to do something responsible by saving up ten whole coins, but then she showed just how irresponsible she was by losing one of them. Just goes to show you that poor is as poor does. So, she panics, cleans her whole house and finally finds the lost coin.
      Now, if she had any shame – which she apparently does not – she would be ashamed of having lost the coin in the first place. If she had any dignity, she would just be quiet about it. She would be quietly thankful to find her lost money and do what I’d do, pretend like nothing ever happened. But does she do that? No! She’s got to call attention to her foolishness by inviting everybody over for a great big rowdy celebration.
      And let me ask you, how is she affording this party? How can somebody whose whole life is working at miserable jobs and scrimping and saving and going without just to save up ten measly little coins possibly justify spending anything to celebrate the one good thing that happened in her life this whole year?
      So, this time you guys are going to do something about this. She is benefiting from social services and the low income tax credit, not to mention health care and other universal services, and so, as a taxpayer I have every right to tell her what she should be spending her money on and what she shouldn’t. You need to send some people over here right now and shut down that party. But… Yes, but… I suppose, but don’t you think that… Hello? Hello?
     
      What are those two parables of Jesus really about? I know that it says in the gospel that they’re all about the excitement and celebration that there is in heaven over one sinner who repents, and, yes they are about that, but when you really listen to the stories, that’s not exactly what they put the emphasis on. Both stories end with celebration, but the celebration is odd and somewhat unexpected. The celebration, in many ways, is outrageous. Why would you celebrate one wayward sheep who was found and brought back to the fold? Why celebrate the finding of one lost coin?
      Jesus told these parables as a way of illustrating what the kingdom of God was like. And the bottom line seems to be that the kingdom of God is all about what seem to be inappropriate celebrations. And the celebrations are all happening in this world, too, not in some other world. The kingdom of God is about celebrating things that this world finds scandalous. In particular, it is about celebrating people that others may feel are somehow shameful or guilty or otherwise unacceptable in some way.
      How should we take that and apply it to modern life – say, perhaps, the life of the church today? Think of it this way, we like to talk about how our churches are open and welcoming, about how we welcome anyone no matter who they are. It’s what we put on our signs and in our bulletins. And, in theory, we do welcome everyone who walks through the doors of a church with a warm handshake and a cheery hello. But the kingdom of God is not just about welcoming people. Jesus, in these parables, seems to be saying that it is about celebrating people and about celebrating them as they are.
      I would like us to note that usually we would like to celebrate the people who conform to our idea of what a Christian is supposed to be or look like or act like. We would rather wait for them to change and become just like us before we even think of celebrating them – something that, in many cases, will not happen and maybe should not happen. The celebrations that Jesus describes in these parables are scandalous celebrations, the kind that people would have objected to.
      We are asked to choose life if we are going to be followers of Jesus Christ. That includes choosing life for our churches. We think that the way to do that is to make sure that everyone in our churches is the same – that they all believe exactly the same things, dress alike, behave alike and hold exactly the same ethical ideas about behaviour. Jesus speaks of the kingdom of God as something that is, in our eyes, a premature or scandalous celebration where we celebrate people for who they already are – for who God has created them to be.
      And, you know what, that is going to upset some people. Some people are going to say, “You shouldn’t be celebrating them as they are, you should be telling people to change that about themselves.” And so, it might seem as if celebrating people as they are is something that will keep the church  from living and growing as people get offended by our celebrations and may turn away. I just wanted to point out that Jesus didn’t think about it that way, didn’t think that way at all.

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Choosing Life: Building Towers

Posted by on Sunday, September 8th, 2019 in Minister


Hespeler, 8 September, 2019 © Scott McAndless
Deuteronomy 30:15-20, Psalm 1, Philemon 1:1-21, Luke 14:25-33
I
n our reading this morning from the Book of Deuteronomy, Moses is speaking to the people of Israel as they prepare to enter into the Promised Land and he lays before them a stark choice. “I call heaven and earth to witness against you today,” he says, “that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Choose life so that you and your descendants may live.”
      And I know how people sometimes read that verse. It comes, after all, in the context of the law that Moses has just reviewed with the people – the Ten Commandments and all of the other requirements that God has placed on them. In that context, this verse can certainly come across as a threat. “Listen, deez are all the tings I want youse to do and you better do dem and do dem good or you’ll find yourself wearing cement overshoes and sleeping with the fishes if you know what I mean.” It might make God seem like a tyrant or mob boss who is only too happy to punish any form of disobedience with terror and murder.

      But I do not think that that is the intention. The God that we meet in the Bible is not that kind of mean and vindictive God but rather a God of grace and love who pours out blessings not only on his own people but on the all the peoples of the earth regardless of whether or not they follow all of the precepts of the Law of Moses. So what we have here is not a threat but a promise. It is saying that God has shown to the people a better way to live through these laws and teachings and inviting them to follow them so that they might live long and prosper in the land that they are about to enter. It is more about a quality of life than it is about a quantity of life – about living a life that is filled with meaning and purpose.
      But it is not always obvious to us what things are going to give us that kind of meaningful life. Sometimes what feels right is not what is going to be best for you in the long run. It might feel right to eat a bucket of chocolate every day, for example, but I do not think that that is a course of action that serves you well over the long term. So sometimes we need help to learn some of the non-obvious choices we need to make to live the better quality of life. Moses is saying that the law is there to help us to do that.
      That is why I decided this month, based on the readings from the lectionary that are offered to us, to focus on how we – as Christians living in the modern world – could choose life. What are the non-obvious choices that we can make – not out of obligation and obedience but out of faith and trust in God – that will lead to a life that is more abundant.
      In our gospel reading this morning, Jesus offers some rather surprising advice on how to choose life. Jesus suggests that choosing life might actually be costly, very costly. Now, that doesn’t quite sound right, does it? Most of us approach life with the assumption that top quality life has to do with what you can get out of it, not with what you pay into it.
      Jesus actually feels that this is so important that he puts it in stark and shocking terms. “Whoever comes to me,” he says, “and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself, cannot be my disciple. Whoever does not carry the cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.”Now, what does he mean by that? Does he mean that everyone who decides to become a follower of Jesus is necessarily going to face being rejected by family members that they love or that every Christian will wind up being crucified by the Romans? Obviously not. Not everyone will pay that kind of ultimate price, of course, but he is saying that it will cost you something and it will be something meaningful – something that hurts in some way.
      Now, I think it is important that I pause at this point and simply acknowledge that, just about every day that I am in the church, I have somebody tell me that Jesus was wrong about that – every single day. Just think, for a moment, about the things you hear people talking about in the church – any church. They talk about what they get out of it or, often enough, what they’re not getting out of it. “Oh, I really felt good coming out of worship today. It really lifted me up,” they might say or alternatively they might say, “Ugh, I just didn’t get what I needed out of worship today.” People evaluate sermons in the same way. They talk about how a sermon inspired them or comforted them or taught them something they wanted to know – or alternatively they remark on how it didn’t do any of those things and was therefore obviously a bad sermon. People talk about whether or not they are affirmed in their Christian life, whether they are encouraged or loved or sometimes it just comes down to whether they get their way or not.
      And I don’t mean to imply for a moment that there are not benefits that come to people because they follow Christ or participate in the life of the church. There are. But every time we focus exclusively on these things and whether or not we are getting them, we are arguing against everything that Jesus is saying in this passage. When we are merely focused on what we can get out of Christianity, whether in this life or in the next, Jesus seems to be saying that we are actually missing the point of it. Jesus says that the only measure of a good Christian life is what you put into it.
      This idea is rather problematic in the real world. In fact, I feel that I need to acknowledge that you really can’t make it through this life if you just give and give and give and never take care of our own needs. If you find yourself in a relationship where that is the equation – where you are always the giver and someone else is alwaysthe taker – I am sorry to say that you are likely in an abusive relationship and that it needs to change or you need to get out of it.
      That goes for the life of the church as well. I know that there are some churches and some preachers who have used these words of Jesus and others like them to place unreasonable and unrealistic demands for obedience and service on the people who are in those churches and I know that that is also a kind of abuse and even demonic abuse in the worst cases.
      And I believe that that is why Jesus doesn’t simply say that you should give and give and give in your life of discipleship. What he does say is that you should count the cost. That is to say that you should think and plan for what it will cost you so that no one takes advantage of you but also so that you have what it takes to sustain you through to the end.
      I think that Jesus recognized just how little sense this would make to people. He understood that people are usually far more focused on what they get out of the Christian life than on what they put into it. And so he gave us a couple of parables, images that we could keep in mind and remember what it is really all about. He said that following him is like when you build a tower and it’s like when you send an army to fight a dangerous foe.
      And so, to fix that idea in our minds, let’s just take a moment to paint a picture of one of those images that Jesus used. Let us imagine our church as a tower. Our church actually is a tower in this community. And, no, I’m not referring to the tower that is part of our church building. That architectural feature is beautiful and, I think, appreciated by the community, but there are ways in which the church itself, by which I mean the community of people here, is a tower in this community. We have a long-standing, and in some ways growing, reputation for caring. People trust us and entrust their resources to us, even though they are not part of this congregation, as we reach out and offer food and clothing and other supports to people in need in and around Hespeler.
      That good reputation is no small thing. It is one of the things that gives meaning to everything we do around here. And there is absolutely no way that that could have happened if people had merely been focused on what they got out of the life of this church. People regularly put in work and time. They have been willing, sometimes, to put up with inconvenience and clutter in this building that belongs to us for the sake of those continuing outreaches. People give sacrificially in order to maintain these outreaches and to support the structure of the church that makes them possible. We have built a tower in this community. And I don’t know about you, but that makes me feel pretty good, but very few of us get anything out of being that tower except that good feeling. And that is how it should be.
      That is but one way in which I see our church life together as a tower. Many of the other things we do together are tower-like, but maybe not noticeable in the community in the same way. We lift up praise and worship to God together. We build up one another through teaching and mutual affirmation and we are commissioned and sent out into the world to be the hands and feet of Jesus. We teach the children and youth among us and seek to set them on a good path in life. These are all ways of building towers that are worthwhile.
      Today we recognize the tower builders among us. We recognize the elders who take on those key leadership roles and seek to guide the whole church on a spiritual level. We recognize the deacons who care for the membership of the church and seek to support them through the ups and downs and trials of life. We recognize the teachers and leaders for children and youth and those who serve on various committees and who often take care of unseen and thankless tasks that just need to be done in order to keep the whole thing going. And, of course we acknowledge those who participate directly in our outreaches at Hope Clothing, Food Bank and food bank lunches, the Thursday Night Supper and Social and more.
      In fact, there is a place for every single person to, in their own way, contribute to this tower that we have built and are building. But what Jesus is saying is absolutely true, if we’re only focused on what we get out of this thing called church and whether ourneeds are met, we will not build a tower that stands. The foundation will rot away. So, I would encourage you all to think about what it means for you to be a follower of Jesus in this particular time and place. Let’s give up on the notion that it doesn’t cost anything to follow Jesus. The cost is great and you need to decide for yourself where you contribute and how. It is not for me to stand here and tell you that you must give in this way or in that way. But I pray that you listen to Jesus and count the cost of what it takes for you to follow him.
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The Rise of Euphrates.com

Posted by on Sunday, August 4th, 2019 in Minister


Hespeler, 4 August, 2019 © Scott McAndless
Ecclesiastes 1:2, 12-14, 2:18-23, Psalm 49:1-12, Colossians 3:1-11, Luke 12:13-21
O
ne day, when Jesus was speaking to a large group, one of the people in the crowd called out to him. “Lord,” he said, “my sister just won $50,000 in the lottery. If she were just to give me half of that, I could pay off all of my debts and maybe even get ahead on my mortgage. Then I could finally stop worrying about money all the time. Would you please tell her to do so?”
      But Jesus called back to that man, “Friend, who set me to be a judge or arbitrator over you?” And he began to warn the people and teach them that they would not find security in such things. He told them a story.
     
      “Once upon a time,” he said, “there was a man who had an amazing and wonderful idea. You see, he knew that there were bookstores spread all across the land where people would go and buy books. But these bookstores were located on expensive real estate and they took a great deal of space and expensive staff to rather inefficiently sell books to the people who wanted them.
      “So this man’s plan was to create a massive distribution system to sell books to people. He wouldn’t need to create expensive retail bookstores because people would be able to look at and select the books that they wanted on this amazing new thing called the internet. He wouldn’t even have to pay for the warehouse space to store all of the books – the publishers could keep them in their own warehouses until they were needed – so instead this man would concentrate on shipping and distribution and do it very efficiently.

      “Now, what would you call something like that – a company that is built around a massive distribution system. Well, of course, you name it after a river because nothing can move things like a river – and not just any river but the greatest river in the whole world. You name it after the River Euphrates.” (Because remember that this is Jesus who is telling this story and in his world, there is no more important river than the Euphrates.)
      “And so it was that Euphrates.com was born and the founder of the company very quickly became the biggest and most successful bookseller in the whole world. And what do you suppose that he did next. Did he just lean back and say to his soul, ‘Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry’? No, he did not because he did not feel as if he had anywhere enough to feel as secure as that. He needed more.
      “And so what he said to his soul was this: ‘Soul, you have become the biggest bookseller in the world but you can do more. Why should you restrict yourself to selling only books when there are so many other goods that people want or need?” And so he began to build great warehouses and fill them with everything imaginable so that there was nothing new under the sun that was not found in a Euphrates.com warehouse.
      “Now already, at this point, the man’s success had had a negative effect on local bookstores – they just couldn’t compete with Euphrates.com in selection or price. But now other local retail stores began to suffer the same fate with locations being closed and whole chains going down. And the man began to sell so many products that he had to tear down his warehouses and build even bigger warehouses – massive warehouses where computer programs and robots could sort and shift packages at almost the speed of light.
      “And, yes, he did have to hire some real flesh and blood people to work in his warehouses (which was a good thing, I suppose, given all of the local retail jobs that were disappearing) but he didn’t much like it and he made a point of paying them as little as he possibly could and squeezing as much labour out of them as they could possibly give so that Euphrates.com became famous for its poor working conditions.
      “In and through all of this, the man became the world’s largest retailer and a billionaire with more money than he could possibly ever spend in his lifetime. And what then? Did he finally speak to his soul at that point and say, ‘Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry’?
      What, are you kidding? He didn’t have nearly enough to feel that secure. There was so much more that he could do to dominate everything that was bought and sold in the world. He created devices – speakers with microphones in them and he created an artificial intelligence that could speak to people in their homes so that he could anticipate everyone’s smallest needs and whims and desires and he could fulfil them all. In fact, he got so good at it that he could practically anticipate anything that someone might need before they even knew that they needed it.
      “And so it came to pass that he became not just very rich, not just the richest man in the country but the richest in the whole world. In fact, he was on the verge of becoming the world’s very first trillionaire. Now, do you have any idea of what kind of wealth that actually represents? We are getting into the territory now where it’s not just a matter that no individual could possibly spend that kind of money in many lifetimes. We are in the territory where the world couldn’t even contain that kind of money if it were printed up as hundred dollar bills.
      “So this, surely, is it. The man is finally going to have to throw up his hands and say to his soul, ‘Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry’? I mean, what could possibly make him more secure, more comfortable, less worried for his future? He could double that amount and still, in practical terms, have no more earthly security than he does now. But is that what he will do? Everything seems to indicate that the answer is no. He will continue to seek more and more and I somehow suspect that, should he come to posses the whole world (which actually seems possible) even that will not be enough for him. In fact, I hear he might even be thinking of conquering space as well.”
     
      Now, this whole time, the man who had originally asked Jesus the question – the one who wanted Jesus to tell his sister to share her lottery winnings with him – had been listening to this story of Jesus and listening, frankly, with growing disbelief. Surely the kind of person that the teacher was describing could never actually exist. Why, not even if the world should endure for, say, two thousand years after the time when Jesus of Nazareth walked upon the earth would there ever possibly be a person who was so obsessed with accumulating ever more wealth and doing it for its own sake. How could there be someone who was so uninterested in any possible good that he could do with his wealth (apart, of course, from any good that he inadvertently did while building ever more profits)! Surely the man in this story was a caricature – a straw man.
      But, as the man listened to this ridiculous story, he had a sudden realization. Jesus was holding up this utterly ridiculous example to make a point. And it was a good point. Jesus was saying that it doesn’t actually matter how much you have. You think that you could get just a little bit more, just an extra $50,000 of lottery winnings, and it will push you over the edge to the place where you feel you can finally be secure and not have to worry about anything. But there’s actually no amount that can do that for you.
      You could have as much as this plainly fictional CEO of Euphrates.comand you would still not be satisfied because he was not satisfied. The sense of having enough to feel truly secure was always in the future. When you have built big enough warehouses, when you have replaced your entire workforce with robots, when you have beaten everyone into space, then you will able to pat your soul on the back and tell it that it’s eat, drink and be merry time. But the thing is that that day never seems to come. There is always one more thing to do before you get there.
      And so, the man who had made the request spoke once more to Jesus. “I thank you, teacher, for telling me about this absurd man. You make me realize that even if my sister did give me half of her winnings, I would likely not find that enough to feel secure either.”
      “Well,” replied Jesus, “if that is true then you may indeed be wiser than the CEO Euphrates.com. But I have not yet plumbed the depths of his foolishness, for there is one thing more. Because everything that this man felt he had to do to find his security was in the future, there is something else that is inevitable. He can never actually achieve it all and, sooner or later as is the way of all flesh, he will die. That is something that neither the richest man in the world nor the lowliest slave can escape. He will inevitably die without finding that security he craves by amassing enough. And what will happen to all of his possessions, even if he owns the whole world, at that point? Who will take them then?”
      To this, one of the other people in the crowd cried out, “Hey, you can give it to me!” There is always one in every crowd. And he got a laugh, of course he did. And Jesus smiled too, but as he smiled he also shook his head. “My friend, he said if that is all you get from the story, then you might just be a bigger fool than that man was.
     
      I think that one of the reasons why we sometimes miss the meaning that is in the parables of Jesus is because we totally abstract them from the situations in which he told them. We pull them apart and analyze each piece and try to find the symbolic meaning. What we forget was that they were stories that were specifically meant to elicit certain responses from the people who were listening. What they felt about the story was, in many ways, more important than the story itself. He wanted to provoke reaction, surprise and even shock from his audience. He wanted to shake up their assumptions about how the world worked and how it was supposed to work.
      The rich man in this particular parable of Jesus was a figure that the people in the crowd would have recognized. he was familiar to them just like celebrity billionaires are familiar to us and we think we know what they are like. He was the sort of person that they all paid their rents to and, yes, he did use those rents to build great big barns for himself and to build what they assumed was perfect security in this life. They envied him and wanted to be like him, but Jesus told them this story to make them understand exactly what a fool he was and what a fool the entire system made of each one of them.
      Jesus told that story to make them question the ways that the world worked and to see it all in a very different light. I suspect that Jesus would be only too happy if we were to question those very things about our society and the way that things are supposed to work and about who is truly wise and who is a complete and utter fool.
     

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What difference can one make?

Posted by on Sunday, July 28th, 2019 in Minister


Hespeler, 28, July 2019 © Scott McAndless
Genesis 18:20-32, Psalm 138, Colossians 2:6-15, Luke 11:1-13
Y
ou have heard that somewhere in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, stretching, in fact, much of the way between California and Japan, there is a massive patch of floating plastic that does nothing but grow every year. Fish, birds, whales and dolphins have floated in with their stomachs full of the stuff and having choked to death on it.
      You know that plastic, a lot of it, will hang around in landfills, dumps and in the food chain for hundreds if not thousands of years. And you have also recently heard that, for all the hoopla over recycling, most recycling programs for things like plastic bags have been complete failures and that these days, the Asian countries that we had been shipping used plastics to have started to refuse to even receive them.

      You know all of that, all of the problems associated with single-use plastics. But you’re standing here on the checkout line and, yes, once again you forgot to bring along your reusable shopping bags. You must have about a hundred in your trunk, but they’re really no help to you there. You only have three or four items with you, you could probably juggle them out to the car without too much trouble. But then people would probably look at you kind of funny and you can’t have that. And so, when you get there, and the inevitable question comes, “Would you like a bag?” of course you answer yes. It is convenient. It is sanitary. But what is the number one reason why you say yes? We’ve all said it to ourselves from time to time. “Ah, what difference does it make what one person does?” The problem is so huge and one bag doesn’t count for anything.
      It’s almost become a tenet of our society – our go-to answer to every moral quandary of modern life. “Why not just crank up the air conditioning throughout the summer? Why should I pass up my comfort when my neighbour doesn’t?” The answer we give is, “what difference can one person’s energy use make in global warming?”
      Or if somebody asks the question, “Why doesn’t somebody stand up against the terrible ways that people talk about immigrants and refugees these days,” the answer is always, “What can one person do to make a difference against all the terrible rhetoric that is out there?”
      It is, in many ways, the great question. Or perhaps it is just the greatest excuse. But whichever it is, wouldn’t you like to have the answer? Wouldn’t you like to know what difference one person can make? Which is exactly why I am so upset with Abraham this morning. I mean, he had God right there. He had God on the record and yet he didn’t ask the question. He started at fifty and he firmly established that, yes, fifty righteous people – fifty people doing the right thing – could make a difference, that they could even save a city that was filled with wickedness and doomed to destruction.
      And then, just like good Middle Eastern trader, Abraham started to haggle. “Okay,” he said, “so we’ve established that fifty is enough. Surely you wouldn’t destroy an entire city for the lack of, say, just five people?” and so Abraham gets God down to forty-five, and then forty, thirty, twenty and even ten! Oh, Abraham is a master at the art of haggling. But he stops too soon. He gets God all the way down to ten and then he doesn’t push it any farther. Why not? Why not push it down to five? to three? to one? Would we not then finally have the definitive answer to the eternal question: what difference can one person make?
      Now I know that there are some who would refuse to take this strange conversation between God and Abraham and apply it to modern issues like global warming and single-use plastics. They would say that this debate is about a particular situation and a particular kind of threat and that we should not take the story of Sodom and apply it to different kinds of threats that we might face today. I’d just like to point out that that is not how the Bible treats the story of Sodom at all.
      The writers of the Bible were only too happy to take the example of Sodom and Gomorrah and apply it to whatever contemporary issues they felt to be most important. Just about every time you have a prophet or a preacher in the Bible who wants to warn a people or a nation that they are treading on thin ice and are risking disaster, they tell them that they are behaving just like Sodom and Gomorrah no matter what particular thing they are doing that the speaker feels is wrong.
      And so, for example, the prophet Ezekiel at one point explains that the sin of Sodom was that it “had pride, excess of food, and prosperous ease, but did not aid the poor and needy.” (Ezekiel 16:49) That was what Ezekiel said that Sodom did wrong. But I don’t believe that Ezekiel said this because he had special insider information about what life was really like in Sodom. (There is no mention of such problems in Sodom anywhere else in the Bible.) But Ezekiel says it because he is speaking about that very problem in the Kingdom of Judah in his own time. By comparing them to Sodom, he’s not making a literal connection between the failings of the two places, it is just a way of saying that Judah’s behaviour is just as destructive as Sodom’s was.
      Jesus did the same thing when he spoke about Sodom. “Truly I tell you,” he said, “it will be more tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah on the day of judgment than for that town.” (Matthew 10:15) But the “that town” that Jesus was talking about was any town that failed to offer hospitality to him and his disciples. So, Jesus also defined the failure of Sodom (which, according to Genesis, did doom itself by failing to offer hospitality to angelic visitors) in terms of the failure of towns and cities in his own time. So when the Bible talks about Sodom, and it talks about it a lot, it is clearly not just talking about one particular time and place or what was specifically happening there, but about ongoing ways in which human beings are risking disaster and destruction.
      My favourite application of the Sodom story in the Bible, in fact, is found in one of the strangest letters of the New Testament, the Letter of Jude. Jude blames the destruction of Sodom on people pursuing “strange flesh,” (Jude 7 *see footnote) that is to say the flesh of angels, but that is clearly because he had a bit of an obsession with how people in his own day were inappropriately dealing with angelic matters and ideas.
      So, the city of Sodom is, in the Bible, a convenient way to talk about all kinds of self-destructive human behaviour. It is entirely consistent for us to use that story to talk about the kinds of issues that we face today. In a very real sense, in this story, Abraham and God are debating about the difference that one person can make in global warming, in the accumulation of waste plastic and a host of other issues that may threaten our world and our survival today. They are debating the very question that still affects us and our actions today.
      Except, as I say, when Abraham has the chance, he kind of lets God off the hook. He gets God bartered down to ten and then he gives up and lets God go. So we never get the definitive answer to the question, what difference can the actions of one person make. And I can’t help but wonder whether that might be the point. Maybe that is precisely the question that is not supposed to be answered. When you are faced with the choice – Do I add to the mountain of plastic by taking this one bag I don’t need or do I not? Do I choose the more fuel-efficient option even if it costs me a bit more? Do I take the chance and maybe pay the price by speaking up for an injustice that I see? – when you are faced with that choice, the simple truth is that you don’t get to know what the result of your brave or wise action will be. You have to act in faith and in hope, even though you have no guarantee that it will make a difference. That is the kind of faith that God looks for from us and I believe that God always rewards that kind of faith.
      So maybe that is the part of the answer to the eternal question that we are given in this passage: you don’t get to know whether what you do will make a difference, but that does not absolve you from doing what is right. But I am not sure that that is the whole answer. It is true that the debate between God and Abraham over how many righteous people it takes to save a society ends when they get to ten. God may have walked away at that point, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that the debate was over. In many ways, the rest of the Bible is the continuation of the debate over that question as it tells the story of person after person who takes a stand for what he or she feels is right and just. What are the stories of Joseph, of Moses, of prophets like Amos or Jeremiah and women like Esther and Mary if they are not stories of just such individuals? Is not Jesus himself the ultimate example of someone who did the right thing at the highest cost? And does not the very fact that we remember those people, that their stories have endured, an indication that the answer might be yes, that one person does make a difference.
      There is one particular figure in the early Christian church who is an indication that this particular debate that we read in the Book of Genesis this morning was still a lively debate into the early life of the church. You may have heard of him; he was one of the most famous Christians of the first century. His name was James. He was the leader of the church in Jerusalem. He was often called James the Brother of Jesus, but most people seemed to know him by another name. Both his fellow believers and others called him James the Just.
      Now understand that that word “just” is the same word (both in Hebrew and Greek versions of the story) as the word that Abraham and God are arguing over in Genesis – it is the word righteous. The name seems to be an indication that people – both Christians and non-Christians by the way – saw James as the kind of person who was so righteous that he could save an entire city from destruction. In other words, they extended Abraham and God’s debate to its logical conclusion and the answer was one. It really only required one righteous person to save an entire city from destruction.
      James the Just was eventually assassinated. According to some reports, he was thrown down from the pinnacle of the temple in Jerusalem. This happened just before the Romans attacked and destroyed the city and temple of Jerusalem in 70 ad. You can be sure that many people made the clear connection between the two events. Maybe James really had been the only thing that was saving them from self-destructing in a foolish and violent rebellion against Rome.
      The answer is one. The actions of one person who does the right thing do matter. Maybe God didn’t let Abraham push the question to that point because he knew that the thing that makes the right action effective is that it is undertaken in faith. You don’t do it because you have a guarantee that it will work but because you are willing to trust God to take what you do and multiply it through the actions of many others. But whatever you do, don’t believe the lie that this world tries to sell you that your decisions and actions don’t matter. They do. You are a child of a God who would do anything for your sake. Of course, God will bless what you do for the sake of what is right and just and good. The answer is one. It takes one.
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Mary, Martha and the Guest

Posted by on Sunday, July 21st, 2019 in Minister

This sermon is also an episode of the Retelling the Bible Podcast. You can listen to the episode here:


And find out more about the episode and podcast here: Retellingthebible.wordpress.com/


Hespeler, 21 July, 2019 © Scott McAndless
Genesis 18:1-10, Psalm 15:1-5, Colossians 1:15-27, Luke 10:38-42
V
ery early that morning – before the sun had peeked over the hills – Mary had been awakened from a very deep slumber by her older sister. “Mary, Mary,” Martha called to her, “something exciting is going to happen today. I just know it – something that will change everything. Do you know that man – the one from Nazareth that everyone has been talking about – he and his followers have been travelling all over Galilee preaching and healing and telling stories. Well, I heard the people in marketplace talking yesterday and it seems that he is coming here to our village and that he is going to come today. Do you know what that means?”
      Mary, who was still more than half asleep and trying to reclaim a half-remembered dream, didn’t have the faintest idea what that meant and she indicated that with a long, low growl.
      “Mary,” Martha continued with more insistence, “I think that this is finally it, the solution to our problem.”

      Mary’s next grunt was more of an affirmative; she knew exactly what her sister meant when she spoke about “our problem.” She understood that, ever since their mother and then their father had died, they were both in a precarious position. Martha had somehow managed to keep the family home and lands intact despite the efforts of creditors and greedy relatives. She was hard-working and she never gave up. She had won for them a certain free space, but they both knew that their position was incredibly insecure. Unless one of them could marry and soon, unless there was a man who could protect the property, they would lose everything. But, without a male relative to speak for them, there had been no way to secure the kind of marriage that would really help.
      Mary was puzzled. “How can some preacher from Nazareth, of all places, possibly be the solution to ‘our problem?’ What can he do for us?”
      “Haven’t you heard what people have been saying about him? He is not just some ‘preacher from Nazareth.’ They are saying that somehow the God of our Fathers and our Mothers is present in him. People have looked into his eyes and seen the Creator of the universe staring back at them. Mary,” Martha said while her eyes took on a strange and yet familiar glow, “this is it, the opportunity I have been preparing for all my life.”
      “Oh,” said Mary to herself, “not this again.” Ever since she had been a little girl, Martha had been obsessed with one of the ancient stories of their people – a story of Father Abraham and Mother Sarah. One time, when Father Abraham was sitting outside of his tent, God came to visit him in the form of three men. But Abraham didn’t know that it was God, for the visitors appeared only to be common travelers. Nevertheless, following the laws of hospitality, Abraham and Sarah treated the visitors like kings. Martha loved to describe that encounter so much, that Mary could hear her voice telling that part of the story without even trying.
      “As soon as the strangers appeared,” Mary could hear her saying, “Abraham went and bowed down low with his face to the ground before them. He told them that it would bring the greatest honour upon him if they would only be willing to share a few miserable morsels of his food. He really played it up, made it seem as if the food was so terrible that they would almost be doing him a favour if they ate it.
      “But then, of course, he and Sarah played a great switch on them by offering them the most incredible feast with bread made of the finest flour, tender veal and tangy cheese. And then, while they sat there enjoying the delectable morsels, and while Abraham hovered over them, not even daring to sit down and eat with them, it happened. God gave them the one thing they needed, the one thing that would fulfill all of their dreams. Within the year, Sarah would have a son.”
      “Let me see if I’ve got this straight,” Mary said to her sister, “you think that we’re going to invite this Jesus from Nazareth to our house and offer him hospitality and you’re going to blow him away with your amazing recipe for veal parmesan and he’s going to give us everything that we need? Martha, don’t you understand that things don’t work like that in the real world?”
      Martha’s expression turned cold at her sister’s rebuke. “I don’t care if you think it’s going to work. I just want you to go and find the man and invite him to come to this house. And you better do it as graciously as ever Father Abraham did.”
     
      And that’s how it happened that, after a quick breakfast, Mary found herself waiting just inside the village gate for the preacher to appear. When he arrived, she knew which one he was immediately. He traveled at the centre of a small knot of men and a few women too. They hung on his every word as he spoke. Immediately, before anyone else had the opportunity to do so, Mary stepped forward and fell to her knees before the stranger. The man stopped and looked down with surprise and amusement. The smile on his face only widened as Mary repeated the words that she had learned from her sister’s many retellings of the story: “My lord, if I find favour with you, do not pass by your servant. Let a little water be brought, and wash your feet, and rest yourselves in our house. Let us bring a little bread, that you may refresh yourselves, and after that you may pass on – since you have come to your servant.”
      With that, Mary finally looked up into the eyes of the man. He looked at her so intently and with such intelligence and understanding that she suddenly caught her breath. She had not taken seriously what her sister had said about this man. She had assumed that he was just another traveling charlatan who had caught the imagination of the countryside. She hadn’t imagined that he might truly have something new and worthwhile to say. But, now that she had seen him, she knew that she had to know more about him.
      “I thank you for your gracious invitation,” the man replied, “I must indeed dine at your house this evening.” and with that he turned to the others who were approaching him seeking healing and other help.
      Her sister was expecting her to return home directly to assist her as she prepared to host the guests at the end of the day. Of course, there would be a million things to do and Martha would obsess over every detail. Suddenly, however, Mary was filled with the desire to be anywhere else but in the kitchen with her sharp-tongued sister. But, more than that, she found herself to be filled with a desire to know everything that this man would say and do during the day in the village. She knew that she would pay for it later, that Martha would nurse her grievances against an absent sister and that she would never let her forget it if she abandoned her now, but she somehow couldn’t help it. She turned to follow the crowd that was beginning to form around the preacher.
     
      By the end of the day, Mary was even more exhausted than Jesus was, though she hadn’t really done anything – anything, that is, other than strain her ears to hear his every word and crane her neck to see everything that he was doing. He had been so busy that she was sure that he had completely forgotten her and her invitation, but, no sooner had the crowds begun to thin, than he turned and looked for her. Come, my sister, he said let us go to your house. I am starving!
      So, she led them there. Martha opened the door at the very moment they arrived (she had clearly been watching for them) and bowed even lower than Mary had done earlier as she repeated the familiar words once spoken by Abraham. She didn’t look at her sister, didn’t even say a word, which Mary found to be far more ominous than anything that she could have said. But still, as the group entered, she did not turn, as she knew her as a sister expected her to, and instead led the group into the courtyard where she sat at Jesus’ feet as if she were one of the man’s disciples.
      Mary wasn’t the only one who was intent to hear Jesus’ reflections on the events of the day. Everyone wanted to debrief with him and hear him talk about his various encounters and debate with him on the meaning of his parables. But Mary, in the kitchen, was sending up a great commotion. “Bang! Smash! Crunch!” the vessels were being battered together as if they were disobedient children. It got to the point where no one could concentrate on what Jesus was saying before Martha finally came storming out of the kitchen. Her anger was not directed, as Mary expected, at Mary, but instead at the teacher himself: “Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to do all the work by myself? Tell her then to help me.”
      Jesus looked at her. His eyes were filled with such compassion and understanding. You could tell that he understood completely why she was broken over this. It was not that she was angry at her sister for abandoning her to do the work, not really. She was weary of an endless war to create for herself the space to live in a society that would give her nothing. She was tired of a fruitless battle to save the heritage of her family. She was lashing out at her sister because she was the only person that she was allowed to get angry at but she knew, deep down, that Mary was not against her. It was the whole world that was against her and Mary was one of her few allies.
      “Martha,” said Jesus. Martha looked at him. She was actually a bit startled that he even knew her name – that he would have even been interested to know it. Mary didn’t find that surprising at all – not after she had seen the way that he had operated all day, but this was the first time that Martha had really seen him. He somehow defied all expectations.
      “Martha,” he said, “you are worried and distracted by many things; there is need of only one thing.” He told her that as much as he appreciated her hospitality, and he did appreciate her hospitality, the importance of what she was doing was not found in what she did for her guest. He was not judging her on what she was doing for him. He was here for the pleasure of her company, her and her sister.
       “Mary has chosen the better part,” he said, “and nothing will take away the joy of what she has chosen. Now you need to choose what is most important for you. Nothing you could possibly do, nothing you could feed me or offer me, could possibly make you more beloved or acceptable in my eyes. Mary, by choosing to be here and giving full attention to me is already receiving everything that I can give.”
     
      In the end, they did not have the fancy and beautiful meal that Martha had dreamed all her life that she would one day give to some divine visitor. Everything was not “perfect.” But there was food enough for everyone and much enjoyment that each took in everyone’s company. It was in that, and not in the over-wrought perfection that someone created in the kitchen, that the divine presence was to be found that day.
      And as for Mary and Martha’s problem, the one that Martha had thought that only a divine visitor could solve for her? Well, let’s just say that by the end of the day, both of them had a very different understanding of what the key issues of their lives were and where they ought to put all of their energies.
     

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I would do anything (but I won’t do that)

Posted by on Sunday, July 7th, 2019 in Minister


Hespeler, 7 July, 2019 © Scott McAndless
2 Kings 5:1-14, Psalm 30, Galatians 7-16, Luke 10:1-11, 16-20
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hat would you do to be healthy? What would you do to be whole? It is a question that a lot of us don’t really ask ourselves, I think. We don’t ask it because we think we know the answer. We assume that health is the highest priority and that we would do whatever it took to obtain it or maintain it. We would do whatever the doctor said, take whatever was prescribed and make any changes necessary. In theory, it is a question that doesn’t even need to be asked. But that is theory, real life tends to be a little bit different.
      Do you remember that classic rock song by Meatloaf: “I would do anything for love”? In the song, Meatloaf runs through a number of things that he would do for the sake of the person he loves. He even says, “I’d run right into hell and back.” But the refrain of the song is, “but I won’t do that,” reminding us that absolute words like “anything” always seem to have their limits and the limits and exceptions that come along in practical life are often much more important than the absolute anythings.
      So, what are the “but I won’t do that’s” for you when it comes to health and wholeness? Naaman is forced to take that question very seriously in our reading this morning from the Old Testament. He is not well. He’s afflicted with a condition called leprosy, an affliction that is kind of hard to pin down in the Bible. They did not have any way to diagnose the cause of an illness; they just called any condition that affected the skin leprosy. That could mean anything from minor itching to major, life-threatening infections.
      So, we can’t really say what was wrong with Naaman. Nevertheless, we do have a pretty good idea how his condition would have affected his life. Anything that was called leprosy would result in someone being excluded from society. The fear of skin conditions was so great that, in many cases, the social impact of that label of leprosy was more destructive than anything that was actually wrong with somebody’s skin. Naaman, though he was a leader among his people, had been turned into an outcast because of whatever it was about him that was unwell.

      So, he was in a somewhat desperate state; he needed to be well. He would do anything to be well, but he ran into a few “but I won’t do that’s.” First of all, he learns of a possibility of healing from a very unlikely source – from a slave in his household. She is a captive, a slave who Naaman himself may have taken in previous raids into Israelite territories. She speaks to her mistress, Naaman’s wife, saying, “If only my lord were with the prophet who is in Samaria! He would cure him of his leprosy.”
      It is an indication of Naaman and his wife’s desperation that they actually listen to such a lowly individual. In many cases that was something that a powerful man just wouldn’t do. Naaman will listen to a slave in order to be well. But will he actually do what she says? No, he won’t do that. She has told him that he should actually go and seek out the prophet, but he doesn’t do that. Instead, he does what noble people do. He uses power and leverage to get what he wants; he gets his king to write to the king of Israel. This is all about showing off how important he is instead of showing the humility that the slave girl was suggesting.
      Of course, Naaman’s power move causes lots of trouble. The king of Israel is afraid that the Syrians will use the situation to restart hostilities. “[The king] tore his clothes and said, “Am I God, to give death or life, that this man sends word to me to cure a man of his leprosy? Just look and see how he is trying to pick a quarrel with me.”Here is the first indication that we have in this story of the trouble that the “but I won’t do that” can cause. By failing to do what he has been told to do to be well, Naaman almost causes an international incident, but fortunately, the prophet Elisha is gracious enough to give him another chance.
      Elisha bails out his king – tells him to send the man over to his house and then proceeds to give Naaman a well-deserved lesson in humility. The prophet doesn’t even step out of his house to greet him. Just sends a message telling him to go and wash in the Jordan River seven times. And that is when Naaman loses it. He says, “I would stand here and let this Elisha wave his hands over me and invoke the name of his fake God. I would do anything, but I won’t do that.” What’s more, his servants tell him – and they undoubtedly know what they are talking about – that he would do much more difficult and dangerous things than that in order to be well. He would storm the defended walls of a city, he would face down chariots and armies, he would “run right into hell and back.” He would do anything for health, but he won’t do that – but he won’t do that.
      What won’t you do in order to be whole; it may be the most important question that anyone will ever ask you? We have all known some people who are obvious illustrations of the importance of that question. People, for example, who have been told by their doctors that they need to make significant changes in their lifestyles to be well. Maybe their doctor says, “you must quit smoking,” and they just won’t do it.
      What people won’t do is not always a matter of willpower. There are some people, for example, who can just walk away from the an addiction like nicotine if they are given the right motivation and there are some people who just can’t – whose physical dependence is so powerful that change is beyond what is within their own power to make and they need significant assistance from outside themselves.
      The crisis of addiction is an important battle, but that is not really what I am talking about here. I’m talking about what people won’t do, not what they can’t do without help. And what Naaman won’t do has nothing to do with the difficulty of the task he is given. I believe that that is often the case with us.
      Think of your marriage or of some other significant relationship in your life. Is that relationship as healthy as it could be? There is nothing better for your life, your productivity, your personal health than for you to be in a healthy, mutually affirming and upbuilding relationship. But I think that we all recognize that there are times when we neglect those relationships and allow them to be somewhat less than what they could be. What would you do to have a better relationship? Would you run right into hell and back? Sure, I can do that. But will you admit when you are wrong? No I won’t do that. Will you forgive that time when the other person hurt you? Will you speak honestly, even though you know it might lead to a long and difficult conversation? No, I won’t do that. No, I won’t do that.
      I realize that there are different places where different people will draw that line, but I think we all have those “I won’t do thats,” and it’s usually not because of the difficulty of the thing, but rather because it would be about swallowing your pride or letting someone else see how vulnerable you are. I’m sure that’s what it was for Naaman when he said he was not about to bathe in the Jordan River even though it was what he needed to do to be well.
      God wants you to be the best person you can possibly be. That’s the kind of healing and wholeness that God wishes for you. And I know that you do many things to become your best person. You work hard. You try to take control of every aspect of your life, building up security in possessions and knowledge, savings and investments. But what if God’s plan for your wholeness includes what Jesus told his disciples in our reading this morning where he says, “Carry no purse, no bag, no sandals; and greet no one on the road”? What if God is asking you to give up on all of those things that the world turns to for security and instead to trust in God alone? If that is what it takes to find the health God wants for you, would you do that? No, I won’t to that. No, I won’t to that.
      It’s a particularly interesting question to ask of churches these days. I don’t think it’s any great secret if I tell you that many congregations are under pressure because of demographic and social changes. Congregations want to be healthy but in many cases are feeling as if health is eluding them. If you ask a congregation what it would do in order to be healthy, can you guess what the answer almost always is? Anything. We would do anything to be healthy.
      Well, let me tell you something about congregational health. Yes, it can be a challenge these days, but it is not an impossible thing. Congregations are doing many things to find that health. Health, by the way, may not always mean huge numbers of people showing up but it does mean many kinds of strength and growth within a congregation and it can be found.
      Let me tell you some things that congregations have done to find health. They have made radical changes in worship and music, changes that made the people who were in those congregations feel less comfortable at least at first. Some have walked away from or radically changed much-loved and beautiful buildings. For some congregations, finding health has meant that some of the people have had to give up fighting over things like the placement of furniture, how people should dress or who got to use the kitchen. (Let me tell you something, if you ever want to know whether or not people find certain things to be sacred in the church, just try rearranging the cupboards in the kitchen without telling anybody!)
      Would you do things like that, would you embrace those kinds of changes in order to find congregational health? I hope so. But I’ll tell you, I have known many people in churches who would look at any one of those things and protest, but I won’t do that. I would do anything for church health, but I won’t do that. There’s a real danger that that could be the epitaph of the church in many places in years to come.
      God wants you to be healthy. God wants your relationships to be healthy. God wants your church and your community and your nation to be healthy. God your creator created you so that you might be whole and well. And there really are no limits on that. When Naaman came along looking for help, God did not look at him and say, you are not one of my people, you do not believe the right things about me, I don’t want you to be healthy. No, God ministered to him through the prophet. The only roadblock was Naaman and what he was unwilling to do.
      That is why I am bold to say to you today that God wants to make you healthy. That can be a tricky thing to say because it’s not always true that God is going to cure various ailments or conditions. Illness and death are not things that any of us can completely escape because God has designed them to be part of life in this world. But health and healing are always possible. Even someone who is dying can be healed; healing in that situation may mean coming to terms and finding peace with what is happening to them or perhaps finding reconciliation and forgiveness with some of the people in their lives before they go, but even in that situation healing is possible. The roadblock is never because God lacks the ability to heal. The roadblock is found in us who say, but I won’t do that.
      And what is the number one thing that God is telling you to do in order that you find healing in your life? God is telling you that you need to trust in him. That is what the command to wash in the Jordan ultimately meant to Naaman. That is what Jesus’ command to the disciples to go out with “no purse, no bag, no sandals” was about. That is the attitude that the psalmist has in our reading this morning when he says, “I cried to you for help, and you have healed me.” God will ask you to trust him to bring the healing you will need – trust God instead of the things that make you feel secure and comfortable. But how you act and what you are and aren’t willing to do will be a big indication of that trust, so think carefully before you say, “but I won’t do that.”

And here, for those who now have the earworm in their heads after reading this, is the official music video of "I would do anything for love (but I won't do that)"





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Freedom!

Posted by on Sunday, June 30th, 2019 in Minister


Hespeler, 30 June, 2019 © Scott McAndless
1 Kings 19:15-16, 19-21, Psalm 16:1-11, Galatians 5:1, 13-25, Luke 9:51-62
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omorrow you and I will get up and, each in our own way, celebrate something wonderful. We will celebrate the wonderful country in which we live. We will celebrate Canada’s beauty and its people and their accomplishments. We will celebrate our heritage and history as well we should. But one thing in particular that I and many others will celebrate this year is a document, called the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms that grants and symbolizes the freedoms that I enjoy as a Canadian: freedom of religion, of thought, of expression, of the press and of peaceful assembly, freedom to participate in our political system, freedom of movement and the right to life, liberty and security.
      I don’t know about you but, in the world where we seem to find ourselves today where leaders refuse to leave office, electoral systems are hacked and oppressive regimes tighten the screws, it is good to know that my freedoms are guaranteed. So, we’ve got these freedoms and that is good, but I sometimes wonder if we really understand these freedoms or even if we know what freedom actually is.

      There are certainly some expressions of freedom today that I have got to say are somewhat disturbing. Yes, we do have freedom of speech, for example, and I celebrate that, but I am often appalled by those who use that freedom to spread false information on the internet – especially false information that seeks to destroy the democratic institutions that guarantee that freedom of speech. I am distressed by those who use their freedom of speech to spread hatred of particular groups.
      But I’m almost equally disturbed by the ways in which people fail to exercise the freedoms that they’ve been given. How is it that so many fail to apply critical thinking to the free speech that they read on the internet? How is it that, when we have such a wonderful freedom to choose our political leaders, that so many people fail to vote or to engage in the electoral process in any meaningful way? And how is it that we collectively seem to be incapable of thinking of anything beyond short-term needs in order to consider the long-term needs of our country?
      In fact, the more I think of it, the more it seems to me that, while we like to talk a lot about freedom, we don’t really have a good idea of how to live with the freedoms that we’ve been given. Interestingly enough, that is exactly the issue that the Apostle Paul seems to be addressing in our reading this morning from his letter to the Galatians.
       Paul writes this to the churches in Galatia, “For freedom Christ has set us free. Stand firm, therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.” For Paul, you see, one of the most important things that being a follower of Jesus gave you was freedom. This is something that wouldn’t have been entirely obvious to most observers at that time and place. The church in Galatia, and indeed the church in most places at that time, was not particularly made up of wealthy and important people but instead of those who were considered the dregs of society. Many of them, in fact, would have been slaves. They literally lived their lives with no freedom over their own bodies or what they did with them and most lived without any hope of ever being emancipated.
      And yet Paul is saying to these very people and people like them that Jesus has set them free. They have had no experience at all of freedom and, in fact, almost nobody around them, except maybe their Christian brothers and sisters, see them as free. And so, Paul seeks to instruct them about how to live out this brand-new thing to them that is called freedom.
      We are in a rather different situation. We enjoy tremendous freedoms, freedoms like few in the history of the world have had, and yet we often seem to take those freedoms for granted. We are so used to them that maybe we have almost forgotten how they ought to be lived out. So I think that maybe Paul’s advice to those Christians in Galatia who were dealing with their first experience of freedom and didn’t know what to do with it might also be helpful to us today who are so used to it that we may have forgotten what to do with it.
      “For you were called to freedom, brothers and sisters;” Paul admonishes the Galatians, “only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for self-indulgence.” He is pointing out two dangers that come with freedom. One is that we do not live out that freedom and the other is that we fall into a kind of slavery of self-indulgence.
      To give you a sense of what I think he is trying to say, let me give you an illustration from something that we sometimes see going on here at St. Andrew’s. We run a ministry here, as you know, called Hope Clothing. The mandate is simple. We give out clothes to people who need them, free of charge. It is, in other words, an exercise in freedom – not the same kind of freedom that we enjoy in a democracy, of course, but there are similarities in how people respond to that freedom.
      For example, the vast majority of people who come into the Hope Clothing use that freedom in the way that it is intended. They come in and they take what they need, as much as they need and when they need it. But there are some who struggle with that freedom. There are some who really struggle to receive what they need. Even though, in most cases, people may find themselves in a position where they simply don’t have the resources to provide what they need for their family at that moment for reasons that are entirely beyond their control, they feel shame and so they cannot take what they need. We have had cases where a family has suffered a disaster like a fire, and we have seen the community of Hespeler rally around that family by giving generously. People want nothing more than that this family take everything that they can possibly use. But then the family comes in and they take the absolute minimum because they don’t know how to receive. For such a family, even though the clothes are provided freely, they cannot receive them in freedom and so they do not experience true freedom.
      And I think that there are many of us who have the same trouble receiving the freedom that God has given us or that our democratic system has given us. Perhaps it is because of inappropriate shame or guilt, perhaps it is simply because, somewhere deep down inside, we have not been able to believe that we can deserve such freedom, but for whatever reason, we simply fail to receive the freedom that we have been given. And, if you do not exercise your freedom, you are not truly free, just like the clothes at Hope Clothing are not free to those who are incapable of receiving them.
      So that is one problem with freedom that a few people have when they come into Hope Clothing. There is another problem that a few have. We’ve known some who come into Hope Clothing and can’t handle the freedom of it but what they do is the opposite – they take what they don’t need – often as much as they can possibly get away with. Now such people might seem, on the surface, to have a perfect grasp of the meaning of the word free, but they don’t really. These people, you see, are hoarders. They have a compulsive need to store up things and possessions that they don’t need. It is a compulsion that likely stems from a deep insecurity, an inner dis-ease that doesn’t feel so bad when they have a lot of stuff piled up around them.
      So, when people behave like that, do they really understand the freedom with which the clothes are offered to them? No, they do not. Actually, they experience the opposite. They experience slavery – they are slaves to their possessions that often begin to take on such a big role in their lives that they dominate everything. They become trapped by the “free” things that they have received. So, this is something that we have rarely had to deal with at Hope Clothing. And I strongly believe that it is not something that you deal with simply by imposing rules and limits on people. Instead it is about ministering to the whole person and helping them to come to understand the true grace of receiving; we have seen some success with that.
      In his Letter to the Galatians, Paul speaks about the same problem that he sees people having with the freedom that they have found in Christ. He speaks of those who use their freedom “as an opportunity for self-indulgence.” It is the same reaction, where people become so overwhelmed by not being constrained by rules and the need to follow laws in order to be acceptable, that they begin to spend their life in all manner of self-indulgence.
      Indulgence, in itself, is not necessarily a problem. There is nothing wrong and much that is right in treating yourself well – enjoying good food, good drink, good companionship and more. You need to be able to enjoy these kinds of things in order to know that you are free. But those who have deep underlying insecurities and maybe don’t really believe that they are really free to enjoy these things, can fall into the trap of a self-indulgence that leads to slavery – precisely what Paul is warning about when he says, “Stand firm, therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.” When you are the master of your appetites and desires, you are free and should enjoy that freedom to the maximum. But when your appetites control you, you have a problem and may find that you are no longer free.
      Paul is speaking about the freedoms that we have because we are accepted by God, not because of what we do but because of what Christ has done for us. What he tells us is something that we should certainly keep in mind as we practice that freedom today. But, as we prepare to celebrate Canada Day and the freedoms that our country gives us tomorrow, I think we should also take and apply Paul’s lessons to how we live out those freedoms as well. First of all, we are not truly free as Canadians if we do not receive and use the freedoms we are given. If we do not vote or intelligently engage in the electoral process, we no longer have the freedom to determine our leaders. We are called to freedom and so we must live in it.
      But the other part of what Paul says about freedom in Christ also applies to our Canadian freedoms. Freedom that is nothing more than self-indulgence is no freedom and will lead to a kind of slavery. I think that we see that in those who use their freedoms as Canadians – their freedom of speech for example – to indulge in hatred and abuse of others. They can do it (I mean, yes, certain kinds of hate speech are illegal, but you can still get away with saying a lot of bad and hurtful things) but that does not lead to more freedom for yourself or anyone. In the worst cases, it leads to more division and ultimately a loss of freedom.
      Freedom is a wonderful gift. It is a gift of God given in the name of Jesus Christ. It is gift of democratic constitutions. But it is not a gift to be squandered but rather to be used by those who are able to master their own desires. That is what will protect the gifts of freedom over the long term.  And I believe that that is what God desires for us and for our country. As someone wisely wrote, “God keep our land glorious and free.”

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We are Legion

Posted by on Monday, June 24th, 2019 in Minister


Hespeler, June 23, 2019 © Scott McAndless
1 Kings 19:1-15, Psalm 42, 43, Galatians 3:23-29, Luke 8:26-39
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t had been a nice afternoon sailing expedition. Jesus and the guys had gotten into the boat and just let the winds and the currents take them wherever they would. There had been a lot of leaning back, letting their fingers drag through the water and listening to the cries of the sea birds circling overhead. And then there had been all of these stimulating discussions about the nature of God and the meaning of faith. It had been heavenly.
      And then they had made landfall, had pulled the boat up on the shore in the country of the Gerasenes and instantly their peaceful afternoon came to a crashing halt. Did you notice that? No sooner had Jesus put one foot on the land than a crazy man came running up shouting at the top of his lungs: “What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I beg you, do not torment me!”
      Except he wasn’t crazy, was he? It says that he was possessed by demons and I always wonder how we are supposed to deal with something like that as modern readers. I don’t know about you, but I don’t usually go around in this life assuming that everyone who acts a little bit different is obviously possessed by demons. In fact, I never think that way, not even when people behave in extremely strange ways or have particular disorders or mental health issues. We have learned that there are better ways to talk about such people and better ways to help them then just to write them off as being possessed by supernatural forces.

      But people in Jesus’ time did talk like that. They just assumed that demonic activity lay behind a huge variety of behaviours. Where we would look at someone and say, he is depressed, they would look at the same person and say he has a demon. More than anything else, it was a way of speaking – a way of seeing the world unfolding in the midst of competing spiritual forces.
      But, I wonder, how would we as modern folks, interpret the actions of the strange and clearly troubled individual? What would we say he was dealing with? I know you’re not supposed to diagnose somebody’s psychological problems from a distance, but let’s just try. He is hanging around the local graveyard. That tells me that we may have somebody who is dealing with issues of grief. Has he lost someone – perhaps a wife or a child – under particularly tragic circumstances? Has this left him in a state where he just doesn’t feel like he can leave the graveyard and get on with his life?
      I’ll tell you one thing about him, he is certainly a very angry individual. He lashes out at Jesus just as soon as he appears on the scene. If he is grieving about a death that has occurred; is there somebody that he blames? What is the monumental force of injustice at work in his world that he would blame for such tragedy? Or to put it better, what is the hatred that so fills him that it has taken on his entire identity? Well, that is a question that he himself answers. When Jesus asks him what his name is, he says it is Legion.
      Now I know that the gospel writer explains that name by saying that he had many demons just like there are many men in a legion. And that is true enough, but I don’t think it can be the whole explanation. You see, that word, legionreally stands out in this story – stands out in the midst of the entire gospel in fact. You see, the gospels were entirely written in Greek with only a few Aramaic words here and there (Aramaic being the language that Jesus actually spoke). But legion is not a Greek word and it is not an Aramaic word. It is a Latin word – one of the very few Latin words you will find in the Bible. What’s more, it is a Latin military term and the word that was most commonly used to talk about the Roman troops who occupied that part of the world.
      So, do you think it is possible that the thing that pushed this man over the edge and into his particular brand of demonic madness might just have had something to do with the Roman occupation of Palestine? Did he hold the legions responsible for a death? I suspect so. In a very real sense, the legion washis demon. They had entered and defiled his land trampling it down just like those unclean pigs in the nearby farm (who were by the way, no doubt being raised to be sold to the legions; there wouldn’t have been much of a Jewish market, after all).
      Now, I know that a lot of the time we treat stories like this one – stories of demon possession and exorcism – as belonging to a particular time and place that don’t have much to do with modern life. I have even heard people argue that the time of Jesus was a time of extraordinary demonic activity, perhaps precisely because the incarnation of God had appeared upon the earth and the demons were trying to fight back. That is the reason that is often given for why we have so many stories of demon possession in the New Testament but that we don’t see that today. But I don’t buy that. I think that the forces of evil are just as active in the world today as they have ever been, but we just don’t talk about them in the same way today as they did then. There are some very good reasons why we don’t talk that way, very helpful reasons, but there are some things about evil and the way it works that just don’t change. Only our language has changed.
      So, I am wondering, is there some way we could tell the story of the Gerasene demoniac and the disciples’ encounter with him that would sound familiar in our modern context? I don’t find it all that hard to imagine…
      The church has spent a long and lazy afternoon in our boat, drifting along and letting the winds and the currents of our theology and our speculations about the meanings of certain Bible passages take us where they will. And we’ve been leaning back, letting our fingers drag through the water and listening to the cries of the sea birds circling overhead as we enjoy all of the stimulating discussions about the nature of God and the meaning of faith.
      But, sooner or later, the church has to make landfall, has to make contact with the troubled people of the world. And no sooner does that happen, no sooner do we set a single foot upon the shore of the internet or of social media or some other cultural interchange than someone comes running up shouting aloud their madness. And the madness that you hear these days, it is all over the place, but it is still like the madness of that man who had been pushed over the edge by the legions that occupied his land.     
     Somebody comes running up yelling at us, “Haven’t you heard that Justin Trudeau is the love child of Fidel Castro and Maggie? Isn’t that all the proof you need to know that he’s going to lead us into a socialist hellscape?” And then there’s somebody else over there who is waving around a theory that he says proves that Andrew Scheer has a secret plan to take the entire country back in the late 1950s. Somebody else is screaming about how the very worst and most despicable things that Doug Ford is doing, he was actually forced to do because of Kathleen Wynne, and then, of course, there’s this other guy who immediately points out that everything that is less than optimal in our country is all directly caused by the carbon tax. There seems to be a growing number of people for whom their demon is called “Carbon Tax.”
      I don’t know if you’ve gone there, if you spent much time clicking around in internet forums and subreddits, but that’s kind of what it’s like out there these days. It’s not just a localized disturbance in a place called the country of the Gerasenes, it’s everywhere. You just have to put your foot out of the boat and it comes running up to you screaming. It is a madness and it’s so pervasive. It is not just one demon; they are legion.
      Now please understand what I’m saying here, I don’t have any problem with people debating questions of politics or policy. I understand when people have problems with particular leaders or parties. Discussion about those sorts of things is healthy and good. But that’s not really what I’m hearing out there these days. I’m hearing madness, and it’s a madness that seems to be possessing a lot of people. And I think it’s a problem because it is the kind of madness that might well prevent us from having the substantive discussions and disagreements that we actually need to deal with these days.
      But the good news of our story this morning from the Gospel of Luke is that we have a saviour who is not afraid to stand up to the power of evil in this world and has the power to break the demons that infect our discourse. I have to believe that that is still just a true today as it was back in the time of Jesus.
      So the question is, what can we do to confront the madness of our modern society? In the story in the gospel, the people of the local village did try certain things to deal with the madness. They tried to constrain the man. “He was kept under guard and bound with chains and shackles, but he would break the bonds and be driven by the demon into the wilds.” Containment, in other words is not going to be the solution. We are not going to banish the madness from our present political discourse, for example, by giving up on cherished freedoms like freedom of speech or freedom of association.
      Jesus did not seek to confine or punish that man in the tombs, but he did offer him a new freedom and a new way of seeing the world. There is another passage in the gospels in which Jesus speaks about the approach he took to casting out demons. “When the unclean spirit has gone out of a person, it wanders through waterless regions looking for a resting place, but not finding any, it says, ‘I will return to my house from which I came.’ When it comes, it finds it swept and put in order. Then it goes and brings seven other spirits more evil than itself, and they enter and live there; and the last state of that person is worse than the first.” (Matthew 12:43-45)
      What Jesus seems to be saying there is that it’s not enough to take the evil or the demon out of the person. That just leaves a void. If you tell people that they can’t post ridiculous fake stories on Facebook or Twitter, that will accomplish nothing. It will just leave a void that will be filled by the next ridiculously bad idea that comes along. No, Jesus is saying, you need to replace the negative behaviour with something positive. You need to give somebody a newer and better way of looking at the world.
      I think we have that; I think we can offer that. I think we can change the conversation and I’m feeling that that will be something that is more and more necessary.
      What we talk about here in our little boat, ideas like how you should not hate your enemies but love them and pray for them, ideas like the amazing grace of God and the power of new life in Christ, ideas like the one that you should welcome the stranger and the refugee and treat them with honour. These are all things that don’t simply confront the madness of our modern world, but offer an alternate to them. That alternate, I still believe, is the last best hope for what the world, our country and our community can be. That is a whole lot better than some nasty and likely untrue stories shared on social media. Will you be part of changing the conversation? I think that being part of that is becoming essential to being true followers of Christ in our modern world.

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