Minister Archives - Page 32 of 57 - St. Andrews Hespeler

Freedom!

Posted by Scott McAndless 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

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.”

We are Legion

Posted by Scott McAndless 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

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.

What’s next

Posted by Scott McAndless on Wednesday, June 12th, 2019 in Minister

I am sure that many people in our congregations are wondering what the actions of General Assembly regarding human sexuality mean and might change in the lives of our churches in the short and in the long term. Here is what I would take away:

For the moment, nothing has actually changed

The Assembly has essentially done nothing more and nothing less than send a remit (outlined above) down to Presbyteries. Nothing really changes until (or unless) that remit is approved by 50%+1 of Presbyteries representing 50%+1 of all the members of Presbyteries on the roll. Presbyteries cannot edit or amend the remit; they can only approve or reject. Assuming the remit passes this test, it will return to the subsequent General Assembly which also has the opportunity to vote on it. General Assemblies generally approve any remit that has passes through Presbyteries, but there have been a few historic exceptions. Only after all of these tests have been passed would the remit be considered to have changed the doctrine and practice of the church.

Assuming this all passes, does this change what I’m supposed to believe?

No. The intent of this seems quite clear. It acknowledges that faithful Christians may believe different things about marriage and ordination and that is okay. In many ways is the first post-modern stance that the church has ever taken, acknowledging the simple truth that we no longer live in a world where Presbyterians will believe things simply because the church tells them what they are supposed to believe.

Note, however, that while freedom of conscience is proclaimed and nobody will force anybody to participate in a same-sex wedding or ordination of LGBTQI+ clergy, that in no way gives anyone licence to treat anyone with disrespect. The church has (in other actions) rejected and repented for the sin of homophobia and no court of the church should in any sense tolerate actions or words of hatred directed at anybody because of their sexual orientation or gender identity. Members of Presbyteries will be expected to maintain good working relations despite perhaps feeling very different about these matters.

How does this change my congregation?

This decision does not force any change upon any congregation; it actually offers more freedom to congregations in their actions and decisions. Congregations will be able to marry who they want to marry within the confines of Canadian law. And congregations will be freer to choose qualified ministers to serve their congregations as they will no longer be required to discriminate on the basis of gender identity or sexual orientation. No one is going to force any congregation to call a minister who does not fit the practices and teachings that they are comfortable with.

What about LGBTQI+ candidates for ministry or calls?

As this is implemented, it should mean that any LGTBTI+ candidates should be eligible for any calls within congregations. All applications should be given the same consideration. The only bar to a candidate being called should be the prayerful and free choice of a congregation and search committee and the general suitability of the candidate.

An additional motion was passed instructing the Clerks of Assembly “to provisionally prepare guidelines to ensure that calls to LGBTQI ministers and the election of LGTBQI elders are facilitated in presbyteries and congregations.” The wording of those guidelines will be of great importance (and I do not envy the task of the clerks in writing them). These guidelines will have to make it clear that, while Presbyteries have a right and duty to examine the life and conduct of any student or candidate, nobody should be excluded simply on the grounds of their gender identity or orientation.

What will my congregation have to do?

I see nothing in any of this that requires any congregation to take a particular action. There is nothing that requires, upon the completion of this process, a session to declare what its stance is regarding marriage or ordination. It need not decide anything until such time as someone may request a same-sex marriage, an LGBTQI+ elder is elected or a potential minister applies for a position. I feel I should state this because I understand that many congregations or sessions still find it difficult to have those kinds of conversations. No one is actually obliging you to have them.

That being said, there is much to be said in favour of congregations acting proactively and staking out their own identities and positions. We are no longer living in a time and you can just assume that outsiders will know what your congregation stands for if you do not explicitly say so. Outsiders will actually assume many things and a lot of it may be very negative.

In particular, those congregations that have chosen to be affirming of LGBTQI+ people have often found that they are met with a great deal of skepticism from a community that has a history of being marginalized by the church. Therefore, simply deciding to be affirming often has little impact. People will wait to see how congregations actually demonstrate such a commitment in real life and practice.

She was nobody

Posted by Scott McAndless on Wednesday, June 12th, 2019 in Minister

This sermon has also been recorded and posted as a podcast in the Retelling the Bible podcast.
Click here find and listen to the Podcast episode: 3.6 She was nobody

Hespeler, 2 June 2019 © Scott McAndless

Acts 16:16-34, Psalm 97, Revelation 22:12-14, 16-17, 20-21, John 17:20-26

he was nobody, really. She was just low-level employee, another cog in the machine. She didn’t even have a name – well, I mean she had a name, it’s just that her name was so insignificant and she was so unremarkable that she might as well not have had a name.

I tell you this because you need to understand just how unimportant she was, how unimportant she was constantly reminded that she was. And, because she was so insignificant, when ithappened, she tried to convince herself that there was no point in even trying to do anything about it.

The man who had done it to her was really important, you see. Everyone said that he had the entire company on his back. He was the one who would make them profitable again. He was the one who demanded and received that top salary and the million-dollar bonuses together with lucrative stock options. He was also the face of the company and if anything at all happened to tarnish his reputation well, let’s just say that the stockholders were not going to be very happy. In all truth she told herself – she kept trying to tell herself – she should have been flattered that he had even noticed her much less put forward that… proposition.

Somehow, she had managed to scrape together enough self-respect to actually go and talk to the human resources committee and they had actually tried to be (what’s the word?) helpful. In fact, they had very helpfullysuggested that she must have really misunderstood everything. She was young and naïve; she had just taken it wrong. Of course, he would never have meant that. She was just being hysterical (which is kind of a modernized way of saying, I suppose, that she was possessed by a demon). “Either way,” they soothed her, “it’s not your fault but it really wouldn’t do anybody any good – least of all you – to do anything foolish like file a formal report. There is no point in putting you through all that aggravation and paperwork when it doesn’t really accomplish anything. Maybe if you would just dress a bit more… conservatively he wouldn’t be distracted, and everyone will just get along so much better.”

So, she had just gone along. She had put her head down and gone back to work and told herself, again and again, that everything was fine. Of course, everything wasn’t fine. It was around that time that her relationship with her boyfriend fell apart. He said that he couldn’t take it, the way that she would jump every time he even touched her. The chronic depression set in soon after. She was referred to various counselors and therapists, but effective therapy usually depends on the patient being able to talk openly and honestly about where the problems came from. She dared not speak of the real causes of her depression so there was no help to be found in therapy. At least the pills helped to keep things under control a little bit. And that became her life – the long daily struggle with the demons that seemed to be multiplying inside her as she just did her best to try to keep it all together.

And then her world fell apart all over again. Nobody planned it; it just happened. She overheard two new employees in the company – their names were Paul and Silas – as they were talking one day with a few friends. They were talking about another friend of theirs who didn’t work at the company – a man named, uh, Jesus, but they liked to call him “the anointed one” too.

The woman had never heard of this Jesus before, but once she had heard only a little, she knew that she had to hear more. It wasn’t hard. She was really good at not being noticed and so all she had to do was make a point of sitting at the table next to Paul and Silas every day. They never really talked about anything other than this Jesus. And so she learned from Paul (who usually had much more to say than his friend Silas) that if anyone was in this Anointed One of his, that person was a new creation and everything became new. He also said that when people were in the Anointed One, old categories like Jew and Greek, male and female, employee and management didn’t even mean anything anymore. He spoke of change being possible – change that was so radical that it was like you had died and been born again to an entirely new life.

He spoke of all this and more with such conviction and eloquence that she was totally swept away by the very ideas. She didn’t yet understand all that he was talking about, didn’t understand how it was that one came to be in this Anointed One of theirs. But she still couldn’t stop thinking about what they were saying. It seemed to offer her a path out of the darkness that she carried with her every day. She began talking about it all around the office to anyone who would listen and even to those you had no interest in listening. It became a distraction and, honestly, an annoyance to many. No one was more annoyed than the two men that she was talking about: Paul and Silas.

Please understand that I am not trying to paint Paul as a hero here. He was really only thinking of himself and the trouble she was causing for him. So one day he just pulled her over to a side table in the lunchroom and laid it out for her. He told her that she was a child of God and that this Jesus he was always talking about was a real person – a real person who had lived and died and, most important of all, had been raised from the dead. He told her that all she had to do was to trust that that was true. If she would put her trust in Jesus, he would raise her up too and that any regrets or mistakes or burdens she carried from her past would never have to drag her down again.

He said all of this and more. And his motive in saying this, as I say, was a little bit selfish. He wanted her to calm down. He wanted her to leave him and Silas alone. And it kind of worked. What she had really wanted was to better understand what they had been talking about. So, it did soothe her to understand it all better. She resolved to get to know this Jesus of Paul’s and to learn to trust him. She found a certain peace and that did help to stop the disturbances that she had been causing.

But, in some ways, it may have worked too well. The more that she learned about this Jesus and the more that she learned to trust him, it also made her see herself a little bit differently. She saw herself as a child of God, created in the image of God and, even better, recreated in the image of the Anointed One. She reasoned that, if Jesus had died for her and had been raised for her, then she must matter. Her feelings and her thoughts and her memories could matter.

That is what gave her the strength one day to tell Silas the story of what the executive had done to her and how it had made her feel. Silas was horrified and, though he knew that it would only lead to trouble, realized that the only way she would find the full healing she needed would be if she was able to tell the whole story of what had happened to her.

Two weeks later, the entire company was in turmoil. When the accusations finally came out, they were part of a major investigative report in a prominent newspaper. The journalist had gone digging and discovered that, once one person had come forward, many other of the same man’s victims over many years also began to speak out. There was a flurry of hashtags on Twitter. It was bad, and yet the board was not willing to do anything for fear of tarnishing the name of the man on whom they had staked so many of their hopes for economic success. The stock price went into free-fall and the stockholders were furious that their hope of making money was gone.

The very best public relations firm in the country was brought in and their advice was clear. Everyone was angry and the person who they felt was to blame for all of this chaos was the woman who had dared to talk to the press. But the PR people warned the company that they could not take any action against her; it would only make a very bad situation look so much worse.

Nevertheless, an internal investigation was started to find somebody to blame for everything that was going wrong because, I’ll tell you, the executive and the board were not about to accept any blame at all. It really didn’t take very long for someone to point out that a couple of new employees, Paul and Silas, had been talking about all sorts of radical ideas at the water cooler and in the lunchroom. In particular, they were sharing the crazed notions of some person named Jesus. They had heard that this name had caused disruptions in other workplaces in similar ways. Workers had gotten all “uppity,” because they were told things like that they mattered or that they had inherent value. (I mean, really!) Many other places had also seen things happen that affected their profits negatively as well.

So, it seemed, management had their scapegoats. A Human Resources process was quickly arranged. Of course, they could hardly charge Paul and Silas with inciting someone to make a harassment complaint. That might make things worse. That is why the official complaint said, “These men are disturbing the workplace; they are advocating customs that are not part of our corporate culture.”

They didn’t want to fire them, that might attract the attention of the press. But they did transfer them to lowly positions in the Information Technology department in the deepest basement. There they would labour away in windowless rooms under the harsh light of fluorescent tubes while the computer hard drives spun and the servers blinked. It was the corporate equivalent of jail. Best of all, of course, they would be far away from everyone else and would have very few opportunities to infect other employees with their insidious ideas.

I can’t begin to tell you how frustrated management was when they discovered that Paul and Silas didn’t really feel like they had been punished at all. The reports that came back from the deep sub-basement were that Paul and Silas were actually enjoying their shifts. Rumours were that when people went down into the depths of the building, they could often hear them singing. I mean, can you imagine that? Nobody had been caught singing at work in decades!

But that was exactly what Paul and Silas were doing late one afternoon when the disaster struck. The server crashed, the database was corrupted and the entire IT system went down. The supervisor, who just happened to be away from his post on a well-deserved break at the time, came rushing back, but it was too late. There was nothing left to be done. He would have to rebuild almost everything all over again. He cried out in despair; it was like his career was over. But then, when Paul heard him, he cried out in response: “Fear not, my brother. You are not alone. We are still here, and we will help you.”

But the IT leader was not overly comforted. “What can you do for me,” he said. “What can I do. There is nothing that has been backed up. What hope is there if nothing has been saved,” “Ah,” said Paul, “now saving is something that we know a few things about. Have you ever heard the name of a person called Jesus?”

So goes the story in the Book of Acts. It is not just an ancient story with elements, like demon possession and slavery that seem so unfamiliar to us. It is a shockingly modern story, a story that still plays out to this very day and that is because it is a story of the name of Jesus and how powerful that name truly is for transforming people’s lives.

The most significant thing that happened at Assembly

Posted by Scott McAndless on Friday, June 7th, 2019 in Minister

I am sure that many people who have read my blog posts from General Assembly might assume that I was only interested in the part of the discussions that we had around human sexuality. I felt a certain urgency to communicate my feelings about such things, but there were things that overshadowed them in my mind and heart.

Though I know that it is not a contest and there are many things that were extremely important because they deeply affect people’s lives and that is especially true with it comes to those who identify as LGBTQI+, the fact of the matter is that if you were to press me to say what was the most significant moment of Assembly, it wouldn’t have to do with that.

This Assembly contained many moments that were very important to the church’s relationship with its Indigenous ministries and neighbours.

25^th Anniversary celebration

The Assembly celebrated the 25^thanniversary of the confession of the church to the Indigenous people for our part in the Residential School System. It was a solemn occasion and, as we stood together, the moderator led us, in a spirit of continuing confession, by reading the text that had been approved by the church so many years ago. As our calm, cool and ever so competent moderator read the confession, everyone noticed that her voice broke as she read the words “The Presbyterian Church in Canada agreed to take the children of Aboriginal peoples…” and for a moment she could not go on. Everyone knew that her heart was breaking in that moment and I suspect many other hearts broke too. That was a significant moment to share, but it was not the most significant.

A Report Released

Even as we met and celebrated the 25^thAnniversary, the final report of the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls was being released in Gatineau Quebec. Through its work, this inquiry has exposed a massive and ongoing emergency situation in Canadian society. It is a crisis and it is now thoroughly documented. I encourage everyone to read the documents that can be downloaded at this link:

Final Inquiry Report

The document contains many “Calls to Action” – 231 in all. And that struck me because I realized that, at our Assembly, we were still working on implementing some of the calls to action from the Truth and Reconciliation Commissionof four years previously. Now here were more, and there had always been an urgency to all of it.

In fact, I remembered that I was at the Assembly four years ago when the TRC report came out, mere days before the Assembly met. In my reports from Assembly, I did not mention any calls to action from that report and I was called out on that fact by an Indigenous friend of mine. I tried to explain to her that the Assembly had simply not had the time to say anything of substance because that is not the way we work – it takes time for us to digest something through our committees before we can do anything.

That was my excuse at that time, but it was a hollow one. Honestly, “the way we do things,” is actually what got us into so many messes! So, when I saw the calls to action from the new report, I resolved that my Indigenous friend would not have anything to fault me on. I wrote a motion referring the entire report to the Life and Mission agency and to the Indigenous Ministry Council to review the calls to action and show us ways to implement them. (I did not write the motion exactly that way, but it was helpfully amended on the floor).

You can see part of the motion on the screen behind the Rev. Margaret Mullen.

But that, I felt, was not quite enough. The report contained a series of calls of actions to all Canadians – things that all Canadians can do. I looked at that list and said, “I can do that right now; we can all do that right now.” So I crafted a motion to respond to an emergency situation. We, as commissioners, would resolve and encourage all congregations and presbyteries to resolve to take the following actions (taken verbatim from the report):

Denounce and speak out against violence against Indigenous women, girls, and 2SLGBTQQIA people.
Decolonize by learning the true history of Canada and Indigenous history in your local area. Learn about and celebrate Indigenous Peoples’ history, cultures, pride, and diversity, acknowledging the land you live on and its importance to local Indigenous communities, both historically and today.
Develop knowledge and read the Final Report. Listen to the truths shared, and acknowledge the burden of these human and Indigenous rights violations, and how they impact Indigenous women, girls, and 2SLGBTQQIA people today.
Using what you have learned and some of the resources suggested, become a strong ally. Being a strong ally involves more than just tolerance; it means actively working to break down barriers and to support others in every relationship and encounter in which you participate.
Confront and speak out against racism, sexism, ignorance, homophobia, and transphobia, and teach or encourage others to do the same, wherever it occurs: in your home, in your workplace, or in social settings.
Protect, support, and promote the safety of women, girls, and 2SLGBTQQIA people by acknowledging and respecting the value of every person and every community, as well as the right of Indigenous women, girls, and 2SLGBTQQIA people to generate their own, self-determined solutions.
Create time and space for relationships based on respect as human beings, supporting and embracing differences with kindness, love, and respect. Learn about Indigenous principles of relationship specific to those Nations or communities in your local area and work, and put them into practice in all of your relationships with Indigenous Peoples.

Yes, I had to read the whole thing out on the floor and did not do anywhere near as well as our esteemed moderator! I know I was asking a lot of Assembly, but I believe that they were truly willing to do what was being proposed, or at least they would have been if they had had enough time to absorb and understand what it really meant. Unfortunately, other matters and time constraints made that impossible. There was just no possibility to take the time to really absorb it. Nevertheless, I would still encourage my fellow commissioners to take up those challenges personally and in their congregations. I would encourage the whole church to do so.

Indigenous Ministry Council

This whole exercise led to another key significant Assembly moment for me. I was later approached by one of the members Indigenous Ministry Council. She had come to thank me for the action and told me that her mother is counted among the murdered women of the report. We talked about the impact that her mother’s death has had upon her and her family and she gave to me a copy of the poster with her mother’s name and a picture of her mother and sister. She asked me not to share that picture on social media so I will not include it here, but I can promise you that that picture will remain with me and will mean a lot to me for a very long time.

That conversation with Yvonne was an extremely significant moment for me, but it was still not the most significant.

To the sound of a solitary drum beat

No, I actually think that my most significant moment came with the simple passing of a short motion. With a simple vote, the Assembly repudiated a very longstanding doctrine: the Doctrine of Discovery. This is the doctrine that states that the territories that were “discovered” by European explorers and colonists could be claimed by them because they were not inhabited by people who were like us. Of course, it is an odious doctrine that should have been repudiated long ago, but I got to be there when it happened.

The announcement that the motion was carried was not met with applause because we don’t do that kind of thing at Assembly (for some very good reasons). But I did note that the announcement was heralded by a solitary beat on a native drum.

I do not know which of my indigenous siblings beat the drum, but I feel honoured to have heard it.

It was all our heartbeats in that moment.

It was the heartbeat of a church learning new ways to think of its relationship with indigenous communities.

It was a resounding and impelling call to action echoing the calls to action from two important reports.

The echo of that drumbeat faded quickly; may the reverberations of our action linger long.

That, if you were to press me, I’d have to say was the most significant moment of the Assembly.

Honoured to have been in the room where it happened

Posted by Scott McAndless on Thursday, June 6th, 2019 in Minister

As I left the meeting of the General Assembly today there were many of the beautiful hymns and songs that we sang during Assembly still ringing in my ears and in my heart. But I also found myself singing another song to myself – one from the musical Hamilton:

Now, in the musical, Aaron Burr is not singing about the exact experience that I feel that I had over the last few days. In his song he is actually lamenting the fact that he is shut out of the room where a significant decision was made and also the obscurity of what happened and the mystery of the give-and-take negotiations. That is not what I experienced at assembly. But I think I did experience the power of being part of a significant event where significant decisions are being made.

I have blogged on each of the meeting days when we have discussed matters of human sexuality and would suggest that, if you haven't read those posts first, you could read my previous posts before this one before reading this one.

Emotionally exhausted and privileged

How do I feel at the end of another very long and exhausting day?

Here are my takeaways from three days of discussion.

When given the first real opportunity in a very long time to actually state what they wanted for the church, a significant majority freely stated that they wanted to be inclusive of LGBTQI+ persons. That is very significant. But, if my reading of the room is accurate, I would also say it was the clear desire of the Assembly to be as inclusive as possible in every way possible. The options that we were given to choose from spelled out what the committee of Former Moderators felt were the implications of the inclusion option, but that does not mean that the Assembly wanted to implement it in exactly that way.

The following day of Assembly, the court took the opportunity to listen and empathize with those who felt excluded or hurt by the decision of the previous day. This was an important and necessary thing to happen although it was certainly difficult. As I have said elsewhere, I was a little bit tempted to see some irony in our listening to people who, while they were in the majority, were quite unwilling to allow for any leeway for those in a minority position and who did exclude them and now found themselves in the minority and complaining about feeling excluded when no one had asked them or wanted them to leave. But lament is important and I believe that everyone did very well to listen. I believe that we learned that we did not want to replicate the errors of the past by alienating sisters and brothers who were now in a minority position. I certainly went to sleep that night thinking that I did not want to respond to others as they had responded to LGBTQI+ people but that I wanted to respond to them as I wished they had responded to LGBTQI+ people.

Thursday morning.

On the final day of Assembly, we only had a morning session and very little time. What happened in that room was nothing short of extraordinary. Late into the night and then again early in the morning, a significant group of people from various backgrounds and positions came together and had the discussion that we should have had a long time ago. They talked about how the church could move together into the future while embracing the decision of the Assembly to opt for inclusion. As a result of their faithful work, the General Assembly was able, with a little bit of tweaking, of course, to prepare a remit to send down to Presbyteries that, I believe was a faithful interpretation of what the Assembly actually desired.

I do not think that this act of constructing our own way of implementing the pathway was a case of using procedural maneuvers to circumvent the actual will of the people. (Lord knows that we Presbyterians do that kind of thing all the time, but I don’t think that this was that.) It was a genuine attempt to try and say what we truly wanted for the church.

As a result, these remits that will go down to presbyteries (this may not be the official wording, but it is certainly close):

that the PCC hold two parallel definitions of marriage, one which understands marriage as a covenant relationship between a man and a woman or as a covenant relationship between two adult persons; and that congregations, sessions, ruling and teaching elders be granted liberty of conscience and action on marriage.
that congregations and presbyteries can call LGBQTI people (married or single) as a minster and elect as ruling elders, and there is freedom of conscience on this.

I believe that the Holy Spirit was in this work and so I did support the motions with enthusiasm.

Part of what the Assembly is saying is just a recognition of reality. We cannot impose upon people particular beliefs about marriage or about ordination. That is something that we have actually proved very clearly over the last several years as we have tried to impose so-called traditional views upon the church and have clearly failed spectacularly. I have recognized for quite some time that good and faithful Christians may have different understandings of marriage for various reasons as have many others. While we should have recognized this a long time ago, it is certainly good to recognize it now. We can't undo the past but we can certainly do better in the future.

That is what I am taking away from this Assembly, but I also recognize that many others may not be able to understand what I was able to see in that room and how I could sense the movement of the spirit. I was in the room and others weren't. It was a great privilege to be there and part of it. It is also a great responsibility. Others, who were not in the room, may not understand because what happened wasn't just about words. I know that it is my job now as a commissioner to tell the story of what it was like to be in the room where it happened. I guess it is every commissioner's job.

I know that not every commissioner experienced it as I did, but I pray that they do tell their story and that we all better understand what happened in the room. I do believe that God was there and that the Holy Spirit was at work. I am very grateful to have been in the room where it happened.

How do I feel at the end of another very long and exhausting day?

Posted by Scott McAndless on Wednesday, June 5th, 2019 in Minister

The first General Assembly that I attended as a commissioner was shortly after I was ordained and was held in Charlottetown Prince Edward Island. Sometime before that, there was a church in Lachine QC in my Presbytery of Montreal that had knowingly called as their minister a gay man who was in a committed relationship with another man. (They were not married, as this was not legal in Canada at the time.) Because the support of that congregation for that particular minister was so clear, the Presbytery had sustained that call – had basically said that it should be permitted to go forward. I agreed, not because I had entirely made up my mind on such matters at that point in time, but because I felt that it was only right to honour the choice and will of the congregation.

That action of Presbytery had been appealed. So, when I went to that General Assembly, the decision of our Presbytery to sustain the call was being judged by the Assembly.

Knowing full well that the doctrine of the church at that time did not permit that man to be ordained as a minister, we, as commissioners, argued that the compassionate and loving thing would be, nevertheless, to allow that congregation to have the minister that they wanted. Surely, we could make an exception for extraordinary circumstances! The answer, at that Assembly, was a clear no. There was no room for any compromise.

I must say that in all my years as a Presbyterian minister since that time, the answer has remained a very clear and exclusionary one. In those years, the numbers of clergy and members of the church who were quite okay with the idea of calling an LGBT+ minister or participating in a same-sex marriage (since legalized of course) has only grown and if this year’s Assembly is an indication of the makeup of the whole church, grown to form a significant majority.

And yet, in all those years, was there any space for compromise? It was officially and continually stated that there could be no compromise in the courts of the church, though I certainly have observed that the courts of the church have been happy enough to look the other way and not notice many things during those years.

And really, that is what I have experienced right up until the beginning of this Assembly. Just a month ago, I went to my Presbytery with a plea to recognize that there are some congregations in our Presbytery who are quite happy to fully include LGBTQ people in their congregations, so why not just let them do what they believe God has called them to do? Why not just compromise and create policies within the Presbytery that would just allow them to go ahead? I tried to speak of this possibility to Presbytery but I was not even allowed to so much as put forward such an idea for the discussion. The doctrine of the church was clear, I was told, and therefore there could be no compromise for particular congregations, it seemed.

Today, only a month later, at General Assembly, we have spent a goodly amount of time listening to people who now suddenly found themselves in the minority calling for compassion and compromise. They have asked us to please find some way for them to continue to have only the ministers that they want and to participate only in the marriages that they want to participate in, even though the majority will of the church seems to have shifted.

And I heard their hurt and their pain. They felt as if they and their churches were being excluded much like that church in Lachine had been excluded those many years before. (Except, of course, the Church in Lachine was literally kicked out and nobody was talking about kicking anybody out today.)

I wondered a lot today about how that made me feel. There were a couple of times when I will admit that I was tempted to say to myself, isn’t it a little bit late now to be talking about compromise? Isn’t it a little bit late to be talking about making space for the minority view?

I will admit that the thought did cross my mind. Maybe, in all those years, if the church had been willing to put some compromise workarounds in place, it would be so easy now to extend that same spirit of compromise to them. But, as I said, the answer had always been no.

But, though the thought did occur to me, I need to say at the end of another long and very tiring day, that I have absolutely no desire for that to be how I respond or how the church responds. It is my hope and prayer that tomorrow, as the General Assembly gives final shape to what will be sent down from this Assembly to the church, that we do create a generous space to compromise and to make it clear the congregations will be able to continue to believe what they believe and practice how they choose to practice and that they will continue, in the long-term, to be able to call the ministers that they choose and who believe in practice the faith as they desire.

I have no doubt that there are many people drafting amendments tonight that will make space for such compromise. I won’t take a shot at drafting one myself, but I will seek to support proposals that give to congregations, sessions and their ministers full freedom of conscience and belief. I want congregations to be able to have the ministers that they choose. I just wish we had been practicing such compromise before now.

It is kind of all that I ever wanted.

Emotionally exhausted and privileged.

Posted by Scott McAndless on Tuesday, June 4th, 2019 in Minister

It has been a long day and an exhausting day on both an emotional and physical level, but I feel very privileged to have been part of it.

As a General Assembly, we spent almost the entire day working our way through a process designed by a committee of former moderators help us discern the guidance of the Holy Spirit on a pathway forward for our denomination.

I believe that the process worked -- that is, I believe that the Spirit spoke and that we listened.

I saw an Assembly that was actually focussed on working prayerfully and carefully together. I saw an Assembly that was actually interested in talking about the substance of the issues that were before us instead of getting bogged down on procedure like we so often do.

I saw hearts and minds change and evolve through the process and knew that the Spirit was working on my own heart.

It was a process that was not about winning or losing but about finding a path that we could live with together as much as possible. That process led us to a place where the Assembly was able to choose as the best way forward a path that would affirm the full participation of LGBTQI individuals in the life of the church.

My Feelings this Evening.

I feel content with the work of the Assembly today because I do feel that God was in it and the Holy Spirit was moving in the room.

I am happy for what this action says to LGBTQI individuals who have felt rejected, unloved and even been abused by the church. I am happy for the LGBTQI youth who have been placed into extreme situations, who have contemplated or attempted suicide because of the rejection that they have experience at the hand of the church. I am happy that I feel much more able to say to anyone that I may meet that, yes, they are truly welcome in the church as they are. I am happy for what this says to our youth who would never even consider rejecting their LGBTQI friends because of who they are.

I am sad because I know that some of my Christian brothers and sisters are hurt by this action and because some might feel that they must leave. I pray that we may continue in unity and shared work. I love them and appreciate them very much for who they are.

What this doesn't mean

This doesn't mean that this is over or that a final decision has been made. A number of details will need to be worked out. In addition, legislation will be prepared and sent down under the barrier act. That means that the motion will need to be sent to the Presbyteries of the denomination and will need to be approved by a majority of them before being brought back to a future General Assembly for approval. This is a significant first step, but it is not the end of the journey.
Will every Presbyterian be expected to agree with full inclusion? No. We believe that we can belong to the church without agreeing about everything. Congregations will not be obliged to perform any marriages that they do not wish to perform. Congregations will continue to be able to call whomever they want as their minister. I believe that we can and should happily continue to make places in our congregations for people who do not or cannot believe in full inclusion. No one should feel obliged to leave.

I honour the process that I have participated in today and so I feel that I must continue to support the pathway that the Assembly has chosen to take in any way I can.

Step by step

Posted by Scott McAndless on Sunday, May 19th, 2019 in Minister

Acts 11:1-18, Psalm 148, Revelation 21:1-6, John 13:31-35

n our reading this morning from the Book of Acts, Simon Peter is in hot water. He is being criticized and called to heel before all of the leaders of the church in Jerusalem. This is a case of discipline and there are lots of people complaining about him. I wouldn’t want to be in his sandals.

And what has he done – what could be so terrible that it would bring down the collective wrath of the entire church upon Peter’s head? Well, it was something that was so unspeakable that I do not know if it I should dare to say it, but here goes. Peter… Peter… went to the home of some people and had supper with them. I mean, can you imagine! But it was a real scandal. And it was a scandal because of who those people were. They were uncircumcised, that is to say, they were not Jews. You see, in our reading this morning, the Christian church is on the cusp of one of the greatest changes it will ever face in its entire existence.

The Christian church had from its very origins, from the time of Jesus and his first disciples, been an entirely Jewish affair. Every single Christian had been a Jew and they all easily assumed that it would always be so. What’s more, they all assumed that the Christian Church would always maintain the same kind of separation that was expected of all Jews. That meant that they could not associate with Gentiles and above all that meant that they could not eat with them. Simon Peter had broken a cardinal rule for being a Christian at that point in time.

It is hard for us to even appreciate the change that Peter is introducing to the church at this moment. He is pushing boundaries that nobody wanted pushed and introducing change so profound that, within a matter of decades, the church will be so transformed that few of the people in it at this point in time will even recognize it. The church will very quickly become totally dominated by Gentiles both in its membership and in its culture and this moment, when Simon Peter is being lambasted by everybody, is the key moment at the beginning of that change. It all starts here.

I find this rather fascinating because, of course, this may be the first time, but it is hardly the last time that the Christian church will have to deal with such radical change. And, what’s more, we are given something very special in this reading this morning. Simon Peter, as he defends himself before this inquiry, gives his reasons. “Then Peter began to explain it to them,” it says. And how does he explain it? He explains it “step by step.”

Those words really jumped out at me when I read this passage from the Book of Acts. Change, you see, is something that we are often frightened of and the reason why we are frightened of it is that it seems so big. It’s like you get up one morning and look around and realize that absolutely everything is different. And, yes, that is how we often do experience significant change in our lives, but it is not actually how change usually occurs. Change occurs step by step and Peter is doing a great favour for the church by breaking down those steps. In fact, he may even be giving us a template for how healthy change actually works in the church.

So, let us take a look at the step by step that Peter gives to the church. In the first step, Peter starts out in a bit of discomfort. This isn’t actually included in the account that Peter gives in this passage but we know it from the previous chapter of the Book of Acts. It all started out with Peter feeling a bit peckish. He was hungry and was waiting for a meal to be prepared for quite a while. This is not a minor point. Real change always starts with a certain amount of discomfort. We usually get to a point where our traditions and our ways of doing things are not quite satisfying us or helping us like they once did. That is one big reason why I would say that the church is ripe for change these days – the level of discomfort with what we once never questioned is at an all-time high.

But the big question is what do you do with that discomfort. It is notable the Peter is in no mind whatsoever to just throw out the tradition and teaching that he has received. But his discomfort does seem to lead him to reflect on that tradition in a Holy Spirit inspired way. The discomfort takes him back to the tradition but also allows him to reflect on it a new point of view.

And so, we have the hunger and Spirit-driven vision of Peter. Three times Peter sees a great sheet lowered from heaven, a sheet filled with animals of all kinds and Peter is invited to kill and eat without discrimination. But the problem is that, all his life, he has been told that the very last thing that he can do is eat without discrimination. In fact, discrimination – not just concerning what kinds of animals you can eat but concerning just about everything – has been at the very centre of his faith and his identity as a Jew. So, the vision takes him back to the very source of that requirement to discriminate and forces him to see it from an angle that he may have never considered before. “What God has made clean, you must not call profane,” insists the heavenly voice not once but three times.

Peter is here being forced to openly question not just the traditions of his people but also the scriptures themselves. That idea may be very shocking to some. I often hear people say that because we honour the scriptures, we should never question them. But I would argue that such a position is not honouring scripture at all. If you are truly willing to respect the scriptures, you need to be willing to enter into a conversation with them, to ask how they apply to various situations and to question them when they don’t seem to make sense. A lot of Christians seem to want to use the Bible to end all conversations by giving a final answer. That is not what the Bible was intended to do. For a faithful believer, the Bible is supposed to be something that begins conversations, conversations that take us deeper into knowledge of Jesus Christ.

We see that exact thing happening in Peter’s vision. When he is challenged to “Get up… kill and eat,” he responds with the very clear teaching of scripture as he understood it at that time: “By no means, Lord; for nothing profane or unclean has ever entered my mouth.”That is supposed to be a conversation ender. “I can’t eat indiscriminately. The Bible says it; that settles it!” But the Holy Spirit makes it clear that that is not the end of the conversation but rather the beginning because of what we now understand about the God who has been revealed in Jesus Christ: “What God has made clean, you must not call profane.”

So this vision of Peter is really important in the development of this change that is brewing for the church, but it is still the beginning of the conversation. It is just one step in Peter’s step by step account, and he actually leaves the vision more confused than anything else. The next step comes when he actually meets some people – people that he has always been told that he has to discriminate against. The particular individuals are not named in our passage but if you read the previous chapter you discover that they are the people in the household of Cornelius, a Roman Centurion who live in Caesarea, the Roman Capital of Judea. Peter goes to them and they eagerly respond to the message of Jesus Christ.

This encounter with real, flesh and blood people is clearly a very important step in this significant change in the life of the church, but it is one that I think we often discount. In the church, we have traditionally been very good at studying and interpreting the scriptures and their original meanings. We have also been pretty good at reflecting on the revelation of God in the person of Jesus Christ and allowing that to challenge us to the see the scriptures in new ways. Where we often have trouble is in taking all of that and applying it to the lives of real people and their struggles. We fail to meet people where they are. We are often too quick to discriminate or judge people for what is going on in their lives or who they are. But Peter finds that it is only when he starts to apply his insights to the people in Cornelius’ household that it all makes sense. This too is the action of the Spirit.

What I’m saying is that we need to get beyond the simple doctrines and theologies that we are often so obsessed with. Our faith has to be a faith that is practical and goes beyond mere ideas. I realize that I’m saying this as much to myself as I am to anybody else. We preachers, after all, do have a tendency to try and keep it all in the headspace and deal only in ideas. But we dare not forget that the faith that we talk about and the faith that we show to the world has to speak to the real-life needs of people and meet them where they are. When we forget that, we miss a vital step in the long journey that the Holy Spirit is taking his church on.

There is one final step in the story that Peter tells the church about the change that God is bringing about. It is a final confirmation of the work of the Spirit in people’s lives. Peter says, “And as I began to speak, the Holy Spirit fell upon them just as it had upon us at the beginning.” While Peter was sharing the Gospel message with the household of Cornelius, something happened that made it quite plain that God’s Spirit was present and active in the gathered people. From what he says, it seems to have been the same kind of ecstasy that the very first Christians had experienced on Pentecost when they did things like speak in strange languages. But what exactly happened to the group of people who were gathered in Cornelius’ home is not actually what matters here. What matters is that there was something that clearly showed that the Spirit was at work in people’s lives.

This is indeed the final step in the kinds of transformation that God would like to bring about in our churches. It may start with a certain sense of discontent, when people are feeling a certain dissatisfaction with the answers they have always been given or with the ways that things have always been done. This dissatisfaction then leads us back into our scriptures and traditions, not to seek simple yes or no answers but to finally begin a real conversation with the scriptures about what they say and how we need to understand those things in the light of what Jesus Christ has revealed to us about God. Then we get practical in helping people apply those lessons to their lives and work.

But the final confirmation comes when we see the evidence of the work of the Spirit in people’s lives – when we see lives and relationships transformed, when we see people finding new meaning to their lives, new depths to their ability to love. These kinds of miracles do happen in people’s lives and when we see them, we must celebrate them and rejoice in this evidence that God is indeed in the process of doing something new among us.

So think about the change that God wants to bring about in the church. Do not fear it. God is not interested in turning our whole world upside down all at once. But if we are open to it, God will take us through the journey of necessary change step by step. This is something that God does because he loves us and expects great things from us.

How do you solve a problem like Tabitha?

Posted by Scott McAndless on Sunday, May 12th, 2019 in Minister

Acts 9:36-43, Psalm 23, Revelation 7:9-17, John 10:22-30

here is a book that we know was extremely popular in the early Christian church. You might call it a second century best-seller though few know it today. It was read by Christians in churches spread throughout the Greek-speaking world but it was a book that did not ultimately make it into the Bible. It was called, “The Acts of Paul and Thecla.”

It told the story of a woman named Thecla who overhears the preaching of the Apostle Paul while sitting at a window. As a result, Thecla, who has been promised in marriage to a man by her family, decides that she doesn’t want to get married. Instead she leaves and becomes a devoted follower of Paul. This is seen as a terrible and rebellious act which results in the arrests of both Paul and Thecla. As the story progresses, Thecla is condemned to death a couple of times in creative ways. She is set on fire, thrown to the wild beasts and there are several attempted rapes. She survives it all and does things like put on men’s clothing, baptize herself and preach the gospel. It is actually a pretty exciting adventure all-in-all and I get why it was so popular.

Now, there is no way of knowing if Thecla was a real person and how much of her story really happened. I kind of suspect that the part when a female lion protected her from all the other beasts in the arena might be, let’s say, a bit exaggerated. But, no matter how much of her story really happened, I think that the simple fact that the book was undeniably popular in the early church actually tells us a lot.

The early Christian Church came into being in a society – ancient Mediterranean society – in which women were systematically shut out of any exercise of power. Women were worse than second-class citizens. But it wasn’t just that they were looked down upon, they were actually seen as dangerous. You can detect a distinct theme of fear of women throughout that ancient society. Women were so dangerous, it was commonly believed, that every woman needed to live her whole life under the authority of a man. She was to be under her father’s authority until such time as he was passed her on to her husband. If her husband died before her, then it was understood that her son would take charge of her. That was just how it was supposed to be and there were not supposed to be any exceptions.

When there were exceptions, like when Thecla refused to marry or when a widow without a son didn’t remarry, that was seen as a crisis – a problem to be managed. And so, for example, the story of Thecla being condemned to death for walking away from her arranged marriage would have been entirely believable in the first century.

Now, when the Christian Church first started out, I’m pretty sure that it was just assumed that the church would go along with the restrictions on women that were part of that society. There are no indications in the opening chapters of the Book of Acts that the church had any place for independent females. And, after all, what did the church have to go on in those early years? All they had were the teachings of Jesus that had been passed onto them and the scriptures. And when I say the scriptures, what I mean are the books of what we call the Old Testament. The New Testament would take quite a while to establish.

The scriptures certainly wouldn’t have given the church much reason to give leadership roles to women; there are very few examples of that in the Old Testament. And as for the example of Jesus, well it seems that he did have some independent women in his discipleship group. That was certainly scandalous in his time. But, in the early church, they seem to have tried to back off from that example. It was just safer that way.

But then, the Book of Acts tells us, something happened. The leaders of the early church ran into people like Tabitha. You see, there is something strange going on in our reading from the Book of Acts this morning. Simon Peter and the other male leaders of the church are busy doing male leadership stuff like organizing the churches. “Now as Peter went here and there among all the believers, he came down also to the saints living in Lydda,” is how the passage before the one we read this morning starts. But while he is doing his supervising, he gets an urgent message from Joppa. Something strange is going on there. There is a group of women there – and it seems to be a large and well-organized group. They are collectively called the widows.

And I know that we would hear that and say, what’s the big deal, so there are a bunch of widows in Joppa. But it is actually a very big deal that ancient readers would have noticed because they would have found the very idea of a large group of women who are not under the control of any men to be a very scary thing! This was something that was not generally tolerated in that society. Most women who lost their husbands would have been pushed to marry again as soon as possible. But here, in Joppa, these women have remained not only independent but also very active. Their leader in this is this woman named Tabitha and under her leadership, they are devoted to good works and charity and, in particular, they make clothes together for people who need them.

This reflects a reality that we know existed in the early church. There were, in many churches, large groups of widows who banded together and did these kinds of good works. There is an extended passage in the First Letter of Timothy that deals with regulating the activities of such groups in churches. But the very existence of such groups doesn’t really seem to have been anticipated in the organization of the church as it started out. Nobody gave the women of the church that kind of power and independence. They just took it and did something amazing with it.

It reminds me of something that happened in our own Presbyterian Church over its long history. You see, there was a time many years ago when women where barred from holding any leadership positions in our churches. Women could not be ministers and they could not be elders. Those restrictions were based, I would say, partially on misreadings and misinterpretations of the Bible but probably even more on certain patriarchal attitudes that were an essential part of western society at that time.

But, wherever they came from, those restrictions were there. And so, let me ask you, what did Presbyterian women in our churches do about those restrictions? Did they just sit back and keep quiet and let the men take care of everything? No! I’ll tell you what the women did. When they were apparently not taken into account within the power structures of the church, they simply went ahead and set up their own power structures. In particular, women created what they called societies – Women’s Missionary Societies.

Now, that doesn’t sound particularly powerful or threatening does it – a society? But these WMS groups became very powerful. I mean it was good and positive power, but it was power. They raised huge amounts of money. They supported the work of the local and the national church in some very significant ways. And, as their primary mandate, they spearheaded and enabled national and international mission in ways that shaped the destiny of both Canada and the world. Make no mistake, these societies had a huge impact and yet they were created by people who officially held no positions of power in the church.

Isn’t that interesting? None of the male leadership of the church had planned it or left space for it, but a huge and very significant movement entirely led by women grew up to have an amazingly positive impact on the life of the church. I believe that basically the same thing happened in the early Christian Church. In many places, totally unanticipated, these powerful organizations of independent women just grew into being.

That, in my mind, is what makes our story from the Book of Acts so interesting this morning. We need to understand that, in this passage, Peter is not simply responding to a pastoral concern – a much-loved member who is sickened and died. I mean, he is doing that, but he is also dealing with a problem named Tabitha. He is dealing with a new unauthorized power base that has arisen in a church.

When he arrives in Joppa, the group of widows that is there swarm around him. They weep, expressing their grief, but they also make a point of showing Peter the evidence of the positive impact that Tabitha’s leadership has had by showing him the clothes that she had made for the poor of the city. They are making the case, not only that Tabitha is a good person who needs to be raised from the dead, they are making their case that their independent society of widows should be allowed to continue without interference.

And make no mistake, Peter is facing a dilemma here. If he does what they ask, he is not just compassionately responding to the needs of one person, he is effectively giving the nod of approval to an unauthorized power base for independent women within the church.

Peter, to his credit, does not hesitate. He hears the story and he immediately springs into action. He puts everyone out of the room, prays and gives her an order: “Tabitha, get up!” This is not just a miraculous resurrection, this is like what we would call an ordination. Peter takes her from there and presents her, not only to the widows who see her as their leader but also to the saints, which is to say to the whole church, recognizing her leadership among them all.

This is the story of the early church and yet it is also the story of the continuing church. We all set out with our ideas about how things are supposed to work and what leadership will look like, ideas that are often conditioned by the culture in which we live. For example, these days we often have a tendency to structure our churches the same way that you might structure a company or business, because that is the dominant organizational idea we find in the world around us. There is nothing biblical about that; we just assume that that’s how things are supposed to work.

But the early church clearly discovered that the Holy Spirit had a way of confounding their expectations. One of the ways the Holy Spirit did that was by raising up leadership from unexpected or even prohibited places. When that happened, the church had a choice. It could have responded with the natural human response and resisted the change and the violation of cultural expectations. Sometimes the church did that and we see reflections of it even in the scriptures, like, for example in that passage from 1^st Timothy I spoke about where the writer seeks to restrict the liberty and power of the widows.

But when the church was wise, it recognized the work of the Holy Spirit and was willing to embrace the new thing that God was doing among them. I believe that is what we are seeing Peter do in our reading this morning.

But I do not think that this is a process that ended when the Book of Acts was completed. I think that the Holy Spirit continues to delight in confounding our expectations about how things ought to work in the church to this very day. We are living in times of great change – times when the old ways of operating the church just don’t work so well anymore. For example, we are certainly finding in our churches that groups like the Women’s Missionary Society do not function like they once did. One of the reasons for that is a really good reason. We no longer restrict women from important roles in the church, which is a great blessing to the church, so the need for independent women’s societies is lessened. There are also demographic changes and changes in the expectations that our society places on women that also put such societies under pressure.

We are very blessed to have active WMS groups in this congregation, but I know that many others no longer have them. It is hard to see that kind of change and I know it sometimes makes people despair for the future, but I am not really worried about that.

The Holy Spirit is still active and at work in the church. The Holy Spirit is still sending us Tabithas, people sent to lead us in new and exciting directions. My only worry is that, because the new leaders and new ideas, the best of them, often come from unexpected and even forbidden places, like what happened with Tabitha, we might fail to recognize that leadership, fail to hear what the Holy Spirit is saying and so miss out on the most exciting parts of the journey that is ahead. I pray that we do not let that happen and that, like Peter, we embrace the unexpected when God places it before us.

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Category: Minister

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This sermon has also been recorded and posted as a podcast in the Retelling the Bible podcast.Click here find and listen to the Podcast episode: 3.6 She was nobody

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A Report Released

To the sound of a solitary drum beat

My Feelings this Evening.

What this doesn't mean

This sermon has also been recorded and posted as a podcast in the Retelling the Bible podcast.
Click here find and listen to the Podcast episode: 3.6 She was nobody

25^th Anniversary celebration