Category: Minister

Minister’s blog

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

Posted by 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.
               

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Emotionally exhausted and privileged.

Posted by 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.
Who is that guy speaking to assembly?
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

  1. 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.
  2. 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.
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Step by step

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

Hespeler, 19 May, 2019 © Scott McAndless
Acts 11:1-18, Psalm 148, Revelation 21:1-6, John 13:31-35
I
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.
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How do you solve a problem like Tabitha?

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


Hespeler, 12 May, 2019 © Scott McAndless – Christian Family Sunday
Acts 9:36-43, Psalm 23, Revelation 7:9-17, John 10:22-30
T
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 1st 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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“I make this covenant with each of you and with God.”

Posted by on Friday, May 10th, 2019 in Minister


At a retreat that was held at the beginning of March, our session was introduced to the idea of creating a covenant, an agreement that we would make before God how about how we would treat one another. Our retreat leader, Rev. Dr. John-Peter Smit, suggested this to us as a way to address some of the issues that have been raised by the visitation team from as things that we needed to work on.

The purpose in such an exercise, would not merely be in order to improve the way that the session functions together, though that would be an important part of it. It would also be a way that we could lead the whole congregation by example and encourage everyone to think carefully about how we treat one another as brothers and sisters in Christ.

And so the session engaged over a period of about two months in such an exercise. We started by brainstorming some of the elements that we considered to be essential. Then one of the elders took the results of our brainstorming and created an initial draft that the whole group then discussed and tweaked a little bit. Finally, at a meeting held on May 7th, we formally adopted our covenant.

But it was not enough to just take a vote and adopt this document as our covenant. And so, at this regular session meeting, we were joined by the Rev. Greg Smith, minister at St. Andrews in Kitchener, who led us through a covenanting service.
27 Isaac said to them, “Why have you come to me, seeing that you hate me and have sent me away from you?” 28 They said, “We see plainly that the Lord has been with you; so we say, let there be an oath between you and us, and let us make a covenant with you 29 so that you will do us no harm, just as we have not touched you and have done to you nothing but good and have sent you away in peace. You are now the blessed of the Lord.” 30 So he made them a feast, and they ate and drank. 31 In the morning they rose early and exchanged oaths; and Isaac set them on their way, and they departed from him in peace. (Genesis 26:27-31)
 


The service, though brief, was quite moving and meaningful. We read out the words of the covenant together and Rev. Greg read to us a passage from Genesis that told of the covenant made between Isaac and Abimelech, two enemies that overcame past hurts to become friends. And then, like the ancient patriarchs might have done, we built the symbolic altar out of stones. Each elder came forward and laid a stone on the altar while saying the words, “I make this covenant with each of you and with God.” Greg then placed the final stone as he bore witness to our covenant.

Our little stone altar will remain on the communion table for the next several weeks as a witness to our covenant before the congregation. Other groups in the congregation are certainly welcome to take the words of the covenant and adapt them to their own use and, if they wish, add their own stones to the witness pile. Within the session we will seek to hold one another to account, encouraging each other to live up to what we have promised.

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As I head to Presbytery and General Assembly, what is my agenda?

Posted by on Monday, May 6th, 2019 in Minister


Recently I got into an email discussion with a good friend of mine, a friend who comes from a different Christian tradition from my own. We were talking about some of the potentially contentious issues that are likely to be discussed in upcoming meetings of Presbytery and General Assembly. Issues of the place and participation of people who identify as LGBTQ+ within the church have been raised. I expect to participate in those discussions both at Presbytery and at General Assembly as I am a commissioner this year.
           
Now, my friend and I don’t necessarily agree about how such questions should be answered. That’s fine; I think it’s a good thing to have friends who disagree with you. But in our discussion, my friend expressed some concern about my “agenda.” That made me think a little bit. What is my agenda going into these discussions? After a little while, this is what I wrote to my friend:
           
            I don’t really see myself as having an agenda apart from seeking to live out the gospel as faithfully as I can in this world. I also feel that God has given me a call to challenge and give an alternative to what I call “toxic Christianity” – the kind of Christianity that leads to misogyny, hatred and stuff like this.

            I am not trying to change my denomination but rather to help it navigate through some very difficult times when people are in disagreement…

            This is actually something that is unique about Presbyterian theology (and will probably sound very strange to a Pentecostal) but we believe and teach that the Holy Spirit speaks through the courts of the church. When a Session or a Presbytery or a General Assembly gathers and is constituted in prayer and debates fully, we believe that God speaks. Within our polity, by bringing a controversial motion, I am seeking God’s will. I am totally fine with what the answer is and it doesn’t have to be what I put forward. I’m not driving the agenda but seeking the Spirit in the manner that a good Presbyterian is supposed to do.
           
            I am very grateful for that conversation with my friend and that I am fortunate enough to have a friend who is willing to respectfully engage in disagreement like that. I think it is always a very good thing to take opportunities to explain your theology and church polity to someone who has absolutely no experience with it. It helps you to see your tradition through the eyes of an outsider.
            Looking at the Presbyterian tradition of polity has reminded me of how Church courts are really supposed to function. They are not meant to be places for people to carry out their agendas. I know that happens sometimes, but that is not the purpose and function of a church court. The true function is to seek the will of God and to listen for the voice of the Holy Spirit and to do that with as much openness as we possibly can.
            With all of that in mind, I have an expectation that I will be participating in some contentious discussions in the coming weeks both at my Presbytery and at General Assembly. I would like to take this opportunity to make my pledge that I will not go into those meetings with an agenda.
            That does not mean that I will not make some provocative motions or that I will not put forward courses of action that some people will not like or agree with. But I will not do that because I have an agenda. I will do that because I recognize that what we have been doing hasn’t been working. We have basically been trying to ignore the issue and hope it goes away. That’s not working. We have been encouraging people not to talk about it –their orientation, their gender identity issues or their positions regarding such things. That has not been working and, in some cases, it has been causing a great deal of pain. I don’t know what the answers are, but I do know that we need some answers. Anything I put forward, it is my hope and prayer, will be something that fosters discussion in which we can all listen for the voice of the Holy Spirit.
Now that is the only kind of agenda that I can get behind. I hope that everyone else will make that same pledge, not because we agree but because we might disagree and because, now more than ever, we need to approach our church courts in the way that they were intended to be.

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One week later

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


Hespeler, 28 April 2019 © Scott McAndless
Acts 5:27-32, Psalm 150:1-6, Revelation 1:4-8, John 20:19-31
I
t had been one week, seven days, 168 hours. It had been one week since everything had changed, since the stone had been rolled away and the power of death had been broken forever. It had been a week since he himself had appeared among them despite the fact that the doors were locked and they cowered in fear of everyone in the outside world. What is more, it had been a week since he had given them, as a free no-strings attached gift, many great things. He had given them his peace – in fact, that had been so important that he had said it twice. He had given them the evidence, imprinted upon his very hands and on his side, of what he had been willing to suffer for them. He had given them his commission, sending them out in his name. He’d given them the gift of the Holy Spirit and, wonder of wonders, he had given them the power to forgive anybody. “If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.”
      Can you imagine what kind of power that represents? All of the people in the world today who are crushed by feelings of guilt, all of those who are so overwhelmed by the shame that has been piled upon them all their lives long, he had given the disciples the ability to proclaim pure forgiveness and liberty. Mind you, it was not just that they were able to proclaim that God could forgive such things. He had told them that the grace of God is so abundant in this moment that they only have to say it and it will be so.
      And now it is one week later – seven days, 168 hours, and I just have one question: what have they done? What have they done with the knowledge that death has been defeated? What have they done with that peace that passes all understanding? In what ways have they exercised that awesome power to forgive? What have they already accomplished of what they have explicitly been sent to do?
      I mean, I understand that there is a limit to what you can do in seven days. I don’t think that anyone would have expected them, in that time, to preach the gospel to the ends of the earth! Nor do I expect that they would have advanced so far as to proclaim the forgiveness of God to Potius Pilate or Judas Iscariot. I mean you might encounter some psychological barriers to doing that! No, I’m not saying that they should have finished in a week, but think of the start you could make in that time. You could tell hundreds the good news. You could proclaim relief to many of the broken hearted. You could bring peace to many a troubled heart. So, I don’t think that it’s unreasonable to expect that there should have been something that happened in that week.

      Jesus had already done everything. He had defeated death and its power, he had vanquished sin in just three days. I don’t think it’s unreasonable to ask what they have done with the knowledge of that in seven.
      So, what can we observe in the scene seven days later? What has changed? Well, apparently not very much. We find the disciples exactly where we left them a week ago. They are in the same upper room. And the door is still locked which is surely an indication that they still cower in the same fear. And how many people have they told of what they learned a week ago? Have they told tens or hundreds or thousands? Well, it would appear that they’ve only told one. They have told Thomas.
      Everybody always gets down on Thomas. “Doubting Thomas” we call him. He has become the punchline of many a joke and comic strip. That’s all anybody knows about him and we assume that he must have doubted everything all the time. Of course, that’s not true. There’s only this one story of the one time he doubted something and, sure, it was a pretty important thing, but still it was just that one time.
      He is not mentioned a lot otherwise in the gospels, but, where he is, he actually comes off pretty well. He was the one, for example, who, when Jesus was ready to go off to Judea to help a sick friend at a very dangerous time, responded by saying, “Let us also go, that we may die with him.”He was obviously very brave and very committed to Jesus.
      So I actually think that our tradition has been a bit unfair to poor old Thomas. Yes, he had done absolutely nothing for a whole week after the resurrection of Jesus because he was waiting for some evidence. He wanted to see with his eyes and feel with his hands. But the other guys? They had seen and felt the evidence for themselves. Jesus had shown them his hands and invited them to feel his side.
      And what have they done with that? It says that they believed, but their belief has not led to action. They believed, but they don’t seem to have had enough conviction in their belief to have won over the one person that they had got around to telling about it. Is this story really the story of Doubting Thomas? Or is it the story of the disciples whose belief in Jesus really didn’t make all that much difference?
      It has been one week, seven days, 168 hours since he rose. It has been one week since we stood together and proclaimed the incredible truth: “Jesus Christ is risen. He is risen indeed.” It is a week since we declared our faith that Jesus has conquered the power of death and sin and that, because he lives, we shall live also.
      I’m just wondering, is it fair to ask what we have done with that knowledge in the past week? Mind you, I am not asking what you have done with it since you first heard about it or since you first came to faith in Jesus. I’m assuming, I’m hoping that we all assume, that the fact that we believe that Jesus Christ rose from the dead makes a difference in the overall picture of our lives, but to ask what difference it made this past week is a little different. To ask what difference it will make next week is also a little different.
      The risen Christ has come to you with the words, “Peace be with you.” But have you received that peace? Have you become a person of peace? Does the fact that Jesus has vanquished the power of sin and hatred not mean that you don’t need to be aggressive towards anyone who disagrees with you, or defensive towards anyone who threatens you? Does fact that he won not by fighting back but rather by obedience and faith in God not mean that you can be a person of peace in all of your interactions?
      And Jesus’ resurrection has unleashed the power of God’s forgiveness – a power that Jesus has given to you as his follower. How have you exercised that power this week? Do you realize that anyone who says that something is unforgivable or that God cannot forgive certain things is denying the power of Jesus’ resurrection? God’s answer to the world’s misery is now grace and forgiveness because of Jesus. There is really only one thing that keeps forgiveness from being the way of the world today and that is our failure to practice it. As we cling to our resentments or our hatreds, we keep the power of the resurrection from reigning in this world. So, it is the right question to ask you, if you are follower of Christ, who you have forgiven this week. I know that there are things you have to overcome – that there are exercises of grace that you have to build towards over time – but have you started? I think that Jesus would ask no less in one week after Easter.
      Most important of all, it has been one week since you were given the gift of the Holy Spirit and sent out. “As the Father has sent me, so I send you,” he has said. And do you recognize what it means to be given such a status – to be sent out into the world to represent God’s anointed one whom he sent into the world? It means that when you go out into any situation, you are not representing yourself as you bring words of peace or forgiveness or reconciliation. You are speaking for the great king over all the earth and he has given you authority to do so.
      Can you imagine a Canadian ambassador, sent to represent the interests of the Canadian people, failing to speak up if the country to which she was sent was descending into chaos and she had the words, given to her by the government, that could help that country find peace and prosperity for all with Canada’s help? Of course not. To fail to do so would be a dereliction of duty. Yes, you have to be careful and respectful when you speak – you need to appreciate where other people are coming from. Every diplomat knows that, but when you are sent, you have to remember who you represent.
      So, in the last week, how have you behaved as one who was sent by Christ into the world? Have you done that or have you fallen into the trap that we all admittedly fall into from time to time – the trap of thinking that you represent only yourself in this world? Are you looking out only for your own interests and your own short-term gain? When that is the case (and, yes, it is the case for all of us at least sometimes) you are not living out the truth that Jesus is risen. In the aftermath of the resurrection, he gave you the spirit and sent you in his name.
      I don’t think it will be a surprise to any of you if I tell you that doubt seems to be on the rise in the world today. There are many today – more than was once the case – who openly doubt things like the existence of God or the resurrection of Jesus. But, just like I am not inclined to blame Thomas for his doubts, I am not willing to blame the modern doubters for failing to see these things as we see them. I know that they will say that the issue both for them and for Thomas is the question of evidence: “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe.” And I’m fine with that. I get that the lack of concrete evidence can be a problem. If it was just a matter of forensic evidence – if that were all we had to go on – I’m not sure that it would be enough for me either.
      The thing that will ultimately convince you and me and all the doubters in the world that is true is not that. It did not convince Thomas either by the way. When he was invited to put his finger in Christ’s hands and reach out his hand and put it in his side, his need to do so disappeared and he instead fell to his knees in worship. The proof, for all of us, comes in living it. That is why it matters what you did with your knowledge of the resurrection over the past week. That is why it matters what I did with it. And if we all dared to practice that peace, to practice that kind of forgiveness, to dare to take that authority and spiritual power that the risen Jesus gives us, I do not think that rising doubt in the world would be the problem one week after Easter.
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Just One Word

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


Hespeler, 21 April 2019 © Scott McAndless – Easter
Isaiah 65:17-25, Psalm 118:1-2, 14-24, 1 Corinthians 15:19-26, John 20:1-18
S
ometimes it can happen to any of us – we get caught in a story that we are telling to ourselves. It is a story that may not be true but, because we keep telling it to ourselves, it takes us in a spiral of deeper and deeper despair. That was what Mary was doing and it took one word – just one word – to change everything for her.
      Mary had gone out to the tomb, the place where they had laid him, as soon as she could early in the morning. The sun was barely coming over the horizon when she arrived there. And her heart was only fixed on one thing. Her Lord, the only one who had ever given her reason to hope, was dead. She had come to weep and to mourn. She just wanted to throw her arms one last time around the body of the man who had meant everything to her, just to say goodbye, to say that she wished she could have done something to save him. It wouldn’t have really made anything better, of course, but at least she could have gotten some closure.

      But it seemed, as she drew near, that even the solace of grief was to be denied her. The stone was rolled away, the tomb apparently empty. There was no body to grieve over. The one word that would help her on this day was not the word grief.
      She fled, distraught, looking for someone, anyone to help her makes sense of what was going on. She fled to the men, the disciples who were cowering in fear someplace with her disturbing news, “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him.”
      Immediately Simon Peter jumped up and mansplained the situation to her, “Don’t you worry your pretty little head, Mary. I’ll sort this out and make everything alright.” And he ran out to the tomb and another one of the men followed quickly after. Mary followed them slowly, not running as swiftly as they for she felt no great rush to return to the site of her terrible loss. But she could see the men as they turned what should have been an inquiry into a competition.
      They were having a race. One sprinted ahead and then the other overtook him. Each one was clearly trying to get to the tomb first. She could just imagine how they would report it to the others later. “I was the first one to get to the tomb,” one would say, completely ignoring the fact that Mary had been the first, of course. “And then the other would protest and say, “well, maybe you got there first but I was the first one who was brave enough to go inside.” And then the other would answer, “Well, I’ll grant that you were the first one to barge in and mess everything up, but I was the first one to believe and doesn’t that count for more?” And then they would spend the next few decades arguing with each other over who was more faithful to his memory and who was most qualified to lead.
      By the time that Mary arrived at the tomb again, the two men were heading away, still arguing together. She had to admit that they had really been no help. It was quite clear that the one word that would change everything for her on this day was not the word authority or leadership. Theirs had been no help. She was left feeling totally abandoned. She dissolved into tears, weeping and wailing aloud as she had never done in her life. This day was just getting worse and worse.
     
      As Mary wept, she leaned over and looked into the still-empty tomb, it was no longer exactly as empty as she remembered. Two men were there, sitting where the body had been laid. But were they men? Their clothing was so bright; Mary wasn’t sure she could trust her eyes, especially when they were so filled with tears. It probably didn’t matter what they were though, because they didn’t give her any useful information anyways, just asked her why she was crying. And Mary was still stuck in the story she had been telling herself all morning – the story of what she had come looking for: “They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him.” So clearly, the word visionor the word angel was not to be the word that would change anything.
      But here is the truly amazing thing: what happened next didn’t help her either. And what happened next was actual visual proof.
      What would it take for you to believe – to say that it was absolutely true beyond a reasonable doubt that Jesus rose from the dead? Most people would say, I suspect, that it would take the risen Jesus standing right there in front of you. Well, Mary got that. She turned around and Jesus was standing right there.
      But, with Jesus standing right there, Mary was still stuck on the same story she had been telling herself all morning – that the body had been stolen and she was simply being denied her grief. “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away,” she said to the supposed gardener.
      Now people have puzzled over this one for centuries. How was it possible that Mary could have failed to recognize this man that she had followed all over Galilee for months if not years? Had Jesus’ appearance has somehow been changed as a result of the resurrection? Was Mary blinded by her tears? There might be some truth to both of those ideas, but the bottom line, I think, is something else.
      I think we’re being taught something important about the resurrection. It it’s not something that anyone is going to prove to you simply with evidence. If somebody comes back from the dead, you will find a reason not to believe it.
      You might think, and I myself might have once thought, that it was my job to get up here and convince you with logic and reason and evidence that about 2,000 years ago a Jewish man from Nazareth rose from the dead and that that changes everything, but I have come to believe that testimony and evidence will never do that for you. The word that changes everything is not proof.
      What was the one thing, then, that changed everything for Mary? It was just one word. And that word, you’ve guessed it by now, was Mary. It wasn’t that the risen Jesus had spoken to her. He had already spoken to her at that point, had asked her why she was weeping. That expression of human concern was important, but it wasn’t what changed everything. The change came when Jesus connected to her and her alone. It was personal and private. It was her name.
      My friends, this is the one thing that I want you to understand on this Easter day. The resurrection of Jesus is not merely an historical event. I mean, yes, it happened at a particular moment in history. If you had been there you would have experienced something extraordinary.
      But to grasp that part of it is only to grasp the smallest part. The resurrection of Jesus is something that becomes true when it happens to you. When the risen Jesus looks you in the eye and calls you by name – calls out Mary or Peter, Paul or Helen. You are who he rose for. You are the one he suffered it all for. He wants you to know it, not merely with your brain but rather with everything that you are. That changes everything.
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Why I Made a Controversial Notice of Motion

Posted by on Tuesday, April 16th, 2019 in Minister

About a month ago, I made a notice of motion at a meeting of my Presbytery – Waterloo-Wellington. A notice of motion is basically a heads-up – an indication that you intend to put forward a motion for debate that will bring significant change or that might be controversial.

This was the notice that I gave:

At a future sederent, I will move or cause to be moved:
That the Presbytery of Waterloo-Wellington insert in an appropriate place in its standing orders the following section:

Recognizing Affirming Congregations:

Recognizing that there is a variety of opinion and theological understandings of the place of people who identify as LGBTQ+ in the life of the congregations of our presbytery, the Presbytery of Waterloo-Wellington would like to affirm that an inclusive and affirming approach is valid and has been chosen by a number of our congregations. We reflect this affirmation in the following standing orders of our presbytery.

  1. The Presbytery will perpetually extend the philosophy of amnesty adopted by the General Assembly to enable to work of the Rainbow Communion to all of the work of the Presbytery; the Presbytery will engage in no discipline regarding the revelation that any member of Presbytery or member or adherent in any congregation within its bounds identifies as LGBTQ+.
  2. The Presbytery will engage in no discipline of a teaching elder who, with the support of his/her session, presides over or participates in any marriage that is considered legal in Canada. The presbytery will not compel any minister or session to perform a particular marriage. The presbytery will recognize the status of any legal marriage in Canada.
  3. Presbytery will continue to exercise oversight and discernment over every student and candidate for ordination. The sexual orientation or gender identity of any potential candidate will not be entertained as a cause to call their call to ministry into question.
  4. In processing calls, the Presbytery will continue to exercise all due diligence as directed by the Book of Forms. The Presbytery does not consider that the sexual orientation or gender identity of a potential candidate can, in itself, cause a call to be invalid.
  5. Interim moderators must not prevent congregations from considering a candidate solely on the grounds of gender identity or sexual orientation.
  6. The Presbytery will not use its authority to compel any congregation to take specific actions to be more affirming. It will continue to engage in dialog and discussion on the matter.
I would like to take the opportunity in this blog post to offer some explanations for why I decided that it was necessary to make such motion a meeting of the Presbytery (called a sederent) in the near future.

The state of the discussion

Many people will know that the Presbyterian Church in Canada has been talking about the place of people who identify as LGBTQ+ in the life of the denomination for quite some time – for a couple of decades really. There have been some changes and certainly many shifts in attitude in that time, but the denomination as a whole has not really resolved anything. Another report, prepared by former moderators of the General Assembly will be presented to the General Assembly this June. I certainly hope and pray that it will enable some constructive discussion, but I have little expectation that it will resolve the question in any conclusive way.

Presbyterian congregations joyfully participate in a Gay Pride event
But meanwhile, a number of congregations have come to some resolution. Leaders in those congregations, both clergy and lay, have taken a serious theological, biblical and ecclesiological look at the question and come to the conclusion that not only is it possible for them to welcome all members of the LGBTQ+ community into the lives of their congregation but that this is a faithful way for them to live out the Christian gospel.

Thus, these openly welcoming and affirming congregations exist. They are doing their best to live out the gospel and there is much evidence that God is at work in their midst. That is not to say that all such congregations are thriving and growing numerically. They face the same challenges that all of our congregations face in terms of demographic and societal change. Some are growing, some are holding steady, some are shrinking. Affirming congregations don’t seem to differ significantly from the overall trends. I’m not suggesting that what they have done is a panacea for all congregations. Nevertheless, the evidence is there that the Holy Spirit is at work in those congregation. The Spirit is present in changed and changing lives, in meaningful mission and purpose. That is the evidence that matters.

The Presbytery is Responsible for its Congregations

In our polity, the presbytery is responsible to care for and give oversight to all congregations in its territory. This has always meant supporting congregations that have various ways of living out the gospel and that have differed in many ways. The Presbytery is required, therefore, to give thought to how it supports its affirming congregations.

There is a reason why our system of church government is called Presbyterian. It is because the Presbytery is the key body in the whole system. The Presbytery plays a key role particularly in the care of congregations. It is the body that is responsible for the care, conduct and discipline of clergy. It is also the body that ordains ministers and has the authority to judge whether a call to ministry is a true Gospel call.

In my motion, I have focused only on those areas of responsibility that rightly belong to the Presbytery. The Presbytery does not declare doctrines or set educational standards for clergy, but it is responsible for discipline and ordination.

I have written this motion because I believe that the Presbytery of Waterloo-Wellington has no desire to discipline its members because of such things as sexual orientation or gender identity. I also do not believe that we would discipline a minister who carefully considered all of the theological and practical questions and was willing to participate in some way in a same-sex marriage. Indeed, some of these things have happened and we have not engaged in any discipline. Some of these things have happened in other Presbyteries as well with no resultant discipline. I simply desire to make the reluctance of the Presbytery to discipline in such cases a matter of our policy.

I also believe that my presbytery, if presented with a call to ministry that was well supported by a congregation and that was otherwise in good order, would not reject such a call merely on the basis of a candidate’s sexual orientation or gender identity. So why not declare that as policy as well?

Of course, I might be wrong. That may not be where the Presbytery is at this moment in time. That is why I put this forward as a motion to be debated and decided on by the full body of Presbytery.’

Is this the time?

Some have suggested that this is not the time to put forward such a motion. There is a committee working on such matters that will be reporting to the upcoming meeting of General Assembly. Should we not wait for the moderators to do their work and for the Assembly to make its decisions? I certainly support the work of the moderators and the General Assembly. I will be a part of that Assembly as a commissioner and plan to fully participate. The General Assembly must decide how it may best take care of its responsibilities and duties. But that does not remove the need for the Presbytery to deal as positively and constructively as it can with the congregations it is responsible for – all of the congregations. I feel that for the Presbytery to declare how it wants to deal with its affirming congregations now can only contribute to the ongoing conversation in a helpful way.

Of course, that too is up to the Presbytery. I intend to present my motion to the Presbytery in May. It may, in its wisdom, choose to take a vote, or defer or table the motion until after Assembly meets. I will respect the wisdom of the Presbytery in that. If a vote is taken, there may well be an appeal and I would appreciate the clarification of these important matters of the rights and responsibilities of the Presbyteries that such an appeal would surely bring.
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Palming off the palms

Posted by on Sunday, April 14th, 2019 in Minister

Hespeler, 14 April 2019 © Scott McAndless – Palm Sunday
Psalm 118:1-2, 19-29; Luke 19:28-40, Isaiah 50:4-9a, Philippians 2:5-11
T
oday is Palm Sunday – the day when the church celebrates the triumphal entry of Jesus into the city of Jerusalem. Every Christian knows that. Every year we read the story of that day. If you follow the lectionary (as we are doing this year) one year you read the account in the Gospel of Matthew, the next year in Mark and the next year in Luke. So I was very eager this year to turn to Luke’s account of the story of that day. What new insight would I find into the palms and that meaningful entry? So I read the passage… and I honestly could not believe what I saw.
      I read it through once and I just thought that I missed them, so I read it again. Nope, still weren’t there. What is missing in Luke’s story? There are no palms and no triumphal entry in the Gospel of Luke. I went and looked it up on Wikipedia and Wikipedia assured me that, yes, that they were there, but I couldn’t find them. I thought it might be a translation error. I actually went and got out my Greek text of the New Testament and looked in there. But there are no palms in the original Greek text and not in any English translation that I could find. The Gospel of Luke’s story of the triumphal entry on Palm Sunday contains neither palms nor entry.
      Are you shocked? I was. I’ll bet you didn’t even notice when we read it. I’ve been reading and preaching on this passage for years and I never noticed it before. Luke states that the disciples lay their garments on the ground as Jesus went past, but there is not a single word about waving greenery either in people’s hands or on the ground. What’s more, while Luke does describe Jesus’ approach to the city from the Mount of Olives, his account of the event ends while Jesus is still outside the walls.
      So what am I saying here? That we should gather up all of the palms that the kids were waving around this morning and throw them away? Am I suggesting that we did something wrong this morning by re-enacting it as we did? No, not at all. The mere fact that Luke doesn’t mention palm leaves doesn’t mean that there weren’t any there. And just because Luke cuts off the account before Jesus arrives in the city doesn’t mean that he didn’t make a triumphal entry. Of course he did. In fact, there is evidence that Luke knew that palms were part of the story, they were in his source material. But that leaves us with another question, doesn’t it? If Luke knew that people had them there, why didn’t he mention them?
      Well, consider this: what if Luke knew what he was doing? Have you ever wondered about why the palms were there in the first place? Why is it that a crowd of people who were excited about the arrival of Jesus in Jerusalem just spontaneously all went and broke down branches and started waving them around and throwing them on the road? I have seen a lot of people in crowds or spontaneous demonstrations. I have seen people do a lot of things in those situations and use a lot of props, but I have never seen anybody cutting down branches to use as a part of a demonstration. So, if the people were doing that particular thing on that particular occasion, they must have had a reason. The palms must have meant something to them. And indeed they did!
      I’m going to have to give you just a little bit of history here to explain. As you know, in Jesus’ time Judea and Galilee were under Roman control. But before the Romans had come along and conquered the region, Judea had actually been an independent kingdom that was ruled over by a Jewish dynasty known as the Hasmoneans. When the Romans took over they ended the Hasmonean dynasty and put their own puppet king in charge of the region, a guy that you might have heard of named King Herod the Great. Later some parts of the region, such as Galilee, passed on to King Herod’s sons while Rome took on direct rule of other parts, such as Judea.
      Okay, what does that have to do with people waving around palm branches on Palm Sunday? Everything. What if I were to tell you that palm branches where a symbol of the Hasmonean dynasty? That’s right, thousands of ancient Hasmonean coins have been found marked with the symbol of crossed palm branches. Now, do you think that it was just a coincidence that the people cut down palm branches on that day?
      And think about what all of this would have looked like, especially to the Romans. It is only days before the great feast of Passover, the day when the people of Israel celebrate the time when their God freed them from being slaves to a great empire and a large procession of people approach the city of Jerusalem from the Mount of Olives where everyone could see them waving the symbols of the very kings that the Romans displaced when they took over and hailing somebody in their midst, somebody riding on the back of a donkey, as a king.
      I’ll tell you what it looked like. It looked like sedition. It looked like open revolt. Is it any wonder that, within a matter of days, the guy who had been riding on that donkey had been arrested and nailed to a cross?
      The people waving palm branches was roughly the equivalent of people today wearing orange to an NDP or blue to a Conservative or red to a Liberal rally, except, of course, that those parties are all legal in Canada. The Hasmonean party, if you can call it that, was not legal.
      So, having learned all of that, the mystery of Luke’s story of a palm-free Palm Sunday is an even bigger mystery to me. Why did Luke leave out the palms when all of the other gospel writers mention them? I’m convinced it must have been a deliberate decision. Is it possible that Luke was concerned about the idea that Jesus and the people with him might have indeed been making a political statement that day?
      I think I know exactly how Luke felt. I too am feeling pretty cautious about political statements these days. Can I be candid here? I’m a bit worried about what the political environment in this country might look like over the coming months. We are heading towards a federal election as you know, and I fear that it will be one of the most divisive we have seen in recent times. The problem, in my mind, is not the parties or their policies (though I won’t say I don’t personally have some concerns about both); the problem is the context that we find ourselves in. We are living in a time when fewer and fewer Canadians get their news and information from reliable sources – a world where a totally made up meme posted on Facebook or Twitter is read by many more people than a well-sourced and researched article in a reputable newspaper.
      I am worried that we are living in a country where increasing numbers of people are so entrenched into their positions that they immediately dismiss as fake anything that doesn’t fit the narrative that they have already bought into. Please understand, I am not saying that it is only one party or one group that is doing this. I am seeing it happen on all sides and I have even caught myself doing it as well. I worry about where that will lead us. I’m not scared that the result will be this brand of government or that one. I’m worried that the road to that end will bring to light all kinds of hatred, racism and destructive rhetoric. I fear that we will all be brought lower as a result.
      Now maybe I am wrong and it won’t be like that. I hope I am. But it has certainly made me think a lot about how we as the church participate in the political discussion. I do not believe it is the place of the church in a democratic country to be political partisans. You will never hear me endorse a particular party or candidate in the church, though I will always vote as a citizen. Nor do I expect that we should all agree in the church on how to vote; it is a healthy sign that we don’t.
      But, when Jesus went to Jerusalem and the people responded to his coming by grabbing onto a symbol of a certain political idea – palm branches – did Jesus rebuke them? No, but clearly not because Jesus endorsed that particular political idea. He let them do it because he knew that they had deep aspirations and needs, they were grasping for some way to express those things and they gravitated towards the palm as a symbol. It was an imperfect expression of their real hopes. In many ways, the palm leaves are like the political symbols, memes and fake news stories that people cling to today. I don’t think that we should blame people for being attached to such things, but at the same time, I think we should recognize that the issue is not the palm branches. The issue is the deeper drive that makes people grab onto those palm branches and wave them around.
      So, in some ways, I think Luke had it right. He was right to leave the palms out of Palm Sunday because the political partisanship of the moment was not actually what mattered. What mattered was what was going on in the people’s wounded hearts. That’s what Jesus was responding to. And Jesus recognized that there was no denying that. That whole incident at the end of this morning’s reading when the Pharisees come up to Jesus and tell him that he needs to shut down this dangerous political demonstration (and that is what it was), and Jesus responds by saying, “I tell you, if these were silent, the stones would shout out” – basically saying that there is no way to shut this down because you can’t silence the aspirations of the people – that is found only in the Gospel of Luke. And it represents a very important insight. Clearly, Jesus is not interested in getting caught up in the dispute between the Roman Empire and the partisans of an old Jewish dynasty, but he is there for the people and he’s not going to shut them down. He’s going to meet them where they are.
      And I think there is a model in that for the church in our present and somewhat difficult times. Yes, it is not the place of the church to get in the middle of partisan fights. But people are struggling. There are issues, often called hot button political issues, that are deeply affecting people’s lives – issues like poverty, immigration, racism, sexism and general inequality. The church doesn’t call these political issues; we call them justice issues, but to the outside world they often look like the same thing. And we can try to ignore those issues, but Jesus warns us that if we do try and shut those discussions down, we will fail. We try to ignore what the people are calling for and the stones will cry out in their place.
      The church needs to speak out, to cry out for what is just and right. In a world where truth has become little more than whatever people have already decided to believe no matter what the evidence is, we need to put it all on the line for certain truths. In a world where it has become easy to demonize and scapegoat anyone who disagrees with you – to call them the enemy of the people – we need to be a community where reconciliation is possible, where we pray for our enemies and love them. In a world where people are constantly told to look out only for what is in it for them, we need to be a place where the first must be last and the servant of all.

      Indeed, many of the things that most disturb me about our present political climate have their antidote in the church – or at least in the church as it is meant to be. I think we can lay down our palms – our partisan symbols – when we enter into the church community, but we have much that we could bring to the political discourse if we dare to speak up. It is our role and it greatly needed in the world today. I hope that the church steps up to that role in the days to come.
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