Category: News

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Hespeler, December 08, 2024 © Second Sunday of Advent
Luke 1:5-14, Malachi 3:1-4, Luke 1:68-79, Philippians 1:3-11,

If you read the story of the birth of Jesus in the Gospel of Matthew, you will find that one of the most important characters in that story is a king named Herod the Great. He is the one who meets the Magi when they arrive in Jerusalem searching for a newborn king. He calls together the priests and scribes to answer their question as to where the Messiah should be born.

Herod is also the one who asks the Magi to come back to him and tell him where the child is and, when they don’t come back, decides to send his soldiers to Bethlehem and kill all of the young children there for fear that this Messiah might take his kingdom.

And since, by the way, we know that Herod the Great died around 4 BC, that gives us a pretty clear date for the birth of Jesus in the Gospel of Matthew. Jesus must have been born sometime before 4 “Before Christ,” which I know messes with our calendar no end, but there you have it.

Matthew vs. Luke’s Nativity

Herod the Great is all over the story of the birth of Jesus in the Gospel of Matthew. He is the great malevolent presence, the villain whose villainy moves the plot forward. The story wouldn’t work without him.

Imagine my surprise therefore when I flip over to the nativity story in the Gospel of Luke. Where is Herod the Great in that story? Nowhere! Far from being the main antagonist, he is completely absent. The chief villains are instead Roman officials like Caesar Augustus and the Governor Quirinius.

One Small Note

But there is one small note at the very beginning of the Gospel. As the Gospel story opens, there is a description of the father of John the Baptist. “In the days of King Herod of Judea,” it says, “there was a priest named Zechariah, who belonged to the priestly order of Abijah.”

Now, there are actually a few “King Herods” in the Bible, but that seems to be a reference to the one known as Herod the Great. Many scholars take that as an indication that, despite the fact that Herod plays no role in Luke’s story of the birth of Jesus, the Gospel of Luke agrees with Matthew that Jesus was born before King Herod died.

But I am not so sure. I think that there is actually a whole lot more going on in those few words of introduction than that. I think that there is a whole story being told in those few words and I’d like to try and tell that story to you.

Herod and the Priests

Zechariah would never forget the day when he was ordained as a priest of the Lord. It had happened in the days when Herod was king over all Judea. And that was the source of so much scandal. Herod thought that, as king, he got to decide who served as High Priest. For example, he once removed one High Priest and installed another who was the brother of his wife. Then, when that High Priest wasn’t loyal enough, he had him murdered within the year!

And that was just one example of Herod’s meddling with the priesthood. Unsurprisingly, his blatant nepotism and use of the priesthood as a tool of his own political interest only lowered the esteem of the temple in the eyes of the populace. How could such a corrupt and dysfunctional institution possibly mediate the relationship between the people and their God?

Worthy Priests

And that is what made his own position so meaningful to Zechariah. He was not a High Priest, of course. His position was so lowly that Herod was probably not even aware that he existed. Zechariah gained his position because God (and not the king) had chosen his family as one of twenty-four to serve in the temple.

What’s more, Zechariah’s wife, Elizabeth, was descended from none other than the OG High Priest, Aaron himself! She had more of a claim to the high priesthood in her little finger than any of Herod’s choices had in their whole bodies – or at least she would have if she were a man.

And so, though he was nothing more than a small cog in a temple institution that seemed completely corrupt, Zechariah decided that he was going to be the one to make a difference. He vowed that both he and Elizabeth would be righteous before God, living blamelessly according to all the commandments and regulations of the Lord. That, if nothing else, would set him apart from the complete mess that had overtaken the temple “in the days of King Herod of Judea.”

Zechariah did this because he knew that it was the right thing to do. He did it to go against a culture of corruption and self-interest that had overtaken the temple. The only question was whether God would notice. Would the faithfulness of Zechariah be enough to trigger the salvation that the nation needed?

Fruitless Service

As the years went by, the answer to that question increasingly seemed to be no. Zechariah did his best. God had chosen him to serve in the temple – and, yes, he did believe that when he was chosen by lot it was God making a choice, calling him to serve by name. Zechariah knew that his very existence as a priest made him a living challenge to King Herod who thought that he got to decide who could serve God.

Season after season, Zechariah did his best to serve with integrity. He maintained the noble traditions of worship of the Lord and resisted the lure of wealth and power that led the chief priests astray. He quietly did what needed to be done, interceding for the people with constant rituals of prayer and doing what he could to communicate God’s grace to the people.

But it all seemed to have no effect. All the people could see was the corruption of the temple – a rot that had set in from the top but that seemed to have permeated it through and through. They began to avoid the temple, finding that it did not help them in their relationship with God. They continued to pray, recognizing their need for God, but Zechariah increasingly found that, when he was inside sacrificing or offering incense, they found it more helpful to pray outside.

A Message to Zechariah?

The increasing fruitlessness of the temple institution seemed to be a message to Zechariah that all of his hard work was bearing no fruit. But there was another far more personal sign of his failure that bothered him. His wife, Elizabeth, could not have a child. They tried and they tried for years, but nothing ever resulted.

This lack of fruitfulness devastated Zechariah. It was not his own personal disappointment that bothered him, or even that he felt heartbroken for Elizabeth who longed for a child. It was the knowledge that, if he failed to produce a son, his own priestly line that that went all to way back to the time of Moses would be broken forever. That seemed to him to be a failure that was a judgement of him. It seemed near impossible to bear.

But so it went. As the years went by, he kept hoping for change. But nothing happened. Herod died eventually, but he had so thoroughly corrupted the temple by making it a political tool that the institution only festered.

And nothing changed for Elizabeth either. Month after month, no life stirred within her and they began to fear that very soon there would be no months left. It would cease to be after the manner of women for her.

Those were the things that Zechariah was feeling when his section’s turn of duty came up and he set off to Jerusalem to do his temple service one more time.

An Offering of Incense

The lot fell to Zechariah that day. He had been chosen – chosen by God it seemed – to go into the sanctuary and burn the incense upon the altar. It was a task that had always felt so meaningful to him.

He would take the mixture of stacte, onycha, and galbanum that had been blended with pure frankincense and then beaten to a fine powder, and he would pile it up on the altar of incense in a great mound. Once he had lit it on fire, it would send up a sweet and aromatic smoke that he found pleasing.

But more than the smell of it was the sight of the white smoke climbing heavenwards in a straight line. He liked to imagine it ascending directly to the throne of the God of Israel – a sign of God’s close attendance to the fears and concerns of the people.

It made Zechariah feel as if he was given the privilege to personally bring the concerns of all the people directly into the heart of God even though the people were not here – even though they prayed outside, stubbornly rejecting their corrupted religion.

An Extraordinary Experience

But on this occasion, something truly amazing happened. As he breathed in the smoke, he calmed and he felt a great sense of expectation settle over him. Something was about to happen.

When the figure appeared, soft and insubstantial at first, like a being made of the smoke itself, he did not know what to think. Suddenly every sense in his body was heightened and he felt as if he was transported to another plane of being. A great trembling came over him, but he wouldn’t exactly call it a sense of fear – at least it was not Iike any fear he had experienced before.

“I am Gabriel. I stand in the presence of God, and I have been sent to speak to you,” the being seemed to say. And Zechariah knew that his faithfulness had not been in vain.

A Promise and a Sign

The promise that Zechariah received that day was very personal. He would have the son that he had always dreamed of. The impossible would become possible; Elizabeth would conceive and would have a son.

But he knew that this promise, as welcome as it was, was not just for the two of them. It was a sign. Just as Elizabeth’s womb, which had resisted for so long, would burst forth in new life, he knew that this was a promise that his faithfulness in the midst of a corrupted temple institution would also not prove fruitless.

He had felt as if he was getting nowhere for so very long. Surely those who were only bent on using the faith of ancient Israel to serve themselves – to enrich themselves or to pursue power and political domination – would continue to win. The small group of righteous priests who believed in what they did, would be forgotten as obscure and misguided idiots.

But now, because of this promise, he knew that God had not forgotten him. God might have bided God’s time, but God would not tolerate such things forever. That was the promise that Zechariah would cling to – even if he had to cling to it in silence while he waited a little bit longer.

The State of Christianity

I will admit that I sometimes get discouraged by the state of Christianity these days. I am not talking about the declines in membership or attendance that have struck the great majority of churches in recent years. There is something else that troubles me more.

I despair when I see people using the Christian faith as a tool to advance their own personal or political goals. I see people employing Christian leaders and teachings to persuade people to vote in ways that are ultimately against their own interests. I see them using the Bible (or bizarre interpretations of the Bible) to persuade people that they must hate immigrants or minorities or other marginalized people when the Bible teaches so clearly and consistently that we must do the opposite.

Alongside that, I see Christian leaders enriching themselves to the extreme and living lavish lifestyles while their donors only suffer. I see others using the power that they have amassed in their organizations to abuse and harass their own followers in abhorrent ways.

It is enough to cause many to lose their faith altogether, which it has indeed done in many cases. How many today, like in the story we read, are “praying outside” of the institution. They are holding on, however tenuously, to their faith in God, but they have lost all respect for the institutions of Christian faith.

The Situation in Herod’s Time

What we don’t realize is that that is the situation that we encounter in the opening of the Gospel of Luke. That is why Luke’s first words after his prologue are, “In the days of King Herod of Judea.” These words are not to set the date of the birth of Jesus. Luke will carefully set that in the next chapter. These words are meant for us to understand what was the state of the temple in which Zechariah served.

Herod was, without a doubt, one of the worst offenders in the history of Israel when it came to using the religion of Judea for his own personal and political goals. Everybody knew it and the people had lost respect for the temple institution because of it.

Faithful Zechariah

And so, I like to think that Zechariah would understand many of my own frustrations – serving within an institution that had been used by some to such nefarious ends. I marvel at his ability to be “righteous before God, living blamelessly.”

How did he do that for so long without losing heart – without giving up? I don’t know. But the fact that he did inspires me. The fact that God noticed and launched a renewal of the faith through his son, John, gives me hope.

I don’t know how righteous I am before God. Sometimes I wonder. I would also not claim to live blamelessly. But here is what I will say because of Zechariah, I will not cease to do what I can to live in such a way as to challenge all those who would use my faith for their own selfish ends. Will you do that too? I believe that that is the best way to honour the memory of a man like Zechariah.

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Hespeler, December 1, 2024 © Scott McAndless – First Sunday of Advent 
Jeremiah 33:14-16, Psalm 25:1-10, 1 Thessalonians 3:9-13, Luke 21:25-36 

On their 2003 album, Everything to Everyone, the Barenaked Ladies included a song that always starts playing in my head around this time of year. The lyrics go like this: 

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Well you know it’s going to be all right. I think it’s going to be alright
everything will always be all right when we go shopping…  
It’s always lalalalalala... let the shopping spree begin 
lalalalalalalalala... everybody wins 
So shut up and never stop let’s shop until we drop…  

I remember many times when our kids were young, we would all pile into the car and head to the mall to do some Christmas shopping. As we headed down the driveway, we would put that very song on blaring from the sound system. It seemed to be the perfect thing to get us into the right spirit. 

Shopping will Save Us? 

But that song is about more than just how fun it can be to go shopping. It claims much more than that. It almost seems to be saying that shopping is what will save us – that it will be the thing that makes everything alright. 

I am certain that they wrote it, not as a fun little nonsense song, but as a biting commentary on our society and its priorities. The song was written, after all, very shortly after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. In the aftermath of those terrible events, the need to keep shopping became a dominant theme. 

A week after the attack, the American president famously said to the American people, “I’ve been told that some fear to leave; some don’t want to go shopping for their families… That should not and that will not stand in America.” 

The intent of that statement was certainly more nuanced than people usually give it credit for; I have taken it out of the original context. But the message that stuck, that many people heard was absolutely that if Americans stopped shopping, the terrorists would win. 

Black Friday 

As Black Friday, the biggest shopping day of the year and the kickoff to the Christmas shopping season approached in 2001, everybody was watching nervously. The very fate of the nation seemed to hang in the balance. If consumers came through, if they did indeed shop until they dropped, the nation would be saved. The salvation of society itself was in the hands of shoppers and dependent on their willingness to go even deeper into debt to keep the economy moving. Note how it was not up to the corporations or the retailers or even the financial institutions. We would only know that everything would be all right when we went shopping. 

But it was not just true that year. This year, with people hit hard by inflation, a string of disasters and political uncertainty, you can bet that people are nervously watching the numbers on consumer spending during this season. It is so important that the federal government has even cut back retail taxes and promised a big stimulus check to keep people shopping. If the shoppers don’t come through, if they close their wallets and restrict their spending, it will be taken as a sign that we are all doomed. If, on the other hand, everybody goes shopping, well, you know that it’s going to be all right. 

Retail Therapy 

But there is also another meaning behind that song. Not only is it a reminder of just how dependent our entire system is on consumer spending, it is also a commentary on individual strategies for coping. For many people today, the motto that they live by is this: “When the going gets tough, the tough go shopping.” It is so common for people to distract themselves from their personal or global anxieties and fears by going out and buying something new that that people literally call it “retail therapy.” 

When we buy something or when something we have ordered online arrives, we get that hit of dopamine that makes us feel, if only for a fleeting moment, as if everything really is all right. The feeling sometimes even lasts until the credit card bill comes in. 

That is the world that we all live in. And the sense that shopping is what makes the world all right is particularly strong at this time of year. If you, as we are all expected to do after all, went shopping this weekend, you may have gone home with the feeling that, yes, everything is indeed all right. 

A Different Message in Church 

And then you come to church on the First Sunday in Advent, just days after Black Friday, and what do you get? Do you get reassured that everything is going to be all right? No, you do not. Let me tell you what you get on the First Sunday in Advent. You get “signs in the sun, the moon, and the stars.” You get “distress among nations confused by the roaring of the sea and the waves.” And you get people fainting from fear and foreboding of what is coming upon the world, for the powers of the heavens are shaken. 

Those are words that were written almost two thousand years ago and were written in the shadow of some truly horrendous events – the invasion and destruction of an entire nation, the demolition of a temple and the wholesale slaughter of fighters and civilians alike. But they don’t really seem to be talking about ancient history, do they? They seem to be a pretty good commentary of the state of the world right now. 

What’s Going on in the World 

“Distress among nations confused by the roaring of the sea and the waves.” That sounds exactly like several reports on the effects of hurricanes that are still ringing in our ears from over the last couple of months. And I don’t know about you but my social media feeds are just chock full of “people [fainting] from fear and foreboding of what is coming upon the world.” 

The ideas that are conveyed in this passage are painfully current – so much so that I suspect that many of us try not to think about the state of the world. In fact, that is one reason why we distract ourselves so very much with our “retail therapy.” 

I can well imagine, therefore, that some people could be annoyed to come to church on the First Sunday in Advent and to open our Bibles only to be confronted with a gospel passage like this one which seems to be ripped from our newspaper headlines. Isn’t coming to church supposed to make us feel good? Aren’t we meant to be assured that everything is going to be all right? Because if the church won’t tell us that, we can always go to the mall! 

Hope 

And isn’t this First Sunday in Advent in particular supposed to be all about hope? I mean, we lit the candle and everything! All of this doesn’t seem particularly hopeful, does it? It seems downright disturbing.  

Well, that takes us right to the heart of the question of the day. What is hope? Is hope just a good feeling, an assurance that everything will be all right? It is not. Yes, it is true that one aspect of hope is a confidence that things will work out in the end. But there is a difference between a confidence and a feeling.  

Hope cannot be engendered by ignoring the real-world problems around us, which is what we often do with our shopping obsession. And I’m not just talking about how we distract ourselves by buying stuff. 

People Struggling 

I’m also talking about how lots of people are struggling because they are falling through the cracks of our economy. They can’t get work that gives them enough hours or enough pay to cover their bills. They can’t get housing that they can afford. They don’t have enough to buy healthy food. That is where an increasing portion of our population finds itself. 

If the economy made any sense, such a situation would lead to utter collapse in every sector, but that is not what happens because we all go into debt to keep shopping. This hides the reality of the world we’re living in and it means that we don’t have to deal with it.  

But hope doesn’t hide from the truth. It believes in the future, but not because it knows that the system is stable. It recognizes that the system is corrupt and teetering on the edge of collapse, but it still has confidence in a future. That is the hope that we celebrate on the First Sunday of Advent. 

Eyes Wide Open  

The passage we read this morning from the Gospel of Luke is based on the words of Jesus. He spoke them to his disciples as he looked forward to the chaos and destruction that he knew would be visited on the people of Judea if they continued down the path that they were on. But Luke wrote these words decades later, when many of the things that Jesus had foreseen had already happened and the world was still a mess. 

Both Jesus and the gospel writer looked at the world with eyes wide open. They saw the mess. They saw the injustice and the failures of the systems. And yet they still had hope. 

They had hope, not because they knew what the outcome would be so much as because they knew in whose hands the future would be. They had hope that allowed them to look realistically at the situation in front of them, to come to terms with just how scary or anxiety inducing it was, and yet accept that it was the reality they had to deal with. They could embrace it because they knew that God was alive and that God would never abandon God’s people. 

Not Very Good at Hope 

I don’t think that we are very good at hope in our world today. We are more in the business of spreading good feelings or of distracting people with things like consumer spending. It is why so many of us have such a hard time once the distractions stop. We are all constantly scrolling from one tik-tok or tweet to the next on our phones, we always have the television or the music on in the background because we know that, if ever the distractions stop, the bleak reality of the world will come crashing in on us and we won’t be able to cope.  

What Else We’re Distracted from 

But Christians should know that there is another possible thing that happens when we turn off the distractions. People of faith have discovered again and again down through the centuries that when you enter into true silence – when you turn off the distractions and the voices within you – something amazing can happen. You can encounter God. 

That’s another reason why the distractions – including the shopping obsessions – of our modern world get in the way of hope. They may be keeping us from being disturbed by the evil of this world, but they are also preventing us from finding God, the source of all hope. 

Powerful Image 

This is the image that Jesus places before us to find hope when things are looking dark: “Then they will see ‘the Son of Man coming in a cloud’ with power and great glory.” I don’t personally think of that as something that will happen once in practical terms. I see it as a promise of what will happen whenever we seek for God’s presence. We will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory. 

This vision of the glory of God’s own mighty Son is what can keep us going even when all seems lost. 

That is why “when these things begin to take place,” you don’t need to fall into despair and you don’t need to distract yourselves with shopping. You can “stand up and raise your heads,” because you know that it is not shopping that will make everything be all right. You will know that “your redemption is drawing near.” 

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Hespeler, November 24, 2024 © Scott McAndless – Reign of Christ
Daniel 7:9-10, 13-14, Psalm 93, Revelation 1:4-8, John 18:33-37 

The Gospel of Mark summarizes the entire message of Jesus like this: “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.” (Mark 1:15) And that is indeed an excellent summary because the announcement of God’s kingdom was central to just about everything that Jesus ever said. But do you know what is really annoying about that? He talked about this kingdom all the time, but he never said what it was. 

He told stories about it. He said that the kingdom was like this or like that. But when it came to giving a good dictionary definition, he just didn’t do it. And that has left us with a bit of a problem. It is left to us to speculate about what this kingdom is, where it may be found and what it means that it has come. 

The Seven Mountain Mandate 

And I would like to inform you about a particular movement that has been spreading rapidly recently and that suddenly received a huge boost in terms of power and influence just a couple of weeks ago. This movement has a very specific answer to that question. And it is an answer that, if I can be frank, scares me.  

The movement is called “The Seven Mountains Mandate.” It is not tied to any particular church or denomination. It has spread through a number of churches, but most particularly through Evangelical, Pentecostal, Charismatic and increasingly Roman Catholic churches. 

Domination Over Key Aspects 

The central idea of the movement is that there are seven “mountains” in society – seven key aspects that are centres of influence and power. They are family, religion, education, media, arts and entertainment, business, and government. The idea is that Christians have a mandate to dominate in all seven of those areas – that that is what Jesus is calling us to do. 

And they are seeking to fulfill that mandate in very practical terms by training and getting Christians who think like them into leadership positions in all of those areas of society. 

That is a very clear answer to the question of what Jesus meant by “the kingdom of God.” It is saying that the kingdom is what will happen once the followers of Jesus occupy and control every key aspect of the culture. And I appreciate clear answers to difficult questions as much as anybody, but I am not sure that I am comfortable with this one. Nor am I sure that that is what Jesus intended. 

A Restrictive Idea 

For one thing, it offers a very restrictive idea of the kingdom of God. It understands it exclusively in terms of Christians taking over society. It says that the only way that we can influence society is by controlling it. It rules out the possibility of working in cooperation with other groups to accomplish anything good. It rejects the notion that our role is to serve and substitutes the idea that we are here to dominate. It embraces a kingdom that is all about power.  

And when I look at everything that Jesus said about the kingdom, he seems to have been at odds with all of that. The Jesus who said, “Whoever wishes to be great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be your slave,” (Matthew 20:26-28) was probably not thinking of his followers orchestrating a hostile takeover of the seven mountains of society. The Beatitudes of Jesus mean many things, but when they are focused on the “poor in spirit,” the “meek” and the “merciful,” I just have a hard time reading them as a manifesto calling for his followers to take charge of everything.  

But, as I say, the Seven Mountains Mandate is an interpretation of the message of Jesus that is growing. It also played a very big role in the outcome of the recent American election. Its devotees would claim that election as a key victory in terms of them taking over the “mountain” of government and a stepping stone towards taking over the other six as well. 

Pilate and Jesus 

We are told in the Gospel of John that, when the Roman Governor, Pontius Pilate, had a chance to interview Jesus, he had heard that Jesus had come to announce a kingdom. “Pilate asked him, ‘So you are a king?’” 

Jesus, rather typically, didn’t give a simple yes or no answer. What he gave instead was an idea of what he was expecting of those who recognized him as a king.  “My kingdom does not belong to this world. If my kingdom belonged to this world, my followers would be fighting to keep me from being handed over to the Jews. But as it is, my kingdom is not from here.” 

The Location of His Kingdom 

What does that mean? I know that sometimes people assume that what Jesus is saying is that the kingdom he has been talking about it not located in this world – that his entire goal in all that he has done and said in his ministry has had nothing to do with affecting this world at all, apart from getting people out of it after they die so that they can be part of a kingdom somewhere else – in heaven.  

But I am not so sure. Remember the parables of Jesus, the stories that he told about the kingdom of God? They were almost never about describing some reality beyond this world. They were always grounded in the experience of here and now – of seeds growing in the ground, of somebody searching for something that was lost, and of people dining at a table. He was pretty clearly saying that the kingdom was something that you could encounter in this world. 

When he announced it, he didn’t say you could get there someday or that it was waiting for you after you died. He said that it had already come near, that it was at hand and already within you. 

Where it Belongs 

And so Jesus in his answer to Pilate does not say “My kingdom is not in this world.” He has been pretty clear that it can be found in this world. Instead, he says, “My kingdom does not belong to this world.” This is a statement of his kingdom’s foundation and allegiance, not its location. 

The explanation that he gives for that is telling. “If my kingdom belonged to this world, my followers would be fighting to keep me from being handed over to the Jews. But as it is, my kingdom is not from here.” What it all comes down to is a question of how the kingdom is created in this world. 

Not by Violence or Power 

Jesus rules out the very idea that the kingdom might be established through violence or the exercise of power. Why? Because that is this world’s way of establishing kingdoms and dominions. They are established, often enough, through conquest and war. They are established by certain groups, be they aristocrats or oligarchs or others, who take over the dominant institutions of society, like, for example, those listed in the Seven Mountains Mandate. 

Jesus insists that the kingdom of God cannot be established in that way, according to this world’s methods. That is why I do not believe that the Seven Mountains approach will ultimately be successful. 

Oh, it probably will be successful in the short term according to how our world measures success. I have little doubt that the coming years will see more and more takeovers of certain “mountains” of our society by people who profess a certain kind of Dominionist Christianity. They have planned and organized for this using this world’s methods which are very effective in this world. 

Failure in this Approach 

But whatever success they find, will they actually build the kingdom of God on earth? I believe that Jesus was clear that you cannot build the kingdom of God with such methods. 

I also suspect that they will find the achievements they seek to be very elusive. They will not create a society and culture that conforms to their notion of morality. Whatever forms of identity or expression or activity they seek to ban, might be pushed underground, but will not disappear. People just don’t take well to having their thoughts or identity imposed upon them from atop one of the Seven Mountains of culture. 

The Lure of Power 

But worse than that, I am quite certain that the very power that they seek will be their downfall. Once you begin to chase worldly power, it will seduce you. Having achieved power, you will desire more of it. You will give up anything to hold onto it. Power itself will become your goal and you will begin to confuse the idea of you holding power with the existence of the kingdom. 

I know that this is what is going to happen because it is exactly what has happened so many times before. 

How is it Established? 

So once again we are left with the fundamental problem. Jesus came to announce the kingdom, but he didn’t say what it was. He told stories about it. And, in this passage, he tells us what it isn’t – that it isn’t something that comes through worldly power and the ways in which earthy kingdoms are built. 

But how then is the kingdom of God established? The fundamental answer to that question is that it is something God builds. God is the one who is at work establishing it in this world. But that does not mean that there is nothing for us to do. 

Our Participation 

We are called to participate in the work that God is doing. That was what Jesus was inviting us to do in all of his parables. But in all of those parables, he never used images of us acting in power of taking things over. Instead, he spoke, for example, of us being like salt: “You are the salt of the earth, but if salt has lost its taste, how can its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything but is thrown out and trampled under foot.” 

Have you ever had a meal in which the dominant taste was salt? I have. I have unfortunately done that a few too many times – I added way too much salt to something, or I didn’t manage to properly get the salt out of some salted meat. Do you want to know what the result of that was? The meal was awful; it was near inedible. 

A meal that just tastes of salt is a very bad meal. But, at the same time, a meal that completely lacks salt can be quite tasteless. When Jesus called us salt, he was giving us a challenge. And it was to have influence in our society. But we are not to have that influence by taking over and taking control and turning it all into salt. We are called to season this world, to have influence by calling forth deeper and better flavours, and by speaking for what is just and what is right. 

Testimony 

Jesus himself offers the alternative to fighting and taking everything over to establish his kingdom. “You say that I am a king. For this I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth.” The kingdom is established through testimony. And that is what we are called to do. To testify, in the midst of a sometimes hostile world, to what we know is true. And since, as Jesus says, “Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice,” as the truth spreads, so does the kingdom. 

It is not by power and not by domination that the kingdom of God spreads in this world. It is by our testimony to what is true, the truth that we have experienced in Christ. So consider when and how you can testify to that truth as you pass through life in this world. 

https://youtu.be/ngwYP-ZmxSQ

November 17, 2024 © Twenty-Sixth Sunday after Pentecost 
1 Samuel 1:4-20, 1 Samuel 2:1-10, Hebrews 10:11-25, Mark 13:1-8 

I would like to invite you into the opening scene of our reading this morning from the First Book of Samuel. A family has come down to the Temple at Shiloh. They have come to sacrifice. 

The whole family comes. The father of the family is Elkanah. And he brings with him both of his wives Peninnah and Hannah. He has two because that is just how things are done in this world. And he also brings with him his sons and his daughters, all of whom are the children of his wife Peninnah because, it seems, Hannah cannot have children. 

These, together with household servants and extended family make a very large company that goes down to Shiloh. And they bring with them the young ram that they have raised all year on their little farm. This animal has been part of their family ever since its birth. They have nurtured it, taken it out to graze and kept it safe from any predators. 

Rambo 

They have loved this animal. The children even gave him a name. Rambo, they called him. But, at the same time, they have never forgotten that they raised this sheep for one purpose only: for this sacrifice. 

It is a holy thing when this happens when a living being gives its life so that a family can eat and be strong. That is why they do it so rarely – often no more than once a year. That’s also why the animal must come to the temple. It is something to be done in a holy setting. 

The Sacrifice 

And so, they take the ram to the old priest, Eli, who inspects it and declares that it is healthy and fit for a sacrifice. The whole family approaches and lays their hands on the head of Rambo, giving thanks to God for this bounty and to the animal itself, as the priest draws the blade across its throat. 

Later, after the priest has taken the animal and butchered it properly, the family gathers around the altar. Those parts that the family will not eat – the fat, the blood, a number of the organs and other bits – are burnt in the fire. That is how Yahweh, the God of Israel, joins the family in their feast. It creates a precious fellowship with God, making everything all the more holy. 

Giving out the Portions 

But then what happens? Elkanah, the patriarch of the family, is given the rest of the meat, all perfectly cut and arranged on a slab. And they take it and put it in one of the great cauldrons that are provided for the worshippers at Shiloh. They boil up the meat with various herbs and vegetables that they have brought with them to create a hearty stew. 

Ah, but then comes that awkward moment. Elkanah, as patriarch, has the right to distribute the stew. After the priest has come to claim his portion as payment for safely slaughtering and butchering the meat, Elkanah takes the rest and carefully doles out the portions. 

Into the bowl of his wife Peninnah, he carefully ladles one big scoop. Then he goes on down the line to his sons and his daughters and for each he measures out the same amount. Then he gives the same amount to each of the servants and workers and some extended family that have come along for the sacrifice. 

Finally, he comes to Hannah. He smiles at her for a moment, but it is kind of a sad smile. There seems to be some pity in it. And then he takes out the big bowl, much larger than any of the others and places it before her. He fills it up with scoop after scoop of rich stew before finally filling up his own bowl with a similar serving.  

An Emotional Table 

Now, how do you feel sitting at that table? You smell the savoury broth and you long to dig in and scoop up the meat that you have been craving for months. You can hardly control yourself.  

But hunger is not the only powerful feeling at the table, is it? You can practically feel the resentment seething from every person present as they cast baleful glances towards Hannah where she sits at her end of the table.  

And Hannah, she is, if anything, more upset than anyone else. Large tears roll down her face as she stares at the stew before her as if it were poison. She knows she should eat it – that she needs the meat as much as anyone. It should make her stronger, healthier. Who knows, it might even make her fertile. But she doesn’t feel as if she can stomach it.  

How could she when she knows that it causes Peninnah, who could be like a sister to her, to hate her? How could she when she knows that it puts a distance between her and the children whom she could love and care for in other circumstances? 

And worst of all is her husband sitting right beside her who, by the look on his face, thinks that he has done a wonderful thing. “Eat up, honey, he says as he shovels the food into his mouth. It’s delicious!” She knows what he is going to say next because he says it all the time. It always makes her cringe.  

“Hannah, why do you weep? Why do you not eat? Why is your heart sad? Am I not more to you than ten sons?” 

A Dysfunctional Family 

I know that the opening chapter of 1 Samuel is all about the birth of the Prophet Samuel and about how God brought it about and saved his mother Hannah from the shame and scorn of being an infertile woman. It is an amazing story full of hope and possibility.  

But I don’t think you can really appreciate the good news in that story without understanding just how messed up that opening scene really is. It shows us just how dysfunctional that particular family was. But it is also a reflection of how the human family often deals badly with the challenges and problems that come with life in this world. 

Peninnah 

I think that many of us, for example, are like Peninnah. She is a woman who is able to do the one thing that women were valued for in that society – she can have children. And she is valued for what she can produce.  

There are many people just like that. In this society, where everything seems to be measured through productivity, there are many who seem to have decided that their entire self-worth is measured by how much they earn, their place on the corporate ladder or their relative wealth. 

But there are perils that come with such a way of thinking, aren’t there? Peninnah may have fulfilled her purpose as seen in that society, but she doesn’t seem particularly happy. 

Indeed, we are told that she torments her husband’s other wife, Hannah. She “used to provoke her severely, to irritate her,” it says, “because the Lord had closed her womb.” Is that kind of aggression indicative of someone who has a happy, well-balanced life? Of course not. 

Putting Others Down 

And haven’t we all met people like that – people who seem to have achieved success as this world defines success, but they love to rub other people’s noses in it? Why? Because they are trying to make themselves feel good by putting somebody else down. 

Here is a life tip for everybody. If you need to put somebody else down to feel good about yourself, there is something wrong. There is something deep inside that is making you feel inadequate. 

 And we know what is making Peninnah feel inadequate. What she produces may be valued, but she is not valued for who she is. She is not loved. 

And how many people in the world today are caught up in that mad scramble to earn love through what they produce? And no matter what you do, no matter how good your work is, it will never be enough. Peninnah, sitting at that table, is symbolic of the flaws of a society that values productivity over everything else. 

Hannah 

But then there is Hannah at the table too, isn’t there? And she hardly seems better off. She has the love. Her husband claims to be devoted to her. So, what is missing for her? 

She lives in a society in which women are really only given one way to contribute. And she is not able to contribute in that way. And so, though she is loved, she has been robbed of a sense of being significant. 

The two women in this story are miserable because some of their most essential needs are not being met – the need for love and the need for significance. And the really odd thing about that is that they each have the one thing that the other wants most. 

Looking at What Others Have 

It is so easy, isn’t it, when you are struggling in yourself to look at something that somebody else has and to be jealous – to think that, if only you had what they have, your life would be okay. But the mere fact that neither of these women is okay puts a lie to that way of thinking. 

The solution is rather to work on yourself – to aspire towards what is truly meaningful to you, to be sure. But it is also to recognize that the reason why you feel inadequate is not because you are inadequate but rather because the expectations that have been placed upon you are baloney. How much happier would both Peninnah and Hannah have been if they had just realized that. 

Elkanah 

And let us now turn to the third so-called adult at the table – Elkanah, the patriarch of the family. I’ve got to say that I am not particularly impressed with his efforts to improve anything about the whole situation. His favouritism to Hannah only sets her apart from everyone else who might give her support. 

And when he says, “Am I not more to you than ten sons?” it makes me cringe so I’m sure it did Hannah too. He essentially dismisses her needs and self-centredly thinks that he can fulfill her on his own. That, let me tell you, never helps somebody who is struggling. 

Dealing with the Real Issues 

So what is wrong with Elkanah? Why is he such an abysmal failure at bringing peace and functionality to his family? It is because he does not deal with the real issues at the table. He does nothing to address Peninnah’s bitterness and anger – apparently thinking that, if he ignores it, it will just go away. 

And when he sees Hannah’s deep sadness, he does not help her to address the unrealistic expectations that society has put upon her. He does not even bother to assure her that her worth and value are not dependent on meeting these expectations. All he does is essentially try to make her put on a smiley face by bribing her with extra portions of meat and professions of affection. 

Healing the Malfunction 

May I suggest that if you ever find yourself giving some leadership to a family or other group that is malfunctioning in any way, do not follow the example of Elkanah. Don’t make it all about yourself. Don’t just try to deal with the surface issues – with the appearance of things. Don’t assume that serious issues will just go away if you don’t talk about them. Dig in. Get to the heart of the matter and the real hurts and wounds that people are carrying. 

I’m not saying that it will be easy. It might well feel much more uncomfortable before it starts to feel better. But it is worth the effort and the discomfort. 

And so, we have three people feasting at Shiloh. None of them are happy; none of them are fulfilled. And I will bet that each one of us can find ways in which we, at some point in our lives, would have identified with at least one of them, if not all. They are a reflection of the dysfunction of this world and its ways. 

Where is Hope? 

And where, you should be asking me, where is the hope? The hope is found in getting past our habit of ignoring problems and hoping they’ll go away, in a willingness to get to the heart of what is really dragging people down. It is found in honest communication. And it is found in God. 

When Hannah goes to God and God finally gives her the thing that she desires: a son, it is not just the end of her infertility that heals her life. It is also her encounter with a God who hears her and is willing to overturn the entire system that had subjugated her. God saves her by turning the world upside down: 

“The barren has borne seven, but she who has many children is forlorn. The Lord kills and brings to life; he brings down to Sheol and raises up. The Lord makes poor and makes rich; he brings low; he also exalts. He raises up the poor from the dust; he lifts the needy from the ash heap to make them sit with princes and inherit a seat of honour.” 

And that is where the real hope is found. That is what we celebrate in the season that is to come. 

https://youtu.be/E7ZNbV3v0VA

Hespeler, November 10, 2024 © Scott McAndless – Remembrance Sunday 
Genesis 13:2-12, Psalm 146, Hebrews 9:24-28, Mark 12:38-44

Tomorrow at 11 o’clock we will solemnly remember an event that no living person can actually remember. It happened 106 years ago. There are maybe about half a million people alive today who are over 100 years old, but only a small fraction of them would be over 106. And of course, none of them would have been old enough to be aware of what happened on November 11, 1918. 

What happened then? That was the day that the bombing and the shooting and the killing stopped following the most devastating war that the world had ever seen. And I don’t think that any of us could possibly imagine the feeling of relief that swept over people as the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month tolled and the fronts that had been filled with so much death finally fell silent. 

No One Living Remembers 

And you might find it odd that we still observe an armistice that no one can remember. And part of that is, I know, that the meaning of that day has transformed since then to become a day to remember those who have served in many wars that came after the “War to End All Wars.” It has become a day to pray and work for peace for all.  

But I also think that it is significant that we celebrate that particular armistice and the Treaty of Versailles that codified the peace about a year later. Treaties matter; they shape our world. In fact, I would argue that the treaties of the past have had more influence on the world we live in today than the wars. And that is certainly true for the Treaty of Versailles (which was not particularly successful at ending all wars). I would suggest that we ignore treaties to our peril. 

Indigenous People and Settlers 

So, I would like to tell you about a treaty that you may have never heard of, but that I believe we are all called to honour today. When European settlers first came to this place, as you know, they found it to be already inhabited. That did not prevent them from claiming the land as their own possession, of course. They had this false “Doctrine of Discovery” that allowed them to dismiss the inhabitants as mere “savages.” But their first concern was not really for the possession of more than little bits of land. Their first concern was for that constant goal of Western civilization: profit. 

And they definitely saw the indigenous people here as a useful tool for driving that profit. They persuaded the indigenous people to go out and use their considerable skills to extract valuable resources from the wilderness around here, most valuable of all being, of course, the furs and the pelts. 

When Trouble Began 

This strategy of wealth production was enormously successful. It was most successful, as always, for the European investors. But the indigenous people also did very well and were able to gain valuable trade goods, at least at first. But as also often happens, problems began to crop up. In the beginning, the resources were abundant, but the drive for profit soon began to see them dry up. Some species were pushed into extinction in easily accessible regions. This forced people to hunt and trap farther afield. It also pushed First Nations into competition with each other. It also led to environmental destruction and to war between the various nations. 

I know that we are not generally very aware of these fur wars because the settler colonists weren’t really directly involved. But, like all wars, they were devastating both to the people and to the natural environment. The need for peace for all those who were involved became extremely urgent. 

Settlers in Canaan 

That is a part of the history of the place where we are now sitting. Well, you’re sitting and I’m standing but you get the idea. One thing that particularly strikes me about that history this morning is that it strongly parallels our reading from the Book of Genesis. It tells the story of two men who have come to the land of Canaan from far-off Mesopotamia. Their names are Abram and Lot. 

And, like the colonialists who came to this place, they came to get very rich. They measured their wealth in terms of herds and cattle instead of furs, but it is basically the same old story. And just like what happened around here, they didn’t do the manual labour themselves. They hired the local indigenous population to be their herders. Indeed, the story explicitly mentions, while talking about problems among their workforce, that “at that time the Canaanites and the Perizzites lived in the land.” 

The Land Could Not Support Them 

But there was a problem. And it is a problem that often arises when we pursue ever-growing profits as more important than anything else. The Bible puts the problem like this: “the land could not support both of them living together because their possessions were so great.” 

When we relentlessly pursue extraordinary profit, the result is often that the land cannot bear it. Natural resources begin to be stretched. And this has devastating effects on the land. In their case, the resources being stretched were not beaver and bison pelts but rather ground water and grazing land, but apart from that, the story is very much the same and, again, is as old as time! 

The Treaty of Lot and Abram 

And what was the result of that in old Canaan? Exactly the same as what happened here: strife and conflict – not between the wealthy men but amongst those who were working for them. “Thus strife arose between the herders of Abram’s livestock and the herders of Lot’s livestock.” 

Now, to Abram and Lot’s credit, they recognized that this was a problem. Even though they were not the ones suffering, they decided to fix the problem, and they did so by creating a treaty between the two of them. It wasn’t really a treaty that solved the root problem because they just decided to separate so that they could continue to relentlessly exploit the land. But at least they did something to alleviate the suffering among their indigenous workforce. 

The Strife Right Here 

Things didn’t quite work out so well in this area. The lords of the fur trade, it seems, didn’t mind the strife among the various First Nations who were providing them with their furs. As good capitalists, they probably thought that the competition was good for their bottom line. And so, the strife spread. 

In this area, the Mississaugas, an Anishinaabe Nation, were pushed out of their traditional territories by the Haudenosaunee and fled north and west. But then, a few years later they return in alliance with the Odawa and the Chippewa and it seemed that open war against the Haudenosaunee was inevitable – a war that would quickly spread and would be devastating to all indigenous nations.  

But wisdom prevailed and a treaty was made. This treaty was not created by the wealthy fur companies like what happened in Canaan. In fact, they did not like the idea at all and never officially recognized the treaty. 

A Dish with One Spoon 

No, the First Nations understood that they would have to make their own peace. And they did so according to an ancient indigenous concept: a dish with one spoon. There is evidence that the idea of a dish with one spoon may be at least a thousand years old. It is one of the foundational concepts that governs Indigenous people’s relationship to the land.  

Now, I am not an indigenous person, and I would not presume to speak for them. Indeed, I would love to hear more about this from native elders some day. But my pretty basic understanding is this. They see the land as being like a dish. And all the things that the land produces are there to feed and support people and animals. And everyone can have a share of that bounty.  

But they recognized that, if everyone takes from the dish without limit, especially in a relentless pursuit of profit, that would not be sustainable. That’s where the one spoon comes in. Instead of everyone eating at will with their own, consumption would be limited by the need to share one spoon. It is a simple concept, but a very powerful and important one. It had been foundational to how the indigenous peoples lived on this land. 

The Treaty that Shaped this Area 

So, the First Nations made a treaty which they called, fittingly, the Dish With One Spoon Treaty. The treaty was formally adopted in Montreal in September of 1700. They did not sign the treaty in the European fashion. Instead it was solemnized in the traditional fashion by the creation and presentation of a wampum belt. 

But even if it was adopted in Montreal, it changed everything here. It brought peace. As part of the treaty, the Mississaugas, who had claimed this land where you sit since ancient times, agreed to give up their exclusive claim and share it with all nations according to the law of the Dish with One Spoon.  

I know that the world has changed a lot since 1700. About eighty years later, this land right here was given away by the British Crown to the Iroquois of the Six Nations (a Haudenosaunee people) as a part of a treaty for another war – the American War of Independance. The Crown did not own the land that it gave – it had been shared with all by the Mississaugas in the previous treaty, but apparently the crown was not concerned about that. 

All Treaty People 

Have you ever thought about that – that there is an incredible history of various peoples living on and relating to this land where we have our houses, do our work, and live our lives. And these treaties are a very important part of that history. I know we often only think of treaties as applying to the indigenous people. Their ancestors entered into these treaties but they are still bound by them. But our ancestors entered into them as well. Are we not also bound by them? If we live on land that was shared or given by treaty, is there not some sense in which we ought to be living according to that treaty, or at least according to the spirit of that treaty? 

And yes, I know that our history has made that question very complicated, especially those parts where our ancestors did not keep the treaties that had been made. But I think that there are some very important lessons that we ought to take to heart from the story of the treaty made between Abram and Lot, and the story of the Treaty of a Dish with One Spoon. Let these treaties remind us that our relationship with the land that we live on is fragile. If we exploit it in ways that forget the dish with one spoon ideal, if our only concern is a relentless pursuit of profit, we may well find, like the two patriarchs did, that the land cannot support us. 

Living as Treaty People 

And the result of that is that it will lead to conflict and suffering. And who will suffer? Abram? Lot? The wealthy fur barons? No, don’t worry about them; they’ll be fine. It will be the people of the land who will suffer – the herders, the indigenous nations, the low-wage workers and ultimately the great majority of people. 

I hope that the stresses we continue to put on the land through the relentless pursuit of profit will not lead to new conflicts and the need for new treaties. I just know that that is what has happened many times before. But could we perhaps avoid that eventuality by deciding to learn from the biblical treaty between Abram and Lot? And perhaps we could avoid that by learning from the treaty that saved this very land from becoming a field of slaughter over 300 years ago, by teaching us that this land is a dish and that we all need to share the spoon.