Category: News

For families to work through this week

Sunday, June 11, 2023

https://youtu.be/ZBRGbBiBjCU

Hespeler, June 11, 2023 © Scott McAndless – Second Sunday after Pentecost
Genesis 12:1-9, Psalm 33:1-12, Romans 4:13-25, Matthew 9:9-13, 18-26

We began an important journey together as a congregation at the start of the year. We did so because we recognized that we were facing some unprecedented challenges as a church in the early twenty-first century. We were not thriving like we felt that we could or should. We wanted to know why and what we could do to change that feeling and that reality.

And now, today, we are moving toward the end of that process. After worship today we will discuss a report that includes some specific recommendations that we hope will help us move into the future with a real sense of vitality and hope. But, before we delve into that report, I would like to talk a bit about the attitude that we want to bring with us.

Online Advertising

I wonder if you can remember a time about two decades ago. Online advertising and commerce were still kind of new back then, and, in the early 2000s, the web was flooded with a certain kind of advertisement. They called it clickbait. It was the kind of ad that had a loud and enticing headline that made it almost irresistible to click on it just to find out what it was about.

One Weird Trick

And one kind of ad stood out. I know you have seen them. They proclaimed that a certain man or woman had found “one weird trick” to solve some of the most difficult problems that people struggled with. There were weird tricks for everything – to fix your weight problems, your hair loss, you complexion or wrinkles. And all you had to do was click and the answer to your problem would be right there. Remember those ads?

The ads often included lines like, “Doctors hate him or her.” That part of it was also enticing because it suggested that you could solve your problem without going through painful or expensive medical intervention, that you could be healthier without having to work out or make significant changes to your diet. The implications were that “they” (the doctors or whatever other experts) were intentionally trying to suppress or hide this trick because “they” didn’t care about you like the people posting the ad.

Why These Ads Work

Many of these ads, in case you don’t know, were scams. Some of them managed to defraud people out of thousands of dollars. But I am sure that we all understand why they were so successful. Whenever we are struggling, whenever there is something that isn’t quite right, it is always so tempting to look for that one weird trick. If only we can find that one simple thing we can do to make it all right – especially if it is painless and if you don’t have to make any real changes to what is comfortable to us – everything will be great!

North American Churches Search for Solutions

Churches do that too. In fact, in many ways, the history of the Christian Church in North America over the last few decades has been the story of an endless search for that one weird trick. That history is just full of ministry and program fads. Various experts have come along and promised that, if only you adopt their three-point (or twelve-point or however many point) plan, you will thrive. We have been promised that this evaluation tool or that missional philosophy will make everything alright.

And, of course, I am not saying that there wasn’t anything of value in these approaches. A lot of churches undertook them, and they helped them to make some necessary changes and led to at least some success. But I would suggest that those congregations who saw these ideas as that one weird trick that would fix everything with no mess and no fuss likely did not get what they really needed.

Local Churches Affected

The one weird trick fallacy also affects many a local church. How many times have church leaders had a church member, or even a visitor, come up to them and say, “Pastor, Pastor, I have one weird trick that will save this church.” Well, okay, they don’t actually say it in so many words, but that is what they mean when they say that they heard about this church over there that does this thing or that church over there that does that thing, and they have so many people showing up. If we just did that one thing, just think of the results!

Now, once again, there is nothing wrong with learning from what other churches do successfully. But it actually rarely works that you can just take one thing from one church and expect it to work somewhere else in the same way without taking into account the culture, context and many others specific characteristics of that church that no doubt contribute to that success. It doesn’t really work as a one weird trick kind of solution.

The Woman with a Flow of Blood

There was a woman who had had a flow of blood for twelve years – an absolutely horrible situation. A flow of blood would have made her unclean and, therefore, socially unacceptable. So this is not just a medical issue, it affects every part of her life.

This woman’s story is told three different times in three of our gospels. Each time it is told in the same general terms, but if you compare them side by side, you quickly realize that each gospel writer, Matthew, Mark and Luke, has a way of telling it slightly differently.

For example, in the Gospel of Mark, it speaks specifically about how this woman “had endured much under many physicians and had spent all that she had, and she was no better but rather grew worse.” (Mark 5:26)

But Matthew just jumps over her years of struggles. He doesn’t mention her suffering under many doctors. (Which makes me ask, do doctors hate her?) Matthew jumps straight to her finally coming up with one weird trick to solve all of her problems. “She was saying to herself, “If I only touch his cloak, I will be made well.”

A “One Weird Trick” Story

The way that Matthew presents it, it really does seem like a “one weird trick” kind of solution. Years of struggling and trying to find health and social acceptability for herself are suddenly wiped away by her doing just one thing. And I’m sure that you will agree with me that what she does is definitely a bit weird!

And honestly, if the story had ended there, I think that would be the message. It certainly represents the way that we often approach Jesus to solve our problems. We like to wait until we’ve gotten ourselves into a bad corner and then finally turn to Jesus in desperation to just fix things for us.

As I have already said, we tend to do it when we are worried about the vitality of our churches, but I can also give you countless examples of people who do it when they run into serious problems in their lives. I know I’ve done it too. Our default is to want to turn Jesus in to that lucky charm, that talisman, that one weird trick.

That is not how it Ends

But the story doesn’t end there. And here again, if you read the other versions of this story in the other gospels, you will get quite a different impression. They spend a fair bit of time puzzling out how Jesus figured out what had happened.

In the Gospel of Mark, we are told that Jesus felt the power going out of him and stopped, looking around to try and figure out who had touched him. But Matthew mentions none of that, likely because he recognizes that it might leave his readers with the impression that Jesus really is a magical source of healing power, that he really is that one weird trick that can solve your problem.

Jesus’ Response

But Matthew and Jesus know that that is not the case. And so Matthew jumps immediately to Jesus’ commentary on the whole affair. “Take heart, daughter;” he says, “your faith has made you well.” And only then Matthew finishes her story by saying, “And the woman was made well from that moment” – that is, from the moment when Jesus said that to her.

Now, at first glance, it may seem as if all of this is only reaffirming this woman’s “one weird trick” approach to health and vitality. It is her faith that has made her well; doesn’t that simply confirm that she was right to believe that she would get well just by touching the hem of his garment? But, of course, Jesus doesn’t say that she has been healed because of her belief in the magical power of the hem of his robe.

Having Faith

He says that her faith has done it. And in the Gospel of Matthew, in all of the gospels, having faith is never simply a matter of just believing certain things. It is always a matter of trust. It is always about trusting in Jesus and in what he has said. It is always part of an ongoing relationship and so it can never be reduced to one weird trick.

The woman’s wellness doesn’t begin when she touches his cloak. Matthew makes it clear that it only starts with Jesus’ affirmation of her faith and his encouragement to take heart. Most significantly, it begins when he calls her “daughter,” which is all about her relationship with him and with her God.

Our Report

When you get your copy of the report today, you will find that it is filled with things that we propose that we do as a congregation together. There are actions that we plan to take by particular dates. There are new regular practices that we mean to put in place. I hope you will find that there are a lot of specifics that will help us to discover a thriving future and do it well.

But do you want to know what you won’t find? You won’t find one weird trick that will solve all of our problems and fix all of our worries. Health, well-being and thriving are not things that we will ever achieve by just finding one weird trick.

Yes, there are some relatively simple things that we can do and that will help us, but none of these are about doing something that costs us nothing and fixes everything. They will only make a difference if they are part of it an ongoing journey of faith and faithfulness – faithfulness to God and faithfulness to one another.

Cultivating a Culture of Kindness

Let me get a little more specific by talking about one of the aspects of our report. We identified as one of our priorities the need to cultivate a culture of kindness. That includes things like making sure that people feel that they are welcome and that they can participate no matter who they are. We do believe that that priority can certainly help us to bring vibrancy to our church.

But if we try to do that through a one weird trick approach, it will be doomed to failure. It’s not going to work just to tell people that they are welcomed or included, for example. It is not enough to just lay out a welcome mat. Actually, getting to a place where people, especially people who are perhaps a little different from us, feel as if they can really belong, it’s going to take some work. Because it can only be achieved by building trust over time.

Healing Hurts

I don’t know if you realize this, but a lot of people have been hurt by churches over the years. It may not have always been intentional. Sometimes, perhaps, it was unavoidable. But it has happened. And when you have been hurt, when you have been made to feel as if you do not have a place, there’s no one weird trick that can fix that. It takes time to build a relationship, to get people to a place where they feel as if they can let their guard down because this time nobody’s going to try and hurt them.

Hespeler, June 11, 2023 © Scott McAndless – Second Sunday after Pentecost
Genesis 12:1-9, Psalm 33:1-12, Romans 4:13-25, Matthew 9:9-13, 18-26

W

e began an important journey together as a congregation at the start of the year. We did so because we recognized that we were facing some unprecedented challenges as a church in the early twenty-first century. We were not thriving like we felt that we could or should. We wanted to know why and what we could do to change that feeling and that reality.

And now, today, we are moving towards the end of that process. After worship today we will discuss a report that includes some specific recommendations that we hope will help us move into the future with a real sense of vitality and hope. But, before we delve into that report, I would like to talk a bit about the attitude that we want to bring with us.

Online Advertising

I wonder if you can remember a time about two decades ago. Online advertising and commerce were still kind of new back then, and, in the early 2000s, the web was flooded with a certain kind of advertisement. They called it clickbait. It was the kind of ad that had a loud and enticing headline that made it almost irresistible to click on it just to find out what it was about.

One Weird Trick

And one kind of ad stood out. I know you have seen them. They proclaimed that a certain man or woman had found “one weird trick” to solve some of the most difficult problems that people struggled with. There were weird tricks for everything – to fix your weight problems, your hair loss, you complexion or wrinkles. And all you had to do was click and the answer to your problem would be right there. Remember those ads?

The ads often included lines like, “Doctors hate him or her.” That part of it was also enticing because it suggested that you could solve your problem without going through painful or expensive medical intervention, that you could be healthier without having to work out or make significant changes to your diet. The implications were that “they” (the doctors or whatever other experts) were intentionally trying to suppress or hide this trick because “they” didn’t care about you like the people posting the ad.

Why These Ads Word

Many of these ads, in case you don’t know, were scams. Some of them managed to defraud people out of thousands of dollars. But I am sure that we all understand why they were so successful. Whenever we are struggling, whenever there is something that isn’t quite right, it is always so tempting to look for that one weird trick. If only we can find that one simple thing we can do to make it all right – especially if it is painless and if you don’t have to make any real changes to what is comfortable to us – everything will be great!

North American Churches Search for Solutions

Churches do that too. In fact, in many ways, the history of the Christian Church in North America over the last few decades has been the story of an endless search for that one weird trick. That history is just full of ministry and program fads. Various experts have come along and promised that, if only you adopt their three-point (or twelve-point or however many point) plan, you will thrive. We have been promised that this evaluation tool or that missional philosophy will make everything alright.

And, of course, I am not saying that there wasn’t anything of value in these approaches. A lot of churches undertook them, and they helped them to make some necessary changes and led to at least some success. But I would suggest that those congregations who saw these ideas as that one weird trick that would fix everything with no mess and no fuss likely did not get what they really needed.

Local Churches Affected

The one weird trick fallacy also affects many a local church. How many times have church leaders had a church member, or even a visitor, come up to them and say, “Pastor, Pastor, I have one weird trick that will save this church.” Well, okay, they don’t actually say it in so many words, but that is what they mean when they say that they heard about this church over there that does this thing or that church over there that does that thing, and they have so many people showing up. If we just did that one thing, just think of the results!

Now, once again, there is nothing wrong with learning from what other churches do successfully. But it actually rarely works that you can just take one thing from one church and expect it to work somewhere else in the same way without taking into account the culture, context and many others specific characteristics of that church that no doubt contribute to that success. It doesn’t really work as a one weird trick kind of solution.

The Woman with a Flow of Blood

There was a woman who had had a flow of blood for twelve years – an absolutely horrible situation. A flow of blood would have made her unclean and, therefore, socially unacceptable. So this is not just a medical issue, it affects every part of her life.

This woman’s story is told three different times in three of our gospels. Each time it is told in the same general terms, but if you compare them side by side, you quickly realize that each gospel writer, Matthew, Mark and Luke, has a way of telling it slightly differently.

For example, in the Gospel of Mark, it speaks specifically about how this woman “had endured much under many physicians and had spent all that she had, and she was no better but rather grew worse.” (Mark 5:26)

But Matthew just jumps over her years of struggles. He doesn’t mention her suffering under many doctors. (Which makes me ask, do doctors hate her?) Matthew jumps straight to her finally coming up with one weird trick to solve all of her problems. “She was saying to herself, “If I only touch his cloak, I will be made well.”

A “One Weird Trick” Story

The way that Matthew presents it, it really does seem like a “one weird trick” kind of solution. Years of struggling and trying to find health and social acceptability for herself are suddenly wiped away by her doing just one thing. And I’m sure that you will agree with me that what she does is definitely a bit weird!

And honestly, if the story had ended there, I think that would be the message. It certainly represents the way that we often approach Jesus to solve our problems. We like to wait until we’ve gotten ourselves into a bad corner and then finally turn to Jesus in desperation to just fix things for us.

As I have already said, we tend to do it when we are worried about the vitality of our churches, but I can also give you countless examples of people who do it when they run into serious problems in their lives. I know I’ve done it too. Our default is to want to turn Jesus in to that lucky charm, that talisman, that one weird trick.

That is not how it Ends

But the story doesn’t end there. And here again, if you read the other versions of this story in the other gospels, you will get quite a different impression. They spend a fair bit of time puzzling out how Jesus figured out what had happened.

In the Gospel of Mark, we are told that Jesus felt the power going out of him and stopped, looking around to try and figure out who had touched him. But Matthew mentions none of that, likely because he recognizes that it might leave his readers with the impression that Jesus really is a magical source of healing power, that he really is that one weird trick that can solve your problem.

Jesus’ Response

But Matthew and Jesus know that that is not the case. And so Matthew jumps immediately to Jesus’ commentary on the whole affair. “Take heart, daughter;” he says, “your faith has made you well.” And only then Matthew finishes her story by saying, “And the woman was made well from that moment” – that is, from the moment when Jesus said that to her.

Now, at first glance, it may seem as if all of this is only reaffirming this woman’s “one weird trick” approach to health and vitality. It is her faith that has made her well; doesn’t that simply confirm that she was right to believe that she would get well just by touching the hem of his garment? But, of course, Jesus doesn’t say that she has been healed because of her belief in the magical power of the hem of his robe.

Having Faith

He says that her faith has done it. And in the Gospel of Matthew, in all of the gospels, having faith is never simply a matter of just believing certain things. It is always a matter of trust. It is always about trusting in Jesus and in what he has said. It is always part of an ongoing relationship and so it can never be reduced to one weird trick.

The woman’s wellness doesn’t begin when she touches his cloak. Matthew makes it clear that it only starts with Jesus’ affirmation of her faith and his encouragement to take heart. Most significantly, it begins when he calls her “daughter,” which is all about her relationship with him and with her God.

Our Report

When you get your copy of the report today, you will find that it is filled with things that we propose that we do as a congregation together. There are actions that we plan to take by particular dates. There are new regular practices that we mean to put in place. I hope you will find that there are a lot of specifics that will help us to discover a thriving future and do it well.

But do you want to know what you won’t find? You won’t find one weird trick that will solve all of our problems and fix all of our worries. Health, well-being and thriving are not things that we will ever achieve by just finding one weird trick.

Yes, there are some relatively simple things that we can do and that will help us, but none of these are about doing something that costs us nothing and fixes everything. They will only make a difference if they are part of it an ongoing journey of faith and faithfulness – faithfulness to God and faithfulness to one another.

Cultivating a Culture of Kindness

Let me get a little more specific by talking about one of the aspects of our report. We identified as one of our priorities the need to cultivate a culture of kindness. That includes things like making sure that people feel that they are welcome and that they can participate no matter who they are. We do believe that that priority can certainly help us to bring vibrancy to our church.

But if we try to do that through a one weird trick approach, it will be doomed to failure. It’s not going to work just to tell people that they are welcomed or included, for example. It is not enough to just lay out a welcome mat. Actually, getting to a place where people, especially people who are perhaps a little different from us, feel as if they can really belong, it’s going to take some work. Because it can only be achieved by building trust over time.

Healing Hurts

I don’t know if you realize this, but a lot of people have been hurt by churches over the years. It may not have always been intentional. Sometimes, perhaps, it was unavoidable. But it has happened. And when you have been hurt, when you have been made to feel as if you do not have a place, there’s no one weird trick that can fix that. It takes time to build a relationship, to get people to a place where they feel as if they can let their guard down because this time nobody’s going to try and hurt them.

There are no one weird tricks. But there is hope, and there is life. That is what that woman discovered when she came up to Jesus that day. I don’t know if doctors hate her, but I do know that that day she was finally able to know that Jesus loved her and that she belonged. And that is what made the difference.

Our family playlist for this week.

There are a few tickets still available!

https://youtu.be/dAQCsO41F14

Hespeler, June 4, 2023 © Scott McAndless – Trinity Sunday
Genesis 1:1-2:4a, Psalm 8, 2 Corinthians 13:11-13, Matthew 28:16-20

Many people, even faithful believing Christians, will argue over the passage that we read this morning from the Book of Genesis. Many will ask the question, is it true? By which they usually mean, is it true that God really created everything that exists over a period of six 24-hour days. Many of us, perhaps rightly so, are a little bit skeptical about that idea.

But I actually think we are too quick to ask that question of this story. I would argue that you cannot say whether a piece of literature is true or not until you decide something else first. You have to decide what kind of literature it is.

Different Kinds of Literature

This is actually something that we all know, it’s just that we don’t usually talk about it. Every different kind of literature operates according to its own rules that we use to judge whether or not it is true.

For example, when you read a newspaper article and you ask whether it is true, you are actually asking whether all of the things that the article says happened actually happened as it says that they did. A true journalistic article is one that is properly sourced, that quotes people accurately and tells you what happened.

Fiction and Poetry

When you read a book of fiction, on the other hand, you know very well that the events that it narrates never happened and the characters it describes never existed. But why, then, do you read fiction? Is it because there is no truth in it? Of course not! I think that I can honestly say that some of the deepest and greatest truths I have ever learned about humanity and life in this world, I learned from some of the fictional novels that I have read. They are a great source of truth, just not literal truth.

And then you pull out a poem, let’s say, a much-loved poem by Robert Frost. And you read the part where he says, “Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference.” How would you judge whether that poem was true? Would you insist that, unless somebody could show you the actual roads that diverged in a wood somewhere where Robert Frost once stood that that was a false poem? Of course not. The truth of the poem does not depend on the existence of any roads because the road is a metaphor for the course of the poet’s life.

What Kind of Literature is it?

So, I hope you will agree with me that every different kind of literature has different rules for their truthfulness. And the Bible is not just one kind of literature. It is a collection of various types of literature. And so, if you want to know whether and how certain passages are true, you need to know what kind of literature you were dealing with.

So, what kind of literature is the creation story? I suspect that most of us would agree that it was not intended to be a journalistic account of what actually happened at the beginning of all things. It predates the invention of journalism by many centuries. Therefore, the truth of it does not depend on everything having happened exactly as it describes. Nor would we call it a scientific textbook, which would mean that it’s truth would have to be demonstrated through repeatable experimentation and observation. But what sort of literature are we dealing with?

A Liturgy

I am going to make a suggestion that might not necessarily occur to many people. I am going to suggest that the story of creation in Genesis chapter 1 is actually a liturgy. A liturgy is a very specific kind of literature. It is a document written to guide a community through an act of worship. Our Sunday morning bulletin, for example, is a very simple kind of liturgy.

And there are some pretty good reasons for thinking that Genesis 1 could be a liturgy. It is very repetitive, and you can easily imagine how it might have worked as a sort of call and response. You can imagine, for example, the worship leaders calling out, “And there was evening and there was morning.” And then all the people responding, “the first day, the second day, the third day, and so on.”

The Enuma Elish

But, even more important than that, we know that there were worship services in the ancient world that were very similar to what we see in Genesis 1. I mean, extremely similar. In Babylon, during the Neo Babylonian kingdom, there was an annual New Year’s festival. And as a key part of this worship festival for the Babylonian gods, the great epic story, called the Enuma Elish, was recited.

And guess what the Enuma Elish was. It was the story, told in seven tablets, of how Marduk, the chief god of the Babylonians, created the world and everything in it. And there is a lot in common between the two stories.

How Marduk Created

Marduk creates, in fact, following almost exactly the same steps as the Lord God does in Genesis. He separates the waters above from the waters below. He creates lights in the dome of the sky to organize the passage of time and seasons. Step by step, the creation takes place in pretty much the same order.

So, there is a lot in common. But there is also a lot that is different. In Genesis, how does God create? By a word. God speaks and everything in all creation is put into its proper place.

Marduk, on the other hand, has a very different approach to creation in the Enuma Elish. Marduk creates almost everything through violence. When he separates the waters above from the waters below by creating a solid barrier, he doesn’t do it by speaking like God does. He does it by defeating a great monster named Tiamat and then literally ripping her in two from top to bottom.

When he creates humanity, he does so by killing another god and creating the human beings, as slaves to the gods, out of the blood of that dead god. So, while it is remarkable how the two stories are alike, it is in many ways even more remarkable how different they are.

Story Originated in Babylon

The connections between the two stories are so significant, that most scholars today believe that the Genesis account was influenced by the Babylonian creation story. And, by far, the most likely time when that would have happened was while the people of Israel were living as exiles in the land of Babylon.

While they were there, many of them living as servants in the homes of the Babylonian elite, they would have been exposed to the Enuma Elish. And, in the midst of that harrowing experience, some of them may have been inspired by God to create this liturgy of creation.

Why they Needed this Story

Put yourself for a moment into the position of those poor Judean exiles in Babylon. They have been subjugated and defeated by this terrible violent people. They have been robbed of their homeland by them and reduced to being their servants and slaves.

And every year, at the Babylonian New Year, they are forced to listen to a story that affirms that the Babylonians are the greatest and that they deserve to rule over the whole world. And why are the Babylonians so great? Well, obviously because the Babylonian gods are the best. And we know that the Babylonian gods are the best because look at all of the other gods and monsters they killed and slaughtered and tore into pieces in order to create the world. That was the message.

A Better Story

And can you not imagine some poor Judean exiles getting together one day and saying, “No, that’s just not right. The world was not created to be a place of violence and slaughter and death. It was not created merely so that the strong could exploit the weak. It was created to be a place of hope and life. And so, it couldn’t have been those violent Babylonian gods who made everything.

“It must have been our God who is the creator of all. And our God did not create everything by violence and slaughter and tearing other beings in two, our God brought order and meaning to the universe with… with just a few words. And God made it good. That’s how powerful our God is!”

A Festival

But, of course, it wasn’t enough to just say that. Who would care what a bunch of powerless slaves and exiles said. They needed a powerful way to express it so that people would remember it and have hope. And what better way to do that than to start to gather as a Jewish exile community. Over a week they would gather and celebrate their God as the true creator of the universe.

And let’s just guess what exactly they may have worshipped over those seven days. Day one: God the creator of light. Day two: the creator who separated the waters above from the waters below and created the barrier of the sky. Day three: The creator of dry land and growing plants. Day four: The creator of the sun, moon and stars and, well you get the idea.

Just a Basic Outline

So what we seem to have in the first chapter of Genesis is the basic outlines of the worship that was carried out over this weeklong festival. Of course, there would have been more to it than that. There would have been hymns to sing and we might even have some of the lyrics: “So God created humans in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.” I can imagine a choir singing that, can’t you?

I’m sure there must have been dancing and feasting too. What better way to celebrate the creator of growing things than with a feast of fruits, for example. But the basic outline is right there in the seven days of creation story.

The Seven Days

Of course, you realize what this means? All of those people who tie themselves up in knots about how the Bible says that God created the world in seven days and that therefore all of the scientists who say the earth is millions of years old are wrong despite having all of the evidence on their side, may have completely misunderstood what this passage is actually saying. The seven days is not intended to be an indication of how long it took God to do it. It is only an indication of how long it took for the people to celebrate it.

An Act of Resistance

But, more important, this means that this story is about a whole lot more than how the world came to be. It is all about how a subjugated and exploited people can stand up for themselves and resist their abusers. And that is an aspect of this passage that we definitely need to recover given what is going on in our world today.

So, what can we draw from this story to help build a better world? Well, think of it this way. The exiles in Babylon lived in a world where everyone believed that violence and power were the solutions to every problem and that only the most powerful could rule. The Babylonian Enuma Elish reinforced that view of things.

We still live in a society that believes that today. Think of all of the stories we tell – the stories that come out of Marvel Studios for example. But the Jewish exiles told a very different story of a God who created with words, not violence. It was a powerful witness that the world could be different!

Valuing Human Life

The exiles in Babylon lived in a world where human beings like them were considered to exist only to serve the interests of the powerful and wealthy. This was reinforced by the Babylonian creation story that declared that all humans had only been created as servants to the gods.

And make no mistake that we also live in a world that values human life in much the same way. All of us everyday are constantly being judged in terms of what we can produce, what we contribute to the economy. And those who do not produce, or who do not earn enough from the fruit of their labour, are increasingly abandoned and treated as worthless. The Babylonian Creation story’s message is still powerful!

But the Jewish exiles were bold to proclaim in their story that the purpose of humanity was very different – that “In the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.” They dared to tell a story of God giving dominion over the land to all people and that the goods of the earth were gifted to all humanity by God for their sustenance.

A Subversive Sabbath

And, if the people who celebrated this story were essentially slaves, what do a slaves need more than anything else? They need time off! And this story of creation is all about taking time off, isn’t it? That is why the whole thing is built around a seven-day cycle! It is all about getting us to the seventh day, the day of rest!

And in this liturgy, what were the Hebrew exiles saying? They were saying that their time off was not a gift of their Babylonian masters. They were saying that it was a gift of their God – indeed that God had built the entire universe around their need for a break! That was a dangerous thing to say in Babylon, but the Jews told this enduring story, and a good story has a way of getting through to people. The story stuck.

The Genesis creation story is a worship liturgy. But, more important, it offered a way to tell a story that went against the narrative of the world. As such, it had a powerful and enduring impact. Let’s think about the stories that we tell about this world. They can also have the same kind of impact. And let’s also consider how our acts of worship can also transform our understanding of this world. That is where the deepest truth and greatest power of the story of creation can be found.

Our family playlist for this week.

https://youtu.be/T7f-ZKb8vWU

Hespeler, May 28, 2023 © Scott McAndless – Pentecost
Numbers 11:24-30, Psalm 104:24-34, 35b, Acts 2:1-21, John 20:19-23

You might not know this about me, but I have a degree in Linguistics – the study of language. And that has always meant that I look at the famous story of the Day of Pentecost in the Book of Acts a little differently from most preachers.

I cannot just turn off the Linguist part of my brain when I read it. I cannot help but notice, for example, that, on one level, the miracle of people speaking in different languages was not really necessary for comprehension.

Everyone Spoke Greek

It is true, of course, that various people who lived in various places spread all over the known world at that time had their own local languages. But it is also true that, because of the conquests of Alexander the Great and the Roman Empire, many people had also learned at least one other language.

If you traveled or traded or dealt with government officials, you learned to speak Greek. You had to just to get by. And so, even if expatriate Jews and some Gentiles had travelled to Jerusalem for the festival of Pentecost, and even if they spoke the local language back home, they all had a very easy and convenient way to communicate with each other: just speak Greek.

What is the Point?

So, what is the point of these members of the church suddenly speaking in all these local languages from back home? What is it supposed to accomplish? It can’t be about comprehension, so what is it about?

Ah, but any Linguist understands that language isn’t just about comprehension. It also serves several social functions. So, I suspect that something else is going on in this story. But, to understand what it is, you may need to put yourself in the sandals of one of those outsiders who had come in for the festival that year.

A Visitor from Parthia

Shimeon was a Jew, but he was a Jew who had lived all his life in Parthia. And, for almost all of that life, the King of Parthia had been at war with the Emperor of Rome. Even though it was practically required of all Jews that they should travel to Jerusalem every year for the three main festivals, everyone understood that those who lived elsewhere could only make the trip rarely.

But when you live in a place at war with Rome, when you literally have to cross a demilitarized zone to get from your home to the temple in Jerusalem, you can imagine that even doing so rarely could become impossible.

A Wonderful Opportunity

The fact of the matter was that Shimeon had never been able to make the pilgrimage, not even once in his entire life. So, he had been so very excited when things had worked out and he was able to come down for the Festival of Passover this year. It was a wonderful opportunity to connect with the heritage and traditions of his people that had always been so hard to hold onto in far off Parthia.

As a Jew, a member of a minority community, he had always felt like an outsider in Parthia. He was excluded from all religious festivals and most other social gatherings in the mainstream society. So, of course he had been looking forward to being in a place where he was surrounded by Jewish people and by Jewish practices and worship. He had thought that he might find himself here. But, things had not quite gone as he had expected. A lot of it had to do with language.

Jews in Parthia

When the small Jewish community in Parthia gathered in synagogue, they sometimes did some prayers and rituals in the old Hebrew language. But the old language didn’t mean much to them. When the elders read the scriptures, they occasionally read from the few Hebrew scrolls that they had, but then they had to explain what they meant to the younger people in Greek. So, it was usually much easier to read from the popular Greek translation known as the Septuagint. These scrolls, that had first been published some two centuries earlier, were also easier to obtain in far-off Parthia than any Hebrew scrolls.

So, while Shimeon had heard some archaic Hebrew, he really wasn’t comfortable using it. But he hadn’t expected that to be a problem on this pilgrimage. Wherever he had traveled before, he had always managed to get by in Greek, surely things would be the same in Jerusalem.

Treated like an Outsider

But it had not worked out that way. As he dealt with the native Judeans – bartering for a place to stay or for food in the marketplace or even just asking for some directions – when he spoke to them in Greek, he could tell that they could understand him. When he asked for the price of the figs, for example, they looked right at the basket of figs in the booth, but then they stubbornly answered him in the local dialect of Aramaic.

Aramaic was somewhat related to old Hebrew, so he was sometimes able to work out what they were saying, but then, when he tried to answer them in the language that he had heard in the synagogue back home, they laughed at him, calling his accent strange and ill-tutored. They then used this as a ready excuse to overcharge him or deny him the goods he had been looking for.

Understanding the Judeans

You see, the Judeans, who had so long felt like outsiders in the big world of the Roman Empire, tended to make up for that by treating those who came from other places like minorities and outsiders. They refused to speak common Greek to them. They doubled down on the local Aramaic dialect and were only too happy to make fun of the way that the outsiders spoke.

They did this to all of the outsiders who came down to the festival, even those who only came from as close as Galilee. Galileans, in many ways, were the most like the Judeans, especially in their dialect. But the Judeans went out of their way to make fun of their strange northern accent.

So, even though participating in the events of the festival had meant a great deal to him, ever since he had arrived, Shimeon still felt as if he didn’t belong here either. It made him wonder if he really belonged anywhere.

A Sudden Disruption

The greatest day, the climax of the festival, was the day when the people brought their first fruits to present in the temple. It was a chance to give back to God from the very best that God had given to them over the year. And Shimeon was excited as he joined the throng moving through the streets. If he didn’t speak, no one looked twice at him and, for a few moments he could feel as if he was part of something much bigger than himself.

But suddenly, as he passed by a side street, he heard some shouting. It sounded… different. It didn’t have the same cadence and rhythm of the local Aramaic language. It seemed strange and out of place here, and yet the thing that really struck Shimeon about it was a strange familiarity. There was something in it that felt like home to him, as if he were suddenly back on the streets of the city in Parthia where he had grown up and played with the other local boys.

Galileans Behaving Strangely

And so, he turned aside, as did a number of other worshippers in the crowd. They soon came upon a small group of men and women who had gathered outside of a house. It was quite plain that all of them, by their clothing and their mannerisms, were Galileans. But, amazingly, they weren’t speaking like Galileans. To his wonder and amazement, Shimeon noticed that one of them, a young man, was shouting out praises to God in the local language of Parthia – the very language he had grown up speaking on the streets.

As he looked around at him, he saw many other pilgrims has been drawn to the spot. They, like him, had traveled from many places to be here for the festival – Mesopotamia, Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia. Oh, there were too many to name! And he could see by the looks on their faces and by the tears that they were wiping from their eyes that they were reacting much as he had. They also had felt completely excluded up until this moment, but they all suddenly felt that they belonged.

Judean Backlash

But they were not the only ones who had been attracted by the disturbance. There were also some local people too, some Judeans. And they were moved by what they heard as well, but not in the same way. Many of them were furious. For, in and amongst all of the various languages and accents that had been emanating from the group of Galileans, there were also words spoken in the local Judean dialect.

The Judeans in the crowd felt as if they were being mocked by these crude Galileans. Why, the very idea that their language, the language obviously favoured by God, could be counted merely as one among so many others was unacceptable. And so, they, for their part, began to shout out against these Galileans. “Don’t listen to these country Bumpkins,” they cried. “Here it is. Only nine o’clock in the morning and they are already drunk and raving like lunatics!”

A Galilean Speaks

But then the crowd fell silent as one of the Galileans stepped forward. Everyone wanted to hear what he might have to say about such wonders. “Fellow Judeans, and all who live in Jerusalem,” he said, speaking specifically to those who had been criticizing them. He spoke in very poor Greek, mixed with many Aramaicisms and a heavy Galilean accent. “Let this be known to you, and listen to what I say. Indeed, these people are not drunk as you suppose, for it is only nine o’clock in the morning.” And so began the very first Christian sermon ever preached.

Something about the Early Church

When the writer of the Book of Acts started writing his account of the beginnings of the Christian movement, he knew a number of things about the earliest church. He knew, for example, that one of the practices of the church from near the beginning (and perhaps it continued into his own day) included believers speaking in strange languages.

It worked like this. Some believers, while they were gathered with the community in worship, would enter into an ecstatic state. This is something that human beings have been doing for a very long time. They get all worked up in a frenzy until they lose all ordinary control of themselves. It is something that still happens to this day in various settings including worship services and raves and even some practices that use psychotropic drugs.

Speaking in Tongues

In this state, the believers would sometimes speak in unintelligible languages. These were not actual languages, but more like ecstatic utterances. In his Letter to the Corinthians, Paul insisted that they could only be understood through a similar act of ecstatic interpretation by another believer.

But the act of speaking in tongues, as it was called, could be very moving and had the effect of deepening the worshipper’s connection to God and the community through the Holy Spirit. As a result, those who engaged in it seem to have sometimes thought that they were somehow better Christians than those who didn’t. The Apostle Paul saw that as a problem.

The Author of Acts Makes it Mean Something Else

The author of the Book of Acts obviously knew about this practice. But when he came to write the story of the origins of the Christian Church, he decided to present it in a different way. He decided, for just this one occasion it seems, to transform this speaking in tongues into something that wasn’t just ecstatic and unintelligible. He had the first Christians on that first day speak in the local languages of people from every corner of the known world.

Why did he do this. I think he was trying to say something – something that was probably more symbolic than it was literal.

A Writer who Knew About Being an Outsider

We don’t actually know who wrote the Book of Acts. Christian tradition says that it was a man named Luke, but we can hardly be sure of that. Whoever he was, though, he was almost certainly a man who spoke Greek as his first language. His Greek is excellent.

So perhaps he had had the experience, as a Greek interested in the God of Israel, of going to a festival in Jerusalem and being treated like an outsider. He knew what it was like to be the outsider who the locals thought talked funny. I wonder if that is why he reimagined the practice of the early church of speaking in tongues as something that could overcome that kind of prejudice and mistreatment.

If that’s what he was doing, he was putting forward something very hopeful. He was drawing a compelling picture of what the church could be – a community where there really was a place for anybody and nobody ever got treated as a second class citizen. That is an idea of the church that I still cling to and aspire to. If we could all aspire to that, I think that God would do some amazing things among us.

Acts 2:1-21

Our family playlist for this week