Category: News

All are welcome!

https://youtu.be/3qufUWXAa_Q

Hespeler, March 3, 2024 © Scott McAndless – Third Sunday in Lent
Exodus 20:1-17, Psalm 19, 1 Corinthians 1:18-25, John 2:13-22

t is a pattern we have all seen by now so often that it has almost become routine. A report comes out that a popular personality – a celebrity or a politician or maybe it is an influential religious person – has said something horrible, awful and egregious – something racist or homophobic or a statement in support of an accused terrorist group.

And what is the first response? It is almost always a firm denial. No, they never said such a horrible, awful thing. Whoever said that they said it is obviously lying. Whoever reported it is only publishing fake news. Nothing to see here!

The Truth Comes Out

Shortly afterwards, almost on cue, what happens? The tape is suddenly released or an unimpeachable witness steps forward. Yes, it turns out, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that the beloved personality really did say it.

That should be the end of the story, right? Now that the proof is out in the open, it cannot be denied. So, does the accused finally admit that they were in the wrong? Of course not! No, the next explanation we learn is that, okay, yes, they did say it. But everybody’s got it all wrong. They didn’t mean it like that!

So I guess it turns out that it’s actually everybody else’s fault because we all totally misunderstood what this very important person said. If there’s any apology at all at this point, the person will apologize for how everyone else misunderstood and misconstrued what they said.

Public Relations Confusion

How often have you seen that same series of events play out in public relations? Sometimes it leads us to real confusion about what the person actually said and what it meant. And sometimes it creates a conversation that might just lead to a better understanding of who they are – for better or for worse.

I was thinking about this kind of drama that regularly plays out in the world of public relations when I read our passage from the Gospel of John this morning. Because it turns out that Jesus himself was once accused of saying something terrible – something that you would think only a terrorist would say. He said that he would destroy the temple in Jerusalem – the central institution of Judean society and that he would rebuild it in three days.

Mark is Adamant!

And the very idea that Jesus could ever even dream of saying such a thing was so unthinkable that the writer of the Gospel of Mark, the first of our gospels ever written, went out of his way to deny it. When Jesus is on trial near the end of the Gospel of Mark, he writes, “For many gave false testimony against him, and their testimony did not agree. Some stood up and gave false testimony against him, saying, ‘We heard him say, “I will destroy this temple that is made with hands, and in three days I will build another, not made with hands.”’” (Mark 14:56-58)

Did you catch that? Mark is so sure that Jesus never said anything like that he insists twice that this was “false testimony.” Imagine my surprise, therefore, when I turn over to the Gospel of John who reports those very words on Jesus’ own lips: “Jesus answered them, ‘Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.’”

False Testimony?

And yes, I realize that those are not exactly the words that Mark says that Jesus didn’t say. Perhaps they are even different enough that a public relations expert could spin it to say that Mark was technically correct in his previous denials. But is it really different enough for Mark to have insisted so strongly that it was all “false testimony”?

So, we are in that place where we so often find ourselves in the world these days when we are given conflicting reports about what some famous person said, and we are left to work out for ourselves what it all really means. And that is, by the way, exactly where the gospel writer of John wants us to be.

A Terrorist Act?

He has done this on purpose to get us thinking about the meaning behind what Jesus is doing. Jesus is, after all, causing a major disturbance in the temple. It is the kind of act that anyone, no matter how sympathetic to Jesus and his cause, would find troubling.

Imagine, for example, if some people went into the Dome of the Rock Mosque in Jerusalem today and started turning over tables and whipping people. That would be seen, at the very least, as an act of terrorism. In the present context, it would probably open a new front in the ongoing war. Whatever Jesus may have said on the occasion, what he did in the temple was definitely radical, inflammatory and provocative. And yet, all four gospels agree that he did that.

This is one of Jesus’ more radical moments, and so we absolutely need to come to terms with what it means. The Gospel of John, by insisting that Jesus said what the Gospel of Mark insists that he didn’t say, is quite intentionally forcing us to come to terms with it.

Is it Practical?

So, what does it mean? Is Jesus attacking the temple? He may be doing so symbolically, but the gospel writer seems to want to make it abundantly clear that Jesus is by no means a practical threat to the temple itself. He underlines the fact that, at the time when Jesus’ ministry began, the temple had “been under construction for forty-six years.”

The rebuild had been started as a vanity project by Herod the Great and the work would not be completed for nearly as long again after Jesus came, at which point it would be destroyed by Romans, not by Jesus. So, the gospel writer seems to be screaming at his readers, “Do you know how big and complicated the temple complex was? The very idea that Jesus could destroy it is ridiculous!”

So, What did he Mean?

So, yes, the point is clear that Jesus cannot mean this literally. But we are still left with the question of how we can understand it. Fortunately, John clears that one up for us too. He tells us what Jesus really meant: “But he was speaking of the temple of his body.” He is speaking about his own death and resurrection that will be recounted at the end of this gospel.

But he’s also saying more than that. He is looking forward to the time when there will not be a temple in Jerusalem, and he’s promising that his own body will step into the role that the temple once played. The temple was the place where the people of Israel encountered their God, and Jesus is promising that his own body will become that point of contact between heaven and earth.

The Body of Christ

A little bit later this morning, we will be gathering around the communion table and remembering the ancient words of Jesus as we break the bread: “This is my body, given for you.” It is in our participation as a community in this meal, that we are able to find that same encounter with God that the people of Israel experienced in the temple.

So, this odd saying of Jesus that Mark had such a problem with that he insisted Jesus never said it, is suddenly laden with meaning for us as followers of Jesus.

But there is one more very surprising aspect to this objectionable saying of Jesus. The gospel writer tells us what Jesus meant by it, but he also admits that nobody understood that when Jesus said it. He writes, “After he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this, and they believed the scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken.”

Nobody Understood Jesus

So, the Jewish officials don’t understand what Jesus means, and neither do the disciples, not when he says it. In fact, they have to remember what he said for the three years of ministry that, according to the Gospel of John, are still ahead of Jesus at this point. They have to remember it until after he is crucified and then raised from the dead, and only then, only after the resurrection, will this saying of Jesus mean anything to them. So, what did they think that Jesus meant in the meantime? Did they think for three years that Jesus was making a terrorist threat against the temple? I mean, what else could they have thought?

The Resurrection Changed Everything

But this actually underlines something that is absolutely central to the whole Christian faith. It all comes down to the experience of Jesus’ death and resurrection. Very clearly, once those first Christians became convinced that Jesus really had risen from the dead, they went over everything that they remembered him saying and doing and all of it took on new meaning.

Previously vague statements about his relationship with his heavenly Father suddenly become indications that he was God’s Son in some unique way. Parables that were once incomprehensible became clearly about him and who he truly was. Nonsensical sayings became profound truths. Everything changed as it was seen through that lens.

How John is Telling his Story

And since the Gospel of John presents this story at the very beginning of his Gospel instead of at the end like the other three, the author is loudly announcing to us that he intends to tell this whole story through that lens. He is not merely going to tell us what Jesus did and said; he is going to tell us what his words and deeds meant in the light of his death and resurrection. And that probably explains why Jesus speaks so differently in this gospel as compared to the others. The writer isn’t just telling us what Jesus said; he is translating it all into the deeper meaning as he goes.

But, if that was true for the gospel writer, how much truer is it for us today? One of the things that unites us as Christians is our admiration for this man, Jesus. We admire his wisdom, his teaching, his care for the sinners and outcasts and the healing he brought into people’s lives. I would hope that all of those things inspire us as we do our best to walk in the path that Jesus has shown to us.

The Power of the Resurrection

But it is the experience of the resurrection of Jesus and its power that gives us the ability to keep going. It is the knowledge of that that transforms this simple meal that we will share into a spiritual feast of divine proportions. It is what gives us the hope and expectation that death is not the final word despite the fact that it often seems to reign in this world.

But I want you to note how I am phrasing this. It is about the experience of the resurrection of Jesus. I know there are some who would tell you that it is enough that we hear the news that Jesus is risen from the dead – that we accept the testimony of those first-generation Christians who saw him after his death. But I honestly don’t think that that is what it is about. It is not just a matter of coming to accept the intellectual knowledge that people saw Jesus alive. It’s not just about believing that it happened.

Firsthand Experience

The thing that changed everything for those early believers was when they experienced that resurrection for themselves. And, yes, some of them had a very direct experience of the risen Jesus, but not all did. But those who did not see him directly, didn’t just have to take other people’s word for it. They could experience the power of the resurrection for themselves.

They experienced it in the community of the church that came together and supported one another in the face of danger and opposition. They experienced it when they stepped out in faith to bring healing and hope to the people of their community. And they experienced it when they took on the structures of oppression in their society, much like Jesus attacked the temple institution in his day, and they survived. They experienced it when they gathered to share a common meal. And they especially experienced it when they saw new life coming out of death in many areas of their lives.

And so We Gather for Communion

In a little while, we will enter into a celebration of Jesus’ life, death and resurrection. And so, I will invite you to come to this celebration with an expectation. Don’t expect to merely hear a testimony to what happened to Jesus. Expect to enter into the experience of his death and resurrection for yourself. For the church community dies and is raised up to new life together every time we do this. And I would invite you to filter everything you have learned about Jesus through this  experience.

Everyone is welcome to join us at 1:30 pm

Communion is on March 3, 10:00 am

https://youtu.be/21VE69RYhSY

Hespeler, February 25, 2024 © Scott McAndless – Second Sunday in Lent
Genesis 17:1-7, 15-16, Psalm 22:23-31, Romans 4:13-25, Mark 8:31-38

Did you know that there was once a high priest who served in the temple in Jerusalem named Jesus? He was, in fact, the very first high priest who was consecrated to serve in the temple that was rebuilt after the people returned from exile in Babylon. He’s mentioned in the books of Ezra and Nehemiah. His name in Hebrew would have been Joshua, or in Aramaic it would have been Yeshua. But in Greek, the language of the New Testament and of the Old Testament that the gospel writers read, the name was Jesus.

Zechariah’s Vision

So this was a very significant person at a very significant moment in history. And in the Book of Zechariah, we are told of a vision that the Prophet Zechariah had regarding this priest, Jesus. (Zechariah 3:1-6) In Zechariah’s vision, he saw the priest Jesus being prepared to lead the sacrifices in the temple.

But then he was accused by someone called the accuser, or, in Hebrew, the Satan, of not being worthy of performing the sacrifice. The Satan said that Jesus was nothing more than “a brand plucked from the fire,” That is to say, he was just an upstart from the streets. He was dressed in dirty clothes and not impressive like a priest was supposed to be.

But, in this vision, Yahweh, the God of Israel, rebukes the Satan and tells him that Jesus is worthy of making the sacrifice, that God will clothe Jesus in new clean clothes and a white turban. That God will make him worthy.

I realize that this is just a vision. But visions matter a great deal in the biblical tradition, so I’d like to dwell on it for a moment. Zechariah had a vision in which the Satan rebuked Jesus for wanting to perform a sacrifice and the Satan was rebuked by God for doing so. Does any of that sound familiar?

The Satan

Oh, and you’re probably wondering why I keep saying the Satan rather than just talking about Satan. It is because that is what it actually says in the Hebrew text. It is not a name, but rather a title. The Satan, according to much of the Old Testament, was not another name for the devil or the great enemy of God.

The Satan was actually someone who was on God’s heavenly team. He had a very particular job; he operated like God’s Attorney General. He challenged and tested the actions of various people to decide if they were faithful or not. He famously did that to Job at the beginning of the Book of Job and he seems to be doing the same thing to the High Priest Jesus in Zechariah’s vision.

Now, it is true that, over time, the figure of the Satan came to be mingled with another figure – the devil who operated as God’s opponent and enemy – but that was a slow process and that blending had not completed when the Book of Zechariah was written. And that makes me wonder. Where are we in that blending process when it comes to the mind of Jesus or of the gospel writer in our reading this morning from the Gospel of Mark?

Peter’s Good Mood

Peter had been riding high all week. Things had just been going so well. Jesus was growing in popularity. Larger and larger crowds were turning out and he was really starting to think that this whole movement was going somewhere. Everyone recognized him as a key leader. He began to dream that, as he rode on Jesus’ coattails, he would see his own influence and status grow. Things were good.

One day they were just all hanging out and shooting the breeze in Caesarea Philippi when something Jesus said suddenly made Peter realize what all of this fantastic success they’d been experiencing really meant. Jesus wasn’t just a really great teacher and healer. He was actually God’s Messiah, the Anointed One. And so he said so – said it right in front of everyone. And then, far from denying it, Jesus said that it was all a big secret that they would have to keep for a while.

Jesus Spoils his Day

But then, all of a sudden, Jesus just crushed all of Peter’s good mood. He started talking about how they would have to go down to Jerusalem and, when they did, he would undergo great suffering and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes and that he would be killed! He said more after that, but when Peter heard that much, he got so mad that he stopped listening.

What’s more, he could hardly wait to get Jesus alone so that he could tell him off for being such a downer. “Listen, Jesus,” he said, “we just can’t afford this kind of pessimistic thinking! You need to stop talking like that right now!” But Jesus rebuked Peter saying, “Get behind me, Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.”

Coincidence?

I was rather surprised to notice the strong parallels between that famous episode in Jesus’ life and the less famous vision that the Prophet Zechariah had. Do you think that it is just a coincidence that those two passages echo each other so perfectly? I don’t really believe in that kind of coincidence when it comes to reading the scripture. I think there is a connection between those passages that we had better not miss.

What I’m trying to say is, I don’t think that that exchange between Peter and Jesus where each rebuked the other is just about something that happened once. It is not just about that time when Jesus told his disciples what was going to happen specifically to him and his disciples, and especially Peter, really couldn’t handle it.

What Messiah Means

I mean, yes, it is about that. It is obviously about what it means that Jesus is the Messiah. It is about how people like Peter had one idea about him being Messiah – that it was all about honour and glory and continual victory – and that Jesus had a very different idea, that it was actually about service and sacrifice.

And Peter tested Jesus. He didn’t test him towards evil; if that had been the case, Jesus would have called him the devil. But Jesus didn’t call him that; he called him Satan. He was saying that Peter’s rebuke meant that Peter wanted Jesus to take the easy way out – the path of least resistance. Peter was being enticing, but he wasn’t being evil.

So that was a significant moment in Jesus’ ministry and the development of it. But, like I said, it wasn’t just a one-time event. It happened in the time of the Prophet Zechariah too when that prophet had a vision of almost exactly the same thing happening to the priest Jesus in his own day. The two events are connected and that, to my mind, means that it is a kind of cosmic event that happened way back then and in the time of Jesus and that it just keeps happening.

The Spirit of the Satan

In other words, the spirit of the Satan is still active in the world today. And again, when I say the Satan, I do not mean it in the way that that is usually understood today. I am not talking about a great malevolent spirit who is at work in this world. I mean, sure, there may be a lot of evidence of that spirit at work in the world today, but that was not the spirit the Jesus was dealing with as he spoke with Peter. I’m talking about the spirit of testing that goes forth from God and tests all of our hearts as we seek to choose between what is good and what is better.

Priorities and Modern Life

No, I’m thinking about situations like this. You, everyday as you go through your life, are faced with a myriad of decisions. You are forced to prioritize certain things. In this world, we are often pushed to prioritize the things that will give us and the people in our family financial security. Indeed, that is one of the primary messages of our modern age. And there is indeed nothing wrong with doing that. We are living within a capitalistic society, and so we are pretty much forced to operate according to the capitalist system.

And so, for example, people often feel the pressure to prioritize work over family or more pay over their personal health and well-being. Of course these are good things, especially when we are doing things like creating security for the people that we love. And security usually means money in our society. And so Peter, or the Satan, is constantly coming to us and saying that we should just continue to prioritize these things.

God’s Priorities

But what if God is calling you to prioritize something else? In some cases that might be your own health, or it could be about spending some real quality time with the people that you love. In some cases, God might be calling you to embrace something that has more meaning than merely getting more money to participate in the economy. Maybe God is asking you to step out in ministry or service to others like he was calling Jesus.

And God may even be calling you to step out in a risky way to challenge what is wrong in the world right now, possibly at great personal cost. Which, of course, was also what God was calling Jesus to do.

The Satan Rebukes You

Whenever we consider any such things, whenever the call seems to be upon you to do such things, you can be sure that the Satan of this world, the people of this world who don’t want anyone to rock the boat or to prioritize something different will rebuke you.

You may be at such a moment in your life right now. That’s what I mean when I say that Zechariah’s vision continues to play out in the modern world just as it played out for Jesus. And will you, like him, have the courage to rebuke the accuser and choose the path of courage that is before you?

Corporate Priorities

But this is not only about your individual action. This is also about how we choose to act corporately in this world. I suspect that the church, for one, is also living out Zechariah’s vision today? We are still attempting to live out our models of success that we have inherited from the past, continuing to try and replicate past glories and past successes.

But many of them are not working like they once did. It is like the church has become “a brand plucked from the fire,” a priest in dirty clothes. But whenever anyone suggests that maybe it’s time to try something new or different, what is the reaction? The Satan will rebuke us, will suggest that it would just be safer to do things as they have always been done. Will we have the courage to rebuke the Satan?

The corporate and business world all around us has become ever more fixed on profits. Every quarter they are expected to show more and more growth. That is the way of the world in which we live, after all. Corporations and businesses exist only for one goal and that is to produce ever more profits for investors. It doesn’t matter who is suffering, or who can’t pay their bills or can no longer afford to pay the rents so long as the investors are happy at the end of the day.

Telling the Satan to Get Behind

Now profit, in itself is a good thing. It drives investment and can create security and prosperity for many. But the Satan today seems to be telling the whole world that it is the only thing that matters and that all other things must be sacrificed to it. And when profit becomes the absolute priority, we have a problem. Will we rebuke Satan and tell him to get behind us?

You see, it still keeps on happening. The Satan, the accuser is still at work and testing us in this world. Zechariah’s vision is played out over and over again, but the response is simple, and Jesus shows us the way. It is time to put the accuser behind us and to step out in faith, choosing the better over the good, choosing service over security. We can all choose to play our part in the greater work that God is doing in this world.

https://youtu.be/gkObY3x3E28

Hespeler, February 18, 2024 © Scott McAndless – First Sunday in Lent
Genesis 8:20-9-17, Psalm 25:1-10, 1 Peter 3:18-22, Mark 1:9-15

Once upon a time, a great city called Shurrupak was built on the shores of the Euphrates River. And as the city grew and filled with people, it became so noisy that even the gods began to complain about the din. The storm god Enlil was so upset that the city was disturbing his beauty sleep that he gathered all the gods and demanded that something be done about it. He persuaded them wipe out all the mortals in a great flood.

But the god Ea sent a warning in a dream to a man named Utnapishtim. With his children and hired men, Utnapishtim built an enormous boat with seven decks and filled it with supplies. The boat was launched, loaded with Utnapishtim’s gold, children, wife, relatives, animals, and craftsmen.

The Great Flood

Early the next day, a black cloud appeared on the horizon, and a great storm came – a storm so powerful that even the gods cowered in fear. The storm raged for six days and nights, but finally, with the dawn of the seventh day, the rains stopped, and the sea became calm. Utnapishtim opened the hatch of his boat and saw that he was surrounded by an endless sea. But there, in the distance, he saw a mountain rising up out of the water.

He sailed towards the mountain for six days and six nights. On the dawn of the seventh day, Utnapishtim released a dove into the air. The dove returned, for it found no place to land. Then Utnapishtim released a swallow, and it too returned. But then Utnapishtim released a raven that did not come back. Utnapishtim then opened the hatches and made an offering of cane, cedar, and myrtle on a mountaintop in a heated cauldron. And the gods gathered like flies over the sacrifice.

Babylonian Stories

When you live in a strange land, one of the best ways to get to know the people you are living among is to listen to their stories. These will tell you a lot about how they see the world and their place in it. And so, when the ancient people of Judah were taken away against their will and forced to live in the land of Babylon and work for the Babylonian people, they heard the stories of their captors, stories that taught them a great deal about this powerful and warlike people.

And the story of Utnapishtim and the great flood was one of those stories that they heard. We know that they heard it in the streets of Babylon because the story had been around for centuries before they ever got there. The story is found in the Epic of Gilgamesh and there are copies of that book that date back to 1800 BC – older than any of the writings in the Bible.

So what did the story of Utnapishtim teach the Judahites about their Babylonian captors? It taught them a lot about the kinds of gods they believed in – impetuous gods who were upset by things like the noise of a city. They were also gods whose default reaction when things weren’t exactly as they liked, was to lash out in violence and destruction.

But the gods also didn’t really think through these reactions. They clearly regretted it when they no longer received sacrifices from the people that they had destroyed. They suddenly realized, in fact, how dependent they were on these filthy and noisy mortals for everything, swarming around Utnapishtim’s act of worship as if they were starving!

The Babylonian Oppressors

And as the expatriate Jews heard these stories about the Babylonian gods, they looked knowingly at each other. These stories corresponded to everything they knew about their captors. The Babylonians were cruel and always ready to lash out in violence whenever anyone annoyed them or disturbed them. Indeed, they resorted to violence so quickly that they didn’t even think through the consequences of their actions.

But as the Hebrews served the Babylonians together with other captives, they also knew how dependent they were. If ever the Babylonians carried through on their frequent threats to wipe out the people they called noisy vermin – the ones who served them – they would be starving and scrambling for resources within days! They were just like their gods.

Jewish Story of the Flood

The Jews at that time had their own stories of a great flood, probably based on some shared ancestral memory of a great cataclysmic event. In their stories, the hero was called Noah instead of Utnapishtim, but the stories were so alike in many ways that, when they heard the Babylonian epic, many things sounded very familiar. For example, their story of Noah ended almost exactly the same with Noah sending out birds to look for land and a final sacrifice when he was able to disembark.

The Hebrews didn’t worship a whole bunch of gods like the Babylonians did; they believed that there was only one God worth worshiping. So, of course, their story of Noah only featured one God who determined to wipe out humanity but also chose to warn and save the hero. It is, admittedly, a more difficult story to tell when you have to explain everything according to the will of the same God, but their story did somehow manage to make sense of it all.

A Better Hebrew Story

The Hebrew story was better in some ways than the Babylonian version. The Babylonian gods’ decision to flood everything was basically a noise complaint that was taken too far. The God of Israel had a better reason. He saw how humanity had fallen into a horrible habit of responding to evil and violence with ever more, evil and violence. The flood, in their story, was a desperate attempt to break that never-ending cycle of ever-increasing violence.

That seems like a better motivation, even if the strategy is more than a bit questionable. Because the fact of the matter is that you can never solve the problem of violence and slaughter with more violence and slaughter.

The End of the Story

The Hebrew story also ended with a scene very reminiscent of the Babylonian tale with Yahweh, the God of the Hebrews, smelling the pleasing odour of Noah’s sacrifice and regretting the wholesale destruction of the flood. Perhaps that was a dim echo of the more ancient Babylonian tale.

It also ended with a new promise that God made to the survivors, a promise that is very much focused on the spiralling problem of violence that had led to the flood in the first place.  “I will never again curse the ground because of humans, for the inclination of the human heart is evil from youth; nor will I ever again destroy every living creature as I have done.” Yes, human nature may not change, but God has learned that responding to slaughter with more slaughter doesn’t solve anything. Isn’t it time that we learn that as well?

An Inspired Priest

So, the Hebrews already had their own flood story, but that story was also influenced by its encounter with the Babylonian tale. One of them, we do not know his name, but he was probably a member of the priestly class, had an extraordinary experience as a result of encountering the Babylonians and hearing their stories. He was inspired by God.

I don’t know how it happened. It might have happened in a dream or vision. Or it may have come in the form of a deep conviction that the Babylonian way of relating to the world was wrong and that God wanted the people of Judah to see things in a very different way. But somehow, he came to see that God had laid it on him to add to their story of Noah.

A New Way of Seeing God

The priestly author had a very important insight into how the experience of the flood changed God’s approach – an insight that was truly brilliant and plainly inspired. You see, he added to the story the detail that God didn’t just like the smell of the sacrifice, but that God did something about the regret for the flood. God decided to make a covenant.

“As for me,” God said to Noah, “I am establishing my covenant with you and your descendants after you and with every living creature that is with you, the birds, the domestic animals, and every animal of the earth with you, as many as came out of the ark. I establish my covenant with you, that never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of a flood, and never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth.”

A God Who Cared

Now what did this newly inspired ending of the story do? It made something very clear to the Jews who had experienced the devastation of the Babylonian exile. It showed in unmistakable terms that the God that the people of Israel served was not like the gods of Babylon. Their God was not in it just for the smoke of the sacrifices. Their God was not just tolerating them, at least if they weren’t too noisy, for the payoff of receiving their worship.

No, this was a God who cared, who was in relationship with humanity and indeed with every living creature on earth. You only make covenants with people you are in a relationship with. What a remarkable contrast to the kinds of gods who were featured in the story of Utnapishtim.

But think about what that means for a moment. Because they had heard the Babylonian tale, because they had experienced living as exiles in the land of Babylon and seeing how the Babylonians lived out their relationship with their gods, the people of Israel were left with a new deeper and better understanding of who their God was, a God who made a covenant with them and indeed with the whole world and everything that lived upon it.

An Edited Story

That is the fascinating thing about the story of Noah in the book of Genesis. There are clear layers in its development. There is one version of the story for example in which Noah takes two of every kind of animal into the ark. And there is another story in which Noah makes a point of taking seven of every kind of clean animal into the ark. Somebody then intentionally edited those two stories together and we can still trace the seams between the stories.

The story developed over time. And I don’t have any problem with observing that. I don’t necessarily see a contradiction between observing that and believing that the Bible is an inspired book. After all, if God is truly that powerful, why wouldn’t God decide to inspire a series of authors over a long period of time to develop the various layers of the story.

And so we come to see the Bible developing over time as a living document of a people who are coming to discover who their God is through a great variety of experiences, including their contact with people like the Babylonians. What an amazing thing! And it is something that I think is much more helpful to us as we seek to work out our relationship with God than a story that was written once and remained fixed ever since.

Today’s Flood Story

Today we are being told a new version of the story of the flood. It is the story of a coming disaster. And I know you’ve all heard it. It’s not a story about gods, but it is a story about consequences for the excesses of human beings.

And do you know what the problem with the humans is according to this story? It’s not exactly that our cities are too noisy, nor is it really that human beings are too prone to violence, though honestly, we really haven’t gotten very far in terms of solving either of those problems. No, the problem is apparently that we have been burning too much carbon for too long, mostly because of our endless pursuit of more and more wealth.

And what is the consequence of this? The modern story is that the consequence is, among other things, that the glaciers will melt, and the flood waters will rise to devastating effect. That is one of the key and very frightening stories of our modern age. And we hear it all the time. And the question is what do we as people of faith and people who take the Bible seriously, do with that?

What Do We Do with Our Story?

Do we simply take the story of Noah’s flood as we’ve always understood it and leave it unadapted to this new threat? I do hear some Christians doing that. They say, “Oh, God promised at the end of Noah’s flood that he would never destroy the world again using water, so obviously what the scientists are predicting will never happen. The Bible says it, I believe it and that settles it.”

But I’m not sure that is what our response should be. The priestly writer heard the story that was being told in Babylon in his day, and that led to him being inspired by God to tell his old story in a new way. I think that is what we are being called to do as well today. This new story is challenging us all to rethink our relationship with God and this world that God created and all the things that live upon it.

How exactly should we tell and understand the story in new ways? I’m not necessarily going to tell you that. I think we need to live with this story in new and challenging times. If we do that, I believe that God will inspire us to new insights and new understandings of the commitment of our God to us and to this world. That is the amazingly fun thing about having a living book of stories like the Bible that helps to guide us into a deeper relationship with our God.

Come join us on Saturday, February 24 for an afternoon of board game fun. Some games will be supplies, but feel free to bring your own favourite (family friendly) board game. Please also bring your own snacks and alcohol-free drinks.

every Sunday morning

https://youtu.be/E3yM9j8hlLg

Hespeler, February 4, 2024 © Scott McAndless – Fifth Sunday after the Epiphany
Isaiah 40:21-31, Psalm 147:1-11, 20c, 1 Corinthians 9:16-23, Mark 1:29-39

Hey, do you want to hear what is wrong with the Christian church these days? I can tell you, you know. Or maybe let me rephrase that a little bit. I have people tell me all the time what they think the problem with the church is today. And they are always so sure that they are right that it must be so, right?

Sunday Mornings

For example, I have been confidently assured that the problem with the church today is Sunday shopping. Yes, the real problem that the church has is that people have the possibility of going out and buying their groceries or picking up a nice new outfit to wear at some point in time between 9 am and noon on the first day of the week.

Oh, but there is more than just the hours of business at the local shopping mall. It is also sports leagues. Yes, the other problem with the church is that sports organizations schedule their games and practices and rent out their ice and fields at any hour on Sunday mornings. Can you imagine that?

People Not Joining in

Oh, but there is more to it than that. No, I can give you a whole litany of the problems with the church. It is also that people don’t want to sit on committees, and they don’t want to join the various groups in the church.

And, if I can be frank here – and remember that this is all assured data that has been fed to me consistently so I guess it must be true – it is particularly the fault of the younger generation. Yes, whereas previous generations were only too happy to come out and attend these long meetings and participate in women’s groups and bake pies and cookies and all kinds of other things to support the work of the church, apparently these younger folks today just say they don’t have the time.

Oh, and there’s more. Shall I go on? Another big problem with the church today is that people don’t like the right kinds of music. And they don’t like big wordy long prayers and they’re not even appreciative enough of hardwood benches that might be a little hard to sit on but are beautiful to look at.

That, I have been confidently told again and again, is precisely the problem with the church today. And, no, I am not saying that those are the things that people at St. Andrews are always telling me. I get it from various places and even from people who never go to church themselves.

How We Deal with Our Challenges

And, yes, I probably did exaggerate what I often take to be the subtext underneath many of the comments that people make. But I am pretty sure that many of those kinds of sentiments sound somewhat familiar to you. They are part of our litany of lament as we think about some of the problems that are facing the church today.

But I wanted to reflect them back to you for a moment because I think those kinds of comments are emblematic of the way that we do think about the problems that face the church. And I want you to notice how I phrased them.

Absolutely nothing in what I just said to you was about what the church does or fails to do. Everything I said was just a complaint about what everyone else does or doesn’t do. And I suggest that that is how we tend to think of the problems that face the church today. We are usually only too happy to focus on what we see as the deficiencies of the society or the changes that we don’t like.

Will Things Go Back to How They Were?

Now, it is not as if there is nothing to any of these laments that we raise. There is no question that society has changed in some very dramatic ways over the last few decades and that those changes have created challenges for the centuries-old institution which is the Protestant church – an institution that has not proved itself to be very good at dealing with change.

But I’m sure you can see the problem with this mode of thinking. If the root problem facing the church is that the world has changed, then the only possible cure for the church is for the world to just spontaneously decide that everything should go back to exactly how things used to be. And, even if there were some good things about how things used to be, what do you suppose is the likelihood of that happening?

Paul’s Approach

That is why I find the approach of the Apostle Paul to be so refreshing. Paul dedicated his life, once he had met the risen Jesus, to building up the Christian church and to tearing down the barriers that kept people away from Jesus and his message. He pushed to include all sorts of people – people that others objected to – into the life of the church. And he seems to have been extremely successful in all of this, founding several churches all over Asia Minor and the Greek peninsula. He did this despite a great deal of opposition from fellow Christians, Jews and even many local officials.

So, I can’t help but think that we might be able to learn a few things from Paul and how he approached his work. He explains his approach in our reading from First Corinthians this morning. And do you want to know what I noticed first when I read it? I noticed that Paul spent no time at all talking about what the society around him needed to change in order to help his work.

He didn’t call on the emperor to shut down the local market or the chariot races on Sunday mornings. He also didn’t complain about people not being available to sit on committees or about how they didn’t want to listen to his sermons the way he liked to preach them.

Meeting People Where They Are

Instead, Paul describes his strategy to us. “To the Jews I became as a Jew, in order to gain Jews. To those under the law I became as one under the law (though I myself am not under the law) so that I might gain those under the law. To those outside the law I became as one outside the law (though I am not outside God’s law but am within Christ’s law) so that I might gain those outside the law.”

The message could not be more clear. Far from blaming other people for being where they are, Paul makes a point of meeting them there. And he does this in spite of his own sense of identity. He is willing to suspend his Jewishness and his sense of what law he is responsible to in order to meet the people exactly where they are.

Other People’s Weakness

But he goes even further than that. You see, the church has often fallen into the temptation of thinking that its failures are the result of other people’s weaknesses. We like to say that it is because other people lack in commitment or faith or faithfulness or just because they don’t want to do the work that the church has failed. The church, in a classic display of projection, is unwilling to see its own weakness and so it projects that weakness onto others.

Complaining about other people’s weakness can often feel satisfying and it is certainly habit forming, but Paul offers the perfect antidote: “To the weak I became weak, so that I might gain the weak. I have become all things to all people, that I might by all means save some.”

Walking in their Moccasins

Paul is telling us that whenever we are tempted to perceive someone else as weak, what we need to do is put ourselves in their position. It is like the Indigenous North American proverb that says that you must never judge another until you have walked a mile in their moccasins.

And the truth of the matter is that, once you do that, what you usually discover is that what you perceived as weakness was something very different.

When, for example, people are struggling with economic difficulties, it is often very easy just to write them off and accuse them of being lazy. “People just don’t want to work these days,” has become a common refrain. But I honestly believe that there are few who are truly lazy in that sense.

People often have some pretty good reasons for why they are not working or not working enough to cover their bills. Sometimes, wages have been set so low that people can’t actually afford to live in a place and do the work because they cannot afford the rent and cost of living. Therefore, for them to take that job would be to choose to fall even more behind economically speaking.

I think this is certainly true when it comes to the work of the church. I really do think that people are motivated to contribute to the important and meaningful work that the church is doing. They would love to be a part of spreading good news and helping people out as they face the struggles of life. What more meaningful work is there than that?

Barriers in the Way

So, if people are not doing that, I don’t really think it’s because there’s something wrong with them. It’s because other barriers are in the way. It is because the church has conceived itself and its activities in a way that does not fit into people’s lives and sense of priorities.

And so if, for example, younger women aren’t interested in joining missionary groups or other similar organizations in the church, it has little to do with them not agreeing with the goals of those organizations.

It certainly has a lot to do with an economic situation that forces almost all adults to take on full-time careers in addition to taking care of substantial family needs just in order to break even. And it probably also has a great deal to do with how they order and organize their social world. But it certainly doesn’t have anything to do with a deficiency or weakness.

Becoming Partners

That is why what Paul writes to the Corinthian church ought to be emblazoned on the door of every one of our churches. “I do it all for the sake of the gospel, so that I might become a partner in it.” The job of the church is not to simply continue to be what it is always been and expect everyone else to conform to its way of doing things. The job of the church is to become a partner with anyone who is able to share in the good news.

For that reason, the church needs to be adapting itself to the needs of its partners rather than demanding that those partners adapt to the needs of the church. The simple recognition, for example, that families these days are often stretched to the limit could go a long way. They are on the run earning what they need to survive five or six days a week. They are on the run providing for the needs and the development of their children. They are doing the right thing.

Moving in the Right Direction

That doesn’t mean that they don’t recognize that the church is a part of doing the right thing for their family. But it does mean that the church may not fit into their lives in the way that has worked for other generations. As the church finds ways to partner with such families where they are in their lives, we will discover new strength.

And I will confess that that is something that this church is still working on, but I do think that how we have been finding ways to allow kids to be kids in our worship service, to be a part of our worshiping life, has been a really good step in a good direction.

There are many challenges facing the church today. But whenever you are tempted to explain away all of those challenges by laying blame on the society outside of the church, you are not going to get anywhere. That is a non-committed conversation, and, as we learned last week, those will get us nowhere. It is in our commitment to meet people where they are, to love them as they are, and partner with them in a way that values them and the challenges they are dealing with, that we will find the greatest strength for the church.

https://youtu.be/3AY5taW8qiU

Hespeler, 21 January, 2024 © Scott McAndless – Third Sunday after Epiphany
Matthew 7:7-11, Matthew 13:44-46

As many of you know, last week I was given the privilege and honour of preaching at the funeral of my father: William L. McAndless. And I know that a few of you came out to that funeral all the way over in Scarborough and some more of you watched the service online. That meant a lot to me.

But I’m hoping you will indulge me in something. I’d like to preach what I preached there for you again today. I don’t want to do that merely to honour my dad, though of course I do that, but also because I think it would be a good way to give you all an insight into my own faith journey and how I came to be the kind of Christian I am today. So, with some apologies to those who have heard it before, I am going to share what I said.

An Honour

I have been given the privilege and honour of speaking at many services like this for many different people over the years. And I can assure you that every single one has been special; every one has been unique. But this one, I confess, seems particularly special and particularly unique.

But in all those years of preaching at funerals, I have come to an understanding of what it is that I am here to do.

You see, I don’t believe that it is my job to proclaim the Christian gospel on these occasions. I don’t even think that is up to me to promise you anything in particular about the afterlife. That’s because there is somebody else – somebody other than me – who is in a much better position to preach to us about those things.

I believe that every individual, every single life, has important things to teach us about the kingdom of God. My job is simply to find that lesson in the life of the person we are celebrating and share it so that we can all grow a little closer to the kingdom. And in all the funerals and memorials I have ever preached, I have never failed to find that lesson in someone’s life.

I have certainly not failed when it comes to reflecting on this life.

Jesus’ Way of Talking about God

When Jesus came among us and taught us about God, he was in the habit of referring to God in a very particular way. He liked to call God, Father. He even taught people to pray and to say, “Our Father who art in heaven…”

And while Jesus was hardly the first person to speak of God as Father, he seems to have brought a special intimacy and familiarity to how he said it. He called God Abba, an Aramaic word for father. But it wasn’t the common everyday word for the patriarchal figure recognized by society. It was the word that was only used inside the family by children of all ages to speak about their father – sort of like we use the word “Dad” in my family.

But what did Jesus mean when he called God, “Abba?” Did he mean it literally? Was he saying that God is male, or that God is a biological progenitor of all people? Of course, not. It was a metaphor, sort of a one-word parable. He was saying that, in some very important ways, God was like a very good Dad.

Reflections on our Experience

One day, when Jesus was trying to get people to understand God’s relationship with them, he invited his listeners to think of it in terms of their own experience of fatherhood. “Is there anyone among you who, if your child asked for bread, would give a stone?” he wanted to know. “Or if the child asked for a fish, would give a snake?” What he was saying was that God, in some sense, is like a good father who knows how to give good things to his children.

Now, I am very aware that this kind of father imagery for God doesn’t work for everyone. The sad truth is that not all fathers do know how to give good things to their children. Not all fathers are present for their children, some are too caught up in their own woundedness. Some can also be so much worse than neglectful. And so there are definitely some people who, when you call God father, can only imagine a God who is mean, vindictive or abusive. Such language does not help them and often hurts their image of God.

But what Jesus is also saying is that we, who have not seen God and have not the human language to describe God in any literal sense, are kind of stuck. We can only understand God – can only even speak of God – as extensions of what we have seen and experienced. And, yes, if calling God father does not help you to have a healthy image of God, you need to find a different metaphor.

My Image of God

But I just want to tell you today that I have a very good image of God. Deep down in my soul, I believe in a God who is kind, gracious, forgiving and generous. I am even able to believe in that God despite all of the problems, failures and downright evil I encounter in this world. I can see it all and still believe that God will find a way through it – that (as Martin Luther King Jr. paraphrased) “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.”

Now, why do I believe in that God? I could give you the correct theological answer and say that it is because of what I have seen and experienced in Jesus Christ. That is true enough. But the real answer goes much deeper. I believe that because I experienced a father who knew how to give good things to his children.

He was not perfect; no human father is. But he never acted in any way that made me doubt the essential truth that there was goodness in the universe. I came to believe that God knows how to give good things to God’s people because I had a good Dad. What I came to know about God through Jesus certainly confirmed that, but I don’t mind saying that my image of God started with my Dad.

Problems that Come with that

 Are there some problems and issues and shortcomings that come with that? Sure. For some inexplicable reason, when I imagine God, the God that I picture, might usually be found sitting in the armchair in the living room exhaustively reading the Toronto Daily Star, because that was where I usually found my Dad when I was growing up. There probably are times when my view of God is imperfectly tainted by my experience of my Dad, but overall, I think I am very fortunate for the view of God that I grew up with.

So, my Dad gave me an amazing starting image of God. And here is what he has to teach all of us today about the kingdom of God.

Jesus Speaks about the Kingdom

Jesus seems to have spent almost all of his time talking about this thing that he called the kingdom of God. But, curiously, he never quite said what it was. It’s kind of the same thing when it comes to describing Godself. We really don’t have the human words to describe what the kingdom of God is, and so all Jesus could do was say what it was like. And he did that, mostly, by telling stories and parables.

Bill’s Discovery

And one of the stories that he told went like this. The kingdom of God, he said, is like what happens when this guy, let’s call him Bill, is walking along one day. He is crossing a strange field, a field that belongs to somebody else, when he stumbles across an amazing discovery. There, hidden in the field where nobody has ever seen it before, he discovers buried treasure of immense value.

What an amazing thing! But no sooner does he discover this treasure than he realizes the problem that comes with it. He doesn’t own the field, so how can he claim the treasure?

The obvious solution, of course, is to just buy the field, but he hasn’t got the money. And so, Bill comes up with a plan. He sells everything that he owns, divests himself of absolutely every possession until he has nothing left. And he goes out and pays an absolutely ridiculous price to buy that field from the poor sod who owns it and has no idea what is buried in it.

And Jesus said that that is what the kingdom of God is like. What on earth is that supposed to mean? How is that supposed to illustrate to us what God’s kingdom is like?

What Could that Possibly Mean?

We could struggle to answer that question for a long time, but we don’t need to. We don’t need to because this man that we celebrate today has demonstrated so clearly what Jesus was trying to say.

Bill McAndless was a man who recognized real treasure. He knew what was really valuable. And, despite being a banker for so very long, he knew that the truly valuable treasure of this world was not to be found in bank vaults.

My Mom and my Dad

He recognized the treasure that was hidden, and that other people might have walked by a thousand times and never even noticed. When he met a young woman named Doris May Heron, my Mom, he knew that here he had found a pearl of great price – a treasure of unsurpassed value.

But, even more important than that, he knew what to do when he discovered such treasure. He decided to give up everything he had and everything that he was in order to share his life with that incredible woman of great value. He would not let anything stand in his way – not even the odd beetle hiding under the meringue.

Okay, that’s a bit of a story from family lore. The first time my Dad came over to my maternal grandparents house, my mother’s little sisters told him that my mother had created the entire supper. It wasn’t true, but they were trying to fix him up with her. The dessert was lemon meringue pie. My father’s favourite! But, in my father’s piece of pie, there was a giant dead beetle hiding underneath the meringue. My father, ever the wise man, simply put the beetle aside and kept on eating. That’s what I mean when I say that he understood what was more important.

And fortunately, of course, Doris made the same discovery of hidden treasure in him – hidden even in things like his silence on their first date – and made the same decision to give up everything she had and everything she was to share her life with him.

A Pattern

But, more than that, this was not just a one-time thing in my Dad’s life. It was a pattern that he continued to repeat over and over again. When his children came along – when we came along – he absolutely saw the unique value and treasure that was in each one of us. We all know deep down inside that we matter, that we have value because he recognized that value in us and gave everything that he had and everything that he was for our sake.

 And, of course, he did that with his grandchildren as well and his great grandchildren when they came. And I’m willing to bet that every single one of us can say that we know we have worth and value because we learned that from this incredible man.

And of course, that was not limited to his family (though we always came first). He did the same thing with his mother, his sisters and brother, with friends. And he knew the great value that was in his church community and joyfully gave his all to support that as well.

Understanding the Kingdom

And Jesus said that, if you can do that, if you can recognize what is truly valuable and give your all for the sake of that, you have understood the kingdom of God. That is why I can boldly declare that my father understood the kingdom of God and may have understood at least some aspects of it better than many a theologian or preacher.

He lived that kingdom and it showed in every aspect of his life. And if he knew God’s kingdom here and now, as we all can, we can certainly take great comfort today in the knowledge that he has entered into the fullness of that kingdom and that he is with his Lord in an existence that we can scarce imagine or dream of.

This, for me is the sermon that my father’s life has preached to us, and I am honoured to be the one who gets to reflect that back to you today.