The most significant thing that happened at Assembly

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

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

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

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

25^th Anniversary celebration

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

A Report Released

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

Final Inquiry Report

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Indigenous Ministry Council

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

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

To the sound of a solitary drum beat

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

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

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

It was all our heartbeats in that moment.

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

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

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

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

Honoured to have been in the room where it happened

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

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

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

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

Emotionally exhausted and privileged

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

Here are my takeaways from three days of discussion.

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

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

Thursday morning.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sunday, June 9, 2019

Posted by StAndrewsHespeler on Thursday, June 6th, 2019 in News

Message: Channels
Our scripture readings for Sunday: Acts 2:1-21 or Genesis 11:1-9, Psalm 104:24-34, 35b, Romans 8:14-17.

Special music: Oh My Soul – Given in praise by David Krueger, Randy Vermaas & Corey Linforth

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It is kind of all that I ever wanted.

Emotionally exhausted and privileged.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

My Feelings this Evening.

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

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

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

What this doesn't mean

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

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

Step by step

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

Hespeler, 19 May, 2019 © Scott McAndless

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

How do you solve a problem like Tabitha?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

2019 Eastertide Newsletter

Posted by agoulet on Friday, May 10th, 2019 in News

We've printed and published our new Easter Newsletter!

Feel free to download a copy below.

Download

2019 Spring Newsletter

Posted by agoulet on Friday, May 10th, 2019 in News

Our 2019 Spring Newsletter is now available!

2019SpringNewsletter Download

“I make this covenant with each of you and with God.”

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

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

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

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

But it was not enough to just take a vote and adopt this document as our covenant. And so, at this regular session meeting, we were joined by the Rev. Greg Smith, minister at St. Andrews in Kitchener, who led us through a covenanting service.

²⁷ Isaac said to them, “Why have you come to me, seeing that you hate me and have sent me away from you?” ²⁸ They said, “We see plainly that the Lord has been with you; so we say, let there be an oath between you and us, and let us make a covenant with you ²⁹ so that you will do us no harm, just as we have not touched you and have done to you nothing but good and have sent you away in peace. You are now the blessed of the Lord.” ³⁰ So he made them a feast, and they ate and drank. ³¹ In the morning they rose early and exchanged oaths; and Isaac set them on their way, and they departed from him in peace. (Genesis 26:27-31)

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

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