From 1911

Posted by StAndrewsHespeler on Thursday, November 5th, 2015 in News

Everett Ireland, before 1912; Thanks, Jack Krueger for giving us this copy.

An old flag

Posted by StAndrewsHespeler on Wednesday, November 4th, 2015 in News

Look what I found in storage today. There was a note on it that said, "this flag was apparently carried to war." If anyone has the story of it, we would appreciate hearing it.

Script Out Passages: The men of her town shall take her and stone her to death.

Posted by Scott McAndless on Sunday, November 1st, 2015 in Minister

St. Andrew's Stars Episode that goes with this sermon:

Hespeler, November 1, 2015 © Scott McAndless

Deuteronomy 22:13-30, Matthew 21:28-32, Psalm 72:1-14

f you are going to look at the passages of the Bible that people sometimes struggle with and maybe even sometimes wish weren’t there at all, you are going to end up, sooner or later, talking about sexual morality. Well, today is that day and we are going to delve into some of the sexual themed passages of the Bible.

Talking to some people, of course, you will definitely get the impression that the Bible is all about sexual morality, that the only thing that matters, as far as the Bible is concerned, is what happens in the bedroom. Certainly when you hear somebody complain about how nobody follows Biblical morality anymore, you can be almost certain that the morality that they have in mind is the sexual kind. For many people, that is the only Biblical morality that matters.

Now, is it actually true that the Bible is totally obsessed with sexual morality? Not really. At most, sex is just one of many moral subjects that the Bible spends time talking about. It is a concern, but it’s not as central as some would make it out to be. And there are some things that Bible does say on the subject that we would have trouble with. And I’m not saying that because I think that so many of us are liberal-minded people. There is lots of what the Bible says about sex that even the most conservative among us would find downright immoral and perhaps even evil.

Much of the Bible takes it for granted, for example, that polygamy is fine and dandy. King Solomon, one of the great heroes of the biblical tradition, had over 700 wives and 300 concubines. It

is also taken for granted that, if a woman is unable to have a child, she can force her maidservant to sleep with her husband and bear a child for her. Fathers are permitted to sell their daughters into sexual slavery, women can be forced to marry the men who rape them and should also be stoned to death if their hymen doesn’t bleed on their wedding night. These are all things that do not fit with what we would call good and positive sexual morality and many of them we would even condemn as abusive and criminal.

But even more troubling than the specific laws and practices that are found in the Bible, are the assumptions that lie behind them. Look, for example, at the laws of sexual morality that we read from the Book of Deuteronomy this morning and ask the question what are the assumptions behind those laws. These laws assume, for example, that virginity is very important – but only female virginity. The sexual history of a man never seems to be a concern.

Nevertheless, female virginity was clearly something that was valued. In fact, it was so valued that, if it was questioned or stolen by rape, it was given a cash value – a compensation that had to be paid. But here’s the thing. The compensation was always to be paid, not to the woman, but to her father. The underlying assumption was that the father (not the woman herself) was the victim when a woman was raped or dishonoured in any way. That is kind of messed up, but that was clearly how they saw it.

That is because of another, deeper assumption behind all of this – the assumption that a woman was not a person so much as she was a piece of property. She was a valuable asset who belonged to her father until she was passed onto someone else in marriage. That is why, if that asset was devalued in any way, some sort of compensation had to be paid to her “owner.”

Another assumption is clear: marriage was a transaction. It was sometimes a straight-up economic transaction where a woman was sold in exchange for wealth or property. It was sometimes a social transaction where families allied themselves through marriage to build up their standing in the community. But there was always something to be gained (for the men involved at least) through marriage. Women could also at least hope for some sort of economic security through marriage, but that was about the only benefit theygot.

One thing that marriage was definitely not about was love. That is not to say that couples didn’t sometimes love one another. We are told, for example, the Patriarch Jacob did love one of his four wives. King David was apparently also quite fond of one or two of his wives. We are never told, in the Bible about women who were in love with their husbands because nobody cared about that. But anyways, perhaps some who were lucky would find love or domestic harmony in marriage, but that clearly wasn’t what marriage was about.

A woman’s desires or wishes didn’t matter at all. But I personally don’t think that the nature of human beings – men and women – has changed all that much in the last few thousand years, so I am pretty sure that both men and women did have desires and wishes and even (gasp) urges back then. So what did a woman who had been engaged to marry a man that she had never met by her family and who fell in love with another man who wanted to be with her do? Such a woman had no recourse. If she met and slept with her beloved in the city, they’d both be stoned to death – he for raping her and she for failing to cry out. If they met in the countryside, she would survive and he would die so that was not much better.

And that brings us to the question of consent. Consent, for modern people is absolutely essential to the moral and legal definition of rape. Basically, for our modern legal system and for most of our moral judgements, if someone has sex with someone else without their freely given consent, that is just plain wrong and usually falls under the definition of rape. When you consider that certain classes of beings (including children) are not considered to be competent to give their consent, that really covers a wide range of sexual offenses.

Interestingly enough, the Bible seems to have pretty much the same definition of rape – it defines it as sex without consent. But here is the difference: in that society, no woman of any age was considered competent to give consent. Consent was something that could only be given by her father or by some other controlling male in her life. This is because of the other key assumption lying behind all of these laws: that a woman wasn’t a person and certainly wasn’t, by any measure, equal to any man.

So here is our problem: there are important moral issues around how people live out their sexuality. As Christians we need some help to make right choices around sexuality. As a church, we surely should have some worthwhile and helpful things to say on the subject. But, after examining passages like this one, I really have to wonder what we’re supposed to base those things on because to lift up these particular laws, that make cultural assumptions that we just don’t agree with, doesn’t make sense.

And, let me be clear here: I do see these things as cultural assumptions and not as fundamental truths. Whatever the people of Israel understood of the justice and righteousness and faithfulness of their God – an understanding that developed over time – it was filtered through their culture and all of the assumptions that came with that culture. How could it be otherwise? Just like they assumed that the earth was flat and that the sky was a solid blue dome and filtered their understanding of the creator that they had come to know through those assumptions, they filtered the moral nature of their God through their cultural baggage.

So we don’t have to take on these ancient cultural assumptions ourselves just because they lie behind these biblical laws. But, of course, if we don’t accept the assumptions they are based on, how can we just take the Biblical laws and rules around sexuality and apply them uncritically today? How can we judge people morally by laws that are based on assumptions that we don’t agree with? That is our problem.

So we need to develop a sense of sexual morality – what is acceptable and what isn’t. In fact, I would suggest that our society is in deep need for some guidance about how to live out our sexual lives and relationships. But we are going to have to do more than just read laws and rules out of the Bible and apply them directly to today. Nevertheless, the Bible can help us a great deal as we seek to do this.

There are principles that we can take from the Bible and apply to modern relationships, provided that we find ways to correct the underlying assumptions. For example, we do find this notion of consent in the Bible – that sex needs to be consensual to be positive. Of course, when we look at it we find the assumption that a woman isn’t competent to give consent – that only her father can give it for her – to be ridiculous. But the correctives for that flawed assumption can be found in the Bible itself. We see it in the life and ministry of ministry of Jesus of Nazareth who treated the women he met with dignity and respect – who recognized that they were autonomous persons capable of making their own decisions.

Do you realize, after all, how radical that saying of Jesus in our gospel reading this morning is? “Truly I tell you,” he said, “the tax collectors and the prostitutes are going into the kingdom of God ahead of you.” He was talking to religious people, very self-righteous religious people, and told them that prostitutes were ahead of them in God’s kingdom. I’m sure that if you had been standing there you would have seen all of their jaws drop when he said it.

They were standing there feeling so certain that they knew who the sinners were and that it wasn’t them. They especially thought that women who strayed, even just a little, from the strict sexual rules, and especially women who dared to take control of their own lives and bodies, were wicked. All such women were despised and treated as prostitutes and yet Jesus dared to elevate these women ahead of these self-righteous men. I think that that is a pretty fair indicator that Jesus felt that grown women were able to take control of consent for what happened to their bodies.

So we can take the basic principles we find in the Bible and yet use the words and actions of Jesus to give a correction to the mistaken underlying attitudes. I think that we can do the same thing with laws around the valuing of virginity, the need for fidelity and the respect for boundaries. There are good principles that are found in the Old Testament laws. So long as we can correct for any negative cultural assumptions like the inequality of the sexes or the loss of freedom of choice by referring to the teachings of Jesus and the early church, these biblical principles can still serve us well.

I would say that I do have a sexual morality – a morality that is, in my view biblically based even though I don’t just try and lift Old Testament laws and apply them today and I do not see some things as previous generations of Christians might have. I believe that sex is a very good thing. It is not just given for procreation but also to bring many positive blessings in relationship. I believe that it is God’s intention that sex be experienced in committed and loving relationships where both parties are treated with respect and valued for who they are. It is in such relationships that sex can find its highest and best expression as God intended.

I do think that we are all called to do our best to encourage relationships and institutions (like marriage) and supports to relationships in which sex in its best form can flourish. That doesn’t mean that I am interested in coming down in judgement on those who haven’t been able to find that yet and I am certainly not going to condemn people for their past mistakes, especially when they are working on correcting them. Nevertheless, I don’t think we need to apologize for being committed to making sex as good at God intended it to be.

My desire, above all, is to define sex positively. There has been too much negativity around this good gift of God down through the Christian centuries. I look forward to getting out from under that kind of negative cultural baggage.

I am not saying, of course, that you should just adopt my understanding and approach to sexual morality. What I am saying, though, is that there is something that you need to work out here. You can’t just lift your notions of what is right and what is wrong from the pages of Scripture – not without examining what is says and what it is assuming. That can be hard work, but I think it is very important and worthwhile work.

Sermon video:

It’s Social Media Sunday. Here is a great story for you to share on this day.

Posted by StAndrewsHespeler on Sunday, October 25th, 2015 in News

Social Media Sunday (October 25, 2015) is a day for people to share what is happening in their churches on social media: Facebook, Twitter, Instgram, etc. etc. etc.

We hope that on this day a lot of St. Andrew's people will share a lot of the great things that happen at our church. But, just in case you're not sure what to share, how about this second story in our "Stories of Hope Clothing series:

There are too many stories of bad news. There are too many stories about people putting people down, hating them or mistreating them. We need to hear this kind of story.

There are too many stories of hopelessness. We need to hear stories of hope. We need to hear about what God is doing.

So will you help us spread this story and the ones that will follow it?

If you are not sure how to share youtube videos like this one on socal media, follow this link: Stories of Hope Clothing #2 and then click on "Share" to find all kinds of sharing options. You can post to twitter, facebook, send out emails or use any number of other social media links. Let's share the good news story.

Anniversary Service

Posted by StAndrewsHespeler on Wednesday, October 21st, 2015 in News

This Weekend is our special
160th Anniversary Celebration!

Script Out Passages: Elisha, the Boys and the Bears

Posted by Scott McAndless on Sunday, October 18th, 2015 in Minister

Hespeler, 18 October, 2015 © Scott McAndless – Baptism

Psalm 25:1-13, Mark 10:13-16, 2 Kings 2:15-25

f you swallow your chewing gum, what will happen to it? Everybody knows the answer to that! If you swallow your gum, it will sit in your stomach and it will take seven years to digest – seven years! How do I know that? Bobby, my very best friend in the second grade told me so. And it was confirmed by all my ther friends too. So it must be true.

Now, is it true in the strictest sense? If you were to actually do an MRI on a kid who made a habit of swallowing chewing gum, would you find any evidence of gum that had been in the digestive tract for several years? (Yes, there are pediatricians who have looked, at least while they there were searching for other things.) And the answer is no. In the strictest sense it isn’t exactly true and you wouldn’t find any gum that had been there for more than a week. But, all the same, you might say that it is kind of trueish.

It is true, after all, that the main ingredients of chewing gum are not able to be broken down by your body. It is true that it has happened that chronic gum swallowers have managed to create intestinal blockages in rare cases. So, while an occasional swallowed piece of gum will not hurt you at all, it actually is something that is better avoided.

I do not know who created the seven year story about chewing gum. For all I know, it is as old as chewing gum

itself. (And there is actually evidence that human beings have been chewing gum for about 3000 years.) The story has endured because, while it is not strictly true, there is enough truth in it to be useful. In particular, it has persisted because parents who have wanted to shape their children’s behaviour in helpful ways have found it a very useful story. If you want to judge the story, therefore, you need to judge it, not on scientific terms, but on the terms of how the story is actually used.

That is something that I hope you keep in mind as we turn to our Old Testament reading this morning. When I posted my little Script Out commercial video on the internet and asked people to respond back to me with what they thought of as the worst passages in the Bible (the stories and sayings that, as far as they were concerned, they’d just as soon weren’t in the Bible at all) the first response I got was from someone who brought up the story of Elisha, the 42 boys and the two she-bears.

You can understand why. The small boys in this story do not behave as they should. They fail to show due respect for a man who deserves some respect. Elisha is a man of God who has taken on the difficult and demanding job of speaking the word of the Lord to the people. The boys insult him in two ways. They insult him for being bald and men, as we all know, can be a bit sensitive about male pattern baldness. The boys also appear to insult him with the words, “go away,” which may also be translated as, “go up.” This is probably meant to be a reference to how the Prophet Elijah, Elisha’s teacher and master, has recently disappeared and, according to the story that has spread around, has gone directly up into heaven riding on a chariot of fire. They are taunting him by saying that he should do as his master has done.

But, whatever exactly the young lads mean with their taunts, there is no question that they are not showing a lot of respect to Elisha when they say, “Go away, baldhead.” They are clearly showing disrespect and no one disputes that. The thing that people have problems with is the reaction to that disrespect. First, Elisha curses the boys. A bit extreme, perhaps, but, if it is the equivalent of saying “Darn you crazy kids,” I guess it’s not a totally terrible thing to say.

But, apparently, it’s not just “darn you crazy kids.” We are certainly left with the impression that Elisha’s curse is immediately effective and that it is, in fact, the cause of the sudden appearance of two murderous female bears.

Now wait one minute here. I get that these kids were disrespectful, and perhaps deserved some punishment for that. I could see giving them a time out, making them write some lines on the chalkboard: “I will not call people baldhead. I will not call people baldhead. I will not call people baldhead. I will not call people baldhead.”

But how can you call a murderous rampage by the local wildlife a reasonable punishment? And, let me tell you, if that was what this story was all about, I might argue that we need to get rid of it. But I’m not convinced that that is what it’s about.

I think we need to ask the question, what is the purpose of this story? Why was it told in the first place? Why was it remembered and eventually written down? Why was it felt to be important enough to be preserved in a book that eventually made it into our Bibles? I don’t think that anyone did any of that because they felt that this story was a good example of how to treat disrespectful children.

If you look at this passage, it’s pretty clear what purpose the stories that we read this morning had. They are stories that were told to establish the reputation of a very important biblical figure: the Prophet Elisha. Elisha was the man who succeeded the greatest prophet that Israel had ever known: Elijah. Elijah had done amazing things: he had challenged the king of Israel to his face, he had taken on the prophets of Ba’al singlehandedly and defeated them. What’s more, these amazing stories had accumulated around the figure of Elijah: miracles, wonders and signs. That is the act that Elisha had to follow.

It is like what happens in a church when a new minister comes in following the ministry of a beloved and dynamic minister. The new minister constantly finds herself or himself being measured up against the old – a process that can frankly be rather draining and dispiriting (because we all need to be appreciated for who we are). Understandably Elisha, and maybe especially his disciples and faithful supporters, felt the need to establish the new guy’s reputation. But how do you do that? You obviously do it by spreading around stories that mark your guy as the one to watch.

And that is exactly what we see in the Book of Kings. Stories about miracles and wonders began to spring up wherever Elisha went. That is not to say, of course, that these stories weren’t based in reality. Sure, I can believe that Elisha did perform wonders, but the point of those stories was not merely to report what had happened. The stories were told and remembered and passed down in order to establish the credentials of God’s newest prophet.

The story of the she-bears is a perfect example. What is actually told in this story? It says that when Elisha was passing through someplace on his way to Bethel, he was disrespected by some local children and he cursed them: “Darn you crazy kids!” Now, the story is told in such a way as to imply that the bear attack was brought on by the curse. But I hope you noticed it doesn’t actually say that the curse caused the bears to attack. The timing is also kind of deliberately vague. The story once again implies that the bear attack happened immediately after the curse, but it doesn’t quite say that. It could have happened any time after.

I can imagine that it happened kind of like this. There was a bear attack – the kind of tragedy that can and does happen in any place where human settlements are built up within the habitat of predators like bears – the kind of tragedy the undoubtedly did happen from time to time in ancient Israel as much as in other ancient societies. And when tragedies like that happen, what do people do? People start asking why. Why did this terrible thing happen?

And somebody said, “Remember when that Prophet, that man Elisha, passed through a few weeks ago? Maybe some of the kids (in fact, I think it could have been some of those same kids who got killed by the bears) made fun of the prophet. Did some of you see that?”

And everybody solemnly nodded. They nodded even if they didn’t actually remember such an incident or if the events were being exaggerated because, when tragedy happens, people are so often desperate to make sense of it that they will grasp onto any explanation that seems to work – even if that means blaming the victims of a tragedy. Was it true that their disrespect caused the attack? No. The Bible is actually careful not to draw a direct line between curse and effect. But people held onto that explanation because it promised to give sense to something that was otherwise senseless.

But the story wasn’t remembered and passed down because of that false meaning. It was remembered and passed down because the story eventually made its way to the disciples of Elisha who grabbed onto it because, for them, it illustrated the importance of the prophet that they revered and it underlined the need to treat prophets with respect. And that’s why the story is in our Bibles – because it had a particular usefulness within a particular community. Yes, maybe sometimes parents told the story to disrespectful children to scare them into behaving better, kind of like parents tell the story about the gum that takes seven years to digest to scare their children into not swallowing their gum, but no one seriously believed that it was literally true in the sense that there were bears prowling around looking for disrespectful children. You need to judge the story according to how the story was used and according to the meaning that the people who told it put into it.

Of course, on a day like this, when we have had the joy and the privilege to welcome a little infant named Olivia into the life of the church through the sacrament of baptism, I can’t help but wonder what this ancient story that was used to build up the reputation of the Prophet Elisha might have to say to us.

It is true that people still sometimes take the attitude that is behind the story and apply it to the place and role of children in the church. There are certainly people who get upset, from time to time, at the presence of children in the life of the church because they can be disruptive, unpredictable and noisy. Sometimes people interpret that as disrespect and while I have never heard anyone who would have wanted to see anything like an attack of killer bears, people have gotten pretty upset.

And it is true that respect for our spiritual leaders is important. They are people whom God has uniquely gifted and called to key roles and when we fail to respect those roles and offices, the church can become a very negative place. But, honestly, if we are looking for an application of the story of Elisha, the boys and the she-bears to the life of the church, it is not the children that I would be concerned about. Children are just being who they were made to be. This story was told to teach adultsabout respect for the prophet, not the children.

And look what happened to Jesus when he found himself in a similar situation. These women were bringing their little children up to him and the disciples were concerned that these kids might somehow do or say something that might disrespect the growing importance and reputation of Jesus. So the disciples took on the role of the she-bears: attacking the children, not with claws, of course, but with words. But Jesus rebuked them, making it perfectly clear that that is not how we must apply that story.

In fact, Jesus didn’t just say that the children could come, he said that the kingdom of God belonged to them and that they were the ones to teach others how to enter it. In essence, Jesus took the story of the boys and the she-bears and turned it all on its head. He was saying that, instead of being critical of the children and their ways, we ought to learn from them as we seek to be part of the kingdom of God ourselves.

In effect, it is almost as if Jesus is saying to us today that, of all the people who are gathered here, Olivia is the one who really gets it. That is humbling for the rest of us, I know, but hopefully it is a teachable moment as well.

The story of Elisha, the boys and the bears is shocking. It was meant to be. But sometimes, when we are dealing with the scriptures, we need to look beyond the shock factor in a verse to find another meaning that actually can apply to our lives in constructive ways. This, I think, is one such passage.

Caesar’s Census, God’s Jubilee, A Christmas Pageant

Posted by Scott McAndless on Thursday, October 15th, 2015 in Minister

A couple of years ago, I wrote a Christmas pageant for my congregation and I wanted to make this pageant available to churches who are looking for a fresh and unique approach to the Christmas story. This pageant is based on the book I published in 2013 and I would refer you to that book for further information.

Click here for more information on the book.

I am releasing this pageant under a Creative Common "Share and Share Alike" license which means you are allowed to use it and to adapt it freely and the only stipulation is that the original author is to be acknowledged. You must also be open to sharing any adaptions of the pageant you make available freely.

The script follows. If you would like to view, download and print a PDF file, please click here.

Caesar’s Census, God’s Jubilee. A Christmas Pageant
by Scott McAndless

Caesar’s Census, God’s Jubilee. A Christmas Pageant by W. Scott McAndless is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Based on a work at http://revstandrewshespeler.blogspot.ca/.
Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at http://revstandrewshespeler.blogspot.ca/.

Note: This Christmas Pageant is based only on the nativity story as told Luke 1:1-2:20 with reference to Acts 5:37. No effort has been made to harmonize the nativity story from the Gospel of Luke with the one found in the Gospel of Matthew. The reasoning for such an approach may be found in my book, “Caesar’s Census, God’s Jubilee” (available on Amazon in paperback and in ebook format from most ebook retailers).

Scene 1: A Hill in Galilee

Judas stands looking out over the landscape. He seems troubled and lost in thought.

Narrator: In the days when Quirinius was the Governor of Syria, the Roman Emperor, Caesar Augustus, took direct control of the land of Judea. He ordered a census of the population and imposed heavy new taxes. These actions greatly disturbed a Galilean named Judas and his friend Zadok.

Enter Zadok.

Zadok: Peace be with you, Judas.

Judas:Hello, Zadok, I don’t think I can wish you peace. How can there be peace when the Romans are doing such things?

Zadok: Yes, I’ve heard – the census, the new taxes. They’ll end up turning people out of their homes and make us all into slaves!

Judas: You are a Pharisee, what do you think God would say about it?

Zadok: What would God say? God would say that he wants his people to be free. He wants them to live on their own land and serve God alone.

Judas: And how does God make that happen?

Zadok: How? A year of Jubilee! Everyone should return to the place where their ancestors lived and claim their freedom and their land. (Laughs) But there’s no way that’s going to happen!

Judas: Why not?

Zadok: Well, the Romans certainly aren’t going to call for a jubilee. They’re the ones taking our land and making us slaves. Especially right now – if everyone started traveling for a jubilee now, it would totally mess up their precious census that they’re taking.

Judas: (Thoughtfully) Yes it would, wouldn’t it.?

Zadok: (realizing what his friend is thinking) Oh no, Judas, you wouldn’t! We’d get in so much trouble!

Judas: Come with me, my friend. Let’s talk to the others.

Narrator:Judas had a plan – a bold plan and a fiendish plan. A plan that would have greater consequences than even he could imagine.

Scene 2 – The village of Nazareth

Narrator: In the little village of Nazareth nothing much ever happened so people often spent their time gossiping about other people’s lives.

Villager 1: Hey, have you heard the latest news?

Villager 2:What is it?

Villager 1:Young Mary is engaged to be married.

Village 2:Oh, that is big news, who is she going to marry?

Villager 1:Joseph, the son of Heli, that’s who!

Villager:No! Way!

Villager:But Joseph is just a carpenter. He has no land. He isn’t even from around here. His family comes from someplace in Judea.

Villager:From Bethlehem, I know. What can he offer to Mary? What were her parents’ thinking?

Villager: (Pointing to Mary and Joseph who are about to enter) Oh, that might have something to do with it!

Mary and Joseph enter. Mary is clearly pregnant.

Villager:Congratulations, Mary. We heard the news.

They gather around congratulating her.

Narrator:But, in the year of the census, there were suddenly big developments to talk about:

Enter a rebel blowing a horn.

Rebel:Jubilee! Jubilee! It is the year of Jubilee!

The crowd gathers around him.

Crowd: (All speaking at once) Jubilee? How can that be? etc.

Rebel: Yes, it is the jubilee. You must all return to the place your family came from. You must claim your land and your freedom!!

Villager:Wait a second, who says it is Jubilee? Who called for this?

Rebel: It is God’s will. Judas the Galilean is the one who declared this in God’s name.

Villagers discuss together.

Narrator:Some of the people of Nazareth didn’t like the sound of that. Judas was a rebel. Anyone who helped him in any way was likely to be killed. How they could anyone celebrate a jubilee that Judas called for?

Joseph steps forward.

Joseph: I will honour this call to Jubilee. I will return to Bethlehem, to the land that my people once owned and I will claim it as mine because that is God’s will.

Mary: I… I am going with him. I am God’s servant and if jubilee is God’s will, I must obey the call too.

The rebel runs off shouting “Jubilee” and blowing the horn. The villagers discuss together.

Narrator: There was a great deal for the people of Nazareth to talk about that year! Some tried to talk Mary and Joseph out of going. Others vowed that they would make a jubilee journey too.

Mary and Joseph travel pick up some luggage and head off.

Narrator: In the end Mary and Joseph did set out for Bethlehem in Judea. Many others also set out for their ancestral homes. They weren’t exactly disobeying Caesar’s order regarding the census. But in their hearts they knew that what they were really doing was obeying God’s call to jubilee.

Scene 3 – In front of a house in Bethlehem

Mary and Joseph approach the front door of the house.

Joseph:Well, Mary, here we are. It’s been a long hard trip but we have finally arrived at the land that once belonged to my family.

Mary: What happened? How did your family lose it?

Joseph: The usual way. They couldn’t pay their bills, the family was starving, they borrowed money that they knew they’d never pay back...

Mary: ...and you lost everything – ended up as landless carpenters in Nazareth far from home.

Joseph: But now I’m back. We’ll see what happens now.

Joseph knocks. The landlord opens the door

Landlord:Who are you? What do you want?

Joseph: I am Joseph, son of Heli. My family owned this property ever since God gave this land to his people.

Landlord:Yeah? So?

Mary: It is the year of jubilee. You must return the land to its rightful owners. It is God’s law.

Landlord: (Laughing) Oh yeah? And who’s going to make me? You? Go on, get out of here!

(Landlord starts to close the door.)

Joseph:Okay, okay. I did not really expect you to follow God’s will. But there is one thing... it’s my wife, Mary,

Mary: My child is coming very soon. I feel it.

Joseph:Maybe you won’t give me the house that should be mine. But surely you will offer us hospitality – especially in our time of need.

Landlord:Hospitality eh? Sure, I’ll give you hospitality. I think that there’s an old manger out in the back field. Why don’t you lay your brat in there?

Landlord laughs and slams the door as Mary and Joseph head off.

Narrator:And so it came to pass that, when the child was born, he did not have a home or even a decent place to stay. He was laid in a manger in a field. Yet it was a beginning that promised great things.

Scene 4 – A field behind the house

A child lies in the manger. Mary lies on the ground by a little fire that is slowly glowing. She is asleep, wrapped in a blanket. Joseph sits contemplating the child in the manger.

Narrator: It is dark, well past midnight, and in the middle of the field where they found the manger, the small family is huddled near a little fire. Joseph sits and watches the infant sleeping in the manger. It is a boy, just like Mary had assured him it would be—a tiny little boy who sleeps contentedly for the moment, his stomach full of milk.

Narrator: The boy’s mother also sleeps, rolled in a blanket nearby, taking advantage of the brief respite from the babe’s demands. Joseph, though he has every reason to be exhausted, finds that he is wide awake.

Narrator: It is a beautiful night, the stars blaze down from a moonless, cloudless sky and he is content to simply marvel at the sight of the child sleeping and watch his little chest rising and falling underneath the swaddling clothes.

Narrator: Suddenly the babe stirs. He grimaces and for a moment Joseph fears that he is about to wake. And he knows that if the child cries, it will wake Mary and she really needs her rest.

Joseph picks up the baby and paces with him, trying to calm him.

Joseph: (To the child) Shhhhhhalom. Shhhhhalom.

Narrator:“Shalom,” Joseph says to the child. The word means “peace,” which gets him thinking about peace.

Narrator:There were some local shepherds who came by earlier this night telling wild stories:

Shepherds appear.

Shepherd:We were just minding our own business, taking care of our sheep.

Shepherd:All of a sudden there were angels everywhere!

Shepherd:They sang about peace on earth and people of good will.

Shepherds:(All together) It was totally awesome!

Narrator:The Romans always talk about peace. They say that that is what their empire is all about. But when they talk about peace, what they really mean is that, once they have defeated all of their enemies, no one will be left who is strong enough to resist whatever they want to do. Who needs that kind of peace?

Narrator:But now, sitting here, watching the child sleep and thinking of the strange words of the shepherds, he wonders if there couldn’t be another kind of peace—one that doesn’t come at the point of a sword—a peace from heaven.

Narrator: Joseph has always been taught that the land is a gift of God to all the families of Israel. The gift came, in the ancient days, by means of God’s servant Joshua. It came through conquest and battle and violence. That is why Joseph has always assumed that, if the land is ever to be reclaimed for the families of Israel, it will have to be through more violence.

Narrator: But the words of the shepherds and the sight of this child of promise sleeping so peacefully have made Joseph think differently about such things. Perhaps what they really need now is not for the old Joshua and his ways to return. Perhaps the need is for a new Joshua and a new way.

Narrator: That is why Joseph has decided that the boy will be named Joshua. He knows it’s the right name for this child. In Aramaic (the common speech of the people), it will be…

Joseph:Yeshua!

Narrator: Joseph doesn’t know this, but in Greek—the language spoken throughout the Eastern Empire, the language of Caesar and all his minions—the child’s name will mean the same thing but it will sound different for in Greek, someday, they will call him Jesus.

This video version of the pageant was made in 2013:

Script Out Texts: Fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion

Posted by Scott McAndless on Sunday, October 11th, 2015 in Minister

Genesis 1:26-2:3, Mark 10:35-45, Psalm 24
There is so much that is so right about the Harvest Festival of Thanksgiving. It is a day to be thankful, but thankful in very particular ways. We especially focus on the good things that are provided to us by the earth itself – the fruits and vegetables, the bountiful harvest, the grain, the meat and the wonderful foods that we can create when we put them all together.

It is good to be thankful for these things because they are good things provided for our blessing. And, yes, one of the ways in which we connect to our thankfulness for these things can be by overindulging in them. I don’t know about you, but I fully intend to express my thankfulness specifically for turkey, mashed potatoes and gravy in some very concrete ways when I gather with my family at my sister’s place tomorrow. These things are not just given for our sustenance but also so that we might rejoice in abundance.

So it is all good, but is there not also a potential dark side to the notion of these things having been provided for us. God’s gift of all these things for our benefit is described to us in that famous passage in Genesis that we read this morning. God has been busy creating the world and on the sixth day he comes to what humans call the great climax of his work of creation – the creation of humanity. (Of course, if you asked the fish, for example, what they thought was the most important day of creation, they might have a different answer!)

Anyway, on the sixth day, God creates people: “So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them” And to these newly made people God gives a very interesting command: “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.”

Now, people have been reading that particular verse of scripture for a long time. And, for most of that time, they have seen that verse as being very positive. After all, for most of human history, the world has been a pretty scary and dangerous place. The world seemed to be out to get us. We were hunted by terrible beasts. There was constant danger of starvation and disease. The earth itself seemed to be an enemy that had to be defeated and subdued.

And so that is what we set out to do – to tame the world, to dominate it and to reshape it to suit our own needs and desires. And, folks, we’ve been hugely successful at it. We’ve gotten very efficient at finding the earth’s resources, extracting them and using them to make life comfortable and productive and profitable to suit ourselves.

But there’s a problem. As we have grown and developed as a human race, we have grown more and more efficient at dominating the earth until today we are without any doubt and question the most dominant species on the planet. Just about everything that lives on this planet is directly impacted by human activity in one way or another. You might even say that that command given by God in the first chapter of Genesis, “fill the earth and subdue it,” has finally been fulfilled in our own time.

But, just when we’re finally dominating the earth so much, we suddenly begin to realize that this might not really be such a good thing as we once thought. Sure we can extract the many riches from the earth, but such mining can take a terrible toll. Huge territories are devastated and the wildlife they support are killed. We show our mastery and ingenuity by doing such things as extracting the crude oil from Alberta’s tar sands, clear-cutting old growth forests, damming mighty rivers and even harnessing the energy found in an atom. Pretty powerful stuff, but a lot of it has negative impacts on the natural environment – entire lakes poisoned by tailings from the mines, species pushed into extinction by the loss of habitat and so much carbon dioxide being pumped into the air that it is actually changing the climate of an entire planet.

And when we raise objections to all this devastation, what is the response? The Christian answer seems to be, “Well, what are you going to do? We’re only doing what we were told to do – we are subduing the earth and exercising our dominion. This is war, us against the earth – that is the language that is used in Genesis, after all – and in a war there are always casualties and collateral damage.”

That is why a lot of people aren’t so happy with this particular verse from Genesis. And I must confess that there are times when I am one of those unhappy people. It seems to be a part of the problem. And the ironic thing is that this verse, that once gave humanity the attitude and approach that allowed us to survive on this planet, may end up destroying us. What if we end up dominating the earth to such an extent that it becomes no longer able to sustain human life? That is what Stephen Hawking warned about a few years ago. He said that, unless human beings are able to colonize other planets (which may well be impossible) we may find ourselves trapped on an unliveable planet. And I’ve heard that Stephen Hawking is a pretty smart guy. So maybe it would be better for all of us if this verse wasn’t in the Bible at all.

But wait, before we just get rid of it, maybe we had better ask if we’ve really understood it and applied it like we should. Let’s look at the verse in its context. This command to subdue is but one small part of a much longer tale of creation. In the seven-day narrative, God’s work is portrayed not so much as creating things out of nothing – although he does do that too – but God’s more important task seems to be to impose an order on all that exists.

On day one God creates light and then very carefully separates it from the darkness. God then spends the next two days sorting out the water – separating the water above from the water below, the water on this side from the water on that. Then God creates the sun, stars and planets. And these, we are told, he puts there to regulate the flow of the times and the seasons. Then it’s onto the creation of the animals. But the animals too are very carefully sorted out as they are created. As it is repeated again and again that each animal is made, “according to its kind.”

So, basically, the picture we get of the Creator in these opening pages of the Bible is of a God who is imposing order on a chaotic universe – putting everything in its proper place, carefully balancing opposites of light and dark, water and land. It is as much an act of subjugation and dominion as it is of creation as God’s divine order is imposed on all that is made. And it is in this context that we must understand God’s command to the newly minted humans to subdue the earth. Basically, God is telling them to continue the work that God has begun. They are to rule in order to keep things sorted and balanced out.

But, if that is the real intention of this command, then it means something quite different from, “Go out and rape the earth and make sure that you rip all of the wealth that you can out of it, no matter how much destruction you may cause.” It is a call to exercise leadership, certainly, but not the kind of leadership that we usually seem to find at the head of some corporation where they are willing to do whatever it takes to create more shareholder value. God seems, indeed, to be talking about the same kind of leadership that Jesus called his disciples to exercise: “whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all.” If God gave us dominion over the earth, the intention was not that we would simply exploit it for our own ends but rather that we would serve all creation and protect it from harm as much as we can.

So I think that we have failed to understand this passage because we have failed to understand exactly what kind of dominion and subjugation God is talking about. God is talking about servant leadership and we have been thinking about exploitative leadership. No wonder we are having so many troubles.

But there is something else – something deeper – about this story that we have also failed to understand. I have said already that most people who read this story conclude that the great climax of the story comes on the sixth day with the creation of humanity. But that is just a plain wrong conclusion. The climax of this story doesn’t come on the sixth day, it comes on the seventh. That is what this whole story of creation is about – that is why it is set up as a seven-day story in the first place. The whole point is to get you to the seventh day when you can experience rest and Sabbath.

You don’t understand the point of creation when you get to day six and humanity is handed dominion over the earth. That’s just a step on the path. You only understand it when you get to day seven and you discover in the rest what God’s plans for the universe really are. The whole idea of the Sabbath is that you can at last have a day when you experience life as it should be.

In other words, what I’m trying so say is that “fill the earth and subdue it” is not the Bible’s final word on our relationship with the environment. Sabbath is the final word. Yes, we as human beings are likely never going to stop exploiting this earth for our own profits in some ways. But we must never forget that we are called, I would suggest even more forcefully, to let the earth rest and regenerate. This was always part of God’s creation plan. And maybe if we learned this, the world would just be so much more sustainable over the long haul.

So, I don’t know. I’m not quite ready to script out this passage. It may just have some real wisdom for us if we look in the right places. I also rather like reading it on Thanksgiving Sunday because I think that the distinction between exploiting the earth to get all of the profit out of it that we can stands out in sharp contrast to an attitude of thankfulness for all that we may receive. On this Sabbath Sunday and on the day of rest that I hope most of us also get tomorrow, let us remember the power of a thankful attitude as we offer both to the world and to ourselves some genuine rest in gratitude.