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What is the Gospel? Well, it depends on who you ask.

Many Christians today would say that the following is what the gospel is all about: “Jesus died for my sins and he is my personal Lord and Saviour.”

The technical name for that understanding is the “Penal Substitutionary Atonement Theory” or the “Satisfaction Atonement Theory”. I’ve written many times about the limitations of that view before.

So just in case you missed it before, let me say again that that is not the Gospel. Not according to Jesus, and not according to most of the writers of the various gospels and letters which are contained in the New Testament. That theory didn’t actually show up in its full form until about a thousand years after Christ.

In a nutshell, the gospel that Jesus preached is this: “The time is fulfilled and the kingdom of God is at hand (or among you).” (Mark 1:15) Both translations of the last part of the verse are possible. God’s kingdom is at hand, or God’s kingdom is already among you.

Full stop.

Now notice something in that summary which comes from Jesus’ own words. There is nothing about death in it. There is nothing about payment for sins. There is nothing about Jesus being our personal Lord and Saviour. In fact, that last sentence is only something that arose in North America in the last century or so. Trust North Americans to think that the gospel is all about us.

For Jesus, the gospel is all about God. Simply put, the gospel Jesus preached is the “good news” (which is what “gospel” means) that the kingdom of God where God rules and reigns can be experienced today by anyone who wants to learn to follow Jesus in their daily life. The kingdom of God is what life looks like when God is actually in charge.

Jesus talks about the kingdom over and over again. Most of his parables begin with an introduction like this: “To what shall I compare the Kingdom of God? The kingdom of God is like …” And then Jesus tells a story about a man who finds a treasure in a field, or a man who searches for precious pearls, or a woman who loses a coin, or a shepherd who seeks for sheep, or a man who has two sons, and so on.

Read the gospels carefully, and you will find it for yourself. Matthew uses the phrase “kingdom of heaven”, which means exactly the same thing.

And it’s not just in the gospels. The book of Acts continues the theme. Acts 1:3 says that “After his suffering he [Jesus] presented himself alive to them by many convincing proofs, appearing to them over the course of forty days and speaking about the kingdom of God.” Jesus didn’t just proclaim the kingdom of God in his earthly ministry. It was his continuing theme after the resurrection.

The book of Acts presents Paul as the one who “has gone among you preaching the kingdom of God.” (Acts 20:25) “Paul entered the synagogue and spoke boldly there for three months, arguing persuasively about the kingdom of God.” (Acts 19:8). “He [Paul] proclaimed the kingdom of God and taught about the Lord Jesus Christ—with all boldness and without hindrance!” (Acts 28:31)

In his own, authentic letters, Paul also taught the same gospel about the kingdom of God. “The kingdom of God is not a matter of talk, but of power.” (1 Corinthians 4:20) “The kingdom of God is … righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.” (Romans 14:17)

Over and over again throughout the New Testament, from Jesus through Paul to other writers, the consistent theme is the kingdom of God. It’s not about Jesus dying for me. It’s not about Jesus paying the price for my sin. It’s not about Jesus being my personal Lord and Saviour.

It’s all about God and how we might learn to live in the world as if God were really in charge.

So, what’s the big deal?

The problem is that many conservative Christians want us to believe that the gospel is all about us … about what Jesus does for me. But it isn’t. The gospel is about God, and God’s loving purposes in the world.

Now, having said all that, there is one passage in 1 Corinthians 15: 1–8 where Paul (not Jesus) tells us that the gospel is about Jesus dying for our sins. Paul writes that what he passed on “as of first importance [is] that Christ died for our sins … that he was buried, that he was raised … and that he appeared.”

That’s it. One verse in the whole New Testament.

The problem with this seems quite obvious to me. No theologian worthy of the name would ever base a whole doctrine on one line in a letter to the church in Corinth, especially when the rest of the New Testament talks about the gospel of the kingdom of God.

Someone asked me a short while ago why I believe what I believe. This column, I think, demonstrates some of the reasons. It’s important to read carefully what is actually there, rather than what others have said about what might be there.

I also believe that when Jesus says, “I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly” (John 10:10), he is talking about the same reality of the kingdom of God, for when we live as if God were in charge, how could life be anything but abundant?

If Jesus, Paul, and other New Testament writers proclaim the kingdom of God as the gospel, why do we continue to insist on something different?

We can’t. Followers of Jesus also seek to live within the embrace of the kingdom of God.

Rev. Yme Woensdregt

The last couple of weeks, I’ve written about two important parts of Canada’s history, particularly as it impacts on our ongoing relationship with Indigenous Peoples. The Doctrine of Discovery (1493) instilled an attitude among European settlers that we could travel around the world and do as we pleased with any land we “discovered”. It was arrogant and presumptuous beyond belief.

On the other hand, the Royal Proclamation of 1763 declared that Indigenous Peoples held aboriginal title to the land on which they had lived since time immemorial, and directly contradicted the Doctrine of Discovery.

We are settler–Canadians, and it’s a difficult time for us. Settler–Canadians is the language which is being used more frequently for those of us who are not indigenous to this land. Our ancestors came to these lands as settlers, and we are their heirs.

We many not have done anything personally … but we have certainly inherited the benefits of those who came to this land centuries before. And, as a people in Canada, we are all culpable for the actions of the governments whom we have elected to govern.

The reality is that settler–Canadians did great damage to the indigenous peoples who lived here. It is a tragic and shameful part of Canada’s history, and it led to much abuse, including the Indian Residential Schools crisis.

One of the questions that settler–Canadians ask is, “Why do we need to remember? After all, I had nothing to do with any of this. Why can’t you just get over it and move on?”

In a panel on the CBC radio show “The Current” at a public forum in Ottawa in March 2017, Senator Justice Murray Sinclair provided one of the best answers I have ever heard. Sinclair chaired the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), which heard thousands of stories told by survivors of residential school. The TRC reported to the government of Canada—our government—with 94 recommendations for action by Canadians.

Sinclair responded this way: “My answer has always been, why can’t you always remember this? Because this is about memorializing those people who have been the victims of a great wrong. Why don’t you tell the United States to get over 9/11? Why don’t you tell this country to get over all the veterans who died in the Second World War instead of honouring them once a year? Why don’t you tell your families to stop thinking about all your ancestors who died? Why don’t you turn down and burn down all those headstones that you put up for all of your friends and relatives over the years?

“It’s because it’s important for us to remember. We learn from it. And until people show that they have learned from this, we will never forget. And we should never forget even once they have learned from it, because this is a part of who we are. It’s not just a part of who we are as survivors and children of survivors and relatives of survivors, but as part of who we are as a nation. And this nation must never forget what it once did to its most vulnerable people.”

There is a deep and profound answer. Gandhi once said, “The measure of a civilization is how it treats its weakest members.”

We remember what we did. We remember what our ancestors did. We note that we benefit from the actions of those who came here before us.

Every year on November 11, we intone, “Lest we forget. Lest we forget.” We remind ourselves that we must remember in order not to repeat the tragedies of the past. It’s a warning to us that if we forget the past, we become rootless. Indeed, a people without a past, without knowledge of their past, of their history and their origin and their culture is very much like a tree without roots.

We remember what we have done so that we may move into a new future with a real hope of reconciliation. We remember so that we might live together in more whole and healthier ways in the future.

In this way, we owe a depth of gratitude to the Indigenous Peoples who remember and tell their stories. We need to be grateful to them for helping us to remember so that we might resolve to live together in new ways.

It strikes me as ironic in the extreme that the people who ask why residential school survivors can’t simply move on with their lives are also the very same people who are adamant that we must restore the statues of past figures who were directly complicit in the residential school system. They claim that we can’t erase history when it comes to statues of John A. MacDonald and General Cornwallis, or rename the building originally named after Langevin.

As we remember those leaders from our past, so we must also remember the tragic dimensions of their decisions in our history as a people.

We are settlers in a land which our ancestors stole without honouring treaty rights where treaties were signed. We also know that in some parts of Canada, and in much of BC, no trearies were ever signed, and the land was simply taken.

We must remember, so that we can move forward into a new and healthier future.

Rev. Yme Woensdregt

Last week, I expanded what I had written previously about the Doctrine of Discovery. Pronounced in 1493, the Doctrine allowed the colonial powers to “discover”, claim and exploit the lands of indigenous peoples all around the world, including Canada.

At the end of last week’s column, I quoted a unanimous decision in 2014 of the Supreme Court of Canada that “The doctrine of terra nullius (that no one owned the land prior to European assertion of sovereignty) never applied in Canada, as confirmed by the Royal Proclamation of 1763.”

What is that Royal Proclamation?

The Royal Proclamation was issued in 1763 by King George III of Great Britain to claim British territory in North America after Britain won the Seven Years War. King George claimed ownership over North America, and this Proclamation set out guidelines for European settlement of Aboriginal territories in these lands.

It explicitly states that aboriginal title has existed and continues to exist, and that all land would be considered Aboriginal land until ceded by treaty. Settlers in the lands could not claim the lands for themselves. Only the Crown could buy land from the original Aboriginal occupants, and only the Crown could sell the land to the settlers.

The key phrase is “aboriginal title”. It refers to the inherent aboriginal right to a particular land or territory. Canadian law recognizes Aboriginal title as a unique collective right to the use of and jurisdiction over a group’s ancestral territories. This right is not granted by an external source. Rather, it is the direct result of Aboriginal peoples’ own occupation of and relationship with their home territories as well as their ongoing social structures and political and legal systems.

That is the Royal Proclamation to which the Supreme Court referred in its decision. In other words, unless indigenous peoples in Canada sold their land to the crown, who in turn sold it to settlers, the land continues to belong to the indigenous people.

This proclamation is at the heart of the understanding that the federal government needs to negotiate with indigenous people on a nation–to–nation basis. Many of the traditional lands of indigenous people were never sold or ceded by treaty to the Crown. As a result, Canadian law (as quoted by the Supreme Court) holds that the land still belongs to the indigenous people because they hold aboriginal title.

This Proclamation guarantees that indigenous peoples are viewed in law as people with authority and rights—which is exactly contrary to the Doctrine of Discovery.

Why is this important?

It is certainly important from an historical perspective. The lands which were conquered by colonial powers and claimed for their own purposes to be exploited were now deemed to still belong to the indigenous people. If our ancestors on the land did not purchase the land from the Crown, then the land in which we live does not belong to us.

It is even more important for how we move forward in our attempts at reconciliation and making peace. This Proclamation enshrines the nation–to–nation relationships between Indigenous and non–Indigenous Canadians that is at the heart of the kind of respect which reconciliation requires.

The Royal Proclamation makes it clear that Indigenous Peoples don’t need to prove their existing title to the land. That’s particularly important in BC, because the vast majority of provincial land has never been ceded by Indigenous Peoples. As a result, the argument has been made that all non–aboriginal settlement in BC is on stolen land.

That’s why, at the beginning of many gatherings, you will increasingly hear someone say that we are meeting on the unceded territory of the indigenous people of that place. Guidelines produced by the Canadian Association of University Teachers, for example, recommend the following acknowledgement to be used by the College of the Rockies: “We would like to begin by acknowledging that the land on which we gather is the traditional unceded territory of the Ktunaxa and Kinbasket Peoples. Five First Nations bands are located in the regional boundary of the College. Four bands are Ktunaxa and one is Secwepemc (Shuswap). We are grateful to have the opportunity to work in in this territory.”

We are living in a new time in our relationship with Indigenous People. As with any such a time, some people are afraid of what it might mean. It’s difficult to re–think how we have done things.

At the same time, it gives us great opportunity to work together in a spirit of true mutuality as we seek to reconcile with those whose ancestors have been on this land long before Columbus ever set foot on a ship.

All of that raises another question, perhaps the most important question of all. Why should we remember all this tragic part of our history?

I’ll have more to say about that next week.

Rev. Yme Woensdregt

 

Two weeks ago, I wrote about Orange Shirt Day. It was a day to commemorate survivors of residential schools. I told Phyllis Webstad’s heartbreaking story about having her orange shirt taken away from her on the first day of school at the St. Joseph Mission school.

Her story is only one of thousands of similar stories of children being ripped from their families and sent to residential schools like the St. Joseph Mission in Williams Lake or the St. Eugene Mission School in Cranbrook. Aboriginal children were sent to residential schools to “beat the Indian out of them” (to use John A MacDonald’s memorable phrase).

Indian Residential Schools date back to the 1870’s, and the last one closed in 1966. More than 150,000 First Nations, Metis and Inuit children were forcibly taken from their families and placed in these schools. They were forbidden to speak their language or to practice their own culture.

While some of these children had positive experiences at residential schools, most suffered emotional, physical, sexual, and mental abuse. The results of the trauma of this attempt at forced assimilation are still felt today in families where children never learned how to be parents because they had no parents from whom they could learn.

Duncan Campbell Scott, the head of the Department of Indian Affairs from 1913–1932, was responsible for the expansion of the residential school system. He made it mandatory for all native children between the ages of 7 and 15 to attend one of Canada’s Residential Schools. “I want to get rid of the Indian problem. I do not think as a matter of fact, that the country ought to continuously protect a class of people who are able to stand alone… Our objective is to continue until there is not a single Indian in Canada that has not been absorbed into the body politic and there is no Indian question, and no Indian Department, that is the whole object of this Bill.”

One of the underlying reasons for this attitude can be found in the Doctrine of Discovery. This Doctrine was first stated in an edict issued by Pope Alexander VI in 1493, the year after Columbus arrived in what is now known as North America.

The edict stated that any lands not inhabited by Christians were empty, unowned, and available to be discovered, claimed and exploited by Christian powers. The Pope called these lands “terra nullius” — “nobody’s land”, and it was applied to North America.

It is estimated that about 100 million Indigenous Peoples inhabited the Americas at that time — about one–fifth of the human race. They had been living on the land since time immemorial. But because they were not “Christians”, they were deemed to not be human.

As a result, the colonial powers—England, France, Spain, Portugal, the Netherlands—were able take over and profit from their lands. They accumulated massive wealth by extracting natural resources from the land, and essentially stealing the land from under the feet of the indigenous people.

The Doctrine of Discovery denied the essential humanity of the people who were living here. According to the Pope’s edict, the land was considered empty. There were not human beings here.

The Doctrine of Discovery laid the groundwork for the racism and injustice that continues to be current to this day.

I am proud to be part of the Anglican Church of Canada which officially repudiated this Doctrine in 2010. Our church denied it had any validity. At the same time, we officially apologized for our part in the crisis of the Residential School system.

In 2012, the United Nations’ Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues also denounced the doctrine as “the shameful root of all the discrimination and marginalization indigenous people face today.” The Forum noted that in addition to legalizing the theft of the land, the doctrine also “encouraged despicable assumptions: that indigenous peoples were ‘savages’, ‘barbarians’, ‘inferior and uncivilized’.

It’s important for us to know about this history. It explains some of the underlying prejudice that still exists about indigenous peoples.

But here’s the surprising thing. On 26 June 2014, in a unanimous 8:0 decision, the Supreme Court of Canada made clear that: “The doctrine of terra nullius (that no one owned the land prior to European assertion of sovereignty) never applied in Canada, as confirmed by the Royal Proclamation of 1763.”

I’ll have more to say about that next week.

Rev. Yme Woensdregt

Two weeks ago, I wrote about experiencing a deeper reality in life. Some people deny the presence of anything other than what we can see or touch or hear or smell. I went on to affirm that for me and many others, there is in fact a deeper reality beyond what our senses can experience.

At the beginning of that column, I promised that I would put down some thoughts about what many people call “the good old days” when more people went to church, and when Christianity was still very much an established religion.

That’s no longer true. We live in a much more secular society these days, and the church, like many other institutions, is no longer automatically trusted. In such a time, it’s only natural that people would long to find a sense of security in a time when it seemed that life wasn’t in such a constant state of change and flux.

In the life of the church, that time was called “Christendom”. Christianity was the established religion, and society generally expected that most citizens would attend a church of their choice.

If you search for “Christendom” online, you will find a definition such as this: “The word Christendom generally refers to the global community of those who adhere to the Christian faith, with religious practices and dogmas gleaned from the teachings of the Bible … Not all those who live under the general term “Christendom” are adherents of the Christian faith. The once–Christian European nations are still technically under what is known as “Christendom,” but, for the most part, biblical Christianity has been set aside in favor of secular humanism.” (www.gotquestions.org).

There’s a bit of wistfulness in that definition, a longing for the good old days when it was different.

When I use the word Christendom, that’s partly what I mean—that sense of Christianity being “in the air” all around us, and generally accepted, something almost as natural as breathing.

But there’s something else which is more problematic. Christendom also refers to the sense that Christianity is the established religion, that the Church has a powerful influence over social and governmental policy because it deserves to be at the table. The legacy of Christendom is found in such ideas as “Canada is a Christian country.”

I disagree. I don’t think Canada was ever a Christian country. And it most certainly is not a Christian country these days. It may have been true that more people practiced Christian faith in previous centuries, but government policy was never grounded in the faith of the gospel. All governments base their policies on economic, social, and other types of theory and practice. They have never based their policies on issues of faith.

And it is certainly true these days that we are not a Christian country. We honour many religions: Christian and Buddhist and Muslim and Jewish and atheist and aboriginal spiritual practices. As a country, and as citizens, we are in the process of learning to live together in all of these different communities with all of these different practices. As a multicultural society, we must learn to treat every religion with respect, and no religion as well. We cannot honour one religion over another as being somehow “best”.

And I am completely comfortable with that. After all, I never hear Jesus say, “Impose your beliefs on others” anywhere in the gospel.

I can think of a couple of practical consequences of this, though there are many. The so–called “war on Christmas” has begun again on facebook. A recent meme said, “We don’t say Happy Holiday in Canada; we say Merry Christmas.” The implication in this is that we are a country still in the grasp of Christendom.

My response was to post, “I will say Happy Holiday…or Happy Kwanzaa, Happy Hanukkah, Merry Christmas, and other celebratory words at this time of year. I will not impose my Christian beliefs on those who don’t share them, and I will seek to be as inviting and welcoming of other points of view as I can be.”

A second instance. I remember the battles about Sunday opening of stores. People argued strenuously that we are a Christian country, and we need to honour the Sabbath. I am strongly in favour of taking a day off … but what we forgot in this battle is that not all Canadians are Christians. Jews take the Sabbath — which, by the way, is Saturday, not Sunday. Muslims take Fridays as their day of rest. Others take other days. It’s not just Sundays anymore.

It may feel like we’ve lost something in the process. Perhaps we have. But this new situation gives us the real and wonderful potential for learning how to get along with people who live and think differently than we do.

And I think that’s a very good thing to do.

Rev. Yme Woensdregt

This Sunday, September 30, is Orange Shirt Day.

Why orange?

It began as part of a commemoration event for residential school survivors in Williams Lake, BC in 2013. It grew out of Phyllis Webstad’s story about having her orange shirt taken away from her on the first day of school at the St. Joseph Mission school. As Phyllis explains,

“I went to the Mission for one school year in 1973–1974. I had just turned 6 years old. I lived with my grandmother on the Dog Creek reserve. We never had very much money, but somehow my granny managed to buy me a new outfit to go to the Mission school. I remember going to Robinson’s store and picking out a shiny orange shirt. It had string laced up in front, and was so bright and exciting—just like I felt to be going to school!

“When I got to the Mission, they stripped me, and took away my clothes, including the orange shirt! I never wore it again. I didn’t understand why they wouldn’t give it back to me, it was mine! I didn’t want to be at school anymore, but I had to stay there for 300 sleeps.

“The colour orange has always reminded me of that and how my feelings didn’t matter, how no one cared and how I felt like I was worth nothing. All of us little children were crying and no one cared.

“I was 13.8 years old and in grade 8 when my son Jeremy was born. Because my grandmother and mother both attended residential school for 10 years each, I never knew what a parent was supposed to be like. With the help of my aunt, Agness Jack, I was able to raise my son and have him know me as his mother.

“I went to a treatment center for healing when I was 27 and have been on this healing journey since then. I finally get it, that the feeling of worthlessness and insignificance, ingrained in me from my first day at the mission, affected the way I lived my life for many years. Even now, when I know nothing could be further than the truth, I still sometimes feel that I don’t matter. Even with all the work I’ve done!”

It’s a heartbreaking story. It’s one of thousands of similar stories of children being ripped from their families and sent to residential schools like the St. Joseph Mission in Williams Lake, or lake the St. Eugene Mission School in Cranbrook. Aboriginal children were sent to residential schools to “beat the Indian out of them” (in John A MacDonald’s memorable phrase) and to make them more like us white people.

It went way beyond having a new orange shirt taken away. They were forbidden to speak their language and were severely beaten when they did. Their hair was cut off. Their culture was denied to them. They were not allowed to see their families.

As if that wasn’t tragic enough, other effects lasted through generations. These children didn’t learn how to be parents, because they had no parents to learn from. As a result, generations of children continue to live with the effects of the abuse of residential schools.

Part of the underlying reason for this attitude can be found in the “Doctrine of Discovery”. It was included in an edict issued by Pope Alexander VI in 1493. The edict “Inter Caetera” asserted that any lands not inhabited by Christians were empty, unowned, and available to be discovered, claimed and exploited by Christian powers. The Pope called these lands “terra nullius” — “nobody’s land”, and it was applied to North America.

As a result, these colonial powers—England, France, Spain, Portugal, the Netherlands—were able take over and profit from lands which had been inhabited by Indigenous Peoples from time immemorial. These powers accumulated massive wealth by extracting natural resources from the land.

The Doctrine of Discovery denied the essential humanity of our brothers and sisters who have lived here. They weren’t “Christian” (as defined by church powers), and therefore the land was considered empty. There were no humans here.

The Doctrine of Discovery laid the groundwork for the racism and injustice that continues to be current to this day.

I am proud to be part of the Anglican Church of Canada which officially repudiated this Doctrine. We denied it had any validity.

But now, the hard work begins. Now, survivors will continue to tell their stories. Now, we will need to continue listening with open hearts. Now, we need to unlearn much of what we thought we knew, for we have been taught falsely. Now, we need to learn about a shameful part of Canada’s past. Now, we need to become more aware of what happened, and the lasting effects of what we have done.

Most importantly, now we need to begin to talk together with our indigenous brothers and sisters and begin the work of reconciliation.

I’ll be wearing my orange shirt. It’s a tiny, tiny thing. But it’s a start.

Rev. Yme Woensdregt

 

 

More and more people these days identify as atheists. They don’t believe in “God” or “a higher power”. The only thing that’s real, they say, is what you can see or touch or smell. In fact, in the last census, in BC over 35% of the people checked the box labelled “None” when it came to declaring their religion.

It’s true that we are a much more secular society. Some people think that’s a bad thing. They long for “the good old days” when the Church would speak as one of the trusted institutions in society and people would listen.

Those “good old day” (if they ever really existed) were part of a condition which sociologists and philosophers and historians call “Christendom”. I’ll have more to say about that next week.

This week, I want to focus on the increasing number of people who are abandoning any kind of faith. They adhere to a philosophical school called “materialism”. Please note that I am not talking about materialism as a fixation on owning more stuff. This is not about conspicuous consumption or economic materialism.

Rather, I’m talking about a branch of philosophy which holds that reality is only comprised of material, physical stuff — what we can see or touch or hold or feel. In other words, the only thing that is real is what is available to our senses: taste, touch, sight, hearing, smell. Physical matter is all there is.

They say that existence can only be explained in material terms, with no accounting for spirit or consciousness or any other sense of “Something More” in the universe. The universe is a huge device held together by pieces of matter which function according to natural laws.

Materialism is opposed to any supernatural explanations. It is also opposed to human feelings, human will, or human faith. It is a purely atheistic worldview … which means that there is no place for any kind of god in this universe.

It’s not a new way of thinking. Ancient Greek philosophers espoused a materialist view of reality. Not surprisingly, the Church condemned this philosophy, but it was revived in the 17th century by scientists and political philosophers.

You won’t be surprised to hear that I am opposed to a materialistic view of reality. I have had too many experiences that can’t be explained only by the senses.

Recently, I heard a story from a friend which reinforces this for me. My friend is involved in the medical profession. He himself is not a Christian, but I think he is a believer in something More at the heart of the universe.

He told me a story about a woman who came to see him for treatment after she had been away for several years. She is a faithful Christian, who engages in daily prayer, Scripture reading and meditation. He asked her, “How can I help you today? What can I do for you?”

She responded, “You can tell me why God is telling me to pray for you, and to pray hard.” She had had an experience that my friend was in need of help. She would say, “God spoke to me.” It doesn’t necessarily mean she heard a voice coming out of the air. But it does point to a very real experience of knowing something without being able to explain it.

The wonder of this experience for my friend is that she asked him the question precisely at the time when he was ready to end it all. He had made a suicide plan. All that was left was to carry it out. Circumstances had conspired to make life difficult and unbearable.

I have also been there. I know what it’s like to lose hope like that.

And she asked him, “Why is God telling me to pray for you?”

Materialists simply can’t explain that kind of phenomenon. There is no place for it in their universe.

I said earlier that while my friend is not a Christian, he is a believer. What I mean is that he knows that life is interconnected. There is so much more out there than is available to our senses. We simply cannot explain all of life in that kind of sense–based way. It doesn’t explain love … or generosity … or a sense of connection we make with other people … or our passionate commitment to certain causes … or a life marked by compassion and grace.

There are times when I am an “agnostic”, which comes from two Greek words meaning “we don’t know”. I am agnostic about what happens after death. I trust that we are held safe in the love of God … but I don’t know. I trust deeply that God exists … but I don’t think we can be 100% certain.

That’s the thing about faith. It isn’t certainty. It’s trust, a deep trust, a passionate trust, that there is More in life than we can know. Christians name this More as “God in Christ”. Muslims name this More as “Allah”. Jews name this More … well they don’t pronounce the name, because the name is too holy.

My search for meaning has taught me that reality must include God. I can not make ultimate sense of life if God does not exist. God grounds the meaning of life for me. That’s the deeper reality in my life. It makes life rich and grace–filled for me.

It doesn’t make me a better person. Atheists also are worthy, and they also find much meaning in life, and they contribute in valuable ways to life.

But for me, it is not nearly enough.

Rev. Yme Woensdregt

 

Here is one of my favourite ways of talking about Christian faith: faith is not so much about finding the right answers; faith is about learning to ask the right questions. For me, that gets at the heart of our identity as followers of Jesus.

Christian faith is not so much about certainties and having the right answer for every part of life. Christian faith is about seeking, searching, inquiring. One of the earliest ways of talking about followers of Jesus was to say that they “belonged to the way” (Acts 9).

I’ve talked about the life of faith before in this column as a journey or a pilgrimage. This approach to faith is a life–long journey. We are seeking to grow into the fullness of Christ. We search to live in the way of compassion and faithfulness.

A journey has two elements: the destination, and the way in which we journey.

Firstly, the destination. To undertake a journey means that we are going somewhere. We are heading towards a destination. Sometimes, the destination is easy to define. When we go on a trip to Vancouver, for example, we get out the map, plot our course, and begin driving until we get there. The road signs along the way help us see how close we’re getting to our destination.

Other times, the destination is not quite so easy to define. The journey of life has many twists and turns. It’s impossible to say of a newborn infant what her destination at the end of life will look like. All we can truly say is to speak our hope about the manner in which we live our life, the way in which we reach our destination. In fact, the goal towards which we are heading is itself shaped by the way in which we make our journey.

To use the example of a trip to Vancouver again, we could rush there as quickly as possible and miss everything in between in our urgency to get there. If we’re lucky, we won’t be fined for traffic violations. We arrive at our destination somewhat frazzled and a little bit out of sorts.

On the other hand, we could travel at a more leisurely pace, enjoy the sights, make sure we eat well, and arrive a little less tired and stressed out.

If that’s important on a road trip, it is absolutely critical in our journey through life. As we journey in the company of other faithful men and women, each of us is responsible to shape our own journey. We walk side by side with other people, in all the different communities of which we are a part. Even more importantly, we make our journey with all the people of the earth.

I am very clear that for me, both the goal of such a life and the way we journey through life is marked by compassion and hope, gentleness and tolerance. Flexibility and tolerance are virtues for me.

Trees look strong compared with the wild reeds in the field. But when the storm comes the trees are uprooted, whereas the wild reeds, while moved back and forth by the wind, remain rooted and are standing up again when the storm has calmed down.

Flexibility is a great virtue. When we cling to our own positions and are not willing to let our hearts be moved back and forth a little by the ideas or actions of others, we may easily be broken. Being like wild reeds does not mean being wishy–washy. It means moving a little with the winds of the time while remaining solidly anchored in the ground.

That applies to all areas of life. I am deeply rooted in the Christian faith. I have learned to trust that rootedness. But that cannot lead me to believe that my way is the only way. I know God to be much larger than what I or any other human being can conceive. I believe that God chooses to reveal himself to the world in any number of ways.

And while the way of following Christ is the path to which I have been called, I can also learn from other ways of understanding God.

When people would ask retired Harvard theologian Wilfred Cantwell Smith if he was a Christian, he would answer, “Ask my neighbour.” Like him, I want to live compassionately and gently with my neighbours. For me, that includes people who understand God in different ways than I do. I want to live peacefully, compassionately, and tolerantly with people of other faiths — Muslim, Jewish, Buddhist and all the other enduring religions of the earth. I want to live compassionately with other Christians, who interpret the story of Jesus in ways differently than I do.

In some ways, it’s much harder to live that way. There are people who have real problems with me and the way I live out my Christian faith. Some Christians are critical of me and this flexible approach to faith. Their motto is “The Bible says it, I believe it, that settles it.”

My hope is that the flexible approach which I am learning to embody becomes attractive to more of us. God knows, the world is in a sorry state. There are so many things that keep us apart, so many excuses we can use for being hostile with each other. The Church is guilty of having fostered hatred against those who have disagreed and other faiths again and again. That’s a terrible thing to have done, and I mourn the church’s history deeply.

It’s time to try to live together in hope and peace, so that in our common humanity, Christ can be honoured. That’s the journey I want to make. Along the way, I am slowly learning to ask the right questions.

Rev. Yme Woensdregt

“Stewardship” is one of those words that often sounds as if it comes directly from the Bible. But it’s not. The interesting thing is that this word is being used more and more often in the field of ethical investment.

Although the word “stewardship” is not found in the Bible, it is nevertheless clearly a biblical concept. The Bible uses the word “steward” about 20 times. The Greek word underlying it is oikonomos, which comes from two different roots meaning “house” (oikos) and “law” (nomos). The word describes a manager or a housekeeper. A steward is someone entrusted with somebody else’s property, who is charged to manage it wisely and well.

We see this concept in both the Old and New Testaments. In Genesis, Joseph orders his steward to frame his brothers, and then sends the steward to arrest them. Luke 16 tells a parable about a rich man, who entrusted his property to a dishonest manager. From these two examples, we can see that a steward is a person who holds a position of some responsibility.

Stewards, in this understanding, are guardians, not owners. They are trustees, or custodians, of something that belongs to someone else.

This biblical understanding of stewardship begins with the notion that God owns it all. Psalm 24 begins, “The earth is the Lord’s and everything in it.” That includes (but is not restricted to) the universe itself, our bank balances and mortgages, our houses and cars, our earnings, our pensions and pets, the birds, the beasts and even black holes. But it’s not just material things. The biblical understanding includes our relationships, our attitudes, our hopes and fears, and the future of the universe. It all belongs to our Creator, and it has been entrusted to our care.

It is, when you think about it, a tremendous privilege and honour, as well as a responsibility.

That’s the understanding which gives rise to the concept of stewardship. From the very beginning of the story of the Bible, God says to the human being, “Take care of it all.” (Genesis 1:28). The problem came with the old word “dominion”. We thought that when God told us that we would have dominion over it, we could do whatever we wanted to do with it.

We were wrong. It wasn’t ours to do with as we wished. It was entrusted to us as stewards. God invited us to look after the world and care for it. Proverbs 12: 10 reminds us that “The righteous know the needs of their animals…” with the uncompleted thought that they look after those needs.

That’s the perspective we use to understand our lives as stewards of what has been entrusted to us. We are given resources for a noble cause. The Bible does not decry money and possessions. But it does recognize that they are not a good thing in and of themselves. They are given to us for a nobler, higher purpose.

The ancient story of Abraham and Sarah tells us that they are blessed so that they, in turn, can be a blessing. The parable in Luke 12 echoes that thought even more strongly: “From everyone to whom much has been given, much will be required; and from one to whom much has been entrusted, even more will be demanded.”

All that we have has been entrusted to us. We are not owners; we are care–takers, trustees, custodians. Stewardship has to do with the way we look after things, not the way we own things.

In the world of ethical investment, they talk a lot about “safeguarding the future”. That’s a central part of stewardship. We don’t own the future; we are looking after it for others.

Successful stewards know that we are charged to use the resources we’ve been given for the good of all in the most equitable way we can.

We are “blessed to be a blessing”, which means that we don’t live in this world only for ourselves, but to care for all that has been entrusted to us: our wealth; our neighbours; the earth; the future; those nearest and dearest to us, and those unknown to us; our relationships, and all else.

And when we begin to live in this kind of way, with this kind of deep compassion and commitment to the future, we will make a world which is more whole, more compassionate, more equitable.

As responsible and successful stewards, we define our goals in life with this view in mind. Some of our goals last a lifetime. Others last only for a few years. Some of the people I admire most have articulated successful stewardship goals such as these:

In each of these, the primary object is to use the resources we’ve been given well and for the benefit of others than ourselves: spending less than you earn, avoiding debt where possible; saving for the future; giving generously. In each of these things, we think and act intentionally.

Rev. Yme Woensdregt

Did you know that there is a celebration of sexual love in the Bible? Yes, the Bible.

You may be thinking “Where? I don’t remember reading that!” You may even think, “No way! Isn’t the Bible supposed to be against sexual love?”

Check it out … it’s in the Old Testament, and called “The Song of Songs.” We don’t know who the poet is, or when it was written. Traditionally the book was titled “The Song of Solomon”, and while Solomon is mentioned in the book (chapter 3), it doesn’t credit him as the author, and there is no other connection to him in the rest of the poem.

In fact, that old title is inaccurate. The original Hebrew is best translated as “The Song of Songs”. To take it a step further, the phrase used for the title actually refers to a superlative — hence the most appropriate title for this series of poems would be “The Most Beautiful Song”.

It’s an apt title, for this is a profound and illuminating testimony to the wonder of sexual love. The very earliest rabbis who interpreted the text were not blind to this fact. They wrote of the quite explicit and unmistakable references to acts of sexual intercourse that are described in the poems.

But it didn’t take long for readers, both Jewish and Christian (but mostly Christian) to decide that these poems simply couldn’t be what they most obviously were. They couldn’t imagine that a poem celebrating sexual love would ever be included in sacred Scripture.

And since that interpretation didn’t mesh with their understanding, they decided that this series of poems was “really” about God’s loving relationship with Israel. They took a very physical text and spiritualized it. Christian interpreters went even further, deciding that this song was “really” about Jesus Christ’s love for true believers.

What we see here is an example of what happens much too often when people interpret texts. Instead of letting the text speak for itself, they come with preconceived notions and make the text fit their understanding rather than the other way around. They read into the text what they think it should say.

The argument runs like this: surely the Bible doesn’t condone sexual love, so this poem can’t be about that. Therefore it must be an allegory for God’s love.

But it ain’t so.

Here’s an example of how it works. Chapter 7:2–3 reads, “Your navel is a rounded bowl that never lacks mixed wine. Your belly is a heap of wheat, encircled with lilies. Your two breasts are like two fawns, twins of a gazelle.” It’s pretty clear that a lover is describing his love. Prudish readers determined that the navel really described the church’s baptismal bowl and the two breasts referred to the two covenants of law and gospel!

We may laugh at this interpretation now, but such a way of reading texts like this used to be taken very seriously. Part of the reason was an increasing denigration of sexuality. We see it in Augustine. In the 5th century, he decreed that original sin was passed from parent to child through the sexual act. Sex was bad! Therefore we must hide it.

But that’s not so. These delightful poems honour sexual romance and celebrate a sexual love between two people. These poems are a wonderful announcement of the power and beauty of sexual love.

You don’t need to be a subtle reader to discern what this poet had in mind: “My beloved thrust his hand into the opening, and my inmost being yearned for him.” (5:4) Or again, “You are stately as a palm tree, and your breasts are like its clusters. I say I will climb the palm tree and lay hold of its branches. O may your breasts be like clusters of the vine, and the scent of your breath like apples, and your kisses like the best wine that goes down smoothly, gliding over lips and teeth.” (7:7–9)

This ancient poetry is a wondrous description of the intricacies and delights of the act of sex. It is among the finest literary descriptions of the physical acts of two people attracted to each other.

But why include this text, this love poem, in a collection of sacred scripture?

For me, the answer is quite direct and obvious. Sexual love is an important element of human life. Why shouldn’t we expect our sacred book to hallow acts of love as a joyful and celebratory part of what it means to be fully human?

That’s even more important in the wake of recent revelations of clergy abuse of children in Philadelphia. To forcibly impose celibacy on clergy announces clearly that sexual activity is central to what it means to be a human being. When priests are unable to overcome the sexual needs of their humanity, they end up abusing and destroying thousands of victims throughout the centuries.

It is clear to me that sexuality and its expression is one of God’s great and good gifts. It is a delight and pleasure given to us who are made for one another.

One final curious thing about “The Most Beautiful Song”: God is not mentioned a single time. It may well be that the author was simply writing a celebration of sex for its own sake, and those who chose to include these poems in our sacred Scripture knew that we must celebrate the goodness of life as fully as we can.

It has been said that on Friday nights after Jewish services were completed some centuries ago, it was a divine duty that a couple go home and make love. After all, the act of lovemaking was as close to God as human beings were likely to get. I think the author of the most beautiful song knew that well.

Rev. Yme Woensdregt