Rev. Yme Woensdregt
Have you ever wondered where Christmas came from? I can hear some of you groaning at that question; you’re probably thinking, “Well duh … it comes from the birth of the baby Jesus!”
Well, yes and no. These days, obviously, it’s a day for Christians to celebrate the birth of the Christ–child. But it wasn’t always so. In fact, the earliest church never celebrated Christmas.
In the earliest days of the church, it could literally cost your life to be known as a follower of Jesus. Being known as one of the people “who belonged to the Way” (Acts 9) was a matter of life and death.
Who opposed the earliest followers of the Way? The earliest Christians were feared and hated by two different groups.
On the one hand, the earliest Christians were Jews. As they left the synagogue in order to follow Jesus, other Jews decried them as a disruptive force, spreading division in the synagogue. Jesus was teaching radical new ideas which drew people away from the Torah, which was the heart of Judaism.
On the other hand, Christians were hated by Romans because they refused to pay homage to the emperor. They insisted that there was one true God and they were spreading that message throughout the Roman Empire, and disrupting the carefully laid plans of the oppressor to subdue the people in the countries they had conquered. Christians simply could not be controlled by the Empire. They defied the empire, and Rome could not let that happen.
In such an environment, the church didn’t celebrate any festival too openly.
When they met, they would do so in secret, in small gatherings usually in homes. For them, each Sunday was a mini–Easter, celebrated as the day of resurrection and new life.
All of that changed in the momentous year 313. The emperor Constantine declared that Christianity would be an official religion of the Roman Empire. Suddenly, it was legal to be a follower of Jesus, and within the next century or two, the church went from being an underground group of followers to being part of the power structure. The Church (now with a capital C) became an institution of power and influence.
One of the signs of that influence was that the Church took over a Roman pagan festival called Saturnalia. It was a weeklong festival of lawlessness running from December 17–25. During this week, Roman courts were closed, and Roman law dictated that no one could be punished for damaging property or injuring people during the weeklong celebration. The festival began when Roman authorities chose “an enemy of the Roman people” to represent the “Lord of Misrule.” Each Roman community selected a victim whom they forced to indulge in food and other physical pleasures throughout the week. At the festival’s conclusion, December 25th, Roman authorities believed they were destroying the forces of darkness by brutally murdering this innocent man or woman.
The Church took over this festival in the 4th century. Christian leaders succeeded in converting large numbers of pagans to Christianity by promising them that they could continue to celebrate the Saturnalia as Christians. The problem is that there was nothing remotely Christian about this festival. To remedy this, these same Christian leaders named Saturnalia’s concluding day, December 25th, to be Jesus’ birthday. The very first mention of a Nativity feast happened in the year 354.
In his book, “The Battle for Christmas”, Stephen Nissenbaum writes, “In return for ensuring massive observance of the anniversary of the Saviour’s birth by assigning it to this resonant date, the Church for its part tacitly agreed to allow the holiday to be celebrated more or less the way it had always been.” The earliest Christmas holidays were celebrated by drinking, sexual indulgence, singing naked in the streets (a precursor of modern caroling), etc.
Ever since, there has been a tension at Christmas time between an orgy of consumerism and a more religious observance of the holiday. The consumerist emphasis took hold in the 5th and 6th centuries, and culminated in a revelry of eating and drinking in the middle ages.
Inevitably, there was a backlash. Oliver Cromwell and the Puritans banned the celebration of Christmas in England in the 17th century. In Boston, the Reverend Increase Mather observed in 1687 that “the early Christians who first observed the Nativity on December 25 did not do so thinking that Christ was born in that Month, but because the Heathens’ Saturnalia was at that time kept in Rome, and they were willing to have those Pagan Holidays metamorphosed into Christian ones.” The Puritans followed the example of England and banned Christmas in New England as well.
This very brief historical overview shows that the origin of Christmas is not quite as obvious as first thought. To those conservative commentators who whine about the “war on Christmas”, we can appreciate with some historical insight that in fact, the Church took over an ancient pagan festival.
Many of the traditions we associate with Christmas—from decorating the house to purchasing presents to putting up a tree to wishing for a white Christmas—come from sources other than Christian origins.
I myself will continue to celebrate this season as the birth of Christ. But I bear nothing but gratitude for those who choose to celebrate it differently. I will join with you and appreciate once again that in the middle of winter, it is wonderful to celebrate a festival of Light as the days once more begin to lengthen.
I will wish people I meet “Merry Christmas”. And I won’t be offended if they wish me “Happy Holidays”.
Bad News and Good News
Rev. Yme Woensdregt
Do you remember the old joke about good news and bad news? Well, I have some bad news and some good news for you.
Let me give you the bad news first. I’m pretty sure you already know the bad news I’m about to deliver. Unfortunately, many people in our society think that this is not bad news, but good news. Here it is. Ready?
Oh, ya better watch out, ya better not cry,
ya better not pout, I’m telling you why:
Santa Claus is coming to town.
He’s making a list and checking it twice,
gonna find out who’s naughty and nice:
Santa Claus is coming to town.
He sees you when you’re sleeping;
he knows when you’re awake;
he knows if you’ve been bad or good,
so be good for goodness’ sake.
Oh ya better watch out, ya better not cry,
ya better not pout, I’m telling you why:
Santa Claus is coming to town.
Can you imagine any worse news than that? Someone making a list? Checking it twice? Could you measure up? Someone checking up on us 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, when we’re sleeping, when we’re awake, no matter what we’re doing.
It’s like the old song by The Police—“Every breath you take, every move you make every bond you break, every step you take, I’ll be watching you.” It’s not really a love song. It’s the song of a stalker.
The same with this Christmas song. Santa knows everything you do … just like Big Brother. He decides to reward or punish us on the basis of how we have behaved. Doesn’t that scare you?
The song warns us from the very beginning that this is bad news. It begins, “You better watch out.” I love what the famous theologian Calvin (of Calvin & Hobbes) says: “I’m having a lot of holiday stress — deep down, I doubt my greed for presents can overcome my desire to misbehave.” It’s bad news. If the gift depends on whether I’ve been able to toe the line, I’m never going to get it.
Now let me give you the good news. It comes from Luke’s gospel: “Do not be afraid; for I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people: to you is born in the city of David a Saviour, who is the Messiah, the Lord.”
This is good news for the world. It is good news about wholeness and grace and compassion and justice and peace. God’s news is not punishment or reward based on how we behave. God’s gift is given to all people. It doesn’t depend on us. It depends on the grace and generosity of our God, who loves to give. God’s good news embraces all people; it heals and restores us. It is a vision of peace and well–being for all people.
Don’t be afraid. That’s the good news of Advent and Christmas. Come to me, and do not be anxious. A Saviour is born, who will take your fears away and make you whole; who will forgive us and set all things right; who will mend our broken souls, strengthening us and setting us free from everything that tries to enslave us.
I’m writing this partly “tongue–in–cheek” of course. But it’s also half–serious. I read recently that “both faith and fear require belief in something you can’t see: pick one.”
When I get lost in the daily reminders of hate, ignorance, violence and greed, then the fear takes hold. When I ground myself in the universe’s deep assurance of renewal and rebirth, I am set free to see the kindness in everyday acts, the persistence of resistance against divisions, the inspiration of creativity in many forms.
The good news of Christian faith is that we don’t gotta “watch out”. We can rest in the embracing love of God. God is coming, but not with a list to check up on us, not with a list to see if we’ve been bad or good, not with a list to check off whether we will be healed or zapped. God is coming with love which casts fear away. God is coming to heal our lives. God is coming to forgive our sin and embrace us in love. God is coming to ease our anxiety and wash away our despair.
Do not be afraid! This is good news of great joy — to you, to me, and to all the world. Don’t be afraid. To us poor, fearful, anxious people, God is coming. Don’t be afraid.
The Joy of Alternative Giving
Rev. Yme Woensdregt
Last week, I wrote about National Housing Day and the crisis of homelessness which is gripping our country and our city. I ended the column with a promise to write about one small way in which we can help.
The last week of November each year presents countless ways for us to indulge our most selfish behaviours. It also gives us an opportunity to be as generous as we can be.
On Black Friday, we are encouraged to participate in an orgy of consumerism. Three days later, advertisers and retailers reinforce those selfish impulses by asking us to spend even more money on Cyber Monday. As if we don’t have enough stuff in our lives already.
Then, the very next day, different groups appealed to our better natures on Giving Tuesday. We were encouraged to be generous in our giving to others, and particularly to charities which need our help.
We are driven into an absurd rhythm during this time of year—from one extreme to another. Needless to say, I try not to participate in Black Friday or Cyber Monday, but the wiles of the advertisers are powerful. Giving Tuesday is a cause much dearer to my heart.
Let me share with you another way to be generous to others. It’s called alternative giving. The heart of this is that people give a donation to a charity in someone’s name instead of giving that person a physical gift.
Why would you do that? In one episode of Seinfeld, George was angry to receive a donation to charity instead of an actual gift. He made up his own non–existent charity and handed out fake donations to other people so he could save money on gifts.
There are many reasons why someone would do this. For some, it’s a protest against the increasing commercialization of life. It’s a statement against our consumerist culture. We already have enough “stuff” and we don’t need more. Alternative giving allows the giver to recognize an occasion (whether it be Christmas, a birthday or an anniversary) and at the same time to do some good. Perhaps there is a cause or an organization dear to the receiver’s heart; that person might truly appreciate the giver’s thoughtfulness in supporting that effort. When someone makes an alternative gift, it’s really a double gift: a gift to the person being honoured and a gift to the charity and the people that really need the help.
We are becoming more and more faithful consumers. Yes, I know “faithfulness” is religious language. I use it deliberately. Someone has recently called consumerism the fastest growing religion in North America. There is some truth to that—witness Black Friday and Cyber Monday.
Alternative Giving allows us to fight against the “sellabration of Christmas”. We can stop just exchanging things with others who already have too much stuff and give our money where it can have a real benefit.
This kind of generous giving is also good for us. Studies have shown that altruism has positive effects on our health. One of the best–known studies was conducted 40 years ago by psychiatrist George Vaillant. He observed the health of a group of Harvard graduates for 30 years. When they reached their fifties, he compared their health with the attitudes they lived by. His conclusion was that people who were generous and who truly cared for others enjoyed much greater mental health. (“Adaptation to Life”, 1977).
We’ve been doing this at Christ Church Anglican since 2006. It was initiated by the children of our Sunday School for a project to raise funds for goats in rural Rwanda.
This year, we are again sponsoring a project right here in Cranbrook. We are proud to partner with Homeless Outreach & Prevention, which is part of the Community Connections Society of Southeast BC.
Homeless Outreach & Prevention serves homeless people on the streets; people who are homeless due to a crisis; and those who are “couch surfing” or are considered at risk of homelessness because their housing costs are so high. They help young families and seniors who find themselves at risk because of an emergency or their income is no longer sufficient, or who have had a major life change, and affording a place to live has become a major challenge.
Homeless Outreach & Prevention provides short–term or one–time emergency assistance as needed. Just as importantly, they help people by referring them to agencies and services they may benefit from; they advocate for individuals around housing; they help people maximize their support systems.
Because we do it through Christ Church, I can guarantee that every penny which is donated will go directly to this project. There are absolutely no administration fees. Gifts in any amount will be gratefully received.
Generous people in Cranbrook and elsewhere have gotten involved in alternative giving projects in the past. This is a wonderful way for all of us to look beyond ourselves, and help those who are in greater need than we are.
If you would like to be part of this project, please contact Christ Church at (250) 426-2644 or email us at [email protected]. We will provide you with a gift card so you can let people know you’ve made a donation in their name. You will also receive a tax receipt for your charitable gift.
Winston Churchill famously remarked that “We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give.”
John Templeton echoed that when he said, “Happiness comes from giving, not getting. If we try hard to bring happiness to others, we cannot stop it from coming to us also. To get joy, we must give it, and to keep joy, we must scatter it.”
National—& Local—Housing Day
Rev. Yme Woensdregt
This past Wednesday, November 22, was National Housing Day. The purpose of this day is is so that we can pause and reflect on the challenges too many of us are facing in finding a safe and affordable place to live.
Nationally, over 3.3 million Canadians cannot find safe and affordable housing. That’s 10% of our fellow citizens who cannot afford a home. One in ten people.
National Housing Day started 19 years ago in Toronto, when the Toronto Disaster Relief Committee declared homelessness to be a national disaster. Beginning in 2000, November 22nd was recognized as National Housing Strategy Day. The purpose of this day is to raise awareness of the issues around housing and homelessness in our wealthy nation.
On this day, we proclaim that housing is a human right. It’s not just something good to have. It’s not just an important part of life. It’s a right—and it’s a right for all of us.
Susan Johnson and Fred Hiltz, the leaders of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada and the Anglican Church of Canada, released a statement. They remind us that “More than 235,000 Canadians experience periods of homelessness every year, with as many 35,000 people finding themselves homeless on any given night. Thousands of others live in precarious housing, struggling month after month to pay rent or remaining in unsafe or inadequate housing because of a lack of appropriate options.”
They continue, “Homelessness and a lack of affordable housing affects every community in this country, from large urban centres to remote northern communities, and is experienced by diverse populations including young people, seniors, families, veterans, and more. Indigenous people are disproportionately represented among homeless populations in Canada, and many Indigenous communities continue to experience acute housing crises such as overcrowding, lack of sanitation, and poor condition of existing housing stock. Many Indigenous people in urban contexts also continue to experience discrimination in access to housing.”
This kind of housing crisis is not just something that happens in big cities like Vancouver and Toronto and Calgary. It affects everyone, including Cranbrook and the East Kootenays.
A study completed in June 2017 concluded that “Cranbrook is facing a shortfall of affordable rental housing and ownership units. Affordable housing is a critical issue in addressing poverty, impacting the local economy, quality of life, and a sense of community.”
The definition of homelessness in Canada describes “the situation of an individual or a family without stable, permanent, appropriate housing, or the immediate prospect, means and ability of acquiring it.” It affects people who are “unsheltered, emergency sheltered, or provisionally accommodated”.
The result is that some people will do anything for a place to stay for the night, including such things as couch surfing; remaining in unsafe relationships; trading sex for food or shelter; living rough (eg in a vehicle, or in a tent, or in the outdoors); living in accommodation with unsafe, unhealthy or otherwise inadequate conditions; staying somewhere temporarily that you didn’t want but felt you had no choice; staying in a shelter or transitional home; staying in a hotel or motel short–term with no tenant rights.
Three separate surveys and counts of homeless people were undertaken in early 2017. Here are some of the shocking statistics. In 2016, 214 adults experienced homelessness. 106 adults experienced absolute homelessness. One–third experienced homelessness before the age of 17. Two–thirds experienced homelessness for more than six out of twelve months. Three–quarters had to choose between a place to stay and other expenses. Almost one–half are fearful they will lose their current housing, however inadequate it may be.
These are people whom we see on the streets of our city. They are not strangers. They are not some group far away. They are right here. They are struggling to survive right in our midst.
Why are they homeless? The causes of homelessness are complex and multi–faceted. Most people don’t choose to be homeless. It is an unpleasant, stressful and distressing situation. Some of the factors include a lack of affordable and appropriate housing; a significant change in health or economic circumstances; financial, mental, cognitive, behavioural or physical challenges; domestic violence and/or abuse.
In Cranbrook, the vacancy rate of one–bedroom apartments is less than 1%, and the average rent is $659. For two–bedroom units at an average rent of $787, less than 2%. For three–bedroom units at at an average rent of $881, 0%. There are also several non–profit societies offering subsidized housing, but vacancy rates for these units are critically low.
In addition to this, 20% of homeowners in Cranbrook are spending more than 30% of their pre–tax income on shelter. If you’re spending more than 30%, then accommodation is considered unaffordable.
These are shocking numbers. This is not just a problem. It is a crisis. Housing is a human right.
Quoting again from the statement by Johnson and Hiltz, “Canada remains a wealthy country, with the capability to eliminate homelessness in our communities and to ensure access to safe, adequate, and affordable housing for all. Meeting this challenge requires collaboration between all levels of government, faith communities, the private sector, and civil society organizations.”
We have to work together if we are ever going to begin finding a solution for this problem. Our City Council needs to work at it. Our churches and agencies and service clubs need to work at this. Businesses in the region need to join forces to combat homelessness.
These are our neighbours.
Next week, I’ll share a little bit of what Christ Church Anglican is doing in partnership with the Homeless Outreach & Prevention agency which is part of the Cranbrook Connections Society … and how you can help.
A Sense of Entitlement and the Golden Rule
Rev. Yme Woensdregt
I was watching one of the college football games last weekend, when a car commercial came on. The tag line was that “this is the car your family deserves”.
You can substitute anything for “car” in that last sentence … you deserve this computer. You deserve this new phone. You deserve a vacation. You deserve to have the best … to have the most … to have the finest … to have the fastest … to have the coolest.
Let me ask a question. Why? Why do we deserve any of this? When did we start focusing so much on entitlement? Why is it about me, me, me?
Advertisers depend on this sense of entitlement. They use powerful tools which will tap into your sense of entitlement so that you’ll go out and buy their stuff. After all, if you believe you deserve something, why shouldn’t you get it?
The insidious thing in all of this is that we fall into their trap and start using our sense of entitlement to rationalize any new purchase we make. I want it. I deserve it. So I go out and get it or I order it online.
And we end up with a mountain of debt.
It strikes me that we are becoming a more selfish society because of this sense of entitlement. It’s about what I want … what I desire … what would make my life “better”. As a result, we think less and less about the good of others, or of society generally. Society begins to be an impediment to our wants, and so we take less care of those around us.
One part of this is due to the fact that when we think we deserve something, it’s often at the cost of doing something for someone else.
Another piece of it is that when we think this way, we begin to live out of a sense of scarcity rather than a sense of abundance. We become afraid that we won’t have enough. If someone has what we think we deserve, we’re afraid there won’t be enough for us.
It’s the new version of that old thing we called “keeping up with the Joneses”. And if we’re always trying to keep up with everyone else, we will never have enough.
So what can we do? Is there any way out of this?
I think there is.
We call it the Golden Rule. The notion of doing for others what you would have them do for you is at the heart of every caring and compassionate society. I have written before about the Charter for Compassion. The people behind the Charter are committed to spreading the core of the Golden Rule into the lives of as many people as possible.
Stephen Vasconcellos-Sharpe, who describes himself as a positive change agent, writes, “The golden rule is the most basic foundational principle. It’s a game changer when applied. It is said that its simplicity is only matched by the challenges of its application. We desperately need simplicity at this time. Not more language. The great masters have been articulating this message for thousands of years, just as it’s been a critical feature of the indigenous wisdom cultures… according to the Zulu shaman Credo Mutwa. [it is] the one law that was given to us from the stars and embedded in our cosmic ancestry in the atoms that we are made of and that were made in the heart of dying stars. We have struggled as a species to heed the message. Until today anyway. Now the degree to which we apply it may shape the future of life on earth and our very survival.”
The Golden Rule, as I have written before, is at the heart of all the world’s great religions. It is part of our very DNA, as Credo Mutwa described it above. It is “given to us from the stars and embedded in our cosmic ancestry”. This is foundational wisdom for us as human beings. The Golden Rule is at the heart of what it means to be a human being.
The challenge for us is to act on this principle, to put the Golden Rule into action. We give up our sense of entitlement. We begin living in ways in which we honour our interdependence. We are linked as human beings in this world.
Let me take it a step further. We are linked not only with each other as human beings. We are also part of a universal web of life, connected to the earth and all its creatures. We are grounded in the very earth on which we stand.
Ancient and aboriginal cultures have known this and honoured it in different ways. Today, we have forgotten it—and we are doing so at our peril.
Loving and Hating the Church, Part 2
Rev. Yme Woensdregt
Last week, I wrote the first part of this column. I began by noting that I have a love/hate relationship with the church. I began with some of the reasons why I love the church as I do. Today, let me share why the church drives me nuts—the shadow side, if you will.
The sad reality is that the church has betrayed its identity and its mission again and again in history, dishonouring the name of Christ, whom it claims to serve. Its shame is there for all to see.
The Crusades saw armies go out, supposedly in the name of the Prince of Peace, to reclaim “the holy land from the infidel”. In truth, it was the lure of political conquest which drove the church.
The Inquisition was established to “guard the purity of the faith” and ended up torturing people in the name of Christ in 15th– and 16th-century Spain.
Although Wilberforce and others like him led the way in abolishing the slave trade, the sad fact is that the church not only sanctioned slavery, but legitimated it throughout history. As late as the civil rights struggle in the southern US in the 1960’s, large parts of the church was still stringently opposed to desegregation.
The shameful system of apartheid in South Africa was undergirded by a theology developed in the Dutch Reformed Church. Too often, the church has been more than willing to support the powers that be, as was shown in the 1930’s, when the state church in Germany actively supported the rise of Hitler. The church has been complicit in supporting evil, hungering for status, power and prestige.
But it wasn’t just back then. It continues to happen today.
The church in North America is becoming increasingly intolerant and closed–minded. Friends of mine who no longer attend church tell me they’ve stopped because it seems that to be a Christian means you have to be anti–gay, anti–evolution, anti–women’s rights, anti–other religions, pro–conservative politics, pro–life, pro–“family values” (whatever they may be) and so on.
The church is against … (fill in your own favourite bogeyman). No wonder they no longer attend!
I agree with them. In fact, I don’t think that’s what the church is called to be—and honestly, I could never be part of a church like that either!
I am in favour of the full inclusion of members of the LGBTQ community, including the marriage of committed same–gender persons.
I am in favour of a women’s right to choose, but I am opposed to indiscriminate abortion.
I agree that evolution is a scientific answer which tries to explain the origin of the earth and life on this earth, and I don’t believe that either creationism or intelligent design answers the questions of science.
I believe that Jesus is the way for Christians. At the same time, I believe that God has been revealed to faithful people in other traditions as well. Christianity is not the only way for all people on earth.
I believe that the Bible shows us the struggles of ancient communities of faith to understand the presence of God in their lives and in the world, and that we are called to continue to struggle to understand God’s presence in new ways in the world we live in.
In other words, I try to live in as tolerant a way as I can imagine. Further, I believe that this is the way of Christ in the world. I don’t pretend to have all the answers. In fact, I know I don’t have them. So I remain humble (as humble as I can be) when others ask questions about ultimate concerns.
One of the earliest designations for Christians was that they were “people of the way”. For early Christians, following Jesus was a journey, a pilgrimage which we undertake with other pilgrims. We would do well to reclaim that image. Christian faith is not about believing a certain set of doctrines, but about walking that path faithfully, humbly, tolerantly and graciously, reflecting the character of the God whom we claim to worship.
The church dare not forget that it is called to follow, to walk in that way of Jesus who was called a glutton and a drunkard. Whenever the church forgets this, whenever the church becomes an intolerant nag, whenever the church excludes anyone on the basis of any supposed set of standards, we fail to live as God’s people in the world.
I am quite aware that the standard of doing no harm which I have set out in these last two columns is a very personal one. Some people will claim that I have failed to uphold standards of Bible–revealed truth. Other people will have a different standard.
Maybe so. But it was the apostle Paul who reminded us that three things remain—faith, hope and love (1 Corinthians 13:13). Faith and hope are not small things. They are, in fact, very important. But they fade into nothingness compared to love.
That is the standard to which we are called—to love God with all that we are, and to love our neighbours as ourselves. If we fail to do so, we have failed to live up to our calling to be the church.
Loving and Hating the Church, Part 1
Rev. Yme Woensdregt
I have a love/hate relationship with the church. This week, let me share why I love the church as I do. Next week … the shadow side.
Throughout history, the church has helped people discover a more loving, gracious way of being. In spite of its participation in some of the worst practices of society (more about that in a moment), it is undeniable that the church has nurtured individuals and groups of people to live in healthy and loving ways.
Although many in the church supported the slave trade, William Wilberforce’s Christian faith motivated him to work towards abolishing the slave trade in 1807 in Great Britain.
William and Catherine Booth were moved by their faith to do something about the extreme poverty they saw in London in the mid-1800’s.
The Iona Community, an ecumenical Christian community founded in 1938 by the late George MacLeod, is committed to seeking new ways of living the Gospel in today’s world. Originally inspired in the poorest areas of Glasgow during the Depression, the community’s focus now is on ‘rebuilding the common life’, bringing together work and worship, prayer and politics, the sacred and the secular.
The Taizé Community in central France is an ecumenical community of brothers who are committed to living simply in community, and who are dedicated to the hard work of reconciliation. Thousands of young people make a pilgrimage to Taize each summer for a week of prayer and reflection.
Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu was an ordinary young woman in Albania who understood from a very early age that God was calling her to spread the love of Christ to all people. Millions now revere her as Mother Teresa, and as Saint Teresa of Calcutta since September 2016.
Jean Vanier, son of a Canadian Governor–General, was moved by his faith to found a community where people with developmental disabilities live with those who assist them. The first L’Arche community started in northwestern France, and have since spread to 130 countries around the world.
During World War 2, Pastor Andre Trocme encouraged the citizens of his small town in south–central France to hide Jews from the Nazis. At great risk to their own lives, these ordinary men and women were convinced that this was the right thing to do.
Very early in the life of the church, the theologian Tertullian quoted his contemporaries who said, “See how these Christians love one another, and how ready they are to die for each other.” At the same time, early Christians gained a reputation for taking care of the sick, of widows and orphans, when others ignored them and left them to die in the streets.
Throughout my life, I have met men and women and children who, on the basis of nothing more than their trust in Jesus Christ reached out to make the lives of others better. They have given generously of their time and energy and money to make the lives of their neighbours more whole. They have reached out in love and compassion to alleviate the suffering and the burdens carried by other people.
I could go on and on about people who have changed the world for the better on the basis of their faith. Some of them are well known to us. Others are anonymous, men and women who trusted God and on the basis of their faith made a difference for good in the world.
That’s why I love the church as I do. Through the church, God has nurtured me and formed me to be someone who cares about this world, who tries to love other people, to be tolerant of other ways and beliefs, and to be humble about the extent of what I know of the truth.
That’s not to say that the church is perfect. It certainly isn’t. After all, it is made up of people like me, who fail, who screw up, who are seduced by the wiles of greed and influence.
I’ll have more to say about that next week.
All Saints—Making Goodness Attractive
Rev. Yme Woensdregt
Ever since the mid–8th century, the church in the west marks November 1 as All Saints’ Day. It’s a day to celebrate the saints, known and unknown. One of the things we do on this day is to give thanks for the lives of those who have gone before us in the faith.
The practice of marking the death of faithful believers began in the early church. The first few centuries after Jesus’ death was a dangerous time to be a Christian. Christians were commonly persecuted and martyred for their faith. The word martyr comes from a Greek word meaning “witness”. These early martyrs were killed for their witness to the deep truth they knew in God.
As a result, it became common practice to commemorate a martyr on the date of his or her death. Our tradition is to honour a person every year on their birth–day. The early church remembered and offered special prayers for martyrs on the date of their death, because that was their “birthday into glory”.
As the number of martyrs grew steadily each year, a crisis arose. It did not take long before every date in the calendar was assigned to commemorate a martyr.
The solution was to designate one day every year as kind of an omnibus occasion, a day to commemorate all the saints who have died in the faith. Various dates were suggested, and the Western church finally settled on November 1.
On All Saints’ Day, we remember all those people who have died in the past year. The focus is less on great historic personages, and more on the ordinary saints who surround us, people whom we have known, and who have helped us in our own journey of faithfulness in Christ.
But that’s not the only thing we do on All Saints’ Day. We also celebrate the life of living saints. The word “saint” comes from the Greek word for “holy”. What makes us holy is not so much our great virtue. What makes us holy is our relationship with God. To be a saint is not so much a result of our own efforts. It is a gift of grace. God sets us apart, makes us holy, saints us. This gift is given in order that we might love God and love God’s world.
On the basis of that understanding, let me tell you that you can be free to call me St. Yme.
All Saints’ Day affirms the reality of God’s presence in the world. Saints are people in whom God’s love shines into our lives. A church in Regina was called All Saints Church. Their motto was, “We are All Saints!” They understood that God was at work in their lives. Their purpose was to share God’s power and love with all the world. They tried to make All Saints’ Day a living reality.
In 1929, Lesbia Scott wrote a poem for her children. It became a hymn for All Saints’ Day. The first verse reads, “I sing a song of the saints of God, patient and brave and true, who toiled and fought and lived and died for the Lord they loved and knew. And one was a doctor, and one was a queen, and one was a shepherdess on the green; they were all of them saints of God, and I mean, God helping, to be one too.”
A saint, said 19th century Danish theologian Søren Kierkegaard, is someone whose life manages to be “a cranny through which the infinite peeps”. The early 20th century novelist Laurence Housman wrote that “a saint is someone who makes goodness attractive.”
When we celebrate this day, when we honour those who have gone before us in the faith, we hear again the call to live a life of goodness and beauty for ourselves.
A second feature of this day is that it celebrates the unity of the church not just across geographical lines, but also throughout time. G.K. Chesterton is said to have observed, “If you want to know the size of the church, you have to count tombstones.”
On this day, we celebrate God’s resurrection grace in all of God’s people. We celebrate our hope that death is indeed not the final word. God’s love is always the final word, and it is a word of grace, a word of hope.
One of the values of this day for me is that in North America, we generally shun any talk of death. It’s just too negative. Douglas Hall, a theologian at McGill, has dubbed North America “the officially optimistic society”. In everything we do, we work hard to “eliminate the negative and accentuate the positive”.
A whole funeral industry has arisen because we have chosen not to deal with death any more than we have to. Our funeral preparations are now handled by professionals who do all the work for us. Undertakers prepare the body and bury it. City employees usually dig the graves. Factories build enormous and enormously expensive coffins. Caterers prepare the food. Gone are the days when families would gather to care for the body of the deceased one last time. I am sad to note that it is becoming increasingly common not to have a funeral service at all.
All Saints’ Day reminds us that death is part of life. Life and death are inextricably intertwined. Life is full of sorrow as well of joy, or tribulation as surely as triumph. Karen Blixen–Finecke once observed that “all sorrows can be borne if you put them into a story or tell a story about them.”
All Saints’ Day helps us to tell the stories of those who have gone before us. They have finished their pilgrimage, and bear testimony to us who are left that God is faithful and loving, welcoming all people home.
How the Bible Works
Rev. Yme Woensdregt
Someone asked me recently if I believed in the Bible. I said, “No.”
Now that doesn’t mean that I’m not really a Christian, or that I don’t treasure the Bible. But the Bible is not the object of our faith. We believe in God alone. We are involved in a relationship of trust and faith with Jesus Christ. We don’t believe “in” the Bible. Rather, the Bible is a tool for us to show us something about who God is. The Bible is a rather messy library of books which tells us something about how our ancestors in the faith thought about God, and it can help us figure out how we might think about God in the 21st century.
So I don’t believe in the Bible. I believe in God. I trust Jesus Christ. We are in a relationship with the one whom Christians call the living Word.
Let me to say more about the Bible.
The Bible is not a book. In fact, the Bible is a library of books, written by many different authors over the course of some 1200 years. There are 39 different books in the Old Testament, and 27 in the New Testament. These books contain many different kinds of literature: poetry, letters, wisdom sayings, prophetic oracles, genealogies, ancient myths, hymns, laments, historical writing, short novellas, apocalyptic writing, gospels, and so on.
The Bible contains diverse theologies and perspectives. It follows quite obviously from the first point that each writer has his or her own personality and purpose in writing. Each writer reflected the times in which he or she lived. This fact (and it is a fact) accounts for some of the contradictory elements we find throughout the Bible. We don’t have to harmonize those different elements. We can live with the differences, because they reflect a different purpose and a different time. They show us different ways of looking at God.
The most obvious example is that there are two birth stories of Jesus which are quite different from one another. Matthew tells the story one way; Luke tells it quite differently. Most often, we try to harmonize the stories, and so we get a very crowded stable: Mary, Joseph and the baby are surrounded by shepherds, magi, sheep, camels and angels. But Matthew doesn’t say anything about a manger or shepherds. Luke doesn’t say anything about magi. They are two different stories, written to two different communities, with a very different perspective on what the birth of Christ means.
We see similar differences in the Old Testament. 1 and 2 Kings tell a historical tale about the monarchy in Israel. 1 and 2 Chronicles retell the same story about 300 to 400 years later, and from a much different perspective. We need not harmonize the two accounts. What is going on here is an internal dialogue within the Bible which helps us see that it’s okay to think differently about God’s activity in the world. There are different perspectives, and each is valid.
The various writings of the Bible are windows onto the times in which they were written. The gospels and other “historical” writings were never intended to be unbiased historical reporting. These reports were written many years or centuries after the event.
For example, the stories about King David in 1 Samuel are not a “life of David”. Rather, they show us how David came to be seen long after his death. In the same way, Matthew’s story of Jesus is not a “life of Jesus”. It is Matthew’s way of telling the story some 50 years after the crucifixion to his particular community. Luke tells the story differently, as does Mark. John tells it much differently than any of the other three gospels.
Both Old and New Testaments took shape in response to a crisis. The Old Testament was edited and collated in response to the crisis of Israel’s exile in Babylon from 586–539 BC. Every book of the Old Testament was composed or edited from that time on. Without an exile, there would have been no need for a Bible to recount the story of God’s dealings with Israel.
The New Testament was formed slowly over two and a half centuries. The first time we see the New Testament in the shape we know now was in 345 AD. It took shape in response to various crises in the early church, when the church felt a need to tell the story of God’s dealings with the church in the particular way we know it today.
For many people, this will be an entirely new way of looking at the Bible. Scholars have known these truths for at least the last hundred years. What I find exciting about this approach is that it opens doors for us to explore the Bible and our faith from fresh angles.
This isn’t about being edgy for edgy’s sake. It’s about respecting and relating to the Bible’s own character. This is how the Bible was put together. It didn’t drop down to us from above. It was written by human beings trying to figure out who God was and how we can relate to God.
It means that the Bible is a little more messy than we might have thought. But life is messy. And the Bible bears witness to God’s presence in the midst of the mess.
Some thoughts on ‘thoughts and prayers’
Rev. Yme Woensdregt
For some reason, I was struck by Trump’s comments following the horrifying shooting in Las Vegas that “our thoughts and prayers are with you”. Part of the reason it struck me so forcefully is that the words sounded false on Trump’s lips. He has shown himself to be a man whose “thoughts and prayers” are only for himself. He has no conscience, and he spares no charitable thoughts for anyone other than himself and his immediate family.
In the light of that, I offer these brief thoughts on “thoughts and prayers.”
- Don’t say you’re praying unless you actually are.
Too often the phrase “thoughts and prayers” is used as a generic, spiritually vacuous PR gesture. But it doesn’t have to be that way. Just do what you say you’re doing. If you say “thoughts and prayers,” then actually pray. Talk to God. And if you’re not going to talk to God, then say something different.
- Prayer does not mean you’re taking a higher moral ground than political advocacy.
Some people interpret “prayer” as if praying were somehow a better thing to do than engaging in political advocacy. It’s not. To say you’re praying doesn’t make anyone more high–minded than those who are working within the political system to deal with such urgent issues as gun control or racism or terrorism or health care or education. Political advocacy is equally important as prayer, and is of as much value as prayer.
- Prayer should not be shamed or ridiculed.
This is the other side of point #2. Other people than those described above denounce prayer in general as a useless activity. Atheists and some progressives will tell you that political advocacy is the most effective way of working for social change. They tend to see prayer as an innately bankrupt and farcical spiritual gesture.
I disagree. People of all religions have used prayer powerfully as a catalyst for their movements of social transformation. One of the most powerful prayers I’ve ever seen is when the people of Gaza carried coffins of their children in the street shouting “Allah akbah!” (God is good) in defiance after they had been bombed by the Israelis. We also saw it in the movement spearheaded by Martin Luther King, Jr., who preached and prayed powerfully in public, and effected massive social change in the struggle in the USA for civil rights.
Though I’m certainly biased, I would argue that social movements that are supported by prayer have more staying power than strictly secular movements.
- Prayer is primarily about the transformation of the one who is praying.
Yes, it is valid to ask God to bring comfort and love to the victims of the mass shooting in Las Vegas. But the primary purpose of prayer is to tune myself into the Holy Spirit so that God can transform me and use me to transform the world around me. Prayer is not an alternative to taking action; it is an important means by which God prepares me to take action. If I think I have nothing to do after I’ve prayed, then I need to go back and pray again.
Partly what that means for me is that we don’t pray for God to change the world, or to change natural processes, or to change the way life works. What it means is that we pray for God to change us, and to use us to effect change in the world.
- God doesn’t honor disingenuous prayer.
One of the harshest verses in the Bible is Isaiah 1:15: “When you stretch out your hands, I will hide my eyes from you; even though you make many prayers, I will not listen; your hands are full of blood.”
Isaiah echoes other prophets in this passage when he calls the people to live with justice and compassion. Praying without being willing to live justly is an offense to God. That’s true of us as individuals. It is even more true of us as a community.
One of the basic insights of both Judaism and Christianity is that we live in community. These days, we are trained to think in individualistic ways. But when Isaiah says “your hands are full of blood,” he’s talking to all of us. We have each contributed in our own way to the culture of death in North America just as Isaiah was talking to all of ancient Israel in the seventh century BC.
Isaiah exhorts us all: “Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean; remove the evil of your doings from before my eyes; cease to do evil, learn to do good; seek justice, rescue the oppressed, defend the orphan, plead for the widow.”
Pray. Indeed, pray for all you’re worth. But if you’re not a praying kind of person, then don’t say it. Think of others. Engage in political advocacy. Vote. Demonstrate. These are all worthwhile and important activities in a democracy.