Never Again

Take up our quarrel with the foe:

To you from failing hands we throw

The torch; be yours to hold it high.

If ye break faith with us who die

We shall not sleep, though poppies grow

In Flanders Fields.

President Woodrow Wilson brought the American forces into WWI to help put a stop to the most terrible war the world had ever known. He sought to broker a peace between the old-world super-powers that had thrown absolutely everything into the war effort, shattering Europe, and with it, the social order of the last century. When the armistice was finally signed, the understanding was "Never Again". Never again would countries seek to eradicate each other in total war. Never again would nations sacrifice an entire generation of young men to satisfy the imperial ambitions of that nation's rulers. Never again would entire regions of land be devastated and poisoned by the modern weapons war had created. Never Again.

Twenty years later the world was back at war. The enemies were the same as last time, the weapons were even deadlier, the cost was even higher. This new conflict would be so devastating that the above-mentioned  conflict would no longer be known as the Great War, but would instead be the first of a two-part series, WWI and WWII. When WWII finally ended after years of bloody and total war, humanity had devised a weapon that could destroy all life on earth if used in open combat - the Atom Bomb. As America and the Soviet Union divided up the world into two power-blocs these nuclear weapons proliferated in a policy of Mutually Assured Destruction. The Cold War, as this struggle was named, was fought via a series of proxy wars in Korea, Cuba, Vietnam, various African and South American countries, Afghanistan, and the Gulf War. As America became weary of war, hawkish politicians and generals reminded their citizens that they could not dishonor the memories of those brave young men and women who died in the name of "freedom" during the last conflict (usually WWII) to be in vain. They must not disobey the poet by "breaking faith" with the fallen. 

Thus John McCrae's poem was subverted by the propaganda arm of the military industrial complex. Instead of the clarion call for peace, we have created a state of perpetual war. Instead of picking up the torch of peace from the failing hands of the last generation, we have snuffed it out and buried it. We have not kept the faith with those veterans who fought, sacrificed, and died for the peace and security of their children, and children's children. Instead, we have offered up those children to the gods of war, sacrificed upon the altar of "remembering our heroes". 

Mennonite Central Committee has a peace-making campaign centered around Remembrance Day. Instead of the poppy, they pass out red pins that read "to remember is to work for peace". This encourages people to honour the sacrifice of our armed forces by building a world where they are no longer needed. 

Today I remember all those who have fallen in battles waged by peoples around the world since time began. I weep with the loved ones they left behind. I weep for the things we have asked them to do, for the murder we have asked them to commit, and for the atrocities they have been forced to see and endure. I weep for the veterans who came back to a society that has no room for their PTSD. I weep for the fact that the men and women whom we have shattered in our wars have no place to grieve or heal. I pray "Lord Have Mercy" and "Never Again".

This Remembrance Day, we are a nation at war. I confess and repent of the ways that I have lived that have not been peaceful. I am sorry that this year we have to remember the lives of more soldiers who have died, either by the hands of their enemies or by their own hands in the desperate throes of PTSD. I remember our soldiers today and I grieve. Let us not isolate these men and women further by placing them on the pedestals of heroism where they can neither show pain nor receive healing. 

War is a terrible crime, the victims of which are not just the innocent civilians bombed as "collateral" damage, the victims are not just the enemy soldiers sent into battle in loyalty to their government/religion/leader, but they are also our own soldiers. War is a crime that has no winners, the losers lose everything, the winners win nothing, and the earth bears the wounds to prove it.

This year, let us rekindle the torch of peace. This year, let us not have failing hands. This year, let us keep faith with the fallen by not offering up yet another generation of soldiers dishonour their memory.

Let us never again have war.

Lest we forget.

Black Lives Matter

What does it mean to speak the truth? Quite often, we understand something to be true if it corresponds to reality. The statement "It is raining outside" is true if, and only if, it is actually raining outside. This straightforward correspondence understanding of truth was hammered into my head at the beginning of every philosophy class I ever took.

Lately, I've been watching the Black Lives Matter movement and I have been dismayed and horrified by how many white, Christian, males, are completely missing the point. When Black protesters chant, "Black Lives Matter" and "Hands Up Don't Shoot", white commentators rush to claim the moral high ground by saying, "Well, of course, All Lives Matter". This is true, in an abstract general way, but it is not fitting in light of the particularities of the situation.

The Patristics understood that things were true not merely as a function of their correspondence with reality, but also because they were fitting and beautiful. Fittingness (often described as coherence in modern truth-theory dialogue), is a useful category to rediscover as it provides us with a moral framework for understanding how to best serve Truth (in a correspondence sense).

Let us accept for now that the general truth "All Lives Matter" is really true, and True in an absolute correspondence sense.  In a situation such as we have in the United States of America, we see a people group that for the last 4 centuries have suffered under slaver, Jim Crow, and the prison industrial complex. The reality for Black Americans is that their lives do not particularly matter, and have never mattered. Because they agree that indeed "All Lives Matter" is really true, they raise their voices in a prophetic corrective to proclaim, "Black Lives Matter".

It would not be good enough for them to say, "Black Lives Matter too", as this softens their prophetic claim to the above-mentioned general truth. They must explicitly say "Black Lives Matter" because for so long it has been implicitly said, "No they don't!" When white people seek to relativize their particular claim that "Black Lives Matter" with the general claim "All Lives Matter" they actually make themselves liars. The context of slavery, segregation, and oppresion put the lie to any notion that "All Lives Matter". General truths are too abstract to mean something in a context that has given the lie to the universality of their claims for too long. Only when the particular truth claim, "Black Lives Matter" has been recognized and actualized can the statement "All Lives Matter" be affirmed.

General, universal truths are real and important, but they become irrelevant and supremely unfitting when said in a context that reveals the lie of the claim. Sometimes, to serve a big, all encompassing truth, what is left to us to actually vocalize is the smaller truth that has been denied by the people who like to pretend that the the larger truth is being honoured.

My Muslim Brothers

"Salaam Alaikum" he said as he spotted me, lost, confused, but surprisingly calm. Idris, the kindly mosque manager, is a short smiley man that is quite possibly the friendliest man I've ever met. As we talked, he must have dashed off almost a dozen times to help a sister or brother, hearing prayer requests and checking to make sure everything was ready for the service. He did not abandon me to myself. A constant stream of people greeted me in peace and invited me onto the prayer floor with them. As the call to prayer went up I found myself being lifted up out of the mosque, carried on the wings of the song to the ears of Allah. Perhaps I didn't go anywhere, perhaps it was God that came down? Anyway, an African man beside me guided me through the prayers and saved me from the humiliation of ignorance. Charity, the kindness of hospitality was sent my way from everyone I met all wrapped up in the request and promise, Salaam Alaikum (peace be with you). After the service, I met Yusuf, a young Irish Canadian who had given a stirring sermon on community and race relations that afternoon. He told me how Islam had saved his life. He had grown up in a nominally Roman Catholic family but had spent most of his time on the streets getting into trouble. "Islam just answered all my questions" he said. I could tell he had found profound peace, and I rejoiced with him.

As I scrolled through Facebook drinking my coffee this morning I saw yet more posts about the ongoing conflict in Syria and Iraq. Yet another list of the horrors committed by ISIS insurgent. Yet another belligerent demand to "talk about Islam honestly". So that's what I want to do. Let's talk about Islam honestly.

How does anybody begin to talk about a global religion, never mind somebody like me; a student of Christian theology that has never encountered anything other than Christian thought? I think there are several ways. You can of course turn to the textual sources, though, as a student of Christian theology, I know that this can be plagued by centuries old interpretive questions. You can turn to experts, though as someone who is foreign to this field of study, I'm not entirely sure which experts are relevant. If I wanted to know about Christianity for example, I would probably get a very different account of the faith from a Mennonite than from a Russian Orthodox priest. In global religions, there are incredible amounts of variance. Finally, you can enter into relationship with people who have been shaped and formed by this religion from birth. Thus, my visit to Winnipeg Central Mosque.

When I arrived, there was a camera crew from one of the many story hungry outlets in town. There had been talk that day of the discovery that one of the ISIS extremists had ties to the Winnipeg area and they wanted a reaction from the leaders at the mosque. When the cameras left, Idris turned exhaustedly to me and said, "They come like this so often, and there is nothing I can do to explain that we are not in any way connected to ISIS. Islam is a religion of peace, why are we being held accountable for the actions of these barbarous heretics?" We talked for a couple more hours and he graciously answered even my most naive questions. I began to see that Islam, like Christianity, has bred many different schools of interpretation. It is far too simplistic to find a proof text in the Qu'aran that we find objectionable and then derive a normative ethics for this global (for the most part peaceful) religion. The actions of Boko Haram, Al Qaeda, and ISIS are condemned by the mainstream of Islamic orthodoxy. In the same way the Christian Church condemns the Crusades, the Spanish Inquisition, the Salem Witch trials and Westboro Baptist church, so the Islamic community condemns its radical elements as well.

Islam has given the world many great gifts, beautiful architecture, stunning literature and art, advanced science and philosophy, and above all, a people who are formed by the practice of giving and receiving peace to one another on a daily basis. Jesus taught us that by people's fruit you would know who they really are, and in the hospitality and love that I discovered at Winnipeg Central mosque, I saw the face of Christ.

Let's have an honest talk about Islam. But if we're going to do that, we should probably invite Muslims to the table with us.

Salaam Alaikum.

The Pneuma of Postmodernity

Postmodernity; the harbinger of destruction for Christian faith, or a timely ally? It seems fair to suggest that many Christians are split in opinion over what implications the advent of postmodern thought has for Christian faith. Allow me to humbly suggest my own analysis of the situation.

In some ways, postmodernity does spell the death of Christianity, or at least, a certain brand of Christianity that is thoroughly wedded to the modernist project. With the success of reason and science, the Church sought to use the tools of modernity to defend its claims, creating both fundamentalism and higher text criticism in its attempt to "scientifically" defend/prove the faith. These Christians continue to be rather violently opposed to postmodernity in its attempt to demonstrate that their project cannot succeed. The problem that occurs whenever Christianity becomes too closely tied to a spirit of a particular age is that when that age dies, the faith is left with no legs to stand on.

The work of Lyotard and Derrida have demonstrated quite thoroughly that modern epistemology falters. The blind faith in Rationality that the Enlightenment promoted has been rather discredited by repeated instances of "self-evident" claims being found to be rather subjective. Lyotard points out that there are no meta-narratives, rather, each group holds to a series of narratives that help make sense of the world. Putting Derrida into conversation with Lyotard shows us that the world is a text that we are constantly interpreting, and while some interpretations may be better than others, we have an increasingly difficult time legitimizing various interpretations over others.

We see this most clearly in the area of moral or ethical discourse, as opposing groups push forward their various claims and are driven farther and farther apart in conflict as there is no good way to arbitrate between claims. What then are we to think? Are we doomed to a hopeless relativism where anything goes? Has the Neitzschean reality been actualized wherein those with power create truth?

Perhaps. What does that mean for Christianity? Well, the first thing we must NOT do is attempt to - by the use of coercive force or power - impose our narrative over and above competing narratives. For at the heart of the Christian narrative is the story of the one who, being the holder of all power and authority, chooses to die rather than use any of that power in a coercive manner. Thus through the cross comes ultimate victory.

What the postmodern turn has done is flattened the epistemological landscape, enabling competing narratives to be heard on an equal footing. Everyone now has a seat at the table, no longer can science delegitimize other ways of knowing. Whereas, in Modernity, other forms of knowing were rejected prima facie, all voices can now be heard. I am not saying that all voices are true, only that now, they each get a equal turn to be heard, it's quite democratic really. Christians are now able to bear faithful witness to their narrative. We must resist the attempt to again pick up the myth of modernity in an attempt to put forward Christianity as a rationally self-evident system.

It is time to do what the Church has always been called to do; that is, be a faithful witness to the crucified Lord, Jesus Christ. The Spirit will do the work of convincing hearts and minds of the correspondent veracity of our narrative. For it is the Spirit that is here working diligently in creation to convict the world of sin and righteousness. All Christians would do well to develop a strong pneumatology that enables God to enact out the Missio Dei. Postmodernity thus becomes a catalyst for Christians to create a robust pneumatology that can support the continued missional reality of the Church.

Kyrie Eleison

Freedom through the Law (Preached at Rossburn Alliance Church, February 23, 2014)

“Blessed are those whose way is pure, who walk in the law of the Lord,” writes the psalmist. And thus begins psalm 119, a very lengthy praise of the beauty of the Law of Moses. I must admit, as beautiful as the poetry is, I am baffled by how much somebody can enjoy writing about a very long list of rules! Think of our modern Canadian law code, I’m not sure how that could possibly inspire anyone of us to write something even remotely close to this rapturous poetry we find flowing from the pen of the psalmist.

 

In many Christian circles today, talk of “The Law” is not all that popular. The Law is complicated, obscure, uncomfortable, and often just downright offensive. Have you ever tried to read through Leviticus? Not exactly a page turner. We don’t like the idea of Law because it implies judgment, and as good Canadians, we know that it isn’t good to judge. The Law is just a bunch of “Thou shalt not’s…” isn’t it? Nobody likes being told what not to do! So that brings us back to our first predicament, how can the psalmist say such beautiful things about the Law? What does he know that we don’t?

 

Let’s take another look at our text from Deuteronomy (Read v. 15-16)

What might stand out to you immediately here is how Moses compares obedience to the Law with the way of Life. Perhaps the Law was never meant to be oppressive at all? Maybe, the Law points us to freedom. The Old Testament goes on to sketch out the history of the children of Israel and their abject failure in keeping to the Law. Their disobedience ultimately lands them in exile and it is from this point of brokenness that the people begin to see the purpose of the law and rediscover the life that is there. That is the place where we get famous passages like Micah 6:8 “To act justly, love mercy and walk humbly with your God”. In the brokenness of exile, the prophets come to help the people reclaim the Law.

 

A Musician and theologian from Cambridge named Jeremy Begbie pointed out that in music, when composers stuck with the “laws” or rules of music theory in their compositions, they were able to write all of the brilliant and famous classical pieces we know and love today. When composers decided to chuck the rules in the 20^th century, they ended up becoming tightly bound to other systems and producing quite horrible sounding pieces in many instances. There seems to be a freedom that comes when operating within the bounds of certain laws.  I think Moses is getting at something similar here in his suggestion that if the people follow the law, they will experience the benefits of life and covenant blessing.

 

So why do I keep going on and on about the Law? Because Jesus does! “Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfill. For Truly I tell you, until heaven and earth pass away, not one letter, not one stroke of a letter will pass from the law until all is accomplished.” In some translations it refers to a jot, or an iota, from the Hebrew letter, yod which is the smallest little marking in the Hebrew alphabet. Nothing of the law is going to pass away.

 

There is a rather unfortunate tendency I’ve run into in many Christian circles, where whenever there is an uncomfortable passage in the Old Testament somebody is quick to say, “Oh, but that’s Old Testament, so it doesn’t matter”. Excuse me? …the Lord of the new covenant did not deride the old covenant. Some Christians in the early centuries of the church did. They wanted to do away with the Old Testament and reject the God of the Jews. The church, however, declared their views heretical – for Jesus had said that he came not to abolish the Law and the Prophets but to fulfill them” (Shinn, 34). That’s right folks, blowing off the Old Testament is actually an ancient heresy called Marcionism. Basically, this fellow Marcion didn’t like the God of the OT because he was too repulsive, so he cut out the entire OT and large sections of the NT until he was left with a Bible that didn’t offend him anymore. We should probably try to avoid doing that given today’s reading!

 

So why is Jesus so insistent that no part of the Law shall pass away? Well we have to imagine ourselves in his context. Jesus had been causing a bit of a ruckus in his ministry so far. In first century Judaism there was the Torah (the Law) and the Torah was protected by the Talmud (the fence around the Torah). A large part of the Talmud was the Mishnah, a series of laws that made sure that Jews could not get anywhere near breaking the actual Torah. We are all familiar with tales of Jesus making fools of the legalistic Pharisees. The thing is, Jesus always kept the Torah, it was the Mishnah that he took exception to. He didn’t like the surface righteousness it created in people, he wanted serious devotion to holiness in every fiber of a person’s being.

 

In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus is calling his peers to take the Law seriously. Now of course, the Pharisees took the law very seriously, for like I said, they’d created a whole bunch of other laws to protect them from even coming close to breaking the Law. But Jesus says that actually the law demands more. God wants every part of us, not just the externals that any given law code can regulate, but our deepest thoughts and emotions must belong to him as well. Instead of don’t murder, don’t even hate, instead of no adultery, don’t even lust. (PAUSE) Good luck with that!

 

Where we stopped our gospel reading today “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect!” seems like a burden that is too heavy to bear. How can we become perfect?

 

Now, the overly harsh face reading of this text has caused a lot of Christians over the years to go to some very interesting lengths to interpret this passage in a satisfactory way. Like Mark Twain said, “I’m more afraid of the passages in the Bible I understand perfectly than the passages that I don’t understand at all!” The mere words of the sermon itself leave us as readers in a rather hopeless place. Different groups have attempted to interpret the Sermon in different ways. The early ascetics (radical Christians in the first few centuries who would beat their flesh into submission) latched on to the self-mutilation bits, very few other people since then have chosen to take that part very seriously. (Talk about the guy in John’s church). A lot of the Reformers, and especially the group of Lutherans who eventually became known as “Pietists” often interpreted the Sermon in a highly spiritualized manner that demanded no actual action. A more contemporary individual who summed up this view in a famous quote was the Reformed Theologian, Karl Barth when he proclaimed, “It would be sheer Folly to interpret the imperatives of the Sermon on the Mount as if we should bestir ourselves to actualize these pictures.”

 

The radical reformation (think of Anabaptist groups like the Mennonites) have interpreted these words fairly literally and seek to live peacefully, though the attempts at radical purity often forced these faith communities into segregated colonies where they could practice their perfection. That has changed quite a bit in recent years however. Us here today in the Alliance Church are also affected by this text in that our denomination rises out of what is known as the Holiness Tradition. Inspired by the likes of John Wesley, this idea that a form of Christian perfection could be attained, and in fact was the mark of salvation itself, finds its theological roots in this sermon.

 

As you can see the attempts to handle this text for better or worse is a perennial problem throughout Church history. As Pinchas Lapide writes, “In fact, the history of the impact of the Sermon on the Mount can largely be described in terms of an attempt to domesticate everything in it that is shocking, demanding, and uncompromising, and render it harmless.” Did I mention that Pinchas Lapide was an Orthodox Jew? He understands I think better than we, what Jesus is doing with this Sermon, and time after time, Christians through the ages have missed it.

 

Earlier, I mentioned that Moses presented the Law to the people as a source of Life. That’s because, the Law is meant to show us the way to Grace! How does it do that? Well, as my preaching instructor always used to say, “Context, context, context!” When reading the sermon on the mount, we can’t be too overwhelmed with the crazy demands Jesus places on us because we remember who it is that is presenting us with this sermon. Jesus! As John Doberstein put it, “The Sermon on the Mount can never be understood, indeed will always be misunderstood, if even for a moment we forget the Preacher of the Sermon. For apart from the person and work of Jesus Christ these marvelous words are the most radical and devastating distillation of God’s claims that it is possible to conceive; they leave us in utter, hopeless dismay. Only ‘in Christ’ do these words of the law become the glorious gospel that promises that for every man ‘life can begin again’”

 

Christ presents us with the Law. To the legalist he points out that our attempts at righteousness will always come up short. And we should be very careful to not use the Sermon on the Mount to create a new legalism. For those who use his words to condemn others find his words condemning themselves of the same guilt.  (Shinn, 38)

 

Picketers at Vancouver Missions Fest…

 

On the flip side to those who would disregard the law and the way of holiness he proclaims a strong “by no means!” The Law of God is something that Jesus wants us to take seriously. He wants us to strive after it with every bit of our being and be slowly transformed more and more into the way of holiness.

 

That being said however, there is no actual way for us to do that on our own. People are right to be afraid of the Law, it is an incredibly heavy burden, and not one of us can handle it. Yet Christ tells us that his burden is light. The law, in a way, points us to the cross. We must pick up our cross, and in the same way, pick up obedience to the Law. The cross is the place of brokenness. People’s lives are shattered by this cruelest of instruments. “But God loves the brokenhearted and the poor in spirit who have no illusions about their own wretchedness as they stand before the face of God. As long as you have not met God as one who opposes you, you haven’t met him at all” (Thielicke, 40).

 

The Law helps us realize our own limits, our own failings and shortcomings, and ultimately forces us to rely on the grace of God. I don’t want you to hear this as a completely hopeless thing. It might be tempting to just not even bother trying to strive after righteousness if we are just doomed to fail anyways. For it is in our weakness that God is strong. In our brokenness we see the face of Christ. In our failures we experience the grace of God. When we can’t go the distance, Jesus sends us his Spirit to carry us the rest of the way. We are to be perfect as our heavenly Father is perfect, but we can only do that by the Grace of God, being empowered by the Holy Spirit. May we all learn to sing with psalmist, “Blessed are those whose way is pure, who walk in the law of the Lord.”

 

Amen

Say What?

Remember that one time that God did that thing where he gave super specific instructions to a bunch of shepherds who were wandering around in a desert? He even set it down in stone so there would be absolutely no doubt as to what was supposed to go down. But even then, people still didn't seem to know what in the world to do and so they spent 40 years wondering and wandering in a big circle.

Flash forward a few millennia - God kind of gave up on the whole setting things in stone idea; it was a tragic fail the first time, and has caused all sorts of strange things since, best not risk that tactic again. So instead, we get to sit around scratching our heads trying to navigate the world of "calling" and "vocation" and "purpose". Making "goals" and doing "strategic planning". Trying to "keep doors open" and "make room for God's will in our lives". Great...

Forgive the sarcasm, but does nobody else see the absolute vanity of this jargon? Is this really the best way Christians have for talking about how to figure out what to do with our lives? Lived experience doesn't really seem to line up with these patronizing answers (big surprise).

So, how can we go about figuring out how to live lives that line up with Christ's will for our lives? I really have no idea, it probably looks differently for everyone.

Honestly the only answer that makes sense is so clichéd and christiany that it hurts to type it, but I think praying about it is the only thing we can do. This sucks for someone like me who never could get the hang of praying, but maybe that's the reason so many of us are wandering and wondering, we simply aren't really praying.

That being said, the prayer that Jesus taught us doesn't guarantee us answers to our question of "So what's next Lord?" To that he says, "Give us THIS day our daily bread"... hmmm sneaky Jesus.

So once again I find myself back to where I started with this whole thinking, living, and being a Christian thing. "And these three remain, Faith, Hope, and Love". I'll have faith that by asking for my daily bread in constant prayer and petition, the hopes that I have will be transformed to the way of Love and in some way I'll find myself accidentally following Jesus.

Here's to putting our hope in things unseen! (cf. 2 Cor. 4:18)

What is Theology and who does it?

This spring I graduated from Providence University College with a Bachelor of Arts in Biblical and Theological studies. I know without a shadow of a doubt that I will be pursuing further education and theological training throughout my life but unfortunately for me, that means alienation from most members of my home faith community. Theology as a discipline is misunderstood, doubted, and ultimately dismissed - and the practitioners of such a discipline are looked at askance as being at risk of losing their faith. Roger Olson has recently written a series of posts exploring this which I have included links to below. I found that, while I have not reached the PhD level in this field, I am already beset by the attitudes and prejudices he describes. Theology is the lifeblood of healthy churches, the worst thing Christians can do (so of course it is the very thing we do), is remove it from our church life. If I could make a tentative gesture towards what I believe my vocational calling is in life, it would be to work towards rectifying this theologically and therefore spiritually bankrupt position the church has landed itself in. I hope these posts of Olson's challenge and encourage you.

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3
(*To the list of theologians at the end of Part 3, I think a must add would be Stanley Hauerwas.)

Form Matters: a Suggestion for the Leading of Corporate Worship

I would like to begin this discussion of the use of music in Christian worship with an historical survey of three major forms of music that have been used in western worship throughout church history. (Disclaimer, these descriptions are rather simplistic, as it would take far too long to fully establish how each of these forms came to be established and for that I apologize in advance).

The first of these forms is chant. Before the development of harmony in tonal music, chants were used as the music of the Church. Originally derived from the Jewish practice of chanting Torah and the Psalms, Christianity used chants in worship from its earliest expressions. Chant remained the dominant form of worship for the church through to the Middle Ages and is still used in many traditions today. While musically rather unsophisticated, chant is easy for worshippers to learn as it utilizes simple melodies and is written to fit the shape of the text. This form is often used in a call and response fashion where the cantor begins a phrase and the congregation responds, or antiphonally, with two choirs, or halves of the congregation responding to each other. Worshippers get a sense that the words they are chanting have the weight of tradition; this is how Christians from time immemorial have worshipped, and the worshipper joins into that tradition becoming one voice in the eternal choir of the Church. The interplay between leader and congregant, or different sections of the congregation, reminds worshippers that we live in community with one another. As this is a text driven form, the theology of such texts is often incredibly rich and orthodox. Many texts are derived straight from the scriptures or have been the established texts of the church for centuries. The simple undecorated melody, while perhaps squelching personal creativity, reminds worshippers that God speaks through the Church and the Amen is sung in the unity of humility before the authority of Christ. There are of course criticisms that can be leveled against this form, especially when it is insisted upon as the only appropriate form of Christian worship. It can be seen, especially through modern lenses, as an affront to personal creativity and expression, in other words, it can appear stifling of the individual. It is not my purpose to defend any particular form, as all forms of worship are ultimately fallible and susceptible to corruption. But I would suggest that perhaps the use of chant today would be appropriate to bring into balance the out of control individualism that our current culture suffers under.

The next form we shall turn our attention to is that of the hymn. Often written in four-part harmony, modern hymnody derived much of its melodic inspiration from the popular music of the time, mainly famous snatches of opera music, or catchy drinking tunes from the local pubs. This redemption of culture can be seen to glorify God as worshippers set right the disordered things of this world that have fallen astray. The text of hymns is gradually unfolding, and so all of the verses should be sung to appreciate the narrative nature of this form. Many people make the claim that hymns generally have better theology than modern music, this is frankly not true; there are many hymns with absolute rubbish theology, the thing is, they’ve all been forgotten and the hymns we continue to remember are generally the classics. The use of the four-part harmony allows all members of a congregation to find his or her place in the music. Whereas other forms can be sung in a key too high for some and too low for others, theses harmonized pieces create avenues for each voice type to be able to worship at a comfortable level. The end result of a harmonized piece of music is a song that has a definite direction, but the intricate interplay of voices, the tension of dissonance and resolution, creates a rather robust picture of how humanity itself interacts. So in the form of the hymn we get participants worshipping in a manner that reflects the way in which they live their lives, constantly in various stages of tension or resolution with one another but ultimately creating a glorious sonic image of rightly ordered creation presenting itself before the Creator. This is a very incarnational picture of the Church worshipping the incarnated one. As one hymn says, “All God’s creatures’ got a place in the choir, some sing low, and some sing higher…”

Fast-forward to the present day. With the advent of the Vineyard movement, the Seeker church, and various other evangelical and charismatic strains of Christianity, the Praise and Worship chorus has sprung up as immensely popular. Once again reflecting the popular music of the times, this music allows for great personal expression, creativity and improvisation. There is a certain freedom from the oppression of established guidelines that allows artists, or worship leaders to act spontaneously under the guidance of the Holy Spirit without the fear of interrupting the liturgy, or messing with a sacred form. It is a highly emotionally charged form which allows worshippers to easily become involved in the music, usually utilizing simple repetitive lyrics that are easy to learn and improvise on. Worshippers may sing melody or choose to make up their own harmonies as they are led to do so with the ideal effect of a mass of people singing one theme while elaborating and decorating it with all of the unique attributes that God has blessed his people with.

Now, an admonition to the worship music leaders of Churches. This brief sampling of church music is but a sketch of the plethora of musical options available to the Church. I have said nothing here of spirituals, chorales, Taize, etc., but I’m sure you are aware of the broad expanse of options. Now some traditions may be more tightly identified with certain forms than others and that is ok, but for churches with freedom to experiment, do not limit yourselves to one form! Chant allows for great unity, but can become stifling and oppressive, and congregants may easily disengage from it. Used appropriately however, it can become a great meditative tool and re-introduce a sense of the sacred and ancient traditions of the Church back into our liturgically bankrupt services. As a singer of choral music, I myself rather enjoy hymns, and deeply appreciate the intertwining of my voice with that of my brothers and sisters in a great symbol of human solidarity and diversity. However, I recognize that in many communities, the tradition of choral music has faded away so that many will find this form difficult to enter into as some formation of skill through practice is required. As so many in evangelical churches today are unable to use this form, it may bring much benefit to a congregation to introduce the singing of at least one hymn per service, encouraging worshippers to use the hymnals for these songs rather than projecting the lyrics on the screen. In this way, worshippers learn to listen to one another and to find their proper place in the harmony rather than being bulldozed by a melody that may be quite difficult for their voice range to sing. Finally, I feel that I have the most words of correction for the Praise and Worship genre. This is due largely to the fact that it is the form with which I am most familiar, and while I have had many wonderfully meaningful worship experiences within this form, I have learned also the pitfalls of it. Too often, as in our secular pop music, it is tenor or soprano voices which tend to dominate this genre. Many of the songwriters write melodies that are largely in the upper register, or, because they are all trained singers, range from a very low point to a very high point. This makes it difficult for many worshippers to join in as their voices simply cannot sing the notes that the leader is capable of. Great care should therefore be taken to choose keys that are at a moderate range to ensure that the maximum number of untrained singers will be able to raise their voices in praise. As for improvisation and elaboration; a certain level of this may in fact be appropriate, but leaders must be constantly aware, especially in presenting new songs, that most members of the congregation will not be able to follow sudden vocal elaborations or solos. When a singer does this, he or she effectively transforms from a symbol that leads the congregation into worshipping God, and becomes an object of attention in his or her own right. There may be room for some exclamatory vocal celebrations, especially within the context of a familiar, repetitive song where there is no way the congregation will be led astray from their assigned part in the song; but I would caution against the individuality and glory grabbing that the performing of solos so often accomplishes. As all of the forms that we have discussed have their roots in the culture in which they grew up, so too does the Praise and Worship form. As individualism is the dominant paradigm of our culture, this form tends to celebrate and promote it more so as well. This is all well and good, for which each one of us come to Christ as individuals, but at the same time, we are part of the Church, we are communal beings, just as the Trinity is communal, and so we must take precautions against stressing individualism too much.

Choose your forms wisely therefore, being conscious of the strengths and weaknesses of each. Use variety, for as God has revealed himself with many images, metaphors and names, so to should our worship seek to glorify him with the varying images, metaphors and symbols that these various forms create. The way in which we worship, will inevitably shape the type of people we become. It is impossible to assume a certain posture before God, and practice a various way of life in our worship, and not be effected by it. The way we practice our worship before God should be done with care therefore, keeping in mind the type of Christians we desire to be formed as. As James writes, “Pure and undefiled religion before our God and Father is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself unstained by the world” (James 1:27). Be mindful of the ways in which our worship leads us to the realization of this goal. For that is the true goal of worship.

A brief theology of daily life

Conventional wisdom gives us many pithy sayings such as, “We’re here for a good time, not a long time”, “YOLO (you only live once)”, “Live for the moment”, etc. Most Christians are rightfully horrified at the apparently flippant attitude towards life that such slogans seem to promulgate. Yet Qoheleth writing in Ecclesiastes reminds us that indeed much of life is meaningless, a mere chasing after the wind. All of our plans and schemes so often come to naught that it would be wise to learn to eat, and drink, and enjoy our lives. Rather than being “busy” always (my constant crime), we would do well to learn to rest and enjoy the day that the Lord has made. As Jean Vanier reminds us in his book Community and Growth,

If we are in community only to ‘do things’, its daily life will not nourish us; we will be constantly thinking ahead, because we can always find something urgent to be done. If we live in a poor neighbourhood or with people in distress, we are constantly challenged. Daily life is only nourishing when we have discovered the wisdom of the present moment and the presence of God in small things. It is only nourishing when we have given up fighting reality and accept it, discovering the message and gift of the moment. If we see housework or cooking simply as chores which have to be got through, we will get tired and irritable; we will not be able to see the beauty around us. But if we discover that we live with God and our brothers and sisters through what has to be done in the present moment, we become peaceful. We stop looking to the future; we take time to live. We are no longer in a hurry because we have discovered that there is gift and grace in the present of the book-keeping, the meetings, the chores and the welcome. (Jean Vanier, Community and Growth, 170).

When rest has been established, and an appreciation for “life in the moment” has been cultivated, God’s immanent work in his creation becomes exceedingly, abundantly clear to our eyes, we can say truthfully along with the songwriter, Lord, “these days I can’t find where you’re not”.

Life is a gift, Christ’s purpose in coming was not to negate that gift but to say yes to it. He has established a reality in which Life can be lived in wonder and fullness, giving thanks to God from whom all blessings flow. You only live once, why not make the most of it to the glory of God the father, maker of heaven and earth and Lord of Life.

In a similar vein, my great-grandfather Norman Turnbull wrote this poem in deep appreciation of the treasure that life is. He understood that the living of life itself is a great reward and that we may be content in the day to day, not restlessly yearning for some utopian ideal that will never arrive.

The Wealth of Life

Life is ever new, each morning a different day;

It pulses through all our souls afresh, beckons us on our way.

Life teaches us strength and love if we its lesson will heed,

Forgetting self in the nobler task of helping another in need.

Life itself is a picture, we daub with the hues of time

Bending ourselves to sorrow, or heights of glory sublime.

Life seems a burden to some, to others a blithesome play;

We make or mar, but on each alone falls the burden of the way.

Over and all around us are worlds we may never know

Yet every spring life moves anew beneath the soft white snow.

Perpetual, everlasting, a promise sure as the sun,

Life covers again the earth with green, new growth from the sod has sprung.

Growth of the spirit, growth of the world, growth of God’s own good,

Life the beginning, life the end, each must be understood.

Life is our school and we live it, each in his choice of way;

Lessons we learn at our father’s knee were taught in our Saviour’s day.

Whatever our greatest riches and plans and rosy dreams of wealth,

None offer to us a greater reward than just living life itself.

You cannot serve both God and Money: a Sermon

I delivered my first sermon this past Sunday at Rossburn Alliance Church - they didn't crucify me, so obviously I'm not doing it quite right yet. Enjoy!

Please turn with me to Matthew 6:24-34

You cannot serve both God and money.

In 2008 the global economy slid into a recession and the markets in America plummeted out of control. With many major corporations facing financial ruin, the American government was begged to provide a bail-out package for these Wall Street tycoons whose fiscal irresponsibility had finally caught up with them; everyone agreed that this decision to throw away billions of taxpayer dollars was necessary. Soon after, President Barack Obama put forth his plan for a national healthcare program known as Obamacare. The opposition to such a plan almost reawakened the Red Scare in some American Republicans, the bill eventually went through but has become one of the most demonized pieces of legislature in American history.

You cannot serve both God and money.

The Harper Conservatives achieved a majority government in the last election, promising that they were the only ones capable of steering Canadians through these rough economic times. Meanwhile our long enjoyed favourable reputation abroad continues to deteriorate as the government creates harsher and harsher foreign policies and continues to neglect its treaty responsibilities to our First Peoples, many of whom are living in appalling conditions that would be unimaginable even in 3^rd world countries - instead pushing through omnibus bill after omnibus bill bent on attracting foreign investment and economic advantage.

You cannot serve both God and money.

At the inauguration of Obama’s second term in office he swore his oath on the bible of Martin Luther King Jr., a freedom fighter for the rights of the “least of these”, regardless of their skin color. Meanwhile, the lives of young soldiers are sacrificed in the Middle East in an alleged “war on terror”, and countless innocent civilians live in constant fear of being caught in the crossfire. “Our cause is just!” some would say – though no Just War theories ever allow for the bombing of innocent civilian populations. One tends to wonder how much our thirst for oil is really at root in these acts of slaughter.

You cannot serve both God and money.

Now, before we dive into this text a little bit more, I have a couple of confessions to make. While I grew up in an Alliance church, which tends to explain these crazy ideas of mine being a missionary, I must admit that while at Prov I had a conversion of sorts, some would say I finally saw the light… that’s right, I became a  Mennonite (gasp)! Part of that process involved learning a taste of their theology and from what I gather, the Sermon on the Mount – which is where our text is taken from today – is a really important passage for those guys. You see, different denominational traditions tend to read the Bible differently, placing different passages as having more or less importance in how they interpret the rest of scripture i.e.,  Pentecostals love Acts, Evangelicals love the great commission and Romans, and Mennonites love the Sermon on the mount. The Mennonites are committed to reading this text as actual literal instructions for how to live, whereas some other traditions tend to spiritualize it a bit more. I come to you today with the Mennonite conviction that this passage has some real implications for how we are to act.

You cannot serve both God and Money.

Have you ever felt that tension? Have you ever been offered a chance to serve God but turned it down because you didn’t have the money? Or the time? Or maybe you’ve just never really been open to pursuing some opportunities too much because you know that they might leave you financially vulnerable? After all, we need to think of the families that we have to support…

Sometimes even while serving God, we can still get seduced by the idol of money. I know I have. This year at Providence, as some of you may know, I spearheaded the organization of a missions trip to the Dominican Republic. In terms of organization – it was a complete disaster. I’ve never been on a missions trip before so I had no idea what I was getting myself into, or what to expect. I didn’t fully understand the organization we had been partnering with and so it turned out that all of our communication was being mediated by an unnecessary third party which made responses to simple questions take weeks to get answers for. Details such as cost and itinerary were made known to us extremely late in the game, I think I found out how much it was going to cost about a month before we left – inconveniently for me, the price per person for the trip was about $200 a person more than I had quoted the rest of the team, so I had to figure out how to make up the difference, and we found out what we were doing about a week before we left. I was a wreck. I slept about 6 hours a night, lying in bed worrying about finding money, and feeling like a failure that I didn’t know the answers to any of the questions my team mates wanted to know. Worries centered around money were consuming me.

(Read vv. 31-33 again)

Jesus tells us to not worry, so do our shrinks! Everyone and anyone can tell you that worrying gets us nowhere. So how do we cease worrying about money? How do we live lives of service to God rather than to money?

I would like to suggest to you that what Jesus is doing in this sermon is describing those odd people who later come to be known as Christians, that group of people whose very lives are shaped and formed by life in a community of practice….. “Community of Practice”, what do I mean by that? This is an important phrase that deserves some unpacking.

The Community of Practice, or the Church is, well, us. But it is crucial to note that our identity is not decided merely by some set of propositions we believe. Rather the our beliefs manifest in formational practices which we engage in regularly. I’m not advocating here some sort of works based salvation, but merely expounding upon the principle we find in James, “you show me your faith, and I’ll show you my works” of course meaning that faith that is not made manifest in our daily practices is no faith at all but merely a deception of the mind.

So what are these practices? Well I’m not talking just about making sure our daily devotionals get done, or showing up to church or even praying before meals. Piety is not the sole task for Christians. I’m talking about lives of worship, centered in prayer, that are lived out in tangible ways such as; refusing to kill one another, how about spending time with the widow and the orphan… or in our language, the ostracized, the mentally ill, the addicts, the homeless, the homosexuals. Guys I’m talking about all those people out there who have been forced to the edges of society and are keenly in need of love.

One such young man quickly comes to my mind this morning.

(You may have heard about the young aboriginal man from Gambler who passed away a couple weeks ago, he drank himself to death, in the middle of his drunkenness, downed a bottle of draino, which ate him from the inside out, I grew up with this guy and while we were never close friends, I could see that there was not a lot of love in his life – his home life left something to be desired and he found attention from less than reputable sources. Upon hearing of his death, I wondered how his life could have turned out if he had had the love in his life that I have experienced)

It looks like Jesus is actually suggesting that we start living lives of vulnerability, serving God out of our poverty and insecurity rather than out of our security and wealth. As Stanley Hauerwas writes, ““We are told not to lay up treasure for ourselves, so we must learn to share. We are told not to be anxious, not to try to ensure our future, thus making it necessary to rely on one another for our food, our clothing, and our housing.” Gene Davenport, in his wonderful book on the Sermon on the Mount, Into the Darkness, reminds us that “when the first hearers of Matthew's Gospel heard Jesus' call to suffer rather than to inflict suffering, to accept death rather than to inflict death, to reject all efforts to save themselves from their plight by military action and to leave their deliverance to God, they knew that the one who gave such scandalous instruction had himself lived and died in accord with that call.”

We all know the content of the Sermon on the Mount. It has so many of the inconvenient teachings that seem impossible to us. Asking us not even to hate one another? Not even to look at each other with lust? Or maybe most impossible… especially for me, not to worry?

This year in planning that missions trip I was placed in a position of poverty. There was a point in this process when it looked like we were going to be thousands of dollars short. In one of my many panic stricken nights I came to the conclusion that the only option available was to pay the difference out of my remaining student loan money and figure it out later. My team was tapped out, I was tapped out, financially, mentally and emotionally.

And that friends, is when the words of Jesus came back to me. As it is written, “Blessed are the poor, who understand their need for God”, this is how the NLT translators decided to render the more commonly known beatitude, “Blessed are the poor in spirit” found in Matthew 5. I often look at the beatitudes and say, what’s so “blessed” about these people, but it was brought to my attention at Providence that a better understanding of this word for our context is “happy” so happy are those who find themselves in a place of poverty, who understand their need for God. I’m here to testify to the truth of that. There is a peace that passes all understanding when you find yourself in a position of true poverty where only God can be your source of life, only his divine working can sustain you, when all of your efforts have been in vain. The saints understood this; those ancient mystics of the church who lived in poverty, depending upon God for everything, saints like St. Francis for example, a monk who chose created an order of Christians who dedicate themselves to a life of poverty to fully appreciate the grace that can only come from God. It is no accident that the new Pope chose the name Francis – he sees that in a world where so often, governments, corporations, and individuals are setting up money as their God, there is great need for the Church to offer a different form of life, one that acknowledges God as God and refuses to allow money to be the all-consuming force it can so easily become.

You cannot serve both God and money.

This year was almost like a constant argument between God and myself. God would say, “Ryan, are you prepared to trust me to provide for all of your needs?”

“Yes of course,” I would respond.

“Ok, prove it,” he would retort. And then there would be silence, agonizing silence, and nothing would work out… Right when I would be on the verge of finally giving up hope, God’s providence would prevail and just the right amount of money would come in, or the email that was overdue by a month would finally arrive, etc.

What is our response to God’s question of “Do you trust me”? Is it, “Yes God, I trust you, but  I’m going to make sure something else is in place that will come through, just in case you don’t”? I know that it is for me too often. Jesus is challenging us here. He is saying that what lies at the root of this temptation is our love of money, security, and self-sufficiency.  Especially in our individualistic North American culture, the idea of being dependent on others is deplorable to us! “So don’t worry about these things, saying, ‘What will we eat? What will we drink? What will we wear?’ For the pagans chase after such things…” Jesus is calling us to lay aside our dead identity as self-sufficient, strong, independent, Canadians, and accept the new life that he has for us. A life of poverty, a life that recognizes our absolute dependence on God

You cannot serve both God and money – for the Pagans chase after such things as money, and security.

That is a challenge to us. There is a reason the rich young ruler went away from Jesus very sad when told that he had to give all he had to the poor. What Jesus is asking is not merely that we give up our possessions, but that we admit his lordship in our lives. He is asking us to be vulnerable enough to allow him to provide – to give him our whole lives. What kind of faith can we really claim to have if we are responsible for providing for all of our needs?

So what does this mean? Do we give away everything without a thought in the world and trust that God will take care of it? Probably not. There is something to be said for discernment, wise stewardship, etc. etc., all the good ol’ Christian financial advice. BUT it does at the very least, demand that when we are confronted with an opportunity to further God’s kingdom, we act. This text tells us that in the community of practice into which we have been brought, we can no longer use the excuse of “I can’t afford it” or “I don’t have time” or “This will threaten my longterm fiscal security”. For it is pagans who chase after such things.

You cannot serve both God and Money.

Who will you serve?

A response to "Jesus and Objective Truth"

In a recent blog post by the Tyndale philosophy dept., the anti-postmodern view that Jesus is in fact objective truth was argued by Rich Davis and Paul Franks, as the comment section was closed to me, I could not ask for clarification on a couple of points and thus this is my response to just one part of the argument which I took particular exception to. Here is a link to the entire article if you are interested: http://tyndalephilosophy.com/2013/04/16/jesus-and-objective-truth/

Davis and Franks make the distinction between belief in and belief that, a distinction which I hope to show is a faulty one. Here is the quote:

"First, Willimon misunderstands the relation between belief that and belief in. You can’t rightly believe in (i.e., trust, put your faith in) someone unless you believe that they exist. You have to believe certain objective truths about Jesus; otherwise you can’t be his disciple. As the writer of Hebrews says, “anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him” (Heb 11:6). So there’s at least two propositions you have to believe before you can put your trust in Christ. Indeed, it isn’t rational to give your life to someone who either isn’t really there (i.e., lacks objective existence) or is the product of your imagination (i.e., has subjective existence alone). Belief that (i.e., assent to objective truth) is a precondition for belief in."

It is my  view that the distinction between "belief that" and "belief in" is a faulty one that grows out of a very particular view of salvation as formulated by popular American Evangelicalism. Typical of this version of evangelicalism is the assumption that we are confronted with the truth of Christ and what he has done for us, and from the realization "that" he has done this, we are encouraged to make the move to have belief "in" this truth. We are confronted with the undeniable truth of God as Christ, and from this are expected to make the decision of how to respond to it, ideally of course, making Jesus Lord of one's life.

Is this really how the belief process works? Can there be other ways of formulating this? Is the move from "belief that" to "belief in" a necessary one?

I think not.

Book one of Augustine's Confessions begins with an interesting observation, and I quote,

"Grant me, Lord, to know and understand which is first: to call on You or to praise You? And, again, to know You or to call on You? Who can call on You, not knowing You? For he that does not know You may call on You as something other than You are. Or, is it rather that we call on You that we may know You (emphasis added)?"

Augustine here I think is suggesting a reversal of the "belief that " to "belief in" paradigm. Rather than our functional "belief in" Jesus as Lord flowing from our knowledge of him as such, we first confess it to be true, praying in faith of that truth and eventually come to know the truth of it. The move is one from "belief in" to "belief that".

It seems that on an everyday level of lived reality, this is how we come to know the truth of Christ. We confess a truth in faith, regardless of our level of epistemic certainty, and through the confession of it, and living with that confession, we come to know the veracity of the claim that we confess. By living in and through the confession of faith, we are either convinced of the truth of that confession or are disappointed and must move beyond that particular confession.

Therefore, I think it is safe to say that Christian belief does not move from the "that" to the "in" as a necessary condition, but can, and in fact often does move from the practice of "belief in" to "belief that".

Go in Peace to Love and Serve the Lord

This speech was delivered April 19, 2013 at the Banquet of the Providence University College 86th Graduation:

Well, here we stand at the end, and as most of us have learned here at Prov over the past few years, there is a specific way to end our times of worship together:

“Go in Peace to Love and Serve the Lord. Thanks be to God, Hallelujah!”

With these words we have ended our times of worship here at Prov over these last number of years. And as much as Providence has been a fact of our daily lives for the duration of our time here, life at Providence has been one giant act of worship as we have learned, grown, and served in a plethora of ways. As this year has been drawing to a close the question that has been burning on my mind, as I’m sure it has been on many of yours, has been, “soooo what now? Where do we go from here?”

There have been a couple mottos that have terrified me and encouraged me throughout my time at Prov. The first is the official school motto, “Knowledge and Character for Leadership and Service”. This always kind of scared me, “Do they expect me to actually serve and lead at some point? Don’t they know what kind of person I am?” The second motto is similar, and it is carved above the doors to the school, “Enter to Learn, go forth to Teach” which always made think, “oh no, I better make sure I actually learn something here if they expect me to teach somebody someday”.

            Fortunately, these mottos also carried with them the promise that somehow, we would “Learn”, that we would receive “Knowledge and Character” – in short, we wouldn’t be left up the Rat River without a paddle.

            So, where do we go from here? Presumably we’ve learned something, received some knowledge, and had our characters shaped by our various triumphs, trials, and tribulations at this institution, and now it is time to Teach, now it is time to Lead and Serve. The sending that we have heard time and time again at our worship services over the years begins to make sense. In the midst of the confusion and mystery of transition, we are empowered to go forth in the peace of Christ to love him and serve him in whatever shape that ends up taking. Really, the only response appropriate to such a promise is an exclamation of praise and thus we say, “Thanks be to God, Hallelujah.”

Now, one last time, please join me in the sending;

“Go in Peace to Love and Serve the Lord. Thanks be to God, Hallelujah!”

Farewell

Facebook, you've been a good friend to me for many years now. Always showing me the carefully polished version of myself that I want to see, my narcissistic ego has never been better than during our lengthy and intimate relationship. Now, however, it is time for us to, "see other people".

I thought we could just be friends, but you wanted more than that didn't you? I've shared more with you than with most of my non-virtual friends, which, upon thinking about it, is really quite pathetic.

Don't think that I'll forget all the good times we had, I'm grateful for the ways in which you helped me make and maintain friendships that I would have otherwise not had, but I really want to get to know those people now, not just the shiny pixelated version you offer me.

Maybe I'll see you again someday Facebook, but for now, I think it would be best if we just existed in this shared world together, but apart.

Love,

Ryan

In Memoriam

Dr. Schell there are really no words to describe how much you meant to me. Always ready with a quiet smile, a witty comment and a beautiful song, you touched deeply the lives of all your students. Thank-you for all that you taught me, my love of choral music is due in large part to your patient work. Whenever I sing in a choir I will think of you and your sacrifice of praise. I can't wait to sing with you again in heaven.

O God Beyond All Praising

O God beyond all praising,

we worship you today

and sing the love amazing

that songs cannot repay;

for we can only wonder

at every gift you send,

at blessings without number

and mercies without end:

we lift our hearts before you

and wait upon your word,

we honor and adore you,

our great and mighty Lord.

Then hear, O gracious Savior,

accept the love we bring,

that we who know your favor

may serve you as our king;

and whether our tomorrows

be filled with good or ill,

we'II triumph through our sorrows

and rise to bless you still:

to marvel at your beauty

and glory in your ways,

and make a joyful duty

our sacrifice of praise.

Sing on Dr. Schell. Sing on!

Vanity of Vanities: A Stumbling Beginning to Advent

My Homiletics class recently finished a preaching series through the book of Ecclesiastes. It struck me again this evening how true the words of Q'oheleth really are. 

Vanity of vanities.

The Teacher, or Q'oheleth, explores all aspects of life to find that everything is inherently meaningless. Vanity of vanities, meaningless, all is meaningless, like a chasing after the wind. Everything that seems to hold so much promise, when pushed, turns out to be yet another bitter disappointment. 

Vanity of vanities.

Look at life, we spend so much time pursuing pointless things, keeping up on celebrities, sports games, trying to be popular, to look a certain way, trying to achieve at the things we are in, get good grades, win trophies, scholarships, bursaries, awards and accolades. We are all enslaved to the pointless dance of trying to make meaning out of our meaningless lives. 

Vanity of vanities.

I've run myself ragged lately trying to achieve. I'm so busy that I don't enjoy anything that I do, yet I am commended for doing all that I do. People look to me as a leader, I know everyone, and I find it impossible to say no to any request. 

Vanity of vanities.

If everything is meaningless, what's the point? Should we not all succumb to the natural conclusions of nihilism? Or perhaps we must continue in our deluded existentialism, denying the vanity of existence and forcing our reality to take on a semblance of dignity. 

Vanity of vanities.

No. Today is the start of Advent, the beginning of the Church year and a time of anticipating the coming of a Saviour. Our pursuits may be meaningless, yet there are many things in this life that make life worth living. A sunrise, a good cup of tea, a beautiful line of poetry, fresh snow, a smile from a friend. As vain and meaningless as these might be, they are good. 

Vanity of vanities?

The Teacher reminds us to remember the Creator of our youth, to cling to the one who gives meaning and purpose to our truly vain and obscene little lives. We remember, and anticipate, for soon, Emmanuel will be here. And so we wait, appreciating the small, sublime moments of bliss, and knowing that purpose, meaning and life are here in the waiting.

An Invitation to Pray

What is prayer? This is a question I have been asking for years and every so often I gain a small insight. For the last year and a half I have been involved in a small group of people that have committed to gathering every morning for prayer. This experience has been life-changing for me and has taught me a lot about prayer.

A few weeks ago, the new of Chief of Police in Winnipeg made a request to the citizens of the city to pray for one another and for the well-being of the city. He said that if everyone were to pray for the good of Winnipeg, regardless of religious affiliation, the city would become a better place to live.

This got me thinking about what happens when people pray. A lot of discussion about prayer is focused on the dialogue between human and divine that takes place, but it would seem that this is only one part of prayer.

Praying is an action, you actually have to actively do something (I know, I know, some people like to talk about living a lifestyle of prayer; they always have the big guy on speed dial or some such nonsense. But in reality, these people are saying this to make up for their lack of praying, I know, because I used to be that guy). We know from developmental psychology that one of the major ways people learn how to do something is through repetition. Repetition of various scripts or narratives become very influential in how we think, and ultimately how we act. Take advertising for example, we are exposed to certain messages over and over in the hopes that we will heed the content of these messages and act out on them.

Prayer, on a very human level, functions this way. When we pray, we repeatedly come before the divine in a posture of humility, acclaiming the deity, contemplating the deity, thanking the deity, and bringing forward supplications to the deity (these are the A. C. T. S. of praying...). We are training ourselves to
a) acknowledge our own weakness, b) speak out our problems (which is basically what we spend a lot of money talking to counselors to do) and c) intercede for others.

An interesting thing happens when you pray, particularly when you pray corporately, or pray intercessory prayers for others. Barriers come down between people. The prayer group that I am a part of consists of everyone from freshmen to one of the deans at my university. Yet, when we come into the prayer-room, all office and division falls aside and we earnestly turn our attention to the Lord. We lay aside anything that regularly separates us in our united lowliness before God.

Daily we practice this, and after a while, I have noticed that the people of this group are much closer in other areas of daily life than they were before. There is a sense of camaraderie that exists between the members of this fellowship. We don't ever really pray specifically for one another, in fact we mostly say liturgical prayers that the Church has said for hundreds of years, but the act of praying together has had some miraculous effects.

Now, I think Chief Clunis was on to something when he asked the citizens of Winnipeg to pray for one another. After my own personal experience of praying in community, and praying for a community, I find it very difficult to act in a way that would be damaging towards the people of that community. What Clunis has hit upon, is the simple human ability to form positive habits, and he is asking everyone to form positive thought habits towards the city.

As a Christian, I would say that prayer actually does change things because God steps in and acts when we ask in Jesus name. I find it interesting however, that the very way in which we ask for miracles from God can actually cause miracles to happen.The goal of the Student Council that I sit on this year has been to foster community in my school. Here, in a very simple, tangible, yet miraculous way, we have a way to accomplish this goal. We now have an even greater sense of urgency to heed  the words of the apostle when he urges the Ephesians to pray in the spirit on all occasions.

Pray on my friends.

Healer

Healing God.

You who heal the deaf, give sight to the blind and raise the dead,

We come to you requesting that your healing power be poured out on our loved ones. 

Heal their bodies, make them whole and healthy, that you may be glorified.

Amen.

Have you ever listened to evangelicals who are about to pray? They ask for prayer/praise items and inevitably it disintegrates into a list of all the people present, known, or heard of that are suffering from physical malady or illness. Prayers for healing definitely top the charts in most prayed prayers. Ironically, though these are the most prayed prayers, they are also the least expected to come true. We pray for healing fully expecting that God can heal, but fully expecting that he won't. Oh we have all sorts of ways of explaining why prayers remain unanswered, but they all ring with a rather hollow sound as we stare down death, evil and suffering, begging God to somehow intervene. The above prayer is the prayer I might pray in public, but the true cry of my heart goes a lot more like this:

Jesus,

You healed the lame, restored sight to the blind, and raised the dead. 

I come to you begging for the lives of my dear loved ones,

Knowing that you heal, yet fully expecting you not to.

I pray that despite my expectations, you would heal. 

Lord, surprise me, disappoint my expectation of you,

make your name mighty among your people!

I know what you can do, I am afraid of what you will do, 

But I know that in it all you are God.

Amen.

Praying for healing is the only occasion I question the validity of my belief. Luckily, right at the heart of the Christian message is Easter. Easter, the death of God, his passage under the earth, his glorious resurrection. Threaded throughout those darkest of days is the pain of unanswered prayer, but yet even there, these three remain. And so as Eliot wrote "I said to my soul, be still, and wait without hope for hope would be hope for the wrong thing; wait without love for love would be love of the wrong thing; there is yet faith but the faith and the love and the hope are all in the waiting."