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Pastor Thoughts, Theology & Culture

The Different Languages of Church – Pastor Thoughts

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Easter is a strangely long season of the church year. It isn’t quite the 25 Sundays of green that we get through the summer and into the fall, but at seven weeks, plus Holy Week, it is about double that of Advent or Lent. 

So here we are coming to 50 days or the 8th Sunday of Easter, which we call Pentecost Sunday. The Sunday on which we hear the story of what happened to these disciples who first met the risen Christ and then were called to take that good news into the world. The Holy Spirit descends on them in tongues and fire granting them the ability to preach in all different languages to the varied crowds of foreigners in Jerusalem for the Pentecost festival. 

One of the things that has been reinforced to me over and over again is that preaching the Gospel in different languages is about more than the difference between English, French, Spanish or German and so on. Sometimes “speaking in a different language” can be the way we communicate differently between generations, between people with different levels of education, between urban and rural contexts, between where people land on the political spectrum, between backgrounds and histories, etc….

The first congregation that I served as a pastor taught me this lesson over and over. The quaint rural congregation set in the middle of a farming community holds a special place in my heart. For me, they were like nothing I had experienced before.  I grew up in the suburbs of Edmonton. I lived near, went to school with and attended church with people straight out of “The burbs.”

But my first call to that farming community church was otherworldly to me. They were the inspiration of my blog’s tagline: An iPhone Pastor for a Typewriter Church. The realization that we spoke different languages, though all in English, came fast and hard. 

In my first few weeks, one of the members invited me to attend the upcoming ELW (Evangelical Lutheran Women) meeting.

“Excuse me?” I said. 

“Well, the pastor usually comes to our meetings and leads the Bible study.”

So, I went.  And pretty soon I looked forward to each monthly meeting. They were a group with whom it was a joy to gather. 

But as someone who had spent the previous eight years attending university and then seminary, I had to learn how to lead a Bible study with many people who had only completed grade 8, maybe grade 12, and just a few with further education. 

I learned that while Canada has a literacy rate in the high 90s, about 45% of the population is only functionally literate. Meaning that people are technically literate, but often rely on context clues and images found in magazines or newspapers or restaurant menus. Close to half of Canadians might find it difficult to navigate a textbook or novel. Or Bible. Or hymnbook. 

I also learned that rural communities could have strong roots in oral tradition. And while some folks might struggle with some reading materials, they could also relate lengthy in-depth oral histories of their community to me. I learned how to speak the language of weather and seeding and harvest. I was taught how to navigate and bridge the divide between folks rooted in their past and a pastor born into, educated in and moving into the future. 

I would do little social experiments to see if putting an announcement in the bulletin but not giving it verbally made a difference. It did. No one came to Bible study the month I did that! (I have also since learned that folks not reading the bulletin was a reality in almost every congregation!). 

Most of all I learned that how we communicate with each other and how I communicate with the people I serve is not always straightforward and easy. Instead it takes work and practice. It takes work to get across the message you want people to hear.

And because of all this, it also shows us that the spirit of Pentecost that pushes the disciples into the streets to preach to people in their own language is a much richer and deeper story than we might imagine. The many languages of Pentecost are not just formal ones. Rather, through the Spirit we are called into relationship and community, and only then can we begin to talk with each other. 

covid-19, Sermon, Theology & Culture

Plan B, C, D or E for the Church

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GOSPEL: John 17:20-26
Jesus prayed:] 20“I ask not only on behalf of these, but also on behalf of those who will believe in me through their word, 21that they may all be one. As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. 22The glory that you have given me I have given them, so that they may be one, as we are one, 23I in them and you in me, that they may become completely one, so that the world may know that you have sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me. 24Father, I desire that those also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory, which you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world.

It was three days before my 30th birthday, and after 3 and half years of being a pastor, I felt like I had preached too many times on mass shootings in my short time in ministry. But the Sandy Hook elementary school shooting felt different, the unspeakably tragic nature of that event seemed like it would finally change the gun culture of our neighbours to the south. 

Instead,10 years later, is both too easy and too hard to recount countless shootings in nightclubs, hotels, places of worship, high schools and again another elementary school. 

And so here we are this week reeling from another mass shooting of children and teachers in Uvalde, Texas. 

Where will it end, O Lord?

Today, is the last Sunday in the season of Easter, but it hardly feels like a time to celebrate. And yet, in the midst of tragedy, we remember the horrific events to which the empty tomb is revealed as the good news. As the world has a way of laying death before our feet when we least expect, Easter has a way of turning even that reality upside down and revealing to us that new life that comes from the grave. As we ask when the violence will end, God reminds us that Easter is God’s answer for us in the midst suffering and death. 

And so… for these seven weeks we have been walking along with the disciples through their initial surprise encountering the risen Christ and then God’s calling these followers of Jesus as they are transformed into the Body of Christ – the Church. We have heard again how they were and we are being prepared to be the body of Christ in the world. And with all of it coming to a head on Pentecost next week, as we mark the birth of the church. 

But before we get there, we are left with two seemingly contrasting stories about where the early followers of Jesus were headed. 

In one, we are silent eavesdroppers on a conversation, a prayer between God the Father and Christ the Son. In it Jesus commends this little band of misfits, outsiders and the least likely leaders to his father. And what comes from this handing over is a promise that this community of Christ’s followers are not left alone, and that those who belong to Christ are brought into the life of the Trinity, into the mission and activity of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. 

And then in the other story, we see the unfolding and surprising ministry of Paul and Silas as they go about the Greek world. As the two make their way to Phillipi with the intention of ministering to the fledging community there, they are interrupted by a slave girl who has been given the gift of divination. 

The slave girl and her interruptions soon become an annoyance to Paul… and so he decides to cast out the spirit possessing her. This gets Paul into trouble, and the slave girl’s owners set to Paul and Silas to beat them and have them thrown in prison because they have just lost their lucrative source of income. 

Once in prison Paul and Silas start another new ministry to the prisoners only to have that interrupted by an earthquake and then a fearful guard contemplating taking his own life, for whom Paul must again change course and do something about. 

While maybe not obvious at first, the contrast between the two stories is striking. In one Jesus promises divine providence for the community of his followers. In the other, every plan for ministry that Paul has goes off the rails because of interruptions rooted in tragedy and suffering. 

The promise that God will provide glory and providence for the community of faith and the reality of how ministry is experienced in practice seem to diverge quite a bit.

On some level we know what Paul and Silas were experiencing. We too tend to have certain visions for ministry. We bear expectations for what church, for what our community faith, should look like. And yet, we also know what it is like when those expectations and visions aren’t realized. We know what it is to have our visions for church interrupted by the wrong kind of people, to have suffering and tragedy interrupt our plans. 

Another mass shooting, ever increasing cases of pandemic-19, run away inflation, war in Ukraine all seem to make us feel as though God is far away from us. 

The struggles of work, family life, young children, aging parents, retirement planning, declining health, and figuring how to re-enter into an uncertain pandemic world get in way of taking time for faith. 

The realities of tight budgets, tired volunteers, and a past that seems better than the future, expenses that keep going up and dollars that didn’t go as far as they used to keep us from looking forward with hope and believing that God has good things in mind for us. 

Our visions and expectations for ministry are so easily interrupted these days, and along with brothers and sisters in faith here in the pews, across Winnipeg and Manitoba, across Canada and North America we don’t know what to do about it. 

Paul didn’t know what do either… and maybe that is the point. 

There is, of course, an interesting thing about the story of Paul and Silas: while they were being interrupted by the slave girl, she was telling everyone that these two men knew about salvation. And while Paul acted out of annoyance, he freed a suffering girl from possession. And while Paul was busy trying to minister to the other prisoners while in prison, it was the jailer who needed to hear the good news. 

Even in the midst of some of the worst things imaginable, some of the worst suffering – slavery, exploitation, violence and false imprisonment – the gospel finds a way through. Even though it was not what Paul was expecting, even though it wasn’t even according to plan B or C or D… the gospel broke into the world precisely in the midst of the interruptions of human suffering. 

It is not say that the good news only comes when there is bad stuff happening, but rather than in the midst of the mess and chaos of human life, the gospel has no problem breaking in. And the gospel doesn’t need our plans to be realized to be preached and to be heard. 

In fact, our plans seem to have relatively little to do with where the good news of Jesus who died and rose again for us is made known. 

Paul had one idea for Philippi, but God had another. 

And just maybe that is the promise that Jesus is talking about with the Father. Not a promise that our visions and expectations will be realized, but a promise that in the midst of the real messiness and chaos of the world, the gospel will break through and break in. 

The good news of this upside down, unexpected God found in Jesus wouldn’t make sense if it could only be preached when all the plans come together, when all the visions are realized, when all the expectations are met. The good news of this Jesus makes perfect sense preached in the midst of our plans gone wrong addressing the realty of our suffering world. 

Jesus’s promise that suffering and death are not the end makes sense when it comes to us in the midst of shootings, pandemic, inflation and war. 

God’s naming and claiming as God’s own in the waters of baptism reminds us of who we are as we navigate the struggles of daily life, of family, work, community, health, retirement and on and on. 

Christ’s presence among us in the Body of Christ remains the same even as congregations struggle to keep up with this shifting and changing world. 

The forgiveness and mercy of God help us to change and grow, even as we don’t always understand the people and things around us and how to adapt to them.  

The good news of this Jesus makes perfect sense preached in the midst of this community of misfits and outsiders called the body of Christ, it makes prefect sense that it comes to us in Word, Water, Bread and Wine shared here in our imperfect, messy, and chaotic community of faith. 

And so, on this last Sunday of Easter that doesn’t really feel Easter-y we hear two seemingly contradictory stories that fit perfectly together. That remind us that God always comes in our imperfections and plan Bs, Cs, Ds, and Es and struggling messy moments of suffering and surprise… because that is where we are. 

And where we are is where God in Christ breaks through to find us and tell us again of God’s promise of New life for us. 

covid-19, Pastor Thoughts, Theology & Culture

The tension point of pandemic hybrid community – Pastor Thoughts

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Last week I shared with you reports from our family trip out west to visit family and to attend the funeral for Courtenay’s aunt (who was like a second mother).

Along with all the much needed visits with family not seen for years, we managed to also pick up COVID-19.

It has been a powerful insight into how this pandemic has hit us right where some of our most important relationships and activities are. As human beings we need to have time for community. Family gatherings, Sunday morning worship, coffee with friends and neighbours, time at the gym, breakfast club, serving on that volunteer board, playing on sports teams… so many of the things that we do to keep sane, the the relationships that make us feel grounded and known, the keep us going day to day, week to week.

So many things that zoom or Facebook Live streams, or phone calls can only do so much to emulate.

Last week, I said that this new world we are living in is going to keep looking like this for quite a while. COVID-19 cases are surging everywhere (again). 2nd Booster shots are being recommended. And there always looms in the background the possibility of another variant that could make our lives more difficult.

Before our family trip, I would have said that we just need to accept these new ways of connecting with community. But now I recognize how important being with those that we love truly is.

So rather than accepting, I think we need to, are being called to, adapt. We are being called to change. The world has changed and so must we.

The thing is that we don’t really know what we are adapting to or changing to quite yet. But I do know that prioritizing the health and safety of our community while also making space and opportunity for that community to come together in a variety of ways is important.

And that is something we are not so used to doing, prioritizing so obviously competing and contradictory things: Being together is a risk and our need to be together.

Thankfully, we DO come from a tradition and community of faith that includes many examples of living in tension. We boldly declare that we are sinners and saints. We confess that Jesus is both Human and Divine. We receive bread that is body and wine that is blood. We proclaim that we are people who die to sin in the waters of baptism, only to be raised to new life.

And we will figure out how to be people for whom being together is a public health risk and who need to gather for our health and sanity. Something tells me that God is already way ahead of us on this and has been calling us into this place all along (more on that next week!).

covid-19, Pastor Thoughts, Theology & Culture

This pandemic likes to remind us it isn’t over – Pastor Thoughts

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After a couple of weeks away on holidays, it is good to be back – well, sort of.

As some of you may know, our family ventured west for the first time since June 2019. It had been nearly 3 years since our family had made our pilgrimage to see extended family across the prairies. It was incredible to see just show much our kids loved seeing various relatives. they marvelled at all the people they were related to. At 8 and 5, I think they felt like they were meeting many folks for the first time.

The purpose of our trip a this time of year was to attend an important family funeral, but the opportunity to see family was something we all needed after 3 years of staying home.

After two weeks of visits, of recreating missed birthdays, family dinners and just spending time together, our hearts were full of something we had been desperately missing. It almost felt normal at times, being around people we love and have missed so much.

Finally, close to the end of the second week, we began the long drive home.

In the weeks before we set out on this holiday, in the midst of Holy Week and Easter, I did my best to keep up on the pandemic situation. I knew that COVID was spreading widely, but seeing family, particularly because of this family funeral, was important at this point.

In the middle part of the second week, we began feeling some symptoms: Runny noses, coughs, plugged ears. While there were stories of COVID cases all around us, we initially attributed it to seasonal and pet allergies (so many dogs and cats!). But still we took rapid tests, we were always wearing masks in public, and compared to a normal whirlwind family tour, we reduced contacts and limited household visits substantially.

Still, we were feeling pretty crummy as we came home. Before going out into the world once home, we decided to rapid test again.

And after a week of symptoms, our tests finally showed two lines.

We were positive for COVID-19.

The thing that we had been working so hard to avoid for over 2 years had finally made its way into our house all the way from across the country.

We let our family and anyone who visited us know.

For us, it has been very hard to be so far from family during this pandemic. But I also know it may have been one of the things that has kept us safe from infection. If we lived closer to family, I am sure we would have been gathering and visiting when the public health orders allowed. I am sure our contacts would have gone way up.

And looking back it is easy to see why we were infected with COVID-19. In two weeks we were in more homes, and spending more time with people unmasked and close contact than we have in the two years previous. We thought we were careful enough, but every visit was a risk.

It is a reminder of just where this pandemic has hit us hardest. It speaks to why we are all so beaten down and struggling. COVID-19 has robbed us of the most important activities that help us stay healthy and grounded. Gathering together with the family and friends who are most important to us. Two years of FaceTime and Zoom calls every other day was nothing like just once sitting around the dinner table with those that we love.

The pandemic is far from over. We continue to balance finding ways to connect with and be close to those people who are most important to us – family, friends, neighbours or siblings in Christ – with staying safe, preventing illness and disease.

And I cannot help but come to the realization this is our new world. The realities that we are struggling with today are not going anywhere anytime soon, and so we continue to struggle together. We continue to follow God’s call together. We continue to adapt and change and seek out ways to be community, to care for each other and to walk together in faith.

So far COVID-19 has been like a bad head cold for us… and hopefully I will start testing negative soon and be able to re-join our local community not long after that.

covid-19, Sermon, Theology & Culture

Walking to Emmaus and re-learning the story faith

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GOSPEL: Luke 24:13-35
Now on that same day [when Jesus had appeared to Mary Magdalene,] two [disciples] were going to a village called Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem, 14and talking with each other about all these things that had happened. 15While they were talking and discussing, Jesus himself came near and went with them, 16but their eyes were kept from recognizing him. 17And he said to them, “What are you discussing with each other while you walk along?” They stood still, looking sad….

Everything about the Easter Sunday story suggests that it should wrap up the story of Holy Week. All the way back from when we shift from Christmas and Epiphany telling the story of Jesus’ birth, to the Baptism of Our Lord Sunday on which Jesus is set on the path of his ministry of the Kingdom. From that moment on as we journey through Lent, the climax of Good Friday is in the background. Lent is not a 40 day long Good Friday, but there is a narrative arc that we recognize. Like an epic movie everything along the way serves to hurdle us to the big confrontation moment on Golgatha beneath the cross of Jesus. 

The empty tomb should be like the hero emerging from the wreckage, the moment of celebration that brings the story to a close. 

Except it isn’t. 

The Easter morning stories are full of confusion and uncertainty and more questions than answers. The resurrect Christ doesn’t spawn a “hero escapes death so don’t ask too many questions just be happy” moment, but instead a whole new wrinkle to a story that supposed to be wrapping up. 

And here we are on the 2nd Sunday of Easter still unpacking just what on earth is going on. 

It seems that the story of Jesus is less like an epic movie and more like a serialized TV season that ends on a cliffhanger, and today we starting season 2. 

We pick up the story right after Peter has gone to verify the unbelievable story of the women last week. Two disciples are on their way to Emmaus, a town near to Jerusalem. 

On the way, these two are met by another traveller. This travelling companion incredibly seems to know nothing about what has just happened over the past week in Jerusalem. Yet when the disciples recount the story from trial and crucifixion to the morning reports of the empty tomb from the unreliable women.

To which the unknown travelling companion proceeds to explain to them how the events of holy week fit into the Scriptures. And still these two disciples don’t recognize that the one travelling with them is Jesus. 

It seems a bit absurd that these two wouldn’t be to recognize their teacher and master. Was Jesus wearing a disguise? Were they blinded by their grief? Did God close their eyes to seeing?

I think there might be another explanation, one that relates to us and this moment in time. 

2000 years on from the first Easter we are stilling figuring out how this story unfolds and works together, let alone those first disciples who had just lived through it. Stories are how we understand this world. Stories and narrative help us construct meaning. Stories are the vehicles for us to make sense of things. It is why we go back a rehearse in our mind the events of an experience that we cannot make sense of, it is why we rely on eye witness testimony so heavily, it is why we are enraptured by good movies, books, tv shows, songs, artwork or a good story teller. 

So these two disciples on the road to Emmaus didn’t recognize Jesus because they didn’t understand the story of Holy Week yet, they couldn’t see Jesus because they didn’t know or understand the story of how he could be walking with them. 

Throughout our journey we too are sorting out just what all we have lived through means for us. As pandemic waves rise and recede with different degrees and risk to our health…

As War in Ukraine and elsewhere stretches out into a longer and more horrific than we every imagined reality…

As we navigate global, national and local uncertainty from the price of milk to the dangers of gas ranges to ongoing and persistent weather and climate crisis… 

As we ponder and wonder and worry about the future of our local communities here, even here at Sherwood Park…

We too do not know the ending of our story. We don’t know how to piece it all together yet and there is no precedent, no version that we have heard before that will provide the guidance we so desperately want. 

And so seeing Jesus among us is just as difficult. Even as he walks with us along our paths we may be just as oblivious as those two disciples. 

Just as Easter wasn’t the end of the story but the next season or next chapter, our story is nowhere near ending…but instead how it will all shake remains to be seen and lived. 

So when Jesus join his disciples on their walk down the road to Emmaus, they have more questions than answers. But rather than just coming out with who he is, Jesus takes the disciples back to the beginning, back to the stories they do know. The stories of God’s people. To the scriptures, the stories of faith. Stories told to children from the moment they are born. Stories told in homes and in the synagogue, stories that help to mark the passage of the days and the years, stories that gave frames of meaning, symbols, images and metaphors that helped them to understand their lives and their world. 

And just as the prophets foretold the coming of Messiah, just as John the Baptist preached out the wilderness, just as Jesus himself preached in the towns and countryside while doing miracles, Jesus begins with the stories they know already. And then Jesus interprets the stories in light of the promised Messiah. 

Yet, still the disciples don’t recognize Jesus. 

So finally when they reach Emmaus, Jesus takes the disciples back to Maundy Thursday. To the breaking and blessing of bread, where Jesus had been revealed to his disciples anew in the ancient familiar meal of faith – the passover meal.  

And all of sudden, these two disciples have a story to tell. They have seen this moment before. They have seen this One breaking the bread before. They know this stranger, they recognize the Christ. The Christ who has come to give them a new story of faith to tell. A story that begins at the Last Supper, that descends to arrest, trial and crucifixion and seemingly ends on cross. But now a story that continues on the Third Day with empty tombs, appearances behind locked doors, and revelations in the breaking of bread. 

Jesus has tied all the events of the last week to their familiar stories of faith, and Jesus has given these disciples a new story to tell, a story that makes sense and meaning of crucifixion, death, resurrection and new life. Jesus brings together the ancient stories of faith to the story of the crucified and risen Messiah.

The story of faith that we have been telling for 2000 years since: Christ has died, Christ is Risen, Christ will come again. 

The story that Jesus is taking us back to in this moment, even in the midst of our crisis, our inability to make sense of things and to understand this moment. 

The story of faith that is grafted onto our bones from the moment we are born and then reborn in baptism. The story that is told in homes and at church. The story that helps us mark the passage of days and years. The story that gives us the frames of meaning, symbols, images, and metaphors that help us understand our world. 

And Jesus reminds us that this story of faith has room for us and our recent string of uncertainty and struggle. We might not have been here before, but the Christ who meets us on this journey has. 

Jesus walks along side us in our confusion and uncertainty, reminding us that our familiar stories of faith still have room for our unknown stories of our present. And Jesus promises to see us through, to see us all the way to the new reality that awaits us in this new world of ours. Jesus promises that even this world of frequent tumult and regular uncertainty is nothing new or out of the ordinary for God.

And from here, Jesus takes us back to our beginnings, to the familiar story of breaking bread that we know so well. And in this moment, in this story Jesus is present and known to us, even when we don’t fully understand what is happening and where we are going. 

And so as we search for our story to tell, for the story that will tell us how to live in this new upside down world, Jesus reminds that there is a story that we already know. It begins with the breaking of bread, and continues through suffering and death, but surprises us again and again with an empty tomb, new life and a risen Christ.