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Doctor of Ministry, Pastor Thoughts, Theology & Culture

A Responsibility to Repent?

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It is only the third week of Lent, and already, the themes of the season have been remarkably difficult. The temptation of Jesus was a glimpse into the clashing of kingdoms in the first week. Jesus’ lamenting for Jerusalem and wanting to gather in God’s chosen people was really about the unwillingness of human beings and the destruction of Jerusalem temple.

In this third week, the Lenten theme is less convoluted. Jesus is asked by the people who followed him around tragedies that loomed large in the minds of the Israelites: a group of pilgrims unceremoniously killed by Pilate and a civil construction project that fell on 18 workers. One might assume that these followers of Jesus are wondering: Where is God in the midst of these tragic moments? 

But the followers aren’t wondering about that. Rather, they are asking if the pilgrims or workers were worse sinners who deserved their deaths. 

Ouch… that is not the kind of question you are supposed to ask out loud! Especially not of Jesus. That feels like the kind of insensitive question that a parent would scold a child for asking. Or, at the very least, there should be some tacit acknowledgement that it is inappropriate to blame victims for their suffering. 

Of course, this kind of victim blaming happens all the time in our world, but rarely in circumstances so tragic. It is not uncommon in our time for victims of sexual harassment or assault to be blamed for wearing inappropriate clothes, or for the poor to be blamed for their poverty, and for us to wonder if those who develop an illness did something to cause it. But we wouldn’t look at a pedestrian hit by a car and think, “Oh, they were probably a tax cheat who deserved to be hit.”

In Jesus’ day, however, it wasn’t uncommon for people to believe that any kind of suffering was the result of sin or unrighteousness.

The reality is that we also know there are degrees of sin to some extent. We know that some things are worse sins than others. We know that the Nazis who claimed to be just following orders during the Holocaust are not the same as speeders. That fighting with my sister as a kid is not the same as dealing drugs. That clandestinely appropriating some of my children’s Easter chocolate is not the same as wealthy CEOs hoarding hundreds of times more salary than their employees earn. 

We know that some things are worse sins than others, but in this season of Lent when we take time to step back and consider our lives, our identity and even our sins… what are we to do with this knowledge? What are we to do with Jesus’ response to his followers?

Jesus’ response sounds pretty pious, “No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all perish as they did.”

Is Jesus warning them, and us, that if they and we don’t get our acts together, we might suffer the same fate as the pilgrims and construction workers?

I don’t think so. Even if it sounds like Jesus is saying that if we don’t repent we are going to suffer. 

Martin Luther would remind us that, in regard to repentance, God has commanded us to confess and repent. Our response to our sin is not to worry about our degree of sin, not to worry about who among us has sinned the most, but to confess and repent of our sin. 

In fact, the only thing that we can do in response to our sin is to confess and repent. 

And how does God respond to sin? Well, that is something we will explore throughout the Lenten season.

Photo: The Holocaust Memorial in Berlin

Doctor of Ministry, Pastor Thoughts, Sermon, Theology & Culture

The conflict at the heart of the Lenten Wilderness

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Our Lenten wilderness continues to stretch out before us. With questions of when we might find stable footing in all the uncertainty around us, we were reminded last week that God’s claim on us in Baptism is something that we can cling to. 

This week we hear how Jesus goes from his own wilderness to the towns and villages of Galilee, where the Pharisees confront him about the treachery of Herod. In hearing this warning, Jesus laments for Jerusalem and all the ways in which the powers and authorities of this world stand in the way of the work of God. 

About a year ago, I was doing a deep dive (class paper) into the Gospel of Mark, looking at how the oldest Gospel treats conflict. In doing that work, I learned that we cannot read the Gospels without seeing the conflict that is at the core of our existence as human beings. 

The Kingdom of God coming into the world as proclaimed by Jesus in the Gospels isn’t just about a kingdom coming to claim empty uncontested territory. The Kingdom of God coming into the world means that the other powers of this world⎯King Herod, the Romans, the religious authorities in the Gospels⎯are confronted and contested. It also means that the Kingdom of God entering into our world contests and confronts the powers here, too⎯political powers, authoritarians, injustice and inequality, all those who would seek to harm God’s creation. 

By Holy Week, we will be reminded that Jesus’ power isn’t one of armies and soldiers, violence and coercion. Yet, the confrontation is the same. The Kingdom of God is at work undoing the ways we use power, violence and force to control and harm one another. How and where God is doing this will be topics for reflection later in Lent. But that “conflict” is at the core of our very being and speaks to our experiences in this world. Conflict isn’t something we can compartmentalize, put into a box and set aside. It is always lurking in the background of relationships and communities. Conflict is often behind our suffering, our failure and selfishness, our desire to be different and our inability to enact the changes needed in our lives, our relationships and our world. 

As Christians, we recognize this reality within us. This involves a wrestling between the old sinner within us and God’s work of shaping and moulding us into new creations. We also recognize this reality in the world around us. In fact, it might be the best way to explain both the brokenness and the beauty we see in the world. Our capacity to love and care for each other is only matched by our capacity to harm and destroy. Our very existence is marked by contested kingdoms fighting over us. The powers and principalities of sin, death and the devil push against the encroaching Kingdom of God that is working to claim us as God’s own. 

This can be a difficult experience to reconcile and to accept. Yet, when we take an honest assessment of our world, it is the only explanation that makes sense. And it is what we are called to remember this Lenten season on our way with Jesus through the wilderness. 

Pastor Thoughts, Theology & Culture

Will Lent Never End?

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Each year, as the Lenten season arrives, I try to think of a theme or image that expresses the feelings we bring into the season. Wilderness, valleys, journeys, and deserts are often images that I imagine for the season. 

This year it might be that Lent feels like we are being pushed off a cliff, or all alone in a world of threatening danger. Which is saying something, given what the world has been through in the past few years. 

The threats that we are navigating globally and locally are both nothing new for this world of ours and also more intense than the dangers that most of us have had to deal with in our lifetimes before 2020. 

We arrive at this Lenten season already tender and aching, still traumatized from the pandemic, from ongoing wars in Ukraine and then Gaza, and then have had to contend with the consequences of an incomprehensible trade war with our closest neighbour and ally that may very directly impact our lives as Canadians. There are many personal and familial wildernesses that many of us have been wandering as well. This wilderness is going to form into something new and different than what we are now. 

Many of these wilderness journeys are ones we have been in on for years as communities of faith, as Manitobans, Canadians and people living in the world in 2025. Having been walking in the wilderness for as long as we have, our destination remains unclear. What is around the next corner is unclear. Our wilderness vision is foggy and opaque. 

We have begun looking at the Catechism in these past months and there is a very Lenten reason for it. In the early Church, the Lenten season was the one during which new converts to Christianity were taught the faith in preparation for their baptism which would happen at the Easter Vigil. Often, baptized Christians would join in this catechetical experience in Lent. Bishops and priests took this time to teach the mysteries of faith to these new converts preparing to be baptized. What are these mysteries of faith? The Creed, the Lord’s Prayer and the Ten Commandments. These, along with the Sacraments of Baptism and the Lord’s Supper, are the main topics in the Catechism. 

So in this Lenten wilderness where we find ourselves this year, there is a reminder passed on to us from the saints who have gone before us. When we cannot see what comes next, and when our vision and pathway forward is hard to see, we cling to the promises and truths found in these mysteries of faith. God is calling us to remember our Baptismal identity. In the Commandments, we hear the Law that declares that we are sinners on our way to death. In the Creed, we hear the Gospel promise that God in Christ was sent to save sinners through the Holy Spirit. In the Lord’s Prayer, we are given a faith to live out in community with our siblings in Christ. 

These Baptismal mysteries ground us in things that truly matter, with truths big enough to confront the threats and dangers around us. Suddenly, the wilderness feels less daunting and overwhelming.  Knowing where we might end up at the end of our journey feels less anxiety-producing when we are reminded of God’s claim on us, that the One who has already brought us out of the waters from death to life will not abandon us in the wilderness either.

So as we begin this very Lenty Lent, let us remember that we are God’s, and that God has already promised us life on the other side. 

Doctor of Ministry, Pastor Thoughts, Theology & Culture

The Forefront of the Kingdom of God – Part 2

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Last week, in the light of the Sermon on the Plain or the Beatitudes, I talked about how the Kingdom of God is local and near to us. 

One of the things that Christianity has struggled with in the last 70 years or so is correctly identifying where the primary work of the Kingdom of God is happening. All too often, we have associated the Kingdom of God with other kingdoms and powers. Christians have looked for political influence, economic influence and cultural influence. Every time we do this, the powers of the world have taken the opportunity to exploit and use Christianity for their own benefit. You don’t have to scroll through many news headlines to find Christian Nationalism being used by political authorities right now. 

As Jesus keeps preaching the sermon on the plain this week, he speaks of loving our enemies. He preaches forgiveness and mercy in the face of violence and persecution. A message to those in power that sounds like rolling over and being a doormat for abuse, it sounds like an encouragement to weakness. 

In some ways, there is a tiny bit of justification for their skepticism. Jesus isn’t advocating simply suffering and enduring great injustice. Rather, the issue is one of location and scale. To understand what Jesus is getting at requires us to consider again where the primary work of the Kingdom of God is. 

We hear the word ‘Kingdom,’ and it conjures visions of feeding the hungry of the entire world, ending poverty on a national scale, or standing up and protesting injustice with great crowds of support. Kingdoms loom large in our minds. Yet, the Kingdom of God, or perhaps more accurately the Reign of God is best seen elsewhere; the work of Kingdom happens on a more personal and intimate scale. 

As Jesus talks about loving one’s enemies this week, he isn’t talking about far away foreign nations (though we ought to love even our far-away foreign neighbours), but more likely the enemies in front of us. The people in the community, the friends, family and neighbours with whom we may be in conflict with are the ones we ought to love.

Martin Luther’s revolutionary understanding of God’s forgiveness of sins wasn’t just about our individual and personal relationship with God. Forgiveness of sins is also about our neighbour. What is forgiveness of sins for, if it isn’t for building community? 

Where do things most clearly and regularly happen? In the local, small communities where we actually live our lives. For example, in the congregation of the faithful. It is here that we practice loving our enemies, as we confess our sin, ask for forgiveness, listen to the Word of God, and share bread and wine at the table. Local churches are at the forefront of the Kingdom of God. The place where we can see most clearly the work of the Kingdom. 

It might feel too obvious or plain, too easy and mundane. But the Kingdom of God is where the Gospel is preached and the sacraments are administered. The place where we are constantly practicing loving our enemies, practicing asking forgiveness and giving mercy. Churches are the little outposts of the Kingdom of God, bringing the new reality of God’s mercy and love to bear for the world.

Doctor of Ministry, Pastor Thoughts, Theology & Culture

The Forefront of the Kingdom of God

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I certainly don’t keep it a secret that I am a big Edmonton Oilers fan. I try to watch most games; it is my escape from the burdens and trials of the world. However, this week, one of my favourite players, Connor McDavid, finally got the chance to wear a Team Canada sweater. It is an interesting moment to watch the NHL Four Nations Face-Off. Hockey has a way of bringing Canadians together and making them feel some national pride. 

Interestingly, another force has brought Canadians together into a feeling of national unity at the same time. President Donald Trump’s desire to unite a nation was probably not to unite Canada against him, but here we are. 

Aside from hockey, we are in a moment in time where we are being forced to consider what kind of world we want to live in. Or perhaps, consider the kind of world that self-interested billionaires who have taken control of the US want us to live in – even as Canadians. 

These past few weeks, we have considered Martin Luther’s doctrine of Two Kingdoms, reminding us of the role of the church and civil authorities. We have looked at which Lord we are accountable to and who we are accountable for. Most recently, we pondered what it means to be called as the priesthood of the baptized. 

This week, we ponder how Jesus begins preaching the Sermon on the Mount – the beatitudes that begin, “Blessed are the poor, for theirs is the Kingdom of God.”

These blessings, which can come across as upside-down blessings, are not a prescription for holy living. Jesus is not suggesting a new kind of pathway to righteousness through poverty, hunger, thirst and grief. 

The Sermon on the Mount is something altogether different. It is a vision for the Kingdom of God. A vision for the world as imagined by the one who created all things. It is a vision that challenges our normal modes of operation, our assumptions about might making right, about wealth and power being blessings. It is a vision for the Kingdom that considers the least, lost and forsaken. A vision of God’s Kingdom where all are cared for, that those on the margin and bottom are a part of God’s blessing. 

Perhaps most importantly, though, it is a reminder of where that vision for the world comes into being. God’s vision doesn’t happen in the halls of power; it isn’t broadcast on TV, nor is it articulated by the rulers of this world – neither the ones we agree with nor the ones we detest. 

God’s vision of a blessed world happens in the small and local places, in communities like ours where the poor, hungry, and weeping can be known up close. God’s Kingdom isn’t defined by its borders and walls, but by its being nearer to the reality of human life, by its nearness to our life in community. The forefront of the Kingdom is right where we live day to day, whether we gather for worship week after week, in the eyes and our loved ones and neighbours, in the nearness of the people whose lived reality meets our lived reality regularly. 

These are days when it is easy to feel national pride because of hockey or real threats to our collective way of life. But the Kingdom to which God invites us to belong, meets us here and now, calling us blessed, and showing us the closeness of God’s love for us and this community around us.