Young Adult Fiction

 In our workshop we spent a fair bit of time on genre fiction and finding a word from the Holy Spirit in present day "crime fiction" as well as the legal procedurals of John Grisham (or rather social commentary as legal procedural). For our youth, the main genres they are interested in are science fiction, fantasy and perhaps for girls romance in the narrower definition (as all genre fiction are technically romance). One only needs to look at the best seller lists in the YA category. As Harry Potter has resurfaced, perhaps that is a good place to think through using YA as a learning tool. There is a lot of good stuff in Harry. Again, I make the point that overt Christian messages are not going to appear in YA fiction, they are too economically dependent on public schools. A couple of points. The "magic" of Harry Potter from a purely literary standpoint is the way that the books grow in maturity and complexity as Harry, Ron and Hermione grow and advance through their school years. This is a marvellous way in which literary form follows the content of the story. Secondly, the primary theme of the stories is community. Harry may be the chosen one but without Ron, Hermione, Ginny, the rest of the Weasleys, his teachers and schoolmates, and the Order of the Phoenix, Harry cannot succeed. On the other hand, Voldemort is a community of power and eschews loyalty, friendship and even blood. Or to put this another way, in Harry's world the most powerful magic is that of Love. It even hints that love comes from the creator and is demonstrated fully in the Christian story. Afterall, Christmas is a big deal even among Wizards. The question came up, how can Dumbledore just walk away from the dying of Voldemort's soul at the end of the final book. I think the answer is in the pursuit of power by using Horocrux's. In Rowling's writing, the sacrifice of one's own soul in the pursuit of immortality (and power from immortality) is a step for which there is no return. It goes to the sanctity (or holiness) of the soul and the evil in violating that. Again, I would note how the books fold out into deeper and deeper waters and move from the genre of "Boys own Adventures" into something "magical." Resources for Young Adult Fiction will be coming and tomorrow (unless diaster strikes) we will delve again into the curious case of Crime Fiction.

Welcome APCE Friends

This blog will be updated with the information and learning from the workshop this past Saturday (January 30) in Chicago. To summarize the main point - culture is a neutral force in our society (not everyone in the Church believes that and the argument can be outlined as we go). In fact, I contend that the Holy Spirit can be present in the same work that can carry unconscious messages of racism, sexism, homophobia, ableism, consumerism, materialism and militarism. Part of being "wise like serpents" is to discern what these unconscious messages are, name them and rob them of their power. The question came up, how do we deal with this with our youth in their groups? I think that once kids see the negative messages for what they are, they can resist these and find the integrity of their own faith in order to be "gentle as doves." But if no one points these out, if all we attempt to do is create shelters where these things are ignored, if we criticize the form and not the message, kids will still assimilate the negative unconsciously and not become the servants the Church needs.

More tomorrow ...

Youth and Adult Study – Week 4

Prayer –

God whom we carry into the world in prayer and in deed:

Thank you for this opportunity to gather and be your people in this time and in this place.

Open our hearts and minds to your presence to today and always. Help us to carry that presence into the world for the sake of everyone and everything In Jesus Name. Amen

In my work in theology, my premise is, again from prior weeks, is that the Church is the people who gather to tell the Biblical story by living out or into the Biblical story. This is the third part of the three-fold pattern of worship sending. I’m going to argue that the Prayers of the People are very much a part of our call to justice and that justice making needs to be embedded in personal spirituality. We’re going to also be looking at spiritual disciplines and practices.

Finally we are going to take time to share learning from all of the sessions.

Scripture –

Micah 6:6-8 –

6 “With what shall I come before the Lord,

    and bow myself before God on high?

Shall I come before him with burnt offerings,

    with calves a year old?

7 Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams,

    with ten thousands of rivers of oil?

Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression,

    the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?”

8 He has told you, O mortal, what is good;

    and what does the Lord require of you

but to do justice, and to love kindness,

    and to walk humbly with your God?

Matthew 6:1-14

6 “Beware of practicing your piety before others in order to be seen by them; for then you have no reward from your Father in heaven.

2 “So whenever you give alms, do not sound a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, so that they may be praised by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward. 3 But when you give alms, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, 4 so that your alms may be done in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.

5 “And whenever you pray, do not be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, so that they may be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward. 6 But whenever you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.

7 “When you are praying, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do; for they think that they will be heard because of their many words. 8 Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.

9 “Pray then in this way:

Our Father in heaven,

    hallowed be your name.

10     Your kingdom come.

    Your will be done,

        on earth as it is in heaven.

11     Give us this day our daily bread.

12     And forgive us our debts,

        as we also have forgiven our debtors.

13     And do not bring us to the time of trial,

        but rescue us from the evil one.

14 For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you; 15 but if you do not forgive others, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.

Matthew 25: 31-43

31 “When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on the throne of his glory. 32 All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats, 33 and he will put the sheep at his right hand and the goats at the left. 34 Then the king will say to those at his right hand, ‘Come, you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; 35 for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, 36 I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.’ 37 Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food, or thirsty and gave you something to drink? 38 And when was it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you, or naked and gave you clothing? 39 And when was it that we saw you sick or in prison and visited you?’ 40 And the king will answer them, ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family,[g] you did it to me.’ 41 Then he will say to those at his left hand, ‘You that are accursed, depart from me into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels; 42 for I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, 43 I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not give me clothing, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.’ 44 Then they also will answer, ‘Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not take care of you?’ 45 Then he will answer them, ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.’ 46 And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”

Sanctification and Justification

These are a pair of very technical words that describe different aspects of our ideal relationship as Christians or followers of Christ with God or the Trinity. Justification is a legal metaphor that says that we are right with God. It comes from grace and is available to everyone, no action or effort required. Sanctification is about living in relationship with God, of becoming more Christ-like in our lives and relationships with God and with our neighbor. It is also a gift of the Holy Spirit and comes as gift but unlike justification, sanctification requires some effort on our part. As I’ve noted, we practice weekly confession because we believe that sanctification is an ongoing and indeed life-long practice.

Certainly, moving out into the world and serving our neighbors can require a great deal of effort. I have over the course of the years, often volunteered at Evangel Hall, our churches inner city mission at Bathurst and Adelaide. It used to be at Queen and Portland, or it was when I started. A lot of people in the Church and people from other denominations and even other faiths help out at Evangel Hall, preparing meals, eating and praying together with the people, many of who suffer from debilitating psychiatric conditions or drug addictions or both. One thing I noticed, is more and more the people who come are refugees from foreign lands who have come to Canada to find safety.

My brother was talking to someone in the Church once who said that they were concerned about Evangel Hall because it seemed to be long on social justice or feeding the hungry but short on evangelism. My brother and I quickly agreed that to us that was not so much a criticism as a recommendation. But it certainly has been an enormous debate in the Church since the founding of the World Council of Churches in 1948. Is evangelism to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ or is it to follow the words of Jesus Christ in Matthew 25: that is, feed the hungry, bring water to the thirsty, visit the sick and visit those in prison.

Of course there is another issue. Maslow’s hierarchy of needs describes how people can’t deal with their emotional needs until their physical bodily needs have been met. Let alone their spiritual needs. But Maslow also teaches us that life without dealing with spiritual needs will be just as impoverished as those whose bodily needs are not met.

I believe and I believe very strongly that the dichotomy between evangelism as proclamation and evangelism as engaging in the practices of justice-making is a false one. Justice making is evangelism (which means to share the good news). Praying for the world in our worship is doing the work of justice-making. To do one without the other as a Church is not healthy. And it is not sustainable if for no other reason as to be not pleasing to God as the temple cultus was in the time of Micah.

Opportunities for Justice Making in PCC

Presbyterian World Service and Development - http://presbyterian.ca/pwsd

Justice Ministries - http://presbyterian.ca/justice

Evangel Hall - www.evangelhall.ca

Fernie House - http://www.fernieyouth.ca/

Toronto City Mission – http://www.torontocitymission.com/

Winnipeg Inner City Mission - http://www.wicm.ca/

Our Presbytery is currently involved in a project to bring a number of refugee families from Syria, mainly Christians who have had to flee the violence because of their faith, to Canada starting in the fall. So that is something at the grass roots level as well as those described above.

One of the things that fascinates me and keeps me enthusiastic about the Church is the connection between spiritual practice and justice-making. I used to think of spirituality as the well where Christians could go to be sustained and strengthened in order to do justice as well as love mercy. But something along the way turned me around on this.

There is a group that meets monthly at Knox College. They are part of an international group called the World Community for Christian Meditation. Meditation groups are designed to meet weekly. The Knox Group meets monthly and is really a train the trainers kind of effort. One of the first meetings of this group I attended was a talk on a group that was working in Haiti. This was in the aftermath of the devastating earthquake that struck that country in February 2010 (although the group had been working in Haiti long before that). As I listened it became apparent to me that Spiritual practices are not the well we go to do justice, although they are certainly that. I realized that spiritual practices are the spur that goads us into action toward social justice.

I don’t know if you’ve seen it in the world, but I certainly have. This idea that spirituality is “other worldly” and not focused on the here and now. Or that old-expression, “the minister is too heavenly minded to be any earthly good.” In fact, if you look at the stories of Christian mystics throughout the history of the Church the opposite is the case. Often the people would regularly consult mystics to get advice on very worldly problems.

There are many different types of spiritual practices that have been developed. Off the top of my head I can name several. Meditation, nature walks, the Labyrinth, daily offices, lectio divina, icons, petitionary prayer, bible study, reading devotions, reading theology, personal inventories (a la Ignatius), yoga, poverty, intentionality and many others.

It is important to remember that not every practice will work or be effective with every person. Every person needs to experiment and find what brings them closest to God or helps them with discernment or finding peace or what they need at any moment. Everyone has their own spiritual type because everyone has their own individual and unique way to approach and develop their relationship with God. Spiritual types are helpful but really only the beginning of the journey.

Spiritual Direction is an ancient practice coming from Monastic Christianity in which practitioners are trained in helping directees to find the practices that will best help them approach God. It is a lifelong process because sometimes we get complacent in one practice and need to move to something else.

http://www.episcowhat.org/ware-spirituality-type-indicator.html

Notice that justice is it’s own spiritual practice. But it needs to be balanced by other spiritual practices just as each of the other four types require balancing in some fashion.

A Church needs to be able to incorporate people of many different spiritual types to be healthy and effective. Churches will naturally tend to gravitate toward a specific spiritual type but to be unbalanced towards one type can be unhealthy and unsustainable. It is important then to stretch comfort as a corporate body to include as broad a range as possible.

Last point  is the formula for prayer called ACTS. This stands for:

• Approach or Adoration
• Confession
• Thanksgiving
• Supplication

Generally Reformed Worship will have an opening prayer comprised of Approach and Confession (including Assurance of Pardon) and a closing prayer comprised of thanksgiving and supplication. Sometimes these will be broken down into further prayers. No matter what forms of prayers one practices or what a spiritual director might suggest, it is not a bad idea to incorporate all of these into some form of prayer and one may wish to cover each of them daily.

Discussion

Youth and Adult Study – Week 3

Prayer –

God present to us in the Church and through Sacrament:

Thank you for this opportunity to gather and be your people in this time and in this place.

Open our hearts and minds to your word for us today and always. Help us to carry what we learn and what we experience into the world to your honour and glory. In Jesus Name. Amen

The premise of our time here together is to think about Church – what it is? How it works? Why the Church does the things that it does? And what is the individual Christian’s role in the Church.

As an aside, one of the issues we have as the Church in our world today is that western culture in general and Canadian culture in particular has become very atomized, which is a fancy way of saying that we place the role and rights of the individual over that of society as a whole or of communal structures, of which there are many but this includes the Church.

There are a lot of historic reasons for this, but it is certainly reflected in negative ways, especially in consumerism and in idolatries of money, celebrity and power. Another negative way it comes out is in that famous phrase “I’m spiritual but not religious.” We’re going to come back to that next week.

In my work in theology, my premise is, again from prior weeks, is that the Church is the people who gather to tell the Biblical story by living out or into the Biblical story. I further suggested that the way we live into the story is found every week in the three-fold pattern of worship. We begin by gathering in community and placing God in the centre of our community. But community is only the first part. We then go on to proclaim the word of God, and that will be our theme today, in word or scripture and in action or sacrament. And then we go out into the world to serve and that will be our theme next week.

Scripture –

Acts 8:26-39 –

26 Then an angel of the Lord said to Philip, “Get up and go toward the south to the road that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza.” (This is a wilderness road.) 27 So he got up and went. Now there was an Ethiopian eunuch, a court official of the Candace, queen of the Ethiopians, in charge of her entire treasury. He had come to Jerusalem to worship 28 and was returning home; seated in his chariot, he was reading the prophet Isaiah. 29 Then the Spirit said to Philip, “Go over to this chariot and join it.” 30 So Philip ran up to it and heard him reading the prophet Isaiah. He asked, “Do you understand what you are reading?” 31 He replied, “How can I, unless someone guides me?” And he invited Philip to get in and sit beside him. 32 Now the passage of the scripture that he was reading was this:

“Like a sheep he was led to the slaughter,
    and like a lamb silent before its shearer,
        so he does not open his mouth.
33 In his humiliation justice was denied him.
    Who can describe his generation?
        For his life is taken away from the earth.”

34 The eunuch asked Philip, “About whom, may I ask you, does the prophet say this, about himself or about someone else?” 35 Then Philip began to speak, and starting with this scripture, he proclaimed to him the good news about Jesus.36 As they were going along the road, they came to some water; and the eunuch said, “Look, here is water! What is to prevent me from being baptized?” 38 He commanded the chariot to stop, and both of them, Philip and the eunuch, went down into the water, and Philip baptized him. 39 When they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord snatched Philip away; the eunuch saw him no more, and went on his way rejoicing.

Luke 24:13-35

13 Now on that same day two of them were going to a village called Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem, 14 and talking with each other about all these things that had happened. 15 While they were talking and discussing, Jesus himself came near and went with them, 16 but their eyes were kept from recognizing him. 17 And he said to them, “What are you discussing with each other while you walk along?” They stood still, looking sad. 18 Then one of them, whose name was Cleopas, answered him, “Are you the only stranger in Jerusalem who does not know the things that have taken place there in these days?” 19 He asked them, “What things?” They replied, “The things about Jesus of Nazareth, who was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people, 20 and how our chief priests and leaders handed him over to be condemned to death and crucified him. 21 But we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel. Yes, and besides all this, it is now the third day since these things took place. 22 Moreover, some women of our group astounded us. They were at the tomb early this morning, 23 and when they did not find his body there, they came back and told us that they had indeed seen a vision of angels who said that he was alive. 24 Some of those who were with us went to the tomb and found it just as the women had said; but they did not see him.”25 Then he said to them, “Oh, how foolish you are, and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have declared! 26 Was it not necessary that the Messiah should suffer these things and then enter into his glory?” 27 Then beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them the things about himself in all the scriptures.

28 As they came near the village to which they were going, he walked ahead as if he were going on. 29 But they urged him strongly, saying, “Stay with us, because it is almost evening and the day is now nearly over.” So he went in to stay with them. 30 When he was at the table with them, he took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them. 31 Then their eyes were opened, and they recognized him; and he vanished from their sight. 32 They said to each other, “Were not our hearts burning within us while he was talking to us on the road, while he was opening the scriptures to us?” 33 That same hour they got up and returned to Jerusalem; and they found the eleven and their companions gathered together. 34 They were saying, “The Lord has risen indeed, and he has appeared to Simon!” 35 Then they told what had happened on the road, and how he had been made known to them in the breaking of the bread.

Proclamation

Last week I said that we identify ordained clergy by two designations - Minster of Word and Sacrament or Teaching Elder. I also suggested that there was really no difference between these two designations. While proclamation is not precisely teaching, there is always an element of teaching in proclamation, especially in our context where people sometimes do not know the Bible stories. Also of course every time one approaches a Biblical text, there is always something more to learn and we are fortunate in that we live in a world where many scholars are learning more and more about these texts, the world in which these texts were composed and the audiences to which they were written.

I might also suggest that there are deep and meaningful connections between scripture and sacraments and that both of these activities proclaim, teach and live out similar aspects in our relationship with God and our relationship with each others as God’s people.

But this of course brings us to the question: “What is scripture?” Well, the theologian Karl Barth drawing on our Reformed tradition taught that scripture is “the Bible read publicly in prayer.” Every week at this Church we begin the Proclamation part of worship but saying a “Prayer of Illumination.” This is what raises the words of the Bible from marks on the page and gives them their power and makes them special. Another way to think of this is a formula we use in ordination where we promise to follow “scripture under the continual illumination of the Holy Spirit.”

Another thing that gives scripture its power is that it is a shared text. Generations of readers have prayed over these texts, explicated them, proclaimed them, built elaborate theological systems from them and thought about them. It is this continual dialogue that also forms part of the illumination of the Holy Spirit.”

So scripture as I have defined it is a large part, perhaps the largest part of our weekly service. We read from the scripture aloud and then we think about it together and enter into this dialogue with long tradition of proclaiming scripture to try to use it to: understand the world around us; to live our lives better; to think of where God is calling us as individuals and as a Church and as the world, and how to best live out that call. But still we have to have principals to understand scripture, to sift through all the generations of reading and interpreting and to pick out the good parts of those readings from the less than good parts.

To give a quick example, what do we make of the book of Joshua, or the book of Samuel? In these cases, God is portrayed as calling on the people to kill their enemies, right down to the children and animals that they find in enemy cities. What about in Ezra where God is portrayed as commanding men to divorce their non-Jewish wives and throw them out of the land? What about the passage that Paul wrote in which women are not to speak out in Church? Or is that what Paul really meant. Or perhaps even those words were added after the fact and not Paul’s words at all?

Our reformed tradition is to judge scripture by the standard of scripture. We find that based on the Sermon on the Mount – that is by privileging the words of Jesus – that we can dismiss God’s call to kill women and children and animals as not from God. Doesn’t mean we don’t read those passages or think about what we can learn from them but it does mean that we privilege some parts of scripture over others.

But this does beg the question of where do you start? One way to start is to look at the overarching narrative as I suggested two weeks ago. How does this story reflect God’s love for creation, love so great that he came into the world in the form of Jesus to live among humankind, as Jesus tells Nicodemus in John 3:16.

I would just like to talk of one very personal way that I read scripture. I believe the core of scripture with which to start to read the Bible is found in the two great parables of Luke: the prodigal son and the good Samaritan. Jesus taught that the Law and the Prophets hung on two propositions: that we love God, and that we love our neighbors as ourselves. The Prodigal Son speaks of our relationship with God, that we might stray but that we can always be forgiven. It also teaches us that love comes first from God. The Good Samaritan tells us that everyone is our neighbor and that we are to love everyone as God first loved us. These two stories dramatically illustrate Jesus teaching of how God relates to us and how we are called to relate to others. So I would submit we need to read all of scripture with these two ideas in the back of our minds.

Again sacraments are as much a part of the proclamation of God’s word and the sermon. To my mind both of these things have equal weight and value although there have been times in history where certain traditions have stressed one over the other, either preferring preaching on the one hand or sacraments on the other. The reason for this can be a fascinating look at Church history.

Presbyterians believe in two Sacraments, Baptism and the Lord’s Supper or Communion. The Lord’s Supper may also include foot washing but by and large two Sacraments. The Roman Catholic Church teaches there are seven sacraments. Our tradition recognizes two primarily because those are the two that are given directly in Scripture.

Roman Catholics also have a different understanding of what happens in the sacraments or how they work. The fancy technical term for this is efficacy, which comes from the same roots as our words effectiveness and efficiency. The basis of this is what I think as the metaphor of “mechanical” efficacy. This teaching asserts that the power of the sacraments is in their actual physical performance in time and space and God’s grace is imparted by bodily participating in them. This is the basis and importance for the Roman Catholic belief in the actual physical presence of Jesus in the elements. The elements may actually still taste and look and smell like bread or wine, but this taste, look and smell are in Aristotelean terms “accidents:” that is, they are not part of the essence or physical being of these substances because of their transformation by the Holy Spirit or God during their being blessed.

The Swiss pastor and theologian Urlich Zwingli developed and began to teach a different understanding of the sacraments. Out of pastoral concern for certain situations – babies who die before Baptism or people who miss out on the last rights, as particularly specific examples – Zwingli came to understand the sacraments as symbolic rather than mechanical. But in his mind symbolic in a special way: that is, as visible reminders of God’s grace. They effect us by helping us to remember the Biblical stories of Jesus, especially Jesus own baptism and the Last Supper on the Thursday before Good Friday and the crucifiction.

Luther adopted the Eastern Orthodox understanding of consubstantiation in which God is physically present in some fashion but the elements are also still just bread and wine. Reformed Christians influenced by Zwingli and Lutheran Christians tried but were unable to agree among themselves which interpretation was more biblical and more helpful in understanding the mystery of the sacraments. This division put the Reformation at a disadvantage to the continuing Roman Church and has resulted in divisions that have lasted even up till today.

Calvin would later try with only limited success to develop a compromise to unite Protestants. His understanding was not of simply memory or of a physical presence, but as both symbol and a spiritual presence. Whenever the sacraments are rightly practiced, then it is like God is with us. Of course, God is always with us so that’s not that much of a stretch. Calvin’s formula was a “visible sign of God’s invisible presence.”

Another way Calvin through and taught about this that I find personally very helpful is a the concept of “foretaste.” That is communion symbolizes and demonstrates the fruition of God’s dream for the earth and the eventual perfection of all of creation. By participating in communion in our Church, as well as in remembering our baptisms, we experience – even if for a brief moment – that day when the lion will lie down with the lamb and the child will put their hand in the adder’s nest, as Isaiah put it, or the city of Gold where there will be no more tears as John, puts it in Revelation.

One final thing about communion is that it is experiencing God through senses other than sight and sound. If communion is like scripture it is scripture written by God in creation using the gifts of creation, wheat and grapes and yeast, in a way that teaches us about God through all of our five senses, which I think is extremely important.

Baptism is somewhat the same. Again, Baptism is an issue on which different denominations are divided, which I will get into. But the symbolism of Baptism is pretty clear. The obvious symbolism is of washing away sin. Another symbol is that of dying to the world to be reborn, as a seed has to die to become a plant. Again we believe God is present in the event but the event is only the symbol of a deeper invisible spiritual reality and an indication of God’s eternal presence throughout our lives and grace to us as we live in this world.

One thing I haven’t discussed in Church History is the different between what is called the Magisterial Reformers and the Dissenting Reformers. The Magisterial Reformation, from the word magistrate or judge, are those movements lined up with governments, specifically the Lutherans and the bulk of the Reformed tradition. One of the great similarities between these groups and the Roman Catholic tradition is of course the maintenance of infant baptism.

Dissenting groups, which include Congregationalists, Anabaptists, -- the most prominent of which who are still present in the world are the Mennonites and the Amish – Baptists, Methodists, Quakers and others tend to be anti-government or sometimes theocratic and/or seperationist (removing themselves from mainstream society), although obviously it is a big movement with a lot of variations and flavors.

A major theological break between these two movements, in fact one of the first breaks, is the issue of who do we baptize. Many Dissenting groups including the earliest of them began to reject the idea of infant baptism, Anabaptist literally means re-baptizer and was actually a slur against these types of groups and this belief.

Dissenters came to this belief from their reading of the Bible. After all Jesus was an adult when he was baptized and most of the descriptions of baptism in the Bible are of adults. Obviously a missionary movement going into places where the gospel is being preached for the first time is going to have to baptize a lot of adults.

At the same time, there are references in Acts to new believers and their households being baptized. Household is not the same as what we think of, as immediate families of two or at most three generations. Household means all who live under a roof, which would typically mean extended families, slaves and economic dependents or freed and free employees. This is of course an argument for silence because extrapolating from these passages depends on your definition of household.

There is also an argument to be made that infant baptism is simply a Christian adaptation of the symbol inherent in circumcision, and some traditions especially in the East emphasize baptism either on the eighth day as in circumcision or before the eighth day, although obviously both boys and girls in these traditions.

I’m going to argue that the case for infant baptism rests on the idea that baptism is a demonstration of God’s grace. There is nothing we can do to earn God’s grace, it only comes to us as pure gift. Infant baptism represents and symbolized this in a very real and concrete way. Having said that as a denomination we still accept adults who have not been baptized before and so we practice baptism of both kinds, with subtle differences in the words and service depending on whether we are baptizing infants and adults. Specifically this means parents swear oaths on behalf of the child in infant baptism whereas those who are able to swear for themselves, older children, youth and adults make those vows for themselves.

As far as the form of baptism goes, we’ve already discussed some variations. The Latinate terms for these are “aspersion” which mean sprinkling of water and is the most common in our tradition, “affusion” which is becoming more popular among Presbyterians and “immersion.” Immersion can be either partial which is the form which seems to have been most common in the early centuries or full which is also called “submersion.” All of these forms are recognized as valid in the Presbyterian Church in Canada. Those who only recognize immersion or submersion place more importance on the symbol set of death and rebirth as opposed to washing. Our position is that the symbol set does not matter, what matters is the demonstration of God’s grace in action in the world, again which is also the rationale for infant baptism. Hence, while there is room for a range of beliefs, our ultimate undergirding understanding is that the form of Baptism is less important than the message of God’s grace that it illustrates and demonstrates.

Youth and Adult Study – Week 2

Prayer –

God present to us in History:

Thank you for this opportunity to gather and be your people in this time and in this place.

Open our hearts and minds to your word for us today and always. Help us to carry what we learn and what we experience into the world to your honour and glory. In Jesus Name. Amen

Last week we discussed a number of things. One was the nature of God and why the concept of the Trinity is so important and worth preserving. The idea of God as a community that loves us and invites us into its dance, and that we can love and participate in the dance is vitally important. We discussed church as “the community that gathers to tell the story by living out the story.” The story was defined as:

• the creation of the universe and humankind;
• God choosing his people from a group of slaves and rescuing them from slavery
•  the life of the people in the land God gave them including the way God sent them prophets to bring them God’s word;
• the coming of God into the world as a human being to stand in solidarity with humankind;
• continuing with this theme the life, death and resurrection of Jesus as told in the four Gospels;
• the in-between times in which we live, and
• God’s dream for the earth when all will be perfected and there is no more sickness, oppression or violence in the world.

The Church is part of the story of the in-between times and begins in the story of Acts and includes the letters of Paul (and others) to the early church. And continues to our own day.

The Church lives out the story in by living and caring for each other in community, by telling and acting out the Gospel story in worship and in study and by serving the world with God’s help in the Holy Spirit. These three activities of the Church are represented in our weekly worship and its three-fold pattern. Gathering, which reflects community, proclaiming God’s word (which incorporates the sacraments of communion and baptism) and going out, which equips God’s people and incorporates/represents service.

Today we are going to be discussing community, including the story of God’s people living in history as the Church (which reflects and echoes the Hebrew Scripture stories of the prophets and God’s people in the land) and the way in which the Church lives together as community.

Scripture –

Job 42:10 –

¹⁰ And the Lord restored the fortunes of Job when he had prayed for his friends; and the Lord gave Job twice as much as he had before. ¹¹ Then there came to him all his brothers and sisters and all who had known him before, and they ate bread with him in his house; they showed him sympathy and comforted him for all the evil that the Lord had brought upon him; and each of them gave him a piece of money^[a] and a gold ring.

Acts 24:13-35 –

43 Awe came upon everyone, because many wonders and signs were being done by the apostles. 44 All who believed were together and had all things in common; 45 they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds[a] to all, as any had need. 46 Day by day, as they spent much time together in the temple, they broke bread at home[b] and ate their food with glad and generous[c] hearts, 47 praising God and having the goodwill of all the people. And day by day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved.

History of the Christian Church

1.      Early Church

2.      Global Church

3.      Constantine

4.      Remformation

5.      Modernism/Secularism

6.      End of Christendom/Post-Modernism

After the life of Jesus and whatever happened that we know of from the story as the Ascension, the Church grew rapidly. First in Jerusalem and Palestine, then through the Jewish Diaspora around the Mediterranean Sea, then among Greek Speaking Gentiles and even to Rome. Growth was not without its bumps. Persecution against both Christians and Jews happened sporadically and there were also tensions and a split between Christians and Jews. But by and large the Church grew.

Roman Empire

Although a vast oversimplification of what is a complex story that varied over a number of different parts of western Europe and through vastly different historical periods, by a large Medeval Society organized itself around its own particular understanding of Christianity and what it was like to be and live in a Christian society. The social contract was undergirded by the Great Chain of Being. This placed God at the top, in control of all, and then God’s assistants (either Pope or King, they each tended to place themselves above the other), the hierarchy of the Church (Bishops, Abbots, Priests, Brothers, Sisters) and of secular society, Emperor, Kings, Nobles, Knights, the people, then the animal kingdom, the plant world and rocks and water.

There was the also famous three-legged ideal of society, with nobles to provide physical protection, religious to provide spiritual comfort (there were orders of monks whose main duty was to pray for individuals and society as a whole) and producers (farmers, craftsman and the like). Monasteries were an early part of this, and we owe this movement a great deal as they were the ones who preserved culture and learning through the dark ages and continued even through the high middle ages into the Rennaissance or rediscovery of Classical Culture, including the recovery of ancient Hebrew and Classical Greek.

Many issues began to put cracks into this social contract and also the way in which people related to the Church. The rise of independent city states and the merchant class put to rise questions around the ordering of society. Theologies that were embedded in this had trouble addressing the theological needs of  a growing middle class. Restrictions against usury meant that banking was restricted to Jewish people, which was problematic during the frequent bouts of popular anti-semetism and occasional Pograms. Rivalries between nation states with the Church caught in the middle or between rulers and Church officials also became fractious.

Out out many of these issues came the Reformation. Time does not permit us to examine this in great length, but it is vitally important because our Church is a product of the Reformation and these events. Incidently, the Roman Catholic Church as it exists today is also a product of the Reformation which also changed it profoundly, something we need to remember as we work together with our RC brothers and sisters.

The point here is the Presbyterian Church in Canada and the way we do things and organize ourselves is very much a product of the Reformation and we are going to be looking at this for the rest of today and again next week in a couple of different ways.

Meanwhile, the world does not stand still. As the idea of the Great Chain of Being goes away so does the Divine Right of Kings. Kingdoms are replaced by nation states, sometimes violently as Louis XVI found out during the French Revolution. Philosophers and eventually individuals question even whether God exists. Frequent periods of evangelical or religious growth are contrasted with periods of decline or questioning. Massive calamities or wars arise and cause people to both question and to come back to faith. We are currently seeing both simultaneously as the Church is growing in the Global South by leaps and bounds even as it declines in the industrialized North. But again, we remember that these are sweeping generalizations and conditions from place to place and time to time are always in flux.

As I noted Presbyerianism is a particular form of the Church that arose from the crucible of the Reformation. It is part of a form of Protestantism called the Reformed movement that has its roots in Switzerland, France and Germany and then spread to the Northern Netherlands, Scotland, Hungary, Korea, Taiwan, much of the Caribbean, Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, southern Africa and a few other places. Presbyterian is a description of our form of government which I’m going to get into. Not all Reformed Churches are Presbyterian but all Presbyterian Churches are reformed.

Presbyter comes from the Greek and means elder or ruler. Our form of government is based on the theological principle that all of us are equal before God. So instead of a pyramidal structure with God at the top and power in the hands of God’s specially chosen individuals, in our polity power rests with each individual Christian (Galatians 3:27-29). There are actually two different forms of government that have arisen in this context, Congregationalist and Presbyterian. Congregationalist means just that, each congregation rules itself, usually through general meetings.

They then create greater bodies for mutual help and cooperation, but by and large these bodies rest on the principal of volunteerism, individual congregations are free to enter or leave them as they will and they work as loose grouping on specific projects. Presbyterian forms are more like representative government, individuals are selected from the group and represent the group in decision making. Each congregation is responsible to a Presbytery which is made up of clergy and lay elders equally, which is in turn responsible to higher forms of government, in our case Synods and General Assembly, although other groups use the terms Classis or Conference. But again, the system is basically democratic with power coming down from God (Jesus Christ as Prophet, Priest and King) and rising up from the people.

There are other implications of the Reformation on what we believe and the way we do things but those will be left to next week when we discuss more on worship, the nature of scripture, our understanding of the sacraments and spirituality.

Youth and Adult Study – Week 1

Prayer –

God of all Knowledge and Experience:

Thank you for this opportunity to gather and be your people in this time and in this place.

Open our hearts and minds to your word for us today and always. Help us to carry what we learn and what we experience into the world to your honour and glory. In Jesus Name. Amen

Scripture –

Genesis 1:1-27 –

¹ In the beginning when God created^[a] the heavens and the earth, ² the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God^[b] swept over the face of the waters. ³ Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light. ⁴ And God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from the darkness. ⁵ God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day.

⁶ And God said, “Let there be a dome in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters.” ⁷ So God made the dome and separated the waters that were under the dome from the waters that were above the dome. And it was so. ⁸ God called the dome Sky. And there was evening and there was morning, the second day.

⁹ And God said, “Let the waters under the sky be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear.” And it was so. ¹⁰ God called the dry land Earth, and the waters that were gathered together he called Seas. And God saw that it was good. ¹¹ Then God said, “Let the earth put forth vegetation: plants yielding seed, and fruit trees of every kind on earth that bear fruit with the seed in it.” And it was so. ¹² The earth brought forth vegetation: plants yielding seed of every kind, and trees of every kind bearing fruit with the seed in it. And God saw that it was good. ¹³ And there was evening and there was morning, the third day.

¹⁴ And God said, “Let there be lights in the dome of the sky to separate the day from the night; and let them be for signs and for seasons and for days and years, ¹⁵ and let them be lights in the dome of the sky to give light upon the earth.” And it was so. ¹⁶ God made the two great lights—the greater light to rule the day and the lesser light to rule the night—and the stars. ¹⁷ God set them in the dome of the sky to give light upon the earth, ¹⁸ to rule over the day and over the night, and to separate the light from the darkness. And God saw that it was good. ¹⁹ And there was evening and there was morning, the fourth day.

²⁰ And God said, “Let the waters bring forth swarms of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the dome of the sky.” ²¹ So God created the great sea monsters and every living creature that moves, of every kind, with which the waters swarm, and every winged bird of every kind. And God saw that it was good. ²² God blessed them, saying, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth.” ²³ And there was evening and there was morning, the fifth day.

²⁴ And God said, “Let the earth bring forth living creatures of every kind: cattle and creeping things and wild animals of the earth of every kind.” And it was so.²⁵ God made the wild animals of the earth of every kind, and the cattle of every kind, and everything that creeps upon the ground of every kind. And God saw that it was good.

²⁶ Then God said, “Let us make humankind^[c] in our image, according to our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the wild animals of the earth,^[d] and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.”

²⁷ So God created humankind^[e] in his image,
    in the image of God he created them;^[f]
    male and female he created them.

Matthew 28:1-10, 16-20

²⁸ After the sabbath, as the first day of the week was dawning, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to see the tomb. ² And suddenly there was a great earthquake; for an angel of the Lord, descending from heaven, came and rolled back the stone and sat on it. ³ His appearance was like lightning, and his clothing white as snow. ⁴ For fear of him the guards shook and became like dead men. ⁵ But the angel said to the women, “Do not be afraid; I know that you are looking for Jesus who was crucified. ⁶ He is not here; for he has been raised, as he said. Come, see the place where he^[a] lay. ⁷ Then go quickly and tell his disciples, ‘He has been raised from the dead,^[b] Galilee⁸ So they left the tomb quickly with fear and great joy, and ran to tell his disciples. ⁹ Suddenly Jesus met them and said, “Greetings!” And they came to him, took hold of his feet, and worshiped him. ¹⁰ Then Jesus said to them, “Do not be afraid; go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee; there they will see me.”

Introduction –

This is a four week course on Christianity and the Church, its sacraments and living together as Church. The first week will serve as an introduction and the next three weeks will deal with three aspects of the life of the Church:

1. proclamation of the word, including thinking about worship, scripture, the sacraments and personal spirituality
2. community, including the history of the Church, the organization of the Church (polity) and the importance of fellowship/community to proclamation and service
3. service, including justice, peace, grace and how the Church practices justice in the world.

The course is based on the same premise as my doctoral work – “Church is defined as the people who gather to tell the story (evangelize) by living the story.” This opens up some pretty obvious questions. That is the story? And what does it mean to live the story?

Starting with the second question first, the Church lives the story in three ways: by proclaiming the good news of Jesus Christ in worship and elsewhere; by working together in community, in worship, prayer and in mutual care, and by serving the community by caring for the needs of the hungry, the thirsty, the sick and the imprisoned (Matthew 24).

The story starts with the God who created the heavens and the earth. It goes to the fundamental question: “Why is there something rather than nothing?” The answer in the story is because God wanted something to be in relationship with or to love and love God back in return. This is the root of the metaphor for God as parent, father and mother (Luke 13, Matthew 23). So God “emptied” a place and then placed a universe inside that place and called it good. How did God do this? That’s the first part of the mystery, science gives us some answers but as of yet not all. But the point is the “how” is not as important as the “why.”

The story continues when God chooses a people to be his people and to demonstrate to all nations what a relationship with God entails. The people God chooses are a group of slaves descended from a man names Abram, whom God calls Abraham. God rescues these slaves from their captivity and leads them through the wilderness to the land God promised Abraham.

As the people live in the land, God reminds the people of the Covenant they made with God and live within through Priests and Kings and most of all through Prophets. Prophets are men (and perhaps women) who are called by God to bring his message to his people in good times and in bad.

Roman Empire

But death can never have the last word, and Jesus was raised up from the dead to prove that death is not the end, that God’s dream for the earth expressed in the story of Exodus and the word of the prophets continues and that the world is on its way to perfection. The end of the story is when all creation is transformed by God’s love so that it loves God back in the same way God loves all of creation.

So the story is rooted in God. The Church has traditionally understood God as “Father, Son and Holy Spirit.” Or Creator, Word and Helper. Or with other metaphors of one essence in the form of three persons. Which is frankly very confusing. So why do we put ourselves through this sort of thing?

First because we our Christians and we have to account for the role of Jesus Christ and what his life, death and resurrection has meant to the Church, means to us as individuals and as communities in our world and what it points to in the future.

The power of the story, at least the story in the Gospel accounts in the Bible, is that Jesus is God coming into the world to stand in solidarity with us. That God through the life of Jesus experienced everything that we as human beings experienced, up to an including death. And that through his example we can know God better. Which is one of the reasons that we read from the Bible and especially the Gospel accounts of Jesus weekly in worship (more on this next week).

Another issue is that Jesus is still present to us, even if he is not bodily present in our time, in the form of something called the Holy Spirit, or the Advocate, or the Helper. The Holy Spirit is present throughout the Bible, is part of God’s creation of the world and is present at Jesus baptism as a symbol of God’s presence.

So the image, metaphor or symbol of the Trinity is an important way of understanding how God is related to us.

One final element  that is important to remember is that God is not a person or an individual. God is one but God is also a community. We see that when we see that human beings are made in God’s image, male and female. One person does not reflect God, a married couple reflects God’s image to us better. One of the great metaphors for God is found in the concept of Perichoresis. This is a Greek word and people have given me grief for using this word in the past because who wants to learn Greek? But I love this image because the root word means dance (actually it also means to perform a poem out loud from which we get our English word chorus). But the image here is of a dance or the pattern of the dance as the dance partners move together. God is a community that is constantly expressing its love for itself through the motion of a dance. And inviting us into that dance to participate fully. And that is to me the most important meaning of trinity and why we need to maintain this image for God despite the fact that many people find it confusing or upsetting.

Closing prayer – Sit silently for a moment. Become aware of your breath. Imagine God is coming to you with each breath in. Imagine you are responding to God with each breath out. Let go of your cares and just be with God for a moment. … When you are ready say Thank you God, Amen.

Week two

Bible Readings
1 Kings 19: 5-13
Acts 9:2-18

Reading these two chapters was to me, a little bit like eating your vegetables before the main course, or doing your chores before doing the thing you really want to do. I know that it's important information, but the meat of this book is really the 10 disciplines that are outlined in chapters 5-15. Having said that, I note again that the discussion again and quite spontaneously turned to issues like hospitality, spirituality and discernment.

One of the most interesting points that arose from the group was the correlation between this book and Borg on the issue of constant conversion. Evangelical (capital E) faith tends to revolve around the dramatic conversion. But as Presbyterians, our orientation is different. For one thing, we believe in infant baptism -- of becoming part of God's family from the beginning -- and of course we are "Reformed - yet always Reforming." Further, this image applies not to each of us individually but to our lives as a Church, which is to say, in community (another important theme of this book). The image of constant conversion, of doing our best to be right with God on an ongoing basis, is a powerful image that has been part of our life at Beaches for many, many years and one that should serve us well as we move into the future.

Just as an aside, I believe that there is some value in dramatic conversion stories, especially as evidenced through people in 12-steps programs as an example. But there are also drawbacks to this as a one-size fits all kind of thing. The main drawback is that it is individual rather than communal, but our interest needs to be to the community as a whole (both as a congregation and as an agent of social justice). It also tends to be more emotional than intellectual (which is a both a strength but also a weakness). Finally, it is not helpful as we raise the next generation We don't want to have our kids fall out of grace to find it dramatically again, we want to surround them with grace from the time they are born and make them agents of God from the beginning (when they are baptized).

The group (perhaps because of our small numbers and the people who comprise it) very much see their journey nurtured within a congregational setting. Hence the importance of caring for each other and of spiritual practices as part of our life together. It is hoped that we can hold onto these things as we continue our journey together.