Category Archives: Sermons

1st Thessalonians 1:2-7; 2:1-8

A few years ago I was standing at the end of a cottage-dock chit-chatting with the cottage owner, Bob Giuliano. (Bob used to be the pastor at Erindale United Church , the first United Church south of me in Mississauga .) While we were chatting, a woman in a motorboat offshore suddenly altered course and veered toward us. She began waving and shouting, “Victor, Victor”. I didn’t recognize her. I didn’t expect anyone to recognize me, since I hadn’t told anyone I was going to be visiting Bob in Haliburton. As the boat came closer I saw that it was a woman from my congregation. She docked the boat, hugged me ardently, talked for a minute or two, and then motored off. When she had left I saw that Bob seemed startled, preoccupied and wistful all at once. I asked him what he was thinking. “In thirty years in the ministry,” he replied, “I have never seen such joy upon running across one’s pastor; never.”

It’s a singular honour to be a pastor. No other work is to be envied. I am moved every time I recall the remark of Jean Vianney, an early-nineteenth century Roman Catholic priest from the city of Ars in post-Napoleonic France . “If we really knew what it is to be a pastor”, Vianney said, “We couldn’t endure it.” What did he mean, “We couldn’t endure it”? I think I have glimpsed what he means. For in the course of my pastoral work, especially in situations of distress and anguish, grief and pain, I have staggered home stunned at how eager people are to see their minister and what comfort they derive from his presence. I have slowly learned why they are eager and how they derive comfort: it’s because they are trusting the pastor’s faith to support their own faith when their own faith is assaulted by tragedy or turbulence or sin. They are counting on the pastor’s heart-knowledge of God — God’s mercy, God’s wisdom, God’s way, God’s triumph, God’s faithfulness. They are casting themselves on the pastor’s throbbing acquaintance with God. They want to lean on the pastor’s faith, borrow from it (as it were). They are hoping the pastor’s assurance concerning God’s truth and triumph will restore their assurance that God hasn’t abandoned them despite shocking evidence to the contrary, restore their assurance that God will never forsake them even though he seems to have. And therefore while a pastor who appeared to be a know-it-all would be a nuisance, a pastor who never exuded unselfconscious intimacy with God would be useless. What is it, then, to be a pastor? It’s to have the conviction of God’s enduring truth and unswerving nature so deep in one’s bloodstream that the suffering person will feel the foundations of her life to be in place once more. It’s to be unselfconsciously a conduit of the Spirit that the same “current” will be induced in the person whom mishap has made to feel unplugged. Every high school student knows that if a current is passing through electrical wire and another wire is laid alongside it, the current in the first wire will induce a current in the second. This is what it means to be a pastor.

Alexander Whyte, a turn-of-the-century Scottish pastor, used to say to young ministers, “Be much at deathbeds”. Whyte wasn’t morose. He simply knew where people most need the pastor’s quiet confidence. Whyte also knew that it’s at deathbeds that the fewest words are used; it’s also at deathbeds that the pastor’s spiritual authenticity is most evident or spiritual vacuity most exposed.

Robert Coles is a paediatric psychiatrist who teaches at Harvard. I first came upon him when I read his book reviews in the New York Times. In addition to psychiatry he teaches “Great Literature” to Harvard medical students. (He says he’s anxious lest medical students leave school with a full head and a shrivelled heart.) In one of his video-taped lectures Coles branches out into a discussion of painting, especially the work of Edward Hopper, an American artist. Coles points out that the people depicted in Hopper’s paintings sit close to each other but never look at each other. They share the same space geographically but are humanly remote. Coles points out that it’s easy for people to be proximate to each other physically, to chatter, even to meet conventionally; yet it’s exceedingly rare — because exceedingly difficult — for people to communicate intimately, heart-to-heart, spirit-to-spirit, deep-to-deep. Coles is correct: such communication is rare because difficult.

But not so difficult and therefore so rare as to be non-existent here. For I have found many people in Schomberg who have admitted me to their innermost heart, even as I trust I have admitted them to mine. When I was only a teenager I read anything I could find by Dr Leslie Weatherhead, a British Methodist clergyman with immense gifts in psychology, literature, and speech. In one of his books Weatherhead stated simply that if we knew the suffering, the sum total of the suffering, in the smallest hamlet in England , we wouldn’t sleep at night. He happens to be right. I’m always amazed at ministers who tell me their congregation is small (although not as small as Schomberg) and therefore they don’t have much pastoral work to do. A congregation of even one hundred people is visited with enough pain and perplexity and distress to give a minister no rest.

Then regardless of what else we need in the midst of life’s contradictions (certainly we need wisdom and patience and persistence and ever so much more), above all we need courage. We always need courage. Few books in scripture speak as much about courage as the book of Hebrews. It likens the Christian life to a race, a relay race. Those who have run their leg of the race ahead of us (i.e., Christians of an earlier era who have predeceased us) are awaiting us at the finish line. They remained courageous throughout their leg of the relay race. They remained courageous: that’s why they finished (rather than quit) and are awaiting us at the finish line. The unknown author of Hebrews cries, “Since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses…let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of our faith…. Consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself…. Therefore lift up your drooping hands and strengthen your weak knees.” Because Schomberg congregation is surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses, we can lift up our drooping hands and strengthen our weak knees.

It’s the cloud of witnesses – fellow-believers past and present – that becomes for us a vehicle of the grace of God. One such witness in the great cloud is John Calvin, the foreparent of this congregation. Calvin was a giant (some would say the giant) among the Protestant Reformers. Calvin spoke characteristically of the grandeur of God, the glory of God, the sufficiency of God. Calvin always insisted too that the being of God must never be confused with the being of God’s creatures. God is irreducibly God. God isn’t humankind talking to itself with a loud voice. God isn’t a projection, unconsciously disguised as divine, of our overheated imagination. God is uniquely God, and must never be confused with that which isn’t God. And yet when Calvin pens a comment on Paul’s first letter to the Thessalonian congregation he writes what we should never expect him to. Paul has written, “We give thanks to God always for you all”. In other words, the apostle thanks God for the congregation. Calvin comments, “Is there anything more worthy of our love than God?” Of course there isn’t. But here comes the surprise. “There is nothing, therefore, which ought to make us seek the friendship of men (and women) more than God’s manifestation of himself among them through the gifts of the Spirit”. How startling! The Reformer who insists that God is uniquely God and insists elsewhere that God is the only fit witness to himself here maintains that our friends in the congregation mirror God to us. Our friends in the congregation aren’t friends chiefly because we get along with them or they like us; our friends in the congregation are those whom we are to cherish just because they mirror to us the mercy and patience and persistence of God himself.

Calvin was born in 1509 in the town of Noyon , fifty miles outside Paris . At age eleven he went to Paris to begin university studies. His father steered him into law, having noted (he said) that lawyers never starve. Calvin graduated with a doctorate in legal studies at age twenty-three. Soon he left behind the technical details of the law for the riches of Renaissance humanism. Then in 1534 the gospel seized him. Concerning his about-face coming-to-faith Calvin would only write, “God subdued me and made me teachable”. He moved to Geneva , Switzerland , and quickly became known for his first major work in theology, The Institutes of the Christian Religion. The first edition had only six chapters; the final edition, eighty. It had grown into a two-thousand page primer for preachers. Subsequently Calvin became the leading thinker of the Reformation outside German-speaking lands, a prolific writer, and a diligent worker on behalf of the citizens of the city. (He drafted the city’s first constitution, for instance. Although he didn’t practise law he was still the ablest lawyer in the city). His written French did as much to establish modern French as Shakespeare’s English did for modern English. He was humanist, linguist, theologian, biblical commentator, city advisor. All of this, however, he understood as subordinate to the one task that was before all other tasks and above all others and permeated all others: pastor.

Before Calvin died in 1564 he had written commentaries on most books of the bible, including 1^st Thessalonians. I am moved every time I open it, for here Calvin speaks so very warmly of the pastor’s life with that congregation which the pastor serves. In 1^st Thessalonians the apostle Paul speaks of the style of his ministry with the congregation in the city; Paul writes, “We were gentle among you, like a nurse taking care of her children. So, being affectionately desirous of you, we were ready to share with you not only the gospel of God but also our own selves, because you had become very dear to us.” Calvin comments on this passage, “A mother, in nursing her child, makes no show of authority and does not stand on any dignity. This, says Paul, was his attitude, since he willingly refrained from claiming the honour that was due him [i.e., as an apostle], and undertook any kind of duty without being ruffled or making any show. In the second place, a mother, in rearing her child, reveals a wonderful and extraordinary love…and even gives her own life blood to be drained…. We must remember that those who want to be counted true pastors must entertain the same feelings as Paul — to have higher regard for the church [i.e., the congregation] than for their own life.” When Paul maintains that one mark of an apostle is his willingness to make any sacrifice for the edification of the congregation, Calvin adds, “All pastors are reminded by this of the kind of relationship which ought to exist between them and the church”.

Calvin always knew that a dictatorial, tyrannical pastor is a contradiction in terms. The pastor is to lead the congregation, not hammer it; he is to plead, not whip; he is to model the gospel, not hurl it. When Paul says to the congregation in Thessalonica, “we beseech you”, Calvin adds, “His beseeching them, when he might rightfully command them, is a mark of the courtesy and restraint which pastors should imitate, in order to win their people, if possible, with kindliness, rather than coerce them with force.” The pastor is always to plead rather than pummel. Calvin summarizes this issue: “Those who exercise an absolute power that is completely opposed to Christ are far from the order of pastors and overseers”.

To be sure, Calvin speaks of two kinds of pastors who give the ministry a bad name. Class one: “stupid, ignorant men who blurt out their worthless brainwaves from the pulpit”. Class two: “ungodly, irreverent individuals who babble on with their detestable blasphemies”. Any minister who reads Calvin here must search his own heart. I search mine, and trust that you have never found me blurting out worthless brainwaves or babbling detestable blasphemies.

Calvin had the highest estimation of the ministry. Such work, he said, is “…the edification of the church, the salvation of souls, the restoration of the world…. The excellence and splendour of this work are beyond value”. It is a privilege to be a pastor, isn’t it.

Yet Calvin also knew that pastoral existence could be difficult, even dangerous. He had seen congregations ruin ministers. When he reflects on the disputes and feuds which make life miserable for a minister he writes something which is certainly true of many congregations but not true of Schomberg: “So we see daily how pastors are treated with hostility by their churches for some trivial reason, or for no reason at all.” Not here. Not only has the congregation never treated me with hostility for trivial reason or no reason; the congregation has never treated me with hostility at all.

One day in May, 1954, Stan Musial, the superb right fielder for the St.Louis Cardinals, hit five home runs in a single game. A few years later Musial was in the twilight of his baseball career. His legs no longer ran fast, his arm was no longer a cannon, and pitchers with even a mediocre fastball were starting to sneak it by him. He knew that he could now play only occasionally as a pinch-hitter. “Even if I know I’m going to sit on the bench for most of the game”, he told a sportswriter, “every time I go to the ballpark and put on my uniform I still get a thrill”. I’m not in my twilight years. Nonetheless, every time I come here I get a thrill. Whether it’s when I step into the sanctuary on Sunday morning and see the expectant faces of the congregation, or whether it’s when I’m meeting a few people in a mid-week meeting, or whether it’s when I sit by myself here and intercede for those who are especially needy — whenever I come here I get a thrill.

It mystifies me and saddens me that other clergy don’t get the same thrill. One of the professors alongside whom I teach has told me several times that when he left the pastorate he vowed never to return. “On-call seven days a week; being telephoned at any hour; having to go somewhere night after night; no sooner finished preparing one address than having to prepare another. When I left”, this fellow tells me, “I knew I’d do anything before I ever went back.” Compare that attitude with Jean Vianney: “If we knew what it is to be a pastor, we couldn’t endure it.”

I relish teaching in a seminary, and relish it for several reasons. One reason is that it keeps me probing the work of the giants in theology. Another reason is that it keeps me acquainted with men and women (younger than I) who are preparing for ordination. Entirely too often a student remarks that after his first degree in theology he plans to do a second and third degree – i.e., a doctorate – in that a doctorate is the ticket out of the pastorate and into a professorship. The first degree in theology lets one into the pastorate; a doctorate lets one out. The truth is, I heard as much when I was a seminary student myself thirty-five years ago. Whenever I hear this I tell the students most emphatically that the real Doctores Ecclesiae, teachers of the church, were pastors first. Luther worked as a pastor every day in addition to teaching, writing, travelling, and wrestling with most vexatious problems in church life; e.g., the predicament of nuns who left the convent in response to the message of the Reformation and then had no means of support. Calvin preached on average every second day. His writings are so extensive that his 2000-page Institutes represents only 6.8% of his written output. In addition he sat with the dying, married the living, visited the sick, sorted out conflicts in the wider church (rural pastors, for instance, complained vociferously that they should be paid the same as urban pastors in Geneva .) He ordered provisions for the city hospital. And he had to endure the shame of his sister-in-law’s repeated adulteries. Modern professors of theology who are full-time teachers are not the descendants of the Reformation’s giants; scholarly pastors are. Why did the real giants of theology persist in shouldering such a hugely variegated work, doing so very much more than just the scholarship for which they will never be forgotten? Calvin spoke for them all when he wrote 450 years ago, “My ministry is dearer to me than life.”

You people have allowed me both to pastor and to teach. For this I can’t thank you enough. For both pastoring and teaching are aspects of my vocation to the ministry. Calvin spoke for all zealous ministers when he said, “My ministry is dearer to me than life.”

Victor Shepherd

October 2004

What Do We Mean by “Community”?

1^st Thessalonians 3:10

Joshua 7:1; 22-26 Psalm 133:1Romans 15:7 Ephesians 2:14 2^nd John 12

I: — It’s a startling paradox, isn’t it: the more closely people live together, the more isolated they become. Those who live in rural areas or villages are aware that everybody knows everyone else. The larger a city becomes, however; that is, the more densely people are concentrated, the more anonymous they are. If people don’t even know one another, they certainly won’t be able to support one another. As villages fill up, as big-city sprawl expands (even to King Township ,) loneliness is intensified.

II: — I’m not suggesting for a minute that such loneliness points to a psychological deficiency or immaturity of some sort. No doubt there are people with a psychological deficiency that they try to counterbalance by becoming groupies. Groupies are people who can’t stand their own company, can’t endure being by themselves. They have no identity apart from the group, no peace of mind, and likely no opinions apart from the group. When the human heart cries out for community, however, it isn’t crying out for “groupiness” or anything else born of emotional deficiency. It’s crying to have met a normal human need, a non-pathological need. To crave community is a sign of health, not the sign of a deficit. Everyone longs for community just because everyone is meant to long for it.

III: — Then what is it? Simply, community is where we are cherished. Every last one of us needs affirmation and affection. To say we need affirmation and affection isn’t to say that we need to be flattered. Flattery is always insincere; it’s a lie. We recognize flattery to be insincere. Flattery is merely a polite way of manipulating others, of exploiting someone who is useful. Flattery never cherishes someone who is valuable. All of us have a normal, non-pathological need for affirmation and affection. We need to be cherished.

IV: — The Hebrew mind implicitly acknowledges our need of community. I say “implicitly” in that we don’t find in scripture six chapters of Book Such-and-Such dealing explicitly with community. But the fact that scripture doesn’t expound the topic of community shouldn’t be read as scripture’s indifference to community. On the contrary, scripture everywhere presupposes community. In the same way scripture nowhere advances an argument for the existence of God. It doesn’t see any point to such an argument. God, for Israelite men and women, is the reality with whom they collide; God is the reality who can never be escaped. God is as dense as concrete, as resilient as spring steel, as weighty as lead, towering like a mountain and omnipresent like air. Speaking of air; the Israelite people would have felt as silly arguing for God as you or I would feel arguing that there’s air in this room and we are now breathing it. Anyone who disputes that there’s air here and we’re breathing it; any such person we don’t reason with or argue with; we merely phone 9-1-1 and wait for the ambulance, since someone is manifestly psychotic. Israel insisted that there’s a spiritual psychosis too: the God who is inescapable can no more be doubted by the spiritually sane than is air to be doubted by the mentally sane. (We should note in passing that for this reason there is no word for doubt in biblical Hebrew.) My point is this: just as the presence and truth and significance of God is part of Israel ’s consciousness, so is the presence and truth and significance of community. Community isn’t argued for in the Hebrew bible for the same reason that God isn’t argued for: only the spiritually psychotic would want to argue about it.

How significant community was for our Hebrew foreparents in faith is indicated by how seriously they regarded any threat to their community. Centuries ago a man named Achan looted slain enemies and hoarded the gold he had plundered. He did wrong. You see, it was recognized that even if armed resistance was sometimes necessary to protect the community, war itself wasn’t good and would never be good. Because war was never good, no one was to profit from war. No one was to become rich through killing. Achan saw the chance to profit, become rich, and he took it. Knowing he had violated the community in profiting through war, he lied about it. When he was discovered he was put to death. After all, what would happen to the community if Achan’s acquisitiveness and selfishness and duplicity became contagious? What would happen to the community if everyone maximized opportunity for private gain, especially those opportunities that resulted from bloodshed? In no time everyone would be shedding blood; everyone would be killing everyone else in order to get rich. In short, when Israel perceived a threat to the community, it dealt with that threat on the spot. Plainly it had to protect the community at all costs.

V: — Community always means meeting people to face. We crave the physical presence, the bodily presence, of others. There is never any substitute for physical proximity. The people whom we phone, even whom we phone frequently, we still want to see – but not “see” in the sense of “look at from afar.” Oddly – but in truth it isn’t odd at all – the people we telephone most frequently are the very people we want be with bodily. There’s never any substitute for bodily presence.

Paul writes a letter to the church in Rome . He’s never visited the church there and he sends a letter on ahead so that the Christians in Rome will know how he thinks and what his convictions are and how sound in the faith he is and even how their faith might be strengthened through what he’s written. But a letter isn’t enough for the apostle. He tells them in his letter that he wants to see them. He doesn’t mean he wants to look at them; he means he wants to meet them, linger among them, embrace them. Why? He writes that he wants to see them so that he might impart some spiritual gift to them while they and he encourage one another. Can’t he impart his spiritual gift, can’t they and he encourage one another, by means of correspondence? Not to the extent they can through meeting. They have to be bodily present with each other; they have to be able to touch one another (how many people did Jesus touch physically in the course of his earthly ministry?) if maximal helpfulness is to occur.

Unlike the apostle Paul, the apostle John was an old man when he wrote his much briefer letters. John concludes his second and third epistles with “Though I have much to write you, I would rather not use paper and ink; I hope to come to see you and talk with you face to face, so that our joy may be complete.”

VI: — Yet as much as we need to see each other, and as much as we need to be cherished, our need isn’t the basis of Christian community. There’s one basis to Christian community and one basis only: Jesus Christ, and our common fellowship with him. We must be sure to understand this.

It’s different everywhere else. The basis of the community found in a service club is the service the club is designed to render. The basis of the community found in a quilting circle is the activity of quilting. The basis of the community found in a fishing club is the enjoyment the members get from fishing. But the basis of Christian community is never an inclination we have or an activity we enjoy or a service we wish to render. The basis is always and only our common fellowship with our Lord.

In the Christian community we are individuals individually united to our Lord (after all, each of us has to exercise her own faith and obedience.) At the same time, because we are individually united to Jesus Christ, we are corporately united by him. Be sure to note the order. United to him individually, we are corporately united by him.

The apostles indicate they knew how tense the tensions can be whenever people of assorted backgrounds and temperaments and understandings are brought together. For this reason Paul is careful to remind the congregation at Ephesus , “Christ is our peace.” In other words, Christ is our community. Our piety isn’t the basis of our community; our faith, while essential to our community, still isn’t the basis of it. After all, even the strongest faith is still weak. If Jesus frequently addressed the disciples of old, albeit with a twinkle in his eye, “O you little-faiths,” then our faith, however mighty it may seem to us on occasion, is really very slight. If Christian community were sustained by the quality of our faith then our community would last about four days.

But Jesus Christ is our peace. He has broken down every wall that divides us, says the apostle. Then we must keep our gaze riveted upon him, for in seeing him we shall see each other as someone he has given us. If we our gaze drifts away from him and we no longer see each other in him, we are left looking at each other immediately – i.e., unmediated. Now we look at (it’s beginning to resemble “stare at”) apart from Christ the mediator of you to me and the mediator of me to you. Once we are looking at each other apart from our Lord we are quickly going to see only a rag-tag bunch of quirks, irks, oddities, eccentricities, neuroticisms – in short, a bunch of people we have difficulty abiding. Instead we must see each other through the lens of our Lord himself.

Remember, if I look at my sister unmediated I see someone whose faults scream at me. (My faults scream at her, of course, but where my faults scream I happen to be hard of hearing.) Jesus Christ is our peace.

VII: — In all of this we mustn’t think that Christian community is primarily something we build (or try to build) in the face of much difficulty. Christian community is primarily something given to us. We no more create it than we create our Lord whose community it is. Jesus Christ is who he is independently of us. Because he’s free from us, he’s free for us, free to create his own people. He does just this. And therefore Christian community isn’t first of all something we sweat blood over to fashion for ourselves; primarily it’s something we receive. And therefore it’s something for which we thank God, something in which we can delight for the rest of our days. Then every day we must thank God for his gift.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer is the Christian thinker who has helped me most here. Bonhoeffer, a member of the Confessing Church in Germany (that handful who resisted Hitler and paid dearly for it,) operated an underground seminary in Finkenwald, north of Berlin , on the Baltic Sea . In his discussion of Christian community Bonhoeffer writes, “The pastor never complains about the congregation God has given him to serve. He complains to no one: not to church members, not to fellow-pastors, not even to his wife.” Why not? Because there’s nothing in the congregation to complain about? There always is. We complain to no one, rather, because to complain about the community is finally to complain about him whose community it is, the community’s Lord. I, for one, do not want to be found badmouthing the only Saviour I can ever have.

“Welcome one another, as Christ has welcomed you,” writes Paul. And how has Christ welcomed us, each of us? As much as he’s irked by our nastiness and pettiness and faithlessness, he’s simply welcomed us – period.

Of course we’re irked by those who frustrate us. But we aren’t irked by fellow-congregants as much we ourselves irk and frustrate our Lord. Of course we’re disillusioned by the notorious sin of our sister or brother. Then we must recall that our sin, more subtle and perchance even secret, is no less disgusting to God. All of us live only by his mercy. What’s more, since love covers a multitude of sins, says Peter, then the presence of sin in our fellowship is plainly a summons to greater love.

I don’t wish to appear unrealistic. While it’s true that community is our Lord’s gift to us, this gift we must labour to render visible. What he’s given us will become visible among us only as we give it visibility. We shouldn’t deceive ourselves. The community’s visibility doesn’t come easily. Conformity, on the other hand; conformity always comes easily. To achieve conformity we need only get rid of awkward people, noisy people, needy people, opinionated people. Let them know they aren’t welcome. What’s left will be very cohesive. But it won’t be a community; it will be merely a collection of clones. If we welcome one another as Christ has welcomed us – that is to say, welcome all sorts of people without qualification or reservation or hesitation, then community, our Lord’s gift to us, will always be something we must struggle to render visible as community.

VIII: — Where is community to be found? I think it can be found on several different fronts.

[a] One is the community of the congregation at large. We meet to worship. We meet at coffee hours. We meet in mid-week committees and groups and associations within the congregation on behalf of the congregation-at-large.

[b] Another aspect of community consists of the clusters of people that spring up spontaneously. Most people are naturally closer to four or five others than they are to the remaining forty. This has nothing to do with elitism or exclusivism or snobbishness. The four or five men in this congregation who meet weekly for coffee and doughnuts; no one is suggesting that there’s anything exclusive or elitist here. They simply happen to be linked in a bond that is as real as it is undefined. Would they allow a sixth person to join them? Of course. And the sixth person would find that he too shared that “chemistry” with them that renders a morning spent in each other’s company anything but being towelled with sandpaper.

[c] Lastly I’m convinced there’s a form of community that appears more nebulous than the two I’ve mentioned yet in truth is as concrete as any form. I’m speaking now of community beyond the precincts of this congregation. Three or four years ago I was asked to teach a class over and above my normal seminary load. This class, however, wasn’t to be for seminary students (whose average age is 38;) it was to be in the university college; in other words, undergraduates, much younger, whom I don’t customarily teach. I did so. One young woman in the class I subsequently met in Schomberg IGA, Lindsey O’Hara. She and her fiancé attended worship here several times. They asked me to marry them. At the wedding in Kingston I met Lindsey’s dad, and her dad’s wife. I learned that these two live next door to the Groombridges. Then I learned that her dad’s wife was housecleaner for some people in our congregation. Then I met them again at the funeral for Gary Miller. These people worship in the United Church congregation in Schomberg, not here, and yet they too are as much a part of that concrete Christian community forged by our Lord as is any one congregation. If they wanted to see me I’d visit them tomorrow. I don’t doubt that they and I will find ourselves intersecting and intertwining (the more often people intersect the more they intertwine) repeatedly.

It all means that community takes both a form that is more or less structured and a form that isn’t structured at all. But it’s all community nonetheless. In this respect I liken it to the situation in Rome . When Paul was involved with the congregations in Corinth and Philippi and Ephesus there was only one congregation per city. In Rome , however, there were five. Each congregation was a community, to be sure, and as such the Body of Christ. Yet the five together were also the Body of Christ in that one city. Then Christian community in Schomberg includes the people in other congregations whom we see less frequently but who are dear to us nonetheless.

In his first letter to the church in Thessalonica Paul writes “Night and day we pray that we may see you face to face and supply what is lacking in your faith.” Yes indeed. None of us is possessed of perfect faith. Some people lack instruction, others wisdom, others courage, others diligence, others patience. Whatever the deficit in our faith, however, fellow-believers can supply it – as long as we are ever meeting face to face.

Victor Shepherd

January 2005

Of Gratitude and Godliness

1^st Thessalonians 5:15-20

“Who do you think you are?”, someone asked me recently. But the question wasn’t nasty or hostile. The question was asked in a spirit which was a peculiar blend of humour and seriousness. I felt the only thing for me to do was reply in the same spirit, a peculiar combination of humour and seriousness. “I think I am a mathematician-turned-grammarian”, I replied, “because grammar is the key to life”. The more I ponder my reply the more I think it was more serious than humorous: grammar is the key to life.

Think of the brief sentences in 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18: “Rejoice always”, “Pray constantly”, “Give thanks in all circumstances”. Now here is the lesson in grammar. The mood of the verbs is imperative; the tense of the verbs is present iterative. The imperative mood means we are commanded to do something; the present iterative tense means we are commanded to do it continuously, without letup, ceaselessly, unfailingly. We are always to rejoice, ceaselessly to keep on praying, unfailingly to give thanks in all circumstances. We are to thank God from the moment we regain consciousness in the morning until that moment when we fade out at night. Our thanksgiving is to be unremitting.

But note something crucial: the apostle tells us we are to thank God in all circumstances, not for all circumstances. We are never commanded to thank God for all circumstances. It would be the height of spiritual ignorance to thank God for all circumstances, for then we should be thanking God for those things which he opposes, against which he has set his face, and which he does not will.

Yet while not thanking God for everything we must thank him in everything, for there is no development in our lives where God is absent or inaccessible; there is no development which God does not attend in person and which he cannot penetrate with his grace. We must never think that the very things God abhors he therefore shuns. On the contrary the very thing God abhors he hovers over just because he knows that his presence, his grace, is especially needed there! We are not to thank God for all circumstances, for then we should be thanking him (ridiculously) for evil and wickedness and sin. Yet we must thank him in all circumstances just because he is with us in them all and remains unhandcuffed in them all.

A minute ago I said that grammar is the key to life. The present iterative imperative means we are to thank God not once, not spasmodically, not episodically, but constantly. And what has ceaseless thanksgiving to do with life? Life flourishes, life glows for those who are ceaselessly grateful. To be ceaselessly grateful means, in the first place, that we recognize the gift-aspect in all of life. Whether it is the food we can’t cause to grow or the friends we don’t deserve or the serendipities which surprise us or the unwearying patience of God or the ever-effervescing truth of God or the fathomless mercy of God, it is all gift. We are endlessly convinced that life is gift above all else.

To be ceaselessly grateful means, in the second place, that we recognize a giver whom we can thank, since there can be no gift without a giver.

To be ceaselessly grateful means, in the third place, that we shall also be the happiest and healthiest — because holiest — people anywhere. People who give thanks to the giver are those who have stopped looking inward; people who give thanks to the giver are those who are now lifted out of themselves and lifted above themselves. Let’s not be fooled. As psychology is popularized more and more, people gain a smattering of psychological concepts and vocabulary; at the same time they spend more and more time thinking about themselves — with the result that the popularizing of psychology (which is supposed to make the populace feel better) appears to make the populace feel worse. Hypochondria concerning physical aches and pains is bad enough. Add to it a hypochondria of the psyche and people are convinced they aren’t well only to render themselves unwell. You understand the progression. To engage in endless self-preoccupation is to imagine that you have a pain in your tummy. Next you worry about the (imaginary) pain in your tummy until your worrying gives rise to a tummy-disorder. Now you have a real pain in your tummy. When neither the pain nor the anxiety disappears readily the next stage is depression over the syndrome. On it goes. So far from helping people, much pop-psychology turns people into themselves, fixes them upon themselves, addicts them to themselves. We need to be turned out of ourselves. But how?

How? You understand the progression. To discern the ceaseless gift-dimension is to be moved to gift thanks; to give thanks is to thank someone in particular (namely, the giver himself); therefore to give thanks ceaselessly is ceaselessly to be fixed upon God. End of hypochondria, whether hypochondria of body, mind or spirit! End of moaning, groaning, griping, whining! Now we are lifted out of ourselves as we look above ourselves to thank God for gifts he has strewn lavishly throughout our lives. I have mentioned the food we can’t cause to grow, the friends we don’t deserve, the serendipities which surprise us, the unwearying patience of God, the ever-effervescing truth of God, the fathomless mercy of God. I mention these because these so riddle my life that they leap to my mind unbidden. What would fall off your tongue in an instant? And in five minutes with a sheet of paper in front of you? In five minutes you would be looking for a second sheet! The happiest and healthiest people — because the holiest — are those who resonate with the verb, “Give thanks”, in the imperative mood and the present iterative tense: “Give thanks – always”. I was serious when I told my questioner that grammar is the key to life.

In the time that remains today I want to indicate briefly how gratitude renders us holy and therefore profoundly healthy and happy as gratitude turns our gaze away from ourselves and fixes our gaze upon God.

(i) In the first instance thanksgiving is the essence of worship. The note sounded in Psalm 100 is a note heard everywhere in scripture. “Enter God’s gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise! Give thanks to him, bless his name! For the Lord is good; his steadfast love endures for ever, and his faithfulness to all generations.” Worship is adoration. And what we adore in God is precisely what we are moved to thank him for. Then thank him we shall. And in thanking him we shall adore him; we shall worship.

I sag every time I hear the expression, “worship-experience”. Why do I groan at the mention of “worship experience”? Here’s a hint: Martin Buber, a wonderful philosopher and biblical thinker; Buber has said, “The moment you become aware that you are praying, you are no longer praying.” He’s right. Prayer is the heart’s outpoured exclamation before God. The moment I say “I am now praying”, I’m preoccupied with myself, not preoccupied with God. Recently a fellow-professor in whose course I was asked to teach for six hours one Saturday stepped up to the lectern right after I had finished, right after I had told the class what Buber had said and why he he had said it. This fellow-professor urged the class, “Now be sure to journal your prayer-experiences”. Journal one’s “prayer-experiences”? That guaranteed they wouldn’t be praying at all.

Now you understand why I’m upset at the expression “worship-experience”. A Saturday morning or Wednesday evening church event that begins with a service of worship is evaluated at the conclusion of the event. Everyone filling in the evaluation-sheet is asked to comment on “the worship-experience”. But as soon as we speak of “worship-experience” we plainly have in mind our own experience. At this point worship has been corrupted into something which is supposed to fuel our experience. But it’s nothing less than a corruption! Worship is not a technique or tool for elevating us; worship is the adoration of God, even as the essence of adoration is thanksgiving.

Not fewer than six times a day do I tell my wife that I love her. I don’t tell her repeatedly that I love her because I enjoy the experience of telling her, because telling her makes me feel good. Neither do I tell her because she is neurotically insecure and if I don’t tell her she will unravel or even leave me. I tell her I love her because I cannot thank her enough. She has loved me so lavishly that the love she spills over me splashes back upon her in the form of gratitude. It is love so deep that it uncovers the inconsistencies and contradictions in me without shaming me or annihilating me; love so undeflectable that not even my residual sin has induced her to stop loving me.

Nonetheless my dear wife would be the first to admit that she is a spiritually stunted, sin-riddled creature whose sinnership warps her, and therefore warps her love for me. Then let us say no more about her but instead contemplate GOD: his love for all of us is inexhaustibly deep and eternally undeflectable. Little wonder, then, we are commanded to enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise! Because you and I are deformed creatures of dull wit and calcified heart the psalmist knows he has to repeat himself if we are to get the message. Therefore he tells us immediately that God is not only good but also faithful; i.e., God is constant with respect to his love.

To grasp this — because first grasped by this — is to be overwhelmed with a gratitude which expresses itself in adoration. Thanksgiving is the essence of worship.

(ii) In the second instance thanksgiving renders us holy — and therefore profoundly happy and healthy — in that thanksgiving ensures contentment. The uncontented are those who are not grateful just because they are covetous. Covetousness and contentedness are mutually exclusive. To covet is to forfeit contentment; on the other hand, to be contented is to dispel coveting. Martin Luther was correct when he said that to keep the first commandment is to keep them all, while to violate the tenth commandment is to violate them all. The first commandment is that we recognize no other deity than the Holy One of Israel; the tenth, that we covet nothing at all. Honour the first, and we honour them all; violate the last, and we violate them all.

It’s easy to understand. If we violate the tenth; that is, if we covet, we covet whatever our neighbour has, including his good reputation, and soon we are bearing false witness against him. At this point the ninth commandment is violated. If we covet, we covet our neighbour’s goods, and soon we are stealing from him. Now the eighth is violated. If we covet, we covet our neighbour’s spouse, and soon we are committing adultery. Now the seventh is violated. As covetousness comes to rage in us we get to the point where we resent everything about our neighbour, and soon we feel murderous toward him. Now the sixth is violated.

Then are we to will ourselves not to covet? But coveting comes naturally to fallen people, people whose orientation is sin. Given this orientation, fierce determination not to covet will only produce grim frustration and scarcely suppressed fury. Plainly we need a new orientation. Our new orientation must be gratitude to God for the gifts he continues to give us — regardless of what someone else appears to have! Thankfulness ensures contentment. To give thanks in all circumstances is profoundly to be contented in all circumstances; not to be pleased with all circumstances, not to be complacent in all circumstances, not to be stupidly indifferent to all circumstances, but profoundly to know that there is no area or development in life where the gift-dimension is absent, and therefore there is no day on which the giver himself is not be thanked and our hearts to be rendered content.

Contentment crushes covetousness. Contentment is born of gratitude. Thanksgiving ensures contentment.

(iii) In the third instance thanksgiving attests our recognition of God’s provision in the past and fires our courage for the future. The apostle Paul had wanted to go to Rome for three years. Rome was the capital city of the empire, and he wanted to declare his gospel in the seat of the imperial power. Rome was also the gateway to western Europe, and Paul’s missionary vocation impelled him to push on past Rome into Spain where he could announce the news of Jesus Christ to those who had never heard the name.

Three years had elapsed since he had written the Christians in Rome , informing them of his plans. No doubt he had often wondered, in those three years, if he were ever going to get to Rome . No doubt he had wondered too what sort of reception he would find among the Christians in Rome . After all, many Christians were suspicious of Paul, to say the least. Since his reputation as a fierce Christian-basher was widespread, Christians tended to dismiss their suspicion only upon meeting him face-to-face and spending time with him. The Roman Christians had never met him. To what extent would they suspect him? How long would it take for them to trust him? Would they ever “warm up” to him? His courage sagged.

And then there were the sights which greeted Paul as he approached Rome . The huge Roman fleet anchored at Misenum; the holiday beaches at Baiae where “swingers” splashed around mindlessly; the vast storehouses and granaries and merchant ships at Puteoli. What was he, a diminutive Jewish tentmaker, supposed to do in the face of all this? His courage sagged again.

Then he saw them. A delegation of Christians from Rome ! They couldn’t wait for him to get to the city, and so had walked miles to meet him. Some had walked as far as the town of Three Taverns, thirty-three miles from Rome ; others had walked to the Forum of Appius, forty-three miles! And what a greeting it was! In his write-up of the incident Luke tells us that there was a “meeting”. Meeting? The English word is far too weak. The Greek word APANTESIS is the word used when dignitaries go out to greet a king or a general or a victorious hero. The Christians from Rome who had tramped forty-three miles (and would have to walk forty-three miles back) were investing Paul with immense honour and esteem and appreciation.

In that instant the apostle’s misgivings disappeared. Provision had been made for him. He wasn’t suspect; he wasn’t met with ice-cold frigidity; he didn’t have to prove himself; he wasn’t going to be kept to the fringes of the Christian fellowship in Rome on account of his past persecutions. Luke tells us that when Paul saw the delegation of Roman Christians he “gave thanks and took courage”. He gave thanks for provision made in the past, and took courage because he knew that provision would be made for the future.

Today is Thanksgiving Sunday. We give thanks because we are impelled to thank God for his unending goodness to us. As we do give thanks we are lifted out of ourselves, lifted above ourselves, and find that whining and complaining and bellyaching are fleeing.

What’s more, our thankfulness will ever be the essence of our worship; it will ever ensure our contentment, dispelling covetousness; and it will ever signify our recognition of God’s mercies in the past even as it lends us courage for the future.

Then let us exclaim with the psalmist,

“O give thanks to the Lord, for he is good;

for his steadfast love endures forever.”

Victor Shepherd October 2005

OF GRATITUDE AND GODLINESS

1 Thessalonians 5:16-18**

Psalm 100:6

Ephesians 5:4

Acts 28:15

Psalm 106:1

To grasp this — because first grasped by this — is to be overwhelmed with a gratitude which expresses itself in adoration. Thanksgiving is the essence of worship.

Contentment crushes covetousness. Contentment is born of gratitude. Thanksgiving ensures contentment.

Then let us exclaim with the psalmist,

“O give thanks to the Lord, for he is good;

for his steadfast love endures forever.”

Victor Shepherd October 2005

A Christian Understanding of Work

2^nd Thessalonians 3:6-15 Proverbs 6: 6-11 John 9:1-5

Several decades ago we began hearing of the “Protestant Work Ethic.” Some people thought they had come upon the notion among early-day Protestants that material prosperity was a sign, even the sign, of God’s favour. Christians were to work hard and prosper in order to secure God’s favour, or to give evidence that they had already secured it. In addition the so-called Protestant Work Ethic was supposed to have boosted the modern addiction known as “workaholism.” Workaholics don’t merely work hard; they work compulsively. (Plainly a psychiatric judgement has been rendered here, since compulsiveness is a manifestation of neuroticism.) Workaholics are obsessed with work; they work fifteen hours per day, day-in and day-out, sacrificing spouse, children and health. If they work any less they feel guilty and unworthy. Their holidays are the most stressful time of the year for them, which holidays they customarily abbreviate in order to flee back to work. They need work the way a “junkie” needs cocaine. (I want to say in passing that the so-called Protestant Work Ethic, the notion that work justifies us before God can’t be found anywhere in the thought of the Protestant Reformers.)

Some people maintain that the bad publicity surrounding the “P.W.E.” has precipitated a pendulum swing all the way over into the opposite extreme: people are reacting to work-addiction by escaping into non-work-addiction. Work is now done less well, less responsibly, less conscientiously. Work now appears often to be regarded like diphtheria: to be avoided if at all possible. The ultimate paradox and perversity, of course, is the person who works ever so hard at avoiding work.

Where do we stand as Christians?

I: — In the first place we must acknowledge that work is a divine ordinance. According to scripture God ordains that we work, men and women. (Homemaking is work; in fact it’s hugely important work, and remains work whether done by housewives or househusbands.) Work is as much a part of the God-instituted order as is the earth’s revolving around the sun. God commands us to work. His command is a blessing. Work is therefore good, and good for us in that it enhances our humanness. God has made us working creatures.

Yet not everyone has thought this to be the case. The ancient Greeks regarded work as demeaning, beneath highborn men and women. Aristotle insisted that no one be allowed citizenship unless he had forsaken trades work for at least ten years. Philosophers like Aristotle should have to do no more than reflect. In the Middle Ages in Europe work was considered beneath an aristocrat. Jesus, on the other hand, was a labourer. Paul was a tentmaker. And since King Saul, royal ruler of all Israel , was found ploughing behind oxen, it’s plain that the Greek and Hebrew minds are polar opposites with respect to work. The Hebrew mind insists that work is good; God, after all, works himself, and has constituted us working creatures whose humanness is threatened by non-work. Without work we lack something essential to human wholeness.

It’s for this reason that unemployment is so very serious. The worst consequence of unemployment isn’t poverty (dreadful as poverty is); rather it’s loss of self-esteem. As self-esteem evaporates, self-deprecation sets in. Demoralization follows. Soon the unemployed feel themselves dehumanized, even disgraced. (I noted years ago that when church members lose their job they often cease attending worship, and reconnect with church life only when they are employed once more.) Not to work, not to be able to work, not be allowed to work is to be on the road to inner fragmentation.

Admittedly, however, there are some people who don’t want to work. Work is too much bother. They’d rather be kept. They won’t work as long as they can sponge off their parents, off their children, off their disability or employment insurance, off government “goodies.” (Let me make a parenthetical comment here. In my experience the poor are rarely those who sponge off the social welfare system. The poor — who are as intelligent as anyone else — lack the social sophistication and the social contacts need to exploit the social welfare system. The poor customarily lack access to the levers that have to be “pulled” in order to make the social welfare coffers ring; lacking such access, they lack the opportunity to exploit. Those who are adept at finessing the system, I have found, are those who have the “tools” needed to pry money loose where they know it is kept. The middle class, I have discovered, is more adept at exploiting social provision than the poor.)

The apostle Paul came upon some people in Thessalonica who had decided not to work. “We hear that some of you are living in idleness,” he remarked, “mere busybodies, not doing any work.” His approach to them was blunt: “If you don’t want to work, don’t expect to eat.” God ordains work. It’s good to work.

II: — But is work good without qualification? Is work always and everywhere good? We frequently hear work spoken of as a curse. People who speak like this have seized half a truth: work itself isn’t a curse, but in a fallen world (according to Genesis 3) work lies under a curse.

When we speak of a fallen world we mean a world that rebels against God; a world that defies him, disdains his way and word and truth; a world that flaunts its disobedience of him. Such a world can’t fail to be characterized by greed and deceit, hostility and strife. In such a world work becomes an occasion of frustration, and the workplace a battleground. God intends work to be the sphere wherein humankind exercises its stewardship of the creation and cooperates under him for humankind’s well-being. In a fallen world, however, God’s purpose is contradicted, with the result that work becomes the scene of self-seeking and quarrelling, exploitation and rancour. In a fallen world the blessing of work is riddled with the curse of frustration and hostility.

We moderns have short memories. We tend to forget that only 150 years ago children worked fourteen hours per day in factories and mines under conditions so very dangerous and damaging as almost to defy description. Only 150 years ago? That long ago in Britain and continental Europe , but today in so many countries of the world children are granted no relief.

My grandfather began working for a major automaker almost from the beginning of car manufacturing — in other words, in the days before the autoworkers’ union. A car engine, weighing several hundred pounds, travelling on an overhead conveyor, would fall from time to time and crush a worker on the assembly line underneath it. When workmates bent over the bleeding pulp ( i.e., what was left of the man) a company official would hasten to the scene and snarl, “Get that thing (the mangled worker) off the line and get back to work.” My grandfather used to tell me of loading freshly painted car axles onto railway boxcars throughout the morning. By noon he had wet paint up to his elbows. At lunchtime he wasn’t allowed to wash his hands: there was no provision for washing. A company official would walk throughout the factory, and then point out to the foreman a worker whom the foreman was to suspend without pay for three weeks. The worker had done nothing wrong. The company policy, however, was to promote a “reign of terror” designed to keep workers cowering before sheer arbitrariness. (Needless to say, the suspended worker had a family to support.) When workers attempted to organize in order to protect themselves, company officials had Walter Reuther and his brother (the first leaders of the autoworkers’ union) beaten so badly they were both hospitalized for six months.

“That’s old stuff,” someone objects; “we live in a different era.” It isn’t so different that the workplace has ceased to be a scene of frustration and hostility. Ralph Nader, the American lawyer and advocate who represents consumers (he was also a presidential candidate in the last USA election), exposed dangerous defects in consumer goods only to have private detectives “tail” him night and day hoping to catch him in “compromise”; i.e., a situation with a woman which could then be used to ruin him and destroy his credibility. This operation continued for months, companies always denying it. It was only in the light of public exposure and a threatened lawsuit that Nader’s harassment ceased.

But of course extreme is always matched to extreme. If employers behave indefensibly, so do employees. We read of situations in Britain where for the slightest matter involving an employee, British workers will shut down an industrial operation completely. One of my relatives, a white-collar union steward in a Canadian business office, found employees approaching her frequently inasmuch as these employees resented being disciplined for habitual tardiness. They couldn’t seem to understand why the company was opposed to chronic lateness. (My relative, by the way, maintained that any adult who couldn’t get to work on time didn’t deserve a job. Shortly she was relieved of her steward’s position.) Few things are more frustrating, not to say costly, than hiring people to do a job only to find that their “protection” allows them to do as little as possible, as slowly as possibly, and as shabbily as possible.

Obviously it’s silly to suggest that employers as a class are demons while employees as a class are angels. In a fallen world employer and employee alike are going to be exploiters, given the opportunity. Both will tend to push their exploitation all the way to criminality. That’s why we find corruption, bribery and beatings within worker organizations supposedly pledged to the well-being of the worker.

III: — Where does all this find us as Christians? We know that God ordains work to be a human good, an essential ingredient in our humanness, even as we are aware of hostility and conflict in the workplace. Then what expression does our witness assume?

i] The first aspect of our Christian witness is both plain and simple: we are to do as good a job as we can. Integrity in the workplace is bedrock. A day’s work is to be rendered for a day’s pay, or else our “witness” is no witness at all and we are merely part of the problem. Paul tells Timothy, a much younger man, that work done should be work of which a worker need never be ashamed. This kind of work, the apostle continues, “adorns the doctrine of God our Saviour.” It’s a most unusual notion, isn’t it: what we do conscientiously, consistently, competently in the workplace “adorns the doctrine of God our Saviour.” The quality of our work lends attractiveness and credibility to the truth of God by which we are known. Integrity in the workplace is bedrock.

Are you aware that the chartered banks write off millions of dollars every year? Bank employees pilfer it. (Please note that the banks lose vastly more money to employee theft than they lose to “hold ups.”) The manager of a department store in suburban Toronto tells me that every year $600,000 in cash and merchandise disappears from the store. Little of it is shoplifted by customers; nearly all of it finds its way into the pockets of employees. A foreman working on the Trans Canada Pipeline tells me that at the beginning of the year he purchases twelve dozen pipe wrenches, and by year’s end his crew has stolen all 144 of them.

We mustn’t think that integrity pertains only to money and goods. Integrity pertains to time and attitude and diligence as well. Today employers wince when they think of the outlook of so many who make up the work pool. They wince when they think of the carelessness, slovenliness and indifference that pretends to be doing a job. The Christian’s work is to be conscientious, consistent, competent — and therein “adorn the doctrine of God our Saviour.”

ii] There is yet another Christian responsibility: we must try to understand the situation of those whose work is especially stress-riddled, or whose work is especially unfulfilling, boring, even mind-bending. Some of us work at jobs we find stimulating and rewarding. We are very fortunate; we are also very few. Most people work at jobs that don’t use anywhere near their resources and abilities. For this reason they crave more holidays and earlier retirement. We must endeavour to understand the plea of these people when they speak of the dehumanization and danger peculiar to their job.

Red Storey, an outstanding hockey referee of yesteryear, says he refereed when every NHL game was “survival night.” Recently I have found more and more schoolteachers, for instance, describing their situation in terms of survival. The public has become largely impatient with teachers, perhaps with some justification. At the same time, test after test has indicated that inner-city elementary schoolteaching is the most stressful job in North America . In addition, the public doesn’t know, among other things, that boards of education have asked newspapers not to write up incidences of classroom assault on teachers for one reason: it was found that whenever classroom assaults on teachers were printed in the news media, such assaults increased.

Think of the people who work at jobs that are mind numbing. When I was a university student I had a summer job I shall never forget. I sat at a table where I picked up one sheet from each of three piles (i.e., I was collating them), pushed the packet under an electric stapler (“kerchunk”), and set the stapled item aside. One day I stapled 10,000 units. I didn’t count them. By the end of the day I was in no condition to count. I happened to have used an entire box of staples, and there were 10,000 staples per box. My mother tells me that when I arrived home after work, anyone who so much as looked at me risked annihilation. Some people are consigned to jobs like this throughout their entire working life, with individual and domestic and social consequences that are not to be dismissed.

I readily admit that I know little of industrial relations; I know little of the research done concerning the social and psychological and domestic effects of different kinds of work. But if the church is ever going to attract someone besides the upwardly socially mobile, then we shall have to learn to listen to people whose work experience is very different from that of the professional types who tend to assume that everyone’s on-the-job rewards parallel theirs.

iii] A third responsibility is that our congregation must reflect the gospel truth that work is what people do; work is not who people are. We must never be seduced into the mentality that sees people as more valuable or less valuable just because the job they do is paid more money or less. Paul insists that in Christ Jesus there is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither male nor female, neither slave nor free. For “neither slave nor free” read “neither minimum wage-earner nor company executive.” In his Corinthian correspondence (2^nd Cor. 5:16 ) he states that Christians are to “regard no one from a human point of view.” The “human point of view” is the attitude that ignores someone who earns $20,000 per year but flatters someone who receives $200,000 (the sort of person we are extraordinarily pleased to see affiliate with our congregation.) This attitude has no place in the Christian fellowship.

Several years ago I attended a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous where a newcomer, a university professor, newly rendered sober through the AA movement, needed a sponsor. A sponsor is an AA friend of greater maturity and wisdom who can steer a newcomer around the pitfalls that might trip up his newfound sobriety. The sponsor assigned to this professor happened to be a truck driver. And the professor wasn’t ashamed to admit that the truck driver possessed a maturity, wisdom, discernment and experience in this area of life that he lacked. Surely the Christian fellowship can’t be found wanting here, when to us is entrusted the truth, “In Christ there is neither slave nor free.”

Perhaps you are thinking that the three points I have made concerning our Christian responsibility don’t go very far in overturning the turbulence in the work world. Still, they give us a starting point for understanding God’s mandate concerning work and the world in which we have to work. In any case, as our seventeenth Century Quaker foreparents liked to say, it’s always better to light a candle than to curse the darkness.

Victor Shepherd

September 2006

You asked for a sermon on Psychopaths

1 Timothy 1:3-5

Are They Responsible Or Have They Consciously Chosen Evil?

[1] When the fifteen year-old boy rode his bicycle across a corner of the man’s lawn, the man pulled the youngster off the bicycle and broke his leg. When a golfer disagreed with the man over a golf-score, the man dropped his club on the spot and punched his fellow-golfer in the face.

But the man wasn’t always this aggressive. He knew when a frontal assault would get him what he wanted and when a frontal assault wouldn’t. When a frontal assault wouldn’t he became charming. He could charm anyone into anything at all. Not surprisingly, he charmed a few emotionally needy, vulnerable women into doing what would have been better left undone. His charm, of course, was only one aspect of his cunning manipulation. One instrument of his manipulation was lying; bald-faced lying. Another instrument was contrived weeping; tears could be turned on and off, tap-like. In fact, when he was finally caught and publicly exposed he wept buckets and thumbed his bible and pleaded to be given a second chance to preach the gospel.

I was secretary of the denominational committee formed to assess the man’s fitness for ministry. I came to a quick conclusion: psychopath. Could anyone doubt that the man was an out-and-out psychopath?

Yes. Several church-folk on the committee thought he should be reinstated. They told me I was harsh. “After all”, they told me, “no one is beyond God’s grace. Furthermore, since you are always talking about mercy, why don’t you show him some mercy?” Carefully I replied, “I have never suggested that he’s beyond God’s grace; I have never said that he’s a greater sinner than the rest of us; I have never said he can’t be a beneficiary of God’s mercy. But I am going to insist that the man is a psychopath. He’s dangerous; he’s exploitative; he’s conscienceless. And he ought never again to be entrusted with a congregation.”

Since my opinion was so manifestly amateurish, a psychiatric consultation was arranged. The psychiatrist wrote a two-page letter that wandered here and there, and then in the last two lines said it all: “This man cannot be trusted; this man ought never to be readmitted to the ministry.” I thought that everyone would get the point now. Not so. One person exclaimed, “If only he would repent we could find another congregation for him!”

[2] What is psychopathy? Psychopathy is one instance of what psychiatrists call personality disorders. People with a personality disorder have a huge “kink” at the core of their personality. In this case (psychopathy) the personality disorder is blatantly anti-social.

Psychopaths display many characteristics. They are impulsive; i.e., they have diminished impulse-control. They are poor at delaying gratification; i.e., whatever they desire they insist on having immediately. They crave greater and greater stimulation; i.e., it takes a huge amount of stimulation to get them minimally excited. (Think of Paul Bernardo. He abducted a woman from a church parking-lot in broad daylight, and then violated her unspeakably, all in the interests of increasing his excitement.) Psychopaths lack empathy with other people; someone else’s suffering leaves them entire unaffected. They have no concern at all for the wellbeing or the happiness of others. They are superficially charming. They are manipulative. They are conscienceless. They have no feelings of guilt, and no feelings of remorse.

And they are dangerous. The worst psychopaths are incarcerated in Penetanguishene in super-maximum security wards. They are incurable.

How did they get this way? Are they helpless victims of an evil that overtook them, or are they self-victimized through their own sin?

It would be easy if we could find evidence to suggest that they are helpless victims of brain-disease. But there is no evidence to suggest this. To be sure, there are physical correlates (not causes, correlates) found in psychopaths. For instance, they exhibit diminished electro-dermal reactions. (In other words, where our involuntary responses would find us failing lie-detector tests, they sail through such tests as innocent-seeming as new-born babes.) They exhibit diminished autonomic nerve-reactions. That is, where you or I will blush when accused or find our heart beating more quickly or grow pale or gasp for breath, they exhibit none of these involuntary traits.

Then are there any environmental factors common to psychopathy? One of the best predictors of adult psychopathy is having a father who is himself psychopathic, alcoholic or anti-social. As parents (anxious parents) you and I react swiftly and energetically to situations where we think our developing children (adolescents) might be heading down the wrong road. If our thirteen year-old comes home at 2:00 a.m.; or comes home intoxicated; or comes home with a twenty-year old woman draped around his neck; in any of these situations we “go into orbit.” The psychopath, however, characteristically comes from a home where his parents didn’t react at all. His parents were blase about everything connected with the youngster. He said he was going to quit school? How important is school, anyway? He brought home a thousand-dollar stereo when only last week he complained of having no money? Where he got the money is his business, isn’t it? He impregnated a fourteen year-old girl? Boys will be boys.

It’s plain that in such an environment there is nothing to encourage moral discrimination, moral formation. Then it should not surprise that nothing becomes formed. “But is there not still a residual, inalienable moral `sense’ and therefore an inalienable moral responsibility in every individual?” To ask this questions is simply to ask, “Is the psychopath a victim of an evil that overtook him, or is he self-victimized through his own persistent sin?” I’m not going to answer that question for you.

[3] Instead I’m going to tell you what my friend Bob Guiliano mentioned to me one day. Before Bob came to minister at Erindale United Church (1982–85) he was a prison-chaplain for ten years. He told me that when he began his work in the jails he found 10% of the convicts with serious personality disorders, and about 40% with mild-to-moderate personality disorders. When he left prison-work (ten years later) he found 30% of the convicts with serious personality disorders, and 70% with mild-to-moderate. He felt this shift indicated that our society as a whole was losing its moral sense; our society was sliding into consciencelessness. He felt that the slide reflected a shift in our society: no longer concerned with what is true and what is right, children from infancy absorbed one thing — “How does one survive?”

I should like to discuss this matter with schoolteachers and police officers and probation workers. When Maureen and I were newly married and living in Toronto, Maureen came home one afternoon from her teaching-job and noticed that the offering from her Explorer meeting the night before was missing. Then she noticed a nine year old girl’s grade four speller on the kitchen table. The girl’s name and phone number were on the speller. Maureen phoned the girl’s mother and told her two things: (i) “Your daughter’s speller was left on my kitchen table”, (ii) “You will find, I think, that your daughter has stolen church money.” Whereupon the girl’s mother exclaimed, “Can you imagine my daughter being so stupid as to leave her speller behind?” There was a mother (not a father this time) who did not respond appropriately. Would anyone be surprised if the daughter grew up with inappropriate responses (non-responses) that could only be labelled “anti-social” or “psychopathic”?

[4] Let’s examine more closely the matter of conscience and the formation of conscience. The first thing we note is startling: there is no word for conscience in the Hebrew bible. There is no one Hebrew word that translates the English word “conscience”.

Because where we 20th century westerners speak of conscience as the “moral governor” of human beings (a moral governor independent of God), the ancient Hebrew people knew only God’s immediate voice, God’s immediate address; they knew only the living voice of the living God. This “word”, the writer of Deuteronomy hears God say, “this word is very near you. It is in your mouth and in your heart, so that you can do it.” (Deut. 30:14) Our Hebrew foreparents didn’t understand human beings to be equipped with an independent moral governor; they understood us to be within hearing of the living God himself. His word is “living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword.” (Hebrews 4:12)

Now while there is no Hebrew word for conscience, the phenomenon of conscience (a bad conscience, a troubled conscience) is found everywhere. When Joseph’s brothers finally grasp the enormity of the cruelty they visited upon Joseph they cry out, “Therefore is this distress come upon us!” (Gen. 4:21) When David finally grasps the enormity of his sin against Bathsheba (adultery) and Uriah (murder) he cries out, “Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin….Create in me a clean heart, and put a new and right spirit within me.” (Psalm 51:1-4)

Centuries later the word “conscience” entered the Christian vocabulary, no doubt because by this time Christians were speaking Greek and the Greek language had a word for conscience: suneidesis. Even so, Greek-speaking Christians didn’t equate conscience with the voice of God. They didn’t pretend, “Whenever conscience speaks it’s God speaking”; neither did they pretend, “Whenever God speaks conscience is aroused.” Conscience cannot simply be equated with the voice of God. The apostle Paul knew that his conscience could be unaroused and he himself still be doing what is wrong. For this reason he wrote, “My conscience is clear. But that doesn’t make me innocent. It is the Lord who judges me.” (1 Cor. 4:4 NIV) The fact that Paul’s conscience is clear doesn’t make him innocent. At the same time, if his conscience were troubled he wouldn’t necessarily be guilty. Neurotic people have a troubled conscience (i.e., they feel guilty) when they are not guilty at all. On the other hand, insensitive peopled don’t have a troubled conscience when they are guilty. Then how do we come to have a right conscience? How do we come to have a conscience that is neither neurotic nor insensitive? How do we come to have a conscience that reflects the voice of God? We must acquire what Paul calls “the mind of Christ”. (1 Cor. 2:16) Acquiring “the mind of Christ” is everything with respect to the matter we are probing today.

The mind of Christ has to penetrate us, seep into us, saturate us, root itself in us and bear fruit within us until we think with the mind of Christ. Only then is our conscience formed rightly. Only at this point is our conscience neither neurotically sensitive nor frigidly insensitive.

The mind of Christ is not acquired overnight. It is acquired gradually, through constant and consistent immersion in the written gospels. I stress the written gospels in that it is here that we learn the specific details of discipleship; it is here that we learn what situations may befall us, how we are to react immediately, how we are to respond subsequently, what we are supposed to do and think and feel.

You must have noticed that most Christian preaching (outside of S.U.C.!) arises from the epistles. The reason is simple. The epistles contain brief, pithy (pithy but abstract) assertions that readily supply the outline of a sermon. “Being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.” (Rom. 5:1) The structure of the text readily supplies the structure of the sermon — abstract ‘though the sermon is likely to be. “God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself.” (2 Cor. 5:19) The statement is true, glorious even. But it won’t tell you how a reconciled person or a justified person is to react, respond, do, think, feel. To learn this we have to go to the written gospels where we see the mind of Christ operating in the midst of all life’s subtlety and turbulence.

Think, for instance, about evil. Christians are urged to resist evil. Of course we are! After all, the purpose of Christ’s coming, according to John, is to destroy the works of the evil one. Then we resist evil we must and we shall. Then why, Matthew 5, does Jesus say, “Don’t resist one who is evil”? The context of “Don’t resist” is a prohibition against an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. It’s possible for Christians to resist evil only to find that our opposition to evil has subtly become a vendetta against an individual; our right resistance to evil has become an unrighteous occasion of hatred heaped on the evildoer; our tenacity in resisting evil has become an excuse for revenge. If this happens, then our right and proper resistance to evil has become the occasion of sin. Furthermore, to become preoccupied with resisting evil is to lose one’s proper preoccupation with the kingdom of God. To become preoccupied with evil is to end up according greater power and persistence to the evil one than to Jesus Christ himself. Simply to grasp all the dynamics concerning this one matter; simply to take them all to heart is to acquire something of the mind of Christ.

Discipleship requires renunciation; membership in the kingdom of God requires self-renunciation. Yet even as our Lord insists on our self-renunciation he insists as well that we must never advertise it, let alone boast of it. (Matt. 6:16-18) We must never create the image, “Are you aware of what I have given up for the kingdom? Do you know what sacrifice I have made?” Jesus says, “When you are making that kingdom-renunciation which is required of all disciples, do it cheerfully. Don’t flaunt it. Don’t look dismal doing it. Put on your make-up (yes, our Lord said it: “Anoint your head”); put on your most attractive outfit. Look as if you haven’t made any renunciation at all. Anything else means you are trying to exploit your so-called sacrifice in the interests of religious superiority, and to do that is to render yourself a spiritual phoney.”

We 20th century westerners are careless about speech. We assume that words are merely empty sounds. But Jesus, with a Hebrew mindset, knows that a word is an event; an event which, once rendered operative, can never be undone. Where we modern types use words very carelessly, he insists, “On the day of judgement men and women will render account for every careless word they utter, for by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned.” (Matt. 12:36-37)

And then there are the gospel-incidents that are just that: incidents rather than teachings. Think about Jesus and the meals he eats, the homes he enters, the people he eats with. Whom do we have in our homes? Who eats with us? With whom do we want to eat? And what does it all mean?

It is only as we immerse ourselves in the written gospels that we learn the mind of Christ and acquire the mind of Christ. And it is only as we acquire the mind of Christ that conscience is formed aright.

[5] Unquestionably Christians are to have what Paul calls a “good conscience”. (1 Tim. 1:5-6) But a “good” conscience isn’t merely an untroubled conscience, a conscience that lets us sleep. A good conscience is something more; a good conscience is one that moves us not out of fear but out of love. A good conscience moves us to act out of the love Christ has for us and the love we have for him and the love we have for one another. You must have noticed that virtually all secular discussions of conscience, virtually all textbooks in Psychology 101, discuss conscience in terms of fear. When Paul speaks of a good conscience he has more in mind than the absence of self-condemnation; a good conscience is one that recognizes and responds to love’s obligation. Paul writes to Timothy and speaks of “…love that issues from a pure heart and a good conscience and sincere faith.” Note how all the factors are related: love that issues from a pure heart and a good conscience and sincere faith. In his second letter to the congregation in Corinth Paul exclaims, “Christ’s love compels us”. (2 Cor. 5:14 NIV) It isn’t fear that compels us; it’s Christ’s love — which love evokes our love for him and our love for one another.

In other words, Jesus Christ is the conscience of Christians; he governs us from within as we come to recognize love’s obligation.

[6] Then what about the formation of conscience? As our conscience comes to be formed by the mind of Christ our conscience should never be silenced or ignored. Neither should we fall silent publicly when those who aren’t Christians themselves violate a Christian conscience. Greater diligence in our inner lives and outer lives alike will do much to stall the creeping psychopathy of our society.

Victor Shepherd

February 1996

The Body Matters

1^st Timothy 4:1-5 Genesis 1:26-31 Luke 7:31-35

I: — “All matter is evil”, said the Gnostics, a sect that disagreed with biblical conviction in the early days of the church. “Since all matter is evil”, they continued, “and since the body is material, the body has to be evil as well.” The Gnostics (“Gnostic” is the Greek word for “knower”) were those who thought they “knew better”, knew better than others, knew better than most. The Gnostics thought they had special knowledge, privileged knowledge, secret knowledge. One aspect of their secret knowledge was just this: all matter is evil; the body is matter; therefore the body is evil.

The Gnostics infiltrated the church in the church’s earliest days. They caused much trouble. They contradicted the Hebrew root, the Jewish root of the Christian faith. They foisted neurotic guilt on Christians concerning the body and everything pertaining to the body. They left people with tormented consciences concerning bodily necessities, such as food and drink. They left people with tormented consciences concerning bodily pleasures, all bodily pleasures, sex included. The Gnostics were a blight on the church. They had to be dealt with.

Two New Testament documents were written in order to overturn the Gnostic heresy. One such document is Paul’s letter to the congregation in Ephesus ; the other document is John’s first letter to the church at large. In addition to these two epistles, there are references to the Gnostic heresy throughout the New Testament. In his first letter to Timothy, for instance, Paul warns the young man against those who give “…heed to deceitful spirits and doctrines of demons, through the pretensions of liars whose consciences are seared, who forbid marriage and enjoin abstinence from foods which God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth. For everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving. For then it is consecrated by the word of God and prayer.” (1^st Tim. 4:4)

As we read the passage we can sense the apostle’s vehemence, anger even. The Gnostics are deceitful people who spew doctrines of demons; their consciences are seared; they forbid marriage; they enjoin abstinence from certain foods. They think they know the truth. Plainly they don’t, says Paul, since those who really know the truth are aware that the Gnostics are spouting drivel, albeit highly damaging drivel.

How damaging? Look at what the Gnostics did with the body. One group of Gnostics maintained that since the body is evil, inherently evil, irrecoverably evil, the body should be repudiated. The body is disgusting and therefore should be disregarded, denounced. Another group of Gnostics argued that since the body is evil, inherently evil, irrecoverably evil, the body might as well be indulged. “Anything goes” where the body is concerned, since the body can’t be improved in any case. The Gnostic heresy gave rise to two anti-Hebraic attitudes to the body: harsh asceticism and its opposite, profligate indulgence.

I’m convinced that while Augustine is a notable Christian thinker and has brought blessing to the church, there are also aspects to Augustine that have brought anything but blessing. Augustine maintained, for instance, that if sexual intercourse could be enacted without so much as one tremor of pleasure, any child conceived through such utterly pleasureless intercourse would thereby be free from original sin. This is dreadful thinking. I’m convinced that such a notion, or at least the modern approximation of this notion, has put millions of dollars into the hands of psychotherapists.

Contrast Augustine’s anti-bodily notion with the approach of our Jewish friends. When mediaeval Christians were being warped by anti-body heresy, mediaeval Jewish folk were listening to their rabbis who said all married couples should have intercourse on the Sabbath evening, since the affirmation of marital delight was one way of praising God for the delights of the creation as a whole. In fact the mediaeval rabbis coined a phrase for Sabbath evening marital intercourse. The phrase? “Sabbath blessings.” In the Jewish community to this day “Sabbath blessings” means only one thing.

If we think that the ancient Gnostic heresy has nothing to do with us modern folk, then we should ask ourselves a question or two. Does our society encourage bodily renunciation, the severest bodily rejection? At the same time, does our society encourage shameless bodily indulgence?

Think of bodily indulgence. Everyone is aware that tobacco is injurious. Still, scientists are telling us that the damage done to humans through tobacco is slight compared to the damage that will be done through the rising epidemic of obesity. The rising tide of sexually transmitted disease, not to mention specifically the rising tide of Pelvic Inflammatory Disease; such promiscuity says it all about bodily indulgence today.

What about bodily renunciation? I have to be careful here. I like to exercise and need to exercise in order to stay mentally healthy. I have to be careful about what I say next. I’m convinced that many of the exercise programmes and exercise clubs and food supplements and wonder-working pills for restoring shapeliness; I’m convinced that much of this is rooted in people’s disgust at their body-image. Many people can’t seem to come to terms with their body-image. No amount of exercise will ever make me look like Arnold Schwarznegger. No amount of exercise, dieting, pill-taking will ever make my wife look like Jennifer Lopez. The only person who will ever look like an 18-year old in a bikini is the 18-year old. The 48-year old has already succumbed to gravy and gravity. Anyone who can’t come to terms with this tortures herself with our century’s form of bodily rejection born of bodily disgust. In other words, the Gnostic heresy is alive and well in 2005.

The pendulum swings: bodily rejection, bodily indulgence, back and forth. Does the Christian community have a word to speak here inasmuch as we know what word God has spoken to us? What has God spoken to us, anyway, and what does he continue to say?

II: (i) –God declares, first of all, that bodily existence is good, good without qualification. Bodily existence is good just because God created it.

The creation story in the first chapter of Genesis has a liturgical “ring” to it, a rhythm, a cadence. As each item in the creation is mentioned in this matchless parable there reverberates the refrain “And God saw that it was good.” The planets are created, vegetation, animals, and finally humankind. When humankind is created, in God’s image to be sure, yet created bodily as surely as the animals, created on the same “day”, are created bodily, the pronouncement shifts from “And God saw that it was good” to “And God saw that it was very good. We are not created disembodied spirits. We aren’t created ghosts. God is said to make us from the dust of the earth. We are of the earth earthy. Our existence is inescapably bodily existence.

This point is bedrock for Christian understanding. We are embodied creatures by God’s ordination. We don’t honour him by denying our bodiliness either overtly or subtly. Neither do we honour him by indulging our bodies and thereby ruining them. The body is good because God-made; the body is good and is to be kept good.

(ii)– If the truth of the creation weren’t enough to confirm the goodness of our bodiliness, the truth of the incarnation certainly would be. In the incarnation God has come among us not in the form of the human; God has come among us as human. The difference is crucial. If God were to come among us merely in the form of the human God would be human in appearance, human in appearance only, but never actually human. In other words, if God came among us in the form of the human he’d be disguising himself as human, masquerading as human, all the while deceiving us. When God comes among us as human, however, there is no disguise or masquerade. He is human, even as he remains God transcendent. What greater affirmation of our bodiliness can there be than the incarnation, the truth that God has come among us as human, bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh?

As a Jew Paul will never forget the truth of the creation; as a Christian he will never forget the truth of the incarnation. Little wonder, then that he urges the Christians in Corinth , “Glorify God in your body.” (1^st Cor. 6:20) The Gnostics, both ancient and modern, can’t glorify God in their body. Insofar as they reject the body they pronounce evil what God has declared good. Or if they indulge the body, their indulgence humiliates the creator who never intended such indulgence and knows better than we what degradation entails.

As always, children can help us here. Recently a survey asked children what brought them their greatest delight. Here are some of the things the children mentioned: eating ice cream that has real ice chips in it; kicking through “crunchy” autumn leaves; stroking a pet cat; sleeping in a tent when it’s raining; smelling supper cooking; feeling flannelette sheets against your skin on a cold winter’s night. What do all these have in common? They are delights of our bodily senses. The delight that children find everywhere in God’s creation we older people should find as well.

Several years ago I watched a television interview featuring Eric Nesterenko, then a star with the Chicago Black Hawk hockey team. Earlier in the season he had been injured and was unable to play. As he was recovering he took his skates to an outdoor rink in Chicago , one afternoon, and began skating by himself. Soon he was lost in the sheer delight of the physical activity. He traced figure-eights, skated backwards, cut circles tighter and tighter, faster and faster. When he stopped he heard someone applauding ardently. Turning around he found clapping and grinning and shouting an 80-year old woman who had been sitting all the while on a nearby park bench. She had been thrilled at the physical prowess, the bodily expression, of a young man lost in his own bodiliness. There’s something here that God intends for all of us; namely, sheer, simple delight in our God-ordained bodiliness. This is one way of glorifying God in our body.

There are additional ways. Jean Vanier, the lanky fellow whose tall stature is dwarfed by his compassion for disadvantaged people of all sorts; Vanier insists, in his various homes for assorted sufferers, that meal times be happy occasions. He insists on good food and wine. He forbids anything “heavy” during meal time conversation. If someone has bad news to tell or a distressing situation to related, meal time isn’t the time for it.

I’ve long been intrigued by one accusation that our Lord’s enemies levelled against him: “drunkard and glutton”. Certainly he wasn’t a drunkard and glutton. The accusation says far more about his mean-spirited accusers than it says about him. Plainly they resented the rollicking good times he had. He had far more fun at his meals than they had at theirs. He ate with losers, misfits, ne’er-do-wells; the marginalized, the despised; the neglected; the least and the last. These people in turn found in him a welcome, an acceptance, a healing they had found nowhere else. Together they rejoiced in the love and truth and wonder of God their Father even as they relished all that God had provided them. Our Lord’s enemies, on the other hand, were hunkered down in their resentment, arrogance and misery as they planned and plotted how they might demonstrate their spiritual superiority (so-called) and gain public congratulation for it.

In his letter to Timothy, Paul speaks of those who forbid marriage and forbid certain foods, all of which God has created for our blessing, all of which is to be received with thanksgiving. This matter of forbidding food and forbidding marriage (as if non-marriage were a higher calling than marriage); this matter Paul speaks of most vehemently as “the pretension of liars, a doctrine of demons”. Why is the denial of legitimate bodily delight a pretension of liars and a doctrine of demons? Because to scorn the goodness of God’s gifts is to despise God himself.

(iii) — There is another way Christians glorify God in our body: we esteem and uphold the work of healing. The most casual reading of the gospels surprises us with the space given over to accounts of healing. In view of the healing ministry of our Lord and the healing ministry of the apostolic church, it remains a puzzle to me how Christians today can speak so matter-of-factly, so confidently (I almost said so ridiculously) of sickness as “God’s will”. When Jesus comes upon the woman who’s been bent double for eighteen years (for eighteen years her view of the universe has consisted of dirty feet), Jesus doesn’t bend over to speak with her to make sure she gets the point: “You’ll just have to accept your infirmity since it’s plainly God’s will for you.” The text tells us he’s angry – not at her, but at the evil one’s molestation of her. “Satan has done this”, he hisses; and then he frees her. When Jesus comes upon sick people he heals them; he doesn’t tell them that sickness is God’s will for them.

Every day throughout his public ministry Jesus announces the kingdom. The kingdom of God is the creation of God healed. The forgiveness of sin is the healing of the estrangement between God and his people. Exorcism is healing people of the evil one’s oppression. Undoing paralysis is healing people of physical frustration and futility. Overcoming disease is healing people of debilitating affliction. For this reason a concern for healing of all sorts – spiritual, mental, physical – has always been at the forefront of the church’s mission. We modern folk tend to forget that in our Lord’s understanding, the forgiveness of sin and the undoing of paralysis are alike aspects of the kingdom of God and manifestations of it. After all, if Christ’s redemptive mission is ultimately powerless in the face of bodily ailment, his mission has to be ultimately powerless also in the face of spiritual ailment, sin, since the kingdom of God is the one, indivisible creation of God healed.

III: — All of which brings us to our last point today. In his first letter Peter writes, “He [Jesus Christ] bore our sins in his body on the tree.” (1^st Peter 2:24) Throughout the sermon today we’ve underlined the goodness of the body, the God-ordained delights of the body, the relation of the body to the kingdom of God . The body is good. And just because it is good without qualification, the body offered up to God as sacrifice is effective without limit.

You and I are not reducible to our body. There’s more to me than my body, as there’s more to you than your body. Who we are is more than our body; but who we are is never less. While it’s true that I have a mental life and a spiritual life, both my mental life and my spiritual life presuppose my bodily life. My mind is more than my brain. But without my brain (a body part) I have no mind at all. My spiritual life isn’t the same as my body. But without my body there’s no “me” to have a spiritual life. To be sure we’re more than our body; but the “more” that we are is impossible without our body. In other words, our body undergirds and supports everything we are. Our body makes possible everything about us that’s more than our body.

When Peter says that Jesus Christ bore our sins in his body on the tree, Peter means that our Lord’s bodiliness gathered up everything he was; gathered it all up and offered it all up as atoning sacrifice for us whereby we are made “at one” with our Father. “He bore our sins in his body on the tree” means that the sacrifice he made for sin was a sacrifice of everything that he was. And the sacrifice of everything that he was grounds the redemption of everything that we are. The sacrifice of everything he was grounds the redemption of my spiritual life, my mental life, my physical life. “He bore our sins in his body on the tree” means that you and I can now glorify God in our body. We can step ahead in life knowing that everything God created good can be enjoyed without its corrupting us in this era of the Fall. “He bore our sins in his body on the tree” means that his sacrifice exposes the Gnostic heresy as dead wrong twice over. Since our Lord bore our sins, any Gnostic indulgence of the body slights our Lord’s sacrifice. And since he bore our sins in his body, any Gnostic rejection of the body can only be a rejection of Christ’s body, and therefore a rejection of his sacrifice.

At our communion service today our attention is directed to Christ’s body broken. His body broken (and resurrected) spells the restoration of our body and all that our body supports. Therefore his body broken (and resurrected) renders us able to love God with our mind; it enables us to rejoice in our own spirit; it enables us to glorify God in our body.

“He bore our sins – in his body – on the tree.” The body matters.

Victor Shepherd

May 2005

The Muscularity of Faith

1^st Timothy 4:10 Colossians 1:28-29 Colossians 4:12

“We are to pray as if it all depended on God and work as if it all depended on us,” Cardinal Cushing of Boston used to say. We know what he was trying to say and we agree with him; namely, that God alone can do what God is to do, while we alone can do what we are to do. While we are always beggars (in the words of Martin Luther), always beggars in the sense that we are utterly dependent on God’s grace, we are never to loll lazily in God’s grace, like a sunbather soaking up the sun’s rays passively, mind and muscle out of service.

I like what Cardinal Cushing said – for the most part. I am, however, more than a little disquieted by his use of “as if.” To say “as if it all depended on God, as if it all depended on us” means “but in fact it doesn’t.” I remain convinced, on the contrary that it does. It’s true that it does “all depend on God” even as it’s equally true that it does “all depend on us.” Everywhere in scripture we are told that we humans, however godly we may be, aspire to be, or think ourselves to be; we can’t bring in or build the kingdom of God : God alone can. At the same time, the kingdom of God , implemented by God alone, remains invisible until such time as we give it visibility. The work God gives us to do is going to get done only as we do it.

I think we need to be careful how we use the expression “as if.” When our Lord says in John 15, for instance, “Apart from me you can do nothing,” he doesn’t mean, “…as if you could do nothing.” Once again there’s no “as if.” He means exactly what he says. On the one hand, apart from him we can indeed do nothing (with respect to the kingdom.) On the other hand, unless we do what’s been given us to do, it isn’t going to get done.

My point is this. Christian faith impels us both to pray (that is, wait on God for what he alone can supply) and to work (that is, spare no effort in giving ourselves to the tasks he has given us.) We must pray because in truth it all depends on God; we must also work because in truth it all depends on us.

When the apostle Paul wants to emphasize the muscularity of faith he uses the Greek verb agonizesthai. Agonizesthai doesn’t mean he’s in agony, beside himself in unendurable pain, craving morphine as he craves nothing else. Agonizesthai is a Greek word that he has borrowed from the realm of athletics. It was first used of the Olympic Games in ancient Greece . It has to do with exertion, training, striving, persistence. But all of this needn’t imply something tortuous or grim, never mind ghastly. Any athlete knows that exertion is essential if exercise or training is to be beneficial; at the same time, every athlete (or even non-athlete) knows that such exertion pays off abundantly. After all, exertion sheds pounds, lowers blood pressure, reduces niggling depression, leaves the perspiring panting person exhilarated. To be sure, vigorous exertion may find us uncomfortable at first, even cause us to speak of “self-inflicted suffering;” but vigorous exertion ultimately leaves us exhilarated, stronger, more contented with ourselves and more useful to others.

I: — Listen to the apostle. “For to this end we toil and strive (agonizesthai,) because we have set our hope on the living God, who is the saviour of all men, especially of those who believe.” (1^st Tim. 4:10) “For to this end we toil and strive.” To what end? The end of furthering the entire Christian mission; the end of advancing the gospel; of magnifying the grace of the gospel, the claim of the gospel and the consequences of the gospel. To this end we toil and strive.

A clergyman my age told me that after many years in the ministry he had begun preaching without notes and was delighted now to preach without notes. “If the congregation sees that you use notes,” he explained, “the congregation knows that you prepare the sermon; then it continues to expect you to prepare. No notes? The congregation sees that you don’t prepare and never expects you to prepare anything.” And then he laughed as he told me his life was now easier, his workload lighter, and the congregation no worse off in any case. As far as I’m concerned the man’s laziness is disgraceful, his trifling with the gospel blasphemous, and the spiritual starvation of the congregation tragic. Only one hundred years ago students for the ministry in Scotland ( Scotland , Presbyterians should know, has traditionally treasured theology and worked very hard at it) were sufficiently poor that two theology students rented a room with only one bed in it. Each student slept four hours per night and studied during the other four hours when his roommate occupied the bed. When the “New Learning,” as the Renaissance was spoken of five hundred years ago, emerged in Europe and inflamed theology students as much as it did arts students, theology students in any case hired someone to keep them awake while they studied long into the night lest they forego something precious. They knew, as their Scottish descendents came to know, that a clergyman’s ministry is sustained by the depth of the well from which he draws. Where the minister’s well is shallow needy congregations perish in the heat of scorching exposure. And that clergyman laughs because the congregation now receives as little from him as he expects from himself?

You people in Schomberg know better. The proof that you know better is that you do better yourselves. On the one hand many of you have told me how much you appreciate the preparation any sermon here presupposes; on the other hand, you work hard, very hard (agonizesthai) to support and sustain and care for each other. I remain impressed by the wonderful level of concrete caring that this congregation manifests as this person or that becomes ill, suffers bereavement, loses a job, has to be hospitalized, or appears discouraged. I’ve always been aware that while the sermon should be as good as the sermon can be, good sermons by themselves never build a congregation. Congregations are built up and strengthened by concrete caring that we all render each other as life bumps and bruises us and sometimes finds one or more among us haemorrhaging.

From time to time we sing here Charles Wesley’s fine hymn, “Jesus, united by thy grace, and each to each endeared.” We mean it. I know we mean it. We are dear to each other in Schomberg. We know the difference between caring and being nosy; between caring and gossiping; between genuine caring and sweet-smiling indifference. We know that in any congregation everyone struggles (somewhere in life); everyone hurts (whether from a recent wound or an old wound); and everyone is lonely.

Charles Wesley’s hymn again: Help us to help each other, Lord,

Each other’s cross to bear;

Let each his friendly aid afford

And feel his brother’s care.

Two matters require comment here: (i) Wesley wrote it during the Industrial Revolution in Britain when his heart broke at the thousands of people who had to move from villages where they were known to factory cities where they could disappear overnight. (ii) When Wesley speaks of “feel” – “and feel his brother’s care” – he doesn’t mean feel in the sense of “have a warm feeling inside.” In Eighteenth Century English “feel” meant “to confirm through daily experience.” In other words, to feel our brother’s care is to confirm day after day our undeniable experience of being cared for.

As everyone knows it’s easy to care concretely in the short run; in the long run, however, endurance is needed, steadfastness, perspicacity. The Schomberg congregation is exemplary here as well. When Mark Pengilley was hospitalized in Guelph for four weeks; when Gordon Hilts was hospitalized in Newmarket for the better part of a year; people here were as ardent in their caring at the end as they had been at the beginning.

I admit that hospital visitation is relatively dramatic compared, for instance, to cutting the grass here or shovelling snow or ensuring that the toilet flushes or bringing food and drink to the coffee hour following the service. But dramatic or not, it all gets done in Schomberg, and gets done well.

We must never think it unimportant, and we must never think it fruitless. We are told in scripture that hospitality is nothing less than receiving angels unawares; we are told that a cup of water given in our Lord’s name is blessing beyond our imagining. We are told that all such striving (agonizesthai) is wonderfully fruitful just because our Lord has promised to multiply a hundredfold whatever we undertake in his name.

II:– “For this I toil, sweat,” Paul tells us in the second place, “striving with all the energy which God mightily inspires within me.” (Col. 1:28-29) Striving with every ounce of God-inspired energy? Toiling and sweating? To do what? To proclaim Jesus Christ, he says, warning everyone and teaching everyone so as to present every man and woman mature in Christ. Clearly the apostle believes that Jesus Christ is to be proclaimed in such a way that hearers are cautioned and hearers are instructed, all for the sake of bringing hearers to maturity in Christ.

There are many aspects to Christian maturity. When I look out over the church today, however, I think that the one aspect that seems to have receded and needs to be restored is balance. The church today appears to lack balance, with the result that it lurches lopsidedly, even staggers.

In our era the smallest tail has learned how to wag the biggest dog. A small minority with a piercing yell can pass itself off as the voice of the people. A lobby group which in yesteryear would have been regarded as silly is now heard as if it were the essence of wisdom. (And whether it’s the essence of wisdom or not, it certainly knows about the essence of manipulation.) Balance is lacking.

It’s no surprise, then, to hear someone say that the gospel can be reduced without remainder to a crypto-Marxist program of social dismantling. Someone else wants to say that the essence of the gospel is psychotherapy, and the church ought to be the vehicle of inexpensive psychotherapy. And then we are told that the real business of the church and the “faith” (so-called) it attempts to proliferate is ensuring the morality essential to preserving social order.

It’s plain that balance is a major aspect of the Christian maturity we must toil, strive, sweat to restore.

[1] For instance, we must strive to restore the balance between urgency and patience. If we lack urgency concerning the gospel, urgency concerning the gospel’s forging of faith within hearers and the gospel’s fostering of obedience within them simultaneously; if we lack urgency here then we are telling the world that the gospel isn’t important at all. So far from being good news, unique news, it isn’t news at all. At the same time, urgency without patience becomes frenzy in us and coercion visited upon others.

On the other hand patience is needed sorely in our “instant” society. (Instant coffee, instant breakfast, microwave cooking, one-stop shopping, fast-drying varnish, video watching for two hours instead of reading a book for twenty.) The gospel takes time to seep into hearers; the gospel takes time to seep into them, soak them, pool within them, only then to bring forth the fruit of faith and obedience. Patience is always needed. At the same time, patience without urgency dribbles off into shallow indifference.

In other words, urgency keeps patience real and prevents patience from becoming indifference. Patience keeps urgency real and prevents urgency from becoming frenzy. Balance is the preservative.

[2] We also need balance between head and heart. Faith (so-called) that is merely a collection of theological doctrine housed in one’s head is no more than an abstract parlour game that happens to use religious vocabulary. Yet faith (so-called) that is only mindless mush is no more than useless romanticism.

Think of the balance between head and heart in terms of a surgeon and the surgery he performs. A surgeon who lacked the head knowledge of anatomy would be a surgeon whose surgery could only kill the patient. On the other hand, someone who possessed the finest head knowledge of anatomy but wholly lacked heart would be someone who didn’t care enough for sick people to operate on any of them – with the same result; the patient dies.

Years ago lopsidedness in the church arose as a one-sided emphasis on the head – sound doctrine – considerably outweighed an emphasis on the heart – the believer’s love for the Nazarene who embodies the truth of God. In our era, however, the lopsidedness pertains to the heart as the church has all but surrendered the truth that Jesus Christ is just that: truth.

Head without heart issues in abstract sterility. Heart without head issues in mindless sentimentality. The head keeps the heart informed; the heart keeps the head warm.

[3] We need to strive for balance between the contemplatives and the activists within the congregation. Contemplatives teach us to examine ourselves. Where and why and how do we rationalize our sin? Why is it that our anxiety is increased hugely by developments that are trifles, devoid of kingdom significance? What particular “attachment” has “hooked” us and now deflects us from giving ourselves wholly to our Lord? If we aren’t serious about the contemplative dimension of the Christian life then we are strangers to Jesus Christ. For one look from him can unlock the secrets and subterfuges of the most self-deceived heart. And concerning contemplation, he insisted on going himself to a solitary place not once but habitually, didn’t he?

At the same time if we aren’t serious about the activist dimension of the Christian life then we are strangers to the One who immersed himself in the world’s anguish until his fatigue nearly frayed him. Jesus stood with and stood up for a woman who was about to be stoned; a youngster whose epilepsy had collapsed him into a fire; a deranged man whose violence a straitjacket couldn’t restrain; a widow whose only son (that is, her sole economic support) had just died. In addition Jesus faced up to and faced down church authorities who impeded the kingdom of God , or slandered him, or sneered at the people who believed in him.

Three areas where we have to strive for balance, sweat for it? There are three dozen. What matters is that we begin and then go on to toil and strive relentlessly, labouring to overcome the lopsidedness that renders us individually and the church at large less than mature. Paul toils and strives with every ounce of energy, he tells us, to present every man and woman mature in Christ.

III: — The last instance of agonizesthai we are going to examine this morning: Paul conveys greetings from Epaphras (Epaphras lived in Philippi, was visiting in Rome , and had friends in Colosse) to the congregation in Colosse. In conveying Epaphras’s greetings Paul reminds the Christians in Colosse that Epaphras prays for them with intensity and fervour, zeal and anguish. When Epaphras prays for the congregation in Colosse, he sweats.

One of the most misleading paintings found in church basements is that of Jesus praying in Gethsemane on the eve of his crucifixion. A bright beam of light highlights his brown-blond hair. His hands are clasped in front of him, his hands resting on the smooth, flat rock beside which he kneels in peace. Peace? The Greek text of the written gospel tells us that he was beside himself. When the gospel tells us that Jesus “knelt” it uses a verb tense that means Jesus fell to his knees repeatedly; his knees kept buckling on him, so very overwrought was he. His knees collapsed; he got up, staggered, and went down again; over and over.

Jesus, Epaphras, plus countless others haves been so very intense about their intercession just because they cared. When Jesus was in Gethsemane facing that ordeal in which he would be the intercession for the entire creation, he cared. When Paul reflected on his congregations (most notably Corinth) that had certainly come to faith in Jesus Christ yet behaved as if they had scarcely heard of him he didn’t toss it off, saying, “Not my fault that they are such a poor advertisement for the gospel.” He cared.

We care. We care about the course of the gospel in our congregation and in our community; we care about the course of the gospel in our own lives. Since we care, our intercession can never be “Now I lay me down to sleep…,” mumbled thirty seconds before sleep cuts us off in mid-mumble. Since we care, we strive with God when we pray; we struggle; we sweat.

Abraham intercedes for the city of Sodom . Moses intercedes for his people. Paul, Epaphras, above all Jesus himself pray to the point of perspiration. It wasn’t a Yoga-like exercise in “getting it all together.” It was exertion, the exercise of a ministry to which God ordains all of his people. Such intercession is work, to be sure, yet never fruitless work, for our confidence is in the living God, who is the Saviour of all men, especially of those who believe.

Then let us exert ourselves in all the work that’s been given us to do. We must toil, strive, spend ourselves for the enlargement of the Christian mission, for restoring balance in the church, and for interceding on behalf of others. Let us exert ourselves in any endeavour we take up on behalf of Jesus Christ, for it all depends on us – even as first it all depends on God.

Victor Shepherd

January 2004

A Study in AGONIZESTHAI: To Struggle, Strive, Toil, Do One’s Best

Philip Melanchthon 1497-1560

1 Timothy 4:11-16

Part One

Actually, his name wasn’t “Melanchthon”; it was “Schwartzerd”, “black earth”, literally, in German. But like all humanist scholars of the Renaissance, who treasured the Latin and Greek languages, Philip felt he had to give himself a classical name: “Melanchthon”, Greek for “black earth”. He was known by his Greek name for the rest of his life.

Born in a small village near Frankfurt in western Germany, and recognized as brilliant from the day he began school, Philip entered Heidelberg University at age 13. He finished his B.A. degree in two years, and began studying for his M.A. When he had completed the requirements for the degree and had awed professors yet again, university officials told him he was too young to be an M.A.! Whereupon he moved over to Tuebingen university and found this institution eager to confer its degree upon him. Tuebingen also launched him on his teaching career, making him professor of classics. Saturated with the Renaissance’s love of learning, Melanchthon exclaimed, “On earth there is nothing next to the gospel more glorious than humanistic learning, that wonderful gift of God.” While Ingolstadt, one of Germany’s oldest universities, wooed him as professor repeatedly, Melanchthon was drawn to the new university at Wittenberg in eastern Germany, and attracted as well to its notorious firebrand, Martin Luther. At Wittenberg Melanchthon developed his reputation as a superb humanist scholar. He was especially gifted as a linguist and philologist, but equally at home in philosophy. The “little grammarian”, as he was known among students, forbade any student to use slang. Slang, he insisted, is always imprecise use of language; and imprecise use of language necessarily issues in blurring the truth. (This is a point you and I should ponder for the rest of our lives: slang, or imprecise language of any sort, weakens our perception of truth and undermines our articulation of truth.)

Throughout his life Melanchthon vigorously defended humanist education. Candidates for the ministry had to know much besides theology; they had to master the classical languages, as well as philosophy, logic, history and physics. (Physics, said Melanchthon, illustrated the harmony of the creation.) Church-folk who were never going to be clergy should none the less be humanist scholars too, he maintained, for apart from humanist learning, zeal for reform in the church would turn shrill and even violent. And those citizens who weren’t church folk should none the less be schooled in humanist learning, for without this they would never be able to govern themselves adequately.

Yet we mustn’t become so mesmerized by Melanchthon’s humanist learning that we lose sight of his gifts in theology. In fact, he was the first systematic theologian of the Protestant Reformation. Systematic theology expounds the truth of God seen whole, and the truth of God seen in its intraconnectedness. His friend Luther (Luther always thought Melanchthon to be his intellectual superior) geysered theological riches, like a spewing oilwell that pours forth invaluable substance. And just as oil that gushes out of the well has to be gathered, refined and distributed if it is going to warm and illuminate millions elsewhere, so Melanchthon dealt with the riches that Luther poured forth every day. Melanchthon’s Loci Communes (“Common Places”) was the first theological textbook of the Reformation. In only a few years it went through 18 Latin editions (plus several German ones); it was required reading at Cambridge University; Queen Elizabeth memorized virtually all of it (in Latin, of course) in order to grasp the theological foundation of English Christendom (she also found herself enthralled by the elegance of its language). It remained the chief textbook in theology throughout Germany for the next 100 years.

Melanchthon also wrote Protestantism’s basic doctrinal statement, the Augsburg Confession. (The Confession, together with its accompanying Apology, also written by Philip, have remained the benchmark of worldwide Lutheranism to this day.) His commentary on Romans was the foundation of every one of the 80-plus Romans commentaries written in the Reformation era. He was Protestantism’s chief spokesperson in virtually every colloquy for 30 years. And he was Luther’s right-hand man and steadfast friend for virtually all of Luther’s adult life.

Yet Melanchthon’s most enduring accomplishment may not be his theology writings or his language studies; his most enduring accomplishment, I think, is his educational reforms. Melanchthon established the first public school system in Germany. As early as 1524 (he was then only 27 years old) he began developing public schools throughout Germany; he reorganized the universities; he fashioned the pedagogical methods in which hundreds of teachers were trained; and he wrote school textbooks, subsequently used by pupils without number.

Melanchthon’s influence in Canadian education is inestimable. Egerton Ryerson, the architect of Ontario’s public school system, travelled to Europe to acquaint himself with what Melanchthon had accomplished 300 hundred years earlier. In fact, Ryerson visited the Wittenberg/Berlin area of Germany twice. George Brown, the owner and editor of The Globe, a Toronto newspaper, ranted in the 1850s as he relentlessly accused Ryerson of introducing “the Prussian system of education into Canada.” Ryerson wore the accusation like a badge, proudly. Prussian [German] public education was the model of high quality public education, owned and funded by the citizenry as a whole. Where public education was concerned, Ryerson was never ashamed of his debt to Melanchthon.

On April 9th, 1560, Philip, now 63, stumbled to his classroom in Wittenberg for the last time. Sick unto death, he was able to lecture his students for 15 minutes only. He expounded the atonement, the reconciliation with God wrought on the cross for us all. Ten days later he slipped away quietly, freed at last from yearning for his departed wife, Barbara, who had died three years earlier.

Part Two

Melanchthon’s vision for public education was glorious. Ryerson knew it was. Millions of Ontario young people owe it more than they will ever be able to say. A few of us (like me) have the opportunity to say “thank you” publicly.

What was the situation in Ontario (and elsewhere) before Ryerson developed public education? Prior to the system we have today, the children of the wealthy were accorded educational opportunity; so were the children of the socially prominent; so were the children whose parents belonged to the established church (Anglican.) These children had educational opportunity. Actually, these children were not drawn from three groups; they were drawn from one; this one group happened to be privileged three times over.

Egerton Ryerson (everyone in Streetsville is aware that Ryerson preached at the opening service of Streetsville Methodist Church in 1876; at the conclusion of the service, when pledges were received to defray the cost of constructing the brand new building, the church was entirely debt-free); Ryerson wanted Ontario to have high-quality education. He wasn’t interested in babysitting 15-year olds. He wasn’t interested in a two-tier system whereby children from privileged families received a superior education and everyone else a decidedly inferior. He knew that to be financially underprivileged or socially underprivileged or religiously underprivileged (everyone who wasn’t Anglican was deemed religiously underprivileged); he knew that none of this implied intellectual inferiority. And since it didn’t imply intellectual inferiority, it shouldn’t imply educational inferiority.

Ryerson always knew that the life of the mind is a good in itself. Intellectual activity and intellectual achievement don’t posses mere utilitarian significance; they aren’t good just because they will one day prove useful; they aren’t good as a means to some end. They are good as an end in themselves. The life of the mind is its own justification. What’s more, we are commanded to love God with our minds. While it isn’t a sin to be ignorant (nobody can know everything), it is a sin to be more ignorant than we have to be. And it is an evil when a society relegates the relatively disadvantaged to lifelong ignorance. While Ryerson knew that the life of the mind is an end in itself, he also knew that the life of the mind is useful; it does have utilitarian significance. People with greater education in fact can do more of wider usefulness than those who have been unable to gain adequate education. Ryerson knew, then, that the public good is always served by better quality public education.

There is another point to be made here. Education doesn’t merely equip us to know more; it doesn’t merely equip us to do more; education equips us to live in a bigger world. Education equips us to live in a different world, a richer world, a world of greater complexity and more profound linkages and greater wonder. Maureen and I noticed this when we moved, in 1970, to a fishing/lumberjacking village in northeastern New Brunswick. We noticed immediately what our educational opportunity had given us. Had it merely enabled us to do algebra when others around us couldn’t, or to read Latin when others around us couldn’t? To be sure, we could do algebra and read Latin; but what really mattered was that our education (algebra and Latin plus so much more) equipped us with a larger world; a larger world outside us, but also a larger world inside us (i.e.,inner resources as well). Maureen noticed this especially in the women her age who were as dear to her as she was to them, women whose under-education had restricted them to a much smaller world outside and a much smaller world inside.

Before Ryerson’s work on our behalf there was one world for the socially privileged and a different world, a shrivelled world, a horribly shrivelled world, for everyone else. When I was a boy my father delighted in telling me story after story about Benjamin Disraeli, one-time prime minister of Great Britain during the 1800s. One story had to do with Disraeli’s address to the news media wherein he lamented, “There are two Englands, and neither one knows anything about the other.” When Ryerson came on the scene there were two Ontarios. One was grand to live in because ever-so-deep; the other was scarcely fit to live in, and Ryerson saw too many children who were forced to live in the latter.

Prior to Ryerson, education was a pay-as-you-go matter. Again, this meant that the rich could afford quality education while others could not. Ryerson maintained that since the public good (that “good” enjoyed by the socially advantaged too, since they were undeniably part of the public) was better served by quality education, the public should underwrite education. In other words, public education was to be supported out of tax revenues. There was to be no financial means test for admitting children to school.

In the same way, there was to be no religious means test. Bishop John Strachan, the Anglican authority in the diocese, saw to it that the children of Anglicans had access to good education; he was indifferent concerning the education of anyone else. (I cannot forbear reminding you that Bishop Strachan had become an Anglican only after he was turned down as a candidate for the Presbyterian ministry.)

One thing more needs to be mentioned in this connection: in Ryerson’s day, the schoolteachers who presided over classrooms of poorer children did just that: they presided, but they scarcely taught, for many of these “teachers” were ignorant; more than a few were out-and-out illiterate. Many teachers could do little more than beat children. Ryerson was determined to make a major change here as well.

I assume that the Streetsville congregation deems Maureen and me to be educated. We are now living amidst a congregation whose formal schooling and informal intellectual capacity are greater than those in any congregation I have known. How did Maureen and I get here? We were able to get off Gerrard Street. How did we do that? We both attended a first class highschool, Riverdale Collegiate. We were told, on our first day in grade nine, that we could work hard in school or we could leave. And we were told as well that if we worked and therefore learned what there was to be learned, we’d be admitted to worlds inside and worlds outside that we had scarcely dreamt of.

It was all true. When I was ordained in 1970 and was transferred to the Maritimes, I was paid the minimum salary of a United Church minister. In addition I was given a car allowance, and I was allowed to live in a manse. (There was no housing allowance; I was simply allowed to occupy the manse.) And in my first year as minister on the minimum salary of The United Church, I made more money than my father was earning when he died three years earlier.

How many times have I spoken of my delight in my university studies in philosophy? I appear to have a reputation in the church at large as an adequate preacher. Ninety per cent of good preaching is clear thinking. Where was I exposed to such thinking? How did I learn it for myself? Who taught me? But of course I could never have gone to university to study philosophy without adequate schooling in my earlier years. Apart from high-quality education, funded by tax resources, I’d have never received an education, for my parents were in no position to pay for it. Where would I be, what would I be doing, who would I be, if I hadn’t had access to good schooling?

I think we should ponder soberly what will happen if high-quality public education is allowed to erode.

(i) For one, social democracy, or at least whatever social democracy we’ve managed to achieve, will disappear. We must distinguish carefully here between political democracy and social democracy. Political democracy is easy to achieve: each citizen is given the right to vote. One vote per citizen and we have instant political democracy. Social democracy, however, is exceedingly difficult to achieve. Social democracy is achieved when all citizens have equal access to opportunities within a society. Social democracy doesn’t mean that all outcomes are equal. (Trying to legislate outcomes spells socialism, and socialism is a sure way to totalitarianism.) Social democracy, however, means equal access and opportunity for all regardless of social position or privilege. This has nothing to do with socialism.

Concerning social democracy I want you to reflect on the situation of one of my dearest friends. He is the senior minister of a large church in southwestern Ontario. He studied first at the University of Western Ontario, then at the University of Toronto, and finally, for this third degree, at the University of British Columbia. My friend tells me that when he was growing up in southern Ontario, his home provided no intellectual encouragement at all. In the 18 or 19 years he lived with his family, there wasn’t so much as a single magazine brought into the house. His family held up no educational goals, provided no encouragement, and quickened no intellectual appetite. Needless to say, the non-intellectual environment was matched by a non-cultural environment; culturally, the household was a wasteland, bleaker than the barren surface of the moon. Only one thing provided my friend with a much-needed educational goal and encouragement and appetite: his school. Only one thing sowed the seed of intellectual fruition in his life: high-quality public education. The same thing, the same thing alone, equipped him to serve church and society in the manner he now does. Where would he be, what would he be doing, who would he be, if his social inferiority had denied him access and opportunity? Such access and opportunity is what is meant by social democracy. If people like him are denied access and opportunity, then social democracy has disappeared, even though political democracy remains. (After all, my friend could still vote, but would likely regard voting as a waste of time.)

(ii) In the second place we must understand that if public education is allowed to evaporate and social democracy allowed to disappear, then something else will appear, or reappear: the English class system, or something like it. Another friend of mine, a United Church minister in Ottawa, grew up in a working-class home in Britain and emigrated to Canada as a young man. His first job in Canada was delivering truckloads of Coca Cola. The job permitted him to save money, and having saved money, he went back to school. He too subsequently attended university and, as I have mentioned, went on to university (twice.) When I was in Ottawa not long ago to preach at the anniversary service of his congregation, he said to me, “Victor, you know how we keep hearing today that the English class system is disappearing? Well, it isn’t.” He had access and opportunity here that he didn’t have elsewhere.

We must always remember what the social historians have brought to light; namely, that while Britain was the first European nation to achieve political democracy, its class system remained the worst in Europe. We must always remember that this class system has been so very iniquitous that as recently as the years between World Wars I and II, 50% of the people in Britain were clinically malnourished.

(iii) We must understand, in the third place, that if public education is allowed to evaporate, and with it all that quality education fosters, then the different socio-economic clusters, now frozen immovably throughout the society, will hunker down in their respective camps and turn hostile. Their hostility will intensify, and intensify some more. People will become increasingly defensive, increasingly non-understanding of others elsewhere in the society, increasingly rancorous, increasingly isolated, and increasingly a major threat to each other. It will become a social arrangement I’d prefer not to have to live with.

All of which brings me to a matter I’ve already stated in several different ways but must state yet again: Egerton Ryerson’s vision was glorious. His legacy has meant riches for millions in Ontario. Philip Melanchthon struggled for its predecessor in 16th century Germany. Ryerson struggled for it in 19th century Ontario. And I, in the 20th century, will struggle for it with my third last breath.

My third last? Yes. What about my second last breath? Many people maintain that public education, however glorious in days past, is now bending and breaking. If it is, then I intend to help fix it — with my second last breath. My last breath, of course, will be spent in the service of the gospel. It is “next to the gospel“, Philip Melanchthon reminded us, that “there is nothing more glorious than humanistic learning, that wonderful gift of God.”

Victor Shepherd
November 1997

Not a Spirit of Fear, but a Spirit of Power and Love and Self-Control

2 Timothy 1:7

It began as a youth movement. To be sure, older people possess greater wisdom, sounder judgement, broader perspective. Our Lord knew this. Nevertheless he began with younger people. When he stepped forth on his public ministry he was in his late 20s. The twelve whom he called to him were likely no older. Paul took Mark on Paul’s first missionary journey when Mark was estimated to be 19. You know what happened: Mark behaved like a 19 year old. He couldn’t withstand the hardship of the venture, left Paul and returned home. When Paul and Barnabas were about to set off on another missionary journey Paul said, “We can’t take Mark with us; we simply can’t afford to have him let us down again”. Barnabas disagreed. “He was only 19; give him another chance”. Paul and Barnabas parted over Mark; they parted amicably, without grudge or resentment, but they parted. Barnabas, however, was vindicated, since Mark proved himself on the second venture.

Why the emphasis on youth? Is it not because along with the broader perspective and greater stability of middle age there is also boredom, apathy, and more than a little cynicism? Several older clergymen have said to me with that bone-deep weariness born of disillusionment, “Shepherd, wait until you have been in this game as long as I have”.

There is another reason for our Lord’s beginning with younger people: what we have to contend with in our youth we are going to have contend with for the remainder of our lives. I am always amused when an older adult pretends that his adolescence has been put behind him forever. Years ago (1970), in my final year of theology, I studied under Dr. James Wilkes, a psychiatrist from whom I learned an immense amount. He mentioned one day that emotionally our adolescence lurks just below the surface of our adult psyche. The coping mechanisms, for instance, that we developed as adolescents are the coping mechanisms we shall have for a long time. Similarly, what we had to contend with “back” when we were adolescents we shall have to contend with throughout life. Jesus began with younger people inasmuch as what they learned from him at that time they would need and would have for the rest of their lives. A sermon, then, that has to do with younger people cannot fail to speak to older people as well.

[1] Paul writes to Timothy, who is only 19 or 20 himself, and says, “Remember! God did not give us a spirit of timidity, a spirit of fear, but a spirit of power and love and self-control”. Plainly the older apostle knows that young Timothy is afraid.

Are we afraid? (Does the sun rise in the east?) There are days when our fears are so slight as to be scarcely noticeable, and other days when they muscle everything else out of our minds. Some of our fears we readily understand. The company we work for has merged with a larger company and not all management and executive personnel are going to be retained. Our child seems unwell and we have just enough medical knowledge as not to be put off by our friends’ reassurances that there is nothing wrong. We are afraid that the psychological booby-trap which we have known of for years and which we have disguised, stepped around or hidden; that situation where we do not cope and where we appear so helpless, weak and silly – we fear it’s going to become publicly evident and we shall be humiliated. We are afraid that since we are not married yet we are never going to be married. (I also meet people who are afraid that since they are married now they are never going to get unmarried.) And then there is a different kind of fear, unattached to any specific object or occurrence. “Existential anxiety” is the term mental health experts use. Existential anxiety is that niggling, lapping, semi-conscious awareness of our fragility, our frailty, our ultimate powerlessness in the face of life’s accidentality and our own mortality.

The preacher keeps reminding us that “Fear not” is the most frequent command on the lips of Jesus. His telling us to fear not, we feel nonetheless, has as much effect on us as our going down to Lake Ontario and telling the waves to stop rolling in.

I shall never make light of that fear which is part of the human condition. It is as undeniable as toothache. Then what do I do with respect to my own fears? On those days when my fears seem nearly overwhelming I look to two treasure-stores: the promises of God and my Christian friends. The promises of God are glorious. The simplest promise comes from the book of Joshua: “I will not fail you or forsake you”. The psalms are a goldmine: “This I know, that God is for me… what can man do to me?” John tells us that even if our hearts condemn us, the God of unfathomable mercy is greater than our hearts. And then there are those promises from the heart and pen of Paul: “If we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord; so then whether we live or whether we die we are the Lord’s”; “If God is for us, who is against us?”; “We know that in everythingGod works for good with those who love him, who are called according to his purpose”. And of course there is the climax of all of scripture, as far as I am concerned, Romans 8:38: “Neither death nor life, nor things present, nor things to come, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord”.

When Paul tells Timothy that we have not been given a spirit of fear he doesn’t mean that we are never afraid. Paul himself was often afraid; he speaks unashamedly of his own fear. Our Lord was fearful on occasion. To tell people they should never fear is to send them in pursuit of the unrealistic and the ridiculous; it’s also to plunge them into false guilt.

To have a “spirit of fear” is something different; it’s to be so fear-saturated as to be deflected from our obedience to God. But a spirit of fear is precisely what we haven’t been given; therefore we mustn’t yield to it. We must fling ourselves upon the promises of God.

Yet I must admit that there have been occasions in my life when even the promises of God seemed to evaporate on me; occasions when fear fell on me like a building collapsing or seeped into me like poison gas. On these occasions the promises seemed ineffective, however true, unable to stem the dread whose waves came upon me like nausea. On these occasions I have leaned my full weight on Christian friends, for they embody for us, incarnate for us, the truth of the promises in those moments when we are floundering and the promises seem to support us only as embodied in our friends.

[2] If God hasn’t given us a spirit of fear, then what has he given us? Paul reminds Timothy once again: a spirit of power and love and self-control.

(a) The one question which younger people always have concerning the gospel is also the simplest question. Their one question isn’t, “Is it true?”, because younger people suspect it might be true but also be trite; true but also pointless; true but too abstract, too remote to be of any earthly use. Their one question concerning the gospel is, “Does it work?” “Does it work?” means “Is it effective?” Whether it is effective depends entirely on what end it is supposed to effect. The question, “Is a hammer effective?” depends on the end you have in mind. If your purpose is to drive nails the answer is plainly “yes”. If you wish to crochet lace doilies the answer is plainly “no”. If you want to repair the nozzle of your garden hose the answer is “maybe”. “Does the gospel work?” — the answer here depends on what it is we are looking to see happen. The textbook-correct answer is that the gospel works, is effective, inasmuch as it is the purpose of the gospel to reconcile us to God and render us transparent before him; since the gospel does this (alone does this) therefore the gospel works and should be embraced by every last person, older and younger alike. But the answer is too slick and too abstract by half. What reconciliation to God and transparency to him means is something we older people must exemplify ourselves if what we say about it is to have any weight. For a long time I have felt that Maureen and I should are an advertisement of the gospel for our grandchildren. In other words, younger people (who are much less readily deceived than older people) are going to conclude that the gospel works only if they have seen something of its work in us.

One feature of younger people that always appeals to me is their forthrightness. If you ask them about last night’s rock concert they will reply without hesitation, “It was a drag” or “It was out of sight”. Older people are adept at verbal smokescreens; younger people don’t bother with word-camouflages, for they are suspicious that much talk is a cover-up covering up an embarrassing lack of substance. There was an embarrassing lack of substance in the Christian community of Corinth . The church-members there yammered a lot, lined up behind different hero-figures in the congregation, fancied themselves worldly-wise and talked up their pseudo-wisdom; they rationalized the inexcusable even as they told each other how truthful they were. Finally Paul had had enough. He let them know that their pretension to wisdom was nothing more than arrogance. He let them know that he would visit the congregation soon and deal with these motor-mouths himself. His conviction about the nature of the gospel and his resolve to hold the congregation to the gospel are evident in his concluding line: “I will find out not the talk of these arrogant people but their power. For the kingdom of God does not consist in talk but in power”.

Not a spirit of fear has God given us but a spirit of power.

(b) And also a spirit of love. Everyone has her own understanding of love; but it’s the gospel’s understanding that matters for us. And the gospel makes plain that God’s love is a self-giving which pours itself self-forgetfully upon anyone at all without concern for consequence or cost.

Young people have no difficulty understanding this: self-forgetful self-giving without concern for consequence or cost. It’s all so very lofty, even adventurous, that it appears as attractive as it seems true.

But younger people do not remain younger. As older age settles upon them little by little the cost seems prohibitively high. At the same time the consequence (the result) seems woefully meagre, given the high cost. (The entire scheme plainly isn’t “cost-effective”, as the economists say.) What happens next? Self-giving is shrivelled to thing-giving; self-forgetfulness is shrivelled to calculation; the cost of love is simply deemed too high and the consequences too scanty. Next step, the last step: we settle down into that token-generosity whose tokenism the world accepts because tokenism is all the world expects of anyone with respect to anything. How is such world-weary disillusionment to be avoided?

There are two ways of avoiding such disillusionment. One is by returning constantly to our text: God has given us a spirit of love; not a notion of love, but a spirit of love. Plainly there is an allusion to the Holy Spirit, that power in which God himself acts upon his people. Then God himself must — and will — keep our hearts from shrivelling up into that tokenism that is widely regarded as good enough.

The second way of avoiding the world-weary disillusionment that reduces love to a mere artificiality which is socially acceptable; the second way is to keep people dear to us. Writing to the people in Thessalonica Paul says, “We were ready to share with you not only the gospel of God but also our very selves (this is what love is finally, sharing our very selves) so dear had you become to us.” The longer I live the dearer people become to me. When I was a younger minister I was so taken up with getting the job-functions done — writing the sermon, chairing the meeting, conducting the funeral — that my focus was on the function, with people more or less on the periphery. In my older age the function seems to perform itself, and people have become the focus. One reason that I have relished being a pastor is that people — all kinds and qualities — have become dearer to me with every passing year. As they do I find today’s text confirming itself to me with greater force: God has given us a spirit of love, and this gift will keep our love from shrivelling up to a pasted-on smile plus a “townie.”

(c) We have also been given a spirit of self-control. Self-control appears to be the opposite of other-control. Either we control ourselves or others control us; other people, other ideologies, other things. When this happens – i.e., when we are other-controlled – we are little more than an empty tin can kicked around endlessly: empty to start with and soon shapeless as well. This is not good. What is the alternative? A minute ago I said that self-control appears to be the opposite of other-control; “appears” because there is one glorious instance where self-control and other-control are one and the same. When Paul lists the fruits of the Spirit in Galatians 5 he is listing the qualities of life which Jesus Christ effects in his people by his Spirit. Included in the list is self-control. Christ-control is self-control. You see, to be Christ-controlled is to know whose we are: we are his and his only! And to know whose we are (when we are Christ’s) is to know who we are: we are our “self”. Since Jesus Christ renders me who I am, to be Christ-controlled will always be to be self-controlled.

For whether we are younger or older, whether we are newcomers to the faith or oldtimers in the household and family of God, we were never given a spirit of fear; we have all been given a spirit of power, of love, and of self-control.

Victor Shepherd

May 2007

Our Risen Lord

2 Timothy 2:8-9

I: — “No apostle ever remembered Jesus.” I was startled the first time I read this line. “No apostle ever remembered Jesus.” Then I understood what the author meant: we remember the departed whereas we don’t remember those who are alive and present. There’s no need to remember those who have never left us. The living are here, present, active, assertive, even intrusive. We remember only those who are dead, departed.

Jesus Christ is not among the departed. He is alive, vibrant, vivid. Therefore we don’t remember him. Then why does Paul instruct young Timothy, “Remember Jesus Christ!” Certainly Paul knows that Jesus Christ is alive. Paul is an apostle only because the resurrected one arrested him and shook him. Since the living Lord is the most vivid aspect of Paul’s existence, why does Paul tell Timothy to remember Jesus?

It’s because Paul is Jew. He thinks like a Jew. In the Hebrew language the verb “remember” doesn’t mean “recall to conscious”, “become aware of again”. In Hebrew, rather, to remember is to render an event in the past an operative reality in the present. Carved into our communion table are the words of Jesus, “This do in remembrance of me.” Does he mean that we are to observe the Lord’s Supper as a device to keep him from fading from our consciousness? Of course not. Jesus too is a Jew; he too thinks in Hebrew. To remember Jesus — and specifically remember his death — is to render a past event an operative reality in the present. An event from the past is made operative, effective, life-altering — now.

The prophet Habakkuk cries to God, “…in [your] wrath, remember mercy!” Habakkuk isn’t trying to “jog” God’s memory. When he cries to God, “Remember [your] mercy” he means, “That mercy which you have manifested in the past; make it the operative reality of our lives right now.”

Rachel wanted a child more than she wanted anything else. Hannah was desperate for a child too. We are told that God “remembered” both Rachel and Hannah — with the result that both women became pregnant. Then plainly to remember in Hebrew is to render a past event (their wedding) operative in the present and to make this present reality fertile, fruitful.

While we are talking about remembering in the Hebrew sense of the word we might as well talk about forgetting. In Hebrew to forget something isn’t to have it fade from consciousness; to forget something isn’t to become unaware of it. To forget, in Hebrew, is to make a past event non-operative in the present; and in making it non-operative to make it ineffective, insignificant, non-profuse; to neutralize it, cancel it. When God speaks to Jeremiah, and through Jeremiah to the people of Israel; when God says, “I will remember their sins no more”, God he doesn’t mean that he will slowly let the memory of his people’s sins fade away. He means, rather, that his people’s sins from the past will not be the operative reality now. Their sins he will neutralize; he will render them of no effect. When God forgets our sin, our sin is non-operative, out-of-commission, insignificant. When God forgets, what he forgets ceases to be.

We must be sure to note how the Hebrew bible links God’s forgetting and God’s remembering: he remembers his mercy, and just because his mercy is the operative reality now and limitlessly fruitful, he forgets our sin.

When Paul urged Timothy to remember Jesus, he never meant that the memory of Jesus was fading from Timothy’s consciousness and Timothy should recall the memory of Jesus. Paul meant something else. He wanted to make sure that Timothy continued to live in the vivifying, vivid, vibrant reality of the resurrected one. He wanted Timothy’s life to be fertile, profusely fruitful. He wanted Timothy ever to have Jesus Christ remain the heart and soul, the life-blood, the throb of Timothy’s ministry. He wanted Timothy to know that just because Jesus is alive and is “remembered”, Jesus can never become antiquated or obsolete. And Timothy himself need never become fruitless or sterile. “Remember Jesus Christ.”

II: — “Remember Jesus Christ risen from the dead.” Paul knows that Jesus is alive, and is alive not inasmuch as he has not yet died; Jesus is alive, rather, inasmuch as he has died yet has been raised from the dead. To remember Jesus Christ risen from the dead is to appropriate now in faith, to continue to appropriate in faith, the operative benefits of Christ’s death.

What are the benefits of Christ’s death? There are many. Our Lord’s resurrection crowned and confirmed them all. Time permits us to ponder one only today. During his earthly ministry Jesus had said that he “came to give himself a ransom for many.” (Mark 10:45) “Ransom” is a word borrowed from the slavetrade. Slaves were said to be “ransomed” when the purchase price was paid for them — and they were then transferred from one slaveowner to another? No! The slave whom another slaveowner bought had merely been bought; he hadn’t been ransomed! A slave was ransomed (rather than merely bought) when his purchase price was paid so as to set him free. To be ransomed was to be released.

Our Lord said that he came to give himself a ransom for us. Plainly he regarded humankind as enslaved. To what? The rabbis who taught Jesus in Sunday School used to speak of the “yetzer ha-ra”, the evil inclination. The church speaks of original sin. Original sin is (among other things) that deepest-seated inclination that keeps us homing in on sin more surely than the homing instinct in a pigeon’s head keeps it returning to the coop. (Everybody knows that a child doesn’t have to be taught to do wrong.)

In casual conversation with his disciples one day Jesus said, “You fellows, evil as you are…”. He said it without qualification, without hesitation, without argument, without proof; “evil as you are…” . Obviously he regarded it as so blatantly self-evident that anyone who denied it would be as stupid-looking as the flat earth society.

We need something set right in us at the innermost core of our life. We need an alteration, an operative “fix” that will put us on a new road and point us to a new destination and grant us a new destiny.

In the wake of the freedom, release, our Lord’s atoning death brings to us we are freed from eversomuch more as well, freed from eversomuch more as the consequence of our foundational release. We are freed from a self-preoccupation that narcissists can’t hide from their psychiatrists as surely as mentally healthy (but spiritually sick) people can’t hide ingrained selfism from God. We are freed from the acquisitiveness that seizes us as tightly as we seize our trinkets and trifles and toys. We are freed from social climbing that thinks we are extraordinarily virtuous or unusually holy just because we don’t eat peas off a knife and can whistle five notes of Beethoven’s fifth. We are freed from having to posture ourselves as the measure of the universe and the judge of everyone in it. Released!

I said a minute ago that when slaves were ransomed they were freed; they weren’t transferred from one slaveowner to another. In this manner he who has paid our ransom inasmuch as he is our ransom now frees us — with this difference: in freeing us he does transfer us to the possession of someone else. He transfers us to himself. He now owns us. Bound to him now, we quickly learn that bondage to Jesus Christ is the only bondage in the world that liberates; in submitting to his authority we quickly learn that his authority is the only authority in the world that will never become authoritarian, tyrannical, demeaning. When Augustine said that serving Christ is our only freedom, Augustine was right. And when Martin Luther insisted that just because the Christian is free from all he is servant to all, Luther was right too.

“Remember Jesus Christ risen from the dead.” “Remember the ransom, now crowned and confirmed by the ransom’s resurrection from the dead. In remembering him, remember your own release, Timothy. Remember your consequent enslavement to Jesus Christ. Make sure that this is the operative reality of your life; make sure that this is fertile, profusely fruitful. Remember Jesus Christ risen from the dead.”

III: — “Remember Jesus Christ…descended from David.”

(i) To say that Jesus is descended from David means many things. At the very least it means that Jesus was genuinely human. (No one ever doubted the humanity of David.) Is the humanity of Jesus a point that has to be made? It always has to be made. The first heresy to afflict the young church was the notion that Jesus was only apparently human; he was unquestionably the Son of God, but he was only apparently human, only seemingly human. This heresy was named “docetism” after the Greek verb DOKEO, “to seem”. We must always insist with the apostles that Jesus was really human, fully human, authentically human.

You see, if Jesus isn’t genuinely human, how can he be my saviour, since I know that I am human? If Jesus isn’t genuinely human, how can he offer himself as ransom, representing all of humankind? How can he be representatively human if he is only apparently human and therefore not human at all?

There’s more to be said. If Jesus isn’t fully human then God has never become fully incarnate. If God has never become fully incarnate, then God’s love hasn’t condescended all the way down to me, since I am certainly human. If Jesus is only seemingly human, then God merely seems to love us without limit. If Jesus is only seemingly human, then God’s love hasn’t “gone all the way”; God’s love doesn’t reach all the way down to earth where we humans grope and stumble; God’s love never moves him to identify fully with our shame; God’s love doesn’t penetrate all the way in to our innermost depravity. Then God’s love simply isn’t quite loving enough. If Jesus is only seemingly human then God’s love almost condescends to us, almost reaches us, almost identifies with us, almost penetrates us, almost saves us.

Almost? A miss is as good as a mile. What good is a lawyer whose clients are almost acquitted? A surgeon whose patients almost survive? A teacher whose pupils almost learn to read? An engineer whose bridges almost stand up? What good is a saviour who almost saves? A father whose love is almost effective? “Remember Jesus Christ…descended from David.” In the full humanity, authentic humanity of Jesus God’s love has reached us, identified with us, penetrated us, and therefore saves us.

(ii) To speak of Jesus as son of David means even more. It means that Jesus is the Messiah, the Messiah promised to David. David had been Israel’s greatest king. Like no other king before him or after him David had upheld justice, protected the vulnerable, assisted the poor, defended the defenceless, helped the afflicted, suppressed enemies, vindicated his people, and exulted in the God whose name he sought to adorn. The years of David’s reign were glorious.

But David’s reign was geographically local and temporally short-lived. At best all that he did — wonderful as it was — remained shot through with the evil that infiltrates everything; more to the point, all that David did was marred by the sin of David himself.

As a result all Israel longed to see the day of the King; that king whose reign would know no end, that king whose reign would preside over a kingdom which was nothing less than the entire creation healed. The promise of such a king, the Messiah, is mentioned in several places in the older testament; Psalm 89:16, for instance — “You [God] have said, `I have made a covenant with my chosen one; I have sworn to David that I will establish his descendants for ever, and build David’s throne for all generations’.”

“Remember Jesus Christ…descended from David.” Jesus Christ, king of that kingdom which cannot be shaken, is the operative truth of the world’s life, even if the world doesn’t know it. Jesus Christ is the operative truth of the creation-restored, even though the creation (for now) persists in contradicting it. Paul is telling Timothy that he, Timothy must ever be sure that he, Timothy lives for and lives from a new creation, the kingdom of God, made new at the hand of him through whom and for whom all things have been made.

IV: — “Remember Jesus Christ…as preached in my gospel.” My gospel? Did Paul think that the gospel was his possession, like his coat or his chariot. Did Paul think that the gospel was his and nobody else’s? Or was it “his” gospel in the sense that he invented it? He thought no such thing. When the congregation in Galatia decided to invent its own gospel Paul told them most vehemently that they were accursed. And even if another “gospel” were invented by an angel from heaven, he fumed, it would still be accursed. There can be only one gospel: the message of Jesus Christ charged with the power of Jesus Christ.

Then what does the apostle mean when he speaks of “my gospel”? He means that he has appropriated the gospel personally; he means that he has claimed the gospel for himself; he has drunk it down and now perspires it; he has inhaled it and now breathes it out; he has clothed himself in it and now displays it. He has tasted the gospel, owned it, identified himself with it; he lives by the gospel, commends it, is unashamed of it, stands by it, is wedded to it — and will even die for it. When I speak of Maureen as “my wife” I don’t mean that I possess her, and I don’t mean that I invented her. I mean that she has won my heart, that she is fused to me and I to her, that we are now inseparable, that we know and cherish an intimacy with each other that words can only approximate. Maureen is “my” wife in the sense Paul has in mind when he says, “Jesus Christ is `my’ gospel.”

When the older apostle says to the younger Timothy, “Remember Jesus Christ…as preached in my gospel”, he means, “Timothy, be sure that Jesus Christ is the same operative reality, profusely fruitful, for you that he has been for me. See to it that “your” gospel is nothing less than the message of Christ charged with the power of Christ so that everyone knows you are acquainted with the person of Christ.”

“Remember Jesus Christ

risen from the dead

descended from David

as preached in my gospel.”

Victor A. Shepherd

Easter 1996

Reformation Sunday: a Note Concerning William Tyndale

2^nd Timothy 2:9; 3:10-17 Deuteronomy 6:1-9 Psalm 19:7-10 Mark 12:18 -27

I: — We read scripture in church every Sunday. We don’t read McClean’s magazine or Chatelaine. Why not? Instead of scripture why don’t we read something that everyone finds edifying, something from Reader’s Digest or Good Housekeeping or even a story of courage and persistence from Sports Illustrated? Why don’t we?

Let’s think about something else. There are biblical expressions that are so very familiar to us that we know them as well as we know our own name. What’s more, they are all written in simple words, chiefly one or two syllables only. “My sin is more than I can bear.” (Eight words, one syllable each.) “Blessed are the peacemakers.” “I will arise and go to my father.” “Freely have ye received; freely give.” “O ye of little faith.” Who wrote all these expressions? How did they come to be embedded in our bloodstream? For how long have they been current in everyday English?

II: — William Tyndale wasn’t someone who made trouble for the sake of making trouble. Neither did he have a personality as prickly as a porcupine. Neither did he relish controversy, confrontation and strife. As much as he wanted to avoid hostility and live at peace he couldn’t. At some point he became embroiled with many of England ’s “Who’s Who” of the Sixteenth Century. Anne Boleyn, one of Henry VIII’s many wives, flaunted her promiscuity – and Tyndale called her on it. Thomas Wolsey, cardinal of the church and sworn to celibacy, fathered at least two illegitimate children – and drew Tyndale’s fire. Thomas More, known to us through the play about him, A Man for All Seasons, advanced arguments that Tyndale believed to contradict the kingdom of God and imperil the salvation of men and women – and Tyndale rebutted him.

William Tyndale graduated from Oxford University in 1515, and then moved over to Cambridge to pursue graduate studies, Cambridge at that time being a hotbed of Lutheran theology and Reformation ferment. As he was seized by the truth and power of that gospel which scripture uniquely attests, Tyndale became aware of his vocation: God was calling him to be a translator. He was to put into common English a translation of the bible that the public could read readily and profit from profoundly. Such a translation was needed desperately, for England was sunk in the most abysmal ignorance of scripture, and deprived therefore of the faith and obedience and comfort that the gospel alone supplies. The clergy were ignorant too. Worse, the clergy didn’t care. Tyndale vowed that if his life were spared he would see that a farmhand knew more scripture than did a contemptuous clergyman.

The church, however, didn’t agree with him. The church’s hierarchy had banned any translation of scripture into the English tongue in hope of prolonging the ignorance of the people and thereby prolonging the church’s tyranny over them. Tyndale wanted only a quiet, safe corner of England where he could begin his work. There was no such corner. He would have to leave the country. In 1524 he sailed for Germany . He would never see England again.

Soon his translation of the New Testament was underway in Hamburg . A sympathetic printer in Cologne printed the pages as fast as he could decipher Tyndale’s handwriting. Ecclesiastical spies were everywhere, however, and in no time the printing press was raided. Tipped off ahead of time, Tyndale escaped with what he could carry.

Next stop was Worms , the German city where Luther had debated vigorously only four years earlier and where the German Reformer had confessed, “Here I stand, I can do nothing else. God help me.” In Worms Tyndale managed to complete his New Testament translation. Six thousand copies were printed. Only two have survived, since English bishops confiscated them as fast as copies were ferreted back into England . In 1526 the bishop of London piled up the copies he had accumulated and burnt them all, the bonfire adding point to the bishop’s sermon in which he had slandered Tyndale.

Worms was too dangerous a place in which to work, and in 1534 Tyndale moved to Antwerp , where English merchants living in the Belgian city told him they would protect him. (By now he had virtually completed his translation of the entire bible.) Then in May 1535 a young Englishman in Antwerp who needed large sums of money to pay off huge gambling debts betrayed Tyndale to Belgian authorities. Immediately Tyndale was jailed in a prison modelled after the infamous Bastille of Paris. The cell remained damp, dark and cold throughout the Belgian winter. Tyndale had been in prison for eighteen months already when his trial began.

The long list of charges was read out. The first two charges – one, he had maintained that sinners are justified or set right with God by faith; and two, to embrace in faith the mercy offered in the gospel was sufficient for salvation – these two charges alone indicate how blind and bitter his anti-gospel enemies were.

In August 1536 he was found guilty and condemned as a heretic. Labelling him “heretic” was an attempt at humiliating him publicly and breaking him psychologically. But he didn’t break. Whereupon he was assigned another two months in prison. Then he was taken to a public square and asked to recant. So far from recanting he cried out, “Lord, open the King of England’s eyes.” Immediately the executioner strangled him and ignited the firewood at his feet.

Tyndale’s work, however, couldn’t be choked off and burnt up. His work thrived. Eventually the King of England approved Tyndale’s translation, and by 1539 every parish church in England was required to have a copy on hand for parishioners to read.

Tyndale’s translation underlies the King James Version of the bible. Its importance in English-speaking lands can’t be exaggerated. A gospel-outlook came to permeate the British nation, its people, its policies, and its literature. Indeed, the King James Version is precisely what Northrop Frye labelled “The Great Code,” the great code being the key to unlocking the treasures of English literature. Without a knowledge of the bible, Frye insisted, the would-be student of English literature doesn’t even begin. More importantly, however, the translation of the bible into the English tongue became the means whereby the gospel took hold of millions.

Tyndale’s promise – “If I am spared I shall see that the common person knows more of God’s Word, God’s Truth and God’s Way than a contemptuous clergy” – was fulfilled. In the history of the English-speaking peoples Tyndale’s work is without peer.

II: — Why did Tyndale do it? Was he a ranting bible-thumper akin to the “thumpers” who turn you off as readily as they do me? He was nothing like this. Did he believe something bizarre about the bible, akin to what Joseph Smith claimed for the original gold plates of the Book of Mormon? Joseph Smith, the father of Mormonism, maintained that he was sitting under a tree when there fell at his feet the gold plates inscribed with the Book of Mormon. Tyndale believed nothing like this about scripture.

Then why was he willing to sacrifice himself for the book? Because he knew two things: one, he knew that intimate acquaintance with Jesus Christ matters above everything else; two, he knew that scripture is essential to our gaining such intimacy with our Lord. Concerning Tyndale himself there was nothing fanatical, silly or unbalanced.

And so scripture is read in church every Sunday, and Christians have traditionally read it every day. To be sure Christians don’t read scripture and nothing else. (This would be fanaticism.) We do read much else with profit. Yet however edifying other books may be they don’t supplant scripture. Why not? Because scripture remains the normative witness to God’s presence and God’s work. “Normative” means “the standard,” “the measure,” “the yardstick,” “the benchmark.” “Normative” means first in importance and the measure of everything else that claims to be important.

If scripture is this, if scripture is normative and the measure of everything in Christian faith and conduct, then how does scripture work? How does it function?

In your mind’s eye, in your imagination, I want you go back to the days of our Lord’s earthly ministry. I want you to think of yourself as one more ordinary man or woman living in Palestine in the year 30. There’s nothing unusual or extraordinary or peculiar about you at all. You’ve heard about this fellow Jesus of Nazareth. You’ve heard that he’s attracting crowds wherever he goes. You’ve heard that he just might be worth hearing. The next time he’s in your village you decide to show up. Now you are one more curious bystander, one of dozens in a crowd, listening to the young man from Nazareth as he speaks to any and all who will hear him.

At first he strikes you as merely one more itinerant preacher, and you’ve already heard lots of them since Palestine has all sorts of them. Still, as you continue listening to him you find that his teaching seems better than most. It strikes a chord within you. It has the “ring of truth” about it. Little by little your scepticism evaporates. While you don’t say anything out loud (only hecklers do this) you do find yourself silently saying “Yes” to yourself. “Yes, he’s right. Yes, I never thought of that before. Yes, what he says is true.” No one is twisting your arm in all this; you are inwardly constrained to say “yes” at the same time as you own it freely.

Then something more happens. Up to this point you’ve blended safely into the crowd, hearing what everyone else is hearing and remaining anonymous like everyone else. Suddenly the Nazarene looks right at you. At first you glance around you and behind you, thinking he’s looking at you by mistake. But no, he’s looking right at you. At the same time he speaks to you. Specifically, he invites you to become his follower. Many people have become followers already. You know this, even though you went to hear him not ready to be a follower yourself. But now he’s asking you. For reasons that you’ll never get anyone else to understand because you can’t fully understand them yourself, you step out from the crowd and step into his company as you join yourself to those who are followers already. A few people look at you quizzically? So what. One or two snicker? You don’t even hear them. All you know is that you are now persuaded of one matter: life in the company of Jesus Christ promises to be better than life not in his company.

Day by day your life now unfolds in Christ’s company. As it does you gain more than you ever imagined. You gain iron-fast assurance concerning him, but also iron-fast assurance concerning his words, his promises, his way, his Spirit. He calls more people into his company; the band swells of those who are possessed of like conviction, like experience, like contentment.

After Jesus is put to death and then raised from the dead none of this is lost. The ascension of our Lord doesn’t mean that those who knew him so very intimately are now left with aching emptiness and devastating disillusionment. On the contrary those who kept company with him in the days of his earthly ministry still do. To say he’s ascended isn’t to say he’s gone missing, absent now. To say he’s ascended is to say he’s now available to everyone, available on a scale that wasn’t possible in the days when he couldn’t be found in Bethany if he happened to be in Jerusalem.

Nevertheless there is one crucial difference in the manner in which Jesus Christ is known following his ascension. In the days of his earthly ministry Jesus spoke for himself. Following his resurrection and ascension, however, Christian spokespersons preach in his name, always and everywhere pointing to him. They are not he, and they don’t pretend to be he. These spokespersons are never to be confused with their Lord. They merely point to him. They are witnesses.

And then something wonderful happens. As these spokespersons point to him, bear witness to him, God owns their witness and his Spirit invigorates it. As God honours the witness borne to his Son, Jesus Christ ceases to be merely someone pointed to. As he is pointed to he himself comes forth; he looms up and speaks, calls, convinces, commissions exactly as he did in the days of his flesh. As God the Father honours the human witness borne to the Son, Jesus Christ ceases to be merely someone spoken about. Now he becomes the speaking, acting, compelling one himself.

At this point people in Rome and Corinth and Ephesus, people who had no chance of meeting Jesus in the days of his earthly ministry simply because he never travelled to those cities; these people now meet him and know him and love him and walk his way with him as surely as did those who saw him in Bethany and Jerusalem years earlier.

Let me repeat. The apostles are not our Lord. The apostles are spokespersons for our Lord who point to him. They don’t point to themselves. Like John the Baptist they point away from themselves to him. They are witnesses. And by the mysterious yet real work of God their witness to him becomes the means whereby he imparts himself afresh. Those who have been listening to the apostles, mulling over what Peter, James and John have to say, are startled as they realize that the one about whom Peter, James and John have been speaking; this one is now in their midst, is speaking to them himself. Suddenly they know themselves invited, summoned even, to the same intimacy and obedience, comfort and contentment that Peter, James and John have known for years. In other words, the distinction between hearing about Jesus Christ and meeting him; this distinction has fallen away. For this reason Jesus announces, “Whoever hears the apostles hears me; and whoever rejects them rejects me.” (Luke 10:16)

But of course apostles don’t live forever. As it becomes obvious that history will continue to unfold after the apostles have breathed their last breath, their testimony is written down. Written now, it is treasured. Their testimony written will henceforth function in exactly the same way as it used to function spoken. In other words, as the apostolic testimony written is owned and invigorated by God, people today who read it for themselves or hear it expounded in church find themselves acquainted with the selfsame Jesus Christ.

The bible isn’t a book of biology or astronomy. It is the testimony, the witness, of prophets and apostles to Jesus Christ. Christ is a person; the bible is a book, a thing. Person and thing are categorically distinct. At the same time, while knowledge of the book and intimate acquaintance with the person of Christ are distinct, they can never be separated. Perhaps at this point we should introduce, on Reformation Sunday, our old friend Martin Luther. Luther used to say, “Scripture is the manger in which the Christ child is laid.” On the one hand, nobody confuses a manger of straw with a human being. On the other hand, said wise old Martin, if you want to apprehend the child you have to go to the manger, since the manger happens to be the only place where this child can be found.

The manger is made of straw; unimpressive. The manger is untidy and may even be somewhat smelly. But the child it holds is the one who will go to hell and back for us and therefore the one to whom we must cling in life and in death. Plainly, to disdain the manger is to forfeit the child. To ignore scripture is to pass up intimate acquaintance with our Lord Jesus Christ.

Towards the end of his life the apostle Paul wrote young Timothy, hoping to encourage him in the work of the ministry. He reminded Timothy of what Timothy knew already; namely, Paul was in prison on account of the gospel. “I’m chained like a criminal,” wrote Paul, “but the word of God isn’t chained.”

Indeed it isn’t. Tyndale may have been imprisoned, strangled, and burnt. But the word of God can’t be confined or choked lifeless or burnt to ashes. It remains free, unfettered.

The shape of English life subsequent to Tyndale is unimaginable without his English translation of the bible. More important, our life in Christ – yours and mine – is impossible without scripture, for this book, the normative witness to Jesus Christ, ever remains the manger in which child is laid.

Victor Shepherd
Reformation Sunday 2004

You asked for a sermon on The Authority of Scripture

2 Timothy 3:14-17

I: — Everyone is aware that technology is forever depersonalising life. As technology reaches farther into our daily lives, it is felt that spontaneity, freedom, self-expression decrease. We don’t like this. We object to technological domination. We seek to recover what is authentically human. We look for an oasis in life, a luxuriant space in life where the aridity of technology can’t overtake us. We want to find some aspect of life where spontaneity and freedom and self-expression can flourish.

One such oasis, safe from technological dehumanization, has been thought to be sex. Sex is one glorious oasis where we can be free of technology, one oasis where our humanity can thrive, one place where freedom can blossom. Let’s just “do it” and enjoy it and glory in it.

With what result? With the result that in no time at all we have technicized sex! Technology is invoked to help us have better sex. Now there are lotions, potions, pills, foods, underwear, body-paints — all of them sure-fire technologies. Every popular magazine from Reader’s Digest to Chatelaine has a “how-to” article per issue on better sex.

Better sex was supposed to result as we fled from technology. Now better sex is supposed to result as we pursue technology. What’s more, better sex is supposed to rehumanize us.

The truth is, the preoccupation with better sex makes us rely on technology even as we are supposed to be fleeing technology. The contradiction here renders sex dehumanizing.

Furthermore, while technology and sexual expression are supposed to be antithetical, it is plain that they feed off each other: after all, sex is being technicized increasingly, while technology is being sexualized increasingly. (Don’t we use sex to sell such technologies as computers, outboard motors and kitchen appliances?)

It seems that we are caught in a vortex we can’t escape. Our protest against technology intensifies our addiction to technology. Our attempt at recovering the authentically human causes us to forfeit the authentically human. Our efforts at rehumanizing ourselves end in dehumanizing ourselves.

How are we ever going to get beyond our imprisonment here and its self-contradiction?

Think for a minute about labour-saving devices. Technology is supposed to spare us the dehumanization of drudge-labour. But does labour-saving technology mean that we work any less? Does it mean that our work is any less distressing? Does it mean that work is any less the occasion of frustration or futility? A farmer with a tractor doesn’t work less or work less frustratingly than a farmer with a horse; he manages to get more acres ploughed. A fisherman with a steel-hulled trawler doesn’t work less than a fisherman with a wooden dory; he manages to catch more fish. In all of this human existence is not made more human! (A footnote about the fisherman: technology has enabled the fisherman to catch so much fish that now — in Newfoundland at least — there are no more fish for him to catch. The result is that a cherished way of life has disappeared and the fishing community is more dehumanized than ever!)

Think for a minute about the mass media. The mass media do many things. For one, they create the illusion of personal involvement. As people watch news clips about victims of earthquakes in Haiti or victims of urban overcrowding in Mexico City they unconsciously delude themselves into thinking that they are personally involved. They now think that passivity is activity. They equate their boob-tube passivity with activity, and talk thereafter as if they were involved!

In the second place the mass media persuade us that we are all on the edge of a new society. President Lyndon Johnson kept talking about the “Great Society”. Where is it? What was great about it? He meant that his presidency was the cutting edge of a greater society. Greater than what? Greater than whose? Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau kept talking about “The Age of Aquarius”. His pet cliche was “The land is strong”. He meant that the land was newly strong, strong in a way it never was before.

Why would anyone think we are on the edge of a “new society”? What is the evidence for it? As long as the image is created of a “new society” or a “great society” or a “land that is strong”; as long as the image is created the reality will never have to be delivered! In fact the image — the false image — is created deliberately so that the reality won’t have to be delivered. What conscienceless falsification! What cynical exploitation of gullible people!

While we are talking about dehumanization we might as well mention the mass media and trivialization. The mass media bring before us pictures of starving children with protruding bellies together with pictures of mint-scented green mouthwash. Doesn’t this juxtaposition trivialize starvation and the suffering born of it? Recently I was listening to the radio. The news broadcast (supposedly a broadcast of events of immense human significance) was preceded by three back-to-back-to-back advertisements: a new kind of candy, pita bread sandwiches now available in Seven-Eleven stores, and Astroglide (Astroglide being a super-slippery vaginal lubricant). What is the human significance of the news when the news is preceded by such trivia? Trivialization? What do the mass media do better?

In American newspapers the Donald and Ivana Trump hanky-panky displaced reports on the reunification of Germany. Where is our humanity in the midst of such trivialization, which trivialization has so thoroughly victimized most people that they cannot recognize it?

Where is our humanity? In view of the fact that everything which claims to augment it and preserve it appears only to diminish it, what are we going to do? Where, how, are we going to be authentically human?

Since we have been thinking about news we might as well ask ourselves whether the news is even new. Recently the lead item in the newscast described the shooting of nine people in British Columbia. Is this new? There are dozens of multiple shootings every year.

The depredations in Bosnia are front-page news. But are they new? At the turn of the century the Turks slew the Armenians and the British slew the Afrikaners. Later everybody slew everybody in Europe. More recently the Americans ignited Viet Namese children with jellied gasoline and gloated as the torment couldn’t be assuaged. So what’s new about Bosnia?

The apostle Paul tells us (Acts 17:21) that the people of Athens “spent their time in nothing except telling or hearing something new.” The Athenians were “news junkies”. But none of it was new! After all, what can the depraved heart and mind, turned in on itself, do besides reproduce itself?

Neither is there anything new in the microcosm of the individual. When we look into individual human hearts we find people accusing themselves (as surely as they are accused by others), sinking all the way down into self-loathing. When they can no longer endure their self-loathing they “wake up” and exclaim, “Heh! I’m not that bad! I’m no worse than anyone else! In fact, after a moment’s reflection I’m sure I’m better than most!” Fleeing from self-loathing now, they flee into self-righteousness. Self-righteous people regard themselves as fine company. The problem is, their company can’t stand them. After a while the self-righteous begin to ask themselves why no one else can stand them. Soon they get the point: others can’t stand them just because they are thoroughly obnoxious. Then they begin the slide down into self-loathing — and the cycle starts all over.

How do we break the cycle? How do we learn the truth about ourselves and get off the teeter-totter?

When people are jabbed they feel they have to jab back. Their honour is at stake. Their ego-strength is at stake. Their identity is at stake. If someone uses a flamethrower on them, they have to retaliate with their own flamethrower. If they don’t, they will be regarded as wimps, will come to regard themselves as wimps, and in any case may feel themselves to be wimps already. But at all costs they mustn’t appear to be wimps. Therefore the retaliatory flamethrower has to be fired up.

But of course whenever different parties are wielding flamethrowers there are many seared hearts and many smouldering hearts. Isn’t there a better way to live? Where is it? How do we find it?

II: — There are those who have exemplified a better way. Jacques Ellul (he died only last year, aged 83) was a professor of law at the University of Bordeaux when German forces occupied France. Ellul immediately joined the French resistance movement. Working underground by night, he did all he could to aid the cause of the resistors: he sabotaged German military vehicles, disrupted communications, and so on. Then one of his law-students betrayed him to the Gestapo. Friends learned of the betrayal and whisked him out of Bordeaux to the French countryside where farmers hid him as a farm-labourer. He continued his resistance activities from his new “home”.

Any member of the French resistance who was caught was tortured unspeakably. (All of this made famous by the notorious Klaus Barbie.) In fact, French resistors were tortured so badly that the British government pleaded with the French resistors to quit: the effect of their efforts was very slight (the German war-machine scarcely inconvenienced by it) while the penalty for being caught was atrocious. Ellul refused to quit. He said that to quit (even though not quitting was terribly dangerous) would mean that he had acquiesced in the struggle against evil; to quit would mean that he had surrendered to Satan; to quit would mean that fear of pain had triumphed over vocation to the kingdom; to quit, he said, would mean that he had forfeited his humanity. And so he didn’t quit, despite terrible risks.

After the war Ellul learned of the treatment accorded war-time collaborationists. (Collaborationists were those French men and women who cooperated with the German occupation in hope of saving their own skin. When Germany didn’t win, French citizens howled for the scalps of the collaborationists.) The French government treated these people brutally. Whereupon Ellul stepped out of his law-school professorial robes and became the lawyer representing the collaborationists. He defended the very people who would gladly have consigned him to torture and death during the war. All of a sudden Ellul went from being a wartime hero (brave resistance fighter) to a peacetime bum (public defender of French scum).

Why did he do this? How was he able to do this? He declared that he lived in a new creation; he lived in a new order where standards, expectations, assumptions were entirely different from those of the old order. He noted that virtually everyone clung to the old order even though God’s judgement had doomed it, while virtually nobody dwelt in the new order, even though God’s blessing had established it.

Then Ellul said something more. He said he was tired of hearing people discuss faith in terms of belief. Faith isn’t a matter of what we believe or say we believe or think we might believe; faith is what we do by way of answering the questions God puts to us. When God questions us we have to answer. Verbal answers won’t suffice. Verbal answers are so far from faith that they are an evasion of faith. When God draws us into the light of that new creation which he has caused to shine with startling brightness, then either we do something that mirrors this new creation or we are possessed of no faith at all, regardless of how piously we talk or how religiously we behave. Either we do the truth or we have no use for Jesus Christ at all and we should stop pretending anything else.

And so brother Jacques provided a legal defense to spare the people who would never have spared him a year earlier.

In 2 Corinthians 5:17 Paul says — what does he say? “If any man be in Christ he is a new creature” (KJV). The RSV text reads, “If anyone is in Christ he is a new creation. (This is better). Better yet is the NRSV: “If anyone is in Christ there is a new creation. The difference between “creature” and “creation” is significant. I am certainly a creature, but I am not the creation; I am not the entire created order. The Greek word for “creature” is KTISMA; the word for “creation” is KTISIS. Paul uses the latter word, KTISIS, creation. The NEB captures it perfectly. “When anyone is united to Christ, there is a new world; the old order has gone, and a new order has already begun…”.

The truth is, Paul has written an elliptical sentence, a sentence without a verb. Literally the apostle says, “If anyone in Christ — new creation! — the old has gone…”. Paul would never deny that the man or woman who is united to Christ is a new creature; he would never deny this. But neither is this what he is saying in 2 Cor. 5:17! Paul would never deny J.B. Phillips’ translation of the verse: “If a man is in Christ, he becomes a new person altogether.” He would never deny the truth of this; but this isn’t what he’s saying in this text. The apostle is declaring that to be bound to Jesus Christ in faith is to be aware of a new creation, a new order; to see it, glory in it, live in it, live from it, live for it.

Unquestionably Ellul lived in this new order. Do we? Whether we do or don’t is never indicated by what we say, insists Ellul; whether we do or don’t is announced by what we do. What we do is how we answer the questions God puts to us. Needless to say the pre-eminent question God puts to us is, “Where do you live?”

Centuries before Ellul the apostle Paul, plus so many others in the primitive church, knew where they lived. For this reason the apostle had startling advice to give to Philemon concerning Onesimus.

Onesimus was a slave. He stole from his master, Philemon, and then ran away. In the days of the Roman Empire a runaway slave was executed as soon as he was discovered. Onesimus surfaced in the Christian community in Rome, no doubt assuming that Christians wouldn’t turn him in. Under the influence of Paul, Onesimus came to faith and repented of his theft.

To Onesimus Paul said, “You had better high-tail it back to Philemon before the police department catches up with you, or else you will be hanged.” To Philemon (who had earlier come to faith under Paul’s ministry in Asia Minor) Paul said, “I am sending Onesimus back to you, sending my very heart.”

People today excoriate Paul, “Why did he send Onesimus back at all?” For the simple reason that either Onesimus went back or Onesimus was going to be executed. Let’s hear what else Paul wrote to Philemon. “I am sending Onesimus back to you, sending my very heart. Take him back. But don’t take him back as a slave; take him back as a beloved brother…. Receive him as you would receive me.” As Philemon would receive Paul? Paul was a citizen of Rome! Then Philemon must receive his runaway, light-fingered slave as he would receive a citizen and a free man.

On the one hand the legal status of Onesimus was still “slave”, since his slave-status was something only the Roman government could alter. On the other hand, Onesimus was going back to Philemon not as a slave but as a family-member. “Take him back no longer as a slave”, wrote Paul, “take him back as brother in the flesh and in the Lord.” Because Onesimus was a brother in the Lord he was therefore to be cherished as a “brother in the flesh”, as a blood-relative, a family-member.

Inasmuch as the primitive church lacked political “clout” it couldn’t do anything about overturning slavery as an institution. Yet because the primitive church lived in the new creation, a new order, it disregarded the institution of slavery and looked upon Philemon (aristocratic) and Onesimus (low-born) as blood-brothers. And so the institution of slavery (unquestionably a feature of the old order) was subtly sabotaged as Christians held up the new order.

Let us never forget that Aristotle — whom some regard as the greatest philosopher of the ancient world — maintained that a slave was merely an animated tool that had the disadvantage of needing to be fed. Aristotle maintained that as well that a woman was an odd creature half-way between animal and male human. Yet Jesus addressed women as the equal of any male! Luke especially cherished this fact about Jesus, and so Luke’s gospel contains thirteen stories about women found nowhere else. Paul insisted not that wives subject themselves to their husbands, but that husbands and wives subject themselves to each other “out of reverence for Christ.” (Eph. 5:20) The gospel annihilates male dominance!

Jesus Christ brings a new order with him. He is Lord of this new order. And he makes us new by calling us into it.

New? How new? What do we mean by “new”? When I was in India I was startled by the good condition of the countless 1956 Fiat automobiles that scooted everywhere. Then someone told me that these cars were not forty years old. Many were brand new. The car manufacturers in India have never changed the machinery that makes 1956-model Fiats. Every car that the factory produces is a brand-new copy of the same old car!

A brand-new copy of the same old thing. Ellul maintains that this is what the world mistakenly calls new: a recent copy of the same old thing.

There are two Greek words for “new”: NEOS and KAINOS. NEOS means quantitatively new, chronologically new, merely more recent; KAINOS, on the other hand, means qualitatively new, genuinely new, new in substance.

Scripture insists that the qualitatively new, the genuinely new, is found only in Christ. Jesus Christ is new (kainos) creature himself; he brings with him a genuinely new creation; he is Lord of new creation and new creature; he summons us to join him under his Lordship and live in a new order as new people.

Of all the verses in scripture that move me few move me more than 1 Corinthians 10:11, where Paul speaks of Christians as those “upon whom the end of the ages has come.” The apostle uses “end” in both senses of the word: end as termination, and end as fulfilment. In Jesus Christ the fulfilment of the creation has come; and because its fulfilment has come, the old creation, old order is now terminated. Since the fulfilment of the creation has come, and since the termination of the old is underway right now, why aren’t we living in the new instead of in the old? Paul says that Christians live in the new by definition. Then the only thing for us to do is to live out what we already live in.

III: — You asked for a sermon on the authority of scripture. Scripture is the normative witness to all that we have pondered this morning. Scripture is not the new creation itself; not the new creation, not the new creature, not the Lord of new creation and creature. Scripture is merely the witness to all of this, yet the indespensable witness to it. Apart from scripture’s testimony it is impossible for us to know of new creation, new creature, and Lord of both; apart from scripture it is impossible for us to see the truth, to grasp the reality, to glory in a new world, to repudiate the old, to live out what we are called to live in. Because scripture uniquely attests what is genuinely new, apart from scripture the best that human existence can hold out for us is the most recent copy of the same old thing.

But to hear and heed the testimony of scripture is to refuse to settle for this; to hear and heed the testimony of scripture is to hear and heed him to whom it points: Jesus Christ our Lord. To hear and heed him is to find ourselves knowing, cherishing, exemplifying that new “world” which he has brought with him.

Jacques Ellul wouldn’t settle for the most recent copy of the same old thing. The French government and the French citizenry hailed him as hero one day and bum the next. Ellul couldn’t have cared less. He knew what’s real. The apostle Paul wouldn’t settle for the most recent copy of the same old thing. He knew that to be united to Christ is to live in that new order which Christ brings with him. The Roman government condemned Paul. He couldn’t have cared less. He knew what’s real.

I too know what’s real. What’s real is the end of the ages now upon us. What’s real is a new heaven and new earth in which righteousness dwells (to quote Peter now instead of Paul). I know too that it is only through the testimony of scripture, only as the Spirit of God vivifies this testimony and illumines my mind and thaws my heart, that the really real will continue to shine so luminously for me that I shall never be able to pretend anything else.

Ellul died last year. Peter and Paul died 2000 years ago. All three have joined the “great cloud of witnesses” that surrounds us now. All three cherished scripture as the normative testimony to “that kingdom which cannot be shaken”. (Hebrews 12:28)

Faithfully they kept that testimony. And now the Lord of that testimony keeps them.

Victor A. Shepherd
May 1996

A Gospel-Plea for Reading

2 Timothy 4:13

“I know a man”, says Paul, “who, 14 years ago, was caught up to the third heaven…. and this man heard things that cannot be told, which no one may utter.” Who is this man whom Paul knows? It’s Paul himself; he’s talking about himself! He was caught up to the third heaven. The “third heaven” was an ancient way of speaking of the most intimate, most intense, most vivid presence of God. At that moment, 14 years ago, the apostles wasn’t “seeing in a mirror dimly”. (1 Cor. 13:12) At that moment he was bathed in a splendour and frozen in an awesomeness and scorched by a blaze all at once. All at once he was transfixed by the purity of God and prostrated by the enormity of God and dazzled by the brightness of God.

Isn’t it odd, then, that the man whose experience of God was so intense that he cannot speak of it then writes to the young man, Timothy, and asks for books? “Be sure to bring me the books.” Books? Why would he need books? What could a book do for him?

Paul’s experience of 14 years ago wasn’t the only time he had had an electrifying encounter with God. Three years before he was “caught up to the third heaven” he had been crumbled on his way to Damascus when the risen Lord had arrested him. In addition to the Damascus road experience Paul had had a vision of the man from Macedonia who had pleaded with Paul to go there with the gospel. In addition to the Macedonian episode Paul had fallen into a trance while praying in the Jerusalem temple, and while in the trance had been told unmistakably to get out of Jerusalem. The apostle’s experience of God had been vivid over and over.

And now he wants books? Compared to his experience of God reading a book sounds so flat, so pedestrian, simply so dull. Yet he wants books! Obviously he thinks he needs books. Books are essential to his discipleship as a Christian as well as to his vocation as an apostle. Obviously (note this point carefully!) he thinks that his vivid experience of God does not render books unnecessary; his startling awareness of God doesn’t render reading superfluous.

Books are vital. People who read books are very different from those who do not. A society that reads books is very different from a society that does not.

In his novel, Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell depicted a society crushed in the tentacles of cruel totalitarianism. One feature of such a society, Orwell insisted, was the banning of books. The oppressor would continue to oppress his victims by many means, not the least of which was the banning of books.

Aldous Huxley, in his novel, Brave New World, didn’t fear a society where books were banned. He feared something worse: a society where books weren’t banned simply because no one wanted to read a book.

Do we want to read one? read many? Some people who lived a long time before us, and who are foreparents in faith, have wanted to.

Like the Jewish people, in whose house all Christians are guests. In the year 799 Charlemagne was crowned emperor of the Holy Roman Empire. At the coronation he was supposed to sign his name to a document. But he couldn’t write (or read). However, he remembered seeing his name written in Latin: CAROLINUS. He recalled that one letter (“U”) had two vertical strokes in it. Whereupon Charlemagne grabbed an instrument of some sort and made two crude strokes on the document. Meanwhile, the Jewish people were 100% literate. In whose house are Christians guests? Abraham and Sarah are our foreparents in faith, not Charlemagne.

And then there are the Puritans. Don’t listen to those who defame them wickedly! When persecuted Puritans left the old country and settled in New England every Puritan minister was given 10 pounds with which to start a church library. Between 1640 and 1700 the literacy rate among men in Massachusetts and Connecticut was 93% — while it was only 40% in England. (The rate of literacy among Puritan women in the new world was 62%, 10% in England.) Six years after these people landed in Massachusetts they voted 400 pounds “towards a school or college.” The “school or college” they built was Harvard (1636).

By 1650 virtually all New England towns had developed grammar schools. As people there learned to read, the effect of the printed page was immense. People were released from the domination of the immediate and the local. People who don’t read live in a very small world, a world of the immediate (in time) and the local (in space). Books are vehicles that convey us to a different era, a different history, a different geography, a different culture. Books free us from the domination of the immediate and the local.

Are we ashamed of our parents? That is, are we ashamed to be spiritual descendants of the Puritans? I’m not. Yes, our immediate spiritual roots in Streetsville Methodist Church obviously lie in Methodism. To be sure John Wesley imparted his own ethos, his own spirit, to the Methodist communities. Nonetheless the substance of Methodism is largely Puritan. Of the 50 books in Wesley’s “Christian Library” (books that he expected all followers to read) 32 are by Puritan authors. I am as little ashamed of my Puritan ancestors in faith as I am of my Jewish ancestors.

The single largest anti-reading force today is television. Where reading is profound, television is shallow. Reading encourages critical reflection; television encourages uncritical absorption. Reading forces us to think; television numbs us with mindless trivia. Reading presents us with ideas for thoughtful evaluation; television presents us with flitting images for our amusement. As soon as the politician goes on TV what he says is of no importance; what matters is how he appears. Is his tie knotted properly? If it isn’t, he can’t be elected. Menachem Begin’s media advisors told him he had to stop wearing shirts with oversized collars, since a shirt with an oversized collar makes a man appear terminally ill. John Turner’s media advisors told him he had to break his habit of licking his lips. “Who is going to vote for a man who looks like an anteater at a picnic?”, they corrected him scornfully.

Television doesn’t encourage thinking; it encourages emoting. TV turns human anguish into entertainment. A “good” TV program doesn’t end with critical reflection; it ends with mindless applause. Reading presents us with arguments that we have to assess; TV presents us with impressions that we merely blot up.

Television moves from a disaster in Chile to a house-fire in Buffalo to a baseball score to a weather forecast to an advertisement for mouthwash — all in five minutes. The effect on the human mind and heart is deadly. Never forget that the average TV news story lasts 45 seconds. It is impossible to convey a sense of seriousness about the most momentous occurrences in 45 seconds, especially when a 45 second “blip” is followed by a 45 second replay of the pitcher’s last three strikeouts of last night’s game. Visual stimulation is a shabby substitute for thought, just as emotional manipulation is a shabby substitute for verbal precision.

Are we going to read or are we going to sit, hour by hour, in front of what Northrop Frye called “the boob tube” back in the days when “boob” meant “simpleton”?

Surely we are no longer surprised that the apostle wrote, “Bring me the books.” Then what books are we going to read?

Biography is one of my favourites. As we read biography we realize we are not alone in the Christian venture. The book of Hebrews tells us that we are “surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses.” The cloud of witnesses lives. These people nourish us.

I was 19 when I came upon a biography of William Edwin Sangster, an English Methodist preacher, scholar, writer, evangelist. Sangster died in 1959 at age 59, and died miserably of a neurological disease, progressive muscular atrophy. Like all us “general practitioners” of the ministry Sangster was a pastor as well. One day a distraught, middleaged woman called on him and told him brokenheartedly she had just received word that her daughter, a woman in her 20s, was going blind. Would Sangster visit the daughter? With leaden foot he trudged to the hospital, not knowing what he was going to say. He was standing, tongue paralyzed, at the bedside for several minutes when the young woman cried out, “God is going to take away my sight!” It was a hideous moment. Sangster croaked, “Don’t let him. Don’t let him take it from you. Give it to him.”

When I was a young minister in rural New Brunswick I had to call, one day, on Emma Nolan. Emma had been a registered nurse, and had worked for years in New York City. I often called on her just so we could discuss city-life together. Because of her nursing background Emma always accompanied me when we had to drive psychotic villagers to the provincial psychiatric hospital in Campbellton. We had made several such trips together, trips of pure anguish. Emma hadn’t been feeling well for several weeks when she betook herself to Saint John (200 miles away) for a checkup. She was told she didn’t have much longer to live. Emma had had a hard life: an abusive, alcoholic husband, derailed children, several years of widowhood. When she was back from Saint John I called on her. She chit-chatted about this-and-that, plainly avoiding any discussion of her imminent death, when suddenly she cried out, “God is going to take away my life!” What could I say? “Don’t let him, Emma, don’t let him take it. Give it to him.”

Charles Colson. I knew of his unflinching devotion to President Richard Nixon and his part in the Watergate affair. Colson had headed up the committee to re-elect the president. He had boasted that he would cheerfully run over his grandmother if it meant getting Nixon elected again. Then he was arrested, tried, convicted, imprisoned. Then there was an arrest of a different sort at the hands of him who had arrested Paul centuries earlier. When his autobiography, Born Again, appeared, I purchased it expecting the worst of American religious “smarm”. Anything but. Colson, a lawyer, is as profound as he is brilliant. He has written a dozen books since. His grasp of the church’s mission (as well as his grasp of the church’s dereliction) is without peer in North America.

Biography. It keeps us surrounded with the cloud of witnesses.

Don’t forget history. The Christian tradition is rich. We are not the first generation of believers. Neither are we the first to be perplexed, harassed, misunderstood, or ignored. A familiarity with history provides us with a wisdom we should never generate ourselves, even as it describes pitfalls we should never be able to avoid ourselves. G.K. Chesterton stated simply that tradition extends voting privileges to the dead. To the extent that we are serious about history, the dead can vote.

I often approach history from another angle. The person or institution without any acquaintance with history is like the person with amnesia. Amnesia is total loss of memory. Loss of memory is bad enough; worse still is what follows loss of memory, loss of identity. To have no memory is to have no identity. To have no identity is to be like a tree without roots or a sailing vessel without ballast in the keel: the first strong wind overturns it. It’s not the case that persons and institutions with no memory are extraordinarily nasty. They aren’t. It is the case that persons and institutions with no memory tend to be quixotic, erratic, unpredictable, inconsistent, always controlled by the latest fad, fashion, whim, notion or scheme.

All of the mainline denominations of North America demonstrate this over and over. All of the mainline denominations have chosen to ignore history. They have assumed either that history has nothing to teach us, or that history can teach us only what is better left untaught; namely, old-world theological wrangles and old-world political intigues that have no place in the churches of the new world.

The result of this neglect of history? A huge loss of Christian memory in the churches of North America, a dreadful case of ecclesiastical amnesia. That’s why North American Christendom is theologically quixotic, erratic and faddish.

To be acquainted with history is to draw from a tradition that allows the dead to vote. We can’t afford to shun the dead. A knowledge of history, however slight, will prevent us from being victimized by our own amnesia; this in turn will keep us from victimizing others.

What about fiction? Too many people regard fiction as a waste of time. “Why give up precious reading-hours for something that isn’t true?”, they ask. Who said fiction isn’t true? Because stories are stories rather than reports they certainly aren’t factual. But to say they aren’t factual isn’t to say they aren’t humanly true.

Think of our Lord’s parables. “A sower went forth to sow.” “Once upon a time a man had two sons.” “Did you hear about the farmer who woke up one morning only to discover that some stinker had sown weeds in his wheatfield?” The parables of Jesus are sheer fiction, every last one of them! An opponent challenges Jesus; a “wannabe” disciple needs the last bit of misunderstanding cleared away; a sermon has to be illustrated. On the spur of the moment, off the top of his head, Jesus makes up a story. Fiction! “Not true”? No! “Not factual”. Yet 100% true — and, say Christians, eventually the Word of God written.

Fiction. Start with someone like Madeleine L’Engle, an American whom I bumped into in a church-library in New York City while Raymond Cummins explored the Anglican Cathedral where she worships.

John White, a psychiatrist (now retired) and preacher (not yet retired) maintains that a good fiction writer (good, not necessarily Christian) has more insight into the human heart than the best of the social scientists. He’s right. We can’t afford to be without fiction.

And then there are the books that train us in discipleship. Richard Foster, a Quaker, has written the best book on prayer, and another on spiritual discipline, that I have read in the last 10 years.

Jacques Ellul (only three months dead and therefore still a voting member of the church), a lawyer and professor in France whose work on the dangers and dehumanization of technology ought to startle you as little else does.

Richard John Neuhaus, a Lutheran pastor-turned-Roman Catholic priest; his book on the ministry is superb.

John Stott, an Englishman, has written on almost every aspect of the Christian life. He is said to be the most influential Anglican of the 20th century.

We shan’t live long enough to ingest the provender of these people.

“Bring me the books.” The apostle’s experience of God was indescribably rich and unspeakably awesome. And still he needed books!

Yet there was something he craved even more than books: “above all the parchments”. The parchments were scrolls of the Hebrew bible, what we of this congregation call the older testament. Books were crucial; yet most important were the parchments, the scriptures. By extension “parchments” refers to the newer testament as well.

We have to school ourselves in scripture relentlessly. But where to begin? Begin with a small paperback by George Caird. Caird began and ended his teaching career at Oxford University, with a mid-life stint at McGill. Years ago Caird wrote a brief commentary on Luke’s gospel. When it came into my hands I thought I had come upon a new planet. The book is a gem. There are dozens more like it. From time-to-time I recall the metaphors which different biblical authors use to speak of scripture as a whole:

– food — for newborns, necessary if they are going to thrive
– a mirror — it lets us see ourselves as no other book does
– a lamp — its light forestalls groping, stumbling, tripping up
– a fire — it consumes everything about us that should be consumed
– a hammer — it crumbles even rock-hard resistance
– a sword — it penetrates like nothing else.

We haven’t time today to develop a detailed exposition of the nature of biblical authority. We can only conclude with a story told by Charles Spurgeon, a superb 19th century English preacher.

When people asked Spurgeon how they might be convinced of the power of scripture (and therefore of its authority), he replied with a story about lion. “Imagine a caged lion. Someone could bring forward any number of arguments aimed at persuading onlookers of the lion’s nature and the lion’s strength and the lion’s tenacity, and so on. Some onlookers might believe the arguments while many would not. But there is a sure-fire way of convincing everyone about the might of the lion. Let the lion out of the cage.”

An argument about scripture might convince some, and then again it might not. Far better to open up scripture every week. As it is opened up and God owns the Word written, hearts are pierced only to be healed.

“Bring me the books, and above all the parchments.” Books are essential, even as the lion — “The Lion of the tribe of Judah”, in the words of John — has to be let out of the cage.

F I N I S

Victor A. Shepherd
October 1994

“When you come, bring the cloak that I left with Carpus at Troas,
also the books, and above all the parchments.”

The City, Slavery, and African-Canadians

Philemon Genesis 4:8-17

I: — “The biblical story begins in a garden and culminates in a city,” the pamphlet advertising Knox Summer Fellowship tells us. The pamphlet is correct. Human existence begins in a garden, ‘ Eden ,’ Hebrew for ‘delight.’ The ‘garden of delight’ informs us, symbolically, that everything we humans need to thrive is given us by the God whose goodness and generosity are boundless.

Then how did we get from the garden to the city? God, we know, created Eden , garden of delight. But where did the city come from? Cain built the first city, and after Cain cities proliferated.

Why did Cain build a city? Cain has slain his brother. He thinks a city will function like a fort; that is, protect him – protect him from the God who is now pursuing him. In the wake of Cain’s violation of his brother God asks him, “Where is your brother?”

“How am I supposed to know?” Cain replies; “Is he my responsibility?” Whereupon God puts a second question to Cain: “What have you done?”

Now Cain is squirming as God interrogates him. Cain doesn’t enjoy being pressured. He wants to insulate himself against such pressure. And so he builds a city. Why a city? Cain has been condemned by God to being a fugitive and a vagabond. But Cain can’t endure being a vagabond without a home and a fugitive anxiously looking over his shoulder. What’s more, murderous Cain has introduced insecurity into humankind, a taste for blood, and the pursuit of vengeance. Muderous Cain can’t endure the anxiety of living amidst insecurity and vindictiveness. He thinks a city will provide him the preoccupation he needs to keep God’s questions out of his ears and God himself out of his face. He thinks a city’s population and a city’s distractions will let him forget what he is, what he has done, and what he has brought to others. He thinks he can quiet himself and protect himself by building a city. He thinks a city will provide the tranquillity of a home and the security of a fort. (The problem, of course, is that everyone else in the city is also a murderer looking for tranquillity and security.)

Cain wasn’t the first to disobey God. His parents were. Adam and Eve had disobeyed God at the epicentre of their existence. They had made a U-turn that had left them oriented away from God, dis-oriented in every sense of the word. In the wake of their shocking disobedience God expelled them from the garden by God’s own judicial act, and then God had put to them the first question scripture records: “Where are you?” They didn’t answer. They couldn’t. They didn’t know where they were; they merely knew where they weren’t: they weren’t at home amidst delight.

After God had expelled Cain’s parents from the garden God placed an angel with a flaming sword that turned every which way at the east end of the garden, the end from which they had been expelled, the end through which they would attempt to re-enter. The flaming sword ensured that humankind could never regain Eden . No human effort at undoing the Fall; no human effort at righting itself before God will ever succeed. No utopia will ever achieve what it promises. The angel with the flaming sword ensures that all attempts at utopias issue in dystopias. The 20^th Century saw two attempts at utopias, one from the political right (Nazism) and one from the political left (communism.) Both proved murderous dystopias.

At this point the Bible unfolds the Genesis-to-Revelation story of the city. There are scores of cities mentioned in Scripture. All of them have one thing in common: they are monuments to humankind’s defiance of God, and they are barricades behind which we think we can hide from God. “We don’t need you,” we cry to God, “because we have our magnificent city, and it both comforts us and secures us. What’s more, we have no time for you because our city fills the horizon of our lives, waking and sleeping.”

Think of Babel . (Genesis 11) “Let us make a name for ourselves. Let us build ourselves a city, a tower with its top in the heavens.” We aren’t happy with the name God has given us. In Scripture ‘name’ means ‘nature’ or ‘essence.’ We aren’t happy with the nature God has given us. Our nature: God’s faithful, obedient covenant-partners? We don’t want that: we want to create our own nature, fashion our own essence. We want to be self-made people from start to finish. If we fashion ourselves and programme ourselves then we won’t be accountable to anyone or indebted to anyone.

Another city is built, and others after that. Babylon looms. Babylon is a terrible city. It carries off God’s people into exile and torments them. Babylon , of course, is that wicked city which shouldn’t have surprised God’s people since they already knew, regrettably, what cities are about.

But Babylon doesn’t last forever. Eventually there’s a return to Jerusalem , ‘Hier Shalem,’ city of shalom, city of salvation. Jerusalem is surely the God-given antidote to toxic Babylon and all cities like it.

Hier Shalem, city of salvation? Jerusalem is the city that slays God’s prophets and crucifies God’s messiah. It isn’t the antidote to anything.

For this reason Jerusalem must give way to the New Jerusalem. The New Jerusalem is new not in the quantitative sense of ‘most recent,’ the chronologically most recent version of ‘same old, same old.’ The New Jerusalem is new in the qualitative sense of ‘entirely different.’ The New Jerusalem is unlike any previous city in that it is the first city whose sole builder is God. It is the only city God’s Messiah adorns.

This city, be it noted, includes a garden. The New Jerusalem recovers and restores the old, old garden, Revelation 22 tells us. Only now the garden’s tree of life is the occasion not of humankind’s incomprehensible sin but of the healing of the nations.

There’s only one problem concerning the New Jerusalem: no one has seen it. It’s been promised, but the promise hasn’t been fulfilled. The promised city isn’t here.

Or is it? The city of God is the kingdom of God . Jesus insists that wherever he, the king, is present, the kingdom is operative. (After all, everyone knows there can’t be a king without a kingdom or a kingdom without a king.) Jesus Christ the King, risen triumphant over sin, evil and death, now ruling and ceaselessly pouring forth the Spirit; Christ the King is in our midst. Therefore his kingdom is present and operative.

Then why is Christ’s kingdom still disputed? It’s disputed because the world lacks the spiritual qualification to see it. The kingdom can be seen only by those who are kingdom-sighted, just as colour can be perceived only by those who are colour-sighted. Colour-blind people don’t see colour and aren’t expected to. But let us be sure of one thing: those whom the king has rendered kingdom-sighted; they most certainly recognize the presence of the kingdom and rejoice in it.

Actually, the kingdom-sighted see both the kingdom of God and what the apostle Paul calls “this present evil age.” They see both, and see both simultaneously. (In other words they aren’t naïve.) But even as they see both simultaneously, they don’t see both with equal vividness and clarity. Their perception of the kingdom predominates.

When I hold a book in front of me in reading range and look at it I see the printed page clearly, in focus, and everything else on the periphery less clearly, less focused, less vivid. Or I can hold a book in front of me and look not at it but rather what’s behind it or beside it. Now everything else is clear, focused, vivid, while the book (I can see it and therefore know it’s there) I can’t read because it’s unfocused.

Tell me: which is more focused, clear, vivid for you: the kingdom of God or this present evil age? Both are here (for now); both are occurring simultaneously. But both can’t be our primary focus simultaneously.

On the day that God has appointed, the city of God , whose only builder is God, will shine forth beyond dispute. Until that day the city of God , the kingdom of God , remains superimposed on this present evil age. Only the kingdom-sighted can see the present kingdom; but they do see it, and see it as the city of God, which city of God they know will one day stand forth alone, unobscured, no longer disputed because indisputable.

What are Christians to do in the meantime? Our task is never to build the kingdom, build the city of God . (Remember, anything we build we pervert.) Our task is to discern the kingdom; discern it, exalt it, point to it, and point others to it.

In the meantime Christians live in the overlap of kingdom and present evil age; we live in the superimposition of the city of God upon the cities of humankind. We aren’t naïve; we recognize the startling contradiction between the city whose builder is Cain and the city whose builder is God. Yet we aren’t paralyzed by the contradiction. We know what we are to discern and to do.

II: — Cain violated his brother Abel. We humans violate each other – violate each other lethally – in many different ways. One such violation, deadly to be sure, is slavery. We violate our sisters and brothers who are made like us in the image and likeness of God. Every time someone is enslaved, anywhere in the world, Cain slays Abel afresh. Slavery is a blatant contradiction of the city of God , a blatant contradiction of the kingdom.

Slavery is rampant in the world today. At the end of 2009 there were approximately 29.2 million humans enslaved throughout the world. The average value of a slave (right now) is $340 ( U.S. ); the lowest market value is for debt-bondage slaves ($40-$50), while the highest market value is for sex slaves ($1895.) In India there are currently 40 million ‘bonded labour’ slaves, people of the ‘untouchable class’ in the caste system who labour to pay off debts incurred generations ago. Nigeria boasts 800,000 slaves (or 8% of the nation’s population.) As of 2002 there were 109,000 child-slaves working as forced labourers on cocoa farms in the Cote d’Ivoire . Millions of people toiled as slaves in the former Soviet Gulag system of penal labour. Slave-trafficking remains big business, with approximately 800,000 people trafficked every year across national borders.

III: — Slavery is as old as humankind. Slavery thrived everywhere throughout the Roman Empire . When the apostle Paul penned his letter to slave-holder Philemon, there were 60 million slaves throughout the empire. We mustn’t deceive ourselves. ‘Slave’ was not then and is not now and another word for ‘employee.’ A slave was deemed subhuman. Aristotle spoke of slaves as animated tools. In the Roman era slaves had no rights before the law; slaves had no means of appeal against their masters. The Latin expression concerning slaves was non habens personam; that is, ‘not having a face.’

Paul wrote to Philemon in the year 62 (approximately.) Tacitus, a first century Roman historian and senator, relates the story of the murder of Pedanius Secundus in 61. Pedanius Secundus happened to be murdered by one his own slaves. Whenever a slave slew a householder the custom was that all the slaves of that household were to be put to death – an obvious attempt at telling slaves that if any one of them misbehaved then all of them would be executed. All the slaves of Pedanius Secundus’ household were executed; that is, all 400 of them, including women and children.

Slavery is iniquitous. Slavery of any sort means that a human being is regarded as and deployed as – as an animal? On the contrary animals customarily receive much better treatment than slaves. Slavery means that a human being is regarded as less than an animal, is regarded as a tool, stick, a stone, an implement, an object than can be replaced by any similar object as surely as any one hammer or screwdriver can be replaced by any other hammer or screwdriver.

The apostle Paul knew slavery to be iniquitous. Then why didn’t he rail against it? The reason is simple: he knew that railing would be pointless and would do nothing to assist the people who needed help most, the slaves themselves. Railing would only strengthen the resolve of slave-owners to maintain the social arrangement that looked upon slavery as economically necessary and socially desirable; a social arrangement, in other words, that was impregnable.

Paul chose another approach. Instead of attacking the institution of slavery frontally he attacked it tangentially; he sought to undermine it covertly; he sought to erode it, erode it little by little. Having declared unambiguously to the Christians in Galatia, “All are one in Christ Jesus, and therefore in Christ, before Christ, there is neither slave nor free,” he was confident that the gospel of the new creation in Christ wherein social class-divisions are transcended; this new creation would emerge in the midst of a people in whom the gospel worked as surely as yeast leavens the dough in which it lurks.

Paul’s letter to Philemon embodies the logic of his tangential assault on slavery; the letter also embodies the mood of Paul’s approach (namely the appeal of love rather than loud denunciation); and the letter embodies Paul’s confidence that the gospel which transforms the heart is effectual and therefore accomplishes what it declares.

While Paul customarily wrote to congregations, in Rome or Philippi or Thessalonica, for instance, his letter to Philemon is written to an individual, one man. (The letter to Philemon is the only letter we have that Paul wrote to an individual.)

Paul’s letter didn’t end the institution of slavery overnight. At the same time there’s widespread agreement that what this letter embodied, working quietly like yeast for years, caused the ferment that helped much of the world renounce and denounce slavery.

And now to the story the letter reflects. Onesimus was a runaway slave. He fled to Rome where he lost himself in the crowded city. While in Rome he met Paul. Through Paul’s ministry Onesimus came to throbbing faith in Jesus Christ. Paul loved Onesimus. He spoke of Onesimus as “my child,” meaning, “someone dear to me whom I fathered into faith.” So dear was Onesimus to Paul that when Paul sent him back to Philemon he wrote, “I am sending Onesimus back to you; I am sending back my very heart.”

Since it was such a wrench for Paul to send Onesimus back, why didn’t he keep Onesimus with him in Rome ? Because he wanted to preserve Onesimus’ life. Paul knew that while Onesimus had managed to keep secret so far his status as runaway slave, the secret couldn’t be kept forever. Onesimus was from Colosse. People from Colosse visited Rome all the time. In no time a visitor from Colosse would come upon Onesimus, recognize him, and turn him in. Once discovered, Onesimus wouldn’t be sent back to Philemon; once discovered Onesimus would be tortured by the Roman government and then executed.

As I’ve mentioned already, there were 60 million slaves throughout the Roman Empire at this time. In order to discourage slaves from escaping, any runaway slave, once caught, was executed. Anyone who helped a slave to escape or harboured a runaway slave was also executed. When a runaway slave was caught, a white-hot branding iron seared the letter “F” in his forehead; “F” for Fugitivus, “runaway.” The branding itself was torture, and it was followed by greater torture: crucifixion. Paul loved Onesimus and wanted him to keep him alive Little wonder he sent Onesimus back.

But back as what? If Philemon received Onesimus and said nothing about the slave’s having departed months earlier, Onesimus would be back alive, all right, but back as a slave once again. In other words, from the perspective of Roman officialdom, Onesimus would be the slave he had always been.

But Paul wasn’t operating from the perspective of Roman officialdom; Paul operated from the perspective of the gospel. And according to the gospel – in Christ we are new creatures who live in a new world where old distinctions and divisions mean nothing – according to the gospel Paul was sending Onesimus back as a free man. When Paul sent Onesimus back he asked Philemon to receive him as a “beloved brother in the Lord.”

To make this latter point crystal clear, Paul added, “Receive him as a beloved brother in the flesh.” To receive anyone as a brother in the Lord ought to be enough to overcome within the church all the social differences and distinctions that riddle a society. Ought to be enough; but, sadly, a congregation can think itself sincere in claiming to receive everyone as brother or sister in the Lord while maintaining (perhaps unknowingly) the social standoffs that curse a society. For this reason Paul added, “Receive Onesimus as a brother in the flesh.” In other words, Onesimus the slave and Philemon the master were henceforth to be looked upon, and to look upon themselves, as blood-brothers without distinction. Not only was Onesimus not Philemon’s spiritual inferior; henceforth Onesimus was to be Philemon’s social equal. Right here Paul undermined the institution of slavery. To be sure, it would take decades before slavery was abolished in the empire; still, it was undermined here.

Then Paul added something more. “You and I are partners, Philemon; receive Onesimus as you would receive me.” Philemon was to receive Onesimus as he would receive Paul, his partner in the gospel. Paul, we must remember, was a Roman citizen. A Roman citizen could never be made a slave. Then while the Roman government would continue to look upon Onesimus as a slave, Philemon was never to treat Onesimus as a slave. The slave who was not only a brother in the Lord was also virtually a brother in the flesh and also virtually a Roman citizen. Philemon was never to look upon Onesimus as a slave again.

Paul knew himself to be an apostle and knew himself recognized as an apostle. He spoke with apostolic authority. Yet when he writes to Philemon he sets his authority aside. Gently he writes, “Although I am bold enough in Christ to command you to do what is required, yet for love’s sake I prefer to appeal to you.” As an apostle he could tell Philemon, a Christian, what Christian truth required Philemon to do. But Paul feared that if he did this Philemon might obey him, to be sure, but obey him grudgingly. And so Paul writes, “For love’s sake, your love’s sake….” Elsewhere in the letter Paul says he knows Philemon well; he knows that Philemon has a heart as big as a house, a heart that overflows with love for God’s people. In the past, Paul reminds Philemon, Philemon’s love has been an immense comfort and joy to Paul himself. Appealing now to Philemon’s love Paul pleads, “For love’s sake take Onesimus back; and take him back not as a slave but more than a slave. Take him back as beloved brother; but not merely as a brother in the Lord but as a brother in the flesh. Receive him as you would receive me, a free man and a Roman citizen who can’t be enslaved.”

Then towards the end of the letter Paul adds “I write you, knowing that you will do even more than I say.” What’s the “more?” The “more” is that Philemon will go one step farther than taking back Onesimus without punishing him; Philemon will take the ultimate step of releasing Onesimus from slavery altogether. In the Roman Empire a slave-owner could grant a slave his release at any time. Paul has piled up reason upon reason, Christian ground upon Christian ground not merely for humane treatment of a slave but for the outright release of a slave. The gospel requires that slaves be freed.

In one of the glorious paradoxes in which the gospel abounds, Paul, a prisoner himself in Rome and awaiting trial, did more than the world will ever know to free enslaved people everywhere.

IV: — Yet because Cain is always among us (because Cain is always within us, slaves have to be freed in every era, in every corner of the world. Slaves had to be freed in Canada .

The first black slave to be transported directly from Africa to Canada was Olivier Le Jeune, assigned a French name while crossing the Atlantic . The first, he was by no means the last; slaves were regularly imported from the West Indies and from New England; by 1759 there were 1132 slaves in New France. When the British defeated the French in 1760, the British brought even more slaves to Canada .

The American Revolutionary War found United Empire Loyalists flocking to Canada and bringing black slaves with them. In addition many slaves appeared in Canada who weren’t attached to Loyalists but who were simple fugitives, hoping that the bondage they were fleeing in the United States they wouldn’t find in Canada . There appeared in Canada as well 3,500 free black loyalists; they had been American-owned slaves and had been granted their freedom by the British when they sided with the British during the Revolutionary War. In fact they had been promised the same privileges and rights as the white Loyalists. These free black loyalists settled in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia . They had been promised land. Soon they realized most of them would be granted no land at all. The few who did get land were assigned land that was useless. All they could do was deliver themselves into the hands of white people eager to exploit them. At the same time the black victims of broken promises were now segregated in churches and schools or even excluded from churches and schools.

Fifty years after the American Revolutionary War the War of 1812 broke out. Thousands of black American slaves fled to the British for protection. Once again they were promised land and freedom in Canada . Formally known as “Black Refugees,” the first of them arrived in Halifax in 1813. They were welcomed enthusiastically as a large supply of cheap labour. Immediately following the War of 1812, however, a severe economic recession, along with a sudden influx of white immigrants from Britain , pushed the black people even farther down the social order and removed the little economic opportunity they had had.

While Britain had abolished the slave trade in 1807 and slavery itself in 1833 ( France in 1848) slavery continued to thrive in the United States . In 1850 the USA passed the Fugitive Slave Act, promising even harsher treatment for runaway blacks and anyone who assisted them. Not surprisingly, many more slaves fled to Ontario , whose black population now numbered 40,000. In the same year (1850) Ontario reacted by passing the Common School Act. This act permitted separate schools for blacks. If no separate school existed, then black children could be made to attend class at separate times from white children, or be made to sit on segregated benches. We must note that while black/white segregation was legal in Ontario only in the school system, de facto segregation occurred everywhere else (e.g., black people in Ontario could neither vote nor sit on juries; interracial marrying was enough to provoke a riot).

Between 1910 and 1912 1,300 black persons immigrated to Canada . They settled in Alberta and Saskatchewan . Immediately white people on the prairies demanded legislation to preserve the Canadian West for Caucasians. The Canadian government prepared the legislation but never enacted it out of fear of damaging relations with the USA . Less formal means were deployed to prohibit black people from entering Canada ; for instance, the physical and financial qualifications for black immigrants were made insuperably difficult, while Canadian immigration officials who disqualified blacks were surreptitiously rewarded. The result was predictable: by 1912 all black immigration to Canada had been halted without Canada ’s ever having declared a racist policy formally.

In early 20^th Century Canada black people found they could get only the most menial jobs. Sleeping-car porters were almost exclusively black, for instance, while dining-car waiters were exclusively white. Even the federal government permitted racial restrictions in hiring and promotion practices within the civil service. Housing discrimination abounded. In fact when I was a teenager in the late 1950s I knew that black players on Toronto ’s professional minor league baseball team regularly responded to advertisements for rental accommodation only to be turned away when they appeared in person.

There’s a point about all of this that we must note carefully. Canada (after 1867) has never enacted race-legislation; nevertheless, race-discrimination has been upheld by Canadian courts as legally acceptable. In 1919 a Quebec appellate court deemed it legal for a theatre to restrict black people to inferior seating. In 1924 Ontario courts upheld a restaurant which refused to serve black people. In 1941 the Supreme Court of Canada upheld the Montreal Forum Tavern in its refusal to serve black people. The courts consistently upheld racial discrimination as legal in a country that boasted of having no racial legislation.

Canadian courts have decreed that racial discrimination is illegal. The Canadian Bill of Rights and the Human Rights Commission have strengthened the courts in this regard. Passing legislation, however, does nothing to alter attitudes in individuals. Black people, faced with persistent discrimination, have formed the Black United Front in Nova Scotia and the National Black Coalition of Canada. Studies undertaken by the Canadian Civil Liberties Association have revealed that most employment agencies will agree, if asked by prospective employers, to screen out non-white job applicants. Once hired, black people as a group appear at the lowest end of the wage scale without regard for training or experience. An Ontario Human Rights Commission study has disclosed that black people who hold a Master of Business Administration degree earn 25% less than white people with the same degree and the same professional experience.

Two hundred years ago, on the 10th of February, 1806 , a Toronto newspaper carried the following advertisement: “For sale. Two slaves. Peggy, aged 40, adequate cook, $150. Her son, Jupiter, aged 15, $200.” Two hundred dollars for a fifteen year old black boy was a great deal of money in 1806. Whoever purchased these slaves was clearly expecting enormous work from them, since a horse would have cost far less.

“Why keep talking about something that happened 200 years ago?” someone objects; “All of that is long gone; let’s move ahead.” We can “move ahead” only if we remember that the last racially segregated school in Ontario was shut down as recently as 1965.

V: — Murderous Cain built the first city. He named the city ‘Enoch,’ named it after his son Enoch. Ever since Cain’s ‘Enoch’ the city has been humankind’s monument to its God-defiance. We think that the city we build provides us a safety from the long arm of God and security from our fellow-citizens – who, of course, are murderous, just like us – or why else would they look to the city as a shield against insecurity and vindictiveness?

Cain named the first city after his son. After whose Son is the last city named? The last city, the final city, is the New Jerusalem. It is the kingdom of Christ the King, Son of the living God. It is the holy city.

We who are the people of the great king can see the holy city just because we are kingdom-sighted. Seeing the holy city we want only to witness to it, since it is now superimposed it on whatever earthly city we inhabit. We want only to point to and point others to the kingdom, a city that cannot be shaken.

We aren’t naïve. We know the history of all earthly cities. We know the history of Canada and the history of black people in Canada . We know the history of Rome and Colosse and the history of slaves in Rome and Colosse. But like the apostle Paul, we have been apprehended by the king and appointed to his kingdom. Then the truth of God that Paul urged upon Philemon is the same truth that we must do whenever we have opportunity to do it.

“I am sending Onesmimus back to you, Philemon; I am sending you my very heart. Receive him as you would receive me.” And as Philemon does just this, the city of Enoch , sought-after refuge of murderous Cain but no refuge at all; the city of Enoch is eclipsed by the city of God , named after God’s Son, in which city, John tells us, the nations of the world are healed.

You and I have been appointed to render the city of God visible as we identify and resist the violation of any human being, anywhere. For by God’s grace, the author of Hebrews reminds us, we have been granted citizenship in a kingdom, the city of God , that cannot be shaken (Heb. 12:28).

Victor Shepherd

11 August 2010

Frustration – and its Aftermath

Philemon 12, 16

Colossians 2:9 Philippians 3:8 Ephesians 4:10

“The most difficult thing to do in life is to have to do nothing”, said Dr. James Wilkes, psychiatrist and my former teacher; “The worst stress that anyone can undergo is the stress of powerlessness.” In reflecting upon myself and upon those for whom I am pastor I’ve pondered Wilkes’ statement many times. I think Wilkes is correct: the stress of powerlessness, helplessness, is unequalled. Frustration is a terrible burden. Like so much of life, frustration is easy to understand but difficult to cope with.

All of us have seen the 2-or 3-year old child who becomes frustrated and has a tantrum. We consider the child to be maturing when he can withstand frustration without exploding. When we adults (possessed now of even greater maturity) control ourselves in moments of speechless frustration, we are still controlling our temper. The rage is still there, but of course we’ve learned to disguise it or deny it until it’s safe for us to “let fly.”

For a long time now I have observed someone who strikes me as genuinely “mature in Christ”, as he himself put it, rather than merely “keeping the lid on.” His powerlessness, his frustration, has been of a sort that everyone would acknowledge as most frustrating: imprisonment. For a long time now I have marvelled at its aftermath, under God, and what blessing the aftermath born of frustration has brought to the world.

The apostle Paul was a “doer”, a “goer”, always on the move, travelling ceaselessly on behalf of the gospel, cheerfully sustaining shipwreck, assault, hunger, fatigue and slander. The Lord who is the light of the world burned so brightly in Paul himself that Paul had undertaken three lengthy journeys, establishing new congregations or ministering to established congregations. He had always wanted to go Rome , the capital of the empire; after Rome he wanted to move into Spain and declare the gospel where it had never been announced before. He got as far as Rome . He didn’t get there in the manner hoped, for when he arrived in Rome he was in chains. A few months earlier Paul’s preaching had precipitated a riot. He was charged with disturbing the peace. Roman officials were obsessed with keeping the peace, and anyone who provoked a riot was in huge legal difficulties. Paul knew he was never going to get a fair trial in Jerusalem ; he thought he might get one in Rome . Since he was a Roman citizen, he had the right to be tried in Rome . Awaiting trial in Rome now, he couldn’t travel. Frustrated? We can’t imagine how frustrated. Not only was he in chains, he was fastened to the guard whom he couldn’t be rid of for a minute. He was allowed pen and paper, however, and managed to jot down four brief letters. These four letters are known as his “prison epistles”: Philemon, Philippians, Colossians, Ephesians.

We must notice that the aftermath of Paul’s frustration wasn’t violence or tantrums or lament; it wasn’t even depression. The aftermath was four small letters that the church of Jesus Christ will never be without.

Today we are going to look at one feature only from each of the four. We are going to do so trusting God to bless to our edification the frustration of the man who had surrendered his frustration to God.

I: — PHILEMON Paul’s letter to Philemon is written not to a congregation but to an individual. This little letter didn’t end the institution of slavery overnight; at the same time there’s widespread agreement that what this letter embodied, working quietly like yeast for years, caused the ferment that helped the world renounce and denounce slavery.

And now to the story itself. Onesimus was a runaway slave. Having escaped, Onesimus fled to Rome where he lost himself in the crowded city. While in Rome Onesimus met Paul. Through Paul’s witness Onesimus came to lively faith in Jesus Christ. Paul loved Onesimus. He spoke of Onesimus as “my child”, meaning, “someone dear to me whom I fathered into faith.” So dear was Onesimus to Paul that when Paul sent him back to Philemon he wrote, “I am sending back my very heart.” Since it was such a wrench for Paul to send Onesimus back, why didn’t the apostle keep Onesimus with him in Rome ?

There were 60 million slaves throughout the Roman Empire at this time. If they ever revolted, the revolt would be massive and the bloodshed colossal. Therefore Roman officialdom sought to ensure that no slave escaped. Anyone who counselled a slave to escape was executed. Anyone who harboured a runaway slave was executed. When a runaway slave was caught, a white-hot branding iron seared the letter “F” in his forehead; “F” for Fugitivus, “runaway.” The branding itself was torture, and it was followed by greater torture: crucifixion. Paul loved Onesimus and wanted him alive. Little wonder he sent Onesimus back.

But back as what? From the perspective of Roman officialdom, as a slave. But from the perspective of the gospel, as a free man. When Paul sent Onesimus back he asked Philemon to receive him as a “beloved brother in the Lord.” Fine. To make his point crystal clear, Paul added, “Receive him as a beloved brother in the flesh.” To receive anyone as a brother in the Lord ought to be enough to overcome within the church all the social differences and distinctions that riddle a society. Ought to be enough; but, sadly, a congregation can think itself sincere in claiming to receive everyone as brother/sister in the Lord while all the while (perhaps unknowingly) maintaining the social standoffs that curse a society. For this reason Paul added, “Receive Onesimus as a brother in the flesh.” In other words, Onesimus the slave and Philemon the master were henceforth to be looked upon, and to look upon themselves, as blood-brothers without distinction. Right here Paul undercut the practice of slavery. To be sure, it would take decades before slavery was abolished in the empire; still, it was undercut here.

Then Paul added something more. “You and I are partners, Philemon; receive Onesimus as you would receive me.” Philemon was to receive Onesimus as he would receive Paul, his partner in the gospel – yet more than this. Paul was a Roman citizen. Yes, he was in prison awaiting trial; still, a Roman citizen could never be made a slave. Then while the Roman government would continue to look upon Onesimus as a slave, Philemon was never to treat Onesimus as a slave. The slave who was not only a brother in the Lord was also virtually a brother in the flesh and also virtually a Roman citizen. Philemon would never look upon Onesimus as a slave again.

In one of those glorious paradoxes that abound in the gospel, the man who was in chains himself – Paul – did more to unchain slaves than anyone else in the ancient world.

II: — PHILIPPIANS The congregation in Philippi was especially dear to Paul. The congregation was beset with no major problems. Oh yes, two women, Euodia and Syntyche, were having a “tiff”, and Paul told them they should sort it out. The tiff was a trifle. Unlike the congregations in Corinth and Galatia , the congregation in Philippi was problem-free. Moreover, the Philippian congregation was the only one that Paul had allowed to help him financially.

Paul’s intimacy with the people there and his affection for them can be read on every page of the letter. “I yearn for you all with the affection of Christ Jesus”, he writes; “and it is my prayer that your love may abound more and more….” His intimacy with the people was rooted in his intimacy with his Lord. Never indifferent to the truth of the gospel, never indifferent therefore to the truths of the gospel (doctrine), Paul yet knew that the truths of the gospel serve one luminous reality: an intimacy with the living person of Jesus Christ, an intimacy so profound as finally to be inexpressible.

At the end of the day everything we are about in Schomberg Presbyterian Church serves one glorious end: helping each other to an ever more intimate acquaintance with Jesus Christ. Everything that we struggle for in our congregational life; everything that we struggle against everywhere else: the “bottom line” of it all is what the apostle himself glories in when he sums it all up in six simple words of one syllable each: “For me to live is Christ.”

A few lines later in the Philippian letter Paul adds, “I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. To know, in Hebrew, is to be so intimately acquainted with something as to be altered by that thing. To know pain is to have had such personal experience of pain as to be changed by the experience. To know hunger is to have been so hungry oneself as to never to be the same again. To know a person, in Hebrew, is to be so intimately acquainted with that person as to be forever altered by the encounter, the relationship. What Paul knows of Jesus Christ is simply the difference his ongoing engagement with the master makes to Paul himself. Everything else in his life pales compared to this.

And then the apostle continues with something we must never overlook: all he wants from life is to know Jesus Christ and the power of his resurrection. Does this mean that Paul regards his relationship with his Lord as protracted, privatized ecstasy? that all he wants in life is the most intense ecstasy in his innermost self while a suffering world’s suffering goes unnoticed or at least uncared about? Not for a minute. He insists that to know Jesus Christ is both to know the power of Christ’s resurrection and to share Christ’s sufferings, even to be conformed to Christ in his death. There’s a sense, of course, in which we can’t share another’s suffering. If your leg is broken it’s your leg that’s broken, not mine. Nevertheless, when your leg breaks, your suffering has a claim on me, a claim that I must honour if in fact I do know Jesus Christ and the power of his resurrection.

Everyone knows that the parent whose child suffers extraordinarily – cerebral palsy or spina bifida or cystic fibrosis; everyone knows that such a needy child changes the parent’s life profoundly. Not to the same extent, most likely, but in the same way none the less, a world whose suffering rages relentlessly is a world that claims us indisputably and therefore ought to change us irrevocably.

Intimacy with Jesus Christ certainly includes the ecstatic, just as married life includes the ecstatic. Yet as surely as Luther was right when he said, “It’s when the spouse is sick that one learns the meaning of marriage”, so it’s when the world suffers that we learn the meaning of intimacy with our Lord.

And to be conformed to our Lord in his death? His death presupposed self-forgetfulness. Enough said.

III: — COLOSSIANS Jesus Christ is sufficient; our Lord needs no supplementation. He doesn’t need an additive or a booster or a corrective. He is sufficient. Listen to Paul’s ringing reminder to the Christians in Colosse: “In him [i.e., Jesus Christ] the fullness of God was pleased to dwell. (Col. 1:19) And a minute later, “In him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily.” (Col. 2:9) And again in the same letter, “He is the image of the invisible God.” (Col. 1:15) “Image”: eikon. In Greek, however, eikon means not only image (as in perfect mirror-reflection) but also manifestation. Jesus Christ is the manifestation of God. As manifestation of God he not only need not be supplemented, he cannot be supplemented. What, after, all could God lack, and what could ever be added to him?

And yet the Christians in Colosse had to be reminded of this truth; had to be reminded inasmuch as they were hounded night and day by religious devotees, “inventors”, who insisted that Jesus Christ needed religious additions, supplementation, of one kind or another. Then what did they think was needed? Wherein did they regard our Lord as deficient?

These people belonged to a group called “gnostics.” The gnostics believed the human body to be inherently evil. Since the body is inherently evil, God would never have incarnated himself in Jesus of Nazareth. Since a holy God would never, could never, identify himself with human flesh, the incarnation had never occurred.

The consequences of this notion were far-reaching. If the incarnation hasn’t occurred, then Calvary ’s cross wasn’t an act of God, and God hasn’t dealt with our sin definitively and invited us home unconditionally. The gnostics believed, therefore, that people had to expiate or work off their own sin.

In the second place, if the human body is inherently evil, then such evil has to be lashed out of the body. Whereupon the gnostics developed the most extreme ascetic practices as they tried to beat their bodies into something that would eventually be acceptable to God. Other gnostics argued that just because the human body is inherently evil, the body is incorrigible. Therefore there’s no point in beating it; might as well indulge it. These gnostics indulged themselves shamelessly, immersing themselves in whatever luridness they fancied.

In the third place, all gnostics insisted that genealogies and horoscopes provided spiritual sustenance, making up in the spiritual life what Jesus Christ couldn’t supply.

It all sounds like the contemporary church, doesn’t it. The incarnation is denied (for whatever reason). The cross of Jesus is no more than another instance of martyrdom. The body has to be drilled into champion athletic form (even though the only person who looks like a 20-year old in a swimsuit is a 20-year old), or else the body is to be indulged with nary a conscience-twinge. Genealogies and horoscopes are invested with religious significance in view of the deficiencies of the Christian faith.

From his prison “digs” in Rome Paul underlined his letter to the Christians in Colosse: “You don’t need anything that gnosticism offers: Jesus Christ is sufficient. Since the fullness of God, the whole God, dwells in him, since he is God’s perfect manifestation, ‘what more can he say than to you he hath said’? Since the fullness of God dwells in him bodily, the human body can’t be inherently evil. Then the body is neither to be beaten nor to be indulged, but is rather the vehicle of our service to God and neighbour. And since Jesus Christ is the event of God’s speaking to us and acting for us, there’s no need for genealogies and horoscopes, and no religious significance to them in any case. Jesus Christ is sufficient.”

IV: — EPHESIANS Ephesians is one of the richest documents in the newer testament. One 20^th century minister, Martyn Lloyd-Jones, preached through the book of Ephesians Sunday-by-Sunday for eight and one-half years. I have five minutes. What shall I say? I want to draw your attention to something that Paul says both near the beginning and near the conclusion of his letter. “Jesus Christ fills all things.” (Eph. 1:23 & 4:10 ) In other words, there is no nook or cranny in the universe where our Lord isn’t. Even though I had read these two verses over scores of times I was startled as never before when I read them once more in a whorehouse in downtown Toronto . In 1986 The United Church Observer commissioned me to write an article on the housing situation of the chronically mentally ill. Maureen drove me to the Parkdale area of Toronto – where the chronically mentally ill live in large numbers, expelled, as they have been, from scaled-down provincial hospitals in west Toronto . Since it was raining I went to a doughnut shop and sat down with a 25-year old woman who trundled everything she owned in a household shopping cart. Before the day was out I’d visited several more doughnut shops and asked my newfound “friends” there where I might get a hotel room. I went to one of the places mentioned and booked the room. It cost $117 per week or $35 per hour. I rented it for a week. As I lay in bed that night trying to shut out the sound of the footsteps up and down the stairs and the constant flushing of the communal toilet at the end of the corridor I re-read Ephesians. Then it leapt out at me: Jesus Christ fills all things. All things? The Parkdale boarding houses that “shelve” the wretched and rejected of the city? The hotel where I was staying? The rooms adjacent to mine whose occupants weren’t reading the bible? If Jesus Christ does fill all things, what does it mean that he does? What’s its force? What are its implications? I’ve pondered all of this thousands of times in countless different contexts. To say the least, because he fills all things we never have to take our Lord anywhere. We don’t take him anywhere; he’s always on the scene ahead of us. We can only identify him and his work and identify ourselves with it all. The implications of this for my life are so vast that I’ll not live long enough to pursue them all.

Margaret Avison, a zealous Christian and member of Knox Presbyterian Church, Toronto , has twice been awarded the Governor General’s Award for poetry in Canada ; two years ago she received the most prestigious prize in the English-speaking world for poetry. Margaret tells me she doesn’t want to write “Christian” poetry, religious poetry. (Religious poetry, she says, is usually inferior and “corny” as often.) She wants to write poetry so well, so superbly, that her unbelieving poet-friends will have to notice it and query her about it, and therein listen to her. It’s the implication for her and her gift of the fact that Jesus Christ fills all things. Margaret told me that this was one kind of evangelism she could do. She can do it, however, only because Jesus Christ fills the world of poetry, even though most poets don’t know it and disdain him in any case.

What about you and me? Since our Lord fills all things, what are the implications for us? What must we be about? What misunderstandings must we henceforth drop? And what urgency fires us as never before?

Frustration. The man who had always been busier than a water-spider one day found himself chained to a guard who was never out of sight. It wasn’t the apostle’s first taste of powerlessness, but it would prove to be next to his last. All he could do was scratch out a few lines to three congregations and an individual. It was all he could do. Still, he was determined to do all he could.

Perhaps you want to say that Paul wasn’t completely powerless, utterly helpless. You are correct. He wasn’t. He could still write. Myself, I have long noted that when people claim they are helpless they rarely are: there’s something they can do, if only a little. Then what about the situation of honest-to-goodness utter helplessness, complete powerlessness? We must surely be speaking here of our powerlessness in the face of death. We should all know by now that it’s precisely in the midst of death that God has always done his most effective work.

Victor Shepherd January 2006

You asked for a sermon on Living for the Present or What Is Going To Happen Today?

Hebrews 3:13

I: — Psychologists tell us that the person who lives only for the present is woefully immature. The person who lives only for the present is like a child who spends all his weekly allowance the day he receives it, with the result that he has no money for the next six days. The fancy term for this kind of immaturity is “inability to delay gratification”. People who can’t delay gratification are controlled by impulses and appetites. They are exceedingly immature, chronically in difficulty with banks, mortgage companies and employers, and not infrequently in trouble with the law. Whatever they crave they have to have now, whether what they crave is punching in the nose someone they don’t like or pursuing an illicit relationship with someone they do like.

Living “in the present” in this sense of the word — instant gratification — isn’t good.

Then what about living in the past? Two things have to be said here. We must say that it’s good to have a past and to cherish the past. It’s good to cherish tradition. After all, our generation is not the first generation. And not everybody who lived before us was stupid. In other words, there is wisdom to be gleaned from the past, and we should only be fools if we ignored such wisdom. More to the point, the person without a past is like the person with no memory. Just as the person with no memory has no identity, so the person with no past has no identity — and therefore doesn’t know who he is. Without a past we can’t know who we are! Obviously it’s crucial to have a past and cherish our past.

Yet while we must have a past we must not live in the past. People who live in the past are nostalgia-freaks. They romanticize the past. In romanticizing the past they falsify the past. Romantically they create a “past” that never was. When I was a teenager my grandfather used to tell me tirelessly, “Pay no attention to those who talk about `the good old days’. They weren’t good.” My grandfather worked for the Ford Motor Company in the days before the trade unions had formed to protect workers. The stories he told me of callous exploitation, of institutional savagery, of factory owners’ cruelty and capriciousness — all this belonged to days that were certainly “old”, said my grandfather, and just as certainly were never “good”.

“Good old days?” Does anyone want see again the days that didn’t yet know vaccination and inoculation and painkiller as simple as aspirin?

We should have a past and should cherish our past. At the same time, only the silliest nostalgia-freak wants to live in the past.

Then what about the future? Once again we should anticipate a future and we should cherish the future that we anticipate. Not to anticipate a future is to live for instant gratification in the present — and we have already noted the perils of that immaturity.

At the same time, even as we anticipate our future and cherish it we must not live for the future. People who live for the future are investing everything in the future, with the result that the present is worthless. People who live for the future are counting on so very much twenty-five years from now that the present counts for nothing. People who assume that waves of happiness are going to flood them in fifteen years are plainly joyless today.

To live in the past is to bury oneself in a past that never was — and therein render the present insignificant. To live for the future is to fantasize about a future that is never going to be — and therein render the present insignificant.

Then the only thing to do is cherish both past and future yet live in the present; in fact, live in the present alone.

If we are going to live in the present alone, what can we expect to happen today?

As I mulled over the sermon-request I pondered scripture’s use of the word “today”. What does scripture associate with the word “today”? What is going to befall us today? And therefore what should we expect?

II (i): — Following our Lord’s healing of a paralyzed man Luke wrote, “Amazement seized them all, and they glorified God and were filled with awe, saying, `We have seen strange things today!'” (Luke 5:26)

Amazement seized them all — all the bystanders, that is; and these bystanders cried out, “We have seen strange things today!” What were the “strange things”? Four men had brought their paralyzed friend to Jesus. Jesus had said to the paralyzed fellow, “Your sins are forgiven.” This could only have sounded silly; as silly as if you went to your physician with a terrible pain in your knee and your physician said to you, “Your knee hurts dreadfully? I want you to know that worldwide poverty is going to end.” Or suppose a victim of horrific child abuse goes to a psychotherapist, and the psychotherapist says, “Nature will soon no longer be `red in tooth and claw’; the wolf is going to lie down with the lamb.”

Both responses sound silly. Actually, they are profound. You see, excruciating pain in your knee and worldwide poverty are both manifestations of evil. Child abuse and creature-devouring-creature are both manifestations of evil. A man whose legs are paralyzed and a man whom sin has seized is a victim of evil twice over; a victim of the same evil, ultimately, twice over. So far from being silly, then, our Lord is perfectly sensible when he both forgives the man his sin and releases him from his paralysis. It is the ministry of our Lord to overturn evil: every manifestation of evil. On the same afternoon Jesus frees the man from the grip of sin and frees him from the grip of paralysis. Bystanders remark, “We have seen strange things today.”

“Strange things”. The Greek word is PARADOXOS. PARA, “against”; DOXA, “opinion”. PARADOXOS, “contrary to opinion; contrary to what people are thinking, contrary to what people expect.” Contrary to what people expect, to be sure, but real nonetheless because authored at God’s hand.

In the course of living my days I too find myself saying, “I have seen strange things today.”

Several months ago a man in Streetsville whom I knew moderately well lost his job. I knew that the man had a major drinking problem. I thought the stress of his joblessness would only worsen his drinking problem; worsen it to the point that he’d succumb to liver damage in a few months and all Streetsville would nod knowingly at the graveside and remark, “Wasn’t it too bad!” When I spoke at the Lions Club dinner in April concerning my visit to India I asked someone from the club how Mr. So-and-So was doing. How was he doing? Why, his problem had worsened until he was comatose; then he had sought help — found it, no less. Now he was released from his addiction and went to as many meetings as he needed to — at which meetings he even now spoke occasionally for the sake of other men who were suffering as he once had suffered. In addition he had found a parttime job only a few miles away. Because his “stinking thinking” had been dealt with, there was significant change in his manner and outlook. What had happened to him was contrary to what everyone had thought. Strange, isn’t it!

When I was in India last January a couple, Solomon and Salome, fed me one Sunday after church. Solomon and Salome are both gypsies. (There are 40 million gypsies worldwide, and two-thirds of them live in India.) Solomon schools young men (virtually all of them gypsies themselves) for the evangelisation of gypsies in the hinterland of India. Solomon himself is a second-generation Christian. How did his parents come to faith? Decades ago a young missionary, a young woman, no less, traipsed by herself through India’s jungle-growth for days until she came upon a band of gypsies. She stayed with them and accepted their hospitality. Equipped with nothing more than a pocket-bible, she told and retold the story of Jesus. Solomon’s father, steeped in Hinduism for generations, listened to the stories of Jesus. Eventually the one about whom the stories speak spoke himself! Strange, isn’t it! “We have seen strange things today.”

I was in my office one Saturday morning when a young man appeared at the door. He said he’d been robbed the night before. He had a job waiting for him in Saskatoon, but now he had no money for the bus ticket and needed $72. I didn’t believe him. (If you heard the tales I hear every week you wouldn’t have believed him either.) I asked him precisely where he had been promised work in Saskatoon. He told me. Calling his bluff (I thought) I telephoned the company in Saskatchewan — only to discover that my bluff had been called: he really did have a job waiting for him. It so happened that the congregation’s benevolent fund was exhausted, and it so happened too that I had been to the bank that morning to withdraw $100 for housekeeping purposes. I asked the fellow what he planned to eat for the two-and-a-half day bus-ride to Saskatoon. He hadn’t thought about eating. And so I gave him my $100. Off he went. A week later a woman in the congregation (someone who had been very critical of me, I thought; she insisted repeatedly that I am crude) told me with much embarrassment that recently a conviction that she should give me some money had overwhelmed her and remained with her. She couldn’t explain it and felt awkward doing it. I accepted her envelope — and found in it a cheque for $100.

I am not saying that we should expect to see “strange things” every day. If we did, they would no longer be strange. I am not suggesting that we should always be looking for the unusual, the bizarre, the freakish. But I am saying that we should rejoice when we are startled at the “strange things” with which God surprises us.

(ii) — More must be said concerning “today”. Jesus meets up with Zacchaeus and says, “I must stay at your house today.” A short while later Jesus says, “Today salvation has come to this house, for he also is a son of Abraham.” (Luke 19:5,9) What has happened in between these two pronouncements? “I must stay at your house today.” They move off together to the home of the diminutive cheat. A short while later, “Today salvation has happened here!” The “in between” time is crucial, for “in between” Zacchaeus resolves to repay anyone whom he has defrauded four times over; in addition to compensating those whom he has “fleeced” he gives up half of his “goods” in order to assist the disadvantaged.

The biblical word for all of this is repentance. Repentance, in scripture, is a change of mind and heart followed by a change of life. There is both an inner conviction and an outer alteration.

We should note too that when Jesus goes to the home of Zacchaeus he says, “Today salvation has come to this house.” It’s plain, therefore, that salvation is nothing more, nothing less, and nothing else than the visitation of Jesus Christ himself. Salvation isn’t an arrangement or a scheme or a plan; neither is salvation a program for bringing a psychological experience upon oneself; neither is it a philosophy like existentialism or socialism which tries to pass itself off for salvation inasmuch as it uses a religious vocabulary. Salvation is nothing more, nothing less, nothing else than the effectual visitation of the saviour himself.

At the same time the one grace incarnated in Christ and displayed in Christ and visited upon us in Christ; this one grace is not only gift but also claim.

“Today I must stay at your house”, Jesus says to Zacchaeus. He does stay at the home of Zacchaeus. What a gift to the fellow! The “gouger” who merits from Jesus only the contempt he has already merited and received from the townspeople is now graced by the one whose visit surrounds him not with contempt but with consolation; in particular that cosmic consolation that has to be called “salvation” just because it saves us from something infinitely more ominous than townsfolk contempt.

At the same time the consolation Zacchaeus now knows frees him to hear and heed and happily honour consolation’s claim upon him. He doesn’t have to have his arm twisted. He doesn’t have to be cajoled or pestered or manipulated. He knows that the gift given him — a gift without strings attached — nonetheless requires a response from him. The same Christ-bestowed freedom that freed him from his tree-top hiding-place now frees him from tight-fisted hoarding. At this point — only at this point — Jesus exclaims, “Today salvation has come to this house.” Salvation occurs as the gift of grace acquaints us with the claim of grace and the claim of grace is finally honoured — thanks to the quickening of grace.

(iii): — Zacchaeus’s discipleship is genuine; his renewal at the hand of Christ cannot be doubted. At the same time, the “Way” that he has newly begun to walk is not without potholes and pitfalls, booby-traps and distractions. Exactly the same has to be said of the “Way” that you and I are called to walk: not without potholes and pitfalls, booby-traps and distractions. For this reason we must listen to the writer to the Hebrews: “Exhort one another every day, as long as it is called `today’, that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.” (Hebrews 3:13)

For as long as time lasts, every day is “today”. Today is the only time we have. The past is behind us and we can’t recover it, while the future is ahead of us we can’t access it. Today is the only time we have. Then today we must welcome fellow-believers who will tell us the truth about ourselves lest we stumble into sin; and having stumbled into it, find ourselves increasingly deluded by it and increasingly hardened in it.

If we are isolated from fellow-believers (I mean intimate fellow-believers) then we are far more likely to be spiritually sabotaged by temptations that are so subtle we can’t even perceive them. If we are isolated from intimate fellow-believers then our endless rationalization prior to spiritual disaster and our endless excuse-making after it will never be checked.

When temptation settles upon us like tranquil mist we can whisper to ourselves that the sin we are flirting with isn’t all that sinful — in “this” instance — and can therefore be indulged a little more. But temptation doesn’t always settle on us like tranquil mist; sometimes it falls on us like a wolf falling on a rabbit. On such occasions it is no time before we have lost sight entirely of the truth of God and the way of discipleship and our own vulnerability — not to mention our Lord’s grief.

When temptation falls on us like a wolf we need the instant intervention, the most brutal intervention, of Christian intimates, or else we are undone. On the other hand, when temptation settles on us like tranquil mist we need the winsome wisdom and the reasoned thoughtfulness and the gentle persuasiveness of Christian intimates, or else we shall accommodate temptation’s gradualism until our resistance is eroded. As long as it is called “today” we must exhort one another lest we succumb.

Myself, I have learned to welcome three kinds of “exhortation”, all three of which help me resist sin’s deceitfulness and its capacity to harden. One kind of exhortation is casual conversation with people who love me enough to be honest with me. Another kind of exhortation is sharp rebuke from those who may or may not love me but in any case are angry enough with me to correct me. The third kind of exhortation is by appointment. I have a Christian friend outside the congregation, a man of spiritual maturity and wisdom, integrity and insight. I see him by appointment.

What have you found helpful as a vehicle of that “exhortation” which the writer of Hebrews says we all need lest sin’s deceitfulness deceive us and harden us? What kind of exhortation works for you?

(iv): — Lastly, on any day we may hear our Lord say to us, “Today — with me — in paradise.” (Luke 23:43) It isn’t every day we hear this; we die only once, after all. But any day may be the day when we are relieved from our struggle and spared further suffering. Any day may be the day when our faith is crowned with sight and our discipleship rewarded and our journey brought to completion in our Father’s many-roomed house.

We must be sure to notice that on the first Good Friday our Lord said to the insurrectionist dying alongside him, “Today!” Our Lord didn’t say, “later” or “at the end of the age” or “some time in the future but I’m not sure exactly when.”

You and I do not know how we are going to die. We may die suddenly: heart-attack, massive brain-haemorrhage, motor-vehicle accident. Or we may die slowly, an inch at a time, as our final disease moves at a snail’s pace. At the end of the day it will make no difference to us, because the day ends with “Today.” “Today — with me — eternally.”

Today is all we have. It is “today” that will see the “strange things” which occur as God’s inscrutable providence brings before us what we could never anticipate or imagine.

It is “today” that can find anyone owning the visitation of Jesus Christ himself only to hear him say, “Today salvation has come even to this house!”

It is “today” that must find us doing all we can to spare each other either a gradual descent into spiritual disaster or a catastrophic collapse into it.

And it is “today” — any day — that will find our struggle ended, our suffering relieved, our journey fulfilled, our faith crowned with sight, as the one who bound us to him years ago draw us even deeper into his own heart and holds us there eternally.

Today is all we have. And therefore today we can expect it to happen.

Victor A. Shepherd
June 1996

No Dabbling Here

Hebrews 2:9

Psalm 119:103 Song of Solomon 2:3 John 8:51

(“O Taste and See…”) The judge in the wine-producing contest evaluates the work of different vintners by sipping a few drops — only a few drops — of each vintner’s wine. The judge passes only the smallest amount over his taste buds, certain that he has sniffed and sipped just enough to get the flavour.The weight-conscious guest at the dinner party knows that it would be impolite, an insult to the host, to eat nothing of the dessert the host has spent hours preparing. Yet weight-conscious as she is, she knows that to eat all the dessert she’s been served would undo her diet on the spot. Therefore she eats just enough to get the flavour of the dessert. The tiniest taste will do.Not so in scripture. To taste, for our Hebrew foreparents, customarily means to eat or drink something in a large quantity; to eat or drink something so amply as to know the fullest flavour of it. To taste, in scripture, is to know every dimension of the flavour, to know what the wine tastes like when the bottle is newly opened and also after the wine has been allowed to “breathe”; to know what roast beef tastes like on an empty stomach and what meringue tastes like on an almost-full stomach; to know what steamed lobster tastes like in a restaurant and what it tastes like at the beach. To taste, in scripture, is to eat or drink something down so amply as to absorb every aspect of the flavour in every conceivable situation.

To taste, in scripture, means even something more. It means to drink something down so thoroughly, so completely, as to drink it all up. In a peculiar English idiom we say to the child hesitating over her milk at the dinner table, “Now drink it all down.” Once she has drunk all of her milk we say she has now drunk it all up — meaning, there’s none left over.

When the psalmist cries, “O taste and see that the Lord is good” (Ps. 34:8), he has in mind all the biblical meanings of “taste”. The psalmist knows that only as we “taste” in the Hebrew sense are we ever going to “see”. Those who merely sniff and sip never “see”; those who are content to sniff and sip around God never come to “see that the Lord is good.” Only those who taste (drink down so as to gain the fullest flavour of), and only those who drink down so as to drink up (soak themselves in all that’s before them); only such people ever come to “see” — that is, know incontrovertibly, know without argument or prop, know with the immediacy and assurance of seeing anything with their eyes — only these people come to have stamped on them indelibly the conviction born of experience that the Lord is good.

How good is he? Good in what sense? Good to what end?

I: — The writer of the book of Hebrews declares that Jesus Christ has “tasted death for everyone.” (Heb.2:9) To say that our Lord has “tasted” death is to say that there is no dimension to death that he doesn’t know first-hand, know intimately. He knows what only the dying themselves can ever know of the feeling of isolation, of moving into something where others may nod sympathetically but can’t follow. He knows the emotional anguish of mourning one’s own death, as well as the contentment at the end. He knows the assault on one’s dignity that death so often is. He knows the hardship on one’s nearest and dearest that death visits upon survivors. (Didn’t he make special provision for his mother?)

Not only has our Lord tasted death so as to know every aspect of it; he has tasted it too in the sense of drinking it all down so as to drink it all up. Nothing remains of it to hurt us his followers, much less terrify us.

Jesus startled hearers in the days of his earthly ministry when he announced, “Whoever keeps my word will never taste death.” (John 8:52) Bystanders thought the remark presumptuous and Jesus himself ridiculous. Yet our Lord was both sane and profound. He hadn’t said, “Whoever keeps my word will never be subject to biological cessation.” That would have been ridiculous. He had said, “Whoever keeps my word will never taste death.” He meant that what he has tasted — drunk up, in fact — his disciples will never have to know. What won’t we have to know? We shall never have to taste that death which is the Father’s just judgement on sin, that death which is estrangement from God, that death which is the most horrible spiritual vacuum.

There are two factors in our never having to taste such bitterness: one, he, our Lord, has drunk it down so as to drink it all up, leaving nothing to acidify us; two, we are to “keep his word” — i.e., we are to have all of him dwelling in all of us. We are to have him — everything we know of him — penetrating, altering everything we know of ourselves. He has tasted death on our behalf; we are to welcome him and his truth. The end of it all is that our coming biological cessation is nothing more than a momentary interruption, a minor nuisance, a short-lived “time-out” — but with no power to work in us all that scripture means by “death”. Our Lord has tasted it; we now keep his word; for us, therefore, death has been rendered inconsequential.

Freud insisted that no one could contemplate her own death; no one could face — genuinely face — the prospect of her own dissolution, her own demise, so fearsome is it. But if Jesus Christ has tasted death for us; if we do keep his word, abide in him as he abides in us, then I maintain we can contemplate our inescapable death without having to fall into denial or sublimation or projection or any of the defence mechanisms we customarily deploy in the face of overwhelming threat.

At the same time, apart from Jesus Christ we do have something to fear. The unguarded speech we overhear every day tells us that people are aware, deep down, that apart from Jesus Christ they have something to fear. Recently I heard yet another radio talk show on the subject of AIDS. The interviewee was speaking at length when the interviewer, thinking he had to say something, interjected, “And all of these people with AIDS are going to die.” Those with AIDS are going to die? Only they? Everyone is going to die, with or without AIDS, infected or squeaky clean.

Think again of everyday speech. We say, “Physicians are important; they save lives.” Now I think physicians are important. They are important for many reasons, not the least of which is pain-reduction; but they aren’t important because they save lives. No physician has ever saved one single person’s life. No physician has ever prevented someone from dying, finally. One of the things that physicians do is postpone dying; they postpone it; they don’t prevent it.

The fact that people speak as they do in everyday speech merely tells us that our society has not yet grasped the gospel: only Jesus Christ has tasted death for us, and only as we live in him can we contradict Freud and know that our coming biological cessation is but a minor nuisance that doesn’t even bear on our life in our Lord.

Contrast how our society speaks with how my late friend, Ronald Ward, used to speak. Ward (former professor of New Testament Studies at Wycliffe College , University of Toronto — and the godliest man I ever met) and his wife spent the wartime years in Britain . Their neighbourhood was bombed in an air raid. Homes were levelled all around them, or at least badly damaged. Their home wasn’t hit directly but it did suffer from nearby blasts. When the “all clear” sounded and they made a pot of tea, Ward was about to drink his cup of tea when he noticed a speck of plaster dust floating in it. Normally he would have “fussed” it out with his napkin. Yet in the wake of their having survived the air raid, the speck of plaster dust was nothing. Whereupon he gulped his tea, dust speck included. “This”, said Ward, “is what Paul means in 1st Corinthians when he tells us that death has been swallowed up, ‘gulped’, in Christ’s victory.”

Jesus Christ has tasted death so as to drink it all down, swallow it all up — all to the end that we, his people, shall never have to taste death ourselves.

II: — The psalmist cries, “How sweet are thy words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth.” (Ps. 119:103) “Word” here is Hebrew shorthand for “commandment”, “command”, “direction”, “teaching”, “claim”, “shape”, “guidance”, “instruction”, “pattern”; in short, “word” means “the behaviour that befits and characterizes God’s people.” God’s “words” taken together describe the pattern that God ordains for those who aspire to godly living. All of this, says the psalmist, is sweet to his taste.

Once again, when the psalmist says the command of God is sweet to his taste he doesn’t mean he’s taken a little nibble of it and said, “Rather sweet, you know.” He hasn’t flirted with discipleship and the faithful obedience required of discipleship and said, following his flirtation, “It’s all right, but I shouldn’t want any more of it lest I appear extreme.” To say that he has tasted the command of God is to say there is no aspect to the will of God and the way of God and the law of God that he doesn’t relish; there is no dimension to the command of God and the instruction of God that he doesn’t want to consume wholly and digest thoroughly and have it strengthen him utterly and enlighten him pervasively.

The psalmist certainly knows what malnutrition looks like. Malnourished people are weak, listless, pallid, dull. Spiritual malnutrition exhibits comparable spiritual symptoms. The psalmist sees it all around him. Still, spiritual malnutrition is the one thing the psalmist himself is never going to have — just because the claim of God upon him everywhere in life is sweet. He relishes it, and has found it sweet just because he has tasted it, immersed himself in it so thoroughly that it now saturates him.

The psalmist was born 1000 years before the advent of Jesus. You and I were born 2000 years after the advent of Jesus. This fact doesn’t affect truth but it does affect vocabulary. What the psalmist called “the words of God” the apostle Paul calls “the mind of Christ.” God’s will for us, God’s way with us, God’s pattern for us; all of this is gathered up in the one expression, “the mind of Christ.” We are to taste this, and having tasted it, know that it is sweeter than honey.

What constitutes the mind of Christ, the pattern after which our faithful discipleship is to be patterned?

Jesus was bent not on pleasing himself, but on obeying his father and

loving his neighbour, his neighbour being any human being, however

repugnant, who was suffering for any reason.

Jesus was humble, lowly, in the midst of those who boasted and bragged

and strutted.

Jesus was a faithful witness to the truth, even though faithfulness to

the truth cost him everything in a world that prefers falsehood.

Jesus was patient under undeserved insult.

Jesus was uncompromising in his denunciation of sin.

Jesus was instant and constant in prayer.

Jesus denied himself repeatedly in order to minister to others.

Jesus found his joy and blessedness in everyday, glad obedience to his

Father in heaven.

All of this is gathered up in “the mind of Christ”. And this is what the psalmist knew, even though his vocabulary for it was different. Still, the psalmist, like his spiritual descendants today, knew that obedience is joy and blessedness when our obedience is thorough and consistent, persistent and uncompromising; when, in a word, we don’t sip or nibble or sniff but rather taste the command and claim of God.

III: — Lastly, the woman speaking in that biblical love poem known as “The Song of Solomon”; this woman says of her beloved, “Compared to other men, the man I love, the man who loves me, is like a lily among brambles; he’s like an apple tree among the trees of the wood…his fruit is sweet to my taste.” (Song of Solomon 2:3 NRSV) Then she adds, “He brought me to the banqueting house, and his intention for me was love.”

The Song of Solomon is a love poem replete with eroticism. The church has often been embarrassed by this eroticism (I’m not) and has tried to tell us that the Song of Solomon is really about Christ’s love for his people. It isn’t. Neither is it about our love for God. It’s about a creaturely gift, a creaturely good: romantic love. And such romantic love, says the woman in the poem, she has tasted.

To taste love isn’t to love a little bit; to taste love isn’t to “try it out”; to taste love isn’t to mouth the tiniest morsel. To taste love is to plunge ourselves into love, bathe in it, inhale it, guzzle it, drink it down so thoroughly that we can’t imagine there being any love left over and going to waste. To do this is to learn with the unnamed woman that love is sweet.

The Song of Solomon happens to speak of one creaturely good, romantic love. By extension, however, we can speak of other creaturely goods: movies, drama, poetry, fiction, sport, bird watching, opera, dancing, gardening, kite flying, music, sailing. There is a sweetness in all of these, a delight so deep as to be too deep for words, given to those who taste but not given to those who dabble. Then dabble we won’t and taste we must.

“But doesn’t such ‘tasting’ suggest we might be in danger of overdoing it, of going overboard, of tasting creaturely goods so much as to forget to taste and see that the Lord is good?” On the contrary, just because we have already tasted and seen that the Lord is good we shall not confuse a creaturely good with that pre-eminent good which is God himself; just because we have already tasted and seen that God is good we won’t confuse a creaturely gift with that pre-eminent gift which is, as Paul reminds us, “eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” (Rom. 6:23 ) Just because I know who God is I don’t expect my wife to be God, don’t even expect her to be super-human, don’t expect her to be any more than wife. And yet, just because she is God’s gift to me, Maureen is ever so sweet to my taste! Creaturely goods are seen in proper perspective when our gaze is first fixed upon him who has given them to us. As we taste him — and see that he is good; as we taste his claim upon us — and find discipleship sweeter than ever we imagined; it is then that we are free to forswear dabbling and immerse ourselves in creaturely gifts, only to find them sweet as well.

It all begins with a man exclaiming, “O taste and see that the Lord is good.” It ends with a woman saying of her beloved, “His fruit is sweet to my taste.”

Victor Shepherd

April 2007

Boldness: A Distinguishing Characteristic of Christians

Hebrews 4:14-16

Acts 4:13 John 11:14 Colossians 2:15 Proverbs 28:1

What single word says the most about the Christian life? I imagine that most people would say “love”. Others would say “faith”. A few might say “discipleship”. In the book of Acts, however, the single word that is used most frequently to speak of the Christian life is “boldness”. Christians are bold. They speak boldly. They act boldly.

Actually the one Greek word PARRHESIA is translated by many different English words in scripture: boldness, forthrightness, frankness, confidence, plainness, outspokenness. The one Greek word admits, even requires, so many different translations in that it resembles shot silk. Shot silk is a textile that is dyed a particular colour; blue, for instance. As light falls on blue shot silk from different angles; as the angle of vision on the part of the viewer changes, the blue colour takes on slightly different hues: blue-shiny, blue-flat, blue-grey, blue-black. It is still blue, but because of the shot silk it is always a variegated blue, a blue with constantly changing nuances depending on the angle at which light falls on it as well as on the angle from which the viewer views it.

So it is with the word “bold”. Bold, yes, but not in the sense of cheeky; bold, but not in the sense of pushy or nervy or smart-alecky. The latter kind of boldness only puts people off. There is nothing to commend a boldness that is little more than rudeness.

In the book of Acts the apostles are said over and over to speak and act boldly, frankly, openly. A dozen different English words are used in any translation of the bible to translate the one Greek word (PARRHESIA) that describes the public demeanour of Christians. There is a forwardness about them that isn’t cheeky, a directness that isn’t discourteous, a forthrightness that isn’t insensitive, an outspokenness that isn’t saucy, a bluntness that isn’t brutal, a plainness that isn’t brazen, a confidence that isn’t cocky. This characterizes Christians, says Luke, even as it first characterized him who is the Christians’ Lord.

I: — Speaking of confidence, the book of Hebrews exhorts us, “Let us with confidence (“boldly”) draw near to the throne of grace that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.” We don’t doubt our need of mercy or our need of help. We need mercy inasmuch as we are sinners whose sinnership is so deep in us that by comparison deep-seated medical problems such as systemic infection appear almost superficial. We need help inasmuch as we are chronically needy people whose fragility is exposed every day. Every day we are clobbered by someone’s heavy artillery, infected with someone’s poison, caught off guard with a surprise attack.

The fact that we need mercy and help, however, does not guarantee that mercy and help are available. Yet it is the promise of the gospel that what we can’t generate of ourselves, God supplies out of his sheer kindness. As we look to God, to the sovereign one himself, says the book of Hebrews, we see that the sovereign’s throne is occupied by grace!”

Doesn’t this startle you? Most people expect a throne to be occupied by power, sheer power. They feel that if they are lucky such power might be slightly benign. (After all, in the history of the world a benign or benevolent sovereign has been so rare as to render his subjects exceedingly fortunate.) But the throne that is above all thrones is occupied by grace. This takes my breath away. My life is ruled ultimately, as your life is ruled ultimately, as the entire cosmos is ruled ultimately by grace — grace being the sin-forgiving, all-embracing, unimpedable favour and blessing of God.

Because grace rules, grace is effectual; grace isn’t a useless warm fuzzy as ineffective as a pipedream. Grace penetrates; grace permeates; grace achieves what grace alone can achieve. At the same time, because it is grace that rules, that “Other” to whom we look and in whose presence our lives unfold; this “Other” is neither an arbitrary tyrant nor a heartless judge. From my first breath to my last breath my life, with all its labyrinthine convolutions and subterranean murkiness and who knows what else; my entire life is gathered up in and comprehended by and riddled with grace. Therefore I can look to God knowing that he wants only to bless me. And since grace rules, since grace is sovereign, I can look to God knowing that nothing can impede the blessing he wills for my life. Then I must always with confidence draw near to the throne of grace.

The author of Hebrews insists that there is one ground of our assurance that grace rules; one ground, therefore, of our confident drawing near to the throne of grace to receive mercy and help. The one ground is this: Jesus Christ, the Son of God, has withstood all the assaults that render us prone to collapse and all the temptations that render us prone to corruption. Resurrected and ascended, he has been crowned sovereign. It is entirely reasonable to draw near with utmost confidence, for now we know we shall surely find mercy and help.

Our confidence isn’t cockiness. Still, we have been emboldened to approach expectantly the only ruler the world will ever have and know that we shall be met with grace and nothing but grace.

II: — The angle of vision changes slightly and the same word takes on a slightly different hue. Peter and John have been hauled up before religious authorities. The officers of the church courts (who pride themselves on being religious experts and procedural masters) assume that they will be able to convict, humiliate and dismiss or punish the two disciples of Jesus whose faithfulness to him has landed them in trouble with the church courts. How surprised they are to find that there is something about Peter and John that they can’t quite put into words, something that they can’t do anything about, but also that they can’t deny. Luke writes, “When they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were uneducated, common men, they wondered; and then they recognized that these two had been with Jesus.”

Uneducated, common men — yet bold. In first century Palestine “uneducated” didn’t mean “ignorant,” let alone “stupid.” It meant “without formal rabbinical training, without a degree in theology”. “Common” meant “having no professional status”. Yet it is these two men who are possessed of something that ecclesiastical authorities can’t handle; and whatever it is that possesses them, it arises from their having been with Jesus.

The boldness of Peter and John isn’t cockiness. Their boldness is conviction plus courage plus transparency. Living in the company of Jesus supplies this.

I am the last person to belittle learning of any kind, including theological learning. (After all, I make my living from teaching theology.) At the same time, a pastor’s having passed an examination in theology will never benefit his congregation unless he has been with Jesus and continues to be. Congregations that are discerning at all know this; they aren’t fooled. For eight years I sat on a committee that assessed candidates for the ministry. The committee was made up of different kinds of people: clergy, businesspeople, teachers, others holding postgraduate university degrees. Many of them struck me as naive about who should or should not be ordained to the ministry and entrusted with a congregation. But there was one kind of person who was never fooled: the middle-aged housewife with the slenderest formal education of anyone on the committee. The godly fifty-year-old homemaker with a grade ten education was never taken in by big words or paper credentials or letters of recommendation or impressive-sounding arguments. She intuited the appropriate boldness (conviction, courage and transparency) of the candidate who had been with Jesus. She was able to recognize its presence (or absence) inasmuch as she throbbed with it herself.

I profit enormously from scholars who genuinely are scholars. That is, I profit enormously in terms of rich mental furnishings and intellectual stimulation. After all, scholars excite fellow-scholars. Yet as often as I like to think I am a scholar I remember that I am always a needy human being; I am a fellow-sinner and fellow-sufferer with all humankind, whether scholarly or illiterate. And therefore when I need help more than I need stimulation I look to those who are “uneducated and common”. They have neither formal theological training nor professional status, yet they sustain me and nourish me and encourage me. Such people (for me) are the sober alcoholic, the person addicted to anything at all who has come to know a great deliverance, the mother of the disabled child whom nothing and no one except our Lord has kept unembittered and unresentful and even radiant for years, the parishioner who could never preach a sermon yet understands her pastor’s struggle and loves him through his bouts of emotional spasticity. Nothing can take the place of having been with Jesus. Professional standing and formal training are categorically distinct from this. The church authorities who attempted to stampede Peter and John learned as much. There is a conviction, a courage, a transparency; that is, there is a non-belligerent boldness, confidence, forthrightness that comes only through intimacy with our Lord.

III: — The angle of vision changes slightly and the root word, “bold”, now has the force of simple starkness. The disciples assume that Lazarus is sleeping. They talk about going to wake him up. Jesus says plainly, according to John, “Lazarus isn’t asleep; Lazarus is dead.” Simple starkness. Jesus tells them plainly, boldly, without embroidery or embellishment. The bluntness isn’t meant to brutalize; it is meant only to recover realism.

Divorce is painful; painful to contemplate, painful to endure. “Divorce” is a word we prefer not to use. Biblically speaking, divorce is a manifestation of death. Let’s not pretend anything else. Painful as marriage-breakdown is, however, when a marriage is dead the only realistic thing to do is to say in a firm voice, “This is dead.” Jesus was every bit as plain with respect to Lazarus. Our Lord does not lend us a religious softening of realism; instead he insists we confront reality. Simple starkness always befits a frank acknowledgement of reality.

Several years ago when our two daughters were teenagers the Shepherd family’s supper-table conversation swung round to Christ’s driving the fleecers out of the temple. Mary, sixteen years old at the time, asked, “Did Jesus seek forgiveness for what he did?” “No, he didn’t”, I replied; “there is no suggestion that Jesus had any awareness of sin in himself, no awareness of guilt at all.” “But he acted violently”, Mary came back. “And not only was he violent” I added, “his violence was premeditated. After all, he didn’t walk into the temple, observe the exploitation of defenceless people, and then lose his temper. On the contrary, he braided the whip from a handful of cords. He spent ten minutes doing this, ten minutes thinking about what he was going to do once he had finished braiding. His violence was premeditated.”

Next question at the Shepherd supper-table: “Is premeditated violence ever justified on the part of the Christian?” One more question: “Is premeditated violence ever required of the Christian?” It is painful to contemplate such a question. No doubt it is far more painful to do violence. Nevertheless, Jesus plainly, frankly directs us to recover realism. And so I told my children of Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s complicity in the plot against Hitler, Bonhoeffer knowing that if Hitler were removed hundreds of thousands of allied and German lives would be spared. We talked about the role of police departments, prisons, the role of United Nations’ forces (peace-keeping forces, be it noted, keep the peace by threatening violence), even the role of the school principal in forcibly expelling the student who assaults other students or teachers. There is no point in pretending we live in a Pollyanna world where such situations don’t develop. They do. And Jesus Christ directs his people to own the realism of these situations.

“Lazarus isn’t sleeping; he is dead.” Our Lord speaks boldly and bluntly not to brutalize his hearers, but rather to keep them from hiding their head in the sand unrealistically. He does as much for his followers today. Herein we are to be bold as he was bold before us.

IV: — Change the angle of vision once again and another nuance of “boldness” appears. Paul says of Jesus Christ, “He disarmed the principalities and powers and made a public example of them, triumphing over them.” Public example. Open example. Manifest example. In other words, what he did to the principalities and powers he did boldly. He disarmed them defiantly, decisively, definitively.

Principalities and powers are any of the influences and forces that tell us who we are and make us what we are. To say the same thing, the principalities and powers are any of the influences and forces, including all ideologies, institutions images and “isms” that give us personal identity and public identifiability.

The force can be genetic. “He’s retarded”, we say, “retarded” — as though the boy’s humanity, his entire human significance, were exhausted by his inability to do co-planar geometry.

The force can be corporate. The company you work for dismisses you. Company executives leave you feeling that you are a failure: failure is now your personal identity. Not only that, the manner of your dismissal publicly advertised you as a failure. Failure is now your public identifiability.

The force can be racial. “She’s black, you know, really black”. Or ethnic: “They are nice people, even if they are Chinese”. Or social: “He’s wealthy”– pronounced with a sneer. In every case there is a private identity and a public identifiability.

And then there are the people who work for a company or belong to an institution that really does give them a mind-set and a character-set in conformity with the company or institution itself. I have watched someone’s mind and heart, attitude and outlook shaped increasingly by the management theory of the major corporation for which she worked, while all the while she was entirely unaware of the transmutation visited upon her. Such people have been made what they are (or at least appear to be), and usually they are unaware of it.

The truth is, I am not any of the things I am thought to be. I am not even what belonging to an institution has made me to be. I am not, finally, any of the things that my friends or my employers or my upbringing have made me. I am not even the sum total of all the influences and forces that have stamped themselves upon me, simply because Jesus Christ has disarmed all of these, and publicized his triumph.

I am a creature of God. By faith I am a child of God, a younger brother of my “elder brother” (Hebrews), Jesus Christ. I am that person whom only God knows so well as to know who I really am. I am that child of God whose identity is known to God and guaranteed by God, which identity will be made plain to me and others on the day of our Lord’s appearing. It is enough for now that I know myself to be that one whose true, real identity is known to God and preserved inviolate by him. It is enough for now that I know myself to be that child of God for whom there can never be a substitute, upon whom inestimable love and patience are poured out, and with whose Father I am appointed to live eternally. I do know myself to be this, and can know it on the ground that Jesus Christ has made a public example of those influences and forces that he has disarmed. He has disarmed them decisively, and every bit as boldly (in his resurrection) displayed them as inoperative. Then nothing will ever be able to deflect me from who I am before God.

I began today by asking you what single word best described the Christian life. Frankly, I don’t think this is a helpful exercise. No single word is adequate.

Nonetheless, a particularly rich word is the word “bold”. Like shot silk, it’s meaning changes subtly as the angle of light falling upon it and the angle of vision of the viewer herself change.

It means confident but not cocky in our approaching that throne whose grace rules our life as well as the entire world.

It means bold yet not brazen in our transparency to the Lord whom we know and cherish.

It means stark as we own the realism of life.

It means public, open, manifest as we recall our Lord’s triumph over everything that gives us a false identity and false identifiability.

This one word has sustained me for years.

Victor Shepherd

February 2006

Worship: It Can’t be Hoarded

Hebrews 10:19-25

I watched a six year-old boy brush his teeth before going to bed. He squeezed toothpaste onto his toothbrush – and then more toothpaste, and after that more still, great gobs of it. I asked him what he thought he was doing. He told me that if he used five times as much toothpaste as normal, he wouldn’t have to brush his teeth for five days. His reasoning was sound. He erred on only one point: he didn’t know that dental hygiene can’t be hoarded.

Most things in life can’t be hoarded. Affection can’t be hoarded. If my wife staggers home and needs to be hugged for any reason, I hug her. I’d never think of saying, perplexed, “But I hugged you last month.”

It’s no different with worship. What God lends us through our worship of him can’t be hoarded. Now to be sure, our primary motive for worshipping must always be the praise and adoration of God, the public celebration of his mercy and patience and truth. And as long as this is the primary motive of our worship, we will indeed be worshipping him. At the same time, the worship we bring to God in turn brings blessing to God’s people. Such blessing, however, can never be hoarded. God’s gifts, like manna of old, are sufficient for us in our need at the moment of our need and the moment of the blessing. Nothing here can be hoarded.

The text of today’s sermon reminds us of some of the blessings of worship. It indicates what God works in those who “draw near to him with a true heart in full assurance of faith.”

I: — The first blessing of worship, according to our text, is “a heart sprinkled clean from an evil conscience.” Presupposed here is the truth that we have a conscience, and ought to have one. Through worship we approach God, and find that our conscience is cleansed. Plainly the conscience that is now cleansed needed to be cleansed inasmuch as it was defiled.

Today it’s fashionable to suggest that conscience is only a legacy from infancy, a carryover from parental restrictions, a carryover nasty to the point of being neurotic and therefore distressing; a carryover, in other words, better described as a hangover. If this is the case, then we should all aim at ridding ourselves of conscience. Wouldn’t we all be better off if we were conscienceless?

It so happens that there are people who are utterly conscienceless. Many of them are locked up in the provincial hospital in Penetanguishene , Ontario . They are psychopaths. They can never be trusted and therefore are highly dangerous. Some of them sleep every night with one ankle cuffed to the bed frame. They are pitiable.

Perhaps you want to tell me I’m not being fair; in fact there is not a continuum between the person whose conscience isn’t quite as sensitive as it should be and the conscienceless psychopath who has to be locked up; perhaps you want to tell me that the psychopathic mind isn’t different merely in degree but in fact is different in kind. I won’t argue with the objection. But I will say this: to be conscienceless is also to be shameless, and the shameless person is to be pitied.

Yes, we all understand what psychotherapists mean when they speak of adults who are “shame-bound”, and we understand why psychotherapists (and others too) deplore the inhibited life of those who are shame-bound. We should support those who struggle to rid themselves of neurotic shame, unnecessary shame, taboo-shame that has nothing to do with what’s right but everything to do with emotional warping at the hands of coercive figures. Still, rightly deploring “shame-bound”, it would only be folly to think that all shame, in all situations, is a sign of neurosis. The person with no sense of shame is dangerous; the person with no sense of shame is to be feared when he is in our midst and is to be pitied when he isn’t in our midst.

A gospel-sensitized conscience, a Spirit-sensitized conscience, has nothing to do with neurosis. It has everything to do with our awareness of who God is and what he has done for us, what he now asks of us and where we have failed to render him what we owe him. When the prophet Isaiah goes to the Jerusalem temple to worship he finds himself crying before God “Woe is me, for I am a man of unclean lips.” When Jesus overtakes Peter, Peter blurts “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man.” Neither Isaiah nor Peter needed a mental health expert.

Those who assume we’d better off if conscience were rendered inoperative forget something crucial; namely, not all guilt is neurotic: much guilt is real. Not all offences are mere violations of social convention; many offences offend God and wound his creatures. All of us are perpetrators who feel guilty because in truth we are guilty and ought to feel guilty. Because of our depravity we have a destructive streak in us that will destroy ourselves and others unchecked – unless it’s checked by a conscience that hasn’t yet been blunted.

Most significantly, our text informs us that to approach God in worship is to have our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience. Six hundred years before the unknown author of Hebrews penned today’s text the prophet Ezekiel knew that God had given him a word for dispirited people: “I will sprinkle clean water upon you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses.”

Plainly, while a fittingly sensitized conscience is unquestionably one mark of the Christian, it’s not the only mark; it’s not the most important mark; it’s not the ultimate mark. The characteristic mark of the Christian – that is, the mark by which the Christian is publicly identified and privately consoled – is the assurance of God’s pardon. “I will sprinkle clean water upon you, and you will be clean from all your uncleannesses.”

The apostle John is quick to admit that from time to time our hearts do condemn us; and just as quickly he adds “[and] God is greater than our hearts.” Of course we have an evil conscience; and God is greater than our conscience, for he has already sprinkled clean water upon us and cleansed us from all our uncleannesses.

At the time of the Reformation our Protestant foreparents insisted that to know God is to know God as “propitious”. “Propitious” is one of Calvin’s favourite words. When he’s not using the word but wants to express the idea, Calvin uses such synonyms as “favourable”, “merciful”, “benevolent”, “fatherly”. Let’s linger over the last word: “fatherly”. Calvin never denies that God is judge; God is the just judge; God is the judge whose judgement can’t be ‘bought off’ or ignored or set aside or deflected elsewhere. Yet just as firmly Calvin insists that God isn’t judge ultimately; ultimately God is father. He judges us only for the sake of correcting us, and he bothers to correct us only because he wants to bless us with blessing greater than anything we can imagine. God, of his sheer mercy, has made us and our need his dearest cause. We don’t genuinely know God, say our Reformation foreparents, unless we know him as propitious. Who, after all, could ever love someone who was judge only? Who could ever adore someone who was power only? Calvin maintains that the God who is power only is the God who can never be worshipped.

John Newton, cruel slave-trader turned clergyman, hymnwriter and spiritual counsellor; Newton ’s best-known hymn, Amazing Grace, should startle us as often as we sing the second stanza: “’Twas grace that taught my heart to fear, and grace my fears relieved.” Now we know why the psalmist exclaims, “This I know, that God is for me.” (Ps. 56:9)

As we worship week-by-week God’s truth concerning us – we are those whom he has soaked in his mercy – penetrates ever more deeply into us. “Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with a heart sprinkled clean from an evil conscience.”

II: — Our text points to yet another consequence of worship: “Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who has promised is faithful.” We must be sure to note that we aren’t urged to hold fast to the good old days (that weren’t good in any case.) We aren’t urged to hold fast to the present inasmuch as we fear the future. We are urged to hold fast the confession of our hope.

What is our hope? According to scripture hope is a future certainty grounded in a present reality. The present reality is the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, rendering him victorious – plus his ascension on high – rendering him ruler, ruler over all that is. The future certainty is that his rule, known now only to his followers, will one day be made manifest. His rule, disputed and doubted if not disdained at present, will one day be indisputable.

When we speak of “hope” we aren’t speaking of hopefulness, wishful thinking, “Wouldn’t it be nice if…?” When we speak of hope we aren’t speaking of something ‘iffy’, something we’d like to see occur even though it might not occur. When we speak of hope we are speaking of a future certainty more certain than anything the world can imagine. Hope is a future certainty grounded in a present reality. Our Lord’s resurrection means the crucified is Victor; his ascension means the Victor is Ruler.

When the psalmist exults “The earth is the Lord’s”, he knows that despite all appearances the world doesn’t finally belong to international financiers who make or break millions of people every day. It doesn’t finally belong to powerful nations and the disinformation that all nations traffic in. It doesn’t belong to multinational corporations who have engineered untold deprivation and suffering among marginalized people. It doesn’t belong to ideologues whose deceptions most of us have no way of detecting until we are their victims.

We have to be honest, however: it doesn’t appear that the earth is the Lord’s. It appears that the earth is everyone’s except the Lord’s.

We are not the first people to be jarred by the manner in which appearance contradicts truth. The Israelite people of old looked out over the world’s treachery and turbulence and remarked, “At least we can be certain of one thing: God brought us out of Egypt . At least he’s involved with us even if he’s involved with no one else.” The prophet Amos replied “Yes, God brought Israel out of Egypt . He also brought the Philistines out of Caphtor and the Syrians out of Kir.” In other words, God is ceaselessly immersed in the struggle and turbulence of people everywhere. He is never a handcuffed bystander in the face of international maelstrom.

At the birth of Jesus wise men came from the east, from Persia . Today Persia appears in our newspapers as Iran . The wise men loom large in the Christmas story, the Christmas story being, of course, the narrative of God’s definitive incursion into human history. Yes, the Son of God was born in Nazareth , a one-horse town in a backwoods province of the Roman Empire . Wise men from Iran , however, soon acknowledged him, Iran being as large as Nazareth was small. The visit of the wise men is cherished in Christian story. After all, their recognition of the Messiah sealed the Christ’s significance for the vast Gentile world and the protracted unfolding of world history. The force of what the wise men represent ought to be at the forefront of our minds at all times today.

Jonah was sent to the city of Nineveh . He didn’t want to go; in fact at first he refused to go. Nineveh was a city in Assyria , and Assyrian cruelty was unrivalled. Assyrian cruelty had reduced the twelve tribes of Israel to two, consuming the other ten in a holocaust that anticipated Hitler. Eventually Jonah went grudgingly to Nineveh , and was dismayed to find the response to his preaching overwhelming. Today Nineveh appears on our maps as Mazul, a city in Iraq .

Wise men and Iran ; Jonah and Iraq ; anyone who sees with the eyes of faith sees that the Christ who is victor is also the Christ who rules. His kingdom is immoveable. And one day his present, effectual rule will be manifested so as to render it indisputable.

The Christian is never permitted to despair of the world, never permitted to despair of the international situation. The world of superpower intrigue, power plays, connivance, disinformation and duplicity is nonetheless a world that God has promised never to give up on and never to abandon.

“Let us hold fast the confession of our hope (hope being a future certainty grounded in a present reality) without wavering, for he who has promised is faithful.”

III: — We are reminded, finally, that through worship we encourage fellow-worshippers. “Do not neglect to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encourage one another”, our text reads. The encouragement we receive through gathering to worship is not to be sneered at or discounted, because discouragement is always ready to spring upon us. The English word ‘courage’ is derived from the French word ‘coeur’, ‘heart’. To be dis-couraged is to be de-heartened. To be discouraged is to have lost heart. And such a condition laps at us all the time.

We don’t know who wrote the book of Hebrews. Whoever it was used a Greek word for ‘encourage’ that every Greek-speaking person in the ancient world knew well: parakalein. The associations surrounding this word are rich. As soon as the writer used it, readers would find their mind swimming with associations.

[1] One such association has to do with military conflict. To encourage someone, in a military context, is to be that person’s ally. Allies are important since discipleship always unfolds amidst conflict. To say that discipleship unfolds amidst conflict is to say that opponents are never far away; danger is never far away. We always need allies, reinforcements.

A familiar tactic of military commanders is to divide or separate, and then conquer. If a platoon can be isolated from the rest of the army; if a country can be isolated from other countries, then that platoon or country can be overrun readily. To cut ourselves off from worship is to cut ourselves off from the encouragement, the re-heartening, of fellow-Christians; which is to say, to cut ourselves off from allies and reinforcements. Our defeat thereafter is a foregone conclusion.

Scripture is fond of the military metaphor just because it knows that evil is militant, aggressive. Scripture speaks of the “hosts of spiritual wickedness” just because it knows that evil swarms. Scripture speaks of the “demons”, plural, just because it knows that evil is pluriform, many-faceted, all-pervasive. Anyone who lacks allies in this situation is in a sorry way. Through worship we are encouraged; we are re-heartened through the reinforcements God unfailingly provides.

[2] There are other classical associations with parakalein, encourage. One is urging someone to take up a public duty, to assume public responsibility.

I would never deny that the first function of worship, because it’s the characteristic function of worship, is the praise of God. Worship is not a means to an end, however important and exalted that end might be. Worship is always primarily the adoration of God, the public acknowledgement of God’s worthiness.

At the same time, however, as our worship is focussed on the public acknowledgement of God’s worthiness, one of the consequences of our worship is that we hear again and again that the whole earth is the Lord’s. He loves the world more than he loves himself. (After all, he spared not his own Son even as he has continued to spare the world.) As this truth seeps into us we are made aware that we have both opportunity and responsibility for public service in the world.

Since the whole earth is the Lord’s, there is no area or dimension of life from which he is absent. Since the Lord isn’t absent, a Christian witness ought always to be present. As often as we gather for worship we are reminded of the inappropriateness of religious ghettoism. To worship with fellow-Christians is to encourage them to take up public responsibility.

There’s no point in putting a five-day dollop of toothpaste on our toothbrush. Dental hygiene can’t be hoarded. Neither can affection. And neither can worship.

For this reason the unknown author of Hebrews whose letter we have probed today urges us not to neglect meeting together. Inasmuch as we do worship together

we shall find that our conscience is both sensitized and cleansed;

we shall hold fast the confession of our hope, the certainty that Christ the victor rules;

we shall encourage one another as we find ourselves both provided with allies and
persuaded of our public responsibility.

Victor Shepherd

February 2007

A Note on the Nature of Worship

Hebrews 10:19-25 1 Chronicles 15:25 -28 Luke 4:16-21

What is the one church-activity that is duplicated nowhere else in the society? It’s worship, of course. Everything else the church does, and should do, other people and organizations do too. We feed the hungry; and so does Daily Bread Foodbank. We visit the imprisoned; and so does the John Howard Society. We assist the ill; and so does the Heart and Stroke Society. But no social organization overlaps the church in the church’s activity of worship. Since worship is the activity that characterizes God’s people, it’s important that we understand what worship is and why we do it.

It’s important to understand worship for another reason: people can’t be expected to do something over and over, 4,000 times in their lifetime (80 years times 50 times per year), without understanding what they are doing. Either people come to some understanding of worship, however rudimentary, or they give up on it.

It’s important to understand worship for yet another reason: I’m convinced that if we don’t worship, don’t understand what we are about at worship, we shall soon abandon all the other aspects of the church’s mission. Unless we are re-oriented weekly (at least) to him who is the truth and reality of us and our world, we shall lose interest in assisting the ill and feeding the hungry and visiting the imprisoned.

At the same time, I’ve learned that even those who have come to church for years appear perplexed about what we do, why we do it, and why we employ words and gestures that we employ nowhere else. Today’s sermon gathers up the most frequently asked questions that have been brought to me or that I have overheard.

I: — WHAT IS WORSHIP?

Worship is our acknowledgement of God’s worth-ship. God is worthy; enduringly worthy. He hasn’t been worthy once only; he is eternally worth. He is worth worshipping on account of his undiminished, unceasing worthiness.

If God is worthy, how worthy is he? Paul exclaims, “I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.” If there’s incomparable worth in knowing Jesus Christ, it can only be because he, God-Incarnate among us, is first incomparably worthy himself.

John the Baptist said he wasn’t worthy to bend down and untie the Master’s shoes (the work of a slave). John wasn’t worthy so much as to do the work of a slave? Don’t pity John on the grounds that he had low self-esteem. John never suffered from lack of self-confidence. John the Baptist simply knew himself unworthy alongside, compared to, the surpassing worth of Jesus Christ.

When the apostle John was exiled to the island of Patmos he was genuinely exiled: however much he longed to go home to Palestine he couldn’t. But John was never “exiled” in his heart; he was never without the heart’s true home. So far from languishing in misery on the island of Patmos, so far from despairing of himself, his situation, the world, even God, he cried out, in the midst of his most vivid vision, “Then I looked, and I heard around the throne…thousands and thousands saying with a loud voice, ‘Worthy is the lamb who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honour and glory and blessing.’“

Worship is the acknowledgement of God’s worth-ship. His worth-ship is his never-ending worthiness. To worship, finally, is simply to admit that God is GOD. There is nothing like him and nothing else beside him. God alone is GOD.

II: — WHY DO WE WORSHIP?

How can we not worship if God is GOD? If we are grasped by anything of God’s immensity, God’s inexhaustibility, God’s sheer Godness, how can we not fall on our faces before him?

Please note that utilitarian benefit isn’t a motive for worshipping God. We don’t worship God because “paying our dues” on Sunday morning will get us something later in the week that we need and can get in no other way. To worship in order to get something; to come to church in a utilitarian spirit, is to demean God. We don’t worship because we regard God as useful. I find my barber useful, and therefore I go to my barber whenever I need my hair cut. But I don’t worship my barber; I use him. We worship God not because he’s an animated tool; we worship him just because he is who he is: GOD.

And yet while we don’t worship God for what he can do to advance our ‘selfist’ agendas, we worship himfor what he has done for us in accord with his agenda. He has created us. (He didn’t have to.) He bore with his recalcitrant people for centuries (despite unspeakable frustration) as he awaited the fitting moment for visiting us in his Son. He incarnated himself in Jesus of Nazareth, thereby submitting himself to shocking treatment at the hands of the people he came to rescue. In the cross he tasted the profoundest self-alienation, as the penalty his just judgement assigned for sin he bore himself, therein sparing us condemnation. He has bound himself to his church and to the world even though the world’s sin and the church’s betrayal grieve him more than we can guess. He has promised never to fail or forsake us regardless of how often we let him down. Surely to grasp all of this is to see that we owe him everything; it’s to have gratitude swell within us until we have to express it; it’s to have thanksgiving sing inside us until we have to sing it out of us. We worship as our grasp of what God has done and continues to do impels us to worship.

God feeds us like a nursing mother (says the prophet Isaiah); God forgives us like a merciful father; he is saviour of sinners and comforter of the afflicted and vindicator of the victimized. Then of course we want to worship him for what he has done for us and continues to do for us of his own free grace.

Grace. When Peter speaks of the grace of God he uses the Greek word poikilos. Poikilos means variegated, variegated with respect to colour. To speak of something as poikilos is to speak of it as diversely coloured. God’s grace is diversely coloured? Peter can only mean that God’s grace is many-splendoured. As diverse as the predicaments of life are, God’s grace meets us in all of them; his grace appears with a different hue, a slightly different shade, as our predicaments change. His grace is many-splendoured. Regardless of our predicament, be it perplexity, pain, rejection, sin, disappointment, folly, his grace is many-splendoured — and we can only adore him for it.

And yet even as we worship God initially on account of what he has done and continues to do, we worship him ultimately on account of who he is in himself . God is immense. God is eternal. God is underived. God is indivisibly simple. God is immeasurable; that is, his centre is everywhere and his circumference is nowhere. God alone has life in himself and alone lends life to anyone else. God forever moves amidst all that he has created even as he towers infinitely above all that he has created. God is holy; that is, he is uniquely, irreducibly, uncompromisingly, inalienably GOD. We worship God ultimately as our apprehension of him overwhelms us and we can only prostrate ourselves before him.

I think that Martin Luther more than anyone else was moved at the grace and mercy, the condescension and compassion of God, the self-humbling and self-humiliation of God. I think that John Calvin more than anyone else was overwhelmed at the sheer Godness of God. I think that Jonathan Edwards more than anyone else was startled at the unsurpassable “excellence” of God, as he put it in his idiosyncratic way; the profoundest attractiveness of God, winsome, compelling “beauty” of God. In other words, Luther was moved above others at what God has done for us; Calvin at who God is in himself; Edwards at the magnetism of it all. All three men could only worship as often as they reflected upon God.

III: — WHY DO WE EMPLOY UNUSUAL EXPRESSIONS?

The shortest answer to this question is, “Because the language of worship is love-language; because the physical gestures of worship are love-gestures.” Think of love-language. When I was a child I noticed two things about my parents that my child’s mind didn’t connect. (i) My parents loved each other ardently and were unselfconsciously affectionate with each other, physically affectionate, in front of us children. (ii) They used peculiar verbal expressions to express their ardent affection, verbal expressions that made no sense to me. Because these verbal expressions made no sense to me, and because they couldn’t be found in a dictionary (that is, they weren’t English words), I assumed they made no sense to my parents. But of course these expressions of endearment

made perfect sense to my parents. Love-language isn’t found in a dictionary. Terms of endearment make no sense to the public, yet are indispensable to people whose hearts are aflame.

Years later, when I had fallen in love, Maureen and I daily used expressions that would have been nonsensical to others — if others had been allowed to hear them — even as these expressions made perfect sense to us just because they bespoke an ardour that no dictionary word could approach.

In the same way the physical gestures of worship make no sense to those outside faith, even as they make perfect sense to those inside.

Not so long ago at the Martyrs’ Shrine in Midland I saw a woman approach a statue of Jesus and kiss the statue’s feet. To an unbeliever what the woman did was silly, superstitious and unsanitary. But not to her. For on the Sunday morning that I saw her, her heart was one with the heart of a woman, centuries ago, who had kissed the feet of Jesus out of gratitude for relief from a stain that was otherwise indelible.

Of course the language of worship is unusual. Isn’t our Lord unusual? Of course the vocabulary and the gestures of worship are out of the ordinary. Isn’t our salvation extraordinary?

Think about the expression, often used in hymns or liturgy, “holy, holy, holy”. It so happens that in Hebrew grammar there is neither comparative nor superlative of adjectives and adverbs. In English we say, “Apple pie is good; apple pie with ice cream is better; apple pie with ice cream and cinnamon is best.” But in Hebrew we have to say, “Apple pie is good; with ice cream, good good; with ice cream and cinnamon, good good good.” To say, “holy, holy, holy”, is to say that God is holiest; and even then, not so much the holiest of much that is holy but rather uniquely holy, incomparably holy, holy beyond telling, beyond comprehending.

The language and gestures of worship are unusual just because our love for God is oceans deeper than everyday words and gestures suggest. Commonplace expressions will never do justice to our love for him, our gratitude to him, our delight in him.

You show me the husband and wife whose household vocabulary doesn’t contain unusual terms of endearment found in no dictionary and I’ll show you a couple whose love for each other has

petrified — if ever love there was. On the other hand, to know ourselves the beneficiaries of God’s salvation (i.e., to know that only God’s mercy but certainly God’s mercy has spared us ultimate loss) is to be soaked in a gratitude that fires love, a love that seeks to express what is finally inexpressible. As soon as we attempt to express the inexpressible, customary expressions fail us and we use expressions that strike unbelievers as bizarre. Our unusual language doesn’t mean that we have a stunted vocabulary; it means that our language, rich as it is, is finally inadequate for our love for our Lord.

IV: — WHY DO WE WORSHIP TOGETHER?

This is a fitting question, since the emphasis in worship is always on togetherness even though faith is an individual act. Martin Luther used to say, “Each person must do his own believing, just as each person must do his own dying.” Nobody else can exercise faith for me. In the same way I can’t believe for someone else. We must each do our own believing. Scripture makes plain that while God loves a people he speaks only to individuals. Since God speaks only to the individual, only the individual can respond. Since only the individual can respond, why do we worship together? We worship together because God ultimately seeks a people for himself. The Hebrew bible speaks quaintly of “God’s peculiar treasure”. God’s peculiar treasure is a people that lives for the praise of God’s glory.

We must always remember that to come to faith in Jesus Christ (something that only the individual can do) is by that fact to be added to the body of Christ (a corporate entity). God seeks a people that witnesses to his intention for the creation before the Fall made a mess of things; namely, an earth populated by a holy people. In the wake of the Fall the earth is populated by unholy sinners. Every time we gather together for worship we attest God’s purpose: an earth peopled by a holy people.

There are 188 images or pictures of the church in the New Testament. The major image is that of a body, a living organism, the body of Christ. A body functions only as there are many different

“members” (to use Paul’s word) and as these members are related internally. A detached leg, a detached arm, a detached torso (hideous to contemplate) not one of these is a body. And even if leg, arm and torso are attached to one another but are related externally, then we don’t have a body: we have a puppet. A puppet consists of many parts, all of which are related externally. A body is present only when there are many members and these are related internally. Only then is it a living organism.

Every time we worship together, worship corporately, we hold up this truth. God so insists on a public declaration of this truth that he has promised blessings to public worship that will never be granted to private worship alone, however essential private worship may be.

V: — WHY DO WE DO WHAT WE DO AT WORSHIP?

What exactly do we do? Principally we do three things: we sing, we preach (or listen to preaching)[1] and we pray. Why these?

(i) We sing because singing provides a vehicle for our praise surpassing the vehicle of mere saying. People who are elated break into song spontaneously. Singing out loud comes naturally to those whose hearts are singing.

In worship we sing hymns; hymns are poetry; worship-singing, then, is the singing of poetry. Now poetry embodies an intensity, a compression (poetic expression is far more compressed than prose), a passion that mere prose will never embody. The singing of poetry, then, is the ultimate vehicle of praise. If our praise to God were anaemic we wouldn’t need to sing at all; mumbling would do. But just because our praise is boundless our praise has to be sung, and sung with the intensity and compression and passion of poetry.

(ii) Why do we preach (and listen)? Preaching is necessary for one reason: only God can acquaint us with himself. Only God can acquaint us with himself and inform us of himself and form us after himself. God does just this as his Word written is expounded in worship.

To be sure, preaching is a human activity. However it’s precisely a human utterance that God has promised to take up and adopt and render his own utterance. As God renders human utterance his own utterance God renders human speech about him his own speech about himself; and as we are quickened to hear God’s own speech about himself we find that his speech about himself is his word addressed to us. Now we know ourselves addressed as God speaks a word to us concerning himself that we would never be able to hear elsewhere or elsehow.

Preaching is a human event that God’s grace renders God’s event for us as the preacher’s word is forgotten and God’s self-utterance, the gospel, seizes us and sears itself upon us. For this reason preaching is found in worship.

(iii) The third thing we do in worship is pray. We pray because we are beggars before God. We pray because we know that what we need desperately God gives uniquely.

John Calvin was fond of saying, “Prayer is the chief exercise of religion”. Prayer is the chief exercise of religion in that it is our final self-humbling before God as we admit that we are so very needy and he is so very generous. Prayer is the final declaration of whether we believe in God and what we believe about God. Then pray we must whenever we worship, for we aren’t so foolish as to pretend we aren’t needy; neither are we so unbelieving as to think that God is stingy.

I said we do three things principally at worship. Actually there’s a fourth: we bring money. And why do we bring money? Don’t say “Because the congregation has to meet operating expenses”, although of course the congregation must. We bring money for a profounder reason. Jesus says we can’t worship God and mammon. According to our Lord there are two rival powers in the cosmos: God and mammon. We bring money to worship – enough money to constitute a sacrifice – as a sign that money is a broken power in our lives. We may possess it, but it doesn’t possess us. Our weekly offering – a crucial aspect of our worship – is a sign that money is a broken power in our lives.

VI: — WHO WORSHIPS?

This question can be answered briefly. The church militant worships (we who are Christ’s soldiers and servants now); and the church triumphant worships too (our foreparents who have died in the faith, for whom faith has given way to sight.) The church militant and the church triumphant worship as one.

Years ago an elderly French priest was walking home from church, one Sunday morning, when several youths began taunting him. The youths knew that very few people had been to the village church that morning. They smirked as they said to the old priest, “How many were at mass this morning, father, how many?”

“Millions”, said the old man, “there were millions at worship today.”

“Then I looked, and I heard around the throne thousands and thousands saying with a loud voice, Worthy is the lamb who was slain to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honour and glory and blessing.” (Revelation 5:11)

Victor Shepherd

July 2007

Because You See The Day Approaching

Hebrews 10:19-25

I: — What will the future be like? I don’t mean “Will there be greater electronic wizardry and paperless banking and grass that doesn’t need cutting and voice-activated computers in everyone’s home?” Of course all these things are going to come to pass, and come to pass soon. We already have a good idea as to the technological future, even though there will be more than a few surprises along the way. I mean, rather, “What will the human future be like?”

Different eras have answered this question differently. The ancient Greeks maintained that the future would resemble the past. History is cyclical; what has been will be. The future is entirely predictable since the cycle of history is always being repeated. Whether good or bad, blessing or bane, the wheel of history goes around and around. The future will resemble the past.

During the Victorian era a different answer was given. The human future wouldn’t resemble the past. The human future would be better. The Victorians believed in progress. They didn’t merely believe in technical progress. (Technical progress is undeniable. No one prefers the application of leeches to micro surgery.) Beyond technical progress, the Victorians believed in human progress. Humankind was coming of age, entering upon its maturity. The future would be better than the past had ever been.

In Europe the myth of progress was “outed” as sheer myth in 1914. The Great War found the two most cultured nations in the world slaughtering each other in a manner that would have startled even blood-thirsty barbarians. On some days in World War I there were 60,000 casualties per day. Then came 1917, the October Revolution, in Russia . A regime was established that made the Czar’s cruelties look like Halloween pranks. Nineteen forty-five acquainted the world with the death camps. (All of this driven, we must remember, not by uncivilized “savages” but by the most refined, cultured, educated of the Western world. Next there occurred the nuclear obliteration of cities in Japan .

Today the Arab League has vowed the extermination of every last Jewish person anywhere. And of course the medical technology that granted us relief from diphtheria and whooping cough appears relatively powerless in the face of AIDS. AIDS, everyone knows, has wiped out an entire generation in four central African countries already, and will likely destroy many more people.

Existentialist philosophy abandoned all talk of the future concerning humankind as a whole. Existentialist philosophy spoke only of the future of the individual existent, the solitary individual. This person would have a future if and only if she acted “in good faith”; that is, if she were alert to the pressures of social conformity and resisted them; if she made no attempt to “keep up with the Joneses” but instead courageously made that decision (and kept on making such decisions) rooted in her own integrity and oriented to her own goals. But of course dozens of questions were begged here. What makes one goal preferable to another? Why is the goal I select for my life any better than the goal society as a whole pursues semi-consciously? And hasn’t depth psychology undercut the notion of “integrity” in any case? Furthermore, if my coming death ends all of this “existential authenticity”, why not die now? Albert Camus, perhaps the best-known existentialist writer, frequently remarked, “The only intellectually defensible action is suicide.” What kind of a future, then, did existentialist philosophy hold out?

Then what is our future, yours and mine?

II: — The future of humankind is wrapped up in “the Day of the Lord”, as scripture calls it, sometimes abbreviating it to “the Day.” When the author of Hebrews wrote “because you see the Day approaching…” he assumed that his reader knew immediately what he had in mind. They and he were aware that God’s struggle with a creation that has frustrated God since the first instance of human disobedience and the welter of evil that poured over the creation as a result; God’s struggle to restore his creation will come to a climax on the the Day of the Lord. The parables of Jesus speak of this Day over and over. The apostles mention it in every letter. It fills the horizon of the early church’s consciousness. God’s people look forward to it. Its coming isn’t in doubt. It looms so large before us that we can sense it even now. The Day of the Lord is our future.

[i] God has fixed a day when the truth and reality of God will shine so very brightly as to be indisputable. Right now God – his truth, his sovereignty, his purpose – all of this is disputable. Agnosticism and atheism are defensible positions at this moment, arguably. The day has been appointed, however, when God, known now only to faith, will be unmistakable and undeniable in equal measure.

[ii] God has fixed a day when the faith of God’s people will be vindicated. Those who insisted that the only real power of the universe is the weakness of the crucified; those who upheld the triumph of the world’s biggest loser; those who maintained that the almightiness of God is nothing other than the limitless efficacy of his limitless vulnerability: all such people are going to be seen not has having been deluded fools but rather has always having been in the right.

[iii] God has fixed a day when the victimized and wounded of the world; the disfigured in body and mind and spirit; the crushed and submerged – are going to be blessed. What they never found in their earthly existence will be made up to them eternally.

[iv] God has fixed a day when the huge chasms that divide people now and foster rage and hostility in their hearts – the chasms of race and wealth and social privilege and opportunity — these chasms are going to be no more, and alienation will give way to reconciliation and shalom, that peace of God which is nothing less than the creation of God healed.

[v] God has fixed a day, we must add soberly, when those who have maintained for fifty years that they don’t want God and his truth and his way and his people; the day has been appointed when these folk (known only to God, we must add) will finally be given what they always said they wanted.

The guarantee of it all, insist prophet and apostle, is the resurrection of Jesus Christ. God has raised his Son from the dead as the down payment, the first instalment, on the future day of the Lord. God keeps his promises. The Day of the Lord is our future.

III: — This future is glorious. It looms before us now so as to determine our present. Because this day is approaching, says the author of Hebrews, we must now, at this moment, “approach him, [draw near to him] with a true heart in full assurance of faith.” (Heb. 10:22) We can approach God and we do. But in full assurance of faith? Is full assurance of the gospel of God and our inclusion in it; is full assurance of faith something we can give ourselves? Surely not. Then how do we gain assurance of the gospel of God and our inclusion in it? How do we gain full assurance of faith?
When Maureen and I were courting we wrote letters to each other, hundreds of letters. The farther apart we were geographically the more frequently we wrote. At one point in our courtship I was a student minister in a summer appointment in northern BC near the Alaska Highway; she was gallivanting around Europe . Even though our letters were love-letters there were doubtful lines (or doubting lines) in a letter from time to time. I at least would ask myself, “What exactly did she mean by that line? Was she upset with me? Had I offended her and she wanted ‘out’ and was trying to let me down gently? And how about that oblique reference to the three American submarine sailors she and her two girlfriends met in Scotland ? Not to mention the 25-year old Israeli veteran of the Six-Day War with whom she toured Paris ?” Assurance concerning our relationship waxed and waned for several months. But in September, when we saw each other’s face, doubt and disquiet evaporated instantly. There flourished the fullest assurance of our relationship.

It’s in the face of Jesus Christ that God’s glory shines, says Holy Scripture. As often as we behold the face of Christ we behold the glory of God. And the glory of God, God’s people know, will fill the whole earth on the Day that God has appointed. As we continue to behold the face of Christ and see in his face the glory of God, our faith is strengthened; doubt and disquiet evaporate; and full assurance of faith flourishes. For this reason, if for no other, the purpose of the ministry is always and everywhere to point out the face of Christ and point the congregation to it.

In the second place, our author tells us, because we see the Day approaching we must “hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering.” (Heb. 10:23) The “confession of our hope” is the public acknowledgement of our confidence in the coming Day. The “confession of our hope” is our unshakeable conviction concerning God’s vindication of himself, his truth, his way, his people; God’s restoration of the victimized and scarred; God’s reconciliation of the alienated and hostile. The confession of this we must “hold fast.” But not merely hold it fast in our hearts, privately; rather we must hold it up, hold it out; hold it up for others to see; hold it out for others to seize. We must do our hope, in other words. We hold fast the confession of our hope by doing our hope.

I saw it done in a city of which I am especially fond, New York City . On one occasion I spent an hour sitting on the steps of the NYC Library in downtown Manhattan . A black man was seated a few yards away from me. He was drunk; not comatose drunk, not even falling-down drunk, but certainly past the twilight zone. A white woman, 30 years old, sat down on the steps to change from her high heels into running shoes. (Businesswomen in NYC travel to and from work in running shoes, saving their dress shoes for office hours.) The man asked her if she could light his cigarette. I waited to see what was going to happen next. After all, everyone knows of the assaults in NYC, the knife-point robberies, the six murders per day, the rapes, the racial strife. What was a young, attractive white woman going to do about a request from a drunk, black, male stranger? She slid along the library step towards him, not so close as to be inappropriate but close enough that she could reach him. She took out her lighter and lit his cigarette. She changed into her running shoes. Then she conversed with him for fifteen minutes. She didn’t speak to him flirtatiously, but neither did she speak to him condescendingly. She addressed him as a human being whose significance was no less than hers; she addressed him as a suffering human being whose suffering was one with hers; which is to say, one with the suffering of us all. She addressed him as someone whose startling unlikenesses – race, gender, wealth, prospects, history – didn’t render her suspicious or superior or fearful or contemptuous or dismissive. For her he was a fellow human being caught up in the same struggle, stuck with the same suffering, awaiting the same release. Then with a smile, a cheerful wave, and and bright “farewell” she went on her way.

I was stunned, and stunned just because this one incident had been for me one of those moments in my life when the truth and reality of the kingdom of God , present now and known to faith, becomes startlingly vivid and luminous. It was one of those moments when the reconciliation and harmony and defencelessness that are going to characterize the Day of the Lord are aglow with God’s splendour now. It was a moment when the “hope” for God’s creation that the gospel holds up and holds out; when this hope, whose confession we hold fast, is so alive in the present that it pulsates.

What are such moments in your life? If we are alert to them we know them to be moments in which the hope that we confess and hold fast; these are moments in which this hope is vindicated as true, vindicated as the only future the world can ever have.

Lastly, because the Day is approaching, says the book of Hebrews, we must “consider how to provoke one another to love and good deeds….” (Heb. 10:24) Everywhere else in the New Testament the word “provoke” is used in the nasty sense, as when we antagonize people, spear them, arouse them to resentment or spite or even bloodletting. Here alone scripture uses the word “provoke” in a positive sense: we are to prod each other, stimulate each other, energize each other, incite each other to love and good deeds.

A friend of mine injured her knee skiing. More than “injure” it; she mangled it. There was much damage to muscle and nerve. Would her knee ever work again; that is would she be able to walk? Part of medical treatment involved having an electrode placed on the area of the injury. An electrical jolt provoked damaged nerve and muscle, stimulated them. After all, it’s important to avoid lameness, isn’t it? Don’t we use a jolt of electricity to re-start a heart that has stopped beating? Don’t we jolt a heart that is beating irregularly so as to get the jolted person out of danger? Proper heartbeat is important, everyone agrees.

It’s important that hearts beat in a congregation, that there be no lameness in it. To this end, our author tells us, we have be stirred up, stimulated, provoked (in the best sense of the word) again and again. For only then do love and good deeds appear in our midst.

In my older age I have concluded that love is genuine only where there is affection. Frankly, I’m tired of people telling me that they love me (they mean that they won’t sabotage me) when they possess no warmth concerning me. I’m tired of hearing it said that love someone is to will the best for him (even though you can’t stand him.) In my older age I have concluded that love is love only if affection is present.

Think of what Paul says about love in 1^st Corinthian 13: love doesn’t insist on its own way, isn’t resentful, doesn’t gloat when someone else is found to be wrong; love, he says, can endure anything. It all sounds good in the abstract. When we are faced with frustration or betrayal or a public skewering, however, we shall find that love is free of resentment and can “endure anything” only if we are possessed of genuine affection.

Paul told the congregation in Thessalonica that they had become “dear” to him, so dear, in fact, that he gave nothing less than himself to them. He told the people in Corinth that their affection had shrivelled, even as he urged the Christians in Rome to “love one another with affection.”

Dead or stony or frigid hearts in a congregation (at some point this means all of us) have to be stimulated yet again, jolted even, so that the heartbeat of the congregation will always be restored as affection gives rise to those “good deeds” which we otherwise resent having to do.

And what does affection within a congregation have to do with the Day of the Lord, someone asks? This. On the Day the brightness of our Lord’s appearing will bleach away hostility, grudges, resentment. And since this Day is close upon us, our affection must swell in proportion to its proximity. At the same time we must continue to approach God with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, even as we continue to hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering.

Victor Shepherd

September 2006

A Weighty Word From A Little Book: The Epistle of James

James 1:1 -5:19

He sounds severe, doesn’t he. “The tongue is a fire, staining the whole body, setting on fire the cycle of nature, set on fire by hell…a restless evil, full of deadly poison.”

“You desire and do not have, so you kill. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and wage war…. Unfaithful creatures.”

“Come now, you rich, weep and howl for the miseries that are coming upon you…. Your gold and silver are going to eat up your flesh like fire.”

But in fact James isn’t mean-spirited or abusive or sour. He is serious, unquestionably, but he’s also warm-hearted. After all, he uses the expression, “my brethren” or “my beloved brethren” or simply “brethren” fourteen times in his brief letter.

Like all New Testament writers, James didn’t sit down and pen a letter because he happened to feel “creative” one afternoon. Rather, he wrote a tract in order to address a specific problem in the church.

The problem? The church has been alive for thirty years and now false teachers are creeping in who distort the gospel and mislead people. Persecution has intensified as well. When James writes his letter, Paul, widely known in Christian congregations, is a prisoner in Rome awaiting trial (and execution.) Within eighteen months James himself will be murdered. In a word, the world has proven to be more hostile than expected. In the face of the world’s resistance to the gospel and the world’s nastiness towards Christians, James is afraid that Christians will simply retreat into themselves and lick their wounds; he’s afraid that Christian existence will become nothing more than a private psycho-religious “trip” inward, while outwardly a non-Christian ethic, pagan behaviour in fact, surfaces in the church. James is worried that Christians might take refuge in a psycho-religious inner “trip” as they pretend they believe the gospel with their heads — and yet no longer do the truth of the gospel with their lives. He insists that truth must be done; faith must be lived. If Jesus Christ is appropriated inwardly in faith then the same Lord must be exemplified outwardly in life. Christians must continue to march to the beat of a different drummer regardless of how difficult the marching is — or else the church is finally no different from the world.

Who was James? Certainly neither of the two disciples named James, “James the son of Alphaeus” and “James the Lesser.” Some scholars argue therefore that we simply don’t know. Others maintain that a cogent case can be made for identifying the author of this letter with the James who was the brother of Jesus. I am persuaded by the arguments which assert the James who was brother of our Lord to be the author of the epistle.

From the gospel of Mark we know that our Lord’s family thought him deranged at one point of his earthly ministry. In other words, Jesus was a public embarrassment to his family. After the resurrection, Paul tells us, under the impact of the same kind of resurrection-appearance that turned Paul himself around, James came to believe that his brother Jesus, a Jew of course like James himself, was indeed the Saviour of the world and the Lord of the whole creation.

James became the leader of the church in Jerusalem . The church there was a congregation of Jews who believed Jesus to be the Messiah of Israel. Not surprisingly, then, the epistle of James is a Jewish document saturated with allusions to the Hebrew Bible. And in view of the fact that James and Jesus were brothers, it isn’t surprising that parallels abound between the epistle of James and the teachings of Jesus. Parallels are found on such matters as showing mercy, making peace, transparent speech, joy in the midst of trials.

James himself was martyred in the year 62 of the Common Era, approximately thirty years after the crucifixion of his brother Jesus.

In the time that remains to us this morning I should like to amplify four major features of the letter.

I: — The first concerns snobbery in the Christian fellowship. Listen to three different translations of the key verse. “My brethren, show no partiality as you hold the faith of our Lord.” “As believers in our Lord Jesus Christ, you must never treat people in different ways, according to their outward appearance.” “Believing as you do in our Lord Jesus Christ, you must never show snobbery.”

Partiality, or snobbery, is according the rich one treatment and the poor another, esteeming the learned while disdaining the unlearned, favouring the socially prominent while ignoring ordinary people, “kow-towing” to the influential but manipulating the powerless. James condemns this.

Jesus had condemned it before him. When our Lord’s detractors were searching high and low in order to find something about him for which they could criticize him and carp at him and eventually skewer him, they finally had to admit that Jesus showed no partiality. (Luke 20: 21) As a faithful son of Israel Jesus certainly knew Torah. And the word of Torah, the way appointed Israel to walk, was plain: “You shall not be partial to the poor or defer to the great.” (Leviticus 19:15)

This passage from the Hebrew bible, which James obviously has in mind, forbids us to show partiality to rich or poor. For just as there is a snobbery born of a groundless adulation of the rich, so there is a snobbery born of a groundless exaltation of the poor. Alexander Solzhenitsyn, no friend of the Russian upper class, nevertheless maintained that if you had ever lived among the proletarian class you would never be tempted to think its people inherently virtuous, inherently humanly superior — as Marxist ideology continues to do. The gospel forbids us to flatter the rich just because they are rich or to fawn over (romanticize) the poor just because they are poor. We are to show no partiality in the Christian fellowship.

Why not? Simply because all of us are alike creatures of God, sinners before God, rebels redeemed by God. Since this is the case, the categories and classes and distinctions by which we rate people are arbitrary; more than arbitrary, they are unfair, even iniquitous.

I was startled the day I saw an application-form for McGill University ‘s school of medicine. On the application-form was the question, “In what year did either of your parents graduate from McGill in medicine or dentistry?” I was startled in that I thought that admission to medical school was governed by academic achievement, or by academic achievement plus aptitude for practising medicine.

I mentioned all of this to my “GP”, herself a graduate of McGill’s medical school; whereupon she took her stethoscope out of her ears and lectured me as to why an exclusive social elite had the right to preserve itself as an exclusive social elite. I waited until the lecture was over and then I informed her that for every student admitted to medical school on the grounds of social privilege there was another student, a more able student, who was denied admission just because he lacked the proper social pedigree.

Let us be fair in all this. Everything I have just said pertains with equal force to a trade union, a political party, a business, and even, as I have learned, the clergy-ranks of any denomination.

James insists that in the Christian fellowship we do not evaluate people’s pedigree and then decide whether we are going to flatter them or forget them. The ground at the foot of the cross is level; there are no grounds for partiality.

What’s more, partiality or snobbery denies that everyone in the Christian fellowship has an equally important ministry. Everyone, regardless of appearance, has a service to render the fellowship itself and the wider world as well. Everyone. And the service we each render has precisely the same significance to God. To be sure, one ministry or service may be more glamorous than another, more dramatic, more noticed, more congratulated. BUT NEVER MORE IMPORTANT. Before James ever wrote a word, Jesus spoke of the cup of water and the widow’s “loonie”. Didn’t Paul speak of an unnamed woman in Rome who was a “mother” to him? Not to be overlooked is the fact that how we appear has nothing whatever to do with our wisdom, our intimacy with God, or our spiritual maturity. If we show partiality or snobbery we do not confess the truth, however much we may profess it.

II — The second major teaching of James concerns the tongue. He says so much about it because he knows that our speech characterizes us. Our tongue determines how we situate ourselves with respect to other people; our tongue determines the “space” we occupy in life and the direction in which we point. The tongue is like a ship’s rudder, says the apostle; the smallest appendage to the ship determines where the entire ship goes, how it positions itself, what particular space on the vast ocean it occupies. If my tongue is cruel, I am cruel. My tongue characterizes me. I can’t say, “My speech may be cruel but I am kind.” If my speech is contemptuous, do I expect people to conclude that I am gracious?

“The tongue is a small fire”, says James, as small a fire as a match — and this match sets on fire “the cycle of nature.” That is, the totality of life, everyone’s entire existence — both public and private, individual and communal — is scorched and seared and burn-scarred by this little appendage. Not only is the tongue poisonous and powerful, continues James, it is forked, split, and it reflects a split personality; for only a split personality can praise God and curse people made in the image of God AT THE SAME TIME. But praise God and curse people made in the image of God is exactly what our tongue does.

“My brethren”, James adds with gentle understatement, “my brethren, this ought not to be so.” Thirty years earlier Jesus had said that we are never corrupted by what goes into our mouth; we are corrupted invariably by what comes out.

What is the cure? Once more for explicit details we must go to Paul whose letters were known throughout the early church. Paul says that the cure begins to take hold in us as our tongue confesses that Jesus Christ is Lord. Since our tongue characterizes us, it is as our tongue confesses Jesus Christ to be Lord that we ourselves are “lorded” by Jesus; that is, mastered by the master himself. And then, says Paul, our speech will begin to be “edifying”, “fitting the occasion”, “imparting grace to those who hear”. The tongue that sincerely confesses Jesus Christ as Lord is to issue in speech which at least aims at edifying, wants to be edifying, to be fitting, and even to be a vehicle of God’s grace.

III: — The third aspect of our lives which James addresses forcibly is reflected in his statement which all of us have heard a hundred times over: “Faith without works is dead”. Here James is often played off against Paul. Paul had said that faith in Jesus Christ – faith alone – is sufficient to make right our relationship with God. Yet James speaks of faith plus works. But in fact there is no contradiction, for the two men had two quite different meanings for the word “faith”.

By “faith” James meant mere belief, religious ideas held by armchair-sitters who never get out of their armchair to do something. Such “faith”, so-called, is mere “beliefism”, merely a religious daydream, nothing more than lip-service to the gospel, simply an idea rattling around in one’s mind.

On the other hand, by “faith” Paul meant our whole-hearted embracing of the person of Jesus Christ himself. As we embrace him he constrains us to follow him in his service of human need. In other words, when Paul speaks of faith he means so living in the company of Jesus Christ that we can’t pretend we don’t see the human distresses which Jesus always sees.

James was writing to a church which had grown weary and disheartened; weary because of the resistance it met everywhere, disheartened because of the persecution its faithfulness brought upon itself. Surely the easy way out was to reduce Christian existence to a private religious head-trip, ignore everything else, and thus spare oneself frustration, fatigue and pain. It’s a temptation for all of us. If we succumb; if we reduce faith to a private religious fantasy which embraces neither the risen one himself nor the people for whom he still suffers, then James has a one-word description which he pronounces twice in ten lines: “dead”, our faith, so-called, is dead. We are dead.

James wants one thing for the readers of his letter regardless of the century in which we read it. He wants a heart and mind so sensitized to God as never to be desensitized to human suffering.

IV: — Lastly, James is adamant concerning the futility and foolishness of trusting in material prosperity. “Come now, you rich, weep and howl for the miseries that are coming upon you.” In ancient Palestine there were three main expressions of wealth: agricultural produce, clothing, gold and silver. Agricultural produce rots, James insists, clothing gets moth-eaten, gold and silver corrode. (Today we’d say “inflate.”) Conclusion? In his emphatic way James concludes pithily, “You have laid up treasure for the last days. You have invested in securities in anticipation of the day of God’s judgement. And what ‘securities’. They rot or they rust or they get eaten up by bugs.”

Actually James says a little more. Those who have amassed great wealth, colossal wealth, have piled it up by exploiting defenseless employees. They are condemned twice over: viciously they have exploited voiceless workers, and blindly they have trusted their wealth to get them past death and around that judgement which no one can escape.

James maintains that their “security” is like buying a fire extinguisher with holes in it; it’s like putting your weight on a rubber crutch; it’s like trying to quench thirst with salt water. Futile to do, foolish to trust.

I mentioned earlier that the letter of James has many parallels with the teaching of Jesus. Obviously James has in mind here a weighty pronouncement of Jesus from the Sermon on the Mount. “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal; but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, etc… (and here is the clincher) FOR WHERE YOUR TREASURE IS, THERE WILL YOUR HEART BE.” Our treasure is what we really cherish, what we secretly value, what we pursue and exalt and give ourselves to. (Not what we say we cherish; but what in our innermost heart we want above all else.) According to Hebrew understanding our “heart” is the centre of our thinking, our willing, our feeling, and our moral discernment. Jesus insists that how we think and what we will, how we feel and what we discern in the midst of the spiritual jumble and the moral jungle around us — all of this (our entire being, in other words) is controlled by one thing: what, in our heart of hearts, we cherish.

Then what do we cherish? What are we about? Jesus says there can only be one answer; the king and his rule; the lord of life and his truth, his way, his people; the saviour of humankind and that deliverance at his hand to be found nowhere else.

To cherish all of this, all of him, is precisely to have treasure which doesn’t rot or rust or get eaten up. It is to be rich towards God in the midst of a world which is passing away, rich towards God in a future whose only richness is God.

The epistle of James is one of the smallest books of the Bible. I love it even as it unsettles me. For as long as I am unsettled by it, I know that I am still alive, still oriented to James’s greater brother, our Lord Jesus Christ.

Victor Shepherd

October 2005

To Chill or Cherish “One Another”

Hebrews 12:18-24

(Part One)

Smart-alecks bother me. Cain bothers me, because Cain was a smart-aleck. “Do I have to shepherd the shepherd?”, Cain taunts God in a witticism that Cain thinks is clever and funny but which God finds smart-alecky, “Can’t that shepherd shepherd himself?”

You know the story. Cain envied his brother Abel. Cain envied Abel so very intensely that his envy exploded and in his fiery rage he slew his brother. Whereupon God asked Cain, “Where is your brother?” “How should I know? Am I my brother’s keeper? Do I have to look out for that ‘creep’ who is so clueless and useless that he can’t look out for himself? He’s a shepherd. Let the shepherd shepherd himself.” (You have to read the text in Hebrew to appreciate the word-play.)

Cain’s envy; Cain’s hostility; Cain’s rage: lethal rage, murderous rage. Cain thought that by killing Abel he had gotten rid of Abel and everything about him. Cain had to learn that no human being ever gets rid of another human being. Abel’s blood cried from the ground, the text tells us; Abel’s blood continued to cry from the ground. Abel’s blood kept on crying out long after Abel himself was dead. What did Abel’s blood cry? Revenge! Curse! Wretchedness!

People still envy; people still hate; people still rage; people still slay — if not in deed at least in intent (and to God it’s all the same). The result? An inextinguishable cry: revenge! curse! wretchedness!

Anyone who attends to the news sees all of this illustrated every day. The world illustrates the truth of scripture ceaselessly. The world does? What about the church? What about us? We who are Christians know that the determinant of our lives is Jesus Christ our Lord. He makes us who we are; his truth, his light, his life — these make us who we are. And yet while Jesus Christ is certainly the definitive determination, the counter determination remains: Adam, Eve, Cain, and so on. In other words, we must always be alert to the spirit of Cain in us and in the church. We must be quick to identify Cain as soon as Cain insinuates himself here, with his envy, hostility, rage, murderous heart.

Prophet and apostle are realistic when they caution believing people against that carelessness which naively thinks that Cain’s spirit could never infiltrate the church. Prophet and apostle know what can arise within any congregation or Christian organization.

(i) [Galatians 5:26] For this reason the apostle Paul cautions the Christians in Galatia, “Don’t provoke one another; let’s not have any provoking of one another.”

A psychiatrist under whom I studied taught me that as people move into adulthood they develop adult attitudes and behaviours. But emotionally they never leave their early stages behind; just under the surface the most mature adult is still emotionally a child and an adolescent. If even the most mature adult is jabbed or prodded or pricked or provoked, what surfaces instantly is the child or the adolescent.

Do you remember when your children were very young? Two of them were sitting in the back seat of the car. The back seat was certainly big enough for both. Before you were two miles from home the two youngsters concluded that the back seat wasn’t big enough. One encroached on the other’s space. The second one jabbed the first. The first then ridiculed the second. The second then poked the first again. Ten miles from home and the back seat was a battleground.

Children? The same behaviour is seen in animals. The last time I was at the circus (few things delight me more than a circus) I watched the “tamed” lions and tigers inside the steel-mesh cage. They were all perched on their stools, sitting on their haunches, front paws between their hind legs, when one lion stuck out a paw and poked the lion beside him. The second lion ignored it. Whereupon the first lion poked his neighbour again. Now the second lion turned to the first and roared fearsomely. The first lion (the provoker) then roared back as though he had been attacked without provocation and was now highly insulted. As I watched these animals I thought to myself, “That’s my family! That’s our society! That’s humankind!”

The apostle Paul cautions us about the spirit of Abel in the congregation: “Don’t provoke one another.”

(ii) [James 4:11] The apostle James adds, “Don’t speak evil against one another.” Would we? Would we ever speak evil against one another? Yes, sadly, if envy rooted itself in us and festered into hostility.

There are two ways of speaking evil against one another. One way is to say what isn’t true. Another way, much more subtle, is to way what is true but isn’t necessary. There is much about every one of us that is perfectly true and just for this reason we should never want it broadcast. Then we ought to accord others the same consideration we want accorded us. There is much about every one of us that we don’t want broadcast not because it isn’t true, but because it is.

Paul tells us that our speech is to edify; our speech is to build up, build up both the hearer and the speaker. In addition, our speech is to impart grace. If human speech imparts the grace of God, then our speech is to be the vehicle of Jesus Christ’s self-declaration and self-giving. Unless our speech is the vehicle of Christ’s self-declaration and self-giving we are speaking evil against one another. And this, James tells us, we must not do.

(iii) [Proverbs 25:9] Next the writer of Proverbs insists, “Don’t disclose another’s secret.” Secrets are important. Secrets are essential to privacy. Privacy is essential to personhood. Personhood is essential to intimacy. Therefore secrets are essential to intimacy.

A few weeks ago I was asked, more or less casually, what I had been about for the 44 years I’ve been ordained. While the question was more or less casual, the questioner not looking for anything beyond the ‘chatty’, I decided to answer it seriously. “For the last 44 years”, I replied earnestly, “I have been preoccupied with the meaning of intimacy: intimacy with God, intimacy with others, but always and everywhere intimacy because I have little use for superficiality. In fact I can’t understand people who want to live without intimacy, although I meet such people constantly.”

Secrets (confidentiality) are essential to intimacy. We don’t have to answer every question that is put to us. There are some questions about us that we shouldn’t answer, just as there are questions about our most intimate friends that we shouldn’t answer.

There are even some questions (I have to be careful here) about our life in God that we shouldn’t answer, at least not answer for anyone at all. If someone asks us profoundly there is no harm in answering; but to answer a mocker or a trifler just because we have been asked is to throw pearls before pigs (in the words of Jesus); it’s to give what is holy to the dogs. To answer a trifler is to trivialize an intimacy that is beyond any words to articulate.

There are secrets (other people’s secrets) we ought not to disclose because to disclose them would break confidentiality; there are secrets (our own) we ought not to disclose because to disclose them would be exhibitionistic at best; at worst, to disclose them would trivialize them, cheapen them.

(iv) [Galatians 5:15] Lastly, Paul sums it all up for us as we endeavour to avoid victimizing each other here, Cain-like: “Don’t bite, devour, and consume one another.” If we begin by provoking each other, we shall end by biting, devouring and consuming each other. If we speak evil against one another, if we disclose each other’s secrets, we shall certainly bite, devour and consume one another.

Then all of this we must avoid lest the sin of Cain recrudesce and spread among us within our fellowship.

(Part Two)

Cain isn’t the last word, however; Jesus Christ is the last word. The blood of Abel isn’t the last cry to be heard; the blood of Jesus is. The book of Hebrews (12:24) insists, “The blood of Jesus speaks more graciously than the blood of Abel.” The blood of Abel cried for revenge. The blood of Jesus announces reconciliation. Within the fellowship of the reconciled, within a congregation, there is a particular way of relating to one another.

(i) [Romans 15:7] “Welcome one another as Christ has welcomed you.” How did Christ welcome us? Not by pretending that we aren’t sinners; not by pretending that our sinnership doesn’t make us more prickly than a porcupine and more obnoxious than an odour. Christ welcomed us, rather, by absorbing it all in himself; and having absorbed it all, inviting us to step toward him in the access he thereby created for us.

To be sure, we don’t absorb each other’s sin in the same sense that Christ has absorbed ours. After all, sin is uniquely an offence against God; he is uniquely victimized in our sin. And since only a victim can forgive, there is a welcome wherewith God welcomes us in his Son that is uniquely God’s welcome.

At the same time there is a derivative welcome that we must extend to each other as we absorb in ourselves the consequences of each other’s sin: the prickliness, the obnoxiousness, the ill-temper, the defensiveness surrounding self-interest. We absorb it, and therein we welcome one another as Christ has welcomed us.

(ii) [Romans 12:10] Yet more than a welcome is needed; warmth is needed. It’s always possible for us to deceive ourselves about the welcome we accord others; we can assume that because our welcome is polite it’s also warm; that because the invitation has been issued it’s also winsome. But this assumption is false. For this reason Paul adds, “Love one another with brotherly affection.”

On my first assignment following ordination I frequently dropped into the home of my colleague-in-ministry in rural New Brunswick. He had graduated from theology (University of Toronto) in the same year as I, but since we had never had any classes together we had never become acquainted with each other. I was glad to have a fellow-Torontonian handy when I was so far from home. As often as I dropped into his manse he and his wife welcomed me politely. They always put on the kettle and made tea, supplementing the tea with his wife’s prize-winning baking. But their welcome was never warm. As soon as we had settled and conversation had begun I was asked, “What do you think of the communicatio idiomata?” — or something like that. (Communicatio idiomata is an expression used to describe an aspect of Luther’s thought.) I replied cautiously. I was always nervous when I replied because I knew that my colleague didn’t want help with the answer; he wanted to test me. I always felt I was under review, always felt I was being examined, always felt I had to prove myself. Plainly he wanted to see if I agreed with the answer. The tricky thing was that I didn’t know whether I was supposed to agree with Luther on this point. On the one hand, my colleague, a dyed-in-the-wool Calvinist, often spoke of Calvin as a second-generation Lutheran; on the other hand, he regarded Calvin as a decided improvement on Luther. Therefore I didn’t know whether the communicatio idiomata was or wasn’t, in my colleague’s opinion, one of those areas where Calvin had improved upon Luther, was or wasn’t something I in turn was supposed to approve. I never knew where I stood with this couple. Yes, they welcomed me, but they welcomed me only to put me on trial. I never felt “brotherly affection”.

How different it was in my congregation, Streetsville United Church, whose pastor I was for 21 years before going to teach fulltime at Tyndale. The congregation there abounded in affection. In that congregation I found oceanic affection. To be sure, all congregations possess civility. (Without civility the congregation would fragment.) All congregations are aware of proper procedure. (Without proper procedure nothing can get done.) But the Streetsville congregation had affection. At least in my interactions with the congregation I found myself bathed in a sea of affection.

Wherever I went as guest-preacher I commended this congregation. When other pastors told me how emotionally isolated they were in their congregations I told them they needed a “rest-cure” in Streetsville. The welcome there was shot-through with brotherly affection.

(iii) [Colossians 3:16] But of course we can’t spend all our time in the bathtub of affection. At some point we have to do something besides soak. “Admonish one another; admonish one another in all wisdom.” The apostle is being very careful here. We do have to correct one another; we do have to reprove, rebuke one another. From time-to-time we do have to disagree with someone else in the congregation; more than disagree, oppose. But our having to do this must never become an occasion for abusing or despising those with whom we disagree. The substance of the matter (disagreement, correction, rebuke, opposition); the substance of the matter is one thing. The style or manner or mood of our disagreement is something else. Yes, we must admonish each other (church-life isn’t a matter of mutual flattery); but we must admonish each other in all wisdom (church-life isn’t the occasion of “getting even”).

Think of Peter and Paul. Paul felt that Peter had “sold out” to the Jewish Christians in Jerusalem. The church-members in Jerusalem insisted that when Gentiles became Christians they first had to become Jews. Judaism was the stepping stone to faith in Christ. Paul thundered, “No! The gospel invites Gentiles to embrace Jesus Christ as they are without first becoming Jews.” Peter didn’t see it this way. The result? Paul said, “When I saw Peter I opposed him to his face.” Two things are to be noted here. Paul opposed Peter (no compromise), and opposed him to his face (not behind his back).

It isn’t the case that affection and admonition are mutually exclusive. Rather, they imply each other. If we truly love one another with brotherly affection, then we shall admonish each other and receive admonition without taking offense.

(iv) [1 Thessalonians 5:11] Yet our mutual admonition is always for the sake of mutual encouragement and edification. Not surprisingly, then, Paul adds, “Encourage one another and build one another up.”

To encourage is to supply with “coeur”, heart. All of us need to be supplied with heart. It’s easy to be dis-couraged, dis-heartened, have one’s heart taken away. It’s easy if only because we live in a world that is the venue of seething spirits, only one of which is holy. We live in a world that is riddled with principalities and powers, all of which are fallen. We seek refuge in a congregation that is neither better nor worse than any New Testament congregation, none of which was problem-free. Then we must be all the more careful to encourage one another, hearten one another, build each other up.

(v) [John 13:14] It all comes together in one final imperative: “Wash one another’s feet.” Our Lord says that we are to wash one another’s feet. In first century Palestine the washing of feet was the work of the lowest servant; it was the most menial of menial tasks. Who washed whose feet at the last supper? The master was the servant. It was a demonstration of our Lord’s uncontrived humility; it was an instance of self-renunciation. More than this, it was an anticipation of the self-renunciation of the cross. For there not only did the master become servant, but the Son of God became sin in order that sinners, you and I, might become sons and daughters of God.

(Victor Shepherd Westport Presbyterian Church, 2014)

To Chill or Cherish “One Another”

The blood of Abel cries for revenge.

(i) Don’t provoke one another. (Galatians 5:26)

(ii) Don’t speak evil against one another. (James 4:11)

(iii) Don’t disclose one another’s secret. (Proverbs 25:19)

(iv) Don’t bite, devour and consume one another. (Galatians 5:15)

The blood of Jesus, “which speaks more graciously than the blood of Abel” (Hebrews 12:24), announces reconciliation.

(i) Welcome one another as Christ has welcomed you. (Romans 15:7)

(ii) Love one another with brotherly affection. (Romans 12:10)

(iii) Admonish one another in all wisdom. (Colossians 3:16)

(iv) Encourage one another and build one another up. (1 Thessalonians 5:11)

(v) Wash one another’s feet. (John 13:14)

The Practicality of Faith

James 1:19-27

Few things annoy us more than false piety. By “false piety” I mean the sickly-sweet sentimentality that appears to be so “heavenly” as to be of no earthly use. I mean the saccharine, maudlin mushiness that depicts Jesus as anything but manly and his followers as unreal and impractical.

Imagine that you are walking to the corner store when you come upon someone lying on the sidewalk. He has slipped on ice. His leg is broken, obviously broken, since the jagged end of the bone is sticking out through his trouser-leg. Just before you reach the man someone leans over him and sweetly says, “Brother, your leg is broken. Have you prayed about it?” The truth is, all of us have been exposed to something like this.

The apostle James was exposed to it too. He couldn’t stand it. False piety exasperated him. He decided to do something about it. He wrote a tract. The tract is brief; it has only 108 verses. Still, in these 108 verses James challenges his reader sixty times over. Sixty times over he charges his reader, dares his Christian reader to do something. James is fed up with Christians who turn in on themselves, comfort themselves with “sweet Jesus,” all the while turning faith into an interior sentimentality that ignores the concrete earthiness that ought to characterize all followers of Jesus Christ. After all, wasn’t Jesus doing every day of his public ministry?

James, you see, is always exasperated by the common misunderstanding of faith. Too may people, he has found, confuse faith with belief. Belief is purely cerebral; belief has to do with our mental furniture. Belief means we have the correct notions in our noodle. And concerning this James shouts, “So what? It isn’t faith.” Faith, on the other hand, is seizing him who has first seized us. Faith is embracing him who is the Word incarnate. If we are possessed not merely of belief but more profoundly of faith, then that faith which seizes the Word incarnate does something. Christians aren’t merely believers of the Word. Christians are possessed of faith in the Word. Therefore Christians are always doers of the Word.

In the sermon today we shan’t attempt to probe all of James’ sixty challenges. Three will be enough. For our attitude to three – any three – will tell others and ourselves whether we are in fact “doers of the Word.”

I: — One concrete challenge is this: “Let everyone be quick to listen, slow to speak.” There is always great need for listening, real listening. Real listening isn’t done with our ears; real listening is done with our heart. This kind of listening, says James, is one way in which we are doers of the Word.

I don’t like to hear people sneer at my profession and therefore I don’t sneer at theirs. For this reason (although not for this reason alone) I don’t defame psychotherapists. Unquestionably there are psychotherapists of immense helpfulness who do fine work. At the same time, we should understand that if we are helped by a psychotherapist it isn’t because she belongs to one particular school of psychotherapy, and this one particular school is vastly more effective than all other schools. Right now, says Dr Bernard Zelberstam, a psychotherapist himself, there are 200 recognized schools of psychotherapy in North America , each claiming to be empirically rigorous – which is to say, says Dr Zelberstam, none of them is empirically rigorous. Nevertheless, he insists that people genuinely are helped by visiting a psychotherapist, whether of school “A,” “B,” or “C.” What helps people, says Zelberstam, isn’t the psychotherapist’s training in any one school; what helps them is the psychotherapist’s human warmth, her sensitivity, her empathy, her insight, her emotional intuition. This is what helps. And this, says Zelberstam, you can find in a good friend, a caring neighbour, perchance a high school guidance counsellor. Many people look to a bartender.

I have found that as life becomes busier life appears to become more compressed. As it becomes more compressed people’s sense of isolation intensifies. They start to feel that that they aren’t heard, aren’t listened to, and for this reason are as isolated as if they were the only person in a 20-room house.

James says we are to be quick to listen, slow to speak. If we listen only with our ears we’ll always be quick to speak; entirely too quick. If we listen with our hearts, on the other hand, we’ll find ourselves slow to speak. You see, when we listen only with our ears we don’t really hear the person in front of us; we are listening with only half our mind because the other half of our mind is working on what we are going to say as soon as we get the chance, what we are going to say about ourselves as soon as the other person pauses to inhale. Because we are listening with only half our mind while plotting our retort, our facial expression gives us away. The person opposite us quietly concludes once again she isn’t being heard; we aren’t listening to her. The result, of course, is that her isolation is worsened.

We must never excuse our failure to listen on the grounds that “we can’t do anything about Mrs. X’s problem in any case, since her problem is insoluble.” To be sure, her problem likely is insoluble. When I was a young minister I thought that most problems could be solved, most burdens could be dropped. I don’t think like this any more. I’ve learned that most burdens have to be carried along in life. The people to whom we’re to listen: they already know this. They aren’t looking for us to unravel their complication. They don’t expect us to wave the magic wand over them and dispel their perplexity. They simply crave being heard, for they know that the burden they can’t shed on the spot and the difficulty they can’t remedy for now are worsened to the extent that they themselves are isolated in their pain.

There’s another reason you and I should develop the ministry of listening; namely, six months from now our situation may have changed drastically and we shall need someone to listen to us in a way we can scarcely imagine at this moment. Regardless of what we can anticipate happening to us in the near future, there’s far more that we can’t anticipate. And – this is far more telling – regardless of how much we can anticipate with our head we can anticipate nothing with our heart. We all like to work out in advance how we are going to react if this or that happens to us. And we go to sleep at night assuming that we’ve worked it out and we’ll react in such-and-such way if “it” happens to us. When “it” happens, however, we find that we react in a way we didn’t anticipate at all. And this for one reason: what we can anticipate with our head we can never anticipate with our heart.

When needy people open their torn hearts to me they usually stop part way through and say with much embarrassment, “I feel silly talking like this. I know I sound stupid. I must be weak. I feel so fragile, so vulnerable, while you [Shepherd] appear so strong and well put-together.” I assure these people that there’s nothing shameful about being swamped in a tidal wave of turbulence. And I tell them as well that six months from now I could be the person squirming in the chair that they are now warming. I don’t know what life is going to bring me. I don’t know how I’m going to react. I do know this much however: I know that life is going to bring me what I can’t anticipate; and when I’m visited with it, I’ll react in a manner I couldn’t foresee. I’ll be surprised, shocked even, at what’s befallen me. And I’ll be dumbfounded at my helplessness in the face of it.

How do I know this? I’ve been there already. There have been several relatively minor “bumps” in my life, minor bumps as it turned out (even though they didn’t seem minor at the time.) There have also been two or three devastating bomb-bursts that left me floundering.

In some situations we appear strong. In all situations we’d like to be strong. The truth is, no one is strong. All of us are vulnerable, as fragile as eggshell. The day will come when we need to be listened to as we need little else.

While we are probing the word of brother James we should contemplate the word of his fellow-apostle, Peter. Peter writes, “Cast all your cares upon him, for he cares for you.” Peter is right: we can cast all our cares upon God because he does care for us. At the same time, people who need to hear this will find Peter’s word credible only as they find that they can cast their cares upon us because we care. And we’re going to convince them that we care only as we listen. “Let everyone be quick to listen, slow to speak.”

II: — James urges more upon us: “Be slow to anger, for your anger doesn’t produce God’s righteousness.” “Be slow to anger.” James doesn’t tell us we should never become angry. We should. The person who doesn’t become angry when he should be angry is psychologically deficient and morally blind. Jesus, after all, was livid on many occasions.

Yet we are to be slow to anger. We aren’t to be a pop-off. We aren’t to fly into tantrums like the four year old who overheats on a matter that’s ultimately insignificant.

James knows there’s no little difference between Christ’s anger and ours. Jesus becomes angry when he sees defenceless people abused, but he doesn’t become angry when he’s abused himself. Jesus becomes angry when he sees vulnerable people manipulated, but he pleads forgiveness for assassins who are nailing him to the wood.

You and I are just the opposite. Too often huge injustices find us unmoved, yet if we are pricked ever so slightly we explode in vindictive fury. “Slow to anger”? James is correct. For in our fallen condition our anger is hugely disproportionate to the slight we’ve received. We use a cannon to kill a mosquito.

“Be slow to anger.” If we are quick to anger we’ve plainly lost sight of the fact that what infuriates us most in other people is frequently found in ourselves. Psychologists call it projection. What we find hardest to accept about ourselves we project onto other people and then get angry at them for it. When someone says to me, “I can’t abide the person who…” I quietly say to myself, “You can’t abide that character defect in someone else? If I could shadow you for six weeks I’m sure I’d find the same character defect in you.” The person who is quick to anger is quick just because he’s unconsciously loathing in someone else what he can’t stand in himself.

James insists that quick anger doesn’t produce the righteousness of God. “Righteousness” has a two-fold meaning in scripture. Foundationally it means “right-relatedness.” The righteousness of God is God’s act of grace wherein he absorbs our guilt and rights us with himself. Thereafter our relationship with him is no longer capsized but righted. Reconciled to him, no longer estranged from him, our relationship with him is righted. This is the primary meaning of “righteousness.”

The secondary meaning refers to the right conduct of those who’ve been righted with God. If we are righteous in the sense of rightly related to God, we are thereafter to live righteously by doing what’s right.

James maintains that as we are slow to anger; that is, as we don’t become irascible, angry inappropriately, our discipleship furthers the righteousness of God. In which sense of righteousness: primary or secondary? In both senses. As we are slow to anger we mirror the patience and kindness and guilt-absorbing mercy of God. Therein we lend credibility to that gospel by which men and women come to be reconciled to God, rightly related to him, righteous.

As we are slow to anger we also further the righteousness of God in the secondary sense; we do what’s right. Not exploding at people childishly; not shouting at them contemptuously; not distressing them through carping at them; not discouraging them through temperamental touchiness: to act toward others in this way is to be a doer of the Word, both the Word of the gospel by which we were reconciled to God and the Word of gospel-command by which we behave toward others as Jesus Christ first behaved toward us. As we are slow to anger we produce God’s righteousness, says James. We produce God’s righteousness in both senses: we magnify the gospel of reconciliation (right-relationship with him) and we obey the command to live righteously.

III: — Of the fifty-eight remaining exhortations or challenges or charges in James’ tract let’s look at this one: “Care for widows and orphans in their distress.” Why single out widows and orphans? Aren’t there many other kinds of suffering besides the suffering of those who’ve been widowed or orphaned? Widows and orphans are singled out in scripture for one reason: they were economically destitute. In the ancient world there was little gainful employment for women, little remunerated work outside the home. When a woman was widowed there was no economic safety net, no mother’s allowance, no social welfare, nothing to catch her. Bereft of husband, she was thereafter materially bereft – unless someone, several people, looked out for her and supported her. Orphans were in exactly the same predicament. To say we are to “care for widows and orphans in their distress” is to say we are to care for those whose deprivation and destitution are unmistakable and undeniable.

Not for one minute am I minimizing the economic hardship of those who are financially straitened in our society. Neither am I pretending that such economic disadvantage is insignificant.

At the same time we have a financial safety net that our foreparents two generations back in Canada didn’t know. And if we agree that wealth is measured not by what we own but by what we have access to, then the materially poorest person in Canada is wealthy by world standards. We need think only of our health care system, the courts, and public education. Then who are the “widows and orphans” in our midst? Who are the most abjectly destitute? I maintain it’s those who are spiritually destitute. The apostle Paul (we’re switching now for a minute from James to Paul) speaks of the predicament of Gentiles before they came to faith in Jesus Christ. He writes, “Remember that you were…separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel , strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world.” Doesn’t that sound bleak: “separated from Christ…having no hope, without God in the world”? It is bleak. It has to be bleak. But the bleakness of it all isn’t unfixable. The gospel is good news not because it’s a sweet-sounding idea; the gospel is good news, says Paul, because it is the operative power of God unto salvation. The gospel is an event happening right now; the gospel is the event of God in his operative power remedying human bleakness as he presses Christ upon people and forges in them the faith whereby they can embrace Christ. Thereafter they aren’t separated from Christ; they aren’t without hope; they aren’t without God in the world.

There are institutions without number in our society that rightly look out for people with assorted afflictions. We need think only of the Cancer Society, the Diabetic Association, the Kidney Foundation, the John Howard Society (for prisoners), Alcoholics Anonymous, etc. Good. We need them all. What institution is there in our society whose sole purpose is the service it can render God in his remedying the ultimate human affliction – namely, the bleakness of being separated from Christ, without hope, without God in the world? There is one institution: the church.

At the beginning of the sermon I said that the apostle James has no use for false piety, no use for the saccharine sentimentality of the religious romantics, no use for maudlin mushiness that can’t see the human suffering that abounds all around us. True. But while James has no use for false piety he has every use for genuine faith. He urges us to magnify Jesus Christ and commend faith in him, the only Saviour anyone can ever have. Then whatever else the church is about it always has to be about this, and as long as it’s about this it will never have forfeited its mandate and its place in God’s economy.

We began today with the need to listen. We must be slow to speak but quick to listen, for if we cease listening to our suffering neighbour we shall soon no longer be listening to God.

We must be slow to anger, for petulance and irritability and temper tantrums don’t produce the righteousness of God, and surely we want to commend God’s righteousness both in the sense of his righting people with himself and also in the sense of having them conduct themselves rightly thereafter.

We shall always be found doing this if we are first, last and always found “caring for widows and orphans in their distress”; that is, commending to the spiritually deprived their great God and Saviour. For he is always for them, never fails them, and has promised to bring them to their eternal home.

Victor Shepherd March 20005

Telling the Christian Story as Event, Doctrine, Person

2 Peter 1:16-18

Joshua 4:1-7 John 1:1-5 1 Timothy 4:6-8

“Tell Me the Old, Old Story”

I am not comfortable with the current craze for storytelling in Christian circles. The “icebreaker” at a conference used to be “name-and-address-introduction”; now, however, we are often asked to introduce ourselves by “telling our story”, or at least part of it. Not only is telling our story the “icebreaker” at so many conferences; it often seems to be the unofficial program for the conference. Regardless of what subject matter has been advertised (Christian Education for Senior Citizens or Another Look at Middle-aged Men) we end up going around the circle and telling our story to everyone else.

I have many reservations about this. For instance, while I may think my story wonderfully interesting, I don’t think most others think it especially interesting While my story is unquestionably important to me, it doesn’t appear to be important to anyone else. And why should it be?

In order to keep people from falling asleep as story succeeds story, someone decides to make her story a little more gripping, a little more noteworthy. Someone else decides to make his story a little “juicier”, a little more sensational than others’. Before long everyone is trying to outdo everyone else. Sooner or later the storytelling “snowballs” uncontrollably, and then someone is embarrassed at having told more than she wishes she had or ought to have. Needless to say, in the midst of the current storytelling fashion I have seen “beans” spilled that would have been better left unspilled.

Forgotten in the midst of all this is the Christian story. The gospel is story too. It should be told. And it should be told in that God intends the Christian story to become everyone’s story. My story is unquestionably important to me, as yours is to you. But what matters most is that our story come to be taken up into a much bigger story, a much weightier story; namely, the Christian story. The Christian story is to be the benchmark story for all of us; it’s to be the model story for all of us. It’s only as we learn the Christian story and take it to heart that we come to see what is profoundly significant about our individual stories and what isn’t. It’s only as we learn the Christian story that we come to see what is to be cherished and magnified and exalted in our individual stories and what is to be repented of and repudiated.

Then we shall have to tell the Christian story. But how do we tell this old, old story? We have to tell this story in its three aspects as event, doctrine and person.

I: — The foundational aspect of the Christian story is event. We can’t help noticing how concerned the apostles are to remind us that the Christian story isn’t a fairy-tale; it isn’t legend; it isn’t myth like the ancient myths about the Greek and Roman and Norse deities. Fairy-tales and legends and myths are stories that humankind has invented out of its fertile imagination. The Christian story, on the other hand, is anchored in history.

Think of the Christmas story. We are told that Joseph and Mary journeyed from Nazareth to Bethlehem because Caesar Augustus wanted an up-to-date report on who was doing what throughout the Roman Empire and he wanted the report for two reasons: taxation and surveillance. Anyone can check all of this by means of historical investigation. As the Christmas story unfolds we are told that all of this happened “when Quirinius was governor of Syria .” Already we have been told that the Christian story begins in a time that can be checked, in a place that can be checked, for a purpose that can be checked. The Christian story isn’t fairy-tale or fable or fantasy; neither is it legend or myth; it’s an event, anchored in history.

When Jesus comes to die Pilate is named in the story. (He’s the political power-broker in Palestine .) Anas and Caiaphas are mentioned. (They are the religious power-brokers in Palestine .) Collusion between political powers and religious powers guarantees the execution of the Nazarene. Event.

Then we are told that the tomb is sealed, a guard is posted, but a body can’t be located even as grave clothes are found unmussed: the Nazarene has been raised, is now alive, and is loose in the world. Event.

Plainly the apostles want us to know not only that the gospel differs from all fables and fairy-tales but also from all philosophies. People who lose sight of the historical anchor of the Christian story are forever trying to tell us that the Christian story is an anticipatory illustration of philosophy; the Christian story, for instance, is a version of “Marxism before Marx”. After all, didn’t Jesus speak about the evils of money and the need for social justice? Or we are told that the Christian story is a version of existentialism before 20th century existentialists. After all, didn’t Jesus speak about the cruciality of decision and the need for authenticity? But the apostles have closed the door upon all such philosophical reinterpretations, for all such reinterpretations deny the particular historical anchor to the Christian story.

How many times has someone tried to tell us that the religion of Jesus is merely a primitive, pictorial way of saying that there are victorious forces of good in the world? Once we’ve grasped this abstract truth about the victorious forces of good we can forget Jesus and his primitive pictures. Later in the sermon we shall see precisely why the Christian story can never forget Jesus. (And besides, apart from the event of Jesus and his resurrection, what reason do we have for thinking that whatever forces of good there might be are going to be victorious?)

The Christian story doesn’t arise from fables or fairy tales, legends or myths. Neither does it arise from philosophies or primitive pictures. The Christian story is anchored in history; it’s anchored in an event that can be fixed in space and time and turbulence.

II: — Yet there’s more to the Christian story than historically-anchored event; there is also doctrine. Doctrine speaks of the meaning of the event, the divine purpose of the event, the human consequences arising from the event.

Take the event of the cross. There was nothing unique about our Lord’s crucifixion as such. The Roman government was always nervous about suspected upstart-revolutionaries, and for this reason government policy was “Crucify first and ask questions later.” To no one’s surprise, then, the Roman government crucified thousands. Jesus was one more, with two revolutionaries strung up on either side of him. To a casual passer-by all three crosses would have been identical — and not worth a second glance.

But not everyone beholding the cross was casual; some — namely, followers of Jesus — were distraught. The cross of Jesus was the negation of everything that had enthralled them for months. And then in the light of the resurrection they were made to know that this one cross was different; this one cross was God descending and God condescending and God absorbing into his own heart the judgement and penalty and burden of the entire creation’s sin as surely as his Son — now known to be Son in the light of the resurrection — absorbed as much himself. In the light of the resurrection followers of Jesus were given to know that this one cross created unimpeded access to God; it declared the Father’s welcome; it called the wayward home. So far from being the negation of everything that the Master had been about for months, it was the inner meaning and fulfilment of all he had done throughout his public ministry.

The event is the cross; the doctrine is the meaning of the cross, God’s purpose in the cross, and the human consequences of the cross.

Plainly doctrine is important. Doctrine is a statement concerning truth. Where people are indifferent to doctrine they are manifestly indifferent to truth. If they don’t care about doctrine they are saying either “There’s no such thing as truth” or “There may be truth but we can’t be sure” or “There is truth but we can’t be sure whether we can know it”. When Christians hold up doctrine, however, we are saying “There is truth; it is of God; it can be known because God himself has acquainted us with it.”

Plainly doctrine is important. Doctrine pertains to truth. If the truth of Christ’s cross were that he was a martyr, a martyr only, then the death of Jesus would have no more significance than the death of John the Baptist (or the death of Dietrich Bonhoeffer). But the apostles never say this. They know that the death of Jesus (that is, the life of Jesus offered up) is precisely that which brings eternal life to all who cling to him in faith.

Plainly doctrine is important. Doctrine pertains to truth. Truth must be distinguished from mistakenness and ignorance and out-and-out falsification. These three are not the same. People can be mistaken sincerely; still, the sincerest mistake can leave people endangered. (We need think only of the pharmacist’s sincere mistake in filling a prescription.) People can be ignorant sincerely; but ignorance of the properties of carbon monoxide is nonetheless lethal. In addition people can perversely suppress the truth, deny the truth, hide the truth — i.e., perversely falsify.

That part of the Christian story which is doctrine has to be held up in the face of mistakenness about God and ignorance of God and falsification concerning God and our ultimate good in him. Plainly doctrine is important.

III: — Yet there’s more to the Christian story than doctrine; there’s a person. There is the person whose truth doctrine describes. The word “truth” describes a statement about Jesus Christ; the word “reality”, on the other hand, denotes the living immediacy and inviolability of the person himself. When we speak, then, of the truth and reality of Jesus Christ we are saying that his presence is superior to and the measure of whatever else is present. When we say that the Christian story is more than event, more than doctrine; it’s Jesus Christ himself — we are saying that he isn’t merely one person among others, one reality among others. He is the effectual presence of God amidst the entire creation.

What besides him is present in the creation?

– Sin is present, but Jesus the Saviour saves us from both its guilt and its grip.

– Evil is present, but Jesus the Victor has defeated it and one day will destroy it.

– Deception and betrayal are present, but Jesus the Wisdom of God acquaints us with the
nature of principalities and powers even as he fortifies us in their assault upon us.

– Death is present, but Jesus the Risen One has denatured it, rendering the coming death of
his people no more than momentary inconvenience on their way to a blessedness that
nothing will diminish.

Jesus Christ is ultimate reality; he is the effectual presence of God amidst the entire creation. Our Lord’s ultimate effectiveness in the face of everything that contradicts him and threatens us is the crown and climax of the Christian story.

Many times throughout my ministry I have referred to the Heidelberg Catechism (1563), the crown jewel of the shorter Reformation writings. Question #1 asks, “What is your only comfort in life and in death?” Answer #1 replies, “My only comfort in life and in death is that I am not my own but I belong, body and soul, to my faithful Saviour Jesus Christ.” I belong to him; I am inseparably bound to him. My comfort isn’t finally in the event of his appearance; my comfort isn’t finally in any or all of the doctrinal truths about him that will be true forever; my comfort finally is that he who is real and whose truth is eternal — this one person has fused himself to me and nothing can sunder us.

Centuries ago the apostle John wrote several short letters to Christians whose certainty of all this was about to be eclipsed by the fierce assaults raining down upon them. They could no more have denied the actuality of these assaults than they could have denied their pain. John wrote these people, “Remember: he who is in you is greater than he who is in the world.” (1 John 4:4) We too must always remember that Jesus Christ — the person — is greater than everything that opposes him; he always will be greater.

IV: — I want to come back to the matter of storytelling. When we launch out into telling our story — whether we’ve been asked to tell it or not — we sally forth assuming that we know our own story best. No one else knows our story as well as we know it. Therefore we know what we should say and what “spin” we should put on it. Who, after all, knows my own story better than I?

The truth is, we don’t know our own story. Think for a minute of the story of Mary Magdalene. What would her story include? It would include a lot of details about this and that. The most important aspect of Mary’s story, however, isn’t hers at all; or at least it isn’t hers in the first instance. The most important aspect of Mary’s story is this: the risen Jesus Christ appeared to her. She is a “product” of the resurrection of our Lord; she is a “product” of something in his story.

Unquestionably the resurrection of Jesus is his story. But then he appeared to Peter and Thomas, Paul and Mary. Now it’s plain that his story isn’t his only. The resurrection event included them; the story of Jesus included theirs. The profoundest, most life-changing aspect of their story wasn’t theirs primarily; it was their Lord’s. His story became their story as his resurrection made them forever different.

Obviously, then, the profoundest aspect of my story, the most wonderful aspect of your story, isn’t anything about my story or yours; the profoundest aspect of our story is our Lord’s story in its entirety.

My dear wife says I talk too much about myself. My daughters say I talk too much about myself. Perhaps many you think I talk too much about myself. I happen to think my wife and my daughters and all of you are wrong. The problem isn’t that I talk too much about myself. The problem, rather, is that I bore people with the drivel I spout; I embarrass my daughters with the exaggerated dramatization of my self-importance; I drone on endlessly posturing my suffering as extraordinary. But if I were to speak about Jesus Christ, I wouldn’t bore people with my drivel; and if I were to speak about him I wouldn’t embarrass my daughters with my over-dramatized self-importance. On the other hand if I were to speak about the master I would end up speaking about myself in any case, since his story has become my story. In speaking about him I would inevitably speak about myself in any case, but this time far more profoundly, far more persuasively, far more helpfully to others.

Then the only thing to do is to resolve to tell the old, old story of Jesus, for then my story will get to be heard as well. Only this time my story will be worth hearing.

Victor Shepherd

October 2006

John’s First Epistle

1^st John ( in its entirety)

Erasmus was the most brilliant figure in the Reformation era. He was also the wittiest. He was also the shallowest theologically. It was said of Erasmus that when he looked out over the dreadful abuses in the church he laughed and called for another glass of wine. Luther, on the other hand, Luther went home and cried all night.

Yet Luther did more than weep, since weeping alone is useless. Luther wrote. He wrote tracts: brief, pithy, pointed pamphlets that people could read in one sitting. A tract is easily remembered, easily copied, easily distributed. Luther wrote dozens of them. The Freedom of the Christian. Two Kinds of Righteousness. Preface to the New Testament.. I love them all.

John Knox, another Sixteenth Century Reformer and closer in some respects to this congregation, wrote tracts too. His most notorious tract has a wonderful title: The First Blast of the Trumpet Against the Monstrous Regiment of Women. And how many women were numbered in the “monstrous regiment”? Two, only two. But two “biggies”: Mary Queen of Scots and Mary Tudor (“Bloody Mary” of English infamy.) Knox’s pamphlets, like Luther’s were effective beyond anything anyone imagined.

A tract has an intensity, a concentration, a relentlessness that a letter lacks. John’s first “letter” (so-called) isn’t really a letter at all: he isn’t sending it to an individual or a specific congregation. It’s a tract written for all the churches in Asia Minor ( Turkey today). Like all tracts, it’s condensed; and like biblical tracts, it addresses a specific problem in church life.

Whereas John’s gospel aimed at striking fire in the hearts of those who hadn’t yet owned Jesus Christ in faith, John’s tract was written for people who were already part of the Christian fellowship. Some people in that fellowship were causing a major disruption. Who were they and what were they saying? In other words, what was the problem in church life that John had to address?

I: — The congregation was fragmenting under the false teaching of a cult called “Gnostic”. The Gnostics regarded themselves as religious elitists. They alone were “in the know”. They had special illumination. Their extraordinary illumination gave them spiritual privilege. They possessed a knowledge of God that the “lower” types (so-called) didn’t have.

One feature of Gnosticism: it insisted that while God is good, the creation is bad, evil in fact. Therefore God couldn’t have created it. Matter is evil. God couldn’t have created it. History is evil. God couldn’t have fashioned it. Then who had? An inferior spiritual being had (inferior to God, that is); an inferior spiritual being that could afford to dirty itself with dirty matter and dirty history, since God was too pure to soil himself with the “stuff” of creation.

There were many implicates of the Gnostic perversion of Christian truth. Since the entire created order is evil, the human body is evil too; loathsome, in fact. The body should be shunned.

And since the human body is loathsome, Incarnation is impossible. God would never have polluted himself by incarnating himself in human flesh.

Now in the past several years you Schombergers have learned from me how the Hebrew mind thinks. The Hebrew mind insists that the creation is good. It may be (and is) distorted as a result of the Fall, but it is and remains good in itself just because it has come forth from the hand of God who is good. The Genesis stories reiterate tirelessly, “And God saw what he had made, and behold it was good.” Because everything God makes is good, Paul insists that the Christians in Corinth should “glorify God in their bodies”. In other words, the human body is a fitting vehicle of the glory of God.

But the Gnostics denied this. The human body is vile, they said. Not surprisingly, then, the Gnostics fell into two different patterns of behaviour, both of which are foreign to the Hebrew mind.

[i] One was a rigid asceticism. Pleasure of any kind was to be shunned. No Hebrew thinker would ever consent to this. The book of Ecclesiastes tells us we are to take pleasure in food and drink and work. The psalmist reminds us, “At God’s right hand are pleasures for evermore” – and if at his right hand, then so at ours. King Solomon, reputedly the wisest person in Israel , imported apes and ivory and peacocks – but not because they were useful; simply because looking at them brought him pleasure. And of course Israel always upheld what it euphemistically called “Sabbath blessings”, “the way of a man with a maid.”

Rigid asceticism – it surfaced again centuries later with hermits who lived in a shoe-box and didn’t wash for twenty years so that vermin swarmed them – is simply foreign to the Hebrew mind.

[ii] Another kind of behaviour rooted in the Gnostic contempt for the body was just the opposite. Since the body is bad, invariably bad, incurably bad, why not indulge it? Since God didn’t create our bodies, surely we can dishonour our bodies and glorify God at the same time, can’t we? These Gnostics fell into the most vulgar wantonness, the grossest degradation.

Now if you give people a choice between rigid, pleasureless asceticism and gross self-indulgence, 90% are going to choose the latter. It was this latter outlook that infected the churches to which John sent his tract.

What’s more, since the Gnostics denied the importance of history, they denied the importance of obedience to God, since obedience, yours and mine, is always exercised in the wider world of history; our obedience to God is what we do “out there”. Not surprisingly, the Gnostics ignored the cruciality of obedience in their (mis)understanding of the Christian life.

Needless to say, the end result of Gnostic false teaching was a broken-down church fellowship. Because the Gnostics looked upon themselves as a spiritual elite possessing “insider” information, they were contemptuous snobs. Because they cavalierly indulged their appetitive nature, they turned the church premises into a brothel. Because they disdained obedience, they were a terrible example to right-thinking Christians who were struggling with assorted temptations.

John could take it no longer. He had to act. He wrote a tract, a pithy, pointed pamphlet that addressed the problems in the congregations the Gnostics had infected.

II: — What did John say to his people then? Why does he say to us now?

[i] First, John underlines the truth of the Incarnation. Jesus Christ is Emmanu-el, God-with-us. Jesus Christ is the human embodiment of the Word and Way and Truth and Power of God. The Gnostics said that Jesus couldn’t be God-Incarnate since he wouldn’t soil himself with human flesh. John said Jesus had to be God-Incarnate or else the gospel disappears and we are still in our sins.

John was right. Jesus is God-Incarnate or else you and I remain unsaved and face a fearful prospect. Unless Jesus Christ is God, he can’t save us, since only God can save sinners. Unless Jesus Christ is human, he can’t save us, since only his sinless humanness can restore ours. He is wholly divine and wholly human simultaneously. “This Word”, says John ; “This Word – God’s self-utterance and self-bestowal rendered Incarnate in one man from Nazareth – we have seen with our eyes and touched with our hands.”

For decades I have been aware that if Jesus Christ is wholly divine and wholly human there is a gospel; if he isn’t, there is no gospel. I’m always moved at the story of the Unitarian speaker in Glasgow , the roughest city in Europe , who stated in an open-air service that Jesus was a good man; Jesus was a kind fellow; Jesus was a sensitive person. (This is as much as Unitarians will ever say about Jesus, since Unitarians deny the Incarnation.) A streetwalker who listened for a while turned away saying to the Unitarian spokesperson, “Your rope isn’t long enough for me”.

How long do you think the rope has to be? The church catholic knows that in Jesus Christ God has let down a rope that never dangles just above our humanness; which is to say, never dangles just above our suffering, and worse, just above our sin. More than let it down, God has descended the rope himself; in fact, in Christ Jesus our Lord, God is that rope which reaches all the way down to us precisely in order that we might reach all the way up to him. Incarnation means that in the Son who is flesh of our flesh and bone of our bone, God’s love doesn’t “love us from a distance” (Do you remember a few years ago when every radio station was playing that wretched blasphemy, “God is watching from a distance”?) In the Incarnate One God has humiliated himself for our sakes and identified himself with everything about us that saddens him, angers him, disgusts him – and this precisely for the purpose of rescuing us from all of it and relieving us of all of it.

Because the Incarnation is truth, we have a gospel. Without it we have, like the Gnostics, religious ideas that are never better than mere ideas (salvifically useless); what’s more, ideas that aren’t even true.

Let me say it again. Because Jesus Christ is wholly divine there’s no limit to God’s condescension, humility, even humiliation, for our sakes. And because Jesus Christ is wholly human there’s no area, aspect or dimension of our existence that God hasn’t absorbed for the sake of healing it.

Preaching the gospel thrills me just because the gospel itself thrills me. Just think: the gospel of the Incarnate One Crucified for our sakes is sufficient for sinners who are otherwise lost and sufficient for sufferers who are otherwise unrelieved.

[ii] The second emphasis in John’s tract concerns our aspiration after godly obedience. Again and again John bristles in the face of Gnostic indifference to behaviour. John is horrified at the cavalier way the Gnostics in the congregation glibly provide a rationalization for sin. He knows that genuine disciples long to please the Master they love. Followers of him who is the Way want to walk the Way. Walk? The Gnostics would rather wallow. John watches them wallowing and describes them in one word: lawless. They are lawless.

For this reason John repeats himself tirelessly in his tract: “We may be sure that we know God if we keep his commandments.” “Whoever says ‘I know God’ but disobeys his commandments is a liar.” In case we’re slow to get the point, John adds, “Whoever says she abides in Christ ought to walk in the same way he walked….If we know that God is righteous, we may be sure that everyone who does right is born of God.” Having made the one point five times over, John crowns it all with his declaration, “This is the love of God, that we keep his commandments.” In other words, we don’t genuinely love God unless we keep, aspire to keep, the commandments of God.

Then John adds a line that describes the atmosphere of our obedience: “And God’s commandments aren’t burdensome.” Not burdensome. Godliness isn’t grim. Obedience isn’t onerous.

Think of what our Lord said decades before John penned his tract. “Come unto me, all of you who are sick and tired, frazzled, frenzied and fed up; come to me, and I will give you rest. For my yoke is easy, and my – burden – is light.” “Yoke” is commonest Hebrew metaphor for obedience. Obedience to Jesus Christ – a burden, you say? – but it’s light.

Someone “on the ball” is going to say, “but Christ’s invitation is just that: invitation. It’s not a command.” Oh, isn’t it? “Come.” Isn’t that what grammarians call the imperative mood? It’s a command. “You come. Come right now. Don’t procrastinate. Don’t pretend you don’t need to come. Come.” Plainly it’s a command. But the spirit of the command is invitation. His commandments are not burdensome.

“This is the love of God, that we keep his commandments.” Surely this isn’t difficult to grasp. After all, it’s our love for our children that fuels our patience with them and our kindness to them. If we didn’t love them, patience and kindness would boil dry under the fires of frustration. It’s our love for our spouse that inspires our faithfulness. To say this isn’t to deny that we all need to be reminded, in periods of temptation or apathy or carelessness, which a promise was made and a commitment must be honoured. Still, who is going to remain faithful forever in the absence of love? Who is going to remain faithful out of grim, joyless duty?

Not the apostle John this time but the apostle Paul: he urges young Timothy to train himself in godliness. Training. It sounds onerous. It sounds grim. But is it? Is it necessarily? Since I’m an ardent cyclist myself, I follow closely the “life and times” of Lance Armstrong, winner of the Tour de France seven consecutive times after being almost dead from testicular, lung and brain cancer. Lance Armstrong trains eleven months a year, seven hours per day, uphill and downhill in 90 degree heat. There’s only one way he is able to train like this: he loves it. Nothing we have to do is onerous if we relish doing it. So far from onerous, training in godliness is exhilarating if we are attracted to it.

It so happens that when Jesus says “I am the good shepherd” the word he uses for “good” (kalos) means “attractive, inviting, compelling, comely, winsome.” “I am the good shepherd” means “I am the fine shepherd: if you truly apprehend me, you can’t help falling in love with me.” For this reason his commandments are not burdensome.

[iii] Lastly, John corrects the Gnostics inasmuch as they have fractured the fellowship, or at least have wanted to, and certainly have come close to fracturing it. The Gnostics, remember, regarded themselves as a spiritual elite that disdained lesser folk, the unillumined, who of course made up most of the congregation. John states bluntly that we can’t love God and disdain our brother or sister. The Gnostics maintained that they had privileged access to God and elevated intimacy with God and “insider” information about God. John tells them starkly that their contemptuous superiority – their lovelessness, in other words – advertises their spiritual impoverishment.

Whereas the Gnostics maintained that they were spiritually reborn inasmuch as they possessed “insider” information and all it implied, John states simply “We know we have passed from death to life because? – because we love one another. Whoever does not love abides in death.”

John is no fool. He’s aware that a congregation gathers up (rightly gathers up) people of every sort, in the same way a net pulled through the water gathers up fish of every sort. He’s aware that within the congregations to which he writes there are sound believers; there are sound believers who are vulnerable to false teaching; there are Gnostic snobs who think they’re on the right track but who in fact disrupt the congregation; and there are out-and-out nasty troublemakers, any troublemaker in a congregation being a big toad in a small pond. John is aware of all this.

When John insists we love them all, the whole grab-bag, he’s not waxing sentimental. After all, he knew our Lord insisted we love our enemies. And John knew that the enemy we are to love really is our enemy; not an irritant, not a nuisance. The person who is mere irritant or nuisance is a pain-in-the-neck, to be sure, but he isn’t dangerous. The person who is enemy, however, can actually harm. Even this person is to be loved.

The point is this. John could have written to his people, “You know the Gnostic snobs among you who think they’re superior to you? Always remember that thanks to your better theology you are superior to them.” John could have written, “Do you know the most effective way of coping with people who dismiss you? Dismiss them.” Had John written like this, he would have denounced the Gnostics as spiritual elitists only to substitute orthodox believers as spiritual elitists. But to do this would be to gain nothing. When John says, “The sign that we’ve passed from death to life is that we love one another”, “one another” includes the person whose theology is deficient and whose attitude is snobbish and whose presence is disruptive. After all, how are the snobs going to be helped if they are made unwelcome? “We know we have passed from death to life just because God mysteriously enables us to love the person we otherwise can’t stand.”

Conclusion: — So much for John’s impassioned tract. He wants the truth and power of the Incarnation reinforced. He wants godliness encouraged. He wants the fellowship infused with a patient, hurt-absorbing love that refutes elitism.

He wants all of this because he wants the truth upheld. Yet he has another motive too: he says he writes “So that our joy may be complete.” “Our joy: his joy, plus the joy of the people to whom he’s written his tract, plus the joy of the people who are going to read his tract. Then today, as we read his short tract, may the profoundest joy be magnified in your heart and mine.

Rev. Victor Shepherd October 2005

Love Means “I Want You to Be.”

1^st John 4:8 John 3:16 Galatians 2:20

There are few thinkers more profound than Augustine. Born in the year 354 and living until 430, he was philosopher, theologian, political theorist, cultural commentator, and all of these at once; and not only all of these at once, but all of these superbly. His words are always weighty and need to be heard again and again. He wrote much about love, approaching the topic of love the way an appreciative jeweller approaches a gem, glowing over the different lustres it radiates as light shines on it first from one angle and then from another. One word from Augustine that we are going to linger over tonight is as brief as it is brilliant: “Love means ‘I want you to be.’”

I: — Let’s think first about the creation. On the one hand God doesn’t need the creation; i.e., doesn’t need the creation to be God. God is without deficit or defect. Therefore he doesn’t create in order to find in the creation what he somehow lacks in himself. On the other hand we know that God is life and God is love. God is the one and only “living” God in that God alone has life in himself. Because God is life God alone can impart life. Because God is love he appears to delight in creating and vivifying creatures who aren’t God themselves but who are made to live in love with the God who lives and loves by nature.

To say that God conceived us in love and fashioned us in love and constantly visits us with his love means, says Augustine, that God is forever saying to us, “I want you to be.” Be what? When God creates mountains and monkeys he says, “I want you to be that thing.” When he creates humankind, however, he wants us to be what monkeys and mountains can never be: creatures whose purpose, delight and fruitfulness are found in a living relationship with him, which relationship is love.

The apostle John has said most pithily, “God is love.” Less pithily but equally profoundly Augustine would say, “God is the one who longs to have us be; God longs to have us love him; God longs to have us reflect back to him the love with which he first loved us and continues to love us. This is what it is to be.“

The problem is, as everyone knows, that the creation didn’t remain “good” without qualification. Instead the creation was undone (in some respects) by the fall. We who were created to find our purpose, delight and fruitfulness in a living relationship of throbbing love for God now look everywhere else. We who are to reflect back to God the love with which he first loved us and continues to love us now do everything but that. For this reason God can no longer say, “I want you to be.” Now he must say in his judgement, “I want you not to be.” Insofar as God wants us not to be he plainly isn’t the creator; he’s now the destroyer. Anyone who reads scripture attentively knows that as soon as the creator is presumed upon or traded on; as soon as the attempt is made to exploit God or test him, as surely as God is disdained or merely disregarded, the creator becomes the destroyer. Scripture speaks like this on every page.

We’d like to think that if God were displeased with us, justly displeased with us, it’d be enough for him to ignore us. But destroy? Destruction sounds like “zero tolerance.” It’s odd, isn’t it, that we fault God for “zero tolerance” when we insist our legislators implement it everywhere in our society. We insist on legislation that guarantees zero tolerance for wife-beating, drug-trafficking, sexual exploitation of children; zero tolerance for income tax evasion and impaired driving. We insist on social policies of zero tolerance because we know in our hearts that tolerance isn’t a sign of generosity or magnanimity or large-hearted liberality. Tolerance is ultimately a sign of confusion, blindness, and spinelessness – none of which can be predicated of God. His tolerance, in the wake of our primal defiance and disobedience, would be only the shabbiest character defect in him.

Israel always knew this. To the prophet Amos God said, “I am setting a plumb line in the midst of my people Israel.” (Amos 9:7) A plumb line is used in house construction to expose deviations from the upright. The house of Israel was found deviant. And the result? When the plumb line is spoken of in 2 Kings 21 the conclusion is stark: “Says the Lord, ‘I will wipe Jerusalem as one wipes a dish, wiping it and turning it upside down.” It’s over! “I want you not to be.”

II: — Yet to another prophet, Hosea this time, God spoke as anguish-riddled a word as we shall ever overhear in scripture: “How can I give you up? How can I hand you over?…My heart recoils within me, my compassion grows warm and tender, for I am God and not man, the Holy One in your midst, and I will not come to destroy.” (Hosea 11:8-9) Not even the destroyer will come to destroy. Then what will he come to do, given his recoiling heart and tender compassion? He will come to save. “For God so loved the world”, is how the apostle John speaks of this truth. “World”, in John’s vocabulary, doesn’t mean what it means in the Oxford English Dictionary; “world” for John is the sum total of men and women who blindly yet culpably disdain their vocation of reflecting back to God the love in which he created us. The “world” is the sum total of men and women who slander God’s goodness and slight his patience and scorn his blessing and ridicule his truth and laugh at his judgements even as they lecture him, “Don’t tell us what to be; we’ll decide for ourselves what we’re going to be. We forge our own identity, and our identity has nothing to do with you.” And then with a love that will forever remain incomprehensible God so loves such ungrateful rebels that he will submit himself to the humiliation of a stable and the horror of a cross. Plainly he’s saying, once more, “I want you to be.”

But there’s a difference this time. On the day of our creation God loved into existence the glorious creature that he had conceived in his own image and likeness. So glorious were we as we emerged from God’s own hand that we mirrored his glory. It was grand, then, when he said to us, “I want you to be.” In the wake of our rebellion and subsequent disfigurement, however, when his image is defaced in us and shame attends us and we are as loathsome as we formerly were resplendent, his loving us now isn’t akin to Adam’s loving Eve on the day of their primal splendour; God’s loving us now is akin to Hosea’s loving his wife when Hosea found her, now a prostitute with three illegitimate children, shamed and disgraced and valued commercially at 15 shekels, half the price of a slave. It is for broken down creatures like this that God now breaks his own heart. “How can I give you up? How can I give you up when I want you to be?”

The love with which God created us appears to have cost him nothing; but the love with which God so loved the world manifestly cost him everything. Christmas clearly cost God everything, for the sole purpose of Christmas is the Christmas gift crucified. John Calvin was fond of saying that the shadow of the cross fell upon the entire earthly life of Jesus. And so it did. The shadow of the cross fell even upon his birth. His birth? Even upon his conception, for on the day that Mary learned she was pregnant she was told, “a sword will pierce through your heart too.” (Luke 2:35) It appears not to have cost God anything to have us come forth in primal splendour. But to have us be born anew, to have us made afresh, to have us be, at last, what we were always supposed to be; this entailed that child, born for us, who from the moment of conception gathered into himself the eventuality of the cross. Christmas, therefore, costs God everything.

III: — “God is love.”(1^st John 4:8) It means, “I want you to be, be those made in my image whose love for me reflects my love for them.”

“God so loved the world.”(John 3:16) It means, “I still want you to be, even though you are a disgrace to me and disfigured in yourselves; I still want you to be those whose love for me reflects my love for them, regardless of what anguish I must suffer in the person of the cruciform child of Christmas.”

“He loved me, and gave himself – for me! (Gal. 2:20) Listen to the apostle Paul exult. “He loved me!” If love means “I want you to be”, then “He loved me!” can only mean, “I am. At last I truly am. I’m finally alive.” Is this the same as mere existence? If love means “I want you to be”, could we ever substitute, “I want you to exist“? Never! “He loved me!” will never mean, “I exist.” It will always mean, “I am! I truly am! I’m profoundly alive!”

“He loved me!” But didn’t God so love the world? Of course he did, and Paul knows he did. Then why the exclamation, “He loved me!”? It’s because the purpose of the Christmas gift has been fulfilled; fulfilled in this one man at least. The purpose of God’s so loving the world is to have this individual and that individual and yet another come to be: come to abandon herself to the one whose love incarnate for her has brought her to spend the rest of her days in love for him. Yes, God did so love the world; but only the individual can respond. “He loved me!” is precisely the cry of someone who has responded. And in such an individual the Christmas gift has proved fruitful.

We can’t help noticing that when the cry, “He loved me!”, was torn out of the apostle, it wasn’t merely that one matter was settled (he thereafter knew himself loved); ever so much more was settled. In fact, everything was settled. Thereafter he never groped and guessed as to what life means. He never hemmed and hawed, wondering what he was supposed to do with his life. He never drowned in doubt over the significance of his toil and his suffering. He knew what life means, knew what he was to do, knew the significance of his toil and suffering even if those for whom he toiled and suffered didn’t know. And his future? “Life means Christ”, Paul told the Christians in Philippi, “and my dying can only mean more of him.”

Let’s come back to one question Paul never asked. In the wake of “He loved me!” he never asked, “What’s the meaning of life?” He didn’t have to ask it. He wasn’t puzzled. The Christmas gift ends bewilderment here. The Christmas gift embraced restores us to that immediacy and intimacy we crave in our hearts. The Christmas gift cherished finds us no longer asking about the meaning of life, but not because we now have a 10,000 -word answer complete with footnotes. The Christmas gift, rather, has brought us to live in a love to God that reflects the love he has always had for us. Living in such love, in the immediacy and intimacy and contentment of such love, we need neither arguments nor explanations nor demonstrations. When the writer of Proverbs records, “He who finds me finds life!” (Prov. 18:35) we shout, “’Tis true!” When the prophet Amos records, “Seek me and live!” (Amos 5:4), we exult, “Yes!” When the prophet Ezekiel records, “Turn [repent] and live!” (Ez. 18:3), those who have turned to face God simply know it’s true. No longer are we expecting only the detachment of an abstract idea; now we glory in the immediacy of a concrete encounter. “What does life mean?” Those who have embraced the Christmas gift and henceforth resonate the Son’s love for the Father aren’t left asking the question. Those, on the other hand, who are impelled to ask the question are also unable to recognise the answer.

Forever unable? Of course not. Phillips Brooks, author of O Little Town of Bethlehem, writes, “How silently, how silently, the wondrous gift is given. So God imparts to human hearts the blessings of his heaven.” The gift is wondrous; that is, it transcends human comprehension. It is given “silently”; that is, the manner of its impartation is a mystery. Because the gift transcends human comprehension, and because the manner of its impartation is a mystery, you and I are ultimately speechless before the secret work of the Holy Spirit that prepares anyone’s heart for the blessings of heaven. We can’t describe or explain the secret work of the Holy Spirit that moves the person who is incapable of recognising the answer to no longer needing to ask the question. But that there is such a work of God’s Spirit, and that such a work we can’t measure or control or describe or explain; this we never doubt. And therefore we give up on no one; we dismiss no one. Instead we pray, and continue to pray, then pray some more, knowing that in the mystery of God’s secret work “where meek souls will receive him still the dear Christ enters in.” And where Christ enters in someone has come to be. Where Christ enters in the purpose of the incarnation is fulfilled. And the love wherewith that person was created and redeemed is now reflected in her love for our great God and Saviour, who is rightly said himself to be, to be eternally, even as he guarantees as much for all who hold – and hold on to – the infant born in Bethlehem.

Victor Shepherd

Christmas Eve 2002

The Passion of God

1^st John 4:8

Ezekiel 36:26 Habakkuk 3:2 Isaiah 62:5 Luke 15:7, 10

“We passed you on the street, Victor, and you didn’t even see us. You must have been living in your head — again.” Many people have said this (or something like it) to me many times. I can only conclude that I often appear to live in my head. Of course I live in my head: I’m not devoid of the capacity to think. But I don’t live in my head exclusively.

I live in my body as well. I relish vigorous physical activity. The hottest day of the summer still finds me on my bicycle, imagining that I’m Lance Armstrong, winning the Tour de France yet again as thousands of Parisians cheer me on. I revel in physicality.

Plainly, then, I live in both my head and my body. Above all, however, I live in my heart. I live in my passions. I have never been ashamed of being an impassioned person. For this reason my favourite hymn-line is “Love with every passion blending”. This line states that love (it is speaking of our human love) is foundational; all other passions must be subordinated to and blended with the grand passion of love.

But we human beings aren’t the only persons who love. God loves too. God is impassioned.

The church hasn’t always admitted this. In fact, for centuries the mediaeval church upheld the doctrine of the impassibility of God. The doctrine of God’s impassibility stated that God is utterly without passion. On the one hand I know why the mediaeval church thought it had to uphold this doctrine. On the other hand I know what was lost when God was said to be without passion.

Why did the church think it had to say that God is without passion? Because the church thought that to say God is impassioned meant two things: one, that God is emotionally unstable, emotionally erratic; two, that God can be manipulated emotionally. All of us know how difficult it is to live with someone who is emotionally unstable or erratic. And all of us know how inappropriate it is to be manipulated emotionally. It was felt that since God is neither unstable nor capable of being manipulated, God had to be pronounced impassible, wholly without passion.

But what was lost when the church made this pronouncement? The living person of God was lost; which is to say, God himself was lost. You see, when our mediaeval Christian foreparents maintained that God is without passion they inevitably had to say that God doesn’t suffer; God cannot suffer. But of what help to suffering people like you and me is a God who knows nothing of suffering himself? Inevitably our mediaeval Christian foreparents rendered God an icicle, inert. What could a God devoid of anguish say to us, do for us, when we are anguish-ridden every day? Inevitably, in denying that God is impassioned, our foreparents rendered God a non-person. Then what relationship could there be between people who are persons and a God who is a non-person? No relationship at all.

Our foreparents were correct in maintaining that God is not unstable and cannot be manipulated. But they were wrong in maintaining that God is devoid of passion. Scripture speaks everywhere of the passion of God, just because scripture speaks everywhere of the person of God.

There isn’t enough time today to say all that can be said about the passion of God. In the time we have this morning we shall deal briefly with four aspects only: God’s love, God’s jealousy, God’s anger and God’s joy.

I: — Let’s begin with God’s love, since love is God’s essence, God’s nature, God’s innermost character. God’s jealousy, on the other hand, God’s anger, God’s grief are all reactions in God; reactions in God to something about us (specifically, to our sin). But God’s love isn’t a reaction in God at all; God’s love is what he is eternally. God’s love is what he would be eternally even if the creation had never appeared. The apostle John writes, “God is love”. To be sure, God hates, God rages, God grieves. But nowhere are we told that God is hatred, or God is rage, or God is grief. Hatred, rage, grief are reactions within the heart of that God whose eternal nature is constant, consistent, persistent, undeflectable love.

When prophets and apostles tell us that God is love, however, they are quick to tell us as well what love is not. Love is not indulgence. God indulges no one and nothing. In the same way God tolerates nothing. (We must always be sure to understand that God never tolerates sin; God forgives sin.) Neither is love sentimental froth. God is oceans deeper than this.

God’s way with Israel , and God’s way at the cross, make plain that God’s love is God’s self-giving without qualification. To speak of self-giving without qualification is to say that God holds nothing of himself back; nothing is held back for self-preservation, nothing is held back for self-protection. God’s entire self is poured out — without reserve — upon you and me.

Let me repeat. When prophet and apostle speak of God’s love they know that God has cast away all self-protection, all self-concern with dignity, decorum, respectability. When you and I love a little bit we give a little bit of ourselves to someone else and risk a little bit of rejection. As we love more we give more of ourselves and risk greater rejection. To love still more is to give still more and risk still more. But do you and I ever love anyone so much as to abandon all self-protection, throw away all the subtle defences we have spent years perfecting, and risk uttermost rejection? Prophet and apostle insist that God has done this not once only in giving up his Son; God does this without letup, since love is his nature.

There is even more to God’s love than that self-giving whose vulnerability leaves him defenceless. There is also a humiliation which leaves him with no face to save. Let us never forget that Rome crucified its victims naked. All Christian art depicts Jesus clad in his loincloth on Good Friday. The Roman soldiers may have snatched away his cloak, we are told, but at least they had the decency to leave him his underpants. No. One of the cruellest aspects of punishment was public humiliation, especially where Jews were concerned. On the one hand, the Israelite people were body-affirming, completely non-neurotic about body-parts and body-functions; they were earthy. At the same time, they were always modest. In fact they were earthy and modest in equal measure, a distinguishing feature of Israelite consciousness. Forced immodesty was much harder for Jews to endure than for Greeks. Jesus was stripped of minimal modesty for the sake of maximal humiliation.

The humiliation which the Father knew in the humiliation of the Son the Father had already known for centuries on account of the infidelity, the waywardness, of his people. Centuries before Good Friday the prophet Hosea learned about that humiliation which God’s love brings God. Hosea learned this through the humiliation his love for his wife brought him. Hosea’s wife, Gomer, traipsed off to the marketplace and sold herself. Pregnancy, of course, is an occupational hazard of prostitution, and Gomer bore three children who weren’t Hosea’s. When Gomer was sufficiently used up that her market-value was all but eroded and she thought she might as well return home (at least she would be fed there) Hosea went down to the marketplace, endured the taunts and crude jokes of the ruffians and vulgar louts who lounged around there, and paid fifteen shekels to get his wife out of their clutches. Fifteen shekels was half the price of a slave. Why did Hosea endure such humiliation? Because he loved his wife, loved her regardless of the cost to himself, loved her regardless of the face which couldn’t be saved. Thereafter Hosea preached about a divine love which loves to the point of public humiliation.

I glory in God’s love for me. I know that God loves me not in the sense that he feels somewhat warm towards me and thinks about me now and then. God loves me inasmuch as he has poured out himself upon me without qualification; he has risked himself in a vulnerability so drastic as to leave him defenceless; he has undergone a public humiliation without concern to save face or preserve dignity — and all of this in order that my defiant, ungrateful, rebellious heart might be overwhelmed and I renounce my stupid, stand-off posturing and throw myself into his arms. This is what it means to say God loves us, and to say God loves us on the grounds that God is love, eternally.

II: — “Love with every passion blending”, says the hymnwriter. He is speaking of our love, but his line is true of God’s love too, and true of God’s love first: “love with every passion blending”. What about the passion of jealousy?

Jealousy in men and women is frequently a sign of insecurity. A fellow sees his wife talking at a wedding reception with a guest he has never met before. Immediately he thinks ill of it and imagines his wife and this guest in all manner of luridness. A woman groundlessly suspects her husband at the office and mobilises surveillance in order to expose the “bounder” who in fact has never turned his head from the computer screen. The more insecure we are, the more ridiculous our jealousy becomes.

But God isn’t insecure at all. Then whatever we mean by God’s jealousy we can’t be speaking of ridiculous suspicion born of pathetic insecurity. To speak of God’s jealousy is not to speak of a character-defect in God. God’s jealousy is simply God’s insistence that he alone be acknowledged and honoured and trusted as God. God’s jealousy is reflected in the first of the Ten Commandments: “You shall have no other gods before me”. God forbids us to worship, adore, love, or finally entrust with our heart anyone or anything except him. But he insists on this not because he is a self-important tyrant who has to be flattered. He insists on it for our sake. He insists that we acknowledge him to be God alone for our blessing. God knows that if you and I don’t honour, love, obey and trust him, we only bring dissolution upon ourselves. To say that God is jealous is to say that God wants passionately that we honour him, and wants this passionately so that we may always live within the sphere of his blessing. Through the prophet Ezekiel God cries, “I will … have mercy upon the whole house of Israel , and I will be jealous for my holy name”. As long as Israel honours God in God’s claim upon Israel ’s loyalty, Israel will live within the sphere of God’s mercy. To live anywhere else is to bring down dissolution. Because God is “for us”, in the words of the psalmist, God’s jealousy for his own name can only mean that God wants passionately to prosper us.

Let’s go back to the first commandment. “You shall have no other gods before me” isn’t the petulant scolding of the self-important. It’s a promise. (Our 17^th Century friends, the Puritans, insisted that all God’s commands are but “covered promises.” Therefore when we hear the command we should look for the promise.) The promise is: “In the future you won’t have to have other gods. In the future I shall prove myself God-enough for you. In the future you will find me, the Holy One of Israel, sufficient for your needs; you won’t have to run after any other deities or ‘isms’ or institutions. In the future I shall be your satisfaction. If my love has delivered you from slavery in Egypt already, isn’t my love going to keep you too? There is no need to look to any other deity and therein forfeit your blessing at my hand”. God’s promise is the meaning of the first commandment.

To say that God is jealous is to say that he insists on being acknowledged uniquely, exclusively, as God. And since God is “for us”, God insists on this acknowledgement for our own good. Let’s rephrase it. To say that God is jealous is to say that fathomless love always warns foolish people against giving their heart away to what isn’t fathomless love.

III: — And yet because we are foolish people we do exactly what we are warned not to do. All of us do, without exception. God reacts to our foolishness. His reaction is his anger or wrath. When God’s loving warning goes unheeded, his anger heats up.

While his anger is real (not merely seeming anger), his anger nevertheless is an expression of his love. It has to be, since God is love. God is love, with every other passion blended into this love. God’s anger is never a childish loss of temper; his anger is never mean-spirited vindictiveness; his anger is never frustrated love now turned nasty. God’s anger is simply his love burning hot. God’s anger is his love jarring us awake, his love shaking us up until we admit that something about us is dreadfully out of order.

A minute ago I said that fathomless love aches to see foolish people disdain such love, because the God who is love knows that when humankind disdains him it brings dissolution upon itself. And Jesus? For the same reason on countless occasions Jesus is so angry he’s livid. You see, if he weren’t livid, he wouldn’t be loving. Elie Wiesel, the most articulate Jewish survivor of the Holocaust, repeats in virtually all his books that the contradiction of love is not hatred; the contradiction of love is indifference. If our Lord were indifferent he couldn’t love. The fact that he is angry proves that he cares. And to say that he cares is to say that he loves.

From time to time people tell me they are upset as they read through the written gospels, for on many occasions Jesus doesn’t seem nice. Correct. He isn’t nice. On many occasions Jesus uses language that would take varnish off a door, like the time he spoke of Herod as “that fox”. “Go and tell that fox”. When we modern folk read “fox” we think of sly, cunning, devious. But “fox” as a metaphor for sly or cunning comes out of the eighteenth century English sport of foxhunting. Jesus was never an eighteenth century English sportsman. In first century Palestine “fox” was the worst thing you could call anyone. “Fox” bespoke anger and loathing rolled into one. What would we say today? –“that snake, that skunk, that weasel” (not to mention what we might say if we used less polite expressions). Yes, our Lord said it and he meant it. His vocabulary on other occasions, we might as well admit, was no different. BUT — and a huge “but” it is — the people who ignite our Lord’s anger he will die for. For them he will die that incomprehensible death of God-forsakenness precisely in order to spare them it. And he will do all of this inasmuch as he and the Father are one; which is to say, love is Christ’s essence, his pure nature, as well.

The prophet Habakkuk cries to God, “In wrath, remember mercy”. To remember, in Hebrew, doesn’t mean what it means in English; it doesn’t mean to recollect the idea of. To remember something, in Hebrew, means to render that thing the operative reality of this or that situation. To remember mercy is to render mercy the operative reality of — of what situation? — of the cross, and of our predicament before God in light of the cross. Habakkuk’s cry to God — “in wrath, remember mercy” — is answered in the cross. God has made his mercy the operative reality of that situation (the cross) when the cross is his definitive judgement on humankind. For wrath is love burning hot as it reacts to our sin, while mercy is love bringing blessing as it forgives our sin.

IV: — All of which brings us to the last aspect of God’s passion which we are going to probe today, God’s joy. Joy floods God himself when God’s love for us achieves its purpose and we lose ourselves in love for God. Nasty people attack Jesus on the grounds that he welcomes irreligious people and even eats with them. He in turn tells his accusers why he welcomes irreligious people and eats with them. The parable of the lost sheep concludes with the declaration that there is joy in heaven over one sinner (even just one!) who repents. Next parable, the lost coin; it concludes with the declaration that there is joy before the angels of God over one sinner who repents. Of course joy floods God at this; for in the repentance of one sinner his fathomless love has achieved its purpose and has quickened an answering love for him.

I should never deny that repentance entails — must entail — what the apostle Paul calls “godly grief.” (2 Cor. 7:10) I should never pretend that repentance is possible without sober, sometimes tearful, recognition that a wrong road has been pursued and pursued for a long time. I should never deny that the heart which is newly acquainted with its iniquity and treachery can be other than horrified at itself. Nonetheless, repentance doesn’t remain fixed in godly grief. Ultimately repentance is self-abandonment. Repentance is abandoning ourselves to a love so vast that we are left unable to do anything else. Repentance is giving ourselves up to a love so far-reaching that we forget our hurts, our wounded pride, our petty grudges, our self-serving ambition, our childish vendettas. We forget it all inasmuch as we are taken up into the very love which has taken us over.

You must have noticed that the tantrum-prone two year-old, clutching in his fist whatever a two year-old thinks supremely important, won’t give it up. The more you ask him to give it up the more his childish defiance hardens and the more tightly he grasps it. If you try to pry it out of his hand he will explode and then sulk and then make everyone around him miserable. When will he give it up? — when he is offered something more attractive. Before God we adults have the spiritual maturity of the two year-old. We hold fast our hurts, our grudges, our self-promoting schemes. When the preacher rails against us and tells us we should let them go we only hold them more tightly, even become irritable. We shall abandon them not when we are chided but when we are overwhelmed by a love so vast as to quicken a love in us that gladly leaves behind all such childish encumbrances.

The prophet Isaiah knows of God’s joy at the repentant homecoming of his people. “As the bridegroom rejoices over the bride, so shall your God rejoice over you.” (Isaiah 62:5)

When next you ponder who God is, what God is, repeat one simple line: “Love with every passion blending”. Repeat it until it goes so deep in you that the love of which we have spoken today — God’s — quickens in you an identical response to him: namely, your “love with every passion blending”

Victor Shepherd

July 2006

A Note on God’s Love

1^st John 4:8 Exodus 34:1-9 Romans 5:1-5

I: — Maureen and I are fortunate: both our daughters live within a 40-minute drive of our home. Several years ago, however, our older daughter Catherine lived in Hong Kong . Needless to say, while she was in Hong Kong , on the other side of the world, our love for her never diminished. We loved her as much as we had ever loved her. Still, because she lived so very far away there was less – much less – that we could do for her. When Catherine eventually returned home we didn’t love her more. We couldn’t love her more than we did already. Neither did we begin to love her. We began to love her from the day she was born (if not sooner.) But it was the case that when she lived closer to us our love was able to do more for her.

God comes closest to us in the cross. Note that: God comes closest to us not in nature (as so many people try to tell us); God comes closest to us in the Incarnation of his Son. Jesus Christ (not anything in nature) is the image of God, the apostles tell us. You and I are made in the image of God. Then we are closest to God where God draws close to us by means of that image, his Son, in whose image you and I are made. More specifically, God draws closest to us in the cross of his Son. God’s love for us is brought to effectual focus in the cross. The cross doesn’t mean that God loves us more than he did prior to Christmas and Good Friday; and the cross doesn’t mean that God began to love us there. But the cross does mean that God’s love — begun in eternity and undiminished through time — did something for us there and was able to do something for us just because God himself came among us and dwelt with us in the incarnation of his Son.

This lattermost point is crucial, for in day-to-day life we are aware of people whom we love, love ardently, yet whom we are unable to help; at least unable to help precisely where most they need to be helped. Perhaps the most poignant, most piercing instance of this is the person dearest to us who is chronically ill or terminally ill. Regardless of how much we can do and should do for her, our love can’t do the one thing that uniquely needs to be done: our love can’t reverse, can’t overturn, whatever it is that has rendered our dearest scarcely recognizable.

By contrast, when we were unrecognizable as those created in the image and likeness of God, God’s love did for us what most needed to be done. What did God’s love for us do uniquely? In his love, focused effectually in the cross, God made provision for us. In the cross God’s love made the provision apart from which other expressions of his love would be pointless.

Specifically God’s provision for us in the cross did three things. (i) His crucified love cancelled our guilt as God himself bore his own judgement upon us. (ii) His love reconciled us to him, bridged the abyss that our sin had opened up between him and us. (iii) His love replaced the sign before the heavenly court — “No Access!” — with a new sign — “Welcome Home!”.

In other words, where human love often can’t do for our dearest what most needs to be done, God’s love could — and did. In the provision God made for us he overturned our predicament before him.

In all of this we mustn’t think that God “fixes” the human predicament the way a serviceman fixes a malfunctioning dishwasher. In repairing the broken-down dishwasher the serviceman suffers nothing himself. If he has to replace a part he does; he doesn’t replace a part of himself. If he has to use a propane torch on metal joints he doesn’t sear his own heart. But in the cross God “fixed” the human predicament only at the cost of a suffering that was greater than the suffering of those he was helping.

During World War II an American troopship, the U.S.S. Dorchester, was crossing the North Atlantic when it was torpedoed. The troopship had been crammed — overfilled, really — with men needed for the war effort in Europe . As the foundering ship was about to sink it was discovered that there weren’t enough life-jackets for everyone. Whereupon four military chaplains gave up their life-jackets to four 19-year old soldiers, and perished themselves.

Scripture constantly points to the nature of God’s provision and its cost to him. Peter writes, “He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree.” (1 Peter 2:24) Paul writes, “For our sake God made him (his Son) to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” (2 Cor. 5:21) Isaiah says, “He was wounded for our transgressions; he was bruised for our iniquities.” (Isaiah 53:5) Jesus himself says simply, “I came to give myself a ransom for many.” (Mark 10:45)

Please note the verbs: “He bore; he made, he was wounded; he gave”. They are all verbs of action: God did something on our behalf. His purpose in Christ wasn’t chiefly to show us something (as if we needed an illustration) or to tell us something (as if we needed instruction). His purpose in Christ was to do something — and he did it. He provided the remedy for the human predicament precisely at our point of incomparable need.

II: — Yet we must be honest in all things. God’s provision benefits us only as we own it for ourselves in faith, only as we seize it and glory in it and accord it a huge-hearted “Yes”.

Think again of the four military chaplains on the U.S.S. Dorchester who gave up their lives. The soldiers into whose hands the life-jackets were pressed still had to put them on. The sacrificial act of the chaplains was certainly necessary to save the soldiers, but just as certainly it wasn’t sufficient: the soldiers themselves had to own the life-giving gift.

And right here’s the problem, for right here the analogy breaks down. So sunk in spiritual inertia are we that we can’t “put on” Jesus Christ in faith. The soldier could put on the proffered life-jacket just because the soldier wasn’t inert, wasn’t already dead. But fallen humans are spiritually inert; spiritually dead. If we doubt this or dispute it we need only recall our Lord’s conversation with Nicodemus. Says Jesus, “Truly I say to you, unless one is born anew, born from above, he cannot see the kingdom of God .” (John 3:3) We can’t even see it, much less enter it. Since we can’t see it, aren’t even aware of it, how could we ever want it? How shall we ever know of it?

On the one hand we must embrace our Lord in faith, or else the provision God has made for us is of no benefit to us. On the other hand, we can’t so much as recognize our Lord’s approach, much less seize him. And not being able to recognize the provision God has made for us, we can’t recognize our incomparable need before God. The worst aspect of spiritual blindness is that we are blind to our blindness; we are ignorant of our ignorance, deluded about our self-delusion. With his characteristic pithiness John Calvin remarks, “What can a dead person do to attain life?”

According to the written gospels Jesus spent much time throughout his earthly ministry assisting the deaf and the blind. He did so for two reasons. One, deafness and blindness are disfigurements of God’s good creation, instances of evil, and therefore ought to be remedied. Two, physical deafness and blindness are parables, metaphors, of our spiritual condition. Sin-vitiated men and women, of themselves, cannot hear the word of God or see the kingdom of God . Of ourselves we can’t hear the word of God as word of God; we can only hear religious words about religious opinions suggesting religious notions of greater or less credibility. But recognize the truth and reality of God’s address when he speaks to us? Recognize our Lord’s approach when he visits us? No. Calvin knew whereof he spoke when he said, “What can a dead person do to attain life?”

Then how will God’s provision for us ever become a benefit to us? There has to be a secret, stealthy visitation of God’s Spirit. God must steal upon us and rouse us at least to the point where we can see, hear, recognize and respond. God must infiltrate us by his Spirit (the Spirit being God’s secret agent) and awaken us to our need, his provision, its availability, and the urgency of it all.

This subtle, imperceptible work of the Spirit John Wesley called “prevenient grace”. Pre-venient grace is grace that “comes before.” Comes before what? Comes before that flood of grace, that flood of God’s love which floods the hearts of all who welcome him who is God’s provision for us. A needy woman reached out in faith to touch Jesus. As she made contact with him he said to her, “Your faith has saved you; go in peace.” When she reached out to him she exercised faith. But before she reached out to him why did she think he could help her? How did she recognize him as God’s provision for a capsized world? Before blind Bartimaeus cried out to Jesus, “Son of David (i.e., Messiah), have mercy on me!”, what gave Bartimaeus to understand that Jesus was the Son of David? When Jesus called fishermen to leave their nets and begin fishing for men and women, what rendered Christ’s word believable and compelling? Prevenient grace is the hidden movement of God’s Spirit within us moving us towards that moment when we consciously embrace the grace of the crucified and find God’s love flooding our hearts. Prevenient grace renders faith possible; we render faith actual as we welcome him who has already welcomed us; whereupon God’s love is lavishly spread abroad in our hearts. (Romans 5:5)

III: — God’s love, spread abroad in our hearts, issues in glad and grateful hearts; issues in faith; issues therefore in our answering love for him. As faith develops, his love for us and our love for him interweave ever more profoundly. A bond is forged that becomes the instrument whereby God works for good, for our good and others’ good, in the midst of much about us that isn’t good. Paul writes, “We know that in everything God works for good with those who love God, who are called according to his purpose.” (Romans 8:28) We must note the strong conviction in Paul’s declaration: “We know; we know that in everything God works for good with those who love him.” Paul himself was living proof of his conviction. Think of his two-year imprisonment (house arrest) in Rome . In itself this wasn’t good. Yet think of the good that God “worked” from it. For two years Paul declared the gospel to visitors who could get to him readily just because he was in the largest city in the Roman Empire . Imprisoned in Rome and unable to travel, he pondered and then wrote the “prison epistles”: Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians and Philemon, letters that breathe the sufficiency of Christ. Then again, the suffering that his imprisonment forced upon him authenticated his ministry; everyone knew he wasn’t an apostle because it was a “cushy” job. In fact his ministry cost him dearly; and the price he was willing to pay magnified the truth of the gospel and his vocation to the gospel. Paul’s experience confirmed his conviction: in everything God does work for good with those who love him, who are called according to his purpose.

I have long been convinced of the truth of the apostle’s word: in everything — even the bleakest and the blackest — God does work for good with those who love him. I have long been convinced of something else: one day we shall be permitted to see what good God wrought from so much that wasn’t good, and see as well how God wrought it. I have long been convinced of all this just because I have seen enough of God’s work already that I can’t doubt what he’s doing now, and seen enough of God’s work already that I can’t doubt he’ll one day let me see it all.

At the same time we must note the full measure of Paul’s statement. He doesn’t say, as a general principle, “In everything God works for good.” He says, “In everything God works for good with those who love him, who are called according to his purpose.”

Let us make no mistake. There is a fork in the road. To speak of those who love God is to admit that there are those who do not love God but are indifferent, even hostile. To speak of those who are called according to God’s purpose is to admit that there are those who prefer the “call” of another purpose; these people have their own agendas and schedules, their own priorities and preoccupations. But their spiritual obtuseness in no way impedes the work of God in the “everything” of those who do love him, those whom his oceanic love has brought to life and freed to love. For to know ourselves the beneficiary of God’s love is to sense the throb of our own heart’s love for him.

IV: — The outcome of such interwoven love is glorious. Because nothing in God himself can interrupt his love for us, and because nothing outside God can separate us from him, his love is going to see us home, and see us home gloriously. “Nothing will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord”, the apostle exults. We must be sure to note the future tense. “Nothing will be able to separate us — ever”. We already know that nothing can separate us from God’s love in the present; we know this because God’s love is shed abroad in our hearts now, flooding us at this moment. Just because God’s love drenches us now, and just because we know God himself is steadfast, constant, undeflectable, we know therefore that no future development will ever pry us out of God’s love. It all means that God’s love, vivifying us now, sustaining us now, is going to be the vehicle that carries us home triumphantly to the glory that awaits us.

I was only a child when I became fascinated with the story of Elijah. According to the old Hebrew legend Elijah , Israel ’s greatest prophet, was taken up to heaven by a chariot of fire pulled by horses of fire. As Elijah was taken up in flaming splendour his successor, Elisha, cried, “My father, my father! The chariots of Israel and its horsemen!” (2 Kings 2:11) By this Elisha meant that Elijah, equipped with the Word and Spirit of God, was more formidable than all the armoured divisions of the Israelite army; more formidable than any hostile army. Twenty-five hundred years later, in the year 1546, when word of Martin Luther’s death (he died in Eisleben) reached his friend, Philip Melanchthon, in Wittenberg, Melanchthon burst into the classroom of startled students at Wittenberg University and cried, “My father, my father! The chariots of Israel and its horsemen!” Melanchthon meant that Luther, equipped with the Word and Spirit of God, was more formidable than all the forces arrayed against Luther that had battered him for years yet had never broken him. It can be said — and will be said — of any Christian, of any person equipped with the Word and Spirit of God, “My Father, my mother. The chariots of Israel and its horsemen!” For any Christian, equipped with the Spirit of God by definition, is more formidable than all that assaults us and tries to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. In other words, God’s love is the chariot of flaming splendour that bears us home triumphantly to the glory that awaits us.

V: — Bring us home?“Us”? Who are the “we”? Who are the “we” of whom Paul speaks when he says, “Nothing will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord”? He is speaking of “those who love God, who are called according to his purpose.” He is speaking of those who have owned for themselves that love which made provision for them at the point of their incomparable need. These people have “put on” the Lord Jesus Christ in faith as surely as four young men on foundering troopship put on the life-jacket pressed upon them by those who gave it up at enormous cost.

Victor Shepherd

October 2006

A Little Sermon from a Little Text

2nd John 12

Question: “Have you seen Victor Shepherd recently?” Answer: “Yes. I saw him two days ago, and I saw his body three days ago.” Nobody says such a thing. Anyone who spoke like this would be looked upon as deranged.

Then let’s ask the question again. “Have you seen Victor Shepherd recently?” Answer: “No. I saw Victor’s body go by yesterday, but I didn’t see him.” Once again nobody speaks of a human being in this manner. Whether we have ever pondered the relation between body and person or not we grasp intuitively the fact that the human body is always at the same time a person, even as the human person is always person-and-body together.

The reason we grasp this intuitively is simple. God has fashioned us humans to be embodied persons. We are not disembodied spirits. To say we are embodied persons isn’t merely a way of speaking, an exaggerated way of speaking, as though we were no more than bodies. If we were no more than bodies we should simply be animals. We are more than animals, however; we are persons. Unlike the animals we alone are made in the image and likeness of God; unlike the animals we are the only creatures to whom God speaks and from whom he expects a response. Nevertheless, we are like the animals inasmuch as we are creatures of flesh and blood; we are embodied, and we exist only as embodied.

Did it ever occur to you that the only knowledge we have of each other, the only knowledge we have of each other as person, is a knowledge mediated by our body? I have encountered Maureen thousands upon thousands of times, but never once have I met her, the person of Maureen, except in the form of meeting her body. I have never met my wife; I have never met any human person, apart from being confronted with that person embodied. For this reason there can never be any substitute for physical presence.

I want to remind us all of something more that we all grasp intuitively; namely, there’s no relation at all between the beauty of the person and the beauty of the body. All of us have known since childhood that some people are beautiful persons even as their bodies are less than beautiful, if not downright ugly. On the other hand there are people with gorgeous bodies who remain ugly persons. It’s odd, isn’t it: there’s no connection between the beauty or ugliness of the person and the beauty or ugliness of the body, even though there’s every connection, a necessary connection, between person and body. There’s no living human body that isn’t person, just as there’s no person who isn’t embodied. Bodiliness is essential to our personhood. We can only meet others as their person is mediated to us through their body. For this reason (let me say it again) there can never be any substitute for physical presence.

In 1994 our daughter Catherine graduated from Queen’s University and immediately moved to Hong Kong . Her moving there meant the first protracted absence between her and us. It so happened that we had just purchased a fax machine (we didn’t have e-mail in those days;) whereupon we began using up roll after roll of fax paper. Not all the paper we used pertained to messages she was sending us. In fact most of the paper was wasted on junk messages we were getting from real estate companies in Florida and investment companies in Canada , both of whom assumed we were awash in surplus cash. Despite the yards of wasted paper we had to throw out each morning we had no choice but to leave the fax machine turned on twenty-fours per day since we didn’t want to miss even one small transmission that Catherine might send us at any hour from her business office half way around the world where our day was her night and her day our night. Every morning Maureen and I leapt out of bed and ran to the fax machine to see if there was something for us from Hong Kong .

Then Catherine came home on her first holiday. What did she say to us, and what did we say to her, that we hadn’t communicated through fax transmissions and long-distance telephone calls and letters? Nothing. Then what was unique about her being with us? Her physical presence. Was her physical presence important, all that important? Tell me: was she important? After all, her physical presence meant that she herself was present. How important all this was to me I shan’t attempt to tell you. But I witnessed it all as I watched Maureen await the day of Catherine’s arrival. In anticipation of the day of our daughter’s arrival Maureen resembled a six-year old on Christmas Eve. It wasn’t that the more we heard from Catherine through fax and phone the less we needed to see her; on the contrary, the more we heard from her the more we longed for her physical presence.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer was the first to acquaint me with all of this through his little book, Life Together. Bonhoeffer penned the book during the last war as he sought to school a handful of young scholars as pastors in the Confessing Church , the Confessing Church being those Christians who resisted Hitler’s attempts at denaturing the gospel, Hitler’s attempts at bending the gospel to Nazi purposes as surely as the Swastika is a bent cross. In the course of forging a community of these young scholars (most of them soon to be perish) Bonhoeffer cited today’s text and commented, “Christians find immense joy in each other’s physical presence.” The first time I read this I was startled. Doesn’t something else have to happen, something more happen, than that we simply be in each other’s physical presence? Doesn’t something novel or noteworthy, not to say earthshaking, have to be said or discussed or pondered? I was too young to appreciate Bonhoeffer’s wisdom when I first read his words, and therefore I dismissed them as somewhat sentimental. In my older age, however, I have proved Bonhoeffer’s words not only true but also profound time and again: there is immense joy in the physical presence of others, and especially in the physical presence of fellow-Christians. We don’t have to be saying or doing anything remarkable every time we meet; but it’s always essential that we meet.

The apostle John tells us that he has much to discuss with the congregation to which he has written his epistle; yet as much as he has to discuss with them, he would rather not use paper and ink. He much prefers to meet them and talk with them face to face. Why would he rather do this than lengthen his letter and put in writing all that he wishes to discuss with them? Because he knows the danger of not speaking face to face, the danger of not being in the physical presence of others.

Years ago I noticed that if we attempt to communicate with others when we aren’t meeting them face-to-face, all sorts of things can go wrong quickly and usually do. For instance, if we have to disagree with someone and we do it through a letter, the person receiving our letter can only read words. She can’t “read” our body language, can’t see the expression on our face, can’t hear the tone of our voice. All she has to go by is the dictionary meanings of the words in the letter.

As a pastor I learned years ago that if I have to disagree with a parishioner on any matter, however slight, it’s fatal to express myself in a note or even a telephone conversation. The only thing to do is visit that person.

In the same way I discovered that friends who don’t see each other for protracted periods begin to suspect each other. Our hearts play tricks on us. We wonder why we haven’t heard from Sam or Samantha, then begin to wonder what she really meant by that cryptic expression in the third line of her last Christmas note. Not content to read the lines she wrote, we start to “read between the lines;” that is, we think we are seeing messages and meanings beyond what the words say, even contrary to what the words mean – and all because we are hearing no voice and seeing no face. Finally we conclude that we aren’t such good friends as we thought we were because no doubt Sam or Samantha has found someone preferable to us – and so on. Our hearts foster suspicion that the person we thought to be steadfast friend might just be growing indifferent to us if not turning treacherous. (Let’s be honest: more than a trace of paranoia exists in all of us.)

Then we meet our friend face-to-face. It takes only five minutes for us to feel sheepish and stupid (even as we say nothing,) since in five minutes in the bodily presence of our friend all our suspicion has fled and we know that we were imagining it all and our friend cherishes us as much as she ever did. How could we ever have thought that our relationship was strained in any respect?

Simply put, we have come to know that seeing someone else face-to-face dispels ambiguity in what that person is trying to communicate with us. As ambiguity in his communication is dispelled, ambivalence in our heart about him is dispelled as well. If we can simply have the person physically present there is virtually no scope for ambiguity in her communication to us and therefore no scope for ambivalence in our heart about her.

I have a friend with whom I have spoken on the phone virtually every day for 30 years. Still, as often as we phone each other, we have to meet face to face. When we do, what do we say that we can’t say or don’t say on the phone? Nothing. What do we say that we haven’t said before? Little. Then why do we have to meet? Because there is a human significance, richness, delight – ultimately inexpressible – to being in the physical presence of each other. For this there is no substitute whatsoever. And there never will be.

John writes, “I hope to come to see you and talk with you face to face, so that our joy may be complete.” John penned his short epistle to a congregation in Asia Minor . From the content of the epistle it is evident that John and the congregation knew each other well. He didn’t want to meet these people face to face in order to find joy. He already had it; so did they. Both John and the congregation rejoiced in their throbbing relationship with Jesus Christ. He, their Lord, had already told them, and they had already proved, that he is their joy. Moreover they rejoiced in the commonality of their life in their Lord. John doesn’t maintain that by seeing each other they will be made joyful; rather, their common joy in their Lord will be made complete. Isn’t it the case that when we meet people we cherish the joy we already possess is “topped up”?

A few years ago, on one of my several trips to New York City , I was in and out of the city for a brief, two-day holiday. As always I had a most enjoyable time in the “big apple”, and on that occasion even got to Greenwich Village, where I had never been before, to hear music at the world’s most famous jazz club, The Blue Note. Then I went to the Anglican Cathedral bookshop where I found a book that Maureen had long wanted. Then I went to the library of the Jewish Theological Seminary. When I came home on a Friday at suppertime I was vibrating with the stimulation of all that NY is for me. After supper I went down to the church to open my mail and respond to phone messages. But in a few minutes I was standing outside on the street., merely looking for someone from the congregation, anyone at all. As fine a time as I had had in NY, I missed the people of the congregation after two days. I felt that the joy the congregation and I had in Christ would be “complete”, “topped up”, if only I could find a parishioner. Needless to say, in 15 minutes I had found more than one whom I could see face to face.

Today, the first Sunday in September, is the anniversary of my coming to Schomberg. Today begins my fourth year among you people. When a representative from presbytery asked me to serve as interim minister in September 2001 he told me that the interim period would last four months; by January 1^st the congregation would have called a minister who could then be inducted. Matters didn’t unfold in quite this way. I have been here three years and may just be here longer still. I want you people to know what a gift the Schomberg congregation has been to me. Maureen tells me that if my work elsewhere finds me dispirited at all, by noon on Saturday my spirits are lifting because I know I’m going back to Schomberg on Sunday. Sunday morning invariably finds me invigorated for the same reason. When I’m in Schomberg during the week I usually come into the sanctuary, stand where I’m standing now, and envision where people sit. Most people don’t move around much in the sanctuary and therefore it’s easy to see in my mind’s eye where you sit. And then as I “see” I pray for this person or that whose particular struggle or heartache or perplexity it is the pastor’s privilege to know, all the while anticipating Sunday when the hour of worship finds us together once again.

Like the apostle John of old you and I do find joy individually in our Lord, even as we find joy in our common experience of our Lord and the corporate worship of our Lord. Then let us ever render our joy complete by cherishing those moments when we can immerse ourselves in the physical presence of each other, whether we say much or little, always knowing that there is – and ever will be – no substitute for seeing each other face to face.

Victor Shepherd September 2004

“Though I have much to write to you, I would rather not use paper and ink,
but I hope to come to see you and talk with you face to face, so that our joy may be complete.”

Schomberg Anniversary 2011

Jude 20-21

We read Paul’s letter to the church in Rome , and the image of the congregation that comes to mind is – is what? – a congregation of several hundred, meeting in a resplendent building, with no anxieties about its future or its finances? The truth is, while it isn’t inappropriate to speak of the church in Rome in view of the fact that the church is the body of Christ and this body cannot be divided or dismembered; while it isn’t inappropriate to speak of the church in Rome, we know from the conclusion of Paul’s Roman letter that there were at least five house-congregations in the city.

Homes were small in ancient Rome ; at least the homes that Christians owned were small. Then how many people would a home hold when the congregation gathered for Sunday worship? Fifteen at most, I imagine. Fifteen times five is seventy-five. Seventy-five Christians in the city.

What was the population of Rome in the year 57 when Paul penned his missive? One million. There were seventy-five Christians in a city of one million. In other words, the Christian concentration in Rome was seventy-five parts per million.

What was the attitude of both the apostle who wrote the letter and those who read it? Was the shared attitude, “We are hopelessly outnumbered. We might as well give up right now. No work or witness can be expected of us when we are only seventy-five parts per million”? On the contrary, the apostle thought that seventy-five parts per million heralded nothing less than triumph.

Let’s jump ahead from first-century Italy to eighteenth-century Britain . It’s the year 1750. The Great Awakening has been underway for twelve years. John Wesley has preached thousands of times and ridden thousands of miles on good horses and bad in bad weather and worse. How many people have joined the Methodist movement? He’s quite pleased with the number, and regards it as a triumph of the gospel. What was the number? In 1750, after twelve years of indefatigable effort, the Methodists numbered one-tenth of one percent of Britain . Forty-one years later, 1791, Wesley died. He and his helpers had laboured relentlessly during that time. By now the Methodists numbered on-sixth of one percent of the population. Wesley maintained that a revival had occurred.

Schomberg in 2011. What attitude should characterize the saints in Schomberg? What are you people supposed to do? I think we need to listen to another apostle, this time the apostle Jude. We need to listen to him as he encourages the people dear to him.

I: — First, says Jude, “Build yourselves up in your most holy faith.” “Your most holy faith” refers not to the individual’s act of believing but rather to what is believed, to the substance of the faith, to the truth of the faith, to that gospel which has been handed down from the first century to the 21^st. The gospel isn’t something we invent; it isn’t religious opinion. The gospel is given to us along with the self-giving of Jesus Christ. At the beginning of his stark letter Jude speaks of “the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints”. It’s as though the divine equivalent of Priority Post delivered a weighty parcel to us and said, “Here it is. This parcel contains inexhaustible riches. It’s been given you. You would never be so silly as to think you invented it and could therefore alter it. Just sign here to indicate that you are owning the parcel — and then benefit from it forever.”

No doubt someone wants to say that it isn’t quite this simple in view of the controversies that have abounded concerning the gospel. If so much about the gospel is disputed, then to what extent has anything been delivered intact?

Actually, the controversies pertain not to the core of the gospel but to the periphery. Unquestionably there is disagreement about baptism, for instance: should believers only be baptized, or should believers plus their children be baptized? There is disagreement about church government. Should congregations be governed only by themselves, or by bishops, or by a system of church courts? But concerning the core of the gospel there is no disagreement:

– Jesus Christ is the Son of God become Incarnate among us.

– his death has effected atonement, making God and God’s estranged creation “at one”.

– the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead is the first “instalment” of God’s end-time restoration when the creation will be freed from the last disfigurement of the Fall.

– the Holy Spirit is the power that Jesus Christ uniquely bears and uniquely bestows, and therefore the power by which all Christian proclamation, witness and discipleship are rendered credible and fruitful.

This is the core of the gospel. All Christians — Quakers, Pentecostals, Eastern Orthodox, Baptists — affirm it without qualification or reservation. There is no dispute concerning this.

When Paul writes to Timothy, a younger minister of the gospel, Paul reminds the young man that a trustworthy witness is someone who “rightly handles the word of truth.” Two comments have to be made here. To say that our task is to “handle rightly” the word of truth, only to handle it, is also to say by implication that we need not invent it or fashion it or fabricate it. In the second place, to handle rightly the word of truth is to admit that truth, by definition, cannot be invented. It is certainly possible to invent any number of falsehoods, but no one can ever invent truth. We can only recognize truth.

By God’s ordination the gospel, “our most holy faith”, is as true, lasting, unalterable, as the law of gravity (or any other unalterable aspect of a structured universe). We speak incorrectly when we speak of law-breakers. People do not break laws; they break themselves over the law. We can never break the law of gravity; if we leap out of a tenth-storey window we merely confirm the law of gravity. In the same way there is a givenness to the gospel that is simply irrefrangible.

“Build yourselves up in your most holy faith.” We do this as we saturate ourselves in the truth, wisdom, and promise of that gospel whose substance cannot be diluted and whose perdurability cannot be diminished.

II: — In the second place, says Jude, “Pray in the Holy Spirit.” To say that we are to pray in the Holy Spirit is to recognize that we live in a universe that is spirit-charged.

We have no difficulty understanding that we live in an environment that is charged with many different forces. Physicists speak of the ‘force fields’ – many such – in the midst of which we live: gravity, light, magnetism, radiation, for instance. We live in a charged world.

Everyone knows we live as well in an environment that is electronically charged: radio, television, radar, satellites.

Radio programs and television programs are coursing through this room at this moment. Right now there is coursing through this room a gospel-sermon from a church in Hollywood as well as a display of pornography also from Hollywood . Which one are we going to bring in to our mind and heart? We aren’t going to bring in anything unless we are equipped to discern an electronically charged atmosphere; that is, unless we have the proper receptor.

Because humankind is most profoundly a creature of spirit (this is not to deny that we are creatures of body and mind); because we are most profoundly creatures of spirit we are born equipped with the capacity to “pick up” or “bring in” something of what surrounds us in a spirit-charged atmosphere. The problem, of course, is that not all the spirits are holy. Most are exceedingly unholy. What’s more, in the wake of the Fall our natural spiritual receptor doesn’t discern the Holy Spirit. Our receptor has to be renewed. Then we must always pray for and pray in the Holy Spirit lest we become victimized (without even knowing it) by the spirits that are anything but holy.

To say that we are most profoundly creatures of spirit, and to say as well that we live in a spirit-charged atmosphere, is to say that the human heart is the site of spiritual conflict, the site of competing loyalties. The human heart is the site of stealthy commando operations (i.e., subtle spiritual sabotage) as well as frontal spiritual assaults. In view of the fact that the human heart is the prize territory that both the Holy Spirit and the unholy spirits ceaselessly contend for, the only sensible thing to do is to pray in the Holy Spirit.

In making this point let us be sure to emphasize something most strongly: to pray in the Holy Spirit is never to discount reason. If we are most profoundly creatures of spirit we are at the same time profoundly creatures of reason. Irrationality is never God-honouring. When people who are perplexed about some aspect of the Christian faith ask us earnestly for help in understanding, it is inexcusable to say to them, “Don’t try to understand; don’t even think about it; just pray about it.” To stifle reason or circumvent reason is to confuse faith with fanaticism and to foster folly. At the same time, when we have exercised our rationality to our utmost we must still pray in the Holy Spirit, for we are creatures of spirit ultimately.

Suppose we deny that we are creatures of spirit ultimately. (After all, we live in a secularized society that denies we are creatures of spirit.) We are then left saying that we are creatures of matterultimately.

There are two kinds of materialism. The philosophical kind (found, for instance, in Marxism) states that matter alone is. The non-philosophical kind, the popular kind (found everywhere in the affluent Western world) states that matter alone matters. At the end of the day, both have the same force. Whether we believe that matter alone is or believe that matter alone matters, the “bottom line” is the same: we believe that we are creatures of matter ultimately.

But we aren’t. We are creatures of spirit ultimately. We are the venue of intense spiritual conflict; our hearts are the prize sought by warring spiritual forces. Therefore the quintessentially human thing to do is pray. Then we must pray in the Holy Spirit, pray as believers in our Lord Jesus Christ (whose Spirit the Holy Spirit is), pray expecting to be given greater spiritual discernment as we pray ever more diligently.

III: — In the third place, says Jude, “Keep yourselves in the love of God.” We are to keep ourselves in the love of God.

But doesn’t God love us regardless? Won’t God always love us, continue to love us at all times and in all circumstances? Then what does Jude mean when he urges us to keep ourselves in the love of God?

Our question is answered as soon as we probe the writings of the apostle John. In the 15^th chapter of John’s gospel Jesus says, “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love.” To abide in God’s love is to dwell in it, lodge in it, settle in it.

In everyday English to abide means to dwell. To abide in my home in Mississauga is to dwell in it. But in everyday English “abide” also has a second meaning: to abide by something is to obey it. In John 15 Jesus says, “If you keep (i.e., abide by my commandments you will abide in my love.” Only as we abide by can we abide in.

I abide in my wife’s love. At the same time I’ve always known that I shall continue to abide in her love only as long as I abide by (obey) the claim to exclusivity essential to marriage. If I cease to abide by (obey) the claim to exclusivity essential to marriage, I shall cease to abide in her love. To be sure, she might continue to love me, but I would have ceased to “keep myself” in her love.

The false teachers of Jude’s day maintained that one could abide in Christ without having to abide by him. What they practised themselves they eagerly commended to others. They were false teachers. They weren’t merely false with respect to their teaching, however; they were false in themselves, phonies. They were deliberately deceptive; they flattered those they planned to exploit; they posed as visionaries; they twisted scripture; they described themselves as spiritual elitists when the only spirit to possess them was unholy. In all of this they said we can abide in God’s love without having to abide by his claim upon our obedience. Jude was outraged at these teachers who were false and fraudulent.

We are to keep ourselves in the love of God. We do keep ourselves in the love of God as and only as we also keep his commandments.

IV: — Lastly Jude urges us to “wait for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life.”

In scripture to wait, wait for, never has the force of “waiting around”. To wait for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ never means that we loiter and loll, hands in our pockets, putting in time absent-mindedly while we wait we-don’t-know-for-what.

To wait, in scripture, is to anticipate; specifically it’s to anticipate confidently the public manifestation of that truth and reality which God’s people know to be operative now, even as it is denied by the world at large.

There is another way of saying the same thing. The New Testament carefully balances the reality of Christ’s Easter triumph with the coming manifestation of that triumph. Our Lord has been raised from the dead. He is victor. His sovereign presence is a singular instance of God’s effectual mercy.

Christ’s people know this and rejoice in it. None of it, however, is publicly evident and therefore is publicly disputed. For this reason we wait for its final manifestation.

In his letter to the church in Philippi the apostle Paul reminds us that every knee is going to bow eventually, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. (Philippians 2:10-11) This is not to say that every last human being is going to come to a glad and grateful abandonment of herself to Jesus Christ as Lord; it isn’t to say that every last human being is going to delight in the praise of Christ’s truth and triumph. But it is to say that the day has been appointed when God can no longer be mocked. The day has been appointed when the gospel is vindicated and is seen to be what believers have always known it to be: God’s visitation of mercy for the world and the vehicle of believers’ restoration before him. The day has been appointed when the simple faith of God’s people is vindicated too and these people are displayed before the world, no longer the silly fools that pseudo-sophisticates wrote off, but now those friends of Jesus who were unashamed of him for years and of whom he will now be unashamed eternally.

Several years ago I was the week-long bible teacher at a church camp near Perth , Ontario . At the camp I met several people who made my heart sing as they chatted informally with me in their quiet, unselfconscious way, of their faith in our Lord and the undeniable alteration of their lives that had arisen from it. I shall never forget two such people. I mention them in that they are contemporary illustrations of Dionysius the Areopagite and Damaris, mentioned in Acts 17 as two people who came to faith through Paul’s ministry in Athens . Dionysius and Damaris, a man and a woman, represented the two extremes of the social spectrum in ancient Athens . Dionysius came from the most exalted end of the social spectrum, Damaris from the most despised.

One man who spoke to me at the summer camp had been a professor of engineering at Oxford University . Subsequently he and his family lived in Canada for a year on an exchange with an engineering professor from Ottawa . While he was in Canada he came to faith in our Lord. Upon his return to England he offered himself as a candidate for the ministry of the British Methodist Church . The Methodist Church in England , however, having eroded theologically to the point of gospellessness, spoke with him through officials who sneered at his experience of God and ridiculed him. Whereupon he moved to Canada and became a minister of the gospel in a smaller denomination where he has remained ever since.

The other fellow I met in the same summer, from the other end of the social spectrum, is a used-car salesman of very limited formal education, missing several teeth, who enjoys a great deliverance from years of substance abuse. In ungrammatical English but with utter transparency he spoke to me of the huge turnaround in his life and all that it has meant for his family.

These people are alike “waiting for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ.” They aren’t waiting around. They are busy day-in and day-out at the tasks to which the master has assigned them. Nevertheless, they are anticipating that day when, in the mercy of God, the world’s delusion ends and the gospel is vindicated and God’s people are exalted and the faith of the simplest saint is seen to be what the saint herself always knew it to be: the bond that bound her to that Lord who will henceforth honour her eternally.

Then what are the people in Schomberg to be about week-in and week-out?

Build yourselves up in your most holy faith.

Pray in the Holy Spirit.

Keep Yourselves in the love of God.

Wait for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life.

Victor Shepherd

May 2011

For the Saints in Emmanuel Presbyterian Church, Schomberg

On Avoiding Flabby Sentimentality and Barren Intellectualism

Jude 17-23

Wouldn’t it be nice if we could turn back the clock and take ourselves back to the early days of the church when there were no factions or difficulties or disputes? Wouldn’t it be nice if we could step back into a Christian community where everything was at peace and no one was having trouble or causing trouble?

As a matter of fact there never was such a time. There never was a Christian era free of problems and perplexities, free of difficulties and disputes. There never was a golden age, way back when, when everything was better, much better, than things are now. We should understand that virtually all of the New Testament documents were written to assist Christians in one matter or another with their daily struggle, their confusion or their danger. Mark’s gospel was written to fortify Christians who otherwise might renounce the faith and betray each other amidst the savagery of Nero’s persecution. Matthew’s gospel was written to correct Gentile Christians who were about to distort the gospel by jettisoning the older testament. The letters to the congregation in Corinth were written to discipline Christians whose behaviour was scandalous. In the earliest days of the church the gospel was passed around by word of mouth. Something was committed to writing only when trouble developed and a strong written statement was needed to se the troublesome situation right. We have written New Testament largely because difficulty and danger, disruption and dispute troubled the church from the very beginning.

Jude wrote his short, sharp letter in order to help Christians who had distorted the gospel and who were now groping and stumbling like blind inebriants in a basement. Jude had turned up two distortions, quite different from each other, that yet gave rise to a similar groping and stumbling. One distortion was a distortion of the gospel in the direction of a flabby sentimentality: mush. Mushy sentimentality laughs off any concern for the truth. “Who cares about truth?” it snickers, “What difference does correct doctrine make? Why bother with pointless abstractions that only fuel controversy anyway? Let’s just feel good together. That’s what the Christian life is really about: feeling good together.” This distortion of the gospel is still with us today.

The other distortion is just the opposite of this. It is a frigid, barren intellectualism. Here the gospel is warped into philosophy that happens to use religious words, a philosophy so very abstract, subtle, apparently, that only the intellectually gifted or the philosophically trained can understand it. Corrie Ten Boom, the brave Dutch woman who survived Ravensbruck death camp (here sister Betsie did not); Corrie Ten Boom was a woman whose assessment of the church’s health we should take seriously. She tells us that nowhere as in Germany is academic theology pursued with such rigour and precision — and nowhere as in Germany is the church so weak. This distortion of the gospel is also with us today.

It’s good to remember that the Christians before us didn’t live in a golden age when everything was simply glorious. And it’s even better to hear and heed the corrective that was necessary for individual Christians and congregations who would otherwise stumble.

I: — Jude has much to tell us. First he addresses the flabby sentimentalists: “Build yourselves up on your most holy faith.” He insists that we recover the substance of the faith, truth, and insists as well that we know it to be true, never apologizing for it. “The most holy faith” is holy because God has revealed it; and is the faith because it is true.

Not many people care about the truth nowadays. They care about popular appeal and apparent usefulness and shallow pragmatism, but they don’t care about truth. It’s no wonder, then, that I find people asking me if I think I am “doing good” as a minister. Do I feel I am doing more “good” as a minister than I might do as a probation officer or a legal aid lawyer or a social worker? Sometimes, they even suggest (like the endodontist who has my mouth open for an hour and a half at a time during which I can’t say anything) that since the world is now too sophisticated for “religion,” I could be doing much more good anywhere other than in the ministry. But their question or suggestion is a giveaway; they have obviously missed the boat themselves; in fact they can’t even see the boat. My first responsibility is never to “do good.” My first responsibility as a minister, a steward of the gospel, is to safeguard the truth of God. The apostle Paul speaks of the gospel, the truth of God, as a deposit, much like a priceless treasure entrusted to someone for safekeeping. My first responsibility is to be a faithful trustee of the deposit of Christian truth. For the gospel is invaluable. And it has been entrusted to me for safekeeping, because there is a congregation around me that will be impoverished and spiritually threatened if I fritter away the trust.

Our superficial age has little time for truth, for substance. Our age prefers style to substance. Now that the sittings of the House of Commons are televised, parliament has become little more than a show. Parliament is a game show trafficking in frivolity. Important matters have been assigned to the courts, whose judges, be it noted, have been elected by no one and are accountable to no one. Our national leaders are little more than amateurish actors who have polished their rhetorical style and now preen themselves as they say little eloquently or even lie eloquently. What else could we expect? We get what we deserve, and a superficial public that prefers style to substance isn’t going to have substance. You must have noticed that most television preachers abysmally lack substance.

Everyone knows that I’m not a fundamentalist bible-thumper. Neither am I a nostalgia freak who thinks he can live in bygone eras. But I do understand and cherish the ages-long truth of the gospel. Unquestionably I am orthodox. “Ortho-doxy” means “right teaching.” And this right teaching I shall never apologize for, dilute, deny or depart from. That’s why we have to hear of the Incarnation at Christmas, the atonement on Good Friday, the resurrection of the crucified at Easter, and faith and repentance and righteousness and obedience at all times.

To be sure we aren’t going to express the substance of the gospel in the same matter as our foreparents did. Our mental furniture isn’t theirs and their vocabulary isn’t ours. My grandparents sang with great gusto, “How sweet the name of Jesus sounds.” Frankly, I don’t like the expression. I’m turned off by anything that associates Jesus Christ with candyfloss and tooth decay. Still, there’s something profounder here. You see, the “name” of Jesus, biblically speaking, is the person, presence, power and purpose of Jesus. And my grandparents certainly were acquainted with the person, presence, power and purpose of Jesus Christ even if they expressed it in a vocabulary you and I find somewhat saccharine.

It’s important that we distinguish the eternal gospel from the time-bound vocabulary by which it is expressed. We don’t have to hang on to time-bound vocabulary, and few of us would want to. Yet we must cherish the truth; we must build ourselves up on our most holy faith — for the truth, and only the truth, Jesus insists, is finally what sets men and women free. Only the truth profoundly, pervasively, permanently transforms human life. Flabby sentimentality — sugarcoated mush — may be attractive in the short run, but in the long run it does nothing good, nothing godly.

A Glasgow streetwalker was listening to a Unitarian speaker who, as a Unitarian, dismissed “the most holy faith”: Incarnation, atonement, and so on, the truth and substance of the gospel, what Jude calls “the faith once for all delivered to the saints.” She listened for a few minutes and then turned away, saying, “The rope he talks about isn’t long enough to reach me.” Our superficial age, daily saying, “Who cares about the truth as long as we feel good and find religious novelty useful?”; our superficial age forgets one thing: ultimately, at life’s deepest depths, only the truth of Jesus Christ is going to be profoundly useful because only the truth transforms. And because only the truth transforms, only the truth can finally comfort.

II: — Jude writes something more. This time he’s addressing not the flabby sentimentalists but the barren intellectualists whose doctrine is correct but whose hearts are colder than frozen cod. “Pray in the Holy Spirit,” he urges; “Pray in the Holy Spirit.” It’s crucial that we pray in the Holy Spirit, for we want to do more than understand the truth of God; we want to absorb it, we want this truth to penetrate us as Jesus Christ himself moves every more deeply into us. To pray in the Holy Spirit is to foster an ever more intimate encounter with him who alone bears and bestows the Spirit. A dear old Scot used to say that prayer is “love in need appealing to love in power.” We who love our Lord with love undying: when we pray it is love in need appealing to love in power.

Such prayer needn’t be wordy. It merely casts us upon God for what he alone can give. A dying criminal prayed, “Lord, remember me.” He was Jewish, and therefore he knew that when a Jew cried to God, “Remember me” he was asking God to give him the profoundest desire of his heart. A thousand years earlier Hannah, distraught at her childlessness, had cried to God. We are told that God had “remembered” her, had given her the desire of her heart, and she had become pregnant with Samuel. People in pain are never wordy. People in terrible need are never wordy. When I was a student minister in a construction town in British Columbia I came upon a man, an alcoholic who had been sober by the grace of God for many years. Yet he knew that he had to live and could live only one day at a time. In the course of one of our conversations he said to me, “Victor, in the morning I say ‘please’, and at nightfall I say ‘thank you.'” What is this but love in need appealing to love in power?”

I have long felt that people are discouraged in their attempt to pray inasmuch as they don’t have the “gift of the gab.” Words don’t come easily to them. As soon as they start to pray they run out of words, and thereafter it’s a tongue-tying exercise in English composition when they aren’t much good at English composition. The truth of the matter is, wordiness has nothing to do with prayer in the Holy Spirit. The dying criminal knew this much.

Such prayer, however simply uttered or repeatedly uttered, is an expression of our confidence in the living God who meets us. It’s an acknowledgement of our dependence upon him. And it’s always an intensification of our intimacy with him.

You must have noticed that when we are most grateful we have the least to say. When we are most grateful we don’t ramble on and on and on about our gratitude, simply because we can’t. When we are most grateful we are this because we have been overwhelmed, so very overwhelmed as to be left near-speechless. When we are least grateful we have the most to say; and we and everybody else knows how artificial and “smarmy” it is.

It’s the same with our greatest longing. The psalmist writes, “As a deer longs for flowing streams, so longs my soul for Thee, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.” This is “prayer in the Holy Spirit.” For such prayer is always a matter of crying to God to “remember” us, as the psalmist knew, the dying criminal knew, the sobered alcoholic knew, and Hannah knew.

“Pray in the Holy Spirit” is Jude’s word to those who have distorted the gospel into barren intellectualism and whose well-stocked head needs to be matched by a well-warmed heart.

III: — Next Jude addresses both flabby sentimentalists and barren head-trippers: “Keep yourselves in the love of God.” He means “Keep yourselves in the sphere of God’s love, in the atmosphere of God’s love. Don’t take yourselves out of this sphere, atmosphere.”

During World War II fliers in the Pacific theatre of the war were provided with shark repellent. A downed flier’s parachute and life preserver were useless unless along with his parachute and life preserver he was given shark repellent. The repellent spread out through the water around him and beneath him forming a sphere in which the shark couldn’t get at him. He was to keep himself in this sphere until he was rescued definitively and taken ashore where no sharks molested.

You and I are destined to be rescued definitively from life’s stormy seas and transported to a shore where we shan’t be molested any more. But we aren’t there yet. And until we are we had better understand that we can be threatened and endangered. At present there lurks in life’s stormy seas what can threaten us, even devour us. At the same time God, in his mercy, has surrounded us with an atmosphere that repels attacks that come upon us from behind and below where we don’t see them coming. The atmosphere is his effectual love, and we are ever to keep ourselves in this love.

The downed flier in the Pacific would be a fool if he came not to trust his shark repellent. He’d be a fool if he began to wonder where the repellent really worked; he’d be the biggest fool if he thought that life would be more adventuresome, more thrilling, if he moved outside the repellent in order to joust with the sharks, compete with them, take them on. But haven’t you and I seen Christians who, in a moment of culpable folly, have done just this?

Of course we sin. And we do frustrate God’s love. Still, it’s one thing to be overtaken in a moment of carelessness; it’s another thing deliberately, wilfully, defiantly to violate God’s love.

My wife loves me dearly. Her love for me creates a sphere, an atmosphere, in which I find refuge from much that lurks in the sea around me. And her love, graced as it is by the patience of God, absorbs my silliness and stupidity and moodiness and abrasiveness. Patient and profound as her love is, however, I’d be a fool if I thought I could trade on it. I’d be a fool if I thought I could deliberately, wilfully, defiantly violate it. Do I think I could move outside it, splash around in wider water (as it were) and yet remain within her love at the same time? Everyone knows we can’t be in two places at once. Then I had better keep myself in the sphere of her love.

Jesus says, “I have loved you. Abide in my love.” Immediately he adds, “If you keep my commandments you will abide in my love.” He means “If you keep yourself in the sphere of my commandments, you will abide in my love and in that love you will be protected with all the protection you will ever need.” It is our love for our Lord, or at least our aspiration to love him, which is both the means of our keeping ourselves in his love and the sign of our being there.

IV: — Jude’s final word to us, Wait for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life.” His word here isn’t simply the fourth in a series of four. His word here speaks of the mood or attitude in which the first three are to be heard and heeded. When Jude says, “Wait for the mercy of our Lord” he doesn’t mean, “wait around for it.” To wait around is to loiter. Loitering is no good. Loiterers are people with nothing to do and nowhere to go. Loiterers always end up in trouble. In scripture, to wait is never to wait around; to wait is always to anticipate, to expect, to live for a future certainty. To wait, in scripture, is to live for, anticipate the day when God completes that good work which he began in us years ago. To wait is to live in anticipation of the day when God’s mercy, which has already found us and bound us to him, finally transmogrifies us.

In other words, to wait for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ is to live, every day, in a mood or attitude that encourages us to build ourselves up in our most holy faith, to pray in the Holy Spirit, and to keep ourselves in the love of God. For as we live for this we shall resist being flabby sentimentalists who don’t care about the truth of Christ, even as we resist being barren head-trippers who have no heart. Instead we shall wait for, anticipate, expect that future certainty which is the mercy of Jesus Christ unto eternal life, knowing that he has promised to render us without spot or blemish.

V.Shepherd

Is There Any Point In Coming To Church?

Revelation 1:9-10

Sometimes we are tired when we come to church; more than tired, exhausted. I have lived in suburbia now for 24 years, and I have come to recognize fatigue as the most evident characteristic of suburban existence. Occasionally I ride the GO train into Toronto. On the morning trip into the city commuters appear bright-eyed and perky, enthusiastic and eager. They bounce onto the train, greet the people they see every morning, and plunge into their newspaper or paperback thriller. On the evening trip back to suburbia they are dazed and glazed; many sprawl over the seats, arms and legs akimbo. They seem stunned. Next day they will have to do it all over. The spouse they may have left behind in suburbia tears around from supermarket to arena to dental office to piano teacher in between flurries of volunteer work. When Sunday arrives those who are able to get out of bed are still fatigued when the hour of worship strikes.

Sometimes we are bored when we come to church. Can people be over-busy and bored at the same time? Of course we can. In fact on Sunday we may be bored on account of our over-busyness; we may also be bored at the prospect of worship. After all, when the grizzled, balding preacher announces the text worshippers who have listened to him over and over know how the sermon is going to unfold.

Sometimes we are distracted when we come to church. Hundreds of important matters clamour for our attention. Worship is important too; still, its demand seems less imperious than last week’s phone call from the bank manager about the change in mortgage rates.

Sometimes we are in pain when we come to worship. Relatively few of us arrive here in significant physical pain. But oh, the mental anguish! The emotional torment! We bring it here. We can’t help bringing it here. I know we do because I know what anguish I have brought here on Sunday morning from time-to-time.

John, the visionary writer of the book of Revelation, shared the human condition too. Therefore he brought to worship everything we bring, everything from fatigue to anguish. Yet he was saddled with an additional complication, an enormous complication, a complication which (so far) has been much slighter for you and me: tribulation. Tribulation is a biblical word which means one thing: affliction visited on believers just because they are believers, suffering visited on disciples just because they are disciples. Tribulation is not the pain we suffer inasmuch as our knees become arthritic and our middle-aged organs malfunction. Tribulation is pain inflicted on us just because we have vested our faith in Jesus Christ and are determined to keep company with him. Keeping company with him, we find that the hostility the world heaps upon him now spills over onto us. And yet in the very breath with which he speaks of tribulation John speaks of so much more. “I, John, your brother who shares with you in Jesus the tribulation and the kingdom and the patient endurance.” Yes, our loyalty to our Lord does plunge us into tribulation; and the very same loyalty keeps us glad citizens of the kingdom, glad subjects of the rule or reign of Christ, even as our immersion in the rule or reign of Christ equips us with patient endurance.

Let’s think awhile of John’s tribulation. He was a Christian living in the Roman empire. “Roman empire”: the expression calls to mind the emperors themselves. Nero, Caligula, Vespasian, Domitian: these men are infamous for their cruelty. One was as bad as another. Nero, for instance, Nero had known what to do with Christians. He blamed them for the fire which devastated large residential sections of Rome in the year 65. The effect of this was to turn hordes of homeless people against Christians. Then he entertained himself by soaking Christians in tar and setting them on fire. Others he covered in animal skins and turned lions loose on them. Those who were left he crucified.

Now I don’t expect any of this to happen to me, as you don’t expect it to happen to you. In other words, we don’t expect tribulation to become terrible. Nevertheless, to say that our tribulation isn’t like John’s is not to say that our tribulation is never going to intensify. I think it will. Take the matter of multicultural”ism.” Is multiculturalism possible? Of course it is, as long as we are talking superficially about culture only: Chinese food, Slavic dances, Japanese lanterns. But of course the culture of any society arises from the values of that society. Multiculturalism therefore presupposes “multivaluism”. (We come closer to admitting this when we speak not of multiculturalism but of pluralism. But for now let’s stick with my neologism, multivaluism.) Is multivaluism possible within one society? This is a huge question. When one group says men and women are to be esteemed equally and another group insists that women are inherently inferior there is an incompatibility which cannot be compromised away. If some people maintain that employment insurance is protection against disaster and others maintain that it is an alternative to employment we are in the same predicament. Social cohesion presupposes a shared value system; social cohesion presupposes a recognition of and ownership of the common good. When the common good cannot be agreed upon then pluralism is a polite cover-up of the first stages of social disintegration. I have long thought that public education is possible only as long as there is implicit public agreement as to the educational good. But is there? Is the ultimate goal and good of public education to educate, or is it to have students feel good about themselves? How good will someone feel about himself if, upon becoming an adult, he cannot read?

Please don’t think that I am faulting immigrants to our country and am subtly suggesting that immigration be curtailed. Immigrants are not to blame for the increasing, and increasingly evident, ungluing of the society. Often immigrants merely expose what is in the heart of us who have lived here all our lives. My vice-principal friend with the Scarborough Board of Education suspended an elementary school student for telling a supply teacher that he, the student, didn’t have to listen to or learn from any “Paki” like her. Instant suspension, insisted my friend, as he told the student’s

parents that vicious racism would not be tolerated in his school for a minute, betokening as it did a society whose members would soon be at each other’s throats. Two days later my friend was at a track meet. A board of education superintendent approached him and said, “I hope you know more about relay races than you know about public relations; the student’s parents have phoned the board offices eight times.” The value system of that superintendent and the value system of my friend are simply incompatible. No Christian could entertain for a minute the suggestion that racism is to be tolerated and a student allowed to insult a teacher just because the student’s parents make half-a-dozen phone calls.

Christians are much less quick to protest victimization at the hands of advertisers than are, for instance, Jews and Muslims. Not long ago I came upon an advertisement by Insecolo, a firm which manufactures pesticides. The advertisement is labelled “The Last Supper”. It depicts twelve insects (household pests) seated at the Last Supper: fleas, earwigs, silverfish, caterpillars. Seated in the middle of the Last Supper is a large cockroach. Jesus Christ the great cockroach. The caption accompanying the picture tells homemakers that the food at the Last Supper should be supplemented by Insecolo. Christ the cockroach is host at that supper where all pests are soon to be annihilated (including Christ the cockroach, of course). Insecolo’s vice-president of marketing insisted that the company had no intention of withdrawing the advertising. From a Christian perspective the advertisement is blasphemous, not to mention in appalling taste.

If a similar advertisement spoofed sacrilegiously what is dear to Jewish people or Islamic people can you imagine the outcry? Suppose the annihilation of household pests were compared, in an advertisement, to the holocaust. “Annihilate beetles and bugs as thoroughly as Hitler annihilated Jews: nothing left at all!” Do you think for one minute that the vice-president of marketing would cavalierly announce that Insecolo has no intention of withdrawing the ad? Tell me: do you think there is public recognition of and public ownership of the public good? If there isn’t, then social disintegration is underway.

Of course we must uphold environmental concerns; of course we cannot continue to violate land and water and air. Still, environmental concerns pushed to ever greater extremes become out-and-out idolatrous, even lethal. Let us not forget that whenever nature was regarded as divine in cultures before ours human sacrifice was demanded. In biblical times the worshippers of Ashtaroth and Baal sacrificed human beings; so did the Aztecs in Mexico centuries later; so did the Nazis in Europe only recently. A book on ecology published in 1984 (published by Random House, a very reputable American publisher) insisted that culling human beings is a moral obligation given our commitment to the earth. Another book published in 1989 (State University of New York Press) insisted that culling human beings is “not only morally permissible, but, from the point of the view of the land ethic, morally required.” Human beings, it is argued, are simply members of the biotic community and are to be controlled the way the Ontario Department of Lands and Forests controls the moose population.

Within my lifetime I do not expect to face tribulation of the sort that John knew. Nonetheless, within my lifetime tribulation will increase for Christians as we declare where we stand and why, what we cannot accept and why, what we insist on and why (even though we aren’t going to get it), and how it is that the mind of Christ and the mindsets of assorted interest groups are not compatible. (By then it will be apparent that not even the mindsets of the assorted interest groups are compatible with each other.) When Christians hold up what is non-negotiable for us we shall appear first odd, then stubborn, then fractious, then disruptive, then indictable. Let us never forget that early-day Christians were accused of atheism and punished for it just because they refused to recognize and honour the pagan deities of the Roman empire.

And yet in the same sentence where John reminds his readers that he and we share the tribulation he declares that we share also the kingdom and the patient endurance. The use of the definite article is most instructive. He doesn’t say we share tribulation (which could be construed by unwary readers as suffering-in-general); we share the tribulation, tribulation unique to God’s people. We don’t share patient endurance-in-general; we share the patient endurance, that steadfastness peculiar to disciples. We can share the patient endurance, says John, just because we share the kingdom. The kingdom is the rule of Christ. Let us make no mistake. Jesus Christ – risen, ascended, glorified — is the sovereign ruler of the entire cosmos. We who have grown up in Christendom enveloped by the British Commonwealth have unconsciously assumed that Christendom enveloped by the British Commonwealth is the rule of Christ. Unconsciously we have confused the rule of Christ with the legacy of Queen Victoria. Unconsciously we have confused the rule of Christ with favours dispensed by Canada Customs and Revenue Agency and the municipalities. What would be the effect on the pattern of church-life and denominational expostulations if church-properties were taxed and income tax receipts were not issued for church-offerings? The effect would be immense, virtually a revolution with respect to properties and clergy salaries. What would be the effect on the rule of Christ? Nothing! To say that Jesus Christ — risen, ascended, glorified — rules is to say that he is the sole sovereign of the cosmos, which is to say that nothing can affect his kingdom or kingship. Because nothing can affect the sovereignty of Christ Christ’s people may — and shall — exhibit the patient endurance in the midst of the tribulation.

The older I grow the more important I recognize grammar to be. When John speaks of sharing tribulation, kingdom and steadfastness with us he doesn’t speak of the these in a principal clause: I, John, share with you. Instead he speaks of them in a subordinate clause: I, John, who happen to share with you. Then he proceeds to what he wants to say principally. He places tribulation, kingdom and steadfastness in a subordinate clause because all this scarcely needs to be mentioned, he feels. “Needless to say” is how we should speak of it, “it goes without saying”, “of course everyone will agree”. Then what is the principal point which John makes from his place of exile? “I was in the Spirit on the Lord’s Day”. This is the principal point he wants to make with us. The fact that he was in the Spirit on the Lord’s Day was the occasion of his inspiration, the occasion of the firing of those vivid visions which became his inspired and inspiring book. “I was in the Spirit on the Lord’s Day”. It was Sunday, the day of worship. Yes, John may have initially found himself tired or bored, distracted or in pain when he came to worship. Yet at some point he found himself “in the Spirit”.

“In the Spirit”: what does it mean? It means that regardless of what he brought to worship he found something vastly greater there. It means that God himself overwhelmed him when all he was expecting was a repetition of last Sunday. It means the same visitation from God (the Spirit) which drove huddled disciples out of a fear-ridden room into the world; it means the same visitation which turned mere words about an executed Jew into the gospel, the vehicle of the Son of God’s self-bestowal; the same visitation from God which moved a highschool teacher in Yugoslavia (Mother Teresa) to India, and an unknown priest in Belgium (Father Damien) to the leprosy-ridden Hawaiian island of Molokai; the same visitation which impelled Lydia (a woman) to accord hospitality to two men (Paul and Silas) in an era when a man didn’t even speak to his wife in public lest he appear scandalous; the same visitation which brought Zacchaeus out of a tree and thawed his frozen heart; the same visitation which has brought parishioners to my door when I was in need and thought nobody else knew; the same visitation which has electrified you on occasion as it has electrified me.

Many people have told me that they arrive at worship in any mood at all: fatigue, boredom, anxiety, resentment, anger, hope, hopelessness. And then in the course of the service, whether through hymn, prayer, scripture, anthem, sermon or children’s story; in the course of the service it happens for them. One man, unquestionably a victim of extraordinary bad luck, told me he has arrived at worship again and again with a chip on his shoulder, and by the end of the service the chip is gone.

“I was in the Spirit on the Lord’s Day”. John doesn’t say he put himself in the Spirit. He didn’t work up a psycho-religious boil-over and call it “God”. Rather he was in the Spirit in that thatunforeseen visitation which had startled and encouraged Abraham and Sarah, Elizabeth and Zechariah, which had gently nudged Elijah and mightily prostrated Isaiah; this unforeseen, unforeseeable visitation had visited him too.

John was in the Spirit on the Lord’s Day. For him it meant a vision of his Lord. “When I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead. But he laid his right hand upon me (the right hand is always the hand of mercy) saying, ‘Fear not, I am the first and the last, and the living one. I died, and behold I am alive for evermore, and I have the keys of Death and Hades.'” In that instant John was oriented afresh to the truth and encouraged afresh in the midst of tribulation. Every bit as much will be given to us at worship, won’t it? Never mind that so much of worship is repetitive; it has to be repetitive just because we repeatedly need to be oriented to the truth and encouraged in the midst of tribulation. The John received — “Fear not, I am the first and the last… I died, and behold I am alive for evermore…” — there was nothing new in this. John was exiled to the island of Patmos in the first place inasmuch as he already knew and had publicly stood up for the one who had died and was now alive for evermore. There was nothing new in John’s vision at all. But none of us needs novelty; all of us need reinvigoration in what we know already. We need revivification of what is now several years old in us, even decades old. As mature a Christian as John was, he was not yet beyond needing renewal himself.

And neither are we. As our society changes (make no mistake: it is changing); as it moves away from the Christendom we have found as comfortable as an old shoe; as social cohesion unravels and strident voices, contradictory voices, are heard increasingly; as it becomes evident that there is nowhere near the public agreement concerning the public good that there once was; as all of this unfolds tribulation will increase somewhat. Then we shall need fresh assurance as to the kingdom, the rule of Christ; and only then shall we be equipped with the patient endurance.

And how are we to gain fresh assurance of it all? By coming to worship, regardless of what mood we bring to worship. For if we are found here Sunday by Sunday, even if tired or bored or distracted or pained, then from time-to-time, in God’s own time, we shall also be found “in the Spirit on the Lord’s Day”. And this will be enough.

Victor Shepherd September 2002

On Weeping . . .and Not Weeping

Revelation 5:5

Rev. 21:4 Job 16:16 Psalm 30:5 Luke 19:41

What moves you? What really moves you? I’m always amazed at how moved people can be over something that strikes me as fluff, like the latest episode in the never-ending soap opera. Then again, I married into the Irish. I’ve never been able to understand why one stanza of “O, take me home again, Kathleen” reduces Irish folk to tears.

Blubbering, we know, is contagious. So is laughter. Comedians know how difficult it is to make people laugh the first time. It’s less difficult the second, easier still the third. The comedian trots out his best joke to start the programme. Once he has people laughing they will laugh at anything. It’s the same with weeping. Hard-shell people don’t weep easily. But once they get started…. Before long everyone is weeping. When the TV stations broadcast pictures of people starving in Darfur (especially wasted children) I’ve heard viewers say, “It’s not right; it’s crass sensationalism. It’s emotional manipulation. Besides, it exploits hungry people.” But the same critics will weep when the winner of the beauty contest is announced or the athlete’s blunder costs his team the championship. Apparently it’s all right to weep at something trivial but not all right to weep at something tragic. Then what moves you and me to tears? Is it something of minimal human significance? Or is it something profound? Today we are going to speak only of the latter. We shall speak only of the tears that matter. I: — First of all, there’s a weeping we cannot help. Again and again in the gospels Jesus comes upon broken-hearted people. They have lost someone dear to them, most commonly a child. They pour out their anguish, unchecked, before everyone present. No one faults them for it. They aren’t told to “buck up and be brave.” Their grief is allowed unrestrained expression. (Let me say parenthetically that there’s nothing worse than the loss of a child. I have conducted approximately 500 funerals. Yet I can never become accustomed to the funeral of a child, even of an infant, even of the baby born prematurely and weighing three pounds. We should remember too that when a child dies, the parents will separate 70% of the time. In other words, few marriages can withstand the shock and distress of the death of a child.) In our society, on the other hand, we think there’s something virtuous about grieving stoically. At the funeral parlour we say about the recent widow, “She’s holding up so well.” “Holding up” is an expression we should reserve for five years later. Tell me: did Jesus “hold up” upon hearing of the death of Lazarus? I recall reading that Jesus wept. There’s nothing virtuous, and everything unhealthy, about stifling grief. Grief that’s suppressed now is going to appear later in much more troublesome guise. More to the point, to expect the bereaved to appear stoical is to burden them with unrealistic expectations that can only leave them feeling guilty because they are psychologically weak (supposedly.) And if they are believers, it’s to leave them feeling they are spiritual failures as well. If we are sensitive at all to the terrible unfairness of life; if we are moved at all by the pain some people must endure in themselves or witness in others, then we know there are tears that can’t be helped. Several years ago I wrote a magazine article, “God’s Grace Also in the Mentally Ill.” One week after she read the article a woman in Regina sent me a letter. At age three this woman fell ill with polio. From that day to this she has had steel braces on both legs, and she hobbles with crutches. Her brother, one year older than she, knew that she needed help and he always provided help. When she was six and he seven, he put her in his wagon and pulled her miles through Winnipeg to Assiniboine Park Zoo so that she too could see the animals and the beautiful park. And then he pulled her miles back again, an all-day mission. When he was nine he was given his first two-wheeler. With much difficulty he manoeuvred his handicapped sister up onto the handlebars of his bike, her steel-clad limbs sticking straight out. His playmates teased him, “We’d never give our sister a ride on our bike.” “One day your sisters will ride their own bicycles,” the nine year old shot back, “but mine never will.” They never teased him again, the woman told me. Throughout her high school days her brother carried her up and down two flights of stairs, day-in and day-out. He couldn’t have been more thoughtful. Then when he was 21 he was diagnosed schizophrenic. He’s been deranged ever since. He lives in a group home. His sister has him out every week-end and takes him for a drive in her hand controlled car. As they were driving around Winnipeg one day he saw the crowds of downtown workers and shoppers, and he cried out, “Who cares?” Then he turned to his sister and said, “You care.” They spend Christmas Day together as well, since she has never married and, she told me in her letter, no one is ever going to invite the two of them to Christmas dinner. As I read this woman’s letter I thought of her brother’s torment: locked up in his derangement for 35 years. I thought of her anguish: not only her disability, not only the burden of her brother, but also the terrible unfairness of it all. And then I thought of her parents: two children, one wounded through polio, the other wounded through psychosis. As I read the letter the woman sent me I cried like a child. And every time I re-read the letter for the next several days I wept again. There is a weeping we can’t help. It isn’t a sign of human weakness. Neither is it a sign of spiritual deficiency. It’s a sign that our hearts haven’t shrivelled in the face of life’s torment. II: — There are also tears of a different sort, tears we ought to shed. While we ought to shed them, most people don’t. We ought to weep when we perceive a world riddled with evil and warped by sin; and we ought to weep above all in the face of a church, the herald of God’s kingdom, that has compromised itself pitiably. Erasmus (who came to be known as “the flitting Dutchman”) was the most brilliant figure in the era of the Protestant Reformation. All of the Reformers were intellectual giants: Luther, Melanchthon, Bucer, Zwingli, Bullinger, Calvin, Cranmer. Yet Erasmus was special, his brilliance rivalled only by that of Melanchthon. But Erasmus was a dilettante and a fence-sitter. He saw the dreadful abuses in the church as well as the dilution of the gospel. He saw what would have to be done. He knew what price would have to be paid to get it done – and he decided not to pay it. He sat on the fence. To be sure, he wrote clever, sharply-worded satires that ridiculed abuses in the church (as if any of this could ever be funny.) Others noted that when Erasmus saw the wretched state of the church he laughed and called for another glass of Flemish wine. Luther, on the other hand; Luther, we are told, went home and cried all night. Jesus wept over Jerusalem , the city. Jerusalem : Hier Shalem, “city of shalom,” city of salvation. City of salvation? It slays the prophets and crucifies the Messiah. Our Lord’s heart broke over the city, for that city “didn’t know the things that made for its peace, shalom.” Paul wept over the church, he tells us. We should weep over both the city and the church. Have you ever wept over the city? A highly-placed bank executive in my former congregation told me he had on his desk a letter from Queen’s Park explaining the provincial government’s logic in placing the first provincial casino in Windsor , Ontario . Here’s the logic. Casino gambling generates huge sums of money for the provincial government. Casino gambling also impoverishes the people who frequent casinos – overwhelmingly people who are poor enough already. A casino in a border city would attract large numbers of Americans. Americans (disproportionately poor Afro-Americans) would come to Windsor , lose their money as the Ontario government scooped it up, and then return to the United States where they would then be the responsibility of the American government and its welfare system. Result: Ontario gathers up huge sums of money while the state of Michigan is saddled with burgeoning welfare rolls. We import American dollars; we export American social problems. My bank-executive friend had the letter on his desk with these details spelled out as clearly as I have spelled them out to you. The entire scheme was exploitative, racist as well. The next casino would be in Niagara Falls . Another small border city. Same logic. The third casino would be in Rama, the aboriginal reserve near Orillia . This time the poor people rendered poorer still would be aboriginals, and they are the responsibility of the federal government. Import the money, export the social problem. Whose idea was this? The NDP government of Ontario conceived it. And what is the origin of the NDP? The party arose from the Methodist Church in the prairies during the Great Depression. It pledged itself to speak for those otherwise unable to be heard. The poorest were precisely the people for whom the NDP arose. In other words, the people who suffer most from government exploitation now are the people whom the NDP’s foreparents wept over. Have you ever wept over the church? The United Church is Canada ’s largest Protestant denomination, and its collapse is grievous. It has taken itself down through doctrinal dilution, theological compromise, ethical subversion. Plainly The United Church has intentionally rendered itself apostate through its denial of the Incarnation, denial of the Atonement, denial of the Resurrection, denial of the Trinity, and of course its denial of the discipleship Jesus Christ requires of his followers. Its book membership (about three times the number of people who appear on Sunday morning) is today what it was in 1927. (I trust the Presbyterian Church is more discerning and more faithful, because the PCC is older, smaller and more fragile than the UCC, and if meanders in the direction of the UCC it will never survive.) Weep? Recently I was approached by a Toronto woman who had become pregnant as a teenager. Unmarried, she had an abortion. Subsequently she came to faith in Jesus Christ. As is always the case where faith is authentic and profound, every aspect of her life was reconfigured. Now a lawyer, she provides legal assistance (and personal support) for unmarried pregnant teenagers. For her, abortion is no longer the solution. Yet she’s heartbroken. She says that her large, city congregation shuns teenagers who are obviously pregnant; i.e., teenagers who don’t have abortions. And it shuns with equal vehemence teenagers who do. In other words, shunning is what her congregation does best. The apostle Paul wept over congregations whose betrayal of the gospel was worse than the world’s ignorance of the gospel. There are tears that ought to be shed. III: — But finally, ultimately, there are no tears to be shed. We are not going to weep. “Weeping may tarry for the night,” says the psalmist, “but joy comes with the morning.” There are nights – tearful nights – that can’t be avoided and can only be endured. But ultimately we don’t live in the night. We are formed by our Lord’s resurrection and informed by it as well. Therefore we live in the morning; we live for the morning. The book of Revelation has long been a favourite with me. I’m always moved at John’s magnificent affirmation, “Weep not, for the lion of the tribe of Judah has conquered.” The only reason for not weeping is that the lion of the tribe of Judah has conquered. But this is reason enough. When John says “Weep not” he doesn’t mean we should sniff up our tears and deny our grief; i.e., take back what was said earlier to be normal and necessary. John means something else. He means that weeping doesn’t characterize God’s people. As Christians we do shed tears, including the tears that we ought to shed. But we aren’t characterized by our tears. We are characterized by our Lord’s triumph. We weep not, ultimately, just because Jesus Christ has conquered. From time to time people tell me what they expect or at least look for in a pastor. I smile to myself, because I think that often what’s looked for isn’t hugely important; e.g., administrative gifts. (Many lay people have superior administrative talent. Let them do congregational administration.) Myself, I think that what a pastor must have above everything else is a conviction concerning Christ’s victory; a conviction so deep in him that it goes all the way down to his DNA, and he exhales it upon his people both explicitly and implicitly even as it seeps out of every pore. A pastor has to be convinced unshakeably of Christ’s victory if he’s profoundly to support and sustain his people. Not every day in a minister’s life unfolds hectically, but some days do. On one of those days I worked at a sermon until noon , then drove to Richmond Hill to bury a friend. He was an unusual fellow. He owned a junk-yard and made a living dealing in scrap metal. He had shoulder-length hair and hands like a gorilla’s. From time to time we went to a Maple Leaf hockey game together, and then cavorted in downtown Toronto until it was time to come home. He chewed tobacco, and he had dreadful aim. He spat and spewed and sprayed and slobbered gooey brown juice in all directions. The day of his funeral his wife solemnly placed a package of Red Chief chewing tobacco in his coffin. He loved me, even as we were as far apart educationally (he had left school at 14) and as far apart culturally as two people could be. After the funeral I called on a woman from two congregations back whose husband (an elder in the congregation) was forced to leave the family home when he was found committing incest with a fourteen year-old daughter. (This incident followed two earlier convictions for sexually molesting children, which convictions had been hidden from wife, employer, neighbours, everyone.) Then I drove to Etobicoke to see a woman whose fifty year-old brother, chronically mentally ill, had just been mishandled by the courts and had been sent to a maximum security prison. Then I came home to supper. I thought of what the writer of Ecclesiastes says: “There is nothing new under the sun.” And then I thought of what the writer of Revelation overheard God saying: “Behold, I make all things new.” Because the lion of the tribe of Judah has conquered he does make all things new and will. If our faith is so slight as to be only a smidgen, it’s still faith, and therefore it binds us to him who is resurrection and life. Which is to say, the schizophrenic man, his disabled sister, the molested children (no doubt scarred for this life) and even the molester himself – you and I and all who have trusted Jesus – all alike are to be made new. Because the lion of the tribe of Judah has conquered he determines ultimately what no one else can determine since no one else has conquered. Jesus Christ the Victor determines our identity, who we really are right now underneath all the layers of disguise and disfiguration. In addition our Lord determines our destiny, what our future will be on the day of our Lord’s appearing and we stand before him without spot or blemish, wound or scar. That’s the day for which I live. That’s the “morning” for which I live. And that’s why weeping can never tarry for more than the night. Our struggle will never be fruitless, and therefore we ought never to lose heart. The book of Revelation closes magnificently. “And I heard a great voice from the throne saying, ‘Behold, the dwelling place of God is with men… he will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more. Neither shall there be mourning nor crying nor pain – any more.” What God has promised to do he has already begun to do in you and in me and in countless others. The lion of the tribe of Judah has conquered. Therefore while there are tears that we may shed, and tears that we ought to shed, the day is guaranteed, the “morning,” when no tear will be shed. The Lion of the tribe of Judah – our blessed Lord – he has conquered.

Victor Shepherd October 2004

You asked for a sermon on Revelation 16 and Armageddon

Revelation 16:1-23

[1] Several years ago Mr. Hal Lindsey wrote a runaway bestseller, The Late Great Planet Earth. The book sold eighteen million copies. No other publication came close to it throughout the 1970s. In this book and in four others (including one with the ominous title, The Road to Holocaust, Hal Lindsey stated that God has foreordained that we fight a nuclear “Armageddon”. Immediately the word “Armageddon” entered the English vocabulary as the war to surpass all wars, the history-ending conflagration which would involve the armies of the earth and the nuclear arsenals of the nations. “Armageddon” came to mean all-out war, war from which the defeated could never recover.

Not only has God foreordained the nuclear Armageddon, said Hal Lindsey, Christians should welcome it, since Christians are going to be lifted above it; Christians will be spared the conflagration which consumes everyone else.

Hal Lindsey was supported in his statement by other well-known religious personalities. Jimmy Bakker insisted that such a war must be fought in order to bring on the final manifestation of Jesus Christ. Jimmy Swaggart said the same thing. At the peak of their fame Bakker’s TV programme was seen by six million households every day, Swaggart’s by 4.5 million households.

These men, together with all who support them, have always maintained that scripture foretells an end-time war between the USSR and the USA. Soviet forces are to move south to Megiddo, a small valley twenty miles outside the modern Israeli city of Haifa. Megiddo is a valley not much larger than a farm in southern Ontario, nowhere near as large as a ranch in Texas. In this small valley all the armies of the world are to mass, millions upon millions of troops, and the final battle will begin.

On the one hand, because you and I are sceptical of Lindsey and repelled by Bakker and Swaggart, we are not prone to take their prognostications seriously. On the other hand, we dare not minimize the influence these men have had. After all, millions of households are exposed to this scenario day after day. Plainly the public is being conditioned to support the escalation of the nuclear arms buildup. Armageddon, it must be remembered, cannot take place in a world devoid of nuclear arms. Moreover, those who hold on to this scenario are correspondingly cavalier about the domestic programmes of the US government. As one “Armageddonite” said, “There is no reason to get wrought up about the national debt if God is soon going to foreclose on the whole world.” In order to make sure that God does “foreclose on the whole world”, in order to make sure that nuclear holocaust does occur, some “Armageddonites” have stated that Jesus Christ himself will launch the first strike.

How do people come to hold such views? How can people long for nuclear obliteration? I have neither the time nor the expertise to probe the psychology of such people. I know only that they misuse scripture woefully. Let us remember that the word “Armageddon” is mentioned once only in 1,189 chapters of the bible.

[2] Yet even more must be kept in mind when we ponder the matter of Armageddon. We must remember that war — any war — is a contradiction of the kingdom of God. However necessary some conventional wars may have been, it can never be pretended that scripture holds up war as the primary will of God. The psalmist says that God is finally the one who makes wars to cease. Isaiah’s God-inspired vision of God’s intention for the creation includes the elimination of war: “…they shall beat their swords into ploughshares and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation; neither shall they learn war any more.”

We must also remember the nature of our Lord’s Messiahship. People deserted Jesus in droves, even turned on him nastily, just because he was not the strong-armed military messiah they wanted. Hepreferred the power of righteousness to the so-called righteousness of power. Where he insisted on sacrifice, they insisted on coercion. The result was that they cast him aside. It is plain that the Lindsey/Bakker/Swaggart team falsifies Jesus Christ in order to bend him to their ideology.

[3] It is time for us to look at the book of Revelation itself. Before we examine the 16th chapter (and the 16th verse in particular) we should say something about the book as a whole.

The book of Revelation has long been the happy hunting-ground of extremists. They reach into it and pull out any religious oddity at all. They do so inasmuch as they fail to understand something crucial. John does not communicate with his readers through abstract argument. John communicates by means of pictures. His pictures are vivid; no one could ever call them vague or bland or unremarkable. Think, for instance, of the picture of a dragon which fumes and spews and vomits at the same time as it slays Christ’s people. Not only are the pictures vivid; they are also immense, grotesque, and surreal. They would appear to come out of a science fiction novel or a horror movie. In fact most of John’s pictures he has borrowed from the books of Ezekiel and Daniel. Despite the fact that modern readers, at least initially, find John’s pictures off-putting, John expected his readers to find immense comfort and help and hope in the pictures. You see, John’s first readers were undergoing savage persecution; he wrote as he did to provide comfort and help and hope for people whose suffering was intense and relentless.

As a matter of fact there are three books in the New Testament which were written specifically to sustain persecuted Christians: the gospel of Mark, the first epistle of Peter, and the book of Revelation. In the year 65 Nero, the Roman emperor, began brutalizing Christians in a vicious outburst worse than anything which had victimized Christians so far. Several years later Nero committed suicide. By the year 95 another Roman emperor, Domitian, picked up where Nero had left off. Persecution fell on Christians once again. The book of Revelation was written to provide comfort, help and hope to Christ’s people during Domitian’s reign of terror.

[4] The 16th chapter opens with a vivid depiction of God’s judgement, God’s wrath. As the “bowls of God’s wrath” are emptied out, bodily sores, as loathsome as they are foul-smelling, break out on whom? — break out on those who “bear the mark of the beast and worship its image”. Now everywhere in the book of Revelation the “beast” is imperial Rome; cruel, bloody, tyrannical, cut-throat Rome. Rome is totalitarian government which operates through intimidation and torture. Its viciousness can be directed to anyone who resists it and opposes it. Its viciousness, of course, was always turned against Christians during the reign of Domitian, since Christians always named the murderous beast for what it was: evil.

Those men and women, on the other hand, who “kow-tow” to tyranny, who docilely submit to it and flatter it in an attempt to exploit it or merely survive it; these men and women, says John, “bear the mark of the beast”. They have kow-towed to the viciousness of political tyranny for so long that they have become vicious themselves; in a word, inasmuch as they have toadied to the beast, the beast has stamped its mark on them. They may have begun simply by “going along with the system”, merely “playing the game” in order to survive. But now they are poisoned with the selfsame poison which the beast embodies.

The dishonesty and cruelty and coercion and bullying which you and I flatter and play up to as a means of surviving in our turbulent world (never mind getting ahead in it) soon takes us over and puts its mark upon us. The nastiness we say we are only pretending to agree with, only pretending to conform to actually gets into our bloodstream and remakes us in its image. The very thing we say we are only mimicking outwardly in fact takes us over inwardly, and we become that very thing. We take on the character of the very thing we kow-tow to. At this point, says John in his picturesque language, we have worshipped the image of the beast, and the beast in turn has put its mark upon us.

Think of the tyranny we have known in our own century, as well as the torture and torment connected with that tyranny. Stalin, Hitler, Pot Pol (the leader of the Khmer Rouge who liquidated millions), Mao Tse Tung, General Pinochet of Chile. What have all these men done? How many “ordinary” people cozied up to them, pretended to agree to the tyrant’s tyranny, were used by them, only to become inwardly what they thought they were only pretending to outwardly? In other words, how many supporters of these wicked men came to be stamped with the mark of the beast themselves? By way of answering my own question I often think of Klaus Barbie, known as “the butcher of Lyon”. Barbie deported thousands of French Jews to extermination camps and tortured indescribably the leaders of the French resistance movement. When Barbie was finally arrested (only three or four years ago), tried and convicted, prior to being sentenced he was asked if he had any regrets. “Yes, there is something I regret”, he replied, “I regret that there is still a Jew alive in the world.”

In his psychedelic vision John imagines those men and women who play up to tyrannical Rome breaking out into loathsome, foul-smelling sores. Plainly John’s vision is rooted in the plagues of Egypt. You know the story of the seven plagues of Egypt. Pharaoh had enslaved and brutalized the Israelite people in Egypt. Through assorted instrumentalities God had pleaded with Pharaoh to let God’s people go free. Pharaoh had refused. And so another plague. After each refusal, another plague. God’s purpose in all of this was not to torment Pharaoh; God’s purpose is to relieve the oppressed and liberate the enslaved. In much the same way, says John, God is going to shake the leaders and supporters of tyrannical Rome in order that Christ’s people might be relieved.

We need not read the book of Revelation with wooden literalism; we need not think that at some point 25% of the population broke out in stinking sores, or that on one occasion the Mediterranean Sea around Italy turned into blood, the ensuing pollution killing all the fish. John, we must remember, is picturesquely telling his persecuted readers that while they may feel that God has abandoned them and their situation is without hope, God has not and their situation is not. God has not forgotten them; his judgement, poured out on their tormentors, will eventually release them. In the same way John is not, in chapter 16, forecasting the dissolution of the physical universe. He is speaking instead of God’s righteous reaction when God beholds his people tormented; he is assuring his readers that God’s righteous reaction will bring them release and relief, and for this they must wait with that patience which only God-inspired hope can bring.

We must be aware of a most significant difference between the plagues visited upon Pharaoh and the judgement of God visited upon tyrannical rulers in Rome and ever since Rome. The plagues visited upon Pharaoh were sent in order to induce him to repent. “Change, Pharaoh”, God shouts at him, “Change, repent, while you have opportunity to do so, and let my people go.” The judgement visited upon Rome, however, is different. It does not aim at inducing Rome to repent. John has no expectation that Rome will ever repent. None. Tyrants, together with their flunkies, plan on remaining tyrannical indefinitely; they are not about to change anything.

Think of it this way. With respect to the Egyptians God’s wrath was a warning to Pharaoh and a pleading with Pharaoh. With respect to Rome, however, God’s wrath is not a plea; God’s wrath initiates Rome’s doom. Rome will be annihilated. Tyrants cannot be pleaded with; they can only be dispelled. Only as Rome is crumbled will God’s people find release and relief.

Remember: John’s psychedelic vision is not an announcement that God plans to ruin the ecology or destroy the world; John’s vision is meant to supply his readers with fresh heart. God will do anything, enlist anything, to come to the aid of his people. “Therefore”, says John to his readers, “however beaten-up you might be, don’t be beaten-down. God has not abandoned you to your suffering”.

Then John speaks of yet another “bowl” of God’s judgement. This bowl is emptied on the throne of the beast, on the very seat or centre of totalitarian power; immediately the kingdom of the beast is plunged into darkness. What once stood, apparently invincible, is now toppled.

The Roman empire fell apart, didn’t it. The power of the mightiest state the world had seen dribbled away. The seemingly invincible was now has-been dust and litter. Where is the Roman empire today? What is Italy today? — a country whose poverty has driven millions of its people to live elsewhere.

In the eighth century the Arab conquest meant that Arabia ruled from Spain to India, and ruled with a ferocity and cruelty you must read to believe. The Arab nations today would love to go back to their centuries of conscienceless brutality and arrogant strutting. They cause a little trouble here and there today, but the bowl has been emptied on their throne, and their kingdom is in darkness.

In this context we cannot help thinking of the USSR. From 1917 on it seemed invincible. Massive armies to defend it from without, massive secret police to maintain it from within. Any citizen of the USSR who criticized it or contradicted it was dealt with as quickly and conclusively as the emperor Domitian dealt with Christians in first century Rome. Stalin executed thirty million of his own people, systematically starved farm-families in the Ukraine, and ruthlessly sent millions more to the wastes of Siberia. Since these measures were always weeding out and eliminating anything that resembled opposition, the USSR should have remained invincible forever. But it has crumbled, hasn’t it. God’s bowl has been emptied on it. It is now a has-been nation, fragmented, with a standard of living no better than that of a penurious third-world country. Possessing some of the best wheat-growing land in the world, it can’t even provide its citizens with a loaf of bread. Once the bowl of God’s judgement is emptied on the throne of the beast, says John, the kingdom of that beast is in darkness.

John has even more to tell us. In his vision he speaks of “foul spirits like frogs”. The foul spirits represent the stream of court flattery and lying propaganda which saturate any anti-human state. Oppressive regimes invariably use lying propaganda in order to deceive people and control them. Court flattery is the grovelling seen in functionaries who think that flattery will keep them alive when sincere people are put away. John tells us that the foul spirits — flattery and propaganda — eventually stir up the kings of the world and provoke them into an alliance against Rome. Of course! Propaganda incites a people to overstep itself. Flattery blinds leaders and people to reality. The blind leaders incite a blind people who overstep themselves, and their aggression galvanizes opposition from other nations.

Within our own lifetime we need think only of Nazi Germany. The foul spirits (flattery and propaganda); opposition provoked in other nations; the alliance against Germany. The result? — the Reich that was supposed to last a thousand years as a demonstration of human superiority lasted only a few years and acquainted the world with new levels of depravity. And when Nazi Germany had crumbled, when its kingdom was in darkness (in the words of John) the faithful people of God who had groaned within it groaned no more. Centuries earlier John had said to beleaguered Christians, “However beaten-up you might be, don’t be beaten-down, because God has not forgotten you and will deliver you.”

Armageddon, then, is not the world-ending nuclear holocaust which some people say God has ordained. Armageddon is any battle which the oppressors of this world provoke with other nations. Armageddon is the conflict in which other nations, provoked by a tyranny which has overstepped itself, become agents of God in releasing and relieving his people.

At the conclusion of Revelation 16 John’s psychedelic vision heats up one more time and he sees lightning, thunder, earthquake, and hailstones the size of cannonballs. When all of this over, “no mountains were to be found”. Rome was famous as the city that was built on seven hills — and no “no mountains are to be found”. Imperial Rome, together with its tyranny, cruelty, propaganda, boasting — no more; flattened out.

But of course when John wrote his tract none of this had happened yet. John merely foresaw it in his mind’s eye. When John wrote his tract his fellow-believers were still undergoing savage mistreatment. John urges them not to lose heart. God has not forgotten them. John also tells them to keep alert: “Blessed is he who is awake…”. God’s people must ever be alert to what God is doing, watchful, discerning, able to recognize the signs of their promised deliverance.

Because the descendants of Pharaoh and Nero and Domitian are still with us, and because they still torment all who point them out and resist them, John’s psychedelic tract will always be relevant.

[5] In concluding this sermon I want to leave something very important with you. Today we have probed together one chapter in a tract which aims at putting fresh heart in God’s people. Nonetheless, the chapter we have examined sounds utterly bleak, doesn’t it. Ancient Rome, Mediaeval Arabia, Napoleonic France, Nazi Germany, the USSR — written off, all of them, since all of them have been the beast. All have had the fifth bowl of John’s vision emptied on them, and their kingdoms, without exception, have become darkness. Written off.

No! We must look to the last chapter of the book of Revelation. Listen to its opening words:

Then he showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal,
flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb through the middle of the
street of the city; also, on the other side of the river, the tree of
life with its twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit each month;

and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.

John’s vision, ultimately, is of Eden restored. And into this paradise restored come the nations; to be sure, they are wounded, bloody, bleeding still from their former hostility to the Messiah-Lamb. Nonetheless, the tree of life, in this restored Eden, is for the healing of the nations.

In the worst of the nations we have mentioned today there were many people, countless people in fact, who never did worship the image of the beast. Equipped with the truth of God born of their knowledge of God, they were never taken in by the beast’s propaganda. They have suffered too, and suffered more than we shall ever know. Anonymous though they may be to us, they are known to God, and their healing is guaranteed. Because of the “Armageddon” which they have endured, they know better than we that the conflict which brought release and relief is but a step along that road whose end is Eden restored, where nothing bars access to the tree of life, and where the creation is healed. For there swords have been beaten into ploughshares, and war is not learned any more.

F I N I S

Victor A. Shepherd February 1992

Of Spirit, Bride and the Warmest Invitation

Revelation 22:8-17 Daniel 7:9-10

Anyone who knows me at all knows that I have little time for sentimentality. And therefore whenever I am moved I like to think that what moves me is eversomuch deeper than sentimentality. I am always moved when I read the text for today’s sermon. “The Spirit and the Bride say ‘Come’. And let him who hears say ‘Come.’ And let him who is thirsty come, let him who desires take the water of life without price.”

It’s a word of invitation, a word of promise, a word of profound comfort. I find it the warmest word of scripture arising within the most violent book of scripture.

You will have noticed that this text is found at the very end of John’s treatise. In order to grasp what it means, then; in order to grasp the overwhelming force of its invitation and promise and comfort we have to understand why John wrote his book and what he aimed to do through it.

We all know that the book of Revelation has been misused time and again. Religious eccentrics have long cherished it as the grab-bag out of which they can pull any religious oddity at all.

Those of us who think of ourselves as non-eccentric; we still find the notions in it bizarre and the pictures bloody: a river of gore that flows up to the level of a horse’s bridle, a dragon that fumes and spews as it slays God’s people.

Paradoxically, this violent book has comforted untold Christians, especially the bereaved. We read it at virtually every funeral or interment. “They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more…God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.”

The truth is, John was a pastor. He wrote in order to lend encouragement and strength to Christians who were suffering terrible persecution. A tidal wave of persecution had engulfed the church in the year 65 during the reign of Emperor Nero. Thirty years later, in the year 95 Emperor Domitian was every bit as cruel. Another wave of persecution, another wave of torture and death, was bending Christians away from their conviction concerning Jesus Christ and their public confession of him. John wanted to encourage and strengthen the people who were dear to him.

We don’t read very far into John’s book, however, when we realize that John communicates with his people through pictures. The pictures are immense, grotesque, and surreal all at once — almost as if they came out of a science-fiction novel. But they don’t. They come from the older testament, particularly from the books of Ezekiel and Daniel. John takes the pictures that his foreparents drew and applies them, in the light of Christ’s truth and triumph, to his suffering congregation.

I: — I have already said that John’s chief purpose is to encourage his people. But encouragement is not the same as mollycoddling. John knows that if people are to be helped profoundly they must first hear the truth about themselves. And so John opens his book with his “Letters To The Seven Churches In The Province Of Asia.”

Now there were certainly more than seven congregations throughout Asia . But seven is the biblical symbol for completeness or wholeness. In speaking of the seven churches John is writing about the entire church of Jesus Christ throughout the world.

The church at Ephesus possesses energy and endurance and a sensitive nose for sniffing out theological error. Good. Unfortunately, says John, the church at Ephesus also lacks love. Rightly hating error and evil, it has come to have a frigid heart. The church at Ephesus is both praised and blamed (as are several other churches, albeit for different reasons.)

The church at Smyrna is praised without qualification. It has suffered terribly and yet has remained steadfast. John urges it not to give up.

The church at Thyatira is cautioned: it is currently tempted to compromise, and it must not. John did not have our modern, cavalier attitude to compromise. Truth is truth; righteousness is righteousness; faithfulness has to be faithfulness and nothing else.

Our foreparents were possessed of greater conviction here than we. John Bunyan, the best-loved Puritan writer (Pilgrim’s Progress, among 60 other books); John Bunyan was imprisoned in a festering jail for thirteen years. He had four children, one of whom, Mary, was blind. Day-by-day Mary, a young teenager, groped and stumbled her way to her father’s cell in order to bring him more food than the jail provided. Bunyan was near-frantic about Mary. “If I die in here”, he said (and it was likely that he would) how will my blind daughter survive in the world? Who will look out for her?” Authorities who saw his concern told him he didn’t have to remain in prison; he could go home that afternoon. All he had to do was sign a paper saying he would never preach again. And so Bunyan remained in jail for thirteen years. Compromise? The word disgusted him. After all, the gospel is the gospel; and betrayal is disgraceful.

The church in Laodicaea isn’t praised at all; it is simply blamed. Nothing good can be said about it. “Neither hot nor cold”, says John, “about as attractive and useful as a bucket of tepid spit.” (John’s speech is never dainty; he prefers to be effective.) Yet there is still hope for the church in Laodicaea. Jesus Christ has not yet given up on it. “Behold I stand at the door and knock…” — one of the all-time favourite verses. But not the stained glass picture of the gentle Jesus tap, tap tapping. He’s hammering on the door. The congregation in Laodicaea has to wake up. Our Lord needs to knock loudly enough to wake the dead.

Seven churches. In other words, you can find churches throughout the entire world just like these. More to the point, in any one congregation you can find all seven represented. In any one congregation’s life there are features to be praised, features to be blamed, and sleeping people who need to be awakened.

II: — But if they are awakened, what are they awakened to know? John tells us in his vision of the sealed scroll. The question is asked, “Who is worthy to open the scroll and break its seals?” The scroll contains God’s plan and purpose in redeeming the world. Until the scroll is opened God’s redemption won’t be known; more importantly, until the scroll is opened God’s redemption won’t become operative. Until the scroll is opened, then, the world will only lurch and stagger as it has since the Fall, one step removed from chaos, human beings locked into their depravity and only worsening things whenever they try to wrench the world right. John is so upset at the prospect of the world’s hopelessness — since no one is worthy to open the scroll — that he weeps.

Then he hears a voice. “Weep not; lo, the Lion of the Tribe of Judah has conquered; he can open the scroll and its seven seals.” John looks up, expecting to see the Lion of the Tribe of Judah, the Messiah. He looks up and looks for a lion, and instead sees a lamb. The Messiah is a lamb. And this lamb is haemorrhaging. This lamb is worthy to open the sealed scroll.

Now the bleeding lamb that John sees is no ordinary lamb; it has seven horns and seven eyes. Horn is the Hebrew symbol for strength, power, might; eye, the Hebrew symbol for wisdom. In other words, it is in the crucified one that the world will ultimately be rescued from chaos and bloodshed, for in the crucified one are found the whole wisdom and the whole power of God.

III: — Make no mistake. It will require the whole wisdom and the whole power of God to save God’s creation from the evil that afflicts it, for evil is unspeakably evil.

How evil it is John tells us in his vision of the plague of locusts. There are seven plagues in the book of Revelation. (In other words, the world is whollyafflicted.) We shall look at one plague only, that of the locusts.

These locusts or grasshoppers are unusual grasshoppers. They don’t devour grain; they devour men and women. How can they? Just look at how big they are: as big as horses, John says. Their tails have stingers, like a scorpion. Their antennae are as long and as numerous as a woman’s hair (in other words, nothing escapes their sensory apparatus). Their scales are like armour-plate. When they beat their wings they sound like an army of chariots or tanks. John is telling us that evil is immense, evil is a power beyond our imagining, evil is a supernatural power that only the visionary with supernatural vision (like John himself) can describe. There is one last feature to these fearsome, horse-sized locusts: THEY HAVE A HUMAN FACE. “Never forget”, says John, “that while evil is a cosmic power, it wears a human face.”

In my reading of biography and history I have become acquainted with some of the most cruel people the world has seen. As I read of these people I expected to find men and women whose appearance was subhuman, ogreish, even men and women who appeared monstrous, unrecognizable. In every case I have been sobered to learn that they were ordinary; so ordinarily human. They didn’t appear grotesque or nightmarish. They have been as ordinarily human as you or I.

Adolf Eichmann was noted for the tenderness he had for his family. Heinrich Himmler was no more notable than the clerk at Mac’s Milk. Klaus Barbie, the “butcher of Lyons ”; before he perfected his torture-techniques Klaus Barbie was undistinguished.

Speaking of Barbie; when he was extradited from South America and brought to France to stand trial for his wartime torment of French citizens it was assumed that he would be convicted and given the severest sentence possible. Then the lawyer defending Barbie began letting French skeletons out of the closet. “You say that Barbie tortured and maimed people in the French resistance movement”, said the lawyer, “but only 1% of France ’s people joined the resistance movement. Among the other 99% were many who collaborated with the occupation. The politicians and church-leaders and educators whom we esteem today; many of those who assisted Barbie were among the 99% who didn’t resist. If the government of France tries Barbie, why doesn’t it try countless French citizens who supported him?” Evil, however monstrous a power, always wears a human face. “Furthermore”, continued Barbie’s lawyer, “as bad as German treatment of French people was, French treatment of Algerians has been as bad if not worse. If you proceed to convict my client, I will name (and ruin) prominent French people who secretly permitted or authorized shocking atrocities with respect to the Algerians.” All of a sudden many highly placed people in France decided that Barbie’s trial should be concluded as quickly and quietly as possible.

In the 1920s and 30s journalists from Britain and the United States went to Russia . They saw the Stalinist purges first-hand. They witnessed Stalin’s systematic starvation of the Ukrainians. They then wrote newspaper and magazine articles telling the world that Stalin was a good man. To be sure, he was a bit rough around the edges, but an effective leader nonetheless; what he aimed at was good. Why, Stalin had even been a theology student at one time. And so the British and American intelligentsia willfully blinded themselves to what was happening and wrote well of him. Why are intellectuals (so-called) so very stupid? Because they cannot believe that evil is evil when they see the smiling human face. Naively, intellectuals assume that the smiling human face can’t be evil; they don’t realize that a human face is the principal face evil wears.

IV: — Then what is to be done in the wake of this? How are Christians to act? We move now to another of John’s visions, the vision of the little scroll. The big scroll, we saw a minute ago, the big scroll only the slain lamb could unseal and unleash. The little scroll contains the same message as the big scroll. John is told to eat it. He eats it and finds that it tastes sweet as honey. A short time later, however, he has a dreadful stomach-ache. Christian people find the truth of God sweet to their palate; we rightly love the taste of the gospel and the truth by which the gospel exposes illusions and the integrity that the gospel lends us. But Christians find too that as much as we savour the gospel, the gospel collides with the world and brings suffering upon us, as it did for our Lord before us.

Those journalists who kept telling the world that Stalin was a good fellow even as they witnessed his carnage; an American journalist with the New York Times who lied extremely well was awarded a Pulitzer prize for his deliberate falsehood. There was one British journalist, however, who saw the truth, told the truth, and kept on telling the truth in defiance of his superiors: Malcolm Muggeridge. And because of his dedication to the truth born of his own integrity, Muggeridge was fired. Not only was he unemployed, he was unemployable. Angry British officials saw to that. And all he did was tell the truth? The little scroll tastes sweet, as it should, since gospel-righteousness is sweet. Yet as we eat it, which we must, it gives us stomach-ache.

V: — Who, exactly who, is the occasion of the Christian’s stomach-ache? The monster from the abyss, plus the great whore. (I told you earlier in the sermon that John was never dainty.) The monster from the abyss and the great whore collaborate, says John. The great whore is affluence, the affluence that John saw in affluent Rome and the city’s empire. Affluence seduces people away from single-minded devotion to Jesus Christ, says John. It did then and it does now. Concerning this whore John writes, “The merchants of the earth have grown rich with the wealth of her wantonness.”

Affluence fosters an addiction to greater affluence. As a nation’s energies are given over to making its people affluent two things happen. In the first place, ever-increasing affluence becomes the preoccupation of the people. They will give up anything for greater affluence. They become shallow, shrivelled in spirit, cruel, coarse and insensitive. In the second place, a few of the nation’s people become astoundingly rich. As colossal sums of money become concentrated in only a few hands, those few hands become tyrannical. For this reason John tells us that the great whore (affluence) rides around on the back of the monster from the abyss (tyranny). Doesn’t it make you nervous that 80% of the stock traded on the Toronto Stock Exchange is owned by only twenty families?

John insists, however, that we not point the finger. No one has the right to say to a high-profile family, “You are extraordinarily corrupt.” In an affluent society everyone is beguiled by mammon, says John, everyone is spiritually corrupted and impoverished. We can resist this only as we turn our gaze from the seductions of the great whore and look upon Christ alone.

VI: — “Is it all bleak?”, someone asks, “doesn’t John recognize a genuine human good in life somewhere?” Yes he does. In fact, John is as quick to acknowledge genuine human achievement as any humanist is. When John speaks of the New Jerusalem (which is the kingdom of God or the creation of God healed) he tells us that the kings of the earth are going to bring their glory into it. Not God’s glory (they have no jurisdiction over that), but their glory; the profoundest human accomplishments are going to have a glorious place in the New Jerusalem. John knows that human cultural achievements are glorious indeed. He knows that the very best of human creativity will be honoured in the kingdom of God . Nothing of genuine worth in God’s sight will ever be lost.

John knows that however cruel tyrannical Rome might be, however shallow and decadent affluent Rome might be, there remains in it much that is humanly good. And this good, of genuine worth in God’s sight, God will preserve.

Then what is the human glory that will find its place in the kingdom of God ?

— the philosophical wisdom of ancient Greece .

— the legal and administrative genius of ancient Rome .

— the architectural genius of mediaeval Europe .

— the painting of the Dutch masters.

— the dramas of the profoundest dramatists.

I often quote a line from Elie Wiesel, one of the premier writers of the past fifty years and a Nobel prizewinner. Wiesel says, “A poet’s word is worth a thousand pictures.” Then the poet’s word will be preserved as well.

What about music? Myself, I am especially fond of the music of Mozart. So was Karl Barth, the most prolific theologian of the twentieth century. Barth was strictly an amateur when it came to music. Yet he had his opinions, like the rest of us. In his opinion Bach and Beethoven were excellent musicians. Bach, however, said Barth, tried too hard to make a point in his music. Beethoven wrote about himself; his music was overtly autobiographical. But Mozart; Mozart gave expression to sheer joy, sheer delight. In a 1955 article Karl Barth wrote, “…our daily bread must also include playing. I hear Mozart …at play. But play is something so lofty and demanding that it requires mastery. And in Mozart I hear an art of playing as I hear it nowhere else….When I hear Mozart I am transported to the threshold of a world that in sunlight and storm, by day and by night, is a good and ordered world.”

Nothing of genuine human worth will ever be lost in the kingdom of God , the New Jerusalem.

VII: — It’s time to return to our text. “The Spirit and the Bride say ‘Come’.” The Spirit is the Spirit of God, the power in which Jesus Christ speaks and acts. The Bride is the city of God , the New Jerusalem, the kingdom of God , the entire creation healed. The Spirit and the new creation that God established in the triumph of his Son over the myriad plagues of evil and sin; the Spirit and the new creation call to us, even as God himself renders it all believable and desirable.

The Spirit and the Bride say ‘Come’. Let all who are thirsty take the water of life without price. For from this city flows the water of life, and this life-giving water will

strengthen our fellowship,

magnify our redeemer,

arm us to resist the plagues of evil,

equip us to fend off the seductions of affluence,

and even move us to treasure that human accomplishment which God will preserve.

The Spirit and the Bride say ‘Come’. Let all who are thirsty take the water of life without price.

There comes from the most violent book in the bible an invitation that couldn’t be warmer.

Victor Shepherd
March 2008 preached Sunday 9th March in St.Andrew’s United Church, Markham, Ontario

Bearing the Beams of Love

Christmas Sunday 2008

I: — I played hockey for twelve seasons. I never weighed more than one hundred and fifty-five pounds. I regularly played against two hundred and ten pound gorillas who were as mean as a junk-yard dog. I survived the twelve seasons inasmuch as I always knew how to protect myself on the ice. I took to heart the advice which Ted “Scarface” Lindsay gave to Stan Mikita when Mikita moved from junior hockey to the NHL. Mikita, a smaller fellow, had voiced his fear that he wasn’t tough enough to play in the NHL. “Stan”, Lindsay said, “as long as the stick is in your hand you are as tough as anyone on the ice. Never drop your stick.”

Because I could always protect myself on the ice I was all the more surprised to learn, years later, that I couldn’t protect myself politically, institutionally. Politically I was as defenceless as a first-time skater standing on wobbly legs at centre ice: he’s unable even to get out of the way, never mind run down anyone else.

Subsequently I learned that not only could I not protect myself politically, institutionally, I couldn’t protect myself psychologically. I seemed to get bushwacked emotionally — or felt I got bushwacked — in a way that most people seemed to avoid, or at least disguise. I seemed unable either to avoid it or disguise it.

I concluded that I had to learn to protect myself. Detachment was to be my first piece of armour. “Be laid back”, I told myself over and over. “Be detached (by now it was a mantra); stay cool; keep your gut unhooked.” It all went exceedingly well, and I thought I was really progressing at remaking myself psychologically; it all went well, that is, for three hours. Then the phone rang. A forty-three year old woman had called me from Mississauga ’s Credit Valley Hospital out-patient department. She needed a ride from the hospital to work. Take a cab? She wanted to talk to me. She was riddled with tumours, skinny as a broom handle, and had just had her pain-killer dosage increased. Her skin-colour was a ghastly yellow-green-brown and she was struggling to keep upright a marriage that was close to capsizing. End of detachment. End of being laid back. Gut hooked all over again.

Then I recalled the words of Gerald May, MD. Gerald May is an American physician, now living in Washington , who has written much in the field of spiritual direction. (A spiritual director, different from a pastoral counsellor or a psychotherapist, is someone who helps individuals discern and assist the movement of God’s grace within them and God’s way for them.) Professionally Gerald May is a psychiatrist who served, at one time, with the United States Air Force in Viet Nam . In one of his many books May has written, “Some wisdom deep inside us knows it’s impossible to love safely; we either enter it undefended or not at all”. We can’t love safely; either we love defencelessly or we don’t love. Instantly I admitted to myself what I had known in my heart all along, despite my short-lived efforts at detachment and coolness: I admitted that a disciple of Jesus Christ whose preoccupation is survival is no disciple at all. Dr. May is correct. We can’t love safely.

Next I pondered the two lines from the poet, William Blake, which May quoted in his book, The Awakened Heart.

And we are put on earth a little space

That we might learn to bear the beams of love.

Gerald May says only three things about this quotation. We are to bear love in the three dictionary senses of “bear”. (i) We are to grow in our capacity to endure love’s beauty and love’s pain. (ii) We are to carry love and spread it around — “as children carry and spread measles and laughter”, he adds. (iii) We are to bring love to birth. When I read this I was so startled that I didn’t move. Slowly my mind spun out what it is to bear love in this three-fold sense.

II(i): — We must grow in our capacity to endure love’s beauty and love’s pain. Love’s beauty we understand. But love’s pain? Does love pain? Can it? Yes. And in my older age I have come to see that beauty brings with it its own pain.

When the Shepherd family was last in England we travelled into the Yorkshire moors. Everyone has some picture of the Yorkshire moors, thanks to the writings of the Yorkshire veterinarian, James Herriott. He hasn’t exaggerated. We Shepherds walked together upon the moors as the sun was setting. I shan’t attempt to describe it. Suffice it to say it was so beautiful as to leave us dumbfounded. The beauty was so exquisitely beautiful as to border on the surreal. In the next instant the beauty seemed so intense as to make us ache. The beauty surrounding us contrasted so very sharply with the unbeauty we find on so many fronts in life that this wordless beauty brought with it a peculiar kind of pain.

In the midst of the unlove which we find on so many fronts in life we are startled when we find ourselves loved with a love whose intensity is beautiful, to be sure, and whose beauty makes us ache. When we are loved not because we are useful to someone else, not because we are needed or convenient; when we are loved for our own sake, loved for love’s sake — this is when we learn what it is to endure the exquisite beauty and ache of love.

It’s easy to confuse love with other linkages. My adult daughters love me; they are also counting on an inheritance. My wife loves me; she is also legally bound to me. My mother loves me; she is also old and sick and has made me executor of her will and granted me power of attorney. What’s more, all of these people to whom I am related by blood or marriage would be considered nasty, deficient themselves, if they didn’t love me. At the same time, none of this means that they don’t love me for my sake, love me for love’s sake.

Still, there are circumstances where the love with which we are loved can only be love for our sake, love for love’s sake, because we aren’t linked in any way to those who love us. I marvel at the love with which I am loved when this or that person who loves me will never profit from my estate, never be the beneficiary of my life-insurance, never have any legal tie to me; when in fact there is no material advantage to loving me, no social advantage — no advantage of any kind in loving me. Yet they continue to pour upon me a love whose beauty is so beautiful as to make me ache. Not only is there no advantage accruing to them; there is every disadvantage. For I have embarrassed them in public on occasion. I have committed social gaffes in their presence that left them wishing (for a few minutes, anyway) that I was at someone else’s party. I have plunged them into emotional anguish just because they were so closely identified with me in my emotional anguish. And I have perplexed them as they stood speechless before my incomprehensible spasms of irrationality.

The longer I live the more amazed I am at all of this; which is to say, the longer I live the more I must grow in my capacity to endure love and not flee it, not find it so strange as to be foreign, not resist it inasmuch as I can’t control it, not allow its singularity to diminish its glory. The longer I live the more I must cherish it and grow in my capacity to endure it.

We must bear love in the sense of growing in our capacity to endure love’s beauty and love’s pain.

(ii) — In the second place we are to bear love in the sense of carrying love and spreading it. Surely we are to carry it and spread it chiefly unselfconsciously. I know, there are situations where we have to clench our teeth and resolve that contempt won’t consume our love. There are days when we have to fight the temptation to despise or hate as surely as our Lord fought assorted temptations in the wilderness. But we can’t be fighting all the time. We can’t have our teeth clenched and our resolve clothesline-taut all the time — or else we’d be grim, grim as death. We carry or spread love chiefly unselfconsciously.

Ever since Louis Pasteur published his discoveries we have known about the transmission of communicable diseases. Such diseases move throughout the human population by means of germs; invisible to the naked eye, but no less real for that. In a fallen world disease is naturally contagious. And in a fallen world contempt is naturally contagious too. No one has to be taught to despise others; left alone, humankind does it naturally in this, the era of the Fall. Then love can be spread only by an infusion of God’s Spirit. Only the Spirit (everywhere in scripture the Spirit is the effectual presence of God) can cause the love we pour out on others to do something besides run off them like rain slicking off an umbrella. Only the Spirit of God can cause love to stick to others, to penetrate, to swell, and to declare that love has brought forth its increase in someone (all of us) who is, in some measure, love-deprived.

The body’s immune system is a good thing. It keeps us from falling sick with scores of different diseases in the same day. Yet there is one place where the body’s immune system is counter-productive: when we need a heart-transplant. Here our immune system has to be overridden or we shall reject the one thing we need most.

We human beings have an immune system, as it were, of a different sort as well. It keeps us from being “suckered” by every last fad, notion, idea, ideology, ploy, scheme, deviousness. And yet there is one place where our beneficial immune system (it renders us rightly suspicious) must be overridden by the Spirit of God if we aren’t to reject love. Only God himself can do this. And this is precisely what he has promised to do. We shall leave him to do it, even as he leaves us to what we must do: bear love in the sense of carrying it, spreading it.

(iii): — We are to bear love, finally, in the sense of bringing it forth. Once again it’s the case that of ourselves we can’t. Just as we, of ourselves, can’t make our love for others adhere to them, so we can’t, of ourselves, quicken love in them, bring forth in them that love which is soon to be love from them. Of ourselves we can’t render someone else a loving person. Once again only God can; and once again he has promised to do this as he takes up and honours our unselfconscious commitment to people who find in our commitment to them what they have found nowhere else.

Gerald May once more, the psychiatrist whose work has meant so much to me: May was with the United States Air Force in Viet Nam where he worked in the psychiatric ward of a military hospital, then returned home where he worked in an American prison before moving on to a state psychiatric hospital. Working in these three venues occupied twenty years of his life. He says these twenty years were bleak, indescribably bleak. Every day he drove to work wondering what on earth he was doing, even what on earth he thought he was doing. For instance, every day he spoke with a woman, a patient in a state hospital, who never said a word. This patient not only said nothing; she appeared so vacant as not even to notice him when he was speaking to her. Still he didn’t ignore her (even though it’s difficult not to ignore someone who is utterly unresponsive) but always did his medical duty by her, changing medications and writing up charts, speaking to her every day, mute though she remained. This situation continued for six months. One day, in the course of the same hospital routine, he was fishing in his jacket pockets for a “light” when this unspeaking woman walked out of the room into the corridor and wordlessly, silently beckoned a nurse to her. “Dr. May needs matches for his pipe”, the psychotic woman said. Only God can bring love to birth; and God does precisely this as he takes up and honours the commitments we make to others.

III: — It is Christmas Sunday. Today we praise God for incarnating in the babe of Bethlehem that love which God is himself, for the Incarnation is the outer expression of the innermost heart of God.

Unquestionably the Incarnate One bore love in the threefold sense of “bear.” Jesus most certainly received love from others; he endured that love which is so exquisitely beautiful as to ache. When the adoring woman poured the costliest perfume on his feet he remarked, “She has done a beautiful thing to me…. she has anointed my body beforehand for burying.” (Mark 14:6,8) (There we have both love’s beauty and love’s pain.)

Just as certainly Jesus carried love, spread it, spread it with his crucified, spread-out arms. As the gospel writer attests: “Having loved his own who were in the world, Jesus loved them to the end.” (John 13:1)

And just as certainly Jesus brought love to birth. Matthew was a tax-collector who had “sold out” to Rome and now stood to gain financially by collaborating. Simon was a zealot, a terrorist who had vowed the assassination of every last collaborator he could safely stab. What kept these two men in the same apostolic band except the love which Jesus had brought to birth in both? What else kept Jews and Gentiles in the same congregation when Gentiles had always regarded Jews as anti-intellectual and inflexible, while Jews had always regarded Gentiles as bereft of God and shamelessly immoral? What else keeps any congregation in one fellowship?

You and I are to “bear the beams of love”, in the words of the poet, William Blake. We can bear love in the three-fold sense of enduring its beauty and its pain, carrying it and spreading it, and committing ourselves to those in whom God will bring it to birth; we can do this just because he whose birth we celebrate in this season has done it already and done it in us.

Then come, let us adore him, for he is Christ the Lord.

The Reverend Dr Victor Shepherd
Advent IV 21st December 2008
Church of St. Bride, Anglican Mississauga

Good News, Great Joy, A Saviour who is Christ the Lord

The world is always looking both for good news and for great joy. The world also knows that there won’t be great joy unless there’s first good news. Everyone wants good news. Everyone is aware that newscasts are 90% bad news. “All we ever hear on TV or radio is bad news” people complain. “Why can’t we hear good news for a change?”

The answer isn’t hard to find. We live in a fallen world. The “prince” of this world, says Jesus (not king, to be sure, but certainly prince) is characteristically a liar and a killer. Omnipresent evil means that lethal falsification riddles everything. Sophistic savagery is always ready-to-hand. It’s no wonder that newscasts announce troubles of every sort in every place. Nevertheless, we long to hear good news.

But we don’t want “good news” that’s make-believe. We want good news that’s good because true. There can be such good news only if in the midst of evil and evil-quickened conflict there is the profounder reality of God’s definitive incursion into human affairs. There can be good news only if he who is prince of this world is bested by the one who is king.

Christmas is this good news. Christmas isn’t wishful thinking or sentimental froth or saccharine make-believe. Christmas is that good news which is true, real, profound; good news good enough to engender great joy – and all of this just because there has been born to us a Saviour who is Christ the Lord.

“Christ” the Lord? What does “Christ” mean? The child whose coming among us we celebrate in Advent isn’t named Jesus Christ in the way that I am Victor Shepherd. “Christ” isn’t his family name. It’s a description. It means “anointed”. Our Lord is the anointed one, anointed by his Father for our blessing.

Throughout Israel ’s history three figures were anointed: priests, prophets, kings. When we are told that Jesus is the Christ, the anointed one, we know that he gathers up in himself what priests and prophets and kings embodied, as well as that to which they pointed as they too looked for the coming one.

Since we have good news and great joy only because of the anointed one, Christ, we must probe what it means to say that in him priests and prophets and kings find their fulfilment.

I: — Let’s begin with the priests. Priests ministered in the temple, where sacrifices were offered daily. The sacrifices were the core of worship inasmuch as sincere worshippers knew themselves to be sinners. They knew that defiled sinners had no right to approach the holy God. They knew that defiled sinners couldn’t survive approaching the holy God. The temple sacrifices were the God-appointed means whereby people who could claim nothing and merited nothing except God’s judgement could nonetheless find a Father who cherished them and a Forgiver who pardoned them – and all of this without in any way compromising his holiness or denying their unrighteousness. The sacrifices in the temple gave people access to God precisely where they knew their sin otherwise barred them from him.

Today, of course, we are fastidious people. We are careful to use deodorant, perfume, shaving lotion, cologne, air-wick. Today we should find the temple scene repulsive. Think of the sounds that animals make when they know their end is upon them; the smells they make. Think of the priest gathering a basinful of blood and throwing it over the steps surrounding the altar.

Alas, I fear we are too fastidious. We are shallow in our self-understanding: either we don’t think ourselves to be sinners at all or we think our sinnership to be trivial. We are cavalier in our approach to God: of course he’s going to forgive us, since that’s the business he’s in – said Voltaire on our behalf.

Ancient people knew better. They knew that sin is lethal. (Exactly what sin kills you and I could list for the next six months.) They knew that sin breaks God’s heart, provokes God’s anger, and arouses God’s disgust. And because it does all this, the forgiving of sin is never cheap. Forgiveness is always and everywhere costly.

Costly for whom? The animal brought to the temple was the best the worshipper owned. It cost a great deal to give up. And because it was a male animal, invaluable for purposes of breeding and therefore lucrative for the owner as well, when that animal was offered up to God the worshipper knew she had renounced her ticket to superiority of all kinds and was casting herself and her entire future on God.

What’s more, as the priest sacrificed the animal in the temple the worshipper placed her hand on it as a sign of her personal identification with the life offered up on her behalf. Sobered now at what her reconciliation to God cost, she surrendered herself anew to him in gratitude and adoration.

The day came when the woolly lamb in the temple was no longer the sacrifice. The day came when the curly-haired baby in the manger grew up and offered himself as the Lamb of God. Plainly he is the sacrifice by which a rebellious world is reconciled to God. Yet because he has offered himself, he is also the priest who offers up the sacrifice. As priest he’s the anointed one.
Because he’s the anointed one offering himself for our sakes, you and I all humankind have access to God. We have an access to God we don’t deserve yet which God has fashioned for us in his mercy, thanks to his Son. While our sin breaks God’s heart and provokes his anger and arouses his disgust, the sacrifice our “great high priest” offers up for us gathers up God’s heartbreak and anger and disgust and defuses it all, thereby allowing any and all who want to go home to go home.

“Oh, Shepherd”, someone objects; “Why do you get into something this heavy at Christmas? Why don’t you say something light at Christmas and save the ‘heavy’ for another day?” As a matter of fact there are several reasons why the Advent sermons should be substantial.

[1] There are usually people in church at this season who won’t hear the gospel announced for months, and they should hear something besides froth.

[2] We always administer Holy Communion in Advent. The service of Holy Communion graphically depicts our Lord’s sacrifice. Surely no one is going to tell me that the truth of the cross may be seen in the Lord’s Supper at Christmas but it mustn’t be heard in the sermon at Christmas.

[3] We sing carols at Christmas, and the best hymn on our Lord’s sacrifice happens to be a Christmas carol, “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing”. Listen to the words:

Hark! The herald angels sing ‘Glory to the newborn king’.

Peace on earth, and mercy mild; God and sinners reconciled.

Or listen to another stanza:

Mild he lays his glory by, Born that man no more should die;

Born to raise the sons of earth, Born to give them second birth.

The baby in the manger was born precisely in order that he might become the offering on the cross. He is the lamb of God, given us by the Father for the reconciliation of any and all who place their hand on the anointed one himself. Jesus our Lord is sacrifice and priest together.

II: — Not only were priests presiding at sacrifices anointed; prophets were too. Prophets were those who spoke for God and thereby acquainted their hearers with God. Prophets teach; as they teach about God, God himself takes over their teaching, as it were; God himself surges over hearers so that hearers are overtaken, then overwhelmed, and finally constrained to confess that God-in-person has addressed them.

The prophets were aware of much that modernity has forgotten. For one, the prophets knew that no amount of gazing inside ourselves will ever inform us of the truth of God or acquaint us with the person of God. They knew that every last human being is a bundle of contradictions. Looking inside ourselves, therefore, will only inform us of a bundle of contradictions. Two, the prophets were aware that no amount of gazing outside ourselves will ever inform us of the truth of God or acquaint us with the person of God. Looking outside ourselves informs us of what’s “out there”: suffering, grief, propaganda, treachery, waste, and war.

To be sure, the prophets never denied that self-contradicted people living in a convoluted world could nevertheless do much that is marvellous; they would readily have admitted that we can do, and do superbly well, philosophy, engineering, science, music, poetry, mathematics. The prophets denied, however, that we can inform ourselves of the truth of God or acquaint ourselves with the person of God. For this to occur something else is needed; specifically, what’s needed is someone who has faced God, has heard him, and now turns to face us to speak for God.

One thing above all else makes the Hebrew prophets “tick”: they have heard God speak. Having heard God speak, they find themselves constrained to speak on his behalf. All the Hebrew prophets are aware that they have been admitted to the Besoth Yahweh, the council of God. They’ve been admitted to the throne-room of the heavenly court. They aren’t presumptuous, engaging God in casual chit-chat. In fact once admitted to the throne-room, they don’t speak to God at all. They describe it all as overhearing; they overhear God talking to himself, as it were. They listen in, reverently, attentively, while God thinks out loud. Suddenly God takes notice of the prophets and speaks to them directly. At this moment the truth of God is stamped upon the prophet; the judgement of God is seared upon the prophet; the mercy of God and faithfulness of God and patience of God are imprinted upon the prophet indelibly.

At this point the prophet turns around from facing God in the throne-room and faces the people in the community. “The Word of God is fire in my mouth”, Jeremiah cries to his people; “I have to let this word out or my mouth will ignite.” Amos says laconically, “God has spoken. Who can but prophesy?”

And so the prophet speaks. He has stood in the council of God. For this reason he can speak authentically of God. As the prophet speaks on God’s behalf, God himself empowers the prophet’s word and renders the prophet’s word a vehicle of God’s self-giving and self-communication. At this point hearers become aware that they aren’t hearing one man’s religious opinion; they aren’t even merely hearing someone speaking on behalf of God. At this point they are hearing God himself.

Jesus is the Christ, the anointed one. He stands in the tradition of the prophets. He speaks for God. Yet as the Incarnate one he speaks for God in a way that no Hebrew prophet could; he speaks conclusively for God just because he is God, Emman-u-el, God-with-us.

A prophet to be sure, yet more than a prophet, Jesus Christ speaks for God as God. Then he is the one we must hear and heed and cling to if we are to know the truth of God and remain fused to the person of God for ever and ever.

III: — Kings were anointed too. Kings were anointed to rule. People today don’t like the sound of “rule”. It sounds coercive, tyrannical, dictatorial, heavy-handed. It sounds as if the king has colossal clout while subjects can only cower. Nobody wants to live under such an arrangement.

In Israel things were different. In Israel the first responsibility of the king wasn’t to boss (let alone tyrannize); the first responsibility of the king was to protect the most vulnerable of the people of God. Vulnerable people might be vulnerable on account of monetary poverty or social oppression or raging disease or military attack from outside the community; they might also be vulnerable on account of treachery from inside the community. Regardless of the source or nature or occasion of the vulnerability, the king’s first responsibility was always to protect those most at risk.

Some kings in Israel met their major responsibility. Most didn’t. Little-by-little it appeared that the only king who would honour this mandate consistently would be the king who was also shepherd, a shepherd-king. David was the shepherd-king in Israel ’s history. David defended the marginalized and vindicated the exploited and protected those at risk for any reason; in addition, in the course of doing all of this David brought glory to his people. At least David did this more consistently than anyone else. But even David proved treacherous.

Little-by-little Israel came to see that God’s people were going to be protected, vindicated, and exalted conclusively only if a shepherd-king appeared who acted with the power of God himself. Then what was needed most was a shepherd-king – human, to be sure – who was also God Incarnate. And this is precisely what we were given at Christmas.

We are the people of God. We need to be safeguarded. Since the world is a battleground of all sorts of conflicts, all of which are at bottom manifestations of the primal conflict, spiritual conflict, we are always at risk of becoming a casualty.

In military engagements casualties include the wounded, the missing and the slain. In the assorted struggles in which we find ourselves and must find ourselves we are going to be wounded from time-to-time. But missing? How could any of God’s people be missing, unlocatable, when God-Incarnate is their shepherd-king? And slain? Wounded as we are from time-to-time, God’s own people can never be wounded fatally. He who is our king, anointed such from eternity, is also resurrection and life. Before God we can’t be slain and we can’t go missing.

We make far too little of this truth, for undeniably events overtake us where we feel we’ve gone missing, and gone missing just because no one seems to miss us. And events overtake us where we feel ourselves slain, unable to rise, unable to go on. But in fact we aren’t slain and we can go on. Our shepherd-king is resurrection and life.

When I was a young man and diligently reading the psalms because I’d been told I should read them, I used to grow weary of reading about the psalmist’s enemies. In every third psalm we heard again the trouble his enemies were causing him and how treacherously they had bushwhacked him and how close they had come to vanquishing him. I began to think the psalmist paranoid. But I see now that he wasn’t paranoid. He was simply aware that nobody has life domesticated; nobody has life tamed; nobody has life under control, despite the fact that we’re all control-freaks. We can find ourselves clobbered on any day, from any quarter, for any reason (or no reason.) Life remains fragile.

Not so long ago I was asked to deliver a guest-lecture at the University of Toronto on John Calvin, progenitor of all English-speaking evangelicals. When I had concluded, the questions came quickly. The ultra-feminists in the audience tried to paint Calvin as anti-woman. I fended that off. The Marxists tried to paint him as uncritical capitalist. I fended that off. On and on it went. Plainly the special interest groups were looking for some way to dismiss him. Finally someone asked, “What is the lens through which Calvin views life? Since all of us have a psycho-social determinant, what’s his?”

“Calvin was a refugee”, I replied; “and like all refugees Calvin knew that life is precarious, earthly rulers can’t be trusted, betrayal is always at hand; above all, Calvin knew that like refugees we are haunted by an outer and inner homelessness that will be overcome only in the eschaton.” The room fell silent. I understood why. Everyone in the room identified with what I had just said about Calvin the refugee.

Because we are finite and fragile, we are physically vulnerable. Because we are wounded, we are emotionally frayed. Because we are sinners, we are spiritually “in a far country” and need to get home.

Who will get us home? Who will safeguard us on our way home? Who will ensure that our innermost core, our identity, remains intact? Only he who is shepherd-king, and effectual shepherd-king just because he is God-with-us, Emmanu-el, shepherd-king-Incarnate.

“Be not afraid”, we are told; “there is good news of a great joy, for to you there is born a Saviour who is Christ, the anointed one, effectual priest and prophet and king.” This one is Lord now, and ever will be.

Victor Shepherd
Advent 2005

Love Means “I Want You to Be”

1st John 4:8
John 3:16
Galatians 2:20

I: — Let’s think first about the creation. On the one hand God doesn’t need the creation; i.e., doesn’t need the creation to be God. God is without deficit or defect. Therefore he doesn’t create in order to find in the creation what he somehow lacks in himself. On the other hand we know that God is life and God is love. God is the one and only “living” God in that God alone has life in himself. Because God is life God alone can impart life. Because God is love he appears to delight in creating and vivifying creatures who aren’t God themselves but who are made to live in love with the God who lives and loves by nature.

To say that God conceived us in love and fashioned us in love and constantly visits us with his love means, says Augustine, that God is forever saying to us, “I want you to be.” Be what? When God creates mountains and monkeys he says, “I want you to be that thing.” When he creates humankind, however, he wants us to be what monkeys and mountains can never be: creatures whose purpose, delight and fruitfulness are found in a living relationship with him, which relationship is love.

The problem is, as everyone knows, that the creation didn’t remain “good” without qualification. Instead the creation was undone (in some respects) by the fall. We who were created to find our purpose, delight and fruitfulness in a living relationship of throbbing love for God now look everywhere else. We who are to reflect back to God the love with which he first loved us and continues to love us now do everything but that. For this reason God can no longer say, “I want you to be.” Now he must say in his judgement, “I want you not to be.” Insofar as God wants us not to be he plainly isn’t the creator; he’s now the destroyer. Anyone who reads scripture attentively knows that as soon as the creator is presumed upon or traded on; as soon as the attempt is made to exploit God or test him, as surely as God is disdained or merely disregarded, the creator becomes the destroyer. Scripture speaks like this on every page.

II: — Yet to another prophet, Hosea this time, God spoke as anguish-riddled a word as we shall ever overhear in scripture: “How can I give you up? How can I hand you over?…My heart recoils within me, my compassion grows warm and tender, for I am God and not man, the Holy One in your midst, and I will not come to destroy.” (Hosea 11:8-9) Not even the destroyer will come to destroy. Then what will he come to do, given his recoiling heart and tender compassion? He will come to save. “For God so loved the world”, is how the apostle John speaks of this truth. “World”, in John’s vocabulary, doesn’t mean what it means in the Oxford English Dictionary; “world” for John is the sum total of men and women who blindly yet culpably disdain their vocation of reflecting back to God the love in which he created us. The “world” is the sum total of men and women who slander God’s goodness and slight his patience and scorn his blessing and ridicule his truth and laugh at his judgements even as they lecture him, “Don’t tell us what to be; we’ll decide for ourselves what we’re going to be. We forge our own identity, and our identity has nothing to do with you.” And then with a love that will forever remain incomprehensible God so loves such ungrateful rebels that he will submit himself to the humiliation of a stable and the horror of a cross. Plainly he’s saying, once more, “I want you to be.”

The love with which God created us appears to have cost him nothing; but the love with which God so loved the world manifestly cost him everything. Christmas clearly cost God everything, for the sole purpose of Christmas is the Christmas gift crucified. John Calvin was fond of saying that the shadow of the cross fell upon the entire earthly life of Jesus. And so it did. The shadow of the cross fell even upon his birth. His birth? Even upon his conception, for on the day that Mary learned she was pregnant she was told, “a sword will pierce through your heart too.” (Luke 2:35) It appears not to have cost God anything to have us come forth in primal splendour. But to have us be born anew, to have us made afresh, to have us be, at last, what we were always supposed to be; this entailed that child, born for us, who from the moment of conception gathered into himself the eventuality of the cross. Christmas, therefore, costs God everything.

III: — “God is love.”(1st John 4:8) It means, “I want you to be, be those made in my image whose love for me reflects my love for them.”

“He loved me, and gave himself – for me! (Gal. 2:20) Listen to the apostle Paul exult. “He loved me!” If love means “I want you to be”, then “He loved me!” can only mean, “I am. At last I truly am. I’m finally alive.” Is this the same as mere existence? If love means “I want you to be”, could we ever substitute, “I want you to exist”? Never! “He loved me!” will never mean, “I exist.” It will always mean, “I am! I truly am! I’m profoundly alive!”

“He loved me!” But didn’t God so love the world? Of course he did, and Paul knows he did. Then why the exclamation, “He loved me!”? It’s because the purpose of the Christmas gift has been fulfilled; fulfilled in this one man at least. The purpose of God’s so loving the world is to have this individual and that individual and yet another come to be: come to abandon herself to the one whose love incarnate for her has brought her to spend the rest of her days in love for him. Yes, God did so love the world; but only the individual can respond. “He loved me!” is precisely the cry of someone who has responded. And in such an individual the Christmas gift has proved fruitful.

We can’t help noticing that when the cry, “He loved me!”, was torn out of the apostle, it wasn’t merely that one matter was settled (he thereafter knew himself loved); ever so much more was settled. In fact, everything was settled. Thereafter he never groped and guessed as to what life means. He never hemmed and hawed, wondering what he was supposed to do with his life. He never drowned in doubt over the significance of his toil and his suffering. He knew what life means, knew what he was to do, knew the significance of his toil and suffering even if those for whom he toiled and suffered didn’t know. And his future? “Life means Christ”, Paul told the Christians in Philippi, “and my dying can only mean more of him.”

Let’s come back to one question Paul never asked. In the wake of “He loved me!” he never asked, “What’s the meaning of life?” He didn’t have to ask it. He wasn’t puzzled. The Christmas gift ends bewilderment here. The Christmas gift embraced restores us to that immediacy and intimacy we crave in our hearts. The Christmas gift cherished finds us no longer asking about the meaning of life, but not because we now have a 10,000 -word answer complete with footnotes. The Christmas gift, rather, has brought us to live in a love to God that reflects the love he has always had for us. Living in such love, in the immediacy and intimacy and contentment of such love, we need neither arguments nor explanations nor demonstrations. When the writer of Proverbs records, “He who finds me finds life!” (Prov. 18:35) we shout, “’Tis true!” When the prophet Amos records, “Seek me and live!” (Amos 5:4), we exult, “Yes!” When the prophet Ezekiel records, “Turn [repent] and live!” (Ez. 18:3), those who have turned to face God simply know it’s true. No longer are we expecting only the detachment of an abstract idea; now we glory in the immediacy of a concrete encounter. “What does life mean?” Those who have embraced the Christmas gift and henceforth resonate the Son’s love for the Father aren’t left asking the question. Those, on the other hand, who are impelled to ask the question are also unable to recognise the answer.

Forever unable? Of course not. Phillips Brooks, author of O Little Town of Bethlehem, writes, “How silently, how silently, the wondrous gift is given. So God imparts to human hearts the blessings of his heaven.” The gift is wondrous; that is, it transcends human comprehension. It is given “silently”; that is, the manner of its impartation is a mystery. Because the gift transcends human comprehension, and because the manner of its impartation is a mystery, you and I are ultimately speechless before the secret work of the Holy Spirit that prepares anyone’s heart for the blessings of heaven. We can’t describe or explain the secret work of the Holy Spirit that moves the person who is incapable of recognising the answer to no longer needing to ask the question. But that there is such a work of God’s Spirit, and that such a work we can’t measure or control or describe or explain; this we never doubt. And therefore we give up on no one; we dismiss no one. Instead we pray, and continue to pray, then pray some more, knowing that in the mystery of God’s secret work “where meek souls will receive him still the dear Christ enters in.” And where Christ enters in someone has come to be. Where Christ enters in the purpose of the incarnation is fulfilled. And the love wherewith that person was created and redeemed is now reflected in her love for our great God and Saviour, who is rightly said himself to be, to be eternally, even as he guarantees as much for all who hold – and hold on to – the infant born in Bethlehem.

Victor Shepherd
Christmas Eve 2002

Son of God, Son of Mary, Son of David

Do you remember when you were a child and you couldn’t wait until Christmas? My sisters and I counted the days. By Christmas Eve we were beside ourselves. On Christmas morning when our parents finally gave us permission to get up, we children were down the stairs like the Kentucky Derby field leaving the starting gate.

There is a man, an old man now, whose anticipation of Christmas is as fresh as a child’s. What excites this old man isn’t the store-bought present wrapped in shiny paper; it’s the manger-born child wrapped in diapers. The old man’s name is Martin Luther. His Christmas exuberance is child-like. No one in the church catholic glories in Christmas in quite the way that Luther does.

There is good reason for this. Luther was no armchair spectator. He was immersed in life. Life had whirled him up into ceaseless turbulence and conflict. He was also immersed in Jesus Christ. And Christ was that luminosity which loomed before him and seized him and leant him righteousness and resilience; a righteousness and resilience that allowed him to resist the deadly forces which otherwise spewed destruction wherever one looked. When Luther spoke of temptation he didn’t mean titillating notions that lingered in one’s head like a catchy tune; he meant something so visceral, so gut-wrenching that even the strongest person shook. When Luther spoke of love, he didn’t mean benign sentiment; he meant the most passionate, self-forgetful self-giving. When Luther spoke of evil, he knew first-hand a horror as grotesque as it was terrible. Many people who are daintier than they should be are put off by Luther’s earthy language. They find it shocking. Do you know what he found shocking? – people who are so naive, so superficial, so clueless that they fail to understand that the world swarms and seethes and heaves. Luther knew that the world is the venue of a cosmic conflict which surges round and about, claiming victims here and there, while from time-to-time the front of this cosmic conflict passes right through your heart and mine. When it does, only the earthiest language is adequate.

Everyone knows what Luther said at the famous confrontation in the city of Worms , 1521. “Here I stand. I can do no other. I cannot and will not recant. God help me.” But few people are aware that he said this not in a spirit of petulant intransigence or puffed-up arrogance. He said this in anguish – anguish for many reasons, not the least of which was this: from that moment until the day he died, twenty-five years later, there was a price on his head. Even fewer people know what his opponent, Emperor Charles V, vowed in the face of Luther’s stand: “I have decided to mobilize everything against Luther: my kingdom, my dominions, my friends, my body, my blood, my soul.” In other words, the opposition Luther would face for the rest of his life was total, relentless, and lethal. And we find his vocabulary exaggerated and his delight in the Christmas gift childish? We should know what he knew: the world is a turbulent and treacherous place for any Christian in any era.

Creatures of modernity like you and me think we live in an ideational world. If we pass a motion at a meeting, we assume that a problem has been dealt with. If the House of Commons passes new legislation, we assume that injustice has been rectified. We assume that to discuss a social problem dispels the problem. We mull over different philosophies and compare them with “Christianity.” Luther didn’t speak of “Christianity;” he was possessed by the Christmas babe himself. He didn’t finesse theories of evil; he was confronted with powers of darkness so intense and so penetrating that either he looked to the One who is indeed victor or he unravelled.

I understand why Luther delighted in Christmas, why he looked forward to December 25th with a child’s tremulous longing. Then what is it about the manger-gift that sustained the Wittenberger then and sustains us now?

I: — First, he who adorns the manger is the Son of God. “Son of” in biblical parlance means “of the same nature as”. To behold the child who is Son of God is to behold the nature of God; or at least as much as can be beheld. Luther didn’t dispute the truth that God is magnificent, mighty, (almighty, in fact); God is resplendent, glorious, incomparably so. Luther never disputed this. He also said that we never see it. The God whose majesty is indescribable is hidden from us. But Christmas celebrates not God hidden but God revealed. And God revealed appears in the world as we are in the world: weak, vulnerable, suffering, bleeding.

The Nicene Creed says that “for us and our salvation the Son of God came down from heaven…” Came down? Yes. A condescension. Came down. Self-abasement. Humility? Certainly. Yet more than humility: humiliation. There’s a difference.

It is wonderful that God humbled himself for our sakes; wonderful that he didn’t confine himself to his splendour but accommodated himself to us his creatures. Yet immeasurably more wonderful is it that for our sakes he knew not merely humility, but even humiliation. We read in the gospels that the detractors of Jesus hissed that our Lord was illegitimate. “Why should we heed — or even hear — a bastard like you?” they taunted contemptuously. When he died, the same people quoted the book of Deuteronomy: “Cursed is he who hangs on a tree.” “That proves it!” the head-waggers chattered knowingly, “We were right to shun him. He was cursed by God all along. What insight we had from the start!” Humiliation? Crucifixion was a Roman penalty reserved for those deemed scum: military deserters, terrorists and rapists. Jesus is lumped in with that crowd.

Then there’s the cry of dereliction, “Why have you forsaken me?” It’s the most anguish-ridden cry that Jesus ever uttered. Yet since the Father and the Son are of the same nature, the cry of the Son’s dereliction is simultaneously the cry of the Father himself. It’s the cry of someone who has voluntarily undergone enormous wounding for the sake of those he holds dear. The cry of dereliction is really the cry of God himself over the pain of his torn heart, suffered for the sake of us whom he plainly loves more than he loves himself.

Not the hidden God (splendid, magnificent, majestic) but the revealed God (suffering, humbled, humiliated, slain;) only the revealed God can help us, said Luther. For only the revealed God has identified fully, identified himself wholly with the grief and guilt, turbulence and turpitude, conflict and slander and suffering that surround my life and yours. Only this God is of any help to us.

Luther used to say that the most comforting words in all of scripture are the six words – what do you think the six most comforting words are? – of the preface to the Ten Commandments: “I am the Lord your God.” If we really understood these six words, he said, we should be invincible. And who is the Lord our God? The God of manger and cross who will go to any length to seize, save and secure those whom he has named his own.

II: — Yet there is more to the manger-gift. Not only is he Son of God, he is also son of Mary. Jesus isn’t apparently human or seemingly human but actually human, fully human. “Tempted at all points as we are”, is the way the NT speaks of him. The one Greek word, PEIRAZEIN, means tempted, tested and tried all at once. Tempted, tested and tried like us but with this difference: he was never deflected in his human obedience, trust and love for his Father. He didn’t capitulate in the face of either the tempter’s threats or the tempter’s seductions.

Let’s talk about temptation for a minute. We modern types always assume that temptation is primarily temptation to do something wrong, temptation to commit a misdemeanour, temptation to contradict a code. But in scripture temptation is primarily temptation to deny the goodness of God. First we deny the goodness of God; next we deny the goodness of God’s claim upon our obedience (his claim upon our obedience, is of course our blessing;) finally we spurn the claim and disobey him – as we violate him and thereby violate ourselves. It’s not that we have done something wrong; rather, we have cast aspersion on the goodness of God and the goodness of his claim; the bottom line is that we have violated our relationship with God even as we have violated our very own person. It’s no wonder the Anglican Prayer Book reminds us, “And there is no health in us.”

He who is the son of Mary has been given to us as the one human being who doesn’t succumb to temptation; the one human being whose obedience to his Father is uncompromised, whose trust in his Father is undeflected, whose love for his Father is unrivalled by any other attachment. Then by faith I must cling to the Son of Mary, because my obedience is compromised a dozen times per day; my trust is fitful, and my love for God is forever being distracted by lesser attachments. The human response to God that I should make and even want to make has been corrupted, since I am a creature of the Fall.

Then of myself I can never render God the obedience and trust and love which befit the child of God. Nevertheless, there is provision for me: I can identify myself with the one whose human relationship to his Father is everything that mine isn’t. In faith I can cling gratefully to the son of Mary.

In the last few years family-therapists have come to appreciate the damage sustained by adults who came from what are called “shame-bound families.” We’re speaking now of the adult whose childhood unfolded in a family where the all-consuming preoccupation was the deep, dark family-secret that had to be kept secret. If the secret were told, public shame would spill over the family. Therefore any number of lies, evasions, and smokescreens were invented to cover up whoever it was in the family, whatever it was in the family, that threatened the family’s artificial reputation. The adult child of the shame-bound family now finds herself guilt-ridden, fearful, inhibited.

To belong to the family of God is to be relieved of being shame-bound. In the Son of God God has identified himself with me completely; all that is or might be shameful about me God has taken on and absorbed himself. In the Son of Mary, on the other hand, I have identified myself with the man Jesus. Whatever is genuinely shameful about me is taken up into the righteous humanness of Jesus himself. In his humanness he is the one with whom the Father is well-pleased. In faith, then, I cling to him, and in him my shame is bleached and blotted out.

III: — Lastly, the manger-gift is also the son of David. When people hailed Jesus as the son of David they were recognizing him as the Messiah. David had been Israel ’s greatest king, despite his undeniable feet of clay. David had valiantly tried to redress the injustices that pock-marked the nation. David was a harbinger, a precursor of the day when the just judge of the earth would no longer be defied and a topsy-turvy world would finally be righted.

Make no mistake. The world is topsy-turvy. A man who fails to hit a baseball seven times out of ten is guaranteed ten million dollars per year for the next five years. Meanwhile homemakers are selling daffodils on street corners because cancer patients needing treatment have been told that there’s a six-month waiting list for the equipment. The public education budget increases every year – and so does the incidence of illiteracy. Please note: concerning illiteracy Canada has surpassed both the United States and Italy . Canada is now, per capita, the most illiterate nation of the west – and all of this despite unprecedented billions spent on public education.

Anyone who struggles, like King David of old, to redress the injustices of the world learns quickly how frustrating, absurd and heartbreaking the struggle can be. A friend of mine who administers a facility for battered women was invited to duplicate the facility in another municipality, simply because of that municipality’s need. (In other words, wife-beating shows no signs of going out of style.) The institution she represents was offered free land by a developer. She spoke to municipal civil servants as well as to elected representatives. They promised to support her. When a public discussion was called concerning the project, however, both municipal staff and elected representatives sniffed the political wind-direction and turned on her. They didn’t merely withdraw the support they had promised; they faked surprise, as though they were hearing her for the first time, and then they denounced her, as though what she proposed (a facility for battered women) were antisocial and irresponsible and even patently ridiculous. (You see, a facility for battered women attracts creepy males as surely as a garbage dump attracts rats – so she was told.) I saw my friend two days after the event. She was still punch-drunk. She was shocked at the betrayal, the savagery, the greasy opportunism of it all. Luther wasn’t shocked at this. He was shocked at ignorant, fastidious people found his language shocking when he tried to address it.

The whole world cries out for the son of David, however inarticulately or unknowingly, just because the world cannot correct itself. As a matter of fact, the world is not getting better and better, however slowly. Then is hopelessness the only sensible attitude to have? Not for a minute. The manger-gift is the son of David, the Messiah promised of old, the royal ruler who will right the capsized world on that Day when he fashions a world in which righteousness dwells.

Then you and I must never capitulate to hopelessness. Neither do we disillusion ourselves with naiveness. Instead we faithfully, patiently, do whatever we can in anticipation of that Day when justice is done. And if what we do in anticipating this Day plunges us into even greater conflict for now, then our friend Luther will smile at us and say, “I could have told you that; I always knew that the appearance of Jesus Christ provokes conflict.” And at such a time we shall have to find our comfort and cheer in that manger-gift, the child of Bethlehem , who made Luther’s eyes light up like a child’s on Christmas morning.

He who has been given to us is the Son of God, the son of Mary, and the son of David.

As the Son of God he is God humbling himself, even humiliating himself in seeking to save us.

As the son of Mary he renders the Father the proper human response that we should make but can’t, and therefore we must cling to him in faith.

As the son of David he is the long-promised Messiah who guarantees us a righted world in which righteousness will one day be seen to dwell.

The Reverend Dr Victor Shepherd
Advent II 7th December 2008
Church of St Bride, Anglican, Mississauga

Of Eden and Advent

Luke 1:46-55
Genesis 3

I: Why is there unrelenting tension between men and women? Women feel set upon by men, victimized, violated even. In the wake of the feminist protest men feel misunderstood, maligned, even conspired against.

Why is the struggle for survival just that, a struggle? We wouldn’t mind working hard if we knew that fruitfulness followed our work as surely as night follows day. But whether we are farmers or physicians, office-workers or educators, something is always going wrong; we are never clear of frustration; we are forever having to scramble and scrabble.

Why is it that mere difference between groups of people becomes the occasion of lethal hostility? As slight a difference as the difference between brown skin and white skin and black skin shouldn’t precipitate mayhem and murder. But it does!

Why are we profoundly discontented ourselves? We thought that the new house would make us happy — and it did, for three weeks or so. The new car lifted our spirits — until our neighbour drove up with a costlier car.

Why is it that humankind never advances? To be sure, we make progress in the realm of science; that is, we progress insofar as we harness nature. But humankind itself makes no progress at all. Our foreparents sinned and suffered and slew; we sin and suffer and slay. History, we have learned, is the history of warfare. Having learned this, however, we still are powerless to do anything about it.

Why is it that everyone blames everyone else for what’s wrong? The socialist blames the stony-hearted capitalist with his exploitative greed. The capitalist blames the masses with their pleasure-loving shortsightedness and their irresponsible undependability. Everyone points the finger and says, “It’s your fault!”

Our foreparents contended with bubonic plague; then with smallpox; then with tuberculosis. Now we contend with aids and its social aftermath. Is humankind on a treadmill?

Here is my last question, a different question. Why is the gospel “good news”? Wherein is it good news? If it’s genuinely good, it has to be more than news, because the last thing we need is more words. If it is genuinely good, then it has to be a new reality.

II: — Today is the first Sunday in Advent. Today we begin looking ahead to the birth of him whom St.John describes as “the remedy for the defilement of our sins.” In order to understand our defilement — its nature, its scope, its inescapability — we must go back to the old, old story of the Fall.

Adam and Eve — “humankind” and “mother of the living” is what their names mean respectively. This story is a parable of every man and every woman.

In this profound saga God has placed Adam and Eve in a garden; Eden, it is called, the Hebrew word for “delight”. Life is blessed here. Everything they need to nourish themselves is ready-to-hand. God’s provision attests his goodness, kindness, helpfulness. There is one thing, however, which they are to avoid. They must not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Now “good and evil” is a Hebrew expression meaning, “everything you can think of; the sum total of human possibilities.” Imagine yourself doing anything at all; I mean anything. The sum total of these “anythings at all” is what the Hebrew mind means by “good and evil”.n Adam and Eve are forbidden to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil for one reason: God loves them, God blesses them, God protects them. Among these “anythings at all” which we imagine ourselves doing; among these are a great many which do not bless: they curse us. Among these are many which do not enrich us; they impoverish us. Many do not protect us; they expose us to influences and powers which are ultimately fatal.

A physician-friend of mine dropped over to see me one evening. He asked me if I knew what the single largest threat to public health was in the world today. I didn’t. He told me: promiscuity. Then we talked about “crack”. The first wave of crack-babies has entered school. Already it is incontrovertible that these children have attention spans so short that they are not going to learn anything; they bristle with the ugliest hostility, and they are unable to form any conscience at all. Does anyone still doubt that there are some “anythings at all” which really are ruinous? The two I have mentioned are dramatic and glaring. There are other “anythings at all” which are far more subtle; discernment is needed to recognize them. Yet discern we should, since in eden, Eden, God wants only to protect us and bless us.

In our ancient story (as relevant, of course as today’s newspaper which confirms it one hundred times over) temptation is personified by a talking snake. (Don’t laugh; even fairy tales are always profound.) Temptation personified says softly, “Now about this tree whose fruit you are not to eat; did God really say you were not to eat it? Did he really say that?” In other words, temptation casts doubt on the command of God. And since God loves us, to cast doubt on the command of God is to cast aspersion on the love of God and the goodness of God. At this point all of us are whispering to ourselves, “God didn’t say it; or if he did, he had no business saying it; he must be a spoilsport; he is certainly arbitrary.” First we doubt the goodness of God’s command; then we deny that violating it will turn blessing into curse.

In our old story the woman replies to the serpent, “God says that we aren’t to eat of this tree; furthermore, he said we aren’t even to touch it.” She is lying! She exaggerates. As soon as she exaggerates she lies! God never said they weren’t to touch it. She is making this up herself. First, doubt of the goodness of the command of God; second, denial that violating it (violating God himself) turns blessing into curse; third, inventing a law of life for ourselves. We make ourselves lawgivers; we decide by what code we should live. The living voice of the living God isn’t heard at all now, because we are telling ourselves what we think renders life blessed.

The serpent has all of us on the slippery slopes now. The serpent says, “I’m aware that God said you would die; that is, be estranged from God himself, with horrible consequences — I’m aware that God said you would die if you extended your lives into those “anythings at all” which he says are ruinous. But what does he know? You won’t die! Just the opposite! You will be exalted. Your consciousness will be altered. Your mood will be elevated. Life will be beautiful. You will be freed up as never before. Your self-awareness will be expanded until you feel you are the centre of the universe. Your self-confidence will be inflated until you feel there is nothing you can’t succeed at. You will have a perspective on life that you have never had before — the same perspective as that of God himself.”

Adam and Eve eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. “Yada”, the Hebrew verb to know, doesn’t have the force of “to acquire information”. We modern folk assume that to know something is to have information about that thing. To know automobiles is to have information about horsepower and wheel bases. But for our Hebrew foreparents to know always has the force of personal acquaintance with a reality. To know sorrow is to be personally acquainted with grief. To know pain is to be in pain. To know God is to be personally acquainted with God himself. Not to know God is to thrust off God himself; to repudiate him and spurn his goodness and his protection and his blessing. Not to know God, therefore, is to know ‘good and evil’. It is to have personal acquaintance, intimate acquaintance with that reality which impoverishes life, curses it, and ultimately destroys it.

AND THIS IS WHERE WE ALL LIVE! We are — every one of us — profoundly alienated from God, hauntingly alienated, fatally alienated.

III: — And then the question which God puts to Adam, to everyone: “Where are you?” Well, where are you? Where am I? Speaking for all of us Adam says to God, “I’m hiding from you.” How silly! As if anyone could hide from God! Adam is now as ridiculous as the four year old playing hide ‘n’ seek who thinks that because she regards herself hidden away no one else can see her or find her.

To be a fallen human being (which all of us are) is to flee God, flee into hiding, ridiculously thinking that we can hide from God. Our situation fails to be humorous simply because it is tragic. After all, life is not a game. We have said to God, “We don’t want you.” And God has said to us, “You don’t have to have me. But then neither do you have to have my goodness, my protection, my blessing. To do without me — your preference! — is to be stuck with the consequences of doing without me.”

There is something we must understand clearly. To thrust away the only righteous ruler of the earth is to be stuck with manifold unrighteousness and its spinoffs. To cast aspersion on the goodness of God is to wade around in wickedness. To disdain God’s protection is to be defenceless against exploitative evil. To assume that God’s wisdom can be improved upon is to be poisoned with the unwisdom of folly. In a word, to forfeit blessing is to be stuck with curse. AND THIS IS WHERE WE ALL LIVE!

“But can’t we go back to Eden?”, someone asks with more than a hint of desperation. Many attempts are made. All utopias are an attempt at recovering Eden. All such attempts are going to fail. Marxism was such an attempt. Its failure is writ large. Every pronouncement that men and women are only the product of their environment reflects another attempt. Rousseau’s notion of the “noble savage” — that primitive peoples were somehow intrinsically virtuous and were corrupted only by civilization — another attempt. Anyone who disagrees with Jeremiah — “The heart of many is deceitful above all things and desperately corrupt” — anyone who thinks that Jeremiah exaggerates assumes that Eden can be recovered. In our ancient story an angel with a flaming sword bars the way to the tree of life in the garden. We can’t go back and seize the tree of life ourselves and undo the deadly curse we have brought down on ourselves. We cannot resurrect ourselves. We cannot restore ourselves. The flaming sword which turns every which way in the hand of the angel fends off any and all who are so naive and foolish as to think that they or their scheme can undo the Fall and its consequences. Eden cannot be recovered. Looking back is pointless just because going back is impossible.

IV: — Today is the first Sunday in Advent. Advent is the season of longing, of waiting, of expectancy. What are we longing for? We long for Eden. Not everyone uses this vocabulary. Most people long for they know not what. In truth, nonetheless, they long for Eden. What are they waiting for? They are waiting for someone who can undo Eden’s curse. Why the expectancy? Because deep down they want to be delivered from the dis-ease which keeps gnawing at them. They are mature enough to realize that the grab-bag of grown-up trinkets and toys does nothing to the halt the dis-ease which haunts them. But since there is no return to Eden the entire world must be doomed to unending frustration.

Not so! Advent reminds us that we are not to look back, but ahead. In Advent we stand on tiptoe anticipating the very blessing which we cannot give ourselves. In Advent we await Christmas as eagerly as the youngster awaits opening the first gift. THE gift of Christmas for us all, of course, is that new addition to the human family which is more than an addition; the gift is he himself who is both humanity renewed and lord of the renewed humanity.

Advent recalls another woman speaking. Not Eve rationalizing her capitulation to temptation; this time it’s Mary exulting in her service to the world. “My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my saviour… henceforth all generations will call me blessed.” Generations to come will call her blessed, for in her child what we have lost and cannot recover ourselves God has given us just because in his mercy he will suffer anything himself to save us from our self-inflicted misery.

Adam and Eve succumbed to the blandishments of the tempter. But the Christmas child, grown up, will resist the tempter in the wilderness, resist throughout his ministry, resist again in another garden (Gethsemane, this time), resist finally on the cross when mockers tell him he might as well unhook himself since he is not doing any good in any case.

In the garden of Eden we were barred from storming the tree of life in an effort to save ourselves. We are not allowed to arrogate to ourselves what rightly belongs to God alone. Yet by God’s mercy there is another tree. Concerning this tree no angel with flaming sword bars us access. Instead access is guaranteed us and the invitation is sounded continuously: “And I, if I be lifted up, will draw all men unto me.” What hangs from this tree we are urged to taste and so to see for ourselves that God is good indeed.

The apostles discerned that in Jesus Christ we were given not only that saviour whom we need individually. With him we are introduced to a new world. In other words, our Lord brings a renewed creation with him. All who cling to him in faith find their renewed life unfolding in a new world, a new environment.

For this reason Paul says that in Christ there is neither male nor female. He doesn’t mean that gender-distinction is eliminated in a unisex muddle. He means that gender-distinction is preserved and enriched just because gender-hostility is overcome. In Christ there is neither Jew nor gentile. He doesn’t mean that the distinction is eliminated. (Paul was always aware that the gentile world never lets Jews forget that they are Jews; he was also aware that God requires Jews not to forget that they are Jews. He insists that in Christ (and in Christ alone is what he means) the deepest-grained hostility anywhere in the world — the hostility between Jew and non-Jew — is overcome. And if this hostility is overcome in Christ, any hostility is as well. What other instances of renewed life in a renewed world can you share with the rest of us?

A few minutes ago we saw that to do without God, to want to do without God, is to do without God’s blessing and therefore live under curse. But in the One who is God incarnate there is blessing only. How could there be anything else? And therefore in his company that disease which can neither be named nor denied is eclipsed by gratitude for him whose name we now know, whose name, Yehoshuah, means “God saves”, and whom we have no wish to deny.

In Christ our dust-to dust exile is overarched by the promise of resurrection: our destiny is not death, decomposition of body and dissolution of personhood. Our destiny is eternal life at God’s own hand.

The last question I left with you in introduction of the sermon was, “Why is the gospel good news?” It’s good news not in the sense that it is up-to-the-minute information (like Barbara Frum’s broadcast.) It is good news just because it announces a new reality so winsome as to breathe its own invitation.

In Advent we don’t look back in nostalgia and regret; we look ahead in eagerness and confidence. For there is given to us the one whom all humankind craves, whom Christians know to be Jesus the Christ, and who caused Mary’s heart to sing, even as he will make our hearts sing for ever and ever.

F I N I S

Victor Shepherd

Of Mothers and Sons

1 Samuel 1: 12-20
Galatians 4:4-7
Matthew 1:18-25

There are some expressions of human suffering so terrible that the pulpit can mention them only with fear and trembling, in view of the fact that sitting in the pew are those who are suffering the anguish under discussion. One such anguish is childlessness. I have been a pastor now for 32 years, and I have concluded that there is no anguish like the anguish of childlessness.

If it is less than wise for me to discuss this publicly, what I am going to say next is even more foolish, since it may be pilloried as sexist. I think that while it is husband and wife together who are childless, women suffer more, and suffer in a way that is difficult for men to understand. When Hannah was tormented by her childlessness her husband, Elkanah, no doubt heartbroken himself over their infertility, no doubt near-frantic at his wife’s inconsolability, and no doubt clueless as to what to say next; Elkanah finally blurted out, “Am I not more to you than ten sons?” (1 Sam. 1:8) No, he wasn’t more to Hannah than ten children. He was her husband; she was his wife. But she wasn’t anyone’s mother. Wife is categorically different from mother! Elkanah was her husband; he couldn’t be more to her than ten children; he couldn’t even be more to her than one child.

Today, in this Advent season, we are going to look at four childless women — and at four children (sons) whom the world will never forget, as it will never forget their mothers.

I: — The first we shall look at is Sarah. She was to be the foremother of all God’s people. God had promised her and her husband, Abraham, descendants as numberless as the sands on the seashore. Before there can be numberless descendants, however, there has to be one; yet Sarah was childless. It’s difficult to believe in God’s promises, isn’t it, to keep on believing year after year!

Then Sarah was told she would conceive. She laughed. Being told, at her age, that she would conceive was as ludicrous as my being told that I am going to be the next middleweight boxing champion of the world. Laughter befits the ludicrous.

But Sarah did conceive, and gave birth to Isaac, the Hebrew word for “laughter”. Now it was easy to believe in the promises of God.

Or was it? For the day came all too soon when her faith in the promise-keeping God was tested. Her husband was told to offer up their son Isaac as a sacrifice to God; Isaac, their son, their only son.

Their dilemma was this. God had promised numberless descendants within the household of faith, generation after generation. Two things were needed for the fulfilment of the promise concerning the household of faith: people who were descended from Abraham and Sarah, and people of faith who were descended from Abraham and Sarah. If Ab. and S. obeyed God and offered up Isaac, then their faith was intact but their descendants were snuffed out. On the other hand, if they second-guessed God and preserved Isaac, then descendants were guaranteed (biological descendants), but in their second-guessing and disobeying God faith was snuffed out — with the result, of course, that there would be no descendants of faith.

In other words, if they obeyed God in faith, the promise was null and void since there would be no descendant. If, on the other hand, they disobeyed God in unfaith, the promise was null and void since there would be no descendant of faith. Regardless of what they did, the promise was null and void — when all the while they had been called to faith in the promise-keeping God. So what were they to do?

With unspeakable anguish of heart they elected to obey God and trust him to keep his promise to them even though they couldn’t see how God was ever going to keep his promise! Rather than second-guess God and try to sort out for him what he couldn’t seem to sort out for himself, they elected to trust God and trust him to sort out for them what they couldn’t sort out for themselves. And so with breaking hearts they trudged up Mount Moriah, knife in hand, determined to trust God to fulfil his own promise in ways beyond their imagining — only to find that a ram had been provided for the sacrifice.

God has made many promises to us. One is that the powers of death will not prevail against the church. But right now the powers of death seem to be prevailing against the church. So what are we going to do? We can trust God to keep his promise, in ways that we can’t see at this moment; or we can second-guess him. We can continue to hold up the gospel, even though it is steadfast allegiance to the gospel-message that seems to keep contemporary secularites out of the church, or we can develop a new message, a new attraction, new entertainment, new gimmicks — all of which we hope will keep people here even as the gospel has long since gone. So what are we going to do?

Ten times per year I am asked why I won’t approve of raffles or other games of chance for church fundraising. Wouldn’t a raffle bring in truckloads of money? (And everyone knows it takes truckloads of money to maintain any congregation.) Wouldn’t a raffle get us past our chronic financial squeeze and let us concentrate on other matters? Concentrate on what other matters? Certainly not on the gospel, because by the time we got around to the raffle the gospel would have been long given up. What answer would Sarah give to us, even as she wept over Isaac?

A friend of mine, a pastor in Montreal, “locked horns” with his congregation (the conflict ended in his dismissal) over the Sunday morning prayer of confession; confession of sin. They told him they didn’t believe they were sinners; at least they weren’t sinners in the real sense of the term. Furthermore, in an era of declining turn-outs on Sunday morning they needed to attract upwardly mobile young couples. How were they ever going to do this as long as the pastor told “wannabe” social climbers every Sunday that they were sinners? What would Sarah say to all this? We know. She was willing to give up the son she had awaited for decades.

Sarah trusted God to keep the promises he had made, even though she couldn’t see, at this minute, how it was all going to work out. Sarah trusted.

II: — Hannah longed for a child so ardently and prayed so intently and wailed so incoherently before God that her clergyman, Eli, thought she was drunk. “Put away the bottle!”, Eli rebuked her. “I’m not drunk”, Hannah had said, “I’m troubled; I’ve been pouring out my soul before the Lord.”

And then it happened. A child. Samuel. “Samuel” is a Hebrew expression meaning, “His name is God.” What an unusual name to call a child! But before Samuel was born Hannah had consecrated him to God. She didn’t give him up to death as Sarah had done before her; nevertheless in the profoundest sense Hannah gave up her son unconditionally to the service of God. “As long as my son lives”, Hannah had cried, “he is lent to the Lord.” (1 Samuel 1:28)

Samuel became a prophet, one of those uncompromising truth-tellers who made politicians and rulers wince when the truth was made public. Samuel anointed Saul the first king of Israel. Upon witnessing Saul’s disobedience, however, Samuel deposed Saul and anointed David king. Plainly Samuel wasn’t one to waste time.

Samuel grew up in the town of Ramah and lived in Ramah for the rest of his life. “Rama” has a familiar ring these days. Rama is a town near Orillia; Rama is one more site of the provincial government’s protracted disgrace: casino gambling. What do you think Samuel would say if he were to visit the Rama casino? What do you think he would have said (or done) if he had gone to Casino Rama on opening day several summers ago when the parking lot was crammed with milling children, neglected, while their parents (chiefly single moms), were inside squandering the money they keep telling us they don’t have? What would Samuel have done when the public address speakers kept pleading with mothers to go to the parking lot and take charge of their children — all to no avail?

The province of Ontario will sell anyone a return GO-rail ticket (Toronto-Rama return) for only $29.95. Plainly the ticket is heavily subsidized. The government (the tax-payer) subsidizes the poorest people in our society to squander their money on a set-up rigged in favour of returning six billion dollars per year to the provincial governments of Canada. The day the Ontario government introduced state-sponsored casino gambling (Windsor) it eliminated all funding to psychiatric programs for gambling addicts.

What do you think Samuel would have done? King Saul had cozied up to a foreign king who was tormenting God’s people in Israel of old. King Saul had kept the best of this foreign king’s livestock in order to enrich himself even though he had been told he must not profit from the foreign ruler who had brutalized God’s people. Samuel had come upon Saul at that time and had said, “For personal gain you have cozied up to the fellow who tormented your people? You aren’t fit to be king, Saul, and as of today you are deposed.” And then Samuel had slain the foreign king, Agag.

So what would Samuel do in Rama today? We can only guess. But we needn’t guess in one respect. We know for sure that Samuel, distraught at the spiritual declension in his people, would have pleaded with God until the sweat poured off him as it was to pour off Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane. Samuel would have pleaded with God concerning a government so conscienceless and a people so stupid and a greed so shameless. A heartbroken Samuel would have pleaded until he was hoarse. To be sure, Samuel had deposed Saul and slain Agag; but this wasn’t the sort of thing Samuel did every day. Then what did Samuel do every day? He had a reputation for being a tireless intercessor. He would have interceded with God for his people every day. When he looked out over the broken-down, soft-headed, hard-hearted people of Israel, meandering like sheep without a shepherd and following whoever was making the biggest noise, Samuel cried to the people, “Far be it from me that I should sin against the Lord by ceasing to pray for you.” (1 Sam. 12:23) A fierce prophet in public, in private Samuel was the intercessor whose tear-runnelled cheeks told everyone what he was doing when no one was around to see him doing it.

III: — Elizabeth and Zechariah had been childless for years. Then they learned they were to have a child: “Yo-chan”, “gift of God”. Their child would be a prophet; not any prophet, but a prophet “in the spirit and power of Elijah”, Luke records.

Elijah wasn’t merely Israel’s greatest prophet; Elijah was the end-time prophet. Elijah was to come back when the Messiah was at the door. Elijah was to prepare the people to meet the Messiah.

Jesus himself insisted that John the Baptist was Elijah all over again. John had been sent to prepare the people for Jesus.

What was the preparation? What is it, since John still prepares people to receive the gift of Christmas?

(i) “You’ve got to make a U-turn in your life”, thundered John, and so we must. And we had better be sincere. If our “repentance”, so-called, is nothing more than a calculation designed to get us “fire insurance”; in other words, if our “repentance” is just one more expression of our endless self-interest; if it is anything other than horror at our sin and anything less than a repudiation of it, John will say to us what he said to the fire-insurance phonies of his day: “You nest of snakes, you slithering creeps; you are revolting. Get serious while there’s time to get serious.”

(ii) The second item in John’s agenda of preparation: “Put your life in order. If you are truly repentant inwardly, your life must display integrity outwardly”. Those whose occupations give them social clout (like police officers and military personnel) must stop brutalizing people; those whose occupations give them access to large sums of money (like accountants and bankers) must stop lining their pockets; those who hoard money and ignore the human suffering around them had better open heart and hand and home. Inward repentance must issue in outward integrity.

(iii) The last aspect of the preparation John urges: “Don’t linger over me; look away from me to my cousin. Don’t stop at listening to me; hear instead my younger relative. He is the one appointed to be your Saviour and Lord in life and in death!”

When John announced he was preparing the way of the Lord many responded. Many more did not. Among the latter was Herodias, Herod’s wife. John looked her in the eye and said, “First you married Phillip, your uncle Phillip, no less. Then you ‘fooled around’ with the man who is currently your husband. Then you had your daughter dance like a stripper in order to inflame a crowd of half-drunk military officers. You, Herodias, are incestuous, adulterous, and a pimp all at once. It’s an abomination to God; you yourself are a disgrace; and the stench of it all looms larger than a mushroom cloud.”

What happened next? Everybody knows what befell John next. Elizabeth had to make that sacrifice required of all the mothers we are probing this morning; she too gave up her son for the sake of the kingdom.

IV: — And then there is Mary. While Sarah, Hannah and Elizabeth had become pregnant through an extraordinary intervention of God, there was no suggestion of anything other than ordinary intercourse and ordinary conception. But it was different with Mary, and different with her just because her Son was to be different; Mary’s conception was unique just because her Son was unique. Isaac was a patriarch; Samuel and John were prophets; but Jesus was — and is — the Son of God incarnate. Isaac and Samuel and John pointed away from themselves to God; Jesus pointed to himself as God-with-us.

Throughout his earthly ministry Jesus indicated over and over that to worship him was not idolatry. He persisted in using the formula, “I am” (“I am the door, the good shepherd, the resurrection and the life, etc.) when he knew all the while that “I am” is the self-designation of God. He agreed with his enemies that only God could forgive sin — and then proceeded to forgive sin himself. He admitted that the law of Moses was divinely authoritative — and then went ahead and announced its definitive meaning. Everyone knew that God alone is judge; whereupon Jesus announced himself to be the judge and insisted that the final criterion for all of us would be our attitude to him.

Mary was unique just because her Son is unique. He — he alone — is the world’s redeemer. He has to be the world’s redeemer just because the world cannot generate its own cure. Every time the world has attempted to generate its own cure (there have been two notable instances of this in the 20th century alone, one in Russia and the other in Germany), it has left the world worse. The cure for a world gone wrong has to be given to the world. History cannot produce the saviour of history; history’s saviour has to be given to it. And if the current talks about “world government” give rise to some kind of international mega-sovereignty, then we shall have to learn all over that humankind’s attempt at self-sovereignty issues in self-annihilation. For precisely this reason Jesus Christ has been given to us — not produced by us — as the world’s sole sovereign and saviour. And if we are ever so foolish as to try to program any form of the superhuman we shall have to see — again — that all such attempts issue in the subhuman. Humankind cannot generate humankind’s redemption. Our redeemer has to be given to us. This is what Mary’s virginal conception is all about.

Mary learned what it was all about the day she was told she would bear Jesus, “Yehoshua”, “God saves”. On the same day she learned that a sword would pierce her heart; a sword would pierce her heart as surely as a spear and nails would pierce her son.

Sarah, Hannah, Elizabeth. Each offered up her son. Mary offered up hers too. Mary gathers up in herself all that her sisters knew before her.

Isaac, Samuel, John. The Lord Jesus whose birth we celebrate in this season gathers up in himself all that his brothers knew before him. Yet even as he gathers up them all in himself he is so much more than they. He himself is God’s incursion into human history, and for this reason he himself is the action of God saving us.

Because our Lord Jesus is himself the action of God saving us, he is unique. His mother’s uniqueness testifies to his uniqueness. Rightly, then, did Mary cry, “Henceforth all generations will call me blessed.”

We too are eager to call her blessed, for we too have been blessed in her Son. We have been blessed pre-eminently in the Son’s resurrection from the dead. In that kingdom which his resurrection established the wounded hearts of Sarah, Hannah, Elizabeth and Mary have already been healed. In that selfsame kingdom your heart and mine — wounded and broken, savage and self-contradictory, devious and disconsolate — whatever our heart-condition it is to find its cure in him who has been given to us to do for us and in us and with us all that will redound to the praise of his glory and the splendour of his kingdom.

Victor Shepherd
December 2002

392 Hark, a Herald Voice stanzas 3&4

390 O Come, O Come stanzas 3&4

391 On Jordan’s bank stanza 2

415 O Come, Let Us Adore Him stanzas 2&5

His Name Will Be Called PRINCE OF PEACE

Isaiah 9:2-6
Luke 2:21-32

Everyone (everyone, that is, except the manifestly unbalanced) craves peace. We long for peace among nations, peace within our own nation, peace within our family, and, of course, peace within ourselves. In our psychology-driven age it’s the lattermost, peace within ourselves, that’s the pre-eminent felt need. The pharmaceutical companies have profited immensely from our preoccupation with inner peace. Prominent preachers like Norman Vincent Peale and Robert Schuller have made a career and attracted a following through preaching the same sermon over and over for forty years; namely, how to acquire inner peace.

And yet a moment’s reflection reminds us there’s a peace we ought not to have. There’s a peace born not of inner contentment but rather of inertia. Several years ago an Anglican bishop penned a greeting to all the parish clergy in the diocese wishing them peace. One clergyman wrote back, “My parish doesn’t need peace; it needs an earthquake.”

There’s another kind of “peace” (so-called) that God doesn’t want for us and which he’s determined to take from us: that peace which is the bliss of ignorance, the bliss of indifference, the bliss of the deafened ear and the hardened heart in the face of suffering and deprivation, abuse and injustice. Our Lord himself cried to detractors, “You think I came to bring peace? I have news for you. I came to bring a sword.” We mustn’t forget that the metaphor of soldiering, of military conflict, is one of the commonest apostolic metaphors for discipleship: to follow Jesus is to follow him in his strife.

Nonetheless, he whose coming we celebrate at this season is called Prince of Peace. He himself says, “My peace I give to you; not as the world gives, give I unto you.” Then what is the nature of the peace he longs for us to have?

I: — The first aspect of such peace is “peace with God.” The apostle Paul writes to his fellow-Christians in Rome , “Since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.” To be justified by faith is to be rightly related to God in a relationship of trust, love and obedience. To be rightly related to God is to have and enjoy peace with God. Plainly, not to be rightly related to God is have enmity with God. Is it also to be aware of enmity with God? Not necessarily. Most people who lack peace with God and therefore live in enmity towards God remain unaware of it. When they are told of it they smile patronisingly and remark, “Enmity towards God? I have nothing against him. I’ve never had anything against him.” Such people need to be corrected; they need to be told that even if they think they have nothing against God, he has much against them. He reacts to their indifference; he resists their disdain; he opposes their disobedience; he is angered by their recalcitrance.

Yet even as God rightly resists the indifference of ungodly people (indifference that is actually contempt of him), and even as God reacts as he must, it distresses him to do so. He longs only to have the stand-off give way to intimacy, the frigidity to warmth, the defiance to obedience, the disdain to trust. For this reason his broken heart was incarnated in the broken body of his Son at Calvary ; for this reason his Spirit has never ceased pleading. Sometimes in the earthquake, wind and fire like that of his incursion at Sinai, at other times in the “still small voice” that Elijah heard, God has pleaded and prodded, whispered and shouted, shocked and soothed: anything to effect the surrender of those who think they have nothing against him but whose indifference in fact is enmity.

What God seeks in all of this, of course, is faith. Not faith in the popular sense of “belief”; faith, rather, in the Hebrew sense of “faith-fulness”, faith’s fulness: faith’s full reliance upon his mercy, faith’s full welcome accorded his truth, faith’s full appropriation of his pardon, faith’s full love now quickened by his ceaseless love for us. It all adds up to being rightly related to him. With our hostility dispelled, ignorance gives way to intimacy and cavalierness to commitment. We simply abandon ourselves to him. “Since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.” He who is the Prince of Peace effects our peace with God.

II: — Knowing and enjoying peace with God, Christ’s people are now blessed with the peace of God. The peace of God is that peace which every last individual desires. The peace of God is that “eye” of rest at the centre of the hurricane, the oasis in the midst of the desert storm, the calm in the midst of convulsion, the tranquillity that no turbulence can overturn ultimately. The peace of God is that peace which God grants to his people as they face life’s assaults. No one is surprised to hear that peace with God issues in the peace of God; a peace with God that didn’t issue in a peace deep inside us would be an exceedingly hollow peace.

The peace of God needs to be renewed moment-by-moment throughout life. The peace of God isn’t static, isn’t a state; the peace of God is dynamic, a constantly renewed gift blessing those constantly waiting upon God. Why the emphasis on “moment-by-moment” and “dynamic”, on “constantly renewed” and “constantly waiting upon”? Because disruption without us and disturbance within us; these unfold moment-by-moment too. The doctrine of creation reminds us that creation occurs as God suppresses chaos so as to allow life to arise. In a fallen world, however, chaos always threatens to reassert itself; in a fallen world, chaos always laps at creation, always nudges it, sometimes jars it. A fallen world unfailingly reminds us that the political chaos of disorder, the biological chaos of disease, the mental chaos of unforeseen breakdown: these are ever-present door-knocks of a chaos that ceaselessly knocks at the door of everyone’s life.

Many of the assaults that leave us craving the peace of God are not merely unforeseen but even unforeseeable. They resemble the “blind side hit” that leaves the football player momentarily stunned. The football player is running full-tilt down the field, looking back over his shoulder for the quarterback’s pass. Just as the ball touches his outstretched fingertips an opponent, running full-tilt up the field towards him, levels him. The collision is devastating physically because of the full-speed, head-on impact; it’s devastating psychologically because it wasn’t expected. The worst feature of the blind side hit isn’t the pain of the impact, or even the helplessness of temporary prostration; worse is the disorientation that accompanies it; worst of all is the fear that may arise from it, for if the player becomes fearful of the blind side hit he’ll never want to look back for the quarterback’s pass. In other words, the fear of subsequent blind side hits has taken the player off the field; he no longer plays the game.

As life unfolds for you and me we are blind-sided again and again. We are clobbered by circumstances we couldn’t foresee and therefore didn’t expect. Because we didn’t expect them we weren’t particularly armed and equipped to deal with them. Pain of some sort is inevitable; momentary disorientation is likely. And fear? It would be unrealistic never to fear life’s blind side hits. The ultimate issue here isn’t whether or not we fear; it’s whether or not our fear is allowed to take us off the field, induce us to quit. Plainly, the peace of God has everything to do with our ardour for life and our commitment to kingdom-work in the face of the clobbering we can’t avoid.

To his fellow-Christians in the city of Philippi Paul writes, “The peace of God which passes all understanding will keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.” The Greek word for “keep” (phulassein) is an expression drawn from the realm of military engagements. “Keep”, in ancient military parlance, has two major thrusts. In the first place it refers to the action of an army whereby the army repels attackers, holding attackers at bay so that while attackers may assault, even assault repeatedly, they never gain entry, never overrun, never triumph and therefore never annihilate. In the second place phulassein, “keep”, refers to the protection an army renders inhabitants of a besieged city so as to prevent the city’s inhabitants from fleeing in panic. The apostle draws on both aspects of the military metaphor: the peace of God prevents life’s outer assaults from undoing us ultimately and thereby prevents us from fleeing life in inner panic.

The apostle says one thing more about this peace of God: it “passes understanding”. In fact, it passes “all understanding.” It passes understanding inasmuch as it isn’t natural; it isn’t generated by anything the sociologist or psychologist or neurologist can account for; it isn’t circumstantial. In a word, there’s no earthly explanation for it. Peace of mind that arose in the midst of peaceful circumstances would be entirely understandable and therefore entirely explicable. On the other hand, innermost peace in the midst of turbulence and treachery and topsy-turvyness; this is peace that occurs for no apparent reason.

There are parallels, of course, everywhere in the Christian life. Jesus says to his disciples, “In the world you are going to have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.” Our good cheer arises in the midst of tribulation just because Jesus Christ has triumphed over everything that doesn’t make for good cheer, even as he gathers his people into his triumph. In exactly the same way peace arises in the midst of turbulence and treachery just because Jesus Christ has triumphed over everything that doesn’t make for peace, even as he includes his people in his triumph.

It is the prince of peace who gives us that peace of God which passes all understanding.

III: — The one dimension of peace that remains for us to discuss this morning is peace among men and women. Once more there is a logical connexion with the dimensions of peace that we have probed so far: those who know and enjoy peace with God and who are beneficiaries of the peace of God are commissioned to work indefatigably for peace on earth. Jesus maintains that his people are ever to be peacemakers; peacemakers, we should note, not peacewishers or peacehopers or pseudo-peace manipulators.

There are several pretenders to peace among men and women that are just that: pretenders. Pretend-peace, make-believe peace, is simply a matter of pretending that injustice and exploitation, savagery and enforced wretchedness don’t exist. Pretend-peace, make-believe peace; Jesus says he has come to expose this; expose it and eradicate it.

And of course there’s another form of pretend-peace; it arises not from pretending that injustice and abuse don’t exist; it arises from the deliberate lie, the cleverly-couched deception, intentional duplicity, even out-and-out propaganda.

I am told that those used car dealers who are unscrupulous are adept at a technique known as “paperhanging.” A used car has a rust-hole in the fender. The hole isn’t fixed properly. Instead, paper is glued over the hole and the paper is painted the same colour as the rest of the car. Anyone could poke her finger through the paper, of course, but it’s hoped that the paper deception will hold up long enough to get the car off the lot.

Paper-hanging abounds everywhere in life. Much peacemaking, so called, is little more than a smooth tongue smoothing over a jagged wound. Paperhanging peacemaking never works in the long run, of course, but it’s used all the time in the short run to get us quickly past conflicts that will otherwise be publicly visible (and therefore embarrassing) in a family or a group or a meeting. In six weeks paperhanging peacemaking gives way to worse conflict than ever, conflict now marinated in bitterness and frustration; it then gives way to worse conflict still six weeks after that.

When Paul writes, “Let us pursue what makes for peace”; when the author of Hebrews counsels, “Strive for peace with everyone”; when Jesus urges his people to make peace; in all of this we can’t fail to hear the note of urgent doing even as in all of this there’s no suggestion at all of paperhanging.

Then how are we to make peace among our fellows? In the first place we must always be concerned to see that justice is done. The Hebrew prophets denounce anything else not only as ineffective but as an attempt at magic. God himself castigates the religious leaders of Israel as he accuses them, according to Jeremiah, “They have healed the wound of my people lightly, saying, ‘Peace, peace,’ when there is no peace.” It’s often assumed that naming something thus and so makes it thus and so. It’s assumed that pronouncing “peace” over glaring injustice will yield peace. But it never does. Peace cannot be made unless injustice is dealt with first.

Please don’t think I am suggesting something impossible for most people, such as ensuring justice in the Middle East or in Latin America or in war-torn countries of Africa . I’m speaking of situations much closer to home. And in this regard I’m convinced that we fail to name injustice for what it is out of fear: we’re afraid that to identify injustice or abuse or exploitation is to worsen conflict. Likely it will worsen conflict, in the short run. But often conflict has to worsen if any genuine peace is to be made eventually. To expect anything else is to want magic. There’s no shortcut here. The psalmist cries, “Righteousness and justice are the foundation of God’s throne.” There’s more to God’s throne than righteousness and justice, to be sure, but without them, the foundation, there would be no throne at all.

In our efforts at peacemaking it’s important for us to examine carefully the earthly ministry of our Lord. Whenever he himself is made to suffer, he simply absorbs it. On the other hand, wherever he sees other people made to suffer unjustly, he acts without hesitation. He will go to any lengths to redress the suffering of those who are victimised. He will stop at nothing to defend the defenceless and protect the vulnerable and vindicate the vilified. Yet whenever he is made to suffer himself he simply absorbs it.

You and I will be the peacemakers he ordains us to be if we can forget ourselves and our minor miseries long enough to be moved at someone else’s victimisation. But if we are going to remain preoccupied with every petty jab and petty insult and petty putdown, most of which are half-imagined in any case, then so far from promoting peace we are going to be forever rationalising our own vindictiveness.

Remember: when our Lord sees other people abused he’s mobilised, acting instantly on their behalf; when he’s abused himself, however, he pleads for his benighted tormentors. We are always a better judge of that injustice which afflicts others than we are of that injustice which we think we are suffering ourselves. We retain an objectivity in the former that we abysmally lack in the latter. Peacemaking requires more than a little wisdom.

We are told that he whose coming we celebrate at this season has a unique name: “Prince of Peace.” As we are bound to him in faith we are rightly related to God and therein know peace with God. Secure in our peace with God, we are the beneficiaries of the peace of God. Possessed of the peace of God, we are freed from our self-preoccupations to work for peace among men and women.

The prophet Isaiah anticipated Jesus of Nazareth as the “Prince of peace.” Centuries after Isaiah our Lord’s birth constrained angels to cry, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased.”

The Reverend Dr Victor Shepherd
Advent II 14th December 2008
Church of St. Bride, Anglican, Mississauga

Manifesto of the Real Revolution

Luke 1: 39-56

It’s easy to sympathize with revolutionary movements, since revolutions are spawned by shocking injustices and unendurable oppression. It’s easy to see a new day dawning in revolutionary movements, a new day for those who have endured the long night of exploitation and frustration.

Because it’s so easy to sympathize with revolutionary movements we are all the more jarred — if not left feeling hopeless — when at last we admit that the movement which promised human liberation has delivered no such thing. No one knew this better than Robespierre, an architect of the French Revolution with its threefold promise of “Liberty, Equality, Fraternity”. Robespierre was executed at the hands of the social transmutation he had engineered. Little wonder he commented, minutes before his death, “Revolutions consume their daughters”.

As we watch Latin American countries lurch from fascism to communism, from the political far-right to the political far-left, we see it happening all over again. The African nations that threw off colonialism because it was cruel have installed a political monster whose human rights violations make colonialism appear almost benign. In pre-Revolutionary Russia Czarist rule was deemed insupportable; yet in the early period of Leninist rule the state executed one thousand people per month. A revolution that had promised to feed people still couldn’t supply each citizen with a loaf of bread 70 years later. Promising people freedom it demoralized them with a secret police; promising human fulfilment it couldn’t even grant mere recognition of human beings.

Revolutions founder over one thing: human nature. And in a fallen world, “human nature” means “human depravity”. The problem with revolutionary movements is this: they are incapable of being genuinely revolutionary! They merely “revolve”; that is, turn up, recycle, the same fallen human nature. Revolutionary movements cannot get to the heart of the matter simply because they are powerless to deal with the human heart. Political leaders may speak of a “New World Order”; Christians, however, know that the only new world order is the kingdom of God. “New” orders (so-called) are merely a case of deja vu. The only real revolution is the kingdom of God, fashioned and ruled by the king himself. It alone supplies the new heart, new mind, new spirit of which the prophets spoke, for which everyone longs, and which Jesus Christ alone bestows.

I: — According to Mary, mother of our Lord and spokesperson of his revolution, real revolution begins with the scattering of the proud in the imagination of their hearts. “Heart” is biblical shorthand for the innermost core of a person, the “nerve centre”, the “control panel”. “Heart” has to do with thinking, willing, feeling and discerning. In addition, “heart” means identity, who we really are underneath all cloaks, disguises and social conventions. The “imagination of our heart” is our fashioning a deity of our own making, a god after our own image and likeness, which deity we follow zealously. Through the prophet Isaiah God says, “I have held out my hands to an obstinate people, who walk in ways not good, pursuing their own imaginations.” Isaiah knows that first we disdain the Holy One of Israel and his claim upon us; then we fabricate whatever deity will legitimate and satisfy our craving, whether we crave wealth or recognition or ascendancy or anything else.

While Mary is customarily depicted as demure and dainty, naive to the nth degree, the picture she paints of human nature is anything but naive: it is stark. She tells us of proud people who are victimized by the imagination of their heart — all of us; we are at this moment stumbling down paths “which are not good”, certainly not godly. All of us are like the fool of whom the psalmist speaks, the fool who “said in his heart, ‘There is no God'”. He’s a fool not because he doesn’t believe God exists; he’s a fool just because he believes God exists and yet maintains that there are no consequences to dismissing the Holy One of Israel while preferring and pursuing the imagination of the heart, no consequences to exchanging the deity we fancy for the God who claims our faithfulness. Blinded by and in love with the gods of our own making we are all alike fools whose folly is going to prove fatal.

Yet Mary remains spokesperson for a revolution which is to be announced as good news, the uniquely good news of Christmas: God has scattered the proud! Our first response to learning that God scatters us vigorously may not be that we have just heard good news! To be told that we have been scattered, at God’s hand, suggests that God has hammered us so hard as to fragment us, and then dismissively swept away the fragmented remains. To be sure, we have been judged; we have been found wanting. Yet this is not to say that God sweeps us away in his judgement. The Greek verb “to scatter” (DIASKORPIZO) also means “to winnow”. To winnow grain is to toss a shovelful so that the wind carries away chaff but leaves behind the kernel, prized and soon to be put to use. In other words, God scatters us, the proud, inasmuch as he longs to save us and intends to use us. In getting rid of chaff he lays bare that heart which he can then renew in accord with his nature and kingdom, and then use ever after.

“Scattering the proud in the imagination of their hearts” is essential if a revolution is to be real and not merely a recycling of human depravity. Mary insists that in the invasion of his Son God has scattered us all and will continue to do so, yet not out of petulance or irritability or frustration or disgust. God scatters us — winnows us — inasmuch as he plans to do for us what we cannot do for ourselves and use us in ways we cannot anticipate.

II: — Mary maintains that God has done something more; God has “put down the mighty from their thrones”. But has he? Has God levelled those who strut? Has he crumbled those who tyrannize? In one sense it appears that God has done no such thing. Caesar Augustus was not deposed the day Jesus was born. No mighty ruler has been unseated just because the gospel was upheld. We need think only of Stalin’s cynical comment when told that the pope opposed Stalin’s mass murders. “The pope?”, snickered Stalin, “How many troops does the pope have?” Stalin strutted just because he knew that he, and no one else, ruled the former USSR.

And yet at a much deeper level the advent of Jesus Christ does mean that God has put down the mighty from their thrones. Herod wasn’t paranoid when he raged that the Bethlehem child was a threat to his throne. After all, in the coming of Jesus Christ into our midst the world’s only rightful ruler has appeared. Herod intuited correctly that the Christmas Gift would win to himself the loyalty of men and women who would never transfer that loyalty back to Herod. All political manipulators and ideologues and social engineers and “educational” programmers; in short, all who want to reshape society, even remake humankind, must know sooner or later that just because the world’s rightful ruler has appeared and is now enthroned their authority has been exposed as mere posturing and their promises as mere wind. Discerning Christians testify that those who think they can coerce or control have in fact been dethroned. They have been dethroned in that no ruler or tyrant can tell Christians who they are (Christ alone does this); no ruler or tyrant can make Christians who they are (Christ alone does this) — which is to say, no ruler or tyrant can ever make Christians what they don’t want to be. Corrie Ten Boom was as simple a Christian as one could find. (She was a fifty-year old unmarried daughter of a Dutch watchmaker who kept house for her father and sister). Yet Corrie Ten Boom defied Hitler by harbouring Jewish refugees in German-occupied Holland. She knew the terrible risk involved; she knew what the penalty would be. Whereupon she persisted all the more resolutely in her defiance. The moment she refused to admit any legitimacy to Hitler’s rule; the moment she refused to conform to it — in that moment Hitler was dethroned. Plainly the most coercive man in Europe was powerless in the face of a fifty-year old, unarmed woman. Yes, he could imprison her (and he did); but he could never tell her who she was; he could never make her who she was; and he could never make her what she didn’t want to be. Any Christian who refuses to conform anywhere to the blustering and bullying of “the mighty” just because that Christian acknowledges the rulership of Christ alone; any such Christian testifies that God continues to dethrone.

The revolution of which Mary speaks is unquestionably real. Still, the question can always be asked, “Real as it is, how far does it go? Whom does it finally affect?” It’s easy to say that it manifestly affects all the bullies we don’t like in any case and whom we are glad enough to see dethroned. But Mary’s revolution is unique, qualitatively different from all social dislodgings and historical upheavals, only if that innermost tyrant, that self-important egotist who manipulates me, is dethroned as well. I know how easy it is to look disdainfully at the person who is so obviously ruled by chemical substance or psychological habituation or shameless self-promotion when all the while I secretly scramble to hide the things that control me and brazenly try to excuse them when I can no longer hide them. I know how easy it is to speak of a new heart and mind when my reactions, in unguarded moments, suggest a heart still ruled by passions and instincts which serve my lingering sin, my self-indulgence, self-advantage, and self-promotion.

Then I can only cry out to God that I do want the revolution of which Mary speaks to reach me and revolutionize me. And so far from gloating over the fact that God has put down the swaggerers whom I am glad to see put down, I must plead with him to dethrone in me whatever has usurped the rule of Jesus Christ. For only then will the genuine “new world order” be under way.

III: — It is a singular mark of God’s kindness that the work of God’s left hand assists the work of his right; to say the same thing differently, a mark of God’s kindness that his right hand is stronger than his left, that mercy triumphs over judgement, that whatever wound he inflicts is only surgical repair for the sake of restoration to health. Having “put down”, God now “exalts”; he exalts “those of low degree”, the humble.

The humble, it must be noted, are not those who belittle themselves miserably and otherwise display abysmally weak self-image. (Crippling self-image isn’t humility; it’s illness.) Neither is “humility”, so-called, a religious technique whereby we can get ourselves “exalted”. And of course humility could never be the end-result of struggling to make ourselves humble, since the effort of making ourselves humble merely reinforces pride. Humility is self-forgetfulness, the self-forgetfulness that steals over us when we lose ourselves in something or someone who is bigger, richer, deeper.

In the revolution of which Mary speaks it is these humble people, self-forgetful people, whom God exalts. To be exalted, ultimately, is to be lifted up a child of God. When John speaks of the incarnation, its purpose and its result, he writes, “To all who received him [Jesus Christ], who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God.” In other words, to “forget” ourselves into Christ is to become sons and daughters of God. To the believers in Thessalonica Paul writes, “You are all sons of the light and sons of the day. We don’t belong to the night or to the darkness.” What it is to be exalted — lifted up, held up — as a child of God who no longer belongs to the night or to the darkness Paul makes clear in his letter to the congregation in Philippi; those people are “children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world, holding fast the word of life.”

There is nothing more revolutionary than the person who shines in the midst of a perverse world. No one, believer or unbeliever, has ever doubted that the world can repopulate itself (that is, no one has ever doubted that a crooked and perverse generation can produce crooked and perverse offspring). Humanists insist that the world doesn’t have to repopulate itself (that is, left to itself the world can produce better and better citizens — this belief is clung to even though the wars of last century alone have slew one hundred million.) Christians, however, know that the world has to repopulate itself, can do nothing except repopulate itself, for the only person who is profoundly different, before God, is the person whom God’s grace has rendered self-forgetful and then rendered God’s own child. This person shines like a Westinghouse light bulb in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation. This person is a beacon of hope, because this person is living testimony that at God’s hand there is something genuinely different.

IV: — Mary gathers up everything about her revolutionary manifesto in her pithy summation: “God has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich he has sent empty away.”

Who are the rich whom God has sent away empty? Bashing the rich is fashionable nowadays. And of course those who like to bash the rich are quick to tell us who the rich are. The rich are those who have fifty dollars more than the bashers have; the rich are those who have a slightly better pension or a slightly larger home than the bashers have. Such an attitude bespeaks only envy and resentment. The truth is, those whose “riches” are a spiritual threat aren’t those who have money but rather those who are preoccupied with money — whether they have it or not.

The mediaeval Christians who spoke of the “Seven Deadly Sins” were correct in naming gluttony one of them. They were also correct in insisting that gluttony is not a matter of eating too much; gluttony is being preoccupied with food, even if one’s preoccupation with food is a preoccupation with avoiding food! (In other words the person obsessed with slenderness is as much food-preoccupied — and therefore gluttonous — as the person who can think only of what he is going to eat next.) It is no different with respect to money. Those who don’t have it can be as absorbed by it as those who are awash in it.

In those revolutions which remain forever ineffective those who have money disdain and dismiss those who lack it, while those who lack it hate and envy those who have it. While appearing to be poles apart, those who have it and those who lack it in fact are identical, since both alike are engrossed with it. Only the real revolution gets us beyond this, for only the real revolution makes our preoccupations shrivel as the holy God looms before us in his awesome, all-consuming immensity. As this One looms before us the chaff we have been gorging is simply forgotten, and we become aware of a hunger we never knew.

Our Lord Jesus has promised that all who hunger for God and his righteousness are going to be filled. All who crave the ultimate satisfaction of a relationship with God which can’t be snatched away by a paperback putdown or evaporated by the fires of harassment; all who finally hunger for this as they hunger for nothing else will be given that bread of life which profoundly satisfies yet never satiates. For this bread leaves us seeking none other yet always seeking more of him who is himself way and truth and life.

The rich who are sent empty away; they need not remain away. For as soon as they recognize their preoccupations as unworthy of someone who is created to be a child of God they too will hunger, will look to him who alone satisfies, and will be yet another fulfilment of Mary’s Christmas cry.

Victor Shepherd
December 2001

Of Itzakh, Isaac, and “The Wonders Of His (Christ’s) Love”

Luke 2:1-14
Col. 1:15-20

Many people who are musically sophisticated regard Itzakh Perlman as the world’s finest violinist. Yet his violin-playing isn’t the most noticeable feature about him. Anyone who has seen him winces when he walks, if it can be called “walking.” Perlman had polio as a child and ever since has barely been able to shuffle along, ever so slowly, each step laboured and clumsy, swinging his caliper crutches in a monumental struggle just to get onto the concert-hall platform, while an assistant carries his precious violin for him. Perlman is the only violin virtuoso who has to sit to play.

Not so long ago in Lincoln Centre, New York City, Perlman was only a few bars into a violin concerto with the N.Y. Philharmonic Orchestra when a string broke on his violin. He waved his bow to the conductor to stop. Perlman removed the broken string from his instrument and signalled the conductor to begin again. Then Perlman played the entire concerto on the three remaining strings of his violin. Thunderous applause greeted him at concerto’s end. When it had finally died away Perlman said to the hushed audience, “Sometimes in life we have to do our best with what’s left.” Then he handed his defective violin to his assistant, retrieved his caliper crutches, and shuffled haltingly off the platform, once more doing his best with what was left.

Many people who appear — and are — extraordinarily gifted nevertheless have had to do their best with what was left. One such person was Isaac Watts, known throughout Christendom as “the father of the English hymn.” He wrote hundreds of hymns, many of which will never be forgotten. What few people know is that Watts was deranged frequently, and deranged for extended periods of his life. There were protracted periods when he wrote nothing, did nothing (apart from survive in the care of a kind family that protected him) as he waited until sanity returned. There were periods in his life when it would have been just as accurate to speak of episodic sanity as of episodic derangement. What did Watts write when sanity caught up to him and his suffering abated? “Come, let us join our cheerful songs with angels ’round the throne; ten thousand thousand are their tongues but all their joys are one.” Or again, “Jesus shall reign where’er the sun doth his successive journeys run.” As ill as he was for so much of his troubled life, Watts could still write from his heart, “My God, how endless is thy love!” Perhaps he is best known for “O God, our help in ages past, our hope for years to come.” Certainly we’ve all sung his splendid Christmas carol, “Joy to the World!” It’s plain that Watts’s literary output was a matter of doing his best with what was left, what was left of his sanity. He always did his best.

God does his best, too, with what’s left. Yet there’s a difference here. When God does his best with what’s left of a fallen world, does his best with a disfigured creation, does his best with an evil-riddled cosmos; when God does his best with this he doesn’t merely extract bravely whatever good remains in it. Rather, he restores it. When God does his best with what’s left of a warped world, he recreates that world.

Isaac Watts knew this so very well. He articulated it for us in his Christmas carol, “Joy to the World.”

I: — “No more let sins and sorrows grow, nor thorns infest the ground”, cries Watts. Plainly it’s a reference to Genesis 3, the old, old story of the world’s fall. What has happened? God has never been indifferent to humankind’s root defiance of him and root disobedience to him and root ingratitude; he’s never been indifferent to the primordial posture we assume before him, a posture wherein our “know-it-all” smirk casts aspersions on his goodness, on the goodness of his promise to us and his claim upon us. His claim upon us is rooted in his promise to us; his promise to us is rooted in his own heart. Heart and promise and claim are one in wanting only to bless us. We, however, assume he’s an arbitrary spoilsport out to make us miserable. We doubt him, defy him, disdain him, disobey him.

Contrary to what the person-in-the-street thinks, God always gives us what we want. No longer pressing himself upon us, he takes a step back from us. (This is what we want: a little more distance between him and us.) As he takes a step back from us, the crown of creation, he thereby takes a step back from every aspect of the creation beneath its crown. A vacuum opens up between him and the creation. Into the vacuum there pours all manner of evil. Now the creation is marred and disfigured and warped. “Thorns and thistles” infest the ground, as the old, old story in Genesis tells us. In a primitive agricultural society, thorns and thistles infesting the ground bespeak frustration; so much frustration, in fact, that only ceaseless labour and ingenuity stave off utter futility. (Everyone with even a backyard vegetable garden knows that only ceaseless labour and ingenuity stave off the frustration of having the vegetable-enterprise end in utter futility.)

As for “sins and sorrows”, they are as endemic in a fallen world as thorns and thistles. Jesus says, without argument or proof, “Whoever sins is a slave to sin.” Foregoing argument or proof, he assumes that anyone who disagrees with him is incorrigibly stupid. “Whoever sins is a slave to sin.” Since we all sin, we are all in bondage. Sorrows? “Those who choose another god multiply their sorrows”, says the psalmist. The Hebrew verb can as readily mean “run after” as “choose.” “Those who run after another deity multiply their sorrows.” The fall of humankind means that we do run after other gods; and just as surely do we multiply our sorrows.

Yet Watts can write his carol, “Joy to the World!”, because he knows that the coming of Jesus Christ means that the curse upon the world is overturned; it’s reversed. The coming of Jesus Christ means that the blessings of Christ are as far-reaching (and known to be as far-reaching) as the curse has been. While our Lord’s pronouncement is unarguable, “Whoever sins is a slave to sin”, equally unarguable is his declaration, “If the Son makes you free, you are free indeed.” While those who run after other gods unquestionably multiply their sorrows, those who join our Lord on that Way which he is, join him in running the race of life, always looking unto him who has pioneered the way for us — these people unquestionably multiply their joys. As for frustration, frustration so intense as to border on futility; in so far as we do the work that he has given us to do, kingdom-work, our work will never prove futile and we ourselves shall never go unrewarded.

“No more let sins and sorrows grow, nor thorns infest the ground. He comes to make his blessings flow far as the curse is found.”

II: — Watts has even more to say about the joy that has come to the world in the coming of Jesus Christ. “He rules the earth with truth and grace.” The same Lord who restores the world now rules it, and rules it with truth and grace.

Christ’s rulership is remarkable. After all, the rulers we are acquainted with do rule, to be sure, but they don’t rule with truth. They rule with something other than truth. They rule with disinformation. (Think of the Gulf of Tonkin incident with the American warship. The U.S. government arranged this bit of disinformation in order to bring the U.S.A. into the Viet Nam war.) Or they rule with duplicity. (Think of Toronto Councillor Howard Moscoe. When asked, two weeks ago, why charity casinos would be installed in North York after the citizens of North York had voted in a referendum against charity casinos, Moscoe unashamedly replied, “The referendum meant nothing.”) Or they rule with propaganda. (Think of the federal government’s promise a few years ago never to implement wage and price controls. Within ninety days of being re-elected it introduced the controls!) Or they rule with sheer, simple, self-interest and self-enrichment. (Illustrations here are superfluous.) Rulers rule, to be sure, but they don’t rule with truth.

Neither do they rule with grace. Our Lord, however, does. He rules with grace. Grace, throughout scripture, is God’s faithfulness to his own promise ever to be our God. Grace is his undeflectible resolve never to quit on us in anger or abandon us in disgust or dismiss us in impatience. Grace is God’s unalterable determination to remain true to himself in his promise to us regardless of our unfaithfulness in our promise to him. Since grace collides with our sin, then when grace meets our sin grace takes the form of mercy. And since mercy, so far from being mere benign sentiment, is effectual in the face of our sin, mercy issues in salvation, shalom, peace. For this reason the threefold “grace, mercy and peace” is found over and over in scripture. (Once again, in its collision with sin grace takes the form of mercy, and mercy triumphs so as to effect our peace with God, our salvation.)

Unlike the rulers we read about every day, our Lord “rules with truth and grace.”

III: — Several minutes ago I spoke of our need to “do our best with what’s left.” Perlman and Watts have done so. But in doing their best with what was left, were they merely doing what they could to prevent a disaster from sinking all the way down to total disaster, unrelieved disaster? At the end of the day are you and I realistically doing no more than this? In doing our best with what’s left, are we merely doing what we can to prevent a calamity from sinking all the way down to complete calamity?

No! In view of the fact that when God does his best with what’s left (a wounded, warped creation) he restores that creation wholly; in view of this our doing our best with what’s left is much more than merely salvaging a catastrophe: it’s an anticipation of the day when God’s perfect restoration is going to revealed; it’s a preview of the day when God’s restoration is going to be rendered as undeniable as it is unmistakable. Watts did what he did not because there was nothing else to do besides fall into total despair; Watts did what he did, rather, because he foresaw the day when he, like the deranged man in the gospel-stories, will be found seated, clothed and in his right mind. Perlman did what he did in anticipation of the day when he, like so many whom Jesus touched, will be found no longer lame but now leaping and cavorting, unhindered and uninhibited in every aspect of life. When you and I “do our best with what’s left” we aren’t merely trying to put a happy face on a monumental misfortune; we are anticipating the day, says Watts himself, when our Lord “makes the nations prove the glories of his righteousness and wonders of his love.”

IV: — All of this being the case, what are we to do at this moment? Watts knew what we are to do: “Let every heart prepare him room.” We are to receive, or receive afresh, him whose blessings flow far as the curse is found. We are to receive, or receive afresh, the one who rules with truth and grace now and who is going to make the nations prove the glories of his righteousness and wonders of his love.

We are to receive our Lord. We are going to do so as in faith we receive bread and wine, the vehicle of his self-giving to us now, as surely as body and blood were the vehicle of his self-giving for us then.

“Let every heart prepare him room.”

Victor Shepherd
December 1997

How Big Is The Baby?

John 1:1-18

Most people feel that words are easy to use; words can never be used up (there are so many of them); therefore words are largely useless. No wonder words are flung about frivolously. The microphone is stuck in front of the celebrity and she is asked to say something. She uses many words to say nothing, and no one expected her to do anything else. The politician is questioned in the legislature. He starts talking. Fifteen minutes later he hasn’t answered the question; in fact, his words are a smokescreen behind which the question is lost in “bafflegab.” And preachers? No doubt you have listened to preachers, many of them, who were no different. Words are easy to use; words can never be used up; words are largely useless — so why not fling them about?

But it was different for our Hebrew foreparents. For those people a word was an event. In fact the Hebrew word for “word” (DABAR) means both word and event. For our Israelite ancestors a word was a concentrated, compressed unit of energy. As the word was spoken, this concentrated, compressed unit of energy was released. Thereafter it could never be brought back, never re-compressed just as an event can never be undone. Once the word had been uttered this unit of energy surged throughout the world, changing this, altering that, creating here and destroying there.

The closest we modern types come to the understanding of our Hebrew foreparents is in our grasp of how language functions psychologically. We recognize that inflammatory speech can excite people emotionally; we recognize that sad stories can depress people. We’ll admit that words may alter how people feel, but we still maintain that words don’t alter anything in reality.

The Hebrew conviction is different. The psalmist writes, “By the Word of God the heavens were made.” God speaks and the galaxies occur. So weighty were Hebrew words that they were always to be used sparingly, carefully, thoughtfully. It won’t surprise you, then, to learn that at the time of the first Christmas the Hebrew language contained only 10,000 words (very few, in fact) while the Greek language contained 200,000. A word is an event, said our Hebrew foreparents. A word has vastly more than mere psychological force. Once spoken, a word is an event which sets off another event which in turn sets off another, the reality of it all extending farther than the mind can imagine.

When the apostle John sat down to write his gospel he was living in the city of Ephesus. John was Jewish; his readers, however, were chiefly Gentile, like you and me. In speaking about Jesus Christ, the Incarnation of the Word of God, John looked for a word which Gentiles would understand, yet a word to which he could also marry the full force of the Hebrew understanding of “word”. The word John chose was LOGOS. LOGOS is the Greek word which means “word”. But it also means reason or rationality or intelligibility. It means the inner principle of a thing, how a thing works. The logos of an automobile engine is how a cupful of liquid gasoline can be exploded to propel a two-ton car, how the engine works. The logos of a refrigerator is how electricity (hot enough to burn you) can keep food cold; how it works, its inner principle, the rationality of it all.

John brought the Hebrew and Greek concepts together when he stated that Jesus Christ, the babe of Bethlehem, is the word or logos of God. When the Hebrew mind hears that Jesus Christ is the word of God it knows that Jesus is the power of God, the event of God, the effectiveness of God; an effectiveness, moreover, which can never be overturned or undone, a reality permeating the world forever. When the Greek mind, on the other hand, the Gentile mind, hears that Jesus Christ is the word of God it knows that Jesus is the outer expression of the inner principle of God himself; Jesus embodies the rationality of God; Jesus discloses how God “works.” John brings together both Hebrew and Greek senses of “word”. John’s Christmas message is as patently simple as it is fathomlessly profound: the word of God has become flesh, our flesh, and now dwells among us. This is the great good news of Christmas.

Great as the good news is, however, we must still ask how far-reaching it might be. Is it good news, but only for a few people? Is it good news, but only for the religious dimension of human existence? Or is it good news of cosmic scope so vast as finally to be imponderable? In short, how big is the baby?

I: — Think first of science. Two or three generations ago it was feared that new scientific discoveries were taking people farther and farther from God. The advances of science added up to atheism for intelligent people. Some people reacted by speaking ill of science: “It doesn’t have all the answers, you know.” (No scientist ever said it did.) “There’s lots more to be discovered”. (Of course there is; this is what keeps science humble.) Nonetheless, the bottom line was clearly stated: “If your sons and daughters are going to study science, don’t expect them to be Christians.”

The apostle John disagrees entirely. John insists that the realm of nature which science investigates has been made through the word, made through the logos. This means that the inner principle of God’s own mind and being, the rationality in God himself, has been imprinted on the creation, imprinted on nature, and imprinted indelibly. There is imprinted indelibly upon the creation a rationality, an intelligibility, which reflects the rationality of the Creator’s own mind. What’s more, the inner principle of God himself which has been imprinted on that creation which science investigates; this inner principle is the word which has been made flesh in Jesus Christ. All of which means that however much we may come to know of science our scientific knowledge will never contradict the truth and reality of Jesus Christ; our scientific knowledge can never take us farther from God.

Science is possible at all only because there is a correlation between patterns intrinsic to the scientist’s mind and intelligible patterns embodied in the physical world. If this correlation didn’t exist then there would be no match-up between the scientist’s mind and the realm of nature that the scientist investigates. To say the same thing differently: science is possible only because there is a correlation between the structure of human thought and the structure of the physical world. If this correlation didn’t exist then no one could think truthfully about the physical world. Then what is the origin of this correlation, this match-up? The origin is the word, the logos, through which the realm of nature and scientists themselves have alike been created. John Polkinghorne, a mathematical physicist and a Christian writes, “The Word is God’s agent in creation, impressing his rationality upon the world. That same Word is also the light of men, giving us thereby access to the rationality that is in the world.”

Speaking of mathematics and physics; mathematicians don’t make scientific investigations. Mathematicians arrange symbols, the symbols representing relations within human thinking. Physicists, on the other hand, physicists do investigate the world of nature. Recently it was found that when mathematicians and physicists have compared notes they have seen that the relations purely within human thinking reflect the patterns and structures in nature which scientists uncover. In short, there is a correlation between the rationality of human thinking and the rationality imprinted indelibly in nature. How? Why? Because all things have been made through the word of God: all things in the creation, including the mind of the scientist herself.

Everyone knows that science is based on observation. But to observe nature scientifically is not to stare at it. If I were merely to stare at the stars for the next twenty years I still shouldn’t learn anything about stars. The kind of observing that science does is an observing that is guided by theoretical insights. These insights uncover the deep regularities undergirding what can be observed. Where do these theoretical insights come from, ultimately? They are produced by the word, the logos, the rationality of God, the word that became flesh in Jesus of Nazareth; for through this word both nature itself and the human mind were fashioned.

How big is the baby? Very big. He who was born in Bethlehem is the Word of God incarnate. All things were made through him. He is the outer expression of God’s “innerness”. And by him God’s “innerness” has been imprinted on the “outerness” of nature. Scientific discovery never distances us from God, never contradicts the truth of God, never points people toward atheism. On the contrary, to uncover scientifically the rationality imprinted indelibly on the creation is ultimately to ask for the ground of nature’s intelligibility. The one, sufficient ground of nature’s intelligibility can only be the intelligibility or word or logos of God himself.

II: — How big is the baby? Big enough to embrace not just someone here and someone over there; big enough, rather, to embrace all men and women everywhere. All humankind, without exception, is summoned and invited to become sons and daughters of God. To receive the Word made flesh; to receive Jesus Christ in faith, says John, to embrace the one who has already embraced us is to find ourselves rendered children of God.

A minute ago we spoke of the rationality or order in creation. Without such rationality scientific investigation would be impossible; more to the point, without such rationality or order life would be impossible. No one could survive in a world where bread nourished us one day but poisoned us the next; where water doused fire one day but fuelled fire the next. Without elemental order to the universe human existence would be impossible. And yet while this elemental order perdures in a fallen world, the fact that the world is fallen means that the dimension of disorder is always with us. Disease, for instance, is a manifestation of disorder.

Yet the disorder in the natural realm is slight compared to the disorder in the human mind and heart. We men and women are fallen creatures. We are alienated from God in mind and heart. Because we are alienated from God in mind and heart we are disordered in ourselves; in addition, we are an infectious source of disorder in nature. The environmentalists never weary of reminding us of this fact: we human beings are an infectious source of a huge disorder in nature. The environmentalists don’t understand, however, that we are such inasmuch as we are disordered in ourselves and unable to restore order in ourselves.

It is as we embrace the word incarnate who has already made us and embraced us; it is as we become children of God through faith in the Son of God that alienation from God gives way to reconciliation. Mind and heart, disordered to this point, begin to be re-ordered. We are on the road to recovery, and we are guaranteed utmost restoration.

How big is the baby? The word made flesh is big enough to embrace every last man and woman. The word made flesh, our Hebrew foreparents would remind us, is also strong enough, effective enough, to render us all children of God and keep us such until that day when nothing will even threaten to separate us from him.

III: — Lastly, John tells us that out of the fullness of the Word-become-flesh you and I have received, and will always receive, grace upon grace. To say that the Word has become flesh is to say that Jesus Christ has taken on our humanity in its totality; he has taken on our humanity in its exhilaration, its weakness, its frustration, its sin and its mortality. And this humanity, yours and mine, is so surrounded by the goodness and kindness and mercy and wisdom and undeflectable purpose of God, so steeped in the grace of God, says John, that we are always receiving “grace upon grace”. To say that we are set behind and before by the grace of God isn’t to say that God is indulgent or tolerant or blind in one eye. But it is to say that there is a gracious persistence in God as he pardons us, assists us, and takes up whatever is done to us and whatever we do to ourselves and uses it all as only he can as he moves us toward a restoration so complete as to bring glory to him and adoration out of us.

How big is the baby? So very big that out of the fullness of Jesus Christ we shall always receive grace upon grace and nothing but grace. The Lord who knows my profoundest needs better than I know them myself will always supply what I need most. It would be a very small Lord who gave me what I wanted, or gave me what I thought I needed. If I were given what I wanted or thought I needed I should only be confirmed in my superficiality and cemented into my immaturity. Yet so big is the incarnate one that he gives me not what confirms me in my disorder, but precisely what moves me a step closer to my recovery and restoration in him.

When I was ordained and appointed to a seacoast village I spent hours at the beach watching the Atlantic. Hundreds of metres out to sea a wave emerged from the ocean’s immensity. It broke on the beach, flooding the sand. Before the wave wholly receded, however, another wave broke on the beach and flooded the sand. Now the sand was flooded both by the incoming wave and the outgoing wave; that is, the sand was always flooded. And then a third waved surged onto the beach before the second one (even the first) had had time to recede. Wave upon wave. One day as I stood on the beach before the Atlantic and watched wave upon wave I understood what John meant when he wrote, “Out of God’s fullness we have all received grace upon grace.”

It all adds up to this. God’s immensity is always flooding us with grace. However much we blunder, our blunder cannot ungrace us. When our faith flickers and we feel like a half-believer at best, our flickering faith won’t expel us from the sphere and realm of grace. When we are proud and need humbling; when we are dispirited and need encouraging; when we are bruised and need comforting; when our resilience is shaken and we need reassurance; whatever our profoundest need the immensity of grace will always prove sufficient. The Word made flesh is this big.

At the beginning of the sermon I said that for our Hebrew foreparents a word is charged with power. It is an event that, unleashed, alters reality in a way that can never be undone. For our Gentile foreparents a word is the inner principle of a thing, its rationality, how it works. John brought these two senses together when he spoke of Jesus Christ as the Word of God made flesh.

The rationality of the incarnate word is mirrored in the structure of creation and in the structure of human thinking, thus facilitating scientific investigation. The recreative power of the incarnate word is able to render us children of God, thus remedying our disorder. The grace of the incarnate word is fathomless, thus proving daily that Jesus Christ is deeper than our deepest need.
Then John’s cry must elicit an identical exclamation from us; namely, that to behold the Word made flesh is to behold glory, glory without rival and without end.

Victor Shepherd
Advent 2009

Christmas: An Event in Four Words

John 1:14

TRUTH For years I have been intrigued by the psychology of perception. What do people see? What do they think they see? Or hear? Or not hear? Everyone knows that people tend to see what they want to see and tend not to hear what they don’t want to hear. In situations of stress or fatigue or social pressure people can “see” or “hear” what isn’t there to be seen or heard at all.

Recently I found myself listening to a psychologist who has worked much in the area of perception. He told his audience the following.

An adult is placed in a pitch-black room. A pinpoint light is turned on, 10 or 15 feet away. (The light is only a pinpoint; it illumines nothing else.) Once the light is turned on it remains fixed in the same place for the duration of the exercise. Without exception, the psychologist reported, the person in the pitch-black room will say that the light moves. How much it is said to move varies from person to person: from 1 inch to 8 feet, the average being 4 inches.

There is another aspect to this experiment, an aspect that makes my blood run cold. When all the people who participated in the experiment are brought together to chat among themselves, they eventually agree (no one has overtly pressured them into agreeing) that the light moved 4 inches. Even those who, when asked alone, reported that it moved anywhere from 1 inch to 8 feet; even these people now swear that the light moved exactly 4 inches.

Note, in the first place, that people “see” what isn’t there to be seen at all: they are inventing something (a light that moves), and then are genuinely unable to distinguish what is from what they imagine. Note, in the second place, that they come to agree unconsciously lest they appear odd person out, lest they appear to be a social misfit. Note, in the third place, that all of this occurs with something (the pinpoint of light) that hasn’t been rendered deceptive or seductive in any way.

By extension, what does this experiment say about our society’s perception of political issues, educational issues, moral issues, spiritual issues, issues that concern us all?

Now suppose that the pinpoint of light, instead of being left in place, were manipulated so as to deceive people. Then think about the political issues, educational issues, moral issues, spiritual issues where there are attempts and schemes aimed at misleading us. In an election campaign Brian Mulroney swore that Canada’s social benefits were untouchable (“a sacred trust”). Upon being elected, the first thing he did was try to tamper with old age security. What did Canadians do about it? They re-elected him. Lest you think me politically biased I must remind you that Pierre Trudeau defeated Robert Stanfield by means of a promise never to implement wage and price controls. Trudeau implemented them within 90 days of being elected. Whereupon Canadians elected him again.

The two instances of turpitude I have just mentioned aren’t very subtle. (For all their obviousness, however, most Canadians still didn’t recognize them). Every day there are instances of deception far more subtle, far more devious, far more convoluted. Every day we are lied to, and lied to again, as falsehood is piled upon falsehood, fabrication upon fabrication.

How much worse it would all be if we (and our society) were victimized not only by the cunning of men and women, not only by the propaganda of the politicians, not only by the ideologues in the offices of social planning and the military and the church, but also by malignant spiritual forces that underlie and compound and disguise the distortions that we know to be deliberately engineered! Scripture insists that this very thing is happening all the time. St.Paul reminds us in II Corinthians 4 that “the god of this world” obstructs and obscures and perverts the spiritual perception of us all.

Then where is there truth? More profoundly, what is truth? Unless we know what truth is, we shan’t know where to look for it. If we don’t know what truth is and therefore don’t know where to look for it, how shall we ever find it? As a matter of fact, we aren’t going to find it. We are never going to find it. Truth must find us!

Our foreparents in faith were ecstatic over Christmas just because they knew that truth had appeared; truth had found them. Truth had overtaken them and stamped itself upon them when they hadn’t known where to look or what to look for. Truth had come upon them when their perception was distorted (and they were unaware of it), when they had been deceived by human cunning (and were unaware of it), when “the god of this world” had deceived them (and they were unaware of it).

Truth, in John’s gospel, always has the force of reality. Truth is reality as opposed to illusion (illusion being, as Freud taught us, deception that mentally healthy people cling to). Truth is reality as opposed to delusion (delusion being, as Freud taught us, deception that mentally ill people cling to). Truth is reality as opposed to falsehood, as opposed to mythology, as opposed to fantasy. Truth is reality, John insists.

John, we all know, was a Jew by birth and upbringing. He knew Hebrew. Truth, in Hebrew, has the force of firmness, stability, solidity. When truth (firmness, stability, solidity) describes a person, that person is said to be steadfast; and because steadfast, trustworthy.

“The word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth.” Christmas upholds the incursion of truth into our world. The incursion of truth means the incursion of reality, firmness, solidity, steadfastness, trustworthiness. Jesus Christ comes to us with a unique power to penetrate our world of misperception, deliberate falsification, and spiritual deception. Jesus Christ is truth.

GRACE All of us make promises. When we make promises we intend to keep them. Despite our utmost resolve to keep promises, however, we break them. We are promise-breakers.

God, on the other hand, is the promise-keeper. He invariably keeps the promises he makes. There is no treachery in him that could lead him to “welch” on his promises to us; on the other hand there is much treachery in us that could excuse him for abandoning his promises to us. Still, nothing deflects him. However exasperated he is with us, he never gives up on us. However frozen our hearts may be to him, his heart throbs for us. However fitful we may be in our devotion to him, he is constant in his to us. Fitfulness in us is met with only more resolute faithfulness from him.

Now to say that God is faithful is not to say that he is inflexible, rigid. Because he is flexible his faithfulness to us takes a special form when his faithfulness meets our fickleness and folly: when his faithfulness meets our sin his faithfulness takes the form of mercy. (If God were inflexible, then as his faithfulness met our sin his faithfulness — his promise ever to be our God — could only condemn us, without provision for our rescue and without opportunity for our repentance.)

You must have noticed that St. Paul begins his letters to assorted congregations with the greeting, “Grace, mercy and peace to you”. Grace is God’s faithfulness to us, promised from of old, kept unto eternity. Mercy is God’s faithfulness “flexing” so as to deal with our sin. Peace (the Hebrew word is shalom); peace, in Hebrew, is a synonym for salvation. Whenever Paul speaks first of grace he speaks finally of peace; the peace, shalom, salvation that grace finally forges. In other words, grace is faithful love so resilient, so resolute, so undeflectable that not even our icy ingratitude, not even our defiant disobedience, can discourage such love. Grace is faithful love so flexible that it “bends” itself around our sin. Grace is faithful love so constant and consistent that not even our resistance can impede it or interrupt it. For this reason whenever Paul begins by speaking of grace he ends by speaking of peace, shalom: he has imprinted on his heart the logic of grace.

Let’s gather it up in a nutshell: GRACE is God-in-his-faithfulness keeping the promises he has made to us, all for the sake of a mercy-wrought salvation that renders us his children, members of his household and family forever.

To speak of grace and truth is to say that God’s promise-keeping faithfulness (grace) is the reality, the solidity, firmness, stability, that we can trust in a world of distortion and deception and depravity

WORD Perhaps there is a sceptic (even a cynic!) among us who has a most important question to ask. “If God keeps the promises he makes to us, does he do this merely because he wills to do it (the implication being that he could break his promises if he willed to break them), or does he keep his promises because it’s his nature to keep them?” When God keeps his promises, are we merely looking at something God does (for reasons known only to him), or are we looking into the innermost, unalterable heart of God?

We have already determined that grace means God is consistent in his attitude and act. But is God consistent in the sense of being a consistent actor? When the movie Awakenings was about to be filmed Oliver Sacks, the neurologist who wrote the book (Awakenings), spent much time with two superb actors, Robin Williams and Robert de Niero. Sacks was startled and more than a little frightened at the ability of these two actors, since he noticed that they could take on any role, any identity, and act it with perfect consistency for as long as they wanted. But of course none of the roles, identities, they took on were they themselves; none of their roles reflected their innermost heart.

What about God? The “face” that he “puts on” for us in Jesus Christ; is this “face” only skin-deep, or does it reflect depths in God that are so deep they couldn’t be deeper? Does it reflect the innermost heart of God?

As we answer this question you will have to bear with me as we make a short detour into the Greek dictionary. There are two Greek words for word. One word for word is hrema, while the other is logos. Hrema means “that which we utter”. Logos, on the other hand, means “outermost expression of innermost essence”. When John speaks of the Incarnation as the Word becoming flesh, he uses logos. John is plainly telling us that what looms before us in Jesus Christ isn’t merely an act or action of God (as though God could act differently if he felt like it); what looms before us in Jesus Christ is the outermost expression of the innermost essence of God himself.

God doesn’t keep his promises to us just because he feels like keeping them, his promise-keeping telling us nothing about his heart or nature. God doesn’t keep his promises today, the implication being that he might not tomorrow. The consistency God displays isn’t the consistency of actors like Robin Williams and Robert de Niero. Rather, in Jesus Christ we are beholding the heart of God himself. God will never do anything other than what he has done in Christ and is doing now simply because he cannot do anything other.

To say the same thing differently, grace and truth are not roles that God acts superbly; grace and truth are the Word, the outermost expression of the innermost essence. God will always be — can only be — what he is for us in Christ Jesus our Lord. Put the other way around, what God is for us in Christ he is in himself eternally. It is the innermost heart of God that has invaded our world of distortion and deception and depravity.

FLESH “The Word became flesh.” Typically, in scripture, “flesh” refers to our creaturely weakness. “Flesh” is the bible’s one-word abbreviation for our frailty, our fragility, our vulnerability to betrayal, to disappointment, to disease and to death. “Flesh” refers to our ultimate defencelessness in the face of everything we struggle to protect ourselves against but finally can’t.

To say that the Word became flesh is to say that God has stepped forth from his eternal stronghold and has stepped into our frailty, fragility, vulnerability and mortality. But he hasn’t done this just to prove that it can be done; and he hasn’t done this just to keep us company. He has done it in order that his grace and truth might become operative in you and me this instant. He has done it in order that grace and truth might seize us and soak us and shake us as often as we think that our vulnerability or our fragility or our mortality is the last word about us. He has done it in order that on any day of confusion or collapse truth will find us yet again; on any day of disgrace grace will bend the love of God around us and wrap us in his love as God’s faithfulness to us flexes yet again in the face of our sin. He has done it in order that on every day we shall know that we aren’t orphans lost in the vastness of the universe; rather we are children of him who has promised never to abandon us, always to cherish us, thoroughly to save us.

Christmas: an event in four words.

TRUTH: a firm, stable reality we can trust.

GRACE: God’s promise-keeping faithfulness as his love becomes mercy whenever it meets us in our sin, bringing us peace, shalom, salvation.

WORD: All of the this reflecting not merely something God does occasionally but reflecting who God is eternally.

FLESH: God himself going so far to keep his promises to us as to step forth from his stronghold and give himself up for us in the midst of our suffering and death.

“The Word became flesh…full of grace and truth.”

Victor A. Shepherd
Christmas 1995

What Christmas Means to Me

John 1:14

I: — It means a rescue operation, a salvage operation. Salvation (the unique work of the saviour) is a salvage operation.

One week after the birth of Jesus, Mary and Joseph took their infant son to the temple to have him circumcised. There they met Simeon, an aged man who had waited years to see God’s Messiah. With a cry that relieved decades of aching longing Simeon took the baby in his arms and exclaimed, “Now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace.” Peace? Did Simeon mean that at last he had peace in his heart, peace of mind? No doubt he meant that too, but that wasn’t what he meant primarily when he cried, “Peace! At last!”

You see, Simeon was an Israelite. In the Hebrew language “peace” is a synonym for “salvation”. “Peace” means God’s definitive reversal of the distortion, disfigurement and distress which curse the world on account of sin and evil.

Years later, in the course of his earthly ministry, Jesus healed a menorrhagic woman. When he had identified her in the crowd he said, “Daughter, your faith has saved you; go in peace.” He meant, “Through your faith in me God’s salvation has become effective in you; now you step ahead in the reality of your salvation; you walk in it; you live out of it for the rest of your life.”

When Simeon lifted up the week-old Jesus and cried, “Lettest now thy servant depart in peace” he added, “for mine eyes have seen thy salvation…light for revelation to Gentiles.”

Why does he speak of the Gentiles? Plainly Simeon thought that prior to the advent of Jesus Christ Gentiles were “in the dark” with respect to God. The light that Jesus Christ is, said Simeon, alone could save us Gentiles who know nothing of the Holy One of Israel. Was Simeon correct? Years later Paul would describe Gentiles as “separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel, strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world.” Apart from him who is the Christmas gift are we Gentiles Godless and our predicament hopeless? Paul assumed this to be unarguably obvious!

Two weeks ago the University of Toronto conferred an honourary doctorate on Isaiah Berlin, professor at Oxford University. Isaiah Berlin is regarded as one of the finest scholars of humanist conviction anywhere in the world. Multilingual, philosophically erudite, possessed of a remarkable grasp of history, he is intellectually awesome. In his address to the university he detailed the undeniable dark side of human history. While humankind had always been prone to warfare (with the huge loss of life unavoidable in war), it was Napoleon who first developed large-scale slaughter, large-scale in that the slaughter spread vastly farther than battlefield combatants. Then Isaiah Berlin pointed out that the 20th century was unparalleled for slaughter on an even greater scale: the Stalinist purges (not to mention the people Marxism has slain wherever Marxism has been ascendant), the Holocaust, the Killing Fields of the Khmer Rouge, and so on. It is the 20th century that has provided conclusive proof of what the previous centuries suggested to be the state of the human heart. As Berlin spoke, making his case stronger by the moment, the weight of his cumulative argument seemed on the point of convincing everyone that humankind of itself could never reverse its history of rapacity and cruelty. At precisely this moment (according to the Globe and Mail write-up) Berlin turned 180 degrees and announced, without any justification at all, that a glorious new day was just around the corner. History, to this point bleak beyond imagining, would suddenly reverse its course in the 21st century. Humankind was on the cusp of generating a genuinely new future for itself, said Berlin, and his only regret was that he, an old man now, would not live long enough to see us do finally what we had never been able to do to this point!

I was stunned. Berlin’s intellect is far greater than mine. Nevertheless, he exemplifies the point scripture makes over and over: a major consequence of our sinnership is blindness — blindness to truth, blindness to reality, blindness to the nature of sin and the necessity of the saviour. The worst aspect of blindness, of course, is blindness to our blindness; ignorance of our ignorance; insensitivity to our spiritual insensitivity. In a word, the worst consequence of our condition is utter unawareness of our condition and its consequences.

Then Paul was correct, wasn’t he! Humankind is Godless and its predicament is hopeless!

Except that the saviour of humankind that human history cannot generate; this saviour has been given to us. It is the fact of the gift that made Simeon’s heart sing. The fact of the gift means that humankind doesn’t have to remain Godless; its predicament doesn’t have to remain hopeless! What we must crave to do is receive the gift, never spurning it, never trifling with it, never pretending, along with Professor Berlin, that no such gift is needed even though the cumulative evidence is that such a gift — God’s own rescue — is our only hope.

I rejoice that this gift does not come to us with the impersonal label “humankind” written on it, as though it were for everyone in general but no one in particular. Rather I rejoice that it comes with my name on it. As often as I rejoice in this I recall the verse from the Hebrew bible — “I have engraved you on the palms of my hands, says the Lord”. And then I think of the four-line ditty I learned as a child:

My name from the palms of his hands
Eternity cannot erase.
Impressed on his heart it remains
In marks of indelible grace.

I rejoice that the gift with my name on it has come to me in such a manner as to impel me to own the gift, cherish the gift, glory in the gift. For I too can say with Simeon, “Peace! From the prince of Peace himself! Immanuel: ‘God-with-us'”. And because of “God-with-us”, I with God eternally.

II: — Christmas means something more to me. It means that the saved life I have been given in Christ I must henceforth live and can live. A minute ago I referred to Christ’s saying to the healed menorrhagic woman, “Your faith has saved you; go in peace.” He meant, “Your faith has immersed you in the salvation of God; now you live out of that salvation, live from it, for the rest of your life.” What she had been given in Christ she was obliged to live and — most importantly — could live.

When the woman caught in the very act of adultery was brought to Jesus he said to her, “I don’t condemn you; now you see to it that you never do this again.” What she had been given in Christ she was obliged to live and could live.

When the paralyzed man was brought to Jesus he said to him, “Your sins are forgiven; take up your bed and walk.” Our Lord didn’t mean, “Walk around, go for a stroll, meander, try a little sightseeing.” “Walk”, rather, is the commonest metaphor in the Hebrew bible for the obedience God requires of his people. In light of what God’s salvation, God’s people can walk as he requires them to walk.

When Jesus says to three different people on three different occasions, “Go in peace”, “See to it that you never do this again”, “Start walking and never stop”; when our Lord says these he is saying exactly the same thing to all three. What the salvaged are supposed to do the salvaged can do.

Christmas celebrates the Incarnation. The Incarnation is God himself living among us under the conditions of our existence. The Incarnation is therefore God himself living our difficulties, our disappointments, our distresses. The book of Hebrews speaks of Jesus as “the pioneer and perfecter of our faith”; he has forged a way through life’s thickets ahead of us. We don’t have to forge a way through the thicket; we need only follow him on the path he has forged for us. But this we must do, and by his grace this we can do.

Many years after Christmas, when our Lord was full-grown and had embarked on his public ministry, he told his followers that they were light and salt. Obviously we are not light in exactly the same sense that Jesus Christ is. He is the light of the world; our vocation is to shine with his light so as to reflect it into nooks and crannies where life unfolds for us.

Jesus also insisted that his followers are salt. Salt, in the Hebrew bible, is the symbol of God’s covenant with his creation. His covenant is his promise that he will never fail us or forsake us, never quit on us, never give up in disgust or despair, however angry with us he might be for a season. Christians are to be the living sign that God has not abandoned his creation and will not abandon it.

We are to be such a sign. Impossible? Except that our Lord has pioneered this for us already. We need only follow him on the proof-path. Because the salvager has been there ahead of us, we the salvaged must follow him and we can.

III: — Christmas means one thing more to me. It means that the ordinary is fraught with eternal significance. The apostle John speaks of the Incarnation as the Word becoming flesh. He means more than the fact that the self-utterance of God clothed itself in a human body: bones, blood, skin, hair, teeth. He means that the Word immersed itself in every aspect of our existence, from employment problems to temptation to fun-time partying to betrayal to exhilaration to grief to laughter to pain. None of it is foreign to God.

We must never forget that our Lord was born to ordinary parents, grew up in an ordinary town (Nazareth being a generic town like North Bay or Moose Jaw); he worked at an ordinary trade and ate ordinary food. He was so ordinary as not to be noteworthy; there is virtually no mention of him in the literature outside the New Testament. He was one more itinerant preacher of one more Messianic sect handled one more time in the manner Roman security guards were so good at. Yet he was also the sole, sovereign Son of God whose coming among us is the occasion of God’s most intimate presence, God’s most effective mercy, God’s unique opportunity.

Since life is 98% ordinary, it is in the ordinary moments of life that we are going to have serve God. Instead of looking for the extraordinary, the dramatic, we should understand that we are salt and light not particularly when we try to be or are challenged to be; if we are salt and light at all then we are salt and light all the time.

Jesus went to a wedding, and there was given opportunity to attest the mission of his Father. After the wedding he went to a funeral, and opportunity was given him for a different ministry. On his way to the next village a distraught parent told him of a daughter’s sickness; while he was sorting out this development someone who didn’t like him accosted him. It was all so very ordinary — and therefore it was all the opportunity of a particular word and deed and blessing and comfort.

The child in front of us in the variety store is crying because her mother has sent her to the store for a loaf of bread the child has lost her money. Two teenagers in front of us are maliciously teasing an elderly man in Erin Mills Town Centre. The stranger in the bed beside the person we have gone to see in the hospital calls out to us. Our spouse arrives home with horrendous headache and hair-trigger nerves on account of a sneak attack at work when she never expected it and therefore could not protect herself against it.

This is where we live. Christmas, the celebration of the Incarnation, reminds us that this is where God lives too. Then there is opportunity for discernment and service and intercession and courage right here. Depending on the situation there is opportunity (and need) for ironfast inflexibility or for the gentlest accommodation.

I am moved every time I recall a story of St. Francis of Assisi. An eager, enthusiastic novice among the friars told Francis that day-to-day existence with brothers in the order was suffocatingly ordinary. The two of them should move out into the wider world and bear witness to Jesus Christ. Francis agreed that this was a good idea. “But first let’s first walk through the city of Assisi from end to end”, insisted the older man. The two fellows did nothing more than walk through the city. When they had traversed it the impatient novice, puzzled now, turned to Francis and remarked quizzically, “But I thought we were going to testify to our Lord!” “We just did”, replied Francis quietly, “we just did.”

Life consists of the ordinary punctuated by the extraordinary. Punctuation marks are found relatively infrequently, aren’t they? I have yet to see a sentence that had more punctuation marks than words! Punctuation marks may help us read a sentence but they don’t make up the sentence. And strictly speaking, punctuation marks are not even necessary. (Something as important as a telegram, after all, has no punctuation marks.)

It is a sign of spiritual maturity when we understand that the ordinary is the vehicle of the eternal; it is a sign of spiritual alertness when, from time-to-time, we see how this has occurred. It is a sign of faithfulness when we live day-by-day in the certainty that there is no ordinary moment that God doesn’t grace, and therefore there is no ordinary moment that is finally insignificant.

Christmas is the celebration of the Incarnation. Incarnation — the living word and will and way of God becoming flesh of our flesh in our midst; Incarnation is the foundation of everything pertaining to the Christian faith.

Incarnation means a salvage operation that is nothing less than the salvation of God.

Incarnation means that the salvaged life God grants us through our faith in Jesus Christ is a life we must live and can live, since our Lord has pioneered it for us.

Incarnation means that the ordinary is the vehicle of God’s summons to us, as well as the occasion of our obedience to him through service to others.

This is what Christmas means to me.

Victor A. Shepherd
December 1994

From Elijah to John the Baptist, from David to Jesus

I: — My appetite does not improve when I see a crow pecking at a dead animal on the side of the highway. And if perchance a crow were to drop a bit of ragged roadkill in my lap I should be repulsed. Elijah the prophet was told (who told him?) to hunker down by the brook Cherith which flows into the Jordan and crows would feed him there. Feed him what? Everyone knows what crows eat.

Elijah looms out at us from the Hebrew bible as a man who is utterly God-saturated. Over and over we are told, “The word of the Lord came to Elijah…”, and off Elijah goes to do and say what has been laid on him. Today we should find many different ways of speaking of him. He was God-soaked — for the text explains him entirely in terms of the God who has inundated him. He was humble — for it takes more than a little humility to allow oneself to be fed carrion. He was courageous — for it takes enormous courage to speak truth to power, particularly when the political power (King Ahab and his cruel wife Jezebel) is murderous. He was unpolished — for subtlety and soft speech were foreign to him. Most notably he was impassioned. Wherever we find Elijah his passion is aflame: his preaching, his praying, his scorn, his rage, his dejection; it’s all a firestorm. Moderation? Elijah never heard of the word. Balance? The “golden mean”? He wouldn’t understand. We wonder why Elijah is always and everywhere afire; he wonders why we appear not to be lit.

The greatest of the Hebrew prophets, according to Jewish opinion both ancient and modern, Elijah was God’s spokesperson in the face of the Baalism which surrounded Israel and threatened to infiltrate it. Baalism had several aspects to it. It was nature-worship, and nature worship (both ancient and modern) conveniently lacks any grasp of evil or sin. Nature-worship will always attract the hordes who want religious sentimentality without ethics. Not surprisingly Baalism tolerated, even encouraged, lasciviousness of all sorts.

King Ahab, an Israelite who knew exactly what God meant when God insisted that he is a “jealous” God (God abides no rivals; worship of him cannot be mixed with worship of anything else); Ahab nevertheless thought he could have his cake and eat it too. Why not mix Baal, the pagan deity, and Yahweh, the true and living God, together? Why not have the self-indulgence which Baal permits his people and the security which Yahweh promises his people? Why not the fornication which Baal laughs about and the forgiveness which Yahweh weeps to bestow? Why not? Don’t the television preachers tell us repeatedly that God wants us to “have it all”? Don’t the television preachers tell us repeatedly that we can have all the “goodies” of the world together with the gospel of God?

Elijah rightly says, “No, a thousand times no!” And so we find Elijah, the prophet of God, standing amidst the 450 prophets of Baal. “The Holy One of Israel”, Elijah says to them, “will shortly expose your Baal for the inconsequential puff of smoke that it is. And as for you, Ahab, so far from being a real king you are a double-crosser; you have betrayed the very people whose spiritual protector you were commissioned to be.” Whereupon Ahab stabs his finger at Elijah, “You troubler of Israel ; why do you have to be such a disturber?”

Jewish people always knew that Elijah, the greatest of the Hebrew prophets, would come back. He would come back at the end-time when the kingdom of God was breaking in on the world; he would come back when what all Israel called the “Age to Come” was dawning as it superimposed itself on what Israel called the “Present Evil Age”. Elijah would surely come back. And when he came back, ancient Jewish people insisted, he would do four things. He would restore the people inwardly through repentance; he would gather together the scattered people of God; he would proclaim salvation; and he would introduce the Messiah.

Centuries later John the Baptist appeared. John didn’t eat carrion brought to him by crows; he ate honey made for him by wild bees, with grasshoppers added for protein. John too spoke truth to power, even lethal political power — just as Elijah of old had. This time it wasn’t king Ahab; it was king Herod, a Jew in name only who had sold his soul to pagan Romans and now betrayed the very people whose spiritual protector he had been commissioned to be. And just as Elijah had ringingly denounced Ahab’s theft of Naboth’s vineyard, so John denounced Herod’s theft of his brother’s wife.

John had an elemental message which he declared tirelessly. “Repent. Right now. Don’t say, ‘Tomorrow’. You don’t have tomorrow. The axe is laid to the root of the tree now; it is the height of spiritual stupidity to think that the tree itself is going to last until tomorrow. Get right with God now. How will anyone know if your repentance is genuine? By the subsequent shape of your life. Will baptism in the Jordan (or anywhere else) save you? No it won’t. For unless your life is reordered before God, getting yourself baptized in desperation is no different from a snake slithering away in panic from a grass fire.”

And then John began gathering together the scattered people of God. After all, he urged repentance even upon soldiers, and they, despised gentiles as they were, were yet added to the “household and family of faith”. In the same breath John proclaimed the salvation brought by his cousin, Jesus, whose shoelaces John felt himself unworthy to untie. Did he introduce the Messiah? Repeatedly John urged the people, “Don’t look at me; look at him. He is the one to baptize you with the fiery Spirit of God!”

Months later the detractors of Jesus taunted him, “You can’t be the Messiah. Everyone knows that Elijah must come back before the Messiah can appear. And Elijah hasn’t returned for 800 years!” “Wrong again”, said Jesus to his detractors, “you are dead wrong. Elijah did come back. He came back recently. And you made fun of him. You called him names: ‘the dunker, the dipper’. Elijah did come back. And you dismissed him. Didn’t John urge repentance, gather the scattered people of God, declare the salvation of God, and introduce the Messiah?”

Today is Advent Sunday. We are preparing ourselves to receive (or receive afresh) him who is the Messiah of Israel and the saviour of the world, him who is nothing less than Emmanuel, God-with-us. Yet we can properly receive him only as we first admit that the Messiah can’t be known without the reappearance of Elijah, only as we admit with our Lord himself that John the Baptist is Elijah given to us once more. Which is to say, we can receive the Christmas gift himself only as we first hear the forerunner’s word and take it to heart and do it. The single forerunner of the Christmas gift is Elijah and John compressed into one. Let us hear our Lord Jesus once more: we can receive him who is the Christmas gift (our Saviour) only as we first hear and honour the word of the forerunner, Elijah and John compressed into one.

II: — Elijah was Israel ’s greatest prophet; David its greatest king. Many generations later David’s descendants gave birth to the Son of David, Jesus our Lord. David and Jesus were even farther apart temporally than Elijah and John: one thousand years separated David and his Son. Yet they had much in common.

They both came from simple country-folk; David and Jesus, that is.

They both gained notoriety when they were still adolescents: David as a shepherd boy who accidentally “showed up” older men when they would not respond to Goliath’s challenge, Jesus as a 12 year old who stymied learned clergy in the temple.

They both possessed enormous backbone, neither one a pushover, neither one cowering before brute power. When David saw the terror which had paralyzed his countrymen in the face of the Philistine threat David scornfully said of the Philistine leader, “Who is this uncircumcised Philistine that he should defy the armies of the living God?” When Jesus knew that Herod wanted to terminate him Jesus scornfully said to whoever would listen, “Go and tell that fox”, when “fox”, in first century Middle Eastern street-talk was shorthand for the most loathsome “creep” imaginable.

They both showed mercy to their enemies: David, when he knew Saul wanted to kill him and he had Saul helpless yet let him go, Jesus when he prayed at the last, “Father, forgive them, for they don’t know what they are doing.”

They both were men of passion. When David exulted without restraint “before the Lord” his wife, Michal, despised him for it. When the passion of Jesus fired his public ministry and rendered him heedless of danger his mother thought him deranged and wanted to take him home and sedate him.

They both were fighters, and both declined the weapons which everyone else assumed they ought to use. David was offered Saul’s armour, but put it aside, trusting a simple slingshot and the use God would make of it as God honoured the one who had first placed his trust in his Father. Jesus, summoned before Pilate, told Pilate that he, Jesus had at his command legions of angels whose unearthly power could have vapourized Pilate on the spot, together with everything Pilate represented. Instead Jesus trusted a simple cross and the use his Father would make of it as his Father honoured the one who had first placed his trust in his Father.

Both David and Jesus were born to be king. David was born in Bethlehem , a village outside Jerusalem . ” Bethlehem ” means “house of bread”. One thousand years later Jesus was born in Bethlehem too. Both were born to be king.

What was an Israelite king supposed to do? I say “supposed to do” since most Israelite kings didn’t do what a king was supposed to do. Instead they lined their pockets and slew their opponents. David was different. David knew that an Israelite king had three responsibilities. The king was to protect the people, uphold justice, and serve as a priest.

David did protect the people. In fact David was a military genius, like the Duke of Wellington or Ulysses S. Grant.

David did uphold justice. Justice today means little more than seeing that criminals are convicted and sentenced. Not so with that justice which God decrees. As a matter of fact there is no Hebrew word for justice; the Hebrew word is “judgement.” The king was to uphold God’s judgements just because the king was the agent of God’s judgements. And God’s judgement is not primarily a matter of convicting criminals and sentencing them. God’s judgements, scripture attests over and over, are God himself setting right what is wrong; freeing those who are enslaved; relieving those who are oppressed; assisting those who are helpless; clearing the name of those who are slandered; vindicating those who are despised. David did this. Those who had been set upon were set upon no longer. Anyone who “fleeced” the defenceless or exploited the powerless learned quickly that king David had zero tolerance for this sort of thing. When David himself was fleeing Saul’s murderous hatred 400 men and their families gathered around David, “Everyone who was in straits and everyone who was in debt and everyone who was desperate.” To be desperate is literally to be without hope; to be in straits is to have no way out, no escape. All such people found in this king one who would never disdain or ignore or abandon them.

And priest? The role of the priest was to intercede with God on behalf of the people. Frequently David went into the tabernacle “and sat before the Lord”; that is, he had his people on his heart, and pleaded with God for them all.

One thousand years after David a blind beggar minutes away from receiving his sight called out to Jesus, “Son of David, have mercy on me.” “Son of David”. It meant “messiah.” The messiah was to be a great king, greater even than David. A blind man who could see what supposedly sighted people couldn’t see knew Jesus to be the long-awaited king greater even than David.

The protection which Christ the king gave his people — continues to give them — is more glorious than any protection David furnished, for Christ our king has promised that nothing will ever snatch you and me out of his hand; nothing will ever separate us from that love of God made concrete in the king himself.

That Son of David who is Christ the king upholds justice as he implements God’s judgements. Jesus himself has said that all judgement has been delivered over to him. And since the primary purpose of judgement is to restore the right, to say he is judge is to say that he is saviour. If the primary purpose of the judge is to set right anything that is wrong, anywhere, from the sin of a child to the disfigurement of the cosmos, then the judge has to be the saviour as well.

And priest? In his atoning sacrifice Christ the king uniquely pleads with the Father on behalf of the people. For this reason the book of Hebrews speaks of Christ the king as “our great high priest”.

All of which brings us to the last point concerning David and David’s greater son: the matter of sin. Here their paths diverge. The New Testament tells us that Jesus was “tempted at all points as we are, yet without sin”. David, it can safely be said, was also tempted at all points; but he sinned grievously. He lusted after Bathsheba, Uriah’s wife. His lust warped his thinking. Adultery-on-the-way rendered murder perfectly reasonable. David didn’t merely stumble; he sprawled, sprawled shamefully. Everyone knew it.

A few days later, as David slunk out of Jerusalem (or tried to slink out), a man named Shimei walked on the other side of the street, cursing David and throwing stones at him. (No doubt the stones were a not-so-subtle reminder that the law of Moses prescribed stoning for adultery.) Abishai, David’s loyal friend, was outraged that the king should be insulted like this. “Why should this dead dog curse the king?”, cried Abishai, “Let me take his head off!” “No”, replied David sadly, “No. Shimei curses me only because God has told him to. The treatment Shimei accords me is no worse than I deserve.” David was publicly humiliated, yet refused to flee his humiliation inasmuch as his public humiliation was the God-ordained consequence of his sin.

King David’s greater son didn’t flee his public humiliation either. Jesus was “numbered among the transgressors”. He was assigned that death — crucifixion — which the Romans reserved for insurrectionists, deserters and rapists; that is, reserved for those whose disgrace could not be greater. Jesus refused to flee his public humiliation inasmuch as his humiliation was the God-ordained consequence not of his sin but of his sin-bearing righteousness. The apostle Paul, as so often, says it most compactly: “He who knew no sin was made sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”

The Christmas announcement to the shepherds in the field was plain: “Don’t be afraid. Good news! Great joy! For to you is born in the city of David a saviour who is Christ the Lord.”

The city of David is Bethlehem , “house of bread”. And in the house of bread is born David’s greater son who is himself the bread of life. Then this one, given to us anew at this season, we must receive anew, for he is saviour inasmuch as his humiliation is his invitation to us to become that righteousness of God which we need as we need nothing else.

Elijah, David, John, Jesus. The Christmas story begins in a lowly cattle shed, once upon a time, in royal David’s city.

Victor Shepherd
Advent 2003

Who Ought to “Come and Worship Christ the New-Born King”?

Isaiah 60:1-3
Matthew 2:1-12

Who ought to worship? Everyone ought to worship. (We all know this much. Everyone ought to worship.) Still, the Christmas carol, Angels, from the Realms of Glory, speaks of different sorts of people who ought to worship. It speaks of angels and shepherds, sages and saints.

I: — Today we are going to start with the shepherds. Shepherds were despised in 1st century Palestine. The social sophisticates in Jerusalem and other city centres of urbanity looked upon shepherds as uncouth, since shepherds worked with animals. Shepherds were also regarded as dirty. Sheep, after all, have very oily fleece and the shepherd has to handle them; besides, sheep poop everywhere. Shepherds were also looked upon as less than devout. It was awkward for them to get to all the church services as expected, since their animals were forever getting lost or falling sick or breaking a leg or having obstetrical difficulties.

Like all people who are despised for any reason, however, the shepherds were also useful to the very people who despised them. At both morning and evening services in the temple, the cathedral of Jerusalem, an unblemished lamb had to be offered up to God. High quality lambs, therefore, were always in demand. Temple authorities had their own private flocks just outside Jerusalem, in the Bethlehem hills. The Bethlehem shepherds looked after both their own flocks and the flocks of the temple authorities, always looking out for the perfect lamb to be sacrificed in the temple. These shepherds, despised as they were, were ordained by God to be the first people to behold the Lamb of God, the Lamb who takes away the sins of the world. They were the first to hear the good news, gospel, of Christmas: “For to you is born this day a Saviour, who is Christ the Lord.”

I understand why the shepherds were the first to hear and see, apprehend and know, believe and trust. The shepherds were first in that like other people in general who come from the south side of town they aren’t taken in by the smokescreens and false fronts that middle and upper class people love to hide behind. People from the south side of town see it the way it is and tell it the way it is.

My first day on the job in Streetsville (I came to the congregation in 1978 and remained for 21 years) I arrived early at my office and waited for the church secretary. Promptly at 8:30 a.m. the secretary, a large, imposing woman, loomed in the doorway to my office, looked me in the eye and said, “I’m married to a truck driver; you get it from me straight.” That was her first utterance. Her second was like unto it: “There’s a toilet between your office and mine, but it’s noisy, if you get what I mean.” Is there anyone who wouldn’t get what she meant? Right away I knew I was going to get along with this woman. Because she, married to a truck driver, was utterly transparent and non-duplicitous, frontal, she spared me untold grief over and over in congregational life.

She and I had much in common, not the least of which is the simple fact that we both live in the shadow of a dog food factory. And there’s nothing wrong with this. After all, Moses was minding sheep when the Lord God accosted him and the world was different ever after. Gideon was threshing wheat when he was summoned from heaven. Elisha was ploughing a field when he was named successor to Elijah. No congregation can afford to be without shepherds and all those like them.

This being the case, why do we see so few of these people at worship in virtually all the churches of historic Protestantism? Roman Catholicism has always been able to attract people from the whole of the socio-economic spectrum, from the most affluent to the most materially disadvantaged. To be sure, the Protestant churches do see some of the latter; Protestant congregations aren’t completely homogeneous. Still, we see far too few. Their absence dismays me, since I have found that these people have no difficulty with me, at least. Several years ago a man with a grade ten education chuckled, “Victor, we can always be sure of one thing on Sunday morning: you’ll never be over our heads!” Such people live in Toronto in large numbers. But they are proportionately underrepresented in virtually all Protestant congregations. Why? Can any of you enlighten me? Their absence haunts me. For shepherds have been summoned to worship Christ the new-born king. And if they do worship, they’ll be the first to see and seize the Lamb of God who takes away their sin too.

II: — Sages ought to worship as well. To be sure, the hymnwriter insists that where sages are concerned “brighter visions beam afar”; brighter, that is, than the sages’ contemplations. I agree. But to see Jesus Christ as brighter, even the brightest, is not to say that lesser contemplations aren’t bright at all and aren’t to be valued. They are bright, and they are to be valued. To say that God’s self-disclosure in Jesus Christ supplies what no sage will ever arrive at is correct; but to say that because God’s self-disclosure is this what the sages are about is worthless – this is wrong. To say that the event of Christmas gives us what no philosophical exploration will ever impart is not to say that philosophy (or another scholarly discipline) is therefore foolish and useless. The uniqueness of the Christmas event never means that intellectual rigour isn’t a creaturely good, a creaturely good that gives God pleasure.

Philosophy is an academic discipline that I cherish. Please don’t tell me that philosophy’s significance is measured by the old question, “How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?” Philosophy, after all, taught me to think, and 90% of good preaching is just clear thinking. Moreover, insofar as philosophical enquiry is the exploration of what is there is an intellectual excellence to it that we ought not to slight, for God takes pleasure in any human excellence. (Let’s be sure of something else: God takes no pleasure in mediocrity of any sort.)

Jesus Christ is truth. I am glad to affirm this. He is that “brighter” luminosity that sages are summoned to worship. But to say this isn’t to say that the contemplations of the sages are inherently vacuous and invariably useless, let alone evil. Because the church has undervalued the sages’ contemplations the church has largely abandoned the arena of intellectual endeavour. At one time the thinkers inside the church could out-think the thinkers outside the church; at one time. In my second year philosophy course the professor, a man who made no religious profession, had the class read both Bertrand Russell and Thomas Aquinas. Russell is an atheist; Aquinas, a Christian and the greatest philosopher of the middle ages. It’s easy to see why an agnostic or atheist professor would have us read Russell. But why Aquinas? Just because that professor wanted us to appreciate the intellectual power of the “Angelic Doctor”, as Aquinas was known in the 1200s.

Years ago I overheard Emil Fackenheim, himself a marvellous philosopher, remark that Kierkegaard was the greatest thinker to arise in Christendom. I thought the statement was perhaps exaggerated Then I found others saying the same thing. Then I noticed that Ludwig Wittgenstsein, one of the most influential philosophers of the 20th century (together with Martin Heidegger); I noticed that Wittgenstein had said that Kierkegaard was by far the profoundest thinker of the 19th century. Will the profoundest thinker of the 20th century turn out to have been a Christian? And of the 21st? Not a chance. Why not? Because the church has abandoned the intellectual field. Fuzzy-headed feel-goodism is as profound as we get today.

At the time of the Reformation (16th century), those who had first been schooled as “sages” (i.e., humanists) before they applied themselves to theology also wrote theology that we shall never be without and provided leadership for the church. Those, on the other hand, who studied theology only without first drinking from the wells of humanism wrote no worthwhile theology and provided no leadership for the church.

Yes, sages should worship Christ the new-born king, since he is king and brings with him what the sages can’t supply of themselves. But this is not to say that the sages’ sage-ism is worthless. There is creaturely wisdom that is genuinely wise, even as the pursuit of that wisdom gives pleasure to God.

III: — Saints too are summoned to the cradle. “Saints before the altar bending, watching long in hope and fear.” The saints are those, like Simeon and Anna of old, who wait on God. The saints are always found “before the altar bending”; i.e., the saints worship, profoundly worship. They are always found “watching long in hope and fear”; i.e., the saints are both expectant and reverent. “Suddenly the Lord descending in his temple shall appear.” Shall appear; shall continue to appear. In other words, the Lord who came once in Bethlehem of old comes again and yet again, continues to come. Insofar as any of us are found at worship, waiting on God expectantly and reverently, the selfsame Lord will unfailingly appear to us.

It was while Isaiah was at worship that the sanctuary filled up with the grandeur of God and the holiness of God and the glory of God. The glory of God is the earthly manifestation of God’s unearthly Godness. It all overwhelmed Isaiah so as to leave him prostrated under the crushing weight of God, only then to be set on his feet so that he might henceforth go and do what he had been appointed to.

It was while Zechariah, father of John the Baptist, was at worship that he was rendered speechless for as long as he needed to stop talking in order to hear and heed what God was saying to him.

It was while the apostle John was at worship, exiled for the rest of his life on the island of Patmos, that he was “visited” and wrote, when he had recovered, “His voice was like the sound of many waters, and his face was like the sun shining in full strength…and when I saw him I fell at his feet as though dead. But he laid his right hand on me saying, ‘Fear not….’”

What do we expect when we come to worship? Three hymns and a harangue? What if “Suddenly the Lord descending in his temple did appear”?

He who came once doesn’t come once only. He comes again and again. As often as he comes the saints before the altar bending – the saints at worship – are overtaken yet again, and like John of old can barely croak, “His voice was like the sound of many waters, and his face like the sun shining in full strength….” The saints in any congregation today know as surely as the saints of old knew. And the saints at worship today declare, “Come with us and worship Christ the new-born king.”

IV: — What about the angels? Make no mistake: the angels are real. It is the height of arrogance to think that we are the only rational creatures in the universe. Who says that a creature has to possess flesh and bone in order to possess reason and spirit? The Christmas carol invites the angels to “proclaim Messiah’s birth.” Such proclamation, such witness, is precisely what scripture says angels are always and everywhere to be about. Such proclamation or witness is crucial. You see, because the angels are mandated to bear witness, specifically to bear witness to Jesus Christ, God will never lack witnesses who attest the truth and power of his Son and of that kingdom which the Son brings with him. To be sure, you and I are mandated to bear witness to all of this too. Flesh and blood witnesses like you and me, however, are sadly lacking in quality and quantity. Still, where we are deficient, the angels are not. Therefore I find much comfort in the angels. However much I may fail in serving and attesting and exalting Messiah Jesus and his truth, there are other creatures whose service and witness and exaltation never fail.

Listen to Karl Barth, the pre-eminent theologian of our century. A few years after World War II Barth wrote, “Because of the angelic witness to God’s kingdom we can never find intolerable or hopeless the apparently or genuinely troubled state of things on earth.” Just before the outbreak of the war Barth had been apprehended at his Saturday morning lecture in the University of Bonn, Germany. He had been deported immediately from Germany to his native Switzerland. As soon as hostilities with Germany had ceased the cold war with the Soviet Union had begun. While there was no war, hot or cold, in Switzerland, Barth never pretended the Swiss were uncommonly virtuous. He readily admitted his own country financed itself by harbouring the ill-gotten gains (the infamous unnamed accounts in the Swiss banks) of the most despicable criminals throughout the world. Nevertheless, “Because of the angelic witness to God’s kingdom we can never find intolerable or hopeless the apparently or genuinely troubled state of things on earth.”

V: — Lastly, the Christmas carol invites us all, everyone, to worship Christ the new-born king. It tells us that this infant has been appointed to fill his Father’s throne. Since Christ’s sovereignty over the whole of creation is unalterable, acknowledging his sovereignty is not only an invitation to be received and a command to be obeyed; it’s the soul of common sense.

Our Lord is the new-born king. To be sure, the only crown he will ever wear is a crown of thorns. Finding no room in the inn and having no home in which to lay his head throughout his earthly ministry, the one house he’ll eventually occupy is a tree house, ghastly though it is. And of course the only throne he will ever adorn is a cross. Still, he is king. We mustn’t allow the bizarreness of his royal trappings to deflect us from the fact that he is king. He rules, he will judge, and he can bless.

Then acknowledge him we must. The writer of our carol cries, “Every knee shall then bow down.” Since everyone is going to have to acknowledge him ultimately, like it or not; since every knee is going to have to bow before him either in willing adoration or in unwilling resignation, it only makes sense to adore him and love him and delight in him now, together with sages, saints, angels, and by no means least, shepherds.

Victor Shepherd
December 2000

What the Incarnation Means for Me

Colossians 1:19

Canada is religiously diverse. Muslims outnumber Presbyterians in Toronto and outnumber us again in Canada as a whole. We used to read about Hindu people in India and elsewhere. But when a trustee from the Toronto Board of Education spoke of Mahatma Gandhi in a manner that offended the Hindu community, we learned quickly that our Hindu fellow-Canadians are more numerous and less visible than we had thought.

Unquestionably we live amidst religious pluralism. In the sea of religious pluralism the Christian conviction concerning the Incarnation sticks out like a sore thumb. If we remain silent about the Incarnation we can always pass ourselves off as vague theists; i.e., people who believe in a deity of some sort, people who believe enough about God to appear religious yet who don’t believe so much as to appear offensive.

Then should Christians downplay the Incarnation, as one professor suggested to me? We can never do this, for the truth; the undeniable, uncompromisable truth of the Incarnation has seized us. At any time, but especially at Christmas, we exult in the truth that the Word was made flesh, that God has come among us by identifying himself with all humanity in the humanness of one man in particular, Jesus of Nazareth. We who have cherished the gospel of the Incarnation for years are like those men and women of old whose elation concerning Jesus caused them to shout in exultation. Detractors didn’t like this. They told Jesus to silence his followers. “Silence them?” said Jesus; “If my followers fell silent the very stones would cry out [in acclaiming the truth.]”

We who cling to our Lord today must cry out too in gratitude for all that God has given us in him and done for us in him. We are never going to be found denying our Lord by denying the Incarnation. We are never going to surrender the particularity of the Incarnation in order to blend into the blandest religion-in-general. Without hesitation we are going to thank God for his coming to us as Incarnate Son in Jesus of Nazareth. Without embarrassment we are going to announce this truth in season and out of season.

Why are we going to do this? What does the Incarnation mean? Why is it crucial to all men and women everywhere even if they disdain it?

I: — In the first place the Incarnation means that God loves us in our misery so very much that he is willing to share our misery with us. He loves us enough in our alienation from him as to stop at nothing to fetch us home to him.

But do we need to be fetched home? In his best-loved parable, “the parable of the prodigal son,” as we call it, Jesus uses two pithy, single-syllable words to describe our condition before God. The first word is “lost;” the second, “dead.” Please note that Jesus doesn’t attempt to explain what he’s said in order to defend himself for saying it. Neither does he argue for it in order to persuade us to believe it. He merely states it: “Lost, dead.” He expects us to agree with him.

On another occasion people are gathered around Jesus, listening. They hear him using the strongest language concerning the spiritual condition of humankind. They assume he’s referring to “others,” “others” being inferior sorts whom they don’t like in any case and whom they could readily agree to be spiritually defective. “But what about us?” these hearers ask Jesus, expecting to be exempted. “What about us?” Whereupon our Lord utters two more words: “blind, deaf.” Suddenly enraged, these people fly at him: “Don’t talk to us like that. We are better than that. We have Abraham for our father.” “Abraham?” says Jesus; “You wouldn’t know Abraham if you fell over him. Your father is the devil.”

You and I ought never to deceive ourselves about our sinnership. We ought never to forget it. We should recall it daily, and daily feel better immediately, since to recall our sinnership is to recall the Christmas truth that God loves us enough to condescend to us sinners and number himself among us.

We speak of God’s love presumptuously and therefore shallowly. “Of course God loves. What else can he do? Of course God loves me. Who wouldn’t love me? Of course….” It’s all so very shallow.

We need to ask a profounder question. “How much does God love? How far will he go in loving me? What price will he pay to love me? How much will he suffer to love me?” The truth is, God loves us sinners so much that his love will stop at nothing to reclaim us and rescue us. His love doesn’t go “only so far” and stop there; his love goes as far as it has to go in order to have us home with him again. Plainly it wasn’t sufficient that he love us “from a distance;” plainly he could love us savingly (anything less is useless) only if he condescended and came among us as one of us humans, and humiliated himself by identifying with us sinners.

In my first congregation I came to know an old man, Jim MacCullum, who had served in World War I. One day he and his best friend were moving forward in “No Man’s Land,” the open space between allied and enemy trenches. Enemy fire became so intense that the Canadian troops had to fall back. When Jim got back to his trench he couldn’t find his friend. Whereupon Jim went back out to “No Man’s Land,” into the teeth of murderous fire, searching and calling out until he found his friend. His friend was badly wounded and unless rescued would shortly perish. The wounded man looked at him and said, “Jim, I knew you’d come.”

There’s a moving similarity between the situation of Jim’s friend and our situation before God. In Romans 5 Paul speaks of us as helpless. That’s the similarity. There’s also the profoundest dissimilarity between Jim’s friend and our situation before God. In Romans 5 Paul also speaks of us as enemies of God. Jim’s friend wanted to see Jim as he wanted nothing else. We sinners – blind, deaf, spiritually inert – don’t expect a saviour and don’t want one.

And it is for all such perverse people that God’s love swells and swells until his love has to find embodiment in the Nazarene. At this point God has loved us so very much that his love has humbled him in a manger, humiliated him with a reputation he doesn’t deserve (“sinner”) and tortured him in Gethsemane and cross.

Tell me: people who speak so very glibly about God’s love – how do they know that God loves them at all? We know that God loves us at all only as we see him loving us to the uttermost, only as we see him loving us until his love stops short of nothing in order to reconcile us to himself.

Let’s be sure we understand something crucial: while the Incarnation is essential to our salvation we aren’t saved by it. We are saved by the Incarnate One’s sin-bearing death. Then beyond God’s condescension and humility there’s humiliation as he, the holy one, identifies himself with unholy rebels. And his humiliation takes him even into a torment wherein he absorbs in himself his just judgement upon us in order that we might be spared it. This is how much God loves us. And only as we see him loving us this much do we have any reason to believe that he loves us at all.

For years now I have pondered the fact that the best Christmas carols sing about the Incarnation for the sake of singing about the atonement, the cross. Think of one of my favourites, “Hark! The Herald Angels sing!” But first let’s listen again to our text: “For in Jesus Christ all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell (Incarnation) and through him to reconcile all things…making peace by the blood of his cross (atonement.)” Now listen to the carol: “Peace on earth and mercy mild, God and sinners reconciled.”

Think of the carol, “As With Gladness.” It says, “So may we with willing feet, ever seek thy mercy-seat.” In ancient Israel the mercy-seat was the gold lid on the Ark of the Covenant. The Ark of the Covenant was the place where God met with his people; and the mercy-seat, the gold lid, was the place where costliest sacrifice was offered. Jesus Christ is where God meets with his people; his cross is the mercy-seat. Costliest sacrifice is offered here, which sacrifice bathes us in effectual mercy. And we learn it all from a Christmas carol.

I glory in the Incarnation. I know that God loves me at all just because I first know that his love stops short of nothing in his searching for me and his rescuing me.

II: — In the second place I glory in the Incarnation in that Jesus of Nazareth, human with my humanness, has fulfilled on my behalf the covenant obedience that God’s love wants from us humans. God covenants himself to us in that he promises ever to be our God. We in turn covenant ourselves to him in that we promise ever to be his people.

God unfailingly keeps us covenant with us. What he promises he performs. What he pledges he delivers. And we? We promise unfailing obedience to God. We promise exclusive loyalty to God. We promise uninterrupted love to God. We promise truthfulness before him. Whereupon we break all the promises we make. Even the promises we make with the best intentions we break nonetheless. We are covenant violators.

God looks out over his entire human creation, hoping to find promise-keepers. Among six billion people he can’t find one human being who gladly, gratefully, consistently, fulfils humankind’s covenant with God. At this point God is faced with an alternative: write off his human creation on account of its disobedience and rebellion, or fulfil humankind’s covenant himself. He has already fulfilled his covenant in loving us undeflectably. Now he also has to fulfil our covenant with him if our covenant is ever going to be kept. In the Incarnate One of Nazareth God not only fulfils his covenant with us; he also fulfils our covenant with him. In other words, in view of humankind’s disobedience God has to come among us as human and in this way fulfil our covenant himself.

I glory in the Incarnation in that the Incarnate One is the human covenant-keeper to whom I must cling, covenant-breaker that I am. To be sure, I have heard the gospel invitation and responded to it. I am a new creation in Christ and grateful for it. Yet the old man, the old being, still clings to me. When we became new creatures in Christ the old man, old woman, was put to death. But as Luther liked to remind us, the old man or woman won’t die quietly; the corpse keeps twitching. This being the case, it’s plain that in Christ I am a new creature; in myself I remain the old covenant-breaker. Then I must cling to Jesus Christ so that his covenant-keeping comprehends my covenant-breaking.

To be sure, I do love God. But I never love him as much as I’m supposed to. Then I must cling to that Son whose human love for his Father is defective in nothing. To be sure I do trust God. But somehow my trust in God is always being punctured by episodes of distrust when I dispute that he can or will do for me all that he’s promised. To be sure, I do obey God. At least I aspire to obey him; I want to obey him. But actually obey him? In all matters? Without exception? Then I can only cling to that Son whose human obedience to his Father is faultless. To be sure, I am possessed of faith. Yet how faithful is my faith? Faith of the head comes easy to me: I believe all major Christian doctrines and have never doubted any of them. So much for my faith of the head. But what what about the faith, faithfulness, of my heart? My heart is treacherous. Then I must cling to that Son whose human faith in his Father was never compromised.

Let me say it again. God unfailingly keeps his covenant, his promises, to us. Just as surely we violate ours to him. Then we must cling to the Inarnate One in whom God as man has come to keep that human covenant with him which we can’t keep.

In other words, Jesus Christ, the Incarnate One, mediates God to us and at the same time mediates us to God. He is the one and only Mediator – both manward and Godward – whom God has provided us in our great need.

III: — Lastly, I glory in the Incarnation since it is the greatest affirmation of life. After all, if human life is so precious to God that he chooses to live our human existence as human himself, then human existence must be rich, wonderful, a treasure. If God so prizes human existence then we must prize it no less. If in living every dimension of our humanness God endorses every dimension, then we must endorse every dimension too.

Life is good. I didn’t say easy. I didn’t say life is trouble-free or confusion-free or pain-free. I said life is good. The Incarnation is the story of God’s coming among us to rescue us inasmuch as he deems our existence worth rescuing. Then human existence, however problem-riddled, remains good.

I feel sorry for the people who have slipped or skidded or otherwise fallen into the rut of not being life-affirming. Frequently they tell me they don’t feel very good because they have had the ’flu six times this year. But no one gets the ’flu six times per year. ’Flu-like symptoms – dragginess, weariness (“psychomotor retardation” is the fancy medical term) – these are the symptoms of low-grade depression. Low-grade depression is usually so very low-grade that it’s not recognized as depression. It’s what people slide into unawares when they don’t have reason enough to be life-affirming.

The Incarnation is reason enough. I love that verse from the book of Ecclesiastes, “There is nothing better for a man than that he should eat and drink and find enjoyment in all his toil.” (2:28) We are to enjoy eating and drinking and working not simply because they keep life going; we are to enjoy these because they are pleasurable, good in themselves.

I’m always impressed with the child’s exuberance. A child is on the tear every waking moment. He doesn’t want to go to bed – even when’s so tired he’s staggering – in case he misses something. Yes, I know; we adults don’t have the child’s physical stamina, and we are aware of the world’s grief in a way the child isn’t. Nonetheless, the child’s exuberance should inflame ours.

One day after church the Shepherds’ lunch-hour table-talk roamed hither and yon from that morning’s sermon to Canada ’s newest submarines to Alice Munro’s most recent collection of short stories to the Argos ’ Grey Cup victory. Maureen looked at me said, “You have a thousand enthusiasms.” Indeed I have. Isn’t this better than a thousand wet blankets? In the Incarnation God affirms everything he pronounces good.

The Word became flesh. The Word was embodied. Then to say “life-affirming” is also to say “body-affirming.” The taste of green apples and blue cheese. The crunch of buried ice fragments in the middle of our ice cream cone. Flannelette sheets on a winter night. Renee Fleming’s soprano voice. Yitzhak Perlman’s violin. Riding a bicycle for hours longer than we thought we could. One day I was walking through the ward of a nursing home where the residents were in the worst condition imaginable. One malodorous, old man was hunched over in his wheel chair, head on his folded arms, seemingly more dead than alive or virtually comatose. I assumed he was asleep or depressed or deranged or all three at once. As I tiptoed past him he sat up, grinned at me and shouted, “Did you bring the sweets?” I could have kissed him.

It’s Christmastide. Together we are pondering the foundation of our faith, the Incarnation, God’s coming among us as human in Jesus of Nazareth.

– Because God has visited us in this manner we know how much he loves us: he will do anything, suffer anything, absorb anything, to have us home with him again, reconciled to him forever.

– Because God has visited us in this manner we know that he as human has fulfilled our covenant with him when we couldn’t fulfil it ourselves.

-Because God has visited us in this manner he has affirmed the goodness of our existence, and insists that we affirm it too.

Yes, we do live amidst religious pluralism. So did Jesus himself. Yet he remained who he was amidst it and never apologized for being who he was and is. We are unapologetic. For that truth which has seized us we could never deny – and in any case would never want to.

Victor Shepherd
Christmas 2004

John the Baptist and Jesus

Matthew 3:1-12

We expect to find a family resemblance among relatives. John and Jesus were cousins. Not surprisingly, then, they were “look-alikes” in many respects.

Both were at home in the wilderness, the venue of extraordinary temptation and trial and testing, but also the venue of extraordinary intimacy with the Father.

Both preached out-of doors when they began their public ministry.

Both gave their disciples a characteristic prayer. John gave his followers a prayer that outwardly identified them as his disciples and inwardly welded them to each other. In no time the disciples of Jesus asked him for the same kind of characteristic prayer, with the result that we shall never be without the “Lord’s Prayer.”

Both John and Jesus lashed hearers whenever they spoke of God’s severity and the inescapability of God’s judgement.

Both summoned people to repent.

Both discounted the popular notion that God favoured Israel with political or national pre-eminence.

Both were born through an uncommon act of God.

And both died through having provoked uncommon rage among men and women.

John insisted that the sole purpose of his mission was to point away from himself to his younger cousin, Jesus. Jesus, for his part, never uttered one negative word about John. Jesus even endorsed John’s ministry by submitting to baptism at John’s hand. Indeed Jesus said, “Among those born of women (that is, of all the people in the world), there is none greater than John.”

I: Elizabeth and Zechariah named their long-awaited son “Yochan.” “Yochan” means “gift of God.” This gift, however, didn’t come with the pretty ribbons and bows and curlicues of fancy gift-wrapping. This gift came in a plain brown wrapper.

Think of John’s appearance. He wore a camel-hide wrap-around, and it stank as only camels can stink. (Jesus, by contrast, wore a robe fine enough that soldiers gambled for it.)

Then there was John’s diet: wild honey. How many bee stings did he have to endure to procure the honey? No doubt he had been stung so many times he was impervious, bees being now no more bothersome than fruit flies. And the locusts? There’s lots of protein in grasshoppers, since small creatures like grasshoppers are the most efficient in converting grain protein into animal protein. Grasshoppers are good to eat, as long as you don’t mind crunching their long legs and occasionally getting them stuck in your teeth. John was anything but effete, anything but dainty, anything but a reed shaken by the wind.

John’s habitat was noteworthy. The wilderness, everywhere in scripture, is the symbol for a radical break with the posturing and the pretence, the falsehoods and phoniness of the big city and its inherent corruption. Jerusalem , hier shalem, describes itself as the city of salvation. But is it? Jerusalem kills the prophets and crucifies the Messiah. By living in the wilderness John contradicted everything the city represented.

And of course there was John’s manner. He had relatively few tools in his toolbox. When he saw that the truth of God had to be upheld and the sin of the powerful rebuked, he reached into his toolbox and came up with its one and only tool: confrontation. It wasn’t long before he confronted Herodias, wife of Herod the ruler. John looked her in the eye and said, “First you married Phillip, your uncle Phillip, no less. Then you ‘fooled around’ with the man who is currently your husband. Then you allowed your daughter, Salome, to dance like a stripper in order to inflame a crowd of half-drunk military officers. You, Mrs. Herod, are incestuous, adulterous, and a pimp all at once. It’s an abomination to God; you yourself are a disgrace; and the stench of it all looms larger than a mushroom cloud.” Whereupon Mrs. Herod had said, “I’ll have your head for that. Watch me.”

We mustn’t forget John’s singlemindedness. Because his camel-hide loincloth lacked pockets, John’s one-and-only sermon he kept in his head and his heart. It was a simple sermon. The judgement of God is so close at hand that even now you can feel God’s fiery breath scorching you and withering everything about you that can’t stand the conflagration. And in the face of this judgement, thundered John, there are three things that cosy, comfortable people think they can take refuge in when there is no refuge; namely, parentage, piety and prestige.

Parentage. “Abraham is our parent. We are safe because we are descendants from the grand progenitor of our people, Abraham our father.” We are Abraham’s son or daughter only if we have Abraham’s faith, John knew. In light of the crisis that God’s judgement brings on everyone, we’re silly for putting stock in the fact that our grandmother was once a missionary in China and our father once shook hands with Billy Graham.

Piety. “We are Israelites. Only last week we had our son circumcised.” “We’ve been members of St.Matthew’s-by-the-Gas Station for forty years. We had all our children ‘done’ there; we also contributed to the repairs to the steeple.” Piety, said John, is a religious inoculation. Like any inoculation it keeps people from getting the real thing. For this reason piety is worse than useless: it guarantees that what can save us we shall never want.

Prestige. “We are the Jerusalem aristocrats.” In 18th Century England an aristocrat was asked what she thought of John Wesley’s movement. “A perfectly horrid thing”, the Duchess of Buckingham had replied, turning up her nose as if someone had just taken the lid off an 18th Century chamber pot; “Imagine being told you are as vile as the wretches that crawl about on the earth.”

It was little wonder that those who found John too much to take eased their discomfort by ridiculing him. Baptizein is the everyday Greek verb meaning to dip or to dunk. John the dipper. “Well, Yochan, what’ll it be today? Dunk your doughnuts or dip your paintbrush? Here comes the dippy dunker.”

Might John have been deranged? His enemies said he was crazy. But the same people who said John was crazy said Jesus was an alcoholic. Certainly John was crude. Jesus admitted as much when he told those whom John had shocked, “What did you expect to see? A reed shaken by the wind? A feeble fellow smelling of perfume?” John lacked the polish of the cocktail crowd. But he was sane.

II: — Regardless of the family resemblance between John and Jesus they’re not identical.

John came to bear witness to the light. Jesus was (and is) that light.

John pointed to Jesus as the coming one. Jesus pointed to himself as the Incarnate one.

John reminded the people of God’s centuries-old promises. Jesus was, and is, the fulfilment of all God’s promises.

John administered a baptism of water as an outward sign of repentance. Jesus administered a baptism of fire as the Spirit inwardly torched his people.

With this lattermost point we have highlighted the crucial difference between John and Jesus. John could only point to the kingdom of God , the all-determining reality that was to heal a creation disfigured by the Fall. Jesus, on the other hand, didn’t point to it: he brought it inasmuch as he was the new creation, fraught with cosmic significance, the one in whom all things are restored. John’s ministry prepared people for a coming kingdom that the king would bring with him. Jesus’ ministry gathered people into that kingdom which was operative wherever the king himself presided — which is to say, everywhere.

It’s not that Jesus contradicted John. Rather, Jesus effected within people what John could only hold out for them. Because the ministry of Jesus gathered up the ministry of John, nothing about John was lost. At the same time, the ministry of Jesus contained so much more than John’s — as John himself gladly admitted. In other words, the ministry of Jesus was the ministry of John plus all that was unique to our Lord.

Ponder, for instance, the note of repentance sounded by both men. John thundered. He threatened. There was a bad time coming, and John, entirely appropriately, had his hearers scared. Jesus agreed. There is a bad time coming. Throughout the written gospels we find on the lips of Jesus pronouncements every bit as severe as anything John said. Nonetheless, Jesus promised a good time coming too. To be sure, Jesus could flay the hide off phoneys as surely as John, yet flaying didn’t characterize him; mercy did. While Jesus could speak, like John, of a coming judgement that couldn’t be avoided, Jesus also spoke of an amnesty, a provision, a refuge that reflected the heart of his Father. Everything John said, the whole world needs to hear. Yet we need to hear even more urgently what Jesus alone said: “There’s a party underway, and at this party all who are weary and worn down, frenzied and fed up, overwhelmed and overrun — at this party all such people are going to find rest and restoration, help, healing and hope.”

Jesus, like John, spoke to the defiant self-righteous who not only disdained entering the kingdom themselves but also, whether deliberately or left-handedly, impeded others from entering it; Jesus spoke to these people in a vocabulary that would take the varnish off a door. Jesus, however, also had his heart broken over people who were like sheep without a shepherd, about to follow cluelessly the next religious hireling — the religious “huckster” of any era who exploits the most needy and the most defenceless.

Because John’s message was the penultimate word of judgement, the mood surrounding John was as stark, spare, ascetic as John’s word: he drank no wine and he ate survival rations. Because Jesus’ message was the ultimate word of the kingdom, the mood surrounding Jesus was the mood of a celebration, a party. He turned 150 gallons of water into wine – a huge amount for a huge party. He is the wine of life; he profoundly gladdens the hearts of men and women. His joy floods his people.

With his laser vision Jesus stared into the hearts of those who faulted him and said, “You spoil- sports with shrivelled hearts and acidulated tongues, you wouldn’t heed John because his asceticism left you thinking he wasn’t sane; now you won’t heed me because my partying leaves you thinking I’m not moral. Still, those people you’ve despised and duped and defrauded: your victims are victors now; they’re going to be vindicated. And their exuberance in the celebrations they have with me not even your sullenness can diminish.” Whereupon our Lord turned from the scornful snobs that religion forever breeds and welcomed yet another wounded, worn down person who wouldn’t know a hymnbook from a homily yet knew as much as she needed to know: life in the company of Jesus is indescribably better than life in the company of his detractors.

I’m always moved at our Lord’s simple assertion, “I am the good shepherd.” What did he mean by “good”? Merely that he is a competent shepherd, as any competent shepherd can protect the flock against marauders, thieves and disease? There are two Greek words for “good”: agathos and kalos. Agathos means “good” in the sense of upright, proper, correct. Kalos, on the other hand (the word Jesus used of himself), includes everything that agathos connotes plus “winsome, attractive, endearing, appealing, compelling, comely, inviting.” I am the fine shepherd.

Malcolm Muggeridge accompanied a film crew to India in order to narrate a documentary on the late Mother Teresa. He already knew she was a good woman or he wouldn’t have bothered going. When he met her, however, he found a good woman who was also so very compelling, wooing, endearing that he titled his documentary, Something Beautiful for God.

John was good, agathos. Many people feared him and many admired him. Jesus was good, kalos. Many people feared him, many admired him, and many loved him. Paul speaks in Ephesians 6:24 of those who “love our Lord with love undying.” Did anyone love John with love undying? If we’ve grasped the difference between agathos and kalos, between what is good, correct, upright and what is so very inviting and attractive as to be beautiful, then we’ve grasped the relation of John to Jesus.

There’s another dimension to Jesus that carries him beyond John. It’s reflected in the word he used uniquely at prayer, abba, “Father.” Now the Newer Testament is written in Greek, even though Jesus customarily spoke Aramaic. In other words what our Lord said day-by-day has been translated into another language. Then why wasn’t the Aramaic word, abba, translated into Greek? The word was left untranslated in that Jesus had first used it in a special way, and to translate it would seem to sully its distinctiveness.

Abba was the word used by a Palestinian youth to speak of his or her father respectfully, obediently, confidently, securely, and of course intimately. It wasn’t so “palsy walsy” as to be disrespectful. Neither was it so gushing as to be sentimental. It was intimate without being impertinent, confident without being smug. Abba was trusting one’s father without trading on the father’s trustworthiness, familiar without being forward, secure without being saccharine.

We must be sure to understand that when early-day Christians came to use the word abba in their prayers they weren’t repeating the word just because they knew Jesus had used it and they thought it cute to imitate him. Neither were they mumbling it mindlessly like a mantra thinking that if they kept on saying it, mantra-like, whatever it was within him that had given rise to it would eventually appear within them. On the contrary, they were impelled to use the word for one reason: as companions of Jesus they had been admitted to such an intimacy with the Father that the word Jesus had used uniquely of his Father they were now constrained to use too, so closely did their intimacy resemble his. When Paul writes in Romans 8:15 that Christians can’t help uttering the cry, “Abba, Father”, any more than a person in pain can help groaning or a person bereaved can help weeping or a person tickled by a good joke can help laughing; when Paul reminds the Christians in Rome that this is normal Christian experience, “normal” means being introduced by the Son to the Father in such a way and at such a depth that the Son’s intimacy with the Father induces the believer’s intimacy. Abba.

We should note that the written gospels show us that Jesus used this word in Gethsemane; Gethsemane , of all places, when he was utterly alone at the most tormented hour of his life. I understand this. William Stringfellow, Harvard-taught lawyer and self-taught theologian who went to Harlem in a store-front law practice on behalf of the impoverished people he loved; Stringfellow, ridiculed by his denomination, suspected by the Kennedys and arrested finally by the FBI for harbouring Daniel Berrigan (a Jesuit anti-Viet Nam War protester); Stringfellow wrote in a little confirmation class book he prepared for teenagers, “Prayer is being so alone that God is the only witness to your existence.”

The day comes for all of us when we are so thoroughly alone we couldn’t be more alone. And in the isolation and torment of such a day we are going tofind that God is the only witness to our existence. But he will be witness enough. And because it’s the Father who is the only witness to our existence, we shall find ourself crying spontaneously, “Abba.” Surely Jesus had this in mind when he said, “There has never appeared anyone greater than John the Baptist. Yet the least in the kingdom is greater than John.”

We all need to be shaken up by the wild man from the wilderness, the grasshopper-eating, hide-wearing prophet whom no one should have mistaken for a reed shaken by the wind. Yet as often as we need to look at John, we find fearsome John pointing away from himself to Jesus, the Word Incarnate, the lamb of God and the Saviour of the world; someone no less rigorous than John to be sure, but also so much more than John – someone so very winsome, compelling, inviting as to be beautiful.

Victor Shepherd
St.Bride’s Anglican Church, Mississauga
Advent 2007

Waiting, but not Loitering

Isaiah 25:6-10
Psalm 40:1-3
Hebrews 10:11-18
Luke 2:22-38

Loitering is illegal. Loiterers can be jailed. Why? What harm can there be in standing around? Police departments are quick to tell us how much harm there is in standing around. Police departments know that the person who stands around for no reason, with nothing in mind, is someone who won’t be merely “standing around” for long. Someone merely standing around is someone who is readily drawn into whatever disturbance might boil up around him. Idleness is readily co-opted by evil. The empty-handed, empty-headed loiterer who claims he’s only standing around readily becomes an accomplice of whatever evil is lurking.

Advent is a time of waiting, but not a time of waiting around, not a time of loitering. To wait, in scripture, is always to wait for, to anticipate, to expect. To wait, in scripture, is always to be on the edge of your seat in anticipation of something that God has promised.

The Hebrew verb “to wait (for)” is derived from two Hebrew words meaning tension and endurance. If we are waiting for something momentous, waiting eagerly, longingly, expectantly, then we live in a tension as great as our endurance is long.

I am always moved at the people in the Christmas story who wait in such tension with endurance.

Elizabeth , for instance; she had been childless for two decades. In Israel childlessness was the worst misfortune that could befall husband and wife. Each year’s barrenness found Elizabeth waiting, her endurance tested.

Zechariah, Elizabeth ’s husband; he was unable to speak from the time he learned of his wife’s pregnancy until their son, Yochan, “gift of God”, was born. Nine months may not strike us as a long time to wait for speech to return, but it’s unimaginably long when you don’t know if your speech is ever going to return.

Simeon had spent years looking for, longing for, the Messiah of Israel.

Anna had been married only seven years when she was widowed. Now, at 84 years of age, she lived on the temple precincts, “worshiping with prayer and fasting, night and day,” Luke tells us. When she finally beheld the infant Jesus she knew that what she had waited for for 60 years had appeared at last.

These were godly men and women. And like all godly folk they knew how difficult it is to wait; how difficult it is to wait for God. It is difficult. No wonder the psalmist exhorts us, “Wait for the Lord. Be strong, and let your heart take courage. Yes, wait for the Lord.”

At the same time we must remember that to wait, in scripture, is never to “wait around.” To wait is never to loiter, doing nothing, available for whatever evil looms up. To wait, in scripture, is to wait knowing that we don’t wait alone; God waits too. God waits for us, his people. The prophet Isaiah tells us that God waits for Israel to bear fruit. When God waits, and waits specifically for his people, it’s never the case that God is “waiting around,” doing nothing. God always waits for Israel by working in Israel . God waits by doing.

Think of the diverse pictures scripture paints of God’s involvement with Israel , God’s working among his people.

a mother nursing her infant. The mother nursing her infant is waiting in one sense; she isn’t doing anything else, can’t be washing the kitchen floor. Yet in nursing her infant she isn’t “doing nothing.” What could be more important than the wellbeing of her babe?
a father helping a young child to walk. The father is waiting for the child to grow up even as he does something about it.
a heartbroken husband (we’re still talking about how the bible portrays the waiting God) resolving not to leave the wife who has disgraced herself and humiliated him. Such waiting, replete with resolution, is a long way from doing nothing.

In none of this could God be said to be waiting around, loitering, up to no good at all. As a matter of fact, the one word that characterizes God’s involvement with Israel is passion. And since God waits for Israel to bear fruit by doing whatever he can with Israel , it’s plain that God’s waiting for us is his impassioned involvement with us. God waits by hastening.

Then our Advent-waiting must never be waiting around, loitering. Our Advent-waiting must be marked by impassioned involvement.

But impassioned involvement with what? What exactly are we waiting for?

I: — The apostle Paul says that the entire creation is “waiting with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God.” In other words, the entire creation is waiting for, longing for God’s deliverance from anything and everything that stands in the way of its fulfilment. Right now the entire creation is frustrated; it doesn’t unambiguously serve the purpose for which God fashioned it.

[a] For instance, the earth was created to sustain all of humankind. To be sure, bodily good isn’t the only good. There are also an intellectual good and a cultural good and an emotional good and a spiritual good. At the same time, unless the bodily good is maintained; that is, unless physical need is met, the remaining goods never arise. No intellectual good or cultural good or spiritual good is going to appear in the person who is starving to death or merely malnourished. For centuries the earth yielded enough food to feed the world’s population many times over, even as malnutrition and starvation consumed millions of people. So far as feeding people is concerned, the earth has been frustrated in serving the purpose for which God created it.

And then in the twinkling of an eye a corner was turned. In the twinkling of an eye a new situation has arisen: as of today, for the first time in human history, more people will die prematurely from overeating than will die prematurely from undereating. Once again so far as sustaining people is concerned, the earth is frustrated in serving the purpose for which God created it.

[b] Physicians tell me that the most sophisticated aspect of all the growing edges in medicine (and medical science has many growing edges) pertains to fertility. For decades infertility was deemed a female problem. The new growing edge pertains to male fertility. Huge advances are underway here. Good. Millions of couples will conceive otherwise never could have. And right next door to the fertility clinic, in any hospital, we can find the abortuary. The contradiction here leaves me speechless.

[c] Billions of tax-payer dollars are spent each year on public education. The end result is that the level of adult illiteracy in Canada has slowly risen from 35% to 47%. Yes, as much as is spent on public education, it can always be argued that not enough is spent, since other jurisdictions spend more than we do. At the same time, social problems are never remedied simply by throwing more money at them. Trillions of dollars have been poured into slum areas of American cities, and the slums are no closer to disappearing.

[d] And then there are the people who continue to approach me; the chronically mentally ill. Twenty-five years ago the development of neuroleptic drugs was heralded as a breakthrough inasmuch as the new drugs would permit ill people to live outside of institutions. Undoubtedly some ill people have benefited. A great many, however, have not. Many defenceless people were put on the street with a bottle of pills. In two days they had lost their pills, or traded them for something else, or had forgotten how frequently to take them. They couldn’t return to the institutions from which they had been discharged, because these institutions had been replaced by carriage-trade condominiums. Many of these people are in worse condition than ever they were when they were institutionalized. When Maureen and I were in Washington four weeks ago we were startled at the number of psychotic people found in downtown Washington . It’s the same in every major North American city.

The entire creation is frustrated, says the apostle. It waits – and we who are part of it wait too – for its restoration.

But waiting never means waiting around. Waiting for God’s deliverance of the creation entails our impassioned involvement with it, entails our zealous doing on behalf of it, wherever it is frustrated and for whatever reason. Unless we are doing something about the world’s frustration we aren’t waiting for God at all; we’re merely waiting around, loitering, soon to be part of the problem instead of its alleviation.

Remember: God waits for Israel to bear fruit by spending himself unreservedly for Israel .

II: In the second place, says the apostle, we ourselves wait for adoption as daughters and sons of God, “the redemption of our bodies”, as he puts it. But aren’t we sons and daughters of God by faith now? To be sure, scripture insists on the distinction between creature of God and child of God. Every human being is a creature of God, made in God’s image, loved and cherished by him. Children of God, however, are those who have heard and heeded the gospel invitation, and who now cling in faith to the Incarnate One, Jesus Christ, their elder brother. Believing people are God’s children now. We are born of God and have been granted a new nature from God.

Then why is it said that we are waiting for adoption as God’s sons and daughters? The apostle’s point is this: while we have been made new at God’s hand, we don’t appear very new. To be sure, sin no longer rules us; Jesus Christ does. But while sin no longer rules us, sin continues to reside in us. Martin Luther used to say, “Yes, we are new people in Christ; but the old man, the old woman, won’t die quietly. The corpse twitches.”

The apostle is puzzled about the gap, the undeniable gap, between his new life in Christ and his contradiction of it every day. On the one hand he knows that all whom Jesus Christ draws to himself are made new in him; on the other hand he’s surprised at how much of the “old” man seems to hang on in him. Listen to Paul as he speaks of himself in Romans 7. “I don’t understand my own actions. For I don’t do what I want, but rather I do the very thing I hate. Wretched man that I am, who will deliver me from this body of death?” Still, he knows that his ultimate deliverance is guaranteed: “Thanks be to God through our Lord Jesus Christ.”

When Paul speaks of himself as ‘wretched’ he doesn’t mean primarily that he feels wretched. He’s not telling us how he feels; he’s telling us what he is. No doubt he didn’t feel good about it; still, he’s telling us primarily of his condition, not of his feeling. His condition is this: there’s a dreadful contradiction within him. He recognizes that his practice falls abysmally short of his profession. Until he was apprehended by Christ he wasn’t aware of any contradiction within him; now he knows that Christ has rendered him new even as everyone around him finds him entirely too ‘old’. It’s his condition that’s wretched. “Wretched man that I am, who will deliver me from this body of death?”

The ancient Romans devised a terrible punishment for criminals; namely, strapping a corpse onto a criminal’s back. Imagine the sheer weight of it. Imagine the odour, the leaks, the overall hideousness. It must have been ghastly beyond description.

Did I say “ghastly beyond description”? But such ghastliness is my spiritual condition; such ghastliness is my outward life compared to my inward truth and my Christian profession. Who will deliver me from this hideous contradiction, this body of death?

In our sober discussion of this topic we must be sure to notice something profound. The apostle dares to admit his own innermost contradiction, dares to raise the question, only because he already has the answer. “Thanks be to God through our Lord Jesus Christ.” He’s going to be delivered from the walking contradiction he is. The burden of the ‘old’ man that seems strapped to him is going to be lifted. He knows it. He’s waiting for it. We wait for it too.

But we don’t wait around. We don’t loiter. We genuinely wait for our deliverance only if we are doing something about our self-contradicted discipleship, only if we are doing something about the inconsistencies in us that are so glaring that many people wonder if there aren’t two of us.

We must remember, in this season of Advent-waiting, that God waits for Israel to bear fruit by sparing nothing of himself to have Israel bear fruit. We wait for the final, full manifestation of our adoption as God’s sons and daughters by sparing nothing of ourselves to shed that corpse, repudiate it, which renders us grotesque at this moment. And “thanks to God through our Lord Jesus Christ”, we shall one day be rid of the burden on our back and perfectly reflect that image of God in which we were created, which image our Lord is now, and which image we cannot fail to display.

III: — Lastly, we wait with our Lord as he waits himself. We stand by him in his waiting. The book of Hebrews tells us that after Jesus Christ had offered up himself for us, “he sat down at the right hand of God, and since then has been waiting until his enemies should be made a footstool for his feet.”

The reference to footstool in Hebrews 10 is borrowed from Psalm 110. Psalm 110 – about footstool and enemies – is the most frequently quoted psalm in the New Testament. This fact alone tells us that the apostles, and all Christians after them, know that enemies abound. Enemies are enemies; that is, enemies can do enormous harm.

When I was a youngster I couldn’t grasp why the psalmist spoke so very often of enemies. Was he unusually nervous, even paranoid? Now I understand. Enemies are anything that hammers us, anything that threatens to undo us, anything that assails us from without or wells up from within.

Enemies from without are easy to identify. Jesus had enemies in the religious hierarchy of Jerusalem ; he had enemies in the civil government of Rome ; enemies in the dark depths of the spirit-world; enemies among his followers (Judas, traitor), even enemies among his closest friends (Peter, whom Jesus described as satanic, on at least one occasion.) As I have read church history, I have learned that every forthright Christian spokesperson has been flayed at some point by all the enemies just mentioned.

In addition there is one enemy which you and I must contend with that our Lord never had to contend with; namely, himself. Of all the enemies who might assault us, there seems to be one who always assaults us: our very own self. More often than not we are our own worst enemy. For this reason a principal enemy, always lurking, is the enemy within.

Whether our enemy exists inside us or outside us, however, enemies are enemies. We need to identify them and resist them.

But we never have to resist them alone. Even now our Lord is at work, resisting those enemies who molest his people. To be sure, even our Lord is waiting for that day when all the enemies of his people are made his footstool. But until that day, he isn’t waiting around, loitering. On our behalf he resists those enemies he has already defeated, waiting for that day when defeated enemies are dispersed forever. We genuinely wait for our Lord only as we wait with him as he continues to resist everything that molests his people, and all of this in anticipation of that day when his enemies (ours too) have been dispersed.

Elizabeth waited during that first Advent, as well as Zechariah, Simeon and Anna. They all waited for the one who was to be the Messiah of Israel and the ruler of the cosmos. But they didn’t wait around, loiter. They were as impassionedly engaged as the God of Israel whom they knew. Therefore the only form our waiting can take is an impassioned doing of the truth.

In Advent we wait for him who came once for the world’s redemption. We wait for him who continues to come to us unfailingly day after day. We wait for him who will come again to vindicate all who are about his business now.

Victor Shepherd Advent 2006

A Christian Understanding of Work

Proverbs 6: 6-11
2nd Thessalonians 3:6-15
John 9:1-5

Several decades ago we began hearing of the “Protestant Work Ethic.” Some people thought they had come upon the notion among early-day Protestants that material prosperity was a sign, even the sign, of God’s favour. Christians were to work hard and prosper in order to secure God’s favour, or to give evidence that they had already secured it. In addition the so-called Protestant Work Ethic was supposed to have boosted the modern addiction known as “workaholism.” Workaholics don’t merely work hard; they work compulsively. (Plainly a psychiatric judgement has been rendered here, since compulsiveness is a manifestation of neuroticism.) Workaholics are obsessed with work; they work fifteen hours per day, day-in and day-out, sacrificing spouse, children and health. If they work any less they feel guilty and unworthy. Their holidays are the most stressful time of the year for them, which holidays they customarily abbreviate in order to flee back to work. They need work the way a “junkie” needs cocaine. (I want to say in passing that the so-called Protestant Work Ethic, the notion that work justifies us before God can’t be found anywhere in the thought of the Protestant Reformers.)

Where do we stand as Christians?

I: — In the first place we must acknowledge that work is a divine ordinance. According to scripture God ordains that we work, men and women. (Homemaking is work; in fact it’s hugely important work, and remains work whether done by housewives or househusbands.) Work is as much a part of the God-instituted order as is the earth’s revolving around the sun. God commands us to work. His command is a blessing. Work is therefore good, and good for us in that it enhances our humanness. God has made us working creatures.

II: — But is work good without qualification? Is work always and everywhere good? We frequently hear work spoken of as a curse. People who speak like this have seized half a truth: work itself isn’t a curse, but in a fallen world (according to Genesis 3) work lies under a curse.

Obviously it’s silly to suggest that employers as a class are demons while employees as a class are angels. In a fallen world employer and employee alike are going to be exploiters, given the opportunity. Both will tend to push their exploitation all the way to criminality. That’s why we find corruption, bribery and beatings within worker organizations supposedly pledged to the well-being of the worker.

III: — Where does all this find us as Christians? We know that God ordains work to be a human good, an essential ingredient in our humanness, even as we are aware of hostility and conflict in the workplace. Then what expression does our witness assume?

i] The first aspect of our Christian witness is both plain and simple: we are to do as good a job as we can. Integrity in the workplace is bedrock. A day’s work is to be rendered for a day’s pay, or else our “witness” is no witness at all and we are merely part of the problem. Paul tells Timothy, a much younger man, that work done should be work of which a worker need never be ashamed. This kind of work, the apostle continues, “adorns the doctrine of God our Saviour.” It’s a most unusual notion, isn’t it: what we do conscientiously, consistently, competently in the workplace “adorns the doctrine of God our Saviour.” The quality of our work lends attractiveness and credibility to the truth of God by which we are known. Integrity in the workplace is bedrock.

ii] There is yet another Christian responsibility: we must try to understand the situation of those whose work is especially stress-riddled, or whose work is especially unfulfilling, boring, even mind-bending. Some of us work at jobs we find stimulating and rewarding. We are very fortunate; we are also very few. Most people work at jobs that don’t use anywhere near their resources and abilities. For this reason they crave more holidays and earlier retirement. We must endeavour to understand the plea of these people when they speak of the dehumanization and danger peculiar to their job.

iii] A third responsibility is that our congregation must reflect the gospel truth that work is what people do; work is not who people are. We must never be seduced into the mentality that sees people as more valuable or less valuable just because the job they do is paid more money or less. Paul insists that in Christ Jesus there is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither male nor female, neither slave nor free. For “neither slave nor free” read “neither minimum wage-earner nor company executive.” In his Corinthian correspondence (2nd Cor. 5:16 ) he states that Christians are to “regard no one from a human point of view.” The “human point of view” is the attitude that ignores someone who earns $20,000 per year but flatters someone who receives $200,000 (the sort of person we are extraordinarily pleased to see affiliate with our congregation.) This attitude has no place in the Christian fellowship.

Victor Shepherd
September 2006

Workshop Teachings

Workshop Teachings
or
More than a Carpenter

Deuteronomy 30:15-20
Ephesians 4:25-30
Matthew 7:1-5

If there’s to be a national holiday for Queen Victoria ‘s birthday and Canada Day and “civic” whatever, how much more important is it that there be a national holiday that honours labour. On Labour Day Canadians wisely acknowledge the place of work in our nation as a whole and in our individual lives. We work not merely because we have to in order to survive; we work inasmuch as God has ordained us to work. His command enjoining work is prior to the story of the Fall in Genesis 3. In other words, regardless of what frustration or pain or seeming futility might arise with respect to work in the wake of the Fall, work itself is good. God’s command is always and everywhere good, always and everywhere attended with blessing. In recognizing work on Labour Day we are gladly owning the dignity of labour; we are saying that humankind is meant to work, is honoured through work, is to find work fulfilling. We are also saying, by contrast, that there’s nothing demeaning about work, hard work.

We should know this in any case, for Jesus himself worked. Prior to the work of his public ministry he worked with his father in their “rough carpentry” business, “Joseph and Son”, in Nazareth . From what we glean here and there in the gospels the two men made large, functional items like ox-yokes and ploughs. When Jesus begins his work of preaching and teaching, those who hear him are astonished and say, “Where did this fellow get his wisdom? He’s only a carpenter, isn’t he?” Yes, he is a carpenter from a sleepy town in Galilee , yet he’s more than a carpenter. He has more to say to us than up-to-the-minute woodworking advice. At the same time, the “more” that he has to say to us is all the more credible just because we know he isn’t an armchair wordsmith. His workshop days have given him down-to-earth, workshop wisdom.

I: — Think about his pithy comment concerning plank and sawdust. Sawdust is always blowing around in a workshop. Sooner or later a speck finds its way into someone’s eye. It’s bothersome, and work can’t continue until the speck is removed. A fellow-worker who means well (of course), whose intentions are the best (of course) immediately offers help: “Here, let me take the speck of sawdust out of your eye, and then you’ll be able to see better” — all the while forgetting that he himself has a two-by-four, ten feet long, sticking out of his own eye. “First take the plank out of your own eye”, our Lord insists, “then you might be able to do something to help your neighbour with his sawdust-speck.”

Jesus insists that we, his disciples, mustn’t fall into the habit of fault-finding, carping, nit-picking, ceaseless criticism of matters small and smaller still, as we whittle our neighbour down until she has the stature of a toothpick (we think) when, by contrast, we appear larger than life ourselves, gigantic even, in our inflated self-estimation. The habit, the deep rut of constant, niggling criticism, is a habit that is as self-intensifying as any addiction. It’s a habit easy to fall into just because we all want to think highly of ourselves, and the surest way of building ourselves up is to grind someone else down.

I have learned that many people perceive the wisdom and force of our Lord’s teaching yet are confused about its application. At the same time as they hear Jesus speaking of plank and sawdust they also hear him saying, “Judge not, that you be not judged.” Confusion arises when such people mistake judging (in the sense of hyper-critical faultfinding) with making sound judgements. The two shouldn’t be confused: disdainful judgementalism has nothing to do with the formation of sound judgements.

Everywhere in scripture God’s people are commanded to form sound judgements. God isn’t honoured when his people remain naïve, readily victimized or fooled or “fished in.” We have to discriminate between what enriches us profoundly and what appears to enrich but actually impoverishes. We have to discern what can be welcomed and what must be shunned. We do everything in our power to foster such discrimination in our youngsters just because we know what disasters await those who lack sound judgement. To lack sound judgement anywhere in life renders people tragic concerning themselves and dangerous concerning others. Jesus tells us we have to be as wise as serpents. His apostles tell us we have to test the spirits, since not all spirits are holy. Once we understand the distinction between our Lord’s command to form sound judgements concerning ourselves and his prohibition of a contemptuous attitude concerning others; once we understand this distinction, confusion evaporates.

Jesus Christ speaks so very vehemently on this matter because he knows our hearts. He knows, for instance, our capacity for unconscious rationalization. You and I can insist with genuine sincerity, genuine, conscious sincerity, that is, that the sawdust speck in someone else is real while the plank in our own eye is only imaginary.

A few years ago I was asked to conduct an afternoon communion service and to preach at Emmanuel College , U of T, the seminary where I was prepared for the ministry of Word, Sacrament and Pastoral Care. I took unusual pains with the sermon because I knew that theology students come to chapel with their sermon-dissecting knives super-sharp. And besides, I wanted to impress the students with an uncommonly fine sermon. The week had been exceptionally busy. The morning had brought several pastoral upheavals before me. The traffic on the way to Toronto was heavier than usual. And then of course I had to scramble for a parking spot. Still, as I walked into the building I felt I was ready to meet the students and show them a thing or two. Out of a student body of 150, six came to the service. I preached and administered Holy Communion as scheduled. After the service a student who had attended said to me, gently, “You were hostile this afternoon.” “I was not!”, I told her, “I’m not the slightest….” “Victor, you were hostile today.” “I may have been upset, but I wasn’t hostile.” There’s the rationalization, as sincere as the day is long: when other people are hostile, they are hostile for sure and hostile without excuse; when I appear hostile, however, I am in truth merely upset. Our unconscious capacity to rationalize is so vast that we can magnify our neighbour’s sawdust-speck into an oak tree, even as we shrink our plank to a twig. In it all we seem not to know how ridiculous we appear; more than ridiculous, how cruel.

Again our Lord speaks so vehemently on this matter because he knows that berating someone for her sawdust-speck often discourages her, then depresses her, and even immobilizes her. In the face of relentless criticism she feels she can’t acquit herself. She gives up trying. She is simply crushed into immobility.

Our Lord knows too that our habit of faultfinding drives the person faulted farther and farther into self-righteousness (how else can he protect himself?), whereupon, of course, we fault him for being self-righteous. When our constant criticism drills him like a woodpecker’s beak drilling into tree bark until it finds the insect it’s looking for, he insists that he’s a better person than he’s made out to be. What else can he do to ward off our painful pecking? As he defends himself we find our approach to him confirmed, for now it’s plain that he can’t stand the truth about himself. We forget that his self-righteousness swelled only in response to our savagery.

The worst consequence of our carping, however, is that it forces the victim to retaliate in kind. Carping begets carping, pecking pecking, savagery savagery. Psychologically fragile people may crumble when ceaselessly faulted; the psychologically resilient, however, fight back.

When Jesus speaks to us about faultfinding he uses strong language: “hypocrite.” Hupokrites is the Greek word for the actor who wore a false face. When we see the speck in our neighbour’s eye but not the plank in our own we are phonies. We have forgotten that we too are fallen creatures, as warped in mind and heart as the person in front of us whose depravity we find glaring.

Jesus ends his workshop teaching bluntly: “First take the plank out of your own eye; then you will see clearly to take the sawdust-speck out of your neighbour’s eye.” It is only as we admit frankly, even fearfully, our own inner depravity and corruption, and it is only as we do something about it that we will ever be able to help, correct and encourage our brother or sister. To pretend anything else is to be a phoney, hupokrites.

II: — Another workshop saying, this time less severe and more comforting: “Take my yoke upon you and learn from me; for I am meek and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.” Jesus made yokes every day. He knew that if the yoke were made well and were well fitted to the animal’s neck, the ox could pull the heaviest load efficiently and with minimal discomfort. If, on the other hand, the yoke were poorly made, it would rub the animal’s neck raw. Pulling the load would be a torment. Trying to pull the load might even strangle the animal.

Our Lord knew that some loads in life we simply cannot avoid. We must pull them. “Since there are some loads in life you must pull”, he says, “why not pull them with a yoke that fits well? A yoke made by anyone other than me will only torment you, perhaps choke you. My yoke is easy.” When he says, “Come to me all who labour and are heavy-laden”, the word he uses for “labour” isn’t the normal word for “work.” The word he uses for “labour” has about it the air of frustration, grief, weariness, the matter of being worn-down and worn-out, tired to the point of being utterly fatigued and fed up.

Earlier in the sermon I said that work as such is not a sign of the Fall but rather an instance of God’s blessing. Frustration at work, however, grief over work, futility and self-alienation and frenzy: these are a sign of the Fall. And all of us are fallen creatures living in a fallen world. Therefore there is an element of frustration and futility and self-contradiction in the matters we “labour over” throughout life.

The ten year-old wants to be a firefighter or a police officer or physician or ballerina. The ten year-old can’t see anything negative about these jobs. Why, working at any one of these jobs is tantamount to endless glamour and play. The same person, now 40 years old, has found more frustration in the job than he thinks he can endure. Now he wants to get away from it all and raise beef cattle or write novels — as if beef farming were without frustration and the literary world were without treachery! The truth is, frustration and fatigue won’t disappear with the next job. They have to be pulled along throughout life. Then with whose yoke do we pull them? Jesus insists that his yoke fits best, for only his yoke lets us pull life’s burdens without torment or strangulation.

Think about grief. The only way we can avoid grief at the loss of someone dear to us is not to have anyone dear to us. The only way to avoid grief is to avoid love. But to protect ourselves in this manner against losing someone dear to us is to have lost everything already. In other words, to love is to ensure grief. Then grief is another of life’s burdens that can’t be dropped.

As for burdens, one of the cruellest myths floated in our society is the myth that life can be burden-free. The myth survives for one reason: everyone wants to believe it. In our silliness we often think that our life is burden-riddled, but so many others’ is burden-free. The truth is, no one’s life is burden-free. There is no magic formula which, recited frequently and believed ardently, will evaporate burdens overnight.

Our carpenter-friend doesn’t specialize in magic formulas or mantras. He specializes in yokes. His yoke allows the burden that must be pulled to be pulled without tormenting us or ruining us. But there’s something more. Not only were oxen yoked to the burden they had to pull, oxen were always yoked to each other. Ox-yokes are always made in pairs. At the same that we are yoked to the load we have to pull, we are always yoked to someone who pulls alongside us.

Who? To whom are we yoked as our companion throughout life’s burden-pulling? Christ’s people are forever yoked to him. The yoke he fits to us he fits to himself as well. In other words, there is no burden known to you and me that isn’t his burden as well. His yoke is easy, then, in two senses: one, the yoke he makes for us fits well; two, the yoke he makes for us he makes for himself in addition. He has bound himself to us in all of life’s struggles.

III: — The last workshop teaching we shall examine today, a stark one this time: “No one who puts his hand to the plough and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God .” There’s urgency about entering the kingdom through faith in the king himself. There’s urgency about moving ahead in the kingdom, undeflected by distractions great or little. There has to be resolve, determination, to enter the company of the king and remain in it. Anyone who puts his hand to the plough and looks back ploughs a furrow that meanders in all directions, a hit-and-miss matter that would shame any farmer. Anyone who puts his hand to the plough and looks back resembles Lot ‘s wife: she looked back to the city she was leaving in that she thought there was greater security in what she was leaving behind than there was in what she was journeying towards. Under God, however, in God, there is always greater security in what we are journeying towards than in what we are leaving behind. The automobile driver who persisted in looking in the rear-view mirror alone would crack up in no time and go nowhere.

Jesus comes upon a man who gushes that he’d like nothing more than to be a disciple. “Then follow me”, says Jesus, “Follow me now.”

“I’ll follow as soon as I’ve buried my father”, the man replies, “I have domestic matters to attend to before I can begin following.”

“That’s an evasion”, says our Lord, “it’s a delaying tactic. Let the dead bury their dead. You come with me. If you put your hand to the plough and start looking around at this and that, the “this and that” will take you over and the kingdom will pass you by. You’ll disqualify yourself.”

It’s difficult for us modern folk to appreciate our Lord’s urgency. We don’t grasp why his invitation to join him always has “RSVP” on it and why we mustn’t dawdle or delay. We overlook something that Jesus found transparently obvious and undeniable; namely, we can always delay making up our mind, but we can never delay making up our life. The man who says he hasn’t made up his mind about getting married is a bachelor. The woman who says she hasn’t made up her mind as to whether or not she should have children doesn’t have any. The student who says he hasn’t decided whether he should study tonight or take the night off isn’t studying. And those who have not yet made up their mind about following Jesus have not begun to follow. We can always delay making up our mind; we can never delay making up our life. Jesus won’t allow anyone he meets to deny this truth or forget it. Again and again he stresses the urgency of entering the kingdom as we abandon ourselves to the king himself.

This third carpenter teaching, the starkest of the three we have probed today, has much to do with the first two, the ones about sawdust and yokes. It is only as we put our hand to the plough and do not look back; it is only as we resolve to live in the company of Jesus Christ and never reconsider; it is only as we continue to love him rather than fritter our affection on trifles and toys; it is only as we are instant and constant where he is concerned that we find ourselves free to hear and heed his word about sawdust and planks and the phoniness that laps at all of us; free to hear his word, we should note, and no less eager to do something about it.

In the same way it is only as we are serious about the yoke-maker, serious enough to move from detached mulling to ardent embracing of the one who has already embraced us; it is only when we are this serious that we find ourselves proving in our experience that his yoke is easier than any other, that what life compels us to pull is pulled better when his yoke both connects us to our burden and connects us to him.

We can always avoid making up our mind; we can never avoid making up our life. Either our hand is on the plough and we are looking ahead or we are looking around elsewhere, distracted, preoccupied with everything but him, perhaps majoring on minors, perhaps concerned with much that is good but with nothing that is godly.

Yes, our Lord was a carpenter. He knew about work, about salty sweat and sore muscles and slivers. But he is also more than a carpenter. He is the incarnate Son of God. With the ring of authority, therefore, he urges us to come to him and never forsake him. In this we shall find ourselves both corrected and comforted. Corrected when his sawdust-reminder challenges us to drop our carping born of pseudo-superiority; comforted when he yokes himself to us and pulls with us the burden that would otherwise torment us or strangle us.

Knowing all of this, today we should bind ourselves to him anew, and never, ever look back.

Victor Shepherd
September 2005

The Saints on All Saints Day

Joshua 24:19-24
Acts 5: 12-16
Matthew 4: 18-22

[1] “To all the saints in Christ Jesus who are in Philippi…”; “to the saints who are at Ephesus”; “to the saints and faithful brethren in Christ at Colosse”; the apostle Paul begins virtually every letter with the same greeting: “to the saints in Schomberg.” Plainly he insists that every Christian is a saint, a holy person. But what about the Christians in Corinth, with their bickering and their party-strife and their cavalier toleration of sexual irregularities? Were they saints too? Yes. The word “saint”, as used in the newer testament, doesn’t have to do with lofty spiritual achievement; the word “saint”, rather, is used there to translate the Latin word sacer, the Greek word hagios, the Hebrew word kadosh – all of which mean the same: “different”, “set apart.” Saints are holy people; holy people are those who are different because set apart.

In the older testament the tithe, or one-tenth of the harvest, is said to be holy in that it is “the Lord’s”; it’s different in that it’s been set apart. Throughout the older testament the Israelite people are said to be holy in that they are different from all other peoples, different because set apart. Different because set apart for unique privilege? No. Different because set apart for a unique purpose.

All Christians are saints or holy in that we’ve been set apart for a special purpose; we’ve been set apart to live as light amidst darkness, as salt amidst what will otherwise rot, as yeast amidst an environment that needs to be leavened. All Christians without exception have been appointed to this and are therefore different, holy, saints.

This is not to say, however, that all Christians are spiritually mature. Peter said that some Christians could digest spiritual meat while others were still at the breast-milk stage of spiritual development. (1 Peter 2:2) It isn’t to say that all Christians are profound. Some are exceedingly shallow, as the legalists in Galatia demonstrated. It isn’t to say that all Christians are a glorious advertisement for their Lord. Some Christians are a disgrace, as the perverse in Corinth demonstrated. Nevertheless, they are Christians, and are rightly addressed “saints.”

[2] At the same time, everyone is aware that throughout the history of the church there have been men and women who stood out and imprinted themselves on others, stamped themselves on others without trying to or even wanting to. To be sure, all Christians are found “in Christ”, to use the little expression that Paul deploys 132 times; still, we all know that some Christians have struck us as particularly transparent to the master himself. All Christians are possessed of the Holy Spirit, the life-bringing presence and power of God; still, we’ve met those who exemplify this fact most tellingly. All Christians are undergoing transformation from fallen creature to someone in whom God’s image shines, a “work in progress”; still, some Christians manifest such transformation right now as to leave us glorifying God. I have met several such people myself, and they have encouraged me unspeakably in my own discipleship, for to know them is to know afresh that God can effect the profoundest alteration, the most concrete alteration, in those who call upon him and love him and live in him. These people have been a lighthouse for me when I’ve been buffeted in the storms of church controversy, or when I’ve been dismayed at the perfidy of denominational leaders, or when I’ve been frustrated as large numbers of the lukewarm lazed about indifferently. The people who have been lighthouse and inspiration and encouragement to me have certainly been saints in the sense that all Christians are saints by definition; in addition, however, they’ve been saints in the way that the church has traditionally understood the term. While I used to groan every time a preacher, desperate for an illustration, used the hackneyed story of the child who looked at the stained glass window and concluded that “saints are those who let the light shine through”, I groan no longer. I have profited immeasurably from many people who let the light shine through, albeit unknowingly, and were used of God to bathe me in a light that I have gloried in knowingly.

[3] About these people who are saints in the latter sense; there are several things we should note concerning them.

They understand themselves to be called of God, awakened by him and awakened to him by grace alone. They never think of themselves as spiritual achievers of any sort. They never boast of spiritual attainment. Like John the Baptist, they are always found pointing away from themselves to their Lord, wanting only to find him exalted.

So far from thinking themselves less sin-riddled than most, they are uncommonly aware of the residual sin that has not yet been burned out of them. Unlike the spiritually immature, they know that the closer anyone is to the light, the darker the shadow that the light casts. It was the man, glowing ever after at the truth and vividness of his Damascus Road encounter, even knowing what it was to be “caught up to the third heaven”; it was this man who could only speak of himself, at life’s end, as “the foremost of sinners.” (1 Tim. 1:15)

If the saints are possessed of anything in uncommon measure, they are possessed of uncommon humility; and because their humility is genuine and not affected, they are humble without knowing it. They would agree with Thomas Watson, my favourite Puritan thinker, who commented, “All Christian growth is finally growth in humility.” They would agree with Watson even as they would never think that they had grown at all. This is not to say they wallow in self-belittlement. Self-belittlement has nothing to do with humility. Self-belittlement is another form (albeit perverse) of self-preoccupation, and self-preoccupation is pride pure-and-simple. Humility is self-forgetfulness. The genuinely humble never think they are. They would blush to be told they are found to be unusually transparent to God’s will and way and work.

Ever since my teenage days I’ve been helped through the many books by and about William Sangster, a Methodist minister in Britain who was born in 1900 and died 59 years later of progressive muscular atrophy. Sangster used to say, “The saints aren’t resigned to the will of God; they aren’t even conformed to the will of God; they are abandoned to it.” There’s nothing more important for any of us than to discern the will of God for us and abandon ourselves to it! There’s nothing that so renders such a person “a city set on a hill that cannot be hid” (Matt. 5:14), in the words of Jesus.

I am moved every time I read Luke’s account of Peter in Jerusalem following the resurrection of our Lord and the incursion of Pentecost. People carried their sick relatives outside and laid them in the street in hope that even the shadow of Peter might fall on them as Peter himself passed by. (Acts 5:15) Jerusalem had been the site of Peter’s disgrace; Jerusalem was now the site of Peter’s acclamation in the early church. Was there an element of superstition in those who laid their sick friends in the street, hoping that Peter’s shadow would fall on them? I think there likely was. Still, they did what they did out of recognition of the Spirit-wrought turn-around that left Peter demonstrably a man of God and a flame that no longer flickered and faltered. The English text reads, “…that as Peter came by at least his shadow might fall on some of them.” The Greek text reads, “…that as Peter came by his shadow might overshadow them.” “Overshadow”: episkiazein. Luke had already used the verb twice in his written gospel to speak of God’s presence and power. Luke is telling us that people recognized God’s presence and power in Peter as unmistakably as they recognized Peter’s hair-colour and his facial features.

Some Protestants are uncomfortable with all such talk. They point out that the sanctity of any Christian isn’t something that can be measured or transferred or borrowed or leant. But to speak of holiness or godliness or saintliness as the church has used these expressions throughout its history isn’t to speak of a thing in any case. Some Protestants object, “Isn’t everyone a fallen creature, and fallen in equal degree?” Of course. No one is going to dispute this point. “Don’t we all merit condemnation?” Certainly. “Aren’t we all able to survive the present fire of God’s judgement (never mind the future fire) only by clinging to the cross?” Yes. “Then there’s no place for speaking of a greater godliness manifested among those who have abandoned themselves to God’s will and work and way.” Wrong. To be sure, Paul never suggested that the woebegone Christians in Corinth weren’t Christians; but he did insist they were immature, shallow, unwise and a disgrace. Many of us have met Christians who are mature, profound, wise and, so far from a disgrace, bring honour to their Lord. The influence of such people, on me at least, has been incalculable.

I’m always saddened at those who dismiss godly people from other branches of the Christian family on the grounds that the theology of these other people is deficient here or there. I’m the last person to dismiss theology. Yet important as it is, it’s only penultimate. Then what’s ultimate? Godliness is. I shall never forget one of the oral examinations I sat with Professor Jakob Jocz on the way to my doctorate. Jocz, a Lithuanian Hebrew-Christian, knew the difference between the penultimate and the ultimate and insisted on the difference relentlessly. After he and I had jousted intellectually for an hour in the examination he told me I had done well and would report my grade to the registrar. He dismissed me and I began walking away. I was almost out of the building when he hailed me and called me back. Speaking to me now not as examiner but as spiritual advisor he said, “Shepherd, what we’ve done here today is important but not ultimately important; what finally counts is the shape of a person’s life. You be sure to remember this.”

When I was teaching at a seminary in India a few years ago I noticed that the remains of Francis Xavier are buried there. Xavier was one of the six young men who, with their leader, Ignatius Loyola, formed the Jesuit order in the 16th century. They were missionaries who cheerfully embraced the severest hardships for the sake of Christ’s kingdom. Francis Xavier ministered for several years in India, having walked there from Spain. How long a walk is the walk from Spain? What did he encounter? What was the heat like, the danger from animals and snakes, the greater danger from hostile natives, the danger from tropical disease? To be sure, I wouldn’t agree with Xavier’s theology in all respects. But what finally counts is the shape of a person’s life! The saints continue to do more for me than I am able to tell you.

[4] Another man who has done ever so much for me I think of almost every day: Ronald Ward. Ward was a British-trained classics scholar-turned-New Testament scholar who came to Wycliffe College, University of Toronto. An Anglican clergyman, a gentle spirit, a fine preacher with a vivid imagination, a walking lexicon of Greek vocabulary and a master of Greek grammar, Ward could open up a Greek dictionary, comment on any word there, and in commenting on a point in morphology or syntax bring me, at least, before the throne of grace where I could only adore in amazement. Needless to say, I’ve met many New Testament scholars with fine Greek backgrounds who never did this for me. Then how is it Ward could? He was simply the godliest person I have ever met.

I first heard of Ward from my father. For years my father worked in downtown Toronto at the Canada Trust office at Yonge and Temperance streets. The downtown Anglican cathedral hosted Lenten noon-hour services lasting 40 minutes: hymn, prayer, scripture reading, sermon. My father attended every noon-hour in Lent and in time came to hear Ward. My father came home that night astonished at Ward’s scholarship and glowing at the authenticity with which Ward spoke of his life in his Lord. On my 24th birthday my mother (now a widow) gave me a book of Ward’s that expounded the theological significance of the subtlest points in Greek grammar. By now I was afire myself over the Greek grammatical subtleties that were more effective than Elijah’s chariot in bringing one before the face of God reflected in the face of that Lord whom Ward knew and loved. When I was ordained and settled in New Brunswick, the 400-mile round-trip drive to Ward, now a clergyman in Saint John, was nothing. For when I was in his home he would speak to me naturally, unselfconsciously, of matters of the Spirit, and speak so as to leave me craving his immersion in the heart of God.

Ward glowed with the Spirit. Genuinely humble like all the saints of God, he simply spoke from his heart of that gospel whose truth had validated itself in him over and over. Never intending to impress me, he none the less impressed me so thoroughly as to leave me unable to forget him. On one occasion he smiled warmly as he remarked to me, “Victor, if we fear God, genuinely fear God, we shall never have to be afraid of him.” I have pondered this simple statement a thousand times. “Victor, the worst consequence of sin is more sin.” I have proved the truth of this too many times, I’m ashamed to tell you. “Victor, the worst consequence of prayerlessness is the inability to pray.”

That book of his that my mother gave me on my 24th birthday: it discussed imperative and subjunctive moods, peculiar verb tenses like the gnomic aorist and the periphrastic perfect, as well as compound verbs and unusual prepositions. The book electrified me with gospel insights that I use repeatedly to tell my students they can’t afford to bypass Greek. One day, Greek testament in hand, I told Ward I was puzzled by two verses close to each other where Jesus says, “If your hand causes you to stumble, cut it off…if your eye causes you to stumble, pluck it out.” The verb is skandalizein, to cause to stumble. In these two verses two different tenses are used. One tense suggests completed action in the past, a single instance only; the other tense suggests an ongoing phenomenon. When I asked Ward about it he replied without hesitation. “Victor, in a moment of carelessness or inattentiveness or outright folly the Christian can be overtaken by sin. Horrified, she says, ‘Never again!’, and it’s done with, one instance only. And then there’s the Christian’s besetting sin with which she has to struggle every day.”

Ward died in 1986 at the age of 78. He’s so deep in my head and heart that he’ll never be out. I glow every time I think of him, and want only that the same Spirit which made him luminous for me might render me luminous for someone else.

[5] Everyone is aware that the saints whom the church catholic recognizes are frequently martyrs as well. Why are so many saints martyrs too? It’s simple: when the gospel meets the world, the gospel collides with lethal hostility. We must never, never think that the gospel is heard and beheld in a world that is spiritually neutral; the gospel is heard and beheld in a world that hates it.

When I was in Korea in 1998 I spoke with an American scholar who had been a missionary in Japan for 20 years from 1955 to 1975 (more or less.) He lit up as he told me he’d shortly be preaching in Japan and would see there a Christian woman, the daughter of a man who had come to faith in Jesus Christ when my friend had been a missionary. He was so very excited about this because a Christian who perseveres is so very rare, given the social stigma the Japanese visit upon anyone who makes a Christian profession. Not only is there social stigma, my friend said, there is right now a social harassment so intense that very few Japanese can withstand it. In years past, of course, there was out-and-out murder.

We shall never comprehend the suffering of Christians in China since the communist takeover of 1948; we shall never know the extent of those murdered in the cultural revolution of the last 30 years. As for Christians in Islamic countries; at this moment Christians in Islamic countries are being slaughtered in unprecedented numbers.

Remembrance Day is soon upon us, and with it all that Remembrance Day recalls. For me it always recalls Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the German theologian, and his execution at the hands of the Nazis following a two-year imprisonment. When I was in Korea I spoke with some European theologians about Bonhoeffer. What did they think of him? How is he viewed in the academic circles of German theology? “We find him too pietistic”, they said with a supposed superiority that disgusts me, “especially his book The Cost of Discipleship. Too pietistic.” Bonhoeffer wrote the book knowing that the cost of genuine discipleship is no little cost; he wrote it knowing that he himself would pay the price. Bonhoeffer said simply, “It costs everything to follow Jesus.” And university professors of theology, whose predecessors were cowards during the Nazi era and who now enjoy fat-cat salaries and immense social prestige and whose discipleship costs them nothing; they dismiss the man who followed our Lord so closely as never to flee the cross he ordains for his people as surely as our Lord himself has never fled the one ordained for him. Leonhard Goppelt, a Hamburg New Testament scholar who saved his hide during the war by pretending he had never heard of Jesus Christ and whose work I refuse to read, remarked to a friend of mine (Goppelt’s doctoral student), “Bonhoeffer puzzles me; to survive all he had to was keep his mouth shut!” How can a witness to Jesus Christ keep his mouth shut?

To be a witness (martus) is frequently to be a martyr.

[6] Frequently, but not always. Many exemplary witnesses have been spared martyrdom. One such Christian, another fellow to whom I return often, is William Stringfellow, New York lawyer, Anglican layman, extraordinarily perceptive with respect to the principalities and powers. (The principalities and powers are the institutions, ideologies, images and “isms” that enslave people and break them.) Stringfellow acquainted me with the scope and depth of the world’s hostility and its bondage to death. Stringfellow also acquainted me with the scope and depth of God’s love for the world, which love means that God will never abandon it and therefore never should we. Lest we foolishly think that the saints are otherworldly and therefore of no earthly use, we should be aware that the saints love the world just because God loves it and love it with the same sort of love with which God loves it. Stringfellow died in January, 1985, three months before I was to visit him in New York. It was said at his funeral, “In his vocation and by his example he opened up to us the Word of God.” This is the vocation of all the saints, of all God’s people.

In this Presbyterian congregation John Calvin is going to be given the last word today. Calvin said, “The only foundation for that holy living which constitutes genuine righteousness is to cast everything else behind us and embrace the cross…of Christ with both hands.” The saints of every branch of the Christian family know this. They cast everything else behind them just because they want always and everywhere to embrace the cross of Christ with both hands.

Victor Shepherd
October 2001

Let Us Run The Race With Perseverance

Hebrews 11 and 12:1,2

Christian discipleship is a race, says the unknown author of the book of Hebrews. It’s a race of a peculiar sort, a relay race. Some runners have run before us; others will run after us. Those who have run before us haven’t disappeared from the course. Having finished their “leg” of the race they have gathered at the finish line where they can cheer on those who are still running. Those who have already finished the race are “the great cloud of witnesses” of whom Hebrews speaks. We who are running now are surrounded by the great cloud of witnesses. They are encouraging us moment by moment, telling us constantly that any difficulty, all difficulties can be surmounted and must be surmounted if we are to join them at the finish-line.

Think of the great cloud. Abel, for instance: he kept running despite lethal harassment from a hostile brother. Joseph: he kept running despite wicked slander against him and repeated attempts to seduce him. Moses: he kept running despite the opposition of neighbours who wouldn’t have known God from a gopher. And of course the person in the “great cloud of witnesses” is our Lord Jesus Christ himself. Hebrews speaks of him as the “pioneer and perfecter of our faith.” We who are running now are to keep our eye on him above all. He didn’t merely run one leg of the relay race; he forged the whole race ahead of us and now summons us to keep on running with our eyes on him.

We are told not simply to run, but to run with perseverance. Plainly, nothing must be allowed to inhibit or obstruct our perseverance.

Then what is it to run with perseverance?

I: — In the first place we must keep on running regardless of detractors.

My family left Winnipeg in January, 1950. Three months later the Red River flooded. Soon the streets of downtown Winnipeg were five feet under water. (Note: we are not talking here about five feet of water in the basement, but rather five feet of water above the sidewalk.) Southern Manitoba has flooded episodically ever since the passing of the ice age.

When Mr. Duff Roblin was premier of Manitoba thirty years ago he legislated the construction of a huge floodway along one side of Winnipeg that carries off the overflow from the two rivers — the Red and the Assiniboine — that rise dangerously every spring. The floodway cost $58 million. For this public expenditure Duff Roblin was pilloried in the legislative assembly. His political opponents “ate him alive”, all the while ridiculing his project as “Duff’s Ditch”.

It so happens that Duff’s Ditch is going to spare Winnipeg from the flood when the flood inundates everything else around Winnipeg. It so happens that Duff’s Ditch has spared the city of Winnipeg colossal damage on at least ten occasions. It so happens that Duff’s Ditch has saved the city billions of dollars.

Roblin paid a very high price for his perseverance. No matter! He stands vindicated now!

In the race of discipleship to run with perseverance means we shall keep on running regardless of detractors.

II: — In the second place to run with perseverance means we shall keep on running regardless of distractions. We must run singlemindedly; run with a focus, a concentration, a determination that is aware only of the matter at hand. We must run with an intensity that unfailingly announces our steadfastness.

I am gripped whenever I see a singleminded intensity that sheds distractions. Recently I saw Itzhak Perlman (reputed to be the world’s finest violinist) playing a “pop” concert. He was playing the music from the movie, Schindler’s List. He had already played the music when the sound track was made for the film. Now he was playing it again before a live audience.

The audience was relaxed, comfortable, cool. Perlman, however; perspiration streamed off him. Playing music associated with the Holocaust plainly strained the Jewish violinist. Still, he matched the strain with his own strenuousness and kept on playing as only he can play, sweat-soaked while spectators coolly enjoyed the music.

Regardless of what it was costing him Perlman wasn’t going to spare himself; neither was he going to let anything distract him. In his singleminded concentration he wasn’t even aware of would-be distractions.

How different it was with the woman in the relay race during a recent Olympic Games. She was running her “leg” of the race, baton in hand, when a mean-spirited opponent elbowed her in the ribs. Jabbed, in pain now, and momentarily breathless, she “lost it”. Angrily, petulantly — understandably, to be sure, yet foolishly nonetheless — she threw her baton at the woman who had fouled her. When she threw her baton she threw away the race. She disqualified herself; she disqualified her entire team. Instantly she grasped what she had done and stopped running.

In the course of life we do get fouled. We get jabbed. We get “clobbered”. We get victimized in a thousand different ways. The one thing we must never do is allow our manifold victimizations to distract us. We must never allow them to distract us so that we lose our focus, our singlemindedness, our intensity, our horizon-filling dedication to the task at hand. We must never allow our manifold victimizations to move us into that space where we “throw it all away” with the result that the only thing left is to stop running.

To run with perseverance is to keep on running regardless of distractions.

III: — In the third place to run with perseverance means we shall keep on running patiently. The race of Christian discipleship isn’t a sprint that ends in 9.35 seconds. It’s a long race, a lifelong race. We must run patiently.

Before the dismantling of the Berlin wall in 1989; before the dissolution of the Soviet Union; when the USSR was a totalitarian tormenter; in those days one of the USSR’s military heroes was denounced publicly. Col. Lev Ofsischer had been a flier in the Soviet Air Force in World War II. He had distinguished himself in the Battle of Stalingrad, that great turning point in the war. He was an Air Force hero, and his name and photograph were featured in a book depicting the Battle of Stalingrad and his place in it.

In a subsequent edition of the book his name and photograph had been removed. His rank — colonel — had been reduced to private. And his pension had been cancelled. What had he done to bring this on himself? In 1967 he had asked the soviet government to permit him to emigrate to Israel. Permission was denied. Meanwhile a Baptist Christian had given him a bible. (Ofsischer had grown up in communist Russia where bibles were illegal, and had grown up thoroughly secularized.) In 1977, ten years later, he was still denied permission to emigrate. For ten years he had read the bible that the Christian missionary had given him, and in those ten years had learned the history of his people’s frustrations in the biblical era alone.

The KGB (soviet secret police) told him that if he withdrew his application to emigrate his Air Force pension would be restored. Ofsischer told the KGB that if he had to choose between pension and honour there was no choice: he would never besmirch his honour for the sake of a pension.

The KGB told him he might as well give up. “You’ve already waited ten years !”, they said. “Wrong!”, replied Ofsischer, “I haven’t waited ten years. I have waited 2000 years; and I can wait a few more.”

To run with perseverance is always to run patiently.

IV: — Important as it is to run regardless of detractors, run regardless of distractions, run patiently, it isn’t enough: we must also run so as to finish.

Another Olympic Games, this time in Mexico City, 1968. It was the marathon race: 26 miles, 385 yards. The first-place runner crossed the finish line, then the second, the third, and so on. As the last runner, it would seem, straggled in, the spectators and camera crews noticed an ambulance with lights flashing several hundred yards up the course. The flashing lights warned the crowds not to surge onto the track as the race wasn’t yet over. One runner remained on the track.

This fellow had come from a developing country in the two-thirds world. His nation had no funds for state-sponsored training programs. The people had simply sent him off with whatever encouragement they could press upon him. Now he was running with men whose economic privilege gave them enormous advantage.

This fellow, ambulance alongside him, would stagger a few feet and fall on his face, get up and stagger a few more feet and go down again, over and over until he had traversed the last few hundred yards. When asked why he had persevered at such a price he replied, “My people didn’t send me here to compete (they knew I couldn’t compete); they didn’t even send me here to run; they sent me here to finish.”

My final word to those whose race-running we are recognizing this morning is this: be sure to run so as to finish. It is only as we finish — who cares if we get to our goal with scraped knees and bleeding face? — it is only as we finish that we find ourselves admitted to the great cloud of witnesses in the company of our elder brother, Jesus. And it is only as we finish that God himself is glorified.

Victor Shepherd
May 1997

Not a Spirit of Fear, but a Spirit of Power and Love and Self-Control

2 Timothy 1:7

[1] Paul writes to Timothy, who is only 19 or 20 himself, and says, “Remember! God did not give us a spirit of timidity, a spirit of fear, but a spirit of power and love and self-control”. Plainly the older apostle knows that young Timothy is afraid.

I shall never make light of that fear which is part of the human condition. It is as undeniable as toothache. Then what do I do with respect to my own fears? On those days when my fears seem nearly overwhelming I look to two treasure-stores: the promises of God and my Christian friends. The promises of God are glorious. The simplest promise comes from the book of Joshua: “I will not fail you or forsake you”. The psalms are a goldmine: “This I know, that God is for me… what can man do to me?” John tells us that even if our hearts condemn us, the God of unfathomable mercy is greater than our hearts. And then there are those promises from the heart and pen of Paul: “If we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord; so then whether we live or whether we die we are the Lord’s”; “If God is for us, who is against us?”; “We know that in everything God works for good with those who love him, who are called according to his purpose”. And of course there is the climax of all of scripture, as far as I am concerned, Romans 8:38: “Neither death nor life, nor things present, nor things to come, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord”.

[2] If God hasn’t given us a spirit of fear, then what has he given us? Paul reminds Timothy once again: a spirit of power and love and self-control.

(a) The one question which younger people always have concerning the gospel is also the simplest question. Their one question isn’t, “Is it true?”, because younger people suspect it might be true but also be trite; true but also pointless; true but too abstract, too remote to be of any earthly use. Their one question concerning the gospel is, “Does it work?” “Does it work?” means “Is it effective?” Whether it is effective depends entirely on what end it is supposed to effect. The question, “Is a hammer effective?” depends on the end you have in mind. If your purpose is to drive nails the answer is plainly “yes”. If you wish to crochet lace doilies the answer is plainly “no”. If you want to repair the nozzle of your garden hose the answer is “maybe”. “Does the gospel work?” — the answer here depends on what it is we are looking to see happen. The textbook-correct answer is that the gospel works, is effective, inasmuch as it is the purpose of the gospel to reconcile us to God and render us transparent before him; since the gospel does this (alone does this) therefore the gospel works and should be embraced by every last person, older and younger alike. But the answer is too slick and too abstract by half. What reconciliation to God and transparency to him means is something we older people must exemplify ourselves if what we say about it is to have any weight. For a long time I have felt that Maureen and I should are an advertisement of the gospel for our grandchildren. In other words, younger people (who are much less readily deceived than older people) are going to conclude that the gospel works only if they have seen something of its work in us.

One feature of younger people that always appeals to me is their forthrightness. If you ask them about last night’s rock concert they will reply without hesitation, “It was a drag” or “It was out of sight”. Older people are adept at verbal smokescreens; younger people don’t bother with word-camouflages, for they are suspicious that much talk is a cover-up covering up an embarrassing lack of substance. There was an embarrassing lack of substance in the Christian community of Corinth . The church-members there yammered a lot, lined up behind different hero-figures in the congregation, fancied themselves worldly-wise and talked up their pseudo-wisdom; they rationalized the inexcusable even as they told each other how truthful they were. Finally Paul had had enough. He let them know that their pretension to wisdom was nothing more than arrogance. He let them know that he would visit the congregation soon and deal with these motor-mouths himself. His conviction about the nature of the gospel and his resolve to hold the congregation to the gospel are evident in his concluding line: “I will find out not the talk of these arrogant people but their power. For the kingdom of God does not consist in talk but in power”.

Not a spirit of fear has God given us but a spirit of power.

(b) And also a spirit of love. Everyone has her own understanding of love; but it’s the gospel’s understanding that matters for us. And the gospel makes plain that God’s love is a self-giving which pours itself self-forgetfully upon anyone at all without concern for consequence or cost.

There are two ways of avoiding such disillusionment. One is by returning constantly to our text: God has given us a spirit of love; not a notion of love, but a spirit of love. Plainly there is an allusion to the Holy Spirit, that power in which God himself acts upon his people. Then God himself must — and will — keep our hearts from shrivelling up into that tokenism that is widely regarded as good enough.

The second way of avoiding the world-weary disillusionment that reduces love to a mere artificiality which is socially acceptable; the second way is to keep people dear to us. Writing to the people in Thessalonica Paul says, “We were ready to share with you not only the gospel of God but also our very selves (this is what love is finally, sharing our very selves) so dear had you become to us.” The longer I live the dearer people become to me. When I was a younger minister I was so taken up with getting the job-functions done — writing the sermon, chairing the meeting, conducting the funeral — that my focus was on the function, with people more or less on the periphery. In my older age the function seems to perform itself, and people have become the focus. One reason that I have relished being a pastor is that people — all kinds and qualities — have become dearer to me with every passing year. As they do I find today’s text confirming itself to me with greater force: God has given us a spirit of love, and this gift will keep our love from shrivelling up to a pasted-on smile plus a “townie.”

(c) We have also been given a spirit of self-control. Self-control appears to be the opposite of other-control. Either we control ourselves or others control us; other people, other ideologies, other things. When this happens – i.e., when we are other-controlled – we are little more than an empty tin can kicked around endlessly: empty to start with and soon shapeless as well. This is not good. What is the alternative? A minute ago I said that self-control appears to be the opposite of other-control; “appears” because there is one glorious instance where self-control and other-control are one and the same. When Paul lists the fruits of the Spirit in Galatians 5 he is listing the qualities of life which Jesus Christ effects in his people by his Spirit. Included in the list is self-control. Christ-control is self-control. You see, to be Christ-controlled is to know whose we are: we are his and his only! And to know whose we are (when we are Christ’s) is to know who we are: we are our “self”. Since Jesus Christ renders me who I am, to be Christ-controlled will always be to be self-controlled.

Victor Shepherd
May 2007

The Meaning and Timing of Confirmation

I: — Many of you have voiced to me your misgivings concerning confirmation, the service itself as well as the understanding behind the ritual. No one has suggested that we cancel the service outright. Nonetheless, even those who have never suggested that the event be cancelled continue to express serious reservations about it. A few people are plainly cynical. I imagine that virtually everyone feels that something isn’t quite right with confirmation; something important is somehow not happening, a mythology if not a superstition has taken hold, a game of “let’s pretend” is being played even though most of us can’t really pretend any longer. While almost no one is content with the current practice of confirmation, no one appears to have an alternative.

Everyone knows what happens on Confirmation Sunday. Some of the confirmands we know well. We have seen them and their parents at worship for years. Other confirmands we don’t know at all. We don’t recognize the surname, aren’t acquainted with the parents, assume that the youngster is being confirmed simply because his parents have made him come to the six or seven mandatory classes and get himself “done”, the parents plainly attaching much superstition to getting “done.”

When adults wish to join our congregation through transfer of membership the secretary asks for the transfer, only to learn, quite frequently, that the person in question was not a member of the previous congregation; may have attended, but was never formally a member. I then ask the person in question if she was ever confirmed. Very often she replies that she doesn’t know; she can’t remember whether she was ever confirmed. Were I to ask her, “Did you ever get married?”, she would be able to reply instantly. Apparently confirmation is not particularly memorable.

And then there are the photographs, in the hallway outside the choir room, of the confirmation classes of years past. Where are all those young people today? As painful as it is to say it, would it be truer to say that confirmation is less the congregation’s welcome to the young people than it is their good-bye wave to us?

Many people understand confirmation as a kind of graduation. Once we have graduated from high school, for instance, we don’t go back. Once we have graduated from “church” (Sunday School being a form of church) we don’t go back.

And then there is an aspect to the confirmation service which should jar us all, that part of the service where hands are laid upon the candidate. There is only one other service in the church where hands are laid upon a candidate: ordination to the ministry. Obviously there is close connection between the meaning of confirmation in the faith and the meaning of ordination to the ministry. What is the connection? What would we think of candidates for the ministry who were ordained at a public service and then promptly disappeared from church life?

Then of course there are the promises made during the service itself. One such promise is that the confirmand will be diligent in attendance at public worship. The promise is made by the confirmand and heard by the congregation when everyone knows that diligent attendance at public worship is the last thing many confirmands (and their parents) have in mind.

The promises are followed by the commissioning: “Go out into the world to fulfil your high calling as a servant and soldier of Jesus Christ.” “Go out into the world”: it appears that the theatre, the venue of the Christian’s discipleship is vast. “Servant of Christ”: it appears that extreme self-denial is involved. “Soldier of Christ”: it appears that hardship is cheerfully to be endured. What do we expect a 15 year old to make of all this?

Lastly, at a recent meeting of the Christian Education Committee grave misgivings were voiced concerning the adequacy of six or seven 45-minute sessions as preparation for an event as momentous as confirmation. Frankly, I don’t think that six or seven sessions times 45 minutes is adequate preparation. But surely these sessions aren’t the preparation! Surely the profounder preparation is 15 years of Christian formation through exposure to Christian truth and the Christian way embodied in congregational life and witness.

II: — Many people have asked me about the timing of confirmation, the age at which young people make public promises and are said to be “confirmed”. Why age 15? I simply don’t know. I suspect that it has much to do with the fact that around this age people graduate from elementary school and move on to high school. At the same time, Sunday School customarily concludes for people 14 or 15 years old. When I was new in Streetsville I commented, at a C.E. meeting, that I was concerned about the immediate disappearance of so many confirmees. I suggested that we try something different: postpone the event for a few years to see if the losses were as great then. My suggestion was shot down instantly. “If we postpone the class we might lose those people”, I was told right away. Might lose them? But the present practice has scarcely kept them! I cannot believe that we have genuinely, profoundly “kept” people within the fellowship of the congregation just because their names have been added to record-books.

(I’ll say more about timing later. Let’s move on to the meaning of confirmation.)

III: — The meaning of the service is stated plainly in the service itself. “When those who have been baptized as children have grown up and have been taught the essentials of Christian faith and duty, they come before the church to own for themselves the covenant (i.e., the promises) of their baptism. In this act they confess Jesus Christ openly as Saviour and Lord that they may be confirmed by the Holy Spirit and welcomed to the Lord’s table.” (Let me say in passing that I should welcome any person of any age to the Lord’s table at any time, confirmed or not.) The major point in all this is that those being confirmed now own for themselves and publicly endorse the promises which their parents made on their behalf as infants on the day their parents had them baptized.

Everywhere in the New Testament baptism is a sign of several things. (i) It is a sign of repentance. To repent is to change direction. Christians take their marching orders from a different leader. We walk resolutely that road which leads to the kingdom of God. Other roads — self-inflating ambition, wealth for the sake of wealth, social superiority, self-indulgence — these roads we shun as we move in the direction of the kingdom. (ii) Baptism is a sign of faith. Faith is keeping company with Jesus Christ. Living unashamedly in his company, we share his identity. We are publicly known as those who know him and love him and obey him. (iii) Baptism is commissioning for service. While we certainly love our Lord, we do more than merely love him; we work in his name, work on behalf of others whom he loves as surely as he loves us. (iv) Baptism means one thing more. It means that the repentance and faith and service we exercise, we exercise inasmuch as God’s own Spirit, God himself, has touched us and moved us and constrained us. We haven’t “decided”, of ourselves, to follow Jesus the way we decide to buy a Ford instead of a Chevrolet or a bungalow instead of a townhouse. We are disciples inasmuch as our Lord called us; our resistance melted and we couldn’t do anything else.

Baptism means this. Parents make promises concerning all of this for their children when their children are baptized. Then the day comes when the child, now much older, recognizes what his parents have sought for him for years. He recognizes too that he wants this now for himself. Therefore he owns it all for himself and publicly declares that this is what he will pursue until life ends.

When I was pondering the meaning of “confirm” I went to the Oxford English Dictionary. The O.E.D. gives four meanings for “confirm”. (i) to establish more firmly. Certainly when people are confirmed we want their discipleship to be established more firmly. (ii) to corroborate. Certainly we want their zeal for discipleship to be corroborated, supported, by the Holy Spirit and by others. (iii) to encourage a person in a habit or an opinion. Certainly we want confirmands to persist in the habit of discipleship and persist in their conviction of truth. (iv) the fourth meaning the O.E.D. discusses only in the past tense. It uses the illustration, “confirmed drunkard”, and mentions synonyms like “inveterate”, meaning “life-long”. And certainly we want confirmands to aspire after life-long loyalty to their Lord.

The United Church service speaks of being “confirmed by the Holy Spirit”. We should all want to add, “and by the congregation as well.”

IV: — This is what the service means. How do you feel now about our confirmation practice? Having asked the question, I am in no position to receive 300 replies at this time. But I shall gladly hear from any of you at any other time.

Having asked you a question, I can only go on talking myself. What I say next is only my opinion. Feel free to disagree with it, modify it, endorse it or bury it.

I think we need many “rites of spiritual passage” in our church life. There is nothing wrong with a public service for people 14 or 15 years old, a service which acknowledges the Christian formation they have undergone so far in their lives, a service which points them ahead to deeper understanding and faith and service, a service which encourages them to persist more profoundly in it. Therefore I am not suggesting for a minute that we eliminate the “rite of spiritual passage” for people of this age.

At the same time I have long felt that the kind of promise we ask young people to make at this age we should defer to a later age. We all agree that no 14 or 15 year old should be asked to make a promise concerning marriage. (For that matter no 17 year old should be asked, either.) We don’t ask 15 year olds to make promises concerning marriage because we know that they cannot understand the force of what they are pledging. Might it not be the same with respect to the promises made at confirmation? Teenage years are often characterized by religious enthusiasms, but also characterized by religious denunciations; doubts, perplexities, denials of all that their parents have cherished, questions, uncertainties, contradictions. A Roman Catholic woman remarked to me that when her daughter was 16 her daughter was vowing every day to become a nun; when her daughter was 17 she couldn’t get her daughter out of bed and to church on Sunday morning.

Teenagers 14, 15, 16 years old feel they have to question everything. There is nothing wrong with this. After all, none of us wants our children to grow up uncritical, mindless dupes. At this age too teenagers become aware that the world as it is is not quite the neat, cosy, justly-ordered world of their early childhood. They learn that there is nothing in the real world which unfolds like Goldilocks and the Three Bears. They learn now of the evil which excoriates the world, of the shocking unfairness which riddles life, of the misery in which most of the world’s people will have to live. And then they put all of this against the supposed goodness and mercy of God.

At this age too teenagers learn of the arguments brought against faith by Freud and Marx and Darwin. Dealing with these arguments may be “old hat” to a middle-aged person like me, but to a 15 year old it is all so new, so startling, so powerful as to hang a huge question mark above all that he has understood to date of the Christian faith. I often feel that the confirmation process stifles the teenagers’ searching, their inquisitiveness, their wrestling issues to the ground, when we should be encouraging all of this; we smother precisely what we should stimulate. Of course we should support them while they search. But what is to be gained by exerting pressure from parents, peers and congregation upon a teenager to conform to the confirmation practice when all the while some of them, at least, want to cry out, “But I’m not convinced yet; and I have many more questions; and why do I have to submit to this?”

I have long felt that we need to support youngsters throughout this searching, questioning, doubting, probing phase; support them and encourage them in it, and wait for them to emerge on the other side of it with a faith they have hammered out for themselves and can own without reservation. At this point, I feel, we should have another public “rite of spiritual passage” for those who are now 22 or 25 or 28 — or 55.

V:– While the congregation owns and supports teenagers throughout this process and then publicly celebrates the culmination of their search, its flowering into fruit-bearing faith, the congregation should also, I feel, recognize, own, support all kinds of people who act in the congregation’s name. Yes, we do recognize the UCW leadership each year when we install the executive. “Install”? We install heavy appliances, like stoves, fridges, washers and dryers. We shouldn’t “install” these women; we should commission them. We should commission them on behalf of the UCW for the ultimate blessing of the whole congregation. We shouldn’t “install” Sunday School teachers as we call it at present. We should commission them to bring to children, in the way that children can understand, the faith which this congregation as a whole owns. We commission the teachers to render this service for us.

What about the prime neighbours? We need a service which sets forth the way in which the neighbouring program extends Christian hospitality, and what we are trusting to result from this ministry.

The thrust of the visiting program is different. Whereas the prime neighbours have others into their own homes, the visitors go out to other people’s homes, with a different purpose in view. We need a service which recognizes this and commissions them for it.

Youth work in the congregation: youth group, girls’ work, Boy Scout/Girl Guide work. It all happens here in the congregation. We need a public service of recognition, gratitude and commissioning.

VI: –And then I think there may be one thing more needed. Perhaps we need to allow an individual to speak on Sunday morning from time to time. Not to make an announcement in the announcement period, but rather to share her testimony of God’s victory somewhere in her life, or to request special intercession of us in special circumstances, or to lay an extraordinary concern before us which is searing her heart. Do we need a place for this as well?

VII: — Let me say again what I said a minute ago. You asked for a sermon on the meaning and timing of confirmation. I have put before you my best thinking on the subject. But it is only mine. I need to hear yours. Speak to me, to anyone on the Official Board, to anyone on the Christian Education Committee, to anyone in the Sunday School. But be sure to let us know what is on your mind.

F I N I S

Victor A. Shepherd
January 1994

Sunday School: How Important Is It?