THE NEWSPAPER INJUNCTION

Karl Barth, a famous and influential theologian of the modern world, once said that a preacher needs to preach with the Bible in one hand and a newspaper in the other. In other words, one has to pay attention to the world and the word at the same time – and try to make sense of how they fit together.

So I would like to offer an opinion. It is solely my own. But I make it while keeping those two documents fresh in my mind.

 For the last three months I have driven some 22,000 kilometres across Canada to the Yukon and then across the United States from Alaska through to Maine. I have seen many things, but what I saw the most of is people. People with outrageous accents, people with many different skin tones, people who were rich, people who were poor, people who wore tank tops and people who wore cowboy hats. You get the idea…

What I also saw is that they all go to Tim Horton’s for a coffee, they all get a doughnut at Dunkin’s, they all seem worried about self image, and most cannot drive. In other words – there are very few things that make us different compared to the things that make us the same. I am not sure whether that is a newspaper or bible type realization; perhaps a bit of both.

But then I read comments on social networking about how Trudeau is ruining the world by bringing Syrians into Canada. Or I see news articles about how Britain is leaving the European Union. I listen to campaign speeches by Donald Trump. I see so much in the news about differences – about making sure we remember it is us versus them. Whether them is a different religion, skin tone, sexuality, or nationality… there always has to be a them.

I lived with a Syrian for a week in Ontario during June. He made me think that I need to re-think what nice, calm, and hospitable means. It was Ramadan and he was fasting, He was a corporate lawyer in Syria, and here he was working in the 35-degree sun putting up canvas tents for weddings while not eating or drinking, and still being pleasant and hospitable. I get angry when I skip breakfast.

 It was the same story over and over. I almost never met someone who was not just like me, and who was not happy and nice. And the people I met who seemed ornery, I am pretty sure it was because their dog just died, or someone else had treated them badly, or a whole slew of problems all of which I have too.

Wasn’t it Jesus who tried to help Jews, Samaritans, Roman’s and Greeks alike? Did he say to the Pharisees; no I will not heal you? Did he ever turn someone away? How about Paul who said that there are neither slave no free, Jew nor Greek, but all are one? Or the simple judge not lest ye be judged of my grandmother’s admonition.

I know that many, many people have weighed in around Brexit, Trump, Syrians and the like. I know that you have all heard the love your neighbour shtick. Even the there but for the grace of God go I statement makes most of us pause and think. But these columns have a specific audience. If you are reading them, you already are interested in religion and the faith. Perhaps you go to church or temple or synagogue. So I just want to remind you that we need to take the newspaper with a grain of salt. We need to take the Bible as a tool. We need to balance the reality of the world with the values of our faith. And we need to actually look at the people around us.

 We are all in this together

Life and Death in Lent

Religion Today - Moncton Times & Transcript - February 20th 2016

The reason for Lent is, in fact, preparing for the reality of death. Good Friday is when Jesus dies horribly. The thing is, as a lot of people will tell you, we have a tendency to skip over Good Friday and move right on to Easter- the festival of light and life which declares that even death is not the end and Jesus magically returns from the grave.

Perhaps it is only natural – but we are much fonder of life than we are of death.

There is even a term, and it came up recently, “The sanctity of life” when the news started once more talking about assisted suicide. Life is holy, goes the saying, and so it should be protected at all costs. Life – apparently – is more important than all of the miraculously wonderful things that go into living.

Here is the thing. I spent a morning talking to a man who recently lost his wife. Well – she recently died after a horrific eight-month journey into hell with the rare Jakob Creutzfeldt Disease, or as we think of it, the human version of Mad Cow Disease.

Now, she had a DNR, do not resuscitate order, and they had all talked about how she did not want so-called “heroic” measures taken. But the problem came when she slipped into a coma from which she would never recover – and did not die.

The decision was taken to stop everything that was helping to keeping her alive. Which meant to take out the feeding tube. What followed was four days of starving to death…

I know, this is not a very happy topic… the thing is, I had never really thought about the fact that what actually happens is that you stop feeding them and then let them starve. It seems a horrible way to die, even if you are incurably sick already.

It was one of his final statements that stuck with me and provoked this article. “We talk about preserving the sanctity of life, but we do not talk about the sanctity of death.”

After his wife’s unnecessary suffering he became even more keenly aware of the fact that the more humane solution would have been to help her die quicker, sooner, closer to when her actual life ended.

Currently, he is a fervent advocate of the Death with Dignity movement, and a strong supporter of what the news, unfortunately, calls physician-assisted suicide but which George calls physician-assisted passing over to the great next adventure.

His argument is an interesting one – why do we think being born is a gift from god, but dying is not? Why do we think that life is to be protected at all costs, even when it is no longer worth living? Why would ending the life of a person who is brain dead, in a coma, with no chance of recovery because holes have been eaten out of their brain be called murder and come with a 17-year jail sentence?

Is it not more likely that the moral and religious answer to what would Jesus do would be to administer enough morphine to stop her heart in a second?

That too would be a tough choice to make, a tough moment of courage and letting go. But it would be the humane thing to do – and is, in fact, the human thing to do when a horse breaks their leg or a dog gets cancer. Is it more important to help a pet not suffer than a beloved family member?

Lent is a time when we think about the deeper questions of faith and what it is that keeps us from being the best possible people we can be. The truth is that Jesus saw death as the best possible way to make his point about love and life. Maybe we can stop being so afraid of death. Perhaps it is time to celebrate everything that goes into making us who we are – including our death. 

TRANSFIGURATION

There is this story in the Bible – part of the Jesus Saga, which has become known as the Transfiguration.

Here it is in a nutshell: Jesus grabs a couple of his friends and they head up a mountain to pray. While they are there Jesus starts to glow and suddenly there are two other people there – Moses and Elijah and the three of them talk. Then Moses and Elijah fade away leaving Jesus alone with the three disciples. They want to stay. They want to erect some sort of monument. But Jesus tells them it is time to head to Jerusalem and perhaps death.

There is so much going on with this brief story – even if we completely ignore the radioactively glowing Jesus in the centre of the room.

As Jesus life unfolds this is a major turning point in the stories told about him because it separates the before and after in such a concrete way.

You can look at this a number of ways, before this moment Jesus was perhaps a little closed in terms of revealing his identity… he always put off questions and said, I’m not great, God is great. But here he is revealed as somehow special.

Secondly, before this moment Jesus was always focused on the here and now, healing and teaching, going walkabout through Israel. All of a sudden he turns his eyes towards Jerusalem, to be poetic like the Gospel writer Luke. Now he starts talking about his death, and what will come of that.

Thirdly, Jesus came to reform religion. He has some new ideas… and appearing with Moses and Elijah makes him the third in a series of reformers: Moses changed the faith when he led the people to the Promised Land and established them as a nation instead of a wandering people. Elijah represents the prophets and the way Judaism changed when it became more of an established religion with religious leaders. Now there is Jesus, who has come to change it again…

See, this episode, as it is written, has a very important task of changing the focus of Jesus life. It is, one in a series of four episodes: the birth story, the baptism story, the transfiguration, the death… Each of these is meant to illustrate how Jesus was exceptional.

Moments of change – moments of transformation – and moments that happen to all of us.

This is the fourth, and most important reason the story is told: it is about us.

Transfiguration is what happens at those crucial moments in life when everything changes. We might not be up on a mountain, but think about the birth of a child, or graduating from college, getting fired and having to reinvent ourselves… there are these moments when change is forced upon us and we all of a sudden face the future with certainty and clarity of understanding.

This is what I am discovering more and more as I read stories from the Bible and think about why someone wrote them down. What is it about this story that is meant to be passed on and is important for us? Because there is always a reason, always a connecting point that illustrates some great wisdom which would make our lives better.

This is something I wish I knew before now – we are not going to stay the same… life changes us. Life moulds us into something different at crucial moments and we are no longer the same person.

Too often we are like the disciples, wanting to hold on to the past even in the face of obvious evidence that things need to be different. Too often we have change swirling around us and try desperately to hold on to the past with the delusional belief that everything should stay the same.

The story of Jesus is the story of a man who accepted that God leads in different directions and in each moment accepted that and moved on faithfully into the future. From Carpenter, to Preacher, To Martyr.

Hopefully life has a nicer ending for us, but we still need to accept that transfiguration is possible, and when the moment is right, embrace what God is calling you to be.

ASKING FOR HELP

There are those that believe a preacher simply preaches the message she needs to hear. Perhaps there is some truth to this, and perhaps a writer only writes what they need to read… but are any of you stressed this season?

I wish I was not – I truly do, I wish that Christmas was all magic and that winter was all wonderland. I wish that school breaks brought nothing but the joy I remember from childhood and that gifts magically appeared under the tree. I wish I was always on the same page with everyone and I wish that I could just be helpful and caring and loving to everyone.

I am, however, having trouble with all of these things.

There are days when I think I must be the only one who allows negativity to get the better of me, or the only one who over reacts and causes fights with people. It helps a little to know I am not the only one, though. So I imagine there are a few others like me out there – maybe because I need to.

I blame the Bible! Okay, this may seem like a stretch but hear me out… I try to live my life following in the footsteps and teaching of Jesus and all those wise prophets and holy folks from the Bible. 

Somewhere along the line Sunday school or sermons left the impression on me that to be holy, to be good, one had to be without sin. If I want to be Jesus I have to love and accept everyone, right? I never feel anger or worry or fear, I never fight with anyone and I respect my parents, widows and orphans while healing the sick and finding the lost, and then I am a good person.

Like many religious people I have suffered from a black and white way of looking at the world. As an aside, google this, it is fascinating, the more religious you are the less you are the more you suffer from this… And so if I could not be perfect, I have failed, right?

The problem is, being depressed, asking for help, getting angry are all very real parts of the religious journey, even for our Biblical heroes. The prophet Elijah threw in the towel and went to hide in a cave and be alone because of the pressure he was under. Jonah was afraid to go and preach in Ninevah. Jesus himself left the crowds and tried to hide by walking along the seashore, got angry at temple salesmen and Samaritan women, and felt completely out of his depth when begging God to let him live in the Garden of Gethsemane. Islam has its own version of all of this when you consider that the Prophet Mohammed needed to get away from everyone regularly and headed to the cave at Mira. In fact, it was there that Gabriel gave him the Qur’an.

But this is not the way we usually look at our biblical figures. We usually see them as strong and sure role models who call us to be just like them and leave our worries behind. And when we buy into that it is only going to make it worse.

I know this is not very Christmassy, but I think the whole Christmas season builds stress in some of us and so I am hoping that maybe this helps a few people think about it a different way. Jesus was not born into a world to be perfect, he was born into an imperfect world as an imperfect person who happened to have a plan to help us do this life thing better.

If we let go of the myth that we, and everything else, can be perfect, perhaps we will be able to find it easier to deal with the negative emotions of the season.