the time we wrestled with forgiveness

These days I am privileged to be a mentor for a group of seven lay worship leaders who are students in the Lay Worship Leaders Training program of the United Church. We meet online - two are in Ontario, three in Manitoba and two are in British Columbia. It is a remarkable group. This semester is focussed on prayer and music in worship. Tonight we discussed confession and forgiveness. It was a rich conversation.

I was reminded of the time at University Hill Congregation when we wrestled with the call to forgive that lies at the heart of the New Testament. It was seven years ago. At the time I posted an outline of those conversations. Here are links to those posts ...

Forgiven, Forgiving (1)

Forgiven, Forgiving (2)

Forgiven, Forgiving (3)

Forgiven, Forgiving - a sample of biblical texts

Forgiven, Forgiving (4)

Forgiven, Forgiving (5)

Forgiven, Forgiving (6)

notes on first peter four

When we gather on Thursday evening we will read the fourth chapter of the First Letter of Peter. Come with your questions and insights. Here are some questions to consider as you read …

notes on first peter three

When we gather on Thursday evening we will read the third chapter of the First Letter of Peter. Come with your questions and insights. Here are some questions to consider as you read …

notes on first peter two

When we gather on Thursday evening we will read the second chapter of the First Letter of Peter. Come with your questions and insights. Here are some questions to consider as you read …

notes on first peter one

During Lent we are hosting a weekly evening gathering with a meal, prayers, hymns and discussion of the First Letter of Peter. As we do not own a church building we are meeting in the home of one of the members of University Hill Congregation. This is one way in which our experience as a congregation parallels that of the early church addressed by this letter. In preparing for our time together I send a few questions to the group, hoping to stimulate their own questions as they read. Here are those questions for week one, chapter one ...

galatians - week six

Here is the introductory page for Galatians chapter six and week six of our congregational conversation about Paul's letter to the Galatians ...

In preparation for our time together read Galatians, chapter six. Note your own questions and insights. Bring them with you to our conversation. Consider these statements and questions:

galatians - week five

Here is the introductory page for Galatians chapter five and week five of our congregational conversation about Paul's Letter to the Galatians ...

In preparation for our time together read Galatians, chapter five. Note your own questions and insights. Bring them with you to our conversation. Consider these statements and questions:

What does life look like when one has “fallen away from grace” ? What typifies a church that has “cut itself off from Christ”? (Gal. 4). How do you interpret the phrase: “For through the Spirit, by faith, we eagerly wait for the hope of righteousness.” (Gal. 5:5)?

galatians - week four

Here is the introductory page for Galatians 4:1 through 5:1 and week four of our congregational conversation about Paul's Letter to the Galatians ...

The words “slave”, “slavery” and “enslaved” occur thirteen times in this passage. Twice Paul speaks of being “enslaved to the elemental spirits of the word” (Gal. 4:3 & 4:9). “Why should Paul speak to the Galatians about the elements of the cosmos, and how does he intend them to construe his references? What, precisely, are these elements, how did they enslave, and how is it that their universally enslaving power has been broken by the advent of Christ? Was it not sufficient in Paul’s mind to characterize the period prior to Christ as one of imprisonment under the Law (3:23,25)? Why speak also of imprisonment under the elements, somehow identifying the Law as one of them? These are exceedingly thorny questions, as one can see from the extraordinary number of studies given to them, and from the striking absence of a consensus.” (J. Louis Martin, “Galatians”, p. 394). In what ways do we, and the world we inhabit, live in slavery “to the weak and beggarly elemental spirits, to beings that by nature are not gods” (Gal 4:8)?

galatians - week three

Here is the introductory page for Galatians chapter three and week three of our congregational conversation about Paul's Letter to the Galatians ...

In preparation for our time together read Galatians, chapter three. Note your own questions and insights. Bring them with you to our conversation. Consider these questions:

In verse one Paul says: “It was before your eyes that Jesus Christ was publicly exhibited as crucified!” We have glimpses of the description that Paul offered of the events of Holy Week in I Corinthians 11:23-26 & 15:1-11. What is your reaction to Paul’s focus on the cross and resurrection rather than on the life and teachings of Jesus?

galatians - week two

Here is the introductory page for Galatians chapter two and week two of our congregational conversation about Paul's Letter to the Galatians ...

galatians - week one

Once again this year we at University Hill Congregation have co-ordinated our weekly study groups so that all of us are hosting the same scripture together through the season of Lent. Some in our congregation are unable to get to one of the weekly gatherings but still wish to participate. To help them - and others who may be interested in joining in - we post materials related to our conversation here each week. Here is the introductory page for chapter one of Galatians and week one of our congregational conversation ...

reading paul reading us

from a 9th century manuscript (Monastery of St. Gallen)

This coming Sunday we're reading I Corinthians 13. On many Sundays preaching is challenging because the scripture is unfamiliar to the congregation. But not this week. This week preaching is challenging because the text is so familiar. People have pretty well memorized this passage after hearing it at so many weddings. How to recover the surprise, even shock that Paul's words first elicited? How to find the source of energy - the voltage - that takes this out of the category of a sweet greeting card into that of a contentious polemic? These are the questions that I am wrestling with this week.

Soon it will not be familiar texts from Paul but unfamiliar ones that will be at issue here. Our Lenten study this year will see our congregation reading Paul's Letter to the Galatians together. Here is how we have introduced this Lenten study to the congregation:

forgiving, forgiven (six)

We are nearing the end of these seven conversations about forgiveness. If it wasn't clear before, it is becoming very clear now that forgiveness is at the heart of Christianity. Learning the language of reconciliation - spoken and embodied - is not optional in Christian community. Yet, in my experience, we are often distracted from this core curriculum by other temptations which seem more manageable and less risky. In the process the church is often left with little in the way of a new way of life to offer in households, neighbourhoods and nations rife with division. I am not at all sure what part this brief seven week conversation in our small congregation has in God's reconciling work but I dare to imagine that it is not without importance.

Here is this week's worksheet ...

forgiving, forgiven (five)

Each week our conversation deepens as we open ourselves to the risk of forgiveness that is at the heart of the Christian gospel. We risk vulnerability with one another as we name our struggle to forgive and our need to receive forgiveness as we revisit deep ache that has scarred souls. The scripture is at once familiar and yet jarring. This week we voice Peter's question of Jesus: "How often should I forgive? As many as seven times?" Jesus' answer is challenging no matter how the math is calculated. He says either "seventy-seven times" or "seventy times seven".

Here is the worksheet for this week's conversation ...

forgiving, forgiven - a sample of biblical texts

As part of our conversation about Christian practices of forgiveness we have been collecting a sampling of biblical texts that inform our life together. We are always glad for suggestions of other texts that we have missed. Here is our current collection ...

forgiving, forgiven (four)

"Woman Caught in Adultery" by He Qi

This week our conversation about Christian practices of forgiveness reaches its half-way point. We continue to host readings of scripture along with other readings about the Christian way forgiveness and with our own experience of - and longing for - forgiveness and reconciliation. When we gather the time seems short. We bring many questions and recognize that there are few easy answers. We pray that our discussion is a part of God's transformation of our lives and life together so that we might more faithfully embody the grace of God as it is revealed to us in Jesus. It still strikes me as odd that I have not led an extended conversation about Christian practices of forgiveness in this - or any other - congregation before. I am not sure of the reason for this, though am glad that the time has come.

Here is the worksheet for this week's conversation ...

forgiving, forgiven (three)

"The Return of the Prodigal Son" by Rembrandt

This week we at University Hill Congregation gather for the third of seven conversations about Christian practices of forgiveness. When we gather we will be discussing our reading of the Parable of the Prodigal Son, the short story "Revelation" by Flannery O'Connor and the concluding chapter of Henri Nouwen's book "The Return of the Prodigal Son". I am looking forward to the group's response to these readings and, in particular, to its reaction to "Revelation". A favorite story of mine, it is unfamiliar to many in the congregation. As I look ahead to Sunday when we will mark All Saints Day I notice that the scriptures are similarly revelatory (Isaiah 25:6-9 & Revelation 21:1-6a) and so the sermon has the working title: "The Revelation". I wonder how to capture something of the surprising revelation that occurs in O'Connor's story in this week's sermon. In the meantime, here is the worksheet for this week's conversation about Christian practices of forgiveness ...

forgiving, forgiven (two)

Each week when we gather for a conversation about forgiveness in Christian community we read scripture together and discuss readings that we have read in preparation for our time together. As part of that preparation I offer a page with selections from the readings as well as with some questions to stimulate our discussion. Here is the worksheet for our discussion this week, session two ...

forgiving, forgiven (one)

We have begun our fall mid-week evening gathering. At University Hill Congregation this has come to mean an open invitation to dinner at Janet's home. Janet lives in a home that reminds me of a prairie farm house. It is full of love with a table that can extend and extend and extend to make room for as many as arrive for dinner. The living room is a circle of couches and chairs, each with a blanket to cozy under if needed. Janet prepares a main dish with others often bringing a salad or some wine or dessert. As we do not own a church building we have grown accustomed to meeting in each others' homes. Over the years Janet's home has become our second home, a kind of "UHill annex".

By 7:30 dinner is over and all have arrived and we begin ninety minutes of conversation intended to inform and aid our formation as apprentices of Jesus and his way. This fall the conversations open up the challenge of Jesus' command that his disciples seek and practice forgiveness. On seven Thursdays we will host biblical passages along with articles and sermons that speak about Christian practices of forgiveness. Forgiveness is the curriculum this fall as a result of a sermon that hosted and proclaimed the story found at John 20:19-31. It was the Sunday after Easter Sunday this year. The text famously ends with the story of Thomas and his doubts. But on the way to that famous ending Jesus charges the church with a huge ministry - the ministry of forgiveness. In the sermon (the one posted here as A New Beatitude) I found myself saying this:

jeremiah & jesus

Next week our Wednesday morning Bible at Breakfast group is discussing chapter seven of the book of Jeremiah. The story told there is an obvious point of contact between Jeremiah and Jesus. The correspondences between Jeremiah and Jesus seem largely forgotten in the church these days (witness the lack of passages from Jeremiah's Temple sermon and trial read in the church during Holy Week). Yet these parallels have long been recognized, as noted in the following quotation by H. Wheeler Robinson (originally published in 1915):