Well that came out of the blue

A year ago when we wished one another Happy New Year to welcome in 2023 little did I know that in 2023 would bring a diagnosis of Alzeimer's Disease. When that news was delivered it came as a shock but by then it didn't come as a surprise given the symptoms I had been experiening (such as the hard time I am having typing and posting this update). It is very scary (even terrifying) when you find yourself lost in your own home. Amnesia ( continues) to be a powerful metaphor for the situation that the church find itself in ... lost in our own home. One of the gifts that I have experienced in this Alzhemer's journey so far is that I am able to enjoy reading and to comprehemd the texts. These have iave included biographies of Abraham Lincoln and of John Brown, also a Journal of the Plague year by Daniel Dafoe as well as a fascinating history of 17th Century England.(titled "Rebellion: The History of England from James 1 to the Glorious Revolution" by Peter Ackroyd. Such a fascinating history that is easily lost to our collective memory. Now 1 am on to rereading the Brothers Karamazov. I also read "God's Secretaries" - A beautifully written story of the creation of the King James Bible, the continuing good news is that targeted oral chemotherapy continues to keep multiple myeloma and amylodiosis at bay, Now its a matter of coming to terms with two incurable diseases. I am not sure how long I will be able to keep blogging about this experience, but I am going to try. Maybe I will surprise myself.

Thanks for your supportive and encouraging comments. They mean a lot to me.

sin the virus cured by grace

Once again this year University Hill Congregation is hosting forty seven texts on its Lenten pilgrimage to Easter. You can find the daily reflections here. I was assigned Romans 5:12-19. This is my witness:

Here’s the problem. The original earthling - “adam” (literally “made of earth”) - was infected with the virus of sin. This virus then spread to all. It works like a gravitational force that draws humankind away from God with tragic consequences. Shakespeare’s tragedies - like many contemporary novels and movies - portray the ways in which all human actors are captive to this destructive force.

knocking on the door of grief

It was 1980. At the ripe age of twenty-six I had been settled on a seven-point pastoral charge in southern Manitoba. Forty years later I am accustomed to being “the Reverend”. Then it was all new. Looking back what I remember most vividly are the deaths and the funerals. I had presided at a couple of funerals on a summer field. But this was of a different magnitude. Now I was on call to respond to grief in all of its manifestations.

The first phone call from Hugh at the funeral parlour came soon after I arrived in town. Two men had been killed in an accident on the highway. The driver had a heart attack and his passenger could not pull him off the steering wheel before they swerved in front of a semi-trailer. I was to preside at both funerals. I don’t remember what I said. I do recall the bundle of nerves as I gathered up the courage to knock on the door of each grieving family. Then and there I learned to pray on the doorstep of grief for the presence of the Holy Spirit in such a wounded place.

a psalm for ash wednesday

University Hill Congregation continues the practice of inviting the congregation to share in hosting scripture throughout Lent. This year I have been assigned Psalm 51 ...

I remember when I first truly encountered Psalm 51. Rabbi Martin Cohen was team teaching with me in VST’s summer school. The course was called “Reading in Each Other’s Light.” Each day in class we read scripture over one another’s shoulder. On Tuesday we each chose a Psalm central to our tradition. I selected Psalm 22 - “My God, why have you forsaken me”. Martin chose Psalm 51. Here, he taught us, lies the heart of the Hebrew scripture. Here is the Psalm read by all Jews on the holiest day of the year - Yom Kippur - the Day of Atonement. 

thoughts on the domestication of easter

Easter focusses the mind of the church and its pastors. One of the gifts of the Christian Year is its seven Sundays to celebrate and to explore the vast implications of the Crucifixion and Resurrection of Jesus Christ. Yet most around us think of Easter as a single celebratory Sunday. It means that it is crucial for Easter Sunday preachers and presiders to focus the mind of the congregation on the gospel and its implications for the church and for the world in which it serves. This is no easy task given the commodification and domestication of Easter weekend. The church's proclamation is overwhelmed in my part of the world by bunnies and chocolate eggs. The clerks and tellers greet their customers with a cheery "Happy Easter" comfortably assured that it has little to do with proclaiming their shared faith in the Saviour of the world.

memory is at the heart of identity

I recently had the privilege of providing the Foreword for “Times and Tides: BC Conference – An Overview 1970-2017”. Edited by Jim Taylor, the book tells the story of the United Church in British Columbia over the past five decades. It will be available at the Conference's upcoming General Meeting in Penticton and then from BC Conference. Here is the Foreword ...

It was 1970 when I became a Candidate for Ministry in BC Conference. I was a child of the 1950’s when for a time the United Church was building a new church somewhere in Canada every week. Those boom years made way to the rapid cultural changes of the 1960’s. In the five decades since then the mainline church has been in a season of decrease. Numbers have declined, buildings have closed, influence has waned. This has required and called out leadership – clergy and lay – that keeps the faith while the cultural tide is waning. In such a period the church learns again that “faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen” (Hebrews 11:1). It is one thing to tell the story of a young and growing church. It is another to recount an era when that church is confronted with diminished numbers and resources.

god's own gift: glimpsing tomorrow's church today

"But now thus says the LORD, he who created you, O Jacob, he who formed you, O Israel: Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you" (Isa. 43:1-2).

“Do not fear.” “You are mine.” “I will be with you.” This is the surprising news that God—through the prophet Isaiah—speaks into the despairing souls of congregations that find energies dwindling, numbers depleting and doors closing. Exiled far from their familiar home, they no longer know how to navigate the cultural map of a strange new twenty-first century world. The evidence suggests that it is only a matter of time before this people is no more, subsumed into the culture of consumption in which it now swims. But the prophet sees otherwise. There is a future for the people God has brought into being.

to be a priest is to be a bridge

Once again this year University Hill Congregation is hosting forty seven texts on its Lenten pilgrimage to Easter. You can find the daily reflections here. I was assigned Hebrews 4:14-16, 5:7-9. Here is my witness:

To be a priest is to be a bridge. Remember the priests of Israel standing in the Jordan river, holding back the waters, so that all the people (elders and infants, abled and dis-abled) can safely make the crossing to the other side. Remember that the Pope is known as “pontiff” from the Latin “pont” or bridge.

cruciformity - life as a gospel rabbi "the video"

In April I had the privilege of speaking at the annual gathering of "Cruxifusion". At the time I posted some notes about that presentation here - "Life as a Gospel Rabbi (1)" and "Life as a Gospel Rabbi (2)". Recently a video of that presentation has been posted on the Cruxifusion website. In many ways this sums up what I learned in my life as a pastor. You can view the video at "Cruciformity - Life as a Gospel Rabbi".

transformed by font & table: the sacramental life of the pastor

This is the story of one pastor’s sacramental life. It is the testimony of the thirty-five year journey of one called and ordained to preside at the font and table. To my surprise it tells of the ways in which hosting the congregation’s celebration of the sacraments became central to my ministry and my life. 

It is a surprise to discover that my sacramental life as a minister in the United Church of Canada transformed my life. At the time of my ordination I felt ill at ease when presiding at services of Baptism and Holy Communion. Raised in a minister’s family I had regularly witnessed baptisms and participated in the Lord’s Supper. Baptisms were always of infants. Baptism was experienced and spoken of as a birth ritual. Communion was celebrated quarterly. My confirmation as a teen-ager marked my inclusion in the community that gathered to share the bread and wine. It meant that by the time of my ordination I had been to the table in my home congregation for just over a decade – perhaps on fifty occasions.

It is little wonder then that, at the age of twenty-six, when I began to preside at the font and table I felt ill at ease. Outwardly I tried to project confidence but inwardly I felt uncertain, uncomfortable, awkward. The sacraments were not in my bones. Nor were they in the bones of the congregations I served. It was hard to talk about this. After all, I was an ordained minister, set apart to preside at the sacraments. Of all people I should be at home at the font and table. Now, at the age of sixty-one, there are few places I feel more at home than when presiding at the font and table. Now the sacraments have become part of me, they are in my bones. They have become the interpretative centre of my preaching and teaching, of my ministry and of my life. How did this come to be?

looking back, looking ahead

Thirty-five years after my ordination as a Minister of Word, Sacrament and Pastoral care in the United Church of Canada I have come to the end of active ministry ... in other words, I have retired. It is hard to imagine Saturday nights without anxiety about the sermon and Sunday mornings without the responsibility and privilege and joy of presiding. When I was diagnosed with multiple myeloma and amyloidosis four years ago I feared that illness might prevent me from departing from ministry on my own terms. Now, twenty years after arriving at University Hill Congregation, it is the right time to stop and to begin a new life on the other side of congregational ministry.

marks of the church god is calling into being

An eye opening moment for us in University Hill Congregation came when we were introduced to five marks of Christian communal life. We discovered them in Maria Harris’ book “Fashion Me a People: Curriculum in the Church”. In it Harris testifies that the creation of educational curriculum in congregational life involves a holy participation in God’s fashioning of a people. She posits that the medium which is the material of God’s artistic endeavour in forming the church are a set of forms – or marks – of Christian community that are first named in the book of Acts (Acts 2:42, 44-47): “There we find in one place the most detailed description of the first Christian community doing what will in time become the classical activities of ecclesial ministry: kerygma, proclaiming the word of Jesus’ resurrection; didache, the activity of teaching; liturgia, coming together to pray and re-present Jesus in the breaking of bread; koinonia, or community; and diakonia, caring for those in need”(p. 16).

a people, a name, a praise and a glory

"Jeremiah" by Michelangelo

Here is a paper about the prophet Jeremiah that I wrote while I was a student of Walter Brueggemann at Columbia Theological Seminary. It was written two weeks after the September 11, 2001 attacks and was later published in the Fall 2002 issue of Word and World. Reading it afresh in 2024 Jeremiah is more contemporary than ever:

A People, a Name, a Praise and a Glory:  
False and True Faith in Jeremiah

In a world of conflicting truths, how does one know which truth to trust? Living in the aftermath of the cultural hegemony of Christendom, the consensus truth of modernity, and the visceral body blow of September 11, we are witnesses to the rapid deconstruction - even demolition - of the old, solid, foundational truths. In the face of this smoldering rubble pile of certitude, the stable assumptions of our once modern world seem already, strangely, ancient. What we tentatively name postmodernity is, at the least, a hotly contested conversation about what is the truth. When truth is in question so is falsehood (1). Which decision is true to God’s calling? What future trajectory tells a lie about God’s intent? How will we know the truth when we see it? Jeremiah enters the epistemological courtroom, stands in the witness box, and gives daring testimony. He offers no half-truths, no spin doctoring, no soft soap. Jeremiah names suspects, exposes lies, neutralizes counter- testimony, competes with adversaries, and calls for a hearing.

the politics of eating together

Last month University Hill Congregation hosted the Native Ministries Consortium to dinner. Every summer students and teachers from Native communities across Canada, the United States and beyond gather at the Vancouver School of Theology to learn together. The consortium has been gathering since 1985. We have been hosting dinner with the Native Ministries Consortium since 1998. This is how it came to be.

life and death

I am not sure when or how it happened but somewhere along the line going to church on Sunday became more like attending a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous than, well, going to church. Raised in a preacher’s household and now a preacher myself for three decades my own conversion happened gradually. I didn’t even realize what I was going through until one of my parishioners told me that the congregation had been watching my conversion one Sunday, one sermon at a time.

holy, holy, holy

Leviticus 19:1-2, 9-18; I Corinthians 3:10-11, 16-23; Matthew 5:38-48

My earliest memories of worship are opening every Sunday singing: “Holy, holy, holy! Lord God almighty! Early in the morning our song shall rise to thee.” I didn’t know what the word holy meant except that it was associated with God. God was holy. The hymn taught me to sing: “only thou art holy, merciful and mighty.” So it is a bit confounding to open Leviticus and find that Moses is to tell the Israelites that they are holy (Lev. 19:2). On the same Sunday we find Paul writing to the little Corinthian church made up of the “low and despised in the world” (I Cor. 1:28) that it is a “holy temple” (I Cor. 3:17). The church of my upbringing has been careful to leave holiness to God. We are keenly aware of the danger of a “holier than thou” attitude. Say the word “righteous” and we instinctively add the prefix “self”. The truth is that we don’t talk about holiness very much. Then along come these texts which each say to the church: “You are holy”.

preaching revival

Travelers to Atlanta are inevitably drawn to the World of Coke, home of Coca-Cola. A tour through the story of Coke concludes at a massive indoor fountain with each visitor invited to receive an endless supply of the sacramental beverage. Coming to the font a chant can be heard over the sound system: “Life … life … life”. This is the font of Life? Of course, it is not only the World of Coke that promotes its products as replacements for the gift of the Holy Spirit. Contemporary culture is a crowded marketplace of idols, all vying for our service and praise.

making progress?

I’ve been hearing and reading about Progressive Christianity for the better part of a decade. What I have heard and read has not grabbed me. I grew up in the 1960s when the United Church of my youth was seeking to be a progressive church. I remember the great controversy over the New Curriculum that was intended to be an up-to-date, progressive Sunday School resource. I remember, too, the progressive politics of my father and many other United Church ministers like him. We cheered for the New Democratic Party on election nights. This was, as Dad believed, gospel politics. Now, three decades into the life of an ordained minister of the United Church, I have spent much of my ministry in re-discovery of Scripture and tradition as crucial components in the formation of Christian identity. In the process, my reading of the claims made for Progressive Christianity by its supporters has not been hopeful. Have I been guilty of breaking the ninth commandment by bearing false witness? Perhaps I have. So, when I noticed that a local United Church congregation invites those who visit its website to explore Progressive Christianity, I decided to put down my hermeneutic of suspicion and to take up the invitation. Perhaps this movement is not the enemy that I too often imagine. Perhaps, instead, it is the visit of a holy guest akin to those who arrive at Abraham and Sarah’s table. Since I trust in a God who is providential, might God be providing good news in this distinctive expression of Christianity?

my way is hidden

On May 7, 2012 I was honoured to give the convocation address at the convocation of the Vancouver School of Theology. This is the text of that address which, since I am a preacher by trade, took the form of a sermon. My thanks to my friend Martin Cohen for his helpful translation of the Hebrew in Isaiah 40:27-31.

When Principal Stephen invited me to give the convocation address he said that the school is dealing with a very serious diagnosis which threatens its future. He said that this diagnosis will call for major intervention in hopes of survival. He said that perhaps my recent experience of receiving a terminal diagnosis and having a major medical intervention in hopes of extending my lifetime would provide a helpful lens through which to see things. It has been a year since the doctors discovered that I have multiple myeloma, a rare form of blood cancer, and amyloidosis, an even rarer disease that leads to organ failure. The bad news is that there is no known cure. The good news is that, due to advances in medical science, these diseases are becoming chronic and manageable. Let’s see - chronic, manageable, incurable. It sounds a lot like life. This is what it's like on the other side of a serious diagnosis: it’s a lot like life, only now everything is magnified - including the faith.

a missional conversion

It is surprising what happens when the meaning of one word in your vocabulary changes. In my case, that word is “mission”. For most of my life mission has referred to a journey with a purpose, undertaken by an individual or a group. As a teen I watched every mission to the moon with fascination. Growing up in the United Church I learned that the Mission and Service Fund was our calling to “live love”. As a minister I worked hard with congregations to craft mission statements that gave direction to our objectives and goals. Mission had to do with us, with what we needed to do, because – as we said to ourselves – “God has no other hands but ours”.