REYNOLDS RAP
October 30, 2010
ROLLING OUT THE RAP
A few years ago, our congregation, University Hill on the campus of the University of British Columbia, celebrated the lives of our elderly saints, those of our fellowship over eighty years of age. They all protested that they were not saints, but gradually the true meaning of the word began to get through to them and also to members of the congregation.
Hallowe’en, the evening before All Saints Day, the day to remember any forgotten saints; which is the day before All Souls’ Day, giving hope to the rest of us who would not call ourselves saints. It’s all kind of confusing and most of us don’t get it. We just go along with the crazies, ghosts and goblins, all the things that make it such a great day for the retail stores. The sad thing in all this is that we forget what it is that makes us saints. It seems a good time to think about it.
ARE YOU A SAINT?
Two “men” went up to the temple to pray (Luke 18:10-14). One was a Pharisee, a good man. Pharisees were good men, very good men. The other was a – well, a “sinner,” a despised tax collector. But, what d’ya know? It was the sinner who was the saint!
We would say that the Pharisee was the saint. He tithed his money, and prayed a lot, and went about denouncing people who didn’t, and he thanked God that “he was not like other people.” Probably didn’t have many friends, that man.
But the tax collector, Jesus said, the one who cried, “God, be merciful to me, a sinner!” this is the one who “went down to his house justified.” He was the one who was forgiven. The sinner was the saint!
Now think of your own local church assuming you have a local church. Think of the people there. Any you would call a saint?
Well, there is that man over there, always well dressed, here every Sunday. He is obviously a good man. He must be a saint. But how well do you know that man? Do you know that he has a heavy heart? There are things in his somewhat remote past of which he feels ashamed. In fact, he has a “besetting sin,” that only God knows about. He comes here Sunday after Sunday to ask God’s forgiveness, and to pray for help in a life that is a continuing struggle.
Then there is that woman who, occasionally, comes straggling in at the last minute with three kids in tow, her hat askew and her clothes not well pressed. She hasn’t the time or the money to care much about respectability. She sits at the back so that the young ones won’t disturb other people. Someone should tell her that if she sat up front where the little ones could see what’s going on, they would be more interested and less trouble to people around them. She could improve her language a lot. It’s sure that she’s not a saint.
Are these people, sitting around you Sunday after Sunday, are any of them saints? -- Not likely, you say. Well, think again, with the mind of Jesus. In fact, ask yourself, are you (yes, you), are you a saint?
There is Peter, for instance, the one we call “Saint Peter.” There is surely one who can be called “saint.” Peter was the name Jesus gave him. It means “the rock.” Peter, the rock, steadfast and sure. Jesus said to him, “Upon this rock I will build my church!”
But Peter? The one who cried, “Depart from me, O Lord, for I am a sinful man.” Peter? The one to whom Jesus said, “Get behind me, Satan. You are a hindrance to me.” Peter? The one who boasted, “Even if I must die with you, I will not deny you.” And then, of course, denied his Lord not once, not twice, but three times. Peter was no saint.
We do something good, and someone says to us, “You’re a saint.” And very embarrassed, we say, “Oh no, I’m not a saint!” Why do we say that?
We seem to think that the saints are the good people. We even hesitate to call ourselves “Christian.” We seem to think that a Christian is someone who is better than other people, someone who can pray, “Thank God I’m not like other people.” And we don’t want people to think that we think we are better than other people!
But maybe that’s one of the qualities of a saint, one who doesn’t have an inflated opinion of his own goodness, one who can acknowledge her faults, one who will ask God for forgiveness and pray for all the help he or she can get in living life. Maybe, as Jesus said, love and forgiveness are more important in the life of the kingdom than a strict moral goodness that lacks the qualities of justice and mercy?
In the New Testament, the saints are the ordinary Christians, the members of the church, the Christian community. Paul’s letters are often directed to the saints, and they were not all glowing examples of the life in Christ. Read I and II Corinthians. Perhaps it meant more to be a Christian in those days when being a Christian meant real sacrifice and possible death. But my experience is that there aren’t many perks in being a Christian or church member in our secular society today.
We come to church, week after week. We bow our heads in acknowledgement of God’s presence. We say words confessing that we, like the disciples, often fail. Like Peter, there are times we deny our Lord. Sometimes, we are even like Judas, who betrayed His Master.
And we are not alone. Around us here are others, like us, who come to ask for mercy and for aid. And beyond them, across this nation and around the world, in fact stretching back through time, there are so many thousands of others. Here we come to remember that we live in God’s world, and around us is the wealth of over two thousand years of prayer and praise which enrich our being here, long years with their thin read line of martyrs, the gaunt faith of scholar and monk, staunch reformers like Martin Luther who took their stand, the saddleback preachers who transformed the life of this continent, missionaries in far parts of the earth carrying their message of hope and life.
All these, with the sound of their muffled voices joining with ours, “Holy! Holy! Holy! Lord God of hosts!”
When we come here to this place and these hours, which seem to shine with all the light of sacred story, there is a Spirit that meets us, that lifts our hearts and satisfied and cleanses, and knits up the broken fragments of our lives and lifts our faces undaunted again to the everlasting God.
And if we listen, listen closely, we hear a voice saying, “This is the Word of God, the Good News of the Gospel for all the saints, even for you.
This week is Halloween, the night before the day we call, in the life of the church, “All Saints Day.” All saints day. We have largely forgotten this day. It’s regrettable, because “All Saints Day” is our day!
Somehow, in the history of the Christian church we got this idea that “saints” were people who are especially good and devout. That’s wrong. Saints are ordinary people, people like you and me, people who acknowledge their faults before God and call on God’s grace to help them in their living.
Take this as your definition of a saint: A saint is one who seeks to live each day with a sense of God’s presence and in the knowledge of God’s love!
Two people went up to the temple to pray. Tell me, which one are you?
AFTER WORDS
By the way, University Hill publishes an annual calendar, based on the church year. It is one of the ways that we recognize that we are different than the secular society of which we are a part. It indicates the weekly lectionary reading and has some very fine art work. Copies can be obtained for $15.00 from University Hill United Church, 6030 Chancellor Boulevard, Vancouver, BC V6T 1L4.
In response to the numerology of the last issue (central verse in the Bible, etc.), my daughter-in-law, Valerie, referred me to http://www.snopes.com/religion/center.asp. It notes that the numbers refer only to the King James translation and even then Psalm 117 is the central chapter not Psalm 118. In any case, it was Stephen Langdon, Archbishop of Canterbury and the one who framed the Magna Charta, who first divided the whole Bible into chapters in the thirteenth century, and it wasn’t until the mid-sixteenth century that numbered verses were applied to the whole Bible.
Re the article on Satan, Jim Taylor wrote (in “Sharp Edges” jimt@quixotic.ca),
As a younger man, I wrote once about the parallels between light and goodness, darkness and evil. Scientifically, I argued, there is no such thing as darkness –only an absence of light. I remember writing, “You can turn on a light that drives away the darkness; you cannot turn on a dark that drives away the light.”
By that argument, there is no such thing as evil -- merely the absence of good.
It’s an idealistic way to think about evil. But as I grow older, I find it less satisfying.
“We cannot deny the reality of evil,” Alan Reynolds reminded me.
The danger, he suggested, lies “in concentrating on evil, or on the figure of evil. It seems the more we become concerned about the devil, the more powerful the devil becomes. But to dismiss the power of evil, the reality of an objective force of evil, seems to me to be incredibly naïve and dangerous.”
Coming a week before the Russell Williams revelations, my friend’s words feel uncomfortably prophetic.
Bruce Harrower responds,
Satan - now here is a subject you can really get your teeth into. You seem to think, Alan,
that Satan cannot be defined as 'human'. On the contrary, I say that Satan is human and
I make this assertion because I think Satan is us. Think of all the evil that mankind has
loosed on the world, (never mind the evil that 'religion' has done) and then tell me that Satan is not human?
Regarding “Courage,” Bruce says,
Although I am not a particularly religious person, I do think faith makes a difference. The mind is a very powerful instrument and if you have faith in something, no matter what the subject, it will surely make a difference. Unfortunately most people tend to associate faith with religion while in reality faith covers everything from faith in a doctor, a drug or medication, even the lottery.
Bruce, I don’t have much faith in the lottery, but we’ll come back to that another time.
LAST GASPA woman was asked by a co-worker, “What is it like to be a Christian?”
The co-worker replied, “It is like being a pumpkin. God picks you from the patch, brings you in, and washes all the dirt off of you.
“Then He cuts off the top and scoops out all the yucky stuff. He removes the seeds of doubt, hate, and greed. Then He carves you a new smiling face and puts His light inside of you to shine for all the world to see.”
Live simply. Love generously. Care deeply. Speak kindly.
Leave the rest to God.
It’s a Rap. Grace and peace. Alan
Thursday, October 28, 2010
COURAGE
COURAGE
October 23, 2010
ROLLING OUT THE RAP
Brenda thinks that “Before Words” is confusing, so I’ll try the above. It comes from Colin Campbell (see below) who said, “Looking forward to the ongoing Rollout of Reynolds Rap.”
It is late in the month of October, and here in Vancouver, British Columbia, the days are short and the nights are dark. For those who are SAD, may the following lift your spirits and open your hearts to the joy of living.
COURAGE
One of the most amazing things about people is the way some have the capacity, even when life is hard, to rise above the hardship.
True, some people, like Lot's wife, tend to look back in bitterness. But there are those triumphant others who smile through their tears, who pick up the broken pieces of a shattered life and start to work with them again -- and often make of those broken pieces something beautiful and even joyful.
She lost her spouse after thirty years of reasonably happy marriage, and life became a nightmare. Life was empty, food tasteless, sleep difficult, and waking each morning something she'd rather not do. Even God seemed gone.
Yet she got up each morning, put on her best face, and stepped out to meet the world. It took courage, incredible courage. No one but her closest friends knew the grief that was in her heart, the tears she shed when no one was around.
He lost his job, after twenty-five years with the same company. Fifty years of age, too young to retire, he faced the prospect of finding other employment, the discouragement, day-after-day, being told, "Your qualifications don't fit our requirements."
But now, there he is -- in the park with his granddaughter, pushing the swing, sitting close on the teeter-totter to balance her lighter weight, making a little girl happy while her mother is at work.
Or there is the woman who has so desperately desired marriage and children, but now has had to realize, as the years slip by, that she may never have what she has so much desired -- no partner with whom to share life's pleasure or face life's storms; no children to bear and to hold, to love and care for. She could grow bitter, but she accepts the reality and plays the hand life has given her with grace and even joy!
It is amazing how such people continue to find joy in living -- in the beauty of their garden, in the laughter of their children or grandchildren, their nieces and nephews, in music, painting, friendship, volunteering, and often in religious faith.
Yes, faith. Brenda tells me that Elizabeth Kübler Ross, of Death and Dying fame, claimed that from her studies and observations, faith made no difference in those facing death. But, Brenda added, evidently hers was a very small sample and was considered unreliable. A number of studies since then have indicated that faith does make a difference, both in facing life and in facing death.
It can happen!
AFTER WORDS
The aforementioned Colin Campbell commented on the meditation on Job:
I found the message of the October 2 Rap (Job—“A Man In the Land ofUz”) unusually moving. This is likely in part because I have been reading Job and thinking a lot about the Leviathan-Behemoth passages for my political theory course. In particular, the account of suffering both personal and historical was a wonderful Christian apologetics (apologetics in the proper classical sense, of course, not in the derogatory modern one).
Colin has studied the work of René Gerard and commented on that column (last week, “The Devil,”October 16th):
With regard to Satan and Girard, it's interesting that for Girard the translation of the Hebrew word is "the accuser." This translation makes more and more sense to me. Satan is not in any particular person, or any particular accusation. He is instead the general structure of accusation. Christianity and Judaism, says Girard, are already light-years ahead of much secularism in their understanding that Satan is not human evil or even evil in general, but the accusation of evil that singles out a scapegoat.
Stew Clarke commented on the reference to the Apostles’ Creed, October 9th:
The best thing, in my mind, about the Aposstles’ Creed is that we don’t use the Nicene Creed, which would just tie me up in some kind of knots... My sense is, let’s knot go there.
It begins with the first word, “I,” which does not really apply for me, since the only time I might use it is in a group/public setting.
Then I have to consider/reconsider what is meant by “believe.” It is only half the verb, unless we include the word “in,” although I think that the usual understanding is “believe that,” which calls for a nod or shake of the head. “Believe in” is a life-shaping statement, and may not be appropriate in a group setting.
By the time I hit “Father Almighty,” I am already on hold, or exhausted.
Jim Taylor commented:
You come close to the scientific explanation of darkness as the absence of light. You can turn on a light, but you can't turn on a _dark_ -- all you can do is turn _off_ a light. And it's certainly true that those who most vigorously fight against the devil and his/her wiles tend to get sucked in by their obsession with evil.
While I, like you, don't believe in a personal incarnation of evil (with or without tights and horns), I find it hard to think of evil as merely the absence of good. Evil -- stupidity might be as valid a term -- seems to be so endemic, so pervasive, and, yes, so damned powerful sometimes that I almost attribute intention to it.
(Note Jim’s latest “Sharp Edges,” October 17th, for a taste of reality -- jimt@quixotic.ca.)
LAST GASP
Of interest, this from Jesse Oliver. It had a lot of beautiful photos, which you can look up at CENTER_OF_THE_BIBLE.pps. I’m not going to try to send them.
The shortest chapter in the Bible is Psalm 117.
The longest chapter in the Bible is Psalm 118.
The center of the Bible is Psalm 118.
There are 594 chapters before Psalm 118, and 594 chapters after Psalm 118,
totaling 1188 chapters.
The central verse of the Bible is Psalm 118:8. (You can look it up.)
I haven’t checked any of these statements. I believe they are based on the King James translation of 1611. Is this just numerology or does it have significance?
Live simply. Love generously. Care deeply. Speak kindly.
Leave the rest to God.
It’s a Rap. Grace and peace. Alan
October 23, 2010
ROLLING OUT THE RAP
Brenda thinks that “Before Words” is confusing, so I’ll try the above. It comes from Colin Campbell (see below) who said, “Looking forward to the ongoing Rollout of Reynolds Rap.”
It is late in the month of October, and here in Vancouver, British Columbia, the days are short and the nights are dark. For those who are SAD, may the following lift your spirits and open your hearts to the joy of living.
COURAGE
One of the most amazing things about people is the way some have the capacity, even when life is hard, to rise above the hardship.
True, some people, like Lot's wife, tend to look back in bitterness. But there are those triumphant others who smile through their tears, who pick up the broken pieces of a shattered life and start to work with them again -- and often make of those broken pieces something beautiful and even joyful.
She lost her spouse after thirty years of reasonably happy marriage, and life became a nightmare. Life was empty, food tasteless, sleep difficult, and waking each morning something she'd rather not do. Even God seemed gone.
Yet she got up each morning, put on her best face, and stepped out to meet the world. It took courage, incredible courage. No one but her closest friends knew the grief that was in her heart, the tears she shed when no one was around.
He lost his job, after twenty-five years with the same company. Fifty years of age, too young to retire, he faced the prospect of finding other employment, the discouragement, day-after-day, being told, "Your qualifications don't fit our requirements."
But now, there he is -- in the park with his granddaughter, pushing the swing, sitting close on the teeter-totter to balance her lighter weight, making a little girl happy while her mother is at work.
Or there is the woman who has so desperately desired marriage and children, but now has had to realize, as the years slip by, that she may never have what she has so much desired -- no partner with whom to share life's pleasure or face life's storms; no children to bear and to hold, to love and care for. She could grow bitter, but she accepts the reality and plays the hand life has given her with grace and even joy!
It is amazing how such people continue to find joy in living -- in the beauty of their garden, in the laughter of their children or grandchildren, their nieces and nephews, in music, painting, friendship, volunteering, and often in religious faith.
Yes, faith. Brenda tells me that Elizabeth Kübler Ross, of Death and Dying fame, claimed that from her studies and observations, faith made no difference in those facing death. But, Brenda added, evidently hers was a very small sample and was considered unreliable. A number of studies since then have indicated that faith does make a difference, both in facing life and in facing death.
It can happen!
AFTER WORDS
The aforementioned Colin Campbell commented on the meditation on Job:
I found the message of the October 2 Rap (Job—“A Man In the Land ofUz”) unusually moving. This is likely in part because I have been reading Job and thinking a lot about the Leviathan-Behemoth passages for my political theory course. In particular, the account of suffering both personal and historical was a wonderful Christian apologetics (apologetics in the proper classical sense, of course, not in the derogatory modern one).
Colin has studied the work of René Gerard and commented on that column (last week, “The Devil,”October 16th):
With regard to Satan and Girard, it's interesting that for Girard the translation of the Hebrew word is "the accuser." This translation makes more and more sense to me. Satan is not in any particular person, or any particular accusation. He is instead the general structure of accusation. Christianity and Judaism, says Girard, are already light-years ahead of much secularism in their understanding that Satan is not human evil or even evil in general, but the accusation of evil that singles out a scapegoat.
Stew Clarke commented on the reference to the Apostles’ Creed, October 9th:
The best thing, in my mind, about the Aposstles’ Creed is that we don’t use the Nicene Creed, which would just tie me up in some kind of knots... My sense is, let’s knot go there.
It begins with the first word, “I,” which does not really apply for me, since the only time I might use it is in a group/public setting.
Then I have to consider/reconsider what is meant by “believe.” It is only half the verb, unless we include the word “in,” although I think that the usual understanding is “believe that,” which calls for a nod or shake of the head. “Believe in” is a life-shaping statement, and may not be appropriate in a group setting.
By the time I hit “Father Almighty,” I am already on hold, or exhausted.
Jim Taylor commented:
You come close to the scientific explanation of darkness as the absence of light. You can turn on a light, but you can't turn on a _dark_ -- all you can do is turn _off_ a light. And it's certainly true that those who most vigorously fight against the devil and his/her wiles tend to get sucked in by their obsession with evil.
While I, like you, don't believe in a personal incarnation of evil (with or without tights and horns), I find it hard to think of evil as merely the absence of good. Evil -- stupidity might be as valid a term -- seems to be so endemic, so pervasive, and, yes, so damned powerful sometimes that I almost attribute intention to it.
(Note Jim’s latest “Sharp Edges,” October 17th, for a taste of reality -- jimt@quixotic.ca.)
LAST GASP
Of interest, this from Jesse Oliver. It had a lot of beautiful photos, which you can look up at CENTER_OF_THE_BIBLE.pps. I’m not going to try to send them.
The shortest chapter in the Bible is Psalm 117.
The longest chapter in the Bible is Psalm 118.
The center of the Bible is Psalm 118.
There are 594 chapters before Psalm 118, and 594 chapters after Psalm 118,
totaling 1188 chapters.
The central verse of the Bible is Psalm 118:8. (You can look it up.)
I haven’t checked any of these statements. I believe they are based on the King James translation of 1611. Is this just numerology or does it have significance?
Live simply. Love generously. Care deeply. Speak kindly.
Leave the rest to God.
It’s a Rap. Grace and peace. Alan
THE DEVIL
REYNOLDS RAP
October 16, 2010
WHAT THE DEVIL!
Satan, — archfiend, chief of devils, rival of God, instigator of all evil. The word means literally “to oppose.” In Greek or Latin it is diabolus, the devil.
Why do we picture the devil with horns and hooves? I read somewhere, some time ago, that when England was being settled by the Anglo Saxons, who had driven the dark peoples (the Celts) back into the mountains and settled in the fertile valleys, the people from the mountains would come down into the valleys at night and raid the farms of the settlers, the light coloured Anglo Saxons. For the Anglo Saxons, the dark people from the hills were devils who, after the raid, would retire to their camp in the hills, would put on the head (with horns) of an animal they had killed, would tie the animal’s legs, with hooves, to their legs, and dance around the fire.
An earlier and more significant influence came from Persia (roughly what today we call Iran) and the later development of Zoroastrianism, a developed expression of “dualism,” that all existence is a battle between the forces of good (light) and evil (darkness).
In our culture, John Milton’s Paradise Lost, continues to exert influence on our understanding of Satan. There is something sadly heroic in Milton’s picture of Satan astride the world, not omnipotent but very powerful. In spite of his power, Satan is in misery and despair,
…which way shall I fly
Infinite wrath and infinite despair?
Which way I fly is hell; myself am hell.
… all good to me is lost;
Evil, be thou my good!
In the Bible, the figure of Satan, obstructer of human happiness and prosperity, does not appear until after Israel was in exile in Babylonia and no doubt influenced by the religious beliefs of the Babylonians and Assyrians. In the New Testament, the name “Satan” appears 33 times, and the word “devil” appears 32 times, enough to be of real significance, especially the recorded words of Jesus for whom evil seems to have been very real. Satan, or the devil, is the tempter, the evil one, the enemy, the prince of demons, the ruler of this world.
That’s all background. What about the reality today?
I think we cannot deny the reality of evil. Read your newspaper any day. But we don’t talk much about the devil, at least seriously. The devil has become a kind of joke, a comic figure in red underwear. Can we dismiss the devil?
There is certainly danger is concentrating on evil or the figure of evil. A part of my ordination vows was the instruction to rebuke evil, and once in my ministry I felt it necessary to rebuke, formally, a member of the congregation who was focussed on evil, seeking to cast out devils in other members of the congregation, with several disastrous consequences. It seems the more we become concerned about the devil, the more powerful the devil become. But on the other hand, to dismiss the power of evil, even the reality of an objective force of evil, seems to me to be incredibly naïve and dangerous.
For me, the devil is not a person, Not at all. C. S. Lewis, in a space novel entitled Voyage to Venice, has a figure of evil called “the unman.” That’s what the devil is to me, the anti-human, the destroyer of human peace and happiness, a “what” not a “who.” I have found the following, by anthropologist Rene Girard, helpful (though this quotation is only part of a carefully developed and very difficult study):
The devil does not have a stable foundation; he has no being at all. To clothe himself in the semblance of being, he must act as a parasite on God’s creatures. He is totally mimetic, which amounts to saying non-existent as an individual self.
The mimetic concept of Satan enables the New Testament to give evil its due without granting it any reality or ontological substance in its own right. Satan does not "create" by his own means. Rather he sustains himself as a parasite on what God creates by imitating God in manner that is jealous, grotesque, perverse, and as contrary as possible to the upright and obedient imitation of Jesus. To repeat, Satan is imitator…. His kingdom is a caricature of the kingdom of God. Satan is the ape of God. To affirm that Satan has no actual being, as Christian theology has done, means that Christianity does not oblige us to see him as someone who really exists. (I see Satan falling like lightning, pp. 42f.)
So what do you think?
AFTER WORDS
In reply to last week’s Rap on Gratitude, Cliff Moase wrote:
A time of giving thanks. What popped into my mind as I read this week's rap was the time when I was finishing my ministry at Grace Church, Dartmouth, and entering into retirement--some quiet moments in the empty church and reflecting, with thanksgiving, on the opportunities to be of some use in 40 years of ministry, the blessing of strengths which came in difficult moments, and the amazement that I seemed to have been of some use in God's work.
Giving thanks--is there ever an end to such a response? I haven't lived long enough to even glimpse such an end.
Thanks be to God. Cliff
And from Gordie and Kirsten Bowles:
Tonight our little family sat around the table and took turns naming what we were thankful to God for: Mommy, daddy, Charlie, mama and papa; our warm house, Dylan's soft bed...
2 year-old Charlie was taking it all in but we weren't sure that he could relate to being "thankful" just yet. After a long silence Charlie announced "I gayful for Lambie!!"--his soft, worn, weathered little lamb that he tucks under his arm and sleeps with every night. Of course we all beamed. It was a lovely few minutes of peace and gratitude we all shared....
Then, Dylan threw his spoon and Charlie decided his food was especially yucky and I was transported back to life.
Thank you for sharing your wisdom, I always enjoy reading it.
Kirsten
LAST GASP
Another church joke:
There was a congregation which decided to have four worship services every Sunday. There was one for those new to the faith; another for those who liked traditional worship; one for those who had lost their faith and would like to get it back; and another for those who had a bad experience with church and were complaining about it. They had names for each of these services: Finders, Keepers, Losers, Weepers.
Live simply. Love generously. Care deeply. Speak kindly.
Leave the rest to God.
It’s a Rap. Grace and peace. Alan
October 16, 2010
WHAT THE DEVIL!
Satan, — archfiend, chief of devils, rival of God, instigator of all evil. The word means literally “to oppose.” In Greek or Latin it is diabolus, the devil.
Why do we picture the devil with horns and hooves? I read somewhere, some time ago, that when England was being settled by the Anglo Saxons, who had driven the dark peoples (the Celts) back into the mountains and settled in the fertile valleys, the people from the mountains would come down into the valleys at night and raid the farms of the settlers, the light coloured Anglo Saxons. For the Anglo Saxons, the dark people from the hills were devils who, after the raid, would retire to their camp in the hills, would put on the head (with horns) of an animal they had killed, would tie the animal’s legs, with hooves, to their legs, and dance around the fire.
An earlier and more significant influence came from Persia (roughly what today we call Iran) and the later development of Zoroastrianism, a developed expression of “dualism,” that all existence is a battle between the forces of good (light) and evil (darkness).
In our culture, John Milton’s Paradise Lost, continues to exert influence on our understanding of Satan. There is something sadly heroic in Milton’s picture of Satan astride the world, not omnipotent but very powerful. In spite of his power, Satan is in misery and despair,
…which way shall I fly
Infinite wrath and infinite despair?
Which way I fly is hell; myself am hell.
… all good to me is lost;
Evil, be thou my good!
In the Bible, the figure of Satan, obstructer of human happiness and prosperity, does not appear until after Israel was in exile in Babylonia and no doubt influenced by the religious beliefs of the Babylonians and Assyrians. In the New Testament, the name “Satan” appears 33 times, and the word “devil” appears 32 times, enough to be of real significance, especially the recorded words of Jesus for whom evil seems to have been very real. Satan, or the devil, is the tempter, the evil one, the enemy, the prince of demons, the ruler of this world.
That’s all background. What about the reality today?
I think we cannot deny the reality of evil. Read your newspaper any day. But we don’t talk much about the devil, at least seriously. The devil has become a kind of joke, a comic figure in red underwear. Can we dismiss the devil?
There is certainly danger is concentrating on evil or the figure of evil. A part of my ordination vows was the instruction to rebuke evil, and once in my ministry I felt it necessary to rebuke, formally, a member of the congregation who was focussed on evil, seeking to cast out devils in other members of the congregation, with several disastrous consequences. It seems the more we become concerned about the devil, the more powerful the devil become. But on the other hand, to dismiss the power of evil, even the reality of an objective force of evil, seems to me to be incredibly naïve and dangerous.
For me, the devil is not a person, Not at all. C. S. Lewis, in a space novel entitled Voyage to Venice, has a figure of evil called “the unman.” That’s what the devil is to me, the anti-human, the destroyer of human peace and happiness, a “what” not a “who.” I have found the following, by anthropologist Rene Girard, helpful (though this quotation is only part of a carefully developed and very difficult study):
The devil does not have a stable foundation; he has no being at all. To clothe himself in the semblance of being, he must act as a parasite on God’s creatures. He is totally mimetic, which amounts to saying non-existent as an individual self.
The mimetic concept of Satan enables the New Testament to give evil its due without granting it any reality or ontological substance in its own right. Satan does not "create" by his own means. Rather he sustains himself as a parasite on what God creates by imitating God in manner that is jealous, grotesque, perverse, and as contrary as possible to the upright and obedient imitation of Jesus. To repeat, Satan is imitator…. His kingdom is a caricature of the kingdom of God. Satan is the ape of God. To affirm that Satan has no actual being, as Christian theology has done, means that Christianity does not oblige us to see him as someone who really exists. (I see Satan falling like lightning, pp. 42f.)
So what do you think?
AFTER WORDS
In reply to last week’s Rap on Gratitude, Cliff Moase wrote:
A time of giving thanks. What popped into my mind as I read this week's rap was the time when I was finishing my ministry at Grace Church, Dartmouth, and entering into retirement--some quiet moments in the empty church and reflecting, with thanksgiving, on the opportunities to be of some use in 40 years of ministry, the blessing of strengths which came in difficult moments, and the amazement that I seemed to have been of some use in God's work.
Giving thanks--is there ever an end to such a response? I haven't lived long enough to even glimpse such an end.
Thanks be to God. Cliff
And from Gordie and Kirsten Bowles:
Tonight our little family sat around the table and took turns naming what we were thankful to God for: Mommy, daddy, Charlie, mama and papa; our warm house, Dylan's soft bed...
2 year-old Charlie was taking it all in but we weren't sure that he could relate to being "thankful" just yet. After a long silence Charlie announced "I gayful for Lambie!!"--his soft, worn, weathered little lamb that he tucks under his arm and sleeps with every night. Of course we all beamed. It was a lovely few minutes of peace and gratitude we all shared....
Then, Dylan threw his spoon and Charlie decided his food was especially yucky and I was transported back to life.
Thank you for sharing your wisdom, I always enjoy reading it.
Kirsten
LAST GASP
Another church joke:
There was a congregation which decided to have four worship services every Sunday. There was one for those new to the faith; another for those who liked traditional worship; one for those who had lost their faith and would like to get it back; and another for those who had a bad experience with church and were complaining about it. They had names for each of these services: Finders, Keepers, Losers, Weepers.
Live simply. Love generously. Care deeply. Speak kindly.
Leave the rest to God.
It’s a Rap. Grace and peace. Alan
GRATITUDE
REYNOLDS RAP
October 9, 2010
BEFORE WORDS
Thanksgiving: turkey and pumpkin pie and the abundance of harvest. It’s a time when we stop and remember our many blessings, in many ways the most fortunate of people of any time and place. But the lean years and the hard times are not so far in the past or so distant in the present. Deep in our hearts we hear the cries of the hungry of the world today. And in my lifetime, an old man in my first congregation told me he remembered that as children they dug seed potatoes out of the ground because they had nothing else to eat. Perhaps we should celebrate Thanksgiving with fasting rather than feasting. We might be more thankful for what we do have, more ready to recognize God the giver, and more anxious to share with others.
GRATITUDE
(Yes, the following is, as last week, a section from my book A Troubled Faith, an affirmation of Christian faith for the 21st Century. Next week I promise to quote someone else on a very different subject – the devil!)
There are times when there is nowhere to turn but to God, not only because of grief or guilt or threat of danger, but also there are times when a sense of gratitude fills us with such joy that there is nothing to do but say thanks to God. There are those moments of transcendent beauty or joy, “a sunset touch, a fancy from a flower-bell, a chorus ending from Euripides”(Robert Browning). when our hearts scream to say, “Thank you!” Even when we seem to have otherwise no need of God, we still have a need to say “thank you.” And it's always, remember, someone! It's never something! We don't say "thank it" – we say "thank you!" It's a response instead of a reaction, implying a personal relationship.
It seems that our sense of gratitude must reach behind the stage of our human existence to the One we call God. When the feeling of gratitude for the beauty and the joy of life swells up inside us and overflows, there is no one to say "thank you" to excepting to God. The primitive symbol of “man in adoration,” a stick person with arms stretched out to the skies, is a symbol of our recognition of God and of our gratitude to God.
That's why thankfulness and the very sentiment of gratitude must be an embarrassment for the professing atheist. Who does he or she thank when feeling so profoundly grateful for the gift of life or love? Chuck Colson, in his autobiographical Born Again, tells of such a moment. He was teaching his ten-year-old son to sail.
As the craft edged away from the dock, the only sound was the rippling of water under the hull and the flapping of the sail when puffs of wind fell from it. I was in the stern watching the tiller, Chris in the centre, dressed in an orange slicker, holding the sheet. As he realized that he was controlling the boat, the most marvellous look came over his cherubic face, the joy of new discovery in his eyes, the thrill of feeling the wind’s power in his hands. I found myself in that one unforgettable moment quietly talking to God. I even recall the precise words: “Thank You, God, for giving me this son, for giving us this one wonderful moment….”
Afterwards, I had been startled when I realized that I had spoken to God, since my mind did not assent to His existence as a Person. It had been a spontaneous expression of gratitude that simply bypassed the mind and took for granted what reason had never shown me. More – it assumed that personal communication with this unproven God was possible. Why else would I have spoken, unless deep down I felt that Someone, somewhere, was listening?
There is something admirable but very, very sad in the lines written by Sir Leslie Stephen after his wife's death. "I thank . . ." he began, and then remembering he had no God to thank, went on rather lamely, "I thank – something – that I loved her as heartily as I know how to love.”
In our gratitude we evidence one of the most human and personal expressions of which we are capable. We indicate that there is a living God to whom we can speak. It implies not only appreciation of the gift but also recognition of the giver, and it indicates that saying thank you requires of us more than just saying thank you. We don’t give thanks to God that we have so much without recognizing that we have so much to give. It is easy to give thanks, but it is Christlike to give.
(A Troubled Faith, pp.28-29. To order the book, send $10 (Can) or equivalent to cover my costs – 8280 Mirabel Court, Richmond, BC, Canada V7C 4Y2.)
AFTER WORDS
From last week’s Rap on the book of Job:
Owen Anderson:
Thanks for your thoughts on Job!
I see Job as an example of a great transformation of an individual from normative to spiritual, one who goes from ignorance to wisdom, a journey from alienation to relationship with God.
Job is a man who undergoes a profound transformation and becomes a sage.
In studying Job we, in a sense, get to overhear part of the eternal conversation at the centre of the universe.
And it is Good News.
From Bob Latimer:
Drat you, Reynolds.
You're asking questions that are more easily left unasked,
questions I tend to relegate to the archival attic of consciousness,
where they can be filed rather than faced.
It is the presence of such unanswered questions that gives
the lie to the myth of man as master of the universe.
Much is still unknown and much will never be known.
We still see reality and truth through a darkened glass,
and are only able to live in such ambiguity through
hope, love and most of all, faith.
Thanks for pulling back the curtain even a smidgeon
LAST GASP
Children’s Answers on a Science Exam:
Q. Name the four seasons.
A. Salt, pepper, mustard and vinegar.
Q. Explain one of the processes by which water can be made safe to drink.
A. Flirtation makes water safe to drink because it removes large pollutants like grit, sand, dead sheep and canoeists.
Q. Name a major disease associated with cigarettes.
A. Premature death.
Q. What does the word “benign” mean?
A. Benign is what you be after you be eight.
Live simply. Love generously. Care deeply. Speak kindly.
Leave the rest to God.
It’s a Rap. Grace and peace. Alan
October 9, 2010
BEFORE WORDS
Thanksgiving: turkey and pumpkin pie and the abundance of harvest. It’s a time when we stop and remember our many blessings, in many ways the most fortunate of people of any time and place. But the lean years and the hard times are not so far in the past or so distant in the present. Deep in our hearts we hear the cries of the hungry of the world today. And in my lifetime, an old man in my first congregation told me he remembered that as children they dug seed potatoes out of the ground because they had nothing else to eat. Perhaps we should celebrate Thanksgiving with fasting rather than feasting. We might be more thankful for what we do have, more ready to recognize God the giver, and more anxious to share with others.
GRATITUDE
(Yes, the following is, as last week, a section from my book A Troubled Faith, an affirmation of Christian faith for the 21st Century. Next week I promise to quote someone else on a very different subject – the devil!)
There are times when there is nowhere to turn but to God, not only because of grief or guilt or threat of danger, but also there are times when a sense of gratitude fills us with such joy that there is nothing to do but say thanks to God. There are those moments of transcendent beauty or joy, “a sunset touch, a fancy from a flower-bell, a chorus ending from Euripides”(Robert Browning). when our hearts scream to say, “Thank you!” Even when we seem to have otherwise no need of God, we still have a need to say “thank you.” And it's always, remember, someone! It's never something! We don't say "thank it" – we say "thank you!" It's a response instead of a reaction, implying a personal relationship.
It seems that our sense of gratitude must reach behind the stage of our human existence to the One we call God. When the feeling of gratitude for the beauty and the joy of life swells up inside us and overflows, there is no one to say "thank you" to excepting to God. The primitive symbol of “man in adoration,” a stick person with arms stretched out to the skies, is a symbol of our recognition of God and of our gratitude to God.
That's why thankfulness and the very sentiment of gratitude must be an embarrassment for the professing atheist. Who does he or she thank when feeling so profoundly grateful for the gift of life or love? Chuck Colson, in his autobiographical Born Again, tells of such a moment. He was teaching his ten-year-old son to sail.
As the craft edged away from the dock, the only sound was the rippling of water under the hull and the flapping of the sail when puffs of wind fell from it. I was in the stern watching the tiller, Chris in the centre, dressed in an orange slicker, holding the sheet. As he realized that he was controlling the boat, the most marvellous look came over his cherubic face, the joy of new discovery in his eyes, the thrill of feeling the wind’s power in his hands. I found myself in that one unforgettable moment quietly talking to God. I even recall the precise words: “Thank You, God, for giving me this son, for giving us this one wonderful moment….”
Afterwards, I had been startled when I realized that I had spoken to God, since my mind did not assent to His existence as a Person. It had been a spontaneous expression of gratitude that simply bypassed the mind and took for granted what reason had never shown me. More – it assumed that personal communication with this unproven God was possible. Why else would I have spoken, unless deep down I felt that Someone, somewhere, was listening?
There is something admirable but very, very sad in the lines written by Sir Leslie Stephen after his wife's death. "I thank . . ." he began, and then remembering he had no God to thank, went on rather lamely, "I thank – something – that I loved her as heartily as I know how to love.”
In our gratitude we evidence one of the most human and personal expressions of which we are capable. We indicate that there is a living God to whom we can speak. It implies not only appreciation of the gift but also recognition of the giver, and it indicates that saying thank you requires of us more than just saying thank you. We don’t give thanks to God that we have so much without recognizing that we have so much to give. It is easy to give thanks, but it is Christlike to give.
(A Troubled Faith, pp.28-29. To order the book, send $10 (Can) or equivalent to cover my costs – 8280 Mirabel Court, Richmond, BC, Canada V7C 4Y2.)
AFTER WORDS
From last week’s Rap on the book of Job:
Owen Anderson:
Thanks for your thoughts on Job!
I see Job as an example of a great transformation of an individual from normative to spiritual, one who goes from ignorance to wisdom, a journey from alienation to relationship with God.
Job is a man who undergoes a profound transformation and becomes a sage.
In studying Job we, in a sense, get to overhear part of the eternal conversation at the centre of the universe.
And it is Good News.
From Bob Latimer:
Drat you, Reynolds.
You're asking questions that are more easily left unasked,
questions I tend to relegate to the archival attic of consciousness,
where they can be filed rather than faced.
It is the presence of such unanswered questions that gives
the lie to the myth of man as master of the universe.
Much is still unknown and much will never be known.
We still see reality and truth through a darkened glass,
and are only able to live in such ambiguity through
hope, love and most of all, faith.
Thanks for pulling back the curtain even a smidgeon
LAST GASP
Children’s Answers on a Science Exam:
Q. Name the four seasons.
A. Salt, pepper, mustard and vinegar.
Q. Explain one of the processes by which water can be made safe to drink.
A. Flirtation makes water safe to drink because it removes large pollutants like grit, sand, dead sheep and canoeists.
Q. Name a major disease associated with cigarettes.
A. Premature death.
Q. What does the word “benign” mean?
A. Benign is what you be after you be eight.
Live simply. Love generously. Care deeply. Speak kindly.
Leave the rest to God.
It’s a Rap. Grace and peace. Alan
A Man in the Land of Uz
REYNOLDS RAP
October 2, 2010
BEFORE WORDS
Please stick with this one. If you are too busy to read it right now, I hope you may print it and set it aside to a time when you can read it (but not at the bottom of a pile of six books that you hope to read some day).
A MAN IN THE LAND OF UZ
Understanding Human Suffering
An Introduction to the Book of Job
Read Job 1:1-3, 6-21; 23:1-5; 38:1-7; 42:1-6
The most difficult part of the Apostles’ Creed to say (for me) is not the bit about “conceived by the holy Ghost,” nor “He descended into hell,” nor the part about the resurrection of the body. I think I’ve come to some understanding of what these mean – at least, what they mean to me. No, the part that bothers me the most, the part I find most difficult to accept, is the part where it says, “I believe in God the Father Almighty.”
How, in the face of the evil and suffering of the world, is it possible to say that God is both like a father, and at the same time that God is almighty? Must we not rather say that God may be, like a loving parent, unwilling to see us suffer, but lacking almightiness, unable to do anything about it – “He would if He could, but He can’t.” Or on the other hand, say that God is almighty but not like a father, able to do something about it but not willing to do anything – “He could if He would, but He won’t.”
Go to the street corner where the little girl, coming home from school, was struck and killed by a drunken driver. Visit the pioneer cemetery and read on the tombstones the mute testimony that half the community was wiped out in one winter through some disease, probably diphtheria or pneumonia. In parts of Latin America, seven out of ten children die before they reach their first birthday.
Walk into the cancer ward of one of our hospitals for sick children where you’ll see three and four year old children fighting the terrible and too-often hopeless battle against cancer, sometimes with great pain and the rather fearsome consequences of desperate treatments. Stand there and then say, `I believe in God, the Father Almighty!’
Of course, this is only a problem to the person who desires to believe in a God who is both good and all-powerful. It’s not the same problem for the person who denies the existence of God or the goodness of God. The problem then is even more difficult – how to explain the measure of meaning and goodness and love which we do experience.
But for the person who seeks to believe that God is good and God is just, and who knows that pain and evil are very real and very terrible, there is a conflict here which seems to defy human understanding. In the face of human suffering, perhaps in the midst of our pain, we cry, “If God is good, surely it is not God’s will that we should suffer so. But if God is God, He must be cause the suffering, or at least be willing for suffering to happen!”
I heard upon his dry dung heap
That man cry out who cannot sleep:
“If God is God, He is not good.
If God is good, He is not God.”
(From J.B., by Archibald MacLeish)
Here is the problem with which the book of Job wrestles – mightily.
“There was a man in the land of Uz. . .”
So it begins, what Thomas Carlyle called “one of the grandest things ever written with pen. . . . There is nothing written, I think, in the Bible or out of it, of equal literary merit” (Heroes And Hero Worship, p. 57). “A noble book,” he called it, “all men’s book. It is our first, oldest statement of the never-ending problem – man’s destiny and God’s ways with him here in this earth.”
“. . . a man in the land of Uz.”
No one can be certain just where “Uz” may have been located. It was probably a desert region south-east of Palestine. (Note Jeremiah 25:19 ff. and Lamentations 4:21.) No matter where, really, for Uz is everywhere where people suffer and ask “Why?” -- looking out from tight and frightened souls to beseech heaven for an answer.
“There was a man in the land of Uz whose name was Job.”
No “wizard of Uz” this man, content with magic’s false tricks or any rational slight of hand; just a very human being looking for an honest answer to his questions. The fathers of piety around him spoke of the even-handed justice of God, who blessed the righteous and cursed the careless. It was part of the religious dogmatism of the time. “None but the most impious would dare to question it,” said Job’s friends, his “Comforters.” But Job smouldered at their words and protested that what they said just wasn’t true, didn’t stand up to the facts of life. He wouldn’t be content with the glib, easy answers they were always giving people when trouble came upon them.
And he stood up alone to do his battle, against a wide unanswering sky. Not for a moment will he truckle, let Omnipotence do what it will. He cannot prevail, but not an inch will he yield.
(Paul Scherer in The Interpreter’s Bible, on Job 1:1)
“There was a man . . . !” And so begins the book of Job.
You perhaps know something of the story – how this ancient sheik of the desert, a man of honour and wealth, in a series of what the insurance companies (before they went secular) used to call “acts of God,” lost his property, his family, and his health. He was left in poverty, childless, and sitting upon a dung-heap digging at his terrible, loathsome, itching, stinking sores with an old piece of pottery.
This book of Job, as we have it in our Bible, seems to have sprung from an ancient folk-tale of the desert. Into this primitive tale has been inserted, at a later date, a long and formal argument between Job and his “Comforters.” This part is poetry – and some of the greatest poetry and most powerful imagery ever penned. The prose story forms pretty much the first two and the last chapters.
The patience of Job
Well, what of this story of a man who has become a proverb, as we speak of “the patience of Job?”
That’s perhaps the most obvious thing to say – it’s not a lesson in patient endurance, in long-suffering. Read further than chapter two and you will see that Job was not at all a patient individual. He argued vehemently against the reasoning of his friends, demanding of heaven an accounting for the injustice done him.
And injustice it does seem to have been. This is the point of the story. Job was a righteous man! This his Comforters tried their best to deny. “All suffering is punishment for sin,” they said. “Job is suffering, therefore Job must have sinned.”
But Job protested that he had not sinned. He acknowledged his faults; he knew he had them as all people have faults. But he had done nothing that he should be singled out for torture in this manner. He knew that. He had been as good as other people, better than most. “If I had been unfaithful to my wife, unfair to my servants, lacking in concern for the poor and not caring for my heritage, a liar or a cheat, then I would deserve punishment,” said Job (chapter 21). But he hadn’t – and that’s what made it all so hard to understand.
And so, with great impatience, he demanded of heaven an accounting. “Oh if I knew where I might find God, that I might lay my case before Him.” In fact, it appears to have been Job’s very impatience which led to his moment of truth, in eyeball-to-eyeball confrontation with the Almighty.
No Neat Answer
See this too, in this strange and subtle story, so difficult to grasp and deal with – here is no facile answer to the problem of human suffering; no neat intellectual answer which knows nothing of the pain. Here it is Job’s comforters who come giving facile answers to the great problems of human existence – and their answers are each refuted because of their inadequacies. “Miserable comforters, all of you,” Job cried, “Why do you think you must speak to me with endless windy words? I could speak as you do too if I was in your place and you were in mine” (chapter 16:1-4).
How often a minister sits with those in grief and hears them ask “Why?” – and wishes that he could give an answer. But in such situations, one must beware above all else, I believe, of the easy, the facile, answer. I remember visiting an old man, an old Scot, whose only son had recently been killed. He was literally buried alive in a construction accident. The old man was as filled with wrath as any one I have ever seen. He had just come from a neighbour’s house, and the neighbour had told him, “It was God’s will.” “What does she know?” he kept saying. “What does she know?”
When the blow comes, it’s not the philosophical answer, not the neat intellectual explanation of the problem, which we seek and need.
In fact, in one sense, there’s no answer given in the book of Job to the question “Why do the righteous suffer?” The argument breaks down, no one seems to have an answer; and then, like the deus ex machina of Greek drama, God comes storming in, flexing His (sic) muscles and shouting “out of the whirlwind” about `His’ greatness and power. On a superficial reading, God seems to be trying to frighten Job into shutting up, to overawe or overwhelm him because even God doesn’t have the answer.
The Answer Which Seems Like No Answer!
Yet there seems to be more to it than that. Job doesn’t just shut up. The strange thing is that Job seems finally somehow content. Something in that tumultuous experience, face to face with the Almighty, quieted his questions and somehow gave him his answer – and Job seems to have come to understand something he had never understood before.
Perhaps it was just that through this experience he came to a first-hand experience of God’s greatness and grace. “I had heard of Thee by the hearing of the ear,” he cried, “but now my eye sees Thee” (chapter 42:4). And Job realized that the most important thing in life is that a person know the living God. For then you’re lifted out of yourself to find Life.
Martin Buber wrote,
The only answer Job receives is God’s nearness, that He knows God again. Nothing is explained, nothing adjusted, wrong has not become right, nor cruelty kindness, but God is near!
And when Job demanded, “Let the Almighty answer me!” (Chapter 31:35), the answer of the Almighty was far different than what Job had expected.
(For) the divine answer is always different from human expectations. From the whirlwind Yahweh does not answer questions; He asks them.
(Samuel Terrien on “Job,” in The Interpreter’s Bible, p. 902)
There is something that comes, out of our agony, our suffering, our grief, there face to face with the Almighty. It’s not an answer; it’s more a challenge and a demand. But through our suffering, we are lifted out of our self and come to see life as we have never seen it before – almost as if with a cosmic vision. As from a great height, you look down upon the ages of human history, the travail and the injustice, the momentary triumph and the short-lived joy.
But it’s not meaningless. In it all you sense beating a great heart, an infinite Spirit, sharing the suffering, knowing the pain, labouring, working, brooding, yearning, agonizing to bring forth the reality of righteousness and truth and love.
And you lay your hand on your lips, for across it all – the spot where the little girl was killed, the pioneer cemetery with its grim tally, the sick child crying in agony – across it all there falls the shadow of a cross. And you see things in a new light – the light of God’s eternal love. And through your suffering, your grief, you know – as you have never known anything before. And nothing can separate you from that love, ever again.
And Job, who had been asserting his own righteousness with so much vehemence to his friends, now, before God, lays his hand on his mouth and says, “Therefore, I repent!”
Here is simply the story of a good and righteous man who, through his own suffering and sorrow, came to a knowledge of God and an understanding of life not given him before. He was raised out of the prison of his own provincial narrowness onto the windy heights from which he could see the panorama of the universe; torn out of himself to discover the world of God. It begins with “a man in the land of Uz,” it ends with a man in the world of God. That’s the difference.
As the marsh-hen secretly builds on the watery sod,
Behold I will build me a nest on the greatness of God!
I will fly in the greatness of God as the marsh-hen flies,
In the freedom that fills all the space `twixt the marsh and the skies.
By so many roots as the marsh-grass sends into the sod,
I will heartily lay me a-hold of the greatness of God.
(From “The Marshes of Glynn,” by Sidney Lanier)
AFTER WORDS
You can find a fuller treatment in my book, A Troubled Faith, Chp. 5, “Can God Be Good,” especially pp 98-103. The book recognizes the decline in the influence of Christian faith in our western culture through the 20th century, but seeks to affirm the reasonableness of Christian faith for the 21st century. To order the book, send $10 (Can) or equivalent to cover my cost – 8280 Mirabel Court, Richmond, BC, Canada V7C 4Y2.
Re “When Bad Things Happen,” a question from Anne Graham:
“If God does not cause our suffering and it happens for some reason other than the will of God, does it not follow that good things happening to people or the absence of bad things, happen for some reason other than the will of God and are not necessarily evidence of God's mercy?”
LAST GASP
When our daughter, Keili, said her bedtime prayers, she would bless every family member, every friend, and every animal. Then, after she had finished the nightly prayer, Keili would add, “And all girls.” This soon became part of her nightly routine. My curiosity got the best me and I asked her, “Keili, why do you always add the part about all girls?”
She replied, “Because everybody finishes their prayers by saying ‘All men.’”
Live simply. Love generously. Care deeply. Speak kindly.
Leave the rest to God.
It’s a Rap. Grace and peace. Alan
October 2, 2010
BEFORE WORDS
Please stick with this one. If you are too busy to read it right now, I hope you may print it and set it aside to a time when you can read it (but not at the bottom of a pile of six books that you hope to read some day).
A MAN IN THE LAND OF UZ
Understanding Human Suffering
An Introduction to the Book of Job
Read Job 1:1-3, 6-21; 23:1-5; 38:1-7; 42:1-6
The most difficult part of the Apostles’ Creed to say (for me) is not the bit about “conceived by the holy Ghost,” nor “He descended into hell,” nor the part about the resurrection of the body. I think I’ve come to some understanding of what these mean – at least, what they mean to me. No, the part that bothers me the most, the part I find most difficult to accept, is the part where it says, “I believe in God the Father Almighty.”
How, in the face of the evil and suffering of the world, is it possible to say that God is both like a father, and at the same time that God is almighty? Must we not rather say that God may be, like a loving parent, unwilling to see us suffer, but lacking almightiness, unable to do anything about it – “He would if He could, but He can’t.” Or on the other hand, say that God is almighty but not like a father, able to do something about it but not willing to do anything – “He could if He would, but He won’t.”
Go to the street corner where the little girl, coming home from school, was struck and killed by a drunken driver. Visit the pioneer cemetery and read on the tombstones the mute testimony that half the community was wiped out in one winter through some disease, probably diphtheria or pneumonia. In parts of Latin America, seven out of ten children die before they reach their first birthday.
Walk into the cancer ward of one of our hospitals for sick children where you’ll see three and four year old children fighting the terrible and too-often hopeless battle against cancer, sometimes with great pain and the rather fearsome consequences of desperate treatments. Stand there and then say, `I believe in God, the Father Almighty!’
Of course, this is only a problem to the person who desires to believe in a God who is both good and all-powerful. It’s not the same problem for the person who denies the existence of God or the goodness of God. The problem then is even more difficult – how to explain the measure of meaning and goodness and love which we do experience.
But for the person who seeks to believe that God is good and God is just, and who knows that pain and evil are very real and very terrible, there is a conflict here which seems to defy human understanding. In the face of human suffering, perhaps in the midst of our pain, we cry, “If God is good, surely it is not God’s will that we should suffer so. But if God is God, He must be cause the suffering, or at least be willing for suffering to happen!”
I heard upon his dry dung heap
That man cry out who cannot sleep:
“If God is God, He is not good.
If God is good, He is not God.”
(From J.B., by Archibald MacLeish)
Here is the problem with which the book of Job wrestles – mightily.
“There was a man in the land of Uz. . .”
So it begins, what Thomas Carlyle called “one of the grandest things ever written with pen. . . . There is nothing written, I think, in the Bible or out of it, of equal literary merit” (Heroes And Hero Worship, p. 57). “A noble book,” he called it, “all men’s book. It is our first, oldest statement of the never-ending problem – man’s destiny and God’s ways with him here in this earth.”
“. . . a man in the land of Uz.”
No one can be certain just where “Uz” may have been located. It was probably a desert region south-east of Palestine. (Note Jeremiah 25:19 ff. and Lamentations 4:21.) No matter where, really, for Uz is everywhere where people suffer and ask “Why?” -- looking out from tight and frightened souls to beseech heaven for an answer.
“There was a man in the land of Uz whose name was Job.”
No “wizard of Uz” this man, content with magic’s false tricks or any rational slight of hand; just a very human being looking for an honest answer to his questions. The fathers of piety around him spoke of the even-handed justice of God, who blessed the righteous and cursed the careless. It was part of the religious dogmatism of the time. “None but the most impious would dare to question it,” said Job’s friends, his “Comforters.” But Job smouldered at their words and protested that what they said just wasn’t true, didn’t stand up to the facts of life. He wouldn’t be content with the glib, easy answers they were always giving people when trouble came upon them.
And he stood up alone to do his battle, against a wide unanswering sky. Not for a moment will he truckle, let Omnipotence do what it will. He cannot prevail, but not an inch will he yield.
(Paul Scherer in The Interpreter’s Bible, on Job 1:1)
“There was a man . . . !” And so begins the book of Job.
You perhaps know something of the story – how this ancient sheik of the desert, a man of honour and wealth, in a series of what the insurance companies (before they went secular) used to call “acts of God,” lost his property, his family, and his health. He was left in poverty, childless, and sitting upon a dung-heap digging at his terrible, loathsome, itching, stinking sores with an old piece of pottery.
This book of Job, as we have it in our Bible, seems to have sprung from an ancient folk-tale of the desert. Into this primitive tale has been inserted, at a later date, a long and formal argument between Job and his “Comforters.” This part is poetry – and some of the greatest poetry and most powerful imagery ever penned. The prose story forms pretty much the first two and the last chapters.
The patience of Job
Well, what of this story of a man who has become a proverb, as we speak of “the patience of Job?”
That’s perhaps the most obvious thing to say – it’s not a lesson in patient endurance, in long-suffering. Read further than chapter two and you will see that Job was not at all a patient individual. He argued vehemently against the reasoning of his friends, demanding of heaven an accounting for the injustice done him.
And injustice it does seem to have been. This is the point of the story. Job was a righteous man! This his Comforters tried their best to deny. “All suffering is punishment for sin,” they said. “Job is suffering, therefore Job must have sinned.”
But Job protested that he had not sinned. He acknowledged his faults; he knew he had them as all people have faults. But he had done nothing that he should be singled out for torture in this manner. He knew that. He had been as good as other people, better than most. “If I had been unfaithful to my wife, unfair to my servants, lacking in concern for the poor and not caring for my heritage, a liar or a cheat, then I would deserve punishment,” said Job (chapter 21). But he hadn’t – and that’s what made it all so hard to understand.
And so, with great impatience, he demanded of heaven an accounting. “Oh if I knew where I might find God, that I might lay my case before Him.” In fact, it appears to have been Job’s very impatience which led to his moment of truth, in eyeball-to-eyeball confrontation with the Almighty.
No Neat Answer
See this too, in this strange and subtle story, so difficult to grasp and deal with – here is no facile answer to the problem of human suffering; no neat intellectual answer which knows nothing of the pain. Here it is Job’s comforters who come giving facile answers to the great problems of human existence – and their answers are each refuted because of their inadequacies. “Miserable comforters, all of you,” Job cried, “Why do you think you must speak to me with endless windy words? I could speak as you do too if I was in your place and you were in mine” (chapter 16:1-4).
How often a minister sits with those in grief and hears them ask “Why?” – and wishes that he could give an answer. But in such situations, one must beware above all else, I believe, of the easy, the facile, answer. I remember visiting an old man, an old Scot, whose only son had recently been killed. He was literally buried alive in a construction accident. The old man was as filled with wrath as any one I have ever seen. He had just come from a neighbour’s house, and the neighbour had told him, “It was God’s will.” “What does she know?” he kept saying. “What does she know?”
When the blow comes, it’s not the philosophical answer, not the neat intellectual explanation of the problem, which we seek and need.
In fact, in one sense, there’s no answer given in the book of Job to the question “Why do the righteous suffer?” The argument breaks down, no one seems to have an answer; and then, like the deus ex machina of Greek drama, God comes storming in, flexing His (sic) muscles and shouting “out of the whirlwind” about `His’ greatness and power. On a superficial reading, God seems to be trying to frighten Job into shutting up, to overawe or overwhelm him because even God doesn’t have the answer.
The Answer Which Seems Like No Answer!
Yet there seems to be more to it than that. Job doesn’t just shut up. The strange thing is that Job seems finally somehow content. Something in that tumultuous experience, face to face with the Almighty, quieted his questions and somehow gave him his answer – and Job seems to have come to understand something he had never understood before.
Perhaps it was just that through this experience he came to a first-hand experience of God’s greatness and grace. “I had heard of Thee by the hearing of the ear,” he cried, “but now my eye sees Thee” (chapter 42:4). And Job realized that the most important thing in life is that a person know the living God. For then you’re lifted out of yourself to find Life.
Martin Buber wrote,
The only answer Job receives is God’s nearness, that He knows God again. Nothing is explained, nothing adjusted, wrong has not become right, nor cruelty kindness, but God is near!
And when Job demanded, “Let the Almighty answer me!” (Chapter 31:35), the answer of the Almighty was far different than what Job had expected.
(For) the divine answer is always different from human expectations. From the whirlwind Yahweh does not answer questions; He asks them.
(Samuel Terrien on “Job,” in The Interpreter’s Bible, p. 902)
There is something that comes, out of our agony, our suffering, our grief, there face to face with the Almighty. It’s not an answer; it’s more a challenge and a demand. But through our suffering, we are lifted out of our self and come to see life as we have never seen it before – almost as if with a cosmic vision. As from a great height, you look down upon the ages of human history, the travail and the injustice, the momentary triumph and the short-lived joy.
But it’s not meaningless. In it all you sense beating a great heart, an infinite Spirit, sharing the suffering, knowing the pain, labouring, working, brooding, yearning, agonizing to bring forth the reality of righteousness and truth and love.
And you lay your hand on your lips, for across it all – the spot where the little girl was killed, the pioneer cemetery with its grim tally, the sick child crying in agony – across it all there falls the shadow of a cross. And you see things in a new light – the light of God’s eternal love. And through your suffering, your grief, you know – as you have never known anything before. And nothing can separate you from that love, ever again.
And Job, who had been asserting his own righteousness with so much vehemence to his friends, now, before God, lays his hand on his mouth and says, “Therefore, I repent!”
Here is simply the story of a good and righteous man who, through his own suffering and sorrow, came to a knowledge of God and an understanding of life not given him before. He was raised out of the prison of his own provincial narrowness onto the windy heights from which he could see the panorama of the universe; torn out of himself to discover the world of God. It begins with “a man in the land of Uz,” it ends with a man in the world of God. That’s the difference.
As the marsh-hen secretly builds on the watery sod,
Behold I will build me a nest on the greatness of God!
I will fly in the greatness of God as the marsh-hen flies,
In the freedom that fills all the space `twixt the marsh and the skies.
By so many roots as the marsh-grass sends into the sod,
I will heartily lay me a-hold of the greatness of God.
(From “The Marshes of Glynn,” by Sidney Lanier)
AFTER WORDS
You can find a fuller treatment in my book, A Troubled Faith, Chp. 5, “Can God Be Good,” especially pp 98-103. The book recognizes the decline in the influence of Christian faith in our western culture through the 20th century, but seeks to affirm the reasonableness of Christian faith for the 21st century. To order the book, send $10 (Can) or equivalent to cover my cost – 8280 Mirabel Court, Richmond, BC, Canada V7C 4Y2.
Re “When Bad Things Happen,” a question from Anne Graham:
“If God does not cause our suffering and it happens for some reason other than the will of God, does it not follow that good things happening to people or the absence of bad things, happen for some reason other than the will of God and are not necessarily evidence of God's mercy?”
LAST GASP
When our daughter, Keili, said her bedtime prayers, she would bless every family member, every friend, and every animal. Then, after she had finished the nightly prayer, Keili would add, “And all girls.” This soon became part of her nightly routine. My curiosity got the best me and I asked her, “Keili, why do you always add the part about all girls?”
She replied, “Because everybody finishes their prayers by saying ‘All men.’”
Live simply. Love generously. Care deeply. Speak kindly.
Leave the rest to God.
It’s a Rap. Grace and peace. Alan
Saturday, August 21, 2010
REYNOLDS RAP
REYNOLDS RAP
August 21, 2010
BEFORE WORDS
Last week’s Rap was late. Blame the computer. I try to send the Rap Saturday morning at 1:00am so that people will have it for the weekend, when there is hopefully less traffic and more time to “read and inwardly digest.” This means setting a delayed delivery on the computer. This past weekend we were away for a family weekend at Whistler (north of Vancouver, remember the 2010 Winter Olympics last February), and the machine didn’t cooperate.
This week, the last of the series of “memories” from my ministry, a moving story (for me at least) of the working of God’s Spirit. Next week, the story of our Whistler weekend and why it may be important to others. Then back to work.
“WHO THROUGH LIFE HAS BEEN MY GUIDE”
Edith McLellan was an active member at Ryerson United Church in Vancouver, where I was minister for a number of years. She was in the choir, a member of “Fifty-fifty, a couple’s group. But like most United Church members, her faith was private. She didn’t go around talking about it and left the public act of prayer to the minister in the Sunday service.
Edith was diagnosed with a brain tumour and scheduled for an immediate operation. I went to see her the night before her operation. After a long visit, late on a Sunday evening, as I was about to leave, I offered to pray. She accepted this offer and I took her hand, closed my eyes to lead in prayer. Something (or Someone) stopped me, and I asked if she would like to say the words. She said no, and I went on with my prayer. After I had said Amen, she held onto my hand and said that yes, she would like to pray.
She said a most beautiful prayer, praying for the surgeons and the medical team, praying for her husband and children if she didn't come out of the operation, and committing her life to God.
She did come out of the operation. The growth was benign, but it was large and the operation left her with only partial strength on her left side.
Even so, following the operation it was like she was “born again.” She was literally filled with joy, filled with the Spirit I would say. She began to say she wanted something else to do with her life other than her present work. I felt that I should be able to help her. Over the course of the following weeks, I thought and prayed about what that might be, but no answer came.
One day she came into my study. She told me that she had signed up for a Pastoral Training course. I didn’t have to solve her problem. God was working on that.
Edith went on to take theology at the Vancouver School of Theology. With her physical limitations it was often difficult. But she did it, was ordained, and was active in her ministry both before and after her retirement. In the last years of her ministry, she was Pastoral Minister at Shaughnessy Heights United here in Vancouver and was so well regarded in the congregation that she was appointed "Minister Emerita," a title justly deserved and of which she was very proud.
AFTER WORDS
The response to last week’s request to clean house was in part very encouraging. A number of people replied that they read the message every week “from cover to cover.” Margaret Romans phoned from Nova Scotia to say exactly that, and to express appreciation of the messages. No one asked to be signed off. Who could ask for more?
In reply to the Rap on how difficult it is to know if we are effective in ministry, these replies from a couple of teachers:
Don Wade replied: Ministers and teachers share some of this same lack of feedback...we never know if / how much our work "sticks". For teachers, about half of what we do never comes home to roost until the student hits 30...if then. For both of us, it's the faith that keeps us doing it...the belief that we're doing some good in the world even if it seems speck-like in size. Keep 'em coming.
And from Dave Jones: Indeed in the ministry, and in teaching, we usually don't know at the time just what we have achieved. But, thankfully, confirmation does sometimes come later if not sooner. And while we are called to faithfulness, a little effectiveness goes a long way toward sustaining our faithfulness.
And finally from Cliff Moase (Rev., ret’d): I'll never forget the woman in one congregation who was on the church list but seldom, if ever, came to church. I visited in the home from time to time. On one such occasion she said something like this: "Mr. Moase, you know we don't go to church, but you keep visiting, and that makes me believe that God still cares about us".
LAST CAST
An elderly gentleman had serious hearing problems for a number of years He went to the doctor and was finally fitted with a set of hearing aids which allowed him 100% hearing.
A month later he went back to the doctor who said, “Your hearing is perfect. Your family must be pleased that you can hear again.”
The old gentleman replied, “Oh, I haven’t told my family yet. I just sit around and listen to the conversations. I’ve changed my will three times!”
Finally, something I learned today, something for people (like me) who are left handed: “The right brain controls the body; therefore it is only left-handed people who are in their right mind!”
Live simply. Love generously. Care deeply. Speak kindly. Leave the rest to God.
It’s a Rap. Grace and peace. Alan
August 21, 2010
BEFORE WORDS
Last week’s Rap was late. Blame the computer. I try to send the Rap Saturday morning at 1:00am so that people will have it for the weekend, when there is hopefully less traffic and more time to “read and inwardly digest.” This means setting a delayed delivery on the computer. This past weekend we were away for a family weekend at Whistler (north of Vancouver, remember the 2010 Winter Olympics last February), and the machine didn’t cooperate.
This week, the last of the series of “memories” from my ministry, a moving story (for me at least) of the working of God’s Spirit. Next week, the story of our Whistler weekend and why it may be important to others. Then back to work.
“WHO THROUGH LIFE HAS BEEN MY GUIDE”
Edith McLellan was an active member at Ryerson United Church in Vancouver, where I was minister for a number of years. She was in the choir, a member of “Fifty-fifty, a couple’s group. But like most United Church members, her faith was private. She didn’t go around talking about it and left the public act of prayer to the minister in the Sunday service.
Edith was diagnosed with a brain tumour and scheduled for an immediate operation. I went to see her the night before her operation. After a long visit, late on a Sunday evening, as I was about to leave, I offered to pray. She accepted this offer and I took her hand, closed my eyes to lead in prayer. Something (or Someone) stopped me, and I asked if she would like to say the words. She said no, and I went on with my prayer. After I had said Amen, she held onto my hand and said that yes, she would like to pray.
She said a most beautiful prayer, praying for the surgeons and the medical team, praying for her husband and children if she didn't come out of the operation, and committing her life to God.
She did come out of the operation. The growth was benign, but it was large and the operation left her with only partial strength on her left side.
Even so, following the operation it was like she was “born again.” She was literally filled with joy, filled with the Spirit I would say. She began to say she wanted something else to do with her life other than her present work. I felt that I should be able to help her. Over the course of the following weeks, I thought and prayed about what that might be, but no answer came.
One day she came into my study. She told me that she had signed up for a Pastoral Training course. I didn’t have to solve her problem. God was working on that.
Edith went on to take theology at the Vancouver School of Theology. With her physical limitations it was often difficult. But she did it, was ordained, and was active in her ministry both before and after her retirement. In the last years of her ministry, she was Pastoral Minister at Shaughnessy Heights United here in Vancouver and was so well regarded in the congregation that she was appointed "Minister Emerita," a title justly deserved and of which she was very proud.
AFTER WORDS
The response to last week’s request to clean house was in part very encouraging. A number of people replied that they read the message every week “from cover to cover.” Margaret Romans phoned from Nova Scotia to say exactly that, and to express appreciation of the messages. No one asked to be signed off. Who could ask for more?
In reply to the Rap on how difficult it is to know if we are effective in ministry, these replies from a couple of teachers:
Don Wade replied: Ministers and teachers share some of this same lack of feedback...we never know if / how much our work "sticks". For teachers, about half of what we do never comes home to roost until the student hits 30...if then. For both of us, it's the faith that keeps us doing it...the belief that we're doing some good in the world even if it seems speck-like in size. Keep 'em coming.
And from Dave Jones: Indeed in the ministry, and in teaching, we usually don't know at the time just what we have achieved. But, thankfully, confirmation does sometimes come later if not sooner. And while we are called to faithfulness, a little effectiveness goes a long way toward sustaining our faithfulness.
And finally from Cliff Moase (Rev., ret’d): I'll never forget the woman in one congregation who was on the church list but seldom, if ever, came to church. I visited in the home from time to time. On one such occasion she said something like this: "Mr. Moase, you know we don't go to church, but you keep visiting, and that makes me believe that God still cares about us".
LAST CAST
An elderly gentleman had serious hearing problems for a number of years He went to the doctor and was finally fitted with a set of hearing aids which allowed him 100% hearing.
A month later he went back to the doctor who said, “Your hearing is perfect. Your family must be pleased that you can hear again.”
The old gentleman replied, “Oh, I haven’t told my family yet. I just sit around and listen to the conversations. I’ve changed my will three times!”
Finally, something I learned today, something for people (like me) who are left handed: “The right brain controls the body; therefore it is only left-handed people who are in their right mind!”
Live simply. Love generously. Care deeply. Speak kindly. Leave the rest to God.
It’s a Rap. Grace and peace. Alan
Monday, August 2, 2010
REYNOLDS RAP, July 31, 2010
REYNOLDS RAP
July 31, 2010
BEFORE WORDS
Over the next few weeks, I’d like to share with you a few bits of memorabilia. A couple of years ago, I wrote a series of memories of events of my own ministry, Memories of Ministry. I wrote it for the possible interest of my children and grandchildren, any fellow travelers on the ministerial tracks, and curious friends who wonder how I got that way. Here is one memory.
FIRST BAPTISM
BE PREPARED, BUT EXPECT THE UNEXPECTED
Most newly-ordained ministers are familiar with the horror stories of others beginning their ministry whose first wedding, baptism or funeral had been something of a disaster. I was newly ordained and new to the congregation. I was determined that my first baptism would not be remembered for my fumbles and botches. I prepared thoroughly. I memorized the baptismal service and considered every move that I would make.
The little village of Waterford sits amid the hills of southern New Brunswick in a beautiful valley where two streams join. The Waterford United Church sits on a knoll of solid rock in the midst of the village. It is a well-proportioned church with a high steeple, “beautiful on Mount Zion.” The entrance was at the front of the sanctuary, resulting in some embarrassment for visitors arriving late and on entering, finding the whole congregation looking at them.
On this particular Sunday morning, two baby boys were to be baptized. All was going well and we were singing the baptismal hymn, when I looked down from the pulpit and realized that there was no baptismal font, no bowl, and no water. This was 1954, and the Waterford church, typical of country churches of the time, had no electricity, no running water, no kitchen – just sanctuary and vestry. What to do?
First, I remembered that there was a brook about fifty yards down the road. There was water. But the hymn would be finished before I could get there and back. Well, the congregation would just have to stand there and wait.
But what to carry the water in? An elder of the congregation lived next to the church, perhaps I could get a dish there. What if the house was locked? (They were all in church.) I would just have to take the chance. People in those days usually didn’t bother to lock doors.
I started for the door. As I came down from the pulpit platform, I noticed the wood stove used to heat the church in colder weather. I remembered that there was an old rusty tin can used in the winter to throw kerosene on the wood to get the fire started quickly. If the house was locked, I could get water in the kerosene can.
I went to the stove, got the kerosene can and started back for the door. All this seemed like an eternity in my own mind, but the congregation was still singing the baptismal hymn. As I got to the entry at the front of the church I noticed the flowers of the communion table. There was my water!
Going to the table, I poured water from the flowers into the rusty kerosene can and turned to the congregation just as they were finishing the hymn. The baptism proceeded without further interruption.
Some twenty-five years later, I was invited back to this congregation for an anniversary service. I was extremely pleased (and maybe a bit relieved) to find that these baby boys, now young men, were both elders of the congregation. Water from the flowers in a rusty can, but I guess the baptism “took.”
AFTER WORDS
Brenda and I have just returned from a couple of weeks in Nova Scotia, visiting family and friends. We jumped from the Maritimes to the West Coast in 1971. Maritime roots still run pretty deep.
We had a great trip, enjoyed Maritime hospitality, and had lobster twice! There were even left-overs, reminiscent of “olden times” when my Aunt Lucy would take the left-over lobster, chop it up, and heat it in the frying pan with butter and lemon juice – then serve it on toast. It was and is delicious! But there are seldom lobster left-overs these days.
LAST CAST
The following is from Ralph Milton’s “Rumors” which he and Jim Taylor (“Soft Edges,” jmt@quixotic.ca) produced for a good number of years until Ralph “retired” last spring. Reynolds Rap is but a pale imitation of Rumors which, because it was so interesting and with such humour, expanded to a readership of over eight thousand. I may imitate Rumors, but I have no hope or desire to equal its success.
The Puzzled Philosopher:
* Can you cry under water?* How important does a person have to be before they are considered assassinated instead of just murdered?* Why does a round pizza come in a square box?* What disease did cured ham actually have?* How is it that we put a person on the moon before we figured out it would be a good idea to put wheels on luggage?* Why is it that people say they 'slept like a baby' when babies wake up every two hours?* Why do people pay to go up tall buildings and then put money in binoculars to look at things on the ground?* Why do doctors leave the room while you change? They're going to see you naked anyway.* Why is 'bra' singular and 'panties' plural?* If Jimmy cracks corn and no one cares, why is there a stupid song about him? * Can a hearse carrying a corpse drive in the carpool lane?* If Wile E. Coyote had enough money to buy all that ACME crap, why didn't he just buy dinner?* If corn oil is made from corn, and vegetable oil is made from vegetables, what is baby oil made from?* Do the Alphabet song and Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star have the same tune?* Why did you just try singing the two songs above?* Did you ever notice that when you blow in a dog's face, he gets mad at you, but when you take him for a car ride, he sticks his head out the window?
It’s a Rap. Grace and peace to all. Alan
July 31, 2010
BEFORE WORDS
Over the next few weeks, I’d like to share with you a few bits of memorabilia. A couple of years ago, I wrote a series of memories of events of my own ministry, Memories of Ministry. I wrote it for the possible interest of my children and grandchildren, any fellow travelers on the ministerial tracks, and curious friends who wonder how I got that way. Here is one memory.
FIRST BAPTISM
BE PREPARED, BUT EXPECT THE UNEXPECTED
Most newly-ordained ministers are familiar with the horror stories of others beginning their ministry whose first wedding, baptism or funeral had been something of a disaster. I was newly ordained and new to the congregation. I was determined that my first baptism would not be remembered for my fumbles and botches. I prepared thoroughly. I memorized the baptismal service and considered every move that I would make.
The little village of Waterford sits amid the hills of southern New Brunswick in a beautiful valley where two streams join. The Waterford United Church sits on a knoll of solid rock in the midst of the village. It is a well-proportioned church with a high steeple, “beautiful on Mount Zion.” The entrance was at the front of the sanctuary, resulting in some embarrassment for visitors arriving late and on entering, finding the whole congregation looking at them.
On this particular Sunday morning, two baby boys were to be baptized. All was going well and we were singing the baptismal hymn, when I looked down from the pulpit and realized that there was no baptismal font, no bowl, and no water. This was 1954, and the Waterford church, typical of country churches of the time, had no electricity, no running water, no kitchen – just sanctuary and vestry. What to do?
First, I remembered that there was a brook about fifty yards down the road. There was water. But the hymn would be finished before I could get there and back. Well, the congregation would just have to stand there and wait.
But what to carry the water in? An elder of the congregation lived next to the church, perhaps I could get a dish there. What if the house was locked? (They were all in church.) I would just have to take the chance. People in those days usually didn’t bother to lock doors.
I started for the door. As I came down from the pulpit platform, I noticed the wood stove used to heat the church in colder weather. I remembered that there was an old rusty tin can used in the winter to throw kerosene on the wood to get the fire started quickly. If the house was locked, I could get water in the kerosene can.
I went to the stove, got the kerosene can and started back for the door. All this seemed like an eternity in my own mind, but the congregation was still singing the baptismal hymn. As I got to the entry at the front of the church I noticed the flowers of the communion table. There was my water!
Going to the table, I poured water from the flowers into the rusty kerosene can and turned to the congregation just as they were finishing the hymn. The baptism proceeded without further interruption.
Some twenty-five years later, I was invited back to this congregation for an anniversary service. I was extremely pleased (and maybe a bit relieved) to find that these baby boys, now young men, were both elders of the congregation. Water from the flowers in a rusty can, but I guess the baptism “took.”
AFTER WORDS
Brenda and I have just returned from a couple of weeks in Nova Scotia, visiting family and friends. We jumped from the Maritimes to the West Coast in 1971. Maritime roots still run pretty deep.
We had a great trip, enjoyed Maritime hospitality, and had lobster twice! There were even left-overs, reminiscent of “olden times” when my Aunt Lucy would take the left-over lobster, chop it up, and heat it in the frying pan with butter and lemon juice – then serve it on toast. It was and is delicious! But there are seldom lobster left-overs these days.
LAST CAST
The following is from Ralph Milton’s “Rumors” which he and Jim Taylor (“Soft Edges,” jmt@quixotic.ca) produced for a good number of years until Ralph “retired” last spring. Reynolds Rap is but a pale imitation of Rumors which, because it was so interesting and with such humour, expanded to a readership of over eight thousand. I may imitate Rumors, but I have no hope or desire to equal its success.
The Puzzled Philosopher:
* Can you cry under water?* How important does a person have to be before they are considered assassinated instead of just murdered?* Why does a round pizza come in a square box?* What disease did cured ham actually have?* How is it that we put a person on the moon before we figured out it would be a good idea to put wheels on luggage?* Why is it that people say they 'slept like a baby' when babies wake up every two hours?* Why do people pay to go up tall buildings and then put money in binoculars to look at things on the ground?* Why do doctors leave the room while you change? They're going to see you naked anyway.* Why is 'bra' singular and 'panties' plural?* If Jimmy cracks corn and no one cares, why is there a stupid song about him? * Can a hearse carrying a corpse drive in the carpool lane?* If Wile E. Coyote had enough money to buy all that ACME crap, why didn't he just buy dinner?* If corn oil is made from corn, and vegetable oil is made from vegetables, what is baby oil made from?* Do the Alphabet song and Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star have the same tune?* Why did you just try singing the two songs above?* Did you ever notice that when you blow in a dog's face, he gets mad at you, but when you take him for a car ride, he sticks his head out the window?
It’s a Rap. Grace and peace to all. Alan
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