Pendulum Swing: From Faith to Social Justice

Over the past year, I have heard several people say that every 500 years or so, there is a major shift in Christianity. Constantine's reign in 306 CE marked the church moving from a fringe religion, to eventually being a state religion. The Great Schism between Rome and the East in 1054 CE left scars in the Global Church that are only now beginning to heal. The Reformation in 1517 resulted in many divisions within the Western Church. Each of these events impacted the world in huge ways.

 Many people are suggesting that we are again in a major, the most recent example I've experienced was at Mennonite Church Canada's National Assembly. During a Young Adult Event, MC Canada Executive Director made reference to this shift, and has outlined some of his thoughts on the topic here. To help navigate this shift, the national church has assembled the New Directions Task Force to look at what the future of the MC Canada will look like, and we had some good discussion during the Assembly about it.

In a recent podcast, Willard and Dan Dyck talked about the future of the church. Willard suggested that the future of the church will be one where the church engages in issues such as Aboriginal Justice and Climate Change, and I agree, the Church needs to engage with social justice issues. It needs to in order to stay relevant, but it also needs to in order to stay faithful to the people who God is calling us to be.

From the creation of the nation of Israel in the Old Testament, God has called a people to show the world around us how to live differently. The Lex Talionis Law in the Torah (an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth) was a demand for equality under the law. Where other cultures allowed those in the upper classes to severely punish those in lower classes for any infraction, the Torah limited retaliation to an equitable punishment.

With Jesus, the people of God became open to all, not just the Jews, but also the Gentiles. The message was do not conform to Rome's morals, of greed, and violence, but make Jesus your King. Peace, Justice and Love became the law written on our hearts.

As history unfolds, we see a pendulum swing. From the weakness of Christ to the Strength of Constantine, from ritual in the middle ages, to faith in the reformation, etc. But we often swing too far. When the pendulum swung towards faith in the reformation, we began to lose the importance of action. Martin Luther wanted to remove the Canon of James from the Canon, thinking that it wasn't relevant to our faith. We swung to a place where faith resulted in inaction.

The Anabaptists always spoke out against this, showing how Faith in Christ requires us to love our neighbors, remember Menno's Famous quote: "True evangelical faith cannot lie dormant. It clothes the naked, it feeds the hungry, it comforts the sorrowful, it shelters the destitute, it serves those that harm it, it binds up that which is wounded, it has become all things to all people." As the world realizes that faith requires action it begins to swing in the other direction. We can't just pray about an issue, being a follower of Jesus means going out and fixing it. 

However, I have cause for concern about this swing. At some point we can/will/have swung too far. Sometimes our concern for social justice becomes more important than the reason why we seek it in the first place. Sometimes I see Mennonites go from being Anabaptist to Secular Humanists. I see us as being more concerned about the ends and not the means.

I see us neglecting our prayer lives and bible readings, casting them aside rather than realizing that they are the reason we seek after justice.

My Social justice concern comes out of my love for Jesus. I care for the other because I see that they are made in God's image. We need to remember that it was the Prophet Amos, a man who was calling Israel back to following God, who said "Let justice roll on like a river, righteousness like a never-failing stream!" (Amos 5:24). As we shift towards a Christianity that is a voice for the downtrodden, let us also remember that we believe in prayer and faith.

Factory Work as a form of Ministry

My practicum this summer was part of Mennonite Church Canada's Ministry Inquiry Program. Basically, MC Canada finds the student a church to do an internship in, and the Church helps them look for a part time Job to so the student earns some money for the summer. I ended up working in a Brass Foundry as a Plaque Finisher.

As a Plaque finisher, I take the plaques after they've been molded, remove excess metal via various sanders, grinders, buffers, etc. and clean them up so they can be painted.

Now this isn't the type of job I would look for, (I'm not very technically inclined), and at one point I was near quitting. But I stuck with it, and I'm glad I did.

While we make a lot of plaques for companies which are okay, I've also had the ability to do work on very worthwhile projects. Projects which in my mind are a form of ministry. I worked on the name plaque for the Jesus The Homeless statue. Which I think has a very important message about how we as Christians view the homeless.

Secondly we do A LOT of memorial plaques for cemeteries like this one I pulled off of the internet:



I put a lot of care into these when I make them because these are part of the grieving process. Every single one of these represents someone's loved one (or ones, often they have a both members of a couple on them). They want to know that there will be something that will last a long time. They want to know that their loved one will be remembered in the future. These plaques are symbols of love and I want to honour them.

But this week I also got to work on an order for plaques which will be put on an Indian Residential School in Kenora, along with a plaque with it's name, was a second plaque that said "In Honour of All the Children," again something that we need to remember. We tore children from their families, deprived them from their language and culture, and all in the name of Christianity (they were mostly ran by Catholic and Anglican organizations).

The work I'm doing is a form of ministry. I am involved in remembering the past, and sharing a message for the future. Hopefully in some part I am a part of people's grieving and healing processes. Even if I'm just a worker in a factory.

The Role of the Pastor

When people ask me what I want to do with my life, I often tell them that I feel led to being a pastor. However, when I tell them this, I often feel like I am lying, even though technically I am not.

I love God, and I love the church, and I feel that God is leading me towards fulltime Christian ministry within the church. Maybe even in a congregation's lead role someday.

This might sound like being a pastor, but in my mind there is a difference.

My view of Pastoring, and the church, is that it is often of a top down, hierarchical approach, The Pastor is in charge, leading a congregation like a shephard leading a bunch of sheep. Or more of a chaplain role, ministering to the emotional and spiritual needs of the congregation they are working in, maybe doing some outreach (or sheep stealing) in order to maintain the numbers of the congregation, but not really.

I don't think that's an unfair representation. For many centuries, the "western" world was part of Christendom, everyone was assumed to be a Christian, so there wasn't much point in ministry, unless it was mission work to people who had't been reached yet. This concept started when Constantine made Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire, Augustine put it into theological terms, and it remained that way for a thousand years, surviving even the crash of the Roman Empire.

In the 1500s  this began to change, with the beginning of the Reformation, you could no longer assume that everyone was the same denomination, let alone the same religion of you. However, Christianity in some form remained the norm. Even 50 years ago everyone went to church every week. While this is no longer the case, it's still within my memory when the local mall was closed on Sundays, and today's reduced Sunday shopping hours are a holdover of the belief that people should be at church and not shopping on a Sunday.

Within the concept of Christendom, where everyone was a member of the/a church, it made sense that a Pastor's role was one of caring just for their congregation. However we are now recognizing the fact that not everyone is a Christian, that the world is a much more broken place than it once was. The role of the church, and therefore the role of the pastor is different.

My program at school is "Biblical and Theological Studies" As I read the biblical narrative, and the various philosophizing about who God is I get excited. I see a God who loves us, who's vision for the world is far greater than any of us can possibly imagine, and who invites us to join in working towards that vision.

The Church is the body of people who are working towards this future. We work towards right relationship with ourselves, our neighbours, and our God. I believe that this is the responsibility of every Christian.

Since in this context everyone is in ministry, the role of the Pastor then becomes one of encouraging the church to minister to the best of it's abilities. Since each member has different strengths and abilities, the Pastor encourages the congregation to plug in to what they are passionate about that maximizes congregation's witness to the good news of Jesus Christ.

The Pastor's role is therefore to enable others to minister. both via the traditional tasks of a pastor: providing pastoral care (ensuring the emotional and spiritual well-being of the congregation), theological insight, or leading a committee as necessary, but also in less hierarchical ways. Allowing others to take the lead, and being a support.

Churches are starting to recognize this. Today I noticed that the bulletin of my church, immediately above where pastor's have our contact information, it says "Ministers: Every Member of the Congregation". If this is the vision of the church, then maybe yes, I am called to be a pastor.


[Note: On July 11, 2013 I finally got my hands on a copy of A Mennonite Polity for Ministerial Leadership and I was pleasantly surprised to see that in it's theology section, it too had the same critiques of the Christendom, arguing that to some extent Mennonites have always seen the congregation as the primary ministers. I don't think we've even mostly succeeded at maintaining the viewpoint. but it's nice to know that I am in a denomination with the same thoughts]

1 Kings 19: I, even I only am left.

[The Sermon below was written for my preaching class at Canadian Mennonite University, This is the first sermon I wrote for the class, so it is less polished than some of the sermons I've written since (see A Transformed People of God, or Psalm 137:9 A Hard Beatitude), however it's a message of hope for those suffering from ministry Burnout, something that I'll talk about in more depth in the future]


When we look at 1 kings 19 we read a story of Elijah struggling.
Elijah, the mighty prophet of God who had defeated 450 prophets of Baal on Mount Carmel
Elijah, the mighty prophet, who's God answered his prayer with fire from heaven
Elijah, the mighty prophet of God who ran after Ahab's chariot, taunting him all the way back to Jazreel
Elijah, the mighty prophet of God, was broken, and tired, and confused
After the events at mount Carmel Ahab went and told his wife Jezebel about Elijah
Jezebel responded by sending her messenger to the mighty prophet, telling him that by the time the day was finished, she would have him killed the way he had killed Baal's prophets
Faced with opposition that can't be stopped by a show of force, Elijah is unsure of himself
So what does he do?
[pause]
He runs.
The Mighty Prophets runs
Within three verses He leaves the northern kingdom, and he travels all the way down to Beersheba, a town right where the southern Kingdom meets the wilderness.
Elijah is afraid for his life, he's dropped everything and he ran
The Mighty prophet has become a refugee
When he gets to Beersheba, he leaves his servant behind, and spends a day walking in the wilderness. There he crashes down under a tree and cries out to God, "It is enough, Oh Lord, Take away my life for I am no better than my fathers."
He has abandoned all hope
He is saying that he's failed, that he should be dead and in his tomb like those that went before him.
Jezebel's threat is the end of his ministry

Like Elijah, you might be tired
Maybe you are tired because Everytime you share your faith with your friends you get ridiculed
maybe you are tired because you've been strong for too long
Maybe the program you volunteer for isn't reaching as many people as you'd like
Maybe you are ready to give up
to give up on serving God
to close your door, and give up on hoping that people will respond to the ministry that you do
It's easy to experience burn out, with papers piling up around, tests and exams coming it's easy to forget that you are here because this is where God wants you to be.
Like Elijah, you might be unsure of yourself, maybe you felt God leading you into ministry, but now that you are here, you are no longer sure
Like Elijah, you might not have the strength to carry on.
Elijah, sitting in the desert, goes to sleep,
while he sleeps, an angel woke him up and feeds him
Elijah doesn't get it, there's an angel feeding him, and what does he do? he goes back to sleep, He's completely given up.
But the angel isn't finished, he wakes Elijah up, and feeds him again, telling him that he has a long journey ahead of him.
Elijah gets up and the food feeds him for fourty days and nights as he travels in the wilderness.
Eventually he gets to Mt Horeb
Now Mt Horeb is another name for Mt Sinai, the mountain where God met Moses and Commissioned him.
God is going to commission Elijah again
This is what's called a Theophanous commision story. A story where elijah is given  the power to prevail over institutional rivals, enhancing belief in prophetic authority to challenge usurpations of God's Supremacy.
but this authority comes in a peculiar way.

Elijah enters a cave on Mount Sinai, and God asks him "what are you doing here, elijah?"
Elijah's response is one of dispair "I have been very jealous for the LORD, the God of hosts. For the people of Israel have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, , and killed your prophets with the sword, and I, even I only, am left, and they seek my life, to take it away"
Elijah's seeking pity, he thinks he's the only one left, he thinks that everything is going to hell in a handbasket
And he wants a sign, he wants God to respond dramatically, to show that God is powerful  but God's response is not power.
God takes him outside the cave, and Elijah sees 3 powerful things
He sees the wind blow past so fast that rocks are breaking
He sees an earthquake shake the earth around him
and he sees a fire, like the one used in the previous chapter to defeat baals prophet
God could have been present within any of them, but God isn't
Instead of these acts of power, God chooses to reveal Godself through the sound of a low whisper.
and again God asks "What are you doing here Elijah?"
Elijah gives exactly the same response "I have been very jealous for the LORD, the God of hosts. For the people of Israel have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, , and killed your prophets with the sword, and I, even I only, am left, and they seek my life, to take it away"
God responds with a command and a message of hope
The commmand is to go back and continue his work,
God has recommissioned Elijah to go back and annoint Hazael as King of Syria, Jehu king of Israel, and Elisha as his own successor.
Elijahs doubts will cease when God puts him to work
He needs to continue the struggle against Baal. He needs to put people into power who will stand up for whats right. It's not going to be easy, but Ahab and Jezebel's dynasty will fall, and Israel will return to the Covenant.
God's message to Elijah, is that he isn't alone, God still has 7000 people who haven't bowed before Baal.
The numbers 7and 1000 both symbolize wholeness and completion. God has enough people to get the job done.
Elijah isn't alone.

Likewise you aren't alone
You have a community of faith that surrounds you
When you are weary, there are people there who will support you
There are people who will care for you and walk with you
Elijah thought that he was the only person who was Jealous for God
but there were others
God doesn't always act in Giant flashes of miraculous power
This doesn't mean he can't or he won't
but more often then not we need to listen for that still soft voice
God will guide you
Elijah thought he had won at mount carmel, and wasnt ready for resistance
We will also face resistance as we seek to live out the gospel message in the world today
but in the moment of doubt, God will give you the strength to face the day
Elijah's story doesn't end in complete and utter victory, Ahab is still king for three more chapters, and maybe it's okay if ours doesn't either
instead maybe we just need to continue to be faithful to the plan that God has for us, and follow what God tells us to do.