Habakkuk Chapter Three: Trusting in a Sovereign God

The Following was given at North Kildonan Mennonite Church on January 29th, 2017. It is the final of four sermons that the Pastoral staff gave on the book of Habakkuk. You can find the other sermons on the NKMC website.

We’ve reached the end of our series on Habakkuk. Gary said the other week that I was supposed to bring all of this together, we’ll see if I can do some of that.

A couple months ago in a Worship Committee meeting, Gary suggested that now would be a good time to pick a book from the Bible for a sermon series. Chris and I thought it would be a good idea to pick something that we weren’t very familiar with since it would make us learn something new as well. If I haven’t taken a course on the book, then I can’t just repeat what my professor has to say about it. This led us to look at the Minor Prophets since that is what we are most unfamiliar with and eventually to Habakkuk since it is both long enough that we could do multiple weeks on it, but not too long that we would have too much work on our hands. Also, Habakkuk also has a funny name which made Chris and I giggle.

Somehow, Gary and Franz let me off easy for pulling a stunt like this, and have given me the fun chapter.

A brief recap of what we’ve talked about already:

Habakkuk takes place in the southern nation of Judah. Habakkuk can see the writing on the wall that Babylon is soon going to conquer Judah, and wants to know why God is letting this happen, Gary and Franz did an excellent job recounting the dialogue between Habakkuk and God. God explains to Habakkuk that God is using Babylon to punish Judah, and that God is working towards redeeming everyone. After five woes to the unjust, the book ends with Habakkuk’s prayer.

Habakkuk’s prayer brings back images of the Exodus. Plague going before him, delivering God’s people, trampling the sea, and so on. It is a promise that one day God will create a second exodus, and bring his people out of Babylon.

A key focus of the psalm is the Sovereignty of God. God “Splits the earth with rivers” “Sun and moon stood still”. God uses this power to attack the “leader of the land of wickedness” punishing him and destroying his warriors.

Habakkuk’s readers would have understood this to be the emperor of Babylon, Nebuchadnezzar, and would have hoped for God to plague Babylon the way he plagued the Egyptians. Their hope was that one day God will Defeat Evil, Bring Justice to all and rescue the oppressed.

Other prophetic authors also promised a coming day of the Lord or Day of Judgement, where eventually the Jews could return home in glory.

But this isn’t what happened.

The Babylonian exile eventually ended, but not with the glorious exodus that Habakkuk, Daniel, and others promised. King Cyrus of Persia conquered Babylon, and told everyone that the Babylonians had captured that they could return home, but not everyone did.

 This is because when Babylon had conquered Judah, Jews that had not been forced to move to Babylon had also fled to nearby countries like Moab, Ammon, Edom and Egypt to escape Babylon’s reach. As well, Jeremiah had told the Jews living in Babylon to seek the welfare of the city they were in, and to plant roots in their new homes. this population of Jews that live outside of the promised land are known as the Diaspora.

When the prophet Ezra returned home with many Jews, there were still some who stayed behind in Babylon because they had built new lives for themselves, and others stayed in their new homes in Edom and Egypt.

This second Exodus wasn’t as total as the prophets promised. The Diaspora still existed, the rich still held their power over the poor, evil still existed and injustice continued. So the Jews took a second look at the promises and a new understanding emerged that one day they would be completely fulfilled. They had an apocalyptic hope that there would one day be a day of the Lord, when God would reign on Earth. When there would be no more tears and no more sadness. One day God’s anointed leader would come and usher in this Kingdom of God.

Just as the Persians replaced the Babylonians, they were themselves replaced by the Greeks, the Greeks were driven out by a Jewish revolt led by the Maccabean Brothers, and for a brief time the Jews were interdependent, but eventually infighting resulted in the Roman Empire swooping in and taking over.

The people of Jesus’ day longed for the coming of the Lord, For the Kingdom of God. When Jesus stood in the Synagogue and read from Isaiah that

 “The Spirit of the Lord is on me,

    because he has anointed me
    to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners
    and recovery of sight for the blind,
to set the oppressed free,
     to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

his listeners recognized this passage as being about the impending Kingdom.

From there, Jesus starts going around and saying “The Kingdom of God is at Hand” or “The Kingdom of Heaven is at Hand” if you are reading from Matthew.

These actually mean the same thing Matthew, writing for a predominantly Jewish audience, avoided using the word “God” when possible, so he talks around it by using the word Heaven to mean God because God is in Heaven.

Anyways, Jesus spends the next 3 years proclaiming the Kingdom of God is at hand. It’s starting. Get on board! Many of his parables are about not missing the boat.

The kingdom of God is at hand. It is within our grasps, you can feel it, but it’s also not quite there. It’s already here, but not yet fully realized. It’s like a rough draft of a story, here, but not yet the final version of it. Or if I had two more days to work on this sermon

Jesus starts to collect disciples, his generals, who are going to lead his people to victory! Among them are Zealots and revolutionaries! Jesus has to be getting ready for a fight, right?

Jesus eventually marches into Jerusalem. People are ready to rebel! They think this is our moment! It is happening here and now. The Pharisees and Saducees tell him to get his crowd to shut up because they can see that the rebellion is about to begin and they are afraid of losing their positions of priviledge.

 Jesus goes into the Temple flipping the tables of the unjust money changers and sacrifice sellers. This is it! Everybody’s excited! Now that he’s cleansed the temple, surely he’ll next march on the Roman Garrison!

But he doesn’t. Instead he goes to Bethany for the night and returns to the temple the next day to teach. Over the course of the week, Jesus is arrested on charges of Treason and rebellion and crucified. It looks like his mission has failed. The crowds abandoned him, his disciples have gone into hiding. People think that this Jesus movement will is over; now that the head is cut off, surely the body will die with it.

It seems’ like the kingdom of God has failed

But Jesus doesn’t stay dead!

Three days later, he rises from the Grave! Jesus’ victory wasn’t merely over some earthly empire, rather his victory over the finality of death robs all earthly structures of their power.

The most an empire can do is kill you, Jesus’s resurrection shows that death isn’t the end.

Jesus returns, and commissions his followers to continue sharing the good news to all the world, that the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand. As he ascended into heaven, he promised that he would return for us one day and the Kingdom will come in its fullness.

Yeah, it’s not here completely, but we are called to work towards the Kingdom’s fulfillment.

In the same way that Habakkuk uses the image of Egypt to promise a Babylonian Exodus, John in Revelation uses the image of Babylon within his own context, and calls for the people to come out of her. Now obviously this isn’t a call to leave the literal city of Babylon, it had long ago ceased to be politically relevant, rather Babylon in John’s Revelation represents the empire of the day,

Empire doesn’t just mean Babylonian and roman empires, but has come to mean all forms of oppressive political and economic systems that stand in opposition to the Kingdom of God.

John’s revelation calls for an end to the Adulterous relationship of the church with Babylon. John’s message is active, we are supposed to come out of her, to resist oppression and evil rather than to benefit from said corruption.

         

While the weapons of empire are coercion and violence, hate and fear, the weapons of the Kingdom of heaven are love and mercy.

I think I read St Francis of Assisi’s Prayer last time I preached so I’ll read only a short portion this time:

Lord, make me an instrument of Your peace. Where there is hatred, let me sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; where there is sadness, joy.

       

There is a growing tide of hate and fear these days, God calls us to bring hope and love.

While the empire wants us to fear the other, to close borders and build walls, we are called to build bridges and open our arms wide to embrace the other.

While the empire sees nature as resources to be exploited and extracted, citizens of God’s kingdom seek to care for God’s creation.

While women, people of colour, members of the LGBT community, and numerous other forms of minorities fear for their physical wellbeing in the empire, they should feel safe within the church.

As Gandalf once said “Some believe it is only great power that can hold evil in check, but that is not what I have found. It is the small everyday deeds of ordinary folk that keep the darkness at bay. Small acts of kindness and love.”

 When Jesus said “love your enemy and pray for those who persecute you,” he meant it.

So what does this have to do with Habakkuk chapter 3? Habakkuk’s prayer is a message of hope. It’s reminds us that God is in control.

As the empire encroaches around us, intimidates us, makes us feel stupid for loving our enemies, tells us to give up on keeping our waters safe from pollution, when we face real consequences for our faith, we can hang on to the hope that comes in the knowledge that The Lord our God is Sovereign, and that He is in command. As Oscar Wilde wrote “Everything is going to be fine in the end. 
If it's not fine it's not the end.”

Jesus is coming back. God is in charge, and our hope is in him, just as Habakkuk’s was all those years ago. Amen,

Embodying Resurrection: Luke 24 and Acts 3

I preached the following sermon this past Sunday (April 19th) at Riverton Fellowship Circle. The texts I am referring to are Luke 24:36-48 and Acts 3:12-19.

This week’s story comes from the Gospel of Luke.

Following Easter Sunday, which we celebrated 2 weeks ago, the disciples were confused and afraid.

 They had heard that Jesus has risen, but many of them were still confused? How is this possible? How could Jesus be alive?

They saw him on that cross outside of Jerusalem just a couple of days ago, crying out to God: “My God, My God, Why have you forsaken me?”

Was this rumour of Jesus being alive some sort of ploy by the romans to make them come out of hiding? Crucifixion is the sentence for rebels, If their Rabbi was killed for leading a rebellion, maybe the romans wanted to capture his followers so they could face the same punishment.

but it was Mary Magdalene and the other women that supported them that said that the tomb was empty, and Simon Peter, Jesus’ second in command says that he saw Jesus. Both are people that they could trust  And just a couple of minutes ago two disciples came into the door saying that they had walked all the way to Emmaus with Jesus, and that he had explained to them why the Messiah had to suffer.

Their confusion only increased when suddenly Jesus is there. It’s a Ghost! Oooooooooooooooooooh!

Or at least they thought it was a ghost.

But Jesus shows them that he is real.

He tells them  Look at my hands and my feet. It’s me! Touch me and see; a ghost doesn’t have flesh and bones, as you see I do.”

They touch him, but somehow the disciples are still suspicious, so Jesus tells them to get him food, apparently even if you can touch them, Ghosts still can’t eat.

Then once he’s proven that it is him, he explains how this has happened:

He says:

“This is what I told you while I was still with you: Everything must be fulfilled that is written about me in the Law of Moses, the Prophets and the Psalms.”

Even though everything they needed to know about Jesus was available in the old Testament, the disciples still needed Jesus to make it real before they could understand.

David Steinmetz explains this in his article: Uncovering a Second Narrative: Detective fiction and the Construction of Historical method.

When you read a Sherlock Holmes, or an Agatha Christie novel, three things happen:

First you read the main story where the detective goes around looking for clues, while obviously something happened, you aren’t quite sure what, you don’t know who did it.

Secondly the detective reveals who did and how.

Finally the detective walks you through the original story and explains how everything makes sense with this new information.

This is what Jesus is doing. The Disciples knew the story of the Law, the Prophets and the Psalms, but they were still waiting for someone to save them.

Then Jesus comes, lives a life telling them they are saved, but he’s crucified

Now that he has returned from the grave, he explains how the old testament told his story, even if they didn’t know how to read it.

Finally he sends them out telling them to preach:

“ repentance for the forgiveness of sins to be preached in his name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem.^”

They need to go out and preach repentance for forgiveness of sins.

And just as Jesus first presented the real world evidence of his resurrection: by letting them touch him and by eating their food, before he presented the textual basis for his resurrection, Jesus’ followers need to demonstrate the real world evidence of what repentence looks like before we can expect the people we are talking to to listen to what we have to say.

We are the hands and feet that Jesus tells the wanderers to look at to see the resurrection.. We are the evidence that sparks people to look at their own lives and change.

For me, the people's whose actions allowed me to understand the good news are my grandparents

Donald Wenger  was the son of a Farmer, Born in Pennsylvania to a conservative Mennonite family, he was called into pastoral ministry by the drawing of lots.

Back then, when they needed a new pastor, they would pick a couple people from the congregation and put their names in the songbooks, shuffle the song books around, and then pick one. The person whose name was picked was then their pastor.

Even though he didn’t feel qualified to be a pastor because he was not familiar with the bible, he still pastored in pennsylvannia for several years because that is what GOd was telling the community. Then he was given the opportunity to learn more about the bible at a small school in southern Ontario, he brought his wife and 4 children to Kitchener, a city about an hour south west of Toronto. Where my Dad was born.

While studying there, a congregation learned about this student and asked him to be their pastor, letting him use his class notes for his sermons. He led three congregations in southern Ontario before being led to leave the ministry to start a cheese and meat store in Toronto, then become an insurance sales person, and finally a Christian book distributor. But the whole time he showed what it meant to be a follower of God. He read his bible, he loved his family, and he helped those around him any way he could.

My Grandmother Ruth, worked as a cashier in a general store, then as a teacher before becoming a mother to five children, she walked diligently alongside my grandfather, together they sponsored a family of Laotian refugees who now consider Don and Ruth Wenger as their own parents. She also has her own ministries. She covers all of us in prayer every day. And drives other people in their retirement complex to get groceries. Now that my Grandfather has dementia and can’t read anymore, she reads the bible to him daily. They embody resurrection living to me. They love each other, and everyone that comes into contact with them very much.

I didn’t know how much an impact they made until I was a freshman in university. I attended a congregation in Toronto, and the second week I was there, I told someone my full name and they recognized it.

 It turns out that 40 years ago, my grandparents had attended that very congregation, and had shown them the same love then that I had witnessed myself. They remembered my grandparents as people who cared for those who needed help. And 40 years later they were still a part of that congregation’s story.

I look at the story of my grandparents and see God at work, building his resurrection community. My grandparents embody lives transformed by following God, and seeing that transformation, their grandchildren are able to then listen to the biblical story, believe, and repent, seeking God’s forgiveness and transformation.

Let’s go back to the bible, Just before the Acts text we read today, a couple of weeks after Jesus' appearance, the disciples were walking to the temple and Peter and John healed a lame beggar. This leads to the part we read today. When people question what they’ve done, Peter and John are able to teach them the gospel. Telling them about Jesus, and how the people in Jerusalem had killed him, and how he was resurrected.

They demonstrated the transforming power of the Gospel through their healing, then they teach them the gospel of Jesus Christ. Telling them to turn to God so their sins may be forgiven, and their lives transformed.

Let’s be like those disicples, who demonstrate the resurrection power in their lives, and share the gospel, even if they are afraid at first.

Let’s be like my grandparent’s whose lives act as witnesses to the faith they taught me and my cousins.

Let’s embody Christ’s resurrection for those that come after us. So that when they see how we live, and listen to what we say, they too will repent and follow Jesus.

The River of Life

The following is a short meditation I gave today at Sargent Mennonite Church's  fall retreat:

Have you ever noticed how the Bible's writers don't understand basic geography?

In the book of Genesis, at the beginning of time, God put us in a garden. From the Garden flowed a river, and that river divided into four rivers, the Pishon, Gihon, Tigris and Euphrates.

The problem with this image is that rivers don't work this way, rivers start at as tiny streams forming from melting mountain snow or rainfall and flow down hill, as they flow they meet more streams and form into a river, more and more rivers connect and eventually it flows into the ocean.

But geography lessons aside, the bible tells us that a river flows out of Eden, and this is important. This is the unfolding story of humanity, a story of life flowing out of Eden.

Between the Tigris and the Euphrates, a city was built, and was called Babylon... or as we know it in the Hebrew Babel, The Babylonians built a massive step-pyramid, with hanging gardens. It was here at Babel that humanity gets dispersed, and spreads throughout the whole world.

In the Revelation of John we see a reversal, where previously we were scattered because of a city we now see a gathering together of the nations into a new city, a new Jerusalem, the city of God. God will live on earth among God's people. Again basic geography goes out the window and from God's throne there flows a new river, this time it is the river of life. On either side of the river is the tree of life, whose fruit is the healing of all the nations.

As the church, we are the beginning of that new city. When Jesus was on earth he proclaimed “The Kingdom of God is at hand” The Kingdom of God, where God reigns, began during his earthly ministry, but when Jesus left this earth, it wasn't done, instead he left the church behind to continue bringing about the kingdom. To continue working at it.

Now, during yesterday's discussion some of is noted how As humans we are incapable of bringing the kingdom of God in it's fullness, Revelation shows that this will only happen when Jesus returns, and yet that doesn't mean we don't work at it. We participate in a Kingdom that is already, and not yet, and we invite others to join us in that Kingdom.

Like the river that flows from the city, we are called to go out into the world, and like the river flowing out of Eden, we break geographical bounds and spread out, travelling north and south and east and west. As we travel we come in contact with other people, and the Gospel, the good news of Jesus Christ, the Tree of Life, which surrounds us on both sides is offered as a way of healing all the nations.

If God's word isn't the light guiding my feet, then what's the point?

[The Following is a sermon I gave at River of Life Fellowship in Kitchener on August 4, 2013, probably one of the most well received sermons I've ever given. The Anabaptist history I share is oversimplified, Polygenesis and Muenster aren't really addressed, but hey, I was only given 15 minutes]

I often think that I am one of the luckiest people alive, I get to study the bible full time. I get to explore this book over and over and over, there's so much to be studied in here,

Think about it, an Infinite Creator, God, has revealed Godself in this book, it so fantastic, and there’s so much to explore.

People end up studying just a small section their entire lives.  I know people who just study Old Testament, or the Prophets, or the role of women, or atonement theory, their entire careers as biblical scholars.

However, If I just spend my life reading the bible, about penal substitution atonement theory, Gnosticism, or amillenialism or some other theological concept, and it doesn't impact my life, If God's word isn't the light guiding my feet, then what's the point?

But this isn't just my story.

River of Life Fellowship is part of a conference of churches called Mennonite Church Eastern Canada, which is itself a part of a larger denomination called Mennonite Church Canada. As Mennonites we trace our historic roots back to the Radical Reformation of the 16th Century.

In 1517, Martin Luther started the Protestant Reformation, and tried to change Christendom to be more biblical, soon his reformation spread from Germany across Western Europe. In the city of Zurich Switzerland the leader is Ulrich Zwingli. Zwingli has gotten the city council to support his reforms and ended the practice fasting during lent, allowed clergy to marry, and removed images from the sanctuary. Eventually about half of Switzerland would join his reformation.

It is now the 1520s as part of his reformation he had young people study the bible together. One group of these people was led by Conrad Grebel, Grebel along with Anna and Felix Manz and George Blaurock amongst others, got together to read the scriptures. As they read the scriptures they became convinced of a couple things.

1. That Baptism was a sign of commitment to the body of Christ

2. That You had to be able to make the decision to follow Jesus for yourself, that just because you are a citizen of an area, that doesn't mean you automatically have the same faith as everyone else there.

 And because of these convictions that they should cease the practice of infant baptism.

However when they brought these beliefs to Zwingli and the Zurich city council, they were told to shut up

The City Council couldn't agree to this idea because they used Infant Baptism records as a way of knowing who citizens of the city are, and consequently who they could tax. If they didn't have these records, then they wouldn't be able to tax properly.

However, because they couldn't find evidence in scriptures to support this practice, this young bible study group couldn't support this practice, and because they believed that Scripture should be the guide for their lives, they knew that they couldn't stay quiet. So they continued to challenge the city council on this issue.

Eventually on January 21, 1525 they were told that if they didn't stop their arguments, that they would face imprisonment.

That night, at their bible study, they were trying to figure out what to do, when George Blaurock, a man known for his passionate quest for the truth turned to Conrad Grebel and asked for God's sake to baptize him with the true Christian baptism upon his faith and understanding. After Conrad baptized him, George went around the room and baptized the rest of the group. And with this they broke with the official reformation, and started the Swiss Branch of the Anabaptist movement.

This wasn't an act of rebellion, but rather they were trying to be faithful to what they read in scripture

This young group continued to read scripture, and as they read the scriptures their paths were shown to them, Harold Bender, a professor of History between world wars one and two refers to their ideals as the Anabaptist Vision: The Anabaptists were reading Scriptures, and their paths were being shown to them, they could see what God wanted from them:

 Bender posited discipleship, i.e., following Jesus in life and under the cross, as the essence of Anabaptism, especially by comparison with Protestantism. He contrasted discipleship to faith (Luther), the first leading to patterns of Christian life, the second to theology.

Jesus is the center of the Anabaptist vision. They saw Jesus is the center of the Scriptures, Jesus is the one the Prophets promised would come, who would reconcile the world to its creator. Jesus is the one who died and saved us, Jesus is the one who calls us to come and follow him. And they saw that following Jesus meant changes to their lives

They saw that following Jesus meant a new church, with voluntary membership you aren't just a Christian because your parents were, you are a Christian because you've made that decision yourself

 Love and nonresistance applied to all human relationships. They looked at the Sermon on the Mount, and saw lessons about loving your enemy, and praying for those who persecute you,

They saw the message of giving to the needy, and not being showy about their religious activity.

But the Anabaptists also learned that Following Jesus isn't going to be popular, the new group of Anabaptists were immediately persecuted,

Like the Psalmist says 110 The wicked have set a snare for me,

    but I have not strayed from your precepts.

111 Your statutes are my heritage forever

within a short period of time, this group of Anabaptists were persecuted and in less than 5 years they were all dead, but because they took seriously the call of Matthew 28: Go into all of the world making disciples, baptising believers in the name of the father son and holy spirit, as a movement they lived on.

Around 1610 in Württemberg, in what is now southwest Germany, the Anabaptist Margaret simply refused to go to the parish church to take part in the Lutheran Mass.  Instead she insisted on going round to her neighbors’ houses to talk with other women about God’s love.  With Margaret’s help, the neighbors would talk about God in their kitchens.  The authorities were outraged at this. They interrogated Margaret, whom they called “stiff-necked”, and chained her to her kitchen floor so she couldn’t go to the neighbors’ kitchens.  But this did not stifle Margaret.  The criminal records of her town report that over the next eleven years Margaret escaped from her chains no fewer than 21 times and went right back to her subversive testimony-giving. And 22 times they locked her up again

As I said earlier we started to love our enemies. Dirk Willems, another Anabaptist was thrown in jail. But eventually he lost so much weight that he was able to squeeze through the prison bars and escape. As he ran away, he crossed over a frozen lake, his captor behind him.

Because Dirk had lost so much weight the ice could hold him, but it broke under the weight of his warden, and he fell through. Dirk could have kept going and be in the clear, but instead he turned around and pulled the man from the ice. Dirk was re-arrested, and killed because he took love your enemies seriously.

 When we started living out our faith, we had to defend our actions with words. Our persecutors had to take to cutting out tongues before they burned us at the stake because even when we were about to die, we couldn't stop preaching the good news. Many people came to a radical, deeply personal belief in Jesus Christ because of the lives and testimonies of our martyrs.

The Swiss Anabaptists met people in France, Germany and the Netherlands who believed the same thing, and they started sharing preachers, and ideas, and worked together, but everywhere they faced persecution.

My Ancestors moved west in the hopes of freedom crossing over the Atlantic and ended up in Pennsylvania before moving here to Ontario, Others moved west into Russia, where they were joined by those from the Netherlands where they stayed until they were forced out in either the soviet revolution or world war two, and again ended up in Canada, the united states and surprisingly Latin America.

But through this time, we developed a hermeneutic, a way of understanding scriptures, where scripture gets interpreted within the community. We see this here in river of life where we are in a discussion on the act of communion

But we also do this in the broader church as well.

In 1527, two years after the first adult baptism, Anabaptists met together and wrote a document called the Schleitheim Confession. Where together they expressed the truths they were reading about in scripture and how they wanted to live this out.

Since then there have been numerous times where we have done this, and in 1995, Mennonites from across North America wrote this book, the Confession of Faith in a Mennonite Perspective.

This book is significant because a few years later the two conferences that wrote it, the GC and MC churches actually joined into Mennonite Church Canada, based on the fact that they shared these convictions.

In it they wrote "We acknowledge Scripture as the Authoritative source and standard for preaching and teaching about faith and life, for distinguishing truth from error, for discerning between good and evil, and for guiding prayer and worship. Other claims on our understanding of Christian faith and life, such as tradition, culture, experience, reason, and political powers, need to be tested and corrected by the light of Holy Scripture"

The Most recent attempt at group interpretation of scripture was by the Mennonite World Conference in 2006, as a global church we have agreed to, among others these shared convictions:

God is known to us as Father, Son and Holy Spirit, the Creator who seeks to restore fallen humanity by calling a people to be faithful in fellowship, worship, service and witness.

Jesus is the Son of God. Through his life and teachings, his cross and resurrection, he showed us how to be faithful disciples, redeemed the world, and offers eternal life.

As a church, we are a community of those whom God's Spirit calls to turn from sin, acknowledge Jesus Christ as Lord, receive baptism upon confession of faith, and follow Christ in life.

As a faith community, we accept the Bible as our authority for faith and life, interpreting it together under Holy Spirit guidance, in the light of Jesus Christ to discern God's will for our obedience.

The Spirit of Jesus empowers us to trust God in all areas of life so we become peacemakers who renounce violence, love our enemies, seek justice, and share our possessions with those in need.

Each time, we write a document like this, we are saying this is the truth we see in the scriptures, and we are committing to live it out.

Today we live in a much different World than the 16th Century Anabaptists, instead of a world where everyone is a Christian, and the biggest fight is which type of Christianity to be a part of, we now live in a world where few are Christians. Skepticism is all the rage, Richard Dawkins book, the God Delusion has sold over 2million copies. People look at the past and see all of the skeletons in our closet. Wars fought in the name of the prince of Peace. People killed for not believing in the one who died for us. Even the Anabaptists have a checkered past,  at times our biblical literalism meant that some Anabaptists took the teaching to have faith like a child t mean they should literally behave like a child, going goo goo ga ga, and playing with infants’ toys. At another time,  Anabaptists in Munster took to violence to bring about the kingdom

People are going to keep ridiculing us, and are going to keep looking for ways to shut us up. They don't want to hear the good news, the radical news of Jesus Christ. And so will do anything in their power to silence us

But worse than skepticism is Apathy. Most people would rather sleep in, or go for brunch than come to church on Sunday.

 We now live in a world where biblical literacy is very low. Where if I said, even in a lot of churches turn to the book of Elijah, people would start flipping through their bibles, before realizing that Elijah doesn't have his own book. He's part of the book of Kings.

When our faith becomes that of the Psalmist, whose feet is guided by the light of scripture, even though he faced much suffering

When our faith becomes that of the Anabaptists, who read the good news of Jesus Christ, and start to live it out in their daily lives. Responding to God’s word even in the midst of persecution

When our actions and our words point to the good news we read about in scripture

We will see a new reformation,

One as radical as the Anabaptists, our forbears

One where people will see our good works and say I want to follow Jesus too.

And the world will know that Jesus Christ is Lord.

Community and Creation Care

[The Following Sermon was given at Steinmann Mennonite Church on July 7, 2013. This also marks the last sermon I have there. I do have one next week at River of Life Fellowship, but soon this will have more essays that I write].

A reading of Genesis 2 can be tricky because there is something lost in translation. In Hebrew the word for humanity, the word for a male human (man), and the name of the first human are all the same, Adam, coming from the word Adamuh which means dirt. This makes sense from a Genesis 2 perspective when there is only one human, so that human, Adam would embody all three.

When God put the man God had created into the Garden, God realized that something was missing. He realizes that it is not good for Adam to be alone, so God tries to find a helper, he brings all of the animals to Adam, they like Adam had been formed from the dirt, but they weren't suitable helper's for Adam’s work in caring for creation. Oh I'm sure the chimpanzee was pretty close, their opposable thumbs would be great for doing the gardening, but their lack of language meant they probably wouldn't have been a good conversationalist.

At this point God could have said, I tried, but I just haven't made anything that will work. Instead, God returns to the process of creating, and makes one more thing. But where previously God had said "let there be" and there was, this time, we read about a whole new creative process. God puts significant time and effort into this creation because God knows how important this is.

God makes Adam Sleep, and then takes his Tsela, which while it is often translated Rib, a more accurate understanding would be "side" or "Half."

God takes this side of Adam, and forms it into a woman, a suitable helper for him.  They are compatible physically, emotionally, visually.

When the first Adam meets this newly created partner, he says "This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called 'woman; for she was taken out of man" This statement isn't about some little rib, but rather an equal.

Now that there is difference in gender, the language changes, we are no longer talking about Adam, Here we can see differences of gender in the language, Woman is Ishshah, which comes from iysh, or Man.

The fact that Ishshah come from Iysh is not intended to be a statement of gender dominance, the two humans now living in the garden are supposed to be equals.  The woman is described as a suitable helper, helper, the same word that Israel uses to describe God when they were in trouble. Adam, the first human being, has been divided in two, and consequently the rest of humanity has a new division.

But why? From my perspective, the human in the Garden didn't appear to be missing anything, everything Ishshah had, was part of the original creation, but the separation into two humans, the division into male and female had to serve a purpose, but what?

And God said, it is not good for man to be alone

God saw the Human need for community, a need derived from the fact that we are created in the divine Image.

As NT Wright Says, “the creator loved the world he had made, and wanted to look after it the best possible way. To that end, he placed in his world a looking after creature, a creature who would demonstrate to the creation who he, the creator, really was, and who would set to work developing the creation and making it flourish and fulfill its purpose. This Looking-after creature (or rather, this family of creatures: the human race) would model and embody that interrelatedness, that mutual and fruitful knowing, trusting and loving, which was the Creator's intention. Relationship was part of the way in which we were meant to be fully human, not for our own sake, but as part of a much larger scheme of things."

This act of creating community shows God's goodness, and willingness to work within God's creation. In other Creation stories, the gods don't care about humans. In Babylon we made too much noise so Tiamat tried to kill us resulting in a giant flood. In Greece we are a necessary nuisance that Zeus kept around so we could keep giving the Olympian gods sacrifices.

But for our God, we are important, beings God makes because God wanted us to be God's representatives on earth.

The Triune God, The Creator, sustainer and redeemer, the Father, son and Holy Spirit, is a perfect example of perfect community. While it may not be easy to understand, we catch a glimpse of this unity in diversity amongst ourselves.

God, three distinct beings, and yet perfectly united, needed a representative on earth who would also be separate but together

So God creates humans, distinct and yet united in one through the act of community. We are then entrusted with the Garden, and in fact the whole earth, to care for it, and help it be the best, the healthiest, the most beautiful it could be.

man, we screwed that up

If we look at the world today, we see an earth marked by deforestation, 13 million hectares are destroyed each year, so we can have land to grow food, and wood to make everything from toilet paper to houses. This is resulting in many animals losing their habitats

When I was in Guatemala in 2009 we visited a community, Panabaj that lived in a valley, when logging companies came into the area, there were no longer tree roots to hold together the soil, and now they've had to rebuild their entire town twice because of mudslides

Because we release fossil fuels into the air (carbon dioxide from burning oil in our cars and Methane from the animals we eat), the heat from the sun which used to hit the earth, and bounce off us, gets stuck in the atmosphere, causing global rises in temperature. Last summer's drought was connected to this heat, I was working on a farm and we barely got 2 cuts of hay instead of the usual three or four so there is a hay shortage this year.

When we think about the environment

We need to remember the story in Matthew 25 where a man going on a journey entrusts his servants with his wealth, to one he gave 5 bags of gold, to one gave 2 bags and another he gave one bag. While he was gone, the first two put their money to work, investing it in business and doubling what they had been given, while the third one buried it for safe keeping. When the man returned, he was very happy with the two who had invested the wealth and rewarded them, but when he got to the servant who had buried his bag, he was very mad.

Right now, as a human race we haven't invested what we've been given, we haven't even hidden it, we've taken that money and gone to MacDonald’s and gorged ourselves on big macs. We've wasted the earth God has entrusted to us.

And then there’s the global community we were supposed to be:

After the passage we read in Genesis, in the next chapter we, as humans, break the only rule we've ever been given and eat the fruit, the chapter after that we started killing each other, soon we see all levels of rape, gendercide, genocide, we see utter rebellion against God time after time. Soon this united humanity becomes so divided in heart that we become divided on the outside, becoming many different nations with different languages

We've managed to overpopulate the planet, Already we are at over 7 billion people.  The world needs to increase food production by 50 percent in 30 years if we want to keep with expected growth, something that won't happen without more deforestation so we will have more land to grow food on.

Not to mention increased need for expanded health care, sanitation, and education systems, systems that are already taxed.

3.1 million Children died from hunger last year

94 children were killed between 2006 and 2009 by CIA drone strikes in Pakistan's tribal areas.

Thousands of civilians have been killed by Allied and Insurgent forces in Afghanistan, a war we are participating in.

156 358 were waiting for affordable housing in Ontario last year

If world is a village, and the United States is the world's police officer, Canada would be the world's miner. We own 75 percent of global mining companies, not just up north in the Canadian shield, but we also own operations in countries as diverse Diamonds in South Africa, and coltan in Democratic Republic of Congo, gold in Guatemala

In Guatemala, these companies are using explosives to gain access to the minerals underneath the ground and once they start run open-pit mining operations.

I spent a couple days in San Marcos, a Guatemalan community up the hill from an open pit mining operation.

       

        The explosives that the mining companies use have caused cracking in the houses of people in the area. The company claims that it is because of inferior building techniques, but these houses have been fine for years before the mining companies came in, and an NGO has brought in scientists whose initial findings link the cracks in the houses to the mining operations.

       

As with many mining endeavors, communities near the mines suffer from skin rashes, but while the rashes usually occur after seven or 8 years of the mine’s opening, they are happening within a few years in Guatemala.

Less than one percent of all wealth mined from Guatemala stays within the country, next to no jobs go to Guatemalan workers,

        The people of Guatemala are opposed to the mining operations. Trying to appease the people, the government set up community consultations, which is a Guatemalan tradition. As of 2009 when I visited, 32 consultations had been conducted, all across Guatemala, and at every single consultation there has been a resounding no to mining. Guatemala has a population of 13 million people, of those thirteen million people, 5 million have been consulted, of those 5 million, only 500 have said yes to the mining, that’s a ratio of 10000 to 1, but the government is too afraid of Canadian big business to stop it.

If we humans are supposed to be a community of caring for the world we live in and for each other, we are doing a bang up job.

These are things we are directly implicated in. Wars fought on our behalf, or extracting of natural resources for our benefit. Everything I've mentioned here is because we are more concerned about ourselves than the people and the world around us.

There's a reason apple one of the most popular brands in the world. It’s all about me myself and i. iPhone, iPad, iMac.

We care more about ourselves individually than the the people or the world around us.

Up until now I have been giving you a whole lot of bad news. But I do finally have some good news.

2000 years ago, there lived somebody who didn't think about himself

A man who reached out to those around him, and invited others to join him

A man who challenged the self-serving establishments of his day and payed the ultimate price, not just for himself, but for all of us.

Jesus Christ called together a new community, where everyone's needs is met

Where we are called to live faithfully, sharing his good news to the world around us.

We are called to be faithful stewards of the earth, not because it's going to benefit us in any way, but as a return to our original mission.

The environment has been permanently scarred.  There is no way to stop the effects of Global warming, ice caps are melting, sea-tides are rising, and species are dead and dying.

But we must listen to the wisdom of the Iroquois nation, who have for a long time taught 7 generation sustainability. We need to make decisions not just for our own benefits, but also think about what will happen in seven generations time. Is cutting down this forest for paper going to benefit our great-great-great-great-great grandchildren, or is the fact that they will not have clean, breathable air more important?

We are doing it, within the church we have groups like Christian Peacemaker Teams, who work to bring peace in places where we have and are fighting.

We have community organizations which work to rebuild broken relationships

we have organizations like Mennonite Central Committee who shares "God's love and compassion for all in the name of Christ by responding to basic human needs and working for peace and justice. MCC envisions communities worldwide in right relationship with God, one another and creation."

It was MCC that took me to Panabaj and San Marcos where they are working alongside members of the community to prevent more environmental damage.

The Canadian Foodgrains Bank is "a collection of churches and church based agencies working to end global hunger. Canadian Foodgrains Bank is rooted in the belief that humankind is created in the image of God and that it is God’s desire that no person should go hungry. The availability of food and access to that food is fundamental to life itself. Food is required to sustain life, to provide the strength for work, and to share in the fellowship of one’s family and community"

We have organizations like A Rocha whose vision is "the transformation of people and places into healthy communities through a movement of individuals and groups, caring for God’s world.

Restoring salmon habitat, training young scientists, inspiring school children, feeding low-income families–A Rocha is transforming people and places through hands-on conservation projects, environmental education programs and sustainable agriculture initiatives."

As a church we are rebuilding the community God gave us back at the beginning, it is this community that is starting to care for the creation God's given us. However, these organizations won't do much if God's people, you and I don't do our part. They need our support to fund, fill volunteer roles, advocate. As individuals we can't sit by or else as a group we won't do anything. We need to be God's representatives on earth just as God intended it.

[Interestingly, Ryan Robinson, the Emerging Anabaptist, wrote a blog post on genesis 2 this week as well, and we share some points.]