Building Longer Bridges

The following is the last sermon that I gave at North Kildonan Mennonite Church.

Hello!

I have a friend named Paul. Paul is the outgoing youth pastor at Douglas Mennonite Church. Paul has decided to go back to school, but before he leaves his congregation, he left them a gift. Paul wrote a book called Before I go, in it he records his 9 most important devotionals from the past 10 years of ministry. He had this book professionally printed and gave a copy to each of his youth.

This Sermon is my “Before I go,” This is my last Sunday here, next weekend I’m taking the youth on a retreat, Wednesday the 23^rd we have a final chat and play and then I’m gone.

As I leave, I offer you a vision for what North Kildonan Mennonite Church could become. While you might not agree with the specific recommendations that I am going to make I trust that you can at least appreciate the underlying ideas and take them for yourself.

Two months ago, it was my turn to give the devotional at worship committee. We each take turns bringing in an article, or a poem, or an excerpt from a book that we think speaks to us.

I brought in this book: Preparing Sunday Dinner by June Alliman Yoder, Marlene Kropf and Rebecca Slough.

In it, one of the authors, tells a story. Growing up, she often heard her parents say “there’s always room for one more” meaning that they made their resources- beds, chairs, or food at the dinner table, generously available to guests. Sometimes there wasn’t room on the family’s main dinner table, so they would bring out card tables. Her mother would insist that the card table receive the same fine table cloth and bouquet of flowers that the main table had. In no way were the extra quests to be made to feel second-class.

Later she references the Mennonite Central Committee Cookbooks “More with Less” and “Extending the Table” describing how these books have encouraged generations of cooks to expand their culinary horizons. I myself make a mean Pakistani Kima.

The author’s point is that it might be easier to make room on our dinner table, and to try new foods than it is to extend the table of worship. Planning worship that includes people of all ages, differing cultures and economic groups, and varying theological perspectives can be difficult, but it is the mission of the church. Each element of worship has the potential to either be an act of hospitality or to be a barrier preventing others from joining us in worship.

I’d like to take it a step further and suggest that every aspect of how we live in community can do the same because as James H. Charlesworth from Princeton Theological Seminary said:

“Jesus was trying to break down barriers that separated people. All these Tremendous Barriers; Jesus was a barrier breaker.”

Someone on reddit once said, “If you are more fortunate than others, it's better to build a longer table than a taller fence.”

I want to propose Three things that we can do to be more hospitable.

Three different tables that we need to build longer.

First, we should build a longer dinner table

Last Winter, the young adult group was facing a bit of a slump, As you know Maginot Lion meets every week on Tuesdays. Usually for a bible study or a games night. In January and February we were only having 4 or 5 young adults out on a Tuesday. Then Valentines Day happened to fall on a Tuesday, so Chris let us know that he was bringing soup, and 12 young adults showed up. Two weeks later was Pancake Tuesday so we had a breakfast food potluck, and this time 16 young adults came including guests! That’s when we learned that the way to a young adult’s heart is through their stomach and we’ve been having monthly meals since.

One of the single greatest things that NKMC does in this community is to serve as a Winnipeg Harvest distribution site. It is really impressive to watch the volunteers run the distribution line. It is in spaces like that where our congregation truly acts as the church.

A couple of years ago, Gary discovered that there were a fair number of families in our congregation with classic vehicles, slowly he and a group of congregants put together a plan to hold our first annual Show and Shine. On Pentecost, they threw a bunch of hotdogs on the barbecue parked their cars with the hoods up, and invited everyone to check out their sweet rides.

And people came. There were tons of people from the community, people that have never had any connection with NKMC besides the fact that they live close by. In fact so many people came that we ran out of hot dogs! Someone ran to the store to get more so that the party didn’t stop.

What if we did this regularly? What if we had more meals that we invited the community to? What if we posted on our sign when we were having a potluck? Or our Christmas dinner? What if we hosted more events in the parking lot? Members of our Geographic community might feel more welcome to come and join us!

One of the primary reasons I’ve been told we don’t do that is because we are concerned about making sure we have enough food for everyone.

As we have seen with the show and shine, running out of food isn’t a problem. If push comes to shove we can run to the store to get more!

As Pastor Franz said last week, “You Can tell a lot about people by the parties they put on.”

In scripture Jesus tells a story about a feast, but when the feast was ready nobody who was invited came they all claimed that they were too busy, so the host had to send his servants into the highways and byways to find the poor and the lame and invited them to come to the table.

We prepare great feasts on a regular basis, perhaps it’s time we break down the walls of this church and open it up to those in our community.

The next type of table that we should build longer is the Board table.

By this, I mean we need to invite more voices into how we make decisions.

When you consider how to move forward, my hope is that you find ways to include the youth and young adults in meaningful dialogue. They need to feel like their voices are valued.

 In the Great Law of the Iroquois Confederacy there is what’s known as the Seventh Generation Principle. It says that every decision we make should result in a sustainable world seven generations into the future.

It’s a principle often used in regards to environmental stewardship, but the Iroquois saw it more holistically, including sustaining relationships.

When we make decisions as a church, do we consider how our decisions will affect future generations?

Will there be a North Kildonan Mennonite Church in Seven generations?

We have benefitted from those that have gone before us. Those who have made it possible for us to have faith.

What can we do to encourage our children and our children’s children to follow Jesus?

Recently at a Youth Minister’s Fellowship, we were discussing the Fuller Youth Institute’s “Growing Young” research. Churches are both shrinking and aging as more young people disengage. Based on research with over 250 American churches, Growing Young is a strategy to involve and retain young people. 

One of the key points in this research is giving youth the keys to the church.

Now, clearly, this refers to the metaphorical keys, and not physical keys. Giving the youth the keys to the church means giving them real, tangible responsibilities.

But more than giving them responsibilities, it means giving them the ability to have their voices heard.

One of the other youth pastors suggested that when we hand the keys to the church over to our youth, that they will open different doors than what we are expecting, and that this is a good thing.

Two years ago, Mennonite Church Canada’s Future Directions Taskforce released what was supposed to be their final recommendations, which in light of current economic realities called for severe structural changes to our denominational offices. This included many layoffs from key positions, as well as eliminating or transferring ownership of certain programs.

Many people were upset, I know I was upset when I heard that the faith formation worker was released. So a group of students from Canadian Mennonite University got together and wrote a series of documents responding to the recommendations. Calling ourselves the Emerging Voices Initiative, we sought to bring in voices that weren’t heard in the initial consultation. This included Missions workers, their mission partners, and young voices. Our blog became a major partner in the ongoing restructuring process.

When working groups were put together to work on the recommendations, we noticed that the “token young person” on them were mostly in their 30s. So we reached out, and several of our members joined the teams.

We weren’t given the keys to the church, we had to actively reach out and take them. Of course when we did take them, MC Canada was more than willing to give them to us, but what if this had been different? What if instead of laying off a formation consultant tasked with helping child grow in faith, we hired more of them? IF we want the church to survive into the future, we need to encourage children to own their faith. What if MC Canada had included all of these voices earlier in their deliberations?

 North Kildonan is facing similar demographic challenges that the National church is facing. Look around this sanctuary. The congregation is getting older. It is a simple matter of demographics. Families aren’t having as many kids as previously, and people move away for a variety of reasons. If this church doesn’t attract young families in the next 10 to 20 years, the congregation will not survive.

If we believe that what we’ve built is worth preserving, then we need to be willing to allow new ideas.

Human beings don’t like to change the status quo. We’ve realized that if we find the safe option and stick with it we will be comfortable. We are like a ship in a harbour during the storm. John Shedd once said “A ship in harbor is safe — but that is not what ships are built for.” Young people can have ideas that are radically different than what we have done previously and can bring in a new life to this congregation.

However if we put them on the spot and ask them for their ideas, they are going to go blank. But if we find ways for their voices to be heard and they are encouraged to bring ideas forward as they develop, then they will feel welcome to continue bringing ideas forward.

The Third table that needs to be made longer is our study desk.

Theology is a messy thing. As Ryan mentioned last month, we are finite created beings trying to describe an infinite, non-created being. We are going to screw up when we do theology.

Take for example the Trinity. We affirm monotheism, that there is only one God, and yet we say that God is three distinct persons. When we try to explain it we can overemphasize one side or the other.

I don’t believe that there is actually a good way to describe the trinity, rather, by formulating and understanding both sides of the discussion, we can rest in the knowledge that the truth is somewhere in the middle.

One of my favourite bible studies that I’ve done with the youth is the bubble study.

In it I describe Rene Descartes’s concept of knowledge structures. Ideas get built on top of other ideas.

But then sometimes we realize that foundational ideas we hold aren’t the truth, and knowledge structures come tumbling down.

I proposed to the youth that instead of knowledge structures, we should make knowledge bubbles. That are made, and are good for a time and then pop, but it’s not the end of the world, because half the fun is in blowing new ones!

We need to hold our theology loosely because we could be wrong, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t do theology.

One example is our stance on Homosexuality. I used to be a staunch defender of the Orthodox, Biblical perspective that marriage is meant for one man and one woman for life. Based on my reading of the scriptures, this was clearly the only way that we could be faithful to scripture.

I knew we hadn’t treated LGBTQ people well in the past. And I thought, we needed to do better at hating the sin but loving the sinner, but scripture was clear!

I had heard that there were theologians who were LGBT affirming, but clearly they weren’t being faithful.

I also have a really good friend, he and I studied Theology and Philosophy together at CMU, and we had many deep, real conversations about our faith. He was a good Christian.

And THEN he came out to me. He told me that he was gay.

This really threw me for a loop. How could my best friend, a good Christian be gay?

So I actually started reading those affirming theologians.

And I found good faithful Christians, who had good hermeneutics and exegesis.

But instead of a beginning with a reading of the law, they began with Jesus, and how He welcomed the outsider in.

These theologians used solid understandings of the historical background of the biblical text to challenge common assumptions about passages like Romans 1, or 1 Corinthians 6:9, etc.

And I realized something.

Both sides of the debate are full of good Christians trying to be faithful to their understandings of scripture.

This debate is ripping apart the church as a whole, it is dividing our denomination. Churches are leaving conference because they can’t be in communion with each other.

When I watch my friend’s siblings refuse to celebrate his birthday with him and his boyfriend. When family members send him emails calling him an abomination. I realize that this can’t be the right way to treat our brothers and sisters in Christ and has pushed me towards a more affirming position.

Just because people disagree with us does not mean that we can’t worship together, work together, be church together.

So again, I say we need to build longer tables so we can invite the outsider in. Tables of food where we can invite those outside our doors in. Tables of decision making where we can invite those who don’t have power to share their voice, tables of study where we can learn from those that disagree with us.

Finally, I want to share how you’ve already extended the table… to me.

When I started here, you took a chance on me. Sure I have a degree in Bible and Theology, but I had no real experience working with youth.

In Fact, Stephanie is better qualified for this job than I ever was. Her degree was Youth Ministry, and she has experience as a sponsor at Sargent.

Thank you for being hospitable to me, and allowing me to develop my gifts for ministry. I know that it can be difficult to understand me sometimes, but I feel like I have improved immensely from where I began.

Thank you to the Children, the youth, and the young adults. And thank you parents. It has been an immense pleasure being a part of your lives. I hope that God has used me some small way.

Thank you for extending the table to my family. Thank you for your support when Simon was in the hospital, and thank you for all of the lovely gifts you gave us. I think that Simon could have a new blanket every night for a month.

As we leave, please extend the table to others as you did to us.

Thank you.

A Theological Defense of Moshing

Last night I went to a metal concert, my friend is in a band called Grand Master, they were launching their EP, and had a concert with three other bands at a local club. During the 3rd band, people began to mosh. While I didn't join in immediately, Grand Master's finale was my favourite song of theirs, so I joined in for the last dance.

Moshing, for those who don't know, is a form of dancing, which is pretty physical, mostly it consists of people flailing their bodies around, pushing each other and other forms of dancing/fighting.

Now, as a Mennonite I believe that peace is a consequence of the Kingdom of God, so from the outside it would seem rather disingenuous for me to participate in it, however, I would like to posit for your consideration that moshing can be theologically justified.

First of all, yes, in some contexts moshing has been known to result in physical injury, however in general, people in a moshpit are hyper-aware of their surroundings, and very careful. If people actually do fall down, people surrounding them stop moshing, and help them up. In general if you fall you aren't going to get hurt.

Secondly, Metal music has a sense of emotionality that is missing from the world around us. We live in a hedonistic utilitarian society where's people do whatever they want and try to maximize their pleasure and minimize their pain. Previously I've talked about how it is okay to be upset, even to the point of wanting to kill babies. Metal music provides a generative outlet for people to express their sorrows, pains, anger, frustration, etc, in a way that is sub-culturely acceptable. It's okay to be angry, it's okay to be depressed, the music speaks to what you are feeling in a way that isn't trivializing it.

Thirdly, people are allowed to respond to these emotions through moshing. Moshing is a physical way to express how you are feeling, if you feel the need to push somebody, to slam all of your body weight against another person, it is okay to do that, nobody takes it personal, in fact, all they are feeling the same way and will push you back.

Fourthly Moshing is voluntary. People go to a metal concert knowing that there is a strong chance that moshing is going to happen if they don't want to mosh, then there is ample space to move away from the pit and continue to enjoy the music.

As such Moshing is an active form of community building. It is a group of people gathered together, listening to the music they feel best expresses themselves and are able to be vulnerable (showing that you aren't okay) with the people around them.


Now, there are going to be cases of people who don't live up to this ideal, people will get hurt, or take it personally, for some it might not be a healthy expression for their feelings. But I would argue that these people are not representative of those I've met in the pit, and that Moshing should be seen as a form of active relationship building

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.]