Death becomes us

My late father, the Rev. James Clare Kellogg, enjoyed almost 20 years of life after his retirement – from Christmas 1987 until his death on June 27, 2007; and they seemed to me like some of the best of his life. In three weeks, I will have enjoyed 20 weeks of retirement, for which I am grateful. But I don’t imagine I will get 20 years. For one, the world situation now seems too challenging.

Not that my father didn’t witness a lot of social upheaval over his nearly 20 years of retirement. There was the Tiananmen Square massacre of June 4, 1989, which brought a Chinese democracy movement to a brutal end; the fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989; the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991; the spread of computer networks (and I fondly remember my father learning to use a Commodore 64 in 1988 and later a Windows PC with which to write sermons for Trinity United Church in Cobourg, where he served part-time in his retirement); the rise of the Internet; 9/11; wars in Afghanistan and Iraq; and so on.

But mostly, Dad’s retirement years focused on the bungalow that he and Mom enjoyed near the shores of Lake Ontario in Cobourg; in his grandchildren, who lived in Cobourg and Toronto; and in maintaining the rhythms of gardening, biking, letter-writing, choral singing, and organ-playing.

Dad and me at his 80th birthday in 2003, his 16th year of retirement.

I wish that like my father I had a relatively placid time in which to experience retirement. But we are fated to live in the times in which we live, and we are now in an era that began with the election of Donald Trump in November 2016, the first fascist leader of the USA,

I had concluded that there was no “happy” end to history in 1982 when I left the small and distorted world of Toronto’s far left. The two groups that I joined between 1976 and 1982 offered me a lot. But both were unable to stay grounded; and so, I was glad that I had brought the environmental concerns and liberatory impulses I had adopted during high school – 1970 to 1975 – with me.

In 1970 at age 13, I had become an environmentalist. That same summer, I read John Holt’s “How Children Learn” and “How Children Fail,” which helped make sense of my previously inchoate distaste for schooling.

Unfortunately, I also entered the Left as a severe neurotic, and my anxiety helps to explain how intellectual and ungrounded so much of my life till then (and till today!) had been.

The second group I joined in early 1978 was undergoing an encounter with radical feminism. We called it “the politics of personal life,” and I sensed how this engagement with different sexual orientations, gender expressions, and approaches to life and love was what I needed. So, I was bewildered and disappointed when I witnessed an anti-feminist reversal of this stance at a three-day annual meeting of this small group over the Labour Day weekend in 1978.

It took me three more years of study, fruitless debate, and engagement with various political struggles at York University to conclude that there was no future for this brand of socialism. And so, in a moment of deep grief, I decided to leave that group on New Year’s Eve 1981/82.

This defeat also meant that I knew in my bones how easy it was for social activists to go crazy in this world of woes and wonders.

On the positive side, I had learned how humanity had become an objective social reality over the last 500 years of conquest, colonialism, and capitalism; and that there was as of yet no human subject– no “we” – in existence that could tame humanity’s awesome power and help turn its social development from destruction to creation; from devastation to sustainability; and from exploitation to spiritual growth.

That millions of idealistic people had spent the past 200 years unsuccessfully trying to create this human subject also indicated to me there were no longer any decent prospects the human experiment could end well. I understood how the wild expansion of human power – seen most clearly in the growth of the world population from less than 2 billion when my parents had been born in the 1920s to 8 billion this year and whose most dire consequence is climate disaster — will not be tamed. There will probably never be a human subject, an international movement that becomes a human “we.”

In the revolutionary wave that followed World War I, there were decent reasons to hope for human flourishing. But with the murder of the German revolutionaries Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht in January 1919 and the horrible transformation of the Russian-led Communist movement into a vast machine of global death and disinformation by the 1930s, that hope was drowned.

Not that I totally gave up on humanity. In 1982, I became involved with the peace movement, met Central American solidarity activists, joined Canadian Action for Nicaragua, and became enamoured of the world-transforming power that lay revealed in Nicaragua and El Salvador in that decade.

I also realized that while the far left was incapable of keeping its members sane, I was still alive. Although humanity’s prospects looked dim to me, there were potentially many decades left to grow in mind, body, and spirit, and to try to love and be loved by those around me.

Nearly 20 years later, I also fell back into the United Church, and I have been graciously showered with the gifts of the communities I have encountered within it.

But then came 2016. I hadn’t known when fascism would once again take the lead in human affairs, but 2016 seems to be it. I am glad that I had nearly 60 years of relative political tranquility in which to enjoy life in a sheltered country like Canada. But the prospects for the near-term future look grim.

The probability of developments like a narrow vote for Brexit in the UK and an “accidental” election of Donald Trump in 2016, and of the success of dictators like Vladimir Putin, Viktor Orban, and Bashar al Assad were some of the reasons I had focused on the figures that showed the United Church of Canada was on its last legs . . . and why the Comprehensive Review process of 2012 to 2015 was so disappointing to me.

If through some set of miracles, the UCC had developed a leadership that could have led us into a decade of dissolution between 2015 and our centennial in 2025; to call on our Protestant, Catholic, Orthodox, and Pentecostal brethren to close as well — with an awareness that 2025 would not only be the centennial of the founding of the UCC, but also the 1700th anniversary of the wretched Council of Nicea of 325; and to call on Muslim, Hindu, Jewish, and other faith groups to join us – and bring to an end the past six thousand years of patriarchal and monarchical religion — our church might have found its voice within the cacophony of late capitalism. This would not have solved the world’s terminal social problems; but it would have given us a place to stand and fight for our sacred values.

Embracing the imminent demise of the UCC was in line with the Way of the Cross as sketched by Mark and Paul, I believe, but it was also a pipedream; and so, the UCC will continue to decline and thrash about pointlessly between now and its centennial in 2025 as bigger fish burn on the fires of environmental and political crises.

Not that I am unaware of the potential for developments of which I would approve. Perhaps Donald Trump will finally receive some of the justice he so richly deserves; perhaps the Democratic Party will make gains this November due to wind put in its sails by attacks on women’s rights by the fascist U.S. Supreme Court; perhaps the NDP will be elected to government in Alberta again in May 2023; and so on.

But my belief that fascism will continue to flourish is based on climate disaster. For more than 40 years, it has been clear that “we” must stop burning fossil fuels. But over that same period, many trillions of dollars have been spent on suburban developments that demand continued use of automobiles for everyday life.

Every penny spent on road construction, highway expansion, snow-clearing, and urban sprawl is “socialism for cars” – and a disaster for the near-term future. The alternative would be to build dense urban neighbourhoods in which most transportation would be on foot, bike, or transit. This wouldn’t stop climate disaster – unfortunately, it is already built into our present and future. But it would make life radically more interesting and soulful. Instead, science-denying fascists with their racist, sexist, and militaristic policies will continue to find success by, among other things, supporting world-destroying infrastructure. As the lamentable Rob Ford said in his first words after being elected Mayor of Toronto in 2010, “the war on the car is over!”

Here’s a pet peeve of mine that might illustrate. I love it when Toronto turns a multi-lane road into a two-lane one — with bike paths and left-turning lanes at major intersections — as it has done over the last few years on streets like Dundas and Davenport. COVID-19 helped to accelerate this trend, as Kim and I witnessed in August 2021 during our last visit to Toronto. Both Danforth and Woodbine Avenues, for example, had been restricted to two lanes. This allows traffic to flow more smoothly; car crashes to decrease because there is no lane-changing; and pedestrian life to be more palatable with the addition of bike paths and outdoor patios. Moving from 8, 6, or 4 lanes to just two is almost always a win-win-win.

But in Edmonton, recent redevelopment of major downtown routes like Jasper Avenue and 109 Street has included few such transformations. Politicians may say they take climate disaster seriously, but infrastructure belies these claims.

Nevertheless, life flows on. I have enjoyed the stability, heat, and dryness of summer this year in Edmonton. Kim and I loved singing in “Song Burst,” a five-day choral experience, which ended with a concert at Fort Edmonton Park on August 19. We have seen a lot of family over the summer, including the ever delightful and now 15-month-old Ethan. And the coming of September means more opportunities to sing, and to enjoy community at SSUC.

Finally, just as I was unable to predict when “2016” would occur, I also can’t predict how climate disaster, imperialist war, and fascist suppression of human rights will unfold over the next weeks, months, years, or even decades. In the meantime, I will continue to try to stay engaged in the struggle and to enjoy each moment of love available to us.

Till next month, Ian

Demographics, doctrines, and denominations

I first became worried about population explosion in 1961. Not that I focused then on world population, which grew by a whopping 1.8% that year, and which was heading to the fastest yearly rate of growth of all time of 2.09% — achieved in 1968 – and which has trended down ever since that fateful year to around 1.0% per year this decade. In 1961, I was worried because in January of that year, just two months before my fourth birthday, my mother gave birth to twins. This meant that until May of that year, my family had five children under age 8 – my sister Jean at age 7, my brother Paul at 5, myself at age 3, and Andrew and Catherine as newborns. This was more than my parents could easily handle, and it caused no end of difficulties for them and for all five children.

Not that I resent Andrew and Catherine. We became close in childhood, and I have become closer with both in adulthood. But in 1961, I was worried.

By 1970, my worries had found another focus – the entire world. I wrote about this on the 50th anniversary of the first Earth Day — in April 2020. In that sermon, I focused on the “cool” reading of the Worldometers Population clock that week – a reading of 10 sevens for world population, or 7,777,777,777.

In 1970, when I became concerned with the growth of the world’s population, it had a population of 3.7 billion. This was large compared to the 2.8 billion that populated the earth when I was born in 1957 and the fewer than 2 billion alive when my parents were born in 1923 and 1925, but small compared to the 7.9 billion alive today.

Imagine what the world might look like if population had never gone above 2 billion, which it did in 1927, and had instead declined by about 1% a year since my parents were born until it was about 1 billion today instead of 8 billion. Such a scenario is unthinkable in a world dominated by capitalism, which demands “economic growth” based on a cancer-like increase in everything, especially the number of humans involved in the waged economy. But if the post-World War I crisis had resulted in the unification of humanity with radical local control and a peaceful and sustained global democracy, a decrease in population, instead of the more than quadrupling of human numbers that has occurred in the past century, might have occurred. One can only dream, eh?

There are many ways to examine history, but I find counting people to be a useful and dependable marker. Does it matter that the world has 8 billion instead of 1 billion people today? Well, it surely matters on questions of environmental destruction and climate disaster.

One of the things I appreciate about the United Church of Canada is its extensive and reliable count of numbers, which have been published in the Annual Statistical Yearbook for almost the last century. In 2009, I was particularly impressed by how the General Council staff summarized these statistics in a “State of the Church” report, and which was instrumental in the decision of the 2012 General Council to “put everything on the table,” and to begin a “comprehensive review” process, a process which led to the restructuring of the church between 2015 through 2018.

The figures for the UCC have been stark for 60 years, and it is plain to any sober observer looking at the church from the outside that having lost more than 90% of its members over this period and having become radically older, the United Church of Canada will not long survive.

In 2012, I was excited that General Council, in creating a seven-person Comprehensive Review Task Group, which included the Moderator, had embraced the pain-filled but real prospect of the church disappearing. This was in line with the Gospel I had embraced – the good news that new life can flow from individual or collective death. But by 2015, I had been disillusioned by the process; and nothing caused me greater trouble as a minister in the church that my focus on its imminent death. Here are some links to things I have written about this:

• Twilight of the gods and a new dawn for the church – April 2013
• Slouching towards 2025 – a ‘modest proposal’ for the Comprehensive Review Task Group — Feb. 2014
• Waiting for Kairos – Aug 2015
• Guaranteed cure! – March 2015 – a sermon I first wrote in 2008
• What’s so good about the Good News? – Jan. 2017

The shrinkage of Canada’s church was on display last week during Pope Francis’ six days in Canada. Crowds were smaller than expected in Alberta and Quebec, and part of this is how drastically the Catholic Church has shrunk in Canada. Its decline is even greater than the 90% decline of the United Church except for the presence of numerous immigrants in the RCC from places like The Philippines and Latin America.

I was glad the Pope tried to apologize for the Catholic Church’s role in the attempted genocide of Canada’s First Nations, and I was also glad his efforts received criticism from many people who wished he had gone further. In particular, I liked the “Rescind the Doctrine” banner, which was unveiled in the Cathedral at St. Anne de Beaupre near Quebec City on Thursday. The banner referred to the “Doctrine of Discovery,” which in the late 15th and early 16th centuries gave papal blessing to the colonization and genocide of the Americas by Spain and Portugal, and which has been embraced by Canada, the United States, and all American empires even since.

I also wish the banner had added an “s” to the word “Doctrine.” Imagine if the Pope, realizing that at age 85 he is nearing the end of his life and aware of the many social problems facing the world (and which were admirably summarized on Saturday, I thought, by Ian Brown in an article in The Globe and Mail about his second infection with COVID 19 – ‘supply chains, monkey pox, heat waves, famine, fires, drought, assassinations, the cruel grind of war in Ukraine, mass shootings, plunging markets, stubborn inflation, incipient recession, and endless furious culture wars (Roe, guns, God, the freedom convoy’) — had decided to rescind all the rotten Catholic doctrines on which his throne rests: the one that says the Church is the embodiment of God in human form and therefore cannot sin; the ones that says birth control and masturbation are sins; the one that says abortion is murder; the one that says Catholic priesthood is restricted to anyone not male, straight, and celibate; and so on.

Of course, the Pope did not do this. It is harder to imagine a Catholic Church that has become non-sexist and anti-imperialist than it is to imagine nuclear holocaust or mass death from pandemics, climate disaster, and other forms of environmental degradation.

But wouldn’t it have been wonderful?

It also would have been wonderful – at least for me – if the United Church of Canada had developed a leadership during the last few decades that had felt the grief that resides in the undeniable reality that it is on its last legs. Such a move would not have stopped population explosion, the threat of weapons of mass destruction, or climate disaster, but it would have allowed the UCC – and any Christian and non-Christian denominations that decided to join with it – to live fully into the Good News of death and resurrection.

Unfortunately, this did not happen. Here is what I wrote last month in opposition to the church’s current Moderator on his dogged unwillingness to confront the imminent demise of the church.

But regardless of what our current Moderator, or our next one, Carmen Lansdowne, who will be installed as Moderator this coming Sunday in Vancouver, thinks, some in the church continue to grapple with our imminent demise. Here is a link to an article about a decision made last week for the UCC to discuss merger with other equally small, aging, and rapidly declining denominations. This is an inadequate move, in my opinion, but I am glad to see that reality’s hard edge is still hitting some people in the leadership of the church.

In the meantime, and as I finish my first three months of retirement today, I continue to seek other people with whom to search for faith, hope, and love despite how our denominations have been exposed and despite all the many social problems we are facing.

I feel lucky to be a member of “Spiritual Seekers United in Community,” also known by its other name “Southminster-Steinhauer United Church.” It is a rare entity that orients to the future and away from the imperialist and genocidal doctrines of the last 1700 years of Catholic (and Orthodox, and Protestant, and Pentecostal) life.

The weather continues to delight me here in Edmonton. Our one-year-old grandson Ethan in Calgary continues to flourish into trust and courage in his life in Calgary with parents Katrina and Vinny. And Kim and I continue to feel blessed by the ability of people like her first cousin’s daughter Thea to choose love and to spread joy, and she did with her intended Sascha, and which we celebrated on Saturday at a Yakemchuck family gathering at Lake Wabamun.

Many dark clouds abound, but the flares of love, courage, and trust continue to shine brighter, in my opinion.

Until next month . . . Ian

Canada, Jubilee, and my second month of retirement

Today marks 15 years since I first declared a call to ministry. This was in a eulogy I offered at the memorial for my father, the Rev. James Clare Kellogg, one I re-used to end my final sermon at Mill Woods United two months ago, on May 1st, 2022.

My career in ministry was marked by moments of joy and enlightenment as well as by ones of conflict and confusion; and the subjects of Canada Day and the British Monarchy were often at the heart of the latter. So, it strikes me as appropriate that my father’s memorial in 2007 occurred on the Holiday Monday of Canada Day weekend.

Long before I rejoined the church, I had become a partisan of internationalism. So, while I was discouraged that many people in the United Church of Canada were enthusiastic Canadian nationalists and fans of the British monarchy, I was pleased that the core of the Gospel as I understood it was about the freedom one can graciously stumble into during troubling life events – ones that strip individuals and communities of illusions, addictions, and other ego-trips, especially nationalism and imperialism.

Yes, many people in the UCC are enthusiastic supporters of Canadian imperialism and the British monarchy. But there is a current in the Gospel that can help all of us to transcend such illusions, along with others, whether gambling, alcohol addiction, or mindless entertainment.

This still left me with a dilemma of what, if anything, to say about nationalism on Sundays near or on July 1, and about imperialism during events like royal weddings and jubilees, like the 70th anniversary of Queen Elizabeth’s reign as British monarch, which so much of Great Britain, Canada, and other countries in the British Commonwealth celebrated last month. My job wasn’t to try and convince everyone in the churches I served to cut their ties to Canada or to its Crown. For one, this will never happen. Nor can there ever be a minister in a community in which there is no evidence of egotism, addiction, or illusion of any kind – including in oneself, of course.

What has most troubled me is the unwillingness of virtually anyone in the leadership of the UCC to create a higher ground in which internationalism and decolonialism could become greater subjects of work for the denomination. Not that I didn’t try, mind you.

Here are some links to sermons I delivered on these topics.

• Confederation’s 150th anniversary — Faith of our fathers – July 9, 2017
• Lift high his royal banner? The Great Flag Debate 50 years later – Feb 2015
• Healing the wounds of church and nation – July 5, 2015 – the publication of the Truth and Reconciliation report
• The wedding of Kate Middleton and Prince William — May 8, 2011
• The wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan, May 2018 —
• Past troubles and future dreams – April 2016 – Easter Rebellion, Vimy Ridge —
• Canada’s pride and shame: 95 years after Vimy Ridge – May 2012

This year being a Canadian looks especially enticing in contrast to the USA with its vicious and anti-democratic Supreme Court and the existence of a huge and activist fascist party, the “Republicans.”

In contrast, we in Canada pride ourselves on our democracy. But look at what happened last month in Ontario. Doug Ford’s Progressive Conservative Party won a huge majority with just 41% of the vote of the 43% of the electorate who bothered to come to vote. 59% of those who voted chose people from other parties, and only 17% of the electors in Ontario voted for their new majority government.

I understand the reluctance of many Canadians to vote. I have been a keen political activist since I was a child, but I didn’t physically vote in an election until I was 53. This was in 2010 when I was back in Toronto to complete the final year of my Master of Divinity degree. I had returned there from Alberta where I had spent ten months as a student supply minister at Knox United Church in Didsbury.

In October 2010, I voted in the Toronto municipal election because I had such a strong distaste for Rob Ford. Ford had been a municipal councilor for ten years and had revealed himself, I thought, to be an alcoholic fool who was prone to racist and sexist statements. He had first come to my consciousness from news reports in 2006 when he was kicked out of a Toronto Maple Leafs game for berating a racialized couple while grossly intoxicated.

I had assumed, incorrectly, that his west-end Toronto constituents would vote him out at the next available opportunity. Instead, he won 66% of the votes in his Ward that November, and in 2010 he became the front-runner to replace Toronto Mayor David Miller when the latter decided not to run for a third term.

In 2010, I voted for the candidate who came second, Deputy Premier George Smitherman. But despite Smitherman’s many qualities, Ford won nearly 50% of the vote, and became, I would argue, the first fascist mayor in Toronto’s history.

In 2013, Ford also became Canada’s most infamous celebrity when his criminal behaviour, his addictions to cocaine, alcohol, and food, and his racist behaviour made him a tabloid star and a source of comedy for American late-night TV hosts.

I voted against Ford in 2010 because I abhor fascism and because in mayoral races every vote across the city counts equally. The reason I had not voted before then was Canada’s first-past-the-post electoral scheme. This British-based system means that the result in many ridings is known as soon as the different parties choose a candidate. I had worked in campaigns several times before 2010 – trying to get the vote out on election day when I was in university and scrutineering in some other provincial and federal elections. But I hadn’t bothered to vote because my vote would have been wasted. And I continue to be frustrated that attempts to make Canada more democratic — through proportional representation – don’t succeed.

My understanding of how unrepresentative first-past-the-post results are was useful in an office competition I won during the Canadian 1993 federal election. At the time, I was working for the Ontario Premier’s Council, this during a three-year hiatus from librarianship when redeployment had led me to a job at the Council.

When I had first taken a job at the Ontario Ministry of Labour Library in 1981, I had assumed, incorrectly, that it was job for life. But this library, like most of the other places where I subsequently worked, did not last long; and after one such closure — of the Ministry of Education’s ONTERIS database in 1992 — I got a job at the Premier’s Council. I was hired as a logistics coordinator to organize the meetings of the Council, which was made up of corporate and union leaders, academics, and cabinet ministers, and which existed to provide strategic vision for the government.

I enjoyed working with the other 40 staff members, who were either young professionals establishing their careers or about-to-retire bureaucrats who wanted one last chance to spread some wisdom. I also enjoyed getting to know the Premier, members of his cabinet, and the other luminaries who made up the Council.

Unfortunately for us, the Council was closed in 1995 when the NDP government was replaced by a Progressive Conservative one; and so, my checkered career continued to shift and twist.

During the federal election campaign in 1993, an economist on the staff organized a draw in which staff members guessed what the results would be; and I won the contest by more than 50 seats.

The 1993 federal election replaced a majority Progressive Conservative government with a majority Liberal government. But the Tories were not only replaced. They were nearly eliminated, going from 169 seats to just two. The Liberals went from 81 seats to 177, winning every seat but two in Ontario and in the Atlantic provinces. The newly created Bloc Quebecois achieved status as the Official Opposition with 54 seats, the Reform Party went from zero seats to 52, and the NDP went from 43 seats to just nine.

Because of Canada’s first-past-the-post system, the Liberal Party got 60% of the seats despite receiving only 41% 0f the votes. The Tories got less than 1% of the seats despite receiving 16% of the votes. The BQ got 18% of the seats despite receiving only 14% of the vote. The Reform Party got 17% of the seats despite receiving 19% of the votes. And the NDP got 3% of the seats despite receiving 9% of the votes.

With the Tory party splintering into a Quebec nationalist wing (BQ) and a Western-based conservative wing (Reform), Canadian politics was upended.

In the staff contest, I incorrectly guessed the Tories would win 20 seats, but this was better by a huge margin than what other staff members guessed.

I am glad that we live in a democracy, but I wish the system we used gave Canadians more representative governments than the outdated British system does.

After Rob Ford’s victory in Toronto in 2010 — I hoped that fascism would not take hold in Canada or elsewhere; and the re-election of President Barack Obama in 2012 and the election of Alberta’s first NDP government in 2015 helped reassure me that Ford’s 2010 victory in one of the most intercultural cities in the world might be just a brief flash in the pan.

But then came 2016. In that year, Britain narrowly voted to leave the European Union under the urging of the fascist UK Independence Party, and in the United States a politician of unfathomable ignorance, sexism, and racism was elected President. Since then, the world has been dominated by fascists like Vladimir Putin in Russia, Viktor Orban in Hungary, Jair Bolsanaro in Brazil, Narendra Modi in India, and many others. Here in Canada, there are so-called “freedom truckers;” and in right-wing parties, sexism and racism have seen big gains.

But so what? As people like me flinch at the prospect of fascist efforts to retore the Russian Empire in Ukraine and to reverse human rights for women and queer people in the United States, and I contemplate living like Bonhoeffer did in Germany in the 1930s, life goes on, eh?

And for me, this means that retirement goes on, and for which I continue to be grateful. I don’t have to preach an anti-Canada Day sermon tomorrow in a church with a “Happy Canada Day” sign on its front lawn. Instead, I can worship at SSUC, where I and so many other retired UCC ministers are wonderfully fed.

I had thought I would write about environmentalism today, this after reading Vaclav Smil’s new book “How the World Really Works” at the urging of a fellow retired UCC minister, with whom I continue to develop a friendship. But maybe next month . . .

In the meantime, I wish everyone a hearty “Happy Post Canada Day.”

Blessings, Ian

First month of retirement

One month ago, I retired from ministry, and this note is an update. So far, I am loving it. I appreciated the statement by Rev. Tazvi Nyarota of the United Methodist Church (Zimbabwe), which partnered with Mill Woods United in 2016. At my retirement luncheon on May 1st, she said, “Ian is retired but not tired.” However, I haven’t got to the not tired stage yet. Maybe in month two? Year two? All I know is that my body, mind, and soul appreciate being able to rest, to restore, and to enjoy each beautiful spring moment.

This first month included the last concert of the season for Edmonton Metropolitan Chorus on Sunday May 29 (go to 10 minutes in to see my solo bits in “Go Down Moses” and 32 minutes to see Kim’s recital of the poem “As I Grew Older” by Langston Hughes). We loved the rehearsals and the concert, which was our first time back in First Presbyterian before a live audience since March 1, 2020.

We loved helping Vinny and Katrina prepare for Ethan’s first birthday party in Calgary (on Saturday May 20) and we were so impressed by how well they brought this gathering of 45 people together.

Me and Ethan at his Calgary apartment after his May 19, 2022 first birthday

I’ve been reading non-church-related books (six essays by Toronto-based actor and filmmaker Sarah Polley, “Run Towards the Danger,” and Ken Follett’s latest thriller “Never”); bingeing more streaming shows (I especially recommend “Conversations with Friends” based on the 2017 novel by Sally Rooney); and doing lots of walking with Kim. Our financial planner assured us that we probably have enough money. We have no great plans at present to travel, but that too will come.

Yesterday, I finally wrote some thank you notes for the wonderful gifts I received at the May 1st celebration; and I continue to wonder what the next days, months, and years might hold.

When I was 24, I began a career in the civil service – as a word processor with the Ontario Ministry of Labour Library, and the next summer in 1982 I got my first pension statement. It said that under normal circumstances, I would retire in 2022. At the time, 2022 seemed unimaginably far away. Either civilization would have ceased to exist, or the world would be utterly transformed and unimaginable.

The 40 years since 1982 have certainly seen many changes. For one, the Ministry of Labour Library ceased to exist in 1997. Other institutions where I worked also stopped operation in mid-stream: the ONTERIS database of the Ontario Ministry of Education in 1992; the Ontario Premier’s Council in 1995; Hoffmann + associates (a multimedia and educational company for which I worked in 1997/98) in 1999; and the Canadian Health Network, whose Toronto office was closed by the Canadian government in 2000. 211Toronto where I worked from 2001 to 2008 is still going strong, and the United Church continues to somehow function even though it has only about five percent of the presence it had in Canadian society when I was a child. But change has been a watchword for the past 40 years.

The last 40 years have also seen vast social changes – the doubling of world population to 8 billion; an explosive growth of computer networks and all the benevolent and malevolent effects of Internet domination; continued degradation of the natural environment; and many others.

I appreciated reading Sarah Polley’s book for the ways it highlighted trauma in her life (exploitation on movie and TV sets in her childhood; the death of her mother at age 11; sexual assault at the hands of a pop cultural icon; scoliosis and endometriosis in adolescence; placenta praevia with her first pregnancy; and a severe concussion in 2015). Her traumas got me thinking about the many traumas most of us undergo over the course of our blessed and wounded lives.

I appreciated reading Ken Follet’s latest novel not least because I relied heavily on his Century trilogy (“The Fall of Giants” in 2010, “Winter of the World” in 2012, and “Edge of Eternity” in 2014) in preparing for the centenary of WWI in the context of ministry. Follet’s “Never” revisits one of my obsessions from the 1980s, the prospect of nuclear war. As with all his other novels, it includes lots of melodrama and romance, but it also tries to build a scenario in which Islamist terrorism in central Africa (Chad, Sudan, and Libya), economic and political chaos in North Korea, and the sexist and racist myopia of both the Chinese and the American political elite could conspire to lead the world into accidental apocalypse.

I had let my nuclear obsessions subside after the end of the Cold War. But they had flared back to life in 2017 with Trump’s wild gyrations with the North Korean leadership and again this winter with the fascist Russian invasion of Ukraine. Follett’s work presents a very different world from the one we are fated to live, but I think it still hits on many relevant points.

At one point in the novel, the fictional U.S. President says that trying to get rid of nuclear weapons would be like trying to rid Texas of its guns – and doesn’t that statement ring terribly true this grief-filled spring?

People might think I should avoid such “heavy” fare now that I’m footloose and fancy free. But I don’t agree with judgements like “heavy” or “light-weight,” and I continue to search for moments of grace, beauty, and love in the light of reality.

I surprised myself by making it all the way to 2022, and with a wife whom I love and a grandson to boot. I don’t take any of the next days or months for granted. But any stability and beauty I find, I plan to try and grab as we swing further into the wondrous and haunted 21st century.

Until next month . . . Ian

“The wild blue yonder . . .”

Text: Luke 5:1-11 (“deep waters”) * Video of complete service

I’ve always fancied myself a deep person, so it’s little wonder I like today’s anthem “Deep Waters,” which Pepper Choplin wrote 20 years ago to commemorate the retirement of a Baptist minister, and today’s Gospel reading upon which the anthem is based and which we just heard.

I could be wrong about being deep, of course; but depth has been a touchstone for which I’ve reached during the more than 20 years since I returned to church.

I first stumbled into Kingston Road United Church in Toronto on the Sunday after 9/11, and I was stunned by the message and spirit there that day. I was moved by the anthems the choir sang after I joined it in fall 2001, especially Mozart’s “Lacrimosa” (or “Weeping”) from his Requiem Mass, which we sang at the first Good Friday service I experienced there in 2002. I joined one of that church’s two sharing circles, called “Spiritual Growth Groups,” that spring. In the summer of 2002, I loved the first of six United Church week-long canoe trips to Algonquin Park in which I participated not least because of the sharing time our facilitator, Five Oaks coordinator and future United Church of Canada Moderator, Mardi Tindal led. The next February, I experienced the first of 15 “Male Spirituality Circles” in which I have participated at Five Oaks, and which for most of that time have been nothing but three days and nights of sharing and drumming circles.

Then there have been the 11 years since my ordination in May 2011 by Toronto Conference of the United Church. The first five years occurred during fairly placid times, at least for privileged Canadians; but the last six years have seemed tumultuous to me in so many ways.

With the rise of fascist politicians in places near and dear to us – starting with the election of Rob Ford as mayor of Toronto in 2010; with populist racists like Victor Orban in Hungary, Jair Bolsanaro in Brazil, and the Republican Party in the United States succeeding in attempts to restrict democracy and human rights; and with fascist nightmares like Russia’s invasion of Ukraine dominating the news for the past few months, the placid years of the past seem to be gone.

We live in an era of climate disaster, pandemics, and weapons of mass destruction; and to cope, I have tried to go deep.

Today I finish both my time of ordained ministry and a sermon series I began in January on the seven Roman Catholic sacraments. Today, the final one of this series is on last rites – a sacrament in which prayers and rituals are performed for a person who is dying.

We, of course, are not dying. But the covenant between me, Mill Woods United Church, and Northern Spirit Regional Council of the United Church of Canada is ending; and so this service can be seen as a last rite for me and for you.

I began this series of reflections on sacraments in early January and then paused for Lent and Easter. On January 9, I focused first on baptism, which is about finding a trusting faith amid both the wounds and blessings bequeathed to us by our families, the culture, and our physical bodies. Next came confirmation, which was about moving to humility from shame in the joys and challenges of knowing our feelings. Communion was about rising to charity from egotism as we moved into community in adolescence. Marriage was about moving to love from grief in the stress of dating, marriage, and parenting. Confession was about rising to honesty from lies using the essential but difficult tool of language. Ordination was about trying to stay in touch with reality despite all the illusions offered to us by this culture and our egos. And today, with last rites, the focus is about attachment to the Love we call God instead of attachment to our earthly desires.

Last rites represent the “pinnacle” of the sacraments, but it is also connected to the depths. For one, being at the depths of the ocean is in many ways similar to being on the top of mountains. For another, after achieving enlightenment, life goes on. We return from a mountain top or from the ocean depths to everyday life where babies are born, loving relationships blossom, creative expression seeks new avenues, and our ministry of faith, hope and love continues. And so the spiral continues.

In times as crazy as the ones we are living within, I plan to continue to try to go deep, and this is also my fond wish for Mill Woods United. Let’s not be shy in trying new things; in confronting old traditions; and in speaking truth to power.

There is much to fear, but we always strive for greater trust. Many things have happened to us for which we might feel humiliation. But we try to stay open to the wondrous virtue of humility. As we grow older, we stumble upon a million reasons to act egotistically; but at deeper levels we remember that loving service and acts of charity are what keep us in synch with Love that is our source, our deepest calling, and our sure destiny. We find innumerable relationships that elicit our love even though they also threaten us with loss and grief. But we know that out of grief, new life can flow, so we embrace parents, children, lovers, and the entire world.

The storms and stresses of life call us to express ourselves in word, and art, and action; but many of these expressions are judgmental and therefore dishonest. Happily, we might also find ourselves pushed towards expressions that are assertive and hence more truthful. And so we continue to try.

In short and troubled lives, a million different illusions might call to us, and so we may find ourselves preaching nonsense. But other currents are present in human culture, ones that are attached to the Divine source we call God; and so we can also find ourselves leaving behind false idols to move closer to the worship of a Ground of Being that is truly worthy of worship. Despite all the fears, shames, egotisms, griefs, and lies that beset us, we might find ourselves offering words to ourselves and our neighbours that are sometimes worthy of God.

Finally, we are graced with innumerable moments in which to know again that our egotistical fears and desires are false and that we are most free when we are attached to the eternal love we call God. And so the spiral continues . . .

To close this sermon, I now end with the eulogy I gave for my father nearly 15 years ago, on July 2, 2007, and in which I first declared a call to ministry.

May these words act in some strange way as a last rite to you and to myself; and may it also complete a circle. And so, on July 2, 2007 in Trinity United Church in Cobourg Ontario, here is what I said:

“When I was in university, I read Sigmund Freud’s book, “The Interpretation of Dreams;” and in the book’s introduction, I was struck by a paragraph where Freud talked about the impact of the death of his father while he was working on the book. He characterized the death of one’s father as ‘the most important event, the most poignant loss in a man’s life.’ This seemed like a strong statement to me. What about mothers, I thought. And surely the statement tells us more about Freud than about anyone else. But his words came back to me last week as we tried to be present with Dad as he died.

So, what impact will Dad’s death have on me, the rest of his family, and his relatives and his friends who have gathered here today? Of course, a related and more upbeat question is, what impact has his life had on us? Perhaps I will speak a bit about both.

I feel shaken by Dad’s death, and part of this comes from how strongly I identified with him. More than my brothers and sisters, I seemed to be like Dad both physically and emotionally. Certain arcs of our lives seemed to have parallels. We both had a lot of trouble dealing with adolescence, dating, and love -– although Dad was lucky, and eventually he found our Mom; and if ever it can be said that Dad was a recipient of grace, I think it would be when he and Mary fell in love.

I also identify with Dad’s call to ministry, although I have been more successful in resisting the call than him. I did so by turning my spiritual enthusiasm into radical politics as a young person, and into other intellectual interests as an adult.

But mostly, I identify with a wavelength of anxiety that ran through Dad’s life and my own. And fortunately for me, I deeply appreciate how Dad learned to handle his anxieties and to live so much of his life in joy, love, and faith.

Dad wrote what is now his final sermon a few weeks ago. It was to have been delivered at his home church in the hamlet of Welcome this August, and it’s about this topic of fear and anxiety. The night before his aneurysm burst and his ordeal in the hospital began, Dad gave Catherine an envelope at the train station that said, “To Catherine, Love Dad.” When she asked what it contained, he simply said, “read it on the train.” So, she did. And since then, we have come to name this remarkable sermon as “Disaster is upon us; but be of good cheer” although in reality, its title is simply “Good Cheer.”

Still, I like our title. After all, Catherine tells us that Dad spoke to her that day of an impending sense of doom – both for himself and for our society; and the sermon talks about our many social and personal disasters and tragedies, and how we might persevere in the face of those.

Like me, Dad was always waiting for disaster. And for him, it occurred the day after he gave that sermon to Catherine as he was rushed to Peterborough in excruciating pain.

And yet, “Good Cheer.” That was his message, based upon a line ascribed to Jesus in the Gospel of John. Speaking to the disciples on the night before his execution, Jesus said, “In the world you will have tribulation, but be of good cheer for I have overcome the world.”

Now, Dad notes in his sermon that the world has not been overcome. Our personal and social troubles persist, and we all face the certainty of pain, struggle, and death. But while the world might not be overcome, Dad overcame his fears.

He was afraid to look for love, but nevertheless he found it, got married, helped to raise five kids, and gloried in his grandchildren. He was scared of public speaking, but he got into the pulpit thousands of times and delivered a Word of God. He was beset by all the doubts that any minister who has been through a modern seminary faces as they learn how their childhood beliefs are founded on sand; and how difficult a mature stance is in the light of modern knowledge and the amazing and dreadful moment of history in which we are fated to live. And yet, he carried his ministry through to the end.

We saw Dad triumph over his anxiety again in the hospital last week in Peterborough. Dad, unable to speak because of breathing tubes, often in discomfort, and stripped of almost everything, communicated his joy to us despite all that. On his third day in the hospital, and after a 30-minute family conference where the doctor gave us very little hope that Dad would survive and that the last-ditch therapy would mean deep sedation; we gathered in a circle around Dad. Essentially, we were saying goodbye. Dad was awake. Mary put her hand on his forehead. Paul spoke to him. Dad waved his arms in recognition, he smiled, and he communicated his gratitude and his contentment to us all. It is one of my favourite memories ever of my father and the last time that I saw him conscious.

Despite pain, despite imminent death, despite not being able to talk, Dad trusted in the moment; he focused on his blessings and on love. He focused on his family.

A key insight for me during my surprising return to the church these last six years has been about the word “faith.” It has about five different meanings in English, and my least favourite is to define it as belief in a set of incredible doctrines, while my favourite is to define it as “trust:” trust in the universe despite its cosmic, awful mystery; trust in our bodies despite their pains and their finitude; and trust in love despite our essential aloneness as individuals. In this sense, and in the face of his anxieties, Dad struggled all his life to be a person of faith; and mostly I think he succeeded. In this sense, Dad is my roots, my forerunner, and my role model. I treasure his memory in my heart. And I will miss him until the day of my death. Despite all the ups and downs in his role as one of our parents, I am filled with thanks that he was my father.

But I want to give him the last word in my remarks. So, here now is the closing paragraph of his “Disaster” sermon:

“Trouble in this world, Jesus said – no doubt about it. The world overcome? Hardly. But the word has gone out – “Fear not!” The road opens before us, the future is ours, the world waits, and wonders. “We have nothing to fear but fear itself.” “If God be for us, who can be against us?” Who indeed? So pick yourself up, dust yourself off, take a deep breath, and go on. And – “Good cheer!!”

Amen, and Amen, and Amen.

Doubting church

Text: John 20:19-31 (the doubting Thomas) * Video of complete service

In last week’s sermon, I talked about why I reflected on the story of the empty tomb as found in Mark instead of the reading suggested by the Revised Common Lectionary. Every Easter, the Lectionary prefers the story from John in which Mary Magdalene mistakes the Risen Christ for a gardener.

Today I have returned to the Lectionary, and so we just heard the next verses from the Gospel of John. This is the story called “The Doubting Thomas,” and it includes the end of that Gospel:

“Jesus performed many other signs — signs not recorded here — in the presence of the disciples. But these ones have been recorded to help you believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Only Begotten, so that by believing you may have life in Jesus’ Name.”

Next Sunday, which will be my last one here, I will reflect on a text also suggested by the Lectionary, and which is from the next chapter of John. Like the 20th chapter, this 21st chapter ends John’s Gospel after a flurry of details about a fishing trip, a breakfast, and an interrogation of Peter by Jesus; and it concludes with a final sentence which I find evocative, and which happens to be the only thing I like from the 21st chapter.

“There are also many other things that Jesus did; but if every one of them were written down, I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written.”

This 21st chapter of John is clearly not written by the anonymous evangelist known as John; and so it is usually called The Appendix to John; and the bit that we heard this morning is clearly the original ending.

But next week’s story in which the Risen Christ tells his friends to fish on the other side of their boat fits well with my theme. So we will hear this story, just not from John 21. We will hear its original version, which is from the fifth chapter of Luke. In Luke, the story is from the beginning of Jesus’ ministry and not from after his resurrection.

Frankly, I wish the Lectionary never suggested readings from the Appendix to John — its so-called 21st chapter — just as it never suggests any readings from the bogus addition to the Gospel of Mark, verses 9-20, and to which I made mention last week.

But does this really matter? Perhaps not.

Being born from above or born of the Spirit has been true in my life in moments of grief followed by joy; and this would have been the case regardless of my knowledge of, or beliefs in, the various stories of the resurrected Christ.

As a partisan of the church, I find sustenance in Paul and Mark, but not in the endings of Matthew, Luke, or John, all of which are based upon Mark’s original version of the empty tomb, and all of which add some spurious tales of Jesus as a resuscitated corpse.

Today’s reading is one of the passages that annoys me. In John’s tale of Mary Magdalene and the gardener, the Risen Christ tells Mary not to touch him. But in the next verses, which we just heard, the Risen Christ tells the skeptic Thomas to touch his wounds so that he can believe.

But regardless of whether these verses have helped or hindered people to follow the Way of Jesus and the Way of Cross over time, the inability of Jews in the First Century to be freed from Roman tyranny by a new King, and their inability to find a new god like Jehovah to worship remained. Jerusalem really was destroyed by Rome in the First Century. Jehovah’s beautiful Temple really was taken apart stone by stone; and so for these reasons, the stories of the execution of Jesus the Christ had relevance to Jews like Mark and Paul in the First Century; and they still have relevance to us today since we continue to live with too much violence, too much destruction, and too much human fallenness.

For the past 11 years, I’ve been an ordained minister of the United Church; and for all those years, I’ve given thanks for the work of the church, the stories we retell every Sunday, and the enlightenment we try to glean from our work and from these stories. It is true that the sliver of texts that speak to me is narrower than most members of the church; but I cherish them; and I have tried to preach from them.

So, I feel gratitude for the United Church of Canada, and for the people of the communities of faith I have been called to serve — particularly the people of Mill Woods United. But I have been disappointed that the church has been unable to fully live into the path of death and resurrection it helped to open for me.

Today is a challenging time to be a Christian. Mainline and liberal denominations like the United Church of Canada have declined for many decades and are a tiny sliver of their former state; and fascist politicians keep making gains among greater sectors of the population, with terrible effects from the official spread of deadly disinformation about the COVID-19 pandemic, to the burning of the Amazon Rain Forest in Brazil, to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

I wish the United Church had been able to feel the grief associated with a sober assessment of its prospects and so had helped it and other religious and spiritual institutions find new ways of living into faith, hope, and love. I wish that radical activists had been better able to stand against those who support cancer-like economic growth, environmental destruction, and attacks on human rights and democracy.

But the church and the world are as they are. And so I try to accept them.

Do I doubt the tales of Jesus’ resuscitated corpse from Matthew, Luke, and John? Yes! Do I doubt the ability of the church to admit its own death and so rise to something new? Yes! Do I doubt the ability of humanity to find a way out of climate disaster or war? Yes!

But I don’t doubt new life. I don’t doubt that the experience of being born of the Spirit gives us a taste of the eternal Love from which we have all come and to which we all return.

Did Jesus’ body suddenly appear in a locked Upper Room on the day that his tomb was found empty? No! Did he briefly appear there again on the eighth day to show Thomas his wounds? No!

At the same time, do we want to build communities of faith, hope, and love with which to care for our wounds and those of our neighbours, and with which to proclaim that Love is all, and Love is everything! Yes!

And this is something I am sure we will continue to do for as long as we have breath and for as long as God’s Spirit of Love continues to move amongst us.

And so for this glorious Easter truth, I can only say “Thanks be to God.”

Amen, Amen, and Amen.

.

New light, new day

Text: Mark 16:1-8 (the empty tomb) * Video of complete service *

“The women fled from the tomb bewildered and trembling; and they said nothing to anyone because they were so afraid.” Is that any way to end a Gospel, and any way to begin an Easter sermon?

That sentence, which we just heard, is the end of the Gospel of Mark; and perhaps it implies that we also should say nothing at Easter. We could just sit here in silence. And would that not be better? In lives filled with troubles as well as triumphs, and in an era marked by pandemic, war, and climate change, perhaps it is better to avoid “Hallelujahs” at Easter and just keep quiet for a while.

But as you know, that would not be my way. So, I do have a few things to say about today’s Gospel reading, and about Easter in this my final Easter sermon at Mill Woods United.

Each Easter Sunday, the Revised Common Lectionary, which most churches use to choose their Sunday readings, recommends the account of the empty tomb from the Gospel of John — the one in which Mary mistakes the Risen Christ for a gardener. The Lectionary offers alternatives — in one year, the Easter story from Matthew; in the next, the one from Luke; and in a third year, the one from Mark.

But I often ignore the Lectionary, and during the nine Easters at which I have presided at Mill Woods United, I have chosen Mark’s account six times. I prefer Mark not just because his story is the earliest one, but because it includes no physical appearances of the Risen Christ. This lack reminds me that resurrection is not about a continuation of life as it was before death. It is about a radical transformation.

Mark’s story highlights that life with the Risen Christ is not what our egos want but what our souls need. Life in Christ is a move closer into the heart of Love we call God, a shift that flows from the death of illusions.

Or is this really how Mark ends? This past Wednesday, the United Church’s “Broadview” magazine published an Easter column by United Church of Canada Moderator Richard Bott. Titled “This Easter, let’s not worry that the United Church is dying,” I didn’t much like it.

For one, the Moderator’s column relies upon the longer ending of Mark, which biblical scholars teach was concocted by second century copyists of Mark. This is the ending that not only echoes the other three gospel accounts, which themselves are corruptions of Mark, but also includes this incredible statement by the Risen Christ: “Those who believe and are baptized will be saved; but those who do not believe will be condemned. And these signs will accompany those who believe: by using my name they will cast out demons; they will speak in new tongues; they will pick up snakes in their hands; and if they drink any deadly thing, it will not hurt them” (Mark 16:16-18)

I’ve been an ordained minister for almost 11 years, but I’ve never drunk poison or engaged in snake-handling. Instead, I accept the conclusion of scholars that Mark didn’t write these lines and they should never be used; and I’ve extended this skepticism to the other gospels, each of which add fanciful stories about physical appearances of a resuscitated Christ to Mark’s original version.

So, no Road to Emmaus; no Great Commission; no miraculous appearances in an Upper Room; no breakfast of fish on the shores of the Sea of Galilee; no ascension to Heaven. OK — but you might then ask, why celebrate Easter?

Each year, I celebrate Easter because no matter how dire life might seem – and surely it appears pretty dire to Ukrainians resisting Russian invasion; or to the people of Lytton BC trying to rebuild their town after temperatures of 49 degrees there last June led to a fire that burned the town down; or to those who are dealing with serious illness  – there is always the Gracious reality that new life can arise in any dire moment; and that the end of life perfects this completion.

Now, when life is going well, when one’s empire is strong and thriving, and when natural or social disasters always seem to happen to people far away, we might pretend that Easter’s new life is pretty much the same as our old life. But when the opposite is the case – as it often has been for many people and as it is for many others of us today – we might be more open to a mystical approach to resurrection.

Paul put it this way when he wrote, “I have been crucified with Christ and it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me” (Galatians 2:20).

Paul did not have an easy life. According to the author of Acts, he was often beaten, driven out of town, and imprisoned; and church legend has it that he was executed in Rome. But Paul knew the Risen Christ. This was not a physically resuscitated corpse in Jerusalem, but a spiritual reality within his own heart and mind – an inner flame that assured him that despite his many anxieties and desires, a deeper unity was graciously available to him. Paul was swept into God’s kingdom again and again through the Love he knew as the Risen Christ. He was open to new light and a new day, just as we can be.

When we encounter an empty tomb on the other side of grief, we are at a fork in the road. We will fill the emptiness with old preoccupations, or, with Grace, will we allow a Spirit of universal love to flow into us?

The ending of Mark’s Gospel presents us with an empty tomb, a proclamation of resurrection by a young man dressed in white, and a group of terrified disciples who flee and tell no one. Their loss has been so great and their grief so big that they cannot speak or act.

But after this shocking end, I imagine them regrouping and supporting one another; and as they do so, I also imagine them realizing that while their dreams of a new tribal god and king died on the cross with Jesus, the divine Christ is flickering to life within the empty tombs of their grief-stricken hearts.

It is at this point that I imagine them turning to one another and speaking for the first time the quiet but joyous words that have been shared by pilgrims on the Way of the Cross every Easter since – “Christ is Risen! Risen Indeed!”

Hallelujah, and Amen.

Waiting for new life in a Good Friday world

Text: Mark 14-15 (excerpts) * Video of first part of service

Friends, this is the third Good Friday of the COVID-19 pandemic and the first one of the three where we are holding an in-person gathering here at Mill Woods United. In April 2020, the pandemic had just begun, and I used Facebook Live from my home, along with the able assistance of my wife Kim who provided a singing-bowl introduction to a short worship experience. Last year, although we had restarted in-person services, we used the Zoom online platform for Good Friday worship, which is the first, and so far only time we have used Zoom for worship.

This year, despite a sixth wave of COVID-19 cases, some of us have gathered here in person while others watch live on Facebook or catch a video of this service later. As always, I am extremely grateful to Brian Sampson for providing the livestream, and to Bryan LeGrow for being here as our Music Leader.

The dogged persistence of COVID-19 might be one of the reasons some of us wonder if this is anything other than a Good Friday world. Almost 40,000 Canadians, one million Americans, and more than ten million other people worldwide have died, and the amount of grief – both expressed and unexpressed — is enormous.

There are also other painful events that might make us think this is a Good Friday world. Perhaps we are dealing with personal health concerns or with a sick loved one. Perhaps we are experiencing trouble at work or conflict at home.

Then there is the horrible war in Ukraine. Resistance to the Russian invasion has impressed so many of us, but death, destruction, and destitution abound. The Russian invasion of Ukraine has been front and centre in many of our hearts and minds for these past seven weeks, partly because Russia has made horrifying assertions about nuclear weapons. But the Ukrainian crisis is hardly the only one hurting the world. Wars, brutal oppression, and the existence of nearly 100 million refugees around the world might constantly remind us of how fallen human society seems.

On top of these ills, there are fears about climate disaster, about the rise of authoritarianism, and the about spread of dis-information to so many – including in our churches, families, and neighbourhoods.

When I spend time on Good Friday remembering the painful and tragic details told in the gospels about the arrest, trials, torture, and execution of Jesus, other issues like the ones I mentioned can flood my heart. And on this gloomy and wintry spring morning, this has happened again.

Still, awareness of these problems makes me more determined to mark Good Friday. For me, this is the most important date in the church calendar. Good Friday is closely connected to Easter, of course, which we will celebrate here in two days. But Easter is easy. With Grace, new life can always flood into our hearts. But the hard truth revealed in the stories of Good Friday, is that this new life requires death.

Good Friday is a day when we remember that while rising to new life is easy, dying is often difficult. This is true for the biological death of individuals. We all want to slip away peacefully, and at an old age, and sometimes this happens. But more often, the dying process is painful, and there is usually at least a short period of suffering before death. Sometimes, there is a long period.

Good Friday truths also apply to the symbolic deaths we experience before the end of our lives. These include the death of illusions in our institutions, or in our distractions, or in addictions. It can include the deaths of failed relationships, or toxic work arrangements, or soul- and environmental-destroying social institutions.

When I reflect on the death of Jesus, I remember these other deaths. Almost all of them are painful. But when we receive and accept the Grace to experience the pain of these endings, with Grace, new life sometimes rises in our hearts.

Every Good Friday, we come to the foot of the cross to stare at things we might rather ignore, and then we wait in hope for Easter morning.

Many people prefer to skip Good Friday and rush forward to Easter, which I understand. But sometimes Good Friday thrusts itself upon us as when a loved one dies, or a beloved institution fails. In such times of pain, may we remember that Friday never has the last word, and that out of Friday’s losses a strange and new life of love can arise on any Sunday.

Today we have heard the stories of Good Friday. They may have brought grief or fear to our hearts and minds. They may have reminded us of some of the pain and difficulties of our own lives.

And now we wait. We wait in prayerful silence. We wait in expectant hope. We wait and pray knowing that doing so prepares us to enter a space even larger than our grief – an empty tomb on Easter morning.

It might seem that we live in a Good Friday world. But it is a world in which every day people find paths that lead from disillusionment to a new connection to Love. This might be a world filled with too much violence, but it is also world with an even greater abundance of Grace and Love.

And for these Good Friday and Easter truths, I give thanks.

May it be so. Amen.

Getting ready

Text: John 12:1-8 (Jesus anointed for burial) * Video of complete service * Bulletin (PDF)

Today, I start with a discussion of “The Slap.”

Last Sunday evening, Kim and I, like so many others, were shocked when Will Smith slapped Chris Rock during the Oscars telecast. This occurred after Rock made a joke about the shaved head of Jada Pinkett Smith, Will Smith’s wife.

This physical assault was captured live in front of the millions of people who were watching the annual awards show, and by many millions more who saw it on news broadcasts and social media feeds.

I was upset both by the violence and by how news of it now dominates what seemed in many other ways to be an inspiring Oscar telecast.

The show began with the tennis stars Serena and Venus Williams introducing Beyonce, who, along with other musicians and dancers, performed her Oscar-nominated song “Be Alive” from the film “King Richard.” The film focuses on the two Williams’ sisters and their father, Richard Williams, who was played by Will Smith, as he struggles to help his daughters become tennis champions.

Beyonce’s performance occurred in a tennis court in Compton, the poverty-stricken Black neighbourhood of Los Angeles where the Williams family lived before the two sisters became tennis stars in their teens, and we loved it. It led me to a happy thought that in the face of world’s troubles, there is wonderful resistance, including cultural offerings like Beyonce’s song, and the film “King Richard.”

We had liked the movie, including Will Smith’s performance, and we had hoped he might win Best Actor for it, which he eventually did – but not before “The Slap.”

I enjoyed the acceptance speeches of Ariane Debose who won Best Supporting Actress for her work in “West Side Story” in which she noted she was the first queer woman of colour to win an award; of Troy Kostur who won Best Supporting Actor for his work in “Coda,” which was just the second time a deaf actor had won an Academy Award; and of Jessica Chastain who won Best Actress for her work on “The Eyes of Tammy Faye,” and in which she focused on the need for LGBTQ rights and inclusion. The latter was a reference to a moment in the movie in which disgraced televangelist Tammy Faye Baker partially redeemed herself with her acceptance of an AIDS patient in the 1980s

I was also pleased by the win of “Summer of Soul” for Best Documentary, which is a film about the 1969 Harlem Cultural Festival, and which had astonished and delighted us; and the Best Original Screenplay, which was won by Kenneth Branagh for this autobiographical story about “The Troubles” in Northern Ireland in 1969.

The broadcast had a post-pandemic feel. It was held in a packed Dolby Theatre in downtown Los Angeles with a nary a mask in sight. This contrasted sharply to the 2021 Academy Awards, which had been filmed in a Los Angeles train station.

There is a lot that could and has been said about The Slap: how it might have been influenced by Will Smith’s trauma, who wrote in a memoir last year that he felt helpless as a nine-year-old when his father beat his mother; about how Chris Rock’s humour was out of place, especially in light of Jada Pinkett-Smith’s alopecia, which is a medical condition causing hair loss; and about the challenging tangles of racism and sexism into which The Slap seemed to be trapped.

Thinking about the event also brought to my mind two years of COVID-19 pandemic losses and restrictions and the challenges they have created for so many. All of us, and not just actor Will Smith, may be going at least a bit mad, I fear.

COVID’s difficulties continue; and I am sorry that Canada is now entering a sixth wave of infection, at least in part because my final service here at Mill Woods United is now only four Sundays away. Ordinarily that would not be much time. But during a pandemic, four weeks can seem very long indeed. I hope we will have a large in-person gathering here on May 1 and that many people will stay afterward for a luncheon, which a group in the church is planning. But who knows what shape Edmonton will be in four weeks from today?

The incident also made me think of my own role as a public presenter. In the nearly 11 years since I was ordained, I have presided at approximately 500 Sunday services, at worship experiences like Christmas Eve and Good Friday, and at weddings and funerals. I haven’t always pleased everyone; but I’ve never been physically assaulted for my offerings, for which I am grateful!

One of the criticisms during my more than eight years as the minister of Mill Woods United has been the frequency with which I use movies as sources of reflection. If you do a search for “movie” on my sermon blog, you get more than 20 results, with movies from “Heaven is for Real” to “Agora” being referenced.

So, that criticism is based on the reality that I gain a lot of inspiration from books, TV shows, and movies.

But regardless, what might The Slap have to do with Alberta, or with today’s readings? Well, first Alberta.

On Monday, Premier Jason Kenny circulated a meme of The Slap on Twitter. It showed a photo of Chris Rock and Will Smith with the headings “Green Energy Policies” over Rock’s stunned body and “Reality” over Smith’s. I disliked this tweet because it amplifies racism and violence, and because it suggests that attempts to create a survivable climate – “Green Energy Policies” – run headlong into “Reality.” It implies there is no way out of the world’s current practice of burning 100 million barrels a day of oil.

This thought leads me back to another movie reference I have used twice in the past few months — “Mad Max,” which refers to a series of Australian movies released in 1979, 1981, 1984, and 2015. They show a post-apocalyptic world in which social cohesion has broken down. Alberta’s Premier has joined with many others to embrace a Mad Max future in which concerns for anything beyond the power of leaders like himself — including attempts to curb climate disaster — are scorned. It is a stance where sexism, racism, and disdain for science are used to keep an elite in power – and the future be damned.

Stopping climate disaster does often seem impossible. But so do many other things . . . until they happen. The latter include things we like – such as the Pope’s apology on Friday to Canada’s First Nations for their oppression in church-run residential schools – and things we don’t like, such as five million Ukrainians fleeing their country to live as refugees. We live in times of immense and seemingly unimaginable change; and this helps to fuel both my fears and my resolve to advocate for the social changes required to make life both more sustainable and loving.

In today’s Gospel reading, Mary anoints Jesus for burial. This shows she understands what no one else among Jesus’ friends do – that he is telling the truth when he says his entrance into Jerusalem will lead to betrayal, arrest, and execution. These are stories we will revisit next week with Palm and Pasion Sunday, and on Good Friday on April 15.

Then, on Easter Sunday April 17, we will celebrate the surprising Good News that Love has been resurrected and our ability to love God and neighbour lives on despite the death of Jesus . . . or the burning of Jerusalem . . . or the destruction of cities like Aleppo in Syria 10 years ago and of Mariupol in Ukraine today . . . or climate disaster here and everywhere . . . or whatever other terrors might visit the world and our individual lives.

When Mary anoints Jesus for burial, she enacts a ritual that represents the Grace that is accessible to us all. Like Jesus, we too are God’s anointed; like Jesus, we too bear the crosses of the world; and like Jesus, we too are recipients of God’s new life.

In my final Sunday here on May 1, I will focus on last rites. I hope this will help us to feel blessed as we end our covenant. After May 1st, we will die to old ways of being a community of faith and rise to new ones that will be different from what we’ve known in the past, but which, I trust, will continue to be enfolded in God’s Love.

In too many ways, our world seems to be collapsing; and powerful cultural forces are telling us that there is no way to avoid climate disaster; no way to stop a deadly pandemic; and no way to gather with other artists other than through insult and violence.

But then we might remember how we have marked Palm Sunday, Good Friday, and Easter before and how our spirits have grown. We can also give thanks that movies are being made, songs are being sung, books are being written, parents are embracing their children, and children are embracing their parents.

This is a challenging moment for many of us. But it is the only moment in which we can love and be loved; and because this is true, I pray that we will embrace the Grace to move forward in love.

Lent is nearly over. May we both appreciate the fearful news that we are being anointed as if for burial, and rejoice that new life is headed our way, even if we don’t know what precisely it will look like.

May it be so. Amen.

The metaphors of life and love

Text: Luke 15:11-32 (the Parable of the Prodigal Son) * video of the complete service

Why do we participate in church? This is a question we ask periodically at Mill Woods United, and I appreciate it.

When I surprised myself by joining Kingston Road United Church in Toronto 20 years ago, it had nothing to do with church doctrine. I considered the bits and pieces of church teachings I had absorbed as a child to be nonsense; and so, like many other people, I gave up church after I left home and integrated into a culture that no longer had one dominant religion.

The church I rejoined in 2001 was different than the one I had left 25 years earlier. For starters, the minister at Kingston Road, Rivkah Unland, was an American woman with a Hebrew name who was of Irish and Norwegian heritage, all of which surprised and intrigued me. The church was also more marginal and more focused on social issues than the one I had left. But these factors were secondary to the main reason behind my decision to rejoin the church, which was a troubled marriage and my hope to join a community that could help me weather its storms. As for teachings about God, Jesus, and doctrines like life after death, I had no interest.

Happily, Kingston Road United gave me much more than a community to rely upon during a turbulent marriage. On the first Good Friday service I attended there in 2002, I was moved by the choir anthems and stunned to remember — or perhaps to learn for the first time — that Jesus died on the cross. After the service, I said to the minister it was almost enough to break an old atheist’s heart.

I read “Care of the Soul” by Thomas Moore, which she had suggested. I went on the first of six canoe trips to Algonquin Park that summer, which was organized by the United Church’s Five Oaks Centre. In 2003, I attended the first of many men’s spirituality circles at Five Oaks, of which Rivkah’s husband Peter was the main organizer.

I sang in the choir, which rekindled my love of music; I preached for the first time in July 2004 on the 25th anniversary of the Sandinista Revolution in Nicaragua, which had been so important to me in the 1980s; and I audited three evening courses at the United Church’s Emmanuel College at the University of Toronto in the fall of 2004 and the winter and fall of 2005

By the end of these three courses, I decided that a career in ministry was not for me. However, my heart changed when my father died in June 2007 and I delivered a eulogy, which was a rare moment in which I felt heard. And so, by September 2007, I was enrolled full time at Emmanuel College.

At the end of that first semester, I wrote an essay titled “Resurrection: why wait for death? Do it now!” In it, I articulated an approach to The Good News that I have tried to follow ever since.

I began the essay by discussing today’s Gospel reading – the Parable of the Prodigal Son. There is much that can be said about this parable – on grace, on mercy, on resentment. But in that essay and in this, the third sermon I have written about the Prodigal over the nine Lent’s I have been the minister here, I focus on its use of death and new life as metaphors for being lost and found.

Twice, the Father, who is often seen as a stand-in for God, says his youngest son was dead and has come back to life. He was lost and now he’s found.

As a divinity student who struggled to see if I could become a preacher, I looked for passages like this that viewed spiritual life through the lens of metaphor. These were passages I often found relatable, unlike many other parts of Scripture that were often read literally. As my studies continued, I decided that much of the Bible was bunk and that the sections I found useful were best viewed as dreams, parables, or metaphors.

This week, I revisited a 2012 article from the magazine “Spirituality and Health” by Thomas Moore that I had referenced in my first sermon on the Prodigal Son in 2016. In this article, “Transmogrifying the Gospels,” Moore, whose focus is on poor translations of the Bible, says: “The Gospels have been presented time after time as simple-minded, anachronistic stories that have little relevance to twenty-first century life. As long as this goes on, people will shun them, looking for something more intelligent in their place.

He continues: “But Gospel spirituality is of special importance today, as we struggle to create a world community of cultures. The Gospels teach an end to xenophobia, paranoia, and narcissism.”

When a church leader says that death and resurrection rest on a literal and historical reading of Matthew, Luke, and John, which, unlike Mark, include physical appearances of Jesus after his death, they have little interest to me. For one, this violates a central understanding of mine that there is only one reality – the natural one.

But when death and resurrection are seen as Jesus describes them in the parable of the Prodigal son, they make sense to me. They describe a path of pain, dissolution, and grief followed by a joyous acceptance of reality and a move closer to the source of Love we call God.

This is a path I find in the gospels, in the real letters of Paul, and in life; and I try to preach it and follow it.

In 2011, I agreed to be ordained by the United Church of Canada with a passionate commitment to the Good News of death and rebirth, and with continued skepticism of 1700 years of imperialist conspiracy theories spread by most churches.

And now, my time in paid ministry is coming to an end. Despite this ending, I will continue to search for moments of grief and death this side of the grave and for moments of new life that can come to any person and community before death. As for biological death, I trust it will complete our return us to an egoless life within the heart of Love.

I view many other church teachings as conspiracy theories. For a truly egregious example, I mention Pat Robertson, the 92-year-old founder of the Christian TV program “The 700 Club.” On February 28, the retired fundamentalist returned to his TV program to claim that Vladimir Putin was compelled by God to invade Ukraine to fulfill end times prophecies.

You may be like me and find such statements to be raving lunacies. But they are hardly unique in the long centuries since Emperor Constantine slandered Jesus after a battle in the year 312 and in which he became Emperor of the Roman Empire.

Despite my return to church in 2001, I try to not be a conspiracy theorist; and so I continue to seek death and resurrection as they are portrayed in Luke’s Parable of the Prodigal Son and in Paul when he writes “I have been crucified with Christ and it is no longer I who live but Christ who lives in me” (Galatians 2:20)

A few years ago in a United Church minister’s discussion thread on Facebook, I was challenged by a minister who disagreed when I said that in Galatians Paul uses the words crucifixion and new life as metaphors. I replied that I would agree with him unless by metaphor one meant a word or phrase that referred to something other than its literal sense thus invoking an implicit similarity between the thing described and what is denoted by the word or phrase — in which case Paul’s statement is definitely metaphorical!

Does church have a useful place in our lives? For one, it helped me at the end of a troubled first marriage. For many of us, it provides a place to sing and reflect; or for fellowship and fun; or to organize with others for social justice; or to engage with the neighbourhood in charitable programs like The Bread Run. It is also a place where I try to confront the deep and difficult mysteries of life, particularly in a troubled world like ours, which is filled with both wonders and terrors; and a place to realize that despite everything, all is well, and all will be well.

In this life, we may often find ourselves so lost we might consider ourselves dead. But just as often as this happens, we are also given the Grace to be found and to be reborn in the Spirit.

And for this latter reality, I can only say Hallelujah.

May it be so. Amen.