Politics can be frustrating. This is an understatement, politics can be plain dumb at times. Here’s the thing – I am fond of politics actually (a bit of a junkie if I must admit) but I am not fond of partisan, party politics.

The idea that complex Canadian (or American) life can be represented by one of two to four parties is absolutely insane when you think about it. Frankly the only way a party system in Canada could truly represent everyone is if there were 35 million parties…one for every Canadian.

The problem with political parties and their very existence is that they convince people that there are three or four broad categories of correct thought, one of which best represents you. The amazing thing is that people actually buy this line of thinking. Look at Americans right now in the run up to the election – there are two options and they are being told one is evil and the other is good (and depending upon which party you choose you too are either evil or good). I am oversimplifying but you get the idea. You’re with one and against the other – there is no other option.

Worse still people have been known to actually fight over party affiliations. Seriously. Is “your” party really worth that level of commitment?

I can tell you right now that no one party in Canada best represents who I am. Party politics stagnates thinking as people feel forced to identify with one over the others and it becomes their paradigm…no more thinking required.

Personally I wish the entire political system would be overhauled and parties were removed so that MPs could vote their conscience or the conscience of their constituents depending upon how you interpret the democratic process. What would a no party system even look like? Could it even be done?

Canadians are not so simple that the ones who stand against one issue automatically stand against a neat little colour-coded package of other items tidally labelled Conservative or Liberal or Green or NDP. I can’t even imagine voting in an American election where you are told you have only two choices (one choice more than a dictatorship). Wow. It makes no sense whatsoever.

I deeply dislike it when people automatically assume that as a Christian I am a Conservative. Sometimes I am, sometimes I am not – it depends on the issue, it depends on the context because I like to think I am a thoughtful person.

This is why I think I prefer the municipal system where party affiliations (when they exist) are not usually presented. You have a group of people, men and women, of varying perspectives all voting according to their unique perspectives and makeup – and shockingly – it works. The mayor does not have nearly the authority of the Prime Minister or a president. The mayor is simply another vote on council in most instances.

Maybe we need to model provincial and federal politics after the municipal system and see what happens.

So I wrote a little about this before and want to reiterate how thrilled I am that women have the right to be ordained and become senior pastors in the Christian and Missionary Alliance in Canada. This decision was made recently at the denomination’s General Assembly in Winnipeg during the first week of July 2012.

So about a month has gone by and I am wondering why there is no (not obvious anyhow) information about this on the CM&A website. I mean in the 125 year history of the Alliance this has got to rank right near the top in terms of momentous decisions (whether you agree with it or not). But I cannot find the announcement anywhere. I mean I can easily find an article about the election of the new president  but nothing on the ordination of women. This puzzles me.

When a critical decision like this is made information needs to be disseminated as quickly as possible because you can be sure that people (like me) are talking about it. The longer it takes the denomination to craft the message about this decision the more likely it is they will lose control of just what that message is. This should have been something that would have been anticipated and a message crafted ahead of time.

While there are no resources on the website one would hope that churches have been equipped to present, celebrate and discuss the decision, especially since the vote was so close (less than 60-40 split I believe).

So if you are reading this and you have a position of leadership in the Alliance please consider the importance of developing the message and resources as soon as possible. Publicize the information clearly on your website and in your monthly magazine. Equip churches to discuss and deliver the message and to deal with potential conflict.

An enormous decision was made recently and it needs to be talked about.

P.S. There is a very real chance that I am blind and have simply not found the info. If it is available on the web my apologies – please comment with the links) here.

UPDATE Sept. 8 2012: My articles on the C&MA’s move to allow women to be ordained have driven a lot of traffic and I thought I should mention that at long last they have added content about it on their website. You can find it here: http://www.cmacan.org/news_items/#General Assembly Votes on Ordination

Community is driven by mutual bonds of genuine love and purpose. It rises up toward a specific end and is held together by a passionate drive to achieve that end.

Love, purpose and passion are the engines of community and they need to be fed. If you starve even one the others die. The community will continue for quite a while under the momentum of these three but eventually over the years or decades or centuries it will break down.

The nature of the community will be determined by what it loves, it’s perceived purpose and the theme of its passion…again each affects the other.

The community is what it loves. Where it’s passion is and what it’s purpose is. The community is never what it says it is or even thinks it is – it is defined only by how it acts these three out.

I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one— I in them and you in me—so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me. (John 17:22, 23 NIV)

pale apollo’s crescent is lost in leaves
obscured by cradling cottonwoods
he sings softly down upon his mother
warning –
we are not the gods we think we are
that fatal fire we wield is our own
prometheus dines on olympus still
but
we cannot hear his silver tones
above the drumbeat of our hubris
as we march to our own undoing
singing songs of eternity along the way

Why?

There is no other question in the English language (and I suspect other languages as well) that is more powerful or more epitomizes human nature.

Why? The very question rings with our essence and speaks to how humanity has managed to develop the way it has. We are curious creatures and this question must always be asked and there is nothing too sacred for it. Nothing.

Children are amazing at asking this question. They live for this question. Why is the sky blue? Why is the grass green? Why is the sun hot? Why does it rain? Why does poop smell? The list never ends. There is no creature on this planet that comes even remotely close to human beings in their desire to learn and to answer questions.

What I find interesting is the number of people, organizations and nations that absolutely detest the question even though it seems to be hard-wired into our DNA. Frustration starts early enough with parents. We often get frustrated by the question, not so much for the question itself as our inability to fully answer them or the simple, overwhelming volume of them.

Once my son asked “Does God have bones?” To which I honestly had to respond “Well gee I don’t really know”. I eventually told him that God was spirit and as such had no bones. This felt a little like a stretch because I immediately started thinking about Jesus and the incarnation and the hypostatic union (the dual nature of Christ as fully human and fully God and the nature of that unity) and I could not very well enter into a conversation with a 3-year-old about these things. Christ had bones. So if Christ and God are one then God has bones too…and he also does not. Terribly unsatisfying to a 3-year-old (and an adult for that matter).

Why, why, why?

This is the common lament of the Psalms and of humans everywhere. We lift it to the skies and thrust it into the lives of the people around us.

I am not an historian so I have no idea if the question has always raised objections but I suspect it has. Lately I think I have simply become more attuned to the protests I hear in response to the question and frankly I do not like them.

I think that people and governments etc. do not like the question because there is an accountability wrapped up in the response, especially when the question is about motives for acts. We ask our government why they would choose to fund one initiative and not another – in response we often get defensive or evasive answers. Answers that suggest the following unspoken feeling of “None of your business, just trust us”.

Negative responses to the question of why are designed consciously or unconsciously to condition people to stop asking the question. We must recognize and resist this.

There is no part of human existence that should not be completely open to the question of why and this includes faith. Any faith worth more than two cents should be able to handle the question of why and yet so many representatives of faiths and expressions of faith discourage such questions including within my own Christianity to varying degrees.

I think one of the reasons the question is discouraged is because we don’t like the possibility of having to respond with “I don’t know”. Such a response is reasonable when it is the truth and frankly welcomed. Most of us can sense right away when someone posed with the question of why slips into BS mode, it is quite obvious usually as they work linguistic gymnastics to dance around the response.

We don’t like to say “I don’t know” because it makes us feel stupid. We want to know (that’s why we ask the question why as much as we do). Not knowing somethings makes us feel insecure, empty, weak, frightened and of low value. The entire Garden of Eden narrative in Genesis has a lot to do with this incorrect feeling and the temptations that result.

We do not gain value from knowledge so a lack of knowledge does not reduce our value. With this in mind one would think honesty would reign supreme and people in the know would respond with the info requested and the people who do not know would respond accordingly as well and everybody would be fine and not react with judgement and/or defensiveness.

Now back to faith (you knew I had to go there) – we must feel free to ask God why. In fact in many places God encourages us to ask why? Of course God never promises answers we will understand (see the book of Job) but we are encouraged nonetheless to ask the big question because it is often in the asking and seeking that we grow, not so much in the attainment of the answer. For a great example of this think back to your last calculus test (I know that could be a long way away). Did you notice that most of your marks in the test had to do with the process of coming to the answer and not the answer itself? In fact it is possible to get every question wrong in a calculus test and still coming away with a passing grade. The journey matters. It matters in life and it matters in faith as well.

One of the areas of faith we have often failed to challenge with why is when it comes to rules/regulations and laws. Often when we build up the courage to ask the response knocks us back down again: “why is Jesus the only way to God?” “Because the Bible says so…” “Why are there more than 600 rules in the Bible?” “Because there are…” “Why is the Bible the rule of faith and arbiter of truth?” “Because the Bible says so.” “But why do you believe that?” “Because I do now stop asking so many questions.”

The response “because the Bible says so…” is radically unsatisfying on multitude levels and betrays one or both of two possible realities – the person does not really know the answer and does not want to admit it or they simply don’t feel you are worth the time to explain it to. The first reality is perfectly ok but one should be willing to admit that. The second possibility, that of worth, is not ok given the point of scripture and the Gospel.

After all if God invites questions of why certainly we should as well.

Frankly if people, organizations of faith or otherwise become evasive when the question is posed I would suggest you move on. Life is too short to have to wrestle responses to such an important question.

I would like to remind you however that the point of the question is usually not the answer. In most cases the answer to the question will rarely be satisfying (aka don’t be annoying and rude to people honest enough to tell you they don’t know). It is the journey seeking the answers to the questions of why where the real value lies.

and i would cast myself to the salt seas
if not for these clay feet that root to the earth
that keep me here as eternal sun-bleached witness
to the cool lapping waves of promise
sole sentinel of an unlit lighthouse in the sand
warning of nothing to nobody
on the hope that one might beach nearby
to simply share the sunrise views

“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” – Matthew 11:28-30

Who is not weary? Who is not burdened? This is an invitation to everyone…but…not everyone knows they are burdened, not everyone knows they are weary and not everyone cares to do anything about it. For this invitation to be accepted one needs self-awareness and a willingness to trust.

What a brilliant offer…he does not offer riches, he does not offer retribution, vengeance, or even justice in this instance. He offers rest. Simple rest. What does this kind of rest even look like? Who knows, but the offer is compelling because it is not an offer that is typically made.

Sure we find opportunities for rest. We go on vacations to sunny places (some of us) and we take time off of work but we don’t really get rest do we? Not the kind we want. If we did we wouldn’t keep going back to the vacation well would we? No, what we really want is a permanent rest…the kind that transforms us into who we always wanted to be but couldn’t because of the wearying weight (wait?) of the world.

There are times when something inside of me wants to bear the burdens of every person I ever meet. This is the part of me that weeps at the unreal level of pain that most of us bear in silence and alone. How it does not kill us is beyond me (sometimes it does). But there is this other part of me that I fear is stronger – it is the part of me that wants to add to the burdens of others. To increase their pain and laugh and feel not so alone in my own because others now hurt too. This part is a monster. It keeps the other part of me (that part that seeks to be a person of integrity) at bay and traps me in the limbo of inaction and apathy, a lukewarm swamp of paralyzed apartness.

Into the midst of all of this Christ speaks to me sometimes like a sword cutting through the Gordian knot of pain and potential that has coalesced within and simply says “come to me and I will give you rest…take my yoke and learn from me.”

Beneath it all is the great unspoken word ABIDE…abide in Christ. I hear it and see it clear as as day but it requires a letting go that I sometimes don’t feel capable of. I have a death grip on the things that weary me. I have a death grip on the world and so the critical step after hearing his voice if one wishes to abide in Christ must be letting go.

How does one let go of all that one feels is keeping one afloat in the great and stormy world? It might involve becoming aware that the things that one feels are life preservers in the waves are really anchors seeking to drown us. Still it is a scary thing to let go and cast ourselves to the deep blue on a promise of being lifted up.

This is the constant imagery the Christ offers to us – the images of letting go, of casting ourselves on the waters, of dying to ourselves…that which we love the most if we are honest – ourselves.

Would we die to ourselves for the promise of rest? Well if we look around we can see that even this promise does not seem to be enough. If I look inside I see only fragments of death (or life) and not the whole thing.

The promise of rest however is not a promise that says let go of everything and receive nothing in return however. Christ promises a new yoke; A lighter yoke and the instruction on how to bear it. 

I’m not sure I like the image of a yoke but it is apt if we come to realize that everything we grasp in order to survive this life (wealth, stuff, big homes, nice cars, women, porn, drugs, fantasy, power, and the idols of work and debt that we use to make it all happen) – these things are simply yokes, big heavy weights around our necks designed to plow fields of contentment but really only end of plowing the dark pits of our own graves in the end.

I should gladly be willing to shed all of these yokes for a lighter one with the guidance to wear it. I should leap at the chance if not for the crush of the others I have on me now.

It is at this point when we wish to cry out in great frustration as we are drowning in our own desires that this promise is impossible for we are bound to death in our bones. We are dying in the sea and the promised ship is metres away but we cannot reach it without breaking the chains that bind us and the harsh reality is that we cannot. We keep hearing that all we have to do is die to ourselves to save ourselves and in response we want to scream that if this is the case “WHO THEN CAN BE SAVED?!?!?!”

This then is the right question. This is the place of frustrated realization that we cannot do anything to save ourselves from the weight we have accumulated. We cannot even respond. We can only cry out in shattered awareness that we are doomed and with the necessary knowledge of certain peril Christ reaches in with the answer:

“With people this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.” – Matthew 19:26

With this, I walk like Marley in chains of my own making and stumble along knowing that Christ will unbind me. That only Christ can unbind me. That I must abide in his presence and trust that he will not let me drown but as he rises so will I and so will you.

1 John 1:1-10

That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched —this we proclaim concerning the Word of life. The life appeared; we have seen it and testify to it, and we proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and has appeared to us. We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard, so that you also may have fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ. We write this to make our joy complete.

This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light; in him there is no darkness at all. If we claim to have fellowship with him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live out the truth. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin.

If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word is not in us.

No “hello, how are you”; no “dear friends”; no introduction at all but a quick launch into a very specific statement of faith, a creed if you will which unequivocally says “God has been here. I saw God. I heard God. I touched God and I remain in fellowship with God.”

The message is clear – whatever this John is going to say is going to be serious and he is already anticipating conflict and disbelief and so he seeks to declaw it before it can scratch by simply staring out with a great bold “I speak with authority” and a more subtle undertone of “you do not…”

John can get away with this…for if he is the beloved disciple, the John exiled to Patmos, then he is likely the last living eyewitness to the breath of God made flesh, the Christ.

In John’s words there are hints at the struggles he is trying to address in the early church (always remember these words were written first and foremost to believers). Unbelief. John’s launch directly into a mini apologetic defending the very real Christ who was seen, heard and touched speaks of a struggle in the emerging church, a potential mythologizing of Christ, a dangerous metaphorizing of him into an idea rather than a person, rather than God.

Why say these things? “So that you may have fellowship with us” and by extension with the one we have fellowship with – God that is Christ that is God; this, according to John, this would “make our joy complete”. The implication – this fellowship is currently broken or strained and John feels it is important to address these things; Important not simply for the individuals but for the church and not really even for the church so much as for whom the church exists for – the world. If the church’s fellowship with God fractures the world suffers.

John moves on to point out what he clearly feels should be obvious but what seems increasingly to be things his audience is forgetting – God is light. To claim kinship with Christ and to walk in darkness at the same time is a problem…you cannot have both. More explicitly as we move deeper into the letter we come to see that John is battling a community that seems to believe that this salvation Christ brings is a very individual sort of thing, a license to sin because of grace…a community Bonhoeffer would say is caught up in “cheap grace” that is in the process of forgetting the costly nature of grace and just for whom grace is meant. John is here to remind the community what true grace is and what it means to be redeemed.

John speaks of sin but he speaks of its dual nature in practically one breath…sin is nature; sin is act. We are called to live like Christ but we are also called to acknowledge and confess our brokenness seeking out the only one capable of sustaining our salvation…the Lord of that salvation. We are sinful and we are called to not be sinful. It makes the head hurt but ultimately it is a call to personal revolution because the act of rebelling against ones rebellious nature is a public one that demonstrates an ongoing relationship (costly grace) and not simply the acquisition of a Get Into Heaven Free Card (cheap grace). Why is the demonstration of this relationship so important? Because it demonstrates that “He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world.”

Not only for us…but for the whole world.

For the whole world.

It is as if John is saying: “You are making the wellspring of grace look like a trough from which only a lucky few can drink while the rest die of thirst when nothing could be further from the truth.”

John then returns to his point: “Why am I writing to you – to remind you you are forgiven because you seem to have forgotten.”

It is important to recognize that while John is revealing Godly inspired, inerrant and eternal truth he is also responding to a very specific and time bound issue. People are wandering away from the church…this has created a scenario of people who call themselves Christians going into the world and intentionally or unintentionally delivering a very unfortunate picture of who Christ is by their actions and lives…because the world does not see the distinction between the genuine faithful and the ones who bought into faith for cheap grace.

In 1 John 2:20 we come to learn that some are denying that Jesus is the Christ…which could be as simple as simply publicly stating that they think Jesus was just a wise human that had an unfortunate run in with the Romans. John is hear to say no…he is more. I saw him, knew him, heard him and touched him. He is messiah (Christ) and as Jewish believer writing to an increasingly Gentile population of Christians it falls on him to teach that Messiah is far more than a simple human.

Note that John refers to this denying of Christ as “antichrist” behaviour. Unfortunately antichrist has taken on silly horror movie connotations in our culture leading to the sad and deceptive belief that THE antichrist is a single being and therefore we need not worry about that being us; this lets our guard down and we become what we think we cannot become as a result… deniers of the one we claim to follow.

Remain in Christ John says – this is eternal life…to remain in the source of eternal life. Which sounds suspiciously like he is saying “eternal life starts now, not after you die, so start acting like it.”

John continues and there is a strong subtext that suggest teachers have been coming to the community John is writing to and telling people that they can continue on in their broken ways with confidence because they have the fire insurance of grace. The lesson that appears to have been taught that John is fighting is that Jesus came so that you could continue in sin and brokenness with abandon when in fact nothing could be further from the truth and if we truly want to acknowledge what Christ has done we can do no better than to seek to live like he did.

At the end of chapter three John gets to a critical point – explaining what he means by “stop sinning” and thankfully we are NOT then presented with an exhaustive list of more than 600 laws…rather John simply states – “We should love one another”. He then spends the entirety of chapter four restating this…you cannot love God and hate your brother and sister…it is not possible, you must love both and they will feed one-another in an upward redemptive spiral just as hate feeds on itself and feeds a downward spiral of bitterness and death.

Speaking death the last chapter of 1 John leads us to that sticky couple of verses (16 and 17) that we may wish were not there:

“If you see any brother or sister commit a sin that does not lead to death, you should pray and God will give them life. I refer to those whose sin does not lead to death. There is a sin that leads to death. I am not saying that you should pray about that. ¹⁷ All wrongdoing is sin, and there is sin that does not lead to death.”

Great. A sin that leads to death (that is separation from God) and we are not to pray for them. Seems harsh.

It is likely what is being spoken of here is unbelief but not simply unbelief because we are speaking of fellow Christians here. Note that John has stated that when you see sin in a fellow believer your response is to pray (it is also critical to think deeply about the things John does not say we should do). For a believer or one who claims to be a believer to step outside of the faith and walk in unbelief (a path toward death) will require more than the well meaning prayers of fellow believers…this one must be left to wander the desert where only God can reach them. This is the lost sheep…this is the one who does not require the protection of the flock but the radical, pursuing love of the shepherd…the only thing that can bring them back from death.

Finally as if to reinforce the theme of remaining true to “the way” of Christ John’s final words are very simple “Dear children, keep yourselves from idols.”

It would have been just as appropriate for John to have left off with the great prayer of Israel, the Shema – “Hear, O Israel: the Lord is our God, the Lord is One“.

John would have his fellow believers stand fast, remain with God and God alone…all else is illusion. Thus the tough, difficult to read, frustrating letter of 1 John ends with the primary theme still ringing in our ears – it is one thing to be apart from God, a gentile in need of the Gospel, it is a wholly other thing to have claimed kinship and then to have abandoned that same kinship in favour of the old ways…this is a difficult, painful path that can lead to death and lead others there as well…stay close to Christ and obey his commands by loving God, loving self, and loving others.

i look out into the prairie sea
wondering
when do we become we?
do we small bits of clay-bound sod
gain being within the mind of God?
either we are valued forever
or we are valued for-never
there is no random place to start
this soul-animated work of art

==========================================

Postscript: I am not fond of rhyming couplets. I feel like a poor version of Dr. Seuss when I write them but I will let this one stand because it expresses thoughts that needed escape and my miserable muse was out somewhere else (the lazy, unreliable so-and-so) and this is the best I could scratch out without her.