Family Stories - Meeting God in Ordinary Time

It is a stroke of genius that half of the church year that runs from Pentecost to Advent is commonly called “ordinary time.” "Ordinary time" is clearly to be contrasted with that other half of the church year that features the more dramatic events that we re-tell such as Advent, Christmas, Lent, Easter and Pentecost. Retelling these events is very important, and, of course, we will continue to do so. Yet, the church fathers and mothers recognized that we can’t always live in high drama, and any attempt to do so is unsustainable, spiritually, emotionally and relationally. Indeed, most of our lives are spent in the ordinariness of paying bills, raising kids, weeding the garden, washing the windows, bandaging a scraped knee, looking for work, and so on. Ordinary time is the reminder that God wants to meet us much in ordinary moments, as in those milestone and dramatic moments.  

We Are On The Verge...! 

In my early years of ministry, we were constantly barraged with hype that the "next great move of God" was just around the corner. We gave much of our time and attention to chasing it like a carrot – losing total awareness of the work that God was doing among us every moment in ordinary ways.

As we move into the fall season, it almost seems to go against the grain to say that we are still in "ordinary time," particularly as we face the "schedule trauma" commonly called "September." September is a time of year when churches tend to “ramp up” with kick-offs, launches, and new beginnings, with all the hype that can bring. There certainly is a place for new beginnings and "fresh starts," but we can do so without the hype by being mindful that we are still in "ordinary time," and God wants to meet us here no less than any other time. 
One of the ways we are embracing ordinary time here at VEV this fall is to resume our teaching series on the Book of Genesis, picking up where we left off in the spring. We will be focusing on the “Family Stories" of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Is there anything more ordinary than "family stories?" While there is certainly some drama in these stories, there is a marked sense of ordinariness in family conflicts, property disputes, and seemingly meaningless cul-de-sacs. Yet, in the ordinariness of these accounts, significant encounters with God occur. These extraordinary moments invading the ordinary are sometimes recognized, but often they are not, as with Jacob who woke up from a dream exclaiming, “Surely the Lord is in this place and I was not aware of it!” (Genesis 28:16). 

Families from Generation to Generation

"Family" has the potential for heaven or hell on earth! Yet, there is something about family and generations that is so close to the heart of God who has left us with intergenerational symbols within the triune nature of "Father, Son, and Holy Spirit." Generations need each other. Reinhold Neibuhr wrote: "Nothing that is worth doing can be achieved in our lifetime, therefore we must be saved by hope. Nothing which is true or beautiful or good makes complete sense in any immediate context of history; therefore we must be saved by faith. Nothing we do, however virtuous, can be accomplished alone; therefore we must be saved by love." Commenting on this, Thomas Cahill in his classic, The Gift of the Jews wrote, "That accomplishment is intergenerational may be the deepest of all Hebrew insights."  

These intergenerational family stories are marked by a common thread – that of the immense risk that God has taken to invite the primary characters, each of whom are messed up and broken in various ways, to join him in his work to make the world right again. Believe me, you will see plenty of evidence of the broken human condition in these stories as the author pulls no punches in describing the sinfulness and brokenness of the characters. Yet, over and over again, we see the amazing capacity of God’s grace to overrule time and time again. This is really good news for each of us in our pursuit to join God in his work in the world. 

Come and join us as we again retell our family stories – they are not just the stories of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob… they are our own stories. We will laugh and we will weep as we again find ourselves in them. They are foundational in enriching the texture and contours of our stories, giving each of us encouragement and hope that our ordinary stories are all a part of an extraordinary larger Story that began a long time ago in a land far away…

Hitler, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and Kids

We all need heroes. Dietrich Bonhoeffer is one of my all-time heroes. This was underscored during my recent reading of Eric Metaxas’s masterful and often heart-wrenching biography of Bonhoeffer’s life [1].   I came to the conclusion that Bonhoeffer was indeed my hero, but for reasons that were not immediately apparent. Yes, it is true, he almost singularly stood up to Adolf Hitler. Yes, at the risk of life, limb, and liberty, he fearlessly led the resistance of Germany's “confessing church” against Hitler’s attempts to undermine the church’s mandate to embrace the “other” – including Jews and other “non-Aryans.” Yes, he defiantly stared down intimidating pressure from the Third Reich to concede to their strange hybrid doctrine of Nazi ideology and theology based on race; that is, the so-called, “German Christian Movement.” Yes, he continued to stand firm as the pressure increased, leading to his arrest and imprisonment which included Buchenwald Concentration Camp. But, tragically, only days before Hitler surrendered to the allies, Bonhoeffer was executed by the Nazis for his perceived role in the failed Valkyrie plot to assassinate Hitler, leaving his fiancée bereft of a life partner. Bonhoeffer had come to the conclusion, along with others, that eliminating Hitler was the only course of action left after every other means had been exhausted. Millions of Jews, elderly, and disabled, continued to be exterminated in the concentration camps and Bonhoeffer believed, that as reprehensible as violence was, it had become immoral not to act. Yet, even though his life was cut short, he packed multiple “lifetimes” into his brief 39 years.

  

Academic Genius Who Didn't Fit Our Categories 

Bonhoeffer was a genius, but that is also not the primary reason that I regard him as a hero. Yes, he was schooled in the world renowned Berlin University’s theological faculty, and he had obtained a Ph.D. by the time he was 21 years of age. He was a curious mix of theological liberalism and conservatism and to this day, it is still hard to pin him down into a theological or political category. He was supervised by the famous liberal theologian, Adolf von Harnack, who was a direct spiritual descendent of Friederich Schleiermacher, regarded by many as the father of modern day liberal theology. Even though Bonhoeffer rarely came to the same theological conclusions as von Harnack, they still mutually shared a deeply respectful and honoring friendship their whole lives. Bonhoeffer greatly respected Harnack’s theological methodology while Harnack greatly respected Bonhoeffer’s razor sharp mind even though their viewpoints often led them to respectful differences. Bonhoeffer was also personally mentored by the great Swiss theologian, Karl Barth. In addition, he was profoundly impacted by the passion and vitality of the African American church while attending Union Seminary in New York City. Bonhoeffer's keen theological mind, combined with a deep relationship with Christ which was immersed in the Scriptures, prayer, and community, provided the resources to confront one of the greatest evils in history. 

Bonhoeffer and Children

 

But no, it was not just Bonhoeffer’s remarkable courage in opposing Hitler that impressed me, nor his willingness to go to the gallows for his convictions. Nor was it because of his remarkable mind, gaining him a Ph.D. by the time he was 21. Neither was it his remarkable contributions to our Christian journey through his weighty classics such as, Life Together, and The Cost of Discipleship.

What impressed me the most in my recent reading of Bonhoeffer’s life was his heart for children, and his willingness, with all the acute demands on his schedule, to take on a significant role in children’s lives. Bonhoeffer loved kids so much that he seriously considered becoming a pastor instead of a theologian. His highly aristocratic and educated father and brothers thought this would be a waste of his great mind, but he strongly believed that if he couldn’t communicate the most profound thoughts about God and the Bible to children, something was wrong. In other words, his Ph.D. was useless. For Bonhoeffer, there was much more to life than academia! 

This conviction drove Bonhoeffer to constantly be involved in the lives of children and youth. As a theological student, he was required to do volunteer hours in church work. When he could have done otherwise, he purposely chose to work with youth and children. Somehow, with all the demands of his academic work, he found time to prepare each week for a Sunday school class. He creatively used stories, even fairy tales, to convey truth. Not content to just teach children once-a-week on Sundays, he, along with his youngest sister, Susanne, began having kids into their home to play games, as well as take them on outings throughout Berlin. He was deeply taken with children and they with him! He became so popular that children from other classes left their classes to join his!  

A Rowdy Inner-City Confirmation Class

One of Bonhoeffer’s assignments was to take on a confirmation class of 50 boys, aged 14 and 15, in a very rough inner-city district of Berlin, where people lived in extreme squalor and poverty. The boys had been so unruly that they had literally driven Bonhoeffer’s predecessor to his grave! In Bonhoeffer’s first class with them, the boys were rioting, chanting and even throwing various items as missiles! Bonhoeffer refused to react or raise his voice, patiently waiting for them to quiet down, which they did eventually. Somehow, his peaceful demeanor seemed to spread to the whole class. He began to creatively tell stories, deliberately keeping them short which always left the boys wanting more. During the week, when he began to visit these boys in their homes and meet their families, he witnessed the deplorable conditions they lived in. Against social custom, he moved from his privileged area in Berlin into a small flat in their neighbourhood, operating with an open-door policy for the boys to come and visit, ask questions, and play games. He even saw miraculous healings, including one time when he visited and prayed with a boy at risk of having his leg amputated in the hospital. Miraculously, the boy’s leg was saved after Bonhoeffer had prayed with him. Bonhoeffer won the boys’ hearts. His confirmation class altered the lives of each of those 50 boys forever.  

“Herr Volf ist Tot!”

One of my favourite and perhaps defining stories of Bonhoeffer with children occurred during a season of ministry he had in Barcelona, Spain with German ex-pats. Again, he was assigned to a Sunday school class which started with just one girl! The next week, thanks to an energetic campaign to invite more children, 15 attended, and again, during the following week, he visited all of these 15 children in their homes and met their parents. The class quickly grew to more than 30 which never declined during his season there. 

One day, a 10 year old boy came to his office on an errand from his parents, but the boy clearly had other things on his mind. He began wailing, “Herr Volf Ist Tot!” that is, “Mr. Wolf,” (his dearly loved German Shepherd dog), “was dead.” The little boy cried out his anguish, but after awhile, he said hopefully to Bonhoeffer, “But, I will see Mr. Wolf in heaven, right?” Bonhoeffer didn’t know how to respond. He knew that even a “Well, we don’t know…” would be a “No” for this little boy, so he responded, “Look, God created human beings and animals and I’m sure he also loves animals.  And I believe that with God, it is such that all who loved each other on earth – genuinely loved each other – will remain together with God, for to love is part of God. Just how that happens, we admittedly don’t know.” The boy’s countenance changed dramatically now that he was confident that he would once again play with “Herr Volf.” Bonhoeffer repeated several times to the boy that “We don’t know how this happens...” but later he wrote, “The little boy knew.” After a few moments, the boy remarked, “Today I really scolded Adam and Eve for if they had not eaten the apple, Herr Volf would not have died!” 

Bonhoeffer wrote, “There I stood, I, who was supposed to ‘know the answer,’ – feeling quite small next to this little boy, and I cannot forget the confident expression on his face when he left.” Pastoral and theological genius came together in Bonhoeffer's interaction with this 10 year old boy. 

Yes, Bonhoeffer was heroic in standing up to Hitler and the Nazis. Yes, he was a theological and academic genius. But, he’s my hero, mostly, because in addition to all of these things in his very full life, he made time for children and passionately invested in them. In light of all that Jesus had to say about kids, I believe this, by far, was his most lasting legacy. 

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[1] Eric Mertaxas: Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy, Thomas Nelson, Nashville, 2010. I am so indebted to Mertaxas for this brilliant (re)telling of Bonhoeffer's story, which I read on an Okanagan pool deck in April. The photo is from the cover of the book and I have drawn heavily from excerpts in this blog.

Sabbath: Stopping When It Is Time To

As part of a course I’m taking, I recently read another book on Sabbath, this one by Wayne Muller. I felt an initial resistance to reading it, namely, because Sabbath had already been such a huge focus of my life over the past year. In 2015, I took a 5 month pastoral Sabbath and invested three months before-hand, preparing our church for it, practically and theologically. In addition, over the past twenty years, I had cultivated the practice of a pastoral “Monday Sabbath” which I would attribute to the current longevity I am enjoying in pastoral ministry. Over these years, I have gotten to know myself and what Sabbath rhythms are needed for me to live sustainably. Frankly, I was feeling I had the subject covered, thank you very much. Nevertheless, this presumption was soon overcome by a number of surprising and enriching insights that Muller brought to my understanding of Sabbath. I would say the overall impact has been a paradigm shift with regards to the relationship between Sabbath and the other six days of the week. The tendency is to see Sabbath as a stopping point for one day, so we can be more effective on the other six days that we work. Muller argued that it was actually the reverse – the other six days are “for the Sabbath.”  What does this mean? To be honest, I am still trying to work that out at a cognitive level, but throughout the book, the various nuances and perspectives on Sabbath that Muller introduced have provided practical entry points for me live out Sabbath more meaningfully as a way of life. Allow me to give three examples.

Freedom from the Need to be “Finished”

A few weeks ago, I was working with my wife, Kathleen, weeding our church community garden which is located on our church property at St. David of Wales. We had both committed to two hours of labour on a Wednesday morning so that there would be some space for her to get a break before she headed off to her tutoring work a few hours later. Our plan was to work from 10:30am-12:30pm noon. We were weeding some plant beds in front of the church that had become infested with horsetail weeds. They were difficult to dig out, so we were kneeling in the dirt to pull them out, using every tool we could find, including hoes, shovels, and pitchforks. We had almost completed the whole bed, but there was one line of weeds left to do. I could have completed it in 15 minutes. Nevertheless, it was 12:30pm and I remembered our commitment. I was so tempted to take the needed 15 minutes to get rid of that last batch of weeds, but I remembered Muller’s words, “We do not stop because we are done – we stop because it is time to stop.” Stopping required surrender on a number of levels. It was surrender to the reality that we are never “finished.” Sabbath frees us from the need to be finished. As I reflect on this experience, I am struck by how hard it was for me to stop. It was a distinct act of surrender and submission to cease working at that point. I am mindful that there were elements of pride that I had to combat. For example, “How would the unfinished weeding look to others who would see the work we did?” as if that was what this was all about! Surrender also required that I remembered that this was a “community garden,” which means that a whole community puts their hands to it and offers the time and effort that each person is able. Sabbath is surrendering to the whole that is greater than the sum of its parts. It was a surrender to community rather than persisting in individualism, independence and performance. It was an admission that the world could, indeed, continue without me. On my regular Sabbath day, I return to these realities rather easily. However, this was an important experience of this reality in the middle of my work week, and I was surprised how difficult it was to embrace.  

Symbol and Ritual

Secondly, I was inspired by Muller’s encouragement to use practices of symbol and ritual that are related to Sabbath. I live in a city that has one of the highest costs of living in the world. The impact of this is that people’s margins are thin, with the perception of little time and money available for volunteerism, including church involvement. I was challenged by Muller’s thoughts on seeing Sunday worship as a "Community Sabbath"  My heart goes out to our congregants who, because of their lifestyle, where margins are so thin, can find Sunday worship to be the most stressful time of the week!  I long for Sunday worship to be restful, delightful, and joyful – a reminder that we worship a God who has abundant margins for all of us. Consequently, the employment of symbol and ritual is helping to renew this sense of Sabbath to our Sunday worship, even if it is still a journey we are just embarking on. For example, we are now employing several Benedictine practices. Because of our location in a heritage Anglican building, we are now able to sound the bells throughout our neighbourhood when it is time for worship. These bells constitute a call to worship, and are rung at least 8 times in tandem. Then, as we gather and welcome everyone, we invite one of our preteens to light a candle that is centred at the altar before a magnificent stained glass window. The lighting of the candle is then accompanied by an additional sound of the “toll bell” and a time of silence.  These simple practices, that involve intentional "seeing and hearing," are helping us be more more attentive and aware of the “God of Sabbath” in our midst, who is inviting us into rest.  

Sensuality and Delight

For many of us, sensuality and delight seem to be the farthest thing from Sabbath. Yet, Muller argues that this is exactly the point of Sabbath. As it happened, when I read this, Kathleen and I were on a recent spring vacation in Osoyoos. Inspired by my reading, I went for my regular morning walk, this time, paying particular attention to the colours, the fragrances, and the sounds of the blooming desert in the southern Okanagan. I literally wept as I took in this multi-sensory experience, so tenderly made available to me by God. When I arrived at the lakeshore, even though it was awkward, I took off my shoes and socks, and walked on the sand and in the water, just so my bare feet could feel the sensation of both. I felt I was on holy ground. Is it possible that God told Moses to take off his shoes because all ground is holy and having our naked flesh touch the earth helps keep us grounded in God?

A few days later, back in Vancouver, on a clear starlit night, I was standing on our bedroom balcony with a group of Korean students, which included our homestay daughter, Soyoun along with some of her friends, enjoying the grandeur of the heavens, gazing up at the Big Dipper pointing to the North Star. One young guy kept exclaiming, “This is so awesome!” I literally felt his heart reaching out to worship. Though we were from the opposite sides of the world, perhaps even from different faiths, we found a sacred commonness as we gazed into the heavens. This growing sense of perceiving the sacredness of all things is another gift that Sabbath has given me when I have been willing to stop when it is time to stop.