By the sweat of your brow you shall eat bread, until you return to the ground, from which you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return. (Genesis 3:19)

How shall we sing the Lord’s song in a strange land? (Psalm 137:4)

He has shown you, O mortal, what is good.

    And what does the Lord require of you?

To act justly and to love mercy

    and to walk humbly with your God. (Micah 6:8)

 

This has been a hard week, eh!  (Please note that I’m using that ‘eh!’ in all of its Canadian glory.  It really is a punctuation mark that emphasizes that we’re in this together).

This week we’ve seen tariffs finally imposed on both sides of the border.  We’ve watched a really alarming interaction between two Presidents that spelled a disaster in diplomatic relations between Ukraine and the U.S.  We’ve seen the results of aid pulled from countries where children are dying of starvation.  We’ve heard talk of Gaza being razed and annexed by the U.S. complete with a golden statue erected of the current U.S. president.  We’ve heard of Canada being absorbed as the ‘51^st state’.  We’ve had our own Prime Minister, our own government and our own social structure demeaned and denigrated publicly.  And now we have emergency meetings of the leaders of European countries to try and mitigate some of the damage being done by the government of our southern neighbours.  It feels like the world is scrambling to clean up a toxic dump that just keeps spewing hatred all over the world.  A pollution of oppression and power that means that there is no room for justice, mercy and humility

And this aggression has been justified in the name of Jesus, using the same sacred texts that I hold so close to my heart, but skewing them in such a way that I no longer recognize them.

I was lamenting last night to Hugh about all of this, and how I constantly feel defensive of my faith, and feel like I have to say “I’m a Christian, but not like that”, more often than is comfortable.  And really, its obvious, right – I’m a woman, in Ordained Ministry, in a denomination that has been comfortable with women in leadership since Lydia Gruchy was ordained in 1936.  I serve in a church that spends much of their time caring for those in our community who are the most vulnerable, and do so without a second thought and with a sense of celebration (Hello, Bethel Bowlers who just raised money for Big Brothers, Big Sisters!).  It is normal for us to put up Pride flags, to learn (and try to use) people’s preferred pronouns.  We have two Narcan kits in the hall “just because we might need them”.

We are liberal and progressive.  AND we are Christian.

I was at a conference, oh about 10 years ago, where one of my profs at Queen’s was speaking.  This particular professor, Rev. Dr. Pam Holmes, had a background of Ordination in one of the Pentecostal churches, and had fairly recently been asked to leave this church because of her stance on inclusion of those who identified as LGBTQ+.  In fact, her stance had resulted in death threats, and for a time she was assigned security to ensure her safety.  Her talk at the conference was on the ‘movement of the Holy Spirit in the United Church of Canada”.  I went to the talk mostly because well….

Because we aren’t big Holy Spirit people much in the UCC, are we!  Mostly we think of the Holy Spirit kind of, well, hanging out on the sidelines.  Part of the Trinity but not exactly a welcome part.  Because, you know, we don’t particularly want to move or raise our hands like those other Holy Spirit churches, right !  (Big grin on my face when I say that!).  But what Dr. Holmes said about the Holy Spirit and the UCC brought me up short.  She said:  “The evidence of the Holy Spirit in the UCC is the inclusion of those who are not inclusive”.

Basically, she was calling out my lack of inclusion of other Christian denominations that didn’t share the same basic framework as me; the framework that says “all are welcome; but only if you politically and theologically are as liberal and progressive as I am”.

Sigh.

She was right.  I was being just as exclusionary as other more conservative churches, just in a different way.

And so how do we balance this all out?  How do we say that we “love our neighbour as ourselves” (yes, even the big orange neighbour to the south of us) but also declare the boundaries of our call – our call as Christians to “Do justly, love mercy and walk humbly with our God”.  How do we say with integrity, that what we are seeing; this Empire-building and oppression is wrong, is not Godly, and is theologically opposite to our understanding of what it means to follow Jesus, but also declare our own humility within the expansive Grace of God, and admit that they can be Christian too?

This week we celebrated Ash Wednesday, and Ash Wednesday serves as a stark reminder of our sameness, and our core beginnings of all being created by God.  “You are dust, and to dust you will return”.  All of us have the same beginnings and the same endings.  All of us, whether or not we choose to live in this way, or not.  And all of us have a place on God’s world regardless of how we treat each other and how we live our lives.

Its sobering.  But that’s the core of our faith, right.  And it’s the core of the scripture from Micah that I love to quote so much: “to do just, love mercy and walk HUMBLY with our God”.  I’m not going to begin to say that this is easy.  In truth, I’m finding all of this ‘stuff’ – this need to “love our neighbour” and to be humble in my opinions and ideals almost beyond my capability.  I do believe that we are called to prophetically call out the oppression of the ‘least of these’; but its also a call to a place of love and humility.  Things that are a bit short in measure for me right now!

And so I hope you’ll join me in praying for ourselves, and praying for our world, that somehow God’s truth will prevail, and that we will have the strength to sing God’s song of love to everyone, even when they threaten to hold us all in exile.  Even love for big orange men, and people that would choose to oppress the most vulnerable.

Blessings today my friends, and remember this Love that you have.

~Rev. Lynne