The doctors seemed totally incapable of stemming the flow. This wound was too deep. The blood would not stop. The woman had been assaulted so violently that all of their medical emergency and trauma training was totally ineffective. This woman was dying. And all we could do was watch. Perhaps weep. Undoubtedely keep thinking up new techniques to save her. But in the meantime, all we could do was watch.

So we set up a camera in the emergency room where she was lying. We focused the lens on the wound where the blood continued to seep. We set up a 24/7 vigil and we posted it as a lives feed on the internet. Millions of people around the world logged in. At first they also wept. Then they stopped watching the feed around the clock, but only tuned in once in a while to see how this woman was doing.

Yes there was a sense of voyeurism to it all. Yes there was a morbid curiousity. I mean, watching a woman bleed and bleed and bleed. Maybe if Jesus was there she could have reached out and touched the hem of his garment. Maybe he was there. Not watching on the internet, but sitting by her bed, tears streaming down his face. Maybe that is why she didn’t just die. After all, where does one woman get that much blood? She should have been gone after a few minutes with that kind of flow. Maybe that wasn’t her blood. Maybe that was Jesus’ blood. Maybe he was bleeding through her. Maybe the wound that she bore, he also bore. Maybe that blood was somehow flowing from his side, through her.

Well, the oil gushing in the Gulf of Mexico isn’t blood. But it sure does seem like a slow death. Naomi Klein puts it this way: “… the hole at the bottom of the ocean is more than an engineering accident or a broken machine. It’s a violent wound in a living organism; it is part of us. And thanks to BP’s live camera feed, we can all watch the Earth’s guts gush forth, in real time, 24 hours a day.”

Is Jesus watching? Does that flow of oil have anything to do with the blood and water that gushed from his side? We have often said that Jesus is crucified daily in the lives of the poorest of the poor. I believe that is devastatingly true. Might it be that he is crucified 24/7 in a gaping wound at the bottom of the ocean? I think so. I mean, on the cross all things, in heaven and earth and under the sea are reconciled to God. That’s what Paul says in Colossians 1.20. And a few verses later he says that the gospel has been proclaimed to all creation. That means the shrimp, lobster, sting rays, sharks, turtles, sea birds, plankton and plant life of the sea and its shores. All of these creatures know the gospel. They all are recipients of grace. It’s just that it’s a little too hard to enjoy that grace or to hear that gospel when you are covered with oil.

So this assault on creation isn’t even just a violent wound in a living organism. It is also an assault on God. It is a grieving of the Holy Spirit. It is a mockery of the cross. Christ have mercy.

In a strange twist of fate, Levi’s provides a way better commissioning to go out and actively love and seek to renew the world, than I’ve heard in a church in a long time.

What d’ya think? What do we, as a church need in order to reclaim the urgency of being sent into the world? What do our churches, and Christians locked in their pews need in order to feel freed and sent to do God’s work?

If it takes disaster, I can think of plenty of problems in this world that could use some solving. There is plenty broken that could use fixing. There are plenty of communities to build, gardens to maintain, and people to love.

The world is broken. God calls us to be part of its redemption.

In God’s plan, is buying jeans part of the solution?

This oil slick, it’s making me sick.

Six weeks of seepage on the seabed and where are we at? Where are we now, and how, tell me how, will we recover from this ongoing abuse, corporate greed and misuse of a creation once called good.

I know what you’re thinking, and y’know, it’s got me thinking about what’s under the hood of my car, the gas it’s drinking, and these Canadian sands in the tar. No matter what I do, it’s complicated and I’m implicated in this spill, as much as BP and as much as you.

Say you don’t know, but all of us, we got something to say, something to do, and something large to fess up to.

Say you don’t drive, but it’s the streets you walk, it’s the stores you shop, it’s the wax coating your big box grocery store fruit and the plastic bag you put it in.

Speaking of. Where’d that apple come from? Eden aside, stumbling on your organic pride, if it ain’t from here, and it ain’t from near, what d’ya think you’re saying with that Chilean label stuck to your table?

This drilling and spilling, a product of greed, of our endless need for more from the store to clutter our floors and walls of our newly-painted halls with the latest fashionable decorations.

A declaration is what we need, to reduce the seed of this need for speed and the deep-sea trouble it’s gotten us in. The assumptions we carry are false indeed, that we own the deed for this land-under-water and the oil in the rock.

But the oil’s not there man, it’s just not there. And we’re talking about more than the grease in your hair or the petroleum jelly advertised on the telly, sitting in your medicine cabinet too.

The oil, it’s everywhere, not just in the sands off the coast of the States, it’s on your hands, your dirty, greasy bloody hands while we’re playing with the fates of a thousand different species, the lives of the deep seas and the health, wholeness and shalom of the whole.

I’m not saying, but yeah, I guess I’m saying that it’s all connected, and we’re all infected. Here I am lamenting the death blows to the health of those created in God’s own image. We’re all connected, but when you’ve got deadbeat execs and mercenary pricks calling the shots, it’s no wonder what kinda mess we’re in.

Say the technologies get better, but I think it’d be better if you focused your attention on crisis intervention, and the dirty laundered money you’ve been spilling across the gulf. Drilling deeper, our abilities weaker to stem the flow of incompetence and incoherent chatter.

This year’s keynote speakers are Ched Myers and Elaine Enns. Their work with Bartimaeus Cooperative Ministries focuses on building capacity for biblical literacy, church renewal, and faith-based witness for justice.

From August 5-7, participants will explore the theme of ”Urban Agriculture and the Peace of the City” through hands-on workshops, challenging keynote lectures, practical gardening, singing, campfires, cooking, conversation and more. Visit our web site for more information about workshops and speakers.

www.practicingresurrection.com

Ched and Elain have long been committed to faith-based peace and justice efforts such as Christian Peacemaker Teams, Borderlinks, the Catholic Worker movement, Witness for Peace, and the Servant Leadership Schools.

There’s a lot of interest in this year’s conference, so register early at www.practicingresurrection.com

I got off the phone yesterday with Tommy, and my heart sunk. Tommy and I first met two years ago when I travelled with a group of young adults from Ottawa, Ontario to New Orleans, Louisiana. Throughout that first trip, Tommy inspired us with his dedication to seeing lives and homes put back together. A young guy from Massachusetts, he had dropped everything to come work as a crew chief, and now serves as the liaison between homeowners and the rebuild project.

But here’s the think. The funding that had been promised to Episcopal Community Services of Louisiana has not yet arrived. This is the church-in-action, embracing its call and mission for others, as it helps to rebuild communities, still five years after they were devastated by Katrina.

They’re in the position of closing up shop, sending all of the volunteer crew chiefs home, and laying off all staff. What’s more is that they may not be able to complete the 8 homes they have under construction, including that of Mr. Hammond whose place we worked on in February of this year.

There are many more recent disasters in our collective memory, and I think that the story of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast has faded for many of us. But it’s still in need of help. Episcopal Community Services is trying to raise $60,000 in the next two weeks so that they can at very least complete what they’ve started.

If you can help by spreading the word, by donating a couple of dollars towards this goal, it will go a long way, and will greatly affect many lives in that community. Please help if you can, by clicking here to find out more, or to donate.

Folk who visit this site know that much of what we write about here arises out of a shared worship experience called “Wine Before Breakfast.” This year the community began with allowing Romans to shape our liturgy and our imaginations, and then concluded with Mark’s telling of the story of Holy Week for Lent and Easter. That meant that we began with Romans 1 and ended with Mark 16. That juxtaposition gave rise to this meditation.

“Paul, a slave of Jesus Christ.”

Do you remember those six words? That is how we began Wine Before Breakfast last September.
…“Paul, a slave of Jesus Christ.”

Paul, writing to the very heart of the empire,
…identifies himself with nothing less (or more)
…than a slave of Jesus Christ.

Not a citizen of the empire,
and sure as hell, not a slave of the emperor,
…but a slave of Jesus Christ.

Six words into his letter to the Romans,
…and he has already put them on notice.
…This was “in your face stuff.”

And it didn’t stop there.

Knowing full well that imperial pronouncements were named “gospels,”
…Paul goes out of his way to repeat that word
…in the first few sentences of his letter.

He is set apart by the “gospel of God,”
…“the gospel concerning his Son,”
he “announces this gospel,”
he “is not ashamed of this gospel.”

Gospel, gospel, gospel.

If his Roman hearer’s didn’t get it,
…if they didn’t pick up the radically subversive nature
…of what he was saying,
then he would rub their noses in it.

Rome proclaims a gospel,
…Paul proclaims an alternative gospel.

And he will not be ashamed of this gospel.

Why not?

Because it is the power of God for salvation,
…it is the only power
……that can set this terribly broken world right,
…it is the only story
……that can offer redemption
……in the face of the deceitful narratives of the empire,
…it is the announcement of new creation
……that a creation groaning in travail has been so longing for.

But Paul wants to make sure that his Roman audience,
…understands who is the subject of this gospel.
This is the gospel of Jesus,
…this is the gospel of the one who was declared to be
…“the Son of God with power, according to the Spirit of holiness,
…by resurrection from the dead.”

It all hangs on the resurrection, Paul insists.
…Because he has risen from the dead,
……he is Lord, says Paul.
And if he is Lord,
…if he is the Son of God,
…if he is the one in whom true sovereignty lies,
…then Caesar is effectively dethroned!
And if the risen Jesus is Lord, says Paul,
…then the ministry of the gospel,
…is to bring about nothing less than the obedience of the nations.

Alleluia! Christ is risen.
…He is Lord of all.
Come and receive him as the healing Lord of your life.
…Come and abandon your pretended autonomy,
……together with all your idolatry,
…and bow the knee before the Lord of all creation.

There is an in-your-face chutzpah about all of this.
There is an audacious confidence,
…an over-the-top faith,
…even certainty,
…about this gospel that Paul preached.

That is where we began our journey together
at Wine Before Breakfast this year.

We began with a man who didn’t care about his credentials,
…who claimed to have no authority
……beyond being a slave of Jesus Christ.

That’s where we began.

And this morning we end with,
…“for they were afraid.”

Faced with the news of a risen Lord,
…these women were alarmed,
…amazed,
…and afraid.

They had come to that tomb to bring a proper ending
…to a story that was already over.
They had come to redeem the indignity of their Lord’s death,
…with at the very least, a proper anointing.
They had come in their grief,
…but also in their love.
They had not abandoned Jesus on that fateful Friday,
…and they would not abandon him on this Sunday morning.

But nothing had prepared them for what they encountered.
Nothing had prepared them for the announcement
…of that mysterious young man,
…“Do not be alarmed;
…you are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified.
…He has been raised; he is not here.
…Look, there is the place they laid him.”

Nothing had prepared them for the commission
…that he then gave to them:
…“Go, tell his disciples and Peter,”
……go tell his broken community,
……go and tell the one who had betrayed him,
…go and tell them,
…“he is going ahead of you to Galilee;
…there you will see him, just as he told you.”

Nothing had prepared them for this.
…A crucifixion, maybe.
……They had seen lots of them before.
…But this, this was something totally different.

So they ran.
…They ran and ran and ran.
But this was no run energized by hope.
This was not the run of the one who proclaims gospel.
No, this was a run animated by an amazed, terror-striken, blown away, fear.
“And they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.”

Paul proclaims a gospel with confidence.
…These women say nothing to anyone.
Paul boldly confesses, “I am not ashamed of the gospel.”
…These women are afraid.

It seems to me, dear sisters and brothers,
…that Christian life is lived
……between that confidence and that fear,
……between that boldness of proclamation and that silence.

I don’t know where you are on that spectrum,
…where you find yourself
……between confidence and fear,
……between faith and doubt,
……between witness and silence.
…but here at Wine Before Breakfast
…we know that Christian life is lived in those tensions;
……that Christian discipleship knows
………lament and praise,
………light and dark,
………faith and doubt,
………confidence and shame,
………moments of healing and persistant brokenness,
………deep, deep joy and debilitating sorrow.

I am not ashamed of the gospel …
…for they were afraid.

What were they afraid of?
What had caused such fear?

Was it just the total strangeness of resurrection?
Was that what scared them to their very core?

I doubt it.
These women had demonstrated that very morning,
…and during the tragedy of Good Friday,
…that they had a love and a devotion and a discipleship
…that could carry them through a fear
……that would have paralyzed most of us,
……and did, in fact, scatter all the male followers of Jesus.

No, I don’t think that it was resurrection in and of itself that left them afraid.

Was it a fear that they would not be believed?
Were they painfully aware of how ludicrous their tale would be,
…especially coming from women?

Somehow, that doesn’t seem right either.
…They had established themselves as disciples amongst the men,
…and their very faithfulness over the last few days
…would have given them a profound credibility
…if they had the courage to proclaim the message entrusted to them.

No, I think that there was something much more profound going on here.
…Perhaps they were afraid,
……perhaps they were gripped with a fear that rendered them silent,
…because they understood the radical meaning of this event,
……if it were true.

He has risen.
He will go before you to Galilee.
Go there, follow him again to Galilee,
and you will see him there.

If he has risen,
…then the story isn’t over.
If he has risen,
…then the story starts over again.
If he has risen,
…then you are invited to enter the story.
If he has risen,
…then you are called to follow him,
…to proclaim the new creation in Christ,
…to live out the meaning of this new creation.
If he has risen,
…then you too have been raised with him.
If he has risen,
…then he has established his sovereignty over all,
…even death!
If he is risen,
…then you are called to “practice resurrection.”

My hunch is that these women were afraid,
…precisely because they understood the meaning of resurrection.
And faced with such a radically transformative event,
…faced with the dawning of the new creation,
…faced with the defeat of the very principalities and powers of death,
…faced with a commission to proclaim the victory of Jesus,
……they were afraid.

Of course they were afraid.
…How else could you respond to such a thing?
…If you are not afraid, then you don’t get it.

So embrace the risen Lord, dear friends,
…in fear, but not with shame.
Embrace the risen Lord, sisters and brothers,
…in amazement and in confidence,
…with gratitude, humility, and with audacious faith.

Embrace the risen Lord, beloved community,
…and go, follow him in the resurrection
…power of discipleship.

Christ is risen! Alleluia!

A sermon based on Mark 14:32-52

My dear brothers and sisters, in reading this passage, we have just entered into a sacred space and joined Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane. It is my prayer that we are able to journey deeper together into the dark groves of Gethsemane. It is my prayer that we come to understand together, the abandonment Christ experienced in the garden alone.

There are few people in our broken world who are better able to connect with Christ in his moment of complete abandonment that our friends experiencing homelessness on the streets. Few people know better then these folks what it is like to die, desolately abandoned by everyone who has ever been important to you.

For those of you who don’t know, Dion, Jake and I have the privilege of walking alongside these folks experiencing homelessness at The Gateway – an 108 bed shelter, which too often is considered home to men who have been cut off from every other segment of society, many of whom have long since been abandoned by friends and family.

It breaks my heart when yet another person has no emergency contact to give me, no one who would know if they were dead or alive. It breaks my heart when yet another person is dying in a cold, white-washed hospital room with nobody to sit by their bedside, just to be and to face death alongside of them. It breaks my heart, when, for the third time in three months, we have held a funeral for yet another person on the streets because, somehow, shelter staff have become the closest to family that these individuals have had. Folks on the streets, they get loneliness and abandonment profoundly. They know what it is like to die alone. They truly get the lonely journey Christ was on to the cross.

Two weeks ago, a man who I hadn’t seen for two years walked into my office. We’ll call him Joe. He walked in, shoulder slumped, eyes to the ground, feeling trapped by the circumstances that surround him. Not unlike Christ, he is in the court system, trapped by conditions placed on him by a judge who doesn’t even know him. A talented tradesman, he has a criminal record and cannot find meaningful work. His family? He has a son–somewhere–but his wife has long since left him, taking their son with her.

Joe refuses to call a dingy, dark room in a crack house his new home–which is virtually the only thing he can afford on social assistance. Joe sees living on the streets in a sleeping bag the best option out of a limited few available to him. When Joe walked into my office, he stated in an uncharacteristically flat affect that if he could not find even a glimmer of hope out of his situation, then he would create a suicide plan. I said to him that I would be devastated if that was his ultimate decision. He said he needed to do what he needed to do. In other words, if death was what brought hope to him, that was the path he would take.

My dear community, the passion story, like the streets, is not a romantic drama unfolding. It is dark, dangerous and desolate.

Mark 14:32-52

Moving from the streets of Toronto to the passion story in Jerusalem, we find that Jesus has just finished the last supper with his disciples, warning them—and perhaps even reminding himself– that they would all desert him. And all of them denied His words. Peter–always the rash Rock, boisterously brave after all that wine from the Last Supper says he’ll stick by Christ.

Together, they walked to the Garden of Gethsemane, and the dark groves enveloped them. Christ, as God, knew he was journeying into the heart of darkness, the chilling climax. But now, Christ, as human, was experiencing the cold reality of the journey. And the journey was terrifying. Mark says, “And sorrow overtook him and his was filled with grief”. Take a moment to let these words drag you into this unfolding terror: Deep, dark tumultuous suffering. Anguish. Genuine horror.

That Christ began in the Garden of Gethsemane on his final part of the journey to the cross it is significant. Humans were once expelled from the Garden of Eden, sentenced to live in the mess we made, and now, the one human who had proven himself worthy of living in the Garden of Eden enters into the darkness of the Garden of Gethsemane. But instead of finding full communion in the Garden, Christ finds betrayal and abandonment. It all fell apart in the original garden. And now, our hope for redemption was beginning in this garden.

That said, despite our hope for redemption, darkness still covered the Garden of Gethsemane. At this point in the journey to the cross, there was no sigh of relief for the dawning of our redemption yet. In the Garden of Gethsemane, we humans were not out of the woods of our broken world yet– because alongside Christ’s mission of redemption was temptation: could Christ drink the cup? Do you remember, when, at the beginning of Christ’s ministry, he had been tempted in the desert three times, and three times he had chosen to trust his father and remain obedient?

As Brian pointed out to me, in Mark, unlike any of the other gospels’ renditions of the temptation passage, the phrase, “And then Satan left him” is conspicuously absent in that first chapter, suggesting that throughout his whole ministry, Christ had been struggling with temptation– precariously, carefully journeying towards the cross without falling. One wrong move and humanity’s hope for getting out of this mess we’re in would be shattered into trillions of unfixable pieces. And here, in the garden, began Christ’s final temptation: Would he be able to drink this cup?

Precisely because the temptation to give up the cup was so utterly terrifying, because the journey ahead was so dark and desolate, Christ had no other option but to go before his abba, father, placing his trust in Him. He prayed. Communion with his father was the only way that he would not fall into temptation and give up on the redemption plan. It’s a Catch-22/a paradox, however, because the temptation to have the cup taken from him arises precisely from a place of utter trust in his Father– and knowing that there will come a point on this journey when the Father will leave him.

William Lane, in his commentary says, “The dreadful sorrow and anxiety, then, out of which the prayer for the passing of the cup springs, is not an expression of fear before a dark destiny, nor a shrinking from the prospect of physical suffering and death. It is rather the horror of the one who lives wholly for the Father at the prospect of the alienation from God which is entailed in the judgment upon sin which Jesus assumes.”

The answer to the question “Would Jesus be able to drink this cup?” is yes. Not unlike Joe, Jesus knew that hope could only come through his death. For Joe, however, his hope was in death in and of itself to stop the pain of his broken world. For Christ, his hope was not death, but to go beyond death, so that people like Joe could cling to the hope of life being better than the brokenness we see. And there was no other option, no other way except to drink the cup. It’s another Catch-22/paradox: Christ must die forsaken in order that we might live in hope.

The journey towards hope, towards redemption, is a journey dependent upon prayer. Christ modeled that for his disciples and for us in his darkest hours. Christ, even in his darkest hour yet, yearns for his disciples to have the same relationship with the Father in the midst of suffering and trial. He knows that they too will be facing temptations: temptations to abandon, betray and deny within hours. And Christ knows that the only way that they will be able to stay awake in the midst of such temptation is to pray. But we know how the story goes: instead of prayer, Peter, James and John fall asleep on him. Not once– but three times, Christ asks them to stay awake with him.

Were they not able to see how distressed Jesus was? Staying awake to pray was a simple task, compared to the politics, the beatings, the humiliations which hadn’t even begun yet. The first time Jesus finds Peter, James and John asleep, his response is critical: “Simon, do you sleep? Did you not have the strength to stay awake one hour? Stay awake and pray that you might not enter into temptation; the spirit is indeed willing, but the flesh is weak.”

Notice that Jesus reverts back to Peter’s old, pre-disciple name, Simon. Peter, The Rock, who, that same evening, had rashly and courageously vowed to stand by Jesus, no matter what, is being harshly stripped of the name given to him when he became a disciple. Here, Jesus was reminding his disciples that the only way to face the trials ahead was to pray, to place trust in God.

Not only was he reminding his disciples to pray, he was also asking that they stay awake with him. He has said earlier over supper in no uncertain terms that he was heading towards death and betrayal. And they were falling asleep. It is certainly a very despairing situation to be in to know that the very folks you are planning to save are falling asleep on you when you quite obviously look distressed. But it got worse.

From the passive, sleepy abandonment of Peter, James and John to the active, deliberate betrayal of Judas. Judas kisses Christ. A political arena unfolds. And things got even worse: the disciples, unprepared for that which Christ had prepared them for, abandoned Christ. He was alone. Completely abandoned. And it is with this shame of abandonment of Christ that the church enters into Maundy Thursday next week.

Let’s return to the story of Joe. A week after Joe had informed me that he might choose suicide as his route, he walked into my office, and, although he was not boisterous, he stood with resolve and told me that he had decided to move forward rather than choose suicide. When I asked what had prompted that decision, he simply said, “You said you would be devastated.” Joe needed someone who would be willing to walk with him on his dark and difficult journey. That’s human. Christ, as human and as God, wanted his disciples—his friends– to walk alongside him too.

My dear brothers and sisters, Maundy Thursday is approaching. Traditionally, Maundy Thursday is a time when the church stays awake to pray in order to make up for what the disciples lacked when they fell asleep. We have a second chance to return to Christ in the dark Garden of Gethsemane to make up for the disciples’ abandonment. While we cannot go back to the Garden of Gethsemane, there are those in our midst who have been abandoned, like Joe, and we must begin in prayer—just as Christ began in prayer– if we are to move towards walking alongside of them on their journey.

May we enter into Maundy Thursday in prayer, rather than in the shame of our abandonment of Christ. May we enter into Maundy Thursday in prayer just as Christ taught us through his actions in the garden and when he told the disciples to pray. May we–in trust, prayer and submission to the father’s perfect will–walk alongside those in our midst who have been abandoned like Christ was abandoned.

Insofar as we stay awake to pray on Maundy Thursday, let us not lose sight of the fact that Christ says, “Whatever you do the least of these, you do unto me” and remember that we are called to be moved from prayer into action in Remembrance of Christ.

The journey, although sacred, is dark. May we have the courage that Simon Peter lacked to drink from the cup that offers hope and to eat the bread that sustains us in our journey.

by Brian Walsh

My beloved sisters and brothers in Christ.

For the forty days of Lent we have dwelt with Jesus during Holy Week. For five weeks we have allowed Mark’s gospel to lead us deeply into one week. The week of weeks. The week that is at the heart of our faith. Passion Week.

That week is now upon us. Our Lenten journey has prepared us for this week. It has been an intense Lent for us, but now it gets even more intense.

It is all about bearing witness. Can we bear witness to these horrific events that are at the same time our very salvation? Can we “bear” to bear witness? Have we got that kind of courage, that kind of faithfulness?

This week we are called to bear witness to what Peter couldn’t bear. He couldn’t bear to stay awake in Gethsemane. It was all too much for him. That sleep wasn’t just fatigue. It was a sleep born of spiritual evasion. And the man who slept the sleep of evasion is the man who speaks the words of denial. Evasion and denial are two sides of the same coin. It was all too much for him. And it is too much for us as well.

Yet we are still called to bear witness.

To bear witness to the false witnesses at the mock trial.

To bear witness to the beatings, the derision, the violence.

To bear witness to a crowd crying “Crucify him!” knowing that we are in that crowd.

To bear witness to a crown of thorns, symbol of the brokenness of all creation.

To bear witness to the cry of anguish, “Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?”

To bear witness to the death of God.

To bear witness from a distance, with the women, but not to run away.

But we do not bear witness alone. All of creation bears witness with us.

All of creation mourns at the cross. The light of the world has come into the world, but the world did not accept the light.

And so the sun refuses to shine. Creation marks this death with darkness.

And we are called to bear witness to this darkness.

To bear witness to our own darkness.

To enter into that darkness, the darkness that Jesus embraced … in hope of light.

So my beloved friends, once a year I write a pastoral letter. Once a year I write to the Wine Before Breakfast community and to anyone else who cares to listen a letter inviting us all to observe Holy Week.

I know that there is nothing convenient about observing Holy Week when it happens to coincide with the last week of classes at the University. But death is seldom convenient.

Jesus asked in Gethsemane if this cup could be passed from him. The answer was “No.” This cup was not up for negotiation. The cross and the week that led to the cross was not something that Jesus had much choice in.

So it seems to me to be a little precious for us to act as if Holy Week is something that we have a choice about. If we follow Jesus. If we have accepted his call to discipleship, his call to bear a cross and follow him, then we really have no choice about Holy Week. Observing Holy Week through personal prayer and biblical meditation, and through participation in the liturgies of the week is something that we should receive as a profound spiritual obligation and discipline.

I encourage you then, sisters and brothers, spend time reading the passion narratives in the four gospels this week. Read them and read them again. Pray your way through this story. And find your place in the story. Find your voice saying:

…“I do not know him.”
……“Crucify him!”
………“If you are the King of the Jews, then come down and save yourself!”

And perhaps you will find yourself also saying, with the voice of the executioner, the Centurion:

“Truly this was God’s son.”

Go to church, my friends. Go to church. If you have never observed the discipline of keeping the three great days of this week – Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and the Great Vigil of Easter Saturday – then I encourage you to do so. It could very well change your life.

And come to Wine Before Breakfast on Tuesday morning. Come and be immersed in the story. Enter into the story like entering the waters of baptism. It is a story of death, and we come to die with Christ. Only in so doing might we rise with him.

In the name of the Crucified One. Amen.

On March 17 I had the incredible honour of speaking along with my co-author, Steven Bouma-Prediger at the “National Symposium on Homelessness” in Austin, Texas. This event, hosted by a dynamic ministry called “Mobile Loaves and Fishes,” brought together around 250 people who either are involved in homelessness issues and services or who were formerly homeless for a day of reflection on “What is Home and How do we get there?”

In my presentation I spoke about how home is always rooted in memory. There is no homecoming apart from story. And I then offered a telling of the biblical story of home, homelessness and homecoming as a powerful story that could sustain both on the street ministries and transformed social policy.

Now I knew that a number of folks in the room were not Christian, but chose to be explicitly and openly Christian anyway. The fact that the majority of people involved with helping their homeless neighbours are indeed Christian and that a majority of the homeless in Austin also identify themselves as Christian, together with the fact that I am a Christian and can only speak honestly and openly from a transparently Christian perspective, I figured that non-Christians in the room might be willing to hear a take on the biblical story that just might be new and perhaps even appealing to them.

Not surprisingly, the question of Christian language in such a context, the need for plurality and the fear of Christian proselytizing all emerged in the response from the audience. In an email exchange one person suggested that the liberal view of social welfare needed to be affirmed on all kinds of grounds and that she had heard me to say that I was in fact against inclusiveness in these matters. In my reply I attempted to clarify my position as follows:

I am sorry if something that I said sounded like I was against inclusiveness. That is not the case. I may not agree with liberal notions of inclusiveness, and I may even find that the hegemony that liberalism has had in the social services and the public square has been far from inclusive, but that doesn’t mean that I am against inclusiveness. If I was to describe my position it would be principled pluralism.

We need to acknowledge and affirm the plurality of worldviews in our society and find meaningful and respectful ways for various faith communities to make their contribution to the common good. Now I also happen to think, on anthropological grounds, that we are all members of faith communities, but that requires an expanded notion of faith that breaks through the religion/secular dualism that has been championed by Enlightenment modernity. I think that all people live their lives out of some foundational worldview or narrative that is, at heart, religious in character, even if that religion is self-consciously “secularist” or atheist.

Now insofar as the liberal agenda has brought us things like medicare, social welfare and the like, I am not in disagreement. I said in my talk that I believed that structural change in our socio-economic systems was necessary, and for a lot of that change I can make common cause with the liberal agenda. My concern, however, is deeper. Essentially, I think that liberalism just isn’t radical enough because it does not question a capitalist worldview at its core.

In Beyond Homelessness, Bouma-Prediger and I argue that the problem with liberalism is that it is an ethical system and a worldview that is too thin to sustain the kinds of socio-economic reform that most liberals most deeply desire. My whole “sermon” (and I’m happy to call it what it was) was an attempt to offer a narrative that is alternative to the dominant western mythology of civilizational progress rooted in a technologically driven ideology of unceasing, ever expanding economic growth. This is a worldview, in my opinion that is disastrous for the poor, for the environment and pretty much for all of us.

So what just happened to my “principled pluralism” in those critical comments about liberalism you might ask? Well, principled pluralism will always have its limits. When the Klu Klux Klan moved into my neighbourhood in Toronto (yes, Toronto!) I helped organize a “ban the Klan” march and rally. That was an act of profound inhospitality and indeed, exclusion. This was an act of ideological NIMBYism that I would do again.

Yes, principled pluralism, but not a racist and violent worldview such as the Klan espouses. Same thing for Apartheid in South Africa back in the 80’s. For me, same thing for the American mythology of Manifest Destiny, American exceptionalism, the myth of American goodness, etc. And the same thing for an economic liberalism that will place economic growth as the foundation of society and social welfare as an act of care that will come after, and always subservient to that economic growth.

So maybe what we need to talk about is just what do we mean by inclusiveness. If what we mean by inclusiveness is that we need to find ways to bridge the gap between various groups, whether Christian of various stripes, Muslim, Aboriginal, feminist, gay/lesbian, liberal or even neo-conservatives (a stretch likely for both of us!) to fight against poverty and to seek the common good, then of course, count me in.

But count me in as a Christian.

Let the various groups make their contribution – often on their own, but sometimes in coalition where that will be most effective – but let them make their contribution with their worldview clearly in the forefront, not hidden behind some veil of religious neutrality. That imposition of religious neutrality is, in fact, one of the oppressive legacies of the liberalism that I am opposing.

Let me add two more quick points.

First, let me be clear that this is not an endorsement of the faith-based groups initiative of the former Bush administration. Was that an act of privatization and government shirking of responsibility under the guise of openness to religious groups in the public square? You bet it was. And it was also a cynical duping of the Religious Right in America. That was Bush getting them on side. But it was all smoke and mirrors. It was the deceitfulness that the rest of the world clearly recognized in that administration.

Second, let me also be clear that this is not an endorsement of everything that has been done in the name of Jesus. Have Christians been harmful in their engagement with the issue of poverty, and specifically in the lives of the poor? Yes, we have! And for that we need, in our own religious language, to repent and confess our sins. And I might add that that repentance is most needed in relation to how the Christian community has treated women and the gay/lesbian community.

I hope that these remarks clarify where I am coming from and precisely what kind of inclusive pluralism that I think we should embrace.

It will be a great opportunity to catch Shane on his first visit to Ottawa, and to dream kingdom dreams in that city.

The doors to Dominion-Chalmers United Church open at 7pm, with the event to start at 7.30pm. The cost is $10 at the door.

The Ottawa event is being organised by The Open Table – an ecumenical Christian community by and for young adults, and supported by the Anglican, Lutheran, Presbyterian and United Churches in that area.

You can find more info on the event here, or invite friends through the facebook event page.