Rev. Shawn's sermon from this morning ...
There is a deep irony in that the WPOG
curriculum for today observes:
Living together as the human family is never
easy. Throughout the Bible,
especially in the great sagas of Genesis that we
have been exploring these past months, we read of the challenges and difficulties involved in trying to live in
harmony. The situation today is more
complicated as the global community shrinks.
We are called to welcome and embrace brothers and sisters who are very different from us, who have cultures
and belief systems and ways of looking at
things that are very different from
our own. Yet, through God’s grace, we find ways to talk together and walk together and live in harmony as God intends.
We are called to welcome and embrace our brothers and
sisters who are very different from us, who have cultures and belief systms and
ways of looking at the things that are very different from our own … they are
easy words to read, they are easy words to say, but they are often challenging
words to live …
Our country – multi-cultural Canada has a long history of
struggling to LIVE those words … just ask the Irish, the Ukrainians, the Poles,
the Germans, the Italians, the Chinese, the Japanese, the East Indian, and the
First Nations people … our history as a nation is littered with the struggles
of new comers to find a place.
Today we grumble and complain about the others who are not
like us and who still speak their traditional language and act and dress like
they did in their country of origin … but in that moment, we’ve forgotten our
own history.
Ever heard of the city of Berlin Ontario – in WWI, the bust
of Kaiser Wilhelm went missing, German businesses changed their names, and the
city had its name changed to Kitchener.
I come from a family who first settled in what became
Tavistock Ontario in 1847 … we are now 7 or 8 generations removed from those
first Ankenmann’s who came from the Alsace-Lorraine region to start a new life.
Johanne and Maria came and settled in what would become Ontario and raised
their children. One of their sons Michael in time married and had a son named
Samuel. They settled on a farm on 7&8 hwy between Shakespeare and New
Hamburg.
Samuel stayed on the farm and raised his children including
my grandfather Alvin. Alvin in time took over the farm and raised his 8
children including my dad Sam … up until the 1950’s EVERYTHING my family did
was done in German.
They worshipped in Lingelbach Church across the road in
German. They shopped in German. They played cards and sat down to dinner
speaking German. Their extended family were all German speakers. The villages
of Shakespeare, Wellesley, Tavistock and New Hamburg where they went to do
business were predominantly German.
Even today, the older folks from that area carry a funny
German accent that I recognize immediately … I had a phone call once from the
Council for Canadians and the young woman I was talking to had the accent – I asked
her if she was from Wellesley or closer to New Hamburg – she paused, laughed
and said “how do you know that?” I said “you have the accent …”
She confessed she had tried to lose it, but even after
several years living in Vancouver it is still there …
One night a few months ago Renee and I were standing in
line waiting to be seated at a restaurant and overheard the conversation of the
couples in front of us and I asked the same question … it was met with laughter
and the wives of the older folks saying “yup we’re from Wellsley …” and we had
a conversation about family connections in the area …
My point though – and one I offered a few weeks ago to the
son of one of my Ankenmann cousins – is that it wasn’t that long ago we were
still being considered “THEM” by the society around us.
I’m the first generation who doesn’t speak German.
I grew up in a Church that still had German hymnals tucked
away in the basement, and where many of the older members remembered worshipping
only in German. My home congregation moved to two services a week – one English
and one German between the world wars, only to drop the German during the war
and reclaim it into the 1950’s when they struggled to find an EUB preacher who
was fluent in German.
We, as a family, as a group were here for over a Century
and we still held to our customs and our traditions AND we faced the same kind
of bigotry and racism and hatred that we witnessed, and continue to witness on
our screens and media.
This struggle is nothing new … it has happened every time a
new group of people arrive … the SAME tired arguments and hatefilled statements
get hauled out and updated again and again and again …
Our Gospel readings show us that the struggle is as ancient
as human civilization. Jesus identifies the woman seeking his help as a dog – a
nice dog (kunaria, the term you would use to refer to a beloved pet) but a dog
nonetheless.
Jesus was a Jew, and as a Jew we witness periodically his
bias against the non-Jews. Despite his beautiful teachings about welcoming and
inclusion, sometimes his bias sneaks out and we are reminded of the strict divide
that lay between Jews and Gentiles.
Ultimately, in Jesus’ understanding of the world, he saw
the redemption of the Gentiles and the non-Jews as something that happened and
was facilitated THROUGH the Jews. Jesus saw the reclaiming of the Lost Sheep of
Israel as the first step, then once the children of God were gathered, they
then would redeem the rest of humanity by bringing them into God’s presence.
Jesus welcomed in the Samaritans because they were still
sort of Jews who worshipped the same God in a slightly different way. But
stories like today’s are a stark reminder that Jesus clearly understood that
the time for the Gentiles to join his movement was not yet … this tension was
laid bare after his death and resurrection when Paul and others were witnessing
to the Gentiles and sharing the Gospel with them. The followers of Christ who
had Jewish roots struggled with the influx of non-Jews and for a time the
Church divided (surprise surprise) with a Jewish wing and a Gentile wing …
But underlying ALL of this, was the understanding that ALL
of God’s children had a place – so to hear Jesus call a woman a dog is rightly
shocking.
But even more shocking is that she wasn’t taking this.
She responded by pointing out that even the children and
the dogs deserve a fair chance … Jesus responds as we would expect and grants
her wish healing her daughter.
In the face of isms – the ONLY response is LOVE … not just
tolerance – love.
If the events of the last few days have taught us nothing
else, it has taught us just how much work there is still to do …
Our Genesis story is ultimately a story of reconciliation
that has the subplot of cultures meeting … the family is facing a famine and
has to go to Egypt to seek help.
In asking for help they are sent before the Pharaoh’s court
where their lost brother stands before them unrecognized. Dressed as an
Egyptian he makes a demand of them to have their youngest brother come before
the court.
When they bring young Benjamin before him Joseph then
dismisses his entourage and tells his brothers who he really is … for a modern
listener, we have that A-ha! Moment of realizing how silly and misguided
assumptions can often be.
The brothers assumed the man before them to be an Egyptian.
The brothers assumed the worst.
The brothers were blinded by their own biases and failed to
see who this man really was.
Then suddenly their long lost brother stood before them and
they watched as God’s plan unfolded in the most unexpected of ways tossing
aside their biases and assumptions and laying out a bold new inclusive path.
Today, the Church is standing at place where it MUST do
better.
We can no longer simply say the right words and pray things
will get better.
Our faith calls us to act … our faith calls us to speak up
and speak out … our faith calls us to move far beyond our comfort zones and to
have the courage to NAME is the isms and confront them.
Healing comes with confronting the ailment and daring to
call on God and our faith …
To end, I want to share a reflection offered by an American
pastor that names a painful truth we must ALL be part of addressing and healing:
Jon Pavlovitz writes:
As a writer and pastor, my job is to
weave together words so that those words will hopefully reach people in their
deepest places; to frame the experience of this life in a way that is somehow
compelling or creative or interesting, causing them to engage with the world
differently than before.
But
there are times when to do this would be actually be a disservice to reality,
when any clever wordplay would only soften the jagged, sickening truth; when
clever turns of phrase might succeed in obscuring the horrid ugliness in front
of us.
Sometimes we just need to say it without adornment or finessing.
What
we’ve watched unfolding in Charlottesville, with hundreds of white people
bearing torches and chanting about the value of white lives and shouting slurs,
is not a “far Right” protest. When you move that far right, past
humanity, past decency, past goodness—you’re something else.
You’re
not a supremacist, you’re not a nationalist, and you’re not alt-Right.
This is racism.
This is domestic terrorism.
This is religious extremism.
This is bigotry.
It is blind hatred of the most vile kind.
It doesn’t represent America.
It doesn’t represent Jesus.
It doesn’t speak for the majority of white Americans.
It’s a cancerous, terrible, putrid sickness that represents the absolute worst of who we are.
This is domestic terrorism.
This is religious extremism.
This is bigotry.
It is blind hatred of the most vile kind.
It doesn’t represent America.
It doesn’t represent Jesus.
It doesn’t speak for the majority of white Americans.
It’s a cancerous, terrible, putrid sickness that represents the absolute worst of who we are.
No,
naming it won’t change it, but naming it is necessary nonetheless. It’s necessary for us to say it—especially
when the media won’t, when our elected leaders won’t, when our President* won’t. It’s necessary to condemn it so that we
do not become complicit in it.
This is our national History being forged in
real-time, and to use words lacking clarity now would be to risk allowing the
ugliness off the hook or to create ambiguity that excuses it. And yes, there are all sorts of other ways that racism and privilege live
and thrive; ways that are far less obvious or brazen than tiki-torch wielding
marches. There are systemic illnesses and structural
defects and national blind spots that we need to speak to and keeping pushing
back against, and we will. But in moments that are
this clear, when the malignancy is so fully on display—we’d better have the
guts to say it.
White people especially need to name racism in this hour, because
somewhere in that crowd of sweaty, dead-eyed, raw throated white men—are our
brothers and cousins and husbands and fathers and children; those we go to
church with and see at Little League and in our neighborhoods. They need to be made accountable by
those they deem their “own kind.” They need to know that this is not who
we are, that we don’t bless or support or respect this. They need white faces speaking directly
into their white faces, loudly on behalf of love.
Though all of us can
eventually trace our lineage back to oneness, all carrying a varied blood in
our veins—the surface level differences matter to these torch-bearers. They value white lives and white voices
above anything else, and so we whose pigmentation matches theirs need to speak
with unflinching clarity about this or we simply amen it.
So I’m saying it.
We are not with you, torch-bearers, in Charlottesville or
anywhere.
We do no consent to this.
In fact we stand against you, alongside the very beautiful diversity that you fear.
We stand with people of every color and of all faiths, people of every orientation, nationality, and native tongue.
We do no consent to this.
In fact we stand against you, alongside the very beautiful diversity that you fear.
We stand with people of every color and of all faiths, people of every orientation, nationality, and native tongue.
We are not going to have this. This is not the country we are trying to
build together and it will not become what you intend it to become.
Our diverse, unified, multi-colored chorus declares that your racism and your terrorism
will not win the day.
Believe it.
And if you think we are immune here in
Canada, ask yourself how you feel when you get over by the Police … we may
experience the frustration of a fine and the inconvenience, but we do not fear
for our safety … this is NOT true for young black and minority men in our
communities. They, EVEN in CANADA face the risk of more than just
inconvenience, and until that changes, WE HAVE WORK TO DO … we are the change
our world seeks … be that change …
May WE make it to be so, thanks be to
God …
