Liz Zehr

This past week I presided at services of leave-taking for two of our synod’s congregations. It was deeply moving for me to be present for these very poignant and profound moments in the life of these faith communities.

In 2022 our synod staff made some projections on what we thought our ministry footprint might look like in 2028. We anticipate that as many as one third of our synod’s 170 congregation will either merge with another congregation or close within the next five years.

Recent congregational mergers in Kitchener-Waterloo, Hamilton and Sudbury have proven to be lifegiving and have reset our ministry profile in very good ways. Shared ministry partnerships in a variety of settings have likewise served to strengthen and support the life of many congregations. But sometimes those options either can’t or won’t happen. Sometimes congregations need to bring their ministries to a gracious and faith inspired conclusion.

Circumstances change. Contexts change. And that means that we will change; our ministries will change, even if it means acknowledging the conclusion of a particular ministry. And there should be no shame in this. For heaven’s sake! Aren’t we in the dying and rising business? Why should we be so averse to experiencing such necessary transitions in our institutional life together?

The two congregations whose ministries ended this past week did not fail. They discerned that the best and most faithful course of action was to end their lives and thereby provide legacy gifts that will seed and support new expressions of ministry in the future. And in doing so, they were mirroring the actions of previous expressions of church that had birthed them decades previously.

Each of those congregation had been launched with the support of denominational gifts and subsidies provided by preceding generations who had “paid it forward.” And now, they were doing the very same thing. “Paying it forward” to other expressions of church and the generations of believers who will follow us; ensuring that they will benefit from the same measure of generosity which has served and supported our ministries in this present day.

In John 12 Jesus tells us, “Very truly, I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.” In this way, the seeds that have been sown throughout these congregation’s histories will continue to grow and bear fruit. Blessings that have been bestowed will continue to ripple forth and bring new blessings in the life of our world.

Nobody wants to see a particular ministry end. But sometimes ending is the most responsible course of action. And if it’s done well, it can lead to new beginnings and new life. Death can lead to resurrection. For such is the promise of the Gospel!

This morning I read an article reporting that several Agatha Christie novels have recently been edited to remove potentially offensive language, including insults and references to ethnicity. Similar edits have recently been done to works by authors Roald Dahl, Ian Fleming and Mark Twain. It got me wondering what might happen should such similar efforts be directed toward  our sacred scriptures. It would certainly make for a much quicker read!

This spring I have hosted three retreats for rostered and lay leaders where we have delved deeply into the scriptures under the gifted direction of Rev. Dr. Matthew Anderson, a biblical scholar and pastor of our church who serves as the Director of Camino Nova Scotia and lecturer at St. Francis Xavier University. Our theme title was “A Midnight Guide to the Bible: examining the scriptures through murder, sex, money, mistakes, #MeToo, and real estate!”  It was not your typical bible study!

In case you’ve not yet noticed, there’s quite a lot of nasty stuff in the bible; stuff that typically doesn’t show up in our neatly bundled three-year lectionary of readings.  Our default mode of dealing with such passages, when they do show up, is to quietly ignore them or to engage in forms of theological gymnastics that seek to defend, justify, or explain away actions which some of us can no longer equate with Godly behaviour. We need to do better than that.

A few years ago, I read an article wherein the author was exploring the question of violence in the Bible. The author referred to a piece written by Jewish philosopher Martin Buber where he reflects on Samuel chapter fifteen, where Samuel tells Saul that God has commanded him to wipe out the Amalekites – to kill every “man, woman and child, infant, ox, camel and donkey.” To be clear, God is commanding a genocide; plain and simple.

Buber’s response is a simple one. He writes, “Samuel must have misunderstood God. I cannot hear the word of God in these verses.” There is no attempt to justify, explain or defend. Samuel must have got it wrong because this is not God that Buber had come to know and experience in his life of faith.

So how do I reconcile the apparent contradiction between the God we encounter in different parts of the Bible? In short, I guess I don’t! I no longer feel compelled to try to reconcile these different and contradictory images of God and of the faith responses of those who would claim to be God’s people. I don’t disregard them. In fact, I accept them and try to learn from them. I accept them as being honest and faithful expressions of a religious tradition that is always moving, always in motion, and always in apparent possession of new truths and new understandings that can be quite different from those of our forebears.

“The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there.’ This immortal first line to L. P. Hartley’s THE GO-BETWEEN suggests a helpful posture by which to approach the scriptures, particularly those portions that are most distressing and disturbing.

We can’t change or edit the scriptures. That would be both unfaithful and intellectually dishonest. We can, however, explore them, honestly, critically, and reflectively, not from a posture of arrogance and judgement, but rather of one of deep humility that seeks understanding. We don’t take the Bible literally, but we do take it seriously trusting that even the nasty bits have something to teach us!

Email is both a blessing and a curse. At its best it can facilitate speedy, clear communication, and help grease the gears of institutional life. At its worst, it snarls those gears, promotes bad or ineffective communication; and fans the flames of interpersonal conflict in ways that are destructive and hurtful.

I can’t tell you how many times I have been copied into a thread of reply-all email conversations, usually among Congregational Council members, where in the space of just a few hours, reputations have been maligned, feelings hurt and resignations tendered. By the time I am copied in, the damage has been done.

Conflict is something whose presence cannot be avoided in human interactions. Christ may well have promised to be present whenever two or more gather, but that doesn’t preclude the fact that those “two or more” are going to disagree with one another from time to time! It’s human nature.

When conflicts arise, they need to be addressed. How they are addressed will determine whether the conflict will be constructive or destructive. Not all conflicts can be resolved, but they can be managed in such a way that harm can be avoided.

In Matthew 18 Jesus gives some helpful advice on how we should deal with interpersonal conflict. The first and most important step is to go to the individual with whom you have a dispute and address it face to face. (If Jesus were advising us today, I think he would add the phrase “and never via text or email!!!”)

In my experience, the most destructive elements of church conflict would be avoided if people followed this primary advice. Sadly, I find that this is the step that people consistently avoid taking. Instead they carry their disputes elsewhere, thereby unleashing potentially harmful threads of recrimination that are exponentially more difficult to address than was the original cause for complaint.

The first question I ask whenever someone comes to me with a complaint about a rostered minister, council member or parishioner is, “Have you spoken to this person directly about your concern?” Ninety per cent of the time the answer is “No!” If that is the case, I provide some coaching on how they might go about doing that in a constructive way and ask them to report back after having had this conversation.

More often than not, the two parties, in meeting, are able to begin to address their differences in a constructive way. Sometime, if needed and appropriate, I may offer to convene a further conversation to help them move forward. But it’s not usually needed.

When conflicts arise, we need to talk with one another and not about one another. Follow that simple rule and you will have done a lot to reduce the harmful effects of the interpersonal conflicts that will inevitably arise in any relationship.  Do that, and you will have done a lot to build up the health and resiliency of your congregation.

The Easter morning account from John’s Gospel sets a pattern that is repeated in all the accounts of Jesus post-resurrection appearances. Jesus appears – he’s not recognized – but then, in an instant, ears and eyes are opened, and the Lord is revealed.

In most of these accounts, the disciples typically come off looking like dimwits – or, to use the kindlier description of the scriptures – as being “slow to grasp.” But are they? Really?

Most of us don’t come to faith through a purely intellectual exercise. Certainly, it wasn’t how the disciples came to a renewed faith.  In their case, faith was GIVEN – in a flash of recognition – in the calling of a name, in the breaking of bread, in the sharing of a seaside breakfast.  In each instance, faith was “given.” It was not some trophy for evidence well tallied – for a job well done; but rather, it was a gift, offered, received and then shared.

The Easter Gospel reminds us that faith always comes as an unexpected gift – a gift that is often most accessible to those whose hearts have been broken open by intense longing and profound disillusionment. In the space of a few short days, Jesus’ disciples had been lifted from the midst of a street parade and dropped into the middle of a funeral procession. But it was these aching ones that Jesus sought out, on several occasions; with “words that burned,” with the bread of life.  And in their neediness they recognized Him.  In the midst of their hurt, faith was awakened and the Lord was revealed.

As I recall the biblical stories of God’s dealings with people, as I think about the faith stories of friends and fellow believers, and my own faith story, it seems that this has always been true.  We are more likely to encounter the thin spaces between us and God when we have abandoned any illusions we hold concerning our strength, competence or control of our lives. It is when we are most keenly aware of our own poverty of spirit that we become most accessible to God’s self-revelation.

Like you, I have days where I am frightened, fearful and frustrated; days when I wonder where it is that the Lord can be found! But perhaps I need to remember that, as for the disciples of old on the Emmaus road, the burning ache within my heart may be a righteous burn signalling the presence of the Risen Lord.

These post resurrection stories of Jesus’ encounters with the disciples are more than just their stories. They are also the church’s story; my story and your story. They are not stories that “we Christians explain” so much as they are stories that “explain we Christians!” So fear not; the Lord is near! Alleluia!