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The ViewA letter home from the staff at Glenview Presbyterian Church.  Merry X-mas Glenview!Friday, November 13, 2009 No, no, no, say it isn’t so. Is nothing sacred? Even in our church newsletter, our minister’s article no less, we have succumbed to such secularization and crassness?!
Before you cancel your subscription to Glenviews, write an angry letter to the editor or blitz the minister’s inbox with e-mails with the subject title Put the Christ back in Christmas or Jesus is the reason for the season: hear me out.
Though we may wish otherwise, there is no getting rid of the phrases: Merry X-mas, Season’s Greetings, or Happy Holidays. Try as we might Santa Claus is just more popular than St. Nick (I can hear it now: Santa? Once a bishop in Turkey? I thought he worked for Coke?). Even more seriously, there is no reclaiming the season that welcomes a poor child into the world from the iron (gold plated?) grip of commercialization and consumerism, recession or no recession it would seem.
I know we have tried. I am in the midst of writing yet another letter to my daughter’s school thanking them for exposing my children to the richness of culture that make up this great city (my children can now sing songs about Hanukkah, Kwanzaa and Winter solstice) however, teaching the class Here Comes Santa Claus is just not a cultural equivalent. Catchy as that little jingle may be, it does not really express the roots of our celebration and traditions (it better not- Lord help us).
So what to do? Every time we receive a card, pass an ad, or read a flyer that says Merry X-mas shall we sigh or rant and dismiss it?
What if we remembered that X is actually shorthand for the name of Christ in Greek? X was legitimate religious shorthand for centuries, we’ve just forgot the meaning. Happy Holidays is shorthand for happy, holy days just as good-bye is a watered down version of God bless you. There is religious talk all over the place! Taking the subway is not always an edifying experience but I always feel somewhat comforted by old St. George, Clair, Andrew, Patrick and Lawrence. I once tried to remember a story about each saint whenever I rolled into their respective stations but this is for another article.
Besides, if you really want to let the good news of this holy time be known; if you really want to make a point about this season- embody the season- not only in your cards and salutations- but in your thoughts, actions and prayers. Be peaceful. Express your joy in humanity. Sing. Share. Feast. Welcome someone. Let your gentleness be known by all, especially when standing in line at the Future Shop on the 23rd of December.
I don’t want to be known as the churlish guy who gets his knickers in a knot every time Christmas gets co-opted or tainted by secularism. After all, Jesus came into a world that couldn’t even manage to get a proper nursery together for him. The story tells us that message of Christmas got cut pretty short by a leader hell bent on there being no regime change in his kingdom. Jesus, welcomed by the angels, fled to a foreign country, a refugee before he was ever really anything else in the world’s eyes. Yet, yet, the message and reality of Immanuel was too good, too real, too holy, too much to ever be diminished or destroyed. Considering the resistance first received, our current situation is nothing.
So here we are despite all the resistance, indifference and manipulation, ready to celebrate again the good news that God is indeed very much with us. God loves this beautiful, sometimes cruel, old world.
So my fellow Glenviewers no matter how one may want to say it, ignore it or deny it- there is no changing the fact that God loves this world so much that he sent his very self to be one of us, to be with us, to be for us. May this deep truth carry you through these Advent days of waiting, watching and preparing.
By the way, when that special day comes rolling around: Joyeux Noël
Letter home - March 23rdSunday, March 22, 2009
May the grace and peace of Christ be with you all!
It has been some time since we have corresponded- forgive the communication gap. There has been much happening in our life together at Glenview and a letter is soon coming from the Session highlighting our AGM in February and some of the plans and dreams that are unfolding. We pray for God’s blessing and guidance as we seek to build, renew and strengthen this ministry.
For the fourth Sunday in Lent (already?) we read a rather strange story from the book of Numbers (21:4-9). We noted the familiar refrain of complaint that rose up from our spiritual ancestors who while in the desert were brave occasionally and contrary frequently, and forever forgetting that they were once slaves and now free, once forgotten, now claimed. So often we hear the cry go up that God has forgotten them and Moses betrayed them yet again. One wonders what previous miracle and sign from God they missed: Manna from heaven, water from a rock? How much would it take for our ancestors to trust and believe?
Of course we have inherited, developed and nurtured such habits too have we not? Complaint and distrust are endemic in our church and society. We search and demand for perfection in everything (how our children behave, how our churches worship, how our world turns) and are disappointed when the world, our church and our families do not reflect the perfect image we wanted for and of them.
Do you know what makes something perfect? Love. When something or someone is loved, they are perfect. They are exactly what they need to be and you cherish them for what they are. The way out of complaint and disappointment is not working away until it becomes perfect (surely a trivial pursuit), but rather to work and love and love until you can enjoy and delight in what God has given you.
In the story from Numbers, God lifted up a bronze serpent on a stick as way to show his loving, healing power and presence to the people. Later God would announce his arrival and loving intentions by referring to that desert story. In John chapter 3, Jesus pointed out that just like the bronze staff was lifted up to save the people, He was now being lifted up. His life of serving, loving, dying, suffering and resurrecting is given for you, for all. Christ came to bring new life into this tired old world and in to our tired old souls.
For God so loved the world that he gave his only son that we might have life eternal.
What’s to complain about? There is however, much to celebrate!
Grace attend you,
The Rev. Derek Macleod
If I could put an ad on the TTCWednesday, February 11, 2009
I don’t believe in God, but I miss him terribly.
So begins a New Yorker article by Julian Barnes called The Past Conditional. He shared his feeling with an Oxford philosophy professor, his brother, who pronounced his thinking soppy. It is just not considered intelligent, sympathetic, or respectable to believe in God or even miss believing in God these days, but I’m not telling you anything you don’t already know.
It is easier to tell people that on Sunday mornings you lace up your shoes, dress in spandex from head to toe spandex and run the road for two hours dodging traffic and dogs regardless of the weather, (oh good for you, you will hear, I want to do that too); it is easier to say that you congregate at St. Timothy’s of Horton or Our Lady of Starbucks and that you pay fifty dollars for refreshments and use secret language like: I’ll have a venti-bold-triple-vanilla-skinny latte hold the foam; than to say that on Sunday mornings you get up and join others to sing, pray and reflect for an hour every Sunday. Now why would you want to do you that? You will probably hear. I remember a good friend who came to hear me preach when I was a student. I always thought you were smarter than that he said to me at the door.
We often feel challenged, unsure and embarrassed about going to Church and professing that we are Christians; that we believe and trust in God made known in Jesus Christ. We feel silly and are sure that we are looked upon as suspect or perhaps not that bright.
Last week our Moderator and guest preacher referred to the bus ads you can find now on London buses that sport slogans like:
There is probably no God so relax and enjoy your life.
Or,
The bad news is there’s no God, the good news is you don’t need him.
You no doubt heard that this ad campaign is coming to the TTC and people in our great city have raised over twenty thousand dollars to see it happen. It’s about time I heard some people say calling in to the CBC, it is time people who never got over their childhood religion grew up and started acting like adults.
Their anger and disgust at the Church shocked someone even as weathered as I am in these things. Finally, one caller said, we have an ad campaign to challenge all those religious ads.
Now, I ride the TTC. Just how many religious ads do you see every day? Is Canada a Christian fascist state? Our faith is hardly forced upon people.
I would like to suggest to this group that they attack something that deserves to be attacked. How about speaking out against ads that contribute to our negative self body images or challenge ads that encourage our conspicuous consumption?
I wish we could put an ad on the TTC. It would read:
There is a God. Now go feed the poor and love your neighbour!
Or more secularly:
Maybe there is a God but the world is a mess and we have to do something about it!
Do those who seek to erase Christianity’s presence, meagre as it now is, from the public sphere know that almost every hospital, school and social service centre has grown from a religious foundation? Public schools practically owe their existence to Protestants who held fast to the ideal of education for all- if you were going to read the bible for yourself- you are going to need to read! We built schools before churches.
Religion is something to promote rather than chide, something to encourage rather than discourage. Despite a difficult and at times painful tragic history, the world is better off because there are communities of faithful, loving people who want to love God and their neighbour.
The psalmist says the beginning of wisdom is fear of the Lord (Psalm 111).
To fear the Lord is not to be afraid or anxious but rather to be filled with a feeling of awe, reverence. One biblical scholar describes fear of the Lord as an irresistible attraction to the graciousness of God.
To fear God is to know that there is something greater than yourself in this world. To fear God is to know no matter how clever you are you cannot replicate creation, manufacture love or copy grace. These are gifts to be shared and enjoyed. God is the source of life and to God we owe our lives. The awesomeness of God draws us into the awesome mystery of life. God has created a universe where we are but tiny, tiny, specks. Yet, here together on this home we call earth food is provided, shelter can be found, friends can be made, love can be born, wounds can be healed, darkness can be scattered by the tiniest shred of light. There is something to this world and the way that it is orientated toward life.
To be wise is to acknowledge this great gift and not just relax, but rather work, move, serve and delight in God’s goodness and love toward us.
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