One of the best of ancient practices that we are recovering in the Christian community is Testimony. Again this Sunday we had fresh examples of Testimony’s relevance and power. Members of our church stood up to speak about their faith. This was not easy for any of them.
We have examples in our communal faith story of scripture of how even leaders such as Moses said, “Find someone else to speak. It’s not my talent.” But despite his fears, he got on his feet, opened his mouth and voila, an improbable Exodus from slavery.
Faith is not just about feeling peaceful and at ease. That is part of the faith journey, but not all of it.
For everything there is a season, a time to sit quietly and a time to speak, a time to take in and a time to give out, a time to sit in the back row and a time to take your turn on your feet.
When individuals like Val and Jeremy, Mary and Norma, Pauline and Theresa tell us what music and faith means to them, the whole community is swept up and carried along. Thanks to the fantastic five for your efforts!
…and to all our musicians this morning. Go onto the website for the full effect !
Peter
Sunday, January 29, 2012
Sunday, January 22, 2012
Christians - Part of the Israel/Palestine Solution ????
I have been showing my pictures from Palestine and Israel this past week and so the people and the places I visited have been in my thoughts and heart.
Tom Gettman was one of the people I met in Bethlehem and he told the story of the 8-year-old daughter of a Ramallah-based Mercy Corps staff person who wondered about the huge barrier separating Israel and Palestine.
When riding with her mother from Jerusalem along the snaking barrier wall and then passing through the onerous Callandia checkpoint “border post”, she asked,
“Mommy, why do Jews have to live behind that wall?”
The sad thing about walls is that they don’t just shut out the “other” but they also close us off from commnicaiton and relationship.
And of course the Jewish community does not have to live behind a wall. But it will take courage and persistent commitment to find another way, a way to peace with justice in Israel and Palestine.
Christians have historically been part of the problem. Could they also be part of a non-violent solution? The Kairos Palestine document which United Church folks are now studying tells us this is possible, that there are ways to show our support for brothers and sisters suffering in Palestine. If you would like to know more about this document, try the internet or our website can point you in the right direction.
Peter
Tom Gettman was one of the people I met in Bethlehem and he told the story of the 8-year-old daughter of a Ramallah-based Mercy Corps staff person who wondered about the huge barrier separating Israel and Palestine.
When riding with her mother from Jerusalem along the snaking barrier wall and then passing through the onerous Callandia checkpoint “border post”, she asked,
“Mommy, why do Jews have to live behind that wall?”
The sad thing about walls is that they don’t just shut out the “other” but they also close us off from commnicaiton and relationship.
And of course the Jewish community does not have to live behind a wall. But it will take courage and persistent commitment to find another way, a way to peace with justice in Israel and Palestine.
Christians have historically been part of the problem. Could they also be part of a non-violent solution? The Kairos Palestine document which United Church folks are now studying tells us this is possible, that there are ways to show our support for brothers and sisters suffering in Palestine. If you would like to know more about this document, try the internet or our website can point you in the right direction.
Peter
Sunday, January 15, 2012
Poets and Playwrights as Politicians
Vaclav Havel died last month at the age of 75. He will be remembered as the poet and playwright who led the non-violent revolution in the former Czechoslovakia, then went on to become the country’s first president.
Havel enjoyed greater support abroad than in his home country as he took positions that were critical of his own country. He spoke out against the expulsion of the indigenous Sudeten German population after World War II. One of his first actions as a president was to offer an amnesty for those imprisoned by the former regime because they may have been communists. At his death he was a member of the Czech Green Party.
Havel once wrote,
“Hope is definitely not the same thing as optimism. It is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out.”
I don’t suppose a poet and playwright would have much of a chance in our political system. Too bad.
Peter
Havel enjoyed greater support abroad than in his home country as he took positions that were critical of his own country. He spoke out against the expulsion of the indigenous Sudeten German population after World War II. One of his first actions as a president was to offer an amnesty for those imprisoned by the former regime because they may have been communists. At his death he was a member of the Czech Green Party.
Havel once wrote,
“Hope is definitely not the same thing as optimism. It is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out.”
I don’t suppose a poet and playwright would have much of a chance in our political system. Too bad.
Peter
Sunday, December 18, 2011
Take That Risk
Seventy seven years ago a seventeen year old young woman was waiting off stage at the Apollo Theatre in Harlem. It was amateur night and she was next on stage with a dance routine. But the duo before were also dancing and when they were done she was so imtimidated that she could not dance.
She decided to sing instead. She had never sung in public before. She wasn’t sure that she had any singing talent. But she sang anyway. Her name was Ella Fitzgerald.
It makes you wonder what would happen if we risked a new routine.
Peter
She decided to sing instead. She had never sung in public before. She wasn’t sure that she had any singing talent. But she sang anyway. Her name was Ella Fitzgerald.
It makes you wonder what would happen if we risked a new routine.
Peter
Monday, December 12, 2011
Of One Mind?
Last week at the Kairos Bethlehem encounter, the whole gathering seemed to be of one mind. But of course that is never the case and over the week some differences became more apparent.
In one presentation from a European country, there was a challenge to the patriarchal attitudes inherent in the document.
This was vigourously opposed by some of the local Palestinian authors including women. They felt that this was just one more imposition from the outside telling them what to do. Local voices said , “At this point we are just trying to survive. Allow us to tackle these issues in our own way, at our own speed.”
However the representatives of Christian social justice groups and churches were all agreed on the the Kairos document’s call for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions against the Israeli settlements. We were convinced that the relentless increase in settlements, roads and barriers has placed the Palestinian community in an impossible situation
Where else in the world is a whole people barred from using the main highways because of their race? is this not technically an apartheid?
The Kairos document asks the Christian community to act before it is too late. I wonder if Canadian churches will do so. I wonder if we here at Emmanuel will be able to see the world through Palestinian eyes.
Peter
In one presentation from a European country, there was a challenge to the patriarchal attitudes inherent in the document.
This was vigourously opposed by some of the local Palestinian authors including women. They felt that this was just one more imposition from the outside telling them what to do. Local voices said , “At this point we are just trying to survive. Allow us to tackle these issues in our own way, at our own speed.”
However the representatives of Christian social justice groups and churches were all agreed on the the Kairos document’s call for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions against the Israeli settlements. We were convinced that the relentless increase in settlements, roads and barriers has placed the Palestinian community in an impossible situation
Where else in the world is a whole people barred from using the main highways because of their race? is this not technically an apartheid?
The Kairos document asks the Christian community to act before it is too late. I wonder if Canadian churches will do so. I wonder if we here at Emmanuel will be able to see the world through Palestinian eyes.
Peter
Tuesday, December 6, 2011
The Wall Of Separation - Posts From Bethlehem
We met at dusk for a worship service at the Wall. This outdoor service needed a little light. During the opening words, the presider invited the security guard in the tower that loomed over us to turn his searchlight on us so we could see the words on our bulletin. When that did not happen we resorted to candle light.
I joined two ministers, Lisa serving the Lutheran church in Sweden and another from the church of Scotland in reading alternate words to O little Town of Bethlehem. Mine were:
While morning stars and evening stars
Shine out in your dark sky,
Despair now stalks your troubled streets
Where innocents still die.
And Jesus, Child of Mary,
Whose love will never cease,
Feels even now your pain and fear,
Longs with you for your peace.
After scripture, hymns and a choir from the Bethlehem Bible College, a sermon, and an exchange fo olive branches and candles, we walked out to “We are walking in the Light of God” to plant an olive tree on behalf of Kairos. Our midweek evening Advent services are around the theme of light, so I felt you were all with me as we worshipped here this night, holding up our candles of faith hope and love in front of the Wall of separation.
Peter
I joined two ministers, Lisa serving the Lutheran church in Sweden and another from the church of Scotland in reading alternate words to O little Town of Bethlehem. Mine were:
While morning stars and evening stars
Shine out in your dark sky,
Despair now stalks your troubled streets
Where innocents still die.
And Jesus, Child of Mary,
Whose love will never cease,
Feels even now your pain and fear,
Longs with you for your peace.
After scripture, hymns and a choir from the Bethlehem Bible College, a sermon, and an exchange fo olive branches and candles, we walked out to “We are walking in the Light of God” to plant an olive tree on behalf of Kairos. Our midweek evening Advent services are around the theme of light, so I felt you were all with me as we worshipped here this night, holding up our candles of faith hope and love in front of the Wall of separation.
Peter
Sunday, December 4, 2011
We Are Pilgrims - Posts From Bethlehem
How often does one get to spend the second Sunday in Advent in Bethlehem? I am staying for the week in the Bethlehem Hotel, a half hour walk from the ancient Church of the Nativity. This morning Barbara Lloyd, the other United Church representative, and I got to the Church before the tour bus onslaught.
I had to bend in half to squeeze in the tiny door of the church. Here was a reminder at the door to humble oneself when entering. This for me is one of those "thin places" in this land. That's what the Celts called these places where the threshold to the holy was more translucent than usual.
We had arrived at the end of what may have been an Armenian service of worship. Sun streamed in the upper windows casting the pillars in lovely tones of light and shade. The atmosphere was thick with incense and radiant with large chandeliers and freshly placed prayer candles.
We took a seat just emptied as the worshippers had gone forward for communion. They streamed by us with pieces of bread in hand. For what purpose? To share with family members who could not attend? To take to relatives in hospital? We felt a bit disconnected to what was taking place in a language that we did not understand. We were visitors but we were not just tourists. We were pilgrims, as we told the Security officers when we entered the country yesterday.
A woman walked by us with her two children. She turned and with a smile offered a piece of bread. Her son did the same.At that moment we felt part of that Bethlehem Advent service.
These Christians in the Holy Land have gone from 10% of the population to less than 2% but they are still here and they have a story they want to tell. That's why we are here this week.
Peter
I had to bend in half to squeeze in the tiny door of the church. Here was a reminder at the door to humble oneself when entering. This for me is one of those "thin places" in this land. That's what the Celts called these places where the threshold to the holy was more translucent than usual.
We had arrived at the end of what may have been an Armenian service of worship. Sun streamed in the upper windows casting the pillars in lovely tones of light and shade. The atmosphere was thick with incense and radiant with large chandeliers and freshly placed prayer candles.
We took a seat just emptied as the worshippers had gone forward for communion. They streamed by us with pieces of bread in hand. For what purpose? To share with family members who could not attend? To take to relatives in hospital? We felt a bit disconnected to what was taking place in a language that we did not understand. We were visitors but we were not just tourists. We were pilgrims, as we told the Security officers when we entered the country yesterday.
A woman walked by us with her two children. She turned and with a smile offered a piece of bread. Her son did the same.At that moment we felt part of that Bethlehem Advent service.
These Christians in the Holy Land have gone from 10% of the population to less than 2% but they are still here and they have a story they want to tell. That's why we are here this week.
Peter
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