Tag: christianity

August 5, 2025

Good afternoon,

Wow, another God story. I had my first shift at The Mennonite Story at the St. Jacobs market this morning. It was not very busy for the first two hours. Then, the coordinator  asked me to come out to the lobby. There was a man from Switzerland who had  been the minister at the Grossmunster Church( 2003-2024) in Zurich. There are pictures on the wall in the museum of the church where he was pastor. He wanted to show me. He knew the history, the Mennonite story. He wanted to tell me about the reconciliation service held in 2004, where  thousands of Mennonites showed up, and the Reformed Church leadership asked for forgiveness for the violence done to the Anabaptists in the 16th and 17the century. He was in tears. The church where he was pastor had condemned many early Anabaptists to death.
I told him I had been to Zurich in April. 

 I told him that we had been to the church where he had been pastor ( see picture above ), and the many other places of importance for Mennonites. His name is Christoph Sigrist, and he teaches religion at the University of Zurich. After showing the short video on the Old Order community, he asked me, ” Do you have hope for the church  ? ” Well, I said, ” I have to live with hope, but I am not optimistic. Many churches are closing, and the church is getting smaller and older all the time.” He said it is the same in Switzerland. 

Do you have hope for the church? On a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being ‘ we are done ‘ , where would you put a number for the church surviving well ? There has been lots of study on what has happened , and what to do going forward, but it seems the church has lost its way. I do not think that God has given up on us. I believe that the focus on love and non-violence is a strength we have in our community. Is it enough ? What do you think ?

To the church of God in Corinth,

           to those sanctified in Christ Jesus 

                      and called to be his holy people, 

                            together with all those everywhere

                                  who call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ—their Lord and ours:

                                               Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. I Corinthians 1:2-3
Fred

black and white shadows 

crush humanity’s freedom

am I complicit ? 

MPL 2025

July 29, 2025

Good afternoon,” Black and white shadows ”    from 2025 haiku.

There seems to be more blind shadows than open ones in our world. Canada said it was not sending weapons to Israel, but a new report says Canada got around the law, and has been sending weapons the whole time. Why would they do this, money, political motives ? Canada is better than this. I would hope so. How can I live in hope for this world ? This world, as God’s creation , is important. It is sacred. It is the only community that we have for our faith. I want more white shadows rather than shadows of darkness. 

How did Jesus of Nazareth view his time on earth ? With the Roman Empire in charge, did Jesus see the world negatively ? Did he know that he was going to die, when he came out of the wilderness of the Jordan desert ? Did he ever think that the Temple would accept his new ideas about Gentiles and salvation. We have no way of knowing the answers to these questions. Did Jesus have free will to change the mission of his Father, but he was part of the Trinity ?

You will hear of wars and rumors of wars, but see to it that you are not alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come. Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines and earthquakes in various places.  All these are the beginning of birth pains.  Matthew 24:6-8

Matthew 24 has a negative outlook of the world. I do not want to be wrong about the world. My biggest worry is that Mr. Trump will call for martial law, and use the military to make him King or President for life. His followers might manufacture a crisis where he will say I have to save America, and . “I must take control of everything.”  This has nothing to do with God, but it will increase the suffering of people. I hope I am wrong.

Praying for food for the children of Gaza. Amen

Fred

July 24, 2025   ( our 43rd wedding anniversary !!!! )

Good afternoon,

Foot washing Scene from the Gospel of John:

 ” I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you. Very truly I tell you, no servant is greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him.  Now that you know these things, you will be blessed if you do them.” John 13:15-17

I have settled on the last part of the footwahing event from John for my focusing scripture going forward. It has taken me a few months. No other Gospel writer tells this story. Mennonites have done footwashing for a long time during their communion services. At least the Amish/Swiss Mennonites. During the final meal, Jesus gets up and says he is going to wash the feet of his disciples. Peter objects to this. After a few words from Jesus, Peter changes his mind and he wants everything washed. Then Jesus gives us the meaning he wants to get across to his friends. During the rest of the meal, he tells the disciples many more things.

I want to keep the attitude that Jesus wants for his followers. In such a polarizing time that we are living in, I have to be able to have difficult conversations, with an attitude of openness, but not fragility. I have to try to see it from another point of view, but I do not have to agree with it. I must continue to proclaim justice, peace and compassion when I am confronted with meanness, power and coercion. Now this is a challenging calling. But, you cannot wash another’s feet, and not be changed by the event. Since I did not grow up with the tradition, my first time for footwashing was at the MCC orientation retreat before we went to Thailand in September 1982. It was a sacred moment. As I have selected this scripture, I hope for more sacred moments in the future.

Praying for Gaza. AMEN.

Fred

black and white shadows

crush humanity’s freedom

am I complicit ? 

MPL 2025

July 22, 2025

Good afternoon,

” Wilderness forces us to let go of control. “Thank you for all your responses to my email about wilderness.

 The above statement had me thinking for the last week. Do I give enough control over to God ? And what does that mean ? I cannot just give my life decisions over to God, and just coast along. God gave me a mind or brain or a conscience so I can be a co-creator with God. Do you agree with that ? When I was preaching, I did not wait for God to write my sermon. If you are an accountant , you do not wait for God to put all those numbers together. If you’re building a new house, you do not wait for Go to begin framing the house . We are in control of our lives, but how does God play into our lives and faith ? What does it mean to put faith in God, when we cannot just sit on the restful couch, and wait for God to affect our lives ?

” Wilderness forces us to let go of control ” What does it mean to let God control our lives ? Let go of worry ? Let go of anxiety ? Let go of fear ? Whatever happens in my life I must be in the Presence of God. The apostle Paul says that perfect love casts out all fear.  I have not yet gotten to this stage of existence . I am nowhere close to attaining perfect love. Remember those dreams that I had a few days ago. In the New Testament, there are the conversion stories of some of the disciples. They left their occupations, and followed Jesus around. After Jesus ascended back to heaven, they led the church. They knew what to do, but they often got it wrong. But, they had to do it. They took what Jesus told them about how to love and be kind, and then they did it.

Can you name an example out of your own life, where you gave control over to God ? It might have been when we put Lucas on the school bus for the first time. Or, maybe, when I resigned from Floradale without any work prospects. I think farmers, and I am not a farmer, have faith of a different kind, after they put the seed in the ground. As I move into retirement, can I give up control to God in a new way ? I am just saying … ? 

From  A Thousand Mornings by Mary Oliver ( 2012 )

The Man who Has Many Answers 

 The man who has many answers 

 is often found

   in the theaters of information

   where he offers, graciously,  

 his deep findings. 

 While the man with only questions, 

 to comfort himself, makes music.

   Corn ‘ blowing in the wind ‘

Fred

black and white shadows

crush humanity’s freedom

am I complicit ? 

MPL 2025

July 15, 2025

Good afternoon

( John Howard Yoder was a serial sexual abuser/harasser. Over the course of decades he abused a generation of young Mennonite women theologians and scholars. The Mennonite Seminary , where he taught,  knew about the abusive behaviour. Yoder was invited to move on to the University of Notre Dame. The Central District Mennonite Conference  brought these accusations to Yoder, and at first he entered into the process of healing, but later left it. The Conference revoked his teaching and ministerial credentials. )

Book four of my top ten is: The Politics of Jesus. John Howard Yoder . 1974

This book is a hard read, a theologically dense book. I still do not understand many of the concepts or words that he uses. But it changed my view of the Bible, and the reasons for the life and death of Jesus. Yoder works through the book of Luke and then the letters of Paul. So, I read the Politics  book in the spring of 1981. I had never thought where the Bible had come from. I just took it as God’s word. Maybe it just dropped out of heaven ? Yoder explains that real people wrote it, to real people. God didn’t give any of the writers the exact words, but all the writers were inspired by the Spirit. It makes the Bible more real to me.
Yoder explains that Jesus was killed because he threatened the powers and principalities. He did not die for our individual sins, but wanted to establish a new community made up of both Jew and Gentile. A radical idea at the time, and radical even today, as we move to include the whole world into the church. at the end of the church on ” The Disciple of Christ and the Way of Jesus .”:   “This is at the point of the concrete social meaning of the cross in its relation to enmity and power,         

             servanthood replaces dominion,       

                           forgiveness absorbs hostility . 

                                    Thus. and only thus, are we bound by New Testament thought to ” be like Jesus. “

Each paragraph has to be read at least twice and maybe three times, at least for me. His writing has freshness to it even though it is over fifty years old. Although I was shocked by Yoder’s actions, I still think he has something to offer in following Jesus. It has been a journey for me in thinking about his sinfulness and my sinfulness.

 Fred

ck and white shadows

crush humanity’s freedom

am I complicit ? MPL 2025

July 16, 2025

Good afternoon

( ****** Error from yesterday. Just before the quote from Yoder’s book .. .”at the end of the church” should have read ” at the end of the chapter” . Sorry about that ****** )Please read Ephesians 1: 1-4

Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God,

To God’s holy people in Ephesus, the faithful in Christ Jesus:

 Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

         Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, 

                                who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ.

                                                      For he chose us in him before the creation of the world 

                                                                            to be holy and blameless in his sight.

The letter to the community in Ephesus, on the coast of the Aegean Sea, he begins with grace and peace. In these two words he addresses both parts of the community, peace for the Hebrews and grace for the Greeks. One of his ideas for these two groups is for them to get along. Later on he writes that Christ has broken down the wall of hostility between the two groups. They were different socially, religiously and ethnically. They would have had different foods. This is a big issue for the community and for the church today.

But, the second idea here in verse is whether we have free will or not. I think we act as if we do. We make choices between good and bad. There are the free choices that we make of what career we want to follow, what food we eat and what God we worship and serve. Do we want God to make all the choices, and we are like puppets ? The writer says that we were chosen, since before the creation of the world. The church leaders have always argued about this . It is in all the confessions of faith. John Calvin in the 1500’s argued strongly for  pre-destination. People were killed for thinking differently. The world and all that happens was determined before heavens broke open in creation. What do you think ? A friend of mine has dementia. I cannot believe God would have ordained that from before time began . That is cruel.

In the Gospels, the writers record that Jesus says he does not know when the end of the world will happen.  He ” knows neither the hour nor the day.” If this is true, then the idea that all things have been determined begins to crumble. If Jesus doesn’t know that day, then he is not all-powerful or all knowing ! Oh no.  Jesus himself did not really care. He said ” Be kind to everyone. ” That is it. Grace and peace .

Lord, may the world turn around and be kind to Palestine. AMEN

Fred

black and white shadows

crush humanity’s freedom

am I complicit ?

 MPL 2025

July 20, 2025

Good morning

PRAYERS

O God of Heaven and earth,

What is  the meaning of life, Lord

I thought I knew it.

Life is changing,    for me,

and not for You.

More people are dying from my life 

 from Bethel, Floradale and Poole 

  relatives and friends and neighbours

it is not surprising,     

   but jarring to me.

It is what happens in life,   

 and in death.

Do we wait for death,   

 or continue to live vibrantly ,     

  under your control,           

  for you know are ‘ comings and goings ‘

As we age towards our death, 

    quietly 

   we rejoice  

   for your Presence in our life,

But, 

we want just a

few more moments, hours, days, months and years.     

   in this life,       

    before we enter the hereafter       

       the great unknown.

You have not told us much   

almost nothing,        

     I assume we just need faith,

What is the meaning of Life again ?AMEN.

Fred

black and white shadows

crush humanity’s freedom

am I complicit ? 

MPL 2025