“Blue as the sky is blue”(Kioshkokwi Lake, 5 September 2022, photo by Martin Malina)audio for sermon “Why? Why not?” by Martin Malina
Why Why Why? More questions come out of the reading of the Gospel than anything. When the lectionary group met online earlier this week to reflect on the Gospel text for the First Sunday of Advent[1], most of the initial responses were questions: “What does this mean?” “What are we to do?” “How am I awake?” “When are we asleep?” Lots of questions.
When my children were young, they drove me crazy whenever they would drill down any line of reasoning with ‘why’.
“Why do I have to go to the dentist?” “Because your teeth need to be cleaned.” “Why do they have to be cleaned by a dentist?” “Because they have machines that can clean in a way you can’t” “Why don’t we just get those machines for ourselves?” “Because they are expensive and only dentists can get them.” And on and on and on. “Why?” It can be an annoying question.
But my sense these days is that we have to go there especially if we want to communicate our faith effectively. We have to address those more fundamental questions—but not first with established doctrines or beliefs. Rather, it is best to begin addressing questions of faith with our personal experience of faith, in an honest, genuine, heart-felt way.
Advent inaugurates a season of hope. As blue as the sky is blue, blue is the colour of hope. In the Gospel, we are called to keep watch, pay attention, and be vigilant. But in this era of pandemic economic and social depression, perhaps a more fundamental question is “Why?” Why should folks bother keeping awake when hope is scarce, when everything—as they say—is broken? What is the point of paying attention and keeping watch for the coming Messiah? Why bother, in the first place?
Hope in gospel faith is not just a vague feeling that things will work out, for it is evident that things will not just work out. Hope in gospel faith is also not some romantic or ideological notion of private preference detached from reality. Rather, hope is the conviction, against a great deal of data, that God is persistent in overcoming the deathliness of the world, that God intends joy and peace.[2]
Yet, this ‘perfect fullness’ is always to come, over the horizon. And we do not need to demand it now. Why? The virtue of hope keeps the field of life wide open. Hope in gospel faith is especially open to grace, and to a future created by God rather than us. God is always up to something.
And we’re always on the lookout for where and what is going on with God. This is exactly what it means to be “awake,” as the Gospel urges us! We can also use other a words for Advent: aware, alive, attentive, alert are all appropriate.[3]
It’s not all warm fuzzies. To pay attention to the grace of God and to a future created by God rather than us, costs us something. We have to work at it. Faith is a practice that needs exercise. So, what at the beginning of this new church year and at the advent of God’s future, what can we practice that will curate hope in our hearts?
To begin with, we can learn to be grateful for what we have. We can foster an attitude of gratitude. This may be a tall order, especially in a context of doom-and-gloom. These apocalyptic themes we touch on in our bible reading during Advent can easily generate in us fear, anxiety and catastrophic thinking. But we need to hold such a response in check. A person cannot exist in a place of fear and true gratitude at the same time.[4]
As they rebuild Jerusalem following their exile, as they return to a land and city once devastated by war and dislocation, why do the returning Israelites feel they can go up to Jerusalem with joy? Why are they glad to go to the house of the Lord?
Because they go, first and foremost, to give thanks. “Jerusalem—built as a city that is bound firmly together, to it the tribes go up, the tribes of the Lord … to give thanks to the name of the Lord.”[5]
Gratitude moves stagnant energy when we’re feeling stuck in life. Gratitude debunks and moves us out of the mistaken belief that everything is broken. The simple act of practicing gratitude disrupts negative thoughts and changes our mindset to see the world in a positive way. Not only are we more attractive to others when we live in gratitude, but the most ordinary things can become extraordinary, creating a fuller, more beautiful expression of our life.
You’ve probably heard the old saying, “Things don’t happen to us, they happen for us.” Gratitude is the foundation of that adage. It means that our mindset has to be that God is conspiring and working in everyone’s favour. Do we perceive how?
Frequently, when something that we perceive as “bad” happens to us, we let it affect us in a highly negative way. But if we interact with the world from a place of gratitude, when something happens that others may perceive as “bad,” we can be curious about why something happens the way it does. And in expressing that curiosity we’re actively seeking the part of the experience that we’re grateful for.
Holy Communion is also called ‘The Great Thanksgiving’ based on the Greek word “Eucharist”, which means ‘thanksgiving. Embracing the holy mystery surrounding Holy Communion doesn’t mean we fully understand what’s going on here. By being curious and asking why we celebrate the Eucharist, we don’t pretend we can always figure it out completely. We can’t. We’re not God.
Being thankful means, we trust that God will complete the sentence. And God will one day place the period at the end of the sentence when the last word on our lives and the world is said and done. So, what do we do in the Eucharist? In the meantime? In the Holy Communion we practice the presence of Christ. We practice presence. We practice being awake, paying attention, to what good God is doing now, however small, in this place and at this time, in our lives.
And when we perceive it, we give thanks. We practice being grateful.
As a child I probably was one of those kids who annoyingly asked “Why” a lot. I could remember when I was a little bit older my dad had the best response to my “Why”. When the questions got a little bit more complex and abstract, he responded to me with: “Why not?”
This may very well be the best question about faith, hope, God—in anxious and fearful times. Not to shut down conversation. But exactly the opposite—to widen the field of possibility. Why not? To faith, to hope, to a good God who loves us all – Why not?
[4] Doug Good Feather, Think Indigenous: Native American Spirituality for a Modern World, transcribed by Doug Red Hail Pineda (Carlsbad, CA: Hay House, 2021), 27, 30, 31.
Still growing (photo by Martin Malina 16 November 2022)
Jesus said, “Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life”[1]
Up until last month, Emilie provided fresh cut flowers from her garden to adorn the altar here at Faith every week. Not only did Emilie gift flowers, but she also gave trees. I want to mention three trees she gave.
The first tree, she gave to me. It was barely 10 inches tall. I think it is a green spruce. It was October around Thanksgiving when it showed up at the church in a flowerpot. So, late one evening when I came home, I got out the shovel and put it in the ground. I didn’t want to leave it too long before the frost would freeze the ground and snow would pile high.
I also learned that especially after transplanting anything alive, it was important to soak the tree with water. I must have dumped a dozen large pailfuls over the tree those first few days. The lawn around the tree was saturated. And I repeated this process for the weeks leading to the first snow, and also the following Spring. This tree had water.
And it responded positively. It grew quickly. A couple years later, and it’s now pushing four feet. Its lead is long—a robust, strait javelin pointing up to the sky.
The second tree Emilie gave to the church. When we took down a dead poplar at the street behind the church building, she replaced it by gifting another birch. If I recall correctly, it was late in the Springtime a few years ago—that year when there was hardly any rain. That was the year the grass was brown by the end of June.
I remember Andrew coming to church on a Sunday in June holding a bucket and saying we needed to water that thing—which we did when we could. But it didn’t get enough. And by the end of the season that year, it was dead.
The third tree Emilie gave to the church was during the 500th anniversary year for Lutherans, back in 2017. That year, the national church encouraged congregations to plant a tree commemorating Martin Luther nailing his 95 theses on the door of the Wittenberg Church in Germany, thus inaugurating the 16th century Reformation.
It’s also a green spruce, I think, and you can see it on the east side of the church above the community mailboxes. In 2017 the confirmation class planted that tree when it was also barely a foot high. Our neighbours generously placed a chicken-wire fencing around it for protection since pedestrians like to cut across the lawn there, coming to and from the bus stops along Meadowlands Drive.
I’m not sure how it has survived. It hasn’t taken off like the one I have at home. But it’s filling out and I have confidence it will survive. And maybe even some day, thrive, surrounded by its mature neighbouring trees.
Three trees. Three tales. The first received an almost constant nourishing and abundance of water. The second received not enough water. And the third benefitted from its surroundings for protection and just enough nourishment over time. I like to think that these three different tales reflect different aspects of Emilie’s life and character. And they point to ways in which we live ours.
The first tree.
It appears Emilie, despite humble beginnings, found life and even life abundant. She was uprooted in her youth and transplanted into a new world. Mobility and change were fundamental to the dynamic of her life. Maybe she was even energized and stimulated by what these changes brought to her and the possibilities before her. Metaphorically speaking, she found lots of water, saturated with the fullness of what life could be for her. Emilie employed all the resources at her disposal and took risks to make it happen. She lived life to its fullest always reaching for what was within her grasp.
The second tree.
But as we all do at times in life, Emilie also experienced seasons of drought. These were times when her world turned upside down. And sometimes for reasons beyond her control. Relationships ended or changed. A re-ordering of life happened, but not without first suffering the pain of enduring and then of losing. Of doing without.
Disappointment. Tragedy. Failure. Like something that used to be secure and stable is no longer. When we face the gaping chasm and fall into it. It feels like dying. Certainly, these last few months she lived under the threat of her growing illness and of this day that we gather to mourn her death.
Finally, the third tree. This tree is the most curious. A little bit mysterious in the sense that it somehow finds a way to live without our constant and full engagement all the time. There’s uncertainty about it.
But, perhaps by the help of neighbouring humans and trees, it finds a way. Perhaps its environment protects it, to some degree. We don’t often see it but it’s there. We might not notice it; it doesn’t stand out. But beneath the snow and behind our conscious awareness of it, this little tree continues to live, and grow.
Emilie understood the mystery of growing things. She understood that we do our part. But flowers bloom and trees reach for the sky according to forces beyond our constant, active involvement and even awareness. I think this respect for growing things gave her such an amazing ‘green thumb’.
Though in winter and early Spring months the circumstances on the ground do not always show evidence of the final product, what motivated her to continue going and gardening year after year was the vision of what that flower or tree could eventually become. Regardless of the actual outcome. That’s the secret. That’s faith. It’s the hoped-for vision: Going for it, a vision of what can be—tall, solid and majestic trees; flowers exploding in brilliant colour under summer sun.
A vision of what can be, in our lives, is what motivates us and to which people of faith aspire and around which we order our days.
The vision from the book of Revelation, the last book in the Bible, contains the images of water and trees.[2] Here we find the divine promise that despite suffering, and during seasons of drought and despair, God will offer the river of life to nourish the tree of life. And what is more, the purpose of the tree of life is “for the healing”[3] of us all! Including you and me.
It’s about life, and even living beyond the days of our lives on earth. Deep within our lives, not always visible, perceptible nor noticeable, lives the Spirit of God in Christ. And this gift of grace will nourish us and grow us, forever.
September Sky/River (photo by Martin Malina, September 2022)
In the Shaun the Sheep Movie[1], a sleeping farmer accidentally rolls into a trailer and into the city. And it’s up to an adventurous lamb to bring him back, with help from the rest of the flock. It’s a humorous animation, a spin-off of the Wallace and Gromit franchise.
Much of the humor comes from role reversal: while the farmer, suffering from amnesia, mechanically operates clippers in a hair salon, the sheep wear clothes, shop, and try to escape being captured by animal control. In the end, both the farmer and the sheep learn that they need one another. They experience the joy of depending on one another in their role reversals.[2]
But they never would have come to this satisfying and fulfilling conclusion without having experienced this reversal. They would not have deepened their relationships without having suffered through the discomfort of having their original expectations uprooted. Reversals happen when our expectations are turned upside down. And who we thought and what we thought were true are turned on its head.
In the bible we find several images for God and Jesus. In the Gospels which tell the story of Jesus, the image of God we may long have believed is turned upside down. A radical reversal.
For example, the prophet Jeremiah from the Hebrew scriptures introduces both the images of the Messiah as shepherd and king. Here is one who will “deal wisely, and execute justice and righteousness in the land.”[3] These images are later attributed to Jesus, echoed again in the New Testament (i.e. the image of shepherd in John 10).[4]
However, most references to Jesus as king occur during the Passion story, such as in today’s Gospel from Luke. The main symbol of Christ’s “kingship” is not a crown but a cross. Which ought to alert us to what happens often in the Gospel when we imagine God and what Jesus is about—a role reversal.
Diana Butler Bass writes in her book, Freeing Jesus, about this reversal of understanding who God is in Jesus Christ. Butler Bass suggests we talk more about the kin-dom of God rather than the king-dom.She writes that Jesus “used ‘kingdom of God’ to evoke . . . an alternative ‘order of things’ over and against the political context of the Roman Empire and its Caesar, the actual kingdom and king at the time.”
Moreover, Butler Bass goes on to write that “kingdom” has become a corrupted metaphor, one misused by the church throughout history to make itself into the image of an earthly kingdom. Indeed, Christians have often failed to recognize that ‘kingdom’ was an inadequate and incomplete way of speaking of God’s governance. “Kingdom” is not a call to set up our own empire. In contrast, ‘kin-dom,’ is an image of la familia, the …family of God working together for love and justice.” ‘Kin-dom’ is a metaphor closer to what Jesus intended.
The “’Kin-dom’ metaphor echoes an older understanding, one found in [for example] … the work of … Julian of Norwich. Julian wrote of ‘our kinde Lord,’ a poetic title … summoning images of a gentle Jesus. But … the word ‘kinde’ in medieval English did not mean ‘nice’ or ‘pleasant.’ Instead … in Middle English the words ‘kind’ and ‘kin’ were the same—to say that Christ is ‘our kinde Lord’ is not to say that Christ is tender and gentle, although that may be implied, but to say that he is kin—our kind …
“Jesus the Lord is our kin. The kind Lord is kin to me, you, all of us—making us one.” He is for all of us our next-of-kin. “This is a [radical reversal] of the image of kingdom and kings. ‘The Lord is kin’ … [does away with] the pretensions and politics of earthly kingdoms. [Because] Jesus calls forth a kin-dom.”[5]
I must admit, it is often out of fear and anxiety that I want Jesus to be my magical savior. So it can be frustrating when we discover a very different Jesus. Instead of one who fixes everything in an instant, Jesus is the one who walks with us through the darkest valleys. He is our kin.
Jesus is the one who calls us to lives of service—and again and again as we care for the needs of others we discover the face of Jesus himself in the lost, the last, and the least.[6] He is our kin.
On the cross, God is one who is revealed in weakness and vulnerability. God is one who comes to us in our sufferings and imperfections. The Reign of Christ Sunday this year can be of great help, in encouraging us to reframe our expectations of what it means to be the Body of Christ, the church.
Who we are together, and anything we do together, are not validated in glory, majesty and spectacle. When we gather for worship, work together for the cause of helping others or even pray together—these activities are not validated because there are large numbers and it feels good. Rather, even where two or three are gathered, even when it doesn’t feel “like it used to”, even when the situation is anything but perfect—that is when and where God is revealed to us.
So let’s not give up on meeting together, even when numbers are small. Let’s not give up doing what little we can to fulfill the call of Christ in our lives. Let’s not give up dreaming and striving towards the future of God for us all. Because the Reign of Christ is upon us, soon and very soon. Christ Jesus comes to us in the humble moments of forgiveness, mercy, love and grace.
audio for sermon “For a collective narrative: The time is nigh”
“The time is near!”[1] The words from Jesus strike an ominous tone.
“It’s the end of the world as we know it.” The refrain from a song by American rock band R.E.M. first came out in 1987. But it’s the end of 2022. At the tail end of a worldwide pandemic which among other things has rocked this world, we may feel it really is the end of the world as we know it.
Do you remember the famous words of hockey star, Erik Karlsson—EK65—when the Ottawa Senators began rebuilding the team five years ago and it was rumoured that he was on the trading block? When Karlsson leaned into the microphone to speak, his first words were those ominous: “The time is nigh.” And then the trade was announced. What was feared. What was expected to happen. What was dreaded, and anticipated, finally came to pass.
During the pandemic many young people have suffered through significant mental health challenges. Many youths I know have also a keen and vibrant imagination. Listen to the following scenario born out of anxiety about end times. It’s pure fiction, yet still a scene similar to what has likely played out in the imaginations of many young people ….
The house had kept warm even though we were in the depths of a sub-zero winter. The electricity in our small town had been out for days. I’ve lost track counting. Each day has blurred into the other without much change. For some inexplicable reason, the gas fireplace still operated. And my family gathered around it for hours daily, warming our mittened hands. The natural gas linesunderground were still left undisturbed. But for how much longer?
It would likely give out soon, as suddenly as the lights did that first night when the howling first began. The virus had mutated. It actually happened. The zombie apocalypse.
We used our small solar panel to charge the camp lantern for light. But we used it sparingly not just because we wanted to save battery power. We also didn’t want to attract unwanted attention. We lived in a small town, so there weren’t too many people. We didn’t know what our neighbours were doing, where they were. No one ventured onto the street. We had all locked our doors, barred our windows, retreated into defensive postures.
That night when we sat huddled around the fireplace there was a thump on the door. Peeking through the covered drapes, I saw the shadows at the front of the house. But they weren’t swaying or twitching. Four shadows, standing still, unmoving. That was a good sign.
Slowly I opened the door, feeling the rush of icy wind around my ankles. And what a relief it was to see the faces of our neighbours from across the street, folks we hadn’t spent much time getting to know before the apocalypse. “Our supplies have run out. And the pilot light on our gas stove can’t restart. We’re cold.”
“Come on in.” We all gathered around the fireplace. I felt better knowing we weren’t alone. There were more of us now, facing the coming battle ahead together.
Young adults have the biggest market in the book-selling industry[2] – and of this segment the ‘Zombie Apocalypse’ continues to be a prominent theme. When the word ‘apocalypse’ is spoken today it’s usually said in the same breath as zombies.
In the Gospel today, Jesus gives a speech about the end times. We find this apocalyptic genre in scripture in the Book of Revelation, the last book in the bible, and in other spots throughout—such as in the book of Daniel and the Gospels. Often these texts contain vivid, supernatural, and extraordinary images of destruction, upheaval and end-of-the-world stuff. The purpose of this type of reading, for one thing, is to remind us that all things, even good things—like the beautiful stones of the temple in Jerusalem—come to an end.
The COVID pandemic at the beginning of this 21st century brought the reality of impermanence to our minds. Nothing lasts forever. Doing without. Not satisfying every compulsion that our culture would otherwise tell us to pursue. Putting at bay indulging ourselves all the time. We are conditioned to believe that we should get whatever we want, whenever we want it, and as much as we want. To be in a position otherwise would be less than ideal, undesirable and indicative even of a disadvantaged life.
Just look at how we struggled against the limitations and restrictions to contain the pandemic. We’ve had a hard time understanding our mask-wearing, for example, not primarily for our own sake, but as something we do for the sake of the other, out of love for those who are vulnerable in our midst.
Remembrance Day this past Friday was an opportunity to mark a time of remembering another very difficult, violent time in history.
And in the last couple of years on Remembrance Day, I have asked myself: Why do I wear a poppy? I wear it not only to remember the lost, the wounded, the killed, not only to remember and pray for all our veterans for the service they gave.
I wear it also to remember the sacrifice that they made for a cause greater than their private, individual needs. They believed in the higher good in making their sacrifice: For God, for the sake of their nation, their world, others.
It is part of our collective identity, that there are times in history when individuals like you and me are called to a higher purpose, to serve a wider interest, to give of ourselves for the common good. Remembrance Day is for me about upholding and affirming a collective narrative. That sometimes, our individual interests must be subjected in order to serve a greater good. That’s why I wear a poppy.
These times are scary indeed. Talking about ‘end times’ is frightening. Yet our faith is in God who comes into our lives during these scary times. And Christ knocks on the doors of our troubled hearts. Shall we open the doors, take the risk of letting the neighbour in and travelling the rocky road ahead together?
“It’s the end of the world as we know it,” are not the last words in the refrain for that popular R.E.M. song. If you know it, you can’t sing this refrain without finishing with the words, “And I feel fine.”
It’s a statement of faith. And all shall be well, expressed Julian of Norwich in the 14th century during the bubonic plague. “And all shall be well”, “And I feel fine” are not to mean that life doesn’t bring you tragedy. It means you will be well in spite of the pain and suffering.
You’ll find your way through when you reach out to others in love and trust. And God will continue to be with us through it all. That is the hope and the promise of Jesus in the Gospel.
audio for “The Communion of Saints” by Martin MalinaRising for the Saints in Light (photo by Martin Malina, 30 October 2022)
Part of what we do today is giving thanks for the saints who have gone before us. But this celebration is not without some heaviness on our hearts as we confront our loss.
We grieve because the loss underscores the separation from our loved one that we feel in death. And yet, the separation is just the tip of an iceberg that reveals a larger, more enduring truth.
The late Vietnamese monk and author Thich Nhat Hanh wrote of experiencing a tender connection with his mother in a dream: “The day my mother died,” he wrote, “A serious misfortune of my life arrived. I suffered for more than one year after the passing away of my mother.
“But one night, in the highlands of Vietnam, I was sleeping in the hut of my hermitage. I dreamed of my mother. I saw myself sitting with her, and we were having a wonderful talk. She looked young and beautiful, her hair flowing down. It was so pleasant to sit there and talk to her as if she had never died.
“When I woke up it was about two in the morning, and I felt very strongly that I had never lost my mother. The impression that my mother was still with me was very clear. I understood then that the idea of having lost my mother was just an idea. It was obvious in that moment that my mother is always alive in me.
“I opened the door and went outside … Each time my feet touched the earth I knew my mother was there with me. I knew this body was not mine alone but a living continuation of my mother and my father and my grandparents and great-grandparents. Of all my ancestors. These feet that I saw as “my” feet were actually “our” feet. Together my mother and I were leaving footprints in the damp soil.”[1]
The weight of grief becomes heavier when we believe it’s ours alone to bear. We are conditioned by our culture to be by ourselves with both the pain of grief and the stress of responsibility. For example, when anyone would suggest we are saints, we might therefore resist the notion. Martin Luther claimed we are both saint and sinner. We have no problem accepting the sinner part. But how could I, by myself, aspire to and achieve sainthood?
Sinner and Saint, Grief and Responsibility.
We’ve internalized the hyper-individualistic view of faith and salvation, buying into the idea that “my spirituality is private, that my spiritual growth has absolutely nothing to do with my community, my ancestors—the cloud of witnesses, those I knew directly and indirectly—as well as the countless number of people who have influenced me or even those I myself have influenced.”[2]
And that is why the other part of what we do today is celebrate the newly baptized saints—the infants we welcomed into the Body of Christ earlier this year. Infant baptism reminds us that we go on the journey of faith, not alone, but with others.
So, today we build a bridge—liturgically speaking—between those who have gone before us, and those who are coming after us. We do this to emphasize that “…we are saved not by being privately perfect, but by being part of the body, humble links in the great chain of history.
“This view echoes the biblical concept of a covenant love that was granted to the people of God as a whole and never just to one individual like Abraham, Noah, or David.”[3]
We would not be complete if faith was only about achieving the prize at the end as individuals. For hockey fans, you might recognize the following names: Phil Housley, Marcel Dionne, Jarome Iginla, Adam Oates, Mats Sundin, Dale Hawerchuk, Mike Gartner, Roberto Luongo, Peter Stastny, Pierre Turgeon, Daniel Alfredsson. What do all these great NHLers have in common besides their outstanding individual achievement in the game?
Not one in that list ever won the Stanley Cup. Which is the prize, isn’t it? The whole point of playing and the goal of professional sports is to eventually win the championship. And you can only do that on a team. With others, pulling together, sharing your gifts, drawing on resources and trusting each other to do what you are good at doing.
Today we do our part to build this bridge. And this bridge is a bridge of love and trust. In our lives of faith, we build bridges of love and trust, especially for the next generation coming afterwards. The important thing to acknowledge and celebrate today, for all of us, is that we be bonded somewhere. Because if you have never loved, and cannot trust anyone, there is no bridge.[4]
Neither the grief nor the responsibility is ours alone to bear, as individuals. When the confirmation class debriefed our act of grace in giving pies to homeless street people last week, we confessed that to do so by ourselves would be very difficult. Even impossible.
But if we all held hands on the edge of the cliff of faith, and jumped together, taking the risk of faith together, we could do it and do it well.
What is more we may be surprised to find that after jumping we did not fall to our demise on the rocks in the ravine far below. Rather we would find ourselves standing firmly on a bridge—the bridge built by love and trust—connecting us with God and the vast host of earth and heaven. We are, after all, part of the body, the communion of saints of all times and places.
[1] Thich Nhat Hanh, No Death, No Fear: Comforting Wisdom for Life (New York: Riverhead Books, 2002), p.5–6.
[2] Kat Armas, Abuelita Faith: What Women on the Margins Teach Us about Wisdom, Persistence, and Strength (Grand Rapids, MI: Brazos Press, 2021), p.33–37.
[3] Richard Rohr, Part of One Body: Keeping Faith With Our Ancestors (Daily Meditations, www.cac.org, 1 November 2022)
[4] Rohr, The Continuum of Life, ibid. (30 October 2022).
St John Chrysostom Roman Catholic Church in Arnprior Ontario (photo by Martin Malina October 2022)
St Matthew’s Lutheran Church in Conestogo Ontario (photo by Martin Malina October 2022)
I gave this talk at a symposium hosted by the Christian Council of the Capital (Ottawa) Area on November 2, 2022 along with the Rev. Hilary Murray (Anglican), the Rev. John C. Perkin (Baptist) and the Rev. Karen Dimock (Presbyterian).
The Impact of the Pandemic on the Church and Challenges for Congregational Life.
I want to start with statistical data collected over the two years of the pandemic that piqued my interest. The data comes from a research group called Flourishing Congregations Institute (www.flourishingcongregations.org) out of Ambrose University in Calgary. This data consists of the latest studies, research, polls and surveys (primarily from Statistics Canada, Angus Reid and other research groups such as WayBase and Halo Canada Project).
Keep in mind that these data points act more like snapshots of our very present circumstances, and at best they are suggestive of current trends. We are still living in the throes of a rapidly changing environment. So we cannot conclude anything now with certainty.
To begin with, I group this data into three areas of impact. There’s good news, some surprises, bad news and some red flags. I’ll conclude with personal reflections which are challenges that flow out of this data. These challenges I organize around three important questions—what I like to call, “Origin Questions”—Why?, Where?, Whom?
Impact #1: on the work of the church itself—who’s doing it and the support for it.
1. Leadership
First, leadership. Amidst reports of “The Great Resignation” across other sectors, the overwhelming majority of leaders in the church are staying.
Adjusting for those who are retiring, 90% of leaders intend to stay in their current role for the foreseeable future. So, for one thing, pastors /priests /ministers are committed to their communities through this challenging time. The news isn’t all good. Leaders under the age of 40 were twice as likely to consider leaving.[1]
Regarding volunteers who often run programs in and for churches, not surprisingly most respondents indicated they had decreased their volunteer time significantly and reduced the number of hours they spent involved with the church compared with before the pandemic; 22% said that they dedicated more hours, and 43% said that the number had remained the same.[2]
2. Finances
During the pandemic, no surprise here, the church as a whole realized a significant drop in financial resources.
Institutionally speaking, the pandemic has shrunk the Christian sector in Canada by 6% — just over $1B, of which churches account for most of this loss. The news isn’t all bad, however, and nuanced.
Two groups of donors I wish to highlight. First, where donors indicated an increase in giving in the first year of the pandemic, their contributions appear to have been directed slightly more to religious charities[3] (28%) than congregations (26%). Second, where those who had not donated to any charity at all before the pandemic and chose to do so during the pandemic, local congregations received the greatest benefit from these donors.[4]
Regardless of how you flip that pancake, 85% of ministries, programs, activities will operate differently in the future because of the pandemic.[5] This is a significant impact, with 37% of respondents classifying these changes as major and long-term. Ongoing adaptation and innovation need to become part of the culture of the church, and a priority for most organizations.
So, what are some ways these ministries and programs are changing?
As of earlier this year (February 2022), two-thirds (66%) of churches in Canada are now part of groups and organizations that cooperate to address local, community and neighbourhood needs. Closer partnerships with religious charities and neighbourhood organizations are being formed; churches are not fulfilling their mission by themselves. Congregational activities beyond Sunday morning are done in collaboration with other groups who share a similar mission. This goes hand in hand with the stat that shows 50% of churches promote volunteerism beyond their church on a weekly or monthly basis.
Moreover, three out of four churches (78%) have maintained or increased their giving beyond their walls to local and global needs. This is good news. Even with declining revenues, the majority of churches were generous beyond their own institutional needs. They maintained their giving to other ministries as best as possible, with more increasing than decreasing their financial support.[6]
Impact #2: on the place where Christian activity occurs
Not surprisingly, when asked what the greatest challenge to ministries of the church during the pandemic was, 82% of respondents said it was the inability to meet together in-person.
Consequently 87% of church leaders acknowledged the potential and opportunities of technology. They recognized how technology could help their ministry. At the same time 71% said the #1 challenge of using technology for their ministry was a lack of people in their communities with the right skills. 52% of surveyed leaders said they intend to invest in more digital ways to connect with people.
Surveys conducted by private firms suggested that the online broadcast of religious services may have partially, but not completely, replaced in-person attendance.
Prior to March 2020, only 10% of churches in Canada had an online service. As a result of COVID, 71% of churches in Canada had an online service during the emergency phase of the pandemic.
But, of churches running online services, only 44% plan to continue offering this service past the pandemic. While churches know that technology is an important part of doing ministry, especially when it comes to engagement and evangelism, it appears that more than half of the churches in Canada don’t view online services as meeting these ministry needs into the future.[7]
Impact #3: on mission priorities; the goal of church work; the target audience; with whom the church primarily relates
Not surprisingly, in the population as a whole and for members of churches, the degree of participation in group, religious activities decreased from 47% to 40% in the pandemic.[8] The pandemic clearly impacted relationships in and around the church.
The data also suggests that the pandemic had a greater impact on group religious practices of people whose general health was poorer. As a precaution, they may have been more likely to avoid gatherings because they were at a higher risk of catching the virus. It was observed that from 2019 to 2020, the decrease in the proportion of people who did not participate in a group religious activity varied based on the individuals’ self-reported health.
Among those who reported having fair or poor general health, the proportion of people who participated in a religious activity, in person, at least once fell from 43% in 2019 to 34% in 2020.
Admittedly, it also decreased among those who felt their health was good (47% to 37%), and for among those who felt their health was very good (from 49% to 41%).
However, among those who felt their general health was excellent, there was no significant difference between 2019 and 2020 in the proportion of those who had participated in group religious activities.
So perhaps there is a correlation, albeit subtle at this point, between healthy people and in-person meeting. Those who self-identify as vulnerable in some way—whether due to ageing, physical disability, or poor mental health—are then likely to opt out of in-person group events and/or choose to connect via other means.
Ministries serving with vulnerable populations, locally and globally, need now more attention and commitment. Because the majority (over 60%) of Christian leaders reported not being clear on the needs of vulnerable people in their community.[9]
Finally, contrary to what was observed for group religious practices, the pandemic does not appear to have had a significant impact on how often respondents engaged in religious or spiritual activities on their own (e.g., prayer or meditation at home). The responses from 2020 on this topic were similar to previous years. In addition, some people reported that, because of the pandemic, they prayed more or their faith got stronger.[10] The spiritual needs of people in general did not dissipate because of the pandemic and to a degree increased because of the pandemic. Yet, the collective expression and practice of faith has suffered.
Challenge #1: Ask “Why?”
During the pandemic churches had to react quickly to the changing realities. The public health protections put pressure on churches to ask questions they never before had reason to ask. They had to evaluate what in the past was taken for granted.
Nevertheless in this time of disruption lies an opportunity to practice asking these questions to determine priorities and bring focus to the work of being church.
A decade before the pandemic, Simon Sinek wrote a book for leaders called, “Start With Why”.[11]Who knew that his argument would carry even more weight ten years later? Start with why. Good advice.
Put everything on the table—ask why? “Why do we this?” And the answer needs to go beyond – “Because we’ve always done it this way.” We need to get at the root of any activity’s function and purpose, honestly.
Why do we hold our monthly council meeting online? Why do we hold some meetings in person? Why do we offer refreshments after a service? Why do we spend so much money in this area and very little in that area of the church’s work? Why do we do what we do? What is the purpose? We may or may not have an immediate and clear answer right away. But ask it anyway.
Bishop Jason Zinko of the Manitoba Synod in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada recently wrote that he regularly meets with congregations who are “unable to express their purpose.”[12] This is due partly, he claims, because “they focus … on the wrong things.” Not bad things in and of themselves. But the wrong things, at this time.
“They want to know,” he writes, “how to keep the doors open a bit longer, or how to get ‘the young people’ back. My question back to them is often, ‘Why?’ Why do you need young people, specifically? Because none of those things is actually what is required to be the Church. We need to gather, grow in faith, and practice at being disciples. We can do that with seniors as well as with teenagers … The important thing is that we don’t lose sight of what makes our church the Church—the gathered disciples of Christ, growing in faith.”
We are about growing relationships of faith and in faith. That is all. That is the function. The form will follow in your particular context. I learned years ago in seminary that form follows function, not the other way around. In answering tough questions in tough times, before dealing with ‘how’ we need to start again with ‘why’.
Challenge #2: Ask “Where?”
Obviously, online must be part of a strategy for ministry moving forward, whether this is social media activity, live-streaming onsite worship, and/or creating an online church environment (‘virtual church’).
But none of the research I saw had anything significant to say about meeting outside. One thing many of us did, in our families, at home and as the church during the pandemic, was spend more time outside. It was a safe place to be with others.
Churches gathered in parking lots and at conservation areas. Instead of gathering inside a building they met at a local park where they prayed and sung. Outside, they considered what was revealed to them in faith. In my own congregation, I appreciated and enjoyed very much our Good Friday stations of the cross pilgrimage around our church grounds. Our building is located on a beautiful, large, treed lot, offering many places to stop and pray.
We cannot deny our deep connection with the outdoors. At some level we are drawn, if we are able, to go outside—to garden, to ski, to play, to swim, to paddle, to hike, to walk, to rest, to breathe, to listen, to observe. Why not to pray and worship together? It is a holy place.
And it comes from our scriptural heritage and narrative of faith. After Jesus’ resurrection, he appeared to his disciples outside—not in the temple, not indoors. But in the garden outside the tomb with Mary, on the road to Emmaus, on the mount of ascension, and for breakfast by the water.[13]
Would Jesus, would God, not also appear to us outside?
The word wilderness is mentioned some 300 times in the bible.[14] Rather than simply a harsh backdrop for the biblical story, the wilderness is the place that speaks. Wilderness is the place from which and through which God speaks to us.[15]
Challenge #3: Ask “Whom?” or “For Whom?” or “With Whom?”
And this ties in with the ‘Why’ and ‘Where’ questions. It’s concerning that at least initially in person activity appears to be accessible mostly if not exclusively for the able-bodied and people who say they are in excellent health.
Many buildings today remain inaccessible for anyone other than able-bodied persons. And for half of Christian churches in Canada who have stopped their live streaming/online services recently, the elderly and those who identify themselves vulnerable for any reason are cut off from these options offering connection with their religious group.
I know some who are disabled (blind and mobility challenged) who welcomed the pandemic if only to expose the in-person bias for those who are ‘healthy’, and who reminded the mainstream that the challenges the general public faced during the early lockdown stages were part and parcel of the challenges disabled people experience all the time never mind the pandemic.
With whom does the Christian church identify? The strong, perfect-bodied, glamourous, healthy, glorious? The Gospel of Jesus Christ and the message of the Cross ought to challenge us otherwise. That God is revealed among the vulnerable.
Buildings need to be made accessible. Air quality in worship spaces needs to be improved. Health protection measures need to be respected. To be true to our identity as Christians who worship a God who is love. And for the sake of our neighbour.
So, Why?, Where?, Whom?
[1]The Next Normal: The Future of Christian Ministries and Churches in Canada (WayBase: 2022 National Survey Summary Report)
[11] Simon Sinek, Start With Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action. New York: Penguin, 2009.
[12] Bishop Jason Zinko, “Those Lutheran Confessions; they are still important”, Canada Lutheran Vol 37 Num 6 (Winnipeg: Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada, September 2022), p.27
Raspberryman 