This is Better than a Funeral

In his reply to the speeches made listing all the wonderful and

amazing qualities of himself and Joy, Frank stated:

This is better than a funeral!

This past Sunday the congregation of Symons Valley United Church celebrated two very dear members - Frank and Joy Van Dusen. The Van Dusens have been attending SVUC since they moved to Calgary in the 90s from their farm in southern Manitoba (which was depicted on the cake made by Heather Klekta). The faithful and loving commitment and dedication Frank and Joy have displayed over the years to the life and ministry of the congregation has been incredible. Each person who shared stories at the luncheon following the service, all mentioned the integrity with which both Frank and Joy have both lived their lives and how each of them are amazing examples of what living out God's love in this world looks like. Without a doubt, Frank and Joy are shining examples of what it means to be the salt of the earth and light for our world. Thank you so much Frank and Joy for simply being you!

Isaiah 1:17, Jeremiah 22:13-17

One of my favourite lines of scripture in the Gospels is when Jesus and the disciples are in the Garden of Gethsemane, during evening after they shared their last meal together. Jesus knows he is to be betrayed and to be handed over to the Roman authorities. He is apart from his friends, praying to God, the one he calls Abba, Father. He goes to find his companions—it’s not said why, maybe, despite his desire, his need to pray alone, he seeks the comfort of those who, in this world, know him best. At any rate, he finds them and they are snoozing. ‘Stay awake’, he tells them. He goes to pray again. Once more he seeks out the company of his disciples. And once more he finds them asleep. Stay awake, he tells them again. This is the culmination of his time with his disciples. Shortly after this moment he is betrayed, arrested and taken away. He had been striving throughout his three-year ministry to have his followers understand what he had been saying, what he had been teaching, what about God and God’s Kingdom he had been trying to reveal. Depending on which Gospel you read, Jesus alternates between being a patient teacher of his people and then being irritated by their inability to make the connection between what he was doing in his miracles, his relationships, his parables, between all of that he did during his ministry and that coming Kingdom that was of God’s making. His patience would wear thin and he would harangue them, wake up! Do you NOT see! The Kingdom of God is at hand. We need to participate in God’s work to make the Kingdom a reality! WAKE UP and see. Stay awake. Keep awake he tells them. Do not close your eyes to the work of God’s Word that needs doing in the world.

Throughout the New Testament, the Christian Scriptures, there are references to dying to the old ways and being reborn into a new era of life. Literalists like Nicodemus thought this meant actual death and rebirth. But Jesus very rarely meant what he said to be taken literally. In being reborn, he was speaking of letting go of not knowing, of ignorance, of not understanding and being renewed, through the waters of baptism, to being aware. Of knowing. Once you are reborn, you cannot live as you once did. Once you know, you cannot un-know. It is like that moment in the Matrix when you take the red pill. You suddenly understand what's really going on and find out all you did not know before. You understand better. Just as the scales fell away from the eyes of the man Saul so that he might see and understand Jesus our Christ, just as in that seeing he was transformed and became the apostle Paul—in that moment, in the knowing what you did not know before, you see more clearly. In your awakening, you are woke.

With the turbulent political times happening with Brexit, with the US election of a man who says he is one of the people while his home is made of gold, with France entertaining the election of a barely veiled bigoted and racist, with one of our own political parties having as its most publicized options for leadership, a racist and bigot in their own right or alternatively someone who is lifts up business first and worries about the common good last and with the growing understanding that our social media and our news cycles are being manipulated with nefarious intent, with the dismantling of  the progress made in environmental protections and the reversal of what we understand to be basic human rights for people of all makes, sizes and religion, with all that has been boiling up and surfacing over the past two, three years, there is this sense that people are becoming woke. Eyes are being opened, lights are being cast into the dark and dusty corners of our social, financial and political structures and the dirt of these corners is being revealed. The entry in the Urban Dictionary for this revelation is to be woke, meaning you are aware, you know what’s going on in the community.

I’m sure there are many stories in this room of epiphanies of where in one sliver of time you knew one thing and then suddenly, in the next sliver you suddenly understood what you knew just that second before was not right, not accurate, not truth. Remember, Mary had such a moment, at the tomb. Her friend and teacher was dead, she was wondering where they had taken his body and then Jesus says her name and she was woke. She understood all that she hadn’t before. Jesus was the Christ, the messiah, the savior. One such moment for me took place a few years ago, during my ministry training. You see, the first years of my life were spent in the far north of Manitoba. Until about grade 2, I lived surrounded by Native people, indigenous people. I can still remember a few words of Cree that my Dad taught us—he had to learn it because he was The Bay clerk and then manager of the small northern stores that provided provisions for the area. Residential schools were not some far off thing for those of us who lived up north. I grew up with the perspective of a residential school being very close by and yet I was not involved, in any way, with the school. Because we moved from that area when I was still young, I did not grow up seeing what impact there was on the children who were compelled to attend those schools, or what lifetime effect there were on the families of those children. I only understood that all children needed to go to school, whether they liked it or not. I did not realize what was being lost in Residential Schools—language, culture, traditions, spirituality, never mind what was inflicted on the children by cruel adults—abuse of all forms, fear and isolation. And while there were good and loving people working in the Schools, a minster friend of mine who is Native, cautions against giving the good that happened weight over the systemic wearing away of a culture—to say, ‘but good happened’ runs the risk of diminishing the ruinous effect Residential Schools.

The Very Reverend Stan McKay

34th Moderator of the UCC

And so, in my adulthood, in all of our adulthoods, we learned of the tragedy of Residential, that they did not help the indigenous people but, instead, forever harmed multiple generations of families. Although I knew this, like one knows the facts of the matter, it was not until I watched a video with my student colleagues, we watched it in preparation for spending two days at North End Stella, a United Church Mission in Winnipeg, where we were to hear first-hand stories of how people were healing from the impact of Residential Schools. Stan McKay, the first native moderator of the United Church of Canada—and, in fact, knew my Dad when they lived up north, sat with us in the circle for those two days.

So, there was this moment in the video that showed a group of children being received by one of the Schools. They were all little—maybe six or seven. Each of them, boys and girls, had long, black hair, done in braids. And, one by one, they are taken over to a person with a big pair of shears. Each child is turned around so their back is to the person with the shears and we can see their faces in the video camera. And then, one at a time, their braids are lifted up and cut off, as close to the child’s head as possible. Now a few of you might remember, but when I began my call here at Symons Valley, my youngest child, Abigail, had just turned seven years old. And she had hair like you would not believe. It was long and thick. It went right down to her backside. It was beautiful. Gorgeous. I spent hours washing and drying that hair.  Brushing, brushing and brushing it. And, because I didn’t like her to have her hair in her face, I spent hours braiding her hair. After three boys, I learned how to French braid. I would find all sorts of ways to do up her hair but the easiest and fastest way to keep it managed was to do two simple braids, one on either side of her head. Just like those children in the video. I watched those fear-filled faces as their hair was unceremoniously chopped off, and I thought, what if that was Abigail, and I began to cry. It makes me weepy still today to think of it. If my daughter’s hair, which had no other meaning for us, just that it was beautiful and lovely, if the thought of cutting off her hair like that bothered me so much, what must have it been like for those children who had been taught that not cutting their hair was bound up with their culture? How their hearts must have been broken, standing there without their parents to comfort them. In that moment, I was woke.

In today’s scripture reading we hear, quite definitively, that, as God’s people, we are to rescue the oppressed, defend the orphan and plead for the widow. Yesterday it was my great privilege to lead the women’s retreat through a process of finding out for themselves who or what God is, who are we as God’s people and what is our task. I shared with them my creed and was I was reminded of the strength of my own belief that our task on this earth is be seekers of justice. Justice can be a difficult thing to comprehend sometimes. What seems like justice to one person may be an insult to another. There were people who genuinely believed they were doing good work with the Residential Schools, on paper it all very much made sense and the process of ‘civilizing’ a certain group of people was God’s work. We know better now. And in that knowing, we know to be more discerning, more critical of other plans to help, fix or solve problems around us. But, as is the case when we are dealing with relationships between individuals, between cultures and different groupings of people, there is no clear formula for justice. This picture shows just one of the snags we run into with attempting to find a just solutions. Equality is not the same as justice. Equality is often the easier route—a math formula that’s then meted out. But, more times than not, equality does not mean disparities amongst people are resolved.

There are many examples in the Bible of what justice looks like. The Old Testament is all about justice for those who have no voice at the table, who have very little power or control in their lives, for those who have missed out on having the means, opportunity or good fortune to be able to advocate for themselves and those that they love. We heard from Jeremiah today—that prophet who spoke at the time of exile when so many Israelites had been taken into Babylon and were struggling to keep themselves alive and together as a people in a foreign land. Jeremiah reminds the people that to do justice and be righteous is to know God. We know very well what the prophet Micah had to say—seek justice and love kindness. Jesus built upon the teachings of the Torah and declared that God’s Kingdom was at hand if only we could help make it real through the feeding of the poor, clothing the naked and loving one another as we would ourselves. Justice is not declaring for another what they need to be healthy and whole. Justice is listening to what the other needs to be healthy and whole. I have story after story from my visits to Zambia of what silliness has been done in the name of mission, the name of helping, of fixing by those from the North and from the West for those in the South. Second hand farming equipment has been shipped over but with no replacements parts should and when any of the machinery breaks down. Declarations from people who have never been there of what type of seed, fertilizer or types of chicks should be bought and raised. Determination that buildings be painted but did not investigate what paint to use and it all peeled within days of the missionaries leaving. And there is not just the advice of the ignorant but also the lack of follow through. What good is it to have medication for tuberculosis or to provide anti-retroviral drugs for HIV if the ill do not have the nutrition that is needed for their bodies to properly process the medication? Or can store the medicine as required in the heat of the day? Trevor Noah, the South African comedian who is now the host of the Daily Show, says in his memoir, that it is all well and good to teach a person to fish but if they do not have money for a fishing rod, what good is the knowledge?

Justice is not for us to define. Justice can only be defined by those who’s voices are not heard. By those who are not at the table. By those who do not have the power to effect positive change in their lives and in the lives of their children. To find out what justice is, we need to have all voices at the table. All points of view need to be considered. Power needs to conceded by those who hold it. Control needs to be shared by those who wield it. If justice is be found, we need to learn so much more than we already know of the world. We need to be woke. Mary was the first to realize that God’s love overcame the hate and greed of empire—a kingdom not of God’s making. She was the first of the disciples to be woke to the significance of the Risen Christ. She would have heard Jesus say in the garden, stay awake, do not close your eyes to what is before us. What needs to happen. What can happen. The Resurrection offered to us hope. The Resurrection showed us that love trumps hate. The Resurrection told Mary and tells us to go and make that love known in the world. The Resurrection gave us the truth that justice is always possible. Let us not waste the good news of the Resurrection.