Summer Newsletter

This is what I wrote for our summer newsletter.


I remember bits and pieces of a song that I learned in music class when I was still in public school. It was a piece from the opera Porgy and Bess, "Summertime" by George Gershwin and DuBose Heyward.

Summertime,
And the livin’ is easy
Fish are jumpin’
And the cotton is high

Your daddy’s rich
And your mamma’s good lookin’
So hush little baby
Don’t you cry.

You may have read the column I wrote for the InPort News a couple of weeks ago talking about what I like and don’t like about summer. I hope I didn’t give too much weight to the dislikes in that column. There’s a whole lot I like about summer and I can put up with most of the dislikes.

One of the big things I like about summer is mentioned in the first part of that song. Summertime, And the livin’ is easy.... I think that’s so true. Because almost everyone takes some time off during the summer for a vacation, things just seem to slow down a bit. The livin’ is easy. The hustle and bustle of daily life seem to calm down. Maybe because the running and chasing we seem to do so much of would make us too hot in the summer.

It’s good to slow down, even if it’s only once in a while. It’s good to take time to recharge you batteries and it’s probably best you do that before they run completely empty.

Jesus took time off too. In the Gospel according to Matthew, after Jesus spent a day in the midst of a great crowd curing their sick, and then feeding them all, more than 5,000 of them, he sent the disciples across the lake in their boat while he sent the people away to their homes. "And after he had dismissed the crowds, he went up the mountain by himself to pray" (Mt 14:23). God even took some time off after creating the universe. "And on the seventh day God finished the work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all the work that he had done" (Gen 2:2). Some get the mistaken impression that Jesus did away with Sabbath observance. He didn’t abolish it, he just wouldn’t abide by the nit-picking ways it was being observed that forbade even acts of mercy.

This summer, when "the livin’ is easy," let us all take some time to rest, to recharge our batteries, prevent rather than recover from burnout. And let prayer be a part of the nourishment and refreshment that we receive as we step back from the daily routine. After a long hard day Jesus took some alone time, some down time, and he prayed. And let us remember the sabbath day, and keep it holy. Who remembers Martin Luther’s explanation to this commandment from the Small Catechism? "We are to fear and love God, so that we do not despise God’s Word or preaching, but instead keep that Word holy and gladly hear and learn it."

May our summertime refreshment, in whatever form that may take, restore us in body, mind, soul, and spirit. And please don’t be a stranger from church.

Post-Convention Thoughts

Well, I'm back from the 11th Biennial Convention of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada. It was good to see old friends and to make new friends. I spent a lot of time with a seminary classmate, a bit of time with a friend from my teenage years, and got to know some new people from across Canada.

Part of our first full day at the convention was spent worshiping and celebrating with delegates to the General Synod of the Anglican Church of Canada. It was a neat day. We heard Dr. Sallie McFague speak about Global Warming and how it's an issue of faith and the gospel. She was good! We sat at tables with lay and clergy from both the ELCIC and ACC getting to know each other. We shared Holy Communion. We saw the reaffirmation of A New Covenant: Towards the Constitutional Recognition and Protection of Aboriginal Self-Government in Canada, A Pastoral Statement by the Leaders of the Christian Churches on Aboriginal Rights and the Canadian Constitution. It was reaffirmed by representatives of The Anglican Church of Canada, the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops, Christian Reformed Church in North America, Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada, Religious Society of Friends (Quakers), The Presbyterian Church in Canada, Mennonite Central Committee Canada, and The United Church of Canada.

We elected a new National Bishop. She is Susan Johnson, currently Assistant to the Bishop of the Eastern Synod, ELCIC. I've known Susan for years and I think she will make a good bishop for our church. She will be ordained bishop in September.

We passed the Stewardship of Creation Initiative, what many were referring to as a "Greening the Church" motion. The goals for this initiative are:

• To reduce the negative impact the ELCIC, at all levels, has on the environment.
• To increase the ELCIC's commitment to and understanding of environmental stewardship.
• To involve youth in this initiative and create opportunities for leadership development.

We recommited or reaffirmed the Evangelical Declaration which was adopted by the ELCIC in 1997 as its theology of mission for the decade ending 2007. It has received some minor editing and has been retitled, In Mission For Others, An Evangelical Theology of Mission. It's a good statement.

All of these things were very good but received very little attention compared to The Issue. On Saturday we looked at the motion on mission to homosexuals and same-sex couples. There was a whole lot of debate, many people lining up at the microphones, equal time given to speakers on both sides of The Issue, and then the vote was taken. It was done by secret ballot, which I think was a good thing so that nobody was intimidated or pressured to vote a certain way. The result was 181 votes (48%) for the motion and 200 votes (52%) against the motion. The motion failed.

I was neither disappointed nor relieved at the outcome. As Gamaliel said: "If what they are planning is something of their own doing, it will fail. But if God is behind it, you cannot stop it anyway, unless you want to fight against God" (Acts 5.38-39). People on both sides of The Issue believe in what they are supporting and believe they have it on good scriptural authority that their opinion is the right one. I don't think The Issue is going to go away. We'll see what the future holds. In either case I don't believe that support or opposition of The Issue will put our salvation in jeopardy. I think the main thing it will influence at this time is how our church is perceived by our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters in faith.

On Saturday evening we celebrated the ministry of our retiring National Bishop and outgoing National Church Council members, followed by a nice party/reception with a cash bar and a pretty good jazz band. Sunday morning's closing worship was beautiful. Mark Sedio (you'll find his name under a few pieces in Evangelical Lutheran Worship) was a great musician throughout the convention.

Now. It's good to be home.

Convention Time

So, tomorrow I fly to Winnipeg to attend the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada's Eleventh Biennial Convention In Mission for Others: A People Called. I am and I am not looking forward to this. I attended the last convention in 2005 and it was a drag. There was so much tension hanging over the entire event so that it wasn't at all enjoyable.

I'm looking forward to seeing some old friends, maybe making some new ones, looking forward to the worship opportunities, I'll even welcome some of the things happening in the business sessions. But the big thing hanging over this convention, yet again, is same-sex blessings.

I'm not opposed to allowing pastors and churches to provide for the blessing of committed relationships between same-sex couples. I've voted in favour of it twice now (at the 2005 National Convention and the 2006 Eastern Synod Convention) and will again. It's just that this issue overshadows everything the church does when it meets in convention. Overshadows and distracts. It distracts and prevents us from getting to many other issues in the church.

The population of our country is growing yet we see membership and attendance in our churches dwindling to the point that congregations all over the place are looking at merging and closing. Shouldn't we be focusing on evangelism to fill our churches and plant new ones? Instead, that doesn't even seem to be on the radar because all we do is talk about sex whenever we meet.

As I see it, there are four major items on the agenda for the convention.

• We will spend most of Thurdsay together with the delegates of the Anglican Church of Canada's General Synod which is taking place in Winnipeg at the same time as our convention. We have been in full communion with the Anglican Church for 6 years now and this will be a day of celebration.

• When we get back to the University of Manitoba campus on Thursday evening we will begin the process of electing a new National Bishop for the ELCIC (called a Presiding Bishop in some denominations). Bishop Raymond Schultz has announced that he will retire so we'll be electing a new bishop. Here again, I fear (and I'm pretty certain) that the issue of same-sex blessings will overshadow the election process. It will come down to politics between those for and those against and who each side perceives as "their" candidate. I fear that this won't be a Spirit-led ecclesiastical ballot to elect the chief pastor of our church but an issue-driven one.

• Then there is "the" motion regarding blessing same-sex unions. Two years ago a motion to allow a local option for the blessing of same-sex unions was defeated. Last year at our Eastern Synod Assembly virtually the same motion was passed but the National Church Council ruled that we didn't have the authority to do so as a synod and asked us to refrain from acting on our motion. Now they've proposed this motion.
  That this convention affirms that the diversity within Canada's culture requires responses to a variety of persons in order for this church to be In Mission for Others. We also affirm that the synods have the mandate to devise mission strategies appropriate to their regional settings.
  Accordingly, we encourage synods to develop ways to best minister to people who live in committed same-sex relationships, including the possibility of blessing such unions.

• Finally there will be a Stewardship of Creation Initiative on the agenda that might just be overlooked. The initiative says:
  We commit ourselves as church to answer the call to respect the integrity of God's creation through an environmental stewardship initiative engaging our national, synodical, congregational and individual member expressions.
  There is then an Implementation Strategy that will go along with that.

So, that's what I have to look forward to for the next 4 or 5 days. Pray for me and for our convention.

Summertime

This should appear in the local paper tomorrow.


As I write this the summer solstice is 2½ weeks away. The hot days of summer haven't really arrived but we've had a few days of summer-like heat already. I have a love-hate relationship with summer.

I love the way some things slow down over summer. The kids won't have homework to do in the evenings. In my job I have the luxury of a fairly flexible schedule so in the summer I don't always have to wake up to an alarm clock when I don't have to help get the kids ready for school. In our church most of the regular programming and meetings take a break over the summer. I've written in this column before about how my family enjoys our summer camping trip. We've been looking forward to that for months and we still have a number of weeks of anticipation before we reach that point. I like not needing a coat or jacket when I go out. I like the long hours of daylight. There's a lot I like about summer.

But there are some things I don't like about summer and some of that is an intense dislike. I'm not too good with heat, especially the sweltering, sticky, humid heat we get here. My perfect temperature is warm enough for shorts and sandals but not so hot that the perspiration gets squeezed out of my without doing any kind of physical activity. Air conditioning is nice but there are others in my household who can't stand it, plus it adds to our hydro consumption when we're trying to conserve. I'm not such a big fan of bugs either. Mosquito bites are never fun but now we have to worry about West Nile as well. And I love to sit outside for a barbeque or picnic but later in the summer you have to worry about the yellow-jackets that won't stay away from your food.

It seems that for summer, like so many things in life, we need two "words" to speak the full truth of the season. If you're marketing the season you play up the time to take vacation, play outdoors, wear light clothing, enjoy concerts under the stars, explore the wonders of nature. But that's only the partial truth about the season. Summer also brings the stifling heat, forest fires, hurricane season, water shortages, and increased smog. The poor often can't afford air conditioning or vacations.

Many situations require two "words." We live our lives with a combination of grace and hardships. There is much that calls out for thanksgiving. We give thanks for the greening of nature, the growth in farmers fields and orchards and in our gardens. Often we don't recognize the grace, the gifts of God that are right there in front of us, though we've done nothing to deserve them or earn them. But there are also many things in our lives and in our world that have us pleading for mercy or offering mercy to others who struggle.

In the church we ought to be speaking these two "words." We're realistic about the world we're living in. We're realistic about the struggles in life. We don't ignore them, papering over them to hide them. Nor do we look through rose-coloured glasses, making hardship seem like it's not really there or it's not all that bad. That's the one "word."

But the church has another word. We give it different names like Gospel, Good News, and Grace. God, too, is realistic about the hardship and suffering, in fact God experienced those things in Jesus Christ. But when we live in faith with God then we live with the promise that hardship and struggle are not the end. God's will is for good. Jesus began his ministry by quoting the ancient words of the prophet Isaiah: "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free" (Luke 4:18).

May we live with those two "words" this summer. We can plead for mercy and offer mercy where it is needed. We can also give thanks for the gifts we receive daily from our Lord.