Thursday, August 28, 2008

...about the Lord's Day

I didn't get yesterday's paper but this was supposed to be in it.


Remember the sabbath day, and keep it holy.
What does this mean?
We are to fear and love God, so that we do not despise preaching or God's word, but instead keep that word holy and gladly hear and learn it.

Those are words that I had to memorize in confirmation classes in my early teens. They come from Martin Luther's Small Catechism, a booklet he wrote in 1529 for families to use in their daily devotions to teach their children and remind themselves of some of the teachings in the Bible. The quotation above comes from his explanations of the Ten Commandments.

Now, I'm not a proponent of erecting a monument to the Ten Commandments on a courthouse lawn, nor of posting them on a public school classroom wall. I think the teaching of the Ten Commandments, and other biblical teachings, belongs in the church, the synagogue, and the homes of believers. At the same time, a just and orderly society probably shouldn't have any quarrel with most of the commandments.

The commandments are a gift from God that describe the blessed way we can live because God loves us, sets us free, and promises to be with us. A few of the commandments deal with our relationship with God. The majority deal with our relationships with one another. So, does the commandment about setting apart a day of rest deal with our relationship with God, or with one another? Maybe both.

Daniel Erlander writes about the gift of Sabbath. He calls it "God's gift of time—time for resting, playing, singing, frolicking, feasting, praying, storytelling, and time for savouring friendships with God and others and nature." God let's us know that "the world will not fall apart if we don't work all the time (Exodus 20:8-11, 23:12). It doesn't even fall apart when God takes a day off (Genesis 2:1-3)."

God intends for us to rest some of the time. It's a gift! But it's a gift that so few of us use.

I was rather disappointed when I heard that we'd be having a second market day on Sundays. I get it. Some people have to work Friday mornings and can't go to the market. Well, from Port Colborne City Hall to Welland's Saturday market is a 14 km drive that should take about 17 minutes.

I also read that our Sunday market allows for an extra day of sales for a certain restaurant that had been otherwise closed on Sundays. So who has to give up their Sunday off to work the market now?

Another point I read was that with the Sunday market Port Colborne can expect the community to be more closely-knit. Why can't people knit themselves closer to one another at church on Sunday morning? If church isn't somebody's thing then why can't they brew some extra coffee and visit with their neighbour on the front porch?

We've been told that it'll only cost us about $1,100 for the remainder of 2008. I think it's costing us a lot more. Sunday is becoming no different from any other day of the week. How many establishments went under in the old days because they weren't open on Sunday, because people set that day apart as a day of rest? Now we're convinced that wide open shopping 7 days a week is a necessity. How long will it be until we're convinced that our city can't function without a Sunday market?

I love our Friday market. My wife and I go as often as we can and we enjoy meeting friends and getting to know the vendors and supporting our local farmers. I won't be going to the Sunday market. I'll be in church in the morning and spending the afternoon with my family. I will strive to keep Sunday as a day of rest, setting it apart, keeping it holy. I'll try to leave the spending of my money for the other 6 days of the week.

Tuesday, August 19, 2008

Two books I didn't mention

When I wrote about the books I've read recently I forgot a couple. I've read Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom a couple of times and have seen the movie 3 times over the years. Well, on our camping holiday I read his 2003 book The Five People You Meet in Heaven and his 2006 book For One More Day.

I like what he writes. It's not overtly Christian, probably not Christian at all. But it's spiritual, it makes you think, and while death is behind the subject of all three of those books I find them uplifting. There's good news there.

We read and watched Tuesdays with Morrie in seminary in our Grief Crises and Pastoral Care course (commonly referred to as "Death and Dying"). We also watched the movie as part of the didactic sessions of the CPE unit I was in.

The Five People You Meet in Heaven is an interesting take on what happens after you die. He proposes, in this book, that you meet five people in heaven who help you make sense out of what happened to you during your life. It's kind of neat to think that you might get some answers to questions like "Why did this or that happen to me?" "Did anything I did in life make a difference to someone else?"

For One More Day is about a guy who's given up on life but first spends a day with his mother who has already been dead for 8 years. He realizes how he took her for granted during her life and just what she did for him in his life. That "one more day" is a gift to him that changes the way he lives the rest of his life.

Tuesday, August 12, 2008

More Books I've Read

It's been a while since I shared about some of what I've been reading. I might be forgetting some but way back during Lent I was reading:

The Cost of Discipleship by Dietrich Bonhoeffer

I think this is simply called "Discipleship" in its newest translation. That's what its original German title was, simply Nachfolge which I guess literally means "following."

Anyway, I read the version copyrighted in 1959. I wonder if the newer translation is an easier read. I've heard from a few people how reading this book changed their lives. I just found it so dense, so hard to read. I could only read a few pages a day because I was getting lost. I've read quotes now and then from this book and I think they were picking out some highlights because I just couldn't wrap my head around it very well. Maybe I'm the one who's dense.


Reclaiming the "E" Word: Waking Up to Our Evangelical Identity by Kelly A. Fryer

I'm a pretty big fan of Kelly Fryer. When I read her stuff I get excited about the possibilities for the church. Sometimes the trick is translating that excitement into action or spreading that excitement to the rest of the church.

Kelly can be pretty critical about the church, which can be a good thing, but I'm starting to think she's going overboard. Kelly's writing is starting to sound like the church can do nothing right and that we ought to scrap the whole deal and start from scratch. I believe, as she does, that the church needs to be focused outward, but when I read her now I'm not sure what, if anything, the church should be doing "in here."

I get frustrated by what goes on in the local church (I guess more by what doesn't go on) and by what does and doesn't go on in the wider church. I'm wondering if Kelly has become too frustrated. Is it because the church body she belongs to has said that someone like her can't be a pastor in that denomination?

There's still a lot of good stuff in this book. The term "Evangelical" has been hijacked and we need to wake up and reclaim it in its older and fuller meaning. Maybe she was more challenging than I was ready for when I first read it. It's a short book so I'll have to read it again and see if I see it differently.


Crazy Talk: A Not-So-Stuffy Dictionary of Theological Terms edited by Rolf A. Jacobson

This was a book written by professional theologians for ordinary folk. I guess I can be considered one of the former but I see myself more as one of the latter. And it doesn't shy away from taking a few digs. For instance:

Rapture \RAP-chuhr\ n.
Now you see it, now you don't—because the teaching is not biblical.

In this not-going-to-happen event, all truly faithful Christians would be beamed from the earth directly to heaven so that they could avoid Satan's seven-year reign before Christ's return at the end of the world. In reality the biblical support for such an event simply does not exist. Kind of like Frankenstein, this monstrous false doctrine was pieced together from bits of 1 Thessalonians, Matthew, Daniel, and Revelation—and popularized by a series of pseudo-interpretational novels. (p. 139)

Some definitions just made me think of things in a new way or understand them more clearly. For example:

Means of Grace \MEENZ-uhv-GRAS\ n.

The simplest stuff of every day through which the most profound event of eternity happens to you.

Have you ever smelled cold or hot? Have you ever felt a scream? How can a person see that which is invisible or hold that which has not substance in one's hands? That is what the means of grace are all about. God's grace—God's Redeeming Actions Concerning Everyone—is an event that frees us, forgives us, empowers us. But how does it come to us? In the simplest of everyday things: words, water, bread, wine, community. In the Word of God, in the sacraments of baptism and Communion, in the community of the church, God's grace can be smelled, felt, seen, heard, held, and tasted. (p. 113)

I really liked this book.


Lutheran Questions, Lutheran Answers: Exploring Christian Faith by Martin E. Marty

Apparently Martin Marty has written more than fifty books and I think this is the first one I've ever read. I've certainly heard of him and read quotations from his writings and maybe read articles by him, but this was my first book. It was very good. It answers a lot of theological questions from a Lutheran perspective. That's very helpful because I think a lot of people have conflated so much from the fundamentalist end of the spectrum and so much decision theology into Lutheranism.


Now it may seem that I read only theological books, but I make time for fiction. I read:

The Secret Mitzvah of Lucio Burke by Steven Hayward

This book was about three families living side by side in row houses, sharing a connected front porch, in Toronto in 1933. Two families are Jewish and one is Italian. Part of the book is a love story, part about friendships, part about baseball, and part about anti-Semitism. It culminates in a riot that takes place after an amateur baseball playoff game between the anti-Semitic Swastika Club and a predominantly Jewish baseball team and their fans (the Italians were their allies). The riot really did take place 75 years ago this month. Good book.


Playing for Pizza by John Grisham

A third-string NFL quarterback gets into the conference final game and really blows it. He's got some skill but nobody wants him on their team anymore. His agent finds him a job as starting quarterback for the Parma Panthers in the Italian NFL. It's funny. There's some romance. And the description of the football games is even exciting. It's not Moby Dick or To Kill a Mockingbird, but for sitting on the beach or by the pool or at your campsite it's enjoyable, at least it was for me.