Author Archives: Michael Pahl

Jesus Wasn’t “Family Values”

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The iconic Cleaver family

I am what they call a “family man,” committed to my wife and children. I love my wife, I love my family. I love families. Nothing brings a smile to my face quite like watching families (especially young families) just being a family together—except for being with my own family being a family together.

What’s more, my thoughts and feelings about the significance of marriage relationships and the importance of families are grounded firmly in my understanding and experience of Christian Scripture and the way of Jesus. Devoted faithfulness, holy love, persevering hope—marriage and family can give powerful witness to these and other core Christian virtues.

Nevertheless, none of that keeps me from acknowledging a few difficult realities.

For example, the Genesis creation stories are not as clear cut on marriage and family matters as we might like. Yes, these stories highlight how marriage relationships can fulfill the human need for biological procreation, how they can satisfy our innate need for human companionship, and how a marriage forms a new kinship group within society. These stories also underscore the inherent equality of “male and female” before God, sharing the dignity and responsibility of all humankind “in God’s image.”

However, there’s the fascinating fact that in the first creation story adam is said to include both “male and female” (Gen 1:27; see also 5:2), and the intriguing possibility that the second creation story is describing the creation of a non-gender-specified adam who is only gender-specified once the second human is built from the first (that’s when ish, “man,” and ishah, “woman,” are explicitly mentioned). I know, weird, eh?

And then there are all the ways even the “sure teachings” I’ve highlighted above fray at the edges as soon as you stretch them a little. These stories can’t be teaching that only procreative marriages are valid—what about couples unable to conceive? They can’t mean that marriage is the only way our innate need for companionship can be fulfilled—what about celibate singles? They can’t require that “male and female” be some absolute binary—what about intersex persons? Childless couples, celibate singles, “eunuchs from birth”—these were all known in the ancient world.

Or, for example, “biblical marriage” and the “biblical family” were not what we think of when we hear those phrases. We can tend to think of “marriage” as a relationship built around the love of two people for one another, and “family” as a nuclear family of one father, one mother, and their biological children.

However, most of the biblical depictions of marriage either assume or describe an adult man marrying a post-pubescent girl as arranged by the man or his father with the girl’s father, in large part to provide some economic or other pragmatic advantage for these men. We’re not talking Christian romance novels here.

Not the iconic Cleaver family

And most of the biblical depictions of family think of it more in terms of “household”: not just dad and mom and kids, but maybe also grandma, maybe a single uncle or aunt, maybe orphaned cousins, and, if dad were wealthy enough, maybe a few slaves and their kids (and in Old Testament days, maybe an additional mom, or concubine, or two or three, why not—and their kids). No, this isn’t “Leave It to Beaver.”

And then we get to Jesus, who was more disruptive than supportive of “traditional marriage” and “family values.” Sure, Jesus sides with the stricter interpretation of Jewish Law in his day when it comes to divorce and remarriage. And yes, Jesus speaks out not just against adultery but even against men lusting after a woman who is not their wife.

However, Jesus’ “No divorce except in adultery—and no remarriage!” was geared at least in part to protect women in a strongly patriarchal culture from being abandoned by men without provision for their welfare. And his “No lust!” put the onus on men to control their sexual desires—not women to restrict their dress or their actions. This is patriarchy put on notice.

Then there is a lengthy list of other things Jesus was and said and did that are often ignored in discussions of “Jesus and marriage/family.” In a marriage-dominated culture, Jesus was single and celibate. He encouraged others to be single and celibate instead of getting married—if they could hack it. As a single man he caused tongues to wag because of his close relationships with women. When his mom and siblings came to visit, he feigned indifference, saying his faithful disciples were his true mothers and brothers and sisters. Then there’s that bit about “hating your father and mother and wife and children” to follow Jesus. And that other bit about “follow me, and let the dead bury their own dead”—to the disciple who wanted to bury his father first.

Topping all this off is Jesus’ uncomfortable conviction that people will “neither marry nor be given in marriage” in the resurrection age. Echoes of Genesis, with its potentially androgynous original Adam? Maybe, but at the very least it’s patriarchy overturned—“marrying” was the dominant male role, “being given in marriage” the submissive female, and Levirate marriage (which the Sadducees were referencing) was all about keeping the male line going. No marriage = no male-dominated society.

No, Jesus wasn’t “family values.” He was “kingdom values,” centred not on kith and kin but on kingdom—God’s kingdom, God’s vision of justice and peace and flourishing life for all, not just families and the tribes that emerge from them.

Also not the iconic Cleaver family

The Apostle Paul doesn’t teach any differently. In fact, he’s right in line with Jesus if you focus on the letters most scholars believe Paul directly authorized. Paul, too, was single, and he viewed singleness as preferable to marriage. He frequently referred to God as “Father” and fellow believers as his “brothers and sisters,” while leaving no unambiguous reference to his own biological family. His teaching on divorce and remarriage is an extension of Jesus’, including the anti-patriarchal overtones.

Even Jesus’ idea that there will be no marrying or being given in marriage in the resurrection is there in Paul—that’s the essence of Galatians 3:28. In this passage Paul apparently quotes Genesis 1’s “male and female” when he says, “there is…no longer ‘male and female,’ for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.” The resurrection age has arrived with the resurrected Christ, so now “in Christ” conventional—and even, it seems, creational—gender distinctions are irrelevant.

These radical ideas carried on into the early centuries of the church. For most early Christians, celibacy remained the ideal (even if they didn’t attain it themselves) and the church was God’s true family. For some, distinctive gender roles, at least within the church, were a relic of a bygone era. A few Jesus-followers even connected Jesus and Paul on this, passing around a saying of Jesus that “the kingdom of God would come” when “there is neither male nor female.”

However, not everyone could handle this. The Roman Empire certainly couldn’t—they, not the Christians, were the original guardians of “traditional family values.” These Christian teachings on marriage and family were seen by the powers-that-be as potentially subversive, even destabilizing for society (sound familiar?).

This led some early Christians to reassure their lords and neighbours that Christians were indeed pro-marriage, pro-familia. That’s the motivation for the so-called “household codes” in the New Testament, those passages that instruct wives, children, and slaves on how they were to relate to the pater familias, the patriarch of the proper Roman household. Yet even these capitulations to traditional Roman marriage and Roman family values were sometimes laced with subtle subversion. Imagine, the patriarch of the family being instructed at all in household matters, let alone having to love his wife and treat his slaves fairly!

What’s my point in all this? It’s not to mock the Bible, or to denigrate marriage and family—may it never be! That’s why I began this article the way I did (go back and start over if you need to). Rather, my point in all this is really three points.

First, we don’t do anyone any favours when we minimize the complexity and challenge of the Bible on marriage and family. The Bible’s teachings on these things are not uniform, and neither are they clear or simple. They’re certainly not easy. There are difficult laws and stories and teachings in the collection of ancient writings we call the Bible that do not fit neatly into our modern, western, nostalgia-for-white-1950s-suburbia way of thinking about marriage and family. If we want to take our Bibles seriously we must face up to this fact.

Which leads right to my second point: we need to be careful not to assume our understanding of marriage or family is the right one. The range of perspectives and practices on marriage and family throughout Israelite, Jewish, and Christian history is astounding. Polygamy, concubinage, monogamy, celibacy. Other-sex, same-sex, no-sex covenants. Households with slaves, extended families, nuclear families, adoptive families, single-parent families. Patriarchal, egalitarian.

All these and more have been represented among God’s people through history to today, all of them justified by divine revelation or human tradition or simple necessity. This doesn’t mean anything goes for Christians thinking about marriage and family. It means that a Christian perspective on marriage or family is not going to be determined by a facile appeal to Scripture or history.

Which then leads to a third point: it’s simply wrong to elevate marriage or family at all—let alone some specific idea of marriage or family—to the status of “essential Christian teaching” or a “gospel issue” or the like. I hear people say things like, “The Bible begins in Genesis with a marriage and ends in Revelation with a marriage, and that is why the nature of marriage is fundamental to our story as well,” and my first thought is, “But we follow as Lord an unmarried man who encouraged celibacy and taught that there would be no marriage in God’s good future.” Seriously, ponder that.

There’s a reason none of the New Testament gospel summaries or early Christian rules of faith or creeds said anything about marriage or family or even sexuality: these, like all dimensions of human existence, are impacted by the gospel, but they are not the gospel.

Here’s the thing: The crucial question of Christianity is not and never has been, “What do you think about marriage?” but Jesus’ question, “Who do you say that I am?” The central call of Christianity is not and never has been, “Stand up for traditional family values!” but Jesus’ call, “Come, follow me.”

This Bible-believing family man fears we’re confusing these things, conflating them, and thus badly missing the point of it all.

© Michael W. Pahl

In which I talk about politics, with fear and trepidation*

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As a follower of Jesus, I don’t much care who the ruling party is. Prime ministers and premiers come and go, but Jesus is still Lord—which means that no matter who rules on earth, I am still called to love God by loving my neighbour as if their needs were my own. I’m still called to love my enemies, welcome the stranger, heal the sick, free the captive, forgive debts, care for those considered “least,” bring good news to the poor, and warn the rich and powerful of the woes that will befall them. This is politics according to Jesus.

But politics according to Jesus does intersect with the politics of the world. When Jesus proclaimed the “kingdom of God,” he was claiming an alternative vision to the kingdoms of the world. When he brought “good news to the poor,” he was declaring a very different “good news” than that claimed by the Roman Empire. And all that Jesus-y stuff I listed in the previous paragraph? That’s the stuff that our politics—the ordering of society, collectively making decisions—is concerned with.

Health care. Immigration. Economic wellbeing. Creating a just society. Politics according to Jesus intersects with all these things and more.

So, while I don’t much care who the ruling party is, I do care about all these things. When a ruling party—or, in an election, a possible ruling party—makes policies or promises that ultimately work against these things (however much they appear like short-term fixes), I cannot support them, and at times I must even speak against them.

Which is why I cannot in good conscience, as a follower of Jesus, support parties on the conservative side of the spectrum in Canada, at least as they are currently operating.

Conservative politics has changed in Canada. I remember when conservative parties in Canada assumed universal health care as a fundamental, necessary good. I remember when they promoted more open immigration. I remember when they taxed wealthy corporations at higher rates than even liberal governments do now in order to provide the social services Canadians need.

I remember when conservatives spoke of the common good at least as often as they spoke of individual liberties.

And this, to me, is the tragedy of conservative politics in Canada: it has lost its moral compass, while still claiming the moral high ground. It claims the high ground of personal ethics and public safety, but the ground it stands on is a fundamentally selfish position. It looks out for its own needs and the needs of those who are “like me.” It does not seek to love its neighbour as if the needs of the neighbour—or stranger, or poor, or sick, or “least”—were as their own.

Liberal or progressive politics in Canada is not free of critique, to be sure. Small l-liberal parties in Canada can tend to follow social trends too easily and too quickly. They can tend toward empty talk, speaking about the kinds of things noted above but doing little to actually move on them. Nevertheless, a principled, motivated liberal or progressive party in Canada is more likely to move Canadian society toward the kinds of things Jesus was concerned about than any of the more conservative parties in Canada, at least as things currently stand.

As I vote, and otherwise act as a citizen of Canada, I do so as a follower of Jesus. And so the question I ask myself is not, “Which candidate/party will make my life better?” It’s “Which candidate/party most closely aligns with these expressions of the reign of God?”

Loving neighbours, loving enemies, welcoming strangers, freeing captives, forgiving debts, healing the sick, caring for those considered “least,” bringing good news for the poor, warning woes on the rich and powerful—these are what it means to claim Jesus as Lord, these are what the reign of God is about, these are the politics of Jesus.

*To be clear, these views are my own and I am neither endorsing nor opposing any particular party or candidate.

What Is Love?

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What is love?

In our world, “love” can mean anything from attachment to admiration, from affection to attraction. For some, “love” is a painful word, carrying the trauma of past abuse.

Christians talk a lot about love, but we all know Christians whose “love” doesn’t look much like Jesus. What is Jesus’ way of love?

Jesus says the greatest commandment in the Torah is to “love God”—a command that has been used to justify all kinds of things. But Jesus pairs “love God” with “love your neighbour”: we show our love for God most purely when we love our neighbour as if their needs were our own.

And then Jesus goes on to define our neighbour not only as “those who are with us, those who are like us,” but as anyone we come across in need, even if they are “stranger” and “other.” Indeed, we may be surprised to learn that the “other” often shows neighbour love to us.

But Jesus pushes this further, commanding us to “love your enemies“—not simply those who disagree with us, but those who actively oppose us, even wishing us harm. We do this, Jesus says, by treating them with kindness even as we nonviolently resist the evil they perpetuate.

Love in the way of Jesus is open-armed and open-handed. It approaches another person as a child of the Creator, welcoming them in peace. It is generous with others, especially those who have a need we can meet. Their needs are as our needs.

Love in the way of Jesus, then, pays special attention to those who are considered “least” or “lost” or “last” in this world: the poor, the sick, the outcast. It seeks out these beloved children of God. It stands with them even in suffering, even in shame, even unto death.

Love in the way of Jesus is attachment, it is affection. It is all that is good in the love that we know in the world. But it is also action, an active, dedicated compassion on behalf of the other, for their good and for the common good.

Love in the way of Jesus, then, leads to the pursuit of justice—especially on behalf of the poor, the widow, the stranger, the outcast, the sick, all those most vulnerable to harm by the powers-that-be. As Cornel West says, “Justice is what love looks like in public.”

© Michael W. Pahl

Digging Deeper into Love

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Will Braun’s three-part series in the Canadian Mennonite, “The Sweet Solace of Polarization,” is an important reminder of our calling to love one another even through our strong differences of opinion. Walking in humility, listening patiently, being gentle with each other, showing compassion—loving one another, in other words—is crucial if we truly want to live into the unity of the Spirit as the body of Christ (Eph 4:1-2).

We do have a tendency to view things in binary terms. But life is complex. Humans are complex. Human societies are complex. The church is complex. There are few if any true binaries.

As one who has been outspoken about the importance of COVID vaccinations and protections through the pandemic, I have had to learn this lesson myself. Conversations with vaccine hesitant folks have reminded me that it’s important for individuals to consult their doctor about any medical prevention or intervention. They have reminded me that behind alternative opinions are real flesh-and-blood people who have many of the same hopes and fears that I do. They have reminded me that Christians indeed share a common desire to love our neighbours, even if we don’t always agree on the best way to do that.

Nevertheless, there are more questions we should ask each other, more conversations we should have. While humility, patience, gentleness, and compassion are foundational aspects of Christian love, there is more of love to discover. We need to dig deeper into love.

At the time I write this, over 46,500 people have died in Canada because of COVID. In my province of Manitoba, one out of every 625 people has died because of this virus. COVID has disproportionately affected the elderly, racialized persons, and the immune-compromised with severe outcomes. Statistics Canada estimates that 15% of Canadians who have contracted the virus have developed “long COVID,” with symptoms lingering from a few months to potentially years after the initial infection. Some of these long-term symptoms are relatively mild, but for some people they are debilitating.

Major health-governing and research-collecting bodies like the World Health Organization continue to conclude that COVID vaccines are safe, with extremely low risk of health complications from the vaccine (a far lower risk of harm than COVID itself presents). While vaccines have not provided the “bullet-proof immunization” many of us hoped for, they do reduce the forward transmission of the virus and they significantly reduce severe outcomes for those who are vaccinated. When good masks and ventilation are added into the mix in indoor spaces, the risk of virus transmission is lessened considerably.

All this should prompt us to ask more questions of each other, to dig deeper into love.

How do we relate to “experts” as we make ethical decisions? Which “experts” do we trust, and why do we trust them and not others?

How do we relate to our “governing authorities,” to use Paul’s term in Romans 13, especially as it relates to the only debt we should owe, Paul says there, the debt to love our neighbours?

How do we balance a concern for the common good with a concern for individual freedoms, again especially as it relates to the call of Jesus to love our neighbour as if their needs were our own?

If we do accept the reports noted above regarding COVID’s impact on the most health-vulnerable in our society, what does it mean for us to love these neighbours, and how do we weigh that against any potential harms we may be concerned about from vaccines or other public health protections?

Love in the way of Jesus requires a particular posture toward one another, yes, a posture of humility, patience, gentleness, and compassion. But that is not the totality of Jesus’ way of love. His is a devoted love of God expressed pre-eminently through loving our neighbour as if their needs were ours (Matt 22:36-40). And as we see from Jesus in the Gospels, the neighbours we should pay special attention to are the sick, the poor, the stranger—all those most vulnerable to harm.

May the fullness of this love drive us forward as we navigate the complexities of the ethical decisions we face.

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This article was published in the Canadian Mennonite (Nov. 28, 2022) as “A biblical case for vaccines.” Not only is that title inaccurate, it encourages readers to see the piece as arguing for one side in a polarized debate, and thus badly misses the point of the article. That title change was an editorial decision.

Following Christ into Catastrophe

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We seem to be constantly on the verge of impending catastrophe. COVID. Climate change. The collapse of Twitter.

That last example is a bit tongue-in-cheek, but there’s some truth in it. The collapse of Twitter (if it happens) would have significant negative impact on some people’s livelihoods, health supports, advocacy networks, and more. But it’s also true in a different way: the way people are responding to Twitter’s demise reveals some of the social dynamics at play in the larger catastrophes we face.

It seems to me there are two unhelpful responses to these catastrophes.

One is to get swept up in the tidal wave of fear and despair—the hysteria—that accompanies any perceived catastrophe. There is even a kind of “culture of catastrophe” at work in some segments of society, where our way of being in the world, even our identity in society, is determined in relation to whatever the current catastrophe is. We are required always to be in a heightened state of anxiety and urgent action—a sure-fire recipe for mental ill health and societal conflict.

The other unhelpful response, though, is to downplay or even ignore the seriousness of the problem. Catastrophes do happen. Catastrophes have happened in history, and they are happening around the world. COVID and climate change are real problems. Injustice and inequity, bigotry and violence, disease and disaster, in all their forms, are real problems. To suggest otherwise is to be naïve, or even to betray our historical or geographical privilege—those living in the middle of catastrophe don’t have the option of ignoring it.

So what should we do? In particular, how should we as Christians follow Christ into catastrophe?

Well, we have some good guidance from Jesus himself in the Gospels. After all, Jesus predicted a catastrophe, and gave instructions for his followers on how to walk in that catastrophe. Let’s give a glance at Jesus’ “Apocalyptic Discourse” (yes, that’s what scholars call it) in Matthew’s Gospel.

David Roberts, The Siege and Destruction of Jerusalem, Wikimedia Commons

In Matthew 24-25, Jesus describes the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple, a catastrophe which happened roughly 40 years after Jesus. (For a few historical-critical thoughts on this, see below.*) Jesus sets this catastrophe in the context of even wider catastrophes: wars, natural disasters, famines, plagues, and the like. And then Jesus gives some guidance for his followers on how they should walk into those catastrophes.

One word of guidance from Jesus is especially highlighted through chapter 24, summed up in this phrase: watch and pray.

“Stay awake,” Jesus says, be watchful. Be aware of what is going on, pay attention to the things that are happening and what they mean. Be ready for God’s deliverance when it comes. And pray. Pray as Jesus taught us (Matt 6:9-13). Trust in our loving God for our daily bread. Pray for salvation from the time of trial and deliverance from evil. Hope in God’s good future on the far side of the apocalypse.

Take seriously what’s going on. But don’t get caught up in the hysteria; don’t get swept up in the fear and despair. Don’t let the unfolding catastrophe determine your way of being in the world, your identity in the world. Watch and pray.

Another word of guidance is especially bought home in chapter 25, summed up this way: care for “the least” among us as the worst unfolds around us.

Jesus calls his followers to use what God has given us to invest into God’s kingdom, God’s reign of justice and peace and life. Feed the hungry, Jesus says, welcome the stranger, clothe the naked, heal the sick, care for the imprisoned. In other words, continue to “seek first God’s reign and God’s justice” (Matt 6:33).

Don’t give up on this world; and especially, don’t give up on those among us most vulnerable to harm by evil forces in times of trial. Care for “the least” among us as the worst unfolds around us.

Some of us as Christians are good at not getting caught up in the hysteria of COVID or climate change or any other impending catastrophe. But then we’re often not as good at being aware of the reality of the problems, or at focusing on the most vulnerable through those problems, and those vulnerable people get harmed.

Others of us are good at being aware of the problems and, sometimes at least, centering the most vulnerable in the midst of those problems. But then we’re often not as good at prayerfully trusting in God for our present, or prayerfully hoping in God for the future, and we walk in unhealthy anxiety and inflame conflict with others who are not our enemies.

May we take Jesus’ words to heart, and follow Christ into the catastrophes of our time, walking always in faith, hope, and love, especially for those most often deemed least in our world.

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*Here’s my take on the Synoptic apocalyptic discourses. There’s such a strong memory of Jesus’ predicting a future calamitous end, and even specifically the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple, that I think it likely Jesus did indeed predict this. That memory is preserved not just in all four Gospels (Matt 24; Mark 13; Luke 21; John 2) but also in other NT passages (e.g. 1 Thess 4-5). And there were certainly enough signs in Jesus’ day that things were not going to end well for the Jewish people in their struggle against Roman imperial power. A Temple destruction in some not-too-distant future was also on the minds of others (see accounts in Josephus).

I also think it likely that Jesus believed the end of the age and the dawn of the coming age, the fullness of the reign of God, would come at the time of the Temple’s destruction. In this Jesus was wrong. However, the Gospel authors, all writing after the Temple’s destruction in 70 CE (Mark as a possible exception to this), still saw value in Jesus’ words. Yes, they embellished Jesus’ predictions to make them fit more directly with recent historical events (especially Luke in Luke 21:20-24), but they didn’t substantially change the tradition they had received (so they believed) from Jesus. Why is that?

One reason, I think, is simply that it confirmed Jesus as a prophet. He had predicted the Temple’s destruction, and look, it happened. But I think there’s another reason: they saw in Jesus’ words continuing guidance for them in the midst of the wider “catastrophes” he highlighted. Wars, natural disasters, famines, and plagues continued, along with false prophets and false messiahs and opposition and even persecution of Jesus’ followers. While Jesus’ return and the fulfillment of God’s reign was transferred to some unknown future, we still live in this “time between the times” where all these calamitous events take place. We need Jesus’ guidance on how to live in these ongoing days of evil.

© Michael W. Pahl

Sin, Salvation, and Climate Action

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Excerpted from a sermon at Altona Mennonite Church on September 11, 2022, called “The Gospel for All Creation.”

The Apostle Paul speaks of salvation often as “liberation” or “redemption” from “evil powers.”

For Paul these “evil powers” are forces that control us, yet which seem to be beyond our control. And for Paul the most basic of these evil powers is human sin: our individual habits of harm that wound ourselves and others, and our collective systems of harm that do the same but on a larger scale.

Let me name three of these evil powers that are especially strong within us and among us, causing devastation and destruction and death not just for humanity but for all creation: the sins of pride, greed, and violence.

In our pride, we as humanity have centered ourselves within creation and elevated ourselves above creation, instead of centering the Creator and lifting up creation. In our pride we have subjugated creation for our own ends instead of caring for creation as an end in itself.

For centuries now we as a western, industrialized society have sought to master creation in order to extract as many resources as we can out of it, all for our own purposes without any thought of the impact on the rest of creation, or even future generations. Even when we have known better, as we surely have for decades now, in our arrogance we have downplayed or ignored the problem.

As for greed, our greed as a western society is well-known. We have developed deeply ingrained habits of consumption and accumulation, always striving for more and newer and bigger and better. We have developed an entire economic system dependent upon consumption and accumulation.

This has caused tremendous harm to ourselves as human beings. We have objectified each other, seeing our core identity as producers and consumers and even objects to consume rather than as persons created in God’s image, having inherent worth and dignity regardless of our ability to produce or consume.

But our greed has also caused tremendous harm to the rest of creation. Instead of seeing the earth as a sanctuary created by God for the flourishing of life, the earth is viewed as a repository of resources to be extracted in order to sustain the capitalist engine of production and consumption and accumulation.

The consequences to species and ecosystems, and the impact on vulnerable peoples as the earth heats up, are catastrophic.

Out of our hubris and to sustain our greed, we have committed violence against creation and one another, causing destruction and death. We as so-called “developed” nations have exploited and violated the poorest and most vulnerable among us, including vulnerable ecosystems and species, all in order to maintain our lifestyles of convenience built on consumption and accumulation.

Our pride, our greed, and our violence. These are three of the most evil powers of sin at work both in human hearts and in the structures and systems of our society. And, as Paul says in Romans 8, “the wages of sin is death”: our pride, our greed, and our violence has paid as wages a devastating death not just for humans but also for the rest of creation.

But this is the good news of Jesus Christ: that in Jesus we can be liberated from our pride, our greed, and our violence. We can be liberated from these evil powers that dominate and destroy us and the world which is our home.

“The Parable of the Mustard Seed” by James Paterson

Jesus shows us a better way, where we are freed to live in humility and compassion instead of hubris, in simplicity and generosity instead of greed, in ways of justice and peace instead of violence. Jesus taught and lived out these things in resistance to the pride, greed, and violence of his day.

Jesus “humbled himself,” Paul says in another Christ hymn in Philippians 2, “he humbled himself, took on the form of a slave,” and died a slave’s death on a Roman cross.

And this humility was driven by compassion: multiple times the Gospels say that Jesus was “moved by compassion” to respond to the needs of others. Jesus shows us a better way than human pride, a way that prompts us to work together for the good of each other and all creation.

Instead of greed, Jesus taught and lived out simplicity. Freeing ourselves from the need to accumulate more, being freed from the chains of Mammon. Instead, trusting in God for our daily bread: just what we need, no more, just when we need it, not before.

This way of simplicity leads to generosity. Because we can hold our possessions lightly, because we trust that God will provide for us when we need it, we can be generous with what we have when others are in need.

And Jesus taught and lived out the way of nonviolence, living in harmony with one other and all creation: loving both neighbours and enemies, and attending to “the birds of the air” and “the flowers of the field.” This is a way that resists evil non-violently, walking in solidarity with the poor and vulnerable even if that means a cross.

This is the good news of Jesus: that we can be liberated from the evil powers that dominate and destroy us, including our own pride and greed and violence. And the key to experiencing this good news? It is as Jesus himself said when he first came proclaiming the gospel: “Repent and believe.”

We need to turn away from our habits and systems of harm, our ways of pride and greed and violence—we need to repent.

And we need to believe—not simply “believing certain things to be true,” that’s not what biblical faith is. Rather, biblical faith is trusting in God and committing ourselves to God’s way. Walking in Jesus’ way of faith, walking in Jesus’ way of hope, and walking in Jesus’ way of love.

My friends, here is where the good news of Jesus intersects with our eco-mission as a church: when we live out the gospel of Jesus Christ, when we live out the faith and hope and love of Jesus, when we live out our liberation from pride and greed and violence, we will see creation renewed.

My Faith Story

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On September 4, 2022, I shared my faith story with my congregation as part of the process of transferring my membership from my previous congregation. Here is what I shared.

If I were to sum up my faith journey in a phrase, it might be this: “Pursuing Jesus who first found me.”

I grew up in a conservative evangelical environment, nominally Anabaptist. I knew my Bible. I knew about Jesus. But I didn’t know Jesus.

In my university days I went on a spiritual quest. I checked out other religions—Hinduism and Buddhism fascinated me for a while. I actively participated in a different church every year of university: Pentecostal, United Church, Lutheran, Baptist. I was baptized in that Baptist church.

Along the way I had a profound spiritual experience that pushed me back to the Bible. I read it like I’d never read it before, in huge chunks: all of Isaiah in one sitting, all of Luke and Acts in another, all of Genesis in a morning, all of John in an afternoon, Romans before bed. I gorged on Scripture.

And that’s how I first met Jesus. I read the Bible and I found Jesus. Or rather, Jesus found me, and I’ve pursued him ever since.

Later, when I was teaching through the New Testament at a small Christian college and working on my Ph.D., I had an epiphany: this Jesus-centred reading of Scripture had made me into an Anabaptist. By reading the Bible to follow Jesus I had become committed to Jesus’ way of nonviolence, his way of just peace, his way of community, his way of love.

And so, when I left this nondenominational college to move into pastoral ministry, it made sense to serve in a Mennonite congregation, one that was thoroughly Anabaptist.

That was 13 years ago, and our journey since then has brought us from Alberta to Ohio to Manitoba, and now into my current role as Executive Minister of Mennonite Church Manitoba, and member of Home Street Mennonite Church. I’m grateful for this congregation, for its commitment to pursue Jesus who first found us.

Last week Ingrid shared about developing a centred-set approach to church instead of a bounded-set approach. I’ve also taught that concept since first coming across missionary anthropologist Paul Hiebert’s use of this idea. And this, to me, is at the centre of this thing we call “Christianity,” and this thing we call “church”: Jesus, and Jesus’ way of love.

Jesus of Nazareth, crucified Messiah and resurrected Lord, and Jesus’ way of devotion for God expressed through compassion for others, especially those the world deems “last,” “least,” or “lost.”

We gather around Jesus and his way of love like people gathering around a bonfire on a cold, dark night. We draw close to Jesus and his love for light and warmth, and as we do so we find ourselves drawing closer to each other.

Around this fire we tell our stories, we sing our songs, we pray our prayers, we share our bread and wine. And we commit ourselves to following Jesus and his way of love as we go out into the world, carrying our candles lit with the fire of Jesus’ love.

As we go we proclaim the greatest revelation Jesus has given us: God is love. We should know this from Scripture, we should know this from observing creation around us, but in Jesus this is confirmed and clarified: God is love.

God always loves. God cannot not love. Everything God does is motivated by love and enacted in love. This means that anything we experience that is not of love is not of God. God is not the author of evil or suffering or harm.

Love is the essence of God in a way that God’s other attributes are not. God’s holiness is a holy love. God’s justice is a just love. God’s wisdom is a wise love. God’s power is a powerful love.

All is being moved by love towards God’s good purposes. Love is stronger than injustice or violence. Love is stronger than every other power. Love is stronger than death. In the end, love will win, and all will be well.

Jesus, and Jesus’ way of love, pointing us to the God who is love.

This is indeed good news.

What does it mean to say that “God is love”?

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It’s one of the foundational beliefs of Christianity: “God is love” (1 John 4:8, 16). But what does it mean to say this? Here are a few thoughts.

“God is love” means that God always loves. God cannot not love. Everything God does is motivated by love and enacted in love. This means that anything we experience that is not of love is not of God. God is not the author of evil or suffering or harm.

“God is love” means that love is at the heart of who God is. The Bible says that “God is holy,” but it never says that “God is holiness.” Love is the essence of God in a way that God’s other attributes are not. God’s holiness is a holy love. God’s justice is a just love. God’s wisdom is a wise love. God’s power is a powerful love.

“God is love” means that God’s very being is love. Which suggests there was never a time when God did not love. Which in turn suggests, in all mystery, that God is multiplicity, eternally existing in mutual love.

“God is love” means that all has been created in love. As all things exist out of the overflow of God’s being, so all things exist out of the overflow of God’s love.

“God is love” means that all that is not-love is not-God; it is anti-God. This, then, is “sin”: thinking and acting and speaking out of apathy or antipathy, causing harm to others, ourselves, or other creatures, and thus grieving the God who is love. And this is “death”: dying, or even living, in the consequences of this non-love.

“God is love” means that all is being moved by love towards God’s good purposes. Love is stronger than injustice or violence. Love is stronger than every other power. Love is stronger than death. In the end, love will win, and all will be well.

“God is love” means that Jesus is God-is-love in the flesh. Jesus shows us what God’s love looks like: an open-handed, open-hearted, open-armed love, a love especially for those who need it most, those considered “last” or “least” or “lost.” This love, for neighbours, for strangers, even for enemies.

“God is love” means that you are beloved by God. This is your most basic identity: God’s Beloved. And this is true of each and every person, every creature, all of creation.

“God is love” means that when you are at your lowest, or your loneliest, you are never alone. There is a Presence always with you, embracing you in their love.

“God is love” means that when you are at your worst, and you know it, or when you have done your worst, and you know it, there is One who is already moving toward you, to forgive you and restore you, to make you whole.

“God is love” means that God is calling us into a Beloved Community, a society of friends where peace with justice prevails over violence and injustice, where love and trust triumphs over fear and hatred. It means that, ultimately, God is moving all things toward a Peaceable Kingdom, God’s vision of true justice and lasting peace and flourishing life for all creation.

Then God, who is love, will be all in all.

© Michael W. Pahl

Polarization and the Way of Jesus

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Ask pastors and church leaders what their greatest concerns are in these latter days, and one of the words that will float to the top is “polarization.”

There’s little doubt that our society has become more polarized, more afflicted by extremes, less attuned to compromise and middle ground. And the church has followed suit, as it often does, sometimes even leading the way. The political partisanship and the culture clash of left versus right has permeated our congregations and denominations.

Any follower of Jesus worth their salt and light who wants to address polarization is faced with two conflicting beliefs.

On the one hand, we believe that Jesus came to heal divisions, to bring peace between people. Unity is one of our loftiest goals, a unity of the Spirit grounded in Jesus, a unity which does not erase diversity but celebrates it. Jesus “has broken down the dividing wall, that is, the hostility between us,” so that he might “create in himself one new humanity…thus making peace” (Eph 2:14-15).

On the other hand, we believe that following Jesus sometimes provokes hostility, even revealing divisions. “Do you think that I have come to bring peace to the earth?” Jesus asks his stunned disciples. “No, I tell you, but rather division! From now on five in one household will be divided, three against two and two against three” (Luke 12:51-53).

What does the division-healing, division-revealing Spirit of Jesus have to say to us today in our polarized world? Let me suggest one overarching thought that then needs some explanation.

Polarization is not our enemy; injustice and oppression is our enemy.

Let’s step back even further. In case we Jesus-followers need to be reminded of this fact, no human person is ultimately our enemy. “Our struggle is not against blood and flesh,” and “we do not wage war as the world does” with its “fleshly weapons” (Eph 6:12; 2 Cor 10:3-4).

This is Jesus’ Nonviolence 101. Humans may participate with the “spiritual forces of evil” in this world, and if so they need to be resisted, but ultimate they are not our enemy. God’s desire is for their redemption, and our redemption is bound up with theirs.

When it comes to how we treat individuals, then, we treat them as Jesus did: with compassion.

Here’s a striking contrast in the Gospels. Jesus speaks harsh, public words denouncing a group of people: woes to the rich oppressors, condemnations of unjust religious leaders (Luke 6:24-25; Matt 23). Yet he still shares meals with these people (Luke 7:36-50), and when he engages with individuals from among those groups he does so with deep compassion for them (John 3:1-15). Kindness is a fruit of the Spirit, after all.

However, don’t miss this fact: Jesus does not shy away from speaking strong words against powerful oppressors, even individually. In fact, all his teaching and his healings, his whole way of life, was a subversion of the values of those powerful oppressors. And this brought division in his wake. Ultimately, it led to his crucifixion by the powers that be.

Jesus was a polarizing figure. Yet he was driven by compassion toward all, a devoted love for God expressed in compassionate love for neighbour.

Jesus’ love for all, though, had an important corollary: a strong sense of justice.

Jesus’ compassion for the powerless, impoverished crowds drove him to heal freely, to teach freely about God’s role-reversing reign of justice come near (Matt 9:35-36). The love of God compelled him to follow in the footsteps of the Prophets: denouncing injustice and oppression, pronouncing God’s judgment on unjust oppressors, and proclaiming God’s good news to the poor and liberation for the oppressed (Luke 4:16-21).

The love of God drove Jesus to walk in solidarity with the poor, the enslaved, oppressed and conquered peoples, right to the symbolic heart of that oppression: a Roman cross.

Polarization is not our enemy; injustice and oppression is our enemy.

As Christians today we look at polarization and see it as the opposite of peace. Ultimately, yes. There will be no polarization in God’s peaceable kingdom.

However, the path of peace can sometimes run through polarization, because, as Jesus’ life and death remind us, there is no peace without justice. And confronting injustice to create true peace will bring division. It will. Jesus has told us so. Jesus’ life and death has proved it to be so.

Don’t misunderstand me, or worse, Jesus. We can create division by being “jerks for Jesus.” That’s not what Jesus is talking about. That’s not the way of Jesus.

James Tissot, The Sermon of the Beatitudes

But when we patiently, persistently, compassionately seek first God’s reign and God’s justice, we will encounter hostility. Jesus doesn’t call us to a persecution complex, seeing persecution behind every opposition. But make no mistake: those who “hunger and thirst for justice” will be “persecuted for justice’s sake” (Matt 5:6, 10).

Divisions will be revealed, sometimes gaping chasms of difference in values and goals and ways and means. These divisions will cut across family lines, as Jesus directly says, so we should not be surprised when they sometimes slice through our churches.

And when this happens, we cannot soft-pedal God’s desire for justice in order to create an artificial peace.

We Mennonites are especially prone to this, because in our veneration of peace we often strive to avoid conflict. Or we look for a middle-way compromise between two extremes, mistakenly calling this a “third way.” Thoughtful, empathetic compromise is certainly an important tool for simply getting along with each other in a diverse community. But neither Jesus nor Paul nor any other Apostle advocates for a middle-way compromise when injustice or oppression is on the table.

Polarization is not our enemy; injustice and oppression is our enemy.

To be more biblically precise, death is our enemy. Our sins of harm that create forms of death for others and our world, all the ways we cause harm or hinder well-being through our thoughts and words and actions, or inaction. Our systems and cultures of death that perpetuate these harms on a larger scale: economic inequity, corporate greed, militarism, colonialism, misogyny, racism, and more.

Death, we’re told, is the ultimate enemy, the “last enemy to be destroyed,” thrown deep into the fiery chasm from whence it came (1 Cor 15:26; Rev 20:14). Death is the enemy that Jesus relentlessly pursued in every healing, every teaching, every interaction with a death-struck person, right through his own death into resurrection life.

And this is our calling as followers of Jesus. This is what it means to be united in the Spirit of Christ, being one in the body of Christ, centred on Jesus. Christian unity is not a unity that merely tries to keep a group of people together regardless of what they value and how they live. Christian unity is being united in walking in the loving, life-giving way of Jesus by the living, life-giving Spirit of Jesus.

All are welcome in this family of God, yes and amen! But this means people who cannot fully welcome the ones our world doesn’t welcome—the impoverished, the marginalized, those most vulnerable to harm, those perpetually oppressed by the powers that be—people who cannot fully welcome these our world calls “least” and “last” can never be fully welcome themselves until they can do so.

When we are complicit in injustice and oppression, complicit in sins of harm and systems of death, Jesus calls us to repentance. And when we repent, when we turn from our death-dealing ways of harm and embrace God’s life-giving ways of compassion and justice, Jesus assures us of God’s forgiveness.

Polarization is not our enemy; injustice and oppression is our enemy.

I am as concerned as any church leader about polarization in our churches and in our society. But polarization itself is not the enemy anymore than flesh-and-blood people on the other side of our divides are the enemy.

I long for churches to be united in the Spirit of Christ to follow the way of Christ, being the body of Christ in the world, seeking first God’s justice-bringing, life-generating reign on earth. May we have wisdom to discern how best to speak and act to bring about this true unity in Christ, and the courage to do so—even if the path to that unity first reveals some deep divisions among us.

Communion: Open or Closed?

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Who should be allowed to receive communion?

It’s a question that comes up frequently in church circles, occasionally bursting into mainstream media. Among Mennonites, the question is typically framed like this: should the Lord’s Supper be “closed” only to the baptized, or should it be “open” to the un-baptized?*

Both sides are motivated by good impulses.

The best impulse of the closed communion folks is to protect abused, violated, or at-risk people among them from being forced to share the Lord’s Table with their oppressors. The best impulse of the open communion folks is to ensure that those often pushed out of church circles are welcome to share in the full life of the church. One side wants to protect the vulnerable, the other wants to remove barriers for the marginalized.

Of course, there are less admirable impulses on both sides as well.

Closed communion churches can be motivated by a desire of the powerful to maintain the status quo, gatekeeping to keep out undesirables. Open communion churches can be motivated by a bland form of acceptance or tolerance, unwilling to hold to account those among them living lives based on abuse of power, violence, greed, or injustice.

A simplistic “the Bible is clear on this” is another less-than-admirable motivation. It’s also not true.

Closed communion churches tend to point to Paul’s words in 1 Corinthians. The wealthy among the Corinthian believers had been coming to their shared meals early, filling up on food and wine and leaving nothing for the poorer Christians who had to work until late. Paul’s words are harsh and pointed: this abuse of the poor is a travesty of the Lord’s Supper, and the wealthy offenders must “examine themselves” to root out greed and inequity and “discern the body” of which all are equal members.

Yet Paul doesn’t tie his comments to baptism. Sure, it’s likely nearly everyone present at these communion meals was baptized. After all, baptism in Corinth, like elsewhere among the first generation of Christians, was probably as straightforward as professing belief in Jesus and being baptized as soon after as possible. But still, while Paul elsewhere does ground ethical appeals in baptism, he doesn’t do so with the Lord’s Supper. This could be because Paul in 1 Corinthians is reluctant to make too much of baptism: it was one of the things people were using to distinguish their partisan takes on Christian faith and life, aligning themselves with the one who baptized them. We may wish to ground communion theologically in baptism, but there’s no direct basis in 1 Corinthians (or anywhere in the New Testament, for that matter) for doing so.**

Open communion churches tend to point to the stories of Jesus’ shared meals in the Gospels. Jesus became known as a “friend of sinners” and a “glutton and drunkard” because of his meals with those considered “least” and “last” and “lost” by the powers-that-be, turning patron-client and honour-shame conventions around meals on their head. He likewise told stories of God’s reign being like a meal in which those on the lowest rungs of society were welcomed. And the Last Supper, on which the Lord’s Supper is based, was a hodge-podge of disciples, sinners and tax-collectors and oft-despised Galileans themselves.

Yet the Last Supper doesn’t provide a perfect example of an “open” meal. While women disciples may have been present on the periphery, only male disciples are mentioned at table with Jesus. And yes, Jesus broke bread with a tax collector who had been on the side of Roman oppression and at least one Zealot who had been on the side of violence in opposition to Rome, but Jesus had called them to repentance and had lived and taught a radical alternative to these opposites. And sure, Jesus knowingly broke bread with both his denier and his betrayer, yet that act in itself could not keep these men from their actions. In fact, as closed-communion advocate Melissa Florer-Bixler has wryly noted, John’s Gospel pointedly states that it was “after [Judas] received the piece of bread, Satan entered into him.”

No, the Bible is not as clear on open versus closed communion as we might like it to be.

Still, these biblical texts highlight at least two realities all Mennonites (and all Christians) should take to heart.

First, regardless of a church’s stance on communion, we are called both to hold abusers of power to account and to remove barriers for the marginalized. We can tie these into our theology and practice of communion if we wish, but we had better be doing more than that in our wider theology and practice as a church. If unjust oppressors only feel uneasy when it comes time for communion, or if those cast aside by society only feel welcome when it comes time for communion, we’re not doing church right.

And second, Paul’s approach to baptism and communion strikes me as more Mennonite than some Mennonites. Some among us have almost made an idol of baptism and/or communion, even if we’re now more tolerant than we used to be about modes of baptism or ways of doing communion. Paul’s reluctance to make much of baptism in 1 Corinthians when he does so elsewhere is one of several examples of his ad hoc pastoral theology. Consistent, Paul was not. Or rather, Paul was guided by underlying values that overrode his commitment to particular forms or rituals.

And this, my Mennonite friends, is a very Mennonite way to approach church life. Our early Mennonite and other Anabaptist forebears were among the “radical Reformers,” striving for faithfulness to the words and ways of Jesus beyond any other form of religious (or political, economic, cultural, social) commitment.

If one congregation discerns that in their context closed communion allows them to live more faithfully to the way of Jesus, then peace be upon them. Likewise if a congregation discerns that open communion is where they need to be to follow Jesus faithfully in their setting: may they be blessed in this.

If, however, your church is making this decision out of more base impulses—powerful people gatekeeping those deemed undesirable, an unwillingness to confront injustice or abuse, even “the Bible is clear” or “it’s in our Confession of Faith” or “we’ve always done it this way”—then I encourage you to re-visit this question.

Regardless of where we end up as churches on open versus closed communion, may we be motivated by the love of Jesus, a way of love that pays special attention to the disempowered and calls to account the powerful, that seeks to orient our way of life together around God’s ways of equity and justice, so that we might all together participate in God’s reign of justice and peace and flourishing life.

*I realize there are other ways of defining “open” and “closed” communion, but for Mennonites baptism is where the line is typically drawn. I realize, too, that this debate is not confined to Mennonites, and that sometimes the question is whether a baptized member can be refused communion.

**There are other interesting things going on in 1 Corinthians related to this question. Yes, Paul expects that Christians will not participate in idol feasts in a Roman temple and also share in the Lord’s Supper (10:14-22). But “outsiders or unbelievers” who come to Christian gatherings and recognize God’s presence among them, would they be barred from sharing in the Lord’s Supper until they were baptized (14:24-25)? We simply don’t know, but given the fact that the Lord’s Supper was embedded in a shared meal that also fed the hungry (11:20-22), I’m inclined to think they would be welcome to join in.

Eugène Burnand, The Great Banquet