The Life-altering Encounter of Hope

Have you ever had an encounter that totally altered your state of being? Something that provided you with a new perspective on life or visions of an alternative reality that once you experienced it, you knew that you could never go back? These experiences come to us in many shapes and sizes. It could be a conversation with a friend, a movie, a book, a poem, a piece of art, etc. The medium of these encounters is virtually limitless.

I had one of these encounters this summer. Because I am a nerd, this encounter came through reading German theologian Jurgen Moltmann's Theology of Hope. My copy of this book is old and dingy and does not appear as much to those who have never opened its cover. However, this book has provided me with a reality that I have been unable to shake ever since I began the journey through its pages. 

For those of you who regularly read my blog posts, you will know that I have posted about Moltmann in the past (you can read those posts here and here), and I apologize if you tire of hearing about him once again. However, as we approach the season of advent in the church's liturgical calendar, I once again am confronted with the reality that Moltmann stresses: there is no Christian Gospel if there is no hope. Consider here Moltmann's words on the subject of hope:

Does this hope cheat man of the happiness of the present? How could it do so! For it is itself the happiness of the present. It pronounces the poor blessed, receives the weary and heavy laden, the humbled and wronged, the hungry and the dying, because it perceives the parousia of the kingdom for them. Expectation makes life good, for in expectation man can accept his whole present and find joy not only in its joy but also in its sorrow, happiness not only in its happiness but also in its pain. Thus hope goes on its way through the midst of happiness and pain, because in the promises of God it can see a future also for that living without hope is like no linger living. Hell is hopelessness, and it is not for nothing that at the entrance to Dante's hell there stands the words: 'Abandon hope, all ye who enter here.' - Theology of Hope, 32.

Hope is what makes our life bearable! For even in our darkest of times, it is the hope that things will not be this way forever that continues to push us forward. And how relevant is this theme of hope for us as we enter into the season of advent.

Consider the Old Testament lectionary reading for the first Sunday of advent.

14 The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will fulfill the promise I made to the house of Israel and the house of Judah. 15 In those days and at that time I will cause a righteous Branch to spring up for David; and he shall execute justice and righteousness in the land. 16 In those days Judah will be saved and Jerusalem will live in safety. And this is the name by which it will be called: “The Lord is our righteousness.” - Jeremiah 33:14-16

The Lord, he is coming! Imagine the hope the Messiah would bring to the nation of Israel, a nation who had been exiled, and upon return from exile, lived under Greco-Roman rule. Even when life seemed unbearable, surely the hope of the Messiah, the one who would execute justice and righteousness, would be all the encouragement one would need!

How applicable is this theme of hope for our present situation. We live in a world that quite often seems void of all hope. We hear regularly of injustices at home and abroad, and it can be easy to buy into the myth that the world is going to hell in a handbasket. And this is why the message of hope is of utmost importance for Christians! We worship the one who welcomes the poor, the needy, the downtrodden, the lame, the sick, and the disadvantaged! This world does not have the final say, for that is left to the one who comes to bring life, life to the fullest.

It is my prayer that as we engage in the season of advent in its fasts and its feasts that our eyes would not turn from the hope that we see in the coming Christ. For he is the Christ who came to proclaim good news to the poor, to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free (cf. Lk 4:18). It is in him that we must put all of our hope.

We've Been Here Before: A Mennonite Perspective on the Syrian Refugee Crisis

re-fyu̇-ˈjē: someone who has been forced to leave a country because of war or for religious or political reasons

If you live in North America, you probably have an opinion on refugees. Six months ago, you may not have held an opinion on refugees, but at this present moment, based on the global happenings of the recent week, you probably stand somewhere in the continuum of opinion. You have probably heard arguments from both sides of the dichotomy. On the one hand, you have heard those arguing for increased refugee immigration, for it is our duty as those in positions of plenty to help those in positions of need. On the other hand, you have also likely heard the argument that there may be a link between Syrian refugees and the terrorist group ISIS/ISIL, and for that reason, Canadians and Americans alike need to be cautious about welcoming in refugees with open arms.

Whatever your opinion on refugee status, I feel like there is something which I need to declare: my family came to Canada as refugees.

This will likely come as a surprise to many who do not know my family heritage. To any innocent bystander, I look like a typical Canadian: blonde, tall, blue eyes. Your typical Germanic/Anglo-Saxon description. As a result, I do not experience the discrimination that other visible minorities may face. However, I recognize that I would not be alive had Canada turned their back on my family when they fled the dangers of the Soviets many years ago.

Allow me now to briefly summarize a small portion of my family history. I am a fourth generation Canadian, so my refugee status traces back to my great-grandparents. For as far back as I have traced, my family has been part of the Mennonite tradition, which began in the Germany/Netherlands region. After facing persecution in Europe, many Mennonites settled in the territory now known as Russia and Ukraine.

At the time my great-grandparents fled from Ukraine and Russia, it was not a pleasant place for them to live. My great-grandparents were persecuted because of their faith, and they all ended up on the run. One of my great-grandmothers fled from a house only hours before the Russians came and killed the rest of her family. One of my great-grandfathers had his land taken from him and was forced into a life of poverty. All were forced to make the difficult decision to leave everything they had behind and make the terrifying journey into a new country.

I am not writing this in an attempt to receive heaps of sympathy from the online community. In fact, at this point, I feel like my family has allowed me to be born and raised in a situation of privilege in many senses, which I recognize and am grateful for. Rather, the reason I am writing this is as an abbreviated case study for the current situation in which we now find ourselves.

Whenever we as individuals or as a community are evaluating a decision--whether past, present, or future--it is important that we consider the context in which the situation took, is taking, or will take place in. So, let us consider the context which my great-grandparents found themselves in.

It was still early in the 20th century, and Russia was not not a pleasant place for my ancestors to live. The Russians ran around pillaging Mennonite communities and killing anyone who would stand in opposition to their national values. They had a vision, and they would not let the Mennonites object to this vision any longer. If I may ask this question, does this sound familiar to our current context in any way?

Russia was to my great-grandparents what ISIS is to many Muslims in the Middle East right now. ISIS is forcing people out of their homes and killing anyone who stands in their way, much in the same way that the Russians did to my great-grandparents a hundred years ago.

For my great-grandparents, it was not a question of whether or not moving would allow them to experience a new worldview and culture or simply to see new things, the reason many people travel globally in this day. No, fleeing was a matter of life or death. Stay, and risk being killed, or flee, and hope that you can give your family a better life

When my ancestors were fleeing, tensions with the Russians were beginning to rise, and there was no visible difference separating my great-grandparents from other Russians. Additionally, the Russian government, who had been at periods involved quite closely with the Russian Orthodox church, could have been labelled under the same Christian label my great-grandparents were fleeing under. At the time, the Canadian government could have shut the doors to Canada on my great-grandparents. But thankfully, they didn't. The Canadian government recognized that my people were a people in need, and they welcomed us into the country with open arms. Now, my family gives back, providing our neighbours with farmers, bankers, paramedics, teachers, brothers, sisters, and friends just to name a few.

There are many similarities between the situation my ancestors faced and the one many Syrian refugees are currently facing. Are they equal in every way? No, I do not believe so. However, based on the similarities we have established, we now are faced with a choice: will we be blinded to the current situation and assume that the people fleeing are part of some elaborate plot of terror simply because of their skin colour and religion? Or will we recognize that these people are a people in need, and that perhaps if we take them into our country they will in their gratitude turn into farmers, bankers, teachers, doctors, lawyers, and maybe even politicians?

We are currently faced with a decision. It is my prayer that we will make the right one.

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"When an alien resides with you in your land, you shall not oppress the alien.The alien who resides with you shall be to you as the citizen among you; you shall love the alien as yourself, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God." (Lev 19:33-34)

“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you."(Matt 5:43-44)

The Simplicity of Being Christian

If one were to evaluate the Christian life from a purely logical standpoint, undoubtedly they would find quite a simple, three-step formula to living as a Christian in the world. It goes as follows:

1. We must always begin at what is most important. If we, as Christians, view Christ to be the most important aspect of our faith, we must therefore examine what Christ thought to be most important. Luckily for us, this does not take much digging, as he explicitly states what is the most important commandment for Christians to abide by. 

He said to him, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.” (Matt 22:37-40)

2. Now that we know the most important commandment, we must then ask ourselves what it means to show God that we do indeed love him? Do a little bit of digging, and we find this: 

“If you love me, you will keep my commandments." (John 14:15)

Well, that was surprisingly easy and conveniently straightforward.

3. Read the Gospels and discover what Jesus told us to do.

*Hint* Just because Jesus said something you don't like, doesn't mean that you can conveniently opt out of doing said thing. If you disagree, go back to point 2 and continue from there.

Remembering Shalom: A Pacifist's Struggle With Remembrance Day

I have a confession to make, and it may be a controversial one: I don't know what to do with Remembrance Day. 

Now, this may seem like an odd confession to many folks. 'Surely it is a day where we remember our soldiers', one may say. Or, for others, it is simply a day off from work and school to spend with loved ones. However, I am at the point where I simply don't think either of those answers are good enough.

At this stage in my life, I am trying to evaluate life through the different lenses in which I experience each day. I am seeking answers and pursuing truth, and for better or for worse, the subject of my recent thought is the Canadian holiday of Remembrance Day. For many, Remembrance Day will be experienced through the lens of the proud Canadian, remembering the work of soldiers, usually with emphasis on those who served in World War II (at least that has been my experience). As a Canadian, I want desperately to experience the gratitude that those Canadians feel, however there is currently a huge roadblock in my journey: I am a pacifist. 

Allow me to take some time to briefly to reveal my journey to pacifism. As a child, (for better or for worse) I was not allowed to play with guns, with the playful exception of water guns. This was--as my parents explained--because we were pacifists. We did not believe that violence was right. This ban on guns extended to violent video games, which was not a huge problem for me growing up as a result of most of my focus in my younger years being on hockey through and through. I remember a moment as an adolescent when my younger brother received as a gift a small figurine of a vigilante riding on a motorcycle wielding a gun. We were instructed to pretend that this was a water gun, not an actual gun that could shoot and kill. So, in my younger years, my coming to a pacifist was natural in the most basic sense of the word. 

In my teenage years, I "rebelled" from such teachings, wondering whether pacifism was truly a Christian way of living. I began to encounter people who I respected who had different views from me, and I took seriously their arguments necessitating violence in certain situations. I began to distance myself from the label pacifist, and even indulged in the occasional violent video game. *Gasp*!

However, despite my distancing from the label of a pacifist in my teenage years, these days I find myself coming back to embrace pacifism as the sort of lifestyle that Christians are to exude. I can credit this transition in thinking to a multiplicity of ideas, however, in an effort to remain brief, I will select two to expand upon. The first is one of these ideas is that of the imago dei, or the biblical assumption that all of humanity is created in the image of God. If I believe that each person is created in the image of God, and that image is not one that a person can lose at a point in their life, logically it presumes that if I am to kill a person I am therefore destroying the image of the one whom I worship. In the Old Testament, when Israel was instructed to purge Canaan of images of Baal and Asherah, pagan deities of the era. The purpose of this was that no man or woman would acknowledge either of these beings as a god, for Yahweh alone is God. It would follow under the same logic that ridding the world of the image of God would be an act of ridding the world of the influence of God, which I am sure that no Christian would agree with.

The second idea that brought me back to pacifism is the biblical idea of shalom. Shalom, a Hebrew word, is an idea which first appears in the Old Testament which is often translated as "peace" in our English translations. However, this is perhaps too narrow of a definition, for shalom suggests a general sense of well being for all, a near paradisical state of being. Many scholars argue that this is the call of the Old Testament--the reason in which God enters into covenant with humanity--in order that he may instill shalom for his people. In the New Testament, Jesus continually echoes this call to shalom, proclaiming that the Good News which he brings is to be communal engagement for all people. It is with these two beliefs that I, as a Christian, cannot only refuse to ever kill another human being, it means that I also cannot bring myself to rejoice when another human is killed, no matter how evil society may view that person to be. 

That bring us back to Remembrance Day. A few days ago, I posted a status on my Facebook page asking people what they thought of Remembrance Day. Is it important? Why do we remember? I was pleasantly surprised with the multiplicity of answers I received. Some were as short as to remember our soldiers and families to the simplicity of it being a statutory holiday. Others were broader, dealing with the importance of Canadians honouring those who have fought in wars for the freedom of our people. It was very enlightening to see how different people view this Canadian holiday. 

While I would love to end this posting with some sort of epiphany of how I reconciled Remembrance Day with my pacifistic beliefs, I cannot simply do not feel comfortable enough to do so. I feel as if this is something I must leave in tension, for I do not feel confident enough to give an appropriate answer to proclaim to the masses of Canada. However, I will end with some personal opinion on perhaps what would be some appropriate responses for Christians.

First, if you do not identify as Christian and do not hold pacifistic views, I do not expect you to agree with my ideas. That would be absurd of me to do so, and I can respect you in that. Please, do not refrain from engaging in conversation with me. However, I do not expect all of Canada to conform to my personal views, especially as those views often appear out of my Christian worldview (whatever that means). 

Second, as I have family and friends who serve/have served in the military, I do not want you to think that I am condemning those who engage in military action. That too would be a misunderstanding of the point I am trying to convey. However, with that being said, I think we must think carefully about the method pertaining to both how and why we remember (and even honour) those who serve/have served in the military, and perhaps begin to think for ourselves what the role of the military actually should be.

War is a terrible thing. No matter what your belief, nobody can shake the reality that the horrors of war are something that no person should have to experience. Even if one holds to a theory of Just War (because certainly nobody who declared war on a people group thought they were doing so unjustly), I have talked with soldiers who suffer from PTSD who would argue that war in and of itself is terrible. However unfortunately, I feel like we as a society have forgotten this terrible reality of war. We hear the media glorifying our military as heroes, and as a result often forget the brutal realities that all those involved (both allies and enemies) face on a daily basis.

Mennonite Central Committee, and organization whom I have the utmost respect for, has a campaign that states "To Remember is to Work for Peace." After much contemplation, I believe that it is in this fashion that I will engage in Remembrance Day this year. I will refuse to recognize acts of war as good, however, that does not mean that I cannot remember what has happened. Failing to remember the terrors of war disengages us from the original purpose of this day: that what has happened should never happen again. Is that not why we utter the phrase "Lest We Forget?"

In remembering the atrocities that have occurred in wars over the years, our longing should not be for more war. That would be an injustice to those who have died in any war over the years. Rather, our longing should be for peace, for shalom, a place where all can live in harmony and well-being. It is my desire that this year as we remember, in whatever capacity that may be, that we may work together to seek peace for all people. Not just for your family, not just for your friends, but for all the world, that together we may all live together in shalom.