The Reverends Jim MacDonald and Val Chongva held the following conversation as part of a Sunday morning service in October. We will be viewing sessions from the video Saving Jesus on Oct 19, Nov 2, Nov 16, Nov 30 and Dec 14 during our regular Sunday morning service.
Val: Good morning Jim. Have you had a good week?
Jim: Not too bad to up until now. Should I expect it to change in any way?
Val: Jim, are you implying that my presence “Changes things”…? Oh, to have such power!
Jim: Well, Val, it isn’t your presence that changes things. It’s the ideas that you dream up; it’s the educational programs which you propose for the “edification” of our community. Have you got something up your sleeve this week?
Val: I must admit, I do have a most helpful gift up my sleeve but I’m debating how best to make it available. I think I would like to offer this on a few Sunday mornings …say between 10:45 and Noon.
Jim: Hey what about the Church service? We value our church service.
Val: Well, who suggested that a Church service couldn’t include the gift of a wonderful host of great individuals – well educated people, interesting people.
Jim: So, when are you planning to offer us your Sunday morning gift?
Val: This is a gift which I would like to give prior to Christmas. I’m prepared to offer some inspiration on five Sundays between now and December the 14th. Actually I would like to make the first offering next Sunday morning.
Jim: Could you tell us a little more about your gift? Do you have a title for these offerings?
Val: I do have a title …an interesting title. It is called “Saving Jesus.”
Jim: “Saving Jesus?” Are you for real? I grew up believing that Jesus came to save me! Why would Jesus need saving? Is he in some kind of trouble?
Val: Well, he might be. Jesus might be in trouble if we soon don’t recover a sense of who he was before religion made him someone who he was NOT.
Jim: Can you tell me more?
Val: I want to start next week with a look at Jesus through the ages and how Jesus never intended to be the “saviour of the world.” In the sessions after that I want to look at who he really was and what can we know about him and how. I also want to take a good look at the world into which Jesus was born, and the events surrounding his birth. You might say it’s my “pre” Christmas gift to everyone!!!
Jim: Well you know it does sound like a gift. It also sounds like this gift might engage us in some great discussion. Listen, since you’re in the giving mood, what about that other burning question we wrestle with? …that question about who God is?? You know I get concerned when people say they don’t know what to believe anymore! I get really concerned when people suggest that “we” (I presume they mean you and I) don’t believe in God any more. They say there’s nothing to hang onto. Is there any chance that this series will provide us with something solid to hang onto?
Val: Before I answer your question, Jim, I want to hear more about your statement “that people don’t know what we believe anymore.” Can you be more specific?
Jim: Val, if people don’t know what we believe any more than we have failed in trying to help change and evolution take place. How do we get a conversation started about who God is and who God isn’t, and why we try to not use the term God as frequently as we used to. So back to my question: Will this series give us some help as we wrestle with the pluses and minuses associated with the term GOD?
Val: Well Jim I think that for people of the Christian faith tradition, talking about Jesus will go a long way toward a better understanding of what is meant by the term God. You know that I don’t believe God is an old, Caucasian male figure, with the long beard sitting up in the sky somewhere, directing traffic here below. I don’t believe God makes decisions about what will happen and what won’t happen here on earth. For example, I don’t believe that when a tornado is coming across the land, God allows it to hit this community and to miss that community. I don’t believe that God decides who is going to get sick and who isn’t, or who is going to get better and who isn’t. I can’t believe in that kind of a God.
Jim: Well, then, what do you believe about God?
Val: Jim, that is much more difficult to answer. I believe there’s a divine mystery – I believe there’s an energy flowing in and around and through all things. I’m not sure what language best explains it. I’m not sure how to try and name it. At one time I relied on wind as an image. Now, I’m not so sure that wind, as an image, still conveys a good sense of this mystery. We each experience divine mystery differently. When we try to nail it down – when we try to say that this is what God is …we run into trouble. I don’t have a precise, concise, specific definition for G-o-d. Consequently I don’t use the term very often. I find that, for me, using the term G-o-d conjures up the image of a being that is located “up there” somewhere who we ask for favors. I, and many others no longer subscribe to this kind of belief about G-o-d. So, these days I tend to use terms like ‘the divine’ or ‘mystery’, or “spirit”, or “eternal mystery”, or “spirit of life’ when endeavouring to refer to that which is not easily explainable.
Jim: But, Val, the word God is used in the bible a zillion times – both in the Old and New Testament. You can’t read the bible without encountering the word “God.” Don’t you believe in the bible?
Val: Actually, no, I don’t believe in the bible and I really hope that no one “believes in the Bible!!” – because as soon as we say that “we believe in the Bible!!”, we are immediately turning the Bible into an idol. The bible is not an idol. The Bible is a wonderful book – a wonderful ‘collection’ of books, actually. But this collection of books …written many years ago, was written by humans as a way to express their relationship with a mystery which they called God. But it isn’t the only window into mystery. Now don’t get me wrong, it is a fabulous book, and many people have spent their lives studying it, looking at the times when the Bible was written, learning the languages in which it was written – and, no, the bible was NOT written by God IN ENGLISH. The Bible was written by humans who wrote the Older Testament in Hebrew and Aramaic, the Apocrypha in Greek and Latin, and the Newer Testament in Greek. We can learn so much from those writings. But those writings are not the only writings from which we can learn.
Jim: So that’s why we say in the Bulletin that we are reading from a Broad Religious Tradition?
Val: That’s right Jim. People didn’t stop writing about their experiences of mystery 2000 years ago. People continue to write about mystery to this very day.
Jim: I have one more question for you. What has all this to do with the celebration of Thanksgiving?
Val: Jim, that is the easiest question you’ve ever asked me. Thanksgiving Day is an opportunity to take some time and think about all for which we are thankful – the people in our lives, the food we have to eat, the wonderful part of the world in which we live – the list is a long one. Given the news lately, one of the things I am really thankful for is the many freedoms we have: the freedom to be part of whichever religious group we want – or part of no religious group at all; the freedom to have different opinions and to express those views: the freedom to vote, the freedom to raise questions – all kinds of questions – questions about unhelpful environmental practices, questions about what our governments do and don’t do in response to important issues, questions about our religion. We have the freedom to do all this without having to worry about being thrown into prison, beaten, killed, beheaded. If that isn’t reason enough to be hugely thankful at this time of year and at this moment in history, I don’t know what is. May we never take these freedoms for granted.
Jim: Thank-you Val for that reminder. And thanks to everyone for being a part of this continuing learning journey. Happy Thanksgiving weekend, Val.
Val: Happy Thanksgiving weekend, Jim.