Last week I attended a conference to which pastors who were in their third part of their ministry were invited. There were about twelve of us in attendance, and we talked at length about what it means to retire and what that looks like for a pastor. One of the things that most pastors face that is different from the average retiree is the expectation that the pastor will not continue to be a member in his last church beyond retirement. Too many times, it has been discovered, the retired pastor interferes in the work of the next pastor, causing friction and discord. So, when a pastor retires, he is expected to move away from his last congregation, finding a new community or returning to an old one. Unlike pastors, most people, when they retire, continue to live in the same community after retirement, and although their lives can be drastically different, they experience a lot of continuity as well. The conference focused on those who are in the last third of their ministry, helping us understand how we can prepare for this last and often difficult transition. I found it to be helpful even though I am at least a decade from retirement (hopefully).

In the course of the conversation, it became evident that not all cultures understand the concept of retirement. One of the pastors in attendance has his roots in Colombia, and he works with Christian Reformed Latino pastors in the southern United States. Latino pastors normally don’t speak of retirement; they tend to work until they are no longer able, some dying in the pulpit, figuratively speaking. His comments led to a discussion about the arbitrariness of retirement. Most of us think of 65 as being the retirement age, although people my age won’t get their pension until 66, but the age of 65 is quite arbitrary. Another of those in attendance continues in ministry at the age of 67, and he does not foresee that he will be ending his ministry soon. Although he finds that he does not have the stamina he used to have, he still is invigorated by his work.

As the conversation progressed, the word, vocation, was thrown around. Vocation (coming from the same root at “vocal”) refers to our calling, and, according to the dictionary, is often considered to be a divine calling. In some circles, vocation is reserved for those who work in religious settings such as churches and monasteries, but Reformed people understand that everyone has a vocation, a calling from God. One’s vocation can be in agriculture or education, carpentry or nursing. God places a call on our lives, and we respond to that call by faithfully engaging in the kind of work that best enables us to fulfill that call.

A vocation is different from a job or even a career. A career is a particular way of fulfilling our vocation. For the most productive years of our lives (20-65+), we tend to respond to God’s calling by having a career. We may retire from our career, but that does not mean that our vocation ceases. The question is this: how do we continue to full our vocation (God’s calling) when we no longer have a career? This was the question that was posed to us as pastors. How do we continue to answer God’s call (our vocation) when we no longer have a church in which we pastor? For the Latino pastors, because their careers do not end, this is not a hard answer. For a variety of reasons (often financial but also very much cultural), they fulfill their vocation by continuing to do exactly what they had been doing for the rest of their lives. For a North American pastor, however, the question becomes more problematic: how do we fulfill our vocations without being called by a church? The answer is not easy to discover, and it will vary from person to person, depending on health, circumstance and opportunity.

One of the pastors who was leading the conference and who retired just a year ago, shared some helpful insights. She said that when she first retired, she took a sabbatical, pausing from serving actively to reflect on God’s blessings throughout her career. She talked of her time serving in a church and then teaching in a couple of Christian universities. She needed the time to reflect so that she could sense God’s calling as she moved forward to new opportunities. She confessed that she still was not entirely clear how she would fulfill God’s calling, but things were starting to gel a little. She suspects that in the next couple of months she will become clear about how she can fulfill God’s call on her life, and she is certain that that call will also include ample time to spend with her grandchildren.

We often focus on helping young people understand their vocation, their calling, and we also want to help them seek a career that will help them fulfill their vocation. What we do far less is to help those who are coming to the end of their careers continue to fulfill their callings. In the most extreme cases, a retiree, who can afford it, shirks any notion of vocation and spends his/her life in self-gratifying activities, playing pickleball in the morning and golfing in the afternoon. It’s rather hard to understand how such a person is answering God’s call. (Note, that someone who no longer has a career has more time to engage in these activities, and that can be a blessing. The problem occurs when that is all that they are doing.) God’s call, our vocation, remains intact even when we do not need to earn money by engaging in a career, and we should not neglect that calling. Perhaps it is as great (or greater) a challenge to discover how someone who no longer works in a career can discover how to answer God’s call in other ways as it is to determine what vocation God may have for us when we are young. To discover that might take a great deal of creative thinking.

What did I gain from the conference? I learned that I need to seek God’s leading so that as I work through the last third (probably last quarter) I can continue in my vocation beyond my retirement date. As God’s call remains, I trust that I will find a way to answer that call, trusting that whatever it looks like, God will use me for his kingdom and his glory. At every age of life it is good to consider what our vocation is, but especially in times of transition the question becomes more pertinent. May we all know God’s call on our lives and seek to answer that call no matter what age we may be.

I was pastoring in a small village, and a new pastor arrived in town. He opened up a church building that had been sitting empty for some time, hoping to plant a new church. To engender some interest, he decided to have a revival meeting, so he obtained permission to use a vacant lot on the main street and began setting up a stage and chairs. The lot was fairly large, and he was able to arrange seating for about 300 people. He had large speakers, a great sound system, and several mics. He began his revival on a Saturday morning at about 9:00. I lived a few blocks away, and I heard what sounded to be a large crowd gathering in that vacant lot, and I hurried over to see what was going on. There was nobody there except for the young pastor and one or two others. The music, the clapping, and all the rest was just a recording of another revival. From time to time the pastor would stand up to speak, but I didn’t stay long enough to hear what he had to say. The revival lasted all day, for I could hear the noise until early evening. I am quite sure that the neighbours across the street were not impressed. I was a few blocks away, and the noise was loud enough to be disturbing to me. A few days later I happened to meet a colleague of his, someone from the same denomination, and I commented on what had happened. His colleague said to me, “He has a lot of enthusiasm.” I don’t think he meant it in a positive sense.

Normally, enthusiasm is a positive trait for a person, but that has not always been so. In the 1650s to say that someone was enthusiastic was considered to be a criticism. An enthusiastic person was one who showed “excessive religious emotion,” to the point that they were irritating. The pejorative sense of the word has almost entirely disappeared, although I think the colleague of the “enthusiastic” pastor had got it right. The young pastor had gone a bit too far, and, sadly, his efforts at planting a church failed shortly afterward.

The word, “enthusiasm,” has its origins in the Greek language, and the Greek root from which we get our word means “to be inspired or possessed by a god, and, thus, to experience ecstasy.” In the 1650s, when the word was used pejoratively, the Puritans, who were a rather reserved group, were suspicious of anyone who expressed too much religious emotion, for they thought that such people had become conceited as they claimed special revelation from God. Too much enthusiasm was thought to be a dangerous thing.

And yet, no enthusiasm at all should be a warning sign to us that perhaps we are not moved by the things of God. If we never have any emotion at all when it comes to God and his work in this world, our faith might be growing cold. If we never feel inspired by God to participate in his work, perhaps it is because we are ignoring his presence in our lives.

I don’t think we need to set up 300 chairs in a vacant lot and hold a revival which lasts all day Saturday. Still, I do admire this enthusiastic young pastor because he was willing to put himself out there and even be criticized and mocked because he felt so strongly that people know the message of salvation and come to a saving faith in Jesus Christ. He may have been a little misguided when it came to putting his enthusiasm into practice, but his heart was in the right place.

This young pastor was part of the Pentecostal movement, and Pentecostals tend to be a little more aware of the moving of the Holy Spirit than the average Christian. Part of their culture is to be conscious of how the Holy Spirit might be working around them. Maybe that can make them overly enthusiastic (at least from the perspective of a staid, northern European, Reformed person), but, at the same time, it may well be that they sense that the Holy Spirit is moving, and they want to be part of that movement.

It doesn’t seem improbable that we can get so caught up in being “rational” about our faith that we miss opportunities to join in the Spirit’s work. We do have a tendency to reason and plan before we act, and if we do not see the way clear and if we cannot remove all obstacles, our tendency is to do nothing. But let’s not forget that what we may perceive as giant rocks in the roadway are nothing more than little pebbles to the Holy Spirit. There is no such thing as an obstacle to the Spirit, and when he begins to move, wonderful things can happen.

Are we enthusiastic enough? If to be enthusiastic is to be possessed by God, then, according to Scripture, we are all enthusiastic because the Holy Spirit dwells in all who believe in Jesus Christ. But the Spirit does not force us to act; rather he moves us, and, it seems, we do have the power to grieve the Holy Spirit when we do not follow his urging (Ephesians 4:30. Paul says this in the context of our sinning, but we can extrapolate this to following his lead as well.) When we keep in step with the Spirit, however, we are hearing his calling and urging, and we are responding by showing our enthusiasm.

As I reflect on the attempts of the enthusiastic pastor, I believe that he was following the Spirit’s leading. What he chose to do might have been somewhat unhelpful, but he sensed the Spirit calling him to bring the gospel to that village. He would have been well served to have had a conversation with some of his colleagues and trusted friends before he set up 300 chairs, for they may have guided him in a bit different direction. But he was enthusiastic, and that is not a bad thing.

Jerusalem is separated from Jericho by a little less than 30 km, but the altitude difference between those two cities is a little more than one kilometre. Jerusalem is 800 metres (2600 feet) above sea level and Jericho is 250 metres (800) feet below sea level. Walking the ancient road between the two cities means that if you are travelling to Jerusalem you are walking almost entirely uphill while the trip to Jericho is almost entirely downhill. If someone is travelling down the road between Jerusalem and Jericho, we know that he is travelling to Jericho from Jerusalem.

In the parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37) we read that there was a man travelling down the road when he was attacked by bandits, beaten, and left for dead. Shortly afterward, a priest happened to be travelling on the same road, and, as he tells the parable, Jesus says that he was also travelling down the road. A Levite follows, and Luke uses the word, “likewise,” indicating that he was probably travelling in the same direction. Finally, we are told that a Samaritan is travelling along the same road, although there is no indication of his direction of travel.

While it may not seem significant, the direction of the travel of the priest and Levite tells us a lot about what they have been doing. Priests and Levites were designated by God to serve him in the temple. To do this, they had to be clean, free from contamination because of contact with a dead body, for example. If the priest and Levite were going to Jerusalem, we might well believe that they wanted to keep themselves from being tainted by the blood of the man who had been beaten and might well die in their arms. We might assume that they had weighed the alternatives, and had decided that it was better to avoid contact with the beaten man and so be able to serve in the temple as God required. They might have been able to argue that leading the people to worship God took precedence over helping an injured man. They might have been able to argue that, but, of course, they were not travelling to Jerusalem but away from the city. They had fulfilled their religious duties, and they were not obligated to keep themselves clean.

It is also helpful to know that around the temple were a number of beggars, people who had disabilities and who could not earn a living for themselves. These beggars were welcomed by those who visited the temple, for after visiting the temple and worshipping God, the worshippers could express their gratitude to God by helping out those poor disabled folk. It would have been natural, therefore, for both the priest and the Levite to help out the poor man who had been beaten to within an inch of his life, but they do not, choosing, instead, to ignore his plight.

It is the Samaritan who not only stops to help the man but provides financial arrangements so that the man could be helped as he (the Samaritan) continues on his way to conduct his business, whatever that may be. Although we cannot know for certain, it is likely that he is travelling up the road toward Jerusalem, because he indicates that he will be passing by a few days later. It is highly unlikely that he lived in Jerusalem because of his ethnicity, and we can surmise that he was only attending to business in that city. What we do know is that whenever he was in Jerusalem, he would not have been welcomed in the temple. Although Samaritans believed in the same God as the Jews, the Jews did not welcome the Samaritans into their fellowship. The good Samaritan would not have been invited to worship at the temple.

Let’s be clear about one other point: while the Jews did not like the Samaritans, the Samaritans also had every reason to hate the Jews. Because they were not welcome to worship God in the temple in Jerusalem, they had constructed their own temple on Mount Gerizim, a mountain in the region of Samaria. For a time they worshipped the Lord there, but the Jews, in a moment of intense religious zealotry, destroyed that temple in 112 BC, completely cutting off the ability of the Samaritans to worship God. The destruction of the Gerizim temple led to a lasting rift between the two people groups.

And, yet, as he travelled along the road between Jerusalem and Jericho, when he saw the injured man, he stopped to help. We can be most certain that this man was a Jew, for he had been in Jerusalem, perhaps to worship there, and he was travelling down to Jericho. The Samaritan would have assumed that the man was a Jew, but he stopped to help anyway, giving a substantial portion of his time and money to assist a man who was considered to be his enemy.

He was a neighbour to the man who had fallen prey to the robbers. He loved his neighbour as himself, providing for this unfortunate soul what he would have wanted for himself although, to be certain, he would not have received it had he been the one who had been attacked.

Jesus uses this parable to challenge our understanding of how we treat our neighbours. Notice that there is no question as to what he means when we are to love others as we love ourselves. It is obvious enough to all that if we take Jesus’ words seriously, we are to provide for our neighbours all the good things that we provide for ourselves. What we want is for our neighbours to have what we have to the same degree that we have it. There can be no doubt that the expert in the law understood that this is exactly what the commandment to love our neighbours meant.

He tried to skirt this demand on his life, however, not by challenging what it means to love someone but to question what kind of people are in the group that we should love. If our neighbours are those who love us and want the best for us, then it is easy enough to love them as we love ourselves. However, if our neighbours include those who have every reason to hate us, and we have every reason to hate them, then Jesus’ command takes on a whole new depth of meaning. The parable of the good Samaritan clarifies for us that our neighbours might include those who love us, but our neighbours are also those who have no use for us. And that makes this commandment a lot more difficult to follow.

There is no really good reason for us to not take care of our neighbour. The priest and Levite, having spent time with God and having come to know again his providential care, were invited to give alms to the poor on their way out of the temple. It was understood that God’s covenantal love for them and his acceptance of them as his children should result in us loving others. But they didn’t. And they were without excuse.

All of this can be considered on a personal level, but we are invited to ask the question: does Jesus’ parable also have something to say about the way nations treat each other? Who is our neighbour? And how do we treat them?

Most of us are familiar with the Evangelical Free Church in Lethbridge Perhaps we might be less familiar with the history that gave rise to the word, “free,” in the name of that denomination. We should ask, “free from what?”

To fully understand the history of the name, we must go back to the year 380AD. As we are aware, Christians in the early centuries of Christianity were sometimes severely persecuted. Christianity did not have the official sanction of the Roman Empire, and that left Christians vulnerable to attack. Things changed significantly in 312AD when Emperor Constantine issued the Edict of Milan which recognized Christianity as being a valid religion and moved it to become the preferred religion of the Roman Empire. Another huge change in policy took place in 380AD when Emperor Theodosius, in the Edict of Thessalonica, declared that Christianity was the official religion of the Roman Empire. This was quickly adopted across the empire and remained true even after the Empire came to an end in 476AD and was divided into several smaller kingdoms. The Edict of Thessalonica gave Christians and Christianity dominance in the Mideast, in northern Africa and in much of Europe.

While this was a blessing, there were some significant drawbacks. The ruling civil authorities (kings and nobility) saw themselves as being called by God to be defenders of the Christian faith, and they took an active role in leading the church. Gradually they took upon themselves the duty of appointing church leaders to the positions of pastors and bishops, even appointing the Bishop of Rome, the pope, to his position. While it could be argued that many of the appointments by the kings and nobility were proper and good and those appointed to their positions served the Lord faithfully, it is also true that those appointed were expected to be supportive of the civil government. In other words, the civil authorities were more likely to appoint people who would show their appreciation for their appointment by being patrons of the civil leaders.

This all came to a head in the 11th and 12th centuries when the right of the nobility to appoint church leaders was challenged. For almost a century, the church struggled to gain the right to appoint its own leaders, independent of the kings and nobles. Eventually the church won out, and even the most powerful kings and civil leaders had to receive the blessing of the church leadership before they could be considered legitimate. Even today, in some countries the monarch is crowned by the highest religious leader, as is illustrated by the fact that King Charles was crowned by the Archbishop of Canterbury, the leader of the Church of England. (It should be noted that the achievements of the church in those centuries did not last as is seen from the fact that the king of England, while being crowned by the Archbishop, also appoints the Archbishop, a kind of compromise to what had been before the reforms of the 11th and 12th centuries.)

While the church won its independence from the government, the government continued to have great influence in the church. In many northern European countries, there was only one recognized church, and it was supported by the government. In Scandinavian countries such as Denmark, Sweden and Norway, the state church has its roots in Lutheranism. They do not name their churches “Lutheran Churches,” but, rather, “Evangelical Churches,” which can be a little confusing because “evangelical” means something a little different in North America. In countries like the Netherlands, the Calvinistic teachings dominated, and these churches were called “Reformed Churches.” These official churches were considered national churches meaning that they were supported by tax dollars in addition to donations from the people. (This remains true in some places in Europe where the national church continues to receive tax dollars from the government.) Because of this financial support, it was often the case that the churches were not entirely free from governmental influence. And, from time to time, this caused concern among those who sought to follow the teachings of Scripture rather than be influenced by the civil authorities.

Thus, in Norway for example, a number of Christians left the state church (the Evangelical Church) and formed their own denomination calling it the “Free Church,” or, as we have it here, the Evangelical Free Church. The word, “free,” indicates that the church considered itself free from government influence. It also meant that it would not receive financial support from tax dollars.

In the Netherlands, at about the same time, it was felt strongly that the state church was too influential in appointing leaders and determining doctrine and in the early 1830s a movement began which led to a secession of a number of churches from the state church to form a new denomination with the result that the Christian Reformed Church was born. While this new denomination did not take the name “free,” it was understood that it was free from government influence, for it had seceded from the national church. (Note that the “free” in the Free Reformed Church does not have the same historical roots as the “free” in the Evangelical Free Church, although the sentiment is there.) It is important to realize that the early years of the CRC in the Netherlands were difficult, for the new congregations were forbidden from meeting together, and some of their pastors were jailed for violating old laws which had been long forgotten but were remembered so that there would be reason to level criminal charges against them. This persecution ended rather quickly and less than 70 years later, Abraham Kuyper, a member of what is now the CRC, became the Prime Minister of the Netherlands.

This history serves, in part, to illustrate what the phrase “separation of church and state means.” Some believe that the phrase is found in the American constitution, but it is not. Rather, the First Amendment of the US Constitution states that “congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion.” In other words, separation of church and state prevents the government imposing a particular religion on the people or forcing them to worship or believe in a particular way. Further, the government has no right to appoint the spiritual and religious leaders of any denomination.

But the restrictions are meant to go only in one direction. If there is a separation of church and state, meaning that the government cannot influence an individual’s religion, it also means that if a person believes that their religion should shape their political and social views of the country, that must be permitted. After all, if the government may not influence one’s religion, they cannot say that one’s religion is not permitted to influence any non-religious polity. Let’s be thankful for those who went before us and who fought hard to give us the right to believe and worship as we desire but let’s not forget that we still have the right to seek to influence those who hold power, for our faith requires that we do.

When I was a kid, my brothers and I would sometimes have arguments that involved the escalation of physical violence. If I hit my brother, he would hit me back, not once but twice. While hitting me, he would say, “Once for doing it, and once to get you back.” If I did the same to him using the same reasoning, I could hit him four times. He could then retaliate by hitting me eight times. We never made it that far, but after thirty rounds, if we persisted, we would be hitting each other more than a million times.

The act of retaliation is rarely equivalent to the act that provoked it. If soldiers from one country kill 25 civilians in another country, the second country might retaliate by killing 28 civilians in the first country. That escalation of retaliation is a lot slower than what my brothers and I practiced, but there is still escalation. Eventually both sides will end up annihilating each other, if retaliation is allowed to continue.

In the Old Testament, we see laws that follow the rule, “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.” From our perspective, we might find these laws rather harsh, but historians tell us that these laws were remarkably more just and fair than most of the law codes of that era. For example, in many legal systems, a rich person, if he received a minor cut on his leg at the hands of a poor person, could retaliate by stabbing the poor person in the belly. And, if a poor person lost his hand because a rich person cut it off, that poor person could do nothing. The legal code of the Bible said that regardless of status, someone who received a minor cut from another could go not escalate the injury, on the one hand, and on the other hand, no one was except from retribution. We would say that this kind of law is just and fair. Jesus took this law a little further and said that if someone should happen to slap us in the face, we should turn the other cheek so that they can slap us again. (Matthew 5:38ff). What Jesus is suggesting is not completely fair, but in a completely opposite way of what is normally practiced when there is elevated retaliation. Jesus himself practiced this when he was arrested and crucified. He could have retaliated, but he allowed his oppressors to take his dignity, his possessions, and his life. He turned the other cheek, although he was fully able to annihilate those who took his life, and he could have done so with a snap of his fingers.

As our culture moves rapidly away from its Judeo-Christians roots, we see it returning to the pre-Old Testament situation. In some reading I have been doing about the “wokeism” I have discovered that escalating retaliation is become an acceptable way of dealing with problems. Wokeism has been around for more than half a century, but its manifestation has changed rapidly over the last decade or so. When wokeism (probably not identified by that name at that time) first came on the scene, it was a movement in which those who had fewer opportunities because of their skin colour, gender, or ethnicity asked that these inequalities be removed. Affirmative action resulted in laws which were meant to limit or possibly eliminate discrimination. As Christians we must affirm the early efforts of those who identified themselves as “woke,” because we recognize that all people bear the image of God and all people must be treated fairly.

Wokeism continued to develop, and instead of simply raising awareness and calling for change in laws and attitude, became much more militant. Wokeism today encourages people to identify as being oppressed (and there seems to be a race to become the most oppressed) and then encourages people to fight against their perceived oppressors by fighting back. In order to achieve equity, however, one must do more than just fight to become equal; one must fight to conquer and overcome and overpower. Thus, it became the practice in some institutions to give priority in hiring practices to those who are identified as “oppressed,” while ignoring someone who might be equally or better qualified. On a more militant level, it is common practice to identify certain segments of the population as “oppressors” simply because of their skin colour or gender. Even saying something negative about those who identify as “oppressed” earns one the label of “bigot.” Hate language laws tend to side with those who identify as “oppressed,” and if the same language is used against someone who is perceived as an “oppressor” nothing is said. What has happened is that the very values identified as being problematic by wokeism have become the tools used by wokeism today. What has changed is not the culture but the ones who are the oppressors and the oppressed.

By moving away from Judeo-Christian values, retaliation becomes an acceptable way to respond to oppressors.

Now, before we all start pointing the fingers at others, we also might pause and think about what is happening in the United States. President Trump signed a number of executive orders in which he hopes will change the direction of the United States. Many Christians, along with large segments of the population, hail his signatures as being a big step in the right direction. But is what he is doing too big of a step? To put it another way, is his reaction (fueled by the desires of many Americans) a “once for doing it, once to get you back” approach? Is his response an escalation of retaliation? I don’t know enough of the facts to pass judgement, but from the rhetoric I hear, there is a strong sense that the right needs to take back what it perceives it has lost, and it is willing to go to great extremes to do so. If someone is acting in this way, is this not also playing by the same rules as radical wokeism?

We must carefully consider the teachings of Scripture. The Old Testament says that we may take an eye for an eye and a tooth for tooth, but we may go no further. We might call this fair retaliation (not escalated retaliation). Jesus won’t allow for even that as he calls us to turn the other cheek, allowing ourselves to be oppressed and even abused as a witness to God’s grace. It seems that it might be a good time for those who name themselves as followers of Jesus Christ to take a hard look at Matthew 5:38ff and ask ourselves how we can best respond to the situation we find ourselves in today.

Some are saying (or at least hoping) that the pendulum has started swinging the other way, and they are happy to give it a little push to get it swinging faster. But so doing, it could well swing far too far the other way, creating a whole new set of problems. The pendulum, we might say, is what is happening in this world. But citizens of the Kingdom of God have been called out of this world, and we are called to a new way. The act of turning the other cheek stops the pendulum from swinging altogether. It puts a damper on escalating retaliation and stops it in its tracks.

As the values of Judeo-Christianity rapidly disappear from the western value system, as followers of Jesus Christ, we have a duty to maintain the values of Jesus and not participate in the ways of the world. I don’t know what that looks like, exactly, but to me it does not take the form of retaliation. If I read my Bible correctly, the Christian response ought to be one of humility and sacrifice, and I hope to learn what that looks like for us in our current situation. Perhaps we can think about this together.

On Monday, I had a flat tire on each of my vehicles. My wife couldn’t go to work until her car was fixed, and I borrowed a friend’s car for a few hours until I could get my tire repaired. Thankfully we have repair shops in town, and everything worked out well.

A few hours later, I was checking my emails, and I noticed that one of the emails was an advertisement for an air compressor specifically designed to inflate tires. How did they know that I had a flat tire? I don’t know how technology works, but I did use my phone, and I mentioned that I had a flat tire to someone else. I’m guessing that somehow that somewhere along the line, the words, “flat tire,” were heard by a computer which fed the information to into the “system,” and the company that sells air compressors somehow had access to my email and sent me the advertisement. Either that or the advertisement for an air compressor was completely random, and the company happened to send me the advertisement just when I needed it. It may have been random, but I suspect that it was not. I suspect that there are computers listening to our conversations and picking up key words and phrases which are then sent on to businesses who see an opportunity to make a sale.

We have a lot of discussions about privacy and the like, and for many the idea that someone (or most probably, something) is listening to us can be a little frightening. After all, we don’t want everyone knowing our business. Personally, however, I am not particularly disturbed by the whole thing because I am one of more than 8 billion people who inhabit this planet, and I am a fairly insignificant person, in fact, and I don’t feel targeted. True, nefarious people, governments or companies could use information they collect to harm me, but I don’t think I am worth anyone’s while to specifically single me out. Still, the fact that a company was trying to sell me an air compressor just when I might have needed it was a little unnerving.

But at least someone was listening. Someone was concerned about my plight. Two flat tires in one morning (one of the coldest mornings of the winter, thus far) isn’t pleasant, and someone wanted to help. (Again, they wanted to help for their own profit, but at least they were listening.) Someone heard about my need, and they wanted to do something about it. Someone was listening.

Listening is important. Until about 25 years ago, cargo ships had radio officers. The radio officer was responsible for all communication to and from the ship, and before modern technology was made available, his job required significant training. With the advent of satellite phones and the like the radio officer is no longer required, and the position has been eliminated from most cargo ships. But when they were still required, the radio officer had his own room, the radio room, and in the radio room there was a clock, and that clock had four shaded areas, each 3 minutes apiece. Beginning at each quarter hour, for three minutes the radio officer was required to maintain radio silence and tune their own radio to a set frequency. During those three minutes, he was to listen so that if there was a ship in peril, he would hear distress calls. If the radio officer heard a distress call, he could inform the captain who would then set out to rescue the crew. When a ship was in distress, the crew could be comforted with the fact that someone was listening to their call for help.

It is good to know when someone is listening. This past Sunday, after the service (I was preaching in another church) a local chaplain spoke about her work as she visited several nursing homes. She said that a big part of her job was listening. One of the biggest challenges for elderly people, she said, was that they were lonely, and they felt that no one was interested in engaging them in real conversation. Most of the conversations an elderly person may have make them feel like they are talked at rather than talked with, and they felt that no one was listening. This chaplain explained how she had to learn how to listen, and listening sometimes takes a great deal of effort. Truly listening, hearing what someone else has to say did not come easily for her. It doesn’t come easily for a lot of people.

But it is good feeling when someone truly listens to us. When someone listens, we feel as if we belong, as if we have significance, as if we matter. Most of us probably need to learn to listen more and listen better.

But we have a God who does listen. God doesn’t snatch random parts of a conversation and offer us a quick fix. (I didn’t need an air compressor; I needed a better pair of gloves as I took the tire off the vehicle.) God doesn’t just listen for three minutes every quarter hour. God doesn’t even have to work at listening as most of us do. God simply listens, and he knows what is going on in our lives, and he also knows what we need. God is always listening, and we can be sure that he actually hears us not only when we pray but always.

We don’t have the right to privacy when it comes to God. God hears everything, not only the things we say, but also the things we think. God is listening to us, and he responds to us and provides us with what we need. And he knows what it is that we truly need, and he will provide for us because he has committed himself to doing so.

God is listening, and that is a good thing. He listens because he loves us, even when we aren’t speaking to him. He listens to our lives, and he responds in a way that is right and good. At least someone is listening.

A number of years ago I had the privilege of attending a pastors’ coffee group that met every Wednesday from 9:00 to 10:00. We never gathered early, and we never stayed beyond 10:00 out of respect for the commitments others may have made. When I first joined that group, we would often have an assigned reading upon which we would reflect for the hour, but gradually that fell by the wayside, and we gathered just to talk. We were all pastors in the Christian Reformed Church (with one exception, a pastor from the Reformed Church of America). Some of us were serving in churches while others served in chaplaincy, and a number of our group were retired. We represented a variety of different perspectives, and our churches were quite different from each other with respect to style of worship and demographics.

But, I discovered quite quickly, there was a mutual respect among the pastors of that group, and we also committed ourselves to keeping confidential anything that was said in confidence. Thus, we could feel free to speak our minds and trust that what we said would not go beyond the room, and we could also trust that when others responded, it was always done from a position of respect and caring.

Of all opportunities for growth and learning, this pastors’ group was the one that influenced me the most, and I grew more from attending that gathering almost consistently for about seven years that I did from all my years of formal education. (I also recognize that I needed the formal education in order to be able to participate in the conversations.) I did not always agree with the other pastors gathered around that table, nor did they agree with me, but we learned together, and we grew together.

Often times we hear people say that they feel most comfortable in places where they are not judged. I understand the sentiment, but I do not think that we should always seek those situations. Certainly this pastors’ gathering was not a place where there was no judgement. In fact, we felt quite comfortable disagreeing with each other and openly challenging each other. Some might have even perceived that we were judging each other, and it might not have felt like a safe place to some. Yet, I and perhaps all of the others in attendance did not feel unsafe or vilified. True, our perspectives and even our values came under the scrutiny of others, and that was not always comfortable, but it was always safe.

It was safe because of the parameters of the group. As I mentioned earlier, we kept confidentiality when necessary and we respected each other. We were able to share what was on hearts, knowing that others would evaluate us, challenge us, and even call for change. In a sense, we were judged, but we were judged by people who cared.

My wife and I had a similar experience with an older couple who became our friends and mentors. The woman was the kind of person who spoke her mind, and she did so very clearly. She was not always diplomatic, and she had strong opinions that she voiced without hesitation. She had some clear opinions about our lives, and sometimes she made us uncomfortable. Nevertheless, we visited often, and we listened to her, sometimes disagreeing with her, but we always appreciated her input. Why? Because we knew that she had our best interests in mind. We appreciated her judgement about how we were living our lives.

It does seem that for many today, not being judged is the highest ideal. They won’t associate with anyone who might dare say something about their lives or beliefs. As soon as their perspective or lifestyle is challenged, they withdraw, sometimes openly condemning the one who challenged them. The highest value placed on us today is to be free from the judgement of others.

Sadly, when we avoid situations where others might say something about us, we are also missing out on the opportunity to grow. Yes, we do want to avoid situations where others want to condemn us instead of wanting us to grow, for their intentions are evil. However, if we never want anyone to comment on our lives or our values or our beliefs, we will be giving up significant opportunities to become better people. To not be open to the judgment of others is to shortchange ourselves.

I must confess that I miss those gatherings every Wednesday morning. I miss the camaraderie, and I miss the conversations. But most of all, I miss being able to talk together about important things, perhaps laying our souls bare in an environment where I knew that I might receive negative feedback but also in an environment where I knew that those who gave it cared enough to want me to become a better person. I would rather be among those who judge me with the intent of helping me than be among those who affirm me because they don’t want to offend me. The former is helpful even though it may be difficult while the latter is comfortable but not very beneficial.

I grew up about 3 kilometers from Highway 23, just to the east of a small village. For those who live in the Nobleford area, you might wonder how that could be. I grew up in Ontario, and there is a Highway 23 there as well, and it is about as busy as our Highway 23.

When I say “Highway 23” that means something completely different to people from Nobleford than it does to people from Atwood, the small village I named as home. While they have the same name, they are different roads, and to think that they are the same would be to make a big mistake. You cannot get to Atwood from the Alberta Highway 23.

Some years ago, I took a course on Islam, and one of the questions that was asked was this: is Allah the same God as the Lord, the Christian God. People have made the claim that Jews, Muslims, and Christians all worship the same God, although we understand him differently. After all, both Christianity and Islam have their roots in Judaism. Islam, further, recognizes that Jesus lived on this earth, and they claim that he was a great religious leader. Muslims respect Jesus, although they believe that he was not God’s final revelation, but they believe that Mohammed had the final and greatest revelation from God and that all what he says supersedes everything that came before. Because these three religions have the same roots, many have claimed that these three religions speak of the same God.

But there is a problem. When I say that I grew up near Highway 23, I mean a very different thing than what you might hear me saying. To say that the highways are the same would be misleading. While there are many similarities, to say that they are the same thing would lead to all sorts of problems. Atwood, which is located about 40 km from the north end of Highway 23 is not where we would expect it to be should we travel south and east of High River. And we would not be able to find Vulcan on the Ontario Highway 23. While we might use the same name for different roads, that does not make them the same road. Similarly, even while Allah and the Lord are both referred to as God, they are not the same God.

We might find a parallel between Mormons, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and Christians. All three religions speak about Jesus, and if you would listen to a Mormon speak about Jesus, for example, it might sound like he is referring to the same person. When you dig a little deeper, however, it will become evident that in neither Mormonism nor in the Watchtower Society (Jehovah’s Witnesses) is Jesus considered to be God. They do not believe in the Trinity while Christians do. Further, probing a little deeper, we discover that in neither Mormonism nor the Watchtower Society is Jesus the Saviour, at least not in the way we understand him to be our Saviour. They have defined Jesus to be someone different from the Jesus we know.

The conclusion, then, must be this: while different religions may use the same terminology, they are not referring to the same thing. To believe in the Jesus as defined by the Watchtower Society will not result in salvation. In contrast, to believe in Jesus as defined by Christianity, which uses the Bible as its only source of inspiration, will result in salvation, both now and for eternity. In fact, salvation is fully dependent on our understanding of who Jesus is. To understand him differently is to put our salvation in jeopardy.

The Athanasian Creed (one of the three creeds of our church, in addition to the Apostles’ Creed and the Nicene Creed) is also one of the least read and studied of the three creeds. It’s the longest, and it tends to feel somewhat repetitive when you read it. It’s an old creed (probably not written by Athanasius although attributed to him), and its content comes to us from a lengthy discussion held by the church in its early years. The Christian church wanted to have a clear statement regarding both the Trinity in general and specifically Jesus Christ who is God incarnate (God made flesh). Responding to some rather troublesome statements about Jesus, the early church studied Scripture deeply and came up with the statements that we find in the Athanasian Creed, statements which Jews, Muslims, Mormons, and Jehovah’s witnesses do not believe. As the creed concludes, it says that “one cannot be saved without believing it (the creed) firmly and faithfully.” There was good reason, then, that the church spent so much time arriving at a careful definition of who God is: salvation was at stake. If we make Jesus into someone he is not, we cannot be saved, implies the Creed, and that is a horrible thought.

Today people tend to avoid thinking too deeply about the definitions that were once so all-important. We tend to avoid theology and rather want to think more about behaviour. In many Christian traditions, there is almost no mention of theology and much talk about living rightly. It’s not that living rightly should not be a major topic of discussion for Christians, but living a proper lifestyle does not save us. Only Jesus saves, and we need to know who Jesus is in order to believe in him. If we misunderstand who Jesus is, we will be believing in someone other than Jesus (even if he has the same name), and we cannot be saved.

Thankfully, we do not need to know all the finest details of who Jesus is to be saved. We don’t need a doctorate in theology to ensure that we have all the right information. We can put our faith in Jesus without knowing everything about him. Still, we should be sure that what we think we know is true. And, again, thankfully, we can know what is true because we have our Triune God’s revelation of himself, a revelation that is found in Scripture.

We also have the advantage of being able to draw upon the hard work of others. Creeds like the Athanasian Creed are helpful for us in understanding who our Triune God is, and we would do well to review that creed from time to time. After all, if we do not believe in the God of Scripture (on which the Athanasian Creed is based), we are in danger of not being saved. You can’t get to Atwood on the Alberta Highway 23, and you shouldn’t expect to be able to do so. But you can get to Vulcan or Nobleford or Monarch. And if that is where you want to go, then you had better be on the right highway.