{"id":1137,"date":"2009-11-01T12:43:44","date_gmt":"2009-11-01T12:43:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=555"},"modified":"2009-11-01T12:43:44","modified_gmt":"2009-11-01T12:43:44","slug":"repenting-in-the-wilderness-jeremy-bergen-dec-907","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tumc.ca\/?p=1137","title":{"rendered":"Repenting in the Wilderness – Jeremy Bergen – Dec. 9\/07"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

Repenting in the Wilderness<\/h3>\n

December 9, 2007<\/strong><\/p>\n

Jeremy Bergen<\/strong><\/p>\n

Text:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Isaiah 11:1-10<\/strong><\/p>\n

Matthew 3:1-12<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 John Chivington grew up on an Ohio farm in the early 19th<\/span> century, and in his 20s heard a call to become a minister.\u00a0 He was ordained by the Methodist church, and sent west, to serve in the frontier towns of Missouri.\u00a0 This was prior to the American Civil War, and slavery was still a reality in many states.\u00a0 Chivington was opposed to slavery, and used his pulpit to say so.\u00a0 This earned him some enemies, and one Sunday a group of men planned to drag him from the pulpit and tar and feather him.\u00a0 Chivington mounted the pulpit with a Bible and two guns, and said \u201cBy the grace of God and these two revolvers, I am going to preach here today.\u201d\u00a0 Soon after, he was sent further west, to minister in Nebraska and Colorado.\u00a0 Perhaps because of his inclination to fight, when the Civil War broke out, Chivington was commissioned as a colonial and led the Union army to a famous victory in New Mexico.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 After the war, he became involved in Colorado\u2019s bid to become a state; but there was a problem: ongoing tensions between the white population, and the Aboriginal communities, especially the Cheyenne.\u00a0 His combative nature took on a new tone.\u00a0 He said: \u201cIt simply is not possible for Indians to obey or even understand any treaty. I am fully satisfied, gentlemen, that to kill them is the only way we will ever have peace and quiet in Colorado.\u201d\u00a0 Shortly after this, Chivington led a militia who attacked the Cheyenne’s Sand Creek reservation.\u00a0 The Federal army had promised not to attack this reservation, which was giving shelter to an important Cheyenne leader negotiating with the government.\u00a0 Sand Creek reservation was flying the American flag and a white flag of truce.\u00a0 Nevertheless, the Methodist minister John Chivington and his men attacked and massacred the village, killing over 200 men, women and children.\u00a0 Though the massacre was denounced by the army, Chivington did not face any disciplinary action or charges.\u00a0 He remained a Methodist minister.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 132 years later, in 1996, the United Methodist church held its large convention in Colorado, and used that occasion to consider how to respond to the legacy of the Sand Creek Massacre.\u00a0 They adopted a resolution of apology that outlined a short version of the story I have just told to you.\u00a0 It acknowledged the horror and injustice of Chivington\u2019s action, compounded by the fact that he was a prominent Methodist leader.\u00a0 The Conference officially extended a hand of reconciliation to the Cheyenne, acknowledged racism as a sin, asked forgiveness for the death of over 200 persons, and promised to hold a healing service of reconciliation.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 In the past 50 years or so, churches both Protestant and Catholic, have begun to engage in a particular kind of reflection on their own past.\u00a0 They have asked themselves how their own actions have been contrary to the gospel.\u00a0 In the case of John Chivington, it might seem that he was a single bad apple, and furthermore did not represent or act on behalf of the Methodist church.\u00a0 But the Methodist church acknowledged that the sin of racism is one that infected the whole church, and continues to infect it.\u00a0 It acknowledged that, like it or not, Chivington\u2019s action compromised the witness of church\u2014by linking the church with the genocidal policy toward the First Nations as white settlers moved west.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 However, we are now 10 years after that apology, and the promised service of repentance and reconciliation has not yet happened. There is a disagreement between Native American Methodist leaders and the main church office about who should plan the service, and what is should consist of. \u00a0The Native leaders say that it is not their job to lead the rest of the church in repentance.\u00a0 As far as I can tell, there are hard feelings about this process, and the way forward isn\u2019t entirely clear.\u00a0 This is to say: repentance is not a process that can be under our control nor can the outcome be predicted.\u00a0 It is a beginning, not an end.\u00a0 And yet, to me there is something profoundly right about a church recognizing that it too lives by God\u2019s grace and forgiveness; a forgiveness which is needed because the church often fails to point to Jesus Christ in its words and actions.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 John the Baptist\u2019s dramatic call for repentance was much more striking and unusual than we may realize.\u00a0 Of course, the image of John that we have in our minds attracts our attention: the wild-eyed prophet in the desert, a tunic made of camel\u2019s hair, a diet of locusts and honey.\u00a0 But even more unusual than that, John preached a baptism<\/em> for repentance<\/em>.\u00a0 At that time, water baptism appears to be have part of the ritual for converts to the faith of Israel.\u00a0 It was a ritual reenactment of the Exodus from Egypt through the Red See, and thereby included those who had not been born Jews into the story of God\u2019s covenant with the Jews.\u00a0 But John\u2019s preaching is directed to the people of Israel, the insiders, not to outsiders.\u00a0 This is most evident in the fact that he addressed both Pharisees and Sadducees\u2014groups that represented different ways of living out the Jewish faith.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 John was saying that even if you are a child of Abraham, that is, a member of God\u2019s covenant with Israel, there are still barriers in your own life to righteousness. Don\u2019t assume that just because you are Israel, the People of God, that you are immune to God\u2019s judgment.\u00a0 Is John saying, to us: Don\u2019t assume that just because you are the church, that you are immune to God\u2019s judgment.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 About a year ago, just prior to the 200th<\/span> anniversary of the abolition of slavery in England, the Church of England debated how it would mark this event.\u00a0 Some wanted to join campaigns against contemporary forms of slavery, such as trafficking for the sex trade.\u00a0 This kind of approach would be prophetic and be forward looking.\u00a0 It would continue the legacy of the abolitionists. After all, many of the key people who worked for the abolition of slavery in England were members of the Church of England, and were instrumental in the pressing for the landmark decision of the British Parliament to outlaw slavery and the slave trade in 1807.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Others agreed that joining these campaigns was a good plan of action, but argued for a penitent tone to the 200th<\/span> anniversary events.\u00a0 They argued that to simply portray the Church as the prophetic voice for justice, then, and now, is to miss out on the fact that God\u2019s judgment extends to the church.\u00a0 They pointed out that many Anglican bishops defended slavery; some bishops in the House of Lords quoted the Bible as the reason they voted to retain slavery.\u00a0 After slavery was abolished, several bishops were compensated by the church for losing their own personal slaves.\u00a0 And, perhaps most shocking of all: the church itself owned slaves.\u00a0 The mission station in Barbados included a plantation, whose slavery were legally the property of the Church of England.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 As the Church of England debated what to do, there came an intervention from the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams.\u00a0 And I think it\u2019s worth hearing some of this in his own words:\u00a0 \u201cThe Body of Christ is not just a body that exists at any one time: it exists across history.\u00a0 We therefore share the shame and the sinfulness of our predecessors, and part of what we can do with them and for them in the Body of Christ is prayerful acknowledgement of the failure that is part of us, not just of some distant \u2018them\u2019.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 We have to say that the Body of Christ has been and is in slavery, but also that the Body of Christ has been involved in slave owning.\u00a0 Apology is about that.\u00a0 It is not about political correctness; it is not about trying to gratify some sense of wanting to wipe the record clean.\u00a0 On the contrary, it is part of what we are as a Christian community \u2013 the corporate acknowledgement of repentance, which, like every such acknowledgement, ought to stimulate us to action, which is why it is costly.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Archbishop Williams continued: \u201cIn the world around us we see countless examples of how an unacknowledged and unhealed past imprisons us in the present and for the future.\u00a0 We see it in international, interethnic and interfaith tensions.\u00a0 If there is one thing that the Gospel of Christ says to us, it is that, in acknowledging the past, it is possible to open it to the healing power of Christ.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 After adopting a statement of repentance for slavery, the Church of England led a very public Walk of Witness through London which is many ways was an act of humility on the part of the church.\u00a0 This action was a public acknowledgment that the church must continue to work against racism and the objectification of people in all form.\u00a0 But it is also a profound opening up of the church to God\u2019s judgment, and, in prayer, to God\u2019s mercy.\u00a0 It is not about being in control, and not primarily about having a plan of action, but acknowledging that too often sin has control of us.\u00a0 Even in the life of the church.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 John the Baptist\u2019s ministry was in the wilderness, and that is significant.\u00a0 The wilderness is a place that can barely support life.\u00a0 The precariousness of life is dramatically evident in the wilderness.\u00a0 After their rescue from Egypt, the People of God wandered for 40 years in the wilderness before entering the Promised Land.\u00a0 In that period, the people\u2019s faith in God was sorely tested, and often found wanting.\u00a0 The wilderness is a time of trouble, of testing, a temporary time that anticipates either entry into a land of blessing, or death.\u00a0 In the Bible, wilderness is linked with judgment because wilderness is at the boundary of life and death.\u00a0 People are reminded that they have done something to separate themselves from God, even though God is the source of blessings and life.\u00a0 God is the way out of the wilderness.\u00a0\u00a0 God is the stream that flows through the wilderness, bringing dry dust to life.\u00a0 And so, it is to the wilderness that John draws people and demands they make a radical turn-around, repenting of their sins, and preparing the way for the one that his coming after him.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 John invokes the image of a tree and an ax.\u00a0 The tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.\u00a0 This is literally a fiery judgment.\u00a0 Hell-fire if not brimstone.\u00a0 John tells us that unless we repent, and bear the fruits of repentance\u2014and I want to talk about these fruits in a minute\u2014then we will be cut down.\u00a0 Being children of Abraham, or members of the church, is no insurance against this judgment.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 We are rightly uncomfortable with the idea of judgment.\u00a0 I know that I am.\u00a0 We ought to be uncomfortable because we know that John\u2019s call is addressed to us.\u00a0 We each know that we are weak, that we give in to sin, and that we cause suffering to others.\u00a0 We also know that judgment is not the last word, since God is a God of mercy.\u00a0 But God despises many of the things we do.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 We are also rightly uncomfortable with the idea of judgment because God\u2019s judgment and human judgment are often not the same thing.\u00a0 As I look back over instances in which a church has repented for its actions in the past\u2014and this is part of the research I\u2019m doing as a student of theology\u2014I find that often the church realizes that it is called to repent for a time when it presumed to know just what God\u2019s judgment required.\u00a0 In the final two instances I want to talk about, I think this was the case.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 In the Reformation, our Anabaptist forebears pointed out many errors and abuses they saw in the church of the day.\u00a0 For example, the Anabaptists believed that only those who made a mature decision to follow Christ, could be expected to embrace costly discipleship, therefore baptism should be for adults, not for infants. They called for a separation of church and state, in part because demands of the gospel are frequently in conflict with the demands of the state.\u00a0 The Anabaptists did not believe that religious convictions ought to be enforced by coercion.\u00a0 But many who were likewise critical of the Catholic church, the followers of Zwingli and Calvin, for example, believed that the Anabaptists were wrong.\u00a0 They said the Anabaptists went too far, that they misread their Bibles, and that their false teachings might cause eternal harm to those who were convinced by them.\u00a0 Many Anabaptists were arrested, put into prison, and some put to death.\u00a0 We should not simply think of those who did these things as bad or evil people, but as people who in many cases sincerely believed that such harsh forms of judgment against the Anabaptists reflected God\u2019s own judgment against sin and error.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 In 2004, the Reformed Church in the city of Zurich invited representatives of Mennonites, Amish and Hutterites to Switzerland for a service of repentance.\u00a0 These Reformers, the spiritual children of those who put many Anabaptists to death, confessed that their forebears betrayed the gospel when they persecuted Anabaptists.\u00a0 They acknowledged that Anabaptists were faithful Christians, whose witness was valid then and is valid today.\u00a0 Most remarkably, they said \u201cIt is time to accept the history of the Anabaptist movement as part of our own, to learn from the Anabaptist tradition and to strengthen our mutual testimony through dialogue\u201d \u2013the fruits of repentance.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The conference of Swiss Mennonites responded with a word of forgiveness
\n.\u00a0 But even beyond that, they said that the experience of hearing the repentance of the Reformed Church of Zurich, even 500 years after the fact, was so profound, that it caused the Mennonites to reexamine themselves.\u00a0 They said \u201cThe fact that you recognize the difficult points of your history in relation to ours helps us to see ourselves and to meet you differently.\u201d\u00a0 What does this difference mean?\u00a0 I don\u2019t know.\u00a0 It\u2019s just a start.\u00a0 The Mennonites confessed that they have often kept their witness to themselves, become insular and demonized those Christians who differed with them.\u00a0 Both sides pledged to be more intentional in mutual dialogue, to really listen to the convictions of the other, and to hear the word of God through the witness of the other.\u00a0 And in fact, this example of mutual forgiveness is a powerful witness to a watching world.\u00a0 To me, what happened in Zurich in 2004 was an openness to the future\u2014an expectation of something new, of something that comes after judgment and repentance.\u00a0 It is openness to the one who comes after John the Baptist.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Closer to home, there are some in this congregation who remember vividly a day 1986 in Waterloo when the Mennonite Brethren Conference unexpectedly asked forgiveness from General Conference Mennonites in Canada for those cases when Mennonite Brethren pastors excommunicated their members who married General Conference members.\u00a0 These actions of excommunication expressed the belief that the other side lacked true gospel faith and practice.\u00a0 This kind of animosity was very real, in different ways, on both sides.\u00a0 It was very divisive in local communities that had Mennonite Brethren and General Conference members, and was painful in many families. What is the power of repentance, for healing, and for openness to the future?\u00a0 Those who witnessed this request for forgiveness were struck that it seemed profoundly genuine, it was made by some of the very Mennonite Brethren leaders who had disciplined members on account of who those members chose to marry, and it was done in the presence of those who had been excommunicated.\u00a0 The General Conference Mennonites responded with a request to be forgiven for times when they contributed to misunderstandings or animosity.\u00a0 Some say it was a turning point in relations between estranged parts of the wider Mennonite family. One letter-writer to what was then the Mennonite Reporter said that he saw Jesus in the actions of the Mennonite Brethren leaders who repented on behalf of their church.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 After repentance, we are turned toward God as if our lives depended on it.\u00a0 We are turned to God to lead us out of the wilderness.\u00a0 Repentance implies action\u2014for the Church of England it required active involvement in campaigns to end modern forms of slavery.\u00a0 But I think just as centrally, repentance calls us into a posture of expectant waiting, and listening.\u00a0 Just what does it mean for the United Methodist church to repent of its past with First Nations?\u00a0 They are still seeking an answer, a direction.\u00a0 There\u2019s no set checklist or formula.\u00a0 Just what does it mean for the Reformed and the Mennonites to learn from each other\u2019s history, to hear God\u2019s word through the witness of the other?\u00a0 We must actively wait.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Repentance names what has prevented us from hearing the word of God: perhaps a sense of entitlement, or racism.\u00a0 Perhaps an all too human confidence that we know exactly what God requires of us.\u00a0 In repentance, we name these barriers, and their power over us begins to diminish.\u00a0 As our history shows us, we must do not only as individuals, but as a community.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 For John the Baptist, the image of judgment is the ax reducing the tree to a stump.\u00a0 Isaiah also speaks of a tree reduced to stump caused by judgment.\u00a0 That was just before the passage that we heard read.\u00a0 And in the passage we did hear read Isaiah\u2014like John\u2014knows that judgment and repentance are not the final words, but prepare us for what is to come.\u00a0 Continuing the image of the tree, Isaiah speaks of a shoot growing up from the stump\u2014a shoot from the stump of Jessie.\u00a0 The world is about to turn, from barren wilderness to abundant new life.\u00a0 In repentance, with Isaiah we wait for the one who is to come, who will possess wisdom and understanding, counsel and might, knowledge and fear of the Lord.\u00a0 Isaiah\u2019s expectation is for the one whose very being is reconciliation.\u00a0 The wolf shall live with lamb, the leopard shall lie down with the kid, the calf and the lion and fatling together, and a little child shall lead them.\u00a0 This is our hope, our Advent.\u00a0 Amen.<\/p>\n

<\/strong><\/span><\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Repenting in the Wilderness December 9, 2007 Jeremy Bergen Text: Isaiah 11:1-10 Matthew 3:1-12 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 John Chivington grew up on an Ohio farm in the early 19th century, and in his 20s heard a call to become a minister.\u00a0 He was ordained by the Methodist church, and sent west, to serve in the frontier towns of Missouri.\u00a0 This was prior to the American Civil War, and slavery was still a reality in many states.\u00a0 Chivington was opposed to slavery,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1137","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sermons-a-worship-audio"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tumc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1137","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tumc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tumc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tumc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tumc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1137"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.tumc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1137\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tumc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1137"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tumc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1137"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tumc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1137"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}