The Ascension of our Lord
Preached at Waterloo North Mennonite Church, Waterloo, Ont., on Ascension Sunday, 2018. Based on Luke 24:44-53, Acts 1:1-11, and Ephesians 1:15-23 Today’s readings have made me think a great deal about the remarkable year Mary and I spent living on an Old Order Mennonite farm early in our marriage. We continue to thank God for that…
Consider it (re)settled
More than 12,500 refugees have been resettled in Canada by Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) since it negotiated an agreement with the government on March 5, 1979. This historic agreement established the framework for private agencies to sponsor more than 327,000 refugees for resettlement in Canada in the last 40 years. A 1986 Lee family photo.…
Raspberry capital beckons Gathering 2019
The raspberry capital of Canada, the most charitable city in Canada, the Bible Belt of Canada. These terms have all been used to describe Abbotsford, the site of Mennonite Church Canada’s Gathering 2019, to be held from June 28 to July 1. Nestled in the scenic Fraser Valley just over the border from Washington state,…
Reflections of creation
God’s creation is now facing unprecedented destruction brought on by human activity. Attentive hunters know this just as well as vegan environmentalists. Caring for the ecosystems that God created doesn’t need to be a divisive or partisan issue. Yet it has come to feel that way. Conversations related to energy have become especially contentious. This…
Evil is right here with me
Something needs to be done about all the hate in the world. This morning I encountered no fewer than three pieces of media expressing incredulity that the internet seems not to have transformed humanity into an oasis of harmony and mutual understanding, but has, instead, degenerated into a cesspool of anger and ignorance. The headlines…
Called to bleed and die for the sake of the nation
As a minister of the Mennonite church in Danzig (now Gdansk, Poland), Hermann Gottlieb Mannhardt knew how to challenge and encourage his congregants in matters of faith and moral conduct. He also knew how to energize a crowd in matters related to politics and patriotism. During the First World War, as Germany’s armed forces were…
Welcoming the stranger at Christmas
The Christ Child has arrived. We’ve waited through four weeks of Advent to light that fifth candle, the Christ candle, symbolizing the presence of Christ in our midst. And we feel ready to welcome this baby with open arms. Don’t we? It’s easy to forget, I think, that the Christ Child received rather contradictory messages…
Pregnant with peace
From the moment we learned I was pregnant, the baby we longed for was continually on my mind. What would it look like? What kind of personality would it have? How would this baby change our life? I was truly “expecting.” Expectant waiting with our baby in mind transformed not just me and my husband,…
Full stomach, faulty memory
We are daily awash in choices and opportunities, and many of us are affluent enough to be able to choose among many options. Many of us make many choices even before we get out the door in the morning. Our stomachs are full, we live in fine houses, our income and assets have grown, our…
Biblical characters as spiritual companions
The Bible is full of stories about people, real people with bodies and minds, and with an array of experiences, relationships and emotions. How odd, then, that we so often turn to the Bible as little more than an instruction manual for communal and personal life. What would happen if we expanded our reliance on…
