… what’s wrong with maintenance …?

I was in the north of Alberta for a couple of days last week.  It’s a large community, not the end of the world, but from where, as they like to say it, you can see the end. All the churches are Mennonite of several variations, most of them full on any given Sunday. I don’t think they work at getting people to come to their churches, as happens so much in congregations where evangelism and church growth are a high priority. Most people in this community simply attend. It’s kind of assumed. And even though their churches are full and growing, I’m not sure it’s growth they think about very much. They aren’t evangelizing outside the community to bring in more people; they do have a strong sense of community and identity, so maybe, what keeps them coming to church is partly that? Community? Identity?

Not surprisingly, over supper, my brother and I talked about churches and evangelical protestantism’s obsession with growth and ‘adding numbers’.  Nothing wrong with adding numbers. Jesus talked with large crowds at times, and Paul travelled widely to spread the message. But also, what’s wrong with just maintenance?, my brother wondered.  Do we have to measure church health by growth? What if a small or any size group simply wants to gather, and keep gathering, without needing to bring in others; is that not also a good thing? To be a community for each other? The church was, from the beginning, about being a community and living out the witness of Christ, but in these later centuries, we’re a little haunted by that growth thing … ;  as a colleague in the non profit world once said, we seem to be doomed to growth. 

I can’t remember much of the conversation that day with my colleague, about being doomed to growing, but it had to do with the well-known axiom that ‘unless a business or a church or a non-profit organization is growing, it’s declining’. Unless your career is ‘taking off’ you should worry.  Unless a city or a country or an industry is growing, it’s going backwards. Unless a College or University is growing, it’s going the other way. That’s kind of popular economics wisdom.  Growth is the thing that apparently ensures our survival.  A form of inevitable, social and economic evolution maybe? A growth machine with an appetite that’s never satisfied. Unless we are ‘making progress’ we’re moving the other way, never mind the casualties we leave along the way? 

So what about just living? What if a neighborhood is happy to live through the seasons, without making too much fuss about growth and improvement? A house, well maintained, may not need to be renovated every 10 years, does it … to be a wonderful home? Is the faith community not at its best when it’s simply living out the fruits of the spirit? Love, joy, peace, patience, self control, gentleness and goodness?  The President of the Armenian University in Beruit once told a group of us Mennonite visitors that what he found most puzzling about us north Americans was our obsession with numbers.  You count everything, he said. 

A smaller church in southern Alberta has about 30 or 40 people who attend most Sundays. They don’t seem worried about growth; they’re a community that seems to like getting together.  So … they do.  A pastor bent on growth and numbers would throw in the towel, but they don’t. A former pastor in the same church once said that ‘when we reach 70, we’re big enough’. A long history there, more about being a community than about overflowing the pews.  

Conservative Mennonite Colonies in Bolivia, Belize, Peru and other places tend to build their communities on a principle of maintenance, more than on growth. They are sometimes accused of clearing too much land, and it’s true that in Bolivia, for example, there are well over 100 colonies. That’s a lot of land if the average population per colony is about 1000 people. But they follow a protocol in how the land is divided up. A bishop in a newer colony once told me each family gets 50 hts. In a different colony, where they operate without motors of any kind, a family is allocated only 15 hts. In either case, this means that they operate on the principle of making a modest but never an extravagant living. It’s a principle based on enough, on the maintenance of a modest lifestyle.  It’s also at least partly why in most of those colonies, they take the tires off new tractors when they buy them, and replace them with steel ‘tires’.  You can’t go anywhere fast with steel wheels, and you can’t cultivate a lot of land in a hurry either.  Theirs is a world built on the idea that maintenance is more important than progress. 

The colonies have many problems and challenges, but their basic principle, it seems to me, is sound and radical.  ‘We’re trying to slow life down’, one leader told me. And if we, in the ‘progressive’ world were a little less obsessed with progress and growth and more with maintenance, we might not need to fret about climate change quite as much either.  

This growth thing is often talked about in spiritual terms as well. People will testify to ‘my spiritual growth this past year’ or their wish for ‘more spiritual growth’ in the next 12 months. Fine, though I’ve long thought that an awareness of personal spiritual growth is kind of an illusion. It’s a focus on the wrong thing. There is really only one measurement of spirituality and that is a maturity in how we live with our neighbors. How well we love God is only evidenced in how we love our neighbor. Any other feeling of piety or ‘renewal’ can be good and motivating for a while, but usually, the real thing is about how we live in the neighborhood … at work … and in any other community where people are gathered.  We do need our ‘revival’ moments , a great book, a healthy visit or sermon, a decent vacation or time with the grandkids … but that’s maintenance.  Like adding paint to a fading wall in the living room.  

I wonder if we, and in fact, our entire planet, might be a bit healthier if we became better at maintenance and spent less energy on renovation, endless progress, and growth.  Our churches might be smaller, but there might be more a sense of community. Our farms might be smaller but more people might be able to make their living off the land, and fewer would have to live in our congested cities. Our giant corporations might not be so giant, which, I suspect, would lead to local innovation and creativity. A pipe dream, all this? Not to the Mennonites in Bolivia, who really do manage to slow it all down a bit. 

… a curious thing …

A curious thing was happening as I started this note. The Premier of Alberta, Jason Kenney, waited in line in London for hours, and he would wait several more, to pay his respects to the Queen as she lies in state at Westminster Hall.  Kenny is a well-known Canadian politician, both national and provincial, but there he was, in a very long queue, using, I assume the same bathroom facilities as everyone else, getting a little chilled (he said he hadn’t thought he would need an overcoat) along with all the commoners there, waiting for his 10-second turn to pay his respects to the Queen. A curious reporter found him and interviewed him as they walked.  

I’ve disagreed with Kenney on many things over the years of his leadership in Alberta, but today, I have to say I admire him.  He did not announce his trip.  He paid for it out of pocket.  He made no effort, seemingly, to skip ahead in the line-up, though I suspect he could have.  Theresa May, former British PM, was allowed to skip ahead. And when they asked him about standing in line, Kenny talked about the Queen. There was no pretense about him having a friendly or any relationship with the Queen, though, as he said, he had met her a couple of times. It seems that Kenney was there because, as he said, Queen Elizabeth served well, for 70 years and surely it’s not a lot to wait 15 or so hours in a line-up to say a little thank you. 

Donald Trump makes everything about himself and when the Queen died, he was quite public in saying how he spent ‘an entire evening’ in conversation with her, and that he was for sure her favorite among many. No shame nor any self doubt there. There are other leaders who somehow manage to make grieving and celebrating the service of Queen Elizabeth just a little about themselves.  Premier Kenney was not hiding in that line up; the press found him and interviewed him and he could have taken advantage, but he kept referring to the service of the Queen and how important her life and leadership has been to the world, for a very long time.  There’s a little report about ‘Kenney in the queue’ in the Calgary Herald this morning, on page 3, where he talks about the make-up of the people in the queue. They represent, seemingly, many countries and cultures, but here, he said, they seem to be in some kind of modest ‘shared solidarity’. Something about goodness and decency still attracts people from everywhere. 

We live in a tumultuous world these days, where leadership, too often, is becoming some kind of tribal affair in which whatever you say about the other side is fine, where it’s common to explode about pretty much anything, especially on social media, where lying and denying is expected and where a sense of personal accountability and integrity seems rare and optional. I’ve often thought Mr Kenney displayed some of those same tendencies, so when he flies to England and waits 15 hours in an over-night queue, my quick default is to wonder if this is a publicity stunt of some sorts  But he’s less than a month away from leaving his post as premier of Alberta so what would be in it for him? Also, it seems a bit risky to do something as personal as his trip seems to be. He’s still in full public view, knowing that the press will interpret and the cynics will be pounce. He’s vulnerable in a trip like this but there he was, with everyone else, and apparently with no staff around him. 

Much has been and much will be written about Queen Elizabeth. But what impresses me about her is her capacity, from day one of her reign, to manage herself for the broader common good. A capacity to keep a silence, to moderate her words, to resist the urges of the masses to swing one way or another, and to allow time and protocol to take their course. A woman of her stature and wide experience must surely have often become woefully impatient with world leadership, but it didn’t show very often. 

Our world, in all its arenas, needs pillars of maturity and wisdom. People whose interests and commitments go beyond themselves.  Many leaders offer their unqualified admiration for how Queen Elizabeth ‘reigned’. Almost like when Mother Theresa died in 1997,  no one, it seems, has any wish to diminish Queen Elizabeth. So when it’s all over, it might help us all if at least some leaders …  political, organizational, religious … (and also the rest of us) would become a little introspective, as perhaps Jason Kenney was as he stood in line through the night, and wonder how they might try to emulate the measured maturity, the devotion to duty above ego or winning, and the moderated self discipline and stability which the Queen demonstrated all these 7 decades. 

… Mary Magdalene … what if?

Yesterday afternoon I went for a little walk and bumped into a young man, weekend caretaker at the church up the street. He helped me understand a bit more about hierarchy in the Catholic church but when I mentioned that I hope they may eventually have female priests, he said that just can’t really happen.  That tradition comes from Christ himself … something to do with fatherhood, he thought. Like me, he is not a New Testament scholar and our conversation ended when our paths diverted. But I’m not sure Jesus said anything like that.  Paul, in fact,  said, let there be no more Jew nor Gentile, male nor female. (Galatians 3). 

Last Sunday, we heard a sermon about ‘all the Marys’ in the Bible. There is a string of them, apparently, sprinkled throughout the New Testament. But the sermon focused, eventually, on Mary Magdalene.  When she talked about Mary Magdalene, the pastor referenced some recent research by Elizabeth Schrader, a singer songwriter from New York (I think) who is also a PhD student in New Testament Studies at Duke University. Maybe Schrader is a bit of a mystic, but at some point she was sitting in a church garden in NY, away from the urban noise, and she heard a voice that said to her, ‘follow Mary Magdalene’. She wrote a song about Mary Magdalene but then began to think, that can’t be enough. I need to learn about this Biblical character. And that’s where her studies began. 

Mid week, I sat in on a small zoom discussion about Mary the Tower, where we listened to a lecture by Dianna Butler Bass, a Christian, American historian, about Mary Magdalene. DBB spoke at length about the research of Elizabeth Schrader, which focused on John 11 and Luke 10. In Luke 10, in ‘a certain village’ Jesus visits the home of Mary and Martha. It doesn’t give the name of the village. This is a well-known, often mentioned account of the more contemplative Mary sitting at Jesus’ feet and the hostess, Martha, doing all the work, and getting a little impatient with Mary, upon which, Jesus says that Mary has chosen the better way.  I’ve often wondered about that … ‘cause if no one is doing the work, who puts out the faspa for the guests? But that’s not the point of the lecture.  Butler Bass moves on to John 11. Schrader has learned Aramaic, Greek and Coptic and for her PhD she is referred to Papyrus 66, written in about 200 AD. These early writings have been digitized and so she can zoom in to enlarge what, until recently, had been only visible in the faded plain writing. 

It’s complicated interpretation, and I’m over my head on this, but it makes me curious. Schrader finds that while the English translations in John 11 refer to Lazarus and his sisters, Mary and Martha, it also says they are from Bethany. But Bethany is never mentioned in the Luke story, so why assume it was the same Mary and Martha?  Martha in Luke welcomes Jesus into HER home, which implies she had no husband, nor brother, nor was there a father. Had there been any of those male characters, Jesus would have been welcomed into HIS home.  Which means the Lazarus, Mary and Martha story in John really has no connection to the Martha and Mary story of Luke. Schrader discovers further that the possessive ‘HIS sister Martha’ in John 11 has been written over and turned into a ‘HER sister Martha’ giving the impression there was a Martha, and she was Mary’s sister. Also, apparently the Greek for Martha is similar enough to Maria, that an editor back there in 400 AD could easily change what should have been HIS sister Maria to HER sister Martha, effectively making this Mary (Maria) in John 11 and 12 disappear.  

That Mary (edited to Martha) confronts Jesus about having  arrived late and that her brother would have lived had Jesus been there earlier. Jesus then reminds her that Lazarus will rise again and Mary (remember, there is no Martha here) says she knows this, to which Jesus then adds vs 25 and 26: ‘I am the resurrection and the life … and whoever believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?’, he asks her.  And here is the key verse … this Mary then says ‘I believe you are the Christ, the Son of God, who was to come into the world’.  

That confession of Christ as Messiah only happens with one other person in the New Testament and that is Peter, after which Jesus calls him Peter, the Rock (Matt 16).  So there really are two Christological confessions!?! One by Peter and the other by a woman named Mary whom an editor 1700 years ago made to disappear by turning her into a Martha.

Apparently there is also no evidence that there ever was a seaside village called Magdala, even though on Holy Land tours, many tourists get to a village where the tour guide will tell them this is the village where Mary Magdalene was from. Magdala. But if there never was such a village with such a name, then what does Magdalene mean? It’s thought that the Mary in John 11, who was edited to become Martha, was really Mary and the Magdala was likely a title ascribed to her by Jesus. It means ‘tower’.  Peter the rock and Mary the tower. 

Dianna Butler Bass, and the pastor last Sunday, and Elizabeth Schrader all ask questions in their lectures and sermons: why was Mary edited out of John 11 to make her appear as if she is simply the Martha of Luke 10?  Secondly, if she was really Mary Magdalene, Mary the tower, the first human, by the way, to whom Jesus appeared after his resurrection, why would editors have gone out of their way to make her disappear, or at least, to confuse her with the Martha in Luke?  And especially, if there was so clearly a second Confession of Jesus being the Christ, the Messiah, and it was made to a woman, to Mary Magdala, why, for 2000 years, has the church assumed its leadership had to come from a male gender. How different would the world be today, if the Christian community, back almost 2000 years, had built its traditions on the leadership of Peter and also Mary? 

One person in the zoom discussion group wondered if any of this matters. Do we have to make a fuss about learning that, way back there, our scriptures were trifled with? Does it really matter that it’s entirely probable there were two Christological Confessions … one with Peter and one with Mary Magdalene? Would it have made an important difference had we built the Christian Church traditions and theologies on the understanding there was not just a male cornerstone but also a female tower to lean on?  Maybe not, but I’m guessing yes!

The queen of England was a wise, stable, mature world leader for 70 years. There aren’t many like her. A tower indeed! But somehow, the community where that kind of leadership should probably be most easily and naturally assumed, still, in many of its representations, finds it difficult to think of itself that way.