outWORD by Matte Downey

Exile by Shelby McQuilkin These are unsettling times in which to live. We are home more than ever due to the pandemic, yet less at home in our lives in many ways. Upheaval seems a constant in social and political realms. What do we name this sense of being displaced from what we assumed was normal? Who can be our guides in navigating everchanging landscapes? In the past few weeks, I have been drawn to the biblical stories of exile. Here we find people who know what it is like to live with uncertainty. And here we also find hope in unexpected places. What does it mean to be in exile? There are many ways people experience some degree of displacement.  1) prolonged separation from one's home by circumstances or authoritative decree 2) banishment 3) loss of control over where you live or belong 4) dislocation and separation from what is familiar (voluntary or involuntary) 5) physical exile (removed from home and land) 6) exile in your own home (under foreign occupation, travel restric...

In John 3, we find two of the most popular concepts in evangelicalism: the idea of being born again and the famous verse 16 which anyone brought up in Sunday School can recite at will. I wrote about the idea of being born again here  if you want to check it out. In this post, I take a fresh look at John 3:16. The context for the two is the same. Jesus has just cleared the temple of money changers and many people have witnessed the signs he performed in Jerusalem during the Passover festival. In other words, he has gone public in a big way. This causes a religious leader, a well-known, socially and politically involved member of the Jewish ruling council, to approach Jesus privately at night. He wants to know what Jesus has that he is missing. Before the man can pose a proper question, Jesus confronts him with the idea of spiritual rebirth, of having to start again like a vulnerable and helpless baby in order to enter into Jesus' world, the kingdom of God. Jesus then rebukes the rel...

If you have spent any time in the evangelical world, you will have heard the phrase born again . It is usually used as a synonym for becoming a Christian or experiencing salvation from the condemnation of sin. Many times the emphasis is on spiritual rebirth through the Holy Spirit. But is this what Jesus means when he uses the phrase? The concept itself comes from a conversation between Jesus and a religious leader, so let's take another look at the original context.   In the second chapter of John's gospel, we find Jesus clearing the temple of the opportunistic moneychangers and performing signs in Jerusalem during the Passover festival. In other words, Jesus is doing some pretty controversial public stuff and, no doubt, word gets around to the religious leaders. In the next chapter, one of those leaders, Nicodemus, decides to approach Jesus. He is an esteemed man, a man serious about religious devotion, a member of the Jewish ruling council, socially and politically involved...

One of the more obscure parables which Jesus tells is found in Luke 13:6-9. "A man owned a fig tree planted in his vineyard. He came looking for fruit on it and found none. He said to his gardener, ‘Look, I’ve come looking for fruit on this fig tree for the past three years, and I’ve never found any. Cut it down! Why should it continue depleting the soil’s nutrients?’ The gardener responded, ‘Lord, give it one more year, and I will dig around it and give it fertilizer. Maybe it will produce fruit next year; if not, then you can cut it down.’” (Common English Bible) This story comes after a discussion on the connection between oppression, suffering, and right living. Jesus dismantles the idea that those who suffer are more sinful than others, but then tells his listeners that unless they change their hearts and lives ( metanoia ), they will die just like those unfortunate ones who were slaughtered by Pilate or were killed when a tower fell. It is a mixed message in some ways, but J...

I grew up believing that Jesus was God, perfect (immutable, free from flaws) and sinless. That he never made a misstep. That every word that came out of his mouth was inspired, absolute, universal truth. That his special relationship with YHWH and the Spirit gave him abilities like knowing what people were going to do before they did it and reading people's minds. I understood that since God was omnipotent, Jesus was no doubt all-powerful, too, but he laid down some of that power when he was on earth. Since God was omniscient, this meant that Jesus knew everything as well, but in order to become one of us, Jesus limited his knowledge in certain ways. And since God was omnipresent, Jesus probably could have been in two places at once, but chose not to. He did mysteriously slip through a crowd that one time, though (Luke 4:30), so who knows what was going on there. In hindsight, I realise that I was taught a very high Christology, which means that the person of Jesus is viewed throug...

  These past months have been a school for me and, I am sure, for many others. I am (re)learning how to wash my hands, how a virus spreads, what it means to live and work and play in the same spaces, how to navigate a barrage of (changing) information, how to host an online meeting, and probably most importantly, how much I can do without. I am also learning that systemic oppression and violence toward indigenous people and people of colour, a poisonous seed that European colonists planted in North America, has not been rooted out as many believe, but continues to grow and spread in our supposedly enlightened societies. I ask myself: how could we be so blind and apathetic to the blatant bias and brutality our neighbours experience on a daily basis?  We have no one to blame but ourselves. Let me rephrase that. We white f olks have no one to blame but ourselves. However, we are slow to do just that. Our first instincts are to avoid responsibility, shift blame, and change the top...

Obedience has never been one of my favourite words. I thrive in an atmosphere of freedom, creativity, and independence. Submitting my will to that of another person is sometimes difficult for me (my parents were witnesses to this), but I have learned that this is what love does, so I practice loving what others love and saying Yes to people. But this type of loving, mutual submission is not what is commonly meant by obedience, especially in religious settings. In the English language, obedience generally refers to compliance with a rule or law or submission to someone's authority. Obedience is touted as a Christian virtue: we are to obey God and those God has set in leadership over us. In my evangelical tradition, this was presented as a rather self-evident doctrine. God is sovereign and righteous, Ruler over heaven and earth, therefore we must obey God. Similarly, God has set leaders in authority in our churches (who happen to be men), so we must obey them as we would obey G...

Two years ago, I wrote: "Catching the early train downtown. Going to travel through this brief moment of life with beautiful strangers. Peace and grace to you, my fellow pilgrims. It was a privilege to share the ride with you all this morning." It is one of my greatest joys to be chauffeured around a city by a trusty driver while in the company of strangers and neighbours. It has been almost two months since I took public transit and I miss riding on the bus and the subway. On a cold day, the first minute inside the bus is spent being grateful to be out of the chilly wind. And on a sunny day, I love squinting out the window at the world aglow with light. But no matter what the weather, I always find myself delighted to be on a journey with random companions. On the bus, I don't have to worry about traffic or changing lanes or running out of gas or finding parking; I just step through the door which magically open for me and the adventure begins. While the experienc...

We were supposed to go on vacation on March 15. On March 13, due to travel restrictions put in place to slow down the spread of COVID-19, we cancelled everything. The plane tickets to California. The hotel reservation a block away from the beach. The car rental. The bungalow in the desert. All of it. It was a hard day. I tried not to cry. And then I did cry because I needed to let the grief go somewhere. We had forgone a vacation last winter because we were busy renovating our bathrooms and time and money were tight. We promised ourselves that we would make up for it this year: taking a much-needed break from busy work/volunteer schedules and countering the demoralizing effect of a long, cold winter. We were so ready for ten days spent in warm temperatures, walking along the ocean, driving through desert landscapes, and eating tacos. Instead, Dean went back to work and I started making phone calls and sending emails in an effort to recoup the money we had already spent on the trip....

Many of our interactions in this day and age are via video screens or through written messages. This at-a-distance type of interaction can be challenging, not just because it is always mediated (done through a medium) but because the distance requires both parties to do some extra work. This is especially true when it comes to written texts. Words have the wonderful ability to engage our imaginations, to enlarge our understanding, and to create narratives and connections which help us make sense of things. Words also have the capacity to be misread, misunderstood, and misrepresented. Have you ever mistaken the meaning of someone's email or text or had your own message misinterpreted? I certainly have. Because the writer is not face to face with the reader, there is no body language or vocal inflection or facial expression to help the reader understand the nuances behind the writer's words. Often, the reader is not privy to the specific situation or context in which the wor...

In recent years, I have heard and read many conversations in which Christians comment on potentially divisive issues such as sexuality, politics, economics, nationhood, leadership, socialism, etc. We are an increasingly polarized society, it seems, and the Church is not immune to this dynamic. What has saddened me most about these interactions is how often kindness is in short supply. We can get so worked up about an issue that we think it is okay to disrespect, shame, or mock those who do not share our views. In other words, we make things more important than people , and that is not the way of Jesus. In English, kindness is defined as being friendly, generous, and considerate. Kindness is when someone gives up their seat on the bus for an elderly gentleman. Or lets someone go in front of them in a line. Or offers to pay for a stranger's coffee. However, the word translated as kindness in the New Testament is a bit more robust than our English version. Chrestotes (Gk) com...