Rev. David Boyd

All week, some of us have been thinking about the United Church of Canada, especially since its General Council, its national decision making body, has just finished its meetings in Kelowna; the General Council meets every 3 years. There has been some controversy, especially to do with the Middle East, some joys and celebrations and some plain and simple hard work, slogging through all of the resolutions that any General Council faces. Certainly one of the positives is that the Council elected Mardi Tindal as the new Moderator; you may remember Mardi as the host of the United Church's TV program 10 and more years ago—she's a lay woman from Hamilton Conference. Some of the other controversy at General Council has had to do with the future of the church and whether we should view the cup of the United Church as ½ full or ½ empty; there was also some controversy surrounding whether to let adherents vote as full members of a congregation—we do that here anyway, but the national vote failed. Controversy is nothing new to the Church. It has been around ever since the beginning. Jesus stirred up controversy when he called for a radical discipleship of love, justice and humility—a permanent Jubilee theology. John stirred up controversy when he wrote about Jesus and Jesus' claims about being the life, the bread of heaven, the water of life, and the wine of new life. John's gospel is anti-Jewish in places and was sadly used to fuel pogroms against Jews in Eastern Europe and elsewhere around the world. The Fiddler on the Roof portrayed this fact quite dramatically when the Russians turned on the Jews and the Jews were forced to leave the town where they had made their home for generations; this occurred at Easter when feelings against Jews were heightened by the passion story of Jesus as told by John and the other gospel writers Matthew and Luke. It was taught in some Christian circles that the Jews had killed Jesus. With the benefit of scholarship, a closer look at the texts, and partnership with our Jewish brothers and sisters, we know that it was the Imperial Roman occupiers of Israel who killed Jesus.

It is interesting to me that the resolutions that were debated in Kelowna by the General Council about peace in the Middle East and a possible economic and academic boycott of Israel, and the background material that came with the resolutions, were painted by the Canadian Jewish Congress and other pro-Israel organizations and individuals as anti-Semitic. In fact, I read the resolutions and background material and didn't find anything anti-Semitic about the material. The writers of the background material were quite careful, I thought, in indicating that this was a political statement that was directed at the state of Israel not Jews in general. The people bringing forth these resolutions were echoing what former US President Jimmy Carter and others have been saying, namely that Israel has engaged in some apartheid-like practices with respect to Palestinians while at the same time not minimizing the horrible damage done by suicide bombers. Sadly, in my opinion, the resolutions failed. I take some hope from the fact that while the resolutions in the end failed and the background was repudiated, at least the dialogue was held; still, this whole controversy highlighted for me that peace with justice in the Middle East is still some way off.

As you know I have always had an interest in the origin of words. It was interesting to me to learn that controversy literally means "opposite turning"; Verse comes from a Latin word that meant to "turn, as in the farmer turning soil to furrow a field." We'd be better off seeing controversies as having to do with working the land; maybe that would ratchet down the rhetoric that often accompanies controversies or the violent language that we often use—even in the Church and religious circles.

Certainly, I believe that Jesus, symbolically, was about working the land and trying to create an abundance of life, an abundant harvest or life for all. And the early church, when there were all kinds of controversies but also many divergent ways of being Christian, was also a time of creating a harvest of abundant life and fullness. I also think the United Church has tried to do this. We began as a union of pretty disparate traditions. We ordained Lydia Gruchy at a time when most denominations didn't want to contemplate what it would mean to have women in ministry. We supported Tommy Douglas' health care reforms. We have long been advocates for justice in the world in the many places where hatred and fear have festered. We have tried to walk the talk with respect to human sexuality, ministry, same gender marriage, interculturalism, life and human dignity. Yes, we have made mistakes: Residential Schools and participation in the genocide of First Peoples being notable; we didn't ordain married women for some time; we haven't always been tolerant of different points of view. And today, as a Church body and as an administrative body, we've lost our way somewhat. But overall, I'm proud to be in the United Church and to serve this denomination.

Currently, I believe that the United Church, far from being full of negativity or even near demise, has tried to follow Jesus' teaching that times of controversy can be times of thinking more deeply what it means to create fruitfulness and abundance. I like the connection between controversy (and verse, versus, introvert, extravert, etc.) and farming practices. I believe that we need to change the way we engage in controversies. We in the West are far too polemical; we're far too black and white. There are always shades of grey and we need to engage these differing shades. After all, if the point is abundant life and celebrating life, and not about winning... if the point is to find common ground upon which to create furrows and to plough to enrich the harvest, then we can exchange views and ideas and opinions in love rather than with fear, and look for ways to enhance the abundance of the crop, the fruitfulness of what we are doing.

I wasn't part of this year's General Council and I've only read the summaries of the stories and the issues; I'm not sure that these kinds of meetings serve the church well, and I have to admit that I found the General Council 3 years ago to be quite problematic. But I do believe that as a denomination we've tried to live the bread of heaven and the wine of new and transformed life. I believe we've tried to live Jesus' life by engaging the issues of the day and trying to find the abundant way for all to live. And I believe that the United Church of Canada, as followers of Jesus, challenges us to engage the issues more openly, more lovingly, more fruitfully. The United Church has built on the way in which Jesus has engaged controversy and leads us to consider more fully how we can use a farming metaphor as an expression of working to create abundance of life for all in this world and to walk the talk of gospel love in how we live our lives. I hope that is how General Council 40, just concluded, will be remembered... and that we can build on this for the future of the United Church of Canada as God's instruments of love in this world.

May it be so. Amen.