Telling Our Faith Stories – II. How?

Many of us Mennonite Christians shrink back when someone comes around with how-to advice or how-to lessons relating to our faith and church. We feel that is a bit put on, somewhat ‘fake,’ if you will. If what you say and do does not grow from your experience, it is not real. We would like to believe that what God wants us to do, the Holy Spirit will help us do.

This applies then also to what we say to others about our faith, to sharing our ‘faith stories,’ as I called them. In the first part of this blog, I listed 3 possible reasons why many of us in Mennonite Church congregations do not do this. We had no reason to question what we were doing because, until the last generation or two, what we did worked. Our churches continued to grow. Of course, it was mainly by what some call ‘biological growth’ that our churches grew and multiplied. Our children picked up the faith from us and passed it on to theirs. It also helped that most of us lived in fairly tightly knit communities where our faith and ‘church’ was part of the order of things.

However, all of that is changing.

We no longer are limited to life in our Mennonite enclaves. We have become urbanized. With the mobility in our society related to jobs and education, our families no longer live together. Our culture has become much more diverse in every way. There are many influences that tear at our tidy belief systems and structures and are indeed causing the breakup of our bodies.

As I wrote in the previous entry, those of us who still retain the faith of our ancestors believe that we are to be instrumental in keeping the church going and growing. We need to share the good news of Jesus, the gospel. I suggested we were failing in this because we had lost the skill of how to share our faith in a way that would bring others ‘into the fold.’ How do we reverse that?

I think this is something we need to work at together. We can begin by sharing our own faith stories with one another in our small groups and congregations, over coffee and dinner. Hopefully, this will give us confidence in speaking out and we can move on to sharing these stories with family members, friends, neighbours, fellow students and co-workers who are not believers. In our congregational circumstances this also means we can share these stories, the gospel of how God has worked in our lives, with those around the table at the Community Meal and in our LIFE Groups. Some of the latter refers to sharing our stories with one another but I believe our LIFE Groups can also be places to invite newcomers to, and share our stories with them.

Telling Our Faith Stories – Why?

What I call "faith stories", some might refer to as "God stories," or even "Jesus stories," although I am not sure I have ever heard that description of such stories. Indeed, one could go as far as to talk about "Holy Spirit" stories if we want to continue in this vein. Not to say that these names could not be used. What I mean by all of this is the stories from our lives that reflect our understanding of God/Jesus/The Holy Spirit being active in our lives.

I have been known to say - too many times - and, as I said to my wife today, that very much includes myself, too many of us Mennonites, which is the denomination of Christian to which I belong, are not very good at telling our faith stories. Others might have their comments about why this might be so, but I can think of at least three reasons for this in contemporary North America:

1.     We as Mennonites were persecuted so much in first the Netherlands in the 16th-17th centuries, then Prussia in the 18th-19th centuries and finally Russia, in the 19th-20th centuries, that we began to make agreements with our governments to allow us to live in peace and quiet, including refraining from military service, which was part of what we objected to in our nonviolent faith. The result of maintaining this peace and quiet was that we really did not practice what some would refer to as "witnessing," at least not in the verbal sense. Over time, it appears that the persecution silenced our voice. Indeed, the term "Die Stille im land" became applied to us. Reflecting our ethnic Dutch-German heritage, referring to where Mennonites originated, this means "the quiet in the land." On the other hand, many of us in a variety of sub-denominations including the Hutterites and Amish, who were Anabaptist but not, strictly speaking, Mennonite, have over the centuries provided a very good witness in terms of how we live, or what Bible students would refer to as our "works."

2.     The second reason really arises from the first. We did not really practice telling one another of how we saw God at work in the world or in our lives, so we certainly did not build up a repertoire of such stories, let alone the skills to share the stories, and eventually perhaps not even the will, with non-believers.

3.     The third reason relates to our contemporary society. Many of us know the saying, that in our society “there are two things we don't talk about: religion and politics.” Talking about our faith, religion, in public in Canadian and even American society today, although perhaps less so in the US, is not really deemed socially acceptable. In keeping with the individualism in our society, faith is something to keep to yourself. At least, that is the way it was when there was a lot more that we kept to ourselves than you now see in our shameless tell-all social media world.

If I wanted to be blunt about all of this (some might say crass?), I would simply say, admit, that our old enemy The Devil has been very successful in our world in figuring out how to shut us up and prevent the spread of the gospel.

So, how do we turn this around? Perhaps, some of you might say, why should we be concerned about changing this? The first reason that might come to the mind of some is because of our declining church attendance. We are afraid that some of our congregations will simply disappear. Of course, the reason we are concerned about that is in part because, for those of us who still value "church," we don't want to see this happen. The real reason we should want to be turning this around though is that, if we are truly Believers, our Lord, Jesus Christ, has asked us to share the good news he brought to the world with others. I am afraid too many Christians are simply comfortable with maintaining their own Christian life and not putting any effort into fulfilling this, which some refer to as The Great Commission.

We know that even though congregations may die, The Church will never die. The Holy Spirit will just see to it that it springs up somewhere else. Indeed, we just need to look at history to see how this has occurred. Countries where the church was first in existence, such as modern-day Turkey, are now almost absent of any churches. So, some might say, what is there to worry about? Let The Spirit do its work. However, that does not get away from our own personal responsibility, each and every one of us believers, to be ambassadors for Christ. As some of our more evangelically minded Christian brothers and sisters would say, do we really want to approach heaven’s gates empty-handed, meaning, in their terms, not having led anyone else to the salvation of Jesus Christ?

THE COMMODIFICATION OF LIFE

It's almost 40 years ago since Bob Dylan penned these words, which I actually used in a sermon last summer:

“Well, it may be the devil or it may be the Lord

But you're gonna have to serve somebody”

But it's almost 2000 years ago since this Lord himself stated:

            "No one can serve two masters… You cannot serve God and wealth.”

Or Mammon as the King James Version of the Bible used to say.

These two statements came to mind as it struck me recently how much we in 21^st century North America have sold out to Mammon. As I put it in my title, we have quite thoroughly commodified life, from beginning to end. Now, I am no economist, so some might argue with some of what I have to say. However, as we are becoming increasingly aware, we are running into problems with this commodification.

Are there any remaining basic human rights or needs that do not now have a price on them in some way or other? I’m not speaking here of the details that go into modern human rights codes, which concern mostly psycho-sociological areas. I am talking about fundamental things like air, water, food, clothing and shelter. And of course, another life essential, good health, has long been commodified. However, as was also impressed upon me this week in my volunteering with the City of Richmond’s Family and Youth Court Committee, even justice has been commodified.

Now, what do I mean by ‘commodifiction?’ Two on-line definitions should suffice:

1.     the action or process of treating something as a mere commodity (Google).

2.     the transformation of goods, services, ideas and people into commodities, or objects of trade…objects of economic value (Wikipedia).

Indeed, interestingly, Google shows a graph with the definition that indicates the use of this word has really only taken off towards the latter part of the 20^th century. That is not surprising, as the concerns I have about the commodification going on in the areas I mentioned in the last paragraph have really escalated in that time period.

So, is air commodified? Not so much yet in North America. However, in parts of Asia, beginning notably in Japan, and spreading from there, air pollution has some time ago already resulted in oxygen being sold on the street to help you cope with the toxic air.

I scarcely need to tell you about water. Most jurisdictions in our continent, too many Indian Reserves notwithstanding, still provide a service of supplying us with quite satisfactorily potable water. However, because of our excessive concerns for our health, we have fallen prey to huge multinationals exploitation of our own water supplies. Most of us probably know how corporations like Nestle get away with extracting our underground water resources for pennies and selling it to us for dollars. I like to sometimes point out to people that one well-known brand of water tells it all; Evian – spell it backwards. And then we keep getting reminded by those who stand up for our water rights, or indigenous neighbours and organizations like the Council of Canadians, that others, like our increasingly dry neighbour to the south, are eyeing our water and would just love to buy some of it.

Food? There are all kinds of monetary issues around food. The value of commercial crops like grains are sold on futures markets in the stock exchange where they are simply referred to as commodity markets. Our health fanaticism has again resulted in our being gullible to all the hype and marketing around natural and organic foods – for a higher price, of course. Then we have, especially in this country, all sorts of boards that control prices of commodities like milk and eggs. Sometimes, food production is subsidized. 

Clothing?  Seriously – you don’t think commodification is here too? Anything with a brand on it is always sold at a higher price than no-name apparel, whether that brand refers to a corporation or is the logo of some sports team, for example. And if you don’t wear the right brand, well, be ready for some negative reactions from your insensitive classmates or snobby peers. When it comes to fashion, shoes and accessories, the sky is the limit. Ladies, want a little clutch purse for $3,000? My young friend will sell you one. You probably couldn’t fit $3,000 worth of bills in it. I won’t even begin to go into cosmetics and all of that. Beauty has been extremely commodified into sales of billions; what the Creator gave us is no longer good enough.

Now, housing – homes – has become a serious area of concern. A mere thirty years ago, owning a home was probably still an average dream of young people. It was just something that came with growing up and starting a family. Sure, people sometimes made goodly sums by selling homes in areas where value was going up for some reason or other. However, now? Things are entirely out of hand in too many part of the world. In our global village, there are too many people with too much money who think nothing of plopping a few million down for a house, or a few of them. That used to be the purview of deep-pocketed ‘developers’ etc. No longer. Before the ink is dry on the bill of sale, the houses are already being ‘flipped’ for a higher price. It’s not a home that is being bought. It’s an investment. Indeed, just as on the stock market or an auction, it’s not uncommon for the house or condominium to go to the highest bidder, often reaching heights well beyond the asking price. Meanwhile, those who want and need ‘homes’ get shut out of ‘the market.’

I also mentioned health. In our country, we try to retain basic health care as a service, not a commodity. But would you not agree that dentistry – are teeth not essential? – and the pharmaceutical and related [neutraceutical and supplements] industries are really dealing at commodity levels? There are also constant forces, again mostly coming from south of the border, with some notable challenges from within (e.g. Dr. Brian Day and his supporters here in BC) that would like all of health care to be more commodified.

While we are talking about health care, it’s a small step to talk about life.  Now, you can pay to start life - to get fertilized, or inseminated, to have a conceptus implanted in a womb. That’s the beginning of life. We know that genetic modification is in the wings here too – for a fee, of course – just as it has long been with food and animals. And if you think you have lived long enough, or find life insufferable – you can get help to end it – for a fee.

Then there’s justice. Isn’t that a right for all? I told my wife yesterday maybe justice should become a service like health care, along with dentistry and pharmacy. We have had so-called Legal Aid for some time – government – (now mostly woefully under-)funded. But we know too well that too many don’t get justice because they can’t afford the high-priced legal help that might get them their due. Some of the worst abuses in this area have been our own Canadian lawyers pocketing millions from disenfranchised and abused, traumatized indigenous people to supposedly help them get their due in the aftermath of the residential school revelations.

Is there an area of life I have overlooked? Love? Faith? One could write a lot about how money figures into those areas in our world too. But you get the picture. Whom do we serve? It’s certainly not mostly “the Lord.” If it truly was – well, I guess we have to wait for Him to return to get us there.