Japan Reflections Part Two: What are the roles of the local and wider churches?

Another theological theory I wanted to test in Japan was the role of the larger church in the life of the local church. I know the classic argument for the larger church: it provides a sense of unity in mission.

And, yes, that’s true. As far as it goes. But it could be that I’ve spent too much time in Alberta, but I’ve grown suspicious of centralized authority, and try to celebrate the strength of grassroots, local efforts. I often felt that some decisions made by synod office were to protect their authority rather than help enhance mission.

For example, in a previous congregation, we had a few university students attending worship, and I wanted to encourage them to step into positions of leadership. Of course, to be in leadership they, constitutionally have to be members. And they were reluctant to transfer membership from their home churches just for the few years they’d be at school.

So, I came up with an “associate membership” possibility. That way they could retain their membership at their home church, yet still serve in leadership while in school. It seemed like a win-win.

Synod office vetoed the idea. “It would screw up our numbers,” I was told. As if our numbers aren’t already screwed up. It felt like they were protecting the institution at the expense of mission. And it told the young people “your gifts are only welcome on our terms.” And even having to get permission for something for changing something as mundane we membership seemed a little heavy handed. It assumed that churches couldn’t make decisions on their own.

So, I became a little suspicious, if not somewhat hostile to centralize decision making. It’s not that I shunned synod or national offices, it’s just that I took their recommendations with a pinch of sodium. I preferred local solutions to local ministry challenges.

Then, when I received the call to St. Paul’s, knowing that it was an independent Lutheran Church with informal ties to the ELCA and LCMS, I figured it was an excellent opportunity to see if I was right, that the local church can stand on its own without institutional support or accountability. These are grown-up Christians, I figured. They should be able to chart their course - with God’s help - using the gifts and tools they’d been given.

Unfortunately, that was not the case. While the congregation has survived some pretty heavy interpersonal storms through the years, and is challenged with conflict, St. Paul’s could have weathered the gales of conflict more easily with the help of an interested third-party. Namely a synod office. And they would be stronger for it.

This is not to criticize any of the faithful members of St. Paul’s. Just the opposite. St. Paul’s is filled with wonderfully faithful Christians trying to do church with an organizational structure that has been working against them. It’s testimony to their creativity and resilience that they have lasted this long.

But the question of the role of the larger church is still ongoing. It’s certainly a hot debate topic here in Canada. Given the current ELCIC realities, I think that’s an important question for us to discuss. And we should fall into the polarized debate I often hear. “The national church is irrelevant!” vs “We need the Winnipeg office for our sense of national unity.” We need to dig deeper.

However, the question underlying all of this is: what is the church, in concrete terms, trying to accomplish? And I’m not sure we know how to answer that. And if we can’t answer that, how will we know how to organize ourselves?

Japan Reflections Part One: Christendom

(NB: This is part one of a series of my reflections on my experience at St. Paul International Lutheran Church in Tokyo, Japan. These are just ideas I'm kicking around. I encourage discussion and debate)

Theological Theory Number One: Christians in non-Christian countries will thrive outside of a culturally accommodating setting.


Conclusion: Maybe. Maybe not.

It’s almost an article of faith among many moderate-to-liberal Christians in the west to say that the church must disestablish itself from the host culture. Most reflective Christians are sensitive to the spotty historical record Christians have when we are given political power and cultural authority.

For the uninitiated, many church folks call this marriage of cultural/political power to the Church “Christendom.”

Japan has no memory of Christendom. Which was, at first, for me, exhilarating. It felt like I was walking a tight rope without a cultural safety net. And I was DEEPLY impressed by the Japanese Christians who came to faith and remained committed to Christ and church despite Christianity being a foreign religion, not just because it was imported, but because it was so different from Japanese believed about the divine, and how Japanese lived their religious rituals (which is for a different blog post). To be a Japanese Christian is to be deeply counter-cultural in ways that westerners can’t come close to understanding.

Being Japanese and a Christian will put you at odds with family and friends, as Shinto and Buddhist rituals are embedded in daily life. Not to mention that Japanese have no sense of one “God.” They believe in “gods.” In fact, I’m told that the Japanese word for “god” is plural.

After a few months in Tokyo, I began to realize how easy it is to be Christian in the west, and how Christendom has made my ministry much more effortless in Canada than in Japan. Small things, like Christmas and Good Friday being national holidays in Canada, but not in Japan, makes getting to church easier. And I could rely on a full house in Canada. But not in Japan. In fact, to be a Christian in Japan takes effort.

It’s tempting to see all the awful things the Church has done in Jesus’ name, and why we’d want to run away from it. It’s understandable to be ashamed or embarrassed by the times when church leaders confused God’s kingdom authority with Caesar’s, and that we’d want to distance ourselves from that memory. It reasonable to want to create something new and redeeming when the Church has often behaved so badly through it’s history.

But we can’t run away from out history. It will be there whether we like it or not. Being in Japan, and having ZERO cultural props upon which to lean showed me the opportunity to invoke the positive elements of Christendom’s cultural memory, without baptizing the atrocities. We can repent of those times when we abused our authority, but we can also call people to mind the stories that are THEIR stories.

Western culture is profoundly shaped by Christianity. Art, music, language, law, economics, all have their basis in Christian history. It’s embedded in our memory. It’s who we are. So, to disestablish ourselves too quickly and cleanly will be a cultural lobotomy.

People come to church at Christmas and Easter for a reason. They want a church wedding, and it’s not by accident. They present their children for baptism even though they haven’t been to church for years because they want to connect to a memory they can’t really define. They call a pastor for a loved one’s funeral because they identify the church with presiding over eternal things.

I know that many clergy feel like the proverbial street walker when they are asked to perform pastoral duties for those who haven’t shown commitment to Christ and his church. But those are moments of evangelistic opportunity to share the story of Jesus and how he connects with their story. When else can we help people make the link between the ritual they’re asking for, and what it means for them and their lives?

In Japan, Christianity is declining the same way as it is in the west. Most of the declining numbers are a direct effect of smaller numbers of people going to church in traditionally church-going countries. If they aren’t going to church at home, why would they go to church in Japan?

Expect to find a sense of home. And that’s what the Japanese church has to offer ex-pats in the country. I recommended that St. Paul’s stay with the traditional liturgy in its future because people are drawn to a sense of the familiar. And that familiarity is a gateway to deeper faith.

Maybe that’s something that the western church can explore. How we can connect people to a deeper, more ancient story, than the one they are currently living, a story not of their own making.

Sermon: Lent 3B

(NB: You can listen to the sermon by clicking here)

I was in my car when I first heard about the earthquake last March. And to be honest, the magnitude of the catastrophe didn’t register with me until much later. The CBC reporter simply announced the quake and the resultant tsunami as if he was reporting the hockey scores. 

It wasn’t until later that when I arrived home and I turned on the news and saw the pictures. The homes and businesses destroyed and the thousands of lives lost penetrated the noise that is usually the nightly news. 

And I had questions. Natural questions for any believer, after seeing or experiencing such devastation. I asked “Where is God in all this? How could God allow this to happen? If God is the creator of heaven and earth, if God put the stars in the sky and the earth on its axis, then why wouldn’t God prevent this from happening?”

Those are important questions. And they have led more people away from faith than any other. And it’s easy to see why. Suffering affects everyone. And when we are on the receiving end of life’s cruelty, we ask where God is, or why God didn’t stop this. Or we ask if God even cares. Or we may ultimately ask, if God is who we say God is, are we lying to ourselves? And those are - good if difficult - questions.

That’s why I have little patience for what some people call...(whole thing here)

Sermon: Lent 1B

[NB: listen to the sermon by clicking here)

What are you giving up for Lent? That’s the question of the day, isn’t it? What you’re giving up to share in Jesus’ 40 day desert fast?

That’s where the whole “giving something up” thing comes from. Folks read the story in today’s gospel about Jesus going into the desert to fast for 40 days and thought that it might be a good way for us to find ourselves in his story by fasting for the 40 days of Lent.

But, of course, not everyone’s going to book 6 weeks off work to go sit on a rock in the woods and pray. People aren’t going to go without creature comforts, much less bare necessities for a month and a half. In fact, if you did I’m sure your family would start to worry about your neural functioning.

So, Christians, through the centuries, did what we did to most church rituals that made us look crazy or caused discomfort: we house-trained it. At first it was no food on Fridays and Wednesdays. Then it morphed into no MEAT on Fridays and Wednesdays. But then came the Wednesday night chicken wing special and folks said, well, maybe we’ll just have meat-free Fridays. Now...?

Now...people give up chocolate, coffee, beer, something fairly minor, just to get in the spirit of Lent rather than create some real discomfort in their lives.

But recently, the wheel has turned in the other direction. Some folks now...(whole thing here)

Sermon: Ash Wednesday

(You can listen to the sermon here)


I heard an interview recently with a scientist who said that we, everyone and everything, are made up of dust. Ancient dust. Dust from stars that have long ago disappeared. From planets long since destroyed. Dust from people whose names gave been forgotten. And that our dust is and will be the building blocks of future creations.

Isn’t that fascinating? I think it is. If also a little humbling. I like to think of myself as unique, a specific, individual creature. I was created out of the woman who bore me, and am a contemporary creation. I look forward, not backward. My flesh and blood is a lively blast of chemical reactions. My value to the world comes from what I do, what I contribute. Not from the raw material that isn’t unique to me, or over which I have little control.

As much as I would like the opposite to be true, I have to admit that the scientist is right. I know the bible would agree with her. I am dust, and to dust I will return. The same goes for you. The same goes for everything that lives and breaths.

I don’t know about you but my dustiness is not something that I like to dwell upon. But I find that I have to. In my job I’m always...(Whole thing here)

Sermon: Epiphany 5B

[NB: You can listen to the sermon by clicking here]


“…woe to me if I do not proclaim the gospel.”

Those words rung in my ears on a viciously hot July night in 1999 at Christ Lutheran Church in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada, when this scripture passage was read and preached by my bishop before he invited me to kneel, laid hands on my head, and I received the rite ordination. 

It was like I was being joined – stitched – to a long line of preachers who held this message in their hands so reverently that they couldn’t help but share what had been so lovingly entrusted to them.

And while this journey of preaching the gospel has taken me on many adventures – including the one I am on now – I still wonder, in those quieter moments, if I am up the task that is put in front of me. I worry that the words I use and the words you hear are saving words that we call “gospel.”

As many of us know, the word “gospel” means “good news.” And those of us who’ve been around the church for a while might think we know what that word means. But I’m not sure that’s true. Because I find myself asking, “Good news” for what? From what? What is the bad news that is in your life, and then what is the good news that I am called to proclaim as a response to it?

How would you define the word “gospel”? What is “good news”?

For my master’s thesis I had to come up with a definition of the gospel. And because I allowed four years of graduate study in theology to get the better of me I defined the gospel as this...(whole thing here)

Sermon: Epiphany 4B

“...any prophet who speaks in the name of other gods, or who presumes to speak in my name a word that I, the Lord, have not commanded the prophet to speak—that prophet shall die.”

Yikes! Makes me want to watch my words even more carefully than I do!

But that’s what the people had asked for. They wanted someone to speak for God, because they worried that hearing directly from the Most High God might cause them to clutch their chests and do a face plant into the dirt.

A prophet, in the bible, as most of you know, isn’t someone who merely foretells the future. The prophet isn’t a fortuneteller. The prophet isn’t someone who sits at tables on the street, who, for a small fee, will tell you how your how much money you will make or who you will marry.

In the bible, a prophet is someone who speaks for God. A prophet is a preacher. The prophet’s mouth opens and it’s not the prophet’s words that people hear. It’s God’s words that reach their ears. They figured it was easier to hear from God through a human vessel, rather than endure the thunder and fire of the Almighty.

And God, knowing the human fondness for putting their words into God’s mouth lays down the...(whole thing here)

Sermon: Epiphany 3B

“The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.”

Repentance. I think the Christian proclamation has twisted this word into so many knots that it would be unrecognizable to Jesus’ first listeners. And now, the mere utterance of that word evokes strong feelings of shame. At least it does for me.

“Repent!” we hear preachers say. And what they usually mean is “Stop sinning! Change those parts of your life that is putting you in conflict with God. Cut out those impure thoughts and actions and turn to the purity of God’s will. If you want to be close to God then you have to remove anything that gets in the way with your relationship with God.”

I heard that a lot from too many preachers. For me, when I hear that, and if it`s true, I always wonder if I have repented enough. I always worry that there’s something that I’ve missed, that there might be a spiritual blind spot that is keeping me from growing in my faith.

Luckily, in an old prayer of confession, there’s an escape clause. The prayer confesses those sins “known and unknown.” 

However, while we may be forgiven of those unknown sins with a linguistic sleight-of-hand, practically, we are no better off because we cannot change that which we do not know that we SHOULD change. If being close to God and greeting the kingdom when it arrives is dependent on something that I do, than I’m not sure that really sounds like good news. 

As Christians, we tend to...(whole thing here)

Sermon: Epiphany 2B

New Years day was quite an education for me. I was told that Japanese people are not religious, yet they pray at the shrine. And from the lineups I saw at the various shrines in the area, I could see what people meant.

I would say that makes Japanese people VERY religious. At least in practice if not in belief. It seems that in such a highly ritualized culture, the act of praying at the shrine is a quite a religious thing to do, even if folks sometimes do so out of ritual or simple tradition.

Tokyo is this amazing city where I can walk through blocks and blocks of highly modern landscape, with its massive steel and glass buildings, and stunning architecture. Then I encounter - out of nowhere - a small Buddhist temple. And someone might be praying there. And down the block I’ll stumble upon a Shinto shine, reminding people of the city’s deep history.

And of course, on my way to the office I walk through the Yasukuni Shrine, where there is, often, a crowd gathering. And knowing its complicated history, and the strong feelings it arouses, I make my way as quickly as I can when the young men in black shirts and sunglasses start shouting into their microphones.

Religion is everywhere here. Yearnings for the sacred are found on every city block.

This wouldn’t have been news to the Christians in Corinth. The Corinthian Christians knew shrines, and they knew temples. They knew that temples and shrines were places where gods and goddesses lived.

Temples were expensive to build and even worse to maintain. Temples were sacred, holy, awe-inspiring places. They were places people went to celebrate life’s special events, those transitional moments that helped them along life’s journey. If they wanted to find the Holy, they went to the shrine and the temple.

So they were probably surprised when Paul asked them..(whole thing here)

Sermon: Baptism of Jesus

As it turns out, Jesus wasn’t the only one being called into a new life that day in those waters. God was calling them into the same life that Jesus was called into. Baptism isn’t just a ritual that we perform as an entry way into the church family. And baptism isn’t just a one-off salvation ticket.

Baptism is about being recruited - drafted - into a movement. In baptism, we are joined to Jesus’ death and resurrection, so we can live resurrection lives in a world so often more interested in death. 

Baptism is about...(whole thing here)

Sermon: Christmas 1B

I rang the doorbell and a young woman answered.

“Hello I’m Pastor Kevin,” I said.

She let me in and we sat down on the couch. The baby was asleep in the crib by the window.

I got straight to the point.

“So, why a baptism?” I asked.

“Well, I think it’s important to have God in my child’s life,” she said.

“What’s the baby’s name?” I asked looking over the crib.

She muttered something I didn’t recognize.

“That’s an interesting name, “ I said. “What’s the story behind that? Is it a family name?” I asked because I hadn’t heard that name before.

“No, it’s not a family name,” she answered.

“Do you know what it means?” I asked.

“No, it doesn’t have any meaning. It’s just...(whole thing here) 

Sermon: Christmas Day

Most of the travel guide books I’ve read before coming to Japan say that most people under the age of 40 will understand and speak at least a little bit of English. Especially in Tokyo, they say. So, an English speaker shouldn’t have any trouble getting his or her point across.

Having been here for almost two months I can now say without equivocation that this is absolutely NOT true!

I may have told you this story before, but bear with me. About a month ago I was at a Tully’s Coffee shop and I tried to order a large decaf coffee. The young university-aged barista looked at me puzzled and pointed to the small cup. I shook my head “No” and pointed to the large cup. She looked at me with the same puzzled gaze and help up the small cup. I again, shook my head “No” and tapped the large cup. She shrugged her shoulders and made my coffee.

She said something to the other barista who then looked in my direction with the same puzzled look her co-worker had, but with a glint of amusement in her eye. The barista smiled as she handed me my coffee. I peeled off the lid to smell the coffee like I usually do (the aroma is half the coffee experience).

And I noticed a little foam floating on the dark liquid. I smelled it, tasted it, and realized that she TOTALLY misunderstood what I was looking for. Instead of a large decaf, she made me a triple espresso! Pretty much the OPPOSITE of what I was looking for!

I had to laugh because I realized that I hadn’t communicated my order well enough. It wasn’t the barista’s fault that I couldn’t order in Japanese in a Japanese coffee shop. The language created a gulf that no amount of hand signals or slow english nouns could bridge.

And when I talk with some Japanese people they often say “Sorry” for their limited English. And what I always want to say back is “No, you’re not the one who should apologize for your limited English. I should apologize to YOU for my infinitesimally small amount of Japanese. After all, I’m in YOUR country! I should be adjusting to YOU. You shouldn’t have to accommodate ME!”

Which is why, in the...(whole thing here)