Category Archive: Updates
Lake Louise
This week, I had to write only one sermon instead of my usual two and I finished it early, which freed up the end of the week. Yesterday, I drove up to Calgary where I met my parents, who had driven down from Red Deer. We had lunch and then we drove out to Lake Louise, a little over half an hour northwest of Banff, where we hiked from the chalet up to the teahouse on Lake Agnes.
And when I say “up,” I mean up. We used to hike this path every year when I was still living at home, but they’ve made it steeper since I was a teenager. I used to leave my parents in the dust, but this time I don’t think my father was far behind me at any point.
At the top, we had tea (of course!) and large cookies at the tea house. The tea house is built beside Lake Agnes, and it has a great view of the green water of Lake Louise down below. It’s quite high up and the wind off Lake Agnes and the glacier was chilly, so the tea was very welcome.
The descent was much easier and, since I wasn’t panting for breath and expecting my heart to beat its way out of my ribcage as I was on the way up, I was able to observe a lot more and do some thinking. I don’t know how many times I’ve made that hike. My parents must have done it at least thirty times. When I was in high school, I wrote a fantasy novel (which, mercifully, is buried in a closet somewhere along with its rejection slips). At one point in the story, where the characters travel through the mountains, I drew on my memories of the hike up to Lake Agnes. In particular, I remember trying to describe the rocks I saw every year along the trail. Yesterday, I saw some of those rocks again and they brought back a lot of memories of hikes gone by.
One of the difficulties of being single, I find, is that it’s hard to enjoy the beauty of a walk like this. On this trip, I was able to share the joy of the hike with my parents, and there’s always a certain camaraderie with the other hikers, expressed in greetings and occasional conversation. But it would be hard for me to go hiking on my own.
In order to enter fully into the experience, you need someone else with you, someone else who can point things out to you and to whom you can praise the beauty and with whom you can share the experience and relive it again later. As C. S. Lewis says, “All enjoyment spontaneously overflows into praise…. I think we delight to praise what we enjoy because the praise not merely expresses but completes the enjoyment; it is its appointed consummation.” Maybe one of these days, I’ll be able to take my wife on that hike. (Note to self: Get in better shape before then.)
My parents and I parted in Calgary again, and then we drove back home. My legs were aching from the walk, and the descent in particular took its toll on my knees. During the hours in the car on the way home, my back began to ache and I was desperately tired. It felt as if there was a knot in my spine a few vertebrae down from my shoulders. I was hungry when I got home, but I was almost too tired to eat. I did manage to have a bowl of cereal and then I went to bed. It took me a while to get comfortable, but at last I fell into a deep sleep. I was pretty tired and a bit stiff this morning when I preached, though the back pain at least was gone.
And now, as I look at the clock, I realize that it’s time for the second service. Gotta run (well, hobble anyway). I’m not preaching, but after the service I am interviewing a couple who want to join the church.
Update
A couple of posts ago, I mentioned that the arrival of my new bookshelves was bittersweet since I might be moving. Someone named Sarah (Sarah who?, I wonder) asked why. Here’s the report I’ve put off writing for the last few weeks. On July 28, after three months of discussions between the elders and me, the consistory read this letter to the congregation following the morning service:
An open letter to the Congregation of Trinity Reformed Church.
Dear Congregation,
One of the issues that consistory has recently had to deal with is the matter of children at the Lord’s Supper. This issue, which is often referred to as “paedocommunion,” came to a head for consistory when we were required to make a decision on Tim Gallant‘s Appeal to the Classis of Western Canada (June 6 & 7, 2002). In his appeal, Gallant challenged the ruling of Classis 2000 “that the Reformed Confessions require a profession of faith as a prerequisite for the reception of the Lord’s Supper.” Mr. Gallant felt he could not sign the form of subscription if Classis placed the paedocommunion view outside of confessional bounds.
In our discussions on this issue, our consistory has maintained that those who approach the Lord’s Supper must be of a proper age to examine themselves and to commemorate the Lord’s death according to the commands of I Corinthians 11:25-29. It is, therefore, the position of consistory that our confessions do require a profession of faith as a prerequisite for reception of the Lord’s Supper. This position was supported unanimously by our consistory and was fully supported at Classis 2002. Our consistory also supports the rationale that Classis gave in denying Mr. Gallant’s appeal.
The reason that you are receiving this letter is that out of these discussions we became aware that our minister, Rev. Barach, is currently struggling with his views and beliefs on paedocommunion. At this time Rev. Barach does not have a firm position on the issue; rather, he is actively examining the arguments (for and against) trying to see what Scripture has to say on this matter. This became an issue for him in 2000 when Mr. Gallant first brought his appeal forward. It was not an issue for Rev. Barach when he signed the form of subscription himself in 1999. It should be noted that Rev. Barach has not preached, taught or promoted paedocommunion in our congregation.
The problem we face is that Rev. Barach cannot agree with the consistory and classis position that those who hold to the view of paedocommunion subscribe to a belief that is outside of confessional bounds. He is unable to support consistory in the stance we have taken and the direction we wish to pursue on this issue.
Based on this history, it was decided at our last meeting that:
The consistory of Trinity Reformed Church dissolve our relationship with Reverend Barach pending Classis approval in accordance with article 11 of our church order. Our intent is to dissolve the relationship with the following two provisions:
1) That Rev. Barach maintains his full ministerial duties until such a time that he can find a new position or until December the 31st of this year.
2) That consistory will continue to provide Rev. Barach with his full salary until such a time that he can find a new position or until July 31, 2003.
Consistory would like to stress that this is a mutual agreement between consistory and Rev. Barach. We agree that this is the best action that we can take at this time to keep and promote unity in our congregation and in the church of Christ at large. Consistory has a great appreciation for the love and leadership Rev. Barach has brought to our congregation over the last 3 years. It is our desire to proceed in this manner [sic: matter] in such a way that his name is upheld and the communion of the saints is maintained. We ask that the congregation support us in this matter with your prayers, discussions and actions.
If you have any questions about the current situation please talk to your district elder.
On Behalf of Consistory,
Gerrit Greidanus (Clerk)
Article 11 of the URCNA Church Order reads:
If, for reasons other than such as warrant ecclesiastical discipline, either a minister of the Word or the congregation he is serving desires to dissolve their pastoral relationship, that dissolution shall occur only upon mutually satisfactory conditions and only with the concurring advice of the classis. If the released minister desires to receive a call to serve another congregation, the council from whose service he is being released shall announce his eligibility for call, which eligibility shall be valid for no more than two years, whereafter he shall be honorably released from office. If the minister released from his congregation desires to leave his office in order to seek non-ministerial labor, he must receive the approval of the classis before doing so.
The consistory also included a letter from me:
Dear Congregation,
I want you to understand that I too share consistory’s concern for the peace and purity of the church. I love this congregation, with its commitment to God’s Word and its appreciation of God’s sovereignty and God’s covenantal bonds with His people. I deeply appreciate the love that the congregation has shown me and the assistance and encouragement that you have given me. It has been a wonderful three years. It is my hope that we can continue to work together as brothers and sisters in Christ until such a time as I secure a new ministerial position. I trust that we will be able to do this together under God’s grace and with His blessing.
In Christ,
Rev. John Barach
The consistory’s decision has been very painful for me. I had asked the elders to allow me to withhold judgment on the issue of paedocommunion and I had promised not to promote it or militate against our current practice. Nevertheless, the elders decided that it would be better for us to work to dissolve our relationship and I acquiesced to that decision. I’m grateful that they have stated in their letter that I have not been promoting paedocommunion publicly (I wasn’t the one who brought up the issue!), and I appreciate their desire to uphold my name. But it’s going to be very hard to have to leave Lethbridge.
According to the Church Order, this decision still needs to be ratified by a classis. My guess is that the earliest we could have a classis would be the first couple weeks of November.
In the meantime, I’m continuing to preach and carry on my other ministerial work. I’ve preached (from Philippians 2, in particular) that the path to vindication and exaltation with Christ is not the Adamic path of self-seeking and self-assertion, but the path Christ took, the path of self-sacrifice, humility, and submission. And now the Lord has given me the opportunity to back up my preaching by my example.
If you want more information, you can e-mail me. I appreciate your prayers for the congregation and for me.
Bookshelves & Insomnia
This morning, my bookshelves arrived — seven of them. It took the elderly gentleman who made them a couple of hours to make sure all the shelves fit, and then I spent the next couple of hours filling them with the books which, for as long as I’ve lived here, have been piled up around the walls of my bedroom. The arrival of the shelves is somewhat bittersweet, however, since I’m not sure how long I’ll be living here, and I’m reluctant to unpack all the boxes of books I have stored downstairs in case I have to pack again a few months from now.
I had supper tonight with Keith and Jenn Griffioen. After supper, we went to see Insomnia. It’s not perhaps a great movie, but I enjoyed it. It’s a murder mystery, but the mystery isn’t the main focus.
Al Pacino plays Detective Will Dormer from Los Angeles who has come to Alaska with his partner to help find the killer of a teenage girl. But things go wrong in a way that might lead people to suspect Dormer himself of a crime. Dormer covers things up. After all, if he’s under suspicion, his entire life’s work could be undone; criminals he’s arrested in the past might go free if there’s any suspicion cast on him and his methods as a detective. But Dormer can’t sleep, and the midnight sun doesn’t help. Add to the mix the fact that the suspect in the murder knows what Dormer has done.
The film presents a number of moral questions worth pondering, primary of which is whether the ends justify the means. Jeffrey Overstreet at Looking Closer writes,
This movie should be seen, discussed, and pondered more than once. Movies regularly sell us the lie that a hero is somebody willing to do anything to catch the bad guy. Most big screen heroes work in varying methods of vigilante justice. Many commit small crimes in order to stop those who commit big ones. And audiences cheer. But who’s to say that the criminals themselves weren’t trying to accomplish what they saw was good through unclean methods? Insomnia is a tragedy, but it tells the truth about the wages of sin. It’s one of the best American thrillers I’ve ever seen.
The scenery was breathtaking. Although the story is set in Alaska, the film was shot in northern British Columbia, in a town that Keith had visited a few times.
Now I’m off to have a cup of tea and read a bit more of Holifield and the last short story in Gene Wolfe’s Endangered Species.
RPCUS Charges
For those of you who have been following the story of the RPCUS heresy charges, here is the official response from Trinity Reformed Church, the congregation which I pastor:
Dear Sir,We received your letter containing your resolutions and your Call to Repentance, but we do not intend to act upon them. You have not substantiated your charges and your statements were not clear. Your Call to Repentance does not distinguish Rev. Barach from other speakers, nor do you indicate which errors he is accused of teaching.
Furthermore, you have not pursued your concerns in a brotherly and edifying way. While Matthew 18 may not apply to public matters, Joshua 22 provides a biblical example of brothers seeking clarification before acting. At no point have you sought to contact Rev. Barach to seek clarification.
On behalf of the elders of Trinity Reformed Church,
Gerrit Greidanus, Clerk
This letter was adopted by the consistory on Monday and has been mailed (and e-mailed) to the Covenant Presbytery of the RPCUS.
Seasonal Reading and The Centaur
For the past two weeks, it has been very hot here in Lethbridge. I don’t have air conditioning, and my study is the highest (and hence, the hottest) room in the house. The two big windows facing south are wonderful in the winter, but in the summer they let in a lot of heat. (The three walls covered with bookshelves, floor to ceiling, on the other hand, are wonderful year round.) Today was a little cooler, and we even had some rain early in the morning. The sun is out now, though, and it’s starting to heat up.
Which leads me to this question: Do you categorize books as “winter reads” and “summer reads”? I can’t say that I have every book categorized that way, but there are certain books that just seem as if they would be better read when the weather is cold and there’s snow on the ground. Take The Lord of the Rings, for example: I could certainly read it during the summer, but there’s something about it that calls (to my mind, at least) for cold weather. The same is true of The Book of the New Sun: I deliberately chose to read it in the winter. Mind you, the sequel, The Urth of the New Sun, made a great spring read for some reason.
I just finished reading John Updike’s The Centaur, probably the Updike book I’ve enjoyed the most so far (more than Rabbit Run). The book is somewhat odd. The main character, George Caldwell is a teacher at the high school in Olinger, a setting to which Updike has frequently returned. That part of the story seems pretty straightforward, but in a couple of chapters, the story is told as if Caldwell is Chiron, a centaur, and the whole story is linked in some way to Greek mythology. In fact, Updike, at the request of his wife, even included an index at the end, showing all the references to various mythological figures. But when you look up those references, you don’t see, for instance, the name “Venus” on the page to which he refers you; rather, you might see a reference to Vera Hummel.
Sometime, it might be worthwhile for me to re-read the book and look at those connections more carefully. For now, I just enjoyed the story and the beauty of Updike’s poetic prose. I suppose I could have read it comfortably in the winter — the description of the falling snow toward the end of the book is beautiful — but it made a pretty good summer read, too.
Mysteries I could read in any season. Just recently, I read and enjoyed Dorothy Sayers’ The Documents in the Case, written, interestingly enough, as a collection of letters and other documents.
Well, my company has just arrived home. Alex and Calvin Barendregt and Tim Gallant, all from Grande Prairie, are down for the weekend. Gotta go!
Find the Heresy
Messiah’s Congregation in Brooklyn, where Steve Schlissel is a pastor, has posted its response to the RPCUS resolutions now. Check out their new offer on their homepage: “Find the Heresy and Win $1,000,000.00.” (Of course, you’ve got to notice the comment at the end: “Payable by the RPCUS — as long as we’re ‘charging’ each other.”)
Birthday
Today is my birthday, and for the first time in quite a while, I’m going to be able to celebrate it with my parents, assuming, that is, that I can stop doing all the last minute things I need to do and get out the door. I’m heading up to Classis Western Canada, a meeting of delegates from the various United Reformed churches in this region (which stretches from Thunder Bay, Ontario to Smithers, British Columbia and to Salem, Oregon). But in God’s providence, the classis is scheduled for the day after my birthday and the venue is only half an hour north of my parents’ place. Happy birthday to me!
Snow
It’s hard to believe, but … it’s snowing. It started with a thunderstorm last night. By midnight or so, the temperature had dropped enough that the rain was turning into small pellets of soft hail mixed with snow. I had a hard time sleeping because the wind was lashing the stuff against my bedroom window, so I’ve been groggy all day today. When I got up this morning, we had a couple of inches of heavy, wet snow, and there’s more coming down. In fact, it’s snowing so steadily that I can hardly see the houses a block away. It certainly doesn’t look like a typical mid-May in Lethbridge. Last year, it was bone dry for most of the spring and summer. Now if only I could get motivated (and get my head clear enough) to write a sermon. This is a day for curling up with a cup of tea and a good book.
Calgary
Today was the first full-length day off I’ve had in quite a while. But before I talk about today, I have to back up to last night. I had supper with a couple from the congregation. At about 9:30, I stopped by Hugo’s where a friend of mine, Aron Bird, was playing. It was the first time I’d been to Hugo’s. It’s not a bad little place, though it was rather smoky. No Guinness on tap, but I did get a McNally’s, which was quite nice. Aron plays bass guitar in a jazz trio which includes a guitarist and a trombonist as well. A trombone trio isn’t all that common, I suspect, but the trombonist was very good. I didn’t get home till after midnight.
This morning, I drove up to Calgary, about two hours northwest of here. I’m planning to spend part of my vacation in the States, and though a passport isn’t a must yet for entering the States, it’s a pretty strong should. To cut down the time it would take to get the passport, I decided to go to Calgary and submit my information in person, which is supposed to cut the processing time in half. “Be prepared to wait for hours there,” people told me, so I took along Graham Greene’s England Made Me.
I waited for only about an hour before my number was called. Everything was progressing smoothly until … “You have a passport already,” the lady said. I’d forgotten all about it when I filled in the passport information. Back in 1998, I was supposed to go to the Ukraine to teach at a seminary, filling in for Ray Sikkema, who couldn’t go because of heart trouble. I’d gone through the process to get a passport but then hadn’t needed to use it. Rev. Sikkema was doing better and he decided to go himself. I hadn’t thought about the passport since. I quickly called my parents’ place, which is where I’d been living in 1998 while waiting for a call to a church, and my mother found it. I’ll pick it up when I’m there in June.
Still, the day wasn’t entirely wasted. I stopped off at Pilgrim Books, a Christian used book store, where I picked up a few books — nothing too significant, though it was nice to find a Lutheran Church of America Service Book and Hymnal (1958 edition) for $2.00. Jeff Meyers recommends that one in The Lord’s Service.
While I was there, I overheard a guy tell his friend that he felt guilty buying books when he had other books at home that he hadn’t read yet. The friend seemed to agree. Maybe decades of book buying have hardened me, but what they were describing was completely outside my experience. My parents’ house was full of unread books when I grew up, as my house is right now. And which commandment did they think they’d be breaking anyway?
For the rest of the day, I browsed. I sat in Chapters and read a bit. I listened to parts of Pedro the Lion‘s It’s Hard to Find a Friend at A&B Sound. I especially liked the understated but allusive “Of Minor Prophets and Their Prostitute Wives.” The link will take you to the lyrics.
For supper, I had spinach and feta cheese lasagne and then headed back to Lethbridge. I arrived back at about 9:30. Now I’m quite tired — not enough sleep last night — and so I’m gonna drink some tea, read a little more Graham Greene, and go to bed.
Home & Herod
Home again! On Friday, I drove about five hours north to Leduc. Our church order requires each church to be visited by a minister and an elder (or by two ministers) at least once every couple of years; the visitors inquire about how the officebearers are doing their work and about the congregation’s health. If requested, they also sometimes meet with members of the congregation. Lethbridge was appointed to visit Leduc, though in this case Leduc requested two ministers. Ed Marcusse, the pastor of Bethel United Reformed Church in Calgary made the visit with me.
I spent Friday night with Mike Mazereeuw, a recently married friend in Edmonton, who took me book shopping on Saturday morning. Book Outlet sells seconded books, books that haven’t sold in other book stores, at discounted prices. I got quite a haul before setting out for Grande Prairie, another five hours northwest of Edmonton. I preached there Sunday and visited a number of friends, including Bill DeJong and Tim Gallant.
On Monday, I drove south as far as Red Deer, where I stayed overnight with my parents before heading to Lethbridge on Tuesday.
This week, I’m working on a sermon on Luke 23:1-12. I’ve discovered that most commentaries do very little with Jesus’ trial before Herod. Why was Jesus tried not only by Pilate but also by Herod? Why was that trial part of God’s plan? How did it contribute to Jesus’ work? Only Luke tells us about it. Why does he mention it? How does it fit with the rest of what he’s saying? Most commentators, it seems, don’t ever ask those questions. They simply say what happened (Jesus was sent to Herod, etc.) without ever digging into the significance of it.
My thoughts? Well, the text presents Herod as a king of the Jews from Galilee who is confronting (and being confronted by) Jesus, the king of the Jews from Galilee. That has to be significant! Acts 4 also links this trial and the resulting friendship between Pilate and Herod with Isaiah 53 (God’s holy servant) and with Psalm 2. The whole world, including the Jewish king Herod, is united against God’s anointed king.
Add to that the fact that Herod, though a Jew now, is of Edomite background and is now joining the world power (Rome, this time) in attacking the true Israel in the person of Israel’s representative king. In their zeal to get rid of Jesus, the Jewish leaders have aligned themselves with Pilate, the representative of Rome, the foreign ruler over God’s people, and with Herod, the Edomite-turned-king-of-the-Jews, and they’ve become spiritual Edomites themselves, Esaus jealous of Jacob and out for his blood.
The glorious thing is that precisely by being rejected by His people and mocked by Herod, Jesus is entering into His victory. The nations rage, but God will set His king on His throne and give Him a rod of iron.with which to judge the nations. Don’t mistake His suffering for failure! Kiss the Son lest He be angry and you perish.
Anyway, that’s what I’ve been thinking about lately.
The Weight of Glory
On Saturday evening, I received bad news. A member of the congregation was killed in an accident that afternoon, leaving behind his wife and a baby daughter. It has been a hard blow to the family and the church. The funeral is on Wednesday morning, and the text the family has chosen is 2 Corinthians 4:16-18:
Therefore we do not lose heart. Though our outer person is wasting away, our inner person is being renewed day by day. For this light, momentary affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all measure, because we are looking not at the things which are seen but at the things which are not seen, because the things which are seen are temporary but the things which are not seen are eternal.
This afternoon, as I was thinking about that passage, I read C. S. Lewis’s sermon “The Weight of Glory,” not to my mind a great sermon, but certainly a wonderful essay. I appreciated his candid acknowledgment that most of the Bible’s descriptions of life beyond death didn’t appeal to him at first and his encouragement to think more about the things in Scripture that don’t seem to appeal to us, since in them lie the things we don’t yet know and the things we need to know. Here’s part of what he writes about the promise of glory:
We should hardly dare to ask that any notice be taken of ourselves. But we pine. The sense that in this universe we are treated as strangers, the longing to be acknowledged, to meet with some response, is part of our inconsolable secret. And surely, from this point of view, the promise of glory … becomes highly relevant to our deep desire. For glory means good report with God, acceptance by God, response, acknowledgment, and welcome into the heart of things. The door on which we have been knocking all our lives will open at last.
More bad news: I’ve received word that Bill and Kim DeJong’s son Jacob isn’t out of the woods yet. After the first lump drained, the doctors found a second lump. I’ll post more when I hear more. It’s good to know that our Father knows our needs before we ask.
Jacob DeJong
Great news! As Bill mentioned in the latest post on his blog, he and Kim have gone to Edmonton to have the specialists examine their son, Jacob. I just talked to Kim’s sister, and she reports that when the doctors cut into Jacob’s neck to do a biopsy on the lump, there was a lot of pus. They’ve concluded that it was an infection, and they’ve ruled out cancer completely. Jacob will be in the hospital in Edmonton for a few days. It’s an answer to many prayers, and I rejoice with Bill and Kim and their family in God’s goodness!