Back to Life, Back to Reality
After returning from our honeymoon, I thought it would be good to make a short post to say that we are back and in good spirits. We haven't started to look into gathering our photos from the photographer, but we have some amateur pics from the reception and honeymoon. We will be putting our pictures on the main website as soon as they are ready and we have time to process them.

Thanks to all who attended either the ceremony or the reception. We had a lot of fun and our hope is that our guests did too. When pics and videos are available, they weill be posted.

   [ posted by William @ 8:24 AM ]

Now Entering Wedded Bliss
I'm currently touching up my vows and doing some last minute communication for the wedding stuff. For most people reading this, we will already be married and on our honeymoon. My next post will be as a married man.

We'll update you on the wedding process and include much of the picture and text highlights available from the website.

Thanks for everyone's support.

   [ posted by William @ 1:51 AM ]

Registry Goodness
One of the parts of a contemporary wedding is signing up for a registry. There are two major retail chains in Canada that have registries, and we've signed up for both of them. There are some pros and cons to the process, as well as a few moral qualms.

There were almost some guilty pleasures as we went around the store scanning the bar codes of the items that we liked. Is it selfish to just ask for all this expensive stuff? Certainly the chance of having repeat gifts is reduced, and we get to express subtly what styles we prefer. I would feel guilty, except that I know that as a shopper of wedding gifts, I prefer to have some assistance. A registry aided gift is no less thoughtful, so compiling a registry can't be all that bad, but it's still tough to alleviate that guilt within me. To outright ask for all these things must certainly go against some part of my humble Mennonite upbringing.

Then, if making the registry wasn't hard enough, there's the issue of maintaining it. Occasionally we would get an email saying that a certain item was no longer in stock, so we would go in to replace that item. Ana is quite intent on checking regularly to see what kind of stuff we are getting. I prefer to go in from time to time to make sure that we are maintaining the various price point options, that is we still have items on the list for people no matter what their budget is. Some people see that as greedy. Is that really any more greedy than making the registry in the first place?

Another thing I like is going into the store to look at the registry, and finding other couples whose names are similar to ours. I think it'd be cool to talk to them to see how their planning is going. Do they want the same things we want? How much are they spending on everything? What if I bought something from their registry, and checked it off, so that they thought they'd get it, but then kept it for myself? What if we meet? Would we make that connection? Okay, that's enough of that. I'm just fascinated by those seemingly random relationships we have with people.

   [ posted by William @ 6:15 PM ]

Proud Thanks and an Exalted Tax Collector

For the second year in a row, I was entrusted with the Thanksgiving Sunday sermon. Earlier in the month I had been talking with a friend about the role of recurring sin in the life of a Christian. He had been holding off baptism until he could resolve the issue in his mind. He didn't fully resolve the issue, but decided to become baptized anyway, realizing that one issue should hold him back. He said that he wasn't comfortable asking for forgiveness for the same sins over and over again. My response was that the church should ultimately be a place of forgiveness, and the example that came to mind was the parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector. I thought about the parable more over the following weeks, and decided to use it as the basis for my thanksgiving sermon. Here is an excerpt:

We live in the Western world, an extension of the American Empire, which had its roots in the British Empire, which had its roots in the Roman Empire, which philosophers often call the Judeo-Christian tradition. For centuries, all of the biggest schools, businesses and governments had very solid connections to the church. Up until very recently, these stories were common knowledge to almost everyone in society. So it’s almost impossible to read these stories in a new way, in a way as though you were reading it for the first time.

The Golden Rule is something that everybody knows, but not everybody knows that it comes from the Bible, Matthew 7:12. At one point, it would have been a pretty revolutionary idea, but for us “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you” is pretty common knowledge. In its time, Jesus’ parable about the Pharisee and the tax collector would have been quite revolutionary as well.
“To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everyone else, Jesus told this parable:” (Luke 18:9)
I think we all know people like this. We see them all the time, and they drive us crazy. They make us feel bad because we’re not as good as they are. Most of the time when we see a group of people like this, we leave. These people don’t always care about everyone else; they often just want to share their righteousness with the rest of the world. Sometimes you notice that something is missing in a conversation with these people. Something is missing because they’ve had this conversation before; they’ve practiced it. They expect certain responses from you, and then when you say what they are expecting, then they say what they’ve rehearsed. What’s missing is sincerity.

A while ago, when I was away at school, I had two Jehovah’s Witnesses come visit me. After a short conversation, they left feeling confused and unsure of themselves. A week later, they came back, but with an older, more experienced guy who wasn’t ready to back down. He had this conversation before, or so he thought. His answers were very well rehearsed, and he got frustrated because I kept repeating myself, but I was repeating myself because he wasn’t paying attention the first time I said it.

It isn’t a sincere conversation when one person just says back what they’ve practiced over and over to say, that’s a tennis game. This kind of conversation isn’t sincere, and that’s why we feel uncomfortable around this kind of group. These kinds of people don’t understand their audience, and for that reason, we don’t understand them, and so we leave.

Jesus didn’t leave, and not only did he not leave, he approached and started to try to teach them. Now this isn’t surprising for us. After 2000 years of research and biblical study later, we see Jesus, not only as God’s son, but also as God here on earth with us. So knowing that, we aren’t surprised that Jesus isn’t afraid of these guys. After all, who is more righteous than Jesus? Of course God would approach these guys who had an incorrect view of their own righteousness.

Jesus starts into the story by presenting us with a dichotomy. He gives his audience two opposites. These opposites are so different that the goal of the storyteller is to immediately conjure up images in the mind of the listener.
“Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector.” (Luke 18:10)
When we read this now, we know that Jesus doesn’t always get along with the Pharisees, and we know that a lot of his friends are tax collectors, like Matthew, who was one of the twelve, and Zaccheus. These Pharisees get a bad rap sometimes. Jewish history books tell us that at that time, there were four main schools of thought among Rabbis, and the Pharisees were one of them. When we compare the teachings of Jesus to all four groups, Jesus lines us most closely with the Pharisees. They held to a strict moral code, and unlike the Sadducees, they still believed in the resurrection. The image of a Pharisee was supposed to make people think of a very pure man, well educated, and a guy who lived very closely with the system that God has established. Forget all the other stuff that you know about Pharisees, and pick someone who you think embodies this image, pure, successful, and with a great reputation. Maybe it’s a pastor, a scout leader, a coach, and a country music singer, just pick one and remember it.

A tax collector on the other hand was generally understood to be the scum of the earth. They had sold out and were working for the Roman government, taking taxes from the people, some for the occupying Romans and a little off the top for themselves. For you a tax collector in a modern setting might be a lawyer who over charges for his services and treats you like an idiot. For me a tax collector might be a crooked mechanic who lies about the work that needs to be done and has poor workmanship for the things he does do. So pick a tax collector, someone who makes you sick, maybe someone whose lifestyle doesn’t jive with the way you see the world, maybe someone who only looks out for themselves and hurts everyone around them.

Now keep those two people in mind, and I’m going to tell the story over again, with a few changes. When you hear me say Pharisee, picture your own Pharisee. When you hear me say tax collector, picture your own tax collector.

“Two guys went to church for Thanksgiving Sunday, a Pharisee, and a tax collector. During a time of prayer, the Pharisee raised his arms up to sky and prayed, ‘God, I thank you that I am not like all of these other people, liars, crooks, and all around losers – and especially not like this tax collector. I read my Bible, I pray, I tell people about you all the time, and I give ten percent of everything I get back to the church.’ But the tax collector sat still, with his eyes open, looking down at the floor, and he prayed, ‘God, if you can hear me, take it easy on me. I’m pathetic.’”

Now what Jesus has done in this story is he has developed his dichotomy. He has taken the things that we assumed and made us rethink them, or at least a little bit. In a lot of ways, this Pharisee is better than everyone else; they do more good things for the church and for the community, so maybe they are a little bit justified for thankful for that. And, let’s face it, the tax collector is pathetic; they mess up everybody’s lives, they don’t seem to care about anyone else but himself or herself. So maybe these prayers are normal. But then Jesus throws in the twist.

“I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For all those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.” (Luke 18:14)
Jesus here is not preaching against people being thankful, rather he is advocating a more sincere kind of giving thanks. If you look closely at this Pharisee, is he really being thankful at all? Basically what he is saying is “I am thankful that I do not steal, that I do not commit evil, or commit adultery, and especially that I don’t collect taxes for the Romans.” He’s really only thankful for the things that he already does. So he’s really thanking himself. Why should God smile on this man? Why should he leave the temple justified before God when he hasn’t even talked to God?

This tax collector walks in humbly, prays quietly, and leaves, humbly. The tax collector likely had much to be thankful for. He was likely quite wealthy, and a government job has all sorts of perks, but he isn’t thankful at all. Despite his wealth and financial and civil security, he only thinks about his heart, his soul. He doesn’t rank himself above anyone else, he only acknowledges himself as a sinner and he asks for mercy.

Again, Jesus is presenting us with a dichotomy, opposites. He says that if you spend your life lifting yourself up, you will fall, but if you lower yourself humbly, then God in heaven will lift you up.

   [ posted by William @ 7:45 PM ]