Book Review: Healing through Prayer

Healing through Prayer: Health Practitioners Tell the Story

Authors: Larry Dossey, Herbert Benson, John Polkinghorne, and Others, with a forword by Peter Downie

Publisher: Anglican Book Centre, paperback, 167 pages, including Forword

Contents

In addition to the Forword, this volume contains 5 parts. The part titles are: Part 1: Science and Spirituality; Part 2: Healing Prayer in Practice; Part 3: The Healing Community; Part 4: The Perspective of Other Faiths; and Part 5: A Healing Program at a Local Church. Each part contains a number of chapters, with a wide array of authors. With the exception of the Forword, each chapter consists of a question and answer format. 

In the Forword, Peter Downie, speaking of the wide representation of healers in this volume, believes that they share one thing in common: “Every healer eventually mentions the need to be filled with good intentions and to keep an open heart and mind towards others” (p. 9).

John Polkinghorne, was a theoretical physicist for 25 years, then became an Anglican minister. In answer to the question: “How do you reconcile your life as a scientist with your life as a priest?” Polkinghorne states: “They are, of course, looking at different aspects of the truth. But they have enough in common, I think, to be friends rather than enemies” (p. 16). Speaking of prayer, he observes: “Nobody can talk about prayer without acknowledging the mystery of individual human destiny” (p. 22). 

At the time of this volume’s publication, Larry Dossey was a best-selling author and medical doctor in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and co-Chair of the Panel on Mind/Body Interventions, National Institute of Health. In answer to the question: “As a scientifically trained physician, how did you become involved in investigating the value of prayer in healing?” Dossey discovered that some patients with fatal illnesses who were prayed for recovered completely. This led him to write three books about intercessory prayer and healing. He goes on to say: “Certainly the great healers throughout history have affirmed the role of love in healing” (p. 35). An Aboriginal healer once told Dossey that the words ‘deliver us from evil’ in the Lord’s Prayer are: “…one of the most powerful forms of protection going, and you don’t even realize it” (p. 38). 

Dr. Herbert Benson teaching medicine at Harvard University when this volume was published, has observed three degrees of healing: i) healing is curing a disease; ii) healing is accepting a disease; iii) healing can be mental/psychological, helping to alleviate physiological symptoms. He says that belief is powerful for good and for ill. One example he cited was a pastor who was allergic to flowers. A woman at one wedding brought a dozen plastic roses. The pastor ended up in the hospital with an anaphylactic reaction. Later, the woman told him the flowers were plastic.

Pauline Bradbrook speaks of the love and support that she experienced when she was prayed for by many people when she was diagnosed with cancer and had a mastectomy. Speaking of healing, she observes: “The word healing is related to holiness, and it means learning to live in a holy state with whatever the condition is” (p. 90). 

Anglican minister, Trevor Denny is a committed advocate of healing ministry: “Every church should be a healing centre where people come to have peace, relaxation, and support groups, and where prayers are made for healing” (p. 109). He emphasises that the ordained ministry involves preaching, teaching and healing. 

In Part 4: The Perspective Of Other Faiths, four non-Christian faith traditions are included—Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, and Indigenous. In answer to the question: “Is prayer for healing part of the Jewish tradition?” Rabbi Ronald Weiss, Director of Chaplaincy services for the Toronto Jewish community, and chaplain for the Jewish Hospice Program, identified 3 aspects of prayer: Thanksgiving—ho-da-ah; Praise—shevach; and Requests/petitions—bakashoat. He stated: “There’s a prayer called Misha Barach in which we invoke God’s blessing on those who are ill” (p. 129).

The final part of this volume focuses on the healing ministry at Christ Church Cathedral in Vancouver. Clergy and laity organized a healing team, and prayer for healing, laying on of hands and anointing were offered at the Thursday eucharists, and eventually at the Sunday liturgy. This part also includes information on how to set up and train a healing team, as well as the theological and spiritual foundations of healing ministry. 

At some point in life, most likely every human being experiences some kind of illness or disease, and can benefit physically, mentally/psychologically, emotionally, and spiritually from prayer. 

For readers interested in healing ministry, this volume is a valuable resource. 

Book Review: Called to Serve

Called to Serve: Reflections and Memories of a Prairie Pastor

Author: Darryl Roste

Publisher: Marjorie Zelent, paperback, 260 pages, including Acknowledgments, Contents, Prologue, Introduction, 29 Chapters, For Further Reading, Unpublished Articles and Five Selective Books, plus Foreword, and Words from a Colleague

Reviewed by Rev. Garth Wehrfritz-Hanson

Brief Observations 

I was grateful to learn that retired colleague, an ordained pastor of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada, Darryl Roste, had recently published this memoir, and was able to purchase a copy from him. 

In his Introduction, Darryl states whom he primarily wrote his memoir for—his children and grandchildren, and secondarily, his other family members and friends.

Each of the 29 Chapters of this volume begins with a quotation from various authors and biblical passages. 

Darryl grew up on a farm near Preeceville and North Prairie, Saskatchewan. He is the eldest of six children. The house he and his family lived in, by today’s standards, would likely be regarded as substandard. In his younger years, there was no running water, no indoor bathroom, and no electricity. He and his other siblings learned the Protestant work ethic at a young age, and had to help out with farm chores, seeding and harvesting, and so on. Darryl can remember harvesting and haying before they had a combine or baler. In his early years, he can also remember walking to a nearby one-room school. 

The death of Darryl’s dad when he was only 16 years old made life very difficult for him and his family. From what he can remember, his dad never told him that he loved Darryl, so that left him wondering if he really had loved him. Family and community and church members helped out the Roste family as much as possible after the death of Darryl’s dad. 

Darryl goes on to share some of his educational history and experiences at Lutheran Collegiate Bible Institute, the University of Saskatchewan, and Lutheran Theological Seminary in Saskatoon, and later furthering his learning with Clinical Pastoral Education, and Pastoral Counselling, and a Doctor of Ministry program with St. Stephen’s College in Edmonton, which he did not complete. He met Rita Salte at LCBI, and later they would become husband and wife. 

Prior to beginning his first call to serve Tilley and Rolling Hills congregations in Southern Alberta, Rita and Darryl enjoyed a holiday touring several European countries, and visiting with Rita’s relatives in Norway. Pastor Darryl, in his first call, shares some aspects of his ministry, including: the differences between the “Gloomy Danes” and the “Happy Danes,” being a resource pastor at Camp Kuriakos, teaching confirmation, providing pastoral care, and so on. 

As the memoir continues, Darryl shares, with honesty and integrity, a wide range of events and insights from his calls to serve other congregations as well as to teach at Canadian Lutheran Bible Institute. Among them were: the blessings of studying, teaching and preaching God’s Word, and administering the sacraments, officiating at funerals for those who died tragically and providing pastoral care and counselling for the families, confronting an antagonistic church secretary, learning that his son was gay and changing some of his former theological convictions, supervising interns, celebrating important rites of passage and milestones with family, friends, and parishioners, growing in God’s grace and realizing that meaningful ministry is rooted in one’s relationship with God, as well as loving, caring, healing, relationships with others.

In a couple of stories, Darryl describes what he calls “God moments,” (see pp. 221-224 and pp. 228-229) mysteries seemingly beyond rational explanations. 

One of the chapters I appreciated most—since, like Darryl and Rita, my wife and I are a clergy couple—was “Chapter 22 A Year of Interim Ministry in Viking.” Of special interest for me were pages 184-186, where Darryl speaks briefly about factors clergy couples face while in the process of seeking calls.

I think many, if not most or all pastors would discover several parallels in their parish ministries with those of Darryl’s. There is, of course, both regrets and much to be grateful for as a called and ordained pastor. Pastor Darryl puts it well when he says: “In the final analysis, the key to the value of my life is that my life and work has mattered to God and was not lived in vain. I often wished I could have drawn more people to a life with God within the church and to a vital relationship with God” (p. 255). 

Book Review: Concise Encyclopedia of Preaching

Concise Encyclopedia of Preaching

Editors: William H. Willimon & Richard Lischer

Publisher: Westminster John Knox Press, hardcover, 518 pages, including Preface, Contributors, and Acknowledgments

Reviewed by Rev. Garth Wehrfritz-Hanson

The Editors 

At the time this volume was published, William H. Willimon was Dean of the Chapel and Professor of Christian Ministry at Duke Divinity School. He was an editor-at-large for The Christian Century and served on the editorial boards of The Christian Ministry, Pulpit Digest, and Leadership. His books have sold nearly one million copies and include the Westminster John Knox Press books Acts (Interpretation series), Preaching About Conflict in the Local Church, andPreaching and Leading Worship. He is regarded as one of the most highly respected preachers in the English language. He also served as a United Methodist bishop, and has become a prolific author of over sixty-five published books and thousands of periodical essays.

Richard Lischer was Professor of Homiletics at Duke Divinity School. He served on the Executive Board of Societas Homiletica, an international organization of homileticians. He was also on the advisory councils of the journalsInterpretation and Word and World. He is the author of A Theology of Preaching: The Dynamics of the Gospel, The Preacher King: Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Word That Moved America, Theories of Preaching: Selected Readings in the Homiletical Tradition, Marx and Teilhard: Two Ways to the New Humanity, and Speaking of Jesus: Finding the Words for Witness. Altogether, he is the author or editor of fifteen books and has contributed chapters in many others. His reviews and essays appear regularly in The Christian Century. Prior to teaching at Duke, he served as pastor of Lutheran churches in Illinois and Virginia. 

Brief Observations

Professor Willimon and Professor Lischer are to be highly commended for this comprehensive, ecumenical volume. There are almost 200 contributors, from a wide range of denominations—both Protestant and Roman Catholic, female and male, homileticians, theologians, pastors, biblical scholars, and historians, and more. Moreover, the volume includes a wide array of topics, as well as brief biographies of many of the most influential preachers over the centuries. For example, there are entries on everything from Anti-Jewish Preaching (written by Willimon), to Baccalaureate Sermon, to Children’s Sermons, to Delivery of Sermons, to Experimental Preaching, to Form, to Funeral Sermons, to Gospels, to History of Preaching, Theology of Preaching, and so on. Additional articles worth checking out are a series on: Homiletics and Preaching in Africa, Homiletics and Preaching in Asia, Homiletics and Preaching in Germany and German-Speaking Europe, Homiletics and Preaching in India, Homiletics and Preaching in Latin America, Homiletics and Preaching in North America (with scant reference to Canadian preachers and preaching), Homiletics and Preaching in Scandinavia. 

One of my favourite topic articles was Form, written by Thomas G. Long. In this article, Long suggests interesting affinities involving the narrative sermon form, the “problem-resolution” sermon, and the “law-gospel” sermon especially favored in the Lutheran tradition (p. 150). 

The brief biographies of preachers, from ancient to contemporary, are also wide-ranging. For example, everyone from Huldrych (Ulrich) Zwingli, to Ellen G. White, to Paul Tillich, to Sojourner Truth, to Phoebe Worrall Palmer, to Origen, and so on. Not only are editors Willimon and Lischer to be commended for the number of women contributors who wrote articles for this volume; they have also included a few—unfortunately not enough—women preachers’ biographies. Moreover, many of the preacher biographies also have brief excerpts from the preachers’ sermons, which hopefully inspire readers to pursue further research. At the end of each article, other resources are also cited in order that readers, if so inclined, may consult them.

That said, I do wonder why—even though they were contributors—there were no biographies on such contemporary women preachers as, for example, Elizabeth Achtemeier and Barbara Brown Taylor.

Also, two influential male preachers missing in this work are Frederick Buechner and Walter Wangerin, Jr. 

I don’t know how much time the editors of this volume had to check out the details of the preacher biography articles. In one case, Leslie Dixon Weatherhead, the contributor, Stephen Odom, neglected to mention that Weatherhead was somewhat of a controversial preacher, since he regularly attended spiritist séances, allegedly incorporated other elements from other religions and spiritualism into Christianity, and regarded “creeds and confessions of faith” as “museum specimens.”

In conclusion, Professor Willimon and Professor Lischer have edited a most worthy reference work that will benefit, inspire and instruct seminary students, pastors and homileticians. However, another similar, contemporary volume is required to include more women preachers from the early centuries, right up to the present day, and the editors probably should be women. 

A Brief Christmas Reflection

A Brief Christmas Reflection

“The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overtake it.” (John 1:5, NRSV) “The Life-Light blazed out of the darkness; the darkness couldn’t put it out.” (John 1:5, The Message)

This year, as Christians around the globe prepare to celebrate Christmas, and worship Jesus the Light or Life-Light, tragically there is far too much darkness in the world. 

The war in Ukraine continues, and it doesn’t look like peace will prevail in the near future. The country is being destroyed by the Russians, with their constant violation of human rights by deliberately bombing schools, hospitals, and civilian residential areas. Then there is the oppression within Russia because of the Putin dictatorship—anyone who disagrees with the state’s party line about the war is regarded as a criminal. What about opposition leader Alexei Navalny, where is he? According to a CBC report: “Colleagues say Kremlin likely shunted him off to a remote penal colony to silence him during the election.” What election? The choice given is Putin and Putin. 

The situation is just as bad in the war between Israel and Gaza. Of course Israel has the right to defend itself. Yet, how many innocent Palestinian civilians must continue to die and be seriously injured for Israel to put an end to Hamas? What about the future of the Palestinians once the war ends? The peace process between the Israelis and Palestinians is most likely going to be a long, dragged out one. 

Then there is what seems to be a civil war in Myanmar—the military regime continues to oppress their citizens. What about the opposition political leader Aung San Suu Kyi, who is in prison on many bogus charges by the junta, and the other National League for Democracy party leaders?

In addition to these disturbing situations, there also seems to be a growing number of right-wing dictatorships and tyrannical governments around the world. Way too many people in way too many nations lack the basic necessities of life, while a few affluent people live extremely self-indulgent lives. The rich grow disgustingly richer at the expense/the unjust suffering and oppression of the poor. Moreover, even in the nation south of us, it seems that the former president is able to buy off/bribe lawmakers to postpone the serious allegations against him. Will his money prove him innocent of all charges? Will he actually run for president and win? Goodbye to democracy in the USA if that happens. 

The fossil fuel companies and corporations, as well as the oil-producing nations seem to care less about climate crisis and ongoing global warming. Once again they called the shots at COP28. Why do COP conferences even meet in countries that continue to promote fossil fuels, and deny their own people adequate human rights? What use are COPs anyway? Nations do not seem to be able to live up to them, and they are not nearly binding enough so as to have to deal with the consequences if violated. 

One could go on. Yet, there is light in the darkness. Jesus the light of the world is still shining in the midst of all of this darkness. One example from Israel: An Israeli is troubled by the suffering of Palestinian civilians. So he drives ill Palestinians to medical centres, placing his own life in danger. He wants Israelis and Palestinians to live peacefully alongside one another. Corey Fleisher in Montreal removes hateful graffiti free of charge. He founded a movement which is now worldwide, Erasing Hate. In the city that I live in, recently Augustana Campus (formerly Camrose Lutheran College), was delighted to announce that 3 anonymous donors gave a generous gift of $2 million to establish the Cora Martinson International Scholarship for students. Martinson taught at CLC around 90 years ago, and served as dean of women. She was also a missionary in China and Hong Kong. 

So Jesus the light is still shining in the darkness. The darkness cannot overtake him. That’s why we too are able to do even the smallest of things that can and do make a difference for those who suffer from the darkness. A visit, a phone-call, running an errand like taking someone to a doctor’s appointment, providing a meal to someone who has recently lost a loved one—maybe even inviting them over for Christmas dinner if they don’t have family close-by. These and countless other small acts of love and kindness shine light in dark places. 

May Jesus the Light shine brightly within, around and among you this Christmas. 

Sermon for Christ the King Sunday Yr A

Christ the King Sunday Yr A, 26/11/2023

Ps 95:1-7a 

Pastor Garth Wehrfritz-Hanson

“Worship Christ our King with joyful, thankful hymns of praise”

Today is Christ the King Sunday—the last Sunday of our present church year. Our psalm for today is Psalm 95:1-7a, which is a hymn of praise. However, it is also (according to my NRSV Lutheran Study Bible, pp. 849-850) an enthronement psalm, a festival psalm, and a liturgy. It is an enthronement psalm because it celebrates God as a great King. It is a festival psalm, since scholars believe that it was sung during all three of Israel’s major festivals. The rabbis who wrote the Mishnah in the 2^nd century A.D. stated that Psalm 95 was sung during the New Year’s festival. The Greek version of Psalm 95 connects it with celebration of the Sabbath. Psalm 95 is also regarded as a liturgy, and some scholars believe that the Jewish people started singing it as they processed into the Jerusalem temple. Pastor and Professor Eugene Peterson may have thought of it this way when he wrote verses 1 and 2 of The Message, which goes like this: “Come, let’s shout praises to GOD, raise the roof for the Rock who saved us! Let’s march into his presence singing praises, lifting the rafters with our hymns.” I like Peterson’s phrases “shout praises to GOD, raise the roof,” and “lifting the rafters with our hymns.” I think these phrases emphasize going all out, giving God everything we’ve got in worshipping the LORD. 

In Christian history, Psalm 95 was, and still is included as the psalmody in the daily office called the Matins, also known as Morning Prayer. (See Lutheran Book of Worship, pp. 132-133, andEvangelical Lutheran Worship, pp. 299-301). The Matins/Morning Prayer is usually sung daily by monks in monasteries. When I was a seminary student, we also quite often sang Psalm 95:1-7a during Matins/Morning Prayer.

So this psalm underscores the importance of worship. That reminds me of one of my parishioners, years ago, when I was serving Grace Lutheran Church in Medicine Hat. One day I was visiting Ray, and he told me the following story.

When Ray was a young boy, he was sitting with several other boys in the front pew during worship time. The boys were fooling around, and not listening to the pastor. Then Ray was tapped on his shoulder by his dad, who whispered to him to come out with him to the narthex of the church. Once in the narthex, Ray’s dad opened the door and said, “You can go home now.”

Ray replied that he would be good for the rest of the service if he could go back in. His dad, very wisely responded by stating: “This is not about being good, it’s about worshipping God. We come to church to worship God. When you’re ready to do that, you’re welcome here at the service.” 

Ray decided that he’d leave. He walked back home, which was about 3 miles. During that time he pondered what his dad had said. After that, he willingly went to church for the right reason, and he went pretty much every Sunday until his death. 

Coming back to our psalm, in verses 1 and 2, God’s people are invited to worship with these words, in verse 1, and repeated again in verse 2: “let us make a joyful noise….” A wise person once said: “Joy is not the absence of trouble, but the presence of God.” Joy is being in God’s presence—that means we can always be joyful, since God is always present with us, even as we face troubles, pain and suffering. 

In our psalm, joyfully worshipping God is also connected to thanksgiving. Once I found a nickel in the sand at the beach and thought myself lucky. I searched through the sand, hoping to find more treasure, but was not successful. Then I saw a man with a magnetic device on the end of a stick, which he used to draw metal objects out of the sand. He told me he often found coins and sometimes even jewelry. What it taught me is that we can search through life without getting much from it, but a thankful heart can be like that magnetic device. It draws the best things out of life. We worship in God’s presence with thanksgiving because of who God is, and what he has done, and continues to do for us. 

The psalm tells us that we worship God because he is: “the rock of our salvation, a great King above all gods, our Maker,” and our Shepherd. 

Rock is a symbol for God’s strength, protection and stability. As our great King, God’s power rules over everyone and everything—he is King of kings, and Lord of lords. As our Maker, the psalm reminds us he is the Creator of the depths of the earth, the heights of the mountains, the sea, the dry land—and of course everything else, including us. So as Maker of the whole universe, we are exhorted to worship, bow down, and kneel before our Maker, with joy, thanksgiving, awe and wonder. 

In verse 7a, the psalm reminds us of our covenant relationship with God: “For he is our God, and we are the people of his pasture, and the sheep of his hand.” So God is our Shepherd-King. Unlike the earthly kings who, more often than not, abuse their power and authority by oppressing their people—Christ our Shepherd-King is different. His power and authority as the Good Shepherd-King is rooted in sacrificial and unconditional love and servanthood. Just as a shepherd gains the love and trust of sheep by giving them food and drink, protecting them from predators, and mending their wounds—so Jesus our Shepherd-King cares for each one of us by forgiving us, and promising to be with us always, and showing us how much he loves us by dying on the cross, and being raised from death, and promising us that he is preparing an eternal home for us, where we will be with him in the fullness of his loving presence eternally. So, how fitting it is that today, in Christ’s presence, we worship Christ our King with joyful, thankful hymns of praise. 

That reminds me of the following story. A body is not crippled ‘til its heart has ceased to praise. Louis Albert Banks tells of an elderly Christian man, fine singer, who learned that he had cancer of the tongue and that surgery was required. In the hospital after everything was ready for the operation, the man said to the doctor, “Are you sure I will never sing again?” The surgeon found it difficult to answer his question. He simply shook his head no. The patient then asked if he could sit up for a moment. “I’ve had many good times singing the praises of God,” he said. “And now you tell me I can never sing again. I have one song that will be my last. It will be of gratitude and praise to God.” There in the doctor’s presence the man sang softly the words of Isaac Watts’ hymn, “I’ll praise my Maker while I’ve breath,/And when my voice is lost in death,/Praise shall employ my nobler power;/My days of praise shall ne’er be past,/While life, and thought, and being last,/Or immortality endures.”¹

May we too worship and praise Christ our King, God our Maker, and the Holy Spirit as long as we have breath! 

1 <http://sermonillustrations.com/a-z/p/praise.htm&gt;.

Sermon for 25 Pentecost Yr A

25 Pentecost Yr A, 19/11/2023

Ps 90:1-8, 12 

Pastor Garth Wehrfritz-Hanson

“Life is short, live a full, meaningful, wise life, with the time God gives you”

Psalm 90 is chosen by some people and pastors to be read at funerals. Indeed, it is an appropriate psalm for funerals, since one of the important messages of Psalm 90 reminds us that life is short, therefore live a full, meaningful, wise life, with the time God gives you. The superscription of Psalm 90 states that it is: “A Prayer of Moses, the man of God.” If this psalm does go back to the time of Moses, then it is one of the older psalms. The opening two verses certainly would have been a prayer that Moses could have prayed—given the fact that he and the Israelites were wandering in the wilderness, without a home for 40 years. The NRSV states that: “LORD, you have been our dwelling place in all generations.” Instead of “dwelling place,” the REB renders it like this: the LORD has been “our refuge throughout all generations.” The GNT puts it like this: “O Lord, you have always been our home.” Most likely Moses would have found great comfort in trusting that the LORD was his true home, dwelling and refuge. So too, for you and me, ultimately God is our true, eternal home, dwelling place and refuge. 

As the psalm continues, Moses contrasts the shortness of human life with God who is eternal. Moses, during those 40 years of wandering in the wilderness witnessed the deaths of the Israelites—some of them most likely had a short life, and died young. 

How long do you think you’ll live? What is your life expectancy?

One day in seminary, Dr. Elliot made this statement: “Most people have a pretty good idea of how old they’ll be when they die, and the likely cause of death.”

He was a psychologist. He taught Pastoral Care and Counseling. Sure enough, he went around the room and asked every student to say how old they thought they’d be when they died, and what the cause of death would be. Some predicted a fairly short lifespan, dying of cancer or a heart attack, because that ran in their family; others predicted a ripe old age, because that ran in their family.

Someone once said, “The secret of longevity is to have old parents.” How long do you think you’ll live? God is eternal; we are not. In the grand scheme of things, our time on earth at best is but a blip on the radar screen. 

When it comes to death and dying, we all live with a certain amount of denial. Oh, we know it’s going to happen; still, it’s hard to fathom. Whether we think we’re immune or invincible or that it simply doesn’t apply to us, it’s hard for us to take our mortality seriously. 

Only God is eternal. No one knew this better than Isaac Watts, who wrote his hymn, “O God, Our Help in Ages Past,” which is a paraphrase of Psalm 90.

“Time, like an ever-rolling stream, bears all our years away;

They fly forgotten, as a dream dies at the op’ning day.

O God, our help in ages past, our hope for years to come,

Still be our guide while troubles last and our eternal home.” (#632 Evangelical Lutheran Worship)

So, what can you do about it? I heard a preacher say one time: “Plan for tomorrow as if you’re going to live forever; live today as it were your last.” Moses prayed simply, “So teach us to count our days that we may gain a wise heart.”¹ Or as the REB renders it: “So make us know how few are our days, that our minds may learn wisdom.” Or as the GNT puts it: “Teach us how short our life is, so that we may become wise.” 

One Christian who took the words of Psalm 90 very seriously was the founder of the Methodist Church, John Wesley. 

Nearly every minute of Wesley’s long life was carefully planned. For 60 years he always rose at 4:00 A.M. and almost always went to bed promptly at 10:00 P.M. For 50 years he preached at 5:00 A.M. He learned to use every small piece of the day for learning and prayer. He read and wrote while riding horseback. How did he do it? “I rode with slack rein,” he explained. In the more than 40 years he spent on horseback, Wesley traveled more than a quarter of a million miles and preached 42,000 sermons.

His incredibly disciplined life allowed him time to write history books on England and Rome as well as volumes on logic and health. He prepared grammars on Greek, French, and English and completed an excellent English dictionary. He even wrote hymns, though brother Charles was the master hymn writer, penning more than 6000 hymns of beautiful poetry, often for an illiterate public.

At age 77, Wesley’s vigour remained. He rode 100 miles in 48 hours, a feat he duplicated 10 years later. He complained at 83 that he could not write for more than 15 hours without hurting his eyes. At 86 he traveled throughout Ireland for nine weeks, preaching 100 sermons in 60 towns, often in the open air.

Though we will remember him for his writing and his vigorous stands on social issues (he was very vocal in his opposition to slavery), Wesley will be best remembered for his organizational genius and his passion to know and experience the love of God. “We are saved by faith,” he declared thousands of times. “God is gracious and loving.” This message and his fervent desire for people to live righteous lives is a word that the church in our own day still needs to hear.²

Moses, in praying this psalm, realized that even though life on this earth can be short in contrast to eternity, God still has a plan and a purpose for us. God wants us to love and serve him and our neighbour even in old age—which Moses did up til his death at 120 years. 

Psychologist Erik Erikson has written that people approaching the last chapters of their lives have to choose between stagnation and generativity. He defines stagnation as thinking only about ourselves. How do I feel? What aches? Who calls me, and who ignores me? Generativity is worrying about the next generation and what sort of world we are leaving them. Needless to say, generativity is the healthy choice. It pulls us out of ourselves and gives us a role to play in the world.³

May we share the gift of wisdom with the young, by encouraging and nurturing them in the faith. A wise heart and mind is a gift from God. It involves being aware of God at work in the world and in our lives—teaching us through prayer and a willingness to keep learning, how to live in accordance with God’s will for us, valuing each day, each month, each year as a gift from God to serve and love our neighbours. 

I would like to leave you with this inspiring quotation, attributed to musician Pau (Pablo) Casals, when he was 93: “Age is a relative matter. If you continue to work and to absorb beauty in the world, you find age does not necessarily mean getting old. At least not in the ordinary sense. I feel many things more intensely than ever and for me my life gets more fascinating.” 

1 Philip W. McLarty, “A Matter of Life and Death,” at: <https://sermonwriter.com/sermons/psalm-901-7-a-matter-of-life-and-death-mclarty/&gt;.

2 Wm. R. White, Stories For Telling: A Treasury for Christian Storytellers (Minneapolis: Augsburg Publishing House, 1986), pp. 62-63.

3 Harold Kushner, Living a Life That Matters (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2001), p. 132. 

Book Review: Prophets Of Love

Prophets Of Love: The Unlikely Kinship of Leonard Cohen And The Apostle Paul

Author: Matthew R. Anderson

Publisher: McGill-Queen’s University Press, Volume 15 in a Series on Advancing Studies in Religion, hardcover, 182 pages, including Acknowledgments, 11 chapters, Notes, Bibliography, and Index

Reviewed by Rev. Garth Wehrfritz-Hanson

The Author 

The Rev. Dr. Matthew R. Anderson is an ordained pastor of the Evangelical Lutheran Church In Canada, and he teaches biblical studies at Concordia University and St Francis Xavier University. His PhD in Religious Studies (New Testament) is from McGill University (1999), with a specialisation in Paul. Recent books, in addition to this volume, include: Our Home and Treaty Land (co-authored with Raymond Aldred, Wood Lake 2022); Pairings: The Bible and Booze (version francaise: Apocalypse et gin tonic; Novalis 2021/2022). His forthcoming book is The Good Walk (University of Regina Press, 2024). Matthew’s musings on pilgrimage and decolonisation can be seen in his blogs https://somethinggrand.ca/ and https://unsettledwords.com/, his open-access article “Aware-Settler Biblical Studies” (Journal of Interdisciplinary Biblical Studies, 2021), and his podcast “Pilgrimage Stories from Up and Down the Staircase”:https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/pilgrimage-stories-from-up-and-down-the-staircase/id1525283078.

While reading this volume, Matthew, for this reviewer, comes across as a creative, insightful academic sleuth—examining the evidence from diverse angles/perspectives, and then drawing conclusions, which, at times, are paradoxical, rather than being either-or, they are both-and. Reading this volume reminded me of trying to put together a large puzzle, connecting all of the pieces in order to see the whole picture. Indeed, Matthew makes a lot of connections that some readers—including yours truly!—may not be aware of; that is perhaps why the title has this phrase: The Unlikely Kinship of….

Matthew wrote this volume for all the scholars, mostly women, who inspired and influenced his views of Paul and Leonard. He especially dedicates it to Dr. Agata Bielik-Robson, professor of Jewish studies, University of Nottingham.The 11 chapter titles include words or phrases from Leonard Cohen’s writings, as well as inform readers of the diverse perspectives on Paul and Leonard. At the end of each chapter, there is a “Text Meditation” section, and a “Further Reading” section. In the “Text Meditation” section, readers are invited to listen to one of Leonard’s songs, and then think about and compare excerpts from Paul’s and Leonard’s writings. 

In chapter 1, Matthew provides readers with background concerning how his feet ended up on Leonard Cohen’s coffee table.

In chapters 2 to 11, Matthew examines Paul and Leonard from several diverse perspectives, including: Leonard and Paul within Judaism, their preoccupation with Jesus, their attitudes toward and relationships with women, their asceticism, their masculinity, their beguiling rhetoric, their having no choice, their mysticism, their witnessing to brokenness and redemption, and their long afterlives. 

According to Matthew, Paul could be belligerent, whereas Leonard could be diplomatic. Paul’s attitude toward sexual relationships was different than Leonard’s. Paul advises sex within marriage, whereas Leonard has been described as ‘a ladies’ man’ and in his lyrics there is ambiguity about whether he is referring to sexual relationships or the divine, or connecting both of them. Paul, in his writings, seems to have remained celibate, whereas Leonard was involved in a number of sexual relationships, and he could also at times be misogynistic.

Regarding asceticism, Paul, unlike Leonard, did not deliberately deprive the body. For example, Leonard was a Zen monk for a number of years, and the master would require the monks to sit and meditate for long periods of time, without giving them bathroom breaks.

According to Matthew, there were also a number of similarities shared by Paul and Leonard. Both Paul and Leonard were religious Jews. Matthew, accepting the emphases of the “Paul within Judaism” group of scholars, cites three reasons supporting this viewpoint. One of which is that after Paul’s Damascus road encounter with Jesus, Paul never left Judaism. In Leonard’s case, Matthew makes the point that even though he became a Zen Buddhist monk, he never regarded that as a religion. Rather, he still considered himself within Judaism.

Both Paul and Leonard: wrote from a mystical perspective, both were disciplined in their faith and practice, both were popular and unpopular in their Jewish communities, both became famous in the non-Jewish world, both were ambiguous about women, both were inspired by Jesus, and both were drawn to the God of Israel, both loved the Hebrew Bible and were well-versed in it, both remained Jewish right up until they died. 

Both Paul and Leonard speak of having no choice regarding their calling. In Galatians 1:15-16, Paul speaks of his call in a similar way as the prophets Jeremiah and Isaiah. Leonard, in one of his songs, states: “I was born like this, I had no choice.” Like other biblical prophets, both Paul and Leonard realize that as prophets they will experience suffering. Both connect weakness, brokenness and suffering with the divine presence and divine purposes. 

Both Paul and Leonard were masters of persuasive speech. Their words express in powerful ways what countless other human beings think and feel. Who isn’t moved by Paul’s ode to love in 1 Corinthians 13? And in endnote 27 of chapter 10, Matthew quotes Max Layton, son of poet Irving Layton as saying this about Leonard: “the greatest psalmist since King David.” Freedman, Leonard Cohen, 192, points out that Cohen’s Book of Mercy (1984) was self-consciously modelled on the psalms” (p. 155). Speaking of endnotes, although it can be tedious to read them, I humbly advise readers to do so, since Matthew makes plenty of valid points in them, and provides further significant background information on such subjects as the ancient world’s view of gender, conjugal duties prescribed in the Torah cited in Talmud Kethubod 61b, the Jewish tradition of Merkabah (chariot) mysticism, and more. 

All who enjoy listening to Leonard Cohen’s music and reading Paul’s letters will certainly benefit from and appreciate this volume. I would give it a 4.75 out of 5! 

Sermon for 24 Pentecost Yr A

24 Pentecost Yr A, 12/11/2023

Ps 70 

Pastor Garth Wehrfritz-Hanson

“Waiting for God’s help”

Have you ever been in one or more troubling or dangerous situations in life when you yelled out “HELP!” as loud as you could? Perhaps it was in the water, and you or someone else was in danger of drowning. Or perhaps you felt that someone was threatening you, or you might have been in a war like the Ukrainians, Israelis and Palestinians—and you thought that you might be killed or severely wounded or taken as a hostage. Or perhaps while climbing a mountain you became terrified, and paralyzed, believing you could not move unless someone came to help you. You get the idea. In Psalm 70, notice that the psalmist begins and ends asking for God’s help. We don’t know the psalmist’s exact situation, however there is a sense of urgency in verses 1 and 5: “O LORD, make haste to help me! …hasten to me, O God! You are my help and my deliverer; O LORD, do not delay.” So, the psalmist urgently cries for help. 

Indeed, Psalm 70 is an individual prayer for help. The GNT title is “A Prayer for Help,” and the NRSV Lutheran Study Bible has this title: “Prayer for Deliverance from Enemies.” It is interesting that Psalm 40:13-17 is almost exactly the same as Psalm 70, with only a few different words. This suggests that the psalm may have been prayed by different people, at other times, for different life circumstances. So too, it is a psalm that we can turn to for comfort, and pray these words when we face troubling times. 

An outline of Psalm 70 consists of the first and last verses urgently asking God for help. Verses 2-3 consist of what I describe as “go get em God” verses. In these verses the psalmist prays against his enemies asking God to: shame, confuse, turn back, and dishonour the psalmist’s adversaries. The notion of “go get em God” appears in a number of the psalms. Unlike Jesus’s teaching of love your enemies, the psalms pray that God would defend God’s faithful people by punishing their enemies in various ways. 

Pastor and Professor Eugene Peterson, in The Message, renders verses 2 and 3 like this: “Those who are out to get me—let them fall all over themselves. Those who relish my downfall—send them down a blind alley. Give them a taste of their own medicine, those gossips off clucking their tongues.” 

Verse 4 of the psalm changes direction, and is the most upbeat verse. In it, the psalmist offers a prayer of intercession for God’s faithful people: “Let all who seek you rejoice and be glad in you. Let those who love your salvation say evermore, “God is great!” In other words, the psalmist is asking God to bless God’s faithful people. 

Coming back to the first and last verse of our psalm, in addition to praying for God’s help, there is another important, yet more implicit theme. Instead of asking God to hurry up, to make haste, not to delay—the implicit theme involves the exact opposite, namely, that of having patience and waiting. That reminds me of the following story.

A man was walking through a supermarket with a screaming baby in the shopping cart. A woman nearby noticed that time and again the man would calmly say: “Keep calm, Albert. Keep calm Albert.” 

Finally, in admiration for the man’s patience as the child continued to wail, the woman walked up to him and said: “Sir, I must commend you for your patience with baby Albert.”

To which the man replied, drawing himself up: “Madam, I am Albert!”¹ In this case, Albert’s patience required practicing self-control, not “loosing his cool.” 

Another kind of patience involves careful listening to what God is saying and doing in one’s own life. That reminds me of the elderly pastor’s comment after an appreciative church member said: “That was a wonderful sermon, pastor. How long did it take you to prepare it?” The pastor answered: “All my life.” Like that pastor, patience can and does involve careful listening to and learning from God all your and my life. Do we have the patience to take the time to listen to and learn from the LORD in order to do his will and serve his purposes? Unless we receive with patience what he wants to give us, we cannot give to others and serve them. 

We, like the psalmist’s words in the first and last verses, may think, want and pray for God to hurry up, make haste and not delay—however God knows what is best for us, and what is best may mean that we have to practice waiting on God. Waiting in today’s technological, fast-moving world seems to be more and more difficult. People want and expect everything to happen instantly. Instant gratification rules, waiting is regarded as something negative. Yet, waiting is necessary. 

There are, of course, different kinds of waiting. Some waiting is involved for a mother to give birth to a child. A husband or wife may have to wait for their spouse to die. In both of these instances, the mother-to-be, and the loving spouse will most likely experience a roller coaster of emotions such as: fear, doubt, anger, sadness, joy, and so on. 

There is also a hopeful waiting. A student waits with the hope that she or he will pass their exams and graduate from university, find meaningful work, get married and have children. Citizens, after voting in an election, wait for the party they voted for to win, and then they hope the new government will govern better than the previous one, that justice and peace will prevail. In war-torn countries like Ukraine, Israel and Palestine, citizens wait, pray, and hope for an end to the violence and destruction. They also hope, pray, and wait for healing after losing loved ones in war. They hope, pray, and wait for a better, more peaceful life.

On this day after Remembrance Day, we too hope, pray, and wait for: all wars to end, our nation and every nation to be able to live in peace, and for justice to prevail, for the poor, disabled and elderly to be cared for, for the homeless to have a decent place to live, for the hungry to be fed, the naked to be clothed, the sick to be healed.

Sometimes it is very hard to have patience, and to wait for God’s help. However, with the presence of the Holy Spirit and God’s grace, it can and does happen. So, keep hoping, keep praying, keep waiting—God can and will help you. 

1 Richard Andersen & Donald Deffner, “For Example” Illustrations for Contemporary Preaching (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1977), p. 157.

Sermon for All Saints Sunday Yr A

All Saints Sunday Yr A, 5/11/2023

Ps 34:1-10, 22 

Pastor Garth Wehrfritz-Hanson

“Praise, prayer and God’s provision”

Today we celebrate All Saints Sunday. We remember the saints who have gone before us to their eternal reward, as well as the saints among us today—whether they are famous or ordinary folk. Saints here, in this congregation. We are all saints, since the definition of a saint is a forgiven sinner. Speaking of such a sinner- saint, we focus on David and Psalm 34. 

Psalm 34 has the following superscription: “Of David, when he feigned madness before Abimelech, so that he drove him out, and he went away.” This superscription has a background story involving David in 1 Samuel 21. David is on the run, fleeing from Saul, fearing for his life. He flees to the city of Nob, which is located between Gibeah, Saul’s hometown, and Jerusalem. Nob was a city of priests, and David approaches the priest Ahimelech, who gives the holy bread to David and his men. David then continued to flee from Saul, going into enemy territory, to the Philistine King Achish of Gath—perhaps even though he was likely fearful, he was hoping he’d be safe there, and offer his services as a soldier. At any rate, fearful David, probably worried and wondered how the Philistine king would receive him. A parallel today might be Vladimir Zelenskyy walking down the same Moscow street as Vladimir Putin. Most likely Zelenskyy would fear for his life in such a situation. So what does David do? He puts on an insanity act, scratching the doors of the gate and letting saliva run down his beard. King Achish has no time for such insane behaviour, he has too many other crazy folks to deal with, and so David continues to flee from Gath, escaping to the cave of Adullam. 

The NRSV Lutheran Study Bible, with this background story in mind, gives Psalm 34 the following title: “Praise for Deliverance from Trouble,” the deliverance from trouble being the threat of Saul and the enemy King Achish. So, David would have praised and thanked God for such a deliverance. The Good News Bible has this title: “In Praise of God’s Goodness.”

This is a psalm then of praise and thanksgiving. So verses 1-3 highlight the importance of praising God. David, after being delivered from his life-threatening situation, invites God’s faithful people to join him in praising God. The first three verses then are David’s call to worship God. 

Notice that he begins in verse 1 by saying or singing: “I will bless the LORD at all times; his praiseshall continually be in my mouth.” In today’s gospel of course Jesus speaks of blessing too in his beatitudes, he speaks of the saints as “Blessed are….” The saints, including David, were and are blessed. Even though life has its ups and downs, its troubles and challenges, God was with David, has been with all the saints throughout history, and God is still with us today. So the root, the foundation of being blessed and being able to bless God is the grace-filled, loving, covenant relationship that we have with God, thanks to what Jesus has done and continues to do for us. 

Even though David begins Psalm 34 with praise and blessing God, in verse 4 he admits that there was a time when he struggled with his fear. All saints, David, you and me, in our humanity and because we are sinners, we struggle with fears. In childhood you might remember that you were fearful of thunder and lightning, or you might have been fearful on your first day of school. As you finished school, you might have been anxious and fearful about your first day at work. When you become a senior citizen, you may be anxious and fearful about your health or a disease or death. In the larger picture, you may be fearful about the future of the church and the future of the world. Will the church survive? Will this world be safe for future generations or will a nuclear war or climate crisis destroy us all? Fears can cause illnesses—mental, physical and spiritual illnesses. Fears can prevent people from being kind, generous, loving and forgiving. 

However, as David goes on in the psalm, he turns to the LORD in his fear and speaks of another kind of fear—namely, fear of the LORD. The fear of God is such that it frees human beings from all other fears. It produces the serenity and peace of mind that enables sinner-saints to face all obstacles calmly and courageously.

As David and a host of sinner-saints have learned down through the ages and right up to the present day, by turning to God in prayer, especially in times of trouble and fear, we can come to fear God. When we come to fear God in prayer, we bow in awe and wonder at how God can and does free us from our fears. 

A humble and contrite heart know that it can merit nothing before God, and that all that is necessary is to be reconciled to one’s helplessness and let our holy and almighty God care for us, just as an infant surrenders her or himself to her or his mother’s or father’s care.

Prayer therefore consists simply in telling God day by day in what ways we feel that we are helpless. We are moved to pray every time the Spirit of God, which is the spirit of prayer, emphasizes anew to us our helplessness, and we realize how impotent we are by nature to believe, to love, to hope, to serve, to sacrifice, to suffer, to read the Bible, to pray and to struggle against our sinful desires.

Faith is a strange thing; it often conceals itself in such a way that we can neither see nor find it. Nevertheless, it is there; and it manifests itself by definite and unmistakable signs.

The essence of faith is to come to Christ.

This is the first and the last and the surest indication that faith is still alive. A sinner has nothing but sin and distress. The Spirit of God has made that clear to her or him. And faith manifests itself clearly and plainly when a sinner-saint, instead of fleeing from God and her or his own responsibility, as he or she did before, comes into the presence of Christ with all her or his sin and all her or his distress. The sinner-saint who does this believes.

This shows us clearly that true prayer is a fruit of helplessness and faith. Helplessness becomes prayer the moment that you go to Jesus and speak candidly and confidently with him about your needs. This is to believe.¹

We, like David, and countless other sinner-saints, after going to God in prayer and telling God all of our fears and troubles, then have discovered that God’s loving grace does provide for us. David was saved from the dangers of Saul as well as the enemy Philistine King, Achish. God kept David safe, and eventually God blessed David as Israel’s most popular king. God has done the same for you and me—after telling God our fears and troubles in prayer, God has provided for us. That is why we are here today. For that, thanks be to God! 

1 Ole Hallesby, Prayer (Minneapolis: Augsburg Publishing House, 1975), pp. 24-25, and pp. 28-29. 

Sermon for 21 Pentecost Yr A

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