Stuff Goin’ On
Tuesday: Rwanda: Hope Rises film at Wolf Performance Hall, Central Library downtown on Dundas, 7pm. This is a joint venture with STAND. The film follows the story of Nicholas and Elsie Hitimana: their marriage despite being on either sides of the ethnic divide, their narrow escape from the genocide, their forgiveness process with each other, and their journey to help rebuild. Alongside their story we see the aftermath, rebuilding process, challenges, and unique spirituality of Rwanda, all explored through the eyes of Rwandans. And we look to the future – what do Rwandans hope for the future, and how are they getting there? We are also privildeged to be hosting the director, documentary filmmaker, Trevor Meier, who will be in London to talk about his film and answer questions following the screening. All tickets are $5. You can purchase them at the door, but to guarantee seating, we would advise you to check out InfoSource for tickets.- Wednesday: Graduate Christian Fellowship @ 9am. We will be joined by Trevor Meier who will discuss his part in the making of the film, Rwanda: Hope Rises.
- Thursday: The Connection @ 5.30pm. We will continue exploring Christian life on campus next year with a provocative video from Tim Keller. As always, soup will be served for a suggested donation of $2.
Word of the Week: Mark 1.9-15 (ESV)
“In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. And when he came up out of the water, immediately he saw the heavens being torn open and the Spirit descending on him like a dove. And a voice came from heaven, ‘You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.’
The Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness. And he was in the wilderness forty days, being tempted by Satan. And he was with the wild animals, and the angels were ministering to him.
Now after John was arrested, Jesus came into Galilee, proclaiming the gospel of God, and saying, ‘The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.’”
During this season of Lent, we remember that it is Jesus who brings us the Good News (literally, Gospel) of God’s Kingdom. What is the Gospel? In this short article by Sylvia Keesmaat, adjunct professor of Biblical Studies at the Institute for Christian Studies at U of T, she sketches the narrative arc of the Good News of what God is doing in the world.
God and our Creational Home: A Story in Four Acts
In the beginning God began to make a home. What should it include: Light, certainly. The warmth of sun by day. And Darkness, the cool relief of night. A sky for gazing into. Land, a place of growth and fertility, of plants for scent and food. A place of trees, set out by God’s own hand,
It was an orchard and a forest, a home of comfort, beauty, and nourishment. It was good, but it was not enough. It was good, but it was not enough. Creatures were needed to twist and roil in the water, to dive and dip in the skies, to crawl and creep up the trees, to hop, lope and graze on the earth
Was this enough? Was this a home? It had beauty, indeed. It had nourishment and comfort. It had variety and teeming life. It was good, but it needed something more.
God knelt down in the earth. God put fingers into the clay and began to work it. Hard, fiddly work that made the clay find its way under God’s fingernails. When God was finished, God breathed the very breath of God deep into this new creature, made form the earth.
What was this creature? Someone to care for the home! Someone to tend the plants, keep the creatures, enjoy the beauty, gaze into the sky. Someone made from the earth to be the hands and heart of God in this home.
It was very good. But there was more. At the end of the day a home is a place of rest, a place of trust and Sabbath, a place to stop your work and rejoice in it. So God did just that. God rested. And God rejoiced. God had made himself a home, and it was very, very good.
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The prophet hardly knew where to begin. There was nowhere to look without grief. The trees had been formed into unwilling groves for idolatry and the stones shaped for altars to death-dealing gods. The animals lived in fear, the fish of the sea were perishing in their blood-filled waters, the birds searched in vain for a place to rest, and the land groaned in bondage.
What had happened to the home of beauty and nourishment: Where had the earth-creature gone, the one who was to nurture and care for the animals, the trees, the land?
The home had been destroyed, and not even the land could rest.
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It began with the cool caress of water on the head of Jesus, and then forty days in the wilderness. Where else would his work begin than with the animals, with the land itself? Where else could he find the nourishment to resist the tempter? He made peace first with the wild beasts. But there was more. He made peace with the wind and the waves, he called people to remember that the lilies of the field and the birds of the air could be their teachers. He took the humble gifts of the soil: bread and wine, and used them as his symbols for life. He set before the earth-creatures the choice of death-money, pride, and greed-and the choice of life-lilies, birds, bread, wine, and hospitality.
When he died all of creation wept. When he rose, all of creation rejoiced.
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We are here. This is our part of the story, our chance to take up the thread of the narrative and live it into life. What part of the story will be our script? Will we rejoice in our creational home, carrying forth the vision of God for nourishment and rest for land and creature? Will we be the ones who look with grief on the violence around us-the clearcuts, the tar sands, the melting polar caps, the dwindling wetlands? Will we weep with grief for the creatures that once found rest and nourishment in these places? Will we be the ones who bring peace, who tend and restore with great love the places in which we find ourselves? Will we be the earth-creatures, created to tend God’s creational home?
Posted by Mike Wagenman 