Pastor John Van Sloten

On the surface; shapeless and grey.  But up close…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I’ve often thought that, if I could find the time to do some serious digging into the history of Christian iconography, I’d discover a treasure trove of wisdom for better discerning God’s voice through creation.

An example. I’m now in the middle of a Qideas article that references Russian icon painter, Andrei Rublev’s, Holy Trinity. There, the writer talks about how the icon invites us into the presence of the Triune God and then writes, “The viewer is actually experiencing the intimate “wordless” conversation between Father, Son, and Spirit, from behind the altar, that is, in communion with this divine mystery.”

Really? How cool is that. Instead of just believing that the Holy Spirit, Jesus, or the Father might reveal something directly to us through a biblical or created word, what if we’re instead meant to overhear a conversation? God’s conversation. Are there times and places where God is meant to be overheard? “You can listen in if you’d like John, but we’re really not talking to you right now.” Although in reality, this would be a more of an oblique/slant way of speaking wouldn’t it?

And it must be happening all the time, no? The Holy Trinity, by nature, is ever-communing and communicating love, wisdom and truth; an infinite and eternal divine dialogue, which in theory, should be almost impossible to ignore.

I wonder what this idea would mean for the work we’re doing here at our church. Does Jesus commune with the Father through the materially created order. He certainly did when he took on human flesh. But he’s still doing that (in some form) isn’t he?  Does the Spirit show love to the Father and Jesus by co-creating a beautiful song, painting, or business plan? Does the Father affirm to Jesus and the Spirit that he is the wellspring of all things every time he comes up with the idea of, and creates, another human being?

This is starting to mess with my finite mind.

Yesterday I preached a sermon on the hydrology of the Bow River. It was a great church service and the message felt quite powerful and effective. When I got home I tried to figure out why. I asked my family (poor ‘guinea pigs’ them) a question, “Why and how do you think this morning’s deeper scientific engagement with the nature of the Bow River made Jesus’ words – “Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them.” John 7:38, TNIV (one of our biblical texts for this sermon) – more powerful?”

My son Thomas thought that it had to do with the weight of the word/image/analogy/metaphor/text. The more you know about the depth of the nature of a river, the greater the meaning and the deeper the application of the point Jesus was trying to make. Like with all words, the more fully we understand their meaning, the greater the weight they carry in their usage. Jesus – the one through whom all rivers were made – surely knew what he was saying when he cited this particular image.

My (always down to earth) wife, Fran, thought that by physcially explaining the material nature of the Bow River, I avoided an “airy fairy” application of the river metaphor (I’m thinking she’s heard too many ‘over spiritualized’ river references in her life).  I think she has a point. A strong apprection of the material goodness of creation is a hedge against gnosticism (elevating ‘spiritual’ over ‘material’). Treating the river as a text, kept it’s goodness, beauty and truth down to earth.

My son’s girlfriend Melinda said, “There’s something about a scientific truth that is irrefutable. By emphasizing this and linking it to the scriptural text (to the extent that you can do that well) you substantiate the scripture in a way.” Smart young woman. Now it’s not that she needs the river’s empirical stamp to give authority to God’s revelation in the bible; she’s already there. But this connection seemed to strengthen her faith. God’s seeable, measurable, potable word in the river spoke more audibly, clearly, tangibly, in a way.

After each of them shared, I said, “You’re all talking about the same thing, but from a different angle.”

To me, the engagement and preaching of the Bow River as a text was kind of like the learning that occurs on a field trip. You can learn things in a classroom, lab or sanctuary, but it’s a different kind of learning from the immersive experience of being there. By preaching a river the way we did – spending over 50% of the sermon time on the hydrological science, including river sounds, imagery and video throughout the service, engaging the best expertise we could in interviewing a world leading scientist – we created a deeper experience of the text.  And life is a field trip isn’t it?  I suppose the ultimate manifestation of this approach would be to actually preach the message while the congregation floated down the Bow on rafts (challenging for the techies though!).

By treating the Bow River as more than just an illustration, the entire sermon took on new weight. And Jesus’ promise that, if we believed in him, rivers of living water will flow from us, took on new meaning.

 

“My soul yearns, even faints, for the courts of the Lord; my heart and my flesh cry out for the living God. Even the sparrow has found a home, and the swallow a nest for herself, where she may have her young – a place near your altar, Lord Almighty, my King and my God.” Psalm 84:2-3, NIV

Reading these words this morning I realized that the person who initially scribed them must have had an experience that is very much like the seeking God through creation experiences I yearn for.  I imagine this person seeing that sparrow in its nest, alive, cared for to the point of being able to care for others (her young), then seeing the good God who holds all things in behind that avian picture. “This bird is being held by you God,” the writer must have thought, “therefore it must be near you, near your altar.”

I am being held by you God, with a home, able to care for the charges you’ve given me – therefore I must be very close to you. The place that the writer seeks – to be near God’s altar – must then be a perceptive place. God is everywhere.  All we need is eyes (and hearts) to see.

It’s comments like these that compel me to write my next book on the topic of ‘work’.

“I know I’ve mentioned it a couple of times, but I’m so thankful to have had the opportunity to work with you on this sermon, it’s really made a difference in the way I look at my work.  I have a feeling that it will really hit me tomorrow morning when I log in to my computer at the office…geophysics for me has been made new again!” Geophysicist and New Hoper, Marc Chen

After church the wife of a second sermon researching geophysicist came up to me and said, “Thank you for honouring [my husband's] passion.” And the wife of yet another geologist said, “[My husband] was squirming with excitement as he listened to the sermon.” Later that afternoon another geologist, who was visiting from another church, sent me a note saying, “It struck me that geophysics, or at least seismic sound wave interpretation, is all about reflections. Perhaps we interpret the reflections of God’s actions through the prism of Jesus. The apostle Paul I believe states somewhere that we see through a glass darkly; perhaps he meant indirectly, as through a mirror. But ultimately we will know fully, when we meet Jesus.”

And all I can think, in response to this feedback, is, “This is what church needs to do… exegete and preach God’s truth in thousands of vocations from thousands of pulpits!”

Sunday’s church service felt like such an honouring event; image bearing geophysicists were honoured (via the recognition of their passion to explore and discover the world God made and place them in), the science of geophysics was honoured (by more fully understanding God’s gifts of seismic, physical constants, etc…), and Jesus himself was honoured, as we contemplated his Alpha and Omega nature in the context of our 4.5 billion year old planet.  And the profound connection of geophysics’ concept of the analog to the bible’s concept of anthropomorphisms…  well that was just amazing to me (you’ll have to watch the message).

What struck me most though, was what Marc Chen said to me immediately after the service. In the weeks leading up to the sermon I told Marc, several times, that when he does his geophysics 101 ten minute talk on the front end of the message, he ought to think of it as part of the sermon, and not just as an introduction to the sermon. “My prayer is that God will speak through geophysical truth as you preach it, even as he speaks through the theological response I will present in the second half of the message. I expect the Holy Spirit to lead you, empower your words, and impress God’s truth on listeners, even as I expect (and pray for) the same for my words.”

So Marc comes up to me after the service and says, “Something happened to me during that last song before the sermon… I was deeply moved and started to lose it.” At that point both of us started to tear up. Just before getting up to preach, this rational, left brained scientist experienced a deeply emotional God moment. The Spirit who hovered over the face of the earth when it’s geology was first formed, had hovered over him for just a second. “I didn’t know if I’d be able to get up and talk,” he said.

But he did talk… he preached.  And God spoke.  Through him, through both of his image bearing preachers that day.

Yesterday I read a great quote by Marilynne Robinson on John Calvin’s thought on the nature of humanity. It helped me understand how I met God through the words and science of a geophysicist;

“[Calvin's] humanism is expressed precisely in his understanding of the teaching of Genesis, that humankind is made in the image of God, the likeness being “that glory of God which peculiarly shines forth in human nature, where the mind, the will, and all the senses, represent the Divine order.” . . . [He] places this incandescent divinity—it is the glory of God that “shines forth from human nature”—at the very center of individual experience and presence. And this sacredness is an attribute not of saints only, nor of Christians only, but is inherent and also manifest in all human beings as such.” John Calvin: Steward of God’s Covenant (from Comment Magazine, Spring 2012)

It was the glory of a geophysicist’s image bearing human nature – his mind, and will and senses – that represented the Divine order to me. Through Marc’s glory I encountered God’s glory. Through the ordering of Marc’s mind I sensed the ordering mind of Christ.  Marc and his geophysics became an icon to me; something I looked through to encounter the presence of Christ.

And the name of that last worship song that the Spirit hovered over before the sermon?  Fleetwood Mac’s Landslide.

 

A couple days ago I had a great talk over coffee with a new friend. He asked me questions about the book/vision that no one has ever asked before (gotta love those kinds of conversation partners).  We talked about whether God’s revelation through a created thing is occasional or not – is it only for a particular person at a particular time and place, or is it more universal and lasting? Recalling Paul VanderKlay’s insights on Calvin’s view of the Holy Spirit (which I also read that day) – “If you read some John Calvin you might want to read about how he pairs the Holy Spirit with the Bible. The Holy Spirit uses the Bible. Unless the Holy Spirit is using the Bible it does nothing. There is no power in the Bible. It has power to the degree that it is used by the Spirit. The Holy Spirit is transformative and the Bible is an agent in transformation as used by the Spirit.” – I’m tempted to think that every instance of creational revelation is occasional; and that the Holy Spirit is moving in an infinite number of occasions, via, through and to people in all kinds of ways (and that sometimes the Spirit doesn’t).

Irony of ironies, Wednesday night at Coldplay I experienced this truth. The same songs that I preached on Sunday felt emptier… less… at the concert on Wednesday.  I tried to get my head/heart into the right place, but really couldn’t.  I didn’t let it bother me, but I did notice what was happening. Strange. But good. I don’t control where the Spirit blows.

Another interesting thing that came up over coffee was the precise nature of God’s revelation through a created thing. Is God actually speaking through a Coldplay song? Or am I just taking note of and exegeting the creational good in the band – the inherent goodness of their having been made, how they image God in their creativity, the sensus divinitatis, etc…?  There is a difference between the two. The first has more movement, is more just in time and, like the bible, Coldplay becomes the agent through which the Spirit whispers.  The second is more static, more of a general observation about God via the lens of the goodness of creation.  I think I do both when I preach… and the first is always built on the second.

The last thing we talked about was how howcreational revelation speaks might be like the way preaching speaks.

Is how God speaks through all things like how God speaks through a preacher? This thought is intriguing. Years ago I read a Books and Culture article that talked about preaching being all about the moment of exhortation; a moment where the speaking of God’s scriptural words is inhabited by a real and tangible sense of the presence of God.  To me this exhortation moment sounds a lot like the co-illumination moments I’ve been preaching/writing about. Which makes me want to do some more research on what others have written about the preaching moment… so that I can then make the translation to the geophysics, grass, Coldplay, accounting preaching moments.

 

How open are you to the idea that God might speak truth through Coldplay’s music?  Here’s a Theology of Coldplay Assessment Tool, that I just created for Sunday’s programme (just to get people thinking).

 

This morning’s sermon research is listening to and trying to discern the Spirit’s whisperings in Coldplay’s new album Mylo Xyloto (I know, I’ve got the best job in the world!). I’m thinking of focussing on the lyrics that sound a lot like prayers.  If you’ve heard any while listening to the album, let me know.  Here’s one obvious song I’ll be looking at; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wnc77S-g0qQ

Recently I’ve been noticing a change in terms of how I’ve been preaching biblical texts. This whole two-book idea that I’ve been living into is leading me to approach the scriptural text with different/new questions.  When I preached on the story of the Roman Centurion last month, I asked myself, “Where is God’s Spirit already at work in the story before Jesus formally makes the scene?”  Clearly there was a common grace move of God in the Centurion’s love for his slave, his care for the Jewish people (he built their synagogue), and the Jewish elder’s love and respect for their Roman ‘oppressor’ (in so passionately bringing his case to Jesus).  God worked through all of these things (along with Jesus’ direct intervention of course!) to heal a slave that he obviously wanted to heal.

What would it mean to bring this question to all of my biblical exegesis?  I would imagine that every single narrative would contain an element of common grace within it; God preparing the way, setting the scene for his work through Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, his prophets, kings and disciples. If I had another lifetime, I’d like to go through the entire bible and pull out and unpack these already at work instances. What could all of the bible’s modelling of common grace teach us in terms of identifying the common grace movements of the Spirit today?

Last week I caught myself asking another new question (sort of) of a different text. I was preaching on the story of Jesus healing the man born blind from John 9.  Obviously the gospel writer composed the chapter with theological intent in mind. At seminary they teach you to try and get into his head a bit in order to better understand the passage.  What I did went a bit further.  I tried to imagine what it would have been like for John to witness/live into the events of that ‘blind man healed’ day.

First, he’s walking along with Jesus, and along with all of the other disciples, trying to know him more.

Then, he’s one of the crowd who figures the ‘blind guy must be being punished for someone’s sin…’

Then, his works based, superficial, tit for tat, theological worldview gets blown away when Jesus tells them that this isn’t about who sinned; about God’s glory!

Then he experiences the GLORY of the healing!…

Then he sees that glory juxtaposed w/ the spiritual blindness of those Pharisaical religious leaders (who were so sure of how & when & where God works… so blinded by what they thought they “knew”… that they couldn’t glorify and enjoy God in the moment!)…

Then, even as he’s filled with incredulity at the fact that they can’t see… he gets to watch this newly sighted man see Jesus for who he really is, for the first time!…  and confess, “Lord I believe!”

I imagine John watching all of this, and seeing the accumulation of all of these events as a sort of parable; a real time, over the course of the day, via several circumstances being strung together, word of God.  A word of God, which in the recording and writing was inspired by the Holy Spirit, and then affirmed by the early church as authoritative, and then affirmed again when the canon of scripture was measured out and defined 350 years later.

If I had another lifetime, it would be cool to take all of our thinking into authorial intent to this next step.  How could how the author saw life’s story – early Hebrew history, the life of a certain king, Isaac’s narrative, a prophet’s ecstatic utterances -  teach us to see the Spirit’s moves today?

 

I just fired off  letters to the editors of two of Alberta’s largest newspapers saying,

“This morning I opened my son’s monthly AISH disability pension deposit notification and promptly broke into tears. Because our provincial government has kept its promise, he now has an extra $400. per month to live on and save. I can’t tell you how much this means to our family. As a pastor, with a limited salary, I’ve often struggled with properly preparing for my son’s future. Now the burden has been significantly lightened – by a province full of people. This is the kind of Alberta I love; hard working, compassionate and generous. I just wanted to write and say thanks.”

Yesterday afternoon, a worker from another provincial department sat in our living room and told us of a, one time, $1500. bonus the government has given us to pass on to our respite care workers.  Yesterday morning I snapped this photo of Edward heading off to his fully funded and staffed work and leisure program, boarding a bus that is available to him 24/7 for $40. month.

Taking all of this in, all I feel is the providential love and care of God!  Through the icon of a bus and the parable of a caring provincial government, I see his face.