Our Commitment to Generosity in 2026

 “Do not judge, and you will not be judged; do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven; give, and it will be given to you.

 A good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap, for the measure you give will be the measure you get back.”

                                          Luke 6: 37-38 NRSVue 

1. We give Thee but Thine own,

Whate’er the gift may be;
All that we have is Thine alone,
A trust, O Lord, from Thee.

I am relieved that we are now into 2026 so that the endless barrage of "this is your last opportunity" messages has ceased. At least ten worthy charitable organizations were bombarding me, almost to midnight, asking for financial support. Most of them we have supported over time but in the category of "no good deed goes unpunished" we were receiving relentless pleas, sometimes several in a day from the same organization. 

As frustrating as this became I appreciate the challenge of fund-raising in a difficult economic climate. The need is there in so many sectors of society yet there is a pervading atmosphere of scarcity which is hard to overcome. Of course, the cost of living has been rising quickly affecting everything from groceries to housing. At the same time, fewer Canadians make financial generosity part of their everyday lives and many corporations are stepping back from charitable contributions. 

A week before Christmas the Globe and Mail ran the headline: Canada has become a nation of charity grinches:

 ‘Tis the season for giving, but for Canadians that increasingly entails foregoing gifts to charities. The share of tax-filers in Canada who reported that they donated to charity sat at just 16.8 per cent in 2023, according to the latest numbers from Statistics Canada, down from nearly 22 per cent a decade earlier.

CBC Radio's The Current offered it's own exploration: Are Canadians becoming less generous? Fewer Canadians are donating and volunteering. The economy, the pandemic, age are all factors -- but longtime leaders in the charitable sector say we've also lost some shared values. 

I would suggest that one place we learn those shared values is in places of worship, including churches. On Sunday mornings we are encouraged to be generous, not only to sustain our faith community which is active in the local community,but in support of a variety of causes including refugee support and international aid. There is no coercion but the encouragement is important and it influences how we respond to those other causes which were hot on our trail until the stroke of midnight on New Year's Eve, 

When I was a child in days of yore we had a box of church envelopes on our dining room sideboard with compartments for local support, mission and service, and "other" with its write-in line. The Offering during the service when the plate was passed was considered an act of worship,our grateful response to a generous God. We sang our gratitude as well (see above), as we still do in worship now, although with more contemporary music. 

While this childhood experience was very"old school" it was an apprenticeship in consistent giving and it stays with us to this day, in no small part with the reinforcement of Sunday mornings. Much of our giving in online now, including congregational support, but the lessons were learned early on. 

This is a good time of the year to take stock of the ways we will be generous in "time, talent, and treasure" (also an phrase from the past) as a response to God's love in Christ. 

A Banksy Epiphany

 

A new artwork — suspected to be by Banksy — is seen near the Centre Point building in London. The renowned street artist shared a post on Instagram on Monday indicating authorship of an identical work that appeared in another part of the city. (Leon Neal/Getty Images)

 In the time of King Herod, after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, magi from the east came to Jerusalem,  asking, “Where is the child who has been born king of the Jews? For we observed his star in the east and have come to pay him homage.”

                Matthew 2:1-2

When you wish upon a star
Makes no difference who you are
Anything your heart desires
Will come to you...

There are two identical artworks that have shown up in London by Banksy, the artist who began his career spray-painting buildings in Bristol, England, Today he is one of the world's best-known artists and his paintings and installations sell for millions of dollars. While his work is often critical of government policy on migration and war, this latest artwork seems more like an exploration of wonder than social commentary.The two figures appear to be an adult and child, dressed for winter, pointing twoard the stars. 

In a few days we will celebrate the Feast of Epiphany in the Christian year, celebrating the journey by the Magi, astrologers and astronomers, who follow a celestial body to the Christ Child in Bethelem. There are plenty of images of their journey but what would they be able to see in the night sky in this time when light pollution such as the building in the background would produce. 

There are a growing number of Dark Sky Preserves on different continents, an attempt to create oases of darkness for night-time wonder and observation. They often offer programs to teach night sky literacy, letting participants take a gander through telescopes. 

I've written about our experiences on Change Islands off the northeast coast of Newfoundland, adjacent to Fogo. Two summers ago in August I set my alarm for 2AM so that I could go outside to look for the Perseid Meteor Shower. Not only did I see some meteors, the Milky Way was brilliant, and the Aurora Borealis was visible to the west -- the triple crown of night sky observation! Thanks to my advanced scouting Ruth was willing to stir herself from the warmth under the covers. 

More is being written about the detrimental psychological and presumably spiritual effects of not being able to experience the wonder and awe of observing the night sky. I'm grateful that the story of the Magi is part of our Christian faith tradtion and that we can look up, waay up. 

A Renewed Resolution for 2026

                                               Intrepid Ruth at Monarch Point Conservation Reserve

Happy New Year!

 A couple of days ago we dithered over venturing outside as we'd discussed the evening before. Our Christmas company had departed, we'd had a day or two to recover, so why not go for a ramble? Well, we woke up to overcast skies, cold temperatures, and a brisk wind. Did I mention that it was treacherously icy? 

We almost convinced each other to stay home but somehow we found ourselves driving to the south of Prince Edward County and a favourite area at Point Petre, now withing Monarch Point Conservation Reserve. 

There were certainly no butterflies on this blustery day but the waves from Lake Ontario crashed in, helter skelter, and we had the shore to ourselves -- surprise, surprise. With warm clothing, cleats, and hiking poles we did just fine and in the end we were grateful we'd gone ahead. We did see some snow buntings as well as hardy ducks bouncing on the surf. 

There aren't many times when we go for a paddle, or a cycle, or a ramble when we regret the decision, even when we are buffeted by the elements. It is more often exhilarating than threatening and these moments open us to the wonder of Creation. We understand the ancient notion of "templum" a holy outdoor place of observation and experiencing the sacred. As we age we are grateful that our three adult children, their partners, and our four grandchildren also appreciate time en plein air. 

                                                                 Frosty New Year's Morning 2026

This morning we were out again, on a trail which no one else had trodden at an early hour because they were all likely having fun the night before.This day began with brilliant sunshine, blue sky and dazzling snow. 

As we enter 2026 I want to renew the commitment I made when I retired to be a "bewildered outsider" whenever possible. I'll keep in both heart and mind that so many of the really important encounters with the Creator in the Bible, in both testaments, from Genesis to Revelation, took place outdoors. If scripture is witness to Creation and Creator, how can we stay inside? 

https://www.ssji.ca/about_south_shore_initiative

                                  Monarch Point Conservation Reserve, formerly Point Petre

Bringing Back the Art of Mummering

 

What do you think would happen if you made your way through your neighbourhood in the dark, dressed so that you were unrecognizable, and knocking on doors? Next question: have you ever been arrested? 

While what I describe may sound unhinged or sinister it's part of a 500-year-old English tradition I've described before called mummering, or mumming, or janneying. Individuals and groups do all the things listed above and we know first hand because nearly half a century ago we lived in outport Newfoundland and experienced mummers arriving in the night. We found out that these masked and muffled folk would disguise their voices in silly ways, a huge challenge because as newly arrived mainlanders we struggled to understand was English spoken with a strong accent. I'm sure we disappointed people with our lack of provision of strong drink but perhaps they probably didn't expect that from the United Church, aka Methodist minister. 

We didn't realize at the time that mummering was nearly extinct in Britain and in Newfoundland and we might have been at the end of the tradition but for a revival in the past couple of decades on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean. The reason I've come back to the subject is because in the past janneying took place somewhat randomly during the Twelve Days of Christmas between Christmas Day and the Feast of the Epiphany. I noticed that the now annual Mummers Festival in St. John's NL was from November 29 to December 13, two weeks that were out of kilter with the original time frame of Christmastide. 

I have tried, without success, to ascertain why this odd practice was connected with the Twelve Days of Christmas as a religious observance and it probably wasn't. I do like that it was connected to a different calendar. 

Last comment: people in our outport home of Carmanville encouraged me to be a mummer the following year. At 6 feet, four and a half inches tall I was literally head and shoulders above just about any other male in the community, so I passed on the invitation. 

                                                            St. John's Mummers Parade

Our History

The Mummers Festival was initially a joint initiative with the Intangible Cultural Heritage division of the Heritage Foundation of Newfoundland and Labrador and Memorial University’s Folklore Department. The initiative began in 2009 with the intention of passing along a well-researched model to a community group who would continue organizing the Mummers Festival. That year, the Festival included 16 free community events throughout the month of December. In 2010 a Mummers Festival community group was established and run entirely by volunteers. In 2011, the Mummers Festival incorporated as a nonprofit entity. The Festival celebrated its 15th anniversary in 2023.

                        Our Mandate

To produce festivals for the purpose of education, charity, cultural promotion, community engagement and advancement of the public’s understanding and appreciation of Newfoundland and Labrador folk traditions related to mummering and Christmastime practices; and to assist in the transmission of these folk traditions through participation by the public and tradition-bearers in such festivals and related forums, lectures, workshops, performances and public events.

                            Our Goal

The Mummers Festival aims to promote the continuance and evolution of traditional arts and performance by encouraging active participation in mummering activities. All events are designed to equip the public with skills and knowledge about mummering so that they can better participate in our Parade day events and, it is hoped, the house-visiting traditions that occur during the twelve days of Christmas.

Charlie Kirk & the Sabbath

 

“Remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work. But the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God; you shall not do any work—you, your son or your daughter, your male or female slave, your livestock, or the alien resident in your towns.  For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but rested the seventh day; therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and consecrated it.                                   Exodus 20: 8-11 NRSVue

When I led a study group on the biblical concept of Sabbath in the Fall of 2023 it was one of the more poorly attended of the many I've offered at Trenton United yet the conversation was really worthwhile. Some of the participants were old enough that they grew up in a time long before Sunday commerical openings and their families engaged in activities that would be considered boring and stifling today. Along with church attendance they were encouraged to read and engage in music. Several of them have carried personal Sabbath-keeping into the present day with a commitment that puts me to shame, although I do have the decency to feel guilty about breaking the Sabbath. 

I pointed out that this one of is the only "remember" commandment while most of the others are prohibitions, the "thou shalt nots" of the KJV. And it is the lengthiest and most specific of the bunch, other than the one concerning idolatry. In a way the two go together. 

I was discombobulated when I read that the late Charlie Kirk, the young American right-wing star who was gunned down at a rally, had just finished writing a book about the Sabbath and it's now published. I heard about it through an Atlantic magazine article with the title There Were Two Charlie Kirks: A new book by the right-wing activist, who was murdered in September, has moments of seriousness, beauty, and cross-partisan appeal.

The writer of the article is Judith Shulevitz, a Jewish author whose book on the Sabbath I used in the study I led, as well as with other similar studies. In her piece she begins: 

Charlie Kirk’s last book, Stop, in the Name of God, was released on the morning of December 9. By afternoon, it had jumped to No. 1 on Amazon and then sold out. On one hand, this should surprise no one. Kirk had a huge following even before his assassination made him, for many, a martyred saint and drove an online surge of both mourning and recrimination over insufficient mourning. On the other hand, this is a book about the Sabbath. Living authors of books investigating the day of rest, a small but select sodality, are probably feeling dizzy right now. I know I am. (Kirk seems to have read my book, The Sabbath World, and mentions me once.) The Sabbath is generally regarded as a topic of specialized interest. I can’t think of any other work of Sabbatarian theology that has attained instant best-seller status.

It sounds as though Kirk practiced a Friday sundown to Saturday sundown Sabbath in the Jewish tradtion, including shutting down social media. I was able to find some quotes from the prologue of his book and I would agree with many of them, so I included them below. I would add, though, that Sabbath is both the immediate practice and an outcome that aligns with the fruits of the spirit described by the apostle Paul. We are called to live the Sabbath in every day and every aspect of our lives. I found far too much of what Kirk had to say elsewhere as divisive and disturbing in ways that fed White Christian Nationalism, so I won't be buying the book. Others may find it insightful and useful. 

You can read a few of his thoughts here and draw your own conclusions: 

"In this book, I intend to persuade you of something that may, at first, seem quaint, old-fashioned, or even unnecessary: that the Sabbath is not merely a helpful tradition or a cultural relic—it is essential to the flourishing of the human soul," Charlie Kirk wrote in the prologue:

"I will define the Sabbath not just in doctrinal terms but in existential ones. We will explore its origin—not in history, but in eternity; not in law, but in creation," he wrote. "I will show you how to incorporate it not as a weekly burger but as a life-giving rhythm that reorders your time, renews your mind, and restores your humanity."

"It is written for the exhausted parent, the anxious student, the burned-out executive, the soul-numbed scroller," he wrote.

"This is not a suggestion manual or a spiritual upgrade for those with spare time," he continued. "This is a manifesto against the machine of modern life. It is a call to war against the endless noise and ceaseless hurry that have slowly robbed you of your joy, your wonder, and your rest."

Charlie Kirk wrote that he did not write the book to "affirm your lifestyle," but instead "to interrupt it." 

"I am writing to cut at the root of some of the deepest wounds in our society—disconnection, anxiety, spiritual fatigue, moral confusion—and to offer you a concrete, ancient, and divine practice that can begin to heal them," he wrote.

"As America has abandoned the Sabbath, we have watched nearly every major marker of health—emotional, spiritual, communal—begin to fail," he wrote. "We are more productive and less peaceful, more connected digitally and more isolated relationally. We are over-stimulated, undernourished, distracted, discontent, and desperately lonely."

"My mission in writing this is very simple: I desire to bring all humanity back to God’s design to rest for an entire day," Charlie Kirk writes. "To cease working, to STOP, in the name of GOD." 

Childermass 2025

                                          “The Massacre of the Innocents,” an 1824 painting by Léon Cogniet.

The Escape to Egypt

 Now after they had left, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, “Get up, take the child and his mother, and flee to Egypt, and remain there until I tell you, for Herod is about to search for the child, to destroy him.”  Then Joseph got up, took the child and his mother by night, and went to Egypt and remained there until the death of Herod. This was to fulfill what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet, “Out of Egypt I have called my son.”

The Massacre of the Infants

 When Herod saw that he had been tricked by the magi, he was infuriated, and he sent and killed all the children in and around Bethlehem who were two years old or under, according to the time that he had learned from the magi. Then what had been spoken through the prophet Jeremiah was fulfilled:

 “A voice was heard in Ramah,
    wailing and loud lamentation,
Rachel weeping for her children;
    she refused to be consoled, because they are no more.”

                                          Matthew 2: 13-18 NRVue

I think I've said in the past that it would have been unthinkable during my years of congregational ministry to focus on yesterday's "downer" Christian feast day during the Christmas season. The fourth day of Christmas is not actually about calling birds, a theme I could get behind, but the slaughter of children. Ugh. It is called the Feast of the Holy Innocents or the Massacre of the Innocents and refers to a disturbing story found only in Matthew's gospel and not corroborated by any other historical writers of the period. Herod the not-so-great, the despotic Roman king of Judah, can't find the infant Jesus the Magi had come to worship. So in his fury he orders the deaths of all the toddlers and infants in his realm. 

There has been a strange debate this year over whether Mary, Joseph, and baby Jesus Family in flight to Egypt were truly refugees -- what else would they be? It seems that even this gospel story has been politicized by those in different parts of the world who want to claim to be Jesus followers but have a hate on for migrants and refugees. 2025 has been rife with the photos of starving and displaced children in Gaza and Sudan and elsewhere.

I hadn't realized that this feast day is also known as Childermass, and somehow this name helps bring into focus the reminder that children are innocent and subject to the whims of the adults around them. What if infant Jesus had been murdered or died on the challenging journey to and from Egypt? 

I saw a tweet from New Testament professor Esau McCaulley that led me to an article he wrote for the New York Times six years ago and it struck me as both relevant and worthy of sharing, or at least a portion of it. Here are a few paragraphs from that powerful piece. 

Esau McCaulley

@esaumccaulley

Six years ago, I published my first

@nytimes

piece on the feast of the Holy Innocents. I never imagined I would still be doing this all these years later.

Why is it important that the church calendar tells this story at the beginning of the Christmas season? Why should anyone care about the dates on a Christian calendar, especially in a time in which people have rightly questioned the excessive quest for power that marks some corners of the church?

The church calendar calls Christians and others to remember that we live in a world in which political leaders are willing to sacrifice the lives of the innocent on the altar of power. We are forced to recall that this is a world with families on the run, where the weeping of mothers is often not enough to win mercy for their children. More than anything, the story of the innocents calls upon us to consider the moral cost of the perpetual battle for power in which the poor tend to have the highest casualty rate.But how can such a bloody and sad tale do anything other than add to our despair? 

The Christmas story must be told in the context of suffering and death because that’s the only way the story makes any sense. Where else can one speak about Christmas other than in a world in which racism, sexism, classism, materialism and the devaluation of human life are commonplace? People are hurting, and the epicenter of that hurt, according to the Feast of the Holy Innocents, remains the focus of God’s concern.

This feast suggests that things that God cares about most do not take place in the centers of power. The truly vital events are happening in refugee camps, detention centers, slums and prisons. The Christmas story is set not in a palace surrounded by dignitaries but among the poor and humble whose lives are always subject to forfeit. It’s a reminder that the church is not most truly herself when she courts power. The church finds her voice when she remembers that God “has brought down rulers from their thrones but has lifted up the humble,” as the Gospel of Luke puts it.

The very telling of the Christmas story is an act of resistance. This is how the biblical story functioned for my ancestors who gathered in the fields and woods of the antebellum South. They saw in the Christian narrative an account of a God who cared for the enslaved and wanted more for them than the whip and the chain. For them Christianity did not merely serve the disinherited — it was for the disinherited, the “weak things” that shamed the strong.

Christians believe that none of this suffering was in vain. The cries of the oppressed do not go forever unanswered. We believe that the children slaughtered by Herod were ushered into the presence of God and will be with him for eternity. The Christian tradition also affirms that Jesus’ suffering served a purpose, that when the state ordered his death, God was at work. Through the slaughter of the truly innocent one, God was emptying death of its power, vanquishing evil and opening the path toward forgiveness and reconciliation.

                                         The Massacre of the Innocents --Pieter Bruegel the Elder