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The Presbyterian Church in Canada • presbyterian.ca issue 3, fall 2017
Healing and Reconciliation
Jesus as Guest – A Biblical/ Theological Reflection
By the Rev. John A. Vissers Principal at Knox College, Toronto
Jesus was always the guest. In the home of Peter and Andrew in Caper- naum, where Jesus healed Peter’s mother-in-law, Jesus was the guest. In the home of his dear friends Mary, Martha and Lazarus, Jesus was the guest. At the meal tables of the powerful and the wealthy, where he taught about the coming reign of God, and pled the cause of the poor, Jesus was the guest.
In the midst of crises and suffer- ing, when he was called to the house of Jairus to heal a dying daughter, Jesus was the guest. Upsetting po- lite company, befriending isolated people, welcoming the stranger, em- bracing the marginalized, he was the guest. Travelling from town to town with his disciples, Jesus relied on the hospitality of others, the welcome of others, as he preached, taught and healed. He had no home of his
Participants of the Healing and Reconciliation Tour, June 12–21, 2017
own; he was always the guest. He sent his disciples out two by two to do the same, to go where they were welcomed as guests, and to move on when they weren’t.1
The image of Jesus as guest— Christ as guest—perhaps offers us a clue about how the church might understand its mission and ministry, and where, perhaps, we have often gone wrong in the past, especially in relation to Canada’s Indigenous
people.
A few of my colleagues have
alerted me to the work of a Nigerian theologian named Enyi Ben Udoh, and its implications for how we think about church and culture, especially in relation to colonialism. Udoh, a Presbyterian, has developed the idea of a “Guest Christology.” Christology is the theological term for the study of the person and work of Jesus as the Christ, the Anointed One, the
Messiah, whom his followers name as Lord.2
Udoh talks about how Christ was introduced to the Nigerian context, the image of Jesus represented by those who brought the gospel, and he is particularly critical of the mis- sion in Calabar:
“Christ entered the African scene as a forceful, impatient and unfriend- ly tyrant. He was presented as invali- dating the history and institutions of a
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older than him, and drive for days around three provinces. Even some of the tour participants were puzzled and asked this question, but not one of the people we’d met on the tour had asked. It seemed to make perfect sense to the Indigenous people we’d connected with, especially to the elders whose company we had the privilege of keeping, that the process of healing and reconciliation should be something for generations to do together.
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Re ections from the H&R Tour
By Carragh Erhardt, Healing and Reconciliation Program Assistant, Justice Ministries
From June 12 to 21, thirty-three people in The Presbyterian Church in Canada visited four ministries with Indigenous people connected to the PCC, including Winnipeg Inner-City Missions, Kenora Fellowship Centre, Mistawasis Memorial Presbyterian Church and Saskatoon Native Circle Ministry. They also visited the sites of the Presbyterian-run Cecilia Jeffrey
Residential School (Kenora, Ont., and Shoal Lake, Ont.) and Birtle Residen- tial School (Birtle, Man.).
This powerful tour provided an op- portunity to see first-hand the work ministries with Indigenous people are doing and the results of the outreach it provides. As well, a visit to the University of Manitoba’s Aboriginal Business Education Partners gave them an opportunity to see the im- portance of education in the lives of Indigenous students.
This tour helped participants
understand issues related to the church’s involvement in residential schools and to learn how Presby- terians are walking with Indigenous people toward reconciliation, and working with them to gain a better understanding of the past and the present so we can move together to- ward the future.
The following are reflections from three people who were involved in the tour.
The Rev. Karen Pozios is the minister
of Dixie Presbyterian Church in Mis- sissauga, Ont. Her son, Stephen, is studying Kinesiology at York Univer- sity.
Participating in the tour was some- thing that we both wanted to do. When people heard that we were go- ing together they would ask Stephen, “What did your mother have to do to get you here?” It seemed hard for people to understand that a nineteen- year-old would be passionate enough to give up some of his precious sum- mer break to join 32 other people, all
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E.H. Johnson Award
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Interview with Dorcas Gordon
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Critically Thinking about Mission Trips
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