Tyndale Chapel Podcast

Good morning everyone. Welcome to our community chapel for today. We're glad that you are with us. And for those of you online, welcome also, today is a little bit of a different day, and so much is that the podium is typically not over here, but in the center. It's because our speaker today, Uncle Jamie, I mean, Dr Jamie Robertson is going to be offering us a message in a unique format. And Dr Robertson is Associate Professor of Christian history and the director of Distributed Learning here at Tyndale, and we're really looking forward to his conversation with us this morning. We also want to welcome those of you who are here visiting Tyndale, checking us out, seeing if this is the place for you come fall or next winter. So we're glad that you're here. We hope that you feel welcomed. We trust that you will find this experience so enriching that it will be a no brainer, that you'll show up in September. We hope that you do so for those of you who are visiting, can I embarrass you and have you stand for a second so we can welcome you? There we go. Thank you. We're so glad that you're here. Week after week, for those of you who are visiting, we enter into this place, this beautiful chapel, to gather together as a community of brothers and sisters, scholars, students, administrators, staff, faculty, to to pause in in the middle of a week, but also significantly, to find ourselves again rooted in God's story. So regardless of what songs we sing, what message we hear, we are, we recognize that we are in the midst of this beautiful movement of time in which we find ourselves, in the midst of that story that God has created, and as brothers and sisters, as friends and strangers, we are able to spend 45 minutes or so every week delighting God with our song, with our words, with our attention, with our prayer. And this week, we're so grateful that Aaron Collins is here. He'll be leading us in song. Aaron is a fourth year undergraduate student and currently working at a church, a parish in the Peterborough area, so we're grateful that Aaron's here too. Let me begin with this word of scripture from Psalm eight. I'm reading from the New International Version, Lord Our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth. You have set your glory in the heavens through the praise of children and infants, you have established a stronghold against your enemies, to silence the foe and the avenger. When I consider your heavens and the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is mankind that you are mindful of them, human beings, that you care for them? You have made them a little lower than the angels, and crowned them with glory and honor. You have made them rulers of the works of your hands. You have put you put everything under their feet, all flocks and herds and the animals of the wild, the birds of the sky and the fish in the sea, all that swim in the paths of the seas. Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth? Let's pray together. God it's not hard to be mindful that you are majestic when we are in a place like this, but your majesty is all encompassing and all consuming, and happens here in this beautiful space, but also in the most desolate locations around the world, your majesty is abounds everywhere. So God, we pray this morning that you will give us eyes to see your majesty continually in our lives, that we will hear that still small voice of your wooing invitation to become more embedded in your spirit by your son. Oh God, may you reign in our lives in the manner that you reign in the world. You are sovereign over all things, even things that are contentious and controversial, that causes anxiety and stress. We know you give peace, so God, may we know that peace this morning, your abounding grace, your beautiful love, your compassion, that fails not. God, you are good, you are great, and we love you, and we're grateful for these moments that we can be together. We pay you. We pray these things in Jesus, name Amen.

For the Director of Music, a Psalm of David, Psalm 19, The heavens declare the glory of God. The skies proclaim the work of his hands. Day after day, they pour forth speech, and night after night they reveal knowledge. Now they don't have any speech. They're not using words. No sound is heard from them, and yet their voice goes out to the entirety of the earth. They're words to the ends of our world, in the heavens, God has pitched a tent for the sun, like like a bridegroom coming out of his chamber, or like a champion rejoicing to run his course. It rises at the one end of the heavens. It makes its circuit to the other end. And none of us nothing is deprived of its warmth. See, the law of the Lord is perfect. It refreshes the soul. The statutes of the Lord are trustworthy, making wise the simple, the precepts of the Lord are right and they give joy to our hearts. The commands of the Lord are radiant and they give light to our eyes. The fear of the Lord is pure and endures forever. The decrees of the Lord are firm and in them are all righteousness. They are more precious than gold, than pure gold. They are sweeter than honey. Honey directly from the honeycomb. By them your servant is worn in keeping them, there is great reward, because who among us can discern our own errors? My Lord, forgive my hidden faults, keep me your servant also from willful sins. May they not rule over me. It is then that I can be blameless, innocent of great transgressions. So may the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be pleasing in your sight, Lord, my rock and my Redeemer. Good morning, children. Many, many years ago, Jesus was in one of his famous debates with the religious leaders and scholars of his time. Now, what they were debating was about what it's like to be married in the afterlife, and he cautioned them by saying, listen, you're not understanding things. And he went on to teach them, there we go. He would go on to offer them challenges that they didn't necessarily appreciate but, little homage to Mr. Rogers, let's get comfy. They've picked one of their group to come up and say, alright, if you're so smart, paraphrasing, what is great about the commandments? And Jesus answered very simply, Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your mind. And then we're going to say and love your neighbor as yourself, all the law, all the prophets hang on these two. These are things we're aware of, but it's important to be reminded of them. And so my dear children, it's time for a story. Now while I was introduced as Uncle Jamie. I believe one of the most overlooked elements of intelligence is, in fact, a sense of humor. Amen is right. Here we go. All right, dismissed. And because of that, and because I'm also a dad, I believe it is important for us spiritually, to begin with a dad joke. A horse walks into a bar. The bartender looks up and says, why the long face? That's not the joke. Now, the horse has heard this before, so the horse is very upset. The bartender nonplussed offers the horse a drink. Now, what the bartender does not know about this horse is that this horse happens to be a teetotaler, someone who is very aware of the evils of alcohol. Scandalized by this offer, the horse responds, I think not, and immediately disappears, okay, that was the joke. Alright. It appears that many of you did not necessarily get this joke, and that is fair, because in order to understand this joke, you must first be fairly fluent in the French language as well as Latin. You must have a pretty active at the front of your mind understanding of early modern philosophy and what we historians refer to as the age of reason. In fact, you probably even have to know what teetotaling is to really understand this joke. But I want to introduce the point behind this joke. So as all good jokes need, it's important for us to analyze it. And when you have to explain a joke to this level, you know it's a top drawer joke. We begin this with the father of Cartesian philosophy and one of the champions of the age of reason for that is at the heart of this joke, originally written in French, Rene Descartes simply stated this je pense, donc je suis. Okay, okay, moving on. It's Canada. We should know some more French, but that's okay. This was originally written in French, and it was placed in his 1637, discourse on the method, and it would become to be known as his first principle. But it would not gain in popularity until after his death, when it was printed in the book the search for truth by natural light in the Latin dubido Ergo Sum, Vel, quad im, est, Cogito ergo sum. Okay, all right, probably more importantly, known and more popularly known as, I doubt, therefore I think, therefore I am. So while most people are probably familiar with I think therefore I am, it's actually really important for us to remember that first part. As Rene, the father of this age of reason, a lot of modern philosophy is struggling with, what is the evidence for existence? How do I know I exist? He comes to a very simple yet profound and world changing thinking, the very fact that I'm questioning my existence is evidence for my existence. And this is something we move past a little bit too quickly. Is that in struggle, in using our intelligence, it always begins with doubt, with thinking, wondering, pondering. And this is not something that Christianity has always embraced with open arms. There are some who would say that doubt is a sign of weak faith. I don't know if that's necessarily true. If we see intelligence, literacy and education are actually a hallmark of Christian tradition throughout the ages, while the psalmist says that God makes wise the simple this does not mean to venerate blind or uneducated faith. It's good story so far. We know the importance of reading and writing to our faith. And the reason why we historians can talk about the age of reason is because, thanks to philosophers like this, a new way of seeing the world spread around, became understood and changed the ways subsequent generations understood and they did this through wonderful technology of the time, known specifically as the printing press. And the printing press has done wonders to bring vast and disparate collections of people into similar ways of thinking as they in turn, went around their world and tried to understand the world influenced by these desires. If you are of the Protestant tradition, you understand just how influential the printing press was to the spreading of Martin Luther's ideas that would trigger what we now refer to as Protestantism. This was the same for John Calvin, Ulrich Zwingli and our school's namesake, William Tyndale. Now these men disagreed on a lot of stuff, and thankfully, Protestants have been agreeing with each other ever since, good, good, good, I'm glad. But one thing they did agree on is the spiritual imperative for an educated and literate laity. So I'm sure you've heard the name Gutenberg, the the historically credited with with with creating the printing press. But as a historian, I also want to introduce you to more obscure people, to show that not just the superstars of history, but other people as well. And so I want to introduce you to a man by the name of Samuel Sewall. Now, Sewall was in what we refer to as the new world, living right around the same time as Descartes, and his first principle. He was a stellar scholar, granted it was from an obscure University most people have never heard of, Harvard? Good, good. He would graduate with a degree in law and become a very progressive and influential judge. In 1681, he was appointed the official printer for his colony in the new world. Now, he knew Latin well. He knew French well. He, like the reformers, believed in the educated and literate laity, and so took his job as a printer very, very seriously. In fact, in order to inform and educate his people, one of the first things he printed was John Bunyan's Pilgrims Progress, believing that this was a deep spiritual truth that parents could read to their children. His access to information, the amount of books and ideas he could read in English and French and Latin, inspired him over time, his work as a judge gave him context, and he would pen the following, it is most certain that all people are co heirs have equal right unto liberty, excuse me, and all other outward comforts of life. God hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth. Using the tale of Joseph being sold into slavery by his brothers, he reminded his readers, he that stealeth a man and selleth him, or if he be found in his hand, he shall surely be put to death. Exodus, chapter 21 verse 16, I'm sure many of you have heard the name William Wilberforce, the great Christian abolitionist, or John Newton, the man who penned the lyrics to the very, very famous hymn, Amazing Grace. But in sewall we have someone else, this man, this judge, this printer, this scholar, used his mind to recognize the evils of the West African slave trade, which was underpinning the economy of his colony. And he is, as far as we can tell, the first abolitionist of the New World. Speaking of Joseph, we now turn to the fantastically named Increase Mather. I mean, if any of you are going to be having kids in the future, let's throw increase up there as one of those great first words, which is just an English version of the name Joseph. Now Increase Mather was Samuel's minister, and he was influenced by and influenced Samuel greatly. He was the first person in the new world to receive an honorary doctorate for his profound public influence in his sermons from another obscure University, Harvard, where he received a Doctorate of sacred theology in 1692 now this was the New World. It was a time of wanton violence, trying to build up structures that would last for generations. And he preached and printed sermons that went around dispelling and condemning acts of violence and murder. In a sermon, condemning physical violence as well as judgmental violence within the Christian heart, he hopefully endears you to yourself, as he did to me by in the words or in the spirit of St Francis of Assisi, extending the need for grace, mercy, harmony and compassion to animals. When he wrote, cruelty is a degree of murder and a great evil cruelty, though to a beast, argue with a murderous, bloody disposition, the scriptures sayeth, a good man is merciful to his beast. They that then make themselves sport with dumb creatures to misery do so very sinfully. It is a wicked thing, and ought not to be among those that call themselves Christians. And so these are just two people among this 17th century life that I've highlighted, the ways in which their education, their intelligence, created some beautiful teachings that expanded grace, mercy and compassion to literally the least of those in their own age, slaves and animals. And this is one of the gifts of the age of reason. It expanded rights to all humans, irrespective of the color of their skin. It extended rights and gave the birth of societies dedicated solely to preventing cruelty to animals. It helped inspire children's rights, women's rights, labor rights, human rights. But there's another reason I highlight these two men. In their effort, in their intellect, they were establishing what they believed to be a new Jerusalem. In fact, the city they lived in, they named Jerusalem because they believed it was absolutely essential that in order to honor God, we must govern in ways that would please God, and they dedicated their influence and significant intellects to this very enterprise. However, history knows their actions through the city of Jerusalem, but more specifically, the last five letters of the city of Jerusalem. These are two of the most prominent men in the Salem witch trials, one of the darkest periods of North American Christian history. Increase Mather, the minister, was one of the ministers who oversaw and condemned many people to death. Samuel Sewall was one of the judges who condemned many people to death. I tell you about these people because in our popular imagination of what the witch hunts of Salem were, we tend to think of them as being given over to superstitions. These are simpler people that were preyed on by paranoia and a poor understanding of the spiritual realm, ridiculous people given over to ridiculous fears that have no bearing on reality, or, frankly, Christianity, people we can lament and scorn for their simplistic and unintelligent world views that tragically resulted in the deaths of many, many people, and I want to thank my friend and colleague, Dr Stuart McDonald, for disabusing me of this myth and then showing me that as it pertains to Salem, that was not the case. Dr McDonald and other historians have argued that 17th century Salem was one of, if not the most educated and literate places on earth. They had a robust and recognizable legal system with jurisprudence, evidence, everything we come to expect from a good legal system. They had access to vast collections of books, substantial amount of highly educated lay people of both genders and a variety of socio economic standings. And so I highlight these people. I highlight Salem to remind you of a very important lesson intelligence, which is something everyone in this room, and I'm going to assume most of the people listening online have it's a gift. It is not a virtue. Intelligence is a gift, not a virtue. And as a gift given to everyone in this room by our creator, I am reminding you that this gift has to inspire in us a response for you see, highly intelligent people can achieve diabolical ends. In fact, I think we could probably rightfully argue that diabolical ends are only ever achieved by highly intelligent people, my dear students, friends, saints and scholars here and online. Intelligence without humility can lead to arrogance, rigidity, sectarianism, hard heartedness, despotism and tyranny. Because I have learned in my years I've been here, that intelligence is no safeguard against the whims of the age. And my friends, we are in an age of dangerous whims, paranoia and understandings that there is something threatening in the air all around us, and as I've been reminded by my wonderful indigenous elders and other wise people, when we start asking, what is the problem, it doesn't take us too many steps to get to who is the problem? You need to be in a posture of thanks to your Creator for the awesome gift of intelligence that you possess, and in the same breath, beg your creator for humbling moments and humbled hearts so that we can love with our minds. For a humble mind is a mind given over to quietness and introspection, a mind that is not caught up in hysteria or the demonized demonizing of others for intelligence, revels in those who think differently. It gives us opportunities to sharpen one another. Intelligent humility rarely seeks out those who think the same, because, well, it's boring. It's just boring, talk with somebody who thinks differently. Ooh, that's fun. For humble intelligence is not smug. It's not arrogant. It does not approach those who disagree with an intention simply to change their minds and make them think the way you think, and then you have won. You have converted them. Humble intelligence, actually listens, genuinely listens, feels comfortable, pausing. I grew this beard so I could do this. But even if you don't have a beard, you can pause, stroke your chin and say, good point. Humble intelligence is very comfortable saying, huh, good point. I don't know. Humble intelligence sees creator in the face of others, hears our creator in the words and beliefs of others with whom we disagree. Humble intelligence takes a stand for proper thinking, critical thinking, dissenting thinking. It recognizes that any school of thought that demonizes or dismisses entire groups of people is not a godly school of thought, no matter how many fancy words the people in that school of thought may know. And so I offer up the stories that of these two men as a caution, because these were very smart men. These were good men. These were godly men who were trying to serve their communities and protect the faith in the face of what they believed to be numerous threats. I'm on the wrong page, and as far as we know, only the judge sewall ever publicly expressed guilt and lived, it seems, the majority of his life in regret for the actions he had taken. Increase Mathers seemed unmoved by the path his theology had taken him down, so I'm going to retract my earlier statement. Maybe don't name your kid Increase. I tell you this because Tyndale as a learning community, is trying to get you to place where you can move past simple productivity as the end goal and embrace calm, still reflection, courage to think about and defend peace and compassion wherever possible. Use your gifts of intelligence not as a weapon that shames, cajoles or wins in order to so called, convert other ways into our ways of seeing, but as a tool that can vision, articulate, listen and grow gospel worlds rooted in our past and able to engage with our present and embrace the future. In short, read books, read books, not online stuff. To my mind, nobody has been able to hack a book yet, and you are students. So you are poor. Poor is fine, poor is good. Our Savior was poor. Make second hand bookstores, your favorite places to go, read, read, read, read books you don't like, read books you do like, read textbooks. Yeah, read textbooks. That's a bit weird. That's not in here, but yeah, I'm going to go with that one. Slow down. Efficiency is the great disease of our age. Good news, if you have to take anything from the book of Revelation, God's already won. It's all over. It doesn't depend on you. Great idea. Nobody needs it. Take your time. When you have a great idea, ask yourself the first question that nobody seems to ask, How am I wrong? Who else has said this? Who else said it better? And at the end of that, if you still have a unique angle, keep going. Trust in God. Who knows all sees, all and scandalously loves all. God doesn't need you to stand up for him because often you say you're standing up for God, we say we're standing up for God. What we're really standing up for is our own understanding. Don't challenge how I picture Big Daddy God, if you can do these things, I can only make one promise to you this morning, future historians like me will not be using your name as a cautionary tale about the evils Christianity can release upon this world. And so that's why the horse, when offered a drink and responding with, I think not, simply disappeared, he came into contrast against the first principle, if I think not I am not. Get it now? Yeah, now there may be some among you who think that I probably should have said all that stuff first, and then told the dad joke, and then more of you would have gotten, you know, would have gotten the joke. And fair point. But then again, if I had done that, I would have been putting Descartes before the horse. You have no idea how much your groans fed me in that moment. Now as a historian, and at the risk of tooting my own horn, I'm gonna invite Kevin up here in a second that might have been the most long winded, complex and theological dad joke in history. Check it out. Check your sources. Get back to me, Kevin, somebody coming up to do who is? Then I'll get out of the way.

Well, thank you, Dr Robertson. And just before he comes up to do our benediction, I want to shift gears a little bit a little bit, and welcome you, invite you to a party. Today is 8020 day, and my name is Kevin Kirk. I work with a group of staff who work with alumni, and they work with donors who support you, and they actually give funds towards your education here. And that might be a new thought for some of you. May not fully realize that 8020 day give or take a few percentage points, but it's a figurative illustration that we are about 80% of the way through the traditional academic year, September through May. And figuratively, the remaining 20% of the year is actually paid for by donors. Yes, you pay tuition, and yes, that tuition is significant, but it would be even more if we didn't have those alumni and donors who come alongside to support you. And so we have alumni who graduated 5, 20, 40 years ago, who like them, who had alumni supporting them. Are now giving to support you, and there are hundreds of them. Did you have any idea that there was this large group of people out there that are cheering you on? Maybe not. So I want to invite you to a party in the dining hall right after chapel come downstairs to the dining hall where you can get lunch for a toonie or any other size donation you might like to make, and all of those funds, we're going to pull together and give as a bursary. Together, we will make a difference even today as we celebrate philanthropy and what donors are doing and alumni are doing in your life during your Tyndale journey. So thank you. There's going to be a party. It's not just gonna be food. There's gonna be other things for you to do too. So please come down and join us as we celebrate philanthropy today at Tyndale. Thank you.

Thanks, Kevin, let's pray. Creator, who are who are we? That you are mindful of us. We are your children, and as your scriptures tell us, we are your co heirs, what an awesome identity. Help us to use the minds that you've given to us in ways that please you may our meditations please you. Protect these young and not so young scholars and saints who are in this room at this moment and who are online at this moment out of a desire to know you more thank you that we get to know you not because we loved you or figured it out, but because you created us and first loved us, protect us and guard us in these scary, turbulent and unsure times, and help us to grow in our faith, to see you as George reminded us as sovereign overall. May we trust in you, may you guide us in a good way, bless the food that we're about to consume, to the nourishment of our bodies at a time we get to be with each other to the nourishments of our souls and our minds. Amen, amen. Amen.