20/20 Vision

   Twenty years ago there was a lot of fear about what might happen when the new century began. Nothing drastic happened when the year 2000 came in and life went on. We are now closing the teen years of this century and the numbers are about to roll into the 2020s. What might happen in the next decade only God knows. 

   What is your vision for the 2020s? I'm not talking about New Year's resolutions. When we reach the 2030s and you look back at the 2020s, what do you want to see in your rear view mirror? 

Since I have already passed my 70th birthday, this could well be the last decade of my life. If I reach the 2030s, I want to see:

• I grew in my relationship with God
• I adapted with grace to the changes aging brings to daily life
• I trusted God's wisdom no matter what happens to me and my family
• I did not give up praying for those who need the Lord
• I did not waste my time on things that have no eternal value
• I was faithful in the little things
• I cared less about myself and more for others

   That's my vision for the 2020s. What is yours?

"I know whom I have believed and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto Him (my soul, my life, my family) against that day."

"The light shined in darkness and the darkness could not overcome it."

May the miracle of Christmas

Find you safe in the peace of God

and warm in the Light of Christ.

Asafoetida

   Powwowing was part of the medieval tradition which German immigrants from the Rhineland and Switzerland brought with them when they came to the New World in the seventeenth century and later. What we call powwow is called brauche in the German language. The formula (eg. incantations) in use since the time before the Reformation included many Christian elements of a Roman Catholic variety. Powwowing is white magic.

   The "Church" (Lutheran and Reformed) and "Plain" (Amish and Mennonite) people who resorted to this practice did so not in antagonism to regular physicians but rather in addition to them. The traditional ways seemed more utilitarian and less costly, more practical and less theoretical than the newer, less personal, and (to their traditional mindset) less proven than the ways of the powwow healer.   

    Powwowing is difficult to define clearly because of the overlap and/or combinations of factors and ingredients which are mingled in the pursuit of folk healing cures. The "home remedies" of our ancestors utilized herbal and other ingredients believed to have a specifically corrective and healing effect. Some people in every generation look favorably on unconventional cures, perhaps because of their confidence in local persons like themselves and a resistance to the fees of the scientific professionals.  (Gerald C. Studer, Pennsylvania Mennonite Heritage, July 1980)

   I learned something new over the weekend about one of these mixed practices. The little bags in the frame below were worn around the necks of children to "keep them healthy." The bag contained a piece of asafoteida, an oleo gum resin obtained from the rhizome and root of a plant.  

     Asafoetida has a fetid smell and a nauseating taste; characteristics that also burdened it with the name devil's dung. In the Middle Ages, a small piece of the gum was worn around the neck to ward off diseases such as colds and fevers. Whatever effectiveness it had was probably due to the antisocial properties of the amulet rather than any medicinal virtue.

https://www.webmd.com/vitamins/ai/ingredientmono-248/asafoetida

   The man who displayed these artifacts told us his grandfather wore one of these smelly little asafoetida bags. So the practice was carried down by Mennonites from the Middle Ages into the nineteenth century. Did his mother believe it had medicinal value or was it a charm? Whatever her reasons, if it worked at all it was (as the paragraph above says) because the smell kept people and their germs at a distance.

   While there are some natural remedies that are beneficial, we do well to consider the source of any alternative medicine before accepting it. What appears to be folk or natural medicine may be rooted in white magic. As Christians, we cannot have any part in such things. 

Suffering and Humility

   New Testament Christians embraced suffering and martyrdom as natural because of the martyrdom of Jesus. Throughout church history there have always been groups of devout Christians who revived the New Testament view of suffering. Sixteenth-century Anabaptists were one of these groups.

   For the Anabaptists suffering was:

(1) being in Christ. They could sing as they went to their executions, expressing joy to be worthy of participating with Christ in suffering.

(2) redemptive. It led them to a complete identification with Christ, not only in his suffering and death but also in resurrection with Him.  It was a sign of genuinely belonging to Christ.

(3) disciplinary. It turned the Christian toward obedience to Christ and the fellowship of believers.

(4)  inevitable. "All that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution" (2 Timothy 3:12).

   Anabaptists were persecuted from their beginning  in 1525 until they emigrated to America in the early 1700s. For roughly 200 years, Anabaptists held this theology of suffering as the mark of genuine faith.

   After Mennonites settled in America,  they experienced a freedom of worship they had never known before. The kind of physical persecution they suffered in Europe no longer existed. The suffering theology was not as relevant in a free country and it shifted to humility as the mark of genuine faith. This was especially clear in Address to Youth, written by Christian Burkholder in 1792. He wrote that the Christ in the manger was "an example to us of true humility" and called the earnest seeker to follow the "meek and lowly" Jesus in practical ways in everyday life. 

   Humility theology was very relevant to American Mennonites in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. In 1866, Bishop John M. Brenneman wrote a small booklet, Pride and humility, spelling out how humility should express itself objectively: in plainness of furniture, buildings and attire, in accepting a modest position at table, and in other visible and practical ways of everyday life. For the second 200 years of Anabaptism, Mennonites held to the principles of humility and meekness as the visible expressions of genuine discipleship. "By their fruits ye shall know them" (Matthew 7:20).

   After World War II ended, Mennonites became more prosperous than ever. Plainness and simplicity faded as Mennonites became increasingly assimilated into the American culture. Homes became more elaborate, clothing more worldly, and men transitioned from farming to big business.

   In summary, for 200 years the Anabaptists in Europe had a theology of suffering as the mark of genuine faith. The next  200 years the Mennonites in America shifted to a humility theology. That brings us up to roughly 1920.What one word would you use to describe Mennonites from 1920 to today? I have been asking various ordained men that question and no one has come up with an solid answer. If you have a one-word answer I'd be glad to hear it.