Feature Article: Spring 2005

Wondering where the lions are

Being the church in Ottawa

By Don Friesen

My stereotype of a prophet is of a lonely voice in the wilderness who has to “kick against the pricks” (Acts 9:5; 26:14, KJV) and battle everyone, including his family, friends, and fellow believers! It’s a stereotype with some basis in reality. Jewish philosopher Abraham Heschel describes the biblical prophet as one who used explosive language charged with agitation and anguish to stir his community to action. The prophet’s song is “one octave too high,” says Heschel, in his book, The Prophets: An Introduction. The biblical prophet became “intensely indignant about paltry things” and “breathlessly impatient with injustice, almost to the point of hysteria,” alienating the wicked as well as the pious.

Some perceive our congregation to be prophetic, given our context. Our name describes us well. Ottawa represents our political context, the center of national public policy. Mennonite represents our Anabaptist heritage and values. Church represents our struggle to be a Christian community lifting up the lordship of Jesus.

One might expect a classic clash between church and state, but our experience has been a gentler one. The “wicked” have not identified themselves to us, and we have not felt compelled to alienate the pious! Like the biblical prophets, we share a commitment to justice, but aside from a few faint objections we have found our efforts welcome. With all due respect to those whose prophetic call leads to suffering, I find myself wondering where the lions are.

Our congregation began in 1959 with a handful of families and has grown to a community of 300. We have expanded our facilities twice in the last twenty years to deal with the growth. We have always shared a concern about social and political issues. An early example would be the assistance lent to draft dodgers during the Vietnam War.

If being prophetic includes a commitment to justice, three aspects of our congregational life might qualify. One aspect is the Refugee Assistance Program, created in 1979 to assist Southeast Asians adrift at sea. Members of our congregation were instrumental in negotiating a national agreement with the federal Ministry of Immigration and Employment to expedite the sponsorship of refugees by Mennonite churches across Canada. When our own congregation went to the airport to pick up a family of five, it turned out to be a family of thirteen! We’ve never looked back. For twenty-five years our congregation has provided a home for hundreds of refugees, an enormous investment in time and money, including loans to help start a business or to purchase a home. The commitment of the congregation to refugee assistance has never faltered.

We have always made it clear to refugees that sponsorship entails no obligation to attend our church, but some do, and they bring their friends! Our congregational life is enriched by the participation of people from Congo, Colombia, Sudan, and other places. I recently baptized the son of a family we sponsored from El Salvador in 1987; presided at the funeral of their father; and officiated at the quinceañera of their daughter—a special celebration observed when a girl turns fifteen.

Our commitment to justice is also reflected in our Ten Thousand Villages program, which operates on the assumption that our global economic system unjustly restricts access to markets. The Villages program encourages fair trade by allowing artisans in developing countries access to North American markets. Initially we took crafts into government office buildings on paydays; since 1985 we have held sales at the church. Every November weekend our church building is transformed into a busy crafts market.

The Villages program is labor-intensive but rewarding. On many years, our proceeds have meant an annual income for well over a hundred families in developing countries. We have found that customers are interested in being responsible consumers; some have become volunteers. Local media have given high visibility to our church and Mennonites in general. In 1999 our congregation formed the Ottawa Alternative Trade Corporation to operate a year-round Villages store, which has attracted strong community participation.

A third program grew out of our work with refugees. Several years ago we found affordable housing scarce in our area, and landlords refused to rent a two-bedroom apartment to a refugee family consisting of a mother and five children. Our congregation decided to purchase a townhouse. In 2001 we formed the Shelter Alternatives Corporation to provide safe, clean, transitional housing for refugees, with priority given to women-at-risk. We now have three such homes, thanks in part to federal and municipal government help. The subsidies required to operate these homes are covered by our congregation and four other groups: two United churches; a Baptist church; and the Society of Friends (Quakers).

I leave it to others to decide whether our congregation, and my leadership of it over 27 years, can be described as prophetic. I am hardly the stereotypical iconoclast thrashing about in flamboyant anguish and castigating the faithful. I may sing an octave too high on occasion, but I do not sing alone. I sing in the choir. I speak from within the congregation.

My experience prompts me to make several observations about the notion of prophetic leadership:

1. The gift of prophecy is but one in a full orchestra of spiritual gifts (see Romans 12; 1 Corinthians 12).

2. The colorful characterizations of Old Testament prophets express only one aspect of the prophetic consciousness; biblical prophets may have been belligerent on occasion, but they were also compassionate. The prophet was sent not only to upbraid, but to “strengthen...weak hands and make firm...feeble knees” (Isaiah 35:3).

3. The people of God tolerated the rants of the biblical prophets. Prophets were treated harshly on occasion, but it appears that their office was firmly entrenched in the Hebraic tradition (see sidebar).

To the extent that our own congregation may have a prophetic nature, my own role is an indirect one—to encourage members of our community to live out their Christian calling, through the formal programs described above as well as through their influence in the political and social structures that order our society.

The stories of the refugees we’ve sponsored teach us that friendly powers can become unfriendly. Years ago I took a youth group to visit a Hutterite colony, where one of the elders cautioned that their successful farming operation could disappear overnight. We are pilgrims on this earth, he said—a truth distilled from Anabaptist history as well as the early history of our faith when Christians were lion fodder for an afternoon’s entertainment at the amphitheater. The fact that it even occurs to us to “wonder where the lions are” may indicate that we do, after all, have vital prophetic memory.

Don Friesen is the senior minister at Ottawa Mennonite Church. He is also involved in Habitat for Humanity and in ecumenical work in the Capital Region.