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Sermons from Commons Church. Intellectually honest. Spiritually passionate. Jesus at the centre. Since 2014.
I love theology. I love studying and writing and thinking about God. I'm here for all the books and lectures I can get my hands on. But I'm also under no illusion that when I'm gone, any of my words will be remembered. The only thing that will outlive me, and probably you, is the way that we've loved the people near us and inspired more grace around us.
Jeremy Duncan:We're wrapping up the first half of our 2 part summer series. On the inside out side of the summer, we are talking about some of those indoor summer spaces we appreciate. It's been fun to be on vacation and get to watch Bobby and Scott and Elena all do their thing over the last 3 weeks. Starting next week though on the outside inside of the summer, we are gonna reflect on some of the outdoor spaces that we appreciate as well. However, I find myself here on the long weekend transition between the two sides of the summer.
Jeremy Duncan:And it's been interesting this week to think about my summer spaces. As I mentioned, we were in Ontario visiting family. I'm going to talk about that a bit today. But when we returned from our trip just in time for a ridiculous heat snap to smother Calgary, we knew we were in for something. Rachel and I live in a 980 square foot, pre First World War, no basement home.
Jeremy Duncan:And for 10 years, we've been making that work. But this year, between the 35 degree heat and the stifling smoke that had us closing all our windows, this was the year we finally broke down, and we bought ourselves a portable floor standing air conditioning unit just so we could sleep at night. Yeah. Honestly, best investment we've made in our marriage in a decade. Treat yourself.
Jeremy Duncan:Trust me. This thing is life changing. However, one of the benefits of having a very tiny home is that even though we live in the inner city, we actually have a beautiful backyard. And so if the air conditioner was for mom and dad this year, the zipline was for the kids. If you follow any of my social media accounts, you've probably seen videos of my kids zooming throughout the backyard.
Jeremy Duncan:Maybe even a glimpse of me testing it out. My son and I have been racing obstacle courses through our backyard, because we have slack lines and zip lines strung in every direction all over. And if I'm going to think about summer spaces this year, this is the clip that I need to show you. My fearless daughter and her Alright. They're doing fine.
Jeremy Duncan:However, this is not just a proud dad looking for chances to brag on his daughter, because I have been assigned the word relate as I reflect on my summer spaces. And that word is particularly poignant for me, because this year so much of my summer has been about family experiences for all of us. And so let's talk about that today. But first, let's pray, and then we will talk about how we relate in our summer spaces. However, before we do pray, I do want to acknowledge everything that's been happening here in our province, all of those affected by the devastating fires that have hit Jasper and the surrounding area.
Jeremy Duncan:And so we want to remember those folks in our prayers as well today. God of warmth and sun and growth and rain, God who is with us in the celebration of sun on skin, but also in the tears of homes scorched by flames. We trust that you are present to each of us in every moment, smiling as we laugh and grieving with us as we struggle to understand the way forward, even as we celebrate your gifts in our lives this summer, the ways that we relate to each other this season. We ask also your mercy on those who have lost homes and businesses, those who are still unsure of what tomorrow holds for them. We pray that you would inspire neighbors with compassion and our leaders with movement to help, not now in the midst of this crisis, but also in the planning and the strategy to help prevent future chaos for all of us.
Jeremy Duncan:May your strange peace be felt by all, and may it now move us to become more kind and more generous wherever we can be as we reflect on the ways that we relate this summer. Might it begin with those closest to us and expand to our neighbors, and inevitably to our fellow citizens, to all those who share your image embedded in the human story across this globe. May your good gifts move us in goodness toward each other. In the strong name of the risen Christ, we pray. Amen.
Jeremy Duncan:Alright. Today, we are talking about how we relate in our summer spaces. And we're gonna cover going home, grandmothers, Jesus' brother, and theology as biography. And this conversation about relating in summer space, of course, immediately makes us think about my home. The neighborhood kids all finding their way into our backyard, and slack lines and zip lines strung all over the place.
Jeremy Duncan:There has been a lot of laughter and honestly a few tears in our backyard this summer. But this year, that word primarily for me evokes the memory of my childhood home. Because just a few weeks ago, I found myself visiting family in Ontario hanging out in the same basement that I grew up in. We're at an interesting point in our family's life cycle. I have a sister who lives with her family in Ontario.
Jeremy Duncan:And I have another sister who lives with her family in Australia. And Rachel and I, of course, here in Alberta with our kids. And yet somehow my parents are still in the same home that I lived in when I went to high school in Peterborough, Ontario some 30 years ago. Now my parents are at a point where perhaps in the next few years they may downsize and divest themself of that space that holds a lot of memory for all of us as kids. But they're not there yet.
Jeremy Duncan:And so this summer, we were actually able to coordinate, all 3 of us as siblings, to find our way back home at the same time. And that meant 6 grandkids flooding the house and scouring the fridge, falling asleep in every corner, and generally filling every square foot of my parents' home with, let's just say, a lot of noise. And it was, first of all, wonderful for me to see my sisters. It had been way too long. And it was beautiful to watch my kids interact with their cousins.
Jeremy Duncan:That's difficult when we're so spread out. But in some ways, I think the highlight of my summer was watching my parents extend the same kind of grace and welcome and genuine love to my adopted kids that I absolutely remember from my childhood. See, the thing is, I know that not everyone here has the same experience of family. And sometimes for those of us for whom family has been gift, that can be easy to lose sight of. And sometimes it's being back in those spaces that jogs those memories of just how special it all was and honestly still is.
Jeremy Duncan:Sitting in the basement, outside the same bedroom in the house that I grew up in, just outside that bedroom, where I spent a lot of time as a moody teenager. By the way, we were back. And we were also visiting my in laws, and my mother-in-law uncovered some photos of me in high school, looking very on brand as a nineties emo kid. That's not an image of me, but basically could have been. And I'm just praying that she did not show any of those photos to my kids or will ruin their attitude for a generation.
Jeremy Duncan:Regardless, sitting in that old basement, outside my old bedroom, watching my kids do more damage to my parents' couch than it had suffered in decades, and seeing my parents just revel in it all, I think it was good for my kids. I know it was good for me to be reminded of this incredible head start that I was offered simply by being loved well, even when I looked like that. See, there's this passage in 2nd Timothy where the writer is composing a letter to a young pastor, almost a protege, you might say. And I love it because the letter opens this way. To Timothy, my dear son, I thank God whom I serve just as my ancestors did.
Jeremy Duncan:I am now reminded of your sincere faith, which first lived in your grandmother, Lois, and in your mother, Eunice, and I'm now persuaded lives also in you. Keep in mind here, this is a conversation that's happening probably between the 1st and the second generation of Christian followers. And we're already seeing references to our ancestors, references to mothers and grandmothers called out by name to acknowledge what's handed down to us through family, and how important it is to be reminded of everything we've been given. I mean, imagine if you and I, if we knew a little bit more about Eunice and Lois, I'd love to read that. I'd love to learn from them.
Jeremy Duncan:Because then I don't want to get too into the weeds here, but there's this interesting debate about these 2. There's this statement about them and their influence. And then some translations, like the NIV, which I'm reading from, they insert a new heading here, and they begin a new paragraph as if the writer's moving on to something else. But there's actually a really good argument to just keep the narrative flowing here, like most translations do, like the NRSV does. I'm now reminded of your sincere faith, Timothy.
Jeremy Duncan:Faith was first lived in your grandmother and your mother. Faith, I'm now persuaded, lives in you. And for this reason, I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God, which is in you through the laying on of hands. For the Spirit of God has not made us timid, but instead given us power and love and self discipline. Famous verse, but the implication here is that everything gifted to Timothy actually roots itself all the way back in the legacy of Eunice and Lois.
Jeremy Duncan:Power and love and self discipline, sometimes that's what we get from our moms. Now, at the same time, I get it. Right? Not no one here in the room has the same story of family as anyone else. And I'm not interested in re narrating your history for you.
Jeremy Duncan:All I'm saying is that my summer spaces have reminded me of the gift of my family and the responsibility that I now have to work to carry that forward for my kids today. In fact, seeing our kids adopted so freely into the story that raised me, even as Rachel and I have been welcomed into the stories of their birth families so graciously, it reminds me of the opportunity that family offers us to extend probably much farther than we sometimes imagine. And for that, I want to talk about James. See, there's this book in our Bible called James that is, at least according to church history, written by the brother of Jesus. And familial connections aside, I'm not sure being Jesus bro automatically makes you second in command.
Jeremy Duncan:I'm not sure it works that way. But it certainly does make for some interesting dynamics, I imagine, particularly when one of the only direct references to the brothers of Jesus comes to us from the gospel of John. There we read that Jesus' brothers said to Him, 'Leave Galilee and go to Judea, so that your disciples there may see the works that you do. No one who wants to become a public figure acts in secret. Since you're doing all these great things, go show yourself to the world.
Jeremy Duncan:And I'm not sure if you're picking up on the sarcasm here, but if not, just to make it clear, John adds this. Even his brothers didn't really believe in him. Essentially, these are his brothers coming along and being like, That's some big claims, big bro. Let's see you back them up. And honestly, having a few siblings of my own, that seems legit.
Jeremy Duncan:But the question then is, how do we get from there to James' words in our Bible some 2000 years later? And how does that relate to some of the summer spaces we occupy? And that's an interesting journey, at least it is to me. And we should start probably with this question. What do we actually know about Jesus' childhood?
Jeremy Duncan:The answer is, unfortunately, not much. We do have some fan fiction, though. There is the Infancy Gospel of Thomas written somewhere in the mid to late 2nd century. Still pretty early. That's somewhere in the late 100.
Jeremy Duncan:But it's fun to know that the early Christians were wondering about these same questions. What was Jesus' childhood like? And they had a little fun speculating about it. There's some good stories there. There's a story about how Jesus, as a young child, makes some clay pigeons and then makes them come to life and fly away.
Jeremy Duncan:That's a nice story. There's a story about Jesus getting mad at a couple of neighborhood kids and cursing them to death and then making their parents blind. That's not as great a story. Thankfully, he does get in trouble for that one. And he undoes all the damage, including resurrecting his childhood nemesis.
Jeremy Duncan:So thank you, Mary and Joseph, for being good parents. In general, though, the infancy gospel has a lot of childhood hijinks, including at one point healing his brother, James, from a snake bite. Now, that's nice. But at the same time, maybe we shouldn't take these infancy stories all too seriously as a source for James' bona fides. There is, however, some detail that we can piece together from the actual gospels.
Jeremy Duncan:And actually, both Mark and Matthew record a story when people are asking about Jesus, and they say this. They say, look, isn't this the carpenter? Isn't this Mary's son, the brother of James, Joseph, Judas, and Simon? Aren't His sisters here with us now? From that, we can surmise that Jesus was one of at least 7 kids.
Jeremy Duncan:He's got 4 named brothers and at least 2 sisters. And one of those brothers was named James. We also have a reference from Paul, who writes about his time in Jerusalem and says that he saw none of the other apostles, only James, the brother of Jesus. So we know Jesus had siblings. We know one of them was named James.
Jeremy Duncan:We know at one point they didn't really buy into what Jesus was saying about himself. And we know that by the time Paul comes around and encounters Jesus, at least one of those brothers, James, has become an important figure within the early Jesus community. What we can't say for certain is whether that James wrote the letter that's in our Bibles. It does seem plausible, considering how early the letter was adopted and considered authoritative. I mean, you have Irenaeus quoting the book of James already in the 2nd century.
Jeremy Duncan:And we actually did a series on the letter of James. It's in our archives if you're interested in digging through some of the major ideas in the letter. Still, let's take a quick look here at questions of authorship before we get to perhaps the more interesting part for today. And the most common objection to the brother of Jesus actually being the author of James is the competency of the Greek in this letter. Now, if you read it in Greek, it's not particularly poetic, but it is generally grammatically correct.
Jeremy Duncan:And it's obviously written by someone pretty comfortable with Greek as a language. And so the objection here is, look, this could not possibly have been written by the brother of a carpenter from Nazareth. I'll grant, fair question. The image of rural Jewish people, however, in ancient Palestine is uneducated hicks. That's probably an unwarranted stereotype that has more to do with modern sensibilities than it does ancient ones, though.
Jeremy Duncan:Certainly. There was stigma attached to this region. If you remember, there's a line in John 1, can anything good come from Nazareth? Clearly a little snobbishness in that world, same as ours. However, if you've also ever talked to a tradesperson about math, or seen a framer work with fractions, you know that the skills that we use daily get the most developed.
Jeremy Duncan:And in the ancient world, multiple languages were just part of life. There's an old saying, you learn Hebrew for worship, Aramaic for friendship, Greek for commerce, and Latin for politics. That's how the ancient world worked. And so if James comes from a family of carpenters that are doing business with a lot of clients across the region, the idea of developing a functional but pretty straightforward grasp of Greek is particularly unpredictable. In fact, it's probably just part of doing business.
Jeremy Duncan:A second major objection is actually the first line of the letter, though. This is what James writes. James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, people have argued, Look. If this is really the brother of Jesus, then almost certainly they're going to mention that.
Jeremy Duncan:Right? Wouldn't they? I mean, who doesn't use the chance to name drop their brother the Messiah in a letter that they're writing? Look, if I ever meet Eddie Vedder, you will never stop hearing about it. It will be referenced in every sermon for the rest of my career.
Jeremy Duncan:Purgeam, look it up. Still, what's interesting here is that in one of the other very few references to Jesus' childhood and family, we get a glimpse into Jesus' enigmatic thoughts about trading on the family name. In Mark 3, crowds are getting bigger, and they're becoming a little uncomfortable for Jesus' family. He's getting a little too famous for their liking. And so, at one point, while He's teaching, they decide, look, we're gonna pull Him aside and ask Him to ease up on the Riz.
Jeremy Duncan:And they can't get His attention, so one of the disciples flags him down and says, Look. Your brothers are here. They want to talk to you. And Jesus says, in front of the whole crowd, I might add, Who are my mother and my brothers? Then he looks at those with them, and he says, here are my mother.
Jeremy Duncan:Here are my brothers. Whoever does God's will is my family. Now, kind of an interesting moment. Certainly could have been taken as a slight by his brothers. Probably was.
Jeremy Duncan:Might betray some of the tension that we find later when we hear that the brothers do not buy into what Jesus is selling. At the same time, I can imagine that if over time, perhaps even after Jesus dies, James actually comes to see his brother as the Messiah, perhaps part of that awakening is also this embrace of an extended imagination of family Jesus invites us all to consider. And look, I'm not saying that family of origin was unimportant to Jesus. He clearly was. He goes out of his way to ensure his mother is going to be looked after before his death.
Jeremy Duncan:He wants to know she'll be cared for. He absolutely does care about family. It's just that, I think for Jesus, in the kingdom, there's more to family than just blood. And let's be honest. For those of us with, let's say, adopted kids, or for those of us for whom chosen family really is family, I think that's important to hear.
Jeremy Duncan:But personally, I also think it's interesting to consider that when James comes around to the idea of Jesus, part of that is embracing this more expansive, more generous, more expanded view of what family is. And so when he writes, he says, Look, you know who I am, but I'm not here to trade on my brother's name. I'm here to serve his way in the world. In James' voice, for whatever influence it will gain in the early Christian community, he wants it to be a reflection of how he continues the way that his brother taught, not his proximity to power. I like that.
Jeremy Duncan:Still, there's one more objection to James as the brother of Jesus, and it's the lack of theology. At least, theology as defined by some Christians, like Martin Luther, who famously was not a fan of this letter. And it's true. James doesn't contain a lot of theology, at least not the kind that Paul likes to do. Instead, the letter of James focuses on things like how we should talk to each other, and how we should care for the least among us, and how we should avoid showing favoritism.
Jeremy Duncan:At one point, James even goes as far as to say that pure religion, real religion, as far as he's concerned, doesn't have to do with God talk at all. It's how we look after orphans and widows in their distress. That's what's important. And I have some thoughts about this. 1st, the idea that the kind of theological speculation that Paul engages in, the kind of stuff that I, let's be honest, really do like to read and study and write.
Jeremy Duncan:But this idea that wondering about God is more important than wondering about what your neighbor needs, not only is that a false dichotomy, it honestly feels pretty un Jesus y, doesn't it? I love theology. I love studying, and writing, and thinking about God. I'm here for all the books and lectures I can get my hands on. But I'm also under no illusion that when I'm gone, any of my words will be remembered.
Jeremy Duncan:The only thing that will outlive me, and probably you, is the way that we've loved the people near us and inspired more grace around us. And I'm good with that. And for me, the fact that James eventually comes around to Jesus, but does that primarily through his concern for his neighbors, well, this is perhaps why our space matters so much, why proximity really is important in relationships. See, Paul did a lot of good thinking about Jesus, really good thinking about Jesus, a lot of work making sense of the Jesus story for all of us. And I am, like all of Christianity since, deeply indebted to all of Paul's thinking.
Jeremy Duncan:But James actually grew up in the space with Jesus, relating to Jesus, wrestling with what he saw in Jesus, perhaps sometimes even rejecting what he heard from Jesus. But ultimately, James was too close to Jesus to forget it. And I think that matters sometimes. See, I think where you come from, where I come from, all of the stories that have led us here to this moment, all of the ways that we relate to our history, I think all of that over time actually does become us. And that doesn't mean that you can't overcome those relations.
Jeremy Duncan:Doesn't mean you can't rise above them. It just means that they are part of you. Just like my mom and my dad and my bedroom in the basement of the house that I grew up in are all still very much part of me, even when I forget it. The truth is we don't know a lot about Jesus' childhood. But even the gaps that we don't know tell us something, I think.
Jeremy Duncan:We know His father was there at His birth. We know His father was there when he was a young boy, but then after that, we also know it's always just Jesus and his mother and his brothers, his sisters that surround him. No dad. And sure, we are speculating now, but if James is the younger brother growing up watching his family struggle in a single parent home and watching his mother grieve her loss and watching his brother give himself away to care for others, Struggling to make sense of all that, but then eventually coming around to the idea that this love he sees in Jesus is really the way to live. And perhaps, as they say, all theology is biography.
Jeremy Duncan:And it's not just our best thinking that matters. It's our being in the space together and proximity with the people that you want to be like that ultimately shapes us. So I think James' theology was born from the same kind of summer spaces and childhood bedrooms and complicated memories that you and I share with our families as well. And I'm so glad that eventually, he found a way to turn all of that back toward Jesus. And my hope is that as I reflect on summer spaces, as you do the same, we might actually find Jesus there with us as well.
Jeremy Duncan:Let's pray. God, for those moments where we forget that you were real and part of a family and struggled with sisters and brothers and family relations just like we do. We wanna be reminded of the fullness of your experience in the incarnation, of the ways that not only your teachings, but your presence shaped those near you, That even your brothers, your sisters, your mothers saw something, not just in the words you spoke or the crowds that followed you, but the ways that you related to them in small rooms and over meals, in conversations, and maybe even in brotherly fights. May that reality shape the way that we imagine our thoughts of you, present to us in all the relations we encounter, in all the spaces that we occupy, both in those times that are hard and difficult and that we want to learn from and rise above, but also in the spaces where family has been gift and given us a head start toward the goodness that you imagined for us. May all of our story be welcomed and redeemed and made whole through you.
Jeremy Duncan:In the strong name of the risen Christ, we pray. Amen. Hey. Jeremy here, and thanks for listening to our podcast. If you're intrigued by the work that we're doing here at commons, you can head to our website commons.church for more information.
Jeremy Duncan:You can find us on all of the socials at commonschurch. You can subscribe to our YouTube channel where we are posting content regularly for the community. You can also join our Discord server. Head to commons.church/discord for the invite, and there you will find the community having all kinds of conversations about how we can encourage each other to follow the way of Jesus. We would love to hear from you.
Jeremy Duncan:Anyway, thanks for tuning in. Have a great week. We'll talk to you soon.