“Sinte, sinte Maarten, de koeien hebben staarten, de meisjes hebben rokjes aan. Daar komt Sint Martinus aan”… These were the words echoing through our streets on Tuesday during the feast of St Martin. The lyrics are not exactly profound, but it is a great atmosphere!

A comedian on Instagram has been sharing real stories of what children received as they went from door to door, rating the treats in several categories.

The first category is the ordinary one. These are the people who hand out a small packet of Haribo or a piece of Celebrations chocolate. Then come those he calls the “light child sadists”. They give apples, mandarins, raisins, or even carrots. It gets worse with the “advanced child sadists” who, according to the stories, hand out pickles or dried prunes. The final category is the “extreme child sadist.” One neighbour greeted the children with a large bucket of sweets, inviting them to take as much as they wanted, only then to ask whether they preferred a treat or to make a donation for hungry children in Africa. Another story tells of a girl who received a luxurious box of Ferrero Rocher, only to discover later that each golden wrapper contained a Brussels sprout….

This Sunday is Remembrance Sunday.

We recall the end of the First World War, and we pay tribute to those who sacrificed their lives in that war and every war thereafter. Except for these already important moments, there is something about the Christian theme of remembrance that, I believe, is extremely important for our world today.

Dear Friends,

Christianity, as theologian Robert Vosloo reminds us, can be described as a “religion of memory.” It is bound together by rituals of remembrance. As the words engraved on our communion table read, “This do in remembrance of me”—the same words we will repeat again on Sunday as we share in communion…

Dear Friends,

I came across a quote by Harvey Cox this week that says: “Future historians will record the twentieth century as that century in which the whole world became one immense city.” As we look forward to celebrating Amsterdam’s 750th anniversary this weekend, it raises an important question for a church in the city: what does it mean to celebrate our city? With its long and often complex history, with stories of the good, the bad and the ugly, what are we really celebrating?

Perhaps you do not live in Amsterdam, which is true for many in our congregation, but the question remains just as valid.

This week—while preparing for my sermon, of course—I watched the NPO series Het Verhaal van Amsterdam. We can, I think, be rightly sceptical of a four-part documentary that tries to capture such a long and deep history. It certainly shows the familiar, rosy overview of the city that we all know well. Yet, one does get the sense, as the series aims to show, that Amsterdam has always been a city of migrants and passers-by: people coming and going. No one, they suggest, can claim to be a “real Amsterdammer”…..

Dear Friends,

In his book Cities of God, the former Regius Professor of Divinity at the University of Oxford, Graham Ward, sets out to map a much-needed theology of the city. In the introduction, he already points out how city and text go hand in hand. The earliest known form of writing comes from what was perhaps the earliest city, founded by the Sumerians in the fourth millennium BCE. The proto-cuneiform tablets from this city of Warka, later known as Uruk, show the connection between writing and urban life. As Ward notes, the emergence of writing and literature are urban phenomena. When the classical city collapsed in the Late Roman Empire and people in Western Europe began leaving cities for rural enclaves, schools closed and literary culture declined…

In our reading for Sunday from Luke 17:5-10, we hear the disciples ask a question that seems entirely reasonable: “Lord, give us more faith.”

There will be no spoilers for Sunday’s sermon in this newsletter. For now, I simply want to share a small thought that came up during our Bible study.

When I heard this question, I immediately thought of a sermon written in 1983 by the South African theologian Flip Theron. He focuses on this word faith—the faith the disciples are asking for. He observes that, sadly, the word faith can be like a piece of clothing: through overuse and misuse, it sometimes loses its shape and becomes worn out.

For Theron, faith is first and foremost a verb. In Afrikaans as in Dutch, glo (to believe) is closely related to geloof (faith). But it is an awkward verb. It is awkward because it describes both something we ought to do and something we ought to stop doing.

On the first point….

This Sunday will be our traditional Harvest Festival.

It is that time of year when we pause to contemplate creation’s generous giving and our own responsibility to care for Mother Earth. As I was preparing, I was reminded of Pope Francis’s encyclical Laudato Si’, in which he calls Christians to pay closer attention to creation: both in our relationships with one another and in our relatedness to the rest of the created world. It is at once a document of deep gratitude for creation and a plea to hear the cry of the earth and the cry of the poor.

Following Laudato Si’, a prayer book was published which includes a beautiful “linger, listen, love” prayer. It is a way of contemplating creation, whether indoors or outdoors.

Please join me in this prayer today…

Dear all,

Our Courageous Conversations began last Sunday with an introductory discussion. We spent some time reflecting on a theology of conversing, drawing on John Calvin and the notion of ubuntu. We also revisited the Zulu greeting “sawubona.” All of this helped us see that in conversation we meet God as the Stranger among us, ready to surprise us when we least expect it. I was struck by everyone’s enthusiasm to join in and to get to know one another more deeply.

To take our discussion further, we divided into groups and had the chance to create our own Loesje posters. I have always liked these posters. They are so distinctively Dutch, and yet they manage to capture present realities with humour and simplicity. Loesje began writing them in 1983 in an attic, and the movement has since grown to include many co-writers (or “gang members”, as they like to call themselves). You can browse the Loesje archive online and see the posters created over the years. I did not gather all the posters from our discussion before we left, but below are a few I managed to keep..

Trauma & what it means

Three years ago, I fell badly on a tall ship which was racing its way from Denmark to Holland, and damaged myself to such a degree that it took over a year to recover and become mobile again.

Cut now to last Wednesday, and we suddenly found ourselves during Sail Amsterdam just 50m from the tall ship where my accident occurred, now moored as part of this huge celebration of Dutch marine history in our city.

At that moment, my wife and I parted company without a word - Annie spontaneously made for the ship (despite efforts by the stewards to stop her!), whereas I walked agitatedly in the opposite direction and took the next bus home.

What I realise now, rather too late, is…

Dear Friends,

Over the next few weeks, leading up to our Courageous Conversation on 14 September, I thought it might be worthwhile to share a few ideas about what it means to enter into conversation with others. This is the first of these reflections.

In the introduction to the Record this week, I mentioned the Archbishop of Cape Town’s reflection on what he calls Indaba: “a Zulu word describing a journey of slow discussion on controversial matters with the aim of furthering community life, not just solving an issue”. I will not repeat everything I wrote there, but I do want to return to how remarkable this phrase is. Our goal in the church is not simply to solve an issue. At least, that is not the first thing. The first thing is that we talk to one another in ways that deepen our life together. Can we speak with one another in ways that strengthen our community? And how might we do that?

I once met someone, Adri-Marie van Heerden, who likes to say, “How we gather matters”. Her point is that…