Jason Gaboury's Blog, page 12

The Goodness of Holy Week: Good Friday in John’s Gospel

Why is Good Friday, well . . . good? Even a casual acquaintance with Good Friday observance suggests it ought to be called Sad Friday, Bad Friday, or God Is Really, Really Mad Friday. (Sorry—I couldn’t resist the Dr. Seuss allusion.) The question remains, however: why call it Good Friday when the events are so horrifyingly bad? 

Celebrations of Good Friday often center on the most gruesome and violent events in the gospel narrative. In sacramental churches, worshipers will participate in a walking meditation of the 14 Stations of the Cross, pausing before images evoking Jesus’ physical torture and death. Other churches will have meditations on the seven words Jesus spoke as he was being crucified, or somber readings from the Passion narratives followed by a sermon focused on the themes of sinfulness, death, and judgment. Worship spaces are more somber, sparsely decorated, darker on Good Friday. 

Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ is a quintessential Good Friday film with its gruesome and graphic exposition of the suffering and agony of Jesus from his arrest in the garden to his death on a cross. 

The casual observer would be forgiven for thinking Christian sensibilities are more than a little off. How is the torture and death of an otherwise loving, compassionate, and inspiring man something worth celebrating? And why would you celebrate it by remembering anguish and pain? Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was brutally and callously murdered, but we don’t dwell exclusively on the gruesome details of his assassination on Martin Luther King Jr. Day in January.

But many Christians also find Good Friday puzzling. We may have atonement theologies that interpret Jesus’ suffering positively, as the hymn by Andraé Crouch says: “The blood that Jesus shed for me . . . it will never lose its power.” But atonement theologies don’t themselves resolve the dissonance that emerges between what Good Friday remembers—Jesus’ torturous death on a cross—and what Good Friday signifies: the life of God made available to all in Christ. 

The Gospel of John helps bring this practice of remembering the Passion of Jesus and the significance of Jesus’ Passion together, revealing a Good Friday that is worthy of the name “good,” even though the events are tragicomic.

John’s thesis is stated in chapter one: “And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth” (v. 14). Reading John’s Passion narrative with this thesis in mind helps us see goodness, beauty, and truth where we might otherwise simply see violence, exploitation, and death. 

Word Became Flesh

John’s prologue emphasizes incarnation. The “Word” (logos in Greek) mentioned here evokes much more than our English translation suggests. For Jewish readers, this “word” connotes the story of Genesis 1, where God speaks creation into existence. It also suggests the character of God known through the “word” of the Law and prophets. In addition, for Greek readers this “word” invokes the philosophical tradition. Logos referred not simply to words as symbols, concepts, and signified objects, but also to reason, meaning, and rationality. Like a poet, John compresses all of that history and potency into this “word” and then declares that the Word has become flesh. 

This image, carried through the Gospel, reaches its stunning climax in the Passion narrative. In John’s Gospel, Jesus is arrested because of the unnerving potency of his words in his ministry. It is after he calls Lazarus out of the grave by speaking a simple command that the chief priests and Pharisees begin to plot his death, saying, “If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him, and the Romans will come and destroy both our holy place and our nation” (John 11:48). John wants us to see that Jesus’ words have power, even power over death, because of Jesus’ identity as the Word made flesh.    

After being arrested and brought to Pilate, Jesus embraces the title of Messiah and King. The two men talk about power, authority, and truth. And from that moment on, Pilate is revealed as a slave to the mob, unable to exercise his will, while Jesus is revealed as the suffering servant king of Isaiah 40–53. John wants us to simultaneously see the potency of Jesus’ words as they challenge the political power structures with incisive reason (the Greek notion of logos) and the way Jesus’ behavior embodies the word of the prophets (the Jewish notion of logos). 

Then Jesus is taken away and flogged. Instead of a laurel wreath befitting a king, the soldiers twist a crown of thorns for his head. They also dress Jesus in a purple robe (the color of royalty). These acts are meant to be a mockery of Jesus’ royalty, but instead they simply reinforce Jesus’ true identity. These trials do not strip Jesus of his dignity; they reinforce Jesus as the embodiment of Isaiah’s word. Pilate announces, “Behold the man!” as Jesus is revealed to the crowd, unaware that he is unwittingly revealing the Word made flesh. 

John wants us to behold eternity, existence, creation, revelation, authority, and meaning in the swollen, bleeding face of Jesus. Nowhere else in history or creation has such authority and vulnerability come together as in Jesus, Messiah of Israel, Lord of the world. 

Good Friday is truly good when we can see beyond the brutality and cleansing blood, and behold the man—Jesus, that beautiful man who holds power for the sake of others and absorbs pain and punishment out of love and obedience to his vocation.

Behold His Glory

John also uses the word “glory” throughout his Gospel, starting in 1:14. Over and over again throughout the book of John, Jesus speaks of his coming glory. In his dialogue with the religious leaders in John 8, he speaks of glorifying the Father. The theme picks up again in chapter 12 and in chapter 17. Every time, and with increasing transparency, John draws the connection between glory and Jesus’ Passion and death. 

The Old Testament uses the language of glory to refer to God’s presence, particularly his presence in the exodus and in the temple. The glory of God is associated with God’s holiness, incredible power, uncontainable presence, and total purity. Before going into the temple, before beholding God’s glory, everything—from people to furniture—needed to be purified with the blood of a sacrificial offering. This was not because God is particularly angry and needed to vent his rage on something so that he didn’t vent it at his followers (although sometimes even our atonement theologies point in this direction) but rather because, symbolically speaking, blood is associated with life, and God is the author of life. While it’s hard for us to wrap our imagination around, the symbol of life offered to God in worship was a sacramental disinfectant of sorts. The sacrificial system prepared a place and people to behold the glory of God. 

John therefore looks at Jesus’ Passion and sees the glory of God, not in the sacrifice of animals in the temple, but in the suffering death of the Messiah. In Jesus’ crucifixion, John sees the author of life offering up his own blood so that the water of God’s promised renewal (see Ezekiel 47; John 7:38; John 19:34) would flow from his side. 

Good Friday is good when we see the glory of God in the face of Jesus crucified. It is the glory of a God who holds nothing back. It is the beauty of a lover dying so that the beloved might live. It is the glory of a man fully alive willingly trading perfection for pain so that the sick who look on him might be healed.   

Keeping Good Friday

This Holy Week I’ll be reading through the Gospel of John every day. (Depending on how fast you read it’ll take somewhere between 30 minutes to an hour.) I’ll be praying for God to open my eyes to see the Word made flesh and to behold God’s glory. I want to steep my heart and mind in the themes that run through the Gospel in order to appreciate the Passion of Jesus more deeply. 

Want to join me? If we’re able to see the beauty, glory, and wonder of the Word made flesh this Good Friday, I wonder what grace we might receive as Passion gives way to resurrection. 

Listening Prayer in an Age of Distraction

In an age of distraction, an age of dopamine fueled attempts to hack our attention and reshape our habits, we need the discipline of listening prayer. But why do we need it and how do we do it?

Why We Need It

Whether we recognize it or not, whether we like it or not, we’re a generation discipled by machine. Like this, buy that, be afraid, be outraged, check the status, snap a photo, send an emoji—we process hundreds of such commands every day without a moment’s reflection on how we’re being shaped by them.

Dr. B.J. Fogg, founder of persuasive technology said, “We can now create machines that can change what people think and what people do, and the machines can do that autonomously.” There’s a reason why every app on your cell phone signals you to ‘turn on notifications.' There’s a reason why every social media site offers the ability to like, love, share, and comment. There’s a reason Amazon recommends, “people like you also enjoyed…” Even as I type these sentences, a buzzing in my pocket signals me that it’s time to pick up my phone again. These tools are changing us.

The Christian discipline of listening prayer enables us to step off the treadmill of constant commercial bombardment and into the presence of God. In listening prayer, we participate in the kind of discipleship Jesus modeled in Mark 1:35: “Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went off to a solitary place, where he prayed.”

Jesus made a habit of breaking away from the crowds, needs, demands, controversies, and conflicts that accompanied his ministry so that he could listen to the Father. If Jesus needed to enter into quiet spaces in order to attend to the Father’s voice, how much more do we need this practice?

Two Ways

Historically, Christians have recognized two distinct “ways” of attending to God in prayer—the way of words and the way of silence.

The evangelical tradition tends to emphasize the way of words. We use the way of words when we meditate on the Lord’s Prayer, Psalm 23, or another passage of scripture. Journaling one’s thoughts and feelings after or during a quiet time of prayer and ‘listening’ to scripture is another way to cultivate an awareness of what God is saying to us through his word. Other kataphatic (with words) ways of listening prayer include meditating on the words of a worship song, lectio divina (divine reading), or imaginative prayer exercises.

Other church traditions have emphasized the way of silence. There is an often-repeated story about Mother Teresa. When asked what she said when praying, Mother Teresa said, “I don’t talk, I simply listen.” The interviewer turned the question around, “What then does God say to you?” Mother Teresa smiled, “He listens.”

The goal of listening prayer in the apophatic (without words) way is to still the mind and heart in the presence of God and allow the truth and beauty of who God is to fill the space. Those who practice the way of silence discover the incredible freedom of being loved without performing, of worship without words, and of attending to God’s presence in the ordinary everyday tasks.

Getting Started

Mother Teresa’s prayer life was not like two awkward adolescents, silently self-conscious, fearful of saying the wrong thing, and so holding back. It was more like the attentive stillness you find as young couples gaze into one another’s eyes. Just as a young couple is intentional about times and places to meet, things to talk about, or hobbies and activities to share, listening prayer takes intentionality.

To practice listening prayer, we must prepare a time and place where we can be present to God. I like to set out my prayer book, journal, bible, and sometimes a candle the night before I come to prayer. Preparing the space in advance helps me be attentive to God and develop the habit of listening to him. It also is a practical way to express our desire for God. We love God by preparing time and space to listen for His word.

Begin listening prayer by attending to God’s words. Read a prayer, Psalm, or short piece of scripture. Repeat the sentences and meaning back to God as though God has just spoken those words to you. Once you’ve done that, ask, “Was there more?” Repeat this process. Let the words, ideas, images, and meanings capture your attention. When you’re confident that you’ve ‘heard’ all that you can from that sentence, phrase, prayer, or Psalm, pause and imagine that you’re speaking these words to Jesus. Without taking your attention off of Jesus’ loving gaze, notice the sensations, emotions,and impressions hat stir in you. Ask Jesus if there is something he would like to say. Then, sit and listen for a minute…maybe two. Write down anything meaningful from that experience so that you can reflect on it later.

It takes time and practice to expand the amount of time for listening prayer. Don’t be discouraged if you can only spend a few minutes at first. Consistency is more important than intensity. Over time,you’ll develop increased ability to listen to God’s voice.

Lifelong Listening

More than 30 years ago, Richard Foster wrote, “The desperate need today is not for a greater number of intelligent people, or gifted people, but for deep people.” His words have only grown in relevance. We are discipled by machine into lifestyles of anxious consumption, constant comparison, and cutthroat competition.

And yet, God speaks. God longs for relationship with you. God’s love for you can drown out our inner restlessness, anchor us in love, and form us into a people “rooted and built up in him and established in the faith” (Colossians 2:7).

Can you imagine how learning to listen to God in prayer might transform your life or make you more able to be a blessing to others?

Radiating Light This Epiphany

I love Epiphany. 

At our home we celebrate Epiphany right after dinner on January 6, the Feast of the Epiphany in liturgical traditions. We turn off every light in our apartment. Then we recite the words from John 1, “What has come into being in him was life and the life was the light of all people.” Then we light a candle and go room-to-room inviting the light of Christ to fill every space in our apartment. We chalk our door with a blessing. We sprinkle holy water everywhere. And we sing “Joy to the World” as enthusiastically as the four of us can manage. 

It really is great fun. Next year you’re all invited to the feast.   

But actually, you still can celebrate Epiphany. In many liturgical traditions, Epiphany is a season, starting on January 6 and continuing until Ash Wednesday, when the 40 days of Lent begin. And as I said, I love it. Epiphany is where “O Come Let Us Adore Him” becomes “Go Tell It on the Mountain.” In Advent we spin inward in an effort to make room for Jesus’ coming. At Christmas we celebrate the beautiful and scandalous birth of Jesus. And in Epiphany we are sent out with the light of the beauty of the glory of Jesus shining in our faces to announce the good news. The darkness is past. A new day has come. The light has shined in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it.

Light is the preeminent symbol of Epiphany. There’s an irony here. We speak of and celebrate light as a church in the heart of the season when our hemisphere seems wrapped in darkness. We know people who sit in front of full spectrum lights this time of year to help regulate their body to the diminished light. Many of us are up before dawn and return home after dusk. 

Moving from the physical universe to the symbolic, the irony deepens. Our society is fragmented and fragmenting at an alarming rate. People are crying out for work, for justice, for security, for hope. The darkness is thick indeed. I think of the words of Hosea 4: “There is no faithfulness or loyalty, and no knowledge of God in the land. Swearing, lying, and murder, and stealing and adultery break out; bloodshed follows bloodshed. Therefore the land mourns, and all who live in it languish; together with the wild animals and the birds of the air, even the fish of the sea are perishing.”

And so, our family sits in darkness. The darkness whispers its formless menace. And a candle is lit. 

To be clear, Epiphany is not for the faint of heart. It is not a season for idealists who believe that things are basically good and getting better, but then collapse in cynicism when confronted with darkness. Epiphany beckons us to come to the light of Jesus Christ. Epiphany calls us to stare into that light until our inner darkness is fully expunged. Epiphany then sends us out into a dark and weary world as women and men with shining faces, until we say with the apostle Paul, “It is the God who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.” 

The most literal illustration I can think of for this comes from the sixth film in the Harry Potter series, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. Toward the end of the film there is a tragic death that has been orchestrated by evil. The mission that brought about this death seems utterly futile. And hovering above this iconic fallen hero is the dark mark. The dark mark is an apparition in the clouds in the shape of a skull with a serpent protruding from its jaws. The mark is a symbol of intimidation. It taunts those who might resist with the indomitable power of evil. 

In this scene, as the students gather in shock and horror, professor McGonagall silently lifts her wand. The end glows, like a candle, with a white light. Silently the others begin to do the same. More and more wands go in the air. White lights like candles mark the scene. The light reflects against the dark mark, and in a way that is both mysterious and beautiful, the dark mark dissolves from within. 

This is not a sentimental moment. It is a moment of defiance. Holding up a light in a dark place is a dangerous thing to do. Maybe that’s why we find it so hard. 

John 3:19 says, “Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil.” Holding up a candle risks exposure. Holding up a candle risks confrontation with the powers that thrive in the dark. 

God’s call to us in Epiphany is to hold up a candle. We are being invited to make that move from coming and adoring to going and telling.

Every time the church emphasizes one of these to the exclusion of the other she gets distorted. When the church emphasizes “go and tell it” over “come let us adore him” she becomes hollow. Worship becomes spectacle. Ultimately this church loses itself. But when the church emphasizes adoration and inner well-being over “go and tell” it becomes anemic, timid, and sanctimonious. 

We are healthiest as the people of God when we stare into the light of Jesus until our hearts burn within us and then we go out into the places we live, work, and play with faces that radiate this light. To quote Paul again, “And all of us, with unveiled faces, seeing the glory of the Lord as though reflected in a mirror, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another; for this comes from the Lord, the Spirit.”

So how do we radiate the light of Christ? Here are a few really practical ways in this season of Epiphany. 

Radiating the Light of Christ Personally

How are you radiating the light of Christ in your life as an individual? What practices warm your heart to the reality of Jesus’ presence with you? How much time every day are you setting aside to sit in the presence of Jesus without any plans other than to know his love for you? 

I read a statistic recently that said many clergy (up to 70% in some cases)—people you’d expect to be close with God because their work seems so closely dependent on it—pray for an average of 10 minutes a day. 

How’s that going for you? Do you long for more? 

This week I’d just invite you to keep track. How much time are you actually spending consciously aware of the presence of God, allowing his light to fill you? 

We cannot give away what we do not have. A life of intimacy with God is impossible without spending time with God. For our face to shine with the light of Christ, we must spend time beholding his glory. (It should perhaps go without saying that to gaze on the face of Jesus is to turn our gaze away from ourselves. This is medicine we sorely need in a narcissistic age.)

The best way that I know to sit in the presence of God is to do what Christians have done throughout the centuries, the simple practice of holy reading. In holy reading you work your way through a section of Scripture slowly, attentively, asking simply, “How does this passage of Scripture point me to Jesus?” 

So this week pay attention to your time with God. Perhaps consider holy reading. 

Radiating the Light of Christ Relationally

It has always been the norm for Christian witness to take place in community. Our faces shine with the light of Christ together. We reflect the beauty and glory of Jesus best when we are connected to others in community. 

How is that going for you? Are you a part of a community, whether a house church, or a ministry team, or a wellness circle? Is there space at your table for someone from a different generation, marital status, or educational background? 

I’m convinced that there is nothing that better reflects the glory, beauty, and majesty of Jesus than when we the Church live and work together in unity and community. We are blessed to be a multi-generational, multiethnic, economically diverse Church. Let’s live into that this Epiphany. 

When we are looking into the face of Jesus together with others, then it becomes natural to invite the people we live with, work with, and play with to experience that life as well. 

So this week ask yourself, “Who am I connected with at church? Who are the people I’m connected to outside of church who need life with God?”

Radiating the Light of Christ as the Church

There is so much that shines with a holy light in the community of the Church. But, I fear, how easily we can miss the holy light. God is calling us to awaken to the holiness of Jesus present in our community and then to share this light with others. 

Let me be clear: I’m not telling you to share what a great church you have. This is simply preaching about ourselves. No. We preach Christ and him crucified, and raised from the dead. We preach repentance and forgiveness of sin. We preach life in the gospel. We preach this as witnesses of the holy light of Christ. We hold up our candle. Our faces shine. 

I love Epiphany. I love Epiphany because I love Jesus. The beauty and majesty of the glory of God as reflected in this scandalous and holy life captivates me. And I am convinced that the only hope for our dark, dark world is the light of Jesus. 

My candle is my words. My candle is my willingness to stand with you and dare you to stare into the beauty of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection until you are undone. My candle is to beat the drum of witness and sound the call to turn out into that place where you live, work, and play with a face shining and a candle burning bright. 

Will you join me?

 

For more on Epiphany, download a free devotional  here . 

Making Sense of Christianity’s Branches: Meet an Anglican

Do you ever wish the church would stop fighting about sex and politics? Me too. 

The Anglican tradition emerged in the midst of these social dynamics. There was conflict between Pope Clement VII and Henry VIII. Influential theologians were wrestling through Luther’s and Calvin’s articulations of faith. There were diverse and indigenous Christian expressions throughout England. What do you do when political life becomes toxic and unstable, when basic assumptions are shifting dramatically, and you long to be faithful to Jesus? 

Anglicans have learned to see the churning conflict of each generation as an opportunity for worship, witness, and welcome. Anglicanism is unique among Protestant traditions in its attempt to organize around a “way of being” rather than precise theological formulae. Sometimes articulated as via media or “the middle way,” Anglicans blur the lines between Protestant and Catholic, Reformed and Anabaptist, liberal and evangelical. This is our church’s greatest strength as well as its most profound weakness.

In the USA the largest expression of the Anglican tradition is the Episcopal Church, which tends to be more theologically progressive. There are also missionary expressions of Anglicanism, including the Anglican Mission in North America, which is more theologically conservative. I will use Anglicanism below as an inclusive term, including the Episcopal Church, and Episcopal to focus on the more specific expression. 

Worship

If I close my eyes tightly and imagine, I can still smell the oil soap, still feel the smooth cool wood pew against my cheek while noticing the shards of light refracting through the stained glass. My earliest memories are of St. David’s Episcopal Church in western Massachusetts. The words we used in worship were elevated—a special language for a special God: “Almighty and most merciful Father, we have erred and strayed from thy ways like lost sheep . . .” There were also times that we sang simple songs to guitar accompaniment. People raised their hands in joy and wonder. Sometimes we waved branches and processed in long lines around the church. Sometimes we stayed up late and worshiped in quiet tones by candlelight. 

These Anglican roots implanted in my heart a connection between worship and beauty. We adore that which we find truly beautiful. Anglicans are drawn to the beauty and wonder of the gospel as it’s expressed liturgically, sacramentally, communally, and in mission. Even through a season where I distanced myself from church and Christian faith, the connection of beauty and adoration remained strong.

If you couldn’t already tell, worship in the Anglican tradition is liturgical and sacramental. There’s a procession following a cross. Worship leaders wear vestments. Worshipers stand, bow, cross ourselves, and kneel. The order of worship has a liturgy of the Word, often a reading from the Old and New Testaments and a psalm, followed by a Gospel reading and a sermon. Unlike some of our Protestant siblings, the pulpit is not at the center of an Anglican worship space. While there are powerful, well-known, Anglican preachers—Desmond Tutu, John Stott, N. T. Wright, Michael Curry, C. S. Lewis, and J. I. Packer, to name a few—Anglican worship culminates in the Eucharist. Tom Wright captured this sentiment when he said, “Jesus didn’t simply leave us a set of instructions, he gave us a meal.”

There are weaknesses to our worshiping tradition. Like any liturgical and sacramental church, Anglican worship and symbols need to be regularly learned and interpreted or else they become stale and inaccessible. Unchurched visitors may really struggle to understand what’s happening in worship. Why are those guys wearing white dresses? What’s going on now? Why are we standing up? As an evangelist I sometimes shudder at the missed opportunity that happens when I see kids zoning out (through no fault of their own) in worship, or watch visitors puzzle over what’s happening. For the initiated, opera can be transcendently beautiful; for many it’s just a bunch of people singing loudly in unfamiliar languages. The same could be said for Anglican worship.

Witness

Despite the discomfort that many Episcopalians have with evangelism, the Anglican Church is globally expansive. After Catholicism, and all Protestant denominations put together, Anglicans make up the third largest Christian community in the world, and we are thoroughly committed to mission. The Alpha Course, a leading tool for sharing the gospel, was created by an Anglican church. And recently, Michael Curry, presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church USA (in addition to preaching at the royal wedding), named witness and evangelism as among his top priorities for the church. 

I appreciate being a part of a church that preaches the gospel every week. After the sermon and a time of prayer, Anglican worship continues with an articulation of the gospel in prayer. It often begins with praising God for creation, for God’s call of Israel, and for God’s word through the prophets, and then focuses on Jesus, who, after we had sinned against God and become enslaved to sin and death, offered himself on the cross in obedience, a perfect sacrifice for the whole world. I’ve heard these words more times than I can count, but every time, no matter who says them, I’m struck afresh with the generous and costly love of God in Jesus. 

This prayer concludes with the congregation pledging to remember Jesus’ death, to proclaim his resurrection, and to await his coming in glory! At the end of the service, the cross is marched out of the church as a symbol that we, who have been fed with Christ, are to go out into the world as faithful witnesses. (It’s like an Urbana conference every week.) 

Of course, it’s possible to allow these moments in worship to roll right by without catching their significance. It’s possible for the richness and nuance of the liturgical language and symbols to simply be inane babble, empty repetition, lifeless tradition. 

And some Anglican worship can create unhelpful distance between the gospel of the liturgy and the gospel communicated in the sermon or homily. For example, a more theologically progressive church may lean away from doctrines like sin, or atonement, only to have these themes articulated strongly in the liturgy. We once had a visiting preacher deny substitutionary atonement, but a few minutes later the worship leader said, according to the prayer book, “Jesus stretched out his arms upon the cross and offered himself in obedience, a perfect sacrifice for the whole world.” This disjunction can undermine a worshiping community’s confidence in its articulation of the gospel. 

Welcome

Welcome is essential to an Anglican sensibility. This stems from a long history of gathering together communities with different confessions into one worshiping community. Where other Protestant churches developed confessions and theologies, Anglicans developed the Book of Common Prayer. This book does include theological commitments (the 39 Articles of Religion), but the emphasis from our history has been on common prayer over common belief. Do Anglicans speak in tongues? Do Anglicans pray the rosary? Do Anglicans practice centering prayer? Do Anglicans perform same-sex unions? Do Anglicans ordain women? The answer to these questions is the same. All, under the right circumstances, may. Some can. None must. It’s not hard to see how difficult it is to hold a community together across differences. The Anglican Communion has been struggling for years in living out this aspect of its calling.   

My parish might provide an example. Located in Manhattan, All Angels’ is a worshiping community of investment bankers, diplomats, artists, students, academics, undocumented immigrants, domiciled, housing insecure, homeless, and court-involved people. We come from a variety of church traditions, theological traditions, and political philosophies. We are multiethnic and class diverse. We sing hymns, gospel music, and Hillsong. We’re engaged in ministry to and with the poor. We worship with influential political and economic leaders.

While it’s overwhelming to think about holding a community like this together, it’s also profound. Seeing us all gather around the table to receive from Jesus in the Eucharist and commit to go out into the world in peace to love and serve him is a visceral reminder of the body of Christ. We are unified not by class, race, gender identity, politics, or ideology, but rather are held together by the mysterious indwelling power and transforming presence of the Holy Spirit. 

Perhaps that’s the answer to the question I posed earlier. What do you do when political life becomes toxic and unstable, when basic assumptions are shifting dramatically, and you long to be faithful to Jesus? Perhaps you embrace the muddy middle, anchor yourself in worship, welcome everyone, and witness to the gospel. At least, that’s why I’m Anglican.

Living with a Death-Defying Hope

My friend Joel died on my 13th birthday. We’d just returned from the grocery store with cake mix, balloons, and streamers when my mom got the call that we knew would come. The cancerous tumors in Joel’s brain had come out of remission earlier that year. By late summer his treatment options had been exhausted. My mom, who was also a minister in the small United Methodist church Joel’s family attended, went to be with them. I sat at home with my brother and sister in shock and silence, bitterness creeping over me in waves. I’d been looking forward to this birthday, to full entry into teenage life, but there was no cake, no celebration, no blessing. Just a crushing sadness that wouldn’t end for several weeks.

Recently I spoke to a friend who is going through a non-physical kind of death: the anguish of separation from their spouse. There are no words strong enough to mend the shattered dreams and broken dishes. Nothing can insulate the souls of the children who absorb and internalize the icy silences.

I hate death. I bet you do too, whether it comes after a long illness, an icy stillness, or crushed willfulness. We hate the finality of it, the banality of it, and the violence of it. We hate the death of our loved ones, the death of close relationships, the death of our dreams, the death of our faculties, the death of opportunity, and the death of community. And we hate that everything dies.

The Bible refers to death as a great enemy. In American culture, there are two ways we usually deal with death: denial and despair. But Scripture offers a different way.

Denying Death

Our cultural moment most often deals with death by denying it. We eat acai berry and kale salad to supercharge our bodies. Industries have developed around helping us look and feel younger. We have assisted living facilities where we can isolate those whose health is failing and insulate ourselves from confronting our mortality. We experience compassion in the wake of the great tragedies of our day—the death and displacement in Syria, the emerging famine in east Africa, or the crisis in Yemen—but quickly move on.

The book of Ezekiel tells about a group of people committed to dealing with spiritual, cultural, and physical death by denying it. They are called false prophets, and these particular ones preached during a 10-year period between Jerusalem’s first defeat by the Babylonians in 597 B.C. and the ultimate destruction and devastation of Jerusalem and of Solomon’s temple in 587 B.C. They were saying, “Jerusalem will not be destroyed. Everything is fine. That defeat was just a minor setback. Don’t worry; be happy.”

God’s response to denial is interesting. Sometimes people assume that religion is about denying or avoiding difficult reality. That might be true of some religious people, but it is not true of the Bible. God confronted the false prophets with the sober reality, saying: “Woe to the foolish prophets who follow their own spirit and have seen nothing! Your prophets, Israel, are like jackals among ruins.”

Here’s the point. When we deny death, we end up colluding with it.

For example, as a leader, I’m tempted to deny the anxiety I feel about activities and outcomes I can’t control by working intensely and intensively. Usually when I do this, my wife, Sophia, will confront me with reality by saying something like, “I see you’re winding yourself up around work. I am not getting on the crazy train with you.” And what do you think my first response is? It’s to deny the truth: “I’m not on the crazy train!” But when I over-work in anxious toil, I collude with death!

So even though we hate the way death creeps into our lives, churches, relationships, and calling . . . we can’t deny it, because when we deny death we simply collude with it.

Despairing of Death

Another way we deal with the reality of death is giving in to despair. We see evidence of despair in the book of Ezekiel as well, especially in chapter 37 on the valley of dry bones. The setting of this passage is after the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple in 587. There’s no more false hope. The people are saying, “Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost; we are cut off completely.” This is the language of despair.

Despair says, “What’s the point of reaching out to that relative [or colleague, friend, or broken relationship]? Things will never change.”

We see the fingerprints of despair in the New Testament as well. In John 11, after the death of Mary and Martha’s brother Lazarus, they both greet Jesus with exactly the same words: “Lord, if you had been here my brother would not have died.”

Despair is a direct assault on the character and capacity of God. In the face of death or loss we feel abandoned by God, like God doesn’t care or perhaps is powerless to bring change.

Sarah is a student I met at one of the campuses I minister at. I once asked her a question I often ask students: “If God were standing in front of you, what would you ask him?” She became deadly serious. “I’d ask him about my mom,” she said, and then went on to tell a heart-breaking story about how she’d watched her mom suffer from ALS and go from being a strong, independent woman to someone who needed to be fed and washed, and who could no longer speak. Sarah began to weep.

What can God do for us in our powerlessness over our compulsions, debilitating anxieties, broken relationships, bitterness, and disappointments?

Unless the gospel has good news for Israel in exile, Mary and Martha in grief, Sarah in her pain, and you and me in our powerlessness, we will end in despair.

Defying Death

The hope that the gospel offers us is something that enables us not to deny death nor to despair of death, but to defy death. There are three things we need to hold onto if we’re going to be people of death-defying hope.

1. The Word of God: In both Ezekiel 37 and John 11, the passages mentioned above, the dead are raised to life again in response to the word of God. This is deeply resonant with the story of Scripture from Genesis to Revelation. God’s word creates life, restores life, and redeems life.

Our ability to hope in the face of death is connected to our willingness to hear the word of God.

To have death-defying hope we must be shaped by the Word of God from having read, marked, learned, and inwardly digested it.

How is that going for you?

2. The Promise of God: Both the Ezekiel and John texts also point to resurrection—the promise of God for the people of God. It is impossible to have a death-defying hope without, as the old prayer book said, a “sure and certain hope of the resurrection to eternal life.” This is not a denial of the pain and loss of death, but rather confidence in a transformed yet continuous existence in that place where there is neither death nor suffering.

I remember being challenged by this when my mom was dying of lung cancer. As her body began to lose its strength and even her emotional and relational faculties diminished, a friend gently said to me, “Jason, your mom’s best days are not behind her. They are still to come. Do you believe this?” As I thought about what he said, I realized, in a whole new way, that I did believe in the resurrection. And that simple faith transformed the way I experienced my mom’s death. Was it still hard? Yes. Do I miss her still? Absolutely. But I have death-defying hope only to the degree that this promise of resurrection has worked its way down into my soul.

What about you?  

3. The Life of God: The best way to have that death-defying hope is to behold the way Jesus makes God’s life available to us. In John 11, Jesus gives Lazarus resurrected life, knowing that he will take Lazarus’s place in the tomb later, after he is crucified.

In Jesus, the very life of God was poured out to death, which means there is no place, not even death, where we cannot meet the life of God. Jesus took our death so that we can have his life.

I hate death! But when I see Jesus pouring out his life so that I can have access to the life of God, death has no sting.

We are called to be a people of death-defying hope, but it is only the gospel of Jesus that leads us to life with God. As we enter Advent in a few days—a season of longing for Jesus’ resurrection life to come in fullness here on earth at his return—let’s ponder anew the gift of life he’s given us, and live with brave, defiant hope in the face of the death around us.

How Holiness Brings Life

I distinctly remember one visit to a church youth event in my teens. In those days, I was a pack-and-a-half-a-day smoker, a punk/hardcore music enthusiast, and comfortable pressing the boundaries of social conformity. The conversation I had in the parking lot of the church has stuck with me for more than 25 years. 

“You’re welcome to come to our group . . .” Christine said, pulling me aside. “But you really can’t be serious about God if you smoke and . . . uh . . . stuff . . .” 

I had no idea what “stuff” meant, but the message was clear. There was a holiness test for this group and I didn’t pass it. Not only did that group of teens view me with suspicion, but they were sure God did too. 

I never went back.

Does Holiness = Judgment?

There’s an old joke that asks, “Why are conservative/holiness Christians so negative about sex?” Answer: “Because it might lead to dancing.” The joke betrays our suspicions, judgments, and anxieties about forms of discipleship that take holiness seriously. Holiness is often associated, at a gut level, with “holier than thou” attitudes we’ve experienced from religious people. And we project these attitudes onto God. If God is holy, and holiness is associated with being looked down upon, then we assume God’s holiness translates to a moral indignation toward us who fail to measure up. Even worse, we associate fun, pleasure, and excitement with sin, while holiness conjures associations of judgment, scrupulosity, and boredom.

Exhortations to “be holy because I am holy” (Leviticus 19:2) sound like bad news. Most of us are already investing considerable moral effort in the everyday business of life. The demands of holiness feel like a burden impossible to bear. Who has the energy? 

Two Views of Holiness

But what if this understanding of holiness misses the point? In his book Prayer: Our Deepest Longing, Ronald Rolheiser points out the difference between Hebraic and Greek notions of holiness. In the Greek tradition, says Rolheiser, holiness literally refers to God’s distinct and unique nature, and is interpreted to mean moral perfection, inscrutability, inexhaustible goodness, and undiminishing quality. 

St. Gregory of Nyssa captures this same idea in The Life of Moses, his book on the spiritual life, which holds up Moses as the ideal disciple. He describes how, motivated by loving desire, Moses climbs the mountain of God, overcoming obstacles and being purged of lesser desires along the way, and finally arrives in a cleft of rock to behold “all the goodness” of God. The final image of Gregory’s book, taken from Exodus 34, is of Moses in the cleft beholding God’s back. Gregory sees this as a picture of the disciple’s ultimate and eternal future: God’s goodness ever leading onward and the loving disciple, held by grace, pursuing the inexhaustible goodness of God. 

Whether we’re familiar with the books mentioned above or not, their idea of holiness resonates. Our view of holiness has been shaped by this Greek tradition. And it’s not all bad. It keeps the bright vision of God’s character constantly out ahead of us. There is always more to learn, always further to go, an expanding depth of goodness and love.

But this perspective is also limited. For one thing, it can drain and demoralize as easily as it inspires. When Christians invest themselves in ministry and discipleship only to find that they still wrestle with bitterness, resentment, sexual preoccupation, or anxiety, this vision of holiness can be crushing. We may be tempted to give up the pursuit of holiness altogether. But what if there’s another way? 

The Hebraic concept of holiness is rooted in God’s uniqueness and power. The God of the Old Testament is the creator of heaven and earth. God has no equal, no successor, and no rival. God alone can create and sustain life in all its wondrous variety. God alone creates humans as image-bearing stewards within creation. If God’s word and being create life and existence, then God’s holiness is defined relationally with respect to creation. God’s holiness denotes distinction from creation in form, substance, and power, and connotes wholeness, life, and generativity. 

In addition, in the Hebraic tradition God’s holiness is acknowledged and honored in worship. Worship emphasizes God’s unique place as creator, sustainer, and redeemer. Worship illumines the mind through contemplation of God’s distinction from his creation. We ponder the holiness of God when we consider the vastness of creation or the scope of redemption. This contemplation quickly exceeds our categories of thought and language. We are led to praise God in the words of the Trisagion: holy, holy, holy. And as we worship, we’re participating in what holiness denotes: God’s unique, distinct, and powerful reality upon which we are totally dependent.    

The Hebraic concept of God’s holiness also includes the constraint of evil and death. Constraint is necessary in a world damaged by evil. If all people were trustworthy, we would have no locks, passwords, or prisons. But constraint is not about avoiding pleasure; rather it is about creating the conditions for life to abound and for death to be restrained. The reason for the moral and ritual law laid out in the Torah in the Old Testament was to enable God’s life and presence to be tangibly present in the world. Extortion, greed, licentiousness, and exploitation collude with death. The moral law names and constrains this collusion. Blood, corpses, or disease are not sinful in themselves, but they are associated with death, and so the ritual law places constraints around those too. Ultimately the law constrains how people are to relate to God’s presence. And these constraints connote holiness not by what they forbid, but for what they allow. When evil and death are restrained, life flourishes. 

Imagine my teenage parking lot conversation again. How different it would have been to hear Christine say, “You and I both know that smoking hurts your body. Is it okay to encourage you to quit? God loves your body.” In the conversation that actually happened, smoking is offensive to God. In this reimagined conversation, smoking is offensive to God’s desire for life, health, and relationship. Perhaps I still wouldn’t have gone back, but I would have imagined God differently. 

An Invitation to Be Holy

How can we engage with holiness as a gift of life, health, and relationship with God?   

The beauty of God’s holiness is embodied most profoundly in Jesus. Like the burning coal in Isaiah 6, Jesus had a profound ability to transfer holiness to others by touching them. In his ministry, Jesus often touched unholy/unclean people, including lepers, dead bodies, a woman with hemorrhages, and demonized men. His holiness seemed to pass to them, healing their bodies, freeing their minds, restoring them to community. In his death, Jesus offered to God the perfect holy and obedient life that we cannot. In his resurrection, Jesus breathed his Spirit into his people with the profound words, “As the Father has sent me, I am sending you . . .” (John 20:21).

The call to holiness is not a call to try harder, enjoy less, and judge more. It’s a call to contemplate the beauty and wonder of who God is and what God has done in Jesus. It’s an invitation to order our lives toward wholeness, life, and generativity. It’s a daring call to rub shoulders with people who, like my teenage self, presume that God is judgmental and angry through the grace and power of the Spirit. 

How are you growing in holiness during this season?

The Power of Praying the Magnificat Daily

For the last five years, I’ve been a part of a religious community that prays the Magnificat—Mary’s song of praise upon finding herself pregnant with Jesus—twice a day. Like any repeated habit (squinting, smiling, stretching, etc.), praying the Magnificat is leaving its mark. It has confronted and reoriented me. In recent days, I find Mary’s song speaking to the challenges of our cultural moment. It has provoked difficult questions, raised me to new heights, exposed sin and idolatry, and left me speechless in awe and wonder.

Sadly, however, the Magnificat is often misunderstood and misapplied by various interpretations that each latch on to one aspect of Mary’s song, elevate that aspect as the main point of the story, and then apply the song to fit a particular worldview. There are at least three popular interpretations that do this.

Mary as Main Character

One popular route of interpretation—especially among Roman Catholics, in some Eastern churches, and within parts of Anglicanism—is to emphasize Mary’s exaltation within the Magnificat. This is understandable. God is accomplishing his purposes through Mary. It is, after all, her song of praise. 

Unlike with Elizabeth and Zechariah, whose words of praise Luke attributes to a special filling of the Holy Spirit (see Luke 1:41-45 and Luke 1:67-79), Mary’s song apparently emerges from an ongoing posture—evidence of her very special heart. Her response to God’s call puts patriarchs like Jacob and prophets like Moses to shame. Mary even inserts herself into the poem, “Surely from now on all generations will call me blessed; for the Mighty One has done great things for me.” She is indeed a unique and blessed woman, whose example and name ought to be venerated throughout the generations.

I have experienced great benefit from contemplating Mary’s role in the story of redemption, including some experiences in prayer that would make my Protestant friends blush. But when the interpretive tradition elevates Mary as the main character, a particular story begins to take shape. And I think we need to resist this interpretive strategy because the text resists it. The emphasis of the prayer firmly rests on God, the Savior, the Mighty One of Israel. Every sentence in the prayer except for the first two has God as its subject, and even in the first two sentences God is the agent or actor, through whose generosity and favor Mary finds herself chosen and blessed. She is a fascinating character, whose role in redemptive history should be contemplated by more Protestants, but to elevate Mary to be the main character twists the prayer out of shape. 

And Holy Is His Name

More palatable to traditional and evangelical Protestants and to some in the charismatic and Pentecostal traditions is the interpretive lens that focuses on God’s character and the soul’s response to God. 

There are commendable aspects to this interpretive approach. One is that it treats the Magnificat first and foremost as a hymn of praise to God. The poetic structure and focus of the song are doxological. God is the agent in the hymn, and many of God’s characteristics are specifically praised. His mercy is mentioned twice. His might or power is evoked multiple times. And his faithfulness, holiness, and saving help are woven through the poem. 

However, while it is right to celebrate the wonder and righteousness of God, the story that emerges from this interpretive tradition is too often ahistorical and depoliticized. Editor and writer David Neff laments in his Christianity Today article “Misreading the Magnificat,” “It is hard to find Christian hymns that embody Scripture's sharp critique of the rich and the dangers of wealth.” Mary’s song has a pointed political critique that shouldn’t be ignored, with lines such as: “He has cast down the mighty from their thrones. . . . He has filled the hungry with good things and sent the rich away empty” (Luke 1:52-53).

Thus, like the elevation of Mary to a central character, this interpretive strategy also needs to be rejected because the text rejects it. Yes, the Magnificat celebrates and sings of the wondrous nature of God, but we know God’s wondrous nature through God’s raising up the poor and deposing the proud. Mary’s song, like Hannah’s in 1 Samuel 2, places its affirmations within the context of a robust political and covenantal theology.   

Magnificat as Revolutionary Hymn

Post-evangelicals and mainline Protestants enthusiastically affirm the Magnificat’s political theology, seeing it as a revolutionary hymn meant to energize the church’s witness through acts of justice. This approach takes the second part of the Magnificat seriously, teasing out the cultural and political context in which the song was composed and sung—in an occupied land by a woman without means.

The story that begins to emerge out of this interpretive tradition is one of prophetic critique and political reorientation. Justice is God’s cause. God is seen to be on the side of the oppressed, poor, and humble, and he will accomplish justice by raising them up. Mary’s song—a defiant song from the margins that indicts the powerful and gives voice to the oppressed—anticipates these purposes of God. 

This interpretation increases in plausibility as we consider the ways that the church’s mission has been coopted by unjust political ideologies. World mission and colonialism have collaborated in ways that have drastically undermined the integrity of the gospel. Church leaders in the US supported slavery, segregation, and the subjugation of women. For Christian faith to have plausibility in a contemporary world fractured by injustice and suffering, it must both renounce unholy alliances to oppressive power and offer words of hope to those on the margins. 

As one who has sought to understand and live out the liberating and humanizing message of Jesus Christ with the marginalized for more than 20 years, I nevertheless reject this interpretive strategy for the same reason as the ones above: because the text rejects it.

Mary’s song of praise contains its political theology within a larger framework of God and Israel, and this interpretation screens that out, essentially ignoring the covenantal theology of verses 54 -55. God’s political acts of liberation are not tied to an abstract notion of justice but rather to him specifically “remembering his covenant” with Abraham and Israel. The social and political dislocation that Mary, Elizabeth, and Zechariah find themselves within started more than 400 years earlier with the Babylonian exile. The oppression had taken many forms (rulers, the proud, the rich) but now at last, God was going to remember his covenant and bring his messiah.

To make the Magnificat a song simply about political liberation in general twists the song out of shape and runs the risk of aligning it with another oppressive political agenda.

Come and Magnify

The Magnificat has thrived and been best understood and appropriated in communities that follow the principle lex orandi, lex credendi: the law of our prayers is the law of our belief. This strategy, while insufficient for the whole of Christian life and theology, is in the best position to interpret and apply those parts of Scripture that are themselves prayers.   

Just as reading about prayer is insufficient for understanding prayer, reading the Magnificat is insufficient for understanding it. Entering the Magnificat as prayer pulls the praying reader into a set of relationships, affirmations, and longings that awaken curiosity, warm the heart, and summon the will. 

This prayer is not simply a devotional experience, however. Praying the Magnificat ought to create new categories of understanding in our mind and heart. In prayer we receive an invitation to come and magnify the Lord with Mary, to enter her story, and through it to see into the heart of God. 

The preamble to the story is an appreciation for the woman whose words we borrow. The mystery of Mary’s song will remain closed to us if our hearts remain dull to this remarkable, courageous, and faithful young woman. To put it another way, Mary is not an “everywoman” character in the New Testament. How is it that this simple girl from Nazareth was able to offer the unqualified yes to God’s invitation when prophets, priests, and kings did not? As we pray her prayer we imitate her faithfulness, courage, and devotion. 

At the center of this story is Israel’s God, the Mighty and Holy One, who abounds in love and mercy (Exodus 34). This God has done for his people what he promised. In Jesus, the Messiah, God’s great reversal has been accomplished. In Jesus, we see God’s immense love for the marginalized and his refusal to adopt the strategies of coercive power. In Jesus, we see God’s covenant fulfilled and his faithfulness extended to the nations. In Jesus, we commit to seeing his generosity and justice play out in our homes, communities, cultures, and nations.

We also, as we pray the Magnificat, consider our own social location and ask whether the shape of our lives, including our worship life, points toward Jesus in worship, witness, and wonder. We examine ourselves to discover and root out ways we have aligned ourselves with the forces of spiritual death and disintegration. And we offer ourselves—our souls and bodies, like Mary did—to God’s service, not as begrudging servants but as those who can join with her in joyful acclamation: “My soul magnifies the Lord and my spirit exalts in God my Savior.” 

What might happen in your life with God if you entered into Mary’s story by praying the Magnificat regularly? How might its vision of God reshape your perspective? What might happen in our communities if they were formed through regularly praying these words together? Perhaps our vision would be a little less polarized, our wonder reawakened, and our wills strengthened.

Loneliness After College

“To be human is to be lonely,” Friar Ugo said to me, his voice cracking with age. For 40 years he served as a Jesuit missionary on the African continent. Now he was sitting across from me, a 30-something campus minister, trying to make sense of God and my deep loneliness.  

Despite the gentleness, even fragility, of his appearance, Friar Ugo’s words pierced the space between us like a spiritual searchlight. My heart began to beat in my ears and I pressed my lips together in defiance. Say something else . . . I thought. Anything . . .

That moment, and the conversation that followed, would change my life. 

Loneliness is all around us. Robert Putnam’s famous book, Bowling Alone, describes the fragmentation and isolation of American community before the rise of social media. He says, “Americans are right that the bonds of our communities have withered and we are right to fear that this transformation has very real costs.”

Social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram are changing the way we see ourselves and the way we have relationships. Human beings have never been more connected and we’ve never been lonelier. 

A quick theological consideration of the problem of loneliness demonstrates its significance. In Genesis 2:18, God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone.” The weight of this statement is even stronger when we remember the poetry of Genesis 1, which contains the refrain “God saw that it was good” seven times. 

The repetition of the phrase alone is striking, but there are two additional amplifiers that we may not be aware of. First is the number of repetitions. In Hebrew the number seven is shevah from the root shaba, which means “to be full.” Seven is the sum of three—a biblical number suggesting glory, weightiness, or perfection—and four—a biblical number suggesting creation. In Isaiah 6, the cherubim sing “holy, holy, holy” to signify God’s perfection in holiness, while the four corners of the earth and the four rivers flowing out of Eden signify the created order. The sum of three and four is thus meant to summon our attention. God saw that it was good seven times. It was perfectly, completely, fully good. 

This is affirmed in the second amplifier, what in English is translated “very good.” In biblical Hebrew, doubling the word signifies quality and perfection. So literally, the phrase reads as “good good.” Creation is not just good. The phrase gathers up all the creation that has come before, and in the beholding vision of the creator God, it is good . . . good. 

Now consider again the “It is not good for man to be alone” statement in Genesis 2:18. The contrast is like a verbal slap. The action breaks. It’s the first point of tension in the whole narrative of Scripture. For man to be alone is not good. 

Anyone who has experienced loneliness knows a primal disorientation. Quiet anxiety gives way to restlessness. We look for distraction. Anger and resentment simmer in successive waves. Isolation is so powerfully disorienting that solitary confinement is classified as a form of torture. 

As I sat in that chair across from Friar Ugo I could feel the primordial weight of loneliness pressing in on me. I knew the story of Genesis 2. Not good for man to be alone. So I thought, God fix it! I wanted Friar Ugo to tell me how God was going to take the isolation away. Instead he started talking about something else. 

“Have you ever considered,” he asked, “that the loneliness you’re experiencing is an invitation to grow your friendship with God?” I hadn’t. 

Friar Ugo went on, “Loneliness is part of the human condition. It is the experience of many around the corner who are living on the street. It is the experience of many around the world, separated from home, family, and land because of war or disease. And—” he paused—“it was often the experience of our Lord himself. You can look to me . . . or to something else . . . even to religion to try to make you feel better. Or,” he said, clearing his throat, “you could see this as the beginning of God’s work of transformation in you.” 

And then we sat there . . . in silence.

I pressed my lips together again, but something in his invitation had already stirred inside me. What if loneliness was a doorway to a deeper life with God? What would that mean? How might this idea reshape the experience? 

After a short prayer our conversation ended. Friar Ugo didn’t share stories of his isolation in ministry. He didn’t talk, for example, about being forced to leave a country and a context he loved and not being allowed to return despite years of continued effort. He didn’t describe his experience of returning to New York after 40 years on the mission field. He simply prayed, and then I stepped out into the cold NYC morning with lots of questions. What would it look like to respond to God’s invitation in the midst of loneliness? Was this a biblical idea? If so, what might Scripture have to teach about loneliness as a place of transformation? 

To my surprise the Old and New testaments are full of examples of women and men who meet God in the midst of loneliness or isolation.

Abraham experienced loneliness in his desire for family: “Oh that Ishmael would live in your sight” (Genesis 17:18).

Moses experienced loneliness when he fled Egypt.

Jacob experienced loneliness in the face of his ambition.

Elijah faced loneliness in fatigue after his great victory.

Nehemiah faced loneliness in leadership as he dealt with opposition from outside and sabotage within.

Job experienced loneliness in suffering while his friends offered little comfort.

Esther experienced loneliness in the palace: “But as for me, I have not been called to come in to the king these thirty days” (Esther 4:11).

Mary chose loneliness in her embrace of God’s call: “Behold, I am the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word” (Luke 1:38).

Paul experienced loneliness in mission.

Ultimately Jesus experienced the deepest loneliness of all as he cried out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46).

The stories reveal God’s transforming presence and power in the lives of individuals and communities. They meet God in the midst of loneliness and are changed. Some walk away with a limp. Some walk away with deepened courage.

We can learn a lot by sitting in the ashes with Job or in the wilderness with Hagar. Entering these stories reframes our understanding of loneliness by demonstrating God’s presence and purpose. It enlarges our heart to connect with the isolation of our spiritual forebears and perhaps to connect more deeply with others who face similar loneliness and isolation. Through these stories we are taught to hope in God’s future. 

It is not good for us to be alone. And yet, in the hands of God, loneliness can transform. As you experience seasons of loneliness, perhaps God has an invitation for you. Here are some questions to consider.

How has God used loneliness or isolation in my past to shape my character?

Which of the above mentioned stories in Scripture resonate with my experiences?

What work might God be doing in me as I experience loneliness or isolation?

Ferguson: An Evangelist's Response

Our nation is reeling again.  When a grand jury failed to indict officer Wilson of any charge in the shooting death of Michael Brown, frustration and anger exploded in the street.  Screens of smart phones lit up with tweets, articles, and commentary.  Comments fly.  Frustration escalates.  There are outbreaks of violence and riots.  Policing, particularly the militarized form used to ‘control’ the crowd is scrutinized.  Pain is in the air.

How should Christians respond? 

Moments like this call for prophets.  Those with prophetic gifts often see spiritual dynamics that others don’t.  In a moment of pain and conflict there is heightened awareness of problems many don’t see in their day-to-day experience.  Prophetically gifted women and men help others see and understand the spiritual dynamics and implications behind the crisis.  (Read through the Major Prophets like Jeremiah or Isaiah and you can see this dynamic play out against the social backdrop of ancient Israelite society.)

Often the prophetic gifts are awkward and uncomfortable.  Experiencing a tragedy is difficult enough.  Being told that the tragedy points to a spiritual, cultural, or structural dynamic of sin within our culture is harder.  It’s tempting to dismiss the call.

I have friends who are gifted prophetically.  They quickly answer the call of moments like these.  They are articulate about the specific events happening on the ground and the larger social and spiritual dynamics these represent.  I’m grateful for them, even when I cringe at the sharp edge of something they’ve said or written.  These friends are offering their gift to the church and culture.  They need our prayers.

But, not all Christians are gifted prophetically?

As an evangelist I wrestle with what to say in moments like these.  The pressure to communicate can be very strong.  Say nothing and you face criticism for being silent.  Say something and it’s likely you’ll say the wrong thing or open yourself up to criticism.  For someone who feels called to represent the gospel in word and deed this pressure can be debilitating.

The gift the evangelist brings is different from the prophetic gift.  Where the prophet wants to interpret events and challenge structures in light of God’s truth, the evangelist wants to announce the good news of the gospel.  The prophet and the evangelist are both messengers.  Both interpret the times.  But the point of emphasis for the prophet is justice, whereas the point of emphasis for the evangelist is good news.

prophets want to interpret events & challenge structures in light of God’s truth

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This does not imply for a moment that the good news is about something spiritual rather than social.  The message of the gospel is socially relevant.  Jesus spoke, taught, and demonstrated a new way to be human.  The gospel writers call this, ‘the kingdom of God’.  Life in the kingdom of God is good news to those who are mourning, poor, persecuted, and longing for justice.  Jesus’ followers are called to create communities where people can experience justice, reconciliation, healing, and freedom.  But, the only way we can create these kinds of communities is when we ourselves are transformed by Jesus’ death and resurrection.  The kingdom of God is impossible without the cross of Jesus Christ, just as the cross of Jesus is unintelligible without the vision of the kingdom.

So what does an evangelist do in a moment like this?

Listen first.  Our credibility to communicate the liberating and humanizing message of the gospel is tied to our ability to listen deeply and well to others.  Others can interpret the events of these days according to their gifts and understanding, our job is to listen attentively.

Refuse to demonize. It’s so easy to demonize others in moments like this.  Instead of seeing the problems as endemic to the human race and ourselves as part of the problem we can externalize responsibility and blame.  Every time evangelists do this we lose credibility.

Insist on the gospel as a frame.  Our culture polarizes in moments like this.  The shrill voices shout slogans at one another across a chasm.  If we are not vigilant we will allow the gospel to be subverted by a viewpoint on one pole or another thereby distorting the good news and robbing its power.  As evangelists we are to insist on the gospel, (kingdom of God and Cross of Christ) as the interpretive lens.

Share the good news.  The good news is that God himself has entered our humanity.  Jesus experienced police brutality, racial discrimination, and every type of evil.  Jesus’ words from torture were not cries of condemnation, but a plea for mercy.  Jesus built communities where everyone was welcome and all were called to holiness.  Jesus demonstrated a way to be fully human and fully humane.  Jesus’ resurrection demonstrates his vindication as Israel’s messiah and lord of the world.  Jesus’ life is available to all who want it.  We are called to follow Him and demonstrate his life to and for the world.

The Best Quote St. Francis Never Said

The yellow edged paper on Mom’s desk had the words printed in elegant script.  “Preach the gospel at all times, when necessary use words.”  A thin script underneath identified St. Francis of Assisi.

The script, the hand, even the composition of the paper suggested a scriptorium, monks copying aphoristic sayings of the saints by candlelight.

More than two decades later I still think of this quote when I remember my mom.  The phrase captured a way of being that extended beyond the pulpit and pastor’s desk of her small parish church.  It propelled her into Habitat building projects, compelled her to visit the imprisoned, and made her a companion to the suffering.

Imagine my surprise to learn, after mom’s death, that this quote was something St. Francis never said.  Often attributed to St. Francis, the quote above (along with several variants) doesn’t appear in print before the 1990s.

Why St. Francis?

Discovering this raised some questions for me.  Why associate this quote with St. Francis in the first place?  What is it about this quote that is so compelling that it so quickly became received as saintly wisdom?  How should the ideas in this quote be appropriated?

It’s not difficult to imagine why this quote became associated with St. Francis.  His life and legend encapsulate a radical commitment to follow Christ as literally as possible.  Jesus said, “Take nothing for your journey…no bread, no bag, no money in your belts.”  And Francis followed breadless, bagless, and moneyless.  A quote as all engrossing as “preach the gospel at all times” fits the radical personality of St. Francis.

Additionally, St. Francis is well known for his innovative ways of communicating the gospel.  He is the first to have organized a Christmas pageant, complete with live animals, as a way of communicating the story of Christmas to rural and largely illiterate people.  So the sentiment seems to fit.  “Preach the gospel always… use words occasionally.”

On the other hand, I’m not so sure Francis would have approved.  His desire to embody obedient service to Christ was not in conflict with articulate preaching.  Francis’ famous sermon to the birds is a telling case in point.

Traveling between two distinct preaching missions with two of his friars, Francis stopped to speak to a large group of birds in the woods.  Francis said,

“My little sisters the birds, ye owe much to God, your Creator, and ye ought to sing his praise at all times and in all places, because he has given you liberty to fly about into all places; and though ye neither spin nor sew, he has given you a twofold and a threefold clothing for yourselves and for your offspring. Two of all your species he sent into the Ark with Noah that you might not be lost to the world; besides which, he feeds you, though ye neither sow nor reap. He has given you fountains and rivers to quench your thirst, mountains and valleys in which to take refuge, and trees in which to build your nests; so that your Creator loves you much, having thus favored you with such bounties. Beware, my little sisters, of the sin of ingratitude, and study always to give praise to God.” 

This is quite a verbal exhortation!  It was also an example to the brothers who were accompanying him.  St. Francis was a master communicator.  Might he have been modeling a robust verbal proclamation, one that even included birds?

Still, there is something compelling about this little aphorism.  Almost 100 years after the social gospel/soteriological gospel split of the early 20th century this quote spoke to both sides of the divide.  “Preach the gospel at all times” is a slogan that would fit within the world of evangelicalism.  The emphasis in this part of the phrase is on preaching and gospel.  There is an active engagement in the conversion of others.  “When necessary use words” subverts this elevation of word over action and strongly suggests “actions speak louder than words.”  This fits quite well within the mainline Protestant insistence on demonstrating faith by doing justice, establishing mercy ministries, and reserving judgment.

By holding these two clauses together, and by attributing itself to a catholic saint, our little phrase offers itself to the whole church.  Yes to words.  Yes to deeds.  This is the wisdom of the church throughout the ages.

St. Francis is well known for his innovative ways of communicating the gospel @releasetheape

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What Should We Do?

How might we appropriately apply the wisdom of this little phrase attributed to St. Francis?

A negative example is one I see from time to time among well meaning Christians.  When challenged to become active participants in witness to their neighbors or in evangelism, this phrase is invoked.  The sentences that follow often say things like, “I don’t really do evangelism.  I like to…you know… just live my life… and be kind to people.”  Or, “People who like evangelism are so pushy.  I’d just rather let my life speak for itself.”

I’d never question the value of kindness or celebrate insensitivity.  Still these examples misappropriate the phrase and misunderstand the saint to whom it is attributed.  There are two reasons for this.  First, kindness is not self-interpreting.  If I help my neighbor carry in his groceries, he might think I’m a nice guy, a good neighbor, or buttering him up so that I can ask for a favor later.  There is little, if any, hope that my neighbor will say, “You must be a follower of Jesus.”

The second reason this example misappropriates the phrase is that it under estimates the value St. Francis had for words.  If St. Francis valued verbal preaching enough to include birds as hearers, I doubt it’s legitimate to appeal to him as the patron saint of ‘being nice’.

kindness is not self-interpreting. We have to explain with words why Jesus leads us to act certain…

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Integrity

A positive application of this aphorism would be an appeal to integrity, intentionality, and to evangelism as spiritual formation.  This aphorism calls for an integrity between creed and deed.  It is not enough simply to recite the creed on Sunday and live as a functional atheist the rest of the week.  St. Francis’ radical commitment to follow Jesus as literally as possible continues to gain admirers and followers hundreds of years later.  What would happen if ordinary Christians emulated his promiscuous generosity, truth telling, courage, and love?

Intentionality

Preaching the gospel in word and deed is not possible without intentionality.  Gospel articulations abound.  Tragically, many Christians are timid about articulating the gospel and find themselves unprepared when the opportunity comes to talk about it.  A great step of intentionality might be learning a gospel outline and asking a friend over for coffee to talk about it.  (I recommend one called the ‘four circles’ or the book Based on a True Story by James Choung, but there are plenty of great resources to choose from.)  Another great step of intentionality is to think through the people you interact with during the day / week.  Write their names down and pray for God’s blessing on them.  You might pray a passage like John 16:8 and ask that you might have opportunity to talk with them about Jesus.

Spiritual Formation

While evangelism can often feel like a dirty word, I’d suggest that this little phrase helps us to engage it as a part of our spiritual formation.  What if we took on the habit of praying every day for a month that we would find a creative means to ‘preach the gospel’ today?  How would that shape us?

When opportunities present themselves, (and they will if we are willing to see them) what would happen if we’d already decided we would enter the awkward zone in a friends life offering prayer, blessing them, or asking about their spiritual background?  These practices would shape us.  Perhaps, if we did this over time, we might become people who could “Preach the gospel at all times… when necessary, use words”.

How does this post challenge you to not only live out, but speak the gospel?