Articulating a Fear

I am a creature of pride.

I dearly love to rest my laurels on what I have done, have already accomplished, rather than prepare myself for difficult work I will have to do in the present.  Never mind the future.  I can easily imagine some parts of the future: working for TFA, getting a degree from ECU, being ordained.  I cannot imagine the nearer, more difficult future: teaching content I don't know, running IEP meetings, staying up late into the night.  It's the same way I find myself feeling about fiction: I love the beginning of a book more than the end.  I like to have more books than I possibly have time to read (and graduate school encouraged me in this!).  I prefer potential energy to sustained effort.  It isn't at all the case that I would rather be ashes than dust.  I would rather be a matchhead than ashes!

When I was in high school, I thought of myself as a counselor.  Endless patience, untold wisdom, slow to speak and quick to listen.  I am not so patient now, for I have a much higher opinion of myself, a more inflated view of my self-worth.  I am much more important to me than I ever was then.  Is it ironic that this should be a product of other's generous investment of love in me?

What draws me most into ministry now is the task of preaching.  Boy, do I think I have an awful lot to say!  And yet, my experience of preaching is that yes, I do.  I have received overwhelmingly positive feedback about the preaching I have been privileged to perform.  Many have seen in me a gift and cared enough to name it to my soul, supporting my self-worth but inflating my pride.  Oh, how vain I am!  Who shall rescue me from this body of sin?

Like Paul, I know the answer.  Yet I have not achieved it.  Nor can I.

I brought up preaching because I believe that I have much to say.  My dad first pointed this out to me when he told me I was like a sponge: I've been soaking this stuff in for so long that now it will come out in a veritable wave.  I do have a lot to say... to myself.

My own preaching exercises a powerful hold over my own imagination.  Surely, pride is wrapped up in that, but it has come as an unbidden dream on a regular basis.  Even in high school, when I was certain I was not called - because I had never heard the voice of one calling - I still imagined myself preaching. What drove that dream was the one that drove my patience as well: I wanted other people to be happy.  I wanted them to feel loved... by me?  By God.  I wanted to love God.

When I preach, I find out I do love God.  I experience the pull of God's love into the love of Father for Son, caught up in that mystic sweet communion on interpenetrating, mysterious, hold-nothing-back fully-knowing-fully-known love.  It is a grace that stays with me: remembering my Advent sermon - there is a love stronger than death! - still has the power to bring me to tears.  So too does asking the question "How do you say goodbye?"

But now I need strength.  I need self-emptying grace.  I need, more than anything, humility and patience.  And courage.  I need, to quote myself again, the fully human power that Jesus showed us from the cross: the power to rush headlong into darkness and death for the sake of others.

I can imagine an ending because the end is when I can make sense again.

I need grace for the present because it is, of course, not about me at all.

All Christianities Need Each Other

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/15/opinion/sunday/douthat-can-liberal-christianity-be-saved.html?smid=fb-share

The above article is one that raced around facebook for a few days and at least one friend asked me directly to respond to.  I'm certain I could say much more, but I wanted to at least post my initial thoughts (also visible on her facebook page) out here and see if I get any more traffic :-)

I'll mostly focus my response on this quote: "Traditional believers, both Protestant and Catholic, have not necessarily thrived in this environment. The most successful Christian bodies have often been politically conservative but theologically shallow, preaching a gospel of health and wealth rather than the full New Testament message." There comes a point at which it becomes, arguably, impossible to find and locate a "true" or "pure" Christianity. I remember at Houghton a guest lecturer claiming that "holiness" and "justice" in the OT were the same word (same concept maybe, but definitely different words...). But I think that many conservative / liberal divides can be reduced to the different pursuits that they have, conservatives for holiness and liberals for justice.

Along the same lines, my personal description of "liberal" Christianity is grounded in my Houghton study of "Enlightenment" v. "Post-modernity." Everyone gets angry at the Enlightenment for exalting a glorified, (supposedly) neutral version of capital R Reason over experience or, in conservative circles, scripture. Liberal Christianity, to my mind, has swung the pendulum far in the other direction: nothing can contradict my capital E Experience, not a (supposedly) neutral vision of Reason (that is little more than rich, educated, white men's cultural values) and certainly not Scripture. If scripture is found to be inconsistent with my experience, then what is true must be what I have experienced. The exaltation of the individual over tradition, of experience over reason or of scripture continues to progress further and further.

Now, the question that looms in my mind is, to refer to my first comment, can you actually find a "pure" balance between these things? I think rather not. I have been deeply moved by the profound generosity and deep love of those who my conservatives friends would consider not "real" Christians. I have been supported and sheltered by the conservative Christians whose vision of true faith and holiness has shaped me and helped me grow into whatever it is that I am. I can use reason, scripture, tradition or experience to find healthy love for God and desire to serve God's kingdom among either side of the so-called "divide." But, again, all I need to do is turn to my original post: our scripture and our tradition witness to both of these strains being present and even appropriate. Most of the prophets and even the book of James have a lot to say about why we need to work for justice and that the pursuit of holiness should take a backseat (this is the path TEC sees itself on). The priestly strains of the Old Testament and a lot of Pauline material emphasizes holiness rather than justice.

This is the way that I think about denominationalism. No one denomination has all the pieces of biblical faith truly or even fully or even adequately represented. I am deeply grateful that I grew up in the Holiness movement, inspired by worship and humility (that I arguably never had much of) in the presence of God. I grew deeper in faith because I encountered Pentecostalism and new forms of prayer and even speaking and praying in tongues, practices I admire and respect. I landed in TEC because I found set of trinitarian doctrines and practices in the Anglican Communion that have shaped and changed me, my understanding of God and of the world and human relationships. I'm even slowly coming to be thankful for the ways that being in a hierarchical Episcopal church are shaping my views of authority. All of these strands are important pieces of the faith to which the Bible witnesses. No denomination does all of them well. I for one am glad that I have gotten to spend time at IHOP (KC) as well as YDS as well as Houghton College and a whole slew of Wesleyan youth camps where I have been exposed to and deeply shaped by all of them. While I see excesses and flaws in each of them, I wouldn't dare presume to invalidate any of them as being Christian because I see honest, faithful people pursuing God in each of them.

Control

On reflection, I'm surprised that it took me this long to get to this point.  Starting this blog, I hoped to post once every two weeks.  I didn't meet that goal at all, but I did at least post once a month until May.  That's the better part of half a year.

I have to confess now, though, that I'm disappointed with myself.  Even though I wrote an entire sermon on transitions and interruptions (see "The Pruning Shears of God" post), a lot of my disciplines went out the window in this last month and a half.  I could make a lot of excuses, and maybe even give a couple of reasons.  But there have been so many times that TFA has given me excellent reflection material that I have failed to put up here it is embarrassing.  I have thought several times about posting those things, and just haven't applied myself to doing so.  Now I wish I had.

This is going to be one of my greatest growing edges as I transition into this new phase of my life: taking initiative.  Taking control over my own disciplines.

If self-control is a muscle, it is one I have developed in some ways.  I meet my academic deadlines.  I respond to most e-mails within a couple of days.  I get myself up for church every Sunday morning.  I call my wife every night and text her every morning. 

In other ways, though, self-control is a fruit of the Spirit I wish were more of a vegetable I childishly leave on my plate.  Of the last thirty days since heading to TFA Induction / Institute, I have done morning prayer maybe six or seven times.  I have read scripture a handful more than that, in the evenings when my work is done early (rare) and my roommate isn't around (rarer still). 

I have allowed, like so many others, the places I have lived and studied done the structural work of my spiritual life for me.  In college I had chapel, Koinonia and Mercy Seat to guide my weekly reading and study.  In seminary I had daily morning prayer, daily chapel, and a whole hose of other gatherings with friends.  Now I have only the random, unsought blessings of surprising conversations with new friends with whom I share a common and comfortable understanding.  Yet even in those moments of unexpected joy, little intimacy is shared.  I have been so blessed to share such depths with friends in the last several years that the intentionality that provides the structure for that deep intimacy has become subconscious.  If I am to continue to grow in the next two years, I need the Spirit to grant me the self-control to re-embrace that same intentionality: within new friendships, within ministry opportunities, within myself.

This is my prayer of supplication as I finish Institute this coming week and as I transition yet again towards NC.  But along with it goes a prayer of thanksgiving for today, for allowing myself to be interrupted from morning prayer (I was one collect away from finishing) and accepting an invitation to come to Starbucks, where I'm writing right now.  Perhaps I internalized my sermon more than I thought :-)

The Pruning Shears of God

Jesus said “I am the vine, and my Father is the vinegrower.  I am the true vine, and you are the branches.”

May I speak in the name of the risen Christ. Amen.

This Thursday, I took a final exam – hopefully my final exam – at the Divinity School,

Fittingly, I think, for a class called “Transitional Moments in Western Christian History, Part II.”

In the first half of that class, the final exam had an essay question on it:

What makes a moment transitional?

It’s a question that Greg Ganssle knocked out of the park last week with his front-porch analogy:

Transition is not unusual.

Transition // is the new normal.

The epistle reading from 1 John is trying to re-wire our hearts for a new normal.

“Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and 

knows God.  Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love.  God’s love was revealed among us in this way: God sent his only Son into the world so that we might live through him.  In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins.”

In just four verses, John uses the word love ten times.

Twenty-five times in the reading for today alone.  I didn’t bother to count the whole book.

John wants the normal setting of our hearts to be love for God, love for each other,

Love all the time.

Including times of transition.

In fact, reading 1 John through the lens of transition goes a step further.

It isn’t just that we should love all the time.

It isn’t that we have to maintain our love through times of transition.

Love demands that we undergo radical transition.

The real heart of love is not what we think we have for God.

The real heart of love is what God has for us, what God did for us.

The real heart of love is that God loved us first, and sent his only Son into the world

That we might live through him.

Love demanded reconciliation for our sins.

Love became an atoning sacrifice for our sins.

Love is incarnation, the word of God, the love of God made flesh for us.

If you want to know about transition, hear these words from Phillipians:

He did not consider equality with God –

Which he had –

Something to be exploited.

He emptied himself,

Taking the very nature of a servant,

Becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross.

Our faith is founded on the greatest transitions of all time,

The transition of love:

Incarnation.  Crucifixion.  Resurrection.  Ascension.

Ascension brings with it some pretty incredible transitions.

The book of Acts in one sense is the Acts of the Apostles,

A model for the church in transition that we could very easily imitate:

Sharing all things in common,

Giving to all who have need,

Gathering for prayer.

But in another sense the book of Acts is a more singular Act of the Holy Spirit,

An unrelenting presence of unexpected love sustaining this new body called the church

Through a whirlwind time of transition.

The Book of Acts catalogues that fractured sense of time when every follower of Jesus

Struggles to figure out what it means follow Jesus with Jesus not around.

The Holy Spirit somehow shows up in the middle of their struggle,

Stretching and expanding their communities to new forms, new definitions, even new locations.

One of the things that makes transition so difficult for us is that transition marks a time when we don’t 

know what we can expect.

I still remember the words of a professor during my orientation at the divinity school:

“If you are exhausted, that is ok.

The basic neural pathways that form your base expectations for everyday living are all being upended.”

Where’s the bathroom?  Where’s the water fountain?  When are we going to eat?  Where even are we?  What’s going on?

Adjusting to a new time, a new place, a new set of relationships takes a lot of work.

Transition is exhausting,

Because we don’t know what we can expect

Or even what we should expect.

I’ve always been struck by the question John Bonk asks about the gospels:

[And forgive me, John, for misquoting you so terribly]

What are we left with of Jesus life if we take away all the interruptions?

Jesus’ life on earth – his incarnational life of love, the greatest transition ever known –

Is constantly filled with interruptions.  Heal me.  Son of David have mercy on me.  Who is this woman?  Teacher, we caught this woman in the act of adultery.  Should we pay taxes to Caesar?  Teacher, what marvelous stones!  These people are hungry, and we have no food.  Lazarus has died.  How can I enter the kingdom of heaven?

Jesus is always getting interrupted.

And he always responds with patience, letting the other that he encounters set the agenda.

If our faith is founded on the greatest transition of all time,

One of the marks of discipleship should be a healthy relationship with transition, with interruption.

One of the marks of our discipleship should be our ability to respond to interruptions by patiently letting others set the agenda.

One of the marks of our discipleship should be

That we think transition is normal.

Philip gives us a great example of this.

What’s that?  Walk down the wilderness road?

OK.

Go over to the chariot with the foreigner in it?

OK.

Explain to me what I’m reading!

OK.

By the way, we’re just gonna drive this chariot around a little bit while you explain.

OK.

What is there to prevent me from being baptized?

OK.  Let’s do it!

Poof!  You’re in Azotus.

OK.  No big deal.  Guess I’ll just do some preaching then.

Philip embraces transition.  He isn’t surprised by it.  He isn’t fazed by interruption.

He’s the perfect example of how we should apply those words from 1 Peter:

Be prepared, in season and out of season, to give an account of the hope which is in you.

In season and out of season. 

Transitions are going to happen.  They are normal for a disciple of Jesus.

Times and seasons are constantly changing.

What has to remain constant is our ability to listen to the Holy Spirit,

To speak of the hope that we have in Jesus,

To know      that we are rooted in the love of God our Father.

St. John’s Episcopal Church at Orange and Humphrey is at a new time of transition.

St. John’s is in a time when we don’t know what to expect,

And we don’t even know what we should expect.

St. John’s is in a time when what was normal for the last few years has been interrupted.

The temptation is going to be intentional about setting our own schedules,

Trying to figure out exactly what we want and exactly who we want to be,

To create a plan of action and to follow it through,

To set our own agenda.

That kind of thinking, of community awareness, of intentionality has its place.

But Brothers and sisters, we need to be cautious about walking down that broadly defined road.

Today I articulate as challenge to all of us – myself included, in my own time of post-graduation transition –

The challenge to slow down,

To pay attention to the things that annoy us -

About ourselves, our communities, the relationships we have, the tasks we don’t want to do –

The things that interrupt the lives we want to lead.

I call that challenge listening for the Holy Spirit.

We have before us the challenge to act with patience,

To respond to every difficult question that comes before us

To let other people set the agenda.

In this time of transition,

We must ask for and let our hearts be re-wired to a new normal,

To the very heart of love that is God’s very self,

The mystery of faith: Jesus Christ crucified, risen, and coming again.

Transitions and interruptions are challenges to our expectations.

When we listen for the Holy Spirit’s voice,

When we let ourselves abide in the life-changing love of Jesus Christ,

Transitions and interruptions remind us that our lives and our communities are not / about / us.

Transitions and interruptions become the very acts of God.

Transitions and interruptions are the pruning shears of God,

Reminding us that we are the branches,

Grafted onto the true vine,

Who wanders and grows not on its own, or according to its own path,

But is itself pruned and guided by the very hand and love of God the Father.

Amen.

How Do You Say Goodbye?

May I speak in the name of Christ who sends the sweet, sweet Spirit to this place.  Amen.

How do you say goodbye?

Imagine.
.
.
.

Spending three years of your life with the same group of people.

You’ll see them at their best and their worst.

You’ll be annoyed at them. Laugh at their jokes. Watch them cry,   across the room. Pray for them.

Get angry at them sometimes.  Maybe hate them.  Feel rejected by them.

You’ll be desperate for solitude, for silence, for personal space.

You’ll be so lonely you can’t stand it. 

You’ll know every detail of their personality. 

You might know something of their faith.

If you’re lucky, you’ll treasure them always.

 

The thing about goodbye is,     you can see it from a long way off.

But you don’t really believe it will come.

In my mind, it’s kind of like death that way.

Right after graduating college, my choir toured Europe.

Some simple goodbyes were easy.

“You won’t see me for a little while.

After a little while you’ll see me again.”

My best friend Ryan was on the choir tour.

We saw goodbye, but didn’t believe it would come.

8 hours on the plane from Rome to JFK.

12 hours from JFK to Houghton, and I have never been sicker.

Packing until 3 am.

A flight at 8, an hour a way.

Up at 5 to shower, still sick.

Ryan put my suitcase in the trunk at 6.

I opened my mouth to say the words,

And all I could do was cry.

There are certain things you can’t just say to certain people.

You have to use the wrong words

To get at what you really mean.

Good-bye.

I love you.

Jesus can’t shut up in the gospel of John.

You know where I’m going.  There are many mansions there.  I’ll send the comforter.  I am the vine, You are the branches.  Abide in me.  Greater love has no man than this: that he lay his life down for his friend.  You will grieve, but your grief will turn to joy.  I pray, Father, that they all may be one.

Prophecy?  Philsophy?  Theology, metaphysics?

No.

Jesus is human like the rest of us,

Afraid. 

Hurting.

He’s trying to say goodbye.

He’s trying to say I love you.

I count it a deep tragedy that in my three years here, I have heard

And I have used

All the wrong words.

I have only said the words “I love you” to a handful of people.

I have only heard them from a handful of people.

And believe me, both saying them and hearing them is terrifying.

Those words are powerful.

It costs us something to say them.

No wonder we use the wrong words!

It is so much easier to only hint at what we really mean.

I think we die a little bit to ourselves each time we say them.

It is any wonder I strain so hard to hear the calling placed on my life?

Is it any wonder I strain so hard to hear God’s voice saying “Shane, I love you?”

The right message is covered up in the wrong words.

The problem with saying good bye is that what we really mean is “I love you,”

But we never found the time or the words to say it.

My prayer for all of us –

Seniors coming to graduation,

Middlers and Juniors with lots of time left before their final goodbye.,

Inspired by the sweet sweet spirit in this place,

Is that we find the times and the places to say “I love you” to each other,

To die to ourselves.

To let the sweet, sweet Spirit fill us with God’s new life.

With God’s very self.

Then, goodbye can be simple.

Because love will already be so,

                                                            So,

                                                                   So very deep.

Amen.