Who is your Jesus?

*From the August edition of the St Helena's Cross Finder, available online here.*

“My mother died, but not for me. My father died too, but not for me. Jesus died for me.”

The conviction, compassion, and joy with which he offered these words require more than a context, but the context helps, too: a small, Ethiopian child -- orphaned by AIDS -- answering in determined response to the question, “Who is your Jesus?”

Who is your Jesus? The man who asked the question was himself a believer, but a believer jealous for the conviction, compassion, and joy of this child. In response to this joy, and in search of it, too, Dan Merchant reflected on the divisiveness -- the anti-joy -- that so often marks conversations of faith in this country and, as he was honest, in his own life. Why? His formal reflections took the shape of a film, “Lord, Save Us from Your Followers,” which in turn has been the stimulus for a new conversation among some of us here at St. Helena’s these past six or so weeks.

About twenty of us took turns participating in the weekly conversation: we wondered out loud what it is to love someone else; we asked in honesty why the desire to love can unintentionally turn violent -- become frustrated; we talked about the difficulty of loving a person without changing them. Am I even able to change them? Who is ‘them’?

The conversation was always lively, but not without focus. Always, the questions outnumbered the answers. What does it look like to embody the love found in Jesus? What is mission? What is the price of my being right? Is it worth in? How do I relate my faith to my country? What about forgiveness? How do I relate to those who perceive me as attaching preconditions to the life that we would share? Indeed, on some days, the questions seemed so thick, so impenetrable -- the task before us so impossible -- that despair became a viable temptation.

I am so glad our Lord leads us not into temptation!

Instead, what we found -- what I found -- was that even as the group disbanded on a given Wednesday night -- exasperated at the real challenges to reaching out and loving others -- we had already begun the work. God was working in our midst. After all, who were we? Not one-minded, certainly. Many of us literally began a night as strangers, only to end it in embrace. In place of despair, we found a gathering set apart by prayer, marked by safety, trust, and mutual respect. This allowed us to keep the question always before us; put differently, “How should she act as a Christian?” very soon became “As a Christian, how do I reach out in love to her?”

I share all of this as an encouragement: holy friendships are where our stories meet the story of the Risen Jesus and -- thanks be to God! -- the story of God holds, molds, and challenges us here. Where have you seen this? I pray that you’ve found this.

Who is your Jesus? Would you trust him to meet you in others?

More 'For the Time Being'...

So apparently Auden's oratorio runs some 50-something pages. We'll have to get the book. That said, here's another snippet:

ADVENT

Chorus

Darkness and snow descend;
The clock on the mantlepiece
Has nothing to recommend,
Nor does the face in the glass
Appear nobler than our own
As darkness and snow descend
On all personality.
Huge crowds mumble -”Alas,
Our angers do not increase,
Love is not what she used to be”;
Portly Caesar yawns – “I know”;
He falls asleep on his throne,
They shuffle off through the snow:
Darkness and snow descend.

Auden and the Untamed Kingdom

We Christians find regular (if unsolicited) reminders that the Kingdom of God is an untamed Kingdom. Think Lewis' "not-a-tame" lion; and, if you're an Episcopalian, think hymns 463 and 464 in the 1982 Hymnal (don't worry, they are both versions of the final poem at the end of this blog entry--you can read them here). (The latter has been put to a contemporary setting that I pray will soon be shared by good friend and musician Bryce Boddie.) I have found unspeakable grace in the words of these hymns since my CPE days, but I have only recently discovered the hymn in light of the preceding poem from the oratorio for which WH Auden originally wrote the verses. Here they are (both parts of the larger poem), if slightly out of season, and never totally out of season, by virtue of the ordinary time to which the whole is pointed.


III
Well, so that is that.
Now we must dismantle the tree,
Putting the decorations back into their cardboard boxes -
Some have got broken – and carrying them up to the attic.
The holly and the mistletoe must be taken down and burnt,
And the children got ready for school. There are enough
Left-overs to do, warmed-up, for the rest of the week -
Not that we have much appetite, having drunk such a lot,
Stayed up so late, attempted – quite unsuccessfully -
To love all of our relatives, and in general
Grossly overestimated our powers. Once again
As in previous years we have seen the actual Vision and failed
To do more than entertain it as an agreeable
Possibility, once again we have sent Him away,
Begging though to remain His disobedient servant,
The promising child who cannot keep His word for long.
The Christmas Feast is already a fading memory,
And already the mind begins to be vaguely aware
Of an unpleasant whiff of apprehension at the thought
Of Lent and Good Friday which cannot, after all, now
Be very far off. But, for the time being, here we all are,
Back in the moderate Aristotelian city
Of darning and the Eight-Fifteen, where Euclid’s geometry
And Newton’s mechanics would account for our experience,
And the kitchen table exists because I scrub it.
It seems to have shrunk during the holidays. The streets
Are much narrower than we remembered; we had forgotten
The office was as depressing as this. To those who have seen
The Child, however dimly, however incredulously,
The Time Being is, in a sense, the most trying time of all.
For the innocent children who whispered so excitedly
Outside the locked door where they knew the presents to be
Grew up when it opened. Now, recollecting that moment
We can repress the joy, but the guilt remains conscious;
Remembering the stable where for once in our lives
Everything became a You and nothing was an It.
And craving the sensation but ignoring the cause,
We look round for something, no matter what, to inhibit
Our self-reflection, and the obvious thing for that purpose
Would be some great suffering. So, once we have met the Son,
We are tempted ever after to pray to the Father;
“Lead us into temptation and evil for our sake.”
They will come, all right, don’t worry; probably in a form
That we do not expect, and certainly with a force
More dreadful than we can imagine. In the meantime
There are bills to be paid, machines to keep in repair,
Irregular verbs to learn, the Time Being to redeem
From insignificance. The happy morning is over,
The night of agony still to come; the time is noon:
When the Spirit must practice his scales of rejoicing
Without even a hostile audience, and the Soul endure
A silence that is neither for nor against her faith
That God’s Will will be done,
That, in spite of her prayers,
God will cheat no one, not even the world of its triumph.

IV
CHORUS

He is the Way.
Follow Him through the Land of Unlikeness;
You will see rare beasts, and have unique adventures.

He is the Truth.
Seek Him in the Kingdom of Anxiety;
You will come to a great city that has expected your return for years.

He is the Life.
Love Him in the World of the Flesh;
And at your marriage all its occasions shall dance for joy.

(W H Auden – 1907-1973)

experiment #2: books are for binding

Books record the voices of the saints throughout their many times. Books also, as good Episcopalians know, unite a people of one time. And while good friends share good books almost as a matter of instinct, good books can be difficult to find. All of this is my rambling rationale for experiment #2 (sequel to the WILDLY successful free lunch gig :P ): 'BOOKS ARE FOR BINDING'. The gist is this:

1) I am committed to cataloging my own library over time (give me a while) on the hugely cool website librarything.com.

2) Folks nearby (and especially St. Helena's folks!) need to know that this library is open -- these books are yours to check-out! -- and you can even search through them from the net.

3) Individuals with similarly helpful Christian resources are invited (indeed, encouraged) to likewise catalog your books on librarything.com, and, if you're willing, to form a multi-site, common library (remember Acts 2!). Let me know when you do, and we'll arrange to link our resources on the web.

Of course this is a small, scrape the surface reminder that the gifts of God are for the glory of God and the up-building of the Church -- but it is a first chapter!

Wednesday's Meditation: "being for another the story of Christ"

Matthew 10:1-7

The Twelve Apostles

10Then Jesus summoned his twelve disciples and gave them authority over unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to cure every disease and every sickness. ²These are the names of the twelve apostles: first, Simon, also known as Peter, and his brother Andrew; James son of Zebedee, and his brother John; ³Philip and Bartholomew; Thomas and Matthew the tax-collector; James son of Alphaeus, and Thaddaeus; ⁴Simon the Cananaean, and Judas Iscariot, the one who betrayed him.

The Mission of the Twelve

5 These twelve Jesus sent out with the following instructions: ‘Go nowhere among the Gentiles, and enter no town of the Samaritans, ⁶but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. ⁷As you go, proclaim the good news, “The kingdom of heaven has come near.”

When I think of apostles, I think of those closest to Jesus, which of course is to forget what the word means altogether: 'apostle' means 'sent'. Today, in our gospel, Jesus gives the ones to whom he's closest the privilege of being sent.

I think of Jesus, I think of this gospel, and I'm reminded of the words to an old country song: "How can I miss you if you won't go away?"

It is a strange thing that the ones closest to Jesus would be sent farthest away, but then it's also strange that the one who would be greatest must be like one who serves. That is, it's a strangeness we've come to expect from this Jesus.

A slight aside: I often hear folks remark that they need more quiet time, time spent close with God--and sure this is a good thing! a true and right instinct--but I seldom hear folks say, "I've spent my time with God, now show me some strangers!"

In fact, a small group of us, a small group from church, meeting on Wednesdays, had been hoping to enter into conversation with folks outside of the Church--non-Christians--we wanted their insights--we longed to hear their stories--when we were suddenly humbled to realize two things:

One: we didn't have many non-Christian friends, even between us,

Two: the non-Christians we did know weren't at all interested in being guinea pigs for a small group in our church.

How can I miss you if you won't go away?

We are called--all of us--to go away.

The theologian and teacher Stanley Hauerwas writes this about apostles and sending:

"Christianity is not a philosophy that can be learned separate from those who embody it. If the truth that is Christ were a truth that could be known 'in principle' then we would not need apostles. But the way the gospel is known is by one person being for another the story of Christ. Jesus summons the disciples to him, and, so summoned, they become for us the witnesses who make it possible for us to be messengers of the kingdom. The disciples are not impressive people, but then, neither are we. Their mission, as well as our own, is not to call attention to ourselves but to Jesus and the kingdom."

To call attention to Jesus and the kingdom--to be sent out--yes, to come--and to be sent out again--this is our calling.

Who was it, I wonder, in your life, who first embodied the story of Jesus for you?

To whom might you embody--to whom might we embody--the story of Jesus still?

Scripture, God's People, and the Three-Legged Race

There has been some renewed talk of late -- much of it connected to the Church’s ongoing struggle to biblically interact with the issue of homosexuality -- pertaining to the Anglican notion of the so-called “three-legged stool”. The ‘stool’ (we desperately need a better name) is said to consist of the three tools available to the Church’s ongoing moral discernment: Scripture, Tradition, and Reason. The conversation, especially to the extent that it applies to divisive issues of Christian living, largely gravitates around the suggestion that Scripture alone is normative for the Christian faithful. Extreme conservatives, on cue, (mistakenly) cite the Reformation doctrine of sola scriptura (found nowhere in Luther -- or anywhere else through the 16th century, at least); and extreme liberals, also on cue, react against the notion of Scripture as of primary importance by the inclusion of resources that consciously diminish the preeminence of Scripture. I do not want to revisit either of the extremes in this space, but only to offer another understanding of the stool as descriptive (not normative) with respect to the Church’s reading of Scripture. This understanding is intentionally simplistic; it is also an understanding that reflects what I want to suggest is the most pertinent question: with whom (or where) does one read Scripture?

As a child, and even now, I understood the three-legged stool as a descriptive -- not a normative -- approach. That is, Tradition and Reason were not, for me, two extra resources available for those occasions when Scripture proved difficult and did not have the strength for the job; rather, Tradition and Reason described what happened when I came upon Scripture. As simply as I understood it, Reason was hard at work the moment I read the text and presumed to get the gist; Tradition occurred in the instant that I read alongside another one (dead or alive) who had read it before.

That Reason was present in my reading could be proved by Tradition; that is, when I read a text next to another person who read the same text, and when we read that same text with different understandings, I became aware that some variable in each of us produced the discrepancy. I learned to call that variable 'Reason'.

That Tradition was a descriptive aspect of my reading is something I am still learning not to take for granted. To me, Tradition simply means, “reading with others,” and I am still at a loss for why anyone would want to engage Scripture alone. It is not (just) that Scripture is frequently daunting and difficult; it is also that I do not understand why someone who did not believe herself called into the whole Body of Christ would want to read Scripture. (Don’t get me wrong, I thank God that folks do, but that’s my blind-spot as a cradle Episcopalian. My first encounter with Scripture is in worship.) Still, I would not back off from my claim that Tradition is descriptive (not normative) of the Church’s approach to Scripture; to be sure, it is the claim that Scripture’s reading belongs to the whole of Christ's Church that is normative.

For the Christian faithful, called together by the Triune God for worship of the same, Scripture is the location of those faithful in the story of God; it is our shaping at the hand of God; our playing at the feet of God; our learning of the wounds of God; our sharing in the heart of God. It does not happen alone. And that is precisely the rub when it comes to our current controversies, which might be summed, “Can’t I read without them?” But when you and I meet, face to face, under the Word of God preached to God’s People, make no mistake, it’s a three-legged race. It is the race of a People given over to God.

grace, its pursuit, and tennis balls

**From the upcoming edition of St Helena's Cross Finder (July, 2009)**

Here is the grace which our soul is seeking now, and which it will ever seek until that day when we know for a fact that he has wholly united us to himself.

Dame Julian of Norwich [c. 1417]

The Catholic theologian G.K. Chesterton once wrote that the thing that makes human beings appreciatively different from, say, dogs is the human’s ability to discern the meaning of symbols. Point to a ball, said Chesterton, and the human being will walk right up to it, while your doggie friend (man’s best or not) will only look back -- politely, perhaps -- and blink. Therein, he says, is the distinction that marks the human from the animal order. Maybe he’s right...I don’t know.

On most days, I’d like to hold out hope that my own dog, Lewis, might at last catch on to the gist of my own finger extended, pointing him to the lie of his mud-caked green ball; equally, but in the other direction, I do not find myself as enthusiastically convinced (as Chesterton) that the human being, so pointed, will make a great deal more sense of the action. Or have you ever pointed -- with the whole of your heart -- toward an end you desired -- with the whole of your heart -- for a person you loved -- with the whole of your heart -- only to have that one sit still and blink?

Me too.

It is sometimes painfully obvious that instilling new perspectives, new actions, new hope -- CHANGE -- is not the sort of thing that you or I can will for another (fill in the blank) child, parent, friend, whomever.

Which brings us back to my dog. Lewis and I spend hours together, playing together, running together. He and I can tell you every bounce and inch of the yard we share. Throw a ball one thousand times and no probability goes untested. Occasionally, though, he’ll loose sight of a ball tossed high in the air, and he’ll panic. The yard that -- one toss before -- had held our common familiarity, now, in this moment, becomes a challenge to him. These are the moments I test ol’ G.K.: as Lewis looks to me, eyes begging direction, I turn and I point to the spot of the ball.

He never finds it.

Not with me standing there, hollering, encouraging, pointing. But then, if I’m patient, I’ll take a step forward in the direction of my point -- and then another. Mind you, I don’t get the ball for him (after all, who’s training who?), but I do give him a living sense of the direction I intend. By three steps in -- even toward a ball some fifty yards off -- he’s got it.

Two Sunday mornings ago I was uniquely struck by our prayers in the early morning liturgy (hang with me here). We were praying the Prayers of the People -- and more specifically the petition for “bishops and other ministers, that they may set forth, both by their life and doctrine, thy true and lively Word...” As I listened -- prayed these words -- the union of life and doctrine could not have rung more truly: doctrine and living; pointing and walking; belief not being separable from the living pursuit by which that truth is embodied in the faithful.

There is not -- I am convinced -- one soul among us who does not desire to share the truth she has found in the Good News of Jesus: that sins are forgiven (even mine); that old wounds are healed (even mine); that mercy is the flood and drenching promise made to each and every child of God (even me). Even so, may we remember -- that is, may we never forget! -- that the surest means of sharing our fervor, of relaying this truth, remains in every moment to walk, together, toward the ball -- even the abounding grace we find as a People in Christ Jesus our Lord.