“The Jesus Manifesto” by Leonard Sweet and Frank Viola
The Jesus Manifesto: Restoring the Supremacy and Sovereignty of Jesus Christ by Leonard Sweet and Frank Viola is generally not a book I would pick up on my own volition. I participate in Thomas Nelson’s Booksneeze program that lets me read books for free, provided I write up a review afterward. Since I figured my friend Aideen would like reading the book herself, I decided to give it a read. (It’s soon in the mail to you, my friend. I told you would like my most recent plotting.)
The book attempts to articulate Jesus Christ as the sum total of the Christian faith. The authors long to see Jesus Christ as the center and head of His Church. They would like to see Christians dwell deeply in the mystery of the person of Christ, becoming people of the Person in a living, dynamic relationship with the Truth that can captivate like only Love Incarnate can. For this the authors can be commended. They consider the life of Jesus in its totality. In particular, they exhort Christians to yield to the life of Christ within every child of God.
This book is risky for sure, especially among Protestants. The authors cannot discuss Christ as Incarnate God without considering the role of Mary and the Church as the Body of Christ. While Mary gets scant mention (4 out of 179 pages), the fact that she is mentioned at all is impressive for a book written by Protestants. The authors express a desire to provide razor-sharp cut-glass clarity on the Lord Jesus Christ; therefore it is worth mentioning that the book hints at adoptionism when discussing that Mary spent 3 years watching her son become the Son of God. Yet, that one small observation aside, I do think that this book is absolutely valid reading. Additionally, the authors discuss the need for a properly functioning Body of believers. The discussion in the chapter called “The House of Figs” is incredibly wonderfully constructed. Oh that Christ would empower a fruitful Church that receives Him as Master of the house!
The authors totally nailed the truth that Jesus Christ is the Rosetta Stone of the Scriptures. Everything in the entire Bible testifies to Him and must be read in light of Him. To put Christ at the absolute sum and center of the Christian’s obsession is to place Him in His rightful place. Christ is to be received on His own terms as master of the house. Many, many, many Christian leaders of all stripes would do well to focus exclusively on Christ. Whether we have our eyes fixed on our culture or words on a page, we have fixed them elsewhere than Christ.
I do think that Christians everywhere would do well to seek Christ as revealed to us in the Gospel — the One who came, dwelt among us, made visible the image of the invisible God, called to us, revealed the nature of the Law to us, healed the sick, proclaimed good news to the poor, liberated the captives, suffered alongside of us and for us, poured Himself out in the unimaginable love made manifest fully on the Cross, trampled down death by death, rose from the dead, ascended to Heaven, sits in glorified human flesh at the right-hand of God, prepared a place for us, and redeemed the whole of creation. May we have a Person-driven life, fully transfixed on God who is. May Christ implant Himself in us, taking up full residence within us.
And may we discover that in asking Christ “Who are You?” we encounter a question that has no last words.
Christ within us
Today is the Sunday of All Saints in the Orthodox Church. We hit All Saints Sunday after a week free from fasting (one of only 4 such weeks in the calendar year) because we thank God for His gift of His Holy Spirit at Pentecost. The gospel reading is a bit strange as it features selections from St Matthew’s Gospel as opposed to one contiguous passage. But the Sunday of All Saints gives me unique pause this year because of the mystery of being a saint.
I spoke yesterday about the need to embrace a Gospel that declares us to be sinners and saints to affirm the Divine Mystery of the Gospel. This Gospel declares that Christ works within us in addition to being wholly independent of us. And here we are, approaching the Sunday of All Saints. This Sunday is unique because we celebrate all Saints, rather than just the ones who have been revealed to the Church. Indeed, the number of Saints unknown to us far surpasses the number of Saints we celebrate. Only God knows all of His Saints.
But what of a Saint? Or even of a saint? A lot of people have never been to midweek liturgies of the Orthodox Church as many people have never been to a Sunday liturgy of the Orthodox Church. There’s an interesting acclamation which is sung on Sundays “O Son of God, who are risen from the dead, save us who sing to You: Alleluia!” that gets replaced during the midweek services “O Son of God, who are wondrous in Your saints, save us who sing to You: Alleluia!” We sing of the Resurrection on Sunday because Sunday is always the day of Resurrection, but during the daily services, we celebrate Christ’s work within our own human family.
Something about a saint permits God’s grace to shine through their cracked, earthen vessel. Something, or rather Someone, seems to shine through them in ways that we cannot even begin to articulate… we just know. These persons are real, authentic, simple, while at the same time being wholly other-worldly even in their ability to relate with such compassion to the world around them as a whole. I am convinced there’s a section of saints who fly totally under the radar in every way possible: God-honoring grandmothers.
We recognize a saint when we see Christ shining through their life. Christ’s ability to shine through our human frailty makes manifest some of the reasons why it was better that He returned to the Father. He manifests His incarnation, crucifixion and resurrection through very humble vessels indeed; a human vessel really no different from any of us. He permeates everything about them with His Grace, His Love, His Mercy, His Compassion… with Himself. They cannot help but point to Christ for He has captured their gaze. They “have seen the rabbit” and will not give up the chase, even if that chase takes them through sufferings, toils, pain, rejection, or any sort of nastiness.
Hebrews 11 tends to be an interesting passage. We would love to be among those who conquered kingdoms, enforced justice, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the power of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, were made strong out of weakness, became mighty in war, put foreign armies to flight. But in even reading this list, we tend to ignore “made strong out of weakness” and we surely wished the list did not continue to include those who were stoned, they were sawn in two, they were killed with the sword. They went about in skins of sheep and goats, destitute, afflicted, mistreated— of whom the world was not worthy—wandering about in deserts and mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth.
May we be so bold to entreat Christ, the image of the invisible God, to allow us to see Him in a way that transfixes our gaze on Him, independent of what else we encounter on our journey. May the myriad of examples set forth before us, both in the recognized and in the hidden Saints, grant us encouragement that no matter what our path looks like, Christ sees to it that we do not walk alone, but we walk with another brother or sister in Him.
We return to the greeting of “ordinary” time: Christ is in our midst! Indeed, He is and ever shall be, residing in the hearts struggling to receive Him and the wills struggling to yield to His Divine Will.
How Can This Be?
I have been thinking lately about the Gospel. Specifically I have been thinking about just the Gospel alone, without considering how it relates to poverty. As is sort of a hallmark of living in Christ, I have been struck square between the eyes repeatedly that I really do not get it. Within the pages of the Evangelist’s (Matthew, Mark, Luke and John) writing, I find these tensions that there is no hope in reconciling because we find mutually contradictory statements that have the same truth.
Consider, for instance, the differences between the historical Incarnation and the historical Resurrection. In the Incarnation, Christ comes to take up full and complete residence within the Virgin. His message travels through her greeting to her cousin Elizabeth and affects a change within the Baptist who dwells within Elizabeth. In the Resurrection, we find the Power of God encountering our absolute human frailty to the point of complete, utter total expiration — the hideous experience of death. We see the effects of sin so great to seemingly kill Love. We encounter the great adversary, the devil. But within the Resurrection, we see the Power of God working something far more than we could ever think to ask for or to imagine. Christ entered fully into the depths of death of His own free will to shatter the bonds of death so fully and completely apart from any action that would even hint at the idea of our “helpfulness.”
Christ lives within us. Christ acts outside of us. Yes. Both. Christ invites us from outside and compels us from within. Indeed.
How. can. this. be?
Why is it that the Gospel so readily embraces a configuration that absolutely confounds us? How can mercy and justice kiss each other? How is the Lawgiver the same as the Love? Why do we speak of sinners and saints? Why do we talk of acceptance and transformation?
In short, I am coming to realize that to be human, we need both. We need feasting and fasting. We need admonishment and encouragement. We need to receive and we need to give. We need “Yes” and we need “No.”
And we struggle to see the depths of both our poverty and our riches. Rather paradoxically the Gospel brings these to balance. But the Gospel does not make a whole lot of sense. One of the things that I am noticing about the Gospel is that I tend to grab onto one part, at the expense of the other.
Thinking about how the Gospel acts in our world, I marvel at how often we screw up the message. When serving the poor, it is much easier to talk about their material poverty and our invitation to act so as to alleviate their suffering rather than to talk about how their material poverty reflects our spiritual poverty. It is seemingly easier to mourn the poor than to realize that Christ calls them “blessed.” We can focus on praying that God would act or focus on how we can we can act (be it personally or politically). We can talk about the effects of sin in their lives or we can look to the many ways the poor manifest the Kingdom of God.
How can this be? How can all of these paradigms be relevant? How can they be simultaneously relevant?
Lord, help! I do not understand! This Mystery is marvelous, awe-inspiring, and frightening! I want to believe but I want to know what all is going to happen… Save me from the crippling agents of fear and doubt, and open to me the Way of trusting Life!
And I have to wonder if trying to live in this uncomfortable transcendent space connects us to Him who is. So perhaps it is worth to ask God the second question in the Gospel of St Luke “How will this be?” as opposed to the first question in the Gospel of St Luke “How will I know this?”
Friday Forum: Beyond Obfuscation
It seems that most academic-types have a penchant for words that they cannot spell without consulting a dictionary; I am certainly no exception.
To obfuscate is to cause failure through bewilderment, to foster discouragement with complexity, to breed paralysis through conscious efforts to confuse. …or it is the fruit of over-analyzing things. Hard to know what exactly one is doing. A little analysis can be good. But perhaps analysis is like salt, a little bit will do just fine in most circumstances. Maybe the real skill of engineers is learning how to use analysis like garlic where a heaping mound turns into goodness.
We have this terribly nasty tendency to make things more complicated than they need to be. It does not help living in a culture that rewards jargon-laden complexity as a sign of appropriate “education.” But as I think about my life as an academic, I realize that I do not write to sound smart but that I write because occasionally my thoughts are unique and maybe even a bit clever. Taking the time to share them with others allows me to get knocked down a few proverbial notches on the cleverness while also perhaps influencing the unique thoughts of another. Writing opens doors for relationship. And seriously, who am I kidding? Do I want the bulk of my life to only be accessible to highly trained experts scattered across the globe or might I aim to think with a broader audience of people who are like me in any myriad of different ways?
Additionally, when we try to make things clear using simple terms, we might really surprise ourselves. Something previously deemed impossible might become not just possible, but transgress into the realm of the probable.
To be sure, simple words have great and deep meaning. The more profound an idea, the more difficulty it can be to put things down in simple words. Yet, when we find something truly interesting, fascinating or maybe just plain shiny, we almost cannot help but trying to share our discovery with others. We have to do what we can to make that insight accessible to others if only to try to help us not become too full of ourselves.
The long trek of an academic writer trying to capture a view worth sharing with another. Or perhaps just a plug for Imogen Heap.
This post stems from a conversation with my advisor about academic writing. My academic writing tends to be denser than iridium and tends to require employing significant forces to get it moving. But incidentally, I started blogging to provide a venue to get at least some writing done everyday. It seems to be running as a semi-successful experiment.
On careful construction
Being an engineer interested in best practices, I know a fair bit about LEED certification. LEED, shorthand for “Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design”, will certify buildings as Silver, Gold or Platinum dependent on how well a building’s design adheres to the best practices to conserve energy.
The thing about a LEED rating is that, as a design award, it focuses on appropriate construction. Building mismanagement by tenants can greatly increase the energy used in a building, making even LEED certified buildings unsustainable. A recent Op-Ed piece in the NY Times calls for increased enforcement of buildings in use, with a consequence that a building might lose its certifications if continually mismanaged.
It is interesting to think that as designed, the building should be able to perform in particular ways. Design standards focus on intention. To some degree they can be enforced during actual construction. But after the building is constructed, the design standards offer suggestions about how the building can be (and even should be) used only with the power of suggestion.
And so it is with us. We are carefully constructed to the point of being “fearfully and wonderfully made” with our human blueprint being in “the image and likeness of God.” We never lose our design features, even if we horribly disfigure them through mismanagement. Yet, we have a call to live as we were intended to live, something that can only be accomplished with close consultation with the Architect.
The Two Altars of the Church
Blogger’s note: This quote has been one of the most beneficial for me as I consider the Church and poverty.
Besides the offering at the Divine Liturgy we have another altar, which is the altar of the poor. You can find this altar everywhere, even in alleys and streets. To this altar we are called to bring our offering, a holy sacrifice to God. Herein lies our priestly office, as we, like the officiating priest in the Liturgy, involve the Spirit on the altar of the poor, not by words of mouth, but by deeds that speak louder than words. The Spirit hovers above the altar of the poor. The Lord’s Body is laid thereupon as there is no wound in this world that He does not bear in His Body. There is no blood that is shed which He does not share. In this sense when we give to the poor we give unto Him who descends to us from heaven.
-St John Chrysostom
The Allure of the City
I will freely admit that talking meaningfully about finding solutions to poverty is far above my pay grade. Additionally, even as a graduate student, my pay grade is enough to keep me out of the grips of poverty, especially with a household of one adult. Moreover, despite being a graduate student, I am not nearly as well-versed with the who’s who in the appropriate fields… o the joys of being “multi/trans/inter-disciplinary” The fact that I smash together culture, education, engineering and theology on the blog shows the extent of my generality.
So now I’m going to really go out on a limb and comment on a blog post I read that features a dialog between David Roodman and Land Pritchett. They are better qualified to speak to the development of the microfinance industry than I am, but I’m an academic-in-training so I am going to try to make a meaningful contribution to something. Most likely, the something will be my own thoughts.
Generally, I think micro-finance initiatives, both in the form of micro-credit and micro-savings, represent a critical tool in trying to work structurally to address poverty. Micro-finance focuses primarily on supporting people as they advance their use of skills they already have to organize small businesses. In many ways, micro-finance celebrates entrepreneurship rooted in the context of existing livelihoods. However, when I read the discourse on the blog post, I had to wonder about the role of industrialization and urbanization.
Persons living in rural areas often depend on livelihoods integrally connected with the weather. Increasingly strange seasonal cycles create some true collapse stories of these livelihoods. You can ask the Mongolian herders trying to eek out a living by gathering the carcasses of their animals. I have read similar stories for the past 3 years; the Mongolian herders are not the only affected group. Additionally, I grew up in a community experiencing a livelihood shift as the major industries left the area. When you see the logical path forward evaporating, thoughts of the youth may turn to escaping for greener economic pastures.
The city serves as a metaphor for advanced opportunity. But I wonder about those people who see their future in the rural areas, living with rural livelihoods. The greater the distance from a population center with a high population density, the more difficult it becomes to build appropriate infrastructure to support on-demand utilities. It is also difficult to consider participating in a globalized economy if one is far away from a trade center.
Yet, we assume that the globalized economy is inherently better than the local economy. We value urban over rural. And we value a sense of a “job” over the cultivation of a “livelihood.” This is problematic. I do not bemoan persons who make their flight to the city for any number of reasons, but I think we commit a significant error in judgment if we assume that participating in the global urbanized economy represents the top aims of individuals and communities. In particular, if we postulate that local persons are capable of adding value to their local resources through their labor, then it seems that this value might not be expressed solely in macroeconomic terms like GNP or GDP.
Moreover, in pursuing GDP, we can make choices that favor jobs at the expenses of livelihoods. As an example that strikes me as just a really bad idea on many different fronts, Chile is considering significant dam projects in the Patagonia region. We see very fragile ecosystems with seemingly intact rural communities. The greater industrialization of the area will likely bring people from other areas to settle who have differential ability to participate in the national economy than the locals. I am reminded of my visit to a community in England largely supported by the fishing industry where bankers in London wound up buying up a lot of seaside property for vacationing. The rising home values drove away home ownership abilities of the local people, uprooting many families while also developing fostering greater rent-dependence.
In reality, I think people with the means to do so wind up alternating between participating in local and global economies. But I think they do so from the position of cultivating a livelihood rather than simply working a job. Sometimes the livelihood can only exist in a rural area, dominated by pastoral scenes of Mongolian sheep and goats.
Recreating the same problems
In thinking about American cultural insanity, few issues feature the insanity of necessity like energy. Energy enables me to sit at my computer at an inane hour to write some thoughts about how we use energy resources. We have no questions about our needs for energy: to work, to communicate, to prepare our food. There is something basic about energy. We all need it.
But then we read stories about the great oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. If you have not heard about this environmental disaster, then you have been living under a rock of some descriptor. An incredible amount of oil seeps out of a well, affecting a vast region. Deep-shore drilling is just one potential answer to our questions about energy.
Yet I think we would be doing well to ask about consumption of energy resources on a micro-, meso- and macro-scale. Managing our energy diet towards a sustainable rate means more than just changing our light bulbs. We can think creatively about building and community design. And we can adjust national priorities, which always proves to be incredibly difficult.
America is a country working foremost in a consumptive paradigm. Until we can think differently about standards of living, then we are going to recreate the same problems. But I think a different economic paradigm is still very far removed as it requires a significant leap in economic, political, and sociological thinking.
The Great and Mysterious Day
Today, we find ourselves at the great feast of Pentecost. In a sense of divine irony, a reading from the book of Acts manages to upstage the reading from the Gospel of St John. Throughout the Gospels, Christ promises the disciples the Holy Spirit; at the opening of the Book of Acts, we see the realization of that promise. I generally focus my Sunday blog on reflecting on the Gospel. Occasionally I have found no words of my own to offer so I post sermons from great preachers around the Gospel text of the day.
Yet today I find myself stumbling for words, while also struggling to find an appropriate message from the greats to offer relevant both to the spirit of Pentecost and to the array of people who read this blog. As a feast, Pentecost realizes Christ’s great promise to the disciples: “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.” Additionally, many different groups have many different views on this great and mysterious day.
The nature of Pentecost is truly mysterious. We do not actually have a clear sense of everyone present. From Acts 1, we learn that 120 persons were present, including the 11 remaining apostles and the newly-elected Matthias. We also see direct reference to Mary the mother of Jesus in Acts 1:14, along with “the women” who are presumably the myrrh-bearing women along with some others. Acts 2 tells us that devout men from every nation under heaven gathered in Jerusalem and provides roughly 17 exemplars for the geography. Some Biblical scholars point to the 153 fish caught during the appearance of the Resurrected Jesus at the end of St John’s Gospel symbolizes all of the countries. Suffice it to say, trying to figure out how exactly the events of Pentecost unfolded proves to remain confusing. Did 12 men speak 17 languages? Did 120 people speak 17 languages? Did 12 men speak 153 languages? Did 120 people speak 153 languages? Did 120 people speak 120 languages that covered all people present? Did 12 men speak their own languages and people heard the message in their own? Did 120 people speak their own languages and people heard the message in their own?
And why did St Luke record that St Peter stood in the midst of the 11 apostles when he began to preach the great sermon of Pentecost? And why did St Luke get very specific in Acts 2:37, 42 to say that the people asked for baptism from the Apostles and devoted themselves to the Apostles’ teaching, especially given the ambiguous “they” that opens Acts 2?
Something happened at Pentecost. Nearly every Christian body I have been a part of has spent considerable time investigating these first two chapters of Acts with great fervency. I personally have both attended and organized multiple retreats to dive deeply into the themes of these 2 chapters. The idea that the events of Pentecost “repeat” in Acts 10 continue to rattle through our consciences like a freight train in contemplating “What possibly could this mean for us?” This particular question goes beyond a generic “application” question so frequently employed by small group Bible studies as something about Pentecost requires us to consider what it means to be the Church.
In many ways, I think it is appropriate to consider Pentecost the nativity of the Church. The events of Pentecost seem inexplicably connected with the Gospels themselves. Indeed the Book of Acts is often considered as Luke-Acts, part 1 and part 2 of the same story written by the same author. Moreover, the story of the Church as recorded in the book of Acts seems to invite us to consider what participating in this story looks like. Indeed, some Christian communities try to make this connection explicit by terming themselves “Acts 29” churches or by seeking the experience of the “early Church.”
But I think that when considering the Church relative to the experience of Pentecost, we would do well to acknowledge the mystery present in the day. We would do well to seek that same body of the Church, even if we are unclear whether it is possible that it still exists. We would do well to remember a community gathered to praise and thank God. We would do well to consider all of those presented to us by name in addition to those who we know not. We would do well to search the Scriptures, in particular the Gospels, to seek the promises of the Holy Spirit. And we would do well to thank God for His work that goes beyond our wildest imaginations.
- Blessed art You O Christ Our God
- You have revealed the fishermen as most wise
- By sending down upon them the Holy Spirit
- Through them You drew the world into Your net
- O Lover of Man, Glory to You!
May Christ empower us with the grace of the Holy Spirit to seek the unity of His Gospel to bring us to His Kingdom, where He lives and reigns with the Father and the Holy Spirit unto ages of ages.
- When the most High came down and confused the tongues,
- He divided the nations;
- But when he distributed the tongues of fire
- He called all to unity.
- Therefore, with one voice, we glorify the All-holy Spirit!
Taking On Poverty
Author’s note: This post is part of a series looking at how the Church responds and relates to poverty. The series runs mostly on Tuesdays and Saturdays. Tuesday’s posts consider the issues of poverty more broadly while Saturday’s posts are written primarily to Christian audiences.
I had an interesting conversation with a pastor friend of mine who discussed that “Taking on poverty” has become all of the rage in Christian circles. Usually, one can blame the latest and greatest book that just came out for the rage. In this case, “The Hole in our Gospel” is a likely culprit, having won the 2010 Christian book of the year. I have posted some of my thoughts about the book (4 out of 5 stars). The general thesis of the book is that Protestant churches in America should be doing more to take on poverty [I restrict my observation to Protestant churches because there is no mention of the presence or absence Catholic and Orthodox witness around this topic] so, almost on cue, Protestant pastors have decided to “take on poverty.”
My pastor friend always asks people who say they are taking on poverty one question: What are you doing?
The Church’s response to poverty requires some sort of action to be a response. To respond by praying requires the use of a verb: “pray” When you pray, you do something. But generally, a response to poverty invites more than prayer as St James (2:15-17) writes:
If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, be warmed and filled,” without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that? So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.
The material nature of poverty invites direct and engaged response of some form. But it is so much easier to talk about poverty while drinking $5 lattes at Starbucks. Somewhere the conversation and the venue reveal the disconnect.
We can maintain the disconnect by consistently defining poverty as being in a place other than where we find ourselves. After all, is not America a rich nation? Or are there places in your community you just do not go because they are clearly places where the poor in your community live? Do you know of structures in your own community either supporting people as they leave poverty or preserving poverty? Have you taken a good, long look at your own community to see where you can offer the most?
Also, the often-forgotten step: have you taken a good, long look at yourself in an attempt to face your own Poverty?
Additionally, are you seeking to respond to poverty because it is yet another “right thing to do” as a Christian? Or do you seek ways to make yourself present to others in relationships?
Increasingly, it seems to me that responding to poverty requires asking God to open the door of His heart to you so that you can see a way to make an practical, enacted difference in the life of another human being. Christ distributes Himself to all who are willing to receive Him according to the individual need of each. He knows our needs before we even ask. But we try to “take on poverty” without looking for real, practical ways to make small differences in the lives of people in our community?
Working within your own community, fully aware of the limits on your time and talents, to respond and relate to those in poverty can plant a seed of faithfulness, whether you volunteer an hour at a library in a poor community, support the work of your local food bank, or familiarize yourself with the work of organizations serving your local homeless. People might scoff at your answer of “What are you doing?” but Christ’s willingness to enter the world after developing from a single cell in utero shows us His willingness to let the small things grow. As we prayerfully engage with one small challenge in our local community, then we may see greater doors open. Yet, I have to wonder if our goal should be seeking Christ among the relatively small amount of people we can serve rather than a constant obsession of always scaling up.
Friday Forum: The Importance of a Prayer Discipline
It can be difficult to overstate the importance of prayer in one’s life in Christ. More often, we tend to understate it. We assert that it does not matter how we pray and the last thing we should be held accountable to is our prayer life.
Yet, what is keeping a prayer discipline supposed to do for our life in Christ?
Jesus modeled prayer for us, both by His life example and His teachings. In particular, when the disciples asked Him to teach them to pray, He gave them these words:
Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed by Your name. Your Kingdom come, Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.
Individual translations vary slightly, but Christ’s prayer given to the corporate body of Christ (we should not forget that the prayer is given to us in the plural form) reflects the manifest power of a prayer discipline in one’s life.
Holding unto a prayer discipline invites one to reconnect with the heart and life of God through repentance. I tend to view the historic, liturgical prayers as my “starter set.” The Lord’s prayer is full of petitions that challenge me. Do I really want God’s will to be done or do I pray “Your will be done as long as it agrees with what I already want”? Do I trust God for my daily bread or do I pray “Give me this day that to fill my storehouses to overflowing”? Do I want forgiveness or do I want to continue to nurse the grudge related to how my brother’s friend’s mother offended me the other day? Or am I just really holding unto my consumer sense of entitlement that I should have been able to find that really awesome book as a great deal? Do I trust Christ to fight for me, guiding me towards the newness of life in Him or do I white-knuckle with Satan trying to pull things off on my own?
The convictions stemming from the questioning nature of trying to make Christ’s prayers my own often forms the rest of how my prayer life goes. For those people who really question the nature of the Church and are open to the process of making Christ’s prayer your own, His prayer recorded in John 17 might be a really challenging prayer to pray.
Yet, when I am honest, the conviction fails to come. I find myself blinded by pride and try to assert that I can do everything by myself. I catch myself so many times making my prayer life about the things that I will. And wow am I stubborn. But the discipline of trying to pray does, by the grace of God, dig furrows into the soils of my heart so that seeds can be planted.
Prayer is fundamentally about connection. Prayer is connection with the Divine Life. Prayer enables us to partake of Christ’s divine nature. Prayer raises our awareness of what Christ is desiring to work within us. Prayer shows us His image already granted to us as a free gift at our own creation. And prayer, by God’s grace, connects us to the burning love of Christ that consumes us, only destroying that which separates us from Him.
Equally, prayer does not come to us all of the time. We exhort each other continually towards prayers, if only by raising the awareness of a situation in their lives about which we should pray. Living in a constant deluge of information about human suffering can leave us overwhelmed. Moreover, we will often tell friends who share something with us “Oh, I’ll certainly pray for you about that” and then forget entirely. We can easily lose our focus on Christ. We get caught in the concerns of the world around us, we try to go into “fix-it” mode, we lose hope that prayer makes any difference at all…. And if we become so jaded by how little Christ seems to do for us, then we can easily put all of the focus on ourselves.
O Lord, show us that apart from You we do nothing. Give us Your Spirit that will allow us to connect to Your divine Life in prayer. Nourish us on the vine of Yourself to the point where Your Goodness blooms from our branch.
The Parts of the Body that No One Talks about…
…include the bladder.
But the bladder is really, really unique. Its uniqueness makes it stand apart from other body parts. The bladder contains a very special type of cell in the human body: transitional epithelium.
I still remember transitional epithelium from my high school anatomy class. These cells end to be shaped as rectangles that can shift their shape in order to expand the capacity of the bladder. They get squished by the incoming fluid pressure of urine, allow the bladder to expand to accommodate the increased fluid volume, and guard the body against the toxic effects of urine. These cells regularly smash up against urine, all in order to allow wastes to leave the human body safely.
It’s not a glamorous job, being a bladder cell. But the unique way the bladder cells respond to pressure allows even waste management to be a life-giving process. The pressure in the transitional epithelium triggers the nerve response to tell the brain when it is time to void. But the brain knows because the bladder cells sense the presence of the waste.
When people speak of the Body of Christ, they often refer to this passage by St Paul from 1 Corinthians:
For the body does not consist of one member but of many. If the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would be the sense of hearing? If the whole body were an ear, where would be the sense of smell? But as it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose. If all were a single member, where would the body be? As it is, there are many parts, yet one body.
The eye cannot say to the hand, “I have no need of you,” nor again the head to the feet, “I have no need of you.” On the contrary, the parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and on those parts of the body that we think less honorable we bestow the greater honor, and our unpresentable parts are treated with greater modesty, which our more presentable parts do not require. But God has so composed the body, giving greater honor to the part that lacked it, that there may be no division in the body, but that the members may have the same care for one another. If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together.
It’s rather fashionable to try to envision yourself as a part of the body. People often choose things like hands, feet, eyes, heart, spine, mouth, and stomach to describe their role in the body. I think the most creative answer I have ever heard to the question of “What part of the body are you?” was when someone answered with the liver. I do not think I have ever heard someone choosing the nose, but I could be wrong.
Yet, more and more, I think I see being members of one another like being a single cell in the body, shaped in a unique way so that we fit together. And I thank God for those strange cells in our bodies that seem just flat-out strange. Perhaps the bladder is where we find our most fervent intercessors, pleading for God’s mercy to purify His Body.
A brief review of “The Hole in our Gospel”
Author’s note: I know I’m breaking a bit with my Wednesday tradition on the blog, but after reading this book, I’m considering devoting an extended series on the Apostles’ Fast in the Orthodox Church. We’ll see, but I think the Apostles’ Fast relates strongly to the Church responding and relating to a world in need.
Richard Stearms takes an unflinching look at the status of global social involvement within Protestant Churches in “The Hole in Our Gospel” to challenge American Christians to extend their work among the global least of these. Through five sections, Rich offers his story of becoming the president of World Vision, insights into his personal faith journey with Jesus Christ, the challenges associated with global poverty, the failures within the American Church, and an invitation to action. The constant awareness of the personal remains an absolutely essential theme throughout the book.
I offer general endorsement of the book, with some important caveats. Rich offers meaningful insights to the nature of poverty owing to his insistence to look poverty straight in the eye, recognizing the humanity of the other in the process. He also provides a very helpful “Spider’s Web” metaphor to understand the interconnected lives of people in poverty. The book maintains a realistic but positive outlook that we can make a difference in the experience of the least of these, one person at a time.
Where I must offer strong disagreement with Rich is that he asserts that visiting the sick or elderly and helping local food banks are “totally unrelated to global poverty” while also defining that meaningful service to the poor can only happen overseas. Poverty can and does occur everywhere on the globe, even in American communities. The Pine Ridge reservation in South Dakota is among one of the most poverty-stricken communities in the world. Less people exist to raise awareness of poverty in the United States, but we have a lot of distressing statistics in our own country. The question of “Where is the Church?” often applies just as much to these situations we find on our own soil.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from Thomas Nelson Publishers as part of their BookSneeze.com <http://BookSneeze.com> book review bloggers program. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255 <http://www.access.gpo.gov/nara/cfr/waisidx_03/16cfr255_03.html> : “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”
Mind the gap
At the outset of this post, I would like to make a statement about the location of poverty. Poverty, as a micro-phenomenon, exists at an individual level. But poverty is also a macro-phenomenon, existing within society. Moreover, features from the macro-level often influence the experience of persons at the micro-level, making poverty a meso-phenomenon. Responding to poverty in a holistic way requires at least awareness of these three levels and a willingness to consider the implications of features at these three levels.
This morning, the Guardian carried a lead story called “A $95,000 question” which concerned itself with the household asset disparity between white Americans and African Americans. I have also heard about the gap in household assets from a book (Divided by Faith: Evangelical Religion and Race in America). The interesting piece of household assets is that it speaks to liquidity in the midst of a crisis. Many people, including both of these authors, view home value as an additional asset not immediately counted as household assets. The persistent presence of household assets speaks to the conventional wisdom of stewarding a rainy day fund.
We can assert the importance of a rainy day fund for all persons. Additionally, we can experience a knee-jerk reaction against people who, for whatever reason, have no rainy day fund. However, in reading the Guardian’s reporting today, Shapiro (the researcher who conducted the study in question) identified some different cultural features present in African-American households.
In African-American families there is a much larger extended network of kin as well as other obligations. From other work we’ve done we know that there’s more call on the resources of relatively well-off African-American families; that they lend money that’s not given back; they help cousins go to school. They help brothers and sisters, aunts and uncles, with all kinds of legal and family problems.
So when thinking about poverty, we find questions about what we do with the assets we cultivate. Additionally, we see that how we view and define community affects how we respond. Moreover, we also see some effects of policy creation declaring certain forms of wealth as valuable, while down-playing other forms. I am not trying to assert that asset protection is inherently evil, but we can and do struggle to determine what sorts of assets are best for long-term financial stability.
The brief from the source report also highlights some of the hazards associated with banking options for low-income households. It could be that differential access to loans meant that African-Americans increasingly found themselves in situations where the only option for financial assistance meant asking their families. [Because of the income brackets in question, I also considered the Federal Pell Grant program which provides assistance to low-income families, which does have differential likelihood of eligibility dependent on enrollment status. Eligibility requirements indicate the need to be at a participating program.]
The report sponsored by the Institute on Assets and Social Policy also further disaggregated the data by income bracket, indicating that high-income whites and middle-income whites saw about the same percentage growth (400%) of their assets. Also, this great growth in the assets of American whites might be strongly contingent on the housing bubble, as a non-owner occupied home counts as an asset, where the bubble started to pop first in populations of color. Other recent reports from the same institute review the experiences of the American middle class and the elderly in America.
Our economic lives connect us, one to another, in both seen and unseen ways. Moreover, we might want to consider how certain economic policies work within a system instead of solely considering whether we benefit as individuals.
The Forgotten Question
I have been hanging out with a friend of mine who connected me with another fantastic song. It is worth listening to in its own right before viewing the video.
Albertine, by Brooke Fraser, spotlights a very important truth to our shared existence as person: “Now that I have seen, I am responsible.” In particular she leverages this claim against the backdrop of human suffering in Rwanda, which is made manifest by the video.
I would like to propose a different way of thinking about our responsibilities… namely to describe them as response-abilities. How does what we see affect our response? How do we honor our own humanity when encountering the humanity of another? These questions should drive our interactions with other people, but we shortchange ourselves in so many ways.
We shortchange ourselves by expecting others to serve us. We shortchange ourselves by over-estimating our capabilities. We shortchange ourselves in thinking that we can respond all on our own. We shortchange ourselves by resorting to tactics of manipulation. We shortchange ourselves by forgetting to ask the question. We shortchange ourselves by excusing our need to respond, suggesting instead that the response belongs to someone else… namely anyone but ourselves.
But most importantly, we shortchange ourselves by forgetting that we have eyes to see, ears to hear, and hands to touch.
Because if we take the time to see, to really see who is in front of us, we find that we are response-able. What would the world look like if we attempted to practice our humanity by seeing the humanity of others?
Divine Intercessions
Today’s Gospel Reading is Jesus’ own prayer for His disciples, as recorded by St John. We refer to this prayer as the High Priestly Prayer of Christ. As such, we see how Christ faithfully prays for us.
At that time, Jesus lifted up his eyes to heaven and said, “Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son that the Son may glorify you, since you have given him power over all flesh, to give eternal life to all whom you have given him. And this is eternal life, that they know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. I glorified you on earth, having accomplished the work which you gave me to do; and now, Father, you glorify me in your own presence with the glory which I had with you before the world was made.
“I have manifested your name to the men whom you gave me out of the world; yours they were, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word. Now they know that everything that you have given me is from you; for I have given them the words which you gave me, and they have received them and know in truth that I came from you; and they have believed that you did send me. I am praying for them; I am not praying for the world but for those whom you have given me, for they are mine; all mine are yours, and yours are mine, and I am glorified in them. And now I am no more in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, keep them in your name, which you have given me, that they may be one, even as we are one. While I was with them, I kept them in your name, which you have given me; I have guarded them, and none of them is lost but the son of perdition, that the scripture might be fulfilled. But now I am coming to you; and these things I speak in the world, that they may have my joy fulfilled in themselves.”
In particular, we remember this day that Christ gave the words of His Father to His disciples. In doing this act of teaching, Christ gave the disciples responsibility to keep and safeguard all that Christ taught. We are to receive from Christ and know Him in truth.
May Christ keep all of us in His Holy Truth, empowering us all to bear witness to His work in our lives, communities, and world at large.
The perspective of another: The Hole in Our Gospel by Richard Stearns
Author’s note: This post is another offering in a series about how the Church ought to respond to poverty. I recently received a book from Thomas Nelson Publishers called “The Hole in Our Gospel” by World Vision’s president Richard Stearns that attempts to offer how the Church responds to poverty. Since I have been reading the book and am currently on page 77, I posit some initial thoughts. It won the 2010 Christian Book Award by the Evangelical Christian Publishers Association.
Richard Stearns asks the question: “Is our faith just about going to church, studying the Bible, and avoiding the most serious sins–or does God expect more?” In particular, he looks at how he tried to be a “good Christian” in America. Yet the book seemingly centers on encountering Christ in the face of the poor.
Building off of Rich’s on story about how he came to be the president of World Vision, the book cuts to the chase quite immediately by meeting another Richard, a 13-year-old boy heading a household in Uganda after his parents died of AIDS. I appreciate the opening as gazing into the face of someone and encountering our own humanity. Then we back up into how Rich got pulled into the gig as the president of World Vision anyway. His honesty is brutally upfront, humiliating, and real. He wonders how he got to the point where he could resist God’s call on his life, particularly when responding to the call of God meant leaving a very successful position as a corporate CEO. He encounters certain passages of Scripture that He just wants to tear out, including the story of the rich young ruler.
At this point, I think we really get at the crux of what is probably missing in our gospel, particularly as Rich Stearns posits it: namely that we construct a gospel that does not force us to confront our own poverty. I think that Rich is generally correct in saying that our churches do very little to make poverty of our neighbors visible to us. I sincerely appreciate the work of World Vision. Also, as president of World Vision, Rich comes at this with a very unique vantage point because of the people he looks at eye-to-eye. I generally support the work of World Vision and hope that God touches people’s hearts to make a difference in this organization.
But… I think it would be a mistake to assert that child-headed households only exist in Africa. Or that Christians only have an obligation to the poor who live far away from them. In America, we have child-headed households. Some of these children are innocent, suffering from the sins of their parents, particularly if those parents are drug addicted or in prison. Some of these children deal with the consequences of their own choices, such as the choice to engage in sexual intercourse. Still other of these households are children who have been orphaned owing to extreme tragedies that claim the lives of both parents. I remember being 17 and grieving with my classmates as a fatal car accident claimed the lives of both the mother and the father who had 5 surviving children. The oldest child was 19 at the time. Not quite “child-headed” but an experience that rocked our small community to its core as we tried to grieve together.
Richard Stearns is right to ask the question: Where is the Church? How is the Church responding? And I think I would like to say that caring about people requires encountering people, fully aware of their poverty and our own as we try to live out Christ’s commandment to love one another.
Seeing as I still have roughly 200 pages to read, I’ll offer another review of the book as a whole after I’m done.
Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from Thomas Nelson Publishers as part of their BookSneeze.com <http://BookSneeze.com> book review bloggers program. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255 <http://www.access.gpo.gov/nara/cfr/waisidx_03/16cfr255_03.html> : “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”
Friday Forum: Do you trust the blood of Christ?
Lately I have been approached by many different people who have been asking me this question. It comes in the form of “Do you believe in Christ’s sacrifice on the Cross for your sins?” or “Do you know that Christ shed His blood on the cross for your sins?” Everyone means well as they desire to represent the Gospel in a sentence (or in this case, a question), yet Christ’s blood accomplishes more for us than simply clearing the slate of our sins to allow us to go to heaven when we die.
Those who have contemplated the power of the blood of Christ attribute many attributes so present in the blood of Christ:
Blood of the New Covenant
Price of our redemption
Fountain of divine grace
Source of eternal life
Reparation of our souls
Pledge of everlasting happiness
Purification of our souls
Healing Balm for our wounds
Remission of our sins
Infinite Ransom paid for our souls
Hope of the poor
Solace of the afflicted
Support of the weak
Joy of the just
Refuge for all Christians
Light of all Angels
King of Patriarchs
Desire of Prophets
Strength of Apostles
Hope of Martyrs
Justification of Virgins
Crown of the blessed
Moreover, Christ’s saving work, even to the point of shedding His blood, does not occur exclusively on the Cross. Yes, Christ certainly bled on the cross. And Christ equally certainly bled when the solider pierced His side. He bled when He submitted to being crowned with thorns. He bled when He interceded for us in the Garden. And raised as a faithful, observant Jew who fulfilled every aspect of the Law on our behalf, He shed His blood at His circumcision.
This same Christ invites us to partake of the life-giving power of His blood. He gave it to us again when He said, “Take, eat; this is my body” and “Drink of it all of you; this is my blood.”
And so yes, I trust the blood of Christ. Through it, the Divine Physician of our Souls and Bodies administers His healing medicine and unites us to Himself. Through it, our Resurrected Christ raises us up with Himself. Through that which was shed striking the face of the Earth, Christ redeems all of creation. The full magnitude of all that Christ accomplished through offering His blood for the life of the world goes beyond my wildest dreams and far beyond anything I could ever hope to understand.
O most merciful Redeemer, through Your Precious Blood, purify our souls from all stain of sin, and grant that we, ever increasing in gratitude and love towards You, may become more fervent in seeking purity of heart, and may at the last be counted worthy to enter into that inheritance which You have purchased for us with Your Precious Blood. For You live and reign in a Kingdom without end, amen.
May those who seek redemption come to trust in the fullness of the Precious Blood of Christ.
Stretch!
Or what rubber bands taught me about theology…
So much of life seems to involve letting ourselves be stretched outside of our comfort zone so that we may grow towards living our lives fully in the Kingdom of God. This process is a lifelong process that only meets in its culmination after we fall asleep in Christ. But I think we can get way too excited too quickly and hit a breaking point, if we are not prayerful. Just ask a rubber band.
If you pull on a rubber band too hard and too quickly, it snaps. Yet a rubber band also cannot do anything without the presence of tension. Generally speaking, we anchor rubber bands somewhere and then we pull a little bit to expand it slowly. In Christ, we encounter an Incarnate God who understands the limits of our flesh. We strive to know Christ crucified, anchoring ourselves to His cross while allowing the power of God to stretch us to love everyone around us, even those who hate us.
In His mercy, Christ invites us to partake in His life of loving the world, starting first in the immediate location we find ourselves. Francis of Assisi offered this instruction “First do what is necessary, then what is possible, and before long you will be doing the impossible” which highlights beginning right where we begin. Today, 40 days after remembering Christ’s Resurrection, we remember His Ascension into Heaven where He informed the disciples that they would begin witnessing to His Resurrection in Jerusalem.
A rubber band does have its limit. But if you stretch a rubber band slowly, you can be amazed at how far it will stretch. Also if you relax a rubber band between each major stretch, then it will generally last a lot longer as a rubber band.
In Honor of Christ’s Ascension
Goodbye Paschaltide! At this point in the year my inner 4 year old comes back: “Jesus, come back!”
O Christ God, You have ascended in Glory,
Granting joy to Your disciples by the promise of the Holy Spirit.
Through the blessing they were assured
That You are the Son of God,
The Redeemer of the world!
Human obligations
When considering how to respond to poverty, people usually have an encounter with the “right” thing to do. People might get involved with poverty because it is the “right” thing to do, people may advocate for a poor community politically because it is the “right” thing to do, people may donate money to a particular charitable cause because it’s the “right” thing to do; people may do all sorts of things in response to the challenges of poverty because they are the “right” things to do. Invariably this sense of “right” and “wrong” things to do can lead us to discussing our “moral” obligation to the poor.
And I think that focusing our response to people in poverty as a moral obligation can act as a smokescreen to miss the point entirely. There is something about engaging with other people face-to-face that invites us to consider what should be done from a standpoint of our human obligations. Failure to act in ways that are consistent with our humanity actually undermines our humanity. It is should be difficult to see someone incredibly thirsty and not think about what can be done to provide them with a drink. When we see the sufferings of people we know, we almost intrinsically look for ways attempt to alleviate that suffering even if our investigation reveals that we can do very little.
Working from a standpoint of our human obligations invites considerations of how our response can honor our humanity, not just merely check the box of doing the ethically “correct” thing. Without a doubt, our morals guide our understanding of what it means that we are human; but I think that getting too tied up in a sense of “moral” obligation to the poor actually undermines our ability to offer enduring relationships with those experiencing material lack. We will encounter situations where we have minimal power and influence. Yet we do not say that one must have both power and influence in order to care.
An Open Letter
To public school teachers everywhere:
Welcome to May ladies and gentlemen. A special congratulations to those teachers preparing their students for AP and IB exams. It is an insane time. I know we just recognized mothers yesterday in the US, but I wanted to take a minute to thank you for all that you do.
So often, teaching amounts to a thankless job. And the perks good teachers look for cannot be measured by a paycheck or additional benefits. No, the things that kept me going as a teacher were those moments where my students got it, the totally unsolicited email affirming a job well done, a particularly creative piece of student work… The joint surprises of student success and professional appreciation managed to do a lot.
But I am not going to lie when I say that I am more than a little freaked out with the realities I see on the horizon for next year. It seems like more and more states are reducing teaching staff, stretching already over-stretched teachers further. The situation is not unique to education. The economic realities have forced a real shake-up of just about everything. Yet more and more teachers get laid off, and the few that remain must do increasingly more with significantly less for a huge number of students.
I do not think that the answer is encouraging teachers to dig deeper into their reserves. Yet I would like to do something a little closer to the teaching and learning interface than just go after a misguided culture of accountability that sniffs out failure with scant regard for success. I know the need to encourage respect for all that teachers do. Yet I would like to do more than just pat teachers on the back.
I know the rather fantastic organization DonorsChoose where people like me can look up your classroom projects, supporting you as you seek to provide innovative projects or as you realize you have exhausted the copying budget yet again. It is great when I have the money in my personal pocket, but I think it is a band-aid measure to some bigger problems. Yet I think there are some other ways I can support what is going on in my local schools other than simply voting for politicians that I think will work towards reasonable educational policy.
So, my teaching friends, what can a concerned citizen like me actually do to make your life teaching a bit more enjoyable? Hit the comments with your wish list but let’s go beyond the financial realities. Let’s try to think of as many different creative ways that just a regular adult in the community can help out, or maybe the community as a whole. Think big, reach for the sky, propose utter wackiness just for the sake of making a proposal. As teachers, you have a unique perspective. What do children-centered, schooling-supportive communities look like?
Your friendly, neighborhood practicing human
Born blind
Today’s Gospel reading comes from St John’s Gospel and tells us the story of the blind man. Ironically I forgot about this blind man, thinking instead that the Sunday of the Blind Man referred to the story of Bartimaeus.
This evening at Vespers, this hymn struck within me a poignant chord:
To himself did the blind man think and say, Is it, I wonder, for the sin of my parents that I was born without eyes? Have I become an example because of the faithlessness of the Gentiles? I cease not from asking, When is the night, when is the day? My feet have no more strength from the impact of the stones; for I have never seen the sun shining, nor, have I seen my Creator in any form whatever. Albeit, I beseech thee, O Christ, God, to look upon me and have mercy upon me.
One of the things about St John’s articulation of the story is that the question on everyone’s mind is “Who sinned that this man was born blind?” St John records the question coming from the mouths of Christ’s disciples, likely representing what all of the townspeople asked. The hymnographer of the Church suggests that the question of causation and fault torments the blind man himself. The blind man has made the people’s question his own.
Being blind was a pretty terrible thing, assigning one to a lifetime of begging. This blind man never knew the light of day, but probably sought healing in every way possible. His search for freedom led to a desperate searching for the God who formed him. He viewed himself as a scandal, likely beyond healing, and a little more than a scandal responsible for the doubt of the Gentiles. What began as a physical burden became a spiritual burden. He knew his need to encounter light even as one trapped in unrelenting darkness.
The blind man’s healing comes in two parts. First, Christ smears his eyes with mud. Second, he washes in the waters. Christ makes the mud in an interesting way, spitting on the ground and forming the mud with His own hands. Again and again, we encounter a dirty Christ who gets involved with our situation. We encounter Christ Incarnate in the simple act of making mud for the blind man. Christ coats the man with some of the mess of being fully human in order to grant the man healing. And Christ commands Him to wash in appointed waters. Christ anoints these waters with His command in order to grant healing to those who seek it. So not only do we see Christ’s identification with us through His messy incarnation, but we also see our identification with Him through the baptismal waters. After receiving his sight, the blind man bears bold witness to who healed him, offering an example so powerful that some of the Pharisees approach Christ to ask Him if they too are blind. Their guilt remains as they refuse to admit their spiritual blindness.
I think spiritual blindness proves much more enduring than physical blindness.
Yet what does it look like to encounter our Creator with all forms of sight restored? Can we acknowledge our perpetual blindness, even amongst the scandal of those who assert direct causation to our own actions?
O Lord Jesus Christ, shine the Light of Your Resurrection deep into our heart, mind, soul and strength that we may see Your face and live lives empowered by the mystical workings of Your abundant power.
A house of prayer for all people
…includes those who cannot give financially.
I have economic inclusion on the brain this evening. I’m working on preparing a curriculum for high school students at a summer program site where I can expect a wide range of socioeconomic diversity. My site is located in-between 2 major American cities, making it really easy for the site to serve students from various urban backgrounds. Thinking about inclusion is challenging. I do not want to choose examples, topics, themes, what have you that will fail to connect with my students. But at the same time, I want to provide rigorous and demanding experiences.
…yet I find myself trying to develop curriculum appreciating limited access to the prime educational tools. In particular, I’m sort of missing the ability to ask my students to do internet research and use graphing software. I get to pull from my creative resources and have a good time thinking about “low-technology engineering” (which in many ways is an oxymoron).
It is amazing how we can get hung up on not having the right “tools” for a particular job. Churches can get hung up on some of the aesthetic features. There are ways that things should be done. There are things that must be present. I am not knocking the churches that are so beautifully adorned that I stop breathing when I walk inside. I am glad those temples exist. But we can really engage in an exercise of missing the point if we allow surface features to be must-have items.
What does it look like to open our congregations to the full participation of the less financially able? How do we shepherd congregations to be cheerful givers?
I think one potential path forward is to embrace the oxymoron of humble gifts of faith, hope, love, and joy. I love hearing stories like the Orthodox bishop in San Francisco who would only serve wearing the miter adorned by paper icons from his orphans, the widow casting her two mites into the Treasury, and the nun who would only take the worst possible pair of shoes.
And you never know what you might encounter when you let an offering done from love and joy continue, even though it does not quite seem to fit the bill exactly. People’s creativity may surprise you and you may have created space for a whole new set of people.
A Practicing Human 
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