Author Archives: elizabeth.turner

“Jesus has a body but the Father and Spirit do not. Discuss.”

One of my acquaintances posted this on social networking recently, provoking a number of responses. One person wondered if Christ had always had physical form. The discussion spun and doubled back, spiraled and swung.

And, as it happens, it matters.

Frequently theology – especially Trinitarian theology – is perceived in a way that frustrated NASA employees would recognize. It’s great that you made it to the moon, we say, but what have you done since? Wouldn’t all that money allotted in the federal budget better be spent helping people here on earth?

So classic theological considerations get shoved aside, weighty, meaningful questions reduced to the familiar old level of, “how many angels can dance on the head of a pin?” Those esoteric questions are very nice, but we face pragmatic, utilitarian urgency. Our times are too desperate to waste time discussing things no one can really know anyway, so we should stop discussing and just show up at the food pantry instead. That’s something that we know matters.

The problems, of course, are quickly uncovered. Many valuable discoveries that help human flourishing have been made by astronauts performing experiments on the space station. And theology matters: it shapes how we do what we do, and more particularly, why.

Jesus has a body but the Father and Spirit do not. Discuss.

So consider my friend’s question: it’s a great example. We affirm belief in the Triune nature of God – Father, Son, Holy Spirit, who create, redeem, sustain.

And as first-year theology students can tell you, contra Arius, there was never a time when He (the second person of the Trinity) was not. (Arius suggested that the Son was a created being.)

But to suggest pre-Incarnation physicality ultimately guts the Incarnation of any meaningful…meaning. Especially if we abandon the problematic “o felix culpa” thinking (“o fortunate crime,” a sentiment suggesting the blessed state of sin, because it allows us to know Christ as redeemer), we have to assume that the Incarnation was not necessary to the identity of God.

Think of that: without fallen, broken humanity, how would we have known the second person of the Trinity? As the Word. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. By him all things were made. Truly Wesleyan thinking that allows for abundant free will ought to consider the possibility that the second person of the Trinity could have been known in a way other than the cross. Brokenness led to our understanding of the second person of the Trinity as sacrificial lamb.

The distinction between economic and imminent Trinity may be helpful here – that is, the internal Trinitarian life and the life of the Trinity as engaged and known in creation. The Word Made Flesh in John 1 is subsequent to the Word-through-whom-all things-were-made. Jesus of Nazareth was the incarnation of the Word-Through-Whom-All-Things-Were-Made.

Jesus Christ, Word Made Flesh, still did exactly what In-the-Beginning-Was-the-Word-did – creating new reality, bringing new life. Which makes sense when you recall the Bible verse, “See, I am making all things new.”

It’s dangerous to ground our whole understanding of the second person of the Trinity in a scenario in which the only way we know him truly depends on human sin, as if fallenness is necessary in order to know the Word. Because of fallenness, we know the Word as Jesus Christ, the Word Made Flesh. But to suggest the only possible universe in which we could truly know God is one that has the crucifixion means that God in some way ordained human sinfulness so that we could know him.

There is a train of thought that would diverge here with my musing: as pointed out in the excellent article, “Seven Reasons for the Incarnation Besides the Fall,” the medieval theologian John Duns Scotus posited,

“I say, therefore, that the fall was not the cause of the predestination of Christ, and that—even if no one had fallen, not angels or man—in this hypothesis Christ would still have been predestined in the same way.” As Pope Benedict has explained, this belief arises from Duns Scotus’ conviction that the Incarnation was “the greatest and most beautiful” of God’s works and is not “conditioned by any contingent facts.” Instead, for Duns Scotus, God had always planned to “unite the whole of creation with himself in the person and flesh of the Son.”

And indeed there is beauty in the consideration that the Word might always have become flesh, whatever choices humanity made – though the Word Made Flesh in a whole, unfractured world would look astonishingly different than the Word Made Flesh in a cracked and broken universe.

Whether or not you affirm the notion that the Incarnation would happen in every possible universe, the rubber meets the road here: “to suggest the only possible universe in which we could truly know God is one that has the crucifixion means that God in some way ordained human sinfulness so that we could know him.”

And this is why NASA funding matters and why theology matters.

What do you believe about God? Do you believe that in God’s universe, sin has been allowed, or do you believe that God ordained sin as an essential part of the universe God created?

This matters, because it is the difference between tragedy and tyranny. It is the difference between Jesus sobbing with Lazarus’ sisters at stark human suffering, and God ordaining the Holocaust, rape, and child abuse so that we could know the Word as the Word Made Flesh.

For Arminian Wesleyan Methodists, there must be a possible universe in which human fallenness does not occur, in which we know the Triune God truly and authentically, Father, Son, Holy Spirit, who speak, are spoken, and bring to life. To truly celebrate the nature of God – love – and the power of God – sovereignty – we can affirm that God would make God’s self known in every possible universe.

And that’s good news.

One could even say – Gospel.

Unless you live in Cleveland, tear up your notes and call the worship pastor: this Sunday, your sermon will practically write itself.

With phrases like, “‘Next year’ is finally today,” “the curse is broken,” and “‘someday’ is now,” your parishioners don’t have to be diehard baseball fans to appreciate the unbridled glee sweeping every corner of Chicago and most parts of the nation. With these words barely a step removed from the famous, “it’s Friday, but Sunday’s coming!” or the Narnian, “it’s always winter, never Christmas,” the time is ripe to remind congregations exactly what hope looks like in the Kingdom of God. Or gratitude. Or perseverance. Or faith. Or loyalty. Or fulfilled eschatological hope. Or goat-related curses.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b4LrTkWq9jU

So what do you do with all this frenzy when you’re not rewatching clips of Bill Murray’s existential ecstasy? Here are a few ideas for this Sunday:

If you didn’t hold an All Saint’s service last Sunday before the day, consider honoring the “great cloud of witnesses” this Sunday. What has been said in multiple interviews last night and this morning, by everyone from Bill Murray on the field to fans in Chicago pubs? “I’m thinking about my Mom, my Dad, my Aunt, my Uncles, if they could see this, I wish they could be here.” Cue grown men weeping. One Facebook acquaintance has been posting photos of her mother’s tombstone with a tally of Cubs postseason wins in the corner. Another acquaintance commented that his father lived his entire life, birth to death, without ever seeing a Cubs World Series win.

So it’s not bad timing to consider the Church Triumphant – “(Latin: Ecclesia triumphans), which consists of those who have the beatific vision and are in heaven.” It’s interesting that a baseball game could immediately evoke deep emotion about family relationships, grief, and loss, but it’s a dynamic not unlike the Israelites who wandered in the desert vs the Israelites who entered the Promised Land. It’s also not unlike some observations from an episode of Very British Problems on feelings and emotions, in which it was observed that a football (soccer) win allowed usually emotionally restrained men to weep, laugh, and hug publicly – a useful and socially acceptable catharsis.

Preach on what it means to fail spectacularly and publicly. In 2011, a documentary called Catching Hell came out about the nauseating incident when one well-meaning fan cost the Cubs a trip to the World Series. Steve Bartman had to be escorted out of the stadium by security after attempting to catch what he thought was a foul ball. It wasn’t. It was in play, and he kept the player from catching it.  The fan’s name, place of work and even the subdivision he lived in were published in the paper the next day. He got death threats, scorned by an entire city. If there’s one person who would need an alias to have a Facebook profile, it’s this guy. Wikipedia has a page just called, “Steve Bartman Incident.” His name is synonymous now with being the guy who singlehandedly wrecks everyone’s hopes. If there was anyone praying more fervently last night than Bill Murray, it was this guy. Maybe he can sleep a little better – and safer – now. (Post-publication update on Steve Bartman’s response to the win here.)

How does this apply to a sermon? Well, redemption of inadvertent but spectacular failure is certainly a strong message. The story of Jonah might be powerful – one man’s presence due to disobedience threatening to sink a shipful of sailors. So also is the truth of what happens when a crowd turns nasty (plenty of examples of that in the book of Acts). Consider the classic hymn, too – “When I do the best I can, and my friends misunderstand, Thou who knowest all about me, stand by me.” *Note: this might best be preached by a pastor to a group of pastors.

Celebrate what it means for the Curse to be broken. According to Chicagoland lore, a local bar owner bought tickets for himself and his goat in the 1940’s. After his intended good luck-goat was barred from the game, he pronounced a curse on the Cubs and they couldn’t manage to make it into the World Series ever after. Now, most North Americans don’t actually believe in curses, though many of us are casually superstitious about certain things. What built up though was a culture, an identity of being the “Lovable Losers.” The Cubs losing became something familiar, comfortable, but as food for the hope for tomorrow – “someday.” Someday, all the way. Next year. For the Chicago Cubs, it was always regular season, never World Series. It was Friday, but maybe, someday, Sunday would come. The fans kept coming, rain or shine, for the hope of tomorrow, because today stunk. Someday, though. Someday.

In case you’re unclear what I’m driving at, let me connect the dots: Christians believe we don’t know how many extra innings we’ll go into, but we do believe that the Cosmic curse – our fall from Divine grace – has been lifted. The Book of Revelation gives a glimpse of the fireworks and victory laps to come: it gives a glimpse of the locker room celebration, even though we don’t know exactly who will get the runs or outs, or when. But in the Kingdom of God, Steve Bartman gets invited into the locker room for the afterparty.

In the midst of Narnia’s state as C.S. Lewis described it, where it was “always winter, never Christmas,” the residents of the fictional land still clung to a prophecy:

          Wrong will be right, when Aslan comes in sight,
          At the sound of his roar, sorrows will be no more,
          When he bares his teach, winter meets its death
          And when he shakes his name, we shall have spring again.

After all, we read in Revelation 22,

 No longer will there be any curse. The throne of God and of the Lamb will be in the city, and his servants will serve him. They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads. There will be no more night. They will not need the light of a lamp or the light of the sun, for the Lord God will give them light. And they will reign for ever and ever.

The Curse is broken, indeed.

One time as I came down from a platform during a church musical rehearsal, I passed several women and whispered, “I’ll be right back, I have got to go to the bathroom!” I rushed away and couldn’t hear the laughter that erupted behind me; the sound guy had not yet muted my lapel mic.

My whisper had been heard throughout the sanctuary.

When it was, Blessed Among Men turned off my microphone so that no further personal audio echoed through sacred space.

There’s been a lot of discussion in the public square about the nature of men’s-only talk. Behind closed doors, is it inevitably crass, boastful, and vulgar? Beyond that, does it involve boasts of non-consensual conquests? How common is it? Is it ever alright to be vulgar in private? Is it ever alright to boast of non-consensual conquests – indeed, to have them at all?

While “the locker room” has become spatial shorthand for the social space in which these conversations take place, “the vestry” (the room in which pastors put on their vestments) has scrambled to come up with a response. Most of the response has taken the shape of quickly condemning, not first and foremost the crass vocabulary, but rather the bragging about asserting unwanted sexual contact into social interactions with women. Some of the voices responding have been male – men who refuse to accept the unwanted advances of a male politician assuring the
populace that his own behavior wasn’t, and isn’t, harmful. Indeed, the best sermon I’ve ever heard on gender was preached by Tom Fuerst a couple of years ago, long before the current conversation reached fever pitch.

Some of the voices responding from the vestry have been female – women who cite their own experiences of sexual abuse and assault as evidence that what’s being said is excruciatingly harmful. “Wake up, Sleepers, to what women have dealt with all along in environments of gross entitlement and power. Are we sickened? Yes. Surprised? NO,” Tweeted popular women’s study author Beth Moore. “Try to absorb how acceptable the disesteem and objectifying of women has been when some Christian leaders don’t think it’s that big a deal,” she continued. Moore could hardly be characterized as an axe-grinding angry feminist; her books populate the shelves of conservative evangelical women. She is simply a woman telling the truth. One article from The Daily Beast illustrates the widening gap in the responses from evangelical women and some evangelical men, as their brothers in the faith determinedly look the other way.

It seems in our current cultural climate that the mic has picked up the twin identity crises emerging in the church and in the public square. It’s not so much that we’re at a crossroads as we’re at a demolition derby. At a time when deep down we would hope to put our very best people up for election as a government leader, we have one woman whose life has been sharply defined by her marriage to an infamous womanizer, and one man whose life has been sharply defined as an infamous womanizer.

In our public square, women across the country see two primary candidates for President of the United States: one has stuck with a serially unfaithful spouse. The other has regularly said horribly demeaning things to and about women while treating them as a fiscal and personal commodity in his business life. While there are other people on the ballot – thank goodness – the air time has largely gone to these two people. Both traditional political parties have put people front and center who communicate to women with their actions and words that this is the best we can do; this is the best we can expect; this is the best we deserve.

(Promoting the well-being and safety of women, by the by, is one of the most pro-life things you can do: after all, confronting a culture of sexual assault will inevitably lower the number of abortions performed. Not all abortions are chosen in response to sexual abuse, of course – no one would say that – but many women will never, ever bear the child who results from rape. Many women will never tell their abusive husband that there was another pregnancy, one he never knew about, after seeing their children sobbing in the corner. Do you want to protect the unborn? Go to bat against a culture of sexual entitlement.)

What the vestry ignores at its peril is the underground experience of sexual abuse by millions of women, as recounted in overwhelmed terms by an author who inadvertently opened the floodgates on Twitter. This comes after the soaring popularity of Project Unbreakable, a movement that started as a photography project, in which women – faces pictured or not – hold a simple sign with a quote written on it: the words they were told by their abuser.

While many stand-up men and professional athletes have come forward to exclaim vehemently, “that doesn’t happen in my locker room!” perhaps it would be more accurate to say, “those things aren’t said when I’m there,” which both acknowledges that their very presence could have an effect on the environment, and acknowledges that there is a subculture which does exist but in which they do not participate. It also leaves room for the idea that some of this subculture may have just gone underground: perhaps in many social spaces these conversations no longer take place.

But have you checked the average smartphone?

A couple of years ago we bought a smartphone from eBay. It worked great, came with a case and was delivered promptly. I eagerly began exploring it.

The previous owner had not been careful in removing his content.

I doubt the young women who sent the nude pictures to the previous owner ever suspected a pastor-mom would see them in their birthday suits. As far as I know, they sent them of their own free volition (though I don’t know whether they were over 18; they were very young, and if the previous owner was over 18, it could matter under federal law, concerning images of minors). I also doubt that the young women who hooked up with Mr. College Student (he appeared in several selfies) suspected that screen shots had been taken of their phone numbers under the names “Easy Bang” and “Crazy Whore.” In his phone, those were their names. Their identities. I also doubt one young lady would have suspected that a screen shot had been saved of text messages in which he apologized for the accident and offered to buy her the morning-after pill. (Somewhere, he had learned to cover his behind – though not the rest of himself, as one short video clip demonstrated.)

There was a whole locker room in one Samsung Galaxy.

If you want to give a youth group a heart attack, tell them your church WiFi has been hacked and all the content on their smartphones – including their internet search history – has just been downloaded to the secretary’s computer.

Did I say youth group? I meant congregation.

And the vestry will have a difficult time speaking into the public square if clergy smartphones are pocket-sized locker rooms.

But it’s not just about the abuse of status, influence and power in sexual interactions with women.

In truth, both the vestry and the locker room have been part of an ongoing national conversation for months now. Who can forget the nauseating news story that broke about white athletes sexually abusing a disabled black student in a small town high school locker room? What women of all colors are now testifying to, our black sisters and brothers have been saying for quite a while, as they’ve shared stories of discrimination, racism, and abuse: of being pulled over, followed around a department store, or questioned as to the ownership of their vehicle. What have they said? This has happened. This is happening. This will continue to happen unless we confront this reality.

Show me a person who is vocal about women’s rights or racial inequality, and I’ll show you someone who has had some deeply painful and personal experiences. Behind what may look like a “platform” is a story – or a lifetime of stories. It’s easier to talk about civil rights than it is to talk about the time you were called the “n” word. It’s easier to talk about women’s equality than it is to talk about the time you were groped.

So what trends will the mic pick up in our churches? In our locker rooms? What is the mic picking up in our public square? If we refuse to acknowledge the damage, then we have a lot of North American Protestant clergy who essentially are following the example of former Popes in turning a blind eye to the abuses happening in their vestries.

I am moved by stories of survivors: stories of women who climbed their way back from despair, self-loathing, and addiction. Women who – for better or for worse – have taught men to fear them. Women who confront their abusers and hold them accountable in court, so that whatever the verdict is, there will always be an asterisk in peoples’ minds.

Recently I heard Dr. Andrew Thompson speak on acculturation, Constantine, and John Wesley. He expertly dissected the precarious relationship the church has had with the dominant culture in which it finds itself, pointing out that Wesley critiqued Constantine and the effects that came from Christianity being the religion of the empire. Rather than the empire becoming more Christian, the church became more like the empire.

It is dangerous to become complicit in the sins of the empire. There are many such areas; in this case, justice is at stake. How will we love our neighbors as ourselves? Dr. David F. Watson considered this question with insight and gravity recently here.

Most merciful God,
we confess that we have sinned against you
in thought, word, and deed,
by what we have done,
and by what we have left undone.
We have not loved you with our whole heart;
we have not loved our neighbors as ourselves.
We are truly sorry and we humbly repent.
For the sake of your Son Jesus Christ,
have mercy on us and forgive us;
that we may delight in your will,
and walk in your ways,
to the glory of your Name. Amen.

Sometimes we need a space where there is new room for the Holy Spirit: space in our lives, in our schedule, in our church building, in our preaching, in our house.

For me, luckily enough – except it never seems to do with luck where new room is involved – this has been at the New Room Conference. In an age when marketers hope and pray that their ad campaigns will go viral, the Holy Spirit has seen that challenge – and raised it. It’s a potent reminder of how a little backwoods religion “went viral” all around the Mediterranean around 2,000 years ago. The ALS Ice Bucket Challenge has nothing on the Third Person of the Trinity.

This September the gathering saw just its third birthday. Every year, it has doubled in size, causing organizers to have to change venues. Last year, with participants numbering around 800, it wasn’t too hard to find someone you wanted a quick word with. This year, at around 1,500, it was a bit harder, though the conference still managed somehow to have an intimate family feel – which is pretty remarkable, given that its participants represent a blend of denominations and regions.

Many people there have some kind of connection to Asbury Theological Seminary, but not all. (Seedbed Publishing, which sponsors New Room, is itself sponsored by the seminary.) Still, speakers and attendees came from a spectrum of experiences. Presenter Danielle Strickland hails from The Salvation Army (I couldn’t help but be thankful that she left her uniform at home). Andrea Summers has spent her ministry in The Wesleyan Church. Many other speakers were from the United Methodist Church, though Brit Pete Grieg is known for his work with the 24/7 prayer movement. Bishop James Swanson preached a mighty sermon, though the presence of the Mississippi United Methodist underscored an area for growth: while there was racial and international diversity in the speaking line up, many (not all, but many) of the participants were noticeably Caucasian. If New Room truly wants to “sow for a great awakening,” it will inevitably find itself in a conversation on racial reconciliation at some point, because there is no awakening without the whole Body of Christ represented. We simply cannot receive it without each other. The Spirit won’t do it without all of us seeking healing together, in a posture of repentance and confession.

Yet the seeds are here: Dr. Prabhu Singh from the Wesleyan Methodist movement in India spoke a powerful word. A panel of global representatives shared about what God is doing in different places around the world. One woman spoke about her ministry through mental health services to victims of ISIS brutality.

And I saw scholars, professors, pastors, worship leaders lying flat, face down on the ground in prayer. A prayer and worship service that was scheduled to be 90 minutes long went on for three and a half hours. It didn’t feel that long. Organizers handled it sensitively: there was ordered progression to the service, but flexibility as well. At one point someone leaned over to me and whispered, “this wasn’t on the schedule,” as Pete Grieg hopped up on the stage and exhorted everyone in the simple, powerful prayer, “Come on!” – asking the Holy Spirit to “come on,” to come down and transform lives, the world; goading our hearts to “come on,” to respond to God and wake up; and urging each other to “come on,” to keep going in the faith, to move forward together. It was during that service that somehow God plopped the desire of my heart in my lap, stringing together a nearly-impromptu covenant group that somehow seemed to just happen without a great deal of clarity about how it came together. Creating new room for the Holy Spirit, indeed.

The differences between New Room and other conferences are numerous, but one of the most pivotal differences in my estimation is the readiness to translate learning and growth at the conference into daily practice throughout the year, with its fostering of Wesley bands and its online platforms for group study that allow fellowship and growth to flourish regardless of geographic location. In this sense, it’s unique.

S0 – are you creating new room in your life for the Holy Spirit? Has your life created spiritual clutter? Do you need to sort and toss, mop and box up, or even just shove aside a pile of detritus to make just enough room to lie flat in prayer? Claim some space, now today: it doesn’t have to be much. Just enough time, or attention, or space to pray, “Come on, Holy Spirit…Come on…”

If you or I think of a laser, we probably have a mental image of what we might colloquially call a concentrated beam of light, whether it’s used recreationally like in laser tag or a laser light show, or practically like in an eye surgery or in cutting material. You might even picture the powerful ray from the Death Star in Star Wars or a light saber from the same series (though sadly, according to a television special I saw once, a light saber would be almost impossible to construct from the actual current scientific standpoint). One classic James Bond film includes a memorable scene in which the famous spy has a close encounter with a shining laser beam slowly inching towards him as he is tethered helplessly on a table.

In other words, while some lasers are more powerful than others, their narrow beams continue to fascinate us and new applications will probably be explored for decades or centuries to come.

Which leads us to holy love.

At the recent New Room Conference (a place you need to be next September), I picked up a slight, pocket-sized Seedbed Seedling volume by Dr. Joseph Dongell simply titled Sola Sancta Caritas (“only holy love”). Dr. Dongell is a longstanding biblical and Greek scholar and professor. In Sola Sancta Caritas he offers a masterful survey of the Wesleyan holiness movement’s outcomes, the nature of Wesleyanism, robust examples of the centrality of the notion and practice of holy love in Wesley’s writings, and what holy love does and does not encompass.

Not bad for a thin pocket volume 45 pages long.

While Dongell examines the trends or waves of Wesleyan thought and scholarship, he draws his own startling conclusions from a full immersion into Wesley’s sermons, journals and letters (found on page 15).

In reading through Wesley for myself, it seemed to me that love rushed through all fourteen volumes like a tsunami. My handwritten index tracking substantive references to love in each volume had taken the appearance of a dense forest. It seemed that Wesley was standing on his head and shouting to draw attention to love.

Among other well-chosen quotes, Dongell highlights this one from Wesley’s sermon On Patience:

From the moment we are justified, till we give up our spirits to God, love is the sum of Christian sanctification; it is the one kind of holiness [there is, the degrees of which are simply differences] in the degree of love.

Love is the sum of Christian sanctification? This, Dongell concludes, stands in contrast with the revivalist upbringing he cherishes but of which he acknowledges the limitations. In the North American 20th century holiness movement, it was purity and power emphasized as the effects of sanctification.

By appreciating the full impact of Wesley’s emphasis on holy love, Dongell redirects our Wesleyan Methodist attention into sharp, concentrated focus: holy love is narrow yet far-reaching, both penetrating and illuminating, something that can be familiar and safe or deadly in its aim.

Holy love is like a laser. It is anything but saccharine or weak. It is anything but flimsy or peripheral. It is not an addendum, not an afterthought. Holy love, laser-like, may appear powerful and pure, but those are descriptors, not its essence. Holy love, Dongell clarifies, is not, “general human intuition.” Neither, he stipulates, is it good works. Holy love finds its origins not in humans, but in God. Holy love will not pop up automatically from our own nature; Dongell ensures our awareness that it is the gift of God. And, “the infusion of God’s love within us produces holiness as its natural outcome.” Again, we see that we are called to be more than we are able, we can receive what we need to be able, and that being like Christ through an infusion of God’s love will produce the side effect of holiness.

So what makes a laser a laser? Why isn’t like other light, shining gently from a lamp? The very briefest and most basic description asserts that a laser, “emits light coherently. Spatial coherence enables a laser to focus to a tight spot.” As far as this non-physicist can tell, coherence has to do with correlation between waves.

Now of all his activities, of all his travels and writing and busyness, one thing could easily describe Wesley: his focus. In fact his focus was so severe that one may quickly surmise an armchair diagnosis of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder. Weighing your food intake at every meal aside, what Dongell hits on is Wesley’s laser-like focus. Sola Sancta Caritas – “only holy love” – is what Wesley’s methodology, his theology, his ecclesiology boil down to.

Miners don’t go to church? Take your preaching into the fields to them: holy love. 

People don’t have access to rudimentary health care? Publish a common-sense pamphlet: holy love. 

Christians floundering in their zeal for their faith? Band them together with likeminded Christians, like the Moravians did: holy love. 

How often should Methodists take the Eucharist – that tangible reminder of the embodiment of Christ’s love? As often as possible: holy love. 

Methodists on the American frontier not getting the Eucharist? Ordain your own ministers and send them: holy love. 

Someone dragging down a group by willfully neglecting the guidelines for covenant together? Suspend them: holy love.

Like a laser.

Now the question remains: how well are we known for our focus? For our laser-like intensity? Should Methodists be the most undistracted people on the planet?

Whether the topic is famine relief or preaching, criminal justice reform or small group programs, funeral dinners or church landscaping choices, what must characterize it all, if it is to be distinctly Wesleyan Methodist? 

Holy love.

Leave out holy love and you may have solid humanitarian work, efficient discipleship programs, even biblically shaped sermons, but you won’t be a Christian following Jesus in the company of the Wesleys. The fullest picture we have of holy love is the life of Jesus Christ. No wonder Wesley emphasized the Eucharist over and over again: to live like Christ is to live holy love. We need the holy love of Christ through Holy Communion, to taste it and mull over it, to hear, “the Body of Christ, broken for you.”

A laser can encompass a great deal. Part of the scientist’s protest against the idea of constructing an actual light saber was not that it couldn’t be built, but that it would be impossible to limit the laser to a specific field: imagine turning on a light saber and having the “blade” extend all the way out to the moon and beyond. Nonetheless, as noted above, a laser is inherently limited. Its internal coherence focuses it (again, speaking as a layperson, not a physicist). And so there are some things lasers will always encompass and some things lasers will never encompass.

How like sanctification.

We lose our way if we focus on result instead of source. We lose our way if we get distracted with one program or topic at the loss of our most basic reason.

Recently I spoke on just this subject with a camp meeting preacher. Would it be a healthy corrective, I suggested, if the message of holiness was always tied back to the Second Person of the Trinity? In many Wesleyan holiness contexts holiness is preached in the context of the Third Person of the Trinity. Rightly so. But the Holy Spirit does not just infill humans as a kind of sanctified cul-de-sac, detached from the revelation of Christ. The Holy Spirit always witnesses back to Christ, revealing Christ, empowering Christlikeness. The Holy Spirit tells the story of Christlikeness through us. This distinction finds its shape in systematic theology but we see Dongell illustrate the distinction well through the contrast of power and purity and holy love. 

It is not the Holy Spirit’s job to make us pure and powerful. It is the Holy Spirit’s job to make us like Jesus. As it happens, Jesus is pure and powerful. But the Spirit is constantly in a dance to reveal Christ, to shape us into “little Christs.” In this sense, C.S. Lewis in Mere Christianity made a wonderful Methodist:

Now the whole offer which Christianity makes is this: that we can, if we let God have His way, come to share in the life of Christ. If we do, we shall then be sharing a life which was begotten, not made, which always existed and always will exist. Christ is the Son of God. If we share in this kind of life we also shall be sons of God. We shall love the Father as He does and the Holy Ghost will arise in us. He came to this world and became a man in order to spread to other men the kind of life He has — by what I call “good infection.” Every Christian is to become a little Christ. The whole purpose of becoming a Christian is simply nothing else.

If you are a Wesleyan Methodist, are you known for your laser-like focus on holy love? On the kind of love that may cauterize and burn, may illumine and dance, may direct and heal? What would it look like if you brought every church activity under the microscope of holy love? Maybe all of the programs would stay the same, maybe not. Maybe the only thing that would change is the way in which they are carried out – and why. 

Through the Holy Spirit, God, make us like Jesus: and empower our focus to be stark and laser-like, so that we are known as people with internal coherence. May our waves find their correlation in you. And let us shine like lasers.

The brilliance of the World Methodist Conference is still shifting through my mind, light through a suncatcher hanging on a window.

The days in Houston were color, sound, faces, laughter, weeping, worship, intensity, frustration, revelation. I met people and forgot names. I met people and remembered names. I saw textiles woven with Methodist patterns, saris shimmering, archbishop caps velvety and plush; music, art, science, all pinned up by prayer and thanksgiving and yearning and the plastic mechanics of translation headsets. There were laughing reunions of old friends, businesslike introductions, notes hastily scribbled while listening to profound speaker after profound speaker, paper business cards exchanged. Houston humidity was hanging heavy on the air, the heaviness clouding the jetlagged faces of international delegates. Energy emitted from others in waves strong enough they could’ve charged a few of the always-dying smartphones of delegates and participants.

Parsing out such a gathering takes months.

A couple of undercurrents of thought emerged, though. They bubbled up in chats, they surfaced in workshops and seminars, they popped up in a plenary or two. One current was simple joyous celebration in the very bringing together of such a globally diverse gathering. Attendees were glad to be present with so many other people from countries most have never been to. The parade of banners in Opening Worship illustrated just how far the Wesley brothers’ influence traveled. The Methodist Church of Tonga? Fiji? Southern Africa? Kyrgyrzstan? Italy? And then there were Nazarenes, United Methodists, A.M.E. Zions, Wesleyans, C.M.E.s, A.M.E.s, Free Methodists, all branching out into the world from the United States. Methodism has been present in many nations around the world for over a century. At one point, in fact, early in Methodist days, a well-meaning evangelist sailed to the Caribbean only to find that Methodism was already there, thanks to the work of an earnest layperson.

Another current that emerged was the nature of our continued engagement with our world. And it was here that some different perspectives emerged. Both views fully affirmed the value of social justice and works of mercy; the crux was revealed in how they went about it.

In one workshop, handouts were distributed encouraging ministers not to ever try to evangelize a person from another faith (though “evangelize” was not defined). It recommended not only learning from another person’s faith (a laudable effort in itself), but rather accepting that no religion has a unique truth claim, and therefore it is inappropriate to suggest that yours does.

In the same workshop, a Bishop with a great deal of experience partnering with Muslim leaders to fight common diseases expressed a sense of frustration at this approach, asserting that his Muslim friends would not take him seriously if he was apologetic for his faith, and that he was comfortable working in interreligious partnerships while also being comfortable in his own skin as a Christian.

In conversations, I noted a slight change in demeanor occasionally when I explained my job title: Associate Director of World Methodist Evangelism. There was hesitancy while I briefly shared our vision of faith sharing, and a bit of polite social distance when I described the value of approaching faith sharing through word, deed, and sign. In other words, providing hurricane relief or microloans or wells for clean water is wonderful; doing it in the name of Christ, along with proclamation and prayer, could become aggressive, intolerant and disrespectful.

And yet there was another subtext also potentially lacking a robust appreciation of the redemption of all Creation: that anything not accompanied by explicit sharing of the message of Christ is wasted (a line of thinking woefully lacking in a full theology of prevenient grace; Jesus healed nine lepers who walked away healthy yet lacking spiritual insight, but he healed them nonetheless, and that was a good thing).

So let’s quickly sketch out the Christian theology behind this discussion, for a bit of clarity.

Special or specific revelation can refer to the revelation of the nature of God through the Incarnation of the person of Jesus Christ. It refers to the special revelation of God through the unique supernatural means.

General revelation can refer to awareness of God through reason or nature, accessible to anyone through natural means.

Now if you don’t like that distinction or those definitions, you can take it up with St. Thomas Aquinas. For our purposes, they’re helpful.

If you embrace the postmodern assumption that nothing can be known for certain, then you wrestle with the idea of special or specific or supernatural revelation. After all, it would be arrogant to claim one person has special revelation in that context. And extremists (in the Middle East) who kill civilians by blowing themselves up or who (in North America) picket military funerals in protest of homosexuality claim special revelation, and we don’t want to be like them. Furthermore, the lives of those who claim to follow a religion of special revelation (like Christianity or Islam) often fall woefully short. When a pastor is jailed for child abuse, what then? There is an extraordinary deeply felt lack of optimism when it comes to the competing claims of world religions.

What, then, provides for optimism? The hope that those religions can emphasize what they hold in common, in order to provide tangible help to the suffering. And that, in itself, is not a bad thing. It’s good when a Bishop has close Muslim friends with whom he works to eradicate a terrible disease. It’s good when pastors mourn when a local imam is killed. It’s good when imams mourn when pastors are killed.

The questions that Christians must answer are what we believe, why we believe it, why we are Christians, and, at a conference like the World Methodist Conference, why we are Methodists.

I am not a Methodist so that I can be a better humanitarian. I appreciate humanitarians; they do a lot of good in the world, and that is a great thing. There are many organizations I could join to be a good humanitarian, though, and they have a lot less parliamentary law.

And I am not a Methodist out of sentimentality for my upbringing in Wesleyan Methodist theology. I appreciate heritage; it guides us in our identity and values. There are many organizations I could join to appreciate heritage, though, and they have a lot less parliamentary law.

Wesleyan Methodism is a way for me to be a Christian. If I did not believe in the specific revelation of the nature of God through Jesus Christ, I would not be a Christian. I wouldn’t waste my time with the parliamentary law of denominations or fellowships or conferences. If I just wanted to make the world a better place, I would join Greenpeace or the Red Cross or the Peace Corps or the U.N. (though that last one would reburden me with parliamentary law). I want the world to be a better place and I’m thankful for those organizations. They do a lot of great, worthwhile work.

But I am a Christian who wants the world to be a better place. And I value Wesleyan Methodism as a way to be a Christian. And if I follow Christ – imperfectly, believing more fully some days than others – if I choose to follow Christ, then that shapes how I interact with the world. And I will talk about Jesus because without Jesus I’m a jerk. And when I see a great initiative about wells for villages I will think of Jesus sitting by a well talking to a woman who, in my town, would be the woman with the smeared mascara and cheap dye job still wearing yesterday’s clothes. And when people ask about my Christ medallion, I smile. I’ve eaten Saltines with a sip of Welch’s, I’ve eaten Hawaiian bread with a sip of grape juice, I’ve dissolved a wafer on my tongue with a sip of port wine, and I’ve tasted in all of them the Body of Christ, the Blood of Christ.

I’ve eaten with Muslims and agnostics, with atheists and Wiccans, with Buddhists and Baptists. I enjoy breaking bread with people who are different than I am. I don’t want any of them to go hungry. I want to share what I have with them, whether they ever believe what I believe or not.

But I’m also comfortable with my vocational call to proclaim Jesus Christ, and him crucified – or as I told my first congregation, “if I didn’t believe this, I wouldn’t waste your time; if I ever stop believing, I’ll stop preaching.” That’s not refusing to wrestle with doubt; it’s not refusing to admit struggle or suffering; it’s not a claim to superior knowledge or holiness. It’s Ebenezer: here, by God’s help, I’ve come, as I wrote here.

Humanitarian work is valuable, deeply so. Just The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation alone illustrates that. One could say it is a means of general revelation. (Although I should note that Melinda Gates is open about her Catholic faith.) And if someone’s deep skepticism about goodness in the world is lessened because I hold a door open for her, all the better: perhaps that will soften her heart to consider whether there might be a benevolent Creator.

The work of the church, however – the work of the Body of Christ, the Church Universal – always goes beyond general revelation. It proclaims Christ, even as newly sainted Mother Teresa did when she taught her sisters that to touch a smelling, diseased, infected, helpless man or woman was to touch Jesus. Witness requires sacrifice; it requires self-denial. Even Jesus prayed, “Father – not this. Not this…” And so while, as good Wesleyan Methodists, we seek to become more and more Christlike, perhaps the Spirit makes us so by allowing us to treat others – no matter how repulsive we personally may find them – as if they were Jesus in the flesh.

It is the only way to keep hate from seeping into my heart: hate towards groups like Westboro; hate towards racists and rapists; hate towards bigots and big-mouths; hate towards bullies and exploiters. I have found that, Jesus’ “goodness, like a [leash], binds my wandering heart to thee.”

Christ has died – to make all things new, as we are anointed to carry out alongside him through the Holy Spirit.

Christ is risen – conquering the ugliest realities of the universe, a sign that death will die, as we are anointed to proclaim through the Holy Spirit as we bring life to dying people and places.

Christ will come again – breathing the promise of God’s Kingdom fully realized, a way of being where there is no more crying, no more pain, and we share this promise when we work to relieve suffering, as we are anointed to proclaim the healing of the nations through the Holy Spirit.

Yes, we speak of Jesus, because we cannot be silent. In our work, in our prayers, our hearts’ cry is the Son of God, Emmanuel, God With Us, Bright and Morning Star. It is through the light of Christ we see, and by his wounds we are healed. It is his Body we celebrate, the Word Made Flesh, and it is on this mystery we meditate while volunteering at soup kitchens or planting community gardens or shoveling a widow’s driveway or paying the utility bills for a laid-off neighbor or structuring a microloan process for former sex workers.

We follow Jesus wherever he leads, we celebrate his company, and we invite you to walk with us on our pilgrimage. You may say no; we’ll still share water from our canteen. You may say no; we’ll still offer bandages for your blisters. You may say no; we’ll still tell roadside jokes, tears streaming down our faces from laughter. But this? This is how we walk.

Won’t you walk with us?

What neighborhood, out of all the ones you’ve lived in, has been your favorite?

Was it a quiet small town street lined with tall trees?

Was it a bustling corner of a large, noisy city?

Was it a distant, rural farm, the air scratched with the clucking of chickens?

Was it a small cottage on the edge of the windy sea?

An entire generation of American schoolchildren have had their values formed by a quiet Presbyterian minister who operated a toy trolley: Mr. Rogers’ song was a distinct part of my graham cracker and milk years, the liturgy of the newly potty trained.

Would you be mine, could you be mine,

Won’t you be my neighbor?

Won’t you please? Won’t you please? Please won’t you be my neighbor?

The gentle cardigan-wearing man talked about what it meant to be a good neighbor; what it meant to be a good friend; what it meant to be helpful, to steer through fights, to be kind to people who are different than we are, to tell the truth – all in the context of community and family. And he never neglected the animals, ambling over for the end-of-show ritual of feeding the aquarium full of fish.

I’ve thought a lot about neighbors over the past few days. In a hotel teeming with guests, noises and laughter echo through closed doors, elevators spill with international visitors, the lobby full of global Methodists and American Paralympians on their way to Rio. In this building, we are neighbors. We eat together, we sleep on different sides of shared walls, we meet in common spaces set aside for our communal gathering. Many of the Wesleyan Methodists gathered from over 80 denominations and over 100 countries around the world speak English; not all, but many. For those who do not, a booth of translators was set up along a wall, headsets distributed, so that no one was left out. Songs were sung in multiple languages, and I heard but did not comprehend the words spoken over the communion elements.

Who is my neighbor? 

The elderly couple who lived next door when I was five, they were retired, and while I went on my first journey to visit my grandparents in Michigan by myself the old man died. I still think of that sometimes.

The nurse who worked nights; the only time we saw her was when she was in her backyard, watering plants and smoking or talking on her phone. She kept to herself.

The family who lived behind us when we moved into the parsonage at my first pastoral appointment, they were Baptist, and happily so. I became friends with the wife, she lent me DVD’s over the back fence.

Who is my neighbor?

The AME Zion pastor who waited for an elevator, telling me of his wife who died, of his prayer conference call that he hosts weekly, of his children, of the tears that came during the service.

The Kenyan pastor who works in the slums of Nairobi, desperate to help equip Christians called to ministry, frustrated by recent laws placing restrictions on who is qualified to work as preachers in the country.

The astrophysicist who lives in Maryland and spoke of star formation and Psalm 8, of the majesty of the universe and the glory of God.

The Irish pastor who has served in both Ireland and Northern Ireland – despite their histories and differences.

The bivocational Chinese Australian pastor considering seminary and dreaming about how to increase the impact of connectionalism.

The Nigerian Bishop who spoke of building relationships with area Muslims to work together to protect their children from malaria-bearing mosquitoes.

South Africans and Indians, Americans and Japanese, Brazilians and Irish, Germans and Koreans, Russians and Italians, Pakistanis and Caribbeans and so, so many more lined up to receive communion bread and dip it into blood-red juice. The Body of Christ, indeed.

Being neighbors occasionally means annoyance: it means reestablishing boundaries, asking someone to turn their music down, settling disputes. But while being neighbors isn’t trouble-free, it also doesn’t allow us to insist on isolation. We share this globe, this tilted rock that God called good, and our neighbors are not just those who remember when we were young, or who served with us on the PTA. You are a jet away from the other side of the world: in less than 24 hours you could be present with a friend in need.

Who is my neighbor?

They will know we are Christians by our love, by our love…

They won’t know we are Christians by how easy our relationships are; they won’t know we are Christians by our success; they won’t know we are Christians by our savvy investments; they won’t know we are Christians by our hipster-friendly music.

We are knit together fearfully and wonderfully in the womb of this galaxy, we neighbors, breathing the air of God’s breath as we blink and squall at the startling light of Triune love. We are still newborns learning to recognize the face of our Creator, learning to move through the example of Christ our brother.

How is it that we could refuse the gift of neighbors? Christians need the friendship of the faith.

Who is my neighbor?

Whoever is sitting beside you right now.

Who is my neighbor?

Whoever is part of your life as you walk through it on a daily basis.

Who is my neighbor?

Whoever shares this planet with you, who shares the same moon, the same oceans.

Wasn’t it John Wesley who said, “The world is my neighborhood”?

It is a season to weed and to water and to pluck from the vine.

We are in the midst of Ordinary Time on the liturgical calendar – between Pentecost and Advent, “ordinary” sounds mundane. But if it is mundane, it can also be the beautiful kind of mundane, like a long-married couple sharing their morning coffee or a gardener deadheading a plant, again. Tempus per anum is the phrase from which we glean ordinary time, though it simply means “time during the year.” Where ordinary may sound aimless or lacking in comment-worthy value, “time during the year” calls us to peaceful, bustling fruitfulness.

During the summer, you water, you weed, you gather up harvest, you can vegetables or boil fruit into jam to save up for bleak winter days when hard grey and brown define the horizon. Repetition does not have to imply boredom or meaninglessness – though advertisers attempt to convince us otherwise. The rhythm of seasons is a necessary beauty, like the measured count behind your favorite music.

In the modest little volume, A Year in an Irish Garden, writer Ruth Isabel Ross comments on gardening life in August.

Light rain all day, endless gloom, horrible for many disappointed people on holiday especially since the weather forecasts predicted several days of brilliant sunshine. It is difficult for an enthusiastic gardener, though, not to gloat selfishly at the thought of so many roots finding refreshment. Some of our most handsome perennial plants look wilted because we skimped their mulching. Now they’ll revive. As for the vegetables, this incessant rain should save the crops.

Ms. Ross’ thoughts from County Wicklow on 22 August again reel us in:

Why is a beautiful morning so much more marvellous than a fine afternoon? Perhaps because of the freshness and because it makes the garden a paradise for suddenly released creatures. There has been gentle rain all night but soon after dawn the sun shines, bringing out happy bees and butterflies.

These meditations from an Irish gardener illumine a couple of practical truths: first, that gardeners and farmers are invested in rather different things than their neighbors. What is a bad day for a tourist is a guiltily triumphant day for someone who has given hours to reclaiming a hundred-year-old garden. And what is ministry but reclaiming lost garden, inch by inch? Until that Day when Heaven and Earth are made new? Our leafy green remnants of our lost paradise assert the beauty with which God created the world. No, we Christians see rhythms and seasons and tides a bit differently than our neighbors, and that’s alright. They don’t have to understand our joy when a fragile perennial survives: but they’ll see our joy, and wonder at it.

Second, there are no small victories. The morning “makes the garden a paradise for suddenly released creatures.” Happy bees and butterflies are free to buzz and flutter. There’s an extraordinary pressure present in the world today: pressure to perform, pressure to always say only just the right thing, pressure to show yourself worthy of being heard, pressure to change people who fall short, pressure to fix all of our global, national, and local woes, pressure to prove our rightness, pressure to practice best practices in every area all the time, pressure to be open and honest about your messiness, pressure to be caught up to date on information that may come up in any conversation, pressure to represent your demographic well, pressure to conform to whatever prevailing values your virtual or physical peer group celebrates.

In the middle of this pressure cooker, where is room to celebrate a paradise for suddenly released creatures? Where is there room to savor one small victory that, in the scheme of things, may be monumental? Gardeners know that faithfulness counts but success is not guaranteed. The ups and downs of gardening illuminate precisely how much is out of our control. Pastors are excellent at attempting to control outcomes. Jesus was wise enough not to. Scatter the seed, Jesus said. Some will get eaten. Some will spring up fast but shallow, withering when the heat is turned up. Some will land on hard rock. And just a little – just a little, will take root, grow, bear fruit. Who are you to discount a small victory? Jesus didn’t. If you’re too good, too successful, too busy to experience gratitude for the freed, released bees and butterflies, why should God put anything bigger in your care?

Consider the lilies – they don’t work, they don’t weave, but they’re more beautiful than all of Solomon’s ancient wealth. How much more will the Savior, who Mary mistook as a gardener, take care of you – and your cares?

We are being tended by the Good Gardener, watered, weeded, pruned. We are subject to the seasons – the time during the year – the ordinary time.  We are ordinary creatures, and that is enough.