Author Archives: hummingbird

Today’s post is written alongside others delving into the moral, ethical, and biblical ramifications of the current practice in the United States of separating immigrant parents from their children. In it, we include reflections on the plight of children in the Old Testament; the plight of families in the Western hemisphere; and the ways in which Jesus, a Messiah who saw the suffering of families, stretched his followers’ moral imaginations.

It is also written with consciousness that this is not the first time parents and children in the United States have been separated from each other, as the history of Native Americans and the Black slave trade demonstrate.

Please feel free to share today’s post with the hashtags #notwithoutmychild and #familiesbelongtogether.

Children Adrift: The Old Testament

Now a man of the tribe of Levi married a Levite woman, and she became pregnant and gave birth to a son. When she saw that he was a fine child, she hid him for three months. But when she could hide him no longer, she got a papyrus basket for him and coated it with tar and pitch. Then she placed the child in it and put it among the reeds along the bank of the Nile. His sister stood at a distance to see what would happen to him.

Then Pharaoh’s daughter went down to the Nile to bathe, and her attendants were walking along the riverbank. She saw the basket among the reeds and sent her female slave to get it. She opened it and saw the baby. He was crying, and she felt sorry for him. “This is one of the Hebrew babies,” she said. – Exodus 2:1-6

I do not think I’ve ever heard someone preach on the compassion of Pharoah’s daughter. She also strikes me as a savvy woman. She came face to face with a squalling infant who was suffering because of her father’s decree to kill the Hebrew infants and toddlers who could potentially pose a future threat to the Egyptian way of life. She probably surmised precisely who the young girl was half-hidden in the reeds near the basket. She knew it was a Hebrew baby; here was a nearby young girl. Not only did Moses’ birth mother get to raise him while he was young, she was now paid to do so. Yes, Pharoah’s daughter was compassionate, and savvy.

I don’t know if she was able to intervene in the fate of other little baby boys; maybe she saved the one she could. Maybe she was haunted by the fates of the ones she couldn’t.

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Early the next morning Abraham took some food and a skin of water and gave them to Hagar. He set them on her shoulders and then sent her off with the boy. She went on her way and wandered in the Desert of Beersheba.

When the water in the skin was gone, she put the boy under one of the bushes. Then she went off and sat down about a bowshot away, for she thought, “I cannot watch the boy die.” And as she sat there, she began to sob.

God heard the boy crying, and the angel of God called to Hagar from heaven and said to her, “What is the matter, Hagar? Do not be afraid;God has heard the boy crying as he lies there. Lift the boy up and take him by the hand, for I will make him into a great nation.”

Then God opened her eyes and she saw a well of water. So she went and filled the skin with water and gave the boy a drink. God was with the boy as he grew up. He lived in the desert and became an archer. – Genesis 21:14-20

Hagar didn’t ask to sleep with Abraham. She was a servant, and Sarah, impatient and distrustful of God’s promise, lent her to Abraham. But Sarah couldn’t put away her jealousy of Hagar’s son, even after having her own. She wanted Hagar to go. Hagar didn’t get autonomy over her own body, and once she had a son, the injustices continued. With no secure future, she was sent away.

Yet what a tender passage we encounter: she is sobbing, she cannot bear the notion of watching her son die. And this little slave woman and her beloved son do not escape God’s notice. What’s the matter, Hagar? Don’t be afraid.

Later, Pharoah’s daughter will hear a young one crying and feel sorry for him. Here, God hears a young one crying under a bush, and responds as well.

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The king asked, “Is there no one still alive from the house of Saul to whom I can show God’s kindness?”

Ziba answered the king, “There is still a son of Jonathan; he is lame in both feet.” So King David had him brought from Lo Debar, from the house of Makir son of Ammiel. When Mephibosheth son of Jonathan, the son of Saul, came to David, he bowed down to pay him honor. David said, “Mephibosheth!” “At your service,” he replied.

“Don’t be afraid,” David said to him, “for I will surely show you kindness for the sake of your father Jonathan. I will restore to you all the land that belonged to your grandfather Saul, and you will always eat at my table.” Mephibosheth bowed down and said, “What is your servant, that you should notice a dead dog like me?”

Then the king summoned Ziba, Saul’s steward, and said to him, “I have given your master’s grandson everything that belonged to Saul and his family. You and your sons and your servants are to farm the land for him and bring in the crops, so that your master’s grandson may be provided for. And Mephibosheth, grandson of your master, will always eat at my table.” 

 And Mephibosheth lived in Jerusalem, because he always ate at the king’s table; he was lame in both feet. – II Samuel 9:3-13

Mephibosheth was five years old when the news about his dad and granddad came. While David was mourning the loss of his best friend, Jonathan, Jonathan’s son was being spirited away by his nurse, to protect him in the political upheaval; but in her hurry, Mephibosheth fell and was disabled the rest of his life: the little boy’s feet would never work again. On top of the tragedy of his father dying, he would equate receiving the news with the loss of being able to properly run, jump, and play.

Mephibosheth was a child of tragedy and grief, through no fault of his own. He didn’t ask to be in the middle of political upheaval; he didn’t choose his family, he wasn’t old enough to weigh in on their decisions.

But David wants to “show God’s kindness” to any lingering survivors of Saul’s line. He restores property; he ensures income and livelihood; he bestows honor by issuing a standing invitation to supper, any time. David can’t erase Mephibosheth’s past, but he can ensure a future of dignity and safety. And he can make sure that Mephibosheth’s family is provided for.

The cries of other sons had been heard by God, had been heard by a Pharoah’s daughter. David went searching for a child whose cries had faded, if the injuries to spirit and body had not.

In a basket; under a bush; in the arms of a nurse.

The lost children of the Old Testament were not overlooked by God.

Children Adrift: The Western Hemisphere

Currently in the United States of America, immigrant parents are being separated from their children. No law requires this.

It can be difficult for American citizens with quick access to WiFi to imagine life with dubious communication connections; frequently immigrants to the United States have incomplete or inaccurate information about what lies ahead, what policies they will face, how much money they’ll have to pay to whom.

Some parents are trying to get their kids away from cartel violence, food shortages, and political upheaval. In Venezuela, children are starving to death. In Guatemala, the raid of one workplace in the U.S. can directly affect the sustenance of an entire village.

Children Adrift: A Messiah for Families

In a time when Americans often suffer compassion fatigue, seeing footage of wildfires and hurricanes, volcano eruptions and war, school shootings and tragedy, we are called to step back and reflect. Frequently in the Gospels we read of a Messiah gone AWOL: frustrated disciples search high and low, scout around town, attempting to find Jesus. In these moments, he had always withdrawn to pray in quiet away from the frequent chaos that surrounded him.

When Jesus encountered people swept up in debate or confusion about ethics or religious laws or the will of God, he invited them into the insight and truth he centered on in those times of prayer. Often, he met their questions with stories.

“Who is my neighbor?”

“Once, a man was traveling…”

In these teaching moments, Jesus was stretching the moral imaginations of his hearers. He took them from a narrow question to a broad principle, by way of illustrating vivid characters. Jesus’ responses may as well have been prefaced with the phrase, “imagine this…”

Over on First Things, Jonathan Jones describes the strengths and virtues of moral imagination: “a uniquely human ability to conceive of fellow humanity as moral beings and as persons, not as objects whose value rests in utility or usefulness.” This is a profound challenge: to conceive of other humans as persons, not as objects useful or unuseful to us. Neighbor implies valuable personhood, not just asset or liability. To be fully human, Jones posits, is, “to embrace the duties and obligations toward a purpose of security and endurance for, first and foremost, the family and the local community.”

This personhood is woven in the most essential fabric of human existence, the family. To deny family is to deny personhood. To deny personhood is to relegate people to existence as asset or liability in a ledger. But to deny recognition of personhood to another is also to undermine our own humanity, because, as Jones asserts, moral imagination is a uniquely human ability.

Jesus was a Messiah who saw families: frantic parents like Jairus asked him to heal their children; young kids offered their fish Happy Meals to him, which he happily multiplied and fed the masses with. When the disciples tried to remind parents how important Jesus was, he stopped them, and said, “let the little kids come over.” To stuffy adults, he sternly reminded them that to enter the Kingdom of God, one had to become like a child.

Jesus constantly reframed the questions his followers threw at him. He challenged the edges of their imagination, coaxing them to a place of empathy. Imagine this, he’d say: your neighbor is the Samaritan you fear who saves you from robbers on a barren road and pays for your recovery; maybe the person you distrust will be the means of your survival. Maybe the dynamic between you will be turned upside-down and you’ll end up receiving, not just sacrificing and giving.

Today, what do we as Christians believe about who God is?

We see that God cares about moms and children who have had an unfair life and are left out in the cold without resources.

We see that God allowed a savvy, compassionate woman and a completely vulnerable infant to encounter each other in a river in ancient Egypt, restoring the baby to his worried mama and preparing him for leadership later.

We see that God intersected David’s life in such a way that David knew and trusted God’s kindness and wanted to show God’s kindness to the devastated survivors of warfare, a family ripped apart at the seams.

We see that Jesus Christ, the second person of the Trinity, valued the personhood of sons and daughters, moms and dads, and saw their lives as valuable and worth intervention.

We see that Jesus Christ, the second person of the Trinity, constantly pivoted questions away from the concerns of the asker and toward the concerns of those being asked about. Jesus Christ celebrated the humanity, the personhood, of those who were deemed a liability.

In continuity with God-who-heard-a-child-crying-under-a-bush, in continuity with God-who-made-his-way-to-the-dying-daughter-of-Jairus, today, we affirm that families matter to God; that children have personhood and value, and that to willfully separate parents from their children and children from their parents is to deface our own “uniquely human ability to conceive of fellow humanity as moral beings and as persons, not as objects whose value rests in utility or usefulness.”

We affirm the beauty of parenthood, the value of childhood, and the imperative to honor both. We appreciate the parenthood of Mary and Joseph, the childhood of the toddler Jesus, and the care Jesus extended to his mother while he was dying by crucifixion.

We grieve violence, food shortage, corruption of leaders, and lack of infrastructure that places families in the impossible scenario of weighing whether their children will be safer in their home towns or migrating to a new place. We agree with Jesus that it would be better to have a millstone around the neck and to be thrown into the sea than to deliberately hurt and harm a child.

We pray that a robust vision of the value of human life will prevail over short-term practices that separate kids from their dads and moms. We pray that a holistic value of human life will stretch from dangerous school hallways to full social services for impoverished pregnant women, from holistic crisis pregnancy centers to bleak nursing home hallways, from law enforcement encounters with people of color to immigrant detention centers.

We reject notions that ease us into giving up our moral imaginations, like the necessity of evil “for the greater good,” the necessity of social “collateral damage,” the necessity of inflicting damage on others’ families in order to prevent potential future harm on our own.

We condemn the use of human lives as pawns in political maneuvering when done by any portion of the political spectrum. We celebrate expressions of immigration policy that maintain the dignity and God-given value of every individual human life.

We know that the government of the United States is separate from any one religious body. But we pray that current and future government officials and representatives will recall the ethical principles at work in many world religions and that often guide our common life together in the public square of our democratic republic. Our grand experiment in the United States cannot succeed without a robust appreciation of individual personhood existing in the fabric of family.

And so, we stand, sit, and kneel with those who are crying for their children and their parents; we pray for peace, stability, and opportunity in their home countries; and we pray for wisdom for the leaders who have the power and the moment to create humane policies, if they will only have the imagination to do so.

“Do not let your hearts be troubled” (John 14:1-31).

Imagine how the disciples are feeling in this moment. Jesus has just predicted Peter’s denial and another’s betrayal: they could hardly be a happy group. How would his words have been heard? Would they have been comforting?

“Do not let your hearts be troubled.” Certainly more easily said than done. How are we to hear them? The word “troubled” has been used before in John’s Gospel.

Jesus was troubled when Martha wept at Lazarus’ death (11:33); Jesus was troubled as he saw the time for his death had come (12:27); Jesus was troubled when he told the disciples of Judas’ coming betrayal (13:21). Do you see the connection? They are all connected with Jesus’ death. (Read the previous article in this brief series to see the connection with Martha’s weeping at Lazarus’ and Jesus’ death.)

Jesus was troubled at his own death, yet he tells the disciples not to be troubled. Why would he do this? Better yet, how could he do this? Isn’t it inconsistent?

Recall John’s narrative of Jesus washing the disciples’ feet. John tells us that the hour had come for Jesus to go to the Father and that Jesus, having loved those who belonged to him, now showed them his love to the full (13:1). In washing the disciples’ feet, Jesus took the posture of a slave, a posture Jesus would show fully on the cross. So, why was Jesus troubled by his own death, but told the disciples not to be troubled?

Because Jesus was taking their trouble on himself. Jesus was troubled because he was going to die a death that would make a way for their life. He took their “trouble” and made it his own so that his life could be made theirs. He took their trouble, so there was no need for them to be troubled.

Let’s go a little deeper. Jesus said he was going to the Father and that the disciples would follow at a later time (13:36) and by going to the Father, Jesus would make room for us to abide (14:2). Jesus also said that he and the Father will come to abide (“make our home”) with those who love Jesus (14:23).

Do you see what is happening? Just as God made a way through the waters in the Exodus (and recalled in Isaiah 43:16), so does Jesus walk on the water in John’s Gospel (6:16-24). When pressed by the disciples’ ignorance of where he is going and their subsequent ignorance of the way, Jesus says, “I am the way” (14:6). Jesus is the way to the Father. Through his death, Jesus opens a way to the Father. He has made a way through trouble by his death and so while his death troubles Jesus, through it he is able to say, “Do not be troubled.”

“Wait a minute,” you might be asking. “Didn’t Jesus say that in this world we would have trouble?” The phrase comes from John 16:33, but John uses a different word here. In John 14, John uses the word tarasso (trouble) whereas in John 16:33 he uses the word thlipsis (tribulation).

We might say it like this: Don’t let the tribulations trouble you. Tribulations are those things that press us down, that afflict us. They are profound and they matter. They are the expected pressures and trials of life, of being part of a world at odds with God. But trouble is a deeper disquiet, anxiety, uneasiness. Trials will come and even so troubles can be dismissed because Jesus has made a way. The deepest danger of life has been solved.

But this brings us back to the start, doesn’t it? Don’t be troubled? Isn’t that easier said than done? It is.

It is hard to endure the tribulations and to dismiss the trouble. Let me draw a seemingly light-hearted parallel. “Don’t worry; be happy.” Do you remember the phrase? If not, then go to YouTube and watch the video. Even if you don’t know the song, the phrase can still be heard in everyday conversation, even 30 years after it was used as the title of Bobby McFerrin’s hypnotic tune that stayed atop Billboard Hot 100 chart for two weeks in 1988. The words are effortless, epitomizing what it means to be “easier said than done.”

If you’ve ever been told, “Don’t worry; be happy,” “Calm down!”, “Just take it easy,” “Settle down,” or, for our purposes, “Don’t be troubled,” you might know that the words can have the opposite effect. Without due seriousness, they can sound dismissive, raising our suspicion rather than calming our nerves, coming across as condescending rather than empathetic. Depending, of course, on the speaker. “Don’t worry; be happy.” McFerrin’s song was prevalent on the relaxed island in the wake of Hurricane Gilbert. If the words came from a Jamaican survivor of this devastating hurricane, then you might pay attention. When people have gone through actual turmoil, pain, and anxiety, their words might carry a little more weight. I think we can learn to take at his word the one who gave us these words.

“Do not be troubled” means something coming from the one who took our trouble on himself and made a way through his own trouble.

These are not easy words; they are good words. They are not flippant words, rolling off the tongue; they are earned words, spoken because the cross was endured. So, how ought we to hear these words?

Perhaps, especially on days when their application seems so impossible, we can hear them as a promise. A way has been made; a day is coming when our hearts will not need be troubled.

Note from the Editor: The featured image for this reflection is “Christ in Gethsemane” by Vasily Perov.

My Dad was diagnosed about six weeks before we were to move. We suspected for a while that he was sick, but didn’t know just how sick he was until he was diagnosed with Stage 4 liver cancer. There was also cancer in his bowel and in his lung.

My family had planned and announced a major move from Canada to the USA and could only move forward by faith. “God, this process of discernment has been centered on you. You could have unfolded things in a different way. We are proceeding by faith that you have unfolded with reason and intention.” That was my attitude. My words of prayer weren’t always quite so clear.

To say we were shocked would be an understatement: it was like living in a foggy dream. There was a constant blur and thickness to the world that made navigating difficult, even though in the moment you thought you were coping quite well. After moving, I coped by hauling my family back and forth across three or four states and provinces (and not the small ones) to visit my parents several times in a 12-month period.

I coped by visiting my Dad.

Thanks be to God, my Dad is doing very well. And my family is recovering from the burst of travel. After two years, I think I am emerging from the fog. I am starting to reflect on what God may have done in those visits.

Visiting the sick has a profound impact on the soul. John Wesley, in his sermon “On Visiting the Sick,” said that visiting the sick was a work of mercy, a “plain duty” for all in health, though “almost universally neglected.” The sick are those in some kind of affliction—whether in body or mind.

One of the reasons that Wesley encourages visitation is because it produces empathy. He warns that the rich do not understand the poor because they so seldom visit them. Those of us who are well might not understand the ill if we do not visit them.

Perhaps this notion of visiting the ill can illuminate the incarnate visitation of our Lord by reflecting on John 11:45-57. Let me start by asking: What would you do for a loved one who was sick? In John 4, the official begged Jesus to heal his son. Don’t miss his desperation! Whereas Jesus said that he had no honor in his hometown, the official acts as if Jesus is the most important person in the world. The official holds nothing back! Now, in John 11, we read about the sickness of Lazarus, a sickness that results in death before Jesus raises Lazarus up. The story ends in triumph, an affirmation of Jesus’ identity—“I am the resurrection and the life”—but hidden in the story is a sinister plot and a beautiful love; a story of what one might do for the loved one who is sick.

Before raising Lazarus, Jesus weeps (11:35), is deeply moved (11:38), and is troubled (11:33). I do not think these are expressions of sorrow at Lazarus’ death. If they are, they are oddly timed. Why would Jesus express sorrow when he’s on the cusp of raising Lazarus from the dead? Some remark, “See how he loved him!” (11:36), but, as has been frequent in John’s gospel, the observers are only half right. They think it’s a sign of sorrow, but they don’t know what’s coming next! They only get a surface read of the situation.

On the contrary, I do not think it is Lazarus’ death that troubles Jesus; it is his own. For what he is about to do—raise Lazarus—will lead to his own death. Jesus is troubled and Jesus weeps because if he does for Lazarus what he has come to do (11:11b), then it will lead to his own death.

This sacrifice becomes clear in 11:45. Did you see the word that started it off? “Therefore” (v. 45)! Because of this miracle, some go to the Pharisees, who, along with the chief priests, call a meeting of the Sanhedrin (11:47).  Raising Lazarus is the final straw for them!

Notice that they see what is happening. Yet while they see the miraculous signs (11:47), they do not respond in faith, but in fear. They fear a continued uprising around Jesus will result in the trampling of their temple and the destruction of their nation (11:48). So, Caiaphas cuts to the chase: Jesus needs to die. “It is better…that one man die for the people than that the whole nation perish” (11:50) and so they plot to take his life (11:53).

That is the sinister plot. Where is the beautiful love?

Before raising Lazarus, Jesus weeps and is troubled because there will be no turning back from the cross. He was called the lamb of God and now he will become the slaughtered lamb (Isaiah 53:7). He will sacrifice his life for Lazarus’ life. Jesus raised a sick man who has died from sickness and we can say, remembering the prophet Isaiah, that Lazarus’ healing led to Jesus’ wounds (Isaiah 53:5).

Which brings me back to our earlier question. What would you do for a loved one who is sick?

Ultimately, the question is not about us. The question really isn’t about the official and his son (John 4); it isn’t about Martha and Mary and their brother. It is about God and his Son. In Isaiah, upon seeing the plight of his people and the Lord’s desire to send a prophet, Isaiah steps forward: “Here am I. Send me!”

With Isaiah in mind, I start to hear the word that comes to Jesus, “Lord, the one you love is sick” not simply as word from Mary and Martha to Jesus. It is also the word that the Son carries to the Father. “Lord, the one you love is sick” is the word of the Son to the Father along with the Son’s obedient attitude: “Here am I. Send me!”

This word is prompted by the Father’s love and results in the Father’s delighted sending. Both are giving for the one who is sick.

What would God do for the loved one who is sick? He would take on flesh, go to a cross, and die so that the loved one would be healed. Yet, praise God, while Lazarus’ sickness would yet end in temporary death, Jesus’ death was followed by resurrection.

Perhaps that can be our ministry of visitation to the sick: Those with life visiting those whose life is under distress as a ministry of the Son of God visiting all of us, the loved one of God who is sick. Perhaps, then, we learn to identify not just with the sick, but in the resurrection of Christ, as well.

Note from the Editor: Today’s featured image is a painting by Edvard Munch, “The Sick Child.”

Note from the Editor: At the time of original publication, Wesleyan Accent suspended its usual posting of a weekend sermon to reflect on the 2015 coordinated terrorist attacks in Paris, France.

Where haute couture fashion houses dominate and the Mona Lisa smiles, where the Notre Dame cathedral towers with long-held cultural memories of a famed hunchback and the Eiffel Tower beckons to retainer-wearing junior high tourists, where Rick and Ilsa looked out as the Nazis rolled in.

What is the true narrative of Paris, a very old city with a colorful history, the grand dame of Europe whose eyes twinkle as she alludes to youthful scandal?

What is the true narrative of Paris, where St. Thomas Aquinas studied, wrote and taught? The same Paris that boiled with blood during the French Revolution? The same Paris overtaken by the Third Reich? The same Paris scourged by the Black Plague? The same Paris now in a state of emergency with enforced curfew marooned in a nation whose borders have had to clang shut.

The true narrative of Paris is the narrative of any individual – at moments glorious, fallible, heartbroken, and exquisite.

Like the true narrative of Baghdad.

Or Damascus.

Recently Canon Andrew White, “the vicar of Baghdad,” alluded to his chiaroscuro life. 

They were coming for him and his people. Friends were being killed or fleeing for their lives. So Andrew White did what he always does when faced with an enemy. “I invited the leaders of Isis [Islamic State] for dinner. I am a great believer in that. I have asked some of the worst people ever to eat with me.”

This extraordinarily self-confident priest is best known as the vicar of Baghdad, leader of a church in the chaos outside the protected Green Zone. He made his offer last year as the terrorist forces threatened to take the city. Did he get a reply? 

“Isis said, ‘You can invite us to dinner, but we’ll chop your head off.’ So I didn’t invite them again!” 

And he roars with laughter, despite believing that Islamic State has put a huge price on his head, apparently willing to pay $157m (£100m) to anyone who can kill this harmless-looking eccentric. Canon White was a doctor before he became a priest and could be one still, in his colourful bow-tie and double-breasted blazer with a pocket square spilling silk. But appearances are deceptive. 

For the last two decades, he has worked as a mediator in some of the deadliest disputes on Earth, in Israel and Palestine, Iraq and Nigeria. He has sat down to eat with terrorists, extremists, warlords and the sons of Saddam Hussein, with presidents and prime ministers. 

White has been shot at and kidnapped, and was once held captive in a room littered with other people’s severed fingers and toes, until he talked his way out of it. He is an Anglican priest but was raised a Pentecostal and has that church’s gift of the gab.

Canon Andrew has served as a voice from a region that we skim over in the headlines because it troubles us. But something that troubles you will eventually force its way into your consciousness, like a lump you want to ignore or the scrabbling of a mouse across the floor in the night.

Damascus, Baghdad, Paris.

What next? Miami, Atlanta, Boston? How might the narrative of more cities morph under the influence of evil? Paris is closer to the Western world than Damascus or Baghdad are in many ways. The American Statue of Liberty was a gift from France. French thinkers and writers have influenced intellectual development over the past few centuries. Our language is dotted with vocabulary we don’t think twice about because we don’t pronounce it in proper nasal fashion, but chaperone, restaurant, coup de grace – all these illustrate the invisible ties that stretch like cords across Atlantic waves. And so we sit up and take notice when Paris is beaten up and left bloodied on the roadside more than we do when Damascus and Baghdad are kidnapped and held for ransom.

Canon Andrew does not underestimate the strength of the evil that has been brutalizing Iraqis, Syrians, and now Parisians.

So what is to be done? “We must try and continue to keep the door open. We have to show that there is a willingness to engage. There are good Sunni leaders; they are not all evil like Isis.”

But surely there is only one logical conclusion to be drawn? He sighs, and answers slowly. “You are asking me how we can deal radically with Isis. The only answer is to radically destroy them. I don’t think we can do it by dropping bombs. We have got to bring about real change. It is a terrible thing to say as a priest. 

“You’re probably thinking, ‘So you’re telling me there should be war?’ Yes!” 

I am shocked by his answer, because this is a man who has risked his life many times to bring peace.

“It really hurts. I have tried so hard. I will do anything to save life and bring about tranquillity, and here I am forced by death and destruction to say there should be war.”

White had to be ordered to leave Baghdad at Christmas by his close friend the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Most Rev Justin Welby.

Evil is not the narrative of terror: terror is the narrative of evil. That which destroys for destruction’s sake; that which desecrates for desecration’s sake; that which relishes in inflicting suffering for suffering’s sake; that which forces death unannounced for death’s sake – this is the nature of evil.

And destroying for destruction’s sake, desecrating for desecration’s sake, inflicting suffering for suffering’s sake, forcing death for death’s sake – this leaves paralyzing fear in its wake, the kind of dry-mouthed, helpless terror that watches in vivid slow motion. This leaves night terror in its wake, thrashing in blankets from flashbacks. This leaves fear in its wake, the kind that bars windows and triple-checks locks, the kind that huddles in groups and squints in suspicion.

David wrote of this anguish in Psalm 22, and while it’s often read through the lens of the crucifixion of Christ, it also stands on its own, as his own distress:

My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
    Why are you so far from saving me,
    so far from my cries of anguish?
My God, I cry out by day, but you do not answer,
    by night, but I find no rest.

But I am a worm and not a man,
    scorned by everyone, despised by the people.
All who see me mock me;
    they hurl insults, shaking their heads.
“He trusts in the Lord,” they say,
    “let the Lord rescue him.
Let him deliver him,
    since he delights in him.”

My heart has turned to wax;
    it has melted within me.
My mouth is dried up like a potsherd,
    and my tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth;
    you lay me in the dust of death.

Dogs surround me,
    a pack of villains encircles me.

Wesleyan Accent shares the opportunity to explore the Lenten season with Bishop Debra Wallace-Padgett, who serves the Birmingham Episcopal Area of the Southeastern Jurisdiction of the United Methodist Church in the United States.

Wesleyan Accent: Growing up, Ash Wednesday was something vaguely Catholic-ish printed on the calendar; I didn’t observe it until later in life. What role has Ash Wednesday played in your life? How has that changed (if at all) depending on what season of life or ministry you’re in?

Bishop Wallace- Padgett: I was first introduced to Lent as a child. Ash Wednesday was a big deal to me during the early years of my Christian walk because it was the day when I would “give up something for Lent.”

As a child I usually eliminated chocolate or candy from my diet as my “sacrifice” for the season. I thought my practice had much more integrity about it than what my buddy did. He gave up peas- a vegetable he didn’t like!

As I grew into young adulthood, Ash Wednesday became more to me than the day that launched Lenten observances. Though I still observed a Lenten fast, Ash Wednesday was the entry way into a 40-day experience of penance and reflection. I found special meaning in the imposition of ashes as a powerful reminder of my mortality and brokenness.

WA: What’s been one of the most surprising or poignant Lenten experiences you’ve had personally? Have you ever had a particularly difficult Lent?

Bishop Wallace-Padgett: My most poignant Lenten seasons have occurred when I have fully engaged in observing multiple Lenten practices such as reading a daily Lenten devotional, observing a Lenten fast, participating in special Lenten and Holy Week worship services, giving money to an outreach ministry and adding an extra act of service to my weekly routine.

I have discovered that there is a correlation between the depth of my Lenten journey and the height of my Easter experience. Lenten practices do not make me “holier” and thus more ready for Easter. Rather, like other holy habits, they increase my openness and readiness to experience Christ’s presence in my life.

WA: Some of us have been on both sides of the altar during Lent – receiving ash or bestowing it, observing Lent or planning sermon series for the season. I would imagine that there are a couple of layers of additional swapped roles when you find yourself in a place of ministering to pastors from the episcopal level. How has your perspective on Lent changed as you’ve moved from role to role? 

Bishop Wallace-Padgett: My perspective on Lent has changed over time. This has been affected more by changes in my own personal spiritual journey than by the different roles in which I have served. As my relationship with Jesus Christ has deepened, my Lenten journey has grown more meaningful. I loved journeying through Lent as a local church pastor with a specific congregation. This was a rich and bonding experience.

In my current role, I am journeying with an entire Annual Conference through Lent. I preach often during Lent, including Holy Week services. I also attend as many special services during Lent as my schedule permits.

On another level, it feels appropriate that much of our appointment-making work happens during Lent. The reflective, prayerful posture required by the appointment-making process fits with the mood of Lent.

WA: Lent always seems like a strange play between individuality and community – it’s highly personal on one level, and yet a communally shared experience of traveling the church calendar together. How do you think this dynamic is beneficial to Methodists?

Bishop Wallace-Padgett: One of the strengths of Methodism is the dynamic between individuality and community. On one hand, John Wesley’s heart was strangely warmed, indicating a deeply personal experience with Jesus Christ. On the other hand, he developed a system of accountability within the context of community through class meetings and bands. We are a community of people who are on our way together in our relationship with Jesus Christ.

Lent and Ash Wednesday have survived as Christian observances because we need them. Our souls long for a deeper faith. While these special days are sometimes misused and trivialized, for those believers who observe them earnestly, they are a powerful influence for growth in our walk with Christ.

Lent is a season that calls us to personal introspection. It also is a time that accents our life together in community. You are right. Lent brings with it a unique dynamic that emphasizes both the individual and the communal nature of our life together.

WA: And as always, is there something we should have asked but didn’t? Do you have any other reflections or comments?

Bishop Wallace-Padgett: Thank you for inviting me to participate in this conversation. My prayer for us both and for those reading this interview is that we will have deep, meaningful and life-giving Lenten experiences that prepare us for a joyful and powerful Easter.

This originally appeared on Wesleyan Accent in 2015.

“Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?”

On the road, an interesting question is posed. First of all, consider what we know of Saul in the early portion of the book of Acts. He watched the coats of the witnesses who approved the men creating the first Christian martyr, stoning Stephen. Later Saul “breathes murderous threats” against the followers of Jesus. For all intents and purposes, this man is a persecutor of men, women and even children.

“Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?” When Jesus Christ appears to Saul on the road leading to Damascus, the statement slices through the air: average women and men may be suffering, but Saul is actually acting out against Jesus Christ, Word Made Flesh, fully God and fully human. This doesn’t downgrade the suffering of Jesus’ followers: it elevates it. Saul, when you raise your hand against these people, you strike the second person of the Triune God.

Second, consider Saul’s zeal. He was chasing people down, hunting them out like a religious bounty hunter determined to get his dues. Saul wasn’t an internet troll spewing hateful comments; he wasn’t just a jerk spouting opinions. He was actively determined to physically intervene in the lives of those who believed differently than he did.

“Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?” This powerful man stands up from the ground with his world flipped upside-down. He is led by the hand like a child, taken into town blinded by truth, stunned. He doesn’t eat or drink for three days. He does pray. The big raid planned for Damascus has turned into a completely different scene. God speaks to Ananias (maybe someone on Saul’s list of suspects?) to go and pray over Saul. Ananias coughs and splutters. When Ananias arrives, he addresses the famous scourge of Christ-followers, knowing this man will have a difficult road ahead: “Brother Saul…”

What do we learn from the persecutor who would later be chased down, shipwrecked, beaten, and tossed in jail – eventually to himself be martyred?

We learn that anyone can have an encounter with Jesus Christ at any time. It doesn’t matter who you deem evil; it doesn’t even matter if that person has caused you personally to suffer greatly because of your faith. No one is beyond being confronted with the blinding light of Christ, in this world or the next. Followers of Jesus are actually told to pray for those who persecute them.

We learn that those who receive a hard lesson of a spiritual truth need help along the way. Saul, whose hands had dragged believers, was led by the hand, completely helpless until someone came to him. Ananias prayed for him, and Saul depended on others to baptize him and get him something to eat as he regained strength.

While praying, Saul had seen a vision of someone named Ananias coming to him. Why? Was he despairing? Thinking he would be blind forever? Was he terrified of the people in Damascus, fearing retribution once it became known that the great persecutor was helpless and vulnerable? Was he in need of some profound gesture of grace – the kind of gesture it would be if he knew Ananias’ profile already when he had gotten the priests’ permission to go to Damascus in the first place? Saul needed to know Ananias was coming. He needed to know he was going to be healed, to be welcomed into the family. And then he heard the words, “Brother Saul.”

We learn that a converted persecutor doesn’t lose his zeal. Immediately, Saul began preaching in Damascus that Jesus is the Son of God. Saul after the vision on the road to Damascus is, after all, still Saul: the same temperament, the same personality. Believers slowly creak into acceptance after initial (and not unwarranted) skepticism, fearing a trap. And almost as immediately, Saul now is the one hunted, the one on the run, escaping death threats and traps, even being lowered over the city wall in a basket as an escape measure. The hunter is the hunted, but his zeal doesn’t wane. The persecutor now proclaims.

Why does this matter?

Because during Lent we have the opportunity to examine our lives for ways in which we persecute others. You may not have lit a match to burn someone at the stake in modern-day North America; but what about the words we speak, the characters we assault, the gossip or slander that slices at speaker, listener and subject with the cold, deep bite of a sword? What about the violence we express in our interactions with others, rage that pours out and refuses to be scooped back up and contained? What about the thoughts in our minds as we assess in the blink of an eye the character of another person because of her skin tone or language? What about the ways in which our selfishness steals opportunity or joy from others when self-will motivates generosity and twists it into manipulation?

Because our brothers and sisters in this world are suffering for their faith. Complex geopolitical matters aside, the facts remain that recently a mass beheading was carried out because the victims professed Christian faith. While we pray for the victims’ souls, the victims’ families, we are also entreated to pray for the executors by none other than Jesus himself: “pray for those who persecute you.” We are called to imagine a scenario in which someone zealous for their cause bumps up against Jesus Christ on their way to raise havoc. We are called to extend a hand, to pray for and to proclaim, “brother…the Lord, who you met on the road, has sent me…”

Because we need to remember our own hate, our own anger, our own zealousness, our own ungentle or damaging words, our own ability to destroy. What more is Ash Wednesday than this? To bow the head, receive the ash, and be led by the hand to a time of fasting and prayer? What more is Lent than putting to death the inner persecutor and praying determinedly for the outer one?

From dust we come…

Saul? Saul?

And to dust…

Why are you persecuting me?

We shall return.

It happens to all of us.

An old song or movie comes on, and somewhere, out of the depths of your dusty brain, a reflex kicks in. Before you know it, you’re singing words you didn’t know you remembered, or you’re quoting a line right before the actor says it. It’s like muscle memory, hidden deep beneath years of doctor appointments and oil changes, underneath coworker extension numbers and how far Abraham Lincoln was in the line of U.S. Presidents (he was 16th).

It’s startling to remember something you’d forgotten you knew. It comes like an unexpected flash, a glimpse into the mysterious world of the subconscious. Therapists are familiar with the phenomenon when a person accidentally spills into a verbalized assumption they’ve only ever tacitly held.

It’s amazing what our brain soaks up and “learns” even – or especially – when we’re not particularly trying to learn anything at all.

A few years back during a dark night of the soul, I rediscovered this truth. Hymns I’d long forgotten popped up unbidden in my thoughts. Scripture verses I’d forgotten I’d memorized as a child emerged out of nowhere. Prayers I’d learned, spoken by thousands of Christians over centuries, rooted my thoughts when I didn’t have the words.

I was remembering Scripture I’d forgotten I knew. To make domestic allusions, it was like finding pre-prepared dinners tucked in the bottom of the chest freezer; it was like finding a savings account put aside and forgotten; it was like finding just what you needed, right when you needed it.

These gifts of grace were just that: gifts, and grace. Teachers, VBS leaders, pastors, evangelists, my mom – they’d patiently told Bible stories, reviewed memory verses, repeated sermon texts. These were gifts to my soul, and they seeped down into my incredibly flexible, sponge-like little kid and adolescent brain. And they were grace: tokens of truth, strength, clarity, and peace, pointing to who God is, who God says we are, and how we can live on this planet. They were grace: mending broken times, calming troubled thoughts, infusing confusion with direction, sharing Divine love in human lack.

In my early years, when difficulties were relatively minor, by the grace of God and the kindness of many people, my mind was tucked with notes for later. When later came, and I didn’t have the mental energy to flip open my Bible and read for myself, Scripture was already buried deep in my mind, and it sprang up as if it had been waiting for just this moment.

Recently another Wesleyan Accent writer wrote, “Old Dogs, New Tricks: Neuroplasticity and the Renewing of Your Mind.”

Carrie Carter wrote,

Up until the 1970’s, scientists thought that certain functions in a brain were hard-wired. Any changes that occurred were the exception. However, as technology advanced and our ability increased to study areas of the body that were previously a mystery, it was discovered that our brains have the capacity to change their connections and behavior in response to new information, sensory stimulation, development, damage, or dysfunction.

So are the concepts of being “transformed by the renewing of your mind” and neuroplasticity intertwined? I think so, and here’s how: 

Paul’s exhortation is clear. After doing a quick word study on “renew,” the word means…exactly that. There are no other substitutions in the Greek for his use of “renew.”

In the culture Paul addressed – a culture fraught with immorality, the celebration of violence, and slavery, that crossed every line – how were these new Christ-followers to actually follow Christ? Up until that point, they knew no different lifestyle. How were they to change such embedded behavioral patterns and thought processes? Why would Paul even ask this of them? 

Because Paul knew it could be done. With the help of God’s brilliance in forming the brain with capacities to change, the presence of the Holy Spirit, and years of reconditioning and retraining, Paul himself was transformed by the renewing of his mind and did a 180-degree turn in his way of living.

Wow. Carter gives us hope: those times when we have energy and flexibility to engage deeply with our faith are enormously impactful. You don’t have to have a childhood in which memory verses are soaked up in order for God’s Word to work grace in your life: your brain can still adapt, refashion and reform new pathways and neural impulses that will serve you well, both now and later.

In other words, it’s never too late to reshape your thoughts; it’s never too late to memorize a passage of Scripture; you’re never too old, even if your brain feels flabby and less quick-witted than it used to.

In fact, engaging with Scripture now may be a saving grace later that you can’t imagine.

At one point I worked in a nursing home, where pastors rarely tread. One resident mourned her inability to simply read her own Bible: a stroke had impaired her vision, and she couldn’t turn the thin pages. When I had spare moments I would slip into her room and read to her. She was so hungry for it. I’d ask, “what would you like to hear today?” “Any of it – it’s all good,” she would mumble through her impaired speech. Tears would roll down her cheeks as she heard Scripture read to her.

On a different hallway, I once entered the room of a woman I thought was completely mentally absent. Even though I always tried to assume residents could comprehend more than they were able to communicate, I just knew this woman wasn’t communicating and was slipping into the twilight on the borders of death. But I went anyway and began to read from a Psalm.

Tears rolled down my cheeks in shock as she opened her eyes and spoke the words, long hidden in her brain, along with me. I thought I had chosen a Psalm at random. I tried to talk with her when the Psalm was done, but as soon as it was finished, she receded back into the twilight and said no more.

Have you remembered anything you forgot you knew? Has some long-buried truth emerged after years in the dark at just the right moment? It is grace. It is a gift.

The Word of God for the people of God…

Thanks be to God.