Author Archives: hummingbird

Humans are expert excuse-makers.  

“Well, GOD, the woman you gave me tempted me, so…that’s why I didn’t listen to you when you told me not to eat anything from that tree.” 

“I know I’m not supposed to cut my hair, but…I mean, have you seen Delilah? I’m only human.” 

“I’d love to follow you, Jesus, but I have family obligations and an urgent to-do list first. Let me take care of those things and then I’m totally on board.” 

“I’ve followed all those commandments since I was a kid, and now you’re asking me to give up my hard-earned wealth in order to follow you? How is that fair? Surely I can have both?” 

“Learning with the men is all well and good, but Jesus, are you going to let her shirk the duties literally all other women manage? I’m in here in the kitchen and I’m happy to be, but I need some extra hands! After all…this dinner is for you…” 

“Who, that guy? No, no, I wasn’t one of his disciples, I’m just hanging out here. You must have me confused with someone else. No, *&#$, I’m telling you, I don’t know Jesus!” 

You and I can find a multitude of ways to make excuses for ourselves, and just as dangerously, for each other.  

“He’s a great leader, so we shouldn’t hold his past indiscretions against him. After all, we’ve all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, so we shouldn’t expect more from our pastors than we do anyone else.” 

“She would face a lot of resistance from peers and family members, so while she did a great job preaching last Sunday, let’s not pressure her to enter pastoral leadership; there are other places she can serve, and we’ll be doing her a favor to protect her from the resistance she might encounter.” 

“I’ve fought long and hard to get to where I am. I’m finally a voice at the table. If I mentor other underrepresented people, are they going to take the opportunities I’ve worked so hard for? Is she my ally – or my competitor? Chances like this are few and far between. Someone else will give her a leg up. I have enough on my plate already.” 

“It’s just really hard to find minority speakers, we’d love to have some on the lineup, but we’re just not aware of many who have the experience for this kind of setting and this size of a crowd.” 

“If I accept that speaking invitation, they’ll just try to use me as a token representative. I’m sure it would be a waste of time. It would just be settling their uneasy consciences. I don’t think that’s how God wants me to use my time right now. I can make more of an impact somewhere else.” 

“Those women have troubled pasts, so obviously we can’t take their accounts seriously. I grew spiritually under his leadership, so it’s hard to imagine he would’ve done those things to kids. This is just Satan attacking him and his ministry. Now more than ever, we need to rally around him and pray for him.” 

Beware the excuse that lets you off the hook, or lets your friends, your ideological companions, or your heroes off the hook. If you have to jump through some hoops in a way you would never accept from your opponents, your ideological adversaries, or those you disdain, let that be a red flag: abandon hope, all ye who enter here. 

Recently I read an observation from someone on Twitter (sorry, anonymous, I can’t remember who you were). He simply said that across conservative and liberal spectrums, religious and secular, red and blue, that in North America, God is busy unmasking our hypocrisies. It occurred to me that unmasking hypocrisies is a grace – a gift. Many in the Wesleyan Methodist family have been praying for a great awakening. But is awakening possible without first coming face to face with the depth of our own sin, faults, blindness, and excuses? 

John Wesley didn’t think so. In his “Letter on Preaching Christ,” he noted,  

After more and more persons are convinced of sin, we may mix more and more of the gospel, in order to “beget faith,” to raise into spiritual life those whom the law hath slain; but this is not to be done too hastily neither. Therefore, it is not expedient wholly to omit the law; not only because we may well suppose that many of our hearers are still unconvinced; but because otherwise there is danger, that many who are convinced will heal their own wounds slightly; therefore, it is only in private converse with a thoroughly convinced sinner, that we should preach nothing but the gospel. 

In this context, he is counseling on how to preach to believers and unbelievers; and he clarifies that while preachers must preach hope, that hope can only truly be received after a person is clearly convinced of the depth of their own need for it. In other words, preaching to show how far off the mark humans generally are must come before we can effectively preach the scope of the promises of a loving, pursuing God. 

In other words, while awakening is the satisfying part, unmasking excuses and hypocrisies in both believers and unbelievers must come first. 

Wesley continues by pointing out that preaching that celebrates the love and goodness of God without confronting the twists of the inner heart has done considerable damage in different parts of England:  

This is the plain fact. As to the fruit of this new manner of preaching, (entirely new to the Methodists,) speaking much of the promises, little of the commands; (even to unbelievers, and still less to believers;) you think it has done great good; I think it has done great harm. 

The Spirit of God is an equal-opportunity hound nipping at our heels. The Hound of Heaven doesn’t pursue “them” without also pursuing “us.” And part of this conviction of our souls appears when we attempt to abandon common sense and morality as if they are divorced from the revelation of Scripture; as if somehow they are dispensable, unrelated to the Word of God. But of course the “Hound of Heaven” will not let this cognitive dissonance continue unchallenged indefinitely. 

God never intended Scripture to be used as an excuse to abandon common sense and general ethics. Even Satan twisted the use of Scripture during the temptation in the wilderness. Jesus actually preached against this tendency when he pointed out, “you think loving and forgiving your friends and family is a virtue? Even crooks and pagans do that.” In other words, “basic decency available through prevenient grace and general revelation of God’s goodness in the world isn’t something you should brag about. People of other religions or no religion love their families and forgive their friends.” He continued – “but I say to you, love your enemies and pray for people who persecute you and make your life miserable.” (Matthew 5:43-48, Elizabeth Version) 

Jesus cuts through their feeble defense at their own righteousness like a hot knife through butter. “Don’t brag to me about the number of truckloads of supplies you sent out of your abundance to citizens of your own country going through a natural disaster. The mosque down the street did that too. So did a bunch of atheists. Instead, tell me what you’re doing to love the opponents, threats, enemies, and irritants in your life, locally, nationally, and globally.” 

The Holy Spirit, the Hound of Heaven, not only uncovers the areas in which you and I make excuses for why we can ignore basic common sense and morality; the Holy Spirit also stays in pursuit of us, moving beyond general common sense and ethical norms, pushing us further and further towards the model of Christ, so that, far from relying on our laurels of meeting basic morality codes, we are hounded to live closer to the image of Christ, pursuing peace with our enemies, loving people who have wronged us, proactively serving people who despise us, and abandoning our right to be seen in the right. 

God save us all, liberal and conservative, Republican and Democrat, religious and secular, from “healing our own wounds – slightly.” We cannot any of us afford to live in the stench of our own excuses. 

As Francis Thompson wrote in the first portion of his famous poem “The Hound of Heaven” (that deeply influenced G. K. Chesterton and J.R.R. Tolkien),  

I FLED Him, down the nights and down the days;
  I fled Him, down the arches of the years;
I fled Him, down the labyrinthine ways
    Of my own mind; and in the mist of tears
I hid from Him, and under running laughter.
      Up vistaed hopes I sped;
      And shot, precipitated,
Adown Titanic glooms of chasmèd fears,
  From those strong Feet that followed, followed after.
      But with unhurrying chase,
      And unperturbèd pace,
Deliberate speed, majestic instancy,
      They beat—and a Voice beat
      More instant than the Feet—
‘All things betray thee, who betrayest Me.’

In your relentless, pursuing grace, o God, let us get tired of attempting to outrun the discomfort of coming face to face with you. 

From our archives, we are running a popular Thanksgiving reflection for the brokenhearted by Wesleyan Accent Managing Editor Elizabeth Glass Turner.

And I’ve seen your flag on the marble arch
And love is not a victory march
It’s a cold and it’s a broken Hallelujah

-Leonard Cohen, “Hallelujah”

Hopefully, you’re having a banner year – one for the books. The stars align and everything’s coming up you. Babies smile at you, old people are grateful for you, good people respect you and bad people leave you alone. You have a lot to be thankful for. Make your gratitude list, have seconds of sweet potato casserole and pause to appreciate the moment.

Everyone goes through seasons, and some seasons seem to last longer than others.

This is for the people who aren’t having a banner year.

You miscarried.

You got laid off.

You shook your fist at cancer and it didn’t matter.

You picked up your kid from the police station.

You picked up your parent from the police station.

You found that text on your spouse’s phone.

You discovered untruthful gossip following you around.

You discovered truthful gossip following you around.

You arranged a funeral for someone.

You filled an antidepressant prescription.

You should’ve filled an antidepressant prescription.

The turkey is warm, but it’s a cold and broken thanksgiving. Shards of life lie mocking on the floor in the near-shape of their original wholeness and you catch a glimpse of your fractured reflection, a distortion of what was and what should be. And when you count your blessings it’s with gritted teeth or a sense of cruel, useless irony or a numbed, deadened mimic of routine.

What happens when the Mona Lisa is torn apart and the pieces don’t fit and you’re left with a grotesque Picasso? The features are there, but out of place, misaligned, foreign, unfamiliar. Nieces and nephews will recognize you as you walk through the door, but you know, deep down, that you’re struggling to find parts of yourself that you recognize as you sort through remnants, shards, rubble.

Happy Thanksgiving.

You compare your cold and broken thanksgiving to the vast suffering of the world to try to force perspective, to resist the darkness. I have a roof. I have food. My neighbors weren’t just bombed. 

But sometimes even Aunt Bev’s homemade pie tastes stale when your heart is re-breaking every few minutes while you make small talk.

For my days vanish like smoke;
    my bones burn like glowing embers.
My heart is blighted and withered like grass;
    I forget to eat my food.
In my distress I groan aloud
    and am reduced to skin and bones.
I am like a desert owl,
    like an owl among the ruins.
I lie awake; I have become
    like a bird alone on a roof.
All day long my enemies taunt me;
    those who rail against me use my name as a curse.
For I eat ashes as my food
    and mingle my drink with tears
because of your great wrath,
    for you have taken me up and thrown me aside.
My days are like the evening shadow;
    I wither away like grass.

Let’s all go around and say what we’re thankful for…

Your year flashes in bits and pieces in front of your mind and you search for a socially appropriate response that doesn’t include “good medical attention after a miscarriage” or “pro bono lawyers” or “insightful marriage and family therapists.”

Pass the stuffing.

Because you also know by now that faith and hope and love are more than a French bistro-style inspirational poster hanging in the dining room. They’re not feelings, they’re bedrock reality that keep you sane because you know they’re more than trite platitudes.

Here I raise mine Ebenezer
Hither by thy help I’ve come
And I hope, by thy good pleasure,
Safely to arrive at home.

Hither by thy help, I’ve come. Here, through your help, I’ve come. Here, with your help, I’ve finally arrived. And I hope, because of your nature, to also arrive safely home.

Ebenezer: the stone of help. A memorial to overcoming by the grace of God. “A commemoration of divine assistance.”

Friend, do whatever you need to do to sit at the table, to steel your soul and give thanks. Giving thanks is a choice, whether you’re in an expensive subdivision or a soup kitchen or the smoldering ruins of your neighborhood. Wear something that makes you feel strong. Find a small phrase from a song or scripture and force it through your head. Set your phone’s alarm to go off regularly just to remind you to pray “Christ, have mercy,” or to reopen a loving email.

Put on your Superman boxers and set to work mentally constructing your memorial stone that etches onto the landscape the living reality of faith: here, in this foyer full of people, I raise a stone of commemoration. This year, by the grace of God, I made it to this foyer. By God’s help, I made it to the church, which felt like a trek across a universe of pain. Here I stack my rocks that have been thrown at me, leaving me bruised and bloodied. I will stack them tall to scream at the cosmos that I’ve come this far by the goodness of God and that God willing, I’ll make it home.

It may be a cold and broken thanksgiving but it is not destroyed.

We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be made visible in our bodies. 

But just as we have the same spirit of faith that is in accordance with scripture—“I believed, and so I spoke”—we also believe, and so we speak, because we know that the one who raised the Lord Jesus will raise us also with Jesus, and will bring us with you into his presence. Yes, everything is for your sake, so that grace, as it extends to more and more people, may increase thanksgiving, to the glory of God.

So we do not lose heart. Even though our outer nature is wasting away, our inner nature is being renewed day by day. For this slight momentary affliction is preparing us for an eternal weight of glory beyond all measure, because we look not at what can be seen but at what cannot be seen; for what can be seen is temporary, but what cannot be seen is eternal.

Eucharisteo: I give thanks. “This is my Body, broken for you for the forgiveness of sins. Eat this in remembrance of me.”

The Body Broken will strengthen and sustain us through any and every holiday meal: the Great Thanksgiving, the Eucharist, gives us the taste of Ebenezer. Here, at this place, I take and eat, here, at this place, I taste and give thanks for a broken Savior. By your help, God, to this place I’ve come.

Taste and see that the Lord is good…

Let’s bow our heads and say grace.

Here I raise mine Ebenezer…

“How have you been? I haven’t heard from you lately.”

I’m taking rocks that have left me stunned and broken and crafting a monument from them.

I’m glad you’re here.

So am I. By the grace of God, I’ve made it this far. And I hope by God’s good grace, safely to make it home.

Happy Thanksgiving.

Recently I read a moving account of one German woman’s actions and the impact that they had. A 92-year-old man living in New Jersey received a three-page letter from her in which she apologized for wrongs long past. Reading it, he wept. 

As the article recounts about the letter writer, “Doris Schott-Neuse…told him how her grandfather had acquired Hirschmann’s family home under the Nazis, expressing her shame and imploring him for forgiveness.” When Hirschmann was young, he had had to escape Germany and the purge of Jewish people; he arrived in the United States leaving his unrecognizable homeland behind. For years, Schott-Neuse wondered how her family had acquired the house since they came into ownership of such a nice property for so little. 

“It seems to be only now that we – the grandchildren generation of the men and women who became criminals – start to ask tough questions of the degree and way our families have been involved and actively contributed not only to a war but to the shoah [Holocaust],” writes Schott-Neuse. 

The urgent truth that this moving story illustrates is a simple, powerful one: honor is healing.  

Showing honor to a person who carries visible or invisible wounds stitches back together in a small way what’s been torn apart, especially when, individually, we cannot comprehend the uniqueness of their suffering. Whether we pay special honor to veterans of war, or orphans and foster children, or women who have been raped, or acquaintances who are pulled over four or five times a month because they drive a car that’s “too nice,” to go out of our way to actively pursue ways to honor others is to promote healing, understanding, and community. 

Apologizing even when you individually did not wrong someone can mean that you are honoring their story and experience. It is a way of standing in proxy for those individuals or groups unable or unwilling to confess their wrong and ask forgiveness. This is not the same as poorly exercising boundaries in terms of burdensome feelings of guilt or responsibility, because it does not come from misdirected feelings of shame or a weak sense of self; rather, it comes from a steady sense of self that cerebrally bears witness to others’ pain and seeks to recognize the power that self may have to, in some way, comfort the grief and anger of a person who has been singularly wronged. 

Hirschmann’s response, immediately accepting the letter of apology, bears witness to this truth: “it is obvious that you, too, are suffering and it pains me to think of that — you, who are blameless,” further corresponding, “You were not satisfied…and examined the depths of your heart to reveal the era’s true impact. You had the option to ignore it and instead, you confronted it. My tears reflect the fervent hope that the humanity, dignity, and compassion you have shown is shared by others of your generation and the generations to follow.” 

It is worth asking, what hurts do you carry that someone has honored through respect for your experience? When have you experienced healing, peace, and forgiveness through someone going out of their way to apologize or make amends for a time in which you were dishonored? 

And – perhaps more difficult – who can you honor through apology, respect, or action, even if you have not personally, individually wronged them?  

Note from the Editor: This weekend we’re pleased to share a sermon from Dr. Kevin Murriel, Senior Pastor of Cascade United Methodist Church in Atlanta, Georgia, and member of Order of the Flame class of 2015.

The sermon beings around minute marker 1:10:00.

Note from the Editor:  Davis Chappell, World Evangelism Board President, writes about the lessons he returned home with from his recent tour of Germany.

For I am not ashamed of the gospel; it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who has faith, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed through faith for faith; as it is written, “The one who is righteous will live by faith.”  

Romans 1:16-17 provides the thesis of Paul’s letter to the Roman church – a church that he had never visited, finally making it there before his execution. This scripture concerns the manner in which a person is made right with God: we are justified by grace, through faith.  

This epistle has served as a catalyst for reform and renewal throughout church history, from Augustine and Luther to Wesley and Barth. It is the handbook of Christian theology, said Philip Melanchthon, Luther’s friend and comrade in the Reformation. Wesley’s heart was “strangely warmed” while someone read Luther’s preface to the Romans.  

Recently, I toured Germany. This fall is the 500th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation. Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses on the cathedral door in Wittenberg on October 31, 1517. Luther had traveled to Rome in 1511 and was disappointed by the corruption he saw there. There was an old proverb in those days that said, “If there is a hell, it is likely under Rome.” What Luther saw was a church that was desperately in need of renewal. Watching the sale of indulgences, he saw an institution that had strayed from its center. Luther could not keep silent. His posting of the theses was the beginning of a long tide of reformation.  

I returned home with 12 theses of my own, culled from lessons I learned from this experience. Whenever there’s a reformation: 

• There’s a rediscovery of Scripture.  
• There’s a recovery of grace. 
• There’s a decentralizing of institutional hierarchy, and a localizing of ministry, a lay-centered movement.  
• It brings change, and change brings pain.  
• The division of church and state protects the faith. Whenever church and government synthesize, the faith loses. 
• Most reformers are seen in their own generation as heretics.   
• It’s important to use technology for our message. 
• It’s important to listen and learn from other cultures. 
• It’s important to contextualize the Gospel to our setting without losing the universality of faith. 
• The team of people around Luther enabled the reformation to succeed.  
• Luther was anti-Semitic later in life. Reformers don’t get everything right.  
• It’s important to value ecumenism and interreligious dialogue. 

So consider – what does mission and evangelism look like in a global, high-tech, multi-cultural world? 

There’s an overwhelming amount of beauty and awe in the world – from midday eclipses to bounding monkeys in jungles to the perfect curl of newborn baby toes. 

At some point, though, we all encounter suffering. Sometimes it appears as physical pain; sometimes it’s in the form of prolonged waiting; sometimes it’s mental or emotional distress. Sometimes suffering occurs through our perception of loved ones’ suffering: others’ pain multiplies our own distress. If there is loss, there is the suffering of grief.  

When I was in college majoring in Christian Ministry, I walked into a classroom one September morning to be told by a classmate that the World Trade Center and the Pentagon had been attacked. My brain struggled to process the news; like many, I was bewildered, at a loss. Throughout the fall semester of 2001 I grappled with feeling completely overwhelmed by the pain and need in the world. How could I possibly figure out what path to take? There was pain at home, pain abroad. Need around the corner, need on the other side of the equator. I signed up to go on an international trip the next spring, flying for the first time months after watching repeated footage of jets slam into Manhattan skyscrapers. 

Sometimes our gut reaction to suffering is to sign up for a trip to Mongolia (maybe not, but maybe your reaction is to drive to Houston and help with cleanup, or donate money to help people suffering from catastrophic flooding in Bangladesh). Sometimes our gut reaction is to turn our face, finding oblivion in addiction, numbness, or denial. Sometimes our gut reaction is to raise the drawbridge, hunker down, and protect our own at all costs. Therapists can have fun teasing out why humans behave the way we do. 

But beyond our emotional reaction shaped by our individual experiences, personalities, hopes, and fears, what postures can Christians have towards suffering? In other words, beyond behavioral tendencies, how does faith shape our approach to suffering? 

1. When you’re depressed, troubled, and hopeless, you are called to shape your own response to suffering – your own suffering or others’ – by Christ’s suffering. This Christocentric response is essential for grounding your belief. It does not deny the realities of clinical depression or anxiety disorders: rather, it reorients pain so that it is placed in the context of the God who suffers. In Isaiah 53 we read: 

He was despised and rejected by mankind, 
    a man of suffering, and familiar with pain. 
Like one from whom people hide their faces 
    he was despised, and we held him in low esteem. 

Surely he took up our pain 
    and bore our suffering, 
yet we considered him punished by God, 
    stricken by him, and afflicted. 
But he was pierced for our transgressions, 
    he was crushed for our inequities; 
the punishment that brought us peace was on him, 
    and by his wounds we are healed. 

Christians believe that, “we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weakness,” but that Jesus genuinely suffered when he sobbed with Mary and Martha after Lazarus died, and that he genuinely suffered in the garden of Gethsemane when he struggled to accept what was coming. The portrait of Christ as the “suffering servant” is a familiar one, and whether you meditate on an icon of the crucifixion or rest in passages of scripture, it is crucial to form our response to suffering from the starting point that the Word who Became Flesh, God Incarnate, comprehends suffering, even if we cannot fully comprehend God. 

2. When you’re grappling with why suffering exists, persistently explore the intellectual satisfaction that will form your feelings and emotions. Sometimes Christians look for their emotions to be shaped by inspiring worship, emotional testimony, or the good feelings that come from being accepted by a group. At the same time, sometimes using emotions as the starting place can be unsatisfactory.

One time in seminary a fellow student ran up to the philosophy of religion professor who was standing nearby. “I just need to say thank you,” she said. She explained that after losing her mother to cancer, she had struggled deeply with grief and anger, even in the midst of preparing for ministry at seminary. She had been to therapy, talked to pastors, but could not find peace – until she took a philosophy of religion class. During that semester, the problem of evil was addressed (how can an all-loving, all-powerful God coexist with suffering and pain in the world?), along with various perspectives responding to it. Part of her anguish had been mental, alongside the grief of bereavement. When she understood that philosophers had grappled with the question for centuries, and saw some of the reasoned response to the problem of suffering – including the role of human free will – she received some peace.  

As a Christian, you do not need to be able to comprehend everything about God or everything about the world in which you live. But even if you cannot know exhaustively, it may be possible to know truly, and if that is the case, you can receive intellectual satisfaction even if you don’t hold all the answers. 

This means that your approach is shaped by the realization that sometimes the best thing you can do is to allow your thoughts to shape your feelings.  

A vivid example of allowing subjective perception to shape your thoughts and decisions is the tragedy that occurs when a pilot doesn’t use a horizon instrument, gets confused, and believes that he is flying even with the ground, when in fact, he is flying straight at it – what experts believe happened when John F. Kennedy, Jr died in a plane crash. This “spatial disorientation” occurs when there is no visual reference point. Similarly, our emotions can mislead us, shape our perception so powerfully that our instincts are tricked into faulty convictions about who God is or where meaning comes from. But sound theology and the resources of Christian philosophers can help guide our thinking when all our instincts point toward hopelessness and despair. 

3. When you’re overwhelmed by the sheer scale of pain and need, allow the Holy Spirit to guide your discernment on your immediate path of action. There is a great temptation to become overwhelmed by the trauma and tragedy in the world, and because of the inability to do everything, to then do nothing at all. But Mother Teresa is famously quoted as saying, “Not all of us can do great things. But we can do small things with great love.” 

Christians’ posture towards suffering cannot be to internalize the burden and responsibility for everyone else’s pain; this kind of unhealthy response leads to burnout, bitterness, and depression.And it does not trust the prevenient grace of God that is already working in places we cannot reach. 

What we can do confidently is to trust that if we ask God to show us where we can go and what we can do through the power of the Holy Spirit, God will be faithful to show us what our part can look like. God may not unfold a giant map showing what your part will look like in 20 years, but in this season, the Spirit will put on your heart new ways to be the hands and feet of Jesus Christ. As Frederick Buechner wrote, “The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.”

Look to the example of Jesus Christ, shape your thoughts deliberately so that your feelings will follow, and trust that the Holy Spirit will give you the joy that comes from doing what you uniquely can do as you explore how to be a witness to the beauty of God’s love in a hurting world. 

Featured artwork by Vasily Perov, “Christ in Gethsemane.”