Tag Archives: Liturgy

Gathering in Worship Again: Ways to Mark Change

As many congregations return to gathering in new or partial ways after a period of virtual worship, there are both logistical challenges and shepherding challenges. Essentially, widespread change has occurred in a condensed and contentious time. Some shared rituals in worship function as rites of passage, like funerals; the loss of sharing these rituals as a community has at times been devastating. For many, the past 12 months have been marked by uncertainty, frustration, fear, loss, anxiety, stress, and relief; but not only are we, in the midst of life, in death; we are also, in death, in the midst of life. Babies have been welcomed, weddings performed, new vocations discovered. In liminal times of emotional complexity, humans crave communal markers to express the cry of the heart and to clarify seasons and meaning. Symbols can carry layers of meaning when life experiences are so tangled that mere literal words struggle to hold the weight. In Christian worship, these symbols aren’t only functions of community expression; they are received as means of grace that reveal the very heart of God. Not every Christian symbol is a sacrament, but many moments in embodied Christian worship have the capacity to serve as means of grace.

As believers begin gathering in person again, what are some practical ways a community can bear witness to the loss and hope woven throughout the past year? Surveying the sheer scope of change – good or bad – that individuals and communities have endured, how is room made for lament, celebration, and the exhaustion in between? Finding ways to mark change sits peacefully with the reality that everyone – individuals, communities, regions, countries – will re-enter familiar patterns at different paces, due to varying needs and conditions.

What are some recurring cries of the heart expressed by Christians and non-Christians, leaders and laypeople alike? Many are echoed in Psalms of lament. Gathering again stirs a variety of responses among people. There may be:

Relief, celebration, joy
Grief at the empty spaces of those who have died
Grief at the loss of daily rituals and companionship
Fear that accommodations for the disabled or home-bound will be forgotten
Distrust of others fueled by differing perspectives
Impatience for places and practices to look like they used to
Fatigue of tragedy and bad news
Relief at return to familiar space and practices
Guilt from surviving or experiencing the pandemic relatively unscathed
Anxiety from uncertainty in social interaction
Gratitude for the ability to begin gathering again, even with adaptations

Thankfully, there are some helpful liturgical resources from The Episcopal Church, the Church of England, and the Methodist Church in Britain that provide some markers to guide worshipers through the fog. From the inability to write in a coffee shop to the death of a loved one, from losing a business to losing facial expressions to educational upheaval, there is space to mark changes big and small, yet not-so-small. Jesus wept over the dead and heard the cry of the falling sparrow alike; and people who live alone, and people who live in families with children, all have something they’ve lost and found in the past year. There is room in the heart of God, and there is space in the worshiping community, for all of it – tragic fatality and kids’ disappointed plans alike.

The Liturgy of Gathering Again: Lament, Remembrance, Thanksgiving

The loss of usual funeral rituals has stolen the opportunity for loved ones to receive the healing honor of community witness. Not only have families of the deceased been affected, but communities themselves have endured the loss of sharing in these rituals. Some communities have lost many – so many it’s difficult to keep track. Health care workers sometimes lost the in-person support and services of hospital or hospice chaplains, finding themselves end-of-life witnesses. At the same time, many people have been limited in ways they can express thanks and gratitude for the many health care workers who labored often behind the scenes in very difficult circumstances.

The Church of England has shared valuable resources and reflections on opportunities to hold general services of lament, specific services of remembrance or memorial, and services of thanksgiving. For instance, on remembering and memorials, the counsel in one guide prompts that,

“The two main elements that memorial services and remembering events need to offer are opportunities to mourn and to give thanks:
• Acknowledgement of suffering, loss and death
• Gratitude for all who have helped in so many ways
• Thanks for survival, health and wellbeing
• Thanks for the life of the individual(s) who has died”

There are also insights on the value of services of restoration – a time of worship designed to bridge worshipers from crisis and loss toward renewed trust for the future. “Naming the unexpected gifts of this crisis as well as its challenges, celebrating the rediscovery of the importance of the local, and the resurgence of neighbourliness will enable the journey of renewal and restoration. Consideration may be given to bring an act of worship to focus in some sort of symbolic act of restoration, entrusting ourselves to the God who leads us into his future.”

The Timing of Gathering Again: Scattered & Together

Depending on the region or specific community needs, some congregations have not yet begun to re-gather, or haven’t started gathering again fully. One resource from the Methodist Church in Britain provides a service guide called “Beyond Exile: A service to celebrate a return to public worship.” Adaptable for local circumstances, it includes liturgy, planning notes, preaching notes, and new hymns for “a returning congregation” for situations that include congregational singing. From this service, one excerpt from the “litany of lament” questions,

“We thought we knew how the world was meant to be. We would see colleagues, friends and loved ones again, and we would embrace, laugh and share stories as we always have. How can we sing the Lord’s song in a strange land?

And now, we know something new. We know that the world is not ours to control, and that our plans are confounded by the smallest microbe. God is teaching us a new song, for a new land.“

For places with many restrictions still in place, when believers may still be scattered or unable to provide in-person support, the Methodist Church in Britain also has adapted prayers for “the dying, the bereaved, and those who cannot attend a funeral.”

The Visual Cues of Gathering Again: Re-Entering the Public

This global moment invites people of all walks of life to re-engage with the practice of public mourning: not as a maudlin display of self-importance, but as a healthy tool of communication. But it’s been decades since people regularly wore the formerly common black armbands, like the character George Bailey when his father died in the film, “It’s a Wonderful Life.” A black piece of fabric around the upper arm is a visual cue to strangers and acquaintances alike: be kind, tread gently, this person is grieving, give some extra grace for a while. A more modern version is a simple black silicone band marked with words like, “I’m grieving” – just enough to remind the wearer and others that all is not well.

Sometimes, biblical phrasing like, “sackcloth and ashes” or “weeping and gnashing of teeth” is used figuratively – few Americans would grieve now wearing scratchy cloth or ashes. But grief and lament are not antithetical to faith. They are emblems of love, that “greatest of these.” They do not betray a lack of hope or trust; they hope and trust in God’s character, willing to express without repression. Demonstrating grief is Christlike: Christ, who groaned at Lazarus’ death, who wept over Jerusalem. (Tish Harrison Warren’s uncannily timed Prayer in the Night: For Those Who Work or Watch or Weep is a gift for the grieving and those who love them.)

For those who re-enter worship or public gathering with other infirmity, like ongoing health risk, there are other visual cues available to communicate simply with others. Wrist bands like Social Bands quickly cue an individual’s risk and desire for physical engagement. Ongoing consideration for others may well be one of the strongest notes of public witness that Christians can sound right now – consideration regardless of one’s own assessment or perception of risk.

At a basic level, hospitality is in part anticipating the needs of another and proactively preparing for them. Welcoming the jubilant alongside the dazed and shell-shocked means providing space and opportunity for both to bear witness to the changes in the lives of the other. In gathering, all are invited to bring the cries of their hearts to God in worship, receiving the same shared grace that offers hope, comfort, and celebration to each vulnerable heart.

Featured image courtesy Luke Carliff via Unsplash.

In Peace: An Advent Benediction

Go in peace,
Remembering that the Christ who was King and is King and will forever be King
Was born not to a family of nobles and princes,
But to a family who couldn’t even place their child in a proper crib;
a manger would have to do.

Go in peace,
Remembering that the Christ who would be both the high priest and the perfect sacrifice for sins
Was born to parents who couldn’t even afford to give the full sacrifice, but only the offering of the poor:
a pair of doves.

Go in peace,
Remembering that the Christ who will reign over all the kingdoms of the world
As a baby was hunted by the despotic ruler of an oppressive government.

Go in peace,
Remembering that the Christ who perfectly embodied the fullness of God in human form
Experienced the human temptations of hunger, power, celebrity, and self-determination.

Go in peace,
Remembering that the Christ who healed the blind and made the lame to walk and raised the dead
Bore our scars, experienced our woundedness, and tasted death.

Go in peace,
Remembering that the Christ who triumphed over the spiritual powers of darkness
Knows the darkness of a cold tomb.

Go in peace,
Knowing that the child born into poverty, uncertainty, oppression, temptation, woundedness and mortality
Is Jesus, the Son of God, the Light of the World, the Bread of Life, the True Vine, the Good Shepherd, the Lamb of God, Our Redeemer, Christ the Resurrected One, the Lion of the Tribe of Judah, the Great I AM, King of Kings and Lord of Lords, Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace, Emmanuel—
God with us.

Go in peace.
Amen.

Subversion: Christ the King Sunday

While today is Christ the King Sunday, next Sunday is the start of Advent. It always seems to me like a starting pistol signalling the frantic dash towards Christmas. No doubt it will be a very different Christmas this year, which perhaps will allow us as God’s people to reflect more deeply on what Christmas is about. To do just that, I reread the Christmas story; one very familiar passage sticks out.

“And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night. An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. But the angel said to them, ‘Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people. Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord.This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.’” (Luke 2:8-12)

I once went for some tests to become an officer in the Intelligence Corps in the British army. (Who said military intelligence was an oxymoron?) During that weekend, we were given a lecture on subversion. One of the roles of the Intelligence Corps, we were told, was to keep an eye on foreign governments and domestic groups who were trying to subvert, or undermine, British democracy and values. They posed a threat, we were told. I don’t think the Roman Army had an Intelligence Corps, but if they had, those verses from Luke would have definitely interested and worried them. For us, the angels’ words to these poor shepherds seem familiar and safe. The whole scene appears Christmas card cosy and innocuous, but to the Romans, those words were the language of dangerous subversion. To the Romans, those words that described Jesus to the shepherds would have seemed more appropriate on an indictment for treason than on a greeting card.

Here is the significant thing: three things ascribed to Jesus by the angels were already used to describe the Roman Emperor. Written in letters and inscribed on monuments throughout the Roman Empire was that it was good news (“gospel”) that Caesar was Lord and Saviour and that he brought peace to the world (incidentally it was also often said that Caesar was a divine son of the gods).

Now do you see how subversive what Luke is telling us really is?

He is presenting Jesus, not Caesar Augustus, as the true divine King, who had come to bring peace and true salvation to the whole world. What we think of as a quaint nativity scene is in fact a gauntlet laid down to Rome and its claim to absolute power. It is a direct challenge to the so-called “gospel” of Rome and its peace which was enforced through brutality, and which did not provide any actual salvation.

This understanding of Jesus and self-understanding of Jesus which it expresses set the first generations of Christ followers on a collision course with Rome. This is the political reason for Jesus’ execution. Pilate had Jesus crucified because he believed Jesus was usurping the power that alone belonged to Caesar. Pilate rightly realised that there couldn’t be two people in the Roman Empire claiming to be Lord of all.

The early Christians faced death for saying the fundamental creed of Christianity that flowed from the birth, life, death, resurrection and ascension of Christ, that “Jesus is Lord.” Whenever they said Jesus is Lord, they were saying simultaneously that Caesar was not Lord, a statement treasonously subversive to Rome.

I wonder if perhaps we have forgotten that to say Jesus is Lord and mean it, is to dethrone every other claim to ultimate authority over our lives? That other royal figure in the nativity story, King Herod, was many things: cruel, despotic, vain; but he was not a fool. Herod understood the implications of what the angels said to the shepherds. He realised Jesus had come to depose and dethrone him; that’s why he tried to kill him and didn’t mind how many innocent lives were lost in the process.

This Sunday, the last Sunday before Advent, has come to be known in the Church as Christ The King Sunday. It was designed to be a reminder that Jesus alone is Lord. Maybe more than ever as his disciples we need the reminder that Jesus and Jesus alone has the rightful claim to reign over our lives and world. Christ the King Sunday is a much-needed reminder that ultimate authority in our lives lies not with Caesar, not with politicians or governments, not allegiance to a nation, flag or philosophy, not to another human being or even with ourselves, but with our Lord Jesus Christ.

And in case you are looking for some small print – a get-out clause when it comes to Jesus claim to lordship over your life – I want to remind you of that well-worn but nevertheless true Christian cliché: “If he is not Lord of all, he is not Lord at all.”There is no area of our lives that Jesus does not claim the right to reign over, which of course means that many of us need to do some dethroning of usurpers.

Perhaps this is the real significance of Christ the King Sunday. It is an opportunity to look at what has been ruling over us in every aspect of our lives. It is an opportunity to dethrone the Caesars of today, allowing Christ the King to reign in their stead.

Dr. Ellsworth Kalas was my Dean when I spent a year at Asbury Theological Seminary. He was a master with words. I want to leave you with some of his words as we approach the celebration of the birth of our rightful ruler, from Preaching the Calendar.

“We’re all people who want to be king or queen. Some of us don’t get a very large throne, but we make the most of it. We start in our crib, from which we scream out our orders, and we generally keep at it, as much as society and good taste will allow, until we’re on our deathbed. We like being king or queen….Here, then, is a Christmas word for you and for me. If your name is Herod or Caesar (and everyone’s name is) then be afraid. Because the King has come, and He is going to win. This little babe, in swaddling clothes, is going to win. Brothers and sister, boys and girls, it’s time to get off the throne, and to give the throne to the only one who is eternally qualified to reign.” (p.144)

How Is Community Possible? A Note from Nouwen

In 2,000 years of church history, you will find an ebb and flow of opportunities seized and opportunities lost. While church history is often a study in fracture – who split from whom, when, and why – nevertheless, it remains remarkable that community is found even today among drastically different people. An illustrative moment comes to mind: a few years ago, a friend – a Methodist leader – found herself meeting Pope Francis at the Vatican. How much may change over 500 years.

If those of us in the United States can allow ourselves to be invited to take off our America-centric lenses for a moment, we have an opportunity to receive awe. Christians are worshiping together in Japan; Nigeria (where some recently have died due to their faith); Brazil; Nepal; Russia; Egypt; Switzerland; India; China; and a host of other countries. Just from this handful of examples, we know that China and Japan have a quite painful recent history with each other; but there are followers of Jesus in China, and followers of Jesus in Japan. Week after week, genuine believers gather in community in person (or virtually) to worship, hear Scripture, pray.

We believe in the holy catholic (universal) church, and the communion of saints. The global church is astounding in its breadth, diversity, and liveliness. Within the global church, the Wesleyan Methodist branch of the family tree is also astounding in its breadth, diversity, and liveliness – 80 Wesleyan Methodist denominations with over 80 million members in over 130 countries. Differences may remain, and yet community is also celebrated every five years at the World Methodist Conference, embodied in a procession of flags as representatives enter beaming.

How is community possible? Is it, perhaps, easier to interact with Christians from other nations who are a bit removed from more local controversy? Not always; iron sharpens iron, and sometimes believers outside of our own culture see clearly through our blind spots.

The truth is that the Christian faith has never approached community as possible solely in the confines of an echo chamber. The Holy Spirit destroys feedback loops; if we quench the Spirit, we lose our saltiness. Scripture burns; affirming the Creed tugs us into alignment; the Eucharist keeps us all beggars in a bread line; works of mercy force us to learn names, not just repeat talking points. If you approach community as a customer or a food critic, you will be hard-pressed to find it.

Like a virus, loneliness has grown to epidemic proportions. When an actual virus hit, the two collided. What does community look like when tent-pole communal rituals have to be put on pause? (What does community look like when there is significant difference in risk assessment among believers who have life insurance and health insurance, and those who don’t?) Rituals imbue time and gathering with layered symbols and actions that carry meaning far beyond the immediate and literal. When you and I lose rituals – from physically attending funerals to casually lingering in a store aisle, slowly browsing and picking up greeting cards – these actions, big and small, that mark our days and moor our identity are lost.

Who are we?

We are servants; we are the younger siblings of our sisters and brothers in Christ, who are leading believers through time zones and hemispheres and governments and languages and cultures. We are people of the Way, which means we do not belong to ourselves.

The late Henri Nouwen, a Catholic brother in the faith, lent his contemplative insight on community and solitude with these words:

“Community, like solitude, is primarily a quality of the heart. While it remains true that we will never know what community is if we never come together in one place, community does not necessarily mean being physically together. We can well live in community while being physically alone. In such a situation, we can act freely, speak honestly, and suffer patiently, because of the intimate bond of love that unites us with others even when time and place separate us from them. The community of love stretches out not only beyond the boundaries of countries and continents but also beyond the boundaries of decades and centuries. Not only the awareness of those who are far away but also the memory of those who lived long ago can lead us into a healing, sustaining, and guiding community. The space for God in community transcends all limits of time and place.

Thus the discipline of community frees us to go wherever the Spirit guides us, even to places we would rather not go. This is the real Pentecost experience. When the Spirit descended on the disciples huddled together in fear, they were set free to move out of their closed room into the world. As long as they were assembled in fear they did not yet form community. But when they had received the Spirit, they became a body of free people who could stay in communion with each other even when they were as far from each other as Rome is from Jerusalem. Thus, when it is the Spirit of God and not fear that unites us in community, no distance of time or place can separate us.”

– Henri Nouwen, excerpt from Making All Things New in My Sister, My Brother: Life Together in Christ, p. 49

Who are we? You and I are called to be Pentecost people, shaped not by national affiliation but by the holy catholic church, and the communion of saints. You and I are called to receive the gift of the Holy Spirit dwelling in us individually and in us as a community, whether gathered or scattered makes no difference. You and I are called to train our eyes and our hearts and minds to see that, “the community of love stretches out not only beyond the boundaries of countries and continents but also beyond the boundaries of decades and centuries.” This is no Sophomore crush love; it is the self-giving, pelican love of the Trinity that makes all things new, thunders and whispers, and loves us too much to let us stay small in our hearts, small in our holy imagination, small in our words, loves, and actions.

Featured image courtesy Simone Busatto on Unsplash.

Three Reasons You Should Download a Daily Office App

What is essential reading for you every day? I don’t think I’m alone sensing an increase in “noise” when I read. If I go online for a few minutes to check social media or scan for wild fire containment progress, my eyes quickly absorb what I usually associate with my ears – a lot of noise. Communication is necessary; noise isn’t. Trying to parse the difference between the two, however, can be challenging. I love to read, but reading “hot takes” in real time leaves me scattered, fractured, tired. Some commentary on life or current events or ministry is helpful; but I quickly find myself tiring of secondary sources. If that sounds familiar, it might be time to download a Daily Office app.

There are thousands of devotional books, if not millions, and a lot of American Protestants aren’t familiar with the Daily Office. It is not, as it sounds, a daily random episode of a workplace comedy. It is not a workspace rental company. It is not an office supply source.

The Daily Office is a set of Scripture readings and prayers. You can find Christians around the world reading these same texts and prayers on the same day that you are. Centuries ago, Christians often prayed the hours of the day; about 500 years ago, the Book of Common Prayer was developed within Anglicanism. Daily worship was condensed into morning and evening prayers. It may sound strange to remember that in some traditions, people used to go to church daily; it may sound strange to remember that in some Christian traditions, people still go to church every day (at least, pandemic allowing). But the Daily Office isn’t limited to usage in a Vespers service in an aging stone church in the rolling hills of rural England. Anyone with a Book of Common Prayer can read the Daily Office. Except now the internet exists; anyone with a Daily Office app can read the Daily Office.

So why should you? Here are three reasons that spring to mind, though there are many.

1. Cutting Out or Reducing Dependence on Devotional Commentary

Please don’t read this as a suggestion that spiritual formation writings are useless. I’ve learned and grown so much from the wisdom of others, some from my own lifetime, some from decades or centuries before me. But a fatigue has taken hold in the midst of so much noise. I find myself yearning not for secondary sources, but for the wellspring of life itself.

We are, as C.S. Lewis suggested with different intent in mind, too easily pleased sometimes. Half a Scripture verse and four paragraphs of reflection on it are insufficient sustenance for your daily pilgrimage. Some devotional books offer great value – especially those that primarily parse the Scripture to which they refer or those with uncommon wisdom and insight.

But devotional books aren’t the Bread of Life. In John 1, we see the author distinguishing between John the Baptist, who was not himself the light but bore witness to the light, and Jesus, who is the light itself – the light that is life to all humanity. Sometimes we’re more comfortable with proximity to John the Baptist, as it were, than we are with proximity to Jesus.

But in times of heightened noise, one of the best things we can do is to dip into Scripture itself. Because I’m not hungry for Devotional Collection Aimed at North American Women Pushing Forty Who Are Likely to Have Shopped at Target in the Past 12 Months. I’m starving for Jesus. Give me Jesus. There are millions of commentators and bloggers and gurus and influencers. Some of them are great, fulfilling a need or even a vocation.

But right now the world is groaning. “Where else would we go? You have the words of life.” When you’re sick of talking heads or you’re in triage mode, you just want Jesus.

So why not just open a physical Bible or Bible app? Why a Daily Office app, specifically?

2. Scripture Variety and Scope

The Daily Office already includes excerpts from the Old Testament, New Testament, and Psalms. You don’t have to decide where to begin. Maybe that sounds lazy; if you’re a leader in your congregation or you’re tired or you’re a tired leader, not having to decide where to begin might sound quite appealing.

Daily Office apps remove another hurdle because you don’t have to navigate the sections of a physical Book of Common Prayer or look up references in a physical Bible. Rather, the excerpt is right there in front of you, ready to go.

(There’s much to be said for reading physical books or noting in physical margins, including research on retention or mental mapping; but jotting down a few notes on the daily reading helps retention as well.)

Sometimes identifiable themes thread through the passages from the Old and New Testaments. Sometimes they seem more randomly paired. The Daily Office helps to correct the tendency to swerve more heavily into one section of Scripture more than another, by putting a “balanced diet” onto our plate for us. It’s like a grab-bag fresh produce subscription box showing up at your door, in contrast to entering the fresh vegetable section of a store and veering toward your automatic weekly go-to of baby carrots and salad mix. The Daily Office makes sure that sometimes you try rutabagas or jicama, so to speak, prying your fingers off of your familiar household stand-by’s.

There are combinations of scriptural texts that simply wouldn’t occur to me if I didn’t discover them presented to me side by side. There is rich, fresh sustenance in these creative combinations.

3. Guided Prayer with Global Christians

Whether you thumb through a Book of Common Prayer or download a Daily Office app, you’ll find an odd sense of community in progressing through a shared liturgy, even if you’re sitting by yourself at a park.

The closest thing the Daily Office has to commentary comes in the form of the written prayers, many of which are quite old. At times, I’ve found myself unable to stitch words together in much of a prayer. Then, I’ve read the Daily Office and found what I didn’t know I needed or wanted to say, said for me. At other times, I’ve shared a collect from that day on social media, only to have acquaintances comment on why they love that particular prayer – a reminder of the worshiping community spread across the globe.

There is also keen solace in skimming over the prayer prompts for the day. When I feel overwhelmed by the sheer scale of need or tragedy in the world, the Daily Office calmly settles the uproar into a neat line. Groups of people are remembered on particular days: pray for those affected by natural disaster; pray for those who work in the justice system; pray for the sick and dying; pray for those who work in health care. And just like that, I join millions of other Christians who find a path marked out neatly to guide our intercessions.

If you find yourself weary of the fractious noise, hungry for something simple and quiet, maybe you would find new sustenance in the Daily Office. There are a variety of apps; sometimes I read the morning selection; sometimes I read the morning and evening selections; sometimes I read the night selection; sometimes I don’t open the app for several days.

But there are few better resources when you need to turn down the commentary, let yourself be exposed to a variety of Scripture, and receive the words and prayer prompts of others to help give voice to the intercession you may not have the words for.

Do you already read the Daily Office? When did you begin the habit? What have you gleaned from that experience?

Featured image courtesy Kentaro Toma via Unsplash.

A Prayer for Learners

Almighty God, unto whom all hearts are open, all desires known, and from whom no secrets are hid –

You read our hearts like an open book: you see our meanings, our intentions, our knowledge, our opinions, our questions, our backstories, our wounds, and our promise. Our hearts are open to you even when wisdom seems closed to us.

You know all our desires: you know when we sit and when we rise, you perceive our thoughts from a long way off. You know what we think we want and what we say we want and what we really want. You know which of our desires are self-destructive, disordered, and disillusioned, and which of our desires bring life, match the beat of your heart, and welcome the hope of truth.

You see what we try to hide: we can keep no secrets from you. Neither can those who prey on your vulnerable people. You sense our desire to dodge your hard questions or to camouflage our shortcomings or to put our best foot forward or to ignore your beckoning and calls. We are afraid we will be devoured by our inabilities.

You grasp that which what we cannot comprehend about our world, ourselves, our hearts.

You do not need to learn us; but we need to learn your ways.

We want to be learners

of your Word

of your words

of your Word Made Flesh.

We want to be learners

of your Way – the Truth of Life.

We want to be learners

of your Wisdom – the calm center that all is in your hands,

of your wisdom that is found in hard places and unwanted roads.

Can you show us, Christ our brother, what it is to be an apprentice? To submit to the slow rhythms of repeated practice? To gain the patient trust of a student in the safe presence of a patient teacher? Work our impatience like a piece of wood on a lathe, Christ who was raised by a carpenter.

Almighty God, you have engraved us on the palms of your hands; before a word is on our tongue, you know it completely.

But today, we are learners.

We need to discover the ways of your hands; we need to hear your words.

What we thought we knew has been swept away like sawdust. What we thought was certain has been uprooted. What we thought we had mastered has sent us back to the beginning, back with the beginner class, back to simple tasks.

Today, we are all learners.

I beseech thee, cleanse the intent of my heart with the unspeakable gift of thy grace.

Before we try to master this day, make the intent of our heart pure with the unspeakable gift of your grace:

give us the grace to be students again

and again

and again,

leaving by the roadside our desire to master, content to learn the shape of your grace

every day

each day that we’re alive

so that when we see you face to face

our hearts will know it’s you

and everything we thought we knew will be swept away like sawdust

in the presence of your joy and glory.

Language About God: Interviewing Dr. Jackson Lashier

I first met Dr. Jackson Lashier when we were both seminary students. Unlike many of the students who were pursuing degrees to become local church pastors, he and I found ourselves in many of the same classes as we worked toward degrees that prepared us for ministries in academic contexts. At the time, I knew him to be thoughtful, bright, and adept in handling resources that sometimes felt remote across the vast stretches of centuries and also abstract in their presentation of concepts. For pastors or academics or laypeople, the combination of remote and abstract can seem forbidding; but Jackson’s strengths lend themselves to bringing the remote and abstract both near and accessible. He’s the kind of person who comes to mind when you want to talk about the language we use when we talk about God . How we speak about God matters, and his point of view and expertise are valuable resources in exploring why we speak about God, and how.

Jackson is now a theology professor; he is also a John Wesley Fellow, about which you can read more at A Foundation for Theological Education, here. He has a passion for connecting the historic doctrines of the church to everyday lives of Christians (see his short video on “Why Church History Matters for Discipleship”) and authored Irenaeus on the Trinity and numerous scholarly articles. Currently, he is Associate Professor of Religion and Chair of the Social Science Division at Southwestern College in Winfield, Kansas.

Initially we began this discussion before the pandemic hit, and I appreciate his sustained efforts through that upheaval. It’s a gift to welcome his insight today.

Elizabeth Glass Turner, Managing Editor

Wesleyan Accent: So – Americans talk about God, or describe God, in a lot of different ways. American Christians often share some commonality in the language we use about God, but even within Christianity there can be different emphases or language employed. Is there any point in trying to use common language about God, or does it matter how we speak about God? If so, why?

Dr. Jackson Lashier: I think the language we use when speaking about God or to God matters greatly. First, it reflects our beliefs about God. So to call God gracious or loving or simple or immutable or Father, to name a few common examples, is to reveal convictions about the nature of the particular God we worship that cannot be implied from the word “God” alone. Second, and related to this, when used in the liturgy or in a common place of worship, our language proclaims a shared understanding that both unifies us as the Church and marks us off from communities of other faiths.

Now, having a common language of God does not mean we must have a uniform language of God. So many times I hear in public prayer people using the same title or titles of God over and over again (“Father God,” for example, seems really popular among American evangelicals). There is nothing necessarily wrong with repeating the same titles, but this practice fails to engage the vast treasure of names and language for God provided for us by Scripture and tradition. Using names for God that we are not familiar with helps open our minds to other aspects of God’s nature that we can praise and think creatively about.

WA: In systematic theology classes, students delve into Trinitarian theology – that God is three in one, not just one God with three masks or not three Gods who are best friends. God is three persons, and often we use personal, relational language to attempt to convey that – language that is found in Scripture: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Yet Christians have also classically believed that God is spirit, which gives a different understanding of God than may be implied in the Trinitarian language which is exclusively male. Why might it be important to remember that Christians classically haven’t affirmed belief in what Marge Simpson called “Mr. Lord” or the common phrase “the old man in the sky”?

JL: I like your images, particularly the Marge Simpson reference, and I agree with you that assumptions that God is inherently male, even when we say otherwise with our qualifications, is a problem and skews our understanding of the nature of God. Because God is absolutely unique, completely unlike anything in creation (according to the basic distinction that God is the eternal Creator and everything else is contingent creation), our human language – even language used by Scripture – always falls short of fully encapsulating God.

Theological language is, as Thomas Aquinas taught, “analogical.” That is, it refers to God only by way of analogy. This is easy to grasp when we call God “a rock” or something of that sort, but it even holds true when we say that God is love. When we say that God is love, we mean that God is in some way like our human concept of love even though the love that is God’s nature transcends even the highest human examples of love. The analogical nature of our God language is crucial to keep us from bringing God to our human level and thereby to falsely and somewhat idolatrously assume the ability to completely know God in human terms.

This subject bears directly on the question of gendered language for God and male images of God that we seem to hold de facto. The Scriptures and the majority of church tradition use male titles for God (primarily Father and Son) as well as male pronouns for God. If we keep the analogical nature of theological language in mind, we can affirm that these male titles and pronouns demonstrate God’s personal and relational language (God is “Father” and “he” as opposed to an “it”). Yet we can affirm these titles without falling into the mistake of thinking that God is literally male. If we think that God is literally a male, we have failed to honor the transcendent nature of God, which, as your question rightly expressed, is affirmed in the Scriptural teaching that God is spirit.

WA: Some Christians seem to think, however, that in the Incarnation God becomes a man and so that affirms the inherent maleness of God and justifies our exclusive use of masculine titles and imagery. Does your argument here implicitly deny the reality of the Incarnation?

JL: Not at all. It is absolutely true, both historically and theologically, that at some point in history, God entered human experience and was born a man, Jesus of Nazareth. But to conclude from this that, as a whole, God is male, is to be extremely confused on our Trinitarian language. Scripture affirms not that God in total becomes human but that the Word or the Son (who the tradition will come to refer to as the Second Person) becomes truly human. The Father and the Spirit (who the tradition will come to refer to as the First and Third Persons) remain spirit, as you noted in a previous question. Moreover, the orthodox teaching of hypostatic union states clearly that Jesus’ human and divine natures exist in perfect union though remain unconfused and unmixed (indeed, certain authors like Julian of Norwich will refer to the Son as our Mother). So the incarnation in no way compels us to think of God as male. At the same time, we do not have to somehow deny the historical reality of the maleness of Jesus for fear of that reality making God male.

The path forward, then, is to remember the central teaching of the Trinity. It is not that God is male. It is that God is relational in God’s essence.

WA: Your use of the title “Mother” for the Son may sound odd to our modern ears. Despite numerous examples of very maternal, female imagery of God throughout Scripture, many Christians might think it arises from a theology of the Divine Feminine that isn’t rooted in classic Trinitarian theology. How can we walk a path in which we celebrate shared belief in the Trinity and value the Trinitarian formula – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit – while affirming that while Jesus Christ experienced humanity in a male body, the Trinity is not inherently or eternally male?

JL: I think you’re right that many Christians have an immediate aversion to feminine language. I doubt whether there is a good reason behind it so much as the cumulative effect of using exclusively male language and thinking of God in exclusively male images. Indeed, it so forms our thinking about God that we cannot even recognize the many feminine images of God in Scripture —the mother hen, the woman who sweeps her floor looking for a coin, to name a couple off the top of my head. (Sometimes these images are wrongly dismissed by people who argue that God is not being “called” a feminine name [as God is called “Father”] but only compared to a feminine image; this argument makes no sense if we remember that all language and titles of God are analogical.) So for these reasons, we must reject the exclusive use of male imagery and language for God. However, for these same reasons, it is also insufficient to simply switch to using exclusively feminine language as I’ve seen some theologians and churches doing. Scripture reveals, and the tradition draws this out, that the transcendent and unique nature of God is neither male nor female but encompasses both male and female.

The path forward, then, is to remember the central teaching of the Trinity. It is not that God is male. It is that God is relational in God’s essence. Thus, God’s one nature is actually constituted by three “relations” or “persons.” This makes God eminently personable and that reality is more clearly expressed in relational titles like “Father” and “Son” than it is in titles like “spirit.” But “Mother,” for example, is also a relational name. And so I believe, along with Julian (and Gregory of Nazianzus and other Orthodox writers) that this title and other feminine titles can be used without sacrificing Trinitarian teaching in any way. Indeed, as I’ve argued elsewhere in print, I think “Mother” more faithfully retains the central Trinitarian realities than does reverting to “Creator,” “Redeemer,” and “Sustainer” often used today.

Of course pragmatically any new introduction of unfamiliar titles and imagery of God should be paired with preparation and teaching, so that congregations understand where they come from. But having said that, the use of titles like “Father” and male pronouns should also be explained better.

WA: You mention titles like Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer – in terms of how we speak about God, a popular means of representing the Trinitarian formula without relying on gendered titles. However, it seems that this formula reduces the persons of the Trinity from Scriptural ways in which they relate – Father, Son, Holy Spirit – to function, and what humanity experiences them doing. Is affirming personhood of “God in three persons, blessed Trinity” more essential than reconfiguring gender-specific language for the persons of the Trinity, even if that language had its origin in patriarchal societies?

JL: I believe in altering our language, attempts that guard against the misguided conclusion that God is literally male are admirable and needed. Nevertheless, I would answer yes to your question about this recent attempt. The formula “Creator, Redeemer, Sustainer” is simply an insufficient Trinitarian formula as it removes any inherent relational connection among the three persons that is the basis in traditional Trinitarian theology for maintaining the Oneness of the Three. Effectively, this formula implies a worship of three gods. Or, alternatively, the formula could be taken in a modalist sense, which means that the one God at one time creates, at another time redeems, and at still another time sustains. But here again, there is no eternal relation of persons. So, both conceptions are not fully Trinitarian. As I mentioned before, it is for this reason that I am much more comfortable with “Mother” language of the Divine because it maintains the essentially relational character of the Triune God. And while the tradition creatively engages such feminine language, it uniformly rejects such modalist or tri-theistic formulas.

Perhaps the most important principle is creativity with the wealth of images in Scripture. Encourage yourself to think of God using different images.

WA: I’ve heard some theologians and pastors refer to the Holy Spirit as the “she” within the Trinity. What are your thoughts about this approach?

JL: Honestly, I don’t like it very much. For one thing, it seems to render the feminine aspect of God as secondary: masculine images still outnumber feminine images 2-1, so it seems to me there is not much to gain by this approach. But more problematically, this approach assumes that the persons of the Trinity are literally gendered. So it could be thought that Father and Son are literal male members of the Trinity, and Spirit—by virtue of not having a masculine title—is the female member of the Trinity. As we have discussed, all persons of the Trinity are fully God and together they are one God.

WA: If in God’s infinite transcendence as Creator, the nature of God encompasses male and female, then this impacts our understanding of what it means to be human, yes?

JL: So many implications. First and foremost is the question of the image of God as reflected in humanity. Genesis 1:27 clearly states that male and female are together created in the image of God. Because of the Adam and Eve story of Genesis 2, however, this primary anthropological teaching is often missed; some assume that only the man is created in the image of God, which of course undergirds all sorts of problematic teachings related to hierarchies in marriage and ministry. But male and female together created in the image of God makes sense if we think about God in the ways we have been discussing. It means that they are equal and that they need each other to fully reflect the image of God. This truth, it seems to me, grounds an egalitarian view of marriage and the full participation of women in ministry. Another implication is that humans are inherently communal creatures. This does not mean, of course, that everyone needs to be married; it does mean that everyone needs to be in human community to realize fully who they were created to be. We can’t be good disciples and be solitary.

WA: Pragmatically, I’m reminded of a time I read a description of someone’s expectation that God’s voice would sound like Morgan Freeman or Sean Connery. Both made me smile, yet I was startled by my internal response: what if God’s voice sounded like Cate Blanchett’s character, Galadriel? This funny, simple thought reminded me of the importance of how we conceive of God when we pray. What are some important principles that should shape our imagination when we pray or talk to God?

JL: This is such an important question and really gets at the heart of what is at stake in this question. It is clear that if we reduce our images to masculine ones, then we will likely fall into the trap of thinking of God as male. Perhaps the most important principle is creativity with the wealth of images in Scripture. Encourage yourself to think of God using different images. At one point, imagine God as the Father of the prodigal son running to embrace you. At another time, imagine God as the mother hen who enfolds you in her wings.

The great monastic theologian, Dionysius the Areopagite, encouraged his readers to focus their imaginations on comparisons of God to inanimate objects precisely because there is less danger mistakenly thinking that God is literally a rock, for example, than there in thinking God is literally a Father. Ultimately, every Christian must explore images that resonate. But in general, Scripture and tradition allow for more freedom and creativity here then people often allow themselves.

WA: When it comes to drawing from Scripture and tradition, do you think people of faith can affirm the value of believing that God – out of the Divine nature of holy love – really reveals the very real, actual nature of God? That our language isn’t just a Rorschach test in which we make God everything we think God should look like? At the same time, is there space to acknowledge that sometimes we think about God or speak about God in ways that are incomplete or less rich than they might be?

JL: Great questions that have been wrestled with for centuries. I agree there is a danger here, which is why I think we are wise in our creative imaginings to remain within the range of images provided by Scripture and developed by tradition. Thankfully, there is more than enough there to occupy our imagination in prayer and worship; we have just scratched the surface in our engagement with these treasures.

In answering your broader question about the tension between knowing the revealed God vs the mystery of God, I follow the Western tradition as represented by Thomas Aquinas, as opposed to the Eastern tradition as represented by Dionysius or, more recently, theologians like Vladimir Lossky. The Eastern tradition has generally said that God in God’s essence is unknowable, so the only way we can really speak of God is to say what God is not. This is the so-called “negative” approach or apophatic theology. From it we have derived such important concepts as God’s eternality (God is not limited by time boundaries), God’s simplicity (God does not have parts), and God’s immutability (God is not changeable). I understand the impetus behind this apophatic tradition and see its value, though I move away from it precisely because of your point that God has revealed Godself to us.

The Western tradition has generally been more positive in its approach, so-called cataphatic theology. It affirms that we can speak of God positively, such that when we say God is good or God is love or God is Father, we mean something like what we know of as “good” or as “love” or as a good “father.” Personally, this way helps me connect better with God through prayer and thought. It seems consistent with the Incarnate movement of God to bring Godself to our level.

Yet as we mentioned in our discussion of analogical language, even this way of doing theology insists that we cannot fully know the essence of God: God is infinitely more loving and more good than even our highest human notions. So while we can know God truly and authentically through God’s revelation to us in Christ and as recorded by Holy Scripture, we can never know God fully and comprehensively. Incidentally, this means that eternal life will be spent growing deeper and deeper into the knowledge of God’s essence. I don’t know about you, but that sounds a lot more compelling then singing “Open the Eyes of My Heart Lord” over and over for eternity!

Wesleyan Accent ~ Not Yet Fully Awake: Dr. Matthew Milliner

Note from the Editor: As Christians continue into Eastertide, Wesleyan Accent is pleased to share this profound Easter sermon by art history professor Dr. Matthew Milliner, which was preached in All Souls Church in Wheaton, Illinois. You can see more from him here.

He is risen! He is risen indeed!

It’s exciting news when the most brilliant disciple of the atheist Sigmund Freud sees the need for belief in God. As many of you know, the name of this student was Carl Jung, and there is a lot one can learn from him. But here is one thing he really got wrong: “It is funny,” Jung tells us, “that Christians are still so pagan that they understand spiritual existence only as a body and as a physical event. I am afraid our Christian cannot maintain this shocking anachronism any longer.”

And so having cited this unfortunate remark of the great Swiss psychiatrist, please indulge me again, maybe with an Alleluia at the end this time.

He is risen. He is risen indeed! Alleluia!

The field of Biblical studies is wonderful. You can learn all kinds of things about the Ancient Near Eastern and Graeco-Roman contexts in which the Biblical books were originally written, you can learn the original languages. But as in any field, some people in Biblical studies make some miscalculations. I speak of the Biblical scholar Gerd Lüdemann: “A consistent modern view must say farewell to the resurrection as a historical event.”

Having heard that, please indulge me once again.

He is risen. He is risen indeed, Alleluia!

The notion that you can keep Christianity without resurrection has aged about as well as pay phones, in-flight ash trays, spitoons, hoop skirts, zuit suits, and those massive televisions that we used to have to cram in our living room and the gargantuan pieces of furniture we used to hide them before the flat screens came along. You still sometimes see those huge TVs on the curb, usually with five garbage stickers on them because no one wants them! And who would want a Christianity without resurrection either?

It’s often said if the resurrection isn’t true, don’t go to church, go to brunch. Well I was at one of those Chicago brunch meccas just this week and I overheard the bartenders planning the cocktail menu for this Sunday – Easter morning. And they said, “We need to mix up our menu to bring people in.” One employee said, we could change up the Bloody Mary with a bloodless Mary, which I guess is some kind of cocktail. And how I wish I had had the courage to say then and there, “Sounds like perfect cocktail for someone without resurrection hope on Easter Morning! Bloodless Mary.” But because he is risen we’re not at brunch, we’re here instead to drink from the veins of the risen Christ, and today at least we’re throwing in brunch too.

I’m sure you know the great John Updike poem, Seven Stanzas at Easter:

Make no mistake: if he rose at all
it was as His body;
if the cell’s dissolution did not reverse, the molecules
reknit, the amino acids rekindle,
the Church will fall.

Let us not mock God with metaphor,
analogy, sidestepping, transcendence,
making of the event a parable, a sign painted in the faded
credulity of earlier ages:
let us walk through the door.

Or better than Updike’s poem is this bald statement of fact in 1 Cor. 15; “If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied. But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have died.” Or Acts 10: “We are witnesses to all that he did… They put him to death by hanging him on a tree; but God raised him on the third day.” That is not a pious sentiment, a clever aphorism, haiku or a sonnet – it’s journalism. They killed him, God fixed it, says St. Peter.

One reason that resurrection matters is because it addresses our root anxiety. There are a lot of surface anxieties in our lives, and some that cut a good bit below the surface. But if you follow those anxieties to their root, and ask yourself, “what’s the worst thing that could happen?” The answer tends to be: “somebody could die.” That’s about as bad as it could get. And that root anxiety of our impermanence is what drives so many of our worries, agendas and sins – and so the root anxiety is the one Jesus addresses this morning not just by his words but with his body, by conquering death and replacing it with the root peace of the risen Christ.

That root peace is why Roger Persons, a member of our congregation, when his wife Jean died while they were watching TV together, was able to address her then and there and say, “Walk with the king.” That root peace is why Jason Long and I, sitting at the top of Central Dupage Hospital with Brett Foster as the sunset beamed into the hospital room so strongly that I had to put on my sunglasses, felt strangely, in retrospect, like Brett was preparing us for our own deaths as well. When I think of Brett, my memory now skips from that hospital room to his funeral where we heard these words from the Orthodox poet, Scott Cairns, about the resurrection – not Jesus’ resurrection, but mine and yours.

…one morning you finally wake
to a light you recognize as the light you’ve wanted
every morning that has come before. And the air
itself has some light thing in it that you’ve always
hoped the air might have. And One is there
to welcome you whose face you’ve looked for during all
the best and worst times of your life. He takes you to himself
and holds you close until you fully wake.

And in our gospel passage, Mary of course – like all of us on this side of death – is not yet fully awake. She makes first contact with the resurrected Jesus, and it’s about as awkward as Peter embarrassing himself by trying to pitch a tent on Mount Tabor. Mary’s problem is that she thinks Jesus is dead, and when she sees that he’s gone, she consoles herself by saying, “they have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him.”

I wonder if it’s her root anxiety in the form of a sentence. It signifies confusion, frustration and maybe even a little panic. I almost imagine her wandering off in a daze reciting those words in some kind of stupor. “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him.” Then the disciples show up, Peter and John. And of course, the best illustration I know of that moment in all the world is a train ride away at the Art Institute of Chicago. It’s by the African American painter Henry Ossawa Tanner. It shows Peter kind of concerned, almost twiddling his thumbs because he knew he blew it – and John, the beloved disciple has this beaming look on his face, as if to say, “I knew it!” Tanner suffered from racial prejudice all his life – he believed in resurrection. Still, in our passage, neither Peter nor John stick around.

But Mary wanders back, still clinging to the best she can do under the circumstances. Call her the Bloodless Mary, wringing her hands as she repeats, “they have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him.” And then she gets what we all think would work for us if only it would happen: an angelic visitation. “She bent over to look into the tomb; and she saw two angels in white, sitting where the body of Jesus had been lying, one at the head and the other at the feet.” I hope you’re catching that this is a reference to the ark of the covenant – two angels surrounding a void of presence – the absence that signifies that God cannot be contained. And the angels, puzzled, say to her, “woman, why are you weeping?”

And her reply? “They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him.” The presence of the angels doesn’t clear up her confusion, so the Lord himself explains it to her. “She turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not know that it was Jesus. Jesus said to her, “woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you looking for?” Now that is a reference to the mystical treaties the Song of Solomon if there ever was one – God’s pursuit of the soul. “Whom are you looking for?” God asks this to all of us this morning.

But it doesn’t work! Mary thinks he’s the gardener. And she offers her good intentions and pious objectives one more time. “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.” She still clings to her pre-resurrection agenda. On Friday one of our speakers said that Jesus was LOUD on the cross and I think he’s loud here too. He has to be loud enough to snap her out of her pious plans to anoint his corpse. And so he shouts with a smile, “Mary!”

There have been a lot of good stories about Notre Dame de Paris this week, but here’s the best one I know of. Denise once told me that when she was there with her mother and sister, they were touring the Cathedral which was packed with tourists, when a mother lost her son. And my wife Denise knows the name of that boy, as does everyone who was in Notre Dame that day because the mother started to shout it. Dimitri! After three shouts the packed cathedral fell silent but she kept shouting, no – screaming, “Dimitri! Dimitri!” until he was found. And that, after all, is what Notre Dame’s architecture is – it is the risen Christ shouting to you through beauty. Shouting your name and mine, trying to snap us out of our own agendas, even our own ambitions to serve him. That’s what beauty does, what pain does, what tragedy, suffering and joy do. They’re all the risen Christ shouting our name again and again in the Cathedral of this cosmos while the cathedral lasts.

And like Mary, we wake up, “Teacher!” and we cling to him, as any of us would. That’s what coming to church is about. But then comes Jesus’ famous lines to Mary: “Don’t hold onto me.” He does not mean back off. He tells her to stop clinging to him because he has something for her to do. Not her agenda this time but his. Namely, go tell the boys. In all four gospels the women are first, the only difference is the number of women who are present. And each gospel, the mission of the women is the same – and it is from them that we get the message with which we began.

He is risen: He is risen indeed. Alleluia!

Philip Tallon ~ Make Buildings that Won’t Be Burnt Up

A wise art teacher used to say, “Make art that won’t be burnt up.” He meant, make art that will outlast the last judgment. Make art that will count as one of the “glories of the nations” brought into the New Jerusalem (Rev. 21:26).

Like most people, I watched in horror as one of the glories of the nation of France was nearly burnt up last week. Someone put it well in Twitter, “Had to turn the tv off. Can’t take it anymore. Like watching someone in real time smashing everything in the Louvre with a sledgehammer.”

The world mourned in real time, only to discover in the following days that much of value survived. An early echo of Easter’s surprising good news, the medieval vaulting protected the sanctuary from much of the fire. If it were not for the much later addition of the spire, the damage to the inside would have been even less. My children will get to see Notre Dame’s sanctuary in much the same state as I have.

The news made much of the response of the French people. The French are marginally church-going and the country ranks as one of the least religious in the world. It is easy to imagine that France will be, in the near future, more meaningfully Muslim than Christian. Yet the world, and the French people, love this cathedral. In many ways it is the heart of Paris.

As the burning was happening I, of course, noticed the occasional dunking on church-obsession by Christians and secularists, for opposite reasons. The Christians looked to score piety points by signaling that “the church is people, not buildings.” The secularists signaled superiority by (often mistakenly) noting that such churches were built on the scaffolding of injustice, superstition, and colonialism. There wasn’t much of this, though. It was mostly a unifying moment.

My thoughts turned to my own town. I wondered what sites here in Houston would warrant such an outcry with their bloodless destruction. The answer was easy: none. Few such places exist in the world. Few buildings are as grand or as famous as Notre Dame. The closest Houston comes to a landmark is its sad, abandoned Astrodome, which the city can’t bring itself to get rid of, but also has no use for. Our dome will never compare to “Our Dame.” We could try awfully hard and still fail to create such a work of beauty. There is, of course, the additional problem that we aren’t trying.

This week it so happened that I had the pleasure to lead a discussion on Burke’s Reflections on the Revolution in France. As anyone familiar with the work will recall, much of what Burke bemoans is the way that the French revolution cut out the heart of civil life: the nobility and the church. Left with denuded rationality, Burke foresaw the likely result. Reason unaided by sentiment will quickly degrade into cruelty. And Burke was right. The reign of terror followed soon after the book’s publication. Despite its coincidental bearing on France, the part of the book that touched most directly on the burning of Notre Dame was a point that Burke made with reference to manners: “There ought to be a system of manners in every nation which a well-formed mind would be disposed to relish. To make us love our country, our country ought to be lovely.” The connection here between beauty and loyalty is apparent. Beauty attracts us, even when our reasons are unconvinced. When our nation’s politicians act in ugly ways, it helps that our nation’s capital is still beautiful.

The connection to Notre Dame is obvious. This troubled world still hungers for beauty, even as it has become confused about truth. On cloudy days it seems like the church only cares about truth and goodness (and sometimes not even those), but has left the beautiful to fend for itself. Our love of “Our Lady” reminds us of a truth that the builders knew: to help us love God the church ought to be lovely.

Priscilla Hammond ~ How Church Personalities Reveal Epiphany Living

January 6 marked the beginning of the season of Epiphany in the Protestant Church. This date celebrates the revelation of Christ to the wise men from the East (Matthew 2:1–12), in which Christ is revealed to the Gentiles. Of course, we also use the word epiphany to describe that moment when something suddenly becomes clear.

Christ is revealed

I grew up in a “high church” tradition. The liturgy cycled through the church year with steady reliability; Charles Wesley’s songs were as contemporary as it got; and even if the seasons weren’t readily apparent in the moderate Georgia temperatures, they were obvious in the vestments of the clergy. As an adult, I became a member of a modern megachurch, where my mother visited and whispered, “Applause is okay at a concert, but not appropriate in church.” I have been a member of a small church plant that had a five-minute greeting time during the service (and all the extroverts said “Amen!”). I have attended my siblings’ churches: Presbyterian, Baptist, and non-denominational. I have visited a Church of Christ congregation that didn’t use instruments in worship. I preached at a church in Kenya following a wonderful celebratory dance by Maasai women accompanied by a drum and tambourine. In all of these churches, I have observed that the form of worship changes, but the manifestation of Christ does not.

An epiphany during Epiphany

Over Christmas, my husband and I visited a church while on vacation. Old carols sung in contemporary arrangements preceded call and response preaching on the theme “Nothing is Impossible with God.” As I listened, I had an epiphany about Epiphany. Epiphany celebrates the manifestation of Christ to those outside of his Jewish lineage. Jesus’ genealogy had been presented in Matthew 1 as proof that he had a place as the leader of God’s chosen people, but Matthew 2 quickly demonstrated that he holds “the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes: first to the Jew, then to the Gentile” (Romans 1:16). Today’s “Gentiles” include thousands of different people groups. If people are divided by language, ethnicity, culture, behavior, education, customs, and ideology, but unified by the Gospel, then shouldn’t we expect churches to also be unique expressions in their contexts, with different worship, preaching, and organizing principles?

Gospel Personalities

Through my personal epiphany I realized that the differences in the Gospel accounts of Jesus’ ministry reflect each of the Gospel writers, each a unique expression of their context. That same unique expression is reflected in all the different forms of church structure and worship.

Matthew began his Gospel with a detailed genealogy followed by an account of Jesus’ birth and the visitation by the Magi. These facts set up a series of organized pericopes and major discourses in which Matthew’s personality shines through. This Gospel has a theme of unification, which is not surprising given Matthew was an ostracized Jew who reached out to sinners and outsiders after his conversion.

Mark’s encouraging storytelling is an exciting journey through Jesus’ ministry as told by a young follower. His loosely connected but grouped episodes resonate with those who value experience over education.

Luke was an educated man who processed through the facts to get to his faith. The theme throughout Luke’s Gospel is challenging Christians to put their faith into practice. Luke’s thoughtful study results in action.

John’s audience is the most diverse. His theme of love unfolds through miracles and signs. His desire for the diverse people of God to be the family of God is true spiritual community.

Church Personalities

Though each Gospel presents the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, they are all unique in their specific presentations, and they are organized differently.

And so are our churches.

A Matthew personality church focuses on liturgy and teaching. The preaching is expository and connected to the church season or a planned annual church calendar. The education of the leadership and the congregation is important but not overly emphasized. Small groups are focused on Bible study, which will help believers “to live a life worthy of the calling you have received . . . Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace” (Ephesians 4: 1, 3).

A Mark personality church may create short three to six week series centered around a topical, relevant theme. The preaching is inductive, beginning with stories that add up to a general conclusion of a scriptural application. The leadership of the church may not emphasize academic credentials. The congregation is drawn to experience over education. Small groups may be organized as semester-based experiences. This church may have a hard time with the “be still” command of Psalm 46:10.

A Luke personality church challenges its members to put their faith into practice. Academics are important, as we are called to study in order to correctly handle God’s word (2 Timothy 2:15). This prayerful study should instruct our faith, moving us forward on our social justice journey. Sermons may be textual (using Scripture as the starting point). Small groups are formed for Christian education and service.

A John personality church includes diverse fellowship. Signs and testimonies are emphasized. Leaders have different academic paths, but education of the congregation is not a priority unless it leads to deeper spiritual community. The purpose of small groups is fellowship, since “By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another” (John 13:35).

Churches have personalities, expressed through their organization, Christian education processes, preaching, and worship. Each can have strengths and challenges, but the diversity is reflective of the differences we see in people, including the Apostles.

Instead of focusing on which organizational structure or form of worship we prefer, we need to ask if our church is manifesting Christ to the world. Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John churches all have the opportunity to serve those who are lost and to “encourage one another and build each other up” (1 Thessalonians 5:11).

Just as Christ was revealed to the wise men, we all have the opportunity to help people on their epiphany journey.