Tag Archives: Means of Grace

The Prayer God Always Answers

It might take time or unexpected detours, it may show up in disguise like a trick or treater at the door, but you will always find an answer from God to one particular prayer. Which kind of prayer this is reveals something important about who God is and who we are created to be. Tug on a loose thread of grace before you know what it’s connected to and where it will lead, and often you’ll find this answer to this prayer unspooling in your life. The prayer God always answers may take you where you didn’t know you needed to go.

You may find there’s work in keeping the answer; you may find areas in which growth is demanded of you as you experience the answer. You won’t always live up to the answered prayer. You may question whether the answer is really all that it first seemed. That’s alright. It’s always been so.

But in my life I’ve found God always answers one kind of prayer that my heart entrusts to God’s heart. Browse through Scripture, and you see God doing it over and over and over again.

It may take time or detours or hard work, but the prayer God always answers is the prayer asking God to bring a particular kind of person or community into your life because you recognize your need for other people.

Sometimes it’s tempting to ask God for a solution or a quick fix, when God wants to deepen your relationships with others and to answer your prayers in the healthy interdependency that comes with genuine community.

Sometimes it’s tempting to ask God to heal a particular kind of wound or to numb the pain of loneliness, when God wants you to receive the grace of presence, even if it looks different than you pictured.

Sometimes it’s tempting to ask God for strength to do it all, instead of asking God if your trust in others needs to be expanded.

When you pray and acknowledge your lack, your limitations, your learning curve, and your loneliness, God will always answer your cry for mentoring or community or help or friendship, even if it doesn’t come in the form you’re hoping for or picturing, even if it takes time, even if the circumstances are what you were trying to avoid.

If you’re grieving a gaping hole in your life where a relationship should be but is out of reach for whatever reason, God may not restore a relationship with a particular person. But God can bring into your life someone who’s a similar presence, and they will be a source of grace, growth, and comfort. If your mother abandoned you or was unavailable or absent, a relationship with her may be out of reach, but God can hear the longing of your heart and bring someone mother-ly into your life. She won’t be perfect – no mother is – but whether she’s old enough to be your Grandma or just beyond you in years like an older sister, if you see a kind of person missing in your life, start praying that God will intersect your life with embodied grace.

If you’re grieving a gaping hole in your life where a particular kind of community should be but is out of reach for whatever reason, God may not relocate you, but God can bring into your life people you may not completely realize you need. They will be a source of grace, growth, and comfort. They won’t be perfect – no one is – and you will see your own learning curves and areas for growth in new ways.

One time I sat praying for a very specific kind of small community. I was at a conference; it was a stage of life when it can be really difficult to forge new relationships, especially if you’re in a vocation like ministry when peers themselves are often far-flung or regularly relocating. Someone had been speaking on the value of a small knot of trusted friends who also seek out God’s heart. I didn’t question the value, I questioned the viability; I knew it was a good thing to want, but I could not see how it would unfold. Normally fasting isn’t my first instinct; but that day, I sat and prayed, tears streaming, as others left for lunch, telling God my heart and hurts and longing. I still can’t describe how it happened with any coherence, but by the time I left the conference, I found myself part of a small knot of kindred spirits, some casual former acquaintances, some familiar but until that conference strangers, and we had agreed to form a group together. How? I had lunch with one person, chatted with another, there might have been an introduction, maybe we decided to sit together during worship? And then the final one – I think she saw us knotted together praying during a time of prayer huddles and joined us and then that was that? I’d gone from longing but not seeing any viable avenue, to going home with a fresh set of phone numbers and friends. We still had to work at making time to connect. We’re still far-flung. We all have different points of view, backgrounds, gifts. Persisting in prayer often means you and I are aware of something good that’s missing and that we can’t orchestrate by or for ourselves.

One time when I worked in a nursing home, one of my favorite residents died. He was a rascal; mischievous; gave the social worker grey hairs. I loved him. When his kids wrote to the facility thanking us for the care we had given him, they said – “Dad had been so depressed living alone. He’s always been outgoing, and with his health he was confined to home so much. He loved living at the nursing home. He was his old self again – people to talk to. The friends he made there were so important to him.” I knew what they meant. He had loved it. Not everything about it, certainly; he made that clear. But he had friends he ate supper with every night, they shared treats from “outside” that their families had brought them. He was with others. Most people avoid or dread long-term care facilities, but his extroverted, mischievous heart found plenty of entertainment and genuine friendship there.

The prayer God always answers: your need for other people – like you, unlike you, similar to you, different than you.

That doesn’t mean that every unmarried person will be married; it doesn’t mean that every specific relationship with a specific person will be restored (sometimes they can’t or shouldn’t be).

It does mean that God who is internal community, Father Son and Holy Spirit, and who created humans for and in community, takes our longing for friendship, relationship, camaraderie, and community seriously – and joyfully.

God, I need a teacher. A mentor. A coach. An auntie in the faith.

God, I need someone who’s like a Dad or Grandpa, someone who knows Your heart.

God, I need a handful of good buddies who checks in with me, who I check in with.

God, I need a long-haul friend with whom I can meaningfully share life.

God, I need people in my life who look different than me, who have different experiences, speak different languages.

God, I need a few good prayer warriors I can turn to.

Moses needed his father-in-law’s advice; and Moses needed the people his father-in-law recommended that he entrust. Naomi and Ruth needed each other. Anna and Simeon needed to bless, and Joseph and Mary needed to witness their response to this baby. Paul needed to learn that he needed Barnabas, who was right about John Mark. Esther needed Mordecai, and Mordecai and many others needed Esther. The apostles needed the Greek widows as much as the Greek widows needed them. Mary needed Elizabeth. Saul desperately needed Ananias.

“It is not good for Human to be alone…”

These are prayers worth persisting in. Tug loose threads expectantly, be on the lookout even if you’re not sure what you’re looking for. Be wise in who you let into your heart, but trust that as you grow in self-knowledge, self-awareness, and maturity, that the Holy Spirit will collide into your day with people you didn’t expect but profoundly need. Fast from relationships that are all in your own image – a reflection of yourself. And then do the work of caring for those answers to prayer so that as you continue to grow and sharpen each other, you are tending to God’s beautifully given answers to persistent, expectant prayers.

Featured image courtesy Jeremy Yap on Unsplash.

Glory, Suffering, and Sacred Space

Many traditions and cultures in and through which the Church has found its liveliness – growing tree-like in different climates and biomes – celebrate the glory of God through praise, liturgy, proclamation, and testimony. All glory, we say or preach or sing, belongs to God. And we affirm that along with the Church across time and space; or beyond time and space, or entangled with time and space, or the Church in all dimensions. We join with the great cloud of witnesses and we bear witness with the visible and invisible realms.

What happens, though, when the glory of God is rendered mechanically into a system?

One time I was privy to a conversation streaked through with sadness and earnest discomfort. Someone aching with the ongoing hollow of loss was squirming at the language of glory – not squirming at perceived distance of God, as one might expect from a person shrouded in grief. The splintering began when loss suddenly slid a new filter on years of absorbing sermons that framed the glory of God in a particular way. Like a trip to the optometrist, lens option one or lens option two can suddenly clarify perception. Circumstances in life often do the same thing; it doesn’t matter how old or young, wise or inexperienced someone is. It is often disorienting, sometimes overwhelming, and depending on the new perspective gained, can bring relief or distress.

The splintering continued. What had been preached – even what had been sung – seemed alien now. Naturally, times of grief and loss throw a great deal into upheaval; most people have questions, and any liminal period is one of undoing and not yet mended. At the same time, if there are genuine fault lines in a particular theological perspective, they will not escape the ruthless honesty of grief.

What was so grating about the language of glory?

It was regularly deployed as a sufficient reason for the worst suffering a twisted world could retch up. The worst thing that could ever happen to you or someone you know – God’s glory demanded it as necessary: the corrosive decay of evil splitting your world rendered as a necessary avenue for the glory of God to parade down.

(This is adjacent to sound reasons for rejecting o felix culpa. For Arminian/Wesleyan Methodists, it may be unsurprising that this ongoing appeal to God’s glory was built from the scaffolding of predestination – though before a sense of self-satisfaction sinks in, we should recall how many of our pews have welcomed resources from a variety of doctrinal perspectives that are sometimes at odds with our own.)

And so, after year absorbing these themes, in the hollow of loss, deep discomfort erupted in response to the language of glory. This – for God’s glory? Is there no value in relieving the suffering of the sufferer? How could such a big God seem so dependent on carefully deferential praise from mortals? How could this not eventually convey that the most vile suffering to sicken the globe was belittled or dismissed? In the face of theodicy, the appeal to glory was a mechanical response, but not only to suffering; to glory itself.

To mute the reality of suffering is to mute questions. But questions must have space to be asked or yelled or wailed in order for the questions to slowly shift from reaction to silence, silence to focus, focus to creation. A question asked in suffering may crack open space for questions asked in creativity. The natural end of grief may be generative; creative – but only if grief is genuinely not belittled or dismissed. (For a nuanced approach to an artist’s theology of mending see Makoto Fujimura’s Art + Faith: A Theology of Making.) One cannot be led by the questions that sprout from suffering to the questions that give way to awe – the genuinely appropriate response to the glory of Triune love – if the questions raised by suffering are treated as irksome signs that one has not yet fully appreciated what the faith is about. And yet space for even a few seconds of grounded wonder is space that is just beginning to gently unfurl hope, one tight leaf at a time.

(Just one minor dimension of the problematic appeal to God’s glory as the justification that a child is parentless or a parent is childless or a group commits genocide is that this kind of sermon rarely is preached in any kind of setting that suggests that God’s glory is worth emptying the building fund for. One doesn’t have to reach far into the imagination for the grim flicker of florescent lighting over the padded stackable chairs that replaced the pews twenty years ago: hardly the ornate interior of an awe-inspiring soaring cathedral. When discomfort shifts and shrugs at language of God’s glory, it is sometimes when the point is housed primarily in proclamation, in traditions with little attachment to sacred architecture and/or iconography.)

More to the point – when language is deployed in preaching on suffering and the demands of God’s glory, but Word is untethered from Table, there is enormous loss. A sacramental approach to the Eucharist will find itself tasting the grace of glory that suffers for us. Here, “your worst hellish nightmare is how you best pave the way for God’s glory” is ground to dust – like a golden calf pulverized and stirred into water; but the drink we find is not the cup of Moses’ rage, idol and water swirling. At the Table, we find our withered notions of fragile golden glory transformed; the cup transformed. At the Table, you drink the truth that while you may have heard your suffering was for God’s glory, in fact, God’s glory is for you; Glory suffered for you. The blood of Glory, shed for you. It was not God’s glory razing your innocence or demanding tribute; God’s glory makes all things marred by evil new.

Worthy is the Lamb that was slain; worthy is the Glory that became flesh; worthy is the Glory that suffered in Gethsemane, that stumbled carrying the cross, that harrowed hell, that startled women in a garden.

God’s sovereignty pulses as even the worst bitter corrosion of a world gone wrong is melted into pathways of grace – not a parade for a tyrant’s glory. You and I respond to the glory of God’s love when we find hope on the paths of grace that God’s creative love fashions out of suffering. And on those paths of grace, bit by bit, you will find the questions borne in suffering slowly threading into questions of wonder that, like our Creator, create.

Featured image courtesy K. Mitch Hodge via Unsplash

Taking the Journey Together: Witness in Crisis

I know a man who works at a large, warehouse-style home-improvement store. One day he shared a story about how to help people find what they are looking for. There is a sign in the employee break room that says: “No Pointing.” The message to store employees is that when customers ask the location of an item, one should not merely point and say, “over there.” Nor is it sufficient to give an aisle number and description of the location on that aisle. Rather, the employee should walk with the customers and make sure that they are able together to locate what the customers are seeking. Along the way, the employee might learn more than just what one item the customer is looking for. Even at some small level, relationship and goodwill are built. The customers realize they are not alone and lost in their search; someone with expertise and experience is traveling with them. We are in a time when people need to know that the church is not merely pointing at some far-off place telling them that they must go on the journey alone. Rather, we go on the journey together.

No matter how we are called to serve in ministry – as a lay person or pastor – it is important to remember that we do not go alone. We join with one another in our mutual work for the sake of the Gospel. Examples of this are frequently found in the Scriptures. In Genesis 12, when God calls Abram to the land he would see later, he did not go alone. In Luke 10, Jesus sent the witnesses out in pairs to proclaim that “the kingdom of God has come near.” After the Resurrection, Jesus walked along the road to Emmaus with Cleopas and his companion (Luke 24). Paul and Barnabas are sent together in Acts 13. If you are a leader in ministry, are you merely pointing, or are you joining others on the journey?

The same holds true for those who are trying to find their way in the Christian faith. The last few months have turned many of us upside-down. People are looking for someone to show them the way in a dark time. Many people are afraid of what the future will hold, as evidenced by panic buying and the hoarding of basic necessities. They want direction on how to navigate uncertain times. Social distancing does not necessarily mean going it alone. Rather, at this important time, people around us need to be reminded that they do not need to go on this journey by themselves.

In times of difficulty, many people of faith have turned to Psalm 23 for comfort. Frequently, Bible study teachers and pastors point to the fact that the psalmist walks through the darkest valley rather than remain in that dark valley. That is an important point. However, notice that the comfort also comes from the fact that the Lord walks with us in those dark valleys. The Lord does not simply point but rather accompanies us. We take solace because we are not alone.

Though the problems facing the world today are significant, perhaps even unprecedented, this is not the first time that the church has faced ministry to those impacted by a widespread illness. In the second, third, and sixteenth centuries, the church was able to minister to people in times of plague and disease. Without minimizing the human toll, it is important to remember that the church served as a faithful witness in those times. The church has the opportunity to be a faithful witness again in a difficult time for many around the world. It is demonstrated in showing the mercy given to us by Christ and coming alongside others as we walk through these dark times.

As a response to social distancing, many churches have generated a great deal of online content in the form of services, devotionals, and Bible studies. I am grateful there has been a proliferation of these types of resources. The internet certainly needs it. All the while, church leaders can ensure that these are not just inwardly focused—aimed at people who are already connected with a church.

Many of our neighbors are asking some really big and really important questions about life, death, and the nature of the world in which we live. The gospel is the answer to these questions. This is an opportunity for us to journey with a world that is asking. We need to do this in a way that is not merely pointing and saying, “over there.” This is the moment to show the world the One who walks through our valleys with us.

Featured image courtesy Andrew Ly for Unsplash.

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.

Cómo es la Providencia

A veces parece que las personas que provienen de orígenes metodistas wesleyanos tienen una relación “a distancia” con la idea de la providencia. En su nivel más básico, la providencia es la actividad de Dios que lleva a cabo los planes redentores de Dios para su creación. Es Dios elaborando un plan de rescate para la creación, y la idea de que Dios está trabajando detrás de escena sin nuestra participación o cooperación es un poco desconcertante para la sensibilidad wesleyana. Porque después de todo, ¿no somos nosotros las personas que creemos en la gracia cooperante (es decir, que hay un grado de cooperación en el que participamos cuando se trata de la obra salvadora de Dios)? Somos el movimiento que enfatiza el libre albedrío humano y nuestra capacidad para elegir o rechazar el don de la gracia que Dios ofrece. “Providencia” simplemente suena demasiado a esa gente reformada o calvinista, pensamos. Pero si miramos más de cerca, vemos que el fundador de nuestro movimiento, John Wesley, tenía una comprensión muy sólida de la providencia divina. Entonces, ¿qué debemos pensar sobre la providencia como wesleyanos?

Describamos lo que no es la providencia. La providencia no significa que no tengamos libre albedrío. La providencia de Dios no descarta la libertad humana. La Providencia no se opone a la cooperación con Dios. La providencia no significa que estemos “fuera del apuro” o que no tengamos sentido de responsabilidad cuando se trata de crecimiento espiritual. Más bien, cooperamos con Dios a medida que crecemos en nuestra fe al practicar disciplinas espirituales, o los “medios de la gracia.”

Entonces, ¿qué es la providencia?

La Providencia está en el corazón de la teología cristiana. Los cristianos a lo largo de los siglos, aunque ha habido excepciones, han afirmado que Dios no es simplemente un relojero que puso el universo en movimiento y desde entonces lo ha dejado desatendido para sus propios fines. Más bien, la providencia afirma que Dios está obrando detrás de escena, a veces de manera imperceptible, pero obrando de todos modos. Basándose en siglos de comprensión cristiana, el difunto teólogo Thomas Oden definió la providencia como “la expresión de la voluntad, el poder y la bondad divinos a través de los cuales el Creador conserva a las criaturas, coopera con lo que sucederá a través de sus acciones y las guía en sus propósitos a largo plazo.” [1] La Providencia es tanto evidencia del amor de Dios por su creación como de su soberanía.

John Wesley tenía fuertes convicciones con respecto a la providencia de Dios. Con su enfoque de ambos / y, Wesley compartió una gran comprensión de la naturaleza de Dios y de la vida del discípulo cristiano a través del lente de la providencia. En su sermón, Sobre la Providencia, Wesley instó: “No hay casi ninguna doctrina en todo el ámbito de la revelación, que sea de mayor importancia que esta. Y, al mismo tiempo, hay pocos que sean tan poco considerados, y quizás tan poco comprendidos.” [2]

Mientras que los pensadores cristianos durante siglos afirmaron la omnisciencia y omnipresencia de Dios, Wesley reconoció que nuestro limitado entendimiento humano tiene problemas para comprender el concepto de la naturaleza providencial de Dios. Wesley enfatizó que deberíamos sentirnos humildes por el hecho de que Dios, infinito en sabiduría y poder, aún se preocupa por el bienestar de su creación. Wesley señaló que mientras que para Dios todas las cosas son posibles, “El que puede hacer todas las cosas no puede negarse a sí mismo.” [3] Aunque está dentro del poder de Dios destruir todo pecado y maldad en el mundo, por ejemplo, esto contradeciría La naturaleza de Dios. En particular, esto contradiría el hecho de que la humanidad fue creada a la imagen de Dios. Sin embargo, Wesley aclaró, aquí es donde la providencia de Dios entra en la ecuación. Si bien Dios permite que los seres humanos elijan entre el bien y el mal, la providencia de Dios es una obra, “para ayudar al hombre [sic] a alcanzar el fin de su ser, a obrar su propia salvación, en la medida en que se pueda hacer sin coacción, sin anular su libertad.” Wesley visualiza la providencia de Dios operando en un “círculo triple” dentro de la creación. [4]

Primero, observó Wesley, todo el universo está gobernado por Dios, incluidos los movimientos del sol, la luna y las estrellas, así como la vida animal. Más allá de este gobierno, Wesley describe tres círculos de la providencia de Dios. El primero de los tres círculos abarca a toda la humanidad. Dentro de este círculo, la providencia de Dios obra en el mundo … El segundo círculo incluye “todos los que profesan creer en Cristo.” [5] Dentro de este círculo, Dios está obrando … El círculo final y más íntimo, abarca, “verdaderos cristianos, aquellos que adoran a Dios, no sólo en forma, sino en espíritu y en verdad. Aquí están incluidos todos los que aman a Dios, o, al menos, verdaderamente temen a Dios y obran justicia; todos en los cuales está la mente que estaba en Cristo, y que caminan como Cristo también caminó.” [6] (Es interesante que Wesley argumentó que es dentro de este círculo que se realiza Lucas 12: 7: “Lo mismo pasa con ustedes, pues hasta los cabellos de su cabeza están todos contados. Así que no teman, pues ustedes valen más que muchos pajarillos.” [7] Él comentó: “Nada relativo a estos es demasiado grande, nada demasiado pequeño, para su atención.” [8] Mientras que Dios está preocupado por todos en su creación, Wesley creía que el Señor presta especial atención a aquellos que son seguidores totalmente devotos de Jesús).

A lo largo de sus escritos, incluyendo su diario y cartas, Wesley notó en muchas ocasiones el “tren de providencias” que Dios obró en situaciones particulares. A menudo atribuye palabras descriptivas adicionales como, “poco común,” “varios,” “maravilloso,” y “completo” para describir con más detalle estos casos en los que Wesley observó la mano de Dios obrando en la vida de los cristianos. Enfatizó que si bien Dios ha establecido leyes generales que gobiernan el universo, Dios es libre de “hacer excepciones a ellas, cuando le plazca.” [9] Para Wesley, el cuidado de Dios por la creación y especialmente por los seres humanos no se ve obstaculizado por las leyes del universo.

En la conclusión de su sermón, Wesley anima a los cristianos a poner toda su confianza en el Señor y no temer. La providencia de Dios significa que podemos confiar en él incluso cuando parece que nuestro mundo o el mundo entero se está desmoronando. Él no niega que enfrentaremos desafíos y dolores, sino que debemos caminar humildemente ante Dios y confiar en que “Para los que aman a Dios todas las cosas les ayudan a bien, a los que conforme a su propósito son llamados.” [10] La esperanza del cristiano es en el Señor que no solo gobierna el universo, sino que también se preocupa especialmente por los que siguen a Dios. Dios conoce la cantidad de cabellos que tienen en la cabeza. Ningún detalle escapa a su atención. La providencia de Dios nos da esperanza tanto para nuestro presente como para nuestro futuro. No se trata simplemente de decir que “todo sucede por una razón,” porque Dios no es la fuente del mal o el caos. Sin embargo, podemos confiar en que detrás de todo, Dios está obrando. No significa que todo nos irá bien, pero sí significa que Dios está con nosotros en cada paso del camino. Quizás esa fue la motivación de John Wesley en su lecho de muerte cuando pronunció las palabras: “Lo mejor de todo, es que Dios está con nosotros”. [11]

[1] Oden, Thomas C. Classic Christianity: A Systematic Theology. HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.

[2] John Wesley, “On Divine Providence” (1786), in The Works of John Wesley, ed. Thomas Jackson, 14 vols.,(Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2007), 6:315; hereafter cited as Works (Jackson).

[3] Ibid, p. 317

[4] This idea is from Thomas Crane in A Prospect of Divine Providence, which Wesley included in his Christian Library.

[5] Ibid, p. 319

[6] Ibid.

[7] The Holy Bible: English Standard Version, (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016).

[8] Ibid., p. 320

[9] Ibid, p. 322

[10] Romans 8:28. The Holy Bible: English Standard Version, (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016).

[11] Ken Collins, John Wesley: A Theological Journey, (Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 2003), p. 268.

Featured image courtesy Goh Rhy Yan on Unsplash.

La traducción por Rev. Dr. Edgar Bazan

Review: Dr. Rob Haynes Explores “Renew Your Wesleyan DNA”

What makes a Methodist a “Methodist”? This is an increasingly important question in the age of the rise of secularism, the decline of churches in the West, and other significant challenges in the Wesleyan/Methodist movement. As younger generations decreasingly emphasize the role of denominations, many people are no longer aware of the rich history and theology of the Wesleyan/Methodist churches they call home. In some parts of the world, leaders need fresh encouragement for mission and ministry. All the while, the global Wesleyan movement remains strong, and God continues to use it to share and show the love of Jesus Christ.

Renew Your Wesleyan DNA: Pursue God’s Mission in Your Life and Church by Engaging with the Essential Strands of Wesleyan Theology Cherished by Global Methodism by Rev. Dr. Richard Waugh (Australia: Cypress Project, 2019) is a critical resource to help contemporary Wesleyans learn the history of the movement while valuing the principles that continue to guide the most vibrant Wesleyan/Methodist churches. However, Waugh’s work is not merely a historical retelling. It is an examination and appreciation of the core of the Methodist movement. It is a call for churches and leaders to reflect upon their own ministries and reorient them for the vibrancy experienced when the “people called Methodists” are faithful to God’s call and mission.

The book is divided into eight chapters around three themes: Wesleyan Identity, Wesleyan DNA, and 21st-Century Ministry. Independently and cohesively, these provide a helpful view of the rich history of the Wesleyan movement, its ability to hold a variety of theological positions in a healthy tension, and a call to action for the contemporary church. Waugh identifies five strands of Wesleyan DNA: Creator’s Mission, Salvation, Transformation, Means of Grace, and Ministry with the Poor. These, he says, “encapsulate the essence…of Wesleyan emphases.” He uses them to illustrate the unique way in which John Wesley balanced biblical and theological principles. Waugh demonstrates their application for modern Christian discipleship. The book’s usability is further expanded through the author’s inclusion of historical and theological profiles that show evidence of Wesleyan DNA through various expressions of the global church. While these profiles include a brief historical account, the highlighting of the contemporary gospel witness in each context is enriching.

The global Wesleyan movement has a varied and complex history. Waugh successfully navigates this complexity by providing two separate narratives to illustrate one grand story: the first primarily concentrates on geographic particularities (see chapter two). The second recounts the ways in which Methodism has influenced various theological streams, ecumenism, missional witness, education, healthcare, and other important areas (see chapter eight). He handles these complexities in a way that remains appropriately thorough yet approachable for a general international audience. After all, according to Waugh, over 100 million people from more than 160 countries follow Jesus in the company of the Wesleys. Appropriately, he does not attempt to recap them all. Rather, he gives proper appreciation of various iterations to encourage the reader to apply the Wesleyan DNA into each local ministry. Throughout the work, Waugh’s unique voice as a Wesleyan Methodist leader from the South Pacific gives an important timbre to the conversation.

In some corners of Methodism, leaders have failed to attend to the doctrine that Mr. Wesley sought to preserve. Publications such as this, grounded in modern biblical and theological scholarship while accessible to a broad audience, are important for a deeper sense of belonging in the way God continues to use the global Wesleyan movement.

With thoughtfulness for local church application, small group discussion questions are included. Other helpful resources include a church audit guide, celebration service, and worship guides for Watchnight, Covenant Renewal, and Aldersgate services.

Renew Your Wesleyan DNA is a helpful addition to the libraries of Wesleyan/Methodist laity and pastors alike. It provides a fresh, global perspective on the vibrancy of the People Called Methodist. The work offers tools for individuals, small groups, and congregations to go deeper in their own faith development alongside their Wesleyan/Methodist kindred in the worldwide movement.

Featured image courtesy Elena Mozhvilo on Unsplash.

Resilient Prayer in Escalating Crisis: Video

Are you a leader facing escalating crises on multiple fronts? Enjoy this video from Managing Editor Elizabeth Glass Turner, on resilient prayer for leaders juggling the unexpected, and recognizing signals of growing spiritual resilience. Excerpt below.

Excerpt: “The Holy Spirit not only shapes what you want or what you pray for, but how you pray in the midst of crisis, because you cannot pray for what you do not see. This is why resilient prayer begins with deliberately mindfully honing awareness. As you acknowledge your human propensity for blind spots, it allows your spirit to be sensitive to what you simply haven’t been aware of.

So when you pray from awareness of the seen and unseen, awareness of the immediate vs the eternal, the global and not just local, aware of the limits of your own control and autonomy – then you are inviting God to break into the present calamity in ways that you can’t foresee or predict. You are inviting God to put a burden on your hearts for the needs around you that the Holy Spirit helps you discern. You are inviting God to take your availability and propel it into the needs of this world, whether locally or globally, in small or in major steps.

When this honed awareness provides the basis and architecture of prayer, what will you find? Spiritual resilience that is steadfast in crisis – personal crisis, national crisis, global crisis; it may not feel like you are resilient; you may not feel confident.

So what are some signals that you are growing in spiritual resilience, whether you feel strong or resilient, or not? First, if you find that God is using you in ways you didn’t expect, that is a signal that you are praying with honed awareness. It is a signal that that awareness is structuring how you pray, and that how you pray – no matter what your circumstances – is demonstrating growth in spiritual resilience.

What you wrote off or thought nothing of, you now discover yielding unexpected good things. Maybe someone comments, or says, “you have no idea how much I needed to hear that.” Maybe what you underestimated instead blossoms and flourishes. If you find that God is using you in ways you didn’t anticipate, pay attention; you are praying with honed awareness, and how you pray is demonstrating growth in spiritual resilience – because you were faithful to small moments that seemed insignificant.”

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.

Michelle Bauer ~ Practicing the Skill of Silence

Today I want to share a Psalm with you that I find especially encouraging when things are tough – Psalm 46. I’m sure many of you have heard it before. As we consider the value of silence, consider its words:

“God is our refuge and strength, and ever-present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea, though its waters roar and foam and the mountains quake with their surging.“

Let’s stop here with a fill-in-the-blank. 

Therefore we will not fear, though____________________________________.

Though…hundreds of thousands of people are sick from Coronavirus.

Though…the economic ripples of the virus will effect us in ways we can’t predict.

Though…our routines have been interrupted and we don’t know when we will see “normal” again.

And why shouldn’t we fear these things?

The middle of the chapter reminds us: “The Lord Almighty is with us.”

Sometimes I hear this verse and forget that the Psalmist is saying that the Lord Almighty is with me. God is with you right now. He is not standing far off while you face uncertainty, while you suffer. God is with you.

At the end of the chapter we read, “Be still and know that I am God.”

God is with us and we are invited to be still in his presence.

In moments of crisis we tend to pray more. That’s good, but we need to remember to listen as well. We need to take time in silence to let God respond to us. God wants to speak to us. Are we giving God the opportunity?

God also wants us to be still in his presence so that God can comfort us. Let God still your heart.

My encouragement to you today is to spend a few moments each day – or maybe even a couple of times a day – in silence, without screens, being still. It’s okay if you start with a very short amount of time. To begin, set your timer for just two minutes. Every couple of days, add 30 seconds or a minute.

Being silent is a skill we can develop. It’s okay to refocus when your mind wanders. Every time we choose to turn our focus to God, we are worshiping.

Elizabeth Glass Turner ~ Living with Gracious Conviction

How do you express your convictions with deep respect, appreciation, and even grief? This is a question many are wrestling with currently. An acquaintance for whom I hold deep respect named this struggle quite clearly on social media recently. He addressed it with humility, genuinely hoping to find a way of communicating with both conviction and graciousness. Living with gracious conviction isn’t just something to be pursued by leaders in one denomination, either, as denominational Hospice care is called in for the UMC. How might Christians not only speak with gracious conviction but also live with gracious conviction? How might people uncertain of their faith but desperate for respectful dialogue speak and live with gracious conviction?

Embodying Service

In a time when words are thrown around a dime a dozen online – when we’re so inundated with words communicated through modern technology that emojis were developed to communicate nonverbal intent – speaking and living with gracious conviction means getting our hands dirty.

It is not only acceptable, for Christians it is biblical to be prodigal – generous and extravagant with our service toward others. Our service can never solely be toward people who affirm our religion or our theological convictions. Occasionally, no matter what theological camp one finds herself in, there is the fear that showing service, care, or love to someone with whom you disagree is somehow a token of your agreement with all their opinions. This is patently, incontrovertibly wrong. To love your neighbor as yourself, to “let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 2) means to promote the welfare and well-being of people who may think you’re wrong, misguided, ignorant, blinded – or laughable. No theological camp is immune. Progressive liberal activists and conservative traditionalists alike easily justify withholding a towel and basin on the basis of principle.

Embodied service doesn’t require the perpetuation of one organization – an organization attempting to hold together so many different theological threads that it is straining and ripping at the seams. Embodied service simply means showing up for people with whom we profoundly disagree, because we value their lives. Organizational pragmatism may indicate the advisability of existing as separate worshiping bodies, where demonstrably and repeatedly over decades profound disagreement emerges on who exactly we’re worshiping.

Belonging to the same organization has never been a prerequisite for serving someone, though. Belonging to the same denomination or tradition isn’t a requirement. The Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve. For those in the Wesleyan Methodist branch of the family tree of the faith, we’re familiar with John Wesley’s thinking on the “means of grace,” which include not only works of piety, but works of mercy.

So maybe you notice someone you’ve been arguing with on social media has a sick family member: send them flowers or a restaurant gift card. Maybe you’ve lost your graciousness in an exchange with a colleague: apologize without self-justification. Shovel their sidewalk; mow their lawn. Maybe you long for someone to know that no matter how deeply you differ, you’re trying to really see them, hear them, and treat them with dignity. Donate in their honor to a non-profit they might value.

In times when words are cheap, show up with actions to demonstrate the posture of your heart. It’s interesting that actions shape attitudes as well. Getting down on your knees to pick up the coins accidentally dropped by someone who thinks you’re deeply wrong? You and they both need to feel your willingness to do it, whether or not they ever express gratitude or reciprocation.

The image we have to guide us is Jesus at the Last Supper – Jesus washing his disciples’ feet. These feet included the feet of Judas, who would walk out of the room with feet cleaned by God and would walk to betray God whose hands were wet with dirty water. Jesus knew and knelt anyway. We can’t do less.

Verbalizing Gratitude

Living with gracious conviction can also be expressed by finding something for which you can say thank you. Find something, however small, that you appreciate, and say it. To live and speak with gracious conviction is to step aside from intense irritation, anger, hurt, or frustration long enough to find anything you can say “thank you” to.

This doesn’t come from an odd need to debase yourself. It doesn’t come from a place of neediness for affirmation. Rather, verbalizing gratitude simply reinforces the essential humanity of another person. It reminds both you and them of your acknowledgment that they have something to contribute to the world. If we are quick to write off people due to their opinions, are we making it easier to write off their innate value? Jesus was willing to meet at night in private with Nicodemus, a man who belonged to a group publicly opposed to Jesus during the day.

Obviously, very, very few people in human history have been completely, thoroughly given over to all-consuming evil. If most people are a complex mixture of motives, wounds, gifts, personal histories, self-sabotaging habits, prevenient grace, corrosive self-centeredness, and will – yet all the while made in the image of God, however fractured – then thanking them is a simple, genuine way to communicate gratitude for their existence. It also leaves the door open, because you never know when someone may change their mind, and giving them a path and doorway to do so is vital. Finding something for which you can thank a person will acknowledge that they may have some kind of insight you do not (even if it’s a coffee recommendation) and that you are in the position to receive that insight. It takes discipline to think and communicate in ways that constantly remind us, as C.S. Lewis pointed out, of the glory other beings are capable of bearing.

There is always something you can thank someone for. There is always something you can appreciate. It may have to be only, “I like your shirt.” It may have to be, “thank you for engaging in a difficult conversation,” or “I appreciate the time you took to respond,” or “thank you for sharing your perspective; it’s a privilege to hear your story, I don’t take it lightly.”

If there’s genuine opportunity, you can even verbalize something you’ve learned from them, gained from them, or notice about them. “You are really passionate about what you believe, and I respect that,” or “I know we’re operating from different convictions, but I’ve noticed you’re really gifted at ________, and I hope you have ways of utilizing those talents,” or, “a while back you mentioned ___________ and while I know we have different perspectives on other topics, I want you to know how much I appreciated it when you said __________.”

One time Jesus healed ten men isolated and marginalized by disease; they were so eager to go get medical clearance and find their loved ones that they ran off. Only one came back to thank Jesus – and the one that returned to thank Jesus was a Samaritan – a “foreigner” whose social marginalization wouldn’t end with the healing of a disease. Sometimes we forget how rarely people hear the words “thank you.” Can you think of a time someone thanked you and it made a world of difference?

For Christians, one of the distinctive practices of our faith is sharing Communion – the Eucharist – the “Great Thanksgiving.” To receive Communion is to remember we are recipients of grace. To thank others is to remember we are all recipients of grace, none more worthy than another.

Responding to the Real Thing and the Real Person

Living and speaking with gracious conviction means giving others the gift of seeking to understand their position as they would describe it. You don’t have to agree with it or their conclusions or actions; but you can’t reject a caricature of their position and then pronounce your rejection of the caricature.

Christians are called to seek Truth. In this sense, we are committed to responding to the real. This means we work to seek out and find the real. So while we may hold differing beliefs, convictions, or theological perspectives, a commitment to the Truth means a commitment to discovering what someone actually believes. You’re not repeating someone’s opinion of what someone else believes. You’re not reporting on hearsay of what a group believes. You’re actually researching for yourself to the best of your ability. It is work.

The difficulty of course is that humans are so good at saying one thing and doing another, and that humans are so good at seeing themselves in optimal light and others with skepticism. No one is perfectly self-aware, and whole groups of people may profess one value but fail to embody it consistently.

However, we’re speaking here of explicitly stated declarations of belief, and not just the ability to live those beliefs consistently. We may insist that a Christian denomination ought to have some meaningful measure of shared theology about who Jesus is without making a caricature of one individual hateful progressive activist intolerant of those with whom they disagree. We may insist that a Christian denomination ought to value and act on initiatives to dismantle systemic racism, poverty, and injustice, without making a caricature of one individual hateful traditionalist conservative intolerant of those with whom they disagree.

To live with gracious conviction is to be ruthlessly committed to the Truth, which requires us to represent others’ convictions as fairly as possible – so that they would be able to recognize the description as an accurate representation of themselves. In this sense, it’s simple honesty. We are trying to be truthful and fair in our representation of others (even though it’s not nearly as satisfying as sharing a meme mocking them; unless it’s a meme mocking the Patriots, we can all agree those are universally acceptable, right?).

By responding to the real beliefs and professed values rather than mischaracterizations, we extend dignity to those with whom we differ. And to thoughtlessly, carelessly mischaracterize an opponent is to lie and steal – you are lying about their beliefs or motives and you are stealing their reputation. What may have been a profound but respectful disagreement becomes a hurtful, toxic stew of mischief that feeds off the half-formed perspectives of those new to the conflict and bewildered by the exaggerated portraits they’re presented. When we research and read and listen and track down primary sources and ignore clickbait commentary, it’s easier to respond both to beliefs and to the people who hold them.

Recently a friend commented, “it’s easy to hate something you get to define.” He meant that it’s easy to decide something is A, and since you hate A, you hate the something. The question is whether something is A or whether you quickly decided it is – and then dismissed it. To live with gracious conviction is to be willing to learn what something is before you decide to define it and reject it.

Laughing at Yourself

Some of the people in my life who most closely embodied the word “saint” are people who never took themselves too seriously even when other people took them very seriously indeed. There was a childlikeness to them, independent of age. By all means, take Christ seriously – though Chesterton reminded us all of how surprised we’ll be by God’s mirth – but in your earnestness, be able to laugh at yourself easily. Your silly, inconsistent, hobbit-like self.

I can make a cheap shot at the Patriots that will garner a strong response of approval or howls of indignation – but the truth is, I rarely watch American NFL football, my loyalty to the Colts is casually based on growing up in Indiana, and I have no idea whether other teams cheat as well and the Patriots just got caught at it. I can smile while looking at my silly bias, when I haven’t watched football in over a year and the last time I really cared about the Colts was before Manning headed West.

We’ve got to be able to laugh at ourselves.

In a culture in which we all take ourselves quite seriously, perhaps one sign of holiness is holding our own dignity and reputation lightly while seeking to deal fairly with others’. Burnt out pastors and leaders in particular struggle to be able to laugh at themselves; a sign you’re on the path to rest and restoration is when you can have fun again without worrying what’s being neglected while you do. Living with gracious conviction doesn’t mean the responsibility is all on your shoulders. It’s not irresponsible to a cause to stop and smile; it’s essential.

If you believe that in his full God-ness Jesus was also full human, then remember: we have a Savior who laughed until he cried. Probably at James and John, who seem likely to have been the Fred and George Weasley of the disciples.

Show up and serve (your enemies), say thank you (to your opponents), respond to the real thing (not the caricature), laugh at yourself (instead of others). These habits will help form a posture of communicating – of living – with gracious conviction. Most of them rely on humility in action; they show and shape perspective at the same time. They are habits learned as we follow Jesus around as his apprentices. They don’t always come easily; as we learn, we still fall short. But this is the Jesus way. We can’t do less – and by God’s grace, it will become easier.