Tag Archives: Sanctification

Centering Prayer: A Conversation with Dr. Brian Russell

Dr. Brian Russell is the author of Centering Prayer: Sitting Quietly in God’s Presence Can Change Your Life, a uniquely rich resource for spiritual formation that draws on meaningful traditions of the church across centuries. For those sensing the need for fresh practices to widen or deepen their prayer habits, Centering Prayer beckons with wisdom that outlasts stale New Year’s resolutions. As Lent begins to appear on the horizon, Centering Prayer is poised to enliven the pilgrimage to Easter with practical, theologically nuanced guidance.

Recently Wesleyan Accent delved into the topic of centering prayer with Dr. Russell, who is Professor of Biblical Studies at Asbury Theological Seminary.

Wesleyan Accent: At times, folks who are most familiar with Christianity as it is practiced in North American Protestant churches are surprised when they encounter something that seems new but is actually shared ancient tradition. Or people can spend thirty years active in a local church and still feel uncertain about how to pray privately. How would you describe contemplative prayer to them? And how would you describe centering prayer as part of that tradition?

Brian Russell: I can include myself in your example. I grew up in the church. I was forty-two years old (and thirty-six years into my Christian experience) before I learned about the contemplative tradition and began to practice centering prayer.

I think it is critical to emphasize that contemplative practices in no way replace traditional forms of prayer or the other means of grace that help us to grow in our relationship with God. I still pray with my own words or with printed prayers from Scripture and modern worship resources. The foundation for centering prayer is the faith delivered to the saints as witnessed in Scripture and embraced by believing communities.

Contemplative prayer is a form of prayer that focuses on being with God rather than using words to talk to God or make petitions of God or even to listen for God. Contemplative prayer is practiced in silence. We simply sit in silence apart from our own thoughts, desires, and concerns. Our intention is to experience God’s presence and love. In his book The Deeper Journey: The Spirituality of Discovering Your True Self, Robert Mulholland, Jr. defined contemplation as, “the practice of stilling ourselves before God, moving ever deeper into the core of our being and simply offering ourselves to God in totally vulnerable love.” (p. 97)

Centering prayer is a method for stilling ourselves for the potential of a deeper encounter with God through contemplation. God’s presence is always a gift; centering prayer is not a way of manipulating an encounter with God’s love. It is simply prayer done in silence without words.

But as soon as we sit in silence, we discover that our minds remain active and caught in continual thought loops. Silence is literally deafening because of our mental chatter. Centering prayer as a technique teaches a way to surrender our thoughts as we become aware of them. The goal of this surrender is the opening of ourselves to experiencing God as God beyond our thoughts.

How do we practice centering prayer? It’s simple to describe, but it takes patience and practice. Here are the basic instructions:

Select a prayer word that you can use to recenter whenever you become aware of your thoughts. I recommend that we use “Jesus” as the prayer word as it is Jesus before whom we are sitting in silence. However, others find words such as “love,” “surrender,” “Father,” and “Spirit” among others to be powerful.

Find a quiet place where you can sit comfortably for the duration of your prayer time.

You can practice centering prayer any time of day. I typically spend twenty minutes in centering prayer as soon as I finish my first cup of coffee in the morning. My wife Astrid and I sit together as a way of beginning our day.

Set a timer. I typically practice centering prayer in twenty-minute blocks. Select whatever time period you are comfortable with. I started with short three to five minute sessions and slowly worked up to twenty minutes.

Close your eyes and simply sit in silence. Whenever you become aware of a thought, feeling or image, simply say “Jesus” (or whatever word you chose) in your mind as a means of surrendering the thought. The goal is not mindlessness. It is not possible to shut off the mind. However, you will begin to experience short “gaps” in the endless stream of thoughts. It will be in these gaps where you may experience God’s presence in new ways. I say may because we cannot control God. We simply sit in silence with the intention to be open to God’s gift of contemplation.

At the end of the centering prayer session, relax for a few moments. I find it helpful to offer prayers of gratitude and then pray the Lord’s Prayer or one of my own.

WA: A while back I heard a great interview on the “economy of attention,” about how much your attention, my attention, is worth to companies. When there’s so much noise, when notification pings compete for our attention, when screens dominate our days, “centering prayer” seems exceptionally counter-cultural – and also seems like a way to quiet sensory bombardment. How does centering prayer help remind you you’re a human, not just a commodity?

BR: The practice of centering prayer is about being. There is no doing involved. Centering prayer teaches us to surrender our attention. We embrace the intention of sitting in silence in order to be with God. When our practice becomes habitual, we slowly become even more aware of the chatter in our minds and all of the noise in the world. But there will be a key difference: the disciplines of “resist no thought, retain no thought, react to no thought, and gently return to Jesus with our sacred word” go with us into the world.

Overtime, we begin to be mindful and present even during the busy-ness of our lives. The same discipline of learning to surrender thoughts to God in silence will carry over to how you listen to a colleague, family member, or friend who needs your attention; how you respond to the inevitable interruptions of life; how you react to conflict; and how you focus on your work. You will slowly find that you notice small details and experience the world in richer colors. Others will likely observe a more calming presence and availability in you.

In terms of the noise of our world, I’ve found that the more I practice centering prayer the more conscious I am of the subtle ways that our world robs us of our most precious gift to God and others: our time and our attention.

WA: Early in the book, describing the season in which you discovered the deep value of centering prayer, you comment that during your personal dark night of the soul, “my ability to think clearly had departed.”

What a word to so many people right now who are in shellshock from the past couple of years: nurses, doctors, pastors, teachers, those who are drowning in grief from the loss of loved ones. Alongside mental health tools like trauma-informed therapy and medication, what in particular might people find in centering prayer when they feel fractured or numb or horrified in their own dark nights of the soul?

BR: For me, centering prayer allowed me to find freedom from a mind that would not shut off. At the darkest parts of my season of the “dark night of the soul,” I didn’t need more information or mental stimulation. I ruminated non-stop on negative thoughts and worst-case scenarios. I was inconsolable.

But I found silence or, better put, silence found me, and in the silence I rediscovered the God who created me and who loved me unconditionally. Experiencing God’s unabashed loved for me when I felt at my lowest was transformational. God’s love cut through the noise. While I still experience times of incessant worry and anxiety, I gained an awareness of the excess and often negative chatter in my mind. In these moments, I sometimes encountered God’s loving presence directly; beyond words. I think that centering prayer can serve as a type of “Divine therapy,” as Fr. Thomas Keating described it. It does not substitute for human-to-human therapy or medication, but I believe it can work in tandem to increase their effectiveness. I’ve personally received tremendous benefits from trauma-informed therapy. In my case, I am certain that my long-term commitment to silent meditative prayer and deep intentional journaling greatly enhanced the results of therapy, as the Divine Healer had already broken up the soil of both the conscious and unconscious wounds that I carried.

WA: You mention in one place that in centering prayer, “surrendering our thoughts to God is our sole contribution.” I could imagine that statement causing some squirming; Americans so often take pride in our ability to put our best foot forward or feel that somehow we’ve paid our own way. We’re not always gracious recipients, preferring to be the ones building or giving. What do you think Christians need to learn or re-learn about our own poverty?

BR: Centering prayer allows us to see ourselves as God sees us. But to experience this level of awareness requires that we surrender even our thoughts (good or bad) to the God who loves us.

There are two deep and helpful truths that exist in a sort of paradox. These truths are expressed in the form of two prayers that I say daily. The first is the Jesus Prayer. It has ancient roots in the early church: “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner. Amen.” The second is a modern prayer composed by Macrina Wiederkehr, a Benedictine monastic: “O God, help me believe the truth about myself no matter how beautiful it is. Amen.” I learned of this latter prayer from Maxie Dunnam.

The Jesus Prayer reminds us of our core lostness and ongoing necessity of God’s grace and mercy. There is no way to earn grace and mercy. We come before God empty-handed, with a posture of surrender.

But we also need to understand that God breathed life and abundance in each of us too. Wiederkehr’s prayer opens us up to the beauty and potential of a life surrendered to God in which we walk moment-by-moment in grace as persons created in God’s image. We are free to embrace our gifts and talents without the fear, guilt and shame that tends to either paralyze us and make us play small or drive us to earn or prove our “enoughness.”

WA: Traditionally, there’s this beautiful pattern of retreat and engagement, solitude and companionship, that push and pull spiritual formation like the coming and going of the tide. In centering prayer, when you brave silence with God and sit with what you find there, how does that shape the way you then go out and engage with others?

BR: One of my favorite quotes that I live by is from my mentor Alex McManus. He taught me: “The Gospel comes to us on its way to someone else.” The prayer of silence allows you to see yourself as God sees you. We discover both our need for grace as well as the beauty and potential within us. When we experience the gaze of God on our souls and discover God’s deep love for us as his sons and daughters, we begin to see others in the same light. In fact, encountering God in the silence and accepting the reality that we’ve personally been unconditionally loved and accepted transforms the way we see others. We are freed to love others as God has loved us. My mentor and former colleague Bob Tuttle taught me this: “Show up, pay attention; God has way more invested in our ministry than we do.”

So instead of silence and solitude being a practice that excludes mission, it is one that empowers engagement with the world. What I’ve experienced must be shared. Moreover, as God has changed me through the sanctifying work that occurs during centering prayer, I am free of more of my own “junk” that previously marred my witness and ability to serve as the hands, feet, and mouthpiece of God’s abundant and holy love.

Brian D. Russell, Ph.D., is Professor of Biblical Studies at Asbury Theological Seminary. Learn more about his role as Coach for Pastors and Spiritually-minded Leaders by visiting www.brianrussellphd.com.

Featured image courtesy Fragile James via Unsplash.

Unwanted Holiness

As the United States screeches with discord and distrust, the people in pulpits and in pews are exhausted. Some had loved ones piloting evacuation flights out of Kabul. Others have spent long hours working in crowded ICUs, nurses or chaplains or doctors breaking down in tears. Firefighters on the West Coast have their pick of blazes incinerating once-lively trees to ash, and in some parts of the South, the power is beginning to blink back on. Who wants holiness if it looks like this?

Somewhere along the line, we get the idea that holiness requires energy. Sure, we know that sanctification is a gift of grace to be received. Naturally. Countless Christians in the Wesleyan Methodist tradition have experienced some kind of moment in which God comes to us to do something in our hearts that we are powerless to do ourselves. We know this. We know that works of piety and works of mercy – spiritual disciplines, caring for poor, broke, or incarcerated people -we know those actions don’t create holiness. They are a response to grace; they make room for the Holy Spirit to continue to work in us and through us. We know that sanctifying grace is a gift.

And yet.

It is easy to get the idea that holiness requires energy.

How will you grow if you’re not getting yourself to a Bible study or small group? How will you foster the grace of Christ at work in you if you aren’t seeking out ways to serve others, at the food pantry or through the altar guild or volunteering with, heaven help them, the junior highers?

Of course churches need volunteers.

Of course you want to grow in holiness.

But the hundreds of pastors, church leaders, professors, and chaplains I know do not feel an overabundance of energy right now. Between executive function fatigue (decision fatigue) and constantly putting out fires and choosing between making 50 percent of people angry or the other 50 percent of people angry and attempting to construct any kind of planning or scheduling with a viral variant that’s 1,200 times more transmissible than the original COVID-19 strains, there are very few pastors with the energy they think they need to be holy. There are very few nurses, doctors, or nursing home workers with energy for anything other than showing up and doing what has to be done.

Can holiness look like this?

Can holiness look like exhaustion, burnout, panic attacks, depression, crisis intervention, peace-keeping – even numbness?

Can I tell you something?

Some of the holiest people I’ve seen in the past 18 months have looked just like that. Some of the sweetest anointing has enveloped leaders who are tired, grieving, exhausted, burned out, or even numb.

You do not have to have energy to be holy.

This is something elderly people in long-term care facilities already know. It’s just something most people don’t want to have to learn personally for ourselves – because energy is power; control; agency.

And if you’re asking, dear God, how can my numb trauma be holy? then I invite you to listen to an audio version of 1 Kings 18 and 19 – when Elijah the prophet is in a showdown with the prophets of Baal. God honors Elijah and sends fire from the sky. But afterward, Elijah’s life is on the line. He is exhausted. He runs. He curls up too tired to do anything to protect himself. Fed by divine intervention, he runs more, to take shelter in the mountain of God. And God does not come to Elijah in an impersonal show of force, in crashing theophany. God gently arrives in the still whispering rustle, and Elijah is safe to pour out his heart and his heartbreak. After he does, God quietly reminds him that as alone as he feels, he is not alone. And to relieve Elijah’s burden further, he directs him to Elisha.

It seems to me that one of the most tender moments in these two chapters comes in 18:30 – “Then Elijah said to all the people, ‘Come here to me.’ They came to him, and he repaired the altar of the Lord, which had been torn down.” The prophets of Baal had been frantic, mutilating themselves, calling on Baal. But when it is Elijah’s turn, there is a sense that this is an act of grief, a labor of love: rebuilding what had been torn down, taking 12 stones and building an altar “in the name of the Lord.” (v. 32) What do you rebuild? You rebuild what you love. Where there is grief in the ruins, there is hope in the rebuilding. But it is manual labor: hard work, smashed fingers, bruised thumbnails, a sore back. His hands must have been so tired, his muscles strained. What a beautiful labor of love. No frantic shrieking; just the loving repair of what had been in ruins.

What an offering to give to God: smashed fingers, bruised thumbnails, a sore back – an altar that had been desecrated, repaired.

If you believe holiness requires energy, it will be easy to believe you can detect when it is you are being or acting holy. But most genuine holiness, I am convinced, accompanies your lack of awareness of it. It is accidental – incidental. It happens behind your back, when you’re not looking. It shadows you on your off-days.

There is a holiness of proximity that has nothing to do with energy.

It is proximity to Christ, and it is proximity to the overlooked people Christ loves.

You do not have to have energy to be in close proximity to the quiet warmth of Jesus Christ.

Elijah collapsed and didn’t care if he lived or died, after running away. It was God who enabled him to travel: “the journey is too much for you.” (19:7) When he reached the mountain of God – he slept. (19:9) Only after he rested, did God ask him what brought him there. Elijah’s strained brain chemistry could not detect the presence of God in the overwhelming sensory stimuli of loud sounds or shaking ground or bright light; he did not have the energy for that. So God whispered.

The holiness of proximity is standing, sitting, or lying in the safe presence of God, however you feel, however you don’t have the energy to feel.

There is also a holiness of proximity when you draw near to people others are ignoring. Mother Teresa exemplified this well. The embodiment of the Beatitudes is a sacred thing to witness. Blessed are those who mourn; blessed are the merciful. When you care for sick bodies or cry with grief-stricken loved ones, you are in the proximity of the blessed ones; you are blessed when you are merciful to them.

You do not have to have energy to be holy. Your exhaustion, your grief, your numbness – none of those things keep you from being holy. Whether or not you feel the presence of God, you are so close to the side of Christ that you shine when your back is turned, when you’re not even aware of it.

Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.

What are you doing here, Elijah?

Featured image courtesy Marek Piwnicki via Unsplash.

Joy Is a Verb

I’m not going to lie – finding joy during 2020 was difficult for me. I suspect many of you may have found that challenging as well. For me, it was difficult when the traveling ministry that brings me so much fulfillment was put on hold. I faced new challenges in family relationships and finances, and an unexpected medical challenge brought me to my knees (literally).

As much as I’ve preached and written about joy in the past, last year I was not feeling it. It’s humbling to admit that I just felt sad. I found that almost embarrassing; sometimes leaders struggle to say it without feeling ashamed or guilty. In the middle of challenges and grief, though, I knew that joy was still possible. After all, the Gospels show Jesus as a man who felt sorrow deeply. He wept. He was tempted. He knew hunger, thirst, rejection, and loneliness – and yet he gladly made water into wine to keep a party going! Jesus knew the range of what it means to be human.

Forget the somber, anemic portraits of Christ you’ve seen on funeral home walls. Jesus was a joyful person. We know this because in his final moments with the disciples, the Lord said his greatest desire for them was not that they have strength, salvation, or peace, but that they would share his joy.

In John 15:11, he said to his disciples, “I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete.”

In John 16:24, he instructed them, saying, “Ask and you will receive, and your joy will be complete.”

Then he prayed for them, “I am coming to you now, but I say these things while I am still in the world, so that they may have the full measure of my joy within them.” (John 17:13)

Soon to be beaten and pierced with nails for a crime he didn’t commit, Jesus prayed that his friends would be as joyful as he was. The Lord showed us by example that joy isn’t the result of an easy life. He had joy even in the midst of pain, because he wasn’t swayed by what was happening to him. Jesus’ heart was only moved by the heart of his Father.

Joy is the atmosphere of heaven and the very fabric of who God is. In Psalm 16:11, we read, “In your presence is fullness of joy.” Yes, Jesus felt pain in his body and soul, but his spirit was always resting in his Father’s love. Joy was the overflow of the constant presence of God within him. In the same way, it is possible to find joy in any time and in all circumstances when our hearts stay focused on the Lord. Our faith makes room for his joy when we are willing to trust God’s purposes even when we don’t understand.

I love how the prophet Habakkuk rejoiced despite the fact that everything in his life seemed to be going wrong.

Though the fig tree may not blossom,

nor fruit be on the vines;

Though the labor of the olive may fail,

and the fields yield no food;

Though the flock may be cut off from the fold,

and there be no herd in the stalls—

Yet I will rejoice in the Lord,

I will joy in the God of my salvation. (Habakkuk 3:17-18)

The word “joy” in that last verse is not a noun – it’s a verb! Though his circumstances were desperate, Habakkuk chose to rejoice in the God of his salvation. He took joy in who God was even in the middle of catastrophe, rather than allowing his response to be determined by the disaster. When we begin to praise and thank God regardless of what we feel like doing, the Holy Spirit is eager to fill us with the joy of his presence and even change the atmosphere around us.

One of my favorite examples of joy in action is found in the book of Acts. Paul and Silas were arrested in the city of Philippi simply for preaching the gospel. Having been falsely accused, they were whipped and then locked in the inner prison. Though their backs were bleeding and their feet were chained, Paul and Silas chose to worship their God!

“But at midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the prisoners were listening to them. Suddenly there was a great earthquake, so that the foundations of the prison were shaken; and immediately all the doors were opened and everyone’s chains were loosed.” (Acts 16:25-26)

I weep as I read these words yet again. Paul and Silas were so full in the presence of the Holy Spirit that injustice and injury did not dampen the joy of the Holy Spirit’s presence within them. In fact, the power of God was released through Paul and Silas’ praise; it was so great it caused seismic activity in the earth. The prison gates were jarred open and their chains came loose – not only their chains, but the shackles of the other prisoners who found themselves in jail. In the end, even the jailer and his family were saved, becoming believers.

Paul and Silas received joy in the dark and painful place; they chose to join their worship with the worship of heaven even in those circumstances. They knew that no power on earth could stand against the purposes and goodness of God. I even wonder if, by faith, these men already knew what was about to happen. Perhaps they could picture the Lord smiling and saying, “Wait for it…wait for it!” Notice that the earthquake rumbled and shook as they lifted their voices in praise to God.

Would I have acted the same as Paul and Silas did that night? I don’t know, but perhaps I can learn from them as I face hardship in my own life. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not looking for opportunities to be beaten for my faith! But I want to learn to live in the overcoming joy of the Lord, regardless of the circumstances I find myself in or how I feel. I want to be so aware of God’s goodness and love for me that my response in every trial is simply worship.

If you have felt stuck this past year, be encouraged. When we face upheaval and darkness, there is something we can do. We can join our song of God’s faithfulness with the song of the saints, the joy of heaven. We can praise God for his promises for the future, and we can worship the Lord for who he is right now. The Lord is our Shepherd, our Father, our Strength, our Shield, our Shelter, our Rock, our Peace, our Righteousness, our Savior, and our God in whom we trust.

Yes, these are difficult days, but the joy of the Lord is our strength. (Nehemiah 8:10) As we boldly lift up his name in the middle of our circumstances, the one who raised Jesus from the dead will surely lift us up. God uses even our trials to do miracles we could not foresee. However painful or lonely your situation may be today, know that you are not alone. The Holy Spirit is with you and within you. Call out in prayer. Sing praises to him! Joy in the presence of the God of your salvation, and listen for the rumble and rattle of seismic shift.

Featured image courtesy Jenni Peterson on Unsplash.

Surrendered Intercession

“‘Oh, that Ishmael may live before you!’ Abraham cried to God.” (Genesis 17:18) This cry has always moved my heart. I have always felt a deep connection with Ishmael; we are him. That cry from the heart of a loving father is God’s cry for you and me. This is intercessory prayer. In My Utmost for His Highest, Oswald Chambers wrote, “You cannot truly intercede through prayer if you do not believe in the reality of redemption.” We must believe that God is mighty enough and lovely enough to make things right and that God desires to make it so. Intercession then is locating a person or a situation into the lap of dear God, confident that God will make things right.

I was 24 years old, a freshly minted American resident when my six-month-old baby went into anaphylactic reaction. Out of my belly came the cry, “God, what’s going on? He’s yours; please heal him!” I had given him peanut butter, and apparently, his body did not like it. I watched all the swelling go down within a few minutes as I cried to God in dance. I never considered calling 911, not because I have something against it! In the moment, I simply did not think of it; I knew prayer and God’s reliability.

Another time in a conversation with a friend, she said, “I get migraines,” welcoming my prayer. I prayed immediately. A few days later, she called to say that she had not had pain since our prayer together. Her migraines are still gone. I can go on and on sharing situations in which God has intervened because of intercession. I keep a journal of people and things I bring before God daily. God is reliable.

Intercession is becoming love; it is becoming the heart of God for humanity. It is asking God to redeem, to make right according to his perfect love. We do not tell God what to do, but we allow the heart of God to flow through us for our friends, families, society, and even enemies. Enemies don’t stay enemies in prayer.

It’s 2021; we see enemies everywhere – strange ideologies, racism, bigotry and such in the world and in the church. We are wary of each other and perhaps weary of God. God is not answering fast enough for you, or maybe he allowed things you did not want. There’s a sense in which we wonder, “why pray, when God will do whatever he wants anyway?” But remember how Paul encouraged the Galatians: “Let us not became weary, [in interceding prayer] for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.” (Galatians 6:9) We must believe God is mighty enough to save and lovely enough to want to save.

Surrender is the key to intercession. Without it, love cannot and will not flow. We cannot avoid surrender. Revival will not happen without it. The transformation we desire in the lives of those we bring before God will not happen unless we raise our flags in surrender. Healing will only come to our earth – your flesh, mine, and the world – when we are free of our preconceived ideas of how reality should be, and we yield to God.

Did God say, “If my people who are called by my name will get smarter in their arguments, independence, possessions, and politics, I will hear from heaven and answer; I will forgive their sins and heal their land”? There is so much to make the heart weary. The earth and people groan for the return of God. We cry revival with our lips, but our hearts are not humbled; we have not repented of our arrogance. God appeared to Solomon when he consecrated the temple. He said, “When I shut up the heavens so that there is no rain or command locusts to devour the land or send a plague among my people,[you have to admit it has felt like this for the world] if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land.” (2 Chronicles 7:13-14, NIV)

Physical, emotional, spiritual, and societal healing all begins and ends in surrendered intercession. When you pray for me, and I pray for you, we manifest God’s love. We are family connected through the explosive love of God who created all things. Your healing is intertwined with mine and mine to yours. Let us pray for Ishmael. “Oh, that Ishmael may live before you!”

Featured image courtesy Henrique Jacob on Unsplash.

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.

Fruitfulness through Faithfulness

I have found Psalm 1 to be a guiding principle in my life and ministry; it speaks to my theology and character as a pastor. In Psalm 1, we learn that God wants to bless us and to make us fruitful, but it is up to us to make choices that will lead us to God’s blessings. By choosing the ways of God and by living according to God’s wisdom and teaching, we bear fruit – blessings that give us joy, peace, and fulfillment even despite bad seasons in our lives. In Psalm 1, we learn that “delighting” in God is about staying in love with God, which leads us fruitfulness. Another lesson for us is how faithfulness leads us to fruitfulness as well.

For this, there is a story in the Hebrew Scriptures about a person who went through plenty of trials, dealing with many obstacles and enemies. Yet, over time, he overcame all of them and experienced abundant fruitfulness – because of his faithfulness to God. This is the story of Joseph, one of the most known characters in the Bible. Many movies have been made about him; even if you have never read the Bible, you probably still have heard about him as “Joseph the Dreamer.”

Who was this Joseph? Joseph was the eleventh of twelve sons born from Jacob. His story is told in Genesis 37-50. Joseph’s life was immensely fruitful. He lived in Egypt where Pharaoh, “made him master of his household, ruler over all he possessed, to instruct his princes as he pleased and teach his elders wisdom” (Psalm 105:21–22). And because of his faithfulness, his people became very prosperous.

But that is the second part of Joseph’s story. The first part is a dark one.

In the early days, it did not seem like his life would amount to anything. When he was a young man, he was sold as a slave by his brothers out of jealousy, and they lied to their father, telling him a wild beast had killed him. As a slave, Joseph was taken to Egypt, where he was sold to an army officer. There, the army officer’s wife who owned him tried to seduce him, and when he refused, she accused him of attempted rape. That led him to prison. He suffered great injustice.

While he was in prison, he befriended the Pharaoh’s butler by interpreting a bothersome dream. In return, the butler promised to put in a good word for him with the Pharaoh. But as soon as the butler was out of prison, he forgot all about his promise. For two long years, the butler failed to keep his promise, while Joseph remained in prison.

As you can see, Joseph went through betrayal, slavery, temptation, imprisonment, and plenty of injustice and suffering. Yet in all this, he remained faithful. He never lost his trust in God in a lifetime filled with extraordinary trials, obstacles, and enemies (Genesis 45:5–8; 50:20).

And that is why we have the second part of this story. After all these dark times, he became the second most powerful man in Egypt, only after Pharoah. In short, against all odds and many trials, Joseph’s faith, character, and wisdom promoted him to the highest place in all Egypt, where God used him to be a blessing to many.

How is that for fruitfulness?

This is an amazing, powerful, and inspiring story, and I believe we can relate to it in many ways. I am certain that each one of you has had moments when things went sideways, and you wondered where God was. I am certain that sometimes those sour seasons have lasted longer than you wanted them to. I am certain that at some point, you were also tempted not to care anymore. Yet, I am also certain that you have made it through each one of those chapters of your life.

How do I know that? Because you are still here: stronger, wiser, and more determined to do what God wants you to do. But we need to be reminded of this hope now and then – the hope that we are God’s people, that God is with us, and that God wants to bless us and help us overcome our challenges.

This is true for us as a church and as people, as individuals. I know it is true for me. I have been there, facing all kinds of challenges but also experiencing victory over them.

Do you know who also has a story like Joseph’s? Someone my church members know, Mr. Zach Batiste. I met Mr. Batiste last week and visited with him. Let me tell you, he can talk, and he is a blessing, a dear man who loves God and has endured and overcome so much. Mr. Batiste is a blessing because he is faithful. In many ways, his is a story of faithfulness like Joseph’s, because he has endured and loved God against many odds.

My friends, I have seen how faithfulness leads us to contentment, peace, and fruitfulness. I know it to be a true and tangible promise: fruitfulness comes from faithfulness to God. That is the miracle in Joseph’s story; despite all the trials, he was miraculously fruitful and successful because he remained faithful—even when no one was watching and when he had every reason and excuse not to care anymore, to give up.

Now, let me ask you: how many times have you been in that spot? “I can’t do it.” “It is too much.” “This isn’t fair.” “No one cares.” “No one wants me.” You know what I am talking about. Life has highs and lows, and sometimes we struggle to get through it.

But today, I want to encourage you to believe and not give up, to trust that you can overcome everything with God. Stories like Joseph and Mr. Batiste are here to remind us that we can. Even when everything may seem against us, we will overcome because God wants for us far beyond anything we can imagine.

With this in mind, here comes the invitation and challenge: we must remain faithful to see this through.

Consider this. In John 15, Jesus gave one of his last teachings to his disciples before being arrested, tried, and crucified. He told them, “I am the vine, you are the branches. Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing.” (John 15:5) Here, Jesus taught them (and us) that fruitfulness is directly linked to our relationship and union with him. It is out of the fruit of relational intimacy with Christ that other vital aspects of fruitfulness in discipleship flows. He explained this by using the analogy of the vine; he is the true sprouting vine, and only by abiding in him we can have life and be fruitful.

One of the keys here is the word “abiding.” To me, that word sounds a lot like faithfulness. Abiding, or being faithful, translates as our commitment to God to keep and practice the teachings and ways of Jesus, whether we have an audience or not, regardless of our situation or circumstance.

This is where it can get challenging for us: being faithful encompasses diligence, diligence in faithfully keeping and carrying out those things God has called us to do through Jesus Christ. This part is critical to everything I have said, because this fruitfulness consists of Christlike character and conduct. Your blessings more likely will not come as a result of a supernatural event but as a consequence of your actions and choices.

For example, if you are honest as Jesus is honest, you may be entrusted with more responsibilities. If you are compassionate as Jesus is compassionate, you may develop loving and lasting relationships with others. If people see the way we love and care for each other as a church, they are going to come. Being faithful is not a contemplative act but a proactive attitude: determination and discernment to do what is right, what is kind, and what is loving.

To finish, I want to tell you this: you are not done yet. No matter how old you are or what has happened in your life, you are here, there is life, there is a purpose for you, and there is still a lot of fruit to bear. You are not done yet. Joseph did not give up when he was betrayed and imprisoned unjustly. Mr. Batiste did not give up when many things did not go as he would have wanted them to. With this in mind, I invite you today once again: don’t give up, keep on doing the right thing. Don’t get tired of practicing kindness.

Be diligent in being faithful, and let God make you and our church fruitful.

The Surprising Call to Gentleness

There are many motifs and illustrations utilized to unpack who Jesus is and what Jesus did, but perhaps one of the most important characteristics of the life of Jesus Christ was a quiet one – gentleness. References abound to Jesus as prophet, priest, king. The Christus Victor portrait has remained strong over centuries, for good reason. Angles that peek toward Christ as suffering servant continue to comfort the weary, ill, or dying.

For centuries, theologians have written engrossing works on the nature of Christ and on a mosaic of approaches to the atonement. But the Holy Spirit won’t quite let us escape the surprising call to gentleness. To encounter Jesus is to encounter holy, powerful love. But how odd would it sound to hear someone say, “I became a Christian because I was fascinated by how gentle they are”?

In a way, that was John Wesley’s experience; he was transfixed by the gentleness of the Moravians traveling on the same ship. He knew the letter of his faith but not the love of it. His life was unraveling, his goals unmet, his relationships a mess. Terrified in a hurricane, he listening to the simplicity of hymns sung during a storm. There’s plenty of emphasis on his observation that the Moravians didn’t fear dying; but it’s worth noticing that he didn’t comment on that alone. He’d watched them on the days without hurricanes. He watched them take on unpleasant jobs without complaining; he saw them insulted or bullied by other passengers, cheerfully refusing to rise to the bait. What he knew by rote, they knew by heart. Wesley wanted the peace and assurance they exhibited.

It is one thing to sing calmly in a hurricane; it’s another to live with gentleness in the middle of disgusting, unwanted tasks or in the face of belligerent arrogance and anger.

Consider words floating in our atmosphere, like soot and ash rising from the destruction of wildfire. Rage. Cancel. Fury. Hoax. Death toll. Damage. Catastrophic. Unprecedented. Anger is everywhere; and some of it is righteous anger. But how do we keep our righteous anger righteous?

When we look at Jesus, we see tremendous power restrained through the beauty of gentleness. It is tempting to find vicarious satisfaction in the flipping of the tables when he cleansed the table: but Jesus could do that with holy love and pure motive, willing also to be crucified for those same people. If I want to overturn tables and scatter people who profit off of vulnerable people, but I’m not willing to die for the people whose tables I just knocked over, I don’t have love. I may have anger or even righteous anger. But I don’t have love. I’m a reverberating gong, a clanging cymbal.

What may be more telling is the quiet presence of gentleness in countless scenarios in the Gospels.

“Let the toddlers come to me.”

“Would you give me a drink of water?”

“I’m coming to your house for supper.”

“Can you see yet?”

“Daughter, your faith has made you whole.”

“Where are your accusers? Then neither do I condemn you. Go, and don’t do this anymore.”

“Render to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s.”

“Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. Don’t let your hearts be troubled.”

“Forgive them, they don’t know what they’re doing.”

“Peter, do you love me? Feed my sheep.”

Of all the unglamorous fruits of the Spirit, gentleness is perhaps the most forgettable. Until it isn’t. Until it’s such an uncommon trait that it becomes powerfully noticeable.

Methodism exists in large part because of the gentleness of a bunch of John Wesley’s fellow passengers on a ship. Not their cleverness; not, like good Gryffindors, their bravery. Their gentleness.

We do not need to be loud to be powerful, as therapist James Perkins recently explored with leadership strategist Tristian Williams. In the middle of deafening noise, what is one more loud voice? But there is surprising power in quiet, strong gentleness.

Christians are called to gentleness. Gentleness is not lack of clarity, lack of courage, or lack of conviction. It is strength that is under control, that serves others, that bypasses the satisfaction of putting someone in their places. It is illustrated in Proverbs 15 – “A gentle answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger.”

Many children have a keen sense of danger from an unstable power larger than themselves. But children were drawn to Jesus; this was a being who, like Lewis’ Aslan, was powerful but good. The fullness of God dwelled in Jesus Christ, but children wanted to play, tease, sit on his lap. To enter the Kingdom of God, Jesus said, adults must become childlike in our trust.

And one way we can build trust with others in a bitterly cynical age taut with suspicion, anger, and self-preservation, is to practice the rhythms of gentleness. There is no substitute for the clear, calm witness of Christ followers like the Moravians. No one wants to empty the buckets of the sea-sick. No one wants to let the opportunity pass by, to one-up a caustic bully. No one wants to hold their loved ones on a wooden ship without GPS in the middle of a hurricane wondering if they’ll die.

But by the power of the Holy Spirit, God cups our jagged, slicing slivers and, ever so gently, softens our razor-edges into serving trays. There is simplicity in following Jesus, but sometimes, like Simon Peter, we try to bring our weapons with us. As the Spirit of God gradually pries our fingers from our sword hilts, we are set free to live cheerfully, to serve cheerfully, to ignore cheerfully. The only weapon in the classic “armor of God” set is – the sword of the Spirit. The Word of God will shape us and arm us to love well; to love powerfully; to love gently.

It is not only in our current time or place that gentleness is surprisingly counter-cultural; plenty of civilizations have not valued gentleness. But our world starves for it now, too. Consider the impact of Mother Teresa, or Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., or Mr. Fred Rogers. Notice the resurgence in popularity of quiet-toned public television artist Bob Ross or the popular craving for mindfulness techniques, meditation, or hygge. When people decry polarization, part of the unspoken weariness is weariness of roughness, meanness, meltdowns, altercations, and rejection.

We can’t be like Jesus if we ignore gentleness. To become like Christ is to soften – not into non-entity or non-being; but into a strong, Spirit-empowered, gentle version of ourselves. We hand over our weapons and let Christ fashion them into serving tools. Gentleness isn’t weakness; it’s strength with a sense of humor.

Are you bruised right now? Could you use some gentleness? The Holy Spirit is waving you over to the side of the race track to mend your injuries.

Have you lost some of your gentleness? Are you noticing brittle places emerging in your spirit? The Holy Spirit is waving you over to the sidelines, to take your hardened blades and refashion them into farming equipment.

This is the way of Jesus; there is no shortcut.

Social Media & Holiness

I’ve always been an “early adapter.” I may not be the first person to try a new technology, but I’m not far behind. Following the arrival of the first iPhones, I wasn’t at the Apple Store at midnight for a new release – but I’d show up sometime the next day. So I joined social media early on. As soon as Facebook opened to the public, I signed up. I started a Twitter profile. I even tried Google+.

By and large, I really enjoy social media. I’ve made social media friends who became real friends; I remain in contact with old friends as they move away. Social media allows me to connect with church members and visitors; it allows folks to participate online with church activities. In fact, you could argue that during this season of COVID, social media is indispensable to ministry.

Yet recently I decided to take a break from Facebook. Why? Sometimes my faith is at work when I feel something in my soul that I can’t explain, but I just know it. And I noticed that when I was on social media, I just felt – heavy. A sense of sadness. I couldn’t place my finger on it. At that point, I decided to take a break and continued sorting exactly what it was that I sensed.

One morning while walking, the Holy Spirit gave me some insight.

The reason why I’m a Methodist is not because I was born into it (though I was). The reason I’m a Methodist is John Wesley’s theology. Being a Methodist makes me a better disciple, it makes me a better follower of Jesus. For me, the point of our entire salvation is to recover what sin has corrupted – to recover that image of God within ourselves through sanctification, and recover it in all the world (through the eventual return of Christ).

So then, what does this new creation look like, what does sanctification look like? It is the perfect keeping of the law of God. Scripture tells us to be holy as God is holy. As we grow closer to God and grow through grace, that image of God will be recovered, and we will more resemble our Savior. Well, what does it look like to keep his law? What does it mean to be holy? Jesus tells us in Matthew 22: 36-40:

“Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?” He said to him, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”

The entire law is summed up in those two commands – love God and love neighbor. This is what holiness looks like: to allow the love of God to so consume us that our sins are driven out as we are filled with God’s love. As I understand Wesley, he was focused more on perfect love than perfect action, because complete, perfected love will lead to unsullied intent. If I perfectly love God, I will not take his name in vain, I will honor the Sabbath. If I perfectly love my neighbor, I will not murder my neighbor, I will not bear false witness against her.

To talk of loving God and neighbor is literally to talk about the very goal and purpose of our salvation. It is the very nature of holiness. It is what we are created for and what our sanctification drives us towards.

And that was what felt heavy about social media. In this season, Facebook was no longer a place of loving God and loving neighbor. If we take God’s commands seriously, if we take the law and teachings of Jesus seriously, we cannot live in a way that tears down not only fellow believers, but fellow humans, day after day.

As a pastor, each verbal attack, each biting meme, each political wresting match showed me the great need all of us have for continued sanctification. As I thought through it, I began to see that this was not contributing to my holiness. Social media was not helping me love my God and my neighbor better.

While social media itself didn’t cause me to sin, it did cause me to grow discouraged, to pray less, and to worry more. It caused me to despair because so many Christians are allowing this cultural moment, rather than our desire for holiness and sanctification, to be the force that dictates our thoughts, our passions, our posts, and our words.

Let me be clear: I’m not calling for a dispassionate, milquetoast existence with no beliefs or morals. Far from it. If you read Wesley, he shared quite strong opinions in his writing, about poverty, slavery, and even the American Revolution. This is not a call to ambivalence on moral matters. But it is a call to the path of Jesus, who calls us to love not just our neighbors but to love even our enemies. If we follow the commands and teachings of Jesus, we have no choice.

I’ve been teaching on the book of James during my online Wednesday night Bible study. There is a passage that stuck with me.

“You do well if you really fulfill the royal law according to the scripture, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’” James 2:8

It prompts me to consider legalism. Think of all the things we tend to be legalistic about in lives. Maybe it’s your language, what you eat or drink, what you watch or listen to. To put it one way, as Christians, many of us have legalisms in our lives; to put it another way, many of us have moral codes.

What if we were legalistic – about keeping that royal law? What if we were legalistic – about love? What would happen? I logged off social media for a season because participating led me to be a law breaker. It was not helping me keep God’s royal law of loving my neighbor as myself; and through God’s grace, that is really what I most desire to do. I desire to keep God’s law. I desire to be holy. Will you join me?

Featured image courtesy Unsplash: Photo by Elijah O’Donnell

Carolyn Moore ~ Spirit-Filled Ministry: “I Forgot How Big”

Do you mind if we drive around a bit in the Word? I’d like to show you some points of interest that changed the way I understand Spirit-filled ministry. If you need to set your GPS, we’re going to start in 2 Timothy, where we’ll pick up a three-letter key. Then we’ll stop in Luke 9 for a map and we’ll stop for gas in Matthew 8.

That’s where someone is going to ask us: “Have you forgotten how big?”(Remember that question.) And so you won’t have to ask, “Are we there yet?” we’ll be ready to come home to the Holy Spirit when we hear Jesus telling his disciples to stay right where they are until they receive power from on high.

In 2 Timothy 4:5 (NIV), I find a three-letter word that seems remarkably poignant for ministry. In this passage, of course, Paul is talking to his friend, Timothy, who he’s mentoring in the ministry and he says this: “But you, keep your head in all situations, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, discharge all the duties of your ministry.”

Until recently, the word I’ve always latched onto in that passage is the word, “evangelist.” My first semester at Asbury, a wonderful evangelist from Australia (Alan Walker) came to speak in chapel. And I went home that night and told my husband, “I want to be an evangelist.” Of course, I had no clue what I was saying. At the time, I thought evangelism was preaching a good message and giving an effective altar call. Or possibly memorizing the four spiritual laws or the Roman Road or working the Evangicube. Or putting tracts in a public bathroom or adding a line to the end of every email that says, “If you love Jesus, forward this to ten friends.”

(I knew a guy who was a genius at asking the ultimate evangelism question – you know the one – “If you die tonight, do you know where you’ll go?” He worked out at the Y every morning, and he said he’d usually wait until he was in the sauna alone with someone – nothing but towels on – and that’s when he’d pop the question.)

I thought that was evangelism and while that may be part of it (though probably not the more effective part), Paul challenges me to think deeper. Here in his letter to Timothy, Paul challenges Timothy to discharge ALL the duties of his ministry. That’s the word that jumped out at me: all. What a loaded three-letter word! It feels like that line at the end of a job description— the one that says, “other duties as assigned.” You don’t find out until you take the job that the “other duties as assigned” take about 40 hours of your work week.

What Paul is trying to tell his first-century audience and also me is that evangelism is a package deal. It is preaching and acts of mercy. Word and works. To do the work of an evangelist, we have to discharge all the duties of ministry. Thomas Fuller, a Puritan, once said that the words of the wise are like nails fastened by masters, but our examples are like the hammers that drive them in. Word and works. In other words, what good is a bucketful of nails if you’ve got no hammer?

I think I found those “other duties as assigned” in the first couple of verses of Luke, chapter 9. This is where Jesus sends out the twelve to do evangelism, and here’s how he defines that little word. Luke 9:1-2 says, When Jesus had called the Twelve together, he gave them power and authority to drive out all demons and to cure diseases, and he sent them out to preach the kingdom of God and to heal the sick.

So when Jesus gave normal people the power and authority to do evangelism, here’s how he defined that little word “all.” He sent them to drive out demons, cure diseases, preach the Kingdom of God, and heal the sick. Because this is how Jesus believed the Kingdom of God could best be explained. Word and works. Just like Jesus did it; that’s the job description.

To flesh that out, go back to Matthew, chapter 8. This is an amazing chapter, actually — a fireworks display of healing. Right off the bat, Jesus heals a man with leprosy, and by touching him, he heals him all the way through. Then he meets up with a centurion who came to him, asking for help. “Lord,” he said, “my servant lies at home paralyzed and in terrible suffering.” Jesus said to him, “I will go and heal him.” The centurion replied, “Lord, I do not deserve to have you come under my roof. But just say the word, and my servant will be healed. For I myself am a man under authority, with soldiers under me. I tell this one, ‘Go,’ and he goes; and that one, ‘Come,’ and he comes. I say to my servant, ‘Do this,’ and he does it.” When Jesus heard this, he was astonished and said to those following him, “I tell you the truth, I have not found anyone in Israel with such great faith…Then Jesus said to the centurion, “Go! It will be done just as you believed it would.” And his servant was healed at that very hour. (Matthew 8:5-10, 13)

Now, contrast this guy’s faith with something that happens just a few paragraphs down in the same chapter of Matthew. They’ve been healing people and casting out demons and now Jesus has crawled in a boat just to get away from the crowd for a bit. To take a nap. The followers and Jesus are all there in a boat crossing a lake when a furious storm crops up and scares the heck out of his disciples. Jesus is sleeping, of course, so they wake him and that’s when he says, “Oh, you of little faith, why are you so afraid?”

Picture this: On one hand we’ve got a handful of guys who make their living evangelizing and they are scared to death and faithless. On the other hand, we’ve got your average Joe Centurion who actually knows nothing for sure, except his need. And the power of God.

I understand these people better than I want to admit. I know what it means to become so focused on the work and the politics and the systems and the next big book that’s going to tell us how to really do it right, that I can forget what Jesus is capable of and why he’s filled me with the Holy Spirit and what he’s called me to do. Somehow (I’m sure this is not the correct theological language), it seems like the Spirit leaks out. Or maybe I push him out. I know it has happened when I find myself telling God how big my storm is, rather than telling my storm how big my God is.

Does this sound familiar?

My daughter says I can trace every sermon point back to a scene from Joe Vs. the Volcano. I don’t know if that’s true, but there is this scene in Joe vs. the Volcano. It comes after they’ve survived a typhoon and a shipwreck and they are stranded on a raft in the middle of the Pacific. They’ve been through so much, and now Joe is as close to death as it gets. And that’s when he remembers. He is on his raft facing the moon as it rises over the horizon of the water. It is huge and just there before him, almost as if it could be touched. Joe is delirious, and for him this moon is something supernatural — perhaps even God himself. As the moon rises, Joe sinks slowly to his knees, places both arms in the air and says, “Thank you. Thank you for my life. I forgot …how …BIG …”

How easy it is, in the midst of ministry, to forget how big. All the hoops we jump through and all the personalities we juggle can sap the joy right out. Before we know it, we’ve forgotten just what it is we signed on for, and just how big our God is. Have you forgotten how big? I wonder how it might change the spiritual atmosphere if we could all just put our hands in the air and confess together, “God, I forgot how big!”

My experience after fifteen years of ministry and the start of two congregations is that the only thing standing between me and complete burn-out is not success, but the power of God. It is the power of God that saves me from myself. And make no mistake about it: until we get the bigness of God, we won’t be qualified to discharge the “other duties as assigned.” All the duties of ministry. To cast out demons, cure diseases, proclaim the Kingdom, heal the sick. Because that’s what they are hungry for, these people who come limping into our faith communities. And clearly, this is the work of ministry Jesus expected of his followers.

But here’s the shame of it. The very things Jesus sent his followers out to do are the very things we’ve lost faith in. In fact, our culture has come to accept an hour in church and a blessing before meals as the center of the Christian experience, while driving out demons and curing diseases…well, that’s just weird. But folks, when I read in my Bible what Jesus did and then read what he teaches followers to do, this is what I hear: that followers have power and authority to drive out demons, cure diseases, proclaim the coming Kingdom and heal things that destroy people’s lives. This is the center of the Gospel, and the power of it!

I once visited with a pastor who serves a downtown church. We talked about a mission center he was asking his church to develop for their community and he said, “Some of our people don’t get what we’re doing. And I tell them, ‘If you knew Jesus better, you’d get it.’” He went on. “I’m trying to get my people to meet Jesus, so they’ll get it.” Because when we get Jesus, we get what it means to follow him. And as we follow, we find ourselves more and more in the company of the broken-hearted, the blind, the poor, the prisoners — even those oppressed by demonic forces. People who are hungry for healing, and who need spiritual leaders who have a heart for healing — not because we’re that big-hearted, but because God is that big.

This is where most of us need to glance at our spiritual GPS. We understand the destination, but how do we get there from here? Jesus maps it out plainly to his followers in the last chapter of Luke, even using Paul’s powerful three-letter word. There he is, standing with his friends after the resurrection and he says, “Yes, it was written long ago that the Messiah would suffer and die and rise from the dead on the third day. It was also written that this message would be proclaimed in the authority of his name to all the nations, beginning in Jerusalem: ‘There is forgiveness of sins for all who repent.’” And then Jesus says – listen to this: “You are witnesses of all these things. And now I will send the Holy Spirit, just as my Father promised. But (and this is the punchline) stay here in the city until the Holy Spirit comes and fills you with power from heaven.” (Luke 24:46-49, NLT)

Here’s the secret: don’t leave here until the Holy Spirit comes and fills you with power from heaven. This seems too simplistic to be enough, but it is a critical piece. The fact is, Jesus’ Church has met its quota of pastors who can get the bulletin printed, follow an order of worship and preach three points and a poem. But the Kingdom Church is starving — and “the fields are white” — for Spirit-filled followers who are willing to do all the work of an evangelist.

Whether you are worn out or burned out, you owe it to yourself and your sense of call to find a place of prayer, then shake the gates of heaven asking for the Holy Spirit to come and fill you, or fill you again.

Don’t leave that place until your heart aches again for those who are hungry for healing and waiting for someone to come, who brings with them Holy-Spirit power to cast out demons, cure diseases, proclaim the Kingdom and heal the sick. Don’t let go of the hem of Jesus’ garment you until you’ve received that. After all, what good is a bucketful of nails if you’ve got no hammer?

For more reflection from Dr. Moore, check out her Art of Holiness podcast here. This piece from the archives originally appeared on Wesleyan Accent in 2014.

Featured image courtesy Joshua Earle on Unsplash.