Tag Archives: suffering

Quietly Anchored by Advent

Some things you only discover over the long course of years. This frustrates an economy of optimization, hyper-fixated on immediate improvement and benefit. Wisdom can’t be reduced to “insights” gleaned by data, metrics, or analytics though, even if they’re useful from a strategic point of view. The season of Advent stubbornly persists in forcing the door open for the hard-to-quantify long-haul. It even escapes the individual desire to find in it a quick shot of spiritual inspiration, like a swallow of Gatorade to get us back in the game. Advent will quietly hold you in place, arresting your plans, anxieties, and even priorities. Wait, it whispers. Wait. Wait. Don’t pull out your phone, though, to dull the irritation at waiting. No, Advent asks us to sit through the discomfort of waiting until we find ourselves watching.

If you didn’t grow up in an especially liturgical tradition, it may have seemed odd to you as a child – the anticipation of Christmas, the frenzied build up all to one day – the odd, slow deflation afterward. The twelve days of Christmas bridging manger to Magi somehow makes more intuitive sense even to an informal child-calendar. It makes sense that this good news – Jesus born, Word Made Flesh! – is due more a little season of celebration than a single day.

Though I can’t speak to the value of liturgical rhythms in the same way that someone in their eighties or nineties could, I’m now at a point in life where I can meet Advent as a friend. It wasn’t always so, though I always enjoyed popping open the little paper doors of the Advent calendar. There were years I was impatient for Christmas itself – or impatient for the arrival of my own December child. There were other years I wanted to set a match to the whole thing and watch it burn into ash I could smear on my forehead; some years, by mid-December, I wanted only the lament of Lent and could barely stomach the thin, brittle glass of the ornaments on the tree, my soul in curving shards.

Over time, Advent has become an anchor. Whatever the state of the world, whatever the state of me, I run or crawl into the immovable wall of Revelation in the Flesh. It is the fact of it that breaks me. This tender joy tears the mighty from their seats of power. This blast of Light is inescapable and I must sit with it even if it infuriates me or illumines me. How dare this Beauty exist in the realness of time and space; it is unbearable. It’s not fair: not in a world of cancer wards and barefoot refugees and one person bashing the skull of another. Six pounds, nineteen inches of the Infinite. The Word Made Vulnerable – as vulnerable and defenseless as a newborn. “Into the violence,” whispers the Trinity, “defenseless Love will be born.” If God had asked my advice, I would have tried to find a polite way to suggest how irresponsible this move was. Thankfully, God did not.

Joy and grief are such fragile states; such vulnerable places to be. No one wants joyful times to end; and grief carves us hollow and brings us to the manger empty-handed, distracted, exhausted. In all seasons of human experience – whether December arrives to find you cheerfully lighthearted or hollow or more tired than you’ve ever been – in all seasons of experience, Advent will anchor you to God Who Gets Down on the Floor with Us and Learns to Roll Over, to Joseph and Mary’s cheers. It isn’t ever more sophisticated than this. It is always as safe as this. In joyful years and hard years, the belly-laugh or tightened throat, Advent gives your hand something to grip as you wait. And the path always ever only leads to a defenseless newborn. “Here,” Mary says; “would you like to hold Jesus for a moment? I need to get something to drink.” You hesitate and sit in the rocker and uncertainly accept his snug form into the crook of your elbow. “There,” God says; “I didn’t approach Elijah in the wind or fire or earthquake, but in the still small whisper; and I come to humankind now, small enough to wrap my hand around your pinkie finger.”

In the waiting, slowly, watching can begin. In the watching, you will find over the years that the Light shines in the darkness, and the grim boil of darkness cannot overcome a helpless, sleeping newborn, watched over by the animals he sang into existence. Come, all you who are tired and heavyhearted, and he will give you rest.

Featured image courtesy Evelyn Semenyuk via 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.

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.

The Snake Still Slithers

While America watched the horrors at our United States Capitol building on January 6, 2021, hurting and crying over the awful scenes unfolding on our screens, tumultuous laughter could be heard from one who some of us deny even exists. One elected representative evacuated that day even described his experience with unusual words for a politician: “it was like looking at evil.” If you don’t believe Satan is alive and well, believe it now. He is the prince of this world, and what a chance God took when he set that snake on the loose! He has already been defeated; Jesus took care of that on the cross. He has no power now, except the power we decide to give him. When Jesus cried from the cross, “It is finished,” did you think he meant his life? But Jesus was raised from the dead and sits at the right hand of the Father.

So what did Jesus mean? What was finished? Satan’s power. Jesus meant, “He lost. We won!” But Satan failed to get the memo; he moves ruthlessly through his days, a wimp of who he used to be, trying in vain to continue his deception. As far as our lives are concerned, he is only as successful as we allow. His mission is to wreak havoc any way he can. He does not care who is embarrassed, hurt, mistreated, or slandered as he sets about to fulfill his purposes on this earth: turning every last one of us away from God’s glorious kingdom of light and pulling us into the destruction and darkness he loves.

Someone has said, “The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he did not exist.” I bought into that when I was younger. I thought he was simply a wind of evil that floats among us all, influencing bad things to happen. A good friend of mine echoes my thoughts during those days. “I thought Satan wasn’t actually real – until I met him face to face during my divorce.”

Yes, Satan is real. He is alive and well, and if we know this, we need to get ourselves into God’s Word, where we can not only see him described, but also recognize that he is a has-been. You and I have to stand against his spirit of self-destruction. Biblical teaching reminds us that, “Greater is He [Jesus] that is in you, than he [Satan] that is in the world.” (1 John 4:4)

Satan is clearly our enemy, our adversary. He was dancing while the Capitol was being damaged, lives taken, injuries and trauma inflicted. “Be watchful. Your adversary, the Devil, prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.” (1 Peter 5:8) Look at some of the horrific acts he has handled. You will not understand this unless you have made a decision that Satan is our real enemy. We can all point to names of those we consider to be the real problem, and we might be right, but look beyond those names and watch how Satan instigates every act of darkness. And remember that he is always a liar.

“Now the serpent was craftier that any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, ‘Did God actually say, “You shall not eat of any tree in the garden?”’” (Genesis 3:1)

When Eve ate the fruit and offered some to Adam, they both willfully chose to listen to the liar instead of their Creator. Before that moment, they were happy. But on taking a bite, they lost the innocence with which they were born. Quickly, they made clothes of leaves to cover up.

As glass was shattering, doors were smashing and anger was exploding at our Capitol building, Satan was propped contentedly on a tree near the Capitol, slithering from limb to limb and laughing hysterically as one by one, scuffling people broke doors and windows, feeling they had the right to do whatever they wanted. “It’s our building,” some chanted, excusing themselves from the mayhem they caused.

And the snake slithered on.

Of course, Satan had long been after America. I am appalled at the divisions in our country. I can’t imagine how I would feel if one I loved had been mistreated or killed on our streets. In fact, for a while, the only redeemable picture from the brutalization of our Capitol was the realization that for a short period, members of both parties were on the same side, binding together, helping each other escape to safety, fearing for themselves and each other – and praying. If we could have gotten into the hearts of our elected officials, we would have heard many prayers being spoken silently.

The night of January sixth, Inside Edition anchor Debra Norville ended the evening with, “God bless America.” The message is not a subtle one. America needs to return to the God we ask to bless us.

Had we been able to actually see a real snake crawling on a tree near the Capitol, we would have noticed one very real, very telling detail. The snake’s head is bashed in. He slithers with a wound. He circles with a crooked head, smashed at the victory over death by our strong Warrior, Jesus Christ. God’s words to Satan after the fall in the garden are telling. “And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed. He will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.” (Genesis 3:16)

Yes, the snake still slithers. But he is defeated. When he starts attacking you, repeat the name of Jesus, for, “At the name of Jesus, Satan has to flee.” (James 4:7) God is the ruler yet! Live in these uncertain days in the clear and certain authority of your Redeemer, Jesus Christ.

Featured image courtesy David Clode 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.”

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 Startling Poetry of Madeleine L’Engle

Before the rumblings began to emerge around New Years’ (stories dripping out slowly from halfway around the world); before awareness of trouble somewhere became the startling realization that trouble was here – we could indulge ourselves in becoming blasé about tradition. Habits are sly: sometimes, we’re lulled into the off-key sense that traditions are a way of controlling a season. We begin to see them as the point instead of as a waypoint. At Christmas, we mumble, “round yon virgin, mother and Child,” so that young hearers don’t whisper loudly, “what’s a virgin?” We don’t know what to do with the truly awful passage about Herod ordering the slaughter of Bethlehem’s toddler boys, so we skip it. Then we stare open-mouthed at the news when natural disasters erupt in December, scissors halted halfway through the Snoopy wrapping paper. For many people around the world, last December – despite weariness or tight budgets or influenza – was one of the last waypoints of normalcy. Even for people who don’t avoid the awkward or painful, this year has been a chaotic overthrow of everyday simplicity. What voice can sound clearly through the chaos? We live in a moment aching for the holy iconoclasm of the poetry of Madeleine L’Engle.

Best known for novels, the late writer Madeleine L’Engle – born in a year much talked-about lately, 1918 – showed a knack for discomforting the comfortable and soothing the overheated, displayed well in The Ordering of Love: The New & Collected Poems of Madeleine L’Engle. There is nothing controllable about life on this planet, her words seem to shriek; no family recipe to follow carefully that will alleviate the cosmic chaos. And after all, she was born at the tail-end of World War I, during the 1918 flu pandemic, a child during the ’29 crash, a teenager during the Depression, a young woman during World War II, a mother in the tumult of the 50’s and 60’s, a grieving widow as the Information Age picked up steam. Her experiences shout loudly to our current world.

But L’Engle’s poems also bear the time signature of sacred rhythms: many follow liturgical seasons, or lectionary readings, or high water marks of living, like births, weddings, baptisms, deaths. Others cobble amusing little sketches of the absurd habits of selfishness, or glee, or fear, or comfort. She speaks to God as brashly and fearfully as a child who dares to shout at her parent before bursting into tears. Her joy, rage, mirth, and disappointment are pinned into place with her regular, irresistible return to Creation, Collapse, Incarnation, Crucifixion, Resurrection. For an author best known for books on time travel, Madeleine L’Engle shakes us awake now as much as she must have while she was alive.

Consider a few fragments from “Lines Scribbled on an Envelope While Riding the 104 Broadway Bus:”

There is too much pain

I cannot understand

I cannot pray

Here I am

and the ugly man with beery breath beside me reminds me that

it is not my prayers that waken your concern, my Lord;

my prayers, my intercessions are not to ask for your love

for all your lost and lonely ones,

your sick and sinning souls,

but mine, my love, my acceptance of your love.

Your love for the woman sticking her umbrella and her expensive

parcels into my ribs and snarling, “Why don’t you watch where

you’re going?”

Your love for me, too, too tired to look with love,

too tired to look at Love, at you, in every person on the bus.

Expand my love, Lord, so I can help to bear the pain…

It is startling to encounter words that so quickly, easily puncture the day to day patterns that trouble us – whether riding public transport or hopping on social media: “too tired to look with love, too tired to look at Love, at you, in every person.” Her honesty strips bare what phrases like “compassion fatigue” cover up. It is tempting to think that new technology or novel new realities are to blame – but for words like these, written decades ago.

In “Instruments (2)” the woman who managed to write and raise children at the same time confessed,

Hold me against the dark: I am afraid.

Circle me with your arms. I am made

So tiny and my atoms so unstable

That at any moment I may explode. I am unable

To contain myself in unity. My outlines shiver

With the shock of living…

A sense of precarious fragility often goes hand in hand with dripping, fleshy exuberance in her thoughts. Reflecting during a time of hospitalization, L’Engle writes in “From St. Luke’s Hospital (4),”

She comes on at night,

older than middle-aged, from the islands,

to answer the patients’ bells…

At first she was suspicious, cross,

expecting complaints and impositions,

soon tender and gentle,

concerned about requests for help with pain…

This morning she rushed in, frantic,

please, please could she look for the money

she had lost somehow, tending patients,

forty dollars that was not even hers.

She had kept it, in time-honored tradition,

in her bosom, and it must have fallen out

when she was thinking of someone else’s needs.

She scrabbled in the wastebasket,

in the bedclothes, panted from room to room,

returned to mine with a friend. We said,

“Close the door, take off your clothes, and see

if it isn’t still on you somewhere.”

She did, revealing an overworked body,

wrinkled, scarred; found nothing; had to leave.

In a moment when work, medical care, and working women are much in the news, Madeleine L’Engle presents us with sketches that honor womens’ labor – even one brief, sly wink at a casually maligned person from Scripture: “Martha,” the prosaically distracted sister busy with a meal.

Now

nobody can ever laugh at me again

I was the one who baked the bread

I pressed the grapes for wine.

In a year when suffering, depression, and despair threaten to blow the lid off of theoretical pondering on theodicy and the problem of evil, L’Engle charges in where churchgoers fear to tread, in these selections from “Love Letter” –

I hate you, God.

Love, Madeleine

I write my message on water

and at bedtime I tiptoe upstairs

and let it flow under your door.

When I am angry with you

I know that you are there

even if you do not answer my knock

even when your butler opens the door an inch

and flaps his thousand wings in annoyance

at such untoward interruption

and says that the master is not at home.

I cannot turn the other cheek

It takes all the strength I have

To keep my fist from hitting back

the soldiers shot the baby

the little boys trample the old woman

the gutters are filled with groans…

I’m turning in my ticket

and my letter of introduction.

You’re supposed to do the knocking. Why do you burst my heart?

I take hammer and nails

and tack my message on two crossed pieces of wood:

Dear God

is it too much to ask you

to bother to be?

Just show your hindquarters

and let me hear you roar.

Love,

Madeleine

What starts off like a cannonball blasted toward the stubbornly closed gates of heaven ends up landing with hoarse awareness: the fury driving her makes her own heart a target. I take hammer and nails and tack my message on two crossed pieces of wood. So then. Rage at the suffering in the cosmos inevitably illumines our own complicity. In that case, just let me see even a glimpse of your backside, God; let me hear your power roaring.

The years heavy with her writing were years of upheaval; chaos; swift change; suffering. Her thundering world gave way to these lines from “First Coming” –

He did not wait till the world was ready,

till men and nations were at peace.

He came when the Heavens were unsteady,

and prisoners cried out for release.

He did not wait for the perfect time.

He came when the need was deep and great.

He dined with sinners in all their grime,

turned water into wine. He did not wait

till hearts were pure. In joy he came…

We cannot wait till the world is sane

to raise our songs with joyful voice,

for to share our grief, to touch our pain,

He came with Love: Rejoice! Rejoice!

Whatever the pain, whatever the fear, whatever the work waiting to be done; whatever the mockery, whatever the fury, whatever the suffering – we cannot wait until the world is sane. Christ did not wait until the world was calm and well-mannered before he arrived; we cannot wait until the world is sane, we can’t pause for a more opportune moment to lift our voices, to rejoice.

L’Engle goads at every turn; upheaval is nothing new, no tradition can control it. Chaos, overwhelming loss, injustice, uncertainty – these are nothing new, no habits could contain them or master them. Millions of people around the globe would’ve been startled to realize last December that it would be one of the last calm or predictable months for a long time. Perhaps there was even a sense of boredom. In the absence – the stretching absence – of so much; in the absence of traditions, habits, routines, predictability, reasonable certainty, and guarantees, Madeleine L’Engle insists on the only stable reality: Creation, Collapse, Incarnation, Crucifixion, Resurrection. Even while she is screaming at God’s silence, ultimately she lands, too tired to be cautious, in this reality:

He did not wait till the world was ready.

We cannot wait till the world is sane.

Featured image photo credit: Sigrid Astrada

The Cost of Preaching Pastorally & Prophetically

In a previous essay, I reflected on the fact that this is a unique and glorious time to preach the Gospel. The demands and upheaval brought on by the mysterious coronavirus were far more than most of us ever contemplated as pastors. Seeking to be faithful in preaching, teaching and pastoral care, many ministers were exhausted, spiritually depleted because of the intense and demanding changes. Then came the murder of George Floyd, and a social justice struggle more vividly felt and shared publicly than anything like it since the Civil Rights Movement.

On one hand, the preaching demands during the coronavirus pandemic are primarily pastoral and theological. Where is God in all of this? Is God responsible, what is God’s character? How do I live in community as a “good neighbor”? But on the other hand, the national response to George Floyd’s murder – demonstrations, calls for dramatic restructuring of our policing protocols and systems – adds another, more demanding prophetic layer to our role as ministers, requiring a certain, confident dimension to our preaching and leadership.

Sixty years’ experience in ministry leads me to describe our preaching task as both priest (pastor) and prophet. As Christian leaders, we speak to God for the people, and we speak to the people for God. Within my own responsibilities, I’m beginning a mentoring program with eight young clergypeople. Our conversations will center on the demands for pastoral and prophetic leadership in these days of demonstrations and the pronounced cries for racial justice.

The truth is, we really have no option; we must speak. Paradoxically, even our silence is speaking.

In the late 50’s and early 60’s during the Civil Rights Movement, I was a young minister in Mississippi; my ministry was shaped significantly by the issues raging around that movement. Our Wesleyan Accent editor has asked me to share about that time.

There came the time when violence against our Black neighbors was so widespread, events so dramatically demanding Christian witness, that three fellow ministers and I felt compelled to speak together. Each of us had sought to be faithful in our preaching and teaching in our local churches. The violence toward Black citizens was boiling over throughout the state. We four were young and had no significant institutional voice. We hoped that our bishop and other conference leaders would speak out in response to the rising tide of violent expressions of racism and oppressive prejudice; but the silence was deafening. We knew it was past time for someone to say that not all white Mississippi Methodists would continue to live silently in the closed, segregated society taking its destructive toll on our state.

When the four of us gathered on Monday, October 15, 1962, none of us even faintly guessed what might happen as a result of what we were about. What we did know, and what drove us in our decision and action, was that it was a time when remaining silent would have been irresponsible on our part, and we would’ve betrayed the Gospel we were committed to preaching.

For two days, we reflected, prayed, and talked together; then, we drafted a statement titled Born of Conviction. We engaged 24 others to add their signatures, and the 28 of us together issued the statement to our Methodist Church in Mississippi – and then, “all hell broke loose.” Twenty of the 28 signers of the statement were compelled in different ways and by different circumstances to leave the state. I was among the 20 compelled to leave my home state.

As I have confessed, I am painfully aware of my shortcomings during those days and since; yet despite where I feel I failed, there are lessons to be gleaned from that experience that may be helpful in these days.

There Are Times When We Must Speak

First, there comes a time when we must speak. In our ongoing ministry, we must seek to be faithful in speaking to God for the people and speaking to the people for God. If we are guided by Scripture, the content of our preaching will always have aspects of the pastoral and the prophetic. Yet, occasions come when either the pastoral or the prophetic will become more pronounced.

For instance, we would not be faithful in the context of the coronavirus if, in our preaching and teaching, we were not responding to the pastoral needs and theological questions this new illness raises. With the overlay of social justice concerns dramatically brought to the forefront with George Floyd’s murder, we have an equally demanding prophetic call.

Few pastors find it easy to balance those two dimensions in their week to week teaching and preaching. Some are more pastorally inclined; others more prophetic. Our current situation sets a unique stage for balance. This is a moment when we must speak to both these issues that are defining our times.

Speaking Publicly Invites Pastoral Interaction

Second, speaking publicly sets the table for more honest and fruitful pastoral sharing. There is a sense in which the virus and the demonstrations together should make it easier for a congregation to “hear gladly” a word from the Lord. Pastoral awareness will not allow silence on either issue. Speaking on these challenges will stimulate deeper sharing in personal relationships between pastors and laypeople. When this happens, listening is far more important than speaking on the part of the pastor. If we need to speak, we need to speak clearly and honestly, as transparently as possible. In the midst of controversy, to try to hide something undermines understanding and reconciliation. If we have listened, and if we speak respectfully with and to those who disagree with what we are saying and doing, then we can move forward with energy and without apology.

Counting the Cost Is a Spiritual Exercise

Third, “counting the cost” can be a positive spiritual exercise. There is cost no matter what the setting and challenges are. In most local churches, preaching on social issues will raise questions and opposition. I have been in settings where no one questioned my speaking on abortion but resistance to speaking on fair housing was heavy.

The “cost” varies. In the United Methodist Church of which I am a part, ordained elders of an annual conference are guaranteed a pastoral appointment. Many of our Wesleyan Methodist ministers serve in denominations in which local congregations call and vote on their pastors. Your consideration of cost is a different kind than mine.

Yet there was no question that there would be cost when I shared authorship and signed that “Born of Conviction” statement in Mississippi decades ago. I think of my wife Jerry. One can imagine how it felt on long nights; she knew what we were seeking to do. She was a 23-year-old with two babies; the cost – a move to California far from her mother and father, seeking to express friendship, to witness, and to share in developing a new congregation. But there was the cost in the long months after we issued the statement, before we moved to California. She knew about our friend – the doctor who had delivered our babies – calling for my resignation; she knew the anger and frustration stirring in the congregation, the unnamed people making angry telephone calls.

There is cost, and it is not all immediate. I often wrestled in my conscience about leaving Mississippi. Even after many years, I found myself in spiritual turmoil, thinking: if the church had been different…if there had been episcopal and other leadership that had supported us young clergy who were seeking to faithful…then I could have stayed.

There is cost, and we can only seek to make our decisions on the basis of faithfulness to our calling, perceived through prayer and the best counsel we receive from Christian conferencing with persons we trust. We must acknowledge that every person’s faithfulness will not be expressed in the same way.

There will be pushback to our preaching, the level of resistance determined by our individual settings, and how long and in what ways we have served our congregation. We can only measure the cost as individuals in very particular settings. If our congregational leadership is earnestly seeking to be faithful to Scripture and to Kingdom principles, we can negotiate specific actions and responses. Only the pastor on site can determine what it means to be faithful today, in this time and setting.

The people we lead are “souls committed to our care.” The very thought of being responsible to speak to God for them, and to speak to them for God may and should make us quiver inside. We must trust no longer in our own capacity but in God’s power.

Days like these clearly demand some witness from the church. That witness from the church to the larger community begins with the witness clearly shared within the church. When our people have experienced the genuineness of pastoral caring, speaking to God for them, they are more apt to listen to our speaking to them for God.

Reflecting on 60 years in ministry, whatever the costs have been, I relish memories of specific occasions when I have tackled prophetic preaching which was effective because of pastoral attention.

Wesleyan Accent ~ Soul Posture for the Socially Distanced

Among many angles of spiritual formation during societal and global upheaval, these reflections from church leaders examine dynamics like community disruption and anxiety; the illusion of security in leadership best practices; pastoral wisdom from the Congo; and a community guide for praying during pandemic.

INDIVIDUAL SOUL POSTURE

Disruption, Solitude, Anxiety

How is it with your soul right now? Rev. Ashlee Alley Crawford, Clergy Recruitment and Development Coordinator for the Great Plains Conference of The United Methodist Church, took to social media to encourage reflection on the state of our hearts. She writes,

“The chaos of the external world means we’re all going to be staying home more in the weeks ahead. That’s perhaps a bit of a scary thing-not to mention that for many, that means loss of income and loss of essential connection with others. Is there a gift in the disruption of our rhythms? I absolutely believe there is, but it will not be easy. Thinking about those most financially fragile and finding ways to cultivate hospitality and generosity in this time will require something of us.

Not to mention that we’re likely going to be alone with our own thoughts a bit more. Solitude and silence as spiritual practices are the best teachers, but it can take a while to make friends with them. These new disruptions and the anxiety they produce tempt us into creating a hurry of a different sort.

But I’m convinced that this season of cancellations and more time on our hands-even though it’s most unwelcome-has a gift for us.”

Rev. Crawford’s insights on disruption, anxiety, community, and mindfulness are a timely call to lean into silence, or solitude, or self-awareness.

Deepening Character when Strategy Implodes

Meanwhile a gripping narrative has emerged from The Wesleyan Church, pivoting from personal quarantine to profound reflection. Rev. Ben Ward, Asia-Pacific Area Director and Director of Development and Communication for Global Partners, discusses imploding plans and emerging realization:

“On March 9, I was issued a home quarantine order from the Ministry of Health here in Singapore. This means I essentially can’t leave my bedroom for the next eight days. I was on a flight from Istanbul to Singapore on March 3. Apparently, a fellow traveler developed COVID-19 symptoms on the flight. The government began contact tracing to identify those who had close contact with the passenger, issuing quarantine orders. They tracked me down.”

Aside from the personal impact, Ward goes on to share the frustration of watching teams sent home and cancelling a major event that had taken months of resources and planning. With gracious transparency, he teases out a moment of clarity:

“Beyond the inconvenience the Coronavirus has created for me, it is also causing me to rethink what effective Christian leadership looks like.

I used to think an effective leader set a plan and then implemented that plan no matter what circumstances arose. Thinking through scenarios that could derail the plan and creating contingencies were essential leadership practices. If unforeseen events occurred and derailed the plan — well then, the leader must not have planned well enough.

But no one saw the Coronavirus coming. My best-laid plans were shipwrecked.

Ward goes on to share the keen awareness that,

“Planning is harder in the majority world than in the developed world. My Christian sisters and brothers in developing contexts have many more variables to consider that can derail their plans. I have enjoyed more stability than the majority of the world’s inhabitants. I repent of my arrogance, for thinking my hyper-planned-out approach to life is superior. I have more grace for my colleagues who keep loving, learning and leading in contexts marked by uncertainty and instability.”

He concludes with a sharp call to new perspective: “the thwarting of strategy is an invitation for God to do a deeper work of character.” (Click here to read Rev. Ward’s piece in its entirety.) What a beautiful posture toward spiritual formation when our best-laid plans go out the window.

When Lent Means Fasting from Easter

Over the weekend I saw comments online wryly expressing that people hadn’t meant to give up quite this much for Lent. Today (March 16), tired pastors woke up to new CDC recommendations for the next eight weeks and realized that Sunday gatherings may be suspended over Easter. When I saw the comments on fasting and Lent, a memory stirred: last spring, Rev. Carolyn Moore asked me to write for her series on the Lordship of Christ, and I sent her “Jesus is Lord of the Valleys,” which expressly calls out what happens to fasting and Lent during upheaval, unpredictability, and loss. I wrote,

“Out of the corner of our eye, we have peripheral awareness of how close to being faith consumers we really are. We choose to go to a conference so we can grow spiritually. We choose to show up to Bible study so we can grow spiritually. We choose to read a book so we can cry or become more efficient or grow spiritually.

We choose.

We choose the parameters of our growth. Where we next discern/feel/think that God is leading us. What we will “give up” for Lent. The problem is the insidious mindset that is entangled in our approach to faith: that we set the table, invite the guests, and choose the menu of our own spiritual growth. That we can choose what outcomes we want to see in our spiritual life. That we control how we want to be made Christlike. Lent changed from practices I chose to something outside my control, and I didn’t like it.

God allowed my chosen self-denial to be replaced with real desperation. I can’t guarantee you stability in this life. I can’t guarantee you won’t face tragedy. I can witness to the goodness of God, though…”

When the shape of spiritual formation is taken out of our hands – what is left? Grabbing onto Christ, proclaiming the goodness of God.

COMMUNITY SOUL POSTURE

Shared Prayer Guide for the Coronavirus Season

As we see the season of Lent turned inside-out, one way to witness to the goodness of God is through the discipline of shared prayer. Early on Rev. Pete Grieg shared a prayer resource as a community guide for praying about the impact of Covid-19. At the time, the likelihood of Coronavirus disruption had barely punctured American consciousness, but Grieg is quite in touch with global developments – the 24/7 prayer movement he helped to found stretches around the world. What seemed a bit early was, in retrospect, very timely: a lesson in itself perhaps. (Checking the calendar, “a bit early” in reality was just a week and a half ago.) Here is an excerpt:

“JEHOVAH SHALOM, Lord of Peace, we remember those living in Coronavirus hotspots. May they know your presence in their isolation, your peace in their turmoil and your patience in their waiting. Prince of Peace, you are powerful and merciful; let this be their prayer – ‘May your mercy come quickly to meet us, for we are in desperate need. Help us, God our Saviour, for the glory of your name.’ (Ps 79:8)

JEHOVAH RAPHA, God who heals, we pray for all medical professionals dealing daily with the intense added pressures of this crisis. Grant them resilience in weariness, discernment in diagnosis, and compassion upon compassion as they care. We thank you for the army of researchers cooperating towards a cure – give them clarity, serendipity and unexpected breakthroughs we pray. Rise Sun of righteousness, above this present darkness with healing in your rays. You are powerful and merciful; may this be our prayer – ‘Sovereign Lord, you have made the heavens and the earth by your great power and outstretched arm. Nothing is too hard for you.’ (Jer 32:17)

(Click here for downloadable slides for the entirety of this excellent prayer guide to use in community prayer – even if praying together occurs in virtual worship, and not in person.)

Spiritual Formation Lived in Shared Membership Vows

For congregations, Rev. Andy Stoddard reinforces community spiritual formation through the lens of membership vows, organizing congregational communication and resources through prayers, presence, gifts, service, and witness, with resources linked in each. He writes,

“There’s an old hymn of the church that reminds us: “The church is not a building; the church is not a steeple; the church is not a resting place; the church is a people.” We all believe that, we all know that, but in a season of “social distancing” it can be really hard for us to remember what it means to be connected. That, in many ways, is my worst fear. We need each other. And we need the church. The church will continue to be at work, and we each can continue to do our part, and remember vows that we made on joining the church. In this time, in this moment, we continue to need God and need each other. I love our memberships vows, and I believe that in this time, as we keep faithful with our prayers, presence, our gifts, our service, and our witness, these vows will hold us together more and more. I want to share some useful resources that can help you and me live into our calling in this and every season. This will be a growing list in the days to come.”

What a great way to order posture for the days to come: to remind people of who they are, what they have committed together, and who the church will continue to be.

When Prudence and Cooperation Are Spiritual Formation: Wisdom from the Congo

Often community is pictured locally; but people of faith constantly affirm the unity of the global church. We are part of a local-global connection tying us to believers around the world. We all follow Jesus: it’s that simple.

While weighing the challenges of Coronavirus-related restrictions, Rev. Beth Ann Cook reached out to a clergy friend from the Democratic Republic of Congo; he has pastored people, “in the midst of war, economic and political unrest, and a cholera epidemic.” She expressed, “I was so very grateful to be able to ask, ‘what do I do?’” He responded,

“In such a situation we ask people not to panic but to be prudent.

Help people as Christians to turn our faces to God in prayer and ask for his wisdom to face the situation.

Mobilize the community and congregation to follow instructions given by health authorities.

Develop an excellent communication network.”

The posture suggested by a pastor who has led during war, economic dives, and cholera? Be prudent rather than panic; help people turn to God in prayer and to pray for God’s wisdom; use influence in your region and congregation to follow health authorities; and invest in a strong communication network.

If energy spent in helping people to be a non-anxious, careful presence or promoting health authority protocol seems separate from spiritual formation, it’s not. Centuries ago, the Apostle Paul wrote to Christ followers on the edge of the Mediterranean, “Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”

As we form and grow, Paul – and a pastor from the Congo – remind us of the value of practicing mental habits and choices that the Holy Spirit can empower and illumine: in the middle of difficult circumstances, we can take joy, let gentleness be evident to everyone, resist the nagging call of anxiety, and in every situation, present our requests to God through prayer with gratitude. These postures are both individual and communal, hammered out personally and corporately.

In Matthew 22, we read, “Tell us then, what is your opinion? Is it right to pay the imperial tax to Caesar or not?” But Jesus, knowing their evil intent, said, “You hypocrites, why are you trying to trap me? Show me the coin used for paying the tax.” They brought him a denarius, and he asked them, “Whose image is this? And whose inscription?” “Caesar’s,” they replied. Then he said to them, “So give back to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s.”

Building a posture of humility includes mindfulness about Christians’ presence and witness in “the public square.” In times of outbreak, a response of simple humility might be, “of course we may have the right to do something, but we love our neighbors with the sacrificial love God has shown for all of us, and our actions must not ever be only about our own interests, real or perceived. And for the sake of our congregation and our community, we happily submit to anything that does not require us to deny Christ. We can easily worship Christ in our homes just as easily as we can in one building. We have nothing to fear by worshiping at home and serving safely wherever we can.”

The Discomfort of Spiritual Growth in an Outbreak: Wisdom from the 1500’s

About two weeks ago, Wesleyan Accent shared an adapted piece written during the Ebola outbreak, on Martin Luther’s pastoral responses to contagion in the form of the plague. People of faith don’t only have global connections during crisis; we affirm in the Creed, “we believe in the communion of saints…” The Body of Christ stretches across space and time and sometimes there is wisdom to be found from voices through the centuries.

“Even if people are accustomed to relative health and ease – or especially if they are – it is impossible to insulate any life from certain realities: illness, vulnerability, lack of control, mortality. Pastoral care during outbreaks is in part the quiet calming of deep existential fears usually ignored, avoided, or drowned out by many people in the Western world.

In addition to taking sensible precautions and exercising common sense and good cheer, we can outfit ourselves with wisdom from church history. Perspective is never so valuable as in a time of panic, warranted or unwarranted or somewhere in between. So let’s inoculate ourselves against denial, on one hand, and fear, on the other, with a visit to the Book of Common Prayer and a cantankerous German monk, Martin Luther.”

Luther gives counsel on the shape of prayer in the face of contagion; he offers frank advice on the social and ethical responsibilities of serving others if it puts you at risk; and he comments on pragmatic angles of dying well – a deeply ignored element of spiritual formation in the U.S. Despite the difference in what we now know of disease spread, a great deal of his insight translates remarkably well – and sometimes with unexpected kindness toward those who feel themselves faltering.

A Note to Tired Pastors

There are times that church leaders are tempted to grow discouraged; we know how much energy ministry can take when things are going well; will people turn toward their faith if there is no Sunday gathering, if the activity calendar suddenly goes silent? But activity and spiritual growth are two different things.

The question of whether people will grow or wilt may be thrown into clearer relief when business as usual is disrupted; but it’s not a new question, it’s an old question. And there is nothing that pastors have ever been able to do to guarantee that the people who often sit in the pews will push deeper into their faith in moments of chaos.

Fear that people will fall away from church because a time of outbreak occurs is the same fear that a person will fall away from faith because of a cancer diagnosis. We cannot inoculate believers from loss, challenge, or hardship. Some people may have casually engaged with faith communities, and they will become more invested, more active – they may even discover a call to ministry through this time. Others may have casually engaged with faith communities, and they will become less invested, less active – their belief may diminish in the face of self-preservation or trauma.

In your work to strengthen communications, encourage prudence over panic, support health initiatives, and lead into deep and regular prayer, be at peace. Do your best to support spiritual formation in the face of quarantine, and trust that while the congregation may look different when all is said and done, you will have new and more reasons to witness to the goodness of God than you can imagine right now. The well-being of your congregation and community is not all on your shoulders; so commit with boldness to stretches of rest, and let your spirit be formed.