I See Christ

A parishioner of mine, David Theune, has been working on a project for a while. He, along with over 200 people in the Spring Lake community, read the book, Sticks and Stones: Defeating the Culture of Bullying and Rediscovering the Power of Character and Empathy by Emily Bazelon. Several community initiatives came out of the project, one of the most interesting of which was the idea to put together a book with stories of empathy shared by people in our community. David e-mailed me, along with several other people, and asked if I might write something for the book. 

I spent about a week thinking about it, wondering what story I might tell, what I might say. And then, I wrote this...

My wife and I both are pretty busy people (as is most everyone these days). I am an Episcopal priest and she is finishing a graduate degree in Clinical Mental Health while also working part-time at a residential home for adults with various challenges. So, when we do get an opportunity to go away, just the two of us, it is always an immense gift.

This past November was our fifth wedding anniversary. Though previous anniversaries have always involved special trips of some sort, we felt the need to scale back this year and so did a weekend in Grand Rapids, using some hotel points I had accumulated through my work. We were walking around downtown Grand Rapids, in and out of stores, generally having a lovely afternoon together in the cold, brisk, downtown air.

As we walked, a man was sitting near a tree on the street and he asked me if I could spare a few dollars for a meal.

I think every person struggles with what to do in these situations. Do you give money if you have it? What if he spends it on something that will only hurt him further? If I give money to everyone, wouldn’t I wind up broke? My family pledges a percentage of our income to our church, isn’t that how we help the poor?

For me, since I very rarely even have cash on me, our cashless society has sort of become my “out.” I can simply say, “I’m so sorry, I don’t have any cash or change on me,” and then continue walking down the street, feeling slightly guilty until something else inevitably grabs my focus.

I was not raised to give the money away, in general, anyway. For some reason it wasn’t in the DNA of the religious tradition I grew up in.

Several years ago, when I was a college student pursuing my Bachelor of Science in Biblical Studies, I spent a summer living with a couple in Canton, MI. John and Joyce were my host family while I did a ministry internship at a congregation in Dearborn Heights.

One night we were downtown Detroit, getting ready to go to dinner at a restaurant near the new Tiger Stadium. We came out of the parking garage and a woman came up to us on crutches—one of her legs had been amputated. “Can you spare a few dollars?” she asked me, the college student studying Bible.

“No, I’m sorry,” I said awkwardly, as I cast a furtive glance away from her and walked on by.

But the couple I was staying with was behind me coming out of the garage. Joyce stopped to talk to the woman, immediately getting out her purse and fishing around to find a few dollars. She clasped them into the woman’s hand. The woman said thank you and went on her way. I stood there uncomfortably, watching this take place and waiting for John and Joyce to catch up with me.

Once they did, Joyce said simply, “Jared, you should always give money to people who ask you.” She smiled and we went into the restaurant.

She was very kind, almost matter-of-fact about it, but she singed my soul just a bit. She reminded me of something Jesus said, in Matthew 5:42, “Give to everyone who begs from you.”

Seems pretty clear and straightforward, unfortunately.

However, that was over ten years ago and in the time in between, I would give less and less. Society (and me) went increasingly cashless. I spent time working in Washington, DC, when I truly was confronted by people in need over and over again. I discovered that walking around in my clericals made me even more of an easy target.

So, eventually, I just kind of stopped. What I do to help the poor through the church must be enough, I rationalized to myself.

But this cold November afternoon, walking down that street in Grand Rapids with my wife, something broke in me. The man asked for money and I ignored him and kept walking down the sidewalk, but only a few paces in, I was struck and could not walk any further.

I turned around and walked back to him, reaching in my pocket for the $10 bill I knew was there from the change I had made for parking the night before. As I approached him, I smiled and handed him the cash.

“Thank you, sir,” he said. “Thank you.”

I held onto his hand and looked him in the eyes, deep in the eyes. “No,” I said, “Thank you. I want you to know that you stopped me today because you reminded me of Christ. I saw Jesus in you. Thank you for giving me that.” I felt a tear well up in my eyes. I brushed it away and rejoined my wife.

“I think I want to start keeping small amounts of cash on me,” I said to her.

A story is told about John the Almsgiver, Patriarch of Alexandria in the early 7^th century. Someone applied for alms, but it was discovered by the office that he was applying in deceit, that the person did not actually need the money. The administrative official went to the patriarch and told him. John said, “Give unto him; he may be Our Lord in disguise.”

At its base, empathy means feeling the emotions of another, it means not letting yourself be an island, walking through the day ignoring the hurt and fears and pain of those around you. As a Christian, I’m grateful that our Lord gave a method to his weak and sinful followers. If you do not yet have enough of the love of God in you to feel the emotions of another, to love them with action, then do this: try at least to see me in them.

And then, then, the love will follow.

For more information on this project, you can see the Grand Haven Tribune article, David's blog post about the project, and, if you live in the Tri-Cities, you can click here for the story submission form.

Reclaiming Evangelism in the Episcopal Church

My January 6, 2014, essay for the Tracts for These Times SCP Blog: Reclaiming Evangelism in the Episcopal Church.

I’ve been involved in the Episcopal Church for almost ten years now, five of those years as a priest. I now understand much better than I did as an adolescent the theology behind the Christian tradition of baptism. I know now that since the publication of Baptism, Eucharist and Ministry over thirty years ago, the current ecumenical consensus on baptism is actually rather profound. Indeed, the theology of baptism with which I was raised led rather naturally to the baptismal emphasis of the Episcopal Church, particularly since the 1979 Book of Common Prayer.

But if there is something I am increasingly aware is missing ever since I came to be in this Anglican tradition, it is this—a sense of the role evangelism plays in the church.

Read more at the SCP website here.

Scribere Orare Erat... Letting it Go

Three and a half years ago, as I was transitioning from my work at Christ Church in Alexandria and preparing to come to St. John's in Grand Haven to be their new rector, I took down my old blog. While on pilgrimage at the Isle of Iona, I slowly went through the whole thing, editing it into book form.

My old blog was an important part of my life for quite a while. For six years, those who followed that blog followed by journey from Bible major at a small college in Michigan, to seminary in Texas, to disillusionment with the Churches of Christ and discovery of the Episcopal Church, to Sewanee, and then to my first cure at Christ Church.

The community that read that blog supported me during that time in more ways than anyone will ever know. To this day, I count people I met through that blog as some of my closest friends.

I submitted the manuscript to a couple publishers but no one had much interest. I got some very kind letters back, particularly from Church Publishing, but blogs turned into books are a dime a dozen.

I thought that maybe I'd do some more editing and try submitting it again... but it languished for all these years I've been at St. John's.

So, I finally decided, to heck with it.

I had said in my final blog post on that old blog that if no publishers wanted it, I might wind up just making the book form of it available on Lulu.com for any who was interested in it. And I realize that a handful of people will probably read this post and roll their eyes slightly, thinking, "Why would I want a book of this blog?"

I wrestled with that question myself over these past three years or so, as the edited version of this has rested in my laptop...

Then, today, I decided that I was going to stop trying to answer that question. I was going to stop saying I would get around to going through and editing this book into something else. This represents only a snapshot of my life, of my journey, but it represents a journey that was profoundly difficult for me. Who knows if anyone will buy it. I don't think that's even the point.

So, I finalized the proof today and uploaded it to Lulu.com. If you would like to read it, you can get either a book version or an e-book version below.

As I did the final work on it to get it up today, I re-read some portions of it. I found typos, things I would say differently, but I left the majority of everything as it was edited during that pilgrimage. I didn't go through and try to perfect it. The flawed nature of it is important to maintain at this point, I think. I wrote the preface for it at the end of my pilgrimage on Iona... to change that or anything too significantly at this point would be to create something different.

And if there is one thing I learned during the six years that I wrote what turned into this book, it is this: to look as honestly as you can at yourself is an immensely important experience. Indeed, not only is the writing a form of prayer (as the title of the book indicates), but the trying to stand honestly before God... well, that's perhaps my favorite definition of prayer.

Paperback Version~ Scribere Orare Erat: To Write was to Pray
E-Book Version~ Scribere Orare Erat: To Write was to Pray

In 2004, a young Bible Major at a small evangelical liberal arts college in Michigan packed up all his belongings and moved to Texas. He thought he was going to pursue a Masters in Divinity degree and start a career as a minister in the conservative Churches of Christ (a cappella). However, during his sojourn in West Texas he became increasingly disillusioned in his church tradition and began searching for an expression of Christianity that was more ancient. In a stone church in Abilene, Texas, he discovered just that. Though it initially seemed like a 180 degree change from the tradition in which he was raised, he discovered within his new tradition the home he had always sought. Edited from his blog entries over the course of six years, this book tells the story of searching, finding, and unexpected return.

O Emmanuel... come

[This post is seventh in a series of Advent meditations, exploring the "O Antiphon" for each day as we walk the final steps toward the celebration of the incarnation on the Feast of the Nativity of our Lord.]

Come,

Emmanuel,
God's presence among us,
our King, our Judge:
save us, Lord our God!

Lonely Israel, grieving and mourning all alone in exile—this is one of the most important images in the Hebrew Bible. It is captured by the grief of Psalm 137, where the exiles cry out,

1 By the waters of Babylon we sat down and wept, *
    when we remembered you, O Zion.
2 As for our harps, we hung them up *
    on the trees in the midst of that land.
3 For those who led us away captive asked us for a song,
and our oppressors called for mirth: *
   "Sing us one of the songs of Zion."
4 How shall we sing the LORD'S song *
    upon an alien soil?

"O Emmanuel"
Sister Ansgar Holmberg, CSJ

When the people finally returned home, the land was not as they had remembered it. They had to undergo the hard work of rebuilding and they fell into fighting and arguing. They were conquered by empire after empire, over and over again, until those stories about the proud independent state of Israel seemed just an illusion, a bed-time story that couldn't be true any more.

How much they longed for Emmanuel to come, to set them free and give them all they hoped for in this life.

How hard it was to realize that when Emmanuel came, he had other plans.

We tend to think that Emmanuel "God with us" will actually mean, God just like us. However, when Emmanuel came, when God came to be with God's people, a very different freedom was offered than the one they wanted. The freedom Emmanuel offered was so radically different that many people turned it down, choosing instead to persist in an exile of their own creation.

Because so often the freedom you and I want is just enslavement to a different master, one that looks more appealing. Indeed, the freedom for which Emmanuel is coming to ransom us is enslavement to a different master—but it is to one who loves us.

Do you, exile of God, want to be a slave?

You will have to love boldly. You will have to put your own preferences below those of others. You will have to forgive without counting the costs. You will have to ask yourself every day whether what you possess is just—and what God is calling you to give away so that you can find a truer freedom than slavery to wealth.

You will have to die.

But when you are reborn, when the shackels of sin and selfishness fall of your limbs and the Spirit traces the cross on your soul, marking you as Christ's own for ever... you will be reborn as a slave to God, a servant of Christ, a servant of all.

This ransom for which you and I have longed, I have a feeling it is not the freedom we thought it would be. I have a feeling it will be tempting to sentimentalize it, cover it with garland and tinsel, and then put it in a box on December 26.

But look carefully, because God-with-us approaches...

And I wonder, beloved of God, do you have the courage to be a slave to this love?

O come, o come, Emmanuel,
and ransom captive Israel,
that mourns in lonely exile here
until the Son of God appear.

O King of Nations... come

[This post is sixth in a series of Advent meditations, exploring the "O Antiphon" for each day as we walk the final steps toward the celebration of the incarnation on the Feast of the Nativity of our Lord.]

Come,

King of all Nations,
source of your Church's unity and faith:
save all humankind, your own creation!

When you are a preacher, you trade in image and metaphor. People experience reality through images, so having the right image to portray the right theological point is essential. Perhaps one of the best I ever heard in a sermon was from a colleague of mine at my former parish, Father Daniel Lennox.

"O Ruler"
Sister Ansgar Holmberg, CSJ

He talked about an experience he had as a Canadian playing hockey, a story I don't remember all of but I do remember ended with him in a hockey fight on the ice with the opposing team's mascot. He talked about how one of the things we do to people is that we turn them into caricatures, into mascots of other things, and how this enables us to attack them, to pummel them into the ice and not feel guilty because we have long since stopped to see their humanity.

That image has stuck with me because it resonates with my own sense of the way we create divisions among ourselves in humanity. Difference is not bad, having different groups that explore and experience reality differently is not a bad thing. By engaging with those different than us, those with different views, ideals, and outlooks, we can see how the truth is much bigger than us, than our own extremely limited perspective.

Division, however, is when we turn people or groups into caricatures of themselves, into mascots of some evil we abhor so that we can pummel them into the ice without needing to feel the slightest bit of guilt.

This is not of God.

The incarnation of God demonstrates once and for all that God is the God of all people. Everyone from poor shepherds, to weirdo astrologers from the east, to a couple old people that hang out at the temple all the time, to a young pregnant teenage mother and her husband... these are the ones who are on this Advent journey with us, these are the ones who will rejoice when the king of all is finally revealed.

And I wonder, beloved of God, who do you know that you have turned into a caricature? What person or what group of people do you really want to beat into the ice? Can you see, can you see, beloved, that this person or this group is walking alongside you on this journey... can you see that they are also reaching out for wholeness, a wholeness that can only be found when we love and embrace the other?

O come, Desire of nations, 
bind in one the hearts of all mankind;
bid thou our sad divisions cease,
and be thyself our King of Peace.

O Radiant Dawn... come

[This post is fifth in a series of Advent meditations, exploring the "O Antiphon" for each day as we walk the final steps toward the celebration of the incarnation on the Feast of the Nativity of our Lord.]

Come,

Radiant Dawn,
splendor of eternal light, sun of justice:
shine on those 
lost in the darkness of death!

The night is a strange place. I've never been on a job that required me to work third-shift, the closest I ever got was several nights working late closing restaurants or bars. I've also (thankfully) always been a pretty decent sleeper, but every now and then I wake up in the middle of the night and can't fall asleep.

"O Dayspring"
Sister Ansgar Holmberg, CSJ

The worst is when this happens in the context of a night terror. I began having these when I was an adolescent, experiences of waking from a sound sleep with an overwhelming sense of dread, very similar to a panic attack. They generally last around thirty minutes, or until I can calm down enough to fall back asleep, but sometimes they drag on, keeping me wide awake and fearful.

My wife is a light sleeper, she also wakes up in the night, though not with panic attacks. Instead, she starts worrying about things and before she knows it she is wide awake, worrying about this or that, unable to shut her mind off, close her eyes, and drift back to sleep.

The first day I ever went deer hunting, I walked in the dark woods out to a small land-blind I had scouted out earlier in the day. I remember sitting on a small stool there, watching the colors around me change as the sun slowly came up. It's still my favorite part of deer hunting—sitting in a blind or in a tree stand and watching the world around you come alive.

It reminds me that no matter how powerful night may seem—it is never permanent.

Where I live, Advent always falls during a dark time of the year. Singing about daylight falling and vesper lights arising in Evening Prayer absolutely makes sense at 5:15pm. And I've had people I loved who struggled with seasonal depression because of it, who struggled with the loss of light and how that can mess with your body.

But the night is not as powerful as it seems.

And I find it rather powerful that it was in the dead of night that a single cry pierced the night. After Mary's cries of childbirth, another cry came, that of God incarnate entering this world through blood and sweat and tears... and even societal shame.

I like to think that when God's voice pierced the darkness in the cry of a little baby boy, night itself shivered.

And I wonder, beloved of God, what night seems to cover your own heart? Can you look to the edges and see that color beginning to change? The sun is coming up as the son approaches. Dawn is almost here. And the night will never again be as powerful as it once seemed.

O come, thou Dayspring from on high, 
and cheer us by they drawing nigh;
disperse the gloomy clouds of night,
and death's dark shadow put to flight.

O Key of David... come

[This post is fourth in a series of Advent meditations, exploring the "O Antiphon" for each day as we walk the final steps toward the celebration of the incarnation on the Feast of the Nativity of our Lord.]

Come,

Key of David,
opening the gates
of God's eternal kingdom:
free the prisoners of darkness! 

I'm horrible with keys. I'm always misplacing them, setting them down one place and then having to struggle to remember where in the world I left them. I leave them in doors, on tables, in pockets, I'm pretty horrible with them.

"O Key"
Sister Ansgar Holmberg, CSJ

But I've gotten better—primarily by training myself, like others, to always set them down in the same places.

So now, when I cannot find my keys, I look first in my coat pocket. Then, if I'm at home, I check the dish on the sideboard in the dining room. If I'm at work, I check my desk (or, if Cappy is with me, I check my office door, because I use them to get in and out of a door that automatically locks).

When you get your first set of keys to something, it feels rather magical. Or, at least it did to me. Finally now I am trusted with access to a place, access all on my own without someone else there to let me in. One of the fundamental symbols of ministry in the installation of a rector is the giving over of the keys of the church.

One of the best canticles in Morning Prayer, in my opinion, is Canticle 11: The Third Song of Isaiah (Surge, illuminare). The canticle is a song of joyful singing over the new Jerusalem, drawing from the exuberance of the final chapters of Isaiah. One of the lines in the canticle sings, "Your gates will be open; by day or night they will never be shut."And that's not just in some crazy liberal canticle, it's right there in the eleventh verse of chapter sixty!

The gates of the new Jerusalem will never be shut.

It's almost like when Jesus took on our sinfulness, he also took on the way I lose keys, like he took the keys to the gates of heaven and tossed them out the window, never to use them again.

The gates of our city are never locked.

And the one key in the afterlife that he holds on to is this: the key to the misery and prisons into which we place ourselves. We will never again need to be prisoners of darkness, scrambling for keys to get us out of the prisons we create for ourselves... he's got that key clasped tightly in his hand, ready to open that gate up and welcome you to a home where he busted the locks off the door long ago.

And I wonder, beloved of God, what doors and prisons do you long for God to open in your heart and in your life? What gates do you long to see Christ trample down? And do you see, oh beloved, do you see... the gate to our home is wide open.

O come, thou Key of David, come,
and open wide our heavenly home;
make safe the way that leads on high,
and close the path to misery.