Everybody wants to be somebody. Since the dawn history, human beings have been trying to move up the scale of importance. The clincher used by the serpent to tempt Adam and Eve was “when you eat of the tree of good and evil, your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” (Genesis 3:5). My professor at Yale Divinity School, Henri Nouwen taught us that ever since, humanity has been tempted to replace love with power:
“The long painful history of the Church is the history of of people ever and again tempted to choose power over love, control over the cross, being a leader over being led.” -- From his book, The selfless Way of Christ: Downward mobility and the spiritual life.
Henri Nouwen
This is a theme running through the Bible, through human history and through our own psyche. Most famous example of this in the New Testament occurs when James and John ask Jesus to make sure that they got to sit next to Jesus for eternity once his earthly mission was completed.(Mark 10:35-45). Shared glory, honored positions, closeness to powerful people these are universal means of being somebody. If we can’t be the glory or the one with power, then being close by is the next best thing. Some of the glory may spill over on us. Religion is fertile soil in which the seeds of ambition subtly grow. Being close to God has deadly dangers. Some of history’s most dastardly deeds have been done by those who claimed to be sitting on God’s right or left hand. It is easy to assume that relationship with God translates into entitlement. Clergy are I think particularly susceptible to this. Career advancement, upward mobility, calls to bigger churches with larger salaries and more prestige are popular expectations of clergy- who are by the way fiercely competitive, I know! Jesus’ response to James and John challenges popular assumptions about greatness, power, and prominence: “Are you able to drink the cup that I drink, or be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?” The other disciples were angry perhaps afraid that James and John would be given positions which they had sought. But Jesus said to all the disciples, “Whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be a slave of all. For the Son of Man came not be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many. The cup which Jesus drank is self-emptying love, the giving on one’s own life for others. The baptism with which he was baptized is a burial of the old ways with its power games and rising of God’s reign of forgiveness, generosity and joy. This is downward mobility. The world’s image of greatness is hierarchical, with the greatest at the pinnacle of the pyramid and God hovering over the top. The closer one gets to the pinnacle, the closer one is to greatness and to the image of God. Success, upward mobility and being served are signs of faithfulness to a hierarchical god. The way of Jesus leads in another direction. Nouwen writes:
"The way of the Christian leader is not the way of upward mobility in which the world has invested so much but the way of downward mobility ending on the cross... it is not a leadership of power and control but a leadership of powerlessness and humility in which the suffering servant of God, Jesus Christ is made manifest.”
What a joy it has been for me to serve with you this past year! Certainly you will be in my thought and prayers and Christ Church’s new chapter unfolds. You have identified qualities and gifts that you are looking for in your new Rector. Personally I hope you call a person who most of all has the gift of humility- a foot washer. Blessings and Peace to you all, Jeffrey
The “holiday season” is here. We all engage in the preparation and celebration of Christmas in different ways. The important factor is to get in touch with these questions: For what purpose did Jesus come into our world? What’s all the hoopla about? What’s the good news? Recently I learned about the work of the English poet and performance artist Jude Simpson. Her work is sharp, wide ranging and engaging. One of her poems, “Broken Open” has really helped me focus on those questions and at least for me, answer them. It has become a regular part of my own preparation for Christmas, and maybe it will add to yours as well.
Blessings to you this Advent and may your Christmas preparations and celebrations be rich indeed!
"The Bishop’s Wife" (1947) One of my all time favorites. A warm, lighthearted, and -- OK-- sentimental movie that manages to include all the ingredients that you are looking for at Christmas: ice skaters, snowball fights, boy choirs, snowflakes falling on city shoppers - oh those 1940’s hats! Even Cary Grant as an angel. The plot revolves around an harried Episcopal Bishop’s obsession with building a cathedral what what happens after he prays for guidance! The message is how easy it is to get so wrapped up in “current projects” or for that matter “life itself” that we miss the “big picture.” Can you spot some Biblical revisionism? With David Niven as the Bishop, and Loretta Young, as Julia, his wife. A remake, A Preacher’s Wife, was made in 1996 with Denzel Washington and Whitney Houston.
"The Children of Men" (2006) This is an adult, R-rated movie. Not what you think of as a Christmas story! But it really is! No child has been born on earth for 18 years. Science is at loss to explain the reason and humankind is facing likelihood of extinction. Set in and around a dystopian London in 2027, the movie follows the discovery of a lone pregnant woman and the desperate journey to deliver her to safety and restore faith in a future.
Echoes of the Gospel both subtle and obvious, occur throughout the movie, reminding us that God gave us hope for the future by providing a vulnerable miraculous child to a dying, violent world. Children of Men is based on a story penned by famous mystery writer and professing Christian P.D. James. Wonderful cast including: Clive Owen, Julienne Moore, Chiwetel Ejiofor, and Michael Caine **Two “Christmas” movies not named “It’s a Wonderful Life” and “White Christmas.”
In the last half of the nineteenth century, John Muir was our most intrepid and worshipful explorer of the Western extremities of our North American continent. For decades he tramped up and down through our God-created wonders, from the California Sierras to the Alaskan glaciers, observing, reporting, praising, and experiencing -- entering into whatever he found with childlike delight and mature reverence.
At one period during this time, in 1874, Muir visited a friend who had a cabin, snug in a valley of one of the tributaries of the Yuba River in the Sierra Mountains -- a place from which to venture into the wilderness and then return for a comforting cup of tea.
One December day a storm moved in from the Pacific -- a fierce storm that bent the junipers and pines, the fir trees as if they were so many blades of grass. It was for just such times this cabin had been built: cozy protection from the harsh elements. We easily imagine Muir and his host safe and secure in his tightly caulked cabin, a fire blazing against the cruel assault of the elements, wrapped in sheepskins, Muir meditatively rendering the wildness into his elegant prose. But our imaginations, not trained to cope with Muir, betray us. For Muir, instead of retreating into the coziness of the cabin, pulling the door tight, and throwing another stick of wood into the fire, strode out of the cabin into the storm, climbed a high ridge, picked a giant Douglas fir as the best perch for experiencing the kaleidoscope of color and sound, scent and motion, scrambled his way to the top, and rode out into the storm, lashed by the wind, holding on for dear life.
To me this episode is a metaphor of the Christian life both personal and as the Church. It is at the heart of Christian spirituality which is always and exclusively derived from God’s Holy Spirit. And “spirit” in the biblical languages of Hebrew and Greek, is the word “wind,” or “breath” -- an invisibility that has visible effects. This is the Wind/Spirit that created all the life we both see and can’t see; that created the life of Jesus; that created a church of worshipping men and woman; that creates each Christian. It is this Spirit that has created Christ Church. There is no accounting for life, any life, except by means of this Wind/Spirit:
“You send forth your Spirit, and they are created and so you renew the face of the earth.” Psalm 104: 31.
My hope and prayer for Christ Church as you enter the next phase of your common life and are lead by the Spirit/Wind of God, you will want to be out in the weather and not retreat to the cozy confines of the cabin! Breaking new ground is in the DNA of Christ Church and I hope it will continue!
I’m usually not a fan of fiction bestsellers, but this summer I read a book of this genre that really knocked my socks off. Written by Anthony Doerr, All the Light We Cannot See interweaves the lives of a blind French girl, Marie-Laure, and Werner Pfenning, a German. These separate lives collide in occupied France as both Marie-Laure and Warner try to survive the devastation of World War II.
Doerr writes brilliantly and tells an amazing masterfully tale, whose goal is to illuminate the ways, against all odds, people try to do the right thing, and try to be good to one another. Highly recommended. I’m fairly sure that there is no overt Christian theology in this novel, but one of the things that intrigued me right away was the title.
Christianity believes very strongly in the assertion that our world is bathed in light we often do not see. Jesus is the light of the world. The earth is filled with the Glory of God on the most dreary of days. Just because we can’t see it, recognize it or even believe it, doesn’t mean that it isn’t there or doesn’t exist. Scripture is replete with references to God’s eternal light; for instance,
“If
I say, ‘Surely the darkness will cover me, and the light around me turn
to night,’ “darkness is not dark to you, O Lord; the night is as bright
as the day; darkness and light to you are both alike.” Psalm 129:10-11
There are wonderful prayers from our wonderful Book of Common Prayer that speak of the subject; many of these come from the service of Evening Prayer:
“Almighty God, we give you thanks for surrounding us, as daylight
fades, with the brightness of the vesper light; and we implore you of
your great mercy, as you enfold us with the radiance of this light,
so you would shine into our hearts the brightness of your Holy Spirit;
through Jesus Christ our Lord, Amen."
And of course there is music which often helps us like “I want to walk as a child of the light, I want to follow Jesus.” Or two of my favorites, “Shine Jesus Shine" and "We are Walking in the Light of the Lord.” (The lyrics are great in all these hymns-look them up!) As we prepare to enter what I call the “dark season” of the year, a time of the year in which people can begin to feel blue, discouraged or even depressed, please remember the you are and I are bathed eternally, in All the Light We Cannot See.
