The Search

John 3:1-17

Second Sunday in Lent/ 16^th March 2014

A recording of the sermon may be found here.

He arrived in the dark seeking light.  He arrived at night afraid of the light, worried what others might think if seen in the light of day.  He came searching for insight, for wisdom, for some answers, for truth.  He’s heard rumors about what this man could do: signs and wonders, imbuing the presence of God. 

            He’s not new to the world of the spirit, to the religious life.  He’s well educated, raised in the faith; he rose up through the ranks, sits as a religious leader among the people. He’s a powerful man, commanding respect, a man of influence, with authority, which makes his appearance—at night—all the more mysterious. 

            And Jesus knows why.  Jesus knows his heart.  Jesus knows his thoughts.  Jesus knows the stirrings of his soul.  Jesus knows he’s searching for something.  He’s a religious professional, he knows the stories of his people, he grew up in community, went to Sabbath school. He was religious by nature and by practice.  He worshipped Yahweh on the Sabbath, observed Torah, and made sure others did the same.  But then he goes to Jesus with a seeker’s heart, a spirit of curiosity, and the hunger for something, undercover at night, so no one else would see. 

Here’s the truth, Nicodemus.  I’m going to level with you and cut to the chase.  I know you’re looking for the kingdom of God.  I know you’re searching for a world shaped by God’s justice and righteousness.  I know you’re looking for something more, for a better a world, for a deeper connection to your soul.  I know your faith and your religious practices are growing tired, I know they don’t speak to you anymore.  Here’s the truth, Nicodemus: no one can see the kingdom of God without being re-educated, re-newed, re-born.

            “Reborn”  “Born-again.”  “Born from above.”  Whichever way you want to say it—and any of these would be correct, it’s the same in Greek—the point is one has to start again.  You have to go back to school.  You have to unlearn some things in order to learn new things, kingdom things, about God, yourself, and the world.  This way of God does not come naturally.  You don’t reach the kingdom through a developmental process or evolution.  All the human wisdom and reason in the world can’t lead you there.  All the religious wisdom of the world can’t lead you to that place—some religious ideas might even stand in the way.

            “How can this be?” Nicodemus said.  “I don’t understand.” 

            Being a literalist, he misses the point—as literalists often do, trying to be, well, literal, choking truth with the facts. “How can anyone be born after having grown old?” 

            To which Jesus says, a second time:  

Here’s the truth, Nicodemus.  Listen to me.  You won’t find what you’re looking for if you don’t open your eyes to what you cannot see.  You can’t enter into the kingdom, you won’t see the world as I see it, live in it the way I live in it, love it the way I love it, without becoming a child of the Spirit who wants to birth something new in you.  If you want to live in the natural world, be a materialist, focus on only the things you see—that’s what I mean by ‘flesh’ natural—that’s what you’ll get.  If you want to be a materialist, that’s fine, but that’s what you’ll get. If you want to see what you cannot see, if you want to live in the world of God’s Spirit, and be a part of something infinite and wondrous and beautiful and holy, then you need help, you need the Spirit. You will find what you’re searching for.  But what are you searching for—or better, whom are you searching for?

           Stunned.  Nicodemus tries to collect himself, shocked by what he heard.  Jesus knows what he’s doing. Jesus knows he’s dismantling the foundations of Nicodemus’ life and world.  Jesus is intentionally throwing him into deep existential conflict—because that is how we learn and come to life.[1] That’s what the Holy Spirit often does, throws us into conflict.  Jesus doesn’t let up, but drives the point home; he drives Nicodemus deeper into the conflict, deeper into himself.  “Do not be astonished, Nicodemus,” that I said, “You must be born from above.  The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it is goes. That’s what it’s like for everyone who is born of the Spirit” (John 3:7-8)—open to something wild and wondrous and completely beyond your control.

            “But how can these things be?” Nick objects.  “You say you’re a teacher,” Jesus replies, “and yet you do not understanding these things?” 

            And so for a third time, Jesus “verily” says: 

Here’s the God’s honest truth, Nicodemus.  Listen to me.  How can you ‘get it’ if you’re not being open to what I have to say?  I have to explain how the wind works, how are you going understand how the Spirit works?  I have come to bring you the way of the Spirit, the way of heaven, the way of God’s kingdom.  I have been sent to show you, to teach you, to love you into the kingdom.

            In order to see it, Jesus says to Nicodemus, you have to look at me, keep your eyes fixed on me.  “Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have the life of God.  For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have the life of God.  Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him” (John 3:14-17).

            That’s what Nicodemus needed to see.  That’s also, I suspect, what Nicodemus was also searching for.  “Seek and you will find” (Matthew 7:7).  It’s been said that to begin the search for God means at some level we have already been found by God.  The search itself says something about what we really desire in our hearts.  The desire itself tells what we’re searching for and who’s searching for us.  To search, to go off on that journey, even if it’s in the middle of the night, maybe especially then, is what matters. It’s the search that matters.  As the novelist Walker Percy (1919-2009) once said, “The search is what anyone would undertake if he were not sunk in the everydayness of his own life.  To become aware of the possibility of the search is to be onto something.  Not to be onto something is to be in despair.”[2]  We want to be “onto something,” we want to go on that search for God. The soul longs for this.

            In 1945, in a garbage dump in Egypt, scholars tripped over a copy of the Gospel of Thomas.  Scholars have known about this Gospel for centuries, but no one had seen a complete copy of it until 1945.  The Gospel dates from as early as 40 AD or as late as 140 AD.   In the Gospel of Thomas we find this saying of Jesus: “If you are searching, you must not stop until you find.  When you find, however, you will be troubled. [But] Your confusion will give way to wonder.  In wonder you will reign over all things.”[3]

            See and you will find.  Nicodemus found what he was searching for. The next time Nicodemus shows up in John’s Gospel, is on the Friday of Jesus’ crucifixion.  “Nicodemus, who had at first come to Jesus by night,” John tells us, “also came,”—now in full light for all to see—“bringing a mixture of myrrh and aloes, weighing about a hundred pounds.  They took the body of Jesus and wrapped it with the spices in linen cloths…” (John 19: 39, 40).  By this time Nicodemus is a follower and a believer, open to the movement of the Spirit, a witness to the crucifixion, who saw the Son of Man lifted up; with eyes transfixed upon him, high and lifted up, Nicodemus saw the love of God descending through him and through him to a world, not to condemn, but to save. 

            And here’s the point: to see what’s happening through this man lifted up on a tree, on a cross, to “see” what’s really going on in him, to see what God is doing in him, to see what God is achieving on the cross, to be caught up in God’s movement in the life of Jesus is to be born from above and so born again, reborn, reeducated by the Spirit, transformed. To know this is to be born again and again and again.  Shouldn’t this, then, be true of every follower of Christ?

           The focus here, throughout John 3, is renewal, transformation, what it takes to experience being born again or from above.  It’s about life, new life, God’s life. The text also identifies those things that hinder life, new life, God’s life.  Here’s the rub:  the tough truth we need to face is that there’s a part of us that resists renewal and transformation, which resists being born again or born from above.  To stand there with Nicodemus, though, means we acknowledge that at some deep level, we still haven’t found what we’re looking for, it means that we have to admit that our lives are in need of change, that we are like Nicodemus searching for light in the darkness, we need help—all of us.  To be born again means that the life we have from the first or original birth was and is insufficient; or to be born from above means that the natural life that we have is insufficient.  Something else is required to help us see.  A new form of birth is required.  Something new has to be given. Something new has to be experienced.  For all of us.

            This is why it’s unfortunate and, to be honest, very frustrating that the term “born-again” has become so theologically and even politically loaded these days. A Presbyterian minister and friend, Roy Howard, recently expressed his frustration over the use, even misuse of the designation “born-again.”  I share his frustration.  To experience grace means that one has been born again and every time we encounter that grace we are born again.  I have no problem claiming this label.  Roy says, “It bothers me when mainline Christians (of which I am one) say ‘I’m not one of those born again types’ meaning not a fundamentalist.”  I’m not one of those types, I’m not one of those types of Christians.  I’m Christian but not like them. “I get that,” Roy says, “but if you are not a ‘born again type’ then just what ‘type’ are you and what experience of the living God has occurred in your life that compels you to be a disciple?”  To which I reply, simply: “Amen!” 

            As we journey through Lent, as we search after Jesus, this is a good question for us:  what type are you?  What type are we as a church? Have we experienced that grace?  Where have you had an experience of the living God? What compels you to be a disciple?

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[1] See the work of James E. Loder, The Transforming Moment, 2^nd edition, (Colorado Springs, CO:  Helmers & Howard, 1989), who identifies conflictual experiences as integral if not essential to the process of transformation and growth. See also Kenneth E. Kovacs, The RelationalTheology of James E. Loder:  Encounterand Conviction (New York:  Peter Lang, 2011).

[2] Walker Percy, TheMoviegoer (1961).

[3] Logion 2, The Gospel of Thomas: Wisdom of the Twin – A Dynamic Translation, Lynn Bauman, trans.  (Ashland: White Cloud Press, 2004), 8.

A Wild, Wondrous Journey

“Temptation in the Desert” by Briton Rivière (1840-1920)

Matthew 4:1-11

First Sunday in Lent/ 9^th March 2014

An audio recording of the sermon may be found here.

Temptation seems to fill the air during Lent; Lent seems to be organized around it.  The lectionary for this first Sunday in Lent begins with Jesus tempted by the devil in the wilderness. It casts its shadow over these forty days.  Temptation is the enemy that requires our vigilance and diligence, especially if you felt called to give up something for Lent: chocolate, alcohol, television, Facebook.  Can you free yourself from the Tempter’s power?  Can you make it all the way to Holy Week? 

            There’s no way around it.  Temptation is all over this text.  Three times the devil tries to unnerve Jesus and obstruct him from his mission.  After forty days Jesus is famished, exhausted, weak, tired, thirsty, hungry.  And then the Tempter arrives.

            This really is a remarkable text. It’s easy to be drawn into it, dropped down into this dramatic setting, this place of struggle and anguish. This is a vivid story made for cinema or television. 

            It’s also a problematic text in that it’s easy to come away with all kinds of views regarding the devil and temptation, some of which are not helpful.  I’ve met Christians who live in a perpetual state of fear and anxiety that they might not be strong enough to sustain a full court press from the Tempter.  They think the devil is under every stone, around every corner, just waiting for an opportune time to tempt and attack, deceive and destroy Christians. There’s a kind of paranoia that sets in as they wait for the devil to trick them. They’re always on guard.  This is not a healthy way to live, neither is it a joyful way to live.

            The temptation is real in this story—and it’s serious.  These are not trivial amusements trying to lull Jesus away from his work.  He’s being tempted by desire, materialism, tempted by power, tempted by influence and glory, tempted by religion. He’s being tempted with an alternative narrative for his life, “If you are the Son of God….” If…  Does Jesus know that he’s the Son of God?  Is this what he’s really wrestling with in the wilderness?  And if he consents, if he claims this identity, accepts this power, what then?  How does one then live with such an identity, how does one make use of such power?

            That’s really what’s at stake here.  Yes, it’s about temptation.  But it’s about more than temptation.  To focus on temptation is a moralistic reading of this text.  It’s more than simply a warning: watch out, the devil will tempt us, don’t give into temptation.  This would be a surface reading of the text.

            We know there’s more to it than this because of one word.  It’s one word that’s often overlooked in the hearing of this story.  And that one word is: Spirit (Matthew 4:1).

            After Jesus’ baptism the Spirit of God sends Jesus into the wilderness to be tempted.  His temptation is ordered, directed, not by the devil, as it were, but by the Spirit of God.  The devil is not doing anything here beyond the purview of God’s providence. The Spirit sends Jesus into the wilderness to be tempted. And if the Spirit is God’s Spirit and if God’s Spirit is love, then we have to conclude that it’s for the sake of love, the Spirit’s love for Jesus that he’s sent deep into the wilderness of Judea.  Then we could say that it’s love that sends him into this space.  This might sound odd and strange and not very loving. But it’s for the sake of God’s love for him and, I would argue, God’s love for us that he’s sent into the wilderness. Why?  Because there were things Jesus needed to discover about himself that could only be discovered in the wilderness.  There were things he needed to struggle with that could only be experienced there in the wilderness. There were things he could only discover in the struggle, in the fight, in the wrestling. 

            There are things we can only discover about ourselves when we, too, have been thrown into the wilderness.  There are things that we only begin to really, honestly, struggle with when we are thrown into wild, unfamiliar places.  There are things we discover about ourselves and our neighbors, the world, even God, when we are in the fight, when we’re struggling to survive, when we’re lost in the search for meaning, when we're wrestling with our demons, putting them in their place, and then coming out on the other side of it all with the angels of God waiting on us and tending to us (Matthew 4: 11).

            I don’t know why it has to be this way.  But it is.  I don’t know why the world is ordered this way. But it is. This seems like a risky, even precarious way for God to order human life.  Why can’t we just discover these things without the struggle and the fight and the wrestling?  I don’t know. 

            But there are at least two things I do know.   First, what I do know and what this text seems to suggest is that a wilderness is required—an unfamiliar territory of some kind.  It could be a geographic place, a life-situation or experience, or, psychologically, the vast terrains of the human heart.  We can stay home, remain forever in the familiar, but then we’ll miss out on discovering what the soul truly hungers for.

            The hard truth is that “Great issues affecting [humankind] always have to be decided in the wilderness.” These are the words of Alfred Delp (1907-1945), written in Tegel Prison, Berlin, Epiphany 1945, where Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906-1945) was also a prisoner for a time.  Delp was a Jesuit priest, theologian, philosopher, who was part of an assassination attempt against Adolf Hitler (1889-1945).  “Great issues affecting [humankind] always have to be decided in the wilderness; in uninterrupted isolation and unbroken silence. They hold a meaning and blessing these great, silent, empty spaces that bring [one] face to face with reality.”[1]  These are extraordinary words written in the wilderness of a prison cell.

            The second thing is this.  What I do know and what this text seems to suggest is that, like Jesus, we need to be pushed up against our limits, our limitations must be exposed.  It’s not unlike what an athlete in training experiences.  Places such as deserts and wildernesses are good at doing this for us—places known for their silence, their emptiness, places untamed, places that don’t care about us, don’t care whether or not we survive, that are completely indifferent to our wants and needs.  Life situations can bring us to our limits. When we come up against our mortality—the ever ashen-quality of our lives—that we are dust, this is also a limiting thought.  Now all of this can be depressing, I know. That’s what you’re probably thinking.  This doesn’t have to be, but it often is.  These are not essentially happy thoughts.  But don’t blame me.  And yet it’s part of the Christian message. It’s not the best evangelism method tool.  Churches don’t generally grow with this kind of message.  You don’t find it on church signs:  Join us at 10:30 a.m. and discover your limitations! Refreshments will be served.

            And, yet, this is the difficult, demanding, heart-breaking, achingly beautiful and gracious message of the gospel: there is liberation and release when we discover our limits.  This is what T. S. Eliot (1888-1965) was getting at in his poem “Little Gidding,” one of the poems in Four Quartets.  Little Gidding is a small village in England, with an old Anglican Church and cemetery, which Eliot visited in 1936. In this poem he’s talking about the poet’s use of language as a metaphor for the Christian life.

           

            Every phrase and every sentence

            is an end and a beginning,

            Every poem is an epitaph – epitaph, as on a gravestone. 

            Any action is a step to the block, to the fire,

            down the sea’s throat

            Or to an illegible stone: and that is where we start. 

The illegible stone is an old tombstone, with the name worn away by the elements, by time.  That is where we start. That is where the Christian life begins, that’s where the journey begins.  Eliot is drawing here upon the wisdom of the English mystic Julian of Norwich (1342-c.1413) who said, “In my end is my beginning.”

            The Spirit sends Jesus out into the wilderness to discover his limitations, to bring him up against his limits, in order for him to discover who he is and what he’s capable of accomplishing.  And he discovers this in the struggle with the Tempter.  The Tempter doesn’t have horns, a red suit, and a pitchfork.  The devil, diabolos, in the Greek, means “one who throws things about.”  Dia, meaning through, around; bolos, meaning to throw.  The diabolos stirs things up, tries to confuse us, muddies the waters, and distorts reality.  He’s pushes Jesus.  Tries to disorient him, confuse him, distort his reality, maybe even speak to his weaknesses and doubts and his fears.  And each time, Jesus pushes back, reaffirms what’s true, and stays grounded.  In the face of these distractions, Jesus remains focused and committed to God’s vision for his life, with each “attack” he reaffirms who he is and who he isn’t, he comes to terms with his identity and his calling, all of it forged in the heat of the desert under the protective eyes of the Spirit.  And all of this was necessary in order to equip him for what was to come, to enable him to claim his identity, so that he could be faithful to the burden of the call placed upon his life.  He then drew upon this experience throughout his ministry, especially in a garden, in the middle of the night, sweating blood, wrestling again with the purpose and meaning of his life (Luke 22:44).

            The psychiatrist Carl Jung (1875-1961) said, “Man needs difficulties, they are necessary for health.”[2]  Writing to clergy in 1932, Jung said, “…every psychic advance arises from the suffering of the soul….”[3]  This is not a glorification of suffering; neither is he saying that God causes suffering.  But what Jung is trying to get at here, and I think he’s right and worth our consideration, is that through our struggles, our desire to suffer through what we’re confronted with, to undergo and struggle and resist and fight everything that is thrown at us and tries to confuse us and muddy the waters, even as Jesus did, we will discover something that we need to know.  And not only what we need to know, as if this were merely an intellectual game, but something more, something will be gained in our hearts, in our lives as Christians, an advance made, progress, development, growth in the Christian life, personal transformation, which has the potential to transform the world.   And that’s the good news here.

            And there’s one more sign of good news here. The number 40.  It might be the Bible’s way of saying “a very long time,” but it’s never empty time, it’s never unending.  It’s actually a time of cultivation and growth, a time of preparation for what comes next.  Every experience of 40—whether days or years—in scripture, whether it’s Israel wandering for forty years in the wilderness of Sinai or Jesus in the wilderness of Judea—yields something new.  Here we can see an advance, something gained from the experience.  Jesus comes bursting out of this experience overflowing with spiritual energy, teeming with vitality, engaged, active, ready to take on the world, ready to preach the good news of God’s Kingdom with passion, with strength, with compassion, with love.[4]                    

            Altogether, Jesus shows us: this is what is means to be human, women and men in relationship with God.  Jesus’ way is our way, our way through Lent and beyond.  His way is our way; our way is his way.  This is the wild, wondrous journey we’ve been invited to share. So may we too pray, boldly, courageously:  Come, Holy Spirit, come. 

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[1] Alfred Delp, “Epiphany 1945: the Law of the Wilderness.” http://pedrokolbe.wordpress.com/2014/01/08/epiphany-1945-the-law-of-the-wilderness/.

[2] C. G. Jung, “The Transcendent Function,” in Collected Works of C. G. Jung, Vol. 8, par. 143 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1970). Jung adds, “What concerns us…is only an excessive amount of them.”

[3] C. G. Jung, “Psychotherapists or the Clergy,” Collected Works of C. G. Jung, Vol. 11, par. 497 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1975). Jung wrote, “…all creativeness in the realm of the spirit as well as every psychic advance of man arises from the suffering of the soul, and the cause of the suffering is spiritual stagnation, or psychic sterility.”

[4] Clarence Jordan, The Substance of Faith: and Other Cotton Patch Sermons (Wipf & Stock, 2013), 9ff.

Partially Blinded by the Truth

The Transfiguration by Cornelius Monsma

Matthew 17: 1-8

Transfiguration of the Lord/ 2^nd March 2014 

Sacrament of Holy Communion

There are moments when it all comes into focus, moments when things become perfectly clear, moments of searing insight and brilliance that change everything. “I once was blind,” the old hymn goes, “but now I see.”  I see—and nothing, no one will ever again look the same. There was a time when we thought we knew who Jesus was, thought we had him figured out, thought we knew what it meant to believe in him, to follow him, but everything changed, in a moment, in the blink of an eye. 

There are times when we are drawn to a holy place, a holy mountain, a holy moment when we’re given a revelation, an apocalypse, meaning an opening, and we’re allowed to see who Jesus really is.  Seeing him transfigured transfigures our eyes and thoughts, our ears and our hearts.  The core of his being shines through the radiance of his face and he becomes dazzling, like a flame, with the intensity of pure, white, blinding light.  In the midst of the cloud overshadowing him a voice is heard: “This is my Son, my Beloved; with him I am well pleased: listen to him!” (Matthew 9:5).  It’s a voice that throws every disciple to the ground, overcome by fear.  Yet, Jesus approaches, touches us—in our fear—and says to us, “Get up and do not be afraid.”

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Three imperatives. One from God: “Listen to him,” meaning the Son. And then from the Son, these two encouraging, compassionate commands: “Get up,” followed by “Do not be afraid.”

But why were they afraid? Wouldn’t you be? I would. The natural response to the glory of God’s presence is fear. You can call it “holy awe” if it makes you feel better, but that’s merely a veiled attempt to tame and domesticate the experience.  It’s probably more like ego-shock, a seismic shock to our sensibilities, an awareness of someone completely Other, an overwhelming Other before whose presence we know we have no right to stand—and so we fall.  Down.  Down on our knees and we cover our faces before the presence of the Holy.

When the Holy One moves in our lives it can be a fearful thing (which is why it’s so often resisted, because our egos know the truth). But we can’t run forever.  Why is it fearful?   In part, because our egos thrive on fear.  Encountering God, having an experience of the Holy is fearful because it inevitably costs us something, namely the ego’s control over reality and the direction of our lives. Get mixed up with this God and you’ll soon discover that there’s more going on in the world and within you and me than meets the eye.  It’s because we can’t see it, won’t see it, that our sight is always in need of transfiguration. And the ego is fearful because God might actually show me things about myself or the world or life or about Godself and God’s vision for our lives that we really don’t want to see, because once we see there’s no way for us to “unsee” it—without betraying ourselves.  Once seen, I’m responsible for it. 

And it’s fearful because this God might then actually ask something of me, to do something with this new knowledge, this revelation; God might ask me to do something that’s simply too big for me to do, to become someone I know I’m not (or not yet), to go where I would rather not go, that doesn't appear safe, called to embark on a journey that I prefer not to take.[1] To encounter the Living God, to face the Holy One, to stand before God’s light, to have such an experience means fundamentally, ultimately, that you will be changed—you just will.  You will be different.  You just will.  You don’t have any choice in the matter. If we don’t, whether suddenly or gradually, then it’s probably safe to say we haven’t encountered God.  My old friend Sören Kierkegaard (1813-1855) said, “Once you wise up, you can’t dummy down.” For after encountering the presence of God in the face of Jesus Christ how can you go back to normal? What is normal after that?

Yet, Normalcy, Safety, Security, these are the gods, the idols worshiped in our age, even in the Church.  Normalcy, safety, and security have little to do with being a disciple of Jesus Christ.

On the Sunday before the beginning of Lent, this text speaks to what it does mean to be a disciple, to be a student in the school of Jesus.  Fear is never the ultimate reality for the disciple; we are called to live beyond fear—and that’s difficult. To follow inevitably involves a cost. Therefore, it requires courage—courage to see, to look at, to acknowledge the radiance of God in the face of Jesus Christ—to not deny it—and then live from that moment with all its life-changing implications. 

In Marilynne Robinson’s brilliant novel, Gilead, we find the story of the Reverend John Ames, who, approaching the end of his life, writes to his young son about what it means to live a life in relation to the Holy, what it means to experience God.  John writes, “…the Lord is more constant and far more extravagant than it seems to imply. Wherever you turn your eyes the world can shine like transfiguration. You don’t have to bring a thing to it except a little willingness to see. Only, who could have the courage to see it?”[2]

Courage. In 1922, J. M. Barrie (1860-1937), of Peter Pan-fame, gave a speech to the students of the University of St. Andrews in Scotland. As Rector of the University he spoke a word of encouragement to a generation of youth shattered and disillusioned by the Great War. “Courage is the thing,” he said. “All goes if courage goes.”[3]

But, where do we find such courage? How do we get the courage to get up, step out, live without fear and see the light of God’s presence shining in the face of Christ and then to live our lives boldly, courageously, from that light, as changed people, with lives given up all for the glory of God?  For, this is really what the depth of our souls long for more than anything else.  The ego is fearful. It wants normalcy, security, safety. But there’s more to you and me than our egos.  The soul, the human spirit wants life and love and adventure and service!

Do we have the courage to listen to him, to be disciples, to go where he leads? If we’re honest, the answer is the same for you and me: no. On our own we don’t. If we have to trust our inner resources to try to dredge up courage, then courage becomes a kind of works righteousness, whereby we seek to earn our salvation, acting as if God had nothing to do with it all, relying only on ourselves—and, relying on only ourselves, that’s a horrifying, terrifying way to live a life.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

In the midst of their fear and terror and inadequacy, Jesus went over to his disciples down on the ground, he touched them and said: Get up. Get up. Get up. Don’t be afraid.

Get up and follow, free from binding fear, because the Lord of love has touched you and assures you that you can. Get up and follow, unconstrained by anxiety because his grace summons us to do so. The one who commands us also equips us with the courage, he encourages us to follow. Get up and do not be afraid because it’s the Lord who tells us so—and he can be trusted.

It’s the same Lord who invites us to come to his table.

The Last Supper by Pascal-Adolphe-Jean Dagnan-Bouveret (1852 – 1929)

My former professor at Princeton Seminary, mentor and dear friend, James Loder (1931-2001), once said, “Perhaps only those who have once been partially blinded by the Truth—whether suddenly or gradually—come to the breath-taking realization that the One who sits at table and breaks bread and drinks wine with us is the One through whom and for whom all ten billion light years of creation, including our own come-lately, here-and-now existence, have their being.”[4]  

So, set your fear aside.  Share the bread of grace, drink the cup of his courage, which, together, allow us to listen to him and then frees us to follow and go wherever he wants to send us.

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[1] Here, I reflect the thought C. G. Jung (1875-1961) who insisted that an experience of the Holy or numinosum, or to use Jung’s term, the Self, “is always a defeat for the ego.” C. G. Jung, Mysterium Coniunctionis, Collected Works, 14 par. 778. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1977).

[2] Marilynne Robinson, Gilead:A Novel (New York: Farrar, Straus, & Giroux, 2004), 245. Emphasis added.

[3] J. M. Barrie, Courage. The Rectorial Address delivered at St. Andrew’s University, May 3, 1922. (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1922), 40.

[4] James E. Loder, The Transforming Moment (Colorado Springs: Helmers & Howard, 1990).  For further reading on Loder’s theological vision, see Kenneth E. Kovacs, The Relational Theology of JamesE. Loder:  Encounter and Conviction (New York: Peter Lang, 2001).