The Carpenter's Apprentice

A Parable by Kimberley Fais

Photo Source

Manuel made his way through the woodshop that he had inherited from his father. Now himself an esteemed carpenter, Manuel found the apprentice at a workbench in the back, putting the finishing touches on a model ship about the size and weight of his own two hands.

Seeing his craftsmanship, Manuel told the apprentice, "You will build a boat fit for a journey."

The apprentice looked up in surprise. "I will?"

"You will."

"When?"

"While I am away."

Without another word, Manuel set out, and the apprentice set to work.

The apprentice was overwhelmed with honor and excitement. This was his chance to do something real and useful. Oh, he loved fashioning toys that would delight and entertain children and knickknacks that would adorn shelves and mantels, but never before had he been entrusted to build a true vessel.

He made the boat from a dense wood, the most extravagant he could afford. It was the kind of wood known to make exquisite furniture, and the apprentice imagined his ship transporting a king across the sea. He embellished the mast and carved a figurehead for the bow. He sanded the hull smooth and drenched the interior with varnish until it shone. He added every imaginable accent and amenity to raise the boat’s appeal.

When Manuel returned, he found the boat at the woodshop.

"It's heavy," said Manuel.

The apprentice quickly tried to reassure the carpenter. "Wait," he said, bustling around the entirety of the boat and plucking off various pieces. "I can fix that. I’ll get rid of the extras."

The carpenter shook his head. "Build again."

Without another word, Manuel set out, and the apprentice set to work.

The apprentice was embarrassed about his mistake; that he had gotten so carried away, so complacent. Of course his first real ship should have been humble, simple, understated. This time, he built a boat that was lightweight and thin and very nearly bare, save for the most essential of essentials; nothing unnecessary or cumbersome to weigh it down.

When Manuel returned, he found the boat at the woodshop.

"It's light," said Manuel.

"It'll float," the apprentice said proudly.

"And crumble in the waves," said the carpenter, a regretful expression to his brow. "Build again."

Without another word, Manuel set out, and the apprentice set to work.

The apprentice found just the right sort of wood for a boat, but he became self-conscious about his ability to build a ship that would not be too unwieldy or unbalanced or structurally flawed. He had failed twice already, and he desperately wanted this boat to be one fit for water. He made a sturdy little boat, one that surely could endure a bit of tossing in the waves without toppling.

When Manuel returned, he found the boat in the woodshop.

"It's small," said Manuel.

"Size doesn't matter," wailed the apprentice, "as long as the boat is balanced and strong. That's what you said!"

"You made a boat for you," said the carpenter, "a safe and simple project. This time you must build for more than yourself."

The apprentice sighed with impatience. "Come on, Manuel. Even Noah got measurements for the ark. Just how big should this thing be?"

The carpenter replied, "Big enough."

"OK," said the apprentice. "So what is that in cubits?"

The carpenter simply smiled and said, "Build again."

Then, without another word, Manuel set out, and the apprentice set to work.

The apprentice built the biggest ship he could build. If a boat for one made him seem petty and self-centered and aloof, a boat built for a massive crowd would surely be inviting and triumphant. No one would be turned away from a ship this great, and what a tribute it would be to Manuel, the mentor whose apprentice single-handedly built such a remarkable ship.

When Manuel returned, he found the boat in the woodshop.

"It's big," said Manuel.

The apprentice looked hopeful. "Big enough?"

"Too big," said Manuel.

"Whoa, whoa, wait." The apprentice leapt to the side of the boat in its defense. "Are you worried about the floating thing again? Because I know this one will float. I used the strong, lightweight wood and everything."

"Too big," said Manuel, "because there are not enough sailors to manage it."

"So we'll get more sailors."

"We will have only the sailors we will have," said Manuel.

"You know what this is all about," the apprentice insisted. "You know, but you're not telling me, and it isn't helping. How many sailors will need to board this thing?"

But the carpenter only smiled and said, "Build again." As he turned to go, the apprentice caught his arm.

"Manuel," the apprentice insisted, "I've built again and again. I need to know more. I need to know who is traveling and where they are going and how best to get them there."

"Yes," said the carpenter. "Yes, you do."

So the carpenter set out, and the apprentice went into the center of town.

He watched and listened and wandered the streets, noticing things he never noticed before. He realized then that ever since he became the carpenter’s apprentice, he tended only to notice people enjoying their handiwork—the children who had received toys built in the shop; shopkeepers using shelves and furniture and tools crafted from wood.

For the first time in a long time, the apprentice walked through town and saw and heard what people needed. The apprentice had only received his assignments from the carpenter, but it seemed that the carpenter had wanted him to surface from the woodshop so that he could talk to the townspeople himself.

But no one he met had any need of a boat.

Then he met a family just beyond the market. With some weary reluctance, the woman with a wriggling toddler in her arms explained to the apprentice that they all needed to get home, across the sea, and didn't know yet how they would make the journey.

The apprentice looked at the family; the mother and a few of her grown children would be strong and able sailors, and some smaller children would need a safe space to travel with them.

The apprentice smiled and said, "Come back to the woodshop with me to tell me more, and I will build a boat fit for the journey."

The Garden: A Revelation

When Hilary Rhodes of Woman at the Well sent me the post she wrote for this blog based on one of mine, her theological and historical exploration originally culminated in a beautiful personal testimony, which I loved even more than the insightful analysis of grace. I told Hilary that these parts' length and content (related, yet quite different) suggested to me that they should indeed be two separate pieces, so what you've seen this week is that first portion.

Because the second part is so personally meaningful, Hilary would like to make WATW its home, and I agree. It moved me, though, and so I'd like to make a point of recommending it to you and directing you over to WATW to read the full text. It's a descriptive piece about a spiritual vision she experienced; a story of depression and consolation, fear and grace.

Hilary and I differ in much of how and where we were raised and the theological and political landscapes around us. We have walked individual and intersecting paths. But I feel a sense of camaraderie in both her writing voice (particularly in her more personal writings) and in many of the issues she confronts. The blend of ideological differences and similarities between us, in fact, serves to remind me how simultaneously unique and intricately connected the parts of the Body of Christ truly are.

And so it is my pleasure to introduce to you Hilary's visionary tale:

I can’t tell you the moment I lost my faith. Sometime when I was about 14, when I was old enough to understand how shallow and fear-based and resistant to questions and dismissive of real need my experience of it had hereunto been. This was followed with six years of becoming an increasingly angry atheist. I can, however, tell you – almost to the hour – the moment I found it again:

The night of Thursday, September 6, 2008.

It was two months before one of the most heated presidential elections in history. I’d just come off a tearingly difficult, lonely, and isolated sophomore year of college, where I’d battled depression so severe that if I didn’t have anything to do, I’d stay in bed until 3 PM with the shades shut. I was saved by a deep friendship with an absolutely wonderful guy in my psychology class. (Matt, shout-out time.) But I’d been struggling over the summer again, and although I was about to take off to Oxford University and fulfill one of my longtime dreams, I was faced with a dialogue that was (especially on the right wing) about nothing but fear and despair. About the “destruction of America.” About this scary dark-skinned guy with the scary “Muslim” name. About how there might not be time for me, and my future family and children and grandchildren.

I was lying in bed in the darkness, crying. Just so scared. So scared. I was screaming in my soul. I was in agony. I couldn’t even breathe.

I couldn’t do it alone. I just couldn’t. It was too big for me. It was too much. It was beyond my ability to bear. And so I did the only thing I could:

I asked for help.

I listened to it echo in the walls. I watched headlights pass on the ceiling.

I eventually subsided into a troubled sleep.

And that night, the Word came back.

This is what I remember...

Read more.

The Cost of Grace

by Hilary Rhodes, contributor

Today, I’d like to expand on Kim’s last post about “deceptive Christian tippers,” and to do so through the lens of my current muse: Dietrich Bonhoeffer.


Source

Bonhoeffer, as you may know, was a German Lutheran pastor who died a martyr – he was hanged at Flossenburg concentration camp in April 1945, days before it was liberated by the Allies – for his single-minded, incredibly courageous, uncompromising efforts to resist Hitler and the Nazis. Thus, his writings (Cost of Discipleship, Christ the Center, Ethics, and more) are uniquely positioned to speak to us on the true role of a Christian in the savage twentieth and twenty-first centuries, our call to social activism, and how – in his case – to reconcile it with the bluntly pacifist message of Jesus, who famously instructs us to turn the other cheek and not resist an evil man.

CHEAP GRACE

As I read Kim’s post about Christian diners who leave come-to-Jesus tracts for their restaurant servers in place of cash tips, it occurred to me that this was a great way to explore Bonhoeffer’s conceptions of “cheap” and “costly” grace, almost literally. The diners may feel that by leaving an instruction manual on how to obtain “eternal life,” they are doing their waiter or waitress a much greater and lasting service than if they’d merely left them a temporal, worldly gift of money. But the questions raised are twofold:

1) How can this anonymous, tight-fisted, downright pharisaical method of drive-by evangelism possibly communicate the life-changing, radical, and completely counterculture nature of the Gospels?

2) In fact, can there be any benefit to it besides the fact that it makes the diner feel as if they’ve “done their part”? Or is it just a low-risk, cop-out, “don’t look at me” method of proselytizing that indeed sets the public perception of Christianity back still further?

Bonhoeffer would characterize it as the latter. In The Cost of Discipleship, which I am currently reading, he opens with an admonishment to the Christian community to take a hard-eyed look at their methods of preaching, and judge whether this leads people to the actual Word of God, or is intended instead to protect the “look but don’t touch” insular country-club nature of many churches. He then examines his own Protestant heritage, and how Martin Luther kicked off the sixteenth-century Reformation with the radical idea that not good works but rather grace alone is sufficient to redeem an individual.

There’s many a theological discussion to be had about Luther and his message, not least his rabid anti-Semitism. But Bonhoeffer’s focus for exploration – and mine – is how the concept of grace, and its function in Christian life, has become grossly misunderstood and devalued. Luther’s proposition that God alone confers salvation has led, as Bonhoeffer points out, to a sense among many contemporary Christians that they can live a life identical to their secular counterparts in nearly every respect. Save for going to church on Sundays, certain taboos in vocabulary, and, yes, leaving evangelical tracts in place of tips, they can live essentially as they did before, confident that grace has been put to work to wipe out the rest of their transgressions. It becomes “the justification of sin, rather than the justification of the sinner in the world.”

Bonhoeffer calls this “cheap grace,” and characterizes it as the greatest threat, bar none, to a real, vital Christian calling in this day and age. When Christianity is lax, lazy, and easy, when it demands nothing from us and is palatable to the suburban everyman leery of scary words like “sacrifice” and “suffering,” it completely loses the radical quality on which it was founded. It becomes Christianity without Christ.

So what’s the answer? How can we maintain a distinctively Christian identity? Or will this build the exclusionary walls even higher, if Christianity has an entrance exam harder than Harvard’s?

COSTLY GRACE

The commandments of Jesus are deceptively simple. “Sell all you have, give to the poor, and come, follow Me.” When asked how to obtain eternal life, he doesn’t break out a phonebook-sized manual of rules and regulations. He merely affirms the Commandments first given to Charlton Heston Moses: Don’t kill. Don’t steal. Don’t commit adultery. Honor your father and mother. Love God with all your heart, soul, body, and mind. And love your neighbor as you love yourself.

I’ve written several entries at my own blog dealing with the nature of these commandments, and how we (present company no exception) so often fail at putting them into practice in daily life. But the other thing to keep in mind is that Jesus is always, uncompromisingly, and brutally honest about what the cost of discipleship entails. When He calls you, you can’t stop to bury your father or say goodbye to your loved ones. You can’t set your terms and then follow. You can’t follow when the stock market’s doing well. You drop everything, and follow. Period.

This is also the hardest thing we can ever do. Bonhoeffer puts it just as frighteningly: “When Christ calls a man, he calls him to come and die.”

Because in fact, we do die. Maybe not in actual martyrdom, as Bonhoeffer did, but in everything we were before, our old habits and neurotic fixations and judgments and beliefs and cop-outs. We burn away. We do sell everything, whether physically, mentally, emotionally, financially, or otherwise. And in stripping ourselves of these worldly accoutrements, we are thrown into a new life where we are forced to rely completely on the Divine Mercy.

And in so doing, we don’t give up everything and get nothing for our trouble. We receive the Pearl of Great Price. We receive, in this utterly necessary, transcendent sacrifice, the gift of costly grace. Our life is no longer our own, and has been bought on a heavenly account we can never pay back – and don’t have to. That story has already been told. The story of how love overcomes evil, the truth of all human reality. The power of death, and our own death, has been broken forever.

It’s done. It’s been done for a while. On a beautiful spring morning almost two thousand years ago, two women in Jerusalem met a man they thought was the gardener. And it ended.

It’s not about blood and guts. It never was.

Hollywood’s never figured that out.

THE CROSS

Like many Christians, I like to wear a cross necklace. It’s another easy and low-risk way of displaying religious conviction – that is, when it isn’t just a throwaway fashion statement. But for Bonhoeffer, it’s a reminder of nothing more or less than our own absolute commitment to follow Jesus’ path, even unto its uttermost end.

We each have our own crosses to bear. Starting out on a spiritual journey will, I promise, show yours to you pretty darn quick. And it’s a scary proposition. It explicitly includes suffering, and that death I mentioned above. So why would we, as creatures who are naturally averse to pain, choose to do that to ourselves?

What if our cross to carry was to humbly accept the unconditional love and mercy of God, for ourselves and for everyone we meet? To yield ourselves into the arms of a Divine who is so deeply in love with us that He did not consider the life of His Son too high a price to pay for our redemption?

Does that sound so terrible? So dangerous, so exclusionary? So self-righteous, so bloodstained, so many of the adjectives that are (sadly, and truly) used to characterize the exploits of many people who have called themselves Christian throughout the centuries?

For Bonhoeffer, this was the ultimate core of his call to resist the Nazis. He understood that Jesus was not preaching a message of passive acceptance, the life of cheap grace, to sit back and let the most evil dictator of the twentieth century – perhaps in all of history – seize control of his beloved home country.

To turn the other cheek didn’t mean to become collaborators, either active or complicit. What it was, was a call not to fight the Nazis on their terms. They wouldn’t be brought down by Bonhoeffer and his fellows becoming them.

Because the Sermon on the Mount, possibly the most gloriously counter-intuitive message in all of human history, is a call to action. To demonstrate, to create, to live the Kingdom of Heaven, and the perfect love of God. Here. Now. Forever.


Hilary Rhodes has recently launched her own blog at Woman at the Well, where she ruminates on issues of social justice, courageous faith, the creative life, and more. Although Sarah Lawrence College is regularly cited as one of the least religious schools in America, it was there that she rediscovered, and fell in love with, her lost childhood faith – except on a hundred orders of magnitude more, in depths of experience and mercy that she never, ever thought were possible. For more on that, keep tabs on WATW.

Hell Is the Suffering of Being Unable to Love

God, forgive me. And forgive me, brothers and sisters, for I have sinned against you.

In the midst of it, I believe I have glimpsed hell.

I find it necessary to interject that in all of my encounters with dark nights of the soul or perceiving distance from God, I'm not sure I have ever had the sense that any one was a literally hellish experience.

They were pretty invariably disconcerting, painful, sad, confusing, and all-around not ideal. They hurt. When they did not just plain hurt, they left me feeling sort of hollow. ("Is nothingness light or heavy?") And yet there was always something suspiciously good lurking in the background.

Each time, I discovered - whether I came to the conclusion during the experience or only long afterward - that there was something extraordinarily good not only in the God who got me through the dark nights, but even in those seemingly grotesque dark nights themselves. Those "nights" reminded me of my humanity and the Divine's divinity. They helped me to relate genuinely to other hurting humans. They made me realize that my clearest experiences of grace and love were no less real to me just because my mood had changed. Apparently one need not "feel" God constantly in order to honor one's past (and future) encounters. That was news to me.

Yes, in God's mercy, even my most harrowing spiritual droughts ultimately bore fruit.

But there is one moment - at least one that stands out from any other - when I experienced what I can only describe as hell on earth.

I've long thought that the phrase "hell on earth" best described the dangerous, poor living conditions inflicted on the oppressed persons of the world, and perhaps that is still the case. I have been fortunate enough in this life not to believe that I can gauge the hellishness of true social and systemic injustices. That may be an analytical exploration for another time.

But that isn't the sort of hellishness I'm talking about now. I'm referring, rather, to Fyodor Dostoevsky's hell:

"Fathers and teachers, I ponder, 'What is hell?'
I maintain that it is the suffering of being unable to love."

-Father Zosima, The Brothers Karamazov

On a few occasions, I worshipped in a certain church in which I felt generally uncomfortable - theologically (different interpretations, teachings, and priorities than my home-churches'), liturgically (different style, content, and vocabulary), and spatially (different physical and social atmosphere). Considering how ecumenical I am in my approach to many church matters, this extraordinary discomfiture alone made a significant impact on me. It scared me and fascinated me.

During one particular service, the sermon wrenched my heart. To the gathered community, it may not have been remarkable; it may have been legitimately inspiring and galvanizing. To me, it was nearly unrecognizable as a Christian teaching, and I felt spiritually distanced from some of my fellow Christ-followers.

After the message came perhaps my favorite practice: Communion. But there was one problem. I was still so angry.

"But I say to you that if you are angry with a brother or sister, you will be
liable to judgement; and if you insult a brother or sister, you will be liable
to the council; and if you say, 'You fool,' you will be liable to the hell of fire.
So when you are offering your gift at the altar, if you remember that your brother
or sister has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go;
first be reconciled to your brother or sister, and then come and offer your gift."

-Matthew 5:22-24 NRSV

My first anger-induced inclination might have been to refuse Communion - something I had never done before - because of those who blessed it that day.

This quickly dissolved into a more realistic, less self-righteous realization: I could not accept Communion in that moment because of the anger within me. As though to deny me the indulgence of letting my non-participation slip by unnoticed, by the time it reached my seat, the plate bearing Christ's Body was empty.

As the usher disappeared in pursuit of a filled plate, I wondered what I should do when he returned. Surely he would remember that the fed had ended with the one before me, and instead of the plate being passed along my row for me to decline quietly, he would extend it directly to me. Would I still refuse?

For a moment, I feared that he would take it personally. I got over that quickly enough and passed the refreshed plate.

But the weeping and gnashing of teeth, deep in my being, refused to cease.

Where can I go from Your Spirit?
Or where can I flee from Your presence?
If I ascend into heaven, You are there;
If I make my bed in hell,* behold, You are there.
If I take the wings of the morning,
And dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea,
Even there Your hand shall lead me,
And Your right hand shall hold me.
If I say, "Surely the darkness shall fall on me,"
Even the night shall be light about me;
Indeed, the darkness shall not hide from You,
But the night shines as the day;
The darkness and the light are both alike to You.

-Psalm 139:7-8 NKJV

* Here other translations read: "the depths" or "Sheol." A discussion for another day.


In my rebellion and inadequacy, I may have been tempted to believe that I had - if only inadvertently - escaped God's love. But I had not.

The love of God sought me out in my hell. It was the love of God which far surpassed my own frail attempts to love, and nevertheless met me where I had entrenched myself. For even when I could summon no love in myself for this Otherness, the Holy Spirit - in that unrelenting, no-nonsense sort of love - convicted my heart.

If God had not come with me to my hell, I fear I would not have known how to climb out of it nor remember that there was even an alternative to it. The weeping and gnashing of teeth in my core meant that I craved the love I still knew could be. Only that unconditional love, willing to reveal itself to me in the unlikely place, my undeserving state, could show me what pained me and what I must do.

And I realized then, as I passed the Communion elements along without partaking, that God was calling me to do what I honestly dreaded: love those - yes, even those - whom I find so difficult to love.

Familiar words? Of course they were. I was a Christian, after all... wasn't I? But oh, what that call meant to me in that moment! Never had I been so angry - so hopelessly, helplessly, irreparably angry; so willing to refuse to take part in a community; so determined to disagree, to declare that they said they followed Christ yet surely they were doing it wrong!

Never before had I found myself so incapable of granting grace, and in such desperate need of receiving it.

The Gospel is Not a Weapon

In November, a pastor named Jim Swilley came out to his congregation; in an interview with CNN, he discussed his church and family, as well as the misuse and abuse of scripture.

View the video below, and please excuse the general incompetence of the interviewer.




I regret that the interviewer really didn't allow Swilley more time to speak to the issue (near the end of the interview as it were), but I appreciate that Swilley's words echo the message of this clip from the film "Saved," a great illustration of the matter at-hand:




(Thank you to D. for reminding me of this scene!)


It saddens me when any faith of peace is manipulated or misrepresented to do harm in any form. But instead of continuing to rehash the ways in which scripture has been used as a weapon, I'd like to share something else.

I've recently written about my take on syncretism, religious diversity, and upholding one's right to belief. But with that, I believe in the right to share one's beliefs. I think a leave-it-alone, don't-ask-don't-tell approach in which everyone is expected to keep their business to themselves can put us in a vacuum.

So here are a few of my own tips for sharing one's beliefs; and while I write them from one Christian's perspective, I hope that if you see anything that rings true in other traditions, you will say so or take it with you. I will list them now and expand upon them later for the sake of readability.


Thoughtful, Authentic, Nonviolent Evangelism

-Be honest about where your religion or worldview falls short or where you think it could fall short. A religion with limitation does not necessarily indicate a God with limitation.

-Consider context. Be willing to approach people in different ways, respecting their own experiences and understandings.

-Be willing to be honest about your own mistakes and difficulties, past and present, and to discuss issues that often go unspoken or against the grain of public opinion.


I will illustrate these points in the future and hope to add to the list. If you'd like to make further suggestions, you're welcome to email me!

The Spider Prey Paradigm Shift

As a kid, I was immensely allergic to mosquito bites. The Hives of Wrath reached the point that my mother was once wrongly suspected of abusing me.



Suffice it to say that I grew up loathing them. For a kid in a family of campers, mosquitoes were the Enemy. This massive monstrosity in Manitoba no doubt would have sent me into hysterics:



In my mind, a flyswatter was actually a mosquito-squisher. It was justification to me that the world hated them as much as I did. Or more - because, despite how much I despised them, I was rarely able to kill them myself.

During my teenaged years, when my skeeter-hunting skills (e.g. height, eyesight, and reflexes) should have been at their peak, I once enlisted my grandmother to take down a mosquito in the bathroom because I couldn't bring myself to bare my flesh in the shower knowing that that sucker was out there.

Even then the irony of that scene did not escape me.



Just the same, it was her attack model that I attempted to replicate years later. One fateful day, I was alone in my apartment and a sizeable mosquito happened along, hovering near the ceiling.

I knew it was only a matter of time. It was either me or that mosquito - and I wasn't keen on letting it be me.

I put on my big girl panties and wielded a rolled-up magazine, dreading what I would have to do as soon as it flew within reach. I tried in vain to talk myself into a murderous rage. That blood-sucking beast was going down. I had to believe it. I took a breath and raised my weapon.

Suddenly, a stealthy spider that must have been waiting in its super-secret Spider Cave in the corner of the ceiling launched outward and snatched the mosquito mid-air.

One wrestling mass, together they plummeted down to the ledge below, where I had an art print and some handouts I'd recently received.



I don't usually keep crucifixes or images of Christ on the cross - I think this may be the only one I've ever had, certainly the only one I've ever placed somewhere readily visible. And now it was serving as the backdrop to the scene unfolding before me.



Once it ascended to the center of Jesus' body, the spider turned the mosquito corpse over and over to embalm it and secure it there.



Of course I could appreciate the natural, biological drive for a spider to kill a mosquito, and I don't hold it responsible for any malicious act.

But you've got to admit that this spider looks vaguely villainous:



And it could have carried off its kill anywhere. Really, it could have. But instead, it had an acute sense of biblical irony.



I learned at an early age that "spiders are the farmer's friend" and that we were to permit them to live in our home, or else release them to the wild. I was a really big fan of spiders when I made the connection that they killed mosquitoes (see above illustration of childhood), and by college I was nominated resident Spider Liberator.

But this experience was by no means a matter of sympathizing with the poor little once-living creature that served as another living creature's food and sustenance. That lesson is a story for another day.

Rather, I was filled with a bizarre and personally unprecedented reverence for the mosquito as an innocent.

Yes, I understood that its death served a delicious purpose for the spider that was brazen enough to catch it mid-air. (P.S., I'd never seen one do that before, but I guess it beats the presumably painstaking process of web-weaving.) But witnessing this entire interaction - and remembering what I had set out to do - rendered me stunned.

Perhaps not for the first time, but the first with such impact, I realized the power I held as a human; realized my inability to comprehend the consequences of the actions I was physically capable of doing. I remembered that the people who actively killed Jesus were people nonetheless; that the people who actively do any harm are people nonethless. I envisioned countless victims of violence in cases in which the offenders had somehow justified their actions: genocide, hate crimes, revenge, retributive human justice.

This experience did not mysteriously transform me into a perfectly harmless being incapable of inflicting pain or making errors in judgment. But something happened that day that forever altered my perspective on the human impulse to judge, to speculate, to assign value, to take fate into one's own hands.

And I just can't erase the image from my mind - a creature whose species has only caused me discomfort and taken my very blood from my veins, hanging lifelessly on a cross alongside the savior of my soul.

How to Fail in an Emergency

This is one of the most embarrassing and humbling of my life experiences that I also believe to be worth sharing. Embarrassing because of my thoughts and actions at the time. Worth sharing, I hope, in spite of them.

One day, while I was working as a porter for a cleaning company in New York City and canvasing the sidewalk for trash, a drunkard called out to me.

"Hey, wanna go out with me?"

He was sprawled out on the steps leading up to 2 Penn Plaza. Positioned between Madison Square Garden, the taxi stop, and the entrance to Penn Station, he was in just about everyone's path. Six empty beer bottles accompanied him in disarray.



His lips bulged around crooked teeth. His short hair was tousled; his clothing smeared with the grime of the City That Never Sleeps. Travelers, entertainment seekers, and business employees bustled around us.

When I realized he'd addressed me, I mumbled, "Uh. No, thanks," and went back to sweeping up cigarette butts and ticket stubs.

"C'mon, go to dinner with me. Just once or twice."

I imagined my acquaintance picking out something tasty from a dumpster around the corner. I imagined him falling over himself here on the steps. But I didn't imagine what he did next.

He raised his arm and sort of chuckled. "My hand is bleeding."

"Oh, my gosh!" I cried, surely seeming hysterical compared to his far-too-casual demeanor. His hand was absolutely covered in blood, a painful sight no matter what the size of the actual wound. "Are you okay? How did that happen?" I was genuinely startled and sympathetic. But I closed none of the distance between us.

"I got beat up."

I must have subconsciously decided that what he needed first and foremost was to get cleaned up. I looked around at the nearby buildings, trying to remember the way to the nearest public restroom. I imagined myself sneaking him into our employee bathroom in the industrial depths of Penn Plaza. Then I imagined my supervisor's response to that bright idea, and the proverbial light bulb flickered and died.

I chased after a co-worker just a bit down the block. As the two of us tried, as usual, to work through our slight language barrier, I told him about the bleeding man on the steps and asked what we should do. He said something dismissive, perhaps frustrated with either the problem I'd posed to him or trying to communicate with such a frantic and monolingual mess.

By the time I spotted another co-worker, the premises' security staff were walking across the plaza toward the man, who by this point had slumped over a bit more onto the sidewalk. I was utterly relieved that someone had alerted security, and even more so when the police and an ambulance arrived, but also utterly ashamed - ashamed that I hadn't thought to call an official of any kind. Ashamed that I saw a bleeding man and my instinct said, "Clean him," rather than, "Heal him." Ashamed that I saw him as dirty before I'd even seen the wound.

After that event, I promised myself that I'd do whatever the conscious part of me could to react better in any sort of medical predicament. I've tried to remember that it's only in these experiences that we can learn how to respond to them.

And I've been listening for that voice of utmost wisdom beyond my humble understanding - the one that knows what it is to smear mud and spit on a blind man's eyes to restore his vision (John 9:6-34). The one that commends "clean," sure, but most actively seeks to "heal." The one that would have embraced the opportunity to share a meal with the man on the steps.

Spiritual Complacency and Fear

Homily delivered at Kidlington Methodist Church, England, in November 2008, based upon 1 Thessalonians 5:1-11 and Matthew 25:14-30.

Granted, this was only the second homily I've ever delivered, and I still haven't studied sermonizing, so please try to forgive it its trespasses, but do feel absolutely welcome to offer criticism.

All images used (in blog post form only) link to their sources; no infringement intended. Please note: I do not necessarily agree with or affirm the content of the sites to which I have linked.

The hymn All Praise to Our Redeeming Lord, cited below, had been sung earlier in the service. Also cited: The Screwtape Letters (novel) and V for Vendetta (film).

Why yes, Don Feder, I did refer positively to what you considered the "most explicitly anti-Christian movie to date" during a Christian worship service. But look on the bright side. At least Avatar (2009) hadn't come out yet.

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"Rise and Shine: Spiritual Complacency and Fear"

Wake up!

It's time to get ready! Brush your teeth. What do you mean your shirt and trousers are in that war zone? Find them! Hurry!

Have you done your homework?

Sound familiar? The parents, children, and university students are nodding.

In preparing and rousing the Thessalonians, Paul wrote:

"You are all sons of the light and sons of the day. We do not belong to the night or to the darkness. So then, let us not be like others, who are asleep, but let us be alert and self-controlled" (1 Thess. 5.5-6).

Paul founded the Christian church of Thessalonica on his second missionary journey, and he was eager to know how the people were progressing in their new faith. One of their concerns was the second coming of Jesus, the Parousia, but Paul did not aim to overwhelm them with doctrine. Rather, 1 Thessalonians was primarily meant to encourage them. He even ended this section not only urging them to support one another, but commending them for having done so.

So on a topic that sometimes gets a bad rap in our present world – Judgment Day, the End Times, the Apocalypse – Paul wrote to tell them that the second coming was actually an inspiration and a comfort, a stimulus for Christians to serve God, an incentive to live holy lives. Paul blesses them:

"May God himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through. May your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ" (1 Thess. 5.23).

He warns them that "the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night" (1 Thess. 5.2), but tells them that this will not surprise them because they are not of the darkness, but children of light. He adds:

"Since we belong to the day, let us be self-controlled, putting on faith and love as a breastplate, and the hope of salvation as a helmet" (1 Thess. 5.8).

Such imagery gives us strength and hope; it reinforces to us that our faith will fortify us, that God will save us from peril. Yet there is temptation, even in a Christian life, to sleep, to fall into spiritual lethargy; to assume that our relationship with God is fine if we go through the motions. In his novel, The Screwtape Letters, C.S. Lewis shares with us the advice from a senior devil to a junior devil. The senior devil once says, 'Some ages are lukewarm and complacent, and then it is our business to soothe them yet faster asleep’ (Lewis, 40). The inaction and lethargy of God's people is where sin can thrive.

Matthew 25 tells of Jesus' Parable of the Talents, though for now I would venture to call it the Parable of the Timid Servant. A master, before going away, leaves talents – a unit of money – with each of three servants: to one, five talents; to another three talents; and to the last, one talent, each according to his ability. Now that isn't to say that the last servant is given nothing of value -

A single talent weighed in at 33 kg, or 73 lbs. For a visual reference, think of your average 10-year-old, or, barring that, 33 1kg packages of Miracle-Gro. We're speaking in terms of great potential all around. And for those of you inclined to maths, that means 165 packages of Miracle-Gro to your first servant there. That's a lot of plants.

So servants #1 and 2 each invest what they have and double it. But the third servant is paralyzed in fear of his master's return – so afraid of wrath and blame or even his own humble failure that he refrains from acting at all except to bury the talent in the ground (which may have worked more in his favor if the talent actually had been Miracle-Gro). When their master returns, he invites the first two servants to partake in the joy of their master, but he goes so far as to call the last servant "wicked." Clearly he is not being blamed simply for poor financial planning; his error was inaction, burying all he had away from the light.

God is not a conniving thief or malicious slave master wishing us despair and harm, but God's works and timing and demands are often unexpected; they often surprise us. God wants you, the entirety and whole of you – all you've been given and all you can do with it. When your soul enters heaven; when Jesus comes again; but also right now, in this moment, on this day. God wants you.


Remember, remember, the 5th of November: Guy Fawkes Day, just recently. Many of you may be well familiar with the story and film, "V for Vendetta." If you don't know it, suffice it to say that there is a beautiful line in the film delivered in a scene of courage, desperation and trial.


Evey (Natalie Portman) reads a moving letter in V for Vendetta (2006).

The speaker says: "I don't remember much of those early years, but I do remember the rain. My grandmother owned a farm in Tottle Brook and she used to tell me that God was in the rain."

I myself vividly remember once walking with a friend through a light rainstorm in New York. The conversation turned to the extent that we minded the weather, and I expressed a vague feeling of it's-nice-but-I-don't-exactly-want-it-on-me. She was more optimistic about it than I, looking up for a moment to let the droplets seek refuge in the curves of her face. "'God is in the rain,'" she quoted.

Of course, we also once traipsed through the storm of the century that eventually flooded numerous towns in the area. Taking our typical route to church, we crossed a bridge over what was usually the most modest of streams and water was absolutely gushing below in great currents.

By the time we arrived, we were so drenched with God that at first I was reluctant to let my waterlogged shoes squeak down the aisle, let alone sit my soaked soul on the pew. That week, Sunday best was not a viable option. We were both layered in the most waterproof clothing we owned. Already two of my umbrellas had become casualties of other recent storms, and I had none to bring with me. We were dripping wet, and we were late for Mass. Two things I, as a Protestant, was not ready to see how the Roman Catholic Church would tolerate.

But no one so much as frowned at us. We attended the service, recognizing no one but joining in worship and the passing of the peace with people who'd had to journey through that same storm. Whether they came on foot or by car, many of them probably knew what it was to look out the window that day in a moment of "maybe we can catch the next one...?" and found themselves on the way there nonetheless.

Perhaps like the third servant, I too was so distracted by my own fear of being shunned for arriving in such horrendous shape that I never even thought about what it really took for each person to arrive there; what it meant that, whether out of obligation or personal will, they were able to do everything necessary to get there, and so had we. Maybe the point was not that we were soaking wet, that we had "weather on us" – but that, God being in all things and guiding our paths, we were so full of Spirit in that moment that we could wring it out, fill a bucket to share and still have plenty remaining.

Living a Christian life does not mean only believing that God's Spirit exists any more than living on Earth means believing in the concept of rain – that it comes from time to time and that, in some form or another, it will come again. To be a Christian, a child of light, is to let God drench you with the Holy Spirit inside and out, so that even if Jesus is not physically present on the earth, everything that his life, death and resurrection meant is still represented here in each one of us and all the greater in a fortified Christian community.

"He bids us build each other up" or, should we say, "Therefore encourage one another and build each other up, just as in fact you are doing" (1 Thess. 5.11) – "And, gathered into one, to our high calling's glorious hope, we hand in hand go on. The gift which He on one bestows, we all delight to prove. The grace through every vessel flows, in purest streams of love" (All Praise to Our Redeeming Lord, Charles Wesley, 1747).

You have the ability to invest time, resources, money, skills, talents – and the decisions about these things are important; they shouldn't be taken lightly and are best managed under God's direction. But looking further, what else might this parable mean for Christians, for children of light? What if we put ourselves in the place of that last servant, who also received something very valuable? What if we were to bury Truth, or our Christianity, our very spirituality, our relationship with Creator and Redeemer? Whether we are afraid of God, society, persecution, failure... none of these fears validate hiding our faith in God, our hope in Christ, our strength in the Spirit. If none of these things permeate our daily lives, we may as well bury our heads in the sand, too.

Should we not declare: "Lord, you have been our refuge; from one generation to another, before the mountains were born, or the earth and the world were brought to be; from eternity to eternity you are God" (Psalm 90.1-2)? Should we not find solace in the immensity and magnitude of our God? Should we not invest each bit of the dust from which we're made and bring something greater than ourselves to the world? "Our years pass away like a sigh" (Psalm 90.9) – should we not call upon our Lord: "Teach us so to number our days; that we may apply our hearts to wisdom" (Psalm 90.12)?

You have the power to demonstrate what it means to follow Christ; to exemplify that he lived and died that we might be better people and more complete souls; that Christ will come again and that, in trusting him, we do not need to fear; that the Day of the Lord will be beautiful: not merely a day to be judged but a day to witness justice. God will set all right.

But until that day, God is calling us to live as the children of light. We must not hold back in fear or complacency. Rise and shine. Let God surprise you with what you can do – with the Christian you can be – through the One who strengthens you (Phil. 4:13).

The Devil's Greatest Trick

Or, "At the Risk of Being Heretical"

Years ago, when I had frequent theological debates with a friend (or two) and was gradually restoring my faith, I also confronted the issue of whether or not the devil exists, and if so, in what form.


This would not have been my first guess.

Amidst her responses, my friend said, "The greatest trick the devil ever pulled is convincing the world he doesn't exist." (Which I now know to be a quote from The Usual Suspects, 1995.)

And I came to believe that. Perhaps not - as my church history professor would say - as a "True Truth," but at least acknowledging that - yes, it would even be logical that the devil (whatever that is) would stand to gain even more from people denying its existence.

It's more difficult to reject something if you do not recognize what it is. If you do not acknowledge that something exists at all, you may or may not exhibit it, follow it, experience it, or succumb to it from time to time; you depend upon its assumed nonexistence to validate the assumption that you have not exhibited it. Followed it. Experienced it. Succumbed to it. And if you did, how would you know? How would you recognize it?

I realize that's wordy and weirdly written. So take, for example, jealousy.

Suppose you believe that jealousy does not exist; never in your life before have you experienced or witnessed it. Then your sister receives a special award. Your brother succeeds at work. Your lifelong friend has only one extra ticket to an event and wants to invite... the new grocer. Why weren't you awarded, successful, or invited? Oh, but you don't want a logical answer! That would only add insult to injury. You simply indulge in the indignant feelings until someone tells you that you've been jealous.

Then it's up to you to decide again whether or not you believe that it exists (as opposed to deciding whether or not it exists). But because jealousy is a definable something, it would be difficult for you to convince others - who operate in a reality in which jealousy is not only existent but identifiable - that this is not the case.

Just for fun, try that line of thought on your own with something like "poverty" or "war." If only saying that they don't exist could be enough.

But I don't intend to debate on the existence of the devil. The examples here of jealousy, poverty and war have the advantage of involving "familiarly real" things. It would seem that the concept of the devil is more abstract, in a sense, than the range of human emotions and experiences that a majority of people (I venture to generalize) consider real. I don't presume to have proof that the rest of humanity hasn't been privy to. So allow me to take the liberty of not going there.

I would like to say, however, that I have a new perspective on this "great trick."

The devil's greatest trick is not convincing the world that it doesn't exist, though that's a mighty good one. Props, devil.

No. The devil's greatest trick is convincing people of Peace, those who believe that Peace is graciously given and not earned, that anyone who does not also practice a specific means of Peace is exempt from or undeserving of Peace.

Utterly defeated by the ultimate sacrifice of a Creator that loves the created world more than any language can articulate, the devil finds yet one more way to fight:

Allow humans to believe that this love, this act, this divinity can be contained. Let them receive guidance toward a life of Peace - fine. Ah, but then let them resist it at its core! Let them ask, "Which of us is first? Who will sit on your right and on your left?" (See Mark 10:35-45.) Let them develop hierarchies, both for the sake of power and even in an innocent effort to maintain order. Let them suffer disorder and divide in spite of themselves. Let them enjoy the wonder of spiritual exploration, the blessing of self-expression, the miracle of experiencing the sacred - and then let them organize it, categorize it, name it, and proclaim it for some and not for the rest! Let them honor the Word of God and in the same breath presume to comprehend it in its entirety! Let them commit over and over the first sin of humanity: wishing to be God, idolizing themselves, invoking without restraint the authority of God! Let them follow the Way and let them lose their way within it!

Following Christ is far more than following rules so as not to be chastised or punished. One must actively follow the way of Peace - the way of Christ - in order to create, nurture, and perpetuate that Peace. To fail to act in accordance with the all-encompassing love that Jesus Christ exuded and tried desperately to help us understand is to disrupt that Peace and create something lesser in its place. To claim the Peace of Christ for only those who proclaim his name is to reject and oppose the very Peace intended by Christ's life and death and resurrection; it is to assume the salvific authority of God. Perhaps the clearest way to "deny Christ" - as some would posit is means for separation from God (debatably contrary to Romans 8:38-39) - is to deny the very unconditional nature of God's grace. Perhaps one most directly rejects Jesus Christ by first believing in his existence and authority, and then refusing to accept everything that Jesus means.

And the most miraculous part of all of this? Not only does God, through Christ, initiate a covenant with all people, but God forgives those who deny the existence of that all-encompassing covenant, who seek God exclusively for themselves and the like-minded! Those who choose Christ yet lose the Way are nevertheless allowed the grace that they are afraid to extend to anyone else, the grace that God is practically bursting at the seams to give.

And that is the Good News of Jesus Christ.


Now, I must ask another question of you. Have I proof-texted? Have I made illogical claims or twisted the truth to placate my own deep-seated desire to reconcile people of all beliefs? If I'm wrong, I pray God forgive me. Please do not take anything I have said for authority beyond my own expressed thoughts - particularly my application of the Bible. I'm in theological school, yes - I am a student, and even when I am no longer a student I will only have all the more to learn. I never intend to have the divine understanding of God alone, but I cannot help but want to understand more than I do now.

So help me investigate!

Mutually Bound

Recently we have talked and read at length about inter-religious connections and ecumenism. This has long been an interest of mine and I wish to explore it much more during my time at Drew.

What follows is an excerpt from something I wrote earlier this year. I share it now as a background as to where I'm coming from - part of why I am here and some of the questions I have brought with me. Perhaps it will be something to refer back to as I learn more over the next few years.

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How do religions interconnect, and how do we rectify their intellectual aspects? Is it possible for people of different backgrounds to maintain their spiritual strength without breaking down that of their counterparts? This is the theological dilemma which I find most pertinent both spiritually and academically, particularly in the past four years while I studied at Sarah Lawrence, a religiously diverse college. In the final year, I conducted an oral history project on students’ beliefs, faith, and experience. I hoped to encourage both academic and personal dialogue between students and provide a relaxed and respectful atmosphere in which they can explore and express their beliefs. Diverse in every possible way, no two interviewees professed precisely the same faith, yet all shared much in common.

Such is true, I find, of Christian denominations. Can Christians be both spiritually catholic and protestant, if not nominally, socially, or politically? Catholic: broad or wide-ranging; having sympathies with all; universal. Protestant: protesting injustice and corruption; striving for improvement, reform, and objectivity; from the word meaning "to bear public witness." Did Christ not represent all of these qualities?

A Roman Catholic priest once told me that "God does not check your denomination like an I.D. card." In the past decade, the Vatican, the Lutheran World Federation, and the World Methodist Council came together in the Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification, stating that "by grace alone, in faith in Christ's saving work and not because of any merit on our part, we are accepted by God and receive the Holy Spirit, who renews our hearts while equipping and calling us to good works." In our doctrine and our divides, how do we differentiate the human from the divine? How does Christ bring unity and peace to a world in which Christianity creates further divisions and categories? Most significantly, must we erase these categories – must we be a reconciled Catholic church, or a Unitarian Universalist church, or a nondenominational church – or is it possible to respect human individuality while honoring the universality of the Divine?

As my project progressed I found inspiration and assurance that, though the journey for peace may be a long one, it is possible. It requires a willingness to speak and to be silent, a willingness to listen. With each interview, I learned not only to listen better but to listen to what cannot be heard.

Lilla Watson said, "If you have come here to help me, you are wasting your time. But if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together." Her words transformed my entire perspective of outreach; although I had not reduced it to charity or good deeds, I had not fully comprehended the interconnectedness of humanity, our sufferings and our hopes. And not only has it affected my approach to serving the poor, the hungry, and the outcast, but it has convinced me that peace in every sense is a matter in which our liberation is mutually bound.