The Internet Monk Archives

Lisa Dye: What Happened to My Big Life?

What Happened to My Big Life?
by Lisa Dye

The seed of the Kingdom, however tiny, however invisible or insignificant, is always growing, thanks to God’s tireless activity … He makes our efforts bear fruit beyond all calculations of productivity.

• Pope Francis

Recently, I listened to a woman named Esther Perel describe her childhood in Belgium, growing up the daughter of Holocaust survivors in a close knit community of other Holocaust survivors. In spite of her career in psychotherapy counseling others, she admits to a debilitating lifelong affliction manifesting as a chronic sense of dread. Surprisingly, she has also just as chronically believed she was destined to live a “big life,” a belief, on the surface, which seems antithetical to the dread.

At any rate, she had me at “dread” and “big life.” Forget that Ms. Perel’s fame has risen due to her observation of culture’s abandonment of traditional views on marital fidelity in a post-Christian world. (I haven’t listened to her enough to know if she’s advocating or just explaining.) Sure, I tuned in to see what the hooplah surrounding her was all about. One must understand one’s culture. But I couldn’t hear much past her description of her conflicted and ambiguous self … and well, myself too.

Perhaps Ms. Perel is not so unique in having believed from an early age that she would live a big life. That’s partly a function of a normal youthful narcissism and sense of invincibility. For people who are also Christian, or otherwise religious, the big life idea may spring from belief that the Almighty is unfolding a divine pathway for us. And we have the mistaken idea that divine is always big.

Whatever all of it arises from, it got me thinking. What the heck happened to my Big Life? Oh, and, if I am now a grown up Christian after a lifetime of trying to walk with Jesus, why this chronic sense of dread?

I know where the dread started. My youth, in brief, was incubated in a broken and alcoholic home. I could give the gory details, but I love my mom and dad, who walked through some dark and desperate seasons. We’ve come to forgiveness and accepted what happened even though it took several decades. Nevertheless, my early life was fraught with fears of abandonment, financial insecurity, shame, grief and yes, that chronic sense of dread.

At some point, around age eleven or twelve, I looked outside my cocoon, saw that other people overcame their fears and I began to plot. I would be educated. I would be industrious. I would be sober. I would be self-controlled. I would be confident and poised … outwardly, at least. I also ventured into my faith. The faith part felt purposeful and one-sided initially. I was looking for God, but in retrospect, I see now that God was drawing me.

By the time I was a teen, my naked interior life was a roiling turmoil of chronic dread, but my exterior emperor (or empress) was dressed for some kind of success. I expected it. I willed it to happen. I was ready for my Big Life. I had a scholarship to college where I might stay long enough for advanced degrees, then launch myself into a writing career and be a best-selling author. That was almost 40 years ago. Let me tell you how that worked out.

It didn’t. I married early, dropped out of college and went to work helping my husband launch a small business. I had my first of three babies while I was still mostly a baby and barely two years into marriage. I didn’t write anything except thank you notes and checks until ten years ago.

Today, a typical day or week for me includes above average food prep for particular family dietary needs, the feeding, cleaning and care of a herd of cats, a new coop full of chickens and a neurotic Labrador, a few hours a day at the office pushing voluminous amounts of paper, doctor visits and grocery shopping with my mom whose vision is in rapid decline, yard work, housework and helping out on a fairly regular basis with six grandkids.

Sometimes, because my tasks are so physical, I have difficulty believing that what I am doing is eternally helpful. Is the way up really down? I’m not sure where I heard that, but those words ring in my head all the time and I am currently clinging to them. Up is down. Down is up. The Big Life is really composed of many small things.

This leads me to digress to a little related family humor that came about from our shared fascination with the Netflix series Stranger Things. This sci-fi drama is set in a fictional Indiana town and involves a group of nerdy junior high kids, a secret government lab, a girl named Eleven who has supernatural powers, and an alternate dimension called the Upside Down. My husband can never remember Upside Down, so that has morphed into the Underneath, the Inside Out, the Backside In, the Over and Under, the Both Sides Now, the Ass Backward, and so on.

I’ve come to realize that I live in my own Upside Down, not the scary paranormal kind, but the spiritual kind. The ways I expected to impact the world or the ways I expected God to use me have eluded me. Instead, my very Big Life has come about in a multitude of seemingly small things.

Please do not misunderstand. I’m not complaining. I am not disappointed. It is a good life, even though I am tired. I’m just surprised. Things are nothing like I planned as I stood on the precipice of adulthood looking to the future. And yet, the sum of my physical labors and the minutiae of my midlife add up to something big to me … the vast majority of my time, most of my money and usually more energy than I think I possess. I have not held back in giving myself to what has been given to me.

I fought it for a time always thinking I was supposed to be doing something … well, BIG, but I have come to the place in life where I am content and doing what I have been given. Detaching from previous plans doesn’t mean wandering aimlessly. It means re-discovering what purpose God has for me in this season of life, even if it is small in the eyes of the world. Ultimately, it is what will lead to fruitfulness. I just have to remember its God’s mission, God’s criteria and God’s breath that develops and measures the fruit. For someone who’s read all those books on highly effective living and who’s addicted to her planner, this is the rub.

It’s no doubt the reason for my continuing chronic state of dread. Now that I’m in the second-half, giving-my-life-away, legacy-era of life, the thought of the possibility of coming to the end of an uninspiring, irrelevant life without impacting others with more than just niceness, frightens the bejeebers out of me.

Yet, this is part of the process. Jesus said in Mathew 10:39, “Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.” Getting to a small, scared place of personal loss comes before some type of transformation. When I set out to write this, I envisioned wrapping up a tidy essay by concluding that it’s okay for me to not have the big life I expected as long as I’m taking care of his people and his creatures. I won’t tell you I’ve changed my mind exactly. In fact, the world turns on those of us who attend to the details.

However, in looking at the preceding verses (Matthew 10:37,38), the opposite struck me. “Anyone who loves his father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: anyone who loves his son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me: and anyone who does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me.” Here, I have been convincing myself that all my care giving is God’s work. Again, I’m not saying it’s not, but I realize that there is a certain safety and predictability and good feeling about small services that rescue me from the risk of reinvention.

In a recent conversation, my good friend, who both practices law and is almost finished raising seven children, said something that struck me. “My kids no longer welcome or need my parenting, even though being a parent has been my identity for over three decades. I need to find a new way to be relevant.”

Relevancy is the key here. It’s true that some people who live a big life in terms of fame or fortune are doing so because of what the world thinks is relevant. Maybe it is relevancy in music, sports, culture, business or politics. I just want to know what is to be the particular spiritual relevance of my life until I die? How am I to be accountable to God for the life and destiny he’s giving me now, post child rearing?

To have the Creator of all things say what is to make me relevant is frightening. No, I don’t think he’s telling me to ditch my family or my critters and go to the remotest part of the earth, but I can’t take refuge in them either. It’s easy to get into a rut of just doing what I have always done, either because I have not given it any thought or because I have thought about it and then rejected the effort and loss of safety that might come from preaching the Gospel with my life in a new and different way, especially in an apathetic or hostile world or to the chagrin of loved ones who expect me to remain predictable, reliable and convenient.

One of my religious gurus regularly riles me because he constantly challenges my comfort and inspires me to think carefully about what I am to do regarding certain controversies. It is difficult beyond belief to decide, but he pushes me to work out my faith with fear and trembling in a way I also want to do with others, including my kids, now that they are adults.

Once at a writer’s conference, Richard Peck, one of my favorite young adult novelists, said, “Kids will not forgive you if you don’t inspire them.” I would venture to say that people, in general, are not inspired by anyone who just makes them feel happy and comfortable.

We need the needling of prophets of all kinds. There are people in my life who need me to prod them and to risk their anger for the sake of God’s Kingdom. They need me to be a prophet who has first gotten small, detached from the Big Life ambition of my youth or caring too much what people think of me. They need someone who is on an upside down mission … a mission that doesn’t necessarily bring worldly success, and might well bring contempt. What looks like the disruption of sameness is often the seed from which true Big Life springs, something to think about while I’m in the chicken coop taking care of my ladies.

Yes, there are at least a couple of people I love who are about to hold me in contempt … all because I do love them.

Damaris Zehner: Privilege

Lazarus: on the road to a better life. Photo by Dylan Thomas/UKaid/Department for International Development

Privilege
By Damaris Zehner

I was an obnoxious twelve-year-old, which should come as no surprise. As a student at St. Mary’s in Waverly, Johannesburg, I complained about school a lot. When I got home, my uniform would be thrown on the floor, where it would generally stay until I shook it out and put it on the next day. I’d bring my bookbag home, but I didn’t do much homework. The supplemental Afrikaans classes I had to take after the regular school day, since I hadn’t grown up in South Africa, I often skipped, hiding out in the bathroom with a book until it was time for my mother to pick me up. I seem to recall a certain amount of whining and sulking, too.

As a U.S. diplomatic corps family, we had a house and servants provided for us. In South Africa the house was pretty luxurious, and we had three live-in servants, a cook, a maid, and a gardener. In my own way, I loved the three of them. They were better people than I deserved.

Jackson was the gardener. He was in his late twenties, a member of the Shangaan tribe from the eastern part of the country. He had just moved to Johannesburg and didn’t speak English fluently. He was strong, hard-working, and shy, with a goofy sense of humor. He had unsuspected depths; once he saw me trying to make something out of a sort of papier-mache modeling medium and not really succeeding. He asked if he could have some and made me a perfect cow, humped, heavy-shouldered, with spreading horns – the symbol of wealth. I have it on my bookcase today.

One day my mother told me that Jackson had asked her to teach him how to read and write; it had never occurred to me that he couldn’t. She was agonizing about the decision, partly because she had never liked teaching, partly because she didn’t know how lessons would fit into the servant-boss relationship, which she was already uncomfortable with. Eventually she decided to go ahead and collected some basic materials. I was vaguely aware that lessons would start on a particular evening when Jackson finished work.

I had been lolling in bed, reading a Georgette Heyer or Enid Blyton book and ignoring my homework. I happened to wander to the dining room just as Jackson came into the house from his quarters. Instead of his usual blue overalls, he was wearing the white suit he had for serving at parties. He clutched a cheap plastic briefcase, not new, probably scavenged from somewhere. I realized that he was trying to be a proper student, like me, with a uniform and bookbag. He was tall and handsome, a man more than twice my age, but even to my adolescent eyes he looked terrified and exhilarated, wound up to face something unknowable and life-changing. He was trembling slightly as he sat down at the table with my mother.

I went back to my room and for some reason found myself crying: shame for myself, pity and admiration for him, anger at the injustice of the world. What I took for granted and complained about was everything to him.

If this were fiction, I would have hung up my uniform and done my homework. I don’t think I did; I know that for years I was an indifferent student, even after we left South Africa. But step by step, in high school, college, and graduate school, I found myself teaching others, until I chose it as my profession – or it chose me.

I still complain – about the grading, the poorly disciplined students, and the hundred ways my circumstances fall short of perfection. But when each new crop of students comes in, I see Jackson. The arrogant jocks, the surly hillbillies, the ex-offenders, veterans, neo-Nazis, and solid academics – they all are waiting nervously for something unknowable and life-changing, whether they are aware of it or not. They may take the whole process for granted, but I won’t forget that education is an extraordinary privilege.

I never saw or heard from Jackson again after I left South Africa at the age of thirteen. I hope that, if he is still alive, he is happy in a post-apartheid country and that he can read and write everything he needs to. I wish he knew the strange link between his sitting down at the dining room table with pencil and paper and rural students slouching into a community college in Western Indiana. Maybe one day he will.

• • •

Photo by Dylan Thomas/UKaid/Department for International Development at Flickr. Creative Commons License

Randy Thompson: Cisterns that Hold No Water — An OT Meditation on Political Power

Note from CM: I will be retreating this week to work on my book. You will be treated to a feast of thoughts from our IM writers, who have graciously submitted some poignant, thought-provoking, and discussion-inducing pieces. Throughout each day, I will be checking for comments that get held by the moderation system, but it may take a bit longer than usual. Thanks for your patience with that.

• • •

Cisterns that Hold No Water
An Old Testament Meditation on Political Power
by Randy Thompson

When you hear the words “Bible Prophecy” you almost instantly think of some loon claiming, on the basis of an obscure text in Daniel, that the Anti-Christ is now living in Grand Rapids and is preparing to reveal himself next November, just before the elections. (Something like this is especially likely if the polls suggest a Democratic landslide.)

Or not.

However, the Bible’s prophets can be weirdly relevant to current events without Dallas Seminary’s help.

Every year, I read through Isaiah and Jeremiah, as well as some of the lesser prophets, especially Habakkuk. Truly, these folks were lights shining in dark times. Sadly though, the people of God had little interest in these God-given lights, preferring the darkness of a sensible religion and a sensible God who could be placated by ritual and sacrifice and otherwise ignored. These prophetic “lights” represented a God who was too intrusive and demanding, calling into question the conventional political wisdom of the day, which was to seek peace and safety in political alliances with more powerful neighbors who they hoped would defend them from their enemies.

The people of God found it easier to play power politics than to take God seriously.

Isaiah, for example, tells Ahaz that making an alliance with the Assyrians will end badly. He counsels Ahaz to let the Lord of hosts be his fear and dread, and not the enemies he fears (Isaiah 8:13). Unfortunately, Ahaz trusts flesh and blood power politics–the Assyians–more than Israel’s God (Isaiah 7-8, cf. 2 Kings 16:1-20). Later, Jeremiah will also condemn Judah for playing power politics, seeking alliances with Egypt and Assyria instead of seeking their faithful, Covenant-keeping God. He tells them:

But my people have changed their glory for something that does not profit. . . for my people have committed two evils: they have forsaken me, the fountain of living water, and dug out cisterns for themselves, cracked cisterns that can hold no water. [Jeremiah 2:11b, 13]

The light of God was bad news indeed for a people enamored with political self-help, especially the self-help of realpolitik, whereby God is ignored for the sake of other, more practical options, such as alliances with Egypt or Assyria. Unfortunately, such alliances don’t end well in the Old Testament and the prophets condemn them. It is their condemnation of these alliances that, in my view, that is weirdly relevant to our own times.

One of these weirdly relevant prophecies can be found in Isaiah 30, where God, speaking through Isaiah, addresses Israel’s attempt to enter into an alliance with Egypt over against the Assyrians. It begins, “Oh, rebellious children. . . who carry out a plan, but not mine; who make an alliance, but against my will, adding sin to sin.” The purpose of this alliance, according to God, is “to take refuge in the protection of Pharaoh, and to seek shelter in the shadow of Egypt” (Isaiah 30:1,2).

God makes it clear that this ungodly alliance won’t end well:

Therefore the protection of Pharaoh shall become your shame, and the shelter in the shadow of Egypt your humiliation. . . everyone comes to shame through a people that cannot profit them, that brings neither help nor profit, but shame and disgrace. [Isaiah 30:3, 5]

Now, here’s where this passage becomes weirdly relevant, as a little bit of updating and re-contextualizing will demonstrate. Instead of Israel, imagine that the recipients of this prophetic word are white, American evangelical Christians:

Oh rebellious children. . . who make an alliance, but against my will. . . who set out to go down to the Republican Party to take refuge in the protection of Trump, and to seek shelter in the shadow of the Republican Party. Therefore, the protection of Trump shall become your shame, and the shelter in the shadow of the Republican Party your humiliation. . . everyone comes to shame through a political party that cannot profit them, that brings neither help nor profit but shame and disgrace.

Another of Isaiah’s oracles could be understood similarly, although I will leave that to your imagination, as by now you get the point:

Alas for those who go down to Egypt [the Republican Party] for help  and who rely on horses, who trust in chariots because they are many  and in horsemen because they are very strong  but do not look to the Holy One of Israel  or consult the Lord!

The Egyptians [Republicans] are human, and not God;  their horses are flesh, and not spirit. When the Lord stretches out his hand,  the helper will stumble, and the one helped will fall,  and they will all perish together. [Isaiah 31:1,3. NRSV]

In short, just as ancient Israel relied on Egypt’s supposed military power, so now too many evangelical Christians are relying on political power. The Republicans, like the Egyptians, are merely human beings and not God.

Too many American Christians are first Americans and only then Christians. There’s nothing wrong with being an American, of course. I’m proud to be one. However, for Christians, our first and foremost allegiance is to the Kingdom of God and to the Lord (!) Jesus who ushered it in. It’s a matter of priorities.

Furthermore, there’s a huge problem when Christian people trust human techniques and political strategies rather than the Gospel of the Powerless One who chose a cross rather than political power. Sadly, just as the “word of faith” Pentecostals have wholeheartedly bought into the satanic strategy of throwing themselves from the Temple walls (Luke 4:9-12), so have too many evangelicals bowed the knee to political power (Luke 4:5-6), seeking to do the right thing for the wrong reason, in T.S. Eliot’s words.

The tragedy is, right and good things ultimately are subverted by wrong reasons. To impose the “right” things on people is a blinded, short-term perspective that fails to see that short-term political pragmatism leads to long-term moral and spiritual failure. Cromwell and his Puritan army ruled Britain for a dozen years, but by the end of it, the British were sick to death of the Puritans, and their historical moment passed. I fear that much the same thing can happen to evangelical Christianity in this country. Short-term, realpolitik thinking has a very short shelf-life; it is transitory. Only a grand, big picture and long-term perspective rooted in the eternal Gospel abides.

Focused on short-term political successes, white evangelicals seem oblivious to the likelihood that the alliances they’ve made to attain these successes will erode the credibility of their witness. Evangelicals will increasingly be perceived in relation to their political allies, so that Christ increasingly starts looking like President Trump to those who take time to notice. To go back to Old Testament times, the people of God took on the characteristics–and the religions–of the powers with which they became allied. When Ahaz allies himself with the Assyrians, for example, he also allies himself with their religious practices, as 2 Kings 16 describes. The altar of Israel is remodeled to be like the altar of the Assyrians.

A sociologist of religion I knew years ago used to ask, “Who’s influencing whom?” This is exactly the question white evangelicals need to be asking themselves: “Are we influencing the United States, or is the sick moral, political and spiritual climate of the country influencing us?” (For that matter, mainline Christians need to be asking themselves the same question, especially the denominational bureaucrats.)

I find it wonderfully curious that the early church slowly grew and thrived in a hostile environment without attempting to “impact the culture” or “get out the vote” (or the Roman equivalent) or concoct “strategies” of church growth. Regarding the glorious irrelevance of the early church to Roman culture and politics, Alan Kreider’s “The Patient Ferment of the Early Church: The Improbable Rise of Christianity in the Roman Empire” should be required reading especially in the evangelical world (and in the mainline world, too.) . According to him, “patience” not only was rooted in God’s character and revealed in Christ, it was the “church growth” strategy of the early Christians. (For those of you who appreciate footnotes, check pages 35-36 in his book on this.) Patience? Think about it. For many of us, the closest point of daily, personal contact with the love of God is the sense of God’s patience. At least that’s so for me. Patience was the early church’s “no” to “wretched urgency.”

Historian Philip Jenkins speaks of the concept of “transience” in his fascinating (and disturbing) book about the vanished churches of the East, “The Lost History of Christianity”: “Looking at the sweep of Christian history, we are often reminded of this message of the transience of human affairs, and, based on that, of the foolishness of associating faith with any particular state or social order.”

Too many white evangelicals have not come to grips with the “transience of human affairs.” Who is in power today isn’t necessarily going to be in power tomorrow. Today’s winners usually end up tomorrow’s losers.

Jesus’ way is different. Good Friday’s crucified loser is Easter’s winner. And guess what? It’s always Easter now! We can afford to be patient. The powerless, discredited Crucified One is God’s power and God’s glory made visible to those with eyes to see.

Jenkins leave us with an encouraging word: “Yet while Christian states have come and gone, not all the apparent disasters that afflicted particular communities have prevented the growth of what is today the world’s most numerous religion, and which will remain so for the foreseeable future.”

By God’s grace, God’s power-in-weakness and “foolishness” is greater than human political power grabbing and political shrewdness. The disgrace of the cross is still the locus of God’s glory on earth, and what is foolishness to flesh and blood reality is still God’s eternally undefeated wisdom–God’s patient wisdom.

So, what will it be? An impatient, power-grabbing attempt to re-build the Tower of Babel here in America, lest we “be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth” (Genesis 11:4)? Or, a rock solid, patient, confidence that the meek really do inherit the earth, and that the Kingdom of God is in better hands than ours?

Sermon: Pentecost +5 — The Fear of the Lord

Sermon: Pentecost +5
The Fear of the Lord

On that day, when evening had come, he said to them, ‘Let us go across to the other side.’ And leaving the crowd behind, they took him with them in the boat, just as he was. Other boats were with him. A great gale arose, and the waves beat into the boat, so that the boat was already being swamped. But he was in the stern, asleep on the cushion; and they woke him up and said to him, ‘Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?’ He woke up and rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, ‘Peace! Be still!’ Then the wind ceased, and there was a dead calm. He said to them, ‘Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith?’ And they were filled with great awe and said to one another, ‘Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?’

• Mark 4:35-41

• • •

There is an old phrase that we rarely hear anymore. It used to be, when you wanted to describe a good person, a religious person, someone who not only said he was a Christian but who also lived liked one, people would say, “So and so is a God-fearing man.”

How many of you remember when we used to describe people in those terms?

A God-fearing man. A God-fearing woman. This is a description that comes right from the pages of the Bible. On the first page of the book of Proverbs, it says:

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge;
fools despise wisdom and instruction.

If you want to be a wise, mature person, Proverbs says, you will fear the Lord. On the other hand, it says, you can go in the way that this text calls “foolish.” A foolish person doesn’t listen to God. A foolish person thinks he can figure out this complicated thing we call life all by himself. He or she has little use for God’s wise teachings or instructions.

A pastor and author I respect immensely, Eugene Peterson, thinks that “Fear-of-the-Lord” is still an excellent way to describe the life we try to cultivate as those who trust in Jesus and follow him. However, this is a difficult concept to grasp, because it sounds like it means we are supposed to be afraid of God. So, there are other words we’ve substituted to make it more clear.

To have a holy awe of God
To reverence God
To worshipfully respect God

These all capture something of the idea, but they lack the punch the original phrase packs. Eugene Peterson describes the experience of the fear of God like this:

The moment we find ourselves unexpectedly in the presence of the sacred, our first response is to stop in silence. We do nothing. We say nothing. We fear to trespass inadvertently; we are afraid of saying something inappropriate. Plunged into mystery we become still, we fall silent, all our senses alert.

• Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places, p. 41

We learn to fear God when we encounter the Mystery of God, when we get caught up in the unfathomable heights and depths of who God is. When God takes our breath away. I used to like to say it simply like this: the fear of God is when we can feel how big God is and how small we are in comparison.

Have you ever gone out and laid on the ground and looked up at the stars on a cloudless night? Have you ever felt the awe of that sight, the jaw-dropping wonder that is impossible to describe in words?

When the prophet Isaiah tried to describe his experience of seeing the Lord, he said “I am undone.” It was as though his body became unglued. Emotionally, he fell apart. He felt a sense of insignificance, of being swallowed up in something he could never fully comprehend. In the light of God’s holiness he became appalled at the depths of his own sinfulness and the brokenness of the world in which he lived.

This is not something we can control, and it’s not something we feel all the time, obviously. But when you genuinely encounter the Mystery of God, a person does not forget. It leaves an indelible impression on the spirit. When Jacob wrestled with the angel, the Bible says that Jacob’s hip was put out of joint and he limped for the rest of his life. Encountering God and experiencing the fear of God is something like that. We go on living, but we walk with less self-assurance, less control, more humility, and more awareness of our limitations.

Of all the experiences out in the natural world that I’ve enjoyed, nothing makes me feel more aware of the Mystery than the ocean. I love the ocean. I also fear the ocean. The ocean provides me with any number of pleasures as I watch and hear the waves, play in the surf, and discover the treasures it leaves upon the beach. I look out over the vast expanse of the ocean at different times of the day and hear the rhythm of creation’s heartbeat as the tide ebbs and flows. And I’m only looking at the surface! To imagine the ocean’s depths, the variety of its eco-systems, the countless mysterious creatures that live within its waters — it is simply overwhelming to my poor little brain.

The Hebrew people were afraid of the oceans and the seas. In the ancient world, the sea was viewed as a place of chaos where sea-monsters reigned and waited to swallow them up.

In the creation story we read about how the world “was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters.” In creation, God brought order to the chaotic, swirling waters of the great sea that covered the land.

They remembered the story about how God undid the world he had made by sending a great flood in the days of Noah, a flood that covered the entire land.

They recalled how it took an act of God to part the Red Sea so that they could escape from Egypt.

They thought of the story of Jonah, and how he was punished by being thrown into the sea, only to be saved by God sending a great fish to rescue him.

Is it any wonder that, when the Book of Revelation describes the new heavens and earth, it says, “And there was no more sea”? Those words describe an ideal world from an Ancient Near Eastern Hebrew point of view. No more chaos. No more vast expanse of water that holds mystery and hidden danger for our lives.

That background helps us with today’s Gospel story, which takes place out on the sea. Jesus and the disciples get in a boat and cross the Sea of Galilee. A terrible storm sweeps in and they find themselves at their wits’ end. Jesus, however, sleeps in the back of the boat. Panicked, the disciples awaken him and Jesus rebukes the wind and the seas and they are still. And then we read this:

Then the wind ceased, and there was a dead calm. He said to them, ‘Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith?’ And they were filled with great awe and said to one another, ‘Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?’

I want you to notice something here. The disciples were deathly afraid during the storm. After Jesus calmed the storm, the text says they were even more afraid. The NRSV says they were “filled with great awe,” but it’s the same word — they were petrified, filled with terror. To use Isaiah’s word, they were “undone.” I suggest to you that this experience caused these disciples to move from “fear” to “the fear of the Lord.”

The storm frightened them terribly. But then something happened. They encountered the Mystery. They encountered God’s power over nature. They witnessed the word of God in action. Their jaws dropped. Their minds spun. They were speechless. Perhaps they became timid about even approaching Jesus at that moment, for they had seen something in him that exposed the vast distance between themselves and this One who was with them. They felt the fear of God.

My favorite scene from the movie “Jaws” is when the giant shark suddenly emerges from the water and startles Chief Martin Brody, played by Roy Scheider. He is leaning down over the back of the boat., throwing fish into the water to bait the shark. Then the great monster shoots up out of the water just a few feet from him. Scheider springs to his feet and backs up. And oh, the look on his face! He’s just had the shock of his life. He is speechless. With his eyes wide open in fear, he backs slowly into the bridge and mutters to the captain,“You’re gonna need a bigger boat!”

I can imagine the disciples must have reacted and felt the same way that evening on the Sea of Galilee. Where were they going to find a boat big enough to contain Jesus?

My friends, the God we serve is great beyond understanding. His mighty works are all around us if only we have eyes to see the Mystery revealed in them. In prayer and worship and spiritual practices we can train our senses to perceive this God, in whom we live and move and have our being. Let us pray that he will awaken in our lives and in our world today, that we may all, in the truest sense, be people who fear the Lord.

Amen.

The IM Saturday Monks Brunch: June 22, 2018 — “A Picture’s Worth 1000 Words” Edition

Naomi entreating Ruth and Orpah to return to the land of Moab. William Blake

The IM Saturday Monks Brunch
“A Picture’s Worth 1000 Words” Edition

Wed. June 20 was World Refugee Day. From Syria, this is Abir, 17, holding Bashaer. She lost six members of her family while trying to reach Lebanon. (Diego Ibarra Sánchez/MeMo)

**Immigration Crisis?** From the 1980s to the mid-2000s, the government reported annually apprehending around 1 million to 1.6 million foreigners who illegally entered the United States at the southwestern border. In 2000 alone, federal agents apprehended between 71,000 and 220,000 migrants each month. By comparison, monthly border crossings so far this year have ranged from 20,000 to 40,000 people.

Though this little girl was not actually separated from her parents, she became the face of a raging debate about President Trump’s “no tolerance” immigration policy along the U.S. southern border this week.

Central American immigrant families take refuge at a Catholic Charities “respite center” after being released from ICE custody on June 11, 2018 in McAllen, Texas. (Photo by John Moore/Getty Images)

Summer Solstice. About 9,500 people gathered at Stonehenge in Wiltshire, England, to watch the sun rise over the Neolithic stones.

A Colombian fan, dressed as legendary Colombian football goalkeeper Rene Higuita, gestures before the Russia 2018 World Cup Group H football match between Colombia and Japan at the Mordovia Arena in Saransk on June 19, 2018. Mladen Antonov / AFP / Getty

At its outdoor parks concerts last week, the New York Philharmonic performed works by two 11-year-old girls, Camryn Cowan and Jordan Millar — newcomers to the world of composing. They won over the crowds, who gave standing ovations.

Women attend Ramadan worship services at the historic Al-Azhar mosque in Cairo. Nearby Al-Azhar University, the traditional seminary of mainline Sunni theology, and the state-run Ministry of Religious Endowments are promoting women’s participation in preaching, mosque governance and liturgical music. RNS photo by Mohamed Salah

Leonard Hammonds II, right, points out that a Turtle Creek Police officer has his hand on his weapon during a rally protesting the shooting death of Antwon Rose Jr. in East Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, on June 20. Steve Mellon / Pittsburgh Post-Gazette via AP

A sexual abuse allegation made against a top retired U.S. Catholic cleric, Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, has been deemed “credible and substantiated” by church authorities, who ordered McCarrick to cease all public activities. (AP)

Employees work on a Porsche 911 sportscar on an assembly line in Stuttgart, Germany. If proposed U.S. tariffs are levied, Germany stands to suffer more in absolute terms than any other nation exporting vehicles to the United States, with losses in the billions of dollars and a meaningful bite taken out of the nation’s gross domestic product. (THOMAS KIENZLE/AFP/Getty Images)

Once in a Blue Dune. Sand dunes often accumulate in the floors of craters. In this region of Lyot Crater, NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) shows a field of classic barchan dunes. (NASA)

Koko, the western lowland gorilla that died in her sleep Tuesday at age 46, was renowned for her emotional depth and ability to communicate in sign language. She became an international celebrity during the course of her life, with a vocabulary of more than 1,000 signs and the ability to understand 2,000 words of spoken English.

Dennis Hof, owner of a strip club and five brothels as well as author of the book The Art of the Pimp, is on track to becoming a state senator in Nevada, thanks in part to support from evangelicals. Hof won the Republican party’s nomination in a seat that is safely GOP.

QUESTION OF THE WEEK: Nature or Nurture?

•

Now in God’s Care: Charles Krauthammer

Finally, only words will do to say “Rest in peace” to remarkable writer and commenter Charles Krauthammer, who died this week at age 68 of cancer. Here are some excerpts from a tribute by Peter Wehner, a longtime friend of Krauthamer, called “The Example of Charles Krauthammer.”

His thoughts about baseball are enough to make me admire and respect him.

It is a shattering loss. Charles, who received the 1987 Pulitzer Prize for commentary, was not only an elegant writer; he also had a beautiful mind: precise, logical, subtle and blessedly free of cant. He loathed trendiness and the fads that sometimes sweep over the culture.

Like any good columnist, Charles had deep convictions — on the uniqueness and greatness of America, his devotion to democratic pluralism, and his support for Israel and Zionism; on the wonder and joys of physics, chess and baseball, especially his beloved Washington Nationals. (We once exchanged thoughts on an upcoming Super Bowl, but he couldn’t help concluding this way: “Of course, the whole damn game is just a prelude to the beginning of spring training. We must keep things in perspective.”)

…In an age when political commentary is getting shallower and more vituperative, we will especially miss Charles’s style of writing — calm, carefully constructed arguments based on propositions and evidence, tinged with a cutting wit and wry humor but never malice.

There’s another quality of his that we will miss: intellectual independence. Charles started out his political career as a centrist Democrat yet ended up as a conservative and a fixture on Fox News. But he situated himself in a particular school within conservatism, one that is temperamentally moderate, deeply suspicious of ideology, aware of the complexity of human society, and empirical in the sense that he was constantly testing what he was saying against what was actually happening in the world and the effect it had. Charles had no interest in being a member of a political team; his goal was to better understand reality.

Political tribalism is rotting American politics; it needs more people who reject partisan zeal and can speak honestly about their own side’s blind spots and defects. Charles, alert to the maladies of the American right, was a fierce critic of Pat Buchanan in the early 1990s, when Mr. Buchanan was bringing conservative audiences to their feet with a nascent version of the ugliness and divisiveness that has come to characterize the Republican Party under President Trump. This helps explain why it was no surprise that Charles has been a harsh critic of Mr. Trump, who is an anathema to everything Charles prized.

…John F. Kennedy said, “The Greeks defined happiness as the full use of your powers along the lines of excellence.” Charles Krauthammer lived a happy life.

Made in Canada, eh? My Rights

Episode 2:

Today’s post comes from the pen of Dennis Maione. Dennis and I have been friends for over 25 years, from the days when we attended seminary together. He is a multiple author, including a book we reviewed here on Internet Monk, Pastor, has survived cancer twice, and was once spotted finishing an Ironman competition. For some unknown reason he lives in Winnipeg, which begs the question, “why?”. Here is his rather different take (you can google some of the others) on a recent decision of the Supreme Court of Canada. As usual, your thoughts and comments are welcome.

My Rights – By Dennis Maione

This week the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that it was discriminatory for Trinity Western University to enact a morality code which effectively discriminated against anyone who would not conform to what they deemed to be a Biblical definition of marriage. While the court did not say that the morality code was, in and of itself, discriminatory, it was ruled to be contrary to the best interests of Canadian public life. This because it defined, and then mandated, who a Trinity Western student was allowed to have sex with: specifically, it prohibits sex between legally married people whose marriages do not conform to the definition of mariage that Trinity Western University deems to be Biblical. As a result, there will probably be no law school at Trinity Western University.

Of course, conservative Christians, and many other conservative religious groups, see this as an affront to their ability to practice religion within the public square. It is seen as a violation of the freedom of religion clause in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

Inasmuch as I find it convenient to have my religious beliefs enshrined in a charter of rights , thus eliminating the fear of reprisal regardless of what I believe or what practices those beliefs engender, I am not going to raise a hew and cry. No protesting in the street for me. Why? Because the government does not owe me anything. Nor does society. In fact, the very scripture that I use to defend my right to believe what I do about marriage and about morality in general also says that as a follower of Jesus I am first and foremost beholding to God and after that my primary character trait needs to be one of humility. And while I would prefer that the morality of my culture would line up with all the beliefs I have as a follower of Jesus, it is naïve to believe that that will ever be so.

It has been argued that this ruling demonstrates an erosion of my rights. A subtle, or not subtle, stripping away of my right to believe and to practice my beliefs within the public square. What’s next, it is asked, will the government tell me what I can preach, whether I can go to church on Sunday, or whether I can say that some things are sin and others are not?

The answer to that question is two-fold. First, welcome to much of the world. While I don’t think that my plight is less important because others have it worse, this is a lot like folks in Winnipeg complaining about a day of of brown water when the community of Shoal Lake 40 First Nation have been boiling their water for 20 years because if they don’t they will die from deadly diseases due to water contamination. In the same way, Christians in Canada could look to China, or Cuba, or North Korea before they complain too vociferously about religious freedom.

Second, and more importantly, let’s look to our own Bible. My rights? I have the right to death because of my rebellion against God. And everything else, my life, my hope, my present, and my future, comes at the grace of God: not the will of society, not the edict of government. Oh yes, I also have the right to put everyone else’s needs before my own, whether those people are followers of Jesus or not. I do not have the right to define marriage for other Canadians. I do not have the right to define life—its beginning or end—for other Canadians. I do not have the right to impose my moral code on other Canadians. I have only the right to live in the grace that God has given to me and to put the needs of other people before my own.

Does this mean that I should just “sit down and shut up”? Of course not. As a citizen of this country and as someone who cares deeply about the people in it and the justice that we claim to want for everyone—both the majority and the minority voices—I have an obligation to speak. I must speak from my grounding in the world of God because that is where my voice comes from. But I should not be surprised when that voice is ignored in favour of other, sometimes more palatable, voices. But I’ll never stand, like an overwrought toddler, complaining that my rights have been violated. Because, as Jesus said and modelled to me, my right to life liberty and the pursuit of happiness must always be subordinated to those of yours, no matter who you are or what you believe.

Made in Canada, eh?

Episode 1:

Today I am introducing a new occasional series. “Made in Canada, eh?” This will be a sometimes humorous, sometimes serious look at events in Canada that should be of interest to our American and international readers. Sometimes we may even foray into dangerous terrritory and take a look at American events from a Canadian perspective.

Today will be a double post, this introduction, and and additional commentary by Dennis Maione, on a recent Canadian Supreme Court ruling. My series on “Why I am an Ally” will return next Friday. (My apologies to Geoff who has been waiting six years for this.)

For the uninitiated, you may have a few misconceptions about Canada.

Yes we have a Prime Minister with a six pack (though I don’t think it is quite as good as drawn), we have mountains (except where we don’t), and polar bears (I saw one in zoo once), and Canada geese (way too many). Riding a moose, however, will get you arrested.

There are a number of subtle and not so subtle differences between Canadians and Americans. To explain some of these differences, here is my friend, radio host, bike racing champion, and Canadian icon, Jeff Douglas on his take 25 years ago. I might add that both the commercial and Jeff have aged well.

I hope you enjoy the series!

The Lost World of the Flood: Mythology, Theology, and the Deluge Debate by Tremper Longman III and John H. Walton, Part 4- Propositions 16 and 17

The Lost World of the Flood: Mythology, Theology, and the Deluge Debate
by Tremper Longman III and John H. Walton
Propositions 16-17

Proposition 16- Flood Stories from Around the World Do Not Prove a Worldwide Flood

A number of YEC groups will advertise that flood stories or legends from around the world prove that Noah’s Flood was worldwide. Charles Martin authored a popular book, Flood Legends: Global Clues of a Common Event that advanced that argument. There are certainly many flood stories from around the world, here is a comprehensive list.

Dinosaurs and Humans Diorama in the Creation Museum

It might seem to be a logical argument; if Noah’s Flood was global then the memory of it would be passed down in various people groups as a legend. But it is about as compelling an argument as the various legends of dragons prove humans and dinosaurs co-existed. A more reasonable explanation for the pervasiveness of flood stories is that large floods, even catastrophically large floods, are common enough and impressive enough that they remain in people’s collective memory and are passed down, especially in predominantly oral ancient societies.

Proposition 17- Science Can Purify Our Religion: Religion Can Purify Science from Idolatry and False Absolutes

Walton and Longman recognize that some of their more conservative readers might take issue that they seem to be taking cues from modern science. As I said last post, can Scripture be judged by science? The more conservative evangelical would say no, science is the product of fallen, fallible, sinful men, while Scripture is the product of an infallible, all-knowing God, who cannot lie, tell a falsehood, or even inspire something that is in error. Walton and Longman say:

We have already asserted our affirmation of the view that the Bible is indeed inerrant in all that intends to teach. We also agree that any human project is subject to miscalculation and error. But to pit the Bible against science in this fashion is problematic for more than one reason.

The first reason is that Christianity has always affirmed a “two book” view of God’s truth. God reveals Himself in both the Bible and nature. They quote the Reformed Belgic Confession:

By what means God is made known unto us

We know him by two means; first, by the creation, preservation and government of the universe; which is before our eyes as a most elegant book, wherein all creatures, great and small, are as so many characters leading us to contemplate the invisible things of God, namely His power and divinity, as the apostle Paul says, Rom. 1:20. All which things are sufficient to convince men, and leave them without excuse. Secondly, he makes himself more clearly fully known to us by his holy and divine Word, that is to say, as far as is necessary for us to know in this life, to his glory and our salvation.

Secondly, ultimately the two books cannot conflict; God is the source of all truth and all truth is God’s truth. Borrowing an illustration from Gordon Glover’s wonderful video series on “Science and Christian Education”:

The study of God’s general revelation is what we call science. The study of God’s special revelation (i.e. the Bible) is what we call theology. But because of epistemological and hermeneutic limitations we have neither perfect understanding of nature nor perfect understanding of the Bible. So our understanding of both the Bible and Science is a result of interpretation. This cannot be disputed. You may dispute that your interpretation of Scripture is more closely aligned with what the majority of commentators have always interpreted. That may well be true… it is still no less an interpretation. It is also beyond dispute that interpretations of the Bible have changed as understanding of God’s creation has become more sophisticated. Do I really have to rehash Galileo/Copernicus again?

There is talk of a new astrologer who wants to prove that the earth moves and goes around instead of the sky, the sun, the moon, just as if somebody were moving in a carriage or ship might hold that he was sitting still and at rest while the earth and the trees walked and moved. But that is how things are nowadays: when a man wishes to be clever he must needs invent something special, and the way he does it must needs be the best! The fool wants to turn the whole art of astronomy upside-down. However, as Holy Scripture tells us, so did Joshua bid the sun to stand still and not the earth. Martin Luther, Table Talk

Walton and Longman note that since the Reformation, the Protestant church has vigorously defended the perspicuity and sufficiency of scripture, as do they. Unfortunately, some readers take this to mean that the Bible is clear in everything it says. But that is clearly not the case. W & L cite the Westminster Confession of Faith to illustrate this point:

All things in Scripture are not alike plain in themselves, nor alike clear unto all: yet those things which are necessary to be known, believed, and observed for salvation are so clearly propounded, and opened in some place of Scripture or other, that not only the learned, but the unlearned, in a due use of the ordinary means, may attain unto a sufficient understanding of them. (WCF 1.7)

So taking into account the clear geological evidence that no flood ever flooded the whole planet at one time, and therefore the biblical author must have been engaging in literary hyperbole, is in no way a threat to the “plain and simple” reading of scripture. Right? You’re still saved, God still loves you, Jesus still died for your sins and was raised for your justification. Otherwise, the danger is that Augustine’s warning comes to pass about knowledgeable people scorning the Bible because some Christian’s interpretation is contradicted by the observable evidence.

…If they find a Christian mistaken in a field which they themselves know well and hear him maintaining his foolish opinions about our books, how are they going to believe those books in matters concerning the resurrection of the dead, the hope of eternal life, and the kingdom of heaven, when they think their pages are full of falsehoods on facts which they themselves have learnt from experience and the light of reason? Reckless and incompetent expounders of Holy Scripture bring untold trouble and sorrow on their wiser brethren when they are caught in one of their mischievous false opinions and are taken to task by those who are not bound by the authority of our sacred books. Augustine– The Literal Interpretation of Genesis 1:19–20, Chapt. 19 [AD 408]

But does this work in the other direction? How does religion “purify science”? Walton and Longman believe it does, but not in the same way that science informs religion. The main reason for this is that they assert the Bible does not intend to teach us scientific truth. That God’s actions can be explained by “providence” or proximate cause; mechanical, secondary, physical, measureable, rather than by miracle does not make it any less God’s actions. The Bible is more interested in affirming His agency in creation, not the secondary mechanisms that were used. Remember the mundane example of a tea kettle in the Science and the Bible essays.

We observe a kettle on the stove. Why is the water boiling? Well, water is boiling because heat from the burner is transferred to the water raising the energy level of the individual water molecules until they overcome the latent heat of vaporization and undergo a phase change from liquid to gas.

Or…

Why is the water boiling?

Because I want a cup of tea.

Now you will notice that neither cause is less true than the other. One simply deals with the proximate cause; mechanical, secondary, physical, measureable. The other deals with the ultimate, or teleological cause; meaning, purpose, reasons for existing. The proximate cause answers the question; How? The ultimate cause answers the question; Why?

The Bible really doesn’t offer much in the way of detailed proximate causes, but it is full of statements about ultimate or teleological causes (and often collapses or subsumes the proximate into the ultimate, i.e. the biblical authors didn’t care all that much to draw a firm distinction between something they saw as a unity anyway).

Secondly, they say, religion must challenge science when it oversteps its bounds and proclaims itself the sole arbiter of truth, particularly when scientists start proclaiming in the name of science that religion is false. Walton and Longman say that here is where science becomes idolatry, even though the great majority of scientists know better, there are a handful of well-known exceptions (W & L are looking at you, Richard Dawkins).

I found this book a useful guide to interpreting events described by the Old Testament authors and redactors that would have been ancient history to them, i.e. Genesis 1-11. The insight that they would have not viewed the event as authoritative, but rather the theological interpretation of the event was what carried authority, is profound. This speaks to the Bible’s emphasis on the “why” rather than the “how”. The biblical authors would have expected their audience to understand “why” God flooded the earth, but saved Noah and his family, rather than that audience being concerned with the precise hydrological and geological mechanisms of that flood. As Walton and Longman say:

We have developed the idea that Genesis 1-11 in general, and the flood narrative within it, provides the backstory for the covenant with Abraham and his family that unfolds in the ancestor narratives in Genesis 12-50. God extends grace to humanity through the covenant, he brings order through the Torah within the covenant, and he continues to move toward the restoration of his presence on earth, lost at Eden and reestablished in the tabernacle.

Consequently, if we were to pose the question, Why does the compiler of Genesis include Genesis 1-11? The answer would not be that he wanted us to know about these events. Rather, he is using these well-known events of the past to help the reader understand how the covenant with Abraham fits into the flow of God’s plans and purposed for the cosmos, for his creatures, for his people, and for history. The backstory of Genesis 1-11 explains how and why God came to identify a particular people he chose to be in covenant relationship with.

This way of interpreting these scriptures is far preferable and shows much more respect for the actual text than having to come up with all sorts of nonsense to explain physical impossibilities that aren’t in the text at all. Like a vapor canopy to explain where all the water came from, even though that would have produced Venus-like (melt lead) temperatures at the earth’s surface… not in the Bible. Or floating vegetative mats to explain why all the marsupials got to Australia after migrating across the whole continent of Africa and the Indian Ocean… not in the Bible. Or hypersonic-speed continental drift that would have melted the continents had it occurred… not in the Bible. Or hypersonic-speed evolution (oops, I mean speciation) to explain how all the animals in the world fit on the ark… not in the Bible. I could go on and on to list all the comically stupid things that supposedly would have to occur for the whole planet to be flooded and all animals to be saved on one wooden boat. How is that supposed to respect the “plain and simple” reading of the Bible? Answer—it doesn’t. But Walton and Longman’s interpretation given in this book actually respects the ancient account as God’s inspired word.

An excerpt from Rachel Held Evans’ new book

…“What if the Bible is just fine the way it is? . . . Not the well-behaved-everything-is-in-order version we create, but the messy, troubling, weird, and ancient Bible that we actually have?”

These questions loosened my grip on the text and gave me permission to love the Bible for what it is, not what I want it to be. And here’s the surprising thing about that. When you stop trying to force the Bible to be something it’s not—static, perspicacious, certain, absolute—then you’re free to revel in what it is: living, breathing, confounding, surprising, and yes, perhaps even magic. The ancient rabbis likened Scripture to a palace, alive and bustling, full of grand halls, banquet rooms, secret passages, and locked doors.

“The adventure,” wrote Rabbi Burton L. Visotzky in Reading the Book, lies in “learning the secrets of the palace, unlocking all the doors and perhaps catching a glimpse of the King in all His splendor.”

Renowned New Testament scholar N. T. Wright compared Scripture to a five-act play, full of drama and surprise, wherein the people of God are invited into the story to improvise the unfinished, final act.4 Our ability to faithfully execute our roles in the drama depends on our willingness to enter the narrative, he said, to see how our own stories intersect with the grander epic of God’s redemption of the world. Every page of Scripture serves as an invitation—to wonder, to wrestle, to surrender to the adventure.

• • •

Inspired: Slaying Giants, Walking on Water, and Loving the Bible Again
by Rachel Held Evans
Thomas Nelson (June 12, 2018)

Another Look: Mark

Portrait of a Patient at St. Paul Hospital. Van Gogh

Listen, my beloved brothers and sisters. Has not God chosen the poor in the world to be rich in faith and to be heirs of the kingdom that he has promised to those who love him?

• James 2:5, NRSV

• • •

We stood and sat on a quiet green spot at the cemetery under sunny blue skies filled with white billowing clouds. Besides the funeral home staff, there were fewer than ten of us, and not one was related to the deceased. Mark had no family left in this world, not since his sister died seven years ago. Despite his own handicaps and limitations he had cared for her in the final season of her life. When she died, he took it so hard he ended up in jail.

That’s where he met Dewey. Today, Dewey was sitting in front of me and he was the first to volunteer to speak when I asked for us all to share our memories and thoughts about Mark. He walked up, stood behind the blue metal casket, put a hand on it, and said, “I…I guess I should start. I knew him longest. We met in jail after his sister died. Wasn’t long after that we got out and became roommates. And yeah, we had our ups and downs. Mark, he liked things just so, you know. I was a little more…I don’t know, free, you know? We went through a lot together, Mark and me. I’m gonna miss him.” We were all impressed with Dewey’s initiative and eloquence.

Mark was schizophrenic with mood disorders and had a history of other problems I didn’t fully grasp. When I first visited him with a couple of my hospice teammates he sat on the couch, his stuffed monkey in the corner on a pillow, and he rocked back and forth as he talked. Sometimes, I was told, he insisted you call him by another name — I forget now what it was — that represented an alternative identity. When he was that person, he tended to be more volatile and unreceptive. I never met this other Mark, however. I only knew the soft-spoken, obsessive Mark who repeated his words over and over again and tried to help you understand him.

On that first visit, I came to suspect that he had been hurt by religion or churches, ministers or church people somewhere along the line. When he heard I was the chaplain, he launched into a long stream of consciousness explanation about why he could never take communion because he didn’t believe in eating people and no one was ever going to force him to do that. Not wanting to upset him, I just let him ramble, though every once in a while he left an opening where I could say, “Mark, I’m only here to be your friend. I’ve come to support you and won’t ask you to do anything you don’t want to do.” I could well imagine the impression Mark might have made in a church setting, and how it would have been hard for a minister or church folks to know how to talk to him. It was hard for me, at least on the first visit. So I played it low key, listened a lot, and whenever I spoke I tried to find some words of reassurance and support. It seemed to go pretty well.

Mark was under the care of a team of social workers and counselors from our network’s mental health office near his apartment. With their help, over the course of ten years, Mark had gotten to the point where he could live alone and function with some independence in the community. They visited daily to make sure he took his medications and help him with any problems he encountered. They had been working with Mark in two different locations for over ten years, saw him through the crisis when his sister died, and assisted and supported him through many other challenges. We met with his team when Mark first came on hospice and became partners in providing care for him now that he had developed stage four lung cancer that had metastasized to his brain. As nature is wont to do sometimes, cancer added insult to injury by raising a swollen mass behind his eye that caused it to bulge out, affecting his appearance. Mark was sensitive about that, and even went out on his own and bought an eye patch to cover it up.

It was this small group of people who gathered in front of Mark’s casket under blue skies: the only “family” he had, a friend he met in jail, a couple of us from hospice, and a half dozen case workers who had diligently cared for Mark for many years. I had been asked to lead the service, and as we sat and stood there together, I thought it important to give everyone a chance to share their thoughts, memories, and feelings. Each one tearfully and eloquently did, and what was said reflected the gifts Mark had given to each one as they had worked with him. They spoke of his big heart, his generous manner, his habit of always thanking others for their help and expressing his appreciation. I praised them all for doing God’s work, for giving dignity to someone most people in the world would ignore, for recognizing his value, for giving of themselves to someone who otherwise may have lived and died alone.

And I remembered Jesus’ words, about how he came to bring God’s blessing to the unfortunate, the “losers” (as the world categorizes them):

Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.

Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for justice, for they shall be satisfied.

Portrait of Trabuc, an Attendant at St. Paul Hospital. Van Gogh

Then I recalled that Jesus also commended those who follow him by bringing aid and comfort to those unfortunate ones, whose work is often scoffed at, even opposed by those who do more “important” things in the world:

Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.

Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.

Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.

Blessed are those who have been persecuted for the sake of justice, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

When Jesus said these words, he was going against everything the world stood for — even the religious world. Most people assume that the ones who are truly “blest” in this world are the rich, the comfortable, the well-adjusted, the healthy, the happy people, the people who make a lot of money or gain a lot of power and prestige. We tend to think that God’s favor is for the winners, not the losers.

But Jesus said just the opposite. He said he came to lift up the lowly, to reach out to those the rest of us avoid, to give priority to powerless, mistreated, hurting people. He came to seek out the lost, hidden, overlooked folks. The people on the margins. The difficult cases. The intractable problem people. The poor, the oppressed, those who are physically, mentally and emotionally frail. Those whom society calls the losers.

People like Mark.

When we care for people like Mark and get involved in their lives, we realize that the world’s categorization of “winners” and “losers” amounts to a pile of horse manure. Every single one of those people present before Mark’s casket that day testified of his dignity, his value, his worth, and what they gained from working with him. Every person mourned that day because a beautiful life had left the world. It matters not one whit that this life had been wrapped in a troubling disguise. Yes, it took long work and faithful attention for some to uncover and appreciate the beauty, but it was there all the time awaiting discovery.

If you read the stories about Jesus, you see that he interacted with these kinds of people all the time, treated them as important and delighted in giving attention to them. Those in power and leadership didn’t like it very much because they thought that Israel’s Messiah should first come to bless the leaders and make them stronger and more prosperous and capable of overcoming their enemies. But that’s not where Jesus placed his priorities. And they were offended.

Even today, it is sad that the world doesn’t usually honor people with those kind of priorities. I remarked to that group of folks who worked with Mark that I didn’t have to tell them that. All we need to do is look at our paychecks and contrast what they pay people in other kinds of jobs to see what the world values and rewards.

But a lot of those better paid people will never know what it means to receive gifts from folks like Mark.

The last time I saw Mark awake and alert, he had been admitted to a nursing home because he couldn’t live alone any longer due to the progression of his disease. A few of us went to see him and found that he was now mumbling his words to such an extent that they were indecipherable. Still, he tried to communicate, and we in turn tried to reassure him. I took a moment just before I left to kneel down in front of him as he sat on his bed. “Mark, we’re here for you and I’ll check on you again soon, OK? I want you to know we’re praying for you. See you later.” Once again, knowing that the topic of religion could set him off, I tried to keep a light touch.

I arose and started to walk out the door, and when I did I perceived some movement out of the corner of my eye. I looked back at Mark and he was sitting there with his hand outstretched, reaching out to shake mine. A wave of profound joy overwhelmed me at that moment. I took his hand and when I let go, I walked away holding a gift that no one can ever take away from me.