Rejoice!
September 18, 2011
Pentecost
College Community MB Church
Philippians 3:1-11
When I was in my last year of seminary, one of my good friends and I were talking about how we viewed and experienced the world. We were discerning our gifts together, how we might contribute to God’s mission in the world. She affirmed me, but then she told me something I have come back to again and again. “Michelle,” she said, “you will have to practice the discipline of celebration.” She did not have to explain; I knew what she meant. I gravitate toward the pathos of prophetic literature and psalms of lament. Advent and Lent are the seasons with which I most resonate. I am no stranger to “the dark night of the soul.”
So usually when I come to Paul’s words, “Rejoice in the Lord!” I feel a certain awkwardness. How is it that this man can issue this call to the Philippian believers? He is constantly facing adversity. In this letter alone he mentions an array of struggles: he is in prison, uncertain of his future; rival preachers are trying to stir up more trouble for him, his companion Epaphroditus nearly died from illness, the believing community he so dearly loves in Philippi is wrestling with the so-called “gospel” brought to them by those who insist that they must abide by certain Jewish laws, like circumcision, in order to really be God’s people, and he longs to comfort this group by being with them but cannot because he is detained.
I imagine the Philippians are watching this situation unfold and their anxiety is increasing about Paul’s future and its implications for the gospel message and mission. They seem to be a close community – generous, sincere, willing to participate in Paul’s work. Their confession that “Jesus is Lord” has shaped their lives. Paul’s dear friends in Philippi encounter their own struggles – tension with the Roman civic religion and authorities, remaining unified as other teachers come through town with various versions of the gospel. I am sure that at times they feel small, an insignificant minority living among the dominant majority. I am sure that at times they feel discouraged and question how much difference their efforts make. After all, Paul is in prison. Is this the future they have to look forward to? Will their neighbors issue a complaint against their “atheism”? Will the government decide to systematically seek out and punish Christians? Rome seems so powerful; its claim that “Caesar is Lord” is so loud.
Might they gravitate toward the lament: “By the rivers of Babylon – there we sat down and wept when we remembered Zion. On the willows there we hung up our harps. For there our captors asked us for songs, and our tormentors asked us for mirth, saying, ‘Sing us one of the songs of Zion!’” (Ps. 137:1-3). Do they see themselves in the exile story? Dominated by kings that claim their gods’ victory over Israel’s God? The story goes that Yahweh allowed the exile because of Israel’s unfaithfulness, and some responded to that story by turning to strict observance of the law. The Philippians might wonder, “What if these teachers of circumcision are right? What kind of security do we have that we have been made part of God’s people? What might we do to stir God to act, to overturn the power of Rome and establish his kingdom?” Might they often utter the words, “How long, O Lord?” Might this vulnerability open them to the threat of the dominant reality, the whisper of the narrative that sets itself up as an enemy of the cross of Christ? In another letter, Paul writes emphatically, “I am not ashamed of the gospel; it is the power for salvation to everyone who has faith” (Rom. 1:16). In this letter he gives us a hymn – an example of real power, Christ emptying himself. And again he says that he is confident that he will not be put to shame. The dominant reality may tempt us to give up on the way of the cross, discounting it as foolishness, but the gospel remains the story that God has indeed demonstrated his power and love in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus.
Don’t we live in that same tension? Could Paul’s letter be for us – in our struggle to discern the true story? To make sense of our daily experiences in light of these competing narratives? Might our vision become dim? Might we sometimes see things upside-down? (Play: Derek Webb’s “What is Not Love”)
Knowing that sharing in the sufferings of Christ may find us in our own wilderness facing the temptation of alternative ways, Paul writes to us: “Rejoice in the Lord.”
Anything we might be tempted to put our hope in besides the gospel, even for a little while, even for the sake of practicality or expediency or relief, is rubbish. Dominating power? Count it as loss. Status and privilege? Count it as loss. Money, security? Count it as loss. Race, gender, employment? Far be it from us that we might embody the narrative that seeks to hold its claim over what is God’s!
Derek Webb sings in another song, “There’s got to be a love that stronger than our fear of everything… Cause there is a day that’s been inaugurated but has not yet come - that we can proclaim by showing that there’s a better way.”
Can we say and live out Paul’s desire: “I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the sharing in his sufferings by becoming like him in his death, if somehow I may attain the resurrection from the dead”?
After sitting with this text for a couple of weeks, this line, this call to rejoice speaks loudest to me. Maybe because joy is not my most natural inclination, these words of Paul remind me of the words my seminary friend spoke to me. In the midst of the “not yet” aspect of God’s kingdom, it is easy to become overly burdened. Jesus’ words to us today from the Sermon on the Mount remind us that each day has enough trouble of its own; he releases us from carrying unnecessary burdens by reminding us that God knows our need and will take care of us. We have become his children, been invited into his Kingdom mission. That’s our story. That’s THE story. The gospel, the good news, is that God’s story is one of promise: it will culminate in the kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven.
One celebration we share on a regular basis is communion. It is a reminder that Christ suffered, and as his disciples we too will suffer. It is also a reminder that Christ was raised, and as his disciples we too will be raised to new life. Communion gives us an opportunity to celebrate that future, but it also challenges us to celebrate the “already” aspect of the kingdom. When our vision is shaped by God’s narrative, what do we see? How do we view the world? How do we interpret our experiences? Are we confident that the good work started here among and in us will be brought to completion?
Rejoice. Take joy. Celebrate. One of the most meaningful times of celebration for me is sharing a meal with friends. Breaking bread together. It is so easy to get out of the habit of inviting people in, but it is crucial to cultivate connections within our community. When was the last time you invited people to your table? When was the last time you invited yourself over to someone else’s table? To eat, to laugh, to share. Rejoicing is more than an act of will to feel happy or to have a better attitude. Rejoicing is a counter-cultural celebration among God’s people that passionately cries out, “Jesus is Lord! It’s true! Jesus has overcome! God is acting to deliver us!”
(Call & response) Say that with me: "Jesus is Lord! It's true! Jesus has overcome! God is acting to deliver us!"
What better way to embody that proclamation than in meaningful and mutual relationship? It is after our passage for today that Paul encourages the people in Philippi to renew their commitment to each other in unity, in being of the same mind. He urges individuals in the church to reconcile and agree with each other. Why? What makes such unity and such reconciliation possible? This story, this gospel, this Christ who gave himself up. Can we share Paul’s confidence in this reality so that we give ourselves up as well?
This brings to mind one other act of celebration I’d like us to consider. Reconciliation between members of a church community. This process may at first seem reason to worry, even lament. However, once reconciliation is under way, celebration can take place. Celebration that indeed in this interpersonal healing, the power of the kingdom is demonstrated.
Maybe you are blessed in ways that I am not and this comes quite naturally to you. Maybe you are a lot like me and celebration needs to become a practiced discipline. Let us all think for a moment about celebration, about rejoicing. How do you most express and experience joy? How do you most connect with the good news of God’s story? How do we as a congregation engage this joy and celebrate together? How might we grow in this area?
“Finally, my brothers and sisters, rejoice in the Lord. To [say this] same thing to you is no trouble for me and is safe for you.”
Rejoice!
Amen.
Wednesday, October 13, 2010
Investing in Community
October 10, 2010
Ordinary Time
College Community MB Church
Psalm 133
Ecclesiastes 4:9-12
Luke 9:1-17
Jesus' instructions to the disciples as he is sending them out to proclaim the kingdom of God make no sense in our world. "Take nothing for your journey." To be dependent on others is to be weak, inadequate, irresponsible. We live in a world that tells us from birth: Stand on your own two feet. To need is to be deficient. We sense this cultural ethos in our animosity toward those who need welfare, our pride when we give charity to others, and our shame when we have to ask for help in circumstances of illness, unemployment or old age. We have the idea that a mature, healthy human being is one who is self-sufficient, independent, autonomous.
So when we think about going out and proclaiming the kingdom of God, we probably don't plan to leave everything we'll need behind. Self-sufficiency enhances our ability to ministry to others; after all, we are sent to give to the needy, not express our own needs.
NRP recently reported on the growing number of adults who are moving in with family and friends to ride out the economic storm raging all around us. This phenomenon of "doubling up" shows the continuing need to take drastic measures to survive. Those who have taken this rouate express thankfulness that they have some place to turn and a way to reduce bills, yet there is still the sub-text that the need to "double up" is indicative of failure. When young adults need to move back in with mom and dad, we cut them some slack because - they're young - they haven't yet learned how to take care of themselves. But when a 45 year old mom with two kids cannot sustain her family independently, we think, "What a shame!" "Doubling up" is plan B or C, not plan A - the American Dream. We are experiencing the let down of an unsustainable way of life, one where the image of success and worth is 3,000 square feet surrounded by a picket fence, 2 cars and the family dog. The lengths to which we have gone to possess the content of that dream have left us exhausted and bankrupt, moving in with others, scratching our heads, thinking, "What went wrong?" and "How do I get it all back?" It sure would be a breath of fresh air if we heard announcements like, "Your debt is erased!" "You now have a home!" "Here is meaningful work!"
When Jesus sends out the twelve, isn't this sort of what they are proclaiming - "Good news to the oppressed and broken-hearted, liberty to the captives, release to the prisoners... the year of the LORD's favor" (Isa. 61:1-2)?
Sometimes I hear this and I think that the gospel of the kingdom is that all our needs will be met. And I can imagine that if I'm proclaiming this gospel, my life should display this reality. But my reality is that I am a needy person. I'd probably fit in well with the crowds who flocked to hear Jesus in Bethsaida. I'm hoping for something good, some release, some liberty. I'm looking for the kingdom of God, the setting right of all things, the restoration of shalom on this earth and within the human community. Yet too often I assume that that looks like our images of independence.
What was Jesus doing when he sent out his disciples and told them to rely on the hospitality of the houses they entered in the towns the visited? Was he just trying to keep his budget low? I think that if Jesus wanted the disciples to proclaim the kingdom, he probably wanted them to create possibilities for the kingdom to be seen and experienced. Of course it was in obvious ways like healing and exorcisms. But what about the illness and bondage that we don't see? What about the assumptions that we hold about autonomy? Why is self-sufficiency so important? What drives that need? Might we be suffering from the illness of alienation, fear, shame... all these forces of sin that drive us to hide, distance ourselves from one another and cultivate relationships of competition, strife, envy, violence?
How do you heal that? How do you break that bondage? How do we become people who don't look to the gospel as a story of a great vending machine come to dispense what we need for the lives we've created? How do we become, instead, people who hear Jubilee as good news - people who seek to create communities of peace by the practice of empowerment that overcomes domination, sharing that overcomes hoarding, interdependence that overcomes autonomy?
One way that God has been working in my life to shape me into that kind of person is to offer me opportunities to express my own need. Let me tell you how hard this is. When I first read Henry Nouwen's book, The Wounded Healer, my initial response was, "Great. Good idea. But not for me." I want to offer my gifts, not my need. I want to be a healed healer. Offering my need asks me to make myself vulnerable, learn to trust, live outside my own control. I can offer my gifts without offering myself - I can stay safely behind my fig leaves. But it is very difficult to offer my need without opening myself up to others; I have to lower my defenses and actually hope in the gospel of reconciliation and newness.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer writes about "the place where faith is possible" (The Cost of Discipleship) - this place is where we're stretched in obedience beyond belief, where we step out beyond our ability and control. This is the place were faith is actually faith - the assurance of things hoped for - instead of where we live most of our lives - the place where we can make things happen for ourselves.
Teachers know that modeling is an effective technique. We most often assume that when it comes to the kingdom, we in our fullness model to others what they might obtain. So how do we respond to the Jesus who sents his disciples out without staff, bag, bread or money? Jesus models a way of life for us that puts himself at risk, that opens himself up to deep relationship, that shows his faith in the power of the kingdom making all things new. And he asks his disciples to go out and put themselves at risk, open themselves to the possibility of relationship. By offering their own need they give their hosts an opportunity to participate in a liberated community relationship. They demonstrate their faith in the gospel they proclaim. They invest in community by giving themselves to it completely. Their investment, the gospel of the kingdom claims, will pay out the blessings of shalom.
Qoheleth, in our Old Tesatment reading, tells us that "Two are better than one" because "they'll get good wages for their work" (Eccl. 4:9). This does not mean that in our quest for self-made security and comfort that a quicker way to get the goods is to work twice as hard or to enlist an assistant to work under us. More labor does not equal more gain. He's just finished bemoaning the oppressive system of "all toil and all skill in work com[ing] from one person's envy of another," calling it "Vanity! Emptiness!" Qoheleth sees that much evil comes from our never-ending striving for more. That pattern of living depletes us of life. When he says that "Two are better than one" he recognizes that competition and domination do not reward us; instead, friendship, partnership, interdependent relationship is what generates life and goodness. When we struggle in life, we need others who have been walking with us and who are ready to offer us extra support. When we come up against that which would overpower us, we need the strength of community. Qoheleth tells us, All those schmucks out there killing themselves to live the story of person independence and success - fighting with the people who pose a threat, dismissing those who get in the way of production and efficiency, eliminating those without power - they will end up consuming themselves. Those who have invested in community have something larger than themselves to work for, and their labor will be rewarding and benefit many.
The disciples did as Jesus said; however, when they returned it is clear that they were still in need of being transformed to see and live in the kingdom they went out proclaiming - the kingdom that heals and liberates, overturns patters of selfishness, distrust, oppression. Having just experienced the family network and hospitality of God's people, the disciples still fail to recognize the power of this pattern of interdependence when 5,000 plus hungry people were before them. They watched Jesus do what they had just been doing - proclaiming, healing, and they probably worked alongside Jesus while they crowd formed. But, at dinner time, the crowd and their need seemed overwhelming. The disciples didn't have enough food to go around. They were hungry too. They wanted to eat, and they probably didn't want to have to give up their dinner. In that moment they suggested that these people go take care of their own need so that the disciples could eat what they brought for themselves.
I imagine Jesus chuckling at them when he said, "You give them something to eat." The disciples probably didn't see what was so funny. They were probably thinking, "Jesus. You know we don't have enough. Don't you know it is impossible to provide for all these people? let them take care of themselves and we'll take care of ourselves." Jesus may have smiled even bigger and said, "Really? You don't see it? How possible has any of what we've been doing been? According to the 'way of the world,' the 'dominant reality' (Brueggemann), does any of this make sense? Does it make sense that you went out with nothing and were taken care of? Does it make sense that we've had power over sickness and demons? I mean, demons! The power of the prince of this world is in full force. You see it all around you. You are oppressed by it. These people are oppressed by it. And we've been telling them that there is liberation, an alternative reality, the true reality of God's kingdom. That Jubliee has arrived. And you're really going to send them away because all you hold in your hand is your own dinner?"
Jesus modeled for them again the power of the kingdom, and the disciples experienced a re-orienting in mind and relationship necessary to pour out that power. Jesus prays and the disciples serve. And the hungry were filled. What a blessing! God's kingdom is not limited by the kingdom of this present evil age.
It is easy to look out at the crowd, at the masses of people in the world in so much need, and feel overwhelmed. We look at ourselves in the mirror and say, "I don't have enough. I am not enough." We get in touch with our own limits and need, and we begin to lose vision for what could be, what should be. We start thinking "rationally" or "logically" or "realistically" and our imagination dims. All of a sudden we are doing a cost-benefit analysis of our ministry to the crowds. Can we make this happen? Can we pull this off? Does this seem to be a good use of our resources? After all, we've got to look out for number one so that we can continue to do all this good among the people.
Can we hear Jesus chuckling at us? So, you've just healed a blind man, but you don't see how the power you just demonstrated makes all things new? Sometimes we lack, as Old Testament scholar Walter Brueggemann calls it, a prophetic imagination. Brueggemann writes:
I said before that it is difficult for me to offer my need. I'm afraid that I'll be dismissed or rejected. I'm afraid of being judged inadequate or irresponsible. I don't want to extend myself beyond what I can control. In small ways, however, I have trusted this community by communicating my need. And, you have responded in ways that turn the powers of this world upside-down. You offer care. You pray. You invite me to participate in the Disciples Fund. You gather around me in discernment. I have seen a new thing here. And I wonder, how else might our imaginations be energized by Jesus' life, teachings, death and resurrection? How else might we offer our loaves and fish? How else might we be honest and share our own need so that someone else might have the opportunity to respond and participate in deeper relationship with us?
The psalmist proclaims in the words we heard earlier:
"Give your full attention to this truth: when we live in deep partnership with one another, new life is generated, poured out by God. What a restoring experience!"
October 10, 2010
Ordinary Time
College Community MB Church
Psalm 133
Ecclesiastes 4:9-12
Luke 9:1-17
Jesus' instructions to the disciples as he is sending them out to proclaim the kingdom of God make no sense in our world. "Take nothing for your journey." To be dependent on others is to be weak, inadequate, irresponsible. We live in a world that tells us from birth: Stand on your own two feet. To need is to be deficient. We sense this cultural ethos in our animosity toward those who need welfare, our pride when we give charity to others, and our shame when we have to ask for help in circumstances of illness, unemployment or old age. We have the idea that a mature, healthy human being is one who is self-sufficient, independent, autonomous.
So when we think about going out and proclaiming the kingdom of God, we probably don't plan to leave everything we'll need behind. Self-sufficiency enhances our ability to ministry to others; after all, we are sent to give to the needy, not express our own needs.
NRP recently reported on the growing number of adults who are moving in with family and friends to ride out the economic storm raging all around us. This phenomenon of "doubling up" shows the continuing need to take drastic measures to survive. Those who have taken this rouate express thankfulness that they have some place to turn and a way to reduce bills, yet there is still the sub-text that the need to "double up" is indicative of failure. When young adults need to move back in with mom and dad, we cut them some slack because - they're young - they haven't yet learned how to take care of themselves. But when a 45 year old mom with two kids cannot sustain her family independently, we think, "What a shame!" "Doubling up" is plan B or C, not plan A - the American Dream. We are experiencing the let down of an unsustainable way of life, one where the image of success and worth is 3,000 square feet surrounded by a picket fence, 2 cars and the family dog. The lengths to which we have gone to possess the content of that dream have left us exhausted and bankrupt, moving in with others, scratching our heads, thinking, "What went wrong?" and "How do I get it all back?" It sure would be a breath of fresh air if we heard announcements like, "Your debt is erased!" "You now have a home!" "Here is meaningful work!"
When Jesus sends out the twelve, isn't this sort of what they are proclaiming - "Good news to the oppressed and broken-hearted, liberty to the captives, release to the prisoners... the year of the LORD's favor" (Isa. 61:1-2)?
Sometimes I hear this and I think that the gospel of the kingdom is that all our needs will be met. And I can imagine that if I'm proclaiming this gospel, my life should display this reality. But my reality is that I am a needy person. I'd probably fit in well with the crowds who flocked to hear Jesus in Bethsaida. I'm hoping for something good, some release, some liberty. I'm looking for the kingdom of God, the setting right of all things, the restoration of shalom on this earth and within the human community. Yet too often I assume that that looks like our images of independence.
What was Jesus doing when he sent out his disciples and told them to rely on the hospitality of the houses they entered in the towns the visited? Was he just trying to keep his budget low? I think that if Jesus wanted the disciples to proclaim the kingdom, he probably wanted them to create possibilities for the kingdom to be seen and experienced. Of course it was in obvious ways like healing and exorcisms. But what about the illness and bondage that we don't see? What about the assumptions that we hold about autonomy? Why is self-sufficiency so important? What drives that need? Might we be suffering from the illness of alienation, fear, shame... all these forces of sin that drive us to hide, distance ourselves from one another and cultivate relationships of competition, strife, envy, violence?
How do you heal that? How do you break that bondage? How do we become people who don't look to the gospel as a story of a great vending machine come to dispense what we need for the lives we've created? How do we become, instead, people who hear Jubilee as good news - people who seek to create communities of peace by the practice of empowerment that overcomes domination, sharing that overcomes hoarding, interdependence that overcomes autonomy?
One way that God has been working in my life to shape me into that kind of person is to offer me opportunities to express my own need. Let me tell you how hard this is. When I first read Henry Nouwen's book, The Wounded Healer, my initial response was, "Great. Good idea. But not for me." I want to offer my gifts, not my need. I want to be a healed healer. Offering my need asks me to make myself vulnerable, learn to trust, live outside my own control. I can offer my gifts without offering myself - I can stay safely behind my fig leaves. But it is very difficult to offer my need without opening myself up to others; I have to lower my defenses and actually hope in the gospel of reconciliation and newness.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer writes about "the place where faith is possible" (The Cost of Discipleship) - this place is where we're stretched in obedience beyond belief, where we step out beyond our ability and control. This is the place were faith is actually faith - the assurance of things hoped for - instead of where we live most of our lives - the place where we can make things happen for ourselves.
Teachers know that modeling is an effective technique. We most often assume that when it comes to the kingdom, we in our fullness model to others what they might obtain. So how do we respond to the Jesus who sents his disciples out without staff, bag, bread or money? Jesus models a way of life for us that puts himself at risk, that opens himself up to deep relationship, that shows his faith in the power of the kingdom making all things new. And he asks his disciples to go out and put themselves at risk, open themselves to the possibility of relationship. By offering their own need they give their hosts an opportunity to participate in a liberated community relationship. They demonstrate their faith in the gospel they proclaim. They invest in community by giving themselves to it completely. Their investment, the gospel of the kingdom claims, will pay out the blessings of shalom.
Qoheleth, in our Old Tesatment reading, tells us that "Two are better than one" because "they'll get good wages for their work" (Eccl. 4:9). This does not mean that in our quest for self-made security and comfort that a quicker way to get the goods is to work twice as hard or to enlist an assistant to work under us. More labor does not equal more gain. He's just finished bemoaning the oppressive system of "all toil and all skill in work com[ing] from one person's envy of another," calling it "Vanity! Emptiness!" Qoheleth sees that much evil comes from our never-ending striving for more. That pattern of living depletes us of life. When he says that "Two are better than one" he recognizes that competition and domination do not reward us; instead, friendship, partnership, interdependent relationship is what generates life and goodness. When we struggle in life, we need others who have been walking with us and who are ready to offer us extra support. When we come up against that which would overpower us, we need the strength of community. Qoheleth tells us, All those schmucks out there killing themselves to live the story of person independence and success - fighting with the people who pose a threat, dismissing those who get in the way of production and efficiency, eliminating those without power - they will end up consuming themselves. Those who have invested in community have something larger than themselves to work for, and their labor will be rewarding and benefit many.
The disciples did as Jesus said; however, when they returned it is clear that they were still in need of being transformed to see and live in the kingdom they went out proclaiming - the kingdom that heals and liberates, overturns patters of selfishness, distrust, oppression. Having just experienced the family network and hospitality of God's people, the disciples still fail to recognize the power of this pattern of interdependence when 5,000 plus hungry people were before them. They watched Jesus do what they had just been doing - proclaiming, healing, and they probably worked alongside Jesus while they crowd formed. But, at dinner time, the crowd and their need seemed overwhelming. The disciples didn't have enough food to go around. They were hungry too. They wanted to eat, and they probably didn't want to have to give up their dinner. In that moment they suggested that these people go take care of their own need so that the disciples could eat what they brought for themselves.
I imagine Jesus chuckling at them when he said, "You give them something to eat." The disciples probably didn't see what was so funny. They were probably thinking, "Jesus. You know we don't have enough. Don't you know it is impossible to provide for all these people? let them take care of themselves and we'll take care of ourselves." Jesus may have smiled even bigger and said, "Really? You don't see it? How possible has any of what we've been doing been? According to the 'way of the world,' the 'dominant reality' (Brueggemann), does any of this make sense? Does it make sense that you went out with nothing and were taken care of? Does it make sense that we've had power over sickness and demons? I mean, demons! The power of the prince of this world is in full force. You see it all around you. You are oppressed by it. These people are oppressed by it. And we've been telling them that there is liberation, an alternative reality, the true reality of God's kingdom. That Jubliee has arrived. And you're really going to send them away because all you hold in your hand is your own dinner?"
Jesus modeled for them again the power of the kingdom, and the disciples experienced a re-orienting in mind and relationship necessary to pour out that power. Jesus prays and the disciples serve. And the hungry were filled. What a blessing! God's kingdom is not limited by the kingdom of this present evil age.
It is easy to look out at the crowd, at the masses of people in the world in so much need, and feel overwhelmed. We look at ourselves in the mirror and say, "I don't have enough. I am not enough." We get in touch with our own limits and need, and we begin to lose vision for what could be, what should be. We start thinking "rationally" or "logically" or "realistically" and our imagination dims. All of a sudden we are doing a cost-benefit analysis of our ministry to the crowds. Can we make this happen? Can we pull this off? Does this seem to be a good use of our resources? After all, we've got to look out for number one so that we can continue to do all this good among the people.
Can we hear Jesus chuckling at us? So, you've just healed a blind man, but you don't see how the power you just demonstrated makes all things new? Sometimes we lack, as Old Testament scholar Walter Brueggemann calls it, a prophetic imagination. Brueggemann writes:
The formation of an alternative community with an alternative consciousness is so that the dominant community may be criticized and finally dismantled. But more than dismantling, the purpose of the alternative community is to enable a new human beginning to be made...Again, our text does not make sense in this world. Jesus' life does not make sense. His way is not the way to bring a kingdom. His way is not the way to secure oneself. For crying out loud - he asks us to give ourselves up, to offer ourselves to our brother, our sister, our neighbor. He asks us to join his family, to let go of the ways in which we've learned to "manage" or "cope" in the royal/dominant reality and exchange them for the ways of God's kingdom, the alternative reality: risky vulnerability and hopefull trust, interdependence and belonging.
If we are to understand prophetic energizing, we must see that its characteristic idiom is hope... When in the prophetic tradition we come to speak of the ultimate presentation of energy, we finally must turn to Jesus of Nazareth. We have seen that, by his actions and words, and especially by his crucifixion, he engaged in the dismantling of the royal consciousness and brought his community to face its grief in that dismantling. The counterpart to that, and indeed the focus of the work of Jesus, was not dismantling but the inauguration of a new thing. This imagination and action stood against all the discerned data and in teh face of the doubt and resistance of those to whom he came. That ultimate energizing gave people a future when they believed that the grim present was the end and the only possible state of existence. That new future in which no one believed was born in staggering amazement, for it was correctly perceived as underived and unextrapolated and therefore beyond human understanding and human control. (Brueggemann, Prophetic Imagination, 101-102)
I said before that it is difficult for me to offer my need. I'm afraid that I'll be dismissed or rejected. I'm afraid of being judged inadequate or irresponsible. I don't want to extend myself beyond what I can control. In small ways, however, I have trusted this community by communicating my need. And, you have responded in ways that turn the powers of this world upside-down. You offer care. You pray. You invite me to participate in the Disciples Fund. You gather around me in discernment. I have seen a new thing here. And I wonder, how else might our imaginations be energized by Jesus' life, teachings, death and resurrection? How else might we offer our loaves and fish? How else might we be honest and share our own need so that someone else might have the opportunity to respond and participate in deeper relationship with us?
The psalmist proclaims in the words we heard earlier:
"Give your full attention to this truth: when we live in deep partnership with one another, new life is generated, poured out by God. What a restoring experience!"
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
Longing for God in the Wilderness
1st Mennonite Church, Reedley, CA
3rd Sunday of Lent 2010
Isaiah 55:1-9
Psalm 63:1-8
1 Corinthians 10:1-13
Luke 13:1-9
We are in the season of Lent, a time when we remember the 40 days Jesus was in the wilderness, fasting and facing temptation, the stretch of his journey between his baptism and affirmation as the Son of God and the start of his public ministry. For 40 days we come alongside Jesus in the wilderness. We may remind ourselves that "man does not live by bread alone" by giving up some food: chocolate, meat, coffee, dining out. We may participate in other kinds of fasting - turning off the television, abstaining from sex, hiding the credit cards, disconnecting the internet. We give something up in order to simulate a wilderness experience so that we might remember Jesus' life. It is, after all, the life we are called to live.
In the wilderness, Jesus embodied the words of sonship the voice from heaven spoke at his baptism: he shows us what it means to be a child of God. Core to Jesus' response to temptation is his trust in the story of God inviting his people into his kingdom. When Satan tries to undermine God's mission in the world, Jesus responds, "It is written..." Scripture witnesses to God's work in human history and echoes his promise to redeem his people. Jesus clings to this story. When Satan tries to adjust the plot, Jesus refuses the revision and embraces the gospel narrative.
The apostle Paul, in his letters to the Cornithians, tries to transform their imaginations with this gospel narrative. These gentiles have been shaped by another story - one where status accumulation is a major plot element. Recognition, being on top, acquiring wealth and respect... these are the ultimate values of the day. This kind of narrative is in conflict with the gospel story. The gospel, after all, has Jesus willingly entering into struggle, suffering and self-sacrifice. It is no wonder that Paul has to work so hard to correct the Corinthians' thinking. They mistake the gospel as another avenue of pursuing status, but Paul says, "Your way is not God's way."
He does this by submerging them into the story of Israel. "I do not want you to be unaware, brothers and sisters, that our ancestors were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea, and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, and all ate the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drakn from the spiritual rock that followed them, and the rock was Christ." Paul says, "The wilderness story, the story of God liberating his people from slavery and ushering them toward the Promised Land, is the story of everyone who follows Christ." By calling Christ the rock, I imagine Paul is pulling together Jesus' life and the life of God's people. The Corinthians have responded to the story of Jesus' life, but they may have trouble seeing themselves as part of Israel's story. Paul says, "We are all walking in the wilderness with Israel - away from bondage, oppression, all that deals death in this world - including the narrative that you Corinthians persist in holding onto - and toward freedom, real freedom, the freedom that brings justice, peace, unity, and new life."
At this point the Corinthians may be nodding their heads and thinking, "Great. We're on our way to greater liberation. Sounds good." Paul's next words are, "Nevertheless, God was not pleased with most of them, and they were struck down in the wilderness." All of a sudden, these fledgling Christians become aware of the larger wilderness story. It is dangerous. It is a place of testing. It is a place where identity is demonstrated. "Who will you be?" Paul confronts them with this question. "Which story will you live by?" He presses them to understand that they are on a wilderness journey. Though they may be living in a bustling city bursting with opportunities for wealth and pleasure, the reality is that they are in a barren land. They are trekking with Moses in the dust and heat that push the people to the place where they learn whether or not they trust the gospel story. Paul tells the story this way: the people are journeying in the wilderness with Christ who provides them the nourishment to follow. But they grumbled. They complained. They lusted after other things. In the wilderness they longed for Egypt, for the story from which they were supposed to be liberated. Paul urges the Corinthians, "Do not become idolaters as some of them did... We must not indulge in sexual immorality as some of them did... We must not complain as some of them did... We must not put Christ to the test."
These words pull together Israel's wilderness story and Jesus' wilderness story. When offered the chance to revise the gospel story, Jesus' final response was, "It is written, 'Do not put the Lord your God to the test.'" Jesus knew the path he had to walk, the path that would lead us all out of slavery and into a new creation. When tempted, Jesus demonstrated his trust in God's narrative. Paul urges the Corinthians to evaluate themselves in the wilderness: "What are you longing for? Meat? Pleasure? Wealth? Status? Security? Or could it be that your cry is, 'O God, you are my God, I seek you, my soul thirsts for you; my flesh faints for you, as in a dry and weary land where there is no water.'"
This season of Lent reminds us that we are part of Jesus' story. We are also in a sort of perpetual Lent. We find ourselves in the midst of the journey toward liberation and redemption. Paul reminds us that being part of Jesus' story makes us part of Israel's story. We are navigating the wilderness where we become the people of God. We will be tested. Satan will offer alternative paths, plot revisions. Take a few moments to consider what the revisions common to our social locations may be. Now turn to the person next to you and share - What temptations do we face? What paths does Satan offer us?
One of the ways in which I struggle with the path Jesus walked is that I do not want to bear the suffering of betrayal and abandonment he bore. He continually gave himself, opened himself, risked himself. Even when he knew that Judas would betray him to the authorities and that Peter would deny him among the crowds, he washed their feet and gathered them at the table. He demonstrated what is means to be authentically human: he lives a life of embrace, one that welcomed all into intimate relationship. I am tempted, however, to withdraw when I am disappointed, betrayed, or abandoned. The pain of those experiences seem too much to bear; they seem to threaten me at my core. And I want to protect myself from the possibility of more pain. When I choose the path of self-protection, I leave the path that Jesus walked. When I am faced with the temptation to leave that path, I am faced with the question we have raised this morning: Do I believe God's story? Do I strust the narrative of God's liberating and transforming and reconciling mission? Do I trust Jesus' story - that even though he was killed, God brought new life? Oftentimes this temptation seems more powerful than I am strong.
Lest we be overwhelmed in the wilderness, Paul reminds us, "No testing has overtaken you that is not common to everyone. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tested beyond your strength, but with the testing he will also provide the way out so that you may be able to endure it." God is faithful. Did you hear that? God is faithful! We can trust his story, the narrative of his mission in the world. On our wilderness journey we have two examples: Paul points to the example of the unfaithful Israelites as a warning - let us not follow in their footsteps. Paul urges us to follow Jesus' example of faithfulness, of trust and dependence as a child of God. Let us, in our attachment to Christ, bear his fruit.
We are walking the path that leads to new life by way of the cross. At times that plot may seem odd, too difficult or futile. However, it is the path that was set before Jesus and it is the path that he calls his disciples to walk. When we eat the bread and drink the wine of Jesus table, we emobdy Jesus and covenant together in his mission. We are the real presence of Christ in this world. When we encounter attempts to re-write or erase the story we cling to, may we prove ourselves sons and daughters of God in our radical attachment to the narrative spoken in the Word made flesh. May we hear God's voice calling in the wilderness:
Amen.
1st Mennonite Church, Reedley, CA
3rd Sunday of Lent 2010
Isaiah 55:1-9
Psalm 63:1-8
1 Corinthians 10:1-13
Luke 13:1-9
We are in the season of Lent, a time when we remember the 40 days Jesus was in the wilderness, fasting and facing temptation, the stretch of his journey between his baptism and affirmation as the Son of God and the start of his public ministry. For 40 days we come alongside Jesus in the wilderness. We may remind ourselves that "man does not live by bread alone" by giving up some food: chocolate, meat, coffee, dining out. We may participate in other kinds of fasting - turning off the television, abstaining from sex, hiding the credit cards, disconnecting the internet. We give something up in order to simulate a wilderness experience so that we might remember Jesus' life. It is, after all, the life we are called to live.
In the wilderness, Jesus embodied the words of sonship the voice from heaven spoke at his baptism: he shows us what it means to be a child of God. Core to Jesus' response to temptation is his trust in the story of God inviting his people into his kingdom. When Satan tries to undermine God's mission in the world, Jesus responds, "It is written..." Scripture witnesses to God's work in human history and echoes his promise to redeem his people. Jesus clings to this story. When Satan tries to adjust the plot, Jesus refuses the revision and embraces the gospel narrative.
The apostle Paul, in his letters to the Cornithians, tries to transform their imaginations with this gospel narrative. These gentiles have been shaped by another story - one where status accumulation is a major plot element. Recognition, being on top, acquiring wealth and respect... these are the ultimate values of the day. This kind of narrative is in conflict with the gospel story. The gospel, after all, has Jesus willingly entering into struggle, suffering and self-sacrifice. It is no wonder that Paul has to work so hard to correct the Corinthians' thinking. They mistake the gospel as another avenue of pursuing status, but Paul says, "Your way is not God's way."
He does this by submerging them into the story of Israel. "I do not want you to be unaware, brothers and sisters, that our ancestors were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea, and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, and all ate the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drakn from the spiritual rock that followed them, and the rock was Christ." Paul says, "The wilderness story, the story of God liberating his people from slavery and ushering them toward the Promised Land, is the story of everyone who follows Christ." By calling Christ the rock, I imagine Paul is pulling together Jesus' life and the life of God's people. The Corinthians have responded to the story of Jesus' life, but they may have trouble seeing themselves as part of Israel's story. Paul says, "We are all walking in the wilderness with Israel - away from bondage, oppression, all that deals death in this world - including the narrative that you Corinthians persist in holding onto - and toward freedom, real freedom, the freedom that brings justice, peace, unity, and new life."
At this point the Corinthians may be nodding their heads and thinking, "Great. We're on our way to greater liberation. Sounds good." Paul's next words are, "Nevertheless, God was not pleased with most of them, and they were struck down in the wilderness." All of a sudden, these fledgling Christians become aware of the larger wilderness story. It is dangerous. It is a place of testing. It is a place where identity is demonstrated. "Who will you be?" Paul confronts them with this question. "Which story will you live by?" He presses them to understand that they are on a wilderness journey. Though they may be living in a bustling city bursting with opportunities for wealth and pleasure, the reality is that they are in a barren land. They are trekking with Moses in the dust and heat that push the people to the place where they learn whether or not they trust the gospel story. Paul tells the story this way: the people are journeying in the wilderness with Christ who provides them the nourishment to follow. But they grumbled. They complained. They lusted after other things. In the wilderness they longed for Egypt, for the story from which they were supposed to be liberated. Paul urges the Corinthians, "Do not become idolaters as some of them did... We must not indulge in sexual immorality as some of them did... We must not complain as some of them did... We must not put Christ to the test."
These words pull together Israel's wilderness story and Jesus' wilderness story. When offered the chance to revise the gospel story, Jesus' final response was, "It is written, 'Do not put the Lord your God to the test.'" Jesus knew the path he had to walk, the path that would lead us all out of slavery and into a new creation. When tempted, Jesus demonstrated his trust in God's narrative. Paul urges the Corinthians to evaluate themselves in the wilderness: "What are you longing for? Meat? Pleasure? Wealth? Status? Security? Or could it be that your cry is, 'O God, you are my God, I seek you, my soul thirsts for you; my flesh faints for you, as in a dry and weary land where there is no water.'"
This season of Lent reminds us that we are part of Jesus' story. We are also in a sort of perpetual Lent. We find ourselves in the midst of the journey toward liberation and redemption. Paul reminds us that being part of Jesus' story makes us part of Israel's story. We are navigating the wilderness where we become the people of God. We will be tested. Satan will offer alternative paths, plot revisions. Take a few moments to consider what the revisions common to our social locations may be. Now turn to the person next to you and share - What temptations do we face? What paths does Satan offer us?
One of the ways in which I struggle with the path Jesus walked is that I do not want to bear the suffering of betrayal and abandonment he bore. He continually gave himself, opened himself, risked himself. Even when he knew that Judas would betray him to the authorities and that Peter would deny him among the crowds, he washed their feet and gathered them at the table. He demonstrated what is means to be authentically human: he lives a life of embrace, one that welcomed all into intimate relationship. I am tempted, however, to withdraw when I am disappointed, betrayed, or abandoned. The pain of those experiences seem too much to bear; they seem to threaten me at my core. And I want to protect myself from the possibility of more pain. When I choose the path of self-protection, I leave the path that Jesus walked. When I am faced with the temptation to leave that path, I am faced with the question we have raised this morning: Do I believe God's story? Do I strust the narrative of God's liberating and transforming and reconciling mission? Do I trust Jesus' story - that even though he was killed, God brought new life? Oftentimes this temptation seems more powerful than I am strong.
Lest we be overwhelmed in the wilderness, Paul reminds us, "No testing has overtaken you that is not common to everyone. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tested beyond your strength, but with the testing he will also provide the way out so that you may be able to endure it." God is faithful. Did you hear that? God is faithful! We can trust his story, the narrative of his mission in the world. On our wilderness journey we have two examples: Paul points to the example of the unfaithful Israelites as a warning - let us not follow in their footsteps. Paul urges us to follow Jesus' example of faithfulness, of trust and dependence as a child of God. Let us, in our attachment to Christ, bear his fruit.
We are walking the path that leads to new life by way of the cross. At times that plot may seem odd, too difficult or futile. However, it is the path that was set before Jesus and it is the path that he calls his disciples to walk. When we eat the bread and drink the wine of Jesus table, we emobdy Jesus and covenant together in his mission. We are the real presence of Christ in this world. When we encounter attempts to re-write or erase the story we cling to, may we prove ourselves sons and daughters of God in our radical attachment to the narrative spoken in the Word made flesh. May we hear God's voice calling in the wilderness:
Ho, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and you that have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price. Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy? Listen carefully to me, and eat what is good, and delight yourselves in rich food. Incline your ear, and come to me; listen, so that you may live. I make with you an everlasting covenant, my steadfast, sure love for David. See, I made him a witness to the peoples, a leader and commander for the peoples. See, you shall call nations that you do not know, and nations that do not know you shall run to you [an eschatalogical promise], because of the LORD your God, the Holy One of Israel, for he has glorified you.
Amen.
Sunday, November 22, 2009
2009 Advent Devotions from the MB Biblical Seminary Community
December 11, 2009
Matthew 23:27-39
Recognizing God's Voice
When Christmas nears, we often feel joyful anticipation. We look forward to celebrating the coming of our Savior. We do not often spend these days with a prophetic warning ringing in our ears. Jesus, however, issues a series of woes to the scribes and Pharisees who exalted themselves as model law observers and teachers. In their anticipation of the Messiah, they declared themselves righteous and eagerly awaited praise and reward. Jesus has a different assessment: he calls them hypocrites. These so-called holy men are in fact full of the filth of death. These self-proclaimed respecters of prophets are in fact prophet crucifiers - Jesus' death will confirm his accusation against them. These men think they are ready to welcome the Messiah when he comes; yet when he is in their midst they test and try to trick him, they plot against him, they "kill and crucify [him]... flog [him] in [their] synagogues and pursue [him] from town to town." Instead of recognizing a prophet when they hear one, they eliminate any voice that challenges their own authority and way of life.
As we journey through this Advent season - one of longing and hopefulness - may we recognize the voices God speaks through, voices that will guide us in preparing for and participating in the in-breaking Kingdom of God and its salvation. They call us to repent and seek faithfulness - justice, compassion, humility. These voices may sound uncomfortably urgent and challenging, but they are gifts from the God who sent the great gift of his son, Jesus. "Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord."
Michelle Ferguson, MA
Registrar
To read the complete devotional guide, visit: http://www.mbseminary.edu/news/2009-11-15
December 11, 2009
Matthew 23:27-39
Recognizing God's Voice
When Christmas nears, we often feel joyful anticipation. We look forward to celebrating the coming of our Savior. We do not often spend these days with a prophetic warning ringing in our ears. Jesus, however, issues a series of woes to the scribes and Pharisees who exalted themselves as model law observers and teachers. In their anticipation of the Messiah, they declared themselves righteous and eagerly awaited praise and reward. Jesus has a different assessment: he calls them hypocrites. These so-called holy men are in fact full of the filth of death. These self-proclaimed respecters of prophets are in fact prophet crucifiers - Jesus' death will confirm his accusation against them. These men think they are ready to welcome the Messiah when he comes; yet when he is in their midst they test and try to trick him, they plot against him, they "kill and crucify [him]... flog [him] in [their] synagogues and pursue [him] from town to town." Instead of recognizing a prophet when they hear one, they eliminate any voice that challenges their own authority and way of life.
As we journey through this Advent season - one of longing and hopefulness - may we recognize the voices God speaks through, voices that will guide us in preparing for and participating in the in-breaking Kingdom of God and its salvation. They call us to repent and seek faithfulness - justice, compassion, humility. These voices may sound uncomfortably urgent and challenging, but they are gifts from the God who sent the great gift of his son, Jesus. "Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord."
Michelle Ferguson, MA
Registrar
To read the complete devotional guide, visit: http://www.mbseminary.edu/news/2009-11-15
Monday, October 12, 2009
The Saga of Stolen Stuff
Learning the hard way thanks to thieves and friends
By Michelle Ferguson
I’ve moved on average once a year since I left home for college at the age of 18. In those first years, moving was not very difficult: I had only what would fill up a dorm room.
After graduating from college, I moved to Florida and had only what fit into my allotted luggage—of course I shipped all my books, my most prized possessions. That year I began to accumulate more. By the time I moved back to California to begin graduate school, I had purchased my first car and all my things fit into the back of a Toyota Matrix—good thing the seats fold down.
Next were moves within California—Davis to Sacramento, within Sacramento, Sacramento to Shafter, Shafter to Fresno and then the move a year ago from an apartment to a house in Fresno. These moves included U-Hauls, pick-up trucks and trailers, plus a roommate with her own accumulated possessions.
I am well aware that I don’t have as much stuff as families with kids or people who have lived in one spot for a long time. When I moved a year ago I had just turned 28 and had never earned enough money to have much discretionary income.
Signs of adulthood
So even though the amount of stuff I’ve moved around every year has grown, I’ve never had the option of buying whatever I wanted. I cook with hand-me-down pots and pans and rely on the MB Biblical Seminary clothes closet and gifts from my family for work-appropriate attire. Even then, I’m glad that my office standard leans toward business casual rather than business formal.
The amount of stuff I own has often felt like a test of my adulthood. When I could fill a dorm room I was still a kid. When I could fill an apartment, I was a young adult. Last year when I moved into a house, I suddenly felt like a “real” adult. This is the natural progression of growing up, isn’t it? It is the image I’ve lived with since playing house with my miniature kitchen and stuffed animal guests.
Here’s the rub: At the same time I have been socially shaped to evaluate my adulthood according to my status of residence and possessions, I’ve been theologically shaped by the idea of simplicity. So when I moved into my house I felt “grown up,” but I also prided myself on having used cookware and not spending lots of money on all the things that could fill the new space in which I resided. I want to be seen as an adult, but I also want to be considered a good Mennonite Brethren steward.
And then—a month after moving in and a day before my renter’s insurance became active—my housemate and I came home from work and found our house ransacked. We had been burglarized! The robbers used our luggage to pack up what they wanted and carried it away in my car that had been in the driveway. All together we lost about $8,000 worth of possessions. And with no way to file an insurance claim, replacing items that were taken was not an option.
Lost forever
In one fell swoop two individuals violated space and possessions that have shaped my identity. I will feel this loss for the rest of my life. Personal and irreplaceable items aside, I have had to struggle with what it means to come home one day and find my computer, among other things, gone. My laptop contained everything I’ve ever written—journals from the last 15 years and college and seminary notes and papers—and six years worth of digital photographs.
I remember purchasing my first laptop. I couldn’t believe that I had saved $1,500. I had never paid that much for anything before. It was a mark of adulthood. I was becoming self-sufficient. I didn’t need my parents to make this considerable purchase for me; I could do it myself. Four years later I upgraded to a newer, faster, better laptop. Keeping up with technology further reinforced my feelings of independence.
And now it was gone. Years of saving, purchasing and caring for this treasured possession were worthless, blown away with a breath, up in smoke—carried away in a stolen vehicle.
Then something else happened. My community of faith gave me a gift: $1,500. “Replace your laptop,” they said. “We cannot give you all that was lost, but replace your laptop.”
Humiliating?
Miroslav Volf, author of Free of Charge: Giving and Forgiving in a Culture Stripped of Grace, explores the experience of giving and receiving a gift. Volf smacks me right in the face when he writes, “Gifts can also wound our pride. They can create a relationship of dependence or inferiority and an uncomfortable sense of a vague obligation. It’s often humiliating to receive.”
Why is it humiliating? Because receiving a gift undermines our sense of self in a world where “we’re set up mainly to sell and buy, not to give and receive.” Resonating with the discomfort of depending on others shone a light on the dissonance between my emotional reaction and my theological affirmation of community and human interdependence.
The gift I received touched me deeply. It both shattered my model of adulthood and allowed a healing paradigm of personhood to take root. This shift had been brewing within me theologically for years, but in this experience of loss and gift it took real shape in my life in a significant way.
Consumption checklist
I have realized that the narrative that largely pervades our consumer culture is one that shapes us to associate adulthood with our ability to independently consume. When we are young our families spoon-feed us, providing the house we live in and the toys we play with. We dream of the day when we can feed ourselves: Our teenage years and first jobs allow us to clumsily grab the spoon for ourselves.
Moving out on our own, we enter the world as if it were an all-you-can-eat buffet, hence the growing consumer debt especially among 20- and 30-somethings. The adult meter becomes a checklist of consumption: Residence? Check. Furniture for every room? Check. Place settings for 12? Check. Home theater system? Check. Car? Check. Weekend toys? Check. And out spits the meter reading, “Independent consumer = adult.”
Since the robbery, my journey has been one of learning and embracing a new story. This experience of loss and generosity has allowed that narrative to further speak into my life. The gift of my community made room for me to rest in the truth of my place at the table, a table where we all come to give and receive the communion given to us from God.
This article appeared in the October/November 2009 issue of The Christian Leader, a publication of the US Mennonite Brethren.
Learning the hard way thanks to thieves and friends
By Michelle Ferguson
I’ve moved on average once a year since I left home for college at the age of 18. In those first years, moving was not very difficult: I had only what would fill up a dorm room.
After graduating from college, I moved to Florida and had only what fit into my allotted luggage—of course I shipped all my books, my most prized possessions. That year I began to accumulate more. By the time I moved back to California to begin graduate school, I had purchased my first car and all my things fit into the back of a Toyota Matrix—good thing the seats fold down.
Next were moves within California—Davis to Sacramento, within Sacramento, Sacramento to Shafter, Shafter to Fresno and then the move a year ago from an apartment to a house in Fresno. These moves included U-Hauls, pick-up trucks and trailers, plus a roommate with her own accumulated possessions.
I am well aware that I don’t have as much stuff as families with kids or people who have lived in one spot for a long time. When I moved a year ago I had just turned 28 and had never earned enough money to have much discretionary income.
Signs of adulthood
So even though the amount of stuff I’ve moved around every year has grown, I’ve never had the option of buying whatever I wanted. I cook with hand-me-down pots and pans and rely on the MB Biblical Seminary clothes closet and gifts from my family for work-appropriate attire. Even then, I’m glad that my office standard leans toward business casual rather than business formal.
The amount of stuff I own has often felt like a test of my adulthood. When I could fill a dorm room I was still a kid. When I could fill an apartment, I was a young adult. Last year when I moved into a house, I suddenly felt like a “real” adult. This is the natural progression of growing up, isn’t it? It is the image I’ve lived with since playing house with my miniature kitchen and stuffed animal guests.
Here’s the rub: At the same time I have been socially shaped to evaluate my adulthood according to my status of residence and possessions, I’ve been theologically shaped by the idea of simplicity. So when I moved into my house I felt “grown up,” but I also prided myself on having used cookware and not spending lots of money on all the things that could fill the new space in which I resided. I want to be seen as an adult, but I also want to be considered a good Mennonite Brethren steward.
And then—a month after moving in and a day before my renter’s insurance became active—my housemate and I came home from work and found our house ransacked. We had been burglarized! The robbers used our luggage to pack up what they wanted and carried it away in my car that had been in the driveway. All together we lost about $8,000 worth of possessions. And with no way to file an insurance claim, replacing items that were taken was not an option.
Lost forever
In one fell swoop two individuals violated space and possessions that have shaped my identity. I will feel this loss for the rest of my life. Personal and irreplaceable items aside, I have had to struggle with what it means to come home one day and find my computer, among other things, gone. My laptop contained everything I’ve ever written—journals from the last 15 years and college and seminary notes and papers—and six years worth of digital photographs.
I remember purchasing my first laptop. I couldn’t believe that I had saved $1,500. I had never paid that much for anything before. It was a mark of adulthood. I was becoming self-sufficient. I didn’t need my parents to make this considerable purchase for me; I could do it myself. Four years later I upgraded to a newer, faster, better laptop. Keeping up with technology further reinforced my feelings of independence.
And now it was gone. Years of saving, purchasing and caring for this treasured possession were worthless, blown away with a breath, up in smoke—carried away in a stolen vehicle.
Then something else happened. My community of faith gave me a gift: $1,500. “Replace your laptop,” they said. “We cannot give you all that was lost, but replace your laptop.”
Humiliating?
Miroslav Volf, author of Free of Charge: Giving and Forgiving in a Culture Stripped of Grace, explores the experience of giving and receiving a gift. Volf smacks me right in the face when he writes, “Gifts can also wound our pride. They can create a relationship of dependence or inferiority and an uncomfortable sense of a vague obligation. It’s often humiliating to receive.”
Why is it humiliating? Because receiving a gift undermines our sense of self in a world where “we’re set up mainly to sell and buy, not to give and receive.” Resonating with the discomfort of depending on others shone a light on the dissonance between my emotional reaction and my theological affirmation of community and human interdependence.
The gift I received touched me deeply. It both shattered my model of adulthood and allowed a healing paradigm of personhood to take root. This shift had been brewing within me theologically for years, but in this experience of loss and gift it took real shape in my life in a significant way.
Consumption checklist
I have realized that the narrative that largely pervades our consumer culture is one that shapes us to associate adulthood with our ability to independently consume. When we are young our families spoon-feed us, providing the house we live in and the toys we play with. We dream of the day when we can feed ourselves: Our teenage years and first jobs allow us to clumsily grab the spoon for ourselves.
Moving out on our own, we enter the world as if it were an all-you-can-eat buffet, hence the growing consumer debt especially among 20- and 30-somethings. The adult meter becomes a checklist of consumption: Residence? Check. Furniture for every room? Check. Place settings for 12? Check. Home theater system? Check. Car? Check. Weekend toys? Check. And out spits the meter reading, “Independent consumer = adult.”
Since the robbery, my journey has been one of learning and embracing a new story. This experience of loss and generosity has allowed that narrative to further speak into my life. The gift of my community made room for me to rest in the truth of my place at the table, a table where we all come to give and receive the communion given to us from God.
This article appeared in the October/November 2009 issue of The Christian Leader, a publication of the US Mennonite Brethren.
Sunday, March 29, 2009
God Restores in the Midst of Despair
College Community MB Church, Clovis, CA
4th Sunday of Lent
March 22, 2009
Numbers 21:4-9
John 3:14-21
Ephesians 2:1-10
Imagine the apostle Paul preaching these words to us:
You were dead through the trespasses and sins in which you once lived, following the course of this world, following the ruler of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work among those who are disobedient. All of us once lived among them in the passions of our flesh, following the desires of flesh and senses, and we were by nature children of wrath, like everyone else. But God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which he loved us even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ – by grace you have been saved – and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the ages to come he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God – not the result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are what he has made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life.
There was a time when we lived a different way of life from a different view of the world. And at some point our worldview shifted: God revealed himself to us and we were changed. We encountered the gospel, the good news that this present evil age is passing away and God has brought near his Kingdom. The ways of life that fill this world with despair and death are not the only ways. And we do not have to live them any longer. There is a power that has freed us. In the midst of despair, in the thick of deathliness, God restores. “God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which he loved us even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ.”
Moses led God’s people out of despair and deathliness. They were on their way to the place where God would establish them. Yet, in the midst of the wilderness, the people began to forget the despair and deathliness of Egypt as they suffered the difficulty of their journey. As we heard in the Old Testament lesson, the people cried out: “Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness?” The reader’s theater elaborated on the next statement: “For there is no food and no water, and we detest this miserable food, this God-provided manna.” Somewhere between leaving Egypt and bypassing Edom, the people began to see their journey leading not to promise, but to death. And they despaired.
Oftentimes when we are on our way to the newness God has planned for us, we fail to see the possibility of that newness. Everything around us seems to be closing in on us. What outcome could there be other than failure, further suffering, dashed hopes, death? At least in Egypt we know what to expect. Out here in the wilderness we are asked to trust, to hope – and it has been a long time since there was any hope. Are we really up for this journey? Can we really survive this road? Can things really be different? Can I be different? Can we be different?
I do not know what to do with how this story plays out. God responds to Israel’s despair by sending poisonous snakes to bite and kill them. This seems a very different response than what Paul preaches to us – God, who is rich in mercy. I will not try to excuse or resolve God’s seeming out-of-character action. And I do not know what to do with God’s response to Israel’s repentance – Moses, raise up an image of the very creature I sent to bite and kill you, and when you look at it you will be healed. Is this the practice of Egyptian sympathetic magic or the mockery of it? Is God using something they would understand from their cultural context or is he showing them – like with the Egyptian magicians and officials with the staff-turned-serpent– that he is sovereign? Egypt, its gods and its government, cannot provide for life. It produces death – via slavery and exploitation. Its theology cannot produce peace, a word Paul repeats in Ephesians, insisting that Christ is, proclaims, and makes possible peace – unity, well-being, full life. You were dead, but now you have a life of peace. Dividing walls have been broken down; reconciliation has taken place. The Israelites in the wilderness couldn’t see the way to peace, not by way of this road that God had them on. So God, in a way that may trouble us, in a way that seems scandalous, showed the people that he has power over death and power to heal and bring life.
This is not the only time God’s people have encountered God acting scandalously. You would think that Israel would be so used to being scandalized by God that by the time of Jesus, his predictions of suffering might not seem completely ludicrous . Yet even now, even 2000 years after the resurrection, I read John’s gospel and scratch my head. “Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.” How does this make sense? Sometimes I feel a lot like Peter in Matthew’s gospel: God forbid that the Messiah should suffer and die! I might not articulate it in quite that way; I might be more apt to say, “God forbid that I follow a suffering Messiah (because that means I might have to suffer).” Pre-death and resurrection or post-death and resurrection – it makes no difference: suffering and death seems a scandalous road to life, to God’s kingdom.
Following a suffering Messiah seems a lot like wandering through the wilderness. We’ve been brought out of slavery to the ways of the world and we’ve been promised a shared life of peace. The ways of this world have been exposed as death-dealing just as the Egyptian gods and powers were exposed. And good news has been proclaimed: there is a way that leads to life. Come walk in it. “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.” We see this Messiah who was lifted up – on the cross, from the grave and to the heavenly places - and we are healed.
Paul reminds us that we have been lifted up with Christ. The God who is rich in mercy has shown the immeasurable riches of his grace in doing this. The first few chapters in Paul’s sermon reinforces our understanding of our identity in Christ, and in chapter four he begins to tell us what the “good works which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life” are. He talks about peace, unity, love, serving one another. I wonder if others see a power at work in us, the community of faith lifted up, that may bring healing to them. I wonder if the way to life is clear, even if it is scandalous.
What we see deeply affects us. Greg asked the question last week, “How can we be devoted to anything we cannot make an image of?” He imagined Israel’s dilemma well. Yet we see the image of God in Jesus and still struggle in our devotion. And we are called to be God’s image bearers, serving the world by inviting them, as Jesus did, into their identity as persons made in his image. When they look at us do they see the life we ask them to believe is possible? Bill reminded us two weeks ago that we are called to service, not the kind that we determine we can afford, but the kind that God knows will sweep us up into the new story in Jesus Christ. Will we, formed in our identity, practice the ways of life that heal both us and those in the world seeking restoration from despair and death? Mary Anne, on the first Sunday of Lent, spoke of the image of the rainbow, a symbol meant to challenge us to meet the future with hope. As we are on this journey, do we imagine the promise that is ahead?
I’d like to share one personal story of restoration. I lift it up to you as an image of healing and life. Some of you have spoken to me about the story I shared in the Christian Leader in January. It was my story of struggling with depression. I became severely depressed several years ago during my first year of seminary. During that time I was living in Sacramento with Sarah who was finishing her teacher credentialing program at UC Davis and beginning her first year teaching high school. Those of you who have experience teaching have firsthand knowledge of the demands of this profession, especially within the first year. She watched most of what she knew of her friend disappear and saw her friend lose the capacity to engage relationally, to work, to sleep, to eat. In the midst of a busy life she was confronted with a friend in great need. And she chose to serve, to walk alongside me every single day for the year and a half I experienced the worst of my depression. Her choice meant postponing the date she would graduate from her MA in Education program. Her choice meant radically limiting the relational energy given to students, colleagues, friends and family. Her choice meant many nights of interrupted sleep and having to do most of the household chores. I would imagine the most difficult result of Sarah’s choice was carrying the emotional and spiritual burden that comes with walking alongside someone in pain. In short, Sarah gave herself up for her friend – she went against the selfish and individualistic ways of this world, and she offered herself in service. God used her to restore me. And when I am at risk of losing hope on my life journey, God uses this moment in the story of our friendship to restore me again. Something new is possible. Peace is possible. Life is extended to us as God breaks into this world and lifts up that which heals and restores.
Indeed, God did not send the Son in the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.
I therefore, the prisoner in the Lord, beg you to lead a life worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, making every effort to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.
May we turn our eyes to the one who was lifted up for our healing and know that we are lifted up with him, called to follow him in serving a world that is enslaved to despair and deathliness, offering the good news of life and peace in his name. Amen.
College Community MB Church, Clovis, CA
4th Sunday of Lent
March 22, 2009
Numbers 21:4-9
John 3:14-21
Ephesians 2:1-10
Imagine the apostle Paul preaching these words to us:
You were dead through the trespasses and sins in which you once lived, following the course of this world, following the ruler of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work among those who are disobedient. All of us once lived among them in the passions of our flesh, following the desires of flesh and senses, and we were by nature children of wrath, like everyone else. But God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which he loved us even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ – by grace you have been saved – and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the ages to come he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God – not the result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are what he has made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life.
There was a time when we lived a different way of life from a different view of the world. And at some point our worldview shifted: God revealed himself to us and we were changed. We encountered the gospel, the good news that this present evil age is passing away and God has brought near his Kingdom. The ways of life that fill this world with despair and death are not the only ways. And we do not have to live them any longer. There is a power that has freed us. In the midst of despair, in the thick of deathliness, God restores. “God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which he loved us even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ.”
Moses led God’s people out of despair and deathliness. They were on their way to the place where God would establish them. Yet, in the midst of the wilderness, the people began to forget the despair and deathliness of Egypt as they suffered the difficulty of their journey. As we heard in the Old Testament lesson, the people cried out: “Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness?” The reader’s theater elaborated on the next statement: “For there is no food and no water, and we detest this miserable food, this God-provided manna.” Somewhere between leaving Egypt and bypassing Edom, the people began to see their journey leading not to promise, but to death. And they despaired.
Oftentimes when we are on our way to the newness God has planned for us, we fail to see the possibility of that newness. Everything around us seems to be closing in on us. What outcome could there be other than failure, further suffering, dashed hopes, death? At least in Egypt we know what to expect. Out here in the wilderness we are asked to trust, to hope – and it has been a long time since there was any hope. Are we really up for this journey? Can we really survive this road? Can things really be different? Can I be different? Can we be different?
I do not know what to do with how this story plays out. God responds to Israel’s despair by sending poisonous snakes to bite and kill them. This seems a very different response than what Paul preaches to us – God, who is rich in mercy. I will not try to excuse or resolve God’s seeming out-of-character action. And I do not know what to do with God’s response to Israel’s repentance – Moses, raise up an image of the very creature I sent to bite and kill you, and when you look at it you will be healed. Is this the practice of Egyptian sympathetic magic or the mockery of it? Is God using something they would understand from their cultural context or is he showing them – like with the Egyptian magicians and officials with the staff-turned-serpent– that he is sovereign? Egypt, its gods and its government, cannot provide for life. It produces death – via slavery and exploitation. Its theology cannot produce peace, a word Paul repeats in Ephesians, insisting that Christ is, proclaims, and makes possible peace – unity, well-being, full life. You were dead, but now you have a life of peace. Dividing walls have been broken down; reconciliation has taken place. The Israelites in the wilderness couldn’t see the way to peace, not by way of this road that God had them on. So God, in a way that may trouble us, in a way that seems scandalous, showed the people that he has power over death and power to heal and bring life.
This is not the only time God’s people have encountered God acting scandalously. You would think that Israel would be so used to being scandalized by God that by the time of Jesus, his predictions of suffering might not seem completely ludicrous . Yet even now, even 2000 years after the resurrection, I read John’s gospel and scratch my head. “Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.” How does this make sense? Sometimes I feel a lot like Peter in Matthew’s gospel: God forbid that the Messiah should suffer and die! I might not articulate it in quite that way; I might be more apt to say, “God forbid that I follow a suffering Messiah (because that means I might have to suffer).” Pre-death and resurrection or post-death and resurrection – it makes no difference: suffering and death seems a scandalous road to life, to God’s kingdom.
Following a suffering Messiah seems a lot like wandering through the wilderness. We’ve been brought out of slavery to the ways of the world and we’ve been promised a shared life of peace. The ways of this world have been exposed as death-dealing just as the Egyptian gods and powers were exposed. And good news has been proclaimed: there is a way that leads to life. Come walk in it. “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.” We see this Messiah who was lifted up – on the cross, from the grave and to the heavenly places - and we are healed.
Paul reminds us that we have been lifted up with Christ. The God who is rich in mercy has shown the immeasurable riches of his grace in doing this. The first few chapters in Paul’s sermon reinforces our understanding of our identity in Christ, and in chapter four he begins to tell us what the “good works which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life” are. He talks about peace, unity, love, serving one another. I wonder if others see a power at work in us, the community of faith lifted up, that may bring healing to them. I wonder if the way to life is clear, even if it is scandalous.
What we see deeply affects us. Greg asked the question last week, “How can we be devoted to anything we cannot make an image of?” He imagined Israel’s dilemma well. Yet we see the image of God in Jesus and still struggle in our devotion. And we are called to be God’s image bearers, serving the world by inviting them, as Jesus did, into their identity as persons made in his image. When they look at us do they see the life we ask them to believe is possible? Bill reminded us two weeks ago that we are called to service, not the kind that we determine we can afford, but the kind that God knows will sweep us up into the new story in Jesus Christ. Will we, formed in our identity, practice the ways of life that heal both us and those in the world seeking restoration from despair and death? Mary Anne, on the first Sunday of Lent, spoke of the image of the rainbow, a symbol meant to challenge us to meet the future with hope. As we are on this journey, do we imagine the promise that is ahead?
I’d like to share one personal story of restoration. I lift it up to you as an image of healing and life. Some of you have spoken to me about the story I shared in the Christian Leader in January. It was my story of struggling with depression. I became severely depressed several years ago during my first year of seminary. During that time I was living in Sacramento with Sarah who was finishing her teacher credentialing program at UC Davis and beginning her first year teaching high school. Those of you who have experience teaching have firsthand knowledge of the demands of this profession, especially within the first year. She watched most of what she knew of her friend disappear and saw her friend lose the capacity to engage relationally, to work, to sleep, to eat. In the midst of a busy life she was confronted with a friend in great need. And she chose to serve, to walk alongside me every single day for the year and a half I experienced the worst of my depression. Her choice meant postponing the date she would graduate from her MA in Education program. Her choice meant radically limiting the relational energy given to students, colleagues, friends and family. Her choice meant many nights of interrupted sleep and having to do most of the household chores. I would imagine the most difficult result of Sarah’s choice was carrying the emotional and spiritual burden that comes with walking alongside someone in pain. In short, Sarah gave herself up for her friend – she went against the selfish and individualistic ways of this world, and she offered herself in service. God used her to restore me. And when I am at risk of losing hope on my life journey, God uses this moment in the story of our friendship to restore me again. Something new is possible. Peace is possible. Life is extended to us as God breaks into this world and lifts up that which heals and restores.
Indeed, God did not send the Son in the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.
I therefore, the prisoner in the Lord, beg you to lead a life worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, making every effort to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.
May we turn our eyes to the one who was lifted up for our healing and know that we are lifted up with him, called to follow him in serving a world that is enslaved to despair and deathliness, offering the good news of life and peace in his name. Amen.
Tuesday, March 03, 2009
Walking in the Light: A Devotional Guide to Easter
MB Biblical Seminary
March 3, 2009
John 2:13-22
As we draw nearer to Easter, we prepare for the reality of God bringing life from death. It is important to remember that the hard work of clearing the way must precede the celebration.
Jesus enters Jerusalem during Passover and clears the Temple. Many in the crowds recognize the significance of Jesus’ action and teaching. The Jewish leaders, however, cannot read the signs. John has just told the story of Jesus’ first sign (turning water into wine), and here are the Jewish leaders asking for a sign. What gives you the right to judge the activities of the Temple? Who do you think you are? Jesus responds, “Destroy this Temple, and I will raise it up” (2:19). God is doing a new thing. Jesus is the Temple rebuilt.
When Jesus clears the Temple, he says, “Stop making my Father’s house a marketplace!” Jesus echoes Zechariah’s prophesy of the Day when everyone on earth will worship God in his Temple (14:21). He recalls as well the prophecy that those on the margins find inclusion as God’s kingdom comes (Isaiah 56). When those who are stepped on are lifted up and those who are vulnerable are cared for by the community, God’s kingdom comes (Jeremiah 7).
When all can freely come and worship, when justice prevails, that day will be the Day when God’s kingdom comes. With the resurrection, God validated Jesus’ life of serving the outcast and challenging the powers that forgot them. Like the disciples who understood the sign after the resurrection, we bring our anticipation of Easter into this story. May we not find ourselves in the shoes of the Jewish leaders who demanded a sign even though a sign was right in front of them. Let us stand
alongside those who follow Jesus in his ministry.
Michelle Ferguson, MA
Registrar
To read the complete devotional guide, visit: http://www.mbseminary.edu/events/2009-5
MB Biblical Seminary
March 3, 2009
John 2:13-22
As we draw nearer to Easter, we prepare for the reality of God bringing life from death. It is important to remember that the hard work of clearing the way must precede the celebration.
Jesus enters Jerusalem during Passover and clears the Temple. Many in the crowds recognize the significance of Jesus’ action and teaching. The Jewish leaders, however, cannot read the signs. John has just told the story of Jesus’ first sign (turning water into wine), and here are the Jewish leaders asking for a sign. What gives you the right to judge the activities of the Temple? Who do you think you are? Jesus responds, “Destroy this Temple, and I will raise it up” (2:19). God is doing a new thing. Jesus is the Temple rebuilt.
When Jesus clears the Temple, he says, “Stop making my Father’s house a marketplace!” Jesus echoes Zechariah’s prophesy of the Day when everyone on earth will worship God in his Temple (14:21). He recalls as well the prophecy that those on the margins find inclusion as God’s kingdom comes (Isaiah 56). When those who are stepped on are lifted up and those who are vulnerable are cared for by the community, God’s kingdom comes (Jeremiah 7).
When all can freely come and worship, when justice prevails, that day will be the Day when God’s kingdom comes. With the resurrection, God validated Jesus’ life of serving the outcast and challenging the powers that forgot them. Like the disciples who understood the sign after the resurrection, we bring our anticipation of Easter into this story. May we not find ourselves in the shoes of the Jewish leaders who demanded a sign even though a sign was right in front of them. Let us stand
alongside those who follow Jesus in his ministry.
Michelle Ferguson, MA
Registrar
To read the complete devotional guide, visit: http://www.mbseminary.edu/events/2009-5
Friday, January 16, 2009
A Journey Through The Dark
Michelle Ferguson
I lost myself in July 2003 when the lights went out, and 18 months passed before I felt the warmth of light again. I realized the darkness was passing when a dear friend, who walked alongside me every day of that bleak time, said: “It’s you. There you are. I really missed you.”
I became depressed that summer after a heartbreaking and disorienting disappointment. I had been disillusioned and sad many times in my life, but I had never felt like this before. I experienced frequent panic attacks. I was restless. I was afraid to be alone. I stopped eating. I cried and cried, and most of the time I had no idea why. I had no energy. I could not concentrate. The darkness settled on me like a thick fog—heavy and oppressive.
It was apparent to my roommate, my parents and me that I needed help. I met with a county mental health therapist who, after learning of my own faith commitment, told me he was also a Christian. He could provide me with medication, he said, but I should be able to deal with my depression by having faith and submitting to God. The therapist’s message was clear: Medication is for people without faith in God. I should quit fighting and trust God.
I know many Christians share the opinion of the county mental health professional. They see depression as an indication of some moral or spiritual failure—a lack of faith. Christians, the assumption goes, trust in God and have joy in the Lord. We should not feel such sadness because we have the Comforter. If a Christian is depressed, it means that there is a deficiency in her relationship with God. Most of all, Christians should be able to control their emotions. After all, what kind of witness is it to a non-Christian if a Christian is depressed?
This was not how I understood my experience and certainly is not how I read the biblical text. I was not fighting God, and I was not harboring some secret sin. I was struggling to make sense of traumatic events. Because I see life as a journey of faith, I took my questions and pressed God for clarity and healing and direction for the future.
With the encouragement of family and friends, I next visited a medical doctor who prescribed medication for a general depression/anxiety disorder. But I wrestled with whether or not I should take this medication. Two conversations helped me sort out my need for antidepressants.
The first conversation was with a friend who said that her father-in-law, who is a diabetic, takes insulin every day because his body does not produce insulin. Why not understand depression and antidepressants in a similar way, she said. If my body is not able to cope with whatever triggered my depression, it is not doing what it should. This warrants outside medical assistance. If my depression is situational, I will be able to discontinue the medication once my body recovers. If the depression is biochemical, medication may be a long-term or permanent necessity in order to counteract my body’s deficiency.
The second exchange was with another therapist. In one of our first appointments she explained the way the body handles stress and trauma. In the same way that stress can cause ulcers or a heart attack, it can also cause depression. This therapist said that in order to process the situation and heal emotionally and spiritually, I had to care for my body in ways that would address the emotional and physical issues. For me, this included medication.
After several weeks of taking the prescribed medication, I was able to better process the hurt and disappointment that triggered my depression in the first place. Healing has been an ongoing process, and I have required the assistance of medication on and off since then.
While the medication aided my physical healing, the love and care of people also helped me to mend emotionally. These people were not afraid to take depression seriously and to consider it holistically.
I still do not know why God allowed depression to be part of my journey. Often in my darkest moments I asked God, “Why?” and “How long?” Though these questions were not answered, I did receive the answers to other questions: “God, are you there? Do you care? Are you able to save me?” These answers came in the people who supported me. Through them I heard God say: “I am here. I care deeply. I may not lift you out of this darkness today, but I will go with you through it.”
This reminds me of J.R.R. Tolkein’s story, The Lord of the Rings. Friendship is one of the many themes in this story. Frodo, a hobbit, is appointed the task of carrying a ring of power into an evil land ruled by the Dark Lord Sauron where it can be destroyed. Committed to journeying with him in a fellowship is Sam, another hobbit.
Sam’s heart breaks as he watches his dear friend Frodo deteriorate under the burden of the ring he carries. But Sam persists, giving himself up for his friend so that their journey might be completed. When Frodo is at the end of himself, a mere shadow of the person he once was, Sam offers Frodo a memory of home:
Sam: “Do you remember the Shire, Mr. Frodo? It will be spring soon. And the orchards will be in blossom, and the birds will be nesting in the hazel thicket. And they’ll be sowing the summer barley in the lower fields. And eating the first of the strawberries with cream. Do you remember the taste of strawberries?”
Frodo: “No, Sam. I can’t recall the taste of food. Nor the sound of water. Nor the touch of grass. I’m naked in the dark…there’s nothing, no veil, in between me and the wheel of fire. I can see him, with my waking eyes.”
Sam: “Then let us be rid of it, once and for all. Come on, Mr. Frodo. I can’t carry it for you, but I can carry you!”
At every turn Sam chooses to remain loyal to Frodo. He does not turn away from Frodo in his suffering or return to their home in the Shire. Instead, he chooses to walk into the darkness alongside Frodo.
Oftentimes we do not want to remain close to those who are suffering. Suffering, struggle, pain and sorrow threaten us. They remind us that we are not ultimately in control; that life is fragile, that the evil in the world is real and prompts honesty, self-reflection and change. The journey through darkness is risky business. However, offering oneself on behalf of another is a great act of love, one that makes space for healing. Compassion takes seriously the wounds of those within our communities.
I am blessed to have had people willing to walk alongside me. There are so many who do not have such willing people. There are many who are mistakenly told by fellow Christians that depression is their fault, that they do not have enough faith. We should rather open ourselves to the Holy Spirit’s guidance and ask: How might I love my brother or sister struggling with depression?
This article was originally published in The Christian Leader (Jan 2009), a publication of the US Mennonite Brethren.
Michelle Ferguson
I lost myself in July 2003 when the lights went out, and 18 months passed before I felt the warmth of light again. I realized the darkness was passing when a dear friend, who walked alongside me every day of that bleak time, said: “It’s you. There you are. I really missed you.”
I became depressed that summer after a heartbreaking and disorienting disappointment. I had been disillusioned and sad many times in my life, but I had never felt like this before. I experienced frequent panic attacks. I was restless. I was afraid to be alone. I stopped eating. I cried and cried, and most of the time I had no idea why. I had no energy. I could not concentrate. The darkness settled on me like a thick fog—heavy and oppressive.
It was apparent to my roommate, my parents and me that I needed help. I met with a county mental health therapist who, after learning of my own faith commitment, told me he was also a Christian. He could provide me with medication, he said, but I should be able to deal with my depression by having faith and submitting to God. The therapist’s message was clear: Medication is for people without faith in God. I should quit fighting and trust God.
I know many Christians share the opinion of the county mental health professional. They see depression as an indication of some moral or spiritual failure—a lack of faith. Christians, the assumption goes, trust in God and have joy in the Lord. We should not feel such sadness because we have the Comforter. If a Christian is depressed, it means that there is a deficiency in her relationship with God. Most of all, Christians should be able to control their emotions. After all, what kind of witness is it to a non-Christian if a Christian is depressed?
This was not how I understood my experience and certainly is not how I read the biblical text. I was not fighting God, and I was not harboring some secret sin. I was struggling to make sense of traumatic events. Because I see life as a journey of faith, I took my questions and pressed God for clarity and healing and direction for the future.
With the encouragement of family and friends, I next visited a medical doctor who prescribed medication for a general depression/anxiety disorder. But I wrestled with whether or not I should take this medication. Two conversations helped me sort out my need for antidepressants.
The first conversation was with a friend who said that her father-in-law, who is a diabetic, takes insulin every day because his body does not produce insulin. Why not understand depression and antidepressants in a similar way, she said. If my body is not able to cope with whatever triggered my depression, it is not doing what it should. This warrants outside medical assistance. If my depression is situational, I will be able to discontinue the medication once my body recovers. If the depression is biochemical, medication may be a long-term or permanent necessity in order to counteract my body’s deficiency.
The second exchange was with another therapist. In one of our first appointments she explained the way the body handles stress and trauma. In the same way that stress can cause ulcers or a heart attack, it can also cause depression. This therapist said that in order to process the situation and heal emotionally and spiritually, I had to care for my body in ways that would address the emotional and physical issues. For me, this included medication.
After several weeks of taking the prescribed medication, I was able to better process the hurt and disappointment that triggered my depression in the first place. Healing has been an ongoing process, and I have required the assistance of medication on and off since then.
While the medication aided my physical healing, the love and care of people also helped me to mend emotionally. These people were not afraid to take depression seriously and to consider it holistically.
I still do not know why God allowed depression to be part of my journey. Often in my darkest moments I asked God, “Why?” and “How long?” Though these questions were not answered, I did receive the answers to other questions: “God, are you there? Do you care? Are you able to save me?” These answers came in the people who supported me. Through them I heard God say: “I am here. I care deeply. I may not lift you out of this darkness today, but I will go with you through it.”
This reminds me of J.R.R. Tolkein’s story, The Lord of the Rings. Friendship is one of the many themes in this story. Frodo, a hobbit, is appointed the task of carrying a ring of power into an evil land ruled by the Dark Lord Sauron where it can be destroyed. Committed to journeying with him in a fellowship is Sam, another hobbit.
Sam’s heart breaks as he watches his dear friend Frodo deteriorate under the burden of the ring he carries. But Sam persists, giving himself up for his friend so that their journey might be completed. When Frodo is at the end of himself, a mere shadow of the person he once was, Sam offers Frodo a memory of home:
Sam: “Do you remember the Shire, Mr. Frodo? It will be spring soon. And the orchards will be in blossom, and the birds will be nesting in the hazel thicket. And they’ll be sowing the summer barley in the lower fields. And eating the first of the strawberries with cream. Do you remember the taste of strawberries?”
Frodo: “No, Sam. I can’t recall the taste of food. Nor the sound of water. Nor the touch of grass. I’m naked in the dark…there’s nothing, no veil, in between me and the wheel of fire. I can see him, with my waking eyes.”
Sam: “Then let us be rid of it, once and for all. Come on, Mr. Frodo. I can’t carry it for you, but I can carry you!”
At every turn Sam chooses to remain loyal to Frodo. He does not turn away from Frodo in his suffering or return to their home in the Shire. Instead, he chooses to walk into the darkness alongside Frodo.
Oftentimes we do not want to remain close to those who are suffering. Suffering, struggle, pain and sorrow threaten us. They remind us that we are not ultimately in control; that life is fragile, that the evil in the world is real and prompts honesty, self-reflection and change. The journey through darkness is risky business. However, offering oneself on behalf of another is a great act of love, one that makes space for healing. Compassion takes seriously the wounds of those within our communities.
I am blessed to have had people willing to walk alongside me. There are so many who do not have such willing people. There are many who are mistakenly told by fellow Christians that depression is their fault, that they do not have enough faith. We should rather open ourselves to the Holy Spirit’s guidance and ask: How might I love my brother or sister struggling with depression?
This article was originally published in The Christian Leader (Jan 2009), a publication of the US Mennonite Brethren.
Thursday, March 06, 2008
Anabaptist Liturgy:
Sacramental Theology
Michelle Ferguson
In “Anabaptist Liturgy: An Oxymoron?”[1] I set out to make space for the idea of liturgy within Anabaptist/Mennonite church practice. Though some may wonder if the very terms “Anabaptist” and “liturgy” are oxymoronic, I suggest and have been encouraged by others that Anabaptism needs a robust understanding of liturgy so that it can shape and nurture present and future communities of Anabaptists living out an Anabaptist way of being for others.
I imagine Anabaptist liturgy as embodied storytelling: the Gospel is our story, and we tell it with an Anabaptist voice. Our voice is our particular ecclesiology which speaks of “a community of brothers and sisters in faith who have voluntarily committed themselves wholly to a radical life of discipleship.”[2] As Anabaptists we submit our lives to be shaped by the biblical story so that we may live and usher others into the Kingdom of God. For us liturgy can be the embodiment of that story.
SACRAMENT
An exploration toward an Anabaptist liturgy cannot proceed without discussing sacrament. During the first millennium of the church, the term was applied broadly. Augustine defined “sacrament” as the “visible form of invisible grace” or “a sign of a sacred thing.” And several rites came to be known as “sacraments,” yet it was not until the councils of Florence (1439) and Trent (1545-63) that the list of seven sacraments was formally accepted. Those sacraments are: Baptism, Confirmation, Eucharist, Penance, Extreme Unction, Orders, and Matrimony.[3] During the Protestant Reformation, Luther brought the list down to two, seeing no scriptural basis for the other five: his list included Baptism and Eucharist.[4] Early on, sixteenth century Anabaptist writers did not shy away from the use of “sacrament;” however, the preferred terms became “ceremony” and “ordinance,” the latter being the term favored by Mennonites in recent years.
I believe our use of “ordinance” hinders a move toward imagining an Anabaptist liturgy. An ordinance must be observed because it was commanded: thus, we observe baptism and the Lord’s Supper because Jesus told us to. Three concerns arise here. First, the language used in association with “ordinance” (i.e. “observe”) makes our role out to be spectators instead of participants. Secondly, our tendency toward legalism is heightened when we think about what we do together as observance of command.[5] Thirdly, “ordinance,” insofar as it is associated with law understood as an impersonal penal code, resists narrative because it is indifferent to context. If we baptize just because Jesus commanded it, we need not ask, Why? What does baptism mean to Jesus? How does this fit into the larger story? Naming what we do together in terms of rules may make us people who do what we are told, but it does not shape us into people who embody the way of Jesus. For these reasons “ordinance” is insufficient for a move toward embracing liturgy.
“Sacrament” has more potential for promoting an embrace of liturgy because of its connection to mystery[6] and openness to story. Part of the genius of narrative is the way it reveals and conceals. Mystery is part of storytelling because stories are not meant to scientifically examine, objectively report or exhaustively itemize; stories make known the Other but do not violate the Other’s otherness. Our shared practices must shape us in relationship to that Other, God. As Everett Fox’s translation of God’s name in Exodus 3:14 suggests, we know God by how he has been-there:[7] we must enter into God’s story in order to know God and thus to embrace our own identity as God’s people. “Sacrament” is at home in story, helps us by way of mystery to enter into God’s story, and may invite us to know God and ourselves in transformative ways. Thus, I propose we take up the rich term again.
In order to take up the language of “sacrament” we must enter the debate of the Reformation: what is a sacrament and what happens when we “do” it? As liturgist for the Shafter Mennonite Brethren (SMBC) 2006 Lenten series, I realized during that learning to tell a distinctively Anabaptist version of the biblical story necessitated choosing a focus. The Eucharist has been an area of special interest for me, and I am convinced it is the sacrament by which Mennonites can recapture their Anabaptist vision of church and explore ways of living it out. I found the work of two Anabaptist theologians of utmost importance in developing a sacramental theology focused on the Lord’s Supper: Pilgram Marpeck (1495-1556) and John Howard Yoder (1927-1997).
PILGRAM MARPECK
Anabaptists were named for their practice of “re-baptizing,” and baptism has always centered our ecclesiology on the voluntary nature of faith and the church as a believer’s church. The Eucharist has been included but does not seem to give real shape to our ecclesiology. This may be why we have a clear understanding of the boundaries of the church but are uncertain about the nature and life of the church. The Mennonite Brethren (MB) “three-stream river” identity (a conglomeration of Anabaptism, evangelicalism and the charismatic movement[8]) sets us up to pick and choose what we do apart from a cohesive ecclesiology shaped by biblical revelation.
Marpeck, therefore, is an important voice in this discussion because he “is the only Anabaptist theologian whose circumstances and scope of thought brought the Lord’s Supper to the center of his theology.”[9] Drawing on his work, then, allows the Supper the attention usually afforded only to baptism, a move that opens the Mennonite field of vision regarding piety beyond the important elements of decision and responsibility to the oft neglected elements of grace and mystery. Baptism is “ceremony by which the church is ordered,” yet Marpeck’s work shows us how the Eucharist can be the “ceremony by which the church is sustained” and “in the process… [he] laid a theological foundation for the church’s life as a participation in the life [story] of God.”[10] Marpeck’s work on the Lord’s Supper is a guide for an exploration toward a thoroughly biblical Anabaptist ecclesiology.
Anabaptists tended to eliminate ceremony because they insisted that inner faith is what is real (a rejection of the Catholic ex opere operato). Marpeck, however, stressed the unity of inner and outer reality, which is truer to the Anabaptist emphasis on nachfolge Christi,[13] discipleship defined as faith evidenced by external fruit.
Marpeck defined sacrament as “an encounter between God’s grace and an existential human response of faith” that must necessarily happen within/through the material world.[14] The material event (ceremony) tells Jesus’ story and becomes “like the parables of the kingdom: by means of them we grasp the workings of God.”[15] Through them we enter into the life of God by being church visibly. For Marpeck, the church is the “prolongation of the incarnation in the ongoing community of faith.”[16] Our current MB confession of faith echoes this idea: “The church, united by the one Spirit, makes Christ visible in the world.”[17] Marpeck, however, would emphasize that the church is more than the sign of Christ: the church becomes the presence of Christ’s humanity in the world until Christ’s bodily return.[18] In this way, the church itself is a sacrament, “the paradigm for all other embodiments of the gospel.”[19]
Marpeck did not use the usual term teken (sign), because it means “an external indicator of an internal reality of which it is not a part.” Instead he used mitzeugnus (co-witness), a term deemed his “primary innovation in defining sacrament.”[20] “Co-witness” makes sacrament the union of the material and spiritual by the power of the Spirit.[21] For Marpeck, a sacrament is not something that merely signifies what occurs within us (inner faith); it is “an external reality [that] vouches for faith and becomes its medium to the internal reality.”[22] This understanding of sacrament provides us with a way to experience God as embodied persons. Our participation in Christ is not confined to an inner experience of faith; participation in Christ occurs as faith becomes bodily practice. This parallels the “following” emphasis of Anabaptist discipleship.
Because “co-witness” ontologically unites matter and spirit, Marpeck differs from other Anabaptists (though he may capture the Anabaptist vision more faithfully) in terms of time and sacrament. At a baptismal service at SMBC, the pastor stressed that the water baptism was a sign of an inner faith/conversion experience. He understood water baptism as taking place after spiritual baptism, defined as placing one’s faith in Christ. Other Anabaptists in the sixteenth century also held that “the relationship between faith and sacrament is at most sequential or concomitant” but Marpeck disagreed: he understood that “the two form an indissoluble unity, ontologically and temporally.”[23]
Dietrich Bonhoeffer writes about the difficulty of assigning temporal order to faith and obedience,[24] an idea I have always though brilliant and containing a particularly Anabaptist flavor. Marpeck developed this insight sacramentally: in the act of baptism or the Lord’s Supper, a person does more than express faith he/she already had; he/she experiences the meeting of the response of faith with God’s act of grace, moments that cannot be separated. Anabaptist discipleship would say that faith is not faith until it is acted out; Marpeck’s sacramental theology says that faith is not experienced in relationship to God’s grace until the two meet in the physical sacrament.[25]
Because Marpeck develops sacrament as an ontological and temporal unity of matter and spirit, where something actually happens in and during the sacrament, we can regain a sense of mystery we have lost by our practice of reducing sacrament to merely symbolic ordinance. Mystery gets us moving toward liturgy as storytelling. The story Marpeck’s sacramental theology of the Lord’s Supper tells is of the church becoming the presence of Jesus’ humanity. The Supper is primarily an “act of love” whereby believers loves each other and experience the presence of God through embodying the love of Christ. In the sacrament “the church is remade again and again into the body of Christ.”[26]
Marpeck’s theology of the Lord’s Supper led him to a belief in the “real presence” of Christ though “real presence” for him focused on “the action of the community and its transformation” rather than the elements of bread and wine.[27]
The debate during the Reformation concerning the presence of Christ in the sacrament focused on the elements. The Roman Catholic Church insisted that the bread and wine became the body and blood and ceased to be in substance bread and wine (transubstantiation). Luther argued that though the bread and wine physically remained bread and wine, Christ’s body and blood were present in the elements (traditional use of “real presence”). Marpeck shifts the focus of the debate by arguing that the change that happens occurs in the community, not in the elements, though the elements are an essential part of the sacrament. The shift in the meaning of “real presence” may help Anabaptists/Mennonites become more open to mystery in sacrament. If the mystery is that of the church becoming the body of Christ rather than the bread and wine becoming the literal body and blood of Christ, we may be able to embrace sacrament. As a result, our gathered times may be infused with greater mystery and power, with the “real presence” of Christ as we seek to live out a discipleship that demands an embodied faith. The split between matter and spirit seems to undermine our ideas of church and discipleship; Marpeck’s theology, rooted in the incarnation, may be able to help us re-imagine church, sacrament and liturgy in a way that supports those ideas.
JOHN HOWARD YODER
Yoder’s work regarding the Lord’s Supper in Body Politics[29] fits well with Marpeck’s sacramental theology and may help us align our liturgical practice of the Supper more closely with Marpeck’s theological vision and the Anabaptist concern that church be a community living into the kingdom. Yoder’s contribution to this discussion is that of moving away from a ritualistic practice of the Supper where it can be no more than sign and toward the Supper as, in Marpeck’s terms, co-witness, an actual living of the reality. Yoder calls us to do this by reminding us of the significance of the common meal in the New Testament before it was reduced to bread and wine in the form of wafer/cracker and a sip of wine/juice.
As Marpeck rejects the inner/outer or spirit/matter split, Yoder rejects the religious/political split. Luther’s emphasis on the inner life as opposed to the outer life led him to his two kingdoms idea: just as faith inhabits the inner world of a person and may not be practical externally, Christians live under the reign of God privately while Christ’s teachings (like the Sermon on the Mount) are largely impractical in the world (polis). Yoder, a theologian whose theology is always worked out ethically, rejects this split.
The “simple meaning of the text” frees the Supper from centuries of ritualistic liturgy so that it might once again show us a way to practice it, as I would say, as storytelling liturgy where the participant enters the story being told.
The Last Supper is set in the context of a Passover meal, but Yoder says that though “Jesus might have meant ‘remember me whenever you celebrate the Passover,’” his hearers understood him to be saying, “whenever you have your common meal.”[31] Yoder fleshes out the significance of the common meal in the post-Pentecost church: the breaking of bread (Acts 2:42) was a central aspect of the life of the early church community that “extend[ed] into the formation of economic community” (Acts 4:32).[32]
Marpeck’s concern was that material and spiritual be combined in experience; Yoder’s concern is that the event be not only sign but also practice – an essential participation in kingdom living. For Marpeck the Supper sacramentally creates the church as the body of Christ; for Yoder, that body of Christ is Christ’s body (and presence of the kingdom) because it does what Christ did, namely, usher in the kingdom by establishing a new community and a new way of living defined by the reign of God. The early church communities practiced the Lord’s Supper in this way, according to Yoder, and our practice must take this on as well if is it going to be the Lord’s Supper and not just a symbol of it.
Yoder argues that the church must practice the Supper as a common meal that actually establishes the Kingdom of God: he sees the economic aspect of the meal emphasized in the New Testament texts and so takes up that concern.
The ethical dimension has largely been lost in the ritualization of the Lord’s Supper, and Yoder wants to revive our sacramental practice as kingdom living. One of the marks of the Kingdom of God is that “basic needs are met.”[36]
The existence of believing communities as Bruderhof, as a family of brethren marked by a new economic pattern of sharing, is, for Yoder, both the participation of the church in the messianic age and the witness that “the promise of newness [is] on its way for the world.”[37] In this way the church as the body of Christ becomes for the world. Our formative practices (sacraments) enable us to extend ourselves as the ongoing incarnation of Christ to the human and non-human world: our sacraments must result in the ethical expressions Christ’s life contained, such as caring for the poor, being stewards of creation, working for justice, etc. This aspect of Yoder’s work can take Marpeck’s sacramental theology and protect it from being merely a religious ritual; Marpeck’s fusion of matter and spirit and the way that unity plays out in his idea of the Lord’s Supper can be realized in what Yoder is urging – that our sacraments shape us as the church and are acts of believing communities living out the vision of Christ.
TOWARD AN ANABAPTIST LITURGY
It is my hope that “Mennonite liturgy” no longer sound like an oxymoron. I want liturgy to mean a careful storytelling that sacramentally sweeps us up as participants in the story. Yoder is correct in saying that it is not enough to design practices (rituals) that merely represent or point to the reality of being church. Our sacraments must be actual practices of the kingdom communities we are called to be as the church. I am not satisfied with church services containing symbols detached from the essence of who we are and what we do as gathered believers. As it is, it seems that we “go to church” without being the church; we tell a story we do not live.
We must enter into God’s story, and it is my hope that we enter in as Anabaptists. Our theological identity is one that can serve the greater church. If through participation in liturgy and sacrament our communities are nurtured in becoming the presence of Jesus’ humanity, then we, like Jesus, will live for the world, inviting others through loving service into the biblical story. We have faith that this story is indeed gospel, and as Harold Bender writes in The Anabaptist Vision, “Anabaptists [have] faith, indeed, but they [must] use it to produce a life.”[38] I want a liturgy to shape us and propel us into that life – the new life of the inbreaking kingdom.
NOTES
[1] Michelle Ferguson, “Anabaptist Liturgy: An Oxymoron?” Direction 36, no. 1 (Spring 2007), 5-19.
[2] Ibid., 9.
[3] “Sacrament.” Pages 1435-1436 in The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church. Edited by F.L. Cross and E.A. Livingstone. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997.
[4] Kenneth Scott Latourette, A.D. 1500-A.D. 1975. Vol. 2 of A History of Christianity. (Peabody: MA: Prince Press, 2003), 713.
[5] We mimic instead of living way-ishly. See Ferguson, “Anabaptist Liturgy: An Oxymoron?”, 10.
[6] “Sacrament” comes from the Latin, sacramentum, which was used to translate the Greek, musterion in the Latin New Testament. By way of sacrament one participates in the “mystery of Christ” (cf. Col. 1:26ff; Eph. 3:4, 9; 6:19, etc.). “Sacrament,” Oxford Dictionary, 1435.
[7] Everett Fox, The Five Books of Moses: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy. The Schocken Bible, vol. 1 (New York: Schocken Books, 1995), 270, 273.
[8] Ferguson, “Anabaptist Liturgy: An Oxymoron?”, 8.
[9] John D. Rempel, The Lord’s Supper in Anabaptism: A Study in the Christology of Balthasar Humbaier, Pilgrim Marpeck, and Dirk Philips. Studies in Anabaptist and Mennonite History No. 33 (Scottdale: PA: Herald, 1993), 162-163.
[10] Ibid.
[11] Ibid., 97.
[12] Ibid., 94.
[13] German, following Christ.
[14] Rempel, 122.
[15] Ibid., 100.
[16] Ibid., 98.
[17] Confession of Faith, Commentary and Pastoral Application, (Hillsboro: KS: Kindred, 2000), 66.
[18] Rempel, 133.
[19] Ibid., 148.
[20] Ibid., 120.
[21] Ibid.
[22] Ibid., 121.
[23] Ibid., 144.
[24] Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship (New York: NY: Simon & Schuster, 1995), 64.
[25] I am realizing as I write that Anabaptists conceive of God’s act as already having been done; his grace has already been extended to us. This means that sacraments can never be more than just signs because they only represent the human action of faith and not the meeting of grace and faith. Marpeck’s idea may give us a way to conceive of the ongoing nature of salvation, something we MBs sorely need to grasp. Alas, this is the topic of another study.
[26] Rempel, 125.
[27] Ibid., 145.
[28] Rempel, 148.
[29] John Howard Yoder, Body Politics: Five Practices of the Christian Community Before the Watching World (Scottdale: PA: Herald, 1992).
[30] Ibid., 14-15
[31] Ibid., 15-16.
[32] Ibid., 16.
[33] Marpeck’s co-witness fits here.
[34] Yoder, 18.
[35] Ibid., 20.
[36] Ibid., 21.
[37] Ibid.
[38] Ibid.
This article was published in Direction (Fall 2007). It was originally a larger paper submitted in the course Anabaptist Ecclesiology, a directed study with Dr. Libby Vincent, Fuller Theological Seminary, Sacramento, CA.
Sacramental Theology
Michelle Ferguson
In “Anabaptist Liturgy: An Oxymoron?”[1] I set out to make space for the idea of liturgy within Anabaptist/Mennonite church practice. Though some may wonder if the very terms “Anabaptist” and “liturgy” are oxymoronic, I suggest and have been encouraged by others that Anabaptism needs a robust understanding of liturgy so that it can shape and nurture present and future communities of Anabaptists living out an Anabaptist way of being for others.
I imagine Anabaptist liturgy as embodied storytelling: the Gospel is our story, and we tell it with an Anabaptist voice. Our voice is our particular ecclesiology which speaks of “a community of brothers and sisters in faith who have voluntarily committed themselves wholly to a radical life of discipleship.”[2] As Anabaptists we submit our lives to be shaped by the biblical story so that we may live and usher others into the Kingdom of God. For us liturgy can be the embodiment of that story.
SACRAMENT
An exploration toward an Anabaptist liturgy cannot proceed without discussing sacrament. During the first millennium of the church, the term was applied broadly. Augustine defined “sacrament” as the “visible form of invisible grace” or “a sign of a sacred thing.” And several rites came to be known as “sacraments,” yet it was not until the councils of Florence (1439) and Trent (1545-63) that the list of seven sacraments was formally accepted. Those sacraments are: Baptism, Confirmation, Eucharist, Penance, Extreme Unction, Orders, and Matrimony.[3] During the Protestant Reformation, Luther brought the list down to two, seeing no scriptural basis for the other five: his list included Baptism and Eucharist.[4] Early on, sixteenth century Anabaptist writers did not shy away from the use of “sacrament;” however, the preferred terms became “ceremony” and “ordinance,” the latter being the term favored by Mennonites in recent years.
I believe our use of “ordinance” hinders a move toward imagining an Anabaptist liturgy. An ordinance must be observed because it was commanded: thus, we observe baptism and the Lord’s Supper because Jesus told us to. Three concerns arise here. First, the language used in association with “ordinance” (i.e. “observe”) makes our role out to be spectators instead of participants. Secondly, our tendency toward legalism is heightened when we think about what we do together as observance of command.[5] Thirdly, “ordinance,” insofar as it is associated with law understood as an impersonal penal code, resists narrative because it is indifferent to context. If we baptize just because Jesus commanded it, we need not ask, Why? What does baptism mean to Jesus? How does this fit into the larger story? Naming what we do together in terms of rules may make us people who do what we are told, but it does not shape us into people who embody the way of Jesus. For these reasons “ordinance” is insufficient for a move toward embracing liturgy.
“Sacrament” has more potential for promoting an embrace of liturgy because of its connection to mystery[6] and openness to story. Part of the genius of narrative is the way it reveals and conceals. Mystery is part of storytelling because stories are not meant to scientifically examine, objectively report or exhaustively itemize; stories make known the Other but do not violate the Other’s otherness. Our shared practices must shape us in relationship to that Other, God. As Everett Fox’s translation of God’s name in Exodus 3:14 suggests, we know God by how he has been-there:[7] we must enter into God’s story in order to know God and thus to embrace our own identity as God’s people. “Sacrament” is at home in story, helps us by way of mystery to enter into God’s story, and may invite us to know God and ourselves in transformative ways. Thus, I propose we take up the rich term again.
In order to take up the language of “sacrament” we must enter the debate of the Reformation: what is a sacrament and what happens when we “do” it? As liturgist for the Shafter Mennonite Brethren (SMBC) 2006 Lenten series, I realized during that learning to tell a distinctively Anabaptist version of the biblical story necessitated choosing a focus. The Eucharist has been an area of special interest for me, and I am convinced it is the sacrament by which Mennonites can recapture their Anabaptist vision of church and explore ways of living it out. I found the work of two Anabaptist theologians of utmost importance in developing a sacramental theology focused on the Lord’s Supper: Pilgram Marpeck (1495-1556) and John Howard Yoder (1927-1997).
PILGRAM MARPECK
Anabaptists were named for their practice of “re-baptizing,” and baptism has always centered our ecclesiology on the voluntary nature of faith and the church as a believer’s church. The Eucharist has been included but does not seem to give real shape to our ecclesiology. This may be why we have a clear understanding of the boundaries of the church but are uncertain about the nature and life of the church. The Mennonite Brethren (MB) “three-stream river” identity (a conglomeration of Anabaptism, evangelicalism and the charismatic movement[8]) sets us up to pick and choose what we do apart from a cohesive ecclesiology shaped by biblical revelation.
Marpeck, therefore, is an important voice in this discussion because he “is the only Anabaptist theologian whose circumstances and scope of thought brought the Lord’s Supper to the center of his theology.”[9] Drawing on his work, then, allows the Supper the attention usually afforded only to baptism, a move that opens the Mennonite field of vision regarding piety beyond the important elements of decision and responsibility to the oft neglected elements of grace and mystery. Baptism is “ceremony by which the church is ordered,” yet Marpeck’s work shows us how the Eucharist can be the “ceremony by which the church is sustained” and “in the process… [he] laid a theological foundation for the church’s life as a participation in the life [story] of God.”[10] Marpeck’s work on the Lord’s Supper is a guide for an exploration toward a thoroughly biblical Anabaptist ecclesiology.
First and foremost, Marpeck’s theological endeavor was meant to create a sacramental theology out of the incarnation of Jesus.[11] In the incarnation we find God entering the flesh and blood of humanity, and Marpeck clings to this reality as he seeks to bring unity between spirit and matter in an understanding of sacrament.
The incarnation defined for [Marpeck] how God meets humanity. Spiritual reality takes material form... [Marpeck] sought to avoid the imbalances he saw within Anabaptism as well as within the larger Christian world of his era. Marpeck feared the legalism of the Swiss Brethren and the dissolution of the church evident in spiritualism. He pursued an alternative to the sacramental life of Christendom because it was not founded on the response of faith. The alternative Marpeck chose was unique in its retention of sacramental realism, the belief in a “metaphysical correlation” of the event of the Supper with the body and blood of Christ. For him, the action of the congregation with bread and wine became a communion with Christ.[12]
Anabaptists tended to eliminate ceremony because they insisted that inner faith is what is real (a rejection of the Catholic ex opere operato). Marpeck, however, stressed the unity of inner and outer reality, which is truer to the Anabaptist emphasis on nachfolge Christi,[13] discipleship defined as faith evidenced by external fruit.
Marpeck defined sacrament as “an encounter between God’s grace and an existential human response of faith” that must necessarily happen within/through the material world.[14] The material event (ceremony) tells Jesus’ story and becomes “like the parables of the kingdom: by means of them we grasp the workings of God.”[15] Through them we enter into the life of God by being church visibly. For Marpeck, the church is the “prolongation of the incarnation in the ongoing community of faith.”[16] Our current MB confession of faith echoes this idea: “The church, united by the one Spirit, makes Christ visible in the world.”[17] Marpeck, however, would emphasize that the church is more than the sign of Christ: the church becomes the presence of Christ’s humanity in the world until Christ’s bodily return.[18] In this way, the church itself is a sacrament, “the paradigm for all other embodiments of the gospel.”[19]
Marpeck did not use the usual term teken (sign), because it means “an external indicator of an internal reality of which it is not a part.” Instead he used mitzeugnus (co-witness), a term deemed his “primary innovation in defining sacrament.”[20] “Co-witness” makes sacrament the union of the material and spiritual by the power of the Spirit.[21] For Marpeck, a sacrament is not something that merely signifies what occurs within us (inner faith); it is “an external reality [that] vouches for faith and becomes its medium to the internal reality.”[22] This understanding of sacrament provides us with a way to experience God as embodied persons. Our participation in Christ is not confined to an inner experience of faith; participation in Christ occurs as faith becomes bodily practice. This parallels the “following” emphasis of Anabaptist discipleship.
Because “co-witness” ontologically unites matter and spirit, Marpeck differs from other Anabaptists (though he may capture the Anabaptist vision more faithfully) in terms of time and sacrament. At a baptismal service at SMBC, the pastor stressed that the water baptism was a sign of an inner faith/conversion experience. He understood water baptism as taking place after spiritual baptism, defined as placing one’s faith in Christ. Other Anabaptists in the sixteenth century also held that “the relationship between faith and sacrament is at most sequential or concomitant” but Marpeck disagreed: he understood that “the two form an indissoluble unity, ontologically and temporally.”[23]
Dietrich Bonhoeffer writes about the difficulty of assigning temporal order to faith and obedience,[24] an idea I have always though brilliant and containing a particularly Anabaptist flavor. Marpeck developed this insight sacramentally: in the act of baptism or the Lord’s Supper, a person does more than express faith he/she already had; he/she experiences the meeting of the response of faith with God’s act of grace, moments that cannot be separated. Anabaptist discipleship would say that faith is not faith until it is acted out; Marpeck’s sacramental theology says that faith is not experienced in relationship to God’s grace until the two meet in the physical sacrament.[25]
Because Marpeck develops sacrament as an ontological and temporal unity of matter and spirit, where something actually happens in and during the sacrament, we can regain a sense of mystery we have lost by our practice of reducing sacrament to merely symbolic ordinance. Mystery gets us moving toward liturgy as storytelling. The story Marpeck’s sacramental theology of the Lord’s Supper tells is of the church becoming the presence of Jesus’ humanity. The Supper is primarily an “act of love” whereby believers loves each other and experience the presence of God through embodying the love of Christ. In the sacrament “the church is remade again and again into the body of Christ.”[26]
Marpeck’s theology of the Lord’s Supper led him to a belief in the “real presence” of Christ though “real presence” for him focused on “the action of the community and its transformation” rather than the elements of bread and wine.[27]
In [Marpeck’s eucharistic teaching], the Supper is a physical meeting of believers who gather in faith and love. When the believers do this they become one body, that is, they are constituted again as the body of Christ in the world. This claim, however, does not reduce Christ to the historical forms he takes on. The historical body of the church is also given a mystical communion with the ascended Lord through the meal in which bread and wine are shared in nonresistant love. In the sense that this love extends itself to enemy as well as friend, the eucharistic action expands to include the whole world.[28]
A liturgy of the Lord’s Supper conceived in this way is entirely consistent with Anabaptist ecclesiology.
The debate during the Reformation concerning the presence of Christ in the sacrament focused on the elements. The Roman Catholic Church insisted that the bread and wine became the body and blood and ceased to be in substance bread and wine (transubstantiation). Luther argued that though the bread and wine physically remained bread and wine, Christ’s body and blood were present in the elements (traditional use of “real presence”). Marpeck shifts the focus of the debate by arguing that the change that happens occurs in the community, not in the elements, though the elements are an essential part of the sacrament. The shift in the meaning of “real presence” may help Anabaptists/Mennonites become more open to mystery in sacrament. If the mystery is that of the church becoming the body of Christ rather than the bread and wine becoming the literal body and blood of Christ, we may be able to embrace sacrament. As a result, our gathered times may be infused with greater mystery and power, with the “real presence” of Christ as we seek to live out a discipleship that demands an embodied faith. The split between matter and spirit seems to undermine our ideas of church and discipleship; Marpeck’s theology, rooted in the incarnation, may be able to help us re-imagine church, sacrament and liturgy in a way that supports those ideas.
JOHN HOWARD YODER
Yoder’s work regarding the Lord’s Supper in Body Politics[29] fits well with Marpeck’s sacramental theology and may help us align our liturgical practice of the Supper more closely with Marpeck’s theological vision and the Anabaptist concern that church be a community living into the kingdom. Yoder’s contribution to this discussion is that of moving away from a ritualistic practice of the Supper where it can be no more than sign and toward the Supper as, in Marpeck’s terms, co-witness, an actual living of the reality. Yoder calls us to do this by reminding us of the significance of the common meal in the New Testament before it was reduced to bread and wine in the form of wafer/cracker and a sip of wine/juice.
As Marpeck rejects the inner/outer or spirit/matter split, Yoder rejects the religious/political split. Luther’s emphasis on the inner life as opposed to the outer life led him to his two kingdoms idea: just as faith inhabits the inner world of a person and may not be practical externally, Christians live under the reign of God privately while Christ’s teachings (like the Sermon on the Mount) are largely impractical in the world (polis). Yoder, a theologian whose theology is always worked out ethically, rejects this split.
Theologians were concerned in the sixteenth century for a detailed theoretical definition of the meaning of certain special actions and things, called “sacraments,” within the special set-apart world of the “religious.” The underlying notion – namely the idea that there is a special realm of “religious” reality – so that when you speak special prescribed words, peculiar events happen, was not a biblical idea. It underlies the religion/politics split… It supports one notion of the sacraments as very special religious or ritualistic activities… These medieval questions have kept us away from the simple meaning of the text long enough.[30]
The “simple meaning of the text” frees the Supper from centuries of ritualistic liturgy so that it might once again show us a way to practice it, as I would say, as storytelling liturgy where the participant enters the story being told.
The Last Supper is set in the context of a Passover meal, but Yoder says that though “Jesus might have meant ‘remember me whenever you celebrate the Passover,’” his hearers understood him to be saying, “whenever you have your common meal.”[31] Yoder fleshes out the significance of the common meal in the post-Pentecost church: the breaking of bread (Acts 2:42) was a central aspect of the life of the early church community that “extend[ed] into the formation of economic community” (Acts 4:32).[32]
In his first letter to the Corinthians, the apostle Paul responds to requests for guidance which that congregation, soon after he had founded it, had addressed to him. Most of those requests for guidance have to do with table fellowship: with meat that had been offered to idols (Chapters 8 and 10) and with class-segregated tables (Chapter 11). If their meal failed to reflect the overcoming of social stratification, Paul told the Corinthians that the participants would be celebrating their own condemnation (11:29). In celebrating their fellowship around the table, the early Christians testified[33] that the messianic age, often pictured as a banquet, had begun.[34]
Marpeck’s concern was that material and spiritual be combined in experience; Yoder’s concern is that the event be not only sign but also practice – an essential participation in kingdom living. For Marpeck the Supper sacramentally creates the church as the body of Christ; for Yoder, that body of Christ is Christ’s body (and presence of the kingdom) because it does what Christ did, namely, usher in the kingdom by establishing a new community and a new way of living defined by the reign of God. The early church communities practiced the Lord’s Supper in this way, according to Yoder, and our practice must take this on as well if is it going to be the Lord’s Supper and not just a symbol of it.
Yoder argues that the church must practice the Supper as a common meal that actually establishes the Kingdom of God: he sees the economic aspect of the meal emphasized in the New Testament texts and so takes up that concern.
What the New Testament is talking about whenever the theme is “breaking bread” is that people actually were sharing with one another their ordinary day-to-day material sustenance.
It is not enough to say merely that in an act of “institution” or symbol-making, independent of ordinary meanings, God or the church would have said, “Let us say that ‘bread’ stands for daily sustenance.” It is not even merely that, as any historian of culture or anthropologist will tell us, in many settings eating together “stands for” values of hospitality and community-formation, said values being distinguishable from the signs that refer to them. It is that bread is daily sustenance. Bread eaten together is economic sharing. Not merely symbolically, but also in fact, eating together extends to a wider circle the economic solidarity normally obtained in the family.[35]
The ethical dimension has largely been lost in the ritualization of the Lord’s Supper, and Yoder wants to revive our sacramental practice as kingdom living. One of the marks of the Kingdom of God is that “basic needs are met.”[36]
The existence of believing communities as Bruderhof, as a family of brethren marked by a new economic pattern of sharing, is, for Yoder, both the participation of the church in the messianic age and the witness that “the promise of newness [is] on its way for the world.”[37] In this way the church as the body of Christ becomes for the world. Our formative practices (sacraments) enable us to extend ourselves as the ongoing incarnation of Christ to the human and non-human world: our sacraments must result in the ethical expressions Christ’s life contained, such as caring for the poor, being stewards of creation, working for justice, etc. This aspect of Yoder’s work can take Marpeck’s sacramental theology and protect it from being merely a religious ritual; Marpeck’s fusion of matter and spirit and the way that unity plays out in his idea of the Lord’s Supper can be realized in what Yoder is urging – that our sacraments shape us as the church and are acts of believing communities living out the vision of Christ.
TOWARD AN ANABAPTIST LITURGY
It is my hope that “Mennonite liturgy” no longer sound like an oxymoron. I want liturgy to mean a careful storytelling that sacramentally sweeps us up as participants in the story. Yoder is correct in saying that it is not enough to design practices (rituals) that merely represent or point to the reality of being church. Our sacraments must be actual practices of the kingdom communities we are called to be as the church. I am not satisfied with church services containing symbols detached from the essence of who we are and what we do as gathered believers. As it is, it seems that we “go to church” without being the church; we tell a story we do not live.
We must enter into God’s story, and it is my hope that we enter in as Anabaptists. Our theological identity is one that can serve the greater church. If through participation in liturgy and sacrament our communities are nurtured in becoming the presence of Jesus’ humanity, then we, like Jesus, will live for the world, inviting others through loving service into the biblical story. We have faith that this story is indeed gospel, and as Harold Bender writes in The Anabaptist Vision, “Anabaptists [have] faith, indeed, but they [must] use it to produce a life.”[38] I want a liturgy to shape us and propel us into that life – the new life of the inbreaking kingdom.
NOTES
[1] Michelle Ferguson, “Anabaptist Liturgy: An Oxymoron?” Direction 36, no. 1 (Spring 2007), 5-19.
[2] Ibid., 9.
[3] “Sacrament.” Pages 1435-1436 in The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church. Edited by F.L. Cross and E.A. Livingstone. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997.
[4] Kenneth Scott Latourette, A.D. 1500-A.D. 1975. Vol. 2 of A History of Christianity. (Peabody: MA: Prince Press, 2003), 713.
[5] We mimic instead of living way-ishly. See Ferguson, “Anabaptist Liturgy: An Oxymoron?”, 10.
[6] “Sacrament” comes from the Latin, sacramentum, which was used to translate the Greek, musterion in the Latin New Testament. By way of sacrament one participates in the “mystery of Christ” (cf. Col. 1:26ff; Eph. 3:4, 9; 6:19, etc.). “Sacrament,” Oxford Dictionary, 1435.
[7] Everett Fox, The Five Books of Moses: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy. The Schocken Bible, vol. 1 (New York: Schocken Books, 1995), 270, 273.
[8] Ferguson, “Anabaptist Liturgy: An Oxymoron?”, 8.
[9] John D. Rempel, The Lord’s Supper in Anabaptism: A Study in the Christology of Balthasar Humbaier, Pilgrim Marpeck, and Dirk Philips. Studies in Anabaptist and Mennonite History No. 33 (Scottdale: PA: Herald, 1993), 162-163.
[10] Ibid.
[11] Ibid., 97.
[12] Ibid., 94.
[13] German, following Christ.
[14] Rempel, 122.
[15] Ibid., 100.
[16] Ibid., 98.
[17] Confession of Faith, Commentary and Pastoral Application, (Hillsboro: KS: Kindred, 2000), 66.
[18] Rempel, 133.
[19] Ibid., 148.
[20] Ibid., 120.
[21] Ibid.
[22] Ibid., 121.
[23] Ibid., 144.
[24] Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship (New York: NY: Simon & Schuster, 1995), 64.
[25] I am realizing as I write that Anabaptists conceive of God’s act as already having been done; his grace has already been extended to us. This means that sacraments can never be more than just signs because they only represent the human action of faith and not the meeting of grace and faith. Marpeck’s idea may give us a way to conceive of the ongoing nature of salvation, something we MBs sorely need to grasp. Alas, this is the topic of another study.
[26] Rempel, 125.
[27] Ibid., 145.
[28] Rempel, 148.
[29] John Howard Yoder, Body Politics: Five Practices of the Christian Community Before the Watching World (Scottdale: PA: Herald, 1992).
[30] Ibid., 14-15
[31] Ibid., 15-16.
[32] Ibid., 16.
[33] Marpeck’s co-witness fits here.
[34] Yoder, 18.
[35] Ibid., 20.
[36] Ibid., 21.
[37] Ibid.
[38] Ibid.
This article was published in Direction (Fall 2007). It was originally a larger paper submitted in the course Anabaptist Ecclesiology, a directed study with Dr. Libby Vincent, Fuller Theological Seminary, Sacramento, CA.
Friday, November 30, 2007
Commencement
Michelle Ferguson
On May 4, 2002 I graduated from Fresno Pacific University. Looking back over the last four years, I am amazed at how much my life has changed. Because I’ve been a student for most of my life, I tend to categorize my life by school years. I don’t remember much of elementary school. Junior high was the period of rebelliousness. During these two years I admitted to myself that I had homosexual feelings. High school was the time of new faith: I became a Christian when I was 15 and struggled with how that fit with my homosexuality. College has been the time of walking out of homosexuality. And now I’ve faced graduation: commencement. Another beginning.
August 1998 I moved into my dorm room at a Christian liberal arts college. I had visions of leading Bible studies and making the Dean’s List. This was the place I was going to make a difference for Christ, a place where I could grow in my faith. I thought my homosexual attractions had been taken care of. Sure I felt them every once in a while, but compared to the way it had been my freshman year of high school, they seemed a thing of the past. I had been the leader of the Christian club on my high school campus for three years; of course I was “over” my struggle with homosexuality. I was determined; will power was all I needed. It seemed to have worked because as I began my freshman year of college, homosexuality was that thing in my past I was not going to bring with me to this new time and place in my life.
Within a month I found myself in an emotionally dependent relationship with one of my roommates. Shortly after that our relationship became sexual; despite attempts at ending the sexual part of our relationship, we did not walk away from that until the end of the school year. During the summer we told our Resident Director about our relationship and said that we wanted help changing it. I did not want to continue falling sexually, but throughout the school year it seemed almost impossible to resist. Summer break was our chance to start over. After the school got involved, we told our parents about what had happened. By the end of the summer I transferred to another school.
My first year at Fresno Pacific forced me to deal with my sexuality. I had spent 8 months diving into sexual immorality, and I had no idea how to pick up the pieces and move on. I felt alone. I felt like a failure. However, I knew that God had something better for me and I was determined to find freedom from homosexuality. I fervently read my Bible, journaled and prayed. I begged God not to turn away from me, but to remain faithful. He did just that. He provided me with three friendships that allowed me the first steps out of sexual brokenness. These girls were true friends: I could talk honestly, trust them, and learn from their examples. I began to learn what it meant to separate my idea of a friend from my idea of a lover. I struggled to keep myself on the right path, but it is evident to me that God was directing my steps. I am forever indebted to those girls and the way God used them.
By the time my junior year rolled around, I had new challenges before me. My faith was tested. I had been free from the sexual relationship of my freshman year for a year. I had learned something about healthily forming same-sex friendships. In the fall I got the crazy idea to look into spending a month of my next summer break volunteering with an ex-gay ministry. I was entirely resistant to this idea at first, but the Holy Spirit continued to prompt me in that direction. So, I e-mailed different ministries around the country and got in contact with Exchange Ministries in Orlando, FL. Alan Chambers was the director. He was a big part of testing my faith. There were dozens of times when I wanted to cancel those plans, but I knew I had to go. Not only did God test my faith by opening this door for ministry, but He also tested me relationally. I had been praying about whether or not I would ever be able to truly be attracted to and love a man. A week after I had surrendered that question in prayer, I met the man that helped answer that question for me. I fell in love. Though the relationship ended after six months, I was incredibly encouraged. I knew that that type of relationship was a possibility in my future, but was shown that it was not the right time. During this year I started an accountability group with 7 other girls. We called ourselves "On Belay," a rock-climbing term describing our relationship with one another and with God: we harnessed ourselves individually to one another in support, and we also depended on God to secure our climb. I experienced deeper same-sex friendships and the affirmation and exhortation that come with having godly friends. This group was pivotal: I needed to pursue further healing, and the only way to do that was to step out and explore these relationships.
My junior year also tested my pride. I began feeling very good about where I was at in my struggle with homosexuality. In my mind I am sure I believed I was over it, that I had “arrived.” I had been making so much progress that I felt like nothing could shake me. And, as we humans tend to do, when I began to feel proud I assumed I was self-sufficient and started to slip in my relationship with God. I talked about God, led Bible studies and was a student leader, but I slowly fell away from the passionate pursuit of God I had thrown myself into the year before. This left me vulnerable and unaware of my weak spots. By the end of the school year I found myself in a place I thought I would never be in again: I was face to face with another sexual temptation. The last week of school I was so confused. I was headed to Orlando, yet I had flirted with another homosexual encounter. Thankfully, because of the growth I had experienced, I was able to pick up and move on quickly. I spent the summer working for Exchange and continued in my healing process. I will never forget what Alan told me when I confessed what had happened. He told me that it was a good thing that I had learned the lesson of my vulnerability, and that I needed to remember that I was not the person I used to be. Making a mistake did not mean I had to start all over. He showed me grace and encouraged me to push ahead.
My senior year, I continued to grow in relationships. I confessed my mistakes to On Belay and my campus pastor, with whom I had been meeting regularly since I started at Fresno Pacific. They all affirmed me and I learned a greater level of accountability through that experience. I became aware of the boundaries that need to be in place, and of the triggers and things that make me vulnerable. I was able to compensate when I became tired or vulnerable so that I did not stray in my relationships. I also learned to be aware of the function of different relationships and not to expect all things from one relationship. God also blessed me with some very special friendships in which I was able to experience genuine intimacy. My best friend and I do not try and extract everything we can from each other, but work toward mutual edification. We work for the good of the other. We learn from one another and do not draw on one another for ultimate comfort, but understand that we are to point each other towards the fulfillment God gives. That is such a place of freedom. Granted, it has not been easy. It is never easy surrendering self-centeredness for the commitment to love your neighbor. It is never easy to accept correction from another. It is never easy to confront your friend. It is not always easy to allow someone else to see your limitations and weaknesses. Honesty, however, reaps the blessing of healthy relationship, and I am experiencing the goodness of being created for unity with the body of Christ.
In May I received my degrees. Looking back on the many lessons learned and experiences had, I feel a sense of accomplishment and complete thankfulness for God’s hand on my life. I could never have taken one step without Him. Without Him I would still be stuck in the sexual mess of my freshman year. But that is not where I am now. A friend said, “Now you have a forward purpose that governs what you do with how the past makes you feel.” Graduation was commencement. I have not arrived at a point in my healing where I am safe to stop or where I can take control of my life. Spiritual maturity is not gaining the ability to handle things on your own; it is measured by the humility one displays by becoming more dependent on God and the guidance of the Holy Spirit. May 4th was the close of a certain place in my life, yet it was also the beginning of so many more things God has for me to learn and apply. Every step I take does not mark an end, but a commencement. God yearns to take me so much further.
This article was published in The Exodus Update (June 2002).
Michelle Ferguson
On May 4, 2002 I graduated from Fresno Pacific University. Looking back over the last four years, I am amazed at how much my life has changed. Because I’ve been a student for most of my life, I tend to categorize my life by school years. I don’t remember much of elementary school. Junior high was the period of rebelliousness. During these two years I admitted to myself that I had homosexual feelings. High school was the time of new faith: I became a Christian when I was 15 and struggled with how that fit with my homosexuality. College has been the time of walking out of homosexuality. And now I’ve faced graduation: commencement. Another beginning.
August 1998 I moved into my dorm room at a Christian liberal arts college. I had visions of leading Bible studies and making the Dean’s List. This was the place I was going to make a difference for Christ, a place where I could grow in my faith. I thought my homosexual attractions had been taken care of. Sure I felt them every once in a while, but compared to the way it had been my freshman year of high school, they seemed a thing of the past. I had been the leader of the Christian club on my high school campus for three years; of course I was “over” my struggle with homosexuality. I was determined; will power was all I needed. It seemed to have worked because as I began my freshman year of college, homosexuality was that thing in my past I was not going to bring with me to this new time and place in my life.
Within a month I found myself in an emotionally dependent relationship with one of my roommates. Shortly after that our relationship became sexual; despite attempts at ending the sexual part of our relationship, we did not walk away from that until the end of the school year. During the summer we told our Resident Director about our relationship and said that we wanted help changing it. I did not want to continue falling sexually, but throughout the school year it seemed almost impossible to resist. Summer break was our chance to start over. After the school got involved, we told our parents about what had happened. By the end of the summer I transferred to another school.
My first year at Fresno Pacific forced me to deal with my sexuality. I had spent 8 months diving into sexual immorality, and I had no idea how to pick up the pieces and move on. I felt alone. I felt like a failure. However, I knew that God had something better for me and I was determined to find freedom from homosexuality. I fervently read my Bible, journaled and prayed. I begged God not to turn away from me, but to remain faithful. He did just that. He provided me with three friendships that allowed me the first steps out of sexual brokenness. These girls were true friends: I could talk honestly, trust them, and learn from their examples. I began to learn what it meant to separate my idea of a friend from my idea of a lover. I struggled to keep myself on the right path, but it is evident to me that God was directing my steps. I am forever indebted to those girls and the way God used them.
By the time my junior year rolled around, I had new challenges before me. My faith was tested. I had been free from the sexual relationship of my freshman year for a year. I had learned something about healthily forming same-sex friendships. In the fall I got the crazy idea to look into spending a month of my next summer break volunteering with an ex-gay ministry. I was entirely resistant to this idea at first, but the Holy Spirit continued to prompt me in that direction. So, I e-mailed different ministries around the country and got in contact with Exchange Ministries in Orlando, FL. Alan Chambers was the director. He was a big part of testing my faith. There were dozens of times when I wanted to cancel those plans, but I knew I had to go. Not only did God test my faith by opening this door for ministry, but He also tested me relationally. I had been praying about whether or not I would ever be able to truly be attracted to and love a man. A week after I had surrendered that question in prayer, I met the man that helped answer that question for me. I fell in love. Though the relationship ended after six months, I was incredibly encouraged. I knew that that type of relationship was a possibility in my future, but was shown that it was not the right time. During this year I started an accountability group with 7 other girls. We called ourselves "On Belay," a rock-climbing term describing our relationship with one another and with God: we harnessed ourselves individually to one another in support, and we also depended on God to secure our climb. I experienced deeper same-sex friendships and the affirmation and exhortation that come with having godly friends. This group was pivotal: I needed to pursue further healing, and the only way to do that was to step out and explore these relationships.
My junior year also tested my pride. I began feeling very good about where I was at in my struggle with homosexuality. In my mind I am sure I believed I was over it, that I had “arrived.” I had been making so much progress that I felt like nothing could shake me. And, as we humans tend to do, when I began to feel proud I assumed I was self-sufficient and started to slip in my relationship with God. I talked about God, led Bible studies and was a student leader, but I slowly fell away from the passionate pursuit of God I had thrown myself into the year before. This left me vulnerable and unaware of my weak spots. By the end of the school year I found myself in a place I thought I would never be in again: I was face to face with another sexual temptation. The last week of school I was so confused. I was headed to Orlando, yet I had flirted with another homosexual encounter. Thankfully, because of the growth I had experienced, I was able to pick up and move on quickly. I spent the summer working for Exchange and continued in my healing process. I will never forget what Alan told me when I confessed what had happened. He told me that it was a good thing that I had learned the lesson of my vulnerability, and that I needed to remember that I was not the person I used to be. Making a mistake did not mean I had to start all over. He showed me grace and encouraged me to push ahead.
My senior year, I continued to grow in relationships. I confessed my mistakes to On Belay and my campus pastor, with whom I had been meeting regularly since I started at Fresno Pacific. They all affirmed me and I learned a greater level of accountability through that experience. I became aware of the boundaries that need to be in place, and of the triggers and things that make me vulnerable. I was able to compensate when I became tired or vulnerable so that I did not stray in my relationships. I also learned to be aware of the function of different relationships and not to expect all things from one relationship. God also blessed me with some very special friendships in which I was able to experience genuine intimacy. My best friend and I do not try and extract everything we can from each other, but work toward mutual edification. We work for the good of the other. We learn from one another and do not draw on one another for ultimate comfort, but understand that we are to point each other towards the fulfillment God gives. That is such a place of freedom. Granted, it has not been easy. It is never easy surrendering self-centeredness for the commitment to love your neighbor. It is never easy to accept correction from another. It is never easy to confront your friend. It is not always easy to allow someone else to see your limitations and weaknesses. Honesty, however, reaps the blessing of healthy relationship, and I am experiencing the goodness of being created for unity with the body of Christ.
In May I received my degrees. Looking back on the many lessons learned and experiences had, I feel a sense of accomplishment and complete thankfulness for God’s hand on my life. I could never have taken one step without Him. Without Him I would still be stuck in the sexual mess of my freshman year. But that is not where I am now. A friend said, “Now you have a forward purpose that governs what you do with how the past makes you feel.” Graduation was commencement. I have not arrived at a point in my healing where I am safe to stop or where I can take control of my life. Spiritual maturity is not gaining the ability to handle things on your own; it is measured by the humility one displays by becoming more dependent on God and the guidance of the Holy Spirit. May 4th was the close of a certain place in my life, yet it was also the beginning of so many more things God has for me to learn and apply. Every step I take does not mark an end, but a commencement. God yearns to take me so much further.
This article was published in The Exodus Update (June 2002).
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