Balance of Time

Holt’s hourglass framework in his book Thirsty for God provides a good way to understand the divergences of the reformation and the ways we can learn from each other.

It is surprising how fast the narrowing started. I’ve read that in the first centuries the Christian Jewish churches were cut off from their Gentile counterparts, which quickly lead to attitudes toward Jews espoused by Chrysostom. Then as Holt showed in the previous chapters the hourglass narrowed further with the euro-centric church.

With the reformation we see the hourglass widen in terms of the diversity of the Church world wide, but each expression has its own narrowing of understanding and tradition. The great joy of our time, Holt alludes to in his introduction, is that those streams are once again flowing together and enjoying our common tradition.

Holt has suggested that the early Christian theologians have too dim a view of the natural world just as Webber suggested that the medieval Mystics had too strong an emphasis on Eros. I have liked the balance Chesterton has brought to the excrescences of the faith. In Saint Francis he suggests that the dark ages, with its otherworldliness and extreme asceticism was needed to cleanse the world of pagan naturalism, so that a true respect for creation and Creator could be attained. In Orthodoxy he asserts that the excrescences balance themselves across Christendom.

veneration of saints

I can’t get my head around the doctrines concerning Mary: her immaculate conception, her ascension, her various appearances, her intercessory roll… But, I am starting to see the place of devotion as love.

Today I was walking around the cemetery imagining I was Paul looking at the shrines in Athens. When I came to the head stone of Rev. John and Sister Ora Rosetta Dearing, I stopped. I knelt beside it and thanked God for saints, and the courage to stand in their place as a pastor and follow in their footsteps.

Pastor Dearing served my church for ten years. That is quite an accomplishment especially in light of the church having an average pastoral stay being about six months. He was much beloved. He died suddenly while away for General Council in 96. His wife was a dear saint. She sent us encouragements regularly. She saw in Elaine and I a mirror of her life with her husband in their early years. She profoundly impacted me with her notes, her visits and ultimately her death. Her funeral was the third in my pastorate here.

As I left the cemetery I did something very much resembling a devotion to Mary. I blew a kiss to their tomb stone. The connection suddenly came to me. For those who respect and love a saint (and Mary is at the top of the list to be loved and respected), such acts should be the acts of lovers. If we leave aside the pedantics concerning her veneration perhaps we can simply love her.

Saints

John Chrysostom was an example of the Holiness stream. He embodied the disciplined life throughout his spiritual journey. As an ascetic he practiced disciplines to bring the flesh into his control. As a preacher he sought to inspire his auditors to the same kind of rigorous holiness. He would castigate them for their immoralities regardless of their rank or status. He was rigorous to the point of being overzealous, but his inward holiness shone through in his pastoral heart, in homiletically moments of tenderness.

As a rigorist John faced the dangers of legalism that Foster remarks as dangerous for the holiness stream. His terse nature was a stumbling block to his pastoral duties toward his underlings as a Bishop inspiring the hatred that would be his undoing. Kelly does show growth and a softening of his positions from his youthful condemnations of marriage and family life in later works about raising children. He moves from a rigorist ideal that all children be trained by monks in asceticism to the placing a greater value on the institution of family. In exile his heart seems softer yet as he writes to his supporters, though his terse nature remains to the end.

He grew up in the cradle of Christendom, Antioch, which gave him access to the examples of Syrian asceticism and challenged him to a life of holiness. While he was trained in rhetoric, the Spirit used his training making him not a lawyer, but a preacher. Events of the day exposed his preaching to a wider audience, as imperial officials came from Constantinople to investigate treasonous vandalism they took back reports of his preaching on the matter that led to his being ordered to be consecrated Bishop of Constantinople. As with other such appointments in the political realm, there was much maneuvering, but we do well to remember that God is still in control even when the process is tainted. So we may rest assured that God planned the position of John as bishop even in spite of Eutropios’ intentions in the matter. Going from Antioch with its various entertainments John had grown accustom to railing against to the opulence of the imperial city gave John a prophetic voice in the affairs of the rich and powerful. Holiness for them, John would continue to say, is to provide for the poor and the widows, not to enjoy luxuries and thus rob God. His move into the imperial see also placed him in a highly charged political arena and his refusal to bend to those powers and interests would be his undoing.

First and foremost John shows himself an ascetic. His ascetic ways stayed with him all through his life. It was his ascetic leanings that made his preaching fiery and charged like the holiness preachers of the last century. He pulled no punches, but became a polemicist defining the faith by what should not be done by believers and acts of righteousness in giving to the poor. He takes his ascetics to the church at large as a bishop and seeks to see the church living as lean and rigorous a lifestyle as he did. The imposition of his vision of holiness may have teetered on pharisaism, and this brought him many enemies, both among those whom he rubbed the wrong way and those who were social climbers and whose cupidity would not be offended. In exile his asceticism again returns, perhaps as an old friend, bringing him vigor in the midst of his many complaints. How soft he may have become in the Bishop’s palace, enjoying his warm baths to sooth his ruined digestive system we may not know, but in the mist of his discomfort he gives his friend Olimpias glimpses of his joy in the difficulty.

When I think of local saints one woman comes to mind immediately. Hers was the first funeral service I ever conducted (25 Feb 2004). Sister Lohrman exemplified the charismatic and contemplative streams. She was a prayer warrior, an intercessor who trusted the Spirit to fight the battles for her.

Ella Lohrman was a dear German lady. She had grown up a tom boy and loved picking berries and fishing. Communing with God in the natural world started at an early age for her. She was extremely devoted to her church, the one I now pastor, even though she was barred from membership for years because she had been divorced. She grew up in a time when the Assemblies of God was both staunchly concerned with holiness (particularly outward) and still newly ablaze with the power of the Spirit. She played the piano in church until she was no longer able to, and she taught Sunday school for years with that mix of love and sternness that can be said to be particularly German.

I met sister Lohrman only once, in the hospital. We came to pray for her. All I knew about her at the time was that she was a dear woman of God, long faithful to our church and that she had kept a newspaper clipping of our arrival in her Bible, that she cared and prayed for us.

We came to her room, my wife, Elaine, my daughter Ella and I, wanting to be a blessing to her -- to pray for her and let her know that we cared. What I found in her room has profoundly affected me. She was a blessing to us. She prayed for my family, and me -- our ministry, she let us know that she cared. That was important to her.

As she spoke with us, she punctuated her sentences by telling us how beautiful our Ella was and offering another prayer to her dear Lord. I felt that she spoke with him almost continually. A smile came to my face., my cheeks grew warm. It was like basking in the sunlight. I didn’t want to leave that room. It was so full of God’s glory. I felt all Heaven was there with her, God filling the room with his presence. I wanted to stay there, holding her hand, drinking in the glory of God as she continually prayed over me. I felt as though I had met a saint of old.

Both of these saints inspire me to the incarnational stream. Ronald Rolhieser writes about the body of Christ that we are called to eat in John chapter six (the sarx) as being the fleshly earthy body, full of imperfection sometimes beautiful, sometimes disgusting, in short the church. The incarnational stream seeks to find God in the ordinary material things, like bread, wine or sarx. Chrysostom’s story often disturbed me and made me ashamed to be a Christian. His polemics offended me, and his enemies all the more wrenched my stomach. Sister Lohrman showed me the glory of the church and entices me to engage like John, pastoring all in my charge with holiness, prayer and power.

The Mission

I watched a clip of The Mission for my class. I wanted to see the rest of it. It came this week from Netflix. It devastated me. I realized that I had been there. Not in a figural sense, but literally... there. The filming took place at Iguazu Falls. The natives the Jesuit priests were ministering to were the Guarani.

I know Guarani people. I visited Iguazu Falls when I was on a missions trip to Paraguay. I walked out on the observation deck looking into the devil's throat with Pastor Donald, a Guarani native from Paraguay. We talked about the ring tailed coatí and the river, and how Paraguay lost the falls to Brazil.

I more than identified with the priests efforts to protect their flock. I wept when they stood with them under attack. With heavy heart I asked, “Where was Christ in all of this?” Then Father Gabriel, leading his congregation out to meet the troops, singing hymns, lifted high the monstrance. I am lucky as a protestant to understand the significance. The monstrance contains the host, in Catholic theology transubstantiated into the actual body of Christ. The monstrance is a holy place to place the host so it can be adored. So as I was asking, “God where are you?!” Father Gabriel answered, “Christ is here, He suffers with us!”

I am left in tension. Will brother Rodrigo’s way of taking up arms, or will Father Gabriel’s way of love prevail over the senseless violence? Neither. Violence has its way.

After watching I spent the next day with burdened heart. Not only does my heart cry out to God because of the injustice, but because the Guarani have been the people of my heart from the time of my visit (The Mission reminds me of this). As I am mourning, I turned to the Office of Readings for the day.

Psalm 10

1 [a]Why, O LORD, do you stand far off?
Why do you hide yourself in times of trouble?

2 In his arrogance the wicked man hunts down the weak,
who are caught in the schemes he devises.

3 He boasts of the cravings of his heart;
he blesses the greedy and reviles the LORD.

4 In his pride the wicked does not seek him;
in all his thoughts there is no room for God.

5 His ways are always prosperous;
he is haughty and your laws are far from him;
he sneers at all his enemies.

6 He says to himself, "Nothing will shake me;
I'll always be happy and never have trouble."

7 His mouth is full of curses and lies and threats;
trouble and evil are under his tongue.

8 He lies in wait near the villages;
from ambush he murders the innocent,
watching in secret for his victims.

9 He lies in wait like a lion in cover;
he lies in wait to catch the helpless;
he catches the helpless and drags them off in his net.

10 His victims are crushed, they collapse;
they fall under his strength.

11 He says to himself, "God has forgotten;
he covers his face and never sees."

12 Arise, LORD! Lift up your hand, O God.
Do not forget the helpless.

13 Why does the wicked man revile God?
Why does he say to himself,
"He won't call me to account"?

14 But you, O God, do see trouble and grief;
you consider it to take it in hand.
The victim commits himself to you;
you are the helper of the fatherless.

15 Break the arm of the wicked and evil man;
call him to account for his wickedness
that would not be found out.

16 The LORD is King for ever and ever;
the nations will perish from his land.

17 You hear, O LORD, the desire of the afflicted;
you encourage them, and you listen to their cry,

18 defending the fatherless and the oppressed,
in order that man, who is of the earth, may terrify no more.

I prayed this psalm with many tears. The antiphons were powerful confessing my burdened heart and God’s protection for the poor. Alleluia!

Missions Statement

My mission is to Glorify God and enjoy him forever, ministering to and making disciples of my family and the families of my church, community, and world.

I dream of my future. I imagine the steps I can take to Glorify God and to minister and wait on him for the cues.

I also recognize that his primary way to minister through me is by transforming me. I focus first and foremost on glorifying and enjoying him. He is my love and my life. May I ever draw closer to you my Dearest one!

He has placed in my heart a great desire to build relationships with people that will have the intimacy of family. He has called me to extend the intimacy of my dearest to them. This is a difficult call for me, though I want nothing more and with my whole being.

He has also graced me with a desire to lead children into the depths of his abundant life. My greatest privilege is to work with him to make disciples of my children Ella and Foster, along the dearest wife he could have given me.

He has made me a pastor, so I imagine myself bringing children and families in my church and community to be apprentices of the master of my heart.

He has also opened my eyes to the spiritual needs of children around the world. I relish my reverie when I imagine working on a PhD in cultural anthropology, transforming my mind to learn how to best bring about spiritual formation intergenerationally across culture. I imagine myself living on coffee plantations around the world as I learn how spiritual formation is done in those cultures. I imagine myself later teaching indigenous pastors how to best address the spiritual needs of children and their families.

I also secretly dream of one day doing nothing more than running a coffeehouse and acting as spiritual director. Perhaps one day...

My Spiritual History

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