Alban at Duke Divinity School in Durham, North Carolina, United States - PRACTICAL WISDOM FOR LEADING CONGREGATION "Tell it again!" for Monday, 26 March 2018
Faith and Leadership
EASTER, LITURGICAL SEASONS
Nathan Kirkpatrick: Tell it againTell it again!
TELLING THE EASTER STORY AGAIN CALLS US INTO GOD'S FUTURE
Some stories need to be told again and again. So it is with the story of Easter, a story that reminds us that we belong to God and that Jesus is out ahead of us, calling us to God’s future, writes a managing director at Leadership Education at Duke Divinity.
My colleague Christine Parton Burkett reminds preachers that children, after hearing a well-told story, never respond, "What does it mean?" Instead, with glee and abandon, they exclaim, "Oh, tell it again!" She reminds preachers that, as human beings, we never really outgrow our love of a story well-told; there is a part of each of us that wants to cheer, "Oh, tell it again!"
Several years ago in The New York Times Sunday Review, the Swedish writer Henning Mankell wrote that "a truer nomination for our species than Homo sapiens might be Homo narrans, the storytelling person." Mankell's argument was not that the biologists are wrong or that we are not thinking creatures but rather that we are also -- and maybe even primarily -- storytelling creatures.
We make sense of the world and our place in it through story. Story is how we create meaning, how we interpret reality, and how we come to know who we are and why we are. That is why when we hear a story that we know is good and true, we say, "Oh, tell it again."
Literature professor John Niles, in a book called "Homo Narrans," puts it this way: "It is chiefly through storytelling that people possess a past." But it works the other way as well. Through storytelling we possess a past -- but that past possesses us, too. It's through storytelling that we find our identity.
I belong to a tradition in which the climax and culmination of Holy Week's liturgies is the Easter Vigil, when we gather in the darkness of Holy Saturday's night and proclaim the story of God's saving work, from the creation of the world to the resurrection of Jesus. We retell the scriptural stories to remind us of who we are, whose we are and how we have come to be. Each story is a reminder of the identity of God's people. Each story is a testament to the enduring and faithful love of God.
It's through story that we possess a past -- a very particular past -- and that the God of that very particular past lays claim to us. "Oh, tell it again."
Each time the stories get told, we wrestle with our past, too. We wrestle with the violence of God’s people. We struggle with the sometimes inscrutable ways of God. We try to hear in some of these words the words of life, however faint they may sound. But in the telling of the stories, the past lays claim to us, and we lay claim to it. So we tell them again.
And yet it is not just the past that lays claim, because through story -- through the particular story of Easter -- God’s future lays claim to us as well.
In the final chapter of the Gospel of Mark, early in the morning on the first day of the week, the women arrive at the tomb of Jesus and find the stone rolled away. They enter the tomb to find a young man sitting inside. What they do not see is the body of Jesus. And the young man says to them: “Do not be alarmed. You seek Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has risen; he is not here. See the place where they laid him. But go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going before you to Galilee. There you will see him, just as he told you” (Mark 16:6-7 ESV).
Tell his disciples and Peter that he is going before you to Galilee.
Jesus, the one in the stories who so often got there first, once again is going on ahead. Jesus, the one who waited on the shore while the boat was still at sea; Jesus, the one who taught his followers in parables that still confound his people; Jesus, the one who chided the slow of heart -- this same Jesus, now risen, will go on ahead of the women to Galilee.
The resurrected Jesus will go on ahead of us, too, outpacing us, calling us into God’s future. The point of the story of Easter is not to linger at a tomb that is empty. The point is to go, go faithfully forward, to head in the direction that the risen Christ is leading. Risen from the dead, Jesus is now leading into the future that only God dreams possible.
In “The Trial of Jesus,” the old play by John Masefield, the centurion who oversaw Jesus’ crucifixion reports back to Pilate. Pilate’s wife asks the centurion to tell her about Jesus’ death. After hearing his description, she asks, “Do you think he’s dead?” “No, my lady, he replies. “He’s been let loose in the world where neither Roman nor Jew can stop his truth.”
The story that claims us tells us that the risen Christ is out ahead of us, let loose in the world, leading us into a future beyond prejudice and poverty and prison and politics. Jesus goes ahead of us into a future that cannot be defined by death or grief or loss. Jesus goes before us into a future of peace and love, justice and truth, restoration and reconciliation.
The story says Jesus is waiting for us.
Oh, tell it again.
Read more from Nathan E. Kirkpatrick »
Faith and Leadership
CAN THESE BONES
A Faith & Leadership podcast »
HEALTH & WELL-BEING, THEOLOGICAL REFLECTION
Episode 5: Kate Bowler on the presence of God in the face of deathCAN THESE BONES PODCAST: KATE BOWLER
One of the Scripture readings during the Easter Vigil is the story of Ezekiel's vision of a field full of dried bones and his encounter with a God who can breathe life into what is dead. It's from that story that the podcast "Can These Bones" takes its name.
In this episode of the podcast, Duke Divinity School professor and New York Times bestselling author Kate Bowler joins Bill Lamar for a conversation about facing death, her deep sense of God's presence and her new book. Then, Bill and co-host Laura Everett reflect on what it means to face one's own "valley of dry bones."
In this episode of “Can These Bones,” co-host Bill Lamar talks with Kate Bowler, Duke Divinity School professor and author of “Everything Happens for a Reason,” about the irony of being a historian of the prosperity gospel diagnosed with stage 4 cancer.
TUESDAY, JANUARY 23, 2018
Kate Bowler was an ambitious young professor, a mother and an expert in the particular form of Christianity she sums up with the term #blessed. Then she got cancer. In her conversation with “Can These Bones” co-host Bill Lamar, she talks about facing death, her deep sense of God’s presence and her new book. Bill and co-host Laura Everett also reflect on the name of the podcast, and what it means to face one’s own “valley of dry bones.”
This episode is part of a series. Learn more about Can These Bones or learn how to subscribe to a podcast.
Listen and subscribeSome stories need to be told again and again. So it is with the story of Easter, a story that reminds us that we belong to God and that Jesus is out ahead of us, calling us to God’s future, writes a managing director at Leadership Education at Duke Divinity.
My colleague Christine Parton Burkett reminds preachers that children, after hearing a well-told story, never respond, "What does it mean?" Instead, with glee and abandon, they exclaim, "Oh, tell it again!" She reminds preachers that, as human beings, we never really outgrow our love of a story well-told; there is a part of each of us that wants to cheer, "Oh, tell it again!"
Several years ago in The New York Times Sunday Review, the Swedish writer Henning Mankell wrote that "a truer nomination for our species than Homo sapiens might be Homo narrans, the storytelling person." Mankell's argument was not that the biologists are wrong or that we are not thinking creatures but rather that we are also -- and maybe even primarily -- storytelling creatures.
We make sense of the world and our place in it through story. Story is how we create meaning, how we interpret reality, and how we come to know who we are and why we are. That is why when we hear a story that we know is good and true, we say, "Oh, tell it again."
Literature professor John Niles, in a book called "Homo Narrans," puts it this way: "It is chiefly through storytelling that people possess a past." But it works the other way as well. Through storytelling we possess a past -- but that past possesses us, too. It's through storytelling that we find our identity.
I belong to a tradition in which the climax and culmination of Holy Week's liturgies is the Easter Vigil, when we gather in the darkness of Holy Saturday's night and proclaim the story of God's saving work, from the creation of the world to the resurrection of Jesus. We retell the scriptural stories to remind us of who we are, whose we are and how we have come to be. Each story is a reminder of the identity of God's people. Each story is a testament to the enduring and faithful love of God.
It's through story that we possess a past -- a very particular past -- and that the God of that very particular past lays claim to us. "Oh, tell it again."
Each time the stories get told, we wrestle with our past, too. We wrestle with the violence of God’s people. We struggle with the sometimes inscrutable ways of God. We try to hear in some of these words the words of life, however faint they may sound. But in the telling of the stories, the past lays claim to us, and we lay claim to it. So we tell them again.
And yet it is not just the past that lays claim, because through story -- through the particular story of Easter -- God’s future lays claim to us as well.
In the final chapter of the Gospel of Mark, early in the morning on the first day of the week, the women arrive at the tomb of Jesus and find the stone rolled away. They enter the tomb to find a young man sitting inside. What they do not see is the body of Jesus. And the young man says to them: “Do not be alarmed. You seek Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has risen; he is not here. See the place where they laid him. But go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going before you to Galilee. There you will see him, just as he told you” (Mark 16:6-7 ESV).
Tell his disciples and Peter that he is going before you to Galilee.
Jesus, the one in the stories who so often got there first, once again is going on ahead. Jesus, the one who waited on the shore while the boat was still at sea; Jesus, the one who taught his followers in parables that still confound his people; Jesus, the one who chided the slow of heart -- this same Jesus, now risen, will go on ahead of the women to Galilee.
The resurrected Jesus will go on ahead of us, too, outpacing us, calling us into God’s future. The point of the story of Easter is not to linger at a tomb that is empty. The point is to go, go faithfully forward, to head in the direction that the risen Christ is leading. Risen from the dead, Jesus is now leading into the future that only God dreams possible.
In “The Trial of Jesus,” the old play by John Masefield, the centurion who oversaw Jesus’ crucifixion reports back to Pilate. Pilate’s wife asks the centurion to tell her about Jesus’ death. After hearing his description, she asks, “Do you think he’s dead?” “No, my lady, he replies. “He’s been let loose in the world where neither Roman nor Jew can stop his truth.”
The story that claims us tells us that the risen Christ is out ahead of us, let loose in the world, leading us into a future beyond prejudice and poverty and prison and politics. Jesus goes ahead of us into a future that cannot be defined by death or grief or loss. Jesus goes before us into a future of peace and love, justice and truth, restoration and reconciliation.
The story says Jesus is waiting for us.
Oh, tell it again.
Read more from Nathan E. Kirkpatrick »
CAN THESE BONES
A Faith & Leadership podcast »
HEALTH & WELL-BEING, THEOLOGICAL REFLECTION
Episode 5: Kate Bowler on the presence of God in the face of deathCAN THESE BONES PODCAST: KATE BOWLER
One of the Scripture readings during the Easter Vigil is the story of Ezekiel's vision of a field full of dried bones and his encounter with a God who can breathe life into what is dead. It's from that story that the podcast "Can These Bones" takes its name.
In this episode of the podcast, Duke Divinity School professor and New York Times bestselling author Kate Bowler joins Bill Lamar for a conversation about facing death, her deep sense of God's presence and her new book. Then, Bill and co-host Laura Everett reflect on what it means to face one's own "valley of dry bones."
In this episode of “Can These Bones,” co-host Bill Lamar talks with Kate Bowler, Duke Divinity School professor and author of “Everything Happens for a Reason,” about the irony of being a historian of the prosperity gospel diagnosed with stage 4 cancer.
TUESDAY, JANUARY 23, 2018
Kate Bowler was an ambitious young professor, a mother and an expert in the particular form of Christianity she sums up with the term #blessed. Then she got cancer. In her conversation with “Can These Bones” co-host Bill Lamar, she talks about facing death, her deep sense of God’s presence and her new book. Bill and co-host Laura Everett also reflect on the name of the podcast, and what it means to face one’s own “valley of dry bones.”
Listen to all the episodes and learn more about the hosts.
More from Kate Bowler
Website: www.katebowler.com(link is external)
Bowler's podcast, “Everything Happens,” available on iTunes(link is external) and Google Play(link is external)
“Blessed: A History of the American Prosperity Gospel”(link is external)
“Everything Happens for a Reason: And Other Lies I’ve Loved”(link is external)
New York Times essay: “Death, the Prosperity Gospel and Me(link is external)”
Transcript
Laura Everett: From Faith & Leadership, this is “Can These Bones,” a podcast that asks a fresh set of questions about leadership and the future of the church. I’m Laura Everett.
Bill Lamar: And I’m Bill Lamar. This is the fifth episode of a series of conversations with leaders from the church and from other fields.
Bill Lamar: And I’m Bill Lamar. This is the fifth episode of a series of conversations with leaders from the church and from other fields.
Through this podcast, we want to share our hope in the resurrection and perhaps breathe life into leaders struggling in their own “valley of dry bones.”
Laura Everett: In this episode, we’re going to hear your conversation with Kate Bowler, an assistant professor of the history of Christianity in North America at Duke Divinity School. She’s also the author of “Blessed,”(link is external) a history of the American prosperity gospel.
But Bill, that doesn’t really give us all of what we’re going to hear. Kate’s your friend and a really remarkable person. Tell us about your friend Kate.
Bill Lamar: I am pulling out of my wallet a Kate Bowler fan club card, and I am the president. I have known Kate now almost a decade. When I went back to Duke Divinity School to work at Leadership Education after almost 10 years in pastoral ministry, Kate was one of the first persons that I met, a rising star on the faculty.
And one of the things that you will soon detect from the conversation is Kate’s warmth and her love for God and for people and for learning, for her students. You get a sense of who she is right away.
But let me say just a little bit more. Kate was diagnosed in 2015 with stage 4 cancer at the age of 35, and she got quite a bit of attention. She wrote about it in the New York Times(link is external). This juxtaposition of one so young and so vibrant and stage 4 cancer, which we all know is indeed a most serious, serious disease.
She writes compellingly and honestly and openly about the irony of being ill while she’s an expert in prosperity gospel.
She defines “prosperity gospel” as the belief that God gives health and wealth to those with the right kind of faith. And this begs the question, from Kate and others who struggle, if we are not healthy and if we’re not wealthy, do we have the wrong kind of faith?
And so Kate’s own discernment, her own struggle, comes to bear in the beautiful words that she writes, her wicked Canadian sense of humor and ebullience that really shines through.
I was thinking about Kate in musical terms -- and I think often about music -- Erykah Badu, on her album “Mama’s Gun,” has a song entitled “Orange Moon,” and the first line is “I’m an orange moon reflecting the light of the sun.”
And Kate is a bright sun. When you’re in her presence, when you read what she’s written, if you’re a student in her classroom, her light just shines -- so much so that you reflect it. And I’m just so, so grateful that she joined us for this conversation.
Kate’s work [uses] shorthand -- she talks about this whole prosperity gospel and its belief in health and wealth, and she talks often about #blessed.
One of the things that’s also interesting as she discusses prosperity gospel is she never flattens the three-dimensionality or the humanity of adherents of the prosperity gospel. She doesn’t rob them of being real women and real men and real people. She’s able to study something that many people malign in a very human way.
Kate has a book forthcoming Feb. 6 that blends her research on the prosperity gospel and her experience with cancer, and the title itself tells you a lot about Kate. The title is “Everything Happens for a Reason: And Other Lies I’ve Loved.” Kate is also doing a related podcast.
And it was an honor to hear Kate speak honestly about her pain, but also about the things that bring her joy and what it means to live honestly, not only with a stage 4 cancer diagnosis, but surrounded by a son whom she loves and a husband whom she loves and a group of people who continue to bear witness to life even as she confronts death.
Laura Everett: Oh Bill, there’s so much to dig into here. I want to ask you, though, about having this conversation. Was it hard for you to talk to your friend about her experience facing death?
Bill Lamar: Very, very, very hard, Laura.
Laura Everett: Yeah.
Bill Lamar: Kate is younger than I am, and it was difficult because I felt like she was giving us a window into her struggle. And I did not want to be an agent of exploitation, but I was curious, and she was kind enough to answer questions openly and lovingly and honestly.
But it was difficult. I really am reticent to speak of difficulty from my end, with all that Kate is struggling with, but I will admit that it was tough.
It was fun. It was funny. It was tough. It was experiencing emotions all at once that we often, you know, can take and separate, take them and put them in different buckets or different files.
But I experienced laughter and tears simultaneously. And I experienced being angry as hell at whatever force causes this kind of wickedness to visit people as wonderful and beautiful as Kate. But also I felt a profound joy at the wonderful God who could create one so marvelous as Kate.
Laura Everett: There is a lot of light and joy in the way you speak about Kate, Bill. I’m really looking forward to hearing your interview with her.
Bill Lamar: You’re listening to “Can These Bones.” I’m Bill Lamar, and I have the privilege of talking with my friend Kate Bowler, author, professor of Christian history, who has done great work helping us all to understand the prosperity gospel.
Kate, it’s wonderful to have you this afternoon. Thank you for joining us.
Kate Bowler: Hello, Reverend, so glad to be here.
[Laughter]
Bill Lamar: Cut the formalities, my friend; you know it’s Bill. But so good to hear your voice. It’s been a while. And I just wanted to begin by asking, how are things with you?
Kate Bowler: I’m OK. Yeah. I’m in the managing-illness phase. So it’s a kind of purgatory that I’m learning a lot from, but it’s the endurance phase, I think.
Bill Lamar: Would you like to share any of what it is that you’re learning about the purgatory you speak of?
Kate Bowler: Sure, I guess. I mean, I’m still figuring it out as I go along. And part of it has just been learning to set horizons in a beautiful way. I think part of the unexpectedness of life gives people, I don’t know, maybe more free license to do whatever they want without always imagining the consequence. So it’s been an odd mathematics to live life very intentionally.
And there’s been a lot of theological patience I think I’ve been given, a sense that God is present in the everyday, in a way I didn’t always imagine. And yet I think I miss the days of being bored or just ignorant. I miss, I miss the -- I miss that sense that life didn’t mean quite so much.
Bill Lamar: Well, Kate, I think it’s one thing for someone like me to talk about God being present, altogether another thing for you -- as you have mentioned, the stage 4 cancer diagnosis. Could you say more about what it means that God is present?
Kate Bowler: Well, it was something of a surprise, I think, that -- so I was just kind of a regular ambitious person climbing ladders, dreaming dreams, and then I got a sudden diagnosis.
And then all of a sudden, in the worst moments of my life, I’m thrown into a constant hospital world and an anxious look on everyone’s face and a sense of looming despair.
And weirdly enough, I realized that the new world I was living in was a place where God lived somehow, and I honestly couldn’t quite figure it out. What is this weird peace? What is the sense that God is present in the people who are visiting me, when I didn’t always love the person across the hall that I shared a printer with?
And yeah, it was weird, but now I think almost of God’s presence as, like, a place that I visit. And it was a place I was introduced to in the worst moments of my life, and now it’s a place I have to cultivate.
Bill Lamar: Well, Kate, I’m keenly aware that I’m violating one of the commandments -- we’re not supposed to covet -- but I have always coveted your ability to use language beautifully and economically. So always a joy. What have you been thinking and writing about lately against the backdrop of what you’ve shared?
Kate Bowler: Well, it was a little bit of a surprise that I had so much to say. I thought I was just sort of plodding along. But then last summer I got the chance to take a week and go to the Collegeville Institute in rural Minnesota, where I listened to an outdoor xylophone band camp play and sat in a field and cried a lot over a laptop.
And what it became was a memoir called “Everything Happens for a Reason: And Other Lies I’ve Loved,” which was -- I think of it kind of like a research memoir, because it takes me back through my time as a historian and an expert in the history of the prosperity gospel and that God wants to give you health and wealth and happiness and every beautiful thing here on earth, and yet confronted with the fact that I’ve always had some kind of perpetual problem. Some kind of arm disability that I had that left me without the use of my arms for a year, and a miscarriage, and then this diagnosis.
So I’ve always kind of been trying to catch my breath, and realizing that I have not been the architect of my life in a way that I’ve wanted, that more things have happened to me than through me, and learning to live with that reality.
Bill Lamar: I was taking a look at a New York Times piece that you wrote a while back about your diagnosis, and the quote that just leapt off the page was this one: “But one of my first thoughts was also Oh, God, this is ironic. I recently wrote a book called ‘Blessed.’”
And I just was really transported by that sentence. Could you say more about the irony of working in prosperity gospel and living in the reality that you find yourself living in right now?
Kate Bowler: Sure. I mean, I spent 10 years with believers and preachers of the prosperity gospel, and saw them in all kinds of places -- in boardrooms and in hospital rooms and in all kinds of situations where I saw them believe, against all odds, that God could make a way no matter what.
And here I was, very often with double arm casts at a healing rally, watching them then turn their theological attention to me, like moths to a flame, and see them openly wonder why was I not healthy and wealthy and whole when I fully understood the principles that they were espousing.
So I’ve always lived in the tension of wonderment at the hope that they experience and yet experience this sort of sharp edge of those theologies, which is that when things don’t go well, the primary person to blame is always you.
So what’s also empowering -- “You can do it!” “Everything can work out!” “Put your back into it!” (is also a song I’ve come to love) -- is also this sort of double-sided nature of it, which is that you are saddled with this awful guilt when you just can’t quite make your life work out.
Bill Lamar: I wanted to ask you, you helped to humanize the folks that subscribe to this theology, that they are hungry for something. You are very -- always very human in your description. You did not lose that. You didn’t allow their humanity to be lost.
Could you say more, not only about the people, the preachers, who are in this theological camp, but could you say something about the people who are a part of this theological movement? Who they are beyond caricature?
Kate Bowler: Yeah, and the caricature is just right there. I mean, you don’t have to make it up -- Creflo Dollar, Cash Luna. I mean, I’d love a name like Cash just given to me as a divine vocation.
So with the jets and the Rolls Royces and the “Jesus would be driving a Benz” vanity plates, it’s easy to get lost in the absurdity of it and wonder then why millions of people sit in the pews every Sunday.
And I found by sitting in these benches with them and watching them live their life just a kind of resilient hope that their circumstances wouldn’t define them. I saw in that a real beauty and kind of playfulness, that every day was an opportunity to see God at work.
So sometimes it was like a little sort of divine conspiracy, like cash-in-every-mailbox kind of hopes that they might have, but mostly it was kind of a theological stubbornness: “God will make a way. There is a purpose and a plan for me that I can see and know and realize.” And I liked the idea that people could expect more from God.
And even though I didn’t always -- I just worried, I just worried about them so much, when, you know, they might believe that a car loan was divinely theirs and maybe not read the fine print, or assume that a new preacher coming to town with a special message of encouragement was actually their answer to their loss of a child or just something really traumatic.
But I did think that over the course of the long hours they spent in the pews, they learned to be patient with God, and that was something I could learn, too.
Bill Lamar: I think we can all learn from that. What are some of those other lies that you’ve loved?
Kate Bowler: Well, I guess I realized very quickly that I just have the worst prosperity gospel of my own. That as much as I reviled others for their easy schemes, that I really, I think -- I mean, within a few days of my diagnosis, I think I realized the absurdity of my own imagination.
I had really thought that my plucky, determined attitude was going to conquer all, and that -- you know, when I was in grade 8, I used to drive my parents crazy by writing the same book report over and over again.
It was always, you know, “Alicia from Poland had three things: wit, determination and a sense of humor. And with these things -- you know -- whatever obstacle was resolved.” I realized how quickly this was my own imagination for my life, that my character was somehow unique to me.
I think, too, I imagined that I was special. I mean, I’m sure we’re all special in God’s eyes, etc., etc., but I think I somehow saw myself as being able to avoid the pitfalls that entrap everyone else. And it was hard being as special as everyone else.
Bill Lamar: As I was reading some of the promo material, I found a phrase that I really liked. You talk about craving “outrageous certainties.” Say more about outrageous certainties.
Kate Bowler: Well, I mean, some of the things I imagined were just so sure in my mind that I would -- you know, I live in professor world -- so I would grow old and have just a very revered dynasty of graduate students, and that I would have an office in a tall neo-Gothic tower.
And that I would always have the same beautiful husband, and more than one child, and I would complain about who they dated and have preferences about their college major, and that I would be able to carefully arrange every aspect of my happiness.
I sort of had this idea of life, like it’s this basket and you have to cram everything into the basket -- like, that’s your job in life. You find all this stuff and then you put it in the receptacle, which is your life.
And I worried about -- you know, I’m Canadian -- what if I never get to move home, or what if I can’t always have the same friendships? And I would have these beliefs that I could somehow be the architect of my own life.
And when I found that I didn’t even know if I’d ever get to go home again, I found that in abandoning so many assumptions, I had to remake what I thought I deserved. And that was more painful than I thought it was going to be.
Bill Lamar: Your most recent writing -- did you find the process hard or cathartic or a little of both?
Kate Bowler: Yeah, I think a little of both, because I didn’t really think so much about audience. I mean, I do now, but I just thought, “I need to try to write until I find the truest, hardest thing.”
So in a way, it was sort of theological surgery. I was trying to get right down to it. And at the same time, it was also a love letter to my son, to my husband, to the people who have contributed to the happiness that I’ve enjoyed.
And at the same time say, “I’m sorry that I was so arrogant in assuming that everything would work out, but I promise I was grateful.”
Bill Lamar: Wow. I remember times laughing with you and sharing with you, and you just always had this boundless energy. And even in the midst of this difficult conversation, I still hear that.
The work that we are endeavoring to do is to think deeply about what it means for resurrection to be real, for individuals, for churches, for institutions. Where you sit in your life, when you think about this really absurd notion of a resurrection, what does it mean for you?
Kate Bowler: Wow. Well, I think there is freedom in knowing our limits, knowing the -- for me, the faultiness of my own body.
And you know, the part that precedes the resurrection is the death, right? And part of the beauty of coming to the end of yourself, and realizing, you know, you might not be quite as special or quite as original as you imagined, is the part where you end and God begins.
And you can say, man, the best part about me is not me, is it? It is this new thing that God is always doing.
And I’m still kind of baffled that this terrible time has been the most important time of my life, that everything felt brand-new again. And so in the midst of decay and terrible and hospital world and needles, there was always the sense that God can make things new with or without me, and I think that’s a lesson I’ll have to relearn again and again.
Bill Lamar: What kinds of wonderful conversations are you having with your son?
Kate Bowler: Oh man, he is totally impervious to my situation. I love it. He is just so complete. I think that’s maybe the best part about being a parent -- is you look at your kid and you’re like, “Oh yeah, you’re you; you’re just all there, aren’t you? All the parts.”
So yeah, I -- it’s definitely shaped my view of parenting. I think I thought my job was to protect him from everything, and then I became the thing that needed him to be protected from. And that scared the crap out of me.
So I don’t know. I looked at other people who do parenting with bravery and resilience, and I realized that the point is not to protect him from all the pain in the world but to help him see the way through.
And so we work on little things. He’s 3, and so we work on, like, “Do you feel sad? I’m sad. Do you feel frustrated?” About Lego or dinosaurs. But raising an emotionally intuitive, brave kid is my plan.
Bill Lamar: Well, I don’t think that that will be a problem with you -- he has your stuff in him. And finally, Kate, you have always been a good friend and surrounded yourself with a wonderful community. What does community mean to you at this point in your life?
Kate Bowler: Oh, man. Yeah, I have been overwhelmed by how much I need others and how much I hate needing others. And so you catch me at a good time, because I’m leaning back toward the heresy of independence.
Man, when I definitely couldn’t do anything for myself, which happened again this summer after a big surgery and I was useless, I found that my -- this is going to sound terrible, but like, my standards went down. Like, I didn’t have quite so many expectations of every single person being, you know, exactly like me in every way.
And the second I sort of changed my own perspective, I have been flooded with appreciation for all the amazing stuff people do. Like, they clean and they bring you cookies and they buy you stupid T-shirts and erasers.
And yeah, so now I’m a huge fan of community on their own terms, and I will learn to accept what comes my way.
Bill Lamar: So much in the world, recent events and political events -- can you point us toward the places of hope, from your perspective, from your vantage point?
Kate Bowler: Well, I do feel a sense of excitement over ministries that emphasize presence in the world -- kind of a higher tolerance for the awkwardness of being around suffering.
And so I find myself encouraged when I read the news or I learn more about ministries of other churches in which they simmer down on the proclamations of why people suffer and lean in to -- so lean away from explanation, lean toward the empathy and the humanity of the person in front of you, when they realize that they are just like you, with the same expectations for a manageable life.
Bill Lamar: Kate, I want to thank you for your time and for your honesty. And I also would like a signed copy of your book to add to the collection of signed Kate Bowler books that I have.
Kate Bowler: It will have many #blesseds on it for you.
[Laughter]
Bill Lamar: Thank you so much, and we’ll continue to pray for you.
Kate Bowler: Thanks so much for having me.
Bill Lamar: Thank you, Kate.
Laura Everett: That was my co-host Bill Lamar’s conversation with Kate Bowler, a professor of Christian history and the author of “Everything Happens for a Reason: And Other Lies I’ve Loved.”
Bill, this is an incredibly moving story, and Kate had so much that is wise to say about what she is learning in the space living between life and death.
I want to pause before we begin just to say a word of gratitude for you, Bill, and to our listeners. Bill and I are learning how to be good interviewers, and I was struck in that interview, Bill, about how pastoral and gracious you were in letting Kate really lead where you were going in that conversation. Thank you so much for that.
Bill Lamar: Laura, thank you. And you know, I learned from a very wise pastor. He shared that in great moments of pain and difficulty, silence is best.
Kate had much to share, and she was kind enough to engage and allow me to put something in the atmosphere and just to kind of step back and allow her to share her wisdom.
One of the things that you noticed is, I by no means am expert in this kind of difficulty in confrontation with mortality that Kate’s engaged in right now. So I found myself in the posture of student, and Kate, as always, was an excellent teacher.
Laura Everett: So Bill, one of the things that I find that is just going to stay with me from this interview is actually Kate’s book title, “Everything Happens for a Reason: And Other Lies I’ve Loved.”
That parenthetical at the end, “Other Lies I’ve Loved.” Bill, there are so many lies that I have fallen in deep and abiding and promiscuous love with. And so I’m wondering, Bill, what are some of the lies that you have loved?
Bill Lamar: Oh my goodness, oh, they are legion -- and the allusion to the text and the demonic spirit calling himself Legion, I mean that. I mean, they are manifold. I think …
Laura Everett: And they get under our skin, right? Like, I mean, that’s the thing about the Legion story in the Gospel, that that demon is deep in there. That’s the problem with these lies we love.
Bill Lamar: I think the belief that American democracy will solve all of our problems on some kind of autopilot, without agitation and without a confrontation with the ugliest parts of history. And I think a belief, even when we don’t want to admit it, that good church people really feel like we should be insulated from the vicissitudes of life and from the kind of stinging, nasty pain that Kate is wrestling with.
Just the belief that we deserve something better in our lives than the billions of people in the earth, upon the earth, who live subsistence lives, who are struggling to find clean water, struggling to stay alive, struggling to provide for their children.
I mean, one of the things that it makes me think about is this gospel story that we have staked our lives upon as folks in the church and folks in related institutions, and the fact that God enters history from the underside, from the place of pain, and those of us who live here often are so removed from it.
I wonder how we can proclaim the gospel with fidelity, as comfortable as we are and as deceived as we are by the empire around us.
Laura Everett: Right. I think I’ve bought the lie that if I just do right, people will be grateful and they will respect me.
Bill Lamar: They will love me.
[Laughter]
Laura Everett: They will love me. Bill, that is a lie I have bought hook, line and sinker. And it’s like I’m surprised every time it happens. When I do something that feels like the faithful and right step and I get pushback and I get angry letters and I get people calling, or being called things that are not appropriate for Christian programming such as this …
Bill Lamar: It’s appropriate, Laura. Say it, it’s appropriate.
[Laughter]
Laura Everett: I have been called all sorts of things, and I’m always -- it surprises me every time. But I have loved the lie that I’ve been fed that if I’m a respectable Christian woman that I won’t get burned, that I won’t cause a problem. That is -- man, that is pernicious.
And you know, one of the things that Kate brought up is she talked about her own prosperity gospel, and that really resonated with me. I think there’s a sort of American mythology of meritocracy.
But you know, Kate’s studying a certain subset of Christianity that is believing a particular vision of the gospel, one that I really struggle to wrap my head around. Because I feel very confident Jesus did not promise you a church building, he did not promise you that you are going to be big, and I don’t hear him promising that we’re going to be wealthy.
But Kate really brought up for me the ways in which my own belief is tinged with its own version of a prosperity gospel -- that I will be given full-time employment, that I will have health care, that I will be able to architect my own life.
You know, I really appreciate the self-critique that the studying of prosperity gospel brings to us who don’t practice in that way but, because we are so saturated by an American mythology of meritocracy, [believe that] that if I, especially as a white person, if I just study and work hard, there will be things granted unto me. And so much of what she’s writing and saying pops that mythology.
She uses that phrase a “heresy of independence,” and I’m going to hold on to that for a long time.
Bill Lamar: You know, I’ve been thinking a lot and teaching a lot -- and it’s coming from the things that I’m reading for school -- about market logic in our nation and how market logic dictates how we move and how we breathe and it dictates our being, to take from Scripture. This idea and modality of exchange.
And even in the way that we pray and that we preach, it has found its way into our theology, that we have a market logic as we approach God. That if we do this or if we offer this, in exchange we will receive health and wealth. In exchange.
And this kind of market logic that I think pervades our faith, our prayer, it may even -- and I won’t say may; I believe that it does -- I think it invades our leadership.
That we think if we give goodness, if we give honesty, if we give fidelity, then the institution will offer that back. And I think what, for me, is theologically explosive about crucifixion is that it destroys any kind of market logic.
Because what Jesus gives and what he receives, if you indeed look at it through the lens of exchange, he got a pretty bad deal.
Laura Everett: Yeah.
Bill Lamar: And so what we must understand is the things that we are expecting to get. You know, I was at a seminary recently, and I look at some of these bright-eyed persons, some who are like [I was], in their early 20s, and others who are second-career.
And I just want to say to them, “Do not enter this kind of work, be you in a church or in an institution, with this market logic, but enter it understanding the logic of crucifixion and resurrection, and understand that that will indeed pervade your work.”
And I think this is why we wanted to talk about “Can these bones …?” -- to ask that biblical question. I remember, Laura, when we were trying to figure out what we would name this podcast, we threw a lot of things against the wall. But “Can These Bones” stuck.
This vision from the prophet Ezekiel that there is a valley of dry bones, there’s this huge aggregation of sun-bleached death, and the understanding and the asking of the question, is it possible for some life to emerge from this valley of death?
And that’s what we’re wrestling with here, Laura. What do you think?
Laura Everett: Well, Bill, that Ezekiel vision is something I come back to all the time. You know, part of the narrative that gets told in New England, where I pastor, is about a former abundance, a former greatness, a time when the churches were full.
And the vision in Ezekiel is a battlefield. It’s so desolate that the bones are littered about; they have not even been given the dignity of graves, and all flesh has been picked off.
And so those sun-bleached bones on the parched earth, that even those bones, even that little life -- there is no sinew left on them -- even that degree of desolation, God can bring back life into. And it strikes me, for those of us who are bold to stand in Ezekiel’s footsteps and ask for God’s intervention, it’s not us.
The story of Ezekiel and the dry bones is not about human power or agency. It is a story of the extent and the power of God’s enlivening breath, even in a place so desolate as a battlefield.
When I was spending some time with this scripture, I remembered that the Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel points out that Ezekiel’s vision in the valley has no date on it, because in every generation we need to hear in our own time that these bones might live again.
And so part of the work that we are trying to do in this place is to ask of people in other institutions, in other parts of the church, in other fields, where are they feeling the breath of God move in their community?
Bill Lamar: You know, Laura, you bring up something -- in this kind of biblical literature, in apocalyptic, you’ll have God or God’s agent, an angel or an elder, asking the one who’s the recipient of the vision a question they can’t answer.
So God asks the question, “Can these bones live?” And God says to Ezekiel ...
Laura Everett: [And Ezekiel says,] “Only you know.”
Bill Lamar: [It’s as though God says to Ezekiel,] “Son of man, you know. You know.”
And again, he does not know. But what is fascinating to me, which breathes life into me, and hopefully will breathe life into those who lend us their ears for these podcasts, is this: God speaks to Ezekiel. God says to Ezekiel to speak to the winds, to speak to the situation. And so human agents are used by God in this work of resurrection and this work of bones becoming life. Sinew returning to the bones.
And so for everyone in every church and every little hamlet, every little godforsaken space, in every little difficulty that you experience in church and in institutions, know that you are God’s agent of resurrection. And that is the hopeful note that keeps all of us going forward.
Laura Everett: And dear friends, know that we go along with you. That’s part of the hope of this podcast -- that you know that you are not alone in a valley of dry bones wherever you find yourself.
Because I know I am so grateful to be in conversation with this cloud of witnesses that includes Kate Bowler. Bill, thank you so much for the conversation with Kate today.
Bill Lamar: Thank you.
Laura Everett: “Can These Bones” is brought to you by Faith & Leadership, a learning resource for Christian leaders and their institutions from Leadership Education at Duke Divinity. It’s produced by Sally Hicks, Kelly Ryan Gilmer and Dave Odom. Our theme music is by Blue Dot Sessions. And Kate Bowler’s interview was recorded at Duke University. Funding is provided by Lilly Endowment Inc.
Our next episode is a conversation with Almeda M. Wright, Yale Divinity School professor and the author of “The Spiritual Lives of Young African Americans.”
Listeners, we want to hear from you. Share your thoughts about this podcast with us on social media. I’m on Twitter @RevEverett(link is external), and you can find Bill @WilliamHLamarIV.(link is external) You can also find both of us through our website, www.canthesebones.com.(link is external)
I’m Laura Everett, and this is “Can These Bones.”
This transcript has been edited for clarity.
Laura Everett: In this episode, we’re going to hear your conversation with Kate Bowler, an assistant professor of the history of Christianity in North America at Duke Divinity School. She’s also the author of “Blessed,”(link is external) a history of the American prosperity gospel.
But Bill, that doesn’t really give us all of what we’re going to hear. Kate’s your friend and a really remarkable person. Tell us about your friend Kate.
Bill Lamar: I am pulling out of my wallet a Kate Bowler fan club card, and I am the president. I have known Kate now almost a decade. When I went back to Duke Divinity School to work at Leadership Education after almost 10 years in pastoral ministry, Kate was one of the first persons that I met, a rising star on the faculty.
And one of the things that you will soon detect from the conversation is Kate’s warmth and her love for God and for people and for learning, for her students. You get a sense of who she is right away.
But let me say just a little bit more. Kate was diagnosed in 2015 with stage 4 cancer at the age of 35, and she got quite a bit of attention. She wrote about it in the New York Times(link is external). This juxtaposition of one so young and so vibrant and stage 4 cancer, which we all know is indeed a most serious, serious disease.
She writes compellingly and honestly and openly about the irony of being ill while she’s an expert in prosperity gospel.
She defines “prosperity gospel” as the belief that God gives health and wealth to those with the right kind of faith. And this begs the question, from Kate and others who struggle, if we are not healthy and if we’re not wealthy, do we have the wrong kind of faith?
And so Kate’s own discernment, her own struggle, comes to bear in the beautiful words that she writes, her wicked Canadian sense of humor and ebullience that really shines through.
I was thinking about Kate in musical terms -- and I think often about music -- Erykah Badu, on her album “Mama’s Gun,” has a song entitled “Orange Moon,” and the first line is “I’m an orange moon reflecting the light of the sun.”
And Kate is a bright sun. When you’re in her presence, when you read what she’s written, if you’re a student in her classroom, her light just shines -- so much so that you reflect it. And I’m just so, so grateful that she joined us for this conversation.
Kate’s work [uses] shorthand -- she talks about this whole prosperity gospel and its belief in health and wealth, and she talks often about #blessed.
One of the things that’s also interesting as she discusses prosperity gospel is she never flattens the three-dimensionality or the humanity of adherents of the prosperity gospel. She doesn’t rob them of being real women and real men and real people. She’s able to study something that many people malign in a very human way.
Kate has a book forthcoming Feb. 6 that blends her research on the prosperity gospel and her experience with cancer, and the title itself tells you a lot about Kate. The title is “Everything Happens for a Reason: And Other Lies I’ve Loved.” Kate is also doing a related podcast.
And it was an honor to hear Kate speak honestly about her pain, but also about the things that bring her joy and what it means to live honestly, not only with a stage 4 cancer diagnosis, but surrounded by a son whom she loves and a husband whom she loves and a group of people who continue to bear witness to life even as she confronts death.
Laura Everett: Oh Bill, there’s so much to dig into here. I want to ask you, though, about having this conversation. Was it hard for you to talk to your friend about her experience facing death?
Bill Lamar: Very, very, very hard, Laura.
Laura Everett: Yeah.
Bill Lamar: Kate is younger than I am, and it was difficult because I felt like she was giving us a window into her struggle. And I did not want to be an agent of exploitation, but I was curious, and she was kind enough to answer questions openly and lovingly and honestly.
But it was difficult. I really am reticent to speak of difficulty from my end, with all that Kate is struggling with, but I will admit that it was tough.
It was fun. It was funny. It was tough. It was experiencing emotions all at once that we often, you know, can take and separate, take them and put them in different buckets or different files.
But I experienced laughter and tears simultaneously. And I experienced being angry as hell at whatever force causes this kind of wickedness to visit people as wonderful and beautiful as Kate. But also I felt a profound joy at the wonderful God who could create one so marvelous as Kate.
Laura Everett: There is a lot of light and joy in the way you speak about Kate, Bill. I’m really looking forward to hearing your interview with her.
Bill Lamar: You’re listening to “Can These Bones.” I’m Bill Lamar, and I have the privilege of talking with my friend Kate Bowler, author, professor of Christian history, who has done great work helping us all to understand the prosperity gospel.
Kate, it’s wonderful to have you this afternoon. Thank you for joining us.
Kate Bowler: Hello, Reverend, so glad to be here.
[Laughter]
Bill Lamar: Cut the formalities, my friend; you know it’s Bill. But so good to hear your voice. It’s been a while. And I just wanted to begin by asking, how are things with you?
Kate Bowler: I’m OK. Yeah. I’m in the managing-illness phase. So it’s a kind of purgatory that I’m learning a lot from, but it’s the endurance phase, I think.
Bill Lamar: Would you like to share any of what it is that you’re learning about the purgatory you speak of?
Kate Bowler: Sure, I guess. I mean, I’m still figuring it out as I go along. And part of it has just been learning to set horizons in a beautiful way. I think part of the unexpectedness of life gives people, I don’t know, maybe more free license to do whatever they want without always imagining the consequence. So it’s been an odd mathematics to live life very intentionally.
And there’s been a lot of theological patience I think I’ve been given, a sense that God is present in the everyday, in a way I didn’t always imagine. And yet I think I miss the days of being bored or just ignorant. I miss, I miss the -- I miss that sense that life didn’t mean quite so much.
Bill Lamar: Well, Kate, I think it’s one thing for someone like me to talk about God being present, altogether another thing for you -- as you have mentioned, the stage 4 cancer diagnosis. Could you say more about what it means that God is present?
Kate Bowler: Well, it was something of a surprise, I think, that -- so I was just kind of a regular ambitious person climbing ladders, dreaming dreams, and then I got a sudden diagnosis.
And then all of a sudden, in the worst moments of my life, I’m thrown into a constant hospital world and an anxious look on everyone’s face and a sense of looming despair.
And weirdly enough, I realized that the new world I was living in was a place where God lived somehow, and I honestly couldn’t quite figure it out. What is this weird peace? What is the sense that God is present in the people who are visiting me, when I didn’t always love the person across the hall that I shared a printer with?
And yeah, it was weird, but now I think almost of God’s presence as, like, a place that I visit. And it was a place I was introduced to in the worst moments of my life, and now it’s a place I have to cultivate.
Bill Lamar: Well, Kate, I’m keenly aware that I’m violating one of the commandments -- we’re not supposed to covet -- but I have always coveted your ability to use language beautifully and economically. So always a joy. What have you been thinking and writing about lately against the backdrop of what you’ve shared?
Kate Bowler: Well, it was a little bit of a surprise that I had so much to say. I thought I was just sort of plodding along. But then last summer I got the chance to take a week and go to the Collegeville Institute in rural Minnesota, where I listened to an outdoor xylophone band camp play and sat in a field and cried a lot over a laptop.
And what it became was a memoir called “Everything Happens for a Reason: And Other Lies I’ve Loved,” which was -- I think of it kind of like a research memoir, because it takes me back through my time as a historian and an expert in the history of the prosperity gospel and that God wants to give you health and wealth and happiness and every beautiful thing here on earth, and yet confronted with the fact that I’ve always had some kind of perpetual problem. Some kind of arm disability that I had that left me without the use of my arms for a year, and a miscarriage, and then this diagnosis.
So I’ve always kind of been trying to catch my breath, and realizing that I have not been the architect of my life in a way that I’ve wanted, that more things have happened to me than through me, and learning to live with that reality.
Bill Lamar: I was taking a look at a New York Times piece that you wrote a while back about your diagnosis, and the quote that just leapt off the page was this one: “But one of my first thoughts was also Oh, God, this is ironic. I recently wrote a book called ‘Blessed.’”
And I just was really transported by that sentence. Could you say more about the irony of working in prosperity gospel and living in the reality that you find yourself living in right now?
Kate Bowler: Sure. I mean, I spent 10 years with believers and preachers of the prosperity gospel, and saw them in all kinds of places -- in boardrooms and in hospital rooms and in all kinds of situations where I saw them believe, against all odds, that God could make a way no matter what.
And here I was, very often with double arm casts at a healing rally, watching them then turn their theological attention to me, like moths to a flame, and see them openly wonder why was I not healthy and wealthy and whole when I fully understood the principles that they were espousing.
So I’ve always lived in the tension of wonderment at the hope that they experience and yet experience this sort of sharp edge of those theologies, which is that when things don’t go well, the primary person to blame is always you.
So what’s also empowering -- “You can do it!” “Everything can work out!” “Put your back into it!” (is also a song I’ve come to love) -- is also this sort of double-sided nature of it, which is that you are saddled with this awful guilt when you just can’t quite make your life work out.
Bill Lamar: I wanted to ask you, you helped to humanize the folks that subscribe to this theology, that they are hungry for something. You are very -- always very human in your description. You did not lose that. You didn’t allow their humanity to be lost.
Could you say more, not only about the people, the preachers, who are in this theological camp, but could you say something about the people who are a part of this theological movement? Who they are beyond caricature?
Kate Bowler: Yeah, and the caricature is just right there. I mean, you don’t have to make it up -- Creflo Dollar, Cash Luna. I mean, I’d love a name like Cash just given to me as a divine vocation.
So with the jets and the Rolls Royces and the “Jesus would be driving a Benz” vanity plates, it’s easy to get lost in the absurdity of it and wonder then why millions of people sit in the pews every Sunday.
And I found by sitting in these benches with them and watching them live their life just a kind of resilient hope that their circumstances wouldn’t define them. I saw in that a real beauty and kind of playfulness, that every day was an opportunity to see God at work.
So sometimes it was like a little sort of divine conspiracy, like cash-in-every-mailbox kind of hopes that they might have, but mostly it was kind of a theological stubbornness: “God will make a way. There is a purpose and a plan for me that I can see and know and realize.” And I liked the idea that people could expect more from God.
And even though I didn’t always -- I just worried, I just worried about them so much, when, you know, they might believe that a car loan was divinely theirs and maybe not read the fine print, or assume that a new preacher coming to town with a special message of encouragement was actually their answer to their loss of a child or just something really traumatic.
But I did think that over the course of the long hours they spent in the pews, they learned to be patient with God, and that was something I could learn, too.
Bill Lamar: I think we can all learn from that. What are some of those other lies that you’ve loved?
Kate Bowler: Well, I guess I realized very quickly that I just have the worst prosperity gospel of my own. That as much as I reviled others for their easy schemes, that I really, I think -- I mean, within a few days of my diagnosis, I think I realized the absurdity of my own imagination.
I had really thought that my plucky, determined attitude was going to conquer all, and that -- you know, when I was in grade 8, I used to drive my parents crazy by writing the same book report over and over again.
It was always, you know, “Alicia from Poland had three things: wit, determination and a sense of humor. And with these things -- you know -- whatever obstacle was resolved.” I realized how quickly this was my own imagination for my life, that my character was somehow unique to me.
I think, too, I imagined that I was special. I mean, I’m sure we’re all special in God’s eyes, etc., etc., but I think I somehow saw myself as being able to avoid the pitfalls that entrap everyone else. And it was hard being as special as everyone else.
Bill Lamar: As I was reading some of the promo material, I found a phrase that I really liked. You talk about craving “outrageous certainties.” Say more about outrageous certainties.
Kate Bowler: Well, I mean, some of the things I imagined were just so sure in my mind that I would -- you know, I live in professor world -- so I would grow old and have just a very revered dynasty of graduate students, and that I would have an office in a tall neo-Gothic tower.
And that I would always have the same beautiful husband, and more than one child, and I would complain about who they dated and have preferences about their college major, and that I would be able to carefully arrange every aspect of my happiness.
I sort of had this idea of life, like it’s this basket and you have to cram everything into the basket -- like, that’s your job in life. You find all this stuff and then you put it in the receptacle, which is your life.
And I worried about -- you know, I’m Canadian -- what if I never get to move home, or what if I can’t always have the same friendships? And I would have these beliefs that I could somehow be the architect of my own life.
And when I found that I didn’t even know if I’d ever get to go home again, I found that in abandoning so many assumptions, I had to remake what I thought I deserved. And that was more painful than I thought it was going to be.
Bill Lamar: Your most recent writing -- did you find the process hard or cathartic or a little of both?
Kate Bowler: Yeah, I think a little of both, because I didn’t really think so much about audience. I mean, I do now, but I just thought, “I need to try to write until I find the truest, hardest thing.”
So in a way, it was sort of theological surgery. I was trying to get right down to it. And at the same time, it was also a love letter to my son, to my husband, to the people who have contributed to the happiness that I’ve enjoyed.
And at the same time say, “I’m sorry that I was so arrogant in assuming that everything would work out, but I promise I was grateful.”
Bill Lamar: Wow. I remember times laughing with you and sharing with you, and you just always had this boundless energy. And even in the midst of this difficult conversation, I still hear that.
The work that we are endeavoring to do is to think deeply about what it means for resurrection to be real, for individuals, for churches, for institutions. Where you sit in your life, when you think about this really absurd notion of a resurrection, what does it mean for you?
Kate Bowler: Wow. Well, I think there is freedom in knowing our limits, knowing the -- for me, the faultiness of my own body.
And you know, the part that precedes the resurrection is the death, right? And part of the beauty of coming to the end of yourself, and realizing, you know, you might not be quite as special or quite as original as you imagined, is the part where you end and God begins.
And you can say, man, the best part about me is not me, is it? It is this new thing that God is always doing.
And I’m still kind of baffled that this terrible time has been the most important time of my life, that everything felt brand-new again. And so in the midst of decay and terrible and hospital world and needles, there was always the sense that God can make things new with or without me, and I think that’s a lesson I’ll have to relearn again and again.
Bill Lamar: What kinds of wonderful conversations are you having with your son?
Kate Bowler: Oh man, he is totally impervious to my situation. I love it. He is just so complete. I think that’s maybe the best part about being a parent -- is you look at your kid and you’re like, “Oh yeah, you’re you; you’re just all there, aren’t you? All the parts.”
So yeah, I -- it’s definitely shaped my view of parenting. I think I thought my job was to protect him from everything, and then I became the thing that needed him to be protected from. And that scared the crap out of me.
So I don’t know. I looked at other people who do parenting with bravery and resilience, and I realized that the point is not to protect him from all the pain in the world but to help him see the way through.
And so we work on little things. He’s 3, and so we work on, like, “Do you feel sad? I’m sad. Do you feel frustrated?” About Lego or dinosaurs. But raising an emotionally intuitive, brave kid is my plan.
Bill Lamar: Well, I don’t think that that will be a problem with you -- he has your stuff in him. And finally, Kate, you have always been a good friend and surrounded yourself with a wonderful community. What does community mean to you at this point in your life?
Kate Bowler: Oh, man. Yeah, I have been overwhelmed by how much I need others and how much I hate needing others. And so you catch me at a good time, because I’m leaning back toward the heresy of independence.
Man, when I definitely couldn’t do anything for myself, which happened again this summer after a big surgery and I was useless, I found that my -- this is going to sound terrible, but like, my standards went down. Like, I didn’t have quite so many expectations of every single person being, you know, exactly like me in every way.
And the second I sort of changed my own perspective, I have been flooded with appreciation for all the amazing stuff people do. Like, they clean and they bring you cookies and they buy you stupid T-shirts and erasers.
And yeah, so now I’m a huge fan of community on their own terms, and I will learn to accept what comes my way.
Bill Lamar: So much in the world, recent events and political events -- can you point us toward the places of hope, from your perspective, from your vantage point?
Kate Bowler: Well, I do feel a sense of excitement over ministries that emphasize presence in the world -- kind of a higher tolerance for the awkwardness of being around suffering.
And so I find myself encouraged when I read the news or I learn more about ministries of other churches in which they simmer down on the proclamations of why people suffer and lean in to -- so lean away from explanation, lean toward the empathy and the humanity of the person in front of you, when they realize that they are just like you, with the same expectations for a manageable life.
Bill Lamar: Kate, I want to thank you for your time and for your honesty. And I also would like a signed copy of your book to add to the collection of signed Kate Bowler books that I have.
Kate Bowler: It will have many #blesseds on it for you.
[Laughter]
Bill Lamar: Thank you so much, and we’ll continue to pray for you.
Kate Bowler: Thanks so much for having me.
Bill Lamar: Thank you, Kate.
Laura Everett: That was my co-host Bill Lamar’s conversation with Kate Bowler, a professor of Christian history and the author of “Everything Happens for a Reason: And Other Lies I’ve Loved.”
Bill, this is an incredibly moving story, and Kate had so much that is wise to say about what she is learning in the space living between life and death.
I want to pause before we begin just to say a word of gratitude for you, Bill, and to our listeners. Bill and I are learning how to be good interviewers, and I was struck in that interview, Bill, about how pastoral and gracious you were in letting Kate really lead where you were going in that conversation. Thank you so much for that.
Bill Lamar: Laura, thank you. And you know, I learned from a very wise pastor. He shared that in great moments of pain and difficulty, silence is best.
Kate had much to share, and she was kind enough to engage and allow me to put something in the atmosphere and just to kind of step back and allow her to share her wisdom.
One of the things that you noticed is, I by no means am expert in this kind of difficulty in confrontation with mortality that Kate’s engaged in right now. So I found myself in the posture of student, and Kate, as always, was an excellent teacher.
Laura Everett: So Bill, one of the things that I find that is just going to stay with me from this interview is actually Kate’s book title, “Everything Happens for a Reason: And Other Lies I’ve Loved.”
That parenthetical at the end, “Other Lies I’ve Loved.” Bill, there are so many lies that I have fallen in deep and abiding and promiscuous love with. And so I’m wondering, Bill, what are some of the lies that you have loved?
Bill Lamar: Oh my goodness, oh, they are legion -- and the allusion to the text and the demonic spirit calling himself Legion, I mean that. I mean, they are manifold. I think …
Laura Everett: And they get under our skin, right? Like, I mean, that’s the thing about the Legion story in the Gospel, that that demon is deep in there. That’s the problem with these lies we love.
Bill Lamar: I think the belief that American democracy will solve all of our problems on some kind of autopilot, without agitation and without a confrontation with the ugliest parts of history. And I think a belief, even when we don’t want to admit it, that good church people really feel like we should be insulated from the vicissitudes of life and from the kind of stinging, nasty pain that Kate is wrestling with.
Just the belief that we deserve something better in our lives than the billions of people in the earth, upon the earth, who live subsistence lives, who are struggling to find clean water, struggling to stay alive, struggling to provide for their children.
I mean, one of the things that it makes me think about is this gospel story that we have staked our lives upon as folks in the church and folks in related institutions, and the fact that God enters history from the underside, from the place of pain, and those of us who live here often are so removed from it.
I wonder how we can proclaim the gospel with fidelity, as comfortable as we are and as deceived as we are by the empire around us.
Laura Everett: Right. I think I’ve bought the lie that if I just do right, people will be grateful and they will respect me.
Bill Lamar: They will love me.
[Laughter]
Laura Everett: They will love me. Bill, that is a lie I have bought hook, line and sinker. And it’s like I’m surprised every time it happens. When I do something that feels like the faithful and right step and I get pushback and I get angry letters and I get people calling, or being called things that are not appropriate for Christian programming such as this …
Bill Lamar: It’s appropriate, Laura. Say it, it’s appropriate.
[Laughter]
Laura Everett: I have been called all sorts of things, and I’m always -- it surprises me every time. But I have loved the lie that I’ve been fed that if I’m a respectable Christian woman that I won’t get burned, that I won’t cause a problem. That is -- man, that is pernicious.
And you know, one of the things that Kate brought up is she talked about her own prosperity gospel, and that really resonated with me. I think there’s a sort of American mythology of meritocracy.
But you know, Kate’s studying a certain subset of Christianity that is believing a particular vision of the gospel, one that I really struggle to wrap my head around. Because I feel very confident Jesus did not promise you a church building, he did not promise you that you are going to be big, and I don’t hear him promising that we’re going to be wealthy.
But Kate really brought up for me the ways in which my own belief is tinged with its own version of a prosperity gospel -- that I will be given full-time employment, that I will have health care, that I will be able to architect my own life.
You know, I really appreciate the self-critique that the studying of prosperity gospel brings to us who don’t practice in that way but, because we are so saturated by an American mythology of meritocracy, [believe that] that if I, especially as a white person, if I just study and work hard, there will be things granted unto me. And so much of what she’s writing and saying pops that mythology.
She uses that phrase a “heresy of independence,” and I’m going to hold on to that for a long time.
Bill Lamar: You know, I’ve been thinking a lot and teaching a lot -- and it’s coming from the things that I’m reading for school -- about market logic in our nation and how market logic dictates how we move and how we breathe and it dictates our being, to take from Scripture. This idea and modality of exchange.
And even in the way that we pray and that we preach, it has found its way into our theology, that we have a market logic as we approach God. That if we do this or if we offer this, in exchange we will receive health and wealth. In exchange.
And this kind of market logic that I think pervades our faith, our prayer, it may even -- and I won’t say may; I believe that it does -- I think it invades our leadership.
That we think if we give goodness, if we give honesty, if we give fidelity, then the institution will offer that back. And I think what, for me, is theologically explosive about crucifixion is that it destroys any kind of market logic.
Because what Jesus gives and what he receives, if you indeed look at it through the lens of exchange, he got a pretty bad deal.
Laura Everett: Yeah.
Bill Lamar: And so what we must understand is the things that we are expecting to get. You know, I was at a seminary recently, and I look at some of these bright-eyed persons, some who are like [I was], in their early 20s, and others who are second-career.
And I just want to say to them, “Do not enter this kind of work, be you in a church or in an institution, with this market logic, but enter it understanding the logic of crucifixion and resurrection, and understand that that will indeed pervade your work.”
And I think this is why we wanted to talk about “Can these bones …?” -- to ask that biblical question. I remember, Laura, when we were trying to figure out what we would name this podcast, we threw a lot of things against the wall. But “Can These Bones” stuck.
This vision from the prophet Ezekiel that there is a valley of dry bones, there’s this huge aggregation of sun-bleached death, and the understanding and the asking of the question, is it possible for some life to emerge from this valley of death?
And that’s what we’re wrestling with here, Laura. What do you think?
Laura Everett: Well, Bill, that Ezekiel vision is something I come back to all the time. You know, part of the narrative that gets told in New England, where I pastor, is about a former abundance, a former greatness, a time when the churches were full.
And the vision in Ezekiel is a battlefield. It’s so desolate that the bones are littered about; they have not even been given the dignity of graves, and all flesh has been picked off.
And so those sun-bleached bones on the parched earth, that even those bones, even that little life -- there is no sinew left on them -- even that degree of desolation, God can bring back life into. And it strikes me, for those of us who are bold to stand in Ezekiel’s footsteps and ask for God’s intervention, it’s not us.
The story of Ezekiel and the dry bones is not about human power or agency. It is a story of the extent and the power of God’s enlivening breath, even in a place so desolate as a battlefield.
When I was spending some time with this scripture, I remembered that the Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel points out that Ezekiel’s vision in the valley has no date on it, because in every generation we need to hear in our own time that these bones might live again.
And so part of the work that we are trying to do in this place is to ask of people in other institutions, in other parts of the church, in other fields, where are they feeling the breath of God move in their community?
Bill Lamar: You know, Laura, you bring up something -- in this kind of biblical literature, in apocalyptic, you’ll have God or God’s agent, an angel or an elder, asking the one who’s the recipient of the vision a question they can’t answer.
So God asks the question, “Can these bones live?” And God says to Ezekiel ...
Laura Everett: [And Ezekiel says,] “Only you know.”
Bill Lamar: [It’s as though God says to Ezekiel,] “Son of man, you know. You know.”
And again, he does not know. But what is fascinating to me, which breathes life into me, and hopefully will breathe life into those who lend us their ears for these podcasts, is this: God speaks to Ezekiel. God says to Ezekiel to speak to the winds, to speak to the situation. And so human agents are used by God in this work of resurrection and this work of bones becoming life. Sinew returning to the bones.
And so for everyone in every church and every little hamlet, every little godforsaken space, in every little difficulty that you experience in church and in institutions, know that you are God’s agent of resurrection. And that is the hopeful note that keeps all of us going forward.
Laura Everett: And dear friends, know that we go along with you. That’s part of the hope of this podcast -- that you know that you are not alone in a valley of dry bones wherever you find yourself.
Because I know I am so grateful to be in conversation with this cloud of witnesses that includes Kate Bowler. Bill, thank you so much for the conversation with Kate today.
Bill Lamar: Thank you.
Laura Everett: “Can These Bones” is brought to you by Faith & Leadership, a learning resource for Christian leaders and their institutions from Leadership Education at Duke Divinity. It’s produced by Sally Hicks, Kelly Ryan Gilmer and Dave Odom. Our theme music is by Blue Dot Sessions. And Kate Bowler’s interview was recorded at Duke University. Funding is provided by Lilly Endowment Inc.
Our next episode is a conversation with Almeda M. Wright, Yale Divinity School professor and the author of “The Spiritual Lives of Young African Americans.”
Listeners, we want to hear from you. Share your thoughts about this podcast with us on social media. I’m on Twitter @RevEverett(link is external), and you can find Bill @WilliamHLamarIV.(link is external) You can also find both of us through our website, www.canthesebones.com.(link is external)
I’m Laura Everett, and this is “Can These Bones.”
This transcript has been edited for clarity.
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IDEAS THAT IMPACT: HOLY WEEK & EASTER
Liturgy in the public square
Faith and Leadership
LITURGICAL SEASONS, HOLY WEEK
Lisa G. Fischbeck: Liturgy in the public square
A North Carolina congregation takes Palm Sunday and Good Friday outdoors and discovers how it feels to publicly claim their identity as Christians.
We walked together, some carrying placards, some taking turns carrying the 5-foot-tall cedar cross. Not a large crowd -- 25 or so. Enough to be intentional, enough to attract attention. I wore my collar and black cassock, signs of my ministry, signs of the church.
It was Good Friday, and we were walking the Way of the Cross through our town, Carrboro, N.C. This made church public -- we felt a little timid and a little bold at the same time.
Somewhere between the fifth and sixth stations, a man rode by on his bicycle.
“F*** God!” he yelled, waving his fist in the air. “F*** religion!”
We walked on.
Good liturgy both expresses and shapes what we believe. That day, the people of my church understood a little better how it felt to publicly claim our identity as Christians, and how a God-made-flesh was vulnerable to the powers of this world.
My congregation, the Church of the Advocate(link is external), is a 21st-century mission of the Episcopal Diocese of North Carolina. Launched in 2003, we are rooted in the traditions and liturgies of the Episcopal Church and the Book of Common Prayer.
Because don’t have a building, though, we experience the liberation and the challenge of inheriting the liturgies without the usual structures in which they take place. From the beginning, members of the Advocate have asked, “Why are we doing this? What does it say? How does it form us?”
This has allowed us to consider our Holy Week liturgies from scratch and to take them into new and different places, including outdoors.
In the past year, imposing ashes on Ash Wednesday in public has gained traction in cities and towns as “Ashes to Go.” We have found that the liturgies of Palm Sunday and Good Friday are also conducive to exposure and practice in the world.
After all, that’s where they started.
Palm Sunday
Remembering Jesus’ “triumphal entry” into Jerusalem, we gather as the people of the first century did, outdoors by the walls of the city (in our case, town hall).
Standing in the cool spring air, we hear the story of Jesus, the colt, the people, the palms. And we, too, wave palm branches and carry redbuds, azaleas, daffodils from our own gardens and trees, as the citizens of first-century Jerusalem did with the original palms.
We walk in procession to the entrance of our town commons (home to a playground and a weekly farmers’ market), singing “Jesus is coming! Hosanna! Glory!” I encourage people to crowd as close to the cross as they can.
Before entering, we cast our palms before the crucifer and cross and enter singing, “This child through David’s city shall ride in triumph by; the palm shall strew its branches, and every stone shall cry. And every stone shall cry, though heavy, dull, and dumb, and lie within the roadway to pave his kingdom come.”
The service quickly moves to the Passion story, a liturgical jolt. Yet experiencing these two narratives in one hour helps us realize that we, like the people of first-century Jerusalem, can quickly convert from cries of “Hosanna!” to shouts of “Crucify him!”
All who pass by are welcome to join. Some do: people walking with kids or dogs, people who have never been to church, people who remember the church of their childhood and are intrigued to see it being made new. Some stand on the periphery; others take a seat on chairs we have brought with us.
Good Friday
At noon on Good Friday, we return for a simple service from the Book of Common Prayer. Once again we hear the Passion narrative -- the third time in a week -- and it begins to penetrate our hearts and our bones. When it’s cold and rainy, we identify with Peter, warming his hands by the fire as he denies he knows the Lord.
Someone brings forth the cross, made of two pieces of cedar lashed together, and we see and feel its heft. We walk to town hall and begin the Way of the Cross/Via Dolorosa with the first station: Jesus is condemned to die.
We have recast the traditional stations for a 21st-century context, so as we walk through our own town, we also reflect on the state of our world, our nation, our community and ourselves. We walk past social service agencies, nonprofits, a center for conflict resolution, the police station, the local food co-op. We realize and make known Christ’s presence in all of these places.
We read the stations in English and in Spanish in recognition of our Spanish-speaking neighbors, many of whom come from countries where the Fridays in Lent are marked by a public procession of the cross. And every year strangers spontaneously join us on the Way, sometimes just for a station or two, sometimes to the end.
Last year we added placards as a way of showing how we were applying the gospel today: “Love the World”; “Jesus Welcomes the Alien and the Stranger”; “Dichosos los Pobres.”
The signs made us feel even more public and vulnerable. We were cheered and jeered. Drivers honked support and annoyance.
Yet when we talked about it afterward, we agreed that we felt strangely empowered and formed as Christians in the world. We realized that we can be open with our faith.
Moving outside the confines of a church building allows us to remember profoundly the experience of Jesus and his followers on the streets of Jerusalem, in the upper room, before the councils of church and state, and on the road to Calvary. And we come to understand more fully Christ’s gift of vulnerability to us all.
Read more from Lisa Fischbeck »
Maundy ThursdayFaith and Leadership
LITURGICAL SEASONS, HOLY WEEK
Nathan Kirkpatrick: Maundy Thursday
"Jesus Washing the Disciples’ Feet" by Leszek Forczek
Before clergy read to their congregations the stories of the betrayal of Jesus by those whom he chose to follow him, many take Maundy Thursday as an opportunity to remember the ways that they have betrayed their own callings and recommit themselves to follow and to serve.
Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end. (John 13:1)
We are at the beginning of the great “Triduum” – the great three days of the church year – when we remember Christ’s betrayal, death, and resurrection. Maundy Thursday begins this solemn remembrance as we remember the four events of this day – Jesus washing the disciples’ feet (John 13.1-11), the institution of the Lord’s Supper (Luke 22.14-20), Jesus’ agony in the garden (Luke 22.39-46), and the betrayal by Judas Iscariot (Luke 22.47-54).
Today is an especially holy day for those who serve as ministers of the gospel. It is a day when clergy of a variety of denominations recommit to their callings by renewing their ordination vows. The symbolism is striking: before we clergy read to our congregations the stories of the betrayal of Jesus by those whom he chose to follow and serve him, we first pause to remember the ways that we have betrayed our calling and recommit ourselves to follow and to serve.
Today, we recommit ourselves to keeping watch with those who agonize in their own gardens of despair. We pledge that we will no longer run away from the cross in our daily lives but cling to it. We renew our vow that we will not flee the suffering of the world but rather seek solidarity with those who suffer and bear witness to their plight. And above all else, we stake our souls on the belief that we are called to bear Easter’s hope to a Good Friday world.
So, today, whether you are ordained by action of a denomination or aware of a calling to such a ministry or living into a ministry as a baptized layperson, I would invite all of us to take a few moments this Holy Thursday to recommit to the callings God has on our lives however we understand them and however we live them.
Read more from Nathan E. Kirkpatrick »
Faith and Leadership
A meditation for Good Friday
LITURGICAL SEASONS, HOLY WEEK, SERMONS
A meditation for Good Friday
How should we think of leadership in light of this holy day?
On this darkest of days, we hold close this miracle of God with us. As darkness falls and all is lost, as our souls crumble and our hearts break, we are handed the memory of a Savior who leaned over into the void of the darkness and refused to give in to despair, says Amy Butler.
Editor’s note: Faith & Leadership offers sermons that shed light on issues of Christian leadership. This sermon was preached on March 21, 2008, at Calvary Baptist Church in Washington, D.C.
I had the strangest experience just a few weeks ago.
I’d been asked to participate in the funeral of a woman I did not know well; she grew up at my church, Calvary, and I knew her family from a couple of chances we’d had to be together. As this woman lived near Virginia Beach, she attended another church, but she was buried here in town, and it was my honor to be invited to participate in her funeral.
The day was just glorious -- bright sun and cool, crisp air. There were flowers covering the grave site and a bagpiper playing “Amazing Grace.”
What a way to go!
After the service I stayed for a while to talk with her family, most especially her three daughters, all of whom cared for their mother in her final illness and were with her when she died.
The youngest daughter caught me first: she said she really wanted to tell me about the night her mom died. She explained how the whole family was gathered around her mother’s bedside and how as they saw their mom’s breath becoming more and more shallow, she felt compelled to tell her mom it was OK to go. She told me with tears in her eyes that her mother looked at her, like she was asking for permission, then took a deep breath, almost like a sigh of relief, and died quietly.
Hearing this beautiful story made me emotional. I was wiping away tears, in fact, when I bumped into another of the woman’s three daughters. As we exchanged pleasantries, she said, “You know, we were all with Mom when she died.” I told the woman that, yes, I had just heard about that experience.
The woman went on to tell me that when it became clear that her mom’s breathing was getting more labored, she had been able to pull out a bunch of lavender, grown on her own organic farm. She crushed some of it with her fingers and let her mother breathe in the calming fragrance of the lavender, and it seemed to help her slow down and take a few final breaths before dying. It meant so much to this woman to participate, to be there and to help her mom take this step.
Well, that was kind of touching, too, but I sort of left that conversation scratching my head, when -- you guessed it -- I ran into the third and final daughter, who told me her mom was finally able to take her last breath when the grandchildren came in and sang her a lullaby.
I was baffled. All three of them lived through the same experience, and all three of them remembered it differently. Really differently.
I thought about this experience when I started thinking about Good Friday and looking at the Gospel narratives about Jesus’ last hours on the cross.
Did you know they are all different?
Of course, we don’t know exactly who was there when; we do know the disciples were scared for their lives and certainly incognito, if they were there at all. So whether they actually watched Jesus die and listened to his last words or whether they heard secondhand the accounts from the women who knelt at the cross, each of the four Gospel writers records the story a little differently. And while all four of them tell of Jesus’ final hours and three of them let us know that he cried out in a loud voice before he took his final breath, it’s only Luke who tells us what Jesus said when he cried so loudly. Do you remember?
“Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.”
And then, Luke says, Jesus breathed his last.
Now, you and I might recognize those words -- the psalmist uses them in Psalm 31, and it’s likely we’ve heard them in the context of worship other times during the year, not just Good Friday. Yes, we might recognize them, but the folks standing around Jesus’ cross that day would certainly have recognized those words.
See, the phrase “into thy hands I commit my spirit” was used by religious Jews every single day of their lives. It was the prayer they prayed every night, the last thing that left their lips before they closed their eyes, comforting and familiar words that led them to rest. It was the kind of phrase you could recall without any conscious thought, it was so ingrained in your psyche.
Do you know what I’m talking about?
I have this childhood memory that goes back as far as I can remember and echoes through the years when my four younger brothers and sisters were babies. I can remember my mother’s voice ringing through the house as she rocked whichever one of us was the baby to sleep. She’d sing a song over and over, her voice getting quieter as sleep came on: “Jesus, tender Shepherd, hear me, bless thy little lamb tonight; through the darkness be thou near me, keep me safe till morning light.”
I will be able to recall that song all my life long, and when I hear it or sing it, there is a peace that floods over me, and I can feel my mother’s arms around me, the steady rhythm of her rocking, the warmth of her embrace, and that utter feeling of safety, of knowing that now it’s OK to go to sleep because here I am, being held safe by my mom.
This was the kind of thing Jesus was calling to mind as he cried out in a loud voice: “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.” And I have to say, to everyone standing there, it must have seemed totally out of place.
In the deepest moments of anguish, with the darkness of the sky casting shadows everywhere, with doubt and grief and regret washing over everyone -- not just Jesus -- those words must have seemed so strange.
Maybe that’s why some of the Gospel writers left them out. Maybe they thought Jesus was just delirious with pain; maybe they thought he didn’t know what he was saying.
But, you know, maybe he did.
Today, as the darkness descends again on you and me, I tell you, I’m glad Luke remembered to tell us these words of Jesus, because it seems to me that Jesus, bloody and gasping for air, writhing with pain, gave us the most amazing gift when he spoke these words.
Yes, in the middle of the deepest human darkness we could ever experience, our Savior spoke firmly and forcefully -- loudly, Luke says -- these words of utter comfort and ultimate love. He spoke them in forceful defiance of the despair and hopelessness that haunted his final hours. He would not give in. He would not let despair be the final word. He would choose where he would place his life, and he chose to place everything he had left into the hands of God.
Let’s not kid ourselves. There was nothing pretty about what Jesus went through.
All of his friends had just let him down; surely the memory of Judas’ kiss or Peter’s denial ran like a tape over and over in his mind.
He’d just been forced to look straight into the face of gut-wrenching fear, and it scared him so badly that he sweated with utter anxiety, taking shallow breaths and trying for the life of him to keep it together.
He’d knelt in the garden alone, talking to God and begging. Please, could there be another way to walk through this?
He’d hung on the cross and uttered -- as Matthew and Mark report -- his sinking suspicion that God had abandoned him and that he was all alone.
After these things ... after all of these things, then, Jesus does the most incredible, faith-filled thing: he struggles to suck in one last breath and calls out words of comfort and peace. These final words -- Jesus cried them out, and when he did, he spoke defiant hope into dark despair.
On Aug. 14, 1982, Todd Weems was out on the town celebrating his 21st birthday. It was just after midnight when he left the restaurant to head home. As he was leaving, he noticed, out of the corner of his eye, a group of men beating a homeless man in an alley on the side of the restaurant. Without much thought, he ran over to try to help, and in the moments that followed it was Todd who was brutally murdered, just an hour after he turned 21.
It’s a tragic story any way you tell it, but to make the aftermath even harder, you should know that Todd’s mother, Ann Weems, is a prolific writer and noted theologian. Faced with the senseless pain of her son’s death, she spent night after sleepless night filled with anger at the God she’d served all her life, who, as far as she could see, had completely abandoned her to utter darkness. Out of this experience came her book “Psalms of Lament,” where she somehow found the courage to write these words:
In the godforsaken, obscene quicksand of life,
there is a deafening alleluia
rising from the souls
of those who weep,
and of those who weep with those who weep.
If you watch, you will see
the hand of God
putting the stars back in their skies
one by one.
I don’t know just how Ann Weems summoned the courage to write these words of hope into the dark abyss of her situation. I think it might be possible that she remembered a Savior who had also suffered those feelings of betrayal and hopelessness and chose, instead of surrendering to the darkness, to instead defiantly place everything he was into the hands of God.
Me? I suspect I might have gotten stuck at “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”
But on this day, a day of darkness devoid of hope, I want to say, “Thank you, Luke, for reminding us that Jesus didn’t.”
Somehow. Somehow he managed the simple act of declaring the ridiculous -- a prayer of comfort and peace into despair and death. Jesus turned his back on the darkness, resolutely collected the shreds of his very life, and laid them down in the one place he’d learned to believe in from the time he was a baby -- into the hands of God.
Friends, on this, the darkest of days, we hold close this miracle of God with us. As darkness falls and all is lost, as our souls crumble and our hearts break, we are handed the memory of a Savior who leaned over into the void of the darkness and refused to give in to despair.
And as we stumble our way through this day and through the pain of our human lives, often unable to see through the darkness, we can, too. We can take whatever is left of our lives and place it right into the hands of God, an utterly defiant, totally revolutionary act of faith:
“Through the darkness be thou near me ...”
“Now I lay me down to sleep ...”
“Keep me safe till morning light.”
“Into your hands I commit my spirit.” Amen.
Read more from Amy Butler »
Faith and Leadership
LITURGICAL SEASONS, HOLY WEEK, EASTER
Christ got up
How do I listen to a podcast? »
IDEAS THAT IMPACT: HOLY WEEK & EASTER
Liturgy in the public square
Faith and Leadership
LITURGICAL SEASONS, HOLY WEEK
Lisa G. Fischbeck: Liturgy in the public square
We walked together, some carrying placards, some taking turns carrying the 5-foot-tall cedar cross. Not a large crowd -- 25 or so. Enough to be intentional, enough to attract attention. I wore my collar and black cassock, signs of my ministry, signs of the church.
It was Good Friday, and we were walking the Way of the Cross through our town, Carrboro, N.C. This made church public -- we felt a little timid and a little bold at the same time.
Somewhere between the fifth and sixth stations, a man rode by on his bicycle.
“F*** God!” he yelled, waving his fist in the air. “F*** religion!”
We walked on.
Good liturgy both expresses and shapes what we believe. That day, the people of my church understood a little better how it felt to publicly claim our identity as Christians, and how a God-made-flesh was vulnerable to the powers of this world.
My congregation, the Church of the Advocate(link is external), is a 21st-century mission of the Episcopal Diocese of North Carolina. Launched in 2003, we are rooted in the traditions and liturgies of the Episcopal Church and the Book of Common Prayer.
Because don’t have a building, though, we experience the liberation and the challenge of inheriting the liturgies without the usual structures in which they take place. From the beginning, members of the Advocate have asked, “Why are we doing this? What does it say? How does it form us?”
This has allowed us to consider our Holy Week liturgies from scratch and to take them into new and different places, including outdoors.
In the past year, imposing ashes on Ash Wednesday in public has gained traction in cities and towns as “Ashes to Go.” We have found that the liturgies of Palm Sunday and Good Friday are also conducive to exposure and practice in the world.
After all, that’s where they started.
Palm Sunday
Remembering Jesus’ “triumphal entry” into Jerusalem, we gather as the people of the first century did, outdoors by the walls of the city (in our case, town hall).
Standing in the cool spring air, we hear the story of Jesus, the colt, the people, the palms. And we, too, wave palm branches and carry redbuds, azaleas, daffodils from our own gardens and trees, as the citizens of first-century Jerusalem did with the original palms.
We walk in procession to the entrance of our town commons (home to a playground and a weekly farmers’ market), singing “Jesus is coming! Hosanna! Glory!” I encourage people to crowd as close to the cross as they can.
Before entering, we cast our palms before the crucifer and cross and enter singing, “This child through David’s city shall ride in triumph by; the palm shall strew its branches, and every stone shall cry. And every stone shall cry, though heavy, dull, and dumb, and lie within the roadway to pave his kingdom come.”
The service quickly moves to the Passion story, a liturgical jolt. Yet experiencing these two narratives in one hour helps us realize that we, like the people of first-century Jerusalem, can quickly convert from cries of “Hosanna!” to shouts of “Crucify him!”
All who pass by are welcome to join. Some do: people walking with kids or dogs, people who have never been to church, people who remember the church of their childhood and are intrigued to see it being made new. Some stand on the periphery; others take a seat on chairs we have brought with us.
Good Friday
At noon on Good Friday, we return for a simple service from the Book of Common Prayer. Once again we hear the Passion narrative -- the third time in a week -- and it begins to penetrate our hearts and our bones. When it’s cold and rainy, we identify with Peter, warming his hands by the fire as he denies he knows the Lord.
Someone brings forth the cross, made of two pieces of cedar lashed together, and we see and feel its heft. We walk to town hall and begin the Way of the Cross/Via Dolorosa with the first station: Jesus is condemned to die.
We have recast the traditional stations for a 21st-century context, so as we walk through our own town, we also reflect on the state of our world, our nation, our community and ourselves. We walk past social service agencies, nonprofits, a center for conflict resolution, the police station, the local food co-op. We realize and make known Christ’s presence in all of these places.
We read the stations in English and in Spanish in recognition of our Spanish-speaking neighbors, many of whom come from countries where the Fridays in Lent are marked by a public procession of the cross. And every year strangers spontaneously join us on the Way, sometimes just for a station or two, sometimes to the end.
Last year we added placards as a way of showing how we were applying the gospel today: “Love the World”; “Jesus Welcomes the Alien and the Stranger”; “Dichosos los Pobres.”
The signs made us feel even more public and vulnerable. We were cheered and jeered. Drivers honked support and annoyance.
Yet when we talked about it afterward, we agreed that we felt strangely empowered and formed as Christians in the world. We realized that we can be open with our faith.
Moving outside the confines of a church building allows us to remember profoundly the experience of Jesus and his followers on the streets of Jerusalem, in the upper room, before the councils of church and state, and on the road to Calvary. And we come to understand more fully Christ’s gift of vulnerability to us all.
Read more from Lisa Fischbeck »
Maundy ThursdayFaith and Leadership
LITURGICAL SEASONS, HOLY WEEK
Nathan Kirkpatrick: Maundy Thursday
Before clergy read to their congregations the stories of the betrayal of Jesus by those whom he chose to follow him, many take Maundy Thursday as an opportunity to remember the ways that they have betrayed their own callings and recommit themselves to follow and to serve.
Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end. (John 13:1)
We are at the beginning of the great “Triduum” – the great three days of the church year – when we remember Christ’s betrayal, death, and resurrection. Maundy Thursday begins this solemn remembrance as we remember the four events of this day – Jesus washing the disciples’ feet (John 13.1-11), the institution of the Lord’s Supper (Luke 22.14-20), Jesus’ agony in the garden (Luke 22.39-46), and the betrayal by Judas Iscariot (Luke 22.47-54).
Today is an especially holy day for those who serve as ministers of the gospel. It is a day when clergy of a variety of denominations recommit to their callings by renewing their ordination vows. The symbolism is striking: before we clergy read to our congregations the stories of the betrayal of Jesus by those whom he chose to follow and serve him, we first pause to remember the ways that we have betrayed our calling and recommit ourselves to follow and to serve.
Today, we recommit ourselves to keeping watch with those who agonize in their own gardens of despair. We pledge that we will no longer run away from the cross in our daily lives but cling to it. We renew our vow that we will not flee the suffering of the world but rather seek solidarity with those who suffer and bear witness to their plight. And above all else, we stake our souls on the belief that we are called to bear Easter’s hope to a Good Friday world.
So, today, whether you are ordained by action of a denomination or aware of a calling to such a ministry or living into a ministry as a baptized layperson, I would invite all of us to take a few moments this Holy Thursday to recommit to the callings God has on our lives however we understand them and however we live them.
Read more from Nathan E. Kirkpatrick »
Faith and Leadership
A meditation for Good Friday
LITURGICAL SEASONS, HOLY WEEK, SERMONS
A meditation for Good Friday
How should we think of leadership in light of this holy day?
On this darkest of days, we hold close this miracle of God with us. As darkness falls and all is lost, as our souls crumble and our hearts break, we are handed the memory of a Savior who leaned over into the void of the darkness and refused to give in to despair, says Amy Butler.
Editor’s note: Faith & Leadership offers sermons that shed light on issues of Christian leadership. This sermon was preached on March 21, 2008, at Calvary Baptist Church in Washington, D.C.
I had the strangest experience just a few weeks ago.
I’d been asked to participate in the funeral of a woman I did not know well; she grew up at my church, Calvary, and I knew her family from a couple of chances we’d had to be together. As this woman lived near Virginia Beach, she attended another church, but she was buried here in town, and it was my honor to be invited to participate in her funeral.
The day was just glorious -- bright sun and cool, crisp air. There were flowers covering the grave site and a bagpiper playing “Amazing Grace.”
What a way to go!
After the service I stayed for a while to talk with her family, most especially her three daughters, all of whom cared for their mother in her final illness and were with her when she died.
The youngest daughter caught me first: she said she really wanted to tell me about the night her mom died. She explained how the whole family was gathered around her mother’s bedside and how as they saw their mom’s breath becoming more and more shallow, she felt compelled to tell her mom it was OK to go. She told me with tears in her eyes that her mother looked at her, like she was asking for permission, then took a deep breath, almost like a sigh of relief, and died quietly.
Hearing this beautiful story made me emotional. I was wiping away tears, in fact, when I bumped into another of the woman’s three daughters. As we exchanged pleasantries, she said, “You know, we were all with Mom when she died.” I told the woman that, yes, I had just heard about that experience.
The woman went on to tell me that when it became clear that her mom’s breathing was getting more labored, she had been able to pull out a bunch of lavender, grown on her own organic farm. She crushed some of it with her fingers and let her mother breathe in the calming fragrance of the lavender, and it seemed to help her slow down and take a few final breaths before dying. It meant so much to this woman to participate, to be there and to help her mom take this step.
Well, that was kind of touching, too, but I sort of left that conversation scratching my head, when -- you guessed it -- I ran into the third and final daughter, who told me her mom was finally able to take her last breath when the grandchildren came in and sang her a lullaby.
I was baffled. All three of them lived through the same experience, and all three of them remembered it differently. Really differently.
I thought about this experience when I started thinking about Good Friday and looking at the Gospel narratives about Jesus’ last hours on the cross.
Did you know they are all different?
Of course, we don’t know exactly who was there when; we do know the disciples were scared for their lives and certainly incognito, if they were there at all. So whether they actually watched Jesus die and listened to his last words or whether they heard secondhand the accounts from the women who knelt at the cross, each of the four Gospel writers records the story a little differently. And while all four of them tell of Jesus’ final hours and three of them let us know that he cried out in a loud voice before he took his final breath, it’s only Luke who tells us what Jesus said when he cried so loudly. Do you remember?
“Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.”
And then, Luke says, Jesus breathed his last.
Now, you and I might recognize those words -- the psalmist uses them in Psalm 31, and it’s likely we’ve heard them in the context of worship other times during the year, not just Good Friday. Yes, we might recognize them, but the folks standing around Jesus’ cross that day would certainly have recognized those words.
See, the phrase “into thy hands I commit my spirit” was used by religious Jews every single day of their lives. It was the prayer they prayed every night, the last thing that left their lips before they closed their eyes, comforting and familiar words that led them to rest. It was the kind of phrase you could recall without any conscious thought, it was so ingrained in your psyche.
Do you know what I’m talking about?
I have this childhood memory that goes back as far as I can remember and echoes through the years when my four younger brothers and sisters were babies. I can remember my mother’s voice ringing through the house as she rocked whichever one of us was the baby to sleep. She’d sing a song over and over, her voice getting quieter as sleep came on: “Jesus, tender Shepherd, hear me, bless thy little lamb tonight; through the darkness be thou near me, keep me safe till morning light.”
I will be able to recall that song all my life long, and when I hear it or sing it, there is a peace that floods over me, and I can feel my mother’s arms around me, the steady rhythm of her rocking, the warmth of her embrace, and that utter feeling of safety, of knowing that now it’s OK to go to sleep because here I am, being held safe by my mom.
This was the kind of thing Jesus was calling to mind as he cried out in a loud voice: “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.” And I have to say, to everyone standing there, it must have seemed totally out of place.
In the deepest moments of anguish, with the darkness of the sky casting shadows everywhere, with doubt and grief and regret washing over everyone -- not just Jesus -- those words must have seemed so strange.
Maybe that’s why some of the Gospel writers left them out. Maybe they thought Jesus was just delirious with pain; maybe they thought he didn’t know what he was saying.
But, you know, maybe he did.
Today, as the darkness descends again on you and me, I tell you, I’m glad Luke remembered to tell us these words of Jesus, because it seems to me that Jesus, bloody and gasping for air, writhing with pain, gave us the most amazing gift when he spoke these words.
Yes, in the middle of the deepest human darkness we could ever experience, our Savior spoke firmly and forcefully -- loudly, Luke says -- these words of utter comfort and ultimate love. He spoke them in forceful defiance of the despair and hopelessness that haunted his final hours. He would not give in. He would not let despair be the final word. He would choose where he would place his life, and he chose to place everything he had left into the hands of God.
Let’s not kid ourselves. There was nothing pretty about what Jesus went through.
All of his friends had just let him down; surely the memory of Judas’ kiss or Peter’s denial ran like a tape over and over in his mind.
He’d just been forced to look straight into the face of gut-wrenching fear, and it scared him so badly that he sweated with utter anxiety, taking shallow breaths and trying for the life of him to keep it together.
He’d knelt in the garden alone, talking to God and begging. Please, could there be another way to walk through this?
He’d hung on the cross and uttered -- as Matthew and Mark report -- his sinking suspicion that God had abandoned him and that he was all alone.
After these things ... after all of these things, then, Jesus does the most incredible, faith-filled thing: he struggles to suck in one last breath and calls out words of comfort and peace. These final words -- Jesus cried them out, and when he did, he spoke defiant hope into dark despair.
On Aug. 14, 1982, Todd Weems was out on the town celebrating his 21st birthday. It was just after midnight when he left the restaurant to head home. As he was leaving, he noticed, out of the corner of his eye, a group of men beating a homeless man in an alley on the side of the restaurant. Without much thought, he ran over to try to help, and in the moments that followed it was Todd who was brutally murdered, just an hour after he turned 21.
It’s a tragic story any way you tell it, but to make the aftermath even harder, you should know that Todd’s mother, Ann Weems, is a prolific writer and noted theologian. Faced with the senseless pain of her son’s death, she spent night after sleepless night filled with anger at the God she’d served all her life, who, as far as she could see, had completely abandoned her to utter darkness. Out of this experience came her book “Psalms of Lament,” where she somehow found the courage to write these words:
In the godforsaken, obscene quicksand of life,
there is a deafening alleluia
rising from the souls
of those who weep,
and of those who weep with those who weep.
If you watch, you will see
the hand of God
putting the stars back in their skies
one by one.
I don’t know just how Ann Weems summoned the courage to write these words of hope into the dark abyss of her situation. I think it might be possible that she remembered a Savior who had also suffered those feelings of betrayal and hopelessness and chose, instead of surrendering to the darkness, to instead defiantly place everything he was into the hands of God.
Me? I suspect I might have gotten stuck at “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”
But on this day, a day of darkness devoid of hope, I want to say, “Thank you, Luke, for reminding us that Jesus didn’t.”
Somehow. Somehow he managed the simple act of declaring the ridiculous -- a prayer of comfort and peace into despair and death. Jesus turned his back on the darkness, resolutely collected the shreds of his very life, and laid them down in the one place he’d learned to believe in from the time he was a baby -- into the hands of God.
Friends, on this, the darkest of days, we hold close this miracle of God with us. As darkness falls and all is lost, as our souls crumble and our hearts break, we are handed the memory of a Savior who leaned over into the void of the darkness and refused to give in to despair.
And as we stumble our way through this day and through the pain of our human lives, often unable to see through the darkness, we can, too. We can take whatever is left of our lives and place it right into the hands of God, an utterly defiant, totally revolutionary act of faith:
“Through the darkness be thou near me ...”
“Now I lay me down to sleep ...”
“Keep me safe till morning light.”
“Into your hands I commit my spirit.” Amen.
Read more from Amy Butler »
Faith and Leadership
LITURGICAL SEASONS, HOLY WEEK, EASTER
Christ got up
In order to worship Jesus, you must follow him. And Jesus refuses to stay put, says Bishop Will Willimon.
Mark 16: 6-7(link is external)
‘Do not be alarmed; you are looking for Jesus of Nazareth…. He has been raised; he is not here….he is going ahead of you to Galilee….’
Mark 16:6-76 But he said, “Don’t be so surprised! You’re looking for Yeshua from Natzeret, who was executed on the stake. He has risen, he’s not here! Look at the place where they laid him. 7 But go and tell his talmidim, especially Kefa, that he is going to the Galil ahead of you. You will see him there, just as he told you.”(Complete Jewish Bible)
We were just following the order of worship, going through the motions (and all so decently and in order), exactly the same as every Sunday, a gathering something akin to Kiwanis or the Tuesday afternoon book club.
But before we even had the offering, the guest of honor got up and left in a huff. Next thing we know, he’s out front haranguing those on the sidewalk, “It’s a sin what they’ve done to Sunday! Anybody want to do Easter?”
We were having General Conference, day five, plodding our way through the agenda, careful that all was in accord with “The Book of Discipline,” allowing everyone a say, taking all comments seriously, honoring proper process, tempo slowed to that of a slug. “Microphone one, yes, do you wish to speak to the amendment or to the substitute motion?”
“This is boring,” everybody heard him say on his way out. “You call this a party? Any of you stuffed shirts want to turn some water to wine?”
We were following helpful spiritual practices, keeping Sabbath, centering, settling in, chilling out, focusing on higher things, breathing more intentionally, enjoying prayer as yoga.
Just as everyone finally assumed the lotus position, Christ got up, hit the door with full force and was gone. “Wake up! Be dangerous! Sabbath was made for humanity!” he shouted in a voice loud enough to wake the dead.
We were exercising servant leadership, exerting a positive influence on the community, uplifting the morals of the youth, caring for one another, helping folks make it through the week, affirming family values, embodying entrepreneurial leadership, instilling a positive attitude, pursuing a purpose-filled life.
I heard him groan, sigh, fidget with his sandals then arise and shout, “I need some air! Call me if any of you ever get the courage to go crazy.”
We were just wilting, sagging, demographics got us, wearing down, mainline sliding toward the sideline, burdened by buildings, going limp, troubled by the numbers, cutting back, ready to throw in the towel.
Christ got up and said with a smirk, “To heck with the institution! Let’s make a revolution! Anybody got a match?”
We were just settling in, fluffing the pillows, becoming comfortable, feeling safe with one another, mellow, accustomed to the surroundings, unthreatened.
Next thing we know Christ got up and screamed, “I’m better than therapy! To hell with tranquility! I’m the way! The truth! The life! Follow me!”
We were just reading Scripture, extracting important biblical principles from the text, retrieving significant ideas for consideration, setting it in proper historical context, voting on the earliest strata of the tradition, noting historical precedents.
Not waiting even until the epiclesis, Christ got up, slammed the big book shut, screaming to the startled senior citizens, “Let’s go do it, not talk about it.”
We were just sealing him safe and sound in the tomb, just making sure that the gravesite was tidy, just getting adjusted to life without him, just obeying the soldiers, just accommodating ourselves to death and defeat.
Not waiting for dawn, Christ got up, rolled away the stone, strode forth shining before our fearful faces and commanded, “Get up!”
He wouldn’t stay anywhere long -- peripatetic, frenetic, rabbi on the run -- nor will he be deterred, even by death.
I declare to you this Holy Week what I have learned in 40 years of ministry: The most curious quality of salvation by Jesus is his refusal to stay put. If we will worship him, be with him, we must go with him. We must be willing to relocate. All ministry in the name of Jesus is itinerant.
Get up.
Read more from Will Willimon »
The Wisdom of the Seasons: How the Church Year Helps Us Understand our Congregational Storiesby Charles M. Olsen
The church year is often seen as a framework for church programs, but well-known Alban author Charles Olsen shows readers how it can be a prism through which congregations more deeply understand their own stories. By weaving together our narratives and those of Christian tradition, a congregation can clarify its identity, grow in wisdom, and discover a new vision and ministry. Olsen draws parallels between the church seasons and practices of spiritual formation -- letting go, naming and celebrating God's presence, and taking hold. He shows us how these movements are expressed in the three major cycles of the church year -- Christmas, Easter, and Pentecost. Focusing on communal narratives, he presents a process for telling a story and forming a corporate memory of the story, and then deepening and reflecting on it by exploring the season of the church year that captures its character.
Learn more and order the book »
Mark 16: 6-7(link is external)
‘Do not be alarmed; you are looking for Jesus of Nazareth…. He has been raised; he is not here….he is going ahead of you to Galilee….’
Mark 16:6-76 But he said, “Don’t be so surprised! You’re looking for Yeshua from Natzeret, who was executed on the stake. He has risen, he’s not here! Look at the place where they laid him. 7 But go and tell his talmidim, especially Kefa, that he is going to the Galil ahead of you. You will see him there, just as he told you.”(Complete Jewish Bible)
We were just following the order of worship, going through the motions (and all so decently and in order), exactly the same as every Sunday, a gathering something akin to Kiwanis or the Tuesday afternoon book club.
But before we even had the offering, the guest of honor got up and left in a huff. Next thing we know, he’s out front haranguing those on the sidewalk, “It’s a sin what they’ve done to Sunday! Anybody want to do Easter?”
We were having General Conference, day five, plodding our way through the agenda, careful that all was in accord with “The Book of Discipline,” allowing everyone a say, taking all comments seriously, honoring proper process, tempo slowed to that of a slug. “Microphone one, yes, do you wish to speak to the amendment or to the substitute motion?”
“This is boring,” everybody heard him say on his way out. “You call this a party? Any of you stuffed shirts want to turn some water to wine?”
We were following helpful spiritual practices, keeping Sabbath, centering, settling in, chilling out, focusing on higher things, breathing more intentionally, enjoying prayer as yoga.
Just as everyone finally assumed the lotus position, Christ got up, hit the door with full force and was gone. “Wake up! Be dangerous! Sabbath was made for humanity!” he shouted in a voice loud enough to wake the dead.
We were exercising servant leadership, exerting a positive influence on the community, uplifting the morals of the youth, caring for one another, helping folks make it through the week, affirming family values, embodying entrepreneurial leadership, instilling a positive attitude, pursuing a purpose-filled life.
I heard him groan, sigh, fidget with his sandals then arise and shout, “I need some air! Call me if any of you ever get the courage to go crazy.”
We were just wilting, sagging, demographics got us, wearing down, mainline sliding toward the sideline, burdened by buildings, going limp, troubled by the numbers, cutting back, ready to throw in the towel.
Christ got up and said with a smirk, “To heck with the institution! Let’s make a revolution! Anybody got a match?”
We were just settling in, fluffing the pillows, becoming comfortable, feeling safe with one another, mellow, accustomed to the surroundings, unthreatened.
Next thing we know Christ got up and screamed, “I’m better than therapy! To hell with tranquility! I’m the way! The truth! The life! Follow me!”
We were just reading Scripture, extracting important biblical principles from the text, retrieving significant ideas for consideration, setting it in proper historical context, voting on the earliest strata of the tradition, noting historical precedents.
Not waiting even until the epiclesis, Christ got up, slammed the big book shut, screaming to the startled senior citizens, “Let’s go do it, not talk about it.”
We were just sealing him safe and sound in the tomb, just making sure that the gravesite was tidy, just getting adjusted to life without him, just obeying the soldiers, just accommodating ourselves to death and defeat.
Not waiting for dawn, Christ got up, rolled away the stone, strode forth shining before our fearful faces and commanded, “Get up!”
He wouldn’t stay anywhere long -- peripatetic, frenetic, rabbi on the run -- nor will he be deterred, even by death.
I declare to you this Holy Week what I have learned in 40 years of ministry: The most curious quality of salvation by Jesus is his refusal to stay put. If we will worship him, be with him, we must go with him. We must be willing to relocate. All ministry in the name of Jesus is itinerant.
Get up.
Read more from Will Willimon »
FROM THE ALBAN LIBRARY
The church year is often seen as a framework for church programs, but well-known Alban author Charles Olsen shows readers how it can be a prism through which congregations more deeply understand their own stories. By weaving together our narratives and those of Christian tradition, a congregation can clarify its identity, grow in wisdom, and discover a new vision and ministry. Olsen draws parallels between the church seasons and practices of spiritual formation -- letting go, naming and celebrating God's presence, and taking hold. He shows us how these movements are expressed in the three major cycles of the church year -- Christmas, Easter, and Pentecost. Focusing on communal narratives, he presents a process for telling a story and forming a corporate memory of the story, and then deepening and reflecting on it by exploring the season of the church year that captures its character.
Learn more and order the book »
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