Knowing us better than we know ourselves, you are fully aware of the difficulties we face because you face them with us. So fill us with gratefulness for your mercies that we, with broken spirits, may again turn our eyes toward you, our creator, sustainer, and redeemer. We pray through the interceder, Jesus, who experienced life in its fullness, and through the Holy Spirit, now working in our midst, for unique situations brought about by the complexities of life.
***
For those separated from loved ones by death or great distance, grant your comfort;
For those seeking meaningful employment, grant hope and opportunity;
For young couples desiring direction, grant vision;
For children who are hurting from life’s many systemic evils, grant strength;
For couples who feel they have lost each other over years of marriage, grant restoration;
For aged persons who feel others have abandoned them, grant encouragement;
For mothers and fathers who have lost their children literally or emotionally, grant your faith and healing;
For couples who have sought to conceive, grant patience;
For single persons who desire companionship and intimacy, grant companionship and love;
***
For all people, in every situation life brings, we pray that you, faithful Father, would care for their unique needs. Use your church, the body of Christ on earth, as your instrument; and, in your mercy and for your purposes, use me.
Photo credit for the oil painting, “Embrace,” goes to Josie Trudgeon. Her other works can be found at her website. Many thanks to her for offering images that speak beyond written ideas.
*******
This is a prayer for people who are missing someone dear to them. It came to me during the first night [ever] spent away from my dearest wife, Kaile [pronounced Kay-lah].
Gracious God, I ask that you, in your mercy, would reveal to my eyes new dimensions of the depth of your love for me as I, waiting for her return, learn new dimensions of my love for my dear wife. Help us to grow through our time apart, and teach us through our separateness that you are the one and only constant factor in a life of transience and change. May the love we learn to show to each other mirror the love you have for us, and also teach us to love you more. God, it is through our intercessor Jesus that we pray this, and all through the power of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Or, it is a prayer for any day during which concern gives way to worry.
Or, it is a prayer for a community going through change.
Or, it is a prayer for a family experiencing something new and different together.
Or, it may reflect the response to difficult realities that saints of old faced down before their death or exile.
Or, it may speak to something you are going through currently.
*******
Giver of Life,
Mercifully grant that we, your undeserving inheritors, may steward your gifts well. So imbue us with gratefulness for your love that our anxiety gives way to blissful contentment, our fear to godly anticipation, and our worry to graceful hope; for your sake we ask this through the Son and in the power of the Holy Spirit.
Humanity has always been characterized by a toxic proclivity to exclude. Certainly it is nation versus nation; the ravages of war and genocide blare from the streets and alleys and televisions and radios of the globe. Exclusion in capitalist countries materializes as a war between economic classes. Within families and small communities, exclusion damages or destroys interpersonal relationships.
And we live in light of a host of others who witnessed exclusion before we did. The people of Israel experienced it when they sought refuge in Egypt from the famine that was destroying their land [Gen. 46-47]. In time, Joseph died and the Egyptians turned their Hebrew refugee neighbors into slaves [Exodus 1:8-14]. Later, God would bring them out through his servant Moses, but God taught them a lesson during those difficult years in an oppressive foreign land. In Leviticus 19, Moses outlines laws that tenderly protected impoverished families and sojourners, insisting in verses 9-10 that farmers leave the edges of their fields unharvested so that poor passers-by could gather the excess grain. Next, Moses connects these love-your-neighbor commands explicitly to the experience of, first, xenophobia, then slavery in Egypt: “When a stranger sojourns with you in your land, you shall not do him wrong. You shall treat the stranger who sojourns with you as the native among you, and you shall love him as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God” [Lev. 19:33-34].
Though they had experienced exclusion, God’s people were not to treat others vengefully. Rather, God taught them to treat foreigners with dignity, and even to give up resources on their behalf. They were to love strangers as themselves. God’s answer to exclusion was not self-preservation; it was hospitality. And though this word may conjure up images of sweet tea on a front porch, hospitality reaches much further. It impacts how we understand our time and resources, beckoning us to understand the stranger in a new way.
Even though we no longer live in an agrarian society, and few of us have literal fields to leave only partially harvested, the practice of hospitality continues. In Matthew 25:31-46, Jesus tells the parable often referred to as the sheep and the goats. The sheep are affirmed for having offered their hospitality- their food, their resources, their time; they sought every opportunity to extend compassion. And yet, they wondered when they had done this for the king in particular. The King, who is Jesus, responds and tells them that every time they extended compassion to “the least of these” they were doing it unto him. What followers of Jesus are shocked to discover is that he himself is the recipient of our hospitality. What we do for the “least of these” is done unto Jesus himself.
But in the age of the suburb, American culture stratifies people groups via income. In Grand Rapids, Michigan, where I live, certain streets delineate between classes. And institutions, including so many churches, fortify the social stratification process by keeping people from similar demographics packed together. So how exactly can we offer hospitality to the needy and the lost? It may start with something as drastic as an intentional geographic move to a poorer neighborhood. But it may begin with something simpler, such as a dinner invitation to an exchange student, single mom, or busy family. Hospitality can take many forms.
I lived with a group of guys for several years before getting married in 2013. As Christians, we wanted to do our best to practice Christian hospitality. Through God’s grace and his challenge in our lives, we felt led to host a weekly hospitality meal in our home. The six of us would share costs, and one of us would invite a few folks over. They were always invited to stay for prayer after the meal, and many did. We hosted families, couples, people in need, people with much to offer. At each meal, God blessed our conversation. We asked questions and listened, attentive to how God was working through the lives of these dear people. Throughout, we discovered how each meal mirrored, in ever so subtle ways, the hope of God’s people. With every meal, there was sacrifice and sharing; there was honesty and trust; there was hope and imagination. With every meal, we continued an ancient story of people practicing lavish hospitality. God has already provided resources abundant; we simply respond to his quiet call to open our hearts. And just as he opens his heart to us, so do we open our hearts to the hurting and hopeless around us. And we do so knowing that as we serve, we serve our risen Savior, Jesus Christ.
Ask most Americans what it means to be a Christian, or even what the Gospel of Jesus is, and they will likely respond with a phrase to the effect of, “Jesus died on the cross for your sins so you can go to heaven.” The problem is simple: people are sinful. The solution is simple as well: ask Jesus to forgive you. The effect is said to be remarkable. Jesus decides, after your prayer, not to send you to hell.
Could eternal salvation be so simple? Certainly the details of faith are slightly more complicated than this. However, this prayer can be a starting point. Indeed, many powerful people of God have begun in such a fashion; they prayed a simple I-need-you-Jesus prayer, then followed him.
The difficulty arises when ministry centers entirely on attempting to get people to make decisions to follow Jesus. This may sound counterintuitive, but I have witnessed this very strategy. Most recently, I was present at a winter retreat for junior high students. The retreat was held at a small Christian camp in West Michigan. A couple times per day, we rounded up the tweens for an hour of formation. Essentially, the message was that everyone needs to escape the fires of hell via the I-need-Jesus prayer. The aging yet passionate camp director vividly described the death of Jesus at every gathering. The problem was that this is as far as they got. They touched on the resurrection of Jesus just once. There was nothing about the great cost of discipleship. There was nothing about the kingdom of God [a subject Jesus seemed to emphasize – see the synoptic Gospels]. There was nothing about sanctification, the long Christian word for how God slowly transforms people from the inside out. No, everything was about escaping hell. After all, people could die at any time. And it is scary to imagine what it would be like to die as a rebel from God.
Salvation is absolutely an important message. And it is a lot easier to talk about salvation than discipleship. But maybe the problem lies in the difficulty of letting go of old habits. Everyone, it seems, has heard about the sinner’s prayer. But have they heard about God’s kingdom? Have they heard about the Holy Spirit that was sent at Pentecost to comfort, empower, and guide the church? Have they imagined what the world might be like if the church was truly a forgiving, restoring, loving, generous, honest community?
Sadly, the message of salvation seems to have sanctioned off the work of Jesus to the next world. It is only when we die that we reap the benefits of salvation, the story goes. But this does not appear to be the case for members of the early church. For them, following the risen Christ meant radical life-change. In Acts 2:45 Luke records what following Jesus meant for the earliest believers: “And they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all, as any had need.” They also ate together, prayed together, and worshiped God. They had a common life together. I doubt if there was a guy telling everyone to accept Jesus into their heart at these meetings. All they knew was that a change should be made.
To be clear, I do believe our relationship with God is personal. I John 3:1a speaks of this: “See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are.” Saint Paul tells us in Ephesians 1:5 about how God has literally adopted us: “[in love] he predestined us for adoption as sons [it should go without saying that women are part of this in an equal manner] through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will…” And since God is personal, we can follow relationally. The late Robert E. Webber said this: “When someone asks me the question, “Do you have a personal relationship with God?” I always answer, “You’re asking the wrong question. What is important here is not that I in and of myself achieve or create a personal relationship with God, but that God has a personal relationship with me through Jesus Christ, which I affirm and nourish.”[1]
I also believe that belief is important. John’s Gospel brings this into crystal clear perspective. But James tells us the result of life in Jesus: real change. He does not equivocate: “…faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead [2:17].” Jesus is interested in eternity. But eternity began millennia ago, and time races forward whilst unnamed people are dying without hearing about Jesus. Famines wrack the planet even as human casualties mount from wars and genocide. Christians, I believe, should cease worrying about how God will judge those who have never heard his name, and embody a faith that the world will find peculiar.
Pope Francis is helping to animate this kind of faith. Washing the feet of imprisoned Muslims was certainly an act of humility and love, an act that forces one to ask, “why would he ever do that?” I am not advocating that followers of Jesus cease sharing their faith. I am only suggesting that their sharing should point toward God’s kingdom reality. Individual lives are transformed, as is the church as a corporeal unit.
See, the problem with inviting Jesus into your heart is that he stays there. He stays, instigating change, reminding you of your calling, listening to your cries for hope, helping you to grow deep roots of life changing faith, and spurring you on toward love and good deeds.
[1]Robert E. Webber, The Divine Embrace: Recovering the Passionate Spiritual Life (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2006), 89.
It was a sunny April afternoon four years ago that I received an email from Steve Argue with “youth ministry opportunity” in the subject line. At that point I was finishing my senior year at Spring Arbor University, and I had the written goal of serving in a historic urban or suburban church that was effectively rooted in its community. God was faithful in granting the desire in my heart; as I read the email I could not restrain my excitement, even though I had little assurance that anything real would come from this succinct email. However, events were lining up. Already I had been considering seminary here in Grand Rapids, and now I was presented with what was, at the time, at least a strong possibility. After an interview with Father Holmgren and Tina at Rose’s on Reeds Lake, it seemed even more possible. There was a genuine need for someone with experience working with young people, and I deeply desired to offer my gifts to a community seeking to follow the way of Jesus. Plus, I was interviewing alongside a good friend.
Before I knew it, I was headed to HoneyRock Camp in northern Wisconsin in a big van, seated next to Father Holmgren, wondering what the adventure would be like. Needless to say, that first trip was enjoyable. Exploring God’s creation on a kayak alongside fellow journeyers is a recipe for joy. Indeed, this trip was relational treasure. But the journey at Grace has been beyond my capacity to describe.
As one reflects on a four-year season in life, there is an abundance of material from which to pull. Though it’s tough to know where to begin, there are some unarguably hilarious moments – like every single one of Matt Olgren’s announcements – but powerful moments too. I remember my first Harvest Dinner Basket Auction in 2009. Dale Grogan won the [expensive!] bid on Steve Sweetland’s Michigan beer basket – and gave it to John and me. What a warm welcome to the community – it communicated, at once, both trust and generosity. I also remember leading trips to Mel Trotter with our students. We sorted clothing, serving in their massive warehouse. Sheila, one of the workers there, told her story of transformation. Through the power of God manifest in the support of her companions at Mel Trotter, she had forsaken a life of prostitution and brokenness. I remember when Jack Lennon taught us all a new word in Discipleship Formation: “retrograde.” It describes planetary movement, but also related directly to our lesson from the Gospel of Luke. I just can’t remember how right now. This spectrum of hilarious to heart-wrenching is emblematic of the dynamic that I have witnessed at Grace over these years.
My work at Grace has been most closely tied, of course, to ministry with a younger demographic. Gatherings with students have taken various forms: Sunday evening worship and teaching, morning formation, Saturday projects, Thursday evening hangouts at Schulers. Throughout, students have offered their insight, patience, honesty, presence, and trust. It is not easy, much of the time, to know exactly how to communicate the reality of God into the lives of young people. But they have listened, questioned, considered, and embodied so much of the Gospel of Jesus. I remember the time in the stairwell when Colin Grogan told me he was convinced God existed and that he had assurance God was working within his life. I remember sitting at a coffee shop, listening to Emily Batdorf consider the confluence of faith and science and pondering how God has arranged our universe. I know in my heart and from their testimony that many of our students are journeying faithfully with God. I remember quiet conversations, outlandish controversies, and plenty of squirminess during our two-week series on sexuality in early 2012. It has been a quite a time.
Working with the staff at Grace has also been life changing. Tina’s honesty and consistency has helped me grow. Her challenges have worked alongside encouraging feedback. Thanks to her, I understand what a calendar is. Just kidding. Seriously though, she is a blessing to me and to all of us. Father Holmgren has been supportive and gracious at every turn. He has carefully coached me in leadership, communication, pastoral care, and thoroughly enriched my comprehension of church history. Through his example, my insight has been expanded, and my spirituality has been deeply formed. And it is the kind of formation that will remain with me, even though I am sensing that God is gently drawing me out of the Episcopal tradition. God has worked greatly through this pioneer in faith, and I will be forever changed – and forever grateful. John Hamersma and Mary Baas have been such faithful servants, also. I remember making my way to the back of our crowded nave in April of 2013 for the oratorio they coordinated with Grace’s choir and Calvin’s Alumni choir. As we welcomed in brothers and sisters from the Reformed tradition, it reinforced how God had been present in our uniquely Anglican hymnody. Tears ran down my face as I attempted to join in singing “I am the Bread of Life” and “Lift High the Cross.” These songs, through the power of the Holy Spirit and the stewardship of faithful musicians, have soaked into my soul over these four years. I am indelibly changed.
During my time at Grace, our community has been warmly blessed as we have welcomed many new families and individuals. Many of these have been younger families and students. I had the privilege of serving God alongside Kyle Bos for an extended season that came to a necessary end when he left for seminary in 2012. I remember the Easter Vigil – Kyle does too. He was sick for a week after he stayed up all night. But we served, we sang, and we grew spiritually in the relational greenhouse of our church community. Kyle pioneered hospitality afternoons that have continued in his absence. God has been present as we have come together in homes after Sunday worship. Indeed, we have a blessed spiritual family.
Indeed, there is a host of memories. It is not possible to contain them in a letter, however long. And, as always, the Grace community is left the important question of what is to come in the future. According to Revelation 21 and 22, the Scripture I had the privilege of expounding on May 5th, we have an even more exciting hope ahead. What we have to anticipate – eternity with God in a transformed world – this hope shapes our participation in the present. We must continue to foster an attentiveness to how God is leading us to love others and show compassion. We must continue offering hope to the poor and broken. We must continue to advocate for freedom from addiction, confronting the powers that be. My prayers are with each of you as the seasons come and go. And because of the hope that lies ahead, may we continue to love and serve both God and people with faithfulness and singleness of heart, through Christ our Lord. Amen.
“Look! Look! God has moved into the neighborhood, making his home with men an women! They’re his people, he’s their God. Death is gone for good-tears gone, crying gone, pain gone-all the first order of things gone.”
-Revelation 21:5a, MSG.
People of faith in Jesus often think of this verse and it’s ramifications for the future. And how important this is! And yet, God’s work is now just as it is yet to be. Look down at your hands. Go ahead. Do it. How often are your hands used to help? To comfort? To give? You are a living answer to prayer should you respond to God’s work in you.
Certainly our best intentions are nothing apart from God’s redeeming work within us, but we can rest assured that he is using his gathered people – the church – to do his work. May we be found faithful as we seek to make our neighborhoods, our relationships, and our offices new, anticipating the full completion of these things at Christ’s return
Two years ago I was privileged to have read, as an assignment in my systematic theology class, Not the Way it’s Supposed to Be by Neil Plantinga. Essentially Plantinga takes a hard yet enlightening look at the way sin infects the world. To a secular person this term “sin” may not resonate, and that is why I will define it. Sin is how you felt at recess when they laughed at you for dropping the ball and falling on your face. Sin is the feeling you had after you lied to your parents about the party you went to back in high school they weren’t so keen on. Sin is the reason your marriage is not better. My sin is why I don’t have the trust that I could.
Hopefully I’m not singling any one group out. I myself am personally complicit in the systematized problem of our exciting yet strange and difficult world: us. Yes, we are each contributors to the big problem. In this essay I want to propound the concept that when we read about God’s concern for the world, his glory includes the success of human community. Let me unpack that. When Christians say, “that does not honor God,” what they mean is that “that act is outlawed by God because it deeply damages people who are created in his image.” God is not, as Jim Carey in Bruce Almighty hilariously declares, the “almighty smiter.” And when John Piper talks about the glory of God, he advocates for people honoring God for his own sake as well as their own.
At this point a brief excursus is needed regarding the problem. The forces at work, the powers that be, the dark realities. These require definition. Christian Scripture, in Ephesians 6, emphasizes the need for metaphorically arming oneself for battle against the “spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places [v. 12b, ESV].” This requires the “whole armor of God” and Paul is explicit to reference the enemy – the devil – in verse 10 also. He goes on to describe what it takes to withstand the buffeting forces of evil. So, for the Christian, people rebel, but not only because we are bent toward ourselves but because there are powers that be: namely, Satan. Epitomized in films such as The Exorcist, there is a known and felt reality of evil in the world, and Christians have a name for its leader. We rebel. We collaborate with evil.
That said, we are back to a human community, influenced by the powers that be: the spiritual forces of evil, and the self-promoting pride which we wrongly use to support our perceived autonomy and independence. Now we must must discuss the Creator, God. Christians believe there is a God who has been made known in history, most clearly in Jesus Christ the Son of God. In the first book of sacred Christian writings, the Bible, God set apart a people, the Israelites. They were fathered first by a man named Abram who changed his name to Abraham. He set them apart to be different sort of people. One document he used to set them apart was delivered on a mountain. In the second biblical book, Exodus, we read in chapter 20 about what the rules consist of exactly. The first few relate to God and how he sees his created people. The last six-seven translate much more to honoring human relationship.
All that to head back to the thesis: God’s ordering of the world for his glory includes the deep and vibrant wellness of people. Recently I was substituting, assuming for just one day the role of teacher at a high school here in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Stepping away from the desk momentarily, I returned to discover someone had rummaged through my shoulder bag and stolen my iPhone. Classes were transitioning, and by the time I realized it was truly gone, all the students had left for their next class. Accordingly, the rest of my day consisted of calls to Verizon, conversations with administration at the school, and a police report. And since then, many plans have been altered. The phone is in the process of being replaced, and I am deeply thankful for the help of Amanda, a kind woman in Charlotte who faithfully serves at a Verizon call center.
We can begin to pick this situation apart in many ways, but here is a start. Someone broke a commandment, number eight to be precise. They stole something that happened to be an integral part of my life as a member of the human community. And now, I am left with that sense of looming distrust of others. I question the motives of people I did not question before. Like ripples on a pond surface, I can list countless effects of the splash that was the theft of a mobile device. They were not so bad in comparison to many other ripples. My difficulties included inconvenience, monetary loss, frustrating conversations. A small loss. But each of us connects here; each of us has experienced loss. We have experienced loss actively and passively, thoughtfully and carelessly. A junior high boy may shrug off the insults about his weight, but he feels the ripples. A loving mother may write off her daughter’s rebellion as “just a phase” but she feels the burden of rejection. The ripples.
God’s insistence on an ordering of human community confronts our self-assertion. When we are wont to serve ourselves first, we send out ripples. Sometimes when we feel the effects, the ripples of someone else’s sin, we respond by sending ripples of our own. Insults. Gossip. Slander. People, this is the destruction of human community. We often see headlines about the amalgamation of many different ripples that create tsunamis of human conflict. Phrases are born that serve as reminders of how disordered we can become. The Holocaust. 9/11. The Killing Fields.
God grieves seeing these human realities. We are sure that he suffers in this affirmation from Romans 5:8, written by Paul: “while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” God suffered. Ironically, the perfect Son of God was killed by a world that so desperately needed to see real and lasting hope. And in Revelation, the last book in Christian writings, we read about God’s judgment. We read about his righting of the many wrongs that pervade the world. It takes a long time to undo the many problems caused by a bitter and hateful world. But after undoing so much, heaven – the place of God – is no longer different than the place of people. The extant evil is gone, its ruler finally defeated. And people dwell in peace and safety.
So does the Christian, changed by God in Christ and continually encouraged by the community of belief known as the church, continue to send out ripples? The hope is an affirmative no. And yet, we as followers of Jesus continue to battle the powers that be, the systems and the habits that press the hope out of humanity. And we still participate in the systems at times. Maybe one way to enact change is by recognizing this simple maxim: do unto others as you would have them do unto you (Matthew 7:12). Jesus said it in his famous Sermon on the Mount. Maybe we can send ripples of hope. Maybe we, who have received so very much from a generous, extravagant, yet suffering God, can help point the way to the hope that is yet to fully come. When we are tempted to send ripples of malice and judgment and hate, we can, with the believing church, anticipate the fullness of God’s ultimate hope for the world. We know the sources of the destruction of human community. But we also know God’s response. He is on our side, searching for those who are concerned for loving him. And this is made obvious in loving others.
For the past several years, as most everyone on the planet, I have been on somewhat of a journey. At certain moments in the journey I have wondered if there is anything worth sharing. In a world permeated with information, why bother adding to the vortex of existential reflection? Over the past few years, I have done some thinking that could be worth at least the time it takes to post, so I’ll share. And, of course, we live in a world free to chose from where information is to come.
Deciding where to start is likely the most difficult question to address. Maybe it’s a bland beginning, but I thought it could be interesting to reflect on the life of bees theologically.
Home to thousands of bees, this is an contemporary wood apiary. Bees enter and exit using the small hole in the center of the boarded side.
Harkening back to my childhood, I remember being deeply moved by Moody Science videos. Though I do not fully comprehend the spectrum of methodology within entomology, I can definitely tell bees have a comprehensive sense of purpose and order in their lives. They support a mother bee, giving life or limb for community and temporal kingdom. From the video, I remember how the bees maintained a very structured cadence for daily life. They even remember exactly which hive they belong to, a commitment never taken lightly.
On to the homiletical thrust? In a moment. Allow me to briefly describe events of the past few months; only after this breviary on current endeavors can the homiletical observations abound.
The past six months have been a flurry of change for me and for many who are relationally proximate. If I had to pick the beginning, it would likely be around March or April of this year, 2012, at which point I was doing some research in ministerial candidacy positions within several different denominations. I was open to several options, and several opportunities presented themselves, though none were strong enough to capture my attention and full interest. I did not feel quite ready to move across the country or state. At that time I had also applied to a Master of Divinity program at Grand Rapids Theological Seminary, where I was about to graduate with a Master of Arts degree. If I received the scholarship I could fold all the MA credits (65) into the MDiv (96 credits). That is what I am currently occupied doing as Fall gently cascades across the oaks and maples casting dappled shade over West Michigan countryside and cityscape.
A great many changes were also underway. After graduation I found myself amidst the busyness of a mission trip with my dearly beloved high school students and my wonderful mother, Ann. Then it was Vacation Bible School week at Grace Episcopal. Then I was on a plane to France with nothing but my bike, a few bucks, and lots of existential questions. 19 million grapevines, 58 Spanish pueblos, a few wonderful glasses of wine, and 800 kilometers of riding and contemplation later, I was heading back home. At that point I sensed in my heart that not only one close friend – Sarah Bailey – but also another, Kyle Bos, would soon be departing for seminary studies hundreds of miles away. Two other close housemates, Eric Anderson and James Kessel were leaving our community of disciples for the sake of a new living situation with a sister and for a new marriage, respectively. To convolute matters even further, my friend and co-worker of three years in student ministries, John Roberts, was now following a call to a new position in North Carolina. Neophobia had set in already when I pondered the evolution of my daily life. Seminary was starting soon and I was entirely unprepared. People were coming and going, I was scatterbrained, and I questioned whether life as it had been could continue.
See, the people with whom I share a home are fellow disciples in faith after Jesus Christ. Together in our home we have cultivated habits of worship, prayer, work, study, conversation, and peeled back the layers of guise that separate and stratify persons in this critical group of humans someone entitled planet earth.
When factors such as close relationships shifting press in around us, we are either brought to despair or to a deeper look at our truest anchor. This is, of course, a hyperbolic statement, but there is latent potential for much good or much harm. By now you probably sense that I am on the verge of the homiletical thrust. I am. Bees know exactly what their mission is in life. Likely this consists of the procurement of honey, protection of the queen bee, and the implementation of strategic construction project complete with managerial structure and materials oversight. Similarly, as Christians gathering to follow in the steps of Jesus, we know our mission. We know exactly what it is that is required of us. Saint Paul outlines the goal clearly in Galatians 5:22-23 : “…love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self control.” There are no laws against these things, and they coincide perfectly with the “grain of the universe” as John Howard Yoder phrased it.
In prayer and devotion, disciples after Jesus anticipate the kingdom that is to come. Unfortunately we are not as precise in our mission as bees are toward the preparation of delicious honey or the installment of new honeycomb structures. We falter, we question, we fail. And yet, the grace of God invites us to rise again.
In Benedictine monastic tradition, the Rule enjoins faithful monks to practice the virtues of work, study, and prayer. Undergirded by relationship, Christians establish rhythms in this same way, rhythms that might include daily 40 mile commutes to office jobs, biweekly stops at grocers or farmers markets, conversations with a depressed sister, plans for a needed vacation. But are these very normal routines undergirded in prayer and purpose? They can. Do work and study glow with the hope of a kingdom at hand? They can. Benedictines and bees have much in common. They both see the grain of nature facing a certain way. Humbly and unabashedly, they align themselves with it. Our hope as Christians is in a God who suffers with us and also hopes with us (see the biblical book of Luke in chapters 22-24).
Amidst a season of great change, I have found such stability and guidance from God in work, study, and prayer. I have been encouraged in faith, and I would venture to at least hope that I have been to encourage others also. These Benedictine-influenced rhythms propel me and the community close to me toward the God who, if only to inspire faithful disciples who often fail to live up to their implicit calling as such, created bees.
ben videtich 