Henri Nouwen on Vocation

Found this in my reading this morning:

I know now that I have to speak from eternity into time, from the lasting joy into the passing realities of our short existence in this world, from the house of love into the houses of fear, from God’s abode into the dwellings of human beings. I am well aware of the enormity of this vocation. Still, I am confident that it is the only way for me. One could call it the “prophetic” vision: looking at people and this world through the eyes of God.

Is this a realistic possibility for a human being? More important: Is it a true option for me? This is not an intellectual question. It is a question of vocation. I am called to enter into the inner sanctuary of my own being where God has chosen to dwell. The only way to that place is prayer, unceasing prayer. Many struggles and much pain can clear the way, but I am certain that only unceasing prayer can let me enter it. - Henri Nouwen, The Return of the Prodigal Son, pp.17-18

Following the Psalter

In addition to reading the Daily Lectionary readings most days, I also work my way through the Psalter on a monthly basis, using a system I found in the Book of Common Prayer of the Episcopal Church. I think the idea of doing that was first suggested to me by Eugene Peterson in Answering God, his book on the Psalms. I find using the whole Psalter more spiritually nourishing than using just the selections in the Daily Lectionary.

Anyway, reading all the Psalms over and over again has given me an appreciation, not only for individual psalms but also for the person or persons responsible for the Psalter in its final form. I am impressed, and blessed, by the rhythm of the collection: the way psalms with similar themes are grouped together, but also the way that we are not allowed to wallow in lament, complaint, or praise, but move back and forth between the varying moods and emotions that we all relate to at one time or another. John Calvin puts it well in a famous passage:

I have been accustomed to call this book, I think not inappropriately, “An Anatomy of all the Parts of the Soul;” for there is not an emotion of which any one can be conscious that is not here represented as in a mirror. Or rather, the Holy Spirit has here drawn to the life all the griefs, sorrows, fears, doubts, hopes, cares, perplexities, in short, all the distracting emotions with which the minds of men are wont to be agitated. The other parts of Scripture contain the commandments which God enjoined his servants to announce to us. But here the prophets themselves, seeing they are exhibited to us as speaking to God, and laying open all their inmost thoughts and affections, call, or rather draw, each of us to the examination of himself in particulars in order that none of the many infirmities to which we are subject, and of the many vices with which we abound, may remain concealed. (Preface to A Commentary on the Psalms)

One thing I note every time through the Psalter is that Psalm 22 and 23 are always read together. Psalm 23 is the psalm we all run to, especially at a time of death; Psalm 22 is the psalm we tend to stay away from, except on Good Friday—and even then, we’re not too comfortable with it. But the compiler of the Psalter helps us to see that forsakenness and trust can exist side by side: in the same church, in the same family, even in the same person. Psalm 22, with its excruciating opening cry, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” ends with words of hope, leading us into the reassurance of Psalm 23: “The Lord is my Shepherd; I shall not want.” 23 is all the more powerful when read in company with 22. It’s probably worth noting that both are attributed to David. Whether David actually wrote both or not, they witness to the kind of faith we see in David.

Most of us get to read the 23rd Psalm more than we’d like, since it gets chosen a lot for funerals. Sometimes the reasons for that are pretty shallow--e.g. “it’s the only passage of Scripture I can identify”--but sometimes they are profound. I did a funeral this morning for an 81-year-old woman whose Confirmation passage was Psalm 23, and it fit her like a glove. Thanks be to God.

No Post-Easter Letdown

Charles Schultz, in one of his inimitable "Peanuts" comic strips, coined the expression "Post-Christmas Letdown." Schultz may have been the one to name it, but we've all felt it: that feeling of disappointment that comes when all the services are over, all the presents have been opened and the wrappings discarded, and we are back at work with nothing to look forward to but three months of Winter. The tree may still be up, but it's looking a little droopy, even if it's artificial. Nobody really likes those few days after Christmas.

But yesterday I realized that there's no corresponding Post-Easter Letdown. That may be because we don't overload Easter with unrealistic expectations the way we do Christmas, but I think it's something more. Easter points us forward in a way that Christmas, as we usually celebrate it, doesn't. The eschatological emphasis of the Advent texts tries to drag us into the future, but old habits are hard to break and we often find ourselves longing for Christmases past--or at least I do.

Easter, to be sure, has a strong historical component. We wouldn't celebrate it if Jesus hadn't been raised from the dead at a particular time in a particular place. Easter both completes the story begun at Christmas and opens a new chapter. Because Jesus is alive, the past is prologue and the future is open. Jesus said it this way: “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you...Receive the Holy Spirit.”

Christ has died; Christ is risen; Christ will come again. On to Pentecost!

Prayer and Ministry

The discipline of leading all our people with their struggles into the gentle and humble heart of God is the discipline of prayer as well as the discipline of ministry. As long as ministry only means that we worry a lot about people and their problems; as long as it means an endless number of activities which we can hardly coordinate, we are still very much dependent on our own narrow and anxious heart. But when our worries are led to the heart of God and there become prayer, then ministry and prayer become two manifestations of the same all-embracing love of God. - Henri Nouwen, The Way of the Heart, p.88

Holy Week Meditations

Driving around as much as I do gives me a lot of time in the car, and since I’m not one of those folk who can pray while driving, much less talk on the phone, and since I have a hard time finding a radio station I can stand to listen to, I nearly always have a CD in the player, either music or an audio book. For a couple of weeks during Lent I listened to Hunting Eichmann: How a Band of Survivors and a Young Spy Agency Chased Down the World's Most Notorious Nazi by Neal Bascomb. On one level, it’s an adventure story, far more exciting that anything in James Bond. On another level, it’s a meditation on the nature of evil and the quest for justice.

Adolph Eichmann was the man chosen by the Third Reich to put the “Final Solution” into practice. He made the plans and signed the orders that ultimately sent 6 million Jews to camps where they were shot, gassed, or worked to death. Those who survived were left with lifelong physical and emotional scars. Yet Eichmann, with his last breath, proclaimed his innocence. In the first place, he said, he had not killed anyone, nor had he ordered the killing of anyone. Yes, he had made the arrangements for Jews to be sent to the camps, but he wasn’t responsible for what happened to them after they got there. Besides, he said, he was following orders. He really had no choice.

Eichmann disappeared at the end of World War Two and was not captured until 1960, when he was found living in Argentina under an assumed name. Those who hunted down Eichmann and brought him to trial were nearly all either survivors of the camps or people who had lost family members in the Eichmann-orchestrated Final Solution. They could have simply assassinated him, and there were some on the team who wanted to do just that. But the view that prevailed was that the trial had to be public, so that the world would know and not forget. For many in 1960, the world had moved on, the Second World War and all that went with it was old news; the present threat was not Germany but Russia and the Communist influence. Eichmann’s arrest and his trial in an Israeli court brought recent history back into the headlines. Judging by the activity of Holocaust deniers in our own day, the instinct that led to a trial was the right one. Those who don’t believe the Final Solution was real should be sentenced to read the transcript of the Eichmann trial.

In an interesting twist to the case, a Canadian minister spent time with Eichmann after his conviction, while Eichmann was awaiting execution. The minister’s goal was to help Eichmann see his sin and need for repentance and forgiveness.

But Eichmann would have none of it. He stuck to his reasons for innocence, adding that he did in fact believe in God, though not a personal God, and that when he died he would return to the God who created him. So Eichmann was hanged, the only person ever to be executed by the state of Israel, and in a bit of historical irony, his body was cremated and his ashes scattered at sea so that no monument or memorial could even be erected at his grave site. Justice had finally caught up with Adolph Eichmann.

But in what sense could justice ever be done to Eichmann, or Hitler, or Goering, or for that matter Stalin or Pol Pot or Saddam Hussein? I believe that forgiveness was available to Adolph Eichmann, but—unless God did something with him in the final judgment that I don’t know about—Eichmann didn’t take it. My vision of Eichmann’s eternity is that he is overwhelmed by what he did. All that he tried to keep from thinking about he now has no choice but to think about; all the walls he put up to the truth are now broken down. No external torment is necessary; he is tormenting himself.

All this is by way of thinking about the thief on the cross. There two thieves, of course: one abused Jesus; the other had another view: “we indeed have been condemned justly, for we are getting what we deserve for our deeds, but this man”--Jesus--“has done nothing wrong.” Then he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” Jesus replied, “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in Paradise.” (Luke 23:41-43)

If there is forgiveness for the thief, there is forgiveness for Eichmann. If there is forgiveness for Eichmann, there is forgiveness for me. Eichmann didn’t take that forgiveness. May God give us the grace to take the forgiveness that Christ offers, and be thankful.

New Reformed Association

I just learned about this, and I think it's interesting:

http://www.reformedchurches.org/

Missing Link

I tried to insert a link in my last post, but for some reason it didn't come through. Here it is again; you may have to copy and paste it into your browser:
http://www.buy.com/prod/smith-micro-quickverse/q/loc/105/213897871.html?adid=17653