The Little Friar

Over twenty years ago now, as a student, I developed one of my major works around the thesis that the liturgy -- in particular, daily prayer and the church year -- is perhaps the greatest untapped resource for congregational renewal that churches have, and I utilized John Wesley's Sunday Service of the Methodists in North America as an expression of how that might look for particular congregations.  In that thesis, I argued that Lent, not Advent, was the proper beginning of the church year. Congregations that live comfortably in North America need Lent more often than they know, and pastors are uniquely placed to reclaim the season in a congregation's spiritual life.  Of all the seasons in the Church's calendar, none preaches more forcefully against bourgeois complacency.  Lent spurns contentment, celebrates self-discipline, and sanctifies self-knowledge.  We all need Lent more than we know. Sadly, too many clergy are confused -- or worse, lazy.  They coddle...

Karl Barth's son, Christoph, prepared a theological introduction to the Old Testament, God with Us , this is perhaps one of the most neglected -- but one of the most fruitful -- introductory texts on the theology of the Old Testament. Next to Brueggemann's introduction , Barth's is my favorite. For Christoph Barth (as with his father), the incarnation forms the climactic turning point of sacred history. The high point in the grand biblical drama of redemption involved the self-emptying descent of God in Jesus. For many, the incarnation may seem like a 33-year anomaly in the life of God. The God who is otherwise transcendent or at least invisible became visible, imminent and incarnate for a short while. He completed the job and promptly re-ascended to the Father. Phew! Otherwise, it was an unusual -- though necessary -- phase. We all have phases, and so did God. Now he's over it. But this way of conceptualizing God is problematic for at least two reasons. First,...

All Souls' Day isn't exactly the feast day of the Church Year that most protestants celebrate.  In fact, at its heart, the day seems to smack of all the things the Protestant Reformation detested liturgically:  Needlessly multiplying ecclesial calendrical celebrations outside what's in the Bible.  If it's not out-right ancestor worship. So, for starters, a little context. The Feast of All Saints' on November 1st and of All Souls' on November 2nd are some of the most theologically pregnant days of the Church Year, just below Easter in my estimation.  On this feast, the deaths we have grieved in the prior year are officially promoted, so to speak, into the list of names that make up our own personal litany of the saints.  It is a good and joyful thing, always and everywhere, to remember Christ's resurrection and tell the good stories of the race faithfully run and resting from labors in God, hidden, in Christ, until he comes again in final victory, and we ...

I have a confession to make: I love talking to dead people. I'm fairly well certain part of this is because I celebrated a birthday yesterday -- on All Hallows' Eve.  There's a humility in celebrating a birthday on that day. This is why today is one of the most spiritual days in the Church's calendar to me. Just beneath the Easter Triduum -- Good Friday, Holy Saturday, Easter Sunday -- sits the "November triduum" of All Hallows' Eve, All Saints', All Souls'. I love talking to dead people. Some years ago, as part of my ordination process, I was asked to pick three important spiritual writers who shaped me. I responded: "Julian of Norwich, Augustine and Dietrich Bonhoeffer". "Can't you pick someone living?", the interviewer asked. "I went to Duke Divinity. They are still living", I said. He looked at me oddly but carried on. I love talking to dead people. Which explains why I'm fascinated to visit ce...

Almighty God, you anointed Jesus at his baptism with the Holy Spirit, and revealed him as your beloved Son; grant that we who are baptized into his name may give up our lives to your service, and be found worthy of our calling; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Open the heavens, Holy Spirit, for us to see Jesus interceding for us; may we be strengthened to share his baptism, strengthened to share his cup, and ready to serve him forever. Holy Spirit, as you drove Jesus into the wilderness, when John baptized him and the heavens opened, drive us to wrestle and reflect so that we may fulfill our baptism, and live your life of victory. Amen.

Today is the feast of the Baptism of Jesus.  It's a feast that holds great meaning for me, mainly due to the interpretation given to the Baptism of Jesus by St Cyril of Alexandria. Cyril is not exactly en vogue in the English speaking world, and hasn't been since the 19th century when Charles Kingsley's historical novel Hypatia, or New Foes with an Old Face laid the heinous death of the famous female philosopher, Hypatia, at the feet of Cyril of Alexandria.  Ever wonder why you don't find Cyril in the Nicene/Post Nicene Fathers collection of texts?  Many, myself included, think it is because of Kingsley's novel (an idea I picked up at Duke from David Steinmetz).  And negative depictions of Cyril continue. Cyril is also unpopular because of the perception that political concerns were primarily behind his vociferous attacks on Nestorius; a perception that, in my opinion, Henry Chadwick definitively debunked in 1951, but the perception continues unabated. The ...

God of all hope and joy, open our hearts in welcome, that your Son Jesus Christ at his coming may find in us a dwelling prepared for himself; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God now and for ever. Praise and honor to you living God; your coming will be like a thief in the night, like lightning flashing across the sky. Grant that we may be ready, and our hearts answer, Come Lord Jesus. God faithful and true, make us eager with expectation, as we look for the fulfillment of your promise in Jesus Christ our Savior. Amen.

Reading Scripture is such a startling thing for me. Every year -- you'd think I'd be used to this by now -- I encounter the stories of Easter morning, startled awake by what these stories proclaim. You'd imagine Easter to be the one morning on which everyone is fearless. But Mark -- the oldest Gospel we have -- ends this way in the earliest manuscripts: When the Sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices so that they might go to anoint Jesus' body.  Very early on the first day of the week, just after sunrise, they were on their way to the tomb and they asked each other, "Who will roll the stone away from the entrance of the tomb?" But when they looked up, they saw that the stone, which was very large, had been rolled away.  As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man dressed in a white robe sitting on the right side, and they were alarmed. "Don't be alarmed," he said. "You are...

Some years ago, as I was reading through Augustine's sermons, I came across this wonderful imagery.  First, the Latin: Exsultavit diabolus quando mortuus est Christus, et ipsa morte Christi est diabolus victus, tanquam in muscipula escam accepit. Gaudebat ad mortem, quasi praepositus mortis. Ad quod gaudebat, inde illi tensum est.  Muscipula diaboli, crux Domini:  esca qua caperetur, mors Domini. Then my translation: The devil rejoiced when Christ died, but by this very death of Christ the devil was defeated and vanquished, as if he had swallowed the bait in a mousetrap.  He rejoiced in Christ's death, like a bailiff (of the prison) of death.  What he rejoiced in was his own undoing.  The cross of the Lord was the devil's mousetrap:  The bait by which he was caught, the Lord's death. Let that imagery sink in for a minute. "The cross is the devil's mousetrap." It sounds so foreign to modern ears.  But it's a beautiful way to think of...

Most of us think of Easter as just one day.  It's never had the commercial appeal of Christmas.  And we usually just get one day off work to celebrate, since it always falls on Sunday.  But Easter isn't just one day; it's a whole season .  Easter is 50 days.  The Easter season stretches all the way to Pentecost:  April 20th to June 8th this year.  Lent, which sometimes feels like it can stretch out forever, is only 40 days long.  It never includes Sundays.  Because Sundays are always mini-Easters.  Easter, on the other hand, is 50 continuous days long.  It's such a significant celebration, that it gets a whole season.   These days are an intivtation to party on. But they're also more than that.  They're a journey into the depth of the heart of Christian faith:   God-with-us . Some of us focus so intently on Jesus' death as the moment of salvation that we loose the richness of the rest of his life.  It isn't just ...