The Little Friar

CS Lewis once remarked : True humility is not thinking less of yourself; it is thinking of yourself less. When it comes to humility I think a lot of Christians tend to work with the wrong idea. The idea that many seem to have is that humility involves thinking less about yourself, to have a negative or even morbid self-concept. Justification for this sort of thing comes from texts like Philippians 2.3: Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. Humility, it seems, is considering others as "better" than yourself. And if others are better than you it stands to reason that you are "worse".  Humility, in this view, is having that sort of morbid self-concept:  Others are "better" than me. But is that what Paul is saying in Philippians 2.3? The word translated as “better” in this text is hyperechontas from the root hyperecho . The word (in various forms) occurs only four other times in t...

In the past prayer was able to bring down punishment, rout armies, withhold the blessing of rain. Now, however, the prayer of the just turns aside the whole anger of God, keeps vigil for its enemies, pleads for persecutors. Is it any wonder that it can call down water from heaven when it could obtain fire from heaven as well? Prayer is the one thing that can conquer God. But Christ has willed that it should work no evil, and has given it all power over good. Its only art is to call back the souls of the dead from the very journey into death, to give strength to the weak, to heal the sick, to exorcise the possessed, to open prison cells, to free the innocent from their chains. Prayer cleanses from sin, drives away temptations, stamps out persecutions, comforts the fainthearted, gives new strength to the courageous, brings travelers safely home, calms the waves, confounds robbers, feeds the poor, overrules the rich, lifts up the fallen, supports tho...

Literature, I think, helps us ask questions about our lives and the things we believe, often in ways that other kinds of books simply can't.  That's because literature opens up our imaginations and language to explore the depths of our soul.  To that end, then, I want to offer a list of those books that have helped me to give words to faith, and sometimes even doubts, of my life.  There's enough diversity here that everyone should be able to find some connections with their lives: Voltaire, Candide (1759) Herman Melville, Moby-Dick (1851) George Eliot, Middlemarch (1871) Thomas Hardy, Jude the Obscure (1895) Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness (1899) James Joyce, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916) Franz Kafka, The Castle (1926) Virginia Woolf, To the Lighthouse (1927) Thomas Mann, Doctor Faustus (1947) Albert Camus, The Plague (1947) Graham Greene, The End of the Affair (1951) Flannery O’Connor, Wise Blood (1952) Peter de Vries, The Bloo...

In Daniel 10 Michael the Archangel comes into conflict with the national deity of Babylon, a territorial spirit described as the "prince of the kingdom of Persia".  Here we see how a demonic spirit is associated with a political entity. We see this exact same connection when we consider one of the most famous names for Satan. Lucifer. Here's a shocker to most folks:  Satan is never actually named Lucifer in the Bible.  The name "Lucifer" comes from the King James Version translation of Isaiah 14.12: How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! how art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations! Modern translations translate the Hebrew word helel here as "day star" or "morning star".  The meaning can also be "bringer of light" as the "morning star" (Venus) was considered to be a bringer or herald of the dawn. The Latin for "bringer of light" is "luc...

I think politics, to be understood Christianly, have to be approached spiritually.  Which means that oppression and idolatry, in under to be understood Christianly, cannot be separated. That seems hard for us to do that.  When it comes to evil, conservatives tend to spiritualize the issue, looking for demons behind every door and under every rock.  Liberals, by contrast, tend to politicize evil, reducing spiritual warfare to the political fight for social justice. Throughout the Bible the spiritual and the political are interconnected and woven together.  The political and the spiritual form a gestalt , a bigger picture greater than the sum of the individual parts.  That's what I want to explore over the next few days. One way to see the interconnection between the spiritual and the political is to examine the way demons develop in the Bible. Specifically, in various parts of the Old Testament we get the notion that when God created the world and set...

Some years ago, a friend commented about how often I memorized Scripture -- how I knew where the text had come from as well as the wording of the text.  It was odd, he thought, that that kind of detail had been committed to memory.  Why not just memorize the gist of the story and let the details fall by the wayside? My memorizing Scripture has become a topic of discussion lately.  Apparently, when I preach and when I pray and when I speak, there are lots of inferences to the text of Scripture.  Those words are my words, and that's a bit "odd". Someone asked why I do it? Simple, I responded.  I memorize Scripture for those times when I don't have the right words.  For those times when words of my own just aren't coming, when my own words are either cold or unavailable.  Just then, the words of Scripture pop up and kiss my conversations like the Spirit popping up and saying, "There, God loves you".

Over the years, several folks have asked that I help them put together a plan for integrating their spiritual lives and their work-a-day world lives.  So, I've finally heard their pleas and written a resource to do just that.  It's a workbook that you can print off and utilize as both a daily planner and a spiritual journal, utilizing the resources of the Church Year and the Daily Office.  It's available here for free . I really have no desire to publish it, precisely because it'd be so expensive to publish!  So use it as you feel led.

Romans 6 repeatedly blows my mind. "Surely you know that when were baptized into union with Christ Jesus, we were baptized into union with his death.  By our baptism, then, we were buried with him and shared his death" (6.3-4a). Right there it is.  In the Bible.  I'm not making it up.  To be baptized with Jesus Christ is to die.  It's to die a certain kind of death -- death with Christ .  And it's to be buried a certain kind of burial -- buried with Christ .  But if that is so, it means that, appearances notwithstanding, in baptism our deaths are now behind us.  Which, in turn, means, that we are released from our obsession with death, our fear of death, our denial of death, all of which speaks of our enslavement to death -- from which baptism frees us.  For not only is death now behind us, above all life is now ahead of us.  But again, a very specific kind of life:  It is life in Christ .   For as Paul continues:...

The Psalms are, of course, revered sources of prayer for both Christians and Jews.  They are among the oldest prayers ever written, the heartbeat of the Bible. Jesus himself prayed the psalms.  They're the prayers he learned on Mary's knee.  When the gospel writers quote Jesus, often he speaks of himself in relation to the Psalms.  Spirit speaks to spirit in those prayers. I first became aware of the power of praying the psalms when I was a seminary student.  Seminary was a major transition in my life -- it was there that I discovered and affirmed that God was calling me to serve the Church in ordained life.  It was a new adventure for me, something I'd never imagined might be true.  The lamenting Psalms shored me on days when I felt anxious or discouraged about that decision.  The Psalms of thanksgiving reminded me that I was following God's dream, and that faith, not success, was what would lie ahead.  The praising Psalms convinced ...

If I'm right -- that a catholic imagination is essential for Christian revitalizing and re-enchanting the world with the Divine Presence -- then the paradox here is learning to set aside particular places, times, activities and things as uniquely sacred, hallowed and sacramental.  Re-enchanting our days involves adding a sacred texture to our lives. Part of my vows include "living the sacramental life" and "promoting the sacramental and liturgical life of the Church".  For me, that mean re-enchanting time by embracing the liturgical calendar and fixed hour prayers.  That sounds rather lofty, so let me use an example: Over the last few years Kendra and I have been very intentional to celebrate all twelve days of Christmas, from December 25 to Epiphany on January 6.  We keep the tree up through the 6th and keep playing Christmas music.  We keep our house enchanted -- with music, lights and the like -- for the entire liturgical season.  We don't tea...

Over the past couple of weeks, I've been thinking about how fellow Christians -- and sadly, sometimes, this even includes myself -- make God's Love so incredible/unbelievable. If you ask Christians to succinctly define God's agape , my guess is that the most common definition would be "unconditional love".  Consequently, Christians feel called to live out this unconditional love for the world.  As the Bible says, "while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us".  We didn't have to get it all right before Christ, the Incarnation of God's Love, would embrace us and forgive us.  As Jesus prayed on the cross for those who killed him:  "Father, forgive them". In general, we think love is deep and wide.  So kindness/liking is superficial.  And yet, Christians say they love people while acting unkind to them.  That is to say, we Christians too easily turn love into a lie.  It's probably more accurate to say that God's agape ...

I used to be a fragile worshiper. I'd go to church and there would always be something that set me off.  Sometimes it would be a song lyric that I found theologically problematic or overly sentimental.  Sometimes it was something someone said from the stage or the pulpit.  And a lot of the time it would be getting upset about something I wished we'd do differently.  "I wish we would do it this way instead of that way", I'd often remark. The littlest thing would get me disgruntled and annoyed.  Worship had to be perfect.  Any theological slip ups and I'd pounce.  I had to agree with and like everything.  Start to finish. Perhaps you've been a fragile worshiper, and maybe still are.  Are you overly sensitive to and emotionally triggered by anything that is said or sung in church that you don't like or agree with? Over the years I've worked hard to become less brittle in worship, more tolerant of song lyrics or shared thoughts ...

The words. These tell the story of our curse. The mark of Cain upon our foreheads. Hell never was our punishment. Dust you are to dust you shall return. We were severed from life . Death , this is our punishment. The ash. Burnt black residual of fire, sign of lamentation and grief for all that we have torn in the world and left bleeding. Dawn of turning and advent of conversion. Repent! Cries a voice in the wilderness. Make your crooked heart straight. The kingdom of God is near. The sign. Etched upon our skin by the church to contradict all that must die. Emblem of paradox. Intersection of life and death. Mark of unexpected and surprising grace. Life after death , this is our destination.

I have a confession to make:  I have never liked Shakespeare's Macbeth .  Of all the great Bard's works, King Lear has always captivated my spiritual attention.  And it's The Tempest that I hope is most true, most real.  But Macbeth frightens me -- the way nightmares frighten me. Now, of course, there's a movie coming out.  And make no doubt about it, the movie -- like the play -- asks some fairly important spiritual questions:  What if nightmares, and not the waking world, were real?  What if the truth of human nature were seen not in love but in madness and murder?  What if the love-instinct itself were only an instrument of a deeper, murderous instinct? One literary critic has called Macbeth "a moral play par excellence".  No, no it's not.  Macbeth isn't a moral play.  It's a metaphysical play.  In Macbeth , nightmare and murder are elevated to the level of transcendent realities.  In an otherwise excell...

St Francis once asked his followers to tie a rope around his neck and lead him around like a donkey. It was an act of public self-mortification peculiar to Francis's spirituality and leadership style. It was his way of combating pride. The other day I was thinking about that incident in Francis's life. I can't speak for every blogger, but I often struggle with self-image and presentation. With what "people think about me". Online and in real life I often struggle with having the last word or the final answer or the correct opinion. Consequently, when a post of mine is criticized for being in error or lacking in nuance or contradictory or not in keeping with my professed values I start to struggle with ego issues. I want to argue back and push back. And my goal in pushing back isn't the pursuit of truth but the restoration of my self-image, mainly in the eyes of others. And if I can't effectively address the concern then I feel like there is this lo...

From Paul Tillich's Shaking of the Foundations : Do we know what it means to be struck by grace? It does not mean that we suddenly believe that God exists, or that Jesus is the Saviour, or that the Bible contains the truth. To believe that something is, is almost contrary to the meaning of grace. Furthermore, grace does not mean simply that we are making progress in our moral self-control, in our fight against special faults, and in our relationships to men and to society. Moral progress may be a fruit of grace; but it is not grace itself, and it can even prevent us from receiving grace. For there is too often a graceless acceptance of Christian doctrines and a graceless battle against the structures of evil in our personalities. Such a graceless relation to God may lead us by necessity either to arrogance or to despair. It would be better to refuse God and the Christ and the Bible than to accept them without grace. For if we accept without grace, we do so in the ...

My friend John asked that I offer some reflections on those prayers that seem to cross theological and denominational lines:  What I call "just" prayers. As I've discerned these types of prayers, they're perhaps one of the most consistent prayer practices in America.  You know the sort, I'm sure.  "Lord, I just want you to ..."  "God, we just need ..."  "Jesus, if you would just ..." What these prayers actually do, of course, is affix an adjective -- just -- that essentially minimizes the very petition of the prayer.  So the question left to ask is:  Why would we want to minimize God's activity in the world?  Why diminish the very thing we're asking God to do? That simple qualifier, while probably nothing more than a verbal "filler" -- allowing our mouths to get ahead of our hearts and brains in prayer -- betrays a false humility.  We think it makes God's response more special or meaningful.  But in rea...

I remember singing this song as a child.  As a child, I remember hearing a lot about "inviting Jesus into [my] heart".  About saying "the Sinner's Prayer" and hearing, at Sunday School, all those warnings about what would happen if we didn't have Jesus in our hearts. Now, I find all that language rather jarring. I know now that that language is just too thin. I'm rather disillusioned about the capacities of my heart.  It simply isn't all that spacious enough a place to accommodate a guy like Jesus.  Or, more accurately, it's not a place he'd want to take up residence. When I think of my heart as a house for Jesus, I now see it in a rather different way than I saw it as a child:  To start with, it's far too small.  If Jesus is going to live here, there will have to be extensions.  And it's all looking pretty rundown.  The roof leaks.  Mold is growing on the walls.  The front door is hanging off its hinges.  There are...

Grant me life, compassionate Lord. Hear me, merciful Lord. Be charitable to me, forgiving Lord. Save me, long-suffering Lord. Protect me, defender Lord. Be generous, all-giving Lord. Free me, all-powerful Lord. Revive me, restoring Lord. Raise me again, awe-inspiring Lord. Enlighten me, heavenly Lord. Cure me, omnipotent Lord. Grant pardon, inscrutable Lord. Bestow gifts, bountiful Lord. Adorn me with grace, generous Lord. Let us be reconciled, healing Lord. Be accepting, unvengeful Lord. Wipe away my transgressions, blessed Lord, so that on that Day of Misery, when I stare at the abyss on either side, I may also catch sight of your salvation, my hope and guardian, and on that terrifying journey your angel of peace may sweetly guide me. Endow me, Lord, on the day my breath is finished with a clean spirit raised in light among the joyful heavenly host, with gifts of your love overtaking me. May I arrive with the workers for justice. Grant to my wayward sou...

George Rouault, "Jesus will be in agony, even to the end of the world" Holy Week is more than a memorial.  It's a time of participation.  We celebrate Holy Week as a way of participating in the great story of Jesus' rejection, suffering, and death.  We are among the crowd that cheers and waves palm branches when Jesus enters Jerusalem on a donkey.  We are with Jesus when he shares his last meal with his friends.  We share in their astonishment when our Lord stoops down to wash our feet and tells us to do likewise.  The next day we join our voices to the crowd that cries out, "Crucify him!"  And we are there when Jesus takes up the cross and lays down his life for the ones who have rejected him. That's what makes Holy Week such a momentous experience of the Church Year for me.  This is more than simply recounting events all those years ago -- this is my participation in those very events, as I follow Jesus all the way to the cross. ...