Category: Blog

Holy Land, Part I

Exactly six months ago today, I was in the Holy Land. I was there with about 350 other Florida United Methodists and my sweet husband Ryan and I found myself reflecting on this spiritual pilgrimage this past week. Thanks to generous churches like this one, a newly ordained elder had a 10 Day pilgrimage to the Holy Land given to them as an ordination gift. Luckily, as Ryan and I were ordained two years apart, he was also offered this amazing trip at no cost so in this case, being a Clergy Couple was in fact a DOUBLE BONUS!

We flew out of Fort Lauderdale on February 4^th and returned the day before Valentine’s Day. I remember being in the airport about to board our flight to Israel when a few people were being taken out of line because they had traveled to China in the last 14 days. I didn’t know then what I know now and I am so thankful that we travelled the week we did. When we arrived back to the United States, it wasn’t long before Israel closed its borders. Only 6 months ago, I was in Israel and Palestine, walking the footsteps of the patriarchs, of the disciples and yes of course, of Jesus. This trip was profoundly formidable for my faith and formation and I plan to share more in next week’s devotion too. But since that trip, I have never been the same.

There are many experiences and sites we visited that I could share, and I hope one day to teach a class on all that I learned and discovered, but the moment I felt God closest to me was in the city of Magdala. This place, as the name might suggest, was the city where Mary Magdalene presided. Mary Magdalene, one of the first female disciples and by all four Gospel accounts, the premiere witness to the resurrection, this is where she lived before leaving everything to follow Jesus. The city was only excavated in this millennium and is located in Lower Galilee which is in Northern Israel. The ancient Synagogue was the first of the excavations and as it dates back to 15-20 AD, it would have been a place where Jesus gathered and taught. Maybe this was where Mary first heard the life-giving words of Jesus, where she saw his posture of grace, where she felt more than herself and called to be more than she ever thought she could be. I don’t know, but I do know that the place we walked that day was holy and as we toured the grounds of the Duc In Altum (which draws its name from Luke 5:4 where Jesus tells Peter to “launch into the deep”) it was a place like no other. When we entered the Main Boat Chapel that day and saw the Women’s Atrium which was held up by pillars named for the women disciples and women leaders of our faith, I knew I was experiencing something marvelous. And if that wasn’t enough, we traveled down into the Encounter Chapel for a time of singing and praying, and for me a lot of tears were shed.

What I remembered in that moment, gathered with my brothers and sisters of the faith is that God uses all of us. Male or Female, rich or poor, educated or not, the doubter or the model Christian; God has a place for us all. But over and over again, we see the story of God in the most unlikely of places and lived out through the most unlikely of people. Mary Magdalene was not one that the Pharisees would have even given a second glance to, except maybe to judge, and yet she became the first preacher; the first proclaimer of the Gospel.  As I sat, weeping in the back of that holy space, I could only whisper my prayer and sing a very inaudible song of praise. Because I knew in that moment, just how much God loves the underdog, reaches for the one cast aside, and gives purpose to the person that society has said is unworthy. In Jesus’ day, it was the women that were forgotten about but today, others fit this category. What is so countercultural about the Kingdom of God is that those without power are given new purpose, those without a voice are entrusted with the first preaching opportunities, those considered unclean, irreligious or bad influencers are in fact the movers and shakers of the faith.

As a woman, who has watched women pastors, teachers and leaders struggle to be taken seriously, to be listened to and to be valued in the same way as men, I am so thankful that God visited me that day in the Chapel of Magdala. I am thankful that God continues to use those on the fringes to impact the Kingdom and to grow the church. But I am also thankful for the men that walk beside me: my father and husband, my male colleagues and friends, my sweet little boy Charlie who is learning that strong women run in our family. What a gift we all are to God’s Kingdom and what a task we have before us.

Six months ago, as I was experiencing God’s presence in the Chapel of Magdala, I had no idea how much was about to change. How our world was about to be flipped upside down and how we were going to be grappling with the question, “What’s next?” I believe one thing that hasn’t changed in this world of uncertainty, is God’s love for us; for ALL OF US. What hasn’t changed is that men and women together will change this world for good and side by side will help bring about God’s Heavenly Kingdom to earth. What hasn’t changed is that God loves all of us equally, but is especially willing to bring those who feel most unworthy and unnoticed, into the all-encompassing arms of grace. A lot has changed, but the life-giving words of Jesus that remind us of our sacred worth, never change.

As I write devotional my devotional for a couple of weeks, I am working on a new format which I am excited to share soon. We will look at the principles of the book “When Helping Hurts” to examine what kind of church God is calling us to be, not just in this season, but in the years to come. 

This week I will be participating in a seminar for pastors on the theology and thought of the early church. Like numerous other things in this season, this was initially to be in person and has now shifted to online. The topic was close to Wesley’s heart. He was an avid reader of the early church fathers and cited them frequently in his writing. Wesley had this to say about reading the work of those early Christians:

“I exceedingly reverence them, as well as their writings, and esteem them very highly in love… [they are] the most authentic commentators on scriptures, as being both nearest the fountain, and eminently endued with that spirit by whom all scripture was given… [their work is as] golden remains.”

One of the books assigned for this seminar was written by Gregory of Nyssa (335-395 A.D.) on the life of Moses. The work is an examination of the life of Moses, a devotional work that shares an example of what a faithful life with God looks like. It is a strange feeling to read something so old, reflecting on the same scripture that we use in our worship and devotional life today, and still strikingly relevant almost seventeen hundred years later. It is hard to overstate how thoroughly different the world is today, yet, as we follow the same God, we struggle with the same questions of faith and practice. Gregory states the clear purpose of his book in the prologue, “we shall seek out the spiritual understanding which corresponds to the history [of Moses] in order to obtain suggestions of virtue. Through such understanding, we may come to know the perfect life for men.” Additionally, he calls readers to remember Matthew 5:48, “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” This the same verse I cited last week as a personal favorite of Wesley. We see this theme of the Christian life as one of continuously increasing virtue. One might summarize this as Wesley did, that we are to be “going onto perfection.” 

Gregory posits, “true religion is the death and destruction of idolatry.” The tricky thing about idolatry is that its roots go deep, often pressing into the foundation of our identity. Tim Keller in his fantastic book Counterfeit Gods: The Empty Promises of Money, Sex, and Power and the Only Hope That Matters, argues that this personal work is difficult because often, our idolatry is not of ‘bad’ things, but rather ‘good’ things (such as family, work, and love) wrongly ordered. Its why Jesus’ call in Luke 14:25-27 that following him requires even the love of children to be ordered after our love of Jesus, strikes us so hard. Uprooting the idolatry in our lives, as Moses forcefully did as he came down Mount Sinai to find the golden calf, allows us to live ever-increasing lives of virtue. Alternatively, if we do not do this work, Gregory gives us the image of living lives akin to the Israelites in slavery in Egypt. Like Sisyphus, a life with the wrong desires, resembles the Israelites making bricks perpetually staring at an “empty and vacant container,” as these false desires like Pharaoh demanding ever more bricks, a task never completed.

In conclusion, Gregory gives a hopeful call to his audience. As we look at the life of Moses in the Scriptures, we see that he is the “friend of God,” (Exodus 33:11). This ought to be our focus day by day, that we grow in our friendship to God. I offer this from his closing paragraph as a prayer for all of us this week, that we all may:

“Be known by God and to become his friend. This is true perfection: not to avoid a wicked life because, like slaves, we servilely fear punishment, nor to do good because we hope for rewards, as if cashing in on the virtuous life by some businesslike and contractural arrangement. On the contrary… we consider becoming God’s friend the only think worthy of honor and desire.”

“People do not drift toward Holiness. Apart from grace-driven effort, people do not gravitate toward godliness, prayer, obedience to Scripture, faith, and delight in the Lord. We drift toward compromise and call it tolerance; we drift toward disobedience and call it freedom; we drift toward superstition and call it faith. We cherish the indiscipline of lost self-control and call it relaxation; we slouch toward prayerlessness and delude ourselves into thinking we have escaped legalism; we slide toward godlessness and convince ourselves we have been liberated.”  – D.A. Carson

I grew up in Musical Theater. I loved singing, performing, dancing, but of course, the makeup and the costumes…oh the costumes, those were my favorite. I had the chance to do professional theater, community theater, and both high school and college theater as well. I loved the stories that were told, the characters I could become, and am, still to this day a sucker for an exuberant dance number. Ryan and I have already noticed this love of performance in both of our children, but most especially our 4 ½-year-old, Emmaline.

But one thing I disliked most was between the scenes when the stage lights were down and pieces of the set had to be rolled on or carried off and then the giant heavy backdrops were moved into place. This happened all under the cover of darkness, all while the orchestra played, and all as quiet and as invisible as we could be, as we changed the set for the next scene, for the next part of the story. This is most easily accomplished with glow in the dark tape that marked the spot of each piece of the set. Sometimes we would use flashlights and more than one time there were accidents and rolled over toes, especially in High School Theater. But, as they say, the show must go on and the pieces got moved into place in the dark and then we, the performers would move back to the wings and wait for the big reveal.

As much as God is a God of the light, God is very accustomed, even comfortable I would say with working in the dark. Think about the big moments of the Biblical narrative for a moment. Jacob wrestles with the angel all night long. The Exodus narrative and the freeing of the Israelites happened at night, Baby Jesus was born and the angels lite up the night sky, and many other examples remind us how good God is working and redeeming and putting the pieces into place IN THE DARK.

I know I just got here, and I will be learning the history of this church for a while; but if it is like every other church I have served or worked out over the last 20 years, there have been and will be some dark moments at this church, especially as we transition together. Maybe caused by this pandemic, or a change in leadership and vision, a struggle of finances or the pride of a few individuals. As followers of Jesus, living out our faith journey connected to the Church, there are moments of darkness and a lack of clarity. And when we don’t always see what God is doing in the dark, we might be tempted to lose hope if we can’t see it or understand it. Maybe we even grow weary and worn out as we wait, as we fumble around in the dark of our current situation.

And so Scriptures like this one from 1 Corinthians 13 bring me hope and remind me that especially in the hard moments of life and ministry there is more going on behind the scenes. The God of light sometimes does the best work in the dark and we get to participate in the big reveal as members of the Kingdom of God.

“Love never ends. But as for prophecies, they will come to an end; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will come to an end. “For we know only in part, and we prophesy only in part; but when the complete comes, the partial will come to an end. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways. For now, we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known. And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.” 1 Corinthians 13:8-13 NRSV

AMEN

“Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.” 2 Corinthians, 3: 17

When I was twenty years old and a junior in college, I won a study-abroad scholarship to learn Mandarin Chinese at the Taiwan Normal University in Taipei.

It was a brave endeavor, because I knew not a stich of Mandarin.  One of the gifts of youth is one’s audacity for risk and adventures.

The journey took 27 hours, flying on a 747 jumbo-jet from Philadelphia to Chicago, Los Angeles, and stopping in Okinawa Japan for a layover, before heading south to Taiwan.

While sitting in the Okinawa airport, a tall Japanese man walked by with an elder, who I assumed was his father.  He stopped suddenly, and asked me in English, “Where are you going?”  Cautious, I said to Taipei to study Mandarin. “By yourself?!” I could see the man and now the elder were genuinely concern for my welfare.  “Ok. Please be careful,” he warned.

After these men left, I thought about their worried expressions and questions, with some dread of what I had gotten myself into to. I looked around, and realized I was sitting isolated in a dark part of the airport.  I gathered up my belongings and headed towards the light, and to my relief, discovered a full airline wing of fellow travelers.

When I arrived in Taipei airport, the panic set in.  A fellow student, who studied in Taiwan the previously year, had arranged for his male friend to pick me up at the airport.  My gut screamed and told me that I couldn’t go with him, so instead I joined a group of young white women students from Georgetown University, who invited me to bunk with them overnight at a hostel.

Miraculously, the next morning I found the university, registered for class, and connected with a Taiwanese family, who wanted to take in an exchange student.  Before I settled in, I had this deep earning to visit a religious place, so asked the family where the nearest Buddhist shrine was located.  (Bias Alert: I assumed there were no Christians churches in Taiwan.  Later, I discovered there were plenty.)

The Buddhist temple was jammed packed with pilgrims. The monks, dressed in vibrant shades of reds, prayed and conducted rituals steeped in incense.  Rather lost and confused, I followed the crowd, which led me to a trail of smaller and private shrines, where people also prayed.

I kept walking, which lead me to an empty concrete room, where people in meditation walked around in circles.  Suddenly, a young man, who was standing by the wall, came up to me and asked me in English if I wanted to meet the Dalai Lama.  Skeptical, I asked, the Dalai Lama, here? Okay, I said.  I would like to meet him.

The young man opened a door and slipped behind it.  Before I could understand what was happening, out comes an elder Chinese man, who was clearly not the Dalai Lama, but a man who looked very much like Gandhi.  Bald, very thin and brown, like the Mahatma Gandhi, this lama was wrapped loosely in a white cloth.

The energy of this man’s presence hit me like a sledgehammer.  All I could do was to back up slow as he gingerly walked to the center of the room and sat cross-legged on the floor.  He said nothing, only looked through me with love.  I fell l to my knees, curled up in his lap, and cried like a baby.

Perhaps, it was the journey, or perhaps it was all the suffering I had been carrying.  But whatever it was, that comfort from this stranger was beyond comparison.  Whoever this holy man was, he seemed to step aside to allow Christ Jesus to hold me and set my burdens free.  I was definitely not expecting that!

How long I cried I am unable to recall.  But, when I could weep no more, I stood up and bowed to the Light in him with deep gratitude for his unconditional love and acceptance.

After receiving such immense kindness and compassion from so many, the man in Okinawa, the young women from Georgetown U., and the holy man at the Buddhist temple, I could journey on, trusting that I could recognize Christ in the hearts and generosity of strangers, no matter their cultural identity.  And they, in turn, could recognize the spiritual Goodness in me.

“Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.”

Tonya Tolson, Diversity Committee Chair