Desert Echoes #1

Abba Pambo (c. 303-373)

Abbot Pambo questioned Abbot Anthony saying, "What ought I to do?" And the elder replied: "Have no confidence in your own virtuousness. Do not worry about a thing once it has been done. Control your tongue and your belly.  (From The Wisdom of the Desert, by Thomas Merton, saying I)

It was not uncommon for sojourners to brave the wildness of the desert seeking the wisdom of the Desert Fathers.  They wanted to know how to find salvation.  How to be obedient.  How to find peace with God.  The answers they received resound with stark simplicity.¹  Such were the questions which consumed these men, which had drawn them into the purging arid desert in the first place.

Here we find Abbot Pambo questioning Antony the Great about how to live.  Antony's answer is threefold:

1.  Put no confidence in your own virtuousness.  Though the Desert Fathers are often best known for their asceticism, sayings like this one make it clear that they understood the futility of their own efforts to please God.  It is sometimes hard for modern Christians to understand the theology of this time period but their asceticism was - in large part - a quest to live life out the new life given them by the grace of God in Christ.  One can envision Antony gesturing to his own worn and dusty tunic while reciting the words of Isaiah:

For all of us have become like one who is unclean, And all our righteous deeds are like a filthy garment; And all of us wither like a leaf, And our iniquities, like the wind, take us away. (Isa 64:6 NAU)

2.  Don't worry about things already done.  One of the greatest stumbling blocks for those who believe in Christ is the testimony of their past.  Not just the distant past, but the recent past.  Yesterday.  Last night.  Five minutes ago in a moment of weakness.  We want to wallow in our sacred guilt, believing that it will make our repentance more legitimate.  It is really just another form of self-righteousness.  God wants neither your shame nor your false piety.  Get up, wipe the muck off and walk forward in his love because that love never falters.  As the apostle Paul says, "One thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead..." (Phi 3:13 NAU).

3.  Keep your tongue and appetite in check.  It is interesting to consider the priority here.  Amidst the flurry of sins chastised by so many in contemporary American Christianity, one is hard pressed to find either of the ones mentioned here by Antony.  The sins of the tongue (gossip/complaining/dissension) and gluttony (inclusive of all types of avarice) take the foreground above all other sins.  Perhaps because these were the most common struggles for these hermits and communal monks.  But I suspect there is more.  Gluttony (greed) is at the root of many of the greatest tragedies in human history being the source of war, crime and murder and a single wild tongue can rip apart the foundations of any community, turning it in upon itself and destroying the unity God has called us to in Christ.  At times I wonder if modern Christianity has lost sight of the roots of sinfulness and unwisely chosen to fight the symptoms.

To paraphrase:

1) Don't trust your own self-righteousness;
2) Don't be shocked when you prove your own unrighteousness;
3)  Don't let failure keep you from pursuing real life in Christ.

1.  Merton, Thomas, The Wisdom of the Desert,  p. 12.

Desert Legacy - An Introduction to the Desert Fathers

In the early morning hours of the fourth century there emerged from the barren regions of Northern Egypt a new kind of Christianity.  Forged in the fiery sun and raging sands of the desert, these men had left their homes and communities to seek God in all his wildness and mystery.  In the words of Thomas Merton, "They sought a God whom they alone could find, not one who was "given" in a set, stereotyped form by somebody else." ¹  Casting off church culture, they pursued God in solitude, in silence, in the wilderness where few men would dare to go

Though they sought their own way and their own understanding of God, these men did not hate the church.  For the most part, they loved and respected the church and its leaders.²  Nonetheless, they chose to live at its periphery.  Some,  were "anchorites" - hermits - living almost exclusively in solitude.  Others - known as "cenobites" - lived in isolated communities apart from the culture of the larger church, establishing their own "rule" and society for following Christ together.³

Pachomius

It was not pride or contempt that caused these individuals to reject the broader Christian culture, nor were they seeking a separate domain of power for themselves.  They simply "declined to be ruled by men" showing "no desire to rule over others themselves"⁴ because "the opinions of others had ceased, for them, to be matters of importance."⁵  Their concern was solely the pursuit of God in faithfulness and truth as He revealed himself to them in the desert.

For that reason, these men are known as the Desert Fathers. We should include among them a place for "Desert Mothers" for even at the beginning, Pachomius - the great father of cenobitic monasticism - started two monasteries just for women.⁶   They are the spiritual forebears for many of us who are "Desert Children," spinning in a wobbly orbit of church culture.  As such we may draw from the well of their wisdom, guidance and hope as we seek God in our own wildernesses.

This blog was borne out of a desire to explore that heritage, to claim our desert legacy.  Once again Merton's words ring true:

It would perhaps be too much to say that the world needs another movement such as that which drew these men into the deserts of Egypt and Palestine.  Ours is certainly a time for solitaries and for hermits.  But merely to reproduce the simplicity, austerity and prayer of these primitive souls is not a complete or satisfactory answer.  We must transcend them... Let it suffice for me to say that we need to learn from these men of the fourth century how to ignore prejudice, defy compulsion and strike out fearlessly into the unknown.⁷

Thomas Merton

1.  Merton, Thomas, The Wisdom of the Desert,  p. 6.
2.  Merton, Wisdom, p. 5.
3.  Harmless, William, Desert Christians:  An Introduction to the Literature of Early Monasticism, p. 18.
4.  Merton, Wisdom, p. 5.
5.  Merton, Wisdom, p. 10.
6.  Harmless, Desert Christians, p. 115.
7.  Merton, Wisdom, p. 24.

Church, church, "church" - Part 2 - Community

I will use the word "ekklesia" to distinguish our definition from the three common definitions of "church" suggested previously.  Before we further discuss those definitions in detail, let's pause and consider a few things about our understanding of "ekklesia" and what it means for those of us hovering on the outside of the contemporary organized “church.”  It is enlightening to consider that a survey of scripture on the Christian ekklesia does not specify:

1.      A numerical requirement
2.      A detailed creed/doctrinal statement
3.      A prescribed organizational structure

We'll take these one at a time, but before I get started let me clarify what I'm not saying.  I'm not saying scripture says nothing about numbers, creeds and organization.  That is simply not true.  I want to be very specific here.  Scripture nowhere mandates a numerical size requirement for an ekklesia.  Additionally, while a number of creed-like statements have been identified in scripture, there is no detailed or unified creedal formulation found in scripture that would compare to modern creeds and doctrinal statements in either length or specificity.  Finally, though there are numerous descriptive statements about the organizational structure of the early church, there is a lack of prescribed organizational structure.  Much can be found in the Bible about how the church did organize itself, but not about how it must do so.

One of the prominent buzz words in “church” circles these days is community.  Particularly in the United States, there is a consistent push to draw (sometimes shame) people into church sponsored events, services, small groups or simply the church building itself in the belief that this will build community.  This emphasis is often accompanied by the conviction that such "community" will preserve and increase numbers.  Unfortunately, population size and growth has become the measure of the American church's success, the justification for its existence, not to mention the source of its budget.  But true community has little to do with numbers and everything to do with relationship.

Community is important to people because it specifies where we belong, where we fit, where we will be loved.  This was an important aspect of the early Christian ekklesia as well.  Jewish Christians ultimately had to leave their natural Jewish communities because they were heterodox in their belief that Jesus was the messiah (Acts 9:22-23).  Likewise, Gentile Christians were often excluded from their communities for accepting the foolishness of a failed, crucified, monotheistic messiah (1 Cor 1:18-25).  First century Christians had only each other.  The ekklesia - the church - was a community.  It was often the only community available to those who stepped out of their heritage to follow this messiah/savior in faith.

However, community within significant portions of Evangelical church culture has come to mean something different.  It has become a method of evangelism.  To some extent, this is a wonderful development.  Communities of Christians should model a love and acceptance that contrasts at the deepest levels with a power-hungry, self-serving, survival-of-the-fittest kind of world.

This is not a new development.  What may be considered new is the role of community in contemporary evangelism.  Borrowing the common fishing analogy for evangelism, the community becomes the lure, and the goal is to "set the hook" deeply so that coercive relational pressure may be used to draw the person to conviction, conversion and devotion.  On reflection, this may seem a strikingly harsh perspective.  Perhaps it is, but this is the uncomfortable, underlying motif behind numerous church communities I have encountered and it is a recurring theme in many contemporary books and articles on church leadership and evangelism.  Coming from an Evangelical background myself, I think it important that we not neglect open, honest and critical analysis of our methods and motives even when they are uncomfortable to hear.  I believe relationship evangelism is a beautiful thing, but we must be cautious about manipulating relationship for the machinery of "church."

Further complicating the issue is the fact that evangelism in the United States has turned inward.  There are approximately 41,000 different Christian denominations in the United States comprising approximately 350,000 Christian congregations and only 247 million professing Christians.  According to Gallup polls, only 40% of that 247 million regularly attend church (some studies suggest only 20%), meaning that 350,000 churches are competing for roughly 99 million people (evenly distributed, that leaves 282 people per church).  For this reason, the organized church in the U.S. has itself become subject to the rule of survival-of-the-fittest.  Various denominations and groups devote significant amounts of time attempting to "evangelize" each other.  Partially because of this, there is an inordinate amount of emphasis on "church" attendance as a sign of obedience.  Regular attendance and involvement keeps a person invested in a particular organized Christian community.

These two developments, the use of community as an evangelical tool and as a means to preserve local churches, are not inherently bad.  Unfortunately, they have placed a great deal of unnecessary pressure on less socially oriented people to become something they are not in order to be obedient to God.  The words of Hebrews 10:25, "Let us not give up gathering together" (NIV) is a broad phrase and fairly applicable to small groups and partnerships outside an organized local "church."

Though it is never healthy to completely divorce oneself from the larger body of the Church, we must remember that Jesus says, "For where two or three have gathered together in My name, I am there in their midst." (Mat 18:20 NAU).  The word "gathering" in Hebrews 10:25 (noun: episunagógé - gathering) and Matthew 18:20 (verb: sunagó - to gather) are drawn from the same root, so it is safe to acknowledge that a gathering of two or three is no less a church than an organized congregation.  Even those of us who are loners need someone.  It isn't good for us to be completely alone (Gen 2:18).

Questions:

1.  Do you think the description of the use of community as a "tool" within church culture is accurate?  In what specific ways might it be unfair?

2.  How has the emphasis on attendance by organized church communities affected you?  If you are a "desert child" (someone who struggles with church culture and lives faith at the periphery of "church" culture), why is church attendance difficult for you?  What kind of small group could you participate in?  How could you stay connected in some way with the global/local church?

3.  Given that scripture doesn't specify a number of people or a required amount of time between "gatherings" (the early church typically gathered weekly, but our passage does not mandate a specific regularity) how would you describe your ideal Christian community?

4.  In upcoming posts, we will discuss the Desert Fathers of the 4th century (the primary example for this blog).  They lived solitary lives as hermits but still "gathered together semi-regularly and stayed (very loosely) connected to the Church.  Does this kind of faith seem like it would be accepted by the contemporary evangelical church?  Why/why not?

Kneeling With Giants - Part 1: St Benedict

I've recently begun working my way through the book Kneeling with Giants by Gary Neal Hansen.  The book takes a look at prayer from the perspective of a selection of spiritual giants throughout history.  Included among these you will encounter St. Benedict, Martin Luther, St. Theresa of Avila, Ignatius of Loyola and others.

Having studied under Dr. Hansen during my brief time at University of Dubuque, I was always greatly impressed with his excellence as a teacher and his integrity as a scholar.  He was always faithful to present a rounded perspective of historical events, movements and individuals.  In his book, Hansen brings this approach to bear as he examines the various traditions of prayer, suggesting ways to approach each tradition in one's own personal prayer life.

St. Benedict(c. 480-547)

The first chapter of Kneeling with Giants is devoted to St. Benedict (Benedict of Nursia).  Benedict (c. 480-547) was a monk who founded several monastic communities in Southern Italy, including Monte Cassino.  He is most known for his "Rule of St. Benedict," a written rule and guide for monastic communities.  This rule was perhaps the most influential rule throughout the Middle Ages and is still followed - with modification - by some Western monastic communities today.

Hansen highlights Benedict's own emphasis on the "Divine Office" of prayer.  Benedict called prayer the "Work of God," emphasizing it as the fundamental element of the Christian life.¹  He divided the day into eight canonical hours, suggesting  "at Lauds, Prime, Tierce, Sext, None, Vespers, and Complin; and let us rise at night to praise Him."²  This last hour of night came to be known as "Vigils," "Matins," "Nocturns" or simply the "Night Office."

Thomas Cranmer (1489-1556)

One can quickly see that Benedict's division would be, shall we say, "incompatible" with individuals living outside the monastery.  Recognizing this, Hansen suggests the abbreviated form of the divine office developed by Thomas Cranmer in the Anglican/Episcopal Book of Common Prayer.  Cranmer consolidated the traditional seven canonical hours into two:  Morning and Evening Prayer.

The BCP (Book of Common Prayer) details a series of liturgical readings, prayers, scripture for each of the offices.  It is a beautiful approach to prayer and provides a "language" for a universal community of believers praying together in unison.  The goal is to center the structure of the day around the "work of God" rather than the work of daily life.

However, it is not particularly user friendly.  Hansen attempts some instruction, but I had to approach a local Episcopal priest for a "tutorial" on how to use the office.  Following are some useful resources for those who would like to pursue the office in their daily devotional life:

1.  Download the entire 1979 Book of Common Prayer (US Episcopal Version) in PDF.  Localized versions of the BCP available here.

2.  The Pocket Common Worship & Prayer app is great and freely available through the android market.

3.  The whole daily prayer service (Morning and Evening) for each day can be found at missionstclare.com.

4.  Just the daily office lectionary readings are available here.

5.  Benedict's Rule is also freely available for reading online at the Christian Classics Ethereal Library, as well as being available for download in various formats.

I very highly recommend it for those who are disciplined in or are seeking discipline in their prayer lives.  For many who have become disillusioned with organizational "church," it provides a healthy means of connection with the universal church.

I must confess that my own experience - being an exceptionally erratic individual - has been less than stellar due to my own inadequacies.  After two weeks, I have yet to establish a consistent time to pray.  The closest I have come to any success is with "Compline" (night/bedtime prayer time) and I would suggest the Evening prayer as the place to start for beginners.  And don't try to read everything.  Start by reading the opening prayer and one or more of the scripture readings, then build on this as time permits.

1.  Benedict, St.  The Holy Rule of St. Benedict, Chapter XVI.
2.   Benedict, St.  The Holy Rule of St. Benedict, Chapter XVI.

Church, church, "church" - Part 1 - Definitions

There are many loaded words within the Christian vocabulary.  One of the most burdened of these is:  church.  It's meaning shifts willy-nilly with the context of the discussion and the background of the individual.  I've observed more arguments among Christians over this single word than perhaps any other word in the English language.  Most of these arguments involve conflict among three primary definitions of the church.  For the sake of simplicity, let's call them:  Church, church and "church."

1.  Church:  The sum total of all Christ followers throughout space and time.  That concept of a great "cloud of witnesses" referred to in Hebrews 12:1.  It is important to note that this includes "God-followers" - those who followed God before Christ was known.

2.  church:  An individual gatherings of believers.  

3.  "church":   Church culture.  The shared language, beliefs and behaviors of a particular group of Christians.

Those of us at the fringes of organized Christianity often find ourselves there because of bad experiences or fundamental disagreement with the entity commonly referred to as church.  But which is the right definition?  Which of these do we really have the problem with?  Is it possible that there is still a place for us?

So what is the church?  Probably anyone who has ever cracked a study bible will know that the Greek word for church in the New Testament is "ekklesia."  The word means simply "gathering" or "assembly."  It is built from the Greek preposition "ek" [out] and the verb "kaleo" [to call].  Some readers have found in the etymology of this word ("called out ones") a demand for a kind of fundamentalist separatism based on 2 Cor 6:17 in which Paul cites Isaiah 52:11 - "Come out from their midst and be separate."  However, while one can certainly read this into scripture, it's hard to legitimately get such a reading out of it.  Louw-Nida's Greek lexicon observes, "this type of etymologizing is not warranted either by the meaning of [ekklesia] in NT times or even by its earlier usage."  Even without considering the isolation and exclusivity this definition has caused, it appears that it simply isn't justified.

Now, we generally identify an "assembly" of people by the reason they come together.  In Greek culture, the ekklesia was a governmental assembly tracing back to the democratic voting body of Athens in the 5th century BCE.  However, the Jewish culture of Jesus' day would have understood ekklesia as it is used in the Septuagint (the Greek translation of the Old Testament) - the religious assembly of the people of God.  Governmental overtones may well have been present when referring to the corporate body of Israel as well.  Jesus and the first Christians, as Jewish people, would naturally have adopted this latter usage for their own gatherings, both formal and informal.  This is exactly what we find in the NT.  So it seems we can fairly refine our root definition of the Christian church/ekklesia as a gathering of those devoted to Jesus as Christ [messiah].  Across the varying uses of the word in the NT, this is the root meaning.  When in doubt - when there is no obvious clarification - this is the primary emphasis to which we must fall back.

Questions:

1.  Which of the above definitions of church do you struggle with?  Which do you agree with?

2.  Does the information we've surveyed support one of the above definitions better than the rest?

3.  How does the idea of a "Universal church" fit into what we have looked at?

Reflections on Advent

Even from the beginning we see how strange and unexpected is the God who reveals himself through Jesus.  According the book of Matthew (2:1), among the first people whom God lets in on his little "messianic secret" are the outsiders.  Magi.

These were not the "chosen people."  They were forbidden from being part of the people of Israel.  We are told little about them, but the passage explains that they knew of the Messiah because they saw it in the star(s). They were astrologers ¹.  In Deuteronomy 18:10 we read:

10 "There shall not be found among you anyone who makes his son or his daughter pass through the fire, one who uses divination, one who practices witchcraft, or one who interprets omens, or a sorcerer, (Deu 18:10 NAU)

Deuteronomy 18:12 calls them "abomination."  Detestable.  They were men accursed by the established Jewish religion and scriptures as sorcerers.  In short, they were fringe people.  They were exiled from the religious culture of Jewish monotheism.  Yet they recognized and claimed the Son of God.  They worshiped him (Mat 2:11).  God even revealed a message to them (Mat 2:12).  Though confirmed by the scriptures , God revealed his plan through their divinations.

There is incredible wonder in the wideness of the gospel of God in Jesus Christ.  The God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob is also the God of the wanderers, the nomads, the heterodox, the damaged and the despised.  The outsiders.

The "good news" is not a message just for those who fit in.  It is a reminder that God is big.  Bigger than we could ever hope to imagine.  Reminding us that his plans don't fit in our neat plastic-ringed binders, our well-structured organizations or our intricate statements of what He can and cannot do.  It is the power of God to sow his grace and love wherever He sees fit.

It is a message to square pegs and sore thumbs.  "You belong with me.  I am home."


Notes:

1.  Some have been tempted, at this point, to say these men were simply "astronomers."  However, it must be remembered that in the ancient world, astrology and astronomy were often tightly linked.  Priests of religions often studied the stars because of a belief that they were linked with the divine and the "gods" of their religions and then found that they were also able to predict seasons and times by this study.  More specifically, we must remember that these men were called "magos."  The word can mean "magician" or a member of the high priestly cast of the Magian (Zoroastrian) religion.  In the Greek Old Testament (Septuagint), this word is only found in the book of Daniel where it is lumped in with sorcerers, conjurers, enchanters and astrologers.  In the New Testament, it is found outside of Matthew only in the book of Acts with little clue as to its exact meaning beyond its reference to the "false prophet" Bar-Jesus and Elymas (whose name translates as "magician") who opposed Paul.  Virtually all major translations render it as "sorceror" or "magician."

Most significantly, we must recall that Matthew tells us these men were drawn to the Messiah's location by "his star" (Mat 2:2).  The most likely prophetic reference for this is Numbers 24:17, "A star shall come forth from Jacob, A scepter shall rise from Israel" (NAU).  However, these men were looking for signs in the stars and using divination to locate and identify the messiah by their reading of the stars.  The evidence seems overwhelmingly to point to their being astrologers.  But even for those who would resist this, they were Zoroastrian priests practicing a syncretistic mixture of Judaism and Magianism.

Writing in the Sand

Square pegs.  Sore thumbs.  Misfits.  When it comes to the church, some of us just find it hard to fit.  There are as many reasons as there are individuals.  Many have had painful experiences of judgment or even abuse.  Others have been rejected because their understanding on certain issues just don't line up with a particular Christian tradition or viewpoint.  Still others consistently find themselves on the outside because no matter how they try, they simply can't get their heads and hearts around the sometimes mysterious Christian religious culture.

Because of these experiences, some will choose to write off the church entirely.  Believing the institutional church to be the only valid option for Christian community, they will consign themselves to a Christian faith lived in isolation - or worse, abandon their faith altogether.  In so doing, they will miss the joy of growing in faith together with sisters and brothers in Christ.  They will be deprived of the sense of belonging that comes in recognizing that they are not alone; that as members of the historic and universal church, they stand side-by-side with saints and sinners who illustrate the love of God in the heights of Christ-like love and the depths of human depravity.  They will the miss the beauty and grace of Christ's love and redemption as it works its way out of broken lives shared together in relationship.

The Desert Faith Project is intended to be an experiment in community for those who struggle with church culture but who are fascinated with Jesus and who still hold out hope for Christ's church.  However, the reflections, readings and resources on this blog are meant for the encouragement, support and healing for any and all who find themselves outsiders to the church as well as church leaders who seek to bridge the divide.  I hope that for some this experiment would lead to reconciliation with their own church traditions and institutions.  For those who find this impossible, I pray that it will be a word of encouragement and hope in your desert faith.