William Barclay-- Insights: Love (Review)

INSIGHTS:  Love: What the Bible Tells Us about Christian Love.  By William Barclay.  Foreword by John Miller.  Edinburgh:  Saint Andrew Press, 2012,  xii +60 pages.

When I was in college, more than three decades back, studying Bible and Ministry, William Barclay's Daily Bible Study commentary series (now available as New Daily Study Bible: Complete Set, 17 vol. set)  was the go-to resource.  The equivalent today might be N.T. Wright's New Testament For Everyone Set, 18 Volumes.  

One of my Bible Profs used them as a text book, so I got to know them well.  Besides providing valuable exegetical help, they offered spiritual and theological insights that held value for us as individuals and as budding preachers.  

Barclay (1907-1978) was a well-regarded biblical scholar from Scotland who had a knack for speaking with clarity and grace to the general reader.  These commentaries were designed for the popular audience, but they were rooted in Barclay's critical scholarship.  He was Professor of Divinity and Biblical Criticism at Glasgow University, and was considered liberal by some.  I would learn some years later, after reading his autobiography, that he considered himself a universalist.  He was willing to raise deep questions about the text, and yet I never found him off putting, despite the fact that at the time I was relatively conservative in my beliefs.  Perhaps I didn't pay that much attention to where he might diverge from my perceived orthodoxy.  

Barclay has long since departed from this world, and has has been replaced by other scholars, like Wright and Marcus Borg who have found a way of speaking to a broader audience.  Although Barclay isn't as well known today as yesterday, I think he has a few words of wisdom to share with us.  

And that's what he does in this little book of insights on love.  This small book is part of a series of books published by Saint Andrew Press and distributed in the United States by Westminster John Knox Press that pick up specific topics -- in this case love -- and provide readings from Barclay's commentaries on the topic.  In this particular book there are fourteen reflections.  

To give a sense of his style and perspective, consider this paragraph from his reflection on Matthew 5:43-48.  It's the closing paragraph:

It is the whole teaching of the Bible that we attain our humanity only by becoming Godlike.  The one thing which makes us like God is the love which never ceases to care for others, no matter what they do to it.  We fulfill our humanity, we enter upon Christian perfection, when we learn to forgive as God forgives, and to love as God loves. (p. 20)

Or consider this reflection on John 12:1-18, where we read of Mary's anointing of Jesus:

We see love's extravagance   Mary took the most precious thing she possessed and spent it all on Jesus.  Love is not love if it nicely calculates the cost.  It gives its all, and its only regret is that it has not still more to give. (p. 28).

If you're looking for brief, readable, insightful reflections on these issues and seek a word from Scripture that is interpreted with critical care and spiritual devotion, I think this set of books will be worth your examination.   Although the publisher sent me copies of each of the above mentioned topics, I've only read the book on Love.  But that was sufficient to remind me of Barclay's wisdom and grace.   

Sam Harris: Moral Clarity or Islamophobia? -- Sightings (Daniel J. Schultz)

Several years ago I reviewed Sam Harris' A Letter to a Christian Nation for Disciples World.. Unfortunately that journal no longer exists, and thus the review is not extant online. In any case, my concern with Harris and other New Atheists is that in their zeal to protect rationalism, they venture far into arrogance. In the case of Christianity they presume to decide who is the real Christian (fundamentalists) so that they can create a straw man to attack. More recently Harris has taken aim at Islam, which he perceives to be barbaric and irrational, and thus worthy of contempt. In this Sighting's piece Daniel J. Schultz suggests that Harris's views are colored by a Western neo-colonialist attitude.  I'm inclined to agree with the assessment, but want to invite your thoughts.

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Sightings

Sightings Sam Harris: Moral Clarity or Islamophobia? by Daniel J. Schultz Thursday |  May 16 2013 Last month a contentious exchange broke out between Guardian columnist Glenn Greenwald and one of the torchbearers of the so-called New Atheist movement—Sam Harris. The quarrel began when Greenwald tweeted a link to an Al Jazeera article by Murtaza Hussain. The article argued that some of the New Atheists (Harris, Richard Dawkins, and the late Christopher Hitchens) endorse, under the guise of rational scientific discourse, forms (often venomous) of anti-Muslim rhetoric. Particularly problematic for Greenwald was Harris’ assertion—cited by Hussain—that “[the] people who speak most sensibly about the threat that Islam poses to Europe are actually fascists.” Harris then wrote to Greenwald, protesting Hussain’s “quote-mining,” criticizing the Al Jazeera article as “defamatory garbage,” and expressing frustration with Greenwald for promoting the piece. However, reading Harris’ quote in context does little to call into question the conclusion reached by Hussain. Indeed, Harris confirmed Hussain’s conclusion when he explained to Greenwald that it was his (Harris) intention to “bemoan the loss of liberal moral clarity in the war on terror.” It is a curious line of reasoning that allows Harris to espouse positive views about fascist speech and about the “moral clarity” of the Christian Right (a group included in the context provided by Harris) without assuming any of the liabilities of these positions.  He endorses the “sensibleness” of their speech, neither as fascist speech nor as the speech of the Christian Right, but rather as the displaced speech of an authentic liberalism. Harris thus identifies his position with fascists and religious fundamentalists through his presumed ability to sanction their views without himself being identified with their practices. This is the reason Harris takes such offense at the accusation that he is a racist or an Islamophobe. He is, as he states, “not making common cause with fascists,” but rather recovering the reasoned liberal position of defending “civil society” – a task, he claims, that in recent years has “been outsourced to extremists.” Thus for Harris, the inability or unwillingness of secular, multicultural liberalism to press a vigorous critique of Islam is a symptom of its failure. With respect to Islam, liberals, according to Harris, ought to be ones “pointing the way beyond this iron-age madness,” but they have failed by virtue of their multicultural tolerance. One of the critiques, advanced by Hussain against New Atheists like Harris, concerns the way in which their rational thinking is not as free from history as it presumes; on the contrary, it often exhibits the tendency to rehearse oppressive (at times racialized) features of colonial thought. Harris’ phrase “this iron age madness” functions as a clear example of the way in which he codes ‘non-Western’ as traditional, backward, and repressive, allowing the West to represent itself as modern, forward thinking, and free. This form of reasoning confuses its descriptions with its presuppositions, using the former to covertly ground the latter. In a notable example of such confused reasoning, Harris asserted, in a Huffington Postpiece quoted by Hussain, that “the outrage that Muslims feel over US and British foreign policy is primarily the product of theological concerns.” Here we see Harris’ assumptions: 1) theological concerns cannot provide a basis for reasonable claims; 2) theological concerns are symptoms of a mistaken (traditional, backward, culturally determined) understandings of oneself and the world; 3) non-theological (atheistic) concerns as the only kinds of concerns capable of grounding an accurate view of oneself and the world. Harris’ assumptions mask the vast differences internal to modes of religious thought (an oxymoron for Harris) and religious life. It also obscures the fact that there might, in fact, be non-theological reasons for Muslims to feel outraged over US and British foreign policy. Harris’ new form of atheism sounds very much like an old form of colonialism. This is seen most clearly at those moments when Harris shows us the ethical character of his thinking. He writes, in the e-mail response to Greenwald, “one of my main concerns is for all the suffering women, homosexuals, freethinkers, and intellectuals in indigenous Muslim societies.” Appealing to the discourse of Western moral superiority, Harris invokes their plight as a way to justify belligerent attitudes against Islam. His reasoning predicates the West as the source of salvation and precludes the possibility of thinking meaningful social transformation outside the framework of an atheistic liberalism. References: Greenwald, Glenn. “Sam Harris, the New-Atheists, and anti-Muslim animus.” The Guardian. April 3, 2013. Greenwald, Glenn. “E-mail with Sam Harris.” Accessed April 3, 2013. Harris, Sam. “Response to Controversy.” Samharris.org. April 7, 2013. Harris, Sam. “Bombing Our Illusions,” The Huffington Post. October 10, 2005. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sam-harris/bombing-our-illusions_b_8615.html Hussain, Mutaza. “Scientific Racism, militarism, and the new-atheists,” Al Jazeera. April 2, 2013. Lean, Nathan. “Dawkins, Harris, Hitchens: New Atheists flirt with Islamophobia.”Salon. March 30, 2013.   Author, Daniel J. Schultz, is a Ph.D. candidate in Philosophy of Religions at the University of Chicago Divinity School. He is currently writing a dissertation on Foucault’s concept of pastoral power in relation to the visual transmission of theological discourse in Franciscan iconography. Editor, Myriam Renaud, is a Ph.D. Candidate in Theology at the University of Chicago Divinity School. She is a 2012-13 Junior Fellow in the Martin Marty Center. QUESTIONS or COMMENTS? Email DivSightings@gmail.com

Faith in the Public Square -- An Interview

My book Faith in the Public Square (Energion Publications, 2012) has now been out for a little more than a year. In it I set out to start a conversation about the relationship between Faith and Public Life. The book is comprised of fifty plus essays that originally appeared as Sunday Op-Ed pieces in the Lompoc Record.

Earlier this year John Shuck, a Presbyterian Pastor from Elizabethton, Tennessee, interviewed me for a radio show he hosts for the local NPR station called Religion for Life. The interview is now available as a podcast. I would like to share it with you. Hopefully John's questions and my answers will encourage an important conversation around these two important parts of human life.-- and perhaps even entice you to buy a copy of the book!

I think you'll enjoy the conversation (about 29 minutes).  So, let's talk!

Welcome to the Family -- A Lectionary Reflection for Pentecost Sunday

Acts 2:1-21

Romans 8:14-17

John 14:8-17

Welcome to the Family

            It’s Pentecost Sunday, which in many ways is a “get to work” day.  Having been told on the day of Ascension, that they should wait until the coming of the  Spirit before venturing out into the world, filled with the Holy Spirit, and bear witness to the person and message of Jesus (Acts 1:8), with Pentecost that day has come.  The commission has been given, the Spirit provided, so it’s time to get to work. 

When we gather to worship on Pentecost Sunday it’s important to remember that Pentecost wasn’t a one-time affair, which we commemorate each year with special songs and clothing with some shade of red to it.  As David Lose helpfully reminds us at the Working Preacher, the Book of Acts recounts multiple Pentecosts.   Consider just the stories the Samaritan mission and the visit to Cornelius.  But these are only a few of the expressions of the outpouring of the Spirit upon the church.  It is a reminder that the church is more than an institution or a building.  Rather, the church is a Spirit-empowered missional community that welcomes the stranger into the family of God.  What begins that day continues on through history, for the Spirit remains hard at work in our midst. 

            The Pentecostal blessing carries with it the message of inclusion.  Families can be exclusive/tribal in nature, but the family born on Pentecost is welcoming and inclusive.   In large part that’s due to the fact that we’re all adopted sons and daughters.  Jesus alone among the children of God is not adopted.  But, as the true heir of the father, he shares the blessings of God with us as our elder brother in the family of God.  Thus, our identity is formed by our status as our relationship to Christ, with whom we are joint heirs.  And as Acts 2 reminds us, this family into which we’ve been adopted is quite diverse in ethnicity and language, gender and age.  If we embrace this adoption, then we receive as our companion and guide the Spirit of God, who is sent by Jesus to travel with us on the journey of faith. 

            Being Pentecostal in background (one of my many religious expressions), I have great appreciation for the Acts 2 story.  A community that is still hiding behind closed doors is born anew of the Spirit, which falls on the community as the city of Jerusalem celebrates the feast of Pentecost.  It’s a festival that celebrates the harvest that the Spirit takes in that day as the community is empowered to speak the message of Jesus in ways that transcend differences and invites whoever would come to join with the community through baptism.  It’s been observed by many that Pentecost seems to overturn Babel.  The separation of peoples according to language and dialect disempowers, but in the Spirit, through the gift of languages, the separation of people ends and the diversity of the human community is drawn together by God.  In baptism, this diverse non-monochromatic, non-monolinguistic community is drawn together as the family of God.  Many are surprised then and now that the family of God could be so diverse.  How can this be?  Peter answers by pointing to the promise of the Spirit, which is poured out upon young and old, male and female, so that they might see visions and dream dreams.  Then everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved – and of course that word has its own nuances that need to be unpacked.

            Acts 2 doesn’t speak directly to the idea of family, but in Romans 8 Paul makes explicit the notion of a familial relationship into which we’ve been invited.  Everyone who is led by the Spirit of God is a son or daughter of God.  This is an important statement for Paul, because he wants to contrast our identity as a child of God with our former status as slaves.  “You didn’t receive a spirit of slavery to leads you back again to fear,” Paul writes.  This is an important world for our day because so many people, even in Middle America, live in fear.  We buy guns, huddle behind walls, seek passage of laws that will exclude the stranger – whether the immigrant, the person with disabilities, or persons with mental illness. 

Are you in bondage to fear?  Such was our former state, according to Paul.  But there is another possibility.  We have received a different Spirit, a Spirit that enables our adoption as God’s children.  And as God’s children we can cry out to God:  “Abba, Father.”  When we do this, God’s Spirit is bearing witness to our spirit that we are now God’s children, and as children of God we are also heirs of God – together with Jesus, our elder brother.  As Amos Yong puts it, 

“the Spirit who is the love of the Father for the Son is now the Spirit that is the love of the Father for all who are in the Son.  Put another way, the Father who loves the Son in the Spirit now also loves all those who are in the Son by the same Spirit.  Thus are the gift of Christ and the gift of the Spirit two sides of the one coin of divine love, the former reflecting and the latter expressing God’s salvific passion for the world” [Yong, Spirit of Love: A Trinitarian Theology of Grace, p. 126].  

We need not fear, for we are children of God.  And as children we receive the blessings of God’s love; for even as a parent loves a child, so God loves the children of God. 

            Even though we go through suffering, we do so with Jesus.  What he experiences, we experience.  So, even as we suffer with Jesus, and he with us, so we share with him the glory he receives from God.  Our own experiences of suffering and pain are expressions of our finiteness.  But, as Karl Barth puts it:

 “In the Spirit, we are enabled to know the meaning of our life, as it is manifested in suffering.  In the Spirit, suffering, endured and apprehended, can become our advance to the glory of God.  This revelation of the secret, this apprehension of God in suffering, is God’s action in us.  Such comprehension is the witness of the Spirit by which the truth is permitted to be the Truth, and is also the guarantee that we are children of God, and, as such, heirs of His glory” [Barth, The Epistle to the Romans, p. 301].  

We may not have all the answers to why there is suffering in the world, but surely God is not the cause.  Therefore, as we go through suffering, we can draw close to the one who has adopted us as children, and find both freedom and courage to go forward in life.

            The third witness to the action of the Spirit in our midst comes from the Gospel of John.  Philip wants to see the Father.  Jesus responds by telling him that because they have seen him, they have seen the father.  Jesus is, according to John’s testimony, the revelation of God.  While we don’t have an explicit word about being welcomed into the family here, Jesus reveals the presence of the Father – and promises a companion who will be present within them and go with them --  surely this makes one part of God’s family.  One of the messages of Pentecost is that the people of God are empowered by the Spirit to do the words of God.  We don’t “do” to impress God.  We “do” because God is present with us.  The focus isn’t on works, but on letting the Spirit be free to work through us in the world.  And the promise here is that those who are indwelt by the Spirit will do greater works than those done by Jesus.  What these are and how they should be experienced isn’t revealed.  It’s just a promise, but do we not trust the promise of the one who sends the Companion, the Paraclete, who is the Spirit of Truth, who lives within us and is with us.    There is much work to be done in the world.  There is that spirit of fear that is loose in our world.  Injustice is rampant.  Violence, assault, exclusion – the Spirit is ready to guide us into the world to address these great needs.  Love can be the antidote to the fear that seeks to reign.  The promise is there of the Companion, but there is also a request – to pray.  I struggle with my own prayers, but Jesus reminds us that the power of the Spirit comes to us through the ministry of intercession:  “When you ask me for anything in my name, I will do it” (vs. 14 CEB).  John McClure writes that “the community’s ‘greater works’ of love begin in intercession – in becoming a community of people who go between the world and God through prayer.”  He continues:  “We are intercessory people – a community of go-betweens, fellow-advocates with the Holy Spirit, bringing the suffering of the world to God, and bringing God’s healing balm to the world” [Preaching God's Transforming Justice: A Lectionary Commentary, Year C, p. 252].

            Welcome to the family of God, filled with and empowered by the Spirit, we are adopted children of God, filled with the love of God, and therefore sent out into the world doing the works of God, serving as intercessors, go-betweens, with God and world, bringing to the world the saving grace of God.  

Spotlight on the Religious Left -- Sightings (Martin E. Marty)

We often hear about the Religious Right in the media.  There are a number of reasons for this, but what about the Religious Left?  Do they exist?  What are they up to?  They (we) do exist, but why don't we make the headlines?  These are some of the questions raised and pondered by Martin Marty in this week's Sightings column.  Perhaps, as Professor Marty suggests, social justice and equality just isn't as sexy as sex (abortion and gay marriage).  Take a read, offer your thoughts.

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Sightings

Sightings Spotlight on the Religious Left by Martin E. Marty Monday |  May 13 2013 Almost always Sightings takes off from the sighting of a particular recent news event. This week, for fun and games, we’ll make an exception and address a generic theme: the religious left. Several weeks ago we commented on Jim Wallis, the leader of Sojourners (a progressive, Christian social justice organization), who is often cited as being a long-time advocate of causes marked “Left.” He sees himself as a bridge-builder across religious camps separated by the divides and poles that disrupt discourse and creative action in “secular” and “sacred” America. Among responses to that Sojourners column, some asked whySightings did not more frequently treat the Left, the subject of so much criticism by the easily-identified Right. Some internet word-checking suggests that through the years we have pointed to and analyzed the Right four times for every three notices of the Left. In the public media, the Right, the Religious Right, and the Christian Right draw far more attention than does the Left. Why? First, because the Religious Right is more noticeable than the Religious Left. The Westboro Baptist Church, that independent Baptist church in Topeka, Kansas, whose tiny but noisy membership disrupts military funerals, knows how to snag media coverage, as more liberal or moderate causes and movements do not. A second reason given by noticers of these things is that the Religious Right is far more extravagantly funded, and has the means to generate publicity. Third, the Right's membership is more mobilizable than its counterparts in moderate and liberal camps. And so on, and so on. The sounds of advocacy for many causes by the Left have been drowned out because “sex” has grabbed attention. Gay marriage these years, atop old arguments over homosexuality is—shall we say?—a sexier topic than debates over justice, equality, care of others, and the like. We trust you’ve noticed that. What do people tabbed as being on the Religious Left talk about? For a change I’ve attached a couple of references. I could also have pointed to Tikkun, a leftist-progressive Jewish magazine, and to other Jewish approaches to justice, or to the rich library of Roman Catholic documents promoting “social justice”—the term the Right despises—while only Catholic teaching on sex-and-“life” issues gets public attention. Protestants for the Common Good, “People of faith advancing justice in public life,” is a well-established organization that reveals that not all Protestant/Evangelical concern is on the Right. Larry Greenfield, old colleague and friend, regularly posts a “thinking theologically” column on Protestants for the Common Good’s website, for which readers can sign up to stay informed on all this. In his May 8, 2013, post, appended in Sightings today, Greenfield opens with a sardonic “Whoopee!” after the news, “Dow Breaks 15,000.” Good for his personal retirement account, he says, but he still reminds his readers of urgent issues, even as he holds up the mirror to “us Christians.” He asks, are we yet “a part of that cadre of advocates demanding that the nation recover its devotion not just to freedom but also to equality as an essential part of our national unity?” “We,” with retirement accounts, can celebrate this week, Greenfield writes. But what about others? The 100,000 homeless people who are being removed from emergency shelters because of “sequestration?” The elderly who won’t get hot meals any more? The children in poverty who will experience the loss of $2.7 billion in programs like Head Start? He points to many other victims of bad policies in our prosperous land. Read Greenfield and his kind. If I say more, I may get typed as being on the Religious Left: A polarized polarizer. References: Antoniades, Andri. “Liberals in our Midst: How the Religious Left Is Changing America’s Future.” TakePart.com. December 10, 2012. http://www.takepart.com/article/2012/12/10/lefties-our-midst-how-religious-left-are-changing-our-futures. FitzGerald, Garrett. “Language of the Left: Liberal, Progressive, and Radical.”TheReligiousLeft.org. March 11, 2013. http://www.thereligiousleft.org/2013/03/language-of-left-liberal-progressive.html. Greenfield, Larry. “Subjunctive Unity.” TheCommonGood.org. May 8, 2013. http://ww.thecommongood.org/blogs/author/lgreenfield/. Author, Martin E. Marty, is the Fairfax M. Cone Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus of the History of Modern Christianity at the University of Chicago Divinity School. His biography, publications, and contact information can be found at www.memarty.com. Editor, Myriam Renaud, is a Ph.D. Candidate in Theology at the University of Chicago Divinity School. She is a 2012-13 Junior Fellow in the Martin Marty Center. QUESTIONS or COMMENTS? Email DivSightings@gmail.com http://divinity.uchicago.edu/martycenter/publications/sightings/

Straining at the Oars -- Review

STRAINING AT THE OARS: Case Studies in Pastoral Leadership.  By H. Dana Fearon III with Gordon S. Mikoski.  Grand Rapids:  Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2013.  Xx +118 pages.

                It is a regular complaint heard among clergy – “I didn’t learn how to do this (or that) in seminary.”  The transition from seminary to ministry can be overwhelming for many.  Internships and CPE are designed to help ease the transition, but even they don’t always prepare you for the realities of parish ministry.  One wonders whether the complaints are justified.  Is seminary purely vocational training, or is it designed to provide the necessary theological and biblical foundations that one needs to serve effectively?  Perhaps one must make the transition into ministry before one is ready to wrestle with the big questions posed by pastoral ministry.  That is, like other professions, there will remain a strong need for ongoing continuing education that can help one develop skills needed for the long term.   

                One way to do this work is to gather regularly with colleagues and discuss case studies.  The case study method has been used in a variety of professions to assist in continuing education.  You take a particular story or scenario, read it, think about it, and then discuss it with peers, seeking a solution to a problem.  The Academy of Parish Clergy, an organization born at the end of the 1960s, at a time when pastoral ministry was seeking greater professional respectability, has long utilized this method for their colleague groups.   

                H. Dana Fearon III, a retired Presbyterian pastor who guest lectured at Princeton Theological Seminary during his long tenure as pastor of the Presbyterian Church of Lawrenceville, New Jersey, recognized this need and together with Gordon S. Mikoski, Associate Professor of Christian Education at Princeton, he offers us this collection of case studies drawn from his own ministry.  The title of the book, Straining at the Oars serves as a useful metaphor for the work done by clergy in parish ministry.  He writes that “like the disciples as they rowed through the storm, we encounter obstacles for which we are unprepared, sometimes leading us to a sense of despair.  Time and again, however, Jesus makes his presence  known, joins us in the struggle, challenges the wind and waves, renews our courage, and helps us reach the far shore” (p. xv).    

                The book lays out twenty-one cases or scenarios ranging from decision-making in the congregation to engagement in the public square.   In each chapter the authors lay out a dilemma or challenge and then provide reflections that assist the reader/discussion group to grapple with the situation and come up with a solution.  Fearon offers his own resolutions to the issue – that is – “pastoral actions” – but they’re meant to be suggestive not prescriptive.  There is, for instance, a strong Presbyterian orientation to the actions suggested – the authors are, after all, Presbyterian.  Therefore, one may need to translate this for one’s own situation.

                To give but one example – one of the chapters deals with the value of wearing the collar.  In many traditions, especially Roman Catholic, Orthodox, Episcopal, and Lutheran, the clerical collar is standard dress.  For others, including my own tradition, which has an anti-clerical dimension, collars are uncommon.  I’ve noticed an increasing number of colleagues wearing them, especially when engaged in ecumenical and public events, but for most of us this is rather foreign (I’ve never worn one), so I might need to think about other ways of being present in public as clergy.  Another example would relate to the question of whether one baptizes a baby in duress for persons who aren’t church members.  As I'm part of a tradition that practices believer’s baptism this normally wouldn’t come up, but then again it does come up. 

                On the other hand, the majority of chapters deal with questions every pastor or clergyperson faces – from prayer to taking congregations on a pathway of change to the question of having friends in the congregation.  This latter question was recently raised in the Christian Century, providing for a rather fierce debate.  Fearon suggests one must distinguish between friends and cronies.  One is likely to develop friendships with members – it’s only natural – but one must beware of allowing members to become cronies – that is people who gain power by their relationship to the pastor, or who provide power to the pastor.  The key here is recognizing where the necessary boundaries lie and respecting confidences.  One should be friendly to all, but recognize that one will likely draw closer to some members.  One of the suggested solutions is that one should recognize that “friends know there are challenges in being a pastor, and they do not ask for inside information since they want to support a friend and not make life more difficult” (p. 36). 

                Each chapter ends with three questions for reflection and discussion.  These questions are designed to push the reader to more fully engage with the question.  They are the beginning of the conversation, not its ending.  But those of us who are clergy, whether just entering the field or having been in the field for some time (I’ve been ordained nearly thirty years and have served as a parish pastor for the past fifteen), these case studies should provide a valuable resource.  If nothing else, this book is a reminder to those of us in ministry that we must continually upgrade our knowledge and skills – in large part because seminary isn’t designed to provide everything we need for effective ministry. 

                The book is short in length, with chapters that are equally brief.  They’re not intended to be exhaustive, but rather suggestive of challenges and solutions.  Seminary professors in the area of practical ministry will find this useful, as will those who are leading internship practicums.   I think that this is a good resource for clergy just entering ministry to gather with other colleagues in a similar situation to discuss the challenges they’re about to face.  And as I said, those of us who have been on the road for the while will benefit from our conversations instigated by these authors.    Since I’m mentioning this need, I can offer a plug for the Academy of Parish Clergy, which encourages clergy to gather for such conversations.  My sense is that this book will be of greatest benefit if it’s read and discussed in such a group of colleagues, that we might learn from each other.  Besides, if we're going to get to the other side in the company of Jesus we need to row together!

Let them be One -- As We are One (Reflection for Seventh Sunday of Easter)

²⁰ “I’m not praying only for them but also for those who believe in me because of their word. ²¹ I pray they will be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. I pray that they also will be in us, so that the world will believe that you sent me. ²² I’ve given them the glory that you gave me so that they can be one just as we are one. ²³ I’m in them and you are in me so that they will be made perfectly one. Then the world will know that you sent me and that you have loved them just as you loved me. 

²⁴ “Father, I want those you gave me to be with me where I am. Then they can see my glory, which you gave me because you loved me before the creation of the world. 

²⁵ “Righteous Father, even the world didn’t know you, but I’ve known you, and these believers know that you sent me. ²⁶ I’ve made your name known to them and will continue to make it known so that your love for me will be in them, and I myself will be in them.”  (John 17:20-26 Common English Bible)

I'm not preaching today (I'm on vacation), but I do want to share a passage of scripture for the day.  It's Mother's Day, which isn't a religious event, but mothers are worthy of honor -- we've all had one.  But it's also the Seventh Sunday of Easter (and for many it's Ascension Sunday).  The gospel reading for today comes from the Gospel of John.  Jesus has finished supper with the disciples.  He's washed their feet.  He's given them final instructions.  Now he prays (John 17:1 reads: "When Jesus finished saying these things, he looked up to heaven and said, 'Father, the time has come. Glorify your Son, so that the Son can glorify you'.").

In the text for the day, Jesus prays that those who are his disciples and those who believe as a result of their testimony would be one -- just as Jesus and the Father are one."  For those of us who have a passion for unity among Christians this has been a key passage of Scripture.   In this prayer Jesus speaks of unity being the foundation of the witness of the disciples -- let them be one so that the world might believe.  

The Christian community has always struggled with this prayer -- not that we don't agree with it, we just struggle with its implementation.  We know from our readings of the Johannine literature that writer of this gospel was concerned about the threat of disunity.  Paul shares his concerns.  One writer after another down through the ages has complained of our lack of unity.  But how do we attain to this unity that Jesus prayed for?  Constantine and Theodosius sought to give state backing to efforts to reign in disunity (for political reasons).  The Roman Church has always held up the Pope as the symbol of the unity that Jesus prayed for.  Agreement with the Pope, who represents Christ on earth, is supposed to unify the church (though the extent to which this is true you be the judge).  After the Reformation in England Parliament passed the Act of Uniformity, first in 1549 and then again in 1552 (Edward VI), again in 1559 at at the behest of Queen Elizabeth I , and then once more in 1662 at the Restoration of the Stuart rule.  These Parliamentary Acts decreed that all licit worship should be guided by the Book of Common Prayer (in its various forms).  None of these efforts, despite the threat of coercion, have led to unity.

If this unity that Jesus prays for is to be secured, and I for one pray for it, it won't come with coercion.  It won't be expressed through uniformity.  Instead, it will come as we learn to love one another, recognizing in each other of the presence of this same Christ who offers the prayer.  That which binds us is the love of God in Christ.

Let us be one in Christ that we might be one with the Father, so that we might make this witness known.