Category: Christian spirituality

Tale of a Wanderer

On By robertalanrifeIn celtic spirituality, Christian spirituality, Christianity, faith, life together, liturgy, music, sacramental living, spiritual formation, the arts, worship1 Comment

What follows is the manuscript of a talk I delivered at Linfield College, McMinnville, Oregon at their Thanksgiving service in 2003.

Brendan set out with fourteen companions, travelling westward. The wind carried them to the port of Arran. Brendan said farewell to Enda and the other saints of Arran and left a blessing with them. Then they sailed due west across the ocean. It was summer, and they had a favourable brisk wind behind them, so they did not have to row. After they had spent ten days in this way, the wind lowered its loud voice and whistling. With its force spent, they were compelled to take up the oars. Brendan spoke to them, saying: “Do not be afraid, for we have our God as our guide and helper. Put up your oars, and do not toil anymore; God will guide this boat and company as God pleases.”

One day when Brendan and his company were traversing the sea, they finally happened upon the little country they had been seeking for seven years; that is, the Land of Promise. As it says in the proverb, “He who seeks, finds.” When they approached the land and were entering its harbour, they heard the voice of a certain elder speaking to them: “O holy pilgrims, tired men who have searched for this country for so long, remain where you are a little while and rest from your labours.” When they had done so, the elder said, “Dear brothers in Christ, do you not see that this is glorious and lovely land on which human blood has never been shed? Leave everything that you have in your boat, except the few clothes you are wearing, and come on shore.” When they had landed, each of them kissed the others, and the elder wept tears of great joy. “Search and see the borders and regions of Paradise where you will find health without sickness, pleasure without contention, union without quarrel, feasting without diminution, meadows filled with the sweet scent of fair flowers, and the attendance of angels all around. Happy indeed is he whom Brendan, son of Findlug, shall summon here to join him, to inhabit forever and ever the island on which we are now.”

When they saw Paradise in the midst of the ocean waves, they marvelled at the wonders of God and his power.

After this, Brendan and his monks proceeded to their boat and departed from Paradise…It was thus seven years in all that it took them on the two voyages to reach the Land of Promise….At the end of that time they…proceeded to Ireland, where they dropped anchor in the sea near Limerick.

So goes the tale of St. Brendan the Navigator, one of Irish Celtic Christianity’s best known saints. As a post-everything guy (modern, evangelical, liberal, etc.), the spiritual life for me is best captured in story and in the metaphor of journey and it’s more intentional counterpart, pilgrimage.

The “tale of this wanderer” began one snowy October afternoon in 1981. Hung over, exhausted and broke, I embraced Christ (or he embraced me, you figure it out!) driving home from a 2-week stint singing in a pub in Edmonton, Alberta. I was not a reluctant convert to Christianity like C.S. Lewis, who, upon his own conversion to Christianity, “admitted that God was God, and knelt and prayed: perhaps that night, the most dejected and reluctant convert in all England”. No, instead my lifelong fascination with Christ succumbed to the “peace that passes all understanding.” Says C.S. Lewis, “there burst upon me the idea that there might be real marvels all about us, that the visible world might be only a curtain to conceal huge realms uncharted by my very simple theology.”

My first impressions of organized Christianity were as follows: Gee, this music sounds hoaky! There’s such a thing as Christian music? Ooh, time for a haircut! My how these people love to sing! And finally, look how husbands put their arms around their wives.

Time spent in hotel taverns and smoky lounges did 2 things for my soul: it helped to engender a taste for something deeper than the rum and coke that washed down the “Achy Breaky Heart” songs we were expected to play ad nauseam. I remember saying to my music partner, “if I have to sing “Good-Hearted Woman” or “Margaritaville” one more time I will positively gag!” As well, it helped me to see what I didn’t want in terms of interpersonal relationships. As a result, my early foray into the safe and sanitized walls of the local church was strange but welcome.

My first introduction to the world of discipleship was in the socially cautious environs of the Evangelical Free Church. I learned quickly that everything was a “warm-up” to the sermon. True to evangelical form, 40, 50 and sometimes 60 minute sermons kept things moving so as to ensure that all the quota of words required would be wrung out of whatever the topic of the day was. I lapped it all up like a stray cat to a bowl of milk.

There was a certain warmth and charm to those early days. Sunday evening services were where I was able to encounter something I had never encountered before – a rather enigmatic creature called – the Christian girl. Truly remarkable beings these: beautiful, articulate, compassionate, intelligent, beautiful, strong, focused, beautiful…However, as these things go, anyone who has ever been “in the band” knows that it’s the girl who gets blamed for the break-up.

Vanessa was her name and she was an Anglican (that’s Episcopalianism, Canadian style). How could I not be drawn to St. Laurence Anglican Church to discover together with her all that it had to offer? Since Christianity was so new to me, it was bound to make an impression. And again, as a faith-rookie, I was struck by a few uninformed first impressions: this is also Christianity? Wow, sooooo many books to hold. So, where are we anyway? How perfectly unified this all is.

Everything had purpose, nothing was wasted, all was intentional and in order. It was blissfully wonderful. We were not to remain at St. Laurence for long as we were also introduced to a local Pentecostal pastor at a college group event. This introduction led to an investigation of Neighbourhood Church where I would ultimately be baptised. The journey took a sharp jog as this church, typical of many churches in Calgary, split over issues I didn’t even understand at the time. I took a part-time ministry at one half as Pastor of Music and Youth ministries.

Concurrent to this I had been touring with any number of Christian groups sharing music ministry on weekends at churches as different in scope as Hutterite colonies, charismatic Anglican churches, Baptist, Mennonite, and Catholic churches, to the many small conservative country churches which dot the countryside of the Canadian prairies. Amid their differences, the curious commonalities shared by all of them are, to this day, a wonder to me.

Deep friendships with Anglicans, Presbyterians, Catholics, Pentecostals and others of faith have helped me to appreciate the many “colours” of God. Although the foundational elements of my Christian faith have not changed, their expression is changing. Thomas Merton once remarked that “at night our vision is reversed from…day. During the day the things that are close to us are clear and visible. But at night, while we stumble about over things that are near us, the stars (invisible during the day) shine in the heavens with a clear and delicate clarity. Faith is like this.”

There is a tendency in much contemporary Christianity to remove the element of journey out of our walk with God. Says Brian MacLaren, “It’s as if we have taken what is for Jesus a starting line and turned it into a finish line. Sounds like another case of modern reductionism-going for the greatest efficiency, the most measurable results, the least common denominator…We need a post-modern consideration of what salvation means, something beyond an individualized and consumerist version.”

As a Christian I’ve always been drawn to the beauty and meaning of ancient ritual and liturgy. But, as an artist and creator, I’ve needed fresh expressions of ancient things. My own spiritual “identity crisis” is part of a larger cultural one. The shapelessness of modern life and the absence of authoritative paradigms is the cause of much thirst among many for the recovery of tradition, of cultural and historical location. This is the attraction of the historic traditions of the church, into whose established, time-proven, objective forms of devotion and worship one may enter and find oneself. And yet, in all this, my own roots remind me that, if evangelicals do anything well, it’s to exegete the Word of God to the culture with ever new methodology.

From each “stop” along the way I’ve gained a little deeper understanding of my Christian faith. And, in my mind, what all of this equates to is a montage of pictures of Christ and the church. I believe that there are many others like myself out there, those who often defy definition but are generally categorized as “post moderns.” Their journeys are circuitous like my own.

I have, for over 22 years now, been on a journey – a journey with Jesus. I’ve often said that my life was just great before encountering Christ. Jesus ruined everything! More darkness than light, more sadness than joy, more questions than answers – this has often characterized my Christian experience. Nevertheless, Jesus continues to captivate me regardless of the skin my Christianity might have. And so, like Saint Brendan, I’m a relentless traveller.

In conclusion, then, our journey, like the stylised adventures of this enigmatic Irish saint, setting out into uncharted waters seeking the riches of God will ensure that the prow of our boat will be ever wet with the spray of the open sea. The nation of Israel, whose relentless wandering through a relatively small territory should have taken a matter of weeks. It extended to 40 mind-numbing years and reminds us that either faith or fear will determine our feet. Like the disciples on the Emmaeus road, whose once expectant eyes were now downcast wrestling through dashed hopes placed in a Messiah they believed would kick Rome’s proverbial butt, we realize that our expectations can often be misplaced and our journey never gets appreciably easier. Indeed the spiritual “life on the road” pictured by Brendan, the nation of Israel and the disciples of Jesus, invites rigour, chaos, uncertainties and indecision. But also reward for, as C.S. Lewis says in the Chronicles of Narnia, “all will find what they truly seek.”

Brendan the Navigator typifies for me this curious, adventurous life bent entirely upon finding all that God has for one’s life regardless of risk or sacrifice or consequence. At worst, it reminds me that my walk with God, although curious, has more often than not been characterized by a confusing trek through “flavour of the month” Christianity.

One could ask at this juncture, what on earth does any of this have to do with Thanksgiving? Well, if a Thanksgiving sermon is what you came for, you indeed came to the right place for above all else, thankful is what I am:

I’m thankful that the banks of the meandering river of Christianity wending its way through my soul have never been out of my sight. I’m thankful that the Body of Christ is more beautiful and complex and mysterious than Western, modernist, consumerism would have us believe. I’m thankful that I’m given, along with all of us, the great invitation to journey with God in Christ. I’m thankful that wherever the journey goes, there exists at each crossroad the “everlasting way” sometimes just beyond our peripheral vision but underpinning all that we are. I’m thankful that, like the disciples on the road to Emmaeus, though our journey be fraught with darkness and fear, the oft hidden Christ walks alongside to illumine the path of the lonely. And, I’m thankful that, in this pilgrimage to newness and life there is always a place to call home. And where does this journey end? When our pilgriming souls come to their eternal goal – love and eternity. May it be so.

Jars of clay – a prayer

On By robertalanrifeIn Christian spirituality, Christianity, faith, life together, sacramental living, spiritual formation, worshipLeave a comment

Lord, you have exalted your name above the heavens.  Your name means grace and peace and wonder to all who speak it in faith and love.  You have chosen to use weak and broken vessels to be your eyes and hands and feet in this world.  It seems, Lord, that you often pass your glory through the ordinary, the fragile, the imperfect.

In this, Lord, we are honored – but humbled.

You ask us to mirror grace, love and faithfulness to the world – the very grace, love and faithfulness eloquently displayed in Jesus Christ.  Through him, you promise to give us all we need to live rich and holy lives in our communities, our families and in this world.

Mysterious God, what a great salvation.

We sinned, you forgave.

We turned away, you gave chase.

We rebelled, you paid for it.

We forgot, you remembered.

We are often faithless, you are ever faithful.

We complain, you are patient!

Lord, do not allow us to make excuses for ourselves, hiding as we do in the limits of our humanness.  Although we are perfectly aware of how inadequate we are to the task, help us to see ourselves as you do, as reconcilers, as peacemakers, as redeemed kingdom builders.  If we are dull, make us shine.  Lord, take these imperfect jars of clay and make them to be holy cups of pure grace, forged in your desires for us.

Make it so.

Image: Steve Lavey

Silence of the Fall

On By robertalanrifeIn Christian spirituality, Christianity, faith, life together, sacramental living, spiritual formation1 Comment

Around this time last year, I took time for spiritual refreshment in Ocean Shores. What follows are a few of my thoughts on that time away…

It is surprising just how many toxins build up in our spirits when we neglect regular periods for silence, solitude and spiritual refreshment. What an affront to our self-referentialism to discover that the world has gotten along famously without our invaluable contributions. Nevertheless, it remains an immensely challenging undertaking to willingly disengage for a few days in order to re-engage the deeper things – God and those archetypal realities of our meager existence.

My house stands in need of significant repair, my wife deserves my attention, my sons need a father and my employer needs me to make the trains run on time. To retreat from our responsibilities requires our brazen intention to be vulnerable before God with no guarantee of visible returns on the investment of time.

Be that as it may, I took three days last week in Ocean Shores to enjoy silence, contemplation, reading, writing and sleep; not necessarily in that order! It’s enlightening how a good, long drive is always like Drano to a clogged soul or foggy mind. I guess that’s why there are so many good road trip stories. Few things are so fast acting in ironing smooth the unsightly spiritual wrinkles that beset us. And, for me, there is absolutely no better time to do so than the fall. Everything feels different in the fall. There is a hesitancy about the passing hours that seems somehow not so…insistent. The world is not so in-your-face cheery and the sunlight’s less gaudy rays lie slanted on blushing trees, caressing the sadder sky in reassuring gestures that although winter is crouched and ready, she too, must pass like autumn before her.

Pursuing silence in the fall has always offered far more treasures for mystics like me. I am reminded of a line from a Chris de Burgh song, “there’s nothing quite like an out of season holiday town in the rain.” Amen to that. Take away the touristy stores full of shiny, campy bobbles attractive only to our covetous need for yet more worthless shit and we’re given permission to exhale.

Our need for silence mirrors Jesus’ similar need. It’s instructive to see the unabashed willingness of Jesus to turn his back on the madding crowd and escape to the hills under cover of night to meet his Father. He understood his own personal rhythms well and could thus obtain maximum benefit from such times of solitude. From there he changed the world. It is just that self-awareness for which I yearn. In such times an unseen door opens that invites us to see what God sees – and what God sees is remarkable…

Thanks to Lois Keffer for the use of your awesome Photoshop pic!

“The Woman at the Mart”- reenvisioning an old story

On By robertalanrifeIn Christian spirituality, Christianity, faith, life together, sacramental living, spiritual formation1 Comment

Today, she wasn’t sitting in her usual place by the window sipping Heineken and waiting for “callers.”  No, today was Wednesday, her day to go “to the burbs” and see how the other half lived.  She liked to shop in those big, fancy grocery stores with all those pretty people who would never frequent her regular haunts.  She had a whiskey voice, painted her make-up on with brush and roller and donned leather and spandex like a uniform – the requirements of her station.  It was rare for anyone to ever talk to her when she went there.  Indeed, it was more common to endure the leering gestures of young ne’er-do-wells under a dare. Or maybe the ‘GAP’ outfitted hard-bodies who only ever looked at her through their peripheral vision long enough to make her feel the sting of their unspoken judgments.

Today, something was different.

His appearance was that of anyone she might have met during any other visit to this bastion of pretension, role-playing, and economic benefit.  He wore no brand names that she could see and, for the most part, was indistinguishable from his rather astonished group of buddies (she counted 12) who pretended to be shopping nearby.  He politely asked her for the time.  She told him she never wore a watch.  Her instinctive reaction was that this guy was merely sizing her up like every other guy she’d ever met.  But something told her to stay and talk with him.  His eyes bespoke a certain gentleness and, contrary to the norm, never left hers.

“Funny, all this food around and so many hungry souls,” he said.

“Yeah, I watch the news.  You’re not one of them ‘bleedin’ heart’ types who gets sucked in by the skinny, little African kids on TV, are ya?”

“Well, actually I was speaking in a more…metaphorical sense.  I mean, people keep coming back again and again to this place, filling carts to overflowing with stuff that never ultimately satisfies.”

“People gotta eat, don’t they?”

“Sure.  But it’s what they don’t eat that keeps them hungry.”

She couldn’t decide whether she was annoyed enough at his rather enigmatic statements to promptly shut this down or intrigued enough to hang around for more.  She decided to take the plunge.

“Whaddya mean?  Eatin’s simple enough.  Ya eat, ya get hungry, ya buy more food.”

“True enough, but I can give you whole storage bins of food that will keep you going forever.”

“OK, count me in.  Where do I sign up?”

“Go get your husband and we’ll chat some more.”

She gazed at him incredulously.

“Yeah right.  Take a good look, buddy.  Do you really think I’m the marrying type?”

“Well, who was that guy who dumped you in the alley last week after he pretended to have good intentions?  You’re lucky to be alive.”

Silence.

“Uuuh… how’d you know about that?”

“You’d be surprised what I know about you.”

Normally a statement so bold and presumptuous would have frightened her to death.  Instead she stood mesmerized with curiosity. 

“Come on”, he said, “let’s us grab a coffee, I’ve got lots more to tell you.”

I often wonder how many “women at the Mart” we, and Christ by association, pass by every day.  How many such folks, who are branded as social losers whether spoken or implied, show up at our door each week?  How do such people find Jesus through our language, postures, and “guise” of faith? 

Picture the following: the second generation drug user, who has never been inside any church building, who not only doesn’t own a Bible but has never even seen one; the angry youth with self-imposed atheism and hatred of the establishment, especially religious, who stumbles upon us by sheer “accident” looking for the very answers she neither wants nor understands; the desperately bedraggled single Mom who, by incredible force of will against her body’s weary protests, pulls all three of her unimpressed children out of bed on Sunday morning to head to the church she has driven by dozens of times but who, today, inexplicably feels the need to attend; the fifty-one year old executive, let go by a boss half his age through “corporate down-sizing”, forced with the decision to take a 50% cut in pay or face entirely changing the only career he has ever known.  All that in a marketplace environment which worships “young and fresh”, disdaining whatever experience he has painstakingly accumulated over his 30 year career; the 15-year-old pastor’s daughter whose quest for attention and a “cool” testimony becomes pregnant casting her family’s reputation and ministry into disrepute and chaos; the high school drop out whose body bruises never have enough time to heal until more appear at the hands of an alcoholic father; the drug addicted mother whose “street time” is only interrupted long enough for her to disappear for days at a time to some crack house where her personal esteem can disappear even more….

Such are the ones to whom Jesus says, “come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest”.  Such are the ones who “once…were alienated from God…but now [are] reconciled…by Christ’s physical body through death….”  Such are the ones about whom Jesus says, “your Father in heaven is not willing that any of these little ones should be lost.”  Such are the ones we are called to seek and serve.  As disciples of Christ, what should we do in preparation for such a lofty and costly call?

 Whatever it takes.

To worship is to ask, seek, knock

On By robertalanrifeIn Christian spirituality, Christianity, faith, life together, sacramental living, spiritual formationLeave a comment

Corporate worship, its liturgical direction and artistic support has, for many years, been a big part of my personal and professional life. In fact, for the past fifteen years it has been my bread and butter. Whether I have been involved as lay person or “professional” staff, these things have occupied much of my waking hours. I love to reflect on them. I’ve done so for many years now. The following is one of those.

“Worship” as defined by Webster’s Dictionary: “The act of paying reverence to God”.  Vine’s Expository Dictionary of New Testament Words defines worship this way: “to make obeisance (a bow or a bend of the knee indicating submission or homage); do reverence to.”  The original Greek word, “proskuneo” literally means, “to kiss toward”.  Moreover, our English word for worship is transliterated from the Old English, “worthschipe” denoting a sailing vessel of total reliability worthy of our complete trust.

The worship of God is nowhere defined in Scripture.  But, as we consider the 5 different biblical verbs used for worship we see that it is the act of praising God but not confined to it.  Broadly, worship “may be regarded as the direct acknowledgement of God, of God’s nature, attributes, ways and claims, whether by the outgoing of the heart in praise and thanksgiving or by deeds done in such acknowledgment” (Vine’s, pg. 236).  However, with so little in the way of specifics, worship is the central activity of the Christian church.

The words “Praise” and “Worship” are often used interchangeably in the Scriptures.  I believe this tells us that, insofar as the activity of worship is concerned, we worship God as we praise God.  We ascribe to God adoration, praise, honor and blessing as this is fitting for the created toward the Creator.

There is great blessing in the invitation of Jesus to ask, seek and knock.  As it relates to worship, it can provide a wonderful freedom to carve out a worship which is unique to each local congregation – like a tattoo delineating one group from another.  As the Church of Jesus Christ faces, together, the dawning of new things in her midst, a continued courage and commitment will reap rich reward in the future.

New endeavors in any field of inquiry will present many experiences, responses and potentialities which challenge the current understanding.  And, expanding our understanding of worship can become a wonderful expose of who is in our own faith communities seeking after meaning in Christ and for those already here who want to experience Jesus in a whole new way.

The art of seeking God in Christ is one which demands of us whole new ways of thinking and being. We are called upon by the God of grace and forgiveness to become small, needy and broken.  Herein lies the difficulty with our contemporary way of thinking, which suggests that to live is to accumulate, to produce, to do.  In this milieu, I most certainly journey, for even in writing this I am confronted with the reality that what God calls us to – honesty, integrity, humility and simplicity – is not simply an extra way to spend my time – but the only way.

To do or not to do: a short reflection on Sabbath

On By robertalanrifeIn Christian spirituality, Christianity, faith, life together, sacramental living, spiritual formationLeave a comment

I take a short break of posting about my accident of last year to post this:

Why is it that I practically live for Fridays? As a Presbyterian Church music director with a steady Sunday gig, Friday is my Sabbath. It is the day most likely to be given over to nothing. Such is the freedom given us in the created order: a day to waste. What is it about this day that engenders such anticipation all week and, at the same time, impatience once it arrives?

What will I do today? Better still, what will I not do today? What if I do the wrong things all day and I’m left dissatisfied, wanting for that unnamed thing I might otherwise have done? More likely, what if I waste the entire day second-guessing whether I did or didn’t do what I set out to do or not do?

This is what happens when we’re presented with one day is to live without agenda. Our ridiculously over-busy, to-do list driven lives train us well in the art of hectic minutiae. Like Pavlov’s dog, we salivate whenever bells ring or buzzers sound offering us the juicy bone of self-satisfied accomplishment.

Life is too often an unending romp in the fast-food ball pit with the rest of the over-sugared kids when what we need most is to find the turd at the bottom and get hastily pulled back out where it doesn’t smell so much like sweat and urine! At least when our ball pits of shame are roped off for sterilization we get to see the interesting faces of those with whom we have shared the experience.

The need to incessantly do something is built into the DNA of our fast food, sitcom culture. When we stumble across that rare soul who takes Sabbath rest seriously we think him lazy or even misguided. We glare disapprovingly over the tops of our day timers, cell phones at the ready, sitting impatiently, green-light souls at an eternal red light. Clearly time management skills wed to a lack of prioritization have led this irresponsible oaf to simply throw away an entire day. After all, we inwardly tell ourselves in congratulation, we are to “redeem the time for the days are short.”

However, when we do finally grace ourselves with even a single moment to reflect, we admit that we’re not a little envious of such a one. When envy moves over for curiosity that, in turn, births an inner longing, we stand on the doorstep of God’s gift of Sabbath rest.

Gotta go. I’m not finished wasting time…

Robert Rife, September 2, 2011 (but who’s counting?)

Help and thanks

On By robertalanrifeIn Christian spirituality, Christianity, faith, liturgy, sacramental living, spiritual formation, worship1 Comment

Gracious God, in our crazy, fast-paced world, we lift up our eyes to you whose throne is in the heavens but whose feet have walked among us here on earth.  And, Lord, our simple, stuttered prayers can be condensed into two words:  “help” and “thanks”.

Thanks that when we awoke this morning, You were there waiting for us.

Thanks for showing us what love was intended to be.

Thanks for taking the first step in bringing a broken world and our own sin-filled hearts back to you.

Thanks for the fact that the same grace that brought us to you in the first place is the very grace in which we learn to live.

Thanks for the promise that those who sow in tears will reap in joy.

Thanks for our loved ones-that we arise to see their faces each day.

Thanks for the beautiful surroundings in which we find ourselves.

Thanks for food on our tables, a roof over our heads and clothes on our backs.

Thanks that no experience either good or bad is ever wasted in your economy-we are assured of your work in us in spite of circumstances.

Thanks for the fact that we can quiet our hearts before you and bring every joy and pain before a God who hears and empathizes with our weakness.

Thanks most of all for the Holy Spirit, your great gift to us who brings the risen Christ to abide in our hearts and fellowship with us.

Help us, forgive us Lord, that when we awoke this morning and you called out to us we ignored you for what seemed like more pressing needs.

Help us, Lord, when we crowd you out of our lives with the meaninglessness of sin.

Help us, forgive us Lord, when we turn our eyes away from that which is eternal to dust and metal and wood.

Help us, Lord, when, in weariness we turn to stop-gap measures to shore up our strength when we could turn to the all-powerful God who lives within.

Help us, Lord, to remember you when opportunities arise to defend your name and your cause.

Help us, Lord, to love you above all things so that we can hide you in our hearts and find in you all the treasures of heaven and earth.

Through Jesus Christ our Lord who lives and reigns with you in the power of the Holy Spirit, one God, forever.

Amen

The Gift of the Ordinary

On By robertalanrifeIn Christian spirituality, Christianity, faith, liturgy, sacramental living, spiritual formation, worship3 Comments

Since graduating from Spring Arbor University two months ago my soul has been afflicted with a deep and annoying restlessness. I suppose one could chock it up to a famine of soul following a three-year feast – like standing alone in a banquet hall, glasses and plates strewn about hinting at that which had gone before but now lacking the music and the guests. Perhaps it hints at the profound relief from the constant and insistent requirements of completing assignments. Might it even be a spiritual acedia (the monastics called this the “noon-day demon;” a spiritual laissez faire) finally having its way with me after being held at bay for so long? Is it biological? Chemical? Indigestion?

Whatever it is I wish it would make a speedy exit from my interior life. It seems to me that happiness (however we define the term) and comfort, the very things I am so often grasping after are actually enemies to the spiritual fervor I crave. Apparently, I do best under adverse circumstances. Crap.

It is an interesting coincidence that the liturgical calendar places us in ‘ordinary time.’ What I both love and hate about that is the external imposition of a chronos in which to learn kairos. It is an outward reality giving us the framework in which to sow the seeds of grace toward our growth in salvation. To add further complexity, this has converged with our unnecessarily long summer schedule when routines are challenged and stretched beyond recognition.

I tend to fall apart in these periods. Faithfulness is sometimes most difficult when all is well and such faithfulness goes unnoticed one way or the other. When we have nothing to gain from faithfulness is the precise moment when it is most crucial. For me, now is that time.

There is mystery in the idea of ordinary time. While everything around us may show little or no daily change there emerges within us the slow, almost imperceptible greenery of spiritual life. There is nothing ordinary in the growth of living things. It is as miraculous as it is beautiful. It is also slow enough as to render moment-by-moment changes impossible yet mysterious enough that to look away for a single day is to miss the biological sweatshop that has invisibly produced a most magnificent result.

Something comes to mind as I reflect upon this. We gain little by staring at ourselves, craning our necks and squinting our eyes to see our own growth. Such endeavors inevitably result in discouragement or even cynicism. Keeping our eyes fixed on the long-term process of growth and marveling at it is that which yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness and with it, our most abiding joy. Someone once said that we’re always frustrated by how little we accomplish in a day and how much we accomplish in ten years. That is the gift of ordinary time. It forces our eyes up to the sky instead of buried in the soil. Sun in the eyes is always a better option than dirt up the nose.

Together on the journey, Rob

John the Baptizer, part 4: On the baptism of Jesus

On By robertalanrifeIn Christian spirituality, Christianity, faith, sacramental living, spiritual formation, worshipLeave a comment

In the Bible, prophets (people who do what John does) proclaim and preach. They provoke and convict. They encourage and condemn. They cajole and comfort, all with whatever tools are given them for that task. It usually amounts to powerful words of exhortation to a people either hurting or hurting someone else. In Jeremiah’s case it meant a lot of rather unnecessarily embarrassing antics that included wearing loincloths, ox yokes, smashing clay pots. For Isaiah it meant walking around stripped and barefoot for three years. Ezekiel was instructed to lay on his side for over a year. In Ezekiel’s case it meant and chomping on a scroll that, although sweet to the taste, made his stomach turn and laying on his side for over a year. With Hosea it required marrying a prostitute, that one girl his parents refused to let into the yard. It promised him a life of knowing winks from the unrighteous and huffs from the self-righteous.

Yet, what was John’s weapon of choice? Baptism. What a strange way to reveal a person’s intentions. Only a God of utter mystery with a lot of secrets would conjure this up. Unlike other rites of passage like fancy handshakes, drinking a yard of ale or running with the bulls, baptism is hardly manly or even especially daring in and of itself. It is, however, anything but neat and tidy and forces dry, respectable people to become soggy, vulnerable ones. As a former Baptist, now Presbyterian, I have seen baptism from more than one angle and I can safely say that, regardless of dunk or sprinkle, lake or font, bathtub or teacup, baptism is an odd practice at best. It has that weird insiders only feel about it like those funny Shriner hats, holy underwear or cryptic Freemasons chant.

It is surprising to me just how clear a picture John had not only of his ministry but of Jesus’ ministry as well. John’s baptism was rather like the promissory note that hinted at the banquet to come. It was like the paper wedding invitation before the personal one from the bridegroom’s own lips or perhaps like the ticket to the concert yet to begin. Although John was rather more than mere ticket-taker, he was fully aware of his preparatory role in this strange unfolding of much anticipated but little understood events.

Imagine if you will the first chair violinist from the New York Philharmonic approaching Homer Simpson and asking him to restring his violin. Better yet, imagine the Pope asking you to offer the New Year’s Eve homily. If ever there were a time to feel both baffled and horrified it would be then. This must have been the case for John as the one he had spent his entire deprived life preparing to introduce; the Lord of heaven and earth approaches him, asking to be baptized.

For my part, I would be excitedly fumbling for my cell phone in my soaking wet camel hair dungarees in order to fire off the quickest mass text to my sure-to-be-impressed friends of my good fortune. Man, would this look good on a résumé and the guys at the office would have first round rights for some time to come.

But John was a well-formed, humble man who knew his place. This request made of him wasn’t flattering as much as it was shocking; puzzling at the very least. Jesus had just asked him, calmly, to do for him what John had just shouted at the Pharisees and others to do: “be baptized for the remission of sins” to the end that they “bring forth fruit worthy of repentance.” This was something others did in preparation for him and something not applicable or even sensible for Jesus to do.

But there it is. Jesus enters the water where John is standing, looks him square in the eyes and requests as much. In keeping with John’s character, he questions the request with a nervous quip about his own suitability. Jesus, always ready with an enigmatic, oft ambiguous, but always life changing statement, replies simply, “let it be so now; for it is proper for us in this way to fulfill all righteousness.”

I end here because, quite simply, to imagine for one minute that I could render up any better interpretation of Jesus’ remarks here than others far more educated and astute than I have done would be the height of pretense. Besides, it gives me something more to write at some other time.

Still considering John the Baptizer (Matthew 3:1-20, pt. 3)

On By robertalanrifeIn Christian spirituality, Christianity, faith, sacramental living, spiritual formationLeave a comment

Matthew 3:1-12, pt. 3

For a guy who had spent his entire life hanging out with nature’s ruffians – a life closely mirroring that of Grizzly Adams or Gollum of Lord of the Rings fame – John was surprisingly adept at political repartée. He had little to prove and even less to lose. He was barely dressed for one thing; hardly presentable as a suitable dinner guest. It did, however, allow him, deftly and with nimble turn of phrase, to jostle and joust with the religious muck-a-mucks in ways that would have had my mouth duly soap-scrubbed as a youngster!

One wonders if this is the reason why Jesus so often insists upon his followers’ disavowal of worldly wealth in favor of the relative mobility and freedom promised by possession of little. Unencumbered by the often unwelcome and burdensome responsibilities of consumptive living, Jesus’ disciples are then free to move in and out of places, conversations and situations requiring the touch of God. Then they, like John, can float easily into unknown territory rife with uncertainty and even danger in bringing the prophetic but healing message of the gospel. Then they, like John, can speak truth in love without fear of reprisal in the way of property loss, theft, or impounded vehicles. Then they, like John, can spend significantly less time and resources on appearance, entertainment, security or insurance.

John the Baptizer as he came to be known is best understood as our very first Desert Father. Before Abba Antony of Egypt was John of Judea. As the Jewish leadership walked the sharp edge of a knife wobbling between capitulating to Rome’s insidious charms, including her deadly Pax Romana, or throwing in their lot with Zealot revolutionaries, the spiritual malaise left in the wake made for thirsty, disillusioned souls. Many of these stood ripe and ready for the kind of radical removal from Roman rot John enfleshed. Say Shane Claiborne and Chris Haw of John: “He invited people from the centers of civilization to the desert, to the margins, to find God. All of Rome’s dreams were made irrelevant as he ate locusts and made his clothes from camel skin. And folks didn’t go to the desert simply to escape the world; they went to the desert to save the world” (Jesus for President, ©2008 by the Simple Way, pg. 78).

Rome: just another empire claiming a unique place in history – special, gifted, envisioned, blessed by “god” and triumphing over “evil.” To fall under her spell was only too easy given the awful alternatives. Many succumbed only to sell their souls to the prevailing militarized political reality that appeared sparkly and dizzyingly arrayed in the best the ancient world had to offer. She was the newest version of Babylon.

Hence, when John comes, preaching a bold message of repentance on the margins of the empire, its allure was complete. He spoke freely, unfettered by the weight of Roman economic detritus, inviting all who heard to come and take a dip with him in the Jordan. How mythical. How transcendent. How authentic. He offered a new way to think about life and how we live it together. “People went to the wilderness to get Rome out of them, purging themselves of empire and seeing the world stripped of the fabrications of civilization” (Jesus for President, pg. 78). Is it any wonder Herod was at once fascinated and fearful of one whose life of freedom from the fears of a warmongering empire preached so loudly to so many?

Matthew 3:13-17

John’s weapon of choice: Baptism. What a strange way to reveal a person’s intentions. Only a God of utter mystery with a lot of secrets would conjure this up. Anything but neat and tidy, baptism forces dry, respectable people to become soggy, vulnerable people. As a former Baptist, now Presbyterian, I have seen baptism from more than one angle and I can safely say that, regardless of dunk or sprinkle, lake or font, bathtub or teacup, baptism is an odd practice at best.

It is surprising to me just how clear a picture John had not only of his ministry but of Jesus’ ministry as well. John’s baptism was rather like the promissory note that hinted at the banquet to come. It was like the wedding invitation on paper before the personal invitation from the bridegroom’s own lips or perhaps like the ticket to the concert yet to begin. Although John was rather more than mere ticket-taker, he was fully aware of his preparatory role in this strange unfolding of much anticipated but little understood events…(wait for the final segment yet to come).