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28.1.15

“Come with me”: Strangers on a Greyhound bus (essay)


We pulled into the bus station for a ten minute break. My rain-smeared window was a stained glass image of the traffic lights, murals, and concrete of Tulsa, Oklahoma. A young man ran beside the window, and after boarding the bus, he sat next to me.

I wondered if I needed to say something. On one hand, fellow passengers generally seem fine with my not talking to them. Once, on an airplane, a woman thanked me for not talking to her because of how tired she had been. On the other hand, I have sometimes had interesting conversations with strangers in transit, and perhaps it would be a sacrilege to not reach out to another person I’m sitting next to for hours.

After some time, I saw that my seatmate was sleeping. It was only when we approached Oklahoma City several hours later that we would talk.

I pulled out my walkman and listened to a CD. It was Somebody’s Brothers, a duo of friends I had made in Richmond, Indiana, while I was a graduate student there. Brian, one of the singers, had given me the CD a few days earlier as a parting gift.

*

I lived in Richmond for three years while I attended seminary. I graduated on May 10, though I was not there to celebrate because I was volunteering in Scotland as part of my field education. After returning from Scotland on May 30, I stayed in Richmond for a little while, and then doors opened for me to travel home to San Diego.

I bought a one-way bus ticket. Although I normally traveled across the country by airplane, I chose to ride the bus because it was the most affordable option, it would give me time to process my experiences in Scotland, and I wanted to go on one last adventure to mark the end of my time in seminary.

Tulsa, Oklahoma


The night before I left Richmond, I ate dinner at the Renaissance House, where a Franciscan friar named John lives in community with several people, teaching them work skills and guiding them in a life of worship to God. Every Wednesday, after singing hymns and praying, they share a meal on their side porch, welcoming anyone who wants to join them.

John had often invited me to join the meals. I wanted to come because I believed it was important to share life with people, especially people without many economic resources, and what was a better way than by sharing a meal with them? Jesus had told his followers that whenever they gave food to someone who was hungry, gave drink to someone who was thirsty, welcomed a stranger, clothed someone who was naked, or visited someone who was sick or in prison, they were doing those things to Jesus himself. I wanted to visit the Renaissance House to share a meal with Christ.

However, I ate with them only once during those three years. The meals conflicted with my schedule, and hadn’t been a priority. By joining them on my last night in Richmond, I hoped I could partially make up for all the times I didn’t come.

The ten of us (including the cat that came for scraps) ate baked potatoes, rice, beans, ham, and apricots. Before I left, Brian, who joins the Renaissance House meals, gave me the self-titled album his duo had recently recorded.

One of the songs was a cover of singer Fran McKendree’s “The Skin and Bones of Grace”:

My eager hands, my stumbling phrase,
redeemed but left to choose,
this journey toward the cliffs of praise,
that I can't seem to refuse

No wasted breath,
no cheated death,
no laced-up botox face,
the firefight that saves my life;
the skin and bones of grace,
just the skin and bones of grace.
*


As we approached Oklahoma City, my seatmate awoke.

“Where are you going?” he said.

“San Diego. Where are you going?”

“L.A.”

We looked at each others’ tickets and saw that we would both be transferring to another bus which went to Phoenix, Arizona.

“We can help each other find the bus,” he said.

Our tickets said we had only five minutes to transfer to the next bus, so when we got off, we ran into the Oklahoma City station, looking for a sign to tell us where to line up. We saw no signs, only heard the occasional broadcast announcement telling us when the next buses were leaving. We had missed the last message, so we scurried outside, glancing at the city names on the bus windows. None said “PHOENIX.”

We learned that the Phoenix bus was late, so we sat on a curb and ate lunch. I ate one of the eight peanut butter and jelly sandwiches I had packed, and he ate a hot dog he had bought at a former station.

After eating, I remembered that my dad, who had also ridden a Greyhound bus across the country when he was my age, had played the guitar on his journey. Since I had my guitar with me, I thought I’d do the same. I plucked an instrumental song. The experience wasn’t as memorable as I expected: I could hardly hear my 12-string over bus engines and horns, and a young woman sitting near us got up and left.

“I’ll put this away now,” I said.

Another young man who had seen me playing the guitar joined us for a while. He was from India and was waiting for the Phoenix bus, too, and his destination was also California.

My travel buddy asked me what I did. I told him I had just graduated from seminary and recently volunteered as a musician at the Iona Abbey in Scotland. I explained that the Iona Abbey is a kind of monastery run by men and women of various backgrounds. Every week they welcome guests from around the world to live in community in which they eat, work, and worship God together.

He said he was returning home from visiting friends, and was born in Indonesia. He described his work in the food industry.

After some silence, he said, “Do you have a girlfriend?” This began a refreshing conversation about relationships, and he gave me some advice. He also told me about his girlfriend and how they were getting along.

We began looking at the nearby intersections and freeway off ramps for a bus, but none came.

“This is taking too long!” he said.

I didn’t feel bad sitting and waiting. It may be my temperament, but it also could be that I was almost used to it. This was not my first time being stuck in Oklahoma, and this young man was not the first stranger I’d met who would become a companion along the way.

*

Four summers earlier, I went on a road trip from California to Kansas with three friends. On our drive back, in Boise City, Oklahoma, we pulled into a Love’s gas station. After getting gas, the car wouldn’t start.

We eventually found a mechanic in Guymon, an hour’s drive east. Maddie and Jeff rode in the tow truck while Mario and I stayed behind, sitting against the wall of the Subway restaurant in the shade. After learning the car would not be fixed that day, Mario had the idea to hitch a ride to Guymon. We broke up our cardboard Nature Valley Crunchy Granola Bars box and wrote “NEED RIDE TO GUYMON / WILL PAY FOR GAS / THANK YOU.”

Within ten minutes, a navy blue Honda Civic pulled up. Through his rolled down windows, the driver told us he would give us a ride. His name was Ryan and he had just finished his shift at Dairy Queen.

Ryan wore a black, sleeveless shirt and had tattoos on his thick arm. I sat in the front seat. I wondered if Mario chose the back seat so that he could keep an eye on Ryan in case he tried to harm us. Between Ryan and me stood a two-liter Dr. Pepper bottle carrying a shallow pool of dark juice. Every now and then Ryan would lift the bottle to his lips and spit. I told him I had just graduated from university. He said he wanted to go to school to study tattoo design. He drove 100 MPH.

We reached Guymon and found the auto shop, and Mario and I thanked Ryan. He told us to call him if we needed a place to stay. He lived with his girlfriend and her mother in Elkhart, Kansas, about an hour’s drive north.

The timing chain to Maddie’s car had malfunctioned, and the mechanics needed a few days to fix it. A few days later, they needed more time. We could not afford to stay in our motel much longer, so someone gave us the address of a rescue mission. Then I remembered Ryan’s offer and called him. He picked us up about an hour later and drove Maddie, Mario, and me to Elkhart. Jeff had a family reunion to attend back home, so he rode a train to California.

On the ride to Elkhart, we drove between fields of corn. Ryan said that soon, on the 4th of July, these fields would be lit with fireworks. When we arrived, Ryan, his girlfriend, and her mother brought us to a Bible study at a Church of the Nazarene, which surprised us because we attended a Nazarene church too.

The next day, Maddie, Mario, and I walked to the library. Sometimes people driving in cars would slow down and give us funny looks. One librarian told us, “We’ve heard about you folks.”

Mario said that in such a small town, it must have taken that family much courage to host us. I had thought the courage was ours. On our first night, I lay awake on the carpet in my sleeping bag, staring at the ceiling fan, alert in case anyone tried to attack us or steal our belongings.

Over the next few days, we and our hosts opened up to each other. One night we cooked dinner for them. After dinner we would usually watch a Christian, family-oriented movie. On our last night in Elkhart, we visited the Cimarron National Grasslands. Ryan let me drive his car, and it was the first time I had driven stick shift. Aside from parking, I did fine. We drank from an artesian well, watched the sky turn dim orange over the Cimarron River, and stood in the middle of a road to look at the stars.

The next day, we said good bye. Ryan drove us back to Guymon, where the car would be fixed by the afternoon. Until then, the people in the shop loaned us a car. As we drove to a restaurant for lunch, my phone rang. It was Ryan. He said his car had stopped running and asked if I could buy a fuel additive for him to pour into his car.

My suspicions returned. What if Ryan had tricked us this whole time, and was now pretending that his car had broken down so that he could mug me? I bought the additive and drove to the edge of Guymon, down a hill that overlooked corn fields. Ryan stood by the hood of his car on the side of the road. I parked and gave him the additive. He poured it in his car, we shook hands, and thanked each other again.

*

Eventually, the bus did arrive in the Oklahoma City station, and my second time waiting in Oklahoma was not as adventuresome as I thought it might be.

Bus #7234 had no air conditioning or Wi-Fi, but at least now I had two seats to myself. Whenever we stopped for a break, my buddy and I would chat about how things were going, and then gripe about the Greyhound experience. In Amarillo, Texas, for example, what was supposed to be a half-hour cleaning break lasted an hour longer. Greyhound was not entirely to blame; a tornado had just landed. In the darkness outside, tree branches twisted and rain lashed the windows and street.

While we waited, the young Indian man joined us. Once, a man with a gray mustache said something to him in Spanish, and he replied, “I don’t speak Spanish! Why do people think I speak Spanish?”

I spent most of the time looking at various people in the station: a young man sitting on a bench wearing white headphones plugged into his laptop, two women drinking Coke walking back and forth across the room. I overheard a young white man in a blue Kentucky t-shirt saying to a young black man and woman, “I like how we’ve formed a sort of travel bond here.”

I had begun recognizing fellow passengers, some of whom had been with me since Indiana. They seemed to recognize me too. Even the young girl I sat next to on my first bus from Indianapolis, whom I didn’t speak to and who didn’t speak to me, looked at me as though I were an old friend.

I quietly sang a song I had learned on Iona: “Come with me for the journey is long.”

We left Amarillo and in the middle of the night arrived in Albuquerque, New Mexico, where we walked into the spacious mission-style station with warm, comforting air. The young Indian man asked my buddy and me if we’d like coffee. I bought a hot chocolate. A worker announced on the speakers that Greyhound was giving us free meal vouchers. After picking them up, we sat on benches waiting. I told them my name, and they told me theirs.

“You can call me Leon,” said the young man from L.A.

Paul was the Indian man. “Like Saint Paul,” he later said.

We re-boarded our bus and rode through the night, stopping in Gallup in time for the sunrise. In the gas station, I stood in front of a map of New Mexico with a group of Latino men, one of whom had begun his journey a day before I had, in New York, and who was returning to his family in Tijuana, Mexico.




At last, at midday we arrived in Phoenix, where we were supposed to transfer buses for the last time before arriving at our destinations. Leon, Paul, and I had expected to part, but because of the delays, Greyhound put us on the same bus to San Bernardino, California. Again, we waited in line longer than the schedule said we would. Leon said there was no way now he was going to make it to L.A. on time to be picked up by a friend. But our travails had only just begun.

*

I sat on the left side of the bus next to the window. This was the same bus as before, only we had a new driver. A man walked beyond my seat and then turned around and sat next to me. He was wearing a black and red baseball cap. On his black t-shirt was a stark, white skull with black stars and vertical lines forming an American flag. He reached his tattooed arm over to shake my hand. His name was Jeremy.

When the bus began moving, Jeremy offered me a Reese’s Peanut Butter Stick. He said he had woken up at 6 a.m. to walk to the Phoenix bus station, about a five-hour walk. I told him I had started my journey in Indianapolis and had been sitting on the bus for two days.

“I’d rather be walking,” he said.

I agreed.

Some of the chocolate had melted on my fingers, and he gave me a napkin. He continued to tell me that when he was younger, he had been in prison.

“Wrong place at the wrong time,” he said. Then he laughed. “Or, right place at the right time. It’s always with you.”

I told him a little about myself. When the conversation ended, he pulled out his Smartphone with a cracked screen and began listening to music. I looked out the window at the jagged Arizonan mountains. He offered me one of his headphones, but I declined.

I began getting hungry, so I retrieved a chicken sandwich from my backpack, one which I had exchanged for my meal voucher. I offered Jeremy one half, which he quickly ate. A little later, I was listening to music when Jeremy tapped my arm. Out of my backpack had fallen my digital camera.

“You wouldn’t want that to go missing,” he said.

For a moment, I wondered if he had been tempted to steal it.

The bus slowed down, pulled over, and stopped for a few seconds. Then we returned to the freeway.

I brought out a notebook and began writing. Jeremy asked what I was writing, and I said I had recently self-published a novella and was working on the sequel. I showed him a copy of my book. He began reading it, but then said he didn’t read well on the bus.

The bus pulled over more frequently. The driver explained that the bus was having electrical problems. Jeremy said a similar thing happened to him on his last trip to San Bernardino, and they ended up waiting in Indio for several hours.

“It’s going to take forever,” he said.

The more we pulled over, the more people shouted at the bus driver, asking him why he wasn’t calling Greyhound for a replacement bus. He didn’t answer them, which made them even angrier.

By now Jeremy had not spoken for a while, and his face had become red. He pulled out what looked like a plastic green pen, put it to his lips, and smoked it. He slouched in his seat and, wearing his headphones, mouthed the words to a rap song, shaking his fingers.

Crossing into California over the Colorado River through lush trees and grass gave me hope, but Jeremy said that at our rate, it would take eight hours to reach San Bernardino. We stopped in Blythe for a twenty-minute break. Earlier I told Jeremy he could use my cell phone, so now in return he bought me a Snapple, which I drank in the shade behind the gas station. A group of us including Leon and Paul stood there, staring at the bus or the street. Some men smoked cigarettes. Jeremy walked behind the trees, perhaps exploring.

We got back on the bus and the driver said it would take longer to wait for a new bus than to drive to San Bernardino.

“Why didn’t you say so before?” someone said.

“This bus is going slower than my granny!” someone else said.

Despite our break, the bus worsened. At one point, we were stopping about every two minutes.

We took another prolonged break on the side of the freeway. Most of us got off the bus and stood beside brush and a barbed wire fence. On the other side of the fence was sand, a field of bushes, and scattered glass bottles. I picked up small stones and threw them at a bottle. It shattered in half.



We got back on the bus and drove to Chiriaco Summit, where we rested for about fifteen minutes. I walked to the Chevron station to fill my Snapple bottle with water. As I was leaving, I heard a fellow passenger say into his cell phone, “The bus driver can’t even see you.”

I looked toward the bus, parked between other buses and trucks. Who was he speaking to? Was there a network of thieves on the bus, waiting for the appropriate time to steal some of our belongings or do something worse? Was Jeremy one of them?

I went outside and saw Leon and Paul, and we walked to the bus, where I saw a man stooping by the luggage compartment. That didn’t seem too dangerous. We stood in front of the bus for a while. Leon said he had made new arrangements to be picked up in L.A. Paul said next time he is going to take an airplane.

I boarded the bus and went to my seat. Jeremy was not there, nor was his backpack. I immediately thought about my digital camera, and imagined Jeremy stealing it from my backpack and running away. But I didn’t look for my camera. I wanted to trust him.

The bus began moving and I looked around, still not seeing Jeremy. The bus driver asked everyone, “Is anyone missing?”

I stood. “We’re missing someone.”

The bus continued moving, and people shouted at the bus driver.

“Who’s missing?” someone said.

Through the window, we saw Jeremy walking out of the Chevron store.

“The guy with the red hat,” a woman said.

Jeremy got on the bus and sat next to me.

A young man across from us said, “I guess the buddy system works.”

“Are you all right?” I asked Jeremy. It was a phrase I had picked up in Scotland.



After that, the bus ride went smoothly. We reached San Bernardino at 9 p.m., though it would be many more hours before I arrived in San Diego. As I walked off the bus, I shook Jeremy’s hand. He wished me luck with my writing, and I wished him well in his new job. I shook Leon and Paul’s hands, too, and wished them the best.

*

Each week on Iona, whenever people would leave, they would line up on the jetty waiting for the ferry, and those who were staying behind would shake their hands, give hugs, and wave. Maybe this ritual was a form of giving thanks for the strangers who had transformed into friends, for the experiences we had shared together.

Iona was a crossroads to which people from all over the world traveled in the expectation that, in meeting each other on that island, they might witness something of God. Maybe being on Iona helped me recognize something of God even also on a bus.

Every Saturday on Iona we had a service to welcome the new guests for that week. I would sit in the music loft, beneath stained glass portraits of Saints Brigid, Columba, and Patrick, and say the following with the whole assembly:

We saw a stranger yesterday.
We put food in the eating place,
Drink in the drinking place,
Music in the listening place.
And with the sacred name of the triune God
He blessed us and our house,
Our cattle and our dear ones.

As the lark says in her song:
Often, often, often goes Christ
In the stranger’s guise.

27.1.15

Happy are the ones (Psalm 1)


 Happy are the ones who do not take
Advice from those whose hearts have turned astray
Or share the way and company of scoffers in their shame.

Happy are the ones who take delight
In doing what the Lord has said is right
And meditating on the word of God both day and night.

They are trees that grow by living streams
Bearing fruit in season patiently
Everything they do is good. Their leaves are always green.







20.1.15

Two things have I heard (essay)

Photo by Cody Ryan
My toes, legs, and knees were shaking. Although I was standing on warm stone, I felt the wind could have lifted my feet and poured me over the edge. In the distance, red tables and towers of stone stood crooked over the Arizonan desert. Twenty feet below, the bright river was foaming and hungry.

“Do we go head first?” I said.

“No, you’ll want to pencil it.” Dustin held out two fingers pushed together pointing down.

We counted from three and jumped. 

Like a pencil, I thought. 

My feet smacked blue and I slipped into the shadows of the Colorado River, the waters surging around me, first cold and then warm. I felt like Jonah must have felt just before being hurled out of the great fish. I pushed my arms down and surfaced, we made some kind of sound like laughter, and the wind was strong against our faces. 

*

Four years ago, I began attending a Quaker seminary. Quakers believe the light of God shines in all people, and if we listen, we can hear when Christ speaks to us. Quakers listen together through a form of worship called “open” or “waiting worship,” in which a gathering of people sits in silence waiting for the Spirit. When someone believes God is giving them a message for the group, that person is encouraged to stand and speak. 

During my first semester, when I began sitting in waiting worship, memories of jumping into the Colorado River would come to me. Now, though, the river I was looking into was darkness and silence.

Although I would try listening for God’s voice, I would often wonder what God sounded like. How could I distinguish between God’s words and my own thoughts? Later that semester, I read a story which helped. It’s about when the prophet Elijah heard God’s voice.

Then a great and powerful wind tore the mountains apart and shattered the rocks before the LORD, but the LORD was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the LORD was not in the earthquake. After the earthquake came a fire, but the LORD was not in the fire. And after the fire came a gentle whisper. When Elijah heard it, he pulled his cloak over his face and went out and stood at the mouth of the cave. (1 Kings 19:11-13, NIV)

Once during waiting worship, I thought I heard God speak. A paraphrase of Psalm 62:11-12 swirled in my mind: “One thing God has spoken, two things have I heard: That you, O Lord, are strong, and that you, O Lord, are loving.”

Is this God? I wondered. Should I stand and speak this? I reasoned that among the three others in the room, probably none of them needed to hear it. 

During my inner wrestling, someone walked out of the room, and then the prompting left me. I felt like Jonah might have felt when he was swallowed by the great fish. 

*

I’m not sure why, during those first experiences of waiting worship, I didn’t think about the other time I cliff jumped. It was the summer after visiting the Colorado River. I was in Kansas celebrating a wedding, and for the bachelor party, about eleven of us drove to Two Buttes, Colorado, where apparently we were going to jump off a cliff.

“There's different ledges,” said Erik as he drove a carful of us between corn fields into the sunset. “You can jump it from thirty feet, forty feet, or even sixty feet. But we'll only jump from forty feet.”

Someone asked about the possibility of rocks.

“An underwater current connects the lagoon to the sea, so there’s no bottom,” Erik said.

Tall trees loomed over the campground. At the end, shadowed by cliffs, black ripples shimmered beneath a large moon.

One by one, the guys swam to the other side, where they heaved themselves onto a bank, climbed a cliff, and jumped into the darkness. I couldn’t see them; I could only hear feet scraping dirt, a stretch of silence, and then a splash. Afterwards they yelped to let us know they made it.

Along with a few others, I didn’t jump the cliff that night (I did the next morning, though). One guy’s ankle was sprained, making it risky. Another said, “There’s no way I’m jumping off that.” 

As Quakers might say, Friend spoke my mind.

When we returned to the campground, Erik invited us to climb the nearby Two Buttes. We all drove a few miles away and parked beside a field of shrubs and rocks. Two silhouettes of stony, sandy pyramids rose skyward. We hiked around cacti, clambering over boulders. 

When we reached the top, we each found a spot on which to rest. Some guys shouted. The land stretched before us like the ocean. We could barely see our cars parked below, beside the wiry road. Beyond them, red lights from steel towers pulsed.

Up there, the wind was almost as strong as water. I stood straight with my arms sticking out. If I had tiptoed, the wind would have pushed me back. Then for a few moments, we sat and stood, facing the moon and wind in silence.

16.1.15

What is the Church and its mission in the world today? (essay)

In one of the last classes I took in seminary, my classmates and I were required to answer two questions throughout the semester, one of our own choosing and one assigned to us. We wrote short papers answering these questions from various angles, such as historical, biblical, theological, and so forth, and then we each synthesized our answers into two main papers. The following is my comprehensive summary paper responding to the question assigned to us, "What is the Church and its mission in the world today?"



Becoming Wholly Ourselves in Christ: The Church and its Mission in the World Today

When I began considering the question “What is the Church and its mission in the world today?”, I pictured a stone monastery with a cross, outside of which a group of people were moving away from the monastery over the bend of the world, perhaps toward other people.


Living Stones

Just as the people in my image emerge from a stone monastery, the Church comes from a living temple, Jesus Christ. Peter writes that the Church consists of “living stones” (1 Pet. 2:5) which make up a temple. Thus, not only does the Church come from a monastery; it is the monastery. Paul uses the metaphor of the Church as the “body of Christ” (1 Cor. 12:27). The Church is a people who emerge from and continue to embody Jesus Christ.

Historically, buildings have been important for the Church. The first Christians pooled together their resources and supported one another, meeting for worship in peoples’ homes. I experienced something like this growing up when, every Sunday, my family would worship together in our home. In college, I began attending a larger local congregation, where most of our activities together took place on the church grounds: we worshiped God and ate together in the sanctuary, and we played basketball with young people on the church basketball court.

Iona Abbey, Scotland

The word monastery comes from the Greek monos, for “alone.” Throughout the Church’s history, many Christians have sought holiness by establishing monastic communities away from cities and crowds of people. In their monastic communities, monks practiced humility and love through worshiping together, fasting, confessing the truth, and other spiritual disciplines. When Christians gather together for worship, they enter a spiritual gymnasium, a training ground or boot camp, a greenhouse which nurtures the seed of Christ so that it bears fruit. 

One of the primarily fertilizers that the Church uses is scripture, which witnesses to God’s work among Israel and the Church. Through the Torah, Israel reminded itself of God’s creating the world, delivering Israel, and guiding Israel how to live in the Promised Land or in exile. Through the prophets, Israel sought to turn itself back to God. Through the Psalms, Israel sang praises and grieved to God together. The Gospel writers told the good news of Jesus to illuminate and encourage. Peter, Paul, and John (as well as others) wrote epistles to guide the early Church amid questions and persecution. 

Through the scriptures, the Church talks to herself. While some scriptures are directed to people outside of Israel or the Church, most of them express internal communication. Through the scriptures, the Church reminds herself of God’s creating, saving, and restoring work in the world; encourages herself to obey the covenant of love for God and neighbor and to worship in truth; expresses to God all of her grief and joy; and works through the business of daily life.

The Church talks to herself regularly, at least once a week, and often on a Sunday morning. In so doing, the Church becomes a sanctuary in time. Many Christians mark time based on the coming, the birth, the life, the death, the resurrection, and the ongoing life of Jesus Christ. This Christian calendar comes from the Jewish calendar, which patterns each week after God’s creating the world in six days and resting on the seventh. Christians, too, rest on the Sabbath, though for them the Sabbath is Sunday, the day on which Jesus rose from the dead and the first day of the new creation. The Christian calendar is a stained glass window through which people can see God’s healing time itself, guiding it toward the Sabbath rest for all creation.

The prophet Isaiah foretold this coming Sabbath age when he described a banquet in Jerusalem to which God summoned all people (Isaiah 25:6-8); John envisioned it as the New Jerusalem (Revelation 21); and Hildegard of Bingen saw a time when “rivers of living water are to be poured out over the whole world, to ensure that people, like fishes caught in a net, can be restored to wholeness.”[1]  For Diana Butler Bass, this coming day is one of “universal hospitality” in which “the whole world will be made right through the boundless welcome of all to God’s table.”[2] 

In following the Christian calendar, the Church points to these visions of paradise and wholeness. For example, the three central days of the Christian year are Good Friday, Holy Saturday, and Easter Sunday, which honor the death, rest, and resurrection of Jesus. These days, called the triduum, “forcefully made the point that God was with humanity to transform suffering into a joy-filled feast as the days move from crucifixion to celebration.”[3]  Through reliving Christ’s passion and victory, the Church proclaims that God redeems the suffering of humanity into life. 

During the dark ages, when Europe was plagued with violence, the Church announced a “Truce of God” in which “princes, nobles, and knights swore to desist from all warfare from Saturday to Monday and during the holy seasons of Lent and Advent.”[4]  Holy days were temporal sanctuaries when killing was prohibited. These times became visions of the peaceful coming reign of God. The sanctification of time expresses how the Church, in the words of Irenaeus of Lyon, has been “planted as a paradise in the world.”[5]

Thus, in the monastery, through regular public worship, the Church tells herself the hopeful story of Christ: Christ in the universe, in the world, in Palestine, in history, in wherever and whenever the Church finds herself. She does this because we become the stories we tell and hear, and the Church wants to become like Christ. 

The gospels say that when we lose our lives in Christ, we find them in Christ. In telling the story of Christ, not only does the Church become more Christlike; she becomes more herself, and each of her members becomes more fully themselves. The hymn “Take This Moment” by John Bell prays it this way: “Let my life be yours and yet / Let it still be me.”[6] Becoming whole in Christ is, in essence, the way of holiness.


The Call to Holiness

Although the whole Church is called to be holy, one denomination, the Church of the Nazarene, understands its particular calling to be “to advance God’s kingdom by the preservation and propagation of Christian holiness as set forth in the Scriptures.”[7]  Nazarenes’ understanding of holiness comes from John Wesley’s teaching that God desires and empowers believers to be purified from sin and to live in perfect love for God and neighbor.[8]  This “entire sanctification” is a gift of the Holy Spirit, a grace which follows justification, or the forgiveness of sins.[9] 

The Church of the Nazarene has sought holiness in three main ways: purity, compassionate ministry to the urban poor, and evangelizing the world. While these streams of holiness are distinct among the Church of the Nazarene, they illustrate larger responses within the Church to the call to holiness. 

To be pure means to be clean, set apart from that which is impure. The walls of the monastery are membranes dividing behaviors and attitudes between the culture of Christ and cultures contrary to God’s ways. 

For example, the U.S. has the strongest military in the world, and its movies, songs, and video games promote a violent and “hyper-masculine”[10] culture. The Church, however, reminds us of Jesus’ command to “Put your sword back into its place; for all who take the sword will perish by the sword” (Matt. 26:52, NRSV). The U.S. is the richest nation in the world, and its commercials call us to worship sleek cars, skin, and technology. The Church, however, teaches that we do not need to worry about what we will eat, drink, and wear, but to “seek first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well” (Matt. 6:33). Where U.S. and other cultures divide us based on ethnicity, socio-economic status, and gender, in the Church “There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Gal. 3:28, NRSV). When U.S. culture demands us to be productive, working long hours seven days a week, the Church reminds us of Jesus’ invitation to “Come to me, all you who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest” (Matt. 11:28). The Church cultivates an alternative way which gives life.

Thus, the Church can learn much from the biblical prophets, whom God called to announce messages and visions. While many of the prophets preached to the Israelites, some, such as Jonah, preached to the non-Israelite Ninevites, whose wicked culture God threatened to annihilate. When the Ninevites heard God’s message through Jonah, they repented, resulting in their salvation. Like Jonah, the Church is called to proclaim God’s messages to the world. Here we return to my image of a people who, after having told herself the story of Christ in the monastery, now leaves the monastery to tell that story to the world.



Welcoming the World

The story of Christ is also the good news, or Gospel, of Christ. The mission of the Church in the world is to proclaim the Gospel to the world. The Church does this through her actions and words. Just as the Gospel cultivates wholeness in Christ among the Church, it also cultivates wholeness in Christ among the world. Thus, proclaiming the Gospel is an act of holiness. This brings us to the second and third streams of holiness for the Church of the Nazarene: compassionate ministry to the urban poor and evangelizing the world. 

The Church of the Nazarene named itself after Jesus, who came from the town of Nazareth, of whom it was said “Can anything good come from there?” (John 1:46). The first Nazarene congregation agreed that “the field of labor to which we feel especially called is in the neglected quarters of the cities and wherever also may be found waste places and souls seeking pardon and cleansing from sin.”[11] Nazarenes find wholeness through telling good news to and living with the poor.

This calling is not only for Nazarenes, but for the global Church. The U.S. and the rest of the West are, in the words of the Iona Abbey Worship Book, “privileged and tired of being privileged.”[12]  With that privilege the West has directly and indirectly violated the weakest and poorest members of the world, both humans and other members of creation. With those abuses come, and will come, moral injury or shame for what we have done. Ministry to the poor includes speaking truthfully to power on their behalf and seeking justice for them. It involves repenting of the Church’s own turning aside from society’s outcasts and calling the West to repent, praying in the hope that one day “salvation [will] come to this house” (Luke 19:9).

In my image, the monastery is not only a place of refuge for the Church, but for the world. Historically, monasteries were places of hospitality for strangers and travelers, and many monks believed that Christ often disguised himself as a stranger. The Church is called to welcome strangers, foreigners, and hungry people, feeding them with Christ, fellowship, and physical food. In so doing, the Church lives into its vision of the Sabbath banquet.

The Church’s welcoming the world into the banquet prepared by Jesus is the Church’s evangelizing the world. Evangelization means preaching the Gospel, the story of Jesus Christ, whose life and death was a banquet for all who welcomed and welcome him, and whose resurrection proves that the feast continues and awaits us. 

Jesus told a parable comparing the kingdom of heaven to a wedding banquet. In the parable, the king tells his slaves, “Go therefore into the main streets, and invite everyone you find to the wedding banquet” (Matt. 22:9, NRSV). This is evangelism: going to people and inviting them to the feast of Christ, the wedding celebration between Christ and the Church, the redemption of the world.


Good News for All

After reflecting on the question “What is the Church and its mission in the world today?” for several weeks, a new image comes to mind: a globe. Perhaps this suggests that the Church is scattered throughout the world. Or perhaps the whole world is God’s Church, speaking to itself in many dialects, sometimes succeeding and often failing at embodying Christ and the Gospel. 

Such a vision contradicts my inclination to separate Christianity from other religions, the holy from the profane, the Church from the world. It also seems arrogant to impose the title “Church” on all people, many of whom tell their own stories of God or the nature of existence and would likely not appreciate my calling the world the bride and body of Christ.  

However, the story of Christ is supposed to be good news for all of creation. If not, then how can it be good news for any of it? When I perform music, usually the songs through which I connect best with the audience are the songs which are the most meaningful to me. I believe the same is true of the Gospel. What is good news for me is good news for others; what is good news for one is good news for all. 

If the gospels are correct in saying that when we lose our lives in Christ, we find them in Christ, then perhaps the story of Christ is good news for the world because, if the world accepts Christ, the world will become as God intends it to be: fully herself, and all of her inhabitants fully themselves. The Church understands Christ to be the incarnation of the Word “through whom all things came into being,” and the life who is “the light of all people” (John 1:3-4). Thus, this Word is present in all things, including the world. It may express itself differently, but we should be able to recognize it based on Jesus Christ.

The Church, then, is potentially all of us: just as the Word took on flesh in Jesus, Christ desires to live through us all, and our mission is to teach people to listen to that Word, to dwell in the light of Christ, and so live. The more faithfully we respond to Christ, the more we become the Church, the more we become like Christ, and the more we become wholly ourselves.


~

[1] Diana Butler Bass, A People’s History of Christianity (New York, NY: HarperCollins Publishers, 2009), 291.           

[2] Ibid., 302.

[3] Ibid. 52-53.

[4] Ibid., 133.
 
[5] Ibid., 52-53.

[6] John L. Bell, "Take This Moment." Copyright © 2014, WGRG, Iona Community, Glasgow, G2 3DH, Scotland. wgrg@iona.org.uk; www.wgrg.co.uk Reproduced by permission.

[7] Manual/2009-2013 Church of the Nazarene (United States of America: Beacon Hill Press, 2009), 5.

[8] John Wesley, A Plain Account of Christian Perfection.

[9] Mark R. Quanstrom, A Century of Holiness Theology (Kansas City: Beacon Hill Press, 2004), 96. 

[10] Rita Nakashima Brock, ESR Willson Lectures, 2014. 
 
[11] Floyd Cunningham, Ed. Our Watchword and Song: The Centennial History of the Church of the Nazarene (Kansas City:  Beacon Hill Press, 2009), 100.

[12] The Iona Community, Iona Abbey Worship Book (Glasgow: Wild Goose Publications, 2001), 180.