story

Isa 51:5 My righteousness [is] near; my salvation is gone forth, and mine arms shall judge the people; the isles shall wait upon me, and on mine arm shall they trust.

We don’t all have exactly the same place in the Christ story, I will grant you. We don’t do the same things and we aren’t supposed to. But we all have a place in a storyline leading through our spiritual fathers back to the foundation laid by an Apostle. My roots lie with Mark and with those who “wandered in deserts, and in mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth.” (Heb. 11) Community for me rarely can be found in a large mass of people at a religious service. I find community upon recognition of that common Spirit in others. Some walk alongside me, some apart and some try to walk on top of me. I prefer those who walk alongside.

When God first told me I was a Nazarite, I did not get it. I argued with Him and found that He knew things about Nazarites that I never dreamed. It was the unfolding of that realization in a particular context in my life that taught me I should look to the Egyptian desert for clues. Later, I saw a loose connection between Nazarites and what are today called nuns and monks. Nazarites, though, never organized into the strict orders of Roman Catholicism. They had no requirements of celibacy, poverty, obedience (unless they vowed such for whatever reason) and could be married, single or divorced. The vows they took could be for a season or a lifetime. They might even be called of God from birth. Yet, in the New Testament, Jesus later warned against the taking of vows.

The same influences that worked against the the ministers of God also confused the legitimate roles of the Nazarites. We see the effects of fallen flesh administering the things of God in the extremes of asceticism and self-indulgence throughout Church history. We also see the top-down organization of ministers coming in soon after 100 A.D. They no longer “walked alongside” their disciples but had regard to a line of succession. Men look on the appearance, but God looks at the heart.

When I first suspected that my line led to the Apostle Mark, I knew the implications. The line is Coptic, loosely speaking. (Coptic means “Egyptian”.) But today’s Coptic Church is not the Egyptian Church of the first century, though it descends from it. Like the Orthodox Church and the Roman Catholic Church, it has added on so much unnecessary human habit that it has, frankly, weighed itself down. I think this is a result of “oldness” generally. I have considered the possibility that if I, in all my perfectionistic zeal, were multiplied millions of times through the ages so that I made up the whole of a Church branch, it would still stagger under the accumulated deposits of my fallen flesh. The beauty of the earliest missionary journeys was that the further from Jerusalem and oldness, the fresher was the foundation.

Some verses from God to the isles in wait:

Isa 42:10 Sing unto the LORD a new song, [and] his praise from the end of the earth, ye that go down to the sea, and all that is therein; the isles, and the inhabitants thereof.
Isa 42:11 Let the wilderness and the cities thereof lift up [their voice], the villages [that] Kedar doth inhabit: let the inhabitants of the rock sing, let them shout from the top of the mountains.
Isa 42:12 Let them give glory unto the LORD, and declare his praise in the islands.

Isa 49:1 Listen, O isles, unto me; and hearken, ye people, from far; The LORD hath called me from the womb; from the bowels of my mother hath he made mention of my name.

Isa 66:19 And I will set a sign among them, and I will send those that escape of them unto the nations, [to] Tarshish, Pul, and Lud, that draw the bow, [to] Tubal, and Javan, [to] the isles afar off, that have not heard my fame, neither have seen my glory; and they shall declare my glory among the Gentiles.

Shalom and amen.

I went to bury my mother. They asked me what clothes I wanted her buried in. I had no idea. We were supposed to purchase a casket and what would she like? Was it for me or for her? Did it make a bit of difference?

I think we go through the same thing when we talk about how to meet as the Church. In one way, God needs nothing from us. No decorations, no music, no art. We can argue that we prefer such things but that they don’t add an iota to our spiritual selves. We can even argue that they take away from God. I don’t think that holds water. He clearly meant for us to have full lives with the lines colored in. Let me offer an alternate explanation of why I even think how we meet might be more important than we think.

When they asked me what I wanted regarding my mother’s funeral, a “wise mother in Israel” suggested that I do whatever I believed would honor her. Now that was a thought, indeed. It wasn’t so much about what would benefit her or me. It was about honor. I think it’s the same question when we meet together as a church or when we present the story of Christ in our narrative to an audience. What would honor Christ?

This tiny uncertainty has hung the Church up in more theological controversy. It’s ridiculous. Our narrative is what we present. It’s how we honor Him. The story begins with Him and ends with our point in time, looking forward to our children’s children and the hope of the kingdom coming in its fullness. We reside in the time of the “now and not yet”.

I often feel angry to have inherited the broken dysfunctionality of the theology wars, being descended from the Reformers and the later shards who spent their lives seeking the “true Church”. I have gone that route myself, only to return full circle to bite myself in the butt. The “true Church” was under our noses all along, it’s us in all of our haphazard glory. We are at different stages in our walk and it will not matter where we go or what we label as “the Church”. We are a messy lot, blaming each other for our woes.

Funny that on my return path, the theology of the Orthodox Church makes the most sense to me, yet there is always one thing that hangs me up with any group. The narrative of the old churches comes across as somebody else’s story — never our own because it is so old. It seems as if important people of the faith lived thousands of years ago and then the story froze in mid-stream forever. But if it’s also our own story, shouldn’t we be writing ourselves back in and keeping it relevant to our own times?

In my case what I have done is returned the expression of church to the family unit — to the home. It is not a do-your-own-thing religion. I have returned to the narrative of Christ and brought it into the present. It is orthodox, it is organic, it is presentable to an audience and it is flexible enough for the great outdoors. It is formal and it is casual. It is not frozen outside of time, but it is very much in stride with time — an eternity continuing to unfold until we all come to the fullness of the stature of Jesus Christ.

Of course, my friend wrote me back to protest that her background was not Greco-Roman but Cossack. Ah, but of course! Must I assume that all who speak English have the same background as myself? Her immediate family background is Roman Catholic and Orthodox. I turned back to unraveling my story to see what had gone wrong in the passed-down narrative that made so many of us want to escape. A million things must have crossed my mind as to how we are products of so many people. Where did the line between the Irish fathers and the Roman Catholic fathers and later the Reformers merge in my story? Does it matter? I think they left a dysfunctionality in us from the theological wars. I saw some very interesting things that I will now have to sort out. More from my notes to this friend:

There was domination later of Rome who made us shed our story and take theirs instead. My other “fathers” were physically related, as I am the 10th gr-granddaughter of famous Reformers in New England. I think they maybe missed the trail of the story, having focused on Reforming the church in captivity. This could explain a lot of my desire to bolt and run.

Suddenly I had an epiphany about the family of God and couldn’t wait to tell my friend. The following are the rest of my notes. (I told you they were pretty raw and ragged!):

Say, I’m reading up on Christianity in Britain and seeing some things. You know, in the natural, you obey your parents–not somebody else’s parents. You even obey them over your aunts and uncles. In the spirit realm, I should think that would also be the norm.

Was reading about St. Patrick, St. Columba and St. Aidan, and realizing that they are really the spiritual fathers over the area my people are from …

So Britain was Christianized before Rome got hold of them and turned Sts. Paddy and Columba into Roman Catholic saints. But here is the interesting part…once Rome exerted pressure over England (not so much over Ireland at this time), then it was like someone else’s father telling people what to do. Do you see the implications? But…once that happened and there were other believers coming out of that, the thread of Rome did somewhat merge with Britain’s.

So…now Rome had put a ripple in the family storyline and brought in stories not of the tree, thereby inventing a family “genealogy” not their own. The children were not merely adopted, but they were stolen from rightful fathers. …

Now of course, we have to love people of other lines. They have their own valid stories to tell. And of course, as families you receive others into your home and you receive their stories, but they aren’t YOUR story. …

So, I love St. Francis and he’s affected my “tree” through the ripple that Rome has left. He’s part of my story, but he’s not properly my “father”. See where I’d coming from?

Anyway, I believe as I read along that even the Germans had Irish monks as “fathers”– but this is not a national/social/racial pride deal for the Irish. Likely, some of the “Irish” monks were really from Gaul.
I’m anxious to learn more about the other church histories where my people came from to get the full idea of how the natural progression should have been. I believe that had Basil the Great not existed and had all the popes not existed, I would yet be talking about Jesus Christ.

But had Patrick or Columba not existed, who knows? This has interesting implications. Certainly had the Apostles not existed we would neither of us be talking about Christ. Our areas of the world have something to do with which Apostle(s) we “descend” from. …

1 Give ear, O my people, to my teaching;
incline your ears to the words of my mouth!
2 I will open my mouth in a parable;
I will utter dark sayings from of old,
3 things that we have heard and known,
that our fathers have told us.
4 We will not hide them from their children,
but tell to the coming generation
the glorious deeds of the LORD, and his might,
and the wonders that he has done. [Psalm 78, ESV]

Recently, I told a friend that I have come to appreciate the story of the Passion as the central part of an intentional service. Being raised in a Protestant background, I have sat through my share of lectures, lectures, lectures. There is nothing that compares with the narrative passed down of the Lord’s Passion and what that means to us. It is the opening chapter of the story of the Church, to which has been added stories of saints through the ages. There is only one Church in heaven and earth, comprised of all the saints who have ever lived. This is where community and persons meet — our stories added to theirs.

But ye are come unto mount Sion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels,
To the general assembly and church of the firstborn, which are written in heaven, and to God the Judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect, [Heb.
12:22-23]

The institutional churches usually limit their concentration to either the community story (e.g., Roman Catholic) or the personal one (e.g., Evangelical “personal testimony”). Why can’t we have both? I think we can have both just as surely as we can have intentional worship and organic spiritual life. They are all the heritage of the Church. The Church does not know its own heritage so it wanders like an orphan in the wilderness. It’s time to wake up and know that we come from spiritual fathers whose story belongs to us and to whom we add our own story.

We share the passion of Christ; His story is our story. Paul viewed his own suffering as a continuation of the suffering of Christ, that the Church might be built up:

Who now rejoice in my sufferings for you, and fill up that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh for his body’s sake, which is the church: [Col. 1:24]

Jesus also said:

The disciple is not above his master: but every one that is perfect shall be as his master. [Luke 6:40]

The way of our testimony is the way of Christ. We are his witnesses on earth that we know Him and are known of Him. And further, Paul tells us:

For we being many are one bread, and one body: for we are all partakers of that one bread. [1 Cor. 10:17)

Put these together. It begins to make sense. Our tearing is the sufferings that fill up that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ…for his Body’s sake, which is the Church. We are added to the bread that is Him… A friend of mine reminded me of Amish friendship bread where one person makes a starter out of which come multitudinous loaves of bread when passed around. (Remember when Jesus multiplied the loaves and fishes?) My first thought was something my aunt taught me years ago about the reason wine is to be preferred over grape juice for communion. Wine has spirits that continually reproduce much like the yeast in Amish bread. It represents the eternal life of Christ.

The point is that we, as members of the Body, have stories to add to the parables and dark sayings of old — things that the Lord has done for us that will not be added to the record until we tell of them. Like yeast and spirits, one person’s testimony is the starter for another. The individual story must be understood in the context of the starter story. The narrative is preserved and treasured in the community life, but it is developed in the personal life. We must have experiences that speak to our hearts alone but we must also have a story to share with those who have no story.

In the next post, we will look at the how-to of passing down the story and we will examine our spiritual roots. (They may not be what we think.)

I wonder what causes us to all have different emphases in callings. We were discussing that on a forum this evening. One person named several people driven by different passions and how it colors our views on everything: one obsesses with unity in the Body, another talks about deception in the church, still another writes and publishes books about kingdom life. I’m obsessed with strengthening our hearts and souls. I wondered about the catalysts that led us to this point. Perhaps the others will share their stories soon.

I was thinking about this icon I have of Jesus, the Good Shepherd. He has a lamb around his neck and every time I look at it I think, “There’s me, broken and too screwed up to walk.” I always remember the story of the lamb who runs off and the Good Shepherd brings it back, breaks its legs and keeps the lamb near Him till it heals. Afterwards it never runs off again.

When I was seventeen I met a young man who prophesied over me, telling the story of the Good Shepherd and the runaway lamb. He told me all about my past, present and future and every last bit of it was true. I can’t look at the lamb around Jesus’ neck in the icon without imagining it’s a portrait of me. Like all true obsessionists, I want everyone to be like me. Evangelists want everyone to be evangelists, teachers want everyone to study root words, and I want everyone to be lambs.

I found some old paper my mother had for years. It has a faded outline of Jesus, the Good Shepherd on it. She used it like stationery and sometimes we kids colored it in. They say if you surround a child with pictures, it influences that child. (I heard of a mother once who had pictures of the sea around her house and all her boys became sailors!)

I think of when my kids were small and I was lying in bed in agony, near death and worried they’d be left with no parent — surprised to find a soul really could hurt worse than a body. And, as people say, what happens in your life determines your ministry. Some people believe that if you are gifted in areas of mercy, you will be concerned about people’s emotions and their health. But I was always more concerned about their souls. I would have traded my life to have my soul healed.

I remember my mother sending me every morning to the bus stop crying. She used to pray over me every morning and one day she told me, “It’s always right to pray for mercy.” That’s the most important theological concept my mother ever taught me. I must have been in my late 20s then, right after I started to recover. I started camping in His mercy.

I suppose there are different emphases for good reason. But for me, I just couldn’t make it anymore. People could take their miracle prayers and it did people like me no good, because we just wanted our souls repaired. I did not need a pair of shoes two years after I’d lost my feet. (But I also suppose that my feelings on this point resulted from the humanism in Christian doctrine that had let me down so — one thing that the sermon “Ten Shekels and a Shirt” revealed to me. It makes perfect sense in the aftermath that a little leaven abounds to immense evil, but God will still use it for good in the end, i.e.. ruining some of us for this world.)

The result from having humanism stomped out of me was that I quit praying prayers to make God do my will on earth. When I experienced my own shocking spiritual death, I knew I needed a God bigger than circumstances. I met a transcendant Jesus one night — the one who “was dead and now liveth” and realized just how eternally real He is. I needed a God who could walk through a concentration camp with me….because everything else can be lost and because I am a broken doll.

How can we lose with a God that big? Everything in the world becomes inverted. Strong is weak and weak is strong. And so I took to becoming more and more enveloped, even buried in this God. I don’t trust that my world won’t turn upside down again but I can trust the Good Shepherd to go through the chaos with me. I can’t hang onto myself and certainly proved my sanity isn’t limitless. I need a God who can hang onto me. And with every trial that tests me on this, I gain strength and understanding that can, hopefully, be given away freely.

And that’s my story. Maybe everyone else has a story, too, about why they are who they are today. I don’t know…It’s not my only story and it’s not all I believe, but it’s my main story on earth. It’s my theme, I guess you could say.