St. Matthias Lutheran Church (ELCA)

St. Jerome, in his commentary on Galatians (Jerome, Comm. in ep. ad. Gal., 6, 10), tells the well-loved story that John the Evangelist continued preaching in Ephesus even when he was in his 90s. John was so weakened by old age that the people had to carry him into the Church in Ephesus on a stretcher. When he was no longer able to preach or deliver a long discourse, his custom was to lean up on one elbow and say simply: “Little children, love one another.” Every week, even from his death bed, the same thing happened, again and again. Every week it was the same short sermon, the same sincere message: “Little children, love one another.” One day, the story goes, someone asked him about it: “John, why is it that every week you say exactly the same thing, ‘little children, love one another’?” And John replied: “Because it is enough.”

One year ago, I wrote to you in this space about the Benedictine nun with Alzheimer’s in her community who insisted on being placed in her wheelchair at the entrance to the monastery’s nursing home wing so she could greet everyone who comes. The novice who related the story went on to say, “She is no longer certain what she is welcoming people to, but hospitality is so deeply ingrained in her that it has become her whole life.”

Hospitality; embodying love for one another; prayer, the intentional immersion into scripture and holy reading; worship; sacrificial giving; service – these are a few of the many essential spiritual disciplines of the Christian life. They are referred to as disciplines because they are acts that do not come naturally to any of us. They are not in vogue with the culture around us. They are difficult and yet they are key to the healthy development of the Christian life. At one time, painted in large letters across the wall of the choral room of The New Virginians, the musical group from Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, was the following quote of unknown origin:

“The difficult must become habitual.
The habitual must become natural.
The natural must become beautiful.
The beautiful will become magical.”

There are so many difficult things that we as people of faith can learn to do or learn to do better and with more spiritual depth should we choose to risk exploring. Discipleship – following this Jesus the Church has come to address as “Lord,” involves risk. Speaking on behalf of the poor or oppressed, for example, is risky and difficult for many of us at first. Another salient challenge presently before us is learning how to engage with one another in open, passionate, respectful deliberation about difficult social issues, oftentimes the sort of things we resist because they expose differences between us we would really not like others to see. Yet the church is called to be the safe, loving, affirming community which risks loving one another through our differences.

Giving, faithfully and consistently, is another discipline which must be learned, yet one of the most rewarding disciplines God calls us to try. Giving, NOT in order to PAY A BILL, or MEET A BUDGET, but giving freely, without coercion or obligation (like the shut-in who once asked me how much the ‘dues’ were to remain a member of the church) but WITH JOY & THANKSGIVING and in PROPORTION to what God has first blessed us with.

I have just begun reading a book recommended to me by a prison chaplain I knew well. The book begins by equating The Dead Sea, which is a “body of water into which rivers flow and become trapped,” with the human being whose individual development has become arrested. The author notes the uniqueness of The Dead Sea as being a body of water that takes but never gives.” And because it never gives, its waters cannot sustain any form of life.”

Reflecting on these words as I write, I am reminded of the early church father Irenaeus whose voice rings from the second century reminding us, “The glory of God is the human being fully alive.”  Every time I write this column to you it is with a sincere prayer in my heart that YOU, ME, ALL of US will risk anew each day our Lord’s invitation to do the more difficult thing and experience being fully alive in Christ who is the head of the Church.

In Christ +

Pastor Alan