The eCrozier

In an eCrozier in November of 2013, I wrote that Francis had become the first “Anglican Pope.” Today, I’m even more convinced that’s the case. I wrote then: “this Pope is a man who has a deep and abiding faith in Jesus Christ, crucified and risen. His strong faith gives him the freedom to be gracious and compassionate and to approach life with humility, openness, and curiosity. Maybe that’s why he’s so confounding to so many people, both in the Roman Church and outside it.”

In his recently published document called Amoris Laetitia, or “The Joy of Love,” he didn’t issue any new doctrine. He, however, insisted that his clergy focus on the pastoral care of their flock, rather than on the judging of them. Each Roman Catholic, he contends, should listen to their individual consciences while also keeping in mind the Church’s dogma. This doesn’t mean Francis is throwing out Roman Catholic dogma. Rather, he seems to be saying that an individual’s conscience matters and if a person deep in her/his heart discerns something to be God’s will for her/his life, then that may well be the truth she/he must follow. He’s creating some “wiggle room” between the experience of the individual and the official teaching of the Church.  

We Anglicans live in that “wiggle room,” not because we’re “soft on sin” or because we don’t believe Jesus or the Mosaic Law taught us moral behavior, but because we know that life is usually messy, that we don’t always make the right choices (not a news flash), and that such “wiggle room” is where we often experience the powerful thrust of God’s grace in our lives. Pope Francis calls upon his flock, and particularly his clergy, to “examine the actual situation of families, in order to keep firmly grounded in reality.” Whenever we put rules above people’s lives, then we tend to get hard-hearted, caring more about the rules than the people who are called to keep them. Yes, Francis acknowledges that Jesus set forth a demanding ideal for his disciples, but in doing so Jesus “never failed to show compassion and closeness to the frailty of individuals.”

And then we have Justin Welby, the Archbishop of Canterbury, who recently received news that the man he thought was his biological father, Gavin Welby, actually wasn’t. Instead the Archbishop learned that it was Sir Anthony Montague Browne who for many years was the private secretary to Winston Churchill. In explaining what happened, the Archbishop’s mother wrote that right before her wedding to Gavin Welby, she was “fuelled by a large amount of alcohol” and “went to bed with Anthony Montague Browne.” Such news could’ve become the brunt of tabloid snickering, but the Archbishop addressed this news with grace and compassion toward his mother recognizing that she was an alcoholic at the time and suffered from its addiction. He wrote that he and his wife have faced much harder news in their lives (they had baby daughter who was killed years ago in a car accident). He ended by saying: “I find who I am in Jesus Christ, not in genetics, and my identity in him never changes.”

Two remarkable disciples of Jesus modeling for us how to follow our Lord with grace and compassion for others (and also for themselves).

+Scott

Whoever wishes to be great among you must be your servant – Mark 10:43b

If we want greatness, Jesus says, then we must be willing to live our lives upside down compared to the rest of the world. This is the essence of discipleship that James and John missed in their interaction with Jesus in this Sunday’s Gospel reading. It’s one, however, we dare not miss.

For the first part of my life, I missed it completely. When I was younger, I used to think that being a disciple of Jesus meant becoming personally pious. And, as a young adult, I did. You’d have been proud of me. I lived by the motto: “I don’t smoke, drink, or chew, or go with girls who do!” I was the model young adult. I even won the American Legion “God and Country” award at my high school. Impressed, aren’t you? But what marked my so-called discipleship back then was not what I did, but what I didn’t do. About the only thing I did was carry my Bible around. This, I figured, would show my discipleship to the world. But no one cared. No one persecuted me for doing so (sorry Fox News). Most people thought it was nice and cute and everybody should have their own thing.

My discipleship was based on empty piety. I was no different than the disciples, James and John. They wanted power and privilege because of their closeness to Jesus. I wanted it as a reward for my pious behavior. But I was clueless. My Jesus, at the time, was an upwardly mobile savior. He was the exact replica of the world’s standard of power and privilege. I thought that if I just was pious enough, I could have a seat next to him in eternity. My problem was that there was no blood on the cross of my Jesus. It was squeaky clean and neatly polished. My Jesus rewarded inane, pious behavior.

But the Jesus of the Gospel says: “the foxes have holes, the birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has no where to lay his head.” If I wanted to be his disciple, then I had to accept that I might just end up like him. I better be willing to be baptized with his baptism and to drink the cup he drank. I’ve by no means lived fully into his baptism and his cup. That is my confession and it occupies most of my prayer life. I’m still learning to let go of my unholy desire for power and privilege and to live into a life of service and sacrifice. It’s a daily prayer of mine. I know it’s the right road to be on, but I am a sinner, so I fail more days than not.

But some might not see it as the right road to be on. Some might wonder if this upside down Kingdom really exists, and if it does, is it the right one? Some might think that only a fool would turn his back on the way the world plays the game of power and privilege. After all, it’s a well-known axiom that you need power to get anything done. It might seem foolish not to play by the world’s rules of power and privilege. And yet, our faith tells us that the kingdoms of this world are doomed to pass away; even the kingdom known as the United States of America is doomed to pass away. Only God’s Kingdom is eternal. So, I’d rather, in the end, throw my lot in with God’s Kingdom knowing it’s one based on mercy for an almost daily failure like me.

There are different views of human nature. Some believe we’re inherently good, while others see humans as inherently sinful. Even others hold the view that we’re both good and sinful at the same time, that is, we’re capable of acts of profound goodness as well as acts that we would only be able to call sin. Are we born this way as mixed bags? Or do we learn both the good and the sinful? There’s Biblical and psychological evidence on both sides. Is it nurture or nature that forms us?

As Episcopalians, it shouldn’t surprise us to know that our Church comes down squarely in the middle of these questions. We put a lot of stock in the discipleship process because we know that the only way one becomes a faithful disciple of Jesus is by learning from others what that looks like. We also believe that this is God’s doing. “God is the potter and we are the clay,” as the Prophet Jeremiah put it (18:6). But we also hold the belief in what has traditionally been called original sin. We are “fallen” like Adam and Eve. Part of us rebels mightily against living under the gracious rule of God.

So we make the choice to follow Jesus knowing full well that we’re rebels under God’s rule. The only way to live faithfully (as the mixed bags we are) is to discipline our lives in such ways that we learn to live Good News, that is, to extend to ourselves and to others the unmerited, grace-filled forgiveness God has extended to the whole world in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. This disciplining process is what Christian formation is all about. It’s a process by which we apprentice ourselves to mature Christians who have much to teach us about living grace-filled lives. This isn’t an overnight process. St Paul spent 13 years being apprenticed by others before he set out as a missionary. Christian Formation is not unlike learning to lay brick or a musical instrument. It’s the rare person indeed who can pick up the trowel or the violin and master it from the start. Most have to work years to become merely proficient at, let alone master, such skills. Just because we go to Church for a while and read a book or two of the Bible doesn’t mean that we have the whole disciple-grace-forgiveness-God’s-one-way-love thing all worked out.

And being a disciple of Jesus would be simpler if it weren’t for the fact that we’re also being discipled by other people and things to follow someone or something other than Jesus. For example, some people are discipled to be winners at all cost. Some are discipled to be abusers of life. Some are discipled to be greedy, selfish, and indifferent to the lives of others. This is rarely an obvious or formal process, yet the young boy who is taught to violently hate others because of their race or sexual orientation is being groomed and discipled for that day when he can teach his own children the same vile. Should it surprise us then when that in fact happens?

You and I are called to form ourselves in Jesus who extended his one-way love to the whole world on the cross. It’s a lifetime formation project grounded in the truth of God’s amazing grace. Be patient with yourself and with others in this project. It’s not easy. But we know this: All else will fail us every time.

+Scott