Rescue

by Julie Brunson, December 2007

mirror plane reflects unfathomable Sovereign

surface skirmish avoids unknown ocean below

lungs swell with salty terror

vision burns, clouds consciousness

sinking hope searches for light, life, sky

weak body ceases futile struggle

steady strong arms support

emerging hope rests on silent surface

Sovereign radiance shines warmth

illumines deep beneath

restored strength swims, finds flailing friend

renewed rescuer overcomes watery fear

merciful Sovereign offers freedom

tentative hope reaches out

steadies wild weary survivor

One

August 2007

one

one dead

two dead

coming alive

dismal cloud

fear

lingers

darkness

emerging doubt

lights faith

hope

love

one

Hidden with Christ

I’ve been talking a lot lately about purity and holiness with my friends who find it difficult to believe that they could be considered such because of the lives that they led before they came to know Jesus and because of the ways that they struggle in their present lives. Indeed, this has been a hard thing to believe in my own life for the same reasons. Satan tells us that if we’ve done these impure things in our life, then we can never be considered pure. This morning I was reading Ephesians and it really hit on what I’ve come to believe about this. Paul says in Ephesians 1: 3 Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. 4 For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love 5 he predestined us for adoption to sonship through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will— 6 to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves. 7 In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God's grace 8 that he lavished on us. With all wisdom and understanding, 9 he made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ, 10 to be put into effect when the times reach their fulfillment—to bring unity to all things in heaven and on earth under Christ. 11 In him we were also chosen, having been predestined according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will, 12 in order that we, who were the first to put our hope in Christ, might be for the praise of his glory. 13 And you also were included in Christ when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. When you believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, 14 who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God's possession—to the praise of his glory. I love the reality that God chose us in Christ before creation to be holy and blameless in his sight. This is our true identity. This is what is “hidden with Christ in God” as Paul says in Colossians 3. Our sins and the sins that have been done to us are not who we are; they’re the grave cloths that get pulled off after we have been raised up with Christ. And all this is by the gracious will of God, not that we have pulled ourselves together and started doing the right things and then God decided we were worth saving. In Romans 5:8, Paul reminds us of this: “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” God knew the kinds of sins he’d be forgiving and the kinds of sins that we would struggle to be freed from as believers, and in love he chose us as his children according to his pleasure and will. It’s like he wanted to be our Dad and to help us on a path of freedom. And from when we first believed, he sealed us with his Holy Spirit and set us on a path of redemption from sin. Paul goes on in Ephesians 1: 15 For this reason, ever since I heard about your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all his people, 16 I have not stopped giving thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers. 17 I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better. 18 I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in his people, 19 and his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is the same as the mighty strength 20 he exerted when he raised Christ from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms, 21 far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every name that can be invoked, not only in the present age but also in the one to come. 22 And God placed all things under his feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the church, 23 which is his body, the fullness of him who fills everything in every way. He really wants us to be rooted in our identity as holy, chosen people of God and to get—at a heart-level—the hope that this brings and the power over evil that is available to us in Christ. He then goes on further in chapter 2 to emphasize that “It’s by grace that we have been saved…, not by works…” And throughout Ephesians he’s stressing that the Gentiles, who have come out of a pagan, not very moral background, are one with the Jews and together form the body of Christ. God doesn’t see one as more holy than the other. And it’s only then, after the focus has been on who we are in Christ and “how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ” [3:18], that he begins to talk about how we should live our lives “worthy of the calling” we have received. And even here, it’s not about getting it right as much as letting go of “the old self” and putting on “the new self.” He wants us to change the way we think of ourselves. “For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light…” He’s saying that this is who you are, so live into it; be who you are in Christ. And in the end he challenges us to put on our armor, stand and fight with him against the forces of evil in this darkened world. And to fight for each other to be able to stand in the truth of this gospel. I’ve gotten a lot of messages in my life about how I needed to get my act together and stop sinning and live the way I’m supposed to be living. The path that I’ve found myself on over the past 5 or so years is somewhat ironic to me. I’ve started letting go of trying to get it together and get it right. I’ve begun to believe that I have been given a good heart and my sin and my struggle is not who I am, but instead my identity is holy, loved, redeemed woman of God through Christ. And on this path, I actually find that my behaviors are changed. I’ve found myself responding differently to temptation in old areas of struggle. I’ve experienced a deeper peace and joy in the presence of God, instead of the old familiar shame and self-doubt. I still sin. I still falter in some of the old areas of weakness and shame. But I find it easier to repent, get up and hop back on the path of freedom and healing.

Lament

This poem formed after singing Be Still at Vespers a couple of weeks ago. The song has the line "The broken sob at the graveside/the wedding bells at noon" which always reminds me of the death of my dad when I was two and my mom was 27 with 3 kids [7yrs, 5yrs, and me]. Usually it prompts me to grieve for my mom or my sisters, because I'm not that good about grieving for myself and the wounds I have endured--especially with Daddy's death, where I don't even have memories of him or anything, just absence-of-father numbness. Anyways, a few Sundays ago, I felt sad for my own loss and for the confusion and darkness that ensued after his death and for the difficulty in grieving at all. It was hard to read it at Vespers and posting it feels a bit awkward, because even though I spend much of my ministering time helping people grieve the losses in their lives that they havn't been able to grieve, I feel stupid for still trying to grieve something that happened 38 years ago. Satan's attack, I know. Anyways, here's the poem... lament by julie brunson little girl, just two, oblivious to the loss looming on her future— fatherless. grownups absent, abandoned to their own grief— motherless. no rudder to maneuver in dense emotional chaos. tears and sobs, what do they mean? what lamentations are given one so young? barren words cover boundless loss; everything will not be OK.

life together

So Karen and I were talking the other day about the monastic tradition of paring cloistered, contemplative nuns who are devoted to prayer with missional nuns who work with the poor and the sick and the children and others in need. On the retreat we talked a bit about this because one of the desert fathers [in Henri Nouwen’s book The Way of the Heart that we were reading] said that he worked to make money to pay for his food and then left some outside his door while he slept and the one who took the money would pray for him while he slept so he could fulfill the command to pray without ceasing. At the time I thought this seemed a bit legalistic in a sort of silly way. Now I’m rethinking the point of that and similar practices of the monastic communities. With the nuns, the idea is that the one who has much time to pray would pray on behalf of those who have more to do in a given day and may not be able to. This isn’t really seen as an “I’ll pray for you” relationship [although there is that], but it’s the idea that a part of the call to unceasing prayer [from 1Thessalonians 5] is taken up by the one for the other so they both fulfill this command. This command is given to the community, not individuals necessarily. The passage is talking about how the community should function together. I think of it like the passage in Philippians 2 that tells us to work out our salvation with fear and trembling. [The idea being: work out our salvation together as a body of believers.] Part of the reason that this has been coming up for me is that I’ve recently quit my physically draining [especially for my arthritic body] job at Office Depot to work in a kind of spiritual counseling. With my kids both in school and the plan for me to work less hours than I was at Office Depot, I will have more time to explore the disciplines of silence, solitude and prayer that I’ve been contemplating in Nouwen’s book and another that I’ve been reading called The Sacred Way by Tony Jones. The immediate lie that I hear is that I should feel guilty because it’s not fair that I get this time and most everyone I know doesn’t. My only two options, Satan tells me, are to either find some way to busy myself so it doesn’t look like I’m not doing anything or not tell anyone what I’m experiencing in this because it’s not fair that they can’t have it. Not surprisingly, when I took a day to be alone and talk to God, what I felt like he was saying was that I’m supposed to take this path [i.e. not busy myself] and part of the point is that that’s what I will have to offer to the people around me [i.e. I’m supposed to talk about it]. My ministry is to pray on behalf of my friends who are working full time jobs or are working in the more labor-intensive part of parenting, to speak and write about what I hear God saying to my community, and to be myself a place of rest for the people around me. Speaking even about doing this brings a chorus of lies in my head, I wonder what I’ll hear as I try to live it out. Maybe writing this is a start.

Ministers of Reconciliation

Ministers of Reconciliation: version twenty

I sometimes worry that I don’t have a longing to be in heaven like I should if I am really a Christian. I mean, I don’t think about streets of gold or crowns or anything like that. 2 Corinthians 5 has helped me to see what my longing for heaven looks like. Paul says:

¹Now we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed [of travelers, to halt on a journey, to put up, lodge (the figurative expression originating in the circumstance that, to put up for the night, the straps and packs of the beasts of burden are unbound and taken off; or, more correctly from the fact that the traveler’s garments, tied up when he is on the journey, are unloosed at it end)], we have a building from God, an eternal [without beginning and end, that which always has been and always will be] house in heaven, not built by human hands. ²Meanwhile we groan, longing to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling [a dwelling place, habitation (of the body as a dwelling place for the spirit)], ³because when we are clothed, we will not be found naked. ⁴For while we are in this tent, we groan and are burdened, because we do not wish to be unclothed but to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life. ⁵Now it is God who has made us for this very purpose and has given us the Spirit as a deposit [money which in purchases is given as a pledge or down payment that the full amount will subsequently be paid], guaranteeing what is to come.

I think of this in the context of what we’ve been studying in Matthew about Jesus bringing the kingdom of heaven to earth when he came [which fits with the idea that the Spirit is in us as a deposit, like the first bit of what will be]. The longing is for our heavenly dwelling—the essence of who we were created to be before the foundation of the world when God chose us—to be here and God’s will to be done on earth as it is in heaven. When I interact with my friends—believers and unbelievers alike—and I taste something true and good that is a part of the kingdom of God bursting into this temporal kingdom of darkness, I long for that to be what life is all the time. And, particularly for our unbelieving friends, that this beautiful kingdom of heaven would be their destiny as it is ours. That when we hang up our earthly tents at the end of this temporal journey, that they would have a heavenly home for their spirit to put on for eternity. This is pretty much where Paul is going in 2 Corinthians 5:

¹⁴For Christ's love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died. ¹⁵And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again.

¹⁶So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. ¹⁷Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone [and is going], the new has come[and is coming]! ¹⁸All this is from God, who reconciled [to change, exchange, as coins for others of equivalent value] us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry [those who by the command of God proclaim and promote religion among men (also the word for the office of the deacon in the church)] of reconciliation: ¹⁹that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men's sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. ²⁰We are therefore Christ's ambassadors [to be older, prior by birth or in age (from the base word used for the office of elders)], as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ's behalf: Be reconciled to God. ²¹God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

There is in this a groaning because what we see coming and hope for is only here as a deposit. God has exchanged our old, sinful tent for our new, heavenly home: we are a new creation that is reconciled to God. And yet we are still in this process: right now we have the good taste of the deposit, and still the stench of sin in and around us. And we are sent into the world to see our friends [and enemies, for that matter] from a spiritual point of view. That is, we love them with Christ’s love and look at them as those that Christ is wanting to reconcile to God. What’s interesting to me is that at this point he doesn’t say: “Go minister to these people so they can be reconciled.” Instead, he tells us that our identity as new creations IS ministers of reconciliation [the work that God is doing]. His command to us is: “Be reconciled.” This seems to be like our Village-speak: “Live into your identity.” As I think about this in the context of The Way of the Heart [by Henri Nouwen] that we’ve been reading this summer, it makes more sense than it has before. I think our tendency is to either focus inwardly and work on our own issues in hopes that we can be more reconciled to God or to focus on going out and doing stuff to teach people about getting reconciled to God. Nouwen talks about solitude, silence and prayer, which seem to be calling us away from the world, but Nouwen’s point is how these teachings of the desert fathers can be brought to bear in ministry in the midst of the world of darkness. He says:

But when we learn to descend with our mind into our heart, then all those who have become part of our lives are led into the healing presence of God and touched by him in the center of our being. We are speaking here about a mystery for which words are inadequate. It is the mystery that the heart, which is the center of our being, is transformed by God into his own heart, a heart large enough to embrace the entire universe. Through prayer we can carry in our heart all human pain and sorrow, all conflicts and agonies, all torture and war, all hunger, loneliness, and misery, not because of some great psychological or emotional capacity, but because God’s heart has become one with ours.

Here we catch sight of the meaning of Jesus’ word, “Shoulder my yoke and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. yes, my yoke is easy and my burden is light” (Matthew 11:29-30). Jesus invites us to accept his burden, which is the burden of the whole world, a burden that includes human suffering in all times and places. But this divine burden is light, and we can carry it when our heart has been transformed into the gentle and humble heart of our Lord.

Here we can see the intimate relationship between prayer and ministry. The discipline of leading all our people with their struggles into the gentle and humble heart of God is the discipline of prayer as well as the discipline of ministry. As long as ministry only means that we worry a lot about people and their problems; as long as it means an endless number of activities which we can hardly coordinate, we are still very much dependent on our own narrow and anxious heart.
But when our worries are led to the heart of God and there become prayer, then ministry and prayer become two manifestations of the same all-embracing love of God.

Our ministry flows out of our being reconciled to God; it flows out of our rest in the grace-filled heart of God who rescued us and gave us hope through Christ. We want to go and do and make things happen and God wants us to rest and be and watch what he is doing in and through and around us. We hear this in Isaiah 30:

¹⁵This is what the Sovereign LORD, the Holy One of Israel, says:

"In repentance and rest is your salvation,
in quietness and trust is your strength,
but you would have none of it.

¹⁶You said, 'No, we will flee on horses.'
Therefore you will flee!
You said, 'We will ride off on swift horses.'
Therefore your pursuers will be swift!

¹⁷A thousand will flee
at the threat of one; at the threat of five
you will all flee away, till you are left
like a flagstaff on a mountaintop,
like a banner on a hill."

¹⁸Yet the LORD longs to be gracious to you;
he rises to show you compassion.
For the LORD is a God of justice.
Blessed are all who wait for him!

¹⁹O people of Zion, who live in Jerusalem, you will weep no more. How gracious he will be when you cry for help! As soon as he hears, he will answer you. ²⁰Although the Lord gives you the bread of adversity and the water of affliction, your teachers will be hidden no more; with your own eyes you will see them. ²¹Whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you, saying, "This is the way; walk in it." ²²Then you will defile your idols overlaid with silver and your images covered with gold; you will throw them away like a menstrual cloth and say to them, "Away with you!"

This is God’s work in Israel who was meant to be a light to the nations. They were meant to be the revelation of God in the world. But our world is filled with idols and images that we are hard-pressed to escape. And we are driven by our culture of fear to go and do and expect everything to happen quickly [even if we aren’t fleeing on horses, per se]. Waiting on God seems like a foreign call. Again, Nouwen talks about the interplay of solitude, silence and prayer if we are to minister in such a culture.

Solitude shows us the way to let our behavior be shaped not by the compulsions of the world but by our new mind, the mind of Christ. Silence prevents us from being suffocated by our wordy world and teaches us to speak the Word of God. Finally, unceasing prayer gives solitude and silence their real meaning. In unceasing prayer, we descend with the mind into the heart. Thus we enter through our heart into the heart of God, who embraces all of history with his eternally creative and recreative love.

The fruit of our time alone with God, where we stop and pull ourselves out of the kingdom of darkness that reigns in this present age, is that we are freed to live for Christ and not for ourselves. That we are strengthened to live into the new creation, the heavenly dwelling that we are coming into. That we find rest in the saving grace of Christ, that doesn’t require us to labor for our salvation, and then we go out and invite the world out of darkness and into that rest. And we call our fellow believers into their identities as new creations who in being reconciled to God invite others into that rest.

Beauty

I was looking at old pictures the other day and realizing some things about beauty. You see, from when I was young and abused, I learned to disconnect from my body. I have found this experience to be common and sometimes severe among those who have been abused [psychologists would call it disassociative disorder, I think] and present to varying degrees in many of those who have not. When I look at my pictures from childhood, I can see when the abuse started. I began to have a vacant look. As a child, this behavior allowed me to survive; as I have grown up, it has become an impediment to really living that I have had to consciously move away from. So what does all this have to do with beauty? Well, I guess I was realizing how ministering to my friends who have been abused has really shaped my experience of beauty. Our culture [and I would argue Satan] wants to say that beauty is present [or to most of our minds absent] in our physical form. However, as I look at myself and others move from disconnectedness to living in our bodies, I say that beauty emanates from our living into ourselves. When I saw my grandmother’s dead body at her funeral, I was struck by the absence of her. She wasn’t there. The body didn’t even look like her in a lot of ways. That’s what I see happening as I walk the healing path and invite others along: people [mostly women, I my personal experience] moving from an empty shell that honestly reveals little beauty, to animated, connected women whose beauty is stunningly reflective of who God is. The joy that I get to experience as one who invites women onto this path is that I sometimes get to see women come into their beauty for the first time. Often this is full of tears and grieving, but it brings hope for new life and the deeper presence of joy. Our community is full of women coming into this beauty; look around and enjoy and affirm what you see.

I was journaling a bit after blogging and liked the connection of beauty out of mourning. We talked about this passage/prophesy last night at "that thing with Eric" because it seemed related to Jesus' response to John the Baptist in Matthew 11 where he asks if Jesus is "the one." Seems to be at the heart of the kingdom of God coming to us an us brining the kingdom of God to the world and each other as ministers of reconciliation [2Cor 5:11-21, our other favorite verse]. Isaiah 61 1 The Spirit of the Sovereign LORD is on me, because the LORD has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners, 2 to proclaim the year of the LORD's favor and the day of vengeance of our God, to comfort all who mourn, 3 and provide for those who grieve in Zion— to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair. They will be called oaks of righteousness, a planting of the LORD for the display of his splendor. 4 They will rebuild the ancient ruins and restore the places long devastated; they will renew the ruined cities that have been devastated for generations. 5 Aliens will shepherd your flocks; foreigners will work your fields and vineyards. 6 And you will be called priests of the LORD, you will be named ministers of our God. You will feed on the wealth of nations, and in their riches you will boast. 7 Instead of their shame my people will receive a double portion, and instead of disgrace they will rejoice in their inheritance; and so they will inherit a double portion in their land, and everlasting joy will be theirs. 8 "For I, the LORD, love justice; I hate robbery and iniquity. In my faithfulness I will reward them and make an everlasting covenant with them. 9 Their descendants will be known among the nations and their offspring among the peoples. All who see them will acknowledge that they are a people the LORD has blessed." 10 I delight greatly in the LORD; my soul rejoices in my God. For he has clothed me with garments of salvation and arrayed me in a robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom adorns his head like a priest, and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels. 11 For as the soil makes the sprout come up and a garden causes seeds to grow, so the Sovereign LORD will make righteousness and praise spring up before all nations.