For this reason (and many others), the ongoing pastoral theological formation of Christians matters a great deal. A significant part of this formation entails the capacity to respond to some of the most primal existential and theological questions: “Where is God? How could God have allowed this to happen? Does God care about me, about my children, about my loved ones? Is there any safety in the world?” Perhaps paradoxically, the best response, as Jennifer Holberg alluded to yesterday, is silence—not the kind of silence synonymous with avoidance but the kind that respects the profundity of the questions themselves. 

Put another way, I think it’s critical for us to tolerate these questions without rushing to answer them—for, at one level, they are not answerable. The best work we can do, at least to begin, is to accept the ambiguity and uncertainty inherent in life by inviting tough questions out into the open, by fostering curiosity and inquiry, and by challenging those who attempt to apply cookie-cut answers to pain. This posture is grounded in trust—trust in God’s Spirit to breathe life into those in despair. A poem by Anne Hillman points us in this direction:

We look with uncertainty

beyond the old choices for

clear-cut answers

to a softer, more permeable aliveness

which is at every moment

at the brink of death;

for something new is being born within us

if we but let it.

We stand at a new doorway,

awaiting that which comes ...

daring to be human creatures,

vulnerable to the beauty of existence.

Of course, we will go beyond that eventually, grappling with more (rather than less) theologically adequate responses to the perennial questions about God’s role in human suffering. 

Where is God when tragedy strikes? There God is, on the cross, suffering injustice, betrayal, and ignorance. Which means that God knows our suffering from the inside out, that God has been marked by suffering, and that God is still present with us in our suffering today. After losing his son to a tragic mountain climbing accident, theologian Nicholas Wolterstorff wrote this: “The wounds of Christ are his identity. They tell us who he is. He did not lose them. They went down into the grave with him and they came up with him—visible, tangible, palpable. Rising did not remove them. He who broke the bonds of death kept his wounds.”

Where is God when tragedy strikes? Here God is, in the midst of us. Jesus promised, “Wherever two or three gather in my name, I am there in the midst of them” (Matt. 18:20). God is present as we are present to each other in the midst of tragedy, trauma, and disaster. Here is the real presence of Christ, mediated to us certainly through Word and Sacrament but also through our union and communion with each other.

As ones who are united to Christ, we mirror the love of God to one another. Knowing Jesus Christ does not occur in isolation. It occurs in the context of Christ’s body. Jesus does not exist as a disembodied or abstract spirit but rather as a diverse community of love. Seeing kindness, care, and sorrow in one another’s faces points us to the Face of God in Jesus Christ. The Apostle Paul wrote that we all with unveiled faces reflect the glory of God to one another (2 Cor. 3:18)—a glory often hidden and revealed in the context of suffering. When we see and hear and assist one another in the midst of the impossibility of large-scale loss, we experience grace; and in the presence of grace, guilt and despair fade away. And over time, joy punctures (if only for moments) our sorrow.

Three skill sets (or, practices) in compassionate communication contribute to transforming conflict: honesty, empathy, and self-empathy. When we lean into conflict with these three practices, we create the conditions whereby the Spirit may unite us in peace. In this blog, I’ll unpack the skill set of honesty—which though simple is far from simplistic.

To begin, we have to admit the obvious: not all honesty is helpful, caring, or compassionate. Some forms of honesty trigger defensiveness or escalation of conflict. The honesty that I’m talking about is founded upon the knowledge and acceptance of our fellowship with one another. Christians belong to one another. Our lives are woven together in Christ. To speak harsh judgments against each other is an attack on Christ’s body.

In contrast, “speaking truth in love” contributes to mutual understanding, support, interdependence, peace, and trust. It is grounded in an intention to live out our reconciliation in Christ. This kind of honesty is refreshingly assertive; it is not nice; and, it is not passive. It is authentic; it flows from our most cherished values and needs. It is empowering. Simple expressions of honesty have a way of inspiring, even freeing, others to risk opening their hearts (and mouths) so that they can be seen and known more fully. 

The kind of honesty that helps transform conflict begins with observations rather than evaluations. An observation is a concrete statement or thought that reflects what we are hearing, seeing, or remembering in reference to a specific context, event, or interaction.  By very definition, then, observations are distinct from our interpretations, evaluations and judgments about what we are hearing, seeing, or remembering. Evaluations can take many forms: interpretations of one’s actions; labels denoting one’s character; diagnoses of one’s personhood. In all instances, evaluations are “stories” that we tell ourselves about ourselves or others. These stories may be circumscribed, focusing on particular actions or events, or they may be all-encompassing. Overall evaluations evoke defensiveness and lead to disconnection in relationships. When we make observations about what is upsetting us, we establish common understanding and we encourage open conversation.

Honesty involves more than simply making observations, of course. It involves speaking about what matters most to us in a given situation. It’s about identifying our most deeply cherished values and pressing needs. Here I am actually using the language of needs and values interchangeably.  Needs are universal qualities that contribute to the flourishing of human life—for example, purpose, meaning, community, integrity, peace, autonomy, choice, freedom, love, physical well-being, etc. Defined in this way, needs sustain us in living a physically, emotionally, and spiritually fulfilled life. Because of this, needs are the points of connection—the place of human encounter—in the midst of difference, disagreement, or dissension. Why? Because we all hold them in common. 

At the heart of many interpersonal impasses and power struggles lies a failure to identify all the needs at play.  Typically we argue about the effectiveness and validity of competing strategies without ever identifying the needs that such strategies seek to meet.  In other words, we bypass that which has the potential to connect us at the level of our common humanity, i.e., our needs and values.

The kind of honesty that unites rather than divides also is void of demands. We set aside our demands of one another and instead learn to make requests of each other, to make and respond to request requests that meet our common needs and thereby enriching our life in encounter. Unlike demands, requests respect the other’s choice and autonomy (as well as our own). We trust that if someone says “no” to our request, it is likely because they are saying “yes” to some (perhaps unstated) need of theirs at that time own. We hear the “yes” within their “no.” It’s important here to recognize that if we do something out of guilt, fear or coercion, we build up resentment. There is little chance for sustainable, caring community when resentment lurks below the surface. 

When we speak the truth in love, we participate in the Spirit’s work of reminding us that we are children of God, loved by God and created in God’s image. Speaking the truth in love contributes to the mutual integration and adaptation of the members of the church toward one another. Truthful and loving honesty helps the church to become more interdependent, that is, to become who it is—an integrated organism comprised of the most diverse parts. By speaking the truth in love, we encourage and even empower each other to live out both our common and our unique callings in life. Each of us has a common calling to serve others, to live in solidarity with those who are suffering, and to witness to God’s grace in word and deed. And each of us has been given gifts of the Spirit—mercy, service, administration, teaching, etc.—in order to carry out this calling in our congregations, neighborhoods, families, and workplaces. Thus such honesty is not merely about transforming conflict but rather about the church’s fulfillment of its mission in the world.

Consequently, I have spent the past seven years intensively learning a practice called “nonviolent” or “compassionate” communication. Developed by clinical psychologist Marshall Rosenberg, Nonviolent Communication has grown an international peacemaking organization, with people on nearly all continents practicing conflict transformation in their homes and workplaces and even now a small handful of seminaries.

My colleague, Deborah van Deusen Hunsinger (Princeton Theological Seminary) and I have written a book, Transforming Church Conflict: Compassionate Leadership in Action, in which we interpret the practice of compassionate communication in light of Christian theology and apply it to a wide variety of intrapersonal and interpersonal challenges in ministry today. (The book has just been released—so this is a bit of self-promotion, too!)

Broadly speaking, congregations face a myriad of challenges.  Some flounder in intractable conflict. Some struggle to recover from clergy misconduct. Mainline denominations are rent apart by polarizing discourse and some congregations are so disheartened that they are tempted to withdraw altogether. Individuals choose to believe without belonging to the church at all. Or they belong marginally--taking what they can get from worship but avoiding any authentic communal relationships of service and support. Pastors are burning out at an alarming rate, and other leaders grow weary of keeping all the church’s programs afloat.  Both pastors and other leaders falter under the weight of their own and others’ expectations to do it all.

Add to this the fact that in our world today we encounter “otherness” on a daily basis. We are inundated with diverse ways of being Christian, of being religious, of being a person. We have to choose from among these, discerning to the best of our ability what it means to live a good, faithful, true life in relationship to those both near and far from us. And then we have to learn how to live in community with people who choose differently than us.

Actually this is not all bad news. For challenges like these provide opportunities for spiritual growth, for seeing and understanding and following God in new ways.  In short, these challenges can remind us of who we are as the church.

On the eve of his arrest, Jesus prayed to God for his disciples, “that they may be one, as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may be completely one, so that the world may know that you have sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me” (John 17:23). In so doing, he acknowledged the koinonia that constitutes the being of God, the church, and the world.

Often translated “fellowship” in English, the Greek word koinonia means “mutual indwelling,” “participation,” and “coexistence.” To say that we have fellowship with God and each other means, therefore, that we exist in the greatest possible intimacy and integrity with God and each other. Put simply, we belong to God and we belong to each other in the most profound sense.

This koinonia among the members of Christ’s body takes when we gather to worship. As a lived reality, koinonia is a theological and confessional fellowship, a fellowship of conversion, thankfulness, prayer and service. In the church, our lives are knit together in a series of I-Thou encounters of love. By the power of the Spirit in our midst, we live in peace with each other, support one another, confess our sin to one another, practice hospitality toward one another, and bear each other’s burdens.

Woven together as one Body, members of the church are called to witness in word and deed to Jesus Christ, in whom our koinonia with God and each other is perfectly complete and through whom it will be fully manifest. But disunity in the Church contradicts our very identity and scandalizes our witness. For how can the Church be an ambassador of reconciliation when communities of faith are torn asunder by mutual recrimination, judgment, and cut-offs? How can we worship in spirit and truth and vilify those made in God’s image, those in whom God dwells?

Moreover, how we deal with conflict in the church usually is a contradiction of our koinonia with God and each other. But it doesn’t have to be. For conflict can provide an opportunity for practicing our koinonia with greater faithfulness and integrity. But in order to do that, we need to have a new understanding of conflict and a new posture toward conflict itself.

First, conflict is both a gift and a possibility, because conflict is itself a central component in transformation. Whether conflict resides in a single person, between persons, or within groups, conflict provides a possibility for new vision and new practices. For this newness to emerge, though, we often need to patiently endure the discomfort of conflict; we need to prayerfully wait for the Spirit of God to move in our midst, so that we ourselves are transformed.

Put more simply, honestly facing and working through conflict (not around it) leads to more authentic community and therefore to greater creativity in participating in the mission of the church in the world.

Secondly, conflict isn’t just something external to us. It is an internal reality. When a church is in conflict, most pastors and leaders (if not members) are in conflict as well.  The conflict does not reside outside the pastor or only among the church’s most vocal members.  It resides within every person in the church.  We internalize our context and are an integral part of the emotional system in which we reside. So the transformation of conflict has to begin within our own personhood. How church leaders, in particular, position themselves vis-à-vis the conflict is a key to transformation. 

Third, conflict is rarely transformed by seeking compromise. The problem with compromise is that it frequently leads to resentment and fragile community connections. Compromise also tends to bypass humanizing encounter and goes straight to seeking strategies to relieve our pain and discomfort. It can be superficial, therefore. Transforming conflict begins when we relate to one another at the level of our common humanity, a kind of koinonia encounter that is supported by three practices or skill sets, which I’ll be exploring in upcoming posts.

1. Uniformity is comfortable. Sociologists describe at length the power of affinity groups—groups of likeminded people—in creating and sustaining a sense of belonging among people. There’s an ease to sameness. They also describe the deleterious effects on society when this “bonding social capital” becomes so prevalent that there is minimal “bridging social capital”—belonging to and with those who are different from us. In brief, bonding social capital without bridging social capitals lead to the creation of “in groups” and “out groups,” insular thinking, and impeded learning and growth. Furthermore, it can contribute to violence.  

2. Uniformity is not unity. Christian unity comes from our communal participation in Christ. United to Christ, we are united to one another. We exist in one body (though we more often contradict that reality than live into it). As a body, we exist in differentiated unity. This is the basic pattern of our union and communion with one another. Members of Christ’s body are inseparable yet distinguishable intellectually, emotionally, ethnically, etc. The church fulfills its common mission in the world, in part, because of the Spirit’s work in and through this differentiation. True collaboration requires differentiation, and transformation often emerges in the context of significant disagreement.

3. Anytime a family, group, congregation, or other system adopts policies about its overall character and functioning, there is the risk that those who differ or disagree may be excluded, marginalized, or even banned from the communion. Human history (and certainly Christian history) is replete with examples of this. When we acknowledge this reality, however, we also need to recognize the complexity of power dynamics involved in the debates and voting about ordination in denominations. Power is related to the amount of resources one person or group has in relation to another person or group in a given context. We have power or are vulnerable in relationship to one another in light of our resources in a given situation. Sources of power include gender, sexual orientation, racial-ethnic background, age, religion, life experience, role, and a variety of economic, physical, and intellectual resources. Clearly those who have been denied ordination or whose ordination has been opposed on the basis of their gender or sexual orientation are those who likely have less power in church and society overall.

4. The conscience clauses that were intended to protect women seeking ordination as well as those opposing women’s ordination didn’t stop people from spurning the spirit of the law, so to speak. Those with less power have suffered the greatest. The same is true for those who have been kept from ordination in other denominations. Changes in polity do not ensure just, caring, communities of faith marked by integrity. Polity may set certain boundaries, but true change takes years of self-differentiated, cooperative leadership from those with the most power alongside those who have been marginalized. It takes intentionality over the long haul—rather than an assumption that the past presence of or future removal of conscience clauses will “solve the problem.” While such transformation ultimately depends upon the work of God’s Spirit, we have a role to play and work to do in response to God’s ministry among us.

Whereas the serpent taunted, tempted, and circled about Adam and Eve, striking venom into their hearts and minds, the religious leaders circled about Jesus as he taught in the temple during the days before his arrest—like a pack of hungry wolves waiting to pounce upon their weakened prey. As the week went on, the gospel narratives indicate that the power of the void—the nothingness that sought to undo God’s good creation, to return it back to nothing—became more and more palpable. Jesus’ emotions were on the surface. One moment he was weeping bitterly for Jerusalem and the next foretelling God’s judgment upon her. He cursed an unfruitful fig tree and warned his disciples to be on alert for the coming days of dread.

In Eden, Adam and Even turned to mutual recrimination and blame. Shame closed then off to each other and God. They attempted to protect themselves, turning inward in the most harmful of ways, becoming invulnerable. Yet Jesus kept his heart open. With the utmost intimacy, affection, tenderness and devotion, he served his disciples a meal, knelt before them, and washed the grime off their feet. The crowds who had praised him and eagerly listened to his teaching; the disciples who communed with him for the three years; and the one who pledged his unswerving loyalty: all were about to forsake Jesus. Knowing this, he still chose love. He remained vulnerable.

In Mark’s account of Gethsemane, Jesus cried out, “My soul is sorrowful to the point of death.”  He felt half-dead with anguish.  Fear seized him, and he fell to the ground.  He was struck with horror (as John Calvin put it) by the fate that awaited him.  Being fully human, he desperately needed his friends in this hour; yet they failed him. They lacked the emotional and spiritual stamina to stay by his side. As the weight of the void (sin, death, and the devil) pressed down upon Jesus, he wrestled with God: “Take this cup from me; nevertheless not my will but thine be done.” Adam and Eve’s hiding from God now became Jesus’ persistent prayer even as God’s presence increasingly became distant, unreachable, and silent. Faith now triumphed over fear.

Yet this triumph had the appearance of its opposite: defeat. Jesus began to sweat and to sweat blood—blood, sweat, and tears. Hematidrosis is a medical condition brought upon by acute distress. The capillaries under the skin dilate so much that they burst, causing blood to ooze through the skin along with sweat. It makes one’s skin tender and fragile, painful to the touch.  The kiss of Jesus, betrayal in the guise of affection, likely caused emotional, spiritual, and physical pain. Jesus’ blood, sweat, and tears in the Garden of Gethsemane harkens back to Garden of Eden, where the original turning away from God yielded blood, sweat, and tears. For Eve, there would be the bloody anguish of birth; for Adam, physical labor that brought sweat to his brow; for both, tears of sorrow as they lost their peaceful union and communion with God and each other.

In Gethsemane, though, God is the one who bleeds, sweats, and grieves.  Here the power of the void entered into the personal existence of the Incarnate Word. “He who knew no sin became sin.”  He bore sin and death so completely that he took it into his own being; so that by his dying, it too would die. Our anguish became God’s anguish; our alienation, God’s alienation; our shame, God’s shame; our death, God’s death. Of course, on this side of Gethsemane, contemplation of this somber reality creates awe and gratitude, for Christ’s alienation has become our reconciliation. We receive (again and again) the gift of faith in place of fear and inseparable unity with God and each other.

Of course, much Christian theology emphasizes the speaking God, and rightly so. Jesus Christ is the incarnate Word of God who creates and sustains all life. God speaks life into being. The Word reveals the fullness of God to all humanity. If we want to know God, we listen to God’s Word, Jesus Christ. For his life, death, and resurrection constitute God’s love letter to humanity—a letter that is spoken and heard again and again. Scripture is the written word of God that witnesses to the incarnate Word. By the power of the Spirit, we encounter God in scripture and experience our lives as woven into God’s grand narrative of healing and reconciliation. There are the preached word and the sacramental word as well. Through the former, Jesus Christ is proclaimed in particular times and places through particular idioms and stories. Through baptism and the Lord’s Supper, we participate in the life of the Word and receive God’s words of promise.

Yet deep listening—listening that originates in the Triune God—undergirds all of this speaking. God hears the cries of God’s people. God hears the mutual recrimination and blame of Adam and Eve and all whom they represent. God hears the prayerful and sometimes bitter longing of barren and betrayed women. God hears the agony of enslaved Israel laboring under oppressive pharaohs. God hears the stubbornness of king Saul, the penitence of king David, and the petition of Hezekiah. God hears the cries of the psalmists for justice, mercy, truth, freedom, healing, and salvation even when those longings are masked by vengeful outrage. 

God, in Jesus Christ, first listens and then speaks. That this Word is a listening Word is perhaps nowhere more evident than in Jesus’ walk to Emmaus (Luke 23:13-35). Three days after Jesus’ execution, two of his disciples set out on a seven-mile journey from the bustling city of Jerusalem to the quiet village of Emmaus. Perhaps they needed the external quiet in order to wrestle adequately with their internal cacophony of thoughts, questions, feelings, and needs. As journeys go, this one was more inward and spiritual than outward and physical. Engulfed by shock, disappointment, and distress, these men wandered in bewilderment. They were threatened on all sides. The tortured death of their beloved friend, the supposed Messiah, led them face-to-face with nothingness, with the obliteration of life. Their association with Jesus made them vulnerable to violence. Two of their women friends made incomprehensible claims about an empty tomb, a missing body, and dazzling angels. Yet it was all too much for them. Their world—their very belief structure—had shattered. They could not transcend their situation. They were inwardly lost.

At this point of greatest need, God in Jesus Christ joined them, and as is often the case in situations like these, they did recognize God’s presence. So unbeknownst to them, Jesus walked beside them and entered into their experience. He listened deeply. He asked open-ended questions. He avoiding explicitly answering their questions and glossing over their angst in some superficial manner. He facilitated a deep indwelling of their own situation by creating space for their internal wrestling. When he finally spoke, he explored with them their own life story—their communal history as the chosen people of God—and their particular history as his disciples. He reflected on their stories in light of the biblical narrative. In this lively dialogue marked by attentive (and eventually mutual) listening, Jesus fed their souls with wisdom and understanding. When he broke bread with them, the scales fell from their eyes. As a result of having been seen and heard at the deepest levels of their existence, they now knew themselves, God, and the world differently. Their encounter with God in Jesus Christ, which began and continued with deep listening, comforted and transformed them.

The listening God is a ministering God, a healing God, a reconciling God. I wonder what our relationships with God and neighbor might look like if our theology began with attentiveness to this God. I wonder how much our failure to listen and follow this God undermines the mission of the church and leads us away from God and neighbor. As Bonhoeffer writes, “Many people are looking for an ear that will listen. They do not find it among Christians, because these Christians are talking where they should be listening. But he who can no longer listen to his brother [or sister] will soon be no longer listening to God either; he will be doing nothing but prattle in the presence of God too. This is the beginning of the death of the spiritual life, and in the end there is nothing left but spiritual chatter and clerical condescension arrayed in pious words” (Life Together).

In this context, some seminaries are adapting innovatively—establishing creative relationships with community and church partners that serve the vocational formation of students and enable them to participate in God’s ongoing ministry of healing and reconciliation in the world. Other seminaries are not able to do so. Many have closed, and more will close. Others are discovering (the hard way) that they must live within their means and somehow figure out to grieve the many losses that come with radical downsizing and the construction of a new identity.

All this talk about change comes easy at the level of abstraction—that is, when it’s someone else’s seminary. For those of us living through decline (or at least what appears to be decline until there are signs of resurrection), disorganization, or upheaval, it’s another story altogether. When old programs are cut or suspended; when the elimination of staff and faculty positions loom on the horizon; when the pressure is on to create revenue-neutral or new money-making programs; when collegial relationships end; and when financial and vocational wellbeing seems threatened: living well and living faithfully become a huge challenge.

I’m living through this kind of institutional upheaval at the moment, and I’m far from alone. Just this week, I learned of two schools in the throes of deep loss and grief: one seminary that must reduce faculty and staff salaries across-the-board (and this is after a major layoff just a couple years ago); one church-related undergraduate institution that has been financially mismanaged, leading to drastic cuts in program and personnel. And frankly, seminaries and Christian colleges are not the only ones experiencing this kind of institutional upheaval. Many of my friends and relatives know the same dynamics in their workplaces, from public schools and universities to private businesses. 

Living well and living faithfully in these circumstances, as I’m discovering, involves a kind of going-back-to-the-basics—practicing the abc’s of wellbeing, so to speak. (And yes, this is part of the paradox, since institutional thriving will necessitate radical adaptation and change on another level.) What are some of those basics?

Abiding. In the Gospel of John, Jesus speaks of our union and communion with him as an abiding—a resting in God that comes from trust that we are upheld at all points, in all times, and in all places through our unbreakable bond to Jesus Christ. Practices of worship, prayer, meditation, and contemplation in nature (to name a few) enable us to abide in the One in whom all things hold together.

Breathing. In the midst of stress, we tend to stop breathing deeply. As those who meditate and practice yoga know (and as neurobiological studies reveal), sitting quietly and intentionally breathing deeply helps to calm the mind, thus opening the way for clear, creative decision-making and action. This can be integrated with prayer as well—for example, the breath prayer. Twelfth century mystic, reformer, and church leader Hildegard of Bingen said, prayer is the inhaling and exhaling of the one Breath of the universe.

Communicating. Giving and receiving clear, accurate, and up-to-date information in the midst of institutional upheaval is paramount for building trust and moving into a new day with hope and healing. While all details may not be appropriate for all audiences, veiled references to upcoming decisions and trumped up (or worse yet, spiritualized) calls to look on the bright side sound disingenuous and fail to build up the body of Christ. Painful truth stated honestly not only reduces anxiety but also drives us to depend again and again on the Resurrected One, who can bring new life (because he is New Life) in the midst of death and destruction. And this is indeed what we need most.

Julian (1342-1416) was an English anchoress, mystic, and pastoral theologian. She lived in a cell adjacent to a church, which likely had three windows—one into the church; one for receiving food and other necessities; and one for receiving visitors in need of counsel. Through her window into the world, she listened deeply and shared spiritual guidance, sustenance, and comfort with persons in need. Rooted and grounded in the providential love of God, Julian cared for others in her anxiety- and grief-filled age.

Fourteenth century English society experienced a scourge of plagues, both figuratively and literally: the Black Death (bubonic plague), the Hundred Years War with France, the peasants uprising of 1381, the widespread prosecution of heresy throughout Europe, and the Great Schism between the Avignon and Roman papacies. In short, life was fraught with anxiety, dread, and insecurity. And the prevailing popular sentiment and church practices only exacerbated this. The dominant theological lens for explaining rampant devastation and trauma was God’s wrath. This gave rise to piety marked by rumination on death and devils and practices of bodily deprivation, self-flagellation, and ruthless self-examination.

Julian’s antidote was an unswerving emphasis on God’s love. God is a compassionate nurturer. Christ our Mother, as she so eloquently described him, feeds, nourishes, teaches, holds, and disciplines believers. Julian reminded her charges that though they were surrounded by death and destruction, they nevertheless were enclosed in Christ—safe and secure like a child nestled in her mother’s bosom. Though all around them fall apart, they were united to God in love. As she learned from twenty-years of meditation on her own near-death experience, God’s eschatological promise is this: “All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.”

Julian’s message rings true today. For though the contours of our world may be radically different, the human experiences of pain, suffering, fear, upheaval, and disorientation remain the same (or last, quite familiar). We all need to be reminded again and again that God provides; that God upholds and nurtures us; that God is present with us and beside us in all circumstances. As Julian encouraged her spiritual directees, we abide in God’s love through prayer, contemplation, receiving the sacraments, and self-kindness. Prayer marked by honest surrender to God; contemplation on God’s goodness in creation and redemption; feeding on Christ in the Lord’s supper; treating ourselves as those beloved of God: through all this, the Spirit raises us up and sends us out to share God’s love with the world. And that sounds like Valentine’s Day.

None of this was about entertainment—and if it was, it would be an abysmal failure given the shape and nature of what constitutes entertainment in our culture! Instead this commitment to a certain kind of excellence emerged from humility and reverence for the Word of God written in scripture. To bear God’s Word in worship leadership is no small thing, calling for the faithful and dignified administration of our gifts, knowledge, and finely-honed skills. Part of our responsibility is to direct the congregation’s gaze toward God, and there’s nothing so distracting as a screeching sound system.

I’m grateful for my seminary training. Perhaps there’s something about it that fits my personality as well as my theology. Ironically though, it’s created another kind of distraction for me as I participate in worship, which has led me to wonder about what constitutes real worship. Let me illustrate.

At a church service a few weeks ago, I cringed internally (hopefully not externally) when the person reading the biblical text actually read the wrong text. He caught himself, laughed, explained, and then turned to the assigned reading and started all over again. I cringed again when the guest preacher and pastor repeatedly stopped and started a video clip as a supplement the sermon. The preacher was supposed to be talking over the clip—a very nice effect actually except for all the creaturely bumbling accompanying it. I wanted to crawl under the pew as I witnessed the pastor’s waving arms and shouts to the preacher to stop and then the small group effort it took to figure out that the video wouldn’t restart because the pastor stepped on the cord and it came unplugged. The congregation laughed merrily as I turned to a friend and said with wide eyes, “You’d get crucified in many churches for this!”

And still the comedy of errors continued. The installation and ordination of the elders and deacons happened out of sequence with the bulletin, perhaps leaving some to wonder if it would happen at all. And then, for me, the pièce de résistance: one of the worship leaders dumped a glass of ice water (hear the clunking cubes) into the baptismal font in preparation for the deacons’ and elders’ renewal of baptismal vows. By now, it felt as though my every sensibility about worship leadership had been assaulted . . . and without anxiety (in others). The pastor didn’t seem phased at all, though there was an accompanying apology for the resultant ice-cold foreheads! 

Holding in my laughter, I finally started to delight in the whole scene and wonder what God was inviting me to see and learn in and through this worship service. At the very least, I was reminded of the creatureliness of every aspect of our existence, including our worship. To attempt to deny, avoid, or overcome our finitude (and all the accompanying limitations, foibles, and accidents) is the sin of overreaching if not idolatry. No, I’m not suggesting that how I learned to lead (and frankly will continue to lead) worship is sinful. But the inability to accept the human fallibility that sometimes becomes very evident even in our worship: that may be idolatry, a confusion and disordering of divine action and human action in our most public form of ecclesial witness. So the next time I’m in a worship like the one I’ve described here, I hope to cringe less and delight more. I hope to hear and worship the Incarnate Word in our midst, that one who, as many a theologian has reminded us, came into this world between urine and feces.

On another level, however, The Walking Dead is far from your typical scary movie or television series. The zombie apocalypse creates an alternative world for exploring profoundly meaningful, timeless, spiritual questions about faith, hope, and love.

Faith: Is there a God who cares about or intervenes in human affairs? A God who will give some sign of hope to people walking in darkness on a completely uncharted and terrifying path? Is God dead or worse cruelly turning resurrection into a nightmare?

Hope: Is there any reason to live? Is there anything beautiful, good, and true left in the world? Should anyone bring new life into the midst of this horror especially given that a crying baby will attract hordes of zombies? (FYI . . . any sound is a magnet for mobs of the bloodthirsty creatures.) Can zombies be saved, cured, or rehabilitated?

Love: Can forgiveness and reconciliation overcome betrayal and infidelity? Will compassion for the other (and here I mean humans not zombies) prevail over fear? Or will the raw instinct for self-preservation at all costs dominate survivors’ interactions with one another?

When faith, hope, and love disappear from interpersonal relationships, the distinction between the living and the walking dead blurs.  The show startlingly demonstrates how in extremis we can lose our humanity. “Who are the actual monsters?” is a question that implicitly arises in various forms as the show progresses.

While any of these existential questions could become fodder for blogging, the show itself draws explicit and repeated attention to hope. Perhaps most startling is the sheer power of hope and the resilience of the human spirit. A small band of survivors—the main characters in the series—lose children, siblings, spouses, and lifelong friends to death and worse. In more than one episode, I found myself asking how the writers could possibly kill off so many significant characters in one fell swoop: “Don’t they know that the viewers are attached to them?” I think that’s part of the point though. Somehow this group bears unbearable loss again and again. Not without detriment but also not without entirely losing their humanity. They don’t lose their capacity for attachment, self-giving, and love—even though those human qualities often hang in the balance.

From a theological perspective, of course, hope is not merely an innate capacity of the human spirit but rather the work of the Spirit in persons and communities of faith. Hope determines believers’ knowledge of, solidarity with, responsibility for, and witness to the world. Hope means that we expectantly await the coming of Christ when reconciliation with God and each other will be completely manifest. Hope also means we yearn for the in-breaking of the kingdom in the present. Hope neither seeks refuge in the eternal nor overestimates transformation in the temporal. Hope lives because God lives.

As the start of the third season approaches, I am eager to see how, if at all, the show will take on this transcendent dimension of hope. We’ve already seen unanswered pleas and cries for help seemingly go unanswered. Bibles have been set aside and once dearly-held faith seemingly crushed. But then again perhaps not. Perhaps it has merely gone underground and is waiting for its own kind of resurrection by the Spirit’s power.