I remember a couple of years ago eating lunch during the interview sessions for the South Georgia Board of Ordained Ministry. One of the interviewers and fellow elder shared how they did not care for one of the candidates they interviewed. I asked why? They replied, “They talked about ‘total depravity’ and we Methodists don’t do ‘total depravity’.”

When I first heard the statement I was suspicious. While I couldn’t call it to mind at the moment, I seemed to remember that John Wesley did believe in total depravity. It may sound more like Calvin than Wesley, but the fact remained – Wesley did teach about depravity. In his sermon, On Original Sin, Wesley states,

“Hence we may, Secondly, learn, that all who deny this, call it original sin, or by any other title, are but Heathens still, in the fundamental point which differences Heathenism from Christianity. They may, indeed, allow, that men have many vices; that some are born with us; and that, consequently, we are not born altogether so wise or so virtuous as we should be; there being few that will roundly affirm, “We are born with as much propensity to good as to evil, and that every man is, by nature, as virtuous and wise as Adam was at his creation.” But here is the shibboleth: Is man by nature filled with all manner of evil? Is he void of all good? Is he wholly fallen? Is his soul totally corrupted? Or, to come back to the text, is “every imagination of the thoughts of his heart only evil continually?” Allow this, and you are so far a Christian. Deny it, and you are but an Heathen still.”

Why are we Methodists so afraid of talking depravity? Baptists have the market cornered on “You are a sinner and on your way to hell!” We Methodists have cornered the market on “God loves you and showers you with grace!” The truth lies in the middle and the distinguishing mark of Methodists is in our understanding of prevenient grace and how God gives everyone, yes everyone (even the depraved), the capacity and opportunity to respond and turn to God.

Maybe Methodists don’t like depravity because it smacks of Calvin and predestination. Maybe Methodists don’t like depravity because we like the positive message of grace and love. Maybe we Methodists just don’t like our church members to feel uncomfortable or anxious.

The truth is we are all sinners and if left in that state without God’s grace, we would never desire good or God. Thanks be to God that his grace is poured out on all creation. God does not leave us depraved.

Matthew 2:1-12

In the time of King Herod, after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, wise men from the East came to Jerusalem, asking, “Where is the child who has been born king of the Jews? For we observed his star at its rising, and have come to pay him homage.” …….When they had heard the king, they set out; and there, ahead of them, went the star that they had seen at its rising, until it stopped over the place where the child was. When they saw that the star had stopped, they were overwhelmed with joy. On entering the house, they saw the child with Mary his mother; and they knelt down and paid him homage. Then, opening their treasure chests, they offered him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. And having been warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they left for their own country by another road.

This year at Wesley, we did something different on the first Sunday of the year. Rather than abandon Christmas too quickly for the annual Wesley Covenant Service (which it seems has been done in every Methodist Church I’ve served for 20 years), I decided to dwell in the light of Christmas a little longer. We actually celebrated Epiphany. It was refreshing in that I didn’t have the feeling we were moving on too quickly from Advent and Christmas. After all, the Christian calendar is supposed to flow into Epiphany. Epiphany matters and is an integral part of the unfolding of Christmas. Epiphany is the time of looking out into the future, beyond the borders into the expanse of where life is truly lived.

A few of the early church fathers actually saw Christmas and Epiphany as the first and second nativity. The first nativity (Christmas) is all about the presence of Christ in the world. The second nativity (Epiphany) is all about the manifestation of Christ to the world.

And this is really powerful stuff if you think about it. Advent is the season of asking ourselves the question, “Are we ready for the coming of Christ?” Christmas is the celebration of the presence of Christ. And, Epiphany is the reflection on how Christ will be “revealed” and “made known” through us. Preparation – Arrival – Sending Forth: It’s a great missional prescription.

Epiphany’s challenge is: How will we reveal Christ in our lives now that Christ has come? A recent tweet from PastorEmJ stated, “The Gospel of the Kingdom of God differs radically from the Gospel of Go To Heaven When I Die”. The prayer of Epiphany is that our faith will be real, authentic, and present. Epiphany faith is not rooted in the past or solely focused on the far off future. Epiphany faith is all about revealing Christ – every day, every moment, in every way – in the present.

This closing prayer came from Rev. Teresa Edwards from a home devotional she has: “God of all time and space, with Christmas joy we praise you for the year gone by and for the year we have begun. May this home we have made be filled with kindness to one another with hospitality to guests and with abundant care for every stranger. By the gentle light of a star guide home all who seek you on paths of wonder, peace and charity. Fill the year with good gifts for all the world as we join with the angels in proclaiming your praise: Glory in heaven and peace on earth, now and for ever. Amen”

Now, let’s all go forth and shine the light!

In Isaiah 35, the prophet speaks the word of the Lord saying, “Say to those who are of a fearful heart, “Be strong, do not fear! Here is your God. He will come with vengeance, with terrible recompense. He will come and save you.”

I don’t know about you, but the more I think about the coming of the day of the Lord, the more I am disturbed. While my first impulse is to find comfort in the words of this new day that God will usher in, I quickly begin to ask myself – what if I am part of the overall problem?

I believe being disturbed by God is okay. It causes us to sit up and listen. Edgar Shein, the father of organizational culture and leadership and former professor at MIT, points out that all people and organizations work hard at maintaining equilibrium (we don’t want to change). We are only motivated to change when enough disconfirming data is introduced into the system (our life) to cause serious discomfort and disequilibrium.

In Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, we see that Scrooge is impacted by the Spirits of Christmas Past and Present, but is only when serious level of disturbance is introduced by the Spirit of Christmas Yet to Come that Scrooge finally changes. Scrooge is confronted and disturbed as he sees the result of his unreflective life. His grasping, greedy, and relation-less life ends with no fanfare and no compassion. The Spirit takes him to a back alley shop where a woman is selling Scrooge’s bed curtains. Scrooge hears her say, “If he wanted to keep ’em after he was dead, a wicked old screw, why wasn’t he natural in his lifetime? If he had been, he’d have had somebody to look after him when he was struck with Death, instead of lying gasping out his last there, alone by himself.”

The consequence of Scrooge’s unreflective life, which he lived only for himself, is highly disturbing.

And this is our danger; most of us are unaware of how selfishly we live our lives. We are so comfortable that God must disturb us to get us to see ourselves honestly. Most of the time, we don’t realize how clouded our vision really is.

Barbara Brown Taylor, in her book An Altar to the World, writes, “We have just enough religion to make us hate one another but not enough to make us love one another. Because we are human, which is to say we are essentially self-interested, we are always looking for ways to add a little more authority to our causes, to come up with better reasons to fight for what we want than to just say, “Because I want it, that’s why.” If we can convince ourselves that God wants it too – even if that means we cast God in our own image so we can deny the image of God in those not like us – than we are free to harm others not for our own reasons but in the name of God, which allows us to feel holy about it instead of feeling bad.”

While it doesn’t really excite me, the truth is I need to see my name on that tombstone. I need God to shake me on a regular basis and disturb me to the depths of me being.

For my welfare? The best thing for my welfare is to stay blind and comfortable.

For my reclamation, then.

Psalm 62:1-2
For God alone my soul waits in silence; from him comes my salvation. He alone is my rock and my salvation, my fortress; I shall never be shaken.

I am amazed each Christmas season at the amount of noise. Noisy lights, noisy music, noisy kids, noisy homes and noisy stores barrage my mind – an assault on all my senses. We even have Christmas cards now that make noise. It’s not enough to have a card one reads – now it has to sing and make fun of us.

The irony of all the noise is the birth of Christ. God comes to us in the quiet of the night. Shepherds on a hillside were inundated with sounds of angels, no doubt, but before the angels announced the birth Joseph and Mary were quietly finding their place of solitude. A quiet night and a simple stable: it is into this setting that God chooses to make Himself known. No prophets in the wilderness crying out on this night. That would come later. A simple, pastoral scene ushers in the greatest moment in history.

What is also ironic is what we have made of this quiet and simple message. Humanity has taken what was pure and simple and distorted it into our image more than God’s image. I wonder if this Christmas we could find time for silence and solitude? As Thomas Merton writes,

In my personal experience, I know for a fact that actions have consequences. If my daughter doesn’t turn in her homework, for example, she will face some consequence for the fault. Now she may have good reasons for not doing her homework, or maybe the dog actually ate it this time, but the reality is that while she may receive forgiveness, the consequence for the wrong remains.

I remember counseling a couple where sin was committed. The offender asked forgiveness and it was ultimately granted, but it could not repair the breech of mistrust. The sin was forgiven, but the mistrust could not be forgotten.

Somewhere along the way, many of us were taught that forgiveness and mercy means we shouldn’t have to pay for the effects of our poor choices. I’m not really sure where this came from. Maybe our society let us get away with way too much. Maybe too many of our teachers said it was okay that we didn’t turn in our homework on time. Maybe too many preachers proclaimed mercy to exclude any kind of justice from God. But the scripture points to both God’s mercy and God’s justice.

Thomas Merton wrote, “The mercy of God does not suspend the laws of cause and effect. When God forgives me a sin, He destroys the guilt of sin but the effects and the punishment of sin remain. Yet it is precisely in punishing sin that God’s mercy most evidently identifies itself with His justice. Every sin is a violation of the love of God, and the justice of God makes it impossible for this violation to be perfectly repaired by anything but love.”

Mercy is a part of God’s nature, but scripture is replete with examples that God’s mercy does not do away with the consequences of our sin. Why? Because God’s justice makes it impossible to perfectly repair any violation outside of love. God’s justice makes love a necessity for reconciliation.

For those who have tried to repair their violations in ways outside of love, heartache is the typical result. Is it possible to thank God for God’s justice, knowing that it pushes us toward a greater need for love?

I thank God for God’s mercy AND justice. (Even if I do prefer the mercy.)

“Your idea of me is fabricated with materials you have borrowed from other people and from yourself. What you think of me depends on what you think of yourself. Perhaps you create your idea of me out of material that you would like to eliminate from your own idea of yourself. Perhaps your idea of me is a reflection of what other people think of you. Or perhaps what you think of me is simply what you think I think of you.
“Our ability to be sincere with ourselves, with God, and with other men[sic] is really proportionate to our capacity for sincere love. And the sincerity of our love depends in large measure upon our capacity to believe ourselves loved. Most of the moral and mental and even religious complexities of our time go back to our desperate fear that we are not and can never be really loved by anyone.”

– Thomas Merton

One of the reasons I am continually fascinated by Thomas Merton is that he seems to know me so well. Maybe he knows us all well.

If I am honest, I must admit that I have not always reflected upon why I respond to people as I do. I have not always reflected upon why I view people the way I do. But as I grow older, I spend more time in self-reflection… in contemplation. This helps me to see more clearly at 40 than I ever did at 20.

When we are young, we lack sincerity and humility. When we view negativity, frailty or flaw in another, we are convinced that it is all about them. They are the broken ones in need of repair and therapy. When I see the flaws of others, I feel better about myself. But why is that?

The irony is that the negative flaws and frustrations I see in others really are reflections of my own insufficiencies. If I am honest, there were many experiences in my life that caused me to feel unloved or unworthy. This brokenness is manifested in my understanding of others. I’ve known this to be true for others as I engage in pastoral counseling – I can see their problems! It has taken many years for me to realize that it has been my problem.

Do I believe myself loved? This is the real question. When we believe we are loved and when we believe we are who God desires us to be, it is amazing how we see people differently.

I often wonder why it is that I can see so clearly the flaws and blemishes of others, yet rarely see them in myself. My own inadequacies shape my worldview, particularly as it relates to how I view others. Am I mistrusting? Maybe the lack of trust is more about me. Do I look upon others with a lack of hope and optimism? Maybe it is the fear of my own failure that I despise.

Thomas Merton said it best,

They want me to be what I am in their sight: that is, an extension of themselves. They do not realize that if I am fully myself, my life will become the completion and the fulfillment of their own, but that if I merely live as their shadow, I will serve only to remind them of their own unfulfillment.

“Do others merely live as our shadow?”

We must dig deep into the interior of our own lives and motives. Who are we? Why do we look at others the way we do? These questions and many more call me to not only dig deeper inside myself, but they also encourage me to speak words of life to others, especially to those I have influence over. Is it possible that if we build healthy spirits in our children, our spouses, and our loved ones that it will affect how they view others? Can our encouragement have influence beyond the walls of our home? If my family is filled with a clear understanding of who they are in Christ, won’t they find the ‘completion of self’ Merton speaks of? Won’t they view others not from the shadows of their fear, but from the fullness of grace?

Kathryn Stockett, in her book The Help, reflects this through a beautiful interaction between the house maid Aibileen and the white child she cares for, Mae Mobley Leefolt;

I touch her cheek. “You alright, baby?” She say, “Mae Mo bad.” The way she say it, like it’s a fact, make my insides hurt. “Mae Mobley,” I say cause I got a notion to try something. “You a smart girl?” She just look at me, like she don’t know. “You a smart girl,” I say again. She say, “Mae Mo smart.” I say, “You a kind little girl?” She just look at me. She two years old. She don’t know
what she is yet. I say, “You a kind girl,” and she nod, repeat it back to me. But before I can do another one, she get up and chase that poor dog around the yard and laugh and that’s when I get to wondering, what would happen if I told her she something good, ever day? She turn from the birdbath and smile and holler, “Hi, Aibee. I love you, Aibee,” and I feel a tickly feeling, soft like the flap a butterfly wings, watching her play out there. The way I used to feel watching Treelore. And that makes me kind a sad, memoring. After while, Mae Mobley come over and press her cheek up to mine and just hold it there, like she know I be hurting. I hold her tight, whisper, “You a smart girl. You a kind girl, Mae Mobley. You hear me?” And I keep saying it till she repeat it back to me.

As for me, I will speak words of life and encouragement. I hope it will shape my view of others. I hope it will shape my children’s view of the world.

Okay, so I realize it’s been May since I posted on my blog, which actually discounts it from being a blog. But when you live on St. Simons Island and you take a summer break, well…, the summers last quite a while here.

Anyway, I am back to posting excerpts from Merton that we use for discussion in staff meetings at Wesley. While I realize it isn’t original content, it is transformative nonetheless. Let it get in you and you to can fall in love with Thomas Merton. Now that evenings on the back porch are more bearable (and enjoyable) you may even see some original gleanings before too long.

Matthew 15:1-20
1Then Pharisees and scribes came to Jesus from Jerusalem and said, 2“Why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders? For they do not wash their hands before they eat.” 3He answered them, “And why do you break the commandment of God for the sake of your tradition? 4For God said, ‘Honor your father and your mother,’ and, ‘Whoever speaks evil of father or mother must surely die.’ 5But you say that whoever tells father or mother, ‘Whatever support you might have had from me is given to God,’ then that person need not honor the father. 6So, for the sake of your tradition, you make void the word of God. 7You hypocrites! Isaiah prophesied rightly about you when he said: 8‘This people honors me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me; 9in vain do they worship me, teaching human precepts as doctrines.’”
10Then he called the crowd to him and said to them, “Listen and understand: 11it is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but it is what comes out of the mouth that defiles.” 12Then the disciples approached and said to him, “Do you know that the Pharisees took offense when they heard what you said?” 13He answered, “Every plant that my heavenly Father has not planted will be uprooted. 14Let them alone; they are blind guides of the blind. And if one blind person guides another, both will fall into a pit.” 15But Peter said to him, “Explain this parable to us.” 16Then he said, “Are you also still without understanding? 17Do you not see that whatever goes into the mouth enters the stomach, and goes out into the sewer? 18But what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this is what defiles. 19For out of the heart come evil intentions, murder, adultery, fornication, theft, false witness, slander. 20These are what defile a person, but to eat with unwashed hands does not defile.”

Excerpts from No Man is An Island, “Vocation – Tradition in the Monastery” by Thomas Merton

• The first ones to condemn the monastery that has become infected with worldliness are those who, in the world, are themselves least monastic, for even those who have abandoned their religion often retain a high and exacting idea of religious perfection.
• Where the sense of monastic tradition is lacking, monks immediately begin to lead unbalanced lives. They are unable to learn true discretion. They cannot acquire a sense of proportion. They forget what they are supposed to be. They are not able to settle down and live at peace in the monastery. They cannot get along with their superiors or their brethren. Why do all these things happen? Because the monks who have never learned how to be real monks are driving themselves crazy trying to live the monastic life with the spirit and the methods appropriate to some other kind of life.
• It must be learned. And it cannot be learned without direct contact with the channels of life through which it comes. That is why St. Benedict urged his own monks to read Cassian, St. Basil, and the Desert Fathers. But the reading of ancient monastic books is only one of these channels, and by no means the most important. The only way to become a monk is to live among real monks, and to learn the life from their example.
• Tradition is living and active, but convention is passive and dead. Tradition does not form us automatically: we have to work to understand it. Convention is accepted passively, as a matter of routine. Therefore convention easily becomes an evasion of reality. It offers us only pretended ways of solving the problems of living—a system of gestures and formalities. Tradition really teaches us to live and shows us how to take full responsibility for our own lives. Thus tradition is often flatly opposed to what is ordinary, to what is mere routine. But convention, which is a mere repetition of familiar routines, follows the line of least resistance.
• Tradition, which is always old, is at the same time ever new because it is always reviving—born again in each new generation, to be lived and applied in a new and particular way.
• Tradition nourishes the life of the spirit; convention merely disguises its interior decay.
• Finally, tradition is creative. Always original, it always opens out new horizons for an old journey. Convention, on the other hand, is completely unoriginal. It is slavish imitation. It is closed in upon itself and leads to complete sterility.