"Do Not Bury Your Talent in the Earth"

Me and statue of John Wesley, Methodist Central Hall, Westminster (July 2016)

During the Easter season, we often hear more about the women disciples (Mary Magdalene, Salome, Joanna, and various Marys) than we do at other times of the year, especially with regard to their witness to the resurrected Lord.  They are often nearly invisible in the gospel texts unless one is paying close attention, but once you start looking, you begin to appreciate the vital role they played in the ministry of Jesus.  For example, Luke 8 speaks of Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Susanna, and "many others" who helped provide for the ministry with their financial resources.  Luke doesn't elaborate, but that means that some of these female disciples were women of means, who gladly gave their money to further the spread of the good news, and furthermore, it is not a stretch to assume that women were among the seventy sent out by Jesus in Luke 10.  Even in that very male-dominated society, women put their faith into practice in significant and life-giving ways, and Jesus always held them in high esteem for their steadfastness and commitment, treating them with respect and affirming their gifts for ministry alongside the men.


18th century England was also a patriarchal society, and John Wesley was a man of his time with some of the same blinders and biases that pervaded the religious and political thought of that era.  At the same time, he was the son of a remarkable woman, Susanna Annesley  Wesley, whose intellect and piety more than held their own in discussions of theology and devotion with clergymen -- including her husband and her sons! She home-schooled her sons and daughters, adamant that her daughters would learn to read well before being put to household tasks such as embroidery, educating them to a level far beyond what most women and some men would ever attain. No son of Susanna could have ever believed that women were inferior to men in terms of devotion to God, ability to reason and think, or responsibility to act and care for others.  His voluminous epistolary output included letters to women of high station as well as those of lower rank, offering them spiritual advice, asking about their health, and sometimes challenging them to push and even break boundaries of social convention, even to the point of affirming that some women had an "extraordinary call" to preach!

The following letter to Miss Philothea Briggs is a good example.  Philly Briggs was the daughter of Wesley's book steward in London, and he had known her since she was a child. Wesley speaks affectionately and encouragingly, assuring her of God's care and love, advising her about the state of her soul, suggesting various theological works for her reading, and urging her to write to him with any questions or concerns.

In this letter, he commends Miss Briggs for her poetry, telling her not to hide her talent but to utilize it -- "When you feel you are led to it, write verses; do not bury your talent in the earth." He also directs her to speak boldly when she meets with members of her class, a group that met regularly to study scripture, to do good for the poor and the sick, to worship and pray, and to hold each other accountable for growth in holiness in a spirit of love.

Reading these letters makes me feel encouraged in my faith journey, for there is much wisdom to be gleaned from Wesley's words from over 200 years ago, and it inspires me to be just as concerned about the spiritual welfare of those in my pastoral care.  These letters remind me that we all need to seek out our own "classes" or small groups with whom we meet regularly for support and prayer, and to hold each other accountable in love as we examine our consciences and our lives.   I hope you will find this example of Wesley's spiritual direction through his correspondence interesting, enlightening, and perhaps even challenging for your own growth in grace.  And perhaps you will be inspired to find your own spiritual friends who will travel with you on your journey towards holiness of heart and life.  Blessings!

MY DEAR PHILLY,--There is no fear I should forget you; I love you too well for that, and therefore love to hear from you, especially at this critical time, when all the powers of hell are engaged against you. But let them come about you like bees, they shall be extinct as the fire among the thorns. Tempted you are, and will be; otherwise you could not know your own weakness and the strength of your Master. But all temptations will work together for good; all are for your profit, that you may be partaker of His holiness. You may always have an evidence both of God's love to you and of yours to Him. And at some times the former may be more clear, at other times the latter. It is enough if, in one case or the other, you simply stay your soul upon Him. Sister Harper's is the ordinary experience of those who are renewed in love.  Sister Jackson's experience is quite extraordinary, and what very few of them have yet attained.

There is a danger of every believer's mistaking the voice of the enemy or of their own imagination for the voice of God. And you can distinguish one from the other, not by any written rule, but only by the unction of the Holy One. This only teaches Christian prudence, consistent with simplicity and godly sincerity.

The four volumes of Sermons, the Appeals, the Notes, and the Extracts from Mr. Law's Works and from Dr. Young, might best suit you now: meddle with nothing that does not suit your present temper. When you feel you are led to it, write verses; do not bury your talent in the earth. Meet with them that meet on a Friday, and speak in God's name without fear or shame.

The general rule, not to correspond but with those who have both grace and understanding, admits of several exceptions, in favour of a few who want one of them or the other or both.  While I am in Ireland you may direct to me at Dublin. Be not afraid of writing too long letters. The longer the more agreeable to, my dear Philly,

Yours affectionately.

J Wesley

(This particular letter is taken from the online collection of Wesley's works posted by Northwest Nazarene College --  http://wesley.nnu.edu/john-wesley/the-letters-of-john-wesley/wesleys-letters-1771/)

"Those Glorious Scars"

The Incredulity of Saint Thomas ~ Caravaggio


You can find almost anything online, some of it total trash, some of it pure gold.  Over the past couple of years, I have become familiar with the art and poetry of the Rev. Jan Richardson, a United Methodist pastor in Florida.  Her work is creative and thought-provoking, and if you follow her on Facebook or online, you will be inspired to think about Christ and the Christian journey in new, fresh ways.  Her thoughtful reflections on Thomas center around the above well-known painting by Caravaggio, and I will not repeat them here.  I merely want to acknowledge that the spark for this particular blog from me is at least partly from reading the following -- 
http://paintedprayerbook.com/2008/03/29/easter-2-into-the-wound/

I cringe every time I look at this painting.  It makes me uncomfortable.  The intensity of Thomas' stare into the gaping wound, the casual way Jesus displays it to him, inviting him not only to look but to touch it if necessary, and the eagerness of the two disciples peering over his shoulder -- it is very real, very corporeal, to use the fancy theological term, so very flesh and blood.  Which is of course the point.  The Risen Christ is no flimsy ghost, no wispy spirit, no figment of the imagination.  He is 100% a real human with a body that is both like and unlike its former existence, a body whose skin is still tender and bruised and scarred from the terrible events of the past few days. 

When I read Jan Richardson's words about this painting, I feel myself  being challenged and invited to look at it with different eyes, to see the gashes in his body as portals into something else, into new territory, unexplored terrain.  Hymn-writers and poets such as Isaac Watts and Charles Wesley have meditated on these matters, considering the marks left by the crown of thorns, the railroad spike nails, the spear, seeing them as badges of honor, as something to be adored.  In his glorious hymn "Lo, He Comes with Clouds Descending," often sung at Advent, Charles Wesley writes:

The dear tokens of His passion
Still His dazzling body bears;
Cause of endless exultation
To His ransomed worshippers;
With what rapture, with what rapture, with what rapture
Gaze we on those glorious scars!

"Gaze we on those glorious scars!"  Charles, as always, has a way with words.  I'm not totally convinced, though.  I look at the scars I bear as a result of various surgeries, removal of skin cancers, and childhood injuries, and I find them ugly.  One of them is, in my mind, repulsive.  It is useful, I suppose.  It serves as a reminder of all the times I sat in the sun without sunscreen, a reminder of the frailty of my own human body.  And perhaps now it will serve as an invitation to see beyond the myth of perfect skin, perfect hair, perfect physical whatever.  For if Jesus thought it important enough to carry his wounds beyond the grave on his resurrected body, who am I to mourn the tender redness of my scars?  Perhaps with Thomas, with Isaac Watts, and with Charles Wesley, I will be able to at least summon up appreciation if not rapture for the "dear tokens" of Christ's passion and death, while loving my own wounds a little more.  Something to think about, this first week into the season of Easter.

"Him, who rose to live in thee"

This is a picture I took back in August when I was walking around the Iona nunnery ruins. At first, I thought of it as a good image for the raising of Lazarus, but as I looked at it again on Easter Sunday, it struck me that it can be a depiction of the empty tomb that first Easter morning.  It looks like God blew the hinges off the "door," metaphorically speaking, pouring intense light and new life into what had been a dark and forbidding place of death and decay.  That turning point of history, that central tenet of the Christian faith, was witnessed by no one except the One to whom resurrection happened, and we can only marvel and wonder at the power of a God who is Lord of life and of death.

Although nobody witnessed this unprecedented act of God, from Mary Magdalene on down, Christians have tried to express this great truth in word and song. Most of us are familiar with Charles Wesley's beloved "Hymn for our Lord's Resurrection," which we know as "Christ the Lord is Risen Today" and can hardly imagine Easter without singing it at top volume.  The soaring tune "Lyra Davidica" paired with those matchless lyrics have set a standard for poetic declaration of the Easter faith that is matched by none.  It is not, however, the onlyEaster hymn the prolific poet penned, however. Less familiar are many others he wrote on the same subject, but as I poked around, I found one of these relatively unknown hymns that starts off by praising the faithful witness of Mary Magdalene.  

Here are some of the verses much as they would have appeared in the earliest Methodist hymnals.  Despite my commitment to inclusive language, I have not here altered the language to make it gender-inclusive because I wanted it to more closely reflect Charles Wesley's original words.  (Of course, John felt free to edit his brother any time he chose, and it is likely that some of this reflects  markings from his pen!)  Notice that it opens with him addressing Mary Magdalene directly and then shifts to a more personal tone, almost as if he is standing in her place before the Risen Lord, and then concludes with a plea for the reader/listener to take hold of the salvation available to all.  

As you read these words, may your heart be set afire and filled with Easter joy as you celebrate the One who died and rose for all, the Risen Christ who rose to live in you and in me!

Happy Magdalene, to whom
Christ the Lord vouchsafed t’ appear!
Newly risen from the tomb,
Would he first be seen by her?
Her by seven devils possessed,
Till his word the fiends expelled;
Quenched the hell within her breast,
All her sins and sickness healed.

Highly favoured soul! To her
Farther still his grace extends,
Raises the glad messenger,
Sends her to his drooping friends:
Tidings of their living Lord
First in her report they find:
She must spread the gospel-word,
Teach the teachers of mankind.

Who can now presume to fear?
Who despair his Lord to see?
Jesus, wilt thou not appear,
Show thyself alive to me?
Yes, my God, I dare not doubt,
Thou shalt all my sins remove;
Thou hast cast a legion out,
Thou wilt perfect me in love.

Surely thou hast called me now!
Now I hear the voice divine,
At thy wounded feet I bow,
Wounded for whose sins but mine!
I have nailed him to the tree,
I have sent him to the grave:
But the Lord is ris’n for me,
Hold of him by faith I have.

Here forever would I lie,
Didst thou not thy servant raise,
Send me forth to testify
All the wonders of thy grace.
Lo! I at thy bidding go,
Gladly to thy followers tell
They their rising God may know,
They the life of Christ may feel.

Hear, ye brethren of the Lord,
(Such he you vouchsafes to call)
O believe the gospel-word,
Christ hath died, and rose for all:
Turn ye from your sins to God,
Haste to Galilee, and see
Him, who bought thee with his blood,
Him, who rose to live in thee. ~ Charles Wesley

My Lord, My Love is Crucified!

Well, here we are.  It's Holy Week, and this has been a Lenten season unlike any other I have ever experienced.  I didn't do so well with the things I tried to "give up," but I tried some new devotional/prayer practices and kept up with these expanded ways of being with God pretty faithfully. 

If you have been following my blog, you already know that pictures/art have become an important part of my spirituality, especially since my time in the United Kingdom during my sabbatical.  During Lent, I created a picture-prayer to match a designated word for two different Facebook pages, every single day.  Some of those were photographs taken in the here and now, pictures of ordinary things in my yard, my home, my office, my church.  Others came from as far back as my childhood and as recently as the past summer. 

It makes sense that visual art is a way of praying because we worship a God-made-flesh, a God who became touchable, tangible love and mercy and forgiveness in human form, a God who could be seen and felt, a God we still see and touch in the sacrament of Holy Communion, a God we ourselves make incarnate as the Body of Christ in the Church.

The above picture was taken this morning in my office as I randomly looked around my office for inspiration.  The objects are simple:  a small Celtic cross, a candle, and a miniature pottery vase.  I don't often get asked to anoint the sick, but I used to conduct a quarterly healing service at a former church. The little pottery container held the oil I used to make the sign of the cross on the heads of those who knelt before me in the flickering light of a candle. 

The link between healing and forgiveness is well established in scripture -- we see Jesus telling a paralyzed man that his sins are forgiven before directing him to take up his mat and walk, and the book of James instructs the elders of the church to pray over the sick, anoint them with oil, and confess their sins to one another in order that they may be healed. 

The climactic events of Holy Week encompass that connection between being healed and being forgiven when we speak of the desire for Jesus to heal our "sin-sick" souls, and many hymns have been written that speak not only of the pardon that comes from Christ on the cross but also the healing that flows from his sacrifice. 

Below is one of my favorite hymns, and it expresses this beautifully.  I invite you to read the words, pray the hymn, and perhaps even to sing it.  It is in the United Methodist Hymnal (page 287) and can be heard in various videos on youtube.com.  May you feel the depth of the love of the God-made-human whose love for us is beyond the power of words to tell.  May you feel in your heart "the blood applied." May you, too, feel the wonder and awe that "My Lord, my Love, is crucified!"

O Love divine, what hast thou done!
The immortal God hath died for me!
The Father’s co-eternal Son
Bore all my sins upon the tree.
Th’immortal God for me hath died:
My Lord, my Love, is crucified!

Behold Him, all ye that pass by,
The bleeding Prince of life and peace,
Come sinners, see your Savior die,
And say, Was ever grief like His?
Come feel with me His blood applied:
My Lord, my Love, is crucified!

Is crucified for me and you,
To bring us rebels near to God;
Believe, believe the record true,
We all are bought with Jesus’ blood.
Pardon for all flows from His side:
My Lord, my Love, is crucified.

Then let us sit beneath His cross,
And gladly catch the healing stream;
All things for Him account but loss,
And give up all our hearts to Him;
Of nothing think or speak beside,
My Lord, my Love, is crucified!  ~ Charles Wesley

A Fifth Gospel



Stained glass window, Our Lady Star of the Sea Catholic Church, Isle of Barra 

My devout and loving mama was the gateway into church for me.  Like many people, I was taken to church every Sunday unless I was violently ill.  It's what we did.  It's who we were.  She would often tell me that you never know who might be looking at you and that you might be the only Bible they ever read.  After years of hearing that and singing -

While passing thro' this world of sin, And others your life shall view, 

Be clean and pure without, within, Let others see Jesus in you. 

Let others see Jesus in you, Let others see Jesus in you; 
Keep telling the story, be faithful and true, Let others see Jesus in you -

I would at least sometimes think about how I acted or what I said just in case Jesus was paying attention and on the off chance that I actually was somebody's example of a Christian.  

But not always, not even now.  Maybe that's why Lent has come to mean so much to me.  It forces me to reexamine myself and my life in the light of Christ's life and his death.  It also makes me revisit my ordination vows, especially these two questions that go back to John Wesley himself: 

Are you going on to perfection? Do you expect to be made perfect in love in this life?

In other words, are you growing in grace and cooperating with the Holy Spirit so that sin no longer reigns in your heart? Are you becoming someone in whom others see Jesus?

Just in the space of a few days, two of the Facebook pages that I follow have talked about our need to be a fifth gospel in the world, pointing out that our abiding in Christ and him in us must bear fruit, while another said that our witness must be, as poet Edwin Muir says, in our "natural tongue."   

In other words, in my mama's words, to be exact, you are going to be someone's Bible, and more than that, you are going to be part of the Incarnation itself, the Word (Christ) becoming flesh and blood, walking around this good earth.

So in these last few days before Holy Week begins, and before we come to Easter itself, take an honest look at your life. Examine your heart, and see if you are a Fifth Gospel, a book in which Christ may be read, and a person in whom his image and likeness are being shown and reflected.  And ask yourself, can others see Jesus in you?  If not, what do you plan to do to change that?

Lenten Journey

We are a bit more than halfway through Lent, and I haven't written anything in this blog for ages.  I suppose I should have made that part of my discipline for the season.  Nevertheless, regardless of whether I have kept up with this or not, I've been quite engrossed in a number of online devotional activities, and the picture above is part of one.  

Every day, we receive a word for which we are meant to post a picture, one we ourselves have taken as opposed to some professional shot we found on the internet. The very first word was "fast," and I wracked my brain to think of the appropriate picture.  Then I thought of its opposite with its near twin spelling, "feast." I took my NC pottery chalice and paten, placed them on the hardwood floor, and added a black and white filter to produce a dark image of light and shadow. I hoped to convey the tension between the idea of fasting and prayer during Lent by photographing the symbol of the feast we share at Christ's table in the stark absence of color.  It occurred to me that we can only truly appreciate the wonder and bounty of a banquet when we have first experienced its lack and deprivation.  

When you look at this picture, what do YOU see?  How have YOU kept a solemn observance of this church season that prepares us for the abundant life of Easter by taking us through the somber realization of death and sin?  May your pondering and prayer bear much fruit.

Make The Welkin Ring!

Charles Wesley (window at Memorial Chapel, Lake Junaluska)

I really should have posted this back during Advent or at least earlier in the Christmas season because tomorrow is Epiphany, and no one will be singing "Hark! The Herald Angels Sing" OR "Hark, How all the Welkin Rings" for a while.   However, while Advent and Christmas may not necessarily be "the most wonderful time of the year," it is a fact that they are the busiest time of the year for clergy, and it has taken the slow-down of the early days of the new year and a bit of snowfall for me to get down to thinking about this blog again.

We three pastors took turns preaching on various Christmas carols, and naturally, I just had to have Charles Wesley's best-known carol, the one he simply called  "Hymn for Christmas Day."  Back in July, I held the manuscript in my own hands, marveling at the still-legible words he penned to express the idea that the whole cosmos, everything in heaven and on earth, was praising God at the birth of Jesus.  With his use of the archaic word "welkin" and his reference to "universal nature," Wesley emphasized that the coming of Christ signaled the restoration of the broken creation in its entirety and not simply the redemption of fallen humanity. 

The lyrics have gone through some changes over the 278 years since it was written, including the unauthorized edit by George Whitefield that left us with the first verse as we know it today, removing both the welkin and universal nature and subtly changing the theological focus of the hymn.  Nevertheless, it is fair to say that this carol expresses the deep mystery of the Incarnation in a way unparalleled by any other. 

In singing these words, we rejoice that God’s love for us is so fierce, so all-consuming, and so indestructible that nothing else would do except to come right down here and be present with us in the grit and grime of our messy lives, meeting us when we are most lost, most broken, most needy, restoring us to the image of God and reconciling all things in creation to God.  That is the gift we celebrate during Christmas, and it is the good news that we are to live out and witness to in every season.  I pray that 2018 will be a year in which you make the welkin ring with the glad tidings that the Word continues to meet us right where we are, while loving us far too much to leave us there.    I will close with Charles Wesley's original words --

 1. Hark, how all the Welkin rings
" Glory to the King of Kings,
" Peace on Earth, and Mercy mild,
" GOD and Sinners reconcil'd !

2. Joyful all ye Nations rise,
Join the Triumph of the Skies;
Universal Nature say,
" Christ the Lord is born to Day!

3. Christ, by highest Heav'n ador'd,
Christ, the Everlasting Lord,
Late in Time behold him come,
Offspring of a Virgin's Womb.

4. Veil'd in Flesh, the Godhead see,
Hail th' Incarnate Deity !
Pleas'd as Man with Men t'appear,
Jesus, our Immanuel here !

5. Hail the Heav'nly Prince of Peace !
Hail the Sun of Righteousness !
Light and Life to All he brings,
Ris'n with Healing in his Wings.

6. Mild he lays his Glory by ;
Born ; that Man no more may die,
Born ; to raise the Sons of Earth,
Born ; to give them Second Birth.

7. Come, Desire of Nations, come,
Fix in Us thy humble Home,
Rise, the Woman's Conqu'ring Seed,
Bruise in Us the Serpent's Head.

8. Now display thy saving Pow'r,
Ruin'd Nature now restore,
Now in Mystic Union join
Thine to Ours, and Ours to Thine.

9. Adam's likeness, Lord, efface,
Stamp thy Image in its Place,
Second Adam from above,
Reinstate us in thy Love.

10. Let us Thee, tho' lost, regain,
Thee, the Life, the Heav'nly Man:
O ! to All Thyself impart,
Form'd in each Believing Heart.