Moltman, in his book The Living God and the Fullness of Life, reminded me of a beautiful call in Dostoevsky’s novel, The Brothers Karamasov. I’ll include a brief portion of Moltmann’s set up and then the Dostoevsky quote:
Participation in the life of the earth leads to a feeling for the universal life. This new earthly spirituality awakes cosmic humility, which takes the place of the modern arrogance of power, and which is reflected in the dominance over nature. Every serious scientist knowns this cosmic humility in astonishment over the unexplored mysteries of nature (as long as he or she does not intend to “market” his or her discoveries). Another characteristic is cosmic love, which the Starez Sosima expresses in Doestoevsky’s novel, The Brothers Karamasov,
Love the whole creation, all of it and every grain of sand. Love every little leaf, every ray of God’s light. Love the animals, love the plants, love every single thing. If you love very single thing, then God’s mystery in them will be revealed to you. Once it is revealed to you, then you will perceive it more and more every day. And in the end you will love the whole universe with an all-comprehensive love.
Jurgen Moltmann, The Living God and the Fullness of Life, 2015, p. 84-85.
Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov I, book 6.
Note: Moltmann is also noting Richard Bauckham’s work Bible and Ecology: Rediscovering the Community of Creation and his concept of “cosmic humility.”
You are the God who saves. You have reached across the barriers of our ignorance and have made yourself known to us. Thank you for this grace. You have rescued us from darkness and have delivered us into the glorious light of the Kingdom of your Son. Now we reside with you in the communion of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
We Praise you. You are the Living God. Where else could we go for life and the words of life? Open our ears that we may hear your voice. Cause life to spring up in us. We long to know so much — we long to know you.
May your Spirit generate in us a greater curiosity about you. May we be drawn to see Jesus. Grant us the grace to grasp the immensity of His love for us.
We confess Lord — we are not like you. Sin keeps talking hold of us, the old nature resists your Spirit in us. We repent of:
our reluctance to be known. our quickness to judge. our desperate need for the world’s approval. our greed, which is idolatry. our silence which steals your glory. our unforgiving hearts and our sluggish love.
Create in us a clean heart Oh God. Restore to us the joy of your salvation. Renew our minds — even transform our minds — so that we may have power to live the way of the Gospel in our daily lives.
Lord while we have been looking inward we know many people bear the weight of great conflict from powers outside of them. Oh, that you would grant wisdom from heaven to the students in Hong Kong and to the people of Iran and Bolivia. Here in British Columbia we ask you to be present and to bring clarity of heart and mind to the negotiation tables for beneficial agreements to the people who serve our Province daily.
We are looking to you — so we pray as Jesus teaches us —
(Please join me in the Lord’s Prayer.)
Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us today our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one; for yours is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever. Amen.
Recently I awkwardly interrupted a table conversation that I felt was rapidly deteriorating. Yeah, it was really awkward. After my “lesson” no one said anything, stared at me for a moment and then everyone changed the subject to other things all at once.
I’m sure no-one expected a pastor to talk about indigenous history and care of the land. Nor did they expect a call out on racism. It was really awkward. I’m probably not all that good at “splaining” silviculture as it was historically or is currently practiced by indigenous people or anyone else for that matter!
I shared a little of what I had been learning in regards to regenerative agriculture and specifically of indigenous silviculture practice on the West Coast. Knowledge has been suppressed by our disrespect and violence. There is long history of planting and pruning along a lengthy system of paths, maintaining forests along fields, and caring for the forest around homes. And then there’s localized firelighting, another aspect of silviculture and the relationship we can have in stewarding God’s Creation and living mutually with the land. The romantic vision held by some of a wild outdoors pristine and untouched by persons is really mythical. We all live with the land; we just have different postures toward it, some helpful and some destructive.
Early this morning I was delighted to read this fascinating article about the people living in California who are seeking to reintroduce local indigenous silviculture practices. Some believe it’s essential to turning local environments around in California. “When you have colonization removing native people, disrupting that social structure around fire use, outlawing fire, and then actively using every construct in a militaristic way to suppress and exclude fires, then we have the conditions that we have now,” said the research ecologist Frank Lake.
We gather with other people to tune our hearts and minds to Your presence, Your will, Your ways. We ask that Your Spirit help us put aside all that vies for our attention and our loyalties. Help us fix our hearts and minds on You and the joy of your communion — the communion of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
Lord, we bring You our
pain
anger
fears
disappointments
worries.
You see the cracks in our hope, the lagging of our spirits, and the many ways we try to entertain ourselves out of despair.
Lord, we must rely on You; Your lovingkindness shows us a better way. May the Spirit of Jesus make us gentle, humble, patient. Help us to encourage one another as we seek to
serve one another in love
pursue justice in your name.
walk with You and declare your goodness.
We lift up the students in Hong Kong and ask you for peace. Give them a vision of You, and an invitation into your hope and your life. Make your name and your Kingdom known among them.
Fill us all with the full measure of Your presence, love, goodness. We want to live in Your presence when we study, when we eat and drink, when we work, when we are in conflict. Show us how to engage in the life fully in Your ways.
In Jesus’ Name, Amen
Please join me in praying the Lord’s Prayer
Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us today our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one; for yours is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever. Amen.
Each of the persons in the collage have been arrested. They have previously or are currently incarcerated.
Can you listen to a prisoner?
Can you open your heart to them?
When we read Ephesians we are reading a prison epistle. It’s a letter written by a prisoner. Paul didn’t want his audience to forget it.
When he enters the ethical dimension of discipleship with Jesus, Paul reminds the readers (listeners), “As a prisoner of the Lord, then, I urge you
to live a life worthy of the calling you have received. 2Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love. 3Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. 4There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to one hope when you were called; 5one Lord, one faith, one baptism; 6one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.”
Paul wants us to walk, to conduct ourselves, to live, in a manner worthy of our calling! This is a prisoner of the Lord talking!
Whenever we read “prisoner” we must not gloss over what is happening. Prisoner convey’s a social and political dimension to this person’s relationship with us and with a government. Paul insists that the word prisoner is also a reflection of his relationship with Jesus Christ.
In the Origin Church gathering Sunday I briefly introduced our congregation to four folks who have been prisoners in our consideration of Ephesians 4:1-6. Here are links for you to explore the lives of these four people further. And then some final reflections on Jesus the Prisoner and our unity with Him.
Pastor Wang Yi
“If I am imprisoned for a long or short period of time, if I can reduce the authorities fear of my faith and of my Savior, I am very joyfully willing to help them in this way.”
Pastor of Early Rain Covenant Church, Chengdu China, has been incarcerated since Dec 9 2018. His letter, “My Declaration of Faithful Disobedience” had been written in Sept of that year and held that it should be published if he was detained for more than 48 hours. Read Pastor Wang’s Declaration. Pray for Pastor Wang as he is still incarcerated.
John M. Perkins
“God used the black and white nurses and doctors at that hospital to wash my wounds. For me they were symbolic of the people who had beaten me. What they did healed more than just my broken body. It healed my heart… Oh how beautiful it would be if we could wash one another’s wounds from the evil of racism in the church!”
In Feb of 1970 John Perkins was headed to the jail of Brandon MS to post bail for civil-rights demonstrators. But before he could get into the building he has accosted by highway patrol officers who met him with their fists and dragged him to jail. During the night he was brutally tortured by officers, he survived but the trauma prompted a heart attack and then ulcers — a long recovery ensued. He still has physical consequences to this day. He writes in One Blood: “I’m just now seeing clearly that the black church can’t fix this and the white church can’t fix this. It must be the reconciled Church, black and white Christians together imaging Christ to the world.” Read More about John M. Perkins and his ministry journey with Jesus.
“We must relearn what it means to be a body and what it means to continue Christ’s ministry of preaching the gospel to the poor. I believe there is a strategy to do this. We have seen three principles work that seem to be at the heart of how a local body of Christians can affect their neighborhood. We call them the three Rs of the quiet revolution: relocation, reconciliation, and redistribution.” Read more about the three R’s.
Linda Barkman
“Hospitality means that I come to your table as a guest and I am always a guest. By contrast integration means that I come to your family as a guest and I become family. You’re not going to offer integration to prisoners unless you really believe in redemption — that Jesus died for every single person.”
The 2018 Valedictorian of the Fuller Theological Seminary’s School of Intercultural Studies had been imprisoned longer than most of her fellow students had been alive. At age 65 she had been in prison for 30 of those years. “Prison was my first pulpit.” Read more about Linda and her journey.
Reverend Chu Yiu-ming
“I am a Christian minister committed to the service of God. I have resolved to live a life of friendship with the weak and the poor, praying that God’s justice be manifested on earth as it is in heaven, and that the Gospel of love and peace be proclaimed among the people. But today, old and grey, I find myself in the Defendant’s dock, making a final plea as a convict. It looks absurd, if not outright shameful for a person holding holy office. And yet, at this very moment, my heart tells me that with this defendant’s dock I have found the most honourable pulpit of my ministerial career. The valley of the shadow of death leads to spiritual heights.”
Found guilty in 2019 of “public nuisance” for involvement in the 2014 pro-democracy protests — in Hong Kong. His sentence was commuted and he was sent home for reasons of his health. Read Reverend Chu’s full statement.
Jesus the Prisoner and our unity with Him.
As followers of Jesus we have in common Jesus as Lord, so Paul suggests that instead of fetters like chains we now share the bonds of peace. We are not captives yet we are captivated. We are not slaves, we are friends. We are not strangers, we are family. We share a common Lord; our peace was accomplished through the incarceration and execution of the Prince of Peace. The prophet Isaiah writes of Him: (Isaiah 53)
He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him. 3He was despised and rejected by mankind, a man of suffering, and familiar with pain. Like one from whom people hide their faces he was despised, and we held him in low esteem. 4Surely he took up our pain and bore our suffering, yet we considered him punished by God, stricken by him, and afflicted. 5But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed. 6We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to our own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. 7He was oppressed and afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth; he was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before its shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth. 8By oppression (or arrest) and judgment he was taken away. Yet who of his generation protested? For he was cut off from the land of the living; for the transgression of my people he was punished. 9He was assigned a grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death, though he had done no violence, nor was any deceit in his mouth. 10Yet it was the Lord’s will to crush him and cause him to suffer, and though the Lord makes his life an offering for sin, he will see his offspring and prolong his days, and the will of the Lord will prosper in his hand. 11After he has suffered, he will see the light of life and be satisfied; by his knowledge my righteous servant will justify many, and he will bear their iniquities. 12Therefore I will give him a portion among the great, and he will divide the spoils with the strong, because he poured out his life unto death, and was numbered with the transgressors. For he bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.
Oh, in the gaze of this crucified prisoner and risen Lord shall I not do all within my power to guard the unity of the Spirit? In the light of His grace shall I not humble myself? In the light of His meekness shall I not be patient with His friends? In the light of His long-suffering, shall I not be patient with others? In the light of His love shall I not put up with others in love? Following Jesus I will seek wisdom from heaven to know when to be close or to take leave, to speak up or to be quiet, to challenge or to wait.
Oh, by His grace, we will!
Note: Please follow the links to each article for the photo credits.
