Long Way Here

If the gospel and the community it forms doesn’t ask something of me and my family, then is it worth living for? If the gospel announces that I can have life with God, a new way of understanding how life works, and a new kind of familial community (among other things), then isn’t it worth the change or transformation it requires, especially when the power to do so is a gift of grace from God?

But if the gospel and the community it forms is little more than self-help or a distributor of goods and services for me and my family, like “community,” programs, etc, then will I ever allow myself or family to be changed or transformed? Could it be that what I really want is for the gospel and the community it forms to be conformed to my likeness?

“Try Jesus.” And see if you like him? I’m not sure what the sign means. I suppose it could mean a lot of things. What the sign did for me was made wonder if Jesus is someone we “try” or trust.

Emotions are dry
Looking for a high
But spiritually deny
The plank in my eye.

Treating Church like a BDubs
And Jesus like a bartender
Lookin for the next fix
Itching for the next bender.

I need a spiritual pep rally
Gotta keep a good tally
on my quiet times
serving bread lines
communing with the Divine
when I have the time.

I saw You riding on Your donkey
Talking liberation and peace.
I certainly hope it’s practical
With a personal application for me.

Wait.

What did you say? Our relationship is more an acquaintance?

What’s that suppose to mean?
I have to embrace repentance?
That’s what it means to believe?

You’re calling me to repent?
Not just believe?
You’re calling me to submit?
Even when it’s inconvenient for me?

Wait.

What about love? I thought love was free?

Love has demands?
Responsibilities?

Look Lord, my emotions are dry.
I’m just looking for a high.
I’m sorry to make you cry.

But I don’t wanna repent.
I just wanna believe.
I don’t wanna relent.
I just wanna god for me.

~ Written Palm Sunday, 2021

There’s a lot as a society we can disagree on. We should. Conflict itself can open space for hidden things to be revealed. It can be a place where the transcendent is discovered. In the Christian faith conflict becomes a space where the Lordship of Christ can breakthrough in transforming ways, calling each participant to an ethic of love. So yes, we should disagree freely, but without the trope of American Liberty being invoked (after all, many of us like free speech a lot less when someone says something we don’t like). We can disagree because it’s good.

But can we at least agree that we should have a human ethic to do no harm? If we cannot agree with that conflict will continue to be mechanized for violence. Violence hurts us all.

“Neither can I call myself anything else than what I am, a Christian. . . .Stand fast in the faith, and love one another, all of you, and be not offended at my sufferings.”

Perpetua, a North African women martyred early in the 3rd Century

These are some of her words as (most likely) preserved by Tertullian, a North African Church leader, in The Passion of Saints Perpetua and Felicity.

Perpetua is a 3rd Century mother of the Christian faith.

Artwork by Cara Quinn

(This modern icon is inspired by the Eastern Orthodox Tradition and the Catholic Church traditions.)

Sarah, Rebekah, Rachel, Jochebed, Miriam, Rahab, Deborah, Ruth, Hannah, Bathesheba, Jehosheba, Hulda, Esther, Mary, Elizabeth, Anna, Mary of Magdala, Mary of Bethany, Priscilla, Lydia, Phoebe. These are the names of just a few powerful women the Jewish and Christian tradition highlights as powerful leading women in our sacred book—the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures.

Thecla, Perpetua, Felicitas, Amma Syncletica of Alexandria, Marcella, Macrina the Younger, Proba, Paula, Melania the Elder, Eudocia, Egeria. These are just some of the (mostly unknown) women who sparked significant movements or modeled great faith within the first 500 years of the Christian faith.

My faith is built on the shoulders of women from Asia and Africa, the motherlands of my faith. I am a welcomed guest to their faith and have been claimed as their adopted son. They have become my spiritual mothers.

I think of them often, despite being raised in a Christian tradition that made women out to be nothing more than the supporting cast in a story starring men.

The story of my faith, past and present, tells a different story. I am grateful.

Image: A woman is depicted at prayer in an ancient Christian mosaic seen in the Vatican’s Pio Cristiano Museum. (Wikimedia Commons/Miguel Hermoso Cuesta)