The name Jesus is the Latin form of the Greek name Iesous that is related to the Hebrew name Joshua which means “Jehovah (God) is salvation.”

Here’s the story from Luke 2:15-21

I also wonder about retail spaces like malls (those hellish places!). Malls seem perfectly designed to get people to spend money. The way they are laid out, the music chosen to play in the background, the layout of the stores, the visual stimulation supported by the other senses of smells and sounds washing over the consumer. Sugary scents of Cinnabon coupled with shafts of light streaming in from transparent skylights.

On the opposite end of the spectrum I remember the first time I stepped foot in a monastery, The Abbey of Gethsemani in the rolling hills of Kentucky.

The candlelight.
The stone hallways.
The stark white walls.
The simple furnishings.
The silence.
The chanting.

All of these things worked together to transport me to what seemed like another world. The very environment evoked prayer and communion.

How do we shape environments that will ultimately shape us? How do we design our home environment in a way that naturally leads those who enter to feel welcomed, nourished, inspired and connected to God?

In short I’m interested in what Malcolm Gladwell calls the “Power of Context.”

I’m especially interested to explore three angles: the physical environment, the role of the leader/ abbot/ parent, and the rituals that are present there.

Are you game to explore this with me? I’d love to share what I learn but also hear what you already know about this.

How’s this for starters: What were some of the most formative aspects of your home when you were growing up?

too far.

why have you gone the liberal way? they ask.

i have not chosen this. it has chosen me.
like family. we receive it
(or rather we are received)
whether we want it or not.
always the chosen. never the chooser.

you certainly don’t think God would call you to such a thing?

i do. he did. (yes, i said, HE did)

well then it must be for reform then!

No.
I am no Martin Luther, Calvin or Zwingli.
I am a learner.
A respecter of the tradition.
a student on my best days.
… on others, a passive learner
letting this holy tradition sweep over my faith and reason.

But you know they…

I am called.
there is nothing more to say.
no fight. no flight.
i am prepared to not be right, to be taught. to disagree.
in peace and harmony, in the fellowship of the wrong.
i will meet you off the deep end (or not.)
but i will be there.
content in my obedience and choseness.

But what about us?

remember: a joining not a leaving.
i am not breaking ties with you.
i am rooted here. and there.

I’ve chosen the red door because it chose me.

So Jesus told his first apprentices to “make disciples.” As I read over his life it’s obvious that that is exactly what he did. Yes, he came to save the world from sin and slavery in all its nasty forms and that was a unique part of his life and vocation that noone will ever replicate. As he said “it is finished.” However, there is much of his work that was only started during his earthly sojourn. And I sincerely believe he expects us to fulfill much of what was left undone. We are his body, his presence in the world now so what are we to be doing and how are we to do it? The answer to that question has multiple answers but one that is impossible to miss is “make disciples.”

I guess I’m mostly interested right now in the tactical answers to that question, the how answers. How did Jesus make disciples and how does that inform how we make disciples. Like Jesus we proclaim the gospel – the whole story of God from creation to the restoration of all things. We teach. We heal. We do all the things Jesus did as we are able… and yet there is something so fundamental that often it gets missed.

First, we must be WITH those we would lead to a deeper life in Christ. And this is the starting point that we can not gloss over and it especially comes into view during the Advent season. Immanual, God WITH us. As Peterson translates John 1: “Jesus moved into the neighborhood.” God took up residence in our world. Marks gospel says Jesus called his followers to be with him and then he sent them out. That is our pattern. Being with others so they are ready, prepared for the work of extending God’s love and truth.

This is where it starts (again) for me: Who am I with? Who is with me? Where have I been placed?

The first answer to “how” is where? Where am I? Among whom has God placed me? Who I am uniquely positioned to lovingly influence?

So as we enter more deeply into this season of advent I wanted to look closer at this section of the creed because it clearly states what it is we are remembering and celebrating in this season: the incarnation. By the way, the incarnation simply means “enfleshment” or taking on of flesh…  of “taking on carne” which in latin (and Tricy’s native Spanish!) means “meat.” It is all about the invisible God who made heaven and earth, who exists from all eternity past taking on human flesh and subjecting himself to all the challenges we face of getting tired, getting hungry, getting thirsty and experiencing all the different types of temptation we face. It is a mind blowing thought to think that God was fully one of us!

“I believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ… who for us and for our salvation, came down from heaven, and was incarnate by the Holy Ghost of the Virgin Mary, and was made man.”

This mystery we celebrate during advent is crystallized in that short phrase: “incarnate by the Holy Ghost of the Virgin Mary and was made man.” There are three obvious players in this scene: Jesus, the Holy Spirit, and Mary. Can you imagine what that must have been like for God the Father and God the Son and God the Holy Spirit to be in be in conversation about this possibility? Can you just picture them deciding on this, resolving that God the Son would temporarily leave his eternal kingdom that is filled with beauty and joy and delights we can only speculate about and come to earth as a man, part of his very own creation? Imagine yourself writing a story or drawing a picture and then deciding you were going to fully enter your creation. Think about all the things you would have to give up to do that.

However, once the decision had been made, Jesus’ role seems mostly passive so its really up to the Holy Spirit and Mary to pull this off. And initially all Mary has to do is surrender to it. So the Holy Spirit is active in this creation in the same way She was active at the original creation. Remember that story where the Holy Spirit is brooding over the chaotic waters and bringing forth life. (The Creed later speaks of the Holy Spirit as the “Lord, the giver of life.”) In a way this is the same story. The Holy Spirit is brooding over Mary bringing life in her womb where Jesus will take shape as a human baby surrounded by a sack full of water. We don’t need to get into all the biology of this beautiful moment but its enough to say that the Holy Spirit is brooding over the waters again and bringing forth life.

So after this initial time of all these things happening to Mary, she then becomes the most active player in the story by carrying the very life of God – God himself! – in her body for nine months and experiencing all the joys and challenges of a normal pregnancy: excitement, nausea, a growing belly, bigger appetite, questions and fears of what it will be like to actually give birth…

The past couple days were spent with representatives from 2 communal groups: one from Franklinton (near Columbus) and the other from Athens, the Common Friars of Good Earth Farms. We gathered with Bishop Breidenthal (the Episcopal Bishop of Southern Ohio) and Jane Gerdsen, missioner of Fresh Expressions in the diocese. There is so much I want to say about this time it will likely take a few posts not to mention permission from those who were there. But I wanted to start with a few personal reflections.

Our time began appropriately in play. I had the honor of demolishing Kelly Latimore, a common friar, in Corn Hole. My retreat at that point was off to a good start. Next we broke out the wine along with the game Balderdash and proceeded to laugh for the next couple of hours at fake definitions for impossible words. I did not fair so well in the competition but if we measured the game in laughter we all won.

At this point I’m already up way past my bed time (it’s after 9:00 pm!) and we move into a time of compline prayers followed by informal conversation of updates about current community joys and challenges that takes us well past midnight… what I’m realizing at this point is these folks are in the thick of real community and mission issues… and I’m starting to really like them and truly care about their challenges. But I’m also falling asleep so I retire for the night.

I wake up to a sunrise slowly lighting up the chapel with a bluish orange glow. I do the morning office from the Book of Common Prayer aware that I’m in a what the Celts call “a thin place” where the veil between heaven and earth is unusually transparent.

Our first gathering of the morning is for Eucharist in the chapel at 10am. The gospel for the day is one of my favorites: Luke 10. A little back story on that passage. After my friends Chad and Palmer died within 10 days of each other (several years ago) Tracy and I (and several others) committed to pray daily at 10:02 am that God would raise up workers to to carry on the work they started and fulfill the dreams they carried. We got the time 10:02 from Luke 10.2 which says “Ask the Lord of the harvest to raise up workers for the harvest is great but the workers are few.” So literally everyday a little alarm goes off on my phone and Tracy’s and we pray that simple prayer. So as that Scripture is being read yesterday morning my alarm (silently) is going off. The thin place got even thinner and I sense a Divine timing that could not have been better orchestrated. Jane opened the floor for sharing after the reading and reflection and I shared briefly of the loss of my friends, the daily prayer, and how I felt like God was answering the prayer in that moment by this very gathering…

Advent is near.

Advent, the 4 weeks leading up to Christmas, is a time of preparation. Preparation for what you ask? Preparation for the coming of the King. The King of what? The King of the whole earth. Yes, I’m talking about the baby Jesus! The church lives into this yearly rhythm that begins during advent and culminates in Easter. It’s our way of living more fully into the story of Christ from his birth to his ministry to his death and resurrection. It creates a good rut in our soul. It creates an ever deepening, year after year, channel for the flow of God’s life to flow into our own.

We all have ruts and routines in our life. It’s just easier than making things up as we go along. We have habits that we unconsciously practice day after day, week after week, year after year. The Christian year is a way to live more fully into a thoughtful routine, a good rut. Once there, you’ll just get caught up into the flow that is in the rut. This is an invitation to jump into the rut this year for those who never have.

And it begins now. This coming Sunday. If you’re looking for a good place to jump on board and find out more about Christianity this is the perfect time to do it. Everything kind of resets around this time. We are all in the mode of preparing for Christmas, an important starting point of God’s life flowing into the world in the most meaningful and fullest way imaginable: Coming to us as one of us.

***

Here’s a helpful book on jumping deeper into the good rut of the Christian year. I haven’t read the whole thing but the parts I have read I really like.

Wikipedia also has a good summary of Advent.

This passage is taken from the Nicene Creed and comes from about 325 a.d.

“I believe… in one Lord Jesus Christ,
the only begotten Son of God,
begotten of his Father before all worlds,
God of God, Light of Light,
very God of very God,
begotten, not made,
being of one substance with the Father;
by whom all things were made…”

There is so much I love about this section! The part that always sticks out to me though is “Light of Light.” We are soon entering the season of Advent where we prepare for Christ’s birth, celebrated at Christmas and following right on the heels of that is Epiphany on January 6th. Epiphany celebrates God’s truth coming to light across the world in all cultures, times and places and among all sorts of people. I can say more about that as we get closer to it but for now what is important is that you realize this: God is constantly trying to bring things to light. God never stops revealing his character and his ways and his purposes and his will for the earth and her people. Never. It is all God can do! God loves to reveal truth. God loves to show us his way. God loves to bring things to light and manifest his presence. And often times God will do this in ways that surprise us and delight us. At other times his revelation may startle us as when he sends angels to people. The angels always have to start the conversation with “fear not!” because God’s reality is so wonderful and so much more than we can take in it can literally scare us… but that is not God’s intention. God’s intention is to get us to align with his ways and his truth and help us understand him more.
So what is the primary way God reveals his character and ways to us? Through Jesus – who is God, but also human – coming to us, teaching us, and leaving us a record of his teaching and ways in the Gospels.

Here’s how one of his closest friends put it:

“^1-2 The Word was first,
the Word present to God,
God present to the Word.
The Word was God,
in readiness for God from day one.  ^3-5Everything was created through him;
nothing—not one thing!—
came into being without him.
What came into existence was Life,
and the Life was Light to live by.
The Life-Light blazed out of the darkness;
the darkness couldn’t put it out….

¹⁴The Word became flesh and blood,
and moved into the neighborhood.
We saw the glory with our own eyes,
the one-of-a-kind glory,
like Father, like Son,
Generous inside and out,
true from start to finish.”

(From the Gospel of John, chapter 1)

What is God trying to reveal to you right now? Be on the lookout! God is bringing something to light right now in your life…

1. Doing retreats at the Abbey of Gethsemani

2. Being part of Vineyard Central and owning a former Catholic church building

3. Being introduced to fixed hour prayer by Phyllis Tickle via the Divine Hours prayer books.

4. Having a grandpa that was Episcopalian and took me to church as an infant (and some reports say he even had me baptized there…)

5. Inheriting my grandpa’s collection of Books of Common Prayer especially his gilded, leather bound one with his name on it

6. Watching friends convert to Catholicism and Orthodoxy.

7. Reading books by high church people like Robert Webber, N.T. Wright and Phyllis Tickle

8. Studying church history especially the monastics, founders of religious orders and church fathers

Most recently though this crush has started to turn into a connection. Through the experience of helping organize and present at Sustain and Missio I’ve sensed a real longing to (re)connect with those roots in my family tree, with the spiritual DNA passed down from my grandfather. Missio was hosted at Christ Church Cathedral – my grandfather’s church home until he died -  by the director of Fresh Expression’s for the Diocese of Southern Ohio, Jane Gerdsen who has become a dear friend and someone I hope to conspire much kingdom goodness with!

So, let me ask the obvious question. Am I becoming Episcopalian? And of course there is a qualified YES. Yes, I am moving toward the Anglican Communion but not in any way that will exclude my non-Anglican friends or uproot me from my local context and connections. I’ll forever be “ecumenical” at heart and rooted in the soil of Norwood, OH. But in many ways I already feel like I am Anglican (aka Episcopalian) because of my baptism as an infant and I’m just learning to become what I already am…