Discipleship Letters 79-80

Discipleship Letter 79                                    March 21^st, 2010

“When our absence from people means a special presence to God, then that absence becomes a sustaining absence. Jesus continuously left his apostles to enter into prayer with the Father. The more I read the Gospels, the more I am struck with Jesus’ single-minded concern with the Father. From the day his parents found him in the Temple, Jesus speaks about his Father as the source of all his words and actions. When he withdraws himself from the crowd and even from his closest friends, he withdraws to be with the Father” [Henri Nouwen, The Living Reminder: Service and Prayer in Memory of Jesus (New York: HarperSanFrancisco, 1996), p. 50.].

He comes from the Father. He returns to the Father. He finished the Will of the Father. The Father is the beginning, the center, and the end of the ministry of Jesus.

“The next morning Jesus awoke long before daybreak and went out alone into the wilderness to pray” (Mk. 1:35).

“It is obvious that Jesus does not maintain his relationship with the Father as a means of fulfilling his ministry. On the contrary, his relationship with the Father is the core of his ministry. Therefore, prayer, days along with God, or moments of silence, should never be seen or understood as healthy devices to keep in shape…No, they are all ministry. We minister to our parishioners, patients, and students even when we are with God and God alone” (p. 51).

The ministry of absence is the foundation of the ministry of presence.

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Discipleship Letter 80                                    March 28^th, 2010

“God leaves us free to be real or unreal. He leaves us free to be any self we choose to be, but we cannot make these choices with impunity…The goal of Christian spirituality is sometimes presented as the denial of self. Properly understood, the denial that is a part of Christian spirituality is not of self but of false selves. False selves are the egocentric, willful ways of being that we create in an attempt to live life independent of God, apart from his love, and beyond the reach of his will” [David G. Benner, Care of Souls: Revisioning Christian Nurture and Counsel (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1998), p. 103.].

God only meets us in reality. That’s why the biblical God is the God of event, not the god of concept. The God of Israel is the God of event. God reveals his character in and through different events: the God of rescue in Exodus, the God of forgiveness in the golden calf incident, the God of mercy in the story of Jonah, etc… The incarnation is such an event in and through which God has been made known (Jn. 1:18). God fully displays himself in public at the cross event. In Christ, God meets humanity in reality. 

The God of event only meets us in reality. We need to be aware of good untrue things (e.g. we are nice) and bad true things (e.g. we are selfish) in our lives. There is a difference between “I should be like that” and “I am like that.” False selves usually come from a falsely statement “I should be like that.” We tend to think we are like that. In reality, people tell us we are not like that. As a result, we think that people are judgmental and mean. People are God’s means to meet us in reality, for the people around us are the people in our events.