Henri Nouwen: Think clearly, speak freely, and act boldly

“Dear Lord, you have sent me into this world to preach your word. So often the problems of the world seem so complex and intricate that your word strikes me as embarrassingly simple. Many times I fell tongue-tied in the company of people who are dealing with the world’s social and economic problems.

But you, O Lord, said, “Be clever as serpents and innocent as doves.” Let me retain innocence and simplicity in the midst of this complex world. I realize that I have to be informed, that I have to study the many aspects of the problems facing the world, and that I have to try to understand as well as possible the dynamics of our contemporary society.

But what really counts is that all this information, knowledge, and insight allow me to speak more clearly and unambiguously your truthful word. Do not allow evil powers to seduce me with the complexities of the world’s problems, but give me strength to think clearly, speak freely, and act boldly in your service. Give me the courage to show the dove in a world so full of serpents.”

Henri Nouwen, Seeds of Hope (New York: Doubleday, 1997), p. 112.

This question is asked of me often these days. “What’s next, Gary?” Often that remark is accompanied with, “What are you going to go do now?”

I did not embark on a PhD as a means to an end of getting a job. I did it out of obedience to God. I felt led to begin this course of study in 2000, was not able to start until 2006 and by God’s grace finished my course yesterday. Rather than just tell you, I desire to show you what I learned.

So what do I want to do now? I want to take a posture, not a position. In the words of Henri Nouwen, I want “to think clearly, speak freely, and act boldly” in His service. This troubled world is in desperate need of the truthful word dripping from your tongue and mine.

My aim, with every ounce of strength God grants me, is to follow Jesus’ invitation to serve as a conduit of blessing to a broken world. I am most thankful that my wife and children have joined me on this journey, as have many of you.

Together now, let us take courage from our Lord, and not let the complexities of this world confuse or distract us from running the race with innocence and simplicity. Christ be with us.

Jenni and I attended my academic awards ceremony today for Trinity College at Wills Hall, Bristol University. I was honored to receive my PhD degree in an unforgettable ceremony. Among about one hundred graduates in certificate, bachelor, and master level programs, there were only five PhD’s awarded this year, and I was among the three privileged to attend.

Since no video or photography was allowed during the service, it is impossible for us to describe the awesome sound of the organ in the Great Hall or the inspirational message delivered by the Reverend Prebendary Nick Mercer from St. Paul’s Cathedral. What we can share are the lyrics to the closing hymn that commissioned the graduates for service for God’s glory.

“Lord for the Years” by Timothy Dudley-Smith

Lord, for the years your love has kept and guided,
urged and inspired us, cheered us on our way,
sought us and saved us, pardoned and provided,
Lord for the years, we bring our thanks today.

Lord, for that Word, the Word of life which fires us,
speaks to our hearts and sets our souls ablaze,
teaches and trains, rebukes us and inspires us,
Lord of the Word, receive your people’s praise.

Lord, for our land in this our generation,
spirits oppressed by pleasure, wealth and care:
for young and old, for commonwealth and nation,
Lord of our land, be pleased to hear our prayer.

Lord, for our world where men disown and doubt you,
loveless in strength, and comfortless in pain,
hungry and helpless, lost indeed without you,
Lord of the world, we pray that Christ may reign.

Lord for ourselves; in living power remake us,
self on the cross, and Christ upon the throne,
past put behind us, for the future take us,
Lord of our lives, to live for Christ alone.

Jenni and I attended a Friday Communion Service at The New Room today in Bristol, the oldest Methodist chapel in the world. These are the lyrics from the hymn we sang together.

Lyrics: “Jesus Calls Us”

Jesus calls us o’er the tumult
Of our life’s wild, restless sea;
Day by day his sweet voice soundeth,
Saying, “Christian, follow me!”

As of old the apostles heard it
By the Galilean lake,
Turned from home and toil and kindred,
Leaving all for Jesus’ sake.

Jesus calls us from the worship
Of the vain world’s golden store,
From each idol that would keep us,
Saying, “Christian, love me more!”

In our joys and in our sorrows,
Days of toil and hours of ease,
Still he calls, in cares and pleasures,
“Christian, love me more than these!”

Jesus calls us! By thy mercies,
Savior, may we hear thy call,
Give our hearts to thine obedience,
Serve and love thee best of all.

Cecil Frances Alexander (1818-1895)

May these words serve as a reminder and strengthen our resolve to daily follow and cherish our Lord above all else, regardless of the cost and the consequences.

The following is a letter written to TWR (Trans World Radio) by Mrs. Y. of Dnepropetrovsk province, Ukraine.

Dear servants in God’s vineyard!

I am in church once a month. My health does not allow me to go more often. I go only when I receive my pension so that I can bring to church my [offering]. I live alone. I have nobody, except my Savior. I am 85 years old. And I guess I could say that I am not needed. But I find myself being a minister for the Lord because “faith without works is dead.”

I have eight places to which I send donations. Just like today, when I received my pension, I immediately made distributions to each of these places. The first priority was the prison ministry, then the rest followed. And again it happened that I had nothing left for TWR. Then I remembered that I had a viburnum shrub, which I had already taken many times to the market, but nobody even took an interest. (The market is very close to me – about two minutes’ walk).

And so I prayed to the Lord: “Dear Lord! For a second time already, I received a letter from TWR, and I have no money to give to your servants. Please, could you make it so that when I take the branches of this shrub to the market, all of it will be bought by one person. Then I will know that I have to send this money to TWR.”

And so I went with my small cart full of viburnum to the market, and I had not yet spread it out when a woman came by and said: “I am taking all of it.” And she bought all of it! After this I went straight to the post office and sent you the money for TWR. That is how the Lord gave you 50 hryvnia” [about US$6].

41 Jesus sat down opposite the place where the offerings were put and watched the crowd putting their money into the temple treasury. Many rich people threw in large amounts. 42 But a poor widow came and put in two very small copper coins, worth only a few cents. 43 Calling his disciples to him, Jesus said, “Truly I tell you, this poor widow has put more into the treasury than all the others. 44 They all gave out of their wealth; but she, out of her poverty, put in everything—all she had to live on.” Mark 12:41-44

Barbara Shantz, Global Development Liaison for TWR forwarded this priceless giving story to me. I share it with you as today’s meditation because it is likely the most beautiful modern day widow’s mite story I have ever heard.

“In our modern culture where the goal is to have it all, do it all, and be it all, the notion of sacrifice usually conjures thoughts of distaste…When we view acquisition as an antidote for all ills, it is easy to forget about sacrifice as a profound practice for renewing relationships with God, self, and others. The word sacrifice comes from a verb meaning “to make sacred.” Through a regular practice of sacrifice, we make room for the sacred to enter our lives and the world.

As a practice, sacrifice means intentionally leaving from the safety of sustaining our own needs as an affirmation of trust in God’s provisions. In this meaning we connect with generosity. Being generous gently loosens our grip on the money, things, and people we hold captive with our expectations, clamoring for security, and need to control…To be generous we must willingly sacrifice, live with an open heart and open hands, and stretch beyond what we thought we could offer…

Find a few ways this week where you can act generously in a manner that stretches you…Give twice as much as you usually do and find ways to cut other spending to cover the cost…Another way to live generously is to act with respect and compassion toward others rather than with anger or spite…What is important is not simply denying ourselves something or even giving things to people and to God. It’s being vulnerable to the Spirit and giving wholly to God and—through God’s guidance—to others. When sacrifice and generosity work together, we give in faith what we have and who we are for the sake of whose we are—God’s.”

Tacy Holliday in “Sacrifice isn’t giving up, it’s giving to God” Herald Magazine, Community of Christ blogpost on October 16, 2010.

“We spend, spend; amass, amass, indulge item by item, growing increasingly deaf to Jesus who described a simple life marked by generosity and underconsumption. Over time a new compartment develops for our spending habits, safely distanced from the other drawers like “discipleship” and “stewardship”…and listen, I am first in line…This isn’t a sage’s manifesto but a sinner’s repentance…I used to say, “But we [give money to church], and that money goes to stuff Jesus was all into.” Except many churches use it for marble floors and shiny buildings and cool videos and expensive mailers and pretty landscaping…

Journey with me on a quick sidebar for a moment: How have we let the church deteriorate like this? How is this okay? … We’ve engineered an elaborate two-step to justify this egregious spending on ourselves. We are far from Jesus’ original vision; the whole enterprise would be unrecognizable to our early church fathers. The earth is groaning, and we’re putting coffee bars in our thirty-five-million-dollar sanctuaries. Just because we can have it doesn’t mean we should. I marvel at how out of place simple, humble Jesus would be in today’s American churches.”

Jen Hatmaker, Seven: Clothes, Spending, Waste, Stress, Media, Possessions, Food – An Experimental Mutiny against Excess (Nashville: B&H Publishing, 2012) 157.

“Everything we have belongs to God. Here is what we say through our stewardship practices: 10% belongs to God; the rest belongs to you. Give that 10% to the church which will use it for God’s purposes. The other 90%? Do whatever you want with it. Here is what we say through our stewardship practices: The church’s budget is God’s money; your household budget is your money. Here is what we say through our stewardship practices: You only have to make a connection between God and your money once a year, when we are asking for pledges. (Stewardship, apparently, is not about all of life, but only a code word for “help us plan for next year.”

Here is what we say through our stewardship practices: Your time and talents are valuable when you volunteer at church. See, we call you up front and pray for you when you are installed on the church council, or as a Sunday School teacher, or are sent off on a trip with the youth…Do you see that our practices divide a “self” that should be a whole into two piece…We are mistakenly telling people that what they give to church–both in terms of time and in terms of treasure–matters to God; but what they give at home–in terms of time and in terms of treasure–does not matter to God…

Maybe the issue should be put like this: Congregations should focus on growing “stewards” all year and should completely drop the bifurcating, fragmenting practices around congregational budgets. A steward is someone who belongs to God. And thus, a steward is someone who understands that everything she is and has belongs to God. That is a year-round topic, not a topic for four weeks when the church needs to plan a budget.”

Rolf A. Jacobsen in Rethinking Stewardship: Our Culture, Our Theology, Our Practices, ed. Frederick J. Gaiser (St. Paul, MN: Word & World, 2010) 4-5.

“It is easy for money to become a distraction. Just the making and management of money alone takes effort and focus. Yet money becomes a subtle master if it is not held in check. We love what we think about, so if the majority of our waking moments are consumed by the thought of making more money, then we are distracted…If a life is consumed by money, then very little is left over for a life well spent. Time and energy for others become scarce in the wake of compulsive money making.

You may think that your current obsession with making money is for the long-term purpose of autonomy. This thinking is flawed, because the follower of Jesus Christ is never really autonomous…A life of unshackled leisure and self-indulgence is not on God’s radar. He may free you up to serve Him and others, but not to sit and soak. Too many options can be a distraction to God’s best. So how can you avoid money’s distraction?

By faith, regularly look into the loving eyes of Jesus. Let Him love you, and you will feel led to love Him. Money’s distraction is derailed by a love relationship with Jesus. When you love Him wholeheartedly, there is no room for money to distract. It is a love issue…You cannot love God and money at the same time. This is double-mindedness. Receive His love, and love Him, not money. Give generously, especially to the poor. Then you can enjoy your citizenship in His kingdom with community, accountability, and authentic love.”

Boyd Bailey, excerpt from “Wisdom Hunter” blog post for December 31, 2013.

If today’s meditation looked different it’s because after 1,673 days of faithful work, my Apple MacBook Pro crashed yesterday. I will be unable to post meditations to my website indefinitely. I am thankful that just one day earlier I completed final edits to a book you will hear about shortly. For now, at least I give thanks to God that most of my work since my last back up was emailed to people so I will be able to restore most of the data. On the eve of another trip and attending my academic awards in the UK this next weekend my meditations will look quite plain coming to you by way of my iPhone.

“Living is giving. We live life best when we give ourselves, our resources, our competencies, and our time in service to others and in support of God’s mission. If you spend your money on yourself, you are just surviving. But if you want your life to count, if you really want to live–give.”

Timothy Keller, pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church, NYC, as quoted on Generous Giving website.

“I consecrate all that I am and all that I have, the faculties of my mind, the members of my body, my worldly possessions, my time, and my influence over others, all to be used entirely for thy glory and resolutely employed in obedience to thy commands as long as Thou continuest me in life.”

Thomas Maclellan as quoted on the Generous Giving website. His legacy contributed to the formation of the Maclellan Foundation in Chattanooga, TN, and subsequent generations formed Generous Giving which has hosted conferences and Journey of Generosity (JOG) spiritual retreats to stir thousands across America to reflect on biblical truth as a basis for growing in Christian generosity.

This past week my friend, Sung Wook Chung (Professor at Denver Seminary), and I had the privilege of introducing Daryl Heald, founder of Generous Giving and its new international counterpart, Global Generosity Movement, to church leaders in Seoul, South Korea. We hosted a JOG, I got to train 500 pastors at Yoido Full Gospel Church, and I also had the privilege of preaching at Myung Sung Church, Noryangjin Church, and Anyang Church.

We were also joined by an elder from Menlo Park Presbyterian Church, David Kim, of Silicon Valley. Each of us delivered presentations at a symposium on Business as Mission hosted by Kurios International and Sarang Church. It was great for Daryl and David to see the passion that key Korean Christian leaders have for biblical generosity. I believe this will be the first of many trips there together, all for God’s glory and the renewal of God’s church in Korea.