The Blood That Lets Us Share Our Name
Reflection Roundup reports from conversations couched in relationships. Here, readers will find boots-on-the-ground and “live from the field” items important to Christian leaders. As always, listening broadly draws together differing perspectives from which we can learn but with which we may not concur. This month’s post is a simple reflection on one human reality that has the power to cut ministry off at the knees: fear.
Reflection Roundup is about the “boots on the ground” activities of people intent on increasing their understanding of what it means to live like Christ in the world. In August and September on a university campus, this phrase hits hard for two groups of people who must place their boots on the ground: first-year students and their parents. Students have to place their feet into their boots and walk to class, and this is often not as easy as it sounds. Parents have to place themselves, minus the sets of boots they’ve recently unloaded from the car, back into the car, drive home, and find peace in the new growth opportunity they’ve just given their child/student, even when it feels quite odd not to hear them knocking around the house as usual.
At some level, newness brings with it fear, and Scripture has a lot to say about fear. Aside from loving God alone, it may be the hottest topic. Here are some examples:
Jacob was awestruck when he “woke from his sleep and said, ‘Surely the Lord is in this place—and I did not know it!’ And he was afraid and said, ‘How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven’” (Gen 28:15-17).
While on the stormy sea, Jesus said to his followers, “It is I; do not be afraid” (John 6:20).
But it is David’s declaration that resonates with me during this season. “It is God who arms me with strength and keeps my way secure. He makes my feet like the feet of a deer; he causes me to stand on the heights (Ps 18:32-33).” And further, “When I am afraid, I put my trust in you” (Ps 56: 3). This declaration admonishes me, reminding me not to fear, but the honest truth is that I do fear. So this verse helps me know what to do with that feeling.
For one minute, let your mind drift toward things that cause fear to rise up. Ministry decisions can bring fear. Anticipating a season full of polarizing political views can incite fear. Some use fear as a tool, choosing their words with the purpose and desire to change people. Has this ever happened to you? How did it make you feel?
This oddness became clear to me as I helped one new class of first-year students prepare for their initial class project, a life reflection speech, by sharing a short reflection of my own, one which foregrounds a value I hold dear: trusting God with my closest people. To make the point, I employed some lyrics from a favorite song with an unlikely title, “Murder in the City,” by the Avett Brothers. The song goes like this:
If I get murdered in the city
Don’t go revenging in my name
One person dead from such is plenty
No need to go get locked away
When I leave your arms
The things that I think of
No need to get over alarmed
I’m coming home.
These lyrics may depict what seems an overly dramatic example, but I think the Avett Brothers do a pretty good job of generalizing our worst fears. As we unpacked these lyrics in class, we thought about what it means to both ”get over alarmed” and also what it looks like, boots on the ground, to trust God, to trust our families, and to trust one another, realizing all the while that there will be ups and downs. The ultimate truth is that we’re all coming home.
Phoebe Palmer is one of my heroes. She was a female preacher and teacher in the Methodist tradition in New York City in the nineteenth century. In her journal, which she calls “A Way of Holiness: a Narrative of Religious Experience,” she describes an “altar moment” with the Lord during which she was convicted and compelled like Abraham with Isaac to lay “family, influence, and earthly possessions,” all she held most dear, on the altar before the Lord.[1] She sacrificed her desire for control and trusted that these were good gifts to her. But even more so, they are God’s tools for God’s work in the world. They are cared for and tended by a God who cares even more than she. How could this be possible, she wondered?
“Always remember there’s nothing worth sharing like the love that lets us share our name.” This is the lyrical crescendo the Avett Brothers sing in the song I mentioned above. Of course, they are talking about “blood relatives,” but even mentioning that term in the context of Christian fellowship reminds people that Christians are all blood relatives.
So, as I look around campus and see so many new faces, I pray that we all can grow as people. I pray we can grow in our abilities to trust the blood of Jesus that unites people, the God that provides and cares for people, and the Spirit that continually guides the boots of people to the ground they are intended to find. I pray people have the desire and the ability to do the work God has planned for them to do, all the while releasing themselves, those they love, and circumstances which lie beyond their control from their fears and into God’s care.
1. Phoebe Palmer, The Way of Holiness: With Notes by the Way; Being a Narrative of Religious Experience Resulting from a Determination to Be a Bible Christian./ By Mrs. Phoebe Palmer, 2005,34. http://name.umdl.umich.edu/ajh1642.0001.001.
