Sabbath 24: Nobody Special

Sabbath 24: Tripp's post, Megan's post

With respect to Wayne, I don't think this chapter is about Sabbath. It's about humility, with a sabbath exercise. And it's a great chapter. Another chapter worth buying the book for. Here's the closest I can come to a summary:

According to Henri [Nouwen], Jesus' three temptations were these: To be useful. To be important. To be powerful.

Useful, important, and powerful--are these not the attributes that still tempt every one of us who seek to do good in the world? Yet the saints and sages teach us to offer or kindness humbly, invisibly, quietly. Jesus did not seek worldly power or influence. He spent his time with unknown, disliked people.

This week, I think Muller continues on the trajectory of things that are extremely valuable to say, and have the ring of deep truth (even if painful for some), but I'm not sure how they connect to the rest of his book. We're in the middle of a section of chapters called Wisdom; I read this chapter as a part of Muller trying to elaborate on what the kind of wisdom is we're looking for when we practice Sabbath on a regular basis, or when we are freed by the Sabbath to be the wisest and best people we know.

I think his central point is, once again, in the last paragraph. "We are most human when we do no great things. We are not so important; we are...participants in a process much larger than we." He encourages us to follow the practice of the desert fathers and mothers, who would retreat to their monastic cells. He encourages us to spend some time alone this week, believing that the time alone will allow us to look honestly at ourselves in the mirror.

Okay, I guess I haven't spent enough time in the cell for the wisdom of the desert mystics to work on me. I did notice that when I was alone, I tended to spend the time planning ahead, thinking of ways to be useful or important or powerful. I caught myself daydreaming this week about what might have happened if I had chosen another career path, one that I looked closely at before rejecting, or if I had never left the airport consulting industry to go to seminary. I learned, in short, that it is indeed my unconscious nature to not be humble.

In this week's chapter, Muller tells us the story of his ordination, and how Henri Nouwen, who preached at his ordination, used repeatedly the phrase "downward mobility" to describe the task of Christian ministry.

He uses this phrase to describe his ordination:

In the Christian lineage, Jesus ordained Peter, who ordained a long line of priests, who eventually ordained Henri Nouwen, who put his hands on me. This is my lineage, an unbroken chain of hands. My words and actions, if they bear fruit, come from the soil of that lineage.

That's close to home for me. When the church made me a priest, I could substitute "Gary Lillibridge" for "Henri Nouwen" above, and the same is true. I am the latest in a long line of messengers and ambassadors of Jesus, and any good that comes out of my ministry is not because I'm good at being a messenger, but because God is good.

My friend The Rev was gracious enough to come preach on the day the church made me a priest. I'll cheerfully admit that I threw away Muller's suggested sabbath discipline in favor of my own: listening to the recording of the ordination sermon. I offer you just this snippet, transcribed from close to the end:

Having faith is more than just about being tough; there are resources that rise up, that there's a power that rises up out of the human heart out of brokenness that has power to transform the world.

our challenge is to hear the same voice that called Abram out of the land of Ur...to leave what makes us comfortable, to leave what makes us feel secure, and to tell the story of the transformation of the world that was effected one dark day on Calvary. And here's how it's going to happen: not by a bunch of Texans being tough, not by a bunch of Atlantans being genteel, not by a bunch of New Yorkers being rich or a bunch of Bostonians being smart or a bunch of Californians being sentimental. It's going to happen when we embrace our brokenness, and we recognize that there's a greater power at work, who is alive in us, when our hearts are broken, to allow the blessing and the power of God to flow through us, so that the world may be transformed.