To Whom Shall We Go

Faith Responses in a Time of Crisis

Irene Alexander, Christopher Brown, Irene Alexander, Christopher Brown

• Publisher: Cascade Books
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN: 9781725289550, 9781725289567
• eBook ISBN: 9781725289574
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Theology

With the world turned upside down by the global pandemic, people of faith aligned to the upside-down kingdom of Jesus, are asking, how do we sing the Lord's song in these times? How do we now live, worship, and serve amid such upheaval, insecurity, fear, grief, and social isolation? Is it just to endure the worst, or to seek the best by walking the way of the cross? Is there an invitation to renewed kingdom citizenship of heaven and earth? Our backgrounds will impact our responses as will our prayers, our scripture reflections, our worship, and our willingness to put the center of ourselves outside, to offer unlimited space for others. With backgrounds in medicine, physics, economics, missiology, theology, social activism, pastoral care, and spiritual companioning, these writers engage such questions. There is a cruciform shape to their reflections, and to the prayers and liturgies they include. We glimpse the One who is with us and for us in these troubled times, sharing our laments, fostering kingdom-heartedness, igniting our passions, offering tender mercies, decluttering our hearts, making peace, instilling courage, and inviting our participation. Though in crisis times our poverty of spirit is amplified, the kingdom of heaven is wide open. With contributions from: Terry GatfieldAthena GorospeRoss McKenzieTim MCowanPaul MercerSarah NichollCharles Ringma

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Welcoming Troubled Souls

Christopher Brown

We join with you, our reader, in the context of a crisis, of a shared threat to our humanity. We might be likened to a youthful David, facing off the giant Goliath, armed with only five pebbles and a sling. How do we battle a contemporary giant, whose death-making and destructive footprints are enormous but, as a virus, is one thousand times smaller than a pinhead? David had no more than five pebbles and a sling. Invisible with him, and now amid our battles, is One who suffers the extremities of our crisis and comes alongside in response to our deepest heart-cries.

In this chapter, we consider how times of crisis can potentially hold up a mirror to the people we are. It can assist us to engage in sobering analysis, critique, and resolution. By contrast, a mirror held by the Holy Spirit might reveal to us our poverty of spirit and invite us into an encounter with God that is redemptive, spacious, and invitational. The Spirit’s mirror may also reflect the changing shape of our character and actions as citizens of God’s kingdom here on our troubled earth. In resourcing and reshaping us to journey through and beyond this time of global upheaval, the Spirit draws us back to Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, and gifts us anew with his eight life-giving and life-enhancing Beatitudes. Prayerfully attuning the ears and eyes of our hearts to the Spirit’s whispers and prompts through these gifts, we will hear anew Jesus’ invitation to live God’s kingdom and become God’s holy sanctuary here, in this world in crisis, and beyond.

God is Present

Though the shape of our dis-ease, anxieties, losses, and griefs differ, as do our daily circumstances, we all face the same adversary with meager resources. Perhaps no more than a sling and a few pebbles! And yet, you are also here, Invisible One! You come alongside in response to the deepest cry of each human heart and the groan of every troubled soul. What you, O God, face in all its totality during this time, would overwhelm us and throw us into despair. And yet, you take upon yourself all dimensions of this human suffering—every heart-cry, every groan, every fear, every death, every grief, forming no immunity to its potency and darkness! Your creation, O Spirit of God, matters. To you, our bodies matter, our flesh matters, our hearts matter, our consciousness matters, our death matters, as does our hope of your healing, restoration, and shalom. Taking our humanity upon yourself in this time of crisis, O Christ, with sacrificial self-giving, self-emptying, and receiving love of your Holy Trinity, you redeem our brokenness, reconcile us to God, and transform us into your likeness.

Whatever the footprints or carnage of the giants, you exceed their destructiveness through your offer of eternal life to be lived in the now as a miracle of incompleteness but future fulfillment. Encountering our troubled souls when at the end of our ropes, you readily refashion our disparate character into the likeness of Jesus and so shape our earthly habitation to embody our citizenship of your kingdom. Your eight Beatitudinal gifts, tailor-made for each of us, and edified by the words and messianic life of Jesus, re-form and animate us for such purpose. With the first gift, you engage with our troubled souls and our poverty of spirit. Despite what burdens weigh us down, you call us blessed and open to us the kingdom realm of God. In the spaciousness and safety of your enfolding, you hand us a second gift. With this, you encourage us to acknowledge our losses. Included are things we have held dear, as well as our shadowy parts, poor attachments, and illusions, which this time of crisis may have amplified and unmasked. You offer your comfort as we grieve and lament such losses.

Your invitations, Invisible One, to such vulnerabilities do not end here. With more Beatitudinal gifts, you empower us to grow in the gentle kingdom qualities of humility and kingdom-heartedness. You place within us a renewed hunger and thirst for God’s reign of righteousness and justice here on earth, right amid our upheavals. You redeem and purify our hearts, fill them with your mercy, and invite us to be agents of your peace. You then animate within us the courage, and the caliber we need to have and be in order to experience persecution and opposition for your sake and the sake of your kingdom (Matt 5:3–10). Invisible One, you freely offer these eight Beatitudinal gifts and place them both before us, and within us.

Attempts to express the invitation of Jesus’ beatitudes bring us to the edge of mystery. Here is a way of life to follow. At the same time, the Beatitudes shape the newness of life the Spirit has planted within us to be lived in union with Christ.

Crises, Mirrors, and Gifts

A time of crisis such as a pandemic, as previously indicated, can hold up the mirror as to who we really are.1 We see more clearly the fragility and deficits of the institutions upon which we depend for our livelihoods, well-being, security, status, and control. Social commentators highlight deficits and pundits speculate on the shape of the interim and post-pandemic worlds. Given the material and racial axis upon which our societies tur...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Contributors
• Preface
• Introduction
• Chapter 1: Welcoming Troubled Souls
• Chapter 2: Mourning, Comfort, and the “New Normal”
• “Only the Lonely”: A Meditation
• Chapter 3: Blessed are the Meek
• Chapter 4: Jesus’ Invitation to Vulnerability
• A Liturgy for Vulnerability
• Chapter 5: Stay with me. Watch and pray.
• Chapter 6: In-Christ, In Crisis: The Painful Maturity of Love
• Prayer: Pure in Heart in Time of Crisis —Addressing the Eight Deadly Thoughts
• Chapter 7: Guides for the Soul
• Chapter 8: In the World and Not Afraid
• Chapter 9: Treasure in Heaven: Economy and the Kingdom
• Chapter 10: When Disaster Strikes
• A Vigil in Times of Tragedy and Injustice
• Chapter 11: Hope in a World in Crisis: A Reflection
• Prayer in Times of Crisis
• Prayer of Lament
• Praying Together in Pandemic
• Prayer of Intercession
• Prayer of Hope
• Appendix 1: Questions for Reflection and Discussion
• Appendix 2: Some Rich Resources
• Bibliography