In the Name of Jesus

Henri J. M. Nouwen

Reflections on Christian Leadership

ISBN 0-8245-0915-3

As the Our Sunday Visitor review on the back cover (paperback) says, "There is more packed between the covers of this little book that adults will find helpful to living a Christian life than you'll find in many a volume three times its size." Indeed, it is about 80 pages of large type but it is a deep, contemplative read, as contemplative as I am able to be and then some.

The contents are a summary. Nouwen deals with the three temptations of Christ, paralleling them with three other teachings, questions of Jesus, and then answering each set with a discipline for the Christian leader of the coming millineum which moves us more towards the Spirit of God and away from the tried and false spirit of the world. After a first reading, I put the book aside for a time then came back to read it completely again with similar results the second time. For a third reading, perhaps it will go on the pile to read to Viann. As usual, these encounters with Jesus are very enlightening and very difficult to visualize putting into practice. Do I not trust God? I do trust him to do things uncomfortable for me.

The contents:

The temptation: rocks into bread: to be relevant.

The question: do you love me?

The discipline: contemplative prayer

The temptation: to be spectacular: to jump off the temple and be saved.

The task: feed my sheep.

The discipline: live in community as an equal, confession and forgiveness.

The temptation: to be powerful: to rule the world.

The challenge: somebody else will take you where you do not want to go.

The discipline: theological reflection.

Nouwen, facing these temptations himself as a seminary professor, changed careers and went to be pastor and member of the L'Arche community for mentally handicapped people in Toronto. He learned much from among them, they are honest and forthright with their insecurities. He also believes strongly in going out in pairs as Jesus commanded and so takes one of his new parishioners with him, an educating experience. (The Protestants typically dealt with this through the institution of marriage, back when they cared much about the Bible at all.)

I pondered at length his concept of the Cross, of doing something that is totally counter culture because it is the right thing to do. I struggled at length with his summary near the end.

Christian leaders have the arduous task of responding to personal struggles, family conflicts, national calamities, and international tensions with an articulate faith in God's real presence. They have to say "no" to every form of fatalism, defeatism, accidentalism or incidentalism that make people believe that statistics are telling us the truth. They have to say "no" to every form of despair in which human life is seen as a pure matter of good or bad luck. They have to say "no" to sentimental attempts to make people develop a spirit of resignation or stoic indifference in the face of the unavoidability of pain, suffering, and death. In short they have to say "no" to the secular world and proclaim in unambiguous terms that the incarnation of God's Word, through whom all things came into being, has made even the smallest event of human history into Kairos, that is, an opportunity to be led deeper into the heart of Christ.

I couldn't help but think of a quote from another great thinker of our time, "God does not play dice with the universe," but so far, this has been proven wrong, at least at the subatomic level.

Am I troubled with personal struggles, family conflicts, national calamities, and international tensions? Absolutely. Do I believe in statistics? Yes, as a way for simple humans to grasp large issues, yes. As a descriptor for the sea of life that I float in, God not particularly caring one way or another? Yes. (I know this is contrary to Bible teaching, but I'm being honest about what I feel not particularly what I would quote as truth.) Am I resigned, stoic, and indifferent in the face of pain, suffering and death? I don't see an alternative. Do I see these as unavoidable? Yes. Do I see the incarnation as an answer? No. Do I see the incarnation as another path? Yes. Do I believe that everything came into being because of this incarnation? I don't know what to think. It would be an explanation. A logically tight one, the sort of thing I would trust functionally? Well, it has little to do with logic.

My answers are problematic. They reflect an emotionally hard day I've just had, but not one that is so atypical that it is not representative of my spirit. My spirit is clearly damaged and in pain. Self-honesty fights against upbringing and security. I want to believe things, but fear greatly being proven wrong. Being proven wrong happens all the time, both in my own fallibility and in societal trends. I'm not smart enough and I'm not close enough to God and I don't know what to do about either one. I don't find Christ an overwhelmingly attractive target of devotion. I try to reach him. I leave it to him. I don't know why I should have to be smarter, Nouwen's partner isn't.

But Nouwen sheds light on the wound and allows me to clean it some, with some pain. This is one of the three recommendations of Randy Wallace on the temptations with which I struggled so much last year. I'm reading the third now, Yancey.