James A. Harnish's Blog

Ready for Advent?

I wasn’t really ready for Advent this year. I prefer the years when the calendar gives us a weekend after Thanksgiving to finish off the leftover turkey and recover from the rival weekend in college football. But ready or not, yesterday was the 1st Sunday in Advent, the four weeks of spiritual preparation for the celebration of the coming of Christ.

Just in time, I received an unexpected gift that will be guiding me through these days. Watch for the Light: Readings for Advent and Christmas collects the words and wisdom of an amazingly diverse company of writers.

The first reading is from J. B. Phillips, the vicar of the Church of the Good Shepherd in London during WWII. He began his translation of the New Testament in the bomb shelters during the Blitz because he was concerned that the young people in his congregaton didn’t understand the Shakespearean language of the King James Version. He completed The New Testament in Modern English in 1952, revised and republished in 1961 and again in 1972.  C.S. Lewis said, “It is like looking at a familiar picture after it has been cleaned.”

In 2002, Eugene Peterson did the same thing for his congregation in his paraphrase of scripture entitled, The Message. I encourage you to watch his conversation with Bono.

The Danger of Familiarity and the Gift of Surprise

J.B. Phillips named the importance of Advent when he wrote:

“By far the most important and significant event in the whole course of human history will be celebrated, with or without understanding, at the end of this season.” He warned of “the particular danger which faces us as Christmas approaches. The towering miracle of God’s visit to this planet on which we live will be glossed over, brushed aside, or rendered impotent by over familiarity.

We assume we know what Christmas is about. How could we miss it? The sounds, sights, stories, smells, and tastes of tradition engulf us. I love it! But I also know the impotence of “over familiarity.” I acknowledged it in Surprised by Mary.

Because I can’t improve on Phillips, here are his words that are speaking to me as I play catch-up with the arrival of Advent.

“The wonder and mystery may leave us unmoved; familiarity may easily blind us to the shining fact that lies at the heart of Christmastide …No amount of familiarity with the trappings of Christmas should blind us to its quiet but explosive significance … God’s insertion of himself into human history was achieved with an almost frightening quietness and humility … The entry of God into his own world was almost heartbreakingly humble.”

It’s Not Too Late!

There’s good news for any (or all!) of us who were not quite ready for Advent. We’re in good company! I can’t find a single person in the gospel stories who was ready for the coming Christ. It took them all by surprise. The traditional scripture readings for this Sunday remind us that the final coming of Christ will come by surprise as well. The best we can do is obey Jesus words to his first disciples, “Keep awake, therefore, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming. (Matthew 24;42)

It’s not too late to find a fresh resource to keep you awake. A great option is Diana Butler Bass’s new book, A Beautiful Year. Another is Magrey DeVega’s The Christmas Letters: Celebrating Advent with Those Who Told the Story First. (There’s even a video to go with it.) My study, When God Comes Down is still available.

Ready or not, Advent is here! Jesus is coming again! In the apostle Paul’s words, “It is already the moment to wake from sleep … . the night is far gone; the day is near.” (Romans 13:11-12)

Grace and peace,

Jim

We Remember Armistice Day

I remember when people still called November 11 Armistice Day. It marked the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month in 1918 when the “war to end all war” ended. Congress changed the name 1n 1954 to honor the veterans of all our many wars. (The Army chaplain with whom I served at Hyde Park UMC always reminded us that on Memorial Day we remember those who served and died. On Veterans’ Day we honor those who served and survived.)

Historian Diana Butler Bass wrote, “History takes us down some unanticipated pathways. And November 11 is surely one of its weirder journeys.” As I’ve reflected on the history of the day, I realized that two things can be true at the same time.

We Remember Our Veterans.

My brother honored the members of “The Greatest Generation” when he attempted to wear Dad’s WWII uniform to a Halloween party. But he said he had a problem.

I couldn’t fit into Dad’s shirt, couldn’t begin to get it buttoned. I realized I couldn’t fit into his uniform in more ways than one.

One of the guys at the party said his father had been at Normandy. Another said his Dad had been in the Battle of the Bulge. The father of one of our neighbors helped liberate a concentration camp but could never talk about it. Most of us could tell stories about our parents who were part of what Tom Brokaw called the Greatest Generation. And they were. They fought to save the world from fascism…and they did.

On Veterans’ Day we remember all those in every generation who in a multitude of ways and in far too many wars, fulfill the vow to “support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic.”

At the same time…

We Remember a “Conscientious Objector.”

For centuries before Armistice Day, November 11 was the day Christians across Europe honored St. Martin of Tours.

El Greco (1541 – 1614)

As a teenager, Martin (ca. 316-397) was attracted to Christianity. But when he was 15, his father forced him to serve in Rome’s Imperial Guard.

One day Martin saw a naked beggar on the side of the road. He removed his cloak, tore it in half, and covered the man. In a dream that night, Jesus told him, “You covered me with your garment.”

Martin was baptized and asked to be released from the military. He told his commander, “I am Christ’s soldier. I am not allowed to fight.” We would call him a “conscientious objector.” In the Middle Ages, Martin’s witness led to the practice of signing peace treaties on his feast day. That may be why Armistice Day ended up on St.Martin’s Day.

St. Martin’s influence continued. Heather Cox Richardson reported that in 1926 Congress passed a resolution which said November 11, 1918, “should be commemorated with … exercises designed to perpetuate peace through good will and mutual understanding between nations.” In 1938, Congress made November 11 a legal holiday dedicated to world peace.

In 1954, President Dwight D. Eisenhower, the five star general who was the supreme commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force in Europe, called Americans to “solemnly remember the sacrifices of all those who fought so valiantly to preserve our heritage of freedom, and let us reconsecrate ourselves to the task of promoting an enduring peace so that their efforts shall not have been in vain.”

We Remember God’s Vision.

Two things can be true at the same time: the ruthless reality of a waring world and God’s vision of a world of peace. Isaiah heard the Lord say:

Look! I’m creating a new heaven and a new earth …
 No one will ever hear the sound of weeping or crying in it again.
No more will babies live only a few days,
    or the old fail to live out their days…
They will build houses and live in them;
    they will plant vineyards and eat their fruit…
They won’t labor in vain,
    nor bear children to a world of horrors…
Wolf and lamb will graze together,
    and the lion will eat straw like the ox…
They won’t hurt or destroy at any place on my holy mountain,
    says the Lord. (Isaiah 65:17-25)

While we honor those who served in the relentless conflicts of our broken and sin-infected world, followers of Christ can never accept war as anything other than the ruthless rejection of God’s will for his children. With Jesus, we weep for a world that hasn’t learned what makes for peace. (Luke 19:41-43)

As one of the leading voices of Christian faith during WWII, Harry Emerson Fosdick faced the reality of the war while never giving up on God’s vision of peace. In his great hymn, God of Grace and God of Glory, he taught us to pray:

Cure your children’s warring madness;
Bend our pride to your control;
Shame our wanton, selfish gladness,
Rich in things and poor in soul.
Grant us wisdom, grant us courage,
Lest we miss your kingdom’s goal,
Lest we miss your kingdom’s goal.

Two things can be true at the same time, but only one is the unchanging promise of God.

Grace and peace,

Jim

P.S. The multiple crises we are facing today have only increased since the publication of Finding Your Bearings: How Words That Guided Jesus Through Crises Can Guide Us. It’s now available from the publisher at 50% off by using this code CONFSHIP.

An Unexpected Compliment

I received a surprising compliment on Linkedin recently. It wasn’t really about me, but I’m grateful I participated in.

Chris Allen was a second-grader in the elementary school where my wife and his mother were teachers when the family became active members of our congregation. I remember him as a quiet, somewhat reserved kid. As a teenager he was involved in the youth ministry, but his real focus was on football which resulted in a university scholarship. I was surprised when he responded to God calling him to ministry and went to Duke Divinity School. He fell in love with another seminarian who became his wife and both of them were ordained into ministry in the United Methodist Church. While they served local churches in Florida, he earned a MBA and is now serving as a Vice President of the United Methodist Foundation in the Virginia Annual Conference.

At a national gathering of Foundation leaders Chris and Erica met Ted Crass. He had a successful career in International business when he got involved at Hyde Park and began to feel called to ministry. I was amazed when he left his business career, went to Harvard Divinity School, served churches in the New England Conference, and is now the President of their Foundation. Neither Chris or Ted had known each other in Tampa. Chris wrote:

“We laughed at the shared thread in our stories — Hyde Park, Jim’s preaching, and the way he quietly disrupted comfort so others could live on mission. Twenty years later, those ripples are still moving, shaping leaders, churches, and the connection we serve today.”

Chris titled his post, ” Jesus messed us up by way of Jim Harnish.”

Don’t Miss the Subject

I am both grateful and humbled by the subject of the active verb in that sentence. (Chris evidently had good elementary school teachers!) It was Jesus who “messed up” their lives. I’m grateful that I was one of the people through whom Jesus “disrupted their comfort” and continues to be joyfullly at work in and through their lives.

In the gospels “messing up” people’s lives is evidently Jesus’ idea of a good time. In fact, the entire Bible is the surprising story of the way God meets otherwise ordinary people in otherwise ordinary places, disrupts their comfort, and begins to do extraordinary things in and through them.

Warning: If we take what Jesus did and said seriously, he will disrupt the comfort of some of the basic assumptions of our social, political, and economic lives. That’s why the religious and political authorities of his day nailed him to a cross. That’s why we don’t hear the folks who promote “Christian nationalism” quoting Jesus’ parables or demanding that we post the Beatitudes on public school walls. That’s why we often miss the Everyday Epiphanies that might surprise, enliven, and enrich our lives.

Perhaps being a person through whom Jesus messes up other lives is what it means to be a “saint.”

(“All-Saints” 15th century. Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons) Disruptive Saints

The Church officially designated November 1 as All Saints Day in the 7th Century, though the tradition goes back the early days of Church history. John Wesley called it “a day I peculiarly love.” It’s the day we remember not only the “big name” heroes of the faith, but also the “ordinary” saints through whom Jesus continues to disrupt our ordinary lives. Peter Marshall memorably called them “saints of the rank and file.” Remembering the way they have “messed up” our lives is the opportunity for us to pray that he will mess up other lives through us.

As I wrote these words I found myself humming a children’s song that captures both our gratitude for saints in the past and our desire to be among them. You can sing along here.

 I sing a song of the saints of God,
patient and brave and true,
who toiled and fought and lived and died
for the Lord they loved and knew.
And one was a doctor, and one was a queen,
and one was a shepherdess on the green;
they were all of them saints of God, and I mean,
God helping, to be one too.

They loved their Lord so dear, so dear,
and His love made them strong,
and they followed the right for Jesus’ sake,
the whole of their good lives long.
And one was a soldier, and one was a priest,
and one was slain by a fierce wild beast;
and there’s not any reason, no, not the least,
why I shouldn’t be one too.

They lived not only in ages past;
there are hundreds of thousands still.
The world is bright with the joyous saints
who love to do Jesus’ will.
You can meet them in school, on the street, in the store,
in church, by the sea, in the house next door,
they are saints of God whether rich or poor,
and I mean to be one too.

How about you?

Jim

The Comedian & the President

There’s nothing funny about the Trump Administration’s full court press to silence, fire, or indict anyone who opposes the President’s agenda or attempts to hold him accountable for his actions. But that effort ran head on into the First Amendment with the FCC Chair’s attempt to force Disney and ABC to remove Jimmy Kimmel from the air waves.

You didn’t have to watch, enjoy, or agree with the late-night comic to be offended by the attempt to silence him. Kimmel’s 28-minute monologue will be remembered long after we have forgotten the often rambling, consistently fact-free, and ultimately dangerous orations by the President.

Here’s the key line in Kimmel’s monologue: “This show is not important. What is important is that we get to live in a country that allows us to have a show like this.” 

But there’s more here than a defense of the First Amendment (although that would be enough).

Make Space for the (Wise) Fool

Kimmel’s role in the Trump drama reminded me of the Fool in King Lear. In the most tragic of Shakespeare’s tragedies, the Fool uses jokes and satire to attempt to speak truth to the King. The Fool is not vicious, vulgar, or vindictive. He is, in fact, wise. One Shakespeare scholar points out that as the King descends into madness, the Fool “keeps trying to enlighten Lear’s awareness through satire and singing … The Fool’s words are sometimes prophecies which imply that this story will eventually become a tragedy.” 

The Fool also cracks open space for humility, reminding the King of his humanity. When we can accept our human limitations and laugh at ourselves, we escape the narrow coffin of our all consuming arrogance and pride which is, in scripture, the root of human sin.

G. K. Chesterton memorably said, “Angels can fly because they take themselves so lightly. Satan fell by force of gravity.”

I write as a person who has needed other people to remind me to take myself more lightly. One of the deep lessons of scripture is see ourselves in the larger frame of the goodness and greatness of God’s creation. There’s more going on here than the things that revolve around me.

Our President needs a Shakespearean Fool. Ronald Reagan, George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, and Joe Biden could all laugh at themselves. Sadly, Trump has consistently been as thin-skinned as an onion, apparently lacking any ability to laugh at himself. The tragedy is that it’s hard to find a hint of lightness, laughter, or joy in his life. His instinctive response to anyone foolish enough to contradict him is retribution.

God’s Laughter

God is not a late-night comic. And God knows that we face deadly serious issues in our lives, our nation and our world. But in the Bible, God laughs. And when God laughs it is to mock our human arrogance. The Psalmist declares,

Why do the nations rant?
    Why do the peoples rave uselessly?…
 The one who rules in heaven laughs;
    my Lord makes fun of them. (Psalm 2:1-4)

At the climax of Job’s tragedy, God mocks him with satire:

“Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?
Who determined its measurements—surely you know!
    Or who stretched the line upon it?
On what were its bases sunk,
    or who laid its cornerstone
when the morning stars sang together
    and all the heavenly beings shouted for joy? (Job 38:4-7)

The Lord goes on for four chapters until Job acknowledges:

“I have uttered what I did not understand,
    things too wonderful for me that I did not know…
 I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear,
    but now my eye sees you.” (Job 42:3-5)

Being willing to laugh with God at our self-aggrandizing arrogance opens the way to the humility that can ultimately save us. May God help us all to know when to take things seriously and when to learn to laugh along with God.

Grace and peace,

Jim

Watching Our Children Walk Away

We’re like every parent or grandparent watching their kids grow up and walk away, from the day they go to kindergarten to the day they begin their careers.

Our first-born grandchild recently moved to Miami, a city we don’t know, to begin a career I don’t fully understand. Our second-born grandchild is in college in New Jersey, a place we’ve only visited once. Our third-born is starting high school and our fourth is entering middle school. Our fifth grandchild is still in elementary school.

It’s reminded me of a truth I’ve believed and preached, but which, as I get older, I know to be absolutely true. In his beautiful book, Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life, Richard Rohr wrote:

“To go forward there is always something that has to be let go of, moved beyond, given up.”

Jesus said it’s like planting seeds. If we keep them safely in a jar, they come to nothing. But if they release them, they can bring forth fruit. ( John 12:24.).

Trusting and Letting Go

In January, 1944, Dietrich Bonhoeffer was in prison in Germany. His closest friend, Eberhard Bethge, was in Italy serving in the war. Writing to him, Bonhoeffer quoted Isaiah 42:16: “I will lead the blind by a road they do not know, by paths they haven’t known I will guide them … I will not abandon them.”

Bonhoeffer expressed a feeling every parent can understand.

“It’s a strange feeling to see a person, in whose well-being and fate one has somehow shared so deeply for years, go off one day into a completely unknown future, in regard to which one is practically powerless … As long as we ourselves are trying to help shape someone else’s fate, we are never quite free of asking ourselves whether what we’re doing is really best for the other person … But when suddenly almost all our possibilities to be involved are cut off, there is somewhere the awareness, behind all our fears for the other, that his life has now been placed wholly in better and stronger hands … To give up the genuine joy and fullness of life in order to avoid pain is certainly not Christian, nor is it human.” (Letters and Papers from Prison, p. 265)

We let our children go, trusting in the better and stronger hands of the God who loves them even more than we do and promises not to abandon them.

But Then, There’s Minneapolis.

There’s a dark side to all this. We release our children into a risky, dangerous world. There are powers of evil within and around us from which we cannot fully protect them. Everything that happens is not the perfect will of God. Some things are, in fact, the ruthless contradiction of all that God intends for them.

Which brings us to Annunciation Catholic School. Already drifting from the headlines, the 44th school shooting this year is the most recent of our uniquely American ways of death for our children.

Once again we fall into the sickening pattern of “breaking news,” followed by “thoughts and prayers, ” followed by leaders and legislators doing absolutely nothing about the common element in these tragedies — the high-powered weapons whose only purpose is to slaughter as many people as they can as quickly as possible.

Please spare us the hypocrisy of pretentiously pious politicians who blame “mental illness” while slashing the funds and gutting the institutions that might help us deal with it. And save us from the simplistic slogan that it’s not the guns but the people who do the killing. Of course! But why is it so easy for those people to get the guns?

Instead of asking God why this happens, what if we hear God asking us the questions?

How many more children will be sacrificed on the altar of a faulty interpretation of the 2nd Amendment?

How many more families will bury a child before Congress and Legislatures (including Florida!) are willing to pass reasonable gun safety measures which most of your citizens approve?

How many more students will be slaughtered before you decide that weapons of war are not designed for sport or self-defense and belong in the hands of the military?

How long will Congress chatter about “mental health” but not approve funds to help heal it?

How long will the USA be the only nation on the globe to allow this evil to continue?

How long will people who claim to be Christian offer “thoughts and prayers” but do nothing to stop the slaughter? (Read Matthew 7:21-27)

What will it take for you to repent, which means “turn in a new direction”?

“How I wish my people would listen to me!
    How I wish my people would walk in my ways!…
I would feed you with the finest wheat.
    I would satisfy you with honey from the rock.” (Psalm 81: 13-16)

“I know the plans I have in mind for you, declares the Lord; they are plans for peace, not disaster, to give you a future filled with hope.” ( (Jeremiah 29:11, the theme verse for the year at Annunciation Catholic School.)

Father, forgive us for we know what we are doing and are not willing to change it.

May the disturbing love of God, the healing presence of Jesus Christ, and the hope-giving power of the Holy Spirit be at work in and through us be give hope to our children and grandchildren.

Jim

Kids are back in school. Labor Day is almost here. Sometimes there’s a hint of coolness in the early morning, though by noon it feels like the sun will bake us until the afternoon thunderstorm comes. What’s left of the National Weather Service dangles the warning of hurricanes churning in the Atlantic. You can even find a hint of autumn color if you know where to look for it; though it’s a weak imitation of what you find up North. Even in Florida, we know that autumn is on the way.

(www.wmnf.org)

These are the days when I am drawn back to Emily Dickinson. She captured the coming of the New England autumn and turns the final days of summer into a sacrament.

These are the days when Birds come back —
A very few — a Bird or two —
To take a backward look.

These are the days when skies resume
The old — old sophistries of June —
A blue and gold mistake.

Oh fraud that cannot cheat the Bee —
Almost thy plausibility
Induces my belief.

Till ranks of seeds their witness bear —
And softly thro’ the altered air
Hurries a timid leaf.

Oh Sacrament of summer days,
Oh Last Communion in the Haze —
Permit a child to join.

Thy sacred emblems to partake —
Thy consecrated bread to take
And thine immortal wine!

Wherever you are (whether you are a poetry lover or not), perhaps her lines can encourage us to take advantage of the changing seasons and turn each day into a sacrament — an outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace.

Enjoy that closing days of summer!

Grace and peace,

Jim

The Day Dad’s Business Burned

I remember the sound of the fire siren.

It was a Saturday afternoon in the summer of ’65. My twin brother and I had just graduated from high school and were looking forward to heading off to college in Kentucky that fall. We were home for the weekend between two Christian summer camps.

The fire house and Dad’s business were a few blocks down Wood Street from our home. When the volunteer firemen heard the siren, they would hop in their cars and race past our house on their way to the fire. When our neighbor joined us to watch what direction the fire truck would go, she said, “I think the smoke is coming from your father’s store!” It was. Jack and I ran down the street and watched the building go up in flames.

The auto parts business my father and two other Vets started when they came back from WWII had outgrown their original building and moved into a hulking, two story frame structure that had once been the local feed store. When my brother and I swept the floors, we would still find bits of grain working their way through the wooden floors. In those days before air-conditioning in Western Pennsylvania, the doors in the front and back of the building were open to let the summer breeze blow through. It created the perfect wind tunnel for the fire that started in the shop at the back and swept through the building in no time.

By the time the sun set, the fire had been put out and the building was a smoking pile of rubble. About a third of the building survived including the smoke-filled offices on the front of the second floor. My cousin, home from the Marines, watched over it for the night.

Now, What?

Dad wasn’t there to watch his business burn. He was among 4,700 Methodist Men who were gathered at Perdue University in Indiana. By the time they got word to him (there were no cell phones back then!), it was too late for him to get home that evening. I now wonder what he went through that night while he waited until Sunday morning to catch a flight to Pittsburgh. A friend with a private plane picked him up to bring in back. His first sight of the disaster was looking down from above as his friend circled over the town.

It was Sunday morning. While Dad was flying home, we were in our pew at the First Methodist Church just the way we were every Sunday. Where else would we be?

I don’t think I was with him when he arrived at the smoking remains of his life’s work. I wonder what was going through his mind when someone snapped the picture of him sitting in his chair in the smoke-saturated remains of his office. (Don’t miss the plastic pocket protector and the argyle socks!) I’m amazed (and somewhat embarrassed!) that I never asked what was thinking.

Dad went straight to work. They picked up what was left of their records and their stocks and moved back into the building in which they had started. Within a few weeks, Clarion Automotive Supply Company was back in business. That’s just what those guys in “The Greatest Generation” did! They grew up in the Great Depression, survived the war, and kept on going. He faced the fire the way he faced everything that came his way during the last 15 years of his life, including a heart valve replacement and two bouts with cancer. He faced it with his unwavering faith in God and his determination to keep on going.

60 Years Later…

Life went on. Jack and I went on to Asbury College in the fall. Mom went back to teaching school to help put us through. Dad rebuilt the business. He died when he was 59. Mom lived to be 95. And here I am, 60 years after the fire, remembering what they went through, grateful for their relentless determination and persistent faith, and passing on the story of the way they came through.

Embedded in my memory of that summer is an old hymn we sang at Wesley Woods. (Youth camps actually sang hymns back then!)

That cause can nev­er be lost nor stayed
Which takes the course of what God has made;
And is not trust­ing in walls and tow­ers,
But slow­ly grow­ing from seeds to flow­ers.

Each no­ble serv­ice that men have wrought
Was first con­ceived as a fruit­ful thought;
Each wor­thy cause with a fu­ture glo­ri­ous
By qui­et­ly grow­ing be­comes vic­tor­ious.

Thereby it­self like a tree it shows:
That high it reach­es, as deep it grows;
And when the storms are its branch­es shak­ing,
It deep­er root in the soil is tak­ing.

Be then no more by a storm dis­mayed,
For by it the full grown seeds are laid;
And though the tree by its might it shat­ters,
What then, if thou­sands of seeds it scat­ters?

I need the reminder of that kind of determination and the faith to keep on going right now. Perhaps you do, too.

Grace and peace,

Jim

Epiphany is not just a day or a season in the church year. It’s a way of life! This is your invitation to experience the presence of Christ in the ordinary moments of our lives.

Meeting Christ in the Ordinary Moments of Life 

Epiphanies are everywhere. An epiphany is a powerful insight, a revelation that can strike at any moment, in any place, and to anyone. An epiphany enlightens us, provides a deep understanding of reality, and can profoundly impact our lives. Often arising from simple yet impactful experiences, these moments can catch us off guard with a sudden clarity we may have otherwise overlooked. What if these extraordinary moments result from everyday insights that sharpen our ability to see God’s revelations in a new light? In Everyday Epiphanies: Meeting Christ in the Ordinary Moments of Life, James A. Harnish invites you to see the presence of Christ in the everyday moments of our lives. In seven chapters, he takes you through the moments in the gospels where ordinary people experienced the extraordinary revelation of Jesus as the Son of God. As you read this book, you’ll learn to pay attention to the ordinary epiphanies in your own life, the small revelations of Christ that point to God’s dramatic self-revelation to the world. 

Gregory Palmer, Executive Secretary, Council of Bishops, The United Methodist Church 

In Everyday Epiphanies, Jim Harnish weaves together Scripture, story, history, poetry, cinema to summon and guide us to pay attention to our lives, experiences, creation, the people around us, trusting that what we need for the living of our days has already been made available to us. This is a book full of wisdom from one who has “gained a wise heart” by paying attention. 

Charlene P. Kammerer, Bishop, The United Methodist Church, retired 

Get ready to soak in these rich biblical texts, which will lead you to surprising moments of epiphany awe. Practicing spiritual disciplines help prepare us to be startled by God’s light, which appears unbidden on our path. In reading and reflecting on Epiphany, I found myself continually singing, “Tune thy heart to sing thy grace,” from the famous hymn “Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing.” 

Magrey R. deVega, Senior Pastor of Hyde Park United Methodist Church in Tampa, Florida, and author of Questions Jesus Asked and The Christmas Letters 

Too often, we think of the season between Advent and Lent as merely a pause to catch our breath between Christmas and Easter. But Jim Harnish’s latest book reminds us that Epiphany is itself full of wondrous possibility. In recalling the stories between Christ’s birth and the start of his public ministry, we discover that God’s capacity to surprise us takes no such pause. We just need to open our eyes and our hearts to experience the splendor of grace, every day. 

Ken Carter, Bishop, The United Methodist Church, Western North Carolina Conference, and author of Unrelenting Grace 

Jim Harnish is a wise pastor and a brilliant interpreter of the Scriptures, but in these pages he also becomes for us an essential guide to the ordinary and ongoing ways Christ is present with us.  Epiphany is a season of the church and a spiritual practice, and we will more fully access these gifts as we journey through these pages. 

Leonard Sweet, prolific author, professor, preacher, publisher, proprietor (sanctuaryseaside.com) 

James Harnish’s Everyday Epiphanies is a soul-stirring jam session, riffing on the wild notion that Christ crashes our mundane moments with divine surprises. The book is a kaleidoscope of grace, spinning sacred stories and street-level epiphanies into a dazzling dance of faith that’ll jolt your spirit awake. Harnish doesn’t just write—he ignites a holy fire to see God’s glory blazing in the everyday grind. 

Preston Davis, Vice President and Minister to the University, High Point University 

Jim Harnish is a master of training his attention on the grace of God. It’s no surprise that Everyday Epiphanies will make you want to do the same. 

Christine Parton Burkett, Consulting Faculty, Duke Divinity School 

Jim Harnish’s new book, Everyday Epiphanies, is an invitation to wonder, faith, and revelation.  Jim helps us find glimpses of goodness and glory hidden in ordinary, even mundane, moments.  God is in dark gardens and smelly stables, not just on sunny mountaintops and synagogues. God can be found, if you keep your eyes and heart open, in the quiet moments of the everyday. 

Available at Cokesbury.com or Amazon.com.

Jefferson Gave Us the Words

Thomas Jefferson gave us the words that articulated the deepest hopes and highest aspirations that ignited the American Revolution. They are carved indelibly into the soul of this nation even as they are carved into the walls of the Jefferson Memorial in Washington.

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.“

We’ve not yet lived up to his words, but they continue to inspire, unsettle, and challenge us as we stumble toward the light he lifted before us.

The Dark Shadow

Jefferson also gave us words that name the dark shadow that haunts the soul of our nation. They, too, are caved into the Memorial’s walls.

“God who gave us life gave us liberty. Can the liberties of a nation be secure when we have removed a conviction that these liberties are the gift of God? Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just, that His justice cannot sleep forever. Commerce between master and slave is despotism. Nothing is more certainly written in the book of fate than that these people are to be free.”

We can’t hide the dark truth, though some of our leaders are working relentlessly to do it. Jefferson was a slave-holder. He conceived six children with Sally Hemings while she was between 14 and 16 years old and he was in his 40s. Jefferson participated in and benefitted from slavery.

But Jefferson knew better.

His original draft of the Declaration of Independence included a strong section opposing what he called the “execrable commerce” and “assemblage of horrors” of the slave trade. For the record, here are his words that were deleted from the Declaratioon by the Second Continental Congress.

He [King George] has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating its most sacred rights of life and liberty in the persons of a distant people who never offended him, captivating & carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere or to incur miserable death in their transportation thither.  This piratical warfare, the opprobrium of infidel powers, is the warfare of the Christian King of Great Britain.  Determined to keep open a market where Men should be bought & sold, he has prostituted his negative for suppressing every legislative attempt to prohibit or restrain this execrable commerce.  And that this assemblage of horrors might want no fact of distinguished die, he is now exciting those very people to rise in arms among us, and to purchase that liberty of which he has deprived them, by murdering the people on whom he has obtruded them: thus paying off former crimes committed again the Liberties of one people, with crimes which he urges them to commit against the lives of another.

A Single Vote

Years later, Jefferson’s Ordinance of 1784 would have prohibited slavery in the territories, but it was defeated by one vote. Jefferson grieved:

“The voice of a single individual … would have prevented this abominable crime from spreading itself over the new country. Thus we see the fate of millions unborn hanging on the tongue of one man, & heaven was silent in that awful moment!”

I was typing Jefferson’s words when the headlines popped up my screen: “Republican leaders were able to muscle through deep internal rifts, with Vice President JD Vance casting the tie breaking vote.” The big, bad, extravagantly expensive, wildly unpopular bill which passed by one vote in the House, passed by one vote in the Senate. It returned to the House where it barely passed by four votes.

So, on the day I celebrate Jefferson’s words that gave us birth, I also grieve with him.

“I Tremble for My Country…“

…When massive amounts of wealth are shifted to major corporations and the wealthiest Americans by slashing funds for education, basic health care, and food assistance for underprivileged people …
…When gigantic increases are directed to building a border wall and funding deportations with little or no due process…
…When over $3 trillion will be added to the national debt…
…When the President and Governor of Florida celebrate opening a inhumane concentration camp that could result in an ecological disaster in the Everglades…
…When a nation that was once proud of its global generosity takes food from hungry people by destroying USAID, “the world’s richest man killing the world’s poorest children” (Bill Gates)…
…When Congress and the Supreme Court continue to surrender their Constitutional authority to an autocratic President…
…and when the American people allow all this to happen by their complicit support or their compliant silence…

With Jefferson, “I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just, that His justice cannot sleep forever.“

“God is just…”

I’m not sure how people can say they believe the Bible but miss the “self-evident” truth in both the Old and New Testaments: God’s justice is defined by the way our resources are shared between those who have more than they need and those who need more than they have. It’s not a matter of charity; it’s a matter of justice. Jesus could not have made it clearer in his final parable. At the final judgement, the “nations” are separated on the basis of what they did with what they had.(Matthew 25:31-46)

I was hungry and you fed me,
I was thirsty and you gave me a drink,
I was homeless and you gave me a room,
I was shivering and you gave me clothes,
I was sick and you stopped to visit,
I was in prison and you came to me.’

We live in the tension between what we affirm and what we do, what we hope and what we have, who we have been and who we can become. With divine justice we are held in the balance of the grace and the judgement of God. And yet…

“I shall not die without a hope…”

In a letter to John Adams on September 12, 1821, Jefferson wrote:

“I shall not die without a hope that light and liberty are on steady advance… the flames kindled on the 4th of July 1776 have spread over too much of the globe to be extinguished by the feeble engines of despotism. On the contrary they will consume those engines, and all who work them.“

Thank you, Mr. Jefferson! May God help us to live into the vision you placed before us. May God continue to bless America.

Grace and peace,

Jim

P.S. For you patriotic reading:
Jefferson Himself: The Personal Narrative of a Many-Sided American, Edited by Bernard Mayo
Sworn on the Altar of God: A Religious Biography of Thomas Jefferson, Edwin S. Gaustad
Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power, Jon Meacham
The Soul of America: The Battle for Our Better Angels, Jon Meacham

“When the day of Pentecost arrived…”

It wasn’t BREAKING NEWS on the cable news channels, but on the church’s calendar Sunday was Pentecost. It was the day the Spirit of God invaded the lives of Jesus’ followers in such a radically reorienting way that they described it with Old Testament images of wind and fire.

When Pentecost Day arrived, they were all together in one place. Suddenly a sound from heaven like the howling of a fierce wind filled the entire house where they were sitting. They saw what seemed to be individual flames of fire alighting on each one of them. They were all filled with the Holy Spirit. (Acts 2:1-13)

This was not wind like gentle morning breeze, but wind like a hurricane shaking shingles from the roof. Not fire like a cozy campfire, but fire like the flames that swept across the California coast.

The story begins with a soul-shaking, heart-warming, Spirit-energizing experience in the life of each disciple. But it doesn’t stop there. It immediately expands beyond individual experience into an extravagantly larger, shockingly diverse, unexpectedly inclusive picture of the way God is relentlessly at work to heal brokenness of our destructively divided world.

“In Their Own Language”

Luke said people were there “from every nation under heaven.” He named the ones he could think of: “Medes, and Elamites, residents of Mesopotamia, Judea, and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the regions of Libya bordering Cyrene; and visitors from Rome,  Cretans and Arabs.” Talk about diversity!

And here’s the miracle: “They were mystified because everyone heard them speaking in their native languages.” No one language was given priority over the others. The Spirit spoke the same word through all of their unique languages, cultures, and traditions. We might call that equity.

Some folks didn’t like it. The critics “jeered at them, saying, ‘They’re full of new wine!’” Luke might snickered when he quoted Peter, “These people aren’t drunk, as you suspect; after all, it’s only nine o’clock in the morning!” (As if to say if that’s what they were looking for, they could come back in when the sun goes down!)

The disciples were drunk all right! They were intoxicated with the expansive love of God which became flesh in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. Peter explained it by reclaimed the words of the Old Testament prophet, Joel:

In the last days, God says,
I will pour out my Spirit on all people.
    Your sons and daughters will prophesy.
    Your young will see visions.
    Your elders will dream dreams.
   Even upon my servants, men and women,
        I will pour out my Spirit in those days. (Acts 2:17-18)

“All” Means “All”

Don’t miss the little word “all.” It appears eleven times in this one chapter. God’s extravagant love in Christ is for everybody, everywhere, of every age, race or culture. Nobody is left out. That’s inclusion.

From cover to cover — from Genesis when God tells Abraham that through his children “all the earth’s nations will be blessed” (Gen. 18:18) to the heavenly crowds “from every nation, tribe, people, and language” in Revelation (Rev. 7:9) — the Bible is the story of the God who is unalterably determined to do everything God can do to include the entire human family in the circle of his love, even if it meant the death of his Son on the cross. All really means all!

Based on the vision of those crowds in Revelation, the Bible study leader at our Annual Conference last week said, “If you don’t like diversity, you might not like Heaven.” Then he added, “In fact, you might not get there.”

There’s nothing new about Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion, although that label has become a convenient scapegoat for political extremists in our culture today. But at its best, DEI is rooted God’s intention for the whole of this broken, bruised and infinity loved creation. (Romans 8:18-25).

(If you want to dig more deeply into scripture on this, I recommend The Widening Of God’s Mercy by Biblical scholars, Richard and Christopher Hays.)

It’s Never Easy!

Living into the Pentecostal vision isn’t easy. It never has been. We keep getting in God’s way. From cover to cover, the Bible tells the story of our sinful tendency to work against God’s vision. Immediately after the wind and fire of Pentecost, the apostles get caught up in conflict around who will be included and who will be excluded. A good part of the New Testament was written to deal with conflict and tension in the early Church.

But the divine work goes on. Sometimes with success and often with failure, we continue to wrestle with what it means for our Founders to declare the “self-evident” truth that “all men are created equal.” In spite of Abigail Adams urging her husband to “remember the ladies,” we continue to wrestle with whether “all” really includes all people. In spite of the clear message of scripture and the vision of our Founders, we continue to be confronted by forces sexism, white superiority, racial inequity, and the oxymoron called “Christian nationalism.”

God but never gives up! And neither should we!

Grace and peace,

Jim