Reflections: The Furious Longing of Jesus by Brennan Manning and Living Authentically

It has been a long time since I used this blog to reflect on my devotional reading, and I wonder why. I was reading, mostly. I have some things written in my private journal, but those are mostly not in response to books. In fact, given that I have been working through a very short book by Manning and a longer book by Dekker since May, I think the reason may be that I am not doing a lot of devotional reading. Both books have reflective questions at the end of chapters, and that is amenable to reflective writing, but I haven't taken the time.

I'm reading steadily, mostly, but in short spurts.
And I'm distracted by prepping for the start of class, responding to student work, creating a schedule that has taken me too long, and planning for the trip to Dallas/Cancun. (What will I wear for the wedding? Am I thin enough to wear a two-piece swimsuit? Hey! I want to do brow micro-blading so I can go in and out of the pool and still look like I have eyebrows.)

And that's it. My life is consumed with stuff. Planning. Prepping. Executing. Surfing. The Internet.
And reading books. I have read a lot of books. I'm in the middle of another one right now.

In the first chapter of Philippians, Paul wrote, "For my life is about the Anointed and Him alone." (Phil 1:21). And to be honest, I cannot say the same.

Paul says this while he is in prison, as he is suffering, considering the freedom offered by death. In death, there is "great gain" because he will be with Christ, but in life, he can serve Jesus by sharing "in the progress and joy" of the Church. Even if he suffers, he chooses life.

Paul suffers as Jesus suffered, but in new ways, in his own way. And he celebrates this later in Philippians when he compares all his life's accomplishments to knowing Jesus, knowing him "inside and out" and experiencing "the power of His resurrection," joining "in His suffering, shaped by His death" (Phil. 3:10).

Some years ago, I tried to memorize this passage, and my mind so resisted this verse that it took me a month to learn it.

The thing is we don't like to suffer. No one does, and Americans, white Americans, especially. We have rights. My life is privileged, and I have never been hungry unless I chose to be hungry. I have never gone without shoes or lodging. I am not rich by American standards, but I am rich by the world's standards.

Manning says,

It is jarring indeed to learn that what [Jesus] went through in His passion and death is meant for us too, that the invitation He extends is Don't weep for Me! Join Me! The life he has planned for Christians is a life much like He lived. He was not poor that we might be rich. He was not mocked that we might be honored. He was not laughed at so we would be lauded. On the contrary, He revealed a picture meant to include you and me.

I don't think I've ever heard this preached on a Sunday morning, and yet this is what Jesus preached (take up your cross, give your life for your friends), and this is what Paul preached. This is not popular stuff. But it's real.

In my whirlwind of planning the luxury Cancun vacation (long story), choosing car rental and hotel for Dallas, finding the right shoes and the right dress, I have not been all about joining Jesus, partnering for the Gospel, experiencing the resurrection power of Jesus through my own suffering.

How do we even do that and still function in our society? 

At the end of this very challenging chapter, Manning quotes Henri Nouwen, who said, "When the imitation of Christ does not mean to live a life like Christ, but to live your life as authentically as Christ lived his, then there are many ways and forms in which a man can be a Christian."
He then asks readers to sit with this quote a few minutes, asking the Father to speak to them through it.

I didn't do that the next day or the day after, but finally I saw down to do that yesterday. At least for a little while. This is complicated.

First of all, I wish I had the context for Nouwen's quote, and I suppose I could find it easily by going to the notes at the back of the book and then going to Nouwen's The Wounded Healer, which I have a copy of somewhere on my shelves, but flipping around in a book is hard in a Kindle. 

Second, if I want to understand something deeply, I need to break it down to its essential parts.

• What do I think it means to imitate Christ? Where in the Bible am I asked to be like Christ? What is the context of that? 
• What do I think it means to live a life like Christ? 
• What is Christ's life like? In what contexts?
• What does it mean to live an authentic life?
• How did Jesus live an authentic life? 
• How can I live authentically in the same way Jesus lived his life? 

Yes, that's the kind of analysis I like to do with my students. Break down the parts. What do they mean? What are they really saying? What does it mean all together?

And then, of course, Manning asks readers to ask the Father to guide them in this study. My analytical approach may be than what he asked for. My questions and my exploration of these ideas could take a whole book, and this blog post is very long already. 

Yes, we are asked to be like Christ, to follow him. Paul says, "Be imitators of God, as beloved children." And of course, elsewhere, Jesus says, if you have seen me, you have seen the Father, and Paul describes Jesus as the "image of the invisible God." 

And what is that image? Who is Jesus? What character traits do we see? How does he live? How does he live authentically? And we need to look at the Gospels to see that. What was he doing? What was he saying? Without that, we are relying on what we have been told he is like, and we don't really know him. We need to know him. 

If I hang out with someone for a long time, I become a little like them. Their values shape my values, their beliefs shape my beliefs, their assumptions shape my assumptions. I need to hang out with Jesus by reading the Gospels. Again and again. And again. 

If I do that, I will see: 

• Jesus didn't care about class hierarchy, or traditional ways of looking at the worth of human beings. He used a different set of values in determining who to spend time with. He welcomed children. He ate with prostitutes and tax collectors. He spent time alone with a Samaritan woman. He didn't freak out when the woman who had been bleeding for 20 (?) years touched him. He didn't run when he came across lepers. In contrast, he had no problem speaking back to the people with power, who belittled the people without power.
• He came to serve, and serve he did. He healed. He visited with people. He taught. He listened.  He walked. He built relationships. And all of these things were based on serving.  
• Jesus set about doing the things his father asked him to do, saying the things that his father told him to say. He made a point of getting alone with God, listening to him, talking to him. 
• He wasn't defensive. He didn't demand his rights. He chose suffering if it meant fulfilling his father's plans and bringing his father glory. 

This is authenticity. He consistently loves, he consistently serves, he consistently seeks his father's glory by loving and serving. He doesn't bring glory to himself. He doesn't run from suffering if it means that his Father's plans will move forward. 

And this is Paul, who celebrates that the Gospel goes out with so many partners, even partners who he doesn't always agree with: "What matters is that in every way . . . the great story of the Anointed is a cause for joy" (Phil. 1:18, The Voice). Paul meets and shares his story, the story of how Jesus transformed him from an angry man who wanted to destroy Jesus and Jesus' followers, with everyone. He puts himself in harm's way to share his story, which is a story of love overpowering hatred. 

And me? There are no murderous people chasing after me. How do I live authentically? How do I love authentically, without regard to class, which, by the way, is a very real thing in America, despite what I was told in my history books. How do I live to serve? How do I reject traditional power structures and even speak back to them? 

What does that look like in my role in the writing center? As an instructor? As a parent of adult children? As a friend? As a pastor's wife? As a person walking around in the world, encountering people as I go? 

And what do I focus on? I cannot be all the things all the time. Does this mean I should put my own comfort aside? I don't know. So many things. What do I focus on? 

And this is where I am landing, where Manning goes (ask the Father to guide you), where Jesus always went, listening to the Father and following His lead. 

So many questions. I never have definitive answers because my life is always changing. And that's kind of it, I think. We will not lead Jesus' life; Jesus already did that one. We will not lead Paul's life; Paul already did that one. Each of us has a life, situations, roles, people we interact with, and we can live lives of service and love, not concerned with our own comfort or prestige, but with glorifying God, but we must listen to the Father and follow his lead.