Month: April 2017

Roger Schütz was born in Switzerland in the days before World War I.  He grew up hearing stories about his French grandmother caring for refugees from that war.  The war had a profound impact on her.  She was horrified that Christians would be slaughtering each other in that conflict.  She taught her grandson that reconciliation, especially among Christians, was necessary to avoid another war.

Roger, the son of a Protestant minister, went on to study theology at the universities of Strasbourg and Lausanne.  He wrote his dissertation on early monasticism which led him to believe that Protestantism needed an option for an intentional community of prayer and worship.

When war came again to Europe, Roger combined his desire for a monastic life and his compassion to help the victims of the war.  In 1940, he left Switzerland and found his way to the village Taize which was near the border between Vichy and free France.

Roger bought a home in Taize and invited his sister to come and help him minister to the refugees in the area, including escaping Jews.  Slowly there emerged a pattern of prayer and a way of life at Taize until 1942 when the two were warned to flee the Gestapo who were searching for refugees.

At the end of the war, Roger returned with another who began an intentional community at Taize. This time they were caring for victims of the war including abandoned children and also German prisioners of war.

As the community grew, Roger developed a rule of life for their Protestant monastery.  Later Roman Catholics came, and the community became intentionally ecumenical.  In 1959, young people started coming to the community.  Many are searching for meaning and wrestling with the social changes that were occurring around them.  Hundreds became thousands each year.  The Taize community continues to welcome young people from all over the world.

Later, the community would organize events for youth all over the world called, “Pilgrimages of Trust.”  These events emphasize reconciliation, simplicity prayer, and trust.  These “pilgrimages” were the inspiration for World Youth Day by the Roman Catholic Church.

At the heart of Taize is the worship.  Three times a day, the brothers gather for Scripture, prayer, and song.  The liturgy is simple and multi-lingual.  It combines many religious traditions including icons, stained glass, and post-modern art.  Many find the times of worship quite meaningful.  However, it is really the small group time of bible study, reflection, and common life which provide the foundation for the time of worship.

In 2005, Brother Roger was attacked during worship by a woman suffering from mental illness.  He died soon after being stabbed multiple times.  The contrast of a life dedicated to non-violence and such a violent death is quite shocking.  However, his death demonstrates that the work of the community is not done.  They remain to show a community in contrast.  The community strives to be a witness to the way of Christ.

For More Information…

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/1496415/Brother-Roger.html

http://www.economist.com/node/4316046

For the past couple of days, I’ve been visiting Cluny which is north of Lyon, France.  It’s a beautiful rural, small village which once was one of the most important places in Europe.

I’ve already written about how the monastic movement kept the Christian movement going by recovering and perpetuating sacred texts.  The movement also provided cultural stability during the turbulent times after the fall of the Roman Empire.  They also provided needed support for the poor and sick in those communities.

That being said, not all monasteries were equal.  The quality and faithfulness of those monasteries could vary wildly.  Folks like St. Columba in Scotland and St. Benedict in Italy tried to create a systematic rule of life for their communities.  For example, St. Benedict’s Rule has been a standard for monastic communities since it was written in the Sixth Century.

However, by the height of the Middle Ages, there was a new challenge.  Monasteries needed land.  As a result, the monasteries were becoming ever dependent on the arising feudal lords.  Those lords were often exercising power over the monasteries including internal practices.  Some lords taxed the monasteries into poverty.  Others influenced them to modify St. Benedict’s Rule, lowering their standards.  As a result, the monasteries went into decline.

In the early 10th Century, William the Pious, the duke of Aquitaine and count of Macon in France, made a deal with the church.  He would give away his villa at Cluny to the church for a monastery.  What was different about this deal was that Cluny would remain independent from his influence.  The Rule of St. Benedict would be strictly enforced, and the lands were rich enough to make the monastery sustainable. William probably hoped that such a deal would secure his eternal soul.

The Abbey of Cluny had some smart abbots who leveraged their position well.  Soon other monasteries began to ally themselves with the independent Cluny.  They also began to start new monasteries.  Eventually, the Abbey of Cluny created a network of monasteries in France, England, Spain and Italy.  The pope even gave the abbey a special dispensation to bypass existing bishops to run the other monasteries directly.

Cluny began to rival Rome as the center of power of the Christian church.  At its height of influence, 1184 other monasteries were allied with Cluny.  From the 12th Century to the 16th Century, the largest church building in Europe was in Cluny, even larger than the Vatican.  Over the years, the Abbey at Cluny produced popes and saints. The monasteries became knowns for their liturgy, music, reflection on Scripture, and helping the poor.

However, the Cluniac reform movement was a victim of its own success.  The network grew too large.  They couldn’t maintain centralized control on all those monasteries. Likewise, they became corrupted by their great wealth and power.  Other reformers saw the Cluniac monasteries as losing touch with the Gospel.  Eventually, the power of Cluny waned. After the French Revolution, the revolutionaries dissolved the monastery and tore down many of the buildings.

The history of Cluny reveals that spiritual reforms must be made concrete.  The Gospel must be incarnational.  However, Cluny also teaches that heart of any reform movement must remain the good news of Jesus Christ.  The concrete must be guided by the spiritual.

My wife is a huge fan of the band U2.  No, really, she is a huge fan.  Some of you might remember the study she led, “U2 and the Bible” where she explored the music and lyrics of U2 from a spiritual perspective.  Much of their music has been influenced by the members’ Christian faith.  One of my personal favorites has been the song, “Grace.”

In 1982, the band has something of a spiritual crisis.  Bono, the Edge, and Larry Mullen were attending Shalom Fellowship.  It’s a charismatic church in Dublin which was born out of an alternative to the ongoing Protestant-Catholic tensions in Ireland.  At one point, a member of the fellowship has a prophetic vision about the band.  God wanted them to quit playing rock and roll.  The pastor and others in the fellowship put great pressure on the three.  Although I might have completely discounted this vision, to their credit these band members took it seriously.  They decided that the only way they could move forward is if they could find a way to maintain their faith while remaining in the band.  Thankfully, they found that path.

Here’s a fascinating video where Bono shares a bit about his faith.

On Thursday, we were scheduled to take a U2 tour of Dublin for Sara.  Unfortunately, some confusion occurred, and the tour guide never came.  Needless to say, there was a great deal of disappointment.  Then the tour company called us apologizing saying that they got the time wrong.  They wanted to make it right.

The company sent over P.J. Murphy-O’Brien who took us on a walking tour of Dublin with an emphasis on U2.  P.J. is also a James Joyce scholar so we had plenty of Joyce with our U2. And, he threw in a pub crawl as well.

Many Christians are dismissive of James Joyce.  He certainly can be very critical of the Catholic faith in which he was raised.  After all, in chapter five of Ulysses, he compares the lotus-eaters in Homer to those who partake of the Holy Eucharist.  Still, Christians should be gracious enough to hear the criticisms from our “cultured despisers.”

The tour was great, and it even ended with a public reading of James Joyce.  If you are watching Dublin television, you might even catch Sara and me reading an excerpt.

“…a young healthy child well nursed is at a year old a most delicious, nourishing, and wholesome food, whether stewed, roasted, baked, or boiled; and I make no doubt that it will equally serve in a fricassee or a ragout.”

From A Modest Proposal by Jonathan Swift

It is considered one of the great works of satire.  In 1729, Jonathan Swift published A Modest Proposal to critique the inattention of the English rich and powerful to the poor of Ireland. This along with works like Gulliver’s Travels have secured Swift’s position in English literature.

What is lesser known is that Swift, when he wrote both A Modest Proposal and Gulliver’s Travels, was dean of St. Patrick’s Cathedral in Dublin from 1713 to 1745.  He was the head pastor and preacher.

Swift hated hypocrisy, and he hated putting on airs. That certainly is reflected in his writing.  Swift could be acerbic and cynical.  it also meant that he could be a bit reticent about his own piety.  In fact, some contemporaries questioned whether Swift was even Christian.  Nonetheless, his humility hid a deep abiding faith.  There are reports about his great devotion to prayer and the eucharist. His personal generosity and care for the poor were well-known.

Rather than being a misanthrope, Swift simply had a healthy understanding of the doctrine of Original Sin.  All had fallen short of the glory of God.  Most cynics that I know are disappointed reformers.  At least Swift had a clear understanding of God’s mercy and goodness to balance his critique of human institutions.  The Sermon on the Mount declares, “blessed are those that mourn” (Matthew 5:4).  The curmudgeons of the world are blessed because they know that this is not the way things are supposed to be.

Swift lived out his Christian faith by revealing the foibles and follies of human beings.  He poked fun at traditions and institutions with a mind for their reform. Behind his wit was hope.

Yesterday, we visited the Book of Kells at Trinity College in Dublin, and I have been thinking more about those monks who ensured that the Christian tradition was passed down from one generation to another.  I remembered a poem that I once read by an anonymous Irish monk from the 9th Century about his pet cat named Pangur Ban.

The following text was translated from Old Irish by Robin Flower:

I and Pangur Bán my cat,
‘Tis a like task we are at:
Hunting mice is his delight,
Hunting words I sit all night.

Better far than praise of men
‘Tis to sit with book and pen;
Pangur bears me no ill-will,
He too plies his simple skill.

‘Tis a merry task to see
At our tasks how glad are we,
When at home we sit and find
Entertainment to our mind.

Oftentimes a mouse will stray
In the hero Pangur’s way;
Oftentimes my keen thought set
Takes a meaning in its net.

‘Gainst the wall he sets his eye
Full and fierce and sharp and sly;
‘Gainst the wall of knowledge I
All my little wisdom try.

When a mouse darts from its den,
O how glad is Pangur then!
O what gladness do I prove
When I solve the doubts I love!

So in peace our task we ply,
Pangur Bán, my cat, and I;
In our arts we find our bliss,
I have mine and he has his.

Practice every day has made
Pangur perfect in his trade;
I get wisdom day and night
Turning darkness into light.

There is beauty in a job well-done even if it is a cat chasing a mouse or a theologian chasing an argument.  As the Preacher notes,

“So I saw that there is nothing better for a person than to enjoy their work, because that is their lot. For who can bring them to see what will happen after them?” Ecclesiastes 3:22

If you can appreciate this poem and the joy of vocation, you might like a children’s book about Pangur Ban entitled, The White Cat and the Monk by writer Jo Ellen Bogart and illustrator Sydney Smith.

It was around the Eighth Century.  Scotland and Ireland were on the frontier of the Christian world, and with the fall of the Roman Empire, Christian influence on the culture began to wane.  It was the monastery system which preserved and protected the tradition.  In scriptoriums, monks copied and illuminated sacred texts of the faith.

On the isle of Iona off the coast of Scotland, a group of monks created a set of the four gospels based on the Latin text of Jerome.  In a time before moveable type, the monks went to great lengths to create this series of the four gospels.  They say that it took the hides of 185 calves to make this book.

The artwork is exquisite and detailed as the monks tried to bring insight to the text.  It also was culturally expressed.  The monks used techniques and subjects common to Celtic artwork to illustrate the gospels.  It is a great example of how Christians try to use the gospel to redeem the culture around it.

Due to Viking attacks on the Iona, the monks moved the book to a monastery in Kells, a small town in County Meath of Ireland.  Hence the book became known as the Book of Kells.

Eventually, the Book of Kells made its way to Trinity College in Dublin where the library displays a different page each day.  The book has been placed under special protections, and no visitor can take a picture of any of the pages.  Nonetheless, the Book of Kells remains an amazing sight.  I appreciate the artwork, but I have even more appreciate the love and dedication to the Scriptures.

We sometimes call this period of time, the Dark Ages, but if it wasn’t for monks like those at Iona and Kells, the age truly would have been dark.  They believed that preserving the wisdom and truth of the past ensured a bright future.

Every major reform movement of the Church has begun with a look to the Scriptures.  I would argue that the challenge we face today would best be addressed by taking the Scriptures as seriously as did that group of monks on the edge of an empire.

Over 50 years ago, Jeff Brown created the character of Flat Stanley for the book of the same name.  Since that time, Flat Stanley has become a staple of elementary school life. Many a child has created his or her own cut-out of Stanley and taken him on adventures far and wide.

Somewhere along the way, someone had the idea of creating Flat Jesus.  Children from a variety of different churches and denominations have made a cut out of Jesus to take with them on vacations and trips.  Of course, Flat Jesus isn’t really Jesus, but the cut-out is a reminder that Christ is always with us, and we are called to share him no matter where we go and what we do.  “…I am with you always, to the end of the age” (Matthew 28:20b).  It’s like a Christian, traveling mezuzah.

Our Director of Children and Youth Ministry, Gerry Gaugler, wanted to give the church’s children an opportunity to participate in my current sabbatical, and he had the idea that a church-wide Flat Jesus project might just work.  I agree.  Besides, I am on board with anything that allows me to use my coloring and scissor skills.  A big thanks to Pearlie Diesinger, the preschool secretary, who laminated my Flat Jesus for me.

I am excited about the upcoming adventure, but no matter where I go or what I do, Jesus Christ is already at work.  The redemption of the world is coming and is already here.