Category: Henri Nouwen

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In the book, In the Name of Jesus, Henri Nouwen wrote of the temptations faced by leaders in the church, and by the church as a whole. Those temptations are relevance, popularity, and leading.

The first temptation is to be relevant, to be able to do things, to fix things, to take care of things. All of us, individually and corporately, are called to minister to others. It is easy to think that we have to “make a difference” in the lives of the people we serve, and to fall into the belief that that they need us to change them. This is a trap that I have fallen into more than a few times. Nouwen writes that the way to change this thinking is to spend time contemplating the love of the Father for us and learning to grow in our love for him. Instead of worrying about positions on issues of the day, or trying to figure out how best to solve the problems of other people, we “must be rooted in the permanent, intimate relationship with the incarnate Word, Jesus, and they need to find there the source of their words, advice, and guidance.”
The next temptation is to be popular. We all want to be thought well of, to accomplish things that will make folks look at us and applaud. If we were honest with ourselves we would have to admit that a great deal of what we do individually, and a great deal of what is done in the church, is to attract others to ourselves. The answer to this temptation is to remember that “We are not the healers, we are not the reconcilers , we are not the givers of life. We are sinful, broken, vulnerable people who need as much car as anyone we care for.” We all need to remain open and vulnerable to those we serve, keeping in mind that what they need is the love of God. We are simply to love God, and let him love others through us.
The third temptation is the temptation to be powerful. This is possibly the temptation that the church has succumbed to the most. The early church had no political, economic, or cultural power; and it turned the world upside down. Since then the church has bought into the philosophy that the way to change the world is through power. While the church has continued to do great things through the centuries, I wonder how much more good could have been accomplished for the Kingdom if Christians had remembered that our power is from the Spirit of God, and that our warfare is spiritual not physical. As someone who has been in a position of authority over my students and athletes over the years, that temptation has been hard for me to overcome. I still struggle with the tension between loving those I work with and exercising authority when needed.
None of us likes to be powerless. We have been taught to not be weak, or even be seen as week. I appreciate what Nouwen says about powerlessness: “Powerlessness and humility in the spiritual life do not refer to people who have no spine and who let everyone else make decisions for them. They refer to people who are so deeply in love with Jesus that they are ready to follow him wherever he guides them, always trusting that, with him, they will find life and find it abundantly.”
In my own journey, I am learning more and more to love Jesus, to trust him to guide me and give me that abundant life. May we all realize that we are not the ones that change the lives of others. We are simply the vessels that the Father chooses to flow through.
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A Prayer to Christ

This prayer was written by Henri Nouwen in A Cry for Mercy. Further comment from me is unnecessary.

Dear Lord, help me keep my eyes on you. You are the incarnation of Divine Love, you are the expression of God’s infinite compassion, you are the visible manifestation of the Father’s holiness. You are beauty, goodness, gentleness, forgiveness, and mercy. In you all can be found. Outside of you nothing can be found. Why should I look elsewhere or go elsewhere? You have the words of eternal life. you are food and drink, you are the Way, the Truth, and the Life. You are the light that shines in the darkness, the lamp on the lampstand, the house on the hilltop. You are the perfect Icon of God. In and through you I can see and find my way to the Heavenly Father. O Holy One, Beautiful One, Glorious One, be my Lord, my Savior, my Redeemer, my Guide, my Consoler, my Comforter, my Hope, my Joy, and my Peace. To you I want to give all that I am. Let me be generous, not stingy or hesitant. Let me give you all-all I have, think, do, and feel. It is yours, O Lord. Please accept it and make it fully your own.
Amen.

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Hypervigilance

In Gracias! A Latin American Journal, Henri Nouwen told a story of a nun who was visiting in a poor section of Lima, Peru. She had been warned to be very watchful of other people because they would “…grab your money, your purse, and your watch.” She was told to “…take your watch off and put it in your purse and hold your purse tight under your arm.”

The nun did exactly as she was instructed. While riding on a crowded bus, she had to keep a tight hold on the handle to keep her balance. As she was jostled, she noticed her watch on the arm of a young man next to her. As the story goes, she very aggressively took the watch away from the man, only to later find her watch still in her purse. She had stolen an identical watch from the young man on the bus! Her paranoia had caused her to rob an innocent person.
How much of the time are Christians like this nun. We’ve been told that we need to watch out for those ___________________ (just fill in the blank), because they will ________________. They are either a threat to Christianity, to our way of life, or whatever else you can think of. We go through our days afraid, afraid of being corrupted or hurt by others. We have done a good job through the years of holding our life tight and hiding things away to keep them from being “stolen.” In the end, we end up being the thieves.
When we hide the Source of our life away by separating ourselves, or by loudly proclaiming our opposition to the bogeyman of the day, we rob others of the message that there is a God who is a God of grace, who has become one of us so we can be like him, and who is redeeming this world and will put all things right. We rob them of the love that Jesus told us to show to all we come in contact with. We rob them of the opportunity to see people who have been transformed by God’s love and grace, people who are truly different. Like the nun, we steal from others, and then find out later that they really weren’t out to get us.
Jesus gave us the commission to go. We are called to be in this world. Jesus gave us the example when he ate and drank with sinners, so much so that the religious leaders called him a glutton and a drunk. Doesn’t exactly sound like one who was being careful to not associate with the wrong crowd, does it? One of the big differences I see between the church of the first century and the church of today is the church today seems to more known for what it is against, and the early church was know for their love for each other and for those around them.
May we hold our lives more loosely, and freely share the treasure that we have been given.