For Those Who Walked With Us
© Jan L. Richardson. janrichardson.com
For those
who walked with us,
this is a prayer.
For those
who have gone ahead,
this is a blessing.
For those
who touched and tended us,
who lingered with us
while they lived,
this is a thanksgiving.
For those
who journey still with us
in the shadows of awareness,
in the crevices of memory,
in the landscape of our dreams,
this is a benediction.
Sometimes my thoughts are well-formed, sometimes they are scattered, but throughout the last couple of weeks I have found myself in multiple conversations about the nature and practice of Christianity as a whole.
Here are a few of the few thoughts about Christianity that have been rattling around in my mind this week.
1) Christ is sinless, but “Christianity” is not. Don’t mistake Christian Culture for God, they aren’t the same thing. Churches, pastors, theologians, and other believers will inevitably fail you, but Christ never will.
2) It’s okay for your beliefs to change. You’ll never have Christianity fully figured out. You won’t have an answer for everything. Theology is a journey, a Pilgrim’s Progress. Life, relationships, and experiences form, shape, and change the way you see, experience, and understand God. The disciples didn’t understand God much of the time, and you probably won’t either. It’s okay! Just keep an open, listening heart and spirit.
3) Christianity Isn’t Easy. It doesn’t magically fix things, make you more popular, wealthy, or healthier. In reality, it’s not a form of escapism but a lifelong process of dedication, service, sacrifice, and humbly loving others. It’s very, very, very hard, and not for the faint of heart. However, it is also the most sacred and fulfilling commitment you will ever make.
4) Christianity is complex. Nobody believes the same thing. Seriously, no matter what anyone else claims. There are hundreds of denominations. Doctrines, practices, and traditions are as varied as the people that represent them. This diversity of faith should be appreciated and celebrated. The goal of Christianity isn’t conformity, but an honest and intimate relationship with God.
5) Christianity is ultimately about loving God and loving others. It should never be co-opted by a political movement, a religious institution, gaining power, obtaining control, spreading influence, enforcing laws, or becoming rich and famous. It’s about a loving relationship with God, and loving all humanity created in God’s divine image—in our practice of discipleship, we should never let anything supersede this.
"Then God said, “Let the earth put forth vegetation: plants yielding seed, and fruit trees of every kind on earth that bear fruit with the seed in it.” And it was so. The earth brought forth vegetation: plants yielding seed of every kind, and trees of every kind bearing fruit with the seed in it. And God saw that it was good. And there was evening and there was morning, the third day." ~Genesis 1:11-13
For me, there is no church or cathedral that feels as sacred as a garden in the morning, even as we are approaching the end of the growing season here in Indiana. In a time and culture where we have become so separated from the earth, source of our physical nourishment, and each other, source of relational nourishment, the garden and the table are powerful symbols. Reminders.
There is a reason that so many of Christ's actions, parables and choice of symbols centered around meals and agriculture. First, in the time the scriptures were written these were commonalities which everyone could understand. Second, they are the ultimate earthly equalizer. Everyone must eat. Everyone is dependent on the land to provide sustenance, and no matter what our nationality, religion, or culture, we are all on equal footing when it comes to nourishment. At the table, the high are brought low and the low are brought up.
Being a part of bringing abundance to a table is a gift. Experiencing the work and sweat, watching as sprouts emerge from the earth, amazing as flowers morph into food, the gratitude of harvest. There is something divine in the privilege of partaking of what you have helped to grow, and something holy about sharing that bounty with others.
Let the table be our place of reconnecting, and let the garden lead us there.
Christians in History
Clarence Jordan (1912 – 1969)
Clarence Jordan was a farmer and Greek New Testament scholar from rural Georgia who dedicated his life and ministry to advocating for those living in poverty and for the equality of all people. In 1942, Clarence and his wife, Florence Jordan co-founded Koinonia Farm in Americus, Ga. Named Koinonia, after the Greek word for fellowship and joint participation, it was an interracial Christian farming community near Americus where members worked together for the common good and all persons were treated equally, intended to be a “demonstration plot for the Kingdom.” The farm had a “cow library,” loaning a milking cow to any of their neighbors unable to afford milk, believing that Christians had an obligation to work with and for the poor.
In 1956, two years after the Supreme Court ruled that segregation was unconstitutional, a quarter of the residents at Koinonia were Black. “A 1957 article in the Watsonville Register-Pajaronian recounted the aggression Koinonia faced: Banks, gas stations, feed stores, and most businesses in Americus boycotted the farm (one feed store defied the boycott — it was dynamited shortly after); State Farm and other companies canceled all of Koinonia’s insurance policies; at night, people fired pistols and rifles at Koinonia; twice Koinonia had its roadside farm stand dynamited, and other property was destroyed.”
Eventually, the violence subsided, and Clarence spent more time on his writing. Many of his speeches were transcribed and collected in books and recordings. His best-known work was Cotton Patch Gospel, which “translated” the New Testament into the 20th-century Southern. Cotton Patch has Paul writing to the Christians in Washington (Romans), Atlanta (Corinthians), and Selma (Thessalonians). Jesus is baptized in the Chattahoochee River.
The radical Southerner who dedicated his life to farming, sharing the gospel, and imploring his neighbors to actually follow Jesus, died as simply as he lived — buried in a wooden box used to ship coffins, in an unmarked grave, and wearing his overalls. Today, Koinonia continues as a working farm and Christian community.
And the Table Will Be Wide:
A Blessing for World Communion Sunday
by Jan Richardson
And the table
will be wide.
And the welcome
will be wide.
And the arms
will open wide
to gather us in.
And our hearts
will open wide
to receive.
And we will come
as children who trust
there is enough.
And we will come
unhindered and free.
And our aching
will be met
with bread.
And our sorrow
will be met
with wine.
And we will open our hands
to the feast
without shame.
And we will turn
toward each other
without fear.
And we will give up
our appetite
for despair.
And we will taste
and know
of delight.
And we will become bread
for a hungering world.
And we will become drink
for those who thirst.
And the blessed
will become the blessing.
And everywhere
will be the feast.
Thought-provoking Quotes
from Preachers at1
Annual Conference
“Visions for the future are built on dreams, signs, and wonders from the past…As we gathered here this week, let us both remember and imagine.”
~Moderator Dan Fitzkee
“The Bible…is a packet of seeds. It takes root in us until it becomes visible. It points us to the living word, Jesus Christ.”
~Pastor Beth Jarrett, Staunton, VA
“Is peace possible? I say yes, it is. But it requires the hard work of examining ourselves to see if we are living in the faith, if we are agreeing with God.”
~Pastor James Washington, Lima & Elida, OH
“Jesus washed all their feet—from Peter all the way to Judas. Sometimes, when we are asked to stoop down and wash the feet of certain others, that reveals something in us.”
~Pastor Caleb Kragt, Tipp City, OH
“…A church where no one walks alone. Where Jesus is not only preached but is seen alive in the lives of his people…Imagine a church that can see the presence of Jesus.”
~Pastor Becky Zapata, Santa Ana, CA
There is enormous debate surrounding the term “dominion” as it is found in Genesis 1:26. For some, this terminology in the structuring of creation has been used as permission to treat the world as their own personal vending machine. Using any and all of the Earth’s resources, as much as they want and in any manner they choose, to generate as much money or convenience as possible with no consideration for the long-term impacts on creation itself or on their fellow humans. They see creation as something they own and “dominion” as a permission slip to mistreat and even destroy if they so wish. Too often, this expectation is exacerbated by a focus on the finite nature of this life, and the promise of heaven, as if this life doesn’t matter. As if our lives, and creation itself, weren’t precious gifts from our Creator.
In actuality, the Hebrew word for dominion, while certainly implying that creation has been provided for our use, also holds an expectation of stewardship. The text is a charge that we are responsible for the stewarding and management of creation, not given a free pass to run roughshod over it. “Dominion” is charging us to engage creation as God’s representatives. To act in ways that embody and support God’s interests and intentions for this world, and mortal lives, rather than our own.
I often think of creation as one of God’s love letters to us (in addition to scripture and the movement of the Holy Spirit). It is something precious, something we should be excited to share with others but also something we should care for and keep safe. By God’s own design, our physical wellbeing is interconnected with the wellbeing of our planet. Perhaps as a reminder, that we are intended to be a part of, and not separated from, God’s good creation.
Christians in History:
Dom Hélder Câmara of Recife (1909-1999)
Born in Fortaleza Brazil, Dom Hélder Câmara became a bishop of the Catholic Church and was one of the 20th century’s greatest apostles of nonviolence. After joining a conservative political movement as a young priest, Camara experienced a conversion while ministering among the poor in the favelas of Rio de Janeiro. Câmara was informally called the "bishop of the slums" and was an advocate of liberation theology. Câmara preached for a church closer to marginalized people. He is famously quoted as having said, "When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why they are poor, they call me a communist."
Câmara worked tirelessly for democracy and human rights in Brazil during the military dictatorship (1964-1985), even as he watched friends and fellow priests imprisoned, tortured, and killed. Once, when a hired assassin knocked on the elderly Camara’s door, he was so moved by the sight of the bishop that he blurted out,” I can’t kill you. You are one of the Lord’s.” As evidence of his commitment to justice and to the poor, near the end of the Second Vatican Council, Câmara led a group of forty bishops who celebrated Mass in the Catacombs of Domitilla outside of Rome. (The catacombs are where the early church would meet in secrecy before Christianity became the religion of the Empire under Constantine.) The bishops all signed the Pact of the Catacombs, which challenged their brother bishops to live in humble poverty, to serve the poor, and to be open to all, no matter their beliefs. Câmara died in Recife on 27 August 1999, at the age of 90.
“It helps, now and then, to step back and take the long view. The Kingdom is not only beyond our efforts: It is beyond our vision. We accomplish in our lifetime only a tiny fraction of the magnificent enterprise that is the Lord’s work. Nothing we do is complete, which is another way of saying that the Kingdom always lies beyond us. No sermon says all that should be said. No prayer fully expresses our faith. No confession brings perfection. No pastoral visit brings wholeness. No program accomplishes the Church’s mission. No set of goals and objectives includes everything. That is what we are about. We plant the seeds that one day will grow. We water seeds already planted knowing they hold future promise. We lay foundations that we’ll need further development. We provide yeast that affects far beyond our capabilities. We cannot do everything and there is a sense of liberation in realizing that. This enables us to do something, and to do it very, very well. It may be incomplete, but it is a beginning, a step along the way, an opportunity for the Lord’s grace to enter and do the rest. We may never see the end results, but that is the difference between the Master Builder and the worker. We are workers, not master builders; ministers, not messiahs. We are prophets of a future that is not our own.” ~Archbishop Oscar Romero
A Prayer
by Mechthild of Magdeburg
Lord, I am grateful to You
that in Your mysterious love
You have taken away from me
all earthly wealth,
and that You now clothe and feed me
through the kindness of others.
Lord, I am grateful to You
that since You have taken away from me
the sight of my eyes,
You care for me now
through the eyes of others.
Lord, I am grateful to You
that since You have taken away from me
the strength of my hands and heart,
You care for me now
through the hands and hearts of others.
Lord, I pray for them,
that You will reward them in Your love,
that they may continue to faithfully serve
and care until they come to a happy end
in eternity with You.
It Would Be Easier to Pray if I Were Clear
by Ted Loder
O Eternal One, it would be easier for me to pray
if I were clear
and of a single mind and a pure heart;
if I could be done hiding from myself
and from you, even in my prayers.
But, I am who I am,
mixture of motives and excuses,
blur of memories,
quiver of hopes,
knot of fear,
tangle of confusion,
and restless with love, for love.
I wander somewhere between
gratitude and grievance,
wonder and routine,
high resolve and undone dreams,
generous impulses and unpaid bills.
Come, find me, Lord.
Be with me exactly as I am.
Help me find me, Lord.
Help me accept what I am,
so I can begin to be yours.
Make me something small enough to snuggle,
young enough to question,
simple enough to giggle,
old enough to forget,
foolish enough to act for peace;
skeptical enough to doubt
the sufficiency of anything but you,
and attentive enough to listen
as you call me out of the tomb of my timidity
into the chancy glory of my possibilities
and the power of your presence.
For when you just need to put one foot
in front of the other
From The Lives We Actually Have:
100 Blessings for Imperfect Days,
by Kate Bowler and Jessica Ritchie
Oh God,
the thought of trying for a new & improved me
makes me tired.
I am barely getting anywhere,
so draw me closer to a different vision,
one that sees I don’t need perfection—
I need love.
Free me from the expectation
that life should always be better.
From the everyday stressors—
the bills, the pressure, the dependents,
the existential fears about the future
and the worries of right now.
I am threadbare.
Blessed are we, remembering
that the world is not ours to shoulder alone.
Help us put one foot in front of the other
as best we can.
Oh God, today,
give us enough to go on,
give us hope to see a future,
give us joy to see a present
lit up by your love.
My father was sharing with me about a church service he attended earlier this week. It was a worship gathering done in the style of what is known as a “dinner church,” which typically contains three movements: communion, a meal together, and some type of Bible study. The particular church he was attending is in a lower income community with a higher homeless population and those folks are part of this particular gathering, so often it can be a rougher group of folks. On the evening my dad was visiting, one of the men that dad was eating with suddenly took issue with another man who was at the table with them. There was then a yelling match with lots of threats of violence and everyone had to patiently and calmly make sure that the two men wouldn’t come to blows before continuing on with the remainder of the meal and moving onto their Bible study and communion together. Rather than being dismayed by these events, my father was laughing uproariously at the situation saying with great joy, “It was a wonderful worship! It was worshiping with exactly the type people Jesus actually hung around with!”
Sometimes we like to imagine the crowds that surrounded Jesus as being reverent and awed by his mere presence and the message of the good news, and I’m sure there were moments like that, but I have to wonder if a lot of the time, it was just pure chaos. The crowds must have been filled with people with all kinds of issues, concerns, or axes to grind with other people present. It’s hard for me to believe that there wouldn’t have been hecklers and those in disagreement with Jesus shouting and causing all kinds of ruckus. And yet that type of setting was exactly where Jesus ministered, healed, taught, and broke bread with others. If he had only waited for peaceful and serene moments where people were on their best behavior to share the Good News, he wouldn’t have been able to share much of it, would he?
I Screamed at God
by ullie-kaye
I screamed at God
in my car today.
If my steering wheel
wouldn’t have heard it
then my pillow would have.
Or the tides.
Or the trees.
And I don’t know
if I should beg Him
for forgiveness or
if He’s happy that
the words I bring Him
aren’t always pretty.
Because most days
I’m not strong.
I’m just a weak human
with a strong God.
What I Learned from My Mother
I learned from my mother how to love
the living, to have plenty of vases on hand
in case you have to rush to the hospital
with peonies cut from the lawn, black ants
still stuck to the buds. I learned to save jars
large enough to hold fruit salad for a whole
grieving household, to cube home-canned pears
and peaches, to slice through maroon grape skins and flick out the sexual seeds with a knife point.
I learned to attend viewings even if I didn’t know
the deceased, to press the moist hands
of the living, to look in their eyes and offer
sympathy, as though I understood loss even then.
I learned that whatever we say means nothing,
what anyone will remember is that we came.
I learned to believe I had the power to ease
awful pains materially like an angel.
Like a doctor, I learned to create
from another’s suffering my own usefulness, and once you know how to do this, you can never refuse. To every house you enter, you must offer healing: a chocolate cake you baked yourself,
the blessing of your voice, your chaste touch.
zacdbzacdbzacdbzacdbz
I found the gripping reflection by Julia Kasdorf, above, in a book recently added to my library, The Good Funeral: Death, Grief, and the Community of Care, by Thomas Long & Thomas Lynch. It seemed appropriate for this week.
In recent months, Clarke and I have returned to having a schedule that allows us to share in a daily devotion together, and we have chosen to revisit one of our favorites: Common Prayer: a Liturgy for Ordinary Radicals, written by Shane Claiborne, Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove, and Enuma Okoro. Today, I thought I would share this reflection on the challenges of Peacemaking.
Peacemaking begins with what we can change—ourselves. But it does not end there. We are to be peacemakers in a world riddled with violence. That means interrupting violence with imagination, on our streets and in our world. This peace that is “not like any way the empire brings peace” is rooted in the nonviolence of the cross, where we see a Savior who loves his enemies so much He died for them. Peace is often not our instinct, which is why it must be cultivated and grown in us. Even Jesus’ key disciple, Peter, picks up his sword when the soldiers approach Jesus. Jesus’ response is brilliant: He scolds Peter, and then He heals the wounded persecutor, only to be dragged away and hung on a Roman cross. If ever there were a case for “just war” or justified violence to protect the innocent, Peter had it. Yet Jesus rebukes his logic of the sword.
The early Christians said, “When Jesus disarmed Peter, He disarmed every Christian.” For hundreds of years, Christians were never seen carrying swords, and they followed the way of the Prince of Peace even unto death, loving their enemies and blessing those who curse them. It does not look like a good strategy for running an empire, but it is the narrow way that leads to life. Undoubtedly, it does not always seem to “work.” As we look at history, and even as we read the Scriptures, there seems to be evidence that violence has worked at times and failed at times, just as nonviolence has worked at times and failed at times. In the end, the question is, Which looks most like Jesus? For we are called not just to be successful but to be faithful to the way of the Cross, even unto death. The way of the cross did not seem to work on Friday, but the promise is that Sunday is coming. In the end, Love wins.
Jesus walked among the people and spoke the words of peace and brotherhood to any who would listen.
Suppose we did that.
Just imagine it!...
What if we really did it?
What if we dropped our conferences and
our high-level politics
and our big-time lectures and our capital investments
and went out among the people
as brothers (and sisters) and (people) of God—
Might we find the divine spark in our own time:
Might we not find followers,
hundreds, then thousands, our brothers/sisters and fellow (citizens)?
What if we touched the chord that set the chorus?
What if we uttered the word that started the prayer?
All the longing of the people
who we have left behind,
all the hope of men (and women)
who yet may seek,
all the profound yearning of the children of God—
waiting to be set in motion.
What if we dared?
--O brethren,
let us pray.”
Shared from October 1950 issue of The Gospel Messenger, Invocation for Another Conference. Authored by Kermit Eby, adapted by Werner Bloomberg & (Melody Capsel)
God of every people and every language, you spoke creation into being and called it good.
You formed many cultures, many songs, many stories, and breathed one Spirit through them all.
Forgive us when we have feared difference, when we choose comfort instead of community, when we listen to reply instead of to love.
Teach your church to accept one another as a gift, not a threat.
Slow down our speech and deepen our listening. Let humility be our strength, and curiosity be our attitude.
At your table, remove the walls we rebuild. Where accents differ, foster understanding.
Where history wounds, heal; and let patience develop. Where power comes together, teach us to share.
Make us a people who notice who is missing. People who create space before taking space, who learn before leading, and who follow Christ together rather than alone.
Send us into our neighborhoods as neighbors, gentle in spirit, courageous in justice, and loyal in friendship across all boundaries.
May our life together declare that your kingdom is not one culture welcomed, but everyone reconciled in love.
In the name of Jesus, who gathers us and transforms us into one body. Amen! ! !
Shared from June 2026 issue of Messenger Magazine. Authored by Founa I. Augustin Badet, Director-Intercultural Ministries for the CoB.
“First, we must accept the circumstances we constantly find ourselves in as the place of God’s kingdom and blessing. God has yet to bless anyone except where they actually are.”
~ From The Divine Conspiracy by Dallas Willard
Far too often, I fall into patterns of thinking about how amazingly blessed I am going to be when…
…the house is finally organized the way I want.
…my devotional and prayer life has reached a certain level of discipline.
…that debt is paid off and there is finally more financial freedom.
…I retire and finally have more free time.
…the situation I am most worried about is finally resolved.
On its face, there is nothing wrong about looking with an expectation of hope towards the future. It is arguably an important discipline of our faith. However, when I find myself only concentrating on the potential joys of future blessings it becomes easy to miss the moments of blessing that are occurring in my messy and chaotic life. Right now. When and where I least expect it. And once I start to notice, once I follow the advice of that old hymn, I find that the blessings I already have are beyond count and I realized that God never waits to provide us with blessing. God isn’t waiting for enough to have been accomplished or a more opportune, organized moment to divvy out blessings. After all, today is
all we are really promised anyway.
Rather, God has already woven blessing into the very fabric of our lives, into the nature of creation itself. We are blessed. Where we are and as we are. We just have to be willing to see what God has already done.
Take His Peace
©1976 by William J. Gaither and Gloria Gaither.
When the whirlwinds of doubt, churn their way into your soul, Take His peace.
When your world’s reduced to ashes, leaving nothing pure and whole, Take His peace.
There amidst the broken wreckage in the midnight of your day,
In the apex of the storm cloud, He’s the quiet place to stay. Take His peace.
When you’re worried and you’re fearful for the children you hold dear,
Let a loving Heavenly Father share each joy and dry each tear, Take His peace.
God has promised if we lead them and we guide them from the start,
Then the seed of truth and peace shall find rich soil in their heart. Take His peace.
When your mind gropes for answers to the questions that you face;
When your past comes back to haunt you and you need amazing grace,
Aww, there’s an answer beyond question…it’s the truth for which you yearn,
There’s forgiveness without merit, there’s a love you needn’t earn, Take His peace.
When you’re weary of the struggle and you need a place to rest,
When you lose more than you’re winning, and you’re failing every test, Take His peace.
There’s no need to fight a battle that’s been fought and won before,
You can lay back in the victory, freely share His boundless store,
Take His peace. Take His peace!