Do Your Thing

Some fragmented thoughts on remembering what's yours to do and what isn't, the Evolving Faith gathering, M.F.K Fisher, and a homily on love

Thursday, October 6
Grand Rapids, Mich.

Greetings, dear reader.

In February 2018, I got an email from my friend Rachel Held Evans. She was inviting me to speak at a new event that she was organizing with her friend Sarah Bessey. It was, she told me, called Evolving Faith, “and the focus is on the personal, relational, and intellectual challenges that come with a growing, stretching faith.” She name-dropped some Christian-famous people who were also on the slate, and I expressed some doubts about whether I’d be right for that stage, which she quickly brushed aside in her Rachel way. “Just be yourself and do your thing,” she said.

One of my favorite moments from Evolving Faith 2018: showing Rachel’s son, Henry, photos of animals that I’d taken on safari in South Africa

Anyway, I never could say “no” to Rachel. So I showed up at Montreat, and I tried my best to be myself and to do my thing. (If you’ve never heard my talk from that first Evolving Faith, you can listen to it or read the transcript from Season 1 of our podcast. Of course I talked about composting.)

Next week, I fly to Atlanta for our fourth Evolving Faith gathering. So much has changed: Rachel died, I’m now on the Evolving Faith leadership team, Sarah has become a dear friend, and we’re living through unexpected times that include an ongoing pandemic and online conferences. But so much has not changed too: Many of us are still struggling with the implications of our faith in a hurting world and a fragmented church. What does it mean to proclaim good news in times like these? How do we hold onto hope when there seem to be so many reasons to despair? What do we have to do to find sustenance and inspiration amidst all this?

There are days when I feel ill-equipped for this work. And then I remember what Rachel asked me to do in the first place: Just be yourself and do your thing.

There are nights when I wonder whether we’ll make budget, whether people will show up, whether the technology will work. And then I have to repeat to myself what Rachel said: Just be yourself and do your thing.

But then there are moments when I get a text message from one of our (brilliant, hardworking) staff—a word of encouragement, an unexpectedly welcome bit of unsolicited counsel. Or when I look at the extraordinary folks who have agreed to bless us with their wisdom and their teaching—Bishop Michael Curry, Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg, Kwok Pui Lan, Kate Bowler, Barbara Brown Taylor. And then I am reminded of the truth of Rachel’s invitation: Just be yourself and do your thing.

Sometimes I’m distracted by the things I think other people want me to do, but they’re not what I was called to do. Sometimes we’re diverted by what we think will make other people happy, but their happiness has never been—should never be—our main motivator. Sometimes we’re discombobulated by the tumult and turmoil of the world, and it seems overwhelming. But in relationship and community, I recalibrate. I’m nudged back to center. And I can recall what’s mine to do and what isn’t.

Just be yourself and do your thing. 

That’s a reminder I needed today. Maybe it will be helpful to you too.

(I would of course love for you to join us at Evolving Faith. It really is a wonderful lineup of preachers and poets, musicians and teachers. If you can’t devote October 14 and 15 to the gathering, you’ll have full access to all the content through January 9th. If you can’t afford the ticket right now, we never want money to be the obstacle that keeps you from being present; we still have scholarships available and we would be delighted to give you one. All the information about the conference can be found on the Evolving Faith website.)

What I’m Reading: M.F.K. Fisher has long been renowned for how she wrote about food—in novels, in essays, in book reviews, in recipes. To Fisher, food wasn’t just mere nutrition; it opened a door to engaging with and understanding the world. “Since we must eat to live,” she wrote, “we might as well do it with grace and gusto.”

While I was in Vancouver in June, I wandered into the Paper Hound and happened upon a worn copy of Fisher’s sixth book, Here Let Us Feast: A Book of Banquets. I do not need more books. I bought this one mainly because the bookstore was lovely, and the bookseller was charming, and she had with her a sweet dog who just followed me around the shop while I browsed, and it seemed rude not to buy anything. When I finally opened Here Let Us Feast last week, I realized that it would be unexpectedly useful for my Ph.D. research. At least that’s the story I’m telling myself.

This is the dog that sold me a book in Vancouver.

The book begins with Fisher’s reflections on feasting in the Bible. As she makes her way through Scripture, she comes to a realization: “The priests and the storytellers, the great singers and the teachers, everywhere and always showed their people real food, real wine, to prove to them the truths of spiritual nourishment,” she writes. “A great catch of fishes from an empty sea, or water springing from a dry stone: such things were told of over and over to sustain men whose hope of Heaven dwindled and grew faint as their stomachs cried out.”

What I’m Talking About: Yesterday evening, I got to spend a little time on Zoom with some lovely Canadian Lutherans—pastors and lay leaders in the Eastern Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada. I’d spoken to their annual gathering in 2021, and they invited me back for a brief follow-up. I always write my talks and sermons for a specific audience. Often, I’m reluctant to share my words beyond those circles because I don’t want them to be misunderstood or taken out of context. But as I re-read these words this morning, I thought that what I had to say might resonate with some of you. So here’s a brief excerpt: 

You, the pastor who feels wrung out and spent, you are loved. You, the leader who just wants to be led, you are loved. You, the decision maker who is quietly suffering from decision fatigue and wish that someone else would just do it for you except that you would probably regret that, you are loved. You, the preacher who worries that your last sermon was actually your last decent one, you are loved. You, the lay leader who really just want to lay yourself down for a long nap, you are loved. You, the teacher who longs to be taught, really, to be nourished and fed, you are loved. You, the hopefully naive one who never realized that your ministry would involve the human equivalent of cat herding, you are loved. You, the endlessly optimistic person who can’t understand why everyone is so down, you are loved. You who shush your children amidst Zoom calls and you who quietly curse the inventors of Zoom under your breath, you are loved. You who wonder if anything will ever change, even as everything constantly changes, just not in the way you want it to: you are loved.

You are loved not just in the general way that we sometimes say that God so loved the world—not just but also in your particularity, in your idiosyncrasy, and in your weirdness. God’s covenant love for us is both absurdly wide-ranging and ridiculously specific—as expansive as the heavens above and as focused as a laser.

I base this argument on the testimonies of our spiritual ancestors—people who, like us, had to face conditions and circumstances often beyond their control, people who, like us, struggled and stumbled, people who, like us, had every reason to doubt the goodness of a God who sometimes feels distant, if not absent.

You are loved by the God of Hagar, who in the midst of the wilderness, in the midst of prayerlessness, far from any place she could call home, far from anything resembling safety, was met by a God whom she didn’t even know to cry out to. She became the first person in Scripture to have the boldness to call God by a new name. El-Roi, she said: The One who sees me. Because there she was, in her despair, and God met her there.

You are loved by the God of the psalmists who were bold enough to blame God, to curse God, to rail against a God who they felt had abandoned them to despair. This same God received their cries and, I believe, inspired their poems and their songs, which have been handed down to us as a hospitable inheritance, as models of holy candor and faithful daring, as witnesses for the kind of vulnerability that our God can handle. The psalmists bore witness to what it means to be honest with God—and God met them there.

You are loved by the God of the Ethiopian eunuch. Sometimes I wonder what has happened off the page of this story. Did the eunuch find much of what they were looking for in Jerusalem? Because it’s on their way home, not en route to the holy city, that the disciple Philip encounters this pilgrim. It seems logical to imagine that a pilgrim would have been all filled up by their days in that storied place, walking in the footsteps of generations before. Yet here they are, paging through the Book of Isaiah, carrying a heart full of unanswered questions and a spirit burdened by unmet desires. And then, in little more than a puddle on the dusty roadside, far from the grandeur of an ancient temple or the solid stones that suggest the endurance of the faith, the eunuch is baptized. The eunuch testified to the ways in which the faithful are met in unexpected moments and in unforeseen ways—and God met them there.

“Baptism,” from an Ethiopian biblical manuscript held in the collection of the University of Oregon Museum of Natural and Cultural History

You are loved by the God who cooks breakfast for his friends. One of my favorite stories in all of Scripture comes from John 21. We meet the disciples in the aftermath of the crucifixion and the resurrection. They have watched their Lord die, and they have witnessed the Lord’s miraculous return. I wonder what they might have been feeling. I can only imagine the swirl of their emotions—utter devastation at the murder of the one they loved followed by befuddlement and perhaps some joy at the sight of him standing among them. And maybe amidst that mix of emotions, you gravitate toward the places, the things, the activities, that you know, that are familiar, that bring you comfort and reassurance. John tells us that seven of them go out fishing.

The waters aren’t giving much up that night, though. It’s a long and fruitless fishing expedition. And as the day breaks, Jesus shows up on the shore, but they don’t recognize him, and he offers exactly what no fisherman wants: unsolicited advice. And suddenly, the nets are heaving with fish, so much so that they struggle to hold on. And according to the Gospel account, “that disciple whom Jesus loved” was the first to recognize Jesus. Dear John, who never misses an opportunity to boost his own PR and remind us of his belovedness to the Lord, tells Peter that it isn’t just some random self-appointed fishing expert but in fact Jesus himself who is standing on shore.

When they all get to shore, they find that Jesus has been preparing breakfast. This is really my favorite part: Jesus as cook, Jesus as chef, Jesus as the steward of a beach bonfire, Jesus as host of an impromptu table. Do you see the intimate care, the tender love, in what Jesus is doing? He knows they have been out there all night, laboring and probably complaining. They have worked up an appetite, and as their friend, he meets them there—in their exhaustion, in their hunger, in their need.

A stained-glass window from Lille Cathedral showing Jesus grilling fish for his friends. Photo: Fr. Lawrence Lew OP

And here’s another little detail that I love, because it radiates love: the fish is already grilling, and the bread is already baking.  Jesus has been cooking. Then he says to the disciples, “Bring some of the fish that you have just caught.” In other words, bring some of what you have to offer. Jesus doesn’t need their contributions, yet he invites them. “Bring some of the fish that you have just caught.” What a way of seeing them, of being in solidarity with them, of ennobling them.

Beloveds, you are loved with that same love. You are seen in your labors, fruitless as they might feel at times. Whether you feel as if you have spent an endless night out on waters that aren’t giving up anything or whether you feel as if your nets are heaving, you are loved with the love of the One who invites you to bring some of whatever you have to offer, because it matters—because you matter. This God will feed you, yes, but this God will also delight in being fed, in sharing, in being in mutually nourishing relationship with you.

You are loved.

---

That’s all I’ve got for you this week, folks. If you’re in the habit of prayer, please remember me and the rest of the Evolving Faith team—and especially all those who are gathering next week all around the world. And, as always, even amidst the busyness of these days, I always count it a privilege to pray for you. So let me know what’s on your hearts.

Much love,
Jeff