The Guest

Today I read this wrenching and probing poem by Wendell Berry. Like all of Berry's work, it hits too close to home and challenges my feeble attempts to follow the way of Jesus daily. This is especially challenging as we move into the season of Advent and remember that our God is always coming, sometimes as a pregnant young girl looking for a room, sometimes as a "guest" encountered on the street, sometimes in our neighbor, and sometimes in the form of family, who no matter how close always remain strangers and guests to us....

God, as you continue to come into your world and walk into our lives, give us the grace to see you and the strength to refuse "to remain strange" to the threshold of our heart and a seat at our table.

The Guest

Washed into the doorway
by the wake of the traffic
he wears humanity
like a third-hand shirt
—blackened with enough
of Manhattan’s dirt to sprout
a tree, or poison one.
His empty hand has led him
where he has come to.
our differences claim us.
He holds out his hand,
in need of all that’s mine.

And so we’re joined, as deep
as son and father. His life
is offered me to choose.

Shall I begin servitude
to him? Let this cup pass.
Who am I? But charity must
suppose knowing no better,
that this is a man fallen
among thieves, or come
to this strait by no fault
—that our differences
is not a judgment,
though I can afford to eat
and am made his judge.

I am, I nearly believe,
the Samaritan who fell
into the ambush of his heart
on the way to another place.
My stranger waits, his hand
held out like something to read,
as though its emptiness
is an accomplishment.
I give him a smoke and the price
of a meal, no more

—not sufficient kindness
or believable sham.
I paid him to remain strange
to my threshold and table,
to permit me to forget him—
knowing I won’t. He’s the guest
of my knowing, though not asked.

- Wendell Berry

Unity in Diversity

“Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me…. The Paraclete, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything, and remind you of all that I have said to you” (John 14:11, 26).

God has called us to unity, to share a deep, sacrificial love with all who “abide” in God (John 17: 21-23; 13:34-35). This unity in love is a high calling, a true witness to the world of the creative power and love of God. In my lifetime, though, I have noticed, as you likely have, that we seem to struggle to understand the difference between unity and uniformity. Christians are especially prone to separate ourselves from others based on our differences and preferences, rather than be drawn together with one another. Yet, the church is designed to be the reflection and image of God on earth. And what is God? As we see in the passages from John above, God is inherently three-in-one, a unified diversity. The church must find a way to reflect the God it worships, to live together as a 'mosaic' of humanity that is unified in the midst of its diversity (racially, ethnically, politically, theologically, etc.).

One of the most challenging books I’ve read on this subject is Mark Cunningham’s These Three Are One: The Practice of Trinitarian Theology. In it he suggests that the church must reflect the unity we see in the Trinity. He uses three wonderful terms to describe this little dance between Father, Son, and Spirit that help us reflect on unity in the Body of Christ: participation, particularity, and polyphony. Participation refers to the mutual, intimate interaction between people that allows us both to know and to be known by those in the church. That kind of knowing brings us together as one body, united in our differences. Particularity highlights the fact that we are all different, but we only really know and appreciate our own identity, as well as that of others, when we stand next to and with other people. True unity highlights our differences, our particularity, just as the characteristics and beauty of an individual piece of colored glass is made clearer when it is placed next to other pieces of varying colors in a mosaic. Finally, polyphonic is a musical term that refers to the bringing together of diverse sounds into one symphonic piece. (Some of you may know the term from the indie musical troop The Polyphonic Spree, which brings together a wide range of unique vocal and instrumental sounds to create some amazing music.) The church unites in our uniqueness and differences so that God, the Master Conductor, can weave us into a beautiful symphony of his love in the world.

My mind was captured by this beautiful picture of our unity in diversity this morning as I was shifting the chairs slightly, so that we can see one another a little more clearly as we worship and break bread together. Today, as we are called together by the Father, as we gather around Table to receive the hospitality of Christ, as we center ourselves in the Word, and as we are drawn together by the power of the Spirit who abides with us, may we strive for true unity in the midst of diversity. And may that unity in love be a living witness of God to the world (John 17:21).

Life Together: A Community “in Christ”

“Entering into friendships in Christ… is not simply an added benefit of the Christian life; it is constitutive of the Christian life.” – Stephen Fowl

Throughout this week I’ve continued to reflect on the nature of Christian community and friendship. Community is at the heart of Christian life. In fact, Fowl is right when he suggests that “entering into friendships in Christ… is constitutive of Christian life.” There is no such thing as private, individual faith, for we are all bound together in Christ Jesus by connections and bonds that are forged in our baptism. And these are not voluntary bonds; we do not get to choose our brothers and sisters in Christ. Through our baptism we are drawn by God into a deep communion with God and with all of those who are in Christ. As Rowan Williams puts it, “the event of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection… has created a different sort of human community; professing commitment to Jesus as Lord connects us not only to Jesus but to one another in a new way.” We don’t choose one another; Christ chooses us!

The Christian life cannot be lived alone. We have all been caught up together into the larger drama of God’s ongoing work and dealings in the world. We can see this in Paul’s letter to the Philippian Christians, where Paul’s encouragement assumes and presupposes a community of people (Phil 2:1-5). The question, then, is “What does it mean to live together as an authentically Christian community?”

Paul’s answer begins with having “the same mind” (2:2, 5). This does not mean that we must think the same things or have identical doctrine before we can live together in community. This idea actually flies in the face of what Paul is trying to say. We have already been brought together in Christ, so by suggesting that we have the “same mind,” the “mind of Christ,” Paul is saying that we must share in Christ’s approach to life, his way of thinking about living. The power of what Paul is suggesting is precisely a function of its daring improbability. As Richard Hays would say, Paul is “inviting the readers to see their own lives as corresponding to the gracious action of the Lord whom they acclaim in their worship.”

At the root of our unity and common life, then, is God’s story, which takes its most concrete shape in the story of Jesus’ self-emptying, self-giving, status-renouncing love (Phil 2:6-11). This is the “mind of Christ.” These are the dispositions that must form and direct our friendships with each other. Paul exhorts the Christian community in Philippi to have this mind, to live cruciform lives, shaped by the story of Christ who chose the way of the cross. Paul encourages them to think, feel, and act according to the cross-shaped way of Jesus.

Over the next two weeks, I want to look at a two of the many facets of Paul’s understanding of Christian community as a life together in Christ from Philippians: accountability and story-telling.

Continuing Communion...

In light of the post on commun(ion/al) yesterday, I thought that this latest essay by Sara Miles in NPR's This I Believe series was amazing. The essay, called "Strangers Bring Us Closer to God" is about the power of the Eucharistic experience to transform her worldview and mode of living in the world. (Interesting when praxis/experience leads and transforms our belief which then transforms our praxis experience....)

A few excerpts:

That first communion knocked me upside-down. Faith turned out not to be abstract at all, but material and physical. I’d thought Christianity meant angels and trinities and being good. Instead, I discovered a religion rooted in the most ordinary yet subversive practice: a dinner table where everyone is welcome, where the despised and outcasts are honored.


But I learned that hunger can lead to more life—that by sharing real food I’d find communion with the most unlikely people; that by eating a piece of bread I’d experience myself as part of one body. This I believe: that by opening ourselves to strangers, we will taste God.

A quote for the day...

We participate in the possibility of becoming faith mentors by opening our lives to God at work in us and nurturing our own spiritual journeys. We live as if we are faith mentors, and we use our skills and faith on behalf of others in the hope that God will work through us for their growth in faith. With humility, we provide guidance and discernment for those who are seeking for meaning in their lives. And we live in the hope that others will experience us as faith mentors, knowing it is not a title we may claim for ourselves.

- Sondra Higgins Matthaei

Prayers of Thanksgiving in a Cynical, Critical World

[This is the final installment of my follow-up emails I've sent to parents of the 3rd to 6th graders in my Wednesday night class. We just finished a 6-week module on prayer.]

Vocatus atque non vocatus, dues aderit.

“Bidden or unbidden, God is present” – Erasmus

“The Lord gives and the Lord takes away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.” Job 1:21b

Friends,

I am once again a few days late in composing and sending this email, but I think that it’s alright, since this entire week should flow well into last week’s lesson. On Wednesday, we concluded our six-week prayer module by discussing prayers of thanksgiving. (We’ll start a new module a week from Wednesday.) What a timely way to end our consideration of some of the different ways to imagine and practice prayer.

When things are at there best in my life, when I am the most spiritually nourished and the most in tune with myself, others, and God, I am practicing the spiritual disciplines, following a ‘rule of life’ that guides my training as an apprentice of Jesus and opens my life to the Spirit’s transformative presence. As a part of that rule, I try to intentionally cultivate the spirit of gratitude and thanksgiving in my life by: taking at least two minutes a day to pause to offer thanksgiving to God for blessings great and small, mundane and extraordinary; providing spiritual encouragement for another person each week; and providing a word of encouragement to someone daily.

I will be the first to admit that this is not an easy quality to cultivate. In fact, it’s time for confession. I have been struggling with a mini-depression over the past few months because the thanksgiving and encouragement have slipped out of my regular habit of disciplines! As I’ve been reflecting on my life and my spiritual health over the past week, I’ve realized that part of my current struggles are due to my inability to recognize God’s presence at all times, my inability to cultivate thankfulness and gratitude in all things.

Let’s be honest. It seems that most everything in our society conspires against that practice: television shows, commercials, billboards, water-cooler conversations at work, and dinner conversations at church small groups. It is difficult to navigate this labyrinth of ingratitude and find ourselves centered in thankfulness. A loss of thankfulness and gratitude plagues our lives and our families, and it has taken a destructive toll our churches, not to mention society at large. I can easily imagine reinterpreting Jesus’ parable about the soils in Mark 4 so that it speaks to the struggle of growing and sustaining seeds of thankfulness in our world today:

“The sower is the Spirit of God, tossing the seeds of thankfulness onto the hearts of God’s children. The seed that falls on the path are trampled underfoot by ingratitude and eaten by the birds of the comparison and critique. The seed that falls on the rocky ground struggles to find nourishing Living Water. The soil is shallow with no depth, and so are its roots. It sprouts quickly and looks promising, but then the sun of sarcasm and cynicism rises from the east. Its scorching heat bears down on the struggling sprout, and it quickly withers away to nothing. Other seed falls among the thorns of consumerism. For a short time sprout and the thorny weeds grow together and coexist. But in short time the thorns of discontent grew up, overtaking the seedlings of thankfulness, as the thorns of the cares of the world, the lure of wealth, the feelings of entitlement, and the insatiable desire for the latest and greatest toys and televisions, gadgets and golf clubs, cars and computers choke all life out of thankfulness. (There’s a good reason that the Friday after Thanksgiving Thursday has been affectionately dubbed “Black Friday”!) The good, fertile soil is constantly tended and watered and nurtured and weeded to protect the delicate seed, to curb critical tendencies, to treasure and value people as gifts, and to receive every experience and every thing as a gift rather an entitlement, a blessing rather than a right. The seeds of thankfulness take root there and grow into a living and active presence of God in all moments, experiences, and things. They blossom into a beautiful harvest in the midst of a bleak and barren world.”

The thankful heart requires constant nurture and cultivation, yet it carries with it an incredibly transformative potential. The potential is because gratitude helps us to realize and recognize that God is present. Thankfulness is rooted in the reality that “bidden or unbidden, God is present.” Adele Calhoun was correct when she wrote that “thankfulness is a thread that can bind together all the patchwork squares of our lives. Difficult times, happy days seasons of sickness, hours of bliss—all can be sewn together into something lovely with the thread of thankfulness.” If there is anything that our children, and all of us for that matter, need to remember, it’s that thanksgiving is possible because God is present, not because everything goes perfectly or the way that we would like or envision or imagine.

Take some time today to reflect on your own life. Where do you need to grow in thankfulness? Spend time reflecting on these questions from Calhoun’s Spiritual Disciplines Handbook: Practices That Transform Us:

• How are you addicted to criticism, analysis and negativity? How might thankfulness be an antidote to a critical spirit?
• When have you found that in retrospect you could have been thankful for something that you were not grateful for at the time it was happening? How can this perspective inform your life now?
• How has a grateful person affected your own vision of what matters in life? How has someone who lives out of bitterness affected your life?
• How does your disposition influence your attitude toward gratitude?

Prayers of gratitude and thankfulness have the power and potential to bring healing to our churches, to bring hope to shattered relationships, to resurrect struggling marriages, and to bring new creation to our own dead and lifeless souls. It is a cure for cynicism, salve for sarcasm, a balm for our discouragement. It has the power to liberate us from the suspicion that holds us captive and to bring us to the Promised Land of joyful life in the Spirit of God. (Can’t you just imagine the incredible ways that thankfulness can help cultivate the Fruit of the Spirit in our lives!)

This week, in the midst of feasting on turkey and pumpkin pie, watching football, succumbing to the powers of tryptophan and serotonin, take some time to practice the discipline of thankfulness. Give some thanks on Thanksgiving! Try to practice one or more of the following spiritual exercises alone or together with your family this “turkey day.” (These have been modified and adapted from Calhoun.)

• Develop a family thanksgiving journal. Spend time together listing and recording the incredible gifts of God that have come to you this past year in the form of people, experiences, blessings, struggles, challenges, successes, and failures. (Or create a scrapbook with photos and pictures. Write short prayers of thanksgiving next to each one.) Spend some time thinking and talking about how these things have changed you and what it means that God has been present in all of them.
• Read Psalm 136 together as a family. Choose one person to read the first half of each verse and then have everyone respond together: “His steadfast love endures for ever!” Continue with your own litany of praise, inviting everyone in the family to call out something for which they are thankful. After each one, everyone in the group should respond, “His steadfast love endures forever!”
• Write a letter of thanks to someone who has touched your life in the past year, the past month, and the past. If you do this together as a family, take time to prayer for each person, thanking God for each person by name and thanking God for being present in your lives through each of those people.
• What sorts of things tend to encourage you in thankfulness? Praise songs? Worship? Prayer? Time spent with friends? Time alone in solitude and reflection? Giving and receiving presents? Helping the poor or disenfranchised? What tends to discourage you or make thankfulness more difficult? When do you sense comparison, sarcasm, cynicism, and discontentment taking root in your soul? Plan ways to incorporate the things that encourage thankfulness into your life on a regular basis. Try to find ways to remove the things that are an impediment to having thankful heart.
• Hold a thank-you party. Invite the people you want to honor with a thank you. Create and send out personalized invitations and spend the time celebrating and honoring them. (It might be a little uncomfortable for them at the time, but I think that they’ll leave being incredibly blessed and encouraged!)
• Notice your tendency to make comparisons that result in feelings of dissatisfaction or entitlement. Practice abstaining from comparative statements about what you don’t have. Instead give thanks for what you do have.

Whatever else you may do this week, take advantage of the chance to give thanks! Help cultivate a spirit of thanksgiving in your children. May God help us all as we grow in thankfulness.

Thought for the Day...

Here's a thought for the day on the spiritual life from the spiritual autobiography of Thomas Merton...

In one sense we are always traveling, and traveling as if we did not know where we were going.
In another sense we have already arrived.
We cannot arrive at the perfect possession of God in this life, and that is why we are traveling and in darkness. But we already possess Him by grace, and therefore, in that sense, we have arrived and are dwelling in the light.
But oh! How far have I to go to find You in Whom I have already arrived!

The Seven Storey Mountain, 419.

Reflect on your own life. Do you feel, like Merton, that you are traveling to an unknown destination at which, ironically, you've already arrived? How does this describe your spiritual experience, your faith journey? How is it different?

Long time...

Well, it's been a while since I've posted here. My world has been pretty hectic of late. I don't say that pridefully, for I know firsthand the results and impact of the sin of busyness and "overcommittedness."

Though I am missing my girls TERRIBLY!, this has been a good weekend, on the whole. I've gotten a lot of work done, though it seems there's always more to do. I've been on a television fast since Friday morning, which has been incredibly trying (strange for a guy who didn't even watch television several years ago). I've been able to go and "be"with people from LOCC, feeling fully present in a way that I often don't. I spent yesterday morning at a funeral of the father of a dear woman in our church. I was able to grab her seven-year-old son, give him a hug (at least as close to a hug as you can give a 7yo!), and validate all of the strange things that are going on inside of him. I spent about seven hours with friends from LO at a cookout. We ate, laughed, shared stories and life, played volleyball and horseshoes, and fellowshipped in the Spirit of God. It was a gift to be able to receive others fully yesterday, and by doing so to receive the presence of God in them. I got a lot of work done toward my sermon for today. (I don't think I've ever "finished" a sermon; I continue to edit and modify until the moment I am in the pulpit. Then the editing is done on the fly!) It was prep work for sermon that was not to be, at least not or today. The wonderful afternoon of fun gave me a nice flare up of seasonal allergies that attacked me all night long. In order to spare my class and the congregation having to watch my nose leak and listen to me cough all the way through the sermon, I called in the replacements. (Thank goodness for people who will bail you out at the last minute!)

I've also been able to do a good bit of reading this weekend. I read some from O'Day's brilliant commentary on the Gospel of John in the New Interpreter's Bible. Wonderful stuff! I also read Darryl Tippens' new book, Pilgrim Heart: The Way of Jesus in Everyday Life. I highly recommend this read to you. It's a wonderful and very accessible look at the Christian journey as the cultivation of a "worldly spirituality." It is a helpful book that I am hoping to start reading with my elders soon. I think that it does a good job making the spiritual life accessible, especially to our tribe, when other volumes on the spiritual life might seem a little too difficult to use in our everyday lives. Tippens is deeply grounded in the Scriptures and the Christian spiritual tradition.

He wants us to hear Jesus invitation to "Follow me." He writes, Jesus' invitation reflects how the Christian life is rather simply, at one level. It is a matter of rejecting the allure of the sedentary life in order to get out on the road and seek God. The saints through the ages can be recognized by their searching spirits. They live as strangers and foreigners on the earth. "[T]hey desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore, God is not ashamed to be called their God; indeed, he has prepared a city for them" (Hebrews 11:14-16). A faithful heart is always a passionate pilgrim heart, ever on the road, ever moving forward--searching for understanding, seeking the face of God (198).

I also loved this quote, especially in light of my work with college students and young adults and couples who are struggling with the hard questions of life and faith which are too often not welcome questions in "the church": Through the years I have been blessed by faithful friends who have not merely tolerated, but welcomed, my questions. In their hospitable company something quite unexpected happened. The doubts grew less fierce in the warm glow of their welcome. When I saw that my toughest questions did not rattle or unsettle them, I became more settled and less doubtful. Airing the doubts, I have found does not enlarge them--just the reverse....Wondering and wandering may be necessary to spiritual discovery whereas making doubts taboo only ensures that they grow stronger (196). (I like the "wondering and wandering! I should have gotten that trademarked! ;-) )

He goes on to say something that I may pass out to several godly and wonderful parents at LOCC: When we desperately want others, especially those most dear to us, to believe, it is often hard to grant them the space to question and to work things through. We want to see them arrive at the shining destination by the shortest route. Yet one of the finest gifts we can give strugglers is the freedom to take the long way 'round. Jesus promises us that if we ask, we will receive; if we search, we will find; if we knock, the door will be opened (Matthew 7:7-11) A good question to ask ourselves is this: Do we trust Jesus on this point? (191)

Here are three quotes that Tippens mines out of the writers of the spiritual tradition that captured my attention today:

From Soren Kierkegaard (in Tippens' chapter on discernment): What I really need it to be clear about what I must do, not what I must know....What matters is to find a purpose, to see what it really is that God wills that I should do; the crucial thing is to find a truth which is truth for me, to find the idea for which I am willing to live and die....[O]f what use would it be to me to be able to formulate the meaning of Christianity...if it had no deeper meaning for me and for my life?

From Flannery O'Conner (in Tippens' chapter on suffering): I think there is no suffering greater than what is caused by the doubts of those who want to believe. I know what torment this is, but I can only see it, in myself anyway, as the process by which faith is deepened....What people don't realize is how much religion costs. They think faith is a big electric blanket, when of course it is the cross. It is much harder to believe than not to believe. If you can't believe, you must at least do this: keep an open mind. Keep it open toward faith, keep wanting it, keep asking for it, and leave the rest to God.

From Thomas Merton (in Tippens' chapter on seeking): My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think that I am following you will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road though I may know nothing about it. Therefore will I trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.

Well, after writing this I still miss my girls. I get to seem them around noon tomorrow. Tomorrow come quickly!

Followers, not Admirers

This week I had the honor of sitting on a panel at Rochester College to discuss what it means to ‘live dangerous lives’ as Christians. It should be a familiar topic to those who have journeyed through narrative of Acts or through church history. From the earliest days of the emerging church, men and women have been answering Christ’s call to live dangerous lives.

As I was thinking about the topic, my mind went back to one of my favorite spiritual gadflies, Søren Kierkegaard. I spent time prayerfully reading and pondering some of his reflections and was incredibly challenged by his insights in the following excerpt. I hope and pray that his words will challenge all of us as we continue to answer daily Jesus’ call to discipleship, to be followers, not simply admirers.

From Kierkegaard, Provocations, 85-88

It is well known that Christ consistently used the expression “follower.” He never asks for admirers, worshippers, or adherents. No, he calls disciples. It is not adherents of a teaching but followers of a life Christ is looking for.

Christ understood that being a “disciple” was in innermost and deepest harmony with what he said about himself. Christ claimed to be the way and the truth and the life (Jn. 14:6). For this reason, he could never be satisfied with adherents who accepted his teaching – especially with those who in their lives ignored it or let things take their usual course. His whole life on earth, from beginning to end, was destined solely to have followers and to make admirers impossible.

Christ came into the world with the purpose of saving, not instructing it. At the same time – as is implied in his saving work – he came to be the pattern, to leave footprints for the person who would join him, who would become a follower. This is why Christ was born and lived and died in lowliness. It is absolutely impossible for anyone to sneak away from the Pattern with excuse and evasion on the basis that It, after all, possessed earthly and worldly advantages that he did not have. In that sense, to admire Christ is the false invention of a later age, aided by the presumption of “loftiness.” No, there is absolutely nothing to admire in Jesus, unless you want to admire poverty, misery, and contempt.

What then, is the difference between an admirer and a follower? A follower is or strives to be what he admires. An admirer, however, keeps himself personally detached. He fails to see that what is admired involves a claim upon him, and thus he fails to be or strive to be what he admires.

To want to admire instead of to follow Christ is not necessarily an invention by bad people. No, it is more an invention by those who spinelessly keep themselves detached, who keep themselves at a safe distance. Admirers are related to the admired only through the excitement of the imagination. To them he is like an actor on the stage except that, this being real life, the effect he produces is somewhat stronger. But for their part, admirers make the same demands that are made in the theater: to sit safe and calm. Admirers are only all too willing to serve Christ as long as proper caution is exercised, lest one personally come in contact with danger. As such, they refuse to accept that Christ’s life is a demand. In actual fact, they are offended at him. His radical, bizarre character so offends them that when they honestly see Christ for who he is, they are no longer able to experience the tranquility they so much seek after. They know full well that to associate with him too closely amounts to being up for examination. Even though he “says nothing” against them personally, they know that his life tacitly judges theirs.

And Christ’s life indeed makes it manifest, terrifyingly manifest, what dreadful untruth it is to admire the truth instead of following it. When there is no danger, when there is a dead calm, when everything is favorable to our Christianity, it is all too easy to confuse an admirer with a follower. And this can happen very quietly. The admirer can be in the delusion that the position he takes is the true one, when all he is doing is playing it safe. Give heed, therefore, to the call of discipleship!

Now suppose that there is no longer any special danger, as it no doubt is in so many of our Christian countries, bound up with publicly confessing Christ. Suppose there is no longer need to journey in the night. The difference between following and admiring – between being, or at least striving to be – still remains. Forget about this danger connected with confessing Christ and think rather of the real danger which is inescapably bound up with being a Christian. Does not the Way – Christ’s requirement to die to the world, to forgo the worldly, and his requirement of self-denial – does this not contain enough danger? If Christ’s commandment were to be obeyed, would they not constitute a danger? Would they not be sufficient to manifest the difference between an admirer and a follower?

The difference between an admirer and a follower still remains, no matter where you are. The admirer never makes any true sacrifices. He always plays it safe. Though in words, phrases, songs, he is inexhaustible about how highly he prizes Christ, he renounces nothing, gives up nothing, will not reconstruct his life, will not be what he admires, and will not let his life express what it is he supposedly admires. Not so for the follower. No, no. The follower aspires with all his strength, with all his will to be what he admires. And then, remarkably enough, even though he is living amongst a “Christian people,” the same danger results for him as was once the case when it was dangerous to openly confess Christ. And because of the follower’s life, it will become evident who the admirers are, for the admirers will become agitated with him. Even that these words are presented as they are here will disturb many – but then they must likewise belong to the admirers.