by Philp Turner.
Joan Chittister, the American Benedictine, describes a seeker approaching a monastic. ‘What do you do in a monastery?’, the seeker asks. The monastic replies, ‘Oh, we fall and we get up; we fall and we get up; we fall and we get up.’[1]
Lent has now begun, the season when churches often provide focused ways to draw people into closer alignment with God revealed in Jesus. John Wesley highlighted prayer, searching the scriptures and receiving the Lord’s Supper as the ‘chief’ ways,[2] as well as worship, the ministry of the word and abstinence.[3] In various places Wesley adds other activities like drawing alongside the vulnerable, remembering that God in Jesus became vulnerable.[4] Lent, then, is an opportunity to offer the invitation to ‘be holy’,[5] though churches might choose different phrases to express this. Yet, I’m drawn back to Chittister’s description of Christian community. While churches raise people’s aspirations for following Christ, to what extent do our churches also use Lent to normalise falling and failing as integral and inevitable? In addition to equipping people with the tools to press forward in discipleship, how well do we prepare others (and ourselves) for when we fall flat on our faces?
The world of politicians and celebrities can set the tone for much of life. We raise up those who, by various criteria, do well, and we ensure that those who miss the mark are shamed. There is merit to this: no one should celebrate actions that cause harm to others. Yet there a risk that the vitriol of social media unwittingly creates our embodied theology. Unless churches regularly check public discourse with the narrative of failure that is integral to the path of holiness, and with teaching of how people can get up after their fall, might churches risk promoting a gospel not found in the Bible?
Lent often begins through highlighting the Temptations of Jesus. Mark is silent on how well Jesus did with these temptations,[6] but it is Hebrews,[7] perhaps drawing on Matthew[8] and Luke,[9] that enables the celebrant to exhort Lenten worshippers that Jesus was ‘tempted in every way as we are, yet without sin.’[10] While good and right, the congregation might understandably hear that failure is something that should not be part of Christian experience, and perfect performance as the only proper narrative of the church. Yet Mark presents Jesus’ disciples as aspiring to be the best, but ultimately and persistently failing in their understanding and their lack of faith. Mark is a Gospel that shows the followers of Jesus as those who fall, and get up; fall, and get up; fall, and get up.
I work as a chaplain in an acute hospital where, like throughout the NHS, doctors and nurses can be portrayed as ‘heroes’ who miraculously fix and heal. Lower status is given the staff known as ‘Allied Health Professionals’. These are Speech and Language Therapists, who support you as you learn to eat, for example, after a stroke. These are Physiotherapists who help you improve your strength, for example, after or hip replacement or a time in intensive care. These are Occupational Therapists who support you as you think through changes you might need to make to your everyday living. These wonderful people perform necessary roles because, in life, unfortunate things do happen and we need people, quite literally, to help us back on to our feet.
Perhaps this comes primarily from outside the church, but too often there is a narrative that being a Christian is equal to living a perfectly performed life, and holiness is equal to flawlessness. This is not the narrative of scripture. The Bible highlights Jacob, Moses and David, as well as Peter and Paul, because, through their failings, God’s glory shines. They all had at least one person in their lives who saw holiness not equal to ‘zero defects’, and the path to holiness not equal to a perfectionistic programme. Clearly, failure was not their goal, and it should not be ours, but what if the Gospel presents falling as a necessary part – evidence, even – that someone might be sincerely aspiring to be a follower of Jesus? And, if so, does our church have an ‘Allied Health Professional’ to help get people back on their feet?
[1] Joan Chittister, Seeing with our Souls: Monastic Wisdom for Everyday (London: Sheed & Ward, 2002)
[2] John Wesley, ‘The Means of Grace’ in The Works of John Wesley, volume 1 ed. by Albert C. Outler (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1984)
[3] John Wesley, ‘The Nature, Design, and the General Rules of the United Societies’, in in The Works of John Wesley, volume 9 ed. by Rupert E. Davies (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1989)
[4] See Philippians 2.5-11 and Matthew 25.31-46.
[5] See Leviticus 11.44-45. See also Leviticus 19.2; 20.26; 21.8 and 1 Peter 1.15. Methodists in Lent might even want to offer the invitation to ‘spread scriptural holiness’
[6] See Mark 1.13.
[7] Hebrews 4.15
[8] Matthew 4.1-11
[9] Luke 4.1-13
[10] See Trustees for Methodist Church Purposes, The Methodist Worship Book (Peterborough: Methodist Publishing House, 1999), p.154.
Theology Everywhere 
Much as I would like to be agreeable with these ideas they raise questions. Of course we fall and then get up, but where do we get the strength to “get up”? Wesley highlights prayer, scripture, the Lord’s Supper, worship, the ministry of the word and abstinence, with “drawing alongside the vulnerable” as a possible other activity. For me this “other activity” is everything. God ONLY comes to mind when I look outward from self and respond to the needs of others. This is the theology of alterity in which through ethical melancholy and ethical vigilance we open ourselves to the needs of others and in doing so transcend ourselves and find God. It even comes to my mind that the person before us, vulnerable and broken, is, at that moment, Christ. If we have any sense we would not proselytise or talk about Wesley’s list of highlights at that point, but stand alongside the person in need: With human kindliness we point out that guilt, discouragement and despair do not have the last word. The last, and first, word is that God is love: The love that freely gives us forgiveness for our past mistakes, courage to face the present and hope for the future. And knowing that we find the strength to get back on our feet.
Reference: Glenn Morrison: “A Theology of Alterity: Levinas , von Balthasar and Trinitarian Praxis”.
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Much as I would like to be completely agreeable with these ideas they raise questions for me. Of course we fall and then get up, but where do we get the strength to “get up”? Wesley highlights prayer, scripture, the Lord’s Supper, worship, the ministry of the word and abstinence, with “drawing alongside the vulnerable” as a possible other activity. For me this “other activity” is everything. God ONLY comes to mind when I look outward from self and respond to the needs of others. This is the theology of alterity in which through ethical melancholy and ethical vigilance we open ourselves to the needs of others and in doing so transcend ourselves and find God. It even comes to my mind that the person before us, vulnerable and broken, is, at that moment, Christ. If we have any sense we would not proselytise or talk about Wesley’s list of highlights at that point, but stand alongside the person in need: With human kindliness we point out that guilt, discouragement and despair do not have the last word. The last, and first, word is that God is love: The love that freely gives us forgiveness for our past mistakes, courage to face the present and hope for the future. And knowing that we find the strength to get back on our feet.
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“too often there is a narrative that being a Christian is equal to living a perfectly performed life, and holiness is equal to flawlessness. This is not the narrative of scripture. The Bible highlights Jacob, Moses and David, as well as Peter and Paul, because, through their failings, God’s glory shines. They all had at least one person in their lives who saw holiness not equal to ‘zero defects’, and the path to holiness not equal to a perfectionistic programme. ”
yes this, too often I meet people who daren’t talk of their struggles because they feel they should be perfect, and live partially hidden lives because they feel they are not who they should be. This is nonsense of course, and it paralyses people who should and could avail themselves of God’s grace because they feel they are not worthy of it….
Maybe we need to see our falling as an opportunity!
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The Fall
The road was long and I travelled alone.
From time to time
a companion would draw near
and offer to share the load,
but I clung to my heavy burden,
too ashamed to reveal
its toxic contents.
So they drifted away
and I pressed on.
Night came, black and suffocating.
I could not see the road ahead
and my coat, heavy and cumbersome,
could not keep the icy fingers of fear
from clinging to my skin.
I turned to go back
but there was only darkness,
for I had come too far
to ever return.
Defeated, I fell to my knees,
losing my grip on the baggage
I had carried for so long.
Falling away, it split open,
its ugliness laid bare for all to see.
Weeping and beseeching, I called out
‘Please help me, I can’t do this alone.’
And I slept, weightless and adrift.
As I awoke in your warm embrace,
the first light of a bright new day pierced the horizon.
(Wayfarer 2018)
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Wonderful poem! Thought I would share one of mine. Should add that here I am thinking of God analogically – reflected in human love. if I try to personalise Christ I find myself addressing a young woman! That’s probably an heresy, but that’s just the way it is.
Blue Girl
Will you hold my hand? My blue girl.
Will the brown, red base of dark earth be set lose
To burn through the thin envelope of easy boundaries.
And will this frail frame survive the shock:
When the sky enfolds the empty clouds,
When grave weight goes and wild winds blow,
To soar above the earth,
Entering the last vast openness
And will you then hold my hand?
You hold my hand and the still certainties whirl
You smile and all is changed
The new earth glows, tears swell,
Heart stops, warmth soars and fills all to overflowing.
Aura sparking, lightening across cerulean bands of blue
The white light shining in the shine of your hair.
And I am full, complete and simply blest by standing there.
At your side, when you hold my hand.
How can you wield such power, my beloved?
Your presence alone can lift the chains from the past
And by a look burn away all the wild regrets
Your grace takes the need, the loss and the fear
This is an eternity fitted to a moment
Everything is in place and fixed and certain
Where all will be well.
O! How you overflow my dreams,
How you colour my days with glory.
I will praise you and never cease,
In whose service there is perfect peace.
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