For some reason this morning, I’ve had breakfast with two of the great metaphors-for-goodness-and-pureness of all times.
First, I read an article in Time magazine this week about Billy Graham and his relationship with 11 former Presidents. What an incredible journey. He was there discussing the end of the world with Jack Kennedy, the first of only a few men who had access to a button that could make it happen. He was there talking about death with Lyndon Johnson, who saw his friend and running mate killed in Dallas and who vowed to never put America through that again.
It’s an interesting study in Legacy. Even in an age when political mistrust – and mistrust of powerful religious leaders – is rampant, Graham is still regarded as one of the most honest leaders ever on the national scene. Although his career as the President’s pastor was marked with controversy – an appalling conversation with Nixon about Jews; lobbying of other politicians; campaign consulting – he managed to overcome it. Perhaps it was his very honest and self-aware statement in 1981 that put him on the track of saint-like stature (and rightly so):
“Evangelicals can’t be closely identified with any particular party or person. We have to stand in the middle, to preach to all the people, right and left. I haven’t been faithful to my own advice in the past. I will in the future.”
I often wonder about Billy at 25. I wonder if he could imagine all the he would see and hear and do in his life. I wonder if he was as nervous about being a pastor as I am sometimes. I’m sure he did. And I’m sure he found peace in the moments where God breaks through and, instead of the usual wisdom and guidance, he brings humility. Otherwise, he would have never been able to comfort LBJ – worried about eternity – with these words:
“I am not going to Heaven because I have preached to great crowds or read the Bible many times. I’m going to Heaven just like the thief on the cross who said in that last moment: ‘Lord, remember me.’”
Congrats are in order for Billy as well for defeating Johnny Cash in the Time Magazine Old-Man-Staring-Wistfully-at-the-Camera Photo Contest:
Second, I read an article this morning on Time.com (here it is) about Mother Theresa. Apparently, she really struggled with dry spells in her faith. In fact, a new book has just been published about how she perhaps spent the last 40 years of her life feeling an intense distance from God’s presence in her soul.
The book is called Mother Theresa: Come be my Light, and it is a collection of letters that she wrote to her confessors and supervisors throughout the course of her career. The letters* show the yearnings of her heart to connect again with God in the silence of meditation and the sincerity of her prayers.
The book is barely out and yet controversy and conversation already abound about its premise. I think the bruhaha just demonstrates a fundamental misunderstanding of the Christian faith. In a day when TV and megachurch preachers are often busy bringing the feel-good, plastic smile vibe, we forget that the life that Jesus called his followers to was very different. He was very clear that the path to following Him wasn’t all giggles and hugs and that he warned – more often than not – that it would include suffering, despair and even death.
Theresa understood that. Otherwise, there would be no way that she could have gotten up day after day and faced down death and pain and illness in the streets of Calcutta. The irony of the book and the discussion around it is that it is in fact us who really experience a great distance from God when we fail to realize that there’s a place where He can be nearer to us than even the depth of our soul. And that place is with the poor, needy and unloved. We forget that in Philippians 2, Paul reminds us that we should be like Christ and become a slave for others’ sake. In fact, the Bible is clear that we are never closer to Jesus than when we are neck-deep in the hurting cries of humanity. Theresa understood it. The peace that she missed in prayer, she found in comforting the dying. King David understood it. Although his dark nights are recorded in the Psalms, we know that his heart still sought God’s because of the way he led and cared for his people. Paul also understood this. In his letters, we see his despair peek through and then be comforted by His devotion to Jesus and His love for Jesus’ church.
What Theresa experienced in her despair was not an example of God’s unreliability, but a moment in which the true essence of Faith could be known.
*She actually specifically requested for the letters to be destroyed upon her death. Kindof weird now that they weren’t. She’s happy with Jesus and we’re here arguing about her despair.
