This last week I received an e-mail that I think is of considerable relevance to all of us who are engaged with using and/or teaching the Sayings format of The Words of Jesus. The letter was no note, believe me; it was a letter, and it was entitled “A Dilemma!” with considerable and obvious sincerity. Instead of printing the whole thing here, I am going to simply re-state the main points, paste in a few pertinent sentences from the original, and then obscure or delete any tell-tale specifics in order to protect the writer’s privacy. Other than that, though, my correspondent’s story and query went like this: She was a lay woman, she said, who was [and I gather, still is] participating in an inter-denominational group that meets weekly to study the Words together. She lives in a fairly large city and is a member of an older, very established church that, she said, is “stuck” in some kind of morass of ‘business as usual,’ so to speak. The problem in all of this is that her pastor, whom the writer obviously holds in high regard, has asked her to convene and teach on a weekly basis an adult group to study The Words of Jesus. This would be just fine with her, she said, except:“…that there are very, very few people at my church who show that they have the kind of experience that would prepare them for the kind of study that our focus group has done, and I feel most reluctant to try to summarize what our experience has been. Although I’d like for people (or at least some people) at my church to have the experience of sharing the reading of WOJ in a group, it would be virtually impossible to communicate to them ahead of time what kind of preparation and dedication it would take—it would probably just be a random group of “whoever’s interested.” I could tell them how challenging, even scary, it is, and they would think they understood, but I don’t think they would really understand. “On the other hand, I don’t want to be a snob. I can’t feel that the WOJ is only for an elite group of spiritually deep thinkers. Maybe someone else, who hasn’t done the kind of work that I’ve done with the text, would have an easier time of it, without the sense of conflict that I have. I can’t do this if it’s going to be agonizing; I just don’t have it in me to take that on, at least not now.“Just wondered if you had any thoughts. This isn’t urgent—I don’t have to make a commitment, or say no, anytime right away. I’m thinking you may have already thought through this dilemma. Our church has the seeds of real growth and potential to expand, but right now we are pretty stuck.”

* * * * *Every once in a while, there comes a letter like this that is nothing short of a gift not only from the writer who expended the time and energy required to send it, but also from Heaven itself. The minute I read her letter the first time [I must have read it a half dozen times since, at least.] I knew she had put her finger on a problem. In fact, I wrote back:“….and you also have a penchant, I suspect, for being able to put your finger right on the soft spot or sore point, or whatever metaphor is most apt here. “You also are very good at stating your case clearly. That is, I think I have a pretty good sense of what you are saying here about a congregation that is of at least two dispositions. It’s a problem as old as Christianity, I suspect. Some of us thrive on thinking about the substance of our faith, while others of us wither under the inevitable anxiety that attends any kind of studied approach to faith. Inevitably, if a believer looks too hard, some, one, small, piece of something is going to have to be removed or re-inserted somewhere else or re-worded or reconsidered; and the result is going to be that half the pieces surrounding the now errant one will all fall out too, making a mess on the spirit’s floor and requiring hours and days of re-building. But you already know that, and know as well that it is especially true in doing the WofJ. “Whatever else I am, though, I am not an iconoclast and neither, I am guessing, are you. The last thing in the world I want to be caught doing is deliberately tearing up somebody else’s interior theological and/or devotional architecture just for the sake of making a scramble of things or even for the sake of cleaning out debris and useless junk pointlessly. Paul has to have been right on this one that some of us want meat, but others of us can handle only milk. So be it. God in His mercy provides food for both sorts and conditions; and we’d be smart to not try to improve on His generosity. “On the other hand,….ah, there’s the rub, isn’t it?….On the other hand, the Messiah, we are taught, was Word Incarnate. That, actually, is the substantive definition we are given for Him. So it must be that the words of the Word Incarnate are the nearest or most accessible bits of Him we have, save for prayer and ecstatic experience itself. This, I am assuming, is why your pastor has approached you about taking on this load. So given both the necessity of engaging Jesus and your pastor’s sense of concern that you try to lead at least some of your fellow members in this way of engagement, then the question really becomes a bit different, I think. Given all of this, it becomes a question of whether or not there are ways of winnowing out some of the hard parts. Are there ways to set aside the more difficult and discomforting Sayings for later study…or for further study with those who have survived the first, more predictable and comforting sessions and still wish to go farther? “For example, would it be feasible with a group like the one you describe…a mix of those who are toddlers, at best, with more matured believers…to commence not with His words of Instruction, but with the Healing Dialogs. In terms of popular perception, the majority of people probably think of Jesus first as a miracle worker. Only after that do we think of Him as God and working savior. And only after that do we really begin to think of Him as God teaching God’s Godness. All of which is to say that I wonder now, three months after the fact, whether or not I should have suggested in quite so blanket a way in the “Reflections” that folks should commence their reading with the words of Private Instruction. Rather, I suspect now that I should have said more about who should begin where…what kinds of folks will find which Book of Sayings to be the best entry point. “And as for whether or not one should go forward, you’re not going to like my answer, I fear, but yes, you have to, I think, to the extent that strength and the Spirit empower you in such a decision. These are His words as He provided them to us. They are what we are when we worship. If we do not provide to ourselves and those committed to our care the means of direct contact and direct engagement, we either stifle the spirit or else put so many layers of stuff between it and the Beloved that we anesthetize it. “What do I hope? I hope you’ll begin slow and assume toddlers. The mature believers will profit as well, but they will also push on for more, I’ll wager. The toddlers will be the better nourished for what they have received in the Healing Dialog Words; but being timid or restive, I’ll also wager they’ll drop out after the Healing Words rather than take on more than they can digest….or I pray that is true, anyway.

“And one last thing, please know that I am grateful…very grateful…for the opportunity you have given me to think this through….and I pray for your decision, whatever it is, to be the better one.” Phyllis Tickle

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The whole purpose of this web site and blog is, of course, to circulate questions and answers, problems and solutions, just like this one. Please feel free…no, please feel obligated…to post here any pertinent comments or suggestions you may have that would be of interest to the rest of us. If you prefer to address me directly, as this writer did, then please do that; and I will post edited and protected precises for the use of all…pt