First, the exhibition is arranged thematically, not chronologically, the themes being: Observation, Contemplation, Creativity, and Society.  This was a creative decision that focuses attention on fundamental human activities rather than on time periods or academic fields.

Second, the explanation of “Contemplation,” obviously the sector of interest to religious folk, is nicely put in a way that has missiological significance:

Whether focused on a deity, a spiritual force, or the individual soul, the search for something beyond the material realities of daily life has always been one of the hallmarks of humanity.  From the Bhagavata Purana, celebrating stories of Krishna, to T. S. Eliot’s classic modernist poem The Waste Land, the items displayed here reflect the ceaseless desire for meaning.  In their own quests, individuals as varied as Dante Alighieri, Rabindranath Tagore, Virginia Woolf, and Malcolm X have used travel – the journey, the pilgrimage, the search – as a metaphor or organizing principle.

Travel is intrinsic to mission, of course, for mission involves moving beyond one’s own community to encounter other communities.  The travel may be literal geographical travel to a distant geography, or it may be metaphorical travel to the very different social group on the next block.  For the authentic missioner, travel of whatever kind becomes a pilgrimage, that, is, a journey in which the traveler discovers something more about God.

Third, among the items in Contemplation is a remarkable large book entitled The Sundhya, or The Daily Prayers of the Brahmins.  The bulk of the book is a series of finely rendered colored drawings of Hindu Brahmins at their prayers at various pilgrimage sites in India.  Published in 1861, it is the work of a Mrs. S. C. Belnis, an English woman resident in Bengal.  Clearly she had not only an excellent artistic hand but also a deep appreciation for the religious people she was depicting.  Nothing is said of her own religious affiliation, but we may presume she was a Christian.  There is nothing to indicate she had any particular missional interest, but it is noteworthy that here was an English colonial resident who valued Hindu devotion enough to depict it in painstaking and, I speculate, loving detail.

Fourth, facsimiles of maybe 30 diary pages of Malcolm X from his Hajj, or pilgrimage, to Mecca are laid out so that one can read them sequentially.  The missional significance of Malcolm X for Islam among many in the USA cannot be underestimated, although some in the wider world of Islam were ambivalent about the USAmerican Black Muslim Movement.

Finally, included in the Contemplation section is the first surviving book printed in the Western Hemisphere.  Entitled Doctrina Breve, this Spanish-language work is a brief outline of church doctrine.  It was composed by Juan de Zumarraga (1468-1548), the first bishop of the Spanish colony of New Spain, who founded a printing press in Tenochtitian, what is now Mexico City.  Doctrina Breve was published in 1543-1544.  Obviously, the work was designed to assist in the catechetical instruction of converts in New Spain, that is, designed for use in mission.  Its publication antedated by almost a century the publication of the first book in British North America, the Bay Psalm Book in 1640.

The exhibition continues through 4 March 2012.  The exhibition website, unfortunately, is not particularly inviting or informative, so don’t be put off by it – just go.

A  few days before Christmas I was scurrying around an art supply store for a Christmas project.  I stopped in mid-stride.  There at the end of an aisle a woman was sitting on a crate.  Around her were cardboard boxes and picture frames left by the frenzy of shoppers, but she was at peace and totally preoccupied, because she had in her lap a baby.

She might have been from Africa, but she could have been born and brought up anywhere.  I couldn’t see the baby for all the little blankets, but I knew a baby was there.  The mother was stroking her baby’s face, letting her child know that mother was there, that the child was loved and cared for. 

I was arrested mid-stride by the peace, the tenderness, the mother’s devotion.  Presently, the mother looked up and caught my eye.  There was no point in pretending that I wasn’t staring, so I smiled to let her know I saw the beauty.  She smiled back and returned to her child.

I went on my way knowing that what had arrested me was Madonna and Child: not only the reminder of the mother Mary and infant Jesus who are luminous for us today, but the conviction that Mary and Jesus were aware of the mother and child at the end of the aisle.  Here in the art store, this madonna and child were to be treasured as infinitely precious, cherished as a sacrament of God, lifted up as a sign of what it is to be human.

That is what the Christmas story of God’s love does to us.  It changes us even as we hear it.  It changes how we look at God.  It changes how we look at ourselves and one another.  If God treasures us that much, maybe we can treasure ourselves.  If God sees us as so precious, maybe we ought to take another look at ourselves and at one another.  Our problem most of the time is not that we think too much of ourselves, but that we think too little of ourselves; not that we overrate ourselves as something we are not, but that we underrate ourselves as less that we are.

That affects how we see other people as well.  If we feel “less than,” we’re likely to be anxious about whether others are “less than” or “more than” ourselves.  Given our insecurity, we usually wish “less than,” and from that stem our sins, petty and otherwise.

Jesus was and is the great sign, God’s great and loving intervention in the human story.  God intervenes with an embrace,  invites us to join in extending the embrace.

We have been watching.  Behold now our friend and savior.  Prepare him room.  Watch for his invitation.  And give thanks.

This meditation is adapted from Titus Presler’s “Alert for Signs: Seeing and Praying through Advent” (Forward Movement Publications). 

Moving for me in these remarks was the understanding and appreciation that the student expressed for how Christians have come to understand the festival that signals the start of what we regard as the central act in God’s redemption of the cosmos, the Christ event.  Celebration, not dialogue was the purpose of the dinner, and here was a member of another religion, the majority religion in that setting, interpreting the ethical implications of Christmas in a way that most Christians would fine quite congenial. 

The event opened with a reading of Luke 2:1-20, the New Testament passage that recounts the birth of Jesus at Bethlehem and the coming of shepherds to the stable where the holy family was staying.  This was followed by a reading of Sura 19:16-34 from the Quran, which recounts a messenger announcing to Maryam that she would bear a son and then the birth itself.

The image of Mary holding onto the trunk of a date palm while in the pangs of childbirth and exclaiming, “Oh, that I had died ere this!” is quite affecting.  So is the voice the Quran says she then heard: “Your Lord has placed a rivulet beneath you, and shake the trunk of the palm tree toward you, and you will cause ripe dates to fall upon you.  So eat and drink and be consoled.”

Both the Biblical and Quranic narratives about Jesus’ birth stress that God was interested enough in humanity to intervene in history.  We learn that God is not distant, but close; not detached, but engaged.  God is passionate about restoring humanity to reconciled relationship with God.

Behind the ethical mandates noted by the student, we might say that the Christmas state of mind is one that is lives in expectation of God’s action, alert for signs of God’s action.  It is a state of mind then willing to join God in such action.

It is good to hear how heartening the visit by the Archbishop of Canterbury was in October.  Bp. Makoni confirms news accounts at the time that Rowan Williams was firm and clear with President Mugabe about the oppression that Anglicans have been experiencing from the renegade groups and law enforcement agencies.  It has always been clear that Mugabe’s professions of ignorance about what has been going on were sheer prevarication, and the archbishop’s visit was effective in removing the excuse that Anglicans’ suffering was previously unknown news.

Bp. Makoni’s letter follows:

ANGLICAN DIOCESE OF MANICALAND CPCA

Pastoral Letter                                       November 2011

To our Brothers and Sisters in the Anglican Diocese of Manicaland and to our friends further afield.

I write to you with great concern over the prevailing challenges and suffering the church is still going through in our diocese. I also write with great joy and hope when I consider the success stories in the diocese despite the challenges we continue to face daily.

We still do not have access to about 50% of our diocesan schools, clinics and hospitals and churches. This has hindered progress and development as opportunities have been lost and many lives badly affected. Despite the challenges we face, including our inability to pay stipends, legal bills and rentals, our congregations continue to grow in numbers outstripping the challenges. Yes we are concerned, “but we are not anxious but continue to present our plight before the Lord in prayers.” (Philippians 4:4-8).

In August, the diocese hosted a Zimbabwe Anglican Youth Association (ZAYA) annual conference. Youths from all the five Anglican dioceses in Zimbabwe converged at Hartzell High School, a Methodist institution, from the 5^th to the 8^th of August 2011 for a vibrant and powerful conference. Regrettably, this conference could have been held at St Augustine’s Mission where the Anglican Church started in Zimbabwe but the youth were denied access to this conducive and historical venue. They were however, not deterred by the high costs of hiring the Hartzell High School facilities. About five hundred youths from all over Zimbabwe attended. This was a great success and they were highly inspired and strengthened. We value youth ministry in the diocese and should keep on supporting them in our churches.

From the 11^th to the 14^th of August 2011 the diocese registered another big success by successfully hosting the Anglican Mothers’ Union of Zimbabwe (AMUZ) annual conference at Mutare Teachers’ College. This was a well organized, spirit -filled and well attended conference. About five thousand ladies from all corners of Zimbabwe enjoyed the joyous and powerful fellowship. All the five Anglican Bishops in Zimbabwe attended the main mass on the 13^th of August 2011. The bishops gave powerful messages of solidarity with Anglicans in Zimbabwe. Indeed this event was a clear demonstration of the strength of the true Anglican Church. It was an eye-opener too for those who have decided to follow Mr. Jakazi and Mr. Kunonga. Some of the misguided members attended the conference under cover of darkness to see whether it would be a success. They must have been shocked to realize that they are very much in the minority since almost ninety percent or more of Anglicans in Zimbabwe have remained faithful to the true CPCA. It is pleasing to note that despite the financial challenges in the diocese and the perpetual harassment by Mr.  Jakazi and Mr. Kunonga’s supporters, sometimes with help from the police, true Anglicans have not despaired.

The diocese was highly privileged to receive the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, on the 10^th of October 2011. He was accompanied by the Archbishops of Central Africa, Tanzania and Southern Africa, and bishops of Botswana, Harare, Manicaland, and Southwark. The Archbishop and his party visited the displaced congregation of St Matthew’s Parish, Rusape, where he worshiped with and encouraged the gathered faithful. It was touching to witness His Grace and other bishops join in worship with the displaced congregation in a town hall with poor ventilation. Their church stood locked and remained dark, only a few hundred yards away.

The next stop was St Paul’s, Christmas Pass, where displaced worshippers were gathered and are thinking of building a large church and conference centre. His Grace blessed the site. Next stop was the Mutare Showgrounds, where I was consecrated two years ago- how time flies! A gathering of about three thousand worshippers gave the Archbishop and the accompanying Archbishops and bishops a rousing welcome. Dr Williams gave a moving homily and encouraged all gathered to remain steadfast in the faith. He assured us of his and the support and prayers of the worldwide Anglican Communion.

From the Showgrounds, the visiting party made a brief stop at St John’s Cathedral. We were denied access but I managed to knock at the Western door with my Crosier and was joined in prayer by all the bishops present.

We had a welcome break at our rented diocesan office. There was much singing and dancing and photo opportunities – when the Archbishops were not swaying to the Manicaland Gospel rhythms!

St Augustine’s Penhalonga was our final stop in Manicaland. Rather than argue at the locked gates, we took a side entrance and walked up the hill to the church, then the CZR Convent where we spent time in prayer and reflection led by the Archbishop. This was indeed a poignant and memorable time.

From Manicaland we sped back to Harare where we met with President Mugabe. The meeting was cordial. The Archbishops and all the bishops were received well. The Archbishop presented the President with a dossier of abuses against Anglicans in Zimbabwe. The President professed ignorant of these abuses and promised to look into the matter. Throughout, the Archbishop was polite but firm and focused. We had a brief meeting with the Prime Minister in the evening.

Full marks for the Archbishop who dare enter the lion’s den to speak, firmly and without fear especially after his powerful sermon at a service attended by an estimated twenty thousand people in Harare the day before. Apart from highlighting our plight, the Archbishop’s visit showed unequivocally that Messrs Kunonga and Jakazi are not Anglicans, despite their claims to the contrary. A lot of their followers have since seen the light and left them. Secondly our plight is now out in the open and the authorities cannot profess ignorance anymore. The rest we leave to our law courts. The Archbishop played his part fully.

It is my encouragement to all of you to seek wisdom, knowledge and understanding as well as God’s guidance in all that we do in life.  Choose to be an instrument of righteousness and not an instrument of wickedness.

Soon after the Archbishop’s visit the diocese hosted two visitors from, Southwark Diocese, Woolwich Episcopal Area. Fr Steve Cook and Fr Anthony Buckley were in the diocese from the 15^th to the 21^st of October 2011. There is a mutual link relationship between our diocese and the Woolwich Episcopal Area. Steve and Anthony were impressed   by what they saw. They said that they learnt a lot from their visits to schools, churches and even families in Manicaland. “Our interaction with Anglicans in Manicaland at different levels or in different circumstances be it at a school, in church, or over a meal had a lot say about your faith, determination and hope in doing the work of the Lord.” said Anthony. We thank the Woolwich Episcopal Area for their prayers and support.

The diocese sent six ordinands to Bishop Gaul College in Harare and one Ordinand to Westcott House, Cambridge.  We thank the Community of the Resurrection (CR Fathers) who helped the diocese to raise US$8400 for the college fees and Canon Martin Seeley who helped to fund the Westcott House Ordinand. This is a big step in an effort to increase the number of trained priests in the diocese. It is only the beginning. More ordinands should be sent for theological training because we are still very far from meeting the required number of priests in the diocese. This critical need calls for greater commitment and sacrificial giving to support the training of priests.

Whilst many churches  have been unlawfully taken over by Mr. Jakazi we have had moments of great joy and celebration after lawfully taking back some of our churches. Tears of grief soaked the elderly ladies from All Saints Zimunya church when their church was unlawfully taken over by Jakazi’s priests with the help of the police.  When the matter was taken to the High Court, justice prevailed unlike in many other cases where we have been denied justice. We got back All Saints Zimunya church on the 11^th of October 2011 and this time tears of joy streamed down on the same faces where tears of grief had flowed. All our assets that had been unlawfully grabbed are being recovered lawfully. The process is slow. I know you have suffered, you have cried but our faith and hope is that soon we shall be rejoicing. Let us not forget that first and foremost, we are the church and that the risen Lord will break all the locked doors and open doors no one can shut. It is not the buildings, but us who make a true church anchored on the spiritual foundation on which our lives are built. God will restore all our property back as well as the peace and joy that we have lost.

St Peters Nyamandwe Church in Pafiwa area has suffered a series of violent attacks from Mr. Jakazi’s supporters. Like All Saints Zimunya, this church was unlawfully grabbed and CPCA members have been tormented.  The worst incident happened on the 23^rd of October 2011 when five of our members were viciously attacked by thugs who had been hired by Jakazi’s supporters. Some sustained serious injuries. Even when you go through such suffering, never give up. Just remember 2 Corinthians 4:8-12 and be strengthened. As we move closer to Christmastide let us be motivated by the fact that just as God gave His only son Jesus Christ as the savior of the world He will in the same way come to our rescue. A perfect solution is in His hands.

+ Julius Manicaland

Date:  7 November 2011

The Renaissance paintings of Mary reading the Bible or interrupted at prayer – they’re based on the notion that Mary was someone super-special to begin with, extra-virtuous, extra-pious, as though God searched all of creation, or at least all Israel, and found the purest and most virtuous young woman.

We project all that onto Mary because our own drive for merit imagines that everything, including our relationship with God, is based on merit that we can generate, earn, record and stack up to ensure that we end up where we want to be, whether that’s at the head of the class, the head of the faculty, the top of the corporate ladder, or the top of Jacob’s ladder in heaven.

The merit-based view of Mary has been extrapolated back to her birth, with the notion that it was by immaculate conception; to her life, that she never bore other children, despite the biblical references to Jesus having brothers and sisters; and forward to the end of her life, that she did not die but was taken up bodily into heaven.

In contrast to these views, I put before you the word “random” as used by many young people today.  You’ve heard the expressions:  “Wow!  How random is that!”  “Hey, this totally random thing happened to me today!” “Yeah, that’s random!”  It could be running into an old friend on the street, or winning a prize in a raffle, or it could be something negative, like getting clipped by a bicycle, or someone losing their temper at you for no apparent reason – but usually it’s something both positive and surprising.  And the randomness is quite literally true: these events are not planned, they happen by chance, there seems to be no reason why they happened to you, instead of to any one of the hundreds or thousands of other people in your vicinity.

Think of teenage Mary telling one of her friends, “Hey, this totally random thing happened to me today!” and her friend saying at the end of the story, “Wow! How random is that!”

I like to think that it was pretty random.

Yes, Mary was faithful at synagogue and generally polite around people, but she was not necessarily a paragon, a supreme exemplar, of prayer and virtue.  For God to choose Mary was all of a piece with God choosing Nazareth out of a hundred other towns, or choosing that year out of all other possible years – which is to say, God chose the ordinary, and God may even have chosen at random.

The Angelus in catholic devotion begins, “Hail Mary, full of grace!”  What is grace?  What grace definitely is not is virtue and merit.  Very simply, grace is “the free and unmerited love of God.”  Mary was chosen not for her merit or her virtue but out of the free and unmerited love of God.  Mary was one of any number of people who could have been chosen.

This fits with the nature of the gospel of Jesus Christ, which is that we are reconciled to God not for our merit or virtue, but by the free and unmerited love of God shown forth in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

So the wonder of the Annunciation is precisely its randomness, that this ordinary person was chosen out of many other ordinary people.  And that gets us back to the central fact of its personal grace – grace as free and unmerited love, and this love shown forth to this random person in a deeply personal encounter.

This meditation is excerpted from “Personal Grace: God’s Gift in the Annunciation,” a sermon preached by Titus Presler at St. Mark’s Cathedral, Minneapolis, Minnesota, on the Fourth Sunday of Advent, 18 December 2011. 

Mary certainly trusted her sign, but at first Joseph saw it differently: it meant the marriage should be cancelled.  Then came the dream: “Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit.”  Was this an avoidance of hard reality?  Or grandiosity?  A convenient fantasy?  Or the truth?

We’d love to know more about Joseph’s struggle.  Did the anxiety drive him to prayer or away from prayer?  Who did he talk with?  Did the local rabbi advise him?  How did Joseph put it all together?  We don’t know.  We know only the outcome, that “he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him; he took Mary as his wife.”

Maybe the ancients put more stock in dreams than many of us might, but my guess is that the dream did not make it a slam-dunk for Joseph.  Acting on the dream was a risk.  He might never know for sure whether he was right in trusting Mary’s story.  He might always wonder whether another unwelcome truth would come out.

It took faith for Joseph to move forward.  Faith is not primarily belief that something is so.  Faith is a relational movement of trust.  We entrust ourselves to another because we discern that the other is trustworthy.  Joseph decided to entrust his future to Mary’s story because he intuited that she was telling the truth.  Joseph’s own revelation resonated with Mary’s.  It seemed to come from God, and Joseph decided that he could trust God on this one.

It was not risk-free.  The life of faith never is, for faith is trust, not certainty.  Discerning signs, acting on signs, moving forward in God’s mission – it’s all risky.  There’s the risk of being wrong, and that happens.  There’s the risk of being right and still losing a great deal, and that happens too.

The Incarnation was God’s great risk.  If Jesus had failed in his trust, the very being of God would have been compromised.  It worked out.  God invites us now to trust.  And to risk.

To review, the Hardisons, already retired from long and successful careers in education and medicine, went in 2001 to Maseno, where Nan guided St. Philip’s Theological College and Gerry guided Maseno Hospital.  In blog posts over the last couple of days I’ve reproduced their last communiqué and shared my own acquaintance with them.

Here are some missiological reflections:

Realism, not Romanticism:

“We have met lots of people, some good and some bad; a few happy, but more sad,” they write, continuing: “We’ve seen life and death and too much of the latter. We have seen high spirits in the face of poverty and adversity but despair and hopelessness as well.”  It’s not that all Kenyans are wonderful people – or more wonderful than people in the West – or that all those who suffer are amazingly hopeful despite their suffering – characterizations too common among returned missioners, especially those who have gone for short visits.

No, the Hardisons are clear that they’ve met some “bad” people, and that despair has overcome some of those with whom they’ve worked.  Working with the real, not the imagined or the wished-for, is important in mission.  When we allow our characterizations to focus only on the fine, the uplifting and the hopeful it’s likely that we will begin believing our own rhetoric.  When our rhetoric doesn’t square with the reality, then on the ground we’re likely to start unconsciously screening out the realities that don’t fit our rhetoric.  Both ineffectiveness and hurt are the likely results.

The motives for mission romanticism are diverse.  One motive may be the desire to garner support from people who need grounds for optimism before they will contribute to the work.  Beside the obvious problem of integrity in this approach, good supporters want to have as much of the full picture as they can for longterm commitment, and there’s usually plenty enough of both good and bad to go around for an honest presentation.

A more complex motive on the part of Westerners is a desire, usually guilt-ridden, to strike a blow for post-colonial consciousness in supposed contrast to an erroneous stereotype of earlier missionaries as having uniformly viewed people in the Two-Thirds World as primitive, ignorant, unaware of God and generally in need of the “uplift” missionaries could provide.  So Westerners today often wish to portray people in Africa, Asia and Latin America as “better” than themselves in simplicity, community, authentic awareness of God, and so on.  Further supporting this impulse is the good and important missional perspective of being a learner as well as a teacher, a receiver as well as a giver in mission.

Sure enough, this kind of perspective says more about the speaker than the situation, which gives us a clue to understanding mission romanticism.  We can define it as characterizations of people, work and situations in mission in a uniformly positive light that is not warranted by the facts and that meets primarily the emotional needs of the missioner.

Not so the Hardisons!

Troubled Worldview:

“Our 10 years in Kenya have planted lots of troubles that bother our minds, troubles which will continue to bother our minds until our dying day,” write the Hardisons.  I like the phrase, “planted lots of troubles that bother our minds.”  Yes, the Hardisons have made major contributions in Maseno, but here they testify to how their understanding has been enlarged to wrestle with difficult dynamics of today’s world, dynamics that shape the issues they’ve been addressing in seminary and hospital work in Maseno but are also much larger than that setting.

They’ve done their best, and they’ve made a difference, but here they’re saying that as a result of what they’ve experienced they go away with a permanent unease about how the world works.  By implication, they didn’t have quite that unease before going, though doubtless they were aware of problems.  So the enlarged worldview that mission brings may not be sweetness and light, or at least not only that, but an awareness of how intractable the structures of injustice in the world are, how little we can do to change them, and even how little we understand about them.

I’m reminded of the returnees’ comment in T. S. Eliot’s “Journey of the Magi”: “We returned to our places, these Kingdoms, But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation.”

Obviously, this relates to the issue of realism rather than romanticism.  Going home troubled – that’s not everyone’s idea of the blessing of mission service, but it’s an authentic fruit of authentic ministry.

Personal Transformation:

“We are changed persons,” the Hardisons declare.  This is crucial.  The Hardisons don’t develop in this letter how they’ve changed, but they did so in previous communiqués, and here’s one bit: “Fixed ideas and categories are changing.  Individuals are becoming increasingly interesting and beautiful, and several are becoming very dear to us.  We are less sure of ourselves and seek advice from our Kenyan colleagues more often.”

Not only acknowledging but rejoicing in how mission has changed the missioner is a mark of the mutuality that must be at the heart of mission.  And I’m glad to say that it’s prominent in the testimony of almost every missionary I’ve been in touch with over the last decades.  Given the differences and the pressures and the gifts of the situations where missionaries serve, how can we not be changed?  Conversely, if a missionary is not changed we wonder if they are at all supple to the Spirit of God, and whether they may be doing more harm than good.  Today, fortunately, cause for such wondering arises relatively rarely.

Encore Mission:

“Who would have thought, when Nan and I were young college students, that in our ‘twilight years’ we would forge close bonds of friendship with persons half a globe away?” they ask.  The Hardisons were around 70, plus or minus a few years, when they went to Kenya, and they’ve been there 10 years.

When my wife Jane was directing the Mission Personnel Office of the Episcopal Church, she coined the phrase “finishers” for the Hardisons and others – people who felt called to mission in their later years after other careers.  This is how they want to “finish” in their lives.

Another helpful word is “encore.”  After a successful performance, the musician’s encore is another freely offered musical number, usually shorter than the pieces in the main performance and often an piece that has a particular flourish.  “Encore mission” partakes of all of that.

A few years ago I saw a full-page newspaper ad inviting nominations for something like an “encore award,” that is, nominations of people who in their later years (over 50, or 60 or 65? – can’t remember) had offered particularly outstanding service.  My immediate thought was, “I’ll nominate the Hardisons!” but then I lost the ad and neglected to follow up.  They were ideal candidates!

Encore mission is a good possibility for many to consider.  At that stage of life, people have personal maturity, finely honed skills, wide experience and proven track records.  They have much to offer in God’s wider mission.

Longterm Commitment:

Encore implies a shorter stint, but the 10 years offered by the Hardisons constitutes a relatively long period in the context of today’s trend toward short-term mission.  Ten years is a substantial period in one job in any field today.

Everything about the Hardisons letters – this one certainly, but also its many predecessors – witnesses to the contribution made by longterm missionaries in their settings and in the sending churches.  Knowledge of local culture, experience in social, political and institutional dynamics, engagement with initiatives that will have lasting rather than only temporary value – all this is evident in the Hardisons, and it could only come from a longterm commitment.

The trend away from longterm mission in favor of short-term, sometimes amounting to a prejudice against longterm mission, is one of the most lamentable developments in mainline Presbyterian, Methodist, Lutheran and Episcopal denominations – and probably most pronounced in the Episcopal Church.  It is the fruit of a shallow missiology that reflects shallow thinking in the culture generally.  I’ve written about it elsewhere and will do so more in the future.

Just two particular observations about the contribution of the Hardisons’ longterm commitment: First, their substantial tenure in Maseno made them excellent anchors for the experience of other short-term visitors: numerous people passing through for exposure to African Christianity, various medical interns, but especially USAmerican seminarians whose approach to ministry was marked indelibly by their experience in Maseno with Nan and Gerry.

Second, their final communiqué makes it clear that the Hardisons will continue to advise and support particular projects integral to the work in Maseno.  “Does it sound like we are really leaving them behind?” they ask, and then answer, “Of course we cannot. I was once told that in certain Asian countries, if you saved a life, you were obliged to support it thereafter. If that is true, then we have quite a burden to shoulder.”

The Hardisons are leaving, but their commitment abides.  That is a mark of faithful mission.

Centrality of People:

“What we remember most are the ‘lots of good people that we left behind,’” the Hardisons write.  After sketching the projects they want to help continue they write, “So, it seems Nan and I cannot really leave Maseno and the people there.”

When Gerry and Nan last visited with us, in the spring of 2009, I interviewed them for a future study of missionary identity and role and asked them about how close they felt to having put the seminary and the hospital on a self-sustaining basis, which was one of their major goals when they went to Maseno in 2001.  They said they felt far short of that, though some progress had been made, as they note in the final letter: “We just wish that we could have boasted more sustainable changes. But, as we implied in our ‘next to last’ communiqué, any batting average more than zero for sustainability is good in this business. I think we have achieved that.”

But, said Nan in 2009, what kept them there and what gave them hope was the people they worked with.   They had become invested in them, committed to them.  More than that, they loved them.

You can see that love for people in the outstanding video of their work in the Windows on Mission series of videos on about a dozen Episcopal missionaries in different parts of the world.  The video closes with the loveliest sequence of Nan stroking the head of an AIDS orphan in Maseno as the voice of Desmond Tutu talks about expressing the love of Jesus.

Ultimately the central fact of all authentic mission or any authentic ministry is commitment to people and love for people.  The goals, the plans, the projects, the progress reports, the organizational structures – all those are important.  Without committed love – love animated by the triune God, love that walks alongside and walks the distance – it is empty.

Nan and Gerry Hardison have loved in mission, so what they have offered is full.   Thanks be to God.

Mirroring the story’s family dimension, our own families are gathering for the festival: the familes that created and formed us, the families we have created and formed.  Family forms the baseline of our spirituality.  Our background growing up shapes decisions we make about churches, whether we continue in the same vein or choose a different direction.  More deeply, our families of origin affect our images of God, our confidence in God’s love for us, our style of connecting with others in community.

In the families we form with spouses, partners and children we take on the responsibility of formation, and we experience others being shaped by who we are, what we believe, and how we live our faith.  As with the formation we received, we see responses of acceptance, resistance and a lot in between.

The logo of Episcopal Migration Ministries is a simple and elegant depiction of Mary and Jesus on a donkey, with Joseph guiding the way forward.  The flight into Egypt relates directly to EMM’s mission with refugees, immigrants and asylum seekers.  The logo’s intentionality suggests also that the Holy Family was fleeing not only for their lives but to carry out a mission that God entrusted to them.

We tend to think of God’s mission as something beyond the family.  On the model of the Holy Family, we might think of our own family having a mission.  God has brought this very particular group of people together: yes, for companionship, intimacy, joy and celebration, and perhaps also to affect the world in a way that only this family can.

Families can signify God’s mission in particular ways.  I think of many couples who share a commitment that changes their piece of the world.  I think of a refugee organization where the father’s involvement became the son’s vocation.  I think of a parish collector whose mother likewise tracked pledges when she was growing up.  I think of missionaries whose presence as parents with children has meant much in other parts of the world.

Rejoice in family in these days.  And consider the mission your family may have.

As in the first century, globalized communication, economics and culture in our time have brought encounter, jostling and now conflict between religions.  In the immediate aftermath of 9/11, many American churches reached out to mosques in their neighborhoods to reaffirm relationship.  The church-mosque-city procession organized in Cambridge, Massachusetts, for instance, was a counter-sign to violence that marked my consciousness, even as conflicts with religious overtones have multiplied in the world since then.

One flashpoint has been northern Nigeria, where people have died as Christians and Muslims fought about shariah law, economic power, and religious insults.  In Kaduna, rival groups led by Imam Muhammad Ashafa and Pentecostal Pastor James Wuye were embroiled enough for Pastor Wuye to lose an arm in one skirmish.

Yet each was reading his scripture, and each was getting uneasy about how such violence squared with the call of God, the call of Allah, in his life.  Then compassion emerged.  Pastor Wuye’s mother fell ill, and Imam Ashafa asked if he could come and visit.  James was suspicious but agreed.  Muhammad came and kept on coming as James’s mother died and the family mourned.

Reconciliation happened.  The two began envisioning and strategizing.  Discernment brought mutual resonance.  They began traveling together to reconcile tensions, rather than foment them.  They founded the Interfaith Mediation Centre, which has worked on dozens of religious and ethnic conflicts. Each man continues zealous for his own faith and community, but together they’ve found and shown a new way in Nigeria.  They’ve become a sign.

One helpful factor in Nigeria is that Muslims and Christians have roughly the same strength nationwide, even as Muslims are concentrated in the north and Christians in the south.  Reconciliation is harder where one group is numerically and therefore economically and politically stronger than the other, as with Hindus and Muslims in India, or Muslims and Christians in Pakistan, or Christians and Muslims in the USA.  Nevertheless there are important efforts toward mutual understanding in Pakistan.  Faith Friends in Peshawar and the work of the Christian Study Center in Rawalpindi are instances, as I have noted previously in this blog.

“Glory to God in the highest heaven,” sang the angels, “and on earth peace among those whom God favors!”  God’s glory is a generous glory.  Like the shepherds, we cannot help but make known what we know of the Child.  The Word has indeed become flesh and lived among us, “and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth” (John 1:14).  That glory invites us to live generously, our hearts and minds open to hearing and meeting the religious experience of others.

This meditation is adapted from Titus Presler’s “Alert for Signs: Seeing and Praying through Advent” (Forward Movement Publications). 

They were in their 70s, having retired from successful educational and medical careers in the USA.  They could have stayed in San Diego to enjoy retirement close to their grandchildren.  But no, they heard God calling them into mission.  Nan is a theological educator, and Gerry is a physician.  By the time of the orientation, they’d already been working for several months in Diocese of Maseno North.

I asked the missionaries to introduce themselves and share their understanding of Christian mission around the circle.  When Gerry’s turn came he launched into an extended and animated description of the problems in Maseno: how the church hospital had declined to a skeleton operation through mismanagement and lack of personnel, how everything they tried to do was afflicted by corruption in the church and in local government, how discouraged but persevering the staff was, how every step forward was followed by two steps backward – the list of obstacles was evidently endless.

Finally, I broke in and asked: “Well, Gerry, in all of this, what does mission mean to you?”  He paused, then after a long reflective moment, he said, “I guess it’s John Donne’s meditation: ‘No man is an island entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main . . . Any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind.  And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.’”  And he left it at that.

In this perspective, Donne’s meditation can be seen as a call to compassion, a call to empathy, a call to solidarity.  Gerry and Nancy had seen the catastrophe of the world.  They had heard the call.  They were embracing the mission.

In May of that year, Jane Butterfield, at that time Mission Personnel Officer for the Episcopal Church, and I visited the Hardisons in Maseno, which is located on the equator near Kenya’s border with Uganda.  They were living in very basic accommodations, with no running water.  St. Philip’s Theological College, of which Nan was the principal, had just one student because the others had been sent home to collect fees from their dioceses.  The staff at Maseno Hospital had not been paid for six months.  But Nan and Gerry were full of joy and vision.

Nan showed us around the seminary with the one student still on campus.  We browsed in the library, which had been built up from donations from around the world, and I happened on Lift Every Voice and Sing II, the African American hymnal.  As the setting sun shed oblique rays through dusty windows onto the library tables, we sang together the great hymn, “When peace, like a river, attendeth my way . . . It is well, it is well with my soul.”

It has continued to be well with the souls of Nan and Gerry, and the fruit of their life with God and with one another has richly blessed both St. Philip’s and Maseno Hospital, two church institutions vital to God’s mission in that part of Kenya.  The way has not been easy, but both the seminary and the hospital are ever so much more healthy and self-sustaining than when they arrrived.

The Hardisons have sent home many reports over the years.  Here’s an excerpt from an early one:

It is now one year since we arrived in Maseno, and began to work as Volunteers For Mission.  The year has been both challenging and fulfilling.  We have grown and changed.  Our “rules” for what we would and would not do have gone out the window.  As we have become more involved in the lives of the people we work with and live among, our own lives became both richer and more complicated.

What is different here because we are here? 

At St. Philip’s, a new Certificate Program in Theology, short and hopefully affordable, is in place.  A computer course proposal is being circulated for funding.  A farm is beginning to take shape with crops growing as food for the dining hall, with the surplus sold for cash.  30+ broken window panes have been replaced.  Six buildings have been renovated with roof repairs, some new ceilings, repair of faulty wiring and replacement of broken fixtures, and paint inside and out.

Economic development work with self-help groups in the diocese has begun.  Nancy is meeting with those groups.  She has helped the Mothers’ Union workers develop a proposal for funding orphan care.

At Maseno Hospital, the x-ray machine donated three years ago is now working.  The technician needs training in operating the machine, and then it will be fully functional.  An “amenities” ward has new paint and curtains.  Endoscopy and EEGs are now possible, and will be advertised to the community.  The laboratory has some equipment and reagents. Work has begun on restoring the water system so that there will be running water on the wards.

People at St. Philip’s and at the hospital say that our being here gives them hope.  That humbles us.

Equally important, the Hardisons then asked “How have we changed?”, and here is their response:

We are ever more aware of our overwhelming wealth, and ever more thankful for health and each other and the opportunity to be here.  Fixed ideas and categories are changing.  Individuals are becoming increasingly interesting and beautiful, and several are becoming very dear to us.  We are less sure of ourselves and seek advice from our Kenyan colleagues more often.  We no longer flinch at 4-6-hour church services.  We are budgeting carefully for the first time in years, since the needs are outrunning the resources.

In the intervening years we’ve been with the Hardisons from time to time.  They spoke at General Seminary, stayed with us in White Plains.  They’ve hosted a number of seminarians from General, Harvard (the college is their own alma mater), Southwest, Berkeley, Episcopal Divinity School and others, and the time spent with the Hardisons has been formative for those theologues, most of whom are now clergy.

Tomorrow: Some missiological reflections on the Hardisons’ perspective on their work.