{"id":2549,"date":"2023-04-20T09:20:10","date_gmt":"2023-04-20T13:20:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/js1cd06kre.onrocket.site\/?p=2549"},"modified":"2023-04-20T09:20:10","modified_gmt":"2023-04-20T13:20:10","slug":"take-up-and-read","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/2023\/04\/20\/take-up-and-read\/","title":{"rendered":"Take Up and Read"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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To listen to this reflection as a podcast,\u00a0<\/em>click here<\/a>.
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It\u2019s rare for people to admit they\u2019ve made big mistakes in the past.
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A pair of church historians, William Cook and Ronald Herzman, recall the time the moderator of a political forum asked the candidates vying in a local election to acknowledge a single personal misstep \u2013 anything at all \u2013 and what they had learned from it. \u00a0Silence<\/em>.\u00a0 One brave soul finally admitted a minor infraction, something on the order of going 33 mph in a 30-mph zone.\u00a0
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No one in the crowd was tempted to conclude they had somehow been blessed with the most faultless candidates of any generation.\u00a0
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That\u2019s because most people are terrified of going public with their \u201creal story\u201d \u2013 the one that spotlights their most foolish decisions, secret sins, and darkest moments.\u00a0\u00a0
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Which brings us to the Preacher\u2019s Dilemma.\u00a0 The leaders of God\u2019s people know they need to be transparent.\u00a0 Members of the flock are reassured when they find out that their pastors and teachers are bona fide sinners, just like everyone else.\u00a0
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Transparent, yes.\u00a0 But not too<\/em> transparent.\u00a0 If you\u2019re our spiritual leader, you\u2019d better not reveal that you\u2019re a world champion sinner \u2013 because then you can\u2019t be our leader after all.\u00a0 It\u2019s a thin line to walk:\u00a0 Be authentic, but don\u2019t be a hot mess.\u00a0
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The tragic result is that all too many pastors retreat into varying degrees of hiding.\u00a0 They live behind masks.\u00a0 It doesn\u2019t feel safe to tell the whole truth about their temptations, their loneliness, their depression, and their moments of outright moral failure.\u00a0
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One of history\u2019s most famous spiritual leaders decided to go a different way.
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It\u2019s not a stretch to say that Augustine, the bishop of Hippo (a town on the north African coast), belongs on the Mt. Rushmore of Christians theologians.\u00a0 He changed forever the way that followers of Jesus think about God, truth, Scripture, and time.\u00a0 He also authored the world\u2019s first spiritual autobiography \u2013 a \u201ctell-all\u201d book that astonished readers at its publication in 400 A.D., and remains a fascinating read 17 centuries later.\u00a0
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The Confessions<\/em>, comprised of 13 sections written in Latin, is framed as a prayer to God.\u00a0 Its opening paragraph includes one of church history\u2019s most quotable quotes:\u00a0 \u201cFor You have made us for yourself, and our hearts are restless until they rest in You.\u201d\u00a0
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Augustine, who was in his early 40s when he wrote this work, reveals that he had frequently prayed another memorable prayer: \u201cMake me chaste, Lord\u2026but not yet.\u201d\u00a0
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He admitted that he had spent most of his adult life ravaged by lust.\u00a0 He acknowledged multiple liaisons and fathering a child with a live-in lover.\u00a0 He had spent years dabbling in astrology, and had been active in a religious cult.\u00a0 This was not the sort of track record one would normally associate with a bishop.\u00a0 It’s just possible that Augustine wrote his masterpiece as a way of heading off future detractors.\u00a0 By coming clean, they would have nothing to say.\u00a0 He had said it all himself.\u00a0
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No one had ever done this before.\u00a0 Very few spiritual leaders have done it since.\u00a0
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Confessions<\/em> includes two particularly memorable anecdotes.
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The first is Augustine\u2019s shameful recollection, at the age of 16, of hanging out with some other teenage boys.\u00a0 One day they decided to steal the ripe pears from a neighbor\u2019s tree.\u00a0 It was mindless anarchy. \u00a0They already had access to better pears.\u00a0 But it felt thrilling to be destructive just for the sake of being destructive.\u00a0 Augustine remembers eating a few of the pears and throwing the rest to the pigs.\u00a0 Looking back, he realized this was evidence that human hearts are hopelessly skewed.\u00a0\u00a0
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During his 20s, he came to believe that Jesus was who the Gospels said he was.\u00a0 It was finally time to make a decision, to start painting or get off the ladder.\u00a0 But he didn\u2019t want to<\/em>.
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He felt caught between surrender and doubt, purity and lust.\u00a0 At age 33 he was still on the outside looking in \u2013 a truly miserable human being.
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Which brings us to the second anecdote.\u00a0 Augustine reports that one day he was agonizing over these matters in his garden \u2013 Should I or shouldn\u2019t I follow Jesus?<\/em> \u2013 when he heard the voice of a boy or a girl (he never knew which) chanting over and over again the Latin words Tolle Lege, Tolle Lege <\/em>(pronounced \u201ctol-lay lah-jhay\u201d).\u00a0 Those words mean \u201cTake up and read, take up and read.\u201d He tells us that he had never heard this chant before, and was unaware of any children\u2019s game that declared, \u201cTake up and read.\u201d\u00a0
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It occurred to him that maybe he should do just that.\u00a0 But take up and read what?\u00a0 Just a few steps away was a copy of Paul\u2019s letter to the Romans.\u00a0 Augustine opened the book at random and read the first line he saw.\u00a0 It was Romans 13:14: \u201cClothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ,\u00a0and stop thinking about how to gratify the desires of the flesh.\u201d
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For Augustine, this was the turning point.\u00a0 He decided to follow Jesus.\u00a0
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So, did he now live happily ever after?\u00a0 Christians love to hear stories in which somebody crosses the line of faith and is never again troubled by doubt, worry, or failure.\u00a0 Every day becomes a joy ride.\u00a0 Based on the experience of millions of people, however, we have good reasons to believe that few people, if any, ever experience such \u201cvictorious living.\u201d
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This is what the historians Cook and Herzman have found so deeply satisfying about the Confessions<\/em>.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0
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Augustine says, \u201cHere\u2019s my story.\u00a0 I\u2019ve battled temptations my whole life.\u00a0 And I can assure you, they\u2019re still there.\u00a0 Jesus didn\u2019t magically whisk them all away.\u201d
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But even though Jesus didn\u2019t eliminate Augustine\u2019s problems, he now was in a relationship with a Problem Solver who was fundamentally stronger than anything he had to face.
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It\u2019s hard to admit we\u2019ve made big mistakes in the past.
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But if by God\u2019s grace we\u2019re willing to do so, we can know that we also have a Forgiver and a Restorer who will never leave our side.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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To listen to this reflection as a podcast,\u00a0click here.\u00a0It\u2019s rare for people to admit they\u2019ve made big mistakes in the past.\u00a0A pair of church historians, William Cook and Ronald Herzman, recall the time the moderator of a political forum asked the candidates vying in a local election to acknowledge a single personal misstep \u2013 anything at all \u2013 and what… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2550,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[588,430],"class_list":["post-2549","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-augustine","tag-sin"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2549","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2549"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2549\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2551,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2549\/revisions\/2551"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2550"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2549"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2549"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2549"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}