Prisoners of Hope

Eastertide greetings from Ireland! Where I, like most of you, am in stay-at-home mode due to the corona virus pandemic. Here in Ireland we're allowed out for grocery shopping and exercise within 2km (1¼ mile) of our homes. Fortunately, for me that 2km includes the seafront, which I'm taking full advantage of to walk or bike each day. A very important outlet for a super-extrovert like me in lock-down alone!

And fortunately I’m too busy to feel lonely most of the time. No international travel at the moment, of course. But because much of my work is at a distance anyway, all of that continues. I’m teaching Bible interpretation to Fuller Seminary students online, supervising my Ethiopian student’s MA thesis, reaching out locally through MeetUp connections (though no face to face MeetUps at this point!), trying to get some academic writing done, and trying to stay on top of the usual collection of other theological education projects. Plus lots of people are adding lots of other online meetings.

So, much of my day probably looks a good bit like yours does at this point:

Thank goodness for video chat! Last week the missions committee from one of my partner churches zoomed in to ask how I'm doing and about life in Ireland during the pandemic. Since they recorded our conversation for their website, I'll share the first part of it below for those of you who are interested in hearing more.

Even with all that, though, I do feel like a prisoner – of my limited space, but perhaps more profoundly of the severe and unpredictable circumstances we’re all facing. Which may be why I resonated so deeply with the passage from Zechariah 9 that formed the center of our Serge Easter celebration. It comes just a few lines after the part that predicts the messiah king’s arrival on a donkey. God says:

¹¹ As for you also, because of the blood of my covenant with you,
   I will set your prisoners free from the waterless pit.
¹² Return to your stronghold, O prisoners of hope;
   today I declare that I will restore to you double.

At a time when the Israelites are relieved to think their exile is over, when they are going home to Jerusalem with the expectation that things will be great again, they discover that their national life is still complicated and precarious. God speaks to them in that disarray and uncertainty – looking back across centuries to ‘the blood of my covenant,’ and at the same time ahead to future restoration. He calls them ‘prisoners of hope.’ Is their ‘stronghold’ the city of Jerusalem? Or is it God himself? In fact their hope is built on the solidity of God’s own initiative in declaring them his covenant people, and on the certain promise of a future where all God’s plans come to fruition. While Jerusalem is still in tatters around them they are ‘hopeful prisoners’ and people captivated by the hope God offers them.

I keep coming back to the idea of being a ‘prisoner of hope’ during this pandemic and its unpredictable aftermath. Yes, fear and anxiety about the present and the unknown future are real. It’s tempting to think that my work or my home or anything else is my stronghold. But my only real hope is grounded in looking back to God’s choice to make me his own, and in looking forward to the surety that God is taking human history exactly where he intends it to go, that restoration – re-creation, resurrection – will happen. I want to be a ‘prisoner of hope’ during this time. Maybe you do, too?

Céad míle fáilte!

Greetings from Dún Laoghaire, Ireland! After so much travel since last August (Myanmar-India-USA-Thailand-USA-Italy) it feels wonderful to finally settle again in my own apartment in this seaside suburb of Dublin. Céad míle fáilte is Irish for “a hundred thousand welcomes.” I feel like that’s what I’ve experienced since I returned two weeks ago. Such a sweet welcome from friends and acquaintances in my local community, in my Meetup.com groups, at church and in my weekly home group, in my Serge Metro Dublin team, at the co-working space where I have a ‘hot desk’ ten days a month, my hairdresser, and even the postman who just a few moments ago insisted on carrying a big delivery box inside for me. People have amazed me by remembering and asking about my travels, the new house in Virginia, and of course my newest grandson! I tell you, these Irish – and my other expat friends sprinkled in among them – have done everything possible to help me feel at home.

It’s made me all the more eager to deepen connections and friendships, one of the key reasons for my being here in between other travels in my Theological Education Specialist role. Outside my church and Serge circles I’m probably the only committed Jesus-follower these lovely people have ever met. I have the opportunity to be a representative of Christ in post-Catholic, religion-weary Ireland (now considered the least evangelized English-speaking country in the world) and at the same time be entirely myself, however awkward and needy that can be. In the Meetup groups and at my co-working space, for example, we’re all getting to know each other and reaching out for meaning relationships. In that process I often have the chance to tell people a little about who I am and the work I do. A few people ask me more, but really it can take months and years to build up the trust to share more deeply about spiritual issues.

To be honest, I find it much easier to get on a plane and go teach my classes in various parts of the world than to wander around Dublin wondering what God wants me to do next! When I teach, there’s a classroom, a syllabus, a beginning and ending date, and a specific number of students in seats waiting to hear what I have to say. Here I find I have to be much more attentive to the Lord and try to notice and respond to those quiet prompts from the Spirit at random points in the day. And yes, I realize that’s what most of you do all the time! Blessings on you as you represent Jesus in your own unique situations.

I’ve also come back with two big challenges I’d appreciate your prayer for:

• My Irish visa is up for renewal in early June. The immigration rules have gotten stricter and all the agencies like ours are struggling to understand and comply with the new processes. I’m not sure how this will all work out. The immigration service might even require me to return to the US and reapply from there, which would likely take months.
• My financial support has gotten a bit low. Several individual partners and one significant partner church have had to reduce or stop their giving for various (understandable) reasons of their own. If you’ve been considering giving monthly or a one-time gift, or increasing your current giving, now would be the time to do that! The rest of you, please just pray. Thanks!

There’s not much I can do to control the immediate outcome of either of these issues – a terrible position for a type-A, ENTJ like me to find myself in! But it certainly deepens my awareness of my daily need for God’s grace and care. Meanwhile, while I have several relatively calm months before the big ministry projects start up again at the end of May, I have a number of things to work on, like...

• Teach my online Fuller Seminary courses
• Write one book chapter and two dictionary entries I’ve been asked to do for publication
• Supervise an MA thesis for a student in Ethiopia
• Create orientation courses for Theologians Without Borders
• Prepare for Serge's summer Encounter program for Irish and American university students
• Update my classroom and online courses

And anything else that arrives in the email inbox! Please pray for me to be able to use this time – whether at my computer or out and about with others – as a faithful servant in ways that please the Lord. “Whatever you do, work at it wholeheartedly as though you were doing it for the Lord and not merely for people” (Col 3:23).

Thanks for praying! And if you have a chance to visit me here in Ireland – céad míle fáilte!