Ordinary Means of Grace

Many of you know I am taking this summer as a sabbatical, in large part to make significant progress on my doctoral dissertation. Maybe you even know that the focus of my work is on C.S. Lewis. What you might be wondering is how all this ties directly to my ministry with St. Patrick. Well, to put it simply, what I love about Lewis is what I love about St. Patrick. 

 

If you’ve never dug deeper into Lewis’ thought and writing than his children’s stories and popular theology, you might be surprised to learn that he was primarily a literary scholar, focusing on Medieval and Renaissance literature. The thing that fascinated him (and me!) about this era of time is the way people still believed that every jot and tittle of creation was a part of a well-ordered and beautiful picture of God’s love for humanity – a cathedral of the grace in which we live, move, and have our being. He was concerned about what kind of discipleship would be required today to invite “modern” people out of the cold, dark, and chaotic infinitude of the myths they’re believing, and welcome them into the marvelous light and warmth of God’s true story. 

 

Unsurprisingly, the answer for Lewis, and for St. Patrick, has largely been that the better story features at its center a kind of symbolic participation. As we continue on the scenic route along our “Godspeed series,” we stop today to consider the profound fact that the post-resurrection appearances of Christ feature a disproportionate number of episodes involving Jesus sharing meals with disciples. In a world where we often think of meals as logistical interruptions in our workflow, Jesus redirects our attention to the central priority of the table in his own kingdom. 

 

It is unsettlingly revealing that the disciples on the road to Emmaus got a 3-hour Bible study from the Word of God Himself and didn’t manage to recognize Him until they stopped for dinner. I can’t wait to unpack that with you all!