Andrew’s new book releases today, so I asked him to share a passage with us—a drop of that cold, sweet water he found in the desert. And please help us pass the word: this old, strange message is exactly the grace we need right now.
Many thanks to my dear brother Chris for posting the following snippet from Streams in the Wasteland: Finding Spiritual Renewal with the Desert Fathers and Mothers. (Chris also happened to write the foreword for it—which alone is worth the price of the book, IMO.)
I started reading the abbas and ammas of the desert several years back in the midst of a deep personal crisis. Their witness revolutionized the way I look at the world—putting me in touch in a deeper way, I think, with the Way himself. This book represents just some of the fruit of that experience.
This excerpt is from a chapter on the desert’s witness to community. It may surprise some to learn that the men and women of the desert were so fanatical about community. Indeed they were. But not just any kind of community. What they were fanatical about was discerning and living into the Christ-depth of our relationship with one another. Fanatical about community “in and through Jesus Christ,” as Bonhoeffer put it in Life Together. Their witness helps us see just what that looks like in great and startling depth and clarity.
Without further ado:
One of my favorite stories from the desert comes from Abba Bessarion: “A brother who had sinned was turned out of the church by the priest; Abba Bessarion got up and went with him, saying, ‘I, too, am a sinner.’”[i]
Think about that. Bessarion made the brother’s disgrace his own. Why would he do that? Even better—who does that remind you of?
Bessarion was living Christ with and for the brother. As Christ did for us—descending into human flesh and finally death on a cross in order to find us and bring us home—so Bessarion did for the one who was publicly disgraced. And though we don’t know the end of the story, we can reasonably conclude—based on other stories like it—that Bessarion’s actions led to the restoration of the brother, and so the fuller unveiling of the reality of Christ in the world.
A similar story emerges from the life of Abba Anthony. A brother from a neighboring monastery was dealing with temptation. Rather than restoring the brother gently, his “abba” cast him out. The brother wandered to where Anthony was, and when Anthony learned his story, he sent him back to the monastery. The brothers there promptly expelled him again. When he wound up once more with Anthony, Anthony sent him back with this message:
A boat was shipwrecked at sea and lost its cargo; with great difficulty it reached the shore; but you want to throw into the sea that which has found a safe harbor on the shore.
The story concludes: “When the brothers understood that it was Abba Anthony who had sent them this monk, they received him at once.”[ii] And there again: Through the actions of Anthony, the Jesus of the Gospels was making manifest his glory.
The great abbas and ammas of the desert repudiated the culture of throwing people away, a culture wholly opposed to the goal of Christ’s Passion: to heal humanity, reconciling men and women to God. This was the light that guided how they related to one another—always, only, and ever, savingly. A story is told about Abba Achilles in which three men came to him with individual requests. One of the men had a bad reputation. The first two, Abba Achilles denied. The last, who had the bad reputation, Achilles obliged.
The first two were confused. Why oblige the man with the bad reputation and not them, they asked? Achilles’ response is so telling:
I told you I would not make one, and you were not disappointed, since you thought that I had no time. But if I had not made one for him, he would have said, “The old man has heard about my sin, and that is why he does not want to make me anything,” and so our relationship would have broken down. But now I have cheered his soul, so that he will not be overcome with grief.[iii]
Achilles discerned the man’s need and acted as Christ did—with surgical precision and utterly clear-minded spiritual insight—to lay the groundwork for restoration. And in this way, he embodied the infinite concern of God for the man with the bad reputation, knowing, as Paul says, that it is the kindness of God that leads sinners like us to repentance (Romans 2:4).
In the world of counseling psychology, Carl Rogers developed a groundbreaking insight: Only when the therapist showed unconditional positive regard for patients could those patients find healing. The Desert Fathers and Mothers knew this long before he did—and knew it in a deeper way:
It was said of Abba Isidore, priest of Scetis, that when anyone had a brother who was sick, or careless or irritable, and wanted to send him away, he said, “Bring him here to me.” Then he took charge of him and by his long-suffering he cured him.[iv]
Willing to endure the weaknesses of others in a spirit of unconditional positive regard, until they found moral and spiritual rectitude—how like Jesus that is. No, we could say it better: How Jesus that is—for if what the Scripture teaches about our union with Jesus Christ is true, then it was none other than Jesus himself acting in Isidore to restore the weak brothers.
One particularly poignant example of the living of the Christ-life comes from Abba Agathon, who once said that “if I could meet a leper, give him my body and take his, I should be very happy.”[v] Who says things like this? Only one who knows the God who in Christ bore our leprous bodies in his own body to make us whole again—and who calls us, as members of his body, to go and do likewise. Agathon’s Christ-shaped, Christ-driven compassion was legendary, and extended not just to brothers but to all whom he encountered:
It was also said of him that, coming to the town one day to sell his wares, he encountered a sick traveler lying in the public place without anyone to look after him. The old man rented a cell and lived with him there, working with his hands to pay the rent and spending the rest of his money on the sick man’s needs. He stayed there four months till the sick man was restored to health. Then he returned in peace to his cell.[vi]
This episode could just as easily be read as a parable of how God has come to be with us in Jesus. For Jesus is the one who comes to our town, who encounters us sick in the public square without anyone to look after us, who remains among us as he works with his hands and spends all his money on our needs until we are restored to health. But Jesus refuses to leave us behind, instead carrying us with him to the heart of his Father in heaven, in which there is room enough for all of us (John 14:2).
[i] Ward, Sayings, 42.
[ii] Ward, Sayings, 6.
[iii] Ward, Sayings, 28–29.
[iv] Ward, Sayings, 96.
[v] Ward, Sayings, 24.
[vi] Ward, Sayings, 24.
Downloading this book to my Kindle right now.
Just ordered this book earlier today.