Prayer/Meditation

Welcome to Advent. 2011. {1}

/ Paul Burkhart / 11 Comments

Yesterday was Day 1 of the season of the Church Calendar known as Advent (latin for “coming) . From now until Christmas, we spend time intentionally mediating upon the truth this season brings: God has come among us, clothed in the vestiges of human flesh.

Yes, this time of year was arbitrarily chosen centuries ago to recast pagan lunar festivals in a new light. Yes, many of the traditions of Christmas (fir trees, gift-giving, wreaths, etc.) find their source in pagan socio-religious rites. Yes, Jesus was probably more likely born in April, not December. Yes, Christmas has been co-opted by commercialism and consumerism. Nevertheless, this time has been set aside for nearly two millennia so that Christians around the world could, with one mind and heart, dwell upon the depths of the glory given to us in the events that transpired all those years ago.
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The Pain & Substance of Gratitude. Happy Thanksgiving.

/ Paul Burkhart / 6 Comments

Sorry that this isn’t your typical feel-good Thanksgiving post.

On Tuesday, my job had a large Thanksgiving lunch for all the staff and clients we serve. I got my food and sat down next to some of my coworkers and across from a client I had never seen before. She was very friendly. She didn’t ask me my name or anything; she just began asking me questions about what I was doing for the holiday, where I was going, if my parents were still alive/together, if I had any siblings, so on and so forth.

As she kept firing one question about my Thanksgiving week after another, I started to feel an awkward tension developing because I wasn’t returning any of these questions back to her. I wondered if my coworkers thought this was odd of me to do, but it was very intentional.
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art that makes me cry (thank you, Jen Huber)

/ Paul Burkhart / 2 Comments


This is another amazing piece called “Broken Hold” (original post) by one of my favorite artists and closest friends, Jennifer Huber (I’ve featured her art here before). In all seriousness, I just started crying looking at this and just had to post it. This particular piece reminded me a lot of one of my favorite songs by some other good friends of mine (who are also amazing artists), the band My Epic. You can find the song and the lyrics below. This piece especially reminded me of the last line of the song. Enjoy.

“Communion” by My Epic [Spotify] [YouTube]  Continue reading →

A Theology of Sleep (i need it) | Psalms 63, 121, 127

/ Paul Burkhart / 4 Comments

Lately, I haven’t been able to sleep. It’s not that if I lay in my bed, I can’t fall asleep, mind you. It’s the getting to bed part that keeps getting to me. I find myself staying up way too late (usually writing up these blog posts) until I can barely function, and then falling into my bed–unconscious even before my head hits the pillow. I then struggle to wake up and don’t end up having time and energy to start my day in the way I would hope.

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to “why?” is human, to “what” is divine

/ Paul Burkhart / 8 Comments

One of the most impacting moments of Terrence Malick‘s Tree of Life is this moment where the son in the film prays to God: why do I have to be good if you’re not? Shortly after, there is this beautiful shot where the camera zooms in on the silhouetted back of the boy as he stands in an open door. As the camera approaches, we get a voice-over from the grown-up version of this child saying: Father, why do you hurt us? This moment is so powerful because you don’t know if he’s talking about his earthly father or his Heavenly one.

Fast-forward. The other day, as I was looking through The Economist and reading on all the loss, debt, crisis, and violence in the world, I noticed I kept having similar fleeting prayers go through my mind: why did that happen? or why did it have to be that way?

Neither the son in Tree of Life nor I found answers.

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Weekend Must-Reads {09.09.11} | church leadership retreat edition

/ Paul Burkhart / 1 Comment

This weekend I find myself with the honor, joy, and privilege of heading to a two-day long leadership retreat for my amazing church, liberti church: center city. In honor of this, I wanted to post articles by myself and others focusing on Church philosophy, community, and such. Some of them are a bit longer than usual, so feel free to grab a cup coffee before digging in. I hope you find these helpful and encouraging no matter where you find yourself in relation to the Christian Church. Have a great weekend. And be sure to stop by next week; I’m pretty excited for the stuff I’ve got planned for the blog then.

And Thus It Begins: liberti home meetings & my heart | the long way home

liberti: center city’s home meetings start next week. I wrote this blog post last year the day before I began leading a brand new group in the Rittenhouse neighborhood of Philadelphia. It’s wonderful to look back over the past year with these people and see that God has answered every prayer I had in this post. I’m still serving these amazing people as their leader, and I can’t wait to see them on Tuesday.

On the State of Contemporary Theology | Fors Clavigera – James K.A. Smith

Here, the author of one of my favorite books I’ve ever read, Desiring the Kingdom, offers his thoughts on the current state of theology, denominations, and theological education. A quick must-read for all.

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the cry of an anguished lover (may it be mine)

/ Paul Burkhart / Leave a comment

O my folly! The world of my plans, how narrow, and bare, and stale it is! And the world which breaks my plans, how living, and various, and wide, and glorious it is! And from every point in it a providence bears upon me, to make me the man you intend: here a claim, there a discipline, here love to cherish, there enmity to vanquish, and everywhere Christ.

“Be not anxious”, says Christ, not that he may make us careless, but that he may lift our faces out of the book of our calculations and sweep the cobwebs of self-obsession from our eyes. If I gave my attention to your handiwork, I should become your handiwork. Make me open to each thing and person in their turn, that I may not only love them, but be directed through the providences which speak in them.
—Austin Farrer

Mark’s Endings, the Church’s Beginnings, & History’s End

/ Paul Burkhart / 8 Comments

Having recently finished my own personal study on the Gospel of Mark, I just had a few thoughts on the ending of the book, what it meant for the early church, and what it means for us today. So, first, if you’ve never read the last chapter of Mark, let me encourage you to do so here.

You’ll see it’s really weird. There are reasons why most sermons on this part of Jesus’ story don’t often come from this book. It doesn’t have an actual Resurrection account. There seems to be some humor (the ladies ask “who’s gonna roll away the stone when we get there?” They look up and it’s rolled away and Mark adds, “it was very large”). The angels say “tell the disciples and Peter about all this”, but the women are scared and don’t say anything. And then it just ends (assuming the last part isn’t original, as we’re about to talk about). The ending seems to not carry with it the same reverence, awe, gravity, and seriousness of the moment that other Gospels seem to have. It’s almost playful. As far as Gospel accounts go, it’s definitely odd.
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Making the Father Real (when you don’t feel it)

/ Paul Burkhart / 6 Comments

Late last night I finished my own personal study through the book of Mark. I wrote about my love for this book a while back in light of some reflections on Ash Wednesday, and having finished it again, it was confirmed once more that this indeed is my favorite Gospel.

As I was ending it, I really wanted to see my Father in these words and be moved by Him. This last stretch I read was from Jesus being handed over to Pilate through the Resurrection–arguably some of the most dramatic and supposedly heart-string-pulling moments for the Christian. I mean, Our Lord is being unjustly mocked! He is being crucified! He’s being raised!

And yet, I felt nothing beyond the scan of my eyes upon the page offering the simple intellectual reminder of these events.
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a simply beautiful prayer…

/ Paul Burkhart / Leave a comment

I saw this tacked onto the bulletin board of the psychiatrist at my previous employer. She is one of the best mentor I’ve ever had, and this is one of the most honest, simple,  and beautiful prayers I’ve ever read. I feel it captures my relationship with my Creator more perfectly and more simply than most anything I’ve read (except maybe for this). May this encourage all you weary travelers out there:

My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road, though I may know nothing about it. Therefore I will trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.

Amen.

from Thomas Merton’s “Thoughts in Solitude”

Ruminations on Rhythm & Life

/ Paul Burkhart / 3 Comments

Do you have any rituals? Last week, I wrote about about how I would love to find a steady “rhythm” to my daily existence. Do any of you have that? Is it realistic to desire that? My roommate Tim gets up most every morning at around the same time, makes a french press of coffee and sits out our kitchen table and reads his giant red-leather ESV Study Bible. I love that. It’s weird whenever I come downstairs and he’s had to go to work early or something and isn’t doing that.

Me? A couple of days ago, I actually got to bed sort of early (for me) at around 11:15. I set my alarm for 7am, knowing I had to walk out the door by 8am. I figured I could take a shower and have some time to just relax and maybe pray or read my own Bible in the morning (for the first time in God knows how long).
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The Practice of His Presence

/ Paul Burkhart / 9 Comments

Well it’s that time again. Anyone that has followed this blog for a while knows that I go through “blog angst” from time to time and now and again. I get into a “funk” and question the direction and content of my blog-writing. By now the script for my whining and pining is well-formed and well-documented, but it always seems to end up at the same place: I need to make this blog more personal; it’s not the right venue for in-depth theological engagement; I need not be scared of putting myself in this thing (as I’ve written before).

And this angst could not come at a stranger time for me to try and talk about my personal spirituality rather than using the theological stuff to keep myself at a distance.

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The Scandal of Holy Week {v}: conclusion & benediction

/ Paul Burkhart / 5 Comments

As I said in Part 1, this series was originally given as a sermon to a group of prisoners attending my church’s prison ministry. This is the conclusion and benediction I gave them at the end. This post picks up right after the end of Part 4, where we listed out practical ways that Jesus prepares his disciples for them forsaking him and the ways he reveals himself to already-wayward disciples, thereby calling them back to Him. I encourage you to read the other parts of this message: Part 1: the forsaking of God; Part 2: the Grace of Jesus; Part 3: the limits of Grace?; Part 4: the restoration of disciples; Part 5: conclusion & benediction]

Conclusion

These are not guarantees: all these different practical things I’ve mentioned are not the “magic formula” for how to restore your faith if you feel you’ve lost or forsaken it. Sometimes none of these things are necessary; the Centurion did not seem to have any of these things. Sometimes, you’ll do all of these things for years–decades, even–and nothing will change.

All I can tell you is that He is worth it. The God of Holy Week is a God worthy to be wrestled against for years and years and years and years until he finally meets you, even if it is for the briefest of moments before slipping away back into frustration, doubt and sin.
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The Scandal of Holy Week {iv}: the restoration of disciples

/ Paul Burkhart / 7 Comments

[Update: this series has been completed. Part 1: the forsaking of God; Part 2: the Grace of Jesus; Part 3: the limits of Grace?; Part 4: the restoration of disciples; Part 5: conclusion & benediction]

In Part 1 of this series, we saw that we will all forsake Jesus many times in our lives, just as the disciples did on the Thursday night of Holy Week. In Part 2, we saw that in light of this abandonment, Jesus responds to those that forsake him by being unconditionally and unlimitedly gracious towards them in their forsaking of him. In Part 3, we looked at just how scandalous and beautiful this grace is and how and why we often try and limit it. Today, we give practical ways that we can prepare ourselves to come back to our Lord, even after we have forsaken him in our own “Thursday” seasons.

As we saw in Part 1, Holy Week was a week-long process in which everything–creation, creatures, and God Himself–all forsook Jesus, turning their back on him. We’ve said several times now that true disciples of Jesus are not those that never forsake Jesus, but they are those that after forsaking him, turn back. And so, to help us see how we do this, let’s look at the first person in this story to turn back.

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The Scandal of Holy Week {iii}: the limits of Grace?

/ Paul Burkhart / 7 Comments

[Update: this series has been completed. Part 1: the forsaking of God; Part 2: the Grace of Jesus; Part 3: the limits of Grace?; Part 4: the restoration of disciples; Part 5: conclusion & benediction]

In part 1 of this series, we looked at the original Holy Week and saw how everything and everyone has and will forsake Jesus. We said that “Thursday”–the day when the disciples forsook Jesus–will come for every disciple. In part 2, we saw that Jesus, as he relates to those that have forsaken him and those that will do so, responds and relates to them on the basis of pure, unfettered grace. Today we look at why this matters and what it looks like in our lives.

We’ve seen that every disciple will forsake Jesus, but the true disciples of God are the ones that come back after they have left him. And further, it is my contention that what brings people back is not fear, not Law, but the unbounded and free Grace of Jesus.

But let’s be honest–this process can be a long one. It can be months, years, or even decades before these true disciples of God return to Him. People can go very far down the path of sin’s temptations, and still be Christians. In fact, any of us can go very far down the path of sin’s temptations and still absolutely be beloved, regenerated, Christian children of God.
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