Gerald L. Sittser - Water from a Deep Well: Christian Spirituality from Early Martyrs to Modern Missionaries

I was standing with a friend on the shore of an alpine lake in Montana. It was a clear, moonless night. The late autumn air was crisp. Every star was sharply etched on the domed firmamentthe sky didnt have to compete with town lights.

My friend said, I can hardly wait to get to heaven and learn the names of all the stars!

I said, I know how you feel. But why wait? I can tell you of a few of their names right now. Look. Right over there is Deneb. And that bright one off to the left is Betelgeuse. Just over that pine treesee that tight cluster of seven stars?thats the Pleiades that are mentioned in Job. A lot of them have stories that go with them. Let me tell you about the hunter, Orion...

That was enough for my friend. She impatiently brushed me off and changed the subject. Ill wait for heaven.

Dr. Jerry Sittser doesnt want us to wait for heaven to get to know the names and stories of our brothers and sisters, parents and grandparents, uncles and aunts and cousins, this firmament of saints, this family of faith into which we have been baptized. He tells us their names and stories in this book, Water from a Deep Well. The book is a bucket lowered into a well that brings up stories that get me in touch with my family. When I take my place in a pew each Sunday morning with my local congregation, the people I dont see far outnumber the people I do see, this cloud of witnesses that provides much-needed depth and texture and companionship as I follow Jesus. Their bones have been placed in cemeteries for twenty centuries on every continent. Their names are written in the book of life. I worship with them.

There is more. This book is a timely antidote to the amnesiac, one-generational world that we live in. A one-generational church is capable of generating energy but there are no roots. When the emotions wear off or difficulty arrives it withers. Soon there is nothing to show for it. Without a cultivated memory we live from hand to mouth on fad and novelty. But Christians dont sprint out of the starting blocks in each generation in a race for heaven. We are on a relay team. We have a heritage, a richly composted family history. We need to know these members of our family who lived lives similar to what we are living and lived them well. As we get to know them, we are less isolated, less alone. We are not orphans. We are not misfits.

And there is also this: Water from a Deep Well is a part of the answer to the longest of the recorded prayers of Jesus (Jn 17). On the night before his death by crucifixion, Jesus prayed to the Father for his disciples... that they may be one, even as we are one (Jn 17:11). It is imperative that we recognize that he specifically included us in his prayer: I ask not only on behalf of these, but also on behalf of those who will believe in me... that they may all be one (Jn 17:20-21). That means us.

Jesus prayed in intercession for his disciples that they may become completely one (Jn 17:23) and for all of us who continue to follow Jesus today, at one with Jesus, at one with the Father, and at one with one with one another. A family, one body, held together relationally in love and obedience by the prayers of Jesus. That prayer of Jesus, who always lives to make intercession for us (Heb 7:25), continues to do its work, bringing his people into an intimate praying oneness in the same way that the beloved son Jesus is one with the Father.

Water from a Deep Well is a detailed documentation of the unity that Jesus prayers have brought about through these centuries of Christian living. The oneness is not yet complete. Some Christians look on others as rivals. Some compete for dominance. Willfulness and pride are roadside bombs responsible for considerable fragmentation. Meanwhile, we have these names and stories of the many in our family who have entered into the prayers that Jesus continues to pray for us that we become completely one, so that the world may know that you have sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me (Jn 17:23).

Eugene H. Peterson
Professor Emeritus of Spiritual Theology, Regent College, Vancouver, B.C.

Gerald L. Sittser (Ph.D., University of Chicago) is professor of theology at Whitworth University in Spokane, Washington. He is also the author of A Grace Disguised, The Will of God as a Way of Life and Love One Another.

Love one another. Its one of the greatest, simplest and most difficult commands Jesus gave. And when it comes to the church, sometimes it seems impossible.

How can we achieve unity within the diversity of the body of Christ? Gerald Sittser examines the "one another" statements throughout the New Testament to distill much-needed biblical wisdom for loving each other even in the midst of controversies and stalemates. Speaking from his own pastoral experience with the best and worst of church life, Sittser helps us understand more fully what the love Jesus commanded actually requires and shows us how to live it out-through struggle, servanthood, compromise and sacrifice.

978-0-8308-3449-5

InterVarsity Press
P.O. Box 1400
Downers Grove, IL 60515-1426
World Wide Web: www.ivpress.com
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2007 by Gerald L. Sittser

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission from InterVarsity Press.

InterVarsity Press is the book-publishing division of InterVarsity Christian Fellowship/USA, a movement of students and faculty active on campus at hundreds of universities, colleges and schools of nursing in the United States of America, and a member movement of the International Fellowship of Evangelical Students. For information about local and regional activities, write Public Relations Dept. InterVarsity Christian Fellowship/USA, 6400 Schroeder Rd., P.O. Box 7895, Madison, WI 53707-7895, or visit the IVCF website at www.intervarsity.org.

Scripture quotations, unless otherwise noted, are from the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Design: Cindy Kiple
Images: Grant V. Faint/Getty Images

ISBN 978-0-8308-7997-7 (digital)
ISBN 978-0-8308-3745-8 (print)

To

Rachel Johnson

Sister Florence

Harold Korver

Rits Tadema

my Abbas and Ammas

with affection and gratitude

Page numbers refer to print edition.

Abbo of Fleury, 190

abbot, 107-8

abolitionism, 237, 252

acedia , 115-16

agape , 85, 91-93

Alcuin of York, 113

Aldersgate, 251

Amazing Grace, 236, 238-39

anchorite (anchoress), 180

Antioch (of Syria), 61-62

Antony of Egypt, St., 75-79, 81, 89, 94

apatheia , 85, 88-91

apophatic theology, 169

Apostolic Tradition , On the , 66

Aristides, 54-55

Athanasius of Alexandria, St., 45-46, 75-76, 88, 120

ascesis , 85-88

asceticism, 74-81, 85-88, 127, 171-73, 194-96, 199-200, 204

Athenagoras, 40, 59-60

Augustine of Hippo, St., 15-17, 20, 22-23, 66, 88, 105-6, 127