Michael B. Curry - Crazy Christians: A Call to Follow Jesus

Copyright 2013 by Michael B. Curry

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the written permission of the publisher.

Unless otherwise noted, the Scripture quotations contained herein are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the U.S.A. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

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Cover design by Laurie Klein Westhafer

Typeset by Denise Hoff

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Curry, Michael B.

Crazy Christians a call to follow Jesus / Michael B. Curry;

foreword by Katharine Jefferts Schori.

pages cm

Includes bibliographical references.

ISBN 978-0-8192-2885-7 (pbk.) -- ISBN 978-0-8192-2886-4 (ebook) 1. Christian life. I. Title.

BV4501.3.C86 2013

248.4--dc23

2013011827

What does it mean to be a faithful Christian in the twenty-first century? The answer to that question has much to do with what it has always meant to be a friend of Jesus, but there are also aspects of faithfulness that must be ready to respond to the challenge of changing times and contexts. As children of the Most High God, we are made for the beloved community, the reign or commonwealth of God, or Gods kindom (and yes, that is how I meant to spell it). We are all kin one to another, and not only to other human beings. We are a parta magnificent partof the whole of Gods creation, and as human beings our vocation is to partner in the transformation of this planet toward that ancient and eternal vision of a healed and reconciled existence. Our tradition has long called that vision the divine dream of shalom, a community of peace and justice where all Gods created parts live together in harmony. The daily prayer of our hearts reminds us that we are created of stardust to bring celestial possibility into earthly reality: your kingdom come, on earth as in heaven.

As bishop, Michael Curry has been leading Gods people in North Carolina and far beyond since 2000. His leadership is always encouraging the movement toward transformation, and he has a remarkable ability to cast the journey toward the reign of God in image, song, and story that lean into the possibility God has open before us. He is deeply rooted in ancient wisdom, current scholarship, and the hope we know in Jesus, and he shares the clarity of vision for which prophets have always been known.

Read and savor these chaptersread them aloud, even, for their cadences teach as much as the words on the pageread, recite, and sing, too, for the hymnody here will enter your bones and help to transform your heart into the vulnerability and compassion of Jesus. These pages are filled with resonance that can connect you with the deep bones of your own story. Remember and reconnect with those in your own life who have shown you God, as Michaels grandmother so clearly did. Where and with whom are you passing on that open-hearted vision of possibility?

Read, dream, and singand discover the spirit at work all around you in unexpected people, places, and invitations. Those invitations emerge in the possibility of the mountaintop, as Bishop Curry names it, and what the Celts call thin places encounters with the Holy One. We are far more likely to discover them on the road, away from our comfort zones and self-constructed prisons, especially when we travel lightly in service of Gods healing and reconciliation. So, as one preacher put it long ago, read yourself full, let the word gather heat within your prayer, then with every particle and pulse of passion within you go and proclaim in word and deed what it means to know Gods ever-open possibility and faithfulness, and then let your acts and words godont hang on to the need for particular results. The result will be transformation of kin together, though it will likely exceed your expectations and limited vision.

It is indeed a crazy dream, but together, the Body of Christ can most certainly help to build the kingdom, transform brokenness, and renew the face of the earth.

The Most Rev. Dr. Katharine Jefferts Schori

Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church

May 2013

I have found that some things stick to you, especially when youre young, and over time they become a part of you. One of the things that stuck to me when I was a high school volunteer for the late senator Robert F. Kennedy in his presidential campaign were these words he liked to quote from George Bernard Shaw: Some men see things as they are and ask why. I dream things that never were and ask why not. Those words stuck with me. And now, decades later, I suspect the Spirit had something to do with that.

When I was a parish priest in the 1980s serving St. Simon of Cyrene Episcopal Church in Lincoln Heights, Ohio, the late Verna J. Dozier spent a day with us. During the period of Jim Crow segregation, Verna had taught English in the Washington, D.C., public schools. She became a member of the Church of the Saviour there and was greatly influenced by the Rev. Gordon Cosby and his commitment to the kind of radical discipleship that dares truly to follow in the footsteps of Jesus. Verna eventually became an Episcopalian, retired from teaching, and placed her formidable literary skills and knowledge in service of the Word of God and the people of God.

As a result she was able to help us Episcopalians and many other mainline Christians, who tend to be somewhat intimidated by the Bible, begin to engage the Holy Scriptures anew. She did that by getting us to actually read the Scriptures, teaching us to listen for and to hear Gods word to us and to begin to dream of a world born of Gods loving vision for Gods creation and for the whole human family.

I first met Verna the day she visited us at St. Simon of Cyrene. In the 1990s I was able to spend more time with her while serving at St. James Episcopal Church in Baltimore. It was during this period that Verna published a book on the story and significance of the Bible titled The Dream of God: A Call to Return.

The Dream of God helped me see that the Bible and indeed our Christian faith and tradition are pointing beyond themselves to the will, the vision, the sublime purposes, the passionate desire of God. Verna wrote that the kingdom or reign of God, which Jesus talked about probably more than anything else, is the realization of Gods dream and vision for human life, human society, and all of creation.

That dream of God is in part the motive for Gods involvement and Gods mission in the life of the world, from the days of the Bible until now. That dream inspired the Hebrew prophets, who used Gods thunderous, Thus saith the Lord, to courageously challenge injustice and mistreatment of the poor. That dream is the reason God came among us in the person of Jesus of Nazareth, who showed us the way to live beyond what often are the nightmares of our own sin-filled human design and into the direction of Gods dream. Over time I began to see that being a Christian is not essentially about joining a church or being a nice person, but about following in the footsteps of Jesus, taking his teachings seriously, letting his Spirit take the lead in our lives, and in so doing helping to change the world from our nightmare into Gods dream.