Erika Johnson
Dear Friend,
I don’t know about you but I was first taught a pretty romanticized view of the early church and the beginnings of Christianity’s spread. I learned about missionaries and martyrs and communities of people who worked together wholeheartedly to preach the gospel. This is a real part of how the church started and grew, certainly. As I studied Christian history more thoroughly and through better sources, though, I learned that the church has just always been full of people. People are never as clean or pretty or even wholehearted as that sweet vision, are they?
Reading about our saint today, John Chrysostom, reminded me that as soon as the church began, it was in need of reform. Chrysostom was such a celebrated preacher in the fourth century that an empress insisted that he be called as the bishop of Constantinople and carried away from his home to serve there. He didn’t last for long, though, because he started instituting reforms right away. These reforms and his sermons against corruption angered most people in any kind of power, including the empress, so he was sent into exile. A biographer said that he started “sweeping the stairs from the bottom to the top” and gave the bishop’s household the first shake-up. (1)
Jesus, too, first called out those in any power. Fr Rohr said that, “Jesus is shockingly not upset with sinners. He is upset with people who do not think they are sinners” (2). Jesus addressed the leadership who directed and instructed others but thought themselves above instruction.
Learning to lead in true Christ-like fashion means learning to love, serve, and listen. It demands openness to reform, in yourself and in the systems within which you work.
It has been inspiring for me to know each cohort of Beloved in the Desert corps members as they learn to lead. Anyone who commits themselves to a year of service, reflection, and intentional community has already chosen humility and patience. I have seen those attributes put into practice and then each of them adding advocacy for others and for self, reacting with kindness, and the hard practice of empathy. One year is such a short time but, if used well, it can start us on the way of continual reformation.
Your sibling in Christ,
Erika Johnson
Erika serves on the Beloved in the Desert Advisory Board and is a nominee for Vestry. She teaches kindergarten in her spare time.
(1) https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/08452b.htm
(2) CAC daily meditation 24 January, 2022 Adapted from Richard Rohr, The Wisdom Pattern: Order, Disorder, Reorder (Cincinnati, OH: Franciscan Media, 2001, 2020), 168–170