The town where I went to Seminary was very heavily Roman Catholic, so one of the more interesting parts of my time there was that I got to spend a lot of time in study and conversation with our neighboring Catholic sisters. And, let me tell you, those were some of my favorite memories of grad school! One day, we took a trip over to the Sisters of Charity of the Blessed Virgin Mary (BVM) to talk about mystics and mysticism in church history; a topic I was fascinated by because of my love for history. Now, this isn’t a topic that we talk about a lot in modern Protestant churches, in my experience at least, despite the fact that many have commemoration days, but these faithful Christians from generations previous have much to teach us still about what it means to be in relationship with God and to live faithfully. The mystics that we most frequently talked about with the sisters were women, which is probably part of why their stories have not been shared more broadly. And, because, when we hear their stories today, I think we would also be quick to slap on labels of schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, multiple personality disorder, or many other clinical diagnoses. And, we treat it like their experiences can no longer matter because of that, even though these experiences were very real for these mystics and had a profound impact on the faith lives of other Christians and development of Christian academic thinking. This kind of all or nothing thinking about the mystical nature of faith is harmful to us now, for the lives of modern Christians and our study of earlier Christians, whose stories we are often far too quick to ignore or dismiss.
Now, there are a few who are more well-known. One mystic in particular, Julian of Norwich, was given May 8th for her commemoration day each year. Even if you are not familiar with Julian herself, there is a chance that you have come across at least one of her sayings at some point in your life. In discussion one of her visions in which Jesus appears to her, Julian reports that Jesus tells her: … “but all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well.” The full quote includes the opening, “It was necessary that there should be sin…,” but it is often the latter half which we have repeated throughout church history, often out of context.
It is an oversimplification to say that “all shall be well,” is a dismissal of the pain and hardships that we experience as a part of our mortal reality. Rather, it is an expression of deep trust in the promises of God, even in the face of everything that we are enduring. After all, these words are spoken to a supposedly dying Julian , when she reports these visions of divine love sent from God. It is her experience with these visions which helps to create the defense of her hope in the midst of worldly challenges, just as Peter is instructing the early Christians (1 Peter 3: 15b). This wasn’t to be an aggressive, argumentative defense of their faith, but a call to embody their faith in word and deed even when the people around them questioned them or called them fools for trusting in God and being grounded in this hope. It was an expression of their love for the world, extending from the love they first received from God, which wasn’t always easy to hold onto.
Despite the way we often interpret Peter’s teachings today too, he isn’t dismissing the reality of suffering, but rather he is recognizing that faithful living is not without its challenges for these early Christians, who were very much living counterculturally and people wanted to know why. As Peter reminds them, the hope and faith that has been given to us is because of God’s unfailing love for us, made known through the death and resurrection of Christ; their lives are to be a testament to their faith in those promises. And, as Jesus promises to his disciples, even his Ascension will not mean an absence of God, rather God will send the Holy Spirit to abide with them (John 14: 16-17). He even says, ‘I will not leave you orphaned…’ (John 14: 18a), as a testament to the care that God has for humanity.
I’ll be the first to admit that it feels really hard to trust in these words that Jesus told Julian that “all will be well” when I look at the world around us these days. When it feels like we have moved so far away from Jesus’ declaration that ‘If you love me, you will keep my commandments’ (John 14: 15), instead using Christian hate shrouded in the language of love as the trust mark of faith, I am reminded of Julian’s trust in God’s love even in her near-death experience, and Paul’s proclamation in Acts that ‘In God we live and move and have our being.’ (Acts 17: 28a). Paul is preaching to the Greeks the Christian understanding that we are made in the image of God, not the other way around. And, while it is troubling that this is still a challenge we are struggling with in the church today, it is also comforting to be reminded that this is not something new either. No idol or image of this world can take the place of God because God doesn’t just reside in one human or in statutes we made in our image; God doesn’t just exist in golden rooms and behind paywalls, but dwells with us and all of creation.
Despite the seemingly simple declaration that our love for Jesus will be demonstrated through his commandments to love God and love our neighbors, human reality has shown us that we are very good at trying to twist his teachings to fit our ideas rather than the other way around, just as we have done with God’s image. I just finished reading the book Separation of Church and Hate by John Fugelsang, and this human twisting of God’s teachings is a big theme throughout that book. Yet, even through all of our failings, we are also reminded that God does not withhold God’s unfailing love from us. That God doesn’t abandon us to our own destruction or throw us into the world to figure it out without guidance. While the mystics may seem a bit out there in their teachings from our modern viewpoint, they do have something to teach us about listening for the ways that the Spirit is moving in and among us, to be our Advocate, our Comforter, and our guide. So, while it may be difficult to trust her teaching that “all will be well,” may we at least follow in the way of Julian and the other mystics to open our hearts and minds to the ways that God is still moving and working among us, drawing us together in Christ and sending us forth in love, for love. As our lives are a testament to the hope and faith we are grounded in, even amid all the fear, challenges, and frustrations. Not as a dismissal of the pain, but as a reminder that it does not get to have the final say; that God has not abandoned us. The grounding point which sends us out, ready to love the world, trusting that others will know we follow Christ by the way we love the world and follow in Christ’s teachings; a love that isn’t superficial or manipulative, but a love that is genuine and true because all are made in the image of God, not the other way around.
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Sunday May 3rd, 2026 Worship