FRIDAY REVIEW

Gregory of Nazianzus, Bishop of Constantinople, 389

May 9, A.D. 2008

Doing What Pleases the Father

They did not understand that he was telling them about his Father. So Jesus said, "When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am the one I claim to be and that I do nothing on my own but speak just what the Father has taught me. The one who sent me is with me; he has not left me alone, for I always do what pleases him." (John 8:27-29)

Gregory was born in Nazianzus in Cappadocia (now Turkey). Along with Basil of Caesarea and Gregory of Nyssa, he is known as one of the three Cappadocian Fathers of the early church. Most of us know very little about these men who played such a monumental role in shaping and systematizing orthodox Trinitarian and Christological doctrine. Their names and the places where they lived, worked, and died are hard to pronounce. They can seem inaccessible and irrelevant to us. They clearly are long ago and far away, and yet men such as these worked out the key dogma of the nature of God and Jesus Christ that has been handed down to us today.

Despite the monumental work that God did through them, they were ordinary men like you and me. Gregory never wanted to be a bishop or even a priest. Christopher Hall in his book Reading Scripture with the Church Fathers, states that Gregory appeared “to have been the perfect introvert, strongly attracted to solitude, prayer and the contemplative life. Moreover, he hoped to avoid the responsibilities of leadership.”

Gregory not only developed classic theological doctrine of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, but also lived as one on fire with the love of God. By nature, he preferred the quiet life of the monastery where he could devote himself to writing poetry and meditating on God, but God called him out again and again to a life of communal service as pastor, bishop, and theologian.

Jesus might have been inclined to retreat to his carpentry shop, but His Father had other plans for Him. He focused on doing His Father’s will, doing nothing on His own but instead speaking exactly what the Father had taught Him and doing whatever pleased His Father. The Father did not leave Him alone, but dwelt in Him and led Him by His Holy Spirit. Gregory wrote of this Holy Trinity, and he devoted himself to doing the will of the triune God rather than retreating to the monastery.

Jesus gave us the example of joyful submission to His Father’s will, and Christian men and women like Gregory have demonstrated for us that God can and does empower us to do what He commissions us to do. The fact that God enables what He calls for is great comfort to this introvert who never dreamed that he would one day serve as a priest in the Church of God. I find that every morning I must once again call on the Father through the Son to send His Holy Spirit to lead me and support me in all the work He gives me to do.

Each one of us who has been saved by God’s grace given through the broken body and shed blood of Christ on the Cross can rejoice that God both calls us and equips us for specific work in His Kingdom. It matters not what our personality type is, or what our skills and talents are, or what our inclinations are. As we offer them back to the God who gave them to us, He will surely enable us to say and do what pleases Him.

May you once again be filled with the power of the Holy Spirit as we celebrate Pentecost Sunday.

Your brother in Jesus the Christ, 

Jim McCaslin+