Dunstan’s Life Hack: Stop Trying to Fit In
Today, we take a look at the life of Dunstan, one of the most famous of all of England’s Christian spiritual leaders, born in 909 A.D. in Glastonbury in the southwest part of England. Dunstan was famous for his extraordinary and multitudinous talent. But he was so much more than a man who knew how to cast gorgeous church bells, illuminate manuscripts, and all the other things for which we know him.
Let’s take a more careful look at the example of the man himself.
Life Plan
Dunstan grew up in the midst of a family of privilege, and the assumption was that he would take up a life in royal court. And so, after he was dutifully trained and mentored, his family sent him off to court.
But to Dunstan, it was clear from the very beginning that he did not fit in. The intrigue, the political maneuvering, the capacity to be able to think politically about relationships, everybody trying to curry favor with royalty—he couldn’t stand it.
And he got out. Wisely. Early. Young.
Life of Prayer
And in the midst of that turmoil, his life actually began to open up. God connected him with his uncle, the Bishop of Westminster, who talked to him about a calling to ordination. In a time when monasticism had all been destroyed because of the Viking raids, Dunstan established a little hut on the ruins of a monastery and began to ply a life of prayer.
And out of that life of prayer came the extraordinary flourishing of what we now know about Dunstan. He became not only a talented man of the arts but someone who had the courage to publicly challenge a king over his unchastity. Someone who had the creativity to write the liturgy for the coronation of a new king, a liturgy still used in some form to this day.
And so much more.
Life Message
So what’s the message of Dunstan? It’s simple. If you’re not living as who you are, stop trying to fit in. What I mean is this: Paul advises us in the epistle to “Be careful then how you live, not as unwise people but as wise” (Eph. 5:15).
We tend to separate the symptoms he gives us for unwise living into a particular kind of moral category, because he says, “Do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery” (Eph. 5:18a), and so on. We tend to think, “So long as I keep myself clean from those things, I’m doing fine.”
But that’s not Paul’s point. He knew that the excesses of dissipation might indicate a kind of inner conflict that says, “You’re not living wisely.” So the purpose for your life could thus be found in something you are not yet doing.
In other words, you have a hunger inside to become something more, which is, in fact, being stifled by the desire to fit in.
Foolish Life
If there is any life I’d consider foolish, it is one in which you live at cross-purposes to the very reasons that God made you, to the way he formed you. And it was only after Dunstan stepped out of the arena he clearly knew he was not wired for that his life truly began to open up.
God had his hand in that transition, because England desperately needed strong, courageous leaders. The Vikings had all but destroyed Christianity there, so Dunstan and others helped bring about what became a whole new flourishing of Christian England. His country and his people needed Dunstan.
In our day, our society (and especially our church) needs the same kind of leaders. It’s so predictable that it’s worthy of satire. And that’s exactly why I believe a lot of people are, quite frankly, trying to fit in. They’re living at cross-purposes to the real reasons that God made them.
A Life that Astounds
An Australian humorist named Michael Looney says the first time he actually heard God’s name was in casual conversations with his parents. But not in the way that you and I would imagine. He heard his father yelling in the backyard, “Where in God’s name is my hammer?” and his mother answering, “God only knows.”
He said, “That taught me something. It captured my attention. That God must be this incredibly important, mysterious being.” In fact, he even goes so far as to say, “God is a one-word poem.”
He said, “But when I got into classes in preparation for confirmation, I found a very different God being presented. Not wondrous and mysterious, a one-word poem, but instead a kind of predictably boring character.”
People who present God that way are those who aspire to fit in. They are people who have predictably boring lives themselves. Because that’s the kind of God they need in order to live, in essence, at cross-purposes with the very particular way they were made.
God knows we don’t need a predictably boring church or a predictably boring set of church leaders. We need people who are willing and have the courage to become who God has made them, even at great personal cost. So that in that kind of flourishing, they present a God who is as wondrous and magnificent, as unpredictable and full of love as Jesus of Nazareth. After all, he continued to shock and astound people at every turn. And inevitably, the predictably boring God doesn’t look like Jesus at all.
I’m looking for churches that astound. Because that’s rooted in the nature and character of our God.
So when we think about Dunstan, let’s not think just gorgeous manuscripts and church bells. Let’s think about a man who had the courage to say yes to who God was making him. And let’s say, along with the hymn, along with Dunstan, “Great Jehovah (you, not us) form our hearts and make them thine.”
Then, like Dunstan, we’ll be sure to lead lives that astound.
Are you trying to fit in? Is your life lined up or at cross-purposes with the person God has made you to be? Share this blog and your response on Twitter. Please include my username, @revgregbrewer.
(This post is an adaption of Bishop Brewer’s sermon on May 19, 2016, in the Bishop’s Oratory of the Diocesan Office, Orlando.)
Unless otherwise noted, scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989 the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.