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The Mockingbird is a nonprofit magazine that seeks to connect the message of God’s grace with the concerns of everyday life. Our staff believes that grace, by its nature, is dynamic, unmerited, and expansive; we hope the range of voices in this issue reflects that nature. In surprising and down-to-earth ways, we aim to demonstrate how the Christian understanding of reality—what people are like, what God is like, and how the two intersect—bears out all around us. For more, visit our website, www.mbird.com.
Cover: Wayne White, Escape, 2024. Oil on canvas, 36 × 60 in.
Scott Froschauer, Sun Valley, California, Infinite Clearance, 2019. DOT Specification Street Sign made from Aluminum and Engineering Grade Vinyl, 49 x 102 in.
11 To Be, Rather Than to Seem
STEPHANIE PHILLIPS
14 For Invincible Sins
SARAH HINLICKY WILSON
41 Recovery Came Softly
LINDSAY HOLIFIELD
46 The Law According to Lawyers
WILLIAM M c DAVID
70 The Good Christian Funeral
BRYAN JARRELL
83 She Who Hangs Out in Cemeteries
JENNIFER POWELL M c NUTT
96 People Exegesis
CHAD BIRD
110 More Than an Epistle of Straw
TODD BREWER
116 Whole Lotta Love
AARON M. G. ZIMMERMAN
One Louder
DAVID ZAHL
28 JONATHAN A. LINEBAUGH
AMY MANTRAVADI
NICHOLAS MA
Untitled Excerpt
SHANE M c CRAE 39 Pomegranate
JENNY HYKES JIANG
65 And She Spoke of Many Things Saying Behold a Sower
JENNY HYKES JIANG
76 Three Poems
SPENCER REECE
Gracie…
SARAH CONDON 37 Is It Law or Is It Gospel? SAM BUSH 45 The Unexpected Gospel of the Mundane SARAH CONDON
On Our Bookshelf
The Confessional
What Would You Do If You Weren’t Afraid?
It used to be “Thou shalt be successful”; now it is “Thou shalt be successful without appearing to have tried.” It used to be “Thou shalt be skinny”; now it is “Thou shalt take pride in the aspects of your body that you secretly don’t like.” It used to be “Thou shalt never cry”; now it is “Thou shalt go to therapy and cry there so that you no longer have to cry in front of your friends.” It used to be “Thou shalt not be a nerd”; now it is “Thou shalt be the right kind of cool, quirky, and knowledgeable nerd and also an ace at video games.” These rules of daily life—we might call them laws—are countless. They may change with the times, but the experience (a feeling of judgment, accusation, inadequacy, or anxiety) does not.
The Law of God is in many ways different. “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.” “Love your neighbor as yourself.” “Be perfect, as your father in Heaven is perfect.” These laws are not arbitrary or subject to change. Yet we experience them in much the same way as the laws of everyday expectation. Who, after all, can be perfect? Who can really love so purely (especially on command)?
It is striking how lawful nature is. When you drop an apple, it falls. At 212°F, water boils. Every year, without fail, butterflies migrate up to three thousand miles on instinct alone. When it comes to humans, though, we live in a state of constant haphazardness, flying by the seat of our pants, at war with ourselves. Why is it so hard to make a good or healthy choice? (And if you think it’s easy, well, there’s probably something your friends aren’t telling you.)
As far as we at Mockingbird can tell, there is only one relief from such failure, whether before God or the world. That relief is grace.
For seventeen years people have been asking us, “What is Mockingbird?” If you’re wondering, this issue is a fantastic place to start. Are we a religion-meets-pop-culture platform? An “arts and faith initiative”? Some have argued that we are “hyper-grace antinomians,” neglecting Christian ethics and tradition. To the contrary, the distinction between the law and the gospel has a long, storied history in the Christian church. Communicating this distinction—exploring its contours and demonstrating why it matters—is a big part of what Mockingbird does, certainly why it was founded.
Most associated with Martin Luther, the law/gospel distinction also precedes him. You find it all the way back in Augustine, and Paul before that. Paul, for example, wrote, “the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life”; Augustine maintained that the law “commands more
than liberates; it diagnoses illness but does not cure.” Indeed, he went on to say that the law worsens one’s “illness,” so as to inspire that person to “seek the medicine of grace.”
To certain ears, all this may sound very doctrinaire, antiquated, possibly…dull? But like many a good thing, it’s better than it appears. Other near-synonymous frameworks are judgment and love, pressure and relief, expectation and acceptance, demand and promise. Observing these forces—how the former kills and the latter brings life—casts a fresh light on faith. It acknowledges the rigid standards to which we are held (and hold ourselves) and the way that indiscriminate, free-flowing grace forgives flubs big and small. It enables us to be sober-minded about the human condition and, at the same time, to have hope. It places a premium on inefficient things—among them, art, poetry, beauty, and play. It enables us to experiment—to get things wrong. It enables us, in other words, to engage seriously with pop culture, to appreciate both arts and faith, and to drive home the power of grace to almost alarming degrees.
In this issue, writers seek this medicine in all areas of life: Stephanie Phillips writes about grace in parenting a child with autism; Bryan Jarrell grants freedom to the grieving; Lindsay Holifield describes a gracious approach to recovery from an eating disorder; and Sarah Condon, in her advice column, reckons with family divisions. As for how the distinction appears in scripture, the scholars Sarah Hinlicky Wilson, Todd Brewer, and Jennifer McNutt have us covered, with essays on Luther, the Epistle of James, and Mary Magdalene. Chad Bird writes about the many faces of Genesis’s extraordinarily human characters, and the litigator William McDavid describes the relationship between the theological and the legal. We have interviews with theologian Jonathan A. Linebaugh, novelist Amy Mantravadi, and filmmaker Nicholas Ma. As for poetry, we have stunning contributions by Spencer Reece, Jenny Hykes Jiang, and Shane McCrae. For the ministers among us, Aaron M. G. Zimmerman lays out how to preach an effective law/gospel sermon, which David Zahl then gamely demonstrates in his closer.
Too much of the Church has muddled the law and the gospel, leveraging anxiety and power to coerce, leaving would-be believers disillusioned, angry, or perplexed. It is true that distinguishing the law from the gospel is an art—one that, according to Luther, only the Holy Spirit really knows well. But if there’s one thing we can say for sure, it’s that the gospel does not traffic in fear. If the gospel leaves you with any question, it ought to be the following. As David Zahl puts it in his new book, The Big Relief: “What would you do, what risk would you take, what would you say, if you weren’t afraid? … What would you do if all threat was removed, and you didn’t have to do anything?” That’s the question that inspired us to put this issue together. May it inspire you in turn.
—The Editors
illustrations by Aubrey Swanson Dockery.
By Sarah Hinlicky Wilson
For Invincible Sins
Why Martin Luther Wouldn’t Let Go of the Law—or the Cross
I. Law
Martin Luther regarded the Law of God with more reverence, honor, and seriousness than any other Christian theologian before or since, with the possible exception of the apostle Paul, from whom Luther stole all his best moves.
This is not what Luther is famous for. The former friar’s reputation still rests, five hundred years later, on his break from indulgences and monasticism, papal authority and church custom.1 Among many Christians, the popular perception of Luther is
1. Depending on who you’re speaking to, Luther’s reputation may also rest on his vicious attacks in writing against Jewish people and rabbinic Jewish practice and religion. Anyone working in the tradition of Luther must take responsibility for this part of his legacy and oppose it, as I have done consistently in my own writing. Thomas Kaufmann’s Luther’s Jews is a good place to start for those who wish to pursue this issue further. One observation, though: Luther is often made out to be unique in his anti-Judaism, in order to avoid the more horrifying truth of universal Christian anti-Judaism for almost all of its history. However much Luther deserves blame—and he does—his guilt doesn’t exonerate or lessen anyone else’s.
that he’s the one who pitted the Gospel against the Law in a fight to the death, and the Gospel won, leaving the Law defeated, dismembered, and dishonored.
Consider, by contrast, the following statements from Luther’s 1530s commentary on Galatians, widely regarded as the supreme expression of his teaching on justification by faith alone apart from the works of Law:
“The Law is the best of all things in the world.”
“The Law of God is greater than the entire world.”
“The best thing that the world has on this earth—the Law.”
“The best, the greatest, the loveliest among the physical blessings of the world, namely, the Law of God.”
“But what is the Law? Is it not also a commandment of love? In fact, the Law commands nothing else but love.”
“The Law is good, holy, useful, and necessary.”
These are not isolated proof-texts. They capture what Luther said about the Law of
Jonathan A. Linebaugh
How Does God Say “I Love You”?
Theology in Times of Need
“God speaks and acts so that we are interpreted by scripture. It is less true that we read the Bible; it is truer that the Bible reads us.”
So says Jonathan “Jono” Linebaugh at the start of his new book The Well That Washes What It Shows: An Invitation to Holy Scripture. Due out August 2025, the book’s central argument is that God’s word does two things: it honestly unveils and mercifully overcomes human weakness. Like much of Jono’s work, there’s a sensitivity to human suffering, matched by a rigorous investigation of Scripture, that together explore and announce the divine grace that compassionately meets us in our need.
The Well That Washes What It Shows is Jono’s third single-authored book. His earlier books, The Word of the Cross (2022) and God, Grace, and Righteousness (2013) are scholarly explorations of the theology, contexts, and history of interpreting Paul’s letters, emphasizing especially the incongruous nature of grace—what Jono calls “the merciful surprise” that is the gospel. He has also authored dozens of academic articles and edited three celebrated anthologies: The New Perspective on Grace (2023), God’s Two Words
(2018), and Reformation Readings of Paul (2015).
With a PhD from Durham University, Jonathan A. Linebaugh was, until 2022, a professor of New Testament at Cambridge University and a fellow of Jesus College, Cambridge. Ordained in the Episcopal Church since 2008, he now serves as Anglican Chair of Divinity and Professor of New Testament and Christian Theology at the Beeson Divinity School of Samford University in Birmingham (USA this time), where he lives with his wife, Megan, and three children: Liam, Callie, and Anna.
Interview by CJ Green.
By Lindsay Holifield
Recovery Came Softly
Shame and Grace Amidst Chronic Self-Destruction
Iturned sixteen years old in a lavender-walled bedroom on the eating disorder unit at Texas Children’s Hospital. Surrounded by eagle-eyed nurses watching my every move and whirring machines keeping me alive, I quietly transitioned to Sweet Sixteen. The unit’s charge nurse was a gruff woman named Lupe, and despite her job, she did not particularly like children. But it was my birthday, and in an uncharacteristic act of kindness, Lupe offered me a slice of cake. She must have briefly forgotten her surroundings, that I was not a normal teenager—I broke down sobbing at the mere thought of such a high-calorie food entering my body.
This was my first birthday in a clinical treatment facility for anorexia, but it would not be my last. After receiving the initial diagnosis of anorexia nervosa as a teenager, the doctor’s pronouncement sounding like a death-knell, I would be admitted to treatment facilities on twenty separate occasions across a period of fourteen years.
The treatment staff began to greet me knowingly when I would re-admit after only a few months out, as though I was an old friend returning from vacation. “Welcome back, Lindsay,” they would say as they took my luggage and inserted yet another nasogastric feeding tube. Over time I began to be labeled “chronic,” and I internalized a belief that I was one of the sufferers who was fated to live the rest of their life under the oppressive weight of this struggle.
The Confessional
Dear God,
I feel like I’m getting mixed signals from you.
Sometimes you’re like, “Getting angry, even a little bit, is just as bad as killing somebody! Also, don’t take yourself so seriously when you pray, love your enemies, don’t worry(?) and, oh yeah, BE PERFECT.” You may as well just say, “You’re a bad person, Kevin! Give up now! Get on your knees and beg for mercy!”
Can’t you see I’m doing my best here? I go to church 2–3 times/month. I try not to swear when I lose in ping-pong. I give $300 every year to the animal shelter! It’s like, hello?! Can I get a little credit here?!
And it’s not like I’m anywhere nearly as bad as Trisha in marketing. Trisha is a total gossip. (Plus, she drinks too much and purposely dresses in a way that causes men to stumble—I think she’s a Lutheran, but don’t quote me on that.)
Then, other times, you’re like, “I love you no matter what. Don’t worry, I’ll take the judgment that you deserve.” I’m like, “Um, are you OKAY??” Seriously, can’t you be like the gods from all the other religions and say things like, “Just try not to be a bad person, Kevin! Try to do your best! At least you’re not as bad as Trisha from marketing!”
At least with other gods I know where I stand. Like, as long as I do more good than bad, I know that I’m probably going to heaven (or at least getting reincarnated into something cool; maybe, a wolverine). But with you, I have to admit every lit-
tle thing, like, “Okay, I guess I’m a BAD PERSON according to these RANDOM RULES! I’m SO sorry, please FORGIVE me, blah blah blah!” And then you still love me?! I mean, why am I even trying to be such a great guy if you love me when I do bad things? What do you want me to do, just walk all over you? Is that it?? Have some self-respect, God!!!
Sorry about that…
Okay, I’m not gonna lie (because it’s actually really important to me that people tell the truth). This whole back-and-forth thing really bugs me. It’s just really intense. Like, extremely all-or-nothing. Between you and me, I would prefer it if you just helped me get a little bit better every day with some tweaks here and there (I can share some good Insta-gurus with you if you want some fresh ideas). Just spare me from this whole death-and-resurrection thing over and over and over and over and over.
One last thing: you’re probably aware of my relapse. I know, I know. Shouldn’t have bet on the Miami Dolphins winning the Super Bowl since they didn’t even make the playoffs! But listen, it’s not going to happen again. For real this time. I just need to really dig deep. Get rid of the distractions, be more disciplined, get on top of things, power through. And never give up, right? Do just a little bit better each day and never give up! Right?! Never give up!
Lord, have mercy.
By William McDavid
The Law According to Lawyers
And How Disputes Actually Resolve
The theological question that I get asked the most is how civil law and Christianity relate. My simple and usual answer is: they’re opposites that are sometimes complementary.
The longer answer starts with the proposition that the law is generally about restraining things deemed bad for society and fixing social wrongs. It’s an effective tool to restrain evil: imprisoning a drug-dealer who cuts his product with fentanyl is a win (criminal law), and it’s a win to make a big tobacco company that misrepresented research on the safety of cigarettes compensate people who relied on those misrepresentations (civil law). Both outcomes probably make the world a better place.
The area of law where I’m personally experienced—civil litigation—is a powerful instrument for justice.1 Any person, no matter their connections or credentials, can,
1. DISCLAIMER: Nothing in this article is intended as legal advice, and nothing in this article should be construed as legal advice. All examples are provided for purposes of illustration only and should not be relied upon as legal advice nor as an accurate representation of the law. Nothing contained in this article should be used to take or refrain from taking any course of action or making any other decision regarding potential claims or other legal rights.
if they feel they’ve been wronged by another, summon any other person to court and force judicial resolution of the issue.2 I could sue a Fortune 500 CEO, my local senator, a Supreme Court Justice, or Taylor Swift if they rear-ended me, slandered me in the newspaper, or withheld my share of profit in a joint business—or for anything else I can think of.
Litigation is also a mirror for human instinct. In your everyday life, you could always address anyone who’s wronged you, accuse them, and push for judgment. You could knock on your neighbor’s door to accost them about their night-barking beagle, stroll into your supervisor’s office to tell them the coffee tastes rancid, remind your employee that humming while she works is
2. Someone might observe that many people who’ve been wronged can’t afford a lawyer, don’t have the ability to even recognize who is a good lawyer to hire and who isn’t, and would probably get torpedoed by some arcane procedural misstep if they tried to litigate their case without a lawyer. Someone might also observe there are many exceptions—people who wronged you many years ago may be immune under statutes of limitations, governments and governmental employees frequently have partial or total immunity, etc. All true, but, anecdotally, most who are seriously harmed, at least in personal-injury and employment disputes, manage to find some degree of legal redress.
intolerable in a modern office setting, or tell your son you don’t approve of his girlfriend.
Two of my favorite TV shows—Seinfeld and Curb Your Enthusiasm—answer the question: what if you took all these little annoyances with other people that percolate below the surface and addressed them? Watching Larry David actually tell Mocha Joe that his coffeeshop tables are too wobbly provides a measure of vicarious justice: he’s the voice of all of us victims of wobbly tables. At the same time, it’s a reductio ad absurdum: life simply wouldn’t be tolerable if everybody voiced every petty grievance all the time. Moreover, accusation never leads its recipient to repentance. Instead of acknowledging the just observation that coffee shops shouldn’t have wobbly tables, Mocha Joe
loses it on Larry and bans him from coming back. Larry, in response, leases the adjacent storefront to open “Latte Larry’s,” a “spite store”: a competing enterprise with the sole purpose of spiting Mocha Joe, who is now Larry’s enemy.
Crucially, Larry brings up the wobbly tables with the best of intentions. He admires and respects Mocha Joe and wants to help him succeed. Mocha Joe needs to know the tables are wobbly so he can fix them—so his coffee shop can become the best possible version of itself. The problem is that Mocha Joe gets a bit defensive, then Larry presses a little more, then Mocha Joe turns critical toward Larry, then Larry gets defensive; each succeeding comment is said at a slightly higher volume and with slightly
Wayne White, Jerry Lee, Jimmy Lee, 2024. Oil on canvas, 30 × 40 in. 47
Amy Mantravadi
A Time Like Now, 500 Years Ago
On the Bondage of the Will and the Freedom of the Christian hen considering a theology for today—a theology that meets people where we’re at—few doctrines are as foundational (and misunderstood) as the bondage of the will, a.k.a., the un-free will. It is a simple, if revelatory idea: One cannot turn to God through one’s own power. Given the choice, we go the other way. We know this from experience if not from scripture, where all manner of chosen ones flub time and again—only to be forgiven and carried along by God himself. As a doctrine the un-free will is fundamentally about hope. It places our hope in God, not ourselves, yet the Church has been loath to embrace it, historically and also today. The stakes—foremost, relinquishing control—are too high.
WEnter Amy Mantravadi whose latest novel, Broken Bonds, dramatizes these very stakes in their earliest negotiations. The book opens in 1524, with Europe aflame. Luther’s defiant 95 theses (not to mention his inflammatory rhetoric) have ruptured the delicate balance of powers in church and state. Three scholars—Desiderius Erasmus, Philipp Melanchthon, and Luther himself—are in the crosshairs of a shockingly modern crisis about the things that terrify us most. An exciting, deftly written, and theologically astute work, Broken Bonds is the first of a two-part series. The sequel, Face to Face, comes out in November of this year, and picks up directly where Broken Bonds left off.
A longtime lover of history, Amy Mantravadi is also the author of The Chronicle of Maud, a three-novel series about Empress Mathilda of England. Prior to fiction writing she spent four years working for the Egyptian Press Office in Washington, D.C., where she performed research and analysis for top government officials in both political parties. From 2020 to 2021, she hosted the (A)Millennial Podcast, interviewing the likes of Tim Keller among others. Amy now lives in Dayton, Ohio, with her husband and son.
Interview by David Zahl.
LITTLE COMPTON PSALM
Universe, our enemies delay. Selah! Narragansetts haunt the circumference. Wee village green, milky light, shingled church. Christ, cantilevered homunculus— dolorous as Prokofiev, I admire
your talent for stamina. Whatever the crisis the answer is love. Where is my home? Vagabond, I drip with Easter. How free these New World warblers in the cherry tree— their opera of transience.
By Spencer Reece
By Aaron M. G. Zimmerman
Whole Lotta Love
Law and Gospel in the Pulpit
The first time I climbed into a pulpit to deliver a sermon, George W. Bush was President, Netflix mailed DVDs to people’s houses, and the Backstreet Boys were on tour. I was twenty-five and had just started seminary. The Episcopal congregation that sponsored me for ordination had graciously invited me to preach. What I lacked in experience, I made up in confidence. I had the pure Word of God—what could go wrong? I had researched the text, read the correct commentaries, and come up with a well-crafted, biblically faithful forty-five-minute sermon, complete with applications (the To-Do List for Jesus) at the end.
After church, greeting people as they filed out, I heard many a “Good sermon.” Later I would learn that meant “I don’t remember anything you said.” The parish’s rector, my
Nam Kyungmin, A Great King’s Desk, 2018. Oil on linen, 38 1/5 × 51 2/5 in.
