Readings: Acts 10:44-4; John 15:9-17
As God has loved me – said Jesus – so I have loved you and now all you have to do is join this circle dance of love: you love each other as I love you – as God loves me. And then, you will experience deep, fulfilling joy beyond all imagining.
It’s a wonderful ideal – but do we know the steps of this dance?
Nightcliff Uniting Church in Australia[1] recently tried something that was very well received. Called “What in God’s name do you think you’re doing?” it was a time in the service when people talked about their lives in terms of their faith. What emerged through the series of short presentations from members of the congregation was the sense that people are showing love in their everyday lives – they are making a difference. When people were given an opportunity to review their lives and reflect on their work and the other things they do, they were able to see their faith at work in the world and make connections between the love and friendship of God they experience and the love and friendship they share with others. But how confident are we in making these connections?
Bruce Sanguin[2] a minister in the United Church of Canada and a leading teacher in the
Evolutionary Christian Spirituality movement reflects on how little emphasis there has been in liberal Christian congregations on teaching people the core principles and practices necessary to ensure we know how to live this dance of love. He notes that many congregations just don’t have the skills for loving relationship – and thus, far too often, churches end up being cultures of suffering rather than love.
Evolutionary Christian Spirituality movement reflects on how little emphasis there has been in liberal Christian congregations on teaching people the core principles and practices necessary to ensure we know how to live this dance of love. He notes that many congregations just don’t have the skills for loving relationship – and thus, far too often, churches end up being cultures of suffering rather than love.
In trying to address this situation, Sanguin proposes a set of eight principles, which congregations might consciously agree to – and then be offered regular opportunities to learn about and practise. I offer you his principles this morning, inviting you to reflect on them – considering whether these would be worth committing to – or maybe whether there might be others, which we as a community could say ‘yes’ to learning about and regularly practising, as we seek to follow Jesus’ commandment to love each other as we are loved by the Divine Spirit of Love.
Sanguin’s first three principles are
· Listening with deep curiosity
· Being role models for everyone we meet
· Speaking our deepest truth
When we listen to each other, with deep curiosity, we want to understand how others are seeing and interpreting their world. We sincerely desire to see reality through the other’s eyes, and therefore risk the possibility of being changed by their perspective. We see this curiosity in Nicodemus, a religious authority figure, who came to learn from – not to instruct – the peasant rabbi, Jesus of Nazareth. How often is our listening open or humble enough to hear the Divine Word in others?
Being role models for every one we meet is the second principle. The way we conduct ourselves in this community and within the larger community is a profound witness to what life in Christ looks like. Whether we like it or not, Christians are always on stage in the eyes of the world. You are the light of the world, the salt of the earth, Jesus taught. Do we exhibit a quality of consciousness that provides light and salt for both our everyday lives and the difficult ethical decisions being made daily in our workplace and government?
In a community committed to love, we remember how Jesus was recognized for speaking with an inner authority rather than quoting other authorities. Speaking our deepest truth is Sanguin’s principle which sums up that authority. We endeavour in our conversations to be as transparent as we can about our deepest truth – always aware that this truth is not static, but continues to grow. This principle is never to be used as a weapon to hurt others, but rather, taking full responsibility to manage our own feelings and impulses, we speak our truth in love, In groups, we listen deeply for the emergence of fresh wisdom that arises specifically and congruently with each new context, rather than holding on to and telling our old nuggets.
The first steps of this dance invite us to be role models who listen curiously and speak their deepest truths. The next three steps, or principles, bite more deeply into the counter-cultural nature of the Gospel and are challenging to any congregation.
· Constantly seeking resolution
· Walking the path of vulnerability.
· Assuming nobody and nothing is against us
First, constantly seeking resolution. Acknowledging that unresolved conflict saps life energy away from our commitment to evolve in love, we are committed to resolving conflict in non-violent ways as soon as we become aware of it: We refuse to draw others into the conflict through gossip. Rather we follow the gospel example of going to the person directly and if together we cannot reach resolution, seeking agreement with the other to turn to mediation. We ask for the grace to neither shame the other, play the victim or hide; and once resolution is reached, we sincerely seek the grace to forgive - that is, releasing any attachment we might have to the drama of conflict.
Walking the path of vulnerability. With Jesus, we are willing to go the cross and die to all identities and identifications that keep us from growing in love, compassion and service. Rather than playing it safe, we look for opportunities that involve risk and which challenge us to grow. We accept new tasks, new behaviours and thought patterns that stretch us beyond our perceived limits. This principle takes us into the heart of what it means to be evolutionary Christians. When our earliest evolutionary instincts get triggered, they compel us to defend ourselves against perceived threats. While this is healthy and natural, we also recognize that these instincts can over-function making us fearful, hypersensitive and over-vigilant. If we refuse to walk with Jesus at the risky edges, not allowing our self-awareness to develop, we will build our identity around our defence systems. Transformation can only come as come to know and embrace our vulnerability.
Assuming nobody and nothing is against us
As people of faith, we do not make the assumption that the universe is aligned against us or even neutral. Rather it is for us. As the apostle Paul put it, “if G_d is for us, who can be against us?” We may not be able to agree on who or what this G_d is – we may prefer to use other language to evoke this horizon of our becoming – but what we do know from our tradition is that this Spirit of Love, this Godness, will not let us go. We recall the story of how Jacob’s all-night wrestling encounter with a stranger may have wounded him for life, but far from signifying the absence of G_d, this wrestling match represented divine engagement. Even when life feels as though it is pitted against us, we look for the hidden presence of the divine – in things, places and people. Our commitment to assume that nobody – and nothing – is against us runs quite counter to a world which otherizes, ostracises and excludes.
Which leads us to the final principles we might assume in learning this dance of love for our lives and our life in community.
· Living radical responsibility
· Setting our mind on Christ
In living radical responsibility, we commit ourselves – body, mind and spirit – to the way, exemplified by Jesus, which calls us into compassionate, generous and positively responsive relationships with ourselves, each other, animals and plants, this Planet and the Cosmos – all held within the Divine Spirit of Love. We do not abdicate this responsibility to other individuals or groups nor see radical responsibility as an optional extra. We are empowered to bring forth the future that needs us, personally and collectively allowing and ensuring what Jesus called the Kin(g)dom of God to emerge.
We recognise in Sanguin’s final principle Setting our Mind on Christ Paul’s challenge to the Church at Philippi: “let this mind be in you that was also in Christ Jesus”. Setting our minds – our hearts – on Christ challenges us to abandon our earliest concerns for safety, security and status. This is not an easy task, but as we practice self-abandonment we discover the sacramental nature of each and every moment, learning to read our lives, our community and our world with reverence.
As we learn to abandon self, surrendering moment by moment to the divine impulse, we are transformed so that our concerns become not for our own survival but rather with alleviating the suffering (both human and other than human) of our planet. It is in this practice, in setting our minds on Christ, that we create the optimum culture for the evolving dance of Love to emerge.
· Listening with deep curiosity.
· Being role models for everyone we meet
· Speaking our deepest truth
· Constantly seeking resolution
· Walking the path of vulnerability
· Assuming nobody and nothing is against us
· Living radical responsibility
· Setting our mind on Christ
It’s in developing, exploring and practising on a regular basis all of these principles – or ones like them – we will come to know what in God’s name we think we are doing.
I give the last word to contemporary Australian cartoonist, Michael Leunig, who puts it succinctly: “'Love one another and you will be happy.' It's as simple and difficult as that. There is no other way.”[3]
[1] Quoted from Seasons of the Spirit material for Sunday 13 May, 2012
[2] This sermon is an edited version of Core Principles of Evolutionary Christian Culture, Bruce Sanguin, 3 April 2012 http://ifdarwinprayed.com/?s=Principles+of+Evolutionary+Culture
[3] When I talk to you Harper Collins (no date) last page
No comments:
Post a Comment