Second in a series based on Diana Butler Bass' "Christianity for the Rest of Us"
A lay colleague of mine, Anna Murdock, tells a story of a dream. Anna is new to faith. She writes, often, about everything. What is enlivening and exciting about Anna is that she sees our faith through new eyes, and often sees things we don’t. Here is her dream.
“The pastor called to ask if there was anything that he could pick up for me at the Cokesbury bookstore. I asked him to pick up a particular study Bible and he said that he would. A week later, it arrived. I opened the Bible slowly, with the same reverence I open any new, treasured book. My eyes fell on the open page, where I saw, written in the pastor’s own handwriting, some God -words that he had recently e-mailed to me. I turned more pages, and throughout this Bible, the words that he had offered to me through the years, the Scriptures he had passed to me, the prayers he had e-mailed, were there in the margins and the spaces... all carefully written in his handwriting. Tears began to fall as I realized that all that he had to offer to me were indeed steeped in his prayers for me, and in God's words offered for him to pass on to me. I turned page after page. Intermingled with the pastor’s handwriting were other handwritings that I didn't recognize, but words that were familiar to me and cherished. In the box that the Bible came in was a gold pen. The ink was the same as that of the writing.”
Anna’s story is one of many things. It is one of hospitality, faith and discernment, recognising a promise, and healing. Anna found herself welcomed into the church in a way which spoke to her soul. Her journey in faith is one of finding true hospitality; it is one of seeking and discerning a direction, and Anna will be the first to tell you that the way is not always clear; but she will also tell you that in the process she is being healed.
When we are asked about our hospitality in the church, we tend to talk about the coffee time after the service, or our groups which meet for entertainment, cocktail parties and meals, or how welcoming we are if people walk in our door. These are all part of hospitality, of course. But isn’t there more than this? Henri Nouwen, the Catholic writer, says today’s Christians are in fact nomads, part of “a world of strangers, estranged from their own past, culture, and country, their neighbours, friends and family, from their deepest self, and their God.” In our contemporary and fragmented world, there is no other choice than to become a kind of nomad. He says that if there is “any concept worth restoring to its original depth and evocative potential, it is the concept of hospitality.” We often speak about God’s radical hospitality. It is radical. It is a hospitality which says everyone - even those who have a criminal record, or those who don’t look like us or think like us, those who are not from our socio-economic level - are all welcome in God’s house and at God’s table - and if we are hospitable we treat them with care and respect. Too often, though, our notion of hospitality is more of a strategy to get people to come in to church. It is manipulative, and frankly most people see through it.
Diana Butler Bass says “True Christian hospitality is not a recruitment strategy designed to manipulate strangers into church membership. Rather, it is a central practice of the Christian faith - something Christians are called to do just for the sake of that thing itself. Hospitality draws from the ancient taproots of the Christian faith, from the soil of the Middle East, where it is considered a primary virtue of community.” Through our hospitality we are to be imitators of God’s promise, and God’s welcome. The people of Cornerstone United Methodist Church in Florida would put it this way ‘ We don’t care who you are, where you come from, what color you are, what your background is, with whom you share your life. You are here now, at Cornerstone and you are a brother and sister.” Some of the Cornerstone people have never been part of a church before. They are the Annas, who come looking, and are offered the freedom to ask and not be criticised, to have ideas and not be judged. Opening our doors means an intentional opening of our hearts, putting ourselves at risk in order to offer to others the welcome God has offered to us.
In recent weeks you have heard me use the word discernment. We use it a lot in the church, and it generally means a “search for answers”. In the process for ministry, discernment is often seen as jumping through a whole lot of hoops in order to get to the point of being ordained. Discernment, is both an individual process, and also a community process of listening for truth, or hearing with our hearts and souls, the promise God has made, and continues to make. Discernment is finding out who we are as a spiritual community, what the purpose of our spiritual community is, and what the promise of our spiritual community is.
Look at the story of Abram and Sarai. They could have dismissed what God was trying to tell them as hopeless. Instead, they heard with their hearts that God did have something in store for them, long after they had given up. They heard the promise with their hearts, and believed the promise with their hearts. Diana Butler Bass quotes the story of Mary Magdalene in the garden, seeing Jesus again and not recognising him with her eyes; but when he speaks to her, recognising him with her heart, and hearing the truth. Bass quotes Rev. Randolph Charles, who says “The Easter life consists of finding our true identity in God, and knowing that God has given us something to do.” The Easter life, as lived out in a community of faith, always requires listening, reading, praying both individually and together. For the Annas of this world, those who are listening with all their hearts and souls; and for those of us who have been part of a church community for so long that we’ve lost the way. Learning to listen for God, and listen to God. There is a caveat, though - as my friend Anna would tell you. Discernment is a dangerous religious practice, because it involves self-examination, self-self-criticism, questions and risks - and discernment often sets us off in a totally different direction in our lives.
Discernment today, in a re-emergent church, is a spiritual process for a congregation to be “born again”. Discernment points the way, guides, the way, and becomes the way. Think about that - discernment points, guides, and becomes the way. When we hear the promise from God, in our hearts, and are willing to walk the road in faith, discernment becomes the way - it becomes our way of life.
And in finding our way, we also find a concept of shalom - an expression of God’s harmony. God’s shalom, the shalom of God’s creation, is a healing of creation. Shalom is closely related to salvation, the healing of the disordered and broken into the harmony of its created wholeness.” the very centre of shalom is communal harmony.
Growing in faith as a spiritual community is a process. It doesn’t happen overnight. We live out the hospitality God has shared with us, by learning to be hospitable. We listen for God’s word to our hearts in our community, and we trust those words. In the discerning and the hospitality we also find a way to harmony and healing. It is God’s promise - a promise which we have had for years, since the beginning of time. We know the promise. It’s a matter of hearing it again, of listening with our hearts and finding God leading on the way.
Sources:
All quotes taken from the book "Christianity for the Rest of Us" by Diana Butler Bass.
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