Seeking Unity, Building Community

WHY WAIT FOR EVIDENCE? ATTACK NOW!

It is getting to be that season in Presbyterian land leading up to the 219th General Assembly, our biennial gathering and national decision making session this coming July. Now that reports and papers on various subjects are heading for the public forum, people begin to behave... well, like the sinners we all are, or like the disciples jockeying for position at the Last Supper.

Two reports are going to this Assembly in the area of interfaith relations - one is "Christians and Jews: People of God," and the other "Toward a Theological Understanding of Christian-Muslim Relations." These documents are not yet publicly available, and yet, already, the personal attacks have begun!

This sort of thing is not new, of course, and even has a high-flown name: the argument "ad hominem". Never mind the adequacy or truth of what is being said (or, may be about to be said, in this case), blast away at the people involved.

I write about this, in part, because it is all too easy to blast back. But more importantly, I want to lift up this sort of behavior because it is so contrary to the listening, considering, open minded and open hearted stance that is essential to getting anywhere in buuilding relationships.

Of course, for too many, national meetings are not about building relationships, but about winning on various positions. I think that is human, but very sad.

Last summer, at the Evangelical Lutheran Church assembly, while debating the issues of human sexuality and ordination, the presider stopped proceedings regularly for prayer and reflection, and to allow a chance for listening. It wasn't perfect, and the outcome may or may not not have been changed. It did not end up keeping everyone together either. But I hope that we Presbyterians will pay more attention to listening, and to relationships this time around.

Jay Rock

Weak in Prayer?

I most confess that I've never been a fan of the use of written prayers in communal prayer or worship. But, I also have learned to value and appreciate those prayers. Particularly those written prayers that have been a blessing to the Church through generations. The Lords Prayer Probably being the most cherished one.

One of the reasons why I don't feel comfortable with written prayers is because in my Christian experience I have learn to associate prayer with passion. This could just may be a theological or cultural bias.

This week many Christians celebrate the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity. During this celebration churches are invited to pray for the unity of the broken body of Christ. It has been my experience that the majority of the gatherings to celebrate this Week of Prayer lack seal and passion. The prayers used in these celebrations are almost always written prayers and they are read without much seal or passion.

My idea of praying for the unity of the church look more like a loud cry of anguish that shouts, "until when Lord, until when?"

As I reflect here, maybe the challenge is not with the prayers itself, but with our lack of convictions about the sinfulness of the division of the body of Christ.

For this we must pray with passion!

Carlos M

I Can't Tell You About It

The meeting was important, but I can't tell you about it.

But there I was, all day, in a meeting of key leaders of two religions, who were able to talk openly and quite frankly with one another about a range of important issues. The day included personal sharing about the things that keep these leaders up at night, and their must-do priorities; recognition of significant differences in views on key matters; discussion of common dynamics facing religious institutions in this time; and table fellowship. It was one of many "off-the-record" meetings that are a regular feature of the work of interfaith relations.

Meetings such as this are essential, in interfaith and ecumenical work, to foster the development of trust and personal connections among those involved. Stepping out of the public eye, beyond the range of activities that can be listed as accomplishments, or shaped into those moving paragraphs of fund-raising campaigns, is a necessity. The silence that surrounds such meetings is part of what is needed, frequently, in order to grow relationships.

It seems we live in a society, and in religious communities, captive to producing results. Having measurable outcomes to show from our activities is a primary dirving factor in the choices we make. But sowing seeds is also important. Allowing seeds, and relationships, to develop quietly, in the dark ground, is a must. Without these times of sowing and gestation, we certainly will not be able to develop new possibilities, new connections, and new fruit.

Jay

What is Stopping us Pride or Dignity?

Reconciliation doesn’t happen from a distance we must engage each other in the struggle. God knew that in order for Jacob to be a blessing to his people, his attitude, perspectives, and his very heart had to be transformed. How could that happen? God could have strike Jacob from a distance, God had the power to do so. God could have sent a messenger to Jacob calling him to repentance. God's options are always unlimited. But God choose to enter into the sacred space of Jacob's life and confront him face to face.  In Jacob’s story God overcame without being personally hurt.

Hundreds of years after Jacob, God purposefully came back to encounter Jacob's family again, this time around God was wounded. God did not have a choice. God resist dealing with those God loves from a distance. God never fear to take risks, knowing that those risks will provide the ground that will nourish the tree that eventually will produce the much-desired fruit.  God chooses the mess, prefers the struggle. Nothing will force God to stay away or retrieve, to deal with our messiness from a distance. "Come. Sit down. Let's argue this out." (Isa. 1.18)  We are not called to be passive or self-effacing in our struggles, but we must face the struggle in the presence of the other.

Many seek unity only on their own terms. The search for unity requires that we lay down our own agendas and only seek Christ's. Trust is essential, but it us not a given. We must learn to trust those who we have been suspicious of, even those who have meant harm to us. This will never happen if we are living in the flesh, only by the power of the Spirit. Are we willing? 

In order to be willing we need to humble ourselves even as Christ. We will be mutually transformed only if we are willing to encounter the other with a stubborn and fearless desire for reconciliation. From afar we will never be able to experience the Christ in each other. From afar our self-righteousness will only intensify and positions will harden, at one point we will have to lay down our weapons and sit down at the table together. We can continue to exercise our power and our rights and perpetuate this state of alienation.

All self-righteousness must be crushed, unless we become complaisant with alienation. Unless we are willing to take such chances, to accept the fact that in interweaving our lives we leave ourselves wide open to disappointment or disaster, we cannot escape from the web of our own selfish egos. Our willingness to tolerate alienation worsens our present condition.  I do not believe we can heal our divisions and tolerate alienation at the same time. 

Our divisions will be overcome, by God's grace, if we refuse alienation to be an option. When we choose to stay away from the other, our humanity is denigrated, it is violated. We are faced with the seemingly insurmountable challenge of overcoming our selfish impulses to treat others as if they are just as important as we are. This can only be achieved with the power of God. We must humble ourselves before God, seek forgiveness from those we have alienated, and then commit ourselves to the messy task of reconciliation.

Carlos M

Gift Sharing

Jay reflected on the question of what does it mean to be good neighbors in our relationships with Christians beyond the Presbyterian Church (USA) and with neighbors of different faith traditions. Many Christians most commonly celebrate Epiphany as the visitation of the Magi to the infant Jesus.  Some Christians focus more on the Baptism of the adult Jesus. Both focus on the revelation of God in Jesus Christ.  

I’ve been thinking about the implications that the first people to pay homage to Jesus were not of the  faith tradition of the family or community into which he was born. How are we open to receive God’s message to us from those who come to us across great geographical and theological distances?  Our dialogue, work and relationship with other Christians will often strengthen our understanding of what it means to be Presbyterian.  Our dialogue, work and relationships with persons of other faith traditions will often reveal to us what we value most as Christians. The gifts that are shared will often point to God’s movement beyond our present reality.

The theme of this year’s Week of Prayer for Christian Unity (January 18 – 25) is “You Are Witnesses of These Things.” It is a theme rooted in the Lucan Great Commission (Luke 24: 46 – 49). In the incomprehensible reality of the resurrection, Jesus tells the expanded community of women and men who encountered the Resurrected Christ that they will be witnesses to the proclamation of his suffering and ultimate victory over oppression and death.  As a foreshadowing of the message given to the gathered community who witnessed his Ascension, they are told that their work will be for the benefit of the world. They will witness not only to God’s liberating work in Jesus Christ through the incarnation, teaching, crucifixion and resurrection, they will also be witnesses to the work of repentance and forgiveness of sin--key components in the work of reconciliation and building the beloved community.  Resources for celebrating the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity may be found at http://geii.org/wpcu_index.htm

Next week, I will attend a Colloquium on the Accra and Belhar Confessions at Stony Point Conference Center. Both confessions seek to address fundamental issues that deny the liberating Gospel of Jesus Christ. The Belhar Confession is written in the context of apartheid South Africa and addresses theological heresies that undergird racism and divides both church and society. The Accra Confession addresses the economic and ecological injustices and devastation of the current global economy. Both confessions call us to repentance for our complicity in systems that devalue and destroy our neighbors and the world. Both confessions call us to action in proclaiming and building the beloved community of Christ. In coming days, I hope to share with you lessons that emerge from this colloquium. Until, then, a study guide for North American churches on the Accra Confession may be found at http://www.pcusa.org/trade/accra.htmand information on the Belhar Confession may be found at http://www.pcusa.org/racialjustice/belhar.htm.

May we be open to the gifts of our neighbors near and far and may we offer the best of who we are to our neighbors and to God.

Robina

A lawyer asks Jesus, "Who is my neighbor?" And Jesus, in that deft way of his, tells the story about the Samaritan, and turns the question on its head: "Which of these ... was a neighbor?" The real question is, How does a neighbor behave? This is a question at the heart of ecumenical and interfaith relations. If we want to love our neighbors as ourselves, when those neighbors happen to be from families other than that of Presbyterian Christianity, how do we go about it?

This is the first posting on our blog about ecumenical and interfaith relations; we hope it will become a cyber "place" where Robina Winbush, Carlos Malave and I will talk about these sorts of questions and related ecumenical and inter-religious efforts with you, our commenting readers. We hope you will join us in this conversation.

What strikes me now, at the beginning of this new decade, is that being a neighbor involves not only what we do, but also what we invite. Being neighbors, being in ecumenical and inter-religious relationships, is a two-way business. We pay more attention, I think, to producing neighborliness; that is, we usually concentrate on our own behavior and the gifts we can bring into relationships. This is already a good thing, that requires discipline and attention on our parts. But what about our responsibility for helping our neighbors relate to us in love? We cannot control this, obviously, but we can invite it in a variety of ways, from our hospitality to the quality of our listening and the kinds of questions we ask (not to mention taking the time to ask them!).

Ste Margueritte Bourgeoys, who founded the Congregation of Notre Dame in Montreal in 1658, told her sisters this about unity: "God is not satisfied if we perserve the love we owe our neighbor; we must preserve our neighbor in the love she ought to have for us." This is our dual challenge.

Jay