A Unifying Vision

On Thursday June 4, 2009 in a speech at Cairo University, Barak Obama articulated a shining vision for the human community.

It is a vision in which all people are free to speak their opinions honestly, openly, and without fear of reprisals. It is a vision in which people approach one another with mutual respect and openness, willing to put aside petty differences in the interests of the greater good.

I am convinced that in order to move forward, we must say openly the things we hold in our hearts, and that too often are said only behind closed doors. There must be a sustained effort to listen to each other; to learn from each other; to respect one another; and to seek common ground.

Obama calls us to focus on those things that unite rather than those things that divide.

the interests we share as human beings are far more powerful than the forces that drive us apart.

I want to particularly say this to young people of every faith, in every country – you, more than anyone, have the ability to remake this world. All of us share this world for but a brief moment in time. The question is whether we spend that time focused on what pushes us apart, or whether we commit ourselves to an effort – a sustained effort – to find common ground, to focus on the future we seek for our children, and to respect the dignity of all human beings.

In the complex, uncertain and dangerous world in which we live, we can no longer afford the arrogant rhetoric of division. We must be willing to hear those who disagree with us. We must be willing to learn from those who view the world from a different perspective. We must be willing to acknowledge that our way of expressing truth may not be the only way.

The first tool for bringing about Obama’s unifying vision is the willingness to listen to the other. It is more important that I hear you than that I convince you of the truth of my position. I can only learn from you if I am willing to hear you. As long as my ears are closed, I cannot receive the wisdom you have to share. And I will only win the right to be heard, when I have first listened deeply and sensitively to your voice.

The church should be the one place Mr. Obama might point to demonstrate the possibility that such a unifying vision could be a reality in the world community.

Tragically, the lessons Obama seeks to teach are lessons the church seems least able to embody. Increasingly factions within the church seek to divide the community of faith into smaller and smaller special interest groups. At a time when the world needs to see a vision of the uniting power of love, we offer a fractious vision of litigation, squabbling, and inability to move beyond minor differences.

A church that fails to heed Obama’s unifying vision will be judged for the division and violence it sows.
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Post-embarrassment Christianity

In the spiritual supermarket that has characterized religious culture for most of my adult life, there have been a vast variety of paths available to the spiritual seeker. In the past thirty years many options have been accepted as valid ways of living a spiritual life.

It is acceptable to be a Taoist, Transcendental Meditator, Sufi, Theravada Buddhist, Mahayana Buddhist, Tibetan, Zen, Pure Land, or Tantric Buddhist, a Hindu, Muslim, or Jain. You can practice reiki, yoga, Tarot card reading, or follow the Diamond Approach, gnosticism, or wicca. You can be a monist, a pantheist or a panentheist. You can believe in karma, reincarnation, astral travel, channeling and astrology or crystals.

But in polite spiritual company, outside traditional church circles, the one thing you might hesitate to say is, “I am a Christian.” Christianity seems to have been the one spiritual option that is often viewed with real suspicion.

To be fair, some of the bad reputation Christianity has acquired is entirely our own fault. We have been arrogant, narrow, judgmental, exclusivist, triumphalistic, and violent towards those with whom we disagree. We have lacked humility, compassion, openness, and flexibility. We have inflicted enormous pain upon innocent people. We have demonized those who took a different perspective from that which we believed to be the only true way of “understanding” God. There is a great deal in both the distant and recent past of Christianity, about which we deserve to be seriously embarrassed. We have a lot for which to apologize.

But, all human institutions and human attempts to formulate truth have tragic blind spots and painful failures. Christianity is not the only religion to have caused harm both to its adherents and to those who remain outside its belief system. The fact that a particular community has done harm is no reason for every member to assume blame for every failure. If we are only willing to commit to a perfect belief system we must either live in denial of our flaws or never commit to any spiritual practice.

Recently I spent a weekend with a couple of hundred health care practitioners who are all either practicing or interested in pursuing alternative healing practices. This is a group of sensitive, open, spiritually aware people. Many of these people have witnessed the harm Christianity has done and in many cases have been harmed themselves. This is a group you would anticipate might be enormously antagonistic to any kind of Christian expression.

In this group I was publicly introduced as the “Rector of an Anglican Church,” and an “Archdeacon of the Diocese of British Columbia.” Surely, if anyone should be shunned for the atrocities of church life, it should be an “Anglican Rector” and “Archdeacon.” Yet, I found myself treated with respect and sensitivity. I was welcomed into the conversation of faith and apparently viewed as speaking from a legitimate spiritual perspective.

Perhaps the day has come when Christians can stop feeling embarrassed for our faith as one voice in the diverse spiritual company that characterizes our culture.

If I am right and the necessity for Christian embarrassment is coming to an end, we must proceed cautiously. We must steer clear of our old patterns of arrogance, judgment, and exclusivity. We must be willing to acknowledge that God is at work in many ways which we may not understand. We must approach all spiritual practitioners with deep respect and openness, acknowledging that we have as much to learn from them, as we have to teach.

There is absolutely no room in the diverse conversation of our culture for simplistic, narrow-minded bigotry towards people whose lives have brought them to a different understanding of life and faith. We must always move toward healing and connection. Fragmentation and division will never lead to a deepening work of God in our society.

Jesus said, “In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places.” (John 14:2) God’s heart is a spacious place. It would be tragic to treat poorly those who have found room in the open embrace of God’s love simply because they may not look or sound just like me. Read more...

Disagreements in Church

If only we in the church, in the midst of our disagreements, could learn from the deep wisdom of a true leader:

In this world of competing claims about what is right and what is true, have confidence in the values with which you’ve been raised and educated. Be unafraid to speak your mind when those values are at stake. Hold firm to your faith and allow it to guide you on your journey. Stand as a lighthouse.

But remember too that the ultimate irony of faith is that it necessarily admits doubt. It is the belief in things not seen. It is beyond our capacity as human beings to know with certainty what God has planned for us or what He asks of us, and those of us who believe must trust that His wisdom is greater than our own.

This doubt should not push us away from our faith. But it should humble us. It should temper our passions, and cause us to be wary of self-righteousness. It should compel us to remain open, and curious, and eager to continue the moral and spiritual debate that began for so many of you within the walls of Notre Dame. And within our vast democracy, this doubt should remind us to persuade through reason, through an appeal whenever we can to universal rather than parochial principles, and most of all through an abiding example of good works, charity, kindness, and service that moves hearts and minds. (President Barack Obama Commencement Speech Notre Dame University, May 17, 2009)

President Obama describes the church to which I want to belong.

Let us stay together each holding our faith boldly and with deep conviction. Let us declare with all the passion we can muster those things we believe to be most true about life, God and what it means to be human.

But let us also admit we do not know everything. There are so many mysteries in life we cannot begin to unravel. God’s wisdom is absolute; ours is always partial and imperfect. We need one another to move more closely to the greater wisdom that is God’s.

True wisdom will never be found along the arrogant road of self-righteousness. The truly wise will be humble and open, always willing to admit they may be wrong and their understanding is incomplete.

Most important of all, let us try less to convince with words and more with actions. Show me; don’t tell me what you believe. It is the quality of your life, the kindness, gentleness and compassion you demonstrate that will finally convince me of your knowledge of God.
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How Much Agreement Do We Need?

Recently, I received a communication from a priest who left the Anglican Church of Canada in one of the earlier exoduses of traditionalists. My response follows.

Dear Canon Birch,

Thank you for your response to my article “Why I Remain An Anglican.”

I am not a theologian; nor am I a church historian. But, in the deepest part of my being, it makes sense to me to draw a distinction between beliefs I hold to be essential to Christian faith and therefore unchanging and traditions of church practice that I view as open to refinement as history evolves.

I believe absolutely in the incarnate revelation of God in Jesus Christ. I believe that Jesus died, rose again, ascended into heaven and poured out God’s “spirit on all flesh.” (Joel 2:28) I believe that the Christian vision of God as Trinity is a divinely revealed and deeply true mystery of the nature of God. I believe Scripture is the revealed word of God and that it “containeth all things necessary to salvation.” (Articles of Religion VI, BCP)

I find it impossible however to convince myself that Jesus mandated a male only priesthood for all human history, or a celibate priesthood, or the infallible authority of the Pope, in spite of the fact that these beliefs have been held by Christian tradition as that which should be passed on “umimpaired to our posterity,” and continue to be held by the majority of Christians today. This may make me a hopeless heretic in your eyes, but surely not a heretic on the level of someone who would deny the divinity of Christ, or call into question the reality of his resurrection.

I understand God to be One who says, “See, I am making all things new,” (Revelation 21:5). I believe God’s Spirit “blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes,” (John 3:8) and that we are challenged to provide “fresh wineskins” into which the “new wine” of God’s Spirit can be poured. (Matthew 9:17)

I am deeply saddened that my willingness to embrace “fresh wineskins” makes some faithful devout Christians believe they can no longer worship with me. I may be wrong, but I have never seen any document that convinces me that any bishop in the Anglican Church of Canada ever “excommunicated” anyone due to disagreement over issues relating to church polity. Any person is absolutely welcome to share the bread and wine at the Lord’s table in the church where I serve. I am convinced there is enough upon which we are “agreed” to make it possible for us to “walk together.” (Amos 3:3) and still each “act according to our conscience.”

I honour and respect your years of faithful ministry in Christ’s Church. I regret the hurt you have felt from the Anglican Church of Canada and agree absolutely, as you suggest, that “loving one another" might indeed “do some good.” I pray you may always find a warm welcome if you should ever find yourself moved to re-connect with the Anglican Church of Canada. But in the meantime, I am glad you “have found such a joy and freedom, being able to know” yourself “in Communion with the Church throughout the ages of the Christian Faith.” I pray the day may come when you may be able to view me as included in that community of Faith.

God’s blessing,

Christopher
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Permaculture 1 Addendum

The Old Testament scholar Walter Brueggemann writes,

God aches at the disunity in the world... it would be useful for church folks to make a list of the agents of separation in their community and parish and then to address those agents - through budget and through programming - to see how the church might serve God's will for unity in a world of fragmentation. Where are the crunches in your life? We know about some standard ones of old-young, rich-poor, Black-white, conservative-liberal, male-female. In the church sometimes it is people-leadership, or even parish-diocese. We won't run out of agenda to address. All of that which seems so natural to us - it is against the purpose of God; and it is not the wave of the future. (Living Toward a Vision,47)

In response to "Permaculture 3" Andrea wrote, "One of the things our culture struggles with is the desire to hide, to pass by community and not be known." I wonder if she has been reading Brueggemann. This seems to me to be saying the same thing. So, how do we "hide"? How do we choose to "pass by community and not be known"? Why do we make these choices? Are these appropriate choices for Christians?

Brueggeman's idea that we address through "budget and through programming" "the agents of separation" in our community, seems to me an utterly fascinating idea. But I fear I have no clue what it might mean. What could it possibly look like for a church to attempt to address the prevailing culture of fragmentation and to nurture community and connection through its budget and programming?

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Permaculture 4

The most remarkable piece of wisdom I gleaned from the permaculture presentation Heather and I attended last week came when the presenter said,

The species that survive are the ones that can place themselves in the most service to the whole.

Think about that for a moment. We have always been taught that the way to survival is for each person to look after himself. We get ahead by providing for our own needs. Success comes to the one who accumulates the most power, the most talent, the most possessions. I will be happy when I get my way, when my plans, goals, dreams, and aspirations are fulfilled.

But Jesus said, “the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many.” (Matthew 20:28) Bede Griffiths says, “Sacrifice is the law of the universe.” We realize fullness of life by giving ourselves away.

Permaculture agrees; the way forward for all beings is through “service.” We get ahead by giving ourselves in service to others.

It turns out that self-sacrifice is the rhythm of the universe. Giving is the pattern that brings life. It is not by looking after myself that I get ahead; it is by considering your needs and the needs of the world around me. I will truly prosper as I work to support your flourishing.

There is so much concern in the church today for the church’s survival. What if we change our priorities, forget about the church’s survival and focus on the role the church might play in “service to the whole”? What might it look like for the church to see itself as a servant of the flourishing of all creation? How can we serve the community of life where we are?
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Permaculture 2

I am still thinking about the presentation on permaculture Heather and I heard at Uvic.

The solutions permaculture offers to human and environmental challenges are deeply radical. They require a change in our thinking and our behaviour on an order of magnitude that is hard to imagine.

We were told we must slow down; consider the possibility that “more” may not always be better. We were encouraged to contemplate the possibility of living deeply in harmony with our given context and to consider “harmonizing with what’s there.”

How, I wondered, are enough people ever going to embrace such radical, counter-cultural values to make real change possible?

The speaker suggested an answer that on the surface sounds perfectly simple. He said, “We just have to change what our priorities are.”

What are the priorities we need to change if we are to live more harmoniously within the community of all creation? What priorities hold power in our lives that cause us to live in unhealthy and dysfunctional systems? What patterns best function “to benefit life in all its forms”?

But, most important of all, and most challenging - how do peoples’ priorities change? Is it adequate simply to say, “We just have to change what our priorities are” and assume that everyone will wake up in the morning having adopted a radically altered value system?

What values dominate my church culture? Are there priorities that must change in the church if the church is to be an instrument for transformation in peoples’ interactions with one another and with the rest of creation? How can the church model a pattern of being “which functions to benefit life in all its forms”?






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Permaculture 1

Thursday evening Heather and I attended a presentation on permaculture at Uvic. Permaculture is defined as

A system of assembling conceptual, material, and strategic components in a pattern which functions to benefit life in all its forms. It seeks to provide sustainable and secure places for humans and all other living things on this earth.

In a gathering of sixty people, Heather and I were the oldest by twenty years. The topic was obviously of interest to young adults. As I sat listening to this discussion of how humans might interact in more healthy and life-giving ways with our environment, my mind wandered off, as it sometimes does, to the topic of church, where the population is less dominated by twenty-somethings.

At one point in his presentation, the speaker said, “Permaculture is about connections; to be a functioning system, there has to be connection.” Is there a hunger for human connection of which the church may have lost sight?

We live in a culture that is characterized by isolation. Increasingly, the demands of work, the attractions of home entertainment, and the pressures to perform in the world make it difficult for people to find meaningful ways to connect.

In the church of my childhood, connection formed around bazaars, rummage sales, and spring teas. This activity based, fund-raising connection no longer provides a compelling vision for most people under the age of sixty.

Within the often hectic realities of peoples’ lives, the church must find ways to facilitate Christ-centered connection. What might it look like for the church to be a place in which people are given an opportunity to connect with one another around a common desire to grow in their ability to love God and their neighbour?
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Money

I seldom talk about money. It is not that I am embarrassed by the topic. My hesitation lies in my concern about the potential for subtle hidden agendas whenever people who work in the church bring up the topic of finances.

My primary responsibility in the church is to support and nurture the spiritual lives of the people in the community I serve. In order to support the flourishing of the human spirit I must encourage those I serve to live in the freedom for which Christ has set them free. There is no place in spiritual nurture for guilt, manipulation, pressure, or hidden agendas.

When we clergy talk about money it is difficult to avoid the potential for a hidden subtext lurking beneath our words. When clergy talk about money, we are usually talking about our church budget. We are talking about our own salary. A bigger budget in my church means more programs, more staff, more ministry. And the more programs, staff and ministry in my church, the better I look as a leader in the community. The potential for a conflict of interest is clear.

It is tempting to urge my congregation to consider the deep spiritual principle of financial giving to God through the church. But what motivation lies behind my urging?

I once attended a service in which, just before the offering was taken, the minister conducting the service paraphrased (and abused) Jesus’ statement in Luke 6:38, announcing to the congregation, “Just remember as you consider what to give to God, Jesus promised the more you give, the more you will get back.” This was not for the spiritual benefit of the congregation. It was an attempt to raise money for the church. Money-talk in the church is a dangerous business.

It is distressing how many clergy seem to find it relatively easy to bypass the Bible’s clear and frequent exhortations to practice justice and mercy, embracing the poor and welcoming the outcast and the marginalized. Yet, these same clergy suddenly become all biblical when it is time to preach their stewardship sermon and boldly announce the spiritual relevance of obscure biblical references to “tithing.”

The problem with money-talk in the church points to a central tension for church leaders. On the one hand we want ordained ministers in our church to be spiritual leaders. We look to them to be people of prayer, to have a deep interior life, profound devotional practices and to be able to offer insightful spiritual council and direction. At the same time we want clergy to be aggressive entrepreneurs, capable of raising an annual budget and developing ever-expanding church programs. In my experience, the skills required for a rich inner life and the skills for growing a small business are seldom found in the same package.

But churches need money. Salaries are expensive. Buildings and their upkeep are enormously costly. Most peoples’ worship experience would not be enriched by an unheated building in the deep freeze of a Canadian winter. The programs and ministries performed by all churches have to be financed somehow.

Some churches operate masterful fundraising programs. Others are well endowed with bequests left by the wealthy dead. But, most churches depend for their regular upkeep on the freely given offerings of those who regularly worship as part of the community. And frequently, giving seems to fall a little short of what is required to finance the smooth operation of the church. This is when it becomes tempting to start badgering, using a little guilt to pad the offering plate each Sunday.

So what can clergy safely say about money?

Perhaps I can safely suggest four general principles that might guide us in how we live in relation to money.

1. Always practice gratitude; everything we have is a gift. In I Corinthians 4:7 Paul asks, “What do you have that you did not receive? And if you received it, why do you boast as if it were not a gift?” It is all gift. We did not create ourselves. We do not keep ourselves breathing, our heart beating or the blood coursing through our veins. God is the source of life, the source of all goodness and beauty in the world. When we start to view life as a personal possession, or as a right, we begin to destroy the world around us and the human community entrusted to our care.

Anyone who lives in North America is already fabulously wealthy beyond the wildest imagining of the majority of the population of the world. No matter what the stock market may be doing, we in the privileged West are the most materially blessed people in the world. We did not earn this birthright. We do not merit our material riches. We just happen to have been born in a part of the world where we are blessed with material benefits in enormous abundance.

2. The operational principle of the Christian life is generosity. The only logical response to abundance is generosity. Generosity is one of the fruit of God’s Spirit. (Galatians 5:22) It is a sign of God’s presence and work in our lives. When we are generous we are behaving like God who “is generous to all who call on him.” (Romans 10:12) It is tempting to think that we will enjoy life more fully when we have more, more financial security, more toys, more money for holidays. In fact, we live more fully when we become more like God in whose image we were created. And to be like God is to give generously.

When, rather than living generously, we try to create security for ourselves by hoarding the material benefits of our lives, we are living as far less than the generous beings we were created to be. Jesus told the story of a wealthy farmer blessed with great abundance. Rather than sharing his wealth, the farmer tore down his barns and built bigger ones saying to his soul, “you have ample goods for many years.” (Luke 12:19) He believed that safety security and fullness of life lay in the quantity of his possessions. But, God said to the secure wealthy man, “‘You fool! This very night your life is being demanded of you.’” (Luke 12:20) Jesus told this story to remind us of the importance of being “rich toward God.” (Luke 12:21) We discover the richness of God, when we live generously which brings us to point number three.

3. How we relate to money is a sign of the depth of our God-following. Jesus met a rich young man who sincerely desired to follow God. The young man was moral, religious and faithful to his tradition. But Jesus said to him, “‘If you wish to be perfect, go, sell your possessions, and give the money to the poor.’” (Matthew 19:21) But the young man was attached to his wealth more deeply than he desired to follow God. So, “he went away grieving, for he had many possessions.” (Matthew 19:22) His relationship to money demonstrated the lack of depth in his commitment to follow God.

When I am pinched and tight with my financial resources, I demonstrate my lack of trust in God’s provision and my determination to establish a sense of security using material resources. When I sit lightly to material possessions I show that I am free of attachment to the external world. So point three leads naturally to point four.

4. Those who give freely grow in their freedom. Freedom is perhaps the most underrated gift of the Christian life. Paul promised that “where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.” (I Corinthians 3:17) Freedom is one of the signs of God’s presence and the more freely we give, the more we grow in that freedom. This is the real meaning of Jesus’ statement in Luke 6:38 that the minister so abused in the service I visited years ago. Jesus said, “give, and it will be given to you.” (Luke 6:38)

True human freedom is not the freedom to do whatever we feel we want to do. Freedom is the ability to live in tune with our true nature. The great tragedy of the human race is that we have concluded that human beings are designed for accumulating. In fact, we are designed for giving. When we give we live in tune with our deepest nature as free being created in the image of God.

Conclusion

So, will these four convictions help fill the church’s bank account? They may, or they may not. But, filling the church’s bank account is not the point. The point is that, wherever a community practices gratitude, generosity, God-following, and giving, that community will be filled with the light of Christ. However, great or however small the ministry of such a church may be, it will be a place of light and hope. Whatever flows from a grateful, generous, God-following, giving heart will bring transformation and freedom. Finances will follow. As Jesus said, when we “strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness…all these things will be given to you as well.” (Matthew 6:33)

The church that seeks to live in God’s kingdom will have all it needs to follow faithfully wherever God may be leading. To share in the vibrant life of a grateful, generous, God-following, giving community will be far more fulfilling than all the ego gratification that may come from being an outwardly “successful” church.
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A CHURCH OF COMFORT AND CONFRONTATION

In his book One Taste Ken Wilber suggests that religion performs two important but separate functions.

Religion “acts as a way of creating meaning for the separate self.” It struggles to help us endure and make sense of the difficulties we inevitably experience in life. Religion seeks to give consolation and strength by promising God’s favour in the present or in an ultimate eternal reward. This is comfort religion.

But religion also serves “the function of radical transformation and liberation.” It “does not fortify the separate self, but utterly shatters it.” Religion serves to destabilize the superficial self by which we attempt to navigate so much of life. It challenges us to open to a deeper more real dimension of our being where we discover the presence of God and our lives begin to be transformed. This is confrontation religion.

Jesus practiced both comfort and confrontation religion, sometimes voicing both in the same breath. Jesus said, “How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings.” That is comfort religion. Then he went on to say, “and you were not willing! See, your house is left to you, desolate.” (Matthew 23:37,38) That is confrontation.

In the first statement Jesus portrays himself offering protection, safety and nurture for those who would accept his offer. Jesus then denounces those who refuse to heed his call and suggests that their lives are going to unravel. If we refuse God’s gift of comfort, turmoil and chaos in some form will inevitably follow.

Jesus’ teaching tends more towards confrontation than comfort. “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me.” (Luke 19:23) “Go, sell what you own, and give the money to the poor.” (Mark 10:21) “You snakes, you brood of vipers! How can you escape being sentenced to hell?” (Matthew 23:33) “Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself, cannot be my disciple.” (Luke 14:26)

Jesus understood the terrible cost of our attachments. He knew that we spend a great deal of our lives trapped by our defended, grasping, demanding, needy little self. “If anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also; and if anyone wants to sue you and take your coat, give your cloak as well; and if anyone forces you to go one mile, go also the second mile.” (Matthew 5:39-41) He believed that until we let this little self die, it always gets in the way of our true destiny as beings created to bear the image of God. “Those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who loves their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it.” (Mark 8:35)

Jesus confronted, often harshly, the empty, dead-end ways we live because he knew the price we pay for following the self-centered demands of the ego instead of taking up our cross and following him. “What will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life?” (Mark 8:36) Jesus confronted the small human ego-self because Jesus knew that the deep purpose of religion was to bring about transformation. He knew that we are destined as human beings to be the light of the world. “You are the light of the world.” (Matthew 5:14)

In my experience, the church works harder at comfort religion than we do at confrontation religion. But comfort without confrontation slips into sentimentalism and never leads to transformation. While confrontation without comfort is harsh and legalistic, replacing moralism and judgment for grace and mercy.

How can the church practice comfort religion, while at the same time confronting the small programs of self-protection to which we all fall prey? What would it look like for the church to call us to a life of deep transforming union with God through Jesus Christ?

If church leaves us simply with the comfort that we’re all ok and everything will work out in the end, the church has failed. Jesus intended us to live radically new lives in this world. He instructed his followers to discover an entirely new way of living. He called those who would be his followers to “strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness” and to trust that when we get the kingdom first, every other aspect of our lives will find its proper place. (Matthew 6:33)

Paul understood the radical implications of following Jesus and said that “if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!” (II Corinthians 5:17) The church exists to offer us the comfort of God’s love and peace and then to challenge us to live as “a new creation.”

Too often our vision of the Christian life has been too small. We have viewed the Christian message as final comfort in heaven for those who trust in Christ and persevere in the constant struggle to be moral and do good deeds before they die. Paul understood that God’s vision for our lives goes far beyond this limited picture. For Paul the journey of our lives is a process of radical transformation into the likeness of the God in whose image we were created. “All of us, with unveiled faces, seeing the glory of the Lord as though reflected in a mirror, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another.” (II Corinthians 3:18)

I wonder if we expect the church to call us to lives of radical transformation. Do we anticipate that our involvement in the community of those who call themselves followers of Christ will confront us with the deep challenge to forsake all our attachments and embrace the liberty that Jesus promised when he said, “if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed”? (John 8:36) Do we look to the church for both comfort and confrontation?

When we experience both comfort and confrontation, we will find within ourselves an expanding security. We will know that our lives are grounded in Christ, that our identity is fixed in God and that we depend upon nothing other than God’s presence to support our identity or give us a sense of well-being. We will be more gentle, more open, more kind, and more gracious.

A community that practices a balance of comfort and confrontation will be characterized by non-violence and an absence of abuse, manipulation and rigidity. It will be an expansive community, open to people wherever they may be in their lives and in their spiritual journey. It will be a flexible community whose only centre is the presence of God in Christ Jesus and whose only motivation is to faithfully follow the leading of God’s unpredictable Holy Spirit. “The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.” (John 3:8) So we will trust that those around us, desire as much as we to allow God’s Spirit to be fully and deeply at work in their lives.

To maintain a balance of comfort and confrontation we must know that our true identity lies in the deep common life we share in Christ. In order to find this true identity we must be people of deep prayer and worship. We must open ourselves daily to the presence of God’s Spirit at work in our lives. We must hold firmly to the depths of faith revealed in our sacred texts and known to us by God’s Spirit. And, at the same time, we must be willing to sit lightly to our own agendas, needs, demands, and pet-projects.

Our identity does not reside in being right. We will always be willing to say, “I may be wrong.” This is not a lack of conviction but a humility that resides in the realistic assessment of the profound limitations of the human ability to know. Our understanding is boundaried on every side by our cultural background, our personal upbringing, ongoing life-experience, and the unique nature of our own personality. This is why we always need to be able, within the context of comfort, to remain open to confrontation. Healthy communities will embrace a diversity of opinion even on important issues. We need to be able to extend comfort to those with whom we may disagree. We need to accept and celebrate the inevitable confrontation that comes from living close to those whose perception of truth may differ from ours.

On the surface, a church that practices both comfort and confrontation may appear to be a confusing and unsettling place. Things will not always be predictable. Life may look untidy, even at times chaotic. But when comfort and confrontation are held in balance there will be a deep core of confidence that resides in the heart of every community member. Each person will know that every other person desires simply to rest and trust in the presence and work of Christ in their lives. We will honour each other’s journey, protecting the right and duty of each person to hear God and to contribute to the conversation of our community according to their perception of God’s word.

Security in such a community does not lie in conformity or even agreement. It resides in a deeper place in which we know that we are bound together by invisible ties of love and truth. We find a deep comfort in our common identity in Christ and therefore can afford to allow all our idols to be challenged and deconstructed within a community whose bonds lie deeper than a masquerade of common life founded on uniformity of opinion.

The only way any group of people can become such an expansive faith community is for each member of that community to be deeply committed to the vision of an open, trusting, life lived in faith and trust in God. There is no program for creating such a community. It can only emerge out of the shared faith of its members. It will only happen when we each assume adult responsibility for our own convictions and are willing to share the truth as we understand it and to respect the truth shared by every other person. As we walk with integrity our journey on in the Spirit, we will walk together as a light to the world and a witness to the comforting and transforming power of love we find in Christ and experience in one another.



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Pictorial Directory

At the church where I work, we are having a new pictorial directory made for our community. We seem to go through this cycle once every four years or so. There are many new faces in four years and some that are no longer with us. It is good to catch up and try to catch a fleeting portrait of who we are.

For the cover of our directory this year, Matthew Wolferstan has painted a beautiful watercolour of the church. Matthew's painting suggests a number of things about the Anglican Church of St. Philip.


Notice that the main doors of the church are open. We embrace within our community a wide variety of people. We desire to be a welcoming church. We do not all agree about absolutely everything. Sometimes we violently disagree. But there is space in our community for many ways of seeing the world. We do not demand that everyone understand every aspect of life in exactly the same way. We want to stay open to people who may understand things a little differently than we do. We value the discipline of sticking it out with people even when we do not see eye to eye. We don't have to be monochrome people in order to belong.

The only requirement to belong in this community is a heart that is open to Christ. You do not have to take a theology test, or even a morality test before you qualify to join us. You don't have to sign a statement of faith, or pledge allegiance to any standard other than your willingness to follow the Spirit of Christ in your life. If you desire to live with your heart open to the truth, light and wisdom of God in Jesus Christ, then you belong.

You will also notice in Matthew’s painting that a young family is entering the church. You often hear dire predictions of the imminent death of the Anglican Church. This is not our experience. Sunday by Sunday we experience the energy of a dynamic living community of people from infant to elderly. The love of God and the mercy of Christ create among us an empowering body of love and faith that sheds the light of Christ throughout the world.

Finally, Matthew has included in his painting the large spruce tree that stands to the North of the church. This tree has seen some difficult days. Regularly, hydro crews cut limbs off this tree to make room for the power lines. Yet in spite of the loss of these limbs our tree grows strong and healthy towering above the church building.

In any community there are times when limbs fall off. In a transient culture of consumer religion, it can be tempting to walk away from a community in an attempt to find one that feels more comfortable. Sometimes it may be essential for a limb to be separated and the tree as a whole feels the pain of every loss. But, the tree continues to grow. The trunk is straight, sap runs strong beneath the bark and the branches bear needles and pinecones.

When a church makes a pictorial directory, inevitably many faces from the last directory, will not appear in the new version. Some people have died, others have become angry about their perception of the direction of the church, some have moved from the city, others have just drifted away. But the church remains strong. We are a community of love and fellowship. We minister to and care for one another and for the world. There is light here. There is hope here. The love of God in Christ Jesus is in our midst.

The world we live in is a desperately broken place. Everywhere you look, you can find groups of people splintering into smaller, more tightly defined and narrowly based special interest groups. People seem to be able to hold together in groups only as long as they find agreement among themselves. The world desperately needs to see that it is possible for people to look past superficial differences and to discover their identity in the deeper reality of Christ. We can be that community of faithfulness, mutual respect and trust.

I give thanks to God for every person in the church community to which I am privileged to belong and I pray God’s continued blessing upon us as we journey on together.
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Healthy Church

We Anglicans on Vancouver Island and the Gulf Islands have been invovled in a process of reviewing the ministries in each of our parishes. As a result parishes have been given various designations. Those parishes designated as "healthy" have been asked to make a list of those things they do that they believe make them a "healthy" parish.

I am not entirely comfortable with the idea of calling some parishes "healthy" possibly implying that others are somehow not "healthy." But in compliance with the request, we sat down and thought about what it is that makes us tick at the parish of St. Philip. We came up with seven points.

ST. PHILIP, OAK BAY

WHAT ENABLES US TO MAINTAIN A “HEALTHY” PARISH DESIGNATION?

Introduction

We do not have specific programs or activities to which we attribute our designation as a “healthy” parish. Rather, we attribute our “healthy” status to the following principles by which we attempt to operate our life together as a community.


1. If we have any strategy it is prayer.

All that we are and all that we do as a community begins and is sustained by our life of prayer. Our staff begins each day in prayer. Our meetings begin with prayer. Our parish is sustained by a prayer chain and our services centre on prayer and provide opportunity for prayer ministry.

In prayer we express our desire to let go of our plans, agendas and strategies and to surrender to God. We seek to live in faith, trusting that God guides, sustains and provides for our life as a church. Prayer helps us live with one another in a spirit of gentleness, openness, welcome, and acceptance. In prayer we seek to create a spacious place for God to be encountered and for God’s work to be carried out by God’s people.

Prayer keeps us aware that our life in Christ is characterized by an overflowing abundance rather than scarcity. We believe that we are only able to be fully the community God desires us to be when we are able to live from this place of abundance rather than from the familiar place of our clamoring needs, wants and desires. We seek to trust that God always provides for the life of God’s community without our having to strain or fret about the needs of our life together. We want to begin all that we do and return always to the biblical mandate to “make every effort to enter that rest,” that is the presence of God in Christ. (Hebrews 43:11) We believe our church should never be just one more burden added to a long list of life’s obligations, but should be a place in which the refreshing breeze of God’s liberating Holy Spirit is encountered and trusted.

2. We are clear about our vision as a church.

We believe St. Philip’s parish exists to encourage, nurture and support all people in living fully and deeply in relationship to God through Jesus Christ by the guidance of God’s Holy Spirit. This is our vision and our goal. All our activities are assessed on this basis alone. Will a particular activity be likely to deepen a person’s awareness of God’s presence and action in their lives and to open themselves more deeply to God?

We trust God’s Spirit to be at work uniquely and particularly in each person’s life in whatever way is best for that person. We attempt to support and encourage the work and ministry God is doing in everyone’s life.

We do not know how a person’s relationship to God in Christ will be manifest in their lives. We seek to honour each person’s desire to follow God and trust that this desire is the only thing God requires of any of us. We do not judge anyone’s relationship to God or criticize the way any person is living out their relationship with God in their daily lives. We believe church needs to be the one place in the world where there is nothing anyone must do to measure up or to fit in. Jesus calls us to become like “children.” (Matthew 18:3) We seek to be a community of those who know we cannot measure up and therefore are wholly dependent upon the grace and mercy of Christ.

3. We believe worship is our first function as a Christian community.

Worship is the church’s unique function. Our worship is relaxed, open, and attempts to utilize the gifts of our community.

As part of our worship life we place considerable emphasis upon the role of music. Leadership in music is freely offered by members of our parish in the fashion that expresses their personal style and talents. This means that our music is always varied and at different times certain styles will appeal to some more than others. We seek to embrace this expression of the varied gifts of our community.

We also view preaching as an important dimension of our worship. We believe the ministry of preaching is a primary vehicle for transmitting the mission and vision of our community and for nurturing our members in living their lives in Christ.

We welcome all ages in our worship. We recognize that at times this will mean that small children may wander or create some noise. We provide a table at the back of the church for small children to view as their own space in the church. We view the presence of children as an important part of our offering of worship to God. We attempt to accommodate the special needs of all people in our community with signing, hearing sets, and wheel chair access.

Our worship is the first place people will experience the openness of our community. We attempt to provide worship that is welcoming without being chummy. We hope that our worship allows people to enter into an experience of God at their own pace and in their own particular way.

4. We aim to treat all members of our community as mature, thinking, responsive individuals and trust God’s Spirit to be at work in their lives.

This means we try not to pressure or manipulate people in any way. We try to avoid using guilt, shame, or any kind of violence as motivators for activity, support, or giving in the parish. We believe that it is “for freedom Christ has set us free.”
In relation to finances this means that we make our parish financial situation as clear as we can on a regular basis. We encourage people to view their entire lives as a gift from God and to ask themselves what it means for them to respond in gratitude for God’s generosity. We trust that God will provide the resources necessary to do the ministry to which God is calling us. We make a sincere attempt to always cut our coat to fit the cloth that is provided.

In relation to attendance at worship or in any activity in the church we believe that whoever comes are the right people and whenever they come is the right time for them. We want people to freely choose to participate in our life together.

We trust that God is at work in peoples’ hearts. Our only job as a community is to be open to the guidance of God’s Spirit and to encourage each other to be open to God’s Spirit. We honour the willingness of each person to follow where they believe God is leading.

We attempt to model faithfulness, generosity and gentleness in our dealings with one another. We believe that the most vital sign of God’s presence and action among us will be the fruit of God’s Spirit in “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.” (Galatians 5:22,23) The presence of such fruit is the true sign and the foundational method of health in a church.

5. We affirm the gifts and ministries of all people in our community.

The ministry of St. Philip’s parish is the ministry of all those who worship in our community. The things we do are the things the people of this community feel moved by God to do. These ministries may take place in and through the visible manifestation of church we call “St. Philip.” But equally the ministry of God’s people may occur in the less obviously “churchy” ways in which the people of our community live and minister in their particular work place and homes throughout the week. We do not distinguish between church work as ministry and those ministries that take place out in the world. We support and validate all people as ministers of Christ in whatever way God is calling them to minister.

At times this may make our community a little messier than might appear desirable. Certain things that might seem necessary may not get done or may not get done as quickly or efficiently as seems ideal. We are committed to allowing the mess that is necessary for human freedom to flourish and for God’s Spirit to be completely free to work in God’s way. We believe that the creativity and freedom of God’s Spirit will not always look as neat and organized as we might hope.

6. We encourage people to develop human bonds of connection and fellowship in the way that seems most natural for them.

Some members of our community develop relationships in and through home groups, others by being involved in bible study at church or other settings, special worship services, or ministry opportunities. For some people Sunday morning worship is enough connection and we accept and honour that choice in a person’s life.

These natural bonds of human affection are the primary means of delivering “pastoral” care in our parish. We trust that the members of our community care for one another. We believe that the best pastoral care is provided by a community of mutual love, support and encouragement. Over and over we are encouraged by the ability of our members to minister to one another. “Pastoral” care is not primarily a “professional” undertaking, but a natural outgrowth of community life and fellowship.

We understand that human community inevitably involves some degree of pain and at times disagreement. We are committed to living with the pain of human community and to embracing the reality that there will be a diversity of opinion among us often on even important subjects. We do not want anyone to feel that everyone must agree on absolutely everything in order to remain a part of our community. We know and respect the fact that everyone’s life experience is different and that God has worked and is working in each of our lives in unique ways.

We value the diversity of human community that we believe is a true sign of God’s presence among us. We desire to be an inclusive community and believe that Christ came into the world in order to abolish those artificial barriers that separate human beings from one another. In the Bible we see from beginning to end a vision of God’s all- embracing love for all people. This vision is most fully realized in the person of Jesus Christ whose goal was that there should be “one flock”

7. We believe in the transforming power of deep listening.

This means first listening deeply to God’s Spirit. It means secondly, listening attentively to the realities and circumstances of our own lives and of our particular context. Third, it means being open and responsive to one another.

True listening requires a willingness to be changed. We attempt to avoid approaching one another with any requirement that the other must change in order to fit our expectations of what they must be. We believe that change comes naturally as we open to one another and as we honour God’s presence in each person’s life. We are loved into change rather than being forced to change in order to be loved.

We do not have a cookie-cutter vision of what the church must look like. Every community is unique and special in its own way, just as each person is unique and special in his or her own way. We believe we will only fulfill God’s vision for our community as we attempt to discern what God is doing among us and cooperate with God’s work.


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The Work of the Church

I want to post this quote without much comment. It was shared with me the other day by someone who heard Richard Rohr say it at a conference in Portland Oregon. Rohr said, "The work of the church is to keep the heart space and the mind space open." This is such a lovely vision of church.

Imagine a church in which the only goal, vision, requirement was that your heart and your mind remain open to God and to the other people around you. "Oh but this does not sound safe. How would we know what we believe? How would we know what we stand for?"

Jesus did not seem to share the fear that somehow openness would lead us astray. Jesus trusted the work of God's Spirit in pepoles' lives. Jesus said, "When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth." (John 16:13) In order for God's Spirit to be at work in our lives we only need to intend to allow God's Spirit to be at work in our lives. We can trust that God's Spirit is working in the lives of all those with whom we share in worship.

If a person can come forward and stand or kneel at the table of the Lord with hands open and receive a tiny piece of bread and a sip of wine, there is nothing more we need to know. It is enough. They have indicated by their action that the desire of their heart is to open to God. What other possible reason could there be for participating in this ceremony? Why else would anyone go to the trouble of getting up on a Sunday morning and coming to church? There is certainly no longer any social pressure that would cause a person to participate in corporate worship.

People come to church because, at some level, they desire to open to God. They desire to allow God's Spirit to be at work in their lives. God honours this desire. And, wherever this desire is acknowledged, God's Spirit will grow and God's work will get done.

Having an open heart and an open mind does not mean that anything goes. Having an open mind means that while we may hold firmly and passionately to our own convictions we will also respect and honour the convictions of those who may disagree with us. We will be willing to acknoweldge that our grasp of the truth is only partial and we may be wrong. To have an open mind is to know deeply that truth is larger than anyone person or any particular formulation of that truth. Our understanding of life over time will change and grow. If we are alive, we will receive greater wisdom. Our comprehension of truth is never fixed. Truth is dynamic and living; as we grow our ability to see truth will also grow.

Having an open heart means that we will be open to everything that brings life and we will do all we can to participate in creating an environment that is life-giving for all participants. From a position of true openness it is possible to draw appropriate boundaries around violent, destructive behaviour. But the boundaries we draw will always be in the service of life, never simply for the purpose of helping us feel safe and comfortable in our protected little world. Openness of heart means a willingness to expand our vision and to draw the circle of God's love as wide as we can possibly bear.

This kind of openness is only frightening if we cannot trust God's presence in our own lives, in the lives of others and in our interactions together. There is nothing to fear when we trust that God's Spirit is indeed present and active in all of life. We only need to open, embrace, extend absolute hospitality to all people and receive them as they are. God can be trusted wherever there is an open heart and an open mind.
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Successful Church

There is a lot of talk these days in church-land about what make a successful church. What does a "successful" church look like? Is it growth in numbers? a balanced budget? cross generational programming that provides an activity for every age group?

Recently our oldest daughter has developed an Annie Dillard fixation. The good thing about this is that Rachel now reads me all the gerat parts of Dillard's writing that I read years ago but have long since forgetten. Driving down the highway the other day, Rachel pulled her latest Dillard book out of her pack and read to me from Teaching a Stone to Talk a passage that I think sums up a vision of "successful" church that I can sign on for. Dillard writes:

It is the second Sunday in Advent. For a year I have been attending Mass at this Catholic church. Every Sunday for a year I have run away from home and joined the circus as a dancing bear. We dancing bears have dressed ourselves in buttoned clothes; we mince around the ring on two feet. Today we were restless; we kept dropping onto our forepaws.

No one, least of all the organist, could find the opening hymn. Then no one knew it. Then no one could sing it anyway.

There was no sermon, only announcements.

The priest proudly introduced the rascally acolyte who was going to light the two Advent candles. As we all could plainly see, the rascally acolyte had already lighted them.

During the long intercessory prayer, the priest always reads “intentions” from the parishioners. These are slips of paper, dropped into a box before the service begins, on which people have written their private concerns, requesting our public prayers. The priest reads them, one by one, and we respond on cue. “For a baby safely delivered on November twentieth,” the priest intoned, “we pray to the Lord.” We all responded, “Lord, hear our prayer.” Suddenly the priest broke in and confided to our bowed heads, “That’s the baby we’ve been praying for for the past two months! The woman just kept getting more and more pregnant!” How often, how shockingly often, have I exhausted myself in church from the effort to keep from laughing out loud? I often laugh all the way home. Then the priest read the next intention: “For my son, that he may forgive his father. We pray to the Lord.” “Lord, hear our prayer,” we responded, chastened.

A high school stage play is more polished than this service we have been rehearsing since the year one. In two thousand years, we have not worked out the kinks. We positively glorify them. Week after week we witness the same miracle: that God is so mighty he can stifle his own laughter. Week after week, we witness the same miracle: that God, for reasons unfathomable, refrains from blowing our dancing bear act to smithereens. Week after week Christ washes the disciples’ feet, handles their very toes, and repeats, It is all right – believe it or not – to be people. Who can believe it?

During communion, the priest handed me a wafer which proved to be stuck to five other wafers. I waited while he tore the clump into rags of wafer, resisting the impulse to help. Directly to my left, and all through communion, a woman was banging out the theme from The Sound of Music on a piano.

This is a church I can live with. I can live with this church because there is room in this church for me with all my messy confusion. There is room in this church for the chaos of life. I need a church where things don't always run smoothly and where that is ok. I need a church that operates on the foundational Gospel principles of welcome and forgiveness.

I need welcome just to get in the door. I need forgiveness to say there.

When Jesus wanted his disciples to catch a vision of what the community of his followers should look like, he said, "change and become like children" and "Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me." (Matthew 18:3,5) This is a welcome that knows no boundaries; it has no conditions and no expectations.

When asked how much forgiveness was required among his followers, Jesus answered, "Not seven times, but, seventy-seven times." (Matthew 18:20)This is a forgiveness that never stops; it never gives up; it never goes away. "Seventy-seven times" forgiveness is forgiveness you can count on even when you don't deserve it.

Recently, as readers of this blog may know, our granddaughter celebrated her first birthday. As part of her party, Sophianna was allowed the unusual treat of a plateful of sweet gooey chocolate cake. Some of the cake went into her mouth but much of it ended up all over her. No one got upset that Sophianna was making a mess. No one chastised her for not being more tidy. After she had satiated herself with sticky sweetness, her mother just washed her off and Sophianna went on opening presents.

We all make messes. Some of us make a lot of messes, big messes, terrible messes. Jesus only wants to wash us off and set us about the buisness of opening presents again. A successful church is a place where we are reminded every time we enter that "It is all right – believe it or not – to be people" even when we are messy and difficult. Our task is to open the gifts of welcome and forgiveness and share them with one another. This is what a succesful church will look like.

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A Happy Birthday

I suppose it only happens once every seven years, so perhaps it deserves a little more fuss than usual. My birthday this year fell on a Sunday. So, I was of course in church with the community in worship for our usual three services. After the second service, some of the children came up from Sunday School and presented me with a paper chain lei with each link in the chain lettered with some quality in which they felt encouraged to grow by being part of our church community. They mentioned joy, truth, peace, grace, love, hope, belief, devotion, patience, mercy,light.

Then we went downstairs for coffee and cake before the third service.

The service had begun with one of our amazing puppeteers having a conversation with her puppet Bruno about winning a medal in the Olympics. The central message of he conversation was that it is what goes on inside our hearts that matters more than what we achieve or accomplish in the world. It felt to me this morning in church that perhaps we really believe that there is something more important about who we are than what we do.

We are a tremendously ordinary group of people. We gather Sunday by Sunday to acknowledge the ivnvisible presence of God at work in our lives. We support one another, care for one another and at times are able to demonstrate profound love and truth in our relationships. It is true we occassionally squabble and there is no doubt from time to time we let one another down, fail to measure up to expectations. But, even with all our shortcomings, there are times when the love, the warmth and the tenderness among us are so real that only the presence and action of God's Spirit could make it happen.

This morning was one of those days. I am so grateful to this community for the spaciousness they allow for God's Spirit to be at work. Our Gospel reading this morning was from Jesus' encounter with Peter in which Peter confesses that Jesus is the Messiah. Jesus then says to Peter, "Flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father in heaven." This community calls me back and again and again to the awareness that there is more going on in the world around us than often meets the eye.

A Happy Birthday celebration is one of those times when, for a moment, the veil of life is pulled back and we get to see more deeply. We get to see that the heart of the universe is a heart of love, that the centre of life is the reconciling power of Christ at work among us. We are loved; in response we are empowered to love one another and all people.

It is good to be in a place that holds up the light of God's goodness to warm my heart with the reality of God's love.

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An Ernest Goodbye

August 19, 2008

Dear Ernest,

As you prepare to launch into the next stage of your vocational/life journey, I want to say how much I have appreciated working with you over the past two years. It has been a joy to have you around. You have certainly given as much as you have received and I hope that our interactions and connection will continue in the future.

I have been thinking about your studies and particularly your possible future work in the church. I hope it is not purely projection on my part, but it seems to me there is a chance one of your struggles is going to be with the institutionalism of both “higher education” and, eventually, if this is where it leads you, with the institutionalism of the church itself.

So, I think it would be good for you to keep the following Panikkar quote near at hand for use in the event of emergencies.

There is a strong temptation to criticize organizations and emphasize the betrayal of many Christians and, above all, of the official churches for having wanted to rigidify everything, regulate life, and proclaim laws. We are, of course, justified in sustaining a critical and open spirit and in not fearing to denounce what appear to us as abuses and deformations of Christ’s spirit. But let us not forget that it is good that he has gone, and good that we realize it was not necessary for him to remain, just as it was not necessary for an omnipotent God…to prevent us from abusing our freedom. It is good for the church to be in human hands, that humanity forge its own destiny, and that we become co-responsible for the world’s dynamism…. The immutability that breaks life’s dynamism is death. (Panikkar. Christophany, p. 125)

Panikkar is speaking here about church as visible institution. He speaks later of “church” in a cosmic sense – “The church is the very place in which the whole universe pulsates until its final destiny.” (p.178) This is the ultimate vision of the fullness of God’s purpose to restore all things in Christ until all visible reality is “church,” and the light and glory of God are inescapable. But I think we must not confuse this longed for cosmic sense of church with the visible institutional manifestation of church we experience in the present.

When we look at “the official churches” and see how they want “to rigidify everything, regulate life, and proclaim laws,” it is tempting to give in to despair. But I think Panikkar is reminding us that we must never confuse God and church. The church is not God; God is certainly not confined to the church, however we understand the term “church.”

When we confuse God and church, we fall prey to seeking in church some kind of permanence, stability, strength, or security that it is ill-equipped to provide. We seek in it “an immutability that breaks life’s dynamism,” and this, Panikkar says, “is death.” It is of course the very thing Peter wanted to do after the transfiguration (“Lord, it is good for us to be here; if you wish, I will make three dwellings one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.” Matthew 17:4) Building “dwellings” kills the “dynamism” of transfiguration.

The problem with “dynamism” is that “dynamism” is messy. The energy of dynamism is the current that runs through polarities. Dynamism permeates differences, disagreements, confusion, and turmoil, all of which are manifest when people try to live together from wildly different places in life and spirituality. It is never easy to be together with people who are in different places; but there is no other place when real people are involved.

The danger I identify in myself is that I am often tempted to look to the church for more than the church is capable of delivering, or was in fact designed to deliver. The church, as Panikkar describes it is “in human hands.” The church, as we see it in its institutional manifestation, is a human and therefore deeply flawed, reality. When I try to make church be more than it is capable of being, I always end up doing violence to someone. I must be willing to receive the church as it is. I must learn to see God in the church in all its flawed humanness, just as I must learn to see the divine in the broken vessel that is my own life and in the flawed reality that is my brother.

Panikkar points out that God could have made a better church. But, Panikkar says, “it was not necessary for an omnipotent God…to prevent us from abusing our freedom.” If I had been God, I would have organized life differently. I would have made everyone agree… agree with me I suppose, and what a scary place that would be. I would have organized church to be a secure, safe, comfortable place where frightened people could take shelter from the harsh realities of the world and from which we could go out and recreate the world in our own image. But, church exists, like all of life, to cause us to come to that place within ourselves where we trust in absolutely nothing, but God’s Spirit. Church is exercise in believing that God is at work even in my flawed character and in the lives of all other imperfect beings. As Panikkar would say, church is just one more part of the radical “contingency” of our life circumstances.

We will all disappear. Churches will disappear. Clergy will disappear. Seminaries will disappear. None of these is the Promised Land. We cannot finally rest in contingent things. We cannot ultimately rely upon anything created. Each is only a door capable of opening into the vast spaciousness of God’s Spirit and ushering us, if we are willing to let go, more fully into the realm of God’s work.

For Panikkar the awareness of the “contingency” of all things is the paramount human experience.

To assume my human condition, to become conscious that my time has ended and I must leave, to be convinced that the Spirit must be neither suffocated nor controlled nor directed, constitutes the supreme human experience…. I must go. The ego will die and thus make room for the Spirit: this is Life and Resurrection.
(Panikkar. Christophany, p. 133)

The church is just another place to practice ego-death. Perhaps in church this process takes place at a level deeper than anywhere else, because in church we get to surrender our most cherished and deeply held convictions. Church requires being able to be with people who invest in things of which we might not approve. Church means worshiping with people who believe that those who do not believe as they believe are going straight to hell. Church is the place we get to sit down at the table with those who think church is little more than a business organization that should be run smoothly and efficiently along corporate lines. All this demands a constant return to the cross, where “the ego will die and thus make room for the Spirit.”

It is only through ego-death that we can enter into the fullness of our “own destiny” and “become co-responsible for the world’s dynamism.” This is the vision. Out of the mess, creativity emerges. Life is born in the process of dying. When we surrender and let go, we join God’s Spirit and allow the fullness of God’s work to take place in and around us. We are not in control. We are not the power that makes the world turn. We are called only to the costly path of love, so that love may be born and reborn in us and through us.

May the vision burn brightly in your heart. May you travel lightly always knowing that the first call is to let go and the second call is to open. Open to God. Open to yourself. Open to those around you no matter how peculiar, frustrating, conflicted, or irritating they may sometimes be. Each person God brings across your path is your spiritual practice. Each person you encounter is a gift to help shape you and through whom you can find Christ more deeply at work in your own life.

May the coming year bring you again and again to that place of depth within yourself where you know the strength of God’s call in your life and respond with joy and thanksgiving.

May God bless and uphold you,


Christopher

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