Circle of Hope

When we got together on Monday night to keep imagining what’s next for us as a Circle of Hope, we talked about acknowledging the fact that our congregations are four local expressions of one church and mused that more sharing and mutuality among us could increase our capacity to be the local expressions of the kingdom of God that we are called to be.  Many parts of a beautiful whole was always the vision—just like Paul’s description of the “body” of Christ in his first letter to the Corinthians:

Just as a body, though one, has many parts, but all its many parts form one body, so it is with Christ…The eye cannot say to the hand, “I don’t need you!” And the head cannot say to the feet, “I don’t need you”… God has put the body together, giving greater honor to the parts that lacked it, so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other.  If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it.

At the meeting we faced some legitimate fears about being “big.”  It seemed to me that some concerns may be imposed on us from the outside and may threaten to cloud our view of ourselves.   We’re affected by big forces that use people as commodities and vie for our loyalties.  Governments haven’t exactly been trustworthy and forthcoming about the effects of policies and where our tax dollars actually go.   Corporations invade our “privacy” moment-to-moment with advertising.  These two big entities seem to work together to control just about everything they can, for profit, and people are often casualties.  Even some churches have followed suit and gone “mega” where it can be hard to be known for who you are and what you’re struggling with.   The giant meta world of the internet can further reduce human interactions to transactions.  No wonder we’re suspicious of big!  We want to be known for who we are beyond what we can produce or buy!  We know we have stuff to give and we want to give it, and we want it to matter.  We don’t want it to be a nameless drop in the bucket.

I’m grateful for our reaction to “big” in that it helps us keep forming a Circle of Hope that is about real people loving real people with the love of God.   We resist the treatment of ourselves and others as commodities and work to restore community.  Our cells protect and develop the heart of us, where we can be intimately known and discipled in the way of Jesus.

The way of Jesus, consequently, draws me into a vision for the world that is way beyond what I can control, consume, or manage.   (Thank God.  The American ideology that entitles us to seek what we can consume, control, and manage seems to promulgate the big monsters we fear.)   Jesus invites us to live in a broader spiritual zone that brings practical and personal change in the world—restoration.  He said he came to save the whole world, not condemn it.  There is nothing small about the love of God.  God calls us to actually love people on the other side of town, and the other side of the river, and the other side of Zambia—even as we invest as we can in our own homes and neighborhoods—and I think we’re enabled to do that through each other.  Our partnership bucks the natural fearful reaction to our corporate culture and extends the love of God beyond the limits of our individual lives.  

I have a young friend who is small for his age and calls himself “fun size.”  I like fun-size.  Putting our fun-size-ness together reflects the re-generative and creative and fearless nature of our Lord.  So I’m glad we’re talking about our unity. We are a movement of life in the Spirit.  No doubt we have more capacity in our togetherness to partner with God in transforming our corners of the world than we even realize. The corporations do not define us unless we define ourselves by our reactions to the corporations.  

I just returned to Philly after my first General Conference of the Brethren in Christ.  It’s a bi-annual, national gathering designed to bring the church together for face-to-face dialogue.  It was good to be together.  There is a spirit of brotherhood and sisterhood among us.  These people are serious about loving God and others.

Some of our distinctives, however, may be getting lost;  I want to talk about them.

1.  The Brethren in Christ are led by the Spirit, not bound by the law.   Early anabaptists sensed that their life in Christ was bigger than the norms and requirements of their national citizenship.  Jesus frees us from fearful allegiance to governments and nationalities.  We are as respectful as we can be within our anxious political context and growing police state(?) but thank goodness, we are citizens of the kingdom of God and that citizenship informs the others.  We are bound by the law of love first, and love sees outside and inside of the box.  Love recognizes the boxes of the world.  Racist history and policy is one of the boxes we recognize in U.S. context, and the Brethren in Christ decided to discern beyond background and credit checks in hiring because we do not want to be bound to a weighted system. 

2. The Brethren in Christ rely on corporate, not individual, decision-making.  Leaders do not make decisions in isolation, even if they try.  It always works out better when we talk about it.  We rely on God to speak to us through the body.  Although it sometimes seems like the economy has co-opted the word corporate, it comes from the Latin root cor which means body, and more specifically, heart.  It has a vital, human, bodily function.  The Brethren in Christ came together around a commitment to listen to one another, to have thoughts that are inspired by God and to share them and test them and make decisions together.  At the conference some of us were wondering how the leadership role of ‘moderator’ had morphed into ‘national director.’  I like the term moderator for practical reasons (as well as philosophical, historical, & theological reasons) and I hope we get back to it.   I think we need someone who’s committed to the function of listening to the body year round and culling out and communicating widely what God might be saying to us through the body.  I suppose I think highly of the body of Christ and of the power of God to speak through us.  I think that’s the kind of directing we’re designed for, and I think we have good leaders who can do this.

3.  Instead of consolidating power, the Brethren in Christ disperse it through service and mutuality.   It’s not always the most efficient way to operate, but I think that the more voices we have in the mix, the richer our life together and the more good we can do.  Circle of Hope operates in teams that have lives of their own but common agreements and vision.  The more we focus on our specific areas of service and have a vision for how we’re working together, the more we build up the body of Christ around the world.  I hope for various leadership committees within our denomination that work together and communicate regularly.  We have an opportunity to be the antidote to isolating individualism and crushing economic powers that make people skeptical of groups in the first place.  

4.  The Brethren in Christ are committed to peace.   We don’t make rules about these matters of course, but I can’t help but recognize our history.  Our forefathers and mothers in faith were so awakened by the love of God for all people that they couldn’t stomach violence toward others as a means to any end.  They were often the target of violence for this conviction.  I hope we keep working for peace.  MCC is doing it and I hope we support them generously.  We live in the world’s largest war machine and people are suffering by the violence in our own neighborhoods.  We bring the peace of Jesus that can reconcile people to one another and to God.  We are creating an alternative culture that breeds hope and justice and mercy.  I don’t see any reason to be quiet about it.

People are looking for Jesus in Philadelphia and Camden.  I hope they can learn the way of Jesus through the Brethren in Christ.  I’m grateful to be part of this unique family; let’s keep being distinct. 

On this holiday when Americans celebrate independance from British rule, I’m thinking about how autonomy is prized in our culture and to what end we’ve taken it.  It seems to me that early on, the desire to be free of extra-governmental rule got mixed in with a desire for possession of land and people and things.  The autonomy of the settlers trumped that of others’ as they dominated the “new world,” and buying power was real power in the young democracy.  The result today is a lonely scenario in many ways;  a fractured society in which the individual is charged with healing thyself according to our supposedly unlimited choices.  Everyone is supposed to figure things out according to their own desires.  We are supposed to have the buying power to do whatever we want to do, and that is supposed to make us happy.  I don’t think it’s working out for everybody.

The way of Jesus is another way.  It’s a human way, based on the understanding that I’m a created being, invited into loving partnership with God and others.  I don’t have to be a slave to autonomous desires that might run me off a cliff, or keep me isolated in my own zone.  I’m part of a bigger, hopeful story, and today I’m grateful for how anabaptist Christians, in particular, have been living this story for a few centuries.  Here’s three reasons I appreciate them:

1. They resisted religious law.   At the beginning of the anabaptist movement, the European church had aligned itself with governmental power and was enforcing religious rule.  (This is antithesis to the way of Jesus.)  The reformers to the church-state loosened things up but interpreted scripture in ways that seemed to come up with some new laws,  one of which implied that people were either in or out with God from jump-street, because people are predestined (to either be restored to God or not).  Anabaptists said no:  Christ died for all, leaving each person free to accept or reject his salvation.  They were named “rebaptizers” by their enemies because they maintained that baptism required responsible adult confession of faith, so infants can’t actually be “baptized.”   They formed a new society composed of regenerated persons who gather into a free covenant relationship with one another.  This is why in Circle of Hope, we make agreements with one another, not rules.  The letter of the law kills, but the Spirit gives life.  Love is the only rule, because Jesus is the rule.  Americans are notoriously religious, but if Jesus is not known at the center, then the religion may be based on law—which is old news and anti-freedom.

2.  They practiced love.  The application of love, according to their understanding of discipleship, was nonresistance to all human relationships.   Within their own circles, early anabaptists practiced brotherhood and sisterhood that went beyond the sentimental into the practical.  They shared possessions, property, and households with those in need.   This kind of love is still the antidote to our “autonomous” state that hoards most of the resources in the hands of the 1%.  Taking caring of one another and holding our possessions lightly frees us up, truly.   Circle of Hope has a common fund for this reason.  From the outpouring of the love of God through Christ and his sacrifice, we’re enabled to share on whatever level we can. We’re part of a growing family that is held together by more than our DNA.

3. They promoted peace.  Although they often paid with their lives, early anabaptists renounced the sword.  They mourned the loss of human life by capital punishment and warfare based on their understanding of Jesus and his purpose—saving love.  The communities they formed valued peace within, based on peace with God and trust in God.  Early anabaptist Conrad Grebel wrote, ” Moreover the gospel and its adherents are not to be protected by the sword, nor are they thus to protect themselves…they must reach the fatherland of eternal rest, not by killing bodily but by mortifying their spiritual enemies.  Neither do they use worldly sword or war, since all killing has ceased with them…”

On this July 4th, I celebrate the many gifts of my life and hope for freedom beyond autonomy.  While our tax dollars supply heavy weaponry around the world and ISIS is on the prowl and Boko Haram burns churches in Nigeria and 12-year-olds possess guns in my neighborhood, we need a different kind of independence.   Real freedom is characterized by interdependence with God and one another.  I am grateful to be building an interdependent community in Christ that practices love and resists injustice.  I’ll light some sparklers tonight in the joy of being that light.

I hang out with a diverse group of friends and sometimes strangers (who don’t stay strangers for very long) on Wednesday nights.  We’ve been taking turns picking Jesus stories to uncover and apply, among other things, and last night my friend brought this one:

 Large crowds were traveling with Jesus, and turning to them he said:  “If anyone comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters—yes, even their own life—such a person cannot be my disciple.  And whoever does not carry their cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.

“Suppose one of you wants to build a tower. Won’t you first sit down and estimate the cost to see if you have enough money to complete it?  For if you lay the foundation and are not able to finish it, everyone who sees it will ridicule you,  saying, ‘This person began to build and wasn’t able to finish.’

“Or suppose a king is about to go to war against another king. Won’t he first sit down and consider whether he is able with ten thousand men to oppose the one coming against him with twenty thousand?  If he is not able, he will send a delegation while the other is still a long way off and will ask for terms of peace.  In the same way, those of you who do not give up everything you have cannot be my disciples.”

It’s a hard edge that can sound daunting, unappealing, and even impossible.  Why then, we remarked out loud, do we keep feeling drawn to this guy?  Why is our experience with God—even in suffering and “giving things up”—characterized by a growing sense of welcome and freedom?  We pondered this mystery and came up with a few observations together (theology practiced in community is my favorite way to “study”):

1.  Jesus is expanding our family.  It’s not that he is calling us away from those we love already, it’s that he is calling us toward those we don’t know yet.  He is multiplying love and our capacity to live in it and express it.  Sometimes we do experience loss in this stretching, and maybe that’s part of the cross Jesus is talking about.  We are dying to our contentment with small, controlled, protected lives.  We are called into a transcultural, transhistorical world-wide family that moves to love and include everyone in the redemption plan. 

2.  “Giving up everything” could be responsive partnership with God.  My friend Mike said that he often feels directed to lay aside his own plans and responsibilities throughout the day or night in order to respond to someone who needs help.  The “giving up” what he wants done in the moment is hard, but he thinks this might be what Jesus is talking about.  God calls us into a partnering relationship.  Our awareness of that relationship and willingness to respond to God—often in normal moment-by-moment practical ways—is characteristic of a disciple.

3.  We need God in order to be disciples at all.  What Jesus is describing is rather impossible on our own cognition, which is why he doesn’t say anything about needing to do it on our own.   His whole life, death, & resurrection indicates that we can trust God in us and us in God, and not waste time assessing our own worthiness based on our piles of perceived limitations.   Of course we have lots of limitations, but they need not keep us from becoming our truest selves.  We talk a lot around Circle of Hope about “doing things that are hard enough to require God.”   How else could we attempt to love everyone, understand the Bible, meet regularly, share money and other resources, serve creatively and compassionately, and make peace here in Philly and Camden?   Jesus is calling us to discipleship that welcomes, frees, expands, and enables us to make a difference, even in trying times.  Being part of a cell group reminds me of that every week.  I can’t help but experience that the cost of discipleship is also an “easy yoke” in how we share it.

This winter has been tough for a lot of Philadelphians.  Some have turned their ovens on to keep warm.  I used to be a winter sports-woman in my privileged youth: ice-fishing, snow-mobiling, downhill & cross-country skiing, ice-skating…but at times this winter I’ve been tempted to hibernate under my electric blanket from 8pm-8am.   I have become a wimp in the cold.  So here’s five practices that have kept me going this winter; you probably have other great ideas to add.

1.  Keep your prayer life hot.

Carve out a bit of space every day to be intentional about connecting with God.  God’s desires for the world will seep into our own as we open up this space in us.  I like to use our Daily Prayer blog; so many different writers contribute to this treasury.  I also started meeting with friends to pray one cold morning a week from 6-7am.  Let me know if you want to get in on that.  We are simply asking to move in us and in our neighborhood, and we’re already seeing God move.  

2.  Look for God in pop culture.  

A lot of us watch more TV, movies, and maybe even listen to more music in the winter because we’re stuck inside.  I think it’s fun to interpret how artists are channeling the philosophies of the day, expressing their goodness and their longing for God at the same time.  Sometimes it’s the same dumb stuff we’ve seen throughout history, like Bruno Mars’ misogynistic Young Girls (even my kids said, “why is he blaming the girls?”) and the prevailing ideas behind the entertainment biz seem to channel a new/old religion of ‘follow your desires/you are the sum of your experiences/love—mostly sexual love—will save us.’  But it’s sure to be entertaining.  And if you are interested in creating culture, something I think we’re all called to do, then it’s a good idea to see what’s being widely digested and compare it to what you’re hearing from God (see #1).  Loving people involves paying attention to what might be leading us around. (And if you have any doubt that lots of people are being “led around” by the entertainment biz then just stay awake this weekend around the Superbowl and it’s advertisements. One study I found indicated that some 50% of Americans search the internet for info about the Superbowl commercials before the Superbowl begins.  We’re literally entertained by advertising now.  That might be advertising success at it’s apex, and we’re buying it!) 

3.  Don’t give up meeting together.

We exercise our faith when we get together face-to-face.  A relationship with God isn’t something we can do in our heads.  A relationship with God is not a belief system.  It is happening with others.   If we know anything about the way humans are wired, I hope it’s that isolation is not healthy for us, spiritually or otherwise.  We don’t thrive in isolation, contrary to what technology and the entertainment biz affords us (see #2).  We’re made for love of God and others.  So I recommend:  if you’re not part of a faith community, find one.  Don’t let your preferences get in your way.  Show up to a public meeting, be part of a cell.  Of course it won’t solve all your problems—in fact it might give you more— but you might meet God and impact the world in deeper and bigger ways that you could do alone.  Even if the weather doesn’t cooperate with us this winter, lets keep trying. 

4.  Be like a tree & let your roots go down deep into Christ.

I learn a lot about God through creation.  When trees go into their dormant phase in wintertime, their roots do not stop growing.  Everything else generally shuts down to conserve energy, but the roots keep right on doing what they do, even in a frozen environment.  They keep growing—sucking up nutrients and moisture where they can get it—stabilizing the tree and preparing it for another season of growth.  I like to think that’s what we can do in the wintertime, electric blanket and all:  “Let your roots grow down into him, and let your lives be built on him. Then your faith will grow strong in the truth you were taught, and you will overflow with thankfulness. Don’t let anyone capture you with empty philosophies and high-sounding nonsense that come from human thinking and from the spiritual powers of this world, rather than from Christ.  For in Christ lives all the fullness of God in a human body.” Colossians 2:7-9

5.  Wear Under Armour & drink virgin hot toddies.

This is a matter of preference.  I discovered that Under Armour is not just for little-leaguers this winter, and that hot water with lemon and honey keeps me warm and in the reality zone with God that is most comforting of all, no matter what we’re facing.  So cheers to the rest of the winter!  Let’s suffer together.