shifting gears in autumn and a quest for koinonia...

We've been back home from Canada for a full week now: it was a joy to enter each day without an agenda and be fully free from anxiety or stress. It was truly a restorative reprieve - and I am grateful. Now it's time to get back to music-making and soul care. Our band, All of Us, will be playing a private party in Otis this Sunday at one of the many vacation camps that is closing up for the season. My brother-from-another-mother, Dave, and I are the core of this band, and three new/old friends will be part of the magic this week: guest bass player Jim; female vocalist Eva; and percussionist Andrew. In some ways, this incarnation feels like a whole new groove! David and I, of course, have been working together on and off for over 15 years. Eva, too, has been part of the music as a foundational part of our other ensemble, Wednesday's Child, for 17 years. And Jim is a well-seasoned local pro who, along with Andrew, has played with both groups periodically, too. But this is the first time we'll all be together in the same place at the same time. It should be a gas.

Being back in worship with Palmer's faith community was equally refreshing and joyful. After nearly a year of discussing, studying, praying, and waiting upon the Spirit, it became clear to me that the suggested UCC process for exploring issues of sexuality, equality, and justice no longer works. I'm not sure it ever did, but it clearly doesn't fit us now. Without deep trust built on conversation, careful listening, risk-taking, prayer, vulnerability, and time, making bold choices in pursuit of justice feels dangerously capricious and even immature. 

If the Biblical stories of the early church - and the wisdom culled from subsequent vigorous historical study - suggest anything, it is that the Body of Christ incarnates radical hospitality first and then, over time, searches for wisdom. It used to be said that ours is a faith seeking understanding - fides quaerens intellectum - or orthopraxis before orthodoxy - right action before right doctrine or belief. After 18 months as interim minister, my head and heart sensed that before we make any significant changes to the Open Table of Jesus ministries, we strengthen at least these two time-tested Christian formation practices:

+ Careful conversation and listening: Our 21st-century culture has forgotten how to listen carefully, let alone wrestle with hard realities with love and respect. Families no longer eat together. Our nation lives in segregated siloes and gated communities that banish the complicated gifts and challenges of diversity from consideration. And life moves too fast for anything except a surrender to economic, political, and cultural homogeneity in pursuit of relief from anxiety and fear. 

+ Congregational spiritual formation: Our era of bottom-line ethics, fast food living, and economic insecurity has eliminated time for spiritual reflection and study for most individuals and families. If our attend worship, they barely receive 130 minutes of Sunday School each month. Likewise, our elders who attend public worship can only receive about 190 minutes of scripture, prayer, music, and interpretation each month. That means almost no one has time to look beneath the surface of popular culture concerning what "motivates and forms" our thoughts, words, values, and actions. With Sunday worship being our only time to equip believers with a taste for the counter-cultural values of Jesus, we need new strategies to reconnect our lives with the grace of God.

My proposal, endorsed by our leadership team, is to start an experiment in relearning how to talk together about what is essential to our faith. The German Evangelical and Reformed church used to emphasize: in essentials, unity; in nonessentials, diversity; and in all things, charity. I am reminded of the wisdom the late Fr. Raymond Brown brought to the table in his study, The Churches the Apostles Left Behind. My takeaway is that while the early church gave shape and form to the New Testament, it included seven different emphases (see https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/739501. The_Churches_The_Apostles_Left_Behind) that were unique and situated in the realities of their discrete contexts. Nevertheless, they celebrated koinonia, the unique fellowship and community crafted by Jesus, and found the grace to welcome those with differing theologies to the shared open table of the Eucharist.

Brown's close examination:

... reveals the distinguishing characteristics that delineate the differences among these seven churches: Christology, church structure, exclusivity, community, liturgy, good works, the Spirit, the Eucharistic meal, salvation and, interestingly, Jewishness. These somewhat arcane nuances that define each church are essential in understanding the New Testament. The author points out that there is a pro-Jewish conception of Christianity and a pro-Gentile view that are struggling side-by-side to capture the soul of this emerging religion (17). One of the big questions faced by the early church: Is it necessary for a Christian convert to become Jewish first before becoming a Christian? On one hand there is the Jerusalem church, represented by James and Matthew, who want to see the Jewish Law strictly followed and “…the smallest letter, not even the smallest part of a letter of the Law…” (41) altered. This church consists of mostly Jewish Christians and is advocating for the circumcision of all new Christians. 

Then there is Paul, who has a more libertine attitude toward the Jewish Law, and is troubled by these Christian Judaizers (21). He makes a radical missionary decision (after his vision is restored) to replace the very physical act of circumcision with the spiritual act of baptism. The spirit of Baptism received through fire, water or the laying of hands becomes the preeminent marker of Christian identity. Once the Spirit arrives, it alters the soul of the individual and the nature of the entire church. It liberates the individual from its slavery to worldly sin and it propels Paul and the other apostles to bring Jesus’ good news to the ends of the earth. The Holy Spirit, sent by the Father once the Son ascends to heaven, guides Christ’s body on earth (i.e. the Church) and is of “massive importance”(67) in every step of church history. It is the fulfillment of The Law that makes adherence to God’s statutes possible.

This commitment to koinonia is key in the work we are crafting for at least the next year as we start to talk and listen to one another about what is essential to our church. What we hold in common is our unabashed desire to follow Jesus more authentically without surrendering to exclusivity or judgment. I have found the research and practical wisdom of C. Christopher Smith and the Slow Church movement, which focuses on the patient way of Jesus, to be foundational. These five texts have been clarifying for me:

+ The Virtue of Dialogue by C. Christopher Smith

+ The Form of the Word by Stephen E. Fowl

+ The Shape of Our Lives by Philip Kenneson, Debra Dean Murphy, Jenny Williamson, Stephen Fowl, and James Lewis

+ Slow Church by C. Christopher Smith and James Pattison

+ How the Body of Christ Talks by C. Christopher Smith

Of equal importance has been my slow read of the new translation of the New Testament by David Bentley Hart and the synthesis of Fr. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin's theology by Kathleen Deignan and Libby Osgood. This time of year, filled with a transition from the abundance of summer to the slowing down of autumn, and the latency of winter, is a great time to refocus and regroup. I think Mary Oliver got it right:

In the deep fall
don’t you imagine the leaves think how
comfortable it will be to touch
the earth instead of the
nothingness of air and the endless
freshets of wind? And don’t you think
the trees themselves, especially those with mossy,
warm caves, begin to think
of the birds that will come – six, a dozen – to sleep
inside their bodies? And don’t you hear
the goldenrod whispering goodbye,
the everlasting being crowned with the first
tuffets of snow? The pond
vanishes, and the white field over which
the fox runs so quickly brings out
its blue shadows. And the wind pumps its
bellows. And at evening especially,
the piled firewood shifts a little,
longing to be on its way.