I Call You Friends

I just finished reading a chapter from the book Your Sexual Self by Fran Ferder and John Heagle entitled "I Call You Friends", an assignment for my Human Sexuality & Christian Ethics class. The authors correlate the intimacy between Jesus and his disciples expressed in the Gospel of John with our own call to love and intimacy with others. Here are a few quotes from the chapter that I found helpful.

I shall not call you servants any more, because a servant does not know his master's business; I call you friends, because I have made known to you everything I have learnt from my Father. -John 15:15

 

Friendship doesn't happen simply because we share a common vision, engage in a mutual project, or spend time together. It is not an automatic by-product of living together, working with each other, playing golf, or taking a tour. Friendship happens because someone begins the arduous and sometimes painful, sometimes exhilarating work of self-disclosure, and invites the other to do the same.

 

What happens when we see intimacy in the context of human experience and committed faith? Genuine intimacy, in its most profound sense, may be likened to philos- the friendship described in John's gospel. Intimacy involves making known our everything to a dear one. It is experienced gradually and deepens slowly as mutual self-disclosure increases.

 

It is a haunting question. Have you shared your everything yet? Have you told your life stories to someone and listened as they told theirs? Have you let your guard down with anyone yet? Have you taken off your masks and gently peeled away the many layers of protection that hide your true self with someone, somewhere, sometime?

 

The word "intimacy" is derived from two Latin words- intimus (inside of) and intimidare (to fear or be in awe)....Being close enough to be inside of another- or to let another inside us- is at once awesome and fearsome. It both draws and repels, pulls us in and pushes us back. It fills us with wonder and scares us at the same time. The very thing we all seek- human connection- can also be very intimidating. It demands we let go of control and give up the safety of our solitariness. It requires a journey into the often unchartered waters of relationship- where there are no maps, no guarantees, and even less certainty about the ultimate destination. It is a journey that can be at once exhilarating and terrifying, exhausting and nourishing. The more we enter "inside of" the life of another and allow that person to do the same with us, the more we are in the space where strength and fragility live alongside each other. Nowhere can pain burn so deeply or joy penetrate so totally as in a relationship where intimus and intimidare are etching their portraits into our hearts.

It is in telling all the stories our life holds- gradually, mutually- that true intimacy happens. Soul nakedness unfolds. Then, as in a well-orchestrated liturgy, our stories mingle with celebration.

 

All believers are called to make love. For those of us who claim to follow the God who gave us the great commandment, intimacy is not an option, it's a necessity. Engaging in self-disclosure, making known my everything, are not choices in the smorgasbord of Christian living.

 

Each time we interpenetrate our hearts, each time we say what we honestly think and feel in a way that honors and respects the beloved, each time we exchange some part of our everything with a dear one, we are making love.

 

Making love. Experiencing intimacy. We do it whenever we stay awake long into the night sharing stories with a friend while time stands still. We do it when we laugh until our sides hurt with someone close. We do it when we cry in one another's arms, because the conflict that always comes with intimacy can hurt so much. And we do it whenever we say to someone who holds our heart: I call you friend because I have made known to you everything.

Seeking: Nutty Christians

This afternoon a beloved but soon to retire professor at AMBS, Alan Kreider, lectured in my Formation in Ministry class to share his bubbling enthusiasm and stories of mission in the church. During the lecture he gave us ten characteristics of missional leaders. These characteristics are not bound to pastors or missionaries, but would be applicable to all individuals and congregations who seek to further the kingdom of God.

The Missional Leader:

1. Prays- to ask God to open our eyes to see God at work and that His will be done (Lord's Prayer), then notices God working through an examen, records God's works and offers praise, or confession for missing it.

2. Doesn't try to reinvent Christendom- accept that we are not in the center of Christendom and imagine new ways to move forward.

3. Articulate and embody hope- recognize negative hope, and see and name positive hope.

4. Tell the stories of how God has been at work in our lives, in our communities, in the world, in history.

5. Encourages people to see significance in their work- all work has a purpose and a mission.

6. Encourages congregations to recover testimony and praise- to keep us remembering that God is at work.

7. Expects to see God at work- outside the Church and Christianity, and outside traditional church structures, in new forms.

8. Encourages hospitality- to give hospitality to each other, to offer hospitality to those on the outside, and to receive hospitality.

9. Equips people to be articulate about their faith- if we don't know how to talk about our faith then we can't share it with others.

10. Equips people to pray- to be able to notice God at work and seek God's will (as in #1).

Alan left the class with the thought "The problem with Christians is that we don't do nutty enough stuff."

Perhaps we don't see God working in our lives, our congregations, our communities, or our world because we aren't looking. And maybe we're not being "nutty" enough to step out of our comfort zones, attempt the impossible, and join in God's work in new ways.

This I Believe: The Church- A Call for Tradition, A Call for Passion

This morning's Sunday school class was the third session in a series focused on the story of the Christian church. The leader, a fellow seminary student, shared with us the process of becoming a Christian and being welcomed into the early church. It was a long journey beginning with the example and evangelism of a Christian in the streets, workplace, home, community, etc. Someone who was interested in Christianity would begin asking questions of another Christian. If this person was sincere they would be sponsored, or mentored, by the Christian who introduced them to Christianity and they would be allowed to enter the church community to begin instruction. This process could take as long as three years and the candidates would not be allowed to take part in the celebration of the Lord's Supper, or even be present for the entire church service, until they were baptized. During this time they were instructed in the Scriptures and the Way of Jesus and taught the story and practices of Christianity. They were also exorcised daily of demons and evil spirits that had been binding the believer. The catechesis of the early church was extremely vigorous and not to be taken lightly. Yet, the church grew and grew as those who began with questions yearned to be transformed in baptism. When that day finally came, and the mentor affirmed that the candidate was truly prepared to enter the community and follow the Way, he/she would receive a final exorcism, anointed, be de-robed, and then enter the baptismal where they would be immersed in the cleansing waters of baptism. Afterwards the candidate would be re-robed in white, anointed again, and then the congregation would lay hands on them while the bishop invited the Holy Spirit to enter the newly baptized Christian.

A question that was raised in the discussion was why would a religion that was so difficult to become a part of and often led to, even guaranteed, severe persecution and death, draw so many so rapidly? People saw in the lives of Christians that they worked with, lived with, shopped with, a hope and meaning that was absent from all other religions or philosophies. Christians didn't just invite their lost neighbors to church to hear the sermon and hopefully get "saved". They lived, breathed, and preached what they believed to everyone they met as often as they could. The Holy Spirit was breaking out and transforming people in ways they couldn't stop talking about. In his sermon this morning, the pastor shared a story of a time when he met a famous football star. That was all he talked about for weeks. If we get so excited about shaking hands with someone famous, why are we not ecstatic after being in the presence of Christ and being transformed by the Holy Spirit?

I left church this morning wondering what would happen to the church today if we literally modeled the life of the first church. What would happen if we actually asked (sincerely) that the Spirit of Christ would enter our congregations and transform us? What would happen if baptism was viewed not as a ritual or rite of passage into the membership of the church, but an actual cleansing of the strongholds of evil and an opening to the Holy Spirit? What would happen if we were taught the Scriptures and the Way of Christ with such intensity and depth that it took three years to complete a catechesis? What would happen if we had to know that we know that we know and believe it so strongly that not even pain and death would cause us to recant? What would happen if each member of the community was mentored and held accountable so closely as in that first community? What would happen if we allowed the full meaning of the resurrection of Christ to envelope us and take hold of us, so much so that joy in Truth and healing and freedom of all that binds this world was happening all over the place? What would happen if we truly claimed Christ as our Lord, over all government and institutions and cultural values? What would happen if the Church was actually what Christ meant for the Church to be?

Diana Butler Bass was the keynote speaker at the annual Pastor's Week here at AMBS last week. She is author of Christianity for the Rest of Us and The Practicing Congregation. In her project she found that vital mainline Protestant congregations all shared three common characteristics: practices, tradition, and wisdom. All of the congregations she and her colleagues studied held a high value on remembering their tradition, not as the habitual ways that they do things, but tradition as the story of what they believe and why the practices of their congregation are so valued. Diana pointed out that the religious groups who pay attention to their tradition in history actually have a more vital spirituality and are more influential in the current culture. This shows that people are seeking to be rooted in the wisdom, tradition, and practices that have formed Christianity and are so meaningful. A church that has so watered down its beliefs and convictions in order to be more appealing to the seeker culture achieves nothing but convincing people even more that Christians are hypocritical, phony, and irrelevant.

All this is to say that I believe the Church is being called to return to its roots, or rather to scrape away the fake, feel good niceness of what the Church has become and grow its roots once again in the deep nourishing soil of Christ. I believe we are called not only to imitate the life of Jesus, but to live wholly in the Spirit of the resurrection and claim Christ as our only Lord and Savior. I believe we are called to ground ourselves in the Truth of Scripture, rather than merely accepting the cliches we've been taught as truth. I believe that we are called to hold up our tradition and our story, and teach our children the practices of our faith. I believe that we are called to move our beliefs to convictions and to allow the Holy Spirit to once again transform our lives, our communities, and our world.