Loving God and loving one another - Dorothy Day

This is a profound thought:

We cannot love God unless we love each other, and to love we must know each other. We know Him in the breaking of bread, and we know each other in the breaking of bread, and we are not alone anymore. Heaven is a banquet and life is a banquet, too, even with a crust, where there is companionship.

- Dorothy Day, The Long Loneliness (via invisibleforeigner)

Pray that the moments of your life are filled with opportunities for loving God and loving one another. Pray that even where there is 'a crust' with companionship that your togetherness in Christ would be a sustaining and nourishing meal of grace.

I am experiencing the grace of togetherness this week as I get to know sisters and brothers from all over the world at the Global Kingdom Partnership Network conference in Orlando Florida. Indeed, God has placed a rich blend of diversity in the body of Christ. We discover aspects of God's gracious diversity as we encounter one another in love.

Kenosis is theosis...

The Church...

The Church is at home everywhere, and everyone should be able to feel himself at home in the Church. Thus the risen Christ, when he shows himself to his friends, takes on the countenance of all races and each hears him in his own tongue.

Henri de Lubac, Catholicism (via invisibleforeigner)

I love the Church. This evening I listened to one of the most powerful and wealthy men in Malaysia, Tan Sri Dato Francis Yeoh, speak about his experience of the Church. He is a deeply committed Christian who is clearly very deeply committed to the Church - as every Christian should be. Yet, he does not hold a romanticized picture of the Church.

His description of this blessed community was as follows: It is a little like the story of a group of porcupines who were caught in the coldest of winters. It was so cold that many other animals were dying. So they decided to huddle together for survival and warmth. However, whenever they came close they would wound each other (most often inadvertently and without malice or intent). Of course there were times when one of the animals would choose a position in contrast to the good of the rest - that would cause much more pain and hardship. Some of the porcupines found this unbearable and so they broke off from the rest. Sadly, without the warm and closeness of the others they were soon overtaken by the cold and lost.

As a result they soon learned that a few small wounds were a small price to pay for the collective blessing of life.

I have experienced the Church in this manner at times. Yet, it is the Body of Christ, a place of blessing and life. And so, even though I am sometimes misunderstood, sometimes hurt, I still draw near, for it is one of God's means of grace - a chosen instrument to help me find life and share life with others.

What is your experience of the Church? I'd love to hear!

Celebrating theological diversity, with respect. It is the way of Christ's Kingdom.

A fellow blogger, Stephen Murray, whose posts and insights I have enjoyed a great deal blogged the following challenging thought today:

I’ve been reading a lot of blogs of late where my guess would be that the authors wouldn’t classify themselves as ‘evangelical’. I read them because I appreciate the way these folk wrestle with so many pressing issues and how they integrate multiple academic disciplines with such skill trying to probe into important topics facing the broader Christian movement. Yet as I read these folk I often wonder what they think of us.

Let’s say that by chance they drop by …daylight and browse around, reading some of the posts. I wonder what they think about 4 young evangelicals who believe the Bible is God’s authoritative, infallible word for life and salvation, that salvation comes only through repentance and faith in Christ because of his work of substitutionary atonement and that hell is a real and coming judgment for those who reject Christ? Do they think we’re simpletons? Naive in our faith? Closed minded and narrow? Anti-intellectual? Misguided? What do they think?

Here's my response to him:

Hi Stephen,

Thanks for sharing this honest, and challenging, post. I have wanted to respond to it all day long but have not yet had the time. So, here goes....

I have also often wondered what others think of my particular approach to Christ... It is important on some level since my hope is that we (those who love Jesus and the people whom Jesus loves) will find one another now so that eternity won't be quite so difficult! Ha ha!

Seriously though, my realization in the last number of years has been that there are very few 'complex' and 'simple' expressions of faith. Rather there are simple and complex labels for approaches to faith. Each approach, I believe, is filled with complexity, depth, and a measure of conviction that makes it both precious to the person who holds it, and precious for God in relation to whom they hold it. It is much the same as me relating to my two children, I do not love or appreciate either of them more (even though one is older, more articulate and has a richer life experience because of her age). It does not make her experience of life, or of my love, more valuable or worthwhile. The fact that both of them live, and love me, is all that I long for. The rest is just unique (and sometimes just odd!) It doesn't impress me that my older child can do bonds of 18 while the younger child cannot yet crawl, since both are appropriate expressions of who and where they are. As I say, what impresses me is that they love me.

With regard to judgement however, I know that people often make the opposite assumptions to the ones you mention above about me i.e., that I am too open minded, that I am too intellectual, that I have lost my naive and simple devotion to Christ and that somehow I have lost sight of what truly matters in the Christian faith. Sometimes that hurts... However, I know that God is not impressed with my degrees, or titles, or anything else - these are simply thing that are more or less appropriate for someone who has had the education, opportunities, and experiences I have had. My quantum theories, and neuroscience, intricate readings of the Greek text, and all the things that I think are quite smart, must seem like 8 year old Maths to God - appropriate for who I am, but not important in the big scheme of things!

The people who judge me are probably correct, to some extent, about some of those assumptions, but they are also quite wrong in many others.

One of the things I have particularly tried to foster, at great cost, within our denomination (the Methodist church) here in South Africa is a love for my sisters and brothers that recognizes that diversity does not mean separation, neither does disagreement mean a lack of respect. I have sought to encounter people, rather than ideas, and to find what God loves about them first, before saying what I find objectionable about their words, thoughts or actions.

It is important that we are brave enough to leave our 'corners of conviction' in order to allow God to speak to us about new things, through strange prophets. That, I think, is the way of the Gospel.

There are of course some ideas and approaches to Christ, and Christ's Kingdom that I find incompatible with the Gospel (such as judging people by their race, which was a huge issue for us in the previous decades. In such instances I would encounter people with such views in love, and where they were not willing to change or repent I had to be honest, but loving, about how wrong they were). However, I know that I am often as wrong as those that I am quick to judge - so as time has passed I have sought to understanding first, then to make up my mind about people and their ideas. It takes discipline to do that, and I am still learning!

Know that even if I should find some aspect of your approach to the Christian faith different from mine, and I have not yet found such difference but the possibility does exist, I respect and admire your love for Christ.

Together with you in Him,

Dion

Thanks Stephen, you have challenged me, and reminded me that God's standard is both gracious and supreme.