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A Few Words From Pastor Bryan
...and Diana Butler Bass & Brian McLaren
I was listening to a conversation between authors Diana Butler Bass and Brian McLaren last night (thanks Trish Kalhagen for sending that to me!), and Diana said something very simple that struck me profoundly. They were talking about our society and the divisions and about what may be needed if we are going to have a chance of dealing with our most urgent social issues such as climate change. At some point Diana simply said;
"We are all going to need to learn how to spend more time with people we don't like very much."
Wow. That statement has been bouncing around my mind and heart ever since, and I could riff on it for a long time. As I've said several times in sermons, just about every group of people I've ever been a part of, and especially churches and other progressive leaning non-profit organizations, all which had wonderful intentions and important missions--have imploded because the people in them could not get along with each other. Some of them fell apart altogether. Some of them were knocked off the center of their call and purpose for years because of conflicts from within. It often came down to differences of personality and style of working, and the more passionately convinced people were of being "right" about how things should go, the less likely they were to be humble and open enough to leave space and opportunity for others to offer their opinions or gifts or energy or approach to the organization. In other words, it was usually the inability on the part of people to be self-aware (hence the importance of tools like the Enneagram), or to do their own personal ego work that often made it almost impossible for the organization to flourish.
You know one of the things that I find most attractive about Jesus is that he never stopped spending time with people he KNEW did not understand, agree with, or trust him. Let alone like him. We find him accepting invitations to dinner with the Pharisees for example, even when he knew full well that they were conspiring against him. Or we find him deliberately spending time with people who had sold out in one way or another and pretty much lost touch with who they truly were.
Jesus had this amazing capacity to always look past what was "not likeable" about someone, and see who that person was at their core--a beloved child of God with their own life stories and wounds and experiences. It wasn't just a matter of seeing the good in other people, or looking past another person's faults. That kind of "tolerance" can often be more condescending than anything. Instead, Jesus loved people, no matter who they were or how alienated they were from the better angels of their own nature, and his love for them somehow reminded them (if they were the least bit open to it) of who they truly were. They found their own goodness and beauty in the space his love for them created. He saw others, no matter who they were or what they'd done, as people who were capable of waking up to the best within themselves and who could change and evolve and grow. He saw their inner, God-given goodness as humans made in God's image. He loved them as they were--and that often gave others the space they needed to love themselves and to change their own behavior in some very radical ways.
Oh it didn't always "work." People are free NOT to change, and loving someone just to change them isn't love. But if we have a role in helping others change at all, it is love that "does the work." Not our attempts to manipulate or control or get others to do and be what we want to see happen or who we want them to be.
And of course Jesus always asks us to take a good look at ourselves before we put much time and energy into focusing on what we don't like about others. That teaching about "removing the log in our own eyes before we try to remove specks in the eyes of others" is his way of instructing us to do our own ego work rather than to project or focus on what we find unlikable in others. That means that when we find ourselves not liking how someone else is doing things that we first take a good look at our own way of processing things or expressing ourselves or moving forward. And the more we are convinced that our way is right or best, the more important it is to simply remind ourselves that we could be wrong (imagine such a thing!), or maybe partially right, and ask ourselves whether or not we're leaving space for others to have a different perspective and to be genuinely heard and respected.
Yeah all of this is easier said than done. But that's why we need God's Spirit of love and grace to be flowing within us and among us. God will do the loving in and through us. That's how this kind of Love is possible.
Diana is right. If we're going to ever solve the problems in our world, or work effectively together when it comes to hard decisions and complex tasks, we're going to need to get out of our own safe circles of people who see things the same way we do--and out of our various echo chambers--and learn how to work with people we may not like very much at all. Or who may not like us! We need to choose to love people more the way Jesus did, and the only way to do that is to be filled with the same Holy Spirit that enabled Jesus to love and live as he did. And to remember that God loves us all that way when we are not particularly likable ourselves.
"We are all going to need to learn how to spend more time with people we don't like very much." So simple. So deeply true. So desperately needed.
Let's be a church in which people love each other deeply even when we don't like each other at times. Gratefully, most of us like each other, or maybe we're all doing a pretty decent job with God's help of living this stuff out together! But we'll have plenty of chances to ask God for the Grace and Power to put what I'm talking about into practice. Every group of humans does!
So next time I say or do something that causes you not to like me too much, thanks for loving me anyway! If that hasn't happened yet, oh, give it time! We're all humans in the flawed glory and mess and beauty of what that means. Thank God!
In the relentless, extravagant, unconditional Love of God for us all,
Pastor Bryan
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