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A Few Words From Pastor Bryan
...and Jim Henderson
Last week in our Bible study after worship one of our participants asked how we can possibly take a stand against injustice, which sometimes means confronting people who are behaving in a ways we simply can't stand, and also love them at the same time. The question led us to look at one of Jesus's most challenging teachings in Matthew 5:43-44;
“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you..."
Another translation puts that last phrase this way;
"Pray for those who despitefully use you."
We had a great conversation, and we talked about how hard it can be to put teachings like these into practice in the so-called "real world." How do we do this when we are mistreated or abused or personally devastated by someone? How do we love someone who flat out hates us, or who undermines and pushes against us at every chance because they simply don't like us? Or someone we ourselves, no matter how hard we try, can't help but intensely dislike (if not hate)? And how do we bring this kind of radical love into conversations about work and politics and into the tone and spirit with which we work for issues of justice in this broken world?
Among other things, we reminded ourselves that to the extent that this kind of loving is ever done, "we" don't do it. Loving like that is only consistently possible when it is the Spirit of God within us actually offering Divine love through us. Our invitation and challenge is to become open and unobstructed channels of God's Love (as much as possible with God's help!) so that God can do the loving through us. It's not something we can pull off.
But we can choose to cooperate with it, and nurture it, and want it.
This week I had the wonderful good luck of stumbling upon an organization called "3 Practices." I say I stumbled upon it, but I was clearly led to it by God's Spirit. I won't take time to explain how, but suffice it to say I wasn't looking for it. It just "showed up" as I was in the process of looking for something else. God often seems to work that way in my experience.
The 3 Practices are actual commitments to put into practice when we are trying to communicate respectfully with those with whom we strongly disagree. 3 Practices is also the name of the organization established by Jim Henderson to offer workshops and trainings in which people learn how to put these practices into action. Check out this brief video of Jim Henderson (once you select the link scroll down to the video on the right called "The 3Practices: A Brief Introduction and History") explaining what the 3 practices are. You'll see Brian McLaren in the video also, and there's another video on the website of Brian talking about the practices as well. Brian works closely with Jim and this organization, and that doesn't surprise me. These practices are really a way of embodying the difficult love of Jesus without needing to use spiritual or religious language. That makes them useful in lots of different non-religious settings and contexts.
Here are the 3 Practices
- I’ll be unusually interested in others.
- I’ll stay in the room with difference.
- I’ll stop comparing my best with your worst.
I won't write more now, but if this intrigues you, watch the video. I can imagine, as the 2024 electoral cycle and all that's going on in our culture kicks into hear gear, us holding some public forums to deliberately discuss controversial issues using these principles... and loving each other and others who see things very differently than we do... in the Way Jesus showed us--and is still trying to teach us.
Hope to see you Sunday!
Pastor Bryan
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