Motivation by acceptance ...

For today’s thoughts, let me quote a section from a book by Brian McLaren. He is talking about the open nature of Christian community:

[ Sometimes belonging must precede believing. In other words, unless we let not-yet-Christians enter and participate in the Christian community, many of them won’t become Christians. Perhaps this is so obvious that you wonder how anyone could doubt it. But sadly, that understanding is still pretty rare. If you wonder why, I have to point you back to history. Many of our [churches have learned to practice] … what I call “motivation by exclusion.” Motivation by exclusion says something like this: We’re on the inside, but you’re on the outside. We’re right, and you’re wrong. If you want to come inside, then you need to be right. So, just believe right, think right, speak right, and act right, and we’ll let you in.

… We need to move beyond motivation by exclusion. Our motivation by acceptance will say something like this: We are a community bound together and energized by faith, love, and commitment to Jesus Christ. Even though you don’t yet share that faith, love, and commitment, you are most welcome to be with us, to belong here, to experience what we’re about. Then, of you are attracted and persuaded by what you see, you’ll want to set down roots here long-term. And even if you don’t, you’ll always be a friend.

This approach is more in sync with Jesus’ own example. He was criticized for being a “friend of sinners” – in other words, he welcomed and accepted people who did not yet “believe right think right, speak right, and act right.” But he knew something we need to know: If people can belong long enough to observe how God is alive among us, if people can belong long enough to see authentic love among us, if they can belong long enough to see whatever good exists in our lives as individual and as a community, they can come to believe. ]*

In order to attract and persuade outsiders, our churches need to draw others into belonging. For our little community, compassion and care are persuasive for the children in our care. Grace and generosity are the languages we must speak. Of course, not all of the blessings of community are possible until one chooses to completely accept the community and join it. Still, the love and inclusivity of the community must be felt by outsiders before any would wish to join. Some fear that this requires us to ignore our own standards, but this is not so. Instead, we have the opportunity to demonstrate what we really value – love and respect, and transparency, for example. When they understand what these values look like in the lives of real people, then they may choose the behaviors and virtues that these values produce. Eventually, they may choose to become, and completely so, a member of the community. Then, as our peers, such virtues and behaviors are appropriate expectations.

We are a part of the most loving and open community of God’s people I have ever known. May God help us to keep it so.

Show grace, be peace,

Ron

*Brian McLaren, More Ready Than You Realize, 89-90.

Kate teaches us a lesson

On Tuesday night, much of Ann and Ron’s family was gathered at Ben and Tara’s home. Ben was attending to things in one end of the house, and Ron was following ten month old Kate as she walked (on her own wheels) from Tara in the kitchen toward the den, where Ann and Bailey were together on the sofa. Bailey was relaxing with her head in her mom’s lap, as Ann stroked her hair. When Kate saw this, it was if you could see her make the connections in her mind. Now Kate and Bailey are close, because Bailey has been her baby-sitter. Still, Kate started fussing and poking at Bailey as if to say, “This is my granna; what are you doing here?” Ann thought it was funny, so kept stroking Bailey’s head and saying, “My baby.” Which is a truth, but not a welcome fact to a baby who thinks that she is the entire family’s baby. Kate kept indicating her displeasure in Kate language (it sounds something like very forceful Chinese) and patting Ann and Bailey until finally, she became distracted with Bailey’s big, beautiful eyes and started to play with her eyelashes. We all laughed and moved on to the rest of our evening.

Later on, the scene was replayed with Ann and Bailey in a recliner. This time when Kate saw them together, she insisted that Ann bring her up into the recliner, too. When Ann would scratch Bailey’s back and say, “My Baby,” Kate would watch intently. Then Kate would wrap her little arm around Ann’s neck, bury her face in Ann’s shoulder, and nuzzle. The actors repeated this scene several times, and as with any comedy, it was funnier every time they did it. Talk was not enough. Kate was going to demonstrate who was whose baby. We taught Kate something. And Kate taught us that you can change your community with love, instead of noise or nonsense.

This is all about community, isn’t it? People, all connected in some way (in this case by familial relationships) gathered in one place, sharing time, relationship, and resources. Those relationships have definition and boundaries. The newest member of the community, Kate, has yet to understand those relationships and boundaries. She is a baby, after all. She is innocent. That doesn’t mean that everything she does is good, but she is too young to understand and be accountable for her actions. At ten months, how could she understand? So the community tolerates, even finds amusing, behavior which would not be acceptable from an older person. There were no negative consequences for Kate because she displayed some possessive feelings and actions. Instead her little community used one of its teaching tools (humor), maintained existing relationships, and worked to demonstrate that it has enough love for all of its members, whether they are present in the room or not.

You might think that this is intuitively obvious, but follow me on. As a little one grows older and grows in their ability to understand right and wrong, what does the community do with behavior that is out of bounds? Do we begin to withdraw our protective hand so that the natural consequences of the action negatively reinforce the lesson without our intervention? This might be possible and appropriate. Yet there still will remain certain actions that are more difficult to connect to consequence. Sometimes this is because we natively seek to protect children from consequences (of course we will grab the child right before they step off the edge of the deck). Sometimes this is because the effects of an action are more gradual and subtle.

What seems to be important to me is that, within community, we place limits on the kinds of consequences related to maintaining the community itself. In normal situations, consequences would focus on a limitation of resources, not of relationship. We wouldn’t say it like this, but it would be something like, “I need take away this toy for a while so that you understand you can’t do this, but I still love you.” Resources are removed; relationships are not terminated. Even if the behavior is so corrosive to community that a person has to be removed from the community for a while (a young person being violent to someone in the family, for example), it is important for the child to understand that the intent is to change the behavior and not terminate the relationship.

How does this relate to the children in our care? Think through that. Perhaps their community never taught them how to live in community. Perhaps they have experienced trauma that has warped their view of community. How do we help them understand right relationships? How do we help them to understand and respect appropriate boundaries? How do we help them understand what it means to be a part of a community unless we make them full-fledged members of a loving, flexible, and resilient community?

Hear the words of Jesus:

People were bringing little children to him in order that he might touch them; and the disciples spoke sternly to them. But when Jesus saw this, he was indignant and said to them, "Let the little children come to me; do not stop them; for it is to such as these that the kingdom of God [isn’t this the community of which we wish to be a part?] belongs. Truly I tell you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it." And he took them up in his arms, laid his hands on them, and blessed them.
Mark 10:13-16 – NRSV

What do we do with this truth? Hear the words of Paul:

Finally, beloved, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. Keep on doing the things that you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, and the God of peace will be with you.
Philippians 4:8-9 – NRSV

Grace and peace,

Ron

Is there any gentleness in the God of Joshua?

David Keck has noted that "it seems a somewhat strange combination of the book of Joshua with being kind, humble, patient, compassionate, and gentle. But I remember the words of James Cail from way back: 'people tend to behave the way they believe their God would'."

I agree with David; at first Joshua's story seems disconnected from kindness, but a look at the larger story reveals God's kindness. When the Israelites were in Egypt, there were the haves and the have nots. The Egyptians had; the Israelites had not. Oppression was the rule of the day. But an ancient proverb reveals the heart and the behavior of God:

"He who oppresses the poor shows contempt for their Maker,
but whoever is kind to the needy honors God." Prov 14:31 (NIV)

So after God removes his people from oppression, he creates a nation patterned after his values. He creates the "gentler and kinder" country of its day: Israel. How is this so?

Chapters 13-21 of Joshua reveal that God's plan was for the land to be divided by tribes and by family. When you couple this with the knowledge that the laws for ownership of land and indebtedness specified in Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy (i.e., Lev 27.14-25; Num 36.5-9; Deut 15) did not, in theory, allow any family to permanently lose their land, you see the kind hand of God protecting people from falling permanently into poverty and need. Oppression was against the law. Instead, there is the Levitical imperative (19.18) to "love your neighbor as yourself." In this nation, blessings were to be found in behaving kindly (as God would), and curses come to those who are unkind or oppressive. How does that connect with Joshua?

According to Josh 8.30-35, The Israelites stood on Mount Gerazim and Mount Ebal and did what "Moses had commanded." What was that? The people recited the blessings and curses listed in Deut 27.12-26, half speaking the curses, half speaking the blessings. Read them and see the curses for those who are unkind, who are oppressive. Here is effectively their "Declaration of Dependence" on God and his kindness, and their agreement to be kind themselves or else face the consequences. It is the covenant to be a different and "kinder" nation than the world had yet known.

If people "tend to behave the way they believe their God would," God would have us (and Cail would, too) see God and his behavior as it truly is: kind.

Grace and peace,

Ron