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.

A smooth threshold ...

Consider these two prayers.
One is a prayer of confession.
The other is a prayer of blessing.
They speak of value, acceptance, wealth,
welcome, and hospitality.
May we use them as our situation requires.

A Prayer of Confession

Father, in your creation you have made us rich,
And yet we have made ourselves poor
In our reluctance to credit others with value;
In our failure to look beyond the material and accepted
standards of our day;
In our deafness to hear only the sounds that are pleasant
to our ears;
In our noise and busyness, failing to listen to the unuttered
cries of hurt and pain;
In our lifestyle, putting pleasure of palate before the real
cost to individuals in another part of the world.

We live as though our well-being matters most
And because of that, the rest of creation suffers.
Father, forgive us.
Help us to visualize your values,
To appreciate your resources,
But above all to credit all humankind as members of the family,
Valuable and indispensable.
- Rosemary Wass

A Prayer of Blessing

O God, make the door of this house wide enough
to receive all who need human love and fellowship,
and a heavenly Father’s care;
and narrow enough to shut out all envy, pride, and hate.
Make its threshold smooth enough
to be no stumbling block to children or to straying feet,
but rugged enough to turn back the tempter’s power;
make it a gate to thine eternal kingdom.
- Thomas Ken, written at the door of a Christian hospital

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