In Christ Alone

I.        Vows of Affirmation

“We devote our daily life to God, and to serving our neighbors as images of God” 

("Agnus Dei" by Trish Steel, CC)

   
1. I will daily offer my life to God with reverence and a living faith; I will daily pray to be used as a servant by God for the good of my neighbors near and far. 

Making—and keeping—a discipleship covenant is no easy thing, especially one with twenty different vows! But this Covenant of Christian Nonviolence  is not mostly about individual moral heroics and rigid perfectionism. We will follow it incompletely (the Covenant itself is incomplete), we will miss the mark. Yet the main focus is not simply on our getting it exactly right, but in serving God and neighbor with as much of our being as possible. Love of God and neighbor is at the true center of our peacemaking, not some outside ethical principle of pacifism.  Dietrich Bonhoeffer says much the same in the following paragraph from The Cost of Discipleship:

The Impossible Life

IV.    Vows of Voluntary Sacrifice

“We freely offer up our appetites, wealth, and pride to relieve the suffering of the world, for the sake of our neighbors and God’s joy.”
 

20. I will seek out and yield to the counsel and direction of my sisters and brothers for growing into the Spirit and likeness of Jesus Christ; I will regularly examine my life under these vows, and seek the aid and instruction of my brothers and sisters for growing in faithfulness.

There is one unavoidable piece that hasn’t yet been mentioned in these twenty Covenant vows: the necessity of participating in Christian faith community. If our nonviolent discipleship to Jesus is to cover every aspect of our life and have the strength to last through the ups and downs of our entire lives, it will have to be formed in Christ’s own body, the church. Granted, it’s true we can all think of folks we know who better exemplify bits and pieces of these peacemaking vows who aren’t consistently, deeply networked into a Christian faith community—they may not even consider themselves to be Christian. It may even be you trying to live Jesus’ cross-bearing life on your own! But there is something about Jesus’ call that is not possible outside of his community of people.

You’ve Got to Serve Someone

IV.    Vows of Voluntary Sacrifice

“We freely offer up our appetites, wealth, and pride to relieve the suffering of the world, for the sake of our neighbors and God’s joy.”

19. I will discipline my appetite for possessions through limiting acquisition of things to my true needs; through treating all my possessions and wealth as a trust from God for extending God’s blessings to the suffering in the world; through sharing generously with my neighbors; and through consuming conscientiously and simply so that I do not deprive others of the means to live.

("Money Chain" by Nina Helmer via Flickr)

Without looking very hard I can find evidence that my stuff can easily own me, control me and rob life from me. What’s a bit more difficult to see is that when I'm distracted by, anxious about, pursuing after and consuming all the stuff that has been marketed to me, I am much less able to live a life of compassion and reconciliation with my neighbor, devotion to God or peace with myself. My focus on my own desires and needs, the anxiety about whether there will be enough, my drive to protect what I do have from others, or the energy expended in the acquisition of the next thing (and paying off the last one)—all this takes great time and energy in our lives; time we can’t use to pursue God and serve our neighbor.  

Jesus must have been on to something when he said we can’t serve two masters, God or mammon!

Slow Food and Fast(ing)

IV.    Vows of Voluntary Sacrifice

“We freely offer up our appetites, wealth, and pride to relieve the suffering of the world, for the sake of our neighbors and God’s joy.”

18. I will discipline my appetite for food through conscientious diet and periodic fasting, especially from meat and foods that impose exceptional burdens on God’s creation or my neighbors, and by refraining from intoxicants.

("Daily Bread" by knitting iris via Flickr)

Some may wonder what eating habits have to do with living in line with God’s shalom, but movements and cookbooks like More With Less (and now Simply in Season), alongside growing societal awareness of local, fresh, in-season, heirloom, organic, fair trade, hormone free, grass-fed, free-range, whole grain and so on, have drawn much clearer ethical lines between the things we grow, water, weed or purchase, transport, slice, cook, and ultimately put in our mouths. Much more apparent now are the interconnections of our overburdened ecosystems, links between our global, regional and local markets, and the dynamic correlation between the quality and content of our food and our daily health.

But there is more to today’s vow than simply re-connecting with our local farmers and eating fresh, tasty food or just refraining from excessive caffeine, sugars or fats for physical health sake alone. One significant, life-giving piece not prominent in the healthy and sustainable foods movements is attention to periodic fasts.  Sure, New Year’s resolutions and health magazines tout particular diets and portion control, but longstanding religious traditions—including Christian—have a distinctive contribution to make to our spiritual, physical, mental and relational health through the practice of fasting. It has been suggested that in an affluent society, fasting is a far larger sacrifice than giving a little of our money, in a consumptive culture of "more" it teaches us "enough."

Sex, Love and…Peacemaking?

IV.    Vows of Voluntary Sacrifice

“We freely offer up our appetites, wealth, and pride to relieve the suffering of the world, for the sake of our neighbors and God’s joy.”

17. I will discipline my sexual appetite by practicing chastity and purity in my relationships and recreation; I will treat sexual intimacy as a public, lifelong and exclusive covenant for marriage; I will respect the bodily image and sexual dignity of each person as a child of God, and refrain from lust and pornographic media.

(by D. Sharon Pruitt via Flickr)

Wait—sexual intimacy? What does that have to do with nonviolent Christian discipleship? That sounds a whole lot more pleasant than that “expect to be persecuted and bear your crosses” stuff in the other vows!

When we talk about the very real specter of sexual violence and abuse in war-ravaged settings or even behind domestic doors, the connection between sexuality and Christian nonviolence is abundantly clear. But the clarity dissipates as we move closer to our own practices and experiences of sexuality (though some of us may indeed have experienced or even committed some of this more explicit violence).