Not Mine [Alone] To Do

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

3. I will live, speak and act with truth, compassion, kindness, gentleness, mercy, patience, generosity, and expectant hope that others will respond in kind.

("the shift" by Cornellia Kopp via Flickr)

When faced with lists of to-dos or to-bes, I can slog down in the hard work of doing and becoming something better.  But in my stubborn independence, with my thanks-for-offering-but-I’ve-got-things-covered response, I miss something important about the discipleship life.  Yes, God’s calling demands sacrifice and perseverant hard work on our part, but only as a response and an outgrowth of what God has already begun in us. In the end it begins with God’s faithful work and not simply ours.

After the tragic shooting at the West Nickel Mines school house, the Amish community persevered in the painfully compassionate work of forgiving Charlie Roberts. In Forgiveness, John Ruth notes that this Christian act was “not a strategy or skill, but the fruit of a radical reorientation.” Yes, it certainly took a stalwart moral commitment on the part of the Amish in Lancaster County to live, speak and act with kindness and mercy, but it was only made possible by the work that Christ had already begun long before in them as a tight-knit church community. Paul calls this preliminary initiating work New Creation. He likens it to fruit grown in us by the Holy Spirit, or new clothes washed and put on us by Christ. 

In the Same Way

I.        Vows of Affirmation

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

("Holy Trinity" Andrej Rublev via Wikimedia Commons)

2. I will seek the image of God in each and every person; I will treat them as fully worthy of the good I desire for myself.

The foundation for loving our neighbor (not to mention our enemy) is the conviction that they bear the very image of God and even have a calling from this God who loves them unceasingly. Trappist monk Thomas Merton writes clearly, “[A person] cannot be at peace with himself or with God unless he is trying to love others with a love that is not merely his but God’s own love.” Merton offers great insight into today’s vow in the following two paragraphs from, No Man Is an Island:

 “It is clear, then, that to love others well we must first love the truth. And since love is a matter of practical and concrete human relations, the truth we must love when we love our [sisters and] brothers is not mere abstract speculation: it is the moral truth that is to be embodied and given life in our own destiny and theirs. This truth is more than the cold perception of an obligation, flowing from moral precepts. The truth we must love in loving our brothers is the concrete destiny and sanctity that are willed for them by the love of God. One who really loves another is not merely moved by the desire to see him contented and healthy and prosperous in this world. Love cannot be satisfied with anything so incomplete. If I am to love my [sister], I must somehow enter deep into the mystery of God’s love for [her]. I must be moved not only by human sympathy but by that divine sympathy that is revealed to us in Jesus and which enriches our own lives by the outpouring of the Holy Spirit in our hearts.”

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).

The Words and Witness

 I.        Vows of Affirmation

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

6. I will daily read the Scriptures and meditate on the witness of Jesus Christ.

(by Luz Bratcher via Flickr)

There are many ways by which we seek to discover new things and model new habits. We peruse books and talk shows and magazine articles drawing on social science and psychology and economics and health sciences and counseling and trade guilds and sports or political analysis. We reflect on our own experience or draw on conventional wisdom and tradition. Sometimes we watch or read maestros and imitate their work. When it comes to being the church as a community of disciples, though, these sources of knowledge and formation and practice take at least a secondary role. We trust—even though we sometimes doubt—that God’s way of peace in the world is shown in the full life of Jesus, depicted in Christian scriptures.

In our hyper-modern world where nonviolence and conflict can be studied from so many helpful  and necessary angles beyond the apparent treatment of the Bible, what makes it important for you to ground your discipleship-peacemaking in Christian scripture? [No, today’s reflections are not meant to be easy!]

The Fruitful

I.        Vow of Affirmation

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

3. I will live, speak and act with truth, compassion, kindness, gentleness, mercy, patience, generosity, and expectant hope that others will respond in kind.

purpletwinkie via Flickr

The call to Christian peacemaking involves our whole being and takes place in the whole of life. It involves our thinking and speaking as well as our acting. It is manifested in more than just retaliation from harmful force and power—in fact it is characterized as much by positive action as by negative avoidances. Among these positive responses, the diverse fruit of the Spirit are clear signs and elements of Christ’s peaceful way.