Something new
Inspired by a thesis proposed by the Rev. Dr. Samuel Wells, I asked the following question at the end of last week’s reflection: “What might it mean for St. Paul’s if we think of ourselves not as a religious institution but as participants in God’s alternative society?” Since I don’t have the right to answer this alone, let me offer an initial thought with the hope of starting a broader conversation.
Generally speaking, institutions strive for stability. They are inclined toward maintenance and holding up the status quo. To understand the current context, institutions often look to the past, to the people, traditions and events that have shaped them into who they are today.
Alternative societies strive for vitality and purpose. They are inclined toward mission and engaging with the opportunities in front of them. To understand the current context, alternative societies imagine the future. As Wells put it, they believe that “God’s future … is already overlapping with our present.”
One of the great challenges for organized religion is our tendency to look backwards. The eucharistic liturgy we practice, the creeds we recite, the scripture we read, much of the music we sing; it all comes from the past. This doesn’t make it bad. Indeed, much of it is very good. But focusing primarily on the past can influence us to prioritize continuity over opportunity, to seek safety instead of taking risks.
As Christians, Jesus is always calling us toward the future. As Esther de Waal wrote in To Pause at the Threshold: Reflections on Living on the Border: “In the Gospels … Christ challenges the people to leave their nets, or to leave a nice safe booth, and follow him. … Our God is a God who moves and he invites us to move with him. [God] wants to pry us away from anything that might hold us too securely: our careers, our family systems, our money making. We must be ready to disconnect. There comes a time when the things that were undoubtedly good and right in the past must be left behind, for there is always the danger that they might hinder us from moving forward and connecting with the one necessary thing, Christ himself.”
De Waal is not advocating that we abandon the past. As a scholar of the Benedictine and Celtic traditions she clearly values the way the past shapes us. Instead, she is exhorting us to beware our instinctive desire for stability and security above all else.
“Insecurity makes certitude attractive,” she continues, “and it is in times like these that I want to harness God to my preferred scheme of things, for it is risky to be so vulnerable. Yet it is this vulnerability that asks for trust and hope in God’s plans, not mine. So I try to learn each time that I am called upon to move forward to hand over the past freely, putting it behind me, and moving on with hands open and ready for the new.”
Isn’t this what we do each Sunday when we walk to the altar for communion? Hands open, ready to receive. As members of an alternative society, Jesus calls us — individually and communally — to live each day this way. Hands and hearts open, risking vulnerability, trusting God’s intentions and ready for something new.