Congregational Development - Means of Grace, Hope of Glory

What am I for? To glorify God – to praise, reverence, and serve Him. How am I to do it? By a consecration of my whole life, not just in nice religious surroundings or by well organized social work, but in the drudgery, the monotony, the rough and tumble of the common life. With the help of imperfect, self-interested, and narrow-minded persons – baffled by hostility and misunderstanding – I am to glorify God in and through all the demands on my love, courage, and patience, all the confusing disillusionment and sufferings that culminate in Gethsemane and the Cross. From "Inner Grace and Outward Sign" - Evelyn Underhill retreat in 1927

My parish

I love my parish -- prayerful, graceful, progressive, big hearted, kind, and all with incense.

We are also of the left. I'd say we were "the Democratic Party at prayer" but that might suggest we were more conservative than we are. Conservatives and moderates keep a low profile. Our acceptance-challenge isn't about race, class, gender, orientation or immigration status. When our preachers list the sins related to how these groupings are treated, I sometimes think, "Yes, but that's not really our sin." Of course it is "really our sin" as we share in the history and culture of this society. But there's more.

When the chant goes forth -- "From all blindness of heart; from pride, vainglory, and hypocrisy; from envy, hatred, and malice; and from all want of charity" - "Good Lord, deliver us." -- my guess is that many of us in the parish know what our blindness protects us from; what our "want of charity" is about. Thank God we are not like them -- the "deplorables", the bitter ones, "clinging to guns or religion or an antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment."

If parishes have a Type, we are very much an introverted parish. There is an inner life here. People do say the Office and go to confession. Evelyn Underhill is the third reading at Evening Prayer on Wednesday. I do believe that there are many who "get it" even if we rarely speak of it.

Of the left

When I was in the Young People's Fellowship of my parish Janice and I were the only two whose families were voting for Adlai Stevenson. When I was a sophomore I joined CORE and YPSL (Congress of Racial Equality and the Young People's Socialist League -of the Socialist Party). The "Yipsel" card was a deep red. When it arrived in the mail, my mother, an FDR Democrat, said, "Try to not get hurt." Later it was SDS and the anti racism movement. Then DSA (Democratic Socialists of America). I mostly went along as much of the left moved into an odd mix of common good-individualism-identity politics. You have to live someplace. Even if it leaves you slightly off balance.

I've often been uncomfortable with my denomination's tendency to take its moral theology from the DPs platform. My being "of the left" was my path, a path that emerged, and was fed, out of prayer, study and civic action. I think I always knew it wasn't "the Truth." Other Christians, even more prayerful and thoughtful than me, came to other conclusions and acted in other directions. We all see through a glass, darkly.

My danger

Such thoughts, nurtured in prayer and reflection, have helped me keep some perspective in recent years. I need to be held by a faith that is bigger than my politics and my denomination.

There is also a spiritual danger that comes along with such thoughts.

God, I thank you that I am not like other people: thieves, rogues, adulterers, or even like this tax-collector.

I've positioned myself as a moderate, reasonable leftist. And that's true. I don't easily get swept up in the latest fad of the left. I read conservative writers. I change my views as I learn and see other ways.

All true. There's truth and grace in that. And there's also blindness and "want of charity."

Parish pathologies

When I was doing a lot of consulting, on occasion, after I'd worked with a parish for enough time that some trust existed, I'd use an intervention along these line:

Me: What's your parish pathology?

Them: Silence (usually)

Me: Okay, but if you had a parish pathology, what would it be?

Them: Oh that. Yes, what we do is ...

They would tell stories about their reserve getting expressed as coldness toward people they didn't like or understand; about a pattern of pushing out of the parish people they were uncomfortable with; about being caught up on a success treadmill that pushed their children too hard; about a legacy of explicit racism, about a tendency toward conflict avoidance that resulted in a denial of justice and truth; and on and on. There's always sin and human limitation. Always.

It's very difficult for a parish to see its sin and limitations. Hard to acknowledge them. It's never easy to throw ourselves upon the Mercy.

Evelyn Underhill

So, I invite you to join me and read Blessed Evelyn again -- slowly, in prayer. Bring yourself, and me, my parish and your parish along in your lectio.

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