One of
the scribes came near and hear them disputing each
other, and seeing… asked ‘which of the commandments
is the greatest of all?”
Jesus
answered, “the greatest is… you shall love your
neighbor as yourself. There is no greater
commandment than these.”
Message:
A couple of weeks ago, I spoke about
the proposed vision statement for the church:
Our Vision:
A world dedicated to inner
transformation, meaningful work, and mutually
enhancing relationships with all forms of life.
And our purpose is:
to foster integral spiritual
awakening through the Christian story.
I especially love the statement of
our purpose.... Do you hear how bold that is? “To
foster integral spiritual awakening through the
Christian story.”
One reason I am so enthusiastic about
this statement is because the progressive church
seems stuck. For all its achievements, it seems
stuck trying to please everyone. And when you’re
trying to please everyone, you’re boring.
In fostering integral spiritual
awareness through the Christian story, we’re making
a commitment something specific, concrete and very
important Some people say “that’s great”; others
ask “what in the world are you talking about?” In
either case we are standing for something
challenging and meaningful. Something more than
radical inclusivity and pleasing everyone.
I want to share with you a piece of
serendipity that happened this week. As you know,
the perspective that has guided me since I’ve been
your pastor has come from integral theory and
philosophy. I regularly look on the internet to see
if anyone else out there is doing Integral Church.
Do we have any potential partners in this? Recently
I followed a link on Amazon, which I rarely do, and
discovered a book entitled Integral Consciousness
and the Future of Evolution. Much to my
surprise was a laudatory review by a Christian
minister. I followed those links and discovered a
web page for Rev. Paul Smith at Broadway Church in
Kansas City, Missouri. He teaches the “Jesus path”,
integral church from “inside the tradition” if you
will. (By the way, they were Baptist and got thrown
out of the Southern Baptist Conference for
performing gay marriages, just to enhance their
credibility). I contacted him by email, his
response was: “My God, thought I’d never find
someone to talk to!” I certainly know that feeling.
Integral theory provides a well
developed road map that can be readily articulated.
What has puzzled me – and has been a burning
question in my mind for some time now –is how is it
that we already seem to be doing this? Integral
Church is not particularly new to us; it’s something
that we’re already doing. How is that it this
church called me as a pastor? I was clear from the
beginning that I was not a traditional pastor, and
the Search Committee was clear that this was exactly
what they wanted. What are the dynamics of this
community that have allowed us to explore the
cutting edge in Christianity more fully embody what
it means to be an Integral Church? What are some of
the essentials if any church wants to be come an
Integral Church?
I wasn’t particularly clear about
this until my friend Molly shared a popular metaphor
from systems theory. We begin with the distinction
between “complicated systems” and “complex
systems.” A complicated system has lots of
rules. Governments, schools, corporations, the
legal system, medicine, are all complicated
systems. In contrast, a complex system has
only a few very dynamic rules. Every institution,
of course, is a mix of complicated and
complex systems. And I suspect that the balance
between the two will say a lot about whether a
church could become an Integral Church or not.
Any way, the metaphor that Molly
shared is of a flock of geese flying in a V
formation. It’s a wonderful example of how a
complex system functions. A flock of geese follows
three pretty simple rules: (1) fly to the center;
(2) match your speed to the goose next to you, and
(3) don’t hit another goose. Those three simple,
dynamic rules are sufficient for a flock to fly
together, to shift leaders, and to move ahead.
The analogy to our church seems
instantly obvious:
(1) Fly to the center:
Attend to the Divine within – the center of our
being.
(2) Match your speed to
that of another goose. It would be hard to find
a more integral statement than that! The analogy
is: Be present. As Crosby, Stills and Nash said in
the 70’s “if you can't be with the one you love,
love the one you're with.”
(3) Don’t hit another
goose: Very simply: Don’t take yourself
seriously. Have you ever noticed that when you’re
dealing with someone who is very rigid, and you both
take yourselves seriously, it’s just like crashing
and smashing into each other? But if you deal with
someone who knows the fiction of “me” to be a
fiction, who doesn’t take themselves seriously
because they know they have nothing to lose, it’s
like a sensual dance.
Now here’s the cool part! When we
look to scripture, it matches up beautifully with
the greatest commandment:
1.
Fly to the center:
Attend to the Divine: “love God with all your heart,
your mind, your soul, and your spirit.”
2.
Our next analogy blends two rules,
match your speed to the goose beside you (be
present), and don’t hit another goose (don’t
take yourself seriously) into “love your neighbor as
yourself”. Elsewhere in the Gospel, Jesus says to
“turn the other cheek”. Certainly, if we cannot
take ourselves too seriously and be present, we can
“turn the other cheek” to whatever comes our way and
truly “love our neighbor as ourselves”.
3.
There’s another part of the great
commandment that is often ignored: “Hear, oh Israel,
the Lord our God is One”. That is, all is One.
Thus, love the One with all of your heart, mind,
soul and spirit, and the Other, which is yourself,
as yourself. In this sense, “Hear, oh Israel, the
Lord our God is one” sounds a lot like fostering
an integral spiritual awareness through the
Christian story, for integral spiritual
awareness is nothing less that direct knowledge of
the One.
So here we are together, as a
community. I think we do “community” this
exceedingly well. But now we have some guidelines
to help us become a more Integral community. As we
move together to find a path for Christians in a
complex and scary world, lets remember to…
- Attend to the Divine
- Be present
- And not take ourselves seriously.
Amen
