Tag: conflict

Addressing the Root Problem

“Where there is envy and selfish ambition, there will also be disorder and wickedness of every kind.” (James 3:16)

Humanity’s root problem is not irrationality or immorality. Its root problem is spiritual. It has to do with the state of our hearts, the springboard of our values, attitudes, motivations, decisions and actions. When our hearts are off everything is off. When our hearts are filled with selfish ambition there is all manner of disorder. There is breakdown of relationships. There is conflict within ourselves, with other persons, with other creatures, and with society and the world as a whole.

Our rationality and morality make things worse without hearts that are getting right, without our at least beginning to become centered and open to the Spirit of God in our lives. Without a change of heart, we rationalize and moralize the irrational and immoral.

Humanity’s core problem is selfish ambition, egotism. Rather than a self turned outward to our Creator and engaged with others and all creation with the love of God poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, we instead live turned inward upon ourselves and seek to make others and our world conform to our inturned desires. When egotism holds sway, we go to war. We battle religiously and self-righteously. In other words, we rationalize our behavior.

Egotism operates with efficiency to provide justifications for our behavior. Power is exercised to get our way, self-righteousness clouds our conscience, and morality is whatever we make it. We fling moralisms at our opponents.

Then, when we hear from one whose morality comes from a very different place than that of our egocentric view of the world, it sounds foreign, unattainable, unreal. It makes little sense in the world as it is. In such a world, Jesus’ words about where blessing is found must be dismissed because he ignores the dynamics of the “real world” where battles are engaged for leverage and power over others. He tells us blessing is found with the “poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven,” and with those who mourn “for they will be comforted,” and with those who hunger for righteousness “for they will be filled,” and with “the merciful, for they will receive mercy,” and with “the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God,” and with “those who are persecuted for the sake of justice, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”

The alternative to selfish ambition, which gives rise to all manner of disorder, is to acknowledge our deep need and profound hunger for God and for right relationships with others and with creation, a right relationship which comes through a journey of relinquishing our lives to God. Jesus’ central message was “Repent (turn back to God), for the reign of God is near.” Let God reign in your heart and be changed. Come, be on a journey of relinquishing. As Jesus said, “Lose you life and you will find it.” Let go, and keep letting go.

By the help of the Spirit, step away from the fight for power over others and come to a place of freedom to serve and to speak truth to egocentric power. Be witnesses from a center other than the egocentric self. Witness from the place of surrender to God and openness to what God is doing as God calls forth our true self made in the image of God. The false egocentric self remains as a source of temptation, but being released into newness of life by the grace of God provides growth in overcoming this downward pull of self-absorption.

The change that is needed in our families and neighborhoods and nation is ultimately a change of heart, a change in the centering of our lives. Such a change among leaders would bring courage to address the common good rather than serve ambition and personal power. With that change, there is freedom to speak the truth with clarity in response to arrogance, injustice and ruthlessness. Our God-given humanity calls us to an ever deepening journey of trust in God in order to be witnesses to true humanity and true community as gifts of our Creator.

Filed under: Faith, Grace, Humanity, SpiritualityTagged with: , , , ,

Building True Community

Left to ourselves, we are failures at building true community. We prove this over and over again. We divide ourselves off from others in a great multiplicity of ways: by race, ethnicity, nationality, class, gender, sexual orientation, politics, ideology, religion, values, personal morality, self-interest, and so on. We form into groups, camps, and parties that go to war with each other. Both political conservatives and progressives can be quite smug about their own positions and demean each other. They can essentially write each other out of the realm of compassion. Our divisions cut us off from the humanity of others (and from our own humanity).

Eberhard Arnold, founder of a community deeply oriented to social justice in the early part of the last century, a community patterned after the church of Acts which shared all things in common, says this about their community: “What we are seeking together is not any dogma, any stringing together of religious words, but a power. The essence of this elementary power is love and unity, a love and unity that extends into the outermost aspects of life and action and work.” He was very clear about this power: “Only through the Holy Spirit, which comes upon us, are we enabled to achieve a unity of consciousness, which brings about a complete unanimity of thought, willpower, and emotional experience.”

There is no other source of true, abiding unity than the Spirit. Our divisions are the outcome of our alienation from God who is the source of our ability to be and remain in relationship. The unconditional love of God “poured into our hearts by the Spirit” makes true community a reality.

The fact that we see so little unity in the world, including in and among churches and religions, points to the deeply spiritual roots of our problem. In our alienation from God, we try every kind of foundation for our unity other than the foundation of the Spirit. Churches have attempted doctrinal unity and moral unity. They have attempted unity on the basis of a way of thinking, a way of interpreting sacred texts, and a way of acting. And then they have fought over these things and often tried to impose them on others.

Right now the Taliban, with their particular interpretation of the Koran, are prepared to impose their beliefs on an entire nation. There are forms of Christianity that attempt something similar, that promote the idea that Christians are to have dominion and therefore must move into positions of power in order to impose their theological and political constructs on others. Clearly, Jesus’ words about being servants and not lording it over others are ignored.

In our alienation from God, we run from the Spirit. We prefer churches founded on elements of our own making. What if the Spirit were poured out on us like the Spirit was poured out on the disciples on the Day of Pentecost in Acts or on those gathered at the Azusa Street Mission in 1906? Outpourings of the Spirit give us the impression that, by the Spirit, we are taken up and empowered for God’s purposes and, at the same time, released from control over our own self-proposed and constructed purposes. We fear surrendering control, even when it is to God’s purposes of love—especially when it is God’s cross-bearing love. The truth, however, is that, in the Spirit, we receive true control and our true selves. As one theologian has put it, “Our independence is found in direct proportion to our dependence on God.” We receive the “freedom of the children of God,” the freedom of love. Ultimate dependence on anything else is tyranny.

Where there are communities formed in the unity of the Spirit, there is outwardly directed love, compassion for others, mercy, inclusion, liberating action, and works of healing. These communities do not pour condemnation upon others but offer grace and healing. They often operate out of the limelight but are themselves light. When we encounter them, we know them by their fruit: they do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with their God.

Filed under: Spirit, UnityTagged with: , ,