“What is my posture before God and reality?” I receive the Center for Action and Contemplation’s daily reflections and that was the question just a few weeks ago. I’ve been challenged recently by Andrew for not living up to my contributor role here on the blog. I also felt convicted by the Onion article he posted. I’m pretty good at biting my tongue in the internet, especially because I love my Christian friends who have more orthodox views than I do and I hate the idea of offending them.

Then I read “When Elijah saw how things were he ran for dear life…” And I see myself as Elijah running away from Jezebel in fear, right after seeing God perform a miracle. Maybe in running I’m committing a greater sin than offending some of my friends, I’m biting my tongue in fear instead of speaking words of love.

“What is my posture before God and reality?” The reality of the world is the problem for me with homosexuality and Christianity. It’s a really cut and dry issue in a lot of faith communities; including the Roman Catholic Tradition that I have professed and the Born Again traditions I was raised in. The thing for me in 2009 is that a cut and dry stance on human sexuality based on as Walter Wink says, a culturally (Western Christian sub-culture) developed sexual ethic from Scripture doesn’t reflect the reality of my experience; my experience as a friend to people who are gay.

Once a woman I admire and respect said to me “Who would ever choose to be gay? Why would anyone want to choose that suffering?” As I thought about that it made sense. Maybe a few people, but out of all the entire LGBT population, especially the Christian LGBT population, I can’t imagine every single one of them is in rebellion against culture, enjoys being outcast, typecasted, stereotyped and judged.

If I’m facing the reality of the people, the names and faces of those that are my friends, I feel like I can’t run away from the way things are with a black and white stance, and that is what many of us as Christians are doing. Seems like a lot of people with cut and dry stances on homosexuality only have one acquaintance who is gay, or they might have had several experiences to reflect on, but very limited interpersonal interaction. Another friend that I love and respect once said “I have no problem telling my gay friend [singular] that I believe he is sinning.”

That, to me, is the great luxury that well-resourced, educated heterosexual Christians have and use. We can sit, comfortably displaced from the pain, anxiety and hurt of being gay and condemn or debate the Biblical merits of varying levels of pro-gay or anti-gay theology. It doesn’t seem much different than when people in a Bible study debate whether or not you should give a buck to someone who is begging. It’s interesting and important to use our logic and reason and apply those to today’s issues, but at some point we have to come out of the tower of our minds and face reality. People are hurting, people are starving, and people are gay.

I didn’t blog for the Synchroblog because I realized that I don’t know enough yet to debate Biblical theology around homosexuality. Then I heard “What is my posture before God and reality?” I don’t think this conversation should stay at the level of theology because that posture is one of running away from the way things are. It should find a starting point  in  Scripture but not be disconnected from the reality of the world, and the hope that we have of finding Jesus in the places where people are neglected, forgotten, or abused.

Efficiency is not a value in and of itself.

That was one of the major lessons of my undergraduate major – Sustainable Business. In terms of ‘green’ and environmental issues, why do we seek efficiency? We always talk about reduce, recycle, conserve, but we never talk about redesign. Really, you know you can reduce all you want – you can ride your bike, or drive less, or eat organic tomatoes, and those things are less bad and help the environment, but at the end of the day you still end up contributing to a carbon based economy. All those things could be considered less bad.

We were told… “Less bad is not good.” Even recycling has negative effects on the environment, and really negative effects on the low-income neighborhoods where recycling facilities are located, not to mention the minimum wage employees that work there.

So… Effectiveness! We were taught to think about environmental issues in terms of effectiveness, and to evaluate ‘greenwashing’ and ‘green solutions’ with a critical eye for redesign.

It’s awesome. It’s totally theoretical. It’s frustrating and difficult.

When it comes to serving among the poor, especially with administration, I have to keep reminding myself that efficiency is not a value in and of itself. If we can do it more efficiently does that always mean we will be better stewards of our resources for our friends who are poor? For example, if a North American in Nepal can do the field administration quickly and easily with an expensive computer does that mean Word Made Flesh is actually serving the poor with more excellence? Bonk talks about this in Missions and Money – that it’s super easy to buy into ideas like “we’ll be able to do this so much better if we just buy this and that piece of technology.”

I think there is a way to reclaim excellence in ministry without placing efficiency as the highest value. Excellence is not the same thing as efficiency. I can, in an excellent way, facilitate people in Nepal learning skills to do administration that aren’t as efficient as a North American staff member may be. But this Nepali staff member is going to stay longer, have more buy-in to our community, and learn technology and skills that they would not otherwise have.

I feel like I want to keep looking for inefficient systems, but before eliminating them or making them ‘more efficient’ ask myself if this is wheat on the field. I think we should look at service among the poor, especially service through administration, like the Israelites worked the fields… without picking up the dropped wheat. (I think Bonk talked about this as well in Missions and Money.) We should be inefficient in the service of our friends who are poor, willing to be inconvenienced, willing to take extra time, willing to use even something like accounting to empower and serve them.

Meeting with a friend who runs another NGO he made the comment that Word Made Flesh families/homes are very inefficient. He said “It takes a lot of money and time to care for the Ammas [at Prem Ghar] the way that you do.” Yeah, it’s inefficient. It’s hard, honestly, it’s really hard to be inefficient. But I think that sometimes efficiency IS a dirty word. It’s a word that can easily replace other words like simplicity, love, and relationship. As we grow and mature, I would hate to see us lose our inefficiency, that commitment to relationships that has defined us as a community.

“And we know that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding, that we may know Him who is true; and we are in Him who is true, in His Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God and eternal life.” (1 John 5:20 NIV)

“We are in Him who is true…” The Jesus that we are in exists in this very moment, shining down on us like a spotlight. The hopes, dreams, and plans of five minutes ago are in the shadows. The future and how the pieces of the journey fit together are in the shadow. All the clarity we have is for this exact moment.

Discernment is a lifelong process for us as Christians, and so you seem to hear people talking about it all the time. Maybe it’s the community I’m in, where people live by three year contract cycles, or the friends I have who are just now graduating various schools en masse, but ‘Discernment’ seems to be the catch phrase of our generation of Christians.

I think that every time we make a decision or ‘discern’ something, it’s tempting to have a false sense of completion. I know that I often do this. “Ok, this question has been ‘discerned,’ now the end is obvious, the journey is over.”

In reality that mindset is spiritual death! If we are spiritually alive we know that every completed discernment is just the deep breath before Jesus kicks us back out of the boat and into the water.

I’m convinced that discernment in our lives with Jesus is about the process, not about the result. If we look at decisions – where we move, who we marry, what vocation we choose- as a path and not a destination, we are free to live in the spotlight of Jesus’ truth.

We can release our identities from where the path goes and just walk on it. When names, places, and dates change around us and in spite of us, we can let them go because we recognize in the spotlight of Jesus that we are not in control.

These are beautiful thoughts, but how do we ‘remain in the spotlight?‘ For me, the most important element of remaining in the spotlight is contemplative prayer. To sit in contemplation and bask in the love of Jesus is to receive the strength to know His truth.

Jesus’ truth is not easy, so many of His followers turned away in the face of it and could not follow Him any longer. Those that stayed must have realized that they needed the time in His presence to withstand the suffering ahead.

His truth calls us to enter the Paschal mystery; Passion, Death, and Resurrection. In Jesus’ perfect presence I suddenly see all these plans and hopes that my ego had carved out for me. It’s scary really how many creep in when you aren’t paying attention!

They seem selfish and insignificant compared to the greater tapestry of an empire, remixed! I have to choose to die to these passions so that Jesus can resurrect them in His way.

Yet, I am broken, and I get distracted by worry, fear, busyness, the needs of other people. I walk out of the spotlight, my prayer life suffers, and I begin to worry about the end of the journey.

Jesus reassures me; “I don’t want your perfection, I want your return.” He just continually calls me to return to Him, return to the place where He can meet me, and know His love.

Lent is a beautiful time to allow Jesus to lead us deeper into the truth of His presence and the Paschal mystery. That is what it has been for me, and I pray discernment and strength to live in His truth for you, my friends.

“There is no cross without Jesus on it,” states Father James Chelich of St. Thomas the Apostle Catholic Church in Grand Rapids, MI.

There is no life in Jesus without the pain and joy of sharing in His sufferings. There is also no full life in relationship with Jesus that does not include the pain and joy of life in community. To live as a Christian means to define oneself as a ‘person-in-relationship.’

We exist in relationship with God- who names us His Beloved, we exist in relationship with the Earth that He made, and we exist in relationship with the Jesus in those around us. Next to the Blessed Sacrament, our neighbor is the holiest thing we encounter every day, submits CS Lewis in “The Weight of Glory.” Intentional community is the call of every human, as every human needs to be known and loved.

Intentional community is an exercise in the favorite word of our generation; “submission.” Submission to community is a reflection of the love that God, the Creator of the Universe, shows to us. The all-powerful God released His power over us by giving us our free will. He moves towards us in love, sending an emissary- His own Son, but gives us the option to reject His outstretched arms.

In the outstretched arms of Jesus on the cross and God in His offering of love, we find a model to emulate in our communities. Intentional community is a choice to open your arms, heart, and life in love and allow the broken to reject you. Though we carry Christ, and in His image are holy and wholly unique, we do not always reflect His beauty.

In our brokenness we choose to hurt each other, we choose bitterness, and we choose a lifestyle that puts a way of having over a way of being. When we choose intentional community, we say to the real people within the community “I am broken. I will let you see my brokenness, and allow the possibility that you may not love me knowing all of this pain.”

The Trinity provides us another Biblical model of community. God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, each submitting to the others and giving themselves totally over to love.

Yet this Trinity, which contains all it needs, does not stop at this relationship. The Trinity pours out love upon us, while we were yet sinners, showing us how to open our arms with this as our example. A community with the Trinity at its center pours out its love with open arms in hospitality and service.

When Christians join together intentionally, to not only receive the Eucharist, but to live poured out as it is for us, they must respond to the needs of Jesus in the world. A community that does not welcome others is a community that is starving itself in selfishness.

It is a community that says to the poor and suffering “go, eat and be well, we will pray for you.” The faith of this community is spiritually dead. It is not a true intentional community unless it embraces the physically and spiritually poor.

I am part of an intentional community that is called to serve Jesus among the poor; we seek to find and to be the “Word Made Flesh.” We find ourselves around the world on the streets, in homes for the destitute and dying, hanging out in brothels, and everywhere that Jesus is found daily crucified on the cross.

Perhaps it is helpful to note Jon Sobrino‘s answer to the question “Where is God?” in the midst of the great suffering of the world. Sobrino writes, “He is being crucified with the suffering.” He calls the poor ‘primordial saints’ because they participate in the sufferings of Christ on the cross, they suffer the consequences of the sins of others.

We are a community of Bolivians, Brazilians, North Americans, Nepali, Romanians, Sierra Leoneans, among more, gathered together to celebrate the joy and beauty of Jesus among the oppressed. We seek to live a life of submission, not just to people of a similar culture and socio-economic status, but of true submission to the poor and uneducated.

The Eucharist is the great Equalizer. When we come forward, as One Body to share the Body and Blood of Christ, we are all equal. There is no slave, no free, no man, no woman, no cultural barrier; we stand in the same position before Jesus to receive the gift of the Last Supper.

The living out of Eucharistic equality and submission to people who the world considers ‘below’ us is surprisingly difficult. To say to a woman who begs on the street “Please teach me” means admitting that I do not have all the answers. It takes humility to ask forgiveness, humility to accept the gift of a meal from someone who will go hungry to feed us, humility to try and communicate in a language that is not my own.

I’m just beginning to enter into the Word Made Flesh community, and I still have stars in my eyes. When the glisten of living “in community” wears off, I will be left with a group of broken people serving among more brokenness, in a life that is painful and inconvenient. What then will I do? It is at this point that true community occurs… when in my heart I move from a position of “I didn’t choose this community” to “I was chosen for this community.”

Once we allow the Holy Spirit to make this transformation in our hearts, we see the fruit of intentional community- joy! Intentional community gives us the gift of a life that is known, love that is unconditional, and Eucharistic submission to each other and the poor.

In these things there is deep pain, and true joy. Henri Nouwen explains in his book Here and Now, “…each time we return to where there is pain we get a new glimpse of the joy that is not of this world.” The pain of submission in community leads to the joy and gift of holiness.

My community is a place of brokenness and beauty, as we live a life together that brings us closer to the heart of Jesus in the form of the poor and suffering.