The garden is the initial core location of God’s presence on earth; this is where God’s presence is first manifest, both in giving instructions to humanity (2:15-17) and in declaring judgement (3:8-19). The garden is thus the link between earth and heaven, at least at the beginning of human history. The implication is that as the human race faithfully tended this garden or cultivated the earth, the garden would spread, until the entire earthly realm was transformed into a fit habitation for humanity. But it would thereby also become a fit habitation for God. Richard Middleton A New Heaven and A New Earth
This last weekend I was in British Columbia at A Rocha, facilitating a seminar on creating hospitality in the garden. I asked participants: How do we create a fit habitation for God? What do we need to do to invite God back into this garden which is our planet earth? Then I asked: How do we create a fit habitation for humanity? In other words how do we create glimpses of a world of shalom in which God once more feels comfortable to walk with humankind and enjoy the beauty and delight of creation.
Part of what I talked about is how our own gardens or homes can become a microcosm in which we create a fitting place for both humanity and God to dwell. Often our actions and advocacy for God’s shalom world are only outside the homes. Bringing these principles into our homes is something we are more hesitant to do. But the challenge of Jesus does not separate private and public spaces. We invite God into all parts of our lives and by inference into all spaces we inhabit.
Creating A Fit Place For God to Dwell.
There are many types of places that invite God’s presence into our homes and gardens. Places for reflection, for prayer, for rest, for celebration and hospitality. What kind of place would you like to create in which to invite the presence of God? Sit for a few minutes with your eyes closed. Think of your home and/or garden. Where do you think God would feel welcomed and comfortable? Where would God feel uncomfortable.? Why
Now imagine yourself creating a place that you think God would feel both welcomed to and comfortable in. Where would it be? What would it look like? What structures would it incorporate? What senses would it stir? What would its purpose be?
A couple of years ago I wrote a series of posts on creating sacred space in the garden. Those were the foundations out of which I created new areas for meditation and hospitality. I also added a few more plants to stir my senses of touch and taste as well as a water feature with the delightful sound of water over rocks. All of these invite the presence of God into our gardens and our homes and give us a glimpse of the shalom world that God plans to reestablish.
Creating a Fit Place for Humanity to Dwell.
When I think of a fit place for humanity to dwell I think not just of beauty but of abundance and generosity, not just of justice but of fellowship and mutual care. I think of a place without pollution where all have housing, jobs and medical care. The question is how can we create such spaces in our gardens and our homes? Sit for a few minutes with your eyes closed and imagine ways that you can invite others into your garden? Are there new possibilities for hospitality? Sharing of garden produce? Offering housing to the unhoused? In what ways is God inviting you to create a fitting place for humanity to dwell in your own home and garden?
My colleague Andy Wade has helped me with this through his inspiring posts on cultivating hospitality in the front yard and What If: a Garden Meditation which you might like to read as you consider this question. Some of his ideas which capture my imagination are still in the future but it is wonderful to have ongoing inspiration like this to work with.
Over the last couple of years as a result of grappling with these questions I have invited others into my garden in a variety of ways. First I have invited others to come and garden with me and take home some of the produce. And in the last couple of years we have held apple processing days when we sat out in the backyard, cut and peeled apples and then sent everyone how with bags of apples for pies, sauce and more. It is a fun time of fellowship and an opportunity to catch up with friends we have not seen for a while. We also have lots of BBQs and other gatherings at our house and have invited the neighbourhood kids to come and play on the swings in the backyard.
The creation of such a place demands our acceptance of the responsibility God has given us to steward creation, but it is far more than that. It also implies an open handed, open hearted generosity that is willing to take risks.
What do you do to invite God into your garden and your home?
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It’s time for the followers of Jesus to embark on the prophetic journey that leads to reconciliation and transformation around the world. Many of us may already be aware of the need for reconciliation in our own backyard. We understand the realities playing out in our own neighborhood, our school, workplace, political system and culture at large. But a lot of us don’t recognize the prophetic role we can play both at home and abroad. We aren’t yet fully aware of injustices and inequality in our communities, and this understanding and awareness is absolutely essential if we are to be God’s agents of reconciliation. We cannot ignore the plight of the people around us, and as globalization continues its relentless march onward, we cannot turn a blind eye to the world beyond our national borders either. We have to face the realities here at home, and we must also embrace the stories of people all around the world.
There is a growing group of young Christian leaders who long to heed this prophetic call to local and global reconciliation. And many of us have tried desperately over the years to build communities of reconciliation on our own, relying on “trial and error” and a mix of reconciliation models like “embracing cultural diversity” and “tolerance-based education.” But these models haven’t been sustainable in the long run and have left Christian leaders feeling depleted and doubting that we can actually lead people to the kingdom vision of racial, ethnic and gender reconciliation.
We need a clear sense of direction. Where are we going and how will we get there? We can see the inequality and the injustice in our lives and in the world, and we are ready to rise up. But . . . how? How, exactly, do we do this? How, exactly, does one reconcile? What is the process? What are the practical steps? We see the need, and we believe we have been called to reconciliation, but we don’t know how to go about it. We lack the tools, models and practical examples that can show us the way forward. We don’t know where to start or what the process entails. We need a roadmap to guide us through common points of interest and past the social terrain and political boundaries that will arise as we journey together and encounter challenging questions like these:
- How do we reconcile with our next-door neighbor?
- How do we reconcile with our coworkers or the folks at church?
- How do we respond to current events?
- How do we hold differing life experiences in tension?
- How do we embrace diversity in our communities?
- How do we reconcile with laborers in other countries who are being paid an unfair wage to make our clothes? Or the aid workers and missionaries abroad who might be doing more harm than good? How do we reconcile with people in India or Pakistan or Russia whom we have never met but whose lives intersect with ours in ways both big and small through our consumerism and social media?
With more than twenty-five years of consulting experience with churches, colleges and organizations, I’ve been calling people to reconciliation for a long time, but in some ways I’ve been remiss because I haven’t fully explained how to go about it. It’s like telling your kids that they need to make their own dinner when you’ve never taught them how to cook! So I’ve developed a groundbreaking model that I call the Reconciliation Roadmap. Certainly there have been various methods used for reaching harmony before this one, but this approach is a proven process that is based on years of research, practical experience and qualitative data. While I believe it can be applied to all areas of reconciliation, I will focus in this book on the specifics of racial and ethnic reconciliation.
The Reconciliation Roadmap is both individual and systemic. It deals with personal relationships and larger social realities. I’ve used spiritual, psychological, cultural and social strategies to build this model with a practical framework that will help people participate in God’s reconciling work together.
This is the book I always wished I had when working in reconciliation. Much of what I learned about leading people in this process was gained through trial and error. Now I want to share the principles I’ve learned to empower you, the everyday reconciler—the person of God who understands the need for reconciliation and wants to take action. This is also a prophetic call to the church for this time and this unique season. My hope is that this model will illuminate and energize our imagination for what is possible, so together we can create a new reality of reconciliation in various communities around the world.
—Adapted from the Introduction to: Roadmap to Reconciliation: Moving Communities into Unity, Wholeness and Justice
This post is part of our October series Living Into the Shalom of God, and was sponsored by InterVarsity Press.
The American church avoids lament. The power of lament is minimized and the underlying narrative of suffering that requires lament is lost. But absence doesn’t make the heart grow fonder. Absence makes the heart forget. The absence of lament in the liturgy of the American church results in the loss of memory. We forget the necessity of lamenting over suffering and pain. We forget the reality of suffering and pain.
In his book Peace, Walter Brueggemann writes about this contrast between a theology of the “have-nots” versus a theology of the “haves.” The “have-nots” develop a theology of suffering and survival. The “haves” develop a theology of celebration. Those who live under suffering live “their lives aware of the acute precariousness of their situation.” Worship that arises out of suffering cries out for deliverance. “Their notion of themselves is that of a dependent people crying out for a vision of survival and salvation.” Lament is the language of suffering.
Those who live in celebration “are concerned with questions of proper management and joyous celebration.” Instead of deliverance, they seek constancy and sustainability. “The well-off do not expect their faith to begin in a cry, but rather, in a song. They do not expect or need intrusion, but they rejoice in stability [and the] durability of a world and social order that have been beneficial to them.” Praise is the language of celebration.
Christian communities arising from celebration do not want their lives changed, because their lives are in a good place. Tax rates should remain low. Home prices and stocks should continue to rise unabated, while interest rates should remain low to borrow more money to feed a lifestyle to which they have become accustomed.
Lament recognizes the struggles of life and cries out for justice against existing injustices. The status quo is not to be celebrated but instead must be challenged. If tax rates favor the rich, they should be challenged. Redistribution of wealth would not be a catastrophe but instead it would be a blessing in contrast to the existing state of economic inequality. The balance in Scripture between praise and lament is lost in the ethos and worldview of American evangelical Christianity with its dominant language of praise. Any theological reflection that emerges from the suffering “have nots” can be minimized in the onslaught of the triumphalism of the “haves.”
What do we lose as a result of this imbalance? American Christians that flourish under the existing system seek to maintain the existing dynamics of inequality and remain in the theology of celebration over and against the theology of suffering. Promoting one perspective over the other, however, diminishes our theological discourse. To only have a theology of celebration at the cost of the theology of suffering is incomplete. The intersection of the two threads provides the opportunity to engage in the fullness of the gospel message. Lament and praise must go hand in hand.
Walter Brueggemann asks the question: “What happens when appreciation of the lament as a form of speech and faith is lost, as I think it is largely lost in contemporary usage? What happens when the speech forms that redress power distribution have been silenced and eliminated? The answer, I believe, is that a theological monopoly is reinforced, docility and submissiveness are engendered, and the outcome in terms of social practice is to reinforce and consolidate the political-economic monopoly of the status quo.” For American evangelicals riding the fumes of a previous generation’s assumptions, a triumphalistic theology of celebration and privilege rooted in a praise-only narrative is perpetuated by the absence of lament and the underlying narrative of suffering that informs lament.
The loss of lament in the American church reflects a serious theological deficiency. This work attempts to remedy that imbalance by providing commentary on a neglected book of the Bible. The suffering endured by God’s people resulting from the fall of Jerusalem provides the backdrop for the poetic struggle offered in Lamentations. Lamentations provides the Biblical text and the theological lens through which we examine the themes of urban ministry, justice and racial reconciliation. We will seek to find contemporary application of the book of Lamentations within these current themes. . . .
Despite its age, Lamentations offers us a prophetic critique of what passes for gospel witness in our time. This critique offers fresh insight into our ecclesiology, or more precisely, how the North American Christian community should respond to a broken world. The major themes—the importance of lament, the necessity of engaging with suffering, the power of encountering the other—should lead us to a theology of lament that corrects the triumphalism of Christianity in the West. Lamentations may serve as the prophetic corrective necessary to embrace the next phase of Christianity.
—Adapted from the Introduction to Prophetic Lament
This post is part of our October theme Living Into the Shalom of God, and was sponsored by InterVarsity Press.
If you’re serious about working toward healing and reconciliation in your family, neighborhood, organization, or larger community, In Roadmap to Reconciliation: Moving Communities into Unity, Wholeness, and Justice is a must-read. If you’ve ever been frustrated trying to unfold and re-fold one of those big paper maps, this roadmap will be a pleasant surprise. With clear, easily accessible directions, Brenda Salter McNeil lays out the different way-stations along the road as well as the places folks most often get lost or stuck.
Reconciliation is an ongoing spiritual process involving forgiveness, repentance and justice that restores broken relationships and systems to reflect God’s original intention for all creation to flourish. p.22
Each chapter contains inspiring stories, and probing questions, and a very helpful “Getting Practical” wrap-up for working through each stage on the pathway toward reconciliation. Salter McNeil not only provides a map, she helps you understand how to read it and apply it in your unique situation. I found this extremely useful as I explored my own history of reconciliation and thought about issues I currently face.
For example, and this seems so obvious to me now, there has to be an initial “catalytic event” that breaks one out of their (my) isolated views even to recognize the need for reconciliation. I can recall many times of working at bringing people together, only to be frustrated by folks who were too comfortable with the way things were and saw no need to change. Without some kind of personal event to shake up the status quo, any discussion of reconciliation was moot; there was no obvious issue to reconcile! While there are times when just opening the discussion can become that needed catalytic event, many times we have to just recognize that, for this person or organization the time is not now.
This is one of the reasons movements like Black Lives Matter (BLM) and the Standing Rock Dakota Access Pipeline Opposition are so important; many of the accepted norms of society continue to go on unquestioned until something big shakes up the status quo. While these protests may first appear in opposition to reconciliation, they actually provide that essential first step for people to move out of their comfort zones and hear stories from an injured party. These kinds of protests can become that catalytic event for many, which opens the way toward dialogue about the need for healing and reconciliation.
[The identification phase] …is a process of deconstructing our limited definitions of ourselves and reconstructing a new identity together, based on who God says we are – fearfully and wonderfully made, ambassadors of Christ, ministers of reconciliation and one new community through Jesus Christ. 78
The section “Planning for Action” was an aha moment for me. Salter McNeil pointed out that, “I usually get fired when people or groups enter into this, the preparation phase”. The reason isn’t what you might expect; at this point people are feeling comfortable with each other. It appears the crisis has been solved and reconciliation is complete. I think this is also where many of us from the dominant culture who have mentally traveled the road to reconciliation think to ourselves, “Well, I get it now. I’ve sent in my check and written those petitions, it’s time to move on. Whew, I’m glad that’s over.”
I know for me the problem comes when I’ve intellectually worked through a problem and figure that since “I get it” now, the work is done. The reality, as Salter McNeil points out, is that now the real work begins. Now it’s time to rebuild systems and structures together so that we don’t easily slip back into the broken way things were. She refers to this “second-order change” as “deciding to do things significantly or fundamentally different from how they have been done before.” 85.
Those who truly desire real and lasting change can’t simply change the physical make-up of a group, (transactional change). Instead, the underlying assumptions must be changed (transformational change). She continues:
Once you cross that line from transactional to transformational change, you begin to more fully understand that this is going to cost you something! It’s what the preparation phase is all about – successfully making that transition from short-term connections to building a long-term community of reconciliation.
This book is short, a mere 130 pages, but it’s packed with critical insights and logical steps to move intentionally from division to lasting change. If you want to begin the truly transformative process of reconciliation, this book’s for you!
This post is part of our October Living Into the Shalom of God series.
by Lynne Baab
from Pixabay, by Mark Filter. Click on photo for original.
It was Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. My husband Dave was sitting in his office at Tel Aviv University where he was acting chair for one of the departments in the dental school. An adjunct lecturer, who did not have an office in the building, came into Dave’s office and asked to use the phone.
The conversation was in Hebrew, so Dave couldn’t understand what was said. After hanging up, the man explained to Dave “It’s Yom Kippur today, a day of reflection and repentance for Jews. I wanted to make sure I have a clean slate. So I called a friend to say I was sorry for something I did a couple of months ago.”
Dave was halfway through his 18 month contract at the university so he knew this man fairly well. Like the majority of the lecturers in the department this man described himself as a secular Jew. Yet, despite his assessment that he wasn’t a religious Jew, he had held onto this long-standing tradition of making amends. He saw the value of enough self-reflection, at least one day a year, to identify wrongs he had committed and ask for forgiveness.
Yom Kippur comes a week after Rosh Hashanah the Jewish New Year. Christians often set resolutions at the New Year, but do we look back on the previous year and ask forgiveness for wrongs we have committed?
I was raised in the Episcopal/Anglican tradition. Every Sunday I sat through the liturgy from the Book of Common Prayer, which included a prayer of confession and words of absolution (assurance of pardon) by the minister. A couple of lines from the prayer of confession were quite meaningful: “We have erred and strayed from your ways like lost sheep . . . We have left undone those things which we ought to have done; and we have done those things which we ought not to have done.” As a child and young teen, I liked the metaphor of seeing myself as a straying sheep. And I liked the idea that sin includes not only things we’ve done wrong, but also things we should have done, but didn’t do. As we recited those words week after week, year after year, I saw some of the patterns of my life.
For most of my adult life I attended or served congregations where weekly worship always included a prayer of confession and assurance of pardon. In the past dozen years, since I left my position as an associate pastor at a church in Seattle, I have attended worship services in somewhere between 60 and 80 different congregations, representing a variety of denominations, in the United States, New Zealand, Australia, Germany, France and the UK. Well over half of those dozens of worship services did not have a prayer of confession.
A weekly prayer of confession in a worship service does not guarantee that people will actually confess their sins, but it does model the importance of confession, and even if worshippers actually do confess their sins during a corporate prayer of confession there’s no guarantee they will ask forgiveness from the people they have wronged.
I am concerned that the new confession-less worship pattern leaves behind long-standing Jewish and Christian traditions of self-examination, confession and asking forgiveness. We also miss the joy of receiving an assurance of pardon. Important aspects of living into the Shalom of God are lost without self-reflection, confession of sin to God and to the person wronged, and receiving forgiveness.
For someone who attends worship services without a prayer of confession, the penitential psalms can be a lovely resource. Pray them, memorize them, sing them. My favorite band these days is the Sons of Korah, an Australia-based group that sings the psalms. Here are three penitential psalms they have recorded: Psalm 32, Psalm 51 and Psalm 130.
Psalm 32
Psalm 51
Psalm 130
This post is part of our October series Living Into the Shalom of God.
from freeimages.com by Andrzej Pobiedzinski. Click photo for original.
“When you enter a house, first say, ‘Peace to this house.’ If someone who promotes peace is there, your peace will rest on them; if not, it will return to you.”
— Luke 10:5-6 (NIV)
I once met a man who, despite appearances that differed, was an incredible person of peace. He wasn’t just laid back and calm. He actually sought to live in harmony in the moments he had with everyone, much to the extent that he would serve someone like me in the integrity of love, and yet he owed me absolutely nothing. He owed nobody anything. He seemed unafraid, and to be without agenda. He never had a grievance. The man was a mystery.
Even as I share I’m sure you have a picture in your mind of a certain someone who reminds you of this man. He is not that unusual. I may have painted him in lines of perfection. He clearly was very flawed, but his character was congruent with abiding peace.
We’ve all encountered the person of peace — the soul who promotes peace; who lives it. Some will have been Christian, some not. Indeed, some of the religious people we’ve encountered haven’t been marked with the shalom of God we can come to expect.
According the Matthaean tradition, consonant with the passage above, the person who promotes peace is a person worthy (Greek: ἄξιος) of us spending our time. This is a person suitable for sharing the gospel. If we were to stay with them, their household would be worthy, because the house would be one of peace, because we would gift that peace to it, as much as that household and person would be gifting to us their peace. This is Jesus’ peace we speak of; something that may be given and received. It is an empowering shalom, or pervading presence of peace between entities, for the overcoming of many guiles and trials.[1]
As Christians serving the gospel we’re to be peace-givers, peace-seekers, peace-receivers, and certainly peace-makers. We’re not to feel guilty for leaving situations that present a waste of our precious time. We’re merchants of the one and only living God; the Lord of peace. If our peace is proven to be thwarted, we must thwart that thwarting.
We’re called to look for the person in our midst who has been readied with the sandals of peace, and to walk in fellowship with them. This is a person worthy of our time. And we ought to be worthy of theirs, too, by being persons of peace, ready to serve in the love of peace.
This peace we speak of here is an intimacy between persons where relationship is free to flow and grow. It has the undertone of the salvation of God about it. The relationship has that rarefied quality of joy, even if in the midst of pain, for the commonalities of oneness shared in the concert of twoness.
There is no guilt to be carried for those fractured relationships we’ve borne. Christ has set us free of needing to bear such a burden. We’re not responsible. If we’ve given what we could to a relationship, and we received no sign back that the effort we put in was deemed worthy, to them, then our time is not worthily spent with them.
We grow in peace when we spend time with people at peace.
And as we spend time with a person at peace we may both grow in our experience of the salvation of God in Christ.
Here’s a final thought:
When we’re persons of peace, we’re worthy of time — ours, theirs and God’s. Only when we’re persons of peace are we actually worthy of the time we’ve been given.
Time is precious. It ought never to be taken for granted. Being persons of peace helps us reconcile the wonders of time, that we live at the cusp of it, in order that we might make the most of it.[2]
May He who granted you your peace enliven it more and more until the coming of Christ.
[1] Jesus said “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.” — John 14:27 (NIV)
[2] See Ephesians 5:15-17.
by Denise Moore
from pixabay.com, by Hans Braxmeier. Click photo for original.
Although Columbus Day did not become an official holiday until the 1930’s there had been celebrations since the colonial times. Through the years this celebration has been accompanied by controversy. I won’t get into all the details but let’s just say that it isn’t really disputed that Columbus 1) wasn’t a particularly nice person, 2) never stepped foot on North American soil, and 3) even if he had, he would have found others had “discovered” it already and were in fact living there.
It should be no surprise then, that Indigenous People’s Day has been created as a protest or counter-celebration to offer some balance to our sweet little, “In 1492…” rhyme. In reality, the Native American Culture was invaded and these indigenous people’s home was never the same.
That brings me to another celebration that falls on this day, World Homeless Day. It doesn’t always fall on Columbus/Indigenous People’s Day; it comes around every October 10, but this year October 10 just happens to be on the second Monday of October. The calendar aligned to disturb me into thinking how these three days fit together. It challenged me to think about how privileged I am to live in a nice, warm home in the beautiful Colorado mountains that once served as home and hunting grounds for the Ute and Arapaho tribes. And I am reminded of a family trip when my boys were ten and thirteen and how obvious it was to them that the Native Americans were “given” the worst of the worst land available when “white man” took over their country.
In addition to the other celebrations, today is also my mom and dad’s 62nd wedding anniversary. At ages 92 and 90, they are in the process of moving out of their home of 56 years and into an apartment closer to shopping and doctors. Michael’s parents (my in-laws) are moving from their “forever home” as well.
I’ve been thinking a lot about “home” lately. That house where I grew up and my parents made a home for us is a huge part of my life. It wasn’t an opulent home by any means, but a good middle class house where I had my own room with my own bed to sleep in every night. I had heat in the winter and air conditioning in the summer and protection from the wind and rain. I could even open the refrigerator any time I wanted. (I never even realized this was a big thing until I was in my 40’s and youth director to brothers who couldn’t. They didn’t have their own beds either because their family shared a small apartment with two other families.)
It’s not that my parents didn’t try to show me how fortunate I was. Every Christmas I gave my old toys away to the orphanage so those “less fortunate” could have something new to play with (and so my new toys would fit in the toy box!) They even took me to live in a third world war-torn country on the west coast of Africa for a year. Yes, I knew there was a disparity in life; but for much of my life I gave it lip service and served a meal or wrote a check now and again to make myself feel better but I also accepted it as the way things are.
by Michael Moore, Used with Permission, All Rights Reserved.
Yes, this is the way things are. According to a United Nations Global survey done in 2005 there were, at that time, approximately 100 million people who were homeless, and in 2015 Habitat for Humanity estimated that 1.6 billion (1,600,000,000) people worldwide were living in inadequate housing. This number is hard to comprehend.
According to the universetoday.com on a perfect night under perfect conditions the human eye can see up to 9,000 stars. That is 178,000 inadequately housed people for each one. I don’t think is how Abraham imagined it when God had him look at the stars and imagine his descendants.
This is heartbreaking. It’s the way things are but it is NOT the way things should be! God’s house has many rooms according to Jesus. Are we not to demonstrate the ways of God in this world? Shouldn’t we find a room for each and every one of these homeless brothers and sisters? When asked what was of utmost importance, Jesus answered:
You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your being, and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: You must love your neighbor as you love yourself.(Matthew 22: 37-39 CEB)
How can we say we love and then just accept this as the way things are?
When I think of this day, I see Columbus Day representing the systems of this world that promote division and inequality and the desire to have more even when that means someone else gets less, in that light, Indigenous People’s Day represents the oppressed who suffer from the personal greed of others and systemic problems in the economic and social structure of nations. World Homeless Day is the day of hope and action. It represents a movement where people can no longer be at peace with the way things are and feel compelled to make this world a place where everyone thrives!
This post is part of our October series Living into the Shalom of God.
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