Unity, Reconciliation, Justice and The Belhar Confession

The Belhar is literally framed by a confession of our Triune God who is Father, Son and Holy Spirit, One God now and forever.  There is perhaps no other doctrine in the church more difficult to grasp than that of Trinity.  We've heard many ways of describing this mystery of God, but each and every one of them falls short of expressing the depth of relationship existing in the Godhead.  Of all the analogies and descriptions, the one I've come to embrace is that of Father, Son and Holy Spirit, three persons of the Godhead, wholly distinct yet wholly indistinguishable.

Dante referred to God this way.  He imagined God to be like three distinct yet indistinguishable cirlces of light.  If you imagine three circles, you've divided what is indivisible.  If you imagine only one circle, you've blended what is unique.  This is a perfectly apt description that cannot be imaged without devaluing either God's unity or God's individuality.

This is an image of balance.  There is no hierarchy.  Each is inextricably woven with the other.

The Belhar calls the church to embrace her mission with the same level of balance and connectedness, and in this the Belhar is unique among the Reformed standards.  Framed by a confession of our Triune God, the Belhar calls each congregation to a balanced, woven, equal ministry of unity, reconciliation and justice.

Wisely, the Belhar avoids that classic Trinitarian misstep of modalism (which is heresy) by not assigning this three-in-one mission to any person of the Godhead.  Modalism is attributing one particular work of God to one particular person of the Godhead, such as referring to God as Creator, Redeemer and Sustainer.  This reduces God to a set of job descriptions and misses the essential nature of God's intimate relationship.

Rather, the Belhar calls the church to work on the relationship of these three objectives of unity, reconciliation and justice as they work for the singular purpose of communicating salvation.  Such work is necessary - absolutely necessary.

In my observation and study, churches tend to major in either unity, reconciliation or justice. They'll be good at evangelism, but won't engage social justice issues. They'll go after systemic problems in the community, but won't have a clue how to do so with an obvious witness to Christ. They'll circle the wagons to protect the membership from possibly divisive issues needing deeper dialogue, study, prayer and action. Such protectionism may uphold the church's unity but at the expense of relevant and responsive.

Now, there are those who see Belhar as a threat. I've heard the arguments:  it'll force us to accept unacceptable behavior, or it's too rooted in the racist underpinnings of apartheid to be relelvant, or (related) we have overcome racism in our day so this confession is moot.  Let me address these one at a time.

First, we must remember that the Belhar is being proposed as an addition to existing standards, not as a replacement.  While the Belhar certainly does call the church to repent of any form of divisiveness either in its own life, the community, or the institutions it supports, it will exist alongside our other confessions which are more specific in their definition of what is and is not acceptable Christian behavior.

Second, it is rooted in the context of apartheid.  That should not be a strike against it any more than one might dismiss C.S. Lewis or Deitrich Bonhoeffer for writing from the context of the second world war.  Both of these contexts have exposed historic and institutionalized sins used to leverage power and advantage while keeping others oppressed.

Third, I am a racist and am not proud of it.  Even though I adopted a daughter without condition of race and served on the board for the Institute for Healing Racism and have repented of the outright racist actions of my youth by finding and apologizing to those whom I'd hurt, I still live fairly comfortably in a world where racisim persists.  I bank with institutions that have scrutinized more deeply than necessary a person of color's loan application.  I shop at stores where plain clothes security guards track the movements of color and the visibly poor.  I eat at restaurants where the servers are women, the cooks are men and the busboys are Mexican.  I live in a community which assumes Hispanics are only here for free health care, to take our jobs and to sell drugs to our kids.  My racism is rooted in the sad fact I don't do enough to combat these realities because it would upset my primarily comfortable existence.

When we adopted our daughter ten years ago we weren't even done with the home study before we were picked to be parents.  Less than two months later we were on our way to meet her and take her home.  Now that's really, really fast -far quicker than anyone had prepared us for.  Conventional wisdom said it would take more than a year, maybe two.  Why so fast?  In America, for every white baby born there are seven (usually white) adoptive families waiting.  White families tend to do the majority of adoptions because white families tend to be more affluent.  That, in an of itself, points to instituionalized racism.  But for every seven black babies born there is only one family waiting, and for every five bi-racial, Hispanic or Asian baby there's only one family waiting.  Our culture still imagines and accepts monochromatic families as the norm while six out of seven black children and four out of five Hispanic children head for foster care.

Consider our missionaries and their fields.  In Mexico a Mestizo (a person of both Hispanic and native descent) is far more accepted than a native of Mayan descent, and the racism perpetrated against these people is as atrocious and blatant as pre-Civil Rights America.  In India the caste system is upheld by assumptions based on the shade of your skin.  And need I say anything about the ongoing struggles of Palestinians and Israelis?

So, no, we're not over it.  Not by a longshot.  We may have rooted out the personally objectionable language and most obvious practices of segregation, but the institutionalized racism, the lingering assumptions, and the general connection of either poverty or opportunity to race is still very very much alive.  And dreadful.

The Belhar won't tolerate ideological division, race based division, institutionalized division or classist division.  It takes seriously what we already proclaim, namely, that we are all created in the image of God whose only hope is in Christ Jesus our Lord.  That is the levelest of playing fields.

If the Belhar is any threat, it is a threat to the way the church carries out her ministries.  The Belhar will challenge us to galvanize an equally balanced, three-pronged, distinct yet indistinguishable approach to all we do to bring both tangible and eternal salvation to every person God has given to our care.

Be Still

Imagine you're in a dentist chair all numbed up with two people manipulating implements in your mouth.  That would be a bad time to start expressing yourself or wiggling about.  Stillness in a dentist's chair is highly valued.

It's also a sign of humility.  You've got to put everything else on pause.  No phone calls.  No texting.  No facebook.  The work at hand is important enough to cut out any and all distractions.  Be still.

Stillness is even more important in metanoia.  But unlike a dentist's chair where the risk of personal injury keeps you as motionless as a mummy, the stillness one seeks before God is not only of the body, but of the mind and soul as well.  That stillness, where the mind is vacant and the soul rests without worry, is almost impossible to achieve.

We just like noise.  Maybe not the screaming daycare center kind of noise, but some flow of thought or data or music or conversation or RSS feed is omnipresent in our lives.  And if we're not analyzing or thinking or gathering info while we work, then we're relaxing with some plugged in, battery operated or splined distraction to shut down the day's cranial taxations.  One way or another nearly every waking moment is filled with noise whether it's beneficial or not.

The stillness we're after is not the kind where your mind can drift off to wherever, or even a nap where cognizence is lost.  This stillness comes from a place where you are relaxed, aware and listening.

Thomas a Kempis observed that "habit overcomes habit."  If we are in the habit of filling our minds with noise, then we need to cultivate a habit of stillness to replace it.  A wonderful practice of the ancients of the faith, beautiful in its simplicity yet challenging to get right, is the Jesus Prayer.

The words are not complicated - "Lord Jesus, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner."  Anyone can articulate them and repeat them. It's achieving a stillness of mind, body and soul so that you sole awareness is of God's presence in this prayer that is so, so hard, especialy for western Christians.  In the same way that lights always burn through the night so we can't know true darkness, so also we are unable to tune out noise and thoughts to know true stillness.

Find a quiet, comfortable spot where you can sit for a while, but not so comfortable that you are lulled to sleep.  Try not to fidget or shift.  Just be in one place - no cell phone, no music, no television, no distractions.  You are here to give God your full and undivided attention.

The Jesus Prayer is as rhythmic as breathing.  As you may know, the Hebrew and Greek words for Spirit in the scriptures also mean "wind" and "breath."  The ancients had a ready ability to accept that the very air we breathe is a gift from God who is the Lord and giver of Life.  We are constantly surrounded by the Spirit of God Whose breath literally permeates every fiber of our being.

Breathe deeply.  Become aware of the Spirit of God filling you, refreshing you, bringing life.  Imagine that you are breathing, not with heaving shoulders or expanded diaphragm, but through your heart.  And as you draw this life-giving breath, speak these words in your mind, "Lord Jesus, Son of God," as if you are filling your whole self with Jesus.

As you exhale, become aware of being emptied, of driving the choking spent breath from your whole self, and speak these words in your mind, "...have mercy on me, a sinner."  Imagine your sin leaving you, making room to be filled once more with God's Spirit.

Say this over and over, focusing on the words, the breathing through your heart, the Spirit of God filling you and emptying you, and let all other concerns simply fall away.  Lose awareness of ambient noises.  Be still, and know that God is God.

At first, I'd suggest setting a target of 200 repetitions without interruption, although I'm reticent to do so.  Most of us are so goal oriented that we'll focus more on counting to make the goal than on the prayer itself.  Our faithfulness really is that fragile.  Yet without a goal, you may end the prayer too soon before you realize the blessing of stillness before God.  You could set a timer for an hour or so if need be, but that may create a certain level of anxiety that the prayer "isn't working yet and time is running out."  Our faithfulness really is that fragile.

It's good to note that this is not an efficient prayer.  It does not play by our rules.  It is not beholding to our deadlines and schedules.  It never really finishes its work.  It is rather like a fractal, a monumenntal mathematical art where the repetition of pattern draws you to finer exploration of its infinite nature further in and deeper down.

There are monasteries in Greece, just west of the vast region of Macedonia, set atop massive fingers of rock some three hundred feet tall.  Monks first climbed these rocks to find cliffs just to be apart enough from the world to pray this prayer.  Some are still accessible only by rope to keep tourists away.  There, lifted above the cares of the world, monks would engage this prayer twenty, even thrity thousand times a day, and still not feel as though they've heard all God has to say to them.

Let that encourage you to try and to continue.  The first time I brought this to the leadership of the church, I gave them each a beaded bracelet with nineteen smaller beads and one larger one and asked them to pray through ten laps and remain silent until the morning.  They thought I was being unrealistic and tried to negotiate a lower number, but I just sent them to pray.

In the morning the reports came in how beautiful and engaging the prayer was.  They wanted more time in silence to draw near and asked for more beads to bring the prayer home to their spouses and children.  They found a friend in the prayer and not an unrealistic burden.

One final note - ou will not master this prayer until God has completely mastered you.