MV Winter 2019 Page 2

By Nathaniel Gamble

In Reinder Bruinsma’s book I Have a Future: Christ’s Resurrection and Mine, readers are introduced to questions about life and death in a win-some, pastoral, and sensitive way. I Have a Future focuses on the meaning of death and the hope of life after death in the light of Jesus Christ. Bruinsma helps his readers face the reality and finality of death in Chapters 1 through 3, so that he can present the answer to death in Chapters 4 and 5: the resurrection of Christ, which is the foundation for our own resurrection and new, glorious life in the future. On the basis of Christ’s resurrection, Bruinsma details how we can live our present lives with hope and have assurance of a future life with Christ in Chapters 6 and 9, as well as better understand the nature of heaven and the truth about hell in Chapters 7 and 8.

While this work has several features to recommend it, perhaps its two strongest aspects are its treatment of heaven and hell. In Seventh-day Adventist presentations on the state of the dead, we often give heaven scant attention; generally, we are either highly neglectful of the promise of heaven, devoting only a limited amount of time to its beauties and reality, or leave it out entirely when discussing the nature of death. This move is theologically inappropriate, since it gives just as much of an unbalanced view on the nature of death as do articulations of the immortality of the soul.

Bruinsma provides a fantastic correction to this neglect. In Chapter 7, “Eternal Life: Heaven and the New Earth,” he enumerates several questions that people often ask about heaven and eternal life: whether heaven is simply a never-ending repeat of your favorite hobby; how we will spend eternity with people we love, without anyone ever becoming frustrated or annoyed with each other; whether our age in heaven is determined by our age at death, and whether we will retain distinguishing features like race, gender, sex, and height; what location will look like in heaven, given that the only locations we can envision are terrestrial ones; and how our spiritual bodies will function with respect to food and activity (pp. 144-146).

These questions are often uncomfortable to think about (which might be one reason why Adventists tend to avoid them in evangelistic presentations!), but they are absolutely essential to a better understanding of the full-orbed view the Bible has on life and death. And Bruinsma does not shy away from them, which makes this book all the more uncomfortable and an incredible contribution to biblical discussions about life and death. With theological humility and pastoral courage, Bruinsma admits that he doesn’t have answers to many of these questions; instead, he focuses our attention on Christ and the meaning of his resurrection for us, as well as the fact that Christ has promised to give eternal life to everyone who trusts in Him. According to Bruinsma, heaven will be an exciting place of reunions, growth, and discovery, though our final hope and home will ultimately be living in a recreated earth and enjoying a perfect relationship with God that includes unmediated access to his presence.

Bruinsma’s treatment of hell in Chapter 8, “Is ‘Hell’ as Terrible as People Think?” is likewise biblically balanced and spiritually helpful. Adventists often struggle with being fair to the doctrine of hell. In our zeal to present God as loving, we often pillory the traditional doctrine of hell as some- thing only spiritual sadists believe. Bruinsma will have none of this and presents traditionalists’ arguments for hell in a sympathetic manner: traditional proponents are primarily concerned with recognizing that sin is always against an infinite God (and thus has infinite consequences), as well as paying attention to a correct application of the concept of eternity in “eternal life” and “eternal damnation” (pp. 161- 162). Bruinsma’s fairness enables him to present what the Bible says about hell in an uplifting, Christ-centered, and joyful manner, which can serve as a model for how we talk about the subject with our neighbors and Christian brothers and sisters, who are not of our persuasion.

In light of these positive aspects, I Have a Future contains a peculiar hindrance to Bruinsma’s overarching focus on Christ’s resurrection. Bruinsma’s discussion of the nature of history and faith in Chapter 4, “He Is Risen,” tends to obfuscate the meaning of Christ’s resurrection for our knowledge of God. After discussing the historicity of Christ’s resurrection (pp. 64-76), the author addresses an important concern: how do we face the fact that we cannot know with absolute certainty that Christ rose from the dead? Bruinsma explains that the philosopher Alvin Plantinga offers him assistance in this respect: “He [Plantinga] acknowledges that there is no absolute proof for the essential Christian beliefs . . . . But, he says, there are enough reasons to accept those beliefs as ‘war- ranted’—that is, as reasonable and defensible” (p. 76). It is important to hold reasonable and defensible religious beliefs, but Bruinsma’s definition of a warranted belief overlooks what Plantinga says regarding the function of belief in our knowledge of God.

In his trilogy Warrant: The Current Debate (1993), Warrant and Proper Function (1993), and Warranted Christian Belief (2000), Plantinga articulates an epistemological function to beliefs: if beliefs can be shown to be reasonable and defensible, and if a person can be justified in holding those beliefs, then those beliefs can also be identified as proper knowledge—basically, warranted beliefs about God can help us know God better. The goal of Plantinga’s “warranted belief” was to help individuals not simply know the truth of something intellectually, but also see that they exist as a knower in a relationship with what is known. Bruinsma’s desire to have a reasonable faith is admirable, since the Bible calls us to have faith in God and know why we trust him. Nevertheless, defining a warranted belief as only having a good reason to believe a position tends to sap that belief of its ability to serve as part of our knowledge of God. This might seem like a small matter, but the tension it creates between merely believing something for good reasons (e.g., that Christ actually rose from the dead) and further recognizing it as part of the knowledge a person has about a subject (e.g., that you can know Christ because he is no longer dead, as well as trust that you have a future because he is now alive) is subtly felt throughout the remainder of the work.

Despite this apparent hindrance, I Have a Future is a fantastic book. It is easily accessible, theologically rich, and faithfully follows the thinking of Scripture. Similarly, it is written with an irenic spirit that is respectful of others’ beliefs while also being honest about what the Bible teaches. Bruinsma’s work is a good resource to give those who have questions about the meaning of Christ for life and death, and is a wonderful sharing book for new converts to Adventism, spiritual seekers, or use in a public evangelism series. Bruinsma succeeds in lifting up Christ and shoring up our faith in God by ably reminding us that, in Christ, we all have a promising future.

–Nathaniel Gamble is senior pastor of Fort Lupton Seventh-day Adventist Church and associate pastor of Aspen Park Seventh-day Adventist Church. He is in the Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) program at Calvin Theological Seminary, Grand Rapids, Michigan. Email him at: [email protected]

By Rajmund Dabrowski

“You shall love the stranger first of all because you know what it is to be a stranger yourself. Second of all, you shall love the stranger because the stranger shows you God.”

—Barbara Brown Taylor

Memories. One stands out from my days in England. But first things first. My church pedigree dates back to the early 1960s when I was baptized in a rather conservative faith community. My home upbringing was also “do this, don’t do that”—and my grandmother prayed daily that we be guarded from unwanted and bad people.

My early confusion with navigating on God’s earth was laced with a seeming dichotomy when I started attending public schools, surrounded by friends whom I was warned about in church and home.

I hoped that my liberation to authenticity would come when I went to England. I went to learn English, and then to study for a degree. Arriving from Eastern Europe, I soon learned what it means to be a stranger in the West. It was at the introductory evening that I was asked by Pierre, a Frenchman, whether we had TV in Poland. But Pierre and I became good friends. That question started a meaningful conversation. I liked a straight shooter, and discovered that for some people my [former] communist country was . . . strange as an unknown land.

The next moment I felt like a stranger within my faith family came a few years later when I went to worship at the New Gallery Center on Regent Street near Piccadilly Circus. I sat in a pew and noted a movement among fellow believers. They were moving to other pews. I guess they considered it strange that I had long hair and colorful 1968 attire. I guess colorful clothes created fear in those who preferred gray suits or muted dresses.

As I am writing these words, I cannot but note that fear of “the other one” is endemic and seemingly permanent. Yet, “stranger is a slippery word—you think you know what it means until you try to account for yourself. . . . Who we think is a stranger is an individual thing. It’s defined by culture and history,” writes researcher Kio Stark in When Strangers Meet, a companion book to her TED Talk.

Stark is correct in her challenge that people you don’t know can transform you.

A recent conversation in the church about making it more attractive and oozing with welcome, compassion, and kindness has created a bit of a tension among the participants. One of them said, “Actually the church is not for everybody. It’s about standards.” “Really?” I asked. “If that’s the case, we now know the answer to why members of Generation Z are not attracted to an unexplained terrain of capital R Rules!”

The prophet Isaiah (56:7) conveyed God’s view of who is welcome [and who is not, I guess] in His church: “My house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples.”

I wonder from time to time, why our pulpit has a sound- ing challenge: We welcome all, yet when a stranger comes in and wants to join the community, he is welcome, if . . . and when . . . On a daily morning walk with our dog Prince Orek in our neighborhood, we saw a lawn sign. It was in three languages—Spanish, English and Arabic—and three colors. Its message was appropriate for today: “No matter, where you are from, we’re glad you’re our neighbor.”

Among many others, All Souls Episcopalian Church in Washington, D.C., has adopted a more detailed message: “Love your neighbor who doesn’t look like you, think like you, love like you, speak like you, pray like you, vote like you. Love your neighbor.”

To initiate a personal change, one that can make a difference in your church, start talking to strangers. It can wake you up, opening your world wider. Start hugging them, like these two students offering Free Hugs in Cracow, Poland. Start loving them like Jesus did when meeting a woman at the well.

Find new love for and in the church. Bring the strangers in. Know no stranger.

–Rajmund Dabrowski is RMC communication director and editor of Mountain Views. Email him at: [email protected].

By Lonnie Hetterle

“It takes a village” is a phrase we’ve all heard suggesting that one parent, one family, one teacher, one pastor, one whatever can’t do it all. Its application to raising and educating our children is apropos. We need everyone working together to ensure that each of our children receives the love, the direction, the instruction that he or she needs. This has never been truer than it is today. The ready availability of all types of perversion, ugliness, and deceit assails our children on every side.

Now empty nesters, my wife and I can tell you how quickly those childhood years fly by. If there is one thing, I would like to impress on today’s young parents from my own sometimes hard-knock experience, it would be to relish every day with your child and make certain they are surrounded by the very best environment possible.

According to North American Division (NAD) president Dan Jackson, speaking at the 2019 year-end meetings, “You cannot separate education from the work of the church. [Some of our] best evangelists are often teachers.” More baptisms, he explained, come as a result of Adventist schools than evangelistic meetings. It is part of who we are genetically and spiritually. You cannot separate education from the work of the church. “If you kill the educational program (you) will kill the church,” Jackson stated, emphasizing the tremendous importance of Adventist education in the lives of our young.

Operating our schools, however, is a challenge. The financial part is always a stretch, but our biggest concern is the spiritual welfare of each child in our schools. I believe the devil works harder on our young people than on any other demographic in the church. That’s why it takes a village. That’s why we need to make sure caring, committed, and dedicated adults surround our young. Where else but in our own Seventh-day Adventist schools can our children find this? Where else can they be daily encouraged and instructed? It is in the sacredness of our classrooms that the Plan of Salvation can be fully explored and where the youth can make sense of a world of chaos and confusion as they shine the light of the Great Controversy on the moral decay they see. It is in this environment that each student can be loved, encouraged, disciplined, and guided toward productive adulthood and become a candidate for eternity.

While teachers and principals pour their heart and soul into the teaching of our children, administrators are left with the challenge of ensuring financial stability for our schools. The cost to educate a young person is never fully paid by tuition. If that were the case, our schools would become exclusive, an occurrence that flies in the face of our basic philosophy. Our synergistic efforts can accomplish things that are impossible individually.

Here is our challenge: The Rocky Mountain Conference has 116 organized churches of which approximately 27 are officially constituent churches for our schools, contributing to the support of their schools. That leaves 89 churches with no official involvement in providing Adventist learning for our children. Many of these churches are small, facing their own financial challenges. I must mention that several small churches contribute occasionally to Adventist education, for which we are grateful.

If each church or family would regularly do their part in supporting the education of our kids, they could make the difference in a child being able to attend our schools and grow into a future leader rather than being excluded from the influences of a Christian education. “There is no ministry more important than the education of our children,” states Ed Barnett, RMC president. I am proud of the work going on in the RMC schools.” Adventist education is a vital element of the church and one very worthy of our time, energy, and money.

If you don’t have a school near you, choose one near you or designate your help to either Campion Academy (our boarding school) or Mile High Academy (our only K-12 school) or another school of your choosing. Rocky Mountain Conference is currently faced with the challenge of raising just under one million dollars for worthy student funds. The funds you sacrificially give will be used carefully and responsibly, and your generosity can make a real difference in the life of a child. Thank you for including Adventist education in your giving plan.

–Lonnie Hetterle is RMC education superintendent. Email him at: [email protected]

By Shayne Mason Vincent

“A loved person can change, but a condemned person doesn’t even have the energy to try.” —Chad McComas

At the age of five, I would go with my grandma to this old country church, hidden away in a sleepy hollow called Cedar Valley. On cold winter days, while Jack Frost was doing his Michelangelos, l would sit in the back with the old timers, my numb toes burning under the whoosh of the wood stove. Those jolly old men made church just as warm as that stove. Inevitably, my attention would drift and my gaze would fall on this immense painting of the ascension of Christ keeping sentinel behind the pulpit. Whenever I saw it, it was like I could sense the Spirit in my bones. I can still smell the musty wood and brewing coffee of that happy memory.

The gentle joy those men showed me as a child planted a seed in my heart that ultimately led to me becoming a pastor. Having grown up without a father, their love helped me see that God could be my Father; as we read in Psalms 27:10 (GNT): “My father and mother may abandon me, but the Lord will take care of me.” And that is exactly what He did. Through all my years of ups and downs, He never left my side. The sense that the Lord was speaking to my heart never stopped. And when I had had enough, He called me back home again. I was the stranger who wandered through the doors of your church. Yet, I was no stranger to God.

What do we see in God’s missing children when they come home? Harshness, crudity, pride, flamboyance? One thing is for sure; they usually have better taste in music. But kidding aside, while they may be strangers to the myriad of our religious norms, God has known them intimately all their lives. They are the broken-hearted, whose wounds Christ is anxious to bind. They are the found, the seekers of hope, who long for more than empty promises. And I was one of them. The ones whose “sins—and they are many—have been for- given, so they have shown me much love” (Luke 7:47, NLT).

I found one of these secret children of God while working as a bereavement counselor in hospice. Like ministry, bereavement is a tender and careful work that demands intimacy with God. While counseling the inconsolable, the Spirit of God began to speak words of healing comfort directly into my heart. It was often so specific (and completely off topic) that I would apologetically say, “I don’t know why, but this is coming to me.” And without fail, they would begin to sob, and say, “That was exactly what I needed.” It started to happen so often that I became accustomed to running with it whenever it happened.

Over the course of time, I was counseling a woman who was grieving the death of her lesbian partner of twenty years. And as often happened, the Spirit of the Lord gave me a word for her. I sat in stunned silence as I attempted to process this: she was a lesbian, an atheist, and a Ph.D. from Berkeley, of all places, which is basically the Vatican for secular humanism. I said aloud in my head, “Really God?” So, I took the plunge and, as soon as I said it, she began to weep; that wracking kind of grief that comes from your gut. As is typical of our beautiful God, when I returned for our appointment the following month, she told me, “No, I’m good. What you told me was exactly what I needed to hear. You don’t need to come again.”

How amazing is our God?! That He would reach down from Heaven and speak healing directly into the broken heart of someone who may likely never follow Him! It was at that point in my walk with Christ that I stopped pretending to know whom God accepted and did not accept. Truly, God loves His enemies . . . and in this truth lies humanity’s greatest hope: “God proves His love for us in this: while we were still sinning, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8, BSB). This is what the stranger who wanders into our church needs to know: that they are wanted. You see, the endless longing within us all is simply to belong. And that is what God is all about. We are the “called out” from a cruel and indifferent world to follow Jesus, whose entire life taught us that “the Holy Spirit produces a different kind of fruit: unconditional love, joy, peace, patience, kindheartedness, goodness, faith- fulness, gentleness, and self-control. You won’t find any law opposed to fruit like this” (Galatians 5:22-23, TVB).

Kicking up cold feet up in front of a winter’s fire, laughter, forgiveness, a deep conversation, sunsets, or just a hug. These are the gifts that God has given.

And so I make it my practice to hug people; especially those who carry a stench (perhaps metaphorically, as well). Because I recognize that clothes can be washed; it’s much more important that hearts be washed in the Blood. In our modern world: love, time, family, our communities, they barely exist. So, when strangers wander into our own churches in the vale, give them a taste of that Normal Rock- well painting I had as a child, where old men poke at your ribs, old friends share a laugh, and young lovers snuggle by the fireside. And perchance, in that magical place of grace, the Spirit of God will speak directly into their hearts as well.

–Shayne Mason Vincent is lead pastor, Casper, Wyoming District. Email him at: [email protected]

By Nathan Brown

Because of where many of us live in time, place, and culture—and the traditional place the Bible occupies in our own lives—one of the temptations we encounter in our reading of the Bible is to assume it is telling the story of the mainstream and the powerful. Even our traditional Adventist starting point in sharing the story of the Bible—the image and prophecies of Daniel 2—can distract us with the assumption that the Bible is focused on the rise and fall of kingdoms and empires. But reading more closely must remind us that the headlines of history are only ever the backdrop against which the Bible tells the story of what is happening on the margins.

Yes, at times, we will hear a sermon that highlights the roles of the outsiders in the Bible story. Someone might point to the outsider women of dubious reputation specifically mentioned in the ancestry of Jesus—Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, and Bathsheba (see Matthew 1). Or the Christmas story will include mention of the foreign magi who came “from the east” to worship the infant Jesus, even while the religious leaders of Israel had missed the momentous event of His birth. Or we can see how Jesus reached out to those who were foreign, outcast, and unclean throughout His ministry. Or we might consider the case of the Ethiopian eunuch, the sexually diverse foreigner that the Holy Spirit guided Philip to baptize into the way of Jesus (see Acts 8:26–40).

But these are usually presented as the exceptions, rather than the rule. Even these sermons miss the bigger picture of the Bible: that God has continually and recurringly worked with outsiders to take His story forward in the history of our world. Read rightly, the Bible is the story of the outsiders and the strangers. From Abraham who left his home “without knowing where he was going. And even when he reached the land God promised him, he lived there by faith—for he was like a foreigner, living in tents” (Hebrews 11:8, 9) to the life of Jesus—a poor, homeless, back-country preacher of question- able parentage and background—and so many faithful people of God in between (see Hebrews 11:35–40) and since, it seems that for many the calling to follow God is a calling to become an outsider and a stranger to the world around them.

But we also see this in the larger patterns of the history of nations and peoples. The Bible’s alternative history of the world foregrounds the stories of otherwise unknown and un- likely individuals, but also of small families, forgotten tribes, oppressed or excluded peoples whom God called out to be His people.

There are two stand-out examples of this in the Bible’s larger story. The first was God’s actions of bringing out the people of Israel from their Egyptian slavery, not because they were powerful or important but simply because they were loved and chosen by God. As Moses would remind the people toward the end of his experience in leading them, “The Lord did not set his heart on you and choose you because you were more numerous than other nations, for you were the smallest of all nations!” (Deuteronomy 7:7).

The second example comes with the establishment of the church as those who followed Jesus—again, those who were called out but also those who were “grafted in” to the fulfilment in Jesus of the promise to Israel (see Romans 11:17–21).

In both of these major interventions of God, those who heard the call to be God’s people were placed where they did not otherwise belong. God was regular in reminding them that they were recipients of His grace and that their position of privilege was neither inevitable nor irreversible. One of His key reminders was that this should transform how they relate to those who were marginalized in their communities and who would come among them as strangers: “Do not take advantage of foreigners who live among you in your land. Treat them like native-born Israelites, and love them as you love yourself. Remember that you were once foreigners living in the land of Egypt. I am the Lord your God” (Leviticus 19:33, 34).

Central teachings of Jesus also echoed this reminder and this imperative. For example, the story of the Good Samaritan featured the improbable and disruptive hero to the story as the answer to how Jesus’ hearers should “love their neighbor as yourself” (Luke 10:27). This story offered the listeners an awkward choice between identifying with the “holy” people who simply passed by and thus obviously broke the commandment to love, the victim of the attack who was forced by circumstance to accept the kindness of the stranger, or—if wanting to see themselves as the hero of the story—the com- forting but discomfiting stranger.

Even in Jesus’ teaching about how to respond in a worst- case ethical situation, His command was “love your enemies! Pray for those who persecute you!” (Matthew 5:44). It is intriguing to wonder if the conversion of Saul the Persecutor on the road to Damascus (see Acts 9:1–19) might have been a direct answer to some of the persecuted disciples of Jesus pray- ing just such a prayer. It was certainly something that Paul the Apostle came back to repeatedly in his ministry and writing, expressing his amazement that he was an outsider, a stranger, who had been brought near by the gracious and dramatic intervention of God (see, for example, 1 Corinthians 15:8, 9).

So when a stranger wanders in—to our church, to our lives, to our faith, to our communities and nations—we must first recognize them as one of us, because we were strangers. No one should belong more in our communities of faith than a stranger, because we are a community of strangers. When we begin to forget this, when we begin to read the Bible as a book that tells the story of the powerful or restricts those who are welcome in our communities or forever condemns some to be outsiders or lesser, Moses and Paul, the Hebrew prophets and Jesus Himself would remind us, probably loudly, “Remember, you were strangers . . .”

And while we might be tempted to spiritualize this as a theological concept, portraying the truth of our broken relationships with God and each other, this spiritual estrangement plays out in a million practical and destructive ways. As such, our spiritual reconciliation and renewal must also play out in practical, creative and restorative ways in our everyday lives, in the big issues in our world and perhaps particularly in our lives together in communities of faith.

So when a stranger wanders in, they are not only recognized theologically as one of us, as belonging however counterintuitive that might seem, they must be welcomed practically and truly. We must recognize and respect the process or journey that has brought them to this point, which did not begin with our knowledge or proximity to it, and the courage needed to take this step. While we do not abandon our discernment, we recognize that we can learn from them and their story, and that they might be our Good Samaritan if we have the humility to be recipients of their kindness and contributions.

So when a stranger wanders in, we celebrate together.

–Nathan Brown is a writer and editor at Signs Publishing in Warburton, Victoria, Australia. Check out the website for Nathan’s newest book Of Falafels and Following Jesus at www.FalafelsandFollowingJesus.com. Email him at: [email protected]

By Barry Casey

“To find its fulfillment, the ‘I’ needs at least two complementary dimensions: ‘we’ and—if it is fortunate—‘you.’” “I hope in thee for us.”

Here is a wonder that we do not acknowledge enough: that two carbon-based entities of the human species can— through symbols, vocalizations, and markings—establish enough trust that they will, in the fullness of time, join their lives together for better or for worse.

We cannot read each other’s minds. We think we can read each other’s body language well enough that we make crucial decisions in the short term based on the curl of a lip, the narrowing of the eyes, and the tilt of the head. How amazing our capacity for expression! How boundless the hope we place in our gestures and words!

To begin with the most general purpose of communication—to know another person and to be known—is both to know oneself and to go beyond oneself. To transcend the “I” for the “you,” and ultimately, to create the new—the “us.”

HERE IS ABRAHAM, resting under his tree. The sun is at its apex, the horizon shimmers in the heat. Three figures glimmer into view. Abraham shades his eyes and squints. Movement out here is cause for wariness. He spits to the side and looks up again. They are still there. He can- not be sure they are moving closer; at this distance it’s a question whether they are moving at all or if it’s all a mirage. Too soon to tell. He struggles to his feet.

“Sumash,” he calls, “Sumash, get over here!” A figure ducks out from behind the shed and ambles toward him. “Yes, sir,” he answers, his head tilting away as he speaks. “If they stop,” says Abraham—he swivels and thrusts an arm toward the three—“If they will stop, I want you to get the calf ready. Understand?” “Yes,” comes the reply. The boy shuffles his feet. He traces an arc in the dust with his sandal. “Who are they?” he asks. “I don’t know yet,” Abraham says thoughtfully. “We need to be ready, though.”

Obeying the laws of his culture, Abraham will welcome them—friends or enemies, it is the same. He is not afraid of strangers, for he trusts his hospitality will protect him just as it might save their lives.

I ONCE VISITED a large Methodist church in downtown Washington, DC. It’s an historic church, one that was early involved in the civil rights struggle and continues to be involved in issues of justice and peace. I went because I had heard the preaching was powerful, deep, and challenging. And I had heard that the congregation was attuned to welcoming visitors. I was not disappointed. The preaching was exceptional, but what really touched me was the attention paid to strangers.

I am normally someone who wants to slip in the back of a church or meeting. But the moment I walked in the door there were people who kindly made me feel at home. I did not feel ignored or imposed upon—just welcomed and noticed and acknowledged. I was handed a visitor’s packet and shown to a seat. A deacon slid over next to me before the service started and introduced himself. He also welcomed me and pointed out a visitor’s note in the pew rack. I was encouraged to fill it out and to choose whether I wanted to be contacted further. I was also free to simply turn it in and be considered a part of their extended family, but without any obligation to join.

The packet had a list of small groups that one could join, the times of worship services, and a schedule of upcoming activities that one could volunteer for. Most of these small group ministries had been running for ten to twenty years, with the leadership and membership changing over time, but always sustaining themselves. Almost all of them were devoted to the immediate needs of their neighborhood, as well as joining with other churches and temples across the city to care for the homeless and for AIDS patients.

I looked around the sanctuary and noted that the congregation was diverse. There were families with small children (always a good sign), teenagers, and a lot of white hair. About half the people in the pews were African American, Hispanic, or Asian. It seemed to me that there were quite a few graduate students, an observation that was confirmed by a deacon after the service.

The next week one of the deacons called me at home (this was before cell phones) and we had a good conversation. We talked about present issues the church was involved in and I asked questions about the ministerial staff, a couple of whom I was acquainted with from the Wesleyan Seminary downtown. He asked if I was interested in joining any of the groups or classes. There was no pressure, just an open invitation to be part of the life of the church community. It was clear from our conversation that service to the local community in such groups was the lifeblood of that church. If I wanted to know the beat of its heart, that was the place to start.

WE ARE OFTEN encouraged to bring our neighbors to our churches. Most of us don’t. Perhaps we feel that ex- posing our church community to a critical eye is rather like bringing home our high school friend and hoping our crazy aunt Pat doesn’t show up. While we can anticipate her mood swings and her whimsical sense of humor, we’re not at all sure she translates into a language that friends would understand. Bringing someone to church is not just introducing them to Christianity—it’s our particular version, with certain phrases and insider talk, and assumptions that are rarely acknowledged and can barely be explained if it comes to that.

It gets more complicated. While we are all strangers in more places than not, we don’t know how strange we are until we have a point of comparison. It’s one thing to sit around a dinner table after the sermon and laugh about our Adventist cultural weirdness, but it’s another thing if a stranger derides us for those very quirks. Then we feel the stirrings of tribal identity—even if we generally shrink from that—and there’s no telling what will happen if we give in to those unquestioned urges.

Do we think of our church community—by that, I mean our local congregation—as a conduit which channels Jesus to the world? After all, the Gospels commend to us a life lived in faith within the world and Paul’s letters champion our witness before the principalities and powers. If so, we’d better be prepared to bear our channeling with humor and humility because we will exhibit all the tendencies of humans. We will some days be open and generous, other days sullen and withdrawn. These fluctuations can be tiresome and discouraging: why can’t we come before the Lord in worship with a glad heart every time?

Christians, as Thomas Merton wryly noted, travel “in the belly of a paradox.” Following Merton, Parker Palmer has taken up the fact of paradox as a central component of a spiritual journey. The Gospel paradox, Eamon Duffy says, “both affirms our human needs, and beckons us to a way of discipleship that takes us beyond them.” Duffy encourages us not to despair in our commitment to community and discipleship, and comments in his Walking to Emmaus, that “The call to be reconciled to God involves the demand that we follow Jesus, and what is demanded is an enormous effort, a lifetime of effort, everlastingly inadequate, everlastingly to be begun over again.” But it is also more than this, much more—it is “an invitation to share in a work already accomplished (and complete).” The terrible journey that Jesus made outside the city, estranged from all He had known and loved, sustains and completes our faltering attempts to bring the stranger into our midst.

Duffy concludes “that is why in the end all Christian discipleship, all following of Jesus, finds its meaning and its method not in our solitary struggle with ourselves, but in the Church, in the Eucharistic community, the community of those who give thanks.”

AND ABRAHAM RAN to meet the three men and he bowed to the ground, and he said, “My Lord, if I find favor with you, do not pass by your servant.” And he brought bread and cakes and water and meat for his guests, and they did eat.

–Barry Casey taught religion, philosophy, and communication for 37 years in Maryland and Washington, D.C. He is now retired and writing in Burtonsville, Maryland. More of the author’s writing can be found on his blog, Dante’s Woods. His first collection of essays, Wandering, Not Lost, was recently published by Wipf and Stock. Email him at: [email protected]