The Power of Proximity

 

But the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against these things! (Galatians 5:22-23 NLT)

The Greek Scriptures that we commonly call the "New Testament" reveal God's story to restore Shalom through the work of Jesus, extended though the church.  While there are lots of moving parts of the narrative, and lots of literary devices employed in which to convey the primacy of THE STORY, it comes down to evil being discarded through love made visible.  Relationships healed, community restored, and the powers that separate, distort and destroy are banished.

"Shalom is an ancient Israeli construct concretizing practical loved to be expressed through structures and systems" --Randy S. Woodley in Decolonizing Evangelicalism

Shalom is a state of healthy community where relationships and processes are redeemed in love.  This is the essence of the Good News.  Jesus comes not only to reconcile individuals to God as is often preached, but to reconcile all creation to God and to one another.  Paraphrasing a description of Jesus' role and mission:

He was supreme in the beginning and — leading the resurrection parade — he is supreme in the end. From beginning to end he's there, towering far above everything, everyone.  So spacious is he, so roomy, that everything of God finds its proper place in him without crowding.  Not only that, but all the broken and dislocated pieces of the universe — people and things, animals and atoms — get properly fixed and fit together in vibrant harmonies, all because of his death, his blood that poured down from the Cross. (Colossians 1:18-20 MSG)

"Fitting together in vibrant harmonies" describes the vision that God has for all of creation.  Reconciliation and Restoration of Shalom are not products of the good news, but they are the good news.  The result of the gospel are communities developed around the person of Jesus, filled with God's Spirit who demonstrate the love of God in tangible ways.  The divisions based upon ethnicity, gender and class, which are crystallized and promoted in the world are not recognized in what Jesus called "the Kingdom of God" (Gal 3:28).  This is not saying that Jesus died to have colorblind, genderless, and economically homogeneous members, but that each  distinctive is not diminished but brought into community to develop an alternative way.  In the Kingdom of God, It is not only the people who are transformed, but as importantly, their relationships as well.

However, many churches, particularly in the United States, have often chosen a narrow gospel where Jesus dies solely so that you get to heaven after you have suffered through a meaningless life filled with pain and suffering.  Gone are the global and community aspect of reconciliation and restoration.  Forgotten is the concept of shalom.  Faith is reduced to consumerism as we respond to user centered gospel that sets us apart as an end to itself.

I have worked with many churches who recognize this more expansive gospel and God's Spirit begins to give them a passion to participate in this mission.  Often this vision stands in direct opposition to their reality.  More often churches find themselves in cultural, ethnically, and socially isolated enclaves with very little understanding of the way towards success.

Cultural Intelligence is the competency to effectively engage and function with other people who do not share common cultural paradigms and histories.  It is often measured looking at one's interest and knowledge of other cultures, as well as the ability to develop and implement a strategy that promotes cross cultural engagement and adaptation to community.  CQ, another word for Cultural Intelligence is a fantastic start but education on languages, customs, power dynamics, strategies and social identity will not get you across the room much less across the street or across town.

As Rev Curtiss Paul DeYoung states above, you need empathy and intimacy.  These are not things developed in the classroom, pews, or vacation Bible school.  Empathy is gained by listening.  Listening to the stories, experiences of others. Empathy allows you to gain interest and knowledge of the experiences and situations that affect those in your greater community.  You have not gained empathy if you do not feel compassion (literally, to suffer with) those who you are listening to.  

Intimacy is gained through time and transparency.  Intimacy is the development of trust that allows us to feel safe and truly commune with one another. Intimacy is developed in response to love.  Love is the manifestation of God's Spirit in us and through us.  Relationally, that Spirit guided love is expressed in what is called the '"fruit of the Spirit".  Notice in Galatians 5:22-24 above, that all of the descriptions of the fruit (not fruits) are relational terms.  It is difficult to be gentle or kind by yourself.   In other words, empathy and intimacy require proximity bathed in time within a posture of listening.  Resist determining the needs of those who are not present in your congregation before listening. Practice casting aside predesignated thoughts until you can develop relationships that will inform your ministry practices.  Reimagining your community where you are all better together.

This begins, when as a congregation you follow Jesus' leading to not only share the good news, but to demonstrate the good news.  The early church of ethnically, culturally, and socially diverse egalitarian (yes, men and women in leadership) communities understood themselves as a sign and a symbol of the Kingdom of God.  If God was reconciling all things to God and all people to one another, it should be seen in the people of God.  

We can ride the same wave of the Spirit by simply understanding the power of proximity and the intentional development in empathy and intimacy in community building.  Understanding that God desires to be glorified through a reconciled and a reconciling community.

"Biblical, radical reconciliation wants to bring us to the point where we learn to live, not just with the other--because we have no choice--but for the other--because that is our choice--where the peace among us is not just the absence of violence but the active presence of justice."  Allan Boesak and Curtiss Paul DeYoung in Radical Reconciliation