Today, November 2, 2009, I was part of this inaugural event of the Diane and  Guilford Glazer Institute for Jewish Studies at  Pepperdine University in Malibu, CA . Over 400 people spent the day listening and interacting with Jewish, Muslim and Christian religious and political leaders. It was a fantastic event.

Here are some of the ideas I picked up during the day from the speakers and from participants. It will give you a flavor of the day. First, the title was intentional. It is not just about religious tolerance or even dialogue. It is about reconciliation. One spoke of this as a family reunion, and that is not Pollyanna. Family reunions are often difficult. We have hurt each other. Done things that have been destructive.  But we have also prospered with each other.

Swedish theologian Krister Stendahl once listed 3 rules for religious understanding. (1) When you are trying to understand another religion, you should ask the adherents of that religion and not its enemies. (2) Don’t compare your best to their worst. (3) Leave room for “holy envy.” (By this Stendahl meant that you should be willing to recognize elements in the other religious tradition or faith that you admire and wish could, in some way, be reflected in your own religious tradition or faith.)

Inter-religious dialogue does not mean that we leave our faith traditions particularities at the door. That only invokes a watered down, generic, sterile religion. Rather, we must bring our uniqueness to the conversation and celebrate it!  Rabbi Mark Diamond  of the Board of  Rabbis of Southern California spoke about seeking knowledge of the other tradition, understanding it, respecting it, having passion for your own tradition, and compassion for the other.

And along the way we need to approach our tradition, and the traditions of others with a sense of humility, and recognizing the oppositional identity we carry.

The most difficult part of the day was the panel with the Israeli Consul General and the Turkish Consul General. The conversation moved to the Israeli-Palestinian issue, and the Armenian Genocide. Quickly we were thrust into the arena of politics, involving land and people groups.  I realized that the only hope for reconciliation and peace for us–diverse faith traditions in the US, conflicts between peoples, disputes over land–will come from the faith traditions.

We need to talk to each other and learn from each other. We need to pray for each other.  We need to work together–maybe simply by creating an inter-faith soup kitchen. Or working together to eliminate homeless (Imagine LA does this!).We must work for the common good. We must work together to care for our neighbor–and we must broadly define who are neighbor is.  Our neighbor is the person next to us, or distanced from us, who, like us, is created in the image of God. As Rabbi David Wolpe reminded us–faith matters. Children of Abraham must celebrate and embrace our own faith traditions. And we must work together to repair the world.

This is a beautiful expression of the Christian faith from an African perspective. This creed was composed in 1960 by the Masai people of East Africa in collaboration with missionaries from the Congregation of the Holy Ghost. The creed attempts to express the essentials of the Christian faith within the Masai culture. Jaroslav Pelikan, a modern scholars of creeds and their history, considers the Masai Creed to be an excellent example of the bringing together of universal faith and local experience. It speaks wonderfully to us today.

We believe in the one High God, who out of love created the beautiful world and everything good in it. He created Man and wanted Man to be happy in the world. God loves the world and every nation and tribe on the Earth. We have known this High God in darkness, and now we know Him in the light. God promised in the book of His word, the Bible, that He would save the world and all the nations and tribes.

We believe that God made good His promise by sending His Son, Jesus Christ, a man in the flesh, a Jew by tribe, born poor in a little village, who left His home and was always on safari doing good, curing people by the power of God, teaching about God and man, showing the meaning of religion is love. He was rejected by his people, tortured and nailed hands and feet to a cross, and died. He lay buried in the grave, but the hyenas did not touch him, and on the third day, He rose from the grave. He ascended to the skies. He is the Lord.

We believe that all our sins are forgiven through Him. All who have faith in Him must be sorry for their sins, be baptized in the Holy Spirit of God, live the rules of love and share the bread together in love, to announce the Good News to others until Jesus comes again. We are waiting for Him. He is alive. He lives. This we believe. Amen.

It is not easy to pastor a church. Eugene Peterson describes the church as mysterious and messy. The mystery of the church is often overshadowed by the messiness of the church that we encounter on a regular basis. So Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s statement in Life Together always shocks me and humbles me:

Pastors should not complain about their congregations, certainly never to other people, but also not to God. A congregation has not been entrusted to them in order that they should become its accuser before God and others.

The only church we know is the local church found in a neighborhood.  The only church we know is the mysterious and messy church made up of people with depth and maturity, and those who have many miles to walk on that journey.  This local congregation is the people of God, the body of Christ, and the temple of the Spirit.   This local church is the one that has been entrusted to teams of pastors and lay leaders.

Pastors start complaining, not without good reason. The work becomes burdensome. The hours are long. The accomplishments are sometimes difficult to see. The criticisms flood in. Still, pastors are called to task of faithful service.  Pastors are to ambitious for the gospel, not in a hyper-productive, success driven sense, but rather pastors are called to nurture a congregational environment where the presence and power of God might be manifested among the people leading to a missional vocation in the world. This local church will be characterized by beauty and vitality and flourishing, not by destructive habits, corruption or mediocrity.

The task towards congregational renewal does not rest solely on pastors. Rather, it is the call of the entire congregation, guided by the Spirit, to discern the movements of the Spirit and then to obediently follow. Still, it is the responsibility of pastors to humbly and joyfully tend to and draw a congregation towards greater fruitfulness.  Pastors, church leaders,  don’t get to complain.  Pastors enter into service anew, strengthened by the Lord, and yearning for extra measures of patience, and grace.

Here is an insightful little quiz from Leadership Journal

We certainly can look at ministry from a number of different vantage points.

http://www.christianitytoday.com/le/buildingleaders/ministrystaff/determineyourministryage.html

Jim Belcher, author of Deep Church: A Third Way beyond Traditional and Emerging will be speaking at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena on Tuesday October 13th. The lecture/book signing will be in the new David Allan Hubbard Library on the Pasadena campus (135 North Oakland Avenue) at 4:00 pm.

Jim’s book has been well received and advances the discussion of how to be the church in contemporary American society.  President Richard Mouw will lead a Question and Answer segment.

If you are in the area, please come. For more information contact me at KurtF@fuller.edu

Belcher Flier