Dear Saints in Santa Fe and other far-off places,
Greetings in the name of Jesus Christ, who sought to break the cycles of violence and injustice.
These are tough times for growing the Beloved Community.
The now week-long war between Hamas and Israel is yet another reminder of humanity’s horrifying inhumanity to each other. The world is not at a loss for words, everyone seems to have an opinion, but the loudest voices seem bent on exacting more violence where even more people will suffer and be killed.
I was in a conversation with a rabbi earlier this week and he mentioned the generational trauma people have suffered, going back through the New and Old Testaments and farther still, and how hard that cycle is to break.
Enter, then, the Beloved Community, a phrase that traces itself back to the early 20th century and practiced long before that. Jesus built it, inspired it, led it, preached it. Gandhi, Bonhoeffer, Mandela, King, and others practiced it, and we are still trying to imagine it today.
The Beloved Community is a cycle-breaker, not a marketing tool or a catchy slogan, nor is it to be used for any purpose other than to lift us to a higher vision and version of humanity. It is a practice here and now, not in some hoped-for future, in which people of different backgrounds recognize that our “individual well-being is inextricably linked to the well-being of others, including those we consider ‘the other.’ It is a society based on justice, equal opportunity, empathy, and love.” (Adam Russell Taylor, A More Perfect Union, pp. 6-7).
I am not seeing a whole lot of that today, and certainly not hearing much about it as Israel and the world gathers its response. This could be a huge moment to break the cycle of violence, retribution, and ancient grievances. It is never easy to be part of the Beloved Community, let alone grow it, but as John Dear writes in his book The Nonviolent Life, “With every choice and action for nonviolence, we begin a new era in human history. This new age will be rooted in the best of spirituality, theology, and morality, the best in all of us for all of us.” (By the way, John Dear will be preaching this February 4th at our church as he shares his new book, The Gospel of Peace.)
And perhaps this new age is also rooted in the church. What might we do? Practice being part of the Beloved Community every day. In everything we do. In every conversation we have. Share its vision with your family and your community. When someone says violence is just the way life is, our default button, challenge this common assumption.
This Sunday we will be talking about community, the Beloved Community and our own, and will be holding a Congregational Life Fair in the Lobby and Chapel to acquaint you better with all our various ministries, and opportunities for new ones. Check it out. Sign up for one, or more. Join others. Break old cycles where it is easy to not get involved.
For if we are to truly do our part in Growing the Beloved Community, of breaking cycles, and living out nonviolence, it will take a different way of thinking, a different way of living, a different way of looking at the world, not where violence continues to reign supreme and seldom unopposed, but where our well-being is linked with the well-being of others, in Israel, Palestine, and right here where we live.
Grace and peace,
Harry