Midweek Faith Lift
March 6, 2019
Invite Me In
Rev. Deb Hill-Davis
We are embarking on a 5-week “Everything Is Better With Friends” program developed and adapted by Gordon Keyler, Field Licensing candidate and spiritual leader at Unity of Joplin, Missouri. He adapted these materials from a program developed by our more evangelical friends as they have been doing this for many, many years. We, in Unity, do not generally have programs for inviting people to our church, we seem to want to be more like movie stars….we want to “be discovered.” Well, that may have worked in the past, but in 2019, we really don’t want to wait that long! We are challenged to get over our shyness about asking a friend to Unity. How did you discover Unity of Ames? And more importantly, what is it that kept you coming back?
In the current cultural climate, in what we call race consciousness, there is an epidemic of loneliness and a prevailing sense of disconnection from one another. We have instant connections and a host of “contacts” and numerous Facebook “friends,” but who is it that we have a heart connection with that has made a real difference in our lives? That is worth thinking about as we embark on this “Everything Is Better With Friends” experience. This program is about getting ready to ask a friend to come with you to Unity Church of Ames. Why in the world would you do that? What part of friendship does this spiritual community bring into your life? Who do you look forward to seeing each week when you get here?
Su and Clark and Nancy have been talking about friendship for the past three Sundays and they have each shared a unique perspective on the energy of friendship. My heartfelt thanks goes to each one of them for sharing their understanding of the path of friendship. It is such a unique journey for each one of us, this journey of friendship, with a lot of unexpected twists and turns. For many of us, our pets are our best friend, because they listen without judgment to whatever we say and they watch what we do, responding with unconditional love, except for cats, maybe!
It is truly a joy when the energy shifts and your relationship with your parents becomes a friendship of adult mutual respect, appreciation and love. I had that with my dad, by the grace of God and the power of Forgiveness. It is no coincidence that the Feb. 2 Daily Word, the day he died, was “Forgiveness.” The same is true with your children, when they grow into a maturity that becomes a deep friendship. Siblings can grow out of rivalry and become true friends; my dad wanted that very much for my sister and me, and we have managed to do that, at least that is our intention. So far we seem to be about to catch ourselves when we lapse into old patterns.
One of life’s greatest blessings is when your spouse or life partner is truly your best friend. That is the person who sees you at your best and your worst and loves you anyway, warts and all! Talk about a Divine/human experience! I am incredibly fortunate to have that kind of friendship with Todd and I am deeply grateful. As he says to me frequently, “I love you incessantly!” At first that sounded kind of annoying, but now I have learned to listen for it and I feel comforted by it!
I have been talking a lot about how family can become friends. In these past three weeks, as I walked the path of releasing my dad to the next phase of his journey beyond this life, it became abundantly clear to me how much this spiritual community means to me and how friends come to feel like family. You are all truly my spiritual family and I am so grateful for all of you.
When I was sitting with my dad in his final hours, singing to him and holding his hand, your energy gave oxygen to my voice. When I was full to the brim and overflowing with human emotion, your loving prayers sustained me and again gave oxygen to my prayers. When I was so caught up in the endless details of all the planning, your kind words, messages and flowers gave sustenance to my soul, a balm to my heart and once again, oxygen to my prayers. When I needed very practical help, like putting the program together for Dad’s Memorial Service, Lizmari was there for me and did it the very next day.
If you recall, we started this year, calling it Flight 2019, with the recognition that if needed, you reach for the oxygen mask and pull down a prayer. What I have realized in these past weeks is that there are times when you need someone else to put oxygen to that prayer. What I experienced during this past three weeks is that when you need it most, when you are too tired and spent to do anything more, it is your friends, your spiritual community who put the oxygen into your prayers and send that loving energy that sustains you. That is why we are here, on this spiritual path called Unity of Ames, together learning how to be present for each other and to “put oxygen to our prayers.” That is why it matters that you are here, and why I believe we need to invite others to also be here.
In the “olden days” Unity attracted a large following by being “more fun than the Lutherans and Presbyterians, less guilt inducing than the Catholics or Jews, more forgiving than the Methodists, less formal than the Episcopalians and more accepting and less dogmatic” than almost any other mainline Christian group. Those were the olden days and that is pretty much no longer true as all the mainline denominations have evolved in consciousness. Today’s mantra is “I am spiritual but not religious.” Seekers want a spiritual experience, they don’t want to be saved or even enlightened. So in this era of “None” being the most rapidly expanding denomination, what do we here at Unity offer?
Well, after this past few weeks, it is clearer than ever what it is we offer here at Unity Church of Ames. We offer a path of living in love, with integrity in a consciousness of our sense of belonging here, in oneness with each other, in prayer, in the energy of collaboration, of inclusion, transformation and abundance, our 6 Points of Light. All the research about church growth indicates that it happens because of person-to-person contact. It happens because someone has made a connection of some kind and been invited into the experience of a spiritual community. Here is how it looks to the guy who is waiting to be asked:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WjhTa0bK3iY
While our thoughts are powerful, we do not think ourselves into a new way of living; but we live ourselves into a new way of thinking. I’m not suggesting that theory and theology are unimportant; but I believe that faith is more about how we live on a daily basis than making verbal assent to this or that idea. It is not what we believe, it is what we “belove” what we give our hearts to. Truly living the spiritual path is not about doctrines or precepts, it is about learning how to live in alignment with spiritual Truth. My life’s work in many ways has been to make real what it means to truly “Follow Jesus” in a way that is at the level of actual experience and lifestyles that are an alternative to our consumer culture and race consciousness. That is what we offer here at Unity of Ames.
This is how it was stated in Richard Rohr’s reflection, Jan. 22, 2019, as he says the following:
Shane Claiborne--an Evangelical I deeply respect—invites us to quite literally follow Jesus:
Over the past few decades, our Christianity has become obsessed with what Christians believe rather than how Christians live. We talk a lot about doctrines but little about practice. But in Jesus we don’t just see a presentation of doctrines but an invitation to join a movement that is about demonstrating God’s goodness to the world.
This kind of doctrinal language infects our language when we say things like, “Are you a believer?” Interestingly, Jesus did not send us into the world to make believers but to make disciples [see Matthew 28:18-20]. You can worship Jesus without doing the things he says. We can believe in him and still not follow him. In fact, there’s a passage in Corinthians that says, “If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing” (1 Corinthians 13:1-3, author’s paraphrase). At times our evangelical fervor has come at the cost of spiritual formation. For this reason, we can end up with a church full of believers, but followers of Jesus can be hard to come by.
One of the reasons that Francis of Assisi is so beloved is that he followed Jesus so closely. In Shane’s words:
Francis did something simple and wonderful. He read the Gospels where Jesus says, “Sell your possessions and give the money to the poor,” [Matthew 19:21] “Consider the lilies and the sparrows and do not worry about tomorrow,” [Luke 12:24, 27] “Love your enemies,” [Matthew 5:44] and he decided to live as if Jesus meant the stuff he said. Francis turned his back on the materialism and militarism of his world and said yes to Jesus.
That is why we want to invite people to join us here at Unity Church of Ames; we are saying yes to Jesus, to really following him and creating a Beloved Community that is a lived reality that we experience with each other each day and each week. It is kind of like the new motto for our neighboring state, “Nebraska, It’s not for everybody.” Unity is not for everybody either, but if it is for you, the day you walk in is the day you know you are “spiritually home.” Who is it you want to invite in?
Blessings on the Path,
Rev. Deb