A God that Draws Near

August 29, 2021 • 13th Sunday after Pentecost
Scripture Reading: Romans 14:13-17 (adapted from the New Revised Standard Version)
Pastor Alexis Lillie

[You can view the worship video recording, including this message, at: Facebook.com/churchofthevillage/videos.]

You may have noticed: We have been talking a lot about Process and Relational Theology. I would define this as a way of viewing what God is up to in the world, not from the perspective of authoritarianism – where a distant god controls or directs – but from a perspective of a presence that is affected by creation and is calling all the created order into a relationship that is most loving and just for all involved.

As with any way of trying to "make sense" of God, there are many ways of understanding and interpreting Process Theology, and this theology itself is only one lens! There are many ways of doing this work of "making sense" of God. Of course, we will never arrive, and that is, sort of, the point. And what I want to talk about today.

Many in this community, myself included, are working our way out of beliefs and practices that were harmful to us. We are trying to find new lenses and concepts that resonate more fully with who we are, how we experience the world. Even if this particular struggle is not our story, we are all, hopefully, on a journey of discovery. A journey to uncover beliefs and practices that are in line with who we are becoming.

This is so, so crucial: that we are all becoming, and this becoming is influencing how we are understanding God. Because we are becoming, we have not arrived! And, there's no such thing as arriving at the "right" theology anyway!

Process - or any theology - is not this thing that we get to and stay there. That mentality leads to stagnation, calcification, even arrogance in thinking that we have it figured out.

And that posture is antithetical to Process itself! We are called to this constant cycle of renewal and discovery. So, it is so important that we are not using our current understanding (Process or not) to judge our own past beliefs and experiences - or others' belief and practice, and where they are on their journey.

Our scripture today speaks to this. The background here is that there's some sort of conflict in the early Christ communities, around people who are different stages of their faith, and who are subsequently eating different things. There’s speculation about how this disagreement started, but scholars aren't really sure.

The bottom line is: don't pass judgment on - or make it difficult for - people who are working out their faith and practice in a loving way. Because, Paul argues, Christ is the original source of welcome and tolerance, for people in all places in their self-development

Ironically, much of Christian history has been concerned with earlier chapters of Romans which deal with determining who is “in and out.” Yet right here there is a dialectic – a different viewpoint – which, ironically, is that we need to have tolerance for different viewpoints!!

Scholars call this emphasis on tolerance an "ethic of solidarity" or an "ethic of mutuality," which, true to the work of Christ in the world, stands in contrast with Roman system, or any system, of hierarchy.

This passage, and so many other places, emphasize that love is the rule. The use of freedom to harm others, or to shame them, or judge them, is an infraction of love. It is wrong to do something permissible by your own faith, your own conscience, but not act in love.

This passage emphasizes that, as you encounter new experiences, as you are influenced by the people you spend time with, as your understanding expands, your beliefs will and should evolve. When they do, use love as your guide when you come into contact with people who believe differently.

And by extension I think we can add, use love as your guide when considering your OWN past beliefs! Keep in mind that righteousness and peace and joy in the spirit are what we are to be pointing toward, not to factions and dissent and judgment.

So yes, I value what Process and Relational Theology has taught, and continues to teach, me. But I don’t solely ascribe to it or hold it up as the end-point of a theological quest, or think others should arrive at that point too. Partly because I am extending love to myself for the many stages I have gone through and what I trust will be many more stages to come.

While still extending love to all previous versions of myself who believed what I believed at various moments in time, I want to share something that has been helpful in my own progression away from an authoritarian, distanced view of God, and toward one that I believe at this juncture points more justly and peacefully and joyfully toward love.

What has helped me greatly in that progression is actually four things in one thing called the "Wesleyan Quadrilateral."

The idea of the Quadrilateral is that, as we navigate the evolution of our belief and practice, we do so with four things in mind as a lens to filter new ideas and experiences through: Scripture, tradition, reason, and experience.

This was hugely freeing for me; I had been raised with another churchy term "sola scriptura" - to believe that "scripture alone" was the lens that mediated all other experience. Of course, that's not really possible! But I was taught that as much as possible, I was to check all other ways of knowing and understanding and view anything I was experiencing in my life only through the lens of scripture. And, through a very narrow interpretive lens to begin with.

There are lots of reasons why I came to find this faulty, not the least of which is scripture doesn't exist in a vacuum!

And utilizing this Wesleyan Quadrilateral framework which included scripture, but also prioritized my lived experience, my reasoning capabilities, and the Jesus tradition I was claiming, liberated me to explore ways of belief that practice that resonated more authentically with my journey of becoming. And to not feel like as I’m growing as a person, my theology has to stay stuck. Or that I have to stay stuck to accommodate a stagnant theology.

To say that each of these things – scripture, tradition, reason, and experience – have value in discerning how our faith journey shifts and changes, feels so much more holistic and even relational.

Even as I'm explaining how I've found an expansive way of discerning belief and practice, it is hard to fight the arrogance that "now I've arrived" at the right way of thinking about things. It is admittedly really hard for me not to caveat and judge some of the stops I've made in my theological journey along the way. It is difficult not to bitterly denigrate the authoritarian view of God I was handed.

But here again, I think this passage helps us. It is not at all saying that all beliefs are created equal. It’s saying that our belief and practice needs to prioritize love as the work of pointing toward righteousness and peace and joy.

I think we absolutely can and should judge theologies by this metric – it's when we give into the temptation of judging people that this passage speaks to us as well and tells us that we may need to refocus our sights on prioritizing love.

In the spirit of an ever-evolving theology, and in taking scripture, tradition, reason, and experience seriously, this is what I would add to Wesley's Quadrilateral (Penta-lateral?) ... LOVE.

It is an important heuristic, that we see time and time again, and in this passage here.

It is my hope for this community and us individually, that we are continually evolving our belief and practice, using whatever tools help us to filter and evaluate what we come in contact with. And using love especially as our guide.

To this end, may we continue our communal journey of extending love toward one another, trusting we are all faithfully working to point toward righteousness and peace and joy.

And may we extend all the former versions of ourselves the same love and tolerance Christ demonstrates for us, and calls us to demonstrate for one another.

(c) 2021 Alexis Lillie
All rights reserved.