We live in echo chambers— this, people say, is one of the reasons our society is so divided. People who believe in a deep state conspiracy listen to those who tell them that, yes, they do. Those of us for whom Trump’s immorality seems obvious, listen to commentators who tell us we’re right. No wonder we seem to be speaking completely different languages, missing each other.
Christian monastics in earlier times, cloistered and often isolated as they were, saw the danger of the echo chamber; they taught that when a stranger knocked on the monastery door, they were to be welcomed into the heart of the community. As a stranger, an “other,” they could bring a word from outside, a word they needed to hear, in fact, even the voice of God.
It’s hard to imagine us today assuming that someone, say, coming to our denomination from one on the other end of the theological spectrum, would be welcomed as one to bring God’s word!
When I think of some of the most profound, challenging statements I’ve heard lately, I realize they have come from people who are very different from me. Here they are:
First: In Cape Town, we worshipped at a Pentecostal church in a slum which Spirit of the Wilderness supports financially. Towards the end of the four-hour, aerobic service, there was an altar call and five or six people came forward. Pastor Busi asked a young man to explain to the new converts what their conversion to Christ would mean. Bible study, he said, and prayer. Telling others about Christ and coming to worship. It was number five that knocked my socks off. “You need to share,” he said, himself very skinny and living in a slum, to the listeners who were skinny and living in a slum. “If you are at school or at work, Jesus calls you to look around, and if you see someone who has no lunch, go to that person, and share your lunch with them.” These young persons, just turning toward faith, were instructed in what would be required of them as followers of Jesus.
Would I share my lunch if I were underfed, mal-nourished, and unsure where my next meal was coming from?
Second: I teach at a church where the congregation is largely Hmong, most of them converted in refugee camps in Thailand. Recently I asked them to read the book of Ruth for our time together. I thought it would be interesting. They spent several hours talking about how the book spoke to their lives, from and within their cultural mores. Mother and daughter-in-law relationships; finding security when you are unprotected; your changing allegiance affecting your whole family and clan.
I had never had such an intense discussion about any book of the Bible, let alone a rather obscure Old Testament one. As they talked, I realized that these Hmong Christians deeply understood something I could only begin to fathom—the communal element of faith. I realized that Paul talks about this throughout his letters, about being transferred from one family to another in Christ; these people knew exactly what this meant from their own experience.
In both of these examples, the people who I was listening to were very different from me—practically the epitome of THE OTHER. Their upbringings, cultures, life circumstances varied deeply from mine, which was why they could teach me such profound truths.
I/you/we all need to find ways to be with and listen to “the other.” Where in our lives can we find these places?
Each month a member of the Cook County Ministerium will offer Spiritual Reflections. This month’s contributor is Mary Ellen Ashcroft, Vicar of Spirit of the Wilderness Episcopal Church.
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