2/5 Lectionary Notes, Pt. 3
More notes on resources related to a sermon on peacemaking in our local community...
Sidewalks in the Kingdom: New Urbanism and the Christian Faith, a book by Eric O. Jacobsen
In this book, Jacobsen makes a case for the idea that both our environment and our behavior in that environment can be shaped by faith principles. He draws on the ideas of a community development movement called New Urbanism, connecting principles such as human scale, walkable community and local economy with biblical and theological principles. He visits the theme that's prominent in Berry of seeing one's community, arguing that we need to learn a new way of looking at our built environment in order to determine whether it's the healthiest structure that could exist. There are several ways I see Jacobsen's work being drawn into a sermon about peacemaking in our community:
- He discusses the relationship between hospitality toward strangers and neighborliness. If we know our neighbors, they are no longer strangers. And if we know our neighbors are watching out for us and we for them, a stranger in the neighborhood is no longer a great threat and we can show hospitality with confidence.
- Engaging with local businesses for basic needs builds good relationships and multiplies the benefit of our dollars within our local community. We enter into one another's stories and strengthen our communities for future generations.
- Public spaces are important for the cultivation of relationships, fostering public discourse and realizing our interdependence. We do well to be intentional about time spent in public spaces, as well as advocating for their right use and development. Sidewalks are perhaps the most underrated public space, but they offer a place to run into friends and strangers, as well as safety for those who are not able to drive where they need to go.
"From Housing to Homemaking: Worldviews and the Shaping of a Home," a paper by Brian Walsh
Similar to Jacobsen's ideas about the relationship between the built environment and our behavior in that environment, Walsh's paper focuses on the interaction between worlddview and housing. He quotes Winston Churchill saying, "We shape our buildings and then our buildings shape us," meaning that our deepest values guide our personal and cultural decisions about our dwellings and then the actual dwelling shapes our values. Walsh observes:
Beyond the symbols with which we adorn our dwellings, it is important to note that diverse architectures, different terms of tenure, varied constructions of inside/outside, public/private dynamics, house size, building materials and location--all are symbolic of class, status, cultural identity, and most foundationally, worldview. An oversized house in the suburbs on an acre and a half lot with a three car garage may have the external and internal symbols of Judaism, Islam, Christianity or any other worldview, but the very structure of the house may well have more symbolic power and be more revelatory of the practiced worldview of its inhabitants than these more traditional symbols.
Essentially, our houses tell on us by betraying in which worlview we feel truly at home. Relevant to community peacemaking, if peace or right relationship is indeed a deep value, how is it reflected in our home? And if it's not reflected there, is it really integral to our identity? If we hope to make peace in our local communities, we should look at the very plot of land or dwelling we occupy to determine how we might begin within those boundaries to be at peace with our co-habitants, our natural environment, and the thousands--perhaps millions--of people with whom we are in relationship by virtue of the stuff that fills our homes: the artists, the farmers, the laborers, the factory workers, the grocery store clerks, etc.
"Creating Space for Strangers" by Henri Nouwen from Reaching Out: The Three Movements of the Spiritual Life
Fear, in large part, is what paralyzes us from the practical work of peacemaking; likewise, as Nouwen asserts in his passage on hospitality, fear limits our ability to be hospitable to friends and strangers alike. The theme passage for the series we'll be preaching during is Micah 4: 1-4. It contains a lovely vision for a world beyond fear:
They shall beat their swords into ploughshares,
and their spears into pruning-hooks;
nation shall not lift up sword against nation,
neither shall they learn war any more;
but they shall all sit under their own vines and under their own fig trees,
and no one shall make them afraid...
The opposite of hospitality is hostility, which is what we display when we feel we need to protect ourselves and our possessions (including doctrine, reputation and self-image) from the people around us who threaten our security. Hospitality, on the other hand,
means primarily the creation of a free space where the stranger can enter and become a friend instead of an enemy. Hospitality is not to change people, but to offer them space where change can take place. It is not to bring men and women over to our side, but to offer freedom not disturbed by dividing lines.... It is not a method of making our God and our way into the criteria for happiness, but the opening of an opportunity to others to find their God to create emptiness, not a fearful emptiness, but a friendly emptiness where strangers can enter and discover themselves as created free; free to sing their own songs, speak their own languages, dance their own dances; free also to leave and follow their own vocations. Hospitality is not a subtle invitation to adopt the lifestyle of the host, but the gift of a chance for the guest to find his own.
Hospitality, Nouwen ephasizes, is not limited to hosting people in one's home, but is an attitude that can be projected at all times, an attitude that invites people to be themselves and to change. He echoes David James Duncan's sentiment about the change we inspire by small actions:
We cannot change the world by a new plan, project or idea. We cannot even change other people by our convictions, stories, advice and proposals, but we can offer a space where people are encouraged to disarm themselves, to lay aside their occupations and preoccupations and to listen with attention and care to the voices speaking in their own center.
While we should not minimize the difficulty of being truly hospitable toward others, showing hospitality seems to be one of the most immediate and inexpensive things we can do to shift one more element of the human story a little bit more toward the peace of the Kingdom. I am reminded of my friend Jo Ann's idea that sometimes all we need to do is walk across the street and ask someone to tell us his or her story. She makes this comment relating to racial reconciliation, but I think it applies to all situations in which we're faced with someone who is different from ourselves. I am also reminded, sadly, of the news I heard today about certain church folks in Kansas who have been picketing soldiers' funerals because they say the deaths are a judgment against our country's tolerance of homosexuality. But if hospitality is the way of the Kingdom, such displays of hostility should sadden us, but not cause us to despair.