Yesterday I focused on an article written by Catholic Sister Christine Schenk. Her title mentioned the Brazilian Liberation Theologian Leonardo Boff, whom I had read some three decades ago. Boff was influenced by the charismatic movement that played a significant role in the Brazilian Church---Catholic and Protestant alike. Schenk sees how Boff’s position challenges the clerical, hierarchical structure of the Catholic Church. Because Quakers have a very different kind of organizational structure than Catholics, I don’t want to enter the fray of Catholic ways of understanding the historical, visible church.
I am intrigued by some of Schenk’s points and how those points help me think about community, which has been an important theme of my understanding of how humans gather in groups to worship God and try to live out together and individually. Part of my foundational assumptions about humans and God is the relationship is not just one-on-one. It is never just God and me. I think it is more triangle: God, me and us. An individual pilgrimage with God makes no sense to me if there is not also a communal dimension. Humans are by nature relational---we need others to be truly and fully ourselves.
Schenk begins her reflections by noting that Boff offers our contemporary times a “a new moment of grace.” Surely, the current situation in so many churches---Catholic, to be sure, but much more than their churches---calls for some grace. There have been abuses of power, lack of listening and communication and other maladies. It is too easy simply to dismiss all this as “just sin.” While it is that, to name it does not address it or grow from it. That is what grace allows.
As an individual, I know for sure that grace is necessary if I am to make any progress in the spiritual adventure called life. I need the help of God and others. That is where community is so important to me. A community can be gracious, just as God offers grace. But grace is not just a “get out of jail” card. Grace is a balm that allows healing to take place. Healing occurs in many ways and in many situations. And grace is always a part of that healing process.
Healing should always lead to wholeness. I am fine to call wholeness a kind of salvation, but I do prefer the language of healing. To follow Schenk’s reasoning is to understand that she did a graduate degree in the 1990s and focused her research on Boff. She gave particular attention to his 1981 book, Church: Charism and Power. Charism is not a word I heard when I was growing up. But I have learned it means a “gift.” It is not a Catholic word; it is a spiritual word and we are all recipients of God’s charisms. And I would add, charism is the root of our word, charismatic---typically indicating a “spirit-filled” person.
We get into Schenk’s reflections when we read these words. “For Boff, the church is the sacrament of the Holy Spirit, and since the Spirit is given to all of the people of God, one could ask what organizational or jurisdictional structures function best for releasing the Spirit's gifts on behalf of the reign of God?” I like Boff’s thoughts, too. I appreciate his notion that the church is the sacrament of the Holy Spirit. A sacrament is a “visible sign of an invisible reality.” And so the church as sacrament means the church is the visible sign of God’s invisible gift of the Spirit or even of God’s very Presence.
I prefer to substitute the word, community, for the word, church. This means that I see community as potentially a sacrament. It is not automatic. The community has to be open and receptive to becoming God’s grace. And the community has to be willing to host the Presence of the Holy One. And really, the community is us---we the people of God. Certainly, priests, bishops, pastors and other leaders are included. But the church is the people. That’s why I think community is at stake.
No doubt I like much of what Boff has to say because it resonates with my own sense of how God chooses to be present in people---individually and collectively. This means that we should see the church as the place where all people are given charisms---gifts. Certainly being a priest and leader requires a gift. But the church is full of gifted people. If we can see charisms as a kind of democratic distribution of God’s gifts, then this leads to an understanding of the community as a gathering of gifted people.
This makes all kinds of ministries possible. Following Boff, Schenk’s appeal is basically for us to know and trust the Spirit. Allow that Spirit of God to so some new things. Of course, this will mean change. Listen to her concluding words. “The Spirit knows what s/he is about. As perhaps never before, it is time for us to act, and to trust her.”
I trust the Spirit knows what it is about. After all, the Spirit is God’s Presence at work in our world. I see this as the ongoing creation of the world and ourselves. We are continually being made new creatures, as the Apostle Paul puts it. To know, love and live out our lives in the Spirit is not just a solitary spiritual pilgrimage. As Dietrich Bonhoeffer put it in the early 1940s before being killed by the Nazis, our spiritual life is a “life together.”
That is why community is at stake.
I am intrigued by some of Schenk’s points and how those points help me think about community, which has been an important theme of my understanding of how humans gather in groups to worship God and try to live out together and individually. Part of my foundational assumptions about humans and God is the relationship is not just one-on-one. It is never just God and me. I think it is more triangle: God, me and us. An individual pilgrimage with God makes no sense to me if there is not also a communal dimension. Humans are by nature relational---we need others to be truly and fully ourselves.
Schenk begins her reflections by noting that Boff offers our contemporary times a “a new moment of grace.” Surely, the current situation in so many churches---Catholic, to be sure, but much more than their churches---calls for some grace. There have been abuses of power, lack of listening and communication and other maladies. It is too easy simply to dismiss all this as “just sin.” While it is that, to name it does not address it or grow from it. That is what grace allows.
As an individual, I know for sure that grace is necessary if I am to make any progress in the spiritual adventure called life. I need the help of God and others. That is where community is so important to me. A community can be gracious, just as God offers grace. But grace is not just a “get out of jail” card. Grace is a balm that allows healing to take place. Healing occurs in many ways and in many situations. And grace is always a part of that healing process.
Healing should always lead to wholeness. I am fine to call wholeness a kind of salvation, but I do prefer the language of healing. To follow Schenk’s reasoning is to understand that she did a graduate degree in the 1990s and focused her research on Boff. She gave particular attention to his 1981 book, Church: Charism and Power. Charism is not a word I heard when I was growing up. But I have learned it means a “gift.” It is not a Catholic word; it is a spiritual word and we are all recipients of God’s charisms. And I would add, charism is the root of our word, charismatic---typically indicating a “spirit-filled” person.
We get into Schenk’s reflections when we read these words. “For Boff, the church is the sacrament of the Holy Spirit, and since the Spirit is given to all of the people of God, one could ask what organizational or jurisdictional structures function best for releasing the Spirit's gifts on behalf of the reign of God?” I like Boff’s thoughts, too. I appreciate his notion that the church is the sacrament of the Holy Spirit. A sacrament is a “visible sign of an invisible reality.” And so the church as sacrament means the church is the visible sign of God’s invisible gift of the Spirit or even of God’s very Presence.
I prefer to substitute the word, community, for the word, church. This means that I see community as potentially a sacrament. It is not automatic. The community has to be open and receptive to becoming God’s grace. And the community has to be willing to host the Presence of the Holy One. And really, the community is us---we the people of God. Certainly, priests, bishops, pastors and other leaders are included. But the church is the people. That’s why I think community is at stake.
No doubt I like much of what Boff has to say because it resonates with my own sense of how God chooses to be present in people---individually and collectively. This means that we should see the church as the place where all people are given charisms---gifts. Certainly being a priest and leader requires a gift. But the church is full of gifted people. If we can see charisms as a kind of democratic distribution of God’s gifts, then this leads to an understanding of the community as a gathering of gifted people.
This makes all kinds of ministries possible. Following Boff, Schenk’s appeal is basically for us to know and trust the Spirit. Allow that Spirit of God to so some new things. Of course, this will mean change. Listen to her concluding words. “The Spirit knows what s/he is about. As perhaps never before, it is time for us to act, and to trust her.”
I trust the Spirit knows what it is about. After all, the Spirit is God’s Presence at work in our world. I see this as the ongoing creation of the world and ourselves. We are continually being made new creatures, as the Apostle Paul puts it. To know, love and live out our lives in the Spirit is not just a solitary spiritual pilgrimage. As Dietrich Bonhoeffer put it in the early 1940s before being killed by the Nazis, our spiritual life is a “life together.”
That is why community is at stake.
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