Previous Post – Blessed Are…

Yesterday, someone asked me to talk about how Little Flowers Community came to be.  Specifically, they were interested in what the name meant to us.  As I always tell people, there are three core meanings.  First, because of our Franciscan emphasis, it is partially inspired by “The Little Flowers of St. Francis”, a collection of stories about the saints life.  Second, the image of a small flower sprouting through a crack in the concrete represented our hope- to be a small presence of life & beauty in the brokenness of our inner city neighbourhood.  The third reason comes from an analogy we use to explore what it looks like to relate to questions about believing, behaving & belonging.  The following is edited from a previous post:

When wrestling with the challenges of welcome, inclusion, etc., inevitably someone asks the question, “Ok, but where do we draw the line?”

This question all too often leaves me frustrated, as though we were asking the wrong question.  This is not to say that the underlying concern of this question is not important.  I do believe that inclusion and embrace inevitably must have boundaries.  The question, though, is how and where and what is involved in setting those boundaries in place.  All too often we feel we have to start with a line, start with a set of deal-breakers which people have to adhere to (or at least acknowledge) before they can meaningfully belong to the community of faith.  I think this goes against the heart of how Jesus embodied these dynamics.

When asked to explain it another way at the conference, I decided to try and communicate through an analogy.  The following is what I came up with on the spot.  Now, before we start taking this to extremes, I acknowledge that this is an imperfect analogy in many ways, but it provides a simply touchstone (icon, if you will) into the deeper dynamics.  So bear with me.

In Mark 9, when Jesus responds to the man whose son was being tormented by an evil spirit, the man declares, “I do believe; help my unbelief.”  Here we see a person who clearly believes in Christ and His authority to heal his son.  Yet he also acknowledges that he needs to be saved from his unbelief.  To me this is the mustard seed, the seed of belief.  Belief as seed says a great deal- it is a tiny medium of promise and potential.  It holds within it the potential for something far great than itself.  A seed on its own is nothing.  A seed must be planted.

Often it is here that we presume that belief plants itself in our hearts, and while there is an element of truth there, the soil in which seed of belief will sprout new life in Christ.  Like a seed, we must die to our sin-isolated selves before we can spring to new life in Christ.  Here is where the shift in our thinking takes place, because again we are prone to look at our salvation in Christ through purely individualistic terms.  Rather, Jesus has (by the Holy Spirit) made the Church His Body.  Therefore, it is in the soil of belonging in the embrace of true community that the seed of belief can be reborn to new life.  Unless that seed has the life-giving, life-sustaining soil in which to plant, we cannot expect it transform.

As the seed of belief does sprout new life in the soil of belonging, it begins to be shaped DNA inherent in the seed.  It is being raised into the image of the resurrected Christ while also being restored to its intended nature of being created in God’s image.  It spreads its roots in the soil of belonging and sprouts into the world as the flower it was meant to be.  As clumsy as the term might sound, here I call this the flower of behaviour.  The flower acts and grows and reproduces according to its nature (again Christ).  It did not have to behave like a flower into order to belong, but rather it was only able to be a flower after it had been embraced, rooted and nurtured in the context of belonging.

So where are the boundaries?  Unlike seeds and flowers, our free will means that we do make choices that go against the intentions of God, that our behaviour doesn’t reflect the DNA of Christ reborn within us.  However, this understanding teaches us that the for new life to be born, we have to accept a degree of uncertainty when embracing people with “unflowered” belief.  Jesus did not teach us that we need to examine each seed before we plant it, He said we will know the nature of the seed by the nature of the fruit it produces.  This demands that we allow fruit to be produced first.  This is risky.  This is messy.  This is complicated.  It is necessary.

Further, this forces us to realize that the nature and quality of the soil should be one of first and primary concerns.  So often we spend so much time and energy requiring behaviour of people before they can be accepted into our communities.  Rather, we must be looking to the planks in our own eyes (or the weeds, in this case), not only for our own sakes, but for the sake of the delicate seeds of belief that are seeking to take root among us.  Rather than purity-police trying to protect the integrity of what is ours, we need to see it as mothers protecting and nurturing the vulnerable new life within us.  We bear the greater responsibility at this stage.  It is our behaviour that must be held to a high standard.

I cannot help but think of the story of the woman caught in adultery who was brought for Jesus for judgment.  By the letter of the law of Moses this woman had legitimately “crossed the line”.  Her exclusion from the community was so clear that it allowed for absolute exclusion- death.  And yet Jesus does not exclude her- don’t miss how critical that is as a first response- but rather stoops down and begins to draw in the dirt.  Then He turns to the accusers- again addressing the sin of the believers before the sinner- and invites him without sin to cast the first stone, then returns to the dirt.  When He stands up again, He see that He and the woman are alone.  He asks her if no one accuses her, to which she replies that there is no one.  Then Jesus says, “Neither do I condemn you”- Jesus is the only man who could have rightfully condemned her, yet He does not- then says, “Go and sin no more”.  It is here, at the end of this process that Jesus finally address behaviour.  He knows that her behaviour is more likely to be transformed by His loving defense (at His own real risk) and embrace than through fear of the the judgment of the law, legitimate as it may be.

Where do we draw the line?  Sometimes, when I read the story of Jesus and this woman, I imagine that when Jesus stoops down that He was drawing a line in the sand.  He drew a line in the sand between the accusers and the woman.  And He stood on her side of the line.

Where do we draw the line?  Why do we draw the line?

I explore this topic in more detail in my upcoming book, “The Cost of Community: Jesus, St. Francis & Life in the Kingdom” (IVPress/Likewise Books).  Pre-order today!