DISCIPLESHIP: "A Particular Spirituality"

St Gregory of Nyssa, SF

Reading the Beatitudes yesterday, in a community of courage, I was struck by the way Jesus uses juxtaposition to suggest a very particular kind of spirituality.  For instance, this: Blessed are the meek...the teachable, the coachable, those open to curiosity and growth.  And then, this: Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for justice...those who organize and mobilize for righteousness...those who agitate and congregate for a better world.  

So often, I've been stuck--with so many of you--on the odd, the unsatisfying dimensions of "meekness."  Where was he going with that?  Did he really have in mind a passive church, disciples who simply went along with prevailing mores and trends?

But these are not separate nuggets, these beatitudes, so much as an integrated path for life, for faith, for engagement.

You juxtapose "Blessed are the meek" with "Blessed are those who agitate"--and you get a very different vision.  You get a different kind of church.  Jesus suggests a spirituality open to change, open to learning, open to new possibilities.  And then he energizes that spirituality in movements for social justice, inter-communal peace and the commonwealth of abundance and equity.  In this sense--on the discipleship path--we are called to be curious students and bold advocates: open to the strange ways of the gospel, open to the countercultural teaching of Jesus, and then energized and organized in pursuit of liberation, friendship, celebration and justice.

It's a combination that stirs in me this morning, and a "particular spirituality" for the church in our time.

Blessings, my friends, for the journey to come!