by Lynn C. Ramshaw

It was the afternoon of the second Saturday of a stressful church convention. Hundreds of clergy and lay delegates had been called to elect a new bishop. Everything seemed oppressive. Perhaps we had forgotten our call or who called us.

We certainly had become less than loving in our exchanges about who should lead us for the next several years. Our discussions focused on which man stood for which political position within the church, which one was the better administrator, what did each one think about the ordination of women (that was the issue at the time), which one would be charismatic enough to draw more people into our churches, maybe, even, which one could we influence more easily. But whatever we were thinking and talking about, listening for God’s voice did not seem to be a priority. We were politicking, not praying.

After a break, we were restlessly milling around the cathedral, wondering what would happen next. Surely my choice would assert himself somehow. Of course, if the other one said anything impressive, he would be manipulative; if my man said something creative, he would be holy. We were all thinking and talking that way when an unexpected quiet began to settle over us. I could not imagine why; no one had called us to order.

I went to my place and sat. Then I saw, and knelt down, surprised. The two finalists, known for their strong opposition to one another, one (supposedly) very traditional, the other said to be very liberal, were kneeling side by side in front of the resplendent high altar. They were in prayer. Together. Humbly kneeling, opening themselves to the guidance of God. That may have been the most important action either of them ever took. By kneeling and praying, they brought us all back to our reason for being: The church, at every level, from tiny congregation to national gathering to international communion, is called to the unique work of seeking, praising, and proclaiming God by being communities who love, not by fighting for our preferred theological or political or social positions. Following God as loving community is our purpose, our reason for being, and our giftedness. Sadly, we sometimes forget...

DYSFUNCTION (and Love)
...so God’s love among us gets messy. We gather into congregations of various shapes and sizes, always to be the Body of Christ. Because we are human, we waver between times of creative ministry and times of tension, between dysfunction (not being who we are created to be) and love (being exactly who we are created to be). Like Apostle Paul, we sometimes "do the things we would not do" even as we are deeply committed to lives of prayer and service. How do we break that tension, when it occurs, and return to the creativity to which we are called?

First, we need to recognize when we are dysfunctional, and then we need to re-commit ourselves to congregational life that more closely resembles communities hospitable to God, to our neighbors (whomever God calls to be among us), and to ourselves. Anne Wilson Schaef and Diane Fassel, in The Addictive Organization (1988), described some characteristics of dysfunctional organizational relationships. Not all are named in this article, just enough to get us started. Writing some 14 centuries earlier, Benedict of Nursia, in his Rule of Life, provided direction for living in a community committed to Jesus Christ. Although his three vows are identified separately here, they are intertwined. They can undergird the development of faithful, vibrant, and hospitable community...

CONFUSION (and Obedience)
...in our congregations. Our churches regularly experience changes in leadership, clergy and lay. We often face limited financial resources. We try to balance multiple outreach, education, building, and worship expenses. When too much tension and not enough communication arise between us, we become confused. Confusion is a primary characteristic of dysfunction, and can move us into division rather than discussion, or inaction rather than ministry. It may be because, like those finalists for bishop, some of us are "traditional" in our faith and others more "liberal." We know that labels are misleading, but we might start to use them anyway. In our effort to clarify our identity and purpose, we pull apart and dig in our heels. Our behavior toward one another begins to deteriorate. We lose our sense of ethical and spiritual wholeness; that is, all the shoulds become idols for us, blocking our focus on God.

Benedict’s Rule contains three vows, the first of which is obedience. The root of that word is audire, to listen. Benedict says we must listen for God’s word continually. Together. First, for the word of God in Scripture, without deciding to hear only those words that seem to support our own views. God’s word is also in our work and our study, and it is in the words of the people with whom we pray, even in the words of those with whom we disagree. We discover that God’s word is gentle, confronting, and sustaining; it is alive, especially apparent in Jesus Christ. In Christ we can surrender our self–protection...

BLAMING (and Conversion)
. . . and discover together that we are in process; none of us has all the answers yet. Trouble arises when we can see the other person’s limits but not our own. That’s another characteristic to notice: People in dysfunctional communities tend to be in denial of their own shortcomings; we become closed to other people and ideas. We want to have figured it out by now. Certainly, at my age (69) and a retired priest, for goodness’ sake, mother of three children, after all, and a sometime golfer no less, surely, by now, I have the right answers! And so, when I am faced with my own poor reaction to others, I get angry with  them! Putting our weakness onto someone else and then blaming them for it is projection, another indicator that all is not well. Sometimes we need help recognizing we are doing this, but it’s common. We become defensive. The walls start to go up because we recognize our vulnerability and prefer to deny it. And yet, commitment to Christ means commitment to vulnerability, even on the cross.

Benedict’s second vow of conversion of life confronts this tendency. We need to define sin to understand conversion. Sin names our separation from God more than assigning guilt for some particular deed. Perhaps our own action has caused the gulf between us and God; perhaps someone else has done something to us. But the state of sin is separation from God, however we got there. Vowing conversion of life means being open to transformation and change every day, that we might be reconciled, healed, made one with God again. A community of people who share such a vow forget about fighting for whatever we thought was so important and allow ourselves to be guided by God’s Spirit. We are in the Body of Christ, not the Body of Me...

CONTROL (and Stability)
...which can create a need to control. Sometimes, to keep things safe and comfortable for us and consistent with what we have decided is right, we feel we must control everything that’s going on: the rules for the debate, the time and place; the schedule of congregational activities; our outreach, and our study; especially our worship. It must be familiar and orderly. Or whatever it is that pleases us. It truly is difficult to grow community when several of us with differing ideas need everything to go the way we want it. This need for control seems to come from living according to the  scarcity model, being protective of resources, both spiritual and material. What on earth is that about, when we know full well that the gifts that matter — from love on down through all the others — are boundless in the Spirit of God?

That’s where Benedict’s stability provides our strength. At its core, stability means being who we are in the community where God places us. Our congregations tend to be more flexible in membership than Benedict’s monastic communities, but the principle still holds. We commit ourselves to one another in the presence of God. God gives us the gifts to be whoever God needs us to be for the sake of the community, to build up the church, Paul says. Constant discovery of God’s generosity in each of us and all of us together provides for the work to be done in God’s name. Sometimes we might prefer to have gifts we lack, sometimes we might be tired of our gifts, but they change when God wants them to. Offering ourselves for the work of Christ with our sisters and brothers is powerfully effective in returning from dysfunction to love...

LOVE (AND HOSPITALITY)
... in our congregations. Benedict grounds such community in a life of regular prayer, and the result has been called radical hospitality. Hospitality in Christian community means welcoming God, welcoming self, welcoming neighbor and stranger alike. It means being willing to be changed by all three, and being compassionate toward ourselves and every other person who enters our life. This is what his community’s vows are about. This is what Christian love is about. Redemptive love is not clean and neat and orderly. It is messy.

It is filled with our wavering between dysfunction and love. It is filled with the earthiness of the incarnation and the crucifixion, and it is open to new life in the resurrection. It welcomes us home.

Remember those two priests kneeling before that altar so many years ago? Both became bishops — one that day, the other a short while later in another diocese. They gave us holy leadership when we needed it. But it is not only the ordained who are called to guide us in humble prayer. Every one of us is graced for such leadership. Every one of us is given the voice to call our communities back to our knees, in the presence of God, that we might hear God’s desire for us. May we be blessed with the hope, the courage, and the wisdom to do so.

Lynn C. Ramshaw is a retired Episcopal priest in the Diocese of Chicago, a Benedictine oblate, and an experienced retreat leader. She has three married children and seven granchildren.