Rooted Mobility – Hold Loosely (Pt. 2)

I remember a time my sophomore year of college where I stood on a balcony 25 feet in the air, dangled my precious watch over it (this was a watch I had saved up to buy!!) and said to the person I was with, “I’ve come to a place in life where if I dropped this, I don’t think I would care what happened to it.”

At the time, it felt like a significant statement. In hindsight, it was pretty dumb.

But the concept was a new one for me – what did it mean to hold loosely to what I treasured so dearly?

I held tightly to many things during that phase of my life – my identity, my grades, my ability to play soccer, etc. My hands were metaphorically crippled and ached from being clinched so tightly around these things I had cultivated.

But one thing I did not hold tightly to was my Christian belief. Not because I was not convinced of Christ’s death and resurrection, nor of his claim on my life, but because I was raised in a church who held belief loosely.

And this is one of the things I have come to deeply value about the Quaker church – it is able to hold loosely to belief.

Why is this so, you might ask? Is it not important to fight for what you believe, to make known to the world what is right and what is wrong?

Well, I believe it is because the Quaker church has been able to understand the real work of the Holy Spirit – that is, we believe that if we are paying careful enough attention, we can sense Christ moving. And anywhere Christ might move is where we want to be. And it might be a place that is outside of our clinched fists, or our comfort zone, or that which we consider to be right.

In acts 15, James stands up and declares that the way forward for the church is to hold loosely to the tradition that had been so tightly wound around the early church’s identity. The Holy Spirit was moving in a new way, and if they were able to loosen their grip, they wold be able to move into new areas of belief, ministry of making Christ’s kingdom known in ways only possible through the work of Christ.

Holding loosely is the first part of rooted mobility. It is the process of saying, “It seems like this is what Christ wants me to be, to proclaim, to hold onto – but this is not the end of belief, the right-above-all-other-things way to live. The divine is solely capable of understanding all things, we are merely on journey of unfolding truth that is present all around us if we are just able to listen, to see, to let go.

Let’s be people who hold loosely. The church in Acts was able to – can we?

When Way Closes…

I’m blogging occasionally for the Spiritual Life blog – the most recent (short) post can be found here.

 

It is on Acts 16, where Luke talks about the Holy Spirit keeping them from entering into Asia and spreading the gospel. Admittedly, I don’t often think about “way closing,” to use an old Quaker term. But that is what is happening here, and provides some good things to think about.

Rooted Mobility – An Acts 15 Overview, Part 1

Acts 15 has become one of my favorite chapters in the Bible.

That statement is somewhat of a surprise to me. At first appearance, it seems to be about the early church and its decision to not require circumcision of Gentile believers who were accepting the message of Jesus in large numbers. (As a side note, I’ve always wondered how they “checked” about circumcision – was it someone’s job? If so, in the words of the immortal Mr. T, pity the fool…)

Yet as I have spent more time looking at what is going on in this chapter of Acts, I am realizing that it has great applicability to the church today, especially the Quaker church.

I could go on about how, in my opinion, the Quaker church is uniquely situated to be an important voice for the word today – but I’ll just let you read earlier posts about that – here and here.

The issue the early church was dealing with is not unlike an issue the church is dealing with today.

It goes something like this:

One voice says: church is not relevant to the needs of the world today! The forms and structures get in the way of vital faith. We need to blaze trails, do things new, move away from the rigid structure and go with the flow.

Another voice says: defining a rigid theology is the only way to combat a world that is losing a sense of what it means to be followers of Jesus. The gospel of Jesus is hard hitting, takes prisoners, and can only be interpreted and understood one way. We are that way. Get on board or be wrong.

Both of these groups tend to err on the side of their way being the way.

But as I read Acts 15, it seems that what we need is what I have termed a “rooted mobility.”

(As a side note, anyone else catch the Quaker meeting happening in Acts 15? It’s there!)

What is rooted mobility? Perhaps the best way to describe is like the old Miller Lite commercial. Two groups argue over which aspect of Miller Lite is the best – that it tastes great or that it’s less filling.

It’s an either/or argument that is unnecessary (I’m guessing, as I’ve never tasted Miller Lite).

But the early church is trying to decide between two sides, both of which are needed in the church:

Are we to be a people holding tightly to tradition?

Or are we to be a people who blaze trails into the unknown?

The decision in acts is to be both/and – to be rooted and also mobile.

And this is our call today, as the church – a call to rooted mobility.

Over the next few days I’m going to explore what rooted mobility means, but in short, I believe it is best defined as:

Holding Loosely, Walking Lightly and Loving Boldly

Rooted Mobility

In chapel this morning I shared from Acts 15, or the Council of Jerusalem. I’ll get my thoughts on it in writing soon, but until then, let me provide a visual of “rooted mobility.” What does rooted mobility mean to you?