“Hungry for anything that was nourishing:” peace, community, company, spiritual connection, belonging.

The story with which Zscheile begins Chapter 3 speaks of a person who hungers.  In reality, much of our human initiative, growth, and progress originate with hunger.  Everyone experiences emptiness to be filled or longing that motivates or desire that becomes an engine for change.  I wonder if some form of hunger is always present in every human being and if it is always a potential path to relationship with God.

When I read Melissa’s story, I couldn’t help but think about our plans for an “alternative” worship service that is, at least in part, intended to serve people who haven’t a spiritual home or community.  I believe that many of us are hungry, sometimes in ways we aren’t even aware of.  Our committee engaged in a discussion about whether or not to offer Eucharist at every “alternative” worship:  on the one hand, some expressed a concern that our sacred meal might be “foreign” or “exclusionary” to people unaccustomed to it.  On the other hand, some insisted that it is the very heart of what we have to offer.  Clearly, Zscheile would agree with the latter group.

The description of the Greek word for communion, “koinonia,” as sharing, participation, fellowship, belonging, togetherness, solidarity, unity, reciprocity, mutuality and the   “reconciliation of difference into a common life,” (pp 44-45) certainly described a rich and hearty “meal” for all the hungers we humans suffer.

Another piece of the picture that is challenging to me comes from the ancient story of Israel in the wilderness, trying to find their identity between slave and free.  God gives them laws to govern their lives, ways of justice and mercy.  And then a whole generation passes before they settle in the land that God has promised.  I wonder if a whole generation (or more) of traditional church-goers has to pass away before newness can be received.

Finally, I was captivated by John of Damascus’ term to describe the relational life of the Trinity:  “perichoresis,” which means “circulating around the neighborhood.”  Here is a way of life we might imitate, like Jesus on the road.

Only a few weeks ago, in a discussion about the future of the Church of St. Luke and St. Mary, I heard an intelligent and faithful person say, “We need to do more things and let people know what we are doing so that more people will come. We just need to get more people.” This, to me, is an expression of what Dwight Zscheile calls our “common imagination,” the one from which “we still largely assume that people are looking for a church and that they will know how to find us—that we can simply welcome them when they show up (especially if they look and act like us.) We assume that people come to us already Christian, and that we can just make them church members.” In this regard, many of us have been blind to the changes in our culture that make the church increasingly mysterious, distrusted, and alien to new generations. I like Zscheile’s insistence that we listen to the voices of those who have walked away from active church involvement and “to the stories and perspectives of neighbors who have never been part of the church in order to discern a new future” for God’s church. The Foreward and the Introduction show us that at the heart of Zscheile’s book is the deep conviction that there is a new future for the Episcopal Church. I believe, with the author, that we Episcopalians can “live more deeply into our identity as people of [Jesus’s] Way.” In Chapter 1, Zscheile gives us a brief and concise summary of the historical and cultural identity of the Episcopal Church as a privileged preserver of cultural, governmental and social structures during its first 300 years in this country. Recognizing the role of the Episcopal Church in upholding “the status quo of a stratified economic system and a rationalistic faith” helps us see within ourselves some of the ways we continue to do so. Naming the historic tendency of our mission work to fall within a “benefactor paradigm” will help us to break out of that and take what Zscheile describes as “the deeper step of identifying with and receiving from those who are persecuted or marginalized.” (p. 27) Zscheile raises our awareness of where we have come from and how we have become who we are today. This is preparation for changing perspective and growing out of those ways that inhibit our discipleship as followers of Jesus. Reflection upon the questions at the end of the chapter help us personalize the information by leading us to see where these influences and assumptions are at work and discernable in our current experience.