The recording of this sermon sounds a little bit like it picks up in the middle of something because it was preceded by the Spiritual Practice of dwelling in the word (described below). It also captures some of the discussion at the end of the preached word; the final five minutes or so of the recording is conversation and response. The audio on that portion may be more difficult to hear as not all voices were near to the microphone.

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I started us off with our Spiritual Practice this morning because while I am the pastor, it is the community together that is called to listen for the Spirit’s invitation. In a decision making process that calls on the Spirit, a meeting might look more like this – a time of worship spent dwelling in the word, with a particular attention to a question or invitation, than like a business meeting where we concentrate on slides or charts or data points.

While that kind of information is helpful in orienting us, spiritual discernment is essentially rooted in the sacred. Inviting us to transformation.

Ruth Hayley Barton has worked with a lot of churches and leadership groups on developing models of spiritual discernment. So she knows what she’s talking about when she says, 

“For some reason it is much easier to talk about community and even try to create community for others than it is to actually be a community … There are many reasons for this – not the least of which is that it takes a lot more work, intentionality, vulnerability and openness to the unpredictability of the holy spirit’s leading to cultivate community than it does to make decisions through Robert’s Rules of Order or some other human procedure” p79

I don’t actually think that’s quite fair of her. I’ve been a part of meaningful communities and decisions that use Robert’s Rules (actually I’m pretty sure that our denominational decisions are made using Robert’s Rules). I think it’s possible for God to work through all kinds of systems and processes.

And she’s also not wrong. When a community chooses to engage with Spiritual Discernment in community decision making, it is going to take time and vulnerability and openness and intention just as she said. It’s kind of an all-in proposition that requires preparation and – to stick with our grounding and rooting metaphor – nurturing the soil and the roots to grow a strong forest.

While the image that Jesus offers us is of the vine and arbor, the image that has lingered with me as I rest in the idea of community discernment in the way of the Spirit is of a forest. I’ve been thinking about – and here I quote German forester and author Peter Wohlleben – the “largely inscrutable, ultra-slow-motion life of trees.”

It weirdly reminds me too of the conversation between Jesus and Nicodemus, when Jesus talks about the inscrutability of the Spirit. He says, “God’s Spirit blows wherever it wishes. You hear its sound, but you don’t know where it comes from or where it is going. It’s the same with everyone who is born of the Spirit.” (John 3:8)

It’s become well known by now, I think, that although when we look at a forest eco-system, we see all these individual trees, of different species and ages and sizes, in fact, the trees are all interconnected underground. Through their roots and the tiny fungi that run all along and through the forest system, trees are sharing with each other, sensing need and offering their nutrients, giving warning of drought or predation. 

Like the wind through their leaves and needles and the fungi between the roots, the Spirit is there invisibly making connections.

Communities or congregations can strengthen those rooted connections by naming and celebrating the ways that the Spirit is already at work and moving in our midst. Have you ever had an experience where you were thinking or feeling something you couldn’t put into words but as soon as someone else shares a similar experience or puts it in context or coins a new words to describe it, everything comes into focus. You experience the ‘aha’ of understanding the thing in a new way? 

When we give ourselves a vocabulary of Spirit – noticing where the Spirit is active, telling stories of who we are together, noticing the action and connection that is already happening – we start to notice the Spirit at work more and more in real time. 

It is in part because of this desire to re-tell the goodness of the Spirit in our midst that Leadership Council is going to be inviting some reporting in and sharing in our June picnic. I found that at our annual meeting in January I missed the opportunity to report on my work as your pastor and to name the ways that I have seen the spirit at work. And I’m looking forward to hearing some of your highlights and moments of note. And Leadership Council will also be able to do a little mid-year (end of year?) update on our ongoing discernment.

Communities can also strengthen those rooted connections by names and celebrating and committing to common values and practices. We’ve done that in different ways over the years – both since I’ve been here and before. Ruth Hayley Barton strongly suggests covenants for discerning communities. A covenant offers a way to affirm what a community holds in common and the practices and postures that shared in community. 

When Orie started kindergarten, it was the height of Covid and so it took place all online. I got to hear a lot of how his teacher worked with children and I was constantly amazed at how well she created an actual classroom culture without a classroom. And one of the things that helped to create that was a class covenant. They said it together every day.

It was relatively simple but they created it together, naming things that were important to them – it went something like, “In our class we will be safe, respectful, and healthy. We will be learners. Together we will persevere.” I remember that ‘persevere’ was in there for sure because that’s a big word for a five-year-old.

Over and over again in our scriptures we see examples of God making covenants with God’s people, calling back to the shared commitments to mutual belonging. Inspired by that biblical story many congregations have worked together on a covenant that says who they want to be together in community so that both in times of thriving and times of conflict, they have a covenant that calls them back to their rootedness in Christ. And many congregations choose to reaffirm their covenant annually. 

All of this building and preparation rooted in the Spirit ideally grows into a foundation that opens the way for the Spirit to move in the context of an actual decision making gathering. Especially if a community is prepared with whatever the content and information is – the data and budgets and projections and facts – and has adequate time to absorb and reflect on that information and even some initial conversation. 

That preparation and building are how we get back to what I talked about off the top – a meeting that might look more like worship. The authors of Grounded in God say:

Prepare with reverence for the work to be done. Think about how the agenda can open the meeting to God’s presence. Most importantly, prepare with prayer for God’s presence and guidance. Brother Lawrence, a Carmelite monk of the seventeenth century, offers good advice on practicing the presence of God in what seem to be the most mundane chores. “The time of business,” he said, “does not with me differ from the time of prayer, and in the noise and clatter of my kitchen, while several persons are at the same time calling for different things, I possess God in as great tranquility as if I were upon my knees at the Blessed Sacrament.”

Such a meeting might include scripture, as we did today, a return to silence, song, prayer. Uncrowded, with lots of space to bring a community back to the center and let the spirit move.

The Spirit is already at work. We cannot stop her! However we move forward as a family of faith, rooted in the word and grounded in God, I trust that much is true. Whatever our next steps, there is nowhere we can go that the Spirit does not go with us. Thanks be to God.

*Spiritual Practice: Dwelling in the Word

Harkening back to our first Sunday of engaging with the idea of Spiritual Discernment, we might want to call this practice ‘abiding’ in the Word and use that more ancient language. During this time of abiding we are seeking, though listening to scripture and to each other, to understand where God’s Spirit is active, in order to join in with it. We listen together to allow God to break through.

In a very similar way to the practice of Lectio Divina, this is an ancient practice. A practice in which the Bible is not some object out there, pages from which we are gathering information or analyzing for historical accuracy or literary merit. Instead we are allowing the text to read us. For the Spirit to speak in word and silence.

We’ll be receiving the word while considering three things and then there will be three stages of dwelling in the word together.

1. What stands out – what seems important? What word or phrase do you get hung up on?
2. What questions does the word bring up? Where do you want to lean in and know more?
3. What might God be saying to you or to us as a community? What invitation do you hear?

The time of dwelling in the word (Romans 12:1-3) unfolds as follows:

1. One volunteer reads, followed by silence to consider the questions
2. A second volunteer reads, followed by silence to consider the questions
3. We each look for a reasonably friendly looking stranger or two and share with each other what emerged for us during the time of silence and reflection. 

During the time of sharing and listening, we listen in preparation to share what the other has said. We will take 3-4 minutes in these small groups. Then for 3-4 minutes we’ll share out with the larger group.

Dwelling in the Word Resources: Lancaster Mennonite Conference information sheet; Faith+Lead instructional video

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