There is a universal human need to belong. Our Big Invitation over the next three weeks is to Become God’s People. So much of our actions depends upon who we define as God’s people. Definitions of God’s people range from whoever looks, thinks, and talks like me at one extreme to every person who lives on Earth. I prefer the expanded vision that all the people on earth are invited to become God’s people. For two-universe people it means that we are all drawn together by the values, action, and goals of the second universe often called God but with limited agreement on what that means. For one-universe people it means that we are all drawn together by the best of human values, actions, and goals of this universe often called God or Earth with broader agreement on what that means.
Our need to belong often focuses on particular heritages. Those heritages can be genetic, racial, political, religious, social, vocational, recreational, or many other categories. Which part of our various heritages help us most to become God’s people? A narrow vision of God’s people will draw us toward the heritages that set us apart from other people. A broad vision of God’s people will find the parts of most heritages that can draw us together with other people and away from separation. Each of us can create the heritage we want to claim for ourselves and then find ways to renew it. This renewing is to make our heritage effective for an additional period of time, three months, another generation, or another century.
Re: Become God's People: Renew Our Heritage with God
David, I respond so positively to much of what you say about heritage and renewing it to inspire us to become better "helpers". I would hope we could emphasize the parts of our heritage which draw us together and broaden our community rather than focus on the heritage that separates us one from the other.
I have a hard time with defining God as the best of purely HUMAN values , actions and goals. I am currently reading Bishop Spong's A NEW CHRISTIANITY FOR A NEW WORLD, in preparation for his coming to Clearwater at the end of Feb.( Incidently, I really hope that there are some of us that would like to go to hear him,so I don't have to go alone). Anyway, in this book he describes the death of Theism,that is, a belief in a paternal Transcendent God who intervenes in history and acts as protector or helper. But, he defines God as the Source of Being and Becoming , both beyond and within the being of this universe. He sees Jesus as he who most freely, lovingly and fully lived so as to reveal this Source.
I really like this definition of God. We can know God through examining Being in its broadest sense. Yet as source, God is "More", the way Borg says,also. We commune with this God by living to our most loving, our most full extent.
Does it make a difference whether we believe in a Source of Being or not when we are our most loving,our most authentic, our most whole. What do you all think? Maybe not. But, for me, I feel part of a bigger spectrum of meaning to believe in a two universe model. ANd it is hard for me to believe that the source of being was simply a grand accident. So, in that way it seems truer to speak of God as source of Being and not simply define God as the best of human value and action.
