Overturning Tables: Expansive Responses to a Hurting World
One of our many commitments as an SSUC community is to walk a spiritual path that is open and expansive, rooted in the Jesus tradition and reaching to wisdom wherever we find it. This commitment to an expansive spirituality is necessary in this world more than ever. We can see division, isolation, intolerance, exclusion, extremism almost everywhere we look around the world AND close to home. It may not historically be worse than other times, but when we’re in the midst of these challenges, it seems like it.
As we’ve lived into this commitment over the years, we’ve met more and more people that might call themselves spiritual migrants: “ex-this” or “former-that” who can no longer believe the narrow and rigid beliefs of traditional Christianity whether of the more evangelical or the mainline liberal persuasion. We’ve met folks who have seen the ugly, exclusivist, hurtful and closed-minded nature of religion, folks who have been hurt or rejected themselves, or have had enough of the hurt and rejection inflicted on others. If we are seekers, all of us, seeking a better way, then what is our response?
There are so many ways that the world calls for a more open and expansive view – one that focuses on the values of what we share with our fellow humans, that crosses the lines we draw to divide ourselves. There’s a wisdom story from centuries ago that tells of Jesus of Nazareth having had enough of injustice and exclusion. He walks into the temple and overturns the moneychangers tables – a symbol of all that was wrong and exploitative about the religion of his time.
What are the tables we need to overturn? Where there is injustice, exploitation, rejection and exclusion and what does disruption look like for us? Over the next few weeks, we are going to explore what wisdom there might be to help us in our expansive commitments and respond to our hurting world. Join us Sundays at 10am live and online.
