A shared place of belonging
In her contribution to the Lent Talks on BBC Sounds in 2020, Bishop Guli Francis- Dehqani gave a stunning devotional and pastoral application in her reflections on identity and community within the context of a detail from the Passion of Jesus recorded in the gospels.
Noting the very intimate exchange of conversation between Jesus, his mother Mary and the disciple John, she suggests that in giving a mother to John and a son to his mother, Jesus “releases Mary and John from the tight hold of that which has been familiar and safe… lightens the weight of their histories and eases the stranglehold of the stories that have brought them to this place…”
I see in this handover of Mary and John to each other the kernel of the new community – later to be known as the church – gathered around the broken and yet life-giving body of Christ. No longer defined by our pasts (for those who have journeyed out of Islam), nor locked into our individualism (for those who come from non-collective societies), we both find a new, secure place of belonging and connectedness within the church family. Our primary identity becomes that of being ‘in Christ’ and then in relationship with each other as church community. As we discover our purpose in God’s plan, together, we find a new freedom in exploring what it is to become the corporate expression of God’s new creation on earth.
I find it interesting that this exchange, referred to in John’s gospel, was played out at the foot of the cross, in a place of suffering, self-giving and loss. What are some of the culturally-laden Christian traditions some of us love so well that may need to be shed? Are there fresh ways of marking our identity which we could imbue with new meaning? What will need to be sacrificed in terms of programme in order to spend more time nurturing the community?
As the western church welcomes increasing numbers of new believers from a Muslim background there is great joy and a rising hope that others will follow. But a wrestling with what it means to welcome, mentor into active discipleship and fully embrace the contribution believers from a Muslim background have to offer must be an inevitable part of the task of building this new community of belonging.
Lent Talks:
What do you think?
You mention the western church welcoming increasing numbers of new believers from Muslim backgrounds, and the wrestling with what it means to welcome them and embrace their contributions, and the need to shed some culturally-laden Christian traditions. I would be interested to hear from people in non-western church settings. In this cross-base place of self-giving, are these churches wrestling with similar or different things as they welcome and change with the coming of new brothers and sisters? - Anonymous