Of Streams And Pathways
Series: How Broad Is The Kingdom Of God Jan 15, 2006
Intro:
Last Sunday I introduced you to nine different “Sacred Pathways” – nine different ways that different people worship, experience, and respond to God. We linked them to nine different examples from Scripture: Mary – contemplative; David – enthusiast; Elijah – activist; Ezekiel – sensate; Abraham – traditionalist; Mordecai – caregiver; John the Baptist – ascetic; Psalmist – naturalist; and Solomon – intellectual.
I asked us to all complete a simple little quiz that might give us a bit of a window into which of those nine describes us. Most of us probably discovered that there was not just one pathway for us – we probably had 2 or 3 that were strong. Let me show you my results: (slide). I want to do a simple little tabulation so that we start to paint a corporate picture. (show of hands, white board, tabulate results…)
Out Of The Woods And Into The Water…
The “Sacred Pathways” approach comes from an author named Gary Thomas, and his focus is very much on us as individuals. Another author, Richard Foster, has identified a similar way of looking at our differences but on a more corporate level. He refers to these as streams, and his book is called “Steams of Living Water.” I want to introduce you to those this morning and show how individual “pathways” find a home in corporate “streams”. But just before I do that, let me take you to a very simple passage of Scripture:
A Prayer For Unity:
The setting is the upper room, just before Jesus leaves to go to His death. He is praying, what has become known as the “High Priestly Prayer”. Here is what He prays: “I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, 21that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you.” (John 17:20-21).
Let me be blunt: my goal in all this talk about our uniqueness and difference is that we would see Jesus’ prayer answered, and that we would be united. I recognize the danger in talking about our differences and how that could lead to disunity, but I trust our maturity enough as a congregation to believe that we will love one another and value one another regardless of which pathway we find helps us worship God, or which stream we are a part of. And I call us to use this time to unite around the fact that all of us are here because we love Jesus and want to worship and obey and live with Jesus as our Lord. I’m fairly passionate about this – and I will be angry if we allow this journey to be twisted into disunity, judgment, or any kind of spiritual one-up-man-ship. Such things are not of the Kingdom of God, they are sin – and if any of us find ourselves drawn into that we must repent before our sin destroys what God is trying to build here at Laurier. As strongly as I can, I call us to unity as Jesus prayed: “that all of us may be one.” (There is a little of my “activist” pathway sneaking in…)
Back to the Water:
I’d like to introduce the streams using Foster’s own words, from his introduction: “Today a mighty river of the Spirit is bursting forth from the hearts of women and men, boys and girls. It is a deep river of divine intimacy, a powerful river of holy living, a dancing river of jubilation in the Spirit, and a broad river of unconditional love for all peoples… The astonishing new reality in this mighty flow of the Spirit is how sovereignly God is bring together streams of life that have been isolated from one another for a very long time… It is a little like the Mississippi River, which gains strength and volume as the Ohio and the Missouri and many other rivers flow into it.” (from “Introduction”, p. xv).
Foster identifies six streams, and one of the excellent parts of his book is how he links these to the history of the church and tells the great stories that are a part of our faith. Here are the six: The Contemplative Stream (or the prayer-filled life), the Holiness Stream (or the virtuous life), the Charismatic Stream (or the Spirit-empowered life), the Social Justice Stream (or the compassionate life), the Incarnational Stream (or the sacramental (God in every part of life) life), and the Evangelical Stream (or the Word-centered life).
Pathways in the Streams:
Pastor Sue and I tried to bring the two images, of “pathways” and “streams” together. Now, this is certainly not perfect and not at all meant to be exclusive, but it should help us a little:
STREAM PATHWAYS THAT WOULD BE AT HOME IN THAT STREAM
Contemplative (prayer focus – seen in the monks, Desert Fathers, Moravian churches) Contemplative
Naturalist
Holiness (holy living focus – seen in the Catholic Reformation, Anabaptists, Puritans) Ascetic
Activist
Charismatic (Spirit empowered focus – seen in the Pentecostal and Vineyard movements) Enthusiast
Sensate
Social Justice (compassion and justice focus – seen in Sunday School movement, Salvation Army, American Civil Rights) Activist
Caregiver
Incarnational (sacramental focus – seen in Orthodox church, Renaissance, Celtic Christians) Sensate
Caregiver
Naturalist
Traditionalist
Evangelical (Bible focus – seen in the Protestant reformation, Missionary movement) Intellectual
Traditionalist
Keys To Unity:
Let me paint you a little picture. Imagine with me, for a moment, that we got to take a good look inside one particular family:
Grandpa: grew up on the farm, lived through the depression, loves to paint and listen to classical music and eat grandma’s cooking. Went to the Ukrainian Orthodox church every week, and all week long in all kinds of ways he sees God in the painting and the music and the eating and even in the washing of the dishes. We’ll call him “incarnational Ian”.
Grandma: grew up as part of a Hutterite community, but left in her late teen years. She still believes in using absolutely every part of the Turkey, and likes to darn grandpa’s socks so they can get another few years use. She spends 30 minutes every single day in prayer – even sets the timer – and you have seen her mad when she gets talking about some area of sin that is destroying people and society. Her name is “Holiness Hanna”
Father: We’ll call the father “Evangelical Evan”. Growing up with Ian and Hanna, he learned his Bible backwards and forwards. He could quote Scripture, and he always won the “sword drills” in Sunday school. He lives his life, as best as he can, according to the principles he reads in God’s Word.
Mother: Although she sometimes wonders how she ever came to be married into this family, mom, or “Charismatic Christy”, brings yet another dynamic. In her teen years she found Jesus when a friend invited her to youth group at her Pentecostal church. Although at first it was kind of strange, there was an enthusiasm and liveliness to it that attracted her.
Son: “Social Justice Jarod” is their oldest son. He went on a missions trip in grade 10, and something deep within him connected to God as he worked among the poor. Now his goal is to become a doctor so that he can make lots of money to support justice, so that he can go for a month every year to practice medicine among the poorest of the world’s poor, and so that he can attempt to influence policy here in Canada to make a better world for everyone.
Daughter: The last person in the family is “Contemplative Carol”. She seems to spend a fair bit of time alone, going for walks or sitting in her room listening to worship music and writing in her journal. When she does speak, she has a lot of wise things to say that often bring others back to the main focus of everything, Jesus.
This family has a couple of options for how they live out their faith together. First, they could all get really annoyed at one another. Charismatic Carol could believe her husband (Evangelical Ian) didn’t have any life to his faith. Grandma could believe that Jarod was getting mixed up in way too much worldly stuff. Carol could look at her grandpa sadly believing that he didn’t know what it really means to have a relationship with God, as it just seems so distant. They could argue about how their way is best, how the rest of them are missing the most important part, and how if they would only open their eyes they would see that my way is best. And come Sunday morning, they could all pack up and head to six different churches and I believe that God would weep.
Here is a much better option. All six of them could look at one another and decide, “we are a family. We all love Jesus, we are all very sincere in our faith and in our desire to obey God and live a life that is pleasing to Him. Let us make our very most important goal be simply this: to love one another as Jesus has loved us.” They could then choose to be united even though they have different pathways and have been part of different streams, and in fact could discover much more richness and balance as they share life together. And perhaps most importantly, they could do this: extend grace to one another to be the unique Children of God that they are, and actively seek to encourage growth in one another in their unique relationship with God. They could bless their differences, value one another deeply because of their common love for God and for one another as a family, and they could work together as a living picture of the Kingdom of God.
A Vision For Laurier:
That’s my vision for Laurier. Trust me, it would be so much easier to “pick one” and let everyone else leave. But that is not the Kingdom of God. That is not what Jesus prayed for us, when He prayed that “we would be one” just like the Father and the Son and the Spirit are one. I believe that God is at work bridging these streams back together, bringing true unity among His people, and calling us to love one another deeply, value our differences because when we put them all together we actually begin to see how broad the Kingdom of God really is. And how powerful. And how what we have is exactly what the people in our world really need.
I think we, here at Laurier, can become an example of this. We already have a healthy mix of people, from a diversity of backgrounds, with a variety of passions and streams and callings. And we have a strong love for one another, which can enable us to see each other as true followers of Jesus. Like my imaginary family, I believe we can extend grace to one another to be the unique children of God that we are, without judgment or spiritual pride, we can set one another free to discover and obey and worship God their way instead of looking around and wanting everyone else to see things and do things my way, and we can actively seek to encourage growth in one another in each unique pathway.
We need each other. The Charismatics need the basis of truth from the Evangelicals and the Evangelicals need the living power of the Charismatics. Both need Social Justice’s call to engage our real world problems, all three need the Contemplative’s unflinching focus on Jesus, all four need the Holiness Stream’s reminder to live Holy lives, and then the Incarnational people remind us that this all needs to be lived out every single day in every area of our life. None of us, in our own individual lives, is ever going to be able to find the right balance in all of those areas. But together we can. In this church, we can. I believe we have the people – each of you are here by the grace of God and have a perspective to offer, a role to play, and a gift to use for God’s glory. And when we put it all together, here is what I think we will see:
The Kingdom of God – in all its breadth and fullness and strength and irresistibility. May God make it so. Amen.
