“BEING AT HOME, BECOME LIKE, AND REMAIN AS”

My wife and I continue to marvel how our yearlong sabbatical, which started in December of 2019, coincided with the pandemic, now into the 3rd year. We marvel because while we had originally planned to be active and traveling, we continue to gain so much by being forced to be grounded to slow down and listen, listen to God and to ourselves and to the world. It is a lesson of gaining by losing.

One practice we began to experiment about 6 months into our sabbatical was the formation and facilitation of several group spiritual directions. We started these online groups in some ways for selfish reasons. We discerned that we needed people to walk together with us in our life’s journey. These groups continue to meet virtually and continue to feed us and enliven us to discern and to follow God’s leading into our life’s next chapters.

Allow me to pause on the above topic and bring in another thread. About a month ago, I presented a paper to Korean missions leaders about my concise (very short) assessment of the American Church followed by my encouragement/exhortation to the Korean Church and its missional engagements. I want to share my first paragraph of my encouragement and exhortation to the Korean leaders. I would like to tie how my paper is related to the group spiritual direction my wife and I have been facilitating.

We “become like” (1 Corinthians 9:19-23) so others can “remain as” (1 Corinthians 7:20) is the pinnacle of Pauline missiology. Embedded in Paul’s message is also the foundational belief of “being at home” with ourselves. Listen to Paul, “Only let each person lead the life that the Lord has assigned to him, and to which God has called him. This is my rule in all the churches” (1 Corinthians 7:17, ESV). We are called to live the life God has assigned and called us to live, not someone’s else. In other words, we cannot become like others unless we know who we are, created by the very image of the triune God. When we know who we are and can stand on the truth, then we can do the incarnational work of becoming like. Furthermore, as we authentically live our life, we “give permission” and model for others to live their lives as authentically as possible—so they can remain as they are. This is possible because as we take ourselves seriously, we take others seriously as they are. The call to “love our neighbors as ourselves” is precisely the invitation here.

The word “rule” as in “my rule in all the churches” is a strong word in Greek, often translated as command, ordain, or to appoint. The Corinthian Church and beyond would have sensed the heightened urgency of Paul’s exhortation. The Message version of 1 Cor. 7:17 is more forceful in plain language. “And don’t be wishing you were someplace else or with someone else. Where you are right now is God’s place for you. Live and obey and love and believe right there.” (It is interesting that the pronoun, you, in the original Greek means “every” or “each,” not plural you.) The synergistic progression of being at home which grants us the permission to become like so that other can remain as they are is more than a good missiological principle for us. Not only does this capture the heart of Paul’s missiology, but it also summarizes Paul’s spirituality and how to live this life. Furthermore, this is Christ’s incarnation at work, having embraced Himself as fully divine and fully human, coming to dwell among us, and inviting us to live our fullest lives. As we follow Christ, we do not become less of ourselves but the best version of ourselves.

Back to group spiritual direction. We desperately want to model this incarnational way of living and being on this earth. The groups that my wife and I facilitate are modeled after our understanding of Christ’s incarnation and Paul’s interpretive understanding of Christ’s incarnation. We first must be committed to the process of discovering ourselves and being at home, comfortable and even celebrating being in our own “skins” and not wishing we were someone else and so forth. The idea of not wishing we were someone else is not an easy internal work. Our false self is always measuring, comparing, and contrasting to position us in a better light because if we are honest, we would wish to be someone else. We are afraid of being in our own skin and how shallow and empty we are and can be. Our defense mechanism kicks in to save us, albeit fleetingly.