Last year, we spent time speaking clearly & listening deeply to one another about what the values are that bind our Cathedral community together. Who is it we believe God has made us to be? Who is it we believe Christ is loving us into becoming. From this came five core values, five things we believe Jesus dreams for us to love:
Spirituality & Faith, Diversity, Communication, Growth, Service
This week, I'm looking at one of these each day through the lenses of scripture, tradition and reason/experience.
Communication
"Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness." -- Philippians 2:3-7
We talk about communication a lot here at Christ Church Cathedral. We have a strong sense that good communication is a marker of good health , and that communication is a tool that will help us in living our values. But we've struggled with it as a value per se.
One Sunday morning this past Advent, I heard our own Mark Jordan lead an excellent Adult Christian Formation conversation on the incarnation, and he quoted this from Thomas Aquinas:
"The very nature of God is goodness ... and it belongs to the essence of goodness to share (communicare) itself with others."
There was that word (albeit parenthetically and in Latin!) right there on the page ... communicare ... communication. OF COURSE it is one of our values, because it is part of the very essence of God.
The piece of scripture above is from the Christ Hymn in Philippians -- it is maybe the oldest piece of Christian poetry. It described what happened in Jesus as God "emptying" godself into human form. God sharing the divine self with us. God putting everything God was and expressing it in our language ... the language of being human.
In Jesus, God shared God's authentic, true self with us. In Jesus, God communicates with us.
Embracing communication as a value means we several things. It means we share our true and authentic selves with one another ... that this is a place where we are honest with each other and we live with integrity. It also means we value not just doing that for ourselves but sharing it with the world. We value not being turned inward but reaching outward ... proclaiming the Gospel, inviting people into it, sharing the essence of God's goodness with others.
The icon of this value at Christ Church Cathedral ... and cathedrals historically ... is our bells. For more than a century ... through every high and low point not just in our own community but in the life of this city ... the bells of Christ Church Cathedral have communicated, have proclaimed that God is here in the midst of us. That God is here rejoicing, weeping, working, wrestling. For more than a century, our bells have gathered God's people together and sent them out into the world.
But our committment to communication doesn't stop there. Because where we share our true selves as God's children most is when we are out ministering in the world in the course of our daily lives. We were communicators of God's love when Kathryn Nelson served on the Library Board and every time Fred Peterson saw a patient. Every time Huldah Blamoville lobbies for better health care or Helen Schleipman helps a nervous parent at Children's Hospital. We are communicators of God's love every time a member of the pastoral care team visits someone who is homebound, or when Becket Clark turns his band fundraiser into a foodraiser for Miss Carol's Breakfast.
We are communicators of God, sharers of God's essence every time we live in community with one another with integrity and every time we point outward to share God's love with the world.
As we prepare for our annual meeting and conversations next Sunday, think about this:
Why is communication important to you? To us?
What are the opportunities for us to embody communication today and in the future?
Tomorrow: Growth.
See you Sunday!
in Christ's love,
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