Sunday Worship 19 January | Wisdom and the Church Meeting

Proverbs 3:1-6, 13-23 (NLT)

My son, never forget the things I have taught you.

    Store my commands in your heart.

If you do this, you will live many years,

    and your life will be satisfying.

Never let loyalty and kindness leave you!

    Tie them around your neck as a reminder.

    Write them deep within your heart.

Then you will find favor with both God and people,

    and you will earn a good reputation.

Trust in the Lord with all your heart;

    do not depend on your own understanding.

Seek his will in all you do,

    and he will show you which path to take.

Joyful is the person who finds wisdom,

    the one who gains understanding.

For wisdom is more profitable than silver,

    and her wages are better than gold.

Wisdom is more precious than rubies;

    nothing you desire can compare with her.

She offers you long life in her right hand,

    and riches and honor in her left.

She will guide you down delightful paths;

    all her ways are satisfying.

Wisdom is a tree of life to those who embrace her;

    happy are those who hold her tightly.

By wisdom the Lord founded the earth;

    by understanding he created the heavens.

By his knowledge the deep fountains of the earth burst forth,

    and the dew settles beneath the night sky.

My son, don’t lose sight of common sense and discernment.

    Hang on to them,

for they will refresh your soul.

    They are like jewels on a necklace.

They keep you safe on your way,

    and your feet will not stumble.

I chose wisdom as our theme for this morning because our service will be followed by our first church meeting of the year, and as some of you may remember, I have spoken before about wisdom in relation to the church meeting. More specifically, I have spoken about slow wisdom, drawing on the research and insights of fellow Baptist minister Ruth Moriarty, who has identified the way decisions are made over time as integral to Baptist practices of discernment. This seemed a good moment to dig around that a little, to reflect further on what it is we are doing when we gather for a church meeting, and also to think a little more broadly about how we seek wisdom in our own lives.

For those of us who have become accustomed to the church meeting, it is easy to take it for granted, but in truth it emerged as a radical practice. In our English context, we have records of Baptist church meetings going back to at least 1644, and given that the first Baptist church was founded in 1608, it seems fairly safe to say it has been a defining feature of our tradition since its earliest days. The glimpses we get of the early church in the letters of Paul suggest they were pretty egalitarian communities, with everyone bringing a psalm or a teaching or a revelation, and each taking their turn to speak. But as the church became established, it became increasingly hierarchical, like the world around it, so that the congregational governance of the nonconformist churches that came out of the Reformation was felt as something of a challenge to the order of things. We should not forget that Baptist churches were giving votes to women long before any governments were. This widening of who could speak and make decisions was one of the reasons these churches were outlawed and persecuted.

Radical practices come out of strong convictions, so what was it that the early Baptists believed they were doing when they gathered for their church meetings? More importantly, what is it that we believe we are doing when we gather for our church meetings? One phrase that has been used much in relation to the church meeting is “discerning the mind of Christ”.  It's a good aim, but a bold claim. Can we ever really say with complete confidence that we have discerned the mind of Christ? Perhaps we might more humbly say that we seek the guidance or the wisdom of God. And how do we do that? By being open to the Spirit that guides us into all truth, which requires us to listen well to God and to one another. The passage we heard earlier speaks of God's wisdom, but it is itself the wisdom of a parent speaking to their child. We have much to learn from one another, both from what we have each heard from God and from what we have each learned through experience. After all, the passage speaks of both discernment and common sense, and wisdom comes as much from trial and error as from prophetic words. That is why it is so important that the church meeting is a place where everyone can be heard, and why Ruth talks about the importance of our ability and willingness to hear unexpected contributions.

The importance of hearing everyone's voices, and the practice of voting on matters that need a clear decision, can make the church meeting seem like a very democratic space, and yet there are important ways in which it differs from the democracy of the political sphere. Even when we are voting, the aim of the church meeting is not to split members into factions and give preference to the majority voice, but to come together to a consensus. That may not always mean complete agreement, but there should still be a sense that together we have discerned something and together we can move forward with that decision. It's a question of attitude as much as anything, of resisting any attempt to see winners and losers.

There is something about balancing 'soul competency', the idea that we each have the capacity to relate to God, with 'covenant theology', the idea that we relate to one another as members of a community. We are faithful both to Christ and to one another, and while we can each express our own thoughts and beliefs, we should not be seeking to win the argument, but to come to a shared decision by the inspiration of the Spirit. The role of prayer is crucial to this. Both setting our intentions through prayer at the start of meetings and before big decisions, and seeking to engage with all of our discussions in an attitude of prayer, by which I mean an openness to hearing the wisdom of God, however and by whomever it is spoken.

I think it's worth saying here that there is no ulterior motive behind what I'm saying, and please don't take any of this to mean that we're not already doing these things. There will always be things we can improve, but I'm proud of the way we conduct our meetings, of the care we take to listen to one another and move forward together, even if we disagree. I just think it is good to stop every now and then to think more consciously about what it is we are doing, so that we can refine and strengthen it. Because so much of this happens unconsciously, although that itself isn't necessarily a bad thing, because it means it is woven into the fabric of our being. Ruth speaks of the church meeting as an embodied practice, and of the importance of what she calls the divine gut. We gather our bodies together in time and place, we use our eyes to see one another and our ears to listen to one another, we engage our minds in thinking and our hearts in feeling, and we pay attention to the fire in our belly that tells us if we believe something is right or wrong. We do all of this by instinct and by habit, and I think there is much to be said for developing good instincts and good habits.  

Another interesting detail I picked up from Ruth's work is that early church meetings were largely concerned with the discipline of members. Disputes and misbehavings would be brought before the church to be dealt with. I'm not suggesting an additional item to our agenda, although there is a place for accountability between church members, but it did occur to me that those early churches, meeting outdoors and in homes to avoid detection, had capacity for such personal matters because they didn't have to worry about things like buildings and finance. And that led me to wonder, what would we talk about if we didn't have the practical matters of buildings and finance to consider? Would we spend more time sharing news? Would we plan more events? Would we talk more about issues of justice? We can't jettison the practical stuff entirely, but how could we make more space for those other things?

It also got me thinking about how we seek  wisdom in our own lives. How often do we turn to communal discernment for private decisions? Do we use any of the strategies from the church meeting when it comes to thinking through situations at home or at work? What is the relationship between the ways in which we discern together and alone? I'm not going to try and unpick that right now, but I do want to draw on some ideas from Ignatian spirituality, which may help us in our collective and personal discernment. Ignatius of Loyola, the founder of the Jesuits, talked about three types of decision making. A decision in the first time is when we have an immediate sense of certainty about what we should do. A decision in the second time is when we meditate on our choices and follow the one which brings greater spiritual consolation, listening to that divine gut. And a decision in the third time is when we ask God to be in our thoughts and then weigh up our options to find the most rational choice. 

I think this approach is helpful because it reminds us that we won’t always have a lightning bolt moment, and it’s okay to use all our rational and emotional capabilities. They are not contrary to listening to God, because God can speak through them. It’s worth saying here that Ignatius believed the process of decision making must begin with indifference, which he described as the freedom to approach each decision with a genuine openness. He also recognised that all outcomes have their drawbacks, and so making a decision means saying a wholehearted yes to the positives and the negatives. That may not feel particularly encouraging, but I think there is a relief in accepting that no decision will ever be perfect, because life isn’t perfect.

So what have we heard this morning that might help us as we prepare to gather for our first church meeting of the year? Well, the church meeting is a radical practice rooted in our dissenting history, and we should not take it for granted. It is a space in which we seek together the wisdom of God, through prayerful and careful listening, both to the Spirit and to one another, and so it must be a space in which we are open to learn from unexpected contributions. It is an embodied experience, and one which should connect and overlap with our practices outside of this community, as we practice discernment in all streams of our lives, being open to God in all our processes of decision making.