Hermetic Homiletics

Stage 6: Universalizing Faith

Attributes:
~Unlike in Stage 5, one is not caught between universalizing apprehensions and the need to preserve her or his own being and well-being
~Becomes and activist incarnation, heedless to personal “survival,” and threats to primary groups, or to the institutional arrangements of the present order that are involved
~A decision is truly just if and only if it takes into account all possible interests and perspectives, and then distributes the burdens and blessings equally among them
~Engages in spending and being spent for the transformation of present reality in the direction of a transcendent actuality: one of justice and love, the inclusiveness of a fulfilled human community
~They actualize the promise
~Exhibit qualities that shake our usual criteria of normalcy:
+++ Their heedlessness to self-preservation and vividness of their taste and feel for transcendent moral and religious actuality give their actions and words an extraordinary and often unpredictable quality.
+++ The devotion to universalizing compassion may offend parochial perceptions of justice
+++ Their penetration through the obsession with “survival” may threaten our measured standards of righteousness and goodness and prudence.
+++ Their enlarged visions of universal community disclose the partialness of our tribes and pseudo-species.
+++ Their leadership initiatives, often involving strategies of nonviolent suffering and ultimate respect for being, constitute affronts to our usual notions of relevance.

Gifts:
~Are contagious
~Ready for fellowship with persons at any of the other stages and from any other faith tradition

Dangers:
~Often seen as subversive by the powers that be
~Frequently become martyrs for the visions they incarnate

Note: This stage of development can’t be ignored or dismissed as being “beyond the congregation.” A significant part of the Christian call is the call to justice. Stories of heroes in the faith, such as Martin Luther King, Jr., can become a vision of becoming that frees people from their momentary concerns for self-preservation and empowers them to take extreme leaps of faith.

posted by irreverance @ 2:08 PM