© 2005 Merlyn Cox
© 2005 The Christian Fellowship of Students of The Urantia Book
As a pastor, now retired, and as a Urantia reader for some 20 years, I would love to see an alternative to the divided and tradition bound church, desperately thrashing about in search of a clearer understanding of its Lord and its mission in our world today. I would love to be a part of a fellowship with a built in corrective in its mandate that would allow us to bypass the worst of the conflicts and infighting of this all too human institution. I would love to see an alternative grow out of the Urantia community — or at least to behold a church transformed by the Fifth Epochal Revelation, one that somehow captures the best of the Christian community, one that nurtures great hope and joy, a loving community grounded in transcendent worship and self-forgetful service.
However, I have a haunting conviction that this will not be the case in any foreseeable future And the beginnings of the movement seems to have demonstrated that we simply are not, and will not be, immune to the same problems, no matter how lofty our motivation.
So my concern is — and I think it is shared by many how can we be a body, a fellowship, a community, in any way worthy of the Revelation to which we have been entrusted and so passionately want to bear witness? This, I suspect, will keep many from joining our cause.
We’re afraid of our own inadequacies and our human frailties, afraid we will not really be that different than what we have criticized as so inadequate. Many, I suspect, will wonder if it is better not to risk such failure in searching for alternative spiritual communities and new religious organizations, and wait and see what happens.
But there are a couple of things that keep coming to mind to help assuage at least some of those fears. One is the realization of how fragile and imperfect were the first people upon which Jesus placed the responsibility of sharing the Good News. Over the years I have found it strangely comforting to realize just how flawed and human the disciples were.
He didn’t even appear to be that careful about choosing the first disciples, and he allowed them, in turn, to choose others. They still appear an likely group to be entrusted with such a thing. He chose them and used them as they were, with only the mandate that they follow him.
I must say, it gives me hope. Only a divine institution, The Urantia Book assures us, could be built on such a human foundation. It is not our wisdom, or our goodness, or even our now enhanced understanding of God and his purposes that will suffice, any more than it did for the disciples. Over the years Luther’s great affirmation has often come to mind, that “if we in our own strength confided, our striving would be losing”-and it is still true. We will not, and cannot, do this on our own.
What also keeps coming to mind are Jesus’ words to the disciples in his farewell discourse. They are especially familiar because they have been recorded with remarkable accuracy in the fifteenth chapter of John.
It begins, “I am the vine, and you are the branches.” … “You must abide in me, and I in you; the branch will die if it is separated from the vine. As the branch cannot bear fruit except it abides in the vine, so neither can you yield the fruits of loving service except you abide in me. …He who lives in me and I in him, will bear much fruit in the spirit and experience the supreme joy of yielding this spiritual harvest.” (Paper 180: sec. 3, paragraph 1)
We have the privilege of being the avenue of God’s love and strength and Spirit that goes out to the world — but we are not its source.
I find John’s recording of these verses insightful, for although they are not exactly the same as found in The Urantia Book, I find them helpful in distilling the message: “I am the vine and you are the branches; those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.” Apart from me you can do nothing. Apart from God’s Spirit we can do nothing for the progress of God’s kingdom and family. It’s not possible. There is no such thing as a good work on behalf of the Kingdom apart from the work of the Spirit.
I can’t help but think that this kind of organic understanding of the relation of God’s spirit and our works, could have, and should have, saved the church centuries of debate about the nature of “good works” — but that’s another story.
Engrafting our lives into Christ’s, hiding our lives in his, is the great privilege and opportunity we have, and controlling the outcome is not the issue.
Most of my life I have prayed for God’s help to do this or that project for the church-some good thing, as I perceived it, for his Kingdom. Only more recently have I been more moved to pray, “God, help me align my life with your work and Spirit in every moment of my life, wherever I am, and with whomever I am, in your world.”
The inherent joy of such living is far greater, and it does not rely on knowing the outcome. So as we continue this venture, this great adventure, we can hardly know what exactly will come of it — five, ten, fifty, a hundred years from now.
We don’t need to, for while we believe and trust the work is ours, and worthy of our best, we also believe the consequences belong to God — and that I find incredibly liberating. I trust you do too.
In this issue:
Correction: