A few days back after being witness to the Beloved Community Council, a DOOR gathering based on the spirit and vision of Martin Luther King, Jr. to lift up and empower a diverse chorus of this country's voices, especially as it relates to the ministry of our work in cities, I feel recharged, honored, and ready for a new year. I’m so grateful to be part of such an intentional organization, one that takes risks, listens, challenges, and steps back when needed.
DOOR Hollywood board member and regular speaker, Toni White, and I had a great discussion on the flight home. It led to some thoughts I'm having about the propensity for Christians to hide behind "discernment.” Or, I should say, “discernment” has too often meant, “dismissiveness.”
In my first 10 years as a Christian, born-again, woken up, however you want to classify, I have learned greatly about Discernment. That, one role we share as Christians is to prayerfully find our role in God’s kingdom, and prayerfully find the ways we are supposed to recognize something is out of our control. Sometimes we have to discern “swine” and reserve our pearls for those outside the sty. Sometimes we have to own that we have “savior complexes,” and for some of us there is an overlay of “white savior guilt counter-complexes,” and step back.
But, in my next 10 years, I want to dig into discernment. In some of the circles I’ve found myself in, “discernment” has been code for “dismiss.” In other words, I might call it “discernment” when I don’t want to engage in a hot racial argument; in hearing the reason why a man living homelessly gives for needing that dollar; in stepping away from a situation that looks too complicated and messy. And, sometimes, that might be good discernment. But, it might also be a desire to not engage, which is more accurately described as being dismissive.
Discernment requires that we “intake,” and intake requires that we listen, take time, hear. You can’t discern if you have no information. You can’t adequately pray about something if you haven’t heard the core issue. Now, sometimes we might seriously not be available, and that is okay, as we who seek justice and freedom cannot rest, and we ought to. But if I’m honest, haven’t I used the word “discernment” when I just chose to avoid from the outset?
We are not called to be dismissive people. We are called to NOT overlook, to NOT ignore. May we feel called to step into the hard places and questions with boundless compassion, and may God make it clear when we are to accept rest.
Be well, friends: Matthew
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