Though the saint knows the mountain of God's love from having lived on its heights, the pilgrim in the valley can at least see the mountain and appreciate its grandeur from the distance. He or she can call out to the other pilgrims and tell them of life lived on the heights.--Peter Kreeft
We who live at the base of God's mountain often feel awed, and we always feel small. For 20 years we have lived and prayed, loved and struggled, laughed and cried, despaired and rejoiced in the blessed shadow of the mountain of God's transforming vision for our world. In this jubilee year, we are called to work the experiences and stories of our life together into the language of our faith, to articulate into living statement the call the Spirit has breathed into us over these many years.
Roots
SOJOURNERS COMMUNITY, which was first formed in Chicago, Illinois, in 1971, is a contemporary expression of tradition deeply rooted in the history of the church. Since the time of the Roman emperor Constantine, when Christianity became an official religion of the state and lost the radical Pentecostal fire of the early church, there have been renewal movements within the church trying to recapture the spiritual, political, and cultural cutting edge of the gospel.
Sojourners Community traces its lineage through the Desert Fathers and Mothers, Benedictines, Franciscans, and myriad monastic movements; to through 16th-century Anabaptists and radical reformers, 18th-century Wesleyans, 19th-century evangelical revivalists, Quakers, Mennonites, and Brethren; the historic black churches of the United States and the Confessing Church in Nazi Germany, base communities in Latin America and resisting churches in South Africa, Catholic Worker houses, rural communities, and inner-city ministries--all in the stream of Christian renewal movements, all given the vocation of calling the church back to its most authentic expression of the gospel.
These communities hold out a vision of what the church can and should be, both within itself and in the world. That early evangelical fire, that zeal for the good news of the gospel, has been passed down through the worn hands and faithful hearts of our Christian foremothers and forefathers to us today. For the last 20 years, Sojourners Community, and other sister communities, have humbly tried to carry that torch and keep that Light alive.
Footprints of the Spirit--an Alternative Community
WHERE THE SPIRIT walks she leaves signs for us to follow. Christian renewal communities through time have been marked with some particular signs and beliefs that we continue to follow today. They offer alternative visions to the values of our world and the accommodated patterns of the institutional church.
We believe in Jesus as the Living Christ, God made flesh among us, whom we seek to follow with our whole lives; in his announcement and demonstration of the new order called the reign of God, and his proclamation of it in the Sermon on the Mount; in his saving power and grace, and in what he taught and showed us through his life, death, and resurrection.
We believe in the power of the Word of God and the authority of the scriptures in our lives; in the kind of biblical faith that is centered in and around God's Word so that it might be made incarnate and become real in the world.
We believe commitment to be centrally important--to God, to one another, to our sisters and brothers on this planet, and to the Earth itself.
We believe in binding up the divisions that the world often creates, especially those based on race, class, gender, or culture. We are called to combat racism in all its forms and to build a more just and pluralistic society where diversity is respected, freedom is secured, and power is shared. We refuse to accept structures and assumptions that normalize poverty and segregate the world by class. We are committed to resisting sexism in all its forms and affirming the integrity and equality of women and men both in the church and in the world.
We believe that gospel faith transforms our economics, gives us the power to share our bread and resources, welcomes all to the table of God's provision, and provides a vision for social revolution.
We believe our destiny is tied to the poor and disenfranchised of the world, and that in their struggle we will find the hidden face of God.
We believe our lives to be an integral part of God's creation, to be lived responsibly and in harmony with the rest of God's creatures and with the Earth.
We believe that Jesus' way of nonviolent transformation and peacemaking is not a utopian dream but a necessary path. Violence and war will not resolve the inevitable conflicts between people and nations. We believe that peace must begin with our own lives and our willingness to make sacrifices--and even suffer--for justice.
We believe that our obedience to the state or any other institution must be conditioned, tempered, and sometimes rendered impossible because of our higher loyalty to the reign of God.
We believe in the absolute necessity of spiritual formation and prayer to counter the assault of the world's dominant values on our hearts and minds and to center our lives and rest our souls in God.
We believe that living in peace with sisters and brothers in community is a continual challenge; that it is rooted in the direct and honest communication that Jesus instructed; and that it is made possible by the saving work of the cross, which breaks down barriers, laying a foundation for justice, equality, reconciliation, and love.
We believe that authority in community grows out of shared life and faith, and that leadership comes from the free expression and affirmation of the rich variety of gifts and calls God has given to the body of Christ.
We believe that the Holy Spirit dwells in and empowers both the local integrity and international reality of the Christian community and that the Spirit binds us together across any national, cultural, or political boundaries.
Alternative communities bear the small, yet highly combustible, seeds of God's imagination. They must carry forward the ability to "speak truth to power," as Paul says. In so doing, they generate visions of God's reign in the world and challenge the structures and systems to measure up. That vision, rooted in profound hope, will transform some of those structures, reveal that some are woefully inadequate, and suggest the need for new ones.
If people of faith are to stay true to this mission in the world, we must be in constant dialogue with the Word of God. We must place the Word in the most intimate and tender center of our lives. We must always touch the face of God before we stretch out our hands to the work of the world, and we must reach back to God again and again. In this way is the passionate, consuming imagination of God borne forward.
Charismata: Gifts of the Spirit to Keep on Changing Hands
"NOW TO EACH ONE is given a manifestation of the Spirit for the common good..." (1 Corinthians 12:7).
Charismata...the gifts of the Spirit. These are distinctive gifts given to individuals and communities in order to be given to others. They are qualities or expressions of a local church that are for the building-up of the entire church. Charisms must constantly be renewed, reclaimed, and re-evaluated by the individual or community, being always open to new expressions of the Spirit and to the dynamism of mystery. The Spirit manifests itself in a multitude of ways in order to continually call God's people back to the primary Christian commitment, which is love.
Sojourners Community celebrates several charisms that have been consistently alive in us over the years. While there have been a variety of gifts given to individual members through the years, we recognize that our community as a whole has been given charisms to offer back to the church.
We celebrate the gift of prophetic witness and ministry and the call to be a visionary community.
We celebrate the gift of a vocation for social and spiritual transformation and the call to unite the two together.
We celebrate the gift of ecumenism and the call to integrate streams, traditions, and communities that have long been divided in order to become a community that is evangelical, catholic, and ecumenical.
We celebrate the gift of community and the call to both proclaim and create an alternative vision.
We celebrate the gift of life with the poor and the call to a ministry of hospitality and justice amid the pain and poverty of the world.
We celebrate the gift of peacemaking and the call to be instruments for resolving conflict in our relationships, in our neighborhood, and around the world.
We celebrate the gift of reconciliation and the call to break down the barriers that divide people by race, class, gender, and culture.
We celebrate the gift of conversion and radical discipleship and the call to link belief and obedience, word and deed, theology and practice, contemplation and action, spirituality and humanity, doing and being.
Our Life Together
SOJOURNERS COMMUNITY is dedicated to living out the vision of life and love given to us through Jesus. Our mission is to share the joy of the resurrected Christ with each other and our world through inward reflection and outward sign.
We order our lives together so that we may walk with those whom Jesus walked with--the poor, the weary, the outcast, the stranger--even as we acknowledge the poverty, weariness, alienation, and loneliness that is in each of us. We seek to order our lives not according to the values of the world, but by the values of love, compassion, justice, honor, and peace.
We believe in the vision of a resurrected world, a new order for living, brought about by the radical example of Jesus, in which all people are equal and each life is sacred.
We believe in loving God with our whole heart, our whole mind, our whole body, and our whole soul. We pledge to encourage and struggle with each other in this belief.
We believe in loving our neighbors and our enemies, no matter how they are defined by the world. We pledge to sustain and challenge each other in this love.
We believe in loving ourselves, for each of us is made in the image and likeness of God and each of us is a face of God in the world to be tenderly treasured. We pledge to encourage, respect, and affirm each other in caring for ourselves.
We believe in respecting all that is blessed by God--the Earth and all its wonders, the land and all its creatures, the human family and all its diversity, and we acknowledge the interdependent relationship that binds them all together.
We recognize that as individuals and as a community we often falter in our beliefs and promises. We often hurt each other through our misunderstandings, disagreements, selfishness, and weakness. In such times, we ask for forgiveness, we trust in God's mercy, and we rededicate ourselves to the vision of redemption upon which our faith is founded.
We freely choose to be in community together as a reflection of our faith and as a context for loving one another as Christ loves us. As individuals we must continually reaffirm our personal call to life in community and discern with one another as that call grows and changes. We dedicate ourselves to building a community where there is room to grow and the ability to let go.
We celebrate the mystery that, in their simplicity, these commitments are lived out in diversity. We establish this covenant with each other and before God to uphold these beliefs and pledges to the best of our ability.
May God bless us in these endeavors and give us courage for our journey.
WE WHO LIVE IN the shadow of God's mountain--who live in the valley and gaze at its grandeur from a distance, who hear of its transforming wonders--know that though this life is sometimes difficult, we would choose no other challenge.
We will continue in the next 20 years to turn to the deep well of the Bible and the path of Jesus to ground our lives, center our work, inform our social vision, chart our course, and sustain us over the long haul. We will be more dedicated to nurturing and tending to the joys and jubilees, celebrations and festivities in our lives; to fostering the simple pleasures of good company, invigorating work, shared meals, laughter, deep and renewing rest, and knowing the joys and hopes of God's presence among us.
For us, the word "radical" has always meant "rooted." The explosive mix of biblical faith and radical renewal that ignited Sojourners in the beginning will continue to fuel our pilgrimage and light our way in the years to come.
This 20th Anniversary statement of faith was written and affirmed by members of Sojourners Community in Washington, D.C., in August 1991.
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