Sometimes people ask me, “What is your favorite verse in the Bible?” (which I interpret as “Which one has the most personal meaning for you?“) Frankly, these days I’m having a hard time answering a simple, “How are you?” because of the cognitive dissonance I’m experiencing living in this country right now. But because of this dissonance I believe this verse is more important to me than at any other time: John 17:21a. It’s part of a prayer from Jesus– “I pray that they may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you.”

It echoes another verse in scripture that a dear friend long ago had inscribed on her 12-yr-old son’s gravestone after his unexpected death: “God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them.” 1 John 4:16b

For some, this concept of Love being synonymous with a sense of shared oneness is something out of the 60s guidebook for “flower children” and receives nothing but eye rolls. Theologically speaking, however, these eye-rollers are missing the boat.

In his book Theological Worlds: Understanding the Alternative Rhythms of Christian Belief, W. Paul Jones describes how in the Christian tradition there are traditionally five different lenses through which people have found healing for themselves (and therefore meaning for their lives) via the vehicle of the Gospel. The word Atonement (which really just means discovering our “At-One-Ment” with the divine) is experienced differently, depending on a person’s life circumstances, personality, and heartbreaks. Here are five different worldviews. Which world(s) have you experienced most?

World One: From Alienation to Citizenship. Atonement is experientially found as Oneness and Belonging

World Two: From Hostile Powers to Freedom. Atonement is disrupting the power of evil with Love in action

World Three: From Darkness to Light. Atonement is about fulfillment of the voided self. Love fills void and enables us to risk loving, becoming truly who we are

World Four: From Guilt to Pardon. Atonement is about learning to forgive the self, which feels somehow unworthy

World Five: From Suffering to Healing. Atonement is about long-suffering love in the life of service to a hurting world to bring about transformation

When I first discovered these worlds (and the short question inventory one can use to discover which world you, or your congregation as a whole, resonates with most often and most easily), I was in awe from a sudden realization: NO ONE OF THESE WORLDS IS MORE CORRECT THAN ANY OTHER. Somehow I had assumed that the women in my Bible study who were always bringing their personal exclamations about “forgiveness of their sin” again and again to the table had just not been exposed to other ways of knowing God. They sounded like broken records to me—especially when they seemed to impose their own worldview onto others—assuming that others needed what they had found through Christ.

But hadn’t I been doing the same?

I am most at home in Worlds 3 and 1. It’s probably why progressive forms of interpretation that include liberation theology and interfaith dialogue are so appealing to me. My evangelical sister, Lori, resonates more fully with Worlds 2 and 4. And World 5 people may not easily find a home in many churches unless their passion for mission is met in unique forms of service to the wider world. World 5 people may be our “spiritual-but-not-religious” folks, who, when asked what religious group they belong to say, NONE.

This month at Parables: All-Abilities Inclusion Worship at Chelsea First United Methodist Church we are celebrating World One. The mystical path was walked by Jesus, along with the other four theological worlds, as he lived his life. To reflect the radical inclusion of his way, our parable this month comes from an anonymous author from an unknown spiritual tradition. It helps to capture for us the passion in the last couple weeks of Lent as Jesus invites us to not cross our arms in disgust when the going gets tough in the world, for to do so would invite the same kind of death experienced by the fruit tree in this powerful story. Easter blessings are found in the grace that mysteriously moves through us in generous ways. May they be part of your world this springtime season.

Once upon a time there was a most unusual tree that grew outside the gates of a city on the edge of a desert. It was incredibly old, and people would say that it had been touched by the spirit and hand of God, because it bore fruit in every season! It grew with gnarled trunk, and many branches that bent almost to the ground, since they were always heavy with fruit. The locals and visitors and just people passing by would take from the tree for nourishment and refreshment. 

But one day a wealthy merchant bought the property all around the tree and decided it was “his” tree and not just anyone could have the fruit. He built a sturdy fence around it, keeping everyone away so no one could get to the fruit. Everybody pleaded with the owner to be able to have some of the fruit. He refused. It was his property, his tree, his fruit, that he’d purchased with his money. Days and nights passed and then all of a sudden, the tree died, the fruit fell and rotted. The tree was dead. But wise ones pronounced what had happened. It was the law of life, the law of giving, as predictable as the law of gravity: an immutable principle: when giving stops, bearing fruit ceases, and inevitably death follows.   

And so it is with forgiveness, reconciliation, mercy, compassion, justice and love. Once someone stops giving, forgiving, and reaching out to embrace others, they invariably die.