Do Not Cause Others To Stumble By Our Use Of Social Media
Luke's Gospel tells us (9:51-62) that many people wanted to follow Jesus and his call to live for God's kingdom, but because they had never examined their own unspoken priorities these hi-jacked them from remaining followers of The Way.
I am deeply saddened when someone in our world-wide community, who, before they made their vows heard these words: 'God is calling you to leave behind everything that stops you setting sail in the ocean of God's love', and who confessed 'that we have wrongly held on to attitudes...which now we leave behind', cease to follow the Way because someone's point of view upsets them. A point of view is an unspoken priority which can hi-jack people from following the Way.
Every person on earth inherits and acquires constructs. Each of us looks at the world from a particular viewing point. Each of us is either on the right or the left in politics. We are either conservatives or liberals in terms of Christian doctrines and moral teachings. For one person Jesus' statement that 'in the beginning God made them male and female' means that the Creator designed a 'one size fits all' and we must fit into that; for another person those words refer to the two poles of a spectrum - and that spectrum is as varied as creation.
Followers of the Way refuse to make an idol of a construct. They therefore refrain from promoting their constructs on social media if these confuse embryo followers of the Way and distract them from two primary elements of our way. These are:
1) Deep listening to people, including those we disagree with. This is the Aidan model.
2) A merciful heart towards all - free from prejuduce. This is the Hilda model.
Jesus asks us to let our communications be seasoned with wholesome, sustaining preservative. 'Let no unwholesome word proceed from your mouth, but only such a word as is good for edification according to the need of the moment, so that it will give grace to those who hear.' (Ephesians 4:29). 'Let your speech always be with grace, as though seasoned with salt, so that you you may know how you ought to answer every one' (Colossians 4:6). This applies to our use of social media. It is better to cut off our social media if it offends a child of God. It would be better if we were thrown into the sea rather than to do this.
Jesus said 'Foxes have holes and birds have nests but the Son of Man has nowhere to hide'. Followers of the Way must never hide behind opinions and constructs - we continue along the Way child-like, trusting, open, innocent as doves but wise as serpents.
The Way of Jesus is the Way of being real, of allowing God to make us who who we are, and of wanting this for each other person.
