Christmas and the Plymouth Brethren

It’s been a lot of years since I sat in the quiet circle of the Plymouth Brethren giving thanks for history’s most precious story, the story of divine sacrifice and redemption. A quiet, contemplative time of thanksgiving for spiritual healing, of hope for tomorrow and a resolve to live a life worthy of the gift of re-creation.

The Brethren are only human, having split into some thirty or more sub-sects, and they in turn are part of Protestantism’s thousands of spitting, snarling, and scrapping schisms, who in their own turn share in Christendom’s myriads of cantankerous, bitter, feuding pontificating condominiums. Russian Orthodox prelates implore God to rain fire on the Ukrainians while Ukrainian Orthodox priests beg God for protection and revenge against the infidel Russians. Tough job for God.

Some years ago I was drafting succession documents for a lovely widowed client of Serbian extraction, who had converted to Islam at the time of her marriage. “What led to your conversion?” I asked. Her calm answer was unexpected and caught me unprepared. “It was the peace, the serenity, the calm.” I’ve never forgotten. So much for wild-eyed terrorists.

Practicing law for nearly four decades inevitably had me rub shoulders with members of the Jewish faith, some observant, most not. Some were officers in the local synagogue, yet had no moral code whatsoever. Others were scandalously non-kosher, yet demonstrated a deep moral imperative which often cost them dearly. And a few even observed Buddhist tenets. Who’d a thunk?

Over the years I’ve suffered crushing disappointments at the hands of those I’d thought were fellow communicants in the Christ I had followed. At the same time I’ve watched Jewish, Muslim, Agnostic, and other friends live out sacrificially the mercy and grace I learned first around the Bread and the Wine of the Plymouth Brethren.

But I’ve also seen “unbelievers” act like dorks. Seems religion has little to do with it.

For me, the story of the redeeming grace of Jesus remains central to my life, whether historical or allegorical, but the Rules and Regulations have fallen away. The notion that a creating God would send his dearest God-son to pay the consequences of our moral defaults and restore fellowship is life-changing, at least for me. But that television preachers and Imam’s can pontificate and commercialise humanity to their advantage is, to me, revolting. Spirituality is meant for our healing, not for profit-taking.

Where does this go for me, or for you? I’m still discovering.

What I do know is that my faith is not to be dictated by those who promise me hellfire if I don’t subscribe to their particular view. There are at least a million of them and 999,999 of them have to be wrong, maybe even all of them. The math doesn’t work. If that’s the best they have, why should I order my life and set my compass by the dictates of one or less in a million?

In the meantime, I’ll find the divine as best I can, trusting the divine to have mercy and guide me to the truth. And in the meantime to savor the memories of sweet worship and joy amongst the Plymouth Brethren. Hints of grace, of mercy, of hope, and not of terror.

Especially at this Christmas season, this commercialized Christmas season, often called Xmas, when we worship Santa Claus and his reindeer. For me there remains a reminder of the story that says that the creating God came amongst us, to a frightened teenage virgin in an animal shelter under the tyranny of Empire, to give birth to a child who only three decades later would suffer a vicious death for my redemption.

I haven’t figured this all out, but I stand in awe of the story.

And you?