It used to be that villains were villains and heroes were heroes. Watching a good western knowing the bad guys would be taken down by the good guys made for satisfying viewing. Modern westerns make it harder to know who is us and who is them. The villain today turns out to be a person of compassion with a family at home he’s working hard to support, despite his dubious methods. Villains are no longer summarily dismissible. They hold part of the truth and inhabit a legitimate world alongside ours.
I heard a professor of world religions describe his childhood in southern India where he grew up as a Christian among Muslims, Hindus and Buddhists. Many of his best friends and playmates were other than Christian. One day he realized his friends were destined to perish. The circle of grace drawn by his faith left him inside them outside. That didn’t feel right. As a professor he asks: Is faith what we have to determine who’s righteous and who’s not? Or is faith what we do to expand our circle of grace.
Our circle of grace, or center of concern, is shaped by our circle of gravity. Our circle of gravity is the place within us from which live our default mode for knowing us vs. them, moral vs. immoral, for interpreting reality, and is the place we return to when stressed and tired. We feel a gravitational pull to stay there safe and secure, not wandering far. It’s the tribal place that dissuades from expanding our capacity to risk a fuller life.
Muslims, Jews, and Christians trace their roots of faith to Abram, the first person known to defy his center of gravity by going from his country, his kindred, his father’s house to a land he’d never seen, an act of faith by which he became the father of many nations. Abram is the foundational embodiment of faith: A human who boldly defies gravity by ever evolving, ever expanding his capacity to see more, feel more, hold more, and be more.
Faith is not something to have, but rather something to do. We love our tribe and though we are not being asked to leave it all behind, we are being called to move beyond it. Otherwise, tribalism will indeed be the death of us all. The call of faith is the call to expand our circle of grace, to transcend our tribe, even as we respectfully include it within our narrative moving forward. We are wise to be proud of our tribe and grateful for all we’ve received, but faith, the faith of Abram, calls us beyond loyalty to tribe toward the promise what lies ahead — a world in which a person of that other tribe is not a villain, but someone who arrived here, just as we did, “trailing clouds of glory from God, who is our home.”
The Rev. Bradford Clark is the rector of Ascension Memorial Church in Ipswich.