Week 36—Thursday 1 John 3:19-21
1 John 3:19-21
GOD HAS A PRIVATE OFFICE
We remind the group that there are some things they do not need to share with the group, that God has a private office to deal with matters that concern others. They can be talked over in the presence of God and perhaps another person. I wouldn’t have believed that a group of from fifty to four hundred would tell their needs straight off, but they do. We tell them that there is not a group of the attained, an inner circle, working on the unattained. That would set up a strain within the group, a tension. No, we begin in a fellowship of need. We remind them that if they act as though they have no needs then we have their number—they have the greatest need of all—they have the need to see their need and to tell those needs. For to get one’s needs up is half way to the solution.
I had an Ashram among the lay leaders of The Methodist Church. The general secretary of this movement said, “Brother Stanley, these lay leaders may close up on you and refuse to tell their needs. They are the attained. They tell others what to do. So don’t be surprised if they close up.” “All right, Brother Bob,” I said, “this is what we are going to do: I’m telling my needs first and you are telling your needs second, and then we will see what happens.” We did and every last man told his needs—glad to. They will do it throughout the world—Japanese and Koreans, who are very buttoned up—“You won’t know whether I’m sad or glad—I’m Japanese, Korean”—they will do it without urging, glad to get bottled up things up and out. We take from two to five hours in the “Morning of the Open Heart,” and in a few hours we know each other better than if we had been together for months and years without this catharsis. And the moment we do it we are on the Way.
A comment, “Good gracious, have you got all the disrupted people in the country together here in this Open Heart?” “No,” I replied, “You have a cross section of the church life, turned honest. They have been putting on a front, now they are simple and honest—and on the way to release and reality.”
O Savior, we thank you that you want to save us from hidden, festering sins as well as open sins. You want to save us from sin. And we want to be saved from it. For sin is our only enemy. Save us from that and we are saved! Amen.
AFFIRMATION FOR THE DAY: “You shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins”—my first sermon in India.