By Pastor Calob Rundell
At our most recent Sacred Neighbors gathering, Pastor Calob Rundell, Lead Pastor of St. Luke’s United Methodist Church, reflected from his Christian tradition on Jesus’ teaching in John 15, where Jesus describes himself as the vine and his followers as branches. In the passage, the gardener prunes the branches that are already bearing fruit so that they can bear even more.
From this Christian teaching, Calob invited the group to consider the metaphor of gardening and what it might open up for us across our different traditions. What does pruning look like in our own lives? In our communities? And what might pruning look like for the Interfaith Coalition? What is the fruit we are hoping to bear?
Those questions opened into a rich conversation among Muslim, Christian, Brahma Kumaris, and Latter-day Saint participants. We talked about the ways our individual faith communities need tending, pruning, and nourishment in order to flourish—and how the flourishing of each community contributes to the health of the whole interfaith ecosystem.
We don’t gather because we all believe the same things. We gather because our differences give us more to learn from one another. A teaching or practice offered from one tradition can give us a new metaphor, question, or way of seeing without requiring us to share the same beliefs. When each of our communities is rooted, healthy, and flourishing, we have more to offer one another—and the entire ecosystem becomes stronger.
That is the gift of Sacred Neighbors: a space where we can tend our own roots while making room for the flourishing of our neighbors. Together, we are asking not only What kind of community do we want to be? but also What kind of ecosystem do we want to create together?
Reach out to Interfaith President Rev. Lauren Grubaugh Thomas at leadership@dougcointerfaith.org with any questions.
