When “Participation” No Longer Means Obedience

Introduction

During a recent sermon on 1 Peter, I found myself going through a long and unexpected process of reflection.

At first, I did not fully realize how strongly I would react to some of the language being used. It was only after the sermon ended, when I looked back at my emotional responses and thought processes throughout the experience, that I gradually understood something important: what I was reacting to was not merely the sermon itself, but an entire interpretive structure that had already been formed within me over many years.

Words such as “participation,” “building,” “walking together,” “trust,” “stumbling,” and “shame” all carry specific meanings within a religious context. Yet for someone who has spent a long time in environments shaped by collective and utilitarian narratives, these words do not enter the mind neutrally.

They naturally carry direction, value judgment, and even an implicit structure of pressure.

As a result, the exact same message can lead different people into completely different paths of interpretation.

Over time, I came to realize that many of my initial misunderstandings did not actually come from the sermon itself. They came from the environments I had lived in for years, and from the cognitive habits those environments had shaped within me.

“Participation” Within a Conditional Value System

When I later revisited my initial reactions, I realized that my misunderstandings mainly existed on three levels.

1. Participation as a Moral Classification

My initial understanding of “participation” carried a very strong binary structure.

It seemed that only through participation could one be aligned, constructive, or moving together with others. By contrast, not participating appeared to automatically place someone into a negative position, becoming an obstacle, or even becoming “wrong.”

This interpretation closely resembled the collective narratives I had long been familiar with.

Within those systems, things are often not approached by first discussing causes or context. Instead, they begin by defining categories of value. What is correct, what is incorrect; what should be encouraged, and what should be avoided.

As a result, “participation” naturally becomes morally positive, while “non-participation” easily becomes framed as a problem.

Because of this, the real question that emerged in my mind during the sermon was:

If I do not participate, does that automatically make me an obstacle?
Am I required to participate?

2. Participation as an Implicit Filtering Mechanism

Another point that triggered a strong reaction in me involved the relationship between contribution and capability.

When the sermon spoke about different roles, abilities, gifts, and functions within the community, I instinctively interpreted it as a kind of filtering mechanism.

In the environments I had previously lived in, a person’s value often needed to be continuously demonstrated.

The more you contributed, the more recognition you received.
The more capable you appeared, the more likely you were to be retained.
The more aligned you were with the goals of the system, the more acceptance you gained.

Because of this, participation easily felt like a threshold-based structure.

It seemed as though only those who were sufficiently capable, productive, or useful truly belonged within the system.

This kind of logic is extremely common in utilitarian environments. It gradually reinforces a particular belief:

Only people who are “valuable” deserve acceptance.

3. Continuous Evaluation After Participation

Beyond that, I also realized that I carry a strong sensitivity toward words such as “trust,” “stumbling,” and “shame.”

In the narrative systems I had previously experienced, effort was rarely treated as something voluntary. Instead, it functioned as a continuous moral expectation.

If you were not proactive enough, you were seen as lazy.
If you were not committed enough, your attitude became questionable.
If you stopped proving yourself, pressure would immediately emerge from the surrounding environment.

Under long-term exposure to this kind of structure, people gradually internalize a system of self-evaluation:

You must continuously work, contribute, and prove yourself in order to maintain your value.

The moment you stop, guilt begins to emerge almost automatically.

As a result, when I first heard these kinds of expressions during the sermon, I instinctively placed them into a framework of:

goal → evaluation → selection.

Only later did I begin to realize that this way of understanding things was itself a conditional value model shaped by long-term environmental influence.

From a System of Evaluation to a Structure of Relationship

Over time, I gradually realized that perhaps my original direction of interpretation was fundamentally misplaced.

I had been using the logic of an efficiency-oriented system to interpret the language of a relationship-oriented structure.

But these are not the same thing.

1. The Stone and the River

I eventually began to reinterpret “participation” through a different image.

I started to think of it as:

a stone entering a river.

From the perspective of the stone itself, whether it is inside the river or outside it, it remains a stone. Its existence does not fundamentally change because of participation.

But once it enters the river, it is no longer merely an isolated object. It begins to exist within a structure and enters into relationship with the flow itself.

It affects the current.
And the current affects it.

This kind of participation is not primarily moral coercion. It is closer to relational entry.

The central question is no longer whether the stone has value.

The question becomes:

has it entered the structure?

2. Belonging Before Contribution

Another major shift in my thinking involved the meaning of value itself.

In the past, I tended to believe that a person first needed to prove usefulness in order to deserve acceptance.

Later, however, I gradually realized that the order may actually be the reverse.

It is not contribution that creates belonging.
It is belonging that naturally gives rise to participation.

The stone is not required to prove its usefulness before it is allowed into the river.

Once it enters the river, it already occupies a place within the structure.

Its influence emerges naturally afterward.

This understanding also led me to rethink the meaning of acceptance itself.

American psychologist Carl Rogers (1902–1987), one of the central figures of humanistic psychology, proposed the concept of Unconditional Positive Regard. Rogers argued that genuine human growth does not emerge primarily through constant correction or evaluation, but through being fundamentally accepted within a relationship. Only when a person no longer needs to continuously prove their worth can a stable and healthy self begin to develop.

Over time, I realized that many of the relationship structures I had previously experienced were much closer to forms of conditional acceptance:

You must first prove that you are worthy before you are allowed to belong.

That logic is fundamentally different from the understanding I gradually arrived at later, namely:

belonging comes before contribution.

3. Disturbance Is Not the Same as Moral Judgment

I also gradually developed a different understanding of ideas such as “stumbling” or “becoming an obstacle.”

I no longer see them primarily as simple moral categories of good versus bad.

Instead, I now understand them more as acknowledgments that influence itself is unavoidable.

Once a stone enters the river, it cannot avoid affecting the flow.

Disturbance will exist.
The only difference is the direction of that disturbance.

Some disturbances move with the flow and contribute to building.
Others create resistance against it.

But the important question is no longer whether someone is simply “good” or “bad.”

The more meaningful question becomes:

what kind of relationship does that influence have with the direction of the structure itself?

This understanding feels fundamentally different from the value-based evaluation systems I had previously been familiar with.

It is closer to a structural relationship than to moral judgment.

Why These Misunderstandings Emerged

Later, I continued reflecting on why I had entered that evaluative framework so naturally in the first place.

I believe there were two major reasons.

1. Long-Term Immersion in Goal-Oriented Systems

For a very long time, I became accustomed to understanding the world through highly efficiency-driven and goal-oriented structures.

Within such systems:

if there is a goal, there must be evaluation;
if there is evaluation, there must be selection;
if there is selection, value must constantly be proven.

Because of this, I instinctively interpreted many relational structures as performance systems rather than relationship systems.

Swiss psychologist Carl Jung (1875–1961), one of the major figures in analytical psychology, argued that people do not enter reality as blank slates. Instead, they continuously interpret new experiences through already existing psychological structures formed by prior experience. In other words, human beings are not simply understanding the present; they are projecting and reconstructing the present through the lens of the past.

Later, I gradually realized that many of my initial misunderstandings during the sermon were precisely this kind of projection.

2. Sensitivity Toward Conditional Help

The second reason runs even deeper.

I carry a strong sensitivity toward conditional forms of help.

In many past experiences, what appeared to be kindness or support was not entirely unconditional.

It often carried implicit exchange structures underneath.

“I can help you here, but you are expected to repay me elsewhere.”
“I am willing to support you, but only if you continue meeting expectations.”

Over time, experiences like these gradually produce a powerful defensive reflex.

Whenever entering a new relational environment, the mind instinctively begins searching for hidden thresholds.

Is there another condition here?
Is acceptance truly unconditional?
What must be exchanged in return?

These reactions do not simply disappear because the surrounding environment changes.

Memory leaves traces behind.

What changed for me was not the complete disappearance of these sensitivities, but rather the growing ability to recognize and recalibrate them, instead of being unconsciously controlled by them.

Relearning What It Means to Walk Together

After going through this process of reflection, my understanding now feels much closer to this:

I am a stone.
And I have found the river I belong to.

Once inside this river, I gradually realized that my existence itself already has influence.

That influence is unavoidable.

From that point forward, the more meaningful question is no longer whether I have influence at all, but rather:

in what direction does that influence move?

I now find myself more willing to think about how my presence can move toward building rather than resistance, toward walking together rather than mutual exhaustion.

And this desire no longer comes primarily from fear, selection, or pressure.

It comes more from a voluntary sense of relational belonging.

Conclusion

Many times, people are not truly reacting only to present language.

They are interpreting the present through the accumulated experiences of the past.

The exact same words may activate completely different memories, emotional structures, and defensive mechanisms in different people.

Because of this, perhaps the most important thing is not merely repeating the “correct” expressions.

What matters more is recognizing that people may genuinely hear the same language through radically different internal worlds.

And perhaps understanding that difference is itself a deeper form of walking together.

References

Jung, C. G. (1968). The archetypes and the collective unconscious (2nd ed.). Princeton University Press.

Rogers, C. R. (1961). On becoming a person: A therapist’s view of psychotherapy. Houghton Mifflin.