Submission to the Lordship of Jesus Christ is a whopper! Especially to those of us individualistic Americans living in a consumer society where the customer is always right. “Who are we gonna follow for very long?” It is just so hard for us to submit to anyone at all, willingly, let alone to a mystical Christ.
Evangelism isn’t about beating opponents into submission—intellectual or otherwise. At its heart, it’s about sharing love, communicating who God is and how God is about the work of redemption and reconciliation. It’s less about what we know than who we know—and how he has made himself known through the power of the resurrection at work in our lives. That having been said, there are some fundamentals that have to be covered.
Go back through the history of the Church. One group has wanted to say to another, “I can’t imagine how I might see Jesus in you.” I think it significant, though, that such contemporary groups are not groups that would meaningfully celebrate All Saints. There are certainly not the type to worry about leaving someone out and hedging their bets by celebrating All Souls. But we do.
The definitions of compromise include: “coming to terms, or arrangement of a dispute, by concession on both “and “adjustment for practical purposes of rival courses of action, systems or theories, conflicting opinions or principles, by the sacrifice or surrender of a part of each.” These sound a lot alike, don’t they? And yet they are different
By now most of us will have read all about what the Episcopal bishops said (or didn’t say) at the House of Bishops meeting in New Orleans. Some of us will be happy while others are disturbed. But what ever your reaction might be, there is one common denominator that I believe unites all sides of the argument: for better or worse, the church is reinventing itself. We may not like it. We may not admit it. But that is what is happening.
Underhill recognizes that the institutional model, the “comfortable religious club,” is not a true embodiment of what the Church is called to be. Rather, each of us has a part to play in the mysterious work of God in the world, the Spirit’s work to restore, reconcile and heal.
I was in the presence of a holy man last month, and the evening I spent with him has set me thinking about holiness, that core concept most of us find so puzzling. Let’s admit it. The word holiness is infested with all sorts of unattractive connotations: otherworldliness, intense piety, life on a plane much higher than our own mundane existence. What on earth is holiness?
I’m beginning to wonder if what we experience as children and, for some of us, as parents in this world doesn’t teach us how God functions as a parent/creator in the realm of our Christian faith. When we turn the equivalent of 15 in Christian years (however long that takes for each of us), does God start to treat us differently – not because we’re annoying – but because we’ve earned a measure of trust?
When it’s over, I want to say: all my life
I was a bride married to amazement.
I was a bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.
When it’s over, I don’t want to wonder
if I have made of my life something particular, and real.
I don’t want to find myself sighing and frightened
or full of argument.
Learning to play the cello as an adult can be an isolating and lonely business. The noise we make can be excruciating—no wonder we tend to keep our doors closed. And yet coming together for a week, we gave ourselves permission to break out of our lonely practice rooms, to play in trios, duets, and even in a full-voiced choir of 48 instruments, strains of Beethoven and Vivaldi echoing off the walls.