“At the center of nonviolence stands the principle of love. In struggling for human dignity the oppressed people of the world must not allow themselves to become bitter or indulge in hate campaigns. To retaliate with hate and bitterness would do nothing but intensify the hate in the world. Along the way of life, someone must have sense enough and morality enough to cut off the chain of hate. This can be done only by projecting the ethics of love to the center of our lives.” Martin Luther King, Jr
...God is relentlessly compassionate and tender toward us just as we are – not in spite of our sins and faults (that would not be acceptance), but with them. Though God does not condone or sanction evil He does not withhold his love because there is evil in us. God calls us to come out of hiding and come openly to him. God weeps over us when shame and self-hatred immobilize us.
Thomas Merton said, 'the reason we never enter into the deepest reality of our relationship with God is that we so seldom acknowledge our utter nothingness before him.' God not only forgives and forgets our shameful deeds but even turns their darkness into light. All things work together for those who love God, 'even,' Augustine of Hippo added 'our sins.' Christians who remain in hiding continue to live a lie. We deny the reality of our sin... If we conceal our wounds out of fear and shame, our inner darkness can nither be illuminated nor become light for others. Brennan Manning
"We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools. We are tied together in the single garment of destiny, caught in an inescapable network of mutuality. And whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. For some strange reason I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be. And you can never be what you ought to be until I am what I ought to be. This is the way God's universe is made; this is the way it is structured." Martin Luther King, Jr.
When you listen to people, they feel figured out and will do business with you if your price is competitive and until your service is outsourced to where they can get it at a lower price.
When you deeply listen to people, they feel understood, feel cared about, and they’ll lower their guard, be grateful and won’t outsource you… unless they discover your caring is just a tactic as opposed to a deeply held value. Warren Bennis
Listen deeply because that's what Jesus does for us...
1 Peter 2 1-3 So clean house! Make a clean sweep of malice and pretense, envy and hurtful talk. You've had a taste of God. Now, like infants at the breast, drink deep of God's pure kindness. Then you'll grow up mature and whole in God...
9-10 But you are the ones chosen by God, chosen for the high calling of priestly work, chosen to be a holy people, God's instruments to do his work and speak out for him, to tell others of the night-and-day difference he made for you—from nothing to something, from rejected to accepted.
11-12 Friends, this world is not your home, so don't make yourselves cozy in it. Don't indulge your ego at the expense of your soul. Live an exemplary life among the natives so that your actions will refute their prejudices. Then they'll be won over to God's side and be there to join in the celebration when he arrives.
A saint is simply a friend of God. These are seven characteristics of saints: 1) saints are filled with the love of God; 2) saints love other human beings; 3) saints are risk takers; 4) saints posses humility and humbleness; 5) saints are people of prayer; 6) saints are not perfect; and 7) saints are people of their times.
When we follow Jesus he tells us how to get into society, to get into history, to get tied to the common good, and how to be part of the muddiness and fleshiness and messy spirituality of it all.
Jesus doesn't emphasize how to get us into heaven, but rather how to get our feet on the ground, and how to get in touch with what is really real- his invisible kingdom that's coming and already here!
“There are many who preach Christ, but not so many who live Christ. My great aim will be to live Christ.” Robert Chapman
Proverbs 4:18
The ways of right-living people glow with light; the longer they live, the brighter they shine. But the road of wrongdoing gets darker and darker— travelers can't see a thing; they fall flat on their faces.
Last night we all enjoyed a beautiful grace-filled communion and footwashing time together. What a great way to make space for God by acknowledging our brokenness and need for grace.
Romans 12:1-3 So here's what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don't become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You'll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.
I'm speaking to you out of deep gratitude for all that God has given me, and especially as I have responsibilities in relation to you. Living then, as every one of you does, in pure grace, it's important that you not misinterpret yourselves as people who are bringing this goodness to God. No, God brings it all to you. The only accurate way to understand ourselves is by what God is and by what he does for us, not by what we are and what we do for him.
This has so many questions...Why are we so fascinated in the West like almost no others cultures are about beauty as presented in the video? Why are women so objectified?
Why do we all want to hide who we really are, under make-up, masks, and put ons?
Is there a place, or better yet a group of people where we can be ourselves, our ugly, broken selves and find acceptance and hope?
Is that what the collection of Christ followers is, the church, where we can come face to face with Jesus and not at all want to have 'make-up' on?
The first god I remember was a Santa Claus god, who you only turned to around Christmas time, who you tried to butter up, and then got mad at if you didn't get what you wanted. That didn't make sense. I knew if there was a god, he could see through us, like we were made out of cellophane, like he could stare directly into our hearts the way we look into an aquarium, like he'd know what was floating around in there, like he might be the one feeding it.
Then there were those people who used god to threaten you, saying you better be careful-- god's watching, like god was a badass hillbilly sitting in some cloud with a pair of binoculars, a cotton candy beard, a six pack, and a shotgun.
Then I saw people who had Jesus' name on their bumper sticker, like he was running for president. And sometimes those people with Jesus on their bumper sticker would cut you off on the freeway and give you the finger, which is very different from lending you a hand.
Then there were people on television, dressed in weird clothes and scary make-up, swearing they had the secret to god, like god was a keyhole and their eyeball was pressed to it, and if I just gave 'em some money they'd let me look, and then I could see god just hanging around in his boxer shorts, and though I liked the idea of spying on god, I began to wonder if the world would be a healthier place if the Romans had just put up with Jesus and let him die of old age.
And then there were the football players, kneeling down in front of everybody, thanking god, like he was their best friend, but then they'd jump up and spike the ball, yell I'm number one, and I'd be confused, because if you're number one, then what number is god?
Then I saw politicians trotting god out on a leash, like a racehorse they wanted to hop on and ride to the finish line. But if they lost it would be god's fault and god would be the donkey they'd pin all their problems on, and that was very nice of god: to be both a race horse and a donkey.
And then there were those who said you better be good on Earth if you wanna get into heaven, like heaven was the United States, and Earth was Mexico, and angels were border patrol. Like when you die you sit in a parked car on the outskirts of heaven, the engine idling, your soul in the back seat in one of those kennels used to carry small dogs on airplanes, as you listen on the radio to all the people you ever wronged testify against you.
And then there was the church which was like this cafeteria, where they served god to you on these very un-godlike plates, but I wanted my god pure, and not watered down by human beings, so I just had one of those catastrophe gods-- you know, the one you only turned to in an emergency, like god's the national guard you call in to clean up the earthquake of your life. So I got drunk one night, drove home, passed out behind the wheel, woke up, going sixty straight at a brick wall, slammed the brakes, heart banging like a wrecking ball in my chest, staring at death's face in the bricks, close enough to see we had the same cheekbones.
Now I have a god who's like a mechanic who can fix anything, so when I wanna chew somebody's head off like a saltwater taffy, or amputate my DNA, or open my wrists like windows that have been painted shut, I just put my soul into a box, like a busted computer, and haul it in. And he never asks to see my paperwork, or says my warratny has expired. And I walk out feeling better. And I don't care if he doesn't exist.
The truly holy people I've met in my life are really interesting people. They're a mix of the most incredible godliness and at the same time, the most unbelievable earthiness. I know a woman who curses like a sailor, but she's the most holy woman I know. She is! I'm not kidding. We've created this image of what holiness looks like that's just nonsense. Good holy people probably drink too much some times, and have colorful language, and there's plenty of room in the Bible to see people like that. We have to see life for what it is, entirely more complicated then simple. Spirituality is not simple; it's complicated. It gets messy sometimes. Mike Yaconelli
Wednesday, 6 June 2007
How do you become the church, not simply go to church? How do you practice a living faith in the world without succumbing to its values and lifestyle? Where is the link between the formative practices and centered life of Jesus, and the expression of His life and practices in today’s world?
Fastfood spirituality doesn’t die easily.
James 4:2 “What causes fights and quarrels among you?” James asks. He answers his own question straightforwardly, “You desire but you do not have, so you kill. You covet but you cannot get what you want, so you quarrel and fight.”
Sound like alot of church life you've seen before?
“What we, as discriminating shoppers of spiritual goods and services, finally want to know is, How will believing in this god improve my quality of life? Bottom line, what does this deity do for me?” Inagrace Dietterich
Ask God to transform us into a worshiping community of committed followers being sent to the world!
