What are you looking for?

In ChurchLand we use the word disciple a lot. We use it to describe people who attend church and we use it to describe classes we attend and teach. For most folks, the word has come to mean a student or learning about what the Bible says.

In the time and culture in which Jesus calls his first disciples – the Jewish culture in first century Palestine in a society ruled by the Roman Empire – the role of disciple was more along the lines of what we would call an apprentice, except the disciple didn’t learn a trade but a way of living. Disciples followed their teacher everywhere watching and observing how the teacher lived. The teacher asked deep questions that taught the disciple how to view life through God’s eyes, discerning and interpreting life, not just living it on the surface.

When Jesus called his first disciples, he didn’t say ‘enroll in my school’ or even ‘come learn what I know.”
He offers an alternative way to do what they know to do: “Follow me and I will show you how to fish for people.
And he asks questions like “what are you after?”
And extends the invitation of “come and see.”

Jesus offers the same to us, an alternative way, a better way, The Way.

Jesus’ invitation to discipleship is about living life as God intends it for us. It is so much more than just learning about Jesus. It is learning to be like Jesus.

Jesus’ invitation to discipleship is about relationships with the prime directive to love God, our neighbor, and ourselves. Success isn’t measured in how many fish we catch, or to modernize it the size of our paycheck or title on our business card, but by how we love.

Jesus’ invitation into discipleship is a call to live in the here and now as citizens of God’s Kingdom on earth as it is in heaven. When we answer the invitation, our lives change, our worldview changes, we are changed by the love and compassion we receive in the invitation.

With this invitation, God seeks us, comes to us and says, “you are my beloved. Let me show you who I created you to be, the life I created you for. A life not dictated by keeping up with the Jones’ but a life guided by my love for you.”

Following Jesus isn’t about getting all the right answers. Following Jesus is a journey of life, The Life, The Way of Love.

What are you after? What is it you seek? Together, as we follow Jesus, we will discover what we are really looking for.

Ordinary

This past Sunday was the Feast of Pentecost, the day we commemorate the gift of the Holy Spirit sent by God to empower all who follow Jesus to proclaim God’s goodness to the world. The Day of Pentecost moves us into what we call the Season After Pentecost in the Church Year. This is the longest season, stretching from 50 days after Easter to Advent which is the four weeks prior to Christmas.

We refer to this as Ordinary Time, time in which we reflect on what it is to live in the meaning of Jesus’ Resurrection in our regular and typical days, in other words, in our ordinary life. Please don’t read ‘ordinary’ to mean insignificant. God created us for this life of waking and eating and sleeping and working and playing and loving. It is how God has ordained all of us, the order of things in God’s Kingdom on earth as it is in heaven.

It is our understanding of ‘ordinary’ that informs what we consider special or extraordinary. It is the ordinary days that make the special days extraordinary. Somewhere along the way, we humans (at least we humans in the United States of America culture from which I write this) decided that every day, every event, every meal, every thing needs to be special and extraordinary. We decided that ordinary was bland and boring and even bad. And this extraordinary pressure to live outside of who we are created to be is depleting our ability to be grateful. This ‘every day must be extraordinary’ mentality keeps us in constant competition with each other because my extraordinary must be better than your extraordinary.

As we begin to venture out of the necessary separation and seclusion of the COVID19 pandemic, I find our transition into the Ordinary Time of the Church calendar so appropriate. We’ve all had an extraordinary year-plus. None of us are the same. Our world is not the same. And we are faced with a choice: we can struggle to return to the way we were pre-covid or we can move forward, following Jesus in the ordinary days to come, rethinking what we consider ‘normal’ in light of the Resurrection.

So, I invite you to join me over these days and weeks and months of Ordinary Time, on a journey with Jesus. Let’s look at what the ministry, sermons, parables, and prayers of Jesus can teach us about living as Resurrection People in our everyday ordinariness.

Jesus tells us that he came to give us real life, life far better than we can imagine (see John 10:10). To open ourselves up to receiving this real life, we have to let go of the life we think we should have based on the world’s standards. We need to let Jesus reset our imagination based on a Kingdom view of the world rather than the worldview of our own kingdom.

If you know folks who’d like to join us in this journey, I’d be grateful if you’d share this with them. See y’all Thursday.

Use Your Pentecost Voice

A sermon preached at St. John’s-McAllen on May 23, 2021:

Lectionary Readings for Pentecost are found here.

What a joy it is to be with y’all again! Please do not mistake my giddiness to be early morning drunkenness as some did the disciples in their exuberant proclamation of the good news. Getting to share the good news of Jesus with people we love and adore is worth being over-the-top excited about!

And, getting to be with y’all on Pentecost makes it even more thrilling! This is the place where I first began to discover my priestly voice as I learned how to lead others in finding their kingdom voice.

I remember one particular Sunday – I’d been here about a year and a half or so – as I began the Eucharistic Prayer, it felt different, I felt different. The words sounded different even though they were the same words I’d spoken behind this altar many times before. And a few of you noticed and said something either that day or in the week following.

The difference wasn’t anything I had done and, no, I hadn’t snuck into the wine cabinet before the service. It wasn’t even a special Sunday like Pentecost, it was just an ordinary Sunday. An ordinary event transformed by the power of the Holy Spirit.

When the disciples gathered together to celebrate the Jewish festival of Pentecost they didn’t know that this festival they’d celebrated their whole lives would be transformed, that God would use something common and familiar to transform them and all who heard their voices.

These ordinary Galileans were transformed into holy people of hospitality as everyone, regardless of their background and heritage heard of the mighty works of God. Where language had been a barrier, God created connections and relationships. In a civilization formed in the us vs. them of the Romans and Israelites, God issues the invitation to everyone: all are welcome into this new life in God’s kingdom.

AND just as important as the invitation itself is the delivery. We are all called – and empowered – to proclaim the goodness of God in our own unique way with our own unique voices. One of the many formative lessons of Pentecost is that God didn’t design nor does God call us to be identical robots.

Each of us has something unique and necessary and needed and wanted in the building of God’s Kingdom on earth as it is in heaven. My voice and skills and talents cannot be complete without all of yours and yours are not complete without each other or mine.

We are only completely who God created and calls us to be with God and each other. We do not and cannot follow Jesus independently.

The extraordinary events of that day some 2000+ years ago transformed Pentecost from a festival of God’s law into an invitation for everyone to come into the Kingdom. That’s fairly easy to see in the story as told in the Acts of the Apostles that we read each year on this day.

The challenge for us is in how we, reading this story in a different time and culture, carry it with us out of these doors and into the ordinary moments of our lives.

We know that after Peter assures the crowds that the disciples aren’t drunk and that they are witnessing the fulfillment of God’s promise, the disciples didn’t just look at each other and ask “what’s for brunch?” and resume life as they had known it. They went out with their newly transformed voices and proclaimed God’s love to the ends of the earth as they had the ability and were equipped by the Spirit.

How do we do the same? How do we take our own Spirit given Kingdom voice and proclaim God’s love to the ends of the earth? Or at least proclaim it in our neighborhoods and workplaces?

For me, the best story to help us answer ‘how do we do the same’ is the conversation between Jesus and Peter on the beach sometime after Jesus’ resurrection as told by John. And although it isn’t what we are scheduled to read on Pentecost, y’all know how I like to redesign the lectionary from time to time1.

Jesus has just shared a beach breakfast with Peter and the disciples when he asks Peter, “do you love me more than these?” Peter assures Jesus he does and Jesus says, “Feed my lambs.”
Then Jesus asks, “do you love me” and Peter again assures Jesus he does to which Jesus says, “take care of my sheep.”
And yet again Jesus asks Peter, “do you love me?” And Peter, we can imagine a bit frustrated and perplexed at the repetition of the question says, “you know I do”.

Jesus responds with “Feed my sheep” and reminds Peter of his original invitation to discipleship: “Follow me.”

And Peter, oh, dear Peter, instead of keeping his eyes and attention on Jesus, looks around and says “what about him?” What if his relationship with you looks different than my relationship with you? What if he has something I don’t have?

It encourages me so much that the one whom Jesus proclaimed would be the foundation of the church is as fallible as I am. Peter doesn’t give us some unattainable perfection example of being a disciple but the very real and authentically human way. Isn’t it good to know that when God chose to bring about his kingdom on earth that he factored in our authentic humanness?

On our own, by ourselves, without God, we’d make a slippery, shaky, crumbly foundation for anything. It is God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, that glues us all together. I don’t want to get ahead of myself here because we’ll get to more about this incredible ‘thing’ called the Holy Trinity next week.

For now, lets get back to Jesus and Peter on the beach.

Jesus reminds Peter that following him isn’t a competition of who gets more but a companionable journey on which we all receive the abundant benefits of God’s salvation.

We are all the beloved children of God and God doesn’t have favorites because God loves each of us as if we were the only one, the one sheep who’s wandered off, the one pearl of great price, the single piece of treasure lost and found and worth celebrating. And together we make up this amazing Body of Christ, the Kingdom of God on earth as it is in heaven, Jesus’ Church!

Together we proclaim the good news of God in our own unique voices, using our abilities and skills, our talents and treasure to feed and care for each other, our families and neighbors, others in our community, and in other parts of the world as we are able.

Pentecost isn’t just a day or a celebration, it is the way of life, the way of love, that Jesus calls us into with the invitation “follow me.”

God has poured out the Holy Spirit on us and we proclaim the goodness of God with all that we are and all that we do, extending the invitation of Jesus to everyone we know and encounter. The ordinary days of our lives are transformed as we become more and more aware of God’s presence with us at all times and in all places.

We are The Church and, yes, we come together from time to time in this building to worship but that’s not the goal. Our holy worship of God together is one of many ways we open ourselves up to the continuous transformation by the Holy Spirit so that we, too, proclaim the good news with our Kingdom voices.

This Pentecost, our new birth as The Church has been transformed yet again as we begin to venture into the world forever changed by the COVID19 Pandemic. Our collective voice of God’s Love is more necessary than ever. And your particular way of proclaiming the good news of Jesus – and yours, and yours, and yours, is desperately needed by someone.

Use your Pentecost voice!

1I was preparing my regular weekly blog posts and this sermon at the same time this previous week. At the time of the blog posts, I hadn’t planned to work the story of Peter and Jesus on the beach into the sermon but it just sorta worked itself in there. So, if you are a regular reader, I’m tempted to apologize for the redundancy but then again, it’s always a good thing to hear a good story more than once.

More than a Season

Our season of Eastertide is drawing to a close. Do you sense a change in the air? Do you feel the anticipation of the coming friend/helper/another whom Jesus promised would come to us?

In John’s telling of the time after Jesus’ Resurrection, our friend Peter does what he knows how to do, he goes fishing. Can you picture the scene: Peter and the others are sitting around pondering what the previous days have held for them and what the future will be. How do they continue to follow Jesus if Jesus isn’t physically present? How do they live this new life Jesus talked about when the world around them looks just like it did before? The Romans are still in charge, there are still corrupt individuals among the Temple leaders, and they had given up everything to spend the last three years following Jesus and what do they have to show for it?

And, so, Peter does what Peter knows to do, announcing to the group, “I’m going fishing” to which they reply, “We’ll go with you.” They spend all night on the boat and catch nothing. As they are coming to shore, Jesus is there, telling them they’d been looking in all the wrong places to find what they are looking for. And after doing as he instructs and bringing in the largest haul of their lives, Jesus invites them to breakfast.

The conversation between Jesus and Peter following their shared meal is the most telling and tender exchange between teacher and disciple. In a three-fold question and response that mirrors and redeems Peter’s three verbal denials of knowing Jesus, Jesus answers their pondering of “what now?”

Do you love me? Yes. Feed my lambs.
Do you love me? Yes, you know I do. Show your love for me by taking care of my sheep.
Do you love me? Stop asking, it’s making me uncomfortable, just trust what I say and let’s get on with what’s next. Feed my sheep.

What now? What’s next? How do we follow Jesus without Jesus being physically present? We love. We feed. We care for. The very actions that Jesus did with the disciples are the actions that we do as we follow him.

We live in Jesus’ Resurrection now by looking not to the world for direction but to God’s love for all.
We live in Jesus’ Resurrection now by letting go of our way and walking Jesus’ Way.
We live in Jesus’ Resurrection now by participating with God to make life on earth as it is in heaven.

The Resurrection isn’t a season we move through or an event we simply celebrate and honor each Sunday. It is the life Jesus calls us to live in the here and now, following him as Resurrection People every moment of every day.

Who We Really Are

Good Tuesday, Y’all! Can you believe that May is more than half passed? For those of us who live in the northern hemisphere, summer is almost upon us and winter is descending for those who live south of the equator. Even in the transitional rhythms of the earth, sun, & moon, God reminds us that we too are called to move forward in growth and transformation.

Jesus tells Peter that he will be the rock on which Jesus will bring about The Church – not a building but the everlasting community of people1 who love God and follow Jesus. We think of rocks as permanent but if you’ve ever studied even the basics of geology you know they are not. And if we look at Peter’s behavior and words following Jesus’ declaration, we see that Peter was not the permanent, fixed, stalwart of perfection that we’ve somehow morphed the idea of Peter the Rock into.

Immediately after Jesus’ declaration of what must happen, Peter attempts to correct Jesus by telling Jesus that he (Jesus) will never suffer and die. Jesus not so gently reminds Peter of his purpose by saying “get behind me.” Peter momentarily had stepped out from following Jesus and was trying to lead Jesus to a different way.

At the last meal Jesus has with the disciples before his arrest and crucifixion, Peter swears he will never deny knowing Jesus. And yet, even before the three times Peter was directly asked if he knows Jesus and he says ‘no’, Peter again steps out from following Jesus and returns to his own way. In the garden where Jesus asks the disciples to keep vigil with him while he prays, Peter falls asleep. As the soldiers come to arrest Jesus, Peter attempts to defend him with a sword.

Peter, the rock on which Jesus promises to shape his community of followers is more like Talc than Granite. Peter is as human as the rest of us and it is about his humanness that Jesus says, “let me tell you who you really are.”

Who we really are are image bearers of God. Who we really are are God’s beloved children. Who we really are are citizens of God’s Kingdom. Who we really are is the community of people God chooses to work through in this world with our faults and foibles, bringing all things together for good, on earth as it is in heaven.

Following Jesus isn’t about being perfect it is about being the human beings God created us to be. It is about staying behind Jesus, trusting and believing that Love is the most powerful thing in all of God’s creation.

Jesus chooses Peter to illustrate how Jesus’ Church, Jesus’ Everlasting Community, is good and holy because God makes it so, not because we do. In choosing Peter, Jesus says “I choose everyone who desires to follow me, moving forward in growth and transformation through the rhythms of this life created and given by God.”

Following Jesus is finding who we really are in God’s love for us.

1This is one of only two times Jesus uses the word we translate into english as ‘church’. The more common use of the word that Jesus used was ‘community’.

To Whom We Belong

I am regularly astonished by the thought of God knowing me, knowing my name, knowing the hairs on my head (even and perhaps especially the grey ones), wanting only the best for me. I’m also regularly amazed that God is willing to use my simple human efforts to bring about The Kingdom on earth as it is in heaven. Are you astonished and amazed that the same is true about you?

Long before any of us were conceived and born, since the very beginning of ever, God said we are good.
And that we are worthy of love.
And that we each hold a special place in The Kingdom that no one else can fill.

Jesus came to show us what it is to live in this confident love, a beautiful mosaic of God’s beloved children, all necessary, needed, and wanted. And loved.

As John tells the good news story, during his last evening with his disciples, Jesus offers a prayer for them and for us regarding our life in this world.

Jesus prays for us! Let that sink in way down deep into your core, way down in the God shaped place of your being. Long before we were born, Jesus prayed for us! And not just some “God bless Whats-her-name” kind of prayer but very specifically that God would protect us as we learn to navigate being Kingdom Citizens in this world.

Jesus sends us into the world not so we can just bide our time until God brings about the new heaven and new earth, Jesus sends us so that we can participate with God in making it on earth as it is in heaven. Jesus sends us into the world to love God, our neighbor, ourselves, and, yes, our enemies.

Jesus sends us out into the world to continue the work of love he showed us how to do. And more than that, Jesus sends us into the world so that we can show the world what it means to live fully as the human beings God created every one to be. The things we do in the name of God we do because of who we are, beloved children of God.

Again, Jesus speaks of joy being made complete. We can only know real joy by knowing the truth of who and whose we are. We are sanctified – a big fancy church word that means to be set apart and made holy for God’s purposes. God chooses to make us holy. God chooses to work God’s purpose in this world – drawing everyone and everything into the kingdom – through us. God chooses us, you and me. Let that sink in.

As citizens of God’s Kingdom on earth as it is in heaven, we don’t belong to the world but we live in the world belonging to God for God’s purposes. Let that sink in. Way down deep into your core, way down in the God shaped place of your being.

Wait for it

Today is Ascension Day in the church calendar, the day we celebrate the ascension of Jesus 40 days after Easter and 10 days before Pentecost. Over the next ten days we will transition from Eastertide to the season of Pentecost, the six-month long part of the church calendar we call Ordinary Time as we turn our formational focus to following Jesus in our regular ordinary days at home and work and play.

The days of Eastertide wrap up with the most intense waiting period yet. Jesus has been with his disciples since the day of the Resurrection and now he springs something else on them: He’s going away (again) and instructing them to wait (some more) until God sends the Holy Spirit.

We can only imagine their trauma. They witnessed Jesus arrested and tried and murdered in the most brutal way. And for three days they were in limbo, not knowing. He said he’d rise up but that was impossible once he was physically dead. But he did! And he has been with them for weeks. Things were “back to normal”. But they weren’t. Jesus was the same but different. People didn’t recognize him at first but the wounds were still visible, proof he had been crucified. Despite what all the world had done to him, he rose from the dead, not just resuscitated but risen from three days dead to new life, and he continued to model for them God’s love and to ask them to do the same.

The writer of the Acts of the Apostles tells us that after Jesus “was taken up and disappeared in a cloud,” that they just stood there looking at the empty sky1. Can’t you just picture the dumbfounded looks on their faces? Wait … what?! What just happened?! Where did he go?! What are we to do now!?!

“Wait. Wait for what God has promised. Wait for the power of the Holy Spirit to empower and guide you. Remember all that I taught you. Be witnesses of the goodness of God’s kingdom here and now and share this good news to the whole world!”

Waiting on God doesn’t mean doing nothing. Waiting on God is about following Jesus and living as Kingdom people, doing the things that build up people with God’s Love.

The apostles and disciples of Jesus spent the ten days between the Ascension and the coming of the Holy Spirit (Pentecost) together, working out their emotions about the betrayal of Judas, seeking understanding from God’s Word and discerning God’s will for the leadership team to prepare themselves to continue to fulfill their role in God’s plan.

We wait on God as we live into our purpose of participating with God to bring about the Kingdom of God on earth as it is in heaven.

What do you need to discern about God’s purpose and plan for our renewed resurrection life together in our time and place? The apostles and disciples were sent out to carry their first-hand witness of God’s goodness to “the ends of the earth.”

As we all begin to transition out of our necessary quarantining and staying home because of the COVID19 pandemic, where and how will you carry your first-hand witness of God’s goodness into the world?

1I find it curious that the writer of the Gospel according to Luke is also supposed to have written Acts. In Luke, the writer ends this story with the apostles returning to Jerusalem “bursting with joy.” In Acts, it’s like the writer has to correct the story because I don’t know about you but staring dumfounded into the sky until a couple of angels snap you out of it is much more believable to me that doing a joyful dance at Jesus’ leaving again (or is that just my own past traumas talking). It’s like the end of Luke is the social media version and Acts is what really happened.

Seeds of all Kinds

As we’ve journeyed through this Eastertide together, we’ve focused on what it is to BE resurrection people, not just recognizing that Jesus rose from the dead as a moment in time but celebrating and living in this new and glorious life we have because of Jesus. Jesus did what he did – feeding and healing and restoring people into community because he knows boldly and confidently who he is. Jesus knows that it is God’s will and desire that all people – you and me and us and them (yep, even them) – live into the fullness of life that God created us for.

This abundance of life is lived from the core of our being: the image of God in which we are all created and the unique person we each are, designed as an integral part of God’s purpose and plan for all creation. From this core we live into the fullness of life and we shine the light of God’s glory in the darkness so that others know they too are beloved children of God.

In the annual seasons of God’s plan, both in the natural world and as the church mirrors the rhythm of God’s story we continually rest, reflect, grow, and follow. We answer God’s call to sow seeds and to cultivate the soil of our soul so we can better receive seeds and bear the fruit of God.

Some seeds sprout easily. Do you remember as a child growing bean sprouts from beans laid between wet paper towels? Other seeds are more difficult. On a family trip to Hawaii I bought some native plant seeds to grow at home. As I opened the package and read the instructions, they were quite lengthy and detailed, involving sanding the seed coat, soaking it for a long time, and finally planting. I wondered how these plants could possibly grow in the wild unaided!1

I don’t think it is at all coincidental that Jesus uses so many agricultural metaphors in his teaching. Yes, he was in a much more agrarian society that we are in our time and place but even if the only seeds we saw grow were our kindergarten beans on paper towels, we know that a seed has to open up to let the sprout come through, however easy or difficult that process may be.

Sometimes our own growth is easy and quick like the beans and sometimes our growth needs a lot of help to even be able to sprout and begin to push through the darkness toward the life-giving light. And, when we experience new growth, the roots need to stay grounded and fed. The work we’ve done in our current season of Eastertide will continue to feed the growth we will see in the days, weeks, and months to come.

We are resurrection people and God’s beloved children, this day, this season, and always, growing from the changeless foundation of, and being continuously nourished with, God’s love.

1I learned that it is through various animal digestive systems that the prep work is done, but I’m not sure that is helpful to my illustration here.

Joy Complete

Readings for the Sixth Sunday of Easter: http://lectionarypage.net/YearB_RCL/Easter/BEaster6_RCL.html

Jesus’ words for us today are a continuation of what we began last week (and pair well with Tuesday’s and Thursday’s posts). Jesus is in Jerusalem with his closest disciples. He’s washed their feet and had what would be their last meal together before his arrest. And one of his closest disciples leaves to betray him for a few pieces of silver.

Jesus takes this opportunity to talk with them about love and joy and life. If you knew someone close to you was going to betray you and that most of the friends you were having supper with would run at the first sign of trouble and even deny knowing you, what would you talk with them about?

We need to hear Jesus’ words of love and joy and life as well.

Jesus tells us plainly that it is God’s love for us that enables us to love others as Jesus loves.

And to make sure we really get it so that we can live it, Jesus provides us with the two-fold purpose for the directive to love as as he loves:
“I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete.”
and
“I give you these commands so that you can love each other.”

Joy is cultivated in love and love grows from joy. Does that make your head swim? It messes with our western, modern, linear, binary thinking. Which is exactly what Jesus’ words are intended to do: to challenge our worldview and way of thinking.

We are accustomed to talking about what makes us happy. Happiness is based on our circumstances. We say things like ‘that new job will make me happy’ and ‘going on this vacation will make me happy’ and ‘baking makes me happy’ and ‘helping others makes me happy’. Happiness is dependent on something outside of us. Happiness is about doing.

Joy is about our being. Joy comes with remaining in God’s love, knowing at our very core that we are beloved children of God. Joy is a choice to live in the confident hope of God’s goodness. Joy remains regardless of the circumstances in which we find ourselves.

The word we translate as ‘complete’ means ‘full’ or ‘filled up’. Joy is something that fills us from within. When we live from the foundation of God’s love for us (remaining or abiding in God’s love), we are enabled to love God and our neighbor and ourselves as Jesus commands us to. And the more we love, the more love we have to give and the more love we give the more our joy is filled up, even if we aren’t feeling particularly happy about what’s happening around us or to us.

This is the abundance of life that Jesus promises us when we follow him.

We cannot pursue joy as we try to pursue happiness. We come to know this holy joy as we let go of our own desires and seek to do all that we do for the purposes of bringing about God’s Kingdom on earth as it is in heaven. In God’s Kingdom there is only love and justice. In God’s Kingdom we work together with God’s help so that everyone has what they need. This doesn’t mean we won’t have anything but that what we do have will exceed our own personal desires.

And here’s one more thought to mess with our way of thinking: We aren’t equipped to do the things Jesus tells us to do once we enter God’s Kingdom; loving others as Jesus loves is what brings about God’s Kingdom on earth as it is in heaven. Jesus says the Kingdom of God is at hand, right here with us, and he tells us how to be in God’s Kingdom now.

Know that God loves you as God loves Jesus. Live in that love. In the fullness of the joy that God’s love creates in you, love others as Jesus loves. Amen.

Being and Doing, Part 2

Good morning, Y’all. How are you being this morning? I know that sound odd to our ears, but I really mean it. As we talk about being as the foundation of our doing, I really want to know how you are being, not as a test but out of genuine concern. Imagine the conversations we could all have if we asked each other “how are you being” and really stop to listen to the answers!

Tuesday we talked about how our worship of God in our regularly scheduled gatherings in our meeting spaces is not the goal of our belief but one of the ways we learn to live in relationship with God every moment of every day outside of our gathering spaces. Worship is one of many formation tools that, with God’s help, we learn to be The Church, living and breathing and moving in the world, participating in God’s redemption Plan. So, what is it to follow Jesus out of the worship space doors and off the grounds of our campuses to love and serve God in this world?

When Jesus says, “follow me,” he doesn’t mean we are purchasing a reserved seat ticket for some future trip. And the invitation isn’t to just come and visit God once in a while in these buildings we gather in for our worship until then. Our response to Jesus’ invitation is about our life now.

In Jesus’ sermon about not looking for shortcuts to God that I quoted in Tuesday’s post, Jesus goes on to say:

“These words I speak to you are not incidental additions to your life, homeowner improvements to your standard of living. They are foundational words, words to build a life on. If you work these words into your life, you are like a smart carpenter who built his house on solid rock. Rain poured down, the river flooded, a tornado hit—but nothing moved that house. It was fixed to the rock.”

Matthew 7:24-25, The Message

Jesus tells us plainly that we are to build our life on what he teaches and demonstrates. As Jesus prepares his earliest followers for life without his physical presence, he talks about feeding the hungry, sheltering the homeless, clothing the naked, and caring for the sick and those in prison (see Matthew 25:31-40). These aren’t “next life” activities but for us to do now in this new and glorious life given to us through Jesus’ own life, death, and resurrection.

All of this doing grows from the foundation of our being, God’s beloved children who follow Jesus as The Church. Whether we are at home or at work or running errands or participating in our hobbies and leisure time activities, how we interact with others either reflects the Love and Light of God or it doesn’t. Jesus tells us that the way we treat other people is the way we treat him. Do we offer kindness or indifference? Do we offer hope or apathy? Do we offer compassion or self-centeredness?

What we do not only comes from our own being but how we see others ‘being’. Every person we encounter each and every day is created in the image of God and is a beloved child of God. Let’s be and do accordingly.