Posts
Graceful Transitions
Thomas
Moore in his book the ‘Original Self’ makes a powerful point of the place we
understand GRACE to affect us and transform us: “In rationalistic times like
ours it is tempting to think that we are shaped by our intentions and our
awareness. We think that the ego is the
dominant self, and we educate ourselves to have good ego boundaries, strong
identity and self esteem. But we are made from the depths—beyond consciousness. We are more original than we can
imagine. We are driven from a place beneath
awareness, and what drives us—the Holy Spirit—hurling us towards our identity
and our place in time and space.”
Much
like the book title—“original” and “self” are the natural components to
nurture, grow and develop faith LEAD by Christ Jesus of course! Our individual paths or pathos of
discipleship along with the cost of discipleship leads us wandering down that
course of God’s time and our own in tension to one another—up those mountains
and into those valleys where the times in between are moments of transition.
Living into and living up to the light of GRACE is an ongoing reconciliation to
God for the other in obedience and occasionally through disobedience! Yes I did say disobedience, for the stories
in today’s lectionary all have this in common as well as the notion of being in
transition— spiritually processing transformation.
One
of the things we grapple with as disciples of Christ is how much of our lives
are in tension to many aspects of living into the light of God’s healing/
transforming GRACE. We are in bondage
held in tension to the ultimate freedom, liberation that the good news has to
give us! To what to we hold our fidelity
to? That indeed is the question to which
love, hope and gratitude came from foolish disobedience—from Ruth disobeying
Naomi’s request to move on, to the Samaritan leper who disobeyed Jesus’ command
to go to the priests and TURNED back to him instead to give Praise and
gratitude to his healer. Ruth’s
faith-filled disobedience to Naomi’s request to leave her be, made her Naomi’s
liberator with the good news of hope.
Ruth extended herself to the point of risking her life to spiritually
reach out to Naomi with the healing, liberating words of HOPE given in/ through
loving faithfulness to staying by her side.
This is Gracious behavior: “16But Ruth said, “Do not press me
to leave you or to turn back from following you! Where you go, I will go; Where
you lodge, I will lodge; your people shall be my people, and your God my God.17Where
you die, I will die— there will I be buried. May the Lord do thus and so to me, and more
as well, if even death parts me from you!”
Forwarding
into the New Testament stories of Jesus’ healings to St. Paul’s sharing of his
call to Timothy. Both offer freedom in
broad brush strokes to the liberating power of God’s LOVE and GRACE upon an
individual’s life. With the Gospel today we have Jesus healing 10 lepers with
only one turning back to him with praise and thanksgiving. Is it really that simple to think it’s merely
a matter of who was grateful and who was not or is it more a matter of
faith? The 9 lepers for the most part
were obedient to Jesus’ command to them to go and be examined by the priests.
BUT, in whom did they hold their faith in more? The law and the priests for
none of them turned back to respond graciously to what they were given. Isn’t this human nature though as well? We most often “do” as we’re told holding more
faithfulness to our reasoning and practicality over and above God’s
faithfulness and interaction in our lives’ journeys. The Samaritan wasn’t bound to Jewish law but
was spiritually moved—transforming to recognize Jesus as more than a
healer. He bowed down to the ground and
worshipped him in praise that flowed from a changed heart, TURNED to God. He felt God’s reconciling GRACE deeply which
on the outside seemed like disobedience but was actually obedient to
FAITH.
Faith
is obedience, which in the view of the world, often paints us to being or
displaying disobedience in many activities.
Were the Prophets I ask you, obedient to the law or to the rationale of
society? No they were not on the surface which got them into lots of
trouble. For what the world sees as
foolish, failure and rebellious God is raising up! We are being raised from the dead when we
allow ourselves freedom from bondage.
Allowing is more like listening, living deeply—faithfully in
relationship to God. The Lord of our
lives is Christ Jesus not government, not intellectual idolatry and the full
gamut of the ways of the world. As Luther says in his sermon around this week’s
Gospel: “In the first place it is a characteristic of
faith to presume to trust God's GRACE, and it forms a bright vision and refuge
in God, doubting nothing it thinks God will have regard for their faith, and
not forsake it. For where there is no such vision and confidence, there is no
true faith, and there is also no true prayer nor any seeking after God. But
where it exists it makes one bold and anxious freely to bring their troubles
unto God, and earnestly to pray for help.”
St.
Paul in this week’s conversation with Timothy share his yoke of ministry with
Timothy though he is literally bound, imprisoned in Rome. His physical self may be in shackles and
chains with actual death looming around the corner… but his Words of great
Faith, honesty and commitment build up Timothy to reveal the profound
liberation the Gospel can give! Hear his
closing comments in this week’s snippet: “7Think
over what I say, for the Lord will give you understanding in all things. 8Remember
Jesus Christ, raised from the dead, a descendant of David—that is my
gospel, 9for which I suffer hardship, even to the point of
being chained like a criminal. But
the word of God is not chained. 10Therefore I endure
everything for the sake of the elect, so that they may also obtain the
salvation that is in Christ Jesus, with eternal glory. 11The
saying is sure: If we have died with him, we will also live with him; 12if
we endure, we will also reign with him; if we deny him, he will also deny
us; 13if we are faithless, he remains faithful— for he cannot
deny himself.”
The
Word of God is not chained, only by Satan working in our lives it is! How does
Satan manage to have us “chain” up the Gospel in the world today? Spiritual
warfare would say that we chain up the Gospel when we are obedient to any and everything
but the faith which had first claimed us to be disciples, baptized into the
Body of Christ, living in the world not of the world... Faith has become
irrelevant to our human-made “buffet of intellectual idolatry” and its legal
system! An unchanged heart would’ve read
Thomas Moore’s entire treatise on the nature of the Soul and the nature of the
self to be merely some form of new age health-wealth gospel, not the spiritual
excavations of holistic faith penned by a former monk.
Spiritually
excavating a holistic faith in your own lives is “work.” It stretches us to the point of nearly
breaking which we spiritually need to do in order to grow and go with God! It cannot be in the form of a worldly,
intellectualized demand made into absolute law seemingly under the guise of “for
the sake of others…” Let us for a moment
think about how our current society or “socialized” system works… We put our “faith”
and trust in leaders to enact political ideologies into systems for the
betterment and well-being of all concerned but that is not always the
case. We forget our accountability
easily in the guise of socialized, enforced management over and above others
further indenturing ourselves in idolatry of money and the intellect. In regards to the idolatry of the intellect;
this stems from the sins of greed and indifference. Indifference is the devil’s greatest bondage
over our world to abandon faith and hope, to abandoning living in the light of
GRACE!
Let’s
return to that beautiful story of faith with Ruth and Naomi. Against all odds and the oppressive reality
of their patriarchal culture, they shared love and hope between one
another. Naomi’s love to Ruth was still
indentured to the fear of the law upon women like her… she nearly fell into
despair worrying about her future. Ruth
however, gave Naomi an even greater gift than staying by her side—her faith
exhibited true accountability to trust in God above and beyond their current
circumstances… She could’ve merely
obeyed Naomi’s fear-filled request and join her sister-in-law Orpah returning
back to Moab but she chose instead to disobey the world’s laws/ and Naomi’s
fear of the law to spiritually liberate Naomi to a life of faith, hope and
trust in God alone.
Faith,
hope and trust in God alone is something we must, as disciples today in this
world herald to restore! The voice of
Faith needs to drown out Satan’s efforts that have been bearing its evil fruit
in our world. We are beginning to truly
transition into suffering but it’s not for the Gospel more than the unholy
Trinity of I, Me, and Mine!
Let
us Pray:
Gracious
and Loving God,
Great
are your works!
You
are indeed gracious and merciful!
For
we fall short in our faithfulness and accountability to you
Help
us to seek your forgiveness and righteousness
Delighting
in your promises
May
we truly transform/ transition into wisdom given by you alone, not made by and
for ourselves
May
we grow to love and praise you as well as love our neighbor with our whole
hearts
May
the fruit of our faith trample Satan underfoot!
In
your most Holy and Precious Name we pray—
AMEN
Sunday October 13th,
2013; Lectionary 28; 21st Sunday after Pentecost; Proper 23; SOLA
Lectionary
Psalm 111; Ruth 1:1-20; 2 Timothy
2:1-13 & Luke 17:11-19 Nicole
Collins
No comments:
Post a Comment