Godgrown

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  Mark 1:29 pm on February 10, 2011 Permalink | Reply  

  Gathering the Fragments 

  Worship is the substance of life within a church body. It gives meaning and purpose to the individual disciple, as well as the community as a whole. But assuming that worship is more inclusive than just a weekly corporate event, what shape might worship take?

  Worship is the cleansing of toxins in the Body of Christ, creating a semi-permeable membrane that holds tightly to the essential DNA of Christ; his message, his lifestyle, his resurrection, but filters out the lies of the world and the Evil One.

  Worship is the evaluation of God in the presence of a community; publicly affirming that God is good and is the center of the community’s identity. The nature and function of that worship will always be centered on God, but its shape and expression will be wildly diverse.

  The Church is built on the trillion cells of local churches scattered throughout time and space. Each local community of faith must find worship not only as an event, but as a way of life. Throughout the week, each follower of Christ is attentive to the guidance of Christ in prayer and in Scripture, and then gathering with other disciples to discern collectively what the Lord might be saying to them, as well as to collectively express heartfelt devotion to him.

  Romans 12:1 Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. 2 Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.

  The Apostle Paul saw worship as participating in the life of the next age. At the apex of time, Paul conceived of the Church as God’s new humanity, and believed that Christians in worship was the realization of God’s eschatological work, where worshippers can actively participate in the new aeon to come. Under the influence of this new age, the worshipping Christian will be transformed; a complete metamorphosis of thinking, willing, and conduct. This change is external (lives) but springs forth from the internal (renewing of one’s mind). As children of God, the mind is no more ruled by the present world but by the will of God…

  …And God’s will is to be discerned by the community, and becomes one of the centering practices of the Church. Paul is mysterious about the process of communal discernment, but denotes the adjectives (good, pleasing, and perfect) that sum up the transformed life of a Christian community that focuses on worshipping God and discerning his will together.

  Implied in this text and other Scriptures is that while the Christian is engaged in worship and discernment all week long, it culminates in the gathering of the community. Each person having been listening and responding in worshipful action to the direction and inspiration of the Lord throughout the week then brings their discoveries to the common worship event to share. In this all parts build up the body, edifying and strengthening the whole.

  Learning God’s will happens when the lives of a community of believers meet together to share the fragments of God they’ve discovered throughout the week – instead of creating a culture of consumerism (where each person comes to receive the latest and greatest spiritual resource) each person brings a new picture of the Gospel and listens for what God is whispering to the group.

  What group couldn’t try this? I can imagine a house church making this their weekly practice, but I can also see organizing an event with hundreds gathered together to listen to God and share what they’re hearing.  World Cafe is a good model of this practice.

  The Anabaptists had a saying,

  “We don’t want to get rid of the clergy…we want to get rid of the laity!”

  Learning to worship in community and to discern God’s will in community can be a project in dismantling passivity in the church – and inviting each follower of Jesus to be a “priest” of God to the world…

  1 Peter 2:9 …For you are a chosen people. You are royal priests, a holy nation, God’s very own possession. As a result, you can show others the goodness of God, for he called you out of the darkness into his wonderful light.

  
   

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  Mark 10:24 am on January 24, 2011 Permalink | Reply  

  Piles of Money 

  Isaiah 60 is all about the economic development of Jerusalem as they begin to return from exile.  The promises of vast, global wealth are almost unbelievable for a pitiful, beaten nation who doesn’t even have a wall of protection built around its perimeter…and at least for the rest of Biblical history, there was never any major comeback for the Jews; they were more or less passed from one roaring empire to the next.

  So what’s with all the predictions on incredible influence and wealth? Did God “over promise and under deliver?”

  There are hints of this prophecy fulfilled; specifically when Jesus was born in Bethlehem. (Matthew 2:11) Somehow I don’t think that the exiled Jews of the 5th Century BCE were satisfied with this interpretation – they wanted piles of money! They wanted the honor and recognition of the nations!  ”The flocks of Kedar!  The rams of Nebaioth!  The camels!  Where are my camels?!”

  I wonder if this is how Christians understand their relationship with God.  They sense that there is a pile of blessings, maybe even actual money, waiting on the other side of a “right relationship with God.”  They think that if they love God hard enough, if they believe the right things, if they just do it all right, then they’ll have life right where they want it.

  Trouble is, life is never quiet as we want it – but its right where God has it. He has sprinkled the fulfillment of his promises to bring blessings to his people from the far corners of the earth – he does it in the birth of Jesus; secretly, and its just enough money to keep a family of three out of the cold and filthy stables and enough to get them down to Egypt, where they can safely escape disaster.

  THAT is the blessing of God…the wealth of heaven.

  Yes, wealth seen in the light of God’s nature is not something that we can put in a bank account, but something that gives us another chance to dive deeper into him – knowing that we may not have enough to survive on our own, but plenty to keep following…for one more day.

  But why would God make all these promises of very specific assets that exiles would gain from as they returned to the holy land of Jerusalem?  I think its important to remember that each of us come to God for personal, selfish reasons.  God knows this, he loves you for it – and he wants you to know that the things you care about are important to him too – even if he sees how short-sighted they are.

  So he’ll help you get out of debt if that is something you see as important – and then he’ll remind you that you’ll always be in debt to him.  He’ll help you with as much worldly wealth as he’s called you to…then he’ll call on you to give it all back to him…

  In other words, our tangible gifts are only whispers of the real gifts he hopes to give us. The question is, can we let go of the tangibles in order to receive what truly matters…?

  
   
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  Mark 11:00 am on November 16, 2010 Permalink | Reply  

  Hebrews 12 

  It’s now or never.  The writer makes one last desperate appeal to the Hebrew audience to persevere. He draws the Christian life out like a long-distance run.  And similar to the Olympic games the Hebrews would have been familiar with, he makes it clear that “only together with us would they be made perfect…” Saying that another way – the heroes of faith mentioned in the last chapter would have run their race for NOTHING if we don’t continue to run. Like a relay race – we have to pick up where they left off – and why give up when we are so close to the finish line!

  There is a race to be run, but it’s a communal race – V12 says to “strengthen feeble arms and legs, and to make level paths for your feet so that the lame may not be disabled,” – it is the responsibility of the strong to make sure that the weakest don’t lag behind.

  Esau is framed as the anti-hero, taking a visible comfort (Jacob’s famous soup) over persevering for his birthright and inheritance; someone who went off on his own to seek his own provision and left the community of God.  He is placed over against the heroes from the previous chapter, as an example to be avoided.

  In the final push – the writer exhorts his audience to look at where they have arrived.  They have not come to Mt. Sinai, a place that can be touched with fire and smoke and ash.  They have come to Mt. Zion, and to the city of the living God! Often overlooked, the movement of the entire Bible begins in a garden and ends in a city. Here is another picture of that – they have moved from a wilderness to a city.  Similar to the journey of the Israelites through the wilderness, this Christian community has run the race and have arrived at the spiritual-Jerusalem.  Why turn back when they are so close?  Why be like the Israelites who gave up and ended up dying in the wilderness?

  Instead – the writer calls on them to be grateful in receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, and entering a city that will bring them into the presence of the living God.