LEARNING THE RHYTHMS OF GRACE

"Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you'll recover your life. I'll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me - —watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won't lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you'll learn to live freely and lightly." - Matthew 11:28-30, The Message.

These are the words of Christ. Tender, life-giving words spoke over two thousand years ago, yet words that still extend love and grace to every person who is willing to listen. Too many people in this city, in this world, are drowning in the weight of it all, burdened and weak and tired. We live in a culture of baggage. Nearly every person that you pass on the street is carrying a the weight of depression, anger, haunting memories, shame or any other number of hurts. The same is probably true of the person you pass in the mirror. It is true for me.

We have baggage in our lives. On our own, we are never truly free. No matter where we look to solve our problems, we find new burdens overtaking us. It is to poor slaves like us that Jesus speaks these words. He alone holds freedom from the crushing chains that bind us. Spend some time this week meditating upon the way that Jesus lived. Read through the book of Mark or one of the other Gospels. Learn the "unforced rhythms of grace". It is only in the presence of Christ that we learn to live and walk in the path of freedom. It is a long process, letting go of baggage. This is only the begginging, the first step. But take His hand, take that first step. Share your experience of spending time in Christ's presence with others. Share it on this forum if you feel comfortable. Or, let others know that there is hope, tell them your story of a piece of baggage that Jesus has already freed you from.

THE JOURNEY TOWARDS THE WORLD

The Good Samaritan is a story that is familiar to most people in the western world today, even people without religious affiliation or any real knowlege of the Bible. Yet within that parable I find one detail in particular that really grabs my attention. Who is the man who takes a risk to help the man in the ditch? It was a Samaritan. I think Jesus was one hundred percent intentional in choosing a Samaritan as the protagonist in his story of love. When the story of the Good Samaritan was first told, Jesus told it to a Jewish lawyer; in other words, this story is addressed to the religious-folks, the "Churchies", as it were. Therefore, those of us who are pew-dwellers need to pay close attention to the point that Jesus is making by including a Samaritan in his story.

Samaritans were absolute scum in the minds of the Jews of Jesus' day. They were half-breeds, outsiders, unclean and pretty much worse than dirt. They only had a partial understanding of God's law, and they didn't participate in the same religious ceremonies that the Israelites did. To put it another way, the Jews had it together, they were God's chosen people, and the Samaritans weren't, plain and simple. Yet in the story that Jesus tells, it is the Samaritan that gets it right. This outsider is the one who actually fulfills God's law. It is the priests who can't see the love of God in front of their eyes.

The question that has plagued me is this: Why is the world so much better at helping others than the Church is? Now, this is a huge generalization, and I realize that there are huge issues that need to be considered, but the question desperately needs to be asked. Why is the Church regularily out-done in loving others. Throughout the history of the Christianity, the Church has done amazing things to help the world, radical things. Yet in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, the rest of the world doesn't even expect the Church to do anything anymore because we have let others become the forces that reach out to help. Our failure to risk reaching out to others has crippled our relevance to our culture and obscured the message of the Gospel for many. Why is it that Bono and Oprah are doing more than the Church to help end the Aids crisis in Africa? Why is it that my hippy boss at the cheese store is more active in human rights issues than any single Christian I know? Why did Churches in North America spend three times what it would cost to feed the entire country of Ethiopia for a year on church building projects in 2004? One of the greatest tragedies of this generation is that in far too many cases, pagans and Samaritans are showing Christ-like love to the world and Christians are not.

What are your thoughts on this? Do you agree or disagree? What can be done to live the love that we so easily preach?

THE JOURNEY TOWARDS EACH OTHER

Conflict. Hurt. Betrayal. Troy asked some difficult questions this last Sunday. What do we do when relationships are broken? How do we deal with the wounds and pains that we've been given by those we love? How do we deal with the wounds that we've dished out ourselves? The hard truth of the matter is that relationships between humans are messy, confusing, often painful affairs. That means that there are no easy answers or special formulas when it comes to healing the scars produced by fractured community.

So, as I sit in my living room pondering Troy's questions, I have to admit that I really have no idea. I know that I don't want to be a bitter person, I don't want to be forever dominated by the brokenness I feel inside. I want to trust my brothers and sisters, I want to love them recklessly, I want to forgive without a second thought. Christ calls us to lay our lives down for each other, just like he laid His own down for us. That is ultimate love. But it is the hardest thing in the world to do.

Maybe the first thing that we need to learn that it is not all about us. It's simple and profound and yet we are miserable failures at learning this truth. Each one of us lives with the unspoken belief that the world revolves around us. In his book "Blue Like Jazz", Donald Miller writes about the obsession with ourselves as being the root or of our failures in loving each other: "The most difficult lie I've ever had to contend with is this: Life is not a story about me...No rut in the mind is so deep as the one that says I am the world, the world belongs to me, all people are actors in my play." Later in the chapter, Miller continues with these words that were offered to him by a Bed and Breakfast operator: "If we are not willing to wake up in the morning and die to ourselves, perhaps we should ask ourselves weather or not we are really following Jesus." How can we expect to experience true community if we are all obsessed with our own lives, if we approach the world with the outlook that we are at the center? And waht if our neighbour is thinking the same thing? It will not work. The first step towards true love and unity comes in our admittance that life is not about me.

But what do you think? We need to work together to learn to love eachother. What ideas or experiences do you have that will help others to love more fully, forgive more easily, give more selflessly? Let us hear your thoughts.

THE JOURNEY TOWARDS GOD

"Imagine yourself as a living house. God comes in to rebuild that house. At first, perhaps, you can understand what He is doing. He is getting the drains right and stopping the leaks in the roof and so on: you knew that those jobs needed doing and so you are not surprised. But presently He starts knocking the house about in a wa y that hurt abominally and does not seem to make sense. What on earth is He up to? The explanation is that He is building quite a different house from the one you thought of. Throwing out a new wing here, running up towers, making courtyards. You thought you were going to be a nice little cottage: but He is building a palace. He intends to come and live in it Himself." - C.S. Lewis; "Mere Christianity".
We are being replaced. On the trip towards intimacy with our Creator, the self that we have known our whole lives (the selfish, petty, sin-filled self) must be done away with. God's aim is to give us a whole new life. To do this, we must let go of our old selves. While this is easy to say, it is, in fact, the hardest thing in the world to do. It takes a lifetime. Slowly, we must let God knock down everything dear to our world-focused bodies, and embrace the fresh gifts that He has for us. It is not an easy process, and sometimes it can cause us great pain, but God's desire is to live in us. That is what the Journey toward God is all about; He wants to make His home in his children. He wants to be intimate with them. God wants to be one with us.
Can you relate to Lewis' house metaphor? Have you ever experienced the pain and difficulty of being reformed by God? Have you experienced evidence of becoming a palace? What is the next piece of your old self that you need to let God re-work and replace?

Well, the time has come; the journey has begun. Of course, the Journey began a long time ago, in the imagination of an immensely creative God. His mission and purpose is so much bigger that we could ever possibly imagine. It is far bigger than the launching of one church in south Calgary. I think it's important as we set out on this leg of the trip to remember that this is not our project, our ministry, our vision. God is the great initiator, all human activity has it's root in what He has already done. Our call is to respond to the work that He began, a work of grace in the world and in our hearts.
Troy gave an invitation to us all in his message on Sunday. It is the voice of Christ calling to each of us, whether we are taking the first steps of our trip toward God, or whether we've been walking that path our entire lives. It is a voice that calls to us everyday that we walk in this world. Christ says simply, "You are invited. Follow me. Learn to be like me, learn to love like I do. Walk in my steps. Learn the rhythms of grace as we walk towards God together." It is a path of love and grace and joy unspeakable. Of course, this invitation to follow Jesus requires that we cease to follow all of our other "leaders". When walking, if you come to a place where the road splits, you've got to choose which path you are going to take. It is impossible to follow two paths simultaneously. The same is true in the journey of faith. We can follow Jesus, or we can follow something else.
The question then, is this: What path are you on? Is God calling you to abandon a particular "rabbit trail"? What is the next step for you to respond to the invitation of Christ?