Today’s Readings: Psalm 38; Genesis 21:1-21; Matthew 26:69-75; Romans 8:9-17; Psalm 126
When I was in seminary, one of my colleagues who was working on her PhD was working on a thesis comparing the life of the military with the life of the institutional church. She found an interesting pattern when she compared the two. The military is usually at least a decade ahead of the church when it comes to addressing issues of social justice. The military, for instance, started facing issues of racial integration more than a decade before many mainline churches started ordaining and appointing pastors of color to cross-racial appointments. And in the era of World War II, the military started providing women with opportunities to serve – well before women were ordained and appointed to serve by many denominations. Even in the area of sexuality, the military reached their famous “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” compromise well before most churches reached such a compromise. “Why is that? Why are institutional churches so much slower to address issues of change?” I wondered when I read her results. Today, Paul gives me the answer that I have long looked for. The answer is: “I have no clue”. In Romans 8:9, Paul spelled out the way people of faith (and by implications communities of faith) OUGHT to act when he wrote: “This resurrection life you received from God is not a timid, grave-tending life. It’s adventurously expectant, greeting God with a childlike ‘What’s next Papa?’” (The Message). While this radical approach toward our individual and collective lives is what we are called to emulate, sadly that approach would rarely be used to describe many of us today. My questions for you to consider is this: how does your faith inform your life? Does it make you more willing to take a risk and be expectant, or does it make you less likely to do those things? Do you regularly greet God with a childlike “What’s next?”, or do you think that you’ve already got the next several steps figured out on your own? If you haven’t already tried living into the place that Paul talks about living from, try it. See what happens. You just might be surprised. Til next time…
When I was in seminary, one of my colleagues who was working on her PhD was working on a thesis comparing the life of the military with the life of the institutional church. She found an interesting pattern when she compared the two. The military is usually at least a decade ahead of the church when it comes to addressing issues of social justice. The military, for instance, started facing issues of racial integration more than a decade before many mainline churches started ordaining and appointing pastors of color to cross-racial appointments. And in the era of World War II, the military started providing women with opportunities to serve – well before women were ordained and appointed to serve by many denominations. Even in the area of sexuality, the military reached their famous “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” compromise well before most churches reached such a compromise. “Why is that? Why are institutional churches so much slower to address issues of change?” I wondered when I read her results. Today, Paul gives me the answer that I have long looked for. The answer is: “I have no clue”. In Romans 8:9, Paul spelled out the way people of faith (and by implications communities of faith) OUGHT to act when he wrote: “This resurrection life you received from God is not a timid, grave-tending life. It’s adventurously expectant, greeting God with a childlike ‘What’s next Papa?’” (The Message). While this radical approach toward our individual and collective lives is what we are called to emulate, sadly that approach would rarely be used to describe many of us today. My questions for you to consider is this: how does your faith inform your life? Does it make you more willing to take a risk and be expectant, or does it make you less likely to do those things? Do you regularly greet God with a childlike “What’s next?”, or do you think that you’ve already got the next several steps figured out on your own? If you haven’t already tried living into the place that Paul talks about living from, try it. See what happens. You just might be surprised. Til next time…
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