Mark 2:23-3:6
When I first started this gig of preaching I knew exactly what to preach. I knew what the theological declaration was supposed to be. I knew exactly what Jesus was saying and exactly who Jesus was and why he came to earth.
Now I have a lot more room in my theology to wonder and listen and learn. I have a lot more questions but I am also much more at peace with God and Jesus and the Holy Spirit.
I was raised with all the rules and all the way church was supposed to be and look. I knew what prayers were to be said and when. I knew exactly what communion and baptism meant. I knew what was required.
Somewhere along the line I learned that things are not always how we have been taught. I learned that more people were acceptable in the eyes of God than I had originally been told. I learned that the Holy Spirit shows up in places I had not expected. Like the surprised disciples who found the Spirit working in the Gentiles, I have seen the Spirit alive and well and working in gays and trans folks. I have seen the Spirit working in Catholics, Unitarian Universalists, and non church goers. I believe Jesus equated the Spirit to one who blows like the wind and goes where she will. How silly of us to try to confine or define her.
I believe that baptism is a beautiful expression of our God but not a requirement to live as a Child of God. I have learned that communion is a wonderful beckoning of the Spirit to touch God but not the only way.
I have learned that God is much much bigger than I ever imagined and the Spirit a whole lot more free than I was once told.
I truly believe that this is what Jesus is trying to make known to those around him in our gospel reading.
The Sabbath is a gift from God, reminding us that we don’t need to work 24/7 to make the world go round. We are created to work but to also rest and enjoy the fruits of our labors. The preacher writes in Ecclesiastes:
So I commend the enjoyment of life, because there is nothing better for a person under the sun than to eat and drink and be glad. Then joy will accompany them in their toil all the days of the life God has given them under the sun.
The Sabbath is offered as the opportunity to do so. An opportunity to bring joy to rest and to work.
But what happens when humans get ahold of these gifts and add all their rules to them? Suddenly they become hardships. Suddenly they become obligations. Suddenly they become limited in who they might bless. Suddenly they lose all their blessedness.
I am convinced this is what Jesus wants us to see. A gift, a blessing, an act of love becomes a burden under the shortsightedness of humans, out of the need to control. Perhaps out of a need to know what they know or do or say is THE right way.
Jesus shows us that God is so much bigger than the religious boxes we have built.
If Sabbath is a gift of love from Love itself, remember we understand that God is love, given for humanity to enjoy, then how can we layer it with all the restrictions and chains that make it burdensome? Is that anyway to treat a gift?
If communion is a gift of love from Love itself then why do we layer it with restrictions? Perhaps when Paul speaks of taking communion in an unworthy manner in 1 Corinthians, he is reminding us it is a gift of love. A gift! One that offers a means of touching God. Layering it with rules and laws is then the unworthy manner of accepting the gift of Christ’s body and blood.
I suggest that when we require ourselves to be other than who we are created to be, we become unworthy.
God is bigger than we can imagine. God acts in ways that are outside of our rules and understandings. God is not limited by our shortsightedness and prejudices. This, I sincerely believe, is what Jesus wants us to see.
AW Tozer writes:
We tend by a secret law of the soul to move toward our mental image of God. This is true not only of the individual Christian, but of the company of Christians that composes the Church.
How can one know how we view God? Watch what we do and say and then you will know what we believe about God.
Of course we need something as human beings, as sheep in the pasture, to direct us and keep us from going off the cliff. Structures make a foundation. But when we make these gifts of guidance for our lives our absolutes, instead of the God that gave them in love, then we have created false gods.
When I approach a message,I try to remember that I do not know much for certain. That it is the Spirit, always moving as the wind, that must lead. Sometimes It seemed easier to preach when I thought I knew the answers. But so much less alive!
What a joy it is to seek out God in the midst of life, in the midst of a growing relationship, in the midst of Love, in the midst of the breath–the wind of the Spirit.
That is how Jesus lived. Always looking to, seeking out, moving with God, Abba, Father.
I would like to offer you this song by Peter Mayer. I am learning that God is so big, so immense, so all encompassing that Everything is Holy Now.
https://youtu.be/KiypaURysz4?si=TKNnBVe3yvZNavTU
No comments:
Post a Comment