Dear Church,
I have a few things on my mind, and I just wanted to talk to you about them; I am very busy at the moment, busy with a mix of things as I am sure you are. Life brings us many challenges, some of those I am facing at the moment are helping people through issues of life and death, of children born with health issues, of people dying from incurable cancer, and in the middle of all of this sits the ordinariness of our days. Somehow through all of this together we try to make sense of faith, finding the sacred in the ordinary and relating to the God who calls us and reveals his love for us in the difficult and in the humdrum days of life as well as in the joys and celebrations.
As we seek together we will find the God who promises to walk with us, to hem us in and to hedge us around with his protection, who comes to us with challenges to see the other as he sees them, who longs fopr us to walk humbly with him showing and sharing his love through acts of mercy, kindness, and grace. We find the God who chooese to work with us, placing his treasure into the ordinary clay pots of our lives, and displaying his glory in and through us. In Christ he shows us his compassion, always crossing boundraries and stretching the "religious" ones beyond their comfort zones, touching the unclean and the unwanted healing them and calling them worthy in a time when the establishment dismissed them as beyond hope.
This God of grace and mercy is the God I have come to know and worship, the God who called me out of my own struggles with unworthiness and hopelessness, the God who did not demand that I obeyed his rules but rather set me free to become my true self in the light of his aceptance and love. I am of course still a work in progress, we all are, and at times we struggle and stumble in our attempts to live a life of love and freedom before him.
I firmly believe that we are called into a life of freedom in Christ, not a boundary-less life where anything goes, but often, so often a life where the things that are important to God are perhaps not what we once thought. I remember clearly how as a teenager I tried to live up to an impossible version of what I thought God wanted, and when I failed I felt I had to hide it all, I was soon living a double life of performance and regret.
I guess that is why I get very cross when we start to focus on "getting it right" not in our attention to love and mercy, not in serving one another or the poor and disposessed, but in matters such as what we should wear and how we should celebrate communion. Yes I know tradition plays a part in our life of faith, and yes I agree that order- good order reflects a life well lived before God and that we should prayerfully strive for that together, but I struggle to understand why we make somethings so complicated for ourselves and others.
Take communion for example, I've written about it before, and I'll share that post again
here, I have my own preferences, but will not and cannot insist upon them (denominational discipline states otherwise). But I am saddened to find that the most long running thread in an online community I am a part of is currently a debate about whether God minds cranberry juice being used for communion! I've had my say, and now I've given up the debate for we are travelling in circles within it. But I am left pondering the issue...
What do we do when we break bread and share "wine" at communion, does it matter that the bread is leavened or unleavened brown, white, or even crackers? Does it matter if the wine is alcoholic/ grape juice or even cranberry juice? If we nit-pick over such things how do we appear to the world around us, how are we proclaiming/ sharing and communicating the good news through such debates? I am not saying we should adopt a laisser faire attitude, but that should place Christ at the centre of our celebration, telling his story, allowing it to impact our story and history, desiring to meet God there through the Holy Spirit in this intimate sacred space, a space where transformation and deeper conversion are possible. For me the elements facilitate the story and aid the remembrance, the physicality of them allows us to meet God who places himself into our hands in a holy and precious way, and yes I know that holiness is about being set apart, but dare I say it is the setting apart that makes the elements holy be they bread and wine or crackers and cranberry. I guess what I am saying is that I don't want to miss holiness for the sake of nit-picking- straining gnats, we need to take care we don't fal into the category of those Jesus had some strong words for:
23-24"You're hopeless, you religion scholars and Pharisees! Frauds! You keep meticulous account books, tithing on every nickel and dime you get, but on the meat of God's Law, things like fairness and compassion and commitment—the absolute basics!—you carelessly take it or leave it. Careful bookkeeping is commendable, but the basics are required. Do you have any idea how silly you look, writing a life story that's wrong from start to finish, nitpicking over commas and semicolons?
25-26"You're hopeless, you religion scholars and Pharisees! Frauds! You burnish the surface of your cups and bowls so they sparkle in the sun, while the insides are maggoty with your greed and gluttony. Stupid Pharisee! Scour the insides, and then the gleaming surface will mean something.
27-28"You're hopeless, you religion scholars and Pharisees! Frauds! You're like manicured grave plots, grass clipped and the flowers bright, but six feet down it's all rotting bones and worm-eaten flesh. People look at you and think you're saints, but beneath the skin you're total frauds. (Matthew 23)
Are we hopeless? I hope not, I hope that we are full of hope and that others can see and desire that hope for the hope is from God; the promise of a better way, a new and fulfilled life. Do the people around us need us to be using the right elements, or do they simply need us to share the story through acts of mercy and gracious proclomation?
I think I'll stop now, before I get too carried away. I'll just leave you with this thought, from Jesus again:
13"Let me tell you why you are here. You're here to be salt-seasoning that brings out the God-flavors of this earth. If you lose your saltiness, how will people taste godliness? You've lost your usefulness and will end up in the garbage.
14-16"Here's another way to put it: You're here to be light, bringing out the God-colours in the world. God is not a secret to be kept. We're going public with this, as public as a city on a hill. If I make you light-bearers, you don't think I'm going to hide you under a bucket, do you? I'm putting you on a light stand. Now that I've put you there on a hilltop, on a light stand—shine! Keep open house; be generous with your lives. By opening up to others, you'll prompt people to open up with God, this generous Father in heaven. (Matthew 5)
Let's be more concerned about being salt and light than getting "it right" I am sure that would be much more pleasing to God!
