Tag Archives: Oneness

Setting an Example

One in the LordLiving in the Spirit
Light a Candle for Children
September 18, 2014

 Scripture Reading: Philippians 1:21-30

 Only, live your life in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ, so that, whether I come and see you or am absent and hear about you, I will know that you are standing firm in one spirit, striving side by side with one mind for the faith of the gospel,—Philippians 1:27

 The fractured nature of the church universal right now is distracting many of its members from fulfilling the call to be one. When we are not one in Christ, we are not the whole Body of Christ. It will take the whole Body of Christ working together to meet the goals of love set for us by Christ. If winning the debate is more important to us than loving the persons about whom we are debating, we have moved from being a catalyst for progress to being a stumbling block.

Education has become a political football in Oklahoma and probably throughout the land. It has fallen into the abyss of wanting to have our cake and eat it too. We want the best schools in the land with little or no investment of time or talent, much less taxes. We argue about test scores and classroom sizes, parental responsibility and teacher tenure, state financed storm shelters or county financed shelters in schools, and what standards will we follow anyway. These disputes meet their goal: inertia. We are left now with no standards, not enough funding, and no new storm shelters—not a pretty picture. Of course, every school day without adequate resources and planning means every child falls a little more behind attaining his or her full potential.

The church cannot and should not be solely responsible for solving government’s problems, but surely the church should be setting an example for working together, for being one with a common mission. I fear that the lack of mutual respect in our churches today are being reflected in our society in general and that is showing up in classrooms across this land.

Oklahoma Fact: in 2013, Oklahoma ranked 40th among the states in education of our children*.

Prayer: Merciful God, forgive us when we place our desire to be right above your call for us to be one. Heal our souls, O Lord, so that we can move past ourselves and truly consider the needs of the others we are called to serve. Amen.

*http://oica.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/2013-KC-State-Profile-OK.pdf

All scriptures are quoted from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicized Edition, copyright 1989, 1995, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of American. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Wholeness to Oneness

TornadoLiving in the Spirit
August 22, 2014

 Scripture Reading: Romans 12:1-8 

For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of yourself more highly than you ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned. For as in one body we have many members, and not all the members have the same function, so we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually we are members one of another. — Romans 12:3-5

It is a paradox but it is true, in order to be whole we need one another. Our Western culture is sometimes defensive about our interdependence. After all, we are the pull-ourselves-up from the bootstrap kind of people. Whenever I hear that phrase, I always want to ask where did you get the boots and where did you get the strap.  Truth is there are a few people who are quite accomplished at many things, but there is no one who can do everything. Even if we found our boots and strap just lying by the road, someone showed us how to use them. Someone instilled in us the gumption to do the work necessary to succeed.

If interdependence is true for society, it is even truer for the Body of Christ. Jesus prayed for us to be one just before his crucifixion. He knew how important it was to have all the talents and skills God instilled in each of us to work together in Christ to bring about the Kingdom of Heaven.

Of course, when a group of people with totally different skills and personalities get together chaos could result unless they know who the leader is and they know what the job is that needs to be accomplished. I live in the heart of tornado alley and I have been amazed at how much a group of people from several diverse churches can accomplish in clearing debris, feeding and sheltering those left without homes, and comforting the injured and those who lost loved ones. They don’t check to see if each other were immersed or sprinkled, take communion every Sunday or never, read the King James or the Common English Bible. They just do their very best to love the way Jesus loved. I am not saying those other things are not meaningful. We are very diverse in culture and education and income levels and that is actually more than OK that is what Jesus expected. We need to find the spot where we can worship and serve God with all our hearts, minds, souls, and strength both separately and as God calls us together. Who knows we might learn a new song we just love or share a tear with a stranger we had never met who helped us pull a living breathing child from a pile of rubble.

Prayer: Jesus, Son of God, make us whole make us one. When we are a leader help us lead, when we are followers help us follow as we go about the business of being Your Body here on earth. Amen.

All scriptures are quoted from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicized Edition, copyright 1989, 1995, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of American. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Life’s True Constant

Living in the Spirit
July 25, 2014 

Scripture Reading: Romans 8:26-39 

Who is to condemn? It is Christ Jesus, who died, yes, who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who indeed intercedes for us. Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written,
‘For your sake we are being killed all day long;
   we are accounted as sheep to be slaughtered.’
No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. —Romans 8:34-39

Fear mongers win when we let them write the story. Bad news makes better press than good news. If we hear the same thing over and over again, we begin to believe it is true. During the run up to our first primary election this year, I got so sick of hearing the nothingness of those Super Pac ads, I started hitting the mute button as soon as they came on and I eventually gave no credence to any ad unless that statement by the candidate that he or she approved this message was included. I also generally wrote off any candidate that only defined themselves by one or more of the various wedge issues. Some never addressed any issue with which they might actually deal.

Fear can separate us from the love of Christ. Fear of the unknown is probably what kept the Israelites in Egypt’s slavery for so long and caused them to cry out so many times at Moses when the least travail occurred on the trip to the Promised Land. Fear is what caused the Israelites at the foot of the mountain to craft a golden calf to worship (Exodus 32). My ancestors sang I’m Bound for the Promised Land* as they migrated west into the great unknown. Our greater fears and challenge today may be learning how to live where we have been planted in our city, state, country, or world with whatever neighbors we may find there. Jesus called it becoming ONE.

Paul when writing this scripture from Romans faced and met death head on but he clung mightily to Christ throughout his adventurous undertaking as he kindled the fire of church throughout the known world. We too need to cling to this Christ risen as we rekindled the fire of church in our world today.

Prayer:  God of Grace and God of Glory, grant us courage for the facing of this hour**. Amen.

*Lyric from On Jordan’s Stormy Banks I Stand by Samuel Stennett
**God of Grace and God of Glory, by Harry E. Fosdick (written in 1930 at the beginning of the Great Depression and events that led to World War II)
All scriptures are quoted from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicized Edition, copyright 1989, 1995, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of American. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

God’s Purpose

Living in the Spirit
July 6, 2014

 Scripture Reading: Matthew 11:16-19, 25-30

 ‘Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.’  — Matthew 11:28-30

This is one of my all-time favorite sayings of Jesus. There is nothing that means more to me than to know that I am yoked with him. At first blush we might consider that as a tremendous lack of freedom—of being enslaved. The paradox of faith is that being totally and completely in synch with God is the most freeing aspect of our lives. God did not create the world and all that lives as a part of it to be isolated, out of control random sparks of energy. We were created to be interdependent. We were created out of love for the purpose of loving. From the moment of each of our births, we had our first job: loving God and loving our neighbor as we love ourselves. While that is a most challenging avocation, we never ever have to do it alone. We have a co-worker striving with us each step of the way who is also everyone else’s co-worker, if they choose to accept his yoke.

A part of our job of loving our neighbor is telling them about this marvelous co-worker. Letting them know that there is one who can free them from all that infringes on their wholeness as a child of God. We then must let God’s love continue to work within us and them to mold us together into oneness. It is at this point that we struggle. It is really hard to stay active in our faith while at the same time trusting fully that God is working God’s purpose out through and among us when it seems like the world about us is falling apart. I don’t know about you but I sometimes need to tell God what God should be doing when it really is supposed to be the other way around.

I am a goal oriented person, but I have learned over the years (usually the hard way) that in most instances staying faithful to the process is what makes the end result happen. I love to sing and when I sing right, breathing properly for example and singing in my head not my throat, I can sing better and longer. When I push and sing primarily in my throat, I am soon hoarse and unable to sing. Being a Christian requires us to trust in the process, do it diligently, and know that God has got our backs.

Prayer: Thank you for your love and your yoke. Amen.

All scriptures are quoted from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicized Edition, copyright 1989, 1995, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of American. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Wholeness—Oneness—Justice

Living in the Spirit
June 16, 2014

 Scripture Reading: Genesis 21:8-21 

 The child grew, and was weaned; and Abraham made a great feast on the day that Isaac was weaned. But Sarah saw the son of Hagar the Egyptian, whom she had borne to Abraham, playing with her son Isaac. So she said to Abraham, ‘Cast out this slave woman with her son; for the son of this slave woman shall not inherit along with my son Isaac.’ – Genesis 21:8-10

Why do we do the awful things that we do? Indeed, part of our way of being was penciled in generations before we were born by our culture and our specific family’s traits. Sarah came from a culture that valued only women who could have children. Part of that was economic: like selling a cow that could not produce a calf. A non-producing animal is not worth its feed. Part of it was patterns of inheritance. We see that throughout the Bible. The oldest son is the primary heir. Oh, wait I favor Isaac over Ismael, Jacob over Esau, Ephraim over Manasseh. The story we read today came from the tradition of Sarah descendants.  I wonder how God’s perspective would read. Do we ever think that what we do today may still be festering on battlefields 4000 years later?

Reading further into the scripture, God does not render any judgment on Sarah’s behavior or whether it is a part of God’s vision for the world. God simply states that God can continue to work out God’s plan through Isaac and that Ismael will lead a great nation, also.

The subject of this website came from stories like this. Wholeness leads to oneness and oneness leads to justice and justice leads to wholeness. It is a great spiral. We chose whether it goes up or down. When we work to be whole ourselves through the love and healing force of God, we too can love each other and justice will result. When we allow our lives to wallow in self-deprecation, we usually become alienated from our neighbors who then become our enemies, and there is no justice.

We serve an awesome God who loves us and wants the very best for us—all of us. We are never made better by the denigration of another and we always suffer the consequences of our failure to love.

Prayer: Lord, teach me how to love you, myself, and my neighbor. Amen.

 

All scriptures are quoted from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicized Edition, copyright 1989, 1995, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of American. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Love Productively

Living in the Spirit
June 14, 2014

  Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. When they saw him, they worshipped him; but some doubted. And Jesus came and said to them, ‘All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.’–Matthew 28:16-20 

Jesus supported a very productive way of life. Productivity in management is the result of work that is both effective and efficient—the best bang for the buck. He simply says in our scripture today that we are called to teach others to obey everything that I have commanded you. Now Jesus did give advice on specific things that were stated in the form of commands, for example:

  • In everything do to others as you would have them do to you;–Matthew 7:12a
  • …let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.—Matthew 5:16
  • Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful. –Luke 6:36

Jesus essentially said, however, that all we really need to work at is: loving God and loving our neighbor as we love ourselves. (See Matt 22:36-40 and Luke 10:25-37) We do not need to expend our time with a long check list of right and wrong things to do. If we start in love, our throughput is love, and we end in love we will get the most out of our work. In fact a lot of our time is wasted trying to figure out how to get around those two simple commands.

The lawyer who asked Jesus which is the greatest commandment followed up Jesus’ answer with another question, “Who is our neighbor?” Now the guise of course is to assure that the lawyer would be righteously carrying out the command, but the actual question is a subtle way of determining who could be excluded.

Until we accept that no one is to be excluded from the Kingdom of God and learn to love all, we will never attain the results we have been commanded to do: bring all of God’s children into one united whole.

Prayer: God, we are challenged from all sides by actions and attitudes we cannot comprehend and yet you love all your children and want us to all love you. Let your light shine on us so that through your illumination we can love one another. Amen.

All scriptures are quoted from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicized Edition, copyright 1989, 1995, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of American. Used by permission. All rights reserved.