Choosing our Slavery

 

The summer before my junior year in High School, I broke my right arm very severely. I was at a baseball game that ended up being cancelled because the other team could not field the minimum number of players. Instead, one of my fellow outfielders and I began to amuse ourselves as we took some practice fly-balls.

 

A younger player appeared in the outfield with us because his baseball game had concluded. He started competing with us for our practice balls. I remember looking at him directly and saying "Hey, this isn't your practice. Someone is going to get hurt”. I thought that he had listened. He hadn't.

 

My teammate and I decided to challenge ourselves by waiting on the pop flys being hit to us and then running at the last second to try to make a sensational play. It was fun for a while; until it wasn't. The young boy had gone nowhere and was just waiting for his chance. As I dove to catch the ball, he came in with both knees, one of them punching into the center of my right forearm - the arm where all my weight rested as I caught the ball. My arm was not just broken but also had a slight U shape in the forearm. Not my best morning.

 

However, my day was about to get worse. When in the doctor's office, I was told that the arm had to be reset, and that there was little more they could give me that would ease the pain. Not a fun experience, but the arm had to be reset for it to heal and be useful to me without severe deformity.

 

Similarly, in the spiritual world, the realities of being human (and redeemed human) follow the same patterns of life and death, health and deformity, pain and the avoidance of the same. The masters we choose will dictate to the health and growth that we experience in this life and in eternity. Our choices to avoid important and necessary spiritually invasive surgery can be embraced with eternal reward, or we can continue to experience the results of doing what is constantly intuitive, familiar, and comfortable. What is the name of the Master that is known to  oversee this group of short-sighted slaves?

 

This Sunday we listen as the Apostle Paul clearly teaches the ramifications of personal conversion, and its impact on the choice of masters that we still have. We baptized followers have only one master now, but we are still free to choose others. However, the choice to continue to follow other masters is a distortion and corruption of the “newness” of our salvation and transformation. We still must choose Christ and confirm our baptismal promises until that final day. May we choose the only Master who frees and loves, no matter how difficult and intimidating the callings of the cruciform life might be.

 

When we say NO to the other masters vying for our worship, we lay aside our “freedom” to distort and destroy our own lives, and we pick up the mantle of true freedom in Jesus Christ.

 

May the Peace of Christ be yours.

 

 

Fr. Tom

Belonging

 

There is something life-giving about belonging. When one feels that they are in the presence of people who actually care about them, and want them around, it brings a true sense of joy.

Biblical Community is a creation of God. It is an aspect of redemption that we are returned to being made in God's image: "Let us create mankind in our own image; Male and female, created he them". In chapter two, Genesis reveals the Lord saying: “It is not good that the man should be alone". Then the woman is created.

While some scholars postulate that the "us" of God in Genesis 1 is the court of heaven, I submit that it is a more likely interpretation that the "our" in verse 26 is a reference to the three persons of the Trinity. Thus, the character of God and the complete unity He has with himself, is the basis of being human. We are communal in our very beginnings and character. To be isolated and unhealthily individualistic is in conflict with our how we have been created as humans.

The results of humankind's sin and rebellion is a breaking and corruption of our relationship with God and with the networks of people now present among us. The redemption of Jesus Christ and the koinonia (fellowship) of the Community of Christ, i.e., the church, i.e., the kingdom of God, i.e., the New Covenant People of God, is the redemptive answer to the longing we have to belong.

However, we are often resistant to this communal reality due to our continuing desire for control, self-protection, and our over-reactions to the harm we have experienced in our lifetimes. The answer to these challenges to "belonging" is not a thoughtless groupthink or a cult-like existence as a church. It is a healthy embrace of the complexities of being healthily self-differentiated (and discerning) as individuals, while submissive to the ways that Christ has called his church to function as a body in unity. We are repeatedly taught to follow "sound doctrine" and to be a people of servanthood, selflessness, and discernment. To belong, we must embrace our need to be shaped and challenged by the community that Christ has called us to be.

Jesus Christ has tasked his called clergy with authority and the equipping of the saints for wisdom and service. We have been given a sacred and important task as shepherds and teachers. We hold to what cannot change and that which must not be manipulated. We do this out of a commitment and love for God and his people. For those redeemed or listening to the Gospel regarding the salvation that he offers.

The below video sermon examines the blessings and characteristics of the fellowship and shared life of the Church of Jesus Christ in its earliest days. There is much to be encouraged and challenged by, as we seek to help others “belong”, and as we seek to engage our “belonging” as human beings once more as his people.