When you get to my age, you look for ways to
synthesize your teaching and put in summary form all you’ve
learned about being a Christian, a child of God, and what it takes to
be and live a mature, Christian life.
I’ve come up with an outline that I think will help you
“get it”, affirm it and remember it, at least for a little
while!
It’s a “stretch” for us, this matter of living in the light of God, in the face of the living God (Coram die).
What are the steps we’ll need to take to help each other move into the next phase of life as The American Church in Paris?
I REACH UP
The first “stretch” is the reach up.
There may have been a time in your life, when you were stumped,
stymied, or stuck in a situation that was stifling, or sickening, or
strangulating. We go face to face with mystery, with madness, or
misery.
There are times
when we have questions and no answers.
when huge loss threatens or actually swallows us up.
When we’re in a corner and can’t get out.
Or when we’re at the bottom and a door opens but it’s
a trap door, threatening to plunge us even deeper into the pit of
disappointment, despair or even destruction.
Many of us, like the Psalmist, at one time or another, cry out to God
at the top of our lungs. We go looking for God, seeking God,
reaching up to God, asking for “Help!”
What many of us have found is that, in the midst of our sincere search
for God, God reaches out to us, and seeks us, seeking him. The
amazing thing about true religion is that we discover that it is God
who has been searching for us.
God who has been wooing us.
God who has been shining the light of His truth through cracks in
the walls and barriers we erect, in order to disclose God-self to our
inner mind, heart, will and person.
It is God who finds us!
We hear Jesus saying to US: Stretch out your hand (Matt. 12:13).
Extend yourself. Reach out to me. It’s like each of
us has a part of us that is crippled, shriveled up, broken, stuck, and
not functioning. Jesus wants to heal us, make us whole, and put
us on the road to rescue and well-being. But we have to hold out
our hand to him. Have you done it? Are you doing it now?
Jesus’ first beatitude in Matthew’s account is Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven (5:3). Peterson translates it like this: You’re blessed when you’re at the end of your rope. With less of you there is more of God and his rule.
Luke’s account of that sermon simply says: Blessed are you who are poor, for yours in the kingdom of God. Again, Peterson translates: You’re blessed when you’ve lost it all. God’s kingdom is there for the finding (6:20).
II REACH BACK
For us to be in this wholesome, respectful, “right”
relationship with Deity, there needs to be another stretch: reflection
and the ability to “reach back”, look back and remember the
times in our lives when we’ve been helped, healed, brought up
short, corrected, re-directed. It’s remembering when
we’ve been able to step away from trap doors, detours,
foolishness, system crashes and dead ends.
In this day and age with its glitz and glitter, when our eyes and ears are constantly being bombarded by consumerism,
when the cell phone is ever present
when we have to have an Apple iPod, even on our quiet walks,
where is the quiet place for you, when God can soothe your
troubled mind and bring to mind the sturdy strength of his love and
provision for you?
Studies have shown that 40% of the children in downtown Detroit schools
are illiterate. People aren’t reading anymore: history,
biography, theology, good novels. It’s when we sit back and
ponder, reach back and reflect, that God gives us room to sort things
out, put things in perspective and gain the maturity he longs for us to
have.
Psalm 105 celebrates the history of God’s salvation, how God remembers his Covenant . . to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.
But the Psalmist concludes the long Psalm with encouragement for
God’s people also to “remember”. Remember,
rehearse, recall and reach back to those specific ways that God has
brought us to this place.
For your own well-being, think of specific times when God has brought
YOU through deep waters, fierce winds, detours and dead ends. And
share them with “family”.
III REACH IN
I’m suggesting there is a third “stretch” we need to
make if we are to become mature, well-rounded God-fearers.
It’s to “reach in”. It’s to know
yourself, inside and out. It’s to know how you are uniquely
gifted by God and nature, so you can put those gifts to use in the
larger world.
It’s finding out your unique “issues”, the rough
edges in you (and me) that need polishing, emotions we need to get in
touch with. For example, for me, it was getting in touch with my
anger: admitting it, harnessing it for appropriate actions, not masking
it and allowing it free rein, bringing havoc to my life and the lives
of others.
Some people want to make the whole aim of religion to explore
what’s going on inside of you and me, as though that is all there
is. “The kingdom is inside of you” these people say.
But I have learned it isn’t just what’s going on inside of
me. It’s how you and I are relating to people around
us. They can help us discover what is going on inside of us.
As we interact with others, as we face the storms and hazards of life,
as we consistently and sincerely reach up and out to “God”,
we begin, more and more, to realize who we are, what is still
unresolved in us and how God wants us to choose His will for us instead
of letting us have our own way; and how this happens in relation to
others.
IV REACH OUT
There’s a fourth dimension we must attend to: it is
reaching OUT, reaching beyond our Self, letting our nets drop in fresh
waters, taking that scary step beyond our “comfort zone”
into the realm of new challenge.
But again this has to be done in the right manner, with the right
attitude, at the right time. We need discernment in all of
this. We need to know where we’ve been (the reach back),
and what the next step is for us. You don’t jump off the
dock and swim across the lake before learning how to swim. You
first learn how to swim, getting stronger and stronger, until that time
when it is a great new goal to swim across the lake.
How is God leading you to “reach out” right now?
Making your anthems available on a new website?
Reaching out to that family member whose alcoholic binges are self-and family destructive?
Reaching out to the neighbor you haven’t seen much lately?
Risking a new venture, following that inner nudge to break new ground?
Where are YOU right now?
reaching UP, to God, the Source, center, meaning and goal?
Reaching BACK, remember specific times and ways, and places when you were blessed bringing gratitude?
Reaching IN to know yourself, your uniqueness, your issues?
Reaching OUT, to those around you, to be a blessing?
There’s that explosive time in early Acts, when the followers of
Jesus are laid hold upon by the propulsion of God’s Spirit, to
say and do things they never would have dreamed of doing before God got
a hold of them.
The established Church of the time didn’t know what to do with
them. First they put them in jail for disturbing the peace.
Then, because they couldn’t come up with a charge that would
stick, they released them and told them to keep quiet about Jesus.
Those earliest Christians were exuberant, in awe of God and what
happening. They felt like they were in the center of what God was doing
in their world. They rejoiced, they reflected, and they
prayed. They reflected on how David had predicted that earth’s
leaders push for position, potentates meet for summit talks, the
God-deniers and Messiah-defiers. But your plans prevail
anyway. Take care of their threats and give your servants
fearless confidence in preaching your Message, as you stretch out your
hand to us in healing and miracles and wonders done in the name of your
holy Servant Jesus.
As they were praying this way, the
whole place trembled and shook. They were filled with the Holy
Spirit and continued to speak God’s Word with fearless confidence.
Friends, as we hold out our hands to God, we find God stretching out
HIS hands to us. We find our calling and put it into practice.
God reassures us, and sets us on the Way confidently, happily,
reassuring us every step of the journey. Amen.
