Last Sunday, a mother came up to me and told me that she and her daughter had been discussing the morning's sermon. I had preached on "We Belong to Jesus" and had mentioned that when we surrender to Christ, when we see ourselves as belonging to Christ, then we don't have to worry about things like others' opinions of ourselves or whether we have enough money at the end of the month.
Well, this sharp young woman's bullshit detector went off and she said to herself, "Wait a minute, that is not true. It doesn't match what I have experienced." And of course, it doesn't. She knows all sorts of good, church-going Christians that still have to worry about their mortgage.
And I found myself once again at the precipice of the huge chasm that divides religious talk and sermons and church stuff from an authentic relationship with Christ. A life surrendered to Christ, a life given to something more than just making it, does indeed lead us into an entirely different realm where the concerns of this life don't go away but become no more burdensome than gnats that we have to shew away from our face. However, I'm afraid that, at least as far as typical American church life goes, we can't get there from here. The systems we have not only don't lead people into this authentic relationship with God, in many ways they actively oppose it.
As I enter ordained ministry, I want my ministry to be about facilitating the wonderful transformation and freedom that can take place in individual lives and in society as one makes the decision to simply follow Jesus.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment