Just another 90’s kid who thinks every picture is better in black and white.
Welcome to my blog. I document my ministry in the church and in the world.
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All tagged Paul
We navigate our own relationship to the Empire, the powers, the government. And as Christians we have options. In Paul’s letter to the Romans, it seems he recommends obedience to civil authorities. And John of Patmos in his Revelation writes to incite resistance and martyrdom. How do we hold together these different ideas of best practices? So we look to Paul, and we look to our mentor and saints over time.
The idol of independence, means not believing that we are interconnected, that what you and I do, say, buy effects others in the world. That there isn’t something that binds us together. That I am in this life on my own. It’s saying, I don’t like a mask, I don’t need a mask, I won’t wear a mask. Because the idol of independence has made living and mask wearing all about me.
Worship and prayer is remembering that we are not the center of the universe, there is a God that cares about what is happening to us. Worship is gratitude for the world around us. It is practice taking time, showing up, feeling ridiculous the first time you pray or sing or simply open your arms to the creator of the universe and believe that you will be heard.
And here our song reminds us that Christ is before all things, in all things, and holds the universe together and does so with love, does so with healing and compassion. And when the powerful tried to stop the Jesus and the movement he started with violence and fear and hatred, Jesus did not lose, he did not give in, he did not play their game.
We have a God of liberation. Who offers release the captive, who liberates the oppressed, who sets right what has been made wrong, who declares a time of jubilee has come, who gave the Hebrew slaves a new way of life that would honor each other, their relationship with creation, and their creator, who came and lived in the body of Jesus, to set free, liberate, release, and to show us what it is to live to call us to this life.
Every moment is an opportunity to live in the hope and love of the one who was resurrected who showed us, even in his own life, what it is to grow. To watch the mission expand beyond, to choose love again and again, and we have that example in Lydia: Who chose to grow and to learn and to develop, to listen and to welcome Paul.
So we consciously and with intention curate. We make choices, every day, at least most days, like one who makes choices for a museum or library. I believe that we are creative creatures because we have a creative God. We bring and curate and create around us and so we have to ask: What brings us more joy? What brings my family, church, community more joy? What brings the world more joy? Because don’t think that it’s what we subtract from our lives but what we add to it. We learn from our story today what kinds of things we ought to add to our lives, what might bring us joy, bring our community joy, bring joy to the world.
