Christ is at work in our lives.

Jesus tells a story from Mark 4 about the farmer who sowed some seed and went to sleep.  And while he was sleeping the crops grew.  He didn't have to stand over them and say start growing. The farmer didn't force the seeds to grow, as if he could.  The story reminds me that God is at work in our lives.   There is a difference between trying to live for Jesus and allowing Jesus to live through us.  Jesus doesn't just ask us to do his will.  He offers to come in and possess us so that he can enable us to do what we could never do ourselves.  Our job is to get out of the way and let Christ do his wonderful work.

Hmm, knowing that Christ is at work in me, you'd think I'd learn to sleep more often, worry less and embrace what Christ is doing.  

Prayer:  Lord, I give my life, I give my all to You,  to be a willing vessel, to use me through and through. You are the Potter,  I am the clay.  Mold me and make me, have Thine own way.  

"But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace to me was not without effect.  No, I worked harder than all of them - yet not I, but the grace of God that was with me."  
1 Corinthians 15:10

"... for it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfill his good purpose." Philippians 2:13

Time with Jesus

Time with me cannot be rushed.  When you are in a hurry, your mind flitters back and forth between Me and the tasks ahead of you.  Push back the demands pressing in on you; create a safe space around you, a haven in which you can rest with Me.  I also desire this time of focused attention, and I use it to bless you, strengthening and equipping you for the day ahead.  Thus, spending time with Me is a wise investment. 

Bring Me the sacrifice of your precious time.  This creates sacred space around you - space permeated with My presence and My peace. 

Jesus Calling

by Sarah Young

May 30 devotion p.157

Fr. Anthony

Each day we had a morning and afternoon seminar with one of the monks.  In one of our seminars I met Fr. Anthony.  At the age of 86, he is the oldest monk in residence.  He became a monk in 1948.  As a monk he has visited the poor with Dorothy Day,  prayed with Mother Teresa of Calcutta, and discussed theology with Thomas Merton.   It is hard to imagine that someone like  Fr. Anthony has maintained the same daily schedule of prayer and contemplation for 66 years. 

To live the holistic manner envisioned by founder of this order St. Benedict is to live knowing that "God does not demand the unusual, spectacular, the heroic," but rather "that I do the most ordinary, often dreary and humdrum things that face me each day with a loving openness that will allow them to become my own immediate way to God."  This is the monastic way, yet it can also be the way for us.  Benedictine spirituality is grounded in the idea that God's presence is everywhere, and that it is our job to seek it out even in the most ordinary, mundane of life. Indeed, we can learn to see God's graces in our life, even in the midst of the daily grind.  We just need to look, God is there.  

A swimmer plunges into the water stripped of his garments to find a pearl; a monk stripped of everything goes through his life to discover in himself the pearl- Jesus Christ; and when he finds him, he seeks no longer for anything existing beside him.  (Issac of Turin)

O God, source of love, bright light out of darkness, order out of chaos, from death creating life. Open our eyes to see, our minds to know, that we may be transformed in Christ, the risen Christ. 

Rule of St Benedict at the Monastery of the Holy Spirit

The Monastery of the Holy Spirit in Conyers, GA is a monastic community dedicated to the worship and contemplation of God under the Rule of St. Benedict.  The world into which St. Benedict was born was a troubled, torn apart, world.  Much like our world in the twentieth century there was great unrest and and uncertainty. It knew little safety or of security, and the church was almost as troubled as the secular world.   The fall of Rome in A.D. 410, seventy years before the birth of St. Benedict, had been a traumatic shock to the entire civilized world.  St. Benedict found the way to live in order in a time of dis-order was to live in God's order.  Benedict left the chaos and social disorder of his time by living in seclusion in a desert region south of Rome.  Benedict gained the reputation of being a holy man.  Eventually others sought him out wishing to join him.  Benedict then established 12 monasteries with about 12 monks each and established a new monastic Rule, a simple set of guidelines for a community life based around a balance of prayer, work, and study of God's word.  The Benedictine monk makes 3 vows.  He promises stability, obedience, and conversion of life.

Through the vow of stability, the monk promises to stay put in one place for life, and to find God in that place and with those same people.  

What is it then to be stable?  It seems to me that it may be described in the following terms:  You will find stability at the moment when you discover that God is everywhere, that you do not need to seek Him elsewhere, that He is here, and if you do not find Him here it is useless to go and search for Him elsewhere because it is not Him that is absent from us, it is we who are absent from Him... It is important to recognize that it is useless to seek God somewhere else.  If you cannot find Him here you will not find Him anywhere else.  This is important because it is only at that moment that you recognize this that you can truly find the fullness of the Kingdom of God in all its richness within you; that God is present in every situation and every place, that you will be able to say: 'So then I shall stay where I am'. -Anthony Bloom. 

The vow of obedience comes out of the call to listen.  The very first word of the Rule is "listen".  From the start the disciple's goal is to hear keenly and sensitively that Word of God.  To listen closely, with every fiber of our being, at every moment of the day, is one of the most difficult things to accomplish, yet it is essential if we mean to find the God whom we are seeking.  If we stop listening we are likely to pass God by without even noticing Him.  Now it is in our obedience which proves that we have been listening.  Obedience is derived from the Latin oboedire, which shares its roots with audire, to hear.  So to obey really means to hear and then act upon what we have heard.  We are not truly attentive unless we are prepared to act on what we hear.

The third vow of the Benedictine is conversion of life. This is more than the simple Christian ideal of being converted or “getting saved.” It certainly includes repentance and conversion in the traditional sense, but it is more than that. Not only is one to be converted, but he is to be dedicated to continual conversion during the whole of his life. His must become a life of constant conversion. A monk was once asked, What do you do there in the monastery?  He replied:  We fall and get up, fall and get up, fall and get up again.  Conversion means picking ourself up from our brokenness and lack of obedience and start again the pattern of obedience.  For conversion of life to be real, he must have a mindset that is always expecting transformation. Indeed, the Benedictine seeks not only to have his whole life transformed by the grace of God, but he also desires all of life to be conformed to the image of Christ.  

This Lord has Himself given us the time and space necessary to learn and put into practice the service of love that He continues to teach us.  In this school of His let us hope that following faithfully His instructions nothing distasteful nor burdensome will be demanded of us, but if it has to be so in order to overcome our egoism and lead us into the depths of true love, let us not become disheartened, nor frightened and so ignore the narrow path in spite of its tight entrance-that path which leads directly to the fullness of life.  (The Prologue, Rule of St Benedict)

Your way of acting should be different from the world's way:  the love of Christ must come before all else. (Rule of St Benedict 4 ) 

Monastery of the Holy Spirit

This week I begin the 4th leg of my sabbatical journey - time with the Trappist Monks at the Monastery of the Holy Spirit in Conyers, Georgia. This will be a time of prayer and reflection. Outside of worship and conferences with the various brothers, strict silence is observed. This is even true at all our meals.  The atmosphere of silence is to create a space to better listen to the voice of God speaking.

 The daily schedule is as follows:

4:00 am morning vigils

7:00 am prayer and communion

12:15 pm midday Prayer

5:20 pm. vespers

7:30 pm compline -prayers to end the day

At the end of this week I will either come back a little more enriched in prayer or grouchy due to lack of sleep.  I'm praying for the former.  

Being Kind to All

The below story has been making its round on the internet.  

During my second month of college, our professor 

gave us a pop quiz. I was a conscientious student and had breezed through the questions until I read

 the last one:


"What is the first name of the woman who cleans the school?"

  Surely this was some kind of joke. I had seen the 

cleaning woman several times. She was tall,

 dark-haired and in her 50's, but how would I know her name?



 I handed in my paper, leaving the last question

 blank. Just before class ended, one student asked if 

the last question would count toward our quiz grade.



"Absolutely," said the professor. "In your careers,

 you will meet many people. All are significant. They

 deserve your attention and care, even if all you do 

is smile and say "hello."



  I've never forgotten that lesson. I also learned her

 name
 was Dorothy. 

Not sure if this story is true or not, but the lesson has great truth to it.   One year during seminary I worked part-time at Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church in NYC. During the summer I went to full time, working the weekends as a youth pastor and the week days as one of their janitors.  It was a great experience.  I found that during the week when I had my janitor uniform on, people that did not know me, would often walk right past me with little or no acknowledgment.  On the weekend when I was one of the pastors my interactions were very different.   The above story reminds us all of the powerful ministry of being kind to all.  Whatever else we may do or may not do - we should certainly train ourselves to be kind to all people.  It may not be an easy lesson to learn, for its secret is forgetting ourselves and thinking of others- and this does not always come easily.  But it can be learned.  To begin with, there must be a gentle heart - to inspire the gentle life.  We must love people - if we do not , no training will ever make us kind.  But if the heart is full of the love of Christ, the disposition will be loving, and we can teach the lips to speak ever gracious words, and the hands to do always the things of kindness. 

Kind words can be short and easy to speak, but their echoes are truly endless. - Mother Teresa

Zechariah 7:9-10 ESV

"Thus says the Lord of hosts, Render true judgment, show kindness and mercy to one another, do not oppress the widow, the fatherless, the sojourner, or the poor, and let none of you devise evil against another in your heart."

Colossians 3:12

"Therefore, as God's chosen people, holy and dearly loved- clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience."

Jim Ewing's ordination anniversary

August 9, 2009 Jim Ewing was ordained as Minister of Word and Sacrament in our sanctuary at Community Presbyterian Church.   Tomorrow celebrates his 5th year of serving Christ as an ordained minister.  If you see him in the upcoming days thank him for his years of service.  We are fortunate to have him serving Christ with us here at CPC.

Good thing he was called to be a fisher of men because based on this picture he has not caught any fish.

Matthew 4:19  And Jesus said to them, "Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men".

Preached at home church

Today I preached at my home church in Northern Illinois. The bells from the steeple of this church have sounded almost every Sunday since the mid 1800's. A group of pioneers organized this faith community in 1850.  The building was constructed in 1870 at a cost of $3944.  In 1875 a shed with 23 stalls was built at the rear of the building to protect waiting horses. Members could rent a stall for $1.00 a year.  In 1915 a statute of a civil war soldier was erected on the corner of the church's lot by citizens of the township. The statute was to honor 71 men of the community who met at the church to go off and fight in the war. 15 of these men lost their life in battle. 

 

 Like many rural churches of today, the membership is declining. I believe I preached to a crowd of 38 with half that group being extended family. Even though their numbers are dwindling they are still strong in their devotion to God and service to the community.  This church played a significant role in nurturing me through my childhood and then supporting me in my call to ministry.

For me a wonderful testimony of this church is that it has never had a lock on its door. The church is open to anyone at anytime.  It has been like that since it's beginning. 

The church lock on the front doors is just a latch.