This week we looked at Mark 8:27 - 9:1 - a story where Peter seems somewhat of a hero by being with it enough to proclaim Jesus as the messiah - then almost immediately somewhat of a villain (Satan?) for rebuking Jesus for talking about his upcoming suffering. Isn't that the way it goes sometimes? You think you finally have something figured out and WHAM - you find out you didn't quite get it. Even though Peter had all that time with Jesus, in person, he still had remnants of the cultural expectation that the Messiah would be a conquering hero - not a suffering servant. He still was stuck in cultural expectations. But Jesus basically tells Peter to continue to follow - don't tempt me, don't lead me astray from my purpose - but get behind me and follow me and learn.
I wonder how often we need to learn that. How often do we think we have it figured out - then others come along and point out how we have missed the point. Think of Martin Luther, Menno Simons, John Calvin and all the other reformers through history. They saw the way the church was going and called them to stop and follow. Today we have a new set of reformers - In my limited sphere I hear Bruxy Cavey and Shane Claiborne and others calling us to follow Christ not religion. We have new communities (who don't want to be called churches) springing up in an effort to be true to the teachings of Christ.as they read them. How do we follow? How do we "pick up our cross"? Can we avoid following the crowds of religious people and just follow Christ?
The two people on the dvd had very different stories. Marisa told the story of her father who took the suffering involved with cancer treatments in stride as he continued to minister through the pain and the discomfort caused by the cancer and the radiation treatments. He taught his daughter that pain and suffering, denying oneself the luxury of self indulgent recovery was all part of life - especially life following Christ. So she has learned to look to the blessings found living to follow Christ, instead of looking enviously at what some others seem to have. Shawn runs a home for people recovering from addiction. He knows first hand how wanting instant gratification led him to a road of misery and substance dependence. He, too, sees that learning to lean on God's power, God's timing God's being in charge, helps him keep going without needing the chemical help.
We questioned what it means for God to be "in charge". Does this mean we have no say in what happens - that all is foreordained? What is "God's plan"? Is it a script we have to follow? If we don't hear/follow our calling does that mean we've permanently missed out? That the rest of our life is 2nd best? We were given an image of a fenced pasture - the fence being the will of God and the pasture being loving and following God. Within that pasture we can make many choices yet still be within God's will and loving & following God. I'm sure there are limitations to the allegory but it was helpful to ponder.
We also looked at two short excerpts from Shane Claiborne's book. The one was a challenge not to be the type of Christian who goes about daily life like everyone else and just fits in a bit of Jesus now and then. The other was a story of a woman who they offered a warm, safe place who saw that they were Christians, not by their surroundings or language, but because they shone. So we asked - what does it mean to shine? Do we shine? Does our following Jesus change us so people can actually see a difference?
There were many other topics that we touched on, which is not surprising since we were talking about how our Christianity is influenced by our culture and how we are called to be different. We decided our homework for this week (with a check in next week! - keep track ladies!) was to shine - to try for at least one week to keep what was coming from our mouths positive. Bluntly that means no bad mouthing people or plans or events. It sounds so simple but sometimes we just get in the habit of pointing out the negative, or, when things irritate, or even hurt, us so much, we allow the pain to spill out in negativity. This week we are going to look for the good side - especially of people. Let's try to truly shine, whatever crosses we have to bear this week.
May we discover what it means to truly follow, truly serve as disciples of Jesus Christ.
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