9-10-18 - Back to the Real World?

(You can listen to this reflection here.)

If you’re having some trouble transitioning into the fall schedule from the ease of summer, Sunday’s gospel reading should help you come down with a bump. Jesus tells his followers that they have signed on for tough duty:

He called the crowd with his disciples, and said to them, ‘If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it. For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life?

I don’t know if summertime is akin to “gaining the whole world,” but I tend to see it as a time of lower responsibility, slower engagement with tasks and intentions, loosening up on self-denial. Maybe you’re one of those marvelous saints who went on incredible mission trips this summer, but I fear I got so good at living the good life on my creek, I won’t remember where I left my cross to take it up again.

Is that what the “program year” is about, taking up our cross? In some measure, yes. We dial down the lazy, and quicken the pace of our days. We reengage the world more fully. We recommit ourselves to discerning what the Holy Spirit is up to around us, and join in as we are led to participate in the mission of God to reclaim, restore and renew all of creation to wholeness in Christ. None of that may involve putting our physical lives at risk, but it does entail putting God’s work and the world's needs ahead of our own comfort - while maintaining some healthy balance. I have recommitted myself to a sabbath day once a week, a full day with no "shoulds." I found my first one a little dull, but I'll work my way back into this life-giving practice.

Today, let’s spend some time in the presence of God and ask where we’re being directed to share our energies and gifts and resources this season. Any ideas percolating in you?

As we sharpen our attention, we are still called to live in the moment, only perhaps to indwell it more fully. We let our lives be filled with the Spirit’s energy and live for the sake of the gospel rather than for ourselves. We dwell in the Realm of God – which is the most real world there can possibly be.

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