Out on a Walk…
Because I’ve got a hugely busy time coming up during the next month or so, I’m trying to get a head start on some Next Step posts. I was perusing some of what I’ve written in the past & came across some interesting stuff.
Back in March, 2009 I wrote this…
Meister Eckhart
I’ve got a great set of note cards that has a beautiful drawing of African women strutting with baskets on their heads & drums on their hips. The drawing is called Virgins Dancing by Stella Atal.* I love the art, but it’s the quote from Meister Eckhart that pulls it all together:
God is always at home. It is we who have gone out for a walk.
I wonder sometimes if we in the church haven’t gone out for a walk – a long one. We seem to put our energy into so many things – good things, important things – but then we overlook, or worse, even forget, the foundational things.
I’m lucky to even be writing this given my long absence from the world of blogging. These days it seems that my work demands that I write for every venue but this one. So I won’t waste valuable time lecturing about what’s foundational & what’s not. But here’s a random thought. Is it possible that it’s not really about ‘creating new places for new people & renewing existing ones’ as the bishops & General Conference have said? Could it really be about offering the life transforming grace of God through Jesus Christ to the world?
God is always at home...
The whole creating new places things sounds like a good idea, but what kind of new places for new people are we talking about? I’d like to assume that when the bishops (or whoever it was) came up with such a catchy phrase they were talking about creating communities of faith living as the body of Christ. Even better, I’d like to assume they were talking about communities of faith living as the body of Christ & committed to proclaiming the gospel of the Messiah Jesus in order to bring people into a life transforming relationship with Jesus Christ. I’d like to think they were expressing a commitment to evangelism. But somehow I wonder. Nobody’s really talking about Jesus in any of this – at least not out loud – & God forbid we use the dreaded ‘E’ word. So who knows? The way things are going these new places for new people could wind up being coffee shops for fellowship (not a bad thing in & of itself). Or free trade stores to promote a more just form of capitalism – again, not a bad thing – but not quite the same thing as connecting people with the source of life abundant.
I don’t really know what to make of it really. So I wonder. Because as good as it sounds, it still feels like we’re out on a walk – a long walk.
Hmmm….sounds familiar…
*Sadly, the url I used in 2009 is no longer active – but here’s what I found for Stella Atal.
At our Spirit-filled best, we Methodists were confident. We were not confident in our schemes or devices. We were confident in the power of God to change us from within and then to work through us to bring about the transformation of society. In other words, at our Spirit-filled best, we Methodists believed in and proclaimed the God of Holy Scripture and the great ecumenical Creeds, which is to say, the divine Trinity. We believed, taught and confessed that, unlike the God worshipped by Deists, the Christian God is a God who really does get neck deep in the muck and mire of creation. We proclaimed the audacious message that, in the Incarnation, God really did become human in order that we might be healed. In our asceticism, we pointed with the whole of our lives to Christ crucified. And with glad and joyous hearts we celebrated the coming of the Holy Spirit to live within and among us.
