One Mind...One Heart...One Body

I previously posted a homework assignment from one of the bible courses I took.  Here is another...


New Testament: The Gospels and Acts

November 19, 2015

Question #1

Why is John 1:1 so important?

"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God."

"Meet people where they are" is a modern saying that is demonstrated in John 1:1.  Part of the ministry reflected in John 1:1 is the intention to reach the Gnostic community.  I believe the mark of a good communicator is the ability to create common ground between various parties.  John utilized Gnostic language and phrasing as a means to make the "good news" of Christ relatable to his audience and he did so without disavowing, adulterating or compromising the core truth.  John 1:1 is integral because it is a practical example of how understanding ones neighbor is the ground upon which ministry is built - evoking a sense of oneness. 

      

The concept of oneness is quite interesting.  In my mind, the idea of seemingly separate entities encompassed in one is a little paradoxical.  How can one being have three distinct identities or manifestations?  John 1:1 is a prominent bible verse because it establishes divine identity - Christ's oneness with The Most High.  With human understanding, I see the fullness of God in the fullness of a family.  A family is one entity yet it is an entity that contains two or more people.  Like the triune nature of God (father, spirit,  and son), the basic makeup of a family is man, woman, and child.  The Father, spirit, and son emanate from one mind, one heart, and one body -The Most High.  And as creations made in the image of The Most High, a family reflects the same through the unique expression of each member. 

John 1:1 sets a foundation for interconnectedness, relationship.  It gives way to God's intangible and tangible reality.  If God is the great equalizer, then what dictates the experience of oneness among all peoples (the human family)?  With the lyrics of Bob Marley's One Love in mind, I believe love is the common ground.  A good communicator allows her/his own prejudices to be in submission to love.  Love was with us in the beginning and will stand until the end.  It is not bound by time, space, or matter.  It functions within one body (Jesus) yet transcends it and becomes "the comforter" and common ground of many (the universal church).  Love is the beginning truth.  Truth is with God.  Love as the only truth is God.  As we grow in understanding of The Most High, we are continually equipped to understand one another and the veil of separation (racism, classism, ageism, sexism, religious extremism etc.) is rent.     

                

To Acknowledge Christ, To Be In Love

Because he first loved me...

What does it mean, in reality, to acknowledge Christ?

What does it mean, in reality, to be in love?

I've been praying and contemplating much.  In my experience of life thus far, it seems pride has the ability to masquerade as love.  Marriage and motherhood have been my greatest spiritual crucibles.  Each ministry has refined me...transformed me in substance.

Motherhood and marriage has pruned and is pruning away my dead branches.  Sunshine and rain.  Winter and Spring.  Weather and Seasons.  Cycles and Processes.  Ah, tis life.  I read once in a Toni Morrison novel that, "anything dead coming back to life hurts."  Pruning - cutting away the dead areas of my mind hurts.  Very much so.  Circumcision - cutting away the prideful areas of my heart hurts.  Truly.  The lessons of life often hurt yet I count it all joy.  Solomon's wisdom comes to mind...   

The full soul loathes a honeycomb; but to the hungry soul every bitter thing is sweet.

~Proverbs 27:7

Where would I be if the Most High had not cared enough to take the time to refine me, prune me, and circumcise the unyielding parts of me...our long going pride and dead bark?

I am reminded of The Catcher in the Rye.  Who will be there to catch our innocent hearts before the experience of disregard plummets our hope into a fallen state?  Who will be there to keep our hearts, break our fall before we commit our lives to the hard landing of disbelief and cynicism.  What does it mean...what does it mean to be saved?

If we only knew how sweetly tender our heart once was before it began to callous over.  Who will catch me?  Who will catch you?  Who will take grasp of our hope for intimacy?  Who will embrace us before we dash ourselves upon the dry ground of inner isolation and dread?

The Waste Land...I wonder...what was T.S. Elliot's muse?  We exchange glances with the witty expressions of acting faces on television and we exchange views with the sensual dexterity of object bodies on phones and desktops.  We exchange...we take the time to have relationship with the flat...we take the time to have relationship with a life behind a screen.

I wonder...what does it mean to see through a glass darkly?  We exchange "How was your Thanksgiving" in the halls of our workplace during Monday's lunch hour.  We exchange "Do you have your bowling arm ready" at a Friday evening gathering hole.  We exchange "Hallelujah, praise the Lord" as we sit shoulder to shoulder in a pew.  But do I know the joy of your day and the pains of your night?  Am I known?  Are you known?  Paul's endearing letter comes to sight...

⁸ Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. ⁹ For we know in part and we prophesy in part, ¹⁰ but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. ¹¹ When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. ¹² For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

¹³ And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

~1st Corinthians 13:8-13

I believe the reason why the first step of conversion is acknowledging Christ (love) as Lord is because the greatest hurt we humans experience is disregard, the experience of our heart-self being unseen, unknown.  But do we know ourselves, first?  Who am I?  What does God see when He looks at you?  Does Love know me?  What do we acknowledge...the report and instruction of the world?  Do I see myself as a failure...do you?  Does God fail?  Oh ye of little faith.  What, in our daily reality, do we believe? 

For me, to acknowledge my own hurts as real and the hurts of my brother and sister is to acknowledge the crucifixion of Christ.  Who will acknowledge me?  Who will acknowledge you?  Who will acknowledge the contents of our hearts and save us from ourselves?  Who will help thou...who will help mine unbelief?

We have all experienced disregard, whether subtle or blatant, passive or aggressive in degree.  We have all had those who we sought in love crown us with the thorns of lies, satiate our thirst with the vinegar of contempt, and hinder our giving and receiving with the nails of rejection upon our hands and the spikes of abandonment upon our feet.  We have all experienced our own form of being bloodied and bruised in love.  In childhood, it is our parents who do not acknowledge our need of understanding...sometimes unwittingly so and sometimes not.  In adulthood, we bond with friends and mates and somehow in the midst, the understanding that we began with waxes stiff.  Who will save us?  Who will enliven us?  Who will dare to quicken our tenderness?   

Innocence and Experience.  This is what I've learned of life thus far...those who love us with a whole heart are those who love themselves with a whole heart.  One can not give to others what they have yet to possess for themselves.  Forgiveness.  Healing.  Understanding.  What is the substance of ministry, of love?

How can I acknowledge my spouse's or children's hurt if I have yet to acknowledge my own?  Have I acknowledged the crucifixion of my heart from long ago?  Who failed to see my heart's needs at age 7 or 14?  Who dismissed my humble reach for connection at 33 or 44?  Who forgot me?  Who passed over you? 

I believe that there are only two elemental powers of all relationship...fear and love.  And if this is so, which power does pride fall under.  Do I dare ask myself, "Beloved, what power authors your words?  Beloved one, what power compels your actions and deeds?"  Pride comes before every great fall...I'm told.  John's Apocalypse comes to heart...

³ You have persevered and have endured hardships for my name, and have not grown weary. ⁴ Yet I hold this against you: You have forsaken the love you had at first. ⁵ Consider how far you have fallen!

~Revelation 2:3-5

If we've fallen from Grace, who are the ones who first pushed away my heart?  What experiences shoved me from love's height, served as a harsh nudge from Christ's good on High?  I must consider me.  And ah, I must consider you. 

But what if I am blinded by fear...who hoodwinked me so?  What veils my mind so that I can not see?  How can I acknowledge true love?  How can you?  Who will be my eyes?  Who will catch me? 

Who will lift me Higher with their heart's Good?

Who will acknowledge me...and you?

Wholeness.  Love sees the lowest and the highest.  What Light!  What Light authors and compels Life to concern itself with my low...concern itself so with my errors and faults, my despair and woes that unconsciously give way to my destructive proclivities?  What Light takes the time for relationship with the wretched and lost, with me?  What Light places us upon its mule...takes us to the Inn of its heart and tends to our wounds with all diligence?  Who is this that lifts and cares?   

Acknowledgment.  How dare we call ourselves followers of Love (of Christ) if we have failed to do the least of what he ask, acknowledge love?  How dare I, how dare you?  Do I see the Christ in my sister and brother?  Do you see the Christ in me?  On the Cross-roads of life did I care enough to lift you?  Likewise, did you care enough to lift me?  

Have we, in reality, allowed ourselves to see the subtle "crucifixions" that happen each day?  How hard are our hearts?  What does our children's "please play catch with me" speak?  What does our spouse's "please hold me" say?

Oh how Anita Baker's soulful serenade breathes hope into my heart and mind.  My God, how we long to be saved, Caught Up in the Rapture that is love, that is you.  Ezekiel's call in the valley...can those of us who are afraid to trust another with our low know and be known...can those of us who are petrified live?  When I fall, can I depend on Love through earthen vessels who are broken like me?  My God, when I fall, can I depend on...can I trust you?

 

Those who love me...who love you...who love us in spirit and in truth are the people in our lives who acknowledge us...they see our crucifixion, our areas of pride (hardened hurt, fear) and in doing so resurrect us unto Life.

I am grateful to the Most High.  I say, "Thank you, earthen vessels...all of you who have allowed God's acknowledgment, God's love to work through you.  I am justified in Christ through you.  I am justified in Love by your care.  We are found worthy through each other.

Who are the ones in my life who took the time to catch me?

Who are the ones in your life who took the time to save you?

Who are the ones in our lives who took the time to understand us, to know us?

Who are the ones who wanted to hold our heart in their heart?

What does it mean, in reality, to be in Christ?

What does it mean, in reality, to acknowledge love?

What partitions intimacy, true relationship...pushes us apart?

Who is in Love with you?

I am because we are.  Caught and Saved.  What an Experience!

May it overflow...

Imitating Christ’s Humility

2 Therefore if you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any common sharing in the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, ² then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and of one mind. ³ Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, ⁴ not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others.

⁵ In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus:

⁶ Who, being in very nature^[a] God,
    did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;
⁷ rather, he made himself nothing
    by taking the very nature^[b] of a servant,
    being made in human likeness.
⁸ And being found in appearance as a man,
    he humbled himself
    by becoming obedient to death—
        even death on a cross!

⁹ Therefore God exalted him to the highest place
    and gave him the name that is above every name,
¹⁰ that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,
    in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
¹¹ and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord,
    to the glory of God the Father.

~from Philippians chapter 2 

In the name of Jesus, in the name of Love
accept the abundant and full gift...
have Love, have Life
amen

 

Faith...Love...Action

 

For years, I have wanted to study the bible in the context of a class setting.  I desired to learn yet I did not have the financial ability to take seminary courses...so I prayed.  I spoke to the Most High of my desire and expressed the need for classes that were low in cost.  And the opportunity was afforded to me this fall...free and clear!  As a direct experience, I know that the Most High honors what is honorable.  With the principle of divine reciprocity in mind enlivened by a grateful heart, I would like to render my most recent assignment... 

New Testament: The Gospels and Acts

November 9, 2015

Question #5

Explain Luke 6:46 in your own words

“So why do you keep calling me ‘Lord, Lord!’ when you don’t do what I say?"

When I read the scripture above the common phrase "talk is cheap" comes to mind.  It is easy to speak of or profess ones love.  It takes effort and commitment to bring the love one speaks of or professes into fullness.  Truly, what is the substance of our faith?

Faith in Christ is the interdependent working between thought and deed.  Faith is love-in-action.  I consider motherhood to be my most honored ministry.  It is a ministry in my life that serves as a barometer of relationship beyond my household.  I believe that "charity starts at home."  Love starts at home in the inner woman (the house/temple of the Holy Spirit) and as a direct result is quickened in the home that I share with my husband and children.   With this in mind, the effort and commitment to Christ begins within me like a bud and unfolds within my family as a blossoming rose with the assurance of adding fragrance to my surrounding community.  Submitting to understanding the purpose of the affect and effect of commitment to Christ (love) is being teachable in the process of community from the microcosm of one woman/man or one family to the macrocosm of  "one nation under God."  Israel was one man (Jacob) and one nation (12 confederate tribes).   It is not just about me or just about our current age.   Love gives root to the whole - concerns itself with the highest good of the generations (my children, my children's children and onward).

Do I (we) have faith if I (we) have done nothing in the name of my (our) faith?  I believe the bible to be the greatest love story ever told, a living word in spirit and flesh.  It is a telling of the highs and lows of the effort and commitment of the Most High to grow us - the process of life, the unfolding of our knowledge of Christ.   

I am (we are) learning.  I believe "walking the talk" or rather proving the wealth of ones talk is to continually and actively engage learning love, learning life (James 2:14-24, 2 Timothy 2:1-7).  God is love and God is life - love in abundance, life to the full.  Stevie Wonder's Higher Ground from his album Innervisions is one of my favorite songs.  The great mark, the honorable goal is transfiguration (to attain the chief stone, reach the ground that is our true home by pressing upward) - exercising our faith inwardly and outwardly by demonstrating the power of God through acts of faith step-by-step and day-by-day. 

If as a mother I decide to sleep in because I do not feel like preparing my children for school and/or taking my children to school to learn, would my talk of my love for my children be in line with faith?  What does love require of me?  What does love say  for me to do?   Does faith require me to go beyond myself (beyond feeling sleepy or weary)?  Shall I as a mother, shall we as ministers in Christ wakefully endure until learning has run the full course?  What is the spiritual and practical reality of being "a doer of the word?"

 

Is love the substance of things hoped for?  Is faith the evidence of things not seen?  What will happen in our individual hearts, our single families, our neighborhoods, our cities and nations if the "rose of Sharon" reigns in each and reaches full bloom?  May the greatest love story ever told live, continue from generation to generation - the experience of glory to Glory.  May I (we) run, continually and progressively do what Christ says.  May my (our) faith endure until the end.