Day 043: Reliance

"A king is not saved by his large army, and a giant shall not be saved by his immense strength; a horse is a false hope for salvation, and it shall not be saved by its enormous power." Psalm 32:16-17 (33:16-17)

Today, we have fashioned ourselves to become reliant on just ourselves and our own tools.  We utilize all that we do, but we are accustomed to putting our own names on the results.  Yet, with this mindset, a simple shortcoming can deal us a major blow in our personalities, because we have nothing to fall back on.

A great example of God's love and support for us is at the Eucharistic table.  During the Eucharist, there are many items that are heavily symbolic, the greatest of which are the bread and the wine.  God reaches out to us each time we take the communion, reaching out to us by means of foodstuff.  Imagine that: God makes the very normal things from life into the body and blood of Christ.  If God already does that for us, how much more is God doing?

God is using us as mere instruments in God's master plan.  God has a goal set for each and every one of us.  We can build ourselves in any way that we want to, but it is only when God moves through us that we can accomplish anything.  Machines can have all the programming in the world, but without the supervision of a technician, they can't accomplish anything.  In the same way, when we wander around on our own, we can only get so far.  It is when we put our lives into God's hands that we accomplish great things.

Another side to this is about how we hold our opinions very closely.  Our opinions can be very divisive and deceptive to others - even more so to ourselves.  Once again, when we put our lives into God's hands, God will purify us, including our thoughts, so that we can become unified with God and the church all around us.  God is reaching to us every day, so there is no excuse for us not to submit our lives to God. 

Day 002: Communion

"When the Day of Pentecost had fully come, they were all with one accord in one place."  Acts 2:1

"Now all who believed were together and had all things in common, and sold their possessions and goods, and divided them among all, as anyone had need."  Acts 2:44-45

The account of the early church shows a business model that was quite successful, with numbers growing in the hundreds and thousands in the first years.  To me, what seems to be at the heart of it all is the communion between one another, sharing the Holy Spirit with one another.

To start, the early Christians, burning with the Spirit, spoke in the different languages of many different cultures of the time, and there were people coming from all over, hearing their languages, feeling the hospitality that comes from a love for God.  In addition to that, as some scholars point out, they divided their possessions among each other out of necessity, since there were many who were coming to them from afar.
This is the embodiment of Jesus' command in John's Gospel, "If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink." (John 7:37)

When I think about how the larger Church today works, I appreciate my own, the Episcopal Church, because of our communion table, which is open to all.  Just as Jesus commanded us to come to Him for fulfillment, we continue that invitation to this very day.  Unfortunately, though, the difference is that we extend this invitation reluctantly.  We only want a certain gender, a certain sexual orientation, a certain color, a certain race, a certain ethnicity, a certain culture, a certain language, a certain doctrine,  a certain credence.  We add terms and conditions to what Jesus explained simply and the apostles executed simply.

I am certain that each and every one of us has some need.  Some needs are material, and others are spiritual, but the important thing to remember is that we all have them and need to respect those of others.  How about making the church a place for those needs to be fulfilled?  How about coming together in the church with one accord?  How about bringing the Holy Spirit to our neighbors without that terms and conditions box?