The Neutral Zone Participle Vision Quest – Day 27
Cruciform lives are always being renewed. I was thinking about this today as I was vacuuming the floors. Pantera and the Melvins and the Jonas Brothers blasted from the stereo in the living room. (Don’t ask.) And God was busy redeeming creation.
Cruciform lives are always being renewed. We are shaped into new creations every day. In the big things and the little things, God is at work. When we take seriously the invitation to die to ourselves, the Spirit of the living God falls fresh on us. As the verse goes, I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. To think that the creator of the universe would breathe life into each one of us, that he wants to, that God would give us the time of day, well, what do you say in light of something like that? How do you respond?
When I stood in the Bering pulpit back in January, even though it was an audition of sorts, all that really mattered to me in that 20-minute span was the proclamation of the gospel. All that still matters after that day months ago is that we as a signpost of the kingdom in urban Houston said, “Christ lives in us.”
So in a week we come back together again. My family joins a new family, at least new to us. Easter Sunday. New beginnings. I’m excited. Others are excited. But we will say once again as “Easter People” that the living Jesus is the source of life, and that the church’s one foundation gives rise to a clear mission. The cornerstone around which God sets all other stones in place. Anything else said at Bering on that Sunday will come in a distant second to that Gospel promise from 1 Peter 2.
And then there is my own personal business of neutral zones and participles and vision quests. This week I am writing and reading and praying and sermonizing. Clear participles. But the neutral zone is closing. It’s almost time for new beginnings. Easter Sunday. Renewal.
That’s where this passage comes in that I have been dwelling in for quite some time. The beauty of 1 Peter 2 that we will read on Easter Sunday is that the resurrection language extends beyond the ways we usually see it as uniquely personal. Instead, 1 Peter 2 alludes to Hosea and speaks to the church in renewing ways: “Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God.”
That’s where the vision quest for this month came together for me personally. Renewal. Not just going through the ministry motions to maintain an institutional status quo. Not just saying the right things at the right times. Personal renewal to get ready to be with a gathering of saints. Awakening a sense of commitment to the outlandish gospel of the indwelling of a living God. It is easy, if we are not careful, to get distracted in the church from a mission of renewal. Time away from the church has helped me recapture why I went into church work in the first place. And for that, I am grateful.
I can see once again that the church should never be a place that seeks stasis in order to keep everyone pacified, but a place of participles committed to sending out disciples of Christ to find those who have not yet been genuinely invited to go from “not a people” to “people of God.”
I can see once again that the church is not about maintaining an identity or a culture, unless it is about joining the mission of Jesus to invite others to authentic discipleship that goes beyond just “placing membership” at a specific church.
I can see once again the value in doing everyday things in the midst of the extraordinary. Sitting with someone in a hospital room is better kingdom work than sitting in meetings. Vacuuming the house while listening to some good rock and roll (minus the Jonas Brothers) anticipating guests who will arrive for dinner is better kingdom work than whether we have the right furniture in the foyer.
One of the last scenes in The Hurt Locker shows a bomb technician who came home from Iraq only to find himself grocery shopping. He feels lost. One minute it’s life and death, the next minute it’s deciding which cereal to buy. But that’s the way it is. One day the earth shatters, and the next day we are eating burgers at the park.
Cruciform lives are always being renewed. But they are being renewed during the ebb and flow, the changes and transitions, even as we throw the windows open wide and clean the house on a beautiful Saturday.
