Nov 7th | Normalcy
Acts 27 doesn’t include quite a lot of flash and bang. In some ways, we find it a quite ordinary sequence of events, chronicling the transport of prisoners, including Paul, by ship from Ceasarea to Rome. And although there is certainly more to be discovered in God’s word here, it speaks of the power of ordinaryness. We have become accustomed to bigger, better, louder, faster, and it has dulled our sensitivities to normalcy. If the news isn’t controversial, if the movie doesn’t blow your hair back…and keep it back…they’re probably not worth watching…we surmise.
What of our normal Christian lives. Are they worth living, if a book or movie script cannot be derived from our lives each week? And if not, is it worth living…or are we doing something wrong?
Guess how many times I pressed the brake pedal in my car last Saturday morning running two errands? One hundred and sixteen! Guess how many of those pressures I was consciously aware of? Zero. Each press of the brakes was unremarkable…of no consequence…and virtually unconscious – all part of a completely normal experience of driving. But how would my life have become different if ANY ONE of those brakings had been missed. Massively different. I’d have crashed into something or someone and potentially done tragic damage. Just one out of one hundred and sixteen! Whoa. How can something seemingly so meaningless in actuality be so monumentally important?
I wonder if the same is true of our normal Christian lives. Is it possible that an endless and largely unnoticeable series of normal Christian attitudes and actions can add up to something profound? I think so.
What would some of those attitudes and actions be?
We decided to look at that question through last weeks lens of community…that community is one of God’s tools through which people grow up in Christ and away from their sinfulness. Specifically, but not comprehensively, through confession and commitment. Scripture calls us, ad nausea, to confess to (and by implication, forgive) one another and to persevere with one another. And that in this fashion, we show that we are in fact followers of Jesus…they will know we are Christians by our love!
But, back to the point…yes, there is a point…maybe the idea of confession and commitment have fallen prey to the notion that big, bad, and flash and bang are necessary – or confessions and commitments don’t amount to much. Not true. Jesus,n fact, equated Kingdom life to salt and yeast and mustard seeds – small things that pack an unsuspectingly powerful punch.
So this week was designed, if for no other reason, to add clarity and normalcy to confession and commitment…and in keeping with the point…it’s not complicated!
Think of confession as transparency. The willingness to simply live an appropriately open life with another or a few others. Before there is blatant unrepentant and harbored sin in our lives there are threats, temptations, anxieties, battles, odd thoughts, misgivings, etc, etc. Why would we pass up the opportunity to be real about such things if we are committed to growing in Christ. i think,mostly, because we think they aren’t big, bad and ugly enough. But magnitude is not the point…honesty, trust, encouragement and forgiveness are the point…instead of waiting for the train wreck.
And as far as commitment to one another goes – let’s keep that simple too. Codependency is not the goal. Consistency is. Predictable consistency. When you or another needs support, decide what sort of support makes sense and stick to it.
Who do you have in your life that share a reasonable level of transparency?
What keeps you from wading into reasonable but uncomfortable subjects? Fears of rejection? Embarrassment? Condemnation? Shows of weakness? Image? …
Why do you suppose Jesus compels us to live honestly with one another?
With whom and in what ways could you live “out there” a bit more?
