All
our life is an offering to God. It is a giving
back what is ours to hold for a time and season and then it is complete, unless
there is and we believe there to be an eternity in God. This is a core Christian understanding of
reality. For those who practice
awareness there are so many stories of confirmation and usefulness. Some of
them are found in scripture, some in the lives of the Saints, some in recorded
biography, some just left in family or mind.
So
often scripture comes to life for me because I see it mirrored in the lives of
believers. I am of the generation deeply
blessed by family memory of being shaped inside faith. So many young people today who journey curious
toward the Church do not have this solid family faith, or even fragmentary story
to echo within. Its lack can be a game
changer in how faith is found and nurtured. Mentoring
deliberately becomes the task of those who will invite deeper faith. It behooves us then to know and reflect on
our own faith stories connected within the tradition.
Two
of our lessons today are about faith shaping from the inside or family
tradition. From Acts we see a different
faith formation story introduced.
Samuel
is disturbed by the unfaithful acts of King Saul. Those acts of unfaith may seem minor to us
because they mirror so much of normal human compromise. Saul or at least the people he guides, has
looted the possessions of a captured people when he was to walk away from their impurity. Samuel understood walking away from all this pagan people created and amassed to be God’s way to keep
the people of Israel pure.
Thus
Samuel is off to anoint a future King from the house of Jesse. He initially
looks at the first Son, the likely candidate by tradition. Then he hears this in his
prayerful listening:
"Do not look on
his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him;
for the LORD does not see as mortals see; they look on the outward appearance,
but the LORD looks on the heart." 1 Samuel 16:7
This
is a vital lesson. We have little power
over our outer appearance beyond dress and cleanliness. Yet our inner person we
can tend and cultivate. God looks here
for our value and maturation.
David, the
youngest will prove to be the one of purer heart. He is not incorruptible, just purer and more
given to seeking God now in his formation.
We do not see the history of his shaping, but we know he comes from a
family of faith in the easy response of his father to call the family together
for a time of worship.
We
can assume the same by now of the Apostles, that they are formed inside
tradition. Given that all come from
within Israel, even those with gentile names came from Jews returned from the diaspora.
We find them struggling to make sense of
resurrection, sorting out the days past, disturbed by the women’s report of
seeing angels who proclaim Jesus alive which men cannot fully confirm. Note that women were not considered trustworthy
witnesses to men. The stranger who appears helps them make sense and find
faith, breaks bread and becomes in an instant the resurrected Jesus only then to
vanish. It is this vanishing transfiguration,
this sudden clarity in the physical that hooks and anchors faith. Then it is over and they are left to ponder and
value. It is this faith story shaped in
this encounter that becomes the core of the Gospel.
In
Acts we have the story of Cornelius the centurion. He is different than the rest of the
players. He was certainly raised outside
the faith, but there is something attractive about Judaism. Most likely it is
the clearer ethics and system of community care that reflects the Eternal God’s care. Cornelius becomes a good encounter with one who comes from
outside.
His
story however is essential to an unfolding here. It is his attentiveness and actions that rise
from this attentiveness that will change the landscape of the Church. He will
provide the safe transport of Peter who will thus bring about a mission of major change. The
whole Gentile mission of the early church hangs on this encounter. No one in this forming community of faith
would have expected this.
We are reminded that those who come into the Church fresh but hopeful can very likely
be God’s instrument for our wholeness or transformation as a body of faith. We are to listen to the stories and hopes
they bring. Listen for the nudge of God
in a right direction. What may be housed
here is some insight that will make us more faithful. What may be held here is the energy and
commitment to let us deepen together.
What we may be called to do is to listen to nudges of the Spirit that
will make us a more effective Body of Christ, individually and corporately.
It
is forever interesting how God uses us all who come to offer our life back to God. The witness is that God receives our
strengths only to enlighten them and our weaknesses only to transform them. This can be as true for those who come to
offer from within the community as those who offer from outside. Such is the nature of God who "does not see as mortals see; they look on the outward appearance, but the LORD looks on the heart."
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