Grow and Change

A reflection on the Propers for Pentecost 15, by Deacon Coleen

When I’m leading a spirituality group, I invite patients to talk about what spirituality means to them. There are many definitions and approaches to spirituality. In the book, Chop Wood Carry Water, the author (R. Fields) says that “Spirituality is (in part) about the urge to live life more fully and living life with others in love and commitment, surrender, growth and change…”.

In today’s lessons, beginning with Deuteronomy, we hear that the people are asked what they will choose. I wonder if their choices had something to do with living life more fully which involved growth and change. The Israelites were faced with hard times and good times. The hard times were characterized by wandering away from YHWH, and the good times by returning to YHWH. Whether we experience hard times or good times, Jesus warns us to count the cost of our choices – to be conscious in our choosing – because living life that honors Christ is no simple or easy matter. Life in Christ is a choice that effects us to the core.
Again, this choice for each of us requires a conscious awareness that involves surrender, commitment, growth and change. We must be willing to do what is necessary to make sure we are putting God first in our lives – choice … commitment.

The cost of choosing life over death, blessing over curse, comes not only in what we might passively suffer because of the choice, but also in how we decisively act because of the choice. We’re influenced by life’s experiences, our social norms, family, friends and culture, to name a few.

Paul reminds Philemon that he has chosen life in Christ and this choice reorients all his other actions – including how he receives a runaway slave.

Life is, in essence, a series of choices… at the end of the day: what have been our priorities?

Our choices are not dogmatic or prescriptive, not about “shoulds” focused on how am I doing? Choices are about reality and how God is doing in our individual lives, not with perfection but with growth. Our choices are personal… practical, the stuff and rhythms of daily life… choices allow us to name the spirit that activates our days and soothes our nights. Our choices can be a response to God’s call in our relationships with others, how we look at life, our behaviors, our contemplations. There is no standard template.

As responsible Christians the message in today’s lessons is a willingness to serve God and serve others with God’s love. Perhaps it’s as simple as increasing our capacity for gentleness and empathy, friendly hearing, offering a nonjudgmental presence. OR perhaps it’s speaking with the courage of our convictions. In today’s gospel, Jesus is not calling us to hate father and mother, but is instead calling us to a commitment above all other commitments, the love of Christ. (4)

Jesus clearly meant that we cannot be his disciples if we allow the God-space at the center of our lives to fill up with our love of things, whether with money, any earthly possessions or habits.

When we allow our daily rhythms to include conscious awareness rooted in Christ, we have no promise that it will be easy, but we have the confidence and promise that it will be blessed. When we are abandoned to God, God works through us all the time.

Jesus demands commitment, sometimes an unpopular word these days. Commitment goes hand in hand with high standards and integrity. It is in our trust of the Creator, the One who gives us daily strength that we can live with confidence in how we move and have our being.

As we grow and change in our pursuits of living life more fully in Christ, determining our priorities, experiencing a new response to God’s call in our relationships with others, when we have counted the cost, and are conscious of our choosing, knowing the realities of the good news in Christ, knowing and sharing the practical stuff about love and surrender, perhaps one step of change in our life is sharing our personal stories about commitment and choice.

We might ask ourselves the question:
Who needs to hear it?