The Awakening of Hope: why we
practice a common faith
For Sunday, Nov. 11, 9:30 am. Discussion series based on Jonathan
Wilson-Hartgrove’s book
Foreword by Shane Claiborne: In Jesus
we don’t see just a presentation of ideas but an invitation to join a movement
that embodies God’s good news…Over and over, studies have shown that belief
does not equal changed lives…In the end, Jesus as part of his great commission,
sent his own followers out into the world not just to make believers—but to
make disciples….And many of these practices are peculiar. They are marks of the
holy counterculture that God has been forming for centuries. They invite you
not to conform to the patterns of this world but to be transformed with a new
imagination…Disciple shares the same root as the word discipline. [We need
to]recapture the disciplines that help us to become better disciples.
Introduction:
The mission of the church is always
to connect God’s story with society’s deep need….No matter how [bleak] things
may seem in our world, fresh winds continue to stir new movements, reminding us
that creation has been and is being redeemed…But that is not all we need. As
much as revival may serve to energize God’s movement, we also need catechism to
direct it…For every new sign of hope, there is ancient wisdom to help us
interpret how a new thing can be rooted in God’s old, old story. When the
Spirit stirs to awaken us, there are reasons for our hope. We learn them not
only to share with others, but also to help us see the revival that’s happening
where we are.
Chapter One: Pictures of Hope: Listen
to Audiobook reading http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-vePo_LQ6yE
Chapter 2: Why We Eat Together…video
session #1 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hOWc6PkSAFA
Church of the Sojourners in
California, group of Christians who live in four large houses near one another.
On Sunday evenings in backyard they worship with one another and neighbors.
They eat, take care of dirty dishes, and worship is woven into it all, someone
plays guitar, someone takes bread and breaks and blesses and shares. Eucharist
or sharing bread and cup have been centerpiece of Christian worship from the
time of Jesus. Particularly eating with sinners, tax collectors, outsiders to
your culture; creating a welcome table, re-enacted by black and white
Christians sitting at segregated counters to be able to eat together in the
South.
“This meal is not possible without the
gift of good soil. In the Bible’s account of Creation, we read that God formed
the first human from the humus of the ground, then breathed the breath of life
into [him]. Life is a mystery, and we are each of us always more than dirt. But
Genesis preserves a profound truth in this account that insists our lives
depend on dirt.”
Eating without attention is to reduce
eating to the consumption of products. Wendell Berry said some people act as if
“money brings forth food.”
“As I cover the lasagnas and carry
them to another house where our community potluck is about to begin, I know
there are easier, more efficient ways to get the calories I need at dinner time…But
we’ve gone to the trouble to make this particular dinner for roughly the same reason
we make an effort to eat with these particular people—because it seems more in
keeping with the sort of community we are made for, even if it costs more time
and money, even if it forces us to deal with people we’d sometimes rather
avoid. One of the things we learn to name by eating together is that we are
creatures, inextricably connected in a membership called creation. To deny that
connection in practice is to reject the gift of life and to march, however
slowly or blindly, toward our collective death.”
“One Sunday morning I prayed with
Christians in the Dominican Republic, begging for daily bread beside a river
that had dried up and left fields barren. The next Sunday I was at a church in
the U.S. where the bulletin advertised a workshop to learn biblical principles
to lose weight. The consequences of our eating poorly are not just unhealthy
bodies, but a body politic in severe distress. “
“To be reconciled to one another is
to be able to gather around a table with each other without shame, celebrating
the gifts to each other that we are. It is to commit to an economy and politics
in which the care of each other is our all-consuming desire…You may not see it
all the time, but every once in a while there is a still point when you’re
passing the asparagus and laughing at a bad joke. You look up from your plate
and you see the image of God. And you know this is why we eat together.
Reflections:
Why grace at a meal? How do you feel
about it?
How about that “earthy dimension” of
the cross secured in the ground?
Issues of globalization and loss of
sweaty jobs in America but as Americans reap inexpensive benefits from the
sweaty work of children and others overseas?
How can eating together be a practice
of resurrection, of transformation like gardens breaking through concrete and
dumping?
Does seeing yourself as a creature
change your way of thinking about eating? How?
How does communion shape the way you
see all of your meals? Where does the food from your most recent meal come
from?
Action:
Opportunities of eating together at
least three times a week: Sunday Lunch, Wednesday Lunch, Tuesday Evening, maybe
Friday breakfast 6:30 am, plus every second Saturday breakfast, every Third
Saturday dinner, and special parties and events or planning meetings.
Plan our Thanksgiving Community Meal
and our Thanksgiving Community Communion Worship
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