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| Westminster Abbey- 20th Century Martyrs |
Welcome to our ReJesus Book Study! This is a book study
sponsored by the New Ministries Essential Ministry Team, and I am Rev. Nicole
Reilley, the Director of New Ministries (Interim) and host for this 10-week
study.
Each Monday you will read a new post written by clergy and
laity in the California-Pacific Conference who will engage with the book and
open a dialogue so you may participate.
You may engage the weekly chapters by responding to the post, talking
about the post with others, or reflecting on the post for yourself. It is up to you! All we invite you to do is to enter
into the topic and give it space for the Holy Spirit to work within you, your
heart and your mind. We hope that
you will share the posts with others via social media so we might enter into
Conference-wide discussion together.
The book, ReJesus,
was selected after I attended a leadership event this summer at which Alan
Hirsch spoke. He challenged those
in attendance (various lay persons and clergy from the Western Jurisdiction of
the UMC) to start the United Methodist denomination’s renewal with coming anew
to the person of Jesus Christ. He
reminded us that when we start with Jesus--and develop our way of being church
and engaging with the world out of that relationship--it changes everything. Hirsch challenged us not to start with
renewal in the church, or with a focus on getting into the mission field, but
to instead to order everything we do from the context to our relationship with Jesus.
He is to be our Touchstone, our Guiding Star. Hirsch believes that, if we get our Christology (our
understanding of the nature of Jesus the Christ) right, things will bloom.
With this in mind, I began ReJesus. But honestly,
I was troubled by where it begins. In the introduction to this book, Hirsch and
Frost share story after story of folks who love Jesus but lived in ways that
look anything but “Christlike”. And here is the challenge: we can love Jesus and worship him, claiming to his followers, BUT lead
lives that look nothing like his.
And this isn’t just a problem for a couple of people who “got it wrong,”
but for scores of us whose lives are nothing like the one we call Lord and
Savior. How can this be and what
can we do about it?
I thought about this over the last couple of weeks as I
watched my own shortcomings, one after another: A homeless person asked for
help but I was rushing to lunch and didn’t stop. A friend was in need but I ignored it, hoping someone else
would help because her situation overwhelmed me. I felt the need for extended time of prayer but found myself
surfing the Web instead. I
couldn’t help but see how I fell short over and over again, and it caused me to
wonder - Is Jesus my Guiding Star? Do I have my Christology right?
Now I might normally have these thoughts but it’s my habit
to rush by them. I am good at
excuses and reasons why I don’t live as I know I can. But, as I continued to read, I felt the hot burning wisdom
of Fannie Lou Hamer, the Civil Rights leader who spoke these words into my
uneasiness. She said, “If you are
not putting that claim (that you are a Christian) to the test, where the rubber
meets the road, then it’s high time to stop talking about being a Christian.”
(Kindle edition of ReJesus, page
407). Her words challenge me past my excuses and explanations. Her witness
called me to consider how much of a “little Jesus” I am and how I could grow
more into who God has called me to be.
I hope you will join in the weekly study, reading the book
along with us and listening for the Spirit’s voice. May these next ten weeks be a time of searching for our
Guiding Star and living into whom he is calling us, both as individuals and as
a church, to be.
-Nicole Reilley,
NReilley@cal-pac.org
Questions for
reflection:
What response do you have as to how one’s faith in Jesus can
be totally disconnected from how one lives?
What would it be like to live as “little Jesus”? What
feelings and thoughts does this bring up for you?
What words of Jesus most stand in contrast to how you live?
Matthew 19:16-22 is the scripture that challenges me the most. Most of the 'Little Jesus' examples that are given by the authors are people who gave up everything to help change the world. Bonhoeffer is talked about in the context of his return to Germany to participate in an attempt to subvert the Nazis.
ReplyDeleteFor me, some of the most challenging and interesting work of Bonhoeffer is his exploration of Christian Community, published in a book called, 'Life Together'. It details the difficulties of simply living in community. Not as dramatic as the Schwartze Kappelle (as portrayed in the movie, Valkyrie) -- but it was the strength of Bonhoeffer's community that gave him the strength to endure two years of incarceration and, I am certain, to face his death with courage. I wonder what comforts we could surrender to begin living in community, and how the community might help us to focus on what is most important in helping to address the root causes of our social ills.
Nicole, I appreciate your confession about passing up the homeless man who asked for help. What I wonder is how any one of us helps any one homeless person. We can be overwhelmed by the need of another, because we lack both time and financial resources to really make a difference. That is one reason why I value our United Methodist Connectional system. It keeps me in touch with people whose circumstances are not as privileged as mine, and makes me step out to advocate for justice on their behalf. We are able to 'pool' resources in ways that make sense. Change happens incrementally, but it is happening, but the living in community/connection is far from perfect and I am continually humbled by my own failure to respond in ways that are truly transformational.
I wonder how radical I am really prepared to be. Can I give up everything? So far, I, like the Rich Young Man of scripture, have just gone away sad, for I have many possessions.
For anyone interested who hadn't heard about Bonhoeffer, here's a link to a blog post that tells a bit more about him, as well as how he was influenced by the burgeoning Civil Rights movement in the USA:
http://defsi.typepad.com/deafening_silence/2009/02/valkyries-forgotten-man-dietrich-bonhoeffer.html
Thanks Sandy, I appreciate your vulnerability and insight. Yes, Bonhoeffer's work is so helpful here. What a man of faith - his book, "Life Together" is a Christian classic - read it just a year ago and fell in love with it all over again.
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