Pastor Chris
In our sometimes sanitized and often isolated world, it’s easy to forget many of us aren’t far removed from much more gritty ways of living life. Some of us are only a generation removed from wandering farmlands – wrestling animals to provide veterinary care, or tilling the fields to provide for a family and beyond. Many of our ancestors knew very little outside the day-to-day life of working the earth.
Here in the 21st century, however, we have the ability to experience almost every corner of culture in our world. We can witness festivals in Thailand or attend a class seminar in Kenya – without ever leaving our home. And this is a wonderful blessing of our modern technology and interconnected world, but it also means we’ve become a bit disconnected from the lived experiences of the generations that came before us.
Sometimes I think that makes it hard for us to connect to Jesus on a level many generations before us were able. It’s harder for us to do so because we are able to see so much of the world we live in without engaging in it. And sometimes we feel our faith is the same. We are able to click into thousands of different worship services on a weekly basis and worship remotely. For many of us, this is an incredible blessing, and I’m glad we offer this opportunity at Esperanza. But for some of us, it’s yet another way to stay somewhat disengaged from being “in the thick of it” with other members of the body of Christ.
In the beginnings of creation, when God created the heavens and the earth, we are told the story of God in the garden creating the first human. While our story of creation in Genesis 1 describes God simply speaking things into being, in Genesis 2, God creates in a more tangible way. We are told that God forms humanity out of the dust of the ground, and that God breathes into the first of humanity to bring him to life. God is near at hand and intimate in the garden of God’s creation.
Throughout scripture, we are told story after story of the divine coming down to earth to interact directly with humankind – most often the people of Israel. Messengers from God visit Abraham, telling him that his wife Sarah will bear a child in her old age. God wrestled with Jacob in the night. God spoke through a burning bush to Moses, and out of a whirlwind to Job. And then, in a grand climax of God coming to us, God became flesh and walked among us as Jesus, living and dying like one of us. Finally, the Bible tells us in the book of Revelation that at the end of all things, God will come to dwell among mortals in this world – not in some far-off heaven.
So as God abides in our world through the Holy Spirit placed on our hearts, we too are invited to abide in the world – in the thick of it all. We saw a glimpse of this in how so many in our community came together to support the packing of naloxone kits. We see it every time we put our feet on the ground in places where people need support and do the work that God has put in front of us. And sometimes it comes in simply being willing to have uncomfortable conversations rooted in love and community. So I remind you all, we are people who are in this world – fully a part of it. Which means sometimes we will be down in the dirt, tilling the good soil in which the gospel can take root. And where the gospel takes root – where we are investing time and energy – good news will grow.
Pastor Chris