An Update on Living Vision Happenings...

Wow! What a great start we are off to in our fall practice at Living Vision! We've had great participation and been enlivened as we gather for silence, contemplation, and centering. Our focal practice/discipline for September has been Centering Prayer, also known as Apophatic Prayer in some circles. In this discipline we've been seeking to get beyond or beneath words, to put ourselves in the most receptive state possible, as we listen for that still, small voice.

In October, we'll shape our silent practice using the wisdom of Michael Brown's The Presence Process, a book that has influenced several of the participants in our fellowship. Brown's work centers on bringing ourselves into the present moment more fully and freely through a simple meditation he calls "the presence process." As with all our practices, one's particular religious perspective or background is not a limiting factor for the efficacy of this discipline. People from all religions or no religion can plug into the deep wisdom we will experience together. So spread the word, ALL are welcome. We meet each and every Tuesday from 7:30-8:30 pm at Yoga Roots in Petoskey at 444 E. Mitchell St. Please enter via the back alley and remove your shoes as you do.

On a related note, several of our practitioners have expressed a desire to spend some time talking and discussing topics of mutual interest, so we are looking for a time slot in which to do that. We will protect our meditation time on Tuesdays but we could meet afterward or find another day and time for that purpose. There is so much more we could grow into as we seek to live in community together. Please let Toby know your thoughts about this via email at tobyjones48@gmail.com.

The Living Vision Experiment in spiritual community turns its July attention to labyrinths. The labyrinth is a rich, historic symbol and practice in Christian and pre-Christian tradition. Greek and Roman history and archeology are full of labyrinths, but theirs tended to be tests, traps, and mazes. In the years following 1000 C.E. labyrinths began appearing on church floors and walls, inviting disciples to enter their purposeful path for reflection. Such labyrinths became symbols for the essential human journey to the core, the center, the soul of who we are.

When spiritual devotees walk a labyrinth, they are not asked to make choices or decisions about which way to go: those choices are already dictated by the labyrinth's one way journey to the center. The disciple simply chooses to enter the path, to engage, and then, having done so, simply lets go and surrenders to the path. All that is required from there is an open mind, a receptive spirit, a willingness to walk, putting one foot in front of the other.

Some people use the labyrinth exercise to work on an intention or a focal point of some sort. Perhaps a decision needs to be made or an emotion needs to be mulled. When a group walks a labyrinth together, they can silently draw near to one another and to God simply by sharing the journey. I've read of groups supporting one of their members who is leaving, moving, or journeying through cancer treatments by entering a labyrinth's path together. The possibilities are endless, and yet the path is one - one way in and one way out.

For us at Living Vision, everything we do together emphasizes silencing ourselves, humbling ourselves before God and each other. We seek to go inward to a place that lies beneath words, below doctrine, beyond belief. We seek to encounter the God whose ways are not like our ways, whose thoughts are not like our thoughts.

We invite you to join us during any of the Tuesdays of July at Crouse Chapel on the grounds of Bay View to walk a labyrinth together. We gather at 7:30 and disperse at 8:30. All are welcome. If you have any questions or seek more information, email tobyjones48@gmail.com   Peace.

Nature Prayer - Our Practice for May at L.V.

 

How many times have you heard or even said something like, “I feel so much closer to God in nature, when I’m outdoors.” This deeper sense of the divine in the out of doors runs across religious lines and across all cultures and even time periods. Our ancient ancestors felt this same way, as is evidenced in some of the Hebrew psalms. Psalm 19 notes that “the heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands.” The 24^th Psalm begins, “The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it, the world and all who live in it; for He founded it on the seas and established it upon the waters.”

Jesus embodied a faith that was also profoundly tied to the natural world. His parables spoke of flowers and bird; he asked us to consider the lilies of the field as well as the sparrow. He compared his kingdom to a mustard seed and to leaven. Virtually all his teaching took place by lakes and on mountains, places where God’s grandeur was on full display.

St. Francis was one of our most influential prophets when it came to understanding God in nature. He believed that God’s love literally surged through all things. Francis took literally the common Christian claim that “we are all one in Christ.” He observed quite accurately that even the air we breathe is common, completely and literally shared by all living beings. The air that I take into my lungs includes and is mixed with the air that has been in and out of your lungs, the same air that the trees have used and continue to draw from for their oxygen supply. Expanding and extending Francis’ observation allows us to see why he could feel so connected to birds and every other creature.

So nature is, in many ways, the most appropriate context and setting for prayer. It reminds us – or should remind us – of our ultimate interdependence, unity, and vulnerability. Literally every spiritual practice that we have undertaken this year in Living Vision can be practiced outside. But this month we turn our attention to a practice that actually begins with nature as the impetus and focus of our prayer and reflection.

We begin, as always, by expressing our intention of experiencing God in nature and in the silent time we are about to spend in it. At this particular meeting, since we are indoors, I have brought a bit of nature inside to focus and guide our reflection – a dandelion, a little patch of moss, and a few flowers. Our second step is to cast our focused attention on one of the natural items. We draw upon our previous practice of focused attention and observe the item like a scientist, artist, or writer, looking at it from every perspective and with profound clarity. Our third step is to allow our minds to consider the entire life process that brought this living thing to its current form. Include all the natural forces and other creatures that had a hand in its creation and development – soil, sun, rain, other trees, insects, etc. Finally, we turn all of these intentions, observations, and thoughts into praise and thanksgiving for the Creator, the Author of this amazing life we are observing and sharing in.

As with all our disciplines and practices, the ultimate purpose of what we do here is that it trains us to be equally observant and tuned in to nature every time we are out taking a walk, every time we look out a window, and at every sunrise and sunset. In other words, we practice these disciplines in discrete moments so that they will bleed into the rest of our lives in a natural, almost involuntary way.

* This coming Tuesday, May 15, we will practice this nature prayer with an item of food. You won’t believe how it will revolutionize and spiritualize your eating and meal preparation. Join us at Yoga Roots at 444 E. Mitchell from 7:30-8:30 pm. Hope to see you there! As always, all are welcome and if you have any questions, just contact Toby at tobyjones48@gmail.com.

A Recent Message I Delivered at TC 1st Pres

 

Nexus Message from 5/6/12 – On Abiding in the Vine & Bearing Fruit (John 15)

Jesus , as his time with the disciples drew short, started getting more and more direct and intense with them in his teaching. We can feel his sense of urgency in the final few chapters of each gospel, as Jesus prepared the disciples for that time when they would have to be able to get along without Jesus’ physical presence.

John 15 is just such a time. “I am the vine and you are the branches.” What a great image of dependence, emphasizing how vital, life-giving, and sustaining Jesus is to all those who would venture to live out his “way.” Jesus taught, in no uncertain terms, that all of us need to stay tuned into, tied into our life source if we are to be useful, effective, fruit-bearing followers. “Remain in me, as I also remain in you…for apart from me you can do nothing.”

If we think of our connection to God, to Jesus, as a relationship, then it stands to reason that to develop and enhance that relationship we need to spend time with God, with Jesus. Now that sounds very easy and straight- forward. But most of our other relationships involve another human, a physical being whom we can see, talk to, hear from, touch. Jesus, once he ascended after his resurrection, left all of his human followers with a bit of a dilemma….he’s not here…least not physically. So relating to him, connecting with him, staying tied to him is not the same at all as connecting with or relating to our other friends, is it?

So the first thing I’d like us to explore together this morning is what it means to remain in Christ, to abide in the vine? How, exactly, are we to do that? What are some of the ways you remain in Christ, stay connected to the vine?  (Spend a minute or two on your own, writing your thoughts about how to stay tied to the vine, and then we’ll discuss our individual ideas with our tablemates for a while. Then we’ll share what we came up with.)

So we do the things we mentioned a few moments ago, right? We come to a church or a spiritual community. We read and study the scriptures. We pray. We serve those in need through our time, energy, and offerings. All of these are good, and I would encourage all of you to keep practicing any and all of those as best you can in the interest of staying rooted in the vine of Christ.

But this morning I want to encourage you to explore the one form of tying into the vine that contemporary American Christians are least apt to try and have seemingly forgotten about.

The Spiritual Community that I lead over in Petoskey, Living Vision, has dedicated itself to the forgotten spiritual disciplines. We practice ancient contemplative disciplines, silent and listening-based practices to keep us rooted in the vine. We practice silent meditation, lectio divina, the Jesus Prayer, the Examen, and many other silent disciplines. Ours is a very unoriginal way of staying connected to the vine of Christ. In fact men and women have been performing these practices for thousands of years. What they all share in common - AND what makes them woefully unpopular among contemporary American Christians - is that they all require us to keep quiet, to keep our mouths shut. They are listening-based practices that require not only a silence around us, but a silence within us. That is the tricky part. It’s one thing to find or create a silent external space; it’s quite another to cultivate silence in your mind…Which is probably why the vast majority of people who even attempt these kind of practices give up in frustration within the first couple days. Contemporary American Christians find these silent, listening-based disciplines too humbling, as they almost immediately confront us with our own inner distraction and emptiness. But those of us who persevere and soldier through these vine-abiding practices find an amazing pipeline to the divine, a new depth of connection, one that actually celebrates our humility and that utter dependence that Jesus spoke of when he said, “apart from me you can do nothing.”

Let me tell you what it’s been like for me, a fairly recent convert to the ancient and silent spiritual practices. I’m smart, well-educated, and even have a degree in theology from Princeton. I’m an effective speaker. Give me a microphone and an audience and I’ll talk all day about Jesus. That’s comfortable for me. That’s easy for me. But turn off the mic. Empty out the room. Take away my cel phone and my computer and ask me to sit still and be quiet, and almost instantly I get antsy, squirmy, restless. I’d be better if I had a Bible or something to read…But with these particular disciplines, I don’t. So I have to adjust to the quiet and stillness around me. And that’s when things get really noisy in my head. My brain starts churning in high gear. I start making all of these mental lists – to do lists and worry lists and, of course, the “reasons I don’t have time to sit here quietly” list. My mind goes full into monkey mode, replacing the noise outside that is now gone with noise inside that I feel totally powerless to stop. So a large benefit of the ancient silent practices is that they remind us all just how UNspiritual we are, just how easily distracted we are deep down, at our core, where we like to think that we’re so spiritual and close to God.

So now I sit with a few other people at our Living Vision gatherings and we battle our monkey minds together. We’re getting a little better at cultivating inner silence and carving out space in our cluttered minds for the vine to feed us. There’s a reason that they call these spiritual disciplines “practices.” We need practice. We all need practice when it comes to abiding in the vine. And let’s remember that all we’re really trying to do with any of this stuff is follow the simple advice Seals and Crofts tried to give us back in the 70’s, when they sang, “Darlin, if you want me to be closer to you get closer to me.” God must dig that song. And if you were God, what could be better than having a room full of your followers just come into your presence, silently, humbly, with no props who just sit there for no other reason than they want to be in your presence, they want to be closer to you?

Now where does all this practice lead? Where does God want all this practice to lead? In a word…it’s fruit. What Jesus is interested in folks is fruit. Trees that don’t bear fruit are worth nothing. (Reread the story of the Fig Tree – Mt 21:18-19) Christians, people who allegedly follow Jesus, but don’t produce fruit, are of no real interest or value to Jesus.

So what does it mean to bear fruit. What is fruit, folks? Fruit is children, offspring, new life that you create that outlives you, that is still there living and producing more fruit when you are dead and gone, right? So let’s brainstorm a bit, first alone and then with our tables, on what kind of fruit Jesus is interested in from his disciples, from us. What kind of fruit can you produce that can satisfy Jesus’ hunger for fruit and fruit-bearing followers?

(a few more minutes for personal and then table by table brainstorming)

Here are a few other ideas on what Jesus might be after when it comes to fruit…

1) Actions that reflect or mimic his actions in an authentic, other-serving way.

…Stopping to help someone stranded on the roadside

…Stopping by a local jail, hospital, or nursing home and asking if there are any folks who never seem to get any visitors…then visiting them!

…Reading or hearing about a person or family in need and then figuring out a way to help them, without them ever finding out it’s you

…Talking to a school counselor and asking if there are any kids he/she knows of who are struggling to get lunch each day – then making or buying their lunch for a week or a month anonymously

…Finding someone who is lonely and/or alone and hanging out with them

2) Doing what you can to mentor somebody about Jesus and his path

…invest yourself in showing (more than telling) him/her everything you know about and do for Jesus. Bring him/her along. When was the last time you introduced someone to Nexus, brought someone here and helped them plug in?

…start a Bible Study, book study, discussion group, or even an ancient spiritual practices group J  with a few spiritually hungry friends

…pick a person or two whom you can bring along with you to those activities you do that are most Christ-like

3) Lasting Legacy work – pick one or two good things/programs, etc. you do and take action NOW to insure that this work continues when you can no longer do it!

…If you’re serving habitat or a local soup kitchen regularly, recruit your eventual replacement/successor and bringing him/her along now so you know your work/fruit will continue.

The bottom line here, folks, is that Jesus has NEVER been interested in our beliefs, what we think, how often we come to church how well we know the Bible if we aren’t bearing fruit. He has always been about fruit – what we DO here and now that LASTS, that outlives us. God is most interested in our lasting legacy, what we do with our time and with the gifts He gives us on earth. God is most interested in what we do to make sure that the work HE cares about will keep being done long after we have left this earth.

Let me close with a great story about legacy. When I first started serving at Harbor Springs Presbyterian Church, I noticed very quickly that every time I did something there – preached, taught a class, took kids on a mission trip, etc. – I would very shortly after receive a nice hand written thank you note from this retired doc, Fritz Schwartz. Soon I had a stack of these wonderful notes of encouragement and I decided to bring them up at a staff meeting. Now all the staff had been at the church longer than I, and they all nodded knowingly when I talked about these letters. They all had stacks of them too. My boss said, “You know why he does that, don’t you?” I thought and said, “Because he knows the value of encouragement and gratitude?” Then I heard the full story. For over 50 years, his wife wrote these letters. Fritz didn’t. When she died and Fritz lost and struggled to adjust to her being gone and his own retirement, he decided to continue her legacy. He decided that to honor her and to stay attached to his love, he would take up doing what she had done all those years. So all those letters I got from Fritz were not merely thank you’s to me; they were his way of staying connected to and honoring his beloved wife.

So abide in the vine and bear fruit. Honor Jesus by continuing HIS legacy, doing something you KNOW he did. That’s what it means to follow Jesus. That’s what he meant by “I am the vine and you are the branches.”

The Examen - our discipline for April 2012

In many of our disciplines thus far in the Living Vision journey, we have sought to set aside our thoughts, to push away our analytical, mental machinations. We have, in one sense, sought to transport ourselves into the realm and presence of the transcendent God. We have wanted to make room for God, create space in our mind for God to speak by pushing away our thoughts about the day and setting aside our tendency to mull over recent events.

But in the spiritual discipline we begin for the month of April, we wille actually seek to pay attention to the day we had. We’ll want to listen to our own observations about what we experienced today in order to see if we can find any traces of the presence, power, and guidance of God IN and through those experiences.

The Examen is a spiritual practice of examination. In his most famous work, The Spiritual Exercises, Ignatius of Loyola sought to “examine his daily life for signs of God’s presence.” While we believe in a God who is wholly other and beyond our reach and intellectual capacity, we also believe in a God who is always with us, who abides with us and is IN the nitty gritty of our lives. So it only makes sense that the spiritual minded among us would seek to hone and fine-tune our observational skills in hopes of seeing God’s hand in our lives.

According to an Ignatian discipiles, the Examen is “a technique of prayerful reflection on the events of the day in order to detect God’s presence and discern his will or direction for us.  The Examen is an ancient practice…that can help us see God’s hand at work in our whole experience.”

This is a version of the five-step daily Examen that St. Ignatius practiced:

1. Become aware of God’s presence.

   Use your breathing to connect to Presence. State your intention to be

   with and listen to God.

   

2. Review the day with gratitude.

   Gratitude is the foundation of our relationship with God. Walk through

   your day in the presence of God and noting its joys and delights.

3. Pay attention to your emotions.

   Reflect on the feelings you experienced during the day. What seems

   important? Consider what God is saying through these events or through

   your emerging feelings about them?

4. Choose or ask the Holy Spirit to highlight one feature/ event/

   decision/moment of the day that God thinks is particularly important. And

   pray on it, reflect on it. It may be a vivid moment or something that seems

   nsignificant.

5. Look toward tomorrow.

    Ask God to give you light for tomorrow's challenges. Can what you’ve

    seen/felt from today’s events and the examen guide you tomorrow?

So we’ll proceed together through all five of these steps and then spend some time afterward talking about what we experienced.

Living Vision meets three Tuesday evenings a month from 7:30-8:30 at Yoga Roots in Petoskey (444 E. Mitchell St. - enter via the back door of the alley). All are welcome to practice with us. We don't meet the first Tuesday of the month. For more information email Toby Jones at tobyjones48@gmail.com. Grace & Peace...

A Little Easter Humor

So I’m sitting in church this Easter morn listening as the robed gentleman reads John’s account of the resurrection. Having heard this particular story countless times, I always try to listen for the little things I may have missed. There’s always hidden humor in these bible stories.

The first thing I noticed in John’s Easter narrative is that Jesus apparently played favorites. Either that or John is angling for supremacy among the twelve disciples through how he tells the story. John writes that when Mary returned with the report of an empty tomb, “she came running to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one the Jesus loved.” Does he mean that Jesus didn’t love Peter nor any of the other disciples? Does John intend to suggest that Jesus loved him - John - the most? I thought Jesus loved everybody the same?

Then, in the very next verse, as if John isn’t satisfied simply to be Jesus’ favorite, he writes the account of what happens next to emphasize that he – John – is also the fastest disciple. “So Peter and the other disciple started for the tomb. Both were running, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first.” I love this! I mean, what serious, bible-believing Christian hasn’t wondered which of the twelve was the best athlete? Who had the most stamina, the best 40-yard dash time, the highest vertical leap? These are the questions that have puzzled and plagued Bible readers for generations.

But the best tidbit I picked up this Easter is that Jesus was both anal-retentive and obsessive-compulsive. It appears then when Jesus got up, he not only laid the linens that had shrouded his body aside, but he also took the time to neatly wrap and fold the cloth that had been around his head and to carefully lay it in a separate place. Thank you, Jesus, for cleaning up what would have been such a mess otherwise.

I know, I know…there are so many more important and serious things to reflect on at Easter. But I couldn’t resist.

On a somewhat more serious note, we at Living Vision will be exploring and experimenting with the ancient discipline known as "the examen" on the remaining Tuesday evenings of April. Anyone interested in joining us is welcome. We'll meet at Yoga Roots at 444 E. Mitchell St. in Petoskey from 7:30-8:30 pm. Hope to see you there!

"Adventures in Missing the Point" - a Palm Sunday Message from Toby

         I’ve always thought that if I could re-title this famous Palm Sunday story of Jesus procession into Jerusalem, I would call it “Adventures in Missing the Point.” For if ever there was a time when people showed just how little they understood who Jesus was and what he had come to do, this Palm Sunday parade was it.

          Do you know why they were lining the streets with their palm branches and shouting “Hosanna!”? They thought Jesus was on his way into town to kick some Roman tail, to expel the Romans from their land once and for all, and to sit on the throne of David as the first legitimate political king that Israel had had for a long, long time. The truth, of course, was very different. Jesus was coming into town to offer himself, to sacrifice himself, to submit to the Roman authority rather than overthrow it. So Palm Sunday was one big adventure in missing the point.

         But to be fair, this huge throng of Palm Sunday hopefuls wasn’t the first group to miss the point where Jesus was concerned, and they certainly wouldn’t be the last. Think of the Pharisees and the Scribes. They had their image of what Jesus was supposed to do and supposed to be as well. In their highly educated view, Jesus was a Rabbi and they knew what any true rabbi “should” do. They wanted Jesus to comply with the letter of the scriptural laws; they wanted Jesus to fulfill their expectations of what a rabbi, a holy man of God should be. They didn’t want a messiah who fraternized with sinners and tax collectors. They couldn’t have that, any more than they could have a messiah who touched lepers and unclean women. They wanted Jesus to conform to their image of a holy man of God, to separate himself from all that was common, impure, and sinful, The Pharisees and Scribes time with Jesus was on big adventure in missing the point.

         The disciples weren’t really any better when it came to grasping who Jesus was and what he had come to do. They missed the point too. Think of Peter. He loved all of Jesus’ miracles – the healings, the feedings. Peter was the one who boldly jumped out of the boat to walk on the water with Jesus. But Peter’s problem came whenever Jesus started to talk about having to go to Jerusalem to suffer and die. Peter yelled, “Never, Lord! You shall never be handed over and crucified! Not you!” Peter, like the Pharisees and like that huge Palm Sunday crowd, wanted to hold onto his notion of a messiah, a victorious, miracle-working, and mighty messiah, not some weak, silent lamb led to the slaughter. Despite living with Jesus for three years, in the end Peter’s time with Jesus was an adventure in missing the point.

         Think of all the people who tried at some point to define Jesus, to fashion and shape him, and to make him conform to their image, to pigeon-hole him, and to get him to do what they wanted him to do rather than to do what he came to do. Remember the mother of James and John who tried to get her two sons special seats in the kingdom of heaven, right alongside of Jesus? Remember the disciples trying to shoo away all those little children who were flocking to Jesus and trying to touch him, while Jesus was saying, “Let the children come to me! For to them belong the kingdom of heaven…In fact, if you want to be a part of my kingdom, you need to become more like these little ones.”  Or what about the time Jesus entered Samaria instead of walking all the way around it – which is what law-keeping Jews were required to do to maintain their ceremonial cleanliness and purity? Jesus walked right into Samaria and then sat down at the well in the center of town and had a conversation with a Samaritan woman who had been married five times! The disciples were freaking out! They were thinking, “C’mon, Lord! We don’t do this! We don’t enter Samaria and we certainly don’t talk to unclean Samaritan women!” The disciples missed Jesus’ point every bit as much as the Pharisees on that night Jesus was dining with the Pharisees and that unclean prostitute entered their home to anoint Jesus with oil.

Now it’s one thing that all of these people who should have known better completely missed Jesus’ point. But the real tragedy in all of this is that these same people – whether they were Jesus’ supposed enemies or his supposed friends – in their missing of the point of who Jesus was also tried to limit who could and couldn’t be a part of Jesus’ ever expanding community. This is where missing Jesus’ point crosses the line from being foolish to being dangerous. This is the real problem with missing the point of who Jesus was and is and what he came to do. When we miss the point of who he was, then it becomes a virtual certainty that we will also miss the point of and the nature of the community he came to establish. When we limit Jesus and box him into our own narrow understandings, we can’t help but also limit and define in much too narrow a way his community, his church, his ever-expanding people.

         Think about it…The Pharisees didn’t think that Jesus’ community should include or embrace sinners, tax collectors, lepers, or prostitutes. The disciples didn’t think Jesus’ community should include children, teachers of the law like Nicodemus, or Samaritans like that the woman at the well.

If our scriptures are clear about anything, they are clear about the fact that those who thought they knew Jesus best, those who should have known better, were as wrong about Jesus – and about the community he came to establish - as they could have been. And if they – the very people who lived with Jesus, heard him speak, saw his miracles and his unlimited compassion and love – could be wrong about Jesus and who would be a part of his community, then so can we…so can we. Palm Sunday nineteen hundred and seventy nine years ago was a gigantic adventure in missing the point. Could Palm Sunday 2012 be an equally mistaken endeavor?

         Every single generation of Christians, going all the way back to Jesus day, has tried to draw boundaries around the Christian community. For the first chunk of years, followers of Christ believed that Gentiles or non-Jews should not be permitted into the Christian circle. For the next hundred or so years, Christians battled about whether the followers of the Apostle John’s school of thought or the followers of Peter’s school of thought should be considered the true fellowship. Moving into more modern times, American Christians debated whether African slaves should even be allowed to be baptized, much less welcomed into the full fellowship of the church. And you know the debates about women being allowed to speak or minister in Christ’s name, and whether gay, lesbian, and transgender people can be allowed into our churches. There are many Christians today who still don’t think that Jesus’ community should include assertive women, gay and lesbian people, pro-choice proponents, or those who are open to other religions.     

People are still trying to limit and narrowly define Jesus, his ministry, and his community today. Faithful men and women are still trying to pin Jesus down, confine God and ways of thinking about God. Do you know that in our own denomination right now there are people fighting about the doctrine of the trinity? There are many folks in our denomination for whom understanding God as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit doesn’t work. It’s too limiting, too gender specific. It reduces God instead of magnifies Him. So these folks have worked on coming up with alternative language to express God’s multi-faceted nature. But even as they do, more traditional folks in our denomination are saying, “You can’t do that! You can’t change the way we’ve always talked about God. God IS Father, Son, and Holy Spirit and always has been, and if you try to say that in some other way, you’re going to have to leave our denomination.” We’re still fighting about words and doctrines that we humans made up in the first place to try and express something that’s beyond all human words.

         Jesus is more liquid than solid. He’s like the water I poured into your hands earlier this morning. He gets us wet, but we can’t contain or hold onto his living water. The living water of Jesus keeps flowing through us, squeezing out of the cracks and crevices of our lives, so that others can taste and feel and see his living water too.

         It is this deep truth of our wanting to contain Jesus and Jesus’ refusal to be contained that has led me to be very careful and very suspicious of doctrines and systematized, institutionalized beliefs. It is this flowing and liquid nature of Jesus that makes me equally suspicious of any efforts to limit or draw boundaries around Jesus’ community – who can be in it and who is to be kept out. We Christians have a long, long history of trying to hold onto Jesus and to our particular understanding of him, of trying to draw lines around him and around his community by constructing doctrines and then casting them in stone as a way of saying, “This is how we will understand and talk about Jesus and his community forever and ever. Amen.”

With both his actions and his words, Jesus was always saying, “Do not hold onto me!” Why? Because Jesus doesn’t want to be doctrinalized or institutionalized or put in some theological box. Even our best, most clever doctrines can only give us a tiny glimpse of God. They never have been and they never will be entirely accurate or true.  Every doctrine or statement or way of talking about Jesus that we’ve ever come up with is a bit misleading, incomplete, and seen through that foggy mirror Paul spoke of in 1^st Corinthians 13. When it comes to Jesus and his community, we, too, have missed the point, and in so many ways we continue to miss the point.

And God knew this was going to happen, which is why He said what he said to Moses all the way back in Exodus 3. Moses asked, “What is your name? Who should I say sent me?” God showed his infinite wisdom when He answered, “I am who I am, and I will be what I will be.” “Yahweh” is so much more than a name. It’s a reminder and a warning that the God we worship is not to be quantified, categorized, nor contained in any way. We mustn’t seek to contain God in human words, in theological systems, nor even in our finite human minds. When God gave Moses that second commandment, “You shall construct no graven images of me,” God wasn’t just talking about golden calves. God was forbidding us from ever limiting Him or boxing Him in with words or doctrines or anything that fixes Him – or his ever expanding community - in some permanent, solid, unchanging state.

God is like water, and what He wants more than anything else is people and churches and communities that are willing to have that living water flow through us – not just INto us, but OUT of us as well, to ALL people.

The people who waved those palm branches and shouted loud Hosanna’s 1979 years ago today couldn’t have been more wrong about who Jesus was. I hope and I pray that they won’t be saying the same thing about us a few years from now.