Memorize & Ponder for Sunday May 31 - Jun 6, 2015
A New Community for a New World
Galatians 3: 27-29 (Full Reading – Galatians 3: 21-29) (NRSV)
As may of you as were baptized into Christ
have clothed yourselves with Christ.
There is no longer Jew or Greek,
There is no longer slave or free,
There is no longer male and female;
for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.
Being the Church in Christ: Wisdom from Pastor Paul
(The Brentwood Sermon Series for 2015)
Throughout 2015, the Christian community at Brentwood Presbyterian Church will be considering how to be the church in Jesus Christ, guided by the wisdom of Pastor Paul. We invite you to listen for what the Spirit is saying in the text, then question how those insights might change the ways you see things and act in the world. Share your thoughts during the week on the meaning the Spirit creates for you in this text by posting a comment on our website – brentwoodpc.ca.
A Provocative Pondering
Let us hold fast to the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who has promised is faithful. And let us provoke one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together … (Hebrews 10:23-25a)
Paul is what today we would call a ‘change agent.’
He was given a vision of a new way of being in the world that would eventually, at a time he did not know, co-create a new world in collaboration with God.
He sees the church as the model community for this new world. It is a community that, when true to its calling, is free of all the old social divisions that splintered and segmented human beings from each other. It is a community where everyone is welcomed, supported, and nourished to flourish.
Here at Brentwood, we come closer to that ideal than many less diverse congregations that I know. But I’m curious about ways we might improve.
The key to identifying ways to change for the better might be Jesus’ words in Luke 6:31, at the conclusion of Luke’s version of the beatitudes – “Do to others as you would have them do to you.”
Some version of that golden rule is central to all authentic religions in the world. It is the foundational ethic of the new world God is creating with us. Therefore, it forms the guiding principle for the new community that we are forming, one conversation after another, here at Brentwood. This new community, together with churches around the world, witnesses to and builds the new world God initiated in Jesus Christ.
What a significant mission to be part of and rejoice in!