Share it all

God invites us into a covenant, where by the power of the Spirit we can choose to allow our hearts to break, and then take the pieces—our lives, our goods, our love, and our privileges—and share it all like a broken loaf of communion bread…

 

When you take something you possess—your bread and power, your abilities and identities, your comfort and control, your treasured structures and even life itself—and release your attachment to it and make it useful to God’s movement, you are practicing kenosis.

                     Stephanie Spellers, The Church Cracked Open

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If I believe in God, love God, trust God, obey (a biggie for many) God, give to God,

God will…

 

How do we finish that sentence?

 

God will bless me?

God will save me from eternal torment?

God will give me wealth?

God will give me and power and make me a “winner”?

God will heal me?

God will protect me?

God will “Bless America!”?

 

How do we finish the sentence?

 

It matters.

 

Biblically there is indeed a concept of blessing

But if we take the “blessings” of Jesus seriously, it is a strange concept indeed.

Blessed are the poor?  Those who mourn?

Blessed are those who suffer?

 

When we connect with all that is Sacred

When we connect with that Power, that Love

in which we move, and breathe, and have out being,

 

what happens?

 

What is the consequence?

Is it that we become favored, blessed?

 

Yes, but in that odd Jesus kind of way

Where blessing takes the form of becoming people for others

 

God invites us into a covenant, not where we become the favored, dominate ones

who have all the power and the goodies,

but where we STOP organizing our lives around our selves,

STOP engaging in a tribalism (nationalism) where we protect ourselves

and protect what we have

and seek to get more

 

as we carry our guns, wave our flags

and hide behind racial, class or gender privilege (Spelling)

                     

God calls us into a life style where we “allow our hearts to break”

and then take the fragments of our lives

our time, energy, privileges, power, and yes money

 

“and share it all like a broken loaf of communion bread…” (Spelling)

 

In short we are calling to empty ourselves

to adopt the pattern of Jesus

who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness.  And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death — even death on a cross.

 

When we believe in God, love God, trust God, obey (a biggie for many) God, give to God, God will…

 

break us open and pour us out,

that we might become a blessing to others,

and might find that unique Jesus kind of blessing

ourselves.