Brown's Daily Word 5-29-09

Good morning,
This the day the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it. Praise the Lord that Jesus is the King of kings and the Lord of lords. "Our Lord God omnipotent reigns". Jesus’ invitation is for everyone to come and recognize the King of this new kingdom. This is an invitation to the religious and the non-religious alike. It is for both saint and sinner. It is an invitation to leave directionless and self-absorbed lives of confusion and ambiguity; it is a call to leave a life of futility and stupidity and enter into the New Life He offers to us. It is an invitation to leave a life of dysfunction and have a life that is abundant and eternal.
I like the way Brian McLaren puts it in his book, "The Story We Find Ourselves In". He wrote, “For prostitutes, the call of Jesus was to leave their story of men who pay money for love, and to enter the story of God, who in love pays for us with his own life. For Pharisees, it was to leave their story of religiosity and superiority and rigidity and judgmentalism, their story that was exclusively focused on their own narrow little sect, and instead to enter God’s broader and deeper and better story of grace and compassion and mercy and love for all people. For Zealots like Simon, it was to leave the political story of violence, to stop slitting Romans throats, as if that would bring the story to its desired end, and instead to enter God’s spiritual story of peace for all people, to risk persecution for justice and to prefer suffering over causing others to suffer. For tax collectors like Zacchaeus or Matthew, it was to stop collaborating with the Roman Empire, and profiting in the process, and instead to collaborate with the kingdom of God, and sacrifice in the process. For the rich — like that young ruler Jesus met — it was to abandon the hollow story of acquisition, and instead to enter God’s better story of generosity. For farmers and shepherds, it was to realize that there’s more to life than just planting seeds of wheat or tending flocks of sheep; instead, Jesus invited them to enter into the bigger story of planing seeds of truth and seeking lost men and women, every one of whom is loved and counted and missed by God. For fishermen like Peter and Andrew and James and John, it was to trade in the story of catching fish for a bigger story of fishing for men and women, inviting them into God’s story of ongoing creation and redemption. For the middle class, who want nothing more than to create a little social aquarium for their family. . . . it’s a call to care about the families of their neighbors too, especially the poor, to see them as family too, as children of Adam and children of God.” I would add the invitation that Jesus offers to the atheist to leave his or her story of a world where God does not exist, and enter a beautiful, new, colorful world where God is the cause of everything that exists. He invites the humanist, whose story is all about depending on himself, to discover meaning and ultimate reality in the material world, to enter the story of God where God’s greater purpose is bigger than any one person or group of people — a meaning and purpose which God has built into the universe. He invites all of us to leave a life where God only occupies one hour a week, with a passing prayer here and there, to enter fully into His life invigorated, fermented and propelled by the Holy Spirit. This coming Sunday is Pentecost Sunday. May the Holy Spirit baptize us with fire and wind once again. May He come upon us and fall upon our heads, anointing us for great Witness and praise. May He come upon the Church, with visible and audible signs.

In Christ,
Brown

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R14rFZMx8tM

A note from Sunita, that came this morning

Hi Daddy,I am actually in Rwanda and am doing really well here. The days have beenvery full with work but I am enjoying it. I have gotten to see some goodfriends from World Relief, and am hoping to get to spend a little more timewith them. There are some incredibly wonderful people here and I amreminded how blessed I was living here and how dear my former colleagueswere to me. love,Sunita