Weekly This and That for March 1, 2009: To Live in Christ

This and That:
To Live in Christ


To Journey in the Footsteps of St. Paul

We began this past Friday as St. Paul did, on a journey; for us it was a journey of six Fridays and following his footsteps. Like him we too are sinners, oh we may not be persecuting Christians; it’s more likely a question of not knowing Christ fully or not living a life worthy of our calling. The same Spirit of Jesus Christ that struck St. Paul can strike us. The same Spirit of Jesus Christ that turned his life around can turn our lives around as well. Because it is all a function of the one receiving, it is up to us for the transformation to become a reality. The questions come down to: How much more do we want out of our life as believers? How much more peace, transformation, union with God, ability to handle stress and conflict? Be assured that any dissatisfaction regarding any of those areas is waiting to be filled by the risen Lord Jesus himself. You just have to want it enough. And be assured also that “the wanting it” is in itself the initial rumblings of God’s Spirit within you. Come then, join us for these sessions. Every Friday presentation is preceded by Mass at 6:30pm, Supper at 7:00 with the talk beginning at 7:30 and ending promptly at 8:30. Bring the kids, making it a family night and we’ll feed them and entertain them as well with age-appropriate activities.


To Live in Christ

This past Friday evening’s initial topic was “To Live in Christ.” We began the evening by asking, “What will it take to get into St. Paul’s skin? To get into his head? To actually go through a similar, though different, transformation?” It will take knowledge, grace, and the gifts of the Holy Spirit! A starting point for Paul’s Spirituality is 2 Corinthians 5:16-17 where he says, “From now on, therefore, we regard no one from a human point of view (according to the flesh); even though we once knew Christ from a human point of view, we know him no longer in that way. So if anyone is in Christ there is a new creation; everything old has passed away. See, everything has become new!”

What precisely does Paul mean by knowing someone from a “human point of view” (i.e. according to the flesh?) What’s the “new” point of view i.e. according to the Spirit? How did he know Jesus that way? How might we know Jesus that way?


Changing a Perspective

Through Baptism and grace everything can become new for us too. God is the principle actor and the cause of the effect in the believer. For St. Paul it was a dramatic encounter with the risen Lord. That experience on the road to Damascus empowered him to reorient his perspective. My guess is that we have all had an “Aha!” moment in which an insight helped us to rearrange how we thought about someone or something. The experience may have changed our seeing someone as an “enemy” into seeing him or her as a “friend.” Or the insight may have transformed what we previously saw as a “curse” like an illness into a “blessing.” What may have been an example in your own experience?

Now let’s look at an example of transformation that took place through grace in St. Paul. For it was grace that allowed him to “regard no one from a human point of view.” Even though we know insights have changed how we view others, even though we would like to believe that God’s grace could do in us what it did in St. Paul, we often hear a great deal of chatter going on in our heads that keep us from moving forward in God’s grace. Things like not being ready to surrender a past grievance, like holding on to past ways of looking at myself, like endless rationalizations justifying what I do or the stance I take, like a desire for quick results, an inability to forgive or an inability to believe that “being in Christ” can really make all things new.


Christ from a New Perspective

Each of us lives with a bit of a false identity. It is a façade that we construct about ourselves. It is the result of our struggles, emotions, fears and negative influences in our lives. At some point in living, our false identity can be challenged by a “force” around us. It comes as some experience of mercy, of unmerited love that cuts through my own ego selfishness. It may come from another person or directly from God, but in a moment’s flash, we find ourselves caring for “someone else for himself” rather than “someone who can meet my own needs.” Or it may come from finding our sacrificing time on a project that helps others in some way. Through such ways our identity begins to shift. Our self-centeredness is loosened and the stucco that covered who we really are begins to crumble from us. We still retain a strong sense of a separate self, but loving and more open divine and human relationships are now included as part of who we are. And in the process we begin to put on the “mind of Christ.” And our true self has moved to a relationship with God.


Work-shopping a New Perspective for Yourself

As a group we then began working on an area or two that needed transformation in our own lives. We asked, “What does Christ say to me in each situation and what grace is he offering me in that situation?” The grace being offered is to be so transformed that we no longer live in ourselves, but allow Christ to live in us, so that all we do and all we are reflect Christ to the world. The results of such a “living in Christ” was very clear to Paul. He no longer considered his former life as a Pharisee to count for anything, in comparison to what he had gained in Christ. To the Philippians he said, “Yet whatever gains I had, these I have come to regard as loss because of Christ. More than that, I regard everything as loss because of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and I regard them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ…”


Goals for Our Time Together

The evening ended with sharing of the goal of the 6-Friday Series. Consider these weeks as God’s personal invitation to you. God seeks to be closer to you than you can imagine. God is aware that your life, as most others, is a bit of a jumble and not always headed in the right direction. A billboard in the South reads: “God loves you just the way you are, but he loves you too much to leave you that way.” The invitation to joining us for Week 2 trough 6 will require leaving something behind and going to something quite new. But, as Paul experienced it, it is well worth the effort. Come join us on this journey of faith in the footsteps of St. Paul. Next week’s topic is “How are saved?”

Fondly,
Father Nicholas