Mary in the midst of Chaos

   - Part 6

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One of the biggest things to realise is that the church went through a phase where it understood itself in the role of standing in for God. There is truth in part of that claim. But, it did it in the cost of where the first place, where God interacts with you. Which is in your life. The primary teacher is the Holy Spirit through your life. That is the primary space of all formation by God and decision and choice occur.

The role of the church was to help you understand what was going on in a much richer fashion than simply looking at it yourself. But, it fell into the trap of becoming prescriptive rather than formative. Of trying to assist people.

God is teaching you through your living. God is forming you through your living. There is no moment in your day where God is not teasing you forward.

But, we will often say, “no. God did it there at that moment”. And, I am sure God is thinking, “hold on I was having a pretty good go back at this moment. You did not wake up until that moment. But, I was kicking things around here”.

God is working through everything.

Cups of coffee. The moments in the kitchen. I see something. A moment on TV. All of that. The Spirit can use it all to try and engage you. In this whole thing.

While this may be a negative thing in us. That we will try and be our own God. There is a part of it in us of what God wants in us as well. The amazing claim of about our understanding of God and life, is that God invites us to be co-creative with God of the future.

It is not like the old pattern where God has a map of what will happen today. My job is to guess without seeing what the map is supposed to look like. That was the old image we gave.

If I guess right everything is going to go well. If I guessed wrong, it was terrible and I would have to guess again.

That is not what the claim of the Gospel is at all. The Gospel claims is that this God has created us in love and in spirit. That love and spirit is drawing us. The Old Testament says “seduce”. That God seduces us towards the future. But God wants us to work with that spirit in actually creating that future.

It is that sense that there is no moment that God says it must look like this. It is yet to be made with our contribution.

I find that amazing and a bit frightening. I was probably more at home when God had the map and I just had to guess right. The ownness is now is that I can contribute with my intelligence and the best of my passion towards the future is an extraordinary invitation.

That is what our faith says.

Sadly, I often see this with young ones. They will go to religious exercises and things they will be given the impression it is all about be obedient and do your bit and fit in.

I have no trouble with that part of the story. But, it is so much less than the true story. What God has invited us to is extraordinary. That we would be co-creative of a future.

It is within humanity the possibility. If we could every figure out our differences. To grow together and create a world which can look like God’s way of creating community.

Sadly, we always get fearful. Or, somebody gets in charge who likes to be God. That is what we end up with.

Always try and believe the extra ordinariness of what we have been invited to. Not the smallness. It is sad.

Most Sunday liturgies are painful simply because they are not good liturgies. They are painful because they are such as small expression of what Eucharist really claims.

What Eucharist claims is amazing. That God is nurturing me through my life and that through that very nurturing I am becoming god. That is what it is claiming. And, that we are doing it together. Everyday when I step up and allow my life to be broken open, much like the bread is broken, I actually nurture others. That is the claim.

People say “I went to mass”. What did you do? “I was bored and I sat down”. Nothing that happened made them aware that this moment. Reminded that in your life each day God is nurturing you. Feeding you. Creating you. And inviting you to become co-creative with others towards the future.

For young people in rejecting some of what we offer is good. One day they might be offered the real thing and then I will think they will put up their hand. When they are giving the chance to choose real eucharist.

This is about a freedom to live something that is far more. Naturally it is scary. “Do not fear” occurs 600 times in the scriptures. It is no accident. Humanities biggest problem is getting scared and then saying “Right owe there is a way to fix this I will take charge”. There are two things typically how we work.

It is not a bad thing for a human to be scared. To be scared and to know fear is valid. To allow fear to become the dictator of how you make your choices. That is the problem.

I feel fearful is natural and good. I allow fear to control my head and tell me what I actually see that is the problem.

One example. One time I got to do some study in the United States. When I was leaving here people said what would happen if I went into areas with large amounts of Afro Americans. In 18 months there I was never confronted. I was never treated poorly. Nothing ever happened. Yet, in the first few weeks when I arrived I was fearful that it was going to. People had told me that is what is going to happen. What was in here was what I expected to experience. That is the trouble often.

If you expect to see the world of God, that is what you will see. You will see all this amazing stuff. If you see it as very rigid, you have to get there and get it corrected, that is what you will experience. It is largely to do with what is happening up here.



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Date
13 August 2021

Tag 1
Courses

Tag 2
Formation

Tag 3
Spirituality

Source Name
Brother Graham Neist FMS

Source URL
http://www.maristlaityaustralia.com...

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