Here and Now*…a weekly letter from Pastor David Loar
This “weekly” letter has not been written for a month. So I guess I should say it is somewhere between a weekly and monthly newsletter.
Jesus encourages us to grow in the spirit. The Apostle Paul writes often that we need to grow more spiritually mature and he uses the image of too many followers of Jesus continue as if they are infants nursing at their mother’s breast. He tells them it’s time to get on solid milk. He at another time uses the image of running the race and how if we are to win, we need to be conditioning ourselves with spiritual disciplines continually. In this race there are not losers. We condition ourselves simply to win the race to be with Christ. It is our loss if we have not grown and shaped up to be with him. So, Paul writes, spend your life in preparing for the race.
Life comes at us on life’s terms. We may complain and even rage against life, but we have no power over it. However, as we grow more mature and stronger in Christ, no matter what life unfolds for us, we are not lost, we are not afraid, we are not alone.
Paul does not say this or write this to one person here and another person there. He speaks and writes to communities of faith, the body of Christ, who are forged together by life on life’s terms and by their mature life in Christ. You can quickly tell the difference between those who are seeking only to be good, moral people and those who seek to grow and live in Christ. The former become frustrated and angry when things do not work out the way they expect. They played by the rules! Why didn’t God reward them for playing by the rules? The latter know that there are not rules, but life, and life more abundantly in Christ. Through Christ no matter the situation, together as a community, in faith, they are deeply in relationship with God whom they know is guiding, protecting and growing them no matter the circumstance. They go from trust to trust, rather than frustration to frustration.
Our journey is to grow in faith. God is growing us in faith. Our task is to listen and see what God is doing with us and how God desires to use us in the wider world.
Grace and peace,
David Loar
Pastor of Fairlawn West United Church of Christ, Akron, Ohio
*(The title for this weekly letter to the congregation of Fairlawn West UCC is the life and mission of Jesus Christ. Albert Schweitzer described it this way: “He comes to us as One unknown, without a name, as of old, by the lakeside; He came to those…who knew Him not. He speaks to us the same word: ‘Follow thou me!’ and sets us to the tasks which He has to fulfill for our time. He commands. And to those who obey Him, whether they be wise or simple, He will reveal Himself in the toils, the conflicts, the sufferings which they shall pass through in His fellowship, and, as an ineffable mystery, they shall learn in their own experience Who He is.”)
