2048AFC112710 – 2020 Advent Series #1
Read it online here, please. And please, when you visit there, use one of the social media links at the bottom of the page to share this post. Thank you! And remember, we now have a READER VIEW available, so share this link or this email often.
1 Corinthians 2:9 – 9 God is faithful; by him you were called into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.
Isaiah 64:8-9 – 8 Yet, O Lord, you are our Father; we are the clay, and you are our potter; we are all the work of your hand. 9 Do not be exceedingly angry, O Lord, and do not remember iniquity forever. Now consider, we are all your people.
Aloha nui loa, ʻŌmea! Welcome to the beginning of the 2020 Advent Series. I back around the second week in November I was stewing over whether or not I should to another series for this Advent. I wasn’t sure, because I couldn’t think of a subject; I prayed about it and asked the Holy Spirit to give me a clue about what to do. As always, he came through with amazing clarity! Here’s what I mean.
Back in October, I created a post called 2040AFC100220 – Think about these things and in that post was this statement:
We discern what is good, and follow everything that points to the Love of God in Christ Jesus. We never, never, never, never give up Hope! We place Faith as our mast, and Love as our sail, and with Wisdom as our rudder we follow the course laid out in Scripture.
My dear friend and mentor, John Kretser, commented on that. He liked the image and contributed the thought that the Ship that holds that mast, sail, rudder, and course is our Hope in Christ Jesus. KA-CHING! There it was laid out for me just as I had hoped. Today we will start with that mast – Faith. As I worked on deciding how to build this series, a second set of instructions came in: BUILD IT FROM PREVIOUSLY-USED MATERIALS AND INSERT NEW MATERIAL FROM EACH SUNDAY’S READINGS. So, for you and for God, here is that first installment. I’ll give you links where you can go look at the origin of what you’ll see in these posts. I’m pretty sure that it won’t be 100% recycled material, though. Let’s get started; I’m hoping these will be quick and easy for you to read, and maybe a bit shorter than some of the heavy-duty things that have come out in the last 90 days. This opening will start each installment of the series, so already your reading burned has been decreased by about 480 words!
You probably noticed that instead of a key image, we have a boat/ship image. “Among sailing vessels, the distinction between ships and boats is that a ship is a square-rigged craft with at least three masts, and a boat isn’t. With regard to motorized craft, a ship is a large vessel intended for oceangoing or at least deep-water transport, and a boat is anything else.” You’ll be seeing boats in these posts. (follow the link to learn more). This boat has one mast. Obviously, the mast holds the sail. What holds the mast? Rigging, called standing rigging, it help stabilize the mast by running between the mast and the deck, like guy-wires on a tree or a radio antenna. The mast usually passes through the deck and may be secured against the hull of the boat at or below the waterline. The sail is attached with spars – nearly horizontal cross-members that help support the edges of the sail. Now, what is it that Faith and a mast have in common?
Faith is anchored in our foundation, our hull, our soul. It’s held up with the rigging – support cables – of our knowledge of God and his Word. Faith is what supports our love of God and neighbor. Remember our Old Friend Abraham? He had Faith that God would not tell him anything that was untrue, and that was “credited to him as righteousness.” (See Genesis 15:6) How does Faith work? Here are some examples from previous posts:
From 840AFC100308 – Faith and Wheelbarrows Think about the parts of a wheelbarrow. Handles – These are like Trust and Knowledge which are needed for Faith. Using only trust gives us a fatalistic mysticism. Using only Knowledge we end up with an academic relativism. But the positive qualities of those disparate views produces Faith. A wheelbarrow is not just handles, you need that tray, the place where you carry the load. This works like practical knowledge – it helps us roll along with the load of our day-to-day duties. To roll, though, ya gotta have a wheel (it’s a WHEEL barrow) The wheel is actually a combination of two machines. The axle is the fulcrum for the levers that make the handles. The wheel is a compound lever that rotates around the fulcrum so that the amount of force required to move a load is reduced. So let’s say that the axle is consciousness and the wheel is morality. Our morality rotates around our consciousness which includes our awareness of cause and effect. So what else is on the wheelbarrow? Well, as you might recall, there are the legs, and they have an important role, too. You don’t have to have the legs to make a wheelbarrow or to use a wheelbarrow, but life sure is easier with them than it is without them. The legs, I deem, are our family and friends. They support us, help us manage and balance our load, keep us from falling over, and keep our handles off the ground so we don’t have to do as much heavy lifting to get up and get going. And that’s the thing about Faith being like a wheelbarrow.
From 1034AFC082010 . In faith, I trust God to be God – All Right, All Powerful, All Good, All Knowing, All Present, Always and All Ways. I believe He alone is God, that everything He creates has an eternal purpose, and that His creation includes me. His Word is inviolate; it cannot be profaned or made impure. What God says is what God does because His actions are His words, and His words are perfect action.
Devotion is the personal (as opposed to congregational or corporate) enthusiastic commitment to be loyal and dedicated to a person or to religious practice(s). When we say, “I am devoted to you” we are expressing our personal intent to be steadfast and loyal, unswerving in our allegiance and any obligations or responsibilities that arise from our devotion.
So, when I combine faith, trust, and devotion, I have hope in a well-purposed future that is sustained by a commitment to focus my life’s work on the source of that hope. I have a balance. Some of you might remember an AFC Message about a wheelbarrow (AFC100308 or AFC100908 – let me know if you would like me to send you a copy) where I said that the handles of the wheelbarrow were like Faith and Trust. You need both of them to use the wheelbarrow. Drawing on that analogy, I propose that devotion is the sense of balance necessary to use the wheelbarrow without dumping everything out of it. That balance isn’t built into the wheelbarrow; it’s built into the person using it. Devotion is what makes it possible to move something that is heavy and cumbersome using a tool that is simple and practical. Devotion makes getting through life more calmly. Calm is good.
From 1604AFC012216 – Where do we look to see what sort of gift we have? Well, if actions speak louder than words, what actions show us that we are gifted? What are the things we like to do and the things we can do well? Those are our gifts. Let’s take a really easy but very important Gift that everyone reading this must surely have: Faith. Do you have faith, even “just a little, maybe?” Do not keep it to yourself. Share it! How? Be The Body of Christ? How? Age Quod Agis – do what you do – in The Body of Christ. Now, can you do that and go fishing or blowing or watch sports every Sunday instead of going to Church? Of course not. At a very minimum, to be part of The Body of Christ, you have to show up (85% of every gig is just being there for the gig). And then you need to share your gift. Paul says if you’re a foot, don’t try to be (or prefer to be) a hand; if you’re an ear, don’t try to be (or prefer to be) an eye; if you are an ear, don’t try to be (or prefer to be) a nose. Be who and what you are and, in all things, do it for the Glory of God in Christ Jesus. (See 1 Corinthians 10:31 and Colossians 3:17) That takes real Faith! Belovéd, don’t keep your Faith hidden under a bushel. No! Let your little light shine. Share your Faith, and all your other gifts.
Look back at the Key Verse at the top: God is faithful. Faith is confidence that all the good things in which we hope are true. God is the source of all that is good, so he is the source of all of our Hope. Now consider this from 1425AFC062014 – Faith and Mystery Day after day we eat and drink to nourish our bodies. What we eat becomes part of us. The food each individual eats is united with that person’s body. With the Eucharist it is the other way around. We become what we eat. Now, I know someone out there just had that old saying “You are what you eat” pop into your head; junk in – junk out, good in – good out. In Communion, we consume the Body and Blood of Christ and we are united to Body and Blood as we become – truly indeed – The Body of Christ, his Church. Everything that is less-than-divine is joined with Every Thing that is Divine: John 14:19-21 – Before long, the world will not see me anymore, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live. On that day you will realize that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you. Whoever has my commands and keeps them is the one who loves me. The one who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love them and show myself to them.
That is communion. We do not become God, or part of God; we live in Jesus and Jesus lives in us and in our Father. We share this with, in, and for The Body of Christ. We share it with, in, and for the Love of God in Christ Jesus by the ministry of the Holy Spirit because “The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a sharing in the blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not a sharing in the body of Christ?”
Please, please, please: Remember why Jesus’ commands at The Last Supper are important. Remember that – every time you receive it – as he told you to do. Be engaged, not blasé. Be aware, not oblivious. Become the Body of Christ through faith in this Mystery. Beloved, love one another, but love God most. Pray for everyone always in, as, and for The Body of Christ.
Next week we look at what’s attached to the mast.
“Faith of Our Fathers” – YouTube (<<Music Link)
Have Thine Own Way, Lord with Lyrics – YouTube (<<Music Link)
Whatever, whenever, wherever, whoever, however, if ever, forever —
at your service, Belovéd!
Unless otherwise indicated, all scripture passages are from the New Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition (NRSVCE) New Revised Standard Version Bible: Catholic Edition, copyright © 1989, 1993 the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Biblical languages inserts from Bible Hub (Bible Hub: Search, Read, Study the Bible in Many Languages) Visit at http://biblehub.com
Aloha Friday Messages by Charles O. Todd, III is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License
