A Place of Resurrection

Rend your hearts, and not your clothing (Joel 2:13a, NRSV)
I went to an Ash Wednesday service last night. The minister said that we need to make sure that we practice our spiritual disciples in the quiet – just us and God. I’ve heard that before, but I’ve never thought of the reasoning behind it. The reasoning discussed was that if we pray or fast or do whatever it is that we do that brings us closer to God in public, that we will do it for approval. I’ve always thought of abstaining from the public practice of these habits because I might do it to impress someone, not our of fear of trying to gain approval, but maybe that may be true.

The key to the reasoning was that if we do these things to gain the approval of someone else, then we will miss the great benefit of doing them in the first place – we will miss out on the deepening of our relationship with God. Do we try to deepen our faith to win someone else’s approval? Perhaps we should be trying to win God’s approval instead. No "perhaps" about it!

Change your life, not just your clothes (Joel 2:13a, The Message)
What would changing our spiritual clothes mean? Would it mean changing the way we appear to others? So what is the role of community in spiritual discipline? I’m reading John Ortberg’s book Everybody’s Normal Till you get to Know Them. The chapter I just finished is called the "Wonder of Oneness." It has some great thoughts regarding the trinity, which I’m sure that I will return to. But for now, consider these thoughts about community:

No matter how little money we have, no matter what run we occupy on anybody’s corporate ladder of success, in the end what everybody discovers is that what matters is other people. Human beings who give themselves to relational greatness – who have friends they laugh with, cry with, learn with, fight with, dance with, live and love and grow old and die with – these are the human beings who lead magnificent lives.

We often hear how we have a God-shaped hole in our hearts that only God can fill. Ortberg says that we also have a human shaped hole, that God has placed there, and that he will not fill. We need each other.

Rend your hearts, Change your life…
So, if we are to change our hearts – our inner selves, but we are made to be in community, how do we do that? Ortberg quotes Les Miserables and says, “To love another person is to see the face of God.” So perhaps, as the quote above says, when we “give ourselves to relational greatness;” when we love one another, we are practicing a spiritual discipline. We are moved closer to God.

It doesn’t depend on approval or impressing anyone. “A community is not simply a group of people who live together and love each other. It is a place of resurrection.”