We are but we are not

Following Christ in the world as it is today is challenging as we express God's love in fulfillment of Christ's commandments. It is hard for us to use the expressions of faith in a world that is dominated by science and reason. A world that is focused on rational thought and lacks the ability to appreciate the otherness that is portrayed in the transcendence of God's presence....or is it. Perhaps it is just that we have failed to capture an ability to show that transcendence and bring it into the lives of the everyday. Christ prays for his disciples and by extension ourselves as we live in the world and are yet not of the world (Jn 17.15-19). This recognition of the tension in the reality of coming to understand transcendence as being part of the world but at seeming odds with the rationality of our lived experience is an important aspect to understand.

The very first thing that we need to understand is that this is something that effects all of us but most especially it effects both how we look at and also how we interact with the structures that we put in place for mission, ministry and being effective disciples in the world. Charles Taylor, the noted philosopher, has suggested that this tension is a result of our becoming more opaque to the world as a result of our modern rational scientific approach. In other words we do not see mystery and transcendence as a part of life. Yet, when we look around us this ability to interact with mystery is present although changed / morphed / transformed being seen in the enormous appeal of films that portray magic / super-power / the clash of good and evil. So, is there an actual division that has to be overcome or a tension between the two that has to be ameliorated in terms of our faith lives and our secular lives. We see very obviously in the Church of today the impost of legal requirements that are set by secular society and how the Church often appears to have taken these on with little consideration on the effects on faith and the faith community. 1 John is very clear in how we should undertake these interactions (5.9-13) by promoting our living in Christ. Often in the reality of the day our faith journey is disrupted by the imposed requirements of non-faith understandings and requirements thus disabling our ability to perceive the transcendence of God in our midst.

Every second is God's it does not need to be managed.

Perhaps, as an example we need to look at how we go about organising an outing that involves children. Not that long ago it was acceptable to plan and go to a camp site without much fuss. Today of course there are insurance forms, working with children's checks and any other number of hurdles that have to be overcome before it is even booked. This is not to say that these things are perhaps necessary but the danger for us is that the more there is to arrange the less likely it is to become a reality. The simple outlook of a previous seculum has now become an over managed project with little in the way of Christ-likeness portrayed. Sometimes we need to be careful as to what becomes overmanaged and how this may disrupt our ability as Christians to minister to different groups. Christ in John's gospel recognises the difficulty even then but it has become greater as time has passed and as we as Christians have allowed our secular eyes to focus more than our sacred eyes. Christ did not ask us to become his disciples to manage things but to open people to an encounter with God. Even in our liturgical spaces we must become ever wary of the idea that it is static and conforms to a specific ideal, the music, the movement must all be something that enhances a persons experience. Can we really say that this piece of music is unsuitable and this not if people come to worship and praise through its presence? Sometimes we try to manage even the smallest detail not realising that we are destroying our ability to reach those who have not met God. We need to live our faith not manage our faith. We need to see God's presence in the day to day and not just in the managed space of the "Sunday service".