City Slickers with Billy Crystal is one of my favorite movies. The old trail boss played by Jack Palance frightens and inspires the dudes at the same time. The true wisdom that he finally imparts is that every one if us have to find the “one thing.” We need to find the one thing that moves and inspires us, the one thing that gives passion and meaning to our lives. This one thing each of us needs to discover is our natural center. A big part of this is discovering the person God created you to be by working through your spiritual gifts. But before you can begin that, you first need to find the true center of our faith, for it is from that center that all other things flow.

The center of faith for early Israelites is best expressed by in the opening word of a prayer known as the Shema (which is translated means hear.) Hear, O Israel: The LORD is our God, the LORD is one. You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength. (Deuteronomy 6:4-5) This is the same prayer Jesus gave us as the great commandment which makes it the center of our Christian faith as well. The love of God, which is the Shema’s guiding principle is a deep trusting and hope filled relationship. This relationship is the true center of our faith. God’s love is both the creative force that brought us into being and the spirituality that sustains us in our daily life. Our freedom and ability to return that love is a source of joy for both God and humanity. This is Jesus’ meaning when he told us “I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete.” (John 15:11)

This close relationship with God also serves as the center for all of our other relationships. John tells us in his first Epistle, “we love because he first loved us.” Relationships are central to our faith. Not just our relationship with God but as a direct result of that relationship our relationship to one another. Jesus made this plain when he said “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. 35 By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another." (John 13:34)

Jesus has expanded our understanding of spirituality to show us that we need to include our friendships within the church and our outreach into the community as a part of our spirituality that naturally flows outward from our relationship with God.

God’s intent is to build a life giving community. A community that supports one another, serves God and reaches out to the rest of the world. It is a community that can only be founded on the love and righteousness of God. Love we have already seen as something the flows from the heart of God. But righteousness is an idea that many of us are confused about. Righteousness is not so much the abstract idea of justice or virtue, as it is right standing and consequent right behavior, within a community. And that community is the gathered people of God.

We have been trying to “Picture a Lively Congregation” in the opening weeks of this new school year but all of the elements that go into making a congregation viable proceed naturally from the center of our faith, the love of God. A wise rabbi once observed that All God has asked of us is to love God and love our neighbor. The Ten Commandments, the law and the prophets are all fulfilled by these two simple requests. And what more, our love which can only spring truly from the heart of God brings Joy, to God, to our neighbor and to ourselves.

Join us as we grow deeper in God this fall. Participate in the spiritual boost, read Galatians with a friend and attend one or more of the Spirituality Workshops. Jesus came that our joy might be complete but it can only happen if we engage.

Pastor Jim Bliss
October 2005