Witness the Word: "I Am Convinced"

Check out this video from  Community of Christ Seminary Dean Matt Frizzel as he shares a deeply personal experience of God's love and presence in his life.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B2ju-b5huzn7UkJCb2phOXBSVm8/view

Sing to the Lord by Nathan Reiff

 Ephesians 5:15–20

Be careful then how you live, not as unwise people but as wise, making the most of the time, because the days are evil. So do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is. Do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery; but be filled with the Spirit, as you sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs among yourselves, singing and making melody to the Lord in your hearts, giving thanks to God the Father at all times and for everything in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Paul begins this passage by talking about the need to be wise, make the most of your time, and emphasizing the evilness of the days.  Paul thought the return of Christ was imminent and often talked of the shortness of days.  Therefore, it makes sense for him to counsel us to be vigilant and on guard and to avoid being drunk or wasting our time.  The first part of this scripture makes logical sense.  The second part of this scripture pivots and seems odd in connection to the beginning. 

In the second part of this scripture, Paul tells the people to sing songs and give thanks.  If the days are evil, singing songs and giving thanks don’t seem to be the type of advice one would recommend.  If FEMA was issuing a warning about imminent danger and telling people to stay inside, stock up on food and drinking water, have a safe place to shelter in case of high winds and be on alert for further updates, but then also went on to recommend singing songs and giving thanks for everything, the community would wonder if FEMA was nuts.  But this is exactly what Paul is doing.  The days are evil; give thanks for everything.

How do we make sense of these dual recommendations?  It can certainly feel like we are living in evil times.  We see and hear messages of danger to our privacy, our safety, our food and our beliefs.  The news tells us about terrorism, murders, earthquakes, and wars.  Despite most of us living in a very safe time and place, we are shown the fallenness of the world every day.  Yet, we are told by Paul to be filled with the Holy Spirit and to give thanks. 

Why would we give thanks?  The Community of Christ is called to be a people of joy and hope.  Thankfulness is one way to build joy in our lives.  Psychologists who study happiness and resilience asked people to spend a few minutes each day writing three unique things they were thankful for in a journal for four weeks.  Each person was asked at the beginning of the four week period to take a test to evaluate how happy they were.  At the end of the four weeks, they re-took the test, and those who had written three things they were thankful for, were happier than they had been four weeks earlier.   If we are to be a people of joy it is necessary for us to be thankful.  This research indicates that we can change our level of joy.  But this isn't done by merely willing ourselves to be joyful; it is accomplished by training ourselves to see the good in our lives.  We sing of the goodness of Christ, and seeing that goodness is a skill we can learn. 

The radio show “This American Life” recently relayed a story about Janie Hampton, an author who set out to write a book about the Girl Guides (similar to Girl Scouts).  The author’s initial idea was to write a satire about the overly happy, sing-song nature of the Guides.  But she stumbled on an account of a Girl Guide troop during WWII in Occupied China.  European and American citizens who were living in China during WWII were shipped to concentration camps.  In one particular camp, children and teachers were moved, but the parents of the children were shipped to a separate camp.  The teachers used the positive attitude, songs and structure of the Girl Guides to help the children flourish in the camp.  One of the surviving girls talked about how it felt less scary if they could sing during their experience in the concentration camp.  She felt that their condition must not be that terrible if they could still sing about their experience.  The girls flourished despite the prisoners starving and having to get smuggled eggs from local monks.  In a similar manner, Paul asks us to see the world as it is, but to still keep a song in our hearts and to give thanks.  Paul asks us to change our focus. 

Science has shown that we tend to see what we are focusing on.  There are several videos on the website called "The Invisible Gorilla".  The videos show that what we focus on influences what we see.  If we spend too much time focusing on one particular aspect of the world we become blind to other aspects.  If you watch these videos, you will see a group of people playing with a ball.  As the people play, a gorilla moves across the stage.  Almost half of the people who watch the video in experiments miss seeing the gorilla.  Scientists conducted additional studies wherein they changed less obvious things, and nearly everyone missed the changes. 

What we are focused on determines what we see.  This is true when we focus on the brokenness of our society.  People surveyed in the United States believe they live in a world more dangerous than it was in the past.  But crime has gone down nationally and at a steady pace for the past 30 years.  News coverage of crime has gone up significantly during the same 30 years.  We see what we focus on. 

Paul advises the people of his time to give thanks.  This giving of thanks changes our focus.  We live in a world that is broken.  We know this from the news and from our personal experience.  But we also live in a world filled with Christ's presence.  God is in all things and is working in this world.  We are a church that is filled with the Spirit.  We are called by Christ to be a people of peace, hope, and love.  If we are going to be a people of peace, hope, and love, we need to be able to see the spark of God in those we meet.  To see that spark we need to train ourselves to see the good.  Giving thanks is one way to change our focus to the good.  We must be thankful for the wonders of God's creation, including the beauty in each other. 

Doctrine and Covenants 163 tells us that the spirit of the Restoration is one of, "…adventure, openness and searching." It is easy to see the failings and faults of the world.  And we need to recognize those faults in order to fix them.  But, first and foremost, we are called to be a people of joy.  Our joy is brought about by knowing that Christ is in our world, in our church, and in our neighbors.  Our "unique and sacred place" can be claimed by searching out those things for which we are thankful.  By turning our focus to the good, as opposed to focusing on the brokenness, we are a people of joy; and as we treat the brokenness of the world, we can do so as we "laugh and play and sing..." 

We cannot be joyful merely be pretending that the bad does not exist.  Joy is not a promise in the future.  We are called to embody the hope and freedom of the gospel now.  We are a people of compassion.  We are a people who are supposed to embody the gospel.  We talk of providing sacramental ministry to the world.  This means we are bringing the sacred into the world. 

Through our actions we connect the everyday to the divine.  To do this we need to be able to see the divine, and we see the divine by thanking God for those little pieces of divinity God sprinkles throughout our days.  When we come together to worship, or when we are singing to the Lord in our own hearts, we are reaching out to the Divine.  Our thankfulness is a recognition of God’s action in the world.

Set Your Hope on Christ by Renee Fisher

Ephesians 1:3-4 (from NRSV) : Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, just as he chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless before him in love.

Have you ever had to say you’re sorry when you really didn’t feel like you had done anything wrong?  Did you say you were sorry anyway?  If you did, why did you?  If you did not, what would it have cost you if you had? 

Have you ever later come to see the issue from the other person’s perspective and then understood how they could have come to the conclusions they did, why they might have been hurt or frustrated?  Did you say you were sorry then?

I have worked in retail customer support for more than 2 years at my current job.  Before that my husband and I had our own business and before that I worked for more than a decade for a debt collection company.  In that time, I have had to say “I’m sorry” many times for problems I did not cause, for mistakes others made, even for blunders the customers themselves have made.  But, I have learned it doesn’t hurt to say you’re sorry, even for things you KNOW you didn’t do, for problems you KNOW you didn’t cause.  You may think this is because I don’t really feel sorry, that I don’t mean it when I say it.  But the truth is, I do mean it.  Every time.  I AM sorry.  I’m sorry they are hurt, or frustrated, or in pain.  I’m sorry I can’t fix it.  I’m sorry for whatever part I have played in it.  I am sorry. And I say so.

This doesn’t mean I have no regrets and I’m always the one to say I’m sorry first.  I have as much self-righteous anger as anyone else.  The personal problems and pains, where I HAVE played a part, those are much harder.  Whether I have been the receiver or the giver of pain, frustration, anger, it is much harder to come to peaceful resolution when the issues are near and dear to my heart.  But the reality is, if I could have the same ease and willingness to say I’m sorry for my part in whatever the situation, the sooner peace will be in my relationships.  When my heart is hardened, there is no peace.  Not because I have all the power over all my relationships.  When my heart is hardened, there is no peace for me.  I have no control over the other person.  They could be going along happily in their lives, not giving one more minute of thought to my regret, my pain, or my frustration.  I keep the pain alive if I’m not willing to let go of it.

I think is what this scripture is about.  This scripture is a blessing and even a prescription for our lives. 

Our amazing God has given us life, the very breath in our bodies.  God has given us the beauty of creation around us, but most important, God has given us love.  From the gift of love, all other gifts come, all of the Fruits of the Spirit: joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.  All of these come from love.  Every Spiritual Blessing is from the “heavenly places.”

The writer of the scripture reminds us we have the answers.  We know them and we only have to live them.

God blessed us with Christ’s teachings of love and forgiveness.  Christ taught us God’s love is as boundless as the wind, as caring as the Samaritan, as forgiving as the Prodigal son’s father.  And through Christ’s example, we, too, can understand God’s love and experience the “heavenly places.”  We can understand heaven through love, through our willingness to repent, to forgive, to give up our own comfort for the comfort of another.  To the extent we can give of ourselves, we can understand God’s love for us.  And when we do this, when we love in such a way, then we will experience Heaven on this earth.  We can experience joy, peace, hope, kindness, and all the other fruits of God’s love.  If we but open our hearts, become who God calls us to be, then all of heaven will be ours.  The Kingdom of God will be in our midst. 

Love is the answer to all the pain and misery in the world.  Love is the answer to hate, to war.  Love is the heaven that we seek when we look to life after death.  Love is the place where we experience God.  Open your heart, right here, right now.  Experience God’s heaven.  Live in God’s Love.