ryan and tim let me do a sermon this week. can i just say how cool it is to work on this series with them? it's so interesting to listen to them talk. and boy, do they know their bible! sometimes i like just listening to people who love to "eat" the word. very sweet.
k, so the series is a mix of 'imago dei' (what it means to be made in the image of god) and then bringing that to relationships. i've just had 'life in eden' on my mind so much lately and then the part of the story where they sin and then realize they are naked...thus beginning to make coverings for themselves out of fig leaves. the especially strange part to me was the section where god comes looking for them, but they are hiding because they've realized their nakedness. and god says to them "who told you that you were naked?". very bizarre interchange. but it points so clearly to the fact that we were made to hear 'who we are' from god...run around "naked" in a sense...being his girl or guy. but as a result of the fall, we've chosen to find our identity from work or people or hosts of other things...trying to fill ourselves with rather than be released to "bring" something to those people or situations.
and then we can't get passed all the fig leaves...which aren't always sinful things. sometimes they are wounds. sometimes circumstances. sometimes great gifts and talents....but nevertheless, things we hold up as "who we are". makes us into classic "evaluators" rather than the "relators" that we were destined for. ugh...it just is so sad how we define each other apart from the heart...labels everywhere...with our own judgment as to the worth of that person...disgusting.
so, it moved into 'making peace' with our fig leaves...because god has (2 Cor 5:16-21). makes sense really...how can we love the "unloveable" if deep inside we believe ourselves to be "unloveable"? painful fig leaf. sometimes that peace is being gracious to ourselves for past stuff...letting it go. sometimes it's giving god ownership of really cool things about ourselves. all so we can begin to return to eden in a way...the days where we walked with god and ruled...all in a beautiful, adventurous relationship with a god who would love, love, love to tell us who we are...the right and perfect fit. making us encouragers and challengers rather than...well, you know.
the cool implications of this...first, we extend grace to ourselves...but then we are free to be released more fully into "who we are"...and then we can turn and see each other...not for the fig leaves...but for the heart. and then...we can walk out and "see" people who desperately need to be "seen".
i guess that was the message. but the cool thing...well, a couple actually...
the visual that i used...hanging big "fig leaves" full of all our "definers"...and then swiping over them with red paint...each leaf's swipe gradually forming a big red arrow that pointed to god's view of us as his children. that came in a dream. it was totally not me. it was one of the stranger ways to receive a teaching tool...:)
the other cool thing...what meant the most to me actually...was that this sermon involved so little of me and my false needs for performance identity. hah!...fig leaf. what an awesome parting! i haven't felt so little fleshly feasting in a long while. very strange but cool.
so...a cool opportunity, i guess.
and don't worry...i'm sure tim and ryan can sort out anything that was theologically "incorrect"...hehe. ;)
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