Blogging Towards Sunday, March 8
Membership - The Body of Christ
The Vocabulary of Faith

Matthew 12:46-50 Jesus redefines family not along lines of genetics, culture or ethnicity, but rather upon a new community of those that do the will of God.

Matthew 10:37-39 Jesus teaches the paradox inherent with this new family, new notion of community: that we find ourselves by losing ourselves, in living for and with others we find who we are and begin to live.

1 Corinthians 12:1-13:13 - together as community we become and are the re-presentation of God's loving action in Jesus the Christ in the world.

According to the Presbyterian Church (USA)'s interpretation of the above scriptures this is what it means to be a member, to be part of this new community:

In the Presbyterian Church we believe that the church is the gathering of all those who profess faith in Christ as Savior and accept his lordship in their lives. G-4.0101

The church is a gift of God and find expression in its faithfulness to the mission to which Christ calls it.

We affirm that a congregation is to welcome as members all persons who respond in trust and obedience to God’s grace in Jesus Christ and desire to be part of the community and ministry of the church.

We assert that faithful members of the church are active in ministry, accepting Christ’s call to be responsibly involved in his ministry, carried on by the church. G-5.0103

There is a connection between faith and community, recognizing what chaos theory tells us today -that all of life is relational. I think we screw things up by always divinding them - faith vs. reason, doubt vs. belief, science vs. church, friendship vs. doing God's work. In the end I don't think that they're different: It's the paradox of life we find life when we lose it, when we live for something(one) bigger than just ourselves. We can just talk about it, we have to give it life service. That's what Jesus is calling us to and in the end what just maybe is the nature of the universe.