Eggs and Legos

In my refrigerator, I have a carton of eggs. They are grade A large. Each one looks exactly like the others. Each one has its own little egg place to fill. When I go to get an egg, it doesn't matter which one I get because they are all the same really. 

In my upstairs closet, I have a container of Legos. My grandson Sailor likes them. Legos come in different sizes and shapes and colors. They live all jumbled inside the box waiting to do their Lego thing when summoned. 

Some folks wish the church could be like a carton of eggs. Uniform. Separate. Predictable. I guess under certain duress folks could be compressed and suppressed into egg-like uniformity. Someone would probably smugly announce that everyone is alike because each one looks like Jesus. 

Of course the truth is that the church is much more like a box of Legos than a carton of eggs. Jesus calls a very random group of folks together to be his. He says this gathering of misfit toys looks like him. The Holy Spirit distributes a diverse array of gifts within the Body of Christ. Different cultures and generations come together. Different sexes and different upbringings come together. I cannot begin to list all the differences brought into unity in Christ. Yet, they do come together and all the pieces fit together to become the Temple of God, the Family of Heaven, the Body of Christ, the Church of the First Born Ones. And it is amazing.

A secret: I sometimes wish we were eggs. We would be easier to manage. 

An admission: I don't like being treated like an egg. 

A bad pun exhortation: Let's be happy that we are different and that God can use us all. 

Ready? OK. 

Let's Lego and let God.

God bless us all. 

A Prayer

O God,

Put to death what is evil in us so that we might be more filled with your Spirit. Change our hearts that we might bear the Spirit's fruit. Help us love the church, the Body of Christ for whose sake the Spirit has given us His gifts. Open our mouths with the good news of life as the Spirit bears witness to Jesus through us. Use our hands and feet to do your will in caring for others.

To the glory of the Father, within the fellowship of the Spirit, in the name of Jesus. Amen.

This simple prayer calls for our best cooperation with the work of God in us and in the world. We have been invited in the love of the Father, the blood of Jesus and the open hand of the Spirit to join in the great work of bringing life to this world. Paul likens the invitation to an offer of adoption into the family of the Holy Trinity. We are adopted children invited to join the family business.

At our best we inadequately represent the character and interests of the Family. Our hearts are not as loving as the Father’s heart. Our will is not as obedient as the will of Son. Our desire for joyful connections with others is not nearly that of the Spirit. Still we are invited to open our churches, homes and hearts in response to the invitation to be God’s Family incarnate in the world.

Stunning.

In response to this invitation, we put to death what is evil in us, change our hearts to receive and respond to the Spirit, and open our mouths and our hands with good news. Here in the heart of Austin, God calls us. 

God bless us all. 

 

Pneumatic Tools

I have a friend. I am not a very good friend to him, I fear, but he is a great friend. He likes tools and gadgets. He would help me do anything. The thing I loved about his garage was that he had plumbed it to carry compressed air to a number of different spots in his garage/workshop. Once he turned on his big time compressor, he had multiple places to attach his pneumatic wrenches and other air-driven devices. I was impressed that a ordinary guy could have the same tools as my higher-priced compadres at the Firestone store. 

After last Sunday's visit with the Holy Spirit on Pentecost, one of his best days, I have decided that the church is meant to be a pneumatic tool and each Christian is meant to be a pneumatic tool. The Greek word for spirit and for wind is the same word—PNEUMA. It is the word that gives us scary words like PNEUMONIA and tool words like PNEUMATIC. A pneumatic wrench operates on compressed air. A Christian does not work unless filled with the Pneuma of God, the Holy Spirit. So... I don't think I am charismatic by the common definition; I do think I want to be seriously pneumatic. We all could be. We all could be pneumatic tools in the hands of God.

May God bless us all.