Sacramental Living

Can a man love his family? I hope so.

SO TELL ME:
What Does Family mean to you?

Brian Niece
www.brianniece.com
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Tags: Family

I don’t quite know why I do it to myself …

When I can’t sleep, or the pressure of the work at hand causes me to retreat, or I go researching something which long ago I lost sight of and can’t for the life of me remember … That’s when I find myself doing it.

What? I find myself reading the rants of various “Christian” perspectives from those with fundamentalist leanings or those with emergent-as-a-system leanings. I find myself picking apart weak theology, or shallow ecclesiology, or emotionally clouded apologetics.

And then to decompress and recover the minutes wasted as I vicariously follow the intra-Christian absurdities that plague the reputation of Jesus-followers, I flip on my iTunes and here’s what plays: “The Lark Ascending.”

And my entire being stirs for authentic life lived in Christ. Just now as the lark swirls higher into the clouds with my sense of reality girded under its wings, I look at my dim and empty living room, remembering what took place here 24 hours ago:

A small group of 10 friends … some we’d known a few months, some just a day … gathered for a time of food, fellowship, and simply sharing life. We laughed, got to know each other better, shared space and time in a sacred way. We lived the lark … we’re still living the lark.

And the Spirit encourages me that life lived is the thing … the most important thing … the very thing for which God became a baby writhing in a cow’s food digs … the very reason God yielded the sacred life to a public execution … the very reason Christ took up his life again and breathed on the assembled his Spirit of grace and truth.

SO TELL ME:
Are you living the life? Or are you avoiding it?

SO TELL ME SOMETHING ELSE:
If you are living the life … How? Why?

Brian Niece
www.brianniece.com
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Tags: fundamentalist, emergent, ecclesiology, Jesus-followers, Lark Ascending, authentic, friends, sacred way

So today the Farm Bill will likely not be reformed in Congress. For all the joining of hands from social progressives and fiscal conservatives over the possibility of reforming this bill, our efforts will likely be defeated.

Why?

As stated on NPR’s Morning Edition large agribusiness interests (lobbyists) are just too strong. The richest 10% of American farmers and farming industries pour millions into congressional campaigns and threaten to oust incumbents over this one issue. All the while, the Farm Bill increases persecution of the poor world-wide and on US soil.

As Christians, we are to speak truth to power. Yet, there comes a time when power must embrace truth and act truthfully. How can our representative form of government be an authentic republic when the “power” entities succumb to threats to their power, rather than embracing truthful ways of living and being even at the expense of their power?

An example of truthful living … I’m a pastor. But God did not call me to be a pastor, rather to preach the gospel (in words and by the way I live my life in community). Now, it could be said that a pastor wields power (though it is ebbing away in our post-Christian society). That power is usually within one’s own faith community. When I am faced with the choice of living and/or speaking truthfully OR clinging to my power of influence and being well-liked, I must choose being truthful … even if that comes at the expense of my “pastor” position. I can always be truthful to the call to preach/live the gospel … though I may sacrifice the “power” of pastoring in order to do it.

Are our politicians called to be truthful representatives that make right choices on behalf of the republic, or are they called to be career politicians that must be powerful members of Congress at all costs?

SO TELL ME:
What power do you sacrifice in order to live truthfully?

Brian Niece
www.brianniece.com

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Tags: Farm Bill, agribusiness, persecution, poor, power, truthful