Commited

I've recently been listening to a great series by Louie Giglio called "Boy Meets Girl". During one of the talks he made a statement that made me stop and think and has had me thinking ever since. He said that the sin of my generation is a lack of commitment. We want to keep all of our options open forever. Often this means keeping all of our options open so long that our options actually disappear and decisions are made for us because of our waiting for the perfect option to appear.

The more I thought, the more I realized that I've seen this in many areas lately. In several groups I've noticed that people are happy to be there as long as they retain the option to not be there. No one wants to take responsibility. No one wants to commit to the group - they want the option to back out if things start to go south or if something better comes along.

This evening I was re-reading an article in Relevant that is an interview with Dallas Willard. I've mentioned this article before, last spring when I was sick and feeling that that I wasn't connecting with my life. In the article Willard addresses this same issue with the current generation and how while they desperately want community, they aren't willing to commit to it.

But most of them don't know what community means because community means assuming responsibility for other people and that means paying attention and not following your own will but submitting your will and giving up the world of intimacy and power you have in the little consumer world that you have created. They are lonely and they hurt. They don't know why that they think community might solve that, but when they look community in the face and realize that it means raw, skin to skin contact with other people for whom you have become responsible...that's when they back away.

Wow. That just describes so much of what I've been seeing around me and feeling for myself. Lonely and hurting and wanting a community to turn to. However, community isn't something you order out of a catalogue. It's full of real people who have the same amount of hurt and brokenness as I do. Community won't solve my problems. Community is going to bring different problems. When is the right time to commit to a community? What's the right level to commit?

It's kind of odd to identify an issue like this. The obvious response is to quickly jump into something for the sake of committing. But that level of commitment requires lots of thought and prayer.

There's got to be a balance. Maybe someone from another generation can shed some light on this. I'm not sure any Gen Xers can see beyond our own issues to solve this. How do I reach beyond the "consumer world I've created"? How do I make responsible commitments? How do you shape community in a generation that can't commit?

Storms

Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. The rain cam down, the streams rose and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock.

~ Matthew 7:24-25

My small group has been studying the Sermon on the Mount for the last couple of months. Last night we got to the "Wise and the Foolish Builder" section. It's something that I've heard over and over since I was a kid, but had never studied in the context of the whole Sermon on the Mount.

There were a bunch of things that stood out to me.

I had always heard it as "if you're a Christian, you're building your house on the rock, if you're not, you're building your house on the sand". I don't think it's that simple. Why? The passage doesn't say "everyone who hears these words of mine and believes them....", it say "everyone who heard these words of mine and puts them into practice". Is it possible to be a Christian and not put the Sermon on the Mount into practice? I think this comes down to Dallas Willard's discussion of becoming a disciple of Christ. This putting in to practice is an active thing - a learning from the teacher and then living it out. Myth #1 destroyed.

Maybe it's myth #2 or maybe it's just the logical conclusion to myth #1, but I now believe that it's entirely possible to be a Christian and building your house on the sand. Throughout the Sermon on the Mount Jesus isn't addressing the perils of a hedonistic pagan lifestyle, He's addressing the perils of a life built on religion. Building a house on sand can be as easily building a life on religion as it is on the partying lifestyle I learned growing up. (clarification - I learned that the partying lifestyle was building my house on the sand, not that I learned the partying lifestyle growing up - stop hyperventilating Mom)

The second new perspective I had on this passage was that this time I'm reading it from the middle of a storm. Looking at how your foundation is built is one thing during the clear days, but in the middle of the storm you have to rely on what you've already built and hang on for dear life.

My storm started a couple of weeks ago. Every time I think things are easing up I get hit again with something new. From the middle of this storm all I can see is the storm raging around me. I simply can't check the foundation, let alone continuing to build.

From where I'm standing now, it's feeling a lot like things are ready to crash down at any moment. I don't know if this is a product of a shaky foundation, or if this is how it's always going to feel during any storm and it's hindsight that shows how strong the foundation is. At this point do I just have faith in my foundation and weather the storm?

It's an interesting new way to look at this passage. Is it a challenge? Is it a promise? Can it be both?