Tuesday, April 1, 2008

observe

Acts  4:32-37

Driving down the highway heading home, I noticed a sign upon which was written, "observe warning signs."  I thought this was odd.  Though the sign suggested the warning signs are meant to be observed, watched yet they truly indicated that they should be obeyed, followed.  

Experience has taught that being a mere observer doesn't get the job done when it comes to traffic signs and traffic laws.   Observing them must mean putting them into practice if safety is to be had and fines are to be avoided. 

Such is the case in the life of faith. We can never be a mere observer when it comes to faith.  Faith must be a action verb in our life.  It must be practiced in the petty scale of the everything human, the every day affair.    

Only then, in this constant barrage of every day living do we begin to taste eternity.  

In the early Church, faith was practiced in the daily living, as all things were shared in common; faith penetrated the entire being of every individual and truly brought to life community.  Only when faith was allowed to penetrate the mundane and ordinary, was the power of the resurrection truly experienced and witnessed.  

Faith cannot be just a Sunday affair, otherwise, there will remain no community, no real power, no witness at all.   There is atheism because Christians lack the courage to truly be Christians.

The early church was hungry for eternal life; modernity has grown full on the flesh pots of materialism.  The early church was a thriving communal reality of fraternal love and respect; modernity is filled with isolation and alienation.  

The more we practice our faith, the deeper our faith becomes, the more joy we have, then the fullness of life can be obtained.  We can no longer just observe from the side lines on sunday, we must raise the banner of Christ and meet the battle head on in every aspect of our life: work, home, leisure. 

We must learn to be re awaken and keep ourselves awake by an infinite expectation of the dawn which does not forsake us even in our soundest sleep, this dawn we call eternal life. 

 

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