We started our worship with the two verses I found using the spiritual tool/discipline of lexio divina. Lexio divina is my go-to help when I get stuck trying to figure out what to talk about. For those who don't remember, lexio divina is a way to allow God to reach you in your reading- asking for His guidance as you open the Bible, then reading the passage that your eyes fall on (on the page that falls open). Lexio divina includes the whole passage, not just one or two sentences (it's not pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey style reading); read it with an open mind, willing to hear what God has to say about it.
So, as I said before, I used lexio divina as a way to find our lesson/scripture- and the first verse I found was Mark 6:1-6. And I have to be honest, this was NOT on the long list of what I thought I wanted to speak about. So I tried lexio divina again- and my second attempt was the same story, one book later Luke 4:14-30. So despite my hesitancy to use this story (What on earth was I supposed to say about it??), I had to laugh and follow God's guidance. After all, I know that He knows best- that's why I was asking Him in the first place!
Both of these verses talk about Jesus returning to Nazareth after He's started His ministry. There are rumors that He's really doing something special, and when He returns home, the people are all awed and impressed. But then they start picking Him apart. "Jesus couldn't possibly be the Son of God- I remember when he fell and skinned his knee (or peed his robe or laughed so hard he shot food out of his nose). A god wouldn't do that. Jesus is just a man. We've known him his whole life. His parents weren't even married when his mom got pregnant. He's not from any sort of important family, and it's not like he's got tons of money or power to throw around, even now that he's famous." And as the second verse tells us, the people got mad. Jesus was no longer who they thought he was, but he also wasn't fitting into the mold they expected "important" people to fit. So what did they do? They tried to kill Him. Literally. Not just kill his dreams, but throw Him off a cliff. Luckily, Jesus IS the Son of God, and He was able to escape and continue His ministry.
So how does this apply to us? Maybe God's calling you to do something big, and you feel like it would fall completely outside of your comfort zone. Maybe you're worried about what people would say or think. Maybe you've tried to talk about it with someone and they shut you down- no, you're not capable enough. No, life doesn't work that way. No, I don't think God wants you to do that- why not try it this way instead? No. No. No. Hearing it over and over again can be really disheartening and make you question what you're meant to do. Questioning is OK if it helps you identify and refine how you hear God's voice. Questioning turns bad when you use it to procrastinate, avoid, and ignore God's will for you. If you find yourself in that second kind of questioning, take strength from Jesus' story- if God calls you to something, He will give you what you need to accomplish it (now whether or not that includes supportive friends and family....). God called Noah, a drunk, to build a giant boat in the middle of a desert. Moses was a stutterer who was called to travel across the desert to confront the Pharoah of Egypt and make him let go of his entire labor force- uncompensated. And Lazarus was dead...
Clearly, God equips those He calls. If He has called you, you will have what you need to complete your task.
But maybe these verses were chosen to remind us about that other side of the story. Maybe some of us are acting like the hometown crowd. Are we discouraging God's chosen? Maybe we need to be reminded that no matter what we think we know of a person, no matter what our experience with them has taught us, no matter how poorly we think they might do, we need to allow for God's spirit to work in them. Throughout the ages, God has primarily chosen people who have little to no importance in the world to do His greatest tasks. Why would we think that's changed just because we're a part of the current story rather than the already-written story?
And finally, we ended with a C.S. Lewis quote (because what would midnight worship be without a C.S. Lewis quote?).
It may be possible for each to think too much of his own potential glory hereafter; it is hardly possible for him to think too often or too deeply about that of his neighbor.Read through that again. Seriously, stop and digest it. We are all immortal souls living in a mortal body. What does that mean for you? For the people you meet? For how you interact with them? This is big stuff. Deep. Soak it in, pray about God's calling for your life and for the lives of those around you, and meditate on Jesus' response to criticism in these passages.
The load, or weight, or burden of my neighbor’s glory should be laid daily on my back, a load so heavy that only humility can carry it, and the backs of the proud will be broken.
It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare.
All day long we are, in some degree, helping each other to one or other of these destinations.
It is in the light of these overwhelming possibilities, it is with the awe and circumspection proper to them, that we should conduct all our dealings with one another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics.
There are no ordinary people.
You have never talked to a mere mortal.
Nations, cultures, arts, civilization—these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat.
But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit—immortal horrors or everlasting splendors.
This does not mean that we are to be perpetually solemn.
We must play.
But our merriment must be of that kind (and it is, in fact, the merriest kind) which exists between people who have, from the outset, taken each other seriously—no flippancy, no superiority, no presumption.
And our charity must be real and costly love, with deep feeling for the sins in spite of which we love the sinner—no mere tolerance or indulgence which parodies love as flippancy parodies merriment.
Next to the Blessed Sacrament itself, your neighbor is the holiest object presented to your senses.
—The Weight of Glory (HarperOne, 2001), pp. 45-46. (emphasis mine)
Jesus, thank you for your guidance and your help as we begin to understand that our lives have purpose- not just the small, fickle "purposes" we've given them, but the Purpose with a capital P that YOU have given us. Help us to remember that we are all eternal beings with an eternal calling; may we treat ourselves and each other accordingly. Amen.
Our first song: A Thousand Years (Cover of the Christina Perry song by The Piano Guys)
Our second song: You are More by Tenth Avenue North
Background Instrumental Music (for those who stayed longer): Rest in Him
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