RAISING THE BAR
Christians are a group of people "called out" from the world to live a life in
close communion with the Lord. They are a group sent into the world but not "of
the world". (John 17).
The Sermon on the Mount reminds one of the expectations from a follower of
Christ. The Sermon on the Mount also reminds us of how hopelessly we fall short
of God's expectations. And that is why Christ became incarnate.
Every Christian has the goal, the ideal, to try and become "Christ-like".
Throughout his (or her) life, the expectation is to keep trying to reach there,
despite failures. In doing so,based on how far he has reached in his life, he
sets a bar, that becomes the reference line then for the one behind him to
follow.
Thus there are saints who have reached very close to being "Christ-like" and
there are people like me who are near the bottom in trying to reach there. And
the rest of the world lies somewhere in between. In any case, every generation
of Christians sets a bar which is like an average of how far that generation has
reached in being Christlike.
Where are we, where is our generation in this spectrum?
We often look around us and assimilate many things that become characteristic of
our Christian life. Our expectations are set by how those before us have walked
this path. So in our parish life, for example, we see how our co-parishioners
sing the songs, how they participate in the prayers, and we try to do
accordingly. For us, that is the "bar", the expectation of how to behave, how to
be good Christians. As long as we gell in properly, we consider ourselves good
Christians. And as we live this way and grow this way, we ourselves contribute
to set the "bar" so low that our children following us do not even think its
worthy to "emulate our faith" any more and they move on looking for the original
Church.
Too often we forget the original "bar", the original expectations that have been
set for us from the day of our Baptism, to reflect the glory of "Christ". We
lose the original goal in our quest to be "politically correct", to be
"ecumenical" and to "sound Christian".
Every generation of Christians is expected to "raise the bar" of expectations,
to be that little bit more closer to Christ than the previous one, because of
the wealth of experience that accumulates.We, as thinking animals, are expected
to learn from mistakes and make ourselves better. We do that in several fields,
like we see in science and technology. Every generation has raised the bar when
it comes to scientific advancements, building roads, building cars, going to the
moon. Only when it comes to our spiritual life, we have ended up doing the
opposite. Inspite of the wealth of 2000 years of Christian experience, we have
very little expectations from us as Christians.
How did we end up here?
How to reverse the trend? Why do we live a paradox of being custodians of the
"perfect worship" while being the "worst Christians"? Where are the original
Christians? If we cannot rise above ourselves, how can we invite others into
this communion?
How do we raise the bar?
Christ is Risen!
Mathew Samuel
Albany, NY
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/IndianOrthodox/message/23208
Christians are a group of people "called out" from the world to live a life in
close communion with the Lord. They are a group sent into the world but not "of
the world". (John 17).
The Sermon on the Mount reminds one of the expectations from a follower of
Christ. The Sermon on the Mount also reminds us of how hopelessly we fall short
of God's expectations. And that is why Christ became incarnate.
Every Christian has the goal, the ideal, to try and become "Christ-like".
Throughout his (or her) life, the expectation is to keep trying to reach there,
despite failures. In doing so,based on how far he has reached in his life, he
sets a bar, that becomes the reference line then for the one behind him to
follow.
Thus there are saints who have reached very close to being "Christ-like" and
there are people like me who are near the bottom in trying to reach there. And
the rest of the world lies somewhere in between. In any case, every generation
of Christians sets a bar which is like an average of how far that generation has
reached in being Christlike.
Where are we, where is our generation in this spectrum?
We often look around us and assimilate many things that become characteristic of
our Christian life. Our expectations are set by how those before us have walked
this path. So in our parish life, for example, we see how our co-parishioners
sing the songs, how they participate in the prayers, and we try to do
accordingly. For us, that is the "bar", the expectation of how to behave, how to
be good Christians. As long as we gell in properly, we consider ourselves good
Christians. And as we live this way and grow this way, we ourselves contribute
to set the "bar" so low that our children following us do not even think its
worthy to "emulate our faith" any more and they move on looking for the original
Church.
Too often we forget the original "bar", the original expectations that have been
set for us from the day of our Baptism, to reflect the glory of "Christ". We
lose the original goal in our quest to be "politically correct", to be
"ecumenical" and to "sound Christian".
Every generation of Christians is expected to "raise the bar" of expectations,
to be that little bit more closer to Christ than the previous one, because of
the wealth of experience that accumulates.We, as thinking animals, are expected
to learn from mistakes and make ourselves better. We do that in several fields,
like we see in science and technology. Every generation has raised the bar when
it comes to scientific advancements, building roads, building cars, going to the
moon. Only when it comes to our spiritual life, we have ended up doing the
opposite. Inspite of the wealth of 2000 years of Christian experience, we have
very little expectations from us as Christians.
How did we end up here?
How to reverse the trend? Why do we live a paradox of being custodians of the
"perfect worship" while being the "worst Christians"? Where are the original
Christians? If we cannot rise above ourselves, how can we invite others into
this communion?
How do we raise the bar?
Christ is Risen!
Mathew Samuel
Albany, NY
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/IndianOrthodox/message/23208
No comments:
Post a Comment