Michael Pucci: Kingdom Transformation: The Individual and Community
Notes from that lecture.
We are all charity cases. We hate it, but that's the reality. Accumulation and illusion of "getting better" morally, and "earning" some favour with God - divorces us from the grace world of God. One where we have no merit, where our currency has no value. - So we create little backwater markets, where we can convince ourselves where we have worth and something to bring to the table. What if the grace that brought us into the Kingdom is still operative? If that is the fundamental basis that is still at work. The fundamental illusion that we are "not poor" is the root of our struggle. What if poverty is a pre-requisite to operating in a grace-economy. That we bring nothing. That it is all a gift. How would that change the way we looked at ourselves? At the "poor" ? He -HATES- Prosperity Gospel. I like him already. Actually, I liked him when I met him briefly 3 years ago. =) Oh...back to my notes. Gain = godliness. And that might not look like anything that we can predict. What if we were to accumulate poverty? By embracing the extended community of our body (Church) Whenever there's a crisis, we shed the "outer rings" of our lives. We like to point out "the LOVE" of money is the root of evil. BUT...we do love money, don't we? Money, and the illusion that we can DO something with it...that we have power with it...it is dangerous. With money, I can want anything...I want. It has freed us to want whatever we want. We are enslaved. When we think we lack nothing, that is a bad place to be. Because it means we love nothing. We have taught our young generation that they can want and be anything. BUT. To hedge their bets, to not want anything "too badly" to hold back. We need healing but we think we're okay. We think we're mostly okay. And in doing that, we rob ourselves of the King's resources. We want assurance, we want to KNOW before we commit. That's not the way of faith. Poverty is a lens for transformation. The poor in spirit are under no illusion as to their state, to their dependency. They know there's a God who takes care of them. We don't need to be building enclaves, we need to be embracing one another, building community, divest interests for the sake of others.
posted by
Graymond at 11:16 PM
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