So far we have noticed that Zion is sacred space, it is for singing and it is for being instructed on how to live. Finally I want us to remember that Zion is alive. 1 Peter 4-12 reminds us that Zion is the people of God being built into a spiritual house. Zion is true Christian community.
What this means to me is that those of us who call ourselves Christian need to be sure we are living the life of true followers of Jesus. I am reading a book called "unchristian" by Kinnaman and Lyons. This book is from the Barna Research Group and shares a lot of information gathered from interviews with Christians and non-Christians. The view many non-Christians, especially younger non-Christians, have of Christians is not good. The most common descriptive words used for Christians are negative; judgmental, uncaring, anti-homosexual, only out for converts, and so on. These are not the same words used to describe Jesus, so we must have gone wrong somewhere.
My challenge to all of us to rethink how we are representing Jesus. If we are building Zion, then we need to do better at representing Jesus as a loving merciful savior. I think eventually I will do a message series on the issues raised in this book, but until then we can work at how to better communicate the message of Jesus to people who have turned away from Christians in the past. We will not be perfect in building Zion, but we can do better. Zion lives in us and we can show the world that Christian community is alive in our world.
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Bigotry, self-righteousness, eliteism have all followed Christians around forever. For some it's difficult to believe that they will be one of God's chosen without feeling superior. As for myself, I am continuously being humbled each and every day. An hour with Miss Golly-gee-willikers (Phyllis) makes me see how the things that my mouth says are not always the things Christ would like me to say. A discussion with Carla will bring me up short on my patience with others. So it's a continual, on-going cahllenge to be the Christian that Jesus wants me to be. As the sign in the Nursery says...Work in Progress!!!
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