St. Bartholomew's Church

KINGDOM TALK by Fr. Jerry Smith,  Rector

My wife Marjie, and I spend a lot of time in the car. Commutes to work are short, but our trips to visit our children and grandchildren take over 10 hours and we often try to accomplish these trips in one “sitting.”

We have taken to listening to audio books to make the trip seem shorter. Now some purists argue that listening isn’t the same as reading but I would disagree. There have been times when we have driven around the block, or parked in a mall lot in order to finish a captivating chapter.

On our trip home this summer we listened to am amazing offering by Philip Beard called Dear Zoe. Without giving away the whole story, this book is a series of letters written by a pubescent girl to her deceased baby sister. This same sister actually becomes both her confessor as well as her mirror through which she begins to come to some new self-awareness.

Of all the books we have listened to this summer (there seems to have been quite a number) I keep going back to this one as having been the best.

I am intrigued by Tess’s need (that’s the older sister, the writer of the letters) to have a close friend with whom she can share her life and yet know that she isn’t being judged. It is equally revealing that Tess is able to begin to understand herself just by the self-disclosure that happens.

There is a lot of Tess in all of us, I suspect. Understanding comes with self- disclosure and healing comes when we know that these personal revelations will not involve judgment or punitive action. Isn’t that the way it is suppose to be with Jesus? It is also supposed to be that way in His Body, the church!

There is healing in unconditional love and there is also increasing self- awareness, when we are desirous of the same. Sadly, the mantra of many is, “love me as I am because I’m not changing”. There seems to be a sense of entitlement that the world revolves around us rather than us being participants in the unfolding of God’s Kingdom.

With genuine self-awareness should come the desire to grow in our understanding of how the Kingdom is unfolding in our midst. These self- discoveries should bring a discontentment at staying the same.

Thankfully the unconditional love of Jesus brings with it, the overwhelming power of the Holy Spirit, who enables, even facilitates the change that maturing demands. All so that we might all be made into the image of Jesus. 

And that is the goal that our journey is toward. God’s goal for us is to be transformed into the image and likeness of His Son (see Romans 8) and our pilgrimage is about allowing the love of God to have full sway in our lives so that this might be realized.

This is precisely what the “Ezra Project” is inviting us to focus on. The Nehemiah Project was to rebuild the physical fabric of our buildings at St B’s and now we are to be expending our energy on rebuilding the temple of the Holy Spirit, our lives in Christ.

Tess (in Dear Zoe) caught a glimpse of who she really was while communicating to her sister. This season, spend some time intentionally becoming aware of who you really are; of how much God really loves you, and then allow the Holy Spirit who is calling you, to continue to transform you into the temple that will bring God glory.