Rev. Tatiana Cantarella

Christian Life is a Committed Life

For many weeks already we have been talking about Jesus’ Kingdom Dream. His Kingdom not like any earthly kingdom established by force, authority, wealth, and coercion. The kingdom of God is the Kingdom of love, peace, justice and wisdom. And what's interesting is that I never met anyone who is against peace (peace with God and peace with others). I have never met anyone who is against justice or against love. And I think it would be just to say that Jesus' Dream is at the heart of every human dream because we all long to live in the world where love, forgiveness, mercy, peace, and justice reign. I think everyone here is dreaming to live in such a world. But then we have a double-sided question: Why this Kingdom while the aspiration of every human being is so much about the "future" and so little about "now?"

Let’s not try to answer that quickly by blaming others. When the world does not get closer to the Kingdom dream we often quickly point fingers at others, blaming everyone and everything: "Our society is not what it should be because of "Unite Russia” or the Communists," "there is no love in the world, because my own family does not love me ", "there is no justice, just look like I life is treating me! ", etc.

Let's rather ask this question honestly, ask ourselves: Why this Kingdom while the aspiration of every human being is so much about the "future" and so little about "now?"

Why don’t I embody this dream in my life? Why cannot I personally find peace with God, with myself and with others? Why don’t WE live a life of justice at every opportunity? Why do We love some and not others?

Why do we want to attain this kingdom of God, but do not find it?

Why do we crave the life of the kingdom but are afraid to step into it?

Why do we want what we know is the better for us and for others, what good, loving, peaceful, just and wise ... but do not find the strength, determination, will power or ability to live it daily? What holds us back? Or what are we holding back? Or that have we missed?

Let's think for a moment. If you look at the teachings and the life of Jesus carefully you can rightfully say that he was a zealot, even fanatic. Zealotry, in fact, may be a good thing, if headed in the right direction. Jesus was a moral zealot; He was a fanatic of a new life. Just remember how radical were the things he said and did! And what about us, His followers? One well-known Christian author, Craig Keener used to be a firm atheist. He said that one of the reasons why he did not accept Christianity for a while was that while 80 percent of his fellow citizens claimed to be Christians, their faith made no difference in the way they lived their lives. He said: "I reasoned that if I believed that there was truly a being to whom I owed my existence and who alone determined by eternal destiny, I would serve that being unreservedly. If these Christians did not really believe in Jesus, there was surely no reason for myself to do so." These are sobering words – can it be that this world is still so far from Jesus’ Kingdom Dream not because of anyone out there but because we, Christians, do not take the call of Christ seriously enough and do not understand that He calls us to follow Him unreservedly.

Listen to the story and imagine yourself in it. Imagine what would happen if you believed what Jesus said, and what life would be like if you did what He says (Luke 9:57-62):

As they were walking along the road, a man said to him, "I will follow you wherever you go.” Jesus replied, "Foxes have dens and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.” He said to another man, "Follow me.” But he replied, "Lord, first let me go and bury my father.” Jesus said to him, "Let the dead bury their own dead, but you go and proclaim the kingdom of God.”  Still another said, "I will follow you, Lord; but first let me go back and say goodbye to my family.” Jesus replied, "No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God.”

These words call Jesus’ followers to an absolute commitment to the Kingdom of God and at the heart of this dedication lays a holy indifference to what others may think or say or do because of your faithfulness to Christ and His Kingdom. Jesus called to live a committed life. And this commitment to the Kingdom turns everything in our lives upside down, including what we gain, buy, wear, what we do with what we have and even how much we have:

Sell your possessions and give to the poor. Provide purses for yourselves that will not wear out, a treasure in heaven that will never fail, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys.  (Luke 12:33)

These words of Jesus do not call for walking around in shaggy clothes or sleeping on a bare floor but they demonstrate the most acute contradiction between the life of Jesus and our lives today: our finances, what we have and what we do with it. Someone said: "We are so fascinated by wealth that economics stands on us buying what we do not need with the money we do not have to impress people we don’t even like with things that don’t last”. The early church understood that following Christ makes us one family in which we no longer believe things being our own and are working hard not so we can get more money and get rich but in order have what we can share with those in need.

About thirty years ago there was a rising tennis star Andrea Jaeger, who in her teens became the number too tennis player in the world. She earned enough money to be live in opulence for life but this kind of life did not satisfy her because she was hearing God's to the Kingdom Life. Many people didn’t like her but Rita Brown, an author who covered her tours said: "I remember one of our much-loved friends was dying of cancer. Andrea was so gentle with her. She felt it before any of us did." When Jaeger was 15, she made her first visit to a children's cancer hospital and there found his calling. "I knew," she said, "What I should do when I grow up." After an injury in 1985 and several surgeries she leave her career in 1987 and in 1989 starts the "Little Light” foundation which yearly helps more than 8,000 children suffering from serious illnesses, are at risk or underwent violence. Andrea said: "Tennis - was my father's plan, which I followed for a while but to help children was God's plan from the very beginning." In 2005, she accepted another call and became a nun in an Anglican Dominican Order. The first one she told about that decision was one of the major supporters of the fund and a close friend – Cindy Crawford. Crawford commented on this decision saying, "Becoming a nun is pretty radical but "she can't deny who she's supposed to be."

I believe that those decisions that Andrea made are a lot closer to what Jesus meant by committing to the Kingdom of God than the mild "cutting back" and "giving” of modern day Christians. We say that we follow Christ but we are still so dependent on material things, on serving our own desires (often detrimental to us), preferring to believe that some of Jesus’ words are not meant for us: In the same way, those of you who do not give up everything you have cannot be my disciples (Luke 14:33).

And what about when Jesus says: "For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven” (Mtt. 5:20). Jesus was a moral zealot, even an extremist. He expects His followers give themselves fully to Him, for Him, to give Him everything including their most intimate desires. He looks in to the heart of our anger, and tells us that we should forgive and do everything we can for reconciliation (Mtt. 5:21-22):

"You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, ‘You shall not murder, and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment.’ But I tell you that anyone who is angry with a brother or sister will be subject to judgment. Again, anyone who says to a brother or sister, ‘Raca,’ is answerable to the court. And anyone who says, ‘You fool!’ will be in danger of the fire of hell.

Jesus did not say that to forgive is easy and painless but still expected His followers to do it because it is forgiveness and reconciliation that are leading us into the center of Jesus' Dream, where love, peace and justice reign. And when Jesus says his favorite: "Love thy neighbor as thyself," He radically and directly applies it to those who are the furthest from one’s neighbors: But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you (Mtt. 5:44).  Too radical? But think about what my friend Gary Sinclair said: No one has ever lost a relationship because they genuinely loved too much. Some, however, have smothered someone and lost them.

All these words are found in the Sermon on the Mount. And Jesus apparently expected his followers to listen and to do what He said:

 "Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. 25 The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock. 26 But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand. 27 The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash” (Mtt. 7:24-27)

These words of Jesus sound like an ultimatum and we do not like ultimatums. That's why too many Christians have accepted Jesus in their hearts, were baptized, repented of their sin, started going to church, reading the Bible and re 100 percent sure that they going to heaven but they do not follow Jesus. Many believers live in ambiguity, their life is compartmentalized and it becomes their nature, especially in so-called religious people. They are like a chameleon – green while on green grass, brown when on the sand. They change color depending on the situation. Many of God’s creatures change their color to blend with the environment in order to survive, they naturally adapt to the environment. But the followers of Christ are not just any creatures, they are a new creation, born again, changed from within, having accepted the values and the lifestyle that defy all conventional morals of the world. Those who follow Christ are not very good at blending with the world because it is just not possible.

We cannot fix one eye on different things and the other on following Jesus. Everyday we wake up to a choice we have to make in our hearts and to a decision to make. Paul said: I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. (Gal. 2:20).

When we didn’t know God, we lived without any hope for love, peace, justice, eternity, with no hope for real life, for salvation. But Christ changed it all. He came to earth, lived in such a way as to expose the destructive ways of the world. He died and rose again to save us from this deadly path and to put us on a new path, on the path of Kingdom life. He is the One to whom we owe our lives, He gave himself as a sacrifice for us and offers us a completely different life - a life of peace, love, joy, forgiveness, healing, justice, a life, that He cam make reality in our lives already in the present. But in order to do this He calls us to follow him unreservedly, to follow with absolute commitment and faith, laying everything down at His feet. "I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me,” means that I voluntarily lay down my independence and surrender to the lordship of Christ, I accept a seemingly "crazy” calls of Jesus and begin to live by it. Nobody can do this for me. God can bring me to this point 365 times a year but it is I who has to cross the line. I myself must break out of the shell of my independence from God and believe that the life He calls me to live is possible, if lived in the power of the Holy Spirit. I must free up my heart so that He could dwell in it, and so that I do not follow my own vision but guided by my absolute commitment to Jesus and His Kingdom. If we do not make that commitment we continue to live in an illusion of piety, and His life of love, peace, justice and wisdom will remain so far from our lives here and today.

But if you give yourself completely to Jesus, He will transform your gifts and your dreams, your talents and your thinking, your work and your grades, your relationships and your economic life. When you commit your life to Jesus, He can change you and those around you, and the Kingdom Life will be more about the present and not just the future. When you give yourself completely to Jesus, you begin to see that only when we act with faith upon what Jesus says (as radical as it is!), the kingdom of God ceases to be a distant dream, and is realized here and now, and "He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose” (Jim Elliot). We are afraid to follow Christ, to accept His radical words, although the only thing that we would loose are our own chains that keep us from living a full Kingdom life. And what will we gain if we commit to God our all? The very life of peace, love, justice and wisdom what we so crave to have in this world.