| Monday, January 01, 2007 |
| We're actually all just onions |
 Shrek: For your information, there's a lot more to ogres than people think.
Donkey: Example?
Shrek: Example? Okay, er... ogres... are... like onions.
Donkey: [sniffs onion] They stink?
Shrek: Yes...NO!
Donkey: Or they make you cry.
Shrek: No!
Donkey: Oh, you leave them out in the sun and they turn brown and start sproutin' little white hairs.
Shrek: NO! LAYERS! Onions have layers. OGRES have layers. Onions have layers... you get it. We both have layers.
Donkey: Oh, you both have layers. [pause] You know, not everybody likes onions. [pause] CAKES! Everybody loves cakes! Cakes have layers!
Shrek: [restraining temper] I don't care what everyone likes. Ogres. Are not. Like cakes!
Donkey: You know what else everybody likes? Parfaits. Have you ever met a person, you say, "Let's get some parfait," they say, "Hell no, I don't like no parfait"? Parfaits are delicious.
Shrek: NOOO!!! YOU DENSE, IRRITATING, MINIATURE BEAST OF BURDEN! OGRES ARE LIKE ONIONS! END OF STORY! BYE BYE! [whispers] See you later! [pause]
Donkey: Parfaits may probably be the most delicious thing on the whole damn planet!
Shrek: You know... I think I preferred you humming...
Shrek He Is Your Life
So if you're serious about living this new resurrection life with Christ, act like it. Pursue the things over which Christ presides. Don't shuffle along, eyes to the ground, absorbed with the things right in front of you. Look up, and be alert to what is going on around Christ - that's where the action is. See things from his perspective.
Your old life is dead. Your new life, which is your real life - even though invisible to spectators - is with Christ in God. He is your life. When Christ (your real life, remember) shows up again on this earth, you'll show up, too - the real you, the glorious you. Meanwhile, be content with obscurity, like Christ.
And that means killing off everything connected with that way of death: sexual promiscuity, impurity, lust, doing whatever you feel like whenever you feel like it, and grabbing whatever attracts your fancy. That's a life shaped by things and feelings instead of by God. It's because of this kind of thing that God is about to explode in anger. It wasn't long ago that you were doing all that stuff and not knowing any better. But you know better now, so make sure it's all gone for good: bad temper, irritability, meanness, profanity, dirty talk.
Don't lie to one another. You're done with that old life. It's like a filthy set of ill-fitting clothes you've stripped off and put in the fire. Now you're dressed in a new wardrobe. Every item of your new way of life is custom-made by the Creator, with his label on it. All the old fashions are now obsolete. Words like Jewish and non-Jewish, religious and irreligious, insider and outsider, uncivilized and uncouth, slave and free, mean nothing. From now on everyone is defined by Christ, everyone is included in Christ.
So, chosen by God for this new life of love, dress in the wardrobe God picked out for you: compassion, kindness, humility, quiet strength, discipline. Be even-tempered, content with second place, quick to forgive an offence. Forgive as quickly and completely as the Master forgave you. And regardless of what else you put on, wear love. It's your basic, all-purpose garment. Never be without it.
Let the peace of Christ keep you in tune with each other, in step with each other. None of this going off and doing your own thing. And cultivate thankfulness. Let the Word of Christ - the Message - have the run of the house. Give it plenty of room in your lives. Instruct and direct one another using good common sense. And sing, sing your hearts out to God! Let every detail in your lives - words, actions, whatever - be done in the name of the Master, Jesus, thanking God the Father every step of the way.
Colossians 3:1-17 (The Message)
The sermon for New Year's Eve was about Shrek, resolutions and being like onions. Nothing like a bit of abstract preaching to grab your attention - and S is very good at this abstract preaching. Annoyingly he always has a point God wants to make to me! Thought I did well on Christmas Eve by missing his sermon by crying all the way through it, but couldn't do that again!
I offered to read the Colossians passage. Kind of felt I had to. And when I started reading (we have the Good News translation, but I liked The Message version above) I found a healthy sense of irony in that. "Put off all sexual immorality", it said as I read this standing behind the very person I'm trying to get out of my head! "Forgive one another", it informed me, as I struggle to let go of actual and perceived hurts from others, including S who has hurt me by not liking me in the way I want him to like me (irrational I know, but still it hurts). It was almost like God was talking directly to me. And needed me to read these words to really take them in.
And all this is before the sermon! So what was the point of Shrek? Was it just a case of informal service, let's show a funny clip from Shrek? Or was there something more to it? Let me try to summarise some of what S talked about.
Let's look at onions. Let's look at layers.
Onions have outer, middle and inner layers. If we look at ourselves as having the same kind of layers, the we can see ourselves as having: outer layer - our behaviour and actions; middle layers - our beliefs; inner layers - our heart, our mind; that which motivates us to act in a certain way.
If the core layers of an onion are rotten, it's not long before the outer layers become rotten, mouldy and stink. If our inner motivations are bad, then it's not long before our outer actions become bad.
So how then are we saved? We're not saved by our actions, but by faith in God and His grace extended to us.
So, does that mean if our faith saves us we can do what we want? (This is the question Paul was responding to in his letter.) Of course not! If our outer actions are a reflection of our inner life, then our outer actions should be matching our faith and belief.
And it works in reverse because our actions are not separate from us. When we wilfully sin, wilfully turn away from God then our hearts start to turn away from God. I know that the time when I was seeing P over the summer, when I knew that I was not in a right relationship with him, then my walk with God started to falter (and it's always been pretty patchy from my side). We cannot serve 2 masters. We cannot serve God AND our own desires (pretty ironic this be spoken by the man I am giving up as part of my resolution to not follow my own desires! I can still see the irony, the black humour in that - all is not lost!)
Part of turning towards God involves us turning our actions towards God as well - turning our whole selves to Him. We are to wear, to clothe ourselves in godly actions of compassion, humility, and so on. This is an active action, not a passive thing. We are to try each day to be these, to be more godly. But this requires discipline. A resolution is: 'A course of action determined or decided on.' They don't just happen because our nature is selfish, and God's actions are 'otherish', which is what we are to be, to put on.
So, how to we become more God-centred, more other-centred? We can't do it in our own strength. We need to pray - hard. We need to be disciplined (eek!). We need to do it in His strength. Which for me means owning up to God that I can't do it. Letting go of my need to control it and surrendering to His will. And not beating myself up when I fail - because at least I'm trying. So each morning I need to wake and pray that:
- God will give me the words to say instead of swearing;
- God will enable me to trust in Him and stop obsessing over whichever man has caught my fancy this day;
- God will call to me, draw me to Him so that I might become more deeply embraced by Him.
Happy New Year, everyone! |
posted by Calia77 @ 10:51 am  |
|
| 1 Comments: |
-
wow, i don't think I'll ever look at an onion the same way!
Thank you for sharing. I can tell that's going to be with me all day.
|
| |
| << Home |
| |
|
|
|
|
wow, i don't think I'll ever look at an onion the same way!
Thank you for sharing. I can tell that's going to be with me all day.