Everything we hold dear!

Acts 17:6 "These people are out to destroy the world, and now they've shown up on our doorstep, attacking everything we hold dear!"

Paul and his companions are being attacked by the Jews because they are threatened by his new ideas of how to live. They are different from the values, and the Judaism, that they are used to. Lest you think this is a problem with "Jews", Paul was attacked equally viciously by the Gentiles, whose own gods were also threatened by his ideas. They weren't threatened by a new "religion" -- there was no religion of Christianity yet. But Paul was preaching a message of repentance and new life, a new way of living authentically in the world that came from his encounter with Jesus on the Damascus road. This threatens everyone, because it undermines the pillars of self-serving, slavish tradition and the comfort of doing things in the same way we have always done them. Change is hard; change is scary, and people often react violently and hysterically when they are being invited to make change.

We can hear these voices in our society now, too. A lot of change is happening: our first non-white President, a terrible financial meltdown which is affecting the whole world, environmental changes that some call climate change and others dispute but which are already affecting the lives of people on disappearing islands in the Pacific. There are social changes as well, ways of living that were not even discussed when I was growing up which have become widely accepted. Whether these things are good or bad may be different for different people, but change happens whether we like it or not. I guess it is up to each of us to make our own decisions about what change to flow with and what change to resist, but the fact is that change is inevitable, it is always happening in incremental ways, we are just more likely to notice it when it feels like a sea-change, which is happening in our world today. The challenge is not to resist change simply out of fear. Faith calls us to live fearlessly into our Christian path. When we let fear decide what is good or bad, when we resist change simply because we fear it, we are not living up to our call.

Change is scary because it takes us out of our comfort zone, but comfort can also numb us and lull us into complacency. Stepping outside what feels comfortable can enliven us, can challenge us to rethink our faith and inspire us to new levels of transformation and commitment. Which of us can honestly say that we are truly living out our highest potential as Christ-followers? Change shakes things up a bit, helps us recalibrate our lives and invites us to a more vital and dynamic experience of life. Remember how fresh and new the world looks through a child's eyes? Change invites us forward into a new space of freshness, of vibrant experience, of not knowing what to expect and thus having to live every moment purely as it unfolds. Change is hard, but change always comes. It's up to us whether it shuts us down or opens us up to new life.

Prayer: Dear God, Let me not be ruled by fear. Help me to embrace the changes that inevitably transform my life and use them as tools to deepen and enliven my faith and my experience of authentic living. Amen.