We live in a world where BIG matters- big money, big business, big followers, big. In a world that privileges economies of scale, it can be tough to feel like an ordinary life matters.
Jesus disagrees.
In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus takes a bunch of ordinary people and tells them that they can be the light of the world. The question is, How?
New Sermon Below!
“Rather than calling us to transcendence, God forms us and guides us through place.”
- Hannah Anderson
What if part of our problem as Christians in the West is that we have swallowed the lie of “liquid modernity”: That the place where you are at present is secondary to where you are going, and what you might become? Read this excellent article on the importance of place in the Christian tradition.
Christmas, like faith, is thoroughly domesticated. But Christmas, like faith, is really something that comes like John the Baptist, or a Christmas tree- howling from the wilderness, stuffed into a home. New sermon on Matthew 3 below!
I don’t know anything about France, but this article seems like it accurately describes our cultural moment:
”In Café Flores where Sartre and Camus discussed the absurdity of life, people scan their phones safely cocooned from such disturbing ideas. Trains, lifts, even waiting at traffic lights are all opportunities to rehearse our secular liturgy: look down, pull out, flip open, here and now, here and now.”
And what we at CTK hope to be:
"Christians carrying within them the reign of heaven will need to let their weirdness shine; their time-consuming religious habits, their inconvenient commitment and love of others, their solidly unspectacular contentedness, and their embrace of weakness that allows the power and grace of their servant Lord to glow. The front line of secularism is here, but the resistance has begun."
Waiting. Its not a passive doing nothing. In our modern world, it takes all of our energy to resist the urge do take matters (relational, vocational, spiritual) into our own hands. The advent season trains us to do just that: to wait on the presence of God.
Jesus promises that persecution is inevitable. It’s a mark of the Christian life. He calls us to rejoice in it. So why are we always whining? And how can we become celebratory sufferers? New sermon on “Blessed are those who are persecuted” below!
“The only real remedy for the dangers of false belonging is the true belonging to a fellowship of people who are not so much like-minded as like-hearted.”
-Alan Jacobs, How to Think
Why do we always leave, whether physically, spiritually, emotionally, or geographically? James KA Smith summarizes the problem:
“It might be youth. It might be the reptilian impulses of a species with migration encoded in its DNA. It might be your inferiority complex or the boredom of small-town claustrophobia or the exhibitionist streak you’ve never told anyone about.
It might be the hungers of ancestors whose aspirations have sunk into your bones, pushing you to go. It might be loneliness. It might be your inexplicable attraction to “bad boys” or the still unknown thrill of transgression and the hope of feeling something. It might be the self- loathing that has always been so weirdly bound up with a spiritual yearning. It might be the search for a mother, or a father, or yourself. It might be greed or curiosity. It might be liberation or escape. “
The author thinks an Augustinian spirituality holds the answer to our wanderlust. Read the rest of the post here.
Every Sunday we eat a potluck meal together after our service! We practice this because eating is the most basic, human thing we all have to do. It’s necessary for survival. When you eat together, and serve food to one another, you are communicating your basic desire that the people you eat with flourish and thrive. Which is why, when God wanted to reconcile the world to himself, he left us, not just his word, but a meal.
This week we are highlighting one of our favorite recipes that has been generously shared with our church. Emma Kornegay has contributed her Ramen Noodle Salad recipe. Put your thoughts aside that Ramen Noodles and salad sound like a crazy combo, because this recipe is so good! If you’re adventurous enough to try it then you will fall in love with the crunch that the noodles add.
Emma, thank you for sharing your recipe!
Every Sunday Christ the King has a potluck meal after our service. We practice this because eating is the most basic, human thing we all have to do. It’s necessary for survival. When you eat together, and serve food to one another, you are communicating your basic desire that the people you eat with flourish and thrive. There is a peace between fellow diners. Which is why, when God wanted to reconcile the world to himself, he left us, not just his word, but a meal.
To celebrate this, we want to begin highlighting favorite potluck recipes that have been generously shared with our church. This week, Elizabeth has contributed her highly requested pasta salad!
Elizabeth, all of Christ the King thanks you for this recipe!
