WOVEN INTO GOD IN JESUS CHRIST

People throughout the Christian era have striven to be holy. Some with more success than others. Those with the most success have been the people who discovered grace. And those with the least satisfaction those who lived in some degree of legalism.
The most enjoyable Christian life follows on the discovery of the most radical grace – this is the life of the self as a sacrament in Christ to living and being one’s real self in the ordinary world in Christ our life.
I listened this morning to a couple of professionals telling of ways in which religiosity makes depression worse. They both asserted that ‘just being’ is better than trying to measure up or be a better Christian. This is only half the truth. ‘Just being in Christ and living in His Presence with you and in you – incarnation - is the best healing and the best Christian life. Jesus said ‘My burden is easy’ because it is. It’s a Sabbath rest from striving of every kind.
MYSTERY OF THE EUCHARIST LIVED
The paradox of incarnation and new birth is Christ is you.
If there is nothing of mystery in our religion, it is probably not God’s religion. There’s nothing ‘rational’ about spirit. Yet it is the substance of the incarnation – of God’s life as our life. There never was a law in heaven. Just the trinity in relationship. Adam and Eve were created as a part of this community/interrelationship of being. Jesus has re-established this in incredible intimacy by uniting us to God in Himself.
SEEKING WHOLENESS
Thomas Merton observes that there was a big influx into monasteries following World War Two. “Men who clearly demonstrated their ability to live as excellent monks found themselves defeated and confused by a system that apparently frustrated their development. They discovered two things: first, that they wanted what the monastic life had to offer; second, that the monastic life was now built in such a way that what it offered remained, for many monks, a dream or an impossibility.” (1) In other words that which had been ordained to grow being and contemplation had become institutionalised and a system. JESUS DID NOT GIVE YOU RELIGION TO MAKE THE BEST YOU. He gave you Himself to be in you and with you, directly.
HAVE YOU NOT HEARD?
Could it be that many did not know that one did not need to be a monk to live a life of depth and substance with the Lord? Could it be that in common with many who strive to live a life of church routine, devotional habits and charitable actions, they were not taught that this is not the way to be holy as God is holy. They were schooled in disciplines, jumping through hoops and moralism rather than the simplicity of Christ their life – Christ incarnated in them and manifesting as Bob and Jim. Jesus does not come among us and live in us to teach religion or manifest religion. He comes to manifest Himself as us.
Life in the Spirit is Christ come in our flesh. This is Christ our life. Not only holiness but non-religious living as a daughter and a son.
(1)  Thomas Merton, Contemplation in a World of Action, p 13.