Peculiar people

I am thinking of giving Lara Bingle a call to see if she could do a bit of advertising for me. Thought I might have her standing on Annangrove Road, in a bikini of course, church sign in the background, and have her saying something along the lines of … let me think ..Oh, I don’t know .perhaps words to the effect of; “where the b…… h….. are you?”

Okay, so I failed subtle at high school; but allow me to waffle about the importance of something called gathering.

A couple of Sundays back I talked about the church being a PECULIAR people. This is peculiar as in distinct, different to other people. I mentioned four marks of these peculiar people. They are communal people, worshipping people, listening people and trusting people.

Community – Our communities today are disturbingly small. The nuclear family has become the be all and end all of community, it keeps the bad guys out; but of course it doesn’t. Jesus liked big and varied communities and he was forever rocking people’s boat by letting all sorts of strange people in. The blind, leprous, disreputable, sick, maimed and oppressed were all part of Jesus’ mob. The marvellous thing about these Jesus communities was that they all seemed to get along reasonably well. Judas got his knickers in a twist toward the end but apart from that and a bit of political lobbying they all seemed to do okay. Some got the huff because they didn’t like the music, the preacher, or the morning tea; but generally it kind of worked.

Worship – Hmm. I’ve been a bit hard on this in recent weeks so apologies to those I may have offended. As the early church began to bloom we see the power of worship at work. We read that people ‘devoted themselves to the apostles teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and prayers.’ These must have been exciting times! We also read that they were people of glad and generous hearts, praising God and having the goodwill of all the people.
I mentioned that it is very peculiar / distinctive for people to get out of bed on Sunday morning and say that gathering with the people of God for worship is the highest priority for this time. There is something very special when the people of God gather to worship in spirit and in truth. I love it! I loved it before they paid me to do it! I loved it so much that I didn’t want to miss a moment. I like to sit at the front so that if the leader, preacher or worship group is on fire I might get burnt!

Listening – In the OT we sometimes come across people asking a question along the lines of, ‘Is there a word from God here? or ‘Is there no prophet of the Lord here, through whom we may inquire of the Lord?” When the people of God gather we come together with listening ears to find what God might be saying to us this day. It might come out of the Bible reading, or the preaching; but it could just as easily come through a song, a prayer or a quiet conversation. It is of course easier to hear from God in a small group, or even ideally it can be best to hear from God in a committee of one. It is much more challenging to be a peculiar people and listen for God’s voice among the gathering of his people.

Trust – A community of worshipping, listening people is potentially the most dangerous group in the world. These people had a reputation years ago of being the kind of people who turned the world upside down. Nowadays we struggle to turn a page! Trust becomes a byword for world tossing Christ followers. They build trust, offer trust and become trust worthy. Building trust is like building anything else – it takes time. It is sometimes risky and I can just about guarantee that you will get hurt along the way; but the journey is worth it.

At the end of the book of Judges in the OT we read – ‘In those days there was no king in Israel; all the people did what was right in their own eyes.’ Peculiar people are not only communal, worshiping, listening and trusting; they are usually dreamers. They have a sense of what is right in their own eyes; but they are willing to risk their future beyond that, to see what many more sets of eyes might reveal. It could be a future way beyond our solo dreaming.