Jesus: “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love. I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you.” – John 15:9-12

I have already referenced the book “2000 Years of Prayer” in a couple of posts – it’s one of the resources Rebekah and I are utilizing for our morning devotions. Currently our readings come from the first few centuries CE, when the church is still struggling to understand and articulate exactly what it believed and – therefore – taught.

Looking at the history of Christianity is a helpful reminder that orthodoxy has never been cut and dried, and that there has always been progress and discussion and disagreement and compromise when it comes to understanding both what the Bible is and what it teaches.

At the same time there has never been any question but that God sent Jesus as both messenger and message, and that the heart and the purpose of Christianity is found when we accept the invitation to follow the way of Jesus, listen to his truth and embrace the abundant life he offers. The way, the truth, the life.

This week we are reading prayers from Basil the Great (330-379). Basil was educated in Athens, turned down a plumb appointment to the emperor’s court, developed the essential model of Eastern monasticism, spent the last portion of his life as a bishop and lived during a highly contentious time marked by bitter theological controversies. Yet Basil consistently built his witness to God around the care of his neighbors and prayer, establishing the first hospitals, orphanages and homes for the elderly; he was revered not so much for his dogma but his holiness.

Time and again in our readings this is the evidence that comes through; the loudest message we preach is the one that we live.

The loudest message we preach is the one that we live

I’m going to share one of Basil’s prayers. It is thought-provoking and arrestingly tender. Take a couple of deep breaths, ask God to inhabit this moment, then read.

O God, enlarge within us the sense of fellowship with all living things, and especially with our brothers and sisters the animals to whom you gave the earth as their home together with us. We remember with shame that we have dominated over them in the past with ruthless cruelty, so that the voice of the earth, which should have risen to you in song, has been instead a groan of pain. Teach us that they do not live only for our benefit, but for themselves and for you, and that they love the sweetness of life as much as we do. Amen. – Basil the Great (330-379)

My point this morning is that if we really are genuinely interested in promoting the good news of Jesus then we should argue less and love more; condemn less and invite more; shake our fists less and hug more; claim to be exclusively right not at all and claim to be loved and forgiven more…

Because, in the end, what the truth needs to set us free from is ourselves – DEREK

Humility: when the truth sets us free from ourselves