The Purest Expression Of Our Faith Part 1

12 january 2012

                I honestly don’t have time to write a blog entry today. There have been meetings all morning and I have a stack of tasks to complete this afternoon, but this thought just won’t leave me alone, so here it goes. Part One today; Part Two to come.
                Two events: Neither seemingly related to faith or to Jesus in any way; more just related to my crazy artist’s heart, yet they both took me straight to His side and gave God voice into my life.

Part One
1- June, 2011
                My buddy Jim sends me this link


         Listen. It’s the great musician Pat Metheny playing and commenting on a song that I have loved since I was a kid. The talking stops at about the three minute mark or so. Listen to Pat speak .When he’s done talking come back and finish reading.
                Good stuff, isn’t it? The first time I listened as he talked of the Carpenters, I was immediately caught up in Jesus. I heard Metheny speak of the early church, raw and pure in its aims.

Acts 2:42-47
42 They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. 43 Everyone was filled with awe, and many wonders and miraculous signs were done by the apostles. 44 All the believers were together and had everything in common. 45 Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need. 46 Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts,47 praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.

I heard him say…
They had great construction that lends itself to re-harmonization. The structure is strong.  There’s a high level of Christ that’s clear in these efforts. They were a reliable representation of Jesus.
I heard him say…
There’s depth of soulfulness in the skills and graces that go into making these movements do what they do spiritually. These Spirit-filled sons and daughters had timeless resonance to Jesus Himself; taking Christ out of the cultural (churchy) context… and living entirely in the world of “good notes”, “good sound”, good witness to Jesus.

I heard him say…
There’s skillful deployment of spiritual gifts and knowledge.  The bedrock of things. What we live for; getting back to the essence of faith and its expressions.
I'm weird like that. But those people changed the world. Not the Carpenters, although it stands to reason there must have been a few carpenters among them. You know what I mean. Nevermind. 

To be continued…

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