A Common Thread

Three things that I was exposed to this week gave me pause for thought. On the surface, they seemed unrelated but upon reflection, I found a common theme running through them that was a good reminder for me of what I should look like.

• an old interview with Katherine Hepburn on cable


• a devotional that came to me in email


• today's sermon by a lay leader

I always admired Kate Hepburn. I liked her intelligence, her straightforward approach to life, her slightly defiant attitude toward established principles if they got in the way of living her life. In this old interview with Dick Cavett, she was asked about religion and stated that she was not a religious person. That she found people in church to be rather boring in how hard they seemed to try to be something that doesn't really make a whit of difference in their lives since God gave us grace as a gift and all we have to do is to accept it. Nothing in all the 'trying' to be a Christian and trying to live a 'Christian life' is going to get us anything that God hasn't already given us. I was surprised (I'm not sure why) that she was very well versed in Christianity and scripture. She may not have been religious but the lady knew her stuff.

The email devotional I received, admonished the reader to think about what we are doing in church; are we so involved in doing and trying to be Christians, that we forget that being a Christian has more to do with 'looking' like Christ than in how hard we work at acting a certain way. I think you are beginning to see the common thread.

Our sermon this morning was not a sermon, per the lay leader who delivered it, but simply talk between friends. Our scripture came from Matthew and our talk had to do with sowing seeds. My friend and former neighbor, reminded us that we are not required to achieve goals to assure our salvation. That all we are called to do is sow seeds of love and kindness, seeds that impart knowledge of Christ and then stand back and let God reap the harvest. Oh... there's that thread again!

My conclusion is that maybe, sometimes, we try too hard and perhaps in our effort, we become resentful or think we are deserving of something we could never earn in the first place. We try to measure our worthiness or we judge our efforts against the efforts of others, far too often deciding that one of us is falling short. And it is all meaningless. God loves us regardless of our human condition and we only have to accept his love to receive the greatest gift in the world.

Help me Father, on this day, to simply do my best to 'look' like Christ... to live the life I am called to live and help me put away the foolish notion that I have a better idea of what I should look like than the perfect example you gave me.