BACK TO BASICS

Deuteronomy 5:1-6:25; Luke 7:11-35; Psalm 68:19-35; Proverbs 11:29-31

“And you must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your strength. And you must commit yourselves wholeheartedly to these commands that I am giving you today. Repeat them again and again to your children. Talk about them when you are at home and when you are on the road, when you are going to bed and when you are getting up. Tie them to your hands and wear them on your forehead as reminders. Write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.”

 “Then he told John’s disciples, “Go back to John and tell him what you have seen and heard—the blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are cured, the deaf hear, the dead are raised to life, and the Good News is being preached to the poor.”

Oklahoma just crushed Texas Tech’s hopes of a national championship in NCAA college football. Bob Stoops, the Sooners’ coach, downplayed any special preparation: “It’s just fundamental.  We didn’t do anything fancy, just our normal stuff.” Yeah, just the basics… to the tune of 65-21. (Sorry, Red Raider fans!) The same approach ought to apply to our spiritual walk. Nothing fancy is required; only the nuts and bolts. When Moses was leaving Israel in Joshua’s hands, he called them back to the bedrock of their relationship with God and the Ten Commandments. When John the Baptist had doubts, Jesus didn’t throw a bunch of guilt or theology at him. He just reminded John of what He’d done. Those essentials spoke loud and clear, and still do today.

This is so contrary to the way I usually think about faith. I look for high points, mountaintop experiences, and if it’s been awhile between summits, I immediately feel there’s something wrong and begin to doubt. I also doubt when I face adversity. Come to think of it, I’m really not even all that good at abiding in Christ when life is just average. Maybe that’s all because I think of contact with the Spirit as too much of a special event and not as much a lifestyle.

Mature Christians know better: they understand how to “practice the presence of Christ.” In the nitty-gritty, get-your-fingernails-dirty ordinariness of everyday life, they look for, find and rely on Christ. They don’t presume to understand it all. They don’t have to. For them, the simple seeking out and experiencing of Jesus’ love, compassion and power – however manifested in the mundane – are sufficient and sustaining. They don’t bother complicating things with a lot of theology, checklists or expectations. They just take Jesus as He comes. And come to them He does, for they have eyes to see and ears to hear.

In contrast, my life gets filled up with rules, responsibilities and opportunities quickly turned to obligations. But when I look at Christ, it’s obvious He didn’t live that way. As for rules, he had only two: love God; and love your neighbor. Responsibilities took care of themselves precisely because Jesus did love God and His neighbor. His only obligation was to the Father, and His opportunity was simply to serve. Those fundamentals played out in different ways, obviously, but Jesus never obsessed over the details, and He never lost sight of the forest for the trees. As He lived, life was all about doing a few things very well.

It’s strange, actually, that the more we try to make out of religion and theology, the more we hinder a living faith with obstacles of guilt and inadequacy. We can love God. We can love each other – or, better yet, let the Spirit love others through us. Is it possible that, if we are simply more intentional about actually practicing those basics, we might just experience more joy, peace and power? It’s probably worth a try; complicated is definitely not better!