A Unified Coming Together of Shocking Inheritance

I stood in church this past Sunday and could feel a Spiritual rumbling under my feet. It seems as though our journey together through Still Life has been igniting us collectively and as we progress toward Easter we are embracing a rhythm of continual intimacy and discovered identity that is opening our eyes to shocking inheritance. As a body there is a “Fully Alive-ness” that is palpable! 

Digging in to the inheritance portion of Still Life this week, I re-read the story of the Incredible Father (aka, the Prodigal Son). In a challenging situation in my own family last summer (it happened to be during our parable series), God met me in this story. With disgust I confessed my likeness to the older brother in relationship to my specific situation. Deep in my heart I had a whiny complaint. The Father seems so gracious to the little brother who does everything wrong, and so strict to the older brother who has been trying so hard to do it all right. In my journal I recorded God’s response to my whimper “it’s not fair”.

In my own paraphrase, the Father says, “The party started and I knew it was time for you to be back from work.  But I didn’t see you.  I looked around the room but you weren’t there.  So I came out here to look for you.  I left the party; like I leave the 99 to find the one, like I ran down the road for your brother, like I search for the lost coin…looking for you.  We’ve been in this day in and day out together. You have been with me as we worked in silence on difficult days, as we talked and walked through our land, grieving what was lost but seeing glory in the beauty before us.  I’ve shared my whole heart with you, I’ve kept nothing back because of the intimacy of our relationship. I don’t want to do this part without you.  I don’t want to go back in there for one son and leave the other alone.  Come with me.  Stand by me now just like we have in the field and at the kitchen table and around the fire.  I came to find you because I want you with me.”

I re-read those words this week and immediate tears came to my eyes. The inheritance of the prodigal son is just as important as the inheritance of the older brother. Both sons were given their full inheritance, but they were intended to be used together for furthering the Father’s work. Somehow they were full but incomplete, one without the other. 

In her book, When the Heart Waits, Sue Monk Kidd writes, “As the True Self is born within us, the initial movement of soul is from the collective “they” to the ground of an authentic “I”. That’s holy ground, yet God calls us to a ground even holier: God calls us from the authentic “I” toward a compassionate “we”. 

In other words, intimacy is what leads us from “Jesus died for us all,” to “Jesus died for me”. Identity reveals the great worth of that love for me as a unique creation. Inheritance is how that truth transforms me AND impacts those around me. We were never meant to stay in the individual, but to share with one another the fullness of ourselves to bring completeness to the kingdom. 

Kidd continues, “Spiritual experiences aren’t meant to be homogeneous, only harmonious—not in unison, but in unity.” I think that’s what I was feeling on Sunday, a harmonious and unified coming together of shocking inheritance, propelling each sacred one of us forward. I am praying with all of you this week. What we do with our inheritance doesn’t just change our lives, it transforms the kingdom around us. 

Specific prayers:

1. Our Leadership Counsel and staff are making strategic and financial decisions born from intimacy and identity, expressed in inheritance. Pray for each on of them as they contribute to the whole.
2. Our church family is growing. I don’t necessarily mean in numbers, I mean in our Fully-Alive selves. As that happens, needs are being met and roles are being filled and adjustments happen to make space for the “authentic I” to join the “compassionate we”. That will take patience and grace, and celebration.
3. God is already in the business of bringing his promises to pass, pray that we have clear eyes and ears to hear and be led as we continue to move in step with him!