Echoes of Shalom - the Gathering, 10/8

Here are some notes and reflections on Eric's discussion on the four Echoes, last Sunday:

Shalom is reflected in the Four Echoes: Justice, Relationship, Beauty, Spirituality.

Who are we? Where are we? What’s wrong? All of this is reflected in the first three chapters of Genesis. The brokenness of Shalom was not God’s original intention.

Within the broken Shalom, through Christ, God brings his future into our present, restoring all the ramifications of sin and death, revealing a universal flourishing, integrating the harmony, and unveiling Shalom, which was present at the start of the World, and was then broken. Like an echo, a reflection of an original sound, it becomes a signpost to our external reality.

What is Spirituality? Originally designed as an intertwined relationship with God, our contemporary definition is blurred, distracted.

In identifying within the four components of: 1.) God 2.) Humans 3.) Self and 4.) World – and the relationships/interactions of those four components, what we see in the Creation and Fall of Man through the first three chapters of Genesis are these symptoms of brokenness, through the actions of Adam and Eve in the Garden:

1.) God: severing relationship, they hid from God, then were exiled from the Garden.
2.) Humans: responding through lying, blameshifting, distrust, murder.
3.) Self: experiencing shame, fear, pain.
4.) World: revealing physical death, toil, enmity, and the curse of work without rest.

Modern symptoms of brokenness: depression, guilt, self-centeredness, anxiety, loneliness, lack of/struggle for identity, disintegration of self, isolation from God, divorce, racism, war, murder, lack of justice.

How does this brokenness reveal itself in our contemporary relationships: marriage, parenthood, family, work, government, community, church, national institutions?

All are part of the failures that we suffer as relational beings in the midst of broken Shalom. Yet, all these failures can be reintegrated, marking wholeness through beauty, harmony, delight.

Pastor Lou provided a good example of how these four echoes can reveal Shalom:

when marriage is viewed and cultivated as a partnership for the Kingdom, it is reflected to the world, in the world, through Shalom. (Ephesians 5). As this covenant is greater than the two people involved in the marriage, if the marriage does not anchor within this component, it is rather a “selling short” of God’s design, which is wholeness in all these areas (justice, beauty, spirituality, relationship). This is the echo that we reflect back to world as Shalom. As Christ reveals a restored Shalom through his birth/death/resurrection - to reveal and to restore the world to Shalom - our response is defined by Christ, as we work with Christ to reorient the world to the four echoes (justice, beauty, spirituality, relationship). As a married person, it is a necessity to fully examine, within oneself and with one's spouse, what it means to reveal Shalom to the world through marriage - and to take to heart the covenantal vows that were made. How could this marriage reveal the beauty of Shalom to the world?

The implication is that while a couple may have a “good” marriage without knowing or serving Christ, this greater act of covenant and restoration through Shalom cannot be carried out, without Christ as the centering point...

posted by Christina @ 12:19 PM