Embodied participation

Axiom #8 in Matt Tebbe and Ben Sternke's book 'Having the Mind of Christ: Eight Axioms to Cultivate A Robust Faith' is: GOD TRANSFORMS US THROUGH EMBODIED PARTICIPATION.

This is another one of those really good chapters that I totally agree with, but it's been difficult to put into practice lately. So, I drank it in, but didn't highlight as much as some other chapters. These are the spots I did highlight:

• "How does God actually transform us into the likeness of Christ? That's the question that our eighth and final axiom answers: God transforms us through embodied participation. This means that we grow in our capacity to receive and give God's love not merely by thinking or believing correctly, but rather by trusting Jesus in our bodies, taking concrete steps of faith in our actual lives and relationships." (p.134)
  
• "When we view practices through the new lens of Axiom 8 we're able to see practices as experiments of trust (which is what we've been calling the practices at the end of each chapter). These embodied experiments of trust are concrete ways to let go of control and open our lives up to deep participation in God's life, reducing the resistance to God's grace flowing in and through our lives." (p.138-139)
• (In discussing the Sermon on the Mount) "Putting Jesus teaching into practice, then...
• is not an external performance for God, but an embodied participation in God;
• is not merely imitating the behavior of Christ, but also inhabiting the life of Christ;
• is not piling up 'shoulds' in hope of attaining eternal life in the future, but truly sharing in God's eternal life in the present by taking concrete steps of embodied trust."
• "Putting the teachings of Jesus into practice, then, is much more like learning piano than studying for a multiple-choice math test. Learning to live in communion-in-love with God and others is more like learning to dance than writing a research paper. As we submit our bodies to the rhythm of Jesus' teachings, we grow in our capacity to receive and live in God's love, which begins to permeate our heart, soul, mind, and body, drawing us further and further in, creating a virtuous cycle that changes the trajectory of our lives and transforms us into a new kind of people." (p.141)
• A couple places where they talk about developing new neural pathways - teaching our brain/body new ways of doing things (the son learning to dribble left-handed, persistence in piano lessons, etc.).
  

 

This was a difficult chapter to read. Not because I disagreed, but because I do believe it's true! Yet, still, it's just so easy at this stage of life to passively sit on the sidelines wallering in the muck and mire. It's not a matter of not knowing, but knowing full well I'm not doing... and not knowing how to get unstuck. I need to develop some new neural pathways... somehow. I guess I'll start by trusting the Spirit to make that into a prayer request...

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Matthew 7:24-25

“Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock."