James 24:7

Hopefully, we won't always need a good mackerel-slapping or a snake in our path or a hot gun pointed at our face for us to wake up. 

We will need grace and maybe grace is often delivered in extremis. 

Another alternative might just be practice.   We might just practice waking up, practice becoming aware.  (Or, we might pick up a book like Dallas Willard's Spirit of the Disciplines and really get with it.  And, by the way...if you are hung up on the distinction between grace and practice just keep in mind...we wouldn't know what to practice were it not for grace.)

We may have to do it in short spurts.   "For the next couple of minutes I think I'll turn on all receptors and just see, smell, hear and feel what's going on.   Maybe I'll watch myself and be completely honest about why I do what I do and resist doing the other stuff. Maybe I'll just be silent for a while and listen and see."

I wrote before that the big thing Jesus wished to convey was that God is a welcoming God who invites everyone (i.e. sinners and no-counts) to sit down and relax.

That reminds me of a joke.  I told it one Sunday and nobody laughed much.  (I'm not too good at telling funny stories although I'm fair at telling stories funny...it's a Southern thing.)

Here's the joke:

A guy dies and goes to heaven.  God invites him to dinner.  When he shows up, God says "make yourself at home I'll go get the food."

When God goes out of the room, the guy walks over to edge of heaven and looks down and sees all these people gathered around a big banquet table.  There is more food than you can shake a fork at.

God comes back in with a bowl of soup and a piece of bread. 

The guy asks God: "Who is that down there?"

God says: "Oh those are the people in hell."

The asks: "Why is it that they get to have  a banquet and all you serve me is this soup and bread?"

And God says: "Ah with two why cook?"

(Laugh track insert here)

Jesus taught a lot about the welcoming nature of God.   He wanted folks to be aware of that and to act in their own lives toward others the way that God acted toward them.

Which takes me to the second matter of awareness: we must become aware of how we treat other people....or better...how we often prefer ourselves to others.

As Jesus pointed out when he ate at the home of the Pharisee, we really get into ambition, competitiveness and comparison.

"Some of you guys came in here and rushed for the seat of honor," he said. "You are setting yourselves up for shame when you do that.  Here's why: the host may come to you and say, 'what are you doing next to the seat of honor? You go sit at the foot of the table.'  When that happens you are going to look and feel really bad."  (Maybe Jesus used that example because these silly folks were really into how they looked. Imagine that....)

Jesus went on to point out to them that they should take the least seat and maybe they would be honored.

Of course, all of that squares well with things he taught in other places: the greatest among you will be the least, the first shall be last and the last first...the greatest will be the servant.  I came not to be served but to serve.

Whole people are folks with the hearts and lives of servants.  They are not interested in climbing any ladders (unless it's to get a widow's cat out of a tree) or beating down someone else to get to the top or being seen as being somebody when they put on their pants like everybody else...

(Woody Allen said he put his pants on like everyone else...he pulled them over his head.  But I digress....)

According to Jesus, if we would live well, if we would be fully human, if we would be whole...we would be servants.

Again...think of the freedom of that.  No more comparing myself to another.  No more scrambling.  No more discontent in the name of achieving more and more and more. 

Contentment.  Seems that may be the chief virtue of a servant.

See....a servant is not just what someone does.  A servant is who someone is. 

How silly would it be for the lowly servants to be fighting over who is the greatest servant? 

In the end, you are still a servant!

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News Alert: Just as finished this, my wife, who is just returning from swimming laps in a pool, said she thought she saw a leaf floating next to her.  When she looked closer it turned out to be a SNAKE!  Yes, it made her more aware.  She managed to flip him out of the pool with her kickboard. She said, "Nothing keeps me from swimming laps."  And she ain't kiddin'...she paddles over a mile a day!  See snake post below....