"What can we bring to the Lord?  What kind of offerings should we give him?  Should we bow before God with offerings of calves?  Should we offer him thousands of rams and ten thousand rivers of olive oil?  Should we sacrifice our firstborn children to pay for our sins?"

And the Lord responded to the complexity of their inquiry with an answer of utmost simplicity.

"No, O people, the Lord has told you what is good, and this is what he requires of you:  To do what is right, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God."

In the midst of their religion, many generations later, arrogant clergymen of the day tested Jesus by asking him how to find favor with God.

"One of them, an expert in religious law, tried to trap him with this question: 'Teacher, which is the most important commandment in the law of Moses."

And Jesus responded to the complexity of their religious system with an answer of the utmost simplicity.

"You must love the Lord your God with all of your heart, all your soul, and all your mind.  This is the first and greatest commandment.  But there is a second that is equally as important:  Love your neighbor as yourself."

In our time and place, as Christians in America, it seems we have a tendency to suffocate the simplicity of being a follower of Jesus with a blanket of doctrines, dogma, systems, and structures that leaves us bewildered and numb to the presence and working of God in our midst.  As a result of this religious complexity we tend to either walk away from "church" all together or settle for a cheap imitation of the real thing.

"Church" is really quite simple indeed.  To be "the church" in our time and place can be summed up like this:  We are a people who believe that Jesus is who he said he was and we have committed ourselves to living the way Jesus lived.  And the life of Jesus was a life of extraordinary love for God the Father, scandalous love for humanity, and a lifestyle of humility, doing what is right, and showing mercy to those in need of mercy.

When we move beyond the simplicity of the way of Jesus we begin to shackle ourselves with the inventions and imaginations of men that all too often distract us from what Jesus truly had in mind when he said, "I will build my church."

May we allow ourselves to be used by God to create communities of Jesus followers that will never become organizations for a man to rule.  May we not succomb to the temptations of building monuments or museums for the glory of human leaders.  May we exist, gather, and experience life together as a people who are deeply devoted to the way of Jesus, to one another, and to the world around us.  God help us to be a people of outrageous generosity, but not so our resources can be used for the emergence of a religious empire, but that our outrageous generosity will ensure that none among us is without the basic needs of life, that the poor around us are uplifted, and that the world will know the kindness of God.

Reprinted from: www.wesojourn.org