He maintains that it is 'only when we do the Jesus truth in the Jesus way do we get the Jesus life.' We can know all about the truth of the Gospel, and we can try all we like to live as a Christian, but unless we let Jesus live through us, we are off base. This, he says, he hasn't found to be easy.

The reason it isn't easy is because there are two things absolutely basic to the Christian life that are counter to most things North American.

First, the Christian life is not about us; it is about God. "Christian spirituality is not a life-project for becoming a better person, it is not about developing a so-called 'deeper life.'... The great weakness of North American spirituality is that it is all about us: fulfilling our potential, getting in on the blessings of God, expanding our influence, finding our gifts, getting a handle on principles by which we can get an edge over competition. And the more there is of us, the less there is of God." (335) The current fad in popular spirituality is that I have to go deeper into myself in order to find fulfillment; that my moral and spiritual ideals are only authentic if they are mine, i.e. that I am the source of their authority and validity, that only a God who is simply a projection of my own ideals can be a worthy 'God' for me. But when the self is absolutely its own master we end in despair. "On closer examination it is easy to see that this absolute ruler is a king without a country, actually ruling over nothing, and liable to revolution any moment." (Soren Kierkegaard)

Second, the way we are meant to live the Christian life is also counter to most things North American. "Ways and means must be appropriate to the ends they serve. We cannot participate in God's work but then insist on doing it in our own way. We cannot participate in building God's kingdom but then use the devil's methods and tools. Christ is the way as well as the truth and the life. When we don't do it his way, we mess up the truth and we miss out on the life." (336) He points out that our modern, technology-saturated life can disengage us from what is essential to our humanity. As a result we live at second-hand: relationships atrophy, enjoyment diminishes, life thins out. Instant messaging short-circuits meeting face to face. Television viewing substitutes for worship or conversation. We can afford more gadgets, more labor-saving devices, but find less satisfaction, and happiness eludes us. 'We can't live a life more like Jesus by embracing a way of life less like Jesus.'

How can we live the Jesus way? Peterson counsels slowness, patience. The desire in our culture to live efficiently, to cram as much as possible into as short a time as possible, to hurry through each day as though it were our last, is not the Jesus way. We are addicted to shortcuts; we love fast cars and fast food. We don't like being kept waiting. But human life is endlessly complex, intricate, and mysterious. There are no shortcuts to becoming the persons we are created to be. We can't pump up the spiritual life by taking some kind of spiritual steroid, by following a recommended program of faith-building, the latest Christian fad and fashion.

"Patience is a difficult condition to come to terms with in a technology-saturated culture that is impatient - worse, contemptuous - of slowness. As a consequence, patience is jettisoned. And what happens is that the faster we move the less we become; our very speed diminishes us." (337)

"Be patient then, brothers, until the Lord's coming. See how the farmer waits for the land to yield its valuable crop and how patient he is for the autumn and spring rains. You too, be patient and stand firm, because the Lord's coming is near." (James 5:7,8)

Rick Bass, the writer, uses the metaphor of the glacier. Just south of my home town in New Zealand, lie the Franz Josef and the Fox Glaciers. They are unique in the world because they come down from the Southern Alps in the midst of a rain forest. A glacier is a mighty moving force. When it advances nothing can stop it. Camp sites, and motels that were built too close to them in years when the ice was retreating, are threatened, and sometimes destroyed, in years when the glacier advances.

A glacier is formed by the falling of snow that accumulates over time - an inch today, a quarter of an inch yesterday. As the snow deepens, the weight compresses. Ice is formed, and then more snow, which becomes more ice, year after year after year. Nothing happens for a long time, but when the glacier starts to move forward, nothing can stop it. In the process of moving you can hear the groans and shattering cracks like explosions or artillery fire as the ice advances and pushes before it the boulders and earth comprising the moraine.

When we follow Jesus, and seek to live the Jesus way, there are times when nothing may seem to be happening. Some days we seem to be retreating. Some days there may be little grace falling into our lives. But over the years, as we allow Jesus to work in us and through us, we accumulate his grace, and we move forward. We must trust the process. Little by little Jesus lives through us to affect our environment, our culture, our church, our community. Sometimes we may feel that we are accomplishing so little, that we are stuck, in a rut, bogged down, but little things matter, and we should not despise the small things that we contribute, that we say and do. Life is not fast and furious, "the race is not to the swift or the battle to the strong." (Ecclesiastes 9:11) It is the tortoise not the hare that wins the race.

Formation of spirit, cultivation of soul, doing the Jesus truth in the Jesus way is slow work requiring endless patience. Peterson uses the word 'congruence' to describe what he is talking about. The dictionary defines it as agreement, consistency (of one with another, between two). Applied to what Jesus is saying, there should be agreement, consistency, between the truth we profess, the means or way we go about it, and the life we live. Jesus was perfectly congruent. He was who he claimed to be. What he said he was, is what showed in his life. "Love is patient." (1 Cor.13:4) Jesus was patient.

There is nothing more disconcerting to meet someone whose life is less than you expect, whose words and whose methods are inconsistent, who claims to be something he patently is not. T.S. Eliot commented on Charles Williams: "Some men are less than their works, some are more. Charles Williams cannot be placed in either class. To have known the man would have been enough; to know his books is enough...[He was] the same man in his life and in his writings." Peterson concludes, "A life of congruence. It is the best word I can come up with to designate what I am after."

How do we follow the Jesus way? Slow down, and let his Word dwell in you. Receive his Spirit. Let him increase in you, and your agenda decrease. Let his grace fall on you day by day, so that by accumulating, he can move you forward, on his timetable, to accomplish his will. Are you willing to surrender to his way?

An audio version of this sermon may be found on www.ameliachapel.com

Amelia Plantation Chapel
Amelia Island, Florida