Practice the plain ones...

I just noticed that this will be my 100th post and wanted to take a moment to thank everyone who occasionally gives it a read, all who who have sent encouragement (posted and private), and those that are "followers" It is a joy for me to share my love for the path of the Boston Unitarians and your support and encouragement means much.

And in that spirit, this from Rufus Ellis' sermon "Stewardship Not Ownership"

'Neither said any of them that aught of the things which he was his own.' — Acts, iv. 32.

CHRISTIANITY as it was taught and illustrated by Jesus, as it shines forth in the completeness of here and there a disciple, as it shall one day reign in our world, calls nothing its own. Where we are ready to say ownership, Jesus our Master says stewardship... love for God and man is the elemental principle of Christian morals and the fruitful germ of Christian society; we may derive from it the due ordering of a Christian life. From first to last, in small and in great, Sundays and weekdays, it is stewardship...No matter with what semblance of proprietorship, I am only one of the Father's children in the Father's House; and if I am a true child, His interests are nearer to my heart than any other needs. His interests are identical with truth and right, with justice and mercy, with purity, brotherly kindness, and charity. 'The law of Thy lips,' said the Psalmist, 'is better unto me than thousands of gold and silver.' I must live, says the world; the Christian does not see that necessity. God is his life. What life yields in obedience to divine laws and in the exercise of heavenly charities, that is his portion from God : he asks no more.

'This is my commandment,' said Jesus, 'that ye love one another, as I have loved you.' There are texts in the New Testament which are hard to be understood, but surely this is not one of them. The hard texts can wait, — they have waited a long time, and can wait longer; meanwhile let us practice the plain ones.

We shall never know what a glorious thing our Gospel is until all who are intrusted with the training of the young and the guidance of the world's workers understand by a Christian one who calls nothing his own, and have faith enough in the Master to believe that the same mind can be in us which was also in Him. That is what I call believing in Christ. The continuance and the growth of the Christian Church in our modern world is bound up with this creed, and it can be only in accordance with the reception of this law of the Christian life. The first lesson in Christianity is not the story of Eden, nor yet of the manger-cradle of the Divine Babe: it is that we should call nothing our own; that we are here upon the Father's business; that Christ is indeed our life, — the Christ who comes not to be ministered unto but to minister; the Christ in us who asks not, What ought the world to yield to me, and how shall I get it, rushing in before the crowd that I may have my full share ? but, What can I do for the world for the love of Him who made it, and what training will best fit me for my labor...

So the Church grew of old in the light of the Lord's life, and men said, not derisively as since, " See how these Christians love one another." So it shall grow to-day. This is Christ's call to the unconverted. This is the change of heart which all men need; this is the strait gate by which they must enter; this is the way which leads to life on earth, as well as in heaven."

Thanks again and Blessings.