Fully Alive - Pride. From individualism to community

Today we conclude our worship series Fully Alive, based on the book of the same title by Elizabeth Oldfield. The book reminds us of the wisdom our Christian faith tradition holds. There are a million places for us to find meaning and wisdom for our lives, and so often Christianity gets overlooked as irrelevant—out of touch with current reality. But within the Christian faith, there are signposts that show us how to become the kind of human this world needs. In a world of division, pointing fingers, selfishness, and ecological destruction, we can be part of the solution—someone who is living “fully alive” and not wasting this one wild and precious life. Oldfield shares this wisdom using the framework of the seven deadly sins: how they show up in our lives and what it would look like to move towards more positive, life-giving virtues. Sin, in essence, is anything that causes disconnection between ourselves and others, us and the natural world, or us and God. Sin needs to be met with grace rather than judgment—both in ourselves and others. Because sin does not define us—our worst choices are not who we are. It’s simply part of the human experience—these temptations pull us in one direction when often, we truly want to go another way. And this series is meant to help us bring awareness to our own sins—to acknowledge how these temptations show up in our lives. Then, using scripture, think about how God is calling us to live—connected, whole, and well. We are concluding our series talking about what some consider the foundational sin of pride.