What is the point of Cursillo (and what is the Christian life)?

What I want to do is go up 30,000 feet and look down on what the point of Cursillo is in about 7 minutes. Lots of pieces of this that will be missing because I want to keep this tight. I'm generally dealing with the human side of this because that is were we can make choices to act. (A lot of this comes from a teacher I really respect named Dallas Willard.)

First, I think we have to talk about what it means to be a follower of Jesus.

At the end of Matthew Jesus says,

“All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age” (Matt 28:18b-20).

So, as we are baptized into the life of the Trinity, we are called to obey everything Christ has commanded. And we are to then turn around and baptize others into the life of the Trinity, and to teach others to obey everything Christ has commanded.

This it what it means to live in the Kingdom of God. A kingdom is where the will of the king is a reality- What the king wants to happen is what happens there. So the kingdom of God is where the will of God is a reality. “Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done…”. … As Christians, we believe that the will of God is found most perfectly in the person and teachings of Jesus. When we live according to the teachings of Jesus, we are in the kingdom of God, because we are living according to the will of God.

So that is the vision. People living according to the teaching of Christ, which is the same as people living in the Kingdom of God.

And here is the problem. When we look at the teaching of Jesus, say the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7), how do you feel you are doing? 

How are you doing with controlling your anger? 

How are you doing with lust? 

 How about only speaking the truth? And not using your words to manipulate others to doing what you want?

 How about loving your enemies? 

How about making sure your giving is done in secret, making sure you only want recognition from God? 

How about praying in secret? 

Are you fasting? And when you are fasting, are you doing it secretly, so only God sees it? 

Are you more concerned with your treasures in heaven, than your treasures on earth? 

 Are you anxious about your security and comfort? 

How are you doing with not judging others? 

Do you treat others the way you want to be treated? …

So how do we feel we are doing regarding obeying everything he has commanded us, and teaching others to obey everything he commanded us?

It’s a bit like this- say I invited one of you up to the piano, someone who has never been trained to play the piano, and who has never practiced it. Now I asked you to play Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata. … 

You have heard it. You can recognize it when you hear it. In a sense you have a vison of that song. … 

Can you play it? why not? … 

To be able to play it, you would have to have entered into a discipline. A discipline of learning scales, practicing them, then learning simple songs, and practicing them until you know them well enough that you are then ready to learn more complicated songs.

This is a process that is true for speaking another language like German, or painting something like the Mona Lisa, or learning to do a kickflip on a skateboard. … You can’t just sit down and play the Moonlight Sonata, no matter how hard you try in that moment. Sheer effort is not enough. Discipline is needed. Over time, disciplines will help you to grow so that you can do what you can’t do by direct effort alone- by just trying hard.

So when we are challenged to love our enemy, or are challenged to overcome lust, or anger, why do we think we can do it by just trying hard? … 

What we often do is we try hard, then we fail, then we ask forgiveness, and then we try again, and we fail, and we ask forgiveness, and we continue in that cycle. … But, what if we are meant to learn this the way we learn other things? God designed us to learn other things this way, why not this? What if learning to love our enemy is like learning to play the Moonlight Sonata? We enter into a discipline of learning and practice over time. We start with something smaller? Maybe we ask the Holy Spirit to help us love our neighbour with the noisy dog. Then the person who is tailgating us. … This is the way God has made us to grow.

Now we come to the Cursillo movement. Cursillo puts before us a vision of what following Christ looks like. On the Cursillo weekend we are challenged to a renewed commitment to follow Jesus as disciples- as leaders in the church. In Group Reunion, we look at Piety, Study, and Action. These are headings of types of disciplines we employ in learning to obey everything Christ commanded us. In groups made up of other disciples we hold each other accountable- we share our growth and our challenges in following Christ and trying to obey him- and we support and encourage each other towards the vision of the Kingdom of God. … We don’t do this perfectly, but we hope that with committed discipline over time, working with the Holy Spirit, we will progress. … So I think this is ultimately what we are trying to do with the Cursillo movement. It is a tool to help us grow as disciples of Jesus Christ, so that we can be useful to the kingdom of God.