Monday 20 October 2008

Today we will begin a new section in "The Peaceable Kingdom" by Stanley Hauerwas - The Servant Community.

...Christian ethics would be unintelligible if it did not presuppose the existence and recognizability of communities and corresponding institutions capable of carrying the story of God.
The most general name we give that community is church, but there are other names for it in the history of Christianity. It is "the way," the body of Christ, people of God, and a plethora of images that denote the social reality of being Christian and what it means to be a distinctive people formed by the narrative of God. We should remember that the name "church" is no less an image than "people of God." In fact, one of the issues in theology is which images of the church are primary or controlling of the others.

More and more I like the language that says "carrying the story of God" or something close to that. It gives me the freedom to hear how practical and real it is to be "people of God" or "the church" or followers of Jesus. The stories bring us into contact with life not merely some sort of theory. We may want to draw up theories about the life of a community but to hear their story...the story of who they are when they are out and about in the world..helps to make it all sound real. When it sounds real, it carries a life that I can enter. Stories of communities who call themselves "people of God" will sound like stories that say "this is who we are...this is what we do...this is what we have done...this is how we put things together." In that way, faith is opened up and we begin to see the life that emerges when we say we trust the stories of our God who is infinitely with us and for us.

Connection: No better way to say what we believe than to live the life that is formed when we we do trust our God who loves us...and loves again.

When you call us along the way within your Reign, O God, we hear stories of those who have move down the road ahead of us. When this takes place, we can be encouraged and awakened to life that often appears outside of the realm of our lives. Continue to call us and invite us to follow you and enter the life that comes when you are present with us. Amen.