Most of this week will be focusing on Stanley Hauerwas writing on "The Servant Community: Christian Social Ethics.
It is from the church that Christian ethics draws its ethical substance and it is to the church that Christian ethical reflection is first addressed. Christian ethics is not written for everyone, but for those people who have been formed by the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Jesus. Therefore Christian ethics can never be a minimalistic ethic for everyone, but must presuppose a sanctified people wanting to live more faithful to God's story.
We are what we have been called - named. We are the beloved. That can and does shape us. We hear that kind of message from the storytelling of the community. Before we are invited into a life that is the shape of the community, God has already acted and made us the people we claim to be. It is our status as daughters and sons of God within the story of God with us that we begin to find out what the shape of our lives is. We then, unfold along that vision. Christian ethics seems to insist on a life that has already been handed to us. We find out about that life within the story telling of the community - one that really does look back to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Jesus...and the parade of saints who walked into the story before us.
Connection: Maybe the connection for the day is to remember that we are already connected to a story that is more grand than our own lives. It is a story in which we are never lost - only found.
Bind us together, O God. Remind us that we are never abandoned or left alone to figure out how to live within your Reign. Rather, we follow a line of stories that introduce us to the life that is waiting to be ours. For this life we give you thanks. Amen.
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