Again we must wrestle with the church being church in the world - Stanley Hauerwas.
...the church serves the world by giving the world the means to see itself truthfully. The social ethic of the church is, first of all, an affair of understanding rather than doing. The first question we must ask is not "what should we do," but "what is going on?" Our interpretation will determine what we are to do. Our task as church is the demanding one of trying to understand rightly the world as world, to face realistically what the world is with its madness and irrationality.
Remember, we are called to be a light. We are not better than the world. We are the church. We are invited by the water of baptism to participate in the truth-telling that calls into question everything about the world in us that creates the great divides that make the blessedness of creation less than that blessedness. So, as we pause and look around we look around with an eye that looks through the lens of God's Reign. It gives us a perspective on "what is going on" and in that, we may find ourselves as witnesses to what is called the "madness and irrationality" of the world. It is then that we become a part of the world that lives in a contrary manner as it appears alongside the world as it is. When the world is content to discriminate and live within that madness and brutality, we -the church- live as though there is no partiality. That....has a biblical sound to it...but a sound that is also the life blood of a world living within the realm of shalom.
Connection: Don't forget to hold up that lens and be aware of the ordinary that may often times be a brew-pot of madness!!
Within you Reign, O God, we see the wonder and beauty of your creation. This is where we live and this is where we are invited to live within your image. We know we are not a people waiting to escape all this...but we need the reminder that we are able to be the image of your Reign now so that the world may know the ongoing wonder and beauty of your creation.
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