Friday 7 November 2008

So, when there is disunity in the church...what is the message we send to the world!?

The scandal of the disunity of the church is even more painful when we recognize this social task (pointing too the kingdom of God). For we who have been called to be the foretaste of the peaceable kingdom cannot, it seems, maintain unity among ourselves. As a result we abandon the world to its own devices. And the divisions I speak of in the church are not just those based on doctrine, history, or practices important though they are. No, the deep and most painful divisions afflicting the church are those based on class, race, and nationality that we have sinfully accepted as written into the nature of things.

The other night it was amazing to see the sea of people in Grant Park in Chicago. We are witnesses to something happening in the world that has everyone across the world quite literally looking at our country. That is a wonderful image. And yet, I want to remind us all that we, the church, have not been the leaders in such expansiveness - such openness - such vision - such boldness - such hope. We are to be just such a light simply as we step into our character as followers of Jesus. Can it be that we, the church, resist the daring notion that the divisions that are so easily drawn are not to be a part of who we say we are?! In many ways, we are pulled into new life by the world rather than, as Hauerwas noted in yesterday's devotion, the church is to "help the world understand what it means to be the world." Too many of aspects of our witness in the world are ones that show us to be a power of division and fear and anxiety. I don't think that is the kind of light that we are meant to be. So we need to keep reminding ourselves how we can walk together into the day as a people among whom war and violence that comes with division will not be the witness we offer to the world. Instead, we must pause again and again to re-vision who we are and what life comes with that new being that is the church.

Connection: We are the witnesses of a new world. The world needs us to be that witness and to applaud when the world acts within such newness.

Be our vision, O God, so that we may see the signs of your blessed Reign as we present our lives as living witnesses to the life that comes as we bear the name the church of Jesus, the Christ. Amen.