Monday 3 November 2008

Today we start a section of Hauerwas' book called: The Church is a Social Ethic.

Surely in social ethics we should downplay the distinctively Christian and emphasize that we are all people of good will as we seek to work for a more peaceable and just world for everyone.
Yet, that is exactly what I am suggesting we should not do. I am in fact challenging the very idea that Christian social ethics is primarily an attempt to make the world more peaceable and just. Put starkly, the first social ethical task of the church is to be the church - the servant community. Such a claim may well sound self-serving until we remember that what makes the church the church is its faithful manifestation of the peaceable kingdom in the world. As such the church does not have a social ethic; the church is a social ethic.

So often we wrestle with what we must do as Christians in the world. The "to do" list can grow quickly and it can become quite long...and it can become a source of guilt about what is not being done...or it can become a list we use to belt each other around for one reason or another (which doesn't sound very Christian to me). Rather than thinking in terms of "doing" we are first a people who claim an identity. We are the Church. Within that reality where we are claimed as beloved of God and baptized into a whole new life, we are handed a character that is vital for the life of the whole world. It is like Israel being a light to the nations. There are a light because that is what God says they are. Sure there are ways that this light is to shine brightly in the world but it all comes from the first word "I am the Lord , Your God..." That is the word now put in motion in the church. Through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth, we are claimed (all of us) by this God how is eternally on our side and with us and continues to call us God's own. We are asked to be nothing more than the people who are beloved - that, being the church, is enough. And, I would add, more than we can ever imagine.

Connection: Claim who you are. That is what is expected of us today. From there, we can all be amazed at what comes to life.

Precious Lord, when you take our hand and lead us and guide us and call us your beloved, we too often hesitate and resist the life that is already ours through the power of your gracious love. It is as we remember the gift of life that is handed to us that we are being transformed within the ordinary events of this day. Amen.