Wednesday 12 November 2008

I find this ongoing note about church and world by Stanley Hauerwas to be insightful for all of us who follow Jesus.

Church and world are thus relational concepts - neither is intelligible without the other. They are companions on a journey that makes it impossible for one to survive without the other, though each constantly seeks to do so. They are thus more often enemies than friends, an enmity tragically arising from the church's attempt to deny its calling and service to the world - dismissing the world as irredeemable, or transforming its own servant status into a triumphalist subordination of the world. But God has in fact n redeemed the world, even if the world refuses to acknowledge its redemption. The church can never abandon the world to the hopelessness deriving from its rejection of God, but must be a people with a hope sufficiently fervid to sustain the world as well as itself.

Wow! The church must be "a people with a hope sufficiently fervid to sustain the world as well as itself." What an honor. To be such a people of hope...a people whose hope is so bold and concrete and open to all that comes our way, that the world may...may...turn and see something new...something that was previously out of sight. Hope is like that. It is not fully in sight and yet it attracts us and pulls us and opens up the day to a future we did not know was unfolding on the horizon. There is nothing pushy about such a hope. It simply comes to life. There is nothing threatening about such hope. It simply is revealed as we walk through the day. Therefore, we, the church, have a daily agenda. Walk in hope. Dance in hope. Be the hope that turns heads in a world that doesn't know it is going in the wrong direction until it sees the hope of a new day - the Reign of God - graciously coming to life...already.

Connection: Be for the world today...the church...the Reign of God at hand...the character of the new age...hope in the flesh.

Lord of all Hopefulness, sustain us and move us and encourage us to step forward into your promises in a world that may not see or hear you word but longs for the reality of your Reign. Amen.