| Another good reminder of what the church is to be - again, Jurgen Moltmann. The division into clergy and laity and the ghettoization of Christianity in the church must give way to the two vital movements of Christian life: the gathering of Christians in the congregation and their sending out into their different vocations in society. We experience gathering and sending like the breathing in and breathing out of the Spirit, Christian life in the everyday world is just as important as the gathering of the congregation for worship. We should be forgetting our own calling in the jobs we do and the gifts we have were we to identify being Christian with going to church. On the contrary, the gathering of Christians for worship serves to build up Christian existence in the different social relationships of life and to give it bearings. The gathering for worship serves the sending into the world, and it is this sending which leads into the full life of the Spirit. Our sending or mission acquires practical form in the needs and distresses of a society whose mark is injustice and violence, oppression and indifference. Every act of Christian worship begins with a greeting in the name of the triune God, and ends by sending the congregation out into the world: 'Go in the peace of God." We are, in a sense, made ready for our lives when we leave from worship and enter into the everyday life that is shaped by word and sacrament. Being sent from that Sunday event has a character that goes with it. The peace of God is how we go. We conspire about what that means when are in worship and carry out its living implications as we each go off to be engaged by the work we do and the lives we live. We go out to be something contrary to the ways that are so common in the world. We put on Christ and that revives and renews and redefines our humanity so that the ways of the powers of this world do not have the opportunity to take hold or take control of us. And yet as we are send out, it is also essential to gather - that wonderful breathing in and breathing out of the Spirit as Moltmann says it. This is such a powerful and basic image. We are given life by our God who in Christ, Jesus, makes sure that this coming of the Reign of God is really present and really alive through all of us and - now. Connection: I so often go back to the breathing - so essential - so vital. Come, Holy Spirit! When you gather us in let you power of life enter us and then take us out beyond ourselves to be a witness to the promises of our God that are meant for all. Amen. |
No comments:
Post a Comment