Monday 10 November 2008

Here's more of Hauerwas' argument for the church to be the church.

...the first social task of the church - the people capable of remembering and telling the story of God we find in Jesus - is to be the church and thus help the world understand itself as world. That world, to be sure, is God's world, God's good creation, which is all the more distorted by sin because it still is bounded by God's goodness. For the church to be the church, therefore, it not anti-world, but rather an attempt to show what the world is meant to be as God's good creation.

He says this in a number of ways. I hear a strong message of stewardship here in this latest comment about the church. First, there is the reminder of what is God's - all that is! Therefore, when we are the church, we are not merely an "in house" gathering. Rather, the way we are out in the day-to-day world is a witness to the intention of creation as that which is God's and not ours. In other words, we help to bring clarity to what it is to be human within God's creation. It is good to be human. It is good to be in the world. The world is good...but it often refuses to claim the goodness in which it was and is created. Our message to the world is the life we live. The life we live is not one that demands that people must jump through a bunch of hoops in order to be one of us. It sounds like the way of our living is a constant invitation - without bounds - into a reality in which the daily character traits of the Reign of God are really the essence of the life of the world. There is no us and them in this. There is an eternal 'we'

Connection: Rather than try to teach the world what it must be...we are invited to be who we are when we claim to be followers of Jesus - the church.

Within this day, O God, continue to shape us and open up our lives to the spirit of your gracious Reign. Amen.