|
|
 |
 |
| A member congregation of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America | ||
| ||||||
|
October 2004 As I write this, Hurricane Ivan is making its way into the Gulf of Mexico. It’s heading north, but the forecasters cannot be precise as to where it will make landfall. It could strike the Florida panhandle or as far west as Mississippi. One thing is certain, however: if it maintains its present strength as a Category 4 or 5 hurricane, we will see communities devastated. But we will also see something else: we will see communities being communities. We will see many people at their best - neighbor helping neighbor, people supporting one another, groups and individuals sending and bringing aid. We will see people giving hope one to the other. That’s the strange thing about natural disasters and other crises. They can create a sense of community where there was little sense of community. Suddenly, people come out from behind walls of fear and suspicion and all the differences don’t seem to matter - rich and poor, young and old, white and black, liberal and conservative, straight and gay, Democrat and Republican, Christian and Jew and Muslim and Buddhist and Hindu come together to help one another. We saw it after 9/11 and have seen it many times since. Of course once the crisis has past, people often retreat back behind their walls. A few months after 9/11, the sense of community and unity had evaporated and it was back to what has become business as usual in this country: hostility, suspicion, bitter divisions, one group or political party pitted against another and seeing the other as not simply an opponent but the enemy. It will be much the same when Hurricane Ivan is a memory and people have recovered enough to get on with their lives. In times of crisis we glimpse for a moment what people can be like and feel the hope of that. For a moment, we have a vision of what God intends for his creation. We see something of the kingdom of God. Then it is gone. And hope goes with it. It’s the way it is; but it’s not the way it need be. Because there is one community that can hold before us that vision and offer hope, and that community is the church. The church should model another kind of life together -- not business as usual as it has become in our nation and world, but a life together in which all different kinds of people are respected and cherished, and differences in belief and background and color and orientation enrich the sense of the wonderful variety of God’s children and lead to learning from one another and a deeper care for the other. Sadly, however, churches today don’t often model such community. Instead, the loudest and most influential Christian voices today serve to increase fear and suspicion with their judgments and condemnations and labeling and attacks. The primary emphasis among many Christians is not inclusion but exclusion. This was recently brought home to me by a college student in the congregation. Her parents passed along an e-mail from her in which she wrote that she discovered that because her fellow students were aware that she has strong Christian beliefs, some were afraid to speak openly to her about various issues and personal struggles. They assumed she would be judgmental and quick to condemn because of how they had heard Christianity presented by popular religious figures and how they had experienced churches to be. Once thy came to know her, however, they were surprised by how open and understanding she truly is. They were amazed to find such a believer! But the impression remains among many: Christianity and its churches mirror the world with its fears and suspicions rather than model another kind of life in which grace and kindness create hope. And that is sad. Even more, it is contrary to the gospel of Christ. So what’s to be done? Well, each church in their own little patch of world can strive to follow the gospel and make a difference. We here in our congregation can continue to model a life together in which all are welcome to experience the grace and mercy of God and know the hope that gives. Our billboard for October is meant to proclaim just that: “Everyone Fits at Christ Our Hope.” To use the language of this fall’s Stewardship Program, “We say Yes!” to being such a congregation. We say yes to God, yes to committing ourselves to being a true church in which something of the kingdom is glimpsed, and thus yes to the future and to hope!
God be with you, Jeff
|