Saturday, November 22, 2008

We're on a Mission from God

I pray that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation as you come to know him, so that, with the eyes of your heart enlightened, you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance among the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power for us who believe, according to the working of his great power. – Ephesians 1:14-21

The above is the Epistle reading for tomorrow, Christ the King Sunday. It occurs to me that in the midst of two wars, a major economic crisis, a change in Presidents, substantial downturns in charitable donations, and skyrocketing anxiety and need, the church is very much in need of recapturing its sense of missio dei--the mission of God. The challenge for the church today, I would assert, is that we have a huge crisis of confidence. Church budgets are being cut, including the one at Washington National Cathedral, and there is a great amount of scarcity and survival thinking going around. Just at the time that the church has the most to say, we're afraid to say anything!

Christ the King Sunday is perhaps well placed to remind us that we work for the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, the Creator of the Universe. The church is not simply another charity, another desperate institution clamoring for a disappearing financial pie--we are outposts or embassies of the Kingdom of God and we have the words of eternal life. Now we just have to act like it... By the power of God.

3 comments:

Fred Preuss said...

You're 2.2 million on the books, 760,00 in church on a given Sunday.
If it weren't for the long history of social prominence, who would be paying the least attention to you now?
Reading sites like this makes me prouder every day to be an atheist.

Fred Preuss said...

Seriously, I've got to hope that you have a college degree you can actually use, not something stupid like history or anthropology or English.
Science is not only more logical than religion, it pays for itself a lot faster.
Of course if you're one of those unfortunates who actually likes dressing up....

Tom Sramek, Jr. said...

Fred: Science has the task of explaining how something works or came into being. It can say nothing about why and so has no way of giving purpose or meaning to life. I see no conflict between religion and science. In fact, our Presiding Bishop is an oceanographer by training!

I have a college degree in Psychology and a Masters in Divinity (seminary degree) and I use both nearly every day.