Reflections

A thought from Dietrich Bonhoeffer

We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making His appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God.
2 Corinthians 5:20

“Be reconciled to God.” This means nothing less than let a king give you His kingdom, take heaven as a gift. Let the Lord of lords of all the world give you His love, and be His friends, His children, those whom He protects.

Come, surrender yourselves to Him and to His will, and you will be free from every evil, from all guilt, and from all bondage. You will be free from your own selves, you have found your way home, you will be at home with the Father…

O Lord, give all of us new hearts, open and obedient to you: hearts that love our neighbor and pray to you for our church. Lord, give us a good beginning; open your fatherly heart to us and lead us…”

Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906-1945) in his sermon entitled “Ambassadors for Christ” in The Collected Sermons of Dietrich Bonhoeffer (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2012) 93.

Do not neglect to do good and to share what you have,
for such sacrifices are pleasing to God.
Hebrews 13:16

A church member once told me that giving to the church was her “most special and important sacrifice.” When I asked what she meant, she replied, “It’s because I do not have much, but what I have is all thanks to God, and I know I will sacrifice other things to make my contribution to the church.”

The irony is that she was one of our largest givers. Sometimes when we give to the work of the kingdom, it can feel like a sacrifice. Hebrews reminds us of the joy that happens when we participate in something bigger than ourselves in other words, the joy of participating in the work and ministry of the church. These actions are pleasing to God because we return a portion of our gifts back to God.

Ultimately, these choices help us move beyond ourselves and into the larger kingdom of God.

44 All who believed were together and had all things in common; they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds[] to all, as any had need. Day by day, as they spent much time together in the temple, they broke bread at home] and ate their food with glad and generous[chearts, praising God and having the goodwill of all the people. And day by day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved.
Acts 2:44-47

“When you are in church, and are going to partake of the divine mysteries of Christ, do not go out until you have attained complete peace. Stand in one place, and do not leave it until the dismissal. Think that you are standing in heaven, and that in the company of the holy angels you are meeting God and receiving Him in your heart.”
Abba Philimon
A Discourse on Abba Philimon
Philokalia Volume 2

What is the church? This is the greatest question for a body of faithful who come together every Sunday morning. The Youtube video below entitled “The Me Church” illustrates the great conundrum that we face

Is the church supposed to be all about me and my thoughts or is it a body of diverse people uniting to be the hands and feet of Jesus. Throughout the history of the church, we have seen splits and divides focusing on what church is and how it operates. In Acts, we read a utopian view of the church as a living, breathing example of Christ’s love in the world right after the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. This almost seems radical to us today. Abba Philimon, a third-century church father, reminds us that the spiritual church is a place for people to rest in God, or — put another way — move beyond themselves into the deeper mystery of God in the world.

After 10 years of ordained ministry, I have seen this play out in so many ways in so many people. For me, the church is a group of people who are committed to sharing the reconciling and love of God with the world. It’s that simple. However, I am not naïve about the struggles of our human condition on that simple task.

Perhaps the prayer we say on Good Friday will remind us and strengthen us to own our legacy as a people of God working toward the fulfillment of God’s kingdom here and now. Maybe, just maybe, we will let the institutional church grow out of that understanding.

Prayer for the Church
O God of unchangeable power and eternal light: Look favorably on your whole Church, that wonderful and sacred mystery; by the effectual working of your providence, carry out in tranquility the plan of salvation; let the whole world see and know that things which were cast down are being raised up, and things which had grown old are being made new and that all things are being brought to their perfection by him through whom all things were made, your Son Jesus Christ our Lord; who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, forever and ever. Amen.
Prayer for Church from Good Friday Liturgy
Book of Common Prayer, Pg. 282

“Besides all this, between you and us a great chasm has been fixed, so that those who might want to pass from here to you cannot do so, and no one can cross from there to us.”
Luke 16:26

Those three words permeate the London Underground every time a train arrives at the station. This serves as a warning to individuals as they embark or disembark from the subway. If you look down then you realize that it is a very noticeable gap. Throughout history, those with power have created gaps between themselves and “the other”. Slavery, the apartheid, racial inequalities, economic inequalities, power differentials, and so many more show the many ways we, as humans, create or maintain gaps in our lives. God, like the voice in the London Underground, is constantly calling us to notice those gaps in our lives and bridge them. God bridged the gap of sin and death to show us the great love God has for the created world. We have the opportunity to open our eyes, hear the warning to “mind the gap”, and build bridges of God’s love into our world. This is the work of kingdom builders and we do it because God did it first!

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God. 3 All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being 4 in him was life,[a] and the life was the light of all people. 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.”
John 1:1-5

The beginning of all things comes squarely from the creator who spoke life into the void, spun order from chaos, shone light into the darkness. This is the God whom we worship and who guides our every move. Over the past several weeks, it dawned on me that sometimes in our zeal to find a message of God’s love, we forget Jesus and the immense love that moved at the beginning of time. This love is centered around this human who walked the earth 2.000 years ago, ate with outcasts and the disenfranchised, moved the crowd with the sheer eloquence of his words, and showed love and acceptance to everyone he met. Wherever our search for God takes us, it must start at the feet of Jesus and the simple message that God proclaimed in the second person of the Trinity: Life is love, and love is life! Perhaps we can dig deep within ourselves to harness the light and life of Jesus Christ so that we, too, can show love and acceptance to everyone we meet.