ECCLESIOLOGICAL ETCHINGMarch 31, 2022
Yesterday, sitting in the Education Building and looking out the window, I could see the “stuff” in the air. The wind was blowing, and the pollen and other sneezy stuff was swirling around. And of course, my car had a nice thick layer of yellow dust covering it. There is a period of time about now when you can see the cause of your allergies, but that’s not always true. Some days you can’t see anything in the air, but you feel it in your nose, eyes and head. How often have you heard someone say, “I don’t know what it is, but something is in the air today.” They know, yet they cannot point to the actually culprit. At the same time, they can point to the effects in the form of a snot-filled Kleenex. I know I’m getting a little gross here, but as people of faith, we make statements that we cannot scientifically verify. We only hope to point to some tangible consequence of our claim. For instance, in Sunday’s Sermon, I said I believe love is the single most powerful force in the universe. That’s a pretty outlandish thing to say. Where is the proof? I can’t necessarily do a side by side comparison to a supernova or even a diesel engine, but I have seen where love moved proverbial mountains that everyone assumed were immovable. I’ve seen love bridge a divide that everyone assumed to be too deep and far across. Maybe that’s the reason the Apostle Paul wrote how “Love is…” (1st Corinthians 13) and then began using all sorts of ways in which love could be expressed. It is not proving love’s existence, yet it sort of is in the very tangible consequences of love. Somewhere in the 3rd century, Christianity became obsessed with theories, explanations and belief statements. Choosing to regard such assertions as true became the definition of what it meant to be a Christian. Is that really what Jesus taught us? Think of the man who asked Jesus, “Who is my neighbor?” The response Jesus provided did not begin with what is found in the Merriam-Webster Dictionary. Jesus provided a story of compassion and concern. He answered the question, but not with the kind of answer anyone would have expected. He allowed us to experience what it means to be on the receiving end of neighborliness. He introduced us to the implication of what happens when someone says, “You are my neighbor.”
Animate my faith, O Spirit of the Living God. Bring it to life so my convictions have transformative ramifications for those I encounter along the way. Amen.
