ECCLESIOLOGICAL ETCHING
December 14, 2021
What do you call success? What does the church consider to be a great turnout? I was thinking about this on my drive back from visiting my sister yesterday. The Christmas story has no one being present at the time of the birth, outside of the Holy Family. Here was the grand entrance of Jesus, and only later did a handful of shepherds (we don’t know a number) and later some Magi (we say three, but again, we don’t have a specific number) show up. Let’s be generous and say ten folks showed up, and a few animals. In a lot of church settings, there would be great disappointment if on Christmas Eve there were only ten who showed up. But think about it for a minute. They did show up, and because they showed up, they were changed people who had a dramatic impact upon the world. Somewhere along the lines, the church became more about numbers and less about transformative experiences. A thousand people in worship sounds impressive, but what happens if not one of them is changed because of the experience?
Holy God, let us seek the child whose witness offers the world a radical message of love, mercy, justice and kindness. If we leave the encounter as unchanged people, what exactly did we encounter? Bring us to the manger! Bring us to the enfleshing of limitless love! Bring us alongside the one whose life is the model of rightness and justice. Amen.
