Not left as orphans now

There is a lot of angst in the life of the Church at this moment. People are worried that the Church will leave them alone. People are afraid that there will not be a church for them to go to, to have children baptized, to get married in or to bury family members from. And because there are so many apparent threats to the longevity of the Church people naturally worry if the Church is going to be there.

Maybe it’s time that we considered the ancient Church and all that they went through in establishing themselves in the life of the wider world. After all, look at the people Jesus called to be his disciples: fishermen, carpenters, tax collectors and even a thief who was ready to martyr himself to get what was coming to him. Not many of them were respectable, or learned, or incredibly rich. In fact, when the Church began, all they had was each other and the city thought they were drunk because of the way in which they were acting. And they had one thing more that the rest of the world did not have: the presence of Christ to embolden them in their lives and work. In this moment as in that moment we are assured of Christ’s continuing presence amongst us that we are offered his love and his trust to live out each and every day for him. In addition, we also carry the hope of new life and the new creation forward because we have a home and a Father we are heading towards.

We do not make that journey alone. We have the Paraclete, the One who is called alongside us by God to help us, to remind us of the things and life in Christ, and to enable us to effective proclaim Christ as our Lord. And oddly enough in the going and living of the life we are called to live, we get to know Jesus better. We don’t always know where we are going to be led or what we are going to be asked to do. Those things can change ever so rapidly. Nevertheless we can know who leads us through it and to do the thing God has asked us to do. We are called to witness to the reality of the resurrection of Christ to the rest of the world. The primary work of the Church is to make it know to the world that Jesus is our Lord and they are invited to come and see him and to know him. The Spirit emboldens and enables the Church to do this very thing: We are called to make it know in the world that he is raised from the dead and that he is Lord.

We live our lives in the power of the Holy Spirit we also live in the great anticipation of the gathering of the community of God. And maybe it is time that we stop worrying about the quantity of worship and started concentrating on the quality of our worship. We need to stop worrying about how many are in worship and what has been put in the plate and start thinking about how much God has given to us and therefore how we are going to respond and what worth are we going to assign to our relationships both with God and with each other. We are not called to be heroes but to be faithful followers, living the common life with uncommon courage and extraordinary love through the comfort of the Holy Spirit. So even we don’t know where exactly it is that we are going or where it is that we are being drawn to.

How will the Church go on? The Church needs to live like the oil lamps of yesteryear. The oil is not consumed all at once. It is consume drop by drop, as it is drawn from the reserves through the wick to the air where it is burnt. Each drop takes its turn and in doing so brings the burning of a lively flame. The Church needs to be aware of being drawn and used to shine God’s grace and glory on this world. And in this moment we through prayer, through bread and wine, through seeing and sharing with each other, seek to know Christ’s presence that we would know it and be blessed as we move with him to make the Father known in this world. We are not alone and we were not left as orphans. Thanks be to God for that.