DARKNESS OR LIGHT
Dear Friends in Christ:
My friend Br. Kevin Hackett SSJE concluded a recent sermon at the Chapel of Saint Mary and
Before you speak today, pause for a moment and ask yourself, will what I am about say bring light and life in to being? Or will it be something else, something more murky? Darkness or light? Simple choice, really. Simple. Not easy.
We live in difficult times, to be sure, but how we speak about these times and about the challenges we face can, as Br. Kevin pointed, bring darkness or light. It is not a question of optimism, of whether we see the glass as half-empty or half-full, it is a question of hope, our hope in the Word made flesh. Is God still God, is God still with us – Immanuel – in these difficult days? Is God still with us when the size of our parish’s investments shrinks? Is God still with us when people are predicting, after the recent meeting of the General Convention, the death of the Episcopal Church?
I get up every day with faith that God has not abandoned us and that God’s intention is to provide us with all that we need to live as faithful Christians, as faithful members of the Body of Christ, in Saint Matthias Church, in the Diocese of Western New York, in the Episcopal Church, in the Anglican Communion, in the world. We have been called to share in the missio Dei, God’s mission, “to restore all people to unity with God and each other in Christ.” (Book of Common Prayer, page 855) We may well look at the resources that we think we have and say, as the disciples did when they considered five barley loaves and two fish as lunch for 5,000, “what are they among so many people?” But we have been called into fellowship with the God of abundance and we need to have faith that God will not leave us or fail to provide us with all that we need.
At Bible study several years ago a dear friend who had taught much more about God than I could ever teach her said, “We should pray that God would send us the new members that we need.” My response was quick and I suspect that God was responsible for it. I said, “I think we have all the members we need for right now and that, when we begin some new work in ministry and need new members, then God will send them.” I believe that we have enough and can trust God to provide what more we need when we need it. On Sundays in July we had conversations about the parish’s work in mission and there were some challenging suggestions offered. As a community of faith we still have some work to do in discerning what new adventures in mission God might have for us, but I am convinced that whatever God has planned for us we will be able to accomplish because God will provide all that we need. I suspect we will be stretched as we respond to God’s call, but I know that when God calls us, God does not fail us.
Your elder brother,
Daniel
