Until we can see the chasm between what is and what ought to be, we don't have any hope of changing. Indeed it is the act of crossing that boundary between what is and what ought to be that is so characteristic of prophets ... Prophetic words of comfort or challenge urge a kind of frontier work -- getting across the fence between fear and possibility, reconciling division, transforming injustice, urging the lost onto the road home. Bishop Jefferts Schori preached those words to us in the context of a General Convention wrestling with the challenges of re-imagining and restructuring our church to meet the challenges of mission and ministry in the 21st century. She was preaching to a congregation of people who love their church and strive to live out the Gospel while not always agreeing with each other about how to do both of those things. And she was challenging us -- and, I suspect, challenging herself (because we know all the best sermons are actually the preacher preaching to the preacher) -- to suck it up and get over that fence between fear and possibility in order to bridge the gap between what is and what ought to be in our church and in our world.
Until we can see the chasm between what is and what ought to be, we don't have any hope of changing. Indeed it is the act of crossing that boundary between what is and what ought to be that is so characteristic of prophets ... Prophetic words of comfort or challenge urge a kind of frontier work -- getting across the fence between fear and possibility, reconciling division, transforming injustice, urging the lost onto the road home.
ReplyDeleteBishop Jefferts Schori preached those words to us in the context of a General Convention wrestling with the challenges of re-imagining and restructuring our church to meet the challenges of mission and ministry in the 21st century. She was preaching to a congregation of people who love their church and strive to live out the Gospel while not always agreeing with each other about how to do both of those things. And she was challenging us -- and, I suspect, challenging herself (because we know all the best sermons are actually the preacher preaching to the preacher) -- to suck it up and get over that fence between fear and possibility in order to bridge the gap between what is and what ought to be in our church and in our world.