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A
MESSAGE FROM PASTOR MARIDEL
T.S. Eliot, in his wonderful
poem, “The Love Song of J. Alfred
Prufrock,” raises the question: “Why
should men love the church? She tells
them of death and other unpleasant facts.”
I can't get beyond the
reality that All Saints is a special Sunday for lots and lots of
reasons. It isn't just about the "communio
sanctorum," the idea that there is a community where they all reside
waiting for us to ask favors and blessings. It
is the reality that some of those who have
been called to be saints and answered the call have touched my life ...
lots of
lives ... and have made a difference in the world.
We have the church to thank
for that, I think. It certainly can be
weak and frail. We would like it to be
so much better than it is, less trivial, dealing less with the mundane
and more
with what we think really matters. Except
that it has to deal with us, and who
can be more mundane or trivial than we human beings.
The church has proclaimed that Christ
did not
disdain to die for us, mundane and trivial though we be.
A number of years ago,
Quaker
scholar and preacher, the late Dr. D. Elton Trueblood, wrote a
wonderful book
which has become a Christian classic, The Company of the Committed. This is what he wrote:
It is hard to exaggerate the
degree to which the
modern Church seems irrelevant to modern people. The
Church is looked upon as something to be
neither seriously fought for nor seriously defended.
A church building is welcomed, partly
because
it provides such a nice place for a family wedding; and, after all,
most
families expect weddings sooner or later.
A church is also a good place to send
children on Sunday morning – they
might learn something helpful, and certainly the experience of being
sent will
do them no harm…
We do not
expect, for the most part, to find the
Gospel centered in a burning conviction which will make men and women
change
occupations, go to the ends of the earth, alter practices of
governments,
redirect culture, and remake civilization … We welcome religion,
but we expect
it to be innocuous and, above all, un-fanatical. We
are willing to accept it, provided that it
involves no zeal.
Well that was hardly the
opinion of the Apostle Paul especially when he wrote his letters back
to the
church in Ephesus:
I couldn’t stop thanking
God for you—every time I
prayed; I’d think of you and give thanks.
But I do more than thank.
I
ask—ask the God of our Master, Jesus Christ, the God of
glory—to make you
intelligent and discerning in knowing him personally, your eyes focused
and
clear, so that you can see exactly what it is he is calling you to do,
grasp
the immensity of this glorious way of life he has for Christians, oh
the utter
extravagance of his work in us who trust him—endless energy,
boundless strength!
…All this energy issues from Christ! …Christ rules the church.
The church,
you see, is
not peripheral to the
world; the world is peripheral to the church.
The church is Christ’s
body, in which he speaks and acts, by which he
fills
everything with his presence.
November
6 is All Saints Sunday. On that day we
will celebrate 160 years of
being the church together. We will
remember the saints we have come to know and love right here at State
&
Lemon; and we will thank the Lord for the high calling that is ours in
Christ
Jesus. The District Superintendent, Rev.
Thomas Hauck, will be our guest and will bring the message during
worship. I hope everyone will be here for
this very
special morning. Oh! the utter
extravagance of his work in us
who trust him—endless energy, boundless strength! |
