Lord of the prophets, grant your people bold voices in proclaiming your word to a world that is afraid to embrace your truth. Keep us steadfast in your word. Amen
Recently some politicians have decried statements of the Pope Francis suggesting that he should tend to things spiritual and leave things political alone. Such suggestions were rarely heard when past popes had addressed topics, such as, abortion which were often exploited by some for political leverage. But behind the idea that the Pope should keep silent or should speak only to certain subjects is the issue of the intersection of faith and life.
I am not sure how one separates faith and life in that way. We teach that from the moment we are baptized God is the central reality in our life and that we have been freed from sin and death to be a new creation in the Body of Christ. Christ’s whole ministry was spent impacting the everyday reality of people’s lives. He fed people, he healed people, and he taught people. He taught them about the practical realities of sin and grace and how to live their lives as caretakers of the least of these.
Each Sunday we confess together that God is the creator of all. In Genesis we learn that as creator God has given us a tremendous responsibility as stewards of that creation. Such stewardship means a responsibility to care for, protecting and nurturing, this planet rather than exploiting and abusing it.
We confess Jesus as our Lord and Savior speaking of God incarnate and present to us in the midst of history. Jesus calls us to love God and neighbor showing us how by loving we are to set aside self interest for the good of all. Jesus shows us the power of the cross and how accepting the limits of life daily and the contrasting abundance of life with God sets us free to pour out our lives for others.
And we confess the Holy Spirit and all the ways through which God continues to support and nurture us. In the Holy Spirit, God is continually reforming our lives by grace through faith, through the support of community, through the sacraments, and a promise that the end of this life is not the end of our relationship with God.
What the Pope sees and understands is that for the believers true faith touches every aspect of life. There is no way for it not to impact politics because it impacts life. It shapes how we interact with our world as creation, it opens our eyes to see the suffering and the needs of those around us, and it calls, gathers, enlightens, sanctifies and keeps us in love with God and our neighbor.
If one’s faith is not impacting the choices one makes and the way in which one lives life why would one bother with attempting to claim the label, “Christian.” Just calling oneself a Christian means very little. Following Christ and living out our baptismal calling is what it means to be Christian. To be a Christian is to be continually reformed, “imago dei,” in the image of Christ. Being a Christian has consequences, it is what Dietrich Bonhoeffer called, “costly grace.” It is God who fashions saints out of sinners setting them loose in the world and that changes everything.
Recently some politicians have decried statements of the Pope Francis suggesting that he should tend to things spiritual and leave things political alone. Such suggestions were rarely heard when past popes had addressed topics, such as, abortion which were often exploited by some for political leverage. But behind the idea that the Pope should keep silent or should speak only to certain subjects is the issue of the intersection of faith and life.
I am not sure how one separates faith and life in that way. We teach that from the moment we are baptized God is the central reality in our life and that we have been freed from sin and death to be a new creation in the Body of Christ. Christ’s whole ministry was spent impacting the everyday reality of people’s lives. He fed people, he healed people, and he taught people. He taught them about the practical realities of sin and grace and how to live their lives as caretakers of the least of these.
Each Sunday we confess together that God is the creator of all. In Genesis we learn that as creator God has given us a tremendous responsibility as stewards of that creation. Such stewardship means a responsibility to care for, protecting and nurturing, this planet rather than exploiting and abusing it.
We confess Jesus as our Lord and Savior speaking of God incarnate and present to us in the midst of history. Jesus calls us to love God and neighbor showing us how by loving we are to set aside self interest for the good of all. Jesus shows us the power of the cross and how accepting the limits of life daily and the contrasting abundance of life with God sets us free to pour out our lives for others.
And we confess the Holy Spirit and all the ways through which God continues to support and nurture us. In the Holy Spirit, God is continually reforming our lives by grace through faith, through the support of community, through the sacraments, and a promise that the end of this life is not the end of our relationship with God.
What the Pope sees and understands is that for the believers true faith touches every aspect of life. There is no way for it not to impact politics because it impacts life. It shapes how we interact with our world as creation, it opens our eyes to see the suffering and the needs of those around us, and it calls, gathers, enlightens, sanctifies and keeps us in love with God and our neighbor.
If one’s faith is not impacting the choices one makes and the way in which one lives life why would one bother with attempting to claim the label, “Christian.” Just calling oneself a Christian means very little. Following Christ and living out our baptismal calling is what it means to be Christian. To be a Christian is to be continually reformed, “imago dei,” in the image of Christ. Being a Christian has consequences, it is what Dietrich Bonhoeffer called, “costly grace.” It is God who fashions saints out of sinners setting them loose in the world and that changes everything.
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