Pastor's Blog: In The World, But Not Of It
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This week in our pastoral staff meeting we were looking at the upcoming MBBC calendar when someone mentioned that Monday was “Indigenous Peoples’ Day.” Clearly, political correctness has even seeped down now to our Apple calendars so that we can’t even enjoy a good long weekend without being reminded of our inherited guilt as occupiers of a land that our ancestors discovered and then took over.
Be that as it may, I’d be the last person to ruin a good guilt trip. While at first I was inclined to dismiss my calendar reference as the latest attempt to get me to own something for which I was somehow unconsciously responsible, I have decided instead to reflect on how my faith reminds me that I am actually a pilgrim and still a seeker in search of a home.
Granted, I do live in a nice house in Liberty Park, where we have displaced animals to construct dwellings for humans (which makes you wonder when someone will come up with an “Indigenous Animals’ Day”). But the deeper truth is that I am only passing through this life and that my true home is far away, where displacement and oppression have been done away with through the blood of Christ.
That’s not to say that my life here on earth shouldn’t in some way be devoted to addressing indignities and injustices. If the work of disciples is to join Jesus in bringing God’s Kingdom purposes to pass on earth as they are in heaven, then certainly righteousness demands that we do our best to make sure the scales are balanced for all persons and that no one is marginalized by majority voices. Setting our sights on heaven doesn’t mean we turn our backs on Planet Earth. It means more that we hold our entitlements loosely so that we might be in a position to identify with the oppressed in the same way as did Jesus and help them discover a possession that nothing or no one will ever take away.
How interesting that the day before “Indigenous Peoples’ Day” on the calendar of the church is “World Communion Day.” It’s a day when we consider setting our sights beyond denominational boundaries and divides for a common observance of an act of worship focused on the sacrifice of a Savior who while on this earth “had no place to lay his head.”
So, when in worship this Sunday when we pass the bread and the cup, think of what Jesus did on your behalf and how that act of love links you to a community of faith much larger than you might imagine. Think as well of the “great cloud of witnesses” that have gone before you and have already found their rest in him. Know that one day you will be with them in a place where all things will become new. While you won’t be able to pinpoint that coming day on any calendar, you can set your heart even now on its certainty and live steadfastly and obediently and always joyfully in the confidence that God has given you the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
Enjoy your long weekend, but remember that a better day is coming; and when it comes, what a day of rejoicing that will be, because we’ll finally and forever be home.
“Now we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, an eternal house in heaven, not built by human hands” (2 Corinthians 5:1).