Last week, at one of the morning services at the Conference, one of our African bishops spoke powerfully about how Jesus himself is the gift, even before he does anything, heals or feeds anyone, and, he said, we have to ask, ‘What if the Church itself is the gift, the sign of something new and life giving, even before it solves any problems, brings peace or prosperity or education or medicine?’
It’s a very good question. And if we want to answer that, yes, the Church itself really is the gift, then the Church has to look like a gift. It has to look like a solace where people don’t seem to be alone or trapped, anxious and fearful: a place where people seem to live in a larger more joyous and hopeful atmosphere, and where they are treasured and nourished as precious images of GOD.
Churches that are divided and fearful and inward-looking don’t easily give that message; and our Anglican family badly needs to find some ways of resolving its internal tensions that will set it free to be more confidently what GOD wants it to be. Part of our agenda at this Conference is to do with this. But our willingness to work at it constructively has a lot to do with hearing good news from our own members ”“ the sort of good news we’ve heard something of this morning.
The ABC said,
“…a place where people seem to live in a larger more joyous and hopeful atmosphere, and where they are treasured and nourished as precious images of GOD.”
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I take issue with the declarative statement “…precious images of GOD.”
That statement implies that, in situ, we are “precious images.”
The whole story of God since He revealed himself to Abraham has to do with our “imperfection.”
God, in His ‘face to face’ conversations with Moses” were very, very, very concerned with humanity’s “imperfections.” God did not choose the Israelites of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob because they were “perfect images,” on the contrary, He chose them because He wanted to transform an “imperfect” people into a priesthood that would be an example, His example, to the rest of the World.
So, enough of this “perfect people” rhetoric. We are NOT “perfect” and that is why He sent His Son Jesus Christ to us to lead us to “perfection” through Salvation and all that Salvation entails.