Embracing in a Detached World
-JUSTIN RYAN BOYER-
What has been your experience in the past with unity efforts in the wider Church?
Do you tend to be outward focused on others or inward focused on yourself?
Loneliness is on the rise. The pandemic strengthened the power of separation and digital means of interaction can only be of temporary benefit. Add to this the divisions already in place and isolation becomes not just a concept in our head but a physical reality of distancing ourselves from one another.
The Church is marked as being /CATHOLIC/, that is, universal, in the way it embraces all in Christ.
Past any kind of hierarchy that would disconnect individuals from being made in God’s image, being dignified yet fallen, being in need of God’s love and holiness revealed in Jesus, the Church is all-embracing in proclaiming the Good News and expanding God’s household.
As we see part of our identity in this way, it helps to bring light into the shadowy rooms of our loneliness, because God sets the lonely in families. In John 10, Jesus teaches us about the broad /EMBRACE/ of the Kingdom of God as we are brought into the New Creation.
“I am the Good Shepherd. I know my own sheep and my own sheep know me. In the same way, the Father knows me and I know the Father. I put the sheep before myself, sacrificing myself if necessary. You need to know that I have other sheep in addition to those in this pen. I need to gather and bring them, too. They’ll also recognize my voice. Then it will be one flock, one Shepherd.”
YOU NEED TO KNOW is a pretty big highlight in the text. It suggests the importance that seeing beyond ourselves is beneficial for our own faith. And so part of our mission is to realize that God is working outside of us and to welcome the “outsider” because the Gospel is for everyone everywhere.
This starts in the intimacy of our own lives, but by being obedient in the small it can grow into local churches not being isolated from one another.
“The church is catholic since its borders are open and it resists any attempt at tribalism.”
-Michael Bird, Theologian-