Rowan Williams says that the church exists to respond to God’s invitation. By church he meant the entire body of Christ, not congregations, denominations or buildings. I’ve been reflecting on what that might mean for me and those who attend my classes.
What is the nature of God’s invitation? In ordinary terms, an invitation is to be asked to join with others in an event exclusive to those who are invited. God’s invitation, as extended through Jesus, is to everyone in any time and every place. No one is excluded. In ordinary terms, responding to an invitation is to enter the event and leave when it is over. Responding to God’s invitation is to enter God’s presence and be sent out to do something. What sort of something would that be? Even more odd, God’s invitation is a never ending cycle of entering only to be sent out again. It never ends.
I think for us ordinary people leading ordinary lives, the invitation is to begin learning now how to live in to some portion of God’s kingdom. It means learning to live with the godly love of benevolent presence and godly love with others. To be a Christian is to be a life long learner progressing in awkward steps as a disciple of Jesus Christ. In the words of St. James, it is to be doers and not just hearers of the Word. Part of being a doer of the Word is learning to be an agent of the invitation. What can that mean? It is that we each learn in different ways, at different rates, with different skills and interests.
When Jesus told his disciples not to worry about what they were to say, that the Spirit would give them the right words, he meant not to worry about a one size fits all right way, not to compare one’s self against what others do or don’t do, just relax, do what you can as you are able in your own way. But do it always with Jesus at the center, never at the periphery. It’s not that easy. No doubt that’s why Williams calls Christianity a life of learning.
I suspect most Christians attend worship to be nourished by Word and Sacrament, and leave without giving much thought to having been sent out as agents of God’s invitation. And why not? The pressures of daily life easily drown out God’s call to be doers and not just hearers of the Word. Paul, in his many letters, urged new Cristians to be wary of surrendering to social pressures about status, wealth, and power as signs of success for acceptability. Yet they were not to exclude themselves from society. Instead, in the face of doubts and weakness but with confidence, enter that world as servants of God’s love with steadfastness. No one can do that in one giant leap of faith. That’s why being a Christian is a learning process and the church is, at least in part, a place of learning. There is no graduation, at least not in this life. There are no degrees. Everyone willing to learn is good enough, and good enough is an acceptable standard in Jesus’ eyes.
Does that mean one doesn’t have to try very hard? No. To accept God’s invitation is to surrender to the indwelling of God’s Holy Spirit leading ever farther and deeper according to one’s gifts and abilities into the ways of servanthood. Christians are not called to be saviors of others. They are called to be servants of others as agents of the only savior, Jesus Christ. The Christian life is not one of perfection but one of incremental faithfulness even in the face of doubt. It is a life of servanthood.
Servanthood may be the hardest obstacle to overcome. We tend to be fixers of problems we see in the lives of others. We complicate it by wanting to be pleasers anticipating needs that may not exist. Failing that, some of us turn to assertion of authority over others backed up by intimidation, anger, and postures of superiority – anything to avoid becoming mere humble door mats. Servanthood in the way of Jesus Christ is to be confident in one’s self as a child of God and able to engage others as they are, regardless of condition. It’s a difficult lesson to learn. God’s servants such as Harriet Bedell and Mother Teresa succeeded by entering into the life in cultures of those they came to serve. Others like Marcus Whitman failed by disrespecting the dignity of others unlike themselves, assaulting them with the superiority of their own way of life as the only acceptable Christian way.
Responding to God’s invitation is to enter the process of becoming more fully human, filled with holy humility which, paradoxically, is to be filled with confidence and courage to engage others in Christian love.