I listened to an interview of an older couple with no children. They listed their fears of the future. “Who would speak up for them if weare neglected?” And the husband added: “And we are very afraid that we could be scammed.”
He speaks the fear that so many of us have. It is not only the poor who are using social media to steal from you, but also some veery well-educated, well -rained people with substantial incomes already who are out there to take from the innocent and ttrusting seniors.
If you get a new phone call or an e-mail, you become suspicious. To protect yourself you hang up! And then you share this experience with your coffee-friends and they upload you with more scam stories that you are prepared to listen to.
This sense of being weary affects so many other areas of our life and society. Who can I trust is telling me the truth?
It also affects our practice of religious faith. What is the truth? What is of divine revelation?
Whose life can I believe?
In all this turmoil and confusion there is some light. Our situation today challenges each person, “Are you authentic? Is your life a living witness to the life and mystery of Jesus Christ? “
So many of the people we associate with are wonderful humana beings with very solid values. Many of these people practice a sense of justice which works towards equality and respect for all human beings. These are such wonderful secular people.
But where is the mystery of God in their lives? And they will turn around and challenge so many of their neighbors who identify as a Christian, “But can I see in your life a touch of the Gospel of Jesus Christ? Are you putting into practice what you claim to believe in?
This puts us back into the life of the first Christians. They were an illegal religion. But they stood out in a world of steep social inequality, (the majority of the first Christiain were either poor or were slaves) by their concern for one another. The pagan neighbors noticed there was a very big difference in these people who claim to follow Jesus.
We must return to becoming a faith community that evangelizes. We seek to bring people to believe and share in the very life of Jesus Christ. Call everyone to the Christian life; a life of conversion and growing in the mystery of Jesus Christ.
Many traditional Christians in all our churches are confused by this, but we need to walk with them to recover the sense that our first task is to call people of believe and walk in the way of Jesus (i.e., gospel living).
No comments:
Post a Comment