Sacramental Living

This is the final part of an ongoing post. Part 5 is here. Part 4 is here. Part 3 is here. Part 2 is here. Part 1 is here.

What then are the responses to exile that speak into the church today? Where do appropriate responses begin?

The acknowledgement of exile must begin with local church leaders. The local church exists as a remnant as it were; the good figs that can be the conduits for the future of God’s will. The local church desperately needs to end denial and cover-up of the exilic situation. Stark awareness of the parallels between Biblical exile and the contemporary church must be accepted.

The local church, allowing for brokenness as reality, will find pain and hardship. Yet, out of this pain will flow grief. Local leaders must allow their congregations to grieve the loss of old ideologies and deluded notions of security. From grief grows the possibility for newness.

Hope in the midst of seeming hopelessness can be found again in God alone. The holiness of our holy God has proven time after time to be the wellspring of hope fulfilled. A true perspective of our heritage of faith in light of God’s holiness clearly shows that authentic faith is in direct opposition to the dominant values and perspectives of contemporary US American culture that by-pass grief, holiness, and memory in favor of the fleeting present.

The Christian community living in exile in US America must investigate the lessons from our past. Delving into the former traditions, retelling the working of a holy God in our community, leads to a new narration incorporating the memory of tradition and heritage in faith. Such a re-narration opens the way for new possibility.

What forms this new possibility will take, who can say? The Biblical perspective of exile teaches the contemporary Christian community that God alone works out something new.

With the prospect of such hope and possibility, the church can return to the business of simply being the church–being the people of God. The church is in the empire and cannot separate itself. Nor can it assimilate into the empire without losing theological identity. The community of faith must re-tradition itself to being the people of God while living in the empire. This learning process will evolve as the church moves through grief to hope and possibility.

The church can re-establish its own identity, its own culture, in the midst of an opposing system. The church, by simply being people of God, will become a social and spiritual voice. The voice may not be accepted by the world, nor even considered authoritative by the majority, but the voice must be heard. The leaders of the Us American church must speak the words of God into their communities of faith so that the church in turn can speak the words of God into the dominant cultural perspectives. Absolute devotion to God’s holiness as our only source of life becomes the method for re-narrating our present while remembering our past and looking creatively toward a future dreamed by God.

SO TELL ME SOMETHING:
What other possibilities do you see?

——

Brian Niece
www.brianniece.com
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