Sunday is always an adventure. We found a nearby international church. We followed the directions but when we arrived, the doors were locked and there was no church.
So we church walked (which means walk as fast as you can) to an Anglican church 15 minutes away. Incidentally, our daughter just joined an Anglican Church in Colorado Springs and we attended worship with her this December. We were prepared for a lot of up and down and kneeling.
I had read about St. Matthew-in-the City online and liked the proximity but Jesus was not their focus…sadly. Their mission statement sounded very secular: A SPIRITED PLACE WHERE PEOPLE STAND, CONNECT, AND SEEK COMMON GROUND.
This is not a church but more of a do-gooders club. It was unusual for Google to classify it as a woman run business but, sure enough, the leadership at the altar were all women.
We missed the Old Testament reading, the New Testament reading AND the Gospel reading which is just as well as they had run out of bulletins and we would not have been able to follow along.
The leader was just starting her sermon. She was soft spoken with a thick NZ accent but I heard some good points…and ones that were frightening.
We are called by name. Samuel was called by name four times. Jesus was called by name. Philip and Nathaniel were called by Jesus. We are all called and have a calling.
God called out for Adam…even though He knew where he was and what he had done. In Eden, hiding from God was more brave than eating the apple. When God asked “Where are you?”, he had to come up with an alibi. Disobeying is easier than Repentance, admitting that you did something to offend to God.
The Summons
Will you come and follow me
If I but call your name?
Will you go where you don’t know
And never be the same?
Will you let my love be shown,
Will you let my name be known,
Will you let my life be grown
In you and you in me?
Will you leave yourself behind
If I but call your name?
Will you care for cruel and kind
And never be the same?
Will you risk the hostile stare
Should your life attract or scare?
Will you let me answer prayer
In you and you in me?
Will you let the blinded see
If I but call your name?
Will you set the prisoners free
And never be the same?
Will you kiss the leper clean,
And do such as this unseen,
And admit to what I mean
In you and you in me?
Will you love the ‘you’ you hide
If I but call your name?
Will you quell the fear inside
And never be the same?
Will you use the faith you’ve found
To reshape the world around,
Through my sight and touch and sound
In you and you in me?
Lord, your summons echoes true
When you but call my name.
Let me turn and follow you
And never be the same.
In your company I’ll go
Where your love and footsteps show.
Thus I’ll move and live and grow
In you and you in me.
By John K. Bell. and Graham Maule; Based on Matthew 19:21; Genesis 48:16; 2 Thessalonians 1:12; John 17:23; John 14:20; Job 39:11; Isaiah 10:3; Psalm 146:7
Journalist, John Roughan of the New Zealand Herald wrote a thought provoking article in 2007. (And it is even more scary today.) He was in a communist country and he asked his Russian guide if he could go into the nearby church. He stopped, and they went inside. His guide walked all the way to the altar as if he was a safari guide and they had stumbled upon a watering hole. Even a non- churched person would not intrude. The people praying did not react either.
If you aren’t raised in the church, you haven’t been conditioned. Even though we know better, the time may be coming that we don’t know about church. (We were in a USA church where the pastor’s son went up to the altar after the worship service and took the communion bread and treated it like a snack cake.) As we become more apathetic and secular, we take from this world what we want. Post Christian attitudes are taking shape. We have freedom to exile God. Is this what we will do with freewill? Is He Lord of all or not at all?
What will be your faith story? Hold fast, my friend.
We went up to the altar for communion. The congregation was elderly with lots of wheelchairs, walkers and canes. Kneeling was a challenge for most. Rob and I requested to dip the bread into the wine. However, a piece of the bread fell into the wine!!! What to do? We just pretended it didn’t happen.
There were prayers for Ukraine, Papua New Guinea, Israel and Gaza, Yemen, Syria, Afghanistan, and Iran
Leave a Reply