Magyar Egyház, 1977 (56. évfolyam, 1-12. szám)
1977-08-01 / 8-9. szám
people of God; the gathered family of God; the called of God. Therefore, the church must place God and obedience to Him at the very center of their worship and work.” Christians like Paul felt themselves to be part of “the body of Christ” on earth, to use a familiar figure of speech. The spirit of Christ found men separated from each other and from God and gathered them into his own nature. This, said Paul, explains our personal experience of being saved in Christ, and the being and the purpose of the Christian Church. But it was clear to him that the church is not so much an organization as it is an organism, with Christ as head and heart; a church is not so many branches and twigs heaped in a great pile; it is a mighty tree, deeply rooted in the universe, with branches lifted to highest heaven. The church is of God! In that is her destiny and her duty. This, then, is the lesson—a hard lesson—a lesson we are either reluctant to study or, as we understand it, refuse to learn. The lesson I think can be phrased rather sharply in some such way as this: When we become Christians, we step into a sacred community; when we become Christians, we become brothers one of another. When we become Christians, the closer we come to the One who is the center of our faith, the more deeply involved we become with each other. Jesus Christ finds us separated from each other and from God and offers us a new two-way relationship with each other and with God. That is why it is the duty and the destiny of the Christian communion here and everywhere to encourage us who are its members to reach out toward each other and toward the world in which we live and seek to serve. We do this not because of our goodness but because of our calling, our destiny. We believe that the spirit of Christ which is the life of the church has called us into this new relationship of love and cooperation. That is why we regard ourselves as a called community, not a contrived community. For this we are most grateful to the One who has called us into this unity and who has given us a work to do that is consonant with our calling. This, then, is our destiny and our duty as Christians: “God has designed us in love to be His sons through Jesus Christ.” Paul grasped at once one of the initial implications of this conviction: “God has made krumm to us . . . His purpose in Christ . . . to unite all things in Him. . . .” The church was created by God in Christ to preach the Gospel to all men. The church is sustained by God's love and power as it seeks to hear this witness. The church is answerable MAGYAR EGYHÁZ_____________________________ to God, primarily to God, anad finally only to God for her stewardship of His will. Obviously, the church has failed repeatedly and fails today to do His will, but in His mercy it finds forgiveness and new commitment. So churchmen the world over are finding a new, yet old, meaning in the very nature of the church and they are saying, “We are the new community called into being by God in Christ, and we belong to the church not simply when our names are in the membership book, but when we feel deeply a part of the power of the love of God which sought expression in Jesus Christ and in the Christian tradition. Then, and only then, do we belong to the church.” This, then, is our duty and our destiny, rather our duty in our destiny as a church, as a called community, called of God in and through Christ to be the one through whom His love comes to focus in the lives of men. This is a duty to be fulfilled: Fulfilled in the face of the hard facts of personal and social problems—and we are the ones to do it to the very best of our ability. It will not be easy; it has never been easy. We shall have occasion many times to remember what we should never forget: That the central symbol of the Christian faith is a cross on which a man died in order to make all this real to us—and there are still crosses enough to go around. But if the church be of God, as we claim, then we must bring the whole range of life and history under the judgment of His will as we see it in Jesus Christ. We do this, not because we think we are better, or wiser than anyone else, but simply because it is our duty and our destiny to do just that! Even as the New Testament Christians looked the Caesars of their day in the eye and said, “Thus didst thou!” we must look the lords of the earth in the eye today and do the same thing—and keep on doing it as long as we live and profess the Christian faith. We are supposed to gather all things in heaven and in earth together in Jesus Christ and for His sake. We are called to be the ones through whom the love of God is made real! We are called of God to take this Gospel to the ends of the earth and to the very depths of the human heart and human society! And we have as our sole—and ample—reward the twin conviction that we are doing our duty and that we are not alone as we do it. Membership in our communion is but the beginning of our involvement with each other and with the Christ we seek to serve and the Gospel we seek to proclaim. I trust and pray we shall find ourselves in Christ Church going forward together day after _______________________________________________7
