Saturday, June 28, 2003
Saturday, June 28, 2003
Once you were not a people, but now you are God's people; once you had not
received mercy, but now you have received mercy.
Being the hands and feet of Christ involves a new attitude, a new set of relationships, active
membership in a new community of faith and hope.
Once we lived for ourselves, but now we live for God. Once our main concern was personal
comfort, now it is to do God's will. In the words of the Biblical writer, "Once we were no people,
but now we are God's people."
(1 Peter 2.10
NRSV)
Church historian Martin Marty lost his beloved wife Elsa a few years back, after a long battle with
cancer. It was a traumatic and difficult time, and a real test of his faith. He wrote about his
experience in the CHRISTIAN CENTURY magazine. "We take our friends for granted in daily
life," wrote Marty, "but when daily life disintegrates, their sustenance guards and guides our very
being." He concludes by saying, "Back in my pastoral years I resolved to have nothing to do with
theologies that have nothing to say to people waiting for verdicts in surgical waiting rooms. Now I
add a new resolve: to have nothing to do with 'go it alone' religiosities that do not even seek
congregating and community. Most of all, having been befriended, we shall seek to be friends, to
try harder to locate the friendless, who remain the world's majority." In his need, Martin Marty
discovered that to be the hands and feet of Christ is to be in community with other believers.
Dear God, help me to be faithful in being the hands and feet of Christ. Amen.
