Life Together

I want to share this excerpt from “The Future of the Covenant In the Postmodern World” written by Jay Phelan, President and Dean of North Park Theological Seminary.

Phelan writes:

In the Covenant I think we have a chance to offer to the world a grown-up faith, a faith that can handle ambiguity, a faith that can handle hard questions, a faith that can accept people even when they are wrong, a faith that permits disagreements and encourages discussion, a faith that is able to say “I’m sorry” and “I love you,” a faith that looks out for the suffering and marginalized and shares with them the love of Jesus, a faith that is mature because the word and will of God are internalized. We have a chance, I say. We could also fall back into the safety of the old nanny or engage in adolescent “acting out,” and refuse to leave either childhood or adolescence.

There are all kind of people in families. There’s the conservative Uncle Bob, who lives in the suburbs and votes Republican. There’s liberal cousin Lisa, who lives in a city co-op and works with the homeless. One brother is an Army officer, another a devoted pacifist. One brother-in-law is a law officer in favor of capital punishment. His wife pickets at the prison whenever a life is to be taken. These opinions are real, profoundly different, and in some senses not compatible.

But you stay together because you are a family and have a common ancestry and common commitment. You stay together because you are grown-up people and not adolescents. Jesus, as you know, called his disciples from all sorts of backgrounds and persuasions. He expected them to stay together, whatever their differences; because, however serious those differences, they had him in common. And they had his mission in common: a mission of God’s generosity, grace and longing.

God does want lost people found, and lonely people, and broken people, and confused people, and angry people, and frustrated people. God wants all people found and restored to the family. The Covenant Church has a chance to help people find such people, if we can avoid insularity, squabbling, and childishness, of which we are all capable.