[amc] a note from the pastor
- From: "garland robertson" <pastor@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "Austin Mennonite Church" <amc@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 22 Dec 2006 09:45:40 -0600
Members and Friends of Austin Mennonite Church
I pray you are consoled by the peace and good will initiated in the birth of
Emmanuel.
Love promises the kingdom. How we celebrate this prerogative of Advent!
How we rejoice in this declaration! And how we crave the fulfillment of
this pledge! Yet we secretly suspect that this is not a promise for us,
now. We remain uncertain about how this process will work. We yearn to see
confirmation that something is actually happening to transform disorder into
harmony and unrest into contentment. Rather than peace and good will, we
see tension and disturbance in all directions; products of greed and
arrogance; consequences produced by self-serving actions that disrupt
community and inhibit the anticipated arrival of the heavenly kingdom in the
earth. Have we misunderstood the message? Are we overlooking the evidence?
Are our measurements of progress based on incorrect assumptions of what this
transition will look like? Perhaps love does not function to deliver the
kingdom of God to earth. Perhaps love initiates a process whereby the
kingdom emerges from obscurity to revelation. Maybe the divine kingdom has
always been here on earth, and we are being prepared by love to incarnate
it. These thoughts will compose the sermon for this next Sunday, 'Being
prepared for kingdom's site.'
May it go well with you. Sincerely,
Garland Robertson
...always hold firmly to the thought that each one of us can do something to
bring some portion of misery to an end
Other related posts:
