God's Dream for Our World

On Sunday, I zoomed with the youth of our parish and provided space to talk about the recent protests in our city and nation. One student had participated in the protest in Winnetka. I asked what message really stood out to her and she replied, “Using white privilege to end white privilege.”

No doubt, we interpret those words very differently as individuals in our community. I hear these words as they relate to the gospel and following Jesus.

Faith in Jesus Christ commits us to a path of conscious transformation from self-centered, to God focused and neighbor focused. On this path we inevitably run into things we were taught by our culture and family that need healing, change and even rejection.

In his book Crazy Christians, Michael Curry writes, “Being a Christian is not essentially about joining a church or being a nice person, but about following in the footsteps of Jesus, taking his teachings seriously, letting his Spirit take the lead in our lives, and in so doing helping to change the world from our nightmare into God’s dream.”

As I gazed on the young faces of our youth in the zoom squares, I thought, here is the truth, individuals did not cause racism. We unknowingly perpetuate it.

The church makes God’s dream real. And part of that is to follow Jesus who said, “Go and sin no more." As we reflect on the protests chanting black lives matter, we must reckon with the sin of racism. We know that sin is both known and unknown. And part of our sin is corporate, meaning we participate in sin that is larger than individual life. Recognizing the church has done a lot to contribute to it and to dismantle racism over the years, we are called to wonder about our part now to play in God’s dream.

God’s dream becomes real as God’s people repent, pray and love God’s dream into reality. We can all participate in the healing needed in our society in some way.

Christianity is a journey of becoming. In this email there are resources to center you on God’s dream for our world.

With you on the journey
Lisa+