There are people among us who are hungry and we are not offering food.
There are people among us thirsty and we have not offered anything to drink.
There are people among us who are crying out to be seen and known and we are not offering the comfort and love that is the right of every human.
Shame on us that we so are mired in the busyness of rearranging irrelevancies, creating new rules and programs, arguing over money, and studying our problems that we are neglecting the very essence of our call.
Our mission as a people of God is simple. For what are we asked but to 'do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with our God?'
Deep in our souls we know that there is no strategy for achieving these ends beyond the commitment of our very lives. We know that we 'shall be redeemed without money' and that the purposes of God cannot ultimately be encumbered by institutions or rules or bishops or finances.
Yet what is preventing us from giving ourselves over to this Good News?
Are we afraid of the implications? Are we afraid of the simplicity? Are we afraid that our egos, our need for authority, our desire for power and control will not be recognized and affirmed in this order of things?
Let us set aside these fears, for they are distractions preventing us from participating in God's re-creation of all that is right and good.
Let us, instead, embrace the voice of the prophets who, throughout the ages, have called us to a higher truth.
Let us proclaim this a time of Jubilee when all debts are canceled and all grievances forgiven so that we may be free once again to reclaim our mission, our purpose, our mantle of hope and love, our very call from our Creator.
The world is waiting.
