From Bishop Katharine's sermon:
... [When we Christians fish for people] [t]he goal is a healed society where all have the dignity that comes of right relationship with God and neighbour. We usually call it the reign of God, or the common weal of God. That commonweal of God work is a prophetic vocation, often deeply unpopular and challenging, and born of the dream that dignity for all is a deeply divine warrant. That kind of prophetic witness, in both word and deed, is what made Jesus so offensive to the powers at hand.
...
Dignity means a sense of worth, suitability, or honour, and it is the state in which God created all that is. The indignities came later. One of the eucharistic prayers in the Episcopal church's prayer book says that we have been created worthy to stand in God's presence. When we treat others as less than that, we reject God's good creation, and in a very real sense, we deny our own dignity. Prophetic work helps to restore the dignity of creation, and acknowledges that creation reflects the utter dignity of the creator. We get in trouble when we limit dignity to lesser things, or deny dignity to some....
Lovely words to remind us what we are to be about if we call ourselves Christians - followers of Jesus.
Thanks to John Chilton at The Lead for the excerpt from the sermon. John does a compare and contrast that you may want to check out.
Photo from Episcopal Life.
Lovely words, indeed! But then, she is a lovely human being.
ReplyDeleteBishop Katharine is a lovely person, Göran. I've met her twice, briefly, and she is warm and down to earth.
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