Real religion, the kind that passes muster before God the Father, is this: Reach out to the homeless and loveless in their plight, and guard against corruption from the godless world. (James 1:27 – The Message)
While witnessing the news report of the 2005 Tsunami, Australia’s Micah Challenge coordinator, John Beckett struggled:
“Strangely my mind did not turn to questions about God and suffering as one might expect. Rather, the question at the front of my mind was whether I personally had any responsibility to respond in this situation. I was certain that it was the responsibility of the people of God to respond in this situation. I also had a clear understanding of myself as one of the people of God, but was it my responsibility? If so, in what way?”
His questions brought about the article “Evangelical Catholicity-A Possible Foundation for Exploring Relational Responsibility in a Global Community (Evangelical Review of Theology, April 1, 2010)?” It is a wonderfully concise piece that relays a new definition of Catholicity and its decree for our involvement in the world. Beckett challenges the old maxim of catholicity (Universal Expansion, Complete Faith) and redefines it much more thoroughly as:
“it is the mission of individual believers to live in the local church as an anticipation of the catholic people of God, to invite others into that community, and ultimately to become that community.”
He goes on to explain that in this definition the idea’s of identity and mission become mutually determinative. That is to say that we cannot have one without causing the other.
“The catholic identity of the church requires that it continually moves beyond itself, meaning that the church’s catholic identity becomes a motivation for mission” (Beckett).
This poses a series of brutal question for the communities we are in. Are we looking outside of ourselves? Are we fighting for those outside ourselves?
When we learn about the Anti-Gay Bill and the Lord’s Resistance Army in Uganda, the Arizona Immigration Law, and the tragedies in Haiti and the gulf of Mexico, do we (like Beckett) recognize that something must be done? Do we see that we can be the ones to do it?
Do we envision and establish our Gospel Communities as agents of change in the world? Are we the ones offering water to those who are thirsty, beds to the weary, and protection for the persecuted (Matthew 25:31-46)?
Or have we divorced the imago Dei (image of God), from the missio Dei (mission of God)?
Kierkegarrd warned that “there is a (dangerous) view of life which holds that where the crowd is, the truth is also, that it is a need in truth itself, that it must have the crowd on its side.” He rallied that this “crowd…in its very concept is untruth, since a crowd either renders the single individual wholly unrepentant and irresponsible, or weakens his responsibility by making it a fraction of his decision.”
It is quite possible that we have become so immersed in our local communities that we have forgotten about our personal duties as believers. Have we let the immediate actions of self-serving ministries and the distance of world events numb us to our responsibility to act?
It is not farfetched to argue that we can easily get lost in the identities of the “crowds,” groups, and organizations that we belong to and thus lose sight of our individual calling to present ourselves “to God as ones approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth” (2 Timothy 2:15).
I believe that the fellowship of the Saints is the primary way God reveals himself to us and to the world (Immovable Saints In Matters of Little Import), but even in this “crowd,” this “community,” we must remember that we are “individually members of it” (1 Corinthians 12:27). We are individually responsible to love God and represent Him in this world, by loving others.
If your “crowd” (the church you attend, your preferred body politic, your profession, or even your age group) has forgotten the calling to be an active light in this world, then you (as well as I) may have placed our feet on a loose foundation.
Its hard to know where to start and how to take action. I know that's no excuse for not taking action. I long to be the person who hears of the injustice and helps the hurting. This is a real challenge.
I believe strongly in individual responsibility, but we as Christ followers greatest impact is to corporately within a local community embody the Gospel of Jesus Christ. We need to take seriously the reality that we will one day stand before One who will require an accounting. My prayer for myself and those close to me will not be found to have buried our talent(s) in the ground.