Some Final Thoughts

Some of you have heard me say that there are three things that bind us to the ancient church as far back as the apostles. The first is a vigorous proclamation of the name of Jesus, the second is the confession of the ancient creeds and the third is to remember the poor. All three of these are as old as the church itself and, in many ways, when you forget one or more of them you stop being a church. These are the things that make us different from other groups that do nice things, and sometimes they are the things that make us different from some who claim to be Christian.

When we remember these children in Ecuador, when we collect shoes and clothes and send money for scholarships and buy nativities and speak of them in our prayers, they keep us Christian. They make our hearts bigger, they remind us of the strength of our faith by seeing the strength of their faith, they remind us that the possibility of ministry in the name of Jesus is as large and grand and wide as our imagination. I know that we do things closer to home that help us in all of this and those things are equally important. But I believe that this is not a case of either/or, but both/and.

There is no doubt that it is important to remember the neighbor that you see, the one who lives in our community. But now we also remember the neighbor who lives a bit south of the middle of the earth. And you know what? They remember us too! They pray for us and send us the best they have to offer, and in this we are bound together over all of these miles in the one, holy, catholic and apostolic church, just as we say every week.

May God bless us so that we may be a blessing to his world and in doing his work, be blessed again.

Peace from Ecuador for the last time, this time!