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Rector's Blog
Saturday, August 11, 2007
The 20th century Jewish theologian Martin Buber wrote that "all actual life is encounter." Beyond the relationships that we have with ourselves and others where we exercise projection and objectification (seeing ourselves for who we want to be and making others into who we want them to be) there are those relationships--few and far between--of the highest order: where beings meet one another in their authentic existence. This is actual life, and it is possible for us to reach, to truly encounter (and yet not encapsulate) someone or something on its ground of being.
It is a fact that with regard to this highest order or relationships plenty of people never venture here. With God and others they are content to live with what makes all of us comfortable: structure, information, the past, the present, and the immediate. And it is a fact also that plenty of churches never venture here. Actual life with God, risking encounter, signals that we are vulnerable. It is more comfortable to live with what we've known, on the terrain that lies under our feet already that we know how to walk, and in language that is now familiar.
But we at St. Timothy's are a people who risk encounter with the living God. We are on an adventure. Beyond who we want God to be, God who is authentic existence reveals Himself to us, a God known in Scripture as "I am," who as Trinity is utter mutuality and encounter even in God's self. It is this authentic existence that God invites us to join him and be sent in mission in our world. And the capacity for us to live into this encounter with God, actual life with all its risks, is opened to us through following Jesus by practices of faith, or "marks." These are measures of our responsiveness, and by practicing these marks (see the "7 marks of a Disciple" on the inside cover) we create the space and place in our lives for God's mission in our world.
To practice is to risk. And to risk ourselves before God is to honor God. And that is who we are: St. Timothy's in fact means "to honor God."
Your practice of Sabbath-taking worship is one mark of that: at its best it is a signal that you are ready for encounter, you are ready to risk, you are willing as you are able to be moved by the One who not only was, and is, but the One who is to come. Be ready, says Jesus: for in worship together we can move more than our lips, we can life up our hearts.re willing as you are able to be moved by the One who not only was, and is, but the One who is to come. Be ready, says Jesus: for in worship together we can move more than our lips, we can life up our hearts.
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