May 27, 2021

Just one more from Jayber Crow, the titular character in Wendell Berry’s most excellent novel. 

“I have read the Gospels over the years (and) the belief has grown in me that Christ did not come to found an organized religion but came instead to found an unorganized one. He seems to have come to carry religion out of the temples into the fields and sheep pastures, onto the roadsides and banks of rivers, into the house of sinners and publicans, into the town and the wilderness, toward the membership of all that is here.”

Don’t get me wrong; I’m excited to get back inside Christ Church for our worship services, but Jayber is spot on. Jesus says, “I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.” (John 10:10) And that life is for everybody everywhere.

“Almighty God, on this day you opened the way of eternal life to every race and nation by the promised gift of your Holy Spirit: Shed abroad this gift throughout the world by the preaching of the Gospel, that it may reach to the ends of the earth; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.” (Collect for the Day of Pentecost – BCP)