A message from the Interim Rector

Give Yourself to God - June 3, 2026

Sometimes people get confused about why we come to worship.  People seem to confuse right living with being a Christian.  Has anyone ever said to you, “I don’t go to church, but I do try to do right and to live a good life, to help people when I can; and isn’t that what the Christian faith is mostly about?”

What do you think?  Is that what the Christian faith is about?  Right living?  Doing good?  Well, the quick answer is NO.  No, that is not what the Christian faith is all about.  The Christian faith is not about us at all.  The Christian faith is not about our deeds or even our very good actions.  It is about God.  The Christian faith is about offering our worship to God.  It is about awe before God, it is about God’s love for us even when we don’t deserve it.  William Willimon, a retired Methodist Bishop, puts it this way, “Before it is anything we do, the Christian faith is about something God does, a gift, self-giving, revelation.  To reduce this faith to the merely moral, to boil down this uncontainable fire to the essentially ethical, is to demean it.  Try to lasso a wave, go hold a burning coal in your hands, put out to sea in the middle of a hurricane - that’s closer to the Christian faith than the merely moral.” (Pulpit Resource, vol 34, #1, pg40)

So, don’t confuse right living with being a Christian.  Don’t confuse moral actions with being faithful.  God as revealed in Jesus Christ is the central focus of our faith.  What we believe about God is what makes us Christians.  Our desire to live a life modeled on the life of Christ flows from our focus on God, not on ourselves.  A faithful Christian life is not accomplished by our self will and determination.  A faithful life is one focused on God who through the power of the Holy Spirit equips us to live a life following the example of Christ whose obedience and love saved us from eternal death.

Yes, we are to live a moral and ethical life but those “good deeds which we may do” are the result of our living a life focused on God.  Worship is central to the Christian life and faith because it turns our attention to God.  Being part of a faith community is critical to our Christian life and faith, because it keeps us from being self-centered and the community holds us accountable for our choices.  So don’t neglect worship, study and prayer, for it is God who is to be the focus of our lives.  This is the essence of our first baptismal promise.  Do you remember the words?  “Will you continue in the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, in the breaking of bread, and in the prayers?  And we answered, “I will with God’s help”. (BCP 304)

Don’t take God’s love for granted just because God will always love you.  Offer back to God the only gifts that you truly have to offer - your love, your worship, your life.                      

Mother Pat+