Endless Opportunities

Chris­tian­ity works — no mat­ter the cir­cum­stances. If it is accepted by the world around it, then it is an agent of sac­ri­fi­cial love. If it is rejected by the pow­ers that be, it is still an agent of sac­ri­fi­cial love. It does not wait for a cheer­ing audi­ence. Prac­ti­tion­ers of this ancient reli­gion know that God alone is the audi­ence. There are some believ­ers that think it works best under the worst cir­cum­stances. They may be right. After all, it is the most para­dox­i­cal of all of the reli­gious modes in the world today. To its credit, it has out­lasted all of its per­se­cu­tors.
When things are going badly, it is there to help. When things are going well, it is there to help. It resists all efforts to be com­man­deered by the world. Church prop­er­ties and build­ings come and go, but the peo­ple it changes are eter­nal. The more they under­stand Chris­tian­ity, the more free they are — even under the most enslav­ing cir­cum­stances. The world defines human well-being as hav­ing enough food and safety. The Chris­t­ian def­i­n­i­tion goes beyond that to spir­i­tual aspi­ra­tion. Jesus assured his fol­low­ers that their phys­i­cal needs would be met if they put their spir­i­tual nature first. Real­ity is ulti­mately on the side of the heav­enly par­tic­i­pant.
Chris­tian­ity has no party affil­i­a­tion. It tran­scends them all — in every coun­try. Its con­cern is for much more than the social good or the smooth oper­a­tion of any gov­ern­men­tal the­ory or mech­a­nism. In fact, part of its call­ing is to make social and gov­ern­men­tal sys­tems very uncom­fort­able — not by protest but by selec­tive and quiet non-participation (and also by going beyond the call of duty). With its feet on the earth and its head in the clouds, it con­nects heaven and earth.
What hap­pened to Jesus is what tends to hap­pen to his church. At times he was loved and adored. At other times he was ridiculed, mis­rep­re­sented, lied about, beaten, and killed. Chris­tians are taught to expect this and not whine about it. They see end­less oppor­tu­ni­ties in the impos­si­ble. They bet their tem­po­rary lives on eter­nal possibilities.