Change

The Church must change, not only in order to attract new members and grow, not simply in order to survive as an institution. The Church must embrace change if it is to embrace the mission to which Christ is calling it in the 21^st century: a mission to be Jesus to a world which is increasingly divided, increasingly broken, increasingly secularized, and plummeting semi-obliviously toward disaster. How can we be Jesus’ loving hands (multiplying bread and fish); how can we be his healing presence (casting out demons and raising the dead); how can we live his Paschal Mystery—dying to ourselves and being raised up for others in our world today? A world that, in California, looks like four-lane freeways and identical shopping outlets; tucked-away migrant labor camps and lonely oncology wards? A world that, in San Salvador, looks like bright children with an uncertain future, unwieldy bureaucracies top-heavy with corrupt officials, the price of beans and corn doubling so people can eat half as much, a dozen young lives a day cut off by uncaring violence, families on two sides of a wall that prevents them from seeing each other, maybe ever again?

I don’t have a strategy or technique for being Jesus in the middle of all of this. I know that it is important to keep love several blocks ahead of fear. I know accompaniment is key—it’s important just to be there with people; to show up. And I know that mission is about transformation—of the world in Christ’s image, yes, but first and foremost, of ourselves. It won’t happen by sitting still. That transformation-that-is-mission happens when we allow ourselves to be turned inside-out by others’ reality, which we come to realize is our reality too. Then, there is true solidarity: we stand together. Then we can start to talk about change in the world, together, because we ourselves have been changed.

Change is terrifying to most human beings. Yet change is also the most organic, natural thing in the world. Our bodies’ cells are constantly changing themselves, being renewed and transformed every minute; if they weren’t, we’d be dead. Change can be drastic and sudden, or gradual, but it is never total—we always bring something of the old with us, even if it’s only in the imprints of our hearts and minds, in the shaping of who we are. Change is life. To be open to change is to be open to the work of the Holy Spirit. Ultimately, it is she who will breathe into us the power to be Jesus to the world. -Amy+