It is sometimes a very difficult thing to serve the Lord in the Church, for the Church itself is a communion of sinners destined to become a communion of saints. It is equally difficult to serve God in the family because it also is a communion of sinners. Some families have no desire to become a communion of saints and that difficulty is magnified. In the process of growth and communication with each other we occasionally suffer, but God allows that suffering to us as a means of grace whereby we become more like the Christ who suffered and died for us. We suffer, in part, because we love. Love often entails suffering. Sometimes that suffering is grievous.

Saint Paul had direct experience of that suffering when he said, “Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am filling up what is lacking in Christ's afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church [Colossians 1:24 ESV]. You and I share that suffering in the give and take of opinions in the Church, opinions that we sometimes hold very strongly. In the family sometimes that suffering is without the expectation that family members share our commitment to Christ, or that they understand the call to active Christian discipleship. The suffering becomes very acute when we are called, as we always are, to surrender our wills to the Lord of all.

Our Lord remarked to one saint, “I have told you that the will alone is the source of suffering. And because my servants are stripped of their own will and clothed in mine, they feel no grief in their suffering but feel Me in their souls by grace and are satisfied.” We suffer, in part, precisely because we have not surrendered our wills. When the birch tree bends with the wind, its very flexibility stops it from breaking. The more inflexible the tree, the more it will suffer in the blowing of the wind.

We work out the surrender of our wills in community, in the family, and in the Church. One Benedictine author put it this way, “The family is not just a routine relationship; it is our sanctification.” The Church is the family of God. Sanctification is almost a lost concept in the Church. It refers to the process of becoming more like Christ in the surrender of our thoughts and feelings, in the surrender of our wills and intellect, in the surrender of our very bodies themselves. We work through this process in the relationships in our family and Church where we have been called to serve. Neither the service of God, nor the suffering that occasionally attends it in family and Church, is optional for the children of God. It just is.

With great clarity and force God our Father commands us: “to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace” [Eph.4:1b-3]. Fellowship with God, and with each other, rests on the foundation of God’s will revealed in Holy Scripture. In both family and Church we live under authority, and that authority provides a safe harbor for us by placing boundaries on our actions, and by directing us toward our future hope. “Bearing with one another in love,” in family and Church, is sometimes very hard to do. That ultimately depends on the surrender of our wills to Him who loves us.

Mature people understand that they can accept somebody without approving of their words and deeds. If you stop and think about it, you do it all the time. Good parents, and there are some that aren’t, accept their children even when they do not approve of what they do. In the Church we are allowed a wide variety of opinions on secondary matters because we share a central focus on Christ present with us. In the family we often have no uniform allegiance to Christ and the responses to Him can range from rebellion to joy. Regardless of what differing opinions we have, we are not at liberty to reject each other, to despise each other, or treat each other in a loveless fashion. “The anger of man does not produce the righteousness that God requires” [James 1:20 ESV], only love does!

These are difficult times for God’s people on many levels. We suffer in the family, in the Church, and even within the Anglican Communion. In the midst of that suffering we are called to surrender our wills to the Lord of love. We are called to love each other. We are called to love those who will allow themselves to be loved. We are even called to love those who flee love.

In Christ’s Love,

Father Rob +

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