The Rev. Mike Angell is rector of The Episcopal Church of the Holy Communion in St. Louis.
Christ’s friendship carries us to a new country, a new way of living, of being. Jesus proposed moving society to a place where everyone, every class and kind and age, and race and orientation and gender and ability, where everyone was gathered together around a table. Indeed Christ said that this sharing, this friendship, was already how God sees us.
Like Philip and the other early followers of Jesus discovered, the Gospel is bigger than any one of us, bigger than any one identity. To fully see the beauty of God’s good news, we are going to have to try and wrap our embrace around the whole of humanity. To fully know the love of God, we have to learn to love, learn to be loved by all sorts and categories of peopl
What would it mean for the church if we told the whole story of God, the whole story of Jesus? What would it mean if we embraced the messy, frustrating, the imperfections? What would it mean for our faith if we knew, deep in our bones, that God stood in solidarity with the wounded? That therefore God stands with each of us? What could it mean if we showed up, all of us, if our WHOLE community stood together, if no one was left out? What would it mean for our world if we each showed up, our full selves, wounds and all?
