It would be so easy…

Michel Quoist was a French priest and author (1918-97). A recently published collection of some of his best short writings and prayers includes the following. It could have been written by anyone actively involved in the life and work of Holy Trinity Church.

Many activists in the Church today are tired. They find themselves up against so many difficulties and misunderstandings up against so many difficulties and misunderstandings that they want to draw back and take a rest.

Then again, there are young people who announce that they have no intention of doing as their parents did. They want to have time to live, time for themselves.

Finally, some of the most committed people think that they may even be on the wrong road, that they ought to pray more and leave the action to God.

This is a serious state of affairs. God did not give us a world “off the shelf”; he gave it to be created by us. Christians cannot retire to their tents and refuse to take on this task. More than any others, they are called to take it on, according to their abilities. This is truly authentic love for their brothers and sisters.

To have a living faith does not mean that we run away from the building site to ask God to do our work for us. It means that we give all our energies to the job at hand while asking God to work with us.

After these opening statements, Quoist goes on to speak to God in a series of prayers, each of which opens with, “It would be so easy…” In these prayers he summarizes the temptations all of us face to simply give up the struggle and “have free evenings again, and weekends to enjoy.” “It would be easier, Lord, to stand aside and not get my hands dirty, to watch others fighting and debating…”

These words were written three or four decades ago in a different land and a different culture, before social media and the Internet, but they speak powerfully today nevertheless. They describe the pessimism many of us feel about the present and future of the church. But God does not allow Quoist to end with resignation and pessimism:

I refuse to accept your resignation, says the Lord. Don’t listen to your voices, they don’t come from me… Nothing will be done without you and without your brothers and sisters, because I have wanted you to be responsible together

for humankind and for the world.

But nothing will be done without me either…and perhaps you have forgotten that.

Go now, little one, and sleep in peace,

and tomorrow

you and I,

I and you,

together,

both of us with your sisters and brothers, we will take up the struggle again.

There’s a new world coming. Believe it! But do we leave it to Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos and their like to envisage and create the new world? The church was given a mandate by the Lord to create a new world, a new vision of life. Are we bold enough to take on that mandate now, two thousand years after it was given? You and I…with your sisters and brothers, God spoke to Michel Quoist in the conclusion of the meditation and prayer from which I quoted here. God says the same to us here at Holy Trinity Church in Portland. We only have this community to work on and work with. But it’s precious work. God and we together will continue to build a community that will be part of the new world that God – not Mark Zuckerberg or Jeff Bezos – is building. Be part of the building crew.