Mtr Kelli Joyce

“Whoever serves me must follow me, and where I am, there will my servant be also.”

Dear Friends in Christ,

One of the most frustrating things about Christianity is that neither intellectual understanding of God nor good works that we do in the world are enough, on their own, to meet the standard that God has set for us. We are called not merely to believe in God, but to believe God - to believe that what God says is true, and that what God wants for and from us is good. We are called not only to pray and believe and worship correctly, called not only to service and charity and work for justice. We are called, instead, to turn our whole lives over to Christ. Our thoughts, our resources, our time, our hopes, our failings - God wants to redeem them all through Jesus.

In practice, though, that kind of Christian living - all-consuming and overriding - will call us to follow Jesus wherever he goes. To the homes of tax collectors, and the dinner tables of sex workers and law-breakers, to the bedsides of the sick, to the defense of the outcast, and ultimately, always, to the cross.

If we want to be close to Jesus, we cannot shy away from the places in this world where crosses are found. We must be willing to lose everything - including our good reputation - for the sake of God’s children. As we enter into Holy Week and hear again the story of Christ’s Passion, hear it not only as what happened to him two thousand years ago, but also as what we are called to be willing to face today, for the sake of the truth.

In peace,
Mtr Kelli