“But you
are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God's own people, that
you may declare the wonderful deeds of him who called you out of darkness into
his marvelous light.”
I Peter 2:9
The
French author Georges Bernanos published
a few decades ago one of the more interesting sermons I have ever read. What made it so interesting is that he wrote
it from the perspective of an agnostic, an outsider to the Church. If we let a unbeliever into one of our
pulpits for twenty minutes on a Sunday morning, what exactly would he or she have
to tell us about ourselves and the faith we claim to profess? I will read you just a small portion of that
sermon:
Need
I remind you that God came in Person to the Jewish people. They saw Him.
They heard Him. Their hands
touched Him. They asked for signs; he
gave them those signs. He healed the
sick and raised the dead. Then he
ascended once again to the Heavens. When
we seek Him now, in this world, it is you we find, and only you. Oh, I respect the Church—but the history of
the Church herself, after all, does not surrender its secret to the
first-comer…It is you, Christians, who participate in divinity, as your liturgy
proclaims; it is you ‘divine men’ who ever since His Ascension have been His
representatives on earth. Well, you must
admit that one would hardly know it at first glance.[1]
