“Then the righteous will
answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see thee hungry and feed thee, or thirsty
and give thee drink?” St. Matthew 25:37
“Love
God. Love your neighbor. Change the World.” For some years this was the official tagline
of the Episcopal Church, the slogan you would see on the denominational
website, the mantra repeated by the Presiding Bishop at official gatherings. Under the leadership of our current presiding
bishop, Michael Curry, the new tagline is, “The Jesus Movement.” But the
“change the world” language does get trotted out from time to time. It has an enduring to stir people’s hearts
and to get them thinking big about the implications of following Jesus Christ
in the life of the Church.
Some of you
will know that Fr. Mac and I do a fair amount of writing for The Living
Church’s Covenant blog, and this week
there was a compelling article by our friend Dan Martins, the Bishop of
Springfield, about this slogan, “Love God.
Love your neighbor. Change the
World.[1]” Bishops Martins acknowledged, “It’s catchy,
it’s memorable, and you can’t really argue with it without sounding hopelessly
curmudgeonly.”
