"The vision still has its time."

First, remember that all of us have been called into the church to labor.  Yes, to labor.  To be saved is to be sent.

Secondly, we didn’t create the church.  Christ did.  We don’t give the church its mission.  Christ does.  The work of the church doesn’t necessarily align with our goals, which isn’t to say that those goals aren’t grand and worthy.  Some probably are; others, perhaps not.  Yet the vision we serve predates us; the vision summons us; we don’t adjudicate the vision; we are judged by it.

For the vision still has its time,
presses on to fulfillment, and will not disappoint;
if it delays, wait for it,
it will surely come, it will not be late.
The rash one has no integrity;
but the just one, because of his faith, shall live.
(Habakkuk 2:2-4).

Sometimes a loss, or a weakness, of faith doesn’t lead people out of the church.  It leads them into an evangelical lethargy.  Lacking confidence and patience in God’s vision, they substitute their own.  They’re upset with church leaders, church teaching, church congregations.  All their talk is of future church, future bishops and priests, future congregations.  Our God is the God of Is.  The devil deals in what might be.

The church always stands in need of reform, because it is not the Kingdom of God.  It serves the Kingdom.  It attends the vision.  But we must always guard against impatience with the vision, or lack of confidence in it.  Then we’re tempted to replace the church, to which Christ has called us, with one, which we create, and which exists nowhere, save in our minds.  Saints reform the church by serving Christ in the church.  The weak in faith are often seduced into becoming pundits.

Here is one of those Gospel verses, which we don’t often quote.  It sticks a bit in the contemporary caw.

When you have done all you have been commanded,
say, “We are unprofitable servants;
we have done what we were obliged to do” (Luke 17:10).

Surrender is scary, but it allows confident rest.  St.  John XXIII used to say to himself, at the end of each of his days as pope, “Lord.  It’s your church.  I’m going to bed.  ”

From "From Groceries to Gospel".  Terrance W. Klein
 (http://americamagazine.org/content/good-word/groceries-gospel)
 October 3, 2016.