Acknowledgements

Gospel: Matthew 10: 24-33

What does it mean to "acknowledge Christ"?  We are told from the preachers that it means to assert faith in Christ, accepting him as our personal Lord and Savior.  The priests will tell us that to acknowledge Christ is to recite a creedal formula written and decreed by the approved theologians.  But the idea of such verbal assertions about an ethereal idea of a heavenly being or our abstractions about Jesus from the historical past seem hollow and unrealistic in the face of mounting body counts and victims of religion.

No.  To acknowledge Christ is not to participate in any of these stage performances.  Rather, to acknowledge Christ is to recognize the presence of Christ in another person, in all persons.  It is to regard others as another Christ and to treat them with dignity and respect, to extend mercy and care for them in feeding them, providing them drink, sheltering them, clothing them, visiting them in their sickness and imprisonment, and in welcoming them in all people.  

We can continue to engage in religion as playing house, i.e. in pretending to be real with our scripts, play acting, and fineries.  Or we can actually be in the house engaged in the real undertaking of the household.  The former is easy and requires little from us.  The latter is much more challenging, for it is the work of Jesus himself, who sat in the houses of others engaged in the needs people have - in healing them, liberating them from demons and fear, and nourishing body and soul.  This is to acknowledge Christ.