9 Pentecost Luke 12:32-40

This summer, on Sundays after worship, many of us have been discussing Phyllis Tickle's

book The Great Emergence: How Christianity Is Changing and Why.

She posits that the church is now in the midst of an historic upheaval, a time of

foundational change that cuts to the heart of our identity and leaves us anxiously

scrambling for order, authority, and a certainty that has disappeared.

This means God's church is in a wilderness time between Egypt and Canaan—no longer

slaves to yesterday, not yet settled in the promised tomorrow.

God's people have been here before, and have always emerged stronger on the other side,

but Scripture and history teach us that the wilderness passage is much too anxious and takes much too long.

Perhaps one day little Thomas John Loeffler, in the back seat of a car, will repeat the cry

of all God's people: "Are we there yet?"

There have been moments among us when versions of that same question have been asked: Where is this book going?

When will we get to a credible reassurance that this will all be okay?

Can we get to a point where we can talk about this without interrupting and

arguing so much?

The room has sometimes taken on the anxious tension of an awkward funeral—the

church as many of us know it has died, and some of us are grieving, and some say

good riddance, and who knows what others are talking about or why they think

that's important.