The Family Album

"The Orphan Church" book quote:



(Photo Credit: S.M.R.)



Going to church, where I go to church (Orthodox), constitutes worship within the context of an old fashion family reunion. Some family members just have to be kissed and honored because in honoring them we honor God and the family of faith as a whole and that honor reflects back on us because we are honored to be in the same family. Not only do we regard our spiritual ancestors, we cover the walls with their special pictures lest we forget that we are not alone when we come to stand before the Lord Most High. We stand before God as the family, not as a group of individuals. Over there is St. Anthony, and over there is the Virgin Mary. And some angels are hanging around as well. Not only do we believe they surround us—they are present— in the great cloud of witnesses (Hebrews 12:1), we remind ourselves of the meaning their lives communicate to us. In some manner they reveal God to us. No, we do not worship the saints, we worship WITH the saints and we worship AS the saints (as one). We pay our spiritual ancestry the same respect any sane person would be expected to pay his most upright earthly father and mother.

Why are moderns so disrespectful to their parents? Why are so many of the redeemed expressing a lost-ness in their “personal” salvation? Why are so many who are attending church feeling so disconnected? Why are so many walking around as orphans? Perhaps it is because somebody hid the family album and the family story tellers have gone silent and everything has become mono-generational.