Egypt’ Land

I ran into a disturbing text this morning and immediately thought of the continuing attempts to accommodate the Church to the standards of the world.  Certainly the opening sermon of the last diocesan convention invited us into such a process of transformation.  The process was called smoltification.  Smoltification is the process of transformation in the young salmon as it adapts to the sea and becomes a mature fish. 

But what for us is the sea if not the world itself?  "The waters that you saw, . . . are peoples and multitudes and nations and tongues (Rev. 17:1). Creation is a wonderful gift, and when we are invited to set our minds on “whatever is true,” we are also invited to set our minds “whatever is pure” (Philippians 4:8).  You know the old axiom: We are called to be in the world, not of the world; and there is a difference.

Here is the disturbing text:

"Ah, stubborn children," declares the LORD, "who carry out a plan, but not mine, and who make an alliance, but not of my Spirit, that they may add sin to sin; who set out to go down to Egypt, without asking for my direction, to take refuge in the protection of Pharaoh and to seek shelter in the shadow of Egypt!  (Isaiah 30:1-2).

“When Israel was in Egypt’ land,

Let My people go!

Oppressed so hard they could not stand,

Let My people go!”

All of us were once in Egypt’ Land, why would we want to go back there again?  We already know that “If anyone loves the things of the world, the love of the Father is not in him.”  Why on middle earth would we want to transform the standards of the Church to the standards of the world?  Middle earth exists between Heaven and Hell, and those are both options.  I think I would rather take C. S. Lewis’s bus to the elysian fields of paradise than accommodate myself to the endless Shadowland that ultimately goes you know where.

Let my people go?  That’s not really an option.  I would much rather fight than switch!

For a further reflection on the sermon at convention see: http://anglicanissues.blogspot.com/2011/11/soft-cudgel.html