"...and I am one of them."

Would you like to receive a letter like this?

This seems a cheerful world, Donatus, when I view it from this fair garden, under the shadow of these vines. But if I climbed some great mountain and looked out over the wide lands, you know very well what I would see--brigands on the high roads, pirates on the seas; in the amphitheaters men murdered to please applauding crowds; under all roofs misery and selfishness. It is really a bad world, Donatus, an incredibly bad world. Yet in the midst of it I have found a quiet and holy people. They have discovered a joy which is a thousand times better than any pleasures of this sinful life. They are despised and persecuted, but they care not. They have overcome the world. These people, Donatus, are the Christians -- and I am one of them.
---St. Cyprian, c. 258, a letter

If Cyprian was my friend what would I say in answer to his letter? Would I tell him "I am one of them"? Drug abuse, abortion, the highest murder rate in the the western world, Sexual abuse tolerated, women and children abused through pornography; would we say it is a bad world but in spite of it all we have become a quiet and holy people? Are we despised and persecuted like they were in the first churches? No way. Maybe we would be different if we were persecuted. Can we pray for that?

I hope our community is radical enough to be seen as counter to this messed up world. So I want each individual to be radically committed to overcoming their personal worlds of addictive, relationship damaging sin. We must speak to that and seek that change in our community or we will become irrelevant like most churches.

Holiness should not lead to arrogance but to a deep desire to love our neighbor. That will be the measure of our faith. Will we sacrifice? I think so. I see it happening already. Will we live radically different. Will we speak to our neighbors with our lives?

Cyprian spoke to Donatus in about the year 258. Who will write about us? What will they write? Will they want to say, "I am one of them?" after watching us?