The Rt. Rev. Craig Loya

What Are We For?

From the Bishop

Beloved in Christ,

Last night, I had a lovely dinner at a new-to-me restaurant. When I sat down, I was relieved to see a very small menu. I tend to find a menu that is several pages long paralyzing and oppressive rather than liberating and exciting. 

Modern life can be like that. There are so many things vying for our attention and energy, competing for our loyalty and commitment, promising something satisfying and meaningful. But we can’t do all of them, and sometimes trying to choose from among so many options can feel like confinement, not liberation. 

True freedom is found not in unlimited options, but in clear purpose. “For freedom Christ has set us free,” Paul tells us in Galatians, and liberation in Christ isn’t about doing whatever we want, but knowing deeply what we are for: joining God’s project to heal the world with love, and inviting others to know the freedom of doing so, too. 

As our nation enters fully into another election season that, whatever else happens, promises to rend the fabric for our common life even more deeply, the first question for us is not, “what should we do?”, but “what are we for?” We are for the healing power of love in the face of the horrendous evils and massive injustices of life in a fallen world. Anything we do must be firmly rooted in the soil of that clarity if it is to be faithful in this moment. 

Beloved, in a world of so many competing choices, in a season of great conflict and uncertainty, I believe that Jesus Christ is living, wounded, and present right here among us in a palpable and real way. I believe that Jesus, and Jesus alone, has the power to give us the freedom we so long for, to offer us the healing the world so needs. In the months to come, we don’t need to fix, control, or resolve all the things that will be hard, we simply need to keep coming back to Jesus, joining our wounds and the wounds of the world to his, trusting in God’s power to transform us into bread for a world that is starving. 

Grace and Peace,

The Right Reverend Craig Loya