What does it mean to be faithful?

During worship planning this week for church, the guiding question for our scriptural discernment became: "What does it mean to be faithful?"  Moira Rogers is a professor at EMU, in the Language & Literature Dept. and came up with a beautiful reflection to share this morning:

[Faithfulness is] accepting God’s invitation to partner with him in the creation of His New Jerusalem: a city of beauty, a city where all are welcome, a city that does not need to close its gates with fear of who may enter.

Faithfulness means raising our sight, opening our hearts and minds to God’s powerful vision for creation and for all humans, and being willing to become agents of wholeness and restoration.

Faithfulness requires of us the capacity to accept surprises that upset our orderly views of the world and become artists who ride the waves of an elusive reality gracefully, empowered by his love and guiding Spirit.

The last line is what grabbed my attention in worship: becoming "artists who ride the waves of an elusive reality..."  Wow!  What an amazing description of the almost-but-not-quite Kingdom of God!  Phew.  I threw this YouTube video together, using these words as well as music from a composer in our congregation, Jim Clemens, and some fair-use-friendly visual art from my favorite Lectionary site.

Hope you like it!

[UPDATE: Had to remove the YouTube video for some copyright concerns from Moira.]