The speaker was none other than Mark Rutte, now the premier of the Netherlands for over ten years. What did the church mean for us in these difficult days? he asked, answering with the word: ‘Togetherness’. What really counted in life? he continued. Not ‘more, more, more’, or ‘me, me, me’ but togetherness, ‘doing unto others what you would have them do to you’.
Reading Paul’s words from Romans 12, Rutte defined the good life as life in the service of the will of God – ‘his good, pleasing and perfect will’ – and not being conformed to the pattern of this world. In other words, he said, not going along with the crowd, as exemplified by Luther who stood for his convictions.
The corona crisis had confronted us with our smallness, the premier admitted, citing a fisherman’s prayer which John F. Kennedy had hung in the Oval Office: ‘O God, Thy sea is so great and my boat is so small.’ Which was why we needed each other, and the church, he stressed. For in church we were not alone, we were together. And that was something we could not hear often enough.
Source: Jeff Fountain - "Togetherness", Weekly Word eNewsletter for 2 Nov 2020
https://us9.campaign-archive.com/?e=0b86898e11&u=65605d9dbab0a19355284d8df&id=cdb1197607
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