We are not the Amish who disdain modernity from technology to theology. But neither ought we be of the world as well as in it. Our Lord had something to say about that. So, what is the best thing the Church can do for the modern world? In a word, evangelize it. Everything and anything else that the Church can do for the world must flow from that. While it may not always seem opportune, the mode of the Church is first of all witness and confession before a world for whom Christ died as much as for the faithful who know His mercy.
At the same time, it is worth recalling that about the last word anybody in the Church wants to hear is evangelize. We have too many bad memories of folks standing on our porches, knocking on our doors, and asking us where we will go if we died tonight. As pivotal as that terror was to most on either side of that door, the days of door to door evangelism have come and gone. People do not receive people they do not know and sit inside watching on their phones as their Ring Doorbells give them video of their unwanted visitors. I understand it. The home is less a place to welcome folks than it is a refuge from the world. Of course, that has become more difficult by the numbers of those working from home. But they have no interest in being bothered by unwanted intrusions, either.
Yet this is not the primary or even the more effective way to evangelize. The work of witness is done whether or not people are doing it deliberately or not. We are always in witness mode. Parents before their children, all of us before our peers, neighbors, and strangers, and the Church before the world. It is not a matter of programs but of the call to be ready to answer for the hope that is within us. The world is not always ready to hear the Gospel but they are always looking for hope, for confidence in the face of uncertainty, and for the assurance that they and the world around them is not simply some random mess. They world yearns for real hope. Is that not why the world has placed such confidence in technology and worships science? We may not know the name of God, but we know the name of the icons of technology (the Bill Gates and Steve Jobs of this world) and we know the name, the face, and the voice of medical science in the form of Dr. Anthony Fauci.
Perhaps the most profound way we manifest our hope in life is to give witness to the hope we have in death. Christian funerals have become a joke. Where we might have a profound witness to the end of death and the beginning of life that death cannot claim, we have surrendered to the sentiment of stories (usually at the expense of the deceased) and songs and words that are meaningful to us. Our best witness to the world is not our charitable work among the poor and needy but our confession that Christ has overcome death and the grave and delivered us to everlasting life. That is not to disparage works of mercy but to put them into their proper perspective.
Furthermore, the piety of our people is itself a powerful witness. Instead of trying to convince the world that Christians are just like everyone else, we ought to be manifesting our set apart lives before the world. We ought to show evidence of our growing holiness and righteousness as the Spirit is at work in us sanctifying us by the Word and Sacraments to become the people God has declared us to be in our baptism. In our thoughts, words, and deeds we ought strive to become more like Christ and this is surely the work of the Spirit every bit as much as His labor of rescuing us from the captivity of our sin and restoring us through the absolution of Christ.
Finally, the work of evangelization happens with the support and power of prayer. Praying for the world and specifically for the world to know Christ and the power of His resurrection ought to be foremost in our daily devotions and prayers. When people ask what they can do, the first thing we need to remind them to do is to pray, pray for their neighbors, for their family members, and for unnamed strangers who do not yet know Christ and His death that gives us life.
What does the Church have to offer the world? Christ. What is the best thing we can do for the world? Evangelize it.
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