Who Sends Us Out to Be the Good News
BELIEVE
One of my great laments of modern Christianity is that it has become a noun. Much of what I read abut faith, is about the what rather than the how. To be a follower of Jesus has gone from following Jesus to being a follower of Jesus. To believe has become more about agreeing with the truth of a doctrinal statement that something that guides our actions. The point of this creed is not only to give us language for what we believe, but what we do with it.
BEING SENT
In the book of Genesis we learn about the father and mothers of the three Abrahamic religions. Their names were Abram, Sarai and Hagar. The amazing thing about their story is that it all begins with being sent. They were sent by God to a new place, leaving behind everything safe and familiar and go to a new place. They didn’t know where they were going or how it would end. They left home, community and inheritance of land to go to a place God would show them. I believe it was this being sent out that prepared them to begin something new.
TEARS AND LAUGHTER
The Angel of the Lord came to Abram and gave him a new mission to become a father. This after what one can surmise was a lifetime of trying unsuccessfully. A whole list of verbs had to take place before he could be the noun, father. I picture candles and soft music and much cajoling his wife who was 99 to give it one more try. In Judaeo Christian circles we often overlook that Abram already had a son with Hagar who was His wife’s slave girl. As Sarai got pregnant at 99 years old while Sarai laughed, Hagar wept.
SO THAT
Accompanying this promise to be something new was the reason why. The Angel of the Lord said, “I will bless you (with a child) and make your name great so that you will be a blessing.” This is the core of our identity too. We have been blessed to be a blessing. When God chose Abram and changed his name to Abraham it came with promise and a call. God’s call then and now is to bless, “All of the nations of the earth.”
THE CALL TO GO
The call of Moses included the daunting task of liberating God’s people from Egyptian slavery. The call of David was to face Goliath and later to lead with justice and righteousness. When Jesus was calling his disciples he told them they would be fishing for men. Jesus’ last words to his disciples were to go into all the world and make disciples. The point of being blessed is to go and do and be.
CARROTS AND STICKS
In October of 2017 we celebrated the 500th anniversary of the Reformation. The central question they were debating was the nature of how we are saved from the fires of Hell. Is it by grace or by earning through good works or purchasing merits in the form of indulgences. This was a much needed argument at the time. The church had set up a point system that included things like, attending mass, viewing religious objects, going to confession and giving money to the church. The carrot at the end of the stick was heaven. The noun at the end of the stick was, “saved.”
DEPARTURE
Threats of Hell or promises of Heaven have been a great motivator for the church for a really long time. These promises have lost their effectiveness at motivating people to attend church and give it their money. It is in part why people in droves have left organized religion. Thankfully they have not left the idea of loving their neighbors. I read recently that the, much maligned for living in their parents basement, Millennials have become the most giving and sharing generation of the planet. They give a higher percentage of their income and time to charity than any other living generation. Unfortunately for the church much of their giving and serving it is not in the offering plate or on a church committee
SO THAT
It is time for the church to shake of the rust of the reformation and get to work. The point of the work can’t be saving souls. Like Abram, God is calling us out to a new place, to make our communities not our churches the focus. We gather for worship so that we can connect and be reinvigorated to go out and love and serve our neighbors. As you may see from my writing, proper grammar is not my strength, I am however committed to getting my nouns and verbs right, and not forgetting the prepositional phrase, “so that.” We are blessed, “so that,” we can be a blessing.