Getting Ready for Advent, Part II: Moving out of our comfort zone


Thus I make it my ambition to proclaim the good news, not where Christ has already been named, so that I do not build on someone else’s foundation, but as it is written:
‘Those who have never been told of him shall see,
and those who have never heard of him shall understand.’
                                                                     (Romans 15:21)

 How far out of our “comfort zones” this prescription of Paul’s would take us, were we to apply it to our own forms of ministry! Most of us confine our proclamation to places where the gospel is already recognized. We preach before congregations comfortable with the idea of Jesus. We write for church-oriented publishers whose clientele is solidly Christian. We teach in institutions sanctioned (if not supported) by the church.  We lead Bible studies for those to whom the Word of God is already the source of life.

This is not to say that these endeavors are sufficient simply because we are doing them; there are always deeper and more urgent ways that the good news of salvation can be proclaimed, written, taught and led.

But imagine what our ministries would be like if we tried to walk the path that Paul set for himself. We would find ourselves not in comfortable heated sanctuaries but on wind-swept street corners. We would not be preaching to the choir but proclaiming in the darkness, buoyed by the bold conviction that “those who have never been told of him shall see, and those who have never heard of him shall understand.”

As deeply as we are moved by Paul’s example, many of us by necessity must remain, at least for the time being, in the ministry situations with which God has blessed us. Nonetheless, as we ponder once again the coming of Christ into our midst, we may pray that heart of our proclamation be seared by Paul’s burning ambition. In this way the Gospel will penetrate dark corners of our sanctuaries that we didn't even know existed. 

Shine in our hearts, Lord Jesus! 


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Feed My Sheep

Image
Trinity Lutheran Seminary in Bexley, Ohio, which last year merged with Capital University across the street, has a new dean who is widely admired. In a recent edition of her weekly newsletter, Dean Kathryn Kleinhans talked about the state of seminary education across the ELCA: “The numbers are out. This year the seminaries of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America – together – are graduating a total of 114 students available for call. That’s not even two for each of the ELCA’s 65 synods. Geographical restrictions limit even further the number of candidates available for a call anywhere in the church. Any of our bishops will tell you that the need is much greater than that!" Why are there so few seminary graduates? It's complicated, but the bottom line is that the ELCA itself is struggling. Congregations are closing or merging (and members are always lost in mergers), few are flourishing, and those who are somewhere in between are cut...
Read more

LET CREATION SING

Image
(From Sunday, March 11, 2018) Sometimes I go outside and try to feel how the breezes are blowing not around but through my body. I am a porous thing of the wind, miraculously held in place by skin -- or, as quantum physics might tell us, -- a holistic entanglement of immaterial energy waves, as are all material things. This dissolves the superior view of human-hood over against creation, of which I find myself frequently guilty, and place me in solidarity with all that is around me, animate and inanimate. The experience of being in solidarity with God's creation is a form of prayer. Listen, and you can hear all creation singing. Everywhere there is life, there is song. The Bible tell us that the entire breadth of creation shares equally with human being in actively praising God. "Let the sea roar, and all that fills it” we sing in Psalm 96, "let the field exult, and everything in it" (vv. Ilb-12a; RSV). In Psalm 98, “Let the floods clap th...
Read more

Cradle to Cross

Image
 Luke 1:46b-55 It is finished. Dare we hear, in Mary’s Magnificat, echoes of Jesus’ last words in John? If we consider Holy Scripture as God’s creative word which acts on us at every encounter, our attention to reverberations across the Gospel can bring us closer in tune with the breadth of God’s plan. In Mary’s song of praise in Luke 1 she sings not of the great things that will come to pass because of the birth of the Savior but of that which is already accomplished: God has shown strength with God’s arm; God has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts; God has brought down the powerful from their thrones and lifted up the lowly; God has filled the hungry with good things and sent the rich away empty. Her words signal the fulfillment of God’s salvific work, affirm her obedience to God’s plan, and testify that God is in solidarity with all who suffer, just as do Jesus’ words from the cross.   We read this, we hear it, we may even know it to be true, but ...
Read more