Till they listen

"But how can they call to him for help if they have not believed? And how can they believe if they have not heard the message. And how can they hear if the message is not proclaimed. And how can the message be proclaimed if the messengers are not sent out. As the scripture says, 'How wonderful is the coming of messengers who bring good news.'"

Karl Barth once said, “We have to read the Bible in one hand… and the newspaper in the other.”

I guess I write a bit more than most blogs, this 5-days-a-week thing, but it is my way of connecting. I also write a column for very small newspaper here in my town, and this past week a couple came to the church simply because they read me every week and wanted to hear me preach.

That makes three people in a year, but who is counting?

The point this morning is that limited though the readership might be on these things, I hope they at least stir some limited amount of discussion about what it means to live in the Kingdom in American in whatever year you're reading them.

When disaster's strike, I'll comment.
When politics wander into religion, I'll comment.
When right invades left and left invades right and we flounder, I'll comment.

Doesn't mean I'm right. Doesn't mean I'm more knowledgeable about all these things because I'm not. But how can we call to him for help is someone hasn't pointed the way. Near as I can understand my role, limited though it might be, that's what I will try to do.

One of the best things I've read recently is a Q&A with writer Shane Claiborne who says, "The best critique of what is wrong is the practice of something better. So let’s stop complaining about the church we’ve experienced and work on becoming the church we dream of. Let’s keep refusing to accept the world as it is and insisting on building the world we dream of. Don’t let the haters have the last word. There are folks who burn the Koran and hold signs saying, “God hates fags” and all sorts of sick things — and they often hijack the headlines with hatred. We know that is not what Christ was like. Jesus has survived the embarrassing things Christians have done in his name. So let’s get back to a Christianity that looks like Jesus again. After all, he said that they will know we are Christians — not by our bumper stickers and T-shirts—but by our love."

Seems to me the direction to head in the storm of storms. Love has to be the answer to it all, the whys we do we do as it were.