faithful witness
IN 2017, on a year-end retreat, the leader asked what descriptive name we might like to claim for the coming year. I thought a bit and said “elder.” When asked why, I smiled: “Because I could share wisdom without taking responsibility.” It was humorous, but serious too.
In my life I’ve had my share of taking responsibility for organizations and movements in ways that have been rare privileges. I was the legislative director for a U.S. senator working against the Vietnam War. I started an institute committed to strengthening churches’ care for the earth. At the World Council of Churches, I directed its work on church and society, including beginning its focus on climate change. Then the Reformed Church in America selected me to be its general secretary. I played a significant role in beginning and directing Christian Churches Together and served as chair of the board of Sojourners and as president of the Global Christian Forum Foundation. All these efforts involved grace and pain. And, at this point in my journey, all have ended.
Now, I wonder where you are in your long journey of soulwork and justice. Maybe you’re in early days, with new roads and big challenges that are so daunting. I want to share that with you because it is your inward journey with God that will sustain you in your outward journey, joining in what God is doing in the world.
The witness of Christian faith in the public square, if done authentically, has always required spiritual alertness. New crises erupt almost daily, tempting us to endless reactivity. You will need inward spiritual grounding that can make a practical difference in political engagement, social action, and outward witness. Your vision, starting point, and disposition will bear the distinctive features of the Christian witness that scripture and prophetic voices have and continue to note. I invite you to tend, sit, read, pray, and act. Let God ground your life. Over many years and many times of chaos, I’ve identified eight elements that contribute to a spiritually alert, faithfully rooted witness.
What does the Christian life consist of? What does God expect from us?
Here’s Jesus’ answer, according to Matthew’s Gospel: “Wait faithfully. Together. Or else.”
Sure, that isn’t an exact quotation, but it sums up — again, according to Matthew — what Jesus says to his followers when he instructs them about how they should live after he has departed from this earth.
Let me address the “or else” part first. That usually attracts the greatest attention.
In the Gospel according to Matthew, Jesus seems a little infatuated with judgment and retribution. At the conclusion of each of the four parables he tells within Matthew 24:45-25:46, the section that comes just before the plot to seize and kill him springs into action, certain characters don’t fare so well. They are cast out to where there will be “weeping and gnashing of teeth,” locked out of a banquet by the guy who presumably invited them in the first place, tossed into “outer darkness,” or punished in “eternal fire.” Along with the book of Revelation, Matthew’s Gospel has generated a large share of distress through the centuries.
Are these promises about judgment authentic warnings spoken by an uncomfortably stern Jesus, or are they brutal revenge fantasies put into his mouth by ancient Christian communities that had lost the ability to trust their own members or to put up with differing opinions and practices? We may never know.
Last week, I asked you all to tell FOX News that when it comes to truth and civility, they can do better. Thousands of you did. You aren't the only ones who see things getting worse than ever before. This week, a group of more than 130 former legislators, both Republicans and Democrats, released a letter urging for civility and encouraging candidates, once elected, to focus on cooperation to face our country's greatest challenges.