i just left my friends' house, who have moved into Southcrest, a block from my house/Southeast Nazarene Church. excusing my assumptions, they have moved into the neighborhood with the intention of being a light in this place and to this place and with the willingness to be changed by this place. as i walked out of their apartment complex, a lady passed me who was walking fast and seemed to be going somewhere. she looked like an old-timer. as she passed me, she said,
"How you doin'?"
"Good. (brief silence. i think i'm usually kind of awkward with this particular question.) Yourself?"
"I'm tryin' to get the hell out of this 'hood as fast as I can."
I thought, that's funny. because me and my friends have spent the last 8 months trying to get in to "this 'hood" with varying levels of success. I guess it all depends on where you are going.
"The coming of Christ has cosmic implications. He has changed the course of things. So the theological task is not merely the interpretive matter of translating Jesus into modern categories but rather to translate the world to him. The theologian's job is not to make the gospel credible to the modern world, but to make the world credible to the gospel." (Hauerwas and Willimon, Resident Aliens)
The day after tomorrow, there is great potential of the fit hitting the shan at work because we've tried to do our best. But to whom are we accountable? the modern world or the gospel? At youth last night, i let myself get walked on too much by a couple of the kids. who am i accountable to, the world or the gospel? who is shaping me? where does my justification come from? TV or the Sermon on the Mount? George Bush, pop culture, Bono, my favorite band?
or Jesus?
I thank God for those that I see in my life who consistently live as if Jesus is their definer and therefore remind me of my responsibility to let Jesus be the one who shapes what I do and believe and say. there is an ancient Jewish prayer that reads:
Return us, our Father, to your Torah [instruction], and bring us near, our King, to your service, and resore us in full repentance before you. Blessed are you, Adonai, who is gratified by repentance.
Amen and amen.
2 comments:
Quite the pithy quote from Hauerwas... I've been thinking an awful lot about that lately, too.
"Make the world credible to the gospel." That's pretty. I just have no idea how the hell to actually do that.
me neither. but what i keep learning from steve has to do with insisting on giving people an identity within the church that is distinct from that of the world. it has to do with losing our misconceptions about who people are from our very beings and choosing to see them as Jesus sees them. its hard, but it can be done in brilliant bursts. that's the point of pastoring, right? anyway, that's what i'm learning.
peace.
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