Easter
3 THE
POSSIBILITY OF SURPRISE 4/7
& 10/05
I
once spoke with the leaders of a local congregation about evangelism. One man suggested they get a list of all the
new housing purchases in our area and send a flashy flyer to the people moving
in. I asked this leadership group, “What
do you love most about this congregation?”
“We’re like a family,” they kept saying, “We treat each other like a
family.” I asked, “What does it mean to
be a family?” “You live together,” they
said, “you eat and work and laugh and cry together.” “How do you bring new members into a family?”
I asked them. They were all
silent…struck “dumb.” “Well,” I said in
answering my own question, “you are either born into a family or adopted into
it. Now, say you’re going to adopt a
child---how might you find a child to adopt?”
They were, again, dumb-founded. I
provided an answer to my question, saying “One thing is for sure, you’re not
going to adopt a child into your family by sending out a mass-mailing. You cannot expect people to join your family
without a personal invitation!” They all
agreed, but one man commented: “That
sounds like a lot of work!” “Indeed, it
is!” I replied. My questions helped them
arrived at an answer.
As Christians, we live with an
assumption of having answers to so many things about life. We, undoubtedly, would claim that these
answers come primarily from the Bible and, particularly, from Jesus. I find it revealing, though, that Jesus often
raised questions as people sought answers!
A Peanuts comic strip once had Lucy walking along
with a sign that proclaimed, “Jesus is the answer.” As Lucy walks away, Snoopy comes along with a
sign that asks in large letters, “What’s the question?” The amazing reality is that Jesus likely
asked questions more than he gave answers.
It may be difficult to count the “proclamations” that Jesus made, but in
all the Gospels there are 289 questions asked by Jesus. Many are repeated, but clearly more than 200
different questions are recorded… “Who is
my neighbor?” “Who do you say that I
am” “Do you love me?” and so
on. We discover many of our answers for daily
living within the many questions Jesus asked of people centuries ago.
Jesus asks no less than 3 questions in
our Gospel, as two disciples walking to Emmaus are puzzled that this fellow who
has joined them seems ignorant regarding current events. With a sort of “air of
superiority" they wonder if this “stranger” is the only person in the
entire region ignorant of what has recently occurred. We read in Luke 24:19/
“About Jesus of
Two followers of Jesus are trudging
along the dusty road seven miles from
Stanley Hauerwas
and William Willimon, in their book Resident
Aliens, challenge mainline Christians to rethink our role in contemporary
society. Christendom, referring to the
“fusion” of government and religion, according to these authors, is dead. Christians, after Christendom, can now live
and love as an enclave separate from society, challenging and questioning the
values of our society. We are to be
“resident aliens,” not trying to accommodate our beliefs to the norms of our
society, but speaking out and living out a vision of faith that has been won
for us and commissioned to us by the risen Christ! This living out the vision is what we read
about in 1 Peter 1:22-23/
“Now that you have purified yourselves by
obeying the truth so that you have sincere love for your brothers, love one
another deeply, from the heart. For you
have been born again…through the living and enduring word of God.” Quoting Mike Yaconelli,
“For God so loved the world, that whosoever believes in him will, from that
point on, be considered weird by the rest of the world!” So be it!
Amen.
Copyright © April,
2005 Pastor Daniel M.
Publish
by permission only. Contact Grace Evangelical Lutheran Church