Listen to Sister Jane!

It was August 1978, the day before I was to be ordained.  Among all the other cards I received congratulating me and wishing me well was a modest envelope holding a notecard from Sister Jane, a Dominican nun whom I came to know my last year of seminary.  She started with kind words in the note and concluded in big letters, “Preach to convert!”

Nearly thirty-five years later, author Douglas John Hall is telling the church that the world is waiting for the gospel.  That used to be a pious phrase that would punctuate this preacher’s banter.  Now a theological professor writes puts it in print and we stand up and take notice.  He has the sociological statistics to back up what Sister Jane exhorted me to do three and a half decades ago.

Golly, a feller’ would think by now that we don’t have the luxury to be splitting hairs when it comes to letting those who have never heard that there is hope and forgiveness.  There is peace and freedom for those who have been burdened by who-knows-what.

But then, we hear this irritating story.  A new, young pastor in Newtown, Connecticut, took part in a community prayer gathering following December’s tragic shootings at Sandyhook Elementary School.  His picture appeared in national publications.  This new, young pastor is a member of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod.  Once his activity was public, he received a phone call from the president of the Missouri Synod reprimanding the young pastor for participating in an event that was contrary to the church’s policy. The Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod prohibits pastors from praying with others from outside the denomination.  The new, young pastor whose community was reeling from that horrific tragedy was forced to apologize for praying with other Christians and Jews.

That story grieves me without end.  It does not matter whether I am Lutheran, Presbyterian, or Holy Roller.  (Maybe it does bother me more because I am Lutheran and the world lumps us all together despite the alphabet soup of synods) When there is a world waiting for the gospel; when there are people hurting and in need of somebody representing God; when a community aches to gather for prayer together, they are waiting for the gospel.  The world wants words that tell them God loves them.  The world wants the Good News embodied in somebody who manifests God’s love for its people.  The world wants the simplest cross to cling to so that they know they are not alone but that God is with them.

That is why even as a Geezer, I am interested in what we call the emerging church.  Maybe the old model doesn’t always work for us.  There are new voices that have actually heard the world saying that it longs to hear the Good News.  Once again, my colleagues do not have the luxury of always following the same paradigm as every generation before.  Turn up that hearing aid and listen to where the Good News is needed!

Sister Jane was on to something.  She very well knew that “Preach to convert” did not mean strong-arming the unrepentant scoundrel. Rather, it is preaching to make a difference—a difference of hope and renewal, a difference of love and forgiveness, a difference of justice and freedom.

Here’s the question for the week:  where in your world is the good news waiting to be told?  Talk among yourselves…