On the Ratification of 10A - It's Still About Jesus

If you want to put the recent ratification of Amendment 10A by the PCUSA into perspective, pull out your copy of Dietrich Bonhoeffer's The Cost of Discipleship.  Chapter 31 "The Saints" is a near-perfect study on the holiness of God and the calling of the saints to "walk worthy of their calling and of the gospel in every sphere of life,"  (Eph. 4:1, Phil. 127; Col. 1:10; I Thess. 2:12 by living daily in the remembrance that we are washed, sanctified and justified" (I Cor. 6:11.)

He writes of Christian chastity and self-control of our "wild physical passions" which are "daily done to death" in communion with the body of Christ.  There is also a long footnote about the congregational exercise of discipline as a "ministry of charity" - but a severe penalty awaits the teacher of a false doctrine that corrupts the life of the Church at its source.  In other words, the teaching of a false doctrine is morally worse than the commission of the sin the doctrine promotes.  Pray hard before you preach.

The wonderful Presbyterian poet Ann Weems has a poem entitled, "It's Still About Jesus," that suits our present crisis:

“No matter how we dilute the word of God, it’s about Jesus.  No matter how we cover the dangerous Truth of the gospel, it’s about Jesus.  No matter how we pretty up the story, it’s about Jesus.  No matter how many times we go to our national assemblies and vote, it’s still about Jesus.  No matter how many times we distract ourselves with meetings and church work…it’s still about Jesus, the Lamb of God…the Light of the World…the Bread of Life…the Prince of Peace…the One chosen to bring good news to the poor…the One sent to proclaim liberty to the captives and to set free the oppressed.  Jesus is my shepherd…I shall not want."

Are You Showing People Your Wounds?

Listen to how St. Paul described the life of a Christian’s witness to the Resurrection:  “We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies.  For while we live we are always being given up to death for Jesus’ sake…”[1] 

 

Paul is saying that our hopefulness in the midst of our suffering – our ability to see these events through the lens of Resurrection and to praise God and rejoice while we experience injuries and diseases, divorce, business reversals and stock market crashes, violence and wars, droughts, wildfires and tornadoes – that our demonstrations of hope and joy in suffering show the world that when Christ-followers endure trials we are bearing the death of Jesus in our own suffering, and when we express joy in the midst of sorrow, we are showing the world the life of Christ, and the truth of the Resurrection.

Just as the living Christ stood before Thomas and showed him his wounds, so we can stand helpless in the rubble where our homes once stood, in our disease-ridden bodies, with our aged, bent backs; and we can stand over the corpses of our loved ones who were snatched from our arms by the winds of chaos and evil and show all of that to the world as our wounds – our proof of death - and at the same time offer the proof that in spite of all that the world could do to us, we can say with the psalmist, “I will not die but live, and will proclaim what the LORD has done!”

Maybe what needs to happen is that they need to die and rise from their own wounds – or maybe they need to see ours.  So many Christians keep our wounds hidden from each other and from the world.  If the words of Paul to the Corinthians are true, then the reason the world doesn’t believe in Jesus and his Resurrection is because we don’t show them our wounds. 

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[1] 2 Corinthians 4:8-11