There are many ways to be good linguists. Sometimes it is in making the Gospel stories our own and repeating them in our own words. Sometimes it is in speaking simply about our own relationships with the living God. It can be through doing something that reveals the love of God for those whom we serve. And sometimes it is in learning somebody else’s concepts and speaking about Christ through them.
On Sunday evenings I like to stop outside the JingAn Kerry Center in Shanghai to watch the dogs and the people. Affluent Shanghainese from all over
Barnabas, whose name means “Son of Encouragement”, takes up Paul’s cause. Recounting the story of Paul’s encounter with Jesus on the road to Damascus, he invites Christ’s disciples to see this person they have hated with different eyes. He asks them to take a risk and believe Paul has truly changed, has come to follow Jesus. Because Barnabas is so very convincing, they do.
Whether I need healing or curing or just some peace, I can look to the centurion as an example of taking problems to Jesus and letting him solve them.
She was convicted as a heretic and burned at the stake in 1431. Twenty-five years later, her case was appealed and the Pope declared her to have been falsely accused. Almost 500 years later, she was canonized as a saint.
“Abide in me.” What an invitation! In the abundant, generous, all-seeing soul of Jesus there is space, ample room, and each of us can occupy a permanent place there. That is where we belong.
The Sudanese martyrs chose to follow Christ, as did the early Christians of Rome and the Mediterranean area. They followed to the death, just as many Christians around the world as well as in South Sudan are still doing today.
The Beast was in my living room. The dragon was speaking to me through our collective need to know the worst all the time, all over the globe, in the most sensationalist way possible. “Why bother?” it muttered.
Standing and staring like the cows is surely one of the most important things we can do. It creates an open space in which God can unfold in just the way she has always dreamed. This is the Christian’s real happiness, to provide a space for the unfolding, a platform for love, the body that allows eternity to move in the world.
Cranmer helps us ask God to pour out both grace and mercy over us, forgiveness and blessing, the weft and warp of our lives seeking God.