Friday 9 January 2009

Something on confessional "risk" - again from Robert Bertram.

The confessional risk has longstanding biblical precedent, all the way from Job's "Behold he will slay me; I have no hope; yet I defend my ways to his face (13:15)" to Jesus' "cry of dereliction": "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" (Mark 15:34; Matt. 27:46; Ps.22:1). At Augsburg, likewise the confessors were not unaware of that same risk. As Melanchthon reminds his accusers, "Certainly we should not wish to put our own souls and consciences in grave peril before God by misusing his name or Word". The life-and-death dilemma which confessors face is that the God to whose authority they appeal to vindicate their witness is the same God who has installed their oppressors in positions of authority and who seems now to be vindicating that authority instead.

In some ways this may be what is at work in the "silence" that often takes place when wrongs are left as they are in the church. We are taught that those in places of authority are put there and serve as representatives of our God for the sake of good order. So...we suck it up and let the way things have been going....continue. But we are a people who trust a "living word." That is, a word that is reshaped in time. The truth of the Good New word is always in place but we come to see it in new ways as our context changes and we are gifted with insight and more grace. The "confessional risk" means that we will not stop at what is. We will hold up the lens of the Reign of God in Christ, Jesus, and begin to see how our systems often fall short of this Reign in order to maintain enough control that the grace of our Lord, Jesus, Christ, becomes a theory rather than a reality that set people free. Unfortunately, those who bring such a witness will not be treated lightly. It may be simple rejection...it may be ridicule...it may be crucifixion. And yet, faithful actions continue to erupt among us as living confessions to our one Lord, Jesus.

Connection: Listen...always listen to what words attempt to lead us. Then breathe and prayerfully consider if those words lead us into the Reign of unfolding and endless grace.

You, O God, promise to make all things new. Even when we would rather live within the old ways that are so familiar to us, you bid us come across the borders of our lives to see and hear how the Good News of your Reign really does make for a new world. We praise you, O God. Amen.