I Beseech You Therefore Bretheren

This morning I listened to a sermon from a pretty large church that had invited a guest speaker to deliver the Sunday sermon. Overall I think he did a fantastic job and I believe that his intentions were met and the audience, definitely including myself, experienced the message that the Father wanted us to hear. In the beginning of his homily he touched on a practice that, in previous generations, was a go-to practice for Christians wanting to exercise their "evangelism muscles" without too much risk. He told a cute story of going on vacation with his wife and taking an afternoon to walk out to the beach and hand out tracts.

I have handed out one tract in my life - I was in third grade and my Sunday School class encouraged us to give it to someone. I had become friends with a fifth grader who rode the same bus and could think of no one better to be the recipient of my good-will. From what I can remember, my relationship with that guy ended on that day. I don't remember details - but I remember that he was very, very reluctant to take it - but I kept asking him to, knowing that on Sunday I would be asked who I had given it to - and I wanted to be able to give a good answer.

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I see the whole concept of a "Gospel Tract" as being locked in the generations of my parents and grandparents. A generation sold out to the idea of evangelism, dedications, and "salvations". Having spoken with many such folk - I truly believe that their hearts are fantastic. But for the past few years, and even more recently as I'm reading books like "Lived Theology," I'm starting to believe that we have painted the picture all wrong.

When Christ began his ministry - he didn't just call his listeners to believe that he was their savior - he spoke some provocative and costly things. He called his listeners to accept suffering, to lay their lives down for the sake of others, and to bring the Kingdom of Heaven into their daily surroundings. No wonder our culture is reflecting despair more than anything else right now - when you strip out the difficulty, the pain, the sacrifice of following Christ - when you remove the call to change the world - you remove the power and leave only a shell.

Romans 12v1f calls us to present ourselves as living sacrifices - - too often we read eschatology into this passage. The setting of this sacrifice isn't eternity - it is today. I'm just starting to ask what this means, what this looks like - and I beseech you to join me. I am sure that the good and acceptable and perfect will of God includes getting a little dirty and requires more than handing someone a sheet of paper with some "right thinking" printed on it.

I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.

And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.