After the seas are all cross'd,

(as they seem already cross'd,)

            After the great captains and engineers have

                        accomplish'd their work,

            After the noble inventors, after the scientists,

                        the chemist, the geologist, ethnologist,

            Finally shall come the poet worthy that name,

            The true son of God shall come singing his songs

                                                                                 (Walt Whitman, "Passage to India," Leaves of Grass)

Walter Brueggemann is one my heroes in the faith.  From Whitman's poem above, he borrowed the title of a book he wrote twenty years ago-Finally Comes the Poet.  I, in turn, have borrowed from both of them the title of my sermon for this Sunday.  Poetry, in this case, is not necessarily rhyme, but language that is symbolic and subversive.  A poetic is a prophet:  not predicting a distant future, but bringing insight that can be uncomfortably honest about the present.

The promise of Biblical Christianity is new life ­­-- not just new life for you and me, but the promise that reality itself is changing.  This is the new creation the Bible proclaims in its culminating book Revelation.  (Revelation 21: 1)   Though counter-intuitive, this new life becomes available to us through the death of Jesus and through our own willingness to die to self in the hope of resurrection here and now in this life.  The message of Jesus is dynamic.  It is challenging, unsettling, and even irritating.

The Christian Church seems to be addicted to conflict.  We focus on differences of belief such as the nature of God, Jesus, and salvation.  These become wedge issues and we threaten to destroy ourselves from within.  Far worse, however, is that we ruin our credibility in relation to the larger world of people who are not Christian.

If we don't find the message of Jesus challenging and the movement of the Spirit in our lives unsettling, then we are probably not really hearing it.  The Spirit invites us to change, grow, and move outside our comfort zones.  The Spirit invites us to take some risk, try on new behaviors, and expect more from ourselves.  These changes may challenge us, but when we make them and move forward in our lives, people who are comfortable with us as we are might just find us challenging and a bit irritating!

If churches today that are asking hard questions, reaching out to unsavory people, and being radically inclusive are not irritating other churches and the power structures of our society, then maybe the questions are not honest enough.  Perhaps the powers are just not hearing or seeing what is going on.  The Church will be irritating if it is being true to the one we follow.  Jesus was irritating.  He challenged and irritated the powers that were and the powers that still are.  His example invites us today to be a prophetic voice and an irritating presence in our society.  Jesus invites us to speak a prophetic/poetic word to Church and society so that justice can begin to flow like rushing water around us.  

We are called to envision and to create even when that challenges us.  We are called to be honest and growing even when that irritates us.  We are called to be dynamic and prophetic even when that means being irritating to others.  Those irritations will be a blessing to us.  We have the right and responsibility to claim the possibilities that are within us as a free people of faith.  We are free to create a world of justice, peace, and inclusive love - free to make the new together.  When people of faith share these blessings with the world, then we will bless God.

Thanks for continuing to bless me as we journey together.
  
Jack Price

FYI - Jack has published several articles at: http://ezinearticles.com/?expert=Jack_F_Price

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