On Thursday nights, a coalition of the willing meets to build beds for families that have no beds and no means to secure any beds. We are intentional during this time because beds don’t build themselves. After a couple of hours, we turn off the saws, stoke up a fire outside the shop, and converse. We try to be as intentional during this time as we are when we build. We do not want to talk about just anything; we are not looking for topics. Ideally, the topics come up through the course of what we are doing. Our experience is that when we actually do something and we pay attention, we meet the material of discipleship head on.
The question this past week related to the how and what of speaking words of life and light to the people we were serving. We have been working at learning to practice exceptional love and mercy. This has kept us pretty busy, as there were lots of things that needed changing in our own hearts and how we did what we did. Our focus was less on “evangelism” and more on letting God’s love do its work within and through us. We still have a long way to go to stay on that narrow ridge of right attitude and action. We have focused less on what we say when we are with the people we serve. Of course, we always say something; we are encountering people after all. I have seen it all, from a forced presentation of Jesus’ atonement to practically nothing at all, and everything in between. I have personally struggled with the words part of what we do. I know what I don’t want to do. I have a theoretical idea of what I want to do, but I struggle with pulling that off. In The Bed Project, we have debated this for several years.
The other night, here was an interesting interaction that reveals some theological and practical issues.
X: “We should talk about Jesus; otherwise they won’t know where we are coming from.”
Y: “Do we?”
Z: “If we don’t talk about Jesus, than it’s just another good deed like anyone else’s.”
Looking back, I wish I were more attentive to the process rather than throwing out my own ideas. I think it would have been good to put Z in the hot seat; it would have been instructive to all of us. I think we can all relate to Z’s response, but are we as aware of the underlying assumptions in such a response? We all could have learned a lot if there had been some more listening and follow-up questioning.
Here are some after-the-fact follow-up questions that I wished I would have asked.
Tell me more about what you mean?
What is the relationship between the words we say and our actions?
Clearly, both are important, but does one have priority over the other?
Is a loving action done by a Christian different than one done by a non-Christian? If so, in what way?
What do you mean by talk about Jesus?
Perhaps we all ought to take our turn in the hot seat.
3 comments:
Jesus did both. He talked about and pointed others to His Father AND He was a man of action. I think it's all about a balance of the two. They work together; they complete each other. If we're called to imitate Christ, then we also should do both. Jesus didn't just feed the five thousand (for example) for the sake of feeding people. While He was doing so, He was speaking words of life, pointing them to His Father. That's what makes us different from the non-believer. "Faith without works is dead." We also need to share our faith along with our good deeds so that those [we give beds to] will see our Father.
The comment above is actually by Becky.
So, does that mean that if we don't tell them, they won't know or see the father?
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