Tuesday, March 04, 2008

Recklessness

I read this in a book called Exiles by Michael Frost, it's a poem by a Danish pastor called Kaj Munk:

What is, therefore, the task of the preacher (or the church) today?
Shall I answer: "Faith, hope and love"?
That sounds beautiful.
But should I say - courage.
No, even that is not challenging enough to be the whole truth.
Our task today is recklessness.
For what we Christians lack is not psychology or literature,
we lack holy rage.
The recklessness that comes from the knowledge of God and humanity.
The ability to rage when justice lies prostrate on the streets...
and when the lie rages across the face of the earth -
a holy anger about things that are wrong in the world.
To rage agaisnt the ravaging of God's earth,
and the destruction of God's world.
To rage when little children must die of hunger,
when the tables of the rich are sagging with food.
To rage at the senseless killing of so many,
and against the madness of militaries.
To rage at the lie that calls the threat of death and the strategy of destruction - Peace.
To rage against complacency.
To restlessly seek the recklessness that will challenge and seek to change human history until it conforms with the norms of the Kingdom of God.
And remember the signs of the Christian church have always been -
the Lion, the Lamb, the Dove, and the Fish....
but never the chameleon.

Mr Frost goes on himself to say : "This is not a call to join a monastery or escape to a kibbutz. We have to work and shop and live in the empire. Instead, it addresses our imagination, shaping and summoning us to another way, the way of Jesus, lived sincerely out in the open in the everyday."

3 comments:

sam mooney said...

now there's a challenge. how was madird?

Anonymous said...

Was thinking of you and your condoms today :-) as I attended a talk on HIV at the hospital where I work. Ibiza was highlighted as one of the problem areas. Keep up the good work!
Nina

J-Mac said...

Love that poem. I think its fear that stops us being more reckless. Fear of other people's cynicism and our own