The Great Christian Witness Opportunity of 2020

Mark Tidsworth, Team Leader

Demonstrating what it looks like to disagree or be different while continuing in community; in ongoing relationship, loving those who are different than ourselves

What? In 2020? Are you serious? Our church just wants to get through the year without too much collateral damage from the election cycle. Our church is doing our best to avoid the hot button issues of our day, keeping emotions from boiling over. Besides, doing that (witness opportunity above in bold) would take superhuman strength. We would need the power of God to love that vigorously in this divisive cultural climate.

Yes, exactly.

And, that’s exactly what our communities need from the Christian Church in 2020; a clear and present demonstration of what it looks like to love those who disagree or are different. For if this happened, people would see the power of the gospel incarnate.

Why now? Our culture has bought into storylines that only lead to division, opposition, and the “othering” of our neighbors. Popular current culture says that when others disagree with us or look different than us or are from somewhere else, they are not simply different, but are so terribly wrong that we must break relationship with them. In other words, when you and I are different, then I must write you off as a person. Our culture is actively modeling the belief that differences break relationships. We see it in every area of life, with politics, religion, and race relations leading the way.

So THIS, this time and place, is exactly what we (Church) have been preparing for. Remember all those Sunday School lessons, all those sermons, all those faith-based discussions, all those retreats and summer camp experiences? Remember the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew) and on the Plain (Luke), the Good Samaritan, the Forgiving Father and his son? Remember the New Commandment in John 13 (love; by this they will know)? Remember all those Christian leaders, parents, mentors who poured their lives into ours, influencing us toward the power of God? THIS, right here and now in 2020, is what all those people and experiences were preparing us for. God has gone before us, preparing the way for churches to serve as lighthouses of hope surrounded by oceans of anxious division. Looking back, God has clearly prepared God’s Church for the living of these days.

Though it seems this is a unique challenge, remember those first twelve disciples called to follow Jesus. There’s Simon the Zealot in the same close group with Matthew the traitor tax collector. Can you imagine that fiery Peter didn’t have strong opinions about the Roman government or carry divisive beliefs about ethnic groups? They were even in ongoing relationship with Judas Iscariot, the betrayer. How did they do it? Surely this took a commitment to something bigger and better than their strongly held convictions about how the world should run (Jesus the Christ, no less). They functioned as a contrast community; different than the prevailing culture around them (thanks Stanley Hauerwas, Resident Aliens).

So sisters and brothers in Christ, THIS is OUR great Christian witness opportunity. We are called to live as a contrast community in relationship to our larger cultural context, living a better way. We are called to demonstrate what it looks like to love one another, even when that’s out of style. We are called to embody the gospel, showing each other and our neighbors what the transformational and powerful love of Jesus Christ can do.

When this doesn’t happen, the Christian Church seems like an association of like-minded people who are mostly irrelevant to what’s actually happening in our culture or are cultural warriors just like so many others. That’s the fast road to spiritual depression and organizational irrelevancy.

But when THIS does happen, when we cooperate with the Holy Spirit, loving fiercely despite our differences; we and others will know that surely God has come near. It would take superhuman effort to love like that. No, it would take the very power of God to love so vigorously in this particular cultural context.

Yes, exactly.

May we be salt and light and love incarnate, as we are called to be, empowered by the Holy Spirit. May we live into the great Christian witness opportunity of 2020.

Through the grace, love, and power of Jesus Christ our Lord, may it become so.

Amen.