Fed and Sent to be Risk-Takers

If at the font we start our journey, it is at the table that we are nourished and fed and enabled to continue our Christian walk with Christ, wherever that may lead us.  In his comments during the service today at the New Room, the presiding minister shared with us some words from the newly elected president of the Methodist Conference in Britain.  In her address, the president stated that the Church is at a tipping point and must make critical decisions about its direction, encouraging her hearers to be bold, to step outside their comfort zones, to take risks for the sake of the gospel.

The minister then reminded us of the example of Peter, who bravely stepped out of the boat and walked on the waves towards Jesus and of John Wesley, who, as he put it in his own journal, "submitted to be more vile" in turning to preaching out in the open despite his own discomfort with it. He never grew comfortable with it, but he did so because it bore fruit in reaching the least, the last, and the lost in a way that nothing else did.

As I knelt at this communion rail beneath John Wesley's historic pulpit, my eyes filled with tears as I thought of all the times I have bit my tongue or changed the subject because I didn't want to make someone uncomfortable or -- horror of horrors! -- didn't want to be accused of being divisive or political.  I held out my hand to receive the wafer and to dip it in the cup, and I prayed that these symbols of Christ's body and blood would indeed be to me the bread of heaven and the cup of salvation, giving me the courage to be more of a risk taker for Christ.

If I truly believe that the Bible is the guide to my faith and practice, I will let the Spirit fill me with holy boldness and will speak the truth in love.  I will answer the call to take risks, to be a voice for the voiceless, to speak for the poor and needy, for the sick and elderly, for the migrant and the mentally ill.  I will, in the words of Isaiah and of Christ, and yes, of John Wesley, bring good news to the poor, proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, and let the oppressed go free.  I will put Christ above all -- before party and country, before family and friends.

Where in your community, your church, your workplace, and your home do you recognize places where you need to take risks, to reach out in love of God and neighbor, to get out of the comfortable cocoon you have made for yourself?  Where might you be called to stretch and grow and become more like Christ?  These are not idle questions for the Methodist Conference here in Britain, nor are they idle questions for any part of the Church today.  May you and I and all who call themselves followers of Christ pray earnestly to go where the Spirit takes us, even when that is uncomfortable or inconvenient.  May it be so!