God Alive Column (Vaughan and King Weeklies) June 21, 2006

Delivering the good news for free

I have a friend who has cut herself from watching television so her mind would not be filled with a cascade of worthless images of televangelist, Mafiosos, Canadian and American idols, and amorous emergency room doctors or district attorneys. Also, she says, she avoids TV because the commercials work too well on her, and if she watches them long enough their unreality becomes real to her.

She does turn on the CBC radio news, but cannot listen to more than one newscast a day. She finds that it is capable for her to grieve for a few people at a time, but not for 4,000 earthquake victims in Indonesia, the masses of people starving in Sudan, or the latest suicide bomber blast victims in Iraq all at the same time. Nor does she want to learn how to do this.

She finds its just as good to listen to people at the grocery store tell her about last night’s roundup of gang members in Toronto, as to have her outlook formed by those who make a living selling bad news. At the same time she wants to keep her heart open to what is happening around her, and she is not sure if she wants to be the last person to hear what is going on in the world.

News junkie, that I am, I hear her pain and take her point. And I think I have a few clues that may help her find a way through the dilemma she so poignantly describes.

There is always tragedy unfolding somewhere in the world. But there is also always happenings of grace─people risking their lives to save a child being washed away by a flash flood, families cutting what is not needed from their budget so they can help fund relief going to those without adequate food, shelter clothing or medicine around the globe, high powered executives taking off work an hour or so early to tutor and mentor a high risk child.

This is the Good News followers of Jesus Christ talk about─the light that sparkles in the darkness─the life that is found in our places of death─the love that flows forth in the cellars of hate.

Still, brokenness rather than those moments of grace and transformation is what makes the most money and therefore is the de rigueur in what is generally put in the media window on the human condition.

Like all of us, Christians also buy into this despairing dominant image of the world.

God is active and alive in the world. God is also present and active in the church community. Sometimes church members get this wrong. They believe that God is present in the church, and their job is to make God present in the world. Implicit here is that without the church bringing God to the big bad world, that the world would be Godless.

This of course, is sheer heresy. Our faith tradition tells us through the “Christ Event” the very Spirit of God is moving, transforming, redeeming and healing the brokenness of human beings in and through and with the world in which we live.

The role of the church is to proclaim this good news :to show how suffering breaks open as many hearts as it breaks down; to bring out the face of God alive all around us, albeit sometimes found in terrible disguises.

The role of the Christian is not to bring God to others, but rather, by our work and witness to help others see the grace of God operative in their lives, all appearances to the contrary. We are to proclaim louder and in better colour than any commercial that human beings are worth more than what they buy or sell.

Our task is not to convert the world but rather to get others to see and join in Christ’s loving transformation of the world.

The job of Christians, and any folk of good will, then, is to keep telling stories of human kindness and divine grace, without commercials of any kind. Delivering the good news for free! That’s our job. Let’s push our “God” buttons and get on with it.