Generously Angry...

Amina died..she was a little orphan in a Orphanage in Ethiopia that some friends of our are serving at, you can read about it here at their site. I am sure the death of this little girl is one more step away from life as it was lived before they came; to life as it will be lived in the days ahead. A path that wont be ascended without a trail of tears. I was thinking about this quote as I reflected on the tragedy of another child dying in poverty.

What is, therefore, the task of the preacher (or the church) today?
Shall I answer: "Faith, hope and love?"
That sounds beautiful.
But I would 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 with the 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 that 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 Christians chruch have always been...the lion, the lamb, the dove, and the fish...but never the chameleon.
-Danish Pastor, Kaj Munk,1898-1944 (Danish playwright and priest, whose outspoken, passionately patriotic sermons during World War II led to his being killed by the Nazis. Munk helped revitalize the Danish theatre by his rejection of the naturalistic drama in favor of the more spiritually oriented plays. Dominant features in Munk's writings were his deep Christian faith and admiration for the strong-willed man of action)

When I boil with these issues of injustice, I think of Dickens who George Orwell reflected about when he said: "Reading Dickens I see the face of a man who is always fighting against something, but who fights in the open and is not frightened, the face of a man who is generously angry." (Orwell: The Life, 2003)

Fight the good Fight Daniel and Melissa...and anyone else who has taken on the spirit of Jesus.


Maybe my post is a reflection of the song I was listening to while writing it...