Taking them to the streets

I took down my office tree this morning. As I was packing away the ornaments, I noticed that many of the ones that I had purchased this year were words -- silver 'hope,' 'peace,' and 'joy' ornaments, a nativity 'noel' that sat under the tree. Even the nativity scene I bought for the office was the word "Joy" with Mary, Jesus and the Baby. I didn't do that on purpose -- I just purposefully set out to add Christian thoughts to a tree which previously (because of its location) been almost a non-Christian tree.

We sometimes talk in church about the words we use -- words like epiphany, liturgy, eucharist, redemption, and justification. We talk about how those words must be foreign to someone on the outside, who doesn't know the lingo.

I was reading a devotional this morning based on Revelation 21:1-6a. One of the verses says, "Now, the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them." The Disciplines devotional talked about God dwelling among us, and how we have seen it. The author talked about South Africa, and said it was "where the language of the church was moved into the streets as reconciliation took on flesh."

We worry about words like justification and sanctification. I wonder if we should instead be focusing on words like peace, joy and hope. How are we, as Christians, bringing these words into the world? How do we enable this essential language of the church to move into the streets and take on flesh? How do we allow God to be incarnated through what we do, and brought into the world? It seems to me that people need to know the power of these words. It seems to me that these words could make a difference in lives, on the streets and in the world.

Are we taking these words to the streets?

Image: Frost on the car window yesterday