Beautiful feet announcing peace
It was a scandalous story then. It’s a scandalous story now. About a dozen years ago, a lawyer and elder in a Presbyterian congregation in the upper Midwest told us about his own congregation’s struggle to follow in the way of Jesus, to love others as Jesus loves us.
It’s difficult work at the best of times, but they were pushed to the wall when a member of the congregation was accused of molesting the pastor’s young daughter. There was no question for them of the need to call the police and report the matter. Charges and conviction of the perpetrator were next. And for most of us, that would have been the end of the story — “We can write that man off as a sinner and let him burn in hell.”
That’s not what they did, however. In addition to loving and supporting the victim and her family, the elders of the congregation stayed in touch with the perpetrator. They visited him, prayed for him and let him know that when he got out of prison, they would be there to help him learn to lead a life that did not prey upon others.
When the sentence was complete, the church helped him to find a small apartment — with the caveat that the elders of the church would have keys to the apartment and they demanded the right to come in at any time of day or night and search the apartment for signs of pornography or other indications that he was not truly repentant and committed to change.
As time passed and the perpetrator’s probationary period ended, the elders were ready to hand the keys back over to him. Instead, he asked the elders to please retain the keys to the apartment — his accountability to them had become a matter of life for him.
This story may be scandalous, but isn’t the love of God scandalous? God’s love is abundant and extravagant and offered free of charge to everyone: “God so loved the world …” God keeps company with sinners. Barbara Brown Taylor says that “what we have lost … is a full sense of the power of God — to recruit people who have made terrible choices; to invade the most hopeless lives and fill them with light.”
“How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of the messenger who announces peace, who brings good news, who announces salvation.” We are pretty good at talking the good news, but have a pretty poor track record when it comes to actually bringing the good news, to living it out in the real world with real sinners.
When others see the church putting limits on God’s forgiveness, defining boundaries beyond which we insist it cannot go, how can they believe that the good news is really good news for them, no matter the sin, no matter the circumstances? Are you talking good news to the world or are you taking good news to the world?