Standing Up for Something Better

Stop.
Close your eyes and think about a time when you stood up for something you believed in.  Did it force you out of your comfort zone?

Listen.
“…This is my prayer, that your love may overflow more and more with knowledge and full insight to help you to determine what is best.. Dare to speak the word with greater boldness and without fear.”
– Philippians 1:9-10a, 14b

Reflect.
The apostle Paul wrote a letter to the Philippians while imprisoned and awaiting execution.  His crime?  Preaching the gospel.  It’s a joyful letter, which is unusual considering the circumstances.  Paul has grace, gratitude, and joy because his imprisonment had the opposite effect his captures intended.  He says,  “…what has happened to me has actually helped to spread the gospel, so that it has become known throughout the whole imperial guard and to everyone else that my imprisonment is for Christ…” (Philippians 1:12-13).  Paul is encouraging the early followers (and us) to speak boldly and without fear.

With the rise of anti-Semitism in 1930s and 40s Germany, Lutheran pastor and theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a vocal critic of Adolf Hitler and Nazism.  Although he was born into a comfortable lifestyle and hadn’t experienced injustice himself, Bonhoeffer spent time in the U.S. and witnessed racial injustice, segregation, and the church’s unwillingness to bring about change.  He returned to Germany in the 1930s as Hitler and the anti-Semitic movement swept across Germany.  Bonhoeffer understood that the church had a role and an obligation to stand up.  He said “We are not to simply bandage the wounds of victims beneath the wheels of injustice, we are to drive a spoke into the wheel itself.”  For his outspokenness, Bonhoeffer was imprisoned and eventually executed.

Although Bonhoeffer and the apostle Paul are extreme examples of speaking boldly and without fear, we can still learn from them.They dared to believe that something better is possible.Imagine daring to carry on the work of Jesus Christ with joy, compassion, and conviction.How might you dare to believe that something better is possible?Challenge yourself beyond your comfort zone and live your life so that it proclaims God’s love with boldness and without fear.

Pray.
A prayer by Ted Loder:
“O God of beginnings, as your Spirit moved over the face of the deep on the first day of creation, move with me now in my time of beginnings … I tremble on the edge of a maybe, a first time, a new thing, a tentative start, and the wonder of it lays its finger on my lips. In silence, Lord, I share now my eagerness and my uneasiness about this something different … and I listen for your leading to help me separate the light from the darkness in the change I seek to shape and which is shaping me.”

Carry On.
Join us on Wednesday evenings for “On the Road: We are not there yet. We are on the way together.”  The study invites us to explore who we are.  We’ll dig into God’s word, seek better understanding of the history of this church, and work to be open to new callings for mission and ministry.  Visit easter.org/learning for details.