On a recent visitation to one of the communities of faith in the Diocese of Missouri, one of our young people offered me a drawing she did during the service. I was very honored to be presented with her colorful artwork. She had captured the altar, the people, the candles and even the font in her drawing. You could tell that she was very proud of her accomplishment, but something in her drawing caught my eye. It was the image of a large trumpet in the left hand corner of her piece. Having no visible trumpet in the congregation I was visiting, I asked about the unusual addition. She said, “That is how we proclaim Jesus. We use a trumpet to shout out the news of Jesus.” Needless to say I was impressed. A high five and a huge “thank you” followed as I thought to myself that the future of the Church is in good hands with evangelists like this little girl.
We are to shout out the news about Jesus. There is something beautiful and inspiring in that simple statement. Yet there is difficulty in simplicity. At the heart of our faith in following Jesus is the call to proclaim, to shout out, the Good News we have encountered in the living Christ.
As Episcopalians we are guided by our Baptismal Covenant, our marching orders of sorts, for how we live our lives in relation to our faith. Each time we gather to remember our Baptism we are challenged to be instruments of proclamation. So then what does it mean to, “proclaim by word and example the Good News of God in Christ?” What difference does it make in our lives, in our world that we promise to let our lives and our living be icons of the Gospel of Jesus?
As the Church, composed of many members with extraordinary gifts, we have a story to tell. We have the story of God’s presence, God’s movement, God’s abundance, that transforms our lives and our communities through the saving actions of Jesus Christ. The life, death, and resurrection of Jesus is not simply a biblical story of events that happened long ago, but rather the ongoing story of our lives and the story of what brings us to life in all its fullness. We are called to share with others, by word and example, the ways in which God is working in our lives. We share the story that shapes us, that forms us, that ultimately transforms us into the Body of Christ for the world.
Jesus valued relationships. Throughout the Gospels we see Jesus forming transformative relationships with many different people. From healing Bartimaeus, to encountering the woman at the well, to raising Lazarus from the dead, Jesus sought to deepen the reach of God’s love. In almost every interaction with Jesus, lives are transformed, circles are drawn wider, life courses are altered from the encounter.
These acts of transformation and deepening fulfilled Jesus' first public pledge of his ministry, “...to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” We, too, share in Jesus’ call to bear witness to God’s unfolding story of salvation in the world by proclaiming the Good News we have found in following Jesus.
We in the Diocese of Missouri live out the amazing and awe inspiring story of Christ in us in countless ways. We proclaim the story of God’s saving and sustaining grace in our lives and in the lives of our communities of faith when we invite others to go deeper in their faith. We proclaim Good News when we gather for worship, when we plant seeds of hope in community gardens, when we walk alongside our unhoused neighbors. We are Good News when we stand up for justice and seek after peace.
Ours is a faith built on hope. Our lives and the lives of our gathered communities are to be outposts of God’s hope that stands against the fear and despair of the world. We proclaim the story of Jesus' salvific love in every encounter and every interaction. To proclaim Good News and to invite others into the Jesus story means that we must be a people of service. As we serve others we serve Christ as part of the continuously unfolding story of redemption.
How will your life proclaim Good News today? How will you shout out the news of Jesus?
May God bless your proclamation in every way.