Rev Paige's Corner: Challenged
As many of you know, I spent most of a week at the "Festival of Homiletics" in Atlanta. (Homiletics is the fancy word for preaching.) This event has some of the best preachers from around the country and even some international preachers. It is not so much about learning how to preach as it is about spiritual nourishment for preachers.
The first evening, we heard Allan Boesak preach. Rev Boesak is South African and a pastor fo the Dutch Reformed Church. He was a leader in the anti-apartheid movement and a church leader in many international settings. His sermon challenged and inspired. He spoke about the divide of social inequalities around our world. He shared that the top 10 richest people in our world have more net worth than the bottom 95% of the combined networth of the world's people. (Let that fact settle in!) The Oxfam inequality report calls this the decade of Division pointing at the unequal access to jobs, education, health care, and essentails for basic living. According to their data, social economic inequalities cause 22000 deaths every single day - or a person every 4 seconds.
These sorts of statistics are difficult to wrap our minds around and can leave us feeling grief and a sense of burden. In those moment, Rev Boesak told us, we run to Jesus. In Jesus, we find a man born as a Palestinean in an occupied land where it was a struggle day after day to survive. Jesus lived and ministered in the midst of those who were struggling. Their pain was his pain. To take up the burden of Christ is to be engaged in the needs of those who are suffering from the cost of the inequalities and injustice in our world. And, Rev Boesak told us, this is not an easy thing to do. But taking the hand of Jesus is to find courage and to walk with him.
Rev Boesak preached to us with passion and fire. He spoke hard truths. But grounded in faith, he inspired us to take up the challenge rather than turning away. And for that I am thankful!
With blessings!
Rev Paige Besse-Rankin
| 
