Entrusted With A Commission

What Do Our Lives Proclaim?

Dear Friends,

I hope you all had a blessed Candlemas. I admit, no candles were lit in my home. The fact is, I don’t light a lot of candles – it always feels a bit risky with all the cats around. But candles or no, this festival came with some striking memories. That’s because, besides a great celebration of new life in the shape of a greenhouse and church garden, Candlemas was the last time the children and youth of my church gathered in person for our monthly service before the pandemic began last year. And a bit of my heart is still sitting around the choir room table, the space covered in colored pipe cleaners. My St. Brigid’s Cross, made from those pipe cleaners, still hangs by the door.

Of course, there is no staying in that before time. There is only moving forward. And, for many of us, that means that we are preparing for Ash Wednesday, Lent, and, ultimately, Easter. Certainly, I am trying to find ways to connect with my community in these coming weeks and, one way I’m doing that, besides the endless resource packets online, is through the world of stories, like Glenys Nellist’s new book, Twas the Morning of Easter.

Ethel helped me check out this new book.

Nellist has written so many wonderful children’s books that immerse us in Biblical narratives, and this one is no exception, taking us on a journey through that mysterious day from Mary’s perspective. This is something I’ve always appreciated about Godly Play – this matter of who is at the heart of the story, who offers us insight – and it’s very much alive in this text. I’m grateful to have it on hand in this season.

And all those things that come before? We may be an Easter people, as the saying goes, but Easter loses its meaning without what precedes it. To proclaim the resurrection, we need to attend to its significance – specifically Christ’s rejection and suffering and our own desperate need for redemption. To be Easter people, then, might really mean to be people of proclamation, as described in this Sunday’s reading from 1 Corinthians.

In this passage from 1 Corinthians, Paul expounds on what it means to be an evangelist, and his particular philosophy in this regard:

If I proclaim the gospel, this gives me no ground for boasting, for an obligation is laid on me, and woe to me if I do not proclaim the gospel! For if I do this of my own will, I have a reward; but if not of my own will, I am entrusted with a commission. What then is my reward? Just this: that in my proclamation I may make the gospel free of charge, so as not to make full use of my rights in the gospel.

Simply put, we are all called to declare this great story, with our words and with our lives.

As a writer, the practice of proclamation is both dear to me and complicated. Twas the Morning of Easter offers an obvious example of straightforward proclamation, as do so many other beloved books. On the other hand, as a contemporary poet, I wonder what my words and my life proclaim when I arrive on those pages. It’s a question we should all be asking. And I wonder, how does your family proclaim the Gospel?

In today’s world, a whisper can seem so loud: declining an invitation because it interferes with the Church hour, saying a prayer over a meal in public. We quiet our faith in response to secular society. And, while I condemn expressions of Christianity attached to the state, as private individuals, how we act – when we behave in a Christ-like manner, rather than conforming to the norms of the world – we are a living proclamation.

Of course, we all fall short, but I wonder: what do our actions say is most important in our lives? What do we say with our words? What do we wish was most important? May we lift up Christ in our words and deeds, and in our hearts.

Live It Loud,
Bird