Go Long...

Here is another nifty quote from Frederick Buechner.

"What is the kingdom of God? Jesus does not speak of a reorganization of society as a political possibility or of the doctrine of salvation as a doctrine. He speaks of what it is like to find a diamond ring that you thought you'd lost forever. He speaks of what it is like to win the Irish Sweepstakes. He suggests rather than spells out. He evokes rather than explains. He catches by surprise. He doesn't let the homiletic seams show. He is sometimes cryptic, sometimes obscure, sometimes irreverent, always provocative. He tells stories. He speaks in parables, and thought we have approached these parables reverentially all these many years and have heard them expounded as grave and reverent vehicles of holy truth, I suspect that many if not all of them were originally not grave at all but were antic, comic, often more than just a little shocking."

I think a major problem with how people claiming to be followers of Jesus relate to this North American culture is not that they haven't heard clearly enough what Jesus was about and just need a few more lessons, it is that they have heard and only take it as far as is comfortable. That is, to this side of the place where it becomes irrational, or silly, or shocking, or insane - the place, in short, where faith begins.