WORSHIP SERVICE
EVANGELISM AND JUSTICE CONSULTATION
PRE-GENERAL ASSEMBLY
JUNE 3, 1991
MEDITATION BY
JOHN M. BUCHANAN, PASTOR

FOURTH PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, CHICAGO

The texts, Rich Killmer called to tell
me, are Psalm 113, Isaiah 61:1-4, and Luke 5:17-24,
Would you reflect on the, he asked, and bring to
the task your own hermaneutic of justice and
evangelism? And my initial response I think was to
ask if this was a homiletical assignment for the
next year, perhaps. "No" he said -— about four
minutes,

So - they say it... When you establish
justice - you are speaking an evangelical word.
When you evangelize - which I take to mean
representing what we know about a God who is

revealed in Jesus Christ to human beings - that

evangel is inevitably about justice.

There is just no way to put scripture in the
center of things and avoid that conclusion. No
that we haven't tried.

The Psalmist moves from praise to social
action without missing a beat... the God who is
worshipped is in the business of raising poor
people from the dust, the needy from the ash pile
and making a place for them to sit at a royal
banquet table.

The prophet brings Gospel to a literally
captive people and for them good news is that they
will soon be free of their captivity...

As familiar as all that is it is the Gospel
narrative that having Christian faith gets us -
both on our knees in front of Jesus - but also
perspiring a bit with the hard work of justice...

Four people carry their paralyzed friend, bed
and all, to see Jesus, the source of the health he
needs.

Prevented from accomplishing their goal, they

persist - haul him up on the roof - remove a part
of the roof and let him down, a surprise descent
into what must have been a startled company. I
couldn't help but muse then Luke gives us the
gentle, sanitized version, more suitable for us
Presbyterians. The four "remove tiles" he says and
I see them stacking them in order, maybe even
cataloging them, and planning to restore them
later. Mark says they dug a hole through the
roof... destroyed the structure which stood between
their friend and his situation, a version suitable
for the more strenuous social activists. If Luke
is reformed, Mark is revolutionary here.

The real shocker is that Jesus recognizes
what they have done as faith... sees their faith...
sees their commitment to their brother, sees their
determination to let nothing interfere with his
getting to the level of his hope and wholeness -
sees their sweat and love and dirty hands... as
"faith" and then says to the paralyzed man "your

sins are forgiven." A few minutes later to make a

point about authority, he adds physical healing.

Bill Coffin thinks the point of this is what
happens next - i.e. the paralytic gets up and walks
away. “If it's hell to be guilty, its scary to be
responsible" he wrote and imagined himself on the
stretcher when Jesus says "rise, take up your bed
and walk," imagines himself saying “Aah - no thank
you, I rather stay right here on the mat."

But what really strikes me here is that Jesus
calls faith - that combination of love, loyalty and
work which gets the paralyzed brother through the
roof and into Jesus presence.

It's the two together - the synergism - the
wholeness.

He taught us that love received isn't really
received until it begins to make lovers of us.

It was Jesus who stimulated Paul Tillich to
teach that if you try to talk about love without
justice, what you're talking about isn't love -
might feel good, might fill up your pews and

offering plate - but isn't the love he himself was

and is.

So I have to believe and propose that among
the spiritual hungers the church is called to
address is this profound hunger to be loved and
that what he told us was that we are to show,
teach, demonstrate and declare that the way to
taste it, to experience that love is to put it to
work.

I dare to think that knowing that has been
our genius - the part of the Gospel we have been
commissioned to steward for the whole church and
world.

And I believe it and proclaim to you because
one day Jesus looked up at a hole punched in the
roof and saw four faces peering down at him,
sheepishly ~- perspiration dripping, a little dirty
and out of breath —- and said, “Now that's what I

call faith!"