I read a short piece by Henri Nouwen this morning concerning how we behave as believers when we share the news we have about Jesus and what He says about faith and life. I find it interesting that so often when we share what we belive, we rarely share purely; we tend to add on a bunch of stuff that pulls a person toward our way of thinking rather than allowing a person to simply know who Jesus is, what He has to say and then go forward with a journey of their own. Somehow we believe that we have to orient people to our way of thinking when sharing what we have come to believe, rather than simply sharing the pure news of the Gospel. I am not talking about making disciples, I am talking about swaying a person toward a specific set of standards that are Gospel neutral. It just kills us if we can’t bring a person to the same place that we have come . . . we can’t bear to see someone learn a new way of walking out their faith after we have gone to the trouble of sharing our life journey with them. I am being overly dramatic here, but Nouwen’s thinking conjured up all this excees baggage I picked up while traveling down the Evangelical railroad. I think I will stop and let Nouwen explain this thinking in a much clearer way.
”Good news becomes bad news when it is announced without peace and joy. Anyone who proclaims the forgiving and healing love of Jesus with a bitter heart is a false witness. Jesus is the savior of the world. We are not. We are called to witness, always with our lives and sometimes with our words, to the great things God has done for us. But this witness must come from a heart that is willing to give without getting anything in return. The more we trust in God’s unconditional love for us, the more able we will be to proclaim the love of Jesus without any inner or outer conditions.”
