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2009-07-07 issue:

A family friend's advice: Don't be shy

by Gordon Houser

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Sojourners editor-in-chief and co-founder Jim Wallis greeted Mennonites at the Convention 2009 evening worship on July 4 as "a friend of the family" who has been enriched by the Anabaptist movement and Mennonites. "Your best stuff is the right stuff," he said, and you need to share it.

The evening's theme was "Sent by the Spirit" and focused on John 20:19-21 and Isaiah 61:1-3. Wallis noted that right after Jesus said to his followers, "Peace be with you," he sent them into a world of conflict.

Jim Wallis speaks at adult worship on July 4. Photo by Everett J. Thomas.

Wallis said he grew up in an evangelical family that emphasized "getting saved" at a young age. But faith had no public element. Later, he learned that "God is personal but not private."

Early in the history of the Sojourners community, in the early 1970s, Mennonite theologian John Howard Yoder offered counsel to Wallis and others. He taught them that Jesus was a revolutionary figure who calls us to make the kingdom of God our priority.

If U.S. Christians saw themselves as Christians first rather than Americans first, Wallis said, they would transform the church and the country.

Referring to the Isaiah text, which Jesus applied to himself in Luke 4:18-21, Wallis asked the audience, "Is Jesus’ mission statement the same as ours?" Jesus proclaimed good news to the poor, he said. "If our gospel is not good news to poor people, it is not the gospel of Jesus."

Wallis commended young people, who "are less concerned about what you have to believe to be a Christian than what you have to do because you're a Christian." This younger generation, he said, is interested in issues such as poverty, climate change and racism.

We all are called to address poverty, he said, which is on God's heart. "God cares more about the 30,000 children who died today from preventable diseases than about gay marriage amendments in Ohio."

Wallis noted three big shifts in our society and world: religious, political and economic. Our economic crisis, he said, is an opportunity to rethink our habits, our measures of success. We are learning that relationships matter, social sins matter and the common good matters.

He looked at the story of Jesus' feeding of the 5,000. In a recession, he said, we tend to hold on to our lunch, unlike the boy in the story. But in God’s economy, we share it.

Wallis told about a time he preached in Martin Luther King’s church and was struggling to get through his sermon. But a man in the audience, Deacon Johnson, encouraged him as he spoke and pulled a sermon out of him.

Mennonites need to be like Deacon Johnson, he said. "Your best stuff is the right stuff."

Young people want to be known by what they're for, not what they’re against. They need elders to show them the way. "As a friend of the family," Wallis said, "I urge you to not be shy about sharing your best stuff."

Following the message, worship leaders Regina Shands Stoltzfus and Joel Miller invited people to come to the front to receive anointing with oil from one of the ministers spread across the room. Hundreds came forward.

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