07792
December 5, 2007
Fearless humility
Greater reliance on God’s grace can make church more faithful, mission pastors told
LOUISVILLE — The Rev. Steve Hayner recalled taking his adult daughter to Rwanda two years ago, where they visited a village leader who had been gang-raped and mutilated during that country’s genocide 10 years ago before escaping to Burundi. The woman returned home after recovering from her attack — pregnant and HIV+.
“Our hearts were sinking as she told us her story,” Hayner, a professor of evangelism and church growth at Columbia Theological Seminary, told the Association of Presbyterian Mission Pastors at its annual gathering here Nov. 28-30. “but she was joyous because she cares for 10 people in her village who are dying of AIDS. ‘I feel so blessed because I can care for them,’ she told us.”
Hayner said his daughter wondered aloud how she could have survived such horror, “but as we prayed together,” he said, “I told her to think of this woman as a scout on the wagon train of faith we’re all on, living in the light of her faith.”
Living with that spirit of “fearless humility” is the key to being a missional church in world wracked by deprivation which can leave Christians feeling hopeless and helpless, Hayner said.
“We know the tip of the iceberg about our failures in the global community,” Hayner said. “But the whole idea of God’s grace is to get better, to be transformed. We need to recognize that we’re weak but — as Romans 8 tells us — ‘the Spirit helps us in our weakness.’”
The task for those who want to engage the world for Jesus Christ is daunting, Hayner said, rattling off statistics: nearly half the world’s population lives on less than $2 a day; one-quarter of the world’s people are illiterate; 1 billion have no access to safe water; a child dies every three seconds from unsafe water or preventable disease; 28 million have died from AIDS; there are 27 million slaves in the world, more than ever in history; women do two-thirds of the world’s work hours but only earn 10% of the world’s income.
“We need people to stand with in awe,” Hayner said, “to stand in awe of the enormity of the task, in awe of our brothers and sisters in the world and awe in the presence of God.”
Romans 8 says “we don’t even know how to pray as we ought,” Hayner said. “That’s a statement of profound humility, but that’s just what we need — profound humility.”
Such humility affirms, finally, “that God is God and we aren’t.” For American Christians, that’s hard, Hayner continued, “because we like to be in control, in the know, strong, powerful, God-like…”
But, he said, returning to Romans 8, “God dignifies our humility with God’s ability, gently weaving the threads of our lives into what God is doing.”
Our responsibility, Hayner concluded, “is to be obedient to Jesus Christ, no matter what, with fearless humility.” |
