Do We Preach the Gospel ?

If the Church in America looks at itself honestly...as we're commanded to do...I think we have to have to ask ourselves if we are preaching the gospel, as we are commanded to do ?

That question hinges on another: does the Church in America know what the gospel IS ? How can we preach what we ourselves don't know ?

To my subjective experience, what we preach is some variation of salvationism: that we can be forgiven our sins if we accept Jesus as Lord, and we'll go to heaven when we die. In the meantime, we can know we're saved if we do right things.

That's a vast simplification of what we preach, of course. And none of the message is false in itself.

But what increasingly seems lacking in the Church' gospel is the good news that we can walk with our Father experientially. "Heaven" and "right things" miss the point: neither has any reality separate from God's Own Presence. The good news is His Presence: even in this dark world, and even in us.

And where His Presence is, God reigns. The good news is that (in the words of Luther's hymn) "His Kingdom is forever:" and "now" is a part of "forever." When God is Present with us, we are not struggling through, doing right things in this life until we "get there" by dying. Living in God's Presence, our hearts are not set on doing "right things" at all: we desire to do what pleases our Father. Our purpose isn't to "get there:" we are there.

If we struggle, it's against our human weakness to set our hearts on some other purpose than doing His will. But it's not that great a struggle. No one in His Presence wants any lesser thing. And our hearts deeply desire to please Him because His Presence only rests with those who do.

God's living Presence seems vastly different from the gospel the Church preaches.

God's Presence seems vastly different from the good news the Church itself knows.