Off the List, Still On the Hook

It’s great when leaders go out on a limb. Risk-taking in high places always gets me cheering. Whether it’s Jesse Jackson negotiating with Hezbollah, or our Indianapolis mayor, Bart Peterson, establishing a Task Force to reduce violence in our city, I appreciate thinking and acting “outside the box.”

Risk-taking demands a clear perception of reality. Risk-takers combine that view with an insight into a different, better future. Risk-takers share a vision in ways that inspire others to join in bringing about the new reality. Speaking the truth and suggesting a path toward a different future exposes the leader to both criticism and failure. But there is a hidden, greater risk.

In the case of the Mayor’s Anti-violence Task Force, the hidden risk is that we who are left off the Blue Ribbon list will make a bad decision. There’s a chance we’ll decide we have no role shaping the vision, no duty to join the march, and no stake in the outcome. We don’t see ourselves at the ceremony unveiling the Blue Ribbon Report. It’s doubtful, too, that we see ourselves losing the next election if the Task Force fails.

The Mayor looks for concrete, proven strategies that can be implemented quickly and without high cost. People of faith ought to hear in that message a call for the roles, responsibilities and tasks in which we are experts.

We’re masters at Sharin’ Plenty Good News! That means, first, we can pray God’s wisdom be delivered to Task Force members in huge doses. It also means that we can encourage one another, especially young persons, to attend the public hearings the Tasks Force hosts.

Most importantly, the charge to identify and implement low-cost, effective strategies means two more things for us. First, we get to re-claim our identity as “ambassadors for Christ.” Second, we get to reassert our role to spread the Good News that the reconciliation God offers us in Christ is available for free to: each member of each household, every resident on every street, the entire city, and all persons for whom Christ has made the supreme sacrifice.

Each of us has a personal liberation story to share. There are none of us who does not have a graced encounter with the Risen Christ to boast about. Paul makes it clear, in 2 Corinthians 5:16-21, that we are “on the hook” to speak and act in ways that deliver God’s reconciling appeal to all people, through us.

We who have been reconciled to God in Christ and live in the new creation are the most powerful, concrete, low-cost, effective architects and builders of God’s vision for a new reality. Thank you, Mr. Mayor, for those whom you’ve put on the list, and for putting all of us back on the hook!