Remember unity in Christ, pastor tells prayer breakfast
MOSES LAKE — We live in a lonely age, in which Americans are often times bitterly and angrily divided and the culture is changing faster than many people are comfortable with.
That’s what Terry McGonigal, chaplain and current director of church engagement at Whitworth University in Spokane, says he’s found in his years of talking with parents, students, and congregants across the country.
“I’m hearing over and over again, wow, the culture sure has changed, and we’re trying to figure this out, trying to navigate along the way,” McGonigal said.
McGonigal spoke Tuesday morning at the annual Mayors’ Prayer Breakfast, held in Big Bend Community College’s ATEC building and sponsored by the local Kiwanis.
“There’s a lot of division in churches,” he said. “We are divided not just into progressives and conservatives, but as friends, families, and churches. How do we find common ground to continue to bear witness to the Good News of Jesus Christ in the midst of all these changes?”
McGonical told those gathered to remember that whatever their divisions, as Christians, they are made one in Jesus Christ. And he used the story of Jesus and his disciples’ long journey to Jerusalem, particularly his encounters with the blind man (unnamed in Luke’s account, called Bartimaeus in Mark) and the tax collector Zaccheus to illustrate his message.
“On a mission to redeem the world, Jesus stopped,” McGonigal said, because a blind man, cast out and begging by the side of the road, called out his name.
In giving him his sight back, McGonigal said Jesus drew the blind man into “a relationship of trust with Jesus because his word is his bond.”
Similarly, Jesus created the same relationship with the very wealthy tax collector Zaccheus, who would have been viewed as an enemy and traitor to his people for collecting taxes for the Romans and often demanding more than was owed.
“Zaccheus was wealthy because of his position,” McGonigal said. “He was also the loneliest man in town, a traitor. People in Jericho were starving because of Zaccheus, and he didn’t care.”
At least until he met Jesus, McGonigal said, when Zaccheus pledged to return his ill-gotten gain fourfold and give half of his wealth to the poor.
In fact, McGonigal imagined that Zaccheus and the blind man became friends — something that would never have happened without both of them meeting, and being changed, by Jesus.
McGonigal said the power of Christian love and care was different from practical Roman paganism and a Judaism that insisted upon keeping itself separate from the world, and made it possible for Christians — people who had no power or social standing — to transform the Roman Empire.
“If we live the way of Jesus, we have the possibility to transform our community, our state, our world,” he said. “Jesus brought people together, and we can bring people together and let them know that everyone is worthy of God’s mercy and love.”
Charles H. Featherstone can be reached via email at countygvt@columbiabasinherald.com