Reflecting on Luke 19:35-40“If they keep quiet, the stones will cry out.” (Luke 19:40)
Those who put their hope in Jesus were crying out with hopeful praise.
They were offending the religious people, who want to keep them quiet.
Here the hopeful kept crying out, but it doesn’t always end this way.
Sometimes the religious put the pressure on, with threats or violence.
They eject the desperate from their midst, to protect their peace.
Can you think of desperate but hopeful people being silenced by the church?
People whose beliefs are deemed weak or wrong… misfit messengers?
People whose views on the Christian life do not measure up to the church’s?
I know humble, sincere Jesus seekers who have been shunned and silenced.
Because of how they think, how they behave, how they sound… they are rebuked.
I take comfort from the fact that creation itself cries out with them, for them.
God hears the cries of sincere seekers and strugglers censured by the church.
The stones of the religious establishment will come crashing down (Luke 21:5-6).
Yet these rolling stones will testify to God’s mercy for the victims of religious abuse.
When the church fails to give voice to the weak, Jesus has His own rock band!
PRAYER
Lord Jesus, sometimes I am silent when I should speak out. Forgive me for times when I make it hard for others to cry out to God. Embolden my voice to cry out for those silenced, censured and shunned by the religious community. I want to join Your 'misfit messenger' rock band, declaring the greatness of God's mercy and grace!
Studying the book of Acts, I see the Spirit move – how whole households were baptized and accepted by Paul and his fellow missionaries. Or how they proclaimed the gospel and worshipped with Lydia, totally a female ‘household’ church. God continues to move in mysterious ways and I need open eyes and earrs and heart to be a tepping stone and not a stumbling block in His Kingdom here and now.