PROVOKE TO LOVE AND GOOD DEEDS

On October 10-13 I travelled to Salt Lake City for the Annual Meeting of the Evergreen Association of American Baptists USA. On the plane from Seattle I was in the early pages of The Message by.Ta-Nehisi Coates. He is writing as a teacher of writing. I find the book challenging, but he got to me in the early pages with this quote:

Haunt. You’ve heard me say this word a lot. It is never enough for the reader of your words to be convinced. The goal is to haunt—to have them think about your words before bed, see them manifest in their dreams, tell their partner about them the next morning, to have them grab random people on the street, shake them and say, “Have you read this yet?”

Can You imagine having words so significant that people cannot leave them alone? They can only pass them on, but they still stay with each one. The power of such words can change the course of History, can reach into the hearts of people and transform them to fuller human beings.

I had such an experience at the Evergreen Annual Meeting. The theme of the meeting was taken from Hebrews 10:24 as follows: And let us consider how to provoke one another to love and good deeds. These word, particularly the word Provoke, have been haunting me. All I can do is share this word.

The verse I quoted is for the New Revised Standard version.  I wondered how other translations handled the word Provoke. Surprisingly most translations, including the KJV, used provoked.  The NIV uses spur on; the First Nations version used stir up. Several versions used Encourage, which seems a rather week translation.

It is not provoke for the sake of provocation; it is to provoke to love and good deeds. There is a positive purpose for provoking, it is to advance the love and work of the beloved community.  It is a theme that runs throughout the Old Testament prophets: repent for the Kingdom of God is at hand!  It is a call to serve the poor and the outcast. It is a call to welcome the stranger, the foreigner, the immigrant.

Of course, Jesus picked up this message from the prophets and it raises up sporadically throughout history.  It was the call to action of Rosa Parks, sitting on a bus. It was the call to Martin Luther King to stand against white supremacy. It was the message of John Lewis to call us to make Good Trouble.

John Kennedy’s most famous quote was “Ask not what your Country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.” The statement was made to provoke so love and good deeds.  It is a call to action.

We have other meetings and worship opportunities, but what I take away and will remember a year,5 years in the future is to provoke for love and good deeds.

One other thing I will never forget was a mystical experience: the prelude for Saturday night worship was a trombone solo

of Just A Closer Walk With Thee.  I hung on each note.  The path of that closer walk is to provoke to love and good deeds.