This item from recent Bruderhof "Daily Dig" appealed to me in the light of
our Province Restructuring and a statement in a 2004 CLT letter to our
Province: 'We can do the soup kitchen ­ but shrink from critical action²

Be Salt!
Jeanne de Celles


Jesus did not get into trouble with the powers of his day simply by
challenging his individual hearers. He challenged the very systems of his
society - the cornerstones. Just as the values of Madison Avenue, Wall
Street, and the Pentagon conflict with the gospel, so too with Jesus and the
institutions of his time: he took on the power structures of his own day,
religious and civil alike.

Confrontation was not popular in first-century Palestine. It is not popular
anywhere in the twenty-first. To bring gospel values to bear on labor
practices, governmental decisions, and even religious traditions and
policies is no more popular for a follower of Jesus than it was for him. He
was told that they had their laws. Those who dare to bring his values to
today¹s world are told the same thing.

Yes, discipleship does have its cost - anyone who has dared to bring the
gospel to bear on his or her own life knows that. Whether we feel it may be
a good litmus test for discerning if we are truly following on his path, or
pursuing a false trail.


source: "A New Heaven and a New Earth"