When Love pays a Price

Perhaps because I’ve been reflecting recently on what discipleship is and isn’t, and perhaps because I dabble in electronic media via this blog, I was taken by this old quote from Colin Morris when he was Head of Religious Broadcasting, BBC: “The whole anguish of religious broadcasting is that we are transmitting a message of love and it is costing us nothing. It costs us nothing to say “I love you” or “God loves you” except the breath it takes to speak into a microphone. There is a powerful missionary movement being built up around the use of private satellites and cable television, based mainly in the United States. From these sources, 

electronic missionaries placed 23,000 miles in the air will preach the gospel to the people of Africa, Asia and South America. But you see, it costs nothing. In terms of personal cost – of the real giving of self – it doesn’t cost a thing. Therefore it is a ghost, a distortion of what Christianity is about. Unless I actually stand alongside you – not as an electronic ghost, but as someone who shares your life, who sweats, fears and hungers, and who risks the same diseases, it is not what Christianity is all about.”  Quoted in Still Waters, Deep Waters – meditations and prayers for busy people Edited by Rowland Croucher.

Before you remind me that there is a large cost in terms of finance and time, and before you remind me about the effectiveness of religious media, let me say that I’m aware that there is a cost, but I think Colin Morris is saying that it is a different kind of cost.  To truly be alongside someone, to engage in the issues that matter to them, to extend the hospitality of Christ in practical ways, takes a different kind of love to that which announces the Good News to faceless people.  It is the kind of love that is seen most perfectly in the Incarnation.

Comments

[Eleni]

I think that's spot on. There is a measurable financial cost when engaging in Christian media - but it isn't synonymous with discipleship. In some instances, it's a akin to feeling a conviction that your not engaging with family, or church (either through caring and connecting with others or service) and increasing your tithe or buying the kids a Wii to compensate. And while I don't think media should be abolished, their should be a pursuit toward balance and discernment. Afterall, the written word circulated en masse has reached the remotest parts of the earth. But the arduous work of living out truth in our communities and beyond is always a human (relational)investment. A cost that isn't necessarily measured through pouring in more money, but in many instances the choice to forego it.