Fr Matthew Reese

For I am not ashamed of the gospel: it is the power of God for salvation to every one who has faith, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed through faith for faith; as it is written, “He who through faith is righteous shall live.”
—Romans 1:16-17

Dear Friends,

Paul’s words this morning are stirring ones, but I suspect he felt compelled to write them because many a faithful Christian has—since the very beginnings of the Church—felt ashamed of the Gospel from time to time.

For some, the source of anxiety is surely the extraordinary, almost unbelievable nature of the central claim of our faith: Christ has died. Christ has risen. Christ will come again.

For others, the anxiety probably lies with the beliefs and conduct of other Christians. “If that’s the Faith, I don’t want to claim it.”

For others yet, the fear is not to do with the nature of Christianity itself, but with the culture that surrounds it. For many of the early Christians, there was the constant fear of persecution, imprisonment, even death. (This is part of why, in the Early Church, Lent was an important season in which Christians who may have apostatized during periods of persecution could be brought back into the fold.)

There are, of course, still Christians around the world who are subjected to violence because of their beliefs. But in our own culture in the West, the fear is surely a more social one. Do I feel comfortable disclosing my faith to this person? What will he think of me? Will she think it strange?

On Ash Wednesday, we go about our days marked by the sign of the cross in a very literal way. We wear our faith on our brows. But we are also called to live out our faith every other day of our lives, even when it might be uncomfortable, even when we might not know how someone else might judge it.

True evangelism is not standing on a street corner with a placard or a bullhorn. True evangelism comes from living out the Gospel in all that we do—but also from having the courage to speak about our faith, with sincerity, humility, and conviction.

Let us be “not ashamed of the gospel: it is the power of God for salvation to every one who has faith.”

Yours in Christ,

—Fr Matthew