LIVE OUT LOUD!

Emile Zola has written,"If you ask me what I can do in this world, as an artist I will answer you, I can live out loud."

I like that! What does it mean for Christians to live out loud? To “live out loud” as a Christian allows one to enter various arenas of life with concern and voice for life. Loud voices of faith are useful ones when they rally human beings around issues such as the green-house effect, depletion of scarce resources, global concentration of financial capital, population explosion, marginalization of unskilled workers, internet-pornography and issues of peace and justice. Loud voices of faith are useful voices when they announce God's passion for the world and God's desires to bring salvation to it.

In the Celtic tradition the Holy Spirit is represented as a bird, but not the peaceful and serene dove landing on Jesus at his baptism. For their symbol of the Holy Spirit, the Celtic Christians chose the Wild Goose. Doves are docile and delicate, but the wild goose is intractable, and unpredictable. Instead of a soft coo, the wild goose is noisy and raucous. The goose is also a messy bird! And it seemed always to be on a pilgrimage. Jesus said that those Christians who were led by the Spirit were like the wind — you don't know where it comes from and you don't know where it's going. Perhaps Christians who take their clue from the wild goose are loose and free themselves. They live lives that are less than predictable. They live life to the fullest (John 10:10). They are wild and free, loud, untamable either by a world that would bind them with lies or by some denominations that would chain them with duty and obligation.

But what does it mean to live our lives out loud? It often means that we have to step out of familiar roles of institutional church membership. Church membership alone is not enough to establish God’s truth; we need ongoing theological reflection and faith in action. Scriptures, creeds, doctrines, offices, sacraments, and liturgies are all “means of salvation”. They are instruments of the Word of God which arouse and sustain faith in the power of the Spirit. But, as Zola writes, we need to “live out loud.” If Christians are not “loud” about faith, the church and her message will be condemned to irrelevance. People are attracted today to the voices and actions of Christians where they find credible responses to felt needs – whether material, communal or spiritual. The question is whether the response offered empowers such people to face their problems, or whether they provide escape routes into fantasy and compensation.

As a Christian I don't want my faith to be reduced to handing out religious tracks, preaching sermons, or entering buildings where I am not supposed to be to “evangelize”. I don’t want my religious life to get stuck in a place like that. For me, living life out loud has meant embracing the view that salvation is about everything, and sharing this message with everyone everywhere. Living life out loud has meant finding a way to create a place or presence for life in my everyday world--with family, with friends, and with strangers. I haven't been completely successful in figuring out how to do this. It is a process that changes as I change. It is a process that engages the world beyond my own everyday world.

The church is also struggling with living its life out loud. In a historic change, non-celibate gays and lesbians can now lead parishes of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA). Everyone doesn't like the decision. But you know what I think? I think the 549 delegates to the ELCA Assembly last August who voted for this change were actually trying to live their lives, and their faith out loud in the model of Jesus Christ. That's what I think. In a manner that is loving, supportive, and open-minded, but definitely out loud.