wfn.org | Buechner Proclaims the Gospel at Opening Worship

[PCUSA.NEWS@pcusa.org]

16-June-1997 
GA97032 
 
              Buechner Proclaims the Gospel at Opening Worship 
 
                              by Jane Hines 
 
 
SYRACUSE--Displaying the same wry sense of humor with an unexpected twist 
that drives home a theological point in the books he writes, Frederick 
Buechner delighted a capacity crowd of Presbyterians gathered for worship 
on Monday morning, June 16. 
 
    The topic was a serious matter of "The Proclamation of the Gospel for 
the Salvation of Humankind", the First Great End of the Church.  Buechner 
treated it with great seriousness, tempered with his unique kind of 
observation, saying that it may not happen in a meaningful way every time 
you sit in church.  He told a touching story of how the Gospel was 
proclaimed in a situation he didn't want to be involved in but found to be 
a lesson in love and grace. 
 
    He read the first four verses of the first chapter of John, 
recommending the same kind of experience that the writer of that book had 
as something that it is possible to find today: living life by falling in 
love with it, by filling our sails with the winds of love, by having 
genuine friendship with each other as a product of true friendship with God 
and with Jesus Christ.   Describing what that experience might be like, he 
said, "It may be more like being called to a great jamboree instead of the 
209th General Assembly." 

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