Do all of you (any of you?) know Robert Farrar Capon’s Parables trilogy: Grace, Kingdom, and Judgment?
I recently reread the first two and read Judgment for the first time and I so need to say what he does with the concept of Word is absolutely Johannine!
Relating to Capon and regarding Word, evangelism and church in general...a while ago I heard a local Pentecostal pastor say, “It’s all about the Word; nothing happens here except by and through the Word.” Reformation Christian that I am, my immediate reaction was “What about sacrament?” But now I’m more and more aware of how sacrament encompasses and implies Word and how Word always involves and illuminates [explies?] sacrament, too. To that I’ll add nothing on earth ever existed or exists at all except by the breath of the Word of Life and the Word of God continues as creator, co-creator and renewer of all creation. So it’s primarily a matter of making people aware of the presence of the Word and the presence of salvation=wholeness=redemption in their very midst. Right here in our very midst!
