I would hope that every congregation has at least one, preferably several.

Squeaky wheels, I mean.

Not complainers but loving critics. Folk who are called by God to remind the rest of us of what we are really about. People who look at our budget and ask why we spend so much on ourselves and so little on others. Men and women, boys and girls, who point us to a world of pain and poverty from which we have all too often successfully insulated ourselves.

They are prophets but most of the time they are called trouble-makers.

Most of the time we do our best to avoid them.

Which means we do our worst.

But it is precisely this kind of disciple that Christ is calling us to be. Not because God wishes to punish us with a grim and gloomy faith but because it is in this bold speaking out that we discover the truth of Christianity, the real joy of the faith. To be a disciple is to stand against the world. It is to shout that there is something better than what the TV promises and the magazine ads tempt. It is to discover the real meaning of a life lived for others.

It is to finally catch on to what it means to be a Christian.