A Community of Christ
Acts 16:16-34; John 17:20-26
May 20, 2007
The gospel reading this morning is part of what I’ve always thought of as “I Am the Walrus” Christology: I am you and you are me and we are all together, coo coo cachoo. Sure, there’s a good deal of mystical imagination here that has provided fodder for 2,000 years of theological reflection, and you all know that I’m usually happy to dive right in to the deep end of such reflection. But this morning, continuing the theme of this Easter season of reflections on the kind of community we are called to be, the mystical Jesus of John’s gospel is leaving me a bit cold.
So I want to introduce a third text, in the form of this song by Bryan Sirchio, a UCC pastor in Wisconsin. It goes like this:
I met this preacher from Australia
He read the Bible searching for its dominant themes
And he counted 87 times when Jesus said... "Follow me."
Well you know that got me thinking
Maybe that's the bottom line of what "Christian" means
'Cause "I follow Jesus" is deeper than "I believe"
'Cause it don't take much to mentally agree
With a set of beliefs written down in some creed
Now don't get me wrong,
we need to know what we believe
But lately I've been wondering...
(Chorus)
Am I following Jesus, or just believing in Christ
'Cause I can believe and not change a thing
But following will change my whole life
He never said, come, acknowledge my existence
Or believe in me I'm the 2nd person of the Trinity
But 87 time he said... Follow me
But if I'm a follower of Jesus,
Then why am I such a good life insurance risk?
And why, when I do my giving,
do I still keep so much when so much hunger exists?
And if I follow Jesus, then why do I have so many friends
among the affluent, and so few among the poor?
And if I follow Jesus,
why do missiles and guns make me feel more secure?
And it don't take much to mentally assent
To a statement of faith we can confirm and forget
But following will change our lifestyle if we get it and
more and more I'm wondering...
(Chorus)
(Bridge)
Yes, we need to know what we believe,
to follow the Jesus who's real
God save us from the Christ's we create in our image
(you know what I mean...)
The Jesus who's as left wing or right wing as we
The one who baptizes our cherished ideologies
The one who always seems to favor our side
against some enemy
Now I don't mean to sound self-righteous
God knows I've got more questions than answers to proclaim
But its been over 20 years now since Jesus called my name
So forgive me if I'm mistaken
But there's something wrong with a lot of churches
in America these days
And I think the Spirit's trying to tell us
There's a question that the churches need to raise...
(Chorus)
Are we following Jesus? Or just believing in Christ?
'Cause we can believe, and not change a thing
But following will change our whole life
He never said, come, acknowledge my existence
Or believe in me, I'm your first class ticket to eternity...
But 87 times he said... Follow me.
The word of the Lord, thanks be to God, I say to myself whenever I listen to that song.
Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not suggesting that this song – or any other, for that matter – merits canonization. But the problem with a closed canon is that we tend to dismiss too easily such provocative words from faithful followers of Jesus and instead spend countless hours trying to figure out such passages as “the glory that you have given me I have given them, so that they may be one, as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become completely one, so that the world may know that you have sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.”
It’s like all of the “I am” statements in John. You recall them: “I am the way, the truth and the life”; “I am the vine and you are the branches”; “I am the good shepherd”; “I am the gate”; and so on. Sure, the author of John no doubt had in mind the name of God as revealed to Moses, “I am that I am, I will be what I will be.” But when I read John I find mystery in which to dwell more often than I find foundation on which to build.
That’s not a negative comment by any means – dwelling in the mystery of God is certainly a central aspect of spiritual life and the gospel of John is an excellent text for such reflection. But if we are focusing on what it might mean to be a community of Christ, then John’s word is but a part of it and perhaps not the greater part – at least for beginning.
The beginning is, of course, what is recounted in Acts, and our passage this morning might seem to contradict everything I’ve just said. After all, the jailer asks Paul and Silas what he must do to be saved and Paul answers, “believe in the Lord Jesus Christ.”
It seems, at first blush, that he can believe and not change a thing. There seems nothing of following, of discipleship, of creating a community of Christ in this episode.
But upon closer reading a couple of points poke through. First, the Greek word so often translated as “believe” in English, might better be rendered “trust.”
Whenever I consider “trust” my mind wonders to Star Wars – a wonderful theological treasure trove, I assure you. Han Solo constantly asks those around him to “trust me,” and he never means “acknowledge my existence” or “intellectually assent to some propositional statement about my ontological condition.” No. Of course not. He means, “follow me.” Now, the example ends right there, because following Han Solo leads us on entirely different adventures than following Jesus!
Paul is not telling the jailer to have a new intellectual understanding of God, he is telling him to follow Jesus. Out of the experience of following Jesus will grow new understandings of God and of the community of followers.
Now this is no promise of unending happiness. Christian community is not easy. I was at an event yesterday with Parker Palmer and he shared two great learners about community: first – community is that place where the person you least want to live with lives; second – when that person leaves the community someone else will take his or her place. Christian community is not for the faint of heart!
The second point from the text follows on the first: trusting Jesus leads directly, inescapably to acting. Indeed, it is indistinguishable from it. To believe, to trust, to follow, to live – these are the interchangeable aspects of life in the community of Christ. Paul, Silas and the jailer go forth immediately and engage in fundamental activities of Christian community: they share good news, they live sacramentally, they break bread together, they create community that is coherent – that is to say, meaningful and understandable – because it is based on this common trust in the one who came that we might have life and have it abundantly.
The purpose of Christian community – that is to say, the purpose of the church itself – is not that we might gather together and feel good about ourselves because we have the answer to life’s pop quiz of final judgment – our first class ticket to eternity. The purpose of Christian community is life abundant, full of grace and wonder and awe and love – and brokenness and messiness and suffering and humanity in all its incredible diversities – and passion and compassion and joy and laughter and justice and peace – life abundant that is not possible on our own as isolated individuals struggling in an impersonal world of overwhelming forces.
As Wendell Berry puts it, “Only the purpose of a coherent community, fully alive both in the world and in the minds of its members, can carry us beyond fragmentation, contradiction, and negativity, teaching us to preserve, not in opposition but in affirmation and affection, all things needful to make us glad to live.”
For those who would call themselves Christian, for those who would be people of the way, the way to live in such community is simple – though seldom easy: following Jesus. That is the bottom line of what it means to be coherent community of Christians. May it be said of us: “there is a community of Christ.” Amen.
May 20, 2007
The gospel reading this morning is part of what I’ve always thought of as “I Am the Walrus” Christology: I am you and you are me and we are all together, coo coo cachoo. Sure, there’s a good deal of mystical imagination here that has provided fodder for 2,000 years of theological reflection, and you all know that I’m usually happy to dive right in to the deep end of such reflection. But this morning, continuing the theme of this Easter season of reflections on the kind of community we are called to be, the mystical Jesus of John’s gospel is leaving me a bit cold.
So I want to introduce a third text, in the form of this song by Bryan Sirchio, a UCC pastor in Wisconsin. It goes like this:
I met this preacher from Australia
He read the Bible searching for its dominant themes
And he counted 87 times when Jesus said... "Follow me."
Well you know that got me thinking
Maybe that's the bottom line of what "Christian" means
'Cause "I follow Jesus" is deeper than "I believe"
'Cause it don't take much to mentally agree
With a set of beliefs written down in some creed
Now don't get me wrong,
we need to know what we believe
But lately I've been wondering...
(Chorus)
Am I following Jesus, or just believing in Christ
'Cause I can believe and not change a thing
But following will change my whole life
He never said, come, acknowledge my existence
Or believe in me I'm the 2nd person of the Trinity
But 87 time he said... Follow me
But if I'm a follower of Jesus,
Then why am I such a good life insurance risk?
And why, when I do my giving,
do I still keep so much when so much hunger exists?
And if I follow Jesus, then why do I have so many friends
among the affluent, and so few among the poor?
And if I follow Jesus,
why do missiles and guns make me feel more secure?
And it don't take much to mentally assent
To a statement of faith we can confirm and forget
But following will change our lifestyle if we get it and
more and more I'm wondering...
(Chorus)
(Bridge)
Yes, we need to know what we believe,
to follow the Jesus who's real
God save us from the Christ's we create in our image
(you know what I mean...)
The Jesus who's as left wing or right wing as we
The one who baptizes our cherished ideologies
The one who always seems to favor our side
against some enemy
Now I don't mean to sound self-righteous
God knows I've got more questions than answers to proclaim
But its been over 20 years now since Jesus called my name
So forgive me if I'm mistaken
But there's something wrong with a lot of churches
in America these days
And I think the Spirit's trying to tell us
There's a question that the churches need to raise...
(Chorus)
Are we following Jesus? Or just believing in Christ?
'Cause we can believe, and not change a thing
But following will change our whole life
He never said, come, acknowledge my existence
Or believe in me, I'm your first class ticket to eternity...
But 87 times he said... Follow me.
The word of the Lord, thanks be to God, I say to myself whenever I listen to that song.
Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not suggesting that this song – or any other, for that matter – merits canonization. But the problem with a closed canon is that we tend to dismiss too easily such provocative words from faithful followers of Jesus and instead spend countless hours trying to figure out such passages as “the glory that you have given me I have given them, so that they may be one, as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become completely one, so that the world may know that you have sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.”
It’s like all of the “I am” statements in John. You recall them: “I am the way, the truth and the life”; “I am the vine and you are the branches”; “I am the good shepherd”; “I am the gate”; and so on. Sure, the author of John no doubt had in mind the name of God as revealed to Moses, “I am that I am, I will be what I will be.” But when I read John I find mystery in which to dwell more often than I find foundation on which to build.
That’s not a negative comment by any means – dwelling in the mystery of God is certainly a central aspect of spiritual life and the gospel of John is an excellent text for such reflection. But if we are focusing on what it might mean to be a community of Christ, then John’s word is but a part of it and perhaps not the greater part – at least for beginning.
The beginning is, of course, what is recounted in Acts, and our passage this morning might seem to contradict everything I’ve just said. After all, the jailer asks Paul and Silas what he must do to be saved and Paul answers, “believe in the Lord Jesus Christ.”
It seems, at first blush, that he can believe and not change a thing. There seems nothing of following, of discipleship, of creating a community of Christ in this episode.
But upon closer reading a couple of points poke through. First, the Greek word so often translated as “believe” in English, might better be rendered “trust.”
Whenever I consider “trust” my mind wonders to Star Wars – a wonderful theological treasure trove, I assure you. Han Solo constantly asks those around him to “trust me,” and he never means “acknowledge my existence” or “intellectually assent to some propositional statement about my ontological condition.” No. Of course not. He means, “follow me.” Now, the example ends right there, because following Han Solo leads us on entirely different adventures than following Jesus!
Paul is not telling the jailer to have a new intellectual understanding of God, he is telling him to follow Jesus. Out of the experience of following Jesus will grow new understandings of God and of the community of followers.
Now this is no promise of unending happiness. Christian community is not easy. I was at an event yesterday with Parker Palmer and he shared two great learners about community: first – community is that place where the person you least want to live with lives; second – when that person leaves the community someone else will take his or her place. Christian community is not for the faint of heart!
The second point from the text follows on the first: trusting Jesus leads directly, inescapably to acting. Indeed, it is indistinguishable from it. To believe, to trust, to follow, to live – these are the interchangeable aspects of life in the community of Christ. Paul, Silas and the jailer go forth immediately and engage in fundamental activities of Christian community: they share good news, they live sacramentally, they break bread together, they create community that is coherent – that is to say, meaningful and understandable – because it is based on this common trust in the one who came that we might have life and have it abundantly.
The purpose of Christian community – that is to say, the purpose of the church itself – is not that we might gather together and feel good about ourselves because we have the answer to life’s pop quiz of final judgment – our first class ticket to eternity. The purpose of Christian community is life abundant, full of grace and wonder and awe and love – and brokenness and messiness and suffering and humanity in all its incredible diversities – and passion and compassion and joy and laughter and justice and peace – life abundant that is not possible on our own as isolated individuals struggling in an impersonal world of overwhelming forces.
As Wendell Berry puts it, “Only the purpose of a coherent community, fully alive both in the world and in the minds of its members, can carry us beyond fragmentation, contradiction, and negativity, teaching us to preserve, not in opposition but in affirmation and affection, all things needful to make us glad to live.”
For those who would call themselves Christian, for those who would be people of the way, the way to live in such community is simple – though seldom easy: following Jesus. That is the bottom line of what it means to be coherent community of Christians. May it be said of us: “there is a community of Christ.” Amen.
posted by David Ensign at
9:33 AM
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