The film begins with somber scenes from Depression-era, small-town Texas. Somewhere, a congregation is singing “Blessed Assurance,” and as the hymn ends, we see a family at the dinner table saying grace – mom, dad, and their two children. The peace of the Spalding family’s Sunday supper won’t last though.
Mr. Spalding is the sheriff, and he is called to talk some sense into Wiley, a young man who had a couple of drinks too many and is down by the train tracks playing with a gun. Soon, both men are dead: Sheriff Spalding is accidentally shot, and Wiley, who is black, is lynched.
The name of the film is Places in the Heart and it tells the story of Edna Spalding’s struggle to not lose her farm and keep her family together. Times are hard, and lovelessness and prejudice battle relentlessly against decency and friendship: Edna’s brother-in-law, Wayne is unfaithful to Margaret, her sister and best friend. Mr. Denby, the banker, shows no mercy as the date of her mortgage payment draws near and foreclosure looms on the horizon. A group of Klansmen is barely prevented from killing Moze, the black man who has helped her bring in a good crop of cotton. The film depicts a world in the grip of sin, that ungodly power that threatens to destroy whatever love creates and builds.
In the final scene, it is Sunday again and a congregation is gathered for worship. The preacher rises to read the lesson from 1 Corinthians 13, “Love is patient; love is kind, love is not envious or boastful, arrogant or rude. Love never ends.” We watch Margaret quietly putting her hand in Wayne’s, and we see forgiveness at work against unfaithfulness. They celebrate the Lord’s Supper, and Wayne passes the bread and the tray of cups to his wife. The bread and wine continue from hand to hand through the congregation to Mr. Denby, the banker and to Moze, and to some men whose faces we don’t recognize – perhaps because in previous scenes they kept them hidden behind white hoods – and finally to Edna Spalding. She turnes and serves her husband, the sheriff, who is now seated beside her, and he then serves Wiley. “Peace of God,” they say, “Peace of God.” And all is well.
There is hope for us because the love of God is stronger than sin. God’s faithfulness and mercy restore the sabbath peace, and all is well.
At the table of the Lord
we celebrate with thanksgiving
the saving acts and presence of Christ.
We call it the Lord’s Supper, Mass, Holy Communion, Eucharist, or the breaking of the bread, but the first thing we affirm as Disciples is that the table is the Lord’s, not our’s. The supper is the Lord’s, not the church’s. Christ is the host, and we are all guests. Christ is the gift, and we are all beggars. That may well be the hardest thing for us to remember.
When it comes to tables, we have rules. Not just rules about where to put the napkin and what fork to use for the salad. We have family rules about who gets to sit at the dining room table and who has to eat in the kitchen. We have “good society” rules about whom to invite to the dinner party and how to graciously decline an invitation from the wrong kind of people. We have house rules about who gets to eat first and who has to wait. The rich man feasts with his friends, and Lazarus sits outside with the dogs – we know the rules.
Food is much more than just the stuff we need to fuel our bodies. Food is our chance to choose our company. Sharing food is about belonging, about power and privilege. At the table of the Lord, it is Jesus who chooses his company. Some of Jesus’ contemporaries noticed what they considered a significant lack of judgment on his part in choosing the people he ate with.
Jesus was notorious for his table manners. He knew the food rules of his culture; he knew the laws of ritual purity as well as the laws of social status. He didn’t ignore these rules, he broke and obliterated them. He was indeed very careful in choosing the people he ate with, and the absence of judgment some people noticed was intentional.
Jesus proclaimed, “The kingdom of God has come near,” and he healed the sick, cast out demons, fed the hungry, and forgave sins. Jesus proclaimed the nearness of God’s sovereign reign, and wherever he went, it arrived. Eating with people he befriended them and they tasted the grace of God. Breaking bread with sinners, Jesus ended their exclusion from the company of the righteous and they became members of the household of God. Eating and drinking with sinners and tax collectors, Jesus demonstrated “in his own person what acceptance by the merciful God and the forgiveness of sins means: it means being invited to the great festal supper in the kingdom of God. Forgiveness of sins, and eating and drinking in the kingdom of God are two sides of the same thing.”[1]
Not all who witnessed his actions were happy. “This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them,” they grumbled.[2] From their lips, it was an expression of pious outrage, but even in their anger they proclaimed the hope of our salvation: Jesus Christ welcomes sinners and eats with them.
On the night before he died, Jesus had a meal with his disciples, one more link in a chain of meals connecting his ministry from Galilee to Jerusalem. During that meal he did what the host was expected to do: he took bread, gave thanks to God, broke it, and gave it to his friends. It was the common way of beginning a dinner. But then he said the words identifying himself with the bread, “This is my body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.”[3]
At the end of the meal he raised the cup and gave thanks to God; it was the common way of ending a dinner. But then he gave it to the disciples and said, “Drink from it, all of you; for this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.”[4]
He had a meal with his friends – Judas who would betray him, Peter who would deny him, and the others who would abandon him and flee.[5] That night, knowing that the disciples would not come through, Jesus made the supper at his table the visible, tangible, and edible sign of reconciliation. Foreseeing their fear, their helplessness, and their lostness – and we know that their fear is ours, that we are just as helpless and lost as they were; we know that neither friendship nor discipleship are dependable – foreseeing their despair over their failure, he gave them, he gave us the gift of communion with him.
When we break the bread and share the cup in remembrance of his birth, his words and deeds, his death and resurrection, he is with us to strengthen and encourage us, to help us up and to help us through, and to send us anew on our mission of witness and service.
He is also with us to open our eyes. Some have read the gospels and concluded that it was the Jews who are responsible for Jesus’ death. Others read the same gospels and concluded that it was the Romans who are responsible for Jesus’ death. We ask, “Were you there when they crucified my Lord?” but we need to ask, “Who wasn’t there when we crucified our Lord?” As those who, as often as we eat this bread and drink the cup, proclaim the Lord’s death, we know that we are all responsible.[6] We can’t point fingers at Judas and Peter, Caiaphas and Pontius Pilate, the priests and elders and soldiers and the crowd, because we are them. It was religion, law, politics, and public opinion that worked hand in hand to get rid of him. Sin corrupts our institutions and our best intentions, and we can do our worst when we think we are only doing what is right.
At the table we look at bread and wine, representing God’s gifts of creation and human culture, but we also see creation’s brokenness and the human destruction of relationship to God. We come face to face with God’s peace and human violence. We celebrate with open eyes, knowing that we are sinners, the saving acts and presence of Christ: God does not abandon us to the destructiveness of sin, the destructiveness of our wanting to be human without God. In communion with Christ we are delivered from the night of God-forsakenness and from the triumph of sin and death.
At the table, the past becomes present but no longer to imprison us in the memory of our failures and our broken promises, but to free us with the knowledge of God’s mercy. The future also becomes present, the sabbath of fulfillment and complete joy lights up the present moment, drives away the shadows of fear and doubt, and we are ready once again to be God’s people in the world.
At the table of the Lord we receive and proclaim God’s unconditional acceptance of human beings who have fallen under the power of sin, and in Christ’s name we invite the whole world to this celebration of what it is to become – one reconciled humanity in God’s new creation.
Times are hard, lovelessness and selfishness battle as mercilessly as ever against neighborliness and friendship. But the Supper is a living memory of God’s power to create and redeem, and among those who gather and serve each other in the name of Christ it announces the new day.
“Peace of God,” they say, “Peace of God.”
And there’s a seat at the table for every last one of us.
[1] Moltmann, The Way of Jesus Christ, p. 115
[2] Luke 15:2
[3] Luke 22:19
[4] Matthew 26:27-28
[5] See Welker, What Happens in Holy Communion, p. 71
[6] See 1 Corinthians 11:26
Monday, June 30, 2008
Monday, June 23, 2008
Joined in Discipleship
There’s a story attributed to the late George McLeod about a small Scottish town in which there were five churches. Each church was located in just the right place in terms of its social and cultural characteristics. The Baptist church was near the river, the Salvation Army was by the fire station, the Methodist church was next to the gas station, the Episcopal church was by the drapery store, and the Presbyterian church was halfway between the ice house and the bank.[1]
We may as well laugh at the tragedy of our division.
The survivor of a ship wreck was washed up on the beach of a small and what he thought, deserted island. To his surprise, he was welcomed by a man with a nice, leathery tan and sun-bleached dreadlocks.
“I came here a long time ago, after the crash of Oceanic flight 5614. Let me show you my village,” the man said, pointing to three huts under the palm trees. “This is my house. This is where I sleep and find shelter when it rains.” They walked over to the next hut, and he said with considerable pride, “And this, this is my church; here I come every Sunday morning to worship God.” His visitor nodded and pointed to the third building, “What’s that?”
“Oh, that’s the church I used to attend; but two years ago I got mad and I left.”
We may as well laugh at the scandal of our division.
Christian faith cannot thrive in religious solitariness, and our salvation lies in our being made part of the household of God. Our faith cannot be reduced to select commitments based on pure private judgment, freed from authority and the company of others. However, the history of the churches of the reformation paints a different picture: generally speaking, we like to define freedom in terms of personal preference; we are quick to split and slow to bear one another with patience.
Mark Toulouse, professor of American Religious History at Brite Divinity School in Fort Worth, TX wrote an excellent study on Disciples identity, and he named the book Joined in Discipleship. In the introduction he writes,
In a very real sense, we are ‘joined in discipleship’ with our denominational ancestors. Our stories carry on the narratives of their stories. What they began resides in us and moves unsteadily toward the future, even as it did in their own time. From out of their future and our past, we still find inspiration to proclaim the essence of the church’s unity and to expresss our despair over the reality of the church’s fragmentation.[2]
We are joined in discipleship in a very real sense, not just with our denominational ancestors but with Presbyterians across the street, Methodists up the street, Episcopalians down the street, Churches of Christ, Catholics, Baptists, you name it, Christians in North America, Asia, Africa, in every time and place. We are joined in discipleship because church was never our idea. We are joined together because on our own we are not able to overcome the forces that alienate and divide us – selfishness, prejudice, envy, laziness, you name it. We are joined together in obedience to Christ because the church is God’s initiative, not ours.
God created humankind for communion with God and each other, but we are not content being God’s creatures. We want to be gods ourselves and we turn away from God in disobedience and rebellion. Sin is many things, but at its core it is nothing but the absence of what God intends. It is the deep alienation that spreads where trust in God is broken.
We are created for communion with God and each other, but our lives reflect and continue the story of Adam and Eve, of Cain and Abel. Like our first parents, we question the trustworthiness of God’s word and follow voices that seem to suggest what’s in our own best interest or, in these days of rampant consumerism, just more to our liking. Like the first siblings, we seek God’s blessing for our work, but envy and resentment are never far away: sin is lurking at the door, and we cannot master it.[3]
Sin breaks the communion of life which God intends for us. It turns the blessed conviviality of creation into the fractured madness of warring siblings, clans, tribes, and nations seeking fullness of life in self-absorption against God, against one another, and against God’s other creatures.
There is a perverse unity in our universal refusal to trust God’s word, to be each other’s brothers and sisters, and to till and keep God’s garden. “There is no one who is righteous, not even one!” the apostle Paul cries out. “Their feet are swift to shed blood; ruin and misery are in their paths, and the way of peace they have not known.”[4]
But God is faithful. God does not abandon the good creation and the marvelous creatures made in God’s image. God calls and sends witnesses, God chooses and redeems a people, God forgives sin and upholds the covenant of love.
We affirm that Jesus Christ is God’s definitive answer to our sin; he is and does what God intended all people to be and do. He embodies God’s faithfulness to humankind and humanity’s faithful response. In him, in his life and teachings, his death and resurrection, divine love overcomes sin. We follow him, and our feet are guided into the way of peace.[5]
Christ has made us his own, and in a very real sense, we are no longer defined by who and what we have become following our own paths, but by him and by the way he chose in freedom and in love. We are no longer the results of our sinful, fractured past, but God’s own people.
Through faith, we are drawn into the fullness of life God intended in the beginning, and we are called to be God’s instrument for the mending of the world. To be a disciple of Jesus is to be given a place and part, and it is to take one’s place and part in the most demanding and rewarding enterprise of the world: the ministry of reconciliation, the proclamation of peace.[6] And to be given a place and part in that mission always means to take the place and part of one’s calling, and not necessarily one’s choosing. It means to be given a new life smack in the middle of God’s own people.
In the communion of the Holy Spirit
we are joined together in discipleship
and in obedience to Christ.
The church is God’s idea, God’s initiative, not ours. God seeks and, overcoming sin, creates communion with humans. God loves. God loves without condition and therefore without consideration of human worthiness. God loves completely alienated people who barely have a Yes left in them. God’s love is poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, and faithfulness is wakened.[7] God loves and reconciles the resistant, rebellious, self-absorbed and lost human beings and creates communion. The communion of the Holy Spirit is God’s initiative, not ours. God reaches out and we respond. God speaks and we answer. God gives and we receive.
The Holy Spirit is given to us, but not as some kind of personal religious possession, nor in a succession of moments of intense religious enthusiasm. The Holy Spirit never becomes something we have, but remains a gift for good, a gift we enjoy as long as we receive it. The Spirit is the presence of God working in the depth of the human heart transforming and renewing us. The Spirit permeates the world of death with new life and the breath of resurrection. The Spirit is the Lord who in freedom and faithfulness becomes present to the creature, creating and sustaining the communion of life. We stop receiving, our faithfulness withers. We stop receiving, our life withers.
There are several words the English speaking traditions of the church have adopted straight from the Greek New Testament, words like baptism and eucharist, or deacon. Another one I wish had made it into common church usage is the word koinonia. It is a beautiful word, and it is translated into English, depending on context and often the translator’s preference, as fellowship, communion, sharing or participation.
Koinonia speaks of our fellowship with God and with each other, of our sharing the sufferings of Christ, of our participation in ministry through mission funding, of the sharing of our resources to alleviate the needs of others, and of our common enjoyment of the gifts of God.[8] Koinonia speaks of our being joined together in discipleship and in obedience to Christ, not by our various and fickle personal preferences, but by the Holy Spirit.
On the day of Pentecost, those who welcomed Peter’s message were baptized, and they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and koinonia, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.[9]
Every Sunday at the end of our worship service we hear the benediction,
The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the koinonia of the Holy Spirit be with all of you.[10]
The church is God’s initiative, and not what we make of it. Because we have been brought into the koinonia of the Holy Spirit, we belong to one another and are responsible to one another as brothers and sisters of Christ. The story of the church is the continuing story of the love of God at work in the world, drawing people together by the Holy Spirit – into koinonia with God and each other, into “the blessed conviviality that sang Creation’s seventh sunrise.”[11]
[1] Wallace Alston, The Church of the Living God, p. 51
[2] Mark Toulouse, Joined in Discipleship, p. 2
[3] See Genesis 3:1 and 4:1-7
[4] Romans 3:10, 15-17
[5] See Luke 1:79
[6] See 2 Corinthians 5; Ephesians 2:17
[7] See Romans 5:5ff.
[8] See 1 John 1:3-7; Phil 3:10; 2 Cor 8:4; Hebr 13:16; 1 Cor 10:16
[9] Acts 2:42 see also the description of that koinonia in the following verses
[10] 2 Corinthians 13:13
[11] Wendell Berry, Sabbaths, p. 9
We may as well laugh at the tragedy of our division.
The survivor of a ship wreck was washed up on the beach of a small and what he thought, deserted island. To his surprise, he was welcomed by a man with a nice, leathery tan and sun-bleached dreadlocks.
“I came here a long time ago, after the crash of Oceanic flight 5614. Let me show you my village,” the man said, pointing to three huts under the palm trees. “This is my house. This is where I sleep and find shelter when it rains.” They walked over to the next hut, and he said with considerable pride, “And this, this is my church; here I come every Sunday morning to worship God.” His visitor nodded and pointed to the third building, “What’s that?”
“Oh, that’s the church I used to attend; but two years ago I got mad and I left.”
We may as well laugh at the scandal of our division.
Christian faith cannot thrive in religious solitariness, and our salvation lies in our being made part of the household of God. Our faith cannot be reduced to select commitments based on pure private judgment, freed from authority and the company of others. However, the history of the churches of the reformation paints a different picture: generally speaking, we like to define freedom in terms of personal preference; we are quick to split and slow to bear one another with patience.
Mark Toulouse, professor of American Religious History at Brite Divinity School in Fort Worth, TX wrote an excellent study on Disciples identity, and he named the book Joined in Discipleship. In the introduction he writes,
In a very real sense, we are ‘joined in discipleship’ with our denominational ancestors. Our stories carry on the narratives of their stories. What they began resides in us and moves unsteadily toward the future, even as it did in their own time. From out of their future and our past, we still find inspiration to proclaim the essence of the church’s unity and to expresss our despair over the reality of the church’s fragmentation.[2]
We are joined in discipleship in a very real sense, not just with our denominational ancestors but with Presbyterians across the street, Methodists up the street, Episcopalians down the street, Churches of Christ, Catholics, Baptists, you name it, Christians in North America, Asia, Africa, in every time and place. We are joined in discipleship because church was never our idea. We are joined together because on our own we are not able to overcome the forces that alienate and divide us – selfishness, prejudice, envy, laziness, you name it. We are joined together in obedience to Christ because the church is God’s initiative, not ours.
God created humankind for communion with God and each other, but we are not content being God’s creatures. We want to be gods ourselves and we turn away from God in disobedience and rebellion. Sin is many things, but at its core it is nothing but the absence of what God intends. It is the deep alienation that spreads where trust in God is broken.
We are created for communion with God and each other, but our lives reflect and continue the story of Adam and Eve, of Cain and Abel. Like our first parents, we question the trustworthiness of God’s word and follow voices that seem to suggest what’s in our own best interest or, in these days of rampant consumerism, just more to our liking. Like the first siblings, we seek God’s blessing for our work, but envy and resentment are never far away: sin is lurking at the door, and we cannot master it.[3]
Sin breaks the communion of life which God intends for us. It turns the blessed conviviality of creation into the fractured madness of warring siblings, clans, tribes, and nations seeking fullness of life in self-absorption against God, against one another, and against God’s other creatures.
There is a perverse unity in our universal refusal to trust God’s word, to be each other’s brothers and sisters, and to till and keep God’s garden. “There is no one who is righteous, not even one!” the apostle Paul cries out. “Their feet are swift to shed blood; ruin and misery are in their paths, and the way of peace they have not known.”[4]
But God is faithful. God does not abandon the good creation and the marvelous creatures made in God’s image. God calls and sends witnesses, God chooses and redeems a people, God forgives sin and upholds the covenant of love.
We affirm that Jesus Christ is God’s definitive answer to our sin; he is and does what God intended all people to be and do. He embodies God’s faithfulness to humankind and humanity’s faithful response. In him, in his life and teachings, his death and resurrection, divine love overcomes sin. We follow him, and our feet are guided into the way of peace.[5]
Christ has made us his own, and in a very real sense, we are no longer defined by who and what we have become following our own paths, but by him and by the way he chose in freedom and in love. We are no longer the results of our sinful, fractured past, but God’s own people.
Through faith, we are drawn into the fullness of life God intended in the beginning, and we are called to be God’s instrument for the mending of the world. To be a disciple of Jesus is to be given a place and part, and it is to take one’s place and part in the most demanding and rewarding enterprise of the world: the ministry of reconciliation, the proclamation of peace.[6] And to be given a place and part in that mission always means to take the place and part of one’s calling, and not necessarily one’s choosing. It means to be given a new life smack in the middle of God’s own people.
In the communion of the Holy Spirit
we are joined together in discipleship
and in obedience to Christ.
The church is God’s idea, God’s initiative, not ours. God seeks and, overcoming sin, creates communion with humans. God loves. God loves without condition and therefore without consideration of human worthiness. God loves completely alienated people who barely have a Yes left in them. God’s love is poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, and faithfulness is wakened.[7] God loves and reconciles the resistant, rebellious, self-absorbed and lost human beings and creates communion. The communion of the Holy Spirit is God’s initiative, not ours. God reaches out and we respond. God speaks and we answer. God gives and we receive.
The Holy Spirit is given to us, but not as some kind of personal religious possession, nor in a succession of moments of intense religious enthusiasm. The Holy Spirit never becomes something we have, but remains a gift for good, a gift we enjoy as long as we receive it. The Spirit is the presence of God working in the depth of the human heart transforming and renewing us. The Spirit permeates the world of death with new life and the breath of resurrection. The Spirit is the Lord who in freedom and faithfulness becomes present to the creature, creating and sustaining the communion of life. We stop receiving, our faithfulness withers. We stop receiving, our life withers.
There are several words the English speaking traditions of the church have adopted straight from the Greek New Testament, words like baptism and eucharist, or deacon. Another one I wish had made it into common church usage is the word koinonia. It is a beautiful word, and it is translated into English, depending on context and often the translator’s preference, as fellowship, communion, sharing or participation.
Koinonia speaks of our fellowship with God and with each other, of our sharing the sufferings of Christ, of our participation in ministry through mission funding, of the sharing of our resources to alleviate the needs of others, and of our common enjoyment of the gifts of God.[8] Koinonia speaks of our being joined together in discipleship and in obedience to Christ, not by our various and fickle personal preferences, but by the Holy Spirit.
On the day of Pentecost, those who welcomed Peter’s message were baptized, and they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and koinonia, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.[9]
Every Sunday at the end of our worship service we hear the benediction,
The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the koinonia of the Holy Spirit be with all of you.[10]
The church is God’s initiative, and not what we make of it. Because we have been brought into the koinonia of the Holy Spirit, we belong to one another and are responsible to one another as brothers and sisters of Christ. The story of the church is the continuing story of the love of God at work in the world, drawing people together by the Holy Spirit – into koinonia with God and each other, into “the blessed conviviality that sang Creation’s seventh sunrise.”[11]
[1] Wallace Alston, The Church of the Living God, p. 51
[2] Mark Toulouse, Joined in Discipleship, p. 2
[3] See Genesis 3:1 and 4:1-7
[4] Romans 3:10, 15-17
[5] See Luke 1:79
[6] See 2 Corinthians 5; Ephesians 2:17
[7] See Romans 5:5ff.
[8] See 1 John 1:3-7; Phil 3:10; 2 Cor 8:4; Hebr 13:16; 1 Cor 10:16
[9] Acts 2:42 see also the description of that koinonia in the following verses
[10] 2 Corinthians 13:13
[11] Wendell Berry, Sabbaths, p. 9
Monday, June 16, 2008
New Life
On Pentecost, Jews and Jewish converts from around the world were in Jerusalem. It was a great day: just about every language spoken under heaven could be heard in the streets, in restaurants, markets, and the courtyards of the temple. Translators were in high demand, and those who couldn’t find one used gestures and facial expressions to communicate, some even drew pictures in the dust or on wax tablets. It was like the whole world had come to Jerusalem, and the noise and the chatter were exhilarating to some, exhausting to others.
On that day something amazing and perplexing happened: the disciples of Jesus, filled with the Holy Spirit, began to speak in other languages. The whole world was gathered in Jerusalem, and they heard, each in their own native language, the disciples speaking about God’s deeds of power.
Something new and unheard of was on the loose, something that transcended cultural differences and language barriers. “What does this mean?” people asked, and the apostle Peter preached the good news:
Jesus of Nazareth, a man through whom God had done deeds of power, wonders and signs, a man who had been crucified and killed – this Jesus God raised up, making him both Lord and Messiah.
Now when they heard this, they said to Peter and to the other apostles, “Brothers, what should we do?” How does one live in this new world where Jesus is Lord? What is the proper response to what God has done in Jesus Christ? Peter said to them, “Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ so that your sins may be forgiven; and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is for you, for your children, and for all who are far away, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to him.”[1]
Repent and be baptized, for on the cross our sin is judged and forgiven.
Repent and be baptized, for God bears the deadly consequences of our alienation from God and from one another and gives us new life.
Repent and be baptized, for in Jesus’ death all that must die has died: everything old has passed away; everything has become new!
The message that transcends cultural differences and language barriers is the good news of Jesus Christ: he is God’s gift of new life for Israel and the nations and all of creation. In response to that good word we turn away from the old ways of the old world and let ourselves be immersed in the life of Christ.
Through baptism into Christ
we enter into newness of life
and are made one with the whole people of God.
Baptism is nothing less than the whole story of God and the people of God condensed into one moment:
It is the sea through which God’s people escape to freedom and in which the powers that oppress and enslave them drown;
It is the river God’s people cross to enter the promised land;
It is the flood from which a renewed creation emerges;
It is the call of John in the wilderness and the obedience of Jesus;
It is the water that breaks at the birth of a new humanity;
It is the washing of feet at the end of a long journey and the bath on the eve of the great sabbath;
It is the river of life that runs from the throne of God.
We discover the whole story of God and God’s people in the sacrament of baptism – not because water ties it all together so beautifully, but because Jesus does. In his life and teachings, his death and resurrection we find God’s purposes revealed and God’s promises fulfilled. In baptism we give thanks to God for choosing us in Christ and drawing us into the divine life, and we praise God by living no longer for ourselves but in Christ.
When we answer Christ’s call to discipleship and kingdom mission, our old life comes to an end and our new life begins. The apostle Paul, in his letter to the Romans speaks of baptism as a burial:
“Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? Therefore we have been buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life.”[2]
We affirm that through Christ everything has become new, and in baptism we embrace that newness.
In Christ our sins are forgiven – wash them away, O God.
In Christ our old self has died – bury our selfishness, every last remnant of it, O God.
In Christ death is overcome – raise us up, O God, raise us up.
In the ancient church, new disciples would take off their clothes and enter the water of baptism naked, leaving their old life behind like a pile of old clothes; when they emerged from the waters, a deacon would dress them in a white robe.
“As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ,” Paul writes in his letter to the Galatians, “There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.”[3]
The white robe speaks of purity and heavenly citizenship and it declares that distinctions of ethnicity, class, status, and gender no longer apply.
But Christ is not a new outfit we put on and take off as we please. Baptism incorporates us in the body of Christ, and by being made one with him we are also made one with all for whom he died, one with the whole people of God.
Baptism is deeply personal: to the believer it is the tangible and memorable assurance of God’s love and forgiveness as well as the tangible and memorable expression of God’s claim on his or her life.
But baptism is also deeply communal: newness of life is not a private adventure but life as a member of God’s covenant community, life with the brothers and sisters of Christ.
In baptism the whole story of God and the people of God is condensed in one moment.
God acts by embracing us as God’s own, incorporating us into the body of Christ, and giving us the Holy Spirit. The church acts by obeying the command of Christ and welcoming new disciples as brothers and sisters and equipping them for ministry. And the individual believer acts by responding to God’s call in Christ, renouncing the false gods of this world, and committing to a life of discipleship.
As Disciples we are part of a church tradition that affirms that ordinarily people old enough to speak for themselves are the appropriate candidates for baptism. For decades in the 19th century, according to Ronald Osborn, one of the main topics Disciples preachers discussed in their sermons was baptism. “They delighted to tell the story about Alexander Campbell’s perplexity after the birth of his first child. Should the little girl be baptized or not?” Osborn writes. Campbell had a Presbyterian background but had begun examining closely every doctrine and tradition of the church against the witness of the New Testament.
What he was debating with himself was whether or not infant baptism has any sanction in the scriptures. (…) Campbell studied every passage which refers to baptism. After days of pondering this matter, he reached three conclusions: First, baptism is for responsible believers only, not for infants. Second, baptism means immersion. Third, he himself, though christened in infancy, had not been baptized. So not only did he not baptize his infant daughter, but he and his father [Thomas] and their wives went down to Buffalo Creek to be immersed, with a Baptist preacher officiating. [4]
Campbell’s conclusions determined Disciples practice for generations, far into the 20th century. Disciples congregations baptized believers by immersion and rebaptized people who had been baptized as infants or who had not been immersed.
But then some of our leaders began to realize that by immersing people who had already been baptized, be it by pouring or sprinkling or christening, we were not only calling into question the validity of other church traditions but God’s own action in their rites of Christian initiation. As a consequence, we became a little less certain of our own certainty and more interested in the theological reasoning supporting baptismal practices we had dismissed before. Through ecumenical dialogues with other churches we began to see the truth and beauty of their witness.
When the church baptizes infants it celebrates the grace of God who claims us in Christ as God’s own without condition: when we are little more than bundles of need and utter dependence we are already surrounded and held by God’s yes.
When the church baptizes believers it celebrates the grace of God who calls us to live in faithfulness: we are honored covenant partners whose free response God invites and awaits.
By studying the apostolic tradition together we learned to affirm our faith together: through baptism with water in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit we become members of the universal church, the body of Christ.
On Pentecost, the whole world was gathered in Jerusalem, and for a moment cultural differences and language barriers didn’t disappear, but became fully transparent, and all ears could hear clearly the one story beneath, behind, and between all the stories: the story of Jesus, the good news of God’s salvation. For a moment, God’s future lit up the present, and the New Jerusalem, the City of God became manifest among the nations.
“Brothers, what should we do?” the people asked. And the apostles answered, “Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ so that your sins may be forgiven; and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is for you, for your children, and for all who are far away, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to him.”
[1] Acts 2:4-39
[2] Romans 6:3-4
[3] Galatians 3:27-28
[4] Ronald Osborn, The Faith We Affirm, p. 59
On that day something amazing and perplexing happened: the disciples of Jesus, filled with the Holy Spirit, began to speak in other languages. The whole world was gathered in Jerusalem, and they heard, each in their own native language, the disciples speaking about God’s deeds of power.
Something new and unheard of was on the loose, something that transcended cultural differences and language barriers. “What does this mean?” people asked, and the apostle Peter preached the good news:
Jesus of Nazareth, a man through whom God had done deeds of power, wonders and signs, a man who had been crucified and killed – this Jesus God raised up, making him both Lord and Messiah.
Now when they heard this, they said to Peter and to the other apostles, “Brothers, what should we do?” How does one live in this new world where Jesus is Lord? What is the proper response to what God has done in Jesus Christ? Peter said to them, “Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ so that your sins may be forgiven; and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is for you, for your children, and for all who are far away, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to him.”[1]
Repent and be baptized, for on the cross our sin is judged and forgiven.
Repent and be baptized, for God bears the deadly consequences of our alienation from God and from one another and gives us new life.
Repent and be baptized, for in Jesus’ death all that must die has died: everything old has passed away; everything has become new!
The message that transcends cultural differences and language barriers is the good news of Jesus Christ: he is God’s gift of new life for Israel and the nations and all of creation. In response to that good word we turn away from the old ways of the old world and let ourselves be immersed in the life of Christ.
Through baptism into Christ
we enter into newness of life
and are made one with the whole people of God.
Baptism is nothing less than the whole story of God and the people of God condensed into one moment:
It is the sea through which God’s people escape to freedom and in which the powers that oppress and enslave them drown;
It is the river God’s people cross to enter the promised land;
It is the flood from which a renewed creation emerges;
It is the call of John in the wilderness and the obedience of Jesus;
It is the water that breaks at the birth of a new humanity;
It is the washing of feet at the end of a long journey and the bath on the eve of the great sabbath;
It is the river of life that runs from the throne of God.
We discover the whole story of God and God’s people in the sacrament of baptism – not because water ties it all together so beautifully, but because Jesus does. In his life and teachings, his death and resurrection we find God’s purposes revealed and God’s promises fulfilled. In baptism we give thanks to God for choosing us in Christ and drawing us into the divine life, and we praise God by living no longer for ourselves but in Christ.
When we answer Christ’s call to discipleship and kingdom mission, our old life comes to an end and our new life begins. The apostle Paul, in his letter to the Romans speaks of baptism as a burial:
“Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? Therefore we have been buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life.”[2]
We affirm that through Christ everything has become new, and in baptism we embrace that newness.
In Christ our sins are forgiven – wash them away, O God.
In Christ our old self has died – bury our selfishness, every last remnant of it, O God.
In Christ death is overcome – raise us up, O God, raise us up.
In the ancient church, new disciples would take off their clothes and enter the water of baptism naked, leaving their old life behind like a pile of old clothes; when they emerged from the waters, a deacon would dress them in a white robe.
“As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ,” Paul writes in his letter to the Galatians, “There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.”[3]
The white robe speaks of purity and heavenly citizenship and it declares that distinctions of ethnicity, class, status, and gender no longer apply.
But Christ is not a new outfit we put on and take off as we please. Baptism incorporates us in the body of Christ, and by being made one with him we are also made one with all for whom he died, one with the whole people of God.
Baptism is deeply personal: to the believer it is the tangible and memorable assurance of God’s love and forgiveness as well as the tangible and memorable expression of God’s claim on his or her life.
But baptism is also deeply communal: newness of life is not a private adventure but life as a member of God’s covenant community, life with the brothers and sisters of Christ.
In baptism the whole story of God and the people of God is condensed in one moment.
God acts by embracing us as God’s own, incorporating us into the body of Christ, and giving us the Holy Spirit. The church acts by obeying the command of Christ and welcoming new disciples as brothers and sisters and equipping them for ministry. And the individual believer acts by responding to God’s call in Christ, renouncing the false gods of this world, and committing to a life of discipleship.
As Disciples we are part of a church tradition that affirms that ordinarily people old enough to speak for themselves are the appropriate candidates for baptism. For decades in the 19th century, according to Ronald Osborn, one of the main topics Disciples preachers discussed in their sermons was baptism. “They delighted to tell the story about Alexander Campbell’s perplexity after the birth of his first child. Should the little girl be baptized or not?” Osborn writes. Campbell had a Presbyterian background but had begun examining closely every doctrine and tradition of the church against the witness of the New Testament.
What he was debating with himself was whether or not infant baptism has any sanction in the scriptures. (…) Campbell studied every passage which refers to baptism. After days of pondering this matter, he reached three conclusions: First, baptism is for responsible believers only, not for infants. Second, baptism means immersion. Third, he himself, though christened in infancy, had not been baptized. So not only did he not baptize his infant daughter, but he and his father [Thomas] and their wives went down to Buffalo Creek to be immersed, with a Baptist preacher officiating. [4]
Campbell’s conclusions determined Disciples practice for generations, far into the 20th century. Disciples congregations baptized believers by immersion and rebaptized people who had been baptized as infants or who had not been immersed.
But then some of our leaders began to realize that by immersing people who had already been baptized, be it by pouring or sprinkling or christening, we were not only calling into question the validity of other church traditions but God’s own action in their rites of Christian initiation. As a consequence, we became a little less certain of our own certainty and more interested in the theological reasoning supporting baptismal practices we had dismissed before. Through ecumenical dialogues with other churches we began to see the truth and beauty of their witness.
When the church baptizes infants it celebrates the grace of God who claims us in Christ as God’s own without condition: when we are little more than bundles of need and utter dependence we are already surrounded and held by God’s yes.
When the church baptizes believers it celebrates the grace of God who calls us to live in faithfulness: we are honored covenant partners whose free response God invites and awaits.
By studying the apostolic tradition together we learned to affirm our faith together: through baptism with water in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit we become members of the universal church, the body of Christ.
On Pentecost, the whole world was gathered in Jerusalem, and for a moment cultural differences and language barriers didn’t disappear, but became fully transparent, and all ears could hear clearly the one story beneath, behind, and between all the stories: the story of Jesus, the good news of God’s salvation. For a moment, God’s future lit up the present, and the New Jerusalem, the City of God became manifest among the nations.
“Brothers, what should we do?” the people asked. And the apostles answered, “Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ so that your sins may be forgiven; and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is for you, for your children, and for all who are far away, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to him.”
[1] Acts 2:4-39
[2] Romans 6:3-4
[3] Galatians 3:27-28
[4] Ronald Osborn, The Faith We Affirm, p. 59
Friday, June 13, 2008
The Fabric of Creation
We rejoice in God,
maker of heaven and earth,
and in the covenant of love
which binds us to God and one another.
The Preamble to the Design is as close as Disciples of Christ have yet come to developing something like a denominational statement of faith. Historically we have avoided creedal statements; we happily confess with believers of all times and places that Jesus is “the Messiah, the Son of the living God.”[1] But once that is said, we pause and take a deep breath, somewhat reluctant to press on: this is the essential statement of Christian faith, the only affirmation necessary for membership in the church.
We are reluctant because once we start unfolding that good confession – and unfold it we must in order to know how to be faithful followers of Jesus Christ in our time and place – once we start unfolding what this confession entails, we get into passionate debates. And in debates – there’s plenty of historical evidence for this – we have a tendency to end the conversation prematurely, draw lines, and build fences that define our side of the divide as the camp of true belief.
Sometimes, as in the case of apartheid in South Africa or the conflict between church and state in Nazi Germany, drawing those lines is not only necessary but the only faithful thing to do. But far too often in the history of the church, this tendency has led to stubborn division and a false sense of righteousness and holiness on either side of the fence: We know the truth about God and the world and the church, and you don’t.
When it comes to standing together and declaring, “This we believe,” Disciples are quick to affirm our faith in Jesus Christ and equally quick to invite fellow believers and non-believers to discuss the meaning and the implications of that confession. You could say that from a Disciples perspective the passionate pursuit of the truth is important; but equally important is the responsibility on the part of every participant in the debate to pay attention to the conversation itself: are we listening with the same fervor that fuels our speaking? Are we creating and maintaining dialogues that allow all voices to be heard and considered? When we say, “We believe” we don’t say it to end the discussion – “This is how it is; end of debate.” – but to invite, encourage, and facilitate further conversation.
Believe is a tricky word. We say, “I believe in God, maker of heaven and earth,” and it sounds just like somebody saying, “I believe in UFO’s” or asking, “Do you believe in ghosts?” It sounds like we declare that there’s something ‘out there’ whose existence is doubtful, and where the evidence is still hotly disputed.[2]
But when a mother says to her child the night before the TCAP’s or some final exam, “I believe in you” it is obvious that she is not making a statement about the child’s existence or non-existence. The mother affirms her confidence in his ability to keep his anxiety in check and apply what he has learned in weeks and months of study. Her words affirm and strengthen the relationship of deep trust between them, a relationship that doesn’t depend on a high score because it isn’t defined by success or failure. When we say, “We believe in God,” that’s the neighborhood we’re in.
We speak of a relationship of deep trust around which we build our lives. We speak of a reality that envelops our days and nights, our beginnings and our endings, our fears, our doubts, our hopes. We speak of One who has said to us, “I believe in you.” We have become so accustomed to thinking of God in arguments or rational proofs, listing a series of concepts in systematic order,[3] when what we are really saying is a simple response, “We believe in you too.”
Interestingly, we don’t literally say “we believe” anywhere in this affirmation. Instead we say, we confess, we proclaim, we accept, we rejoice, we celebrate, we receive, we serve – lest we forget that our belief is not a set of statements we subscribe to but a life lived in response to the One who gives life. We confess that Jesus is the Christ, we proclaim him Lord and Savior of the world, and the first thing we say about God is, “We rejoice.”
I could think of a whole host of other verbs we could insert here: We worship God, maker of heaven and earth. We live in gratitude to God. We bow before the mystery of God, we love God, we seek to obey God. All of these are good, right and true, and we could easily add tens or even hundreds more. Instead we say, “We rejoice in God, maker of heaven and earth.” Affirming our faith in God the creator is first and foremost an affirmation of joy.
What do people do when they rejoice? They smile, they laugh, they clap their hands and sing, they dance, they celebrate, they live life in fullness – we affirm that the chief end of God’s creation is joy, the rejoicing of God’s creatures in their creator.
The Lord who made heaven and earth, the sea, and everything in them; the Lord who continues to give life to each new generation of living things, looks at the world with delight.[4] Now some view God as a mechanic who has designed and built a fabulous machine which, once it’s been turned on, pretty much runs on its own. Creation, they say, is something that happened a long, long time ago, and the creator is watching from a distance as things unfold in the universe. The biblical witness points in a different direction: God is not only interested in seeing how things unfold but deeply and intimately involved in the life of God’s creatures.[5] God’s relationship to the world is not exhausted by flipping a switch to set things in motion – and it doesn’t matter at all whether you prefer to call that switch the Big Bang or Seven Days.
Life is a gift given to the world at every moment, and God, delighting in the goodness of creation, desires and awaits our response: our rejoicing in the goodness of the gift, our wonder and gratitude, our joyful Yes.
Life flourishes in a cosmic economy of gifts given and received. The fabric of creation is life given with generosity and delight and life received and shared with rejoicing. The fabric of creation is the word of life spoken and a symphony of joyful praise echoing between earth and heaven. The fabric of creation is the covenant of love which binds God to God’s creatures and all living things to their creator.
Now some view the world as “unclaimed property”[6] – a wilderness to be subdued and colonized, exploited, sucked empty, and eventually left behind. But those actions don’t reflect the will and desire of God. The world is not unclaimed property, but God’s creation, and the God who calls us and all things into being awaits our faithful response. The maker of heaven and earth desires that we live our lives in a manner that is good for us and all living things.
Of all God’s creatures, human beings alone are capable of choosing not to receive and return the gift of life. Of all God’s creatures, human beings alone are capable of claiming to be self-made men and women, solitary masters of their fate. But likewise, of all God’ creatures, human beings alone are capable of responding in freedom to God’s self-giving love. God says to us, “I will be your God and you will be my people,” and we affirm in response, “You are our God and we are your people.”[7] God freely gives the gift of life and we receive and return it in freedom, in wonder, in gratitude and joy.
Creation is not a well-designed and skillfully crafted clockwork amongst whose gears and wheels we have been assigned our proper place like parts in a machine. Nor is creation the work of a distant divine master mechanic with whom we compete for control.
Creation is the fabric of relationships in which life flourishes as it is freely given and received. Creation is the embodiment of God’s covenant of love, and its chief end is the delight of the creator and the joy of all creatures.
This is not the last word on the matter; it’s how I understand what we affirm as members of the Christian church.
[1] Matthew 16:16
[2] Rowan Williams, Tokens of Trust, p. 5
[3] Osborn, The Faith We Affirm, p. 42
[4] Acts 4:24; Ps 104:28ff; Gen 1:31
[5] E.g. Ps 139:13-18; Jer 1:5
[6] Jürgen Moltmann, God in Creation (San Francisco: Harper&Row, 1985) p. 3
[7] See e.g. Ex 6:7; Dtn 29:13; Heb 8:10; Rev 21:7
maker of heaven and earth,
and in the covenant of love
which binds us to God and one another.
The Preamble to the Design is as close as Disciples of Christ have yet come to developing something like a denominational statement of faith. Historically we have avoided creedal statements; we happily confess with believers of all times and places that Jesus is “the Messiah, the Son of the living God.”[1] But once that is said, we pause and take a deep breath, somewhat reluctant to press on: this is the essential statement of Christian faith, the only affirmation necessary for membership in the church.
We are reluctant because once we start unfolding that good confession – and unfold it we must in order to know how to be faithful followers of Jesus Christ in our time and place – once we start unfolding what this confession entails, we get into passionate debates. And in debates – there’s plenty of historical evidence for this – we have a tendency to end the conversation prematurely, draw lines, and build fences that define our side of the divide as the camp of true belief.
Sometimes, as in the case of apartheid in South Africa or the conflict between church and state in Nazi Germany, drawing those lines is not only necessary but the only faithful thing to do. But far too often in the history of the church, this tendency has led to stubborn division and a false sense of righteousness and holiness on either side of the fence: We know the truth about God and the world and the church, and you don’t.
When it comes to standing together and declaring, “This we believe,” Disciples are quick to affirm our faith in Jesus Christ and equally quick to invite fellow believers and non-believers to discuss the meaning and the implications of that confession. You could say that from a Disciples perspective the passionate pursuit of the truth is important; but equally important is the responsibility on the part of every participant in the debate to pay attention to the conversation itself: are we listening with the same fervor that fuels our speaking? Are we creating and maintaining dialogues that allow all voices to be heard and considered? When we say, “We believe” we don’t say it to end the discussion – “This is how it is; end of debate.” – but to invite, encourage, and facilitate further conversation.
Believe is a tricky word. We say, “I believe in God, maker of heaven and earth,” and it sounds just like somebody saying, “I believe in UFO’s” or asking, “Do you believe in ghosts?” It sounds like we declare that there’s something ‘out there’ whose existence is doubtful, and where the evidence is still hotly disputed.[2]
But when a mother says to her child the night before the TCAP’s or some final exam, “I believe in you” it is obvious that she is not making a statement about the child’s existence or non-existence. The mother affirms her confidence in his ability to keep his anxiety in check and apply what he has learned in weeks and months of study. Her words affirm and strengthen the relationship of deep trust between them, a relationship that doesn’t depend on a high score because it isn’t defined by success or failure. When we say, “We believe in God,” that’s the neighborhood we’re in.
We speak of a relationship of deep trust around which we build our lives. We speak of a reality that envelops our days and nights, our beginnings and our endings, our fears, our doubts, our hopes. We speak of One who has said to us, “I believe in you.” We have become so accustomed to thinking of God in arguments or rational proofs, listing a series of concepts in systematic order,[3] when what we are really saying is a simple response, “We believe in you too.”
Interestingly, we don’t literally say “we believe” anywhere in this affirmation. Instead we say, we confess, we proclaim, we accept, we rejoice, we celebrate, we receive, we serve – lest we forget that our belief is not a set of statements we subscribe to but a life lived in response to the One who gives life. We confess that Jesus is the Christ, we proclaim him Lord and Savior of the world, and the first thing we say about God is, “We rejoice.”
I could think of a whole host of other verbs we could insert here: We worship God, maker of heaven and earth. We live in gratitude to God. We bow before the mystery of God, we love God, we seek to obey God. All of these are good, right and true, and we could easily add tens or even hundreds more. Instead we say, “We rejoice in God, maker of heaven and earth.” Affirming our faith in God the creator is first and foremost an affirmation of joy.
What do people do when they rejoice? They smile, they laugh, they clap their hands and sing, they dance, they celebrate, they live life in fullness – we affirm that the chief end of God’s creation is joy, the rejoicing of God’s creatures in their creator.
The Lord who made heaven and earth, the sea, and everything in them; the Lord who continues to give life to each new generation of living things, looks at the world with delight.[4] Now some view God as a mechanic who has designed and built a fabulous machine which, once it’s been turned on, pretty much runs on its own. Creation, they say, is something that happened a long, long time ago, and the creator is watching from a distance as things unfold in the universe. The biblical witness points in a different direction: God is not only interested in seeing how things unfold but deeply and intimately involved in the life of God’s creatures.[5] God’s relationship to the world is not exhausted by flipping a switch to set things in motion – and it doesn’t matter at all whether you prefer to call that switch the Big Bang or Seven Days.
Life is a gift given to the world at every moment, and God, delighting in the goodness of creation, desires and awaits our response: our rejoicing in the goodness of the gift, our wonder and gratitude, our joyful Yes.
Life flourishes in a cosmic economy of gifts given and received. The fabric of creation is life given with generosity and delight and life received and shared with rejoicing. The fabric of creation is the word of life spoken and a symphony of joyful praise echoing between earth and heaven. The fabric of creation is the covenant of love which binds God to God’s creatures and all living things to their creator.
Now some view the world as “unclaimed property”[6] – a wilderness to be subdued and colonized, exploited, sucked empty, and eventually left behind. But those actions don’t reflect the will and desire of God. The world is not unclaimed property, but God’s creation, and the God who calls us and all things into being awaits our faithful response. The maker of heaven and earth desires that we live our lives in a manner that is good for us and all living things.
Of all God’s creatures, human beings alone are capable of choosing not to receive and return the gift of life. Of all God’s creatures, human beings alone are capable of claiming to be self-made men and women, solitary masters of their fate. But likewise, of all God’ creatures, human beings alone are capable of responding in freedom to God’s self-giving love. God says to us, “I will be your God and you will be my people,” and we affirm in response, “You are our God and we are your people.”[7] God freely gives the gift of life and we receive and return it in freedom, in wonder, in gratitude and joy.
Creation is not a well-designed and skillfully crafted clockwork amongst whose gears and wheels we have been assigned our proper place like parts in a machine. Nor is creation the work of a distant divine master mechanic with whom we compete for control.
Creation is the fabric of relationships in which life flourishes as it is freely given and received. Creation is the embodiment of God’s covenant of love, and its chief end is the delight of the creator and the joy of all creatures.
This is not the last word on the matter; it’s how I understand what we affirm as members of the Christian church.
[1] Matthew 16:16
[2] Rowan Williams, Tokens of Trust, p. 5
[3] Osborn, The Faith We Affirm, p. 42
[4] Acts 4:24; Ps 104:28ff; Gen 1:31
[5] E.g. Ps 139:13-18; Jer 1:5
[6] Jürgen Moltmann, God in Creation (San Francisco: Harper&Row, 1985) p. 3
[7] See e.g. Ex 6:7; Dtn 29:13; Heb 8:10; Rev 21:7
Who do you say that I am?
I remember the room we were in, but I don’t recall what day it was or what time of day. Richard and I were sitting across from each other in comfortable chairs, a small table between us. We had made the appointment to get to know each other – we had been introduced only a week earlier, and we would be working together for a local non-profit organization.
How do you get to know somebody? Think about the chit-chat that develops at parties where we take turns asking questions, “So, what do you do for a living? Are you married? Do you have kids?” If we don’t end up talking about our kids, we talk about our dogs or the play-offs.
The conversation that day was different, though. Richard didn’t ask a single question; all he said was, “Tell me your story,” and for the next hour he listened.
Of course I didn’t know at first where to start, but it didn’t take long and I was talking about the people and things I care most about – my family, my faith, my passions and struggles, my fears and hopes. Whenever there were a few seconds of silence, Richard didn’t jump in but simply waited for me to pick up another thread I wanted to follow.
We met again a few days later, and now it was his turn to tell me his story – the neighborhood on the southside of Chicago where he grew up, his two little sisters who adored their big brother, his love of music, his passion for learning and teaching. We spent only two hours together that week, but we got to know each other at a deep and meaningful level because we gave each other the space to tell our story. I came away from that experience knowing that one of the greatest gifts we can give another person is our presence and the invitation, “Tell me your story.”
In the 1960s, the opportunity arose for our church to tell our story. During that decade many Disciples congregations in North America arrived at a historic conclusion: in order to remain faithful to their calling as Christian churches they had to balance their cherished congregational freedom with structures of mutual responsibility and accountability. After years of prayerful study and discernment the congregations recognized regional and larger geographical expressions of the church and decided to let the organizational structure of the Disciples of Christ reflect that reality. In those years, the Christian Churches (Disciples of Christ) became the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ).
Decades of ecumenical dialogue with churches from around the world had played a key role in these developments, and now these same churches were eager to meet their newly restructured friends. “Tell us your story,” they said, giving us the opportunity to tell the whole world who we are. And of course we didn’t know at first where to start:
When we tell the story of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) do we talk about the “founding fathers” of the Restoration Movement, Thomas and Alexander Campbell, Barton Stone and Walter Scott? Or do we talk about the social realities of the American frontier after the Revolutionary War, or the spiritual fervor of the Second Great Awakening?
No, we tell our story by talking about the things that are most important to us, and we begin at the beginning:
As members of the Christian Church,
We confess that Jesus is the Christ,
the Son of the living God,
and proclaim him Lord and Savior of the world.
This is the opening line of the Disciples Affirmation, also known as the Preamble to the Design.
The very first line, innocent and introductory as it may sound, is a profound statement.
“As members of the Christian Church, we confess…” A confession is a deeply personal thing, but it is not private. We don’t get up, one after another, stating, ‘As a member of the Christian Church, I confess…’ listing our beliefs in order of personal preference. This is our confession, not the sum-total of our various individual theological opinions, nor the confession of one or of a small group that all the others have to subscribe to in order to belong. When we say this, we speak with the discipline of a church that is one and with the freedom of those who never stop exploring the meaning of the gospel for our time (that exploration implies debate, disagreement, and wrestling to arrive at a common understanding).
The “we” who speak here do not claim to be the church nor do we emphasize our particularity by saying, As Disciples of Christ, we confess… The “we” who make this affirmation speak with Christian boldness and with denominational humility. We refer to ourselves as the Christian Church, and in brackets, Disciples of Christ. The way we write our name speaks of our hope that one day all churches will affirm our faith as members of the Christian Church – and in brackets, Presbyterian, United Methodist, Assembly of God, Baptist or Anglican. The “we” who affirm our faith with this statement do not wish to create an “us” over against “them,” a community of true believers over against heretic outsiders, or an avantgarde ahead of God’s slower people. We do speak from a particular perspective, but with this affirmation we attempt to express what all who confess Christ can affirm together.
“We confess that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God.”
We say who we are by saying who Jesus is. When invited to tell our story, we talk about Jesus, because without him there would be no “we” beyond our narrow familial, tribal, or national allegiances. We talk about Jesus, because we cannot imagine our lives without him, but we don’t stand up and declare, “This is how it is and you better believe it or else.” We confess, and our confession is both bold and humble:
Responding to Jesus’ question, “Who do you say that I am?” we boldly stand side by side with Peter saying, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God,” affirming that in Jesus God’s purposes are revealed and fulfilled; and at the same time we stand humbly with generations of disciples because we know that our lives limp far behind what we confess with our lips and believe in our hearts. We make our confession with the boldness of God’s sons and daughters and with the joyful humility of those who know that we are loved despite our denials and betrayals.
When we confess Jesus to be the Christ, God’s Anointed One, we don’t claim to know what it takes to be God’s Messiah; we don’t claim to have a detailed job description for this position and that after a careful interview process we have established that this candidate has all the necessary qualifications – no, we stutter and sing in wonder because in Jesus’ life and teachings, his death and resurrection we find life in fullness and we see the glory of God. We confess that Jesus is the Christ, because God raised him from the dead, inaugurating the kingdom of heaven on earth, and because in all our conversations about God and the world, sin and forgiveness, about the meaning of life and the demands of love we find ourselves again and again turning to Jesus.
We proclaim him Lord and Savior of the world. This Jesus whom God raised from the dead sits on the throne as ruler of the universe and judge of the nations – again we stutter and sing in wonder. What we proclaim is that after sin and death, fear and violence, political maneuvering and religious rectitude have had their way with the world, love is Lord of heaven and earth, Jesus is Lord – and all the other contenders for the throne are not.
Proclaiming him Savior of the world we affirm three things: the world needs saving; the world is worth saving; and Jesus is the Savior.
To say that the world needs saving is almost stating the obvious; anybody can see that life is not what it could be and should be, that things are not the way they’re supposed to be. But to declare that the world is worth saving still suprises many. We affirm that this world is God’s good creation and that God desires for life to flourish in peace. Earth and the creatures that inhabit it are not just the backdrop for the drama of saving the souls of human beings, but are themselves objects of God’s delight. The world is worth saving because God loves it.
The church has always affirmed that Jesus is the Savior, but it has never developed one definitive position on just how Jesus accomplishes that salvation. The New Testament offers a variety of answers, and that had to be expected since we relate to Jesus in a variety of ways.
We look to Jesus and we see the beauty of creation and its brokenness healed; we see sin and suffering and we see wholeness restored; we see oppression and torture and the power of violence overcome; we look at the cross and we see all that is wrong with the world and we see the love of God who will not abandon the world. We look at the life and teachings, the death and resurrection of Jesus, and in that story we see the story of God and the world. We relate to Jesus in a variety of ways, but Jesus relates to us and all things as Savior.
When invited to tell our story, we say who we are by saying who Jesus is, and through affirming who Jesus is we discover and affirm who we are:
In Christ’s name and by his grace
we accept our mission of witness
and service to all people.
Our confession that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God unfolds not in words, be they spoken, written, sung or shouted, but in lives lived. To proclaim Jesus as Lord and Savior of the world is to say with our lives our small Yes in response to God’s great Yes. Because of Jesus we live no longer for ourselves but for others, and through our lives of witness and service the love of God touches, heals, and restores the world. That doesn’t make of us co-saviors, but witnesses: our life together points to the One in whose name and by whose grace we found life. Our story, by the grace of God points to the story of Jesus.
How do you get to know somebody? Think about the chit-chat that develops at parties where we take turns asking questions, “So, what do you do for a living? Are you married? Do you have kids?” If we don’t end up talking about our kids, we talk about our dogs or the play-offs.
The conversation that day was different, though. Richard didn’t ask a single question; all he said was, “Tell me your story,” and for the next hour he listened.
Of course I didn’t know at first where to start, but it didn’t take long and I was talking about the people and things I care most about – my family, my faith, my passions and struggles, my fears and hopes. Whenever there were a few seconds of silence, Richard didn’t jump in but simply waited for me to pick up another thread I wanted to follow.
We met again a few days later, and now it was his turn to tell me his story – the neighborhood on the southside of Chicago where he grew up, his two little sisters who adored their big brother, his love of music, his passion for learning and teaching. We spent only two hours together that week, but we got to know each other at a deep and meaningful level because we gave each other the space to tell our story. I came away from that experience knowing that one of the greatest gifts we can give another person is our presence and the invitation, “Tell me your story.”
In the 1960s, the opportunity arose for our church to tell our story. During that decade many Disciples congregations in North America arrived at a historic conclusion: in order to remain faithful to their calling as Christian churches they had to balance their cherished congregational freedom with structures of mutual responsibility and accountability. After years of prayerful study and discernment the congregations recognized regional and larger geographical expressions of the church and decided to let the organizational structure of the Disciples of Christ reflect that reality. In those years, the Christian Churches (Disciples of Christ) became the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ).
Decades of ecumenical dialogue with churches from around the world had played a key role in these developments, and now these same churches were eager to meet their newly restructured friends. “Tell us your story,” they said, giving us the opportunity to tell the whole world who we are. And of course we didn’t know at first where to start:
When we tell the story of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) do we talk about the “founding fathers” of the Restoration Movement, Thomas and Alexander Campbell, Barton Stone and Walter Scott? Or do we talk about the social realities of the American frontier after the Revolutionary War, or the spiritual fervor of the Second Great Awakening?
No, we tell our story by talking about the things that are most important to us, and we begin at the beginning:
As members of the Christian Church,
We confess that Jesus is the Christ,
the Son of the living God,
and proclaim him Lord and Savior of the world.
This is the opening line of the Disciples Affirmation, also known as the Preamble to the Design.
The very first line, innocent and introductory as it may sound, is a profound statement.
“As members of the Christian Church, we confess…” A confession is a deeply personal thing, but it is not private. We don’t get up, one after another, stating, ‘As a member of the Christian Church, I confess…’ listing our beliefs in order of personal preference. This is our confession, not the sum-total of our various individual theological opinions, nor the confession of one or of a small group that all the others have to subscribe to in order to belong. When we say this, we speak with the discipline of a church that is one and with the freedom of those who never stop exploring the meaning of the gospel for our time (that exploration implies debate, disagreement, and wrestling to arrive at a common understanding).
The “we” who speak here do not claim to be the church nor do we emphasize our particularity by saying, As Disciples of Christ, we confess… The “we” who make this affirmation speak with Christian boldness and with denominational humility. We refer to ourselves as the Christian Church, and in brackets, Disciples of Christ. The way we write our name speaks of our hope that one day all churches will affirm our faith as members of the Christian Church – and in brackets, Presbyterian, United Methodist, Assembly of God, Baptist or Anglican. The “we” who affirm our faith with this statement do not wish to create an “us” over against “them,” a community of true believers over against heretic outsiders, or an avantgarde ahead of God’s slower people. We do speak from a particular perspective, but with this affirmation we attempt to express what all who confess Christ can affirm together.
“We confess that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God.”
We say who we are by saying who Jesus is. When invited to tell our story, we talk about Jesus, because without him there would be no “we” beyond our narrow familial, tribal, or national allegiances. We talk about Jesus, because we cannot imagine our lives without him, but we don’t stand up and declare, “This is how it is and you better believe it or else.” We confess, and our confession is both bold and humble:
Responding to Jesus’ question, “Who do you say that I am?” we boldly stand side by side with Peter saying, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God,” affirming that in Jesus God’s purposes are revealed and fulfilled; and at the same time we stand humbly with generations of disciples because we know that our lives limp far behind what we confess with our lips and believe in our hearts. We make our confession with the boldness of God’s sons and daughters and with the joyful humility of those who know that we are loved despite our denials and betrayals.
When we confess Jesus to be the Christ, God’s Anointed One, we don’t claim to know what it takes to be God’s Messiah; we don’t claim to have a detailed job description for this position and that after a careful interview process we have established that this candidate has all the necessary qualifications – no, we stutter and sing in wonder because in Jesus’ life and teachings, his death and resurrection we find life in fullness and we see the glory of God. We confess that Jesus is the Christ, because God raised him from the dead, inaugurating the kingdom of heaven on earth, and because in all our conversations about God and the world, sin and forgiveness, about the meaning of life and the demands of love we find ourselves again and again turning to Jesus.
We proclaim him Lord and Savior of the world. This Jesus whom God raised from the dead sits on the throne as ruler of the universe and judge of the nations – again we stutter and sing in wonder. What we proclaim is that after sin and death, fear and violence, political maneuvering and religious rectitude have had their way with the world, love is Lord of heaven and earth, Jesus is Lord – and all the other contenders for the throne are not.
Proclaiming him Savior of the world we affirm three things: the world needs saving; the world is worth saving; and Jesus is the Savior.
To say that the world needs saving is almost stating the obvious; anybody can see that life is not what it could be and should be, that things are not the way they’re supposed to be. But to declare that the world is worth saving still suprises many. We affirm that this world is God’s good creation and that God desires for life to flourish in peace. Earth and the creatures that inhabit it are not just the backdrop for the drama of saving the souls of human beings, but are themselves objects of God’s delight. The world is worth saving because God loves it.
The church has always affirmed that Jesus is the Savior, but it has never developed one definitive position on just how Jesus accomplishes that salvation. The New Testament offers a variety of answers, and that had to be expected since we relate to Jesus in a variety of ways.
We look to Jesus and we see the beauty of creation and its brokenness healed; we see sin and suffering and we see wholeness restored; we see oppression and torture and the power of violence overcome; we look at the cross and we see all that is wrong with the world and we see the love of God who will not abandon the world. We look at the life and teachings, the death and resurrection of Jesus, and in that story we see the story of God and the world. We relate to Jesus in a variety of ways, but Jesus relates to us and all things as Savior.
When invited to tell our story, we say who we are by saying who Jesus is, and through affirming who Jesus is we discover and affirm who we are:
In Christ’s name and by his grace
we accept our mission of witness
and service to all people.
Our confession that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God unfolds not in words, be they spoken, written, sung or shouted, but in lives lived. To proclaim Jesus as Lord and Savior of the world is to say with our lives our small Yes in response to God’s great Yes. Because of Jesus we live no longer for ourselves but for others, and through our lives of witness and service the love of God touches, heals, and restores the world. That doesn’t make of us co-saviors, but witnesses: our life together points to the One in whose name and by whose grace we found life. Our story, by the grace of God points to the story of Jesus.
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