What says "Christian"?

What says “Christian”? We tend to think about the cross as the symbol of Christianity these days, but that was probably a late development in the church. The cross was such an ugly sign of horrific torture that it took some time to become “acceptable”.

The fish was probably a very early sign for Christians to identify themselves. Why? It is one of the continuing metaphors in the stories of Jesus. For example, in Mark 1:17, Jesus says to Simon and Andrew: “Follow me and I will make you fish for people.” (NRSV)

Later, the acronym for the Greek word icthus (ἰχθύς) meaning “fish” came to be associated with the phrase “Jesus Christ, God’s son, Saviour” (Ἰησοῦς Χριστός, Θεοῦ Υἱός, Σωτήρ), Iēsous Khristos Theou (H)uios, Sōtēr.

Symbols are well and good, but what says “Christian”? In Acts 2:44-47, a description of the Christian community is given:

44All who believed were together and had all things in common; 45they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need. 46Day by day, as they spent much time together in the temple, they broke bread at home and ate their food with glad and generous hearts, 47praising God and having the goodwill of all the people. And day by day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved. (NRSV)

From this text, descriptions of the “Christian Life” have been drawn. These descriptions usually include at least 4 elements:
1. Leitourgia (liturgy – the work of the people – worship)
2. Koinonia (community)
3. Diakonia (service)
4. Kerygma (proclamation – witness)
The Basis of Union of the Uniting Church uses the phrase “worship, witness and service”. Where do you find each of these elements of the Christian Life in your life and in the life of our community. What says “Christian” about our community of faith today?

Reforming Inheritance

Jesus’ forebears in the Jewish faith were many. Some saw in him the great Elijah, the prophet who called the rulers to repentance in the face of their worship of other gods. Others saw Jesus as John the Baptist, a more recent prophet who also dared to take on the monarchy for lack of morality. The inheritance that people saw Jesus bearing says something about what they saw him doing and why. It also says something about where they saw him heading and how. Elijah may have been caught up into a whirlwind in a celestial chariot, but John the Baptist was beheaded by a king and his family who were afraid that John reminded the people of their defiance of God’s Law.

Heritage and inheritance are strange things. They have such a hold and yet they never completely define those who follow after. Sometimes the inheritance is well-used; sometimes it is wasted; sometimes it is misunderstood; and sometimes it is simply guarded and not used at all. The difficulty is, of course, in recognising what the real inheritance is and just how it might best be used. Remember from last week, that Jesus is precisely on that journey of discernment of the vocation that is his; and clearly others are looking on and wondering the same thing—Is he Elijah? Or John? He seems to be some kind of prophet, some kind of person of God!

There are people who look at the Christian church today and ask the very same questions, only often the assessment is not so positive—Are they some kind of crackpots? Or well-meaning do-gooders? They seem to think they’ve got something that’s unique to them—it sounds rather arrogant really! So what is our real inheritance and what is it that we wish to do with it—how do we want to pass it on?

In the Epistle reading for today, the Christian community is reminded of their inheritance as the followers of Christ. This inheritance is couched in quite convoluted sentence structure, but there’s definitely something there about salvation and redemption; and clearly the outcome of this inheritance is meant to be the praise of God.

The praise of God is at the heart of Christian vocation. We are called to honour the God who loves us, who comes to us in Christ, and who works in us by the power of the Holy Spirit. The Reformed tradition, whose influence we remember today as we celebrate John Calvin’s 500th birthday, has always been strong on this focus on the praise of God. In that tradition, “the chief end of [humanity]” is described as glorifying and enjoying God forever in one of its catechisms or teaching outlines of the Christian faith. The whole calling of God’s people is summed up in this simple clause—to glorify and enjoy God. But of course, it’s never that simple or is it?

There’s a Jewish folk story about the prophet Elijah and his friend, Rabbi Joshua ben Levi:

The rabbi was asked what favor he might wish. [He] answered only that he be able to join Elijah in his wanderings. Elijah granted his wish only if he refrained from asking any questions about any of the prophet’s actions. [The rabbi] agreed and they began their journey. The first place they came to was the house of an elderly couple who were so poor they had only one old cow. The old couple gave of their hospitality as best they could. The next morning, as the travelers left, Elijah prayed that the old cow would die and it did. The second place they came to was the home of a wealthy man. He had no patience for his visitors and chased them away with the admonition that they should get jobs and not beg from honest people. As they were leaving, they passed the man’s wall and saw that it was crumbling. Elijah prayed that the wall be repaired and it was so. Next, they came to a wealthy synagogue. They were allowed to spend the night with only the smallest of provisions. When they left, Elijah prayed that every member of the synagogue might become a leader.
Finally, they came to a very poor synagogue. Here they were treated with great courtesy and hospitality. When they left, Elijah prayed that God might give them a single wise leader. At this Rabbi Joshua could no longer hold back. He demanded of Elijah an explanation of his actions. At the house of the old couple, Elijah knew that the Angel of Death was coming for the old woman. So he prayed that God might have the angel take the cow instead. At the house of the wealthy man, there was a great treasure hidden in the crumbling wall. Elijah prayed that the wall be restored thus keeping the treasure away from the miser. The story ends with a moral: A synagogue with many leaders will be ruined by many arguments. A town with a single wise leader will be guided to success and prosperity. “Know then, that if [you see] an evil-doer prosper, it is not always [to] his advantage, and if a righteous [person] suffers need and distress, think not God is unjust.” (Ginzberg, Lewis. Legends of the Bible. Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America, 1956. p 599. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elijah)

Earlier in the service, I reminded you of the 4 great mantras of the Protestant Reformation: sola gratia (grace alone), sola fide (faith alone), sola Christi (Christ alone) and sola scriptura (scripture alone). It sounds all very simple doesn’t it? And yet it’s not. Those 4 simple mantras have justified extraordinary judgements upon ourselves and others made by individual would-be Christians as well as whole congregations of us. “Grace alone” has been used to let ourselves off the hook in taking part in God’s work for justice, peace and the integrity of creation. “Faith alone” has been used to demand acts of faith like acts of work from would-be converts and faithful Christians of longstanding. “Christ alone” has been used to disparage people of other faiths, and, at times in Christian history, to justify their destruction. And “Scripture alone” has been used to justify the taking of small pieces of the Bible to chastise and discriminate against others on the basis of so-called “biblical morality”.

Heritage and inheritance are strange things. They have such a hold and yet they never completely define those who follow after. Sometimes the inheritance is well-used; sometimes it is wasted; and sometimes it is simply guarded and not used at all. The difficulty is, of course, in recognising what the real inheritance is and just how it might best be used. Now in discerning that inheritance, remembering that for the Reformed tradition, the ultimate outcome of our heritage is the praise and glory of God just might give us a head start.

Affirming that our salvation comes to us because of God’s grace alone reminds us that we can do nothing to save ourselves. It reminds us that nothing we do can save us. And it reminds us that nothing that others do can separate them from God’s love and God’s mercy either. This affirmation reminds us that we are not the judges of our own salvation or anyone else’s. Judgement is God’s and God is a merciful and gracious judge. Surely in the face of such graciousness, our only response can be praise.

Affirming that we are connected with the good news of our salvation through faith alone reminds us that recognising and accepting God’s graciousness doesn’t require super-human effort from us. It doesn’t require us to do anything to receive God’s mercy, nor does it require of us any particular ability to spout correct doctrine or teaching word perfectly or to get every action right every time. Although good doctrine or teaching and good practice is important in trying to understand and follow God’s will, it isn’t the thing that connects us with God’s love. Rather, this affirmation reminds us that we simply have to put our trust in the promise of God’s grace, God’s love and God’s mercy. Surely in the face of such graciousness, our only response can be praise.

Affirming that we find salvation in and through Christ alone is not an excuse to disparage or vilify others. It is not a reason to coerce Christian practice; or even to despair over the numbers in the church. Rather, this affirmation reminds us that God’s graciousness has been profoundly and uniquely proclaimed in and through Christ, and that it is not our proclamation that saves the world. Christ alone embodies the fullness of God. Surely in the face of such graciousness, our only response can be praise.

Affirming that we find our faith and discover Christ in and through scripture alone does not mean that our faith and our experience of who God is, is confined to scripture, although it is the most important source for us in gaining access to the story of the Christ event. Sola scriptura does not mean that every word of scripture is inerrant. It is after all, the work of human hands, even if inspired by the human encounter with God. It doesn’t mean that we can use proof-texts from material out of cultures vastly different from our own to demand a particular way of operating in the world. And it doesn’t let us off the hook for doing the hard work of reading the scriptures in our contemporary context and being open to the work of the Spirit is discerning God’s message to us through the scripture for our time. This affirmation does remind us that we have a unique story about a unique event and that unique story-event is about God’s love, God’s grace and God’s mercy. Surely in the face of such graciousness, our only response can be praise.

Some of you know that my week has been filled with interactions with someone who has been treated very poorly by our society’s mental health system. This system can only see that person as someone who has a variety of issues—medical and otherwise; and it expects him to behave in particular ways in order to be able to negotiate a complex bureaucracy. Our inheritance in Christ is not like that and our interactions with other people cannot be like that for we understand that salvation, redemption, reconciliation, liberation comes to us sola gratia, sola fide, sola Christi and sola scriptura. Surely in the face of such graciousness, our only response can be praise.

Happy 500th Birthday John Calvin!

Five hundred years ago, on 10th July, in the small village of Noyon in France, John Calvin was born. He was raised in a strong Roman Catholic family to be a priest, leaving home at the age of 14 to study in Paris where he was exposed to ideas about reform in the church. Calvin did not invent the Reformation, but having discovered some of its fundamental principles in the writings of Martin Luther, he began to articulate these ideas in dynamic, practical and popular language.

Expelled from Catholic France, Calvin journeyed to Geneva where he firmly established a movement for reform which resulted in the legacy of that stream of Christianity known as the Reformed or Presbyterian stream: a heritage shared by The Uniting Church in Australia. Our theology and worship today is strongly influenced by that inheritance and the Reformation principles of sola Christi, sola gratia, sola fide, sola scriptura—Christ alone, grace alone, faith alone, scripture alone.

Calvin's primary work was pastoral, but he penned numerous tracts and his correspondence was profuse. His seminal work, Institutes of the Christian Religion, became the guiding light for many early Protestants as they exited both the Middle Ages and the Roman Catholic church. At his own request, Calvin was buried in an unmarked grave in Geneva's common cemetery to avoid idolatry.
(Adapted from a range of sources from http://www.calvin500.com and http://www.calvin09.org)

Calvin’s reformed church and theology influenced Scottish Christianity through John Knox and Andrew Melville. It is through this Scottish Reformed link that Presbyterianism came to Australia. In 1984, L. Farquhar Gunn, commenting on the Presbyterian heritage of the Uniting Church, noted that “the sovereignty of God and the sinfulness of [humanity]” was “the basic concept from which all else springs”:

Salvation is God’s free gift. It is God alone who bring rebellious [humanity] back to [God]. It is the Sovereign God, who takes the initiative in Jesus Christ, who does for us what we cannot do for ourselves—reconcile us to [God].
(Breward, Ian (ed.) 1984. The Future of Our Heritage. Uniting Church Historical Society (Victoria), p. 4.)

The Real Thing

My husband’s name is Russell Morris. Now if you’re of a certain generation, you don’t think of my Russell, when you hear that name, you think of the Russell Morris who sang the Johnny-Young-penned and Ian-Meldrum-produced hit song of the late 1960s, “The Real Thing”—very funky, very 60s, very mellow, very psychedelic. In fact, when I tell people my husband’s name, they often say, “You don’t mean the Russell Morris, do you?”; and my standard response has become, “No, but he’s the real thing to me.” “He’s the real thing to me.”

But, at least from the words of the song, you wouldn’t have thought “The Real Thing” was the real thing, that is, that it would be anything like a hit song in the reading. It actually only has 5 statements in the whole song:
1. “Come and see the real thing”
2. “Tryin’ hard to understand the meaning that you’ll see in me”
3. “There’s a meaning there, but the meaning there doesn’t really mean a thing”
4. “I am not seeing you”
5. “I am the real thing”

These 5 statements are repeated a number of times in succession, interspersed with the 1960s version of scat “oo mama mow-mow, oo mama mow-mow” and extending for 6 minutes—the 1960s’ equivalent of Michael Jackson’s 13 minute Thriller film clip. And perhaps it wasn’t the real thing in its original acoustic guitar version either, but by the time $10 000 AUD had been spent on studio mastering it, the song “The Real Thing” was destined to be an “Australian rock classic” and one of the limited number of Australian popular songs which has found success in the US market, particularly in the cities of Chicago and New York. In 2001, the Australiasian Performing Rights Association named “The Real Thing” as one the top 30 Australian songs of all time. It may not read like the real thing, but “The Real Thing” was and is the real thing in terms of being a hit song; and it continues to draw attention when covered by artists as diverse as Kylie Minogue and Midnight Oil; and is a must-have in regular post-mortems of Australian popular music during the end of the 20th century. Who would have thought that “The Real Thing” was the real thing? Apparently, at the time, it was just a handful of people who saw it through to the legendary status which it enjoys today.

Now as we regularly hear from pop music gurus and as we regularly witness through shows such as Australian idol, although there’s a formula for success in popular music to be followed, that formula doesn’t always guarantee that any particular song or any particular artist is destined for the success of legendary hits such as “The Real Thing”. Choosing stand-out performers and performances isn’t as simple as we’d like to think; and there are few people who can claim any record of discerning what the real thing is and where it will come from, and most of them are successful because they have had success with a few pieces out of a whole basketful that they have shepherded through the production process over a lifetime. It’s not so easy to put your hand on the real thing every time.

Which in a curious kind of way brings us to our readings for today: the reading from 2 Samuel where the people of Israel finally acknowledge David as their leader following the deaths of Saul and Jonathan and the defeat of Abner and the remnant of the House of Saul; and the reading from the Gospel of Mark where Jesus is rejected in his own hometown and subsequently sends out the Twelve to face the same possibility of rejection where they go. Both of these readings raise questions about how we discern what is real, what is acceptable, what is true; and for us, that question is not about making hit records, but about discerning the will of God. How do we and will recognise the real thing when it is in our midst or outside our door, or on the other side of the world?

Now often that question is posed for us as we consider future directions for ourselves and for our community. Certainly it is posed for us when we seek to elect representatives or leaders in our society. We know that what we like isn’t always necessarily what’s best for us. We know that the best-willed people in the world will still get it wrong sometimes; and even their best-willed intentions will have unintended consequences. And we know that we don’t have a direct line into the mind of God to know exactly what is required of us in the detail. We are not God (as much as any of us might like to wish we were). So how is it that we say we seek to discern and to follow God’s will, to travel the path of the real thing?
Christian theologian and ethicist, H. Richard Niebuhr, suggested that when the Christian community was discerning the call of God, it had to be aware of at least 4 important elements of that call on any person’s life (and particular on those who are called to the ordered ministries of the church). In The Purpose of the Church and its Ministry (1956), Niebuhr spoke firstly, of the most general and fundamental call or vocation of every Christian person: “the call to be a Christian … the call to discipleship of Jesus Christ, to hearing and doing of the Word of God, to repentance and faith, et cetera”. This is our primary vocation and it is the primary location out of which we seek to discern God’s will—the call to follow Christ.

For Niebuhr then, against this general vocation of Christ’s followers, when the specific vocation of a Christian person was being considered there were three aspects to consider. The first aspect was the “inner persuasion or experience whereby a person feels … directly summoned or invited by God to take up the work of the ministry”. Niebuhr described this as the “secret call”; and perhaps that a clue to what it’s like. God’s still small voice or silent promptings in our hearts to take up a particular yoke offered to us in the name of Christ. I’m always a bit suspicious about those who regale us most loudly about their personal call by God; and perhaps Niebuhr was too. This aspect of discerning God’s will is about tending to the personal, implicit call of God; and perhaps for our best leaders, that call is found in the secret places of their wrestling with God. We might think about the psalms of lament, of calling out to God attributed to David, the Shepherd King; and the wrestling with God by Jesus depicted in the Garden of Gethsemane and in the face of his rejection in his own hometown.

But Niebuhr was aware that a personal sense of vocation was not enough, just as the general vocation of the Christian was not enough for someone called to be a leader in Christian community. In relation to personal vocation, a “secret call” needed to be supplemented by a “providential call”, that is, by the “invitation and command to assume the work of the ministry which comes through the equipment of a person with the talents necessary for the exercise of the office and through the divine guidance of [that person’s] life by all its circumstance”. Saying that you have a call to a particular ministry and believing that you have a call to a particular ministry is not enough. In order to discern whether this perceived call is actually the call of God, attention is required to the gifts we have, the talents we exercise and to the opportunities for education and development of those raw gifts and talents to be moulded by God for God’s purposes. The story of David that we read today comes 18 chapters after Samuel anointed David as King; and 17 after the story of David’s defeat of Goliath; and in the meantime, a number of exploits and situations are recorded through which David is challenged and moulded. We may wonder what Jesus was like before he turns up being baptised by John. What does the response of his hometown suggest of the potential they did or did not see in this boy from Nazareth? And what had happened in the meantime for him to be received by so many outside his hometown as a special minister of God? What brought Jesus out of Nazareth and set him on the path to Jerusalem? And what was the purpose in sending out disciples and receiving back their reports?

But again Richard Niebuhr reminds us that the general call and the secret call and the providential call are not sufficient if we are truly to discern the call of God. The fourth aspect that requires attention is the “ecclesiastical call”—“the summons and invitation extended … by some community or institution of the Church to engage in the work of ministry”. We might also call this the corporate or the communal call. It concerns the recognition of the personal and the providential aspects of Christian vocation by the community of Christ. It is the communal call that we see very much in the story of David read today. Samuel may have anointed him; he may have defeated Goliath and been challenged by many other exploits, but it is not until this moment, when he is recognised by the people and makes a covenant with them, that David is finally declared King. The story of Jesus read together is not yet there. In that story, we still hear something of the testing of the communal call—of Jesus’ seeing how he is received in his hometown; and how his disciples are received when he sends them out. There is a long and difficult road ahead before a community affirms Jesus’ call and proclaims the most audacious political and religious claim that “Jesus is Lord!”

How do we discern the call of God? How do we know the real thing to which God is calling us? We attend to the general call to all Christians to follow Christ. We listen to the personal, secret call God plants in our hearts and minds. We heed the discernment of others in recognising our gifts and talents; and in providing opportunities for us to test and develop those strengths. And we listen to the voice of the community when it asks us to respond and recognises us for a particular role. And maybe, just maybe we will find ourselves surprised to discover that that which we weren’t quite sure was the real thing, is the real thing to God.
(H. Richard Niebuhr The Purpose of the Church and Ministry 1956 http://www.religion-online.org/showchapter.asp?title=407&C=152)

Conciliar Decision-Making

The Uniting Church makes decisions in councils. Members of those councils (Congregation; Church Council; Presbytery; Synod and Assembly) meet together to “discern the guidance of the Spirit in response to the word of God” (UCA Manual for Meetings 2004, p. 7). Conciliar decision-making is an ancient practice of the church. It’s the way in which the Christian faith was defined through the Apostles’ and Nicene Creeds in the first 5 centuries of the Christian church.

Conciliar decision-making is community decision-making. Decisions are made through a process of community interaction. Councils meet together. “Christian community develops when members of a group share the life they have in Christ. Community is strengthened as members are open to each other’s insights and feelings in pursuit of the ideals and practices around which the group is formed” (Manual p. 7).

The central practice of the Church as a decision-making community is that of worship. In and through our worship, we are formed as the people of God, the Body of Christ, the Communion of the Holy Spirit.

Ecclesial (church) decision-making is about discerning God’s will in community. Because we are human, we won’t always get our decisions right. “In retrospect… some decisions are considered to have been visionary and innovative, others inappropriate and destructive” (Manual p. 7). That’s part of the community decision-making process too. It’s not just our immediate community, but the community in continuity that is involved in discerning God’s will.

Our decision-making is governed by our primary theology (our worship) and our secondary theology (our developed systematic understandings of the nature of God and all things in relation to God). Worship and theology are key to making decisions that are faithful to who God is and who we are in relation to God. “The communal nature of the relationship expressed in the Trinity and re-expressed in the Body of Christ provides a model for the type of community we become, and both enlightens and sets limits to our agenda; for the church is a community created by Christ and sustained by the Spirit” (Manual p. 7).