Genuine Transformation - Part 2
11/21/05
Once we move from the many superficial trappings of modern church life to a deep desire to do ministry with integrity, the most pressing question we face is one of identity. Let me get at this issue by telling a story about Fred Craddock. As many of you know, a few years ago Fred was in the hospital with a serious illness. He received cards and calls from all around the nation. After he had begun to improve, one day one of the pink ladies came with a basket full of cards that had just arrived. Fred was busy reading from an already large pile resting on his moveable table. She deposited the new cards beside the huge stack of old ones, started to the door, and then paused. Fred looked up, she looked back at him. Finally in the awkwardness of the silence he asked if there was something else she needed. She answered no, hesitated, then said, "Some of us downstairs have been talking?we notice you're getting a truck load of cards daily, your phone is ringing off the hook, and now that you can have visitors there is steady stream of them all the time?and we were wondering, well?who are you anyway?"
That is a question all Christians would do well to ask ourselves. "Who are we anyway?" To say we are Christians is not a sufficient answer. Not all Christians are the same. Fred Phelps, a fundamentalist minister inTopeka, KS who declares time and again, "God hates fags," is a Christian, but he is not the kind of Christian I want to be. So to tell someone I am a Christian is not specific enough to speak the message of Jesus Christ to the world in the way I want to speak it - or live it. If evangelism is not something we do, but something we are, and I believe it is, it is not simply saying I am a Christian that impacts the world. It is the kind of Christian I am. Fred Phelps is having an impact. It is not the kind I want to have.
"Who are you?" is a question, then, that invites us to ask ourselves, "What kind of Christian do I want to be?" One of you suggested the question should be, "What kind of Christian does God want me to be?" I understand the point, but I believe answering the question as I ask it naturally leads me to take more responsibility for my answer, and to hold myself accountable for being that kind of Christian.
"So what kind of Christian do I want to be?" Ask yourself that question right now. More and more I am hearing colleagues, both lay and clergy, say that we in mainline churches have tried to be all things to all people for too long. That has led to a confusion about identity and mission. No wonder. The Bible answers two primary questions: (1) Who are we? (2) What are we to do? Identity and mission.
I think mainline churches have not always been ready to give an answer to the question of who we are because we have been afraid that it would lead to some form of exclusivism. Thus, our desire to be all things to all people has led to our identity becoming amorphous. That may be why we are more ready to talk about mission than identity. But mission does not give us identity. Rather, identity defines our mission. We have also been reluctant to focus on identity because we have been hesitant to face the fact that not every Christian wants to be like us. Nor do they want to be in the kind of churches we are in. That is why we gain nothing by trying to be something other than the Christian we truly want to be. Mainliners are hardly perfect. Our churches may be suffering from spiritual stagnation. But the key to transformation lies in reclaiming our Christian identity, not denying it.
Each of us may describe that identity in different ways, but on the whole I believe mainline Christianity has always represented a gospel whose message is about justice, peace-making, compassion, grace, inclusiveness, embracing of diversity, and open to beliefs different from our own. These are the adjectives that describe us because we seek to live a meaning-filled life here on earth grounded in the faith that our first responsibility is show how much we love God by loving our neighbors as we love ourselves. This, I submit, is the kind of Christian we are. And it is the kind of witness Christianity needs to make in the world today.
But loving our neighbor is easier said than done, as we all know. So how do we own it, live it, make it real in our lives? I want to suggest two core convictions that set us free from the fear of being people who intentionally create open minded and open hearted communities of faith. These two convictions have been crucial in the members and attenders of Spirit of Joy gaining the will and confidence to work hard at becoming the kind of Christians we want to be and to be the kind of church that can help us achieve our goal. These two core convictions will not be especially new to you, but that is the danger. They may be so familiar that we have ceased to appreciate how provocative they actually are. They define what I call a bigger Christianity that stands in marked contrast to the small Christianity I believe fundamentalism has made of our faith.
The first core conviction is that being Christian is more about following Jesus than anything we believe about him. In their book on the Lord's Prayer, Stanley Hauerwas and Will Willimon describe Christianity this way:
Think of Christianity, not primarily as a set of doctrines, a volunteer organization, or a list of appropriate behaviors. Think of Christianity as naming a journey of a people. As you read the Gospels, you will note that Jesus and his disciples are always on the way somewhere else, breathlessly on the move?
The journey is an adventure in great part because it is a trip with Jesus, a trip toward trust in him rather than trust in those securities and crutches in which the world has taught us to trust (i.e., bread, bags, and money).
?to be a Christian is to have been drafted to be part of an adventure, a journey called God's kingdom. Being part of this adventure frees us from the terrors that would enslave our lives if we were not part of the journey (pp. 13-14).
In our congregation "journey" has become a key metaphor for understanding the kind of Christian we want to be. Recently a small group of adults in our church was discussing marks of a Christian spirituality I had written about in a previous book. One woman asked, "Aren't these marks the kind of qualities a person of another faith could have as well? If so, why do you call them marks of a Christian spirituality? What makes them exclusively Christian?"
My answer was that they're not. No personal quality or action is uniquely or exclusively Christian. Many non-Christians demonstrate personal piety and loving actions that not only equal those of Christians, but may exceed them. History records, and life continues to prove, that Christians have no corner on goodness or good deeds. That is why I think we need to shift the focus to following Jesus. The journey with Jesus is what matters most. Followship brings a different perspective to the meaning of being Christian. It is simply to follow Jesus. That is what Jesus asked his disciples to do. He didn't ask them to believe specific doctrines. We do not find him quizzing them to determine their doctrinal purity. Mark's gospel says the disciples followed him even though they did not comprehend who he was or what he was telling them.
Jesus said to them, "Why are you talking about having no bread? Do you still not perceive or understand? Are your hearts hardened? Do you have eyes, and fail to see? Do you have ears, and fail to hear? And do you not remember? When I broke the five loaves for the five thousand, how many baskets full of broken pieces did you collect?" They said to him, "Twelve." "And the seven for the four thousand, how many baskets full of broken pieces did you collect?" And they said to him, "Seven." Then he said to them, "Do you not yet understand?" (8:18-21)
They didn't, of course, but Jesus didn't say they were going to hell for it. Luke says they didn't even understand much about Jesus after the resurrection. The first question they asked had to do with restoring the kingdom of Israel (Acts 1:6). No wonder Mark's story of Peter confessing Jesus as the Messiah says Jesus responded by telling Peter and the others not to say anything to anyone about him (8:27-30). Yet, Peter continued to follow Jesus, and later became the first to preach him "crucified and raised from the dead" (Acts 2:32).
Following Jesus is a journey, but it is not wandering around. It is moving from old ways to new ones, from old loyalties to the only One who is worthy of first devotion. Describing the meaning of being Christian as being on a journey is, in essence, to talk about the need of human beings to move from idolatry to faithfulness to God. This is the heart of discipleship. It is less about beliefs than about transformation. That is why the early Christians were called "Followers of the Way." Following Jesus was about a way of living in the world. Today, however, the focus is on believing. Recently new neighbors to one of our children and family expressed surprise and delight in discovering our family members were "believers," in their view the key to the door opening to a good relationship.
This linking of beliefs and relationships is the by-product of the church defining the meaning of discipleship exclusively in terms of assent to creedal statements or traditional dogma. Under pressure from the newly converted Constantine, fourth century church leaders met at Nicea and declared in creedal form what one had to believe to be a true Christian in an effort to end theological controversies which Constantine viewed as a threat to peace in the Empire. The Nicene Creed failed in settling these disputes, but it, along with subsequent creedal statements, did lead Christians to focus on beliefs about Jesus rather the demands of following him. In fact, because of what they believed, they often responded to one another in ways that contradicted the love for one another Jesus said was the primary way the world would know they were his disciples (John 13:34-35).
So the call on our lives is to follow Jesus. Believing in Jesus has its place. But we are hard pressed to find a scriptural basis for making it the essence of discipleship. "Come, follow me," were Jesus' words to the first Christians. They are his words to 21st century Christians as well.
This concept of Christian "followship" leads naturally to the second thing I believe goes to the heart of the kind of Christians we want to be - that regardless of circumstances, we can live out of a sense of abundance. This is a radical consequence of following Jesus. I personally made this discovery three years ago. As some of you know, Joy and I made the decision for me to give up my tenured position on the faculty at Lexington Theological Seminary in Kentucky to move to Minnesota and start a new church. Four years into it I was describing our struggles as a new congregation to keep our head above water to a long time friend named Judith Roark who is a therapist by profession. In some detail I told her about the issues we were confronting and our longing for the day when we would not have to wonder if we were going to make it financially. Judith listened, and then when I finished, she gently said, "Now, Jan, I want to invite you to live out of your abundance."
I remember being silenced by her comment, thinking perhaps the cell phone connection had been lost while I was talking, so I summarized what I had spent ten minutes telling her. She replied she had heard me the first time and then repeated her invitation. "I want you to live out of your abundance." The only thing I could think to say in response was the obvious, "Well, I'm not sure I understand what you mean about abundance. We don't seem to have any. "
"Well," she replied, "You just told me that even with your struggles, you were keeping your head above water. So you have enough for today. That's abundance, and I invite you to live out of that rather than worrying about what you don't have or dreaming of the day when you won't have to."
That phone call began an ongoing conversation that has turned my thinking upside down. As if a light bulb had been turned on in my head, I realized that I had always thought of abundance as having "enough and to spare," when in reality it simply means having enough. Further, "enough and to spare" thinking creates the mindset wherein when "the spare" begins to dwindle, there is an immediate anxiety about the "enough." That in turn produces a need to take steps to protect it, making possessiveness appear to be a reasonable response to diminishing resources. But as anxiety over the enough rises, distinguishing between need and want becomes very difficult.
As I look back over my life, I have hardly ever had a genuine reason to be anxious about not having what I needed. In reality, financial anxiety has been much more related to what I have wanted than any real need. I know many people do not have what they need, but I am not one of them. I have often found myself worrying about money when I had enough of it at that moment. That worry would have never allowed me to describe my life as "abundant."
I have now come to understand that scripture boldly affirms abundance as "having enough" and rejects out of hand the notion that it means "enough and to spare." Manna in the wilderness, for example, had to be collected fresh every morning (Exodus 16:15-36). The people received unequivocal instructions. Nothing was to be saved or stored up. When the people ignored what they were told, they discovered the "manna" had spoiled. Enough for the day was abundance. Trying to secure enough and to spare put the "enough" in jeopardy.
Jesus restated this wisdom when he cautioned against worrying about having basic needs tomorrow.
Therefore do not worry, saying, ?What will we eat?' or ?What will we drink?' or ?What will we wear?' For it is the Gentiles who strive for all these things; and indeed your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.
(Matthew 6:31-33)
He also said, "Take care! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; for one's life does not consist in the abundance of possessions" (Luke 12:15). The Apostle Paul wrote, "And God is able to provide you with every blessing in abundance, so that by always having enough of everything, you may share abundantly in every good work" (2 Corinthians 9:8). He further declared that he had learned how to be content whether in times of plenty or times of want (Philippians 4:10-12).
None of these texts suggests there is no need for concern over basic necessities or justifies lack of compassion for those who do not have them. They simply highlight the inherent tension between need and want, and how difficult it is to attend to the former without being consumed by the latter. Neither do these passages argue for a "blind trust" in God to provide for basic needs without human effort or responsible decision making. Rather, they offer a practical guide for living in a material world without becoming "of" it. Abundant living consists of having enough for today. We do not know about tomorrow, and yesterday is gone. What matters is having enough today.
Living out of abundance is core to our identity as Christians because it removes the need to "be against" anyone else in order to be Christian. The heart filled with a sense of abundance speaks the language of love. Wherever that language is spoken, bridges are built between people whose differences are real. This happens because living from abundance takes the "one day at a time" philosophy and applies it to the whole of life. Obviously it strikes against the power of money to seduce us, but it also guides our emotional, psychological, and mental selves. In other words, abundance consists of more than money, extending to love, relationships, self-confidence, job satisfaction, setting and achieving personal goals, and many others. Love, in fact, is the quintessential symbol of living out of abundance. The less we try to possess love, the more we have of it. There is no anxiety over sharing it because our daily experience confirms and reconfirms that having enough for today is in fact to have it in abundance. What is true about love applies to all aspects of our lives.
It is easy to see how generosity freely flows from living out of abundance. When it depends on the "to spare" in our lives, generosity becomes mercurial as our sense of plenty and scarcity goes up and down. In a good year, we are very generous. In a bad year we cut back. Having enough is not enough because the leftovers are dwindling. Which means those being fed from table crumbs are likely to get less and less when there is a "spare crumbs" shortage. But living out of abundance takes "scarcity" out of the equation. So long as there is enough for today, there is no such thing as scarcity. There is only abundance.
Abundance means economic status has no effect on whether or not we live out of it. Jesus' words that it is possible to live without worrying about tomorrow does not depend upon the size of one's portfolio, as one of our members at Spirit of Joy has discovered. Bob is a businessman who spent several years living on the high end of sales commissions. He finally made the decision to start his own company and get out from under the pressure of working for someone else. Three years into it he was over his head in debt, having gone from being able to buy anything to being unable to pay for what little he had left. His is the story of going from riches to rags. But along the way he learned about genuine abundance. Today he will tell you it has changed and is changing his life. He sleeps better, lives with less stress and anxiety, and is at peace with himself. Yet very little externally would suggest he could live this way. After all, he has quite literally lost everything he once worked so hard to acquire. But Bob says life is good because he has enough for today. He describes his life as having abundance unlike any he has ever known.
This is not the kind of story that makes Wall Street news, but it reflects how the truth about abundance changes your life. Our culture, of course, constantly tempts us to believe that life does consist in the abundance of things, which is why so many Americans suffer from the disease of affluenza whose primary symptom is an insatiable desire for more.
Following Jesus exposes this disease for what it is, a prison from which we can be set free. Abundance is having enough. This is the heart of the truth Jesus said would set us free (John 8:32). These two core convictions - followship and abundance - lie at the heart of the kind of Christian we want to be. We want to follow Jesus into abundant living. That is the whole thing in one sentence. Followship doesn't mean that what you believe about Jesus is unimportant, only that you can follow him whatever you believe or if you are not sure what you believe about him. This is because the journey is about learning how to live out of your daily abundance which frees you from being consumed by a sense of scarcity that can make you anxious and fearful, whether it be about money or love or faith. As this happens, you begin to embrace ways of thinking and acting that not only change you, but can change the world.
Being this kind of Christian has significant implications about how we think and act in the world, the government policies we support or oppose, the perspective we bring to all controversial issues. It also has profound implications for the kind of church we want to be in. If followship and abundance are the core convictions of the kind of Christian we want to be, the next question is, "What kind of church does your congregation need to be to help you become the kind of Christian you want to be?" That is what we will discuss next time.
- Jan G. Linn, Spirit of Joy Christian Church, Lakeville, MN
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