Simply Church: Mission

There is a lot to say about the mission of the church family in the world. My friend @nate_ray probably has much more to say on this than I do. Again I’m going to limit my focus and zoom in on the mission of the church from a family perspective.

Our family is full of Love. Our Father is Love itself. He has breathed Himself into us, and now we are full of love. Our Father’s love is so big though. He loves to pour out His love on His children. He loves his children loving each other and watching them grow up to look more and more like Him. But it’s not enough for Him. Our Dad wants His family to grow. There’s enough love for everyone.

His first son, Jesus, charged his disciples, who were both his friends and his brothers, to go into the world and teach people to honor YHWH their Father they way that Jesus honored the Father. Jesus makes it clear elsewhere that those who do the will of his Father are his brothers and thereby also have YHWH as their Dad (this is also quite clear in the Jewish tradition that those of the covenant who live by the covenant have YHWH as their Father). Jesus tells us to go out and help people from all nations live and act in a way that makes them sons and daughters of YHWH.

Our mission as a church is to invite people into the family. Because of the great love we have from our Father and for each other, we want the family to expand. A family that has YHWH as their Father will want to and pursue expansion. The beautiful part of what our older brother has done is that he has already taken care of all of the adoption papers for everyone, making a way for all to become a part of the family. We literally can invite anyone into our family. Our Dad will lovingly adopt them because our older brother Jesus will vouch for them. And if Dad wants them, who are we to reject them? The only response is to embrace them as if they are both long lost and brand new siblings. They belong here as much as we do, and they always have.

Sometimes people reject being in the family. Sometimes people reject the family because they’d rather be independent and live in their own house with their own rules. Sometimes people reject the family because the family is dysfunctional. In our world, sometimes the family looks more like a fascist government than an incubator of love. The family can be closed off rather than invitational, or the family may become very particular about who it invites to become a part of it. The outside perception of the family is often that this family is replete with judgmental hypocrites rather than transforming lovers. Whether or not people choose to be adopted by Dad, we should at least have a family that is appealing to those without one.

Creating a family worth being in is one of the reasons why being like Dad is so important. We have to get rid of those areas in our lives, minds, hearts, and souls that run contrary to who our Father is and replace them with attributes that reflect him. Getting rid of those areas is not just for self betterment. We’re not that focused on ourselves. We work out our salvation because that’s what it means to love. The more like Jesus and Dad we are, the better we are at being in relationship. Sin keeps us from loving Dad well, loving each other well, and loving the world into adoption well. One of the reasons sin in our family is so unacceptable is because we then display to the world a family that they don’t really want to join.

When this family is reflecting its Father, it’s difficult to imagine others not wanting to be adopted. This family is where the kingdom of heaven reigns on earth, where what is wrong with the world is set right and where what is right with the world is amplified. In YHWH’s new covenant family… The wounded find healing. The homeless find home. The friendless find friends. The mourning find a shoulder to cry on. The hopeless find hope. The loveless love. The hungry food. The dirty are cleansed. The sinful are transformed. The broken are put back together. The lame walk. The blind see. The slave is freed. The joyful have brothers and sisters to rejoice with. Race, socioeconomic status, country of origin, biological family history, past sins, present issues, gender, and everything else are irrelevant. All who would give up the way of their old family to put on the way of YHWH’s family are welcome to join us and discover life that is truly life. This is the good news that we proclaim to expand the family.

The Church, the Gospel, and abuse of the pulpit

The following is written by John Weirick. John is a physically distant and electronically close friend. He is a lover of Jesus, leader of men, communicator of the gospel, and, as displayed here, a wonderful exegete of the culture. You can find his website in my blogroll to the right.

Atlanta, Georgia’s Ebenezer Baptist Church, according to its website, is “built on the solid rock of Jesus Christ,” and has long been an environment fostering the social justice movement. Boasting its great history as a leading site of Civil Rights events and coordination, Ebenezer Baptist was even pastored by Martin Luther King, Jr. in the 1960s.

It’s not surprising that this was the location hosting senior White House adviser, Valerie Jarrett, on the anniversary of Dr. King’s birth. It was reported that Jarrett praised Dr. King’s work as essential to the possibility of Barack Obama ascending to the Oval Office. Many may also remember that then-Senator Obama manned the pulpit in 2008 prior to reaching the presidency.

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“It felt appropriate to have her here,” said Rev. Raphael Warnock. Ebenezer is several weeks into a voter registration drive, which will continue until November elections, providing attendees the opportunity to register in the lobby before leaving the church facilities.

Jarrett spoke before Warnock’s sermon, and garnered the audience’s applause with two remarks in particular:

“We all sleep a little better at night knowing Osama Bin Laden and his lieutenants are not plotting a terrorist attack against the United States.”

“Teachers and firefighters and policemen, whose jobs are now in jeopardy because Congress, well let me be specific, because the Republicans in Congress…”

More thoughts on news stories.    More thoughts on the Gospel.

Warnock’s sermon continued the politically charged theme, leaking tones of his liberation theological bent, even calling out Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich:

“Mr. Gingrich, let there be welfare reform, and let it begin with you…He is playing an old game that’s part of the southern strategy…I think he’s relying on old logic of scapegoating and race baiting.”

I am deeply disturbed, and I am not alone.

As we’ve joined Jeremiah on his thoughtful and concerned exposition of what the Church of Jesus should look like, this is no doubt an issue that has broad implications. There is no shortage of discussion material that could be explored here, including the proper relation of politics and the Church, individual Christians involved in politics, government roles, social justice, civil rights, racial tension, liberation theology, and other contentious topics. However, my main concern here is this: how should the Church use the pulpit?

Even setting aside the issue of the “legality” of all but endorsing a political candidate by hosting one of his top advisers and representatives, and speaking against a candidate (threatening non-profit, 501c3 status), this is a bold move by Ebenezer Baptist Church. [IRS: "...Public statements of position (verbal or written) made on behalf of the organization in favor of or in opposition to any candidate for public office clearly violate the prohibition against political campaign activity."]

Why did Rev. Warnock surrender the pulpit to such a figure? What did he hope to accomplish with this? Was this an intentional, thoughtful use of people’s time attending the church gathering? How is Jarrett’s celebration of the death of Bin Laden providing the audience meaningful spiritual substance? What perception does this give the public at large about Ebenezer Baptist Church? Or about the Church locally, nationally, or globally? Do we want the world to see the Church in this light, as a forum for more political and socioeconomic divisiveness? Does the Church not project a perception of who God is and what He’s like?

How should Jesus’ Church use the pulpit?

A position of leadership and speaking to a gathered body of people should not be taken lightly, and therefore must be stewarded wisely. The pulpit, as a placement of authority, ultimately belongs to God and not man; we are only borrowing it, but we’ll be held responsible for how it is used.

The intention of the pulpit is to proclaim and celebrate God’s truth in Scripture and the world, to remind us of His heart, to call us out of sin and to repentance, to cast vision for the direction God calls his followers, to instigate believers to live adventurously with God’s Spirit in loving and serving the world, and to bring us back to the centrality of life: while we were still stuck in the mire of sin, Jesus dwelt among us, died to put our sins to death, and resurrected to bring us also back to life in Him. The pulpit is about the Gospel, because without it, truth is incomplete, God is too impersonal, the world too un-navigable, our lives of no culminating significance, and grace too unattainable. The pulpit must be used to re-gather God’s people around their purpose for living, enjoying the Creator and His creation.

Perhaps most importantly, in this instance of opening the pulpit to a high-profile guest, where was Jesus?  Not once was Christ mentioned, nor was God name-dropped; neither was there a semblance of biblical teaching, instruction, or leading of attendees into a holistic, godly life following Jesus. [I realize the nature of news reports is to share only succinct soundbites and the most sensational statements, but there has been no shred of Jesus mentioned in any of the broadcasts or transcripts. I would love to be proven incorrect by hearing that Rev. Warnock actually did preach a sermon about Jesus, although it's hard to argue that the Gospel would not be muddied by including such flagrant speech against a political figure in his same message.] To give a guest speaker, or even a pastor or leader figure, warranted time on the platform to share a message that is void of Jesus and the Gospel, is at best a disjointed, incomplete message, and at worst a disservice and disgrace to the Church for which Jesus died to redeem.

If we contrast how Jesus used the position of the pulpit (although a physical pulpit may not have been the precise location of his teaching), we see Him steward the platform for spiritual authority with great wisdom, boldness, and substance. In the Gospel accounts, for example, we see Jesus preach the Sermon on the Mount and visit synagogues to read Scripture. In preaching a brief message based on the prophet Isaiah’s writings, Jesus’ exegesis of Scripture reveals that He is the fulfillment of it. The redeemer of the oppressed, the giver of sight to the blind; despite the imperfection of the world, He is making all things new. We would do well to rightly divide the word of truth in our stewardship of the pulpit.

Do you see unfitting use of the pulpit? What abuses must be avoided? How can we effectively and faithfully steward places and positions of authority?

John writes more at johnweirick.com and is grateful for the opportunity and friendship provided by Jeremiah.

Simply Church: Dealing With Each Others’ Sin

We established that in the New Covenant Family we all still sin, this sin destroys the family, and our older brother, father, and their spirits are bringing us out of this sin. But we, as brothers and sisters, also have to deal with the sin of one another. Handling the sin of a brother against a brother is one of the most difficult parts of being a family. We do damage to our siblings. It’s intolerable that the family of God would do this, but it’s also inevitable.

It’s difficult to be a family. We hurt each other. Like our sin, this should never happen and it is bound to happen. We wrong each other in so many ways. We gossip with other family members. We lie to each other. We speak derogatory words to one another. We point out flaws in painful ways. We ostracize. We condemn. We judge. We ignore. We refuse to listen. We envy. We say the wrong thing at the wrong time. We’re all sinners (that’s who Jesus came to call after all). Sinners hurt people when they interact with them.

When we are sinned against, Jesus tells us, as a family, there is only one way to handle it:

“If your brother sins, rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him. If he sins against your seven times in a day, and seven times comes back to you and says, ‘I repent,’ forgive him.” (Luke 17)

These words are wonderful and frustrating. All of the actions of these two sentences are difficult (more on this difficulty can be found here).

It is often difficult to tell someone how we have been wronged by them because we have to admit that in some way our dignity was dishonored. We have to acknowledge that we were treated in a way that is embarrassing because we weren’t valued. Humility is required to admit we have been hurt. It is scary that our brother won’t acknowledge his/her involvement in this devaluing of our personhood because this affirms (wrongly) that dishonor is simply the way we should be treated. Rebuking someone about how they’ve wronged us is simply an uncomfortable thing to do. There are a number of things that make rebuking someone for their sin difficult, but it has to be done in a proper functioning family.

And then, the next part of this process is the person who sinned admitting their sin, being contrite for it, and turning from it back into right relationship. Who wants to admit they’ve done wrong? What if what we did wasn’t even technically wrong, it was just ignorant actions that unintentionally hurt?* As the person rebuking needs humility, the person repenting needs humility in relation to their siblings to, in a sense, put themselves below their sister in their request for their sister’s forgiveness. We need something from them because we want reconciliation with them.

Forgiveness is obviously most often the most difficult of all of these steps. Jesus’ words that we have to, essentially, always forgive a repentant brother or sister are especially difficult. At least for me, the reason it sucks so bad to forgive is simple and obvious, “They hurt me and they don’t deserve my forgiveness!” The exact reasons someone needs forgiveness are the exact reasons I don’t want to give it to them. When we forgive, we have to release the other of the wrong they did to us. The reconciliation of the relationship depends on us and we have to, in a sense, absorb the sin (I explain this quite poorly here). Forgiving is difficult, but absolutely necessary for our family to be a family.

Our older brother Jesus, a master of forgiveness and reconciliation, makes some pretty bold statements about these things. He claims that reconciling with our brother is more important than sacrifice for or going to a worship service for our Father. It doesn’t even make sense in our family to worship God our Father or make sacrifices to Him if we haven’t done everything in our power to make things right in our relationships with our brothers and sisters.

Jesus also says something surprising and frustrating about forgiving our siblings: “For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you, but if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses” (Matthew 6). Pretty clear stuff. Unforgiveness makes no sense in this family because this family was started by the greatest act of forgiveness the world has ever seen. Our family began with forgiveness that allowed us to be reconciled with our Father and it continues with forgiveness that keeps us in intimate relationship with both our Father and our siblings. The only thing more unacceptable than sin in this family is refusing to forgive after all we have been forgiven.

Sometimes there is sin that is not directly against another person. Our goal in dealing sin like this is the same as our goal in everything else, how do we handle this like Dad would handle this? How do we handle this like our older brother would handle this? We do what families do, we love eachother. We give the sinner what they need. If it’s forgiveness, we offer it. If it’s a reminder of Dad’s love, we speak it. If it’s admonishment, we admonish. If it’s an embrace, we embrace. If it’s just to be there, then we just be there. We do whatever it is we have to do in order to love that person the way the Father loves them, all the while, with words and actions, pointing to the Father and our older brother.

*I’ve probably done this to you. And I’m so incredibly sorry. Help me change!

Simply Church: Dad, Jesus, and Sin

Rather than continuing in sin, our church families and individuals within the family, should be moving out of sin. Our goal is to become like dad and to be a successful church we should be moving toward that goal. If our families are not, in large part, departing from sin, our families aren’t functioning the way that they should be. There’s so much to talk about here. I’m going to try to keep this series from getting too out of control so I’ll try to focus on some of the ways the family metaphor can shape our perspective on this.*

Our Father is Love. Our Father is defined by love. It takes great prayer and imagination to begin to grasp how high, wide, and deep the Father’s love for us is. Nothing can separate us from His love. Where everything else fails, love remains and conquers. Because of this great Love, because our dad is the Great Love, dealing with sin has to always begin with, be empowered by, and end with love.

God’s first response to our sin is conviction and guilt. God’s first response to our confession is a loving embrace. Like any good Father, our Dad doesn’t want us to live in shame and guilt because we’re imperfect. He wants us to know that there is nothing we can do to make Him love us less. After his embrace, our good Father may provide discipline, but this is not something to be avoid; rather, it should be embraced for it wonderful that Dad is working in our lives to teach us to be more strong, beautiful, delightful, joyful, and lifeful.

It’s near impossible to embrace the greatness of our Dad’s love for us while engaging in behaviors that break His heart. I believe that one of the most important elements in departing from sin is to bask in the unshakeable love God has for us. When we embrace this love, we love back. When we love, we want to please. We want to honor. We want to treat with dignity. We want to express that love through our words, actions, and life.

Our older brother has shown us how to live in the way of our Father. Sometimes it’s hard to figure out what Dad would do if He were in our circumstances. He’s a lot older and although we know what he is like as a Dad, we don’t know what he’s like as a son or daughter. We have an older brother who is everything that our Dad is, but who is also everything that we are. Jesus provides a clear representation of what it looks like to be a child of YHWH in a way that brings glory to YHWH because it reflects YHWH.

Jesus, who is everything Dad is, lived a life much like us. He intimately understands the trials, difficulties, pains, wounds, temptations, confusion, and complexities of living as a son. Jesus took pity on us, who all at one time had cut ourselves off from the family because of our messed up hearts. Jesus saw what was wrong, went before his Dad on our behalf, and figured our how, at great cost to himself, we could become a part of the family again. We broke YHWH’s heart by rejecting His love, running from home, distorting His image in us, destroying His image in others, and joining a new family. Jesus told Dad, “It’s all on me,” and both of them went to great lengths so that our rebellion would not keep us from being adopted back into God’s family.

Now that our Father and Brother have dealt with our sin, we are adopted sons and daughters. This is not like a normal adoption where a person legally becomes the child of a new set of parents. Our belonging to our Father is certainly legal, but YHWH does more. He recreates us. Through His Son, He makes us a new creation. He renews His breath in us; His spirit in us. We are given a new spiritual genetic makeup that reflects the Father. We are given the Spirit of God in us, that we might live in that same breath, glorifying Dad by imitating Him. The exchange of our rebellious hearts for new hearts is what makes it possible for us to put Dad on display through us.

One of the most wonderful things about this recreation is there is no longer such thing as being stuck in sin. We may feel stuck in sin. We might feel like there is no way out and we just can’t change. The truth is we are already changed. We have been changed. We have been made new and have a renewing of the Holy Breath of God in us which empowers us to reflect Dad. We’re free. The sense of stuckness is merely paradigms of our past that is masquerading as defining our present, but they only have the power we allow them to have. We are new. We are children of the living God in every way. Embrace love and live in it.

*The extensive talking about concepts in light of the family is fresh for me, so I’m going to stick with it, hoping it’s fresh for you as well. In the process, there will be a lot of pertinent Scriptures that I’m going to be leaving out throughout this series. Forgive me in advance.

Simply Church: Making A Practice of Sin

Sin is always a part of the gathering of believers. But sin doesn’t belong in the gathering of believers. Sin doesn’t make sense in the gathering of believers. Individuals in the gathering can not believe that it is okay to make a practice of sin while claiming Jesus as Lord. Living this way is an indication of not belonging to the the family.

When one who calls Jesus “Lord” continues in sin, that person has communicated that Jesus isn’t Lord. Their confession of His Lordship is nullified by their lives. Their confession of Jesus’ Lordship becomes just words, not an acknowledgement of what is true. John, who is very clear that everyone sins, talks about this continuing in sin quite a bit:

“Whoever says, ‘I know him’ but does not keep his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him…” (1 Jn 2:4)

“No one who abides in him keeps on sinning; no one who keeps on sinning has either seen him or known him.” (1 Jn 3:6)

“Whoever makes a practice of sinning is of the devil, for the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil.” (1 Jn 3:8)

Those who claim Jesus as brother and YHWH as Father, yet live life in a continuing practice of sin are not a part of God’s family. And we are to treat them as if they are out of the family,* because they are claiming to represent our Father while living like they represent the devil. They are continuing to work against the family by doing the exact opposite of what the family is supposed to do, accurately make known what our God looks like.

In some of Paul’s letters to different manifestations of the body of Jesus, he discusses what to do with those who are living in this way. Paul is most clear about this concept in 1 Corinthians:

“I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people– not at all meaning the sexually immoral of this world, or the greedy and swindlers, or idolaters, since then you would need to go out of the world. But now I am writing to you not to associate with anyone who bears the name of the brother if he is guilty of sexual immorality or greed, or is an idolater, revile, drunkard, or swindler– not even to eat with such a one.”

We are to reject those as family who claim to be family and live without love for the Father or our older brother who made the relationship with the Father possible. We are to be clear in our words and actions toward them that they are not family. Frequently in his letters, Paul mentions names of people who have been put out of the family because they claim to be a part of the family and are constantly working to destroy the family. Like most people from my culture, this idea makes me uncomfortable.

Why? Why can’t someone continue in sin and still be a part of the family? Why would our family throw someone on the streets? What kind of love is that? Isn’t grace enough?

It is not that the grace from the Father and brothers and sisters in the family isn’t enough, it’s that by stubbornly continuing in sin grace has been rejected. They reject grace while thinking that they have accepted it because they misunderstand what grace means for their lives. The purpose of the grace includes forgiveness, but it isn’t a free pass to sin without ceasing, it’s a free pass to cease from sin. Letting this misunderstanding of grace continue not only severely damages the family, but it is a death sentence to the one who continues in their misunderstanding. It would be unloving to allow them to continue in their sin and continue claiming YHWH as their Father.

With that, I also need to be clear that I believe there is a distinction between someone who is stuck in sin and someone who is continuing in sin. I know a lot of people stuck in sin. At various points in my life I have been stuck in sin. I have some things to say for people stuck in sin. Someone who continues in sin is not contrite about what they’ve done, not are they intending on turning toward Jesus and away from sin in their lives. Someone who is stuck in sin is contrite, turns toward God and away from their sin, and needs to figure out how to stop turning away from Jesus and back to their sin. These people need compassion, encouragement, forgiveness, mercy, teaching, prayer, and strong admonition, but they are siblings – as long as their repentance is sincere.
*I say all this with a lot of heavy sighing.

Simply Church: Sin

Admittedly, this aspect of church is kind of a weird one to talk about. We all know that people we are in Jesus community with have sin in their lives, but it doesn’t seem like we should be sinful. There is a difficult tension in our churches: sin should not be present in the lives of those who have been saved from sin by Jesus Messiah and sin is present in the lives of those who have been saved from sin by Jesus Messiah. This tension has always existed in our churches.

James, when writing to believers, says, “we all stumble in many ways” (3.2).

John says, “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us” (1 Jn 1.8)

Peter, writing to those who are already Jesus followers, exhorts them to “put away all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander” (1 Pt 2.1). Peter implies that these things are present and need to be put away.

Hebrews tells believers to “lay aside… sin which clings so closely” (12.1).

Paul says, “Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry” (Col 3:5).

That is a small sampling from a number of different Biblical letter writings who are writing to different groups of believers. The New Testament descriptions of the churches and instructions to the churches are full of evidence that even under the New Covenant, everyone sins. Because of this and constant admonition to flee from sin, I think that the presence of sin in our churches needs to be both unsurprising and unacceptable. However, in this family the sinner who knows his need is always received with grace.

Accepting that sin is present in the community of believers (while also making sure it isn’t welcome there) has a number of implications for our relationships with one another. It shouldn’t be surprising when a brother or sister hurts us or sins against us. Siblings hurt each other. It’s terrible. It’s sad. It’s unacceptable. It’s going to happen. We’re going to hurt each other. Even without knowing it sometimes, it’s going to happen. If it doesn’t, then we’re probably not being open with one another. The hope is this, that our sin against one another will be an opportunity to be more like our father, in whom, despite our sin against Him, grace always abounds and, even as the one sinned against, he is the first actor in our reconciliation. His grace is enough to restore any relationship.

With the acknowledgement of the presence of sin should come also an understanding of different perspectives. We can’t even do the good we want to do all the time or stop doing what we hate to do. How is it that we expect to know the complete truth about things far beyond our understanding? I believe in discussions over disagreements. I believe in trying to get things right about Scripture. But let’s not have deep familial divisions because of differing thoughts on baptism, women in leadership, the mechanism God used to create, and the like. It does make sense to spend more time with siblings whose perspective is most similar to yours, but no more telling people they don’t belong in the family because they don’t think the same way that you do on some trivial issue.

I think that a group acknowledgement that sin is present in the community at large, in specific brothers and sisters, and in our own lives helps us to deal with it. One of our primary goals together is to help each other become more like dad. A good starting place for this can be to talk to each other about the things in our life that look the opposite of dad and helping each other change that. Accepting that sin is present in us and in others is the first step to an open dialogue about this. Let’s not be on of those families that pretends to love each other because they pretend that nothing is wrong in the family. Rather, let’s be a family of open people who share what is wrong with us and, just like dad, let our first act in response to sin confession be to extend grace to our siblings.

Simply Church: Family

One of the things the New Covenant under Jesus does is to expand and change what it means to be family. I don’t know that he completely revolutionizes it, but I find the way Jesus in the gospels talks about it to be compelling. The way that the letter writers who were a part of the body of Jesus talk about people in the gathering of believers. The main relational indicators used by all the epistles are those used to describe a family.

In Mark 3, Jesus’ mother and brothers are trying to reach him when he is in the middle of a crowd in a house, teaching people. The context from a few verses prior to this event seems to indicate that they might be trying to get to Jesus in order to quiet him down because sometimes he talks crazy and makes life inconvenient with big crowds. Jesus’ response is that his mothers and brothers and sisters are all who do the will of God.

Among other things, this sets the stage for being a family being about far more than being blood related. Jesus implies that those present who are seeking to listen to Jesus in order to learn to do the will of God are the family members of Jesus. It has nothing to do with who their parents were. Given Jesus’ words in Matthew 10 about setting families against eachother, I think it is a safe inference from these passages, as well as others, that the family of believers is more central to the life of a believer than their blood families.* I think Paul picks up on some of this, making the point that under Jesus Messiah being blood related to Abraham is not the same as true descendence from him.

Jesus later talks a little bit about the nature of this familial relationship. After describing how the scribes and Pharisees seek out glory, honor, fame, and power over others, Jesus says this to his disciples and to the crowds:

“But you are not to be called rabbi, for you have one teacher, and you are all brothers.
And call no man your father on earth, for you have one Father, who is in heaven. Neither be called instructors, for you have one instructor, the Christ. The greatest among you shall be your servant” (Mt 23:8-11).

I love this. First Jesus affirms this family relationship that we are to have with one another, then he describes the nature of this relationship.

Jesus wants us to treat eachother like siblings. Jesus is very clear that one person being the teacher and the rest being his followers isn’t what he’s looking for. Jesus is very clear that he doesn’t want us trying to be a father to someone or looking to someone as a father figure other than the Father in heaven. I believe the aspect of the father relationship Jesus does not want us to have is a hierarchical one.** I’m glad Jesus said this to more than just his disciples, he said it also to the crowds. As the disciples become the first with the Holy Spirit’s power and those who become spiritual fathers by spreading seed that grows, it would be tempting to use those things to gain a position of superiority. Jesus makes sure his disciples know that, even though people have different roles***, they are to be brothers and sisters to eachother.

Disciples of Jesus will be recognized by their love for one another. Our familial love for one another. YHWH is our Father; Jesus is our older brother. Belonging to this family is an essential element of the good news of Jesus. It defines us. The gospel without the invitation into a new covenant family marked by love is only a partial gospel.

This invitation is a beautiful one because this family is a beautiful one. In this family, we forget the sins of someone’s past because our dad forgets them. We have the ability to see daddy in everyone and that similarity makes everyone worth loving. We believe everyone is redeemable, because we’ve been redeemed. The central purpose of our family is to help one another to become like our Father: thinking like he thinks, feeling like he feels, doing what he does, and loving like he loves. Our older brother is teaching us, helping us, empowering us. He is the spitting image of His father. We hopefully and actively await the day when all of our family is reunited in the home our dad has is fixing up for us. Everyone finds love in this home. Everyone finds hope here. Everyone belongs here.

We’re not quite like our dad yet. We fight. We argue. We get angry. We get bitter. We hurt each other. We fail at loving each other. We run away from home. We gossip about each other. We criticize one another. But we’re a family. We can’t choose our family, but we can always choose to love them. When dad comes home and finishes the work we’ve been doing on our home, let’s make sure we have stories of love to tell Him and not try to get him to settle our disputes.

* I want to make sure I say that immediate relatives don’t become an insignificant category when we are in the covenant family of YHWH, just relatively less significant than being in a family with Jesus. There still are multiple places in the New Testament where we are taught about the importance of roles in one’s blood or earthly (for lack of a better term) family.

** I’m not saying that by using the term “Father,” the Catholic church is disobeying Jesus. Paul describes his relationship in different places as a father to a son. He is describing roles, not position. He is not exalting himself over others, but talking about being their spiritual progenitor or how intimate he is with a particular person and using metaphors to describe how meaningful their relationship is.

*** Different roles in the family are divested with different amounts of authority, but these callings do not obviate the sibling relationship.

**** These asterisks are just for fun. You’re welcome.

Simply Church: Two Things

The church is all about Jesus Messiah. The church is all about community with others. Jesus is the center. Community is the center. There is no gathering of the body of Jesus if there is no Jesus. There is no gathering if there are no others. This is church at its core. Jesus is the most important, obviously, but you can’t have church without others.

The nature of this reminds me of some things Jesus said. When he was asked what the greatest commandment was, Jesus’ answer is twofold. He says that loving God with everything is the greatest commandment and the second greatest commandment is loving others. Of course loving God is most important, but unless you are on a deserted island, you can’t do that without loving other people. Insofar as you fail at loving others, you fail at loving God.* The two commandments, although one is greater, are interconnected at their core.

Church is kind of like that. Is it possible to have an individual relationship with Jesus that doesn’t include others? Absolutely. And it’s wonderful. And it should be normative for the believer. You can sing worship songs alone. You can pray alone. You can read Scripture alone. You can take the Lord’s supper alone. You can even preach alone. But you can’t have church alone. That doesn’t work. It’s not a gathering if you’re the only one gathering. Communal relationship with Jesus should also be normative for the believer.

You can gather together a bunch of people, even people who believe in Jesus, without having church. This can happen a lot. I am certainly guilty of it. It’s possible to get together with Jesus-followers without doing what Jesus tells us is necessary for His presence. Jesus says that “where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them.” Sometimes, we can get together like we’re a club, a philosophical discussion group, or simply partners in fun. I have far too often gotten together with others who loved Jesus and talked about nothing, watched sports, played video games, and the like without our togetherness being in the name of Jesus, in the very presence of Jesus.

It’s not like God’s omnipresence suddenly stops when people are gathered without gathering in Jesus’ name, but there’s something different when the gathering is centered around Jesus. Every moment spent with another who believes in and follows Jesus can be a moment spent experiencing Jesus in our midst. This is church at its most raw and fundamental. It’s Jesus’ presence in the midst of His body. Jesus with his people.

It’s beautiful the way church works. When we are together in the name of Jesus we can fulfill both of the commandments of Jesus. We can love God with our everything and eachother with concern for their welfare. In multiple places in Scripture, we learn that by fulfilling these two commandments, we have obey all of the instructions of God. Church is where (not necessarily a location) this happens. And through the love of God expressed to one another, the world around may see Jesus and know that we are His.

I kind of wish this was the last post in this series. But “Simply Church” isn’t so simple. And certainly not so brief. Help me progress!

*I need to use more “I”s and less “you”s.