A Different Community

We are not Christians because of what we believe, but because we have been called to be disciples of Jesus. To become a disciple is not a matter of a new or changed self-understanding, but rather to become part of a different community with a different set of practices." (Stanley Hauerwas as quoted in The Missional Leader)

When I first read that, I was reminded of this passage from James:

What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if you say you have faith but do not have works? Can faith save you?  If a brother or sister is naked and lacks daily food,  and one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and eat your fill,” and yet you do not supply their bodily needs, what is the good of that? So faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead.  (James 2:14-17)

I don't mean to compare a new or changed self-understanding to faith, but instead to point out that we become Christians because we follow Christ.  We live as Christ has called us to live, in relationship to community.  Because Christ calls us - showed us - we feed people, we cloth people, we love people.  These actions stem out of our Christianity, because Christianity is learning from Christ and following Christ.

Our faith, which is born of the grace of God, brings us into relationship with God.  Because of our God-gifted faith, we are able to follow Christ.  In following Christ, we change how we live - to become mas Hauerwas said, "part of a different community with a different set of practices."

We hold so tightly to dogma that it becomes a barrier to living out the life of Christ.  It isn't what we believe, its who we believe in.  And who we believe in changes our actions.

Wrong People. Wrong Bus.

Have you noticed in the Bible how God doesn't call the people we would expect him to call? God calls people like Samson.  Like David.  Like Tamar.  Like Ruth.  These are not the people we would have chosen for God to recruit.  He calls the slaves out of Egypt to the Promised Land, and they complain and wander and worship gold idols. 

In the book Missional Leader, by Alex Roxburgh and Fred Romanuk, the authors write, "In the incarnation, we discern that God is always found in what appears to be the most godforsaken of places - the most inauspicious of locations, people, and situations."  And also, "This God who pursues us is always calling the wrong people onto a bus that isn't expected to arrive."

As I read that today, it occurred to me that we are less than humble when we think about this.  "God calls the wrong people" we think.    "Surely God doesn't want that person to have a leadership role in this ministry."  All along we forget that we have been called - that we are the wrong people - that God has taken a chance on us. 

If that were not the case, then the only assumption is that we are the perfect, good people, judging everyone else.  That's not the case, is it?

No.  We are the wrong people, called onto a bus by God - a bus that isn't expected.  How can we fail to welcome anyone else?

Carried or Sent? Part 2

 This is the second part of a devotional I gave at a meeting last week.

We are living in a pandemic.  I am so ready for that not be the case, but it is.  We are living in a time of fear.  A time of mourning and grief.  A time of anger. We have not been sent here by God, but we have been carried by God.

 

I’m reading a book called The Missional Leader: Equipping your church to reach a changing World by Alan Roxburgh and Fred Romanuk.  They write, “In the incarnation, we discern that God is always found in what appears to be the most godforsaken of places – the most inauspicious of locations, people, and situations….Over and over again, God meets God’s people with the bright light of the Kingdom in what appears to be the most hopeless and forsaken places.”  Through a prophet, God asks, “Can these dry bones live?” and then God answers the question by sending us Jesus.  The answer is yes.  The dry bones lives because God is with us.

 

God was with the people in exile, and God tells them to live.  Get married, have children, have grandchildren.  Live.  Bring life to where you are. 

 

God is with us in this pandemic, and tell us to live.  To do ministry.  To love each other.  To bring life to where we are.  Here in this place, where God is, we are still the church.  We need new skills, and we need to use gifts differently, but that doesn’t mean we have an excuse to do nothing. 

 

A few years ago, I was part of a committee that was trying to standardize the certified lay minister program in our conference.  We couldn’t envision a way to do it.  But now, I’m teaching a Conference CLM course – all online.  In a way we didn’t – couldn’t have – envisioned.  The students – at least some of them – don’t have the equipment they need, or the internet they need, and yet they are doing this anyway.  They borrow a friend’s computer, they find internet, they show up every month for a 2.5 hour zoom class.  They do the portico lectures, they read the books, they struggle through curriculum, and they write answers to hard questions.  In a land where they didn’t expect to be, they are living life – following God’s call.  And they are telling me that they couldn’t have done this without the class being held online.  They couldn’t have traveled for in person meetings.  This could not have happened before the pandemic.

 

So, I ask you today, in this land where God has carried you, where have you seen God at work?   Where are you or the people in your community, living life in a way no one anticipated before?

Carried or Sent? Part 1

The following two posts are from a devotional I provided for a meeting I had last week.  

Jeremiah 29:1, 4-7 - Common English Bible

The prophet Jeremiah sent a letter from Jerusalem to the few surviving elders among the exiles, to the priests and the prophets, and to all the people Nebuchadnezzar had taken to Babylon from Jerusalem

⁴ The Lord of heavenly forces, the God of Israel, proclaims to all the exiles I have carried off from Jerusalem to Babylon: ⁵ Build houses and settle down; cultivate gardens and eat what they produce. ⁶ Get married and have children; then help your sons find wives and your daughters find husbands in order that they too may have children. Increase in number there so that you don’t dwindle away. ⁷ Promote the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile. Pray to the Lord for it, because your future depends on its welfare. 

 

This was the passage we studied in Sunday school last week.  This passage bothered me because of the idea that God sent the Israelites into Exile.  And I wasn’t the only one it bothered, so we were talking about it. 

 

Jeremiah had spent a whole lot of time prior to this passage trying to convince those who lived in Judah to change their ways – they didn’t.  The people to whom this letter is written are now in exile in Babylonia.  One of the things that bothers me about this passage because the idea that God sent them into exile almost seems to remove their guilt in the matter.  So, we were having that discussion.

 

Jeff Taylor is a member of our Sunday school class, and he loves words.  He pointed out that the verb used in the Common English is carried.  “proclaims to all the exiles I have carried from Jerusalem to Babylon.”  God didn’t send them, he carried them.  God went with them.  They were without their land and their freedom, but they were not without God.

 

What difference does that make?  What is the difference between sent and carried?

 

In 2011, our older son, Grant, was a senior in high school.  Our younger son, Josh, was a freshman.  All through their lives, Josh had been dragged – uh, invited – to events that involved Grant – track meets, band concerts – whatever Grant was involved in, we, his parents, attended, and Josh went with us.  On this day in 2011, Josh was the one who was playing in the band concert.  Grant really wanted to go to a basketball game at Cabell Midland High School – on the other side of the county.  We told him he had to go and support Josh, at least for the first part of the concert, and then he could go the game.

 

He grudgingly did so, and then left to drive to Ona once he was finally released by his mean parents.  Not much later than that, my husband, Steve, got a phone call from Grant.  Grant had been pulled over for speeding, and the Barboursville police officer made him call us.  Grant had been driving 96 miles an hour.

 

In the city of Barboursville, when you get a ticket for driving 96 miles an hour, you can’t just pay the fine.  You have to go to court.  So, when the time came, Steve and I drove Grant – he was no longer driving at this point - to court in the Senior Center in Barboursville.  Its rows and rows of chairs, with a table up front, at which are seated the judge and a police officer.  When it is your turn, you approach the table and have a seat for the hearing.  When Grant’s time came, he went up front, and we went with him.  We all sat at the table to talk to the judge and police officer.

 

After it was over, and we were walking back to the car, Grant said, “I didn’t know you were going to come with me to the front.” It was a statement of thanksgiving.  In a time of fear, anxiety, and shame, he was not alone.

 

We didn’t send Grant to court after his ticket.  We carried him there.

Change

 I'm currently reading - in fact, have just begun, a book called The Missional Leader: Equipping Your Church to Reach a Changing World by Alan J. Roxburgh and Fred Romanuk.  In the first chapter, they write about two different kinds of change:

1. "Continuous change develops out of what has gone before and therefore can be expected, anticipated, and managed."
2. "Discontinuous change is disruptive and unanticipated; it creates situations that challenge our assumptions.  The skills we have learned aren't helpful in this kind of change."

When experiencing discontinuous change, working harder with one's habitual skills does not always create results.  The environment is new, so it could be that new skills are needed.  "There is no getting back to normal."

In Sunday school, we were talking about belonging.  The lesson was based around a passage in Jeremiah 29.  Verse 7 says, "But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare."  We spent some time in class telling stories of how we had been made to feel as if we belonged.  We talked about how we need to continue to do that.  And then someone made a comment about how we either can't now or how it is harder now (I don't remember which) because of the pandemic.

When I read this morning about discontinuous change, I thought that the pandemic must be all discontinuous change.  It is disruptive, unanticipated, and it creates situations that challenge our assumptions.  I often hear comments about "we can't do that because of the pandemic."  Or, especially from businesses, "Please be patient; our work is challenging because of the pandemic."

And yet, people still need what the church provides.  People still need to feel as if they belong.  As if they are cared for. As if they matter.  I don't think our normal approach will work - I'm certain it will not, and yet, even in the face of discontinuous change, we can't offer people the excuse of the pandemic  - I'm sorry you feel alone, but there is a pandemic.

We can't do what we have done.  So what CAN we do?  Even though what used to work doesn't work, we are still the church.  We still need to meet the need - so how?  How will we meet the needs of our communities in the face of discontinuous change?