05/27/12 Pentecost 2012 Grace UMC
Something I say with some frequency is that Pentecost is the single most frightening day in the entire church year. Often, when I say that, I get funny looks, as though people can't understand why Pentecost would be a frightening day. After all, it certainly seems like it is a time of great joy and celebration. It is indeed that, but it is the most frightening day of the church year nonetheless.
Why is that? I had the tremendous privilege at my last appointment to preach, passage by passage, through the entire Gospel according to John. It took two and a half years, but it was a significant time of growth for myself and, I hope, for others. As we spent a great deal of time looking at that particular account of the life of Jesus, we found ourselves paying attention to what the disciples were doing. It was an incredibly encouraging time because we realized that the disciples were so far from being perfect and unattainable examples of what faithfulness ought to look like, that they were just as messed up as we are. Time after time, we read about disciples putting their feet into their mouths, saying things they immediately regret, doing things that only a moment's worth of reflection would tell them is a bad idea. We realize that if Peter can still be a disciple after breaking his promise to stand by Jesus' side until death only hours after making it, then we can still be disciples in spite of all the mistakes that we make. In fact, Peter makes just about every mistake you could imagine. There is probably not anyone else in the gospel narratives that should fill people who make mistakes, which is everybody, with hope than Peter. Peter was given his name, which means "rock" by Jesus and throughout the gospels, you can't help but think that the name is meant to be ironic, since he is probably the least stable, least reliable disciple of the bunch.
And then comes Pentecost. All of a sudden, the Peter who didn't seem like he could do anything right, the Peter that we all too often can identify with, starts to act differently. All of a sudden, the man who's name "rock" only served as an ironic reminder of how not firm he was, starts to be bold in a new way. The Peter who was unable to stand firm for Jesus in front of a servant girl the night he was betrayed, stands up before thousands of people, including some of the leaders, and proclaims the good news, "Repent and be baptized, every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ so that your sins may be forgiven; and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is for you, for your children, and for all who are far away, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to him."
What exactly has happened? We live in a world where the disciples have been glorified to an almost unhealthy degree. They were the ones who followed Jesus, they were the ones who wrote the New Testament, they were the ones who took the gospel out to the ends of the known world at the time. They are the kind of people that we sometimes even name our churches after. When we read the accounts of the life of Jesus, it takes us a while to get used to the fact that these people are, in so many ways, just like we are. It is almost as if we are afraid to really say that the people who followed Jesus so closely could be just as broken and messed up as we can be, but that is what we read.
However, it seems that it is right as we are getting comfortable with this idea that the disciples had just as many problems as we do that we run into the story of Pentecost and the rest of the book of Acts. All of a sudden, it becomes much harder to relate to the disciples. After all, how many times have you been walking down the street and someone who is sick asks for help and, simply by reaching out your hand to them, radically and dramatically cure their disease and send them on their way rejoicing? I must admit that it has never happened to me. It is almost as if we have just gotten used to the disciples being just like us and now we are made to come face to face with mighty heroes of the faith, miracle workers and life-changing preachers. What in the world has happened?
I remember the first time that I asked the question, "What is the difference between the disciples in the gospel accounts and the disciples in the book of Acts, and what is it that brought about that change?" There is no real conflict of opinion about what happened. The disciples were radically transformed. Within the space of a single chapter of the Bible, we see just how amazing this transformation really is. At the beginning, the disciples are all huddled together, frightened that the people who killed Jesus would kill them, as his followers. By the end, we find that they are proclaiming the good news of Christ to everyone around, in every language, with such passion and such anointing by the Spirit that over three thousand people, something like a quarter of the population of Spencer [2010 census], gave their lives to Jesus that very morning.
So, if we can see that the transformation went to the very root of who these people were and we could see that, for all intents and purposes, it happened in a moment, we have to ask what actually brought it about. Really and truly, at the end of the day, there are no sociological reasons why the disciples should have changed so radically in such a short period. There must be something beyond the merely natural to account for this. Some people want to figure out other explanations for the miracles of Jesus, but I think that the transformation of the disciples on Pentecost is every bit as amazing and is something that actually goes to the root of your life and mine.
According to our text, the only real difference between the disciples before Pentecost and the disciples after Pentecost was the giving of the gift of the Holy Spirit. The people who were shy, who had so clearly misunderstood Jesus, because they thought he was going to be a political king who would overthrow the people they thought were the enemies of God, who were afraid of being killed because of their association with Jesus became people who stood up and made the name of Christ known to those around them, who did not stop short at just sharing words, but followed through with deeds of love and kindness, and became people who were indeed killed because of their association with Jesus, and went boldly to their deaths.
Now why is all of this frightening? It just sounds like great news, and it is indeed great news, the greatest of all possible news, but that doesn't make it any less frightening at the same time. The reason why this news is so great is because it reminds us, once and for all, that what God has done in Christ is not just something that happened once upon a time, a long time ago, that God did not stop interacting with us once Jesus had died and been raised. It means that the very same God who came among us as Jesus Christ is still at work in us, that the ministry of Christ did not stop when he ascended into heaven, but through the power of the Holy Spirit, it has been entrusted and imparted to ordinary people like you and me. What's more, we see that all our mistakes that we have ever made do not disqualify us from being called and equipped by God to be about his work here and now. After all, the disciples made all kinds of mistakes and yet the Spirit had no problems coming on them. If it could come on the people who scattered when Jesus was betrayed and denied him within hours of pledging their undying loyalty to him, what have we done that makes us think for a moment that the Spirit cannot do in us what it did in the lives of the disciples?
And that is why Pentecost is the single most frightening day in the whole Christian year. The fact of the matter is that many people not only relate well to the disciples in the gospel narratives, but like to relate to them. We love the compassion that Jesus shows to his disciples who make so many mistakes, many of which are so foolish that they are almost laughable, because it reminds us that, in spite of all our own foolishness, God's love and grace is there. Even if we remember that this love and grace is still available, we don't necessarily like to relate to the disciples after Pentecost.
The moment we realize that the only difference between the weak disciples before Pentecost and the bold disciples after Pentecost is the gift of the Holy Spirit, and the moment we realize that this same Holy Spirit that radically transformed those disciples is not only available, but promised, to us, we are forced to ask the question, "Does this mean that God might want to so transform me that I go from looking like the disciples before Pentecost to looking like the disciples after Pentecost?" How can we avoid that question? Well, we might try to say something like, "I love Jesus, but I don't really want the Spirit." However, in what we could call one of the most significant chapters in the entire New Testament, Romans 8, Paul says this, "But you are not in the flesh; you are in the Spirit, since the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him." It seems that, according to the New Testament, it is simply not possible to really be a Christian if we do not have the Spirit dwelling in us.
When all of these things weave themselves together, we are forced to answer that question from a moment ago, "Does this mean that God might want to so transform me that I go from looking like the disciples before Pentecost to looking like the disciples after Pentecost?" with a loud and resounding "Yes!" Now, that boldness, anointing and strength might look a bit different from person to person. After all, not everyone who was radically changed because of the gospel and the indwelling of the Spirit did the same thing. Yes, the twelve apostles had a strong preaching ministry, but there were more people transformed by the Spirit than just them. We read about seven people selected to be deacons, to help make sure that all the Christian widows in Jerusalem were taken care of. We know there were wealthy Christians who were empowered by the Spirit to give boldly of their resources, not only by taking care of the poor but also by providing the means for the other Christians to do what they were called to do, not least by providing the upper rooms in their homes for the church to meet in.
We know that Paul, one of the people who was changed perhaps more than anyone else, acknowledged that, through the power of the Holy Spirit, we are bound to one another as the body of Christ, with gifts as different from each other as eyes are from hands and ears are from feet. He says, "We have gifts that differ according to the grace given to us: prophecy, in proportion to faith; ministry, in ministering; the teacher, in teaching; the exhorter, in exhortation; the giver, in generosity; the leader, in diligence; the compassionate, in cheerfulness."
By all of this, I hope that you take two things to heart. First, make no mistake; if you belong to Christ, you have the Spirit dwelling within you and if you do not have the Spirit dwelling in you, you do not yet belong to Christ, though God yearns for you to receive that Spirit. Though the strongest examples that we see in the book of Acts of people being empowered by the Spirit are preachers and teachers of the gospel, there are a wide variety of gifts that God gives in order to build up the church and if you have not received one of them, you most certainly have received another one. If necessary, recruit the help of friends, but find out where God has gifted and called you.
The second thing that I hope you have noticed is that, in many of you and in many ways, this transformation has already begun to take place. The fact of the matter is that there are at least several people in this congregation who have witnessed miracles in their lives or in the lives of those close to them. Undeniable miracles; miracles that can be explained in no other way than as the result of the almighty power of God intervening in our lives. There are those have seen a transformation, not altogether unlike the one we see on Pentecost, take place in their own lives. There are people who can go into great detail about what their lives were like before God transformed them and what they are like now and the difference is like night and day. There are people who have found strength in times when they thought they would have no strength, who have found boldness in difficult situations, who have tried something new and found that they were really good at it. I know that these people exist, even in this congregation because I have met you, I have heard your stories, I have seen the mark of grace on you, in worship, in studies, in your homes, in the hospital, and even in the grocery stores. I don't want to put anyone on the spot, but if you have experienced the Spirit in your life, if you have had your life touched in any way by the power of God, if you have tasted any of these first-fruits of the transformation of the Spirit, will you please raise your hand as a testimony to the goodness and faithfulness of God.
Those of you who raised your hands (and those of you who could have raised your hand but didn't), share your story. Share it with me if nothing else, but share it with others. Remind others of what God has done in your life. Not only will you encourage them when there may seem to be no hope, but you will remind yourself of what God has done and how far he has brought you. Tell the stories, rejoice in what God has done, fill your hearts with joy that God has transformed your life. Always remember the amazing transformation of the disciples on Pentecost and always remember that the same transformation, in whatever form it may take, is promised to you today just as much as to those disciples two thousand years ago. Who knows? If you can get excited about sharing and hearing what God has done in this community, we might be able to have a Sunday morning where we have a love feast like the first Methodists, where we set aside time to bear witness to what God has done and is doing so we can be reminded of what God has promised he will do, and maybe God will move among us in the midst of that sharing like he did among them.
God has given his Spirit to his people, his church for whom he died. This Holy Spirit is not just some kind of Spiritual substance [spiritual energy goo] that we use for our own purposes, but the high and holy God of all, who takes up residence in our hearts and lives. With confidence that the only thing you need to be transformed into a bold, equipped servant of God is the Spirit that God gives freely to all who believe, go out into the world and do great things! Go heal the sick, go raise the dead, go be the means through which the world comes to know the healing and transforming love and power of God. Let us pray.
AMEN
Showing posts with label Methodism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Methodism. Show all posts
Wednesday, June 6, 2012
Tuesday, February 14, 2012
Ephesians 4:1-16
02/12/12 Ephesians 4:1-16 Grace UMC
I cannot speak for anyone else, but I must admit that it feels as though I have been continually pestered by a theme over the last few months. Throughout the whole month of December, we were celebrating the season of Advent, culminating in Christmas. During that time, we were celebrating that the very Son of God has entered into our world of space and time, that when we say that God loves us, we do not only mean that God loves our souls or loves our spirits but loves our entire selves, body and soul. We saw that God did not leave us trapped in a body of sin but rather entered into our physicality and transformed it, offering us physical salvation every bit as much as spiritual salvation.
More recently, we had a Celebration Sunday, where we were reminded that when we talk about celebrating and being joyful in the Lord, we don't simply mean that we should have some kind of disembodied, spiritual joy, but that the joy should overflow and make a difference in absolutely every area of our lives. I feel like I have been reminded, over and over again recently, about the intense physicality of our spiritual lives and the intense spirituality of our physical lives. We cannot separate the things we do for our bodies and the things we do for our souls into different compartments that have nothing, or very little, to do with one another. Our bodies are always bodies-of-our-souls and our souls are always souls-of-our-bodies.
It is with that in mind that I wanted to spend some time talking about something we hear about every so often in the church but that we seldom really dig deep in: the role and importance of community in our Christian lives. It is interesting that it seems as though we live in a world that emphasizes faith as a personal thing, that it is something that each individual has entirely on their own and the faith one person has is so personal to themselves that it does not, or at least it should not, have an impact on anyone else. This last point is so strong that it has, at least in a way, been woven into the fabric of our American constitution. The reason that this is so interesting is that we find absolutely no model, anywhere in the Bible, for being an individual Christian. We hear about disciples (in the plural) and apostles (also in the plural), we hear about churches (groups of Christians) and we hear about the body of Christ (a term used for all Christians taken together), but we hear nothing about a person having such an isolated faith that it is theirs and theirs alone that they can either nurture or neglect based only on their own whims and desires and nobody can ever have a problem with it because it is their faith and their faith alone.
What we find is that the Bible is incredibly consistent about the importance of our interpersonal relationships together as Christians. In fact, the Bible is much more clearly consistent on this topic than on many others. The reason for this is rooted in the very most basic nature of our Christian lives. As much as some would like to convince us otherwise, we are not just isolated individuals on some kind of nebulous "personal faith journey" that has nothing to do with anyone else's nebulous "personal faith journey." Rather, as Christians, we believe in a very concrete spiritual experience. We believe not so much in the importance of faith, but the importance of the object of our faith. We believe that we are forgiven and reconciled to God, not through wishful thinking, not by being "good people," not even because we go to church, but because in Christ, God has met with us, has taken our broken condition upon himself, and has utterly transformed our situation. We as Christians are each made partakers of the ministry of Christ, again not by wishful thinking, but because we are actually taken and, through the power of the Holy Spirit, grafted into Christ himself like branches on a vine and are therefore joined to each other at the same time.
It is because we are joined together that the writers of the New Testament encourage us so often to pray for one another, to support one another through difficult times, to take on one another's burdens, to rejoice together and to grieve together. It isn't just because that's what good people do, but because those other people, in a crucial sense, make up part of who we are. There is a sense in which there are no such things as "individuals" in the fullest sense. To speak only of myself, I could call myself a father, but to do so is already to name my son; I could call myself a husband, but to do so is already to name my wife; I could call myself a son, but to do so is already to name my parents; I can call myself a pastor, but to do so is already to name all of you. Even to call me by my name is to tie me up with my whole family. There really is no way to consider a person in complete isolation from all other persons. We are bound together and cannot be isolated, even if we might want to be.
This idea, that things are only what they are because of the relations in which they are found is something that science has had to deal with. Ever since James Clerk Maxwell wrote about electromagnetic theory and, in doing so, pointed out that what we used to think of as individual particles or atoms are actually significant points in a continuous field of force, we have had to deal with the fact that we cannot isolate something without, in some sense, damaging it. The same is true for us. If we try to isolate someone, either ourselves or someone else, we have changed who they are, torn them out of the relationships that make up who they are.
This should come as no surprise to us as Christians. After all, we believe that God himself is Triune, that God is Father, Son and Holy Spirit and that these three are one. The Persons of the Trinity are so completely united that everything we say about the Father we say about the Son except "Father," and everything we say about the Son we say about the Father except "Son," and so on. We cannot consider Jesus in isolation from his Father without destroying his identity, we cannot consider the Father except as the one who has sent his Son, and we cannot understand the Holy Spirit except as the Spirit of the Father and the Spirit of the Son. This deep connection with others is not something that we invented one day but something that is part even of the nature of God.
All of this brings me to one of the most wonderful and, unfortunately, most forgotten aspects of early Methodism that contributed greatly to the revival and helped to shape generations of Christians both in England and in America. One of the most amazing things about early Methodism was the significance of their small group ministry. If you wanted to become a Methodist, you were asked only one question. Just one. "Do you desire to flee from the wrath to come?" If you could look into the depths of your heart and recognize that you were someone who needed saving by God, you were welcomed with open arms among the Methodists. You didn't need to pass a doctrinal exam, you didn't need to prove that you were reformed from sin, you didn't need to do anything to be accepted other than answer "yes" to that one question. If you did, you were enrolled in the society (remember, in its earliest days, Methodism was a movement of renewal, not a separate church) and, at the very same time, enrolled into what was called a "class."
Now, a Methodist class is not the same thing as a Sunday School class. It isn't a place where you go to learn, at least not in the sense that you have one person who has prepared and teaches the rest of the people. Instead, it is a place for people to gather every week and support each other as they grow in their faith. It is important to notice a significant difference between how small groups were approached in early Methodism and how they are often approached today. Today, most people in any given local church do not participate in a small group that is geared toward sharing life with one another. If someone feels that they desire to go above and beyond their experience on Sunday mornings, they might join a class where they can study a book of the Bible or one written by some significant contemporary Christian leader. Sometimes, such groups spill over from being just a study group to becoming a place where people can share their lives of faith, but this is usually not the primary goal of the group.
By contrast, in early Methodism, everyone was in a small group. And by everyone, I mean everyone. Absolutely nobody was exempt. The only thing that was asked was whether they desired to flee from the wrath to come, which meant that they weren't even asked if they were a Christian. In fact it was, in general, assumed that new Methodists weren't Christians, that they needed to learn how to be Christians, that simply joining a church or even a renewal movement did not imply that one already had saving faith but very likely needed to live in a new way in order to really believe the gospel. In doing so, they were building on the key insight of people such as Athanasius who argued that, if you really want to understand what the apostles have to tell us about Jesus, you have to live in a way consistent with how they lived, that you may have to live like a Christian before you can believe like a Christian.
For those early Methodists, participation in the small group ministry was not something extra that could be tacked on to "normal" Christian commitment, it was understood as an absolutely vital part of Christian life. If someone were to say, "I really love the Methodists. I really look forward to meeting with the larger congregation every week. I love everything about Methodism except those small group meetings. I will do anything you say except be a part of a small group," you were dropped from the rolls of the society. Whatever else you may have been, if you were not part of a small group that was actively helping you to live as a Christian in every aspect of your life, you were not a Methodist. It was taken that seriously.
It is important to understand, however, that the Methodists realized that not everyone was in the same place in their relationship with God, that different people who were in different places spiritually had different needs. If you were not yet a Christian, if you could only bear witness to your need to be forgiven but could not yet testify that you had been assured of your salvation by grace, you were part of a class. You met with between eight and twelve other people in similar life situations led by someone who was more mature in their faith as a guide and facilitator. After you became aware of God's saving grace in your own life and were able to bear witness to God's salvation and its impact in transforming your life, you became a member of what was called a "band." Now a band was intended for those who were confident in the grace of God, who could look back on their life and point to a time when they were not a Christian and a time when they were a Christian and share in concrete ways how God had saved them and delivered them from their sins.
When you joined a band, you were asked the following eleven questions, to which the answer "yes" was expected to each. 1. Have you the forgiveness of your sins? 2. Have you peace with God, through our Lord Jesus Christ? 3. Have you the witness of God’s Spirit with your spirit, that you are a child of God? 4. Is the love of God shed abroad in your heart? 5. Has no sin, inward or outward, dominion over you? 6. Do you desire to be told your faults? 7. Do you desire to be told all your faults, and that plain and home? 8. Do you desire that every one of us should tell you, from time to time, whatsoever is in his heart concerning you? 9. Consider! Do you desire we should tell you whatsoever we think, whatsoever we fear, whatsoever we hear, concerning you? 10. Do you desire that, in doing this, we should come as close as possible, that we should cut to the quick, and search your heart to the bottom? 11. Is it your desire and design to be on this, and all other occasions, entirely open, so as to speak everything that is in your heart without exception, without disguise, and without reserve?
Now, because we live in a different time and because this dynamic small group structure has been conspicuously absent from the mainstream of Methodism since the beginning of the twentieth century, we have a tendency to hear those questions and see them in a very much negative way. We start to wonder why we should allow someone else to ask us questions like this, we start to have serious doubts about whether we actually want to be told what is wrong with us. We might not actually want to let other people into the deep, dark secrets of our lives because, you know, sometimes we have sins that we like committing, that we have convinced ourselves don't hurt anyone but ourselves and that they might not even hurt us, either. If we answer "yes" to those questions, we realize that we might have to be a Christian full-time, that we can't really get away from people who will hold us accountable.
And yet, if we see those questions as being in any way negative, we have missed the whole point and the beauty of early Methodism. We were meant to have those with whom we can be open, honest, and transparent. In a crucial moment in Nathaniel Hawthorne's classic, The Scarlet Letter, Arthur Dimmesdale, the minister who fathered the child that marked Hester Prynne with her badge of adultery while he remained unsuspected, had this to say. "Happy are you, Hester, that wear the scarlet letter openly upon your bosom! Mine burns in secret! Thou little knowest what a relief it is, after the torment of a seven years' cheat, to look into an eye that recognises me for what I am! Had I one friend—or were it my worst enemy!—to whom, when sickened with the praises of all other men, I could daily betake myself, and be known as the vilest of all sinners, methinks my soul might keep itself alive thereby. Even thus much of truth would save me! But now, it is all falsehood!—all emptiness!—all death!" He realized that being vulnerable and honest with at least a few people, is much to be preferred to being loved and respected with guilt on his heart.
The beauty of the classes and bands is that it provided an opportunity to really put faith into practice, to allow our relationship with God and the salvation we have in grace to be made manifest in every area of life and to take seriously the fact that we were made to live in a community that shapes who we are and to live consistently with that rather than fighting it. It was a structure that professed that it was better to be known truly as a sinner by those who love us and who want to help the victory of grace over sin be realized in our lives than to continue to live tormented by our shortcomings and our falsehoods.
You see, nobody likes being corrected; nobody likes being reminded that they have done wrong but if I can be convinced that when you ask me if you can tell me everything that is on your heart concerning me, that whatever I may hear, it is coming not from a source of hostile criticism, but of genuine concern and care, that I should be prepared, not to be nitpicked but to be supported and assisted, it will help me to be open to positive change, the change the gospel teaches about, a change away from sin and toward God. If I know that, when you point out my sin, it is because you realize that my sin affects you just as your sin affects me and, because of that, you are willing to participate and give of yourself to help me be transformed by the gospel, and if I know that you say this, not from a position of superiority, but as another sinner, just as broken and in need of support and accountability as I am, I am far more likely to hear you and to hear you with joy.
The point of those questions is not to set up a bunch of rules to beat you with when you make a mistake, but to cultivate a community that is so marked by love and compassion between brothers and sisters in Christ that grace can rule the day, can make us into the people we were meant to be, to truly be God's people. Though we cannot pretend that we can import eighteenth century British Methodism into twenty-first century America without making adjustments for the change in time and place, do we not find ourselves in need of this kind of radical community, a community of people that makes sacrifices for the well being of others? Let us pray that God might bring about such a community in our midst and nurture it so that radical love and support can become the dominant characteristic of Christians in this town. Let us pray.
AMEN
I cannot speak for anyone else, but I must admit that it feels as though I have been continually pestered by a theme over the last few months. Throughout the whole month of December, we were celebrating the season of Advent, culminating in Christmas. During that time, we were celebrating that the very Son of God has entered into our world of space and time, that when we say that God loves us, we do not only mean that God loves our souls or loves our spirits but loves our entire selves, body and soul. We saw that God did not leave us trapped in a body of sin but rather entered into our physicality and transformed it, offering us physical salvation every bit as much as spiritual salvation.
More recently, we had a Celebration Sunday, where we were reminded that when we talk about celebrating and being joyful in the Lord, we don't simply mean that we should have some kind of disembodied, spiritual joy, but that the joy should overflow and make a difference in absolutely every area of our lives. I feel like I have been reminded, over and over again recently, about the intense physicality of our spiritual lives and the intense spirituality of our physical lives. We cannot separate the things we do for our bodies and the things we do for our souls into different compartments that have nothing, or very little, to do with one another. Our bodies are always bodies-of-our-souls and our souls are always souls-of-our-bodies.
It is with that in mind that I wanted to spend some time talking about something we hear about every so often in the church but that we seldom really dig deep in: the role and importance of community in our Christian lives. It is interesting that it seems as though we live in a world that emphasizes faith as a personal thing, that it is something that each individual has entirely on their own and the faith one person has is so personal to themselves that it does not, or at least it should not, have an impact on anyone else. This last point is so strong that it has, at least in a way, been woven into the fabric of our American constitution. The reason that this is so interesting is that we find absolutely no model, anywhere in the Bible, for being an individual Christian. We hear about disciples (in the plural) and apostles (also in the plural), we hear about churches (groups of Christians) and we hear about the body of Christ (a term used for all Christians taken together), but we hear nothing about a person having such an isolated faith that it is theirs and theirs alone that they can either nurture or neglect based only on their own whims and desires and nobody can ever have a problem with it because it is their faith and their faith alone.
What we find is that the Bible is incredibly consistent about the importance of our interpersonal relationships together as Christians. In fact, the Bible is much more clearly consistent on this topic than on many others. The reason for this is rooted in the very most basic nature of our Christian lives. As much as some would like to convince us otherwise, we are not just isolated individuals on some kind of nebulous "personal faith journey" that has nothing to do with anyone else's nebulous "personal faith journey." Rather, as Christians, we believe in a very concrete spiritual experience. We believe not so much in the importance of faith, but the importance of the object of our faith. We believe that we are forgiven and reconciled to God, not through wishful thinking, not by being "good people," not even because we go to church, but because in Christ, God has met with us, has taken our broken condition upon himself, and has utterly transformed our situation. We as Christians are each made partakers of the ministry of Christ, again not by wishful thinking, but because we are actually taken and, through the power of the Holy Spirit, grafted into Christ himself like branches on a vine and are therefore joined to each other at the same time.
It is because we are joined together that the writers of the New Testament encourage us so often to pray for one another, to support one another through difficult times, to take on one another's burdens, to rejoice together and to grieve together. It isn't just because that's what good people do, but because those other people, in a crucial sense, make up part of who we are. There is a sense in which there are no such things as "individuals" in the fullest sense. To speak only of myself, I could call myself a father, but to do so is already to name my son; I could call myself a husband, but to do so is already to name my wife; I could call myself a son, but to do so is already to name my parents; I can call myself a pastor, but to do so is already to name all of you. Even to call me by my name is to tie me up with my whole family. There really is no way to consider a person in complete isolation from all other persons. We are bound together and cannot be isolated, even if we might want to be.
This idea, that things are only what they are because of the relations in which they are found is something that science has had to deal with. Ever since James Clerk Maxwell wrote about electromagnetic theory and, in doing so, pointed out that what we used to think of as individual particles or atoms are actually significant points in a continuous field of force, we have had to deal with the fact that we cannot isolate something without, in some sense, damaging it. The same is true for us. If we try to isolate someone, either ourselves or someone else, we have changed who they are, torn them out of the relationships that make up who they are.
This should come as no surprise to us as Christians. After all, we believe that God himself is Triune, that God is Father, Son and Holy Spirit and that these three are one. The Persons of the Trinity are so completely united that everything we say about the Father we say about the Son except "Father," and everything we say about the Son we say about the Father except "Son," and so on. We cannot consider Jesus in isolation from his Father without destroying his identity, we cannot consider the Father except as the one who has sent his Son, and we cannot understand the Holy Spirit except as the Spirit of the Father and the Spirit of the Son. This deep connection with others is not something that we invented one day but something that is part even of the nature of God.
All of this brings me to one of the most wonderful and, unfortunately, most forgotten aspects of early Methodism that contributed greatly to the revival and helped to shape generations of Christians both in England and in America. One of the most amazing things about early Methodism was the significance of their small group ministry. If you wanted to become a Methodist, you were asked only one question. Just one. "Do you desire to flee from the wrath to come?" If you could look into the depths of your heart and recognize that you were someone who needed saving by God, you were welcomed with open arms among the Methodists. You didn't need to pass a doctrinal exam, you didn't need to prove that you were reformed from sin, you didn't need to do anything to be accepted other than answer "yes" to that one question. If you did, you were enrolled in the society (remember, in its earliest days, Methodism was a movement of renewal, not a separate church) and, at the very same time, enrolled into what was called a "class."
Now, a Methodist class is not the same thing as a Sunday School class. It isn't a place where you go to learn, at least not in the sense that you have one person who has prepared and teaches the rest of the people. Instead, it is a place for people to gather every week and support each other as they grow in their faith. It is important to notice a significant difference between how small groups were approached in early Methodism and how they are often approached today. Today, most people in any given local church do not participate in a small group that is geared toward sharing life with one another. If someone feels that they desire to go above and beyond their experience on Sunday mornings, they might join a class where they can study a book of the Bible or one written by some significant contemporary Christian leader. Sometimes, such groups spill over from being just a study group to becoming a place where people can share their lives of faith, but this is usually not the primary goal of the group.
By contrast, in early Methodism, everyone was in a small group. And by everyone, I mean everyone. Absolutely nobody was exempt. The only thing that was asked was whether they desired to flee from the wrath to come, which meant that they weren't even asked if they were a Christian. In fact it was, in general, assumed that new Methodists weren't Christians, that they needed to learn how to be Christians, that simply joining a church or even a renewal movement did not imply that one already had saving faith but very likely needed to live in a new way in order to really believe the gospel. In doing so, they were building on the key insight of people such as Athanasius who argued that, if you really want to understand what the apostles have to tell us about Jesus, you have to live in a way consistent with how they lived, that you may have to live like a Christian before you can believe like a Christian.
For those early Methodists, participation in the small group ministry was not something extra that could be tacked on to "normal" Christian commitment, it was understood as an absolutely vital part of Christian life. If someone were to say, "I really love the Methodists. I really look forward to meeting with the larger congregation every week. I love everything about Methodism except those small group meetings. I will do anything you say except be a part of a small group," you were dropped from the rolls of the society. Whatever else you may have been, if you were not part of a small group that was actively helping you to live as a Christian in every aspect of your life, you were not a Methodist. It was taken that seriously.
It is important to understand, however, that the Methodists realized that not everyone was in the same place in their relationship with God, that different people who were in different places spiritually had different needs. If you were not yet a Christian, if you could only bear witness to your need to be forgiven but could not yet testify that you had been assured of your salvation by grace, you were part of a class. You met with between eight and twelve other people in similar life situations led by someone who was more mature in their faith as a guide and facilitator. After you became aware of God's saving grace in your own life and were able to bear witness to God's salvation and its impact in transforming your life, you became a member of what was called a "band." Now a band was intended for those who were confident in the grace of God, who could look back on their life and point to a time when they were not a Christian and a time when they were a Christian and share in concrete ways how God had saved them and delivered them from their sins.
When you joined a band, you were asked the following eleven questions, to which the answer "yes" was expected to each. 1. Have you the forgiveness of your sins? 2. Have you peace with God, through our Lord Jesus Christ? 3. Have you the witness of God’s Spirit with your spirit, that you are a child of God? 4. Is the love of God shed abroad in your heart? 5. Has no sin, inward or outward, dominion over you? 6. Do you desire to be told your faults? 7. Do you desire to be told all your faults, and that plain and home? 8. Do you desire that every one of us should tell you, from time to time, whatsoever is in his heart concerning you? 9. Consider! Do you desire we should tell you whatsoever we think, whatsoever we fear, whatsoever we hear, concerning you? 10. Do you desire that, in doing this, we should come as close as possible, that we should cut to the quick, and search your heart to the bottom? 11. Is it your desire and design to be on this, and all other occasions, entirely open, so as to speak everything that is in your heart without exception, without disguise, and without reserve?
Now, because we live in a different time and because this dynamic small group structure has been conspicuously absent from the mainstream of Methodism since the beginning of the twentieth century, we have a tendency to hear those questions and see them in a very much negative way. We start to wonder why we should allow someone else to ask us questions like this, we start to have serious doubts about whether we actually want to be told what is wrong with us. We might not actually want to let other people into the deep, dark secrets of our lives because, you know, sometimes we have sins that we like committing, that we have convinced ourselves don't hurt anyone but ourselves and that they might not even hurt us, either. If we answer "yes" to those questions, we realize that we might have to be a Christian full-time, that we can't really get away from people who will hold us accountable.
And yet, if we see those questions as being in any way negative, we have missed the whole point and the beauty of early Methodism. We were meant to have those with whom we can be open, honest, and transparent. In a crucial moment in Nathaniel Hawthorne's classic, The Scarlet Letter, Arthur Dimmesdale, the minister who fathered the child that marked Hester Prynne with her badge of adultery while he remained unsuspected, had this to say. "Happy are you, Hester, that wear the scarlet letter openly upon your bosom! Mine burns in secret! Thou little knowest what a relief it is, after the torment of a seven years' cheat, to look into an eye that recognises me for what I am! Had I one friend—or were it my worst enemy!—to whom, when sickened with the praises of all other men, I could daily betake myself, and be known as the vilest of all sinners, methinks my soul might keep itself alive thereby. Even thus much of truth would save me! But now, it is all falsehood!—all emptiness!—all death!" He realized that being vulnerable and honest with at least a few people, is much to be preferred to being loved and respected with guilt on his heart.
The beauty of the classes and bands is that it provided an opportunity to really put faith into practice, to allow our relationship with God and the salvation we have in grace to be made manifest in every area of life and to take seriously the fact that we were made to live in a community that shapes who we are and to live consistently with that rather than fighting it. It was a structure that professed that it was better to be known truly as a sinner by those who love us and who want to help the victory of grace over sin be realized in our lives than to continue to live tormented by our shortcomings and our falsehoods.
You see, nobody likes being corrected; nobody likes being reminded that they have done wrong but if I can be convinced that when you ask me if you can tell me everything that is on your heart concerning me, that whatever I may hear, it is coming not from a source of hostile criticism, but of genuine concern and care, that I should be prepared, not to be nitpicked but to be supported and assisted, it will help me to be open to positive change, the change the gospel teaches about, a change away from sin and toward God. If I know that, when you point out my sin, it is because you realize that my sin affects you just as your sin affects me and, because of that, you are willing to participate and give of yourself to help me be transformed by the gospel, and if I know that you say this, not from a position of superiority, but as another sinner, just as broken and in need of support and accountability as I am, I am far more likely to hear you and to hear you with joy.
The point of those questions is not to set up a bunch of rules to beat you with when you make a mistake, but to cultivate a community that is so marked by love and compassion between brothers and sisters in Christ that grace can rule the day, can make us into the people we were meant to be, to truly be God's people. Though we cannot pretend that we can import eighteenth century British Methodism into twenty-first century America without making adjustments for the change in time and place, do we not find ourselves in need of this kind of radical community, a community of people that makes sacrifices for the well being of others? Let us pray that God might bring about such a community in our midst and nurture it so that radical love and support can become the dominant characteristic of Christians in this town. Let us pray.
AMEN
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