"Me" Church?

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Mark 3:13-19; 1 Thessalonians 5:12-24

May 19/20, 2012 • Portage First UMC

Twenty-three years ago tomorrow/today, I said what Andrew Peterson describes as “the two most famous last words”—“I do.” Twenty-three years ago, Cathy and I stood before God, her pastor and our friends and family and said those words that bound us together “till death do us part.” In that moment, our lives changed, and I quickly learned (and so did she) that we had to learn new ways to live, new ways to do things. No longer could either of us be completely selfish, because our lives were not our own anymore. Again, to borrow from Andrew Peterson when he describes marriage: “To lose your life for another I’ve heard is a good place to begin, ’cause the only way to find your life is to lay your own life down and I believe it’s an easy price for the life that we have found” (“Dancing in the Minefields”). Those of you who have been married for any length of time know it’s a constant give and take, a dance of cooperation and accountability, of encouragement and challenge. And it’s not easy. Perhaps that’s why Paul most often compares the Christian life, our relationship with Jesus, to a marriage. There’s a reason the church is called the bride of Christ, because our relationship with him is also one of cooperation and accountability, of encouragement and challenge. And, I believe, that’s also why we’re told we’re not supposed to do it alone. We need each other. We need the church if we’re going to grow in our relationship to Jesus.

From the earliest time, that has been true. The church, the followers of Jesus, have always been found in a community—on our best days, we are a good and beautiful community. And so we’ve been considering several of the ways the Bible describes that community over these past few weeks. We’ve talked about how the church is a peculiar community, a hopeful community, a serving community, a Christ-centered community and a reconciling community. But the church is also brought together, just like in a marriage, so that we can be an encouraging community.

In the Gospel reading this evening/morning, Mark tells us of the very beginning of Christian community as Jesus calls the first apostles. Now, according to Mark, Jesus has been doing some teaching and healing and traveling up to this point. He’s gathered many who think of themselves as disciples, followers, and they’ve followed him very well. Even when he tries to get away from the crowds, they always find him. Without phones, without internet, without Facebook—the crowds are always able to find Jesus. I mean, who wouldn’t want to chase down a miracle worker? That’s really what they’re after. They want to see the show. They want to hear the gifted speaker who makes them laugh and causes them to think. Jesus is the hottest celebrity in Galilee, and so folks chase him around the lake to see what he will do next.

Right in the middle of chapter 3, Jesus goes up on a mountain. Now, in our culture, we think of a mountain as a peaceful place to walk, or to take a retreat, or to just get away. But in Jesus’ culture, and still in many ways in Middle Eastern culture today, mountains have a different purpose. Where is it today the authorities look for terrorists, or those who are plotting evil things? It’s in the mountain caves, right? Mountains and hills were and are places where people go to plot revolution, far away from the prying eyes of the authorities. And so Jesus goes to the mountains, to the hills around Galilee, and he does one of his most revolutionary things—he brings to himself those he wanted, men whom he would train to carry on his mission even after he was gone. He calls twelve men, one to represent each tribe of Israel, and there’s no mistaking the message he’s sending here: I’m starting over. Just as God brought together twelve tribes to be his people, now I’m starting over with twelve men who will turn the world upside down. Most of the people would have misunderstood that message, because they thought he meant this band of merry men to bring violent, armed revolution. But Jesus was doing something different here, yet just as revolutionary. He was creating an encouraging community, one where love would conquer all (cf. Wright, Mark for Everyone, pg. 34).

Jesus brings to himself those he “wanted,” Mark says. The word literally means “to take pleasure in, to have in mind.” Jesus calls twelve men who were open to his message, who could represent him when he was gone. These were not the cream of the crop. They were ordinary men. As I’ve mentioned before, these are men who were turned down by other rabbis, and only were pursuing other trades because they couldn’t be a disciple. But Jesus wanted them because of their ordinariness. They are not stained-glass saints. Four of them were fishermen—laborers who worked nights mostly. One was a Zealot, passionate about whatever cause he attached himself to. This was probably a nickname, though later, after A.D. 70, the Zealots were among those who favored violent revolt against Rome. Another was a tax collector. He cooperated with Rome and, most people would call him a traitor to his own people. The other six we know virtually nothing about except their names. Two of them had the nickname, “Sons of Thunder,” which probably means they had hot tempers. But here’s the point: none of them are preachers. There is not a single Bible teacher or scholar among the twelve. They come from various places and many different walks of life. These are the ones Jesus wanted (Wessel, “Mark,” Expositor’s Bible Commentary, Vol. 8, pg. 643; Card, Mark: The Gospel of Passion, pgs. 57-58). The spreading of the Christian faith began in a diverse community of those Jesus wanted.

And they are given a very specific mission. Jesus called them, Mark says, “that they might be with him and that he might send them out to preach and to have authority to drive out demons” (3:14-15). Their first calling was to community, to spend time with Jesus, to live with him, travel with him, listen to him, learn from him. And as they lived and worked together, they would shape each other as well. Some of the rough edges would be smoothed down. Some of the dull edges would be sharpened up. Their first calling, though, was to be with Jesus. Then, when the time was right, he would send them out. In fact, from this point on in Mark’s Gospel, they are not just disciples. They are called the Twelve or “Apostles,” which means “sent ones” (Card 57). From this moment on, they are on a mission, a two-fold mission: to preach and to drive out demons. Preaching simply refers to the sharing of the Good News, the message Jesus came to bring that hope, healing and salvation are available through him. It’s not necessarily “preaching” like I do, although the Twelve certainly did their share of that. It’s what every ordinary Christian is called to do through word and deed—share the faith, live out the hope you have. So they were sent to preach, and to cast out demons. Now, whatever else is meant by that phrase, at a very basic level, it means they were sent to push back the evil that is in our world, to work against injustice and hate and cruelty and all the broken things in our world that represent the kingdom of Satan. Evil does not win because Jesus gives his community “authority” over it. Preaching the good news and pushing back evil—that’s what this first community was called and sent to do. They came to Jesus because he wanted them. He saw in them hearts he could use, even in spite of all their differences, inadequacies and failures. He called them together to be an encouraging community that would change the world.

How very different from the ways we create community today! Today, the dominant and false narrative that directs everything we do, including what church community to be a part of, is consumerism. Our culture’s story goes something like this: the community exists to serve me. I am entitled to have all my needs met. The community is all about me. And so we have developed, for the first time in human history, the phenomenon of “church shopping.” Just like we might go to the mall or to Wal-Mart and choose a brand of jeans that fit us, that make us look good, that give us a certain image, we go to churches and try to find one that will make me feel good, make me feel comfortable, do what I think it should, and so on. “Church shopping” is part of our consumer culture, and we only stay in a faith community as long as it meets “my” needs, because “I” am what it’s all about. I had a friend who planted a new church, and he was very good at bringing people to know Jesus. But then they would leave his church because they wanted a place that had programs that served them. He half-jokingly described his church as the feeder church for every other church in town. It’s very easy to think the church exists to serve “my” needs, and if I don’t like something, I’ll just go shopping. That’s what we do with deodorant, toothpaste, soup mix…and churches. Don’t like it, just get a new one. James Bryan Smith tells about a pastor who asked his congregation to make a commitment to read the Bible an hour a week. Not all at once, maybe 10 minutes and 20 minutes there, but read for an hour at some point during the week. After several Sundays of mentioning this challenge, one woman met him at the door on her way out. “I’m leaving the church, pastor,” she said. When he asked why, she said, “Because when I joined this church, reading the Bible was not in the contract” (Smith, The Good and Beautiful Community, pg. 128). She was apparently looking for the First Church of Me. When she didn’t find it in the place she was, she moved on. Our culture’s narrative says the community exists to serve my needs, and because we’ve bought into that, we have become spoiled.

Think about those twelve men Jesus “wanted.” What if, when he called them, they had asked what was in it for them. Certainly there were times where they were concerned more about their own situation, or about what they might get out of following Jesus. Judas, we might say, took that to an extreme, but of the other eleven, tradition holds that ten of them died as martyrs, killed because of their faith. If they had been in for what they could get out of it, they wouldn’t have lasted that long. When we talk about the church being an encouraging community, we’re not talking about having all of our needs met just so we can feel good. Rather, Jesus’ narrative, as it always does, challenges our “normal” way of doing things. The Biblical story is this: “The community exists to shape and guide my soul. The community has a right to expect certain behavior from me, and can provide the encouragement and accountability I need” (Smith 129). Far from being about me, being part of the church is about becoming less like me and more like Jesus. It’s about having our rough edges smoothed out and our dull edges sharpened up. Through corporate worship, baptism, communion, studying Scripture together, fasting and holding each other accountable we find ourselves transformed more and more into the likeness of Jesus, and the community is there to encourage us as we make that journey.

Paul gets at this in a lot of his writings, and I’ve chosen just one place today to focus: part of a letter he wrote to the church at Thessalonica. Among his final instructions to the church are these words that describe four tasks of the encouraging community: “We urge you, brothers and sisters, warn those who are idle and disruptive, encourage the disheartened, help the weak, be patient with everyone” (5:14). Four words I want to look quickly at this evening/morning, and the first is “warn.” “Warn those who are idle and disruptive.” The encouraging community has a responsibility to warn those who are living outside God’s design for our life; stated in a better way, we might say the community has high expectations of its members. For Paul, that meant being faithful in doing what a disciple does: being with Jesus, serving Jesus in a variety of ways. As Billy Graham has famously said, retirement from the kingdom of God is not a concept the Bible knows. No matter our age, we’re called to be engaged in growing our faith, serving Christ, and when we see someone who isn’t, when someone is wasting the gift God has given them, we have a responsibility to “warn” them, to call them to be who God created them to be. Paul pairs “being idle” with “being disruptive.” People who just want to cause trouble are to be warned as well. Some people just like to stir up trouble, and Paul says to warn such folks. The church has a right to expect certain behavior from its members, to have expectations that a follower of Jesus will live in a certain way. When they do not, Paul says we have a duty to “warn,” not in an unkind or cruel way, but with the love of Christ. The author of the letter to the Hebrews puts it this way: “Let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds” (10:24). We focus not on the problem, but on how we can better serve Jesus.

“Warn the idle and disruptive.” Then he says, “encourage the disheartened.” The word “encourage” means to console, to calm. This involves speaking words of hope and peace and encouragement into stormy or difficult situations. Honestly, we don’t do very well at this. We think we do. We offer words of comfort during times when people have lost loved ones or times when they are going through a health battle or something like that. We’ll offer a few words, but generally, people quit offering those words after a couple of weeks pass. And we really don’t know how to offer encouraging words when we’re dealing with a long-term struggle like depression or chronic illness. We don’t know what to say when someone expresses discouragement, but you know what? Sometimes the encouraging community doesn’t need words at all. Sometimes we just need to be people who show up. Many of you know of our need at PF Hope, and how discouraged the team there has become because of a perceived lack of support from the home church. They’ve asked several times for folks who will show up once a month for about an hour to help set up or tear down or teach a prepared lesson to the children, and by and large they’re still waiting for an encouraging response from here. If not you, then who? Will we be the encouraging community to a mission we launched with great fanfare and pride about a year ago? Or what about that widow who is alone on holidays? She sits just down the row from you every week and her kids all live out of town. What about that shy teenager who doesn’t know if they have a place to fit in here or not, who is afraid they’ll be told to be quiet just one more time? Or that person who is desperately lonely because all we see is his gift, his ability, and what he can do for me. We never take the time to get to know who he is, and he sits alone in the seats every week. Will we find words and deeds to “encourage the disheartened,” for the long term?

Warn the idle and disruptive, encourage the disheartened, and “help the weak.” “The weak” refers to those who struggle. The word probably often referred to those who were physically weak or sick, but Paul uses it in other contexts to describe those who are weak in the faith. And he always defers to them. In a long discussion about eating meat that had been sacrificed to idols, Paul tells the church that if it’s going to cause someone else in the body of Christ to stumble, to doubt, to question their faith, then you shouldn’t do it, even if you know that the idol means nothing. His point is that the encouraging community is always aware of the needs of its weakest members (1 Corinthians 8; Romans 14). And here, he tells us to “help” the weak. The word there means to hold onto tightly. I have this picture of the way you hold onto a small child when they are near a dangerous place, perhaps walking on an unknown city street or near a dangerous edge. You hold onto that child, keep them close, make sure they don’t fall or get away. And while we don’t physically do that with those who have weak faith, Paul does tell the Romans how we do, in fact, do it: “Stop passing judgment on one another. Instead, make up your mind not to put any stumbling block or obstacle in the way of a brother or sister” (14:13). The encouraging community is one who helps those who are weak. In fact, as has often been said, the true test of any civilization, nation or group is found in how it treats its weakest members. How do we, the church, treat the children? The elderly? The sick? The broken? The poor? The doubting? The lost? If the community is all about “me,” then those folks, who have nothing to offer me, don’t matter. But in an encouraging community, all are welcome, all are loved, all are wanted. Warn, encourage, help.

And be patient. Paul says, “Be patient with everyone.” Literally, he tells the Thessalonians to be “suffer long” with others. If the encouraging community expects certain behaviors from its members, how do we respond to those who don’t, we might say, “measure up”? We continue to provide love and support along with accountability. That’s not a popular word today. Politicians want to be able to act independently, as do business leaders and even religious leaders. Accountability sounds so legalistic, harsh, like we’re being held to a standard. And we are. The standard is Jesus and his life. We’re being called to holy living, to ordering our lives in the way the Bible instructs. We’re not perfect, but we are called to continue to strive toward holy and godly lives. So we offer guidance to one another; this is the real strength of being part of a small group where members get to know each other so well they can safely challenge each other. I’m in a small group, a covenant group, with three other pastors. We’re required to do that, but it’s something we had done before the requirement came along. We’ve met and prayed and shared over the years to the point where we can challenge each other and we can help each other. Part of that is because we know we’re not going anywhere; we’re committed to “suffering long” with each other. We’re in this for the long haul. It’s not about “me,” it’s about Jesus, and his call on all our lives. They’re able to see things in me that I can’t see myself and help me get back on the right road when I stumble. You see, that’s real love. Love isn’t the sappy “never having to say you’re sorry” thing we get through our consumerist theology. Love is caring enough for someone to warn them, encourage them, care for them, and practice patient accountability. Paul calls this “speaking the truth in love,” which will lead us, he says, to “grow up in Christ” (Ephesians 4:15).

Folks, this is our heritage. In the eighteenth century, a man named John Wesley took seriously this call to be together in community, not just for the sake of worship or study or a potluck, but for the sake of accountability. He gathered the early Methodists, all those who responded to his preaching and who wanted to have a deeper life with Jesus, in small groups and there they asked each other the hard questions. In fact, Wesley was convinced that if people responded to the Gospel but weren’t brought together in a small group of encouragement and accountability, they would end up worse off than before. Small groups were absolutely key to the early Methodist revival. They asked each other several questions each week, including these: What known sins have you committed since our last meeting? What temptations have you met with? How were you delivered? What have you thought, said, or done, of which you doubt whether it be sin or not? Through warning, encouragement, help and patient accountability, the early Methodists grew in their faith and turned England and America upside down.

What if it could happen again? What if the body of Christ took seriously its call to be an encouraging community and lived that way? What if we, like those first disciples, bound ourselves first to Jesus and then to each other in such a way that nothing can tear us apart? Might we turn the world upside down just like they did? Our Soul Training exercise, then, for this week is to find an accountability friend, a group if possible but at least one other person to whom you agree to be accountable. If you’re already in a small group, you’re way ahead on this one. If not, you can ask a good friend, someone you feel safe with. It can be your spouse, but it’s not necessarily recommended as some of your struggle may involve them and you may need a different listening ear before talking together. So here’s what you are being asked to do once you identify and ask such a person: have them ask you three questions on a regular basis. Maybe it becomes the basis for a weekly breakfast conversation. The questions are printed on your sermon study guide this morning. How is your soul? In what ways do you need to be encouraged right now? And what, if anything, is holding you back from living more fully for God (Smith 143-144)? These are tough questions, and you should only share what you feel comfortable sharing, but the idea is that as your accountability friend listens to you without judgment and with encouragement, sharing will become easier as time passes. You will find your soul grow as you become more like Jesus and you become more deeply ingrained in the encouraging community.

[8:30 & 11:30] Now, this morning is Confirmation Sunday. For the last several months, these three young men have been learning what it means to be part of the church. They have been learning about community as they studied and worked and learned and journeyed together. They’re going to come in just a few minutes to take their membership vows, but this is more than a mere ritual or some sort of rite of passage. As they stand here this morning, they are symbolically turning their back on “me church” and becoming willing to be held accountable, to be encouraging and to be encouraged, to be warned and to be helped. Becoming part of a church is more than just putting your name on the rolls. It’s about growing more and more to be like Jesus; that’s the whole point of this community. It’s about becoming an apostle—a sent one, whose first calling is to be with Jesus and whose second calling is to share the good news while pushing back the darkness. A huge calling like that needs a community to constantly surround and love you. So as the confirmands take their vows today, we as an encouraging community are also taking vows to help them grow toward Jesus. We all have a role to play this morning because together, we are the good and beautiful encouraging community. Amen.