Last Sunday's thought: on the distinction between believers and disciples

   ‘I chose you. And I appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last, so that the Father will give you whatever you ask him in my name’ (John 15:16).

         Are we just believers in Christ or are we disciples of Christ? There is an important distinction to be made between the ‘believer’ and the ‘disciple’. It is true that we would like there to be as many believers in Christ as possible. It is much preferable for there to be many genuine believers rather than just notional believers. St Paul tells us in 2 Corinthians 5, ‘Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creation: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new’ (2 Cor. 5:17). Or as the New Living Translation of 2007 has it, ‘The old life is gone; a new life has begun!’

         And yet Jesus makes this distinction between believers and disciples. Every disciple is a believer, we may claim. However, not every believer is a disciple. Being a disciple is something more. There is a greater maturity; there is a greater commitment; above all there is greater knowledge and with it, greater understanding of the issues at stake. There are, it has been suggested, at least four distinctions of a disciple: (1) abiding in the Word; (2) loving other disciples; (3) bearing fruit, and (4) being prepared to pay the price of following Jesus.

         ‘If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples’ (John 8:31). You must know and live in His Word to be His disciple. A Christian who does not know and abide in His word is a believer, but not a disciple. Some authorities (e.g. Andreas J. Köstenberger in The Encyclopedia of Christian Civilization [2011], i. 694) emphasise that discipleship refers to ‘a person’s life commitment to a body of teaching as exemplified by the teacher [or rabbi] himself’. By being in a privileged group around Jesus, the first disciples came to know ‘the truth’, and that the truth would make the believer free (John 8:32). For a disciple of Jesus, profound knowledge of, and reflection upon, his teaching is the starting point.

         As for the second distinction of discipleship, many Christians love one another in word but not in deed: they pay lip service to the command that ‘all men will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another’ (John 13:35). The self-giving or agape love taught by Jesus requires fidelity and sincerity. As Paul observed, we must ‘be devoted to one another in brotherly love’. We must ‘honour one another above ourselves’ (Rom. 12:10). Our attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus (Philippians 2:5). We must cease being self-centred and become Christ-centred.

         A believer in Christ may nevertheless be a fruitless believer. A fruitless disciple is a contradiction in terms. ‘By this is My Father glorified, that you bear much fruit, and so become – or prove to be – My disciples’ (John 15:8). The branch abiding in the vine and bearing fruit in John ch 15 is the believer becoming a disciple of Christ. Paul declared to the Romans that he wanted to ‘reap some harvest among’ them as he had ‘among the rest of the Gentiles’ (Rom. 1:13).

         The final distinction between a Christian and a disciple is a particularly hard one, and one where most of us fail: the Christian puts his family first, while the disciple puts Jesus first. Jesus made it clear that His disciples must put Him first above their own families or they could not be His disciples (e.g. Luke 18:29-30). There is no discipleship without cost, Paul says: we have to make ‘a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God’ (Rom 12:1). ‘…none of you can be My disciple who does not give up all’ (Luke 14:33) – that is, it is suggested, ‘all claims to human relationships, self, and possessions’. We are required to be good stewards of what God leaves us with, but we must remember it is on loan for His glory.

         For a time our primary duties may be to our families, because we have a duty of care for sick parents or we have to care for our children. As one pastor puts it, ‘... As God has added more children to my “quiver” (Psalm 127:5), it has become all the more important that I “redeem the time” – not merely “balance” time between family and work, but prioritize my family and in particular seek to share with my children the good and gracious things of the Lord.

But we are not called to do this all our lives. Our children grow up and leave the nest. In large measure we have discharged our duty of care. Then, we are no longer called to remain believers. Jesus calls each and every one of his believers to press on to meet that fourth test, willingness to accept sacrifices, in order to become His disciple.

‘Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing…’ ‘My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit and become my disciples.’ In so doing, we receive Christ’s grace or love ourselves. A new life has begun and we move on to strengthen our common life in church, accepting one another’s failings in a spirit of love, and working towards change to the new life for the whole people of God. 

We remember that each one of us has been given a special gift. ‘Each of us was given grace according to the measure of Christ’s gift.’ The ‘measure of Christ’s gift’ in Eph. 4:7 is rendered in the Revised English Version as a ‘due portion in Christ’s bounty’. This is what we all receive through the love of Christ. It is not for us to hide that gift under a bushel. For us to ‘bear much fruit’ in becoming God’s disciples, it is for us to discern that special gift which each of us has and use it here and now in his service, in the mighty task of trying to build up God’s kingdom in this world and not the next.

Thought from Friday Morning Prayer: English Saints and Martyrs and Ecumenism

         On Friday 4 May, a small group of local ministers from our ecumenical group, the South Leicester Christian Partnership, gathered in St Guthlac’s for early morning prayer. It is our custom to move around some of the churches in the partnership and to meet once a month on the first Friday at 8 am. On this occasion, we met on the ‘lesser festival’ when we remember the English Saints and Martyrs of the Reformation era. We prayed together the Collect for the Day: ‘Merciful God, who, when your Church on earth was torn apart by the ravages of sin, raised up men and women in this land who witnessed to their faith with courage and constancy: give to your Church that peace which is your will, and grant that those who have been divided on earth may be reconciled in heaven, and share together in the vision of your glory…’

         In ecumenical terms, the rival services on 4 May could become a somewhat uncomfortable experience, because since 2010 both Catholic and Protestant victims of the Reformation era have been remembered in separate services of the Catholic and Anglican Churches. In the Catholic case, those who are remembered are the 40 martyrs canonised under Paul VI in 1973 (previously celebrated on October 25), together with the 85 beatified Martyrs of the Reformation and the other martyrs of the 16th and 17th century canonised by John Paul II in 1987. Yet the Catholic church was doing no more than finally ‘catching up’ with what had been official policy of the Church England since an order of Convocation in 1571. This required that Foxe’s Book of Martyrs – the supreme work of Protestant martyrology in England – be chained beside the Great Bible in cathedrals, select churches, and even several bishops’ and guild halls. Selected readings from the text were proclaimed from the pulpit as if it were Scripture. And the martyrs, of course, were all Protestants, chiefly at the hands of the Catholic queen, ‘Bloody Mary’ Tudor.

         In his 1987 homily at the time of the beatification, John Paul II mentioned the prayer at the previous service in 1973 ‘that the blood of those martyrs would be a source of healing for the divisions between Christians. Today we may fittingly give thanks for the progress made in the intervening years towards fuller communion between Anglicans and Catholics. We rejoice in the deeper understanding, broader collaboration and common witness that have taken place through the power of God.’ And we should all say amen to that.

         The reading for Morning Prayer on 4 May was from Luke ch 4, where Jesus announces his mission in the synagogue, but is confronted by unbelievers who, in the end, threaten to kill him: ‘They got up, drove him out of the town, and led him to the brow of the hill on which their town was built, so that they might hurl him off the cliff. But he passed through the midst of them and went on his way’ (Luke 4:30).

         Just two days earlier, on 2 May, Benedict XVI had delivered an address on Stephen, the first Christian martyr, who is too often forgotten about by many of us because he is commemorated on 26 December. ‘We may ask ourselves’, the Pope reflected, ‘where did this first Christian martyr find the strength to face his persecutors and in the end to attain to the gift of himself? The answer is simple: from his relationship with God, from his communion with Christ, from meditation on the history of salvation, from seeing God’s action, which in Jesus Christ reached its summit. Our prayer, too, should be nourished by listening to God’s Word, in communion with Jesus and his Church.’

         Our ecumenical prayer sessions are about Bible reading, formal prayer, open prayer and meditation. On this occasion we concentrated on the cost of martyrdom and the difficulty of forgiveness and reconciliation. Our final prayer was the one found on a piece of paper in the coat of a dead girl at Ravensbrück concentration camp in 1945. ‘O Lord, remember not only the men and women of good will, but also those of ill will. But, do not remember all of the suffering they have inflicted upon us; instead remember the fruits we have borne because of this suffering – our fellowship, our loyalty to one another, our humility, our courage, our generosity, the greatness of heart that has grown from this trouble. When our persecutors come to be judged by you, let all of these fruits that we have borne be their forgiveness.’ O that we could forgive others for offences, which compared with those meted out at Ravensbrück, seem petty and trivial. Amen.

Last Sunday's thought: the Good Shepherd of one flock

We are pilgrims on a journey; and our Church is a pilgrim Church. The seven ‘I am’ statements of Jesus in John’s Gospel provide us as pilgrims with the essential, elementary needs for our journey. Food: I am the bread of life (John 6:35). Light: I am the light of the world (8:12). A path to follow: I am the Way, the truth and the life (14:6). A gate to get onto the path: I am the Gate for the sheep (10:7). An eternal journey: I am the Resurrection and the Life (11:25). A life that bears the fruit of that pilgrimage: I am the True Vine (15:1). Finally, and perhaps most important, someone trustworthy to follow: I am the Good Shepherd (10:11).

         In his farewell discourse, Jesus had prayed that the church should be one (John 17:21), just as his disciples should be one (John 17:11), ‘that the world may believe that you have sent me’ (John 17:21). The unity of the church, in spite of variations in traditions, is to be the supreme testimony to the truth of the claim that Jesus is God’s son and chosen emissary to his people on earth. In the words of this morning’s gospel, ‘So there will be one flock, one shepherd’.

         ‘God wills the Church, because he wills unity, and unity is an expression of the whole depth of his self-giving love (agape).’ These were John Paul II’s words in 1995 on the profound reasons underlying the move towards Christian unity. ‘…promoting Christian unity’, John Paul II affirmed, ‘is not just some sort of “appendix” which is added to the Church’s traditional activity. Rather, ecumenism is an organic part of her life and work, and consequently must pervade all that she is and does; it must be like the fruit borne by a healthy and flourishing tree which grows to its full stature.’

There is a powerful summary of ecumenical statements and agreements drawn together by Cardinal Walter Kasper under the title Harvesting The Fruits. Here are just a few important ideas drawn from these agreements. First (p. 65), that ‘the credibility of the Church’s witness in the world is undermined by the sins of its members, the shortcomings of its human institutions and not least by the scandal of division. The Church is in constant need of repentance and renewal so that it can be more clearly seen for what it is: the one, holy body of Christ.’

Second (pp. 72-3), ‘the concept of koinonia (communion)… is the term that most aptly expresses the mystery underlying the various NT images of the Church… Those who have received the same word of God and have been baptized in the same Spirit cannot, without disobedience, acquiesce in a state of separation.’ ‘Christian disunity obscures God’s invitation to communion for all humankind and makes the Gospel we proclaim harder to hear.’

A third point is that the mandate of bringing salvation to all is the task of the entire Christian church and not just one privileged part of it, ‘the true believers’. ‘The mandate given to the Church to bring salvation to all the nations constitutes its unique mission. In this way the Church not only signifies the new humanity willed by God and inaugurated by Christ. It is itself an instrument of the Holy Spirit in the extension of salvation to all human beings in all their needs and circumstances to the end of time’ (p. 59).

A fourth and final point concerns the need to clarify the purpose of talking together as Christians. Few of us expect to see our inherited confessional distinctions disappear any time soon, if ever. That is not the point. It is that such distinctions should no longer be the obstacle that they have been in the past: ‘there is unity in reconciled diversity’ (p. 89). ‘So there will be one flock, one shepherd.’ The command of Christian ecumenism could not be stated more clearly than in John 10:16.

Last Sunday's thought: this is the Gospel we proclaim

Then Jesus ‘opened their minds to understand the scriptures’ (Luke 24:45). Earlier on in chapter 24, Luke recounts how, on the road to Emmaus Jesus (though at the moment not recognized by two disciples) did the same thing: ‘Then beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them the things about himself in all the scriptures’ (Luke 24:27). After the two disciples recognized Jesus at the breaking of the bread, they recall: ‘Were not our hearts burning within us while he was talking to us on the road, while he was opening the scriptures to us?’ (Luke 24:32).

Paul wrote to the early Christian church at Rome: ‘how can they believe without hearing about Him? And how can they hear without a preacher?’ (Rom. 10:14). Paul practised gospel-focused kerygmatic preaching, that is preaching centred on the ministry, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. He told the Corinthian church that ‘I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified’ (1 Cor. 2:2). The preaching recorded in the Acts of the Apostles repeated again and again the divine kerygma, the story of Jesus Christ: but then the apostles had no written gospels to which to refer their audience.

This is not the only Biblical model of preaching. There are times when life may seem to us almost meaningless and ruled by despair and death. What people need, in such circumstances, is a Word of redemption and meaning from outside this situation that will answer their deepest questions about life and death. Preaching brings this Word. It is Biblical because it was used by some of the Old Testament prophets and also by Jesus himself in some of his meetings with individuals in which existential questions are answered: three good examples (but they are by no means the only ones) are his meetings with the tax collector Zacchaeus, with Nicodemus and with the woman at the well.

An alternative style of preaching is the proclamation of God’s word as an alternate vision to injustice, inequities of power, suffering, and oppression. Biblical models for ethical-political preaching stretch from the prophetic preaching of the Hebrew prophets to Jesus’ proclamation of the kingdom of God. Today this is very much the mission field of Christian Aid.

Another model of preaching has been called the ‘whispered word of God’, in the preacher seeks out the divine Word within the world and draws it up from the level of a whisper to the level of an assertion or proposition. Jesus is in conversation with disciples and the crowd uses metaphor, story, and parable, to take the ordinary bits and pieces of people’s lives and transform them into the very stuff of God’s revelation.

So there are several types of preaching according to the work of the Holy Spirit, circumstance, our needs and the needs of the world. Proclamation of the gospel, including interpretation and teaching is not an optional extra. It is close to the essence of our faith. Paul put it this way in Romans 10:8-10: ‘The word is near you, on your lips and in your heart (that is, the word of faith which we preach (kerygma); because, if you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.  For man believes with his heart and so is justified, and he confesses with his lips and so is saved.’

Which preaching style is the most appropriate for the church and the needs of contemporary society? There are no simple answers. Perhaps an awareness of different styles and the deployment of a variety so that neither the preacher nor the congregation falls into cosy predictability is important. Most important of all is the need for openness to guidance and direction from the Holy Spirit who ‘blows where he wills’ (John 3:8). ‘You hear its sound, but you don’t know where it comes from or where it is going.’

The disciples on Resurrection Sunday: caught between the 'disaster' of Good Friday and the 'triumph' of the Resurrection

We don’t have to have much imagination in hearing the account of the story of the discovery of the empty tomb in Mark’s gospel to realize that, far from the disappearance of Christ’s body being a conspiracy organized by Christians (which is what some non-believers said at the time), the first disciples of Christ were dumbfounded by what they saw and heard: ‘they would not believe it.’ It is quite likely that Mark’s description of the initial response of the disciples is correct. Until the post-resurrection encounters with Jesus reassured them, the disciples probably did not know what to think.


The proof of the resurrection lies not in the empty tomb. It lies in the ten resurrection encounters of the disciples with the risen Christ which are recorded in the gospels (more are recorded in the NT as a whole).


It is on the account provided by those witnesses that our faith rests. We may not have a precise timeline of the encounters, although some have made suggestions. What we do have, however, is one indisputable fact: from the terror which is recorded in the original ending of Mark’s gospel (Mark 16:8), there was a rapid transformation in the disciples’ attitudes. From being fearful and uncertain, they become confident and cast away human and worldly considerations to preach the gospel throughout the known world and establish the embryonic church. The gospel train was set in motion. And the work of the disciples still provides us with the best account we have of how to spread the Word in an apparently unreceptive world.
 

Thought for Palm Sunday: hosanna, we have a servant king like no other

The Christian term ‘Hosanna’ arises from the Hebrew term ‘Hoshana’ (‘please save’ or ‘save now’) and the Aramaic ‘Hothana’. It is the sound of the popular cry in Mt. 21:9, Mk. 11:9-10 and John 12:13 (Luke does not record the term) and has been regarded by some as the earliest hymn of Christian devotion.

Matthew alone gives the earliest summary of the Messianic song on the entry of Jesus, that is, ‘Praise to the son of David’ (Matt 21:9). The song was added to by Matthew himself, and still further by Mark, and is said by all the evangelists to have been uttered while Jesus was on the public way entering Jerusalem.

In Psalm 118:25-27, the festal procession at which the word ‘Hosanna’ is proclaimed (Psalm 118:25) is a witness to God’s kingship. It becomes in the hands of the evangelists the acclamation of a multitude, either of Jerusalemites, or of disciples (Luke 19:37), or of pilgrims who had come up for the feast (John 12:12), who had learned that Jesus had raised Lazarus from the dead (John 12:17).

What sort of leader did the crowd believe it was welcoming? The promised Messiah, the king of Israel descended from David who would free Israel from tutelage to the Romans? The evangelists realize, in the light of the crucifixion and resurrection, that ‘Hosanna’ should be understood as a cry of jubilation at our redemption through the person of Jesus Christ. As Derek Worlock and David Sheppard remarked in With Christ in the Wilderness, there is reason to suppose that some of the crowd just a few days latter called for Jesus’ blood, but on Palm Sunday the motivation of the crowd in the passion narrative is less important to us than the symbolism of Jesus’ entry. Fulfilling the prophecy of Zechariah 9:9 though he was, it was his insistence that the tethered donkey and colt should be used, to demonstrate to us the servant king he was and remains: self-effacing, unpretentious and peace-loving, he was and is a king like no other. Thanks be to God!   

Last Sunday's Thought: What did Jesus think he was doing?

‘What would Jesus do?’ The banners at the Occupy camp outside St Paul’s Cathedral earlier this year made their point. But sometimes we need to ask the question: what did Jesus think? The chasing out of the money-changers is a case where we might ask, indeed, what did Jesus think he was doing? Jesus takes the expression ‘house of prayer’ from Isaiah 56:7 and the phrase ‘den of robbers’ from Jeremiah 7:11, while his actions are a fulfilment of the messianic prophecy in Malachi 3:1-3. ‘Stop making my Father’s house a market-place!’ (John 2:16).
 

If Jesus sees his actions as a direct fulfilment of Old Testament prophesy, how were they perceived at the time? All the sellers were there to provide a service to God’s people in the temple. Those selling animals were providing a service to those who needed to sacrifice during Feast time. Obviously this had been approved by the Jewish leaders of the temple. This was a great convenience to Jews travelling great distances, since they did not have to have livestock in tow. They could buy the necessary sacrificial animals right at the temple. Places to change money were also needed, for a tax was collected from every Israelite who was twenty years old (cf. Exod. 30:11-16). The tax had to be paid in Jewish and not Roman coin: money changers were therefore essential. So Jesus overturns not only what is customary but the very practices which serve the needs of the pilgrims coming to the Temple. His Biblical literalism upsets not just the financial interests of the Temple authorities, but the basic needs of the pilgrims. Jesus’ complaint is not that there is dishonest buying and selling going on in the temple – but that there is buying and selling going on at all! The place should be sacred because it is dedicated to God.


In his attempt to bring forward the kingdom of God, Jesus chases out the money changers and merchants. In the real world, in contrast, it is those who protest against the greed, selfishness and unethical business practices which have led to our present economic woes who are forced out. There is an issue about illegal occupation of space, and Occupy is nothing if it does not occupy space if necessary, illegally. And yet, there are many – though not all – who feel uncomfortable that the Church seems to have backed the wrong side in this controversy which ended on 28 February. ‘The demand for social justice was being trumpeted slap bang in the boiler room of global capitalism.’ For the authorities, including the Cathedral authorities, ‘Occupy was just too messy, too in your face’. It had to go. Yet for many this Lent, it feels that in the most recent attempt in 2012 to cleanse the outer temple of economic abuse, it was the Temple authorities, and not Jesus, who won.