do you have a church?

In the early 1950s a man named Clarence Jordan founded an interracial farm in Georgia called the Koinonia Community, which at the time was a very foolish and dangerous thing to do.  He asked his brother Robert, a lawyer, to act as counsel for the farm.  "Clarence", Robert said, "I can't do that.  You know my political aspirations.  If I represented you, I might lose my job, my house, everything I've got."

Clarence, not one to miss a theological response, said:  "We might lose everything, too".

"It's different for you", Robert responded.

"Why is it different?"  And Clarence went on to remind his brother how, when they were baptised, they were asked:  "Do you accept Jesus as your Lord and Savior?"  "What did you say, Robert?"

Robert paused, and then said, "I follow Jesus -- up to a point."

"Could that point by any chance be -- the cross?" his brother challenged him.

"That's right.  I follow Jesus to the cross, but not on the cross.  I'm not getting myself crucified."

"Then", Clarence said, "I don't believe you're a disciple. You're an admirer of Jesus, but not a disciple."

"Well now", Robert said, "if everyone who felt like I do did what you do, we wouldn't have a church, would we?"

 

"The question", Clarence rightly responded, "is do you have a church?"

 

Robert Jordan went on to become a state senator, and a judge on the Georgia Supreme Court.  So I guess his answer was a "No". 

See, what this boils down to is really rather simple:  Are we followers or fans?  Is the church that body of folks who are willing to get strung up by virtue of following Jesus, or is it a fan club?

When we "take Jesus as our Lord and Savior" -- language sometimes used, I'm afraid, in an "I'm-a-real-Christian, are you?" kind of way -- but if we do use that language, what do we mean by it?  What do we mean by discipleship?  What do we mean by being church, the church of Jesus?

 

I think those are the questions of Lent.

 

Jesus called the crowd with his disciples, and said to them, "If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.  For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it.  For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life?  Indeed, what can they give in return for their life?  Those who are ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of them the Son of Man will also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels."

Truth be told:  That's always a hard text for me to swallow. 

Just a little earlier, Jesus asked a question:  "Who do others say I am?"  They answer:  "Some say John the Baptist, some say Elijah, some say one of the prophets".  Dead guys, but guys who, when they were alive, got into trouble by speaking truth to power -- Elijah to Ahab, John to Herod Antipas, the other prophets to one king or priest or another.  Then Jesus turns the question much closer to home:  "And you -- who do you think I am?"  The disciples look at each other, and Peter, thinking nothing ventured, nothing gained, speaks for them all:  "The Messiah" -- in another word, "You da King".

Now, Peter's "confession" here is anything but simply spiritual.  There's a political overtone. 

So when Jesus gives content to what that kingship looks like -- teaching on three separate occasions -- a king who's on the march toward Jerusalem, the very center of Jewish and Roman power in the region, and there, in a highly charged political atmosphere, to be rejected by the holy and mighty and find himself excluded, you can imagine the response.

Which is why Mark is so insistent:  "Jesus made this very plain".

Therefore, Peter's response.  "No way!"

And Jesus' rebuttal:  "Get away from me, Satan!"

Satan?  Little harsh, don't you think?  Peter's just being protective.  So -- Satan?!?

The other gospels are fairly clear about this:  Rule by worldly power and popular acclaim, and power and acclaim underwritten by what?  By violence.  Think Matthew 4.

The idea here is that if Jesus is the Messiah, then of course he will rule with royal power -- he'll go to Jerusalem, kick butt, the people will love him -- so whence this defeatist talk about suffering and death?  That's why Peter responds with "No way!"  And that's also why the "Get away from me, Satan!"  That kind of power is not the kind of power that this Messiah, this Human Being wields.

So what surprises me is how little we've learned in the intervening years.

Recently, several Southern Baptist presidents issued a letter to President Obama, calling for our bombing of ISIS.

And they're not alone.

I know countless folks who are quite willing to view all Muslims as violent.  And send them back to the hell from whence they've come.

So what do we do with Peter's "confession" and Jesus' response?  We're in the middle of Lent.  Just how much are we paying attention?

Crusades, witch-hunts, slavery, pogroms, the church as cheerleader to empires and states in whatever colonial venture or war they decide to undertake for land or gold or oil or geopolitical influence.  So we know exactly, as Jesus goes on say, what it means to be disciples:  "deny self" and "take up the cross".  The historical evidence suggests it means being loyal citizens.  Moreover, we American Christians not only nationalize discipleship, to complete its domestication -- we also privatize it, as if by "self-denial" Jesus were talking about ascetically relinquishing the enjoyment of certain things, and by "cross-taking" stoically putting up with one's troubles, a chronic illness or an insufferable colleague perhaps -- the "crosses we have to bear", as we say.

But that's clearly not what Jesus had in mind.

Temple and State are really good -- as we see from Jesus' story -- in combining to make sure we know how to kill a man. 

What gets a guy crucified isn't that he doesn't grumble when times get rough.

No, what gets a guy crucified is that he questions the whole edifice in which temple and state find themselves in collusion. 

Think about it.

Crucifixion was a punishment reserved for the enemies of society, the ultimate sanction for the way all states operate, by moral policing and social control and doing whatever it takes in the way of lies, fear, and finally violence to maintain order and control.  And what did Jesus do if not get in power's face, live fearlessly in the presence of hostile authority, and practice nonviolence in the face of official aggression? 

That's why he had to go, because he refused to accept the world as it is, the way the world works.  He disrupted this business as usual, called it all into question -- "The kingdom of Shalom is among you!" was his message -- a manifesto that no earthly ruler can allow to go unchallenged.  The execution of Jesus was, to be sure, a miscarriage of justice, but it was not a case of mistaken identity.  They got the right guy alright.  When Love appears, power has got to kill it.  End of story.

So the cross Jesus asks his followers to bear -- it's this cross, determined by the way he lived and died, subversively, counter-intuitively, crazily foolishly.  How do we live?  Do we live by the truth of Jesus, or do we fall for the deceit that infuses the speeches of movers and shakers?  Do we live without fear, or do bigshots scare us, scare us into the self-protection racket euphemistically known as "homeland security"?  Do we live without violence and balk at collusion in exclusion, or do we shrug our shoulders and accept the demonization of enemies and the dehumanization of the different in our own communities, in our own churches? 

In short, do we live by "realism" and "pragmatism", are we "purpose driven" by "outcomes" and "results", do we think that being church is about "winning" and "success", or do we live as if Jesus is indeed our Lord and Savior, but this Jesus, carrying his cross?

See, I know what I'm looking at when I see American Christians calling for blood.  Americans first -- Christians second. 

The way it worked for those crowds.  The way it worked for Peter.

The way it works for Americans.

Which makes American Christians better fans than followers.

Like Robert.