ten practices of the emergent church
BY JOHN T. SCHWIEBERT
AUTHOR’S NOTE:
My intention is to prepare a further edition of this essay which outlines a suggested 5-year process for helping transform an institutional church congregation into an ekklesia that is animated by engaging in the specific practices I have suggested. The process will have been tested and refined through the experience of an actual congregation.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
John T. Schwiebert is a retired United Methodist minister in the Oregon-Idaho Annual Conference, having served seven churches in Idaho and Oregon over a period of more than fifty years.
In 1986, with his wife Pat and others, he helped create a small, committed ekklesia of Christian disciples that met for 26 years in several locations in the inner city of Portland Oregon, including the 18th Ave Peace House, home of a neo-monastic community where John and Pat and others still live together and share all things in common.
John received a B.A. in Philosophy from the College of Idaho and a Master of Divinity degree from Drew Theological Seminary. He is the author of a memoir entitled Resistance and Redirection: Our First Forty Years, which tells the story of his life and ministry with Pat from their marriage in 1975 to 2015.
First Printing, 2015
Second Printing, 2019
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction
Chapter One: Ekklesia
Chapter Two: Metanoia
Chapter Three: Koinonia
Chapter Four: Diakonia
Chapter Five: Kerygma
Chapter Six: Marturia
Chapter Seven: Parresia
Chapter Eight: Dikaiosune
Chapter Nine: Eirene
Chapter Ten: Agape
INTRODUCTION
Some who read the title of this book will immediately recognize its similarity to the name of a book by United Methodist Bishop Robert Schnase of Missouri, entitled Five Practices of Fruitful Congregations. This similarity is intentional on my part. I aim to challenge the approach to church life and ministry taken by Bishop Schnase, and to offer my own list of practices, which, I will argue are much more grounded in the New Testament understanding of what it means to be a “fruitful congregation.”
The church practices that Bishop Schnase advocates are (1) radical hospitality, (2) passionate worship, (3) intentional faith development, (4) risk taking mission and service, and (5) extravagant generosity.
There is nothing inherently inadequate about any of these proposed practices. The problem with these five practices as articulated and explained by Bishop Schnase is that they are designed specifically to improve the performance of congregations that are institutional in nature. But modern institutional churches, in North America especially, have become little more than extensions of the dominant culture that has shaped them. They tend to be religious establishments seeking to attract patrons who will offer financial support in exchange for a satisfying personal experience and other services rendered. Such churches have little in common with the churches that prevailed in the first and second centuries as they are described in the New Testament.
Moreover such modern institutional churches are ill-suited to carry out the mission that Bishop Schnase and his fellow bishops of the United Methodist Church say that they want for the congregations under their care, which is “to make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world.” Bishop Schnase seems to acknowledge this in the introduction to his book when he writes: “People know that the mission of the church is to make disciples of Jesus Christ, but they are seeking to understand how to fit this larger mission into their lives and into their churches in a practical way.” He then goes on to suggest that the five practices for fruitful congregations that he has identified “capture the core process by which God uses congregations to make disciples . . .” (p. 7)
I can see at least three problems with Bishop Schnase’s assertions: First he assumes that because we already have lives and churches that belong to us we need to figure out how to work discipleship into our already formed lives and church programs. Making disciples is thus brought into the picture as an afterthought—one more activity that will enhance and improve the church life that we already suppose that we own and control. Yet the New Testament is very clear that when we answer the call to follow Jesus, our lives no longer belong to us; they belong to God, and so do our churches. And it is not we, but God, who creates churches by calling disciples and forming them into loving and serving communities, nurtured by God’s Spirit so that they can nurture one another in their discipleship as they carry out God’s mission together.
Second, Schnase assumes that without some direction church members will not be able to discern how to minister “in a practical way.” But doesn’t the New Testament tell us that the Holy Spirit will reveal to us the nature of our life and ministry and show us how to carry it out, whether what God tells us to do is deemed “practical” from our point of view, or not? And isn’t it more reasonable to expect that the practices to which the Spirit calls our churches will look more like the Acts (literally, praxeis, i.e. practices) of the Apostles, and less like the customs of corporate America?
Finally, although Schnase may wish it were not so, his notion of “making disciples for Jesus Christ,” still appears to mean gaining new members for the institutional church so that it will grow in size, influence, and the ability to pay the costs of its continuing operation and expansion. But these are modern institutional values, not New Testament values. Discipleship, for Jesus and for Paul was never about getting larger, but always about going deeper, and reaching out farther, while always seeking first the kingdom (commonwealth) of God.
In this essay I will argue that our energies would be better spent deinstitutionalizing existing congregations and replacing them with smaller, rigorous, spirit-filled faith communities that embrace the understanding of church that was prevalent in the first and second centuries, and described on the pages of the New Testament. Such communities are much more likely than improved institutional churches to achieve the goal articulated by Bishop Schnase (and his colleagues in the episcopacy).
I don’t expect that large numbers of readers of this essay will be eager to leave behind the comforts of institutionalized Christianity to explore, much less imitate the “church before Christianity,” to borrow a phrase from Wes Howard-Brook.[1] But to those few who are ready to take a leap into an earlier and richer understanding of the meaning of church, or who have already begun to do so, I devote this essay.
I chose to use the term “emergent churches” in my title with some caution. The word emergent is a handy one because of its current usage to describe attractive alternatives to traditional institutional churches. Emergent churches are different from the churches that most of us older folks belonged to for many years in that they tend to be non-patriarchal, committed to being all-inclusive, egalitarian, and more interested in taking the Bible seriously by living according to its values than in taking it literally while avoiding its demands. Emergent churches also tend to worship in rented, multipurpose spaces, rather than in church sanctuaries, and often at times other than Sunday mornings.[2]
My caution is that some emergent churches, like the institutional churches they aspire to replace, may also be drawn more to changes in form than changes in substance. Or, to put it another way, emergent churches may be tempted to derive their lifestyles from current cultural trends rather than from the New Testament expression of church, which is intentionally counter-cultural. In my opinion emergent churches will have little of substance to offer to the world of the 21st century unless and until they find their roots in the experience of the first followers of Jesus. That is why I have chosen, in this essay, to use Greek words and concepts found in the Greek New Testament to make my points. If the founders of emergent churches are helped by this attempt to re-introduce New Testament concepts of church into the emerging conversation, so much the better!
I speak from my experience as a United Methodist pastor who, in the mid-1980s decided that I could never again be content to be appointed as the curator of another modern institutional church. Instead I helped birth a congregation whose members were willing to take seriously what we can learn from scripture about church life in the first century, while intentionally adapting what we discovered to the realities of the 20th and 21st centuries. Starting In 1986 we became what two decades later church planters would come to describe by this new term: emergent.
I offer examples from my experience knowing that readers much younger than I will have to translate much of what I have to offer into language and cultural realities of 21st century life that are somewhat beyond my experience. For instance my proficiency with social media is limited. I cannot offer much guidance in how to do church via smart phones and the internet. But if there are those who can I am glad to turn this opportunity over to them.
Here then are my suggested practices. I hope it will be apparent that all of these practices must operate interactively, and contemporaneously. None of them is optional, and no one of them will be effective apart from the others.
One final disclaimer: I am not suggesting that the ten practices that I have lifted up in this essay are the only practices worthy of consideration. For instance I have not devoted space to discussing the practice of prayer and worship, which obviously undergirds all of the ten practices that I explore below. But at least I can hope that lifting up the ten specific practices that have captured my attention will open up the conversation.
Chapter One: Ekklesia
The first practice of the church congregations described in the New Testament that I want to lift up can best be understood by the Greek word ekklesia, which is most often translated into English as “church.” It describes the very antithesis of institutionalized Christianity and what most Americans think of when they use the word “church.”
Paul and Peter and the other first century apostles would probably scratch their heads in amazement and puzzlement as they struggled to understand the concept of a typical American congregation that is registered and regulated by civil government as a non-profit corporation, that owns the building where it meets, that offers itself to consumers as a dispenser of religious goods and services, that pays a salary to a seminary-educated pastoral leader, that hires a paid staff to manage its property and programs, and that struggles to pay for all of these things through optional contributions from its members, through fundraising activities and/or through permanent endowments.
First century churches engaged in few, if any, of these practices that we associate with institutionalized Christianity. Rather, they were small, local gatherings of men and women who met together frequently to share a common life and destiny as followers of the risen Christ. Even though Jewish followers of Jesus were accustomed to synagogue life their preferred name for a gathering of Jesus followers was ekklesia, a non-religious word that was also used to refer to the democratic assemblies of persons called out from the general populace of Greek city-states to make political decisions on behalf of the people. It was a word that worked well for the first century followers of Jesus who saw themselves, not as purveyors of a new religion, but as people—Jews and Gentiles--who had been called out of the ways of Roman imperial power and into the subversive, revolutionary way of Jesus. In the words of Wes Howard-Brook,
Calling the discipleship community an ekklesia meant that members were not simply to ‘go to church’ once a week and get a battery charge for the daily grind of imperial life. Rather they were to see their primary loyalty, their primary identity, as members of a new society, living within, but not according to, the ways of the world (e.g. John 14:17-21; 16:8-11; 17:13-18).[3]
Whether Jew or Greek, slave or free, male or female, they knew themselves to be one in Christ Jesus (Galatians 3:28) and brothers and sisters in a new family whose relationships with each other held priority over their prior kinship and other relationships (following Jesus’s example in Mark 3:31-34). The ekklesia was their primary context for living.
Like normal families, and unlike most churches today, these first followers of Jesus were not content to settle for getting together only once or twice a week for worship and other programmed activities. “Day by day” are the words that better describe their gathering practices (see Acts 2:46 and 47). Recent archaeological findings have led some scholars to conclude that some Jesus followers in urban areas actually lived in the same apartment houses together and sharing daily meals in common areas set aside for meeting.4 (reference here)
They did not need a formal structure because they lived their common life under the inspiration and leadership of the Holy Spirit, that same Divine Breath that, according to the Gospel of John, blows where it chooses (John 3:8), and thatJesus promised to the apostles and to subsequent generations of followers as the ongoing legacy of his ministry in Galilee and Judea (Acts 1:8). If these early churches had leaders it was because the Spirit had called, gifted, and empowered persons from among the ekklesia to provide that leadership (1 Corinthians 12: 4-11; Ephesians 4:11-12).
What this life together in the ekklesia looked like is examined in the sections that follow under the headings of metanoia (repentance), koinonia (community), diakonia (ministry or service), kerygma (proclamation or preaching), maturia (witnessing), parresia (boldness), dikaiosune (righteousness), eirene (peace), and agape (unconditional love).
One more thing to note: originally each ekklesia was a separate and distinct local assembly or gathering and the relationships between these ekklesiai was fraternal but not structured or regulated by any higher human authority. It was not until much later that there developed the notion of “one holy catholic church” (and sugsequent denominational structures) that joined the individual churches together under a central authority.
This explains why, although the Apostle Paul could help birth different churches in separate cities and regions throughout the Roman Empire, he did not have (nor did anyone else have) any formal license to direct or control the lives and activities of these scattered churches. Paul had to be content to leave each ekklesia in the hands of called and gifted local leaders, and attempt, through letters like those preserved in the New Testament, to persuade them to change their ways when, in his opinion, they had strayed from their calling as ekklesiai called together by the Spirit of Christ.
My point in lifting up the concept of ekklesia as the first characteristic of the emergent church is to suggest that those contemplating the planting of new churches in this 21st century, should at least consider modeling their new creations after the form that was adopted by the earliest followers of Jesus rather than the inferior forms that have been invented in the centuries since. I am excited at the prospect of authentic churches “emerging” from the fog induced by centuries of misunderstanding about the true meaning of “church.”
Ekklesia in the 21st century:
What might the practice of ekklesia look like in the 21st century? How might an existing church or an emergent church bring its life into greater alignment with the churches described in the New Testament?
A genuine ekklesia as I am trying to present it in this book would have little need for such institutional accouterments as signboards, a church newsletter, or a website. But for those who believe they do need such things I would at least suggest the modification of every signboard, church newsletter masthead, website or other medium to counter the notion that the church is a place or institution. Once this is done people will find it easier to let go of the idea that church as something one “goes to,” and to begin to embrace the idea of the church something that one “belongs to” intimately, in common with other people (See koinonia below).
Some churches have followed this practice for many years, e.g. the Assembly of God, which has chosen to use this literal English translation of the word ekklesia in its name instead of the English word “church.” Traditional Quakers still call their congregations “meetings,” another good English word for conveying the concept of ekklesiai.
Yet another denomination of churches uses the word church to identify the local congregation but says on its identifying signs only that “The Church of Christ meets here,” again implying that the church is actually a group of people that could meet anywhere but chooses to meet in this particular place.
Also, avoid slogans that invite people to think of the church as a building, e.g. “The Cathedral in the Pines,” “The Downtown Chapel” and “The Little White Church on the Hill.” Be cautious too about slogans that link the church with any specific location. The church with a place name may or may not be helpful in a culture that already thinks of churches as buildings. It is worth asking, for example, if “The Church in Oceanside” describes an historic landmark or a dynamic fellowship of Jesus followers.
When we formed Metanoia Peace Community, we struggled with whether to even use the word church in our name because of its association with a place or establishment. We wanted to express our sense that we were a community rather than an institution. But then we had to reckon with the fact that the English Bible uses the term church to describe the kind of community we wanted to be, even though in current usage in America the term church is freighted with institutional connotations. Our compromise was to use our official name: Metanoia Peace Community United Methodist Church on “official” documents, but mostly to use only the name Metanoia Peace Community in our conversations and communications.
It also helped that the Metanoia congregation met for its Sunday worship in five different rented or borrowed locations over a span of 27 years and that weekday church activities were usually in the home of one of the members or in some other location different from the Sunday worship location. I have noticed that some of the newer emergent congregations are enjoying this same kind of flexibility as well.
I have recently been observing and appreciating the practices of a unique group in New York City that calls itself the “Church of Stop Shopping” or sometimes “The Church Beyond Shopping.” (If a church is a gathering of people and not a permanent institution why can’t it have a series of names that change as its ministry changes?) Some would deny that this group is even a church because it does not use traditional God language, although it does have a strong, spiritual, creation-centered message of salvation and a mission to rescue people who are caught in the culture of American consumerism.
The members are proclaiming and living into what the followers of Jesus call the commonwealth of God, even if they don’t use those words. But most important to our discussion they qualify as a church in the biblical sense because they are a genuine ekklesia of committed people who--under the inspiration mediated through their dynamic preacher and pastor, Rev Billy Talen, and his wife Savitra D. who directs the Stop Shopping Choir”--meet together, sing together and minister together in a variety of places including the streets of New York, bank lobbies and retail stores.[4] I suspect they may also engage in some of the other church practices that are introduced in the chapters that follow.
Gatherings sponsored by Alcoholic Anonymous and other 12-Step recovery groups also display some of the aspects associated with ekklesia. They are small, intimate, local assemblies of persons who share a common objective: recovery from addiction, both for themselves and others. They agree that they are powerless without the assistance of a “higher power,” and the support of comrades. Coming from diverse backgrounds and family situations they have formed a new family that meets together frequently, sometimes over a period of many years. And these groups engage in some of other practices described in this book. Emergent churches would do well to observe the operation of 12-step groups in their own communities and emulate them!
One final observation: if a church is to be an ekklesia in the 21st century it needs to pay attention to its process of governance and decision making. In America most institutional churches model their governance and decision making after the practices of corporations registered by state government. Decisions are made mostly by an elected Board of Directors (sometimes known as a Board of Elders or Administrative Council), although sometimes election is by a majority vote at a meeting of the full membership. The process is typically governed by rules, usually Roberts Rules of Order.
Some new emergent churches opt to practice governance by consensus, which usually means than an action does not go into effect until every member either (a) agrees to the action or (b) disagrees with the action but agrees not to let their opposition prevent the decision of a strong majority of members from moving forward. But in a pure consensus model of governance, one individual person can always prevent an action from going forward by “blocking consensus,” which is another way of saying that one person “wins” and everyone else “loses.”
But neither governance by majority rule, nor governance by consensus as defined above attains the ideal urged by Paul in his letter to the Philippians when he wrote “make my joy complete: be of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind.” Philippians 2:2). There is no common mind in the ekklesia, if any person in the ekkesia “loses” in a voting process, or “stands aside” to allow a majority to have its way.
But reaching “full accord” and experiencing a “common mind,” (which Paul later equates with the “mind . . . that was in Christ Jesus,” is the only adequate outcome for a process of decision making in a mature ekklesia. And only a lack of faith on our part would doubt that such a common mind or “unity of spirit” (1 Peter 3:8) is possible to achieve. But how is this possible?
In our Metanoia community we turned to a centuries-old Quaker discernment process called “Sense of the Meeting.” In this process when a church body has to make a decision, and especially a decision that is bound to be difficult because of already expressed differences of opinion, there are three steps. First, a moderator offers to every person present at the meeting an opportunity to express a personal opinion and to argue his or her case for or against a certain outcome. Second, the moderator asks everyone present to set aside all personal opinions and arguments and to wait in silence, thus giving the Holy Spirit an opportunity to make its will known to the body as a whole. Individuals are asked to speak out of the silence only when they believe that the spirit is prompting them to relay a Spirit-filled message (but not a personal opinion!) to the whole group. After a person speaks in this way silence returns and continues until another person is led to speak in the Spirit. Waiting on the Spirit in this way has the effect of reducing conflict and contention for particular predetermined outcomes. In the third step, the moderator, also listening as the Spirit brings the group into harmony, will say, “I believe that it is the sense of this meeting that we are being led to proceed as follows . . .” Typically when this process has been followed carefully those present will nod and smile in agreement without feeling any need to voice their assent by voting, because the group feels a deep inner peace and love for one another along with the realization that they share a common mind about the decision they have achieved together.*
A group that has learned to discern the will of the Spirit together in this way will quickly discern that in less controversial matters it already has a sense of the meeting, without having to go through the longer discernment process. Also there will greater tendency to trust gifted leaders to make certain decisions that are right for the group without needing to have a meeting for this purpose.
Chapter 2. Metanoia
The second essential practice of the church described in the New Testament is metanoia. Unfortunately the English word used most often to translate the word metanoia, when it appears in the Greek New Testament, is “repentance.” For most Americans repentance has come to mean (a) a feeling such as regret, remorse, contrition, or shame, or (b) an act of piety in response to such feelings, such as penance, reparation or atonement. But none of these words does justice to the New Testament meaning.
The Greek word is formed by combining the word meta meaning “beyond” and the word noia meaning “mind.” The combination literally means “beyond mind.” It expresses the idea of gaining a new mind-set, a new way of thinking and acting, a new orientation to life. To repent really means to start thinking and acting in a radically different way.
Thus in the Gospel of Mark we hear Jesus say, as he begins his ministry: “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom (commonwealth) of God has come near, repent (metanoeite), and believe in [this] good news” (Mark 1: 15). The connection between the coming near of the commonwealth of God and this call to people to change their ways of thinking and acting is really a call to shift their loyalty from the current social and political establishment (in Jesus time, the Roman Empire and its Judean allies) to the new political and social reality that God is bringing into being.
It is important to note that the twin imperatives “repent” and “believe in the good news” are not two different activities, but two ways of expressing the same pursuit. In this instance to believe in good news does not mean to hold a strong mental or even visceral conviction that the news is true and that it is good, but rather to act in the certainty that a the new situation proclaimed by Jesus mandates a radical difference in behavior.
In inviting his hearers to undergo metanoia, Jesus follows the example of his contemporary, John the Baptist, who in his preaching offered a “baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins,” (Mark 1:4) with immersion in the Jordan River as an appropriate sign. Clearly the Gospel writer wants us to understand that metanoia is not just an introduction to the possibility of change, but an extraordinary, wrenching initiation into a radical new way of life.
Later, in the story of Pentecost in Acts 2, after Peter’s sermon in which he preaches to the crowd and helps them to understand their Pentecostal experience, his stunned audience is “cut to the heart,” and they ask Peter and the other apostles, “Brothers, what should we do?” (Acts 2:37). And Peter’s immediate response is the same as that of Jesus: Repent!
Later in his response Peter makes even clearer the change he is calling for when he says, “Save yourselves from this crooked generation,” (Acts 2:40) or, to use Eugene Peterson’s colloquial language, “Get out while you can; get out of this sick and stupid culture.”[5]
In the 18th century John Wesley had a similar kind of behavior in mind when he invited his fellow Methodists to “flee from the wrath to come.”
Clearly then repentance involves a turning away from the distorted values and practices of the dominant culture and a turning toward the Kingdom (Reign, Rule, or Commonwealth) of God. (See Mark 1:15, Luke 24:45-47, Acts 2:37-42, Acts 5:27-32, and Acts 11:18 and notice the ways the words “repent” and “repentance” are used). Those who would be followers of Jesus are expected to renounce allegiance to any lesser rule or power and instead to “seek first the Kingdom of God. . .” (Matthew 6:33) and to “deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me,” (Mark 8:24) i.e. follow Jesus into the risk of punishment because of their resistance to the ruling powers and the accepted customs of the dominant culture.
This is not, however, a call to isolate ourselves and our churches from engagement with the world. Jesus and the Apostles practiced serious engagement with the world. It is a call, rather, to live in the world without being formed by the world. The Apostle Paul urges the ekklesia in the city of Rome to
. . . not be conformed to this world, but [to] be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may discern what is the will of God . . .” (Romans 12:2).
(Note that in this verse the Greek word translated as “mind” is singular in the Greek, meaning that the mind to be transformed is the collective mind of the ekklesia, not the individual minds of the members!)
An early example of metanoia in action appears in Acts 5, where the Jerusalem apostles refuse to conform to the demands of the temple establishment, saying “We must obey God rather than any human authority” (Acts 5:29).
Another example of metanoia is found in the embrace of pacifism by the earliest generations of Jesus followers:
Christ said, “Love your enemies.” Paul added, “Overcome evil with good.” It is clear that Christians in the post-biblical age continued to live this message. So universal was this affirmation that every Christian statement on the subject dating from the first 300 years that survives today opposes Christian participation in war. There are no exceptions. There is no record of any early Christian having written anything that condoned war.[6]
Two stories illustrate how radical this position was in a Roman Empire that expected all able bodied young men to participate in military service:
. . . [W]hen one 21-year-old Christian, Maximilianus (c.295) was commanded to enlist in the Roman army, he replied: I cannot serve as a soldier. I cannot do evil. I am a Christian.” Like Stephen, James, and other earlier apostles, he was executed.[7]
Marcellus, a centurion, became a Christian. He refused to fight, so was thrown into prison, but said, “I threw down [my arms] for it was not seemly that a Christian man, who renders military service to the Lord Christ, should render it [also] by inflicting earthly injuries.” They killed him, but the clerk of the court was so impressed he accepted Christ and also was executed… [8]
A third example of metanoia in the ekklesai in the New Testament involves the confrontation, renunciation, and elimination of the power of money in individual and community life. Jesus said, “You cannot serve God and wealth” for they are rival masters. (Matthew 6:24 and Luke 16:13). When the Jesus followers turned to God they discovered that this also meant turning away from dependence on, or even interest in, the accumulation of what Jesus called “dishonest wealth” (Luke 16:9 NRSV). For the ekklesia in Jerusalem this meant getting rid of private wealth entirely:
Now the whole group of those who believed were of one heart and soul, and no one claimed private possession of anything, but everything they owned was held in common (Gr. koine) . . . for as many as owned lands or houses sold them and brought the proceeds of what was sold. They laid it at the Apostles feet, and it was distributed to each as any had need. (Acts 4:32-34)
It is important to note that metanoia is offered as God’s gift to all those who are ready to receive it and embrace it, trusting the Holy Spirit to work the changes in our hearts and in our shared life that we will need in order to sustain those changes. Indeed, as Jesus is reported to have pointed out, without God’s gift of metanoia the changes that metanoiarequires would be impossible (see Matthew 19: 26).
A beautiful testimony to the reality of metanoia as divine gift is found in Acts 11: 15-18 where Peter concludes a report to the somewhat skeptical ekklesia in Jerusalem about his emerging new friendship with non-Jewish believers:
. . . And as I began to speak the Holy Spirit fell upon them just as it had upon us at the beginning. And I remembered the word of the Lord, how he had said, ‘John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.’ If then God gave them the same gift that he gave us when we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I could hinder God?” When they heard this they were silenced. And they praised God, saying, “Then God has given even to the Gentiles the metanoia that leads to life.
Metanoia leads to life! The ways of empire lead to death and indeed promote death. Those who follow Christ turn from death to life, and that turning is the gift called “metanoia.” It is the gift referenced in the famous song that goes:
‘Tis a gift to be simple, ‘tis a gift to be free,
‘tis a gift to come ‘round where we ought to be
and when we find ourselves in a place that’s right
it will be in the valley of love and delight!
When true simplicity is gained
to bow and to bend we will not be ashamed,
To turn, turn will be our delight
‘til by turning, turning we come round right.[9]
Metanoia in the 21st Century Ekklesia
The typical institutional church congregation in North America today is not designed to embrace the gift of metanoiaas radical change from the ways of the dominant culture. Most congregations are so accustomed to conforming to the world’s expectations rather than to God’s expectations, that changing direction will seem impossible. But, as Jesus is reported to have said, “for God, all things are possible” (Matthew 19:26).
In the small emergent church that I have been a part of for more than a quarter century, it has been helpful to frame our situation as a church in the language of recovery from addiction, since many of our members are quite familiar with the work of the several twelve step recovery programs. We recognize and admit that we are addicted to the ways of the world are that are contrary to the values of the kin-dom of God—such as privatization of property; the accumulation of money and the over-consumption of things that money can buy; the idolatry of the nuclear family; the economic, racial, ethnic, and social classification of persons for purposes of discrimination and privilege; the exploitation of the natural world and the depletion of its resources; and the willingness to enjoy the wealth and other privileges of a nation that has acquired these at the expense of other peoples who are left to deal with poverty, disease and despair as a result.
Like those with other addictions we admit that we are powerless over our addictions and that we must rely on the strength of a higher power working in us to detach from them. For us whose life is in the ekklesia that higher power is God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the “working in us” is God’s gift of metanoia.
We know that the working of God’s power within us must begin with an initial process of detoxification followed by a longer period of disciplined recovery involving mutual mentoring by fellow addicts, such as is achieved through a twelve-step program. We already have precedents for such programs, such as the catechetical process by which early followers of Jesus prepared for baptism, and the class meetings initiated by John Wesley in the 18th century for the people called Methodist.
Just as recovering alcoholics and drug users figure out ways to stay away from drugs and alcohol, so with the help of our fellow believers can we figure out what we need to do, individually and collectively, to effectively eliminate our dependence on the things that harm us and our world. Such ways can include:
1. The renunciation of private property, either by choosing not to own property, or by regarding the property we do own as property held in trust for the common good rather than as private investment.
2. Living communally rather than in isolated nuclear family units, and donating to the poor the money saved thereby.
3. Avoiding the ownership and use of private automobiles and the fossil fuels needed to run them, by using public transportation.
4. Sharing of income and other resources according to actual need (see specific suggestions in the following chapter on koinonia.)
5. Stopping shopping! Forgoing acquisitions that are frivolous and limiting purchases to items that are essential.
6. Saying “no” to the practices and demands of empire by engaging in non-violent civil disobedience against, and non-cooperation with, specific forms of injustice, and accepting the criminal penalties that may result, including fines and jail time.
The above ways, in addition to helping free ourselves, from our addiction to the ways of the dominant culture, can also be a witness or testimony to our commitment to the Commonwealth of God (see the chapter on marturia below).
Chapter 3. Koinonia
In most New Testament translations the Greek word koinonia is usually rendered in English as “fellowship,” but the koinonia that binds together the followers of Jesus is much more precious, more intimate, more mystical, and more deeply satisfying than our word “fellowship” can convey, especially as this word is typically used in our time.
In my experience as a pastor and observer of institutional churches, this deeper level of relationship is rare and sometimes non-existent in many American congregations. When such churches experience this lack of deep relationships between members, they may try to create it somewhat artificially by attaching the word “fellowship” to anything and everything connected with the church. There are fellowship halls, fellowship groups, fellowship dinners, and fireside fellowships. And because the typical Sunday service in many congregations offers little opportunity for human interaction, the service is often followed by a “fellowship hour,” as a time where people can at least chat with each other superficially for a brief period before leaving the church building to resume the activities of their highly individualized lives.
But in the New Testament, koinonia is much more than casual, superficial and occasional camaraderie. It is, rather, a deep and abiding communion that happens among persons “whose relationships go deeper than their masks of composure, and who have developed some significant commitment to rejoice together, mourn together, delight in each other, and make each other’s condition their own.” (M. Scott Peck).[10]
Because M. Scott Peck’s attempt at defining community, as quoted above, can apply generically to any authentic community whether specifically religious or not, I developed my own working definition of a church community, using ideas and language from theology. It reads as follows:
The Church (ekklesia) is
a community of persons who—
in response to the call of Jesus the Christ to come out of “the world” and to
live into the kin-dom of God as one body in Christ—
have entered into a covenant to share daily in their life together
the love (agape) of Christ,
the communion (koinonia) of the Holy Spirit,
the hope of God’s kin-dom,
mutual accountability as disciples of Jesus,
and the communal possessions needed to sustain them and their families.
This deep and abiding communion is a divine gift to all who have begun to share the gifts of ekklesia and metanoiathat we have already mentioned.
Notice how this word koinonia is used in these words of scripture from the First Letter of John:
“ . . . we declare to you what we have seen and heard so that you also may have koinonia with us, and truly our koinonia is with God and with God’s Offspring Jesus Christ. We are writing these things so that our joy may be complete.” (1 John 1:3-4)
“ . . . if we walk in the light as [Christ] is in the light we have koinonia with one another, and the blood of Jesus God’s Son cleanses us from all sin.” (1 John 1:7)
This communion is realized in the body of Christ, and recognized as “Holy Communion” when we gather together at the Lord’s Table (see 1 Cor. 10:16 where the word koinonia is translated as “sharing,” or mutual “participation” in the blood and body of Christ).
Some New Testament scholars are convinced that the original Holy Communion was more than a metaphorical meal acted out with minuscule portions of symbolic food and drink. Instead, they say, Holy Communion was an oft-repeated, if not, daily, communal meal in which the ekklesia, composed often of very poor families, met around a common table and shared with each other whatever food they could scrape together in order to survive. The koinonia meal was, for them a concrete, material manifestation of their shared life in Christ, a common life that was radically different from the lives of other people in the world around them.
The first followers of Jesus not only shared meals but other material goods, and money as well. As Luke reports in Acts 4:32, “Now the whole group of those who believed (i.e. the ekklesia in Jerusalem) were of one heart and soul, and no one claimed private ownership of any possessions, but everything they owned was held in common (koina).”
The extent of this communion is further revealed in Romans 15:26 and 2 Cor. 9:13 where, in the earlier Revised Standard Version of the New Testament (1946), the word koinonia is translated by the word “contribution.” Here it clearly refers to a voluntary offering of funds from the churches of Macedonia and Achaia to help meet the economic needs of the poorer saints in Jerusalem.
Koinonia in the 21st Century Ekklesia
It is extremely difficult for most U.S. Christians in the 21st century to even imagine belonging to a church that encourages the level of intimate social and economic sharing that quickly became second nature to the first followers of Jesus of Nazareth, the crucified and risen Christ.
The primarily reason for this difficulty is that this koinonia stands in radical contrast to the dominant values of rugged individualism and private, self-centered success that are rampant in American culture today. The messages we heard in Sunday School about caring for one another are drowned out by advertising that tells us to “Have it your way,” or “You deserve ____ (fill in the blank)___!” And achievement in our society is more about “getting ahead” (of others presumably), by earning more than others for a day’s work and by accumulating more possessions, than about working cooperatively to achieve a “common good”
One of the greatest symbols of misplaced values in America today is the state-operated lottery and its promise of a grand prize winner. The One who shared a small amount of loaves and fishes with 5000 people so that all were fed equally must cringe to see a popular device where millions of people, many of them poor and unemployed, are invited to contribute money so that just one person (or a few persons) among them may become fabulously wealthy.
Another questionable invention of our highly individualized culture is the IRA, the individual retirement account. Unlike Social Security and communal or fraternal pension plans, the IRA has little regard for common good, and much regard for the maximization of private wealth.
We are so immersed in this culture that is so addicted to individual self-advantage and has so little regard for the common good that such a situation has come to seem normal to us. It will surely take a baptism of metanoia (as described in the previous chapter) to set us free to practice biblical koinonia. But such freedom is possible if we are willing to embrace it. Remember that in every century since the first ekklesiae came together there have been followers of Jesus who have responded to the call to demonstrate a different way of living by entering into intentional koinonia with one another. Examples include ancient and contemporary monastic communities throughout the world.
For my wife Pat and me this call to experience and promote koinonia came in the late 1970s although it wasn’t until 1986 that we were able to help start a new local church where koinonia, including economic sharing would be fully embraced by the whole membership. It was in that year that 30 adults created Metanoia Peace Community. Among the eleven expectations that we agreed to as part of our covenant of membership were these six that speak directly to the maintenance of koinonia in our congregational life. We agreed to:
· Participate weekly in the Sunday gatherings of the community.
· Meet regularly with other members in a small Covenant Member Group, where we allow others to hold us accountable for living out this covenant.
· Meet monthly with other members in a gathering of the full membership.
· Support and uphold one another, as together we participate in building up the body of Christ.
· Continue in membership until, in conversation with our fellow members, we have together come to discernment that we are being called to some other place or relationship.
· Regard all of our personal income and possessions as a resource to be shared, beginning with the tithe (10%).
The first five of these six expectations went a long way to creating and maintaining a community of caring and sharing. It is practically impossible for a group of people to develop a significant level of trust and mutual commitment if they don’t meet together frequently and get to know each other intimately.
But I am convinced that what really enabled koinonia to flourish in Metanoia Peace Community was the last expectation listed above. To achieve it we first had to break the widespread American taboo against talking with each other about our relationship with money, and particularly about our personal financial resources and obligations. Some of us had to admit to other church members that we had an embarrassing level of credit card debt, or that we had a habit of wasting money on frivolous purchases while neglecting the obligations of faithful stewardship that are taught in scripture.
Finally we had to begin moving away from the notion of “my” money and possession, and toward the notion of “our” combined income and possessions as a collective resource to be shared with each other in the community and with others outside our community as any had need. The tithe (10%) would be our down payment or “earnest money” that we would relinquish at the beginning of every month as our promise that we were working to share even more*
To move forward in our embrace of economic koinonia, we created a community needs fund, and agreed that 30% of every dollar of income that the church received through tithes and offerings would go into the fund. We then invited members to present their bills for unexpected personal expenses, so that these could be paid from the fund. In the more than twenty years this fund was in place, we were able to pay for every need that was presented because there was always a surplus in the account! At one point the leaders expressed a concern that one particular member might be depending too much on the fund, and offered to intervene to help the member figure out a more realistic budget to balance income and expenses. The offer was received gratefully, leading to an even deeper experience of koinonia.
Just knowing that we were a church with a willingness to share each other’s financial burdens vastly transformed the quality of our relationships. Some people skipped the community needs fund and just gave money or belongings directly to fellow members whose needs they became aware of. One member of the congregation, a single woman, made her personal automobile available for regular use by a family of four whose car had died and who did not have the resources to acquire another one. Similar kinds of arrangements became commonplace in our congregation!
From the very beginning of our congregational formation some wanted to go further. Seven members of Metanoia Peace Community including Pat and me, combined our income and other resources and moved into a large house together, agreeing to share income, meals, and a common ministry of community, hospitality and peacemaking. Four of us are still the anchors of this communal venture after 29 years of living together in the same house, which also became a gathering place for many Metanoia church activities!
Chapter 4. Diakonia
Diakonia is at the heart of the life of the ekklesia. In the New Testament the Greek word diakonia is usually translated as “ministry,” “service,” or “serving.” The verb diakoneo means “to serve.” It is from these roots that we derive the word “deacon.”
Most churches agree that they are called to serve other people both individually and together as a congregation. Typically this service takes such form of preparing food boxes for poor families, offering tutoring or mentoring programs, organizing mission trips, visiting the sick and those in prison, taking worship ministries into nursing homes, etc.
But in the New Testament diakonia implies more than charitable activities directed towards others, although that is certainly also part of our calling.
For example, in Acts 6 the word diakonia appears twice where it is translated (in NRSV) both as “waiting on tables” and “distribution.” In this case the need addressed by the diakonia of the Apostles, and later by the deacons appointed by them, is not only the serving of food, but also the fair, non-discriminatory allocation of that food. Thus diakonia could involve not just serving food to people who are hungry, or bringing comfort to people who are sick, but also seeking to discover why so many are hungry in a world of plenty, and why so many are sick, and then working to challenge and change or replace the social, political, and economic arrangements and systems that allow or promote hunger and illness. And it is at that point that the followers of Jesus could face the greater risk!
Another thing to know about diakonia in the ekklesia that was born at Pentecost is that everyone in the church is called to some specific ministry even though ministry may take different forms for different members. See 1 Cor. 12: 4-7 where Paul says,
“ . . .there are varieties of services (diakonion) . . . but it is the same God who activates all of them in everyone. To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good . . . All of these are activated by one and the same Spirit who allots to each one individually just as the Spirit chooses.”
Moreover, in these verses and indeed in the entire New Testament there is never any suggestion that any particular service is more important than any other. In the ekklesia there is no such thing as a menial service. And there is no such thing as a noble or exalted ministry. Even the twelve Apostles are servants, and so is Jesus himself as he famously points out when he washes the disciple’s feet, and tells them that they should do the same for each other. (John 13:1-20)
The story that is told in Acts 6 has often been misunderstood by those who haven’t yet grasped the point that Paul was making about all forms of service being equal. Because in our culture we have developed the notion that preaching or teaching is a more noble profession than waiting on tables, we assume too quickly that the Apostles were saying that they saw their ministry as more important than the ministry of ordinary people and that they should not have to stoop to such base and degrading labor as distributing food.
But the text does not say that. It says that the apostles realized that if only a few of them tried to do all of the important ministries that needed to be done in the ekklesia, some of the ministries would be neglected. That is in fact what had already happened in this story with the result that some were being neglected and perhaps even discriminated against when the communal food was being distributed. The solution put forth by the Apostles was to divide up the responsibilities and share them with others. Henceforth some designated persons in the ekklesia would tend to the important work of serving the word, i.e. preaching and leadership; and other designated persons would tend to the equally import ministry of seeing that nobody got left out when the food was served. Again it is significant that in this scripture story the same word diakonia is used to refer to both kinds of ministry.
Unfortunately in Christian history this sense of the equality of ministry keeps getting lost, and the notion of a hierarchy of service and of servanthood creeps back in. In more recent centuries some church institutions have elevated apostles or “elders” above “deacons.” We must work hard to see that we do not fall into this bad habit.
We must also resist the notion that the one who ministers or serves another person is in anyway superior to the one who receives that person’s ministry or service. Indeed diakonia is always mutual ministry—ministry as an extension of koinonia—as we are reminded in the opening words of the “Servant Song” that we love to sing in our faith community:[11]
Brother, sister let me serve you. Let me be as Christ to you;
Pray that I may have the grace to let you be my servant too.
We are pilgrims on a journey; we’re together on this road.
We are here to help each other walk the mile and bear the load.
I will hold the Christ light for you in the night-time of your fear;
I will hold my hand out to you, speak the peace you long to hear.
I will weep when you are weeping, when you laugh, I’ll laugh with you.
I will share your joy and sorrow till we’ve seen this journey through.
When we sing to God in heaven, we shall find such harmony,
Born of all we’ve known together of Christ’s love and agony.
Diakonia in the 21st Century Ekklesia
If what Paul says in 1 Corinthians 12:4-7 is true (see above) then we must pay attention to the leading of the Spirit that assigns to each of us our particular place of ministry in, and for the common good of, the ekklesia to which we belong. Often this is the exact opposite of what most institutional churches do. Most institutional churches begin with a list of offices that the members assume need to be filled and/or jobs that they believe are essential for the maintenance of the institution. Then, usually annually, they set out to fill those slots with persons who agree to serve, perhaps only after some arm twisting or assurance that the job will not occupy too much of their time.
Since the mid twentieth century, a unique group of house churches in Washington DC that minister under the name “Church of the Savior,” have taken a different approach. They work with individual members to practice spiritual discernment aimed at discovering the particular ministry, within or for the ekklesia, to which the Spirit of God has called them personally. Through this discernment process, with the assistance of their fellow members, some discover that they are called to preach, others to engage in pastoral ministry, and still others to serve in administrative capacities. Sometimes individual members discover that they are called to particular ministries that have never been performed before, perhaps because they were never needed before.
In this way the ekklesia takes its shape, and changes its shape, based upon of the ministries assigned by the spirit to its individual members.
Chapter 5. Kerygma
When God calls us together as ekklesia, God gives us a message to declare, a story to tell, a sermon to preach, a song to sing, a hope to proclaim. The content of this proclamation and the very act of proclaiming it, are known in Greek as kerygma. In English we call it preaching, or proclamation. The corresponding Greek verb is kerusso, which means “to cry or proclaim” as would someone do who is making an important public announcement.
Ekklesia and kerygma are inextricably joined together. We are; we tell, we announce. By the words we speak and the very life we live together before the world, we communicate God’s will and purpose, God’s love and grace, God’s sovereignty over all creation, and God’s working in our own lives.
But, in truth, most of us do not find it easy to announce these truths vocally. In the “show and tell” department we find it much easier to show than to tell! We have some difficulty believing that our faith experience gives us something vital to say out loud in the public arena. And so, to those who most need to hear the message of God’s truth and love we mostly offer a confused and timid silence.
And yet as followers of Jesus, as his risen body in the world, we have inherited the vocation of proclamation that he spelled out clearly at the outset of his ministry. In the account of Jesus’ synagogue sermon in Nazareth, the word kerussoappears not once but twice.
The Spirit of the LORD is upon me
because God has anointed me
to announce good news to the poor,
God has sent me to proclaim
release to the captives
and recovery of sight to the blind,
to let the oppressed go free,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor [a.k.a.jubilee, see Leviticus 25)].
--Luke 4:18-19, quoting Isaiah
That Jesus does not intend to reserve this vocation for himself alone, is indicated later in Luke’s gospel when Jesus sends the Twelve apostles out into the villages of Galilee with instructions “to proclaim the kingdom of God and to heal” (Luke 9:1). See also Acts 8:25 where Luke tells us that “after Peter and John had testified and spoken the word of the Lord, they returned to Jerusalem, proclaiming the good news to many villages of the Samaritans.
The act of proclamation of which Jesus speaks in this passage from Isaiah is also referred to as “announcing good news” (Greek. euaggelizo, from which we get the English word evangelize).
Notice that the word” “proclaim,” and the related word “evangelize, in the above passages from Luke 4, Luke 9 and Acts 8 and elsewhere in the New Testament, are not just about transmitting information. When we proclaim something, we do not just repeat it as a fact or a reality. By our proclamation we also help create the fact or reality that we are proclaiming. When Jesus, or we, proclaim release to the captives, they are released from the fear and despair that binds them; when we proclaim recovery of sight to the blind, they can see realities that they could not see before; we let the oppressed go free by announcing to them that they are free, even though their oppressors may not yet be ready to acknowledge their emancipation, and they respond accordingly.
Healing, leading to wellness, is closely linked to preaching, which is why in the above quotation from Luke 9:1 Jesus sends the Twelve apostles (and, by extension, us) to proclaim the kingdom of God and to heal. I have come to realize that Jesus was not here giving us two different jobs to do, but one. We proclaim the promise and assurance of a present and coming commonwealth—the Kingdom of God, or a “New Jerusalem” in which there is no more illness and suffering. For some our proclamation leads to immediate wellness. And if not all are healed at once, the promise of universal healing remains and we keep on preaching!
Just how our proclamation can create the reality we proclaim is, to be sure, something of a divine mystery. But it works, and that is why we must include preaching as one of the essential practices of the emergent church, even though to many who do not “get it” it makes no sense! It was this realization that prompted the famous observation by the Apostle Paul in his first letter to the ekklesia in Corinth:
For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, God decided, through the foolishness of our proclamation (kerygmatos) to save those who believe. --1 Corinthians 1:21
When I came to you, brothers and sisters, I did not come proclaiming the mystery of God to you in lofty words of wisdom. For I decided to know nothing among you but Jesus Christ and him crucified. And I came to you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling. My speech and my proclamation (kerygma) was not with plausible words of wisdom, but with a demonstration of the Spirit and of power, so that your faith might rest not on human wisdom but on the power of God. --1 Corinthians 2: 1-5
Surely these are welcome words for those of us who don’t think we are smart enough to “preach” effectively! Possibly the most important preaching we can do, is simply to tell our own story—to tell what we know to be true about God’s presence in our own lives and in the corporate life or our ekklesia, and what we have been able to do because of that presence.
But churches through the ages have a common story too, a story that is expressed well in an old gospel hymn, “We’ve a Story to Tell to the Nations”:[12]
1. We’ve a story to tell to the nations, that shall turn their hearts to the right, a story of truth and mercy,
A story of peace and light . .
2. We’ve a song to be sung to the nations, that shall lift their hearts to the Lord,
A song that shall conquer evil, and shatter the spear and sword . . .. .
3. We’ve a message to give to the nations, that the Lord who reigneth above
has sent us his Son to save us, and show us that God is love . . .
4. We’ve a Savior to show to the nations, who the path of sorrow has trod,
that all of the world’s great peoples might come to the truth of God . . .
Again it is the story and the message and the act of proclaiming it that will change the world. Not expert advice. Not education, Not useful information properly applied. Just a plain story, faithfully told.
More than fifty years ago the theologian C.H. Dodd suggested that original kergyma of the early Apostles, and other first century followers of Jesus is best summarized in Acts 10: 36-43, as follows:
You know the message [God] sent to the people of Israel, announcing good news--peace by Jesus Christ—he is Lord of all. That message spread throughout Judea, beginning in Galilee after the baptism that John announced: how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power; how he went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with him. We are witnesses to all that he did both in Judea and in Jerusalem. They put him to death by hanging him on a tree; but God raised him on the third day and allowed him to appear, not to all the people but to us who were chosen by God as witnesses, and who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead. He commanded us to preach to the people and to testify that he is the one ordained by God as judge of the living and the dead. All the prophets testify about him that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name.
Perhaps the simplest form of the kerygma is the phrase. “Jesus is Lord.” This is an abbreviated way of declaring: “executed-Galilean-political-prisoner-is-alive-having-demonstrated-authority-that-exceeds-that-of-emperor-under-whose-authority-he-was-killed-and-we-therefore-offer-allegiance-to-this-One-who-does-not-rule-by-violence-but-with-the-non-violent-love-of-God-that-dwells-in-him!
Kerygma in the 21st Century Ekklesia
I am not prepared to offer widely applicable suggestions for how to actually fulfill the call to preach good news to strangers in contemporary contexts. But I can offer here an example that illustrates how one can take advantage of contextual opportunities for “proclamation.”
Several years ago our congregation chose to participate fully in an “Occupy Wall Street” related public action protesting our current U.S. economic system that allocates most of the national wealth to 1% of the US population while the other 90% are left to compete for what is left over. As part of the action we decided to distribute our own unique “gospel tracts,” not only to the public but to our fellow protesters. The tracts were headlined, “GOD’S ECONOMY: It’s the only economy that really works.” Comparing our distressed U.S. economy with the economy of Palestine in the time of Jesus, we said,
Into this distressed economy came Jesus “proclaiming the good news of God, and saying, ‘The time is fulfilled, the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe the good news.’” (Mark 1:14-15) This kingdom (or commonwealth) that Jesus announced as within reach is in fact an alternative economy different from, and better than, all economies invented and controlled by selfish human beings! Jesus’ invitation to “repent and believe the good news” was an invitation to all who would hear—rich and poor alike—to stop operating according to current broken, unjust economic systems, based as they are on greed and the acquisition of private wealth, and to start living into God’s new commonwealth, a social, political and economic realm that we can trust will really meet the human needs of all of us because it accurately reflects the will of God and the purpose for which God created us! (For a complete text of this gospel tract see the appendix.)
We cannot know how many persons might have been changed by our proclamation, but we can say with some confidence that we proclaimed an important truth about Jesus and the commonwealth of God that is seldom if ever told in conventional gospel tracts, which typically focus on individual salvation, without a social gospel dimension, and a kingdom of God that we have to die to get into, and then only if we have made a proper verbal confession of belief.
I do not rule out oral “street preaching” to complete strangers as a valid way of proclaiming gospel truth, even though I personally never felt the call to preach in this way. But I can envision persons who might be so called, and who, unlike many fundamentalist street preachers, could attract hearers with kerygma that is (a) full of humor, grace, love, invitation, and the hope for a better society this side of the grave, and (b) light on condemnation and appeals to fear of punishment and promises of salvation only in a heaven somewhere else after we die.
Those who do attempt street preaching will do well to observe and learn from vendors who sell kitchen appliances and other gadgets to crowds of people at county fairs. The ones I have observed have developed an amazing ability to get people to stop and attend to what they are saying and even to want to remain until the dramatic conclusion of their presentation. And even though their entire spiel may take 10-20 minutes they somehow manage to keep the crowd from losing interest while constantly drawing in new passersby and making them a part of the experience.
Chapter 6: Marturia
A sixth practice in this series is marturia It is closely related to kergma.
The Greek word marturia means “testimony”, and a related word, martus, means “one who testifies.” In a court of law or even in the court of public opinion we depend on witnesses to provide information that will help us to separate claims that are true from claims that are less than truthful. The bulk of a court trial is devoted to hearing from witnesses and examining and cross-examining their testimony.
Jesus says to his followers, “You shall be my witnesses (martures) in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth” (Acts 1:8). In other words, Jesus is saying, when people anywhere are confused or curious and want to know about me—and what my life, death and resurrection mean for the world and its people, I am counting on you, my church, to testify about me—to tell what you have seen and what you have experienced concerning me and my importance in your life together.
Each of you individually and all of you together will be my martures; each of you and all of you together will share your marturia with others.
In and from the church there always needs to be two kinds of witness or testimony. The first is the testimony that we give just by being who we are and doing what we do openly so that others may observe us. When people see us publicly acting out the characteristics associated with authentic metanoia, koinonia, and diakonia they will catch a glimpse of what the kin-dom of God will look like when its influence extends to all nations and peoples. As the song says, “ . . . they’ll know we are Christians (people who follow Christ) by our love” for one another.
But our witness may well involve us also telling in words the meaning of the collective life we live, and letting others know that it is God who, in Christ, has called us to this life. This kind of story telling will become an invitation to strangers to consider also accepting God’s gifts of metanoia, koinonia, diakonia, and even marturia, through becoming a part of God’s church (ekklesia)!
By now you have probably figured out that our English word “martyr” has its root in the Greek words martusand marturia. And perhaps you have also surmised that martyrdom in its original meaning was not about just any unpleasant death at the hands of an enemy, but more specifically the death of a star witness, carried out by those who would attempt to silence his or her testimony. Thus a person is not a martyr because he/she has died. The opposite may be true: he/she has died because of already having become a martyr (i.e. a witness) and having been silenced by death for doing so. Archbishop Oscar Romero of El Salvador is an excellent example of such a martyr in the 20thcentury.
So clearly marturia involves risk. But that should be no problem for those who follow the Christ who “humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death—even death on a cross” (Philippians 2:8)--dying so that others might live.
Marturia in the 21st Century Ekklesia
As with kerygma I don’t have a specific formula to offer for effective “witnessing.” But I can offer some examples from my own experience and encourage readers to look out for similar ways to offer testimony, even at the risk of personal sacrifice.
In the mid-1980s Pat and I joined a small group of “Christian Peacemakers” who, among other things, agreed to join a group of over 100 protesters who were planning to sit on the railroad track in Portland Oregon to block the passage of a train carrying guided missile motors for delivery to a nuclear submarine base in Puget Sound. The group that planned the action had decided that the larger group of protestors would be formed into smaller, disciplined affinity groups whose members could look after each other as we faced almost certain confrontation and potential arrest by the police. Because each affinity group was asked to choose a name for easy identification by the larger group, we chose the name, “Metanoia.” Thus whenever any of our fellow protestors asked where we got our name we could bear witness to the New Testament source of our commitment to be peacemakers in the world.
A further opportunity for marturia came when some of our affinity group were among those who arrested and put on trial after pleading not guilty to the crimes of criminal trespass and “delaying a train.”
Although some of the defendants were represented by legal counsel during the trial, I chose to act as my own attorney. I called no witnesses in my defense, but limited my remarks to a prepared closing statement in which I told the jury why I felt compelled to join with others in this particular act of civil disobedience. I acknowledged that, regardless of what civil law might forbid, I was following Jesus’ call to “seek first the kin-dom of God.” I told them that on the day of our arrest I, for one, was attempting to follow Jesus into that promised commonwealth where swords have been fashioned into plowshares and human beings do not study war anymore. I reminded them that the Jesus I embrace as Sovereign was a non-violent activist who chose to suffer the shame of the cross and be killed himself rather than to stand by and silently condone the killing of others.
I also reminded the jury that during the Nazi holocaust there were brave souls in Europe who, with their bodies, blocked trains that were carrying human beings to their deaths, and that I and my co-defendants were similarly standing in front of a train that was carrying death to people. And I quoted the Vietnam War protester and fellow follower of Jesus, Fr. Dan Berrigan who, after breaking into a Selective Service office and burning draft records, was reported to have said something like, “Forgive me, good friends for the fracture of good order—the burning of paper instead of children.”
The jury did not acquit me or any of the others, but that was not the point. The point was that I was able, in a public forum, to give testimony about the kin-dom of God and about what it means to take up our own non-violent cross and follow Jesus in a specific context.
Chapter 7: Parresia
The seventh practice that we inherit from the church of the apostles is parresia, translated into English as “boldness,” “confidence” or “outspokenness.”
My personal interest in this aspect of church life came more than a decade ago when I participated, along with several members of my local church and about 60 others in a “Holy Boldness Academy” sponsored by our United Methodist Annual Conference. While I did learn some positive things during the sessions of this academy, I can’t say that I learned much about “boldness” at least as I am coming to understand the New Testament meaning of the word.
At times, during the sessions of the academy the leader seemed to be advocating boldness as if it were little more than an attitude of composure that church leaders could cultivate in order to bolster their self-confidence, enhance their image in the community, and thus improve their overall “success.” There was a clear danger, it seemed to me, that we could confuse the boldness of Christian discipleship with the aggressive techniques of successful salesmanship.
We heard inspiring stories including testimony from a woman who had been given a bold vision for urban ministry in her city. She stuck her neck out and started a new ministry with nothing but her sense of call and the promise by the pastor of a local congregation that he would secure a grant of $5,000 from his local church—if she could raise the rest of the financial resources that she would need to launch the new effort. So she divided her time between getting the ministry started and writing numerous funding proposals. Ultimately, she reported, the ministry came to be supported by grants totaling $2.4 million. And this came about even though the pastor who promised the first $5,000 was transferred to another parish and the church he left behind never did produce the promised amount!
As bold as was this woman’s leadership in ministry and fund-raising, I found myself wondering if that was really all that the New Testament meant by “boldness.” Wasn’t there more to holy boldness than learning how to be assertive and persistent in the pursuit of a vision of ministry. I found myself going back to re-read and ponder one of the Biblical stories that had inspired the naming of the Holy Boldness Academy.
That story is found in Acts 3 and 4. According to the story Peter and John had performed a miraculous healing. They had empowered a helpless beggar to walk—a man who since his birth had been without the use of his legs. When crowds had shown amazement at what had happened, Peter and John refused to take any credit, giving the praise for the miracle to God, and to the crucified and risen Jesus, whose spirit had taken hold of them and prompted them do something they had never before supposed that they could do.
The healing activity of Peter and John had made the religious authorities nervous. So they ordered that Peter and John be kept in custody overnight in order to assure their appearance before a meeting of the religious authorities the next day. But Peter and John had managed to turn this meeting into yet another preaching opportunity. When asked the source of their power, Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit said,
“Rulers of the people and elders, if we are questioned today because of good deed done to someone who was sick and are asked how this man has been healed, let it be known to all of you, and to all the people of Israel, that this man is standing before you in good health by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead. This Jesus is
The stone that was rejected by you, the builders;
It has become the cornerstone.
There is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among mortals by which we must be saved.”
Personally I would consider that a form of boldness, and I say that as one who, for lack of such boldness, has missed many opportunities to speak publicly about the importance of Jesus of Nazareth! According to the author of Acts the religious authorities of the time also considered Peter’s declaration bold:
“Now when they saw the boldness (parresia) of Peter and John and realized that they were uneducated and ordinary men, they were amazed and recognized them as companions of Jesus.”
We learn, in short order, that their amazement at the boldness of Peter and John has little to do with a miraculous healing. Their amazement is more like shock as they realize that they, the religious leaders, have lost some of their control of the religious status quo in their community. They feel threated by Peter and John. They are amazed because these two ordinary and uneducated people are acting beyond the reach of the systems of social domination and control of which they, the religious leaders, are an important part.
Notice that the authorities also recognize Peter and John as companions of Jesus. Perhaps the storyteller wants us to realize that though these religious leaders had effectively arranged for the execution of Jesus, now they must deal with the realization that this Jesus had friends who have not slipped quietly back to remote Galilee, in the aftermath of Jesus’ death. Instead they are still hanging around Jerusalem and are beginning to step into the prophetic and revolutionary role that officialdom had attempted to strip from Jesus by executing him.
Moreover these followers of the crucified Jesus are empowering people like this paralyzed beggar, to stand upright and perhaps join a Jesus movement that would shake the foundations of the religious and political establishments of first century Palestine.
If more churches today demonstrated this kind of boldness we can be sure that those in power would quick to notice and to take defensive action. That fact that the powers that be show little interest in what most American churches are doing should be a warning to us that we have not understood or practiced the kind of boldness practiced by the apostles and described in the biblical Book of Acts.
I would suggest that the parresia practiced by Peter and John, and probably others, consisted of at least two essential elements:
The first of these elements is an absolute confidence (trust, faith) that the kin’dom of God is at hand—in our very midst, not just in some distant future—and that the Holy Spirit is now present and active in this world, enabling the followers of Jesus to experience and sustain a holy community that will bring God’s liberation/salvation to a broken world.
This is not a boldness that depends on strong or brave individuals, a fact that is easily lost on a dominant culture that is accustomed to the idea of extraordinary superheroes. Holy boldness is a gift given by God/Holy Spirit to communities of people that are then emboldened to act together in faith.
The difference between the supposed boldness of superheroes and the holy boldness engendered in the faith community is beautifully illustrated in the contrast between the first and second chapters of Acts. In Acts 1: 6 while the Risen Jesus is gathered with the disciple community, his followers (still thinking of Jesus as superhero), ask him, “Lord, is this the time when you will restore the kingdom to Israel?” Jesus responds by saying, in effect, that it’s not about me but about all of you: “But you [my ekklesia!] will receive power when the holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”
Those who comprise the ekklesia are instructed to wait for the promise of the outpouring of the Spirit, which (in chapter two) is poured out first on the whole community, and only secondarily, as “tongues of fire” on each of the individuals in the community. It will then be their activity and speech that will be the testimony that what Jesus said about the immediacy of the kin’dom of God is real!
Henceforth it will be the community of Jesus’s followers who will exercise boldness. And if individuals step forward in this enterprise it will be as representatives of the community and not as superheroes. That is why, after healing the beggar at the temple gate, it was so important for Peter to declare that he was acting not as a superhero but “in the name of Jesus” (i.e. the body of Christ empowered by his Spirit!)
The second essential element of parresia is the fearless willingness to engage in deliberate, conscientious, (and always non-violent) civil disobedience at those points where the values and aspirations of the kin’dom of God is in serious conflict with the values and practices of other contrary kingdoms and empires. This could mean refusal to obey a law, or an official decree, that is inherently unjust. Or it could be disobedience to a direct order by a superior, or even a conventional social norm that, though not inherently unjust is clearly in conflict with God’s higher law of Love. In both cases the disobedience is undertaken even in the face of possible penalties.
In the above story the religious authorities warn and order Peter and John no longer to speak or teach at all in the name of Jesus. These were the same authorities that had collaborated in the death of Jesus, so it must have been quite clear to Peter and John that these leaders were quite capable of punishing anyone who defied a direct order. These authorities had already held the two in prison overnight without a charge being filed. There was no reason to think that the authorities would not arrest them again and detain them permanently. In spite of this Peter and John make this remarkable statement to the authorities who hold over them the power of life or death:
“Whether it if right in God’s sight to listen to you rather than to God, you must judge; for we cannot keep from speaking about what we have seen and heard.” (Acts 4:19-20)
This, I would suggest again, is what the New Testament means by “boldness” or, to use the term from the Academy, “holy boldness.” It is the readiness of the members of a faith community to deny obedience to any law, or power, or authority that operates in a way that is contrary to what one knows to be the will of the God whose nature and whose name is Love. And it is the willingness to explain, in public if necessary, that in so doing we are acting in the name and Spirit of Jesus, even though we may face punishment for doing so.
Parresia in the 21st Century Ekklesia
Followers of Jesus who were not yet born when the American civil rights movement exploded with boldness, or who were alive but not paying attention would do well to obtain and watch a DVD of the movie, Selma, first released in 2014. The viewer is immediately reminded how significantly the movement was rooted in the faithful, organized actions of members of black churches, led by the strong preaching of their pastors, and the white Christians who joined them in a succession of sit-ins, boycotts, illegal marches, and other acts of disobedience and non-cooperation.
Even today the powers of empire are threatened when people of faith organize themselves to confront injustice and start living into the new future that God has promised. And that is why these powers of empire, abetted by the media that they control have rewritten the story of the American civil rights movement to make it appear that is was only Martin Luther King, Jr and perhaps a few other black superheroes, who acted bravely to correct the problem of discrimination. The same powers also want us to believe that the problem has been corrected and that no further organized public action by people of faith is necessary.
For reasons such as these churches in our time need to recover and practice parresia. One of the best current examples of churches that act boldly can be found the new sanctuary movement, where churches offer asylum in their buildings to undocumented persons who are been sought by the Federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency and doing so in a public way. If or when ICE officials come to arrest the undocumented person who is being offered hospitality by the church, they should find a sign on the door that says something like, “This building is the home of A SANCTUARY CHURCH. No weapons of any kind, and no use of force of any kind are permitted on this church property.”
Churches should also consider refusing to cooperate with attempts by the Internal Revenue Service to garnishee the wages of a church employee who has refused to pay the military portion of his or her personal income tax and accept the penalty, if any, for doing so, even if the penalty includes a revocation of the church’s tax exempt status.
And the church should never underestimate the spiritual power of saying “no” to the violence and injustice of empire in the name of the Prince of Peace. Actions such as this would surely be evidence that a church is starting to practice paressia.
Chapter 8: Dikaiosune
God wants every human being, in every situation, to “do the right thing.” Because God has created us all and embraced us all as beloved children, it matters to God that we as a human race do what is right, and just and good in our relationships with God and with each other.
The “right thing” that God wants us always to do is called, in the Greek New Testament, dikaiosune and in English “righteousness” or “justice.”
In what does this righteousness consist? What is the right thing, or what are the right things, that we as ekklesiaemust practice in order to be found doing the dikaiosune that God demands?
The people of Israel, under the leadership of Moses, came to understand that what is right is spelled out in the words of the covenant that Moses received from God on Mount Sinai:
I am the Lord your God who brought you up out of the land of Egypt out of the house of slavery; you [whom I have liberated from oppression and slavery in Egypt] shall . . . (Exodus 20:2-3)
The terms of God’s covenant that follow include the Ten Commandments, and other laws comprising a list of do’s and don’ts for a people for whom divine imperative needs to be spelled out in some detail in order for them to “get it.”
But the Biblical narrative makes clear that righteousness as a divine expectation for the human race was around long before God instructed Moses to present it to the children of Israel in the form of a list of commandments and ordinances. This divine imperative appears first in the story of the Garden of Eden (Genesis 2:15-3:24). In this story God tells Adam the representative man, and Eve the representative woman, that the right thing consists in simply living and enjoying life as God gives it. It is a good life, as symbolized in the invitation to Adam and Eve to eat freely of the fruit of all the trees in God’s garden except for one specific forbidden tree.
The wrong thing in this story consists only in eating fruit from “the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.”
The meaning here is not that there is something inherently wrong with that one tree, for God already experiences the evil as well as the good. The meaning is that there is something inherently wrong, something “unrighteous” happening when humans fail to trust that God knows best for us when God gives us quite simple explicit directions about what to receive and enjoy and what to avoid—what to do and what not to do!
Later in the book of Genesis we are introduced to Abraham who, although he is childless and advanced in years, hears God promise that he can nevertheless expect to have many descendants. The author then tells us that as incredible as the promise must of have seemed to Abraham, “he believed GOD [i.e. trusted GOD’s promise] and GOD reckoned it to him as righteousness.” (Genesis 15:6) Thus, again, righteousness equals trusting in what God says and acting accordingly.
In reality none of us can be said to be righteous without qualification, for none of us has been able to always do what God tells us is right and good for us and for the planet, and none of us has been able not to do what God warns us is harmful to our bodies, minds, or spirits, or to the planet itself.
The reality in this 21s century is that unrighteousness/injustice is rampant and pervasive. Its extreme manifestations include racism, gender bias, heterosexism, genocide, military and police violence, human trafficking, extreme income inequality, poverty, and much more
In the third chapter of his letter to the Romans the Apostle Paul charges that “all [persons] . . . are under the power of sin,” and then he quotes from Psalm14 which says:
“There is no one who is righteous, not even one;
there is no one who has understanding,
there is no one who seeks God.
All have turned aside, together they have become worthless.
There is no one who shows kindness, there is not even one.”
But, lest we give up in despair, God still holds up dikaiosune not just as an imperative for human beings, but as a real possibility and even a promise:
“You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. And . . . you shall love your neighbor as yourself.” (Matthew 22:37-39)
“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they will be filled [with righteousness].” (Matthew 5: 6)
What an amazing claim! Such a claim is possible because dikaiosune is not just about a definition of what is right, but also about God’s way of getting us as a human race to that place of right-ness. Dikaiosune is about what God is doing among us to re-make humankind into a people who actually will rise above our sinfulness and finally and consistently “do the right thing,” in our inter-human relationships.
To put it another way, the word dikaiosune refers not just to the ethical and spiritual endpoint toward which God is calling us and prodding us. The dikaiosune of God is also about the process of calling and prodding by which God will ultimately bring us to that ethical and spiritual destination.
One word that the New Testament uses to refer to this process is dikaiosis or, in English, “justification.” It means, literally “making right.”
But just how does this process work, this process of making things right, of overcoming injustice and creating a world of justice and peace.
Throughout the ages, in religious communities and for others who also give some thought to ethics and moral imperatives the process has usually involved making lists of rights and wrongs and working our way through these lists, addressing the various items one at a time. We fight for various “civil rights” for instance, and try to find creative solutions to such wrongs as police violence, human trafficking, prejudices against minority persons, etc. We make new laws, or refine old ones, in attempts to turn wrongs into rights.
But then in our better moments we realize, with the Apostle Paul, that righteousness will not finally come through law, either by making laws, keeping them religiously or enforcing them consistently.
The righteousness of God, according to Paul, will come through faith. He explains this in his letter to Christians in Rome as part of his effort to show that Jews and Gentiles (Greeks) can together attain righteousness. He notices, for instance that
. . . Gentiles, who did not strive for righteousness, have attained it, that is righteousness through faith; but Israel, who did strive for the righteousness that is based on the law did not succeed in fulfilling that law. Why not? Because they did not strive for it on the basis of faith, but as if it were based on works . . . [Romans 9:30-32]
And, although Paul recognizes that his fellow Israelites mean well in their desire for righteousness they miss the mark time and again:
For being ignorant of the righteousness that comes from God, and seeking to establish their own righteousness, they have not submitted to God’s righteousness (Romans 10: 3)
Then Paul suggests that through embracing the faith of Jesus Christ every human can be made right. 0r to use that other term that is prominent in the letters of Paul, every human can be “justified.”
In the New Testament the primary way of bringing people to righteousness is the formation of communities of faith (the ekklesiae referred to in Chapter One) where people daily practice acting in faith together—the faith of Jesus—the faith that leads to dikaiosune.
The Gospel of John and the three Letters of John in the New Testament have an engaging way of speaking about this acting in faith together in community. In the Gospel Jesus says,
“I am the vine and you are the branches. Those who abide in me, and I in them bear much fruit [as do branches and vine that remain connected at all times], for apart from me you can do nothing. (John 15:5)
And
“If you abide in me and my words abide in you, ask for whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.” My Father is glorified in this, that you bear much fruit and become my disciples. As the Father has loved me so I love you; abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love.” (John 15:7-10)
What you ask for will, in this case, be a “right” request, and surely fulfilled, because you are staying close to the source of righteousness. The key word is “abide”—meaning “remain” or “stay”—in communion with other friends and followers of Jesus who also hunger and thirst for righteousness. Stay in the “body of Christ” as opposed to wandering off into your own unreliable ways of figuring out what is right!
Notice that another key word is the above passage is “love.” When, in our church community, we abide in love we abide in Christ. When we abide in Christ we abide in love.
The Apostle Paul also connects the practice of love in the ekklesia with the prospect of attaining righteousness:
. . .this is my prayer, that your love may overflow more and more with knowledge and full insight to help you [all] determine what is best, so that in the day of Christ you [together] may be pure and blameless, having produced the harvest of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ . . . (Philippians 1:9-11)
We will have more to say about love in the church in chapter 10.
Dikaiosune in the 21st Century Ekklesia
Emergent churches today will have little chance of practicing righteousness and creating a culture of dikaiosune in their life together, if they have not first received and embraced the gift of metanoia, described in the second chapter of this book, and begun the ongoing process of detoxification and recovery from the practices of the dominant culture.
For those churches that are practicing metanoia I am convinced that the best way to foster growth in the practice of dikaiosune, is in small groups that meet together frequently, certainly no less than once a week, for this very purpose.
People who come out of a Methodist background, but others too, would do well to study the class meeting model pioneered by John Wesley as a key part of the Methodist movement in the 18th century. He organized members of Methodist Societies into small classes each with about 12 lay Christians living in close proximity. These groups covenanted to meet together week after week in order to be held accountable for their growth in discipleship. A class leader would typically ask each class member—each week—“how is it with your soul today.” Then each member would share the particulars of their own struggles against the forces of unrighteousness and their attempts to stay on the path of recovery from addiction to them. Then the leader would “advise, reprove, comfort or exhort, as occasion [might] require.”
To help class members maintain accountability, Wesley developed a list of General Rules for Methodists. I reproduce the list below in its entirety because even though some of the specific guidelines are tied to 18th century realities and expressed in antiquated language, they invite us to consider the specific ways we in faith communities today might update these expectations to guide our personal attempts to address rampant unrighteousness in this present age. In what specific ways must we as followers of Jesus “do what is good” in the world today, and what must we necessarily refrain from doing (even though others are doing these things) because of the harm these practices cause to ourselves and to others. Here is John Wesley’s list:[13]
There is only one condition previously required of those who desire admission into these societies: "a desire to flee from the wrath to come, and to be saved from their sins." But wherever this is really fixed in the soul it will be shown by its fruits.[14]
It is therefore expected of all who continue therein that they should continue to evidence their desire of salvation,
First: By doing no harm, by avoiding evil of every kind, especially that which is most generally practiced, such as:
· The taking of the name of God in vain.
· The profaning the day of the Lord, either by doing ordinary work therein or by buying or selling.
· Drunkenness: buying or selling spirituous liquors, or drinking them, unless in cases of extreme necessity.
· Slaveholding; buying or selling slaves.
· Fighting, quarreling, brawling, brother going to law with brother; returning evil for evil, or railing for railing; the using many words in buying or selling.
· The buying or selling goods that have not paid the duty.
· The giving or taking things on usury—i.e., unlawful interest.
· Uncharitable or unprofitable conversation; particularly speaking evil of magistrates or of ministers.
· Doing to others as we would not they should do unto us.
· Doing what we know is not for the glory of God, as:
· The putting on of gold and costly apparel.
· The taking such diversions as cannot be used in the name of the Lord Jesus.
· The singing those songs, or reading those books, which do not tend to the knowledge or love of God.
· Softness and needless self-indulgence.
· Laying up treasure upon earth.
· Borrowing without a probability of paying; or taking up goods without a probability of paying for them.
It is expected of all who continue in these societies that they should continue to evidence their desire of salvation,
Secondly: By doing good; by being in every kind merciful after their power; as they have opportunity, doing good of every possible sort, and, as far as possible, to all men:
· To their bodies, of the ability which God giveth, by giving food to the hungry, by clothing the naked, by visiting or helping them that are sick or in prison.
· To their souls, by instructing, reproving, or exhorting all we have any intercourse with; trampling under foot that enthusiastic doctrine that "we are not to do good unless our hearts be free to it."
· By doing good, especially to them that are of the household of faith or groaning so to be; employing them preferably to others; buying one of another, helping each other in business, and so much the more because the world will love its own and them only.
· By all possible diligence and frugality, that the gospel be not blamed.
· By running with patience the race which is set before them, denying themselves, and taking up their cross daily; submitting to bear the reproach of Christ, to be as the filth and offscouring of the world; and looking that men should say all manner of evil of them falsely, for the Lord's sake.
It is expected of all who desire to continue in these societies that they should continue to evidence their desire of salvation,
Thirdly: By attending upon all the ordinances of God; such are:
· The public worship of God.
· The ministry of the Word, either read or expounded.
· The Supper of the Lord.
· Family and private prayer.
· Searching the Scriptures.
· Fasting or abstinence.
These are the General Rules of our societies; all of which we are taught of God to observe, even in his written Word, which is the only rule, and the sufficient rule, both of our faith and practice. And all these we know his Spirit writes on truly awakened hearts. If there be any among us who observe them not, who habitually break any of them, let it be known unto them who watch over that soul as they who must give an account. We will admonish him of the error of his ways. We will bear with him for a season. But then, if he repent not, he hath no more place among us. We have delivered our own souls
Let no one underestimate the depth and breadth of life that a church can experience if its members agree that a willingness to submit themselves to this kind of discipline is a condition of membership. Many institutional churches offer some form of small discipleship group experience as part of a smorgasbord of options. But in an emergent church that chooses to embrace dikaiosune and the other practices described in this book, it is vital that every member participate, as he or she is able, in a weekly accountability group. This may well mean that the church will not grow large, but at least, and most importantly. it will grow strong!
So far in this chapter we have addressed the practice of righteous living within the church community that is deeply committed to the faith and way of Jesus. But how is the ekklesia to address the problem of unrighteousness that is rampant in the dominant culture of America today that cares nothing about the ethics of Jesus? Are we to press for more legislation that holds some promise of curbing the worst of human behavior and enforcing greater equity and fairness in the distribution of the world’s natural and economic resources? Are we to throw our weight behind efforts to reform the American empire, making it more democratic and less a generator of private wealth for those who have already taken more than their share.
The answer is yes, but with some qualifications: First, church members must actively demonstrate in their own lives that they are already doing what, through legislation and/or administrative reform, they are advocating that others agree to do. Second, There must be no hint of self-righteousness in the asking, but only the sense that we are simply caring people who, along with others, are seeking the common good. Third, we who are living into the kin’dom of God ought never to confuse proposed reforms in the ways of the dominant culture with the promises and imperatives of God’s commonwealth that waits to be fulfilled. Indeed the coming of God’s kin’dom in its fullness will mean the end of all other political systems, even those we have managed to reform.
There will be times also when churches will not be able to change corrupt systems. Nevertheless we may be called to speak the truth, publically and prophetically, about the corruption we see in those systems and its inconsistency with the values of the kin’dom of God. In those times it will help us to remember that we are not acting as judge which, theologically speaking, is a role reserved for God alone. Instead we will be speaking in the role of those called by God as witnesses—those practicing marturia!
Chapter 9. Eirene
How odd it is that in our time certain churches have come to be identified as “peace churches.” Among denominations of Christian churches Mennonite churches, Quaker meetings, and Churches of the Brethren are so called. In addition certain individual congregations in other Christian denominations have elected to call themselves peace churches in order to make clear that, unlike most churches in their respective denominations they are unequivocally opposed to war or violence of any kind as a way of solving social problems.
This is an odd development because, as I pointed out in chapter two, there is evidence that in the first century most if not all the followers of Jesus were pacifists who, like Jesus, were willing to be killed themselves, as was Jesus, rather than to participate in the killing of other human beings. We must then ask why there would be any ekklesia of serious Jesus-followers anywhere in the world that should not have peacemaking as one of its essential practices.
Eirene, the Greek word for peace, appears 88 times in the New Testament (and in almost every book in the New Testament!). Unfortunately the significance of this emphasis on peace is lost on most churches today. This may be due in part because the idea of peace has been individualized by a modern institutional church culture that has privatized and individualized so much of the biblical message. Thus when, following the birth of Jesus, angels sing “Peace on earth, goodwill to [all]” that promise is taken by many moderns to mean a sense of “tranquility” within the individual Christian rather than improved relations between nations and ethnic groups. Such a privatizing and individualizing of the idea of peace may lead to the notion that world peace is an unrealistic secular, utopian ideal that is beyond the purview of religious expectations.
It is true than in Greco/Roman culture in the time of Jesus the word eirene could be used to refer to inner tranquility or even to the supposed social tranquility (pax Romana) or law and order enforced by Roman military power. But when Jewish followers of Jesus, including those who wrote the books of the New Testament, used the word eirene they used it as a Greek language substitute for the Hebrew word shalom which has a distinctly social dimension:
According to the prophets, peace reigned in Israel when there was well-being, health, justice, equity, prosperity, and good will. Then the smile of God’s favor was on the land. There was no peace if poverty, famine, or disease plagued the land. There was no peace when there was inequity in the distribution of wealth, injustice in the courts, or oppression of the poor. There was no peace when people forgot God and ignored his covenant law, which defined the order of peace and righteousness.[15]
Thus it is fair to say that, in the Gospels when Jesus says to the disciple community, “Peace I leave with you (John 14:27), he is talking not about individual tranquility but about a shared experience of shalom within the community such as is described above, a shalom that will continue with the community after he is no longer with them in person.
And when peace is identified as a “fruit of the Spirit” (Galatians 5:22) it is recognized a gift of harmony, equity and good will bequeathed by the Holy Spirit to the community (see also Romans 1:7, 1 Thessalonians 1:1 and 2 Thessalonians 3:16).
And when the New Testament speaks of the church’s task as “preaching peace” (Acts 10: 36 and Ephesians 2:17), or proclaiming “the gospel of peace” (Romans 10:15 and Ephesians 6: 15), the message is that the harmony, equity and justice that is God’s gift to the church is also promised as a gift to the world whenever and wherever the reality of God’s kin’dom is present in the world!
Notice that the peace that is offered as God’s gift is always a peace that the world cannot give: “ . . . my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives.” (John 14:27). It is a “peace that passes all understanding” (Philippians 4:7) in the sense that it doesn’t fit with the thinking of the dominant culture, which still imagines that peace can be achieved through war, and that police armed with guns, tear gas and tazers can somehow “keep the peace.” The eirenethat comes from God is rather a metanoia peace, perceived only through a transformed way of thinking. It is a peace that is realized in koinonia, diakonia, dikaiosune and the other practices of the authentic ekklesia that we have been pondering in this essay.
Eirene in the 21st Century Ekklesia
The words of Peter in his first New Testament letter, quoted from Psalm 34: 12-16 and addressed to churches in Asia Minor challenge us to make peacemaking a priority in our local congregations as well:
“Those who desire life
and desire to see good days,
let them keep their tongues from evil
and their lips from speaking deceit;
let them turn away from evil and do good;
let them seek peace (eirene) and pursue it.
For the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous (dikaious)
and his ears are open to their prayer.”
(1 Peter 3:10-12)
Peter’s words remind us that peacemaking is an internal as well as an external activity. We must seek peace in our hearts and in our church life even as we pursue peace in the world through public witness, public action, and (sometimes) public protest.
I personally came to some clarity about this balance between peacemaking’s inner journey and outer journey when, in the 1960s, I learned about the Church of the Savior in Washington, DC that I mentioned in chapter 4 of this essay. Phyllis Tickle, an observer of the emerging and emergent movement in our time, suggests that the Church of the Savior was probably the first emergent church in America. Founded in 1947, the congregation later decided, in 1974, to divide into several smaller but more vital congregations, united by a common history and understanding of the meaning of “church,” but operating in units that were smaller and therefore more manageable.
Several members of one of these smaller congregations of highly committed and rigorously disciplined followers of Jesus created a movement called “World Peacemakers.” They developed a handbook designed to foster the creation of small World Peacemaker groups across the country. They urged each group to meet weekly and to divide their meeting time into two parts.
The first hour would be devoted to focusing on the “journey inward” through silence, prayer, and biblical reflection on the Biblical idea of shalom. The second hour would be devoted to the “journey outward” including the planning and execution of public peacemaking actions involving a peace witness (marturia) and sometimes conscientious civil disobedience engaging the whole group.
I helped form several of these groups in Portland, Oregon during the 1980s. I do not know if there are still World Peacemaker groups functioning but I believe that the various peace movements operating in this 21st century could benefit from the presence of churches in their midst whose energy for peace advocacy and action is powered by the faith that they have gained from their relationship with Jesus, aka “The Prince of Peace.”
Chapter 10. Agape
In this chapter on the last of the practices I have chosen to lift up for the emergent church, I simply share a sermon that I offered at a Sunday worship gathering of Metanoia Peace Community on May 1, 2005. The scripture text is John 14: 15-31. In this presentation I pretended not to be the pastor, but rather a tour guide speaking offstage to an imaginary audience and explaining who these gathered people (the ekklesia) were and what they were about.
Welcome to the Laboratory of Love!
I’ll be your tour guide today. I’m here to show and tell you about some of the amazing features of this unique enterprise, which was designed by Jesus of Nazareth shortly before his death, implemented by his Spirit-filled followers shortly after his resurrection, and duplicated many times over in the centuries since that time, in small congregations like the one we are observing today..
The particular laboratory you are visiting today is one of countless thousands of similar enterprises located in almost every part of the world. These laboratories of love operate under different local names, but insofar as they continue to operate under the direction set forth by their founder they have the same purpose: to make love 24 hours every day, 7 days every week—always with the intention of improving their performance and perfecting the practice of love with as many partners as possible and in their group as a whole.
Now don’t misunderstand. The love which these persons are seeking to perfect in this laboratory is not mere romantic love, or love expressed sexually, or any kind of self-serving love. If a person has a need to improve performance in those kinds of love there are plenty of resources available for individual consumption elsewhere. Many are readily available on the internet and they require very little in the way of interpersonal commitment.
It is not even brotherly love or inter-human camaraderie that these persons are trying to perfect.
But here in this Laboratory of Love the participants are working to perfect a particular kind of mutual love—communal love, if you will—a love that is best characterized by the Greek word, agape. It is a kind of love that was little known or understood before Jesus of Nazareth demonstrated it in his own life and encouraged his followers to imitate it in their life together.
Jesus explained to his followers that agape is the kind of love that best expresses the character of God. It is the kind of love that God demonstrated when God rescued slaves from Egypt and led them to a promised land. It is the kind of love that God demonstrated in the creation of the world, when God made a place where plants and animals, and people could survive and prosper in a symbiotic relationship. And it is the kind of love that God expresses in the continuing process of reaching out to heal and rescue humanity, even though humanity continues to turn against God, violating God’s covenant and abusing God’s creation.
The particular laboratory of love you are visiting today is called Metanoia Peace Community United Methodist Church. There are about 40 people who are employed in the work here. It is one of the smaller laboratories of love in operation today and yet it bids to surpass, in terms of production, some other laboratories that have a much larger work force.
It just happens that this week the workers in this particular laboratory of love are engaged in a review of the protocols and procedures that govern their work together, as they are found in the Gospel of John. In a few minutes we will be able to listen in on their conversation. But before we do that let’s look at some of the words of Jesus that they are considering. Words like these:
John 14:18 “If you love me (unconditionally) you will keep my commandments.”
John14:21 “They who have my commandments and keep them are those who love me (unconditionally).”
John 14:23 “those who love me (unconditionally) will keep my word.”
John 14:24 “Whoever does not love me (unconditionally) does not keep my words.”
According to the Gospel of John all of these words of Jesus are spoken during Jesus’ last supper with his disciples shortly before his death. Knowing that he will not be around to coach them in the same way he has been able to do up until then, he leaves them with a simple instruction, referred to here as his word, or his commandment: “This is my commandment, that you love one another (unconditionally) as I have loved you (unconditionally).” Or, as he says in the previous chapter, “By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have unconditional love (agape) for one another.
What does Jesus mean when he refers to “one another?” He is referring to the band of followers who are gathered together at his bidding. And those who are still gathering in church congregations and church communities in the 21stcentury—in the name of Christ.
“One another” in this case refers to all the people who make up this particular laboratory of love known as Metanoia Peace Community United Methodist Church. because the only way anyone can learn agape is by working at it with other people over a period of time, practicing agape in community day after day until they begin to get it right.
Unfortunately generations of Christians, raised in the American culture of individualism and isolation have not fully understood that agape is primarily a community process. We can know this through today’s reading from the Gospel of John, because every time Jesus uses the word “you” in this scripture passage “you” is in the plural form in the original Greek, not the singular form. Everything that Jesus says about love is spoken to a community of persons. In order to get the feel for this the pastor of Metanoia has prepared a paraphrase of portions of John 14: 15-31 which helps us to hear in our English language what would have been obvious to those who read the Gospel in the original Greek language.
Here is how it goes, in paraphrase:
“If you who comprise the beloved community are serious about loving me unconditionally you will keep my commandments. And I will ask God to give you in the beloved community another Advocate, to be with you forever. This is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees God nor knows God. But you all know God, because God abides with you in your community of faith, and God will always be right there among you.
“I will not leave you orphans—you who are in the beloved community. Even though I am about to die, I am coming to be with you. In a little while the world will no longer see me, but you in the beloved community will see me; because I live you as a community will live also. On that day it will be clear to you that I am in my Father/Mother God, and you all are in me, and I am in you—the beloved community.”
Do you see what Jesus is saying? He is saying that the primary vocation of the church is to learn to live together in love in the holy and beloved community. This is why we call the church, quite properly, a Laboratory of Love.
So now that you have some understanding of the purpose of this Laboratory of Love let’s listen as some of those who are employed here tell us about what they have experienced and are experiencing as they go about their daily work—their experiments in agape—their ongoing and ever-improving practice of unconditional love with one another . . . .
[At this point, according to the regular practice at Sunday worship in Metanoia Peace Community, members of the congregation offered spontaneous personal testimony, using the sermon as a prompt. In this case their testimony was about their experience with intentionally practicing love in their church life, and in their daily interactions with other people!]
Endnotes:
[1]For a more complete analysis of the emergent church and emerging church movements see Phyllis Tickle’s book, Emerging Christianity: What is Is, Where It Is Going, and Why It Matters, Mt Baker Books
[2] See Wes Howard Brook, The Church Before Christianity, Maryknoll, New York, Orbis Books
[3] Wes Howard Brook, The Church Before Christianity, Maryknoll, New York, Orbis Books
[4] Dozens of videos of Rev. Billy and the Church of Stop Shopping choir doing public ministry can be found on the internet at www.youtube.com.
[5] Eugene Peterson, The Message: The New Testament, Psalms and Proverbs (Colorado Springs, NavPress, 1995)
[6] JohnLamoreau and Ralph Beebe: Waging Peace: A Study in Biblical Pacifism (Newberg, Oregon: The Barclay Press). The authors cite Kenneth Scoit Latourette, A History of Christianity (New York: Harpers and Brothers, 1953).
[7] Ibid
[8] Ibid
[9] Ibid
[10]M. Scott Peck, The Different Drum: Community Making and Peace, (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1987), p. 59
[11] Words and Music by Richard Gilliard. Copyright 1977 by Scriptures in Song (a division of Integrity Music, Inc.)
[12]Words and Music by H Ernest Nichol, 1896
[13] From the United Methodist Book of Discipline, 2012, pp 75-78
[14] It is noteworthy that the “desire to flee from the wrath to come, and to be saved from their sins, is the only membership requirement, and that no test of common belief or doctrinal purity is even mentioned. Compare Alcoholics Anonymous where the only requirement for membership is a desire to stop drinking!
[15] C Norman Kraus, The Community of the Spirit, pp 134-135