March 29, 1992
Mark 8:27-38 [The Relationship of Faith to Faithfulness] [27] Jesus and his disciples went on to the villages around Caesarea Philippi. On the way he asked them, "Who do people say I am?"
They replied, "Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, one of the prophets."
"BUT WHAT ABOUT YOU?" he asked. "WHO DO YOU SAY I AM?"
Peter answered, "You are the Christ."
Jesus warned them not to tell anyone about him.
[31] He then began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, chief priests and teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and after three days rise again. He spoke plainly about this, and Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him.
But when Jesus turned and looked at his disciples, he rebuked Peter. "Out of my sight, Satan!" he said. "You do not have in mind the things of God, but the things of men."
[34] Then he called the crowd to him along with his disciples and said: "IF ANYONE WOULD COME AFTER ME, HE MUST DENY HIMSELF AND TAKE UP HIS CROSS AND FOLLOW ME. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me and for the gospel will save it. What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his soul? Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul? If anyone is ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will be ashamed of him when he comes into his Father's glory with the holy angels."
I. WHAT SORT OF CHURCH ARE WE?
What sort of church can we be and become?
Our options seem to have been: Shall we be liberal or conservative? Shall we be MORE activist? or shall we be MORE conversionist? Is there any other way?
Increasingly it occurs to me that apart from the Spirit of God, there is not much difference between the fundamentalist and the liberal: both of them demand control of the Scriptures; both of them want to tell you all about what God is and is NOT!
Shall we be activist or shall we be conversionist? Is there any other way?
ACTIVISM DEMANDS THAT WE SEEK AFTER "PEACE" AND "JUSTICE." BUT HOW DO WE DEFINE THOSE TERMS?
Our activity in the world must never get ahead of or fall behind our loyalty to the Christ. Some quotes from Hauerwas and Willimon:
Most of our social activism is formed on the presumption that God is superfluous to the formation of a world of peace with justice.
American Christians, in the name of justice, (often) try to create a society in which faith in a living God is rendered irrelevant or private.
We argue that the political task of Christians is to be the church rather than to transform the world.
"Peace" and "justice" ... are words awaiting content. The church really does not know what these words mean apart from the life and death of Jesus of Nazareth.
[Abstract love is no love at all. "Tell me the story of Jesus!"] STORY is the fundamental means of talking about and listening to God, the only human means available to us that is complex and engaging enough to make comprehensible what it means to be with God.
SO, SHALL WE BE ACTIVIST, OR CONVERSIONIST?
Perhaps what is necessary is that we be (what Hauerwas and Willimon call a "confessional" church. That we relate everything to our statement that "Jesus is LORD!" That we ask Jesus to help us see the world and the scriptures and our own lives and (indeed) REALITY—as God declares that it is! [In the terms of our morning sermon: LET GOD BE GOD! GOD OF HEAVEN AND EARTH! THE GREAT "I AM THAT I AM"!]
Hauerwas and Willimon make a great deal of the Sermon on the Mount. They make the point that (1) The Beatitudes are a statement of the fact. And they also lift up (2) The recurring theme, "Ye have heard it said, but I say unto you..."
The Beatitudes are in the indicative, and not the imperative; more a way of stating what the facts are than implying :"This is how you have to be! Get with it if you want to be happy! 'The "Be-Happy Attitudes"'"
If this is true, then we have the indication of a different world than the one described by our culture.
GOD IS IN CHARGE! The growing sense of joy that God IS at work! God IS! He is working out His will.
This IS God's world; we should not give it over to evil by default. There is great power in the story of Jesus!
Jesus DID define the ending and the beginning of time. The world was created by Him, and the world has not known Him. He came unto the world and was not received; but as many as have received Him have received power to become children of God (John 1:12)
Some quotes:
"Our biblical story demands an offensive rather than defensive posture of the church. The world and all its resources, anguish, gifts and groaning is God's world, and God demands what God has created. Jesus Christ is the supreme act of divine intrusion into the world's settled arrangements. In the Christ, God refuses to "stay in his place."
II. LIKE PETER WE [AS A CHURCH] MUST BE ABLE TO SAY: JESUS IS LORD!
AND ALSO AS JESUS DEMANDED WE MUST NOT JUST SAY AND BELIEVE AND BE SURE OF THE FACT,
WE NEED TO BE ON THE MOVE IN FOLLOWING JESUS:
Is there a fresh, new way that we can grasp the old, old story? We usually are limited to what our imagination can grasp. It is hard to reinvent the wheel.
We (probably) do not need to "throw away" institutional vessels which contain aspects of the true church. But we also need to be open to more options than just "conservative" or "liberal;" than "activist" or "Conversionist." We use this limited choice in child psychology: "Would you rather go right to bed now, or shall we take your teddy bear with us?"
We can at least begin by telling Jesus Christ that we mean business in following Him! We intend to do whatever we know is HIS will!
One interesting item from this week's reading. A man named Dr. Waldron Scott, in a scholarly paper presented to The Evangelical Round Table in 1986 says that our theology as evangelicals needs to be "a theology of wayfarers" and not a theology of those who "have arrived conceptually." Our times, the people to whom God is sending us, must have this message, "JESUS IS LORD: JESUS IS THE WAY, THE TRUTH, THE LIFE, EXPRESSED TO THEM IN TERMS THAT ARE VITAL TO THE WAY WE THINK AND UNDERSTAND.
Dr. Scott then said, "We need to become more self-aware of the mental categories in which we operate." He then cites modern mathematicians and logicians [named Zadeh, Cohen, and Hersh] who have demonstrated that human beings create categories in several ways, ways we call "sets."
The three most basic "sets" (or "mind-sets") are labeled "Bounded sets" and "centered sets" and "fuzzy sets."
The "bounded set" is defined by clear, sharp, stationary boundaries. The category is created mentally by listing the essential characteristics a person or object must have to be included within the set. Most of the effort spent in defining the category is spent on defining and maintaining the boundary. THE CENTRAL QUESTION, THEREFORE, IS WHETHER AN OBJECT (OR PERSON) IS INSIDE OR OUTSIDE THE CATEGORY.
"Centered" sets, on the other hand, are created by defining a center and the relationship of things to that center. ... There IS a clear distinction between things moving toward the center and those moving away. MOVEMENT IS ESSENTIAL TO THEIR STRUCTURE.
"Fuzzy" sets have no clear boundaries; things may be defined in terms of what things are or how things relate to some external point of reference. THIS IS A PREDOMINANT WAY OF THINKING IN MANY THIRD WORLD COUNTRIES.
Bounded set thinking— is Greek thinking— is the way most of us have been brought up; there is some of it in the New Testament (especially in Paul.)
"It may be that the cultivation of centered-set thinking is what we most need today. ...a centered approach seems to correspond most closely with the Hebraic view of reality found in the Bible."
[REMEMBER— THERE MUST BE MOVEMENT; JESUS DID NOT SAY "COME SIT BY ME! HE SAID, "COME FOLLOW ME!" AND JESUS IS GOING PLACES!]
"...This dynamic, relational way of looking at what it means to be Christian may offer us point of contact... with the fuzzy set thinking ... likely to characterize .. from Third World contexts .."
(Conclusion:)
TRANSLATE THIS!
To be saved IS "describable" and (in a practical way) understandable:
IT IS ALL RIGHT TO SAY, THIS IS HOW TO BECOME A CHRISTIAN!
conviction + repentance + faith = salvation
THIS IS HOW TO BE SANCTIFIED
complete consecration + faith = (altar sanctifies gift)
...but this can never be cold, hard, truth apart from a loving, personal relationship to Jesus!
To be saved is to be ACCEPTED by Jesus, and to be ACTIVELY FOLLOWING HIM!
Rather than say "What do you want God to do for you?" we might ask: "WHO IS GOD TO YOU!"
Yes, Jesus SAVES me! But perhaps better said, JESUS is my Savior! There is a story there! An ongoing story of Jesus!
EH 47 God of Grace and God of Glory On Thy People Pour Thy Pow'r
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Dr. Russell Metcalfe is Pastor Emeritus of the Wollaston Church of the Nazarene. Permission to reprint or publish this material is GRANTED as long as the reprinting or republishing is not-for-profit.
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