You may not think that Christianity has an image problem. I wish that I could agree with you, but I don’t.
It’s far too easy to find people who have been bashed, thrashed and trashed by “good church-going people.” It’s also too easy to find people…especially in their teens, twenties, and thirties… who are desperately seeking that certain something that gives meaning and focus to the stuff of life and hope for the future who dismiss the Christian church as a possible place to find it…
You may think that people see us (those who claim to follow Jesus) only at our best. They don’t. They see us and remember us best the same way the see and remember their cell-phone provider: at our worst.
Seth Godin (marketing adviser, author of several books, including Linchpin ) wrote in his blog today about worst moments as best opportunity. His conclusion is that worst moments are “…a great opportunity to tell the story you’d like us to hear about you.”
What’s Christianity’s image problem?
We reflect too much of our image and not enough of the Image of Christ… especially when stressed, distressed, angry, hurt, challenged about the truth of our Faith, and in a myriad of other “bad” situations. We’re telling the story of how we remain the same, not the story of our transformation as students of Jesus.
That’s an image problem too large to ignore.
“By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” (Jn. 13:35, NIV) …and your enemies …and those who use you …even in the worst of times.
How can you help solve Christianity’s image problem?
It’s simple. Reflect the Image of Christ, especially when circumstances are at their worst.
(I know… being transformed into the Image of Christ is a topic too large for one post and too God-dependent to just “make it happen.” I guess we’ll have to attend to our own discipleship more and cultivating our image less if we’re to be a part of a long-term solution.)
That set everyone in the meeting place seething with anger. They threw him out, banishing him from the village, then took him to a mountain cliff at the edge of the village to throw him to his doom… (Luke 4:28-30 MSG)
Jesus walks into a synagogue in his home town and narrowly escapes the ire of a mob composed of people who have know him his entire life. Aren’t we glad that the preachers in most of our churches are more… docile?
Foundations for Proclamation
Before discussing the particulars of Jesus’s preaching, we should say a few words about proclamation in the community of faith and what distinguishes it from any other speech.
Quorum
In order to have a congregation, there had to be ten adult Jewish males in attendance, called a minyan. Adult in this context means having completed the bar mitzvah. It is in this assembly that the call to worship is issued and the scrolls read.
Breath
To native English speakers, Hebrew is a strange language. It flows “backward” (right to left) on the page and all of the letters are consonants. As written, the words have no meaning because several different words can share the same consonant patterns. It is only when spoken that the meaning of the word becomes clear.
So it is for the reading of the Law, the Writings and the Prophets. They have no “meaning” as the Word of the Lord until breathed in the midst of the congregation. It’s in the oral proclamation that the words are inspired or breathed…hopefully by the breath of God. That’s the term used in Gen. 1:2 and translated “the Spirit of God hovered over the waters.”
Laying the Foundation
Thus it is that the foundation for inspired proclamation rests on these two stones:
- The presence of a quorum (congregation), and
- The reading aloud (or breathing) of the Scriptures.
Coming Home
It’s in the context of the congregation that Jesus appears in Nazareth in Luke 4:14-30 to breathe the Scriptures. He might have been just another guest lecturer had he not gone there…
While this is not meant to be an explication of Luke 4, it’s interesting to note that verse 14 says:
Jesus returned to Galilee in the power of the Spirit, and news about him spread through the whole countryside. Lk 4:14,TNIV)
Our class discussion keyed on the words in the power of the Spirit as the differentiating factor between Jesus’s home town synagogue debut and what people in Galilee were accustomed to hear.
Questions to Ponder
- How have you experienced public proclamation in your church?
- Does the Holy Spirit seem more or less present?
- How does that presence vary (from time to time, pastor to pastor, etc.)?
Implications for Preaching Today
Today, we’re apt to think of a preacher as a person with such an inordinate desire to please, with so highly developed verbal skills that he or she is an expert in saying nothing in such a way that it sounds like a sweet something. (Willimon, p. 51)
I’ve already posed a few questions about the context of preaching where you worship. Here’s another:
Does your pastor seem like one proclaiming good news or presenting a good oration?
As someone who has asked that question about myself, I think it’s worth considering. Don’t use it to be harsh. Use your answer to that question
- to understand those who preach in your community,
- to talk with them about their foundations for preaching, and
- to help them grow in the faith. (Yes, pastors still NEED faith mentors!)
5 Characteristics of Spirit-led Preaching
While I’ll leave much of the material in the chapter for you to read on your own, the five characteristics of Spirit-led preaching that Willimon lays out are worth mentioning here. These are drawn from his interaction with Luke 4.
1. The preacher speaks under the power of the Holy Spirit.
I’ve already posed some questions about your own experience of preaching in your faith community. Here’s another:
How can you help the proclamation in your context be more Spirit-filled?
2. The sermon is based upon Scripture.
While an “appeal to authority” is considered a logical fallacy by philosophers and is out of favor in our post-modern culture, that’s exactly what Jesus does.
How is the Bible treated in your church? Is it idolized, respected or marginalized?
3. Jesus clearly believes that these ancient writings provide an accurate clue to what is going on in the present.
Jesus reads from the Isaiah scroll and says that the words are true and they are about him.
Whether you are preacher or hearer, how do the text and the Holy Spirit invade the rest of your experience?
4. All hell breaks loosed in response to the sermon.
…Jesus had to stand up to a more totalitarian and potentially violent adversary [than Elijah or Elisha did]: people like us. (p.50)
- As you read Jesus’s sermon in Luke 4, what is it that most angers the people?
- How does Jesus’s approach and motive seem similar and different than what you experience in your faith community?
- If you could say anything to your pastor in response to your reading of this chapter, what would it be?
5. Jesus’s sermon is about God.
- How many times are we content to let proclamation devolve into three points, an altar call and lunch?
- How do you and I encourage those we confirm as called to preach / pastor to make the story about us and our needs?
- How can you encourage those with whom you worship to focus on the fact that the central actor of the Biblical tale is God?
Words Aren’t Enough
Words, alone, are insufficient to be proclamation. Willimon seems to be drawing us toward the conclusion that our churches need something…
That something he seems to be saying that we are so often missing is the essential element in Jesus’s preaching: the presence of God.
Funny thing is… I thought we already had that.
Don’t we?
In this video from the Duke Faith and Leadership initiative, Dean L. Gregory Jones challenges Christian leaders (lay and clergy) to consider whether they are cultivators of healthy culture or merely caretakers of what exists. He also addresses the question, “What’s Christian about Christian Leadership?”
It’s an hour long, but well worth the viewing.
Lex orandi est lex credendi.
That translates as “the rule of prayer is the rule of belief.”
Pray Your Plan?
The concept of a “rule” worked it’s way into Christian practice as a training aid. Have you ever watched a training video or bought an exercise book? That’s a rule…or a pedagogical method (which is simply a particular way of teaching).
Like many of us, people in the Greco-Roman world were enamored with athletic contests. Whether it was the Olympics or the gladiatorial contests, games were huge! They were so common that Paul and other New Testament writers use athletic metaphors to talk about faith and about the discipline required to walk the Way of Jesus. In one passage he writes about
- “running to win,”
- athletes working hard,
- having a goal, and
- training (disciplining) the body.
Paul ties all of that to his faith and his work. (1 Corinthians 9:24 , ff.)
Eat Right, Exercise…
The same writer who penned “you were saved by faith in God” (Ephesians 2:8) also suggests that following the Way is hard work!
My suggestion is NOT that you can work your way to salvation. That wasn’t Paul’s point, either. The benefits of dedicated and purposeful work are indirect. (See the article “The With God Life” by Dallas Willard, et al., in the Renovare Spiritual Formation Bible.)
Think of it this way…
Face Time
If you want to get to know someone…really get to know that person… then you have to put yourself in the position to interact with that person. If your approach is welcomed, then you will eventually have a new friend. If your approach is unwelcome, well, then, you’re a stalker. :-0
Your effort to approach that person doesn’t make you their friend, yet the effort is necessary if you are ever to have a close relationship. Fortunately, God issued the invitation to you. You can’t “stalk” God! Your intentional, purposeful, frequent presence is desired, whether planned or unplanned.
The Point
That’s the point of a rule or a plan or a discipline. The plan gets us out of bed early or out of the office for a few minutes at lunch and into the gym, except this gym doesn’t have weights, treadmills or saunas. It’s equipped with you and what you need or want to say and a God who wants to listen.
Trust
The end result of all that interaction is trust.
It’s belief.
It’s I know you’re there even when I don’t sense you.
It’s I know you’re not “doing this to me” when bad things happen.
Remember, the way you pray (or don’t) says volumes about what you believe (or don’t)…and about the kind of relationship in which you’re willing to participate.
Now…is that important enough to plan?
Lex orandi est lex credendi.
That translates as “the rule of prayer is the rule of belief.”
No Rules?!?
For some, the idea of linking a rule (Lex = law) to prayer will be offensive. If that’s your position,
- Do you make it a point to pray?
- Do you have a preferred place in which to pray?
- Do you have a preferred time (or times) of day at which to pray?
- Even if you insist on spontaneous prayer only, do you wind up praying in similar patterns?
If you answered “yes” to any of those questions, you might have a prayer plan. Plan = rule.
There are many ways to follow a plan for prayer. It’s differs little from the plan you use to guide your physical training. You plan that, don’t you?
This rule thing might not be evil after all….
In the next post in this series, “As We Pray,” I’ll approach the metaphor of athletic training and faith practice.
You do workout 5 days a week, right?
I have been told by a number of people whose faith and practice formed in the early to mid-20th century that their greatest faith testimony is two-fold:
- They’ve never smoked, and
- They’ve never tasted alcohol.
Really? Not even a nip of the vanilla extract?
In our church?
These same persons made impassioned pleas for me to evict Alcoholics Anonymous from the church basement because they smoked! (No. I’m not making that up. Same folks weren’t keen on the Girls Scouts using the church, either. )
Now, I may be youngish as of this writing, but I can read. What I read are crazy exhortations to “be like Jesus.” (Whose name really wasn’t Jesus…but that’s another story.)
At dinner?
Funny thing… Jesus made the wine for the wedding in Cana. He was also hanging out with all sorts of people, even sharing a meal with them. You know which people… Those people!
Another interesting note: sharing a meal in Southwest Asian cultures means something very different than it does in Western European culture. To share a meal in Sidon or Cairo or Haifa is to proclaim a family bond. If I invite you to a meal, I invite you to be my brother… No joke. No caveats. No addenda. It’s the same today as it was 2000 years ago.
(Put that among your Communion Table misconceptions and let it simmer. The fact that the Bread and Cup were shared at a dinner table and are stilled served at the Lord’s Table are not coincidental. )
Holiness?
What’s your reaction to that word?
We use it in several contexts in the Christian Way. Some of them are as follows:
- Personal Holiness
- Social Holiness
- The Holiness Movement
Work through it
Take a moment to get a pen and paper. Once you have that, write down your answers (or best guesses) to the questions below.
- What comes to mind when you think of the word “holiness”?
- List some denominations or groups within the “holiness movement.”
- Who is credited with starting the current “holiness movement” in Christianity?
- What does “personal holiness” mean to you?
- What does “social holiness” mean to you?
Read Chapter 4, “Party Person” of Why Jesus? and address the following questions.
- How did Jesus respond to the moral (“holy”) code of his day?
- Through what actions, if any, did he support it?
- Through what actions, if any, did he thwart it?
- What conclusions about Jesus do you draw from his association with the “party crowd”?
- What lessons stand out for your own journey to follow Jesus?
Some invitations are humbling. No. Really humbling. Such is the invitation that has me reading Why Jesus? by Bishop Will Willimon.
I once preached on Luke 8:22-25. It’s the story of Jesus and the Disciples crossing a lake in a storm. The Disciples were afraid. Jesus fixed it and accused them of lacking faith. My illustration was a story from my childhood. I had been on a lake in Southern Oklahoma with my father and grandfather in an aluminum boat when a thunderstorm suddenly developed. Of course, the outboard motor wouldn’t start. The image I recall is my grandfather and I (about 7 years old) paddling while my father tried to start the engine. After the service, I learned about humility… Real humility.
As I stood at the door of the church, a gentleman in his late 80s stopped and said, “Michael, I have a story for you about a boat in a storm.”
“Tell it!” I said.
“It’s was D plus 3,…” Mr. Jackson began.
He had begun his story with a date reference. “D plus 3″ meant 9 June 1944. That’s the date on which he crossed the English Channel headed to France in an LST (Landing Ship: Tank) to begin his trek across Europe as part of the Allied invasion.
Humility.
I found it after having spoken in the presence of one far wiser than me. In reading Why Jesus? with the Wesley Seekers class at First United Methodist Church in Wagoner, Oklahoma, I find it quite frequently. I am grateful for the opportunity to walk through these pages with them and hope some of what I share from that journey will be of benefit to you, as well.
To get the complete story, you’ll have to buy a copy of Why Jesus? What I will include here are study and discussion guides that I have used with the class.
Sessions
- Intro: Story versus History
- Vagabond
- Peacemaker
- Storyteller
- Party Person
- Preacher
Shortly after God made us in God’s own image, we returned the compliment, trying to make God more palatable, someone who looked suspiciously like us.
~ Will Willimon
( in Why Jesus?)
As your routine – work, school, children – kicks in this morning, take these questions with you:
> How have I ( we ) changed Jesus to make his message less radical?
> How have I ( we ) ignored pieces of his message to make our desires seem more acceptable to him?
> How can you invest one or two minutes out of every quarter hour thinking about who Jesus says he is AND who he says you are to him?
Stay in his shadow…
Tonight is the fourth installment of BRANDED at Wagoner First United Methodist Church! Our topic is what it means to be NURTURED by God. That is, we look at living what Renovare terms the “with-God life” or the “Immanuel Principle” through the life of Joseph.
Hope to see you there! If not, feel free to comment here, on this site!
A Topeka, KS, area church says it will demonstrate at the funerals of those killed in the January 8, 2011 shooting aimed at Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ), including the funeral of a 9-year-old girl killed that day.
That seems to me to be a hate-filled action…or at least one that doesn’t express what I think God expresses about God…and what God calls those who follow the Way of Christ to do (John 15:12).
Tonight’s the second in my series with the Branded UMY at First United Methodist Church of Wagoner, OK. Our topic is “Who does God see when God Looks at me?” My second answer is, “one who is Redeem ( -ed, -able).”
What do you think? Are those who claim the name of Christ who do seemingly hate-filled things “redeemed”? Are they “redeemable”?
Perhaps we could extend the question to include last week’s topic: Does God love people who claim Christ and still do bad things?
What do you think?
Blessings,
Michael
I hope you enjoy your time on the site and that something in these pages encourages your journey along the Way of Jesus. All thoughts here are my own and do not necessarily reflect the thoughts of others or of organizations with which I am affiliated. 
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