“Once
you were darkness, but now in the Lord you are light. Live as children of
light – for the fruit of the light is found in all that is good and right and
true. Try to find out what is pleasing to the Lord. Take no part in
the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them.” Ephesians 5:8-11
Touching
on the theme of last night’s class discussion of the 18th-century
Methodist classes and societies, what St. Paul is encouraging of the Ephesians
is what Wesley encouraged of the early Methodists (who were still Anglican and
were encouraged to attend worship at the Anglican parish). There were
such rules of these early classes that encouraged participants to be always mindful
of what they do and fail to do, and they were required to report each week to
their classes how they had fulfilled the class’s three standing rules; 1) to do
good, 2) to avoid all known sin, and 3) to attend to the means of grace
(prayer, fasting, Scripture study, the sacraments of the Church and, of course,
to regularly attend worship at the parish church). As long as evidence
was presented that one was purposely fulfilling the requirements of the class
and working toward disciplined fellowship and discipleship, one could stay in
the class. The goal of the class, of course, was that one would soon (in
God’s time) experience justification.
It
was not an easy thing to do, but the success of these classes which grew until
well after Wesley’s death was entirely dependent on class members’ willingness
to hold one another accountable to spiritual growth – and to be held
accountable. It did not mean that an occasion of sin would automatically
disqualify a member of the class; rather it meant that one was committed to
consciously living as disciples are expected to live. It also meant a
reasonable expectation that when one struggled with sin and temptation, there
were fellow disciples who were willing to struggle with them to
overcome!
This
is a practice which is almost entirely foreign to the contemporary
Church. We think nothing of asking a friend about the family or a sick
relative, but we have somehow been convinced that asking about the state of a
friend’s soul is too personal, that this is strictly between them and the
Lord. To ask about the state of one’s soul seems to require much more of
us than we are willing to risk. Yet we cannot ignore this certain reality
that as the Church today seems to have become much more concerned with being
popular and fitting in with the modern culture, the Church has become
increasingly less popular (note the very many empty pews) because the many
programs we believe will work to bring new guests in are themselves foreign to
the culture of that particular church. They are “put-on’s” that, more often
than not, make people feel as though they are being manipulated or played for
fools. The “millennials”, the so-called “none’s”, the 18-29 year old
groups are no longer falling for it. They have seen behind this facade,
and they do not like what they have seen and experienced. I doubt very
much that each individual who will read this likes to be played for a fool.
Remember
St. Paul was not writing to a single Ephesian; he was writing to the Ephesian
Church, the entire body. The entire body was (and is) responsible for the
overall well-being of that body. There are no “lone rangers” in
Christianity, for the very nature of our faith is entirely social. We are
called to care for one another at the deepest and most intimate level … to shed
that very light we have become in Christ Jesus.
Blessings,
Michael
No comments:
Post a Comment