1 Peter 4:1-11
Mark 16:14-20
2012 Discipline of the United Methodist Church
“In order to be truly alive, we embrace
Jesus’ mandate to love God and to love our neighbor and to make
disciples of all peoples.” Discipline of the United Methodist Church,
¶121, pg 92
In continuing our study of the doctrine of
the United Methodist Church, it is necessary to examine doctrine (actually, any
doctrine) in the light of the common mission of the Church. “Faithfulness and effectiveness demand that
all ministries in the Church be
shaped by the mission of making
disciples of Jesus Christ.” Discipline, ¶123, pg 92
So the doctrine of the United Methodist
Church is not reduced to a creed we can easily memorize nor is there a check
list of orthodox beliefs. Rather the
fullness of the doctrine of the Church – and “in order to be truly alive” – is
entirely about living the ministry of all Christians in the common mission we
share. There is not one baptized person
in this fellowship, not one soul in this Holy House who is excused from this
common mission, this mandate from Christ to “make disciples”.
Our Book
of Discipline lines out a process by which we live into the mission to
which we are called, the same mission The Lord laid out for the people of
Israel as a “nation of priests”, the very same mission to which the Church is
commissioned. And each of us – without
exception - has a ministry into which we are called as the means by which the
mission of the Church is fulfilled.
“We make disciples as we 1) proclaim the
Gospel, seek, welcome, and gather persons into the Body of Christ (note this phrase “Body). [This
is how we are enabled to] 2) lead persons to commit their lives to God through baptism by water and the Spirit and profession of faith in
Jesus Christ. [These new disciples are enabled to do so because we] 3) nurture persons in Christian
living through worship, the sacraments, spiritual disciplines, and other means
of grace. [Then by our loving nurture, discipline, and mutual accountability we
are able to] 4) send [these equipped]
persons into the world to live lovingly and justly as servants of Christ by healing
the sick, feeding the hungry, caring for the stranger, freeing the oppressed,
being and becoming a compassionate, caring presence, and working to develop
social structures that are consistent with the Gospel. [Finally
we start all over with a new generation of equipped and committed disciples and]
5) continue the mission of seeking, welcoming, and gathering persons into the
community of the Body of Christ.” Discipline,
¶122, pg 92. Not merely “members” of a
local church.
It is fair to say, then, that of the
doctrines of the United Methodist Church, “making disciples” is the primary doctrine – and should be
considered the sole practice – of the
United Methodist Church – not “membership” but, rather, radical discipleship.
Radical discipleship as in a
sharp and drastic departure from doing things “the way we’ve always done
them”. The fullness of this primary
doctrine is not only the present need of the United Methodist Church; it is
also for the sake of the very Gospel itself in generations to come! And let’s face this harsh reality: our
children are lost without it.
It is entirely about whether we actually
“believe” and trust The Lord.
So how do we go about doing this? While a few among us do not mind leading a
devotional or Bible study, “proclaiming the Gospel” sounds an awful lot like
the preacher’s job. Note, however, that
like most of the epistles of the New Testament, the Discipline is not strictly a job description for pastors alone
nor are they directed at any single individual.
The epistles and the Discipline
are directed at the whole Church, the Body united in common purpose.
As it has been shared many times before,
the Church (the body of the congregation, not strictly the institution) is
charged with “proclaiming the Gospel”; that is, actively living Jesus’ very
life in the world today. Those who
consider themselves “personally” and individually
“saved” only for one’s own sake are very unlikely to take this mantle upon
themselves – so if the Church falls silent, so does the Gospel … until The Lord
finds someone else willing to carry His Charge and Commission to express His
Love and His offer of redemption to the entire world. Or at least our little corner of it in the
beginning.
Now what happens to a church that refuses
to live this doctrine and defy The Lord?
What happens to a body that declines to answer this charge or accept
this Commission? There seem to be two biblical
answers for those who ignore The Lord and the “priesthood of believers”: 1) the
Exile of the First Testament by which Judah and Israel were “cleansed” of the
complacent ones who refused to take their part to care for the Whole
Body and jerk a knot in the
tail of those who refused to hold them accountable, and 2) the outright
rejection expressed in the New Testament as written by St. Paul to the Romans: “As
they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a
debased mind, to do those things which are not fitting …” (1:28). This strongly suggests The Lord put “they” to
whom Paul was referring on His “pay no mind” list. Do not be led to believe this is a “gotcha”
passage strictly for homosexuals.
The very first thing we must do as The Body of Christ is to reject outright
the very shallow and relatively modern Age
of Enlightenment doctrine of “me”.
There is nothing written in the Scripture to lead anyone to think or to
believe that The Lord so loves “me” to the exclusion of His Whole Body,
suggesting Jesus favors His right foot over His left hand. Remembering it is actually written in the Scripture that The Lord shows no
“partiality”, we must get past this strictly self-serving notion that The Lord
shows or does “personal favors” only for one’s own sake. It is a dangerous doctrine, it is a shallow
doctrine, and it often has little to do with THE doctrine of “making disciples
equipped to make disciples”.
Secondly we must remember that when we acknowledge
and receive Christ as Lord and Savior, we must acknowledge the fullness of Christ not as a “personal
favor-doer” but as Lord of the whole Church
and Savior of the entire world even
as we are also reminded by the Scripture that “as many as received Him, to them
He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His Name” (John 1:12). There is indeed a personal component to our
redemption, but it is NOT the end-all/be-all to sanctification.
All this is to say that, thirdly, we must
believe we are in this together. We are bound together interdependently and intimately as the whole Body of Christ.
If any individual is mad at the preacher or any member of this Body to
the point that one refuses to commit to some component of the Life of the
Church as the Church needs, or refuse to tithe, or refuse
to pray together, or refuse to study the Scripture with one another, then one
must first and foremost acknowledge it is solely and completely one’s own problem
and will ultimately become one’s own condemnation – for we are not hurting the
individual who is the object of one’s scorn; we are hurting the whole
Body. If we stick a knife in a foot,
does the brain not sense and convey the pain, and the whole body affected
adversely?? Nor can we expect to be
forgiven (nor call ourselves “saved”) if we refuse to forgive or allow a
drowning person to go under for the third time.
This condemnation, too, is actually
written in the Scripture.
Dear friends, it is not time to put prayer
back in public schools or put the Ten Commandments on the courthouse lawn or
put a Christian in the White House. It
is time to put Christ back into “Christian”!
It is time to put Christ back into the Church so that the Church becomes
the very Body of Christ we are called to be.
NO SINGLE INDIVIDUAL can make that happen alone. Not Billy Graham, not Rick Warren, not Max
Lucado, not Beth Moore, not even the bishop.
We are the Body of
Christ, not “I”, each of us as “members” of that Body; and as The Body we are
called – together – to “make disciples”.
It is the “Ministry of all Christians”, it is the lifeblood of the Body,
and it is THE doctrine of the United Methodist Church to which all our doctrine
points. Let us never forget who we are;
we are Christ in the World Today. We are
the living Gospel of The Lord.
In the Father, in The Word, in the Spirit
of the Living God. Amen.
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