Romans 9:6-13
John 7:25-36
“The
meeting of two personalities is like the contact of two chemical substances; if there is any reaction, both are transformed.” Carl Jung (father of analytical
psychotherapy)
Conversely it must be said that, unlike chemical substances which lack
independent will, if there is no reaction in the meeting of two personalities,
neither will be transformed; not the one who needs to be transformed nor the
one who claims to have been transformed.
St. Paul wrote to the Corinthians (1 Cor 2:14 CEB): “People who are unspiritual don’t
accept the things from God’s Spirit. [These
things] are foolishness to them and cannot be understood because [these
spiritual things] can only be comprehended in a spiritual way”.
It might even be considered that too many
within the Christian faith do not quite understand – or even really care to
understand - the Christian religion apart from that often wide gulf between claiming
to “believe in Jesus” and “going to heaven”.
Consider that there are about 7.3 million Americans who claim to be
“members” of the United Methodist Church, but only 2.9 million of these attend
worship (39%). Of the 2.9 million who
attend worship and the rough formula for those who attend any small group or discipleship
development study, including Sunday school (35%-45%); that number drops to 1.3
million.
So of the 7.3 million Americans who call
themselves “members” of the United Methodist Church, only 17% are engaged in
the full life of the Church. For the
other 83%, Christianity in general may have no meaning for them beyond that
single moment of “membership” when their names were recorded in the church
rolls. If Christianity has been reduced
to nothing more than a single “burning bush” moment but with no real transformation,
no life-altering response, something is missing.
The United Methodist Church holds that “Our theological task is essentially practical. It
informs the individual’s daily decisions and serves the Church’s life and
work. While … theoretical constructions of Christian thought make
important contributions to theological understanding, we finally measure the
truth of such statements in relation to their practical significance. Our interest is to incorporate the promises and demands of the Gospel into our daily lives”
(¶105, 2012 Book of Discipline, pg 80).
We cannot claim to accept the promises of Christ if we reject the demands of Christ.
In other words, the theology and doctrines
of the United Methodist Church are not only theoretical
but must become practical and
applicable to our daily living. As has
been shared and emphasized so often during this doctrinal series, and as is
expressed in our Book of Discipline, a doctrine which lacks outward
expression and practical significance
can have no real meaning. If our
doctrine cannot inform practical
living, the doctrine lacks substance and remains only theoretical. This includes a
benign statement that we “believe” in Jesus.
But when St. Paul is referring to “the
message of the Cross as foolishness to those who are perishing” (1 Corinthians 1:18), what exactly is he
referring to as “the message”? What does
the Cross itself reveal? That Jesus
died? Yes, but why? Because of His love for, and complete
submission to, the Holy Father’s purpose?
Of course, but there are other elements of
“the message of the Cross”, not least of which is the loud-and-clear message
received from those who rejected Jesus and His claims to the point of being
willing to deliberately (with “malice aforethought”!) testify falsely so this
innocent Man personifying the “message
of the Cross” could be executed. We have
to remember Jesus referred to the necessity of the “message of the Cross” in
our daily living long before He was nailed to that Cross (Matthew 16:24). You must take up your Cross and follow Me –
IF – you want Eternal Life. The
Promise – AND – the Demand of the Gospel.
At
no time did Jesus ever suggest that we need only to say His Name.
That narrative of rejection is as much a
part of “the message of the Cross” as is Divine Love. It cannot be glossed over or ignored because
that narrative reveals something written of extensively in the Scripture but is
all too often ignored by scriptural (those
claiming to be Bible-believing) Christians – just as the Law of Moses (the
Scripture, the Torah) was ignored by religious
leaders and the mob demanding Jesus’ death.
That narrative of rejection is the tension
between the Promises and the Demands of the Gospel and the tension between our
two personalities; who we think we are in “real life” (the life we define strictly
on our own terms according to the Promise), and who we are called to be in the
“fullness of life” offered to us in Christ according to the Demand (John 10:10). You see, when “church life” becomes or
remains theoretical and
compartmentalized rather than practical and
complete, the Church itself becomes marginalized and is ultimately deemed
useless and therefore easily rejected – even by those who insist upon being
referred to as “members” of the very Church they reject. That 83% of the 7.3 million in the United
Methodist Church alone.
There is a matter of whether the Bible can have any significance
beyond its literary value for those who do not believe in its Divine
Inspiration. So it falls to disciples,
“witnesses” willing to “take up their cross”, to attest to the practicality (rather than the theory) of what is revealed to us.
This begs the question, then: what has been revealed
to us practically? This, I think, is the essential component of
the very existence of Christianity and very being of Christ Jesus as Lord of
the Church – because if it is only theoretical,
it has yet to be proved as true ... even for those who claim to believe it.
So what is proved?
Circumcision proves only that a circumcision has taken place. Baptism in the Church proves only that a
baptism has taken place, and Holy Communion proves only that the practice took
place. A profession of faith proves only
that a profession of faith has been spoken aloud, and confirmation proves only that
we put our youth through a process.
Yet what has been proved to those for whom all this is
all just “foolishness” or superstition if these practices end with the
benediction? These who call us foolish
or superstitious are the ones who need to know exactly what has taken place transformationally – and they need to
know from we who claim to have been transformed;
because apart from our practical
divinity, practical discipleship, they
may never come to know that what we practice,
what we do transcends theory.
I mention circumcision because in some circles Paul’s Letter to the Galatians is known as the
book of circumcision. Almost everything
Paul writes in this Letter seems to
center around his objection to circumcision.
Yet this is not quite what Paul is getting at. If we were to look more carefully at the principle to which St. Paul defaults, it
cannot be strictly about circumcision - for us, anyway – because circumcision
is not a practice of the Church. There
must be something for us today, something practical.
Baptism, however, is an important and necessary practice of the Church. And as important as baptism is as the sign of
the New Covenant, it can still be reduced to a meaningless practice if it does not serve as a means to something greater, one
of the many means of grace we actually practice as important to us. So to take a small snippet of Paul’s letter,
let us read this: “In Christ Jesus
baptism avails nothing; but faith working through love avails everything” (5:6).
“Faith
working through love”. This
is the practical component of the
Christian faith and practice which takes us beyond a theoretical doctrine or creed and moves
us toward the very practical nature
of being Christ in the world today as His Body the Church. This is what it means to “take up the Cross
and follow” Jesus daily. Ridding
ourselves of the world’s encumbrances that only weigh us down, we practically put faith into action by our
unselfish acts of love.
Is it “works” that sanctify us? YES!
But “faith working
through love” in a practical way as
our daily testimony to what we have long claimed to be true. It is the Church which takes a doctrine and
moves it from theoretical to practical. It is
our “real life”, for it is the only life we have.
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