Reclaiming Jesus Together

Written by Alissa Bender

Associate Pastor Alissa Bender
Calgary First Mennonite Church
July 25, 2010

Reclaiming Jesus Together
Colossians 3:15-17, Matthew 11:2-6, John 6:60-69, Acts 4:1-31

 (Don’t worry, half of your sermon was finished with everyone else’s Assembly sharing)  For those of us who took part in the Mennonite Church Canada annual assembly at the beginning of this month, it has been our job this morning to give you just a tiny taste of what we experienced.  And more importantly, I think that what you deserve to hear from us is an answer to the question – Why do we gather at all?  Why does what we’re saying this morning matter?  Why is it relevant to our life as a Church and not just another chance to read your bulletin in detail?

 As I glanced over my notes again from Assembly, I came across the phrase “common identity”.  There has been some discussion at the last few assemblies about whether we should continue meeting every year, or whether concerns of ecological and financial stewardship are enough to cause us to meet less frequently.  But I think that one of the things that keeps calling us back to annual meetings is this question of having a common identity as the Mennonite congregations of Canada.

Mennonite Church Canada quite a young denomination.  I grew up on the other side of the country and I went to the Mennonite Church gatherings, while you and your kids went to the General Conference ones.  Mennonite Church Canada, as it exists today, has been around for little more than a decade, and people from all points in our vast country are still getting to know each other and being reminded of the great diversity of stories that are part of our Mennonite story.

But, if conferences shift and names change, where do we find this common identity?  In each of the three mornings of assembly, we started off with some concentrated Bible study time, led by outgoing general secretary Jack Suderman.  Jack led us in digging into Colossians 3:15-17, which gave us our over-arching theme for the week (Reclaiming Jesus), and which some of you will remember from Prayer Week this year.  This is what Paul says to the Colossians:

15 And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in the one body. And be thankful. 16 Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly; teach and admonish one another in all wisdom; and with gratitude in your hearts sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs to God. 17 And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.

These verses weren’t written to an individual, they were written to a community, a church.  They tell us who we are to be together.  Now, maybe this just sounds like a nice warm and fuzzy invitation, so I will share the Suderman Amplified Version of verse 15 to give you an idea of how big this is (this is “let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts”):

“Your will, your decision-making, your politics, your emotions, your purpose, your deepest identity, your life paradigms, your intellect, your rational thought and planning, your determination, your courage, your desires, and your identity-shaping memory must reflect shalom.” (of course, we could unpack “shalom” into that all-encompassing Hebrew concept of wholeness, well-being, oneness with God, and peace that doesn’t translate very directly into English either)

So, as you see, we’re not just talking about warm fuzzy feelings.  Paul is claiming that Christ’s peace shapes everything about our identity.  In fact, maybe we need to go so far as to say that it is to be our identity.  And I would suggest to you that if these 3 verses are to reflect our identity as Mennonite Church Canada, then we need to come together to work, to discuss, to study the Bible, to argue, to discern, to play, and to worship together so that we can listen to God together and learn from each other about how Christ’s peace is being embodied in each of our scattered communities.

The evening worship times during Assembly took us on a journey with Jesus’ followers.  I want to tell you a bit about this journey because it seems important to remember that as congregations and individuals in the Mennonite Church, we will find ourselves at different points on this and other journeys.  But as Harvey wrote in his sharing, when we come together we find out some of our common struggles.  And also, we learn from those who have been at our point on the journey and moved on.

We started with John the Baptist in Matthew 11:2-6: 
When John heard in prison what the Messiah was doing, he sent word by his disciples 3 and said to him, "Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?" 4 Jesus answered them, "Go and tell John what you hear and see: 5 the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them. 6 And blessed is anyone who takes no offense at me."

We dwelled that evening in the doubt of John the Baptist.  At the beginning of Matthew’s gospel, John recognizes Jesus as the one who is more powerful than him who is coming after him, the one whose sandals he is not worthy to carry, the one who will baptize with the Holy Spirit and fire.  But now, from the darkness of his prison cell, he may not be so sure anymore.  This isn’t quite what he expected.  In his sermon, Gareth Brandt helped us to ponder the times when we, too, ask Jesus – Are you the One?  Are there times when we would rather have a different Jesus, one that vanquishes our enemies on sight, for example?  One that solves all of our problems quickly and makes us feel better?  Do we doubt that the Jesus we have experienced is really “the One?”

Gareth quoted Frederick Buechner who said that “Doubts are the ants in the pants of faith, they keep it awake and moving.”  Times of doubt bring many rich possibilities into our lives, as hard as they might be to live through.  Perhaps in John’s time of doubt, he and Jesus’ other disciples could come to a truer understanding of the kind of Messiah that Jesus was to be. 

In the next evening’s worship, we saw some people’s doubt and others’ declarations of faith.  In the gospel of John we find this scene after one of Jesus’ explanations of who he is:
When many of his disciples heard it, they said, "This teaching is difficult; who can accept it?" 61 But Jesus, being aware that his disciples were complaining about it, said to them, "Does this offend you?… .66 Because of this many of his disciples turned back and no longer went about with him. 67 So Jesus asked the twelve, "Do you also wish to go away?" 68 Simon Peter answered him, "Lord, to whom can we go? You have the words of eternal life. 69 We have come to believe and know that you are the Holy One of God."

We were challenged that evening by Lucy Roca, a pastor planting Spanish-speaking Mennonite churches in Quebec. Lucy drew our attention to the church at Ephesus who was accused in Revelation of having abandoned the love they had at first.  Were we at all like this church, she asked, who had lost the energy, passion, and joyful expectation of their original faith?  Or when given the chance to opt out, would we say like Peter – “Lord, to whom can we go?  You have the words of eternal life.  We have come to believe and know that you are the Holy One of God.”

We were taken next to the book of Acts, chapter 4 when Peter and John are imprisoned and then brought before the rulers and elders of Jerusalem to answer for their crime of healing a man in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth.  They are finally released after the rulers find no way to punish them without upsetting the crowds.  If Peter or John were all alone, maybe they could have gone through a time of doubt then, or a temptation to turn away from this scandalous message.  But together they returned to their friends where they told them what had happened and prayed together.  The book of Acts says that when they had prayed, the place in which they were gathered together was shaken, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and spoke the word of God with boldness (4:31).

Together, Peter, John, and their friends sought out God’s empowerment for the ministry to which they had been called.  When I picture them gathered together in that room, I think of us as Mennonite Church Canada gathered together to seek God’s guidance and empowerment.  There were a few times during the week when there were comments made about the things that as churches we cannot… or even should not… do alone.

We heard about the diverse multi-cultural ministries within Canada that we’re supporting as a national church.  We heard about Witness workers in China, South Africa, and the Philippines.  We shared about our peace witness as Calgary churches.  We saw amazing work being done that we cannot do as one congregation alone.  And yet, this is the work of our Church.  We are part of this ministry.  This ministry in the name of Jesus is part of our common identity.  And when we neglect our shared identity, before long there is a disconnection between the Church and its ministries.  This disconnection was named as we saw the ongoing decrease in congregational donations to MC Canada, and as we saw that, because of this, areas like the international ministries were being cut, possibly leaving ministry positions vacant.

The work of the Church can change and shift over time as much as the names and shapes of conferences can, and new opportunities can arise even as old ones are lost or released.  What is important is returning to passages like Colossians 3 and asking ourselves – is this the kind of faith community that we are?  Are we living out of the name of Jesus Christ, with gratitude, however that looks in this time and place?  And we need each other for that discernment, whether it is sharing our experience as congregations, or determining how we are to operate as a national church.  I encourage us to continue to look beyond our walls as we explore how God may be calling us.  And I invite all of you to take Keri’s encouragement to consider going next year when Assembly happens in Waterloo, Ontario.  But whatever we do, in word or deed, let us do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.