Delivered July 29, 2007
by Mark Hurst
Our sixteenth century Anabaptist forbears spoke about "walking in the resurrection." They got the idea from passages like 1 Peter 1:3 that talked about "a new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead" and from 1 Peter 3:21 that spoke about "a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ" and the references of Paul "to walk in newness of life" in Romans 6:4 and to "be buried and raised with Christ" in Colossians 2:12. To them walking in the resurrection meant putting away the old person of sin and putting on the new person of holiness; it meant living the life of love toward all people. These Anabaptists left the state churches, or were thrown out, and even though they were heavily persecuted, they spread their message as zealous missionaries. Wilbert R. Shenk, a long-time Mennonite mission scholar, writes that:
"The whole of Central Europe was soon covered with a network of Anabaptist communities, loosely connected with each other, who all practiced a strictly Scriptural form of worship." (Anabaptism and Mission, Herald Press, 1984, 66)
"The successes...in the spread of their faith were aided by the Anabaptist manner of life...Amid the general corruption of morals of the sixteenth century a group of convinced Christians were living out the ethical principles of the gospel in daily life. There is no doubt that the exemplary behaviour of many Anabaptists gave a strong emphasis to their word-of-mouth appeals, and preached more loudly than the exegetically and theologically correct sermons of many a pastor." (80)
In Australia we would say they were "fair dinkum". They were the real thing. Their lives matched their message. They provided a model of what living a new life looks like. They demonstrated what it meant to "walk in the resurrection."
What does a church or Christian "walking in the resurrection" look like today? I want to suggest that it will be a church that is Alternative, Attractive, and Articulate.
A church "walking in the resurrection" will be living a life that is alternative, particularly in this age of terrorism and violence. After the September 11 attacks one U.S. columnist said:
"We know who the homicidal maniacs are. They are the ones cheering and dancing right now. We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity." (Robert Jewett and John Shelton Lawrence, Captain America and the Crusade against Evil, Eerdmans, 2003, 227)
Christianity and violence have been so thoroughly linked that many Christians in the U.S. would see no problem with this sentiment. But a church modelling an alternative will reject this linkage.
1 Peter 3:8-16 is a good summary of the Christian community's alternative way of living. "Have unity of spirit, sympathy, love for one another, a tender heart, and a humble mind." (3:8) Not qualities useful in the war on terror! "Do not repay evil for evil or abuse for abuse; but on the contrary, repay with a blessing." (3:9) Erland Waltner in writing about this passage says:
"In becoming the kind of Christian community 1 Peter envisions, the church is both witness and servant in the world. It becomes the sign of the reign of God. It speaks of what can be, of what God intended to be, and of what God, by grace, has made possible." (Erland Waltner, "Reign of God, mission, and peace in 1 Peter", in Beautiful Upon The Mountains, Institute of Mennonite Studies, 2003, 241)
Peter goes on. "Keep your tongues from evil…turn away from evil and do good…seek peace and pursue it." (3:10-11) Erland says:
"…these actions are part of the mission of the people of God. The pursuit of peace expresses their living hope and their participation in the new people of God…First Peter helps us understand the missional and peace-pursuing implications of that hope by making its application concrete in encounter with an unredeemed world." (246, 247)
Verse 14 gives an important message for our time – "Do not fear what they fear, and do not be intimidated." Much of the current "war on terror" is being driven by fear, particularly fear of the "other" whether they are our next door neighbour or a stranger. In Australia we have a government sponsored campaign with the theme "Be alert, not alarmed!" It is a fear-based campaign (complete with fridge magnets). An alternative way to live is to not be controlled by fear but be driven by love; to respond with hospitality.
A film crew researching for a telemovie about the September 11 hijackers visited the neighbourhood in Germany where some of the hijackers lived for awhile and planned their attacks. One of the actors, trying to understand these men and trying to get into his role, came to this insight about Western culture:
"Nobody cares who you are, no neighbours say hi. We are not used to this in the Middle East. I often wonder what would have happened if someone had simply welcomed Mohammed Atta [one of the hijackers], said: ‘Hi, here's a pie I baked earlier. Would you like some?'" (Adam LeBor, "Meet The Neighbours", The Weekend Australian, August 20-21, 2005, Inquirer, 22.)
The alternative life of the Christian community 1 Peter talks about is a disciplined life of peacemaking that involves daily developing these Jesus qualities –love, lack of fear, hope, hospitality, etc. - and practicing them in a way that gets the attention of people around us – for good and bad. Remember, Jesus lived a life of "doing good" and it got him killed. So this calls for costly action on the church's part. "Even if you do suffer for doing what is right, you are blessed." (3:14)
Marva Dawn is an author who writes much about this way of being.
"…the Christian community must be an alternative society—offering its gifts of different ways to think and speak and be and behave to a world that is truly desperate for them." She says, "Lately I have been emphasizing the pun that to live this way is to recover true altar-nativity—the presenting of our church bodies as a living sacrifice on the altar (actually the Greek word means burnt offering in the invitation of Romans 12:1) and then our rebirth into the new life of Christ in us."
But, Dawn argues, we must not become so alternative that we have no contact with the rest of society. We must also be "parallel."
"In the midst of our post-Christian culture, the true churches must be a…sort of parallel society. We gather together in worship to speak our language, to read our narratives of God at work, to sing authentic hymns of the faith in all kinds of styles, to chant and pour out our prayers until we know the truth so well that we can go out to the world around us and invite that world to share this truth with us. In our worship, we are formed by biblical narratives that tell a different story from that of the surrounding culture. Since we thereby come to know the truth that sets us free, we are eager to share that with our neighbours; thus our worship must equip us for that mission with a deep vision of the extravagant splendour of God. Rather than being ‘a vendor of religious goods and services' that caters to people's tastes, the Church is called to be ‘a body of people sent on a mission.'
We need both words - alternative and parallel - for describing the church. To be parallel will deter us from being so alternative that we do not relate to our neighbours; to be alternative prevents our parallelism from moving closer and closer to modes of life alien to the kingdom of God. Rather than becoming enculturated and entrapped by the world's values of materialistic and experiential consumerism, of narcissistic self-importance and personal taste, of solitary superficiality, and of ephemeral satisfaction, members of Christ's body choose his simple life of sharing, his willingness to suffer for the sake of others, his communal vulnerability, and his eternal purposes. When our worship gives us continual hearing of, and deep reflection on, God's Word, songs and prayers that nurture discipleship, and new visions of God's appointment for us to bear fruit, then we will gain God's heart for our mission and ministry of communicating the Christian story, of enfolding our neighbours in God's love, of choosing deliberately to live out the alternative Churchbeing of the people of God's kingdom." (Marva Dawn, "Worship to Form a Missional Community", Direction, Fall 1999, Vol. 28, No. 2, 139-52. http://www.directionjournal.org/article/?1014)
A church "walking in the resurrection" will be living a life that is attractive. Going against the flow will get people's attention. Living a Jesus lifestyle in a time of war will make us stand out. 1 Peter 3:15 assumes that people will look at Christians and see people who are hopeful in a time when hope is in short supply. They will "demand from you an accounting of the hope that is in you."
People are hungry for hope. They long for security and a place to belong. They want community. If the church is living a truly alternative life that finds hope, security, and community in the new life of God's kingdom, people will be attracted to it. The church will not have to dream up campaigns to "get people in". People will ask where the church's hope comes from.
Clarence Jordan explains it in terms of being a "demonstration plot" of the kingdom. He said this:
"…if Jesus could make Simon the Zealot and Matthew the [tax collector] walk down the main street in Jerusalem, holding hands and calling one another "Brother," the God Movement was here! This was to be a demonstration plot – not so much a preaching platform, but a demonstration plot that the God Movement was under way.
Jesus was trying to make a concrete, living demonstration of the God movement…He was not talking about the Kingdom of God in an abstract sense. He was saying, "The Kingdom of God is in your midst." Where? "Right here. Here they are. Here are the fellows. This is the God Movement – right in your midst – and you are being confronted with it." The Christian movement resorted more to fact than to argument. Those people were the direct evidence of the "kingdom" – the God Movement." (Dallas Lee (ed.), The Substance of Faith and other Cotton Patch Sermons by Clarence Jordan, Association Press, 1972, 61)
In this concrete expression of the kingdom of God that the church lives out, it has something the world needs. Jordan says:
"It seems to me that we Christians have an idea here that the world is tremendously in need of. When we're tottering fearfully on the brink of utter annihilation, looking so desperately for hope from somewhere, walking in deep darkness, looking for one little streak of light, do not we Christians have some light? Can't we say "Sure, we know the way. It's the way of love and peace. We shall not confront the world with guns in our hands and bombs behind our backs. We shall confront the world without fear, with utter helplessness except for the strength of God." (76, 77)
A church "walking in the resurrection" will be living a life that is articulate. When people ask why the church lives the way it does, the church should be ready to explain why it is different, why it is hopeful and why it does not go with the war making flow. The church community needs to be articulate about its faith and why it makes a difference in the way its people live. But it should be done "with gentleness and reverence (respect)". People do not like Christians who "Bible bash" them. Do not give people answers to questions they are not asking. When the church community demonstrates a life that is alternative and people are attracted to it, its members should be ready to articulate why they are the way they are. Earn the right to speak to others by the way we live.
Nelson Kraybill, president of Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminary, said at the Charlotte 2005 Mennonite Church Assembly that Mennonites should not be like the "piano man" in Britain, who was found wet and dressed in a suit. For quite awhile he had not spoken a word but had demonstrated his ability as a virtuoso pianist. We want not only to be virtuoso Christians but to also speak of Jesus, who empowers us, Kraybill said.
A Dutch pastor visited the seminary and told Kraybill that in a generation the Mennonite church in the Netherlands had gone from 50,000 members to only 9,000. Asked why, a Dutch woman said, "We kept the deeds but lost the words." (Now there is a renewal in the Netherlands, and some churches are growing.) They forgot how to articulate their faith when it was necessary to do so. (Gordon Houser, "A piano man who speaks", M Press Online, July 6, 2005.
We are not all called to be missionaries; just like we are not all called to be doctors, nurses, teachers, etc. But we are all called to live lives that witness to Jesus Christ and God's Kingdom – to walk in the resurrection.
I've been doing some reading about missionaries during this study year. I've learned some things that I believe can help all of us.
In a couple of the books I read I came across the story of the Russian Orthodox missionary named Herman. He became known as Herman of Alaska. He went to Alaska in 1794 and remained there for 43 years. Most of the workers that went with him died or were killed early on in his time of ministry. He faced much opposition from officials of the Russian American Trading Company whose main interest was making money from furs. But the local people loved him and today he is considered a saint. One author says:
"Herman best represents a model of ‘passive' missions in Orthodox history. He did not translate any materials into the native language. He did not personally baptize thousands of converts. He did not develop any great mission theory. He wasn't even a priest. He turned down the honour of ordination…so that he would remain a humble monk. He did, however, live a holy life in a pagan land. He allowed the light of Christ to shine brightly through his words, deeds, and life, and thus, gave a concrete Christian example for all the people to see and imitate." (Missionaries, Monks, and Martyrs: Making Disciples of all Nations, Luke Alexander Veronis, Light and Life Publishing, 1994, p. 85-86)
He "lived a holy life in a pagan land." He is an example of what I've been talking about.
The author of this book, after studying a number of missionary "heroes" throughout Christian history, asks what the common features are in their lives. This is what he concludes:
"First and foremost, they all lived holy lives which radiated the presence of Jesus Christ. They realized that before they could ever preach the gospel, they had to experience the kingdom of God from within. Once the gospel transformed their lives, they were ready to share it with others."
Second, they "intensely experienced a communion with God through their prayers and spiritual reading. [The Bible played a significant role during the formative period of their lives.] They wished to unite themselves to Christ as completely as possible. Only after such union with God were they prepared for outreach and mission."
Third, was their "respect for the native people and their culture. They looked upon the indigenous people as children of God who deserved dignity and love because all people were created in the divine image. They identified themselves with the natives by living humble lives of poverty and service. They did not try to rule over their spiritual children in an arrogant or self-centred manner. Instead, they stood by their side and shared their hardships and sufferings."
Finally, they "persevered in the face of many struggles." (140-142)
These people walked in the resurrection and led lives that were alternative, attractive, and articulate. May we all do the same. Amen.
Petitcodiac Mennonite Church