Becoming astonishing people

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An air of astonishment surrounded the earthly ministry of Jesus. Wherever he went his words and actions awakened wonder, shock, joy, bewilderment and scandal in equal measure. The most unsettling surprise was who was welcomed and given place at the table in the community of Jesus gathered around him. Familiar social, moral and religious boundaries were ignored. The most unlikely people were found there, including those usually excluded from life in that conservatively religious society – the poor, disabled, victimised, sick and the rank outsiders. Meanwhile, those most expected to be there were often not.

The church of Christ, in every time and place, will always be found working out the shock and surprise of God’s vision for his Kingdom among us and the community he welcomes and gives home to there. The truth is we will never be sure who we may find ourselves sitting next to in this ‘Church for Everyone’. This is simply because it is not our ‘Contacts’ Jesus works from.

In the Jewish tradition, to be a disciple of a rabbi meant not only following his commands and teachings but living and acting exactly as he did. So what kind of community may we expect to emerge where the words and actions of Jesus are imitated? The answer is one marked by unconditional welcome, abundant hospitality (given and received), mercy where only judgment was expected, loving touch without regard for taint and reputation – and above all a scandalous, generous inclusion. This is as true today as it was in the beginning. 

The first churches in the New Testament struggled with the challenge of being such a community. In particular, theological and cultural divisions between Jewish and Gentile believers run like an unresolved fault line through the whole New Testament era. It was their equivalent of our present-day conflicts over sexuality.

From the New Testament letters we glimpse very diverse communities of believers – ethnically, racially, culturally and socially.  Theologically traditional and progressive believers lived and worshipped awkwardly together in one community. Does that sound familiar?

Faced with the task of leading such a diverse and easily conflicted communities how did a leader like Paul respond? The last chapters of his letter to church in Roman offer some clues. At issue for Paul was the whole life and mission of the church and its task to make the Kingdom visible. Strikingly he does not start from right or wrong belief. He is first concerned to lay down the basis for shared life.  Please note, he is not saying truth does not matter or a matter of private opinion. The deepening of scriptural faith and understanding remained of central importance to him, as it for us.  But his starting point is to insist that they genuinely accept each other as brothers and sisters in Christ. The basis for meeting as the body of Christ is always a mutual tolerance. The priority for Paul, in a church where strongly conflicting views are sincerely held, is that all are living ‘for/to the Lord’ (eg Roms 14.2-8). He uses this phrase often. Another person may hold a view I deeply disagree with but have come to that view with the same commitment to Christ and his Word and Spirit. Then, Paul would say, I am bound to welcome that sister or brother in the same way that Christ has welcomed me.

These are New Testament principles for living faithfully in a diverse church. And we need them today as the people of God struggle once again over issues of boundaries, welcome and inclusion. But the language of ‘welcome’ and ‘inclusion’ is often used in a misleading way. The ‘welcome’ we are speaking of here is not the belated goodwill of a church that had held traditional views but has now decided to ‘include’ those it previously opposed and excluded. It is Christ who invites and welcomes. It is Christ who includes. We are the church of Christ. The church itself is not the centre of the story and never has been. This is vividly illustrated in the story of Peter and Cornelius (Acts chap 10) where radical welcome and inclusion transformed the Christian church from being a narrow Jewish sect to becoming a faith for all peoples. But it did not come about by Christians welcoming and including Gentile ‘outsiders’. Quite the reverse. Peter and the Jewish believers had to realise they were not the centre of God’s surprising activity at all. It was Peter who journeyed and crossed a threshold into a world he had believed was forbidden to him. There he received, as a surprising gift, his own inclusion and welcome in a story already revealed by the Spirit in the life and faith of an outsider. Jews and Gentiles were on a journey together, beyond their own understanding, preferred boundaries and limited expectations, into the welcome of the new community of Christ. I find that a helpful illustration of the shared journeys required of a Church for Everyone.

Now as then, the shared life and mission of the church is not for understanding as one group calling another to their viewpoint as if one is right and the other wrong. As someone memorably expressed it, we need the courage to go to a place that none of us have ever been before. In every age and generation, with whatever questions are perplexing or dividing us, the invitation is the same. It is to follow Christ as he leads us through astonishment into the life that is our home and our witness – the Kingdom of God.

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David Runcorn’s book ‘Love Means Love’ is widely available