The Rev. Joseph Farnes
All Saints Boise
Annual Meeting
What does it mean to be a Christian?
In my younger days, when I was leaving the church I grew up in, I remember thumbing through a catalog and looking at all the bumper stickers. I stumbled across one I loved: “Going to church doesn’t make you a Christian, just like being in the garage doesn’t make you a car.” I had left the church I grew up in for some deep theological reasons, like how they read the Bible and their refusal to ordain women. I also left because the same kids who sat next to me in deacons’ quorum and were in scouts with me were also some of my bullies. They could pray and talk about Jesus, but on the ride up to the hospital to visit another scout who was in the hospital with a broken leg, they also thought it fun to drive a screwdriver into my leg a few times.
So that bumper sticker stuck out to me. Going to church doesn’t make someone a follower of Jesus – actually following Jesus is what makes someone a follower of Jesus.
My mom and dad had raised me to read the Bible, and, even more importantly, to follow the way of life that Jesus called us to. As a kid, I remember frequent conversations about the Bible. Because the King James Version was difficult to read, I never made it very far, but the Sermon on the Mount in the Gospel of Matthew is conveniently toward the beginning of that Gospel. We’d discuss what it meant to look for the log in your own eye, to keep watch on your own thoughts, God caring for those in deepest need, to love your neighbor as yourself.
I could read the Bible all I want, but unless it made its way into my heart and into the way I lived, then it was just a bunch of words. And I saw what happened when it became empty words – people who would pray next to me on Sunday could just as easily see me as garbage to be bullied the rest of the week.
Being a Christian is more than going to church – being a Christian is behaving as if the words of Jesus actually matter, that the words and life and witness of Jesus actually mean something.
I guess I never fully understood that people could say they follow Jesus and call themselves Christian and yet not even want to listen to what Jesus said, that what mattered most was their own opinions, their own feelings, their own in-group, their own conviction of their own perfect righteousness and the absolute wickedness of anyone else.
The problem wasn’t that I needed to understand the Bible better so as to convince them – they were convinced that the Bible said only what they believed already. The problem wasn’t that I needed to speak the language of the Bible to reach them – words like “mercy” and “justice” and “love” and “self-discipline” and “grace” – but they wouldn’t understand those, either.
But that’s been the way since the beginning, honestly. Today’s Gospel reading from Luke does us a bit of a disservice because it cuts the story short – and since next Sunday is the Feast of the Presentation, we won’t hear the rest of the story this year! Let me read the whole thing:
(Luke 4: 16-30) When Jesus came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, he went to the synagogue on the sabbath day, as was his custom. He stood up to read, 17and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written:
18 ‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he has anointed me
to bring good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives
and recovery of sight to the blind,
to let the oppressed go free,
19 to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.’
20And he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. The eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. 21Then he began to say to them, ‘Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.’ 22All spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his mouth. They said, ‘Is not this Joseph’s son?’ 23He said to them, ‘Doubtless you will quote to me this proverb, “Doctor, cure yourself!” And you will say, “Do here also in your home town the things that we have heard you did at Capernaum.” ’ 24And he said, ‘Truly I tell you, no prophet is accepted in the prophet’s home town. 25But the truth is, there were many widows in Israel in the time of Elijah, when the heaven was shut up for three years and six months, and there was a severe famine over all the land; 26yet Elijah was sent to none of them except to a widow at Zarephath in Sidon. 27There were also many lepers in Israel in the time of the prophet Elisha, and none of them was cleansed except Naaman the Syrian.’ 28When they heard this, all in the synagogue were filled with rage. 29They got up, drove him out of the town, and led him to the brow of the hill on which their town was built, so that they might hurl him off the cliff. 30But he passed through the midst of them and went on his way.”
The year of the Lord’s favor – good news to the poor, release to captives, healing for the sick, the liberation of the oppressed – those were nice words, safe words. They liked him then. But when it became clear that Jesus wasn’t here to perform miracles for show that God had in mind to bring good news to the living poor, release to the captives down the street, healing for the sick who begged passersby for help, and liberation for the oppressed who were detested, then the trouble started. Now the year of the Lord’s favor was real. And the crowd’s opinion changed. How dare Jesus say such words! To the cliff they drove him that they may toss him off the edge.
“But he passed through the midst of them and went on his way.”
Yes, the pain of rejection. Yes, the threat of death.
But Jesus had a vocation, Jesus had a path to follow, and Jesus knew where he was going. To proclaim good news to the poor, release to the captives, healing for the sick, the liberation of the oppressed, to announce and herald the year of the Lord’s favor, to bring in the Kingdom of God, a kingdom of mercy and loving-kindness, a kingdom of justice and truth, a kingdom wherein God in the fullness of majesty and love dwells in our hearts, in our minds, in our souls, in our midst.
The fact is, it isn’t easy to actually follow Jesus in this world. To follow Jesus means looking past the surface to see with the prophet’s eyes at the reality that is hidden by “the way things just are.” It means listening with the mystic’s ear to hear the song of the angels and be drawn into the heavenly courts to sing alongside the saints. It means doing the works of Jesus the Messiah, the only Lord in this world – caring for the fearful and those in need, speaking truth, healing the sick, feeding the hungry, making one body in Christ what the world threatens to dismember. Though many, we are one body: One Bread, One Cup, One Baptism, One Lord Jesus Christ.
What does it mean to be a Christian? To do the works Christ has given us to do, with gladness and singleness of heart. Amen.